Pat Lang's Four Questions and Hezbollah

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What a dirty trick Pat Lang played, sending his friends a list of four issues with the US-French peace plan, but not addressing those four issues himself.

  1. France and the United States are not at war with each other.  They cannot agree to end the fighting.
  2. Hizbullah thinks it is winning both tactically and strategically.Why will it agree to anything other than a cease-fire in place?
  3. Such a cease-fire will be a victory for Hizbullah.
  4. Who will disarm Hizbullah if it accepts such a cease-fire?

I’m with Pat in doubting the feasability of the peace plan, as far as I understand it, and for some of the same reasons. I mean, Condi can’t even get Olmert (much less Peretz) to keep a straight face when she makes requests of them. Presumably Bolton was closely involved in this, and presumably he has more sway with Israel. But thus far the US has seemed unwilling and possibly unable to pressure Israel to play nice.

And France, as a stand-in for Hezbollah? I could see Chirac speaking with and for Rafiq Hariri’s Lebanon before his death. But Lebanon’s government has been all but castrated by the Israeli assault. So unless you’ve got a surrogate for Hezbollah, or preferably Hezbollah itself, you’ll be left with the problem of getting Hezbollah to agree to a plan it had no part in. Until Hezbollah is brought into the process, I assume they will answer, as they seem to be already, "Yeah, who’s going to disarm us? You and whose army?"

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A Squabble between Roberts and His Masters?

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One of the most amusing bits from this article on the upcoming Phase II publication (I guess we have to call the stuff Roberts has delayed further, Phase II.2?) is its description of a dispute between BushCo and Senator Pat Roberts.

The Republican chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee lashed outat the White House on Thursday, criticizing attempts by the Bushadministration to keep secret parts of a report on the role Iraqiexiles played in building the case for war against Iraq.

The chairman, Senator Pat Roberts of Kansas, said his committee hadcompleted the first two parts of its investigation of prewarintelligence. But he chastised the White House for efforts to classifymost of the part that examines intelligence provided to the Bushadministration by the Iraqi National Congress, an exile group.

“Ihave been disappointed by this administration’s unwillingness todeclassify material contained in these reports, material which Ibelieve better informs the public, but that does not — I repeat, doesnot — jeopardize intelligence operations, sources and methods,” Mr.Roberts said in a statement issued Thursday.

Uh huh. Consider me skeptical. I think it more likely that Roberts realized he couldn’t defend classifying this information since the Democrats (and a few restless Republicans) know well it doesn’t fit any rules of classification. That is, Roberts knows he has to fight BushCo on this, or lose his shaky claim to be an intelligence reformer.

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Lamont's "Single Issue" Voters

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The Q-Poll shows that 44% of Lamont’s supporters support him mainly because of Lieberman’s stance on the Iraq war. And Markos anticipates a bunch of pundits frowning on the large number of "Single Issue" voters.

For a pundit to suggest the Iraq war is a "Single Issue" simply betrays their ignorance of the impact that war has and will continue to have on this country and the rest of the world.

Some are opposed to the war because they’re opposed to 2,500 Americans dead, 18,000 Americans wounded, perhaps 100,000 Iraqis dead, untold wounded. Some oppose the war simply because it uses violence to solve problems that should be solved using other means.

Some are opposed to the war because it has ruined our military. Two-thirds of our active army and three-quarters of our National Guard face readiness problems because it needs to replace equipment used in Iraq. Extended deployments and lowered recruiting standards are having bad effects on the military, their families, and our mission. The Iraq war–sold as a way to make our country safer–has only exposed it defensively.

Some are opposed to the war because it has thoroughly destabilized Iraq, and threatens to destabilize the entire region. By almost every standard, Iraqi quality of life is worse today than it was under Saddam.

Some are opposed to the war because it has created precisely the problem that it was cynically sold as a way to prevent. Iraq is creating terrorists, at a time when the threat of terrorism remains very real.

Some are opposed to the war because it has turned us into an international pariah. Some countries no longer trust us. Others want nothing to do with our aggressive ways.

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Pressure Politics

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Busted

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The Pause That Is Not a Cease Fire

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The Skeleton of a Lie

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