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Matt Welch asks whether it is contradictory to criticize Bush's unilateral actions in Iraq after praising Clinton's similar actions in Kosovo. (Via Instapundit, who emphasizes that the war in Kosovo is not over. Quagmire?)
Welch doesn't mention it, but I think Western Europe, and countries bordering it, still get special consideration (like it or not).
Human Rights Watch has said officially that the U.S. intervention in Iraq was not a human rights intervention because there was no mass killing underway or imminent. It was underway or imminent in Kosovo.
UPDATE: I guess I should have added: there seems to be a consensus that there is more of a risk if the mission in Iraq fails. (Of course Bush defenders would say: more to gain if it succeeds). I think Jonah Goldberg said recently (I can't find it) that the U.S. could pull out of Kosovo abruptly with very few repercussions, but the same is not true of Iraq. Other things being anywhere near equal, that is an argument against intervening in Iraq.
Christopher Hitchens wonders whether anti-war people who now criticize Bush for not taking out Osama earlier, would actually have been willing to support any of the means necessary to do so a year or two ago.
I guess the people who left one mess in Afghanistan in order to start up another one in Iraq have more of a problem here--since Osama is going to come back to haunt them in one way or another. Quite possibly the anti-war people have been wrong in being anti-war from the beginning. Possibly 9/11 proved that strong action was necessary somewhere, and Bush understood that. But then it is striking that Bush more or less pulled out of Afghanistan after some half-way measures; and immediately launched a bigger and messier war. This doesn't seem to be an example of seeing what needs to be done; it just seems to be one blunder piled on another.
Hitchens also highlights the discovery of actual WMDs that might have been in Iraq under Saddam. The first such discovery in the fourteen months of U.S. occupation. Rumsfeld says the one small find may not be sarin after all.
So maybe Iraq under Saddam didn't have absolutely no WMDs of any kind, anywhere. (If that were the case, probably Iraq in March 2003 was the only country of which that was true). Maybe Saddam instead had ... almost nothing.
Is this supposed to prove that the Bushies weren't either lying or clueless?
Joe Wilson apparently confirms in his book that there was in fact some kind of overture from Saddam to Niger, to inquire about uranium. I'm pretty sure no trace of any actual nuclear weapons has been found, anywhere in Iraq, nor facilities to make them. And who was Saddam's ambassador? Whom did he trust with this delicate mission that could conceivably alter strategic relationships all over the world?
Apparently, the crazy PR guy, Baghdad Bob or Comical Ali. (Instapundit linking to WP).
Is there any way this story could be more ridiculous? Maybe the Three Stooges came back from the dead to negotiate the final details of the deal, and Buster Keaton pumped a push car into a railway tunnel to pick up the merchandise.
Generally speaking, I gather, WMDs can be made in one's bathtub. If Saddam didn't have any (or if he had some miniscule amount of something), then he was the only thug in the world who didn't. Bizarre, but there you go. A "program"? Does that mean at least a few people are available who could actually do the necessary work in the bathtub?
Tim McVeigh blew up the federal building in Oklahama using fertilizer.
Since I'm in Canada, I should mention that the Prime Minister of Canada apparently thinks Saddam had lots of WMDs, and they've been dispersed to lots of places. He may be a complete fool.
Zarqawi actually spent some time in Baghdad before March 2003--he wasn't only in Kurdish territory. (See here as well as Hitchens). Doesn't that mean Saddam supported his work somehow? If people came from other countries to visit him in hospital, doesn't that mean there was an Al Qaeda cell in Iraq operating with Saddam's protection? Maybe, or maybe this is giving the most melodramatic interpretation possible to some pretty typical third-world stuff.
Nothing, as far as I know--not one word--from pro-war folks about the fact that Bush (or his Security Council) apparently had three chances to kill Zarqawi, and decided not to do so.
UPDATE: Not even in a big piece in the Weekly Standard which gives some of Zarqawi's history, and emphasizes how dangerous he is. He is a Sunni, but he apparently disagrees with Osama Bin Laden on some matters. In particular, he is determined to attack Shiites, the majority in Iraq but a small minority in the Moslem world at large.
The Baghdad story? Still tracking it. These authors say: "U.S. intelligence once thought he'd been injured in the American assault on Afghanistan and had taken refuge in northern Iraq, later traveling to Saddam's Baghdad to have his leg amputated; now they're not so sure."
Josh Marshall has some fun with this. "(Remember how Zarqawi was supposed to have had his leg amputated in Baghdad before the war? Notice how he now seems to have two legs?)"
I haven't updated anything on myself or favourite links for about a year. It's buried in the Archives.
Same as before:
Glenn Reynolds
Mickey Kaus
Slate
Colby Cosh
The Corner
Hit and Run
Eve Tushnet
Josh Marshall
More Recent Addictions:
Tapped
Kevin Drum
Atrios
Wonkette
New Finds:
Webgirl (although she doesn't seem to be posting much)
Ann Althouse
I read both the Toronto Star and the Globe and Mail this morning, as I do roughly every second day. (I read the Globe weekday mornings as I ride a bus to work). Today it struck me that the Globe was much better--even dramatically better.
I won't dwell on the Star, but here are some highlights from today's Globe. A piece on Dieppe--the disastrous attack on a French beach in World War II that, in some ways, foreshadowed the successful D-Day invasion. Timothy Balzer has shown in detail (in his Master's thesis) how the authorities lied immediately after the fiasco--painting it as some kind of victory, when it was little more than a slaughter, followed by a quick surrender by the survivors. Worse, in a way, is that the media--who were in the habit of repeating the official line--repeated the fantastic lies in this case, often feeling guilty as they did so.
The story gets a lot of play in Canada because so many of the Allied troops involved were Canadian. There has sometimes been a suspicion that the Brits were more willing to use Canadians as cannon fodder than their own people--like the Australian feeling about Gallipoli in World War I. The debate still rages as to whether the Dieppe operation was a complete and utter waste of human life and resources, or merely a nearly complete waste. The rather lame conclusion of historian Jack Granatstein in the article is that at least the Allies learned not to attack an actual port city--which would be heavily fortified by the Germans. Empty beaches would be better. Ah yes, a light goes on.
Churchill was all over this fiasco, as he was Gallipoli. (Given his almost unbelievable career). He was pushing hard to get some kind of Western front going. He wanted to show Stalin the West would fight, so as to keep the Russians fighting hard in the East. An 86-year-old man named Jack Poolton, who actually fought at Dieppe, says in this article that in fact some on the Western side wanted to prove any attack on fortified France would be a waste of time for the forseeable future--Stalin would just have to keep fighting alone. Possibly Churchill wanted more air cover than he actually got--again, as at Gallipoli? I don't know.
Not a huge article, but very interesting. Veterans of Dieppe would tend not to discuss it. I worked for a year for a Member of Parliament--Marcel Lambert--who fought at Dieppe with the Calgary Tanks, and was taken prisoner.
Good stuff in today's Globe on Iraq--including a number of individuals, some of them strong supporters of the U.S./Coalition, who have been imprisoned for months, and sometimes abused.
Perhaps the biggest theme in today's Globe is hockey. Christie Blatchford writes about Mike Danton--the NHL player who has been charged in St. Louis with contracting to kill someone--possibly his long time mentor/substitute father, David Frost. Blatchford likes hockey players. Like her friend Rosie DiManno of the Star, she gives the impression that she's been intimate with a few of them. Yet she spells out what she sees as a problem in the system that produces professional hockey players in Canada.
Talented boys move away from home at a young age in order to play for the best team they can. A charismatic coach/mentor can become a kind of cult leader for "his" group of players--especially if, as in Frost's case, they move from coaching to being an agent. Frost has had a tendency not only to win over talented kids, but to turn them against their parents. Danton has ceased talking to his family, and changed his last name. The most famous earlier case of a coach abusing the trust of players was that of Sheldon Kennedy, who confirmed that coach Graham James sexually abused him and other players in Saskatchewan.
Whether Frost had sex with his group of followers or not, it would not be surprising if they discover their closeness with him affects their ability to have a normal social life, or marry and have a family.
The Canadian hockey system has been criticized in recent years for emphasizing actual games over practices. This is great for developing goalies, and grinding players who can slow down the play; but it doesn't necessarily develop the best passing, play-making, or even shot-making. As another article in today's Globe points out, however, Canada is once again Number 1 in world hockey. This makes it hard to criticize the skills development of the national game. But what about the social aspects?
This other article features Wayne Gretzky and the selection of Team Canada for the world championship this year. As always, Gretzky comes across as bright and thoughtful, with good reasons for doing what he is doing.
A line from one of Alterman's correspondents:
"One thing striking about the righties' responses though: is it me or do you notice the same underlying assumption that people in any kind of a jail apparently deserve to be there? The quick assumption of guilt that comes with the fact of incarceration? Didn't it used to be one of the core tenets of conservatism to be skeptical of state power, not enthralled by the infallibility of it?"
It doesn't seem a particularly strong defence for the Americans to say they are not as bad as Saddam's psychopathic sons. It's a stronger defence, I think, to say Abu Ghraib is not much worse than a lot of American prisons.
Why should Iraqis who are suspected, rightly or wrongly, of resisting democracy by force, be treated any better than U.S. citizens in U.S. prisons?
Of course, this mis-states the situation. Abu Ghraib, like most of the world's prisons, has shown primarily public sector abuse--carried out by the authorities. American prisons, one gathers, are characterized more by private-sector abuse. The gangs are in charge, and they commit some blood-curdling acts, including rape and murder. This is generally known, yet no one to speak of is outraged. (See Instapundit).
The U.S. has a higher proportion of its population in prison than any country on earth. It passed Russia some years ago. A significant number of people work in prisons in the U.S. (Naomi Klein gives this whole thing the left-wing or even Marxist slant--successful capitalism is creating a growing lower class, moving been dead-end jobs and crime, or joining the military. She touches briefly on the fact that if the U.S. prison population were as low as in European countries, the unemployment rate might be as high as in those countries).
Why does the U.S. differ from other countries in this respect? I don't know, but here goes a theory. Americans think of life as highly competitive and individualistic. As Tocqueville said so long ago, the intense struggle for small gains, or none, often casts a shadow of melancholy over the hard-working American ant. Why not be a grasshopper? Why not give up? Part of the answer is that there are terrible consequences to crossing the line and committing certain crimes. There almost have to be crack downs from time to time, such as the War on Drugs, and even the War on Porn, to satisfy everyone.
The contemplation of people suffering in prison can yield a kind of Lucretian pleasure. Look at all the miserable people--what a relief I'm not one of them. There's also a strong sense of justice--wrongdoers deserve punishment. Even if the losers are primarily unlucky, bad luck can be seen as the semi-divine voice of Nature. (Casinos and lotteries--another whole story).
Detective stories don't teach that crime is wrong, period--they teach that even intelligent criminals will probably get caught. Honesty, as Franklin said, is the best policy--not best pure and simple.
It's cynical and nasty, but perhaps not entirely false, to say the prisoners at Abu Ghaid have had a taste of the American way of life.
UPDATE: See more in TNR Online (via Slate).
Also a related post here on The Corner and another here at Tech Central Station (via Instapundit).
There may be a deal between the U.S. and the Mahdites or Sadr forces in Najaf. (Juan Cole via Kevin Drum).
As Rich Lowry says, the uprising against Sadr by Iraqis is "a very encouraging sign" that there is a civil society in Iraq, and it is being heard.
It's possible that a new and better Iraq will indeed emerge from all this--one with a stable government, perhaps even fairly effective police and courts. But it may not be very democratic. There is still a possibility that different regions will be governed in fact, if not in theory, by various militias. The mullahs are likely to be very powerful in the south. The country may be un-American or even anti-American--and may wish for a complete withdrawal of U.S. forces. If so, some of Bush's aims will not have been realized.
Matthew Yglesias may be right about just how difficult it will be for Iraq to achieve both law and order and elections. I believe many wise people did not think a peaceful transition from apartheid would be possible in South Africa--and who knows, there may still be trouble to come there.
Still, it will be very encouraging if we can see a people--or a number of somewhat distinct peoples--assert themselves more or less peacefully.
UPDATE: Cole sees events in Najaf as the U.S. "backing down"; H.D. Miller, on the other hand, sees the U.S. winning a war of attrition against extremists in Baghdad, Najaf, and Fallujah. (via Instapundit Monday).
Fallujah is already governed by an ad hoc coalition; U.S. forces say they are not finished stabilizing the city yet. (Via Jason Van Steenwyk and Instapundit).
UPDATE: This article says the deal is off--the U.S. is not willing to postpone Sadr's trial until after July 1. On the other hand, the U.S. is flexible on details as long as Sadr is put on trial, and his militia is disbanded. The article agrees with the hawks that in any case, the U.S. is winning a war of attrition, and Sadr is not gaining followers.
UPDATE (looking backward): Other than Sadr, the most dangerous individual in Iraq may be Abu Musab Zarqawi--the man, at least loosely associated with Al Qaeda, who is credited with the murder of Nick Berg. This is a man who Bush could have had killed on three different occasions. In each case, the military experts were convinced the killing could have been done with, as they say, minimal collateral damage. Why did Bush say no? Probably because he wanted to be able to say there was at least one live Al Qaeda operative in Iraq before the invasion in March 2003.
Apparently, Zarqawi was not the guest of Saddam, but of the Kurds--the Americans' staunchest allies in Iraq.
See Hit and Run here and here, and earlier posts here (with links; go to Al Qaeda letter).
UPDATE: Kevin Drum is still on this story.
Some things I think many of us are wondering:
1. What are the indications that the prisoners who were ...er... abused at Abu Ghraib were actually guilty of something--or at least, that they had come under reasonable suspicion?
The Red Cross was told by American officers that 70% to 90% of all detainees in Iraq were rounded up "by mistake." On the other hand, there was apparently a real effort to single out individuals who had been accused of something for "softening up." This was done during the intake process--and treatment once inside was quite humane. On the other hand again, the Iraqi police, who were consistently very nasty, would sometimes turn suspects over and accuse them of something serious, knowing this would result in a "softening up" by the Americans. (via Josh Marshall).
Time reports on a couple of individuals who were softened up, but not interrogated. "Prison stories: Time talks to an Iraqi whose friend was forced to simulate oral sex on him in Abu Ghraib. In the nine months he was in custody, he claims he wasn't interrogated or charged with a crime. Another prisoner says he was hung from a hook in his cell, and military translators shouted, 'You are a terrorist!' at him, but he also wasn't interrogated." (via Slate). For them the, er, abuse wasn't a preparation for interrogation, but a substitute for it.
2. Were there any interrogators there who knew what they were doing? Did they gather even one piece of useful intelligence by way of the abuse?
The Americans certainly haven't been acting like they have much intelligence about what's happening on the ground. They were apparently surprised by the extent of Sadr's own resistance, the extent of popular support for his resistance (if not for his particular plans for the future), and Fallujah. They seem to have relied heavily on Ahmed Chalabi for information until very recently. Now they are apparently abandoning him, much of the Governing Council, and the Interim Constitution. The intelligence that has made them change their minds seems to be the kind of stuff that is in all the media--not the stuff that gets sweated out of some poor devil in a dungeon.
If they were rounding up people willy-nilly, and taking the word of any Iraqi policeman as to who was a bad guy, this implies that they had no real intelligence at all--they didn't know where to start. Even if, er, abuse is a rational means to an end in some cases, it doesn't seem to have worked here--or even to have been planned so that it was likely to work.
3. Was the "abuse" a response to specific provocations? Margaret Wente says it began after a sudden (surprising?) increase in attacks by insurrection forces in the fall, with the resulting loss of Iraqi informers. "Out of fear, many Iraqis sympathetic to the Americans stopped helping them. The U.S. military was increasingly desperate for information on the insurgency, and under enormous pressure to check it."
Remarkably, the Red Cross was reporting abuses in Iraq since last spring--and in Afghanistan for longer than that. Matthew Yglesias is cautious about how much abuse has been going on at places other than Abu Ghraib, and for how long.
I have linked to a story about U.S. intelligence in Iraq overhearing a conversation about a video game, and believing it was a conspiracy by insurrectionists.
Slate has a similar story in "Other Magazines": "Not so intelligent: In the 'Washington Whispers' section, U.S. News says that in April 2003, one Don Emilio Fulci made it to the top of the government's daily threat assessment. Then someone ran a Google search on Fulci, who was reported to be planning attacks on London and Washington, D.C. Turns out the shadowy terrorist is a character in the video game Headhunter."
The person who did the Google search is probably considered really techno-savvy in her or his office. Yet no one there had the slightest clue they were chasing a character in a video game.
I think this helps to clarify one amazing part of the Iraq prison story: the sheer number of cameras and photos. Apparently some troops were ordered to take pictures, to add to the humiliation of prisoners. Mickey Kaus asks (quite reasonably): wouldn't it have been just as effective to have the flashes go off, but no actual photos recorded? One gets a sense that all the older generations are simply floored by the fact that "official" pictures have circulated very widely, and even more by the fact that all or almost all of the young military people in Iraq have cameras, and put their photos on the Internet. Then (much too late) Rumsfeld meets with his staff to consider how to contain this, as if it were a specific piece of paper in a specific place. It may or may not speak to job competence, but there are some aspects of the modern world about which they are (apparently) absolutely clueless.
The Military Times, a weekly which is distributed under different names to U.S. military bases all over the world, says Rumsfeld and Myers have to go.
There is a further implication, which they don't quite draw: "Responsibility, [the editorial] said, 'extends all the way up the chain of command to the highest reaches of the military hierarchy and its civilian leadership.'" There is a reference to "straight to the top."
I suspect this has more weight even than pro-war pundits including Will and Zakaria.
George Will added one detail to comments by Fareed Zakaria on This Week/Stephanopoulos this morning. Zakaria said roughly what he has said in print (Atrios), and Will pointed out that he had referred to the Geneva Convention and U.S. law as if they were two different things. The Geneva Convention has been ratified by the U.S. Senate. It is "the law of the land."
If this isn't funny, nothing is:
"Iraqi officials who have been in close contact with Washington say the parties that will have to be represented in the caretaker government include the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, which has close ties to Iran, and Dawa, another influential Shiite group. The Communist Party is also likely to be represented, they said." (NYT--Billmon--Atrios).
And Billmon again: "As for Chalabi, well, it's a hell of a fall - from Iraq's president-in-waiting to persona non gratia with the new regime. Maybe if he joined the Iraq Communist Party, he could get his foot back in the door."
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