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POPSThe Growing Hunger for Political Shallowness Author Robert Harris has some biting words about the political situation we find ourselves in today. Robert Harris' new novel features a once-popular former British prime minister who becomes fiercely criticized for collaborating with the United States in the war on terror. The character's name is Adam Lang, not Tony Blair, but otherwise the similarities are unmistakable. Full interview here .
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POPSIraq: A Game With No Winners They just have to outlast the other player. Following this strategy, the two hapless students usually run the bid up several dollars, turning the apparent shot at easy money into a ghastly battle of spiraling disaster. Theoretically, there is no stable outcome once the dynamic gets going. The only clear limit is the exhaustion of one of the player's total funds. In the classroom, the auction generally ends with the grudging decision of one player to "irrationally" accept the larger loss and get out of the terrible spiral. Economists call the dollar auction pattern an irrational escalation of commitment. We might also call it the war in Iraq. (Via Andrew Sullivan .)
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POPSIraq’s Curse: A Thirst for Final, Crushing Victory A bloodthirsty sectarian war centuries in the making has only just begun. It's going to get much worse before it gets better. Caught in the middle of the civil war are the Americans. To Iraq’s factions, they are the weakest of all the armed groups in one crucial respect: their will is ebbing and their time here is limited. That leaves Iraqis more motivated than ever to cling to their weapons, preparing for what many see as an inevitable plunge into the abyss. “Everyone — the Sunni, the Shia — is playing the waiting game,” an Iraqi leader told me over dinner at his home in the Green Zone. “They’re waiting out the Americans. Everyone is using time against you.”
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POPSSenate Report: Intelligence Predicted Iraq Problems in 2003 It's amazing what we're finding out now. The investigation reviewed assessments from a number of agencies but focused on two January 2003 papers from the National Intelligence Council: "Regional Consequences of Regime Change in Iraq" and "Principal Challenges in Post-Saddam Iraq." Those papers drew from expertise within a number spy agencies and were distributed to scores of White House, national security, diplomatic and congressional officials - most of whom were listed in 81 pages of the Senate report. The full report (PDF) .
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POPSRe-Thinking The War Here's looking forward to a time when clips on America's reputation are more fitting for the nation we aspire to be. When the next major terrorist attack comes, the question will simply be how much liberty Americans have left. That is a victory al Qaeda could not have achieved by force of arms. It is something they have achieved with our witting and conscious help.
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POPSNegroponte to Resign from Intelligence Chief Role That didn't last long. The administration has had great difficulty filling the State Department position. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has asked several people who have turned down the post, according to senior State Department officials. But administration officials interviewed on Wednesday would not say whether Mr. Negroponte was moving because the White House saw him as uniquely qualified for the diplomatic post, or because President Bush was dissatisfied with his performance as intelligence chief, or whether it was a combination of the two.
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POPSThe Stick Figure Guide to Winning in Iraq As described in the article, the creator of this humorous, optimistic cartoon, a young Captain Travis Patriquin, was killed by an improvised explosive device in Iraq just last Wednesday. His creation has been circulating among the troops and, lately, across the internet. PDF version of the presentation .
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POPSLeaked White House Memo Questions Maliki's Competency “We returned from Iraq convinced we need to determine if Prime Minister Maliki is both willing and able to rise above the sectarian agendas being promoted by others,” the memo says. “Do we and Prime Minister Maliki share the same vision for Iraq? If so, is he able to curb those who seek Shia hegemony or the reassertion of Sunni power? The answers to these questions are key in determining whether we have the right strategy in Iraq.”
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POPSIs a damaged Administration less likely to attack Iran, or more? Must-read, in-depth article from Seymour Hersh on the lengthy lead-up to Rumsfeld's ouster (he was kept in the dark until the end!), what the new leadership of Secretary of Defense Gates might signal, the dwindling options Rumsfeld's war has left us in Iraq, and the renewed neoconservative clamor to invade Iran to make up for the loss in Iraq. (Double down on Tehran.) The Pentagon consultant said that he and many of his colleagues in the military believe that Iran is intent on developing nuclear-weapons capability. But he added that the Bush Administration’s options for dealing with that threat are diminished, because of a lack of good intelligence and also because "we’ve cried wolf" before.
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POPSSaddam Trial 'Fundamentally Flawed' Say US Observers “Judging Dujail” reports previously undocumented and serious procedural flaws in the trial, including: regular failure to disclose key evidence, including exculpatory evidence, to the defense in advance; violations of the defendants’ basic fair trial right to confront witnesses against them; lapses of judicial demeanor that undermined the apparent impartiality of the presiding judge; and important gaps in evidence that undermine the persuasiveness of the prosecution case, and put in doubt whether all the elements of the crimes charged were established. At stake is not only justice for hundreds of thousands of victims but, as at Nuremberg, the historical record itself.... Executing while other trials are ongoing will also deprive many thousands of victims of their day in court.
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POPSProminent conservative surveys the wreckage of contemporary conservatism The entire article is highly reccommended for those that want to trace the GOP's post-9/11 "stumble into neoconservatism" from an insider's perspective. Bramwell's honesty and way with words are refreshing. Until recently, it has been almost impossible for me to speak candidly about the conservative movement, for it was my strange fate to serve as director and later trustee of the movement’s flagship journal, National Review. Earlier this year, at William F. Buckley’s request, I resigned both positions. I can therefore now declare what perhaps has oft been thought but never, at least not often enough, expressed. Notwithstanding conservatives’ belief that they, in contrast to their partisan opponents, have thought deeply about the challenges facing the United States, it is they who have become unserious.
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POPSAmerican Conservative Magazine: GOP Must Go There may be little Americans can do to atone for this presidency, which will stain our country’s reputation for a long time. But the process of recovering our good name must begin somewhere, and the logical place is in the voting booth this Nov. 7. If we are fortunate, we can produce a result that is seen—in Washington, in Peoria, and in world capitals from Prague to Kuala Lumpur—as a repudiation of George W. Bush and the war of aggression he launched against Iraq.
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POPSRemember: Saddam Was Our Man NY Times OpEd from March 14, 2003. The United States also sent arms to the new regime, weapons later used against the same Kurdish insurgents the United States had backed against Kassem and then abandoned. Soon, Western corporations like Mobil, Bechtel and British Petroleum were doing business with Baghdad -- for American firms, their first major involvement in Iraq. This history is known to many in the Middle East and Europe, though few Americans are acquainted with it, much less understand it. Yet these interventions help explain why United States policy is viewed with some cynicism abroad. George W. Bush is not the first American president to seek regime change in Iraq. Mr. Bush and his advisers are following a familiar pattern.
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POPSSaddam Hussein Is Sentenced to Death International legal experts and human rights observers have questioned the impartiality of the trial court, which was created to try top leaders of the ousted government during the 15-month period of formal American occupation following the invasion in the spring of 2003. "We saw this trial, along with the others, as an opportunity to bring justice to those Iraqis who had suffered horribly under Baath Party rule," Richard Dicker, director of the international justice program at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement on Sunday. "Unfortunately, we believe the serious shortcomings in the fairness of the proceedings undermined the legitimacy and credibility of the trial."
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POPSWho's Planning to Vote for Whom Fifty percent of independent voters, a closely watched segment of the electorate in such polarized times, said they intended to vote for the Democratic candidate, versus 23 who said they would vote for a Republican.
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POPSArmy Times: "Time for Rumsfeld to go" Rumsfeld has lost credibility with the uniformed leadership, with the troops, with Congress and with the public at large. His strategy has failed, and his ability to lead is compromised. And although the blame for our failures in Iraq rests with the secretary, it will be the troops who bear its brunt.
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POPSConfessions of Evil Some look to the terrorist and call them evil. Others say it the liberal press that are evil. This guy has the right idea - he starts by looking in the mirror. Where do you look?
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POPSLeaked Military Chart Shows Iraq Bordering on "Chaos" The conclusions the Central Command has drawn from these trends are not encouraging, according to a copy of the slide that was obtained by The New York Times. The slide shows Iraq as moving sharply away from “peace,” an ideal on the far left side of the chart, to a point much closer to the right side of the spectrum, a red zone marked “chaos.” As depicted in the command’s chart, the needle has been moving steadily toward the far right of the chart.
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POPSIraq like Vietnam, says Bush Asked whether he agreed with Friedman's summary , Bush said, "He could be right. ... There's certainly a stepped-up level of violence, and we're heading into an election."
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POPSNew Poll: Democrats Open Up Giant Gap Before Midterm Elections Government corruption, Iraq and terrorism were the three most important issues to poll respondents. They said Democrats would do a better job on all three. The party had a 21-point advantage on handling corruption and a 17-point advantage on Iraq. A longstanding GOP advantage on terrorism vanished; Democrats had a 5-point edge. Yet another set of record-breaking poll results in.
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POPSTop Republican Senator Calls for Change in Iraq Strategy His comments underscored the growing misgivings of even senior Republicans about the situation in Iraq. They also appeared to be a warning to the Bush administration that it might have to consider different approaches after the November midterm elections.
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POPSPoll: Foley Sex Scandal Has Hurt GOP Election Prospects Iraq, meanwhile, is continuing to be a problem for the Republicans. Only 38% of respondents in the TIME poll now support President Bush's decision to invade Iraq, down from 42% three months ago. A similar number believe that the new Iraqi government will succeed in forming a stable democracy, while 59% believe this is unlikely. Almost two-thirds (65%) of respondents disapprove of President Bush's handling of the war, while 54% believe he "deliberately misled" Americans in making his case for war — a figure that has increased by 6 points over the past year. President Bush's overall approval rating, according to TIME's poll, now stands at just 36%, down from 38% in August.
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POPSUN: Torture in Iraq 'worse' now than it was under Saddam Also: Nowak, and the four other UN human rights experts who work with him, rejected denials by the US that people were tortured at Guantánamo in the past. The interrogation methods of prisoners authorized by US Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld constituted torture and the US administration was wrong to say there were no cases of torture committed at Guantánamo, told reporters. Asked about US allegations over the report's credibility since it was based on second-hand information, Mr. Nowak said this was not the case and the information gathered was based on first-hand information. Though they did not visit the centre, the rapporteurs interviewed former detainees, lawyers acting on behalf of detainees and US Government officials as well as consulting public records.
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POPSFitzpatrick (R-PA): Another GOP Candidate Throws Bush Under the Bus! This is the front page of a direct mailing flyer sent out to Congressman Mike Fitzpatrick's contituents in Philly. It says: "America needs a new plan for success in Iraq." ... Congressman Fitzpatrick says NO to both extremes: "NO TO PRESIDENT BUSH'S 'STAY THE COURSE' STRATEGY.... "AND NO TO PATRICK MURPHY'S 'CUT AND RUN' APPROACH." How many more Republicans will dare to break ranks with Bush/Cheney in the lead up to elections?
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POPS"Big Talk, Little Will" - Thomas Friedman (NY Times) August 16, 2006. Friedman asking the right questions again. Here we are in the biggest struggle of our lives and we are funding both sides — the U.S. military with our tax dollars and the radical Islamists and the governments and charities that support them with our gasoline purchases
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POPSIraq Culture Cheat Sheet Actually, it's called a "Smart Card", designed by the Federation of American Scientists and given to soldiers to be laminated and folded into handy pocket-size form. The entire document (including a guide to who-hates-who in Iraq and how surnames work) can be downloaded from their website . The Marine Corps Intelligence Activity released an updated version in May that's available in PDF form . These cards are nothing new. Similar ones were handed out during the Gulf War, Vietnam, and likely other engagments as well.
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POPSCato: Staying in Iraq 'Monumentally Bad Idea' Too bad it wasn't sooner, but Cato has been telling fellow conservatives what they don't want to hear for a while now. If you haven't read Cato's last quarterly letter, you should. Tucker Carlson managed to sit down long enough to write this straight-talking essay: The Decline and Fall of the Republican Party (PDF)
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POPSNew E&P Poll: Bush Worst President Since 1945 By a landslide! Bush was named by 34% of voters, followed by Richard Nixon at 17% and Bill Clinton at 16%....Leading the list for best President since 1945 is Ronald Reagan with 28%, and Clinton with 25%. (All comments welcome.)
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POPSRegretful former neocon Fukuyama audio interview A short piece on NPR. It's prudent to keep in mind that Fukuyama has his own agenda for breaking with the neocons (not the least of which, an upcoming book). And he also conveniently fails to mention his own key role in penning the manifestos that originally urged the US into war. But to hear him say things like calling Iraq a "clear bait-and-switch" is satisfying nonetheless.
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