Credible defectors... and war with Iran?

There are some insights I'd like to share, first on the elections in Russia ...

...and then on cogent criticism of the U.S. administration by former supporters.

In particular, nearly a year ago, Scott Ritter's Target Iran: The Truth about the White House Plan's for Regime Change was published, and he's been sounding the claxon of impending war ever since. A former Marine Corps intelligence officer, Ritter served as chief UN weapons inspector in Iraq from 1991 to 1998 when he left as a pointed critic of the Clinton administration's commitment to weapons inspection and its Iraq policy. Before the United States' 2003 invasion, Ritter disputed the Bush administration's claims regarding weapons of mass destruction under Saddam's control and predicted that, instead of the quick and easy war being promised, Iraq would turn into a quagmire, though not necessarily of the type he envisioned. His analyses have been embraced by both the right and the left at various points. (God bless contrarian curmugeons.)

I'll quote extensively below, from a recent interview with Ritter... while diagreeing with him in dour ways. But, by all means, go read it yourself.

I refer folks to THE GLOBALIST whenever they have interesting articles. This time: ahead of Russia's parliamentary elections, it explores Vladimir Putin's bizarre crackdown. And, against the backdrop of the Annapolis summit this past week, they explore the Bush Admin’s innovation: a diplomacy-free foreign policy that relies almost exclusively on military means. Alas, a subtitle - “What will it take for the United States to become as skilled at diplomacy as it is at waging war?” - exposes a flawed premise, since we have (alas) also become very, very bad at waging war.

Excerpt: “One disappointing development is that optimism about the democratizing influence of the Internet is increasingly coming into question. In their report former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan Reporters sans Frontières concluded that “all authoritarian regimes are now working to censor the Internet.””

(Addendum: While I share the widespread worry about Putin’s authoritarian moves, which have been even more blatant and anti-freedom than the neocon putsch in America, I do want to remind folks of one thing - that Putin quashed moves to amend the Russian constitution to allow unlimited presidential terms. Thus, he must leave office and attempt the role of “leader” behind the scenes. Still autocratic, yes, and deeply disturbing. And yet, the public acceptance - and precedent - of cyclical reversion of official power is a terribly important thing. Symbolically, at least. Even if hypocritical, it pays homage to the virtues of law, in a land where political instincts still reflexively turn toward the Man. We can hope.)

In the continuing tragicomedy of former Bush henchmen standing up... former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan will publish a memoir in April titled What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington's Culture of Deception. In an excerpt by his publisher, McClellan in the Valerie Plame scandal: “The most powerful leader in the world had called upon me to speak on his behalf and help restore credibility he lost amid the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. So I stood at the White house briefing room podium in front of the glare of the klieg lights for the better part of two weeks and publicly exonerated two of the senior-most aides in the White House: Karl Rove and Scooter Libby. There was one problem. It was not true.

“I had unknowingly passed along false information. And five of the highest ranking officials in the administration were involved in my doing so: Rove, Libby, the vice President, the President’s chief of staff, and the president himself.”

And another once-friendly (and highly credible) critic weighs in.

See “Bombs Away?” - an important article in the Detroit Metro-Times, interviewing an irascible but devastatingly on-target intelligence analyst who worked for the Bush Administration, zeroing in on the momentum that is building, for a U.S. attack upon Iran.

(Now that most daily papers and TV outlets are consolidated in a few hands, we must look beyond daily papers - from Seymour Hersh's reporting in The New Yorker to articles in The Nation - and the picture emerges of an administration that is determined to attack Iran. John H. Richardson's "The Secret History of the Impending War With Iran That the White House Doesn't Want You to Know" in the November issue of Esquire magazine is particularly eye-opening. Richardson, using two former high-ranking Middle East experts who worked for the White House as his primary sources, warns that the Bush administration is "headed straight for war with Iran" and that "it had been set on this course for years."”

Let's take a look at Scott Ritter's Target Iran. He portrays himself as the straight-shooting analyst unconcerned by who supports him or whom he offends.

In the interview, Ritter addresses the Bush Administration’s run-up toward war with Iran, adding that: “there's nothing that has occurred that leads me to believe the Bush administration has changed its policy direction. In fact there has been much that's occurred that reinforces the earlier conclusions that were based on good sources of information. We take a look at items in the defense budget, the rapid conversion of heavy bombers to carry bunker busting bombs on a specific time frame, the massive purchasing of oil to fill up the strategic oil reserve by April 2008. Everything points to April 2008 to being a month of some criticality. It also matches my analysis that the Bush administration will want to carry this out prior to the crazy political season of the summer of 2008.”

(DB note: I had not known about the filling of the Strategic Reserve. Yes, it disturbingly suggests preparations for war. But there’s another interpretation. Some years ago, when oil was much cheaper, the Bushadmin sold oil from the SR. Now they are buying, when prices are high. (Helping thus to keep them high.) This is the exact opposite of what governments are supposed to do. But just fine, if (say, hypothetically) you are an agent of the oilcos and certain petro-powers.)

It is a very important article, offering us hope that the alternative press will step in, where mainstream journalism has let democracy down. Still, where Ritter utterly collapses is in answering the question why?

Why are Bush-Cheney and the Neocons pushing this agenda. Here’s his appraisal: ”It's not just supporting Israel. It's not just taking down Saddam. It's about geopolitics. It's about looking down the road toward China and India, the world's two largest developing economies, especially the Chinese, and the absolute fear that this resurgent Chinese economy brings in the hearts of American industrialists and the need to dictate the pace of Chinese economic development by controlling their access to energy. And controlling central Asian and Middle East energy areas is key in the strategic thinking of the Bush administration.”

Sorry, but I just don’t get this. It’s back to the old “get the oil” explanation, reflexively touted by Michael Moore and others, as a left wing catechism of lazy thinking. It doesn’t hold up, when you examine the net outcome of our Alcibiadean foray into Iraq -- a trillion wasted taxpayer dollars, depletion and demoralization of the U.S. Army, expenditure of nearly all our international goodwill... all in order to achieve absolutely zero increase in our control over the oil supplies of the Middle East. Let alone any augmentation of American leadership in a unipolar world.

Yes, the standard answer to this failure, on the left, is to say “They meant to get oil, but the neocons proved incompetent!” A facile explanation that ignores just how competent the Bush Cabal has been , at achieving other goals. Like whipping their domestic opponents from pillar to post.

Indeed, ponder just how preposterous it is, to maintain the standard illusion of Neocon goals --say that their aim has been to augment American power, wealth, and leadership in a unipolar, U.S.-led world. Unipolar U.S. leadership was precisely the situation that George W. Bush inherited when he entered office. Only Russia, China, France and the Saudis seemed to grumble at that situation, and rather impotently.

In fact, the overall effect of the last seven years has been diametrically opposite to the goals that Ritter ascribes to the Bush team, and that Neocon philosophers have claimed. Not only has American influence and popularity plummeted, and our dependence upon irascible sources of foreign petroleum increased, but the destruction of the U.S. military (and its turn-of-the-century reputation for invincibility) has helped foster the rise of new “poles” of influence, far more willing to challenge America than at any time since the Cold War.

Indeed, I kept hoping Ritter would be asked this question about the coming War with Iran. With what forces are we supposed to fight this large, regional power, many times the size of Iraq and vastly better organized?

With only two or so heavy combat brigades left, that are at any level of readiness for national land war, the Army and Marines are in no position to take on anything new, or even to keep going under current burdens. The Navy, still potent and professional, simmers with resentment toward the this administration, a loathing rumored to be so actinic that there is talk of “work-to-rule” passive resistance, especially if very much of the Fleet is sent - as sitting ducks - into the narrow waters of the Persian Gulf.

Only the Air Force appears to be both ready and willing - perhaps even eager - to do the administration’s bidding.

And, yes, at the sole whim of the Commander in Chief, the bombers may fly. A plethora of pinprick shocks may rain upon Persia, under the age-old delusion that a proud nation will thus be cowed into submission. Even though history - along with our own reaction to the horror of 9/11 - teaches us that air assaults, all by themselves, tend to strengthen national cohesion and resolve, rather that weaken it.

Now add to this another likely outcome of such an attack - the engendering of rage and sympathy throughout the Muslim world. What about the much-touted Sunni-Shiite rift? Right now, the press makes much of this division within Islam, and it does seem fierce at the ground level, in Iraq. But I have never been convinced that this schism is all that bilious at the higher reaches of national and clerical power. Anyway, it will vanish when America starts raining bombs on yet another Muslim nation.

The chief effect of this attack will be to unite Islamic peoples under a common banner. Something that is never mentioned, even as a possibility, by the press, or the State Department or even the administration’s critics. (Not to mention some of our regional “friends” who may be urging Bush to attack, but for very different reasons than they speak aloud.) So, shall we fight to thwart the nuclear ambitions of Iran, only to see Pakistan’s arsenal of nukes fall under control of the Wahhabis and the Ayatollahs?

Still, Ritter is a voice of sanity, promoting an idea that I proposed at the CIA in 2002... reaching out to the Iranian people. Making nice. Depriving the Ayatollahs of an outside enemy, so that the natural fractures in Iranian society will again start pushing that great nation toward what the young people and middle class and educated folk all want. Freedom and peace. (Why, if Bush wanted to reverse ideology and suddenly support nation-building and regional transformation in that region, did they choose not to support democracy in the one large Middle Eastern nation that already had some? Along with a deep tradition of friendliness to America? The choice of the least likely ground (Iraq) to try planting these seeds should be re-examined with a cynical, even paranoid eye.)

Ritter continues: “The same can be said in Afghanistan and the entire central Asian region. We keep putting our hopes on allies like Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. Saudi Arabia, which produced 14 of the hijackers who slaughtered Americans on 9/11. Pakistan, which was the political sponsor of the Taliban and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and continues to have ties to radical Islamic terror organizations. These are our allies? And we call Iran the enemy? We've got it backward. The Iranians are actually the ones we should be working with to oppose dictatorships like Pakistan and irresponsible governments like Saudi Arabia's.”

About Bush himself, Ritter worries: “Here's a man who speaks of World War III and the apocalypse and he has his hand on the button and he talks to God. I don't know, if it's a show, its a dangerous show, if its real, we should all be scared to death.”

Go read the whole article, then cram it in front of your Ostrich friends. I’ll leave off with his comment on an especially worrisome question. If we go about attacking Iran... would larger powers intervene?

“I don't think the Russians or the Chinese would become involved. They don't need to. All they have to do is sit back and wait and pick up the pieces - because it is the end of the United States as a global superpower. That's one thing I try to tell everybody. The danger of going after Iran is that it is just not worth it. What we can lose is everything, and what we gain is nothing. So why do it?”

.

Guest List: Traits of Fascism

I haven't time to create anything new here, so I'll continue posting stored-up items. Here's one that is taken from Mark Anderson's Strategic News Service, a thought -provoking generalization that, like most generalizations, badly needs examination in the details.

Political scientist Dr. Lawrence Britt has examined the fascist regimes of Hitler (Germany), Mussolini (Italy), Franco (Spain), Suharto (Indonesia) and several Latin American regimes. Britt found 14 defining characteristics common to each: (disclosure needed here: I could find no mention of his methodology, but the thoughts are interesting and tie back to Bush suppressing scientific work).

The 14 Characteristics of Fascism Are:

1. Powerful and Continuing Nationalism -
Fascist regimes tend to make constant use of patriotic mottos, slogans, symbols, songs, and other paraphernalia. Flags are seen everywhere, as are flag symbols on clothing and in public displays.

2. Disdain for the Recognition of Human Rights -
Because of fear of enemies and the need for security, the people in fascist regimes are persuaded that human rights can be ignored in certain cases because of "need." The people tend to look the other way or even approve of torture, summary executions, assassinations, long incarcerations of prisoners, etc.

3. Identification of Enemies/Scapegoats as a Unifying Cause -
The people are rallied into a unifying patriotic frenzy over the need to eliminate a perceived common threat or foe: racial , ethnic or religious minorities; liberals; communists; socialists, terrorists, etc.

4. Supremacy of the Military -
Even when there are widespread domestic problems, the military is given a disproportionate amount of government funding, and the domestic agenda is neglected. Soldiers and military service are glamorized.

5. Rampant Sexism -
The governments of fascist nations tend to be almost exclusively male-dominated. Under fascist regimes, traditional gender roles are made more rigid. Divorce, abortion and homosexuality are suppressed and the state is represented as the ultimate guardian of the family institution.

6. Controlled Mass Media -
Sometimes to media is directly controlled by the government, but in other cases, the media is indirectly controlled by government regulation, or sympathetic media spokespeople and executives. Censorship, especially in war time, is very common.

7. Obsession with National Security -
Fear is used as a motivational tool by the government over the masses.

8. Religion and Government are Intertwined -
Governments in fascist nations tend to use the most common religion in the nation as a tool to manipulate public opinion. Religious rhetoric and terminology is common from government leaders, even when the major tenets of the religion are diametrically opposed to the government's policies or actions.

9. Corporate Power is Protected -
The industrial and business aristocracy of a fascist nation often are the ones who put the government leaders into power, creating a mutually beneficial business/government relationship and power elite.

10. Labor Power is Suppressed -
Because the organizing power of labor is the only real threat to a fascist government, labor unions are either eliminated entirely, or are severely suppressed.

11. Disdain for Intellectuals and the Arts -
Fascist nations tend to promote and tolerate open hostility to higher education, and academia. It is not uncommon for professors and other academics to be censored or even arrested. Free expression in the arts and letters is openly attacked.

12. Obsession with Crime and Punishment -
Under fascist regimes, the police are given almost limitless power to enforce laws. The people are often willing to overlook police abuses and even forego civil liberties in the name of patriotism. There is often a national police force with virtually unlimited power in fascist nations.

13. Rampant Cronyism and Corruption -
Fascist regimes almost always are governed by groups of friends and associates who appoint each other to government positions and use governmental power and authority to protect their friends from accountability. It is not uncommon in fascist regimes for national resources and even treasures to be appropriated or even outright stolen by government leaders.

14. Fraudulent Elections -
Sometimes elections in fascist nations are a complete sham. Other times elections are manipulated by smear campaigns against or even assassination of opposition candidates, use of legislation to control voting numbers or political district boundaries, and manipulation of the media. Fascist nations also typically use their judiciaries to manipulate or control elections.

-- Offered to SNS by David Obert [Hewlett-Packard]



David Brin responds: While this list is thought provoking - and of course chilling in our present context - I believe it is also ahistorical and misleading at several points.

#4. Supremacy of the Military - "Even when there are widespread domestic problems, the military is given a disproportionate amount of government funding, and the domestic agenda is neglected. Soldiers and military service are glamorized."

This one is highly problematic. Not only because it is deeply flawed, historically. But also because it leads us toward a generalized hostility toward the military, which is not only undeserved in our present situation, but deeply unjust and counterproductive.

Sure, the military chiefs were supreme under Franco's version of fascism, but the same cannot be said for several other sub-brands. Under Hitler, a top priority was to keep the regular military class cowed and intimidated. Yes, there was militarism and the military was vastly expanded - and, indeed, the Wehrmacht was highly culpable for a myriad crimes. Nevertheless, the professional officer corps was not in itself supreme. It contributed almost no members to the Nazi inner circle. Hitler strove to build parallel forces answerable only to the Nazi Party.

Stalin's version of fascism took this trend much farther, all the way to a near-total evisceration of the Soviet officer corps, at the very threshold of WWII. This latter example is, in fact, a far closer parallel to what the Bushites have been doing to our American military. (Example: under Bill Clinton, we had thirty brigades ready - with high morale and training - to do their duty in some major surprise conflict. Under George W. Bush, that number has declined to two brigades. Just two.) It is vital to recognize that the United States armed forces -- especially the apolitical and highly intellectual Marshallian U.S. Officer Corps -- have been the neocons foremost victims. They have suffered, in part, because the Bushites know that our nation's professional castes must be squelched, starting with the military.

Moreover, how can demonizing these folks be as helpful as embracing them? Enlisting them as allies, in resisting an attempted fascist putsch? Indeed, anyone paying close attention can see clear signs of a growing, behind-the-scenes resistance, in which quiet back-pressure has been applied by our nation's flag officers. First the forced resignation of Donald Rumsfeld, followed by appointment of a non-Bushite Republican as Sec/Def, Robert Gates. Followed by the new Joint Chiefs Chairman, Admiral Michael Mullen, and Centcom Chief Admiral Fallon. All are clear signs of a military that's squirming out of neocon control. (Fast enough to do real good? That could depend on how much support they get.)

Keep your eyes open. Any time you see the Navy rise in influence, it will be a clear signal that this resistance continues. That elements in the military are pushing back on our behalf.

#9. Corporate Power is Protected - "The industrial and business aristocracy of a fascist nation often are the ones who put the government leaders into power, creating a mutually beneficial business/government relationship and power elite."

True, but simplistic. Yes, the Junkers and major industrialists installed Hitler as a counter to the Communists. But they were delusional. They thought their privately-owned newspapers could keep him in check, in an era of new media (radio and loudspeakers) in which Hitler was the master-hypnotist. (See point #8.)

Also remember, that the Nazi Party was the National Socialist Party. The aristos were protected, but they also found themselves straitjacketed. (For example, purely Aryan-Nazi labor unions gained partial control over the means of production. A little-known historical quirk. (See point#10.))

As to our present situation, yes, the rise of monopoly and a gilded age support point #9. But there are complexities. Far too little is being made of the rift WITHIN the corporate aristocracy, with the smarter half growing aware how the Golden Goose of Enlightenment American capitalism is being killed before their eyes. Will the smarter and more honest/creative half of the aristocracy actually start taking action, to help the people throw off the dismal/stupid/corrupt half? Stay tuned.

#12. Obsession with Crime and Punishment - "Under fascist regimes, the police are given almost limitless power to enforce laws. The people are often willing to overlook police abuses and even forego civil liberties in the name of patriotism. There is often a national police force with virtually unlimited power in fascist nations."

This, too, oversimplifies. Yes, all these things come true under every fascist regime. But the Bushites face a steep climb before reaching such a plateau. In fact, during the interim, while a diversity of law enforcement agencies are still heavily stocked with skilled and honest professionals, the neocons' problem is quite the opposite... to squelch the effectiveness of law enforcement! The utterly central Bushite need, right now, is to distract and dissuade the professionals who are charged with uncovering crime, because so much outright crime has been perpetrated by the neocons themselves. Hence, should we be surprised that statistics show most crime rates on the rise? Especially drug-related, white collar, consumer fraud and street crime.

Yes, this kind of trend can serve the purpose of provoking citizens to want more police empowerment. But it is a dangerous game and we could organize our thoughts to helping it to backfire.

(A side irony. As I point out in The Ostrich Papers: How it will take all Decent Americans to Restore Decency to America, it is beginning to dawn on many old-style Republicans that nearly all of the basic tenets of old-style conservatism have been systematically reversed by the neocon proto-fascists. Prudence to recklessness. Cynical isolationism to faux-utopian imperialism. Punctilious lawfulness to flagrant illegality. A dedication to accountability has flipped to frantic secrecy and avoidance. Certainly the old GOP dedication to states rights has been trounced, thrashed and buried. That last item, of course, could be viewed as a precursor to the police state described by David Obert and by Lawrence Britt.)

In sum: I do not deny the relevance of the chilling list of Fascist traits offered by Lawrence Britt. But I believe it should be used with subtlety and care. If we are to avoid becoming the USSA (United Security States of America) we have to avoid cliches.

Especially those that might make us shun potential allies in this desperate fight.

The Real War of G.W. Bush -- Against the U.S. Military

One of the key points I keep trying to raise is that our core problem is not the War in Iraq, per se.

The real issue people should be talking about is what is being done to America. A nation that has been -- and remains -- historically vastly more important to the future of our descendants, and humanity in general. A country and civilization that is steadily being diminished, crippled, robbed and distracted. Not by a party or a movement, but by a bona fide criminal gang.

We need to remember that the Iraq war is a horror, but its core effect has been to divide, corrupt, cheat, demoralize and steal from the people of the United States.

This time, specifically, I want to aim at one aspect of the betrayal of America. One that I was among the very first (anywhere!) to point out, as long ago as 2004...

... that the number one accomplishment of the Bush Administration has been the partial-destruction of the United States military. Accompanied by (in some ways even worse) a near-complete demolition of its hardwon reputation for overwhelming invincibility.

This problem lies not only at the feet of the mad, neocon right, but also on some bad habits that Bush opponents have to break. It will be impossible for liberals to deal with the devastation of the Bush Era, if they nurse even a scintilla of simplistic hostility toward our men and women in uniform. That silly reflex is not only inaccurate and unjust -- picking on the wrong target -- but also self-defeating. We need these people. They are the Bushites’ worst victims.

Moreover, they are a large part of our hope, for the restoration of a lawful, constitutional and confident American Republic.

* But first, some preliminary data dumps.

One of you wrote in about an article in this month’s Rolling Stone "The great Iraq Swindle," covering a topic I have long spoken-of - that the Iraq incursion features truly vast amounts of contractor graft and corruption. So much that theft from the US taxpayer may plausibly have been one of the principal drivers of the entire misguided campaign.

Consider that our ongoing “Mess o’ Potamia” never followed the standard leftist scenario preached by Michael Moore and others, of being "about grabbing oil."

What oil? Do you see any Iraqi oil on the market? Standard left-wing excuses -- that the Bushites simply botched the oil grab -- look tired, after so many years. Especially since the FOBs (friends of Bush) have proved stunningly competent at getting rich off this war, by other means. (Indeed, keeping Iraqi oil OFF the market serves the desire of the world’s very top FOBs.)

No, the swindle is simple. In a "war" or "emergency," normal competitive contracting rules can be thrown away, enabling a Decider Presidency (look up "autarchy") to privatize anything it wants, any way it wants, and hand deals to its favorite, family friends.

Note that defenders of privatization do not even try any longer to justify it as "more efficient," since it takes four times as much (on average) to pay contractors in Iraq to accomplish nothing, as it took soldiers and civil servants.

This is one of a dozen issues that would let Democrats attack the Bushites from a conservative perspective, awakening “ostrich Republicans” and tearing apart Karl Rove's Big Tent coalition. That is, if any of the dems had enough savvy to look at the big picture.

-------
Here is sad and worrisome news. Two US soldiers who helped write an article from the front saying America had "failed on every promise" in the Iraq war have been killed in Baghdad. Staff Sergeant Yance Gray, 26, and Sergeant Omar Mora, 28, were among a group of seven soldiers serving in Iraq who wrote a piece excoriating America's conduct of the war, published in The New York Times last month. ... Their public criticism caused a flurry of debate in the US because of the candor with which the men, all serving in the elite 82nd Airborne, described the war. "Four years into our occupation, we have failed on every promise," the seven wrote. "When the primary preoccupation of average Iraqis is when and how they are likely to be killed, we can hardly feel smug as we hand out care packages."

------
View Keith Olbermann’s latest “J’accuse” polemic toward the Gang of Crooks and Liars.

* And now, on to the main part of this missive.

To reiterate, our main focus here concerns the number one accomplishment of the Bush Administration -- the ongoing demolition of the United States military.

...accompanied by (in some ways even worse) a near-complete evaporation of its hardwon reputation for overwhelming invincibility.

* The illusion is as important as the substance

Let there be no mistake. When it comes to practical politics in a dangerous world, these two things -- both actual and real power -- are equally important. For perception often guides what others do. Indeed, as recently as 2002, it seemed that the US military services could do nothing wrong. That their skills and equipment and elan were so far ahead of any possible combination of foes, that any future adversaries would have to act against us in secret, or not at all.

This impression was doubly reinforced after stunning military (though not political) success in the first Gulf War (1991), followed by almost perfect execution of skilled diplomacy and policy in the Balkans Intervention. (All stated goals were achieved within weeks, at zero cost in US lives, clear exit strategies were followed to the letter, all “nation building” chores were delegated to others, readiness and budgets were unaffected and our popularity in the Muslim world went up.)

Moreover, if anyone was still unconvinced of US prowess, there came 9/11, followed by our swift intervention in Afghanistan when President GW Bush said “Go!” to an existing Clinton-Clark plan - one that hewed closely to the Powell Doctrine of professionalism, intense diplomacy and selective application of overwhelming (if surgical) force.

If Osama’s ultimate 9/11 plan was (according to many experts) to draw us into the Kush Mountains’ killing zone, where he had already helped to humble one superpower, he was shocked and bitterly disappointed when the US led a coordinated campaign, combining local forces with air power and extensive local expertise, swiftly eliminated the Taliban regime that had succored bin Laden. An entire enemy regime toppled - fair enough retaliation for 9/11... and Osama was running for his life.

And all of these successes (since 1992) were accomplished without any truly substantial stains upon our nation’s or the military’s honor. (Indeed, at that point -- with the Taliban toppled -- shouldn’t we all have been allowed to get back to our lives? Would not that have been the ultimate punishment of terrorists?)

At this point, there also seemed to be a peak in international acceptance of unipolarity... the notion that having just one superpower is a good thing. Despite some gnashing of teeth in Moscow, Paris and Beijing, very few other nations sent delegates to meetings on the topic “what shall be done about America?” We were that popular. That strong. And apparently that unbeatable.

Only now... where is that reputation?

Reiterating: even if you put aside all the unnecessary death and theft and incompetence and immorality of recent years, you would still be left with a Bush Administration that has squandered and spoiled something both pragmatic and precious -- an appearance of invincibility that helped to keep the peace, better than whole divisions.

Now that inestimable aura is gone. Ask anyone, around the world, what their perception is, of a US Army that flounders, mired up to its neck in a quagmire of confusion, sloppy waste, plummeting morale and blurry goals. Is our current reputation an effective deterrent? Or does it encourage others to restore a multipolar, militarily competitive world?

Even (especially) American conservatives should find this a case of utter - and possibly criminal - betrayal of leadership.

A multi-part series on the GOP vs. the U.S. Military:
Next time... Part 2: But it Gets Even Worse: Neocons vs. the U.S. Military
Part 3: Destroying Readiness
Part 4: Botching Both Kinds of War
Part 5: Let the Excuses Roll!
Part 6: Purging the Officer Corps
and More on the War Against Professionalism in Government

==Also see: How Republicans and Democrats wage war

The Officer Corps Stands Up! ... (Part 20 of a continuing series)

Look it up. I was the very first to make a public stink about what appears to be the greatest (known) crime of the Bush Administration -- it's relentless campaign to bully, intimidate, suborn and break the one force in American life that stands between we citizens and a very cold wind...

...the skilled professionals of the Civil Service, law enforcement agencies, the intelligence community and - above all - the United States Officer Corps.

(In fact, find anyone who made earlier use of that term, in this context. I'll wait here.)

In tandem, I also remain appalled by the Democrats' inability to recognize a simple fact. That the issue at hand is not the War in Iraq.

That war has merely been the means to an end.

The real issue is the destruction of our nation's resilience, our readiness, our ability to rely upon our professionals to protect us and our citizens' ability to rely upon themselves.

See: The Under-reported Purge of the U.S. Officer Corps. 

Take, for example, the fact that it has been many years since more than two or three of the US Army's active combat brigades has been able to train for war. For actual war. Even the National Training Center, at Fort Irwin California, has switched from force-combat preparation and large unit maneuver warfare entirely to small unit counter-insurgency operations training.

One result? Despite some technological advances - and sincere, desperate efforts by our officers and noncoms to prevent a slide - Bill Clinton's US Army could beat our present Army with one hand tied behind its back.

Tell THAT to imbeciles who think that flag-waving is patriotism and that "support our troops" means to abandon them in hell.

Tell it to the Democrats, who are too dumb-blind to see genuine patriotism as an issue... as THE issue... right in front of them. One that has nothing to do with "left" or "right". Only love of country and decency and sanity. And the safety of our children.

But enough of my blather-ranting, let's hear from somebody who actually knows what he is talking about. A high ranking member of several of those professional services I mentioned earlier.

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This month, Gen. William Odom (former director of the NSA) wrote a on “supporting our troops”. Here are some excerpts:

'Supporting the troops' means withdrawing them

COMMENTARY | July 05, 2007 By William E. Odom

Every step the Democrats in Congress have taken to force the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq has failed. Time and again, President Bush beats them into submission with charges of failing to "support the troops."

Why do the Democrats allow this to happen? Because they let the president define what "supporting the troops" means. His definition is brutally misleading. Consider what his policies are doing to the troops.

No U.S. forces have ever been compelled to stay in sustained combat conditions for as long as the Army units have in Iraq. In World War II, soldiers were considered combat-exhausted after about 180 days in the line. They were withdrawn for rest periods. Moreover, for weeks at a time, large sectors of the front were quiet, giving them time for both physical and psychological rehabilitation. During some periods of the Korean War, units had to fight steadily for fairly long periods but not for a year at a time. In Vietnam, tours were one year in length, and combat was intermittent with significant break periods.

In Iraq, combat units take over an area of operations and patrol it daily, making soldiers face the prospect of death from an IED or small arms fire or mortar fire several hours each day. Day in and day out for a full year, with only a single two-week break, they confront the prospect of death, losing limbs or eyes, or suffering other serious wounds. Although total losses in Iraq have been relatively small compared to most previous conflicts, the individual soldier is risking death or serious injury day after day for a year. The impact on the psyche accumulates, eventually producing what is now called "post-traumatic stress disorders." In other words, they are combat-exhausted to the point of losing effectiveness. The occasional willful killing of civilians in a few cases is probably indicative of such loss of effectiveness. These incidents don't seem to occur during the first half of a unit's deployment in Iraq.

After the first year, following a few months back home, these same soldiers are sent back for a second year, then a third year, and now, many are facing a fourth deployment! Little wonder more and more soldiers and veterans are psychologically disabled.

And the damage is not just to enlisted soldiers. Many officers are suffering serious post-traumatic stress disorders but are hesitant to report it – with good reason. An officer who needs psychiatric care and lets it appear on his medical records has most probably ended his career. He will be considered not sufficiently stable to lead troops. Thus officers are strongly inclined to avoid treatment and to hide their problems.

… [Bush’s] recent "surge" tactic has compelled the secretary of defense to extend Army tours to 15 months! (The Marines have been allowed to retain their six-month deployment policy and, not surprisingly, have fewer cases of post-traumatic stress syndrome.) …

If the Democrats truly want to succeed in forcing President Bush to begin withdrawing from Iraq, the first step is to redefine "supporting the troops" as withdrawing them, citing the mass of accumulating evidence of the psychological as well as the physical damage that the president is forcing them to endure because he did not raise adequate forces. Both Democrats and Republicans in Congress could confirm this evidence and lay the blame for "not supporting the troops" where it really belongs – on the president. And they could rightly claim to the public that they are supporting the troops by cutting off the funds that he uses to keep U.S. forces in Iraq. …

The president is strongly motivated to string out the war until he leaves office, in order to avoid taking responsibility for the defeat he has caused and persisted in making greater each year for more than three years.
To force him to begin a withdrawal before then, the first step should be to rally the public by providing an honest and candid definition of what "supporting the troops" really means and pointing out who is and who is not supporting our troops at war.

…

Cogent and passionately on-target. And yet, again, I must reiterate that the issue is not so much Iraq as the dire condition of ALL of our professional services... and the state of our reserves. Take the following:

Senator Webb (D-VA)(who served as Secretary of the Navy under Reagan) has been leading an effort in Congress to limit the duration of deployments of US troops in Iraq. Webb proposed an to the Defense authorization bill (co-sponsored by Chuck Hagel (R-NE)) that would require that active-duty troops and units deployed to Iraq have at least equal time at home as the length of their previous tour overseas. It also includes a “sense of the Congress” that units and members of Reserve components should not be mobilized continuously for more than one year.

Yesterday, Senate Republicans successfully filibustered the Webb amendment.

Russ Daggatt adds this. For the first time, a poll has found that more people (70%) now consider the Iraq War a mistake than ever thought the same of the Vietnam War during that war. According to Gallup, the number who viewed Vietnam as a mistake peaked at 61% in May of 1971 (the percentage of those who thought Vietnam a mistake climbed even higher after the war ended).

But again, all focus is on Iraq. That isn’t the issue! There are dozens of plans that could have us stay there, providing certain types of non-urban security, that would help legitimate groups there fight their own monsters, while dropping our costs and casualties almost to nil.

The issue is the neocon War Against Professionalism...

...and its accompanying War Against The Citizen Amateur.

Talk about semantic irony.

Stop the IRAN War now...

To the dismay of many observers, current U.S. strategy towards Iran is shaping up to be a near-repeat of the path that led to the current situation in Iraq. Yet, as Poland's former Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance Professor Grzegorz W. Kolodko argues, a U.S. attack on Iran would serve only to stymie the potential for a democratic, free-market revolution in the country.

Contemplating (in The Globalist) the possibilities of a “velvet revolution” in Iran -- as someone who lived through similar events -- Kolodko found many of the ingredients already in place.

”In my visits, I have found people to be open-minded, multicultural, pragmatic and looking both towards East and West. They are definitely not hostile to the West in general — or to the United States in particular.”

In fact, according to a recent Gallup poll conducted in 27 mostly Muslim countries, only in Iran have sentiments toward the United States improved. The percentage of people with “unfavorable views” of the United States fell between 2001/2 and 2005/6 from 63% to 52% — while, for instance, it rose from 33% to 62% in Turkey.

At the same time, we all know that Iran is neither an epitome of democracy — nor is it a part of any axis of evil. We would do well to remember that it does have a fine and functioning system of checks and balances, including the right to undertake votes of no-confidence in parliament against the sitting president — something that even the United States cannot claim for itself.

(I don’t know if I would call it “fine and functioning. But Iran does have far more institutions and habits of lawful and accountable civil society than any of our so-called “allies” in the region, by a far cry. Institutions and habits that could function ten times as well the moment the corrupt and oppressive top-theocratic hierarchy were removed. Indeed, I wonder if Iran may be a model of where WE seem to be headed... a future America that still maintains many institutions and processes of an accountable democracy, under the heel of a narrow and corrupt ruling caste. This notion -- that a tyrannical situation need not be uniformly on-off -- is one that we should ponder, whether it is our fate (and Iran’s) to spiral downward into sham-democracy or else shrug off corrupt castes and bring civil society to full vibrancy and life.)

Continuing with the article:

This nation of almost 70 million well-educated people is also a country of robust changes. Few people in the West realize one of the mullahs’ biggest challenges: Two-thirds of the population is too young to remember the triumphant comeback of Ayatollah Khomeini 28 years ago.

Kolodko’s key point is that saber-rattling and “axis-of-evil” rants have only served to delay an inevitable transformation in this country, which is the ONLY one in the middle east where the neocons’ dream (establishing an oasis of democracy in the Middle East) would seem to have a chance of actually coming true. I said all of this at a presentation before the CIA way back in 2002. Alas, at that point, a Nixon-to-China peace offensive to Iran would have been low-risk and potentially a strategic jiu jitsu move of potentially staggering effectiveness.

What do we see instead?

The second worst cliche of strategic thinking is to assume that those who dislike you are automatically evil and stupid. The fact that this has been true for most of American history does not guarantee that it will continue to be so, especially in an era when stupid leadership has dissolved our alliances and eviscerated our popularity, even among friendly nations. In the case of Iran, this cliche tends to make us assume that “Iran” is a monolithic badguy, instead of a land of opportunity for us, diplomatically, socially and commercially, if only the people could be helped to deal with their local bad guys.

The worst cliche of strategic thinking is always this one: “If we smack our opponent hard, across the cheek, he will respond by backing down.”

Um, does anyone recall that this was the exact thinking of the Japanese High Command, when they ordered the attack on Pearl Harbor and the Philippines? Indeed, it is the logic that nearly always draws nations into miscalculated wars... falling for the smug and alluring psychological trap of assuming that your enemy is a bunch of cowards. Above all, never imagine that they might respond to a slap the way you would. By standing taller, with a sense of outrage and patriotic fervor.

The assumption that your (dehumanized) foe will react to force in the exact opposite way that you would is not only stupid, it is cosmically self-indulgent and unsupported by history. We always need to ask - “How would Americans react, if such a strike was aimed at Duluth.” Indeed, how DID we react to the slap of 9/11?

This is a fundamental fact, one that the right wing needs to have crammed down their big, loud craws.

A few dozen pin-prick missile attacks on Iran will not force them to change a single policy. It will cause them to mobilize, as a nation under attack. Exactly the effect it would have upon us. It will turn millions of youths from angry, anti-mullah protestors and liberal reformers into angry recruits for the Revolutionary Guard.

A nation three times the size of Iraq, ethnically united, sophisticated and educated and oil-rich, will thereupon be politically united. United in a central goal of helping to re-forge the Islamic Uma.

Dropping all thought of Sunni-Shiite division, they will fall into line with the real leaders of the Uma movement. And we will have accomplished the chief goal of this administration. Uniting the entire Islamic world as never before.

See also: A Rush to War?

The Road to 9/11... redux...

...the political lamp cannot stay unlit... alas...


On Friday I responded to the ABC “docudrama” the Road to 9/11, with a challenge for some brave reporter out there.

“Go track down how many FBI agents the Bush White House re-assigned during its first six months, diverting the agents from duties protecting the public, over to searching for indictable offenses* committed by the Clinton Administration.”

My personal tally, from informal sources, is shocking. But if only ONE were verified, it would be enough, matching all of the innuendos spread by the deceitful miniseries.

Now I am behooved to follow up with one more rebuttal. Further proof that Clinton Staff were taking bin Laden and the Taliban seriously, entirely repudiating the image presented by ABC.

I posted a detailed article in 2004, demonstrating that the very swiftness of our response to the 9/11 attacks, unleashing a stunningly effective and well-organized campaign to topple the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, is proof enough that aggressive planning had been taking place for years... in other words, under the previous administration. Indeed, in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, President Bush had little time to do much more than say “Go!” to an already-existing war plan.

--- excerpt---

”The existence of this plan is apparent on many levels, for example in the rapid convergence of skilled special forces teams that were already trained to interact with well-developed contacts among Uzbeki, Tadjik and other tribal leaders.

“Moreover, the Taliban were clearly aware that such plans existed. On the morning of September 9, 2001, the formidable guerrilla leader Ahmad Shah Massoud, leader of the opposition Northern Alliance, was assassinated by an Al Qaeda suicide squad at his base in Khvajeh Baha od Din, specifically in order to foil the cooperative campaign that was sure to be unleashed by America when hijacked planes were sent diving into New York and Washington, two days later. Osama bin Laden's operatives thus hoped to derail an allied retaliation scenario that had been in complex preparation for more than a year.

“While we can fret over the unsatisfying aftermath of warlords, opium fields and other doubts, there can be no question that the initial portion of the Afghanistan Campaign was resoundingly successful -- more so than any other foreign involvement there since Alexander the Great. Credit should be apportioned equally between the President who said "go-get-em" (without the catastrophic political meddling we saw in Iraq) and the previous administration, who assigned professionals the long and hard task of preparing for this deed.”

--- end ---

What I left out of that missive -- and the larger article -- was further implicit evidence... manifest in the stark difference between two military doctrines -- between the Afghanistan intervention and the subsequent plunge into Iraq. Ask any military officer. The two approaches were almost diametric opposites, with the former involving careful planning, mature engagement of local forces, steady diplomacy, as well as utter respect for the capabilities and advice of skilled professionals.

In fact, the closest parallel to the Afghanistan operation was the previous major use of American force -- the Campaign in the Balkans. From the careful use of special forces and air power to the consequent low US casualty figures, it is clear that both endeavors were “cousins” in areas of both doctrine and effectiveness. (This comparison only applies to the first year in Afghanistan, of course. The bungled subsequent period is another matter, entirely, as the Bush Administration made this engagement entirely its own.)

The contrast with Iraq is stunning, on a dozen levels. For example, after telling us for thirty years that “we lost Vietnam because of meddling by politicians,” some of the same rightwing radicals have become the worst meddlers in US military history, micro-managing our troops in ways that not only have devastated their effectiveness, but that make Robert MacNamara look like George Patton. Just the violation of contract-vetting rules, a boring but important topic, has created a scandalous wound, bleeding our troops while pouring millions into the pockets of hand-picked cronies.

The chief result... destruction of our reserves, deterioration of readiness and savage abrasion of our mainline forces... could not have been more thoroughly accomplished had it been planned. But I’ve made that argument elsewhere.

Here, my chief point is this; there is a long list of differences between these two interventions, between the initial intervention in Afghanistan and the debacle in Iraq. That list of differences reflects upon the different styles of two very different administrations.

All of the evidence, from planning style to rapidity of response, to the assassination of Massoud... all of it... points to a Clinton Administration that was very busy waging the war on terror, with the same patient relentlessness that it had brought to the task of bringing peace to Europe, for the first time in 4,000 years.


=== ADDENDA =====

Relevant to the preceding. Can you guess what crazy, America-hating "Defeatocrat" made this statement?

"When presidents fail to make hard choices, those who serve must make them instead. Soldiers must choose whether to stay with their families or to stay in the armed forces at all. Sending our military on vague, aimless, and endless missions rapidly saps morale. Even the highest morale is eventually undermined by back-to-back deployments, poor pay, shortages of spare parts and equipment, inadequate training, and rapidly declining readiness."

If you guessed The 2000 Republican Party Platform, you get an extra beer tonight.

The failure of the Democrats to make this THE issue of the campaign is staggering. It simply beggars the imagination.

------

(* Lest we forget; the sum total of Clintonites actually indicted for malfeasance in the performance of official duties amounted to exactly...zero.)

------

Diebold comes to California...and more...

re-lighting the political lamp....

I am so glad that others, like Stefan, are able to post about an interesting project - like an article about city transportation - and get surges of helpful suggestions from you all.. This isn’t just my blog. It’s yours, too. SO continue the public transportation line of thought here, too, if you like.

(Personally, I despise how crude the format for discussion has remained, on the web, with abysmal threading and outlining protocols that have never matched what I once used on a Caltech experimental “hyperforum” years ago. True, blogs aren’t set up that way, but even the best fora that I’ve seen do not take best advantage of threading possibilities. My Holocene software would have. But there are no VCs with imagination, anymore. Sigh.)

Anyway, I’ve been trying to limit postings to twice a week, but a piece of news seems urgent. This item from the Daily Kos is especially frightening to anyone who loves the State of California, which is today the biggest obstacle to complete domination od our civilization by the kleptocheater cabal.

”Our Republican Secretary of State Bruce McPherson--appointed by our Governator--has, according to the email sent out by Secretary of State candidate Debra Bowen, conditionally certified problem-plagued Diebold machines for use in our 2006 elections. It's also no coincidence that Bruce decided to take the Friday afternoon before a holiday weekend to announce this controversial decision--he's hoping it won't get very much play. Well, I'm hoping it will, and I'm asking you to do something about it.

What can you do? First, no matter where you live: flood their switchboard. Call the California Secretary of State’s office (916) 653-6814 and let them know that Diebold voting machines are not welcome in the Golden State.

In better news. The New York Times appears to be recovering some spine. See a devastating editorial that lists some of the unbelievable facts behind the “Trust Gap” --  The bizarre thing is all the millions who took it as “wellknown” that Clinton was untrustworthy... yet were reduced finally to clutching one proved lie, just one, having nothing to do with official duties, but nookie on the side. Yet, a relentless tsunami of lies that are proved for this admin, just don’t seem to matter.

All are excused as “necessary in wartime.” Ah, but a few people have started to ask... um... what war?

We are engaged in a voluntary police action in Iraq. Yes, a violent one that is using up half of our military. We can argue endlessly over the correctness of the decision to go there, or the inanity of the plan (created in secrect by men with a proved record of delusion) ot (in)competence of its execution. But again, that is a separate matter. (As you know, I am exceptional among critics of this war, in that I have long agitated FOR assertive removal of Saddam from power! I just find it hard to trust in that job the very hypocrites who deliberately fostered and then left him in power, in 1991.)

All of which is beside the point at issue here. Which is that this is not wartime! This was never an emergency action. It is at best elective surgery. Not the kind of urgency that could even remotely excuse the behaviors we’ve seen. There is absolutely no excuse for using “war” as a rationalization for quashing morality, accountability and democracy, especially at levels that exceed anything that Lincoln, Roosevelt and Reagan asked for, when the republic was under genuine threat and dire jeopardy.

.
Finally, Russ Daggatt has shared some items with us:

Check out this routine on Bush by Frank Caliendo: http://movies.crooksandliars.com/Frank-Caliend-on Letterman.wmv

It’s still hard to beat the real thing: http://www.ianai.net/jokes/GeorgeWWhatThe.wmv


Also. this MoveOn ad with Nixon morphing into Bush is great.

Now... about the budget. Let’s look back in time for a credibility check. In 2003 the BushAdmin looked ahead and forecast of a three-year cumulative SURPLUS of more than $133 BILLION turned into a cumulative DEFICIT of over $1.45 TRILLION. For just three years. It appears Bush learned accounting from his buddies at Enron.

But hold on. His 2002 budget (written in 2001) made his 2003 budget look honest by comparison. For example, Bush’s 2002 budget forecast a SURPLUS of $262 billion in 2004. In fact, the DEFICIT was $412 billion -- off by OVER $670 BILLION! For just ONE year. Why such a big error? At the time of Bush’s 2002 budget he was still insisting that his then-proposed $2 trillion in tax cuts wouldn't cause deficits. As soon as he got those tax cuts through Congress -- mere weeks later (and before 9/11) -- those forecasts were revised to show ... SURPRISE! ... deficits. ( But that seriously understates the deficit because it nets out the surplus in the Social Security Trust Fund.)

The result of Bush’s tax cuts and other fiscal profligacy has been a massive increase in the federal debt. Total federal debt has increased by $2.3 TRILLION under Bush (from $5.6 trillion to $7.9 trillion). It took from 1776 to 1987 – 211 years -- for the United States to run up its first $2.3 trillion of debt – Bush managed to add that much in just FIVE YEARS.

And Bush continues to propose more tax cuts (about $2 TRILLION over ten years), which will increase even further the “Bush Tax” on future generations. (A little aside on tax equity: Estimates based on data from the Urban Institute-Brookings Institution Tax Policy Center show that if Bush’s tax cuts are made permanent, the top 1 percent of households will gain an average of $71,420 a year when the tax cuts are fully in effect, reflecting a 6.5 percent change in their after-tax income. By contrast, people in the middle of the income spectrum would secure just a 2.1 percent increase in their after-tax income, with average tax cuts of $870.) There is simply NO credible economic theory that would justify massive tax cuts four years into an economic expansion at a time of record structural budget deficits with even bigger bills coming due a little way down the road. Bush's tax cut fixation is pure ideology and massively irresponsible -- it's right-wing economic nihilism.

...Another hazard is losing what Robert E. Rubin, Summers' predecessor as treasury secretary and my guru on this subject, calls "resilience." A deficit of 3.2 percent of GDP, which is what Bush predicts for this year, curtails the ability of policy-makers to respond effectively to the unforeseen and unforeseeable. The U.S. economy was able to absorb the shock of Sept. 11 without falling into recession in part because of Washington's use of fiscal as well as monetary policy in response. But when the budget is already deeply in the red, the "break glass in case of fire" box comes pre-smashed. In the event of another major terrorist attack or natural disaster, such Keynesian tools as tax cuts and stimulus spending will be much harder to deploy than they were in 2001, when the budget was still in surplus.

Did anyone expect Iran to be the Big Winner?

...and now for another chapter of Predictions Registry please!

See an excerpt from BLUEPRINT FOR ACTION: A Future Worth Creating, the latest book by US Naval Academy Prof. Thomas P. M. Barnett.

In this portion, he discusses “Securing the Middle East with a Nuclear Iran?” raising a point that I tried to bring up three years ago, during the drumbeat-prelude to our intervention in Iraq.

At that time, like many reasonable people, I was willing to take at face value the statements offered by a man of Colin Powell’s stature, assuring us that his administration colleagues were mature and responsible people, who had properly verified overwhelming intelligence from multiple sources, before committing the greatest nation on Earth to a costly foreign adventure. While pushing and chivvying reluctant allies into action, they told of an urgent need to act now in order to eliminate a clear and present danger from Saddam’s impending use of Weapons of Mass Destruction. A need so imminent and dire that it precluded every alternative solution, other than direct frontal assault upon Iraq’s regime.

In fact, I was more amenable to such action than most people, for reasons of national honor. For twelve years, I had felt a burning sense of shame over what our country did to the people of Iraq, in 1991. Back when the southern Shiite majority rose up in brave rebellion against their oppressors, counting on our solemn assurance -- given in President George H. W. Bush’s name -- that we were “on our way.” Had Gen. Schwarzkopf been given twelve more hours... but those assurances were cruelly betrayed, planting seeds of bitterness that we’re now reaping.

My willingness to see Saddam toppled -- and those people finally rescued -- was not untempered by a wish to see it done right! In ways that befit the skill already shown by our diplomatic and military professionals, in the Balkans and Afghanistan. In both of those crisis zones, the objectives of American intervention were made clear, and measures were taken so that local forces would do heavy lifting on the ground, assisted by hi-tech US air power. Losses, both civilian and among US troops, were minimized (total US losses in the Balkans were zero), while some thinking was also applied to managing the aftermath. Above all, both of those interventions were planned in such a way that America’s alliances and military readiness were left intact, when the dust finally settled.

Let me reiterate that point. An absolute rule that should be followed, whenever the United States engages in discretionary military action overseas should be “can this mission be accomplished in such a way that leaves our world standing, our alliances, our inner social cohesion and our readiness intact?” Clearly, any endeavor that satisfies these criteria will also be both moral and smart. This is evident because, as we have seen, a combination of gross immorality and stupidity destroys alliances, national cohesion, readiness and our standing in the world.

With these desiderata in mind, I tried -- before the Iraq Invasion -- to approach every contact I had in the defense, intelligence and diplomatic communities, asking why we should go after Saddam without trying, at the same time, to increase our engagement with Iran?

Repeatedly, I asked: “Since Iran will benefit most from toppling Saddam, should we not use this as an opportunity to get something from the Iranians, in return? Is it possible that this blatant and obvious overlap in our national interests might be leveraged, somehow, to end the post-1979 enmity and restore some commonality of purpose?

Let there be no mistake about this. It is now clear that Iran benefitted more than any other party, from our efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq. In 2003, I called this likely outcome a no-brainer. It seemed obvious. Yet, I was called naive.

Here’s the suggestion I made then:

“With half a million Iranian troops just fifty miles from Basra, ready to liberate their fellow Shiites if only we pave the way, is there any good reason that any American boys and girls should die, in order to take the tyrant’s boot off Shiite necks? Either in a frontal assault or in policing the gritty aftermath?

“In the Balkans and Afghanistan, we combined US air power with local ground forces to achieve victory at low cost. Should we not at least consider doing the same in Southern Iraq?

“In any event, by helping free their fellow Shiites, by giving Iranians their revenge on Saddam, by removing the security threats on their borders -- and possibly by adding our own quick/painless apology for supporting the Shah -- would we not be offering Iran just about everything they asked for, and more? If they are sane enough to see self-interest -- deeming it more important than tantrums -- might they offer us something in return?

“Yes, they may not be sane enough to prefer self-interest. But isn’t it at least worth a try?”

====    ====    ====

That point merits repetition. When my defense, intelligence and diplomatic contacts said that “The Mullahs would never accept this.” I responded “What’s the downside of trying?”

So what if they reject the overture! We’d be seen by the world offering to kiss and make up. That’s good press! In contrast, the intransigent mullahs would be seen rejecting a chance to rescue their fellow Shiites and avenge a million dead Iranians. They lose face with their own people while we look like rejected peacemakers. And the downside for us is... what? Even a rebuff would have benefited us.

Alas, according to my contacts, the Iranian Option was never raised in the preliminary scenario planning stage, a time when all possibilities should be on the table. Not even mentioned. Because a brute force American drive from Kuwait to Baghdad -- followed by endless occupation -- had already been decided, at the highest level, even before orders went out for the CIA to find evidence for Iraqi WMD.

Moreover, in the political climate back then, the chief result of my question was that many DC acquaintances broke off further contact with me! One of them warned: “David, right now, this is not a town where ideas are welcome from anywhere but the top.”

Where, oh where, is that Predictions Registry? Now, pundits are talking about how “the biggest winner from our Iraq Incursion has been Iran.”

Um... duh? Can anybody look back and say this outcome shouldn’t have been obvious? Of course the winner would have to be Iran! Only... three years ago we could have made these Iranian benefits a matter of bargaining, and perhaps won concessions in return. Iran will dominate southern Iraq for a while... at least till the Shiite Arabs get sick of Teheran’s meddling -- a historically predictable eventuality. That was always in the cards. But it could have been a different Iran that reaped benefits from our intervention.

One where we used a successful military alliance to gain social and political influence. Perhaps even enough to let a million Iranian expatriates come home, adding their liberalizing influence to the rising Youth Movement... and...

...well, wouldn’t that have been worth aiming for? Especially since this approach would also have kept US forces mostly off the ground, in Iraq?

Instead -- and this diametrically-opposite approach needs noting -- at every opportunity, the Bush Administration has rattled the saber at Iran, choosing to rant about “axes of evil” or to hint that “you guys are next”...always at the very moment when harsh words can do the most harm to our image, our interests, our deteriorating position in that part of the world.

Go look up Thomas Barnett’s cogent analysis, and be glad that he is being read. Someday, we will be led by people capable of looking for win-win situations in the world. Instead of relentlessly seeking ways for us to lose-lose.

On the Iraq War....and How to send books to soldiers/sailors...

Reasonable people can have diverse opinions about the war in Iraq. I have expressed doubts here over the way we have fumbled around over there. (As I say below, those who shamefully left Saddam in power in 1991 have no right to preen over sending our troops back 12 years later, to correct their fantastic blunder. At best, they are atoning for a horrible stain on our honor.)

Still, despite grotesque political meddling and the bad apple behavior of some horrid rogues, most our soldiers and beleaguered officers are doing their best in a very rough situation. They deserve support, whatever we think of the War Plan they are forced to execute.

I have long made a habit of mailing crates of books to military units around the world, doing my small bit as an author and reader to help ease the draggy ennui that spans the intervals between episodes of danger and courage. (Lately, the Navy Department gave me a lovely wall chatchki for donating $2,000 worth of hardcovers to ships at the San Diego Naval Base.)

Now you can do likewise at very low cost! Drop by Books for Soldiers to see how FedEx now offers free shipping when you send books to a volunteer group that then redistributes where they are wanted most. This is an effort all literate people should get behind... especially if you question the unprofessional way these brave men and women have been committed to war."

----

While we are on the subject, again, let me reiterate a point that nobody else seems to be making. I think liberals make a terrible mistake by expressing their objections to this war in leftist or pacifist terms. These is nonsensical, since two of our most successful wars were planned by Clinton-Clarke... The Balkans and Afghanistan interventions, which succeeded far better than anyone could have reasonably expected.

Until the World is Better, we are still in an era when some application of imperial power is a reasonable last resort... if it is done in the mature, responsible, adult, judicious and prudent fashion laid down by George Marshall, paying heed to alliances, costs, success criteria, exit strategy, securing readiness and mindful of winning the long range civilization struggle over hearts and minds..

For example, we don't accomplish anything by deprecating the military in general or suggesting that Iraqis were better off under Saddam! Instead, focus your attacks on:

1. hypocrisy, these are the same guys who fostered Saddam. Kissed him. Egged him on and supplied him against Iran.

2. hypocrisy. these are the same guys who had him in their hands, in 1991. Gen Schwarskopf begged for 12 more hours to rescue the people of Basra, who were being slaughtered, having rebelled AT OUR URGING. (Bush Sr. said " "We're on the way!")

Instead (at Saudfamily orders) they consigned those people to 12 more YEARS of living hell. And now we expect love & kisses? (This is one of the worst stains on American honor in 200 years. Rent the movie THREE KINGS.)

3. The obscenely stupid and unprofessional WAY this war was and is being fought. Rumsfeld - the man who supervised our humiliation in Vietnam - has recently meddled vastly MORE than the politicians did in that failed disaster, overruling the professional officers who wanted to used proved techniques that worked in the fantastically successful campaigns in the Balkans and Afghanistan.

4. The plummet in readiness... the torching of alliances... and my personal harshest grivance, a fierce political purge of the Officer Corps.

And so on.... THESE are issues that a liberal could push and not sound like a wimp. Ditch the leftists and make clear that you are not against a sane and decent Pax Americana. Just the rabid, insane, alliance-destroying and hatred-generating version that those bright imbeciles, the Straussian neocons, have inflicted upon us and the world.

----

Oh, recall the Commie aphorism about the Last Capitalist? They said "we will hang him with a rope we sold him. "

It occurs to me you could just change the cast of characters and reflect the essence of our present struggle against another fiercely determined enemy-meme, just as dedicated to plotting our downfall.

Replace "Capitalist" with "Westerner" and "hang him with a rope" by another phrase...

...."drown him in the last barrel of oil we sell him."

Ponder and pass it on.