Hilldog in Bosnia

LINK:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s2Z9o37FQI4

Veracifier did a great job sifting through all the clips to come up with a great summary of HRC's recent flap over sniper-fire in Bosnia.

Oh, and I love her new slogan:

SOLUTIONS FOR AMERICA

It sounds like a 4H club pitch.

Top US officials don't get the basics cuz they don't have to

John McCain's recent gaffe over Iranian-AQ connections is just one in a long series of post-9/11 misunderstandings that started with George Bush's revelation that there is more than one sect within Islam. Understanding the fundamental historical facts of a region in which over 150,000 US military personnel are deployed is essential, yet so many of our statesmen -- most notably the president -- seem to lack even a junior high school knowledge of the swarm of influences within the region: religion, general history, Islamism, Arabism, oil (maybe they get that one), colonialism, modern technology, the Shia revolt, etc. Ostensibly, this is stuff that could be briefed to a senator in less than an hour or two, and you'd think they would run into the terminology frequently from intelligence briefs, newspapers, committee meetings, citizens' letters,votes on the war, etc.

And so it is astounding to find Mr John "MAVERICK FROM TOP GUN" McCain making bold statements about AQ-Iranian connections 5 years into the second Gulf war.

The quote: "[it is] common knowledge and has been reported in the media that al-Qaeda is going back into Iran and receiving training and are coming back into Iraq from Iran, that's well known. And it's unfortunate." At first glance, I thought this was an attempt by McCain to show that he hasn't forgotten about Iran, and that the mullahs still give him a raging j-bone -- y'know, J-Mac stroking the fires for the 25% of Americans who still think that God is on our side. But after the weird way his campaign sent out a memo correcting his mistake, then corrected the correction, it seems like Mr McCain might actually believe that the Iranians and AQ are somehow part of an evil alliance.

All of this evoked Congressman Reyes. I don't know if you remember him, but he became House Intel. Committee Chairman when the Dems retook the House in '06. He stumbled through such elementary questions as "Is al-Qaeda predominately Shi'a or Sunni." That's like asking if Nazis were German. The full conversation from the interview conducted by Jeff Stein of Congressional Quarterly is as follows (and it's fucking scary):

JS: "Al Qaeda is what", I asked, "Sunni or Shia?"

SR: “Al Qaeda, they have both,” Reyes said. “You’re talking about predominately?”

JS: “Sure,” I said, not knowing what else to say.

SR: “Predominantly — probably Shiite,” he ventured.

He couldn’t have been more wrong.

Al Qaeda is profoundly Sunni. If a Shiite showed up at an al Qaeda club house, they’d slice off his head and use it for a soccer ball ...

And Hezbollah? I asked him. What are they?

SR: “Hezbollah. Uh, Hezbollah...”

He laughed again, shifting in his seat.

SR: “Why do you ask me these questions at five o’clock? Can I answer in Spanish? Do you speak Spanish?”

JS: “Poquito,” I said—a little.

SR: “Poquito?! “ He laughed again.

JS: “Go ahead,” I said, talk to me about Sunnis and Shia in Spanish.

SR: “Well, I, uh....”

I apologized for putting him “on the spot a little.” But I reminded him that the people who have killed thousands of Americans on U.S. soil and in the Middle East have been front page news for a long time now ...

“Yeah,” Reyes said, rightly observing, “but . . . it’s not like the Hatfields and the McCoys. It’s a heck of a lot more complex.

“And I agree with you — we ought to expend some effort into understanding them. But speaking only for myself, it’s hard to keep things in perspective and in the categories.”

(LINKS to more of Mr Stein's reporting below)

When I heard about Reyes's inability to describe Hizb'ullah or AQ in the most elementary of terms I was initially pissed off. I sent an e-mail to Dr. Thomas Barnett, a national security strategist at the Naval War College, asking him how was it possible that the House Intel chief could barely get through the ABCs of the war. His reply was depressing and grim -- and short because he sent it from a blackberry. It went something like this: "No need for them to be briefed fully. Staffers shape most votes and speeches in the modern congressional office. -- TPMB"

LINKS:
http://www.cqpolitics.com/wmspage.cfm?docID=hsnews-000002691574
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/17/opinion/17stein.html?ex=1318737600&en=c5709ea7c5631b3f&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss
http://public.cq.com/public/20061211_homeland.html
http://video.on.nytimes.com/?fr_story=8e1061b86e6470b1f9f7a414dff6883ec0a4064d

Sinbad's relevent again

LINK:
http://www.nypost.com/seven/03262008/news/nationalnews/now_bunko_hill_is_under_fire_103582.htm

Only HRC's campaign could stretch a lie so far that it results in comedian Sinbad being interviewed by the Washington Post.

The Clinton Myth

LINK:
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0308/9149.html

HRC has a 10% chance to win the nomination. Why isn't this on the frontpage of CNN.com?

McCain thinks Al-Qaeda is supported by Iran

LINK:
http://blog.washingtonpost.com/the-trail/2008/03/18/a_mccain_gaffe_in_jordan.html

Is this what experience is supposed to look like? Why, after 5 years in Iraq, do so many politicians not even know the basics?

Quote of the day

via TheAtlantic.com comments section:

"We are suffering from prejudice born from slavery and still 150 years after liberation we are fighting about race. Sure blacks are upset. Sure the situation calls for people who are oppressed to try to find solutions.

Does this mean that Barack Obama has these beliefs that inter-city blacks have. I don't think he does. He doesn't have the background. A Harvard education, A white mother, a desire to bring America together so we can all live as Americans instead of as Blacks, Whites, Asians, Jews. We can make a difference. The road will be frought [sic] with perill [sic] both personal and social.

There are those who want to keep the status quo. Who benefits; businesses like McDonalds, Wallmart [sic] and other low paying oppressive companies who pay employees below poverty wages. Defense contractors who want us to always be at war. Oil companies who want to stop green energy and green technologies of any kind.

People, think about where you want the US to be. I want us to be our very best going forward in a positive way. The peanut gallery will always be biting at our ankles trying to turn us on our heads but we must not lose sight of the future we want. "Yes we can" bring this future into reality."

- McCLum

I think this post sums up why Obama has been able to get such broad public support, even with all the sniping that's going on.

Excerpts from the Obama "Chicago CINC "Speech

LINK:
http://rawstory.com/news/2008/No_shock_Barack._No_drama_Obama._0312.html

A bunch of retired military brass come to Chicago to show their support for Obama. C-Span doesn't have the whole thing up yet, but if/when it does, I'll update this post.

Enter McCain's new 'spiritual advisor'

LINK:
http://www.motherjones.com/washington_dispatch/2008/03/john-mccain-rod-parsley-spiritual-guide.html

McCain looks dimmer and dimmer with every passing week.

Clinton saved Northern Ireland

LINK:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-experiencemar07,0,51719.story

HRC's claims that she has vast foreign policy experience are finally being scrutinized. Her most outlandish claim? That she was key in the development of Northern Irish peace in the 90's.

edit: added the following
LINK:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/03/08/wuspols108.xml

Quote of the day

via D-N-I.net comments section:

"Looks like the Iranians just got lucky then. All they had to do was wait a couple of decades for George W. Bush to finally win the Iran-Iraq War for them and to see their arch-enemy Saddam Hussein hanged by a Shia lynch mob. Patience is indeed a virtue."
-rogelio007

All the way to the convention...

LINK:
http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalradar/2008/03/clinton-wins-ob.html

It looks like this is going all the way to the convention. Key quote from the above article:

"That means he would need to win 77% of all the remaining pledged delegates to hit the magic number of 2,024 to secure the nomination. That is highly unlikely due to the proportional delegate allocation rules in the Democratic Party.

Clinton would need to win 94% of all the remaining pledged delegates to hit the magic number of 2,024. (ABC News currently has her at 1449.)

So, clearly they both are going to be relying on superdelegates to secure the nomination. "

a poor Der Spiegel article's got it wrong

LINK:
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,536232,00.html

Gabor Steingart of German daily der Spiegel seems a bit confused about Obama. His article is really about Obama's nascent foreign policy, but it takes seven paragraphs of a contrived metaphor likening the "Obama-phenomenon" to the market bubble of the 1990's before we find out why Mr Steingart is such a skeptic. I could find two things in the article that are at issue. One is Iraq, the other, Pakistan.

Mr Steingart on IRAQ:

"Obama's most dangerous land mines are hidden in foreign policy. A quick withdrawal from Iraq? Sounds great. But the mistake of having started this war in the first place cannot be corrected by ending it in a mad rush to get out of Iraq. A rapid withdrawal of the US military would most likely be followed by a bloody civil war."

Yes, we Americans have been swallowing this crap by the barrowful for years. "It can only get worse!" is the mantra. In fact, talking about civil war is moot. It's been occurring for years. And the likelihood that a fullblown regional conflict could occur is hard to predict. Juan Cole of Informed Comment has provided a basic rundown as to why.

Cont. on IRAQ:
"Al-Qaida would manage to sink its teeth into Iraq once and for all. Iran would rejoice. And Osama bin Laden and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad would be the real winners of the 2008 American presidential election."

Really? Voting for Obama is basically like voting for Ahmadinejad and UBL? True al Qaeda fighters -- that is, people with operational and financial ties to AQ as opposed to purely inspirational links-- number less than 1,000 in Iraq. Does Mr Steingart truly believe that the Sunni "Awakening" tribes, the Shi'a dominated government, and the Kurds would permit AQ to form an operational base in Iraq (see above link)? We've seen that the best way to beat AQ kinetically is through the Iraqis themselves, such as the "Awakening" tribes. As for Iran, certainly they will rejoice when we withdraw, but I'm sure they're not sweating our $250mil/day tiedown either. Point of fact, our ability to confront Iran constructively has been mitigated by Iraq, on every level.

Mr Steingart on PAKISTAN:

"On top of all that, Obama, in an effort to show strength, has come up with a new, and in some ways exclusive, theater for the US armed forces. He talks about military operations in the nuclear power Pakistan, operations that he, as commander-in-chief, would order even without the approval of the United Nations. That is "the war we need to win," he says again and again."

First some factual errors.
1. Obama's policy is neither new nor exclusive. The current administration endorses and is conducting operations in the FATA region of Pakistan as we speak. Predator drones have been flying over that part of the world launching missiles for years. Obama's policy, as laid out in his August speech at the Woodrow Wilson Center, is a continuation of the policy. Obama's main point was that the policy was not enacted quickly enough. It wasn't to prove he was "strong." It's because Mr Obama believes in killing AQ fighters, not Iraqi civilians. Is Mr Steingart just plain ignorant?
2. The UN doesn't have to approve those strikes on Pakistan soil because the Pakistani government has already approved of them, albeit (not so) covertly.

Mr Steingart on VIETNAM:

"But in reality a military campaign in Pakistan would be lunacy, even if many in the American media have chosen to studiously ignore Obama's comments. A comparison with President John F. Kennedy, who was 43 when he was elected, reveals that Kennedy was in fact unenthusiastic about going to war in Vietnam. It was a war the inexperienced President slid into, and if he was a war president, it was by accident and not design."

I just wanted to throw this quote in there because I think it shows how little Mr Steingart understands about American political history. President Kennedy's escalation of American involvement was not an "accident," it was done according to the "communication" theories of SECDEF McNamara. I recommend reading the book Dereliction of Duty by Col HR McMaster for more info on how we slowly but surely got involved in that theater. Also, describing any President who served during the heyday of the Cold War as an accidental "war president" confuses the atmosphere of the era, I think. And comparing the containment strategy of the Cold War to the directionless foreign policy of today is absurd.

Mac vs Obama

Juan Cole on the recent remarks John McCain made re: Obama's Al-Qaeda/Iraq policy.

LINK:
http://www.juancole.com/2008/02/obama-scores-against-mccain.html

Gearing Up

The CFR produces a really useful campaign tracker that I just discovered. Something interesting to look at as we wait for March 4.

LINK:
http://www.cfr.org/campaign2008/