when people start thinking you have no plan

... it's usually because you have no plan:

the white house had no contingency plan for health care reform if democrat martha coakley lost the special election in massachusetts, and officials did not discuss the possibility a democratic loss would dramatically imperil their legislative efforts, a top adviser said today. president obama's senior advisor david axelrod said there "wasn't much discussion" about an alternative path to passing health care with just 59 democrats in the senate because there was "widespread assumption was that that seat was safe." "the truth is the flares went up about 10 days before that election," axelrod said during a briefing today with reporters and opinion-makers. "there wasn't much discussion about the implications if the thing went the other way," he said.

this time, it royally sucks being right, but jesus aytch christ, just what other conclusion was possible? not only did no one in the entire party appear to know what was going on, but they all were yelling at each other and scaring the kids.

the ghost of condoleeza rice should frighten everyone.

it's bad policy to speculate on what you'll do if a plan fails when you're trying to make a plan work.

scenes from an interrogation

where: not a dark, cold, clammy fetid hold deep in the bowels of a former soviet gulag. nor, for that matter, the bright, panelled, spacious chambers of the hague's international criminal court:

tom:	this story was made public by abc a few weeks ago. it claims that you, rice, tenet and others met in the white house to discuss different methods of "enhanced interrogation," is that correct?
ashcroft:	[angrily] correct? is what correct? is it correct that this story ran on abc? i don't know that. i don't know anything about it! is it a real story? when was this story, huh? huh?
tom:	um, early april, april 9th, i think ...
ashcroft:	[interrupting] you think? you think? you don't even know! next question!
tom:	the article says that you discussed "whether they would be slapped, pushed, deprived of sleep or subjected to simulated drowning"...
ashcroft:	i said, next question!

ashcroft:	no. no, [my position on torture] doesn't violate the geneva conventions. as for other laws, well, the u.s. is a party to the united nations convention against torture. and that convention, well, when we join a treaty like that we send it to the senate to be ratified, and when the senate ratifies they often add qualifiers, reservations, to the treaty which affect what exactly we follow. now, i don't have a copy of the convention in front of me ...
me:	[holding up my copy] i do! [boisterous applause and whistling from the audience] would you like to borrow it?
ashcroft:	[after a pause] uh, you keep a hold of it. now, as i was saying, i don't have it with me but i'm pretty sure it defines torture as something that leaves lasting scars or physical damage ...
student:	liar! you liar! [the student is shushed by the audience]
ashcroft:	so no, waterboarding does not violate international law.

me:	first off, mr. ashcroft, i'd like to apologize for the rudeness of some of my fellow students. it was uncalled for — we can disagree civilly, we don't need that. [round of applause from the audience, and ashcroft smiles] i have here in my hand two documents. one of them, you know, is the text of the united nations convention against torture, which, point of interest, says nothing about "lasting physical damage" ...
ashcroft:	[interrupting] do you have the senate reservations to it?
me:	no, i don't. do you happen to know what they are?
ashcroft:	[angrily] i don't have them memorized, no. i don't have time to go around memorizing random legal facts. i just don't want these people in the audience to go away saying, "he was wrong, she had the proof right in her hand!" because that's not true. it's a lie. if you don't have the reservations, you don't have anything. now, if you want to bring them another time, we can talk, but ...
me:	actually, mr. ashcroft, my question was about this other document. [laughter and applause] this other document is a section from the judgment of the tokyo war tribunal. after wwii, the tokyo tribunal was basically the nuremberg trials for japan. many japanese leaders were put on trial for war crimes and crimes against humanity, including torture. and among the tortures listed was the "water treatment," which we nowadays call waterboarding...
ashcroft:	[interrupting] this is a speech, not a question. i don't mind, but it's not a question.
me:	it will be, sir, just give me a moment. the judgment describes this water treatment, and i quote, "the victim was bound or otherwise secured in a prone position; and water was forced through his mouth and nostrils into his lungs and stomach." one man, yukio asano, was sentenced to fifteen years hard labor by the allies for waterboarding american troops to obtain information. since yukio asano was trying to get information to help defend his country — exactly what you, mr. ashcroft, say is acceptible for americans to do — do you believe that his sentence was unjust? [boisterous applause and shouts of "good question!"]
ashcroft:	[angrily] now, listen here. you're comparing apples and oranges, apples and oranges. we don't do anything like what you described.
me:	i'm sorry, i was under the impression that we still use the method of putting a cloth over someone's face and pouring water down their throat ...
ashcroft:	[interrupting, red-faced, shouting] pouring! pouring! did you hear what she said? "putting a cloth over someone's face and pouring water on them." that's not what you said before! read that again, what you said before!
me:	sir, other reports of the time say ...
ashcroft:	[shouting] read what you said before! [cries of "answer her fucking question!" from the audience] read it!
me:	[firmly] mr. ashcroft, please answer the question.
ashcroft:	[shouting] read it back!
me:	"the victim was bound or otherwise secured in a prone position; and water was forced through his mouth and nostrils into his lungs and stomach."
ashcroft:	[shouting] you hear that? you hear it? "forced!" if you can't tell the difference between forcing and pouring ... does this college have an anatomy class? if you can't tell the difference between forcing and pouring ...
me:	[firmly and loudly] mr. ashcroft, do you believe that yukio asano's sentence was unjust? answer the question. [pause]
ashcroft:	[more restrained] it's not a fair question; there's no comparison. next question! [loud chorus of boos from the audience]

save our diplomats!

... from dubya! please!

oaths, the constitution, and the u.s. embassy in iraq the bush administration is taking a hard line on dragooning civilian foreign service officers into serving in the war zone of iraq. the article contains a quote by ambassador ryan crocker which says that the fso's swear an oath to serve anywhere in the world. this is not true. they swear an oath to uphold the constitution. they sign a contract that allows them to be posted anywhere. there is a difference, and the two documents may actually be in contradiction. for instance, what if the government did something unconstitutional and wanted to send you to support that action ... ? another retired u.s. diplomat sent me this: i am also a retired foreign service officer, and strongly second the view of the anonymous fso (retired) whom you cited in your column today. the issue really is not the commitment to world-wide service undertaken by fsos. the decision by the bush administration to not only keep an embassy open in a war zone, but increase its size to make it one of the largest in the world, is simply testimony to the madness of the entire iraq "adventure," and the fraudulent nature of the expressed rationale for our being there. most of the staff in this "embassy" do not speak the language and cannot act effectively as diplomats, even if that were the purpose in sending them there. but that is not the purpose. ... the willingness of secretary rice, or dr. ferragamo as she is known on one satirical website, to continue supporting this war of occupation through this "embassy" and more broadly through her declaration of a new order known as "transformational diplomacy" simply confirms that she is not a "moderate" voice for diplomacy against the likes of dick cheney. diplomats do not "transform" other countries. they represent the interests of the u.s. to the governments and citizens of other, independent, countries. again, please write your congressional representatives and senators, and contact your local democratic and republican party organizations, and urge them in the strongest terms to close down the us embassy in iraq. it has no business being there. it is under constant mortar and rocket attack, cannot actually conduct diplomacy, and is a thinly veiled viceregal palace intended to perpetuate bush's neo-colonialism. to end the war, begin with what is possible. close the embassy. save our diplomats. by the way, [this] is the sort of news still coming out of iraq every day, with 3 more us troops killed. that's a "lull"? and, see phillip carter on the dark side of the 'good news' about iraq. the fact is that it is still one of the most violent places on earth and the decline in fighting comes in part in baghdad because the city has gone from being 50/50 sunni and shiite to being 75% shiite, with much of this change having come in 2007 under the nose of the surge troops from the us. diplomacy with iraq's neighbors can be done outside iraq better. diplomacy with iraqi politicians can still be pursued (most of them live outside the country anyway). save the diplomats. save the world.

subpoena powers: activate!

the wonder twins are in the house — and the senate!

(image by aarrgghh)

one month ago today the senate and house judiciary committees, chaired by sen. patrick leahy (d-vt) and rep. john conyers (d-mi) respectively, authorized subpoenas for harriet miers, karl rove and aides in the justice dept. to provide documents and testimony in the ongoing u.s. attorney scandal. a week earlier subpoenas for doj aides and former u.s. attorneys were approved by the senate committee.

this coming wednesday the house oversight and government reform committee, chaired by rep. henry waxman (d-ca), will vote on subpoenas for former bush chief of staff andy card and secretary of state condi rice, for their valuable insight on the outing of former spook valerie plame and the peddling of the discredited iraq-niger yellowcake bid, respectively.

and before the republicans deafen us with screeches of "witchhunt!" let's share a teensy bit of perspective: the "worst congress in the history" (you know who you are!) issued more than 1,000 subpoenas to bill clinton — and absolutely zero to george bush.

i do believe someone's projecting ... a miasma of rank hypocrisy.

we don't do backup

secretary of state condoleeza rice, speaking at today's senate foreign relations committee hearings on bush's plan to send more troops to iraq:

it's bad policy to speculate on what you'll do if a plan fails when you're trying to make a plan work.

ah ... so that explains the last three years.

less than human

those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities. (voltaire)

even in an age of laser-guided precision instuments of mayhem, warfare still remains an untidy business. civilians still get slaughtered, exposing the slaughterers to bad press and, more inconvenient, the risk of legal sanction. just how can an honest warmonger do what he does best — mass murder — without all the headaches?

never fear, celebrity lawyer-pundit alan dershowitz is here! and he has just the solution you need when you can't — or won't — let pesky civilians hamstring your efforts to bomb your opponent into the stone age:

just redefine the term "civilian" — no purchase necessary!

... we need a new vocabulary to reflect the realities of modern warfare. a new phrase should be introduced into the reporting and analysis of current events in the middle east: "the continuum of civilianality." though cumbersome, this concept aptly captures the reality and nuance of warfare today and provides a more fair way to describe those who are killed, wounded and punished. ... the israeli army has given well-publicized notice to civilians to leave those areas of southern lebanon that have been turned into war zones. those who voluntarily remain behind have become complicit. some — those who cannot leave on their own — should be counted among the innocent victims. ... every civilian death is a tragedy, but some are more tragic than others.

it is epiphanies like these that honestly make me wonder if it is actually embarassing to be as brilliant as alan. i mean, this is so simple! no need to retool weapons or rethink strategies. (or — god forbid — question the legitimacy of the attacks!) just relabel the dead!

of course, a nonetheless elegant solution, even one as brilliant in its simplicity as this, can sometimes be a little too simple. as juan cole explains, does relabeling really go far enough?

alan "torture is ok" dershowitz is annoyed that the israelis have been accused of killing innocent civilians. he is now arguing that there are degrees of "civilianity." he wonders how many innocent civilians killed by israel in lebanon would still be innocent if we could make finer distinctions. (he should read the lebanese newspapers and he would get the answer. one third of those killed by the israelis are children. i'd guess they are all civilian all the time. and then there are the families, like the canadian women, children and men blown up at aitaroun. i suppose they are really civilians. etc.) but i don't know why dershowitz stops there. let me reformulate his argument for him. shouldn't we recognize degrees of humanness? after all, isn't that the real problem? that the enemy is considered a full human being in the law of war? that horrible supreme court judgment that hamdan had to be given a trial of some sort was based on the misunderstanding that he is a human being. israeli officials have already showed us how arabs can be reclassified away from a full "human" category that they clearly, in the view of the kadima government, do not deserve. for instance, israeli ambassador to the united nations dan gillerman angrily denounced kofi annan for neglecting this key fact. the guardian reports,' mr gillerman said "something very important was missing" from mr annan's speech: any mention of terrorism. hizbullah were "ruthless indiscriminate animals", he told reporters.' so you see, one reason that you can just bomb the hell out of the lebanese in general is that they aren't human beings at all. they are "animals." you might quibble that gillerman is only referring to members of the hizbullah party as animals, not all lebanese. but most shiite lebanese, some 45 percent of the population, support hizbullah. and the lebanese government, made up of christians, sunnis and druze, let hizbullah into the lebanese government and gave it cabinet posts. so probably those who tolerate hizbullah are at most half-human. this has yet to be worked out. it might be possible to declare them .66 animal. or maybe they are just all animals. they speak arabic, after all, right mr. gillerman? there is a problem with stopping here, however. it is not enough to reclassify some human beings as animals. after all, you have to treat animals humanely. you can even be fined for mistreating an animal, though probably you would not go to jail. the staff of us secretary of state condi rice has made a suggestion for another, more convenient level, that of snake. thus, a senior white house official referred to the massive israeli bombing campaign and destruction of lebanon's civilization and killing of hundreds and wounding of over a thousand as "defanging" hezbollah. i am pretty sure that language is meant to suggest that the shiites of lebanon, although apparently human beings, are actually snakes. i suppose it is possible that another sort of reptile is is intended, but i suspect that "snake" is the intended classification. but some snakes are protected species. we need a lower category. it is clear that some human beings are neither human nor animal. hamas and hizbullah members, for instance, are actually not even full organisms, just diseases. israeli deputy consul general for san francisco, omer caspi, said of the lebanese and palestinian publics concerning hamas and hizbullah members, "we say to them please remove this cancer off your body and soul before it is too late." caspi did not specify whether members of hamas are leukemia and those of hizbullah melanoma, or the reverse. the good thing about finding out that some apparent human beings don't have to be treated as well as whales (which have almost been wiped out) is that it allows us to put behind all wimpy hesitancy just to do what needs to be done. i mean, a cancer. everyone knows what you have to do with a cancer. it requires chemotherapy. it needs to be just exterminated, before it kills the snakes, animals and humans. so we have the human beings, like israeli prime minister ehud "bomb'em back to the stone age" olmert and torture defender, attorney alan dershowitz. then we have the animals, like the "persons" who vote for hizbullah and hamas. then we have the level of human-appearing snakes, who need to be "defanged," which apparently involves killing their wives and children with air strikes. then we have the cancers, who need to be "wiped out" immediately. i understand that president bush is appointing alan dershowitz to be head of the "human-non-human metrics" commission that will decide which people are full human beings, and which fall into other categories, such as "animal," "snake," and "cancer." it is rumored that that dershowitz intends to create a special category, of "cockroach," for the human-appearing creatures who dare to criticize him.

turn, turn, turn

yes, folks, you've heard this song before. it's sung to the tune of "the light at the end of the tunnel". ¹

from today's remarks at the white house, on the third anniversary of bush's "mission accomplished" speech:

bush: a new iraqi government represents a strategic opportunity for america — and the whole world, for that matter. this nation of ours and our coalition partners are going to work with the new leadership to strengthen our mutual efforts to achieve success, a victory in this war on terror. this is a — we believe this is a turning point for the iraqi citizens, and it's a new chapter in our partnership. (may 1, 2006)

after the nomination of the prime minister:

cheney: i think we'll look back several years from now and see that 2005 was really a turning point, in the sense the progress we made both in terms of training iraqi forces, because we've now got a large number of iraqis taking the lead various places around the country from a security and military standpoint, but also because of the political milestones that were achieved ... i think about when we look back and get some historical perspective on this period, i'll believe that the period we were in through 2005 was, in fact, a turning point; that putting in place a democratic government in iraq was the — sort of the cornerstone, if you will, of victory against the insurgents. (february 7, 2006)

after the iraqi elections ...

cheney: the basic point, and one i've made already that i believe that the elections were the turning point. and we had that election in january — first free election in iraq in decades — and that we will be able to look back from the perspective of time, and see that 2005 was the turning point, was the watershed year, and that establishment of a legitimate government in iraq, which is what that whole political process is about, means the end of the insurgency, ultimately. (december 18, 2005)

before the elections ...

bush: there's still a lot of difficult work to be done in iraq, but thanks to the courage of the iraqi people, the year 2005 will be recorded as a turning point in the history of iraq, the history of the middle east, and the history of freedom. (december 12, 2005)

after the january elections ...

mrs. bush: people in the middle east and commentators around the world are beginning to wonder whether recent elections may mark a turning point as significant as the fall of the berlin wall. (march 8, 2005)

mcclellan: it marks a turning point in iraq's history and a great advance toward a brighter future for all iraqis, one that stands in stark contrast to the brutality and oppression of the past. the election also represents a body blow to the terrorists and their ideology of hatred and oppression. (january 31, 2005)

before the january elections ...

bush: tomorrow the world will witness a turning point in the history of iraq, a milestone in the advance of freedom, and a crucial advance in the war on terror. (january 29, 2005)

before the transfer of sovereignity ...

bush: a turning point will come two weeks from today. on june the 30th, governing authority will be transferred to a fully sovereign interim government, the coalition provisional authority will cease to exist, an american embassy will open in baghdad. (june 16, 2004)

bush: and this is a turning point in history. it's a — it's an important moment. and one of the reasons why i'm proud to stand here with [italian prime minister berlusconi] is he understands the stakes, he understands the importance. and like me, he shares a great sense of optimism about the future. (june 5, 2004)

at the first anniversary of the invasion ...

bush: one year ago, military forces of a strong coalition entered iraq to enforce united nations demands, to defend our security, and to liberate that country from the rule of a tyrant. for iraq, it was a day of deliverance. for the nations of our coalition, it was the moment when years of demands and pledges turned to decisive action. today, as iraqis join the free peoples of the world, we mark a turning point for the middle east, and a crucial advance for human liberty. (march 19, 2004)

after the mideast summit (and subsequent violence):

rice: the events of the last few months make clear that the middle east is living through a time of great change. and despite the tragic events of the past few days, it is also a time of great hope. president bush believes that the region is at a true turning point. he believes that the people of the middle east have a real chance to build a future of peace and freedom and opportunity. (june 12, 2003)

turning point, new chapter, milestone, cornerstone, watershed, body blow (!) — call it what you will, but a quagmire by any other name would smell just as rank.

---

¹ a popular hit from the vietnam era:

a year ago none of us could see victory. there wasn't a prayer. now we can see it clearly — like a light at the end of a tunnel. (september 28, 1953) — lt. gen. henri-eugene navarre, french commander-in-chief

at last there is a light at the end of a tunnel. (september 13, 1965) — joseph alsop, syndicated columnist

i believe there is a light at the end of what has been a long and lonely tunnel. (september 21, 1966) — president lyndon johnson

their casualties are going up at a rate they cannot sustain ... i see light at the end of the tunnel. (december 12, 1967) — walt rostow, state department policy planning chairman

come see the light at the end of the tunnel. (december 1967) — new year's eve party invitation, u.s. embassy, saigon

from "the experts speak: the definitive compendium of authoritative misinformation", by christopher cerf and victor navasky, 1984

i'm just askin'

christy hardin smith (aka "reddhedd") at firedoglake asks one of those little innocuous questions that get frequently lost in all the flash and thunder and smoke and mirrors:

if things in iraq are going so swimmingly, why is it that no us official ever makes an announced visit there? why did condi and rummy sneak into town like thieves in the night if it’s all flowers and candy and good news in the colonies? i mean, honestly, we are a sovereign nation supposedly sending members of our administration into the territory of another soverign nation, right? since when have we sneaked into britain or russia or even trinidad and tobago? why all the tiptoeing into iraq? perhaps because they would rather be alive — since things are not going all that swimmingly? i’m just saying.