Offensive of the Weak

The motivation for a major offensive in Basra that was almost certain to force the Sadrists to have a de facto end to their mostly unilateral ceasefire has been bugging me. It does not make a whole lot of sense, especially as the primary prize in Basra, the oil export revenue, is easily deniable by any group with some popular support and access to high explosives, AND the forces committed to the fight are a single light army division and three brigades of police. That force level is absurdly low, especially if there is any reason to believe that there is significant chance of defections.

I was able to bounce some ideas off of Cernig on Thursday night as we did some mutual head-scratching and what this looks to be is an offensive of desperation and some elegance, although it could be extremely ugly if anything slips. There are some massive assumptions in this analysis, and we'll be fleshing it out over the next couple of days. I'll start outlining some assumptions.

1. 1 Sadr and his movement are significantly more popular on the street and in the Shi'ite electorate than Maliki, DAWA and ISCI/BADR
2. 2 Throwing lots of money around has been a major driver of the decrease in violence
3. 3 The great choke point in the money flows is Basra and its oil export infrastructure.
   
4. 4 Sadr and most of his movement have developed a tacit working relationship with Petreaus and MNF-I --- harassment is tolerable in both directions but nothing too big too often. This has allowed Sadr et al to consolidate their positions.
   
5. 5 The hold-up on the provincial election law approval was the Maliki factions being very concerned that they would be on the losing end of the stick if unfettered elections were to be held in the South given present trend lines.
6. 6 The Cheney visit/pressure/promises to get this group to sign off on the election law included a promise of support on changing the political facts on the ground in the South via high explosives....

From assumptions 1 through 5, one concludes that Maliki's political position is weak. Given current trends he looks to get weaker over the next eight months going into the local elections. His allies and government are discredited for not being able to provide basic public goods and for being seen as too pro-Iranian and pro-American by too many interested actors. Furthermore, he is behaving as a good weak client by making sure as much money is out of the country in order to fund his potential exile.

One of his big problems is that the Sadrists will beat him politically and can go even with him on the corruption and distribution of spoils. So he has to take down Sadr or at least massively rejigger the political equation. And this offensive is his attempt to do so, and it has two interesting option trees. The first is that it actually works in defeating and seizing (intact) the Basra oil export profit center. This allows for a zero-sum transfer of spoils from Sadrists to Maliki's coalition while also embarrassing and weakening the Mahdi Army and enhancing the prestige and loyalty of Badr loyal units. This is very unlikely for multiple reasons. The other option tree is far more interesting.

Let us assume that this is a deliberate provocation exercise.

In this scenario the Iraqi Army attack into Basra's Mahdi neighborhoods does not go well, but it provokes a national Sadrist response which starts a strategic countdown clock. This count down clock includes increased Sadrist/JAM actions against Iraqi government and US Forces such as rocket/mortar attacks on the Green Zone, and attacks against the oil export infrastructure. It includes concerns over US logistics lines as the combination of Basra shutting down and general insecurity in the Shi'ite bridge cities increases.

It puts MNF-I in a very tough position as MNF-I is justifiably paranoid about its supply lines and the new routes coming in from Jordan to Anbar and terminating near Baghdad are insufficient to adequately supply the entire force. The supply lines are much harder to hit today than they were in 2004 but they are still the weak point of the American presence. Additionally the level of fighting increases significantly so SOMETHING HAS TO BE DONE.

And that something could be the deployment of American combat troops to Basra, as reports indicate that Marines may be sent to Southern Iraq. The British could provide logistic base security as the Marines bail out the Iraqi Army and take over patrolling activities in Basra. And unless the live and let live arrangment that minimized conflict in Sadr City is quickly put into place, the Marines and the Sadrists will be knocking each others heads in. There will be a strong temptation on the Sadrists fighters to horizontally escalate and raise the level of their activities and attacks in other southern cities. This will be a good test to see how much control Sadr and other senior leadership really have over JAM activities or if they just provide strategic guidance.

If there is horizontal escalation of fighting to other southern cities, two things will happen. The first is that implicit working relationship that MNF-I has been building with elements of the Sadrist movement is scuttled. The second is that the South is now too unstable to have free and fear elections due to those 'thugs' and that elections are suspended until peace breaks out (and coincidentally Sadr and his followers are either killed or de-legitimized. )

This is pure speculation, but as Cernig points out in his post on this subject, everyone is looking for informed speculation as to motive.

Maliki decided to launch the offensive without consulting his U.S. allies, according to administration officials. With little U.S. presence in the south, and British forces in Basra confined to an air base outside the city, one administration official said that "we can't quite decipher" what is going on. It's a question, he said, of "who's got the best conspiracy" theory about why Maliki decided to act now.

And this is not that outlandish of a conspiracy theory as there are few hard to reconcile with reality assumptions in it.

The Knight's Move

By Cernig

Earlier today, Fester wondered why Maliki has gone charging into a city of 2.6 million after a numerous and entrenched Mahdi Army - armed only with a division of troops possessing no heavy firepower and only lightly armored trucks. He wrote:

why was this attacked launched with what looks to be massively insuffucient force levels on the part of the Iraqi Army? Was it pure staff stupidity/buying into your own propaganda that the JAM is a bunch of thugs with no popular support? Was it that the 14th Division was the only reliable division? Was it a hope that the introduction of a large force would destablize the local equilibriums of power and thus prompt local Badr and Fadillah militia attacks?

Fester called me this evening to discuss these questions and we settled on a combination of "the 14th Division was the only reliable division" - it's recruited in Basra, commanded by SIIC loyalists and has been based in Kerbala until now - and an option he hadn't listed earlier - that Maliki planned to draw the US into the fight on his side and move his own troops back into a PR/reserve position at the earliest opportunity.

Maliki christened his offensive the "Charge of the Knights" - and in chess, beloved game of all in the region, knight's move to come at the enemy from unexpected directions. By failing to commit enough forces to fight the Mahdi Army, his operation is certain to need rescuing if his government is not to fall in turn. The US cannot, with the best will in the world, commit more than a brigade or maybe three. That's way not enough to take on a force like the Mahdi Army in a city the size of basra through boots on the ground - and so firepower, bombs and shells will be pressed into service to do the work of the missing boots. Can we say "massive collateral damage?"

What better way not only to wreck the Sadrist's plans to reduce Maliki's SIIC allies to a minority power in the regional elections but also to drive a massive wedge between Sadr and Petreaus? The latter had been careful, of late, to refer to Sadr by the honorific "Seyed" and to credit his ceasefire with a large chunk of reductions in Iraqi violence. Maliki must have felt Mookie breathing down his neck from two directions.

Well, soon no longer. The Washington Post reports that US troops are already involved in combat with the JAM in east Baghdad.

U.S. forces in armored vehicles battled Mahdi Army fighters Thursday in Sadr City, the vast Shiite stronghold in eastern Baghdad, as an offensive to quell party-backed militias entered its third day. Iraqi army and police units appeared to be largely holding to the outskirts of the area as American troops took the lead in the fighting.

Four U.S. Stryker armored vehicles were seen in Sadr City by a Washington Post correspondent, one of them engaging Mahdi Army militiamen with heavy fire. The din of American weapons, along with the Mahdi Army's AK-47s and rocket-propelled grenades, was heard through much of the day. U.S. helicopters and drones buzzed overhead.

The clashes suggested that American forces were being drawn more deeply into a broad offensive that Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, a Shiite, launched in the southern city of Basra on Tuesday.

And, according to the WaPo, the folks in the White House have been trying to figure out what Maliki's been up to as well.

Maliki decided to launch the offensive without consulting his U.S. allies, according to administration officials. With little U.S. presence in the south, and British forces in Basra confined to an air base outside the city, one administration official said that "we can't quite decipher" what is going on. It's a question, he said, of "who's got the best conspiracy" theory about why Maliki decided to act now.

In Basra, three rival Shiite groups have been trying to position themselves, sometimes through force of arms, to dominate recently approved provincial elections.

The U.S. officials, who were not authorized to speak on the record, said that they believe Iran has provided assistance in the past to all three groups -- the Mahdi Army; the Badr Organization of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, Iraq's largest Shiite party; and forces loyal to the Fadhila Party, which holds the Basra governor's seat. But the officials see the current conflict as a purely internal Iraqi dispute.

Some officials have concluded that Maliki himself is firing "the first salvo in upcoming elections," the administration official said.

"His dog in that fight is that he is basically allied with the Badr Corps" against forces loyal to Sadr, the official said. "It's not a pretty picture."

As long as Maliki has the US to back him up, and power is more important to him than stability, this is a big gamble he cannot afford not to make. Sure, if he succeeds he gets a Sadrist insurrection. But that just means he can - delay the November elections in Sadrist areas indefinitely, citing the emergency and so prop up his SIIC allies and thus his own rule; count on US troops being around for a while as they won't be able to withdraw if there's more violence, rather than less, in coming months; put paid once and for all to any chance of reproachment between the US military and Sadr. On the minus side, there's a slim chance the Mahdi Army might mount a Hezboullah-style upset and a rather larger chance that the cat-herder, Sistani, might join with Iraqi parliamentarians who are already saying Maliki should heed Sadr's call for a negotiated settlement. If Sistani backs Sadr on this, Maliki is toast and so is his government, with Sadr garnering enough backing to become de-facto Iraqi leader almost overnight. But if he did nothing, that's going to happen anyway come November. Maliki doesn't have a choice if he wants to retain power.

For Sadr, the stakes are the destruction of his carefully built up social and political infrastructure, more than his militia. There's no way SIIC would stop at just defeating the Mahdi Army, they'd want Sadr's whole operation destroyed or disabled to the point where it's no longer a threat. Sadr knows the US military likely has the firepower, if not the troop numbers, to do the first and his Shiite enemies will do it the second as soon as the first step is out of the way. If he can negotiate a settlement, especially if Sistani backs it, he wins in the same way that Maliki, Dawa and SIIC lose above.

For the US, it's a bit of a lose-lose. If they use massive firepower instead of boots, they'll incur the wrath of much of the Shiite South well beyond the Sadrists. It will be Anbar at its worst, writ large, and this time lying athwart the main route of supply. If they lose in battle to a Hezboullah-style resistance, same again.

And over the US' shoulder, there are several other problems all looking to come to a head at once. There's the increasingly disaffected Sunni Awakening, threatening a general strike or even a return to their insurgent ways in the face of Maliki's refusal to accommodate them (ironically, Sadr would be far more likely to conduct the outreach that is needed). Then there's the Kurds and the brewing blood-feud over who owns Kirkuk. And finally, when the ground in the Northern mountains thaws in April and May, the Turks are looking to follow up their recent reconnaissance in force with a proper armored incursion on the hunt for PKK terrorists. There's a very real prospect here of chaotically and accidentally converging currents creating a perfect storm for the US occupation and for peace in Iraq.

US Ship Shoots At Small Boat In Suez Canal

By Cernig

The US Fifth Fleet is co-operating in the Egyptian investigation of an incident in the Suez canal after dark on Monday. The Egyptian authorities say that one man was killed by fire from the US-flagged Global Patriot, under contract to the US military, but the American embassy in Cairo says that "Initial reports from the “Global Patriot” indicate that no casualties were sustained on either vessel." The embassy's website describes the encounter:

The “Global Patriot,” a ship on short term charter to the US Navy’s Military Sealift Command, fired warning shots at a small boat approaching the ship as it was preparing to transit the Suez Canal Monday evening. Initial reports from the “Global Patriot” indicate that no casualties were sustained on either vessel.

The “Global Patriot” was approached by several boats while preparing to transit the Suez Canal. The boats were hailed and warned by a native Arabic speaker using a bullhorn to warn them to turn away. A warning flare was then fired. One small boat continued to approach the ship and received two sets of warning shots 20-30 yards in front of the bow. All shots were accounted for as they entered the water.

The incident is under investigation. The US Navy’s Fifth Fleet Command is cooperating fully with Egyptian authorities, including the Suez Canal Authority and other local authorities, as well as the national authorities through the US Embassy in Cairo.

But the BBC reports:

Egyptian officials and witnesses say a man aboard the boat, Mohammed Fouad, was killed as his boat approached the ship in order to offer goods for sale. Two other men were injured, they say.

This is also the version of events reported by the official Egyptian news agency, citing preliminary reports.

Egyptian sources say Fouad's body was taken to a hospital morgue and then a mosque to await burial on Tuesday.

"We are praying over his body right now," Abbas al-Amrikani, the head of the union of seamen in Suez, told AP news agency, over audible sounds of prayer.

"I saw the body. The bullet entered his heart and went out the other side."

There's certainly a difference in accounts there.

The roll-on-roll-off Global Patriot and its owners, Global Container Lines, have done several charters for the U.S. military and other U.S. governmental bodies, including USAID food relief and transporting a Patriot missile battery. This time, they were carrying US military equipment (i.e. vehicles, given the vessel type) back to the States for repair or disposal. As such, it seems likely to me they'd have some form of security on board rather than just relying on armed crewmen.

So here's the question not being asked - were the shooters crewmen, US military servicemen or security contractors? These early reports (denial even in the face of a body and eyewitness accounts) are reminiscent to me of Blackwater's infamous shoot-up in Baghdad which caused so much controversy and occasioned a US State Dept. attempt at a cover-up.

Murtha's Mind

By Cernig

I see John Murtha has endorsed Clinton (via CFLF). It's being played as a valuable endorsement - "bringing his clout as a 17-term member of the House and a prominent anti-war Democrat to bear with more than a month until the primary here in his home state".

But I have to tell you I entertain a heresy - I don't trust Big John. It's a heresy I've come to slowly after previously supporting a couple of his amendments on Iraq-related bills. I've noticed that, for all his anti-war talk, often when there's a Democratic bil or resolution that would use the power of the purse or Congressional legislation to curb Bush's wanton spending of American blood and treasure to protect a bunch of Iran's closest pals in Iraq's Green Zone, Murtha steps in with a competing amendment. One that lets the Republicans attack both Murtha's version and the original as defeatist and then both his and the original go down in flames because Bush Dogs get scared of being called softies. It's just the timing I question. That and the way Murtha is anti-war but gets more funding from, and sends more pork to, defense contractors than any other politician. Always follow the money.

Prediction: Obama Will Win In Texas

By Cernig

I think Obama's going to win the Texas primary, for no other reason than that his campaign has worked harder.

This is all anecdotal, I know, but in the last couple of weeks I've seen one Clinton ad on TV and we've had no calls from the Clinton campaign. In the same period I've seen Obama ads a half dozen times and our household has recieved almost a score of phone calls from his campaign. Not just robocalls, but on three occassions actual volunteers. I had a great converstaion with one guy who wasn't at all a part of some Obama cult - he was just very aware that for all Obama's flaws it's a choice between him, Clinton's dirty campaigning, and McCain's Bush redux act.

Clinton seems to have relied on her husband's historic support among Hispanic voters down here in the SouthWest of the state - but they've noticed the disparity in campaign activity too. I've spoken to several Hispanics who aren't too happy about being "taken for granted" by the Clintons.

There's no doubt in my mind that Clinton's smear campaign doesn't speak well to how she might act on a world stage from the White House. But, I think that taking for granted and neglecting her base support also speaks volumes about the kind of President Hillary Clinton might be. Sitting in the Oval Office has never magically transformed anyone into a paragon of virtue.

Barack Blair Obama

By Cernig

I've been waxing vocal about Hillary's dirty tricks campaign this past couple of days, with the thesis that it actually hurts her more than it hurts Obama with voters who are pig-sick of such nonsense. So I really should note that the Obama campaign's recent grade-A nonsense about Hillary's mandate system for universal insurance meaning "they'll be coming after your wages". Criticisms of this attack on the grounds that it is simply regurgitating Republican talking points seem fair to me.

I've news for the Obama campaign - news that explains why every other Western nation has true universal healthcare and a universal mandate to contribute to that service via taxes or some other contribution format that amounts to the same thing. A truly universal healthcare system starts from the ethical premise that "from each according to their means, to each according to their needs". It's a basic plank of liberal thinking and I would say a basic plank of civilisation, a demand that those who wish membership in society put into it what they are able as well as get from it from they need to remain a functioning contributor. If you don't want to contribute to the general social wellbeing to the limits of your ability as determined by that society, don't bother calling 911 or sending the military to do your ideological grunt-work. You have another option which is perfectly acceptable - opt out. Build a compound somewhere in the backwoods and don't come running to the rest of us if things don't work out in your libertarian utopia. If not, then of course they'll be coming after your wages! Just pick the method you prefer - and remember that a tax may well mean you end up paying less for more than you already do by the insurance premiums that you already pay.

This kind of fancy footwork on such basic issues from the Obama campaign is why I've described him as the American Tony Blair - an astute political machinator carefully re-framing as "bi-partisan" whatever stance he thinks will win him most votes, whether or not it agrees with what should be the core beliefs of his policymaking. He's trying to be all things to as many of the people as possible all of the time. It's a successful strategy for a politician who wants to win a national election but it gives no confidence that once in office he will have any ethical touchstones whatsoever. As we Brits discovered too late with Blair, he just wanted power.

But if the Clinton campaign want to attack Obama, they have to do so on specifics - as in the case with their defense of his attack on her healthcare plan. The Clinton's already have a reputation for dirty campaigning and to avoid being dragged down by that repuation Clinton will have to be cleaner than the rest - some thing she has failed to do so far.

I'll help with another case in point.

Yesterday diarist Helenann at Daily Kos responded to general smears about Obama's alleged lack of legislative experience by listing the 570 bills Obama had sponsored or co-sponsored, of which 15 had become law.

Fair enough as far as it goes but she didn't give any details on what kinds of policy prescriptions were contained in those bills. So I picked one I thought might be informative - a bill signed into law to amend the Patriot Act - and looked. I found that S. 2167 was a bill to "amend the USA PATRIOT ACT to extend the sunset of certain provisions of that Act and the lone wolf provision of the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 to July 1, 2006." It was sponsored by Sen. John Sununu [R-NH] and had 31 co-sponsors including Obama. The summary of the bill says:

Amends the Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism (USA PATRIOT ACT) Act of 2001 to extend from December 31, 2005, to February 3, 2006, provisions of that Act and the "lone wolf" provision of the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004. (The lone wolf provision redefined "agent of a foreign power" to permit issuance of Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (FISA) orders targeting terrorists without a showing that they are members of a terrorist group or agents of such a group or of any other foreign power.)

Now, if I'm reading that "Lone Wolf" provision correctly it says that the administration doesn't have to prove someone is a terrorist, it just says they are and everyone agrees to believe them. Which makes a mockery of probable cause when asking for FISA warrants since warrants to tap terrorists' phones are always going to be granted but the administration doesn't have to prove the person named is a terrorist if he might be a "lone wolf".

One wonders why Obama and a whole slew of Dem Senators including Dodd fell over themselves to co-sponsor a bill to extend such a provision for even a measly three months, given their later stance on the importance of FISA warrants and the rule of law. Clinton was also a co-sponsor of the bill but she could argue that her position is internally consistent over time and legislation - even if it isn't all that liberal. Obama's clearly is not.

Secret Service slack on Obama security

By Libby

When I first read about this yesterday my first thought was about those three people who got kicked out of a Bush rally for having a innocuous bumper sticker on their car. Didn't it say something like "No blood for oil?" It seems hard to believe the same agency can blithely discount concerns about their failure to provide adequate screening for Obama's rallies.

To have it happen in Dallas, obviously also brings to mind the Kennedy assassination but what's more troubling is that this has commonly occurred all over the country. I assume the taxpayer is footing the bill for this sham security and what's the point of screening at all if they allow thousands to enter at the last minute without even a cursory check?

I find it particularly unnerving that this comes on the heels of a growing murmur of speculation that Obama poses an attractive target for an assassination attempt. I, for one, would be curious to know if this security scam is also the policy for all the candidates or if for some reason, Obama is only one whose rallies are inadequately unsecured. Seems to me they have more stringent security at a ball game than this. I don't see any possible justification for it.

France's New First Lady

By Cernig



I know that's a gratuitous pic, but c'mon, imagine if that was the wife of a US or UK political leader up there. It's Carla Bruni, fiancee to conservative French president Nicholas Sarkozy, wearing a wedding band and kinky boots in the february edition of a French mag. The French really are a lot less uptight than the rest of us. (Via the Daily Mail)

If we all promise to vote for Dennis Kucinich, do you think Elizabeth...nah.

Sign Of The Times?

By Cernig

The Las Vegas Sun had an interesting look-back at the Nevada caucuses on Sunday. It seems many indy and Republican voters were re-registering as Dems.

Perhaps the biggest winner in Saturday’s caucus will be the state Democratic Party. Judging from observations by Sun reporters at precincts across the state, many voters who had been registered as independents or Republicans declared themselves Democrats.

Caucuses are intended to enrich political parties in advance of general elections. Despite the intramural elbow-throwing among the competing Democratic campaigns, Saturday’s caucus may embolden the state party as it heads into the national election in November.

...many Republican leaders took notice of what the Democratic Party had created.

“Whichever Republican nominee survives will have to take a hard look at what Democrats accomplished in the last 12 months, and will have to put a lot of resources on the ground here,” said Robert Uithoven, a veteran Republican consultant.

Whether newly registered Democrats reflect a one-day spike or will remain loyal to the party is the next question. Some Republicans think that if Clinton is the nominee, lost party members might return to the fold.

“If we have a good Republican candidate, the pendulum swings,” said Pete Ernaut, chairman of the Nevada Republican caucus. “If Hillary is the nominee, the chances of keeping crossover registration is much less likely.”

...Barack Obama, in particular, targeted Elko, in a county where 24 percent of voters were registered Democrats. In August, 900 people turned out to hear him speak; last week he drew about 1,300 people, filling a high school gymnasium.

Among his supporters: former Republican Rita Todd, a 50-year-old caregiver who said she’d stick with the party and support Clinton should she win the party nomination in Denver.

This via intrepid and tireless researcher, Kat, who is suspicious of what's going on and writes "somebody tell Kos that two parties can play this game."

So what do you think? Signs of a groundswell movement towards a Dem candidate? If so, would it survive a Clinton nomination? Republican dirty tricks to get Clinton nominated as the more beatable candidate?

15 Year Old Boy Arrested, Implicated In Bhutto Plot

By Cernig

The AP reports Pakistani authorities as saying they've made a breakthrough in the Bhutto assassination case:

A 15-year-old detained near the Afghan border has confessed to joining a team of assassins sent to kill Benazir Bhutto, officials said Saturday, announcing the first arrests in the case since the attack that killed the opposition leader.

...Interior Secretary Kamal Shah confirmed the arrest of two people in the town of Dera Ismail Khan in North West Frontier province, and said one — a teenage boy — had confessed involvement in the Dec. 27 attack that killed Bhutto. He said interrogators were trying to get corroborating testimony from the other detainee before accepting the confession.

Is it just me that thinks that's because it is taking longer to torture a quite possible false confession out of the grown man than it did the 15 year old boy? Just how seriously can we take this claim?

In North West Frontier province, a senior intelligence official said the 15-year-old suspect in the Bhutto assassination told investigators that a five-person squad was dispatched to Rawalpindi, where Bhutto was killed, by Baitullah Mehsud, a militant leader with strong ties to al-Qaida and an alliance with the Taliban in nearby Afghanistan.

The official, who asked not to be named because he was not authorized to speak to the media, said the boy was arrested Thursday and was also involved in a plot to attack Shiites during the Ashoura festival on Sunday.

the plot, it seems, involved dumping a "small quantity" of cyanide into the public water supply. It's unclear just how effective such a move would be, since the Rawalpindi municipal water supply (about 200 million litres per day) would dilute the cyanide greatly and the oral lethal dose is in the order of 7 miligrams per kilo of body weight or about half a gram for an average person. Do the math - to be sure of lethal doses you aren't talking about "small quantities".

In Dera Ismail Khan, a town 170 miles southwest of Islamabad where the teenager was arrested, a district police commander said the suspect had made "a sensational disclosure." The officer also asked not to be named because of the sensitivity of the matter.

But Maulvi Mohammed Umar, a purported spokesman for Mehsud, dismissed the report. "It is just government propaganda ... we have already clarified that we are not involved in the attack on Benazir Bhutto."

The CIA concluded that Mehsud was behind Bhutto's killing shortly after it occurred, an American intelligence official has said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.

Since CIA director Michael Hayden is already on record as saying Mehsud was responsible, it's very unclear why some other official feels the need to confirm his opinion while remaining anonymous, unless it's because press types love their cloak-and-dagger exclusives so much. The fact remains, however, that others within the US intelligence community aren't as certain as Hayden about who ordered Bhutto's killing and believe Musharraf's government is blaming one of its biggest internal rivals (who helpfully has ties to the taliban and very distant ties through them to Al Qaeda) to dupe the West and Pakistani opinion.

All in all, an incredibly convenient tale with some serious questions hanging over it that, as is depressingly common, went unasked by the stenographers of the mainstream press.

Waging war against the past

by shamanic

One big difference between Dems and Republicans, as illustrated nicely by this post, is that the right seems to always be waging a war against the 1960s.

I wasn't alive in the 1960s. The issues that I'm concerned about are the issues of today. The advocacy I engage in is for the future, not to try to rewrite someone's opinion of the past.

It's no real surprise that young people have departed the GOP in droves lately. I'm 31, and I'd guess there are a lot of under-40s who can't for the life of them figure out what the hell the GOP is all about these days. The 60s? That's so... 1969.

A Scottish Lesson For U.S. Progressives

By Cernig

Over at The Left Coaster, paradox is making a case for staying with the Dems (who are now supping more juice from the military/industrial complex than Republicans). He writes:

I have looked high and low, near and far, with microscopes and telescopes, I talked to Jesus and the Gypsies, I read history and political science, and there is no other way. Believe you me after this last year if there were another alternative I’d be freaking taking it, yeah.

We are the party, the party is us, it’s our duty to change it, and there is no other alternative.

As I read, it struck me that the Democratic party at the moment is not unlike Scotland a year back - ruled by an entrenched elite who had become corrupted by corporate back-rubs and a belief in their entitlement to power. Think of the Scottish Labour Party as the current spineless and triangulating Dem leadership who will do or say anything to keep power but have few actual principles.

Then, along came Alex Salmond of the Scottish National Party and a split in the democratic socialist consensus which had kept Labour in power in Scotland for decades. The SNP won over Labour by only one seat in the general election and were expected to lose out to the previous status-quo of a Labour/Liberal coalition. But through sheer determination and by ensuring none of the Labour party's more far Right rivals would support the status quo, they are now the party of government. Think of the SNP as the progressive almost-majority inside the Democratic party's broad-ish tent.

How are progressives going to turn around the Democratic Party? The same way Salmond turned around Scotland's political scene.

The Scottish Herald's veteran political reporter, Iain Macwhirter, takes up the story:

Salmond has created a new form of progressive nationalism, unlike anything seen in Europe in the past three decades. The image of nationalism as a backward and narrow-minded political force, preoccupied with ethnicity and hostile to foreigners, has finally been dispelled. The SNP has made a reverse takeover of the Scottish social democratic consensus that Labour has presided over for the past half-century.

Instead of the SNP being blown away by the unionist majority, Labour were almost blown away by the sheer verve of Salmond's hyperactive administration. Labour end this annus horribilis in a terrible state, with a leadership crisis and a donations scandal. The new Labour leader, Wendy Alexander, has failed to offer any intellectual challenge to Alex Salmond's populist nationalism, and the party organisation is disintegrating.

Labour have feigned opposition to SNP initiatives on issues such as bridge tolls, prescription charges, graduate endowment, and then ended up supporting them. In fact, it is hard to find much that the nationalists have done in the past nine months that Labour really oppose as a matter of principle. They even support Donald Trump's blessed golf course. The truth is that the SNP were doing a lot of things that Labour MSPs would have liked to do, but couldn't because of the London connection.

Despite being only one seat behind the SNP, Labour have yet to mount any coherent opposition in Holyrood, and have ceded the initiative on many key issues - such as police numbers, trams, class sizes - to the Tories and the Liberal Democrats. Even on the constitution, the Labour Party has now joined with the SNP and the Liberal Democrats and - incredibly - the Tories to campaign via a constitutional convention for more powers for Holyrood.

For the first time, all the parties in the Scottish parliament are committed to further constitutional change, including taxation. Nothing could better demonstrate just how much things have changed in Scotland in the past year than the fact that there is now no-one arguing for the constitutional status quo.

And who could possibly have forecast, 12 months ago, that nationalists would not only be in power in Scotland, but also in Northern Ireland and in Wales. Progressive nationalism is now the most potent political force in Britain.

Alex Salmond may have been radical in office, but in one sense he has been profoundly conservative. He has become a Privy Councillor and insisted that Queen Elizabeth II will remain head of state of an independent Scotland. The SNP are now talking about the "social union" with England remaining, even when Scotland wins political independence. This is a recognition, I believe, that the UK still has a future, and that the SNP has come to terms with the modern world. Whether the modern world has come to terms with Alex Salmond remains to be seen.

Or, as Napoleon would have it "l'audace, toujours l'audace."

Progressives keep observing how supine the Democratic elite is in opposition to Republicans but then seem to believe that they are far more active in opposition to progressivism in their own party. Somehow I doubt that's true - it's far more likely to be reflexive and just as likely to buckle if progressives stop being scared of the elite's money and safe sinecure seats to instead seize policy initiatives. I believe Reid's punt on the telecom immunity was just such a show of weakness in the face of progressive policy with a popular push behind it, but the elite should be given no chance to catch its collective breath. Sure, a charismatic leader who can push progressive policy without talking about UFOs would be handy - but in the absence of such a leader (check where the candidates get their campaign money) hundreds or thousands can do the work of one.

Leaders Who Believe

By Cernig

Matthew Parris of the London Times, voted ConservativeHome readers' favourite columnist in 2006, has some news for you - only two of the UK's leaders in the last two centuries have been strong Christians.

Churchill wasn't one of them. Neither was that other idol of U.S. Republican hawks Maggie T.

So what's with the obvious claptrap that freedom and religion go hand in gland?

The Four Horsemen On Video

By Cernig

Imagine that the four authors who have received most media attention for their writings against religion - Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens - produced a 2-hour video of them discussing "the tough questions about religion that face to world today" and proposing "new strategies for going forward".

Now suppose that prceeed from the sale of this video will go to the Ayaan Hirsi Ali Security Trust.

Now imagine conservofundie heads exploding as they try to decide whether to hate the atheism or love the donations to their favorite anti-Islamic European.

Luvverly.

Omaha Musings

To the left is a picture of Richard Hawkins, the teen who walked into a mall in Omaha, Nebraska yesterday and shot dead nine people. He wrote in his suicide note that he wanted to be famous.

Bar a fleeting couple of days and a footnote in a couple of textbooks, he's unlikely to get his wish. The killing of nine people by a teenager with an assault rifle just isn't that remarkable in America anymore, it seems. Over at Memeorandum today, for instance, there's not a single blog post on the subject listed.

Have we become so immune to tragedy? Have we become complacent about the ease and frequency with which such events occur?

If Hawkins had been a convert to Islam, or an immigrant, rightwing bloggers would have found room for a post or several among their musings about Romney's electability and Bolton's paranoid fantasies. If Hawkins had been a regular poster at Free Republic or a prominent gun advocate, leftwing blogs would have found room between speculation about how long Bush knew about the latest NIE or how electable Hillary is.

Nine people are dead and it seems to me that no-one cares the day afterwards because there's no angle to serve their own agendas. Or perhaps because the very frequency of such events means they're all written out about their own agendas and can't be bothered revisiting the arguments again.

Let's revisit those arguments, not just this time but every time. Here's mine.

Two thirds of all murders in the U.S. are committed using a gun. I understand that gun advocates say not having guns for self-protection just makes matters worse - all the guns are then owned by criminals - and point to Britain's strict gun laws and own problems with gun crime as evidence. I understand that there's a big tradition of hunting with guns in the U.S. too. Britain doesn't have the wilderness or the game to have the same level of hunting so their isn't as large a pressure from that lobby. I see some possible merits in their arguments, intellectually, even though I'm emotionally opposed to gun ownership (I was in Dunblane on 13th March 1996).

But for the sake of innocents, can we at least agree that tighter controls on gun ownership and the security of guns in the home are needed? Hawkins apparently "borrowed" a fully automatic assault rifle from an adult. That just shouldn't be so easy to do. Actually, can we just agree that letting the ban on assault rifles lapse was a stupid thing to do? I don't really give a flying f**k if only the criminals will have assault rifles. Mostly, they shoot them at each other. Criminals don't walk into malls or classrooms and let fly at random.

Let There Be No-Brainer Light

By Cernig

I saw a report from Iraq recently in which a military type explained how they'd brought solar-powered streetlighting to a major town because it was a "no-brainer" given Iraq's large natural reserve of sunshine and the poor quality of the electrical grid. It saves generated power in barrel-loads, cuts oil dependency and it's also environmentally friendly. I think the town was Fallujah - if someone could remember where I saw this and provide a link I'd be greatful because I've entirely forgotten.

But, if it's such a no-brainer, why isn't it being done in Texas, Arizona, Florida, California etc?

It's surely doubtful that there's some technical reason why what's done in Fallujah can't be done in Tucson. Is it just about utility company profits - more corporate welfare? Or is it that the no-brainers in charge haven't heard of this no-brainer idea yet?

The Bush Administration's Voice Of Sanity

By Cernig

From the department of "old news is good news" - The walrus-faced one, John Bolton, still wants to bomb Iran yesterday, and Bob Gates is still saying no.

Right now, Gates is seen as the best insurance that the Bush administration (read: Vice President Cheney) will not leave a legacy of ashes in Iran. According to many former and current government officials who have conferred with Gates publicly and privately, he takes the conventionally accepted view that Iran should not be allowed to build nuclear weapons. He pointedly refuses to rule out military force while calling for more-effective economic sanctions. But the secretary of Defense has also told associates that bombing Iran would create chaos in the oil region, unleash terrorism on Europe and possibly the United States, and serve to strengthen, not weaken, the fragile and fractious Iranian regime—while only postponing for a year or two its nuclear ambitions.

To avoid that scenario, Gates has used his considerable bureaucratic skills to lower the temperature on Iran. He has cautioned military commanders in the Gulf to guard against the risk of accidents that might give a provocation for war—the capture of a pilot, say, or a collision at sea. In recent weeks U.S. commanders in Baghdad have intentionally sought to praise Tehran for being more cooperative in Iraq. According to two separate sources who declined to be identified discussing military plans, Gates has also pared down strike options against Iran, cutting the targets to its nuclear facilities alone. It is a mistake to make too much of this—the military is constantly being asked to devise new options for civilian authorities. But Gates has also allowed the top brass to make public their qualms about attacking Iran, which makes it that much harder for the White House to steamroll them. This is classic Gates: no noisy confrontations with the likes of Cheney, just low-key, pragmatic steps to avoid sparking a conflagration.

...On the surface, Gates (sometimes called "the anti-Rumsfeld") is principally different from his predecessor in that he doesn't try to dominate and end-run Rice, who, as national-security adviser in Bush's first term, was outmaneuvered and sometimes bullied by the then secretary of Defense. Gates and Rice are friendly and collegial. But Gates exerts a subtle influence on Rice. "He was her boss," former career diplomat James Dobbins points out. In the Bush 41 White House, Rice worked for Gates, who was then deputy national-security adviser. More to the point, she and the president know that it would be impossible, or nearly so, to attack Iran without the support of Gates, for the simple reason that he stands in the chain of command to the military forces that would be used to do the fighting.

Thank heavens for Bob Gates, even if I don't agree with him on everything. I'd feel way happier about any Republican nominee who had the balls to draft him as their pick for SecDef should they win the White House race.

Keep Clicking The Links

By Cernig

I'm told, by Sean-Paul at the Agonist, James Joyner and Kevin Drum among others, that Newshoggers readers are great at clicking links. Despite our comparatively small readership, A-list folks like Kevin, James and Sean-Paul notice in their sitemeter statistics that you're following the link to their original post. If we cite an article, news report or blog post you don't just take our word for it - you check for yourselves (and often come back to disagree with us in comments!).

Which is nice for us, as we frequently find we're punching above our weight in who, rather than how many. Thanks. We're very happy to have such a well-informed, sceptical and enquiring audience.

However, it seems to me that many conservative websites don't have such healthily enquiring readers. As an example, I wrote a post yesterday about the announced plan for US permanent bases in Iraq with the last line being "And staying was the plan all along." That last line got picked up by Curt at Flopping Aces as an example of how the whinging lefties were wailing. His post, with the link intact, was blockquoted by other wingnut blogs. Between them, they had maybe four times Newshoggers readership. The total number of inbounds from those blogs, checking to see if that one throwaway line was all there was? Five.

Somehow, I suspect there's a connection between that incurious trust in their echo-chamber and the NRCC's failure to find any independently creative minds willing to make You-Tube ads for the Republicans.

Those who originally supported the invasion of Iraq but are still capable of independent thought are admitting, though, that the dirty, smelly hippies had it right all along.

Prosecuting the troops - Updated

by shamanic

It breaks my heart to think about what will eventually happen to a number of US military and intelligence personnel who, as the NYT piece puts it, made decisions in the "heat-of-battle" and followed the orders they were given.

So to discuss, what do you think should happen when the next Democratic administration takes over? Should a Dem-appointed AG prosecute US personnel for torturing detainees, or should a Dem president simply instruct the impacted agencies to purge what I suspect is a large number of personnel who engaged in illegal-but-approved practices under George W. Bush? Are there other options you'd like to see? I know we'd all like to see Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld prosecuted, but what are the odds of that?

Update: A Sullivan reader notes that several layers of immunity have been granted by the idiots in Congress. I'm still curious how folks would like to see these issues remedied by future administrations.