Don't let the door hit you in the ass

That's the sort of sentiment that I sort of feel is emanating from many corners of the US after Bush's last State of the Union address. Here Juan Cole marshals his arguments against Bush one last time. Meanwhile, BAGnewsNotes remarks on Bush as a sort of eternal fratboy. The sense of fatigue that people have from this man's time as president is palpable. I suppose that someone somewhere down the road will attempt to rehabilitate his reputation.

Good luck.

What is Al Qaeda? II

Juan Cole explains the difference between the guys in Afghanistan/Pakistan and the guys in Iraq:

"Al-Qaeda in Iraq" is of course just a bogeyman phrase to describe Salafi Jihadis there. But they obviously feel some kinship to the real al-Qaeda (you never want to see that) and they are threatening to get up an attack on the United States. There was no al-Qaeda in Saddam`s Iraq, so it is Bush who has created this current threat, which did not have to be there.

From being a single network of training camps and cells, al Qaeda has turned into a catch-all term. I wonder if it has to do with the fact that "al Qaeda" simply means "the base" in Arabic? It's a wonderfully vague term that must sound vaguely menacing in its native tongue, even absent the baggage it has acquired in the past ten years or so. It's also unique in not being laden with any very specific ideological connotations.

How ready are Iraq's soldiers?

In spite of the Iraqi government's insistence that it can take over responsibility for Iraq's security, Juan Cole analyzes the numbers that General Pace has laid out for the press:

"In fact, the important figure is how many can operate independently. That means that they will go to the front when ordered, will actually fight, won't run away, and might actually accomplish something, even if there are no US troops anywhere nearby. Iraq apparently has about 3,000 troops of that description. My guess is that they are mostly Kurdish Peshmerga on loan from Kurdistan. I.e., Iraq probably has almost no Arab troops who would and could fight independently for the al-Maliki government, as opposed to cannon fodder pushed before US battalions and afraid of being shot as deserters if they turn tail."

So they have 3000 guys who can enforce the rule of the central government in all of Iraq. Great. Al-Maliki, I call bullshit.

The Invisible Hand Job of the Market

Among the many, many bad news stories coming out of Iraq, Juan Cole reports (third item) that unemployed factory workers have started protesting the fact that they are, well, unemployed.

It seems that the occupation shut down these factories in the hope that capitalism would magical restart them in a matter of months (weeks). So far it has not happened. The magical market fairies have not descended on Iraq to fix things up.

I think you can make a case for market economies, but the neocon architects of Iraq do not appeal to the market as an economic mechanism, rather they entreat it as it were a god.

Did Canadian customs actually hold a man because of Wikipedia?

Or at least in part because of Wikipedia? That's what is being claimed by one Taner Akçam, a professor who has written about the Armenian genocide. Akçam writes:

"As a former Amnesty International prisoner of conscience in Turkey, I should not have been surprised. But my recent detention at the Montreal airport—apparently on the basis of anonymous insertions in my Wikipedia biography—signals a disturbing new phase in a Turkish campaign of intimidation that has intensified since the November 2006 publication of my book, A Shameful Act: The Armenian Genocide and the Question of Turkish Responsibility."

The story as it is laid out is worth reading, in part as a reminder that if you make a enough trouble for a government, you are never truly free from harassment, but really, are we considering Wikipedia as a source for terror watch lists?! Yes I use it (and probably you do too) as a quick-and-dirty reference tool, but then nothing I've used it for will get anyone detained. In Wikipedia's defense, it appears that the offending passages are now purged from Akçam's page.

This is a travesty. If you'll excuse me now, I have to go edit Stephen Harper's Wikipedia biography.

Neocons Alone

Juan Cole has a most excellent piece today on how Nancy Pelosi's visit with Bashar al-Asad represents not only Democratic Party attempts to revive a full spectrum of foreign policy tools (not just bombing and invasions) but also mainstream opinion in Israel. Why? Well, as Cole writes,

"So since the Neocons' Iraq War has turned into a catastrophe that poses an asymmetrical security threat to Israel, since the Lebanon war they so strongly backed turned into a fiasco, and since their plans for overthrowing Bashar are likely to even further endanger Israel, then the Israeli political and military elite must be fuming and seeking a way to outmaneuver the Bushies and their wild man Neocon allies."

Arguably the most aggressive attempt at building a new conservative coalition since Nixon's "Southern strategy" has been centered on convincing Jews in North America that neoconservative foreign policy is best for Israel. It is apparent now that the strategy is not really working. Of course such a position was formulated in part because on the surface it fused well with Evangelical premillenialist beliefs about a Jewish state being necessary for Armageddon. If you read most premillenialists, you'll see that the Jews end up mostly getting wiped out in this scenario.

All the stuff is now getting thrown out (I hope) for a more sensible foreign policy. You know, one that doesn't see hard power as the only power.

What Were They Doing There?

Juan Cole has linked to an article by Craig Murray that points out that the British sailors and Marines were looking for smuggled automobiles(!) Murray's article is worth reading for a review of why this boundary is disputed. Additionally, he wonders why on earth the Royal Navy was checking for car smugglers (not the same as interdicting, say, arms smugglers).

Lying Liars

Juan Cole has an excellent post on the Pentagon's attempts to cherry-pick intelligence in order to foment war fever. In it he disassembles the lies told by Douglas Feith in a CNN interview. Reading the whole thing is informative, but here's the money quote:

Former No. 3 at the Pentagon under Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Douglas Feith, has been found guilty by the Inspector General of "inappropriate" behavior in setting up a rogue unit inside the Pentagon to cherry pick intelligence so as to get up a war. Of course, the Inspector General was careful to say, this treasonous activity was not "illegal." Lying about sex is illegal. Lying the country into a war that kills or wounds 25,000 US troops is just "inappropriate."

This group of charlatans is probably not going to get taken down like the Nixon administration was, and yet the more that is revealed about how the operate the more I think they are going to leave a taste of Watergate cynicism in our mouths.

More Embarrassing Quotes

Juan Cole has another zinger from one of the Iraq war architects, Douglas Feith as he conversed with an unnamed State Dept. Official:

State Dept. Official: "Doug, after the smoke clears, what is the plan?"
Feith: "Think of Iraq as being like a computer. And think of Saddam as like a processor. We just take out the old processor, and put in a new one--Chalabi."
State Dept. Official: "Put in a new processor?"
Feith: "Yes! It will all be over in 6 weeks."
State Dept. Official: "You mean six months."
Feith: "No, six weeks. You'll see."
State Dept. Official: "Doug."
Feith: "Yes?"
State Dept. Official: "You're smoking crack, Doug."
Feith: "Oh, so you're disloyal to the President, are you?"

This is pathological, this is beyond optimism, this is beyond wishful thinking. Feith was (is?) in some completely other dimension. He thought that he could pull off this whole thing in six weeks?! Most mail-order places tell you to allow four to six weeks for shipping. The other striking feature about this was that Feith seems utterly unconcerned with this whole democracy in the Middle East thing - just replace on thug with another - it's nice to know that freedom was just a marketing thing. I feel sick for every soldier sent to Iraq, for everyone living there.

The CIA Retirement Plan

I suppose that's a very black-humour way of describing what happened to Saddam this morning. Juan Cole has a detailed post that contextualizes Saddam's rise to power. Surprise, surpirse, Western agents enabled him. Go read the whole thing!