The German “I Told You So”

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The next WikiLeaks dump is about to reveal to the world what the United States really thinks of the world leaders it pretends to like and the degree to which it overlooks corruption among friends (it sounds like the reports will include confirmation that Hamid Karzai is corrupt, among other things).

Knowing that it’s coming adds just a bit of irony to the publication of excerpts from a German document liberated to refute some claims Bush made in his memoir.

Among other things, the document describes the Germans warning the US–in February 2003–of just how badly the Iraq war would turn out.

According to the notes — all in German — the meeting amounted to 90 minutes of verbal blows, which primarily stemmed from Rice’s “relatively rigorous and uncompromising” defense of the US position. The same notes indicate that [German foreign minister envoy Klaus] Scharioth didn’t budge an inch toward Washington, either. In retrospect, though, they document a high point in German diplomatic history, because the objections and predictions put forward by Berlin on that Tuesday have turned out to be legitimate and correct.

The crux of the German argument was that the political costs of a war in Iraq would be “higher than (the) political returns.” While Rice predicted that Iraq would take advantage of the “opportunities for reconstruction” like the ones Germany enjoyed after 1945, the delegation from Berlin countered that the rapid establishment of a democracy in Baghdad was “not (to be) expected.”

The Germans also predicted that the real beneficiary of a war in Iraq would actually be Iran, and that a US-led attack would further complicate efforts to reach a solution in the conflict between the Israelis and Palestinians.

Likewise, they prophesized that going to war would precipitate a “terrorist backlash.” Scharioth stressed that it was important “to win over the hearts and minds of the Muslim elite and youths,” according to the notes, and that this was “not to be achieved” by going to war. He also added that doing so would greatly increase the danger of prompting an “influx to Islamic fundamentalism and terrorism.”

I’m particularly interested in the warnings that this would empower Iran. It was definitely predictable that the war would strengthen Iran. But it always seemed as if the Bush Administration never even considered that possibility.

Well, at least Condi was warned.

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The Obama Disconnect: Arlington, Korea and Catfood

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Marcy wrote earlier this morning about David Axelrod’s despicable announcement of Obama’s capitulation to the oligarchs on tax cuts (another lead balloon the Obama White House incompetently tried and failed to walk back). Later this morning, however, were a couple of events that put an even starker gloss on this pig.

First, was this from The Oval:

President Obama is in Seoul, South Korea, where today he said lawmakers in the United States should hold off on comments about his fiscal commission’s proposals to slash the federal budget deficit through spending cuts, ending tax breaks, and a revamping of the Social Security system.

“Before anybody starts shooting down proposals, I think we need to listen, we need to gather up all the facts,” Obama told reporters.

He added: “If people are, in fact, concerned about spending, debt, deficits and the future of our country, then they’re going to need to be armed with the information about the kinds of choices that are going to be involved, and we can’t just engage in political rhetoric.”

So, Barack Obama is in Korea lecturing Americans to suck it up and embrace the catfood he and the wealthy elite have deemed necessary to feed us in order to pay for their grotesque largesse. Notably, at the same time Vice President Biden was left to be the White House representative at the traditional Arlington National Cemetery ceremony to honor America’s Veterans, where Presidents usually pay their respects and appreciation to veterans and the military. Especially during a “time of war”. Obama couldn’t make it to Arlington for the Memorial Day Ceremony either.

But Mr. Obama could not be present at Arlington this time because he was in Korea. And just what was so pressing in Korea? As Jane Hamsher points out, it is the desire to press for a horribly conceived US-Korea free trade deal:

It would be a truly horrific blow to whatever is left of American manufacturing at a time when unemployment is rampant. But from a political standpoint, fighting for another so-called “free trade” agreement right now has got to represent some kind of death wish for the Democratic party.

Yes indeed, but thus is what we are constantly served by Barack Obama. As Paul Krugman today rightfully termed it, Mush From the Wimp.

You know, it is not just that the arrogant and cluelessly detached President Pangloss is steaming toward a one and done Presidency, it is that he is literally destroying the Democratic Party and liberal ideology in the process and leaving them in his wake.

UPDATE: I guess Obama couldn’t even sell crack free trade to Charlie Sheen the Koreans.

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If DOD’s Got a Problem with Wikileaked Names, They’ve Got a Problem w/NYT

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Before the Wikileaks document dump this afternoon, DOD and Murdoch were out with claims that the impending dump would put 300 Iraqis at significant risk of reprisal. As Wikileaks noted via Twitter, the article falsely claimed that Wikileaks would reveal actual names.

Besides, if DOD has a problem with leaks, they likely have a problem with the NYT, not Wikileaks.

I discovered this by looking at both outlets’ version of the same report, the July 31, 2009 report on the capture by Iranians of three American hikers.

Here’s the NYT version of the report (at least as it appeared at around 8PM tonight); here’s a PDF, or click on the image for a full image of the report. Here’s the version included in Wikileaks’ database (you probably need to sign up for a password to get it; to search for it, look for the document by time at 10:00 on 31 July 2009).

At first read, here’s the information that is redacted in the Wiki version but which appears in the NYT version (please tell me if you see something I’ve missed):

  • Indication–AMCIT–that the people kidnapped were American citizens
  • Information that appears to show injury/damage report: 0 INJ/DAM 2/1 07:112
  • The location of the kidnapping (NYT redacts part of this, but leaves Sulaymaniyah/Halabjah unredacted)
  • The identification of the captured people as 3 American citizens, where they were being taken (to the Iranian border)
  • Three reports of the coordinates where the hikers were taken (see Updates at 1630, 1631, 1715)
  • The acronym JPRC and the detail that the hikers had come to Iraq–though Wiki does reveal they intended to go rock climbing
  • Acronyms describing who would set up checkpoints
  • The name–“Meckfessel”–of the person who provides more info on the hikers–he was the fourth hiker (note, NYT puts this in quotes); but note that Wiki includes the following which NYT doesn’t include:

receive additional ___ from him and take him to a secure location for rotary transport to FOB Warrior.

  • That the hikers were hiking the “Ahmad al Waha (variant Waaha, Waah, etc.) Rock face outside of Sulaymaniyah (note, NYT does not close that quotation mark around Ahmad al Waha)
  • That “Pathfinder” was en route to refuel at FOB Warrior and that they would “remain” on standby
  • The bolded details in the update, “Colonel Latif of the 10th Pesh Murga brigade reports Iranians detained 3X AMCIT for being too close to the border”
  • The detail that “CJ3” was reporting that “President Barzani” was notified
  • Reference to Pathfinder and F16s and the detail that the AWT was 5 minutes out
  • Wiki then includes the following details from the pursuit that NYT redacted entirely:

UPDATE ___: Current situation

-2x ___ on station (controlled by /___ CAV)

-1x Warrior Alpha: en route (___ by MND-___)

–CF have ___ manned and ___ unmanned ISR on station

–CF en route ___ HQ to link up with ___.

-1x AWT on standby at FOB warrior

-1x ___ team on standby at FOB Warrior

  • The detail that OSINT was reporting that Iranians had reported picking up the Americans
  • More references to Meckfessel being picked up and, ultimately, delivered to Baghdad
  • MND-N’s confirmation they will “C2” the recovery operations
  • Wiki includes the following that NYT redacts entirely:

UPDATE 311815JUL09: ___ is at ___ HQ–made link up with , ___ x CF personnel on site, ___ to a secure location, ___ digit grid when ___ is designated

  • Details about taking Meckfessel to PB Andrea and from there, on a C12, to Baghdad
  • Read more →
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David Petraeus’ Escalation(s)

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Le Monde did this graphic of the what kind of deaths the Wikileaks document dump records happening when (blue are American soldiers killed–darker–or injured; green are civilians killed or injured).

In an article on another revelation in the Wikieaks document–tracing several more incidents of civilian deaths caused by a helicopter using the same call sign as the helicopter that killed some Reuters journalists–Al Jazeera makes this note:

The documents also reveal that the use of airstrikes increased dramatically in 2007, after General David Petraeus took over as the commander of US forces in Iraq, despite his public statements that airstrikes often “provide insurgents with a major propaganda victory.” The US dropped 229 bombs in 2006, a number that surged to 1,447 in 2007.

A similar trend is happening now in Afghanistan, where airstsrikes have increased by 172 per cent since Petraeus took command.

And as the Guardian notes, a lot of more of these deaths–over 15,000–are civilians than previously known (see also their analysis of deaths here). Al Jazeera notes that Iraq Body Count is about to raise its count accordingly, to 122,000.

We’re about to get a rather different understanding of what the surge was all about.

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“You Lie!”

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I spent a good part of a book beating up on George Bush for lying in an address to Congress in an effort to generate support for a policy that was being challenged on the merits.

So while I’m not suggesting that protecting a secret deal with health insurance companies is as despicable as starting a war of choice by crafting careful lies to Congress–it’s nowhere close–when I read BT’s piece…

We now know that the White House, in secret negotiations with industry lobbyists, quietly killed the public option in July 2009. But when the President gave a nationally-televised, joint address to Congress on September 9, 2009, he implied that the public option was still on the table.

…an additional step we can take to keep insurance companies honest is by making a not-for-profit public option available in the insurance exchange. Let me be clear – it would only be an option for those who don’t have insurance. No one would be forced to choose it, and it would not impact those of you who already have insurance. In fact, based on Congressional Budget Office estimates, we believe that less than 5% of Americans would sign up. […]

It would also keep pressure on private insurers to keep their policies affordable and treat their customers better, the same way public colleges and universities provide additional choice and competition to students without in any way inhibiting a vibrant system of private colleges and universities.

It’s worth noting that a strong majority of Americans still favor a public insurance option of the sort I’ve proposed tonight.

… I couldn’t help but remember Joe Wilson’s accusation, right in the middle of that address to Congress, “You lie!” Wilson got the individual assertion wrong, but he called the theater for what it was.

All of which, in turn, reminded me of discussions noting that the bloggers who were most supportive of Obama’s health care reform were the same bloggers who had been most credulous about Bush’s claim for the necessity of war with Iraq.

Again, just on the basis of expanding Medicaid to millions of new people and smart changes to Medicare, there’s absolutely no comparison between Obama’s health care reform with the merits of the war Bush was pushing with his lies.

But it does make me wonder why this theater ever works at all anymore, as Presidents continue to taint their once-cherished soap boxes with false statements that quickly become exposed as such.

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Six Years Later, US Still Trying to Find a Way to Keep Corrupt Contractor in Afghanistan

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The most depressing part of this McClatchy article on the corrupt USAID contracting in Afghanistan by the construction company, Louis Berger, are six-year old quotes calling for an alternative to Berger.

Behind the scenes, U.S. officials repeatedly have voiced frustration about the company’s work.

In May 2004 — three months after then-President George W. Bush publicly praised the company for its quick construction of a section of the Kabul-to-Kandahar Highway — then-U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad raised concerns about Louis Berger.

“These problems are now beginning to interfere with the credibility of the U.S. Mission in Afghanistan, and require immediate corrective action,” he wrote.

Later that year, Patrick Fine, USAID’s top official in Afghanistan, questioned the quality of schools and clinics whose construction was overseen by Louis Berger. “It is time to cut our losses and put in place an alternative strategy,” he wrote.

Yet six years later, DOJ is preparing to sign either a non-prosecution or a deferred prosecution agreement with the company so that Louis Berger can continue to work in Afghanistan.

The decision to brush aside the allegations and the evidence and keep doing business with Louis Berger, underscores a persistent dilemma for the Obama administration in Afghanistan and elsewhere.

Cutting ties with suspect war-zone contractors in Afghanistan would threaten the administration’s effort to rebuild the country and begin withdrawing some of the nearly 100,000 U.S. troops there next July.

You know all those articles about the corruption of Karzai’s government? The claims that Afghans are just more tolerant of corruption than Americans? The suggestions that, because it’s a developing country, Afghans have to and do learn to tolerate corruption?

Either we’ve become a banana republic sooner than most people realized (perhaps with the FL county in 2000? Or before that?). Or all those attempts to blame Afghan culture for the corruption there are just lame excuses invented to help us overlook our own apparently intractable tolerance for corruption.

But one way or another, it helps to make Afghanistan far too expensive to achieve whatever “victory” our government pretends to be pursuing.

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The NeoCons Make Unapologetic Call for McCarthyism against Muslims

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One of the successors to the NeoCon organization PNAC, the Center for Security Policy, released a report the other day that makes an unapologetic call for trumped up McCarthyism targeted at Muslims.

The study rather humorously models itself on Team B–the alternate analysis Poppy Bush ordered up to paint the Soviet Union as an ongoing threat in 1976. They do so, apparently, in an effort to invoke St. Ronnie’s use of Team B’s “analysis” for electoral gain and ultimately to point to the usefulness of ideology to generate political support for foreign policy adventures. But nowhere do they bother to mention that Team B’s analysis was famously, embarrassingly wrong.

The effect of this authoritative alternative view was profound. Among others, former California Governor Ronald Reagan used the thrust of its findings to challenge détente and those in public office who supported this doctrine. Drawing on the thinking of Team B with regard to national security issues, Reagan nearly defeated President Gerald Ford’s bid for reelection in the 1976 primaries. Four years later, Reagan successfully opposed President Jimmy Carter, with their disagreement over the latter’s detentist foreign and defense policies towards Moscow featuring prominently in the former’s victory.

Most importantly, as President, Ronald Reagan drew on the work of Team B as an intellectual foundation for his strategy for destroying the Soviet Union and discrediting its ideology – a feat begun during his tenure and finally accomplished, thanks to his implementation of that strategy, several years after he left office.

Which is, I guess, CSP’s unapologetic endorsement of simply making shit up to create an enemy.

It’s stuff like this that led me to brand these clowns with the name “utilitarian postmodernists” some years back.

Normally, I wouldn’t pay these clowns any attention–they’ve got a long history of lying to support warmongering. But what really concerns me is the report’s insinuation that the country’s laws protecting speech–which were solidified in the process of protecting leftist speech–are too strong for their trumped up fight against Muslims.

Beginning in the 1960s, however, the Supreme Court drastically reinterpreted the First Amendment, gradually extending the original guarantee of American citizens’ right to engage in political speech, to include a constitutional protection to (a) subversive speech that could be construed as “advocacy,” rather than incitement to imminent lawlessness, and (b) the speech of non-Americans. Bowing to elite opinion, which scoffed at fears of communist penetration of our government and institutions, Congress (in such legislation as the 1965 Immigration Act, the 1978 McGovern Amendment, the 1989 Moynihan-Frank Amendment, and the 1990 Immigration Act) gutted the statutory basis for excluding and deporting individuals based on ideological beliefs, regardless of their subversive tendencies – at least in the absence of demonstrable ties to terrorism, espionage or sabotage.

Let us assume, again for argument’s sake, that there was some validity in the opinion elite’s critique that anti-communism went too far – and set aside the fact that such an assumption requires overlooking post-Soviet revelations that have confirmed communist infiltrations. The prior experience would not mean the security precautions that sufficed to protect our nation from communism are adequate to shield us from a totalitarian ideology cloaked in religious garb.

Such precautions are wholly inadequate for navigating a threat environment in which secretive foreign-sponsored international networks undermine our nation from within. That is especially the case where such networks can exploit the atmosphere of intimidation created by the tactics of their terrorist counterparts (including individual assassinations and mass-murder attacks on our homeland) in a modern technological age of instantaneous cross-continental communications and the increasing availability of mass-destruction weapons that allow ever fewer people to project ever more power.

We were wrong to let leftists exercise their free speech, these fearmongers say, in spite of the fact that our nation survived the Cold War. But the threat from Muslims is even stronger than the threat of a nuclear-armed Soviet Union. And so, they suggest, we must not only abridge the free speech of Muslims, but also change the law to allow deportations of those saying unpopular things.

So to sum up this latest stunt from the NeoCons: they unabashedly admit they intend to make shit up to sow fear of Muslims, and part of that will be targeting Muslims for deportation.

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That Beacon of Hope We’ve Created in Iraq

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As we discuss whether to abandon rule of law in Afghanistan under General Petraeus, we’d do well to consider how the war Petraeus “won” in Iraq turned out:

On a dull December day in 2009, Rabiha al Qassab, a 63-year-old Iraqi refugee living in a quiet residential area of north London, received a telephone call that marked the beginning of a new nightmare for a family already torn apart by Iraq’s political upheavals.

Her 68-year-old husband, Ramze Shihab Ahmed, had been arrested while on a visit to Iraq, and no-one knew where he was being held or what, if anything, he had been charged with.

Nine months later, Ramze is still languishing in legal limbo in a Baghdad prison. His story lays bare the horrific abuses and lack of legal process that characterise post-Saddam Iraq’s detention system, which human rights groups say has scarcely improved since the darkest days of the dictator’s rule.

[snip]

“They beat him. They put a plastic bag on his head until he lost consciousness, and then they woke him with electric shocks. They told him that if he didn’t confess, they would make his son rape him. They put a wooden stick into his anus,” she says. “They have abused him in every way.”

After days of torture, Ramze signed a confession admitting to being a member of al- Qaeda in Iraq, a claim Rabiha says is absurd. “He would see the bombings on television and say ‘what sort of Islam is this?'” she says. “He was very sorry for all the people who died.”

Human rights experts say that Ramze’s story is far from unique. In a new report on mistreatment in the Iraqi prison system, entitled New Order, Same Abuses, Amnesty International estimates that around 30,000 people are currently being held without charge or trial in Iraq. Many are being tortured with impunity, the group says.

I’m sure our decision to put aside rule of law in favor of “the principal goal” in Iraq has nothing to do with Iraq’s embrace of the same kind of torture that we used–after the WMD rationale was exposed as a lie–to justify our invasion of Iraq.

Here’s the Amnesty report.

If we’re going to insist on continuing this imperial adventure we’re on, we’re going to have to come up with a better rationale than “democracy” or “rule of law” or “freedom from tyranny.” Because all those excuses appear as bogus, at this point, as the WMD one.
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“The law enforcement approach … mucks up our strategic interests.”

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I’ve been tracking the debate within the Administration over whether we should tolerate corruption in Afghanistan in the name of sustaining a war against someone–anyone–in Afghanistan or not for some weeks. Underlying the entire debate is the fact that our goals in Afghanistan–which started as a pursuit of those who struck us on 9/11 and now, having achieved that in Afghanistan, appears to be “not lose”–are totally unclear and apparently divorced from national interest. The debate pits those who believe corruption discredits the Karzai regime and creates support for the Taliban against those who rely on corrupt members of the Karzai regime who claim cracking down on corruption (which is, effectively, the removal of our aid money to private bank accounts in Dubai) will hurt the goal, which they’ve redefined, without Congressional buy-off, as defeating the Taliban.

Here’s how today’s installment, from  By Rajiv Chandrasekaran, captures the debate:

The debate turns largely on how various administration officials view the connection between corruption and the insurgency.

Some officials, principally at the staff level, contend that government venality and incompetence is the principal reason Afghans are joining, supporting or tolerating the Taliban. Other administration and military officials, particularly those at senior levels, maintain that graft is just one of many factors – along with sanctuaries in Pakistan, historical tribal grievances and anger at the presence of foreign forces on Afghan soil – that fuel the conflict.

Compounding the challenge is that many Afghan officials who are regarded as corrupt also provide valuable assistance to U.S. forces, including sensitive intelligence. Some, including the palace aide, are on the CIA’s payroll – a fact not initially known to investigators working on the case.

And while this debate seems to be still raging among those in Afghanistan, Chandrasekaran reports that top officials in the Obama Administration have decided to set aside the law enforcement approach for back room deals.

President Obama’s top national security advisers, who will meet with him this week to discuss the problem, do not yet agree on the contours of a new approach, according to U.S. civilian and military officials involved in Afghanistan policy. But the officials said there is a growing consensus that key corruption cases against people in Karzai’s government should be resolved with face-saving compromises behind closed doors instead of public prosecutions.

Once again, the anonymous official embracing corruption does so in the name of our “principal goals.”

“The current approach is not tenable,” said an administration official who, like others interviewed, agreed to discuss internal deliberations only on the condition of anonymity. “What will we get out of it? We’ll arrest a few mid-level Afghans, but we’ll lose our ability to operate there and achieve our principal goals.”

I’m beginning to believe “our ability to operate there” is our “principal goal.”

All of which discussion sets up this quote from an official in Kabul who has concluded we need to abandon a law enforcement approach.

There is a growing view at the U.S. and NATO headquarters in Kabul that “the law enforcement approach to corruption mucks up our strategic interests,” said the U.S. official there.

Of course, this comment pertains solely to rooting out corruption in Afghanistan. Not detention of captives. Not corruption of American contractors. Not targeting terrorists.

But it sure reveals, in stark fashion, how far we’ve come from our “principal goal” of governance, which is at least partly to support and defend the Constitution, otherwise known as a law enforcement approach.

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America Picks and Chooses Among Extra-Legal Entities Destabilizing the World

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I wanted to add to what David Dayen had to say about these two stories.

Last week, the WaPo quoted at least two military figures stating, as fact, that the Taliban was a bigger threat to the US mission in Afghanistan than corruption. Based on that judgment, the WaPo suggests “military officials” are now pursuing a policy of tolerating some corruption among Afghan allies.

Military officials in the region have concluded that the Taliban’s insurgency is the most pressing threat to stability in some areas and that a sweeping effort to drive out corruption could create chaos and a governance vacuum that the Taliban could exploit.

“There are areas where you need strong leadership, and some of those leaders are not entirely pure,” said a senior defense official. “But they can help us be more effective in going after the primary threat, which is the Taliban.”

[snip]

Kandahar is not just a Taliban problem; it is a mafia, criminal syndicate problem,” the senior defense official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject. “That is why it is so complicated. But clearly the most pressing threat is the Taliban.”

Now, the WaPo headline suggests this is definitely the plan, but the story itself admits that it is unclear whether everyone in the Obama Administration agrees with the plan.

It was not immediately clear whether the White House, the State Department and law enforcement agencies share the military’s views, which come at a critical time for U.S. forces in Afghanistan.

Indeed, the WaPo piece anonymously quotes an adviser (apparently, but not certainly, civilian) advocating for a crackdown on corruption. And it acknowledges that earlier this year some diplomats and military leaders called to arrest Ahmed Wali Karzai, but Stanley McChrystal scuttled the effort.

So it seems this initiative may come from the DOD side, and if this represents Administration (as opposed to DOD) policy, then clearly not everyone has bought off on it. Which makes it worth cataloging those in the story who might qualify as the “senior defense official” endorsing this new policy. The story quotes the following:

  • Robert Gates, introduced in an apparent non-sequitur between two quotes from the “senior defense official,” visiting two Army units fighting around Kandahar
  • David Petraeus talking about efforts to stem the US contract funds that fuel corruption
  • Lieutenant General David Rodriguez, hailing efforts to set up councils of elders who can decide how to spend reconstruction funds

(Stephen Biddle, of the Council on Foreign Relations, is also quoted supporting this policy.)

Assuming the WaPo is following accepted practice about anonymous quotations, I’d bet a few pennies that the “senior defense official” declaring that the Taliban is a bigger threat than corruption or drugs is Robert Gates.

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