The Great Unraveling

The Washington Post's editorial page isn't exactly a hotbed when it comes to calling for thorough investigation of the various (and numerous) scandals that have unfolded in the Bush White House. The Post goes so far as to remind us that this is an "account of Bush administration lawlessness so shocking it would have been unbelievable coming from a less reputable source" right in the opening sentence. Here's the meat of the editorial:

The dramatic details should not obscure the bottom line: the administration’s alarming willingness, championed by, among others, Vice President Cheney and his counsel, David Addington, to ignore its own lawyers. Remember, this was a Justice Department that had embraced an expansive view of the president’s inherent constitutional powers, allowing the administration to dispense with following the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Justice’s conclusions are supposed to be the final word in the executive branch about what is lawful or not, and the administration has emphasized since the warrantless wiretapping story broke that it was being done under the department’s supervision.

Now, it emerges, they were willing to override Justice if need be. That Mr. Gonzales is now in charge of the department he tried to steamroll may be most disturbing of all.

The Post is, of course, reacting to the testimony of James B. Comey, "the straight-as-an-arrow" Deputy Attorney General under Alberto Gonzales.

Think Progress has compiled these high-lights of Comey's testimony:

– The high-speed pursuit that took place when Comey learned that Card and Gonzales were on their way to see Ashcroft at the hospital;

– The hospital meeting, in which the seriously ill Ashcroft “stunned” Comey by lifting “his head off the pillow and in very strong terms” rejecting Card and Gonzales’ effort to have him reauthorize the spying program;

– Comey’s admission that he believed he had “witnessed an effort to take advantage of a very sick man, who did not have the powers of the attorney general because they had been transferred to me”;

– Andrew Card’s subsequent “very upset” call to Comey, in which Card claimed that he and Gonzales had visited Ashcroft “just…to wish him well”;

– The White House’s eventual agreement to suspend the warrantless spying in the face of a threat of mass resignations, including from FBI Director Robert Mueller and Attorney General Ashcroft

The New York Times has a full account.

This scandal is setting up to be a long, drawn out unraveling of the Bush Administration. The fact that Alberto Gonzales was deeply involved in 'unsavory' activity at the White House before being put in charge of the Justice Department means that the subject of his constant testimony before congress will become more far ranging - and more damaging - as time goes on.

One would assume that the Bush White House would 'encourage' Gonzales to resign simply to stop the bleeding. They haven't. It doesn't appear likely that they're going to any time soon.

Why?

If there's one thing (only thing?) that the Bush Administration is good at, it's at playing the political 'game.' You could argue that Bush doesn't want go through the confirmation process for a new Attorney General right now. It's a legitimate reason to hold onto Gonzales but I think the real reason Gonzales is still in the Administration is to protect Rove.

As long as Gonzales is in between Congress and Karl Rove, 'Bush's Brain' feels safe.

The Bush White House has decided that damage of the slow bleed resulting from keeping Gonzales around for the next 18 months is better than what can only be assumed to be catastrophic damage that would result from any sort of investigation getting near Karl Rove.

This tells us a couple of things. First, it tells us that Bush has given up on regaining any kind of positive standing in the polls. There will be no attempt to 'dump' the scandal and move on. That means that the Republicans will go into the 2008 elections burdened with a President whose approval ratings are struggling to stay out of the twenties. If congressional GOPers don't feel like they're going to be getting any help from the White House, they're unlikely to feel any great loyalty to the person that may cost them their seats. As long as Bush's numbers continue to slip away, expect Republican support for his agenda in the congress to slip away as well. Lastly, the fact that Gonzales is still running the Justice Department tells us that things within the Bush Administration must be bad. BAD. The Nixon kind of Bad. No administration would make these kinds of political sacrifices to keep people from seeing inside a clean, even clean-ish, administration.

Alberto Gonzales Karl Rove Bush Administration Attorney-gate Republicans 2008 Elections

Deputy Attorney General "Quits"

From the New York Times:

Paul J.McNulty, the deputy attorney general whose Congressional testimony in February provided a spark that turned a smoldering issue over the firings of federal prosecutors into a raging inferno, announced his resignation on Monday.

McNulty, Alberto Gonzales' second in command, appears to have been "[telling] friends for weeks that he was planning to step aside." Uh-huh. Sure. The fact that this guy got in front of congress and SHOCK! told the truth and made Gonzales and the Bush Administration look like the dirty political hacks that they are had nothing to do with it. I'd imagine that the atmosphere for him at the office was probably pretty noxious.

McNulty blamed himself for failing to resist the dismissal plan when Mr. Sampson brought it to him in October 2006, according to associates. He took one prosecutor off the removal list but acquiesced to the removal of seven others, according to Congressional aides’ accounts of his private testimony to Congress on April 27. […]

Friends of Mr. McNulty said he had tried to be candid about what he knew of the removals. In his private Congressional testimony, Mr. McNulty said he did not realize until later the extensive White House involvement in Mr. Griffin’s appointment or Mr. Sampson’s nearly year-long effort to compile a list.

White House aides complained privately that Mr. McNulty’s testimony gave Democrats a significant opening to demand more testimony from the Justice Department and presidential aides. Several aides said he should have been combative in defending the dismissals.

I thought so. Republicans are pissed because this guy told the truth about the politicization of the Justice Department instead of putting party above country. How dare he take a principled (if belated) stand that would be politically costly for the GOP and the President! Didn't he get Rove's memo that every action that this Administration takes will be with the sole purpose of creating a permanent Republican majority?

We'll probably never know. All of Karl's emails were mysteriously "lost."

* * * * *
While it's nice to see a high level Bush Administration official canned as a result of poor performance, the McNulty saga leaves me feeling empty because it is so typical for BushCo.

First, McNulty wasn't canned because he allowed U.S. Attorneys to be fired for political reasons, he was 'resigned' because he gave the Democrats the in that they needed to expose the fact that U.S. Attorneys were fired for political reasons.

Second, McNulty takes the fall for Gonzales. There are very few things I would work hard to avoid as being a deputy anything in the Bush Administration. I swear, those guys are there specifically to take the fall for their bosses. (Of course Alberto Gonzales is still Attorney General only because it allows Karl Rove to stay out of the cross-hairs for a little while longer.)

Finally, once again we see someone leave the Bush Administration because of a scandal and don't see a single iota of compunction, shame, or remorse.

Paul McNulty US Attorney Firings Alberto Gonzales Justice Department

Torture Memo Authors Feel Bad

Tara McKelvey, an editor at The American Prospect, discussing the authors of the torture memo in an interview by Ken Silverstein in Harper's:

Guys like [John] Yoo and Timothy Flanagan, who was deputy White House counsel under Alberto R. Gonzales, discussed techniques like stress positions and sleep deprivation that were approved for high-level Al Qaeda suspects—and those techniques were used on Iraqi civilians. I had a heartfelt conversation with Flanagan and told him what I had heard from Iraqis: that these techniques had been used on men, women and children in Iraq. He feels bad about it; I know he does.

Good, I hope that his future is as 'sleep deprived' as the Iraqi civilians that experienced the fruits of his labors.

Tara McKelvey continues:

But the fact is that he and Yoo and some of these other people from the best law schools and universities in this country were the ones who came up with the legal definitions that allowed for the abuse to happen.

[...]

Thousands of detainees have gone through U.S.-run facilities in Iraq, but thousands more—anyone held for less than fourteen days—were never registered or tracked. Human-rights reports and interviews I conducted show that some of the worst abuses took place at short-term facilities—a police station in Samarra, a school gymnasium, a trailer, and places like that, where individuals were held for up to two weeks.

Read the whole thing for Rumsfeld's role, the lack of consequences and the unexamined roll of contractors in all of this.

Tara McKelvey Abu Ghraib Torture Bush Administration

Citation du Jour

From Glenn Greenwald we get this gem from John Yoo (who worked in the Bush Administration's Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel) at an April 18 Civil Liberties debate:

[Since 9/11] we have had outpourings of new political speech through new methods and means, for example, uh, people I wish never existed -- bloggers.

'God damned well informed citizens reading and thinking and writing and having opinions. Don't they know their place?'

Just so you know, John, the feeling is mutual.

John Yoo Bush Administration Bloggers

I Wondery Why...

From the Financial Times:

The Bush administration is facing growing difficulties in filling a rising number of high-level vacancies following a recent spate of senior departures.

In the last 10 days alone Mr Bush has lost four senior officials and more resignations are expected to follow. "I wouldn't describe this as disintegration," said one senior official. "But there are worrying large gaps opening up and it is very hard to recruit high-quality people from outside."

One doesn't need to be a genius to figure out why people might be a little leery of joining the most unpopular administration in a generation.

Ignoring the fact that Bush is staggeringly unpopular, why would you decide to take some job for the Bush Administration? Dick Cheney is going to make all the decisions anyway...

Bush Administration

The Widening Divide

The Pentagon is planning for the failure of 'The Surge.'.

"None of those who are taking part in these exercises, shielded from the public view and the immediate scrutiny of the White House, believes that the so-called surge will succeed."

Generals are telling Congress that questioning the President doesn't undermine the troops.

Marine Gen. Peter Pace: As long as this Congress continues to do what it has done, which is to provide the resources for the mission, the dialogue will be the dialogue, and the troops will feel supported.

Now we learn that the Pentagon has even released a report criticizing its own civilian leadership for misuse of intelligence in the months before the Invasion of Iraq.

From the New York Times:

WASHINGTON, Feb. 8 — A Pentagon investigation into the handling of prewar intelligence has criticized civilian Pentagon officials for conducting their own intelligence analysis to find links between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda, but said the officials did not violate any laws or mislead Congress, according to Congressional officials who have read the report.

The long-awaited report by the Pentagon's acting inspector general, Thomas F. Gimble, was sent to Congress on Thursday. It is the first major review to rebuke senior officials working for Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld for the way intelligence was used before the invasion of Iraq early in 2003.

Working under Douglas J. Feith, who at the time was under secretary of defense for policy, the group "developed, produced and then disseminated alternative intelligence assessments on the Iraq and Al Qaeda relationship, which included some conclusions that were inconsistent with the consensus of the Intelligence Community, to senior decision-makers," the report concluded.

Inspector General Gimble's assertion that no laws were violated was challenged by Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman, John D. Rockefeller IV (D-WV). Rockefeller will hold investigations into whether or not the Pentagon's failure to disclose what Gimble called "intelligence activities" violated the National Security Act of 1947.

Pointing out that the White House and it's appointed civilian leadership at the Pentagon 'cherry-picked' intelligence linking Saddam Hussein's Iraq to Al-Queda is unexceptionally. The fact is nearly universally accepted. The 9/11 Commission found "no evidence" of a link between the two. But when condemnations of pre-war intelligence comes from the Pentagon itself, something new is afoot.

When the White House's war effort has lost the Pentagon, change is sure to come soon.

Pentagon Donald Rumsfeld Douglas Feith Thomas Gimble Pre-war Intelligence War in Iraq

America's Failure in Iraq

From Richard Cohen's Op-Ed in the Washington Post:

...I could not imagine being a suicide bomber or a member of a death squad -- or killing someone because he was a Shiite or a Sunni. As there was in Vietnam, there is a piece of Iraq -- its culture, it religions, its history -- that we do not understand. This war has lasted longer than we expected not just because we were inept or understaffed or fired the Baathists or discharged the army -- but because we don't understand the country. For instance, an Iraqi government that reacts lethargically to American proposals moved with surprising alacrity to hang Saddam Hussein. Even late in the game, we didn't see it coming.

[...]

I have some questions. When politicians and commentators detail all that the Bush administration did wrong, I wonder whether any of it really matters. Would things have turned out differently if we had done everything right? Was Iraq so "broken" we never could have fixed it? Was Hussein's despotism an avoidable tragedy, or was it, instead, a tragic necessity? I wonder about all these things. I tend to think now we never could have made it work.

Now, of course, everyone looks like an idiot. Bremer was an idiot and Garner was an idiot and Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz and Cheney and all the generals, with the exception of Gen. Eric K. Shinseki, who called for lots and lots of troops and was sidelined. But these men are not really idiots. They were merely wrong, sometimes on account of arrogance, but they were doing what they thought was the right thing. They simply didn't know what they didn't know. They didn't know a damned thing about Iraq.

"They didn't know a damned thing about Iraq." I would argue that, at least among the civilian leadership, the fault runs even deeper: They didn't care that they didn't know a damned thing about Iraq.

Cohen spends most of his op-ed comparing Iraq to Vietnam. I've learned that as somebody who was born over a decade after the helicopters left the roof-tops, I don't have the expertise to make such comparisons - so I'll only make an observation about Iraq. If you feel it applies to Vietnam as well, feel free to make the connection.

America failed in Iraq because her people and her leaders went into Iraq assuming that the people of Iraq wanted the same things, both personally and geo-politically, that Americans wanted.

This is a monument to ethnocentrism not just because it's true, but because it needed to be pointed out.

After Bush stopped pretending that invading Iraq was about disarming Saddam and/or preventing cooperation between Saddam (the Middle Easts most secular dictator) and terroristic religious extremists, his 'new' goal became turning Iraq into a secular, moderate, pro-western democracy in the middle of the Middle East. Oil conspiracies aside, the CEO president decided that he was going to set up his 'Shining City on the Hill^tm' brand in another location.

But this isn't just your run of the mill 'new location to better serve you!' This is the equivalent of CVS building a new store right across the street from a Rite-Aid. This is about putting your competition out of business.

It's a good strategy.

Or rather, it could have been a good strategy. The problem was that BushCo. thought that they knew what the local population wanted without doing any consumer research.

* * * * *
Getting out of a less and less useful metaphor, BushCo. told us (and themselves) that Iraqis wanted a peaceful, unified, inclusive, secular, pro-western democracy without actually finding out if that was true.

Iraqis do want a peaceful and perhaps a democratic Iraq. It turns out that the pro-western, secular, unified and inclusive parts of BushCo's vision might not be shared by a significant portion of the Iraqi population.

While the vast majority of Iraqis aren't blowing themselves up or engaging in Sunni vs. Shiite killings, enough of the population agrees with the ends (if not the means) to perpetuate the chaos.

America is failing in Iraq because the American vision for Iraq is not the same as the Iraqi vision for Iraq.

20,000 more troops won't change that. More money for reconstruction won't change that. Most importantly, training more Iraqi troops won't change that. It's very simple: Most Iraqi Sunnis want a Sunni dominated Iraq. Most Iraqi Shiites want a Shiite dominated Iraq. And Iraqi Kurds don't really want to be part of Iraq.

That should have been obvious before the invasion but the civilian planners of the war "didn't know a damned thing about Iraq." Perhaps the sectarian divides could have been overcome if it had been taken into account from the beginning. We'll never know. Debating that now is pointless. By proceeding with the invasion without addressing that gaping hole in their strategy, George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and every other planner of the War in Iraq attempted to build a nation without a foundation - the endorsement of the governed.

After that colossal omission, even if no other mistake was made, the ability of the United States to create an Iraq that even remotely resembled the Iraq it envisioned is, at best, debatable.

Let's not equivocate. After forgetting to see if Iraqis wanted the Iraq we envisioned, 'success' was - and is - impossible.

* * * * *
Mr. Cohen, if in a round-about way, correctly identifies why America is struggling in Iraq. It would be nice, in the face of thousands of American casualties, to see him have the courage to take that realization to its logical conclusion: Anything other than withdrawal will simply be throwing American blood and treasure into a lost cause.

Richard Cohen War in Iraq Failure

What Lucky Timing!

It seems that Gen John P. Abizaid, commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East, has said that he plans to retire - just in time for Bush's 'New Way Forward' ::cough:: Escalation ::cough:: in Iraq. George W. Bush must really be blessed by God. There's no other explanation for the luck he has in getting military leaders who disagree with him to retire!

From the LA Times:

WASHINGTON — Army Gen. John P. Abizaid, commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East, has submitted plans to retire and will leave his post in March, a step likely to make way for a change in military strategy at a time the Bush administration is seeking a new plan for Iraq.

Abizaid has been the primary architect of U.S. military strategy in Iraq and Afghanistan since becoming head of the U.S. Central Command more than three years ago. He has strenuously resisted calls to increase troop levels to quell rising violence in Baghdad, arguing it would increase Iraqi dependence on Americans.

Abizaid's planned departure clears the way for new Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates to recommend his own commander, a decision current and former Defense officials say is nearly as important as the new administration strategy expected to be unveiled by Bush in January.

These officials said Gates faces a clear choice between generals who have agreed with Abizaid's push to quickly hand over security responsibilities to Iraqi forces and a small but increasingly influential coterie of officers backing a more aggressive U.S.-led counterinsurgency campaign.

"A small but increasingly influential coterie" you say? I wonder how they came by that new found influence. I'm sure it couldn't be by being sycophantic yes-men willing to tell Bush and/or Cheney exactly what they want to hear. Surely the Bush Administration wouldn't try to 'squeeze out' people who disagree with them or reward kowtowing agreement with increased power and influence.

Rawstory reports:

Admiral William J. Fallon will replace Gen. John Abizaid, US commander in the Middle East, who announced his retirement in December and was expected to leave the post in March. Abizaid was a critic of Bush's efforts to add more troops to Iraq, but the circumstances of his early departure are unclear.

[...]

"Fallon, who is in the Navy, is currently head of Pacific Command; he will be overseeing two ground wars, so the appointment is highly unusual," ABC reports.

According to a Kansas City Star article published December 24, "Commanders have been skeptical of the value of increasing troops. The decision represents a reversal for Casey, the highest-ranking officer in Iraq. Casey and Gen. John P. Abizaid, the top commander in the Middle East, have long resisted adding troops in Iraq,

David Petraeus will replace General George Casey, commander of US forces in Iraq. Casey originally opposed the President's plan to add troops in Iraq, arguing it could delay "the development of Iraqi security forces and increase anger at the United States in the Arab world."

I don't know about the rest of the world, but to me it seems like George W. Bush cleared out a bunch of senior military leaders that didn't want any part of his politically motivated 'surge' in troop levels.

All those times that Bush said that he was going to 'listen to his Generals' come flashing into my head. But why would he be telling the truth then when lying about every other subject is permitted? Perhaps in Bush's twisted head, he sees himself as listening to the Generals. He just chooses which generals to listen to.

Kinda like picking the 7 scientists that say Evolution is bunk and ignoring the many thousands that know that it's about as close to fact as anything in the scientific world.

To be honest, replacing Abizaid is a step that's over due. (The LA Times story reported that Abizaid wanted to go earlier but Secretary Rumsfeld was blocking his retirement.) I don't really have a problem with Abizaid's replacement. It's the fact that in looking for a replacement, the Bush Administration wouldn't look at any candidate that had reservations about Bush's plans for escalation.

The Bush Administration's military instincts aren't as good as their political instincts. We won't see any real progress until BushCo. admits that and allows the military to do its job without political interference.

War in Iraq John Abizaid George W. Bush Surge

The Civilian 'Leadership' - UPDATE

From the Washington Post:

The Bush administration is split over the idea of a surge in troops to Iraq, with White House officials aggressively promoting the concept over the unanimous disagreement of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, according to U.S. officials familiar with the intense debate.

Sending 15,000 to 30,000 more troops for a mission of possibly six to eight months is one of the central proposals on the table of the White House policy review to reverse the steady deterioration in Iraq. The option is being discussed as an element in a range of bigger packages, the officials said.

Ok, let's look at this one carefully. President NationalGuard McFlightsuit wants to send 30,000 troops into a situation where the professional military experts - career soldiers - say that it's a bad idea. The Military seems to think that sending 30,000 soldiers into harms way on a poorly defined mission because it's really the only plan that BushCo. can come up with is a bad idea. On top of that, the Military knows that scrounging up another 30,000 Soldiers, Sailors, Marines and Airmen isn't going to be easy or good for the long term health of the military. If Bush recognizes this, he's decided that a major blow the the effectiveness of the U.S. military and untold numbers of deaths are not to large a price to pay for the chance to rescue his legacy.

At regular interagency meetings and in briefing President Bush last week, the Pentagon has warned that any short-term mission may only set up the United States for bigger problems when it ends. The service chiefs have warned that a short-term mission could give an enormous edge to virtually all the armed factions in Iraq -- including al-Qaeda's foreign fighters, Sunni insurgents and Shiite militias -- without giving an enduring boost to the U.S military mission or to the Iraqi army, the officials said.

The Pentagon has cautioned that a modest surge could lead to more attacks by al-Qaeda, provide more targets for Sunni insurgents and fuel the jihadist appeal for more foreign fighters to flock to Iraq to attack U.S. troops, the officials said.

The informal but well-armed Shiite militias, the Joint Chiefs have also warned, may simply melt back into society during a U.S. surge and wait until the troops are withdrawn -- then reemerge and retake the streets of Baghdad and other cities.

But the legacy, we must save the legacy!

Here's the most telling part of the whole Washington Post piece:

A senior administration official said it is "too simplistic" to say the surge question has broken down into a fight between the White House and the Pentagon, but the official acknowledged that the military has questioned the option. "Of course, military leadership is going to be focused on the mission -- what you're trying to accomplish, the ramifications it would have on broader issues in terms of manpower and strength and all that," the official said.

Hmmm... The military is fixating on things like 'what you're trying to accomplish, ramifications, broader issues and logistics. Those sound like important things. I think a President should probably be thinking about all that too. But our President isn't concerned with details, or reality "and all that." He goes with his gut.

God help us all.


UPDATE: 2:22 pm

Think Progress points us to this speech by George W. Bush explaining how troop levels are determined:

Some Americans ask me, if completing the mission is so important, why don’t you send more troops? If our commanders on the ground say we need more troops, I will send them. But our commanders tell me they have the number of troops they need to do their job. Sending more Americans would undermine our strategy of encouraging Iraqis to take the lead in this fight. And sending more Americans would suggest that we intend to stay forever, when we are, in fact, working for the day when Iraq can defend itself and we can leave. As we determine the right force level, our troops can know that I will continue to be guided by the advice that matters: the sober judgment of our military leaders.

I realize that in a changing situation, it's important for a leader to be able to adjust certain positions and guidlines. Infact, leaders that don't change in the face of changing situations are bad leaders. But when it comes to strategic troop deployments, flip-flopping from 'I'll let the military decide how many soldiers it needs to do its job' to 'More troops to save my legacy!' I'm going to call you out on it.

George W. Bush Pentagon War in Iraq

Bolten Resigns

CNN:

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Unable to win Senate confirmation, U.N. Ambassador John Bolton will step down when his recess appointment expires soon, the White House said Monday.

Bolton's nomination has languished in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee for more than a year, blocked by Democrats and several Republicans.

This is what you get for trying to screw Congress by making recess appointments - even your own party won't let you just appoint whoever you please.

This is, perhaps, a good thing for President Bush. He'll be able to nominate a new U.N. Ambassador for confirmation by the newly Democratic Congress. One would think that Bush's new appointee would be less controversial, in hopes of avoiding a major confirmation fight.

Of course this is George W. Bush, so I expect he'll find somebody far worse than Bolten...

John Bolton Resignation

Now You Tell Us...

From the New York Times:

[The top American military commander for the Middle East, Gen. John P. Abizaid] also publicly said for the first time that the American position in Iraq had been undermined by the Bush administration's decision not to deploy a larger force to stabilize the country in 2003. That decision was made after Gen. Eric K. Shinseki, the Army chief of staff at the time, told Congress that several hundred thousand troops would be needed. His testimony was derided by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, and the general was ostracized at the Pentagon before his retirement a few months later.

Took you long enough.

But don't worry, a strong dose of 'stay the course' will cure you of your doubts, and if not, you'll go the way of Gen. Shineski and Donald Rumsfeld...

John Abizaid War in Iraq Bush Administration Donald Rumsfeld

The President that can't Shoot Straight w/ UPDATE

From MSNBC:

WASHINGTON - Humbled by elections at home, President Bush is heading into talks with leaders in Asia and Europe who will be watching for signs of weakness, uncertainty or retrenchment.

[...]

Bush's plan to arrive in Hanoi with a new pact normalizing trade with Vietnam hit a
bump when the lame-duck GOP-controlled House failed to approve the measure on an initial vote Monday. Its Republican sponsors were hoping to use another strategy to get the bill passed later in the week, but the rejection was an embarrassing setback as the president set out on his first post election overseas trip.

Before his departure, a graphic on the White House Web site for Bush's Asia trip displayed a picture of the flag of the former Republic of Vietnam - South Vietnam - instead of the current actual flag of Vietnam.

Not exactly similar. And the change happened over twenty years ago. It's probably a change that Bush would have remembered if he'd actually been in Vietnam rather than snorting coke in Alabama...

I'm sure that it wasn't Bush himself that put the flags on the White House's website so his personal stupidity can't be the reason for the mistake. Engage in baseless speculation? Don't mind if I do!

The Bush II White House just can't get past ideology and live in the real world. This 'mistake' is about fighting the Reds - a holdover from back when being 'Red' was bad. Bush has to go to a Communist nation that defeated successfully threw out the American military, ending their efforts to maintain a Democratic and Capitalistic nation.

BushCo. can't just sit there and take that kind of embarrassment. They're all about saving face. So some low-level tech guy (with proper 'Movement Conservative' credentials) goes to his boss and says, "wouldn't it be funny if we put the old South Vietnam flag up on the website instead of the Communist flag!" Low-mid-level manager probably kicks this up to the upper-mid-level Republican Pu Bah (who is only thinking about ideology and not how such a harmless little prank might affect real, live trade negotiations) who says, "sure. Nobody's gonna notice."

And now here I am writing a post on the Bush Administration's inability to properly identify the current flag of a nation with which they are about to normalize trade relations.

It's not like this is some South-Asian version of Andorra. This is Vietnam - a nation every America old enough to drive a car has heard of (even if they can't locate it on a map.)

Presidential Administrations, regardless of party, will always make mistakes. It's impossible to run an operation for four years without slipping up some times. If this happened to any other Administration, I'd be ready to admit thatsome body's dog might have been up all night puking and the first flag they came across on Wikipedia made it onto the website by accident. But this is BushCo. Everything they touch breaks out in a rash of mistakes.

It's times like this that I wish we had a parliamentary system. Then we could just hold a vote of no confidence and get rid of this pack of fools and scoundrels.

UPDATE: 11:11am - Apparently there's a movement under way to officially recognize the old flag, but not the new one. Eight states, in an effort to somehow feel like they got the last laugh on Vietnam, have already passed legislation recognizing the flag of the now defunct Republic of Vietnam instead of the current flag of Vietnam.

These are your tax dollars at work...

Bush Administration Vietnam Flag Trade

Good News2

(Rumsfeld steps down) x (Jon Tester wins) = Every kind of Awesome.

The Tester news was just a case of waiting for the expected. The Rumsfeld thing is a whole other story. From the Washington Post:

President Bush said Wednesday Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld is stepping down and former CIA Director Robert Gates will take over at the Pentagon and in prosecuting the war in Iraq.

Rumsfeld, architect of an unpopular war in Iraq, intends to resign after six stormy years at the Pentagon. The development occurred one day after midterm elections that cost Republicans control of the House, and possibly the Senate, as well. Surveys of voters at polling places said opposition to the war was a significant contributor to the Democratic victory.

[...]

Gates is the president of Texas A&M University and a close friend of the Bush family. He served as CIA director for Bush's father from 1991 until 1993.

Gates first joined the CIA in 1966 and served in the intelligence community for more than a quarter century, under six presidents.

I don't know much about this Gates guy. He's actually experienced in the intelligence field, which is good, but he's a friend of the Bush Family, which is bad. We'll see what people who know more about the guy have to say.

As a side note, I have to ask; what would have happened if Bush had made this decision in September? Would we be looking at a Democratic House and Senate? I don't think so...

Now all we're waiting on is Webb to pull it out in Virginia.

Donald Rumsfeld Robert Gates George W. Bush Jon Tester

And in Other News...

From the New York Times:

Congress Tells Auditor in Iraq to Close Office

Investigations led by a Republican lawyer named Stuart W. Bowen Jr. in Iraq have sent American occupation officials to jail on bribery and conspiracy charges, exposed disastrously poor construction work by well-connected companies like Halliburton and Parsons, and discovered that the military did not properly track hundreds of thousands of weapons it shipped to Iraqi security forces.

And tucked away in a huge military authorization bill that President Bush signed two weeks ago is what some of Mr. Bowen’s supporters believe is his reward for repeatedly embarrassing the administration: a pink slip.

The order comes in the form of an obscure provision that terminates his federal oversight agency, the Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, on Oct. 1, 2007. The clause was inserted by the Republican side of the House Armed Services Committee over the objections of Democratic counterparts during a closed-door conference, and it has generated surprise and some outrage among lawmakers who say they had no idea it was in the final legislation.

This is so much more offensive than man-on-man Preacher sex but won't get a milisecond of airplay on any of the 24 hour news networks, a passing mention on the evening news, or even front page attention in newspapers.

In the face of high voter opposition to Bush's War in Iraq, some Republicans are making soft noises about opposing the measure. Blue State GOoPers like Susan Collins are mystified that the provision made it into the conference report, where differences between House and Senate versions of bills are reconciled, even though neither the House or Senate version contained the termination clause when they passed their respective chambers.

I'm not mystified.

One of the companies that was a major focus of the auditor's office was Halliburton.

Get this:

The idea, Mr. Holly [Republican House Armed Services spokesman and member of Calif. Republican Duncan Hunter’s staff] said, was simply to return to a non-wartime footing in which inspectors general in the State Department, the Pentagon and elsewhere would investigate American programs overseas.

We're moving back to a non-wartime footing even though we're engaged in a "Struggle for Civilization" itself? Shameful

War in Iraq Culture of Corruption Iraq Inspector General

Only Fear can Save Them Now

Eugene Robinson's op-ed in today's Washington Post is a good one, though one feels that it could have been written months ago:

If Democrats manage to take control of one or both houses of Congress on Tuesday, the reason will be that voters were not adequately roused into a state of heart-pounding, knee-knocking, teeth-chattering fear.

Not that Republicans haven't been trying. George W. Bush used to claim he was "a uniter, not a divider," but that was a long time ago. These days, he'd probably try to deny the quote the same way he tried to disown "stay the course." The Karl Rove formula for political victory has been to draw a bright line between "us" and "them" and then paint those on the other side not as opponents but as monsters.

Thus Bush openly accused those who disagree with his policy in Iraq of giving aid and comfort to the enemy. "The Democrat approach in Iraq comes down to this: The terrorists win and America loses," he said the other day.

The remainder of the piece points to all the woes that the GOP faces this cycle. The irony that a group of Republicans that never served demonize decorated veterans like John Kerry for being 'unpatriotic.' The way that Democrats who question tax cuts in a time of war get turned into Liberal, tax-raising madmen. The inability on the part of Republicans to get any traction out of the New Jersey Gay Marriage ruling after Mark Foley and David Kuo exposed the hypocrisy and opportunism of the GOP. Even the fact that a woman (gasp!) from San Francisco (shudder!) would become Speaker of the House (and third in line for the Presidency) if Democrats take control of the House has failed to generate any real 'fear.'

It's a good column, if vaguely unexciting in a 'I've seen all this before' sort of way. Perhaps for people who don't spend hours a day pouring over political news and commentary, the distillation of the results of 12 years of Republicanism would be timely.

That's the key word - timely. For what Robinson's piece lacks in excitement, it makes up for in timeliness and it does so in spades. This is the perfect column to run four days before an election. It is clear, to the point, and devastatingly effective in exposing the failures of Bush and his Republican lackeys. I'm sure that's why Mr. Robinson put it together the way he did.

The end of the piece is one that would make any snarky blogger proud:

But while Kerry's recent gaffe produced some last-minute outrage, mere outrage probably isn't enough this time. The only thing that might work is fear, and so far not enough Americans have been made to quake in their boots.

I take that back: The president did say that Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld will serve out the remainder of his term. Run for your lives!

Vote Republican or we'll bring Freedom and Democracy to your state!

Fear Mongering Eugene Robinson 2006 Election

The Fall of the American Hegemony

Sebastian Mallaby's op-ed in the Washington Post comes to a conclusion I reached around February of 2002:

I'm not predicting the end of the American era, not by a long shot. The U.S. business culture is as pragmatic and effective as its political culture is dysfunctional. But has there been a worse moment for American power since Ronald Reagan celebrated morning in America almost a quarter of a century ago? I can't think of one.

Mr. Mallaby reaches this conclusion after examining America's failures in Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, and Darfur. He considers Americas domestic problems as well. Rampant military spending, social security and an ageing population, the costs of pollution, the pressures of globalization and the growing divide between the rich and poor are expressions of the pressures that bring down empires. All that and Mr. Mallaby can't predict the end of the American Era.

I am predicting the end of the American era.

All empires fall. The greatest empires the world has ever known - the Babylonian Empire, the Roman Empire, the Mongol Empire, the Aztecs, the Incas, the Spanish, the British, the Ottoman Empire and most recently the Soviet Empire - all of them are gone. The American Empire will be no different.

The fall of the American Empire does not mean 'Mad Max' come to life or the sacking of Washington. As a colonial empire, our decline will look much like that of the British Empire.

Though that slow decline is inevitable, it has been hastened by President Bush. Since the end of the cold war, the United States lacked what every great 'force for good' (I don't want to use the word hero) needs - an opponent recognized by the wider community of nations as harmful. Without that opponent, super-powers must be careful to avoid breeding resentment among less powerful nations.

Obviously, George Bush has done quite the opposite.

This isn't to say that America's decline had to start here. The terror attacks on 9/11 provided not just an 'enemy' for America, but also a great deal of good will for America around the globe. This was an opportunity for America to rededicate itself to providing leadership in the world - to work towards greater freedom, liberty and openness around the world.

Instead, George W. Bush used to opportunity to settle old grudges and consolidate domestic political power. Harsh rhetoric and harsh policies alienated not just new American allies, gained in the aftermath of 9/11, but America's traditional allies as well.

There are multiple reasons why Bush and his Neocon backers so seriously misplayed their hand. First was an inability to realize and utilize what has been America's greatest strength for the last 50 years - the soft power of Americanism. Over the past half century, even in nations where the political establishment was anti-American, the populations were largely pro-American. The spread of rock and roll, Levis, McDonald's and Coca-Cola were the concrete expression of the perceived superiority of American ideals.

The reason for the rejection of 'soft power' by the Neocons is that it did not fit with the hyper-nationalistic attitude of the movement.

Though there had always been nations which rejected Americanism, the number and vehemence of these rejections has grown as a reaction to both American involvement in Iraq and to the increasingly harsh measures used in George W. Bush's 'Global War on Terrorism.'

This direct rejection, primarily among nations with large Muslim populations, is compounded by the growing unpopularity of American policy among the populations of Europe. Formerly pro-American Western Nations don't feel the need for an interventionalist America after the threat of Soviet invasion disappeared. The E.U., for all its hitches and problems, also decreases European economic dependence on the Dollar and the United States. The E.U.'s gross domestic product is actually the largest in the world - higher than America's.

Add this to the fact that a rising China and an emerging India are anxious to secure resources for their growing economies and willing to deal with nations outside American interests.

This recipe for decreased international influence is only increased by the Neocon's distaste for the United Nations. A symptom of the Neoconservative tenet of unilateral action, America has lost influence in the only legislative body that includes all the nations of the world - an institution built by America.

* * * * *
Even if the Democrats were to sweep into both the House and the Senate in two weeks, spend 2 years dismantling the system the Bush Administration has set up, then holds both Houses of Congress and gains the Presidency, the decline could only at best be slowed.

An entire generation in the Middle East is radicalized. The number of Europeans who remember American GIs coming to liberate them is dwindling. The time since America protected Europe from the Soviet Threat is growing. India and China aren't going to stop their climb towards being world powers because there's a Democratic President in the United States.

The best possible thing for America is for our politicians to plan for a soft landing. I'm not advocating that America give up on influencing events around the world, though I am concerned that as our influence wanes, we will succumb to the same miscalculation that has ended so many empires - diverting so many resources into maintaining influence that our way of life becomes unsustainable.

Of course acknowledging that America won't be the world's only super-power forever is a politically unpopular position.

I'd say the outlook for the American Era is bleak.

American Empire American Era Sebastian Mallaby American Influence

Falling like Flies

Wonkette has compiled a list of Bush administration officials, Bush appointees and/or Congressional Republicans that have been indicted/convicted/abruptly resigned "to spend more time with their families." I will now shamelessly reproduce it here:

Ken Lay — indicted, convicted, sentenced, killed

J. Clifford Baxter — sued over Enron ripoffs, killed

Thomas Noe — Coingate/Bush Pioneer indicted, convicted, imprisoned

David H. Safavian — Bush aide/Abramoff agent indicted, resigned, convicted, imprisoned

John Ashcroft — why did Soaring Eagle resign? Plamegate? Anyway, he immediately became one of K Street’s top lobbyists.

Michael Brown — resigns as FEMA boss after Katrina disaster

Scooter Libby — indicted, resigned

Jack Abramoff — indicted, convicted, imprisoned, still bringing people down

Lil’ Jacks — Ralph Reed, Grover Norquist, Michael Scanlon, Conrad Burns, John Doolittle, James Dobson, Richard Shelby, various other crooks

Duke Cunningham — indicted, resigned, convicted, imprisoned

Kyle “Dusty” Foggo — resigns No. 3 CIA post, investigated by CIA Inspector General over Hookergate

Porter Goss — resigns CIA chief job along with Foggo

Claude Allen — Bush’s top domestic policy adviser resigns to “spend more time with family,” actually caught robbing local department stores

Andrew Card — Resigns as CoS to “spend more time with family”

Scott McClellan — Resigns as WH spokesman to spend more time with Andrew Card’s family

Tom DeLay — resigns as Speaker and then as congressman for being a crook & all-around asshole

Phillip Merrill — ExIm Bank boss, undersecretary of defense & NATO ambassador, assassinated

William H. Lash — assistant secretary of commerce, “shoots self”

Bob Ney — indicted, convicted, resigns, rehab, prison

Ted Stevens — Feds raid family offices and homes in Alaska

Mark Foley — resigned, rehab, FBI investigating

Susan Ralston — resigned as Karl Rove’s special aide after Abramoff bribes revealed

Curt Weldon — FBI raids homes and offices of family and business associates; grand jury about to indict

Lester Crawford — resigns FDA, indicted by DoJ, pleads guilty

That's quite a list. If I were truely dedicated, I'd make this a post somewhere on the side bar and keep updating it as the investigations that are surely to come after november start bringing other BushCo. criminals out of the wood work - but I'm not. So this is all you get.

Culture of CorruptionRepublicans Bush Administration

Shining City Upon a Hill?

The Washington Post reports on a surprising opponent of George W. Bush's Military Tribunals - The Military.

The military's top uniformed lawyers, appearing at a Senate hearing yesterday, criticized key provisions of a proposed new U.S. plan for special military courts, affirming that they did not see eye to eye with the senior Bush administration political appointees who developed the plan and presented it to them last week.

The lawyers' rare, open disagreement with civilian officials at the Pentagon, the Justice Department and the White House came during discussions of proposed new rules for the use of evidence derived from hearsay or coercion and the possible exclusion of defendants from the trials in some circumstances.

The draft legislation debated yesterday would create military commissions to replace the ones struck down in June by the Supreme Court, which ruled that an earlier plan, imposed by the Defense Department without congressional authorization, was unconstitutional. The new proposal seeks to expand the authority of the courts by including defendants who are not members of al-Qaeda or the Taliban and not directly involved in acts of international terrorism.

Those italics are mine but, by God, they should have been in the Post's piece. Let's review: Military tribunals, no access to a lawyer, no ability to confront accuser in court, no access to classified material to mount a defense, and no need to actually be involved in any sort of terrorism? You tell me what that sounds like.

But the military opposes the proposed Tribunal system. Why, you ask?

The proposed legislation has not been formally released because of the administration's inability to persuade the military lawyers to accept it, even after two meetings with Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales.

The basis for the lawyers' concerns about administration policy, which they first articulated in private memos in 2002 and 2003 for top Defense Department political appointees, is that weak respect for the rights of U.S.-held prisoners eventually could undermine U.S. demands for fair treatment of captured U.S. service personnel.

"The United States should be an example to the world, sir," Maj. Gen. Scott C. Black, judge advocate general of the Army, told Sen. Russell Feingold (D-Wis.) at the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing. "Reciprocity is something that weighs heavily in all of the discussions that we are undertaking as we develop the process and rules for the commissions, and that's the exact reason, sir. The treatment of soldiers who will be captured on future battlefields is of paramount concern."

Not condemning the plan for it's massive moral lackings, but an equally valid concern (and equally true for torture) not lost on Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, who agreed with Maj. Gen. Black. To Black's great credit, he also stood against another amoral part of the proposed system.

Black also took issue with a provision in the draft that would allow the use of evidence collected during coercive interrogations. "Sir, I don't believe that a statement that is obtained under coercive -- under torture, certainly, and under coercive measures should be admissible,"

Since it's so much easier to let the Administration hang itself with its own words, I'll just quote some more from the Post article.

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) asked whether statements obtained through "illegal, inhumane treatment should be admissible."

Gonzales said: "The concern that I would have about such a prohibition is what does it mean [and] how you defined it. I think if we could all reach agreement about the definition of cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment, then perhaps I could give you an answer. . . . Depending on your definition of something as degrading, such as insults, I would say that information should still come in."

Yep, you read that correctly. The United States of America, the Shining City, set upon a hill, will now torture you until you say what Dick Cheney wants you to say, then use it against you in court.

And, as a sort of parting kick in the crotch, the Bush Administration includes provisions protecting Americans, civilian and military, from any sort of human rights or war crimes prosecution in American Courts.

Scott Black Military Tribunals Torture War on Terror Bush Administration

Warrantless Physical Searches

U.S. News & World Report has a story that you just knew was coming.

President Bush authorized the National Security Agency to begin conducting electronic eavesdropping on terrorism suspects in the United States, including American citizens, without court approval. Meeting in the FBI's state-of-the-art command center in the J. Edgar Hoover Building, the lawyers talked with senior FBI officials about using the same legal authority to conduct physical searches of homes and businesses of terrorism suspects--also without court approval..

Even the FBI wasn't too keen to go down that road. FBI Director Robert Mueller was "alarmed" that the FBI would, for the first time conducted "physical searches of any location without consent or a judicial order."

Amendment IV - Ratified 12/15/1791.

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Seems pretty clear to me, but I'm not Alberto Gonzales.

But in a little-noticed white paper submitted by Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to Congress on January 19 justifying the legality of the NSA eavesdropping, Justice Department lawyers made a tacit case that President Bush also has the inherent authority to order such physical searches. In order to fulfill his duties as commander in chief, the 42-page white paper says, "a consistent understanding has developed that the president has inherent constitutional authority to conduct warrantless searches and surveillance within the United States for foreign intelligence purposes."

If warrantless eavesdropping created a fuss, I expect warrantless searches of people's homes to cause a furor. Any real conservative will see this power grab for what it is, an extra-constitutional attempt by the Executive Branch to strip rights away from American Citizens.

Bush Alberto Gonzales Warrantless Searches

It's Bigger Than He Admitted

My local rag, the Washington Post, has something today that I could have predicted months ago...

Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales appeared to suggest yesterday that the Bush administration's warrantless domestic surveillance operations may extend beyond the outlines that the president acknowledged in mid-December.

This is standard practice for kids admitting to their parents that they screwed up. Break it to them easy - admit to a small part of your offense. Fill in the details later after the anger has subsided. Bush would probably know this strategy pretty well.

In a letter yesterday to senators in which he asked to clarify his Feb. 6 testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee, Gonzales also seemed to imply that the administration's original legal justification for the program was not as clear-cut as he indicated three weeks ago.

At that appearance, Gonzales confined his comments to the National Security Agency's warrantless wiretapping program, saying that President Bush had authorized it "and that is all that he has authorized."

But in yesterday's letter, Gonzales, citing that quote, wrote: "I did not and could not address . . . any other classified intelligence activities." Using the administration's term for the recently disclosed operation, he continued, "I was confining my remarks to the Terrorist Surveillance Program as described by the President, the legality of which was the subject" of the Feb. 6 hearing.

Oh, so by 'clarifying' you mean you want to change your testimony so you don't get caught having essentially lied to Congress if the rest of this shit comes out? I thought so.

n his letter, Gonzales revisited earlier testimony, during which he said the administration immediately viewed a congressional vote in September 2001 to authorize the use of military force against al-Qaeda as justification for the NSA surveillance program. Bush secretly began the program in October 2001, Gonzales's letter said.

On Feb. 6, Gonzales testified that the Justice Department considered the use-of-force vote as a legal green light for the wiretapping "before the program actually commenced."

But in yesterday's letter, he wrote, "these statements may give the misimpression that the Department's legal analysis has been static over time."

Fein said the letter seems to suggest that the Justice Department actually embraced the use-of-force argument some time later, prompting Gonzales to write that the legal justification "has evolved over time."

Evolution is a great thing when it involves warantless domestic spying, but shouldn't be taught in our classrooms. Gotcha.


Domestic Spying Alberto Gonzales Bush