November 02, 2004
Bin Laden's Strategy
CNN.com - Bin Laden: Goal is to bankrupt U.S. - Nov 1, 2004 No one ever said Bin Laden is stupid. Its a classic guerrila play, be assymetric. The US spends $100B a year in Iraq so bleed it to death
"We are continuing this policy in bleeding America to the point of bankruptcy. Allah willing, and nothing is too great for Allah," bin Laden said in the transcript.
He said the mujahedeen fighters did the same thing to the Soviet Union in Afghanistan in the 1980s, "using guerrilla warfare and the war of attrition to fight tyrannical superpowers."
He also said al Qaeda has found it "easy for us to provoke and bait this administration."
"All that we have to do is to send two mujahedeen to the furthest point east to raise a piece of cloth on which is written al Qaeda, in order to make generals race there to cause America to suffer human, economic and political losses without their achieving anything of note other than some benefits for their private corporations," bin Laden said.
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May 27, 2004
Weapons of Mass Destruction
Cannot find Weapons of Mass Destruction. _Hat tip to Brad. Reminded of this really funny error message. Check it out yourself!
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May 22, 2004
Can All These Generals be Idiots?
Talking Points Memo: by Joshua Micah Marshall: May 16, 2004 - May 22, 2004 Archives. Amazing that Tom Clancy would publish a book that is actually critical of the Bush administration. That's to me the true sign of how bad things are.
Anyway, he did a book with General Anthony Zinni where he says:
[Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and Feith] promoted it and pushed [the war]...even to the ponit of creating their own intelligence to match their needs. Then they should bear the responsibliity."
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May 19, 2004
Why the truth is coming out
United Press International: Army, CIA want torture truths exposed. A great summary of why exactly these revelations are coming out.
I'd summarize by saying that the CIA, US Army and Senators are fighting hard it seems. Let's hope the good guys win.
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Army Tried to Curb Red Cross Visits to Iraq Prison
Army officials in Iraq responded late last year to a Red Cross report of abuses at Abu Ghraib prison by trying to curtail the international agency's spot inspections of the prison, a senior Army officer who served in Iraq said Tuesday.
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Colin Powell
On Lisa Rein's Radar: Colin Powell On Meet The Press. Amazing, Colin Powell is a good guy, but he's not in charge of his own spin.
Hat tip to Boing Boing, but here's a note from the May 16, 2004 Meet the Press where Colin Powell's press aide trys to shut him up, but he doesn't let her. Amazing.
He says among other things that he got bad intelligence about WMD and that Rumsfeld knew about the Red Cross report on torture in February.
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May 18, 2004
Guantanamo Videos
GrabTheMic: News Archives. Hat tip to Blogpulse for its very cool top links feature that shows the most linked stuff and to Grab the Mic for the point to this Observer article on Gitmo.
Dozens of videotapes of American guards allegedly engaged in brutal attacks on Guantanamo Bay detainees have been stored and catalogued at the camp, an investigation by The Observer has revealed.
Can't wait to see these :-(
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US, British Troop Friction
Increasing Friction Between US, British Troops in Iraq. Interesteing piece about the British vs. American approach to the occupation of Iraq.
Britain's contribution to the war effort hangs in the balance. With several Coalition members—Spain, Poland and others—withdrawing or downsizing their commitments in Iraq, Blair is under heavy U.S. pressure to send more troops. But with anti—war sentiment rising in Britain, and with Blair's poll ratings collapsing, President Bush's most loyal Coalition partner is finding it increasingly difficult to play the role Washington expects of him.
Btw, does anyone else find it interesting it isn't called Iraqi Freedom but the American invasion of Iraq and that this current phase is now called the occupation of Iraq. Would love to do a google search to see how the terms have been changing. It is meaningful I think.
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Late Col John Boyd and William Lind
Defense and the National Interest. Smart guys. I was a great admirer of Col. Boyd during the F-16 vs. F-15 debates. He's passed away, but Bill Lind seems very savvy as in his notes on how the war on Iraq recruits terrorists. Oh how depressingly true.
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May 17, 2004
Hundred Bucks Plus a Note...
The Agonist: US military launches something of a charm offensive at Iraqi detention centers. This would be funny if it didn't sound exactly like what someone would do.
Fix the problem with a little PR spin. Sometimes it makes me so sad (as an ex-marketing guy) that people do believe you can fix anything with spin. It does work as long as you are basically telling the truth, but this is so transparent.
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May 16, 2004
Theocracy ok in Iraq
In policy reversal, US signals possible acceptance of theocracy in Iraq | Metafilter. Interesting to see what Rumsfeld will think of what Powell says. I'm sure we'll see a reaction.
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Abuses May Go Higher
Knowledge of Abuse May Go Higher Yet (washingtonpost.com). Basically now we have Lt Col asking a Lt General to torture someone. So it ain't just seven privates and a corporatl.
Reminds me also that the last line of defense is really an aggressive press. With the president and his folks taking such sweeping powers. The Congress cowed and hiding behind the Patriot Act and the Judiciary essentially saying that heck, just declare anyone a "illegal combatent" and I can't even hear your case, really only the fourth estate is left and the Internet.
Thank god for both of these. Make me want to donate to the ACLU tomorrow.
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Seymour Hirsch is a god
Eschaton. I have to get the New Yorker. Apparently the latest issue talks about something called Copper Green which is a torture program that Rumsfeld pushed out last year to wrest control from the CIA.
Basically, Rumsfeld bypassed most of the safety interlocks on assassination and torture and has a guy named Cambone who controlls the whole thing. Just scary how easy it is.
At least there were some good guys:
By fall, according to the former intelligence official, the senior leadership of the C.I.A. had had enough. “They said, ‘No way. We signed up for the core program in Afghanistan—pre-approved for operations against high-value terrorist targets—and now you want to use it for cabdrivers, brothers-in-law, and people pulled off the streets’”—the sort of prisoners who populate the Iraqi jails. “The C.I.A.’s legal people objected,” and the agency ended its sap involvement in Abu Ghraib, the former official said.
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How did it happen?
ABC News says JAG told'm so. Hat tip to Eschaton
Lawyers from the military's Judge Advocate General's Corps, or JAG, had been urging Pentagon officials to ensure protection for prisoners for two years before the abuses at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison came to light.
JAG officers say they have been marginalized by Douglas Feith, undersecretary of defense for policy, and William Haynes II, the Pentagon's general counsel, whom President Bush has nominated for a judgeship on the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.
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How to Get Out of Iraq
How the U.S. Can Get Out (washingtonpost.com). The Post as usual has some good ideas. My favorite
Declare victory and withdraw. Save American (and coalition) lives and avoid more painful mistakes. Put future Saddam Husseins on notice that the United States has adopted a new "hit and run" strategy to remove them without the complications of extended occupation and nation-building. This may turn out in the long term to be the only realistic option.
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May 11, 2004
For Iraqis to Win
Obsidian Wings: Losing is Relative. Hat tip to Katherine on her thoughtful comments. This is from David Brooks (a Iraqi war supporter) in the NY Times today:
This has been a crushingly depressing period, especially for people who support the war in Iraq. The predictions people on my side made about the postwar world have not yet come true. The warnings others made about the fractious state of post-Saddam society have.
It's still too soon to declare the Iraq mission a failure. Some of the best reporting out of Iraq suggests that many Iraqis have stared into the abyss of what their country could become and have decided to work with renewed vigor toward the democracy that both we and they want.
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Insurgents run Fallujah
Brad DeLong's Semi-Daily Journal (2004): a Weblog. _Hat tip to Brad Delong on this Washington Post piece:
They have recruited scores of young men who fought against the Marines last month, according to U.S. officials familiar with the new force, called the Fallujah Brigade. The officials said they believed that most members of the brigade participated in the fighting. "Many of the guys who were shooting at the Marines have simply put on their old army uniforms and joined the Fallujah Brigade," said a U.S. official familiar with the new force.
Amazing, but maybe it is better than killing them all. Seems like basically the insurgents now get to run Fallujah.
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What Next?
t a c i t u s || Change of command. MOst blogs are either left or right, but this is an incredibly well written post about what the real situation is and how basically impossible it is to change.
Amazing thing is that he agrees with the strategy but not the tactics of the Bush Administration (e.g., American might, need to reorder the Islamic world into an American one, etc.). Very smart guy.
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May 10, 2004
More on Blackout from our Troops
Kathryn Cramer: Halliburton Pulling the Plug on GI Communications. More from Kathryn and Ginmar about the communications cutoff.
Very smart on the part of the administration to prevent information access. The truth is that this was the last remaining line of defense against abuses. Think about it. The judicial branch can't act, they've made that clear. The legislative branch can't, they said go to war. The press is so tightly controlled, they can't see things (why is it that these CDs never got to anyone but Seymour Hirsch, but not CNN?).
So all that is left is the Internet, bloggers and that's easy to cut off as you can see here.
We just watched the Pianist. I have to tell you I sometimes feel we are closer to that than I'd like to admit. Liberty is so easy to curtail, but so hard to get back.
In the mean time, let's hope that its hard to actually keep laptops plugged into the Internet in Iraq.
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Predictable yet sad: No more email for the troops
Wirefarm : Halliburton Pulling the Plug on GI Communications. Take that for morale.
A week after a scandal broke involving photos of American troops torturing Iraqi prisoners, Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg, Brown, & Root is pulling the plug on private electronic communications with the folks back home, apparently at the request of the Department of Defense.
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An incredibly brave guy
. Great piece about Carlos Gomez currently in the 2-1 Marines in Fallujah. Hope he comes home safely.
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May 09, 2004
How to Get Out of Iraq
The New York Review of Books: How to Get Out of Iraq. Mentioned in the Washington Post piece, from Peter Galbraith, an exit strategy. Vs, "Dead Men Walking"
Ironic to me that the Powell Doctrine so successful in 1991 is ignored in 2001. Oh well. For those of you who don't know, ponder this:
- Is A Vital US Interest at Stake? Arguable, but looking at the actual WMD in Iraq, I'd have to say no.
- Will We Commit Sufficient Resource to Win? Well, we are spending $50B a year, but with just 130K troops in a country of 26M, I'd have to say no on this one. It was a shoe string operation that worked so well in AFghanistan, but the strategic situation is quite different.
- Are Our Objectives Clearly Defined? Well, despite the rationalization a minute, the clearest I can find is establish a friendly (some would say puppet) state. I also think of this one as what is the exit strategy.
- Will We Sustatin the Commitment? A big question, its a multiple decades and support is now 50/50.
- Is There a Reasonable Expectation that the Public and Congress will support the Operation? See above.
- Have we exhausted our other options? In retrospect, probably far from it.
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Dissension Grows In Senior Ranks On War Strategy
Dissension Grows In Senior Ranks On War Strategy (washingtonpost.com). We can only hope that these brave souls speak freely. After reading Colin Powell's autobiography, it seems pretty clear that you can pistol-whip a bureaucracy to keep them in line.
Seems like there might be some brave souls who will speak out. More power to them.
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May 07, 2004
It gets worse
Hat tip to Eschaton. I just hope it isn't true but it was on MSNBC
Rumsfeld did not describe the photos, but U.S. military officials told NBC News that the unreleased images showed U.S. soldiers severely beating an Iraqi prisoner nearly to death, having sex with a female Iraqi female prisoner and “acting inappropriately with a dead body.” The officials said there was also a videotape, apparently shot by U.S. personnel, showing Iraqi guards raping young boys.
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May 06, 2004
If you're a different race, you're sub-human
Boing Boing: Profile of Iraqi torture woman. Terrifying, a good example of why "absolute power corrupts absolutely" and also why the "tyranny of the majority" are both scary concepts in this war. Here's a profile of Lynndie England, the woamn in the torture photos in the Telegraph:
"To the country boys here, if you're a different nationality, a different race, you're sub-human. That's the way girls like Lynndie are raised.
"Tormenting Iraqis, in her mind, would be no different from shooting a turkey. Every season here you're hunting something. Over there, they're hunting Iraqis."
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Mercenary interrogator wanted
Boing Boing: Mercenary interrogator wanted -- "minimal supervision". Hilarious post (if you have a sense of humor I guess). Here's the job description of the "contractor CACI for a job in Baghdad
bq. Assists the interrogation support program team lead to increase the effectiveness of dealing with Detainees, Persons of Interest, and Prisoners of War (POWs) that are in the custody of US/Coalition Forces in the CJTF 7 AOR, in terms of screening, interrogation, and debriefing of persons of intelligence value. *Under minimal supervision*, will assist the team lead in managing a multifaceted interrogation support cell consisting of database entry/intelligence research clerks, screeners, tactical/strategic interrogators, and intelligence analyst.
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Press Coverage in Iraq
Peter Levine's blog: April 29, 2004 Archives. Good points about why press coverage is important from a big name in journalism.
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May 05, 2004
Christian Science Monitor
Wait ... tell us again: Why is US in Iraq? | csmonitor.com Hat tip to Dave Winer. A good piece from the Christian Science Monitor about why we are in Iraq. A good summary that basically says, we didn't finish the job in Afghanistan, then said we were in Iraq for WMDs, abandoned the UN was right about Saddam as easy to fall, but wrong about how easy it is to put humpty dumpty together again.
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Iraqis from an Apache
Film shows Iraqis being shot dead by US copter. Pretty amazing display of technology. Intersting to see how you can interpret what really happened.
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May 04, 2004
Krugman on Privatization in Iraq
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Taguba Report
The Agonist: The Taguba Report. The actual document that Seymour Hirsch revealed about prisoner abuses.
FWIW, I've heard a bunch of the responses to this. Which vary from "never heard about it, but I'll find out" to "what's a little torture, the bad guys torture more than we do." Sigh.
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Hermann Goering: All you have to do is tell them you're being attacked...
Hermann Goering on War. Terrifying, if not fascinating, Hermann Goering was of course Hitler's Reich Marshall. Here's what he said about war during the Nuremberg trials to Gustave Gilbert, an American intelligence agent:
"Why, of course, the people don't want war," Goering shrugged. "Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece. Naturally, the common people don't want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship."
"There is one difference," I pointed out. "In a democracy the people have some say in the matter through their elected representatives, and in the United States only Congress can declare wars."
"Oh, that is all well and good, but, voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country."
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BOPNews: A good read
The Blogging of the President: 2004. There are lots of political sites out there. BOP is one of the best. Here's a good piece on what one journalists sees in Iraq.
- Many Iraqis have turned against America itself. After the invasion, there were always Iraqis who were anti-American, but the majority were not. Up until recently, Iraqis were anti-Bush and anti-occupation, but still talked about how much they loved the American people. Right before Al-Sadr and Falluja, this changed. Iraqis started to turn against American journalists and now do not like Americans, period.
- The significance of the pictures of torture cannot be overstated. While Saddam tortured more systematically and more often, Iraqis never saw evidence of it in print. Since they do not trust the press to report the truth just because that's the function of the press, many have concluded that the American occupation is in fact worse than Saddam. Why else would pictures of torture be allowed?
- Americans do not want to talk about what's actually going on in Iraq. We are very interested in Iraq as a political issue, but the details are subordinate to Bush-supporting or Bush-bashing. Ted Koppel and Fox News's pissing contest is example A. The lack of republican (little r) outrage at the torture is example B.
- Sistani is critical to Iraqi stability.
- Troops are undertrained for peacekeeping and there aren't enough of them. The lack of training is evident, and the soldiers do not see themselves as policemen, nor do they know how to act as such (unlike Kosovo, where soldiers did receive peacekeeping training).
- We have handed Osama bin Laden a huge victory, for the reasons Tacitus talks about.
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