Needlenose

CSM on Karbala

http://slate.msn.com/id/2088740/
Patriotism doesn’t consist of following orders—not when you’re not in the chain of command. For the American people, for citizens in a democracy, patriotism’s highest calling isn’t simply following what the administration says. It’s not blind obedience. It’s not unquestioned adherence. The highest form of patriotism is asking questions. Because democracies run on dialogue. Democracies run on discussion. No administration has the right to tell Americans that to dissent is disloyal, and to disagree is unpatriotic. …

OK, I guess we at Needlenose shouldn’t ignore this guy anymore, now that he’s not only announced his candidacy for the White House but soared to the front of the Democratic pack in the wake of his announcement.

The key thing to know about Clark is this: He’s in the first week of the first political campaign of his life. Which means, for one thing, that his poll ratings right now are more the result of his resume than his ideas. For another, it means that he’s got a lot of on-the-job training as a politician coming his way.

In Clark’s favor, his resume is close to being the Holy Grail of the Democratic party, and holy water for the vampires of the right wing. The reason is that for decades now (at least), to counter Democratic arguments that their policies are more in favor of middle-class Americans — which they are — Republicans have evolved a persistent strategy of claiming their “values” are superior. In practice, this means GOP candidates for President who strive to come across as folksy, non-Washington types brave enough to stand up for freedom and morality . . . and fierce mud-slinging to paint the Democrat as a weak, eggheaded, immoral devotee of big government.

It’s not going to be easy for Republicans to sell that theme when the candidate running against them is a 4-star general with multiple combat medals (including a Purple Heart) who’s never been a politician before — and strategists in both parties know it.

This helps explain the desperate smear campaign that the Republicans are rapidly gearing up against Clark — as does his inexperience. Clark has never faced a full-court media press like the one he’s going to see over the next few months, and anyone who wants him to fail is going to do their part to make the gauntlet as challenging as possible in hopes that he’ll say something stupid.

What might help them, ironically, is Clark’s intelligence and detailed understanding of issues, as outlined in this blog post (found via Calpundit) about a face-to-face encounter in Iowa . . .

On whether the Chinese government should be forced to revalue the Yuan (unit of currency), he agreed that it would need to be done in the long run, but thinks it can’t be done right now because there are too many underperforming loans in the Chinese economic system. Essentially, the Chinese economy needs to be fixed before revaluation can be done.

. . . and this snippet from Time magazine:

And he has a depth of knowledge that can surprise people. When asked about forestry issues during a small dinner two weeks ago in Los Angeles, he said, “Do you want me to describe it vis-a-vis Idaho or Utah or Montana?”

When you have that kind of policy knowledge but haven’t learned to “dumb it down” into soundbites, you run the risk of encouraging the eggheaded-kook aspect of the standard Republican slime attacks. Learning how to protect himself on that front will be one of Gen. Clark’s first political missions, lest the GOP slander wizards make him as unlikely a commander-in-chief as Dukakis in that infamous tank.

How weird is the political landscape when Rush Limbaugh agrees with me (here and here) that the so-called hydrogen fuel economy is just a crock — it’s neither truly environmental nor does it unplug us from foreign fuel. Even weirder is when Bill “Shut-Up!” O’Reilly criticizes Repug-Governor-Wanna Be Schwarzenegger for owning (and promoting) the ‘gallons per mile’ gas-guzzling Hummer:

O’REILLY: Now, listen, I don’t care about what your father did in World War II and I don’t care about your sex stuff, all right. It doesn’t matter to me. You weren’t — you were a single guy. You weren’t in any public office.

But you are — you said you were big on the environment and all of that, and you drive a Hummer. How does that square?

O’REILLY: Well, I — you know, I’m very proud of the Hummer, because I created that industry. I went to the Hummer factory and said we should make this Hummer not only a military car but a civilian car. Now we have to find ways how to create alternative, you know, fuel for them.

O’REILLY: Yeah.

SCHWARZENEGGER: I have my Hummer, for instance, right now, trying to see if we can change it, for instance, to try it out and see if it can be done, to have hydrogen fuel cell, hydrogen fuel energy. So there’s many ways of going, and I think that’s where the future of fuel will be going in this state and maybe in the rest of the country.

O’REILLY: All right, so you …

SCHWARZENEGGER: But I’m all for the environment. I’m all for …

(CROSSTALK)

O’REILLY: It just threw me, because I know you’ve been a big environmental guy, and then you’re driving around with the Hummer that gets one mile to a gallon — I’m going what’s that all about.

SCHWARZENEGGER: No, no, no. Mine gets 14 miles to the gallon.

O’REILLY: Fourteen. But still, that’s not great. You know what I’m talking about.

SCHWARZENEGGER: You’re absolutely right.

O’REILLY: I know you can’t fit in a Volkswagen, but the Hummer is the other extreme.

I mean, really! What is the world coming to?!?

Following King George the Witless’ speech on 9/7/03, I was struck by what analysts have since termed “the flypaper strategy”:

And the surest way to avoid attacks on our own people is to engage the enemy where he lives and plans. We are fighting that enemy in Iraq and Afghanistan today, so that we do not meet him again on our own streets, in our own cities.

The flypaper term buzzed about in my head for awhile, until I remembered that I’d read something about flypaper strategies back in high school in John Steinbeck’s 1942 novel, The Moon is Down, a fictional account of WWII German occupation of Britain’s Jersey and Guernsey islands:

Maybe the Leader is crazy. Flies conquer the flypaper. Flies capture two hundred miles of new flypaper!

The quote is from a discussion between two occupying German officers where — in spite of news propaganda — it is apparent from the resistance they are futilely trying to quell that the Germans are losing the war. I’ve put a larger selection into the ‘More’ selection for anybody interested in reading the passage:

From Juan Cole, who reads the Arabic press so we don’t have to because we can’t:

A US military spokesman complained that rebuilding in the Shiite South of Iraq was hampered by a lack of cooperation from the local populace, according to al-Sharq al-Awasat. The US also complained about attacks on Coalition troops in the South, though few of these have caused deaths or injuries in that area of the country. The main complaint was that the US army engineers could hardly get the country back on its feet in the face of very extensive car-jackings, killing, looting, and stripping of wires to resell for their mineral value. There is also very substantial smuggling of petroleum products out of the country. The spokesman seemed to say that part of the problem was the inability of the US to seal the Iraqi borders. Since we are often told that things are “quiet” in the South, this briefing is a good reality check. If quiet means few successful attacks on US troops, then fine. But this description of the situation makes it sound like the Wild West out there in the Iraqi south.

If this is true, it may help explain why Shiite leaders have been relatively tolerant of the U.S. presence. Although the Shiites are the majority, the bulk of the military leadership/training was among the Sunnis (as currently being evidenced by more effective guerrilla attacks).

If/when the U.S is forced out of Iraq, the Shiites face a potential civil war against a Sunni population not willing to accept its minority status. Given the latter’s greater tactical skill, the Shiites aren’t a lock to win that war — so giving the Americans a long rope to fight that battle for them makes sense.