Shiites Stone Maliki

Sadr City:

The motorcade of Iraq’s prime minister was pelted with stones on Sunday by fellow Shias in a Baghdad slum, when he paid respects to some of the 200 who died there last week in the deadliest attack since the US invasion.

If this is how fragile Maliki's power is, even amongst his core constituency, then how long will it be until we see a vote of no confidence in the government? Perhaps the upcoming meeting between Bush and Maliki will be the straw:

The wreaking of vengeance unfolded while a powerful parliamentary bloc loyal to firebrand Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr threatened to boycott the government if Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki attends a meeting with President Bush scheduled for Wednesday in Jordan. The legislators said the American presence was the root cause of the spiraling violence in Iraq.

Notice that it's an announced meeting, so it has to be outside the country of Iraq. Otherwise our guy might get blown-up.

If the Sadrists walk out, there goes 30-some votes for the Prime Minister. I don't know exactly how their parliment works, but couldn't that be used as a vote of no confidence itself?

"How Can this be Fair? How Can this be Right?"

Ben Stein, quoting Warren Buffet - two liberal lions just itching for the chance to give your hard-earned money to crack-addled welfare queens:

Put simply, the rich pay a lot of taxes as a total percentage of taxes collected, but they don’t pay a lot of taxes as a percentage of what they can afford to pay, or as a percentage of what the government needs to close the deficit gap.

Mr. Buffett compiled a data sheet of the men and women who work in his office. He had each of them make a fraction; the numerator was how much they paid in federal income tax and in payroll taxes for Social Security and Medicare, and the denominator was their taxable income. The people in his office were mostly secretaries and clerks, though not all.

It turned out that Mr. Buffett, with immense income from dividends and capital gains, paid far, far less as a fraction of his income than the secretaries or the clerks or anyone else in his office. Further, in conversation it came up that Mr. Buffett doesn’t use any tax planning at all. He just pays as the Internal Revenue Code requires. “How can this be fair?” he asked of how little he pays relative to his employees. “How can this be right?”

Good question, Warren.

On to Holt!

Contra Kevin, I think that since we're already throwing seniority thing out the window, we should skip over Reyes and move all the way to Rush Holt for Intelligence Committee Chairman. I hear he's got a good bio. How can you not dig on the nuclear phsyicist career? It's just what I want in my representatives: the ability to irradiate his enemies.

The Real John McCain: Hagel!

Ladies and Gentlemen, allow me to introduce Senator Hagel, the real John McCain:

There will be no victory or defeat for the United States in Iraq. These terms do not reflect the reality of what is going to happen there. The future of Iraq was always going to be determined by the Iraqis -- not the Americans.

Iraq is not a prize to be won or lost. It is part of the ongoing global struggle against instability, brutality, intolerance, extremism and terrorism. There will be no military victory or military solution for Iraq. Former secretary of state Henry Kissinger made this point last weekend.

The time for more U.S. troops in Iraq has passed. We do not have more troops to send and, even if we did, they would not bring a resolution to Iraq. Militaries are built to fight and win wars, not bind together failing nations. We are once again learning a very hard lesson in foreign affairs: America cannot impose a democracy on any nation -- regardless of our noble purpose.

We have misunderstood, misread, misplanned and mismanaged our honorable intentions in Iraq with an arrogant self-delusion reminiscent of Vietnam. Honorable intentions are not policies and plans. Iraq belongs to the 25 million Iraqis who live there. They will decide their fate and form of government.

Hagel is the only Republican straight shooter. Hagel is the only Republican patriot who will not besmirch the honor of his opponents or their love of country. Hagel is the only Republican who debates the issues rather than resorting to the "Cut and Run" talking points. Hagel is the only Republican maverick. I would weep with relief if the 2008 Presidential contest turned into Hagel v Democrat.

Harman for Intel Chair?

I've heard there's growing contention over who will become the chair of the House Intel Committee in the new House session. Alcee Hastings is said to be under consideration for the spot by Pelosi, passing over Jane Harman, who is the current ranking member. This would go against one of the 9/11 commission recommendations, a fact which is dwarfed by the public history of the putative replacement, Alcee Hastings. An impeached judge? To head the Intel Committee? Please. Pelosi can't think that is a good idea. This must be a play to get someone else in, who will seem like an angel in comparison. Either she's doing that, or it's Bernie Kerik time! Let's cross our fingers, shall we?

As for Harman, I will admit that I liked her at one time, despite her general conservativeness. For instance, she called for the release of the full Iraq War National Intelligence Estimate, which tickled me. But we mustn't forget that she made those absolutely devastating comments about the NSA Domestic Spying case (which is a domestic spying case, by the way - surveillance is done on US citizens, inside the US - exactly what FISA criminalized). She supported the program, and I believe she went so far as to vouch for its legality. That really helped galvanize our side of the argument, Jane. Thanks.

So I'm with Pelosi. Let's choose someone other than Harman for the Chair of the Intel Committee.

breaking army

We constantly reference opinions about the imminently "broken state" of the army. Well, here's a story from the Army Times to reference in backing that up:

“The country is not at war. The United States armed forces and the CIA are at war. So we are asking our military to sustain a level of effort that we have not resourced,” he told Army Times.

“That’s how to break the Army is to keep it deployed above the rate at which it can be sustained,” he said. “There’s no free lunch here. The Army and the Marine Corps and Special Operations Command are too small and badly resourced to carry out this national security strategy.”

Entered into the Record.

Kissinger declares Loss

Wow! They lost Kissinger. The very man who said that political and mental will is necessary to win the war has lost his political will! How disheartening for the Bush Administration.

"If you mean by 'military victory' an Iraqi government that can be established and whose writ runs across the whole country, that gets the civil war under control and sectarian violence under control in a time period that the political processes of the democracies will support, I don't believe that is possible," [Kissinger] told the British Broadcasting Corp.

So much for "winning in Iraq." According to Kissinger, then, since there is no victory possible, our further involvement wastes American lives - the height of immorality.

Fair and Balanced, Indeed

A leaked Fox News memo, via the Huffington Post:

The elections and Rumsfeld's resignation were a major event, but not the end of the world. The war on terror goes on without interruption. Jennifer Griffin send in info on Hamas' call for attacks on American interests. And let's be on the lookout for any statements from the Iraqi insurgents, who must be thrilled at the prospect of a Dem-controlled congress.

Classic.

Interestingly, I've heard that exact line, about how surely the insurgents would weigh-in on their ally's victory in the Congress, from a number of right-wing "news" outlets. It's like they coordinate or something. Imagine that.

Feingold Wont Run

This is disappointing some people I know today.

Sen. Russ Feingold will not seek his party's presidential nomination in 2008, the Wisconsin Democrat told the Journal Sentinel on Saturday.

"I never got to that point where I'd rather be running around the country, running for president, than being a senator from Wisconsin," Feingold said in a phone interview from Madison.

Feingold, 53, conceded that he faced long odds of winning the nomination.

"It would have required the craziest combination of things in the history of American politics to make it work," he said.

But Feingold said waging an underdog campaign appealed to him. What didn't appeal to him, he said, was "the way in which this effort would dismantle both my professional life (in the Senate) and my personal life. I'm very happy right now."

Feingold had been publicly weighing a presidential bid since early 2005, forming a political action committee, traveling to key states such as New Hampshire and Iowa, and cultivating a more national constituency as an early and outspoken opponent of the Iraq war, the Patriot Act and other Bush administration policies.

As the oversight begins, and facts are documented, Feingold's inspired opposition to the Warrantless Wiretapping Program, the Patriot Act and the Iraq War will be confirmed as justified. This could well change the forces behind him and propel him on. All the same, I respect his realism based on the current state of debate.

Conservatives React to Tuesday.

From the reliably Pro-War Jonah Goldberg at the Corner:

How Bush Should Handle Loss [Jonah Goldberg]

I think James Baker and Dick Cheney should take Bush out to the woods around Camp David. After 24 hours in a sweat lodge, he should be given only a loin cloth, a hunting knife and a canteen of water. Bush should then set out to track and kill a black bear, after which he should eat its still beating heart so he can absorb its spirit. He should then fly back to Washington in Marine 1. His torso still scratched from the bear's claws, his face bloodied and steaming in the November chill, he should immediately give a press conference at which he throws the bearskin on the front row of the press corps, completely enveloping Helen Thomas, declaring, "I'm not going anywhere."

Creepy. Why don't these people sign up for the war, and make an actual contribution to the effort?

What Bush-Bipartisanship Looks Like

Via the Washington Note:

The President's and new Speaker's comments before the press started at 1:04 pm today and concluded at 1:08 pm.

At 1:22 pm, the White House sent John Bolton's controversial nomination to serve as US Ambassador to the United Nations back up to the Senate.

Luckily, Lincoln Chafee would have none of it -- suggesting that such a nomination is clearly not in the spirit of what happened electorally in this country this week. By 2:15 pm, Chafee put an end to the Bolton confirmation process by formalizing his previous "informal" opposition to Bolton in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Bolton's nomination was so radical that it actually made a Republican Senator cry. This is what taking pains to work across the aisle looks like? To me, it looks like we're going to have more of the same from the Bush White House. Expect him to find that veto pen he lost during the first six years.

Post Campaign

Well, we won. Good for us. Now it's time to govern in such a way that I don't have to vote against the Democrats in '08. I have faith on that score.

I got three hours of sleep on election night, and still went to fencing practice on Wednesday - with not even a nap on the plane home... don't get me wrong, there was 4 hours of trying to nap on the plane home. If sleeping on the plane was ever going to work, it would have been then, but I'm just not built that way.

I slept 10.5 hours last night, which is unheard of for me. Now, with so much sleep and the slight cold I picked up, my brain is all wishy-washy. I've got a dozen fires to put out with clients here, so that should be fun in my current state.

Enough procrastinating. Here's a little gem to tide you over. It looks like Bush isn't so chummy with his BFF:

Do More Than Vote!

Get out and Do More than Vote, people. It's all about GOTV, and sitting around reading blogs about it doesn't count. If we don't have subpeona power locked in after the next 30 hours, those of you who sat it out will get the ever loving stuffing smacked out of you by those of us who did.

Al Qaqaa WMD-Grade C4

I refer to the Al Qaqaa C4 story often, since it is one of the most glaring and contemptible failures of the early war. I'm glad I happened upon a link to refer back to.

Some 380 tons of explosives powerful enough to detonate nuclear warheads are missing from a former Iraqi military facility that was supposed to be under American control, the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog agency says.

Melissa Fleming, spokeswoman for the International Atomic Energy Agency, said the interim Iraqi government reported to the agency several days ago in a letter that the explosives were missing from the Al Qaqaa complex south of Baghdad.

The explosives -- considered powerful enough to demolish buildings or detonate nuclear warheads -- were under IAEA control until the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003. IAEA workers left the country before the fighting began.

Entered into the Record.

Redstate on Releasing Nuclear Secrets

I know that picking on the poor right-wing blogs is almost too easy, but this is a particularly illustrative example of the contortions they put themselves through:

Apparently lost to the New York Times in this gushing about how the dangerously incompetent Bush administration made WMD technology available to Iran (thus making America exponentially less safe – although nowhere in the article does it say that Iran has definitively accessed these documents) was the most obvious detail of their story: that Iraq, under Saddam Hussein, had the capability for – and was actively seeking – not only chemical and biological weapons, but nuclear weapons, as well.

The staple of the Liberal platform for the past four-plus years has been almost uniform: Bush lied us into a war in Iraq. Saddam never had any weapons of mass destruction, nor was he seeking any; Iraq was not a threat to America’s security in any way, shape, or form.

This report blows that entire argument, and its corresponding mindset, completely out of the water.

Thrown in almost as an aside, they first hope against hope that Iran didn't access the documents. But if even I have a copy, I'm reasonably sure that the vast majority of intelligence agencies on the planet have a copy. If they don't, there are torrents out there currently active with copies, and those cannot be stopped with today's telco management technology.

The main point of their argument, however, is that "Saddam had a nuclear weapon's program!" This is the same argument used by Santorum and Weldon to say that 1980s-era chemical shells constituted the reason we went to war. I shouted at RedState, as I shouted at Santorum: "THAT WAS BEFORE 1991. WE INVADED IN 2003." I don't believe there has ever been an argument over whether or not Saddam had WMDs, since we have the receipts for many of them.

Of course, RedState isn't so stupid that they can't tell dates. They are just dishonest.

White House Released Nuclear Weapons Secrets

Years ago I would have said that it must be April Fool's day in the NYTimes' office. I'd have thought to myself, "surely, no American government would be so craven as to put political considerations above nuclear proliferation." Unfortunately for me and the rest of the country, it's been a long time since I've been really shocked by the Bush Administration's blinding, radioactive incompetence. This, though, is one of those things that you couldn't sell to a movie audience: the U.S. Government releasing advanced nuclear weapons making secrets in order to cover its ass for the last colossal screw-up:

Last night, the government shut down the Web site after The New York Times asked about complaints from weapons experts and arms-control officials. A spokesman for the director of national intelligence said access to the site had been suspended “pending a review to ensure its content is appropriate for public viewing.”

Officials of the International Atomic Energy Agency, fearing that the information could help states like Iran develop nuclear arms, had privately protested last week to the American ambassador to the agency, according to European diplomats who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the issue’s sensitivity. One diplomat said the agency’s technical experts “were shocked” at the public disclosures.

Early this morning, a spokesman for Gregory L. Schulte, the American ambassador, denied that anyone from the agency had approached Mr. Schulte about the Web site.

The documents, roughly a dozen in number, contain charts, diagrams, equations and lengthy narratives about bomb building that nuclear experts who have viewed them say go beyond what is available elsewhere on the Internet and in other public forums. For instance, the papers give detailed information on how to build nuclear firing circuits and triggering explosives, as well as the radioactive cores of atom bombs.

“For the U.S. to toss a match into this flammable area is very irresponsible,” said A. Bryan Siebert, a former director of classification at the federal Department of Energy, which runs the nation’s nuclear arms program. “There’s a lot of things about nuclear weapons that are secret and should remain so.”

You'll remember that the reason they released these documents was to allow the distributed power of the internet (ed. read right-blogistan) to sift through the information - hopefully finding some smoking gun along the way that proves that Saddam was making weapons of mass destruction. So, in order to prove that we stopped WMDs, we released WMDs. IT'S A MASTER STROKE!!

Incidentally, once you have weapons-grade radioactive material, these equations and diagrams are some of the few things standing between you and a sophisticated bomb - much more efficient than the nuclear weapon any 5th grader could make with a critical mass. I wonder... who in the neighborhood might want that sort of information? God knows how much time and money this shaves off Iran's development time.

Unbelievable.

Iran's War Games

Here's a fun picture from Iran:

Of course, given the randomish direction those missiles are pointing, it is perhaps not as impressive as it first seems. I do like how you can see the attitude jets firing on a number of them. Nifty.

I wonder who this War Game was aimed at? There's just no way to be sure.

Boehner Blames the Generals

This isn't even a botched joke, it's just a straight statement. From the Military Times:

In the wake of Sen. John Kerry’s belated apology for offending troops deployed in Iraq, House Majority Leader Rep. John Boehner of Ohio is being asked by Democrats to apologize for seemingly blaming senior military officers for any problems with the Bush administration’s Iraq strategy. Boehner, however, does not appear to be budging.

“Good try,” he said when asked about demands for an apology.

In a Wednesday appearance on CNN, Boehner was asked for his view on Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and the U.S. policy in Iraq.

“There are a lot of people who want to blame what’s happening in Iraq on Donald Rumsfeld, but when you look at the transformation that our military has been through, it’s nothing short of remarkable,” Boehner said. “The fact is, the generals on the ground are in charge.”

Boehner acknowledged that “there have been mistakes along the way,” but did not blame Rumsfeld.

Rumsfeld, Boehner said, has been pushing the military to transform, but the uniformed military leaders have resisted.

“You have to understand that the generals who have been in charge of the Pentagon have been very resistant to change,” Boehner said.

Speaking in the context of why Iraq is such a mess, Boehner says that "You have to understand that it is the Generals that are in charge," and he doesn't think he's blaming the generals?

This all comes down to the old law about playing against expectations. If a "troop hating liberal" slips up about the troops, he's going to get upbraided. If a "racist conservative" slips up about cultural demographics, he's going to get yelled at as well. Only Nixon could go to China, and only the Republican Majority Leader or the Republican National Security Advisor can blame the troops for strategic policy failures and get away without a firestorm.

Busy Working

I'm off working for a Senate campaign out west, so I'll be posting rarely. Deal with it.

Leaked Papers from the Pentagon

Oh Dear:

Internally, that's what they're hearing. Publicly, they say we're "winning." Liars.