Backfire! Posted by Michael Signer

Lots of news today about the vote the House Republicans are staging attempting legally to redefine Iraq as part of the Global War on Terror, and legally to prevent the United States from announcing and enforcing a deadline for withdrawal.

As a policy matter, there are pros and cons to the bills proposals.  But as a political matter, this is more of the same astonishingly short-sighted, backfire-prone maneuvering that, in my view, has led to our current state of disunity on a policy issue of generational importance.

It may seem trite nowadays -- but there are hard policy reasons that JFK believed politics should stop at the water's edge.

What's the Point of Having Karen Hughes Around? Posted by Shadi Hamid

We hear stories like this everyday. And, everyday, I lament the fact that this administration, through its unabashed devotion to police-state style torture, has destroyed so completely our credibility in the Middle East.

According to medical records obtained by TIME, a 20-year-old named Yusuf al-Shehri, jailed since he was 16, was regularly strapped into a specially designed feeding chair that immobilizes the body at the legs, arms, shoulders and head. Then a plastic tube, sometimes as much as 50% bigger than the type commonly used for feeding incapacitated patients, was inserted through his nose and down his throat - a procedure that can trigger nausea, bleeding and diarrhea.

What can you say to that, really ? I thought that  "they" hated us when I was living in Jordan last year. Well, I've spent the last couple weeks in Cairo and Amman, and it's gotten worse. Can you say "powder keg"? It's time for Karen Hughes to call it a day. Our public diplomacy operation is an absolute joke. When someone slits your neck, you don't get a band aid, you go to the freakin' hospital. Packaging is now pointless. What's the point of sending Karen Hughes out to the Middle East to "listen" and "engage," when all the while, the Bush administration does its best to kill the American ideal in the eyes of more than a billion Muslims?

When Egyptians bring up the fact that we use the same "interrogation" methods in Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo as the regime of President-for-Eternity Hosni Mubarak what am I supposed to say? All you can really do is nod your head in utter resignation and acknowledge that it will take us at least 20 years to undo the damage that the Republicans have inflicted.

Are the Democrats up to the challenge? I'm not entirely sure. John Kerry somehow managed to NOT bring up torture, Guantanamo, and Abu Ghraib in his televised debates with Bush in 2004. Get Bob Schrum out and keep him out. Get rid of these consultants who destroy the soul of our party and make us unable to stand up for anything, even something so basic and obvious as not torturing people.

Election Strategy: Blame the Liberals, Then Blame the Iraqis Posted by Lorelei Kelly

Ah, our limping democracy. Despite the plaudits that House leadership  is getting for just doing its job, a truly awful Iraq war resolution will be "debated" in Congress on Thursday (in quotes because, as usual, the rule for debate is so restrictive that someone should roll a laugh track over the PA system throughout).  If only every Member of Congress had to watch the film "The War Tapes" before heading to the House floor.  This movie was filmed by a dozen National Guard soldiers in spring, 2004, just as the insurgency roiled. They carried digital video cameras. What they captured, coupled with their own interview-style narrative, left a searing impression of our soldiers' courage versus our civilian leadership's photo-op blabber. For more info on Iraq films see Show Us the War.

I saw this film it at the progressive-mecca Take Back America conference here in DC this week. I also met some very cool women national security bloggers: Fire Dog Lake and Taylor Marsh to name two.

The House Resolution (posted in full at the end) is a chest-thumpy piece of work, with no discernable problem solving recommendations, but lots of opportunities to slam critics. Its language equates the war in Iraq with operations in Afghanistan, and by labeling Saddam Hussein as a threat against global peace and security, the resolution seeks to retroactively justify the war.  In fact, Majority Leader Boehner wrote a memo (leaked) detailing the political usefulness of returning to that tried and true old trope "kill them over there so they don't get us over here". Despite the manacles on participation,

June Surprise: President Bush Visits Iraq Posted by Heather Hurlburt

I thought two full days seemed like an awfully long time to have the national security team up at Camp David -- more like one of those retreats held by the party out of power than by those actually making the decisions.

Lo and behold:  ABC News reports that the President is in Baghdad, under cover of an elaborate ruse that included fake planning for a Rose Garden press event today.

Looks a little bit like a Zarqawi victory lap to me... we'll see whether that trumps the continuing violence in the reporting, or the other way 'round.  And if the recent statements by military leaders that they're slowing up plans for troop reductions are right, he can't exactly brag on that either.  So it'll be all about the new government, I guess.  That'll be a fine needle to thread for the American public.

Using the World Cup to Think About World Politics Posted by Heather Hurlburt

To distract myself from the actual play, not to mention my gainful employment and willful toddler, I've compiled the following (with a bow for inspiration, and later a bow for content, to the very fun volume The Thinking Fan's Guide to the World Cup:

Five Lessons in GeoPolitics the World Cup 2006 Can Teach Us

1.  Iraqis can't watch the Cup, and this isn't good.  NPR's solid reporting lays out, in a very empirical way, the things that have gone wrong with reconstruction and how they affect the average soccer-mad Iraqi -- no decent tv coverage, people can't afford satellite tv or generators or fuel -- or the wait in lines for fuel.  TVs cut out in cafes.  Generators break.  Curfews and insecurity prevent travel.  And this in what should be a wealthy oil-producing nation.  NPR further points out that fixing some of these things before the Cup, and explicitly for the Cup, would've been quite a PR gesture.  But oh well.  (See also number 5 below)

2.  Stadium Boondoggles Are a Universal Language.  Proving that the "cabinet in exile" has a sense of humor, the good people at the Center for American Progress have done a paper looking at the value of hosting a World Cup, or lack thereof, to the nation's economy.  Fear not, Ms. Merkel.  It should pick up next year.

3.  How Do We Rate?  No, not Team USA.  The Thinking Fan's Guide has a great section of statistical comparisons of the 32 nations competing.  USA "wins" in several categories:  GDP, land area and population, but also televisions per capita, executions, and prisoners per capita.  Quick, which entrant has the most tractors per capita?  the highest military expenditure per capita?  the highest population growth rate?  (the last at least perhaps a signal of future success?)  Click through below to find out.

4.  Is there a "Two Nations With McDonalds Don't Fight Each Other" Rule for the World Cup?  New Republic editor Franklin Foer explores what system of government it takes to win the Cup.  Since his publisher has thoughtlessly not put this gem on-line for me to exploit, let me summarize:  Communism will get you into the tournament but not through the final.  Fascism ain't what it used to be.  Nobody has won the Cup while commiting genocide or preparing to do so.  Being an oil-producing nation or in the throes of neo-liberal economic reforms is also a killer.  (Does either of these explain the US performance, I wonder?)  Other things being equal, colonizers defeat the formerly-colonized.  Military dictatorship is a good way to go, but produces lemons as well as champions -- your best bet is social democracy, apparently.

5.  I was going to write here that, whatever you said about the US performance today, they couldn't be accused of over-aggressiveness a la our current Administration.  But then I read the following on ESPN's World Cup blog:

Arena looked crushed in the postmatch conference. Said the right things. But one always senses that his hardest job has been convincing a highly confident team that they're not as good as they think they are, while also protecting them from situations that would expose their weaknesses.

Hmmm.

Check out quiz answers below.

Buried Underneath Zarqawi Posted by Suzanne Nossel

Word of the killing of Abu Masab al-Zarqawi may count as the best news on the fight against terrorism that the Administration has gotten for months, maybe years.  I believe the U.S. must go after the terrorist masterminds leading the Iraqi insurgency, and I congratulate the American troops who accomplished a very tough and important mission. 

The problem is that even looking only at this week, the Zarqawi killing came amidst a quite terrifying series of setbacks that should leave us all gravely concerned about how the anti-terror struggle is going.  To name a few:

1.  Conditions in Iraq Too Bad to Meet Troop Withdrawal Timetable - Call me paranoid, but this news came out on Thursday, the day Zarqawi's death dominated the news and was thus knocked off the front page.  It's no surprise given how things have been going that the Administration no longer thinks it realistic to draw down to 100,000 troops by year-end, but it underscores that despite intense political pressures Bush is unable to keep what came close to a promise to the public on the central policy issue of his presidency. 

2.  Key Parts of Somalia Fall into the Hands of Islamic Extremists - Despite years of covert and overt US efforts to prop up warlords who were Somalia's last line of defense against becoming a militant Islamic state, the outcome we've tried desperately to avoid seems close to fruition, with miltants claiming control over key towns including, it appears, the capital of Mogadishu.

3.  Hamas Resumes Terror Campaign - Meanwhile, after a moment of optimism just a week ago, the Palestinian-Israeli conflict has taken a (perhaps temporary, though who knows) turn for the worse with Hamas vowing to resume terrorist attacks within Israel proper in retaliation for an apparent incident of Israeli shelling that accidentally resulted in the deaths of 7 civilians on the beach.    Meanwhile Hamas issues an almost comically watered-down denial of a purported statement by the organization mourning hte death of Zarqawi.

4.  Three Suicides in Guantanamo -The quest to shut down Guantanamo is, incredibly, just one anmong dozens of distinct efforts to halt, correct and reverse the disasterous foreign policy course of the Bush Administration.   This piece on the Top 10 reasons to shut down Guantanamo was written a year ago tomorrow.   The suicides illustrate the serious error the Administration has made in allowing Guantanamo to persist as a locus of global criticism against our methods in fighting terror.  This article in the CSM sums the situation up well. 

5.  Afghanistan Falling Back into the Hands of the Taliban - This story has been developing over months and years, but finally hit the front page of the NY Times today: just as the US attempts to transition the Afghanistan operation more fully to NATO, the Taliban is mounting a Spring offensive more powerful than most deemed them capable of, deepening questions about how long Hamid Karzai - criticized for weak and corrupt leadership - can continue to hold the country together.  Remote parts of Afghanistan are already known al Qaeda refuge.  This news raises concerns that the rest of the country may soon become the same.