Yikes! We Reeeeally Screwed Up

The WMD report is out and it confirms that we had a huge intelligence breakdown. Forget what this means for Iraq what about future interventions? When will we know if we ever are truly threatened again? Will any of us actually take it seriously?

The following is from The Guardian:

The incompetence described in the report occasionally descends into farce, particularly over an Iraqi defector codenamed Curveball, whose fabricated tales about mobile biological laboratories and their influence on US decision-makers were reminiscent of Graham Greene's accidental spy in Our Man in Havana. Despite warnings that he was "crazy", "a waste of time", and that he had not even been in Iraq at the time of an event he supposedly saw, his claims became the subject of almost 100 Defence Intelligence Agency reports and a focus of the National Intelligence Estimate in October 2002.

Most critically, Curveball's description of mobile laboratories provided one of the highlights of Colin Powell's address to the UN security council on February 5 2003, in which the then US secretary of state laid out the justification for the invasion.

What's In a Name?

As you may have heard 59 former diplomats have protested the appointment of John Bolton to the UN. What you may not have heard are the names of the men leading this effort. How does Princeton, Monteagle and Spurgeon sound? Sure Dick Lugar is a level headed guy, but he would have to be on crack to go back to the Hoosier State and tell his constituents that he took the advice of Princeton, Monteagle and Spurgeon over W. Chuck Hagel is also a realist who has butted with the Bushies in the past, but he's from Nebraska for pete's sake. Couldn't this illustrious and obviously elitist group have found a Bill, Rob or Tom?

Rev. Jesse's Fall from Grace

In his gossip column Lloyd Grove reports that some of Rev. Jesse's admirers were "dismayed" by his willingness to stand beside Randall Terry in support of Terri Schiavo parents. Granted Terry is a nut-job, but let's look at this a little closer shall we? Has Terry ever actually killed anyone? The guy is annoying, but he's not a murderer. Fidel Castro, Yasser Arafat, Muammar Qadhafi and Hafez Assad (hilarious/disgusting link) - now those are (or were) murderers. All of them were embraced by Rev. Jesse but nary a word was heard from his "dismayed" friends on the left. One other thing - Grove notes that the good Rev. is pro-choice, but that is more out of convenience than anything else. Jackson was pro-life until he chose to run for prez.

Wolf Update

It appears that Wolfie will get to head the WB. Of course the French have come up with an insane proposal - that Wolfie's number 2 be French and that the head of the WTO be French. I don't think so. I would be partial to giving them nothing, but that's just me. I would back a non-French Euro and someone from Japan for either post. Then again if I was a diplomat I suppose that I would have to give them something.

Democracy Mid East Style

The Christian Science Monitor reports that the "Arab Spring" or Kifaya (Enough) Movement may be supported by the administration but it has an anti-American streak in it. This should come as no surprise since groups that could benefit from free elections would include Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas and Hezbollah. That being said it is better to bring these groups above ground and give them a stake in their governments as long as they forsake violent means to exert their power. Nothing encourages radicalism more than oppressive regimes allow them to govern and it should force them to act somewhat responsibly.

Robin Wright reports in the WaPost that despite the promise of free and fair elections Syria is doing everything it can to maintain control of Lebanon. The Syrians are removing all visible vestiges of authority but are surreptitiously asserting themselves. According to Wright another obstacle facing the Lebanese is their countrymen. After three decades under the Syrian thumb it may be difficult to shake off dependence on Syria. The good news is that US and EU are keeping the pressure on Assad. By the way kudos to the Christian community in Lebanon which has taken a page from the Shia playbook in Iraq. Despite bombings in their community obviously set off by Syrian agents or proxies they have not taken the bait.

In Iraq the US is staying out of it. Despite requests for guidance the US is doing little to intervene in the squabbles that have plagued the Iraq's National Assembly.

Quote of the Day

Fidel Castro is reportedly upset that Forbes magazine listed him among the world's wealthiest dictators, with a net worth of $550 million. Castro says the listing is bogus, because in a communist country the Cuban people actually own everything, and he is simply watching over things while they're all in prison.

— Dennis Miller on his CNBC show

Kofi Watch

Both the New York Times and the LA Times tell the same story but run very different banners. NYT goes with Panel Says Annan Didn't Intervene in Iraq Contract while LAT chose the more honest Annan Given Mixed Review.

Democracy Watch

Those first couple of baby steps to a functioning democracy can be so ugly sometimes. As I'm sure everyone knows the National Assembly of Iraq had a collective breakdown yesterday when they tried to select a Sunni speaker. Ghazi Yawar, the man tapped to be speaker, probably realized that he had exceeded the life expectancy of a Sunni in the new Iraqi gov't and opted to drop out. This mess could delay a permanent charter and full elections. The search continues...

In Lebanon the current gov't plans to quit and elections are promised as soon as all Syrian troops are gone. As the WaPost notes no mention was made of the status of 5,000 intelligence officers in the country. In news that should not even be considered new a member of Hamas has admitted to having been trained in Syria. Can we lay to rest the notion that secular pan-Arabist terrorists will not work with Islamist terrorists?

The Pakistani Ambassador has noticed a trend -

In the Middle East, in fact all over the world, to get your act together as far as your human rights, freedom and so on are concerned.

This was just before he defended Musharraf's claim to power for the sake of stability although he did confess that the democracy ripple is bound to affect Pakistan. He also blamed bin Laden for starting "a situation nobody in his right mind would want." Is he referring to bin Laden's situation or Musharraf's.

Finally in Turkey the PM Reccep Tayip is pissed because they are drawing funny caricatures of him. I swear I am not making this up. So now we have amendments to the criminal code to clamp down on dissent. The original offending cartoonist has drew a $3,700 the cartoonists who followed suit in protest could face up to $30,000 fines. On a more serious note the speech code also slams journalists, publishers, imans, pastors and rabbis.

Down Mexico Way

Mexico managed to catch four Iraqis on the watch list. This does not mean that we should not be watching our border with our southern neighbor. Meanwhile AMLO is fighting for his political life in Mexico. Even worse than being a populist retread AMLO may be dirty. If it is proven that he is in fact corrupt then he should be barred from running. The concern is that it will not be evidence that rules the day but political expediency. The PRI and the PAN know that any candidate they match against AMLO faces an uphill battle so they are leaning to bar AMLO. AMLO for his part is more concerned with rallying his people in the street than making his case. This battle is between backroom dealers and populist people power. Makes you wonder what role the truth has in all of this.

The New American Militarism: A Book Review

The New Republic takes a look at a book I am planning to read, Andrew Bacevich's The New American Militarism: How Americans Are Seduced by War. TNR finds the book "deeply wrong" but also "interestingly wrong." Bacevich's concern is that he sees among the American elite "a tendency to see international problems as military problems and to discount the likelihood of finding a solution except through military means." The reviewer finds fault with Bacevich's criticism of US Mid East policy dating back to the Carter days. This is where Bacevich's realistic critique takes a rather unrealistic turn setting up an almost utopian alternative existense that "strains credulty."

Bacevich is an interesting bird. As TNR notes he used to write for the National Review and the Weekly Standard yet he has been wary of the idea of empire since the start of the Global War on Terror (GWoT) or as the neo-cons sometimes refer to it World War IV. The latest issue of the Washington Quarterly features Bacevich's piece on World War IV (not available online) on the cover and he also managed to get an interesting piece in the paleo-con American Conservative. There he criticizes America's living room war: you fight, we consume. He contrasts Bush's call to arms to previous attacks on the U.S. (Ft. Sumter and Pearl Harbor). Needless to say he feels the Pres comes up short. BTW here is another here is another link that explains what the paleo-cons are all about.

The Latin American Arms Race

Rummy is suspicious. The Venezuelan Army has 32,000 troops and it is buying 100,000 new AK-47s. Rummy says that he "can't imagine" what is going to happen to those arms, but I'm pretty sure that he is fudging. We can all imagine that a number of those weapons or those that they are replacing will mysteriously turn up in the hands of the FARC or even in the clutches of Evo Morales' merry band of revolutionaries. This is just one aspect of a new arms race in Latin America. Not mentioned in the aforementioned link or even in Jorge Castaneda's piece is the problem with Nicaragua neglecting destroy weapons as previously agreed.

What Castaneda, the former Mexican Foreign Minister and academic, does mention is his hope that the situation is addressed regionally. Specifically he hopes that the OAS takes the lead in the issue and follows Nobel Prize winner Oscar Arias' idea of Latin American disarmament to turn "spending on swords into investments in ploughshares."

The eclectic Castaneda is running a quixotic campaign for the President of Mexico. Castaneda has a more than colorful past. His father was a well connected politico and as a youth he idealized Castro's Cuba. Eventually he would abandon his support for Castro, but would remain firmly entrenched in the left. Nonetheless he managed to hook up with the conservative President Fox eventually serving in his administration. Like most academics Castaneda has a political tin ear leading to his exit from the Fox team. Now he is remaking himself as a rational populist alternative in the Mexican race. The only problem is that you need to have a political party in order to run for president. No worries Convergencia and Castaneda have been engaged in an elaborate dance for a while now. Unfortunately the way things stand right now I don't see anyone beating the lefty AMLO and the PRD. That is if Fox fails to derail AMLO's aspirations with a legal technicality.

G.I. Fashion

As if there weren't enough colored bracelets going around now there is a dark purple one with proceeds going to your veteran charity of choice. There is also the black bracelet that I wear which is similar in form to the MIA bracelets that were worn during the Vietnam War. Each black bracelet has the name of a soldier that has given his life in Iraq.