Needlenose

What’s important about the memo, revealed yesterday, from an army colonel advising American forces in Iraq that recommends an accelerated withdrawal of U.S. troops from that country?

It wasn’t an expression of official policy, just one colonel’s advice — and we quickly learned the author, Col. Timothy Reese, was something of a loose cannon in terms of his opinions.

Even so, after years of neocon hype of inevitable “victory,” and as recently as three months ago (even after announcing a withdrawal timeline), President Obama still pretending that there was a mission to be accomplished, Col. Reese has formally placed on the table for discussion within the Pentagon an obvious truth regarding the U.S. in Iraq: “The use of the military instrument of national power in its current form has accomplished all that can be expected.“

It’s about time that top U.S. military officials started facing that fact. For five years now, I’ve been writing about the ability of Iraq’s Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani and the Shiite-dominated government he shepherded into power to resist American pressure — and been right nearly every time I bet on that ability to prevail.

A year ago, when the conventional wisdom was that Iraqi prime minister Maliki’s demands for a withdrawal timeline (during negotiations for a Status of Forces Agreement, or SOFA) were just to placate Iraqi public opinion while coming up with a way for the U.S. to stay, I wrote that Sistani’s plan since 2004 was “to use the American military as a contractor of sorts to help cement a Shiite-led government’s power, then nudge us aside when the task was more or less complete.”

Maliki’s successful insistence on a timeline, and the unexpected restrictions that Col. Reese’s memo says are now being placed on U.S. troops in the wake of the SOFA being implemented, represent that plan in action. And contrary to what many progressives would rightly hope, it’s not an expression of sovereignty on behalf of the Iraqi people. It’s Robert Shaw being hustled out of the building at the end of “The Sting.”

Sure, prime minister Maliki may make noise about extending the U.S. presence — but make no mistake, any new agreement will be on the Iraqi government’s terms, which will have far less to do with building a functional, thriving democracy than with continuing to use American military might to crush Maliki’s political enemies.

The Iraq war was a “victory” not for the United States, nor for the Iraqi people, but rather for a corrupt and authoritarian-leaning regime whose most redeeming characteristic is that it isn’t quite as brutal and dictatorial (yet, anyway) as Saddam Hussein’s — which, sadly, was the obviously probable end result all along.

(Cross-posted at Firedoglake.)

Remember the Media-driven perception back in the dark days of ’00 and ’04 about how Bush was the candidate “you’d rather have a beer with?”  Ironic because he was a recovering alcoholic.  Doubly ironic because he never invited anybody over for a beer.

The sign of Obama’s genius is his latest press op drinking beer with Professor Gates and Sargeant Crowley.  Genius because…that’s how ‘ordinary guys’ solve disputes – you sit down over a beer and talk through your dispute.

But beyond the ‘ordinary guy’ image going here (he’s already out-ordinaried Bush with his earlier burger joint runs), there is a subconcious appeal to a secret desire we all share here – that somehow we ordinary people could actually sit down and have a beer with Obama! 

Of course it’s a preposterous notion, you’d have to engineer some awful confrontation, get Obama to misspeak and say something stupid, and hope he invites you to the Oval office to smooth things over.  But the genius is the subconcious appeal of a celebrity President.

At the end of his impromptu appearance in the White House briefing room earlier today, President Obama indirectly admitted why he was making yet another statement on the arrest of Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr.:

Over the last two days as we’ve discussed this issue, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but nobody has been paying much attention to health care.

The press laughed, but Obama was telling an important truth. Just as the ginned-up Whitewater and other investigations of President Clinton in 1994 were all about derailing healthcare reform, so is the Gates brouhaha for many of those who are delighted to stoke further arguments over it.

And that’s not just true in the literal sense of driving talk about healthcare reform off the cable news screens and newspaper front pages. The more Obama can be portrayed as someone tangled up in various controversies, the better it is for those who oppose healthcare reform.

The more Obama’s political opponents can stir up suspicion about him by depicting him as an angry black man rather than a president engaged in solving national problems, the better it is for those who oppose healthcare reform.

And as Republicans have known for decades, the angrier and more emotional the public discourse is in general, the easier it is to sabotage rational public policy legislation whose passage depends on the triumph of reason over fear.

That’s why Obama didn’t just address the Gates controversy again, he did so in a way designed to smother the emotional fires that have been stoked. Pulling out nearly every trick in the conflict-resolution handbook, he spoke in a measured (almost passive) tone, reached out personally to one of the involved parties, and used humor, combined with an explicit plea for everyone to calm down:

… to the extent that my choice of words didn’t illuminate, but rather contributed to more media frenzy, I think that was unfortunate.

What I’d like to do then I make sure that everybody steps back for a moment…

My hope is, is that as a consequence of this event this ends up being what’s called a “teachable moment,” where all of us instead of pumping up the volume spend a little more time listening to each other…

Given Obama’s mention of a “teachable moment” and clear desire to defuse tensions, you’d almost think he read what bmaz wrote at Firedoglake this morning.

(Cross-posted at Firedoglake.)

From the Huffington Post liveblogging of the Iranian Revolution in progress, 1:59 PM ET — “Death to Russia!”:

“Traditionally, there’s this guy at the Friday prayers whom people mockingly call ‘vazireh shoaar’, or the minister of slogans. His job is to shout slogans through loudspeakers and lead the crowd to chant death to America or Israel or whoever after him. In this clip you hear the crowd going flatly against him as he desperately cycles through the usual slogans (death to America, death to Israel, death to England and so on), and regardless of what he shouts, the crowd keeps repeating one chant: ‘marg bar roosiyeh’ (Death to Russia) !!”

Isn’t it great to hear a crowd in the Middle East chanting “Death to…” somebody else for a change?

In December 1944, the German army tried to reverse the tide of World War II with a last-gasp offensive that became known as the Battle of the Bulge. The goal wasn’t victory per se, so much as delay — if the Allied onslaught could be held at bay for a few extra months, the tensions between the U.S./Britain and the Soviet Union (which would later result in the Iron Curtain and the Cold War) might cause their coalition to fray enough that Germany could negotiate a separate peace deal.

Succeeding at first, the Nazis quickly surrounded the Belgian town of Bastogne. They sent a gloating letter to the American general there, saying “The fortune of war is changing…” and recommending that his forces surrender. Famously, the general (Anthony McAuliffe) sent a one-word reply: “Nuts!”

That’s basically what happened this afternoon in the healthcare-reform debate in Washington, D.C., as several members of the Narcissism Caucus in the Senate sent a letter urging that congressional leaders delay their consideration of reform legislation. President Obama then hastily pre-empted a scheduled press briefing to give a direct statement to reporters, insisting that “now is not the time to slow down,”and, “We are going to get this done. We will reform health care. it will happen this year.”

Hopefully, Obama’s confidence is as justified as Gen. McAuliffe’s was. Because another historical echo of the Senate faux-centrists’ letter is August 1994, when uber-wanker Sen. Bob Kerrey made a similarly ostentatious plea for delay and supposed moderation, insisting that although he wanted reform, he didn’t want the debate to be “covered in partisan spit.”

In fact, though, Kerrey’s feigned desire for bipartisanship provided the Republicans with the political cover needed to kill the 1994 reform effort — and that’s clearly the model that the current “gang of six” is trying to duplicate.

(Cross-posted at Firedoglake.)

I’ve whined before about the lack of an affordable plug-in hybrid car on the market in the US.  I’m feeling the first twinges of hope now, though – Giant Blue Locust Buddy sent me a link to a comprehensive list of electric vehicles and their current status.

Of course there is nothing this year, but in 2010 at some point there may be a couple of choices that aren’t the $100K Tesla.  Now if my cheesy old car can just hold out until then…

Here we are again, ethnic majority actively colonizing a region full of ethnic minorities, promulgating harsh assimilationist policies and then acting surprised when said minority takes to the streets and fights back.  In this case, it’s the Han-Chinese dominated PRC versus the Uighurs in their Western Provinces.

Typically, the PRC fabricated some story about how the Uighurs started it all, blocked any unofficial accounts, and blamed everything on Islamic extremism, terrorism and outside agitators meddling in Chinese internal affairs.  A former Uighur political prisoner provides an alternative, and in my view a more highly likely accounting of the events that lead to the recent riots.

Why do I consider this more likely?  From stories I’ve heard and things I’ve read.  For example, a buddy of mine went to a University in Xian for a couple of years in the early 80s.  At the school were numerous African students.  One night, an African student was seen getting too chummy with a Chinese girl in town.  A vigilante mob armed with various clubs and implements ran around town looking for Africans to beat up.  The students retreated to the dorms and they were locked down for the night, and a curfew was imposed until things calmed down.

In another adventure travel book I read, the author recalled hiring a truck out of Urumchi heading East.  Their young driver didn’t have a truck driving permit.  The truck was stopped, and the driver was hauled out of the car and beaten with truncheons for a few minutes. 

This situation is an familiar slow-motion train wreck.  You’d think some leader, somewhere, would reflect for a minute about the situation in Eastern Turkey with Turks vs. Kurds, or Isreal and it’s occupation of the West Bank, but no.  The PRC followed up on the rights with repressive measures, gunning down Uighur protestors.  I’m sure things will quiet down for a bit, but there are now hundreds of grieving and angry Uighur families out there who won’t forget this anytime soon.

It’s one thing to pick on the Buddhist Tibetans – they aren’t known for suicide bombings and jihads.  The Uighurs certainly aren’t Wahabi wing nuts, but shoot at them and beat them enough and you’ll end up with an Al Qaeda of Western China in no time.

So instead of working with local Uighur leaders (if there actually are any!) to reverse hateful assimilation and colonization policies and trying to mediate the situation, they just pull out the old violent playbook and wave the train on down the track.

The ‘big news’ today today was non-news – how the leaders of the G-8 agreed that they’d work to keep the global average temperature from rising 3.6 degrees F (even though it went up 1/2 that already).  But as you’ve already suspected, they wouldn’t agree on any particular mechanisms to make that happen.  More hot air we didn’t need.

To top it off, neither India nor China would agree to any climate management deal.

With leaders like these, who needs enemies?  They’ll destroy the planet faster than any alien invaders ever could.

Why is Sarah Palin resigning as Governor of Alaska? GOP leaders are spinning this as her desire to become a national reactionary leader.

I guess she misses her base, and we’ll probably see a resumption of the old Palin “hate” rallies, this time without McCain around to moderate the hate.

It’s too soon to tell whether the theme song for Sarah Palin’s sudden resignation as governor of Alaska is “How Ya Gonna Keep ‘Em Down on the Farm?” or “Before They Make Me Run.”

On the one hand, as bmaz @ Emptywheel has noted, “Her term was up in 2010; [leaving Palin] plenty of time to honor her duties and still run for national office in 2012.”And Josh Marshall adds that “this clearly happened so quickly that Palin hasn’t even had a chance to come up with a coherent cover story for her resignation.” There’s even vague speculation about a possible indictment forthcoming.

I wouldn’t rule that out. In the Age of Sanford, who knows if we’re about to find she’s hiked an Appalachian Trail or two in her time (either morally, or in terms of more mundane political/financial corruption)?

But then again, it could easily be the other way around — perhaps Palin realized that as long as she’s stuck doing a job she couldn’t care less about, the only possible developments would be unwanted controversies (issue-related, scandals, or otherwise). In that sense, not having an official position is the best possible preventive measure.

And remember, we’re dealing with someone who’s infamous for narcissism and having a short attention span. I was struck by this bit of pre-resignation spin reported stenographed by CNN: “She thinks she has accomplished goals she has set forward.” In other words, she’s nationally famous now — even in a “famous for being famous” way, a post-millenium equivalent of Charo or Kato Kaelin — so why waste a moment more in a remote backwater state, and being expected to work on top of it?

And to those who count her out as a presidential contender in 2012, or even hint that she’s “out of politics for good,” all I can say is that six years after Richard Nixon made a similar statement that the press wouldn’t have him to kick around any more, he was elected President. And if there’s one thing we know about Sarah Palin, it’s that she’s a runner.

Who cares if even conservatives like Charles Krauthammer suggest that Palin ““is not a serious candidate for the presidency…. You cannot sustain a campaign of platitudes and clichés over a year and a half if you’re running for the presidency.” Just goes to show that Krauthammer is always wrong — George Bush got away with it for eight years even after he got the job!

(Cross-posted at Firedoglake.)