Hello, Jane, welcome home !

Lamont, of course, will live on.

Thanks Jane,

I’ll have to read it. I always love reading about Iraq because I hate it so much.

Teddy!

This entire crowd reminds me of my Gramps’ Men’s Bridge Club, which had as its motto “Often in Error, Never in Doubt”

Whatever made them think any of this would work? Did they never see The Princess Bride?

I’ve wanted to mention this for a while and just forgot in the euphoria of the election results, but it seems appropriate here anyway.

On Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, an explanation of the never ending faceoff between conservatives and populist/progressives, red/blue – whatever. When asked why the sides were so diametrically opposed:

“You hate us because you think we think you’re stupid.”

“We hate you because you’re stupid”.

Words penned by Aaron Sorkin to fill the mouths of Matty(writer of show/sorkin doppleganger) and Harriet (resident christian/ex-girlfriend and foil for every bit).

Impeccably delivered by Matthew Perry.

Probably posting too soon again, but on the Lamont thing, I want to remind you of how we all felt after those bastids attempted to destroy Dean in the political murder/suicide that took place in Iowa in 2003 and then the horrible mocking of the manipulated tape of the infamous scream. And then look what he did! He came back and built something to save us all. Had he not lost in the primaries, none of this would’ve happened.

Ned will do something similar – he’s made of the same stuff, and is, I believe, fairly tight with Dean.

I didn’t have time to get into the privatization of companies which BushCo. decided should be one of their objectives for the country, but it was equally lunk-headed.

The guy tasked with implementing it — Peter McPherson, who took a leave of absence from Michigan State University to serve in Iraq:

To McPherson, looting was a form of much-needed shrinkage. If the theft of government property promoted private enterprise — such as when Baghdad’s municipal bus drivers began driving their own routes and pocketing the fees — it was a positive development in his view. “I thought the privatization that occurs sort of naturally when somebody took over their state vehicle, or began to drive a truck that the state used to own, was just fine,” he said. Fellow CPA officials were aghast. Hundreds of police cars had been stolen and turned into private taxis — good for the private sector but bad for law enforcement. The same problem plagued the Ministry of Trade’s food-distribution system. Many of the trucks that had transported monthly rations were being used to haul private reconstruction supplies. “The Robin Hood philosophy might have sounded good to economists inside the palace,” one CPA ministry adviser said, “but when you looked at the real-world impact, it was lunacy.”

I think it’s important to note that these are the same pricks who see “privatization” as the panacea for all America’s economic woes.

Is this their vision of an ideal future?

I suppose my question next week for the author is of the Woodwardian variety. I asked it during Rajiv Chandraskearan’s WaPo chat when his book first came out. How is it that a reporter could find all this, uncover all this, and save it for a book? Was all of this discovered — uncovered — in the aftermath, sitting in Washington with the post-intern pro-life Young GOPers?

And if not — if this was known when the author was in Bahgdad — where was the reporting? Why did the American people not know about this as it was happening, if this reporter learned about it on the ground contemporaneously? Was the reporting officially censored? Did the WaPo editors spike these stories?

There is a narrative here America must fully understand before we allow our media to embed again with the government. What price did we pay?

TeddySanFran @ 9

I suppose my question next week for the author is of the Woodwardian variety. I asked it during Rajiv Chandraskearan’s WaPo chat when his book first came out. How is it that a reporter could find all this, uncover all this, and save it for a book? Was all of this discovered — uncovered — in the aftermath, sitting in Washington with the post-intern pro-life Young GOPers?

And if not — if this was known when the author was in Bahgdad — where was the reporting? Why did the American people not know about this as it was happening, if this reporter learned about it on the ground contemporaneously? Was the reporting officially censored? Did the WaPo editors spike these stories?

There is a narrative here America must fully understand before we allow our media to embed again with the government. What price did we pay?

Good questions, Teddy.

It is OK to investigate the conduct of the war, the incompetence, corruption and loot and plunder of American Taxpayers money.

TeddySanFran @
9

There is a narrative here America must fully understand before we allow our media to embed again with the government. What price did we pay?

The Ministry of Truth has had the handle on information coming out of Iraq for some time. But, they couldn’t do it alone, they needed the complicity of Editors if Chief at innumerable publications. What was it Colbert said in the Press Corps presentation: “Just take the information that the White House gives you…go home, love your wife…write that novel you always wanted, the one about the intrepid reporter…you know, FICTION!”

It would be funnier if it were less true.

It is Ok to investigate and fix responsiblity for corruption, and loot and plunder of American taxpayers money and the conduct of the war and now the withdrawl. But in this talk the key question is being totally ignored or confused by politicians and talking heads.

THE REAL QUESTION IS WHY THE PRESIDENT AND THE NEOCONS INVADED A COUNTRY BASED ON LIES AND COMPLETE FABRICATION AND WHAT CRIMES WERE COMMITTED FOR THIS POLITICALLY MOTIVATED WAR AND HOLD THOSE DECISION MAKERS RESPONSIBLE FOR THE DEATH OF ABOUT 3000 AMERICANS SOLDIERS AND PERHAPS HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF IRAQIS.

The most interesting thing about all these books (State of Denial, Fiasco, Life…) is how they dovetail so closely. There is very, very little daylight in the spaces between the stories they tell of the utter incompetence and hubris of the NeoCons and their administration enablers.

When we’re all dead and gone decades hence, students of history will look back at some of these works and wonder how brain-dead some of the electorate in this country were to have allowed this all to happen.

JohnSwifty @
3

Thanks Jane,

I’ll have to read it. I always love reading about Iraq because I hate it so much.

I should have said said Dunbar loved reading about Iraq, because he hated it so much. There’s little point in making a reference to Heller if it’s really lame. Gotta go for the Gold!

Jane Hamsher @ 8

I think it’s important to note that these are the same pricks who see “privatization” as the panacea for all America’s economic woes.

Is this their vision of an ideal future?

They have wet dreams about changing our country (or any country) into their simple-minded Randian utopia. They are, essentially and always, reality deniers.

Teddy @ 9, I guess I have to ask, knowing the answer. Did he answer your questions?

And Bush thinks he gets a blank check on his nomination of Bob ‘Fixer’ Gates. I think not.

I think we need to tell Senator Levin it’s past time to Stop Playing Games!

I urge all to call, email or write him and give him the word:

We demand that the Iraq disaster end!

I am so behind in my reading but I am determined to have this one read by next week … we need to understand, really understand, what we’ve done to Iraq. All news I’m getting is that conditions are getting so much worse … and it’s hard to even imagine that. One example from one of the new team of Iraqi posters at MFI: http://gorillasguides.blogspot…..n-can.html

Frustrated @
11

It is OK to investigate the conduct of the war, the incompetence, corruption and loot and plunder of American Taxpayers money.

Billmon quoted Dick Morris this week, and I tend to agree (aaugh, the pain…):

While the left would be appeased by investigations into why we invaded Iraq in the first place, it is financial scandals that will do the greatest damage to Bush and the Republicans.

Democratic committee chairmen will examine Halliburton contracts in Iraq, royalty deals for offshore oil drilling, defense procurement scandals, and resource leases in national forests and wilderness areas. They will examine the nexus between campaign contributions and favors from the trough of the executive branch.

Immunized from congressional scrutiny by a compliant Congress, the administration has been getting away with pork politics of the worst sort and the Democrats will find sufficient fodder for years of hearings and investigations.

The right will be spinning hard that this is political payback a la Monicagate, but it’s going to be very difficult to spin that as it drips out to the American public how their dollars have been squandered.

Arguing over whether we were deceived in the runup to war is, I think, a bit pointless — of course we were, and anybody who doesn’t believe it now isn’t likely to anytime soon. People like Custer Battles are, empirically, a bunch of crooks. It’s much harder to depict this as a partisan issue, and the systemic faults that these stories illuminate lead to the heart of the same problem. If people like Reid, Schumer, Rahm and Ellen Tauscher don’t manage to neuter Waxman with their rhetoric of “out of control liberals” before he gets a chance to do this important work, I think it could be the beginning of a real clean-up in the DC aisle.

“out of control liberals”

I am not out of control. But I am not under control, either.

Jo Fish @ 14

When we’re all dead and gone decades hence, students of history will look back at some of these works and wonder how brain-dead some of the electorate in this country were to have allowed this all to happen.

I do think about that, Jo. They’re going to look back and wonder how we ever stood back and allowed the Rule of the Stupids.

Jane – very very good point.

I hope we can support Waxman a lot and would love to think about concrete ways to do so.

Jane Hamsher @ 10

TeddySanFran @ 9

I suppose my question next week for the author is of the Woodwardian variety. I asked it during Rajiv Chandraskearan’s WaPo chat when his book first came out. How is it that a reporter could find all this, uncover all this, and save it for a book? Was all of this discovered — uncovered — in the aftermath, sitting in Washington with the post-intern pro-life Young GOPers?

And if not — if this was known when the author was in Bahgdad — where was the reporting? Why did the American people not know about this as it was happening, if this reporter learned about it on the ground contemporaneously? Was the reporting officially censored? Did the WaPo editors spike these stories?

There is a narrative here America must fully understand before we allow our media to embed again with the government. What price did we pay?

Good questions, Teddy.

Teddy,

I couldn’t resist jumping in right now. (Jane, forgive me for answering a question this week. I promise I’ll hold off answering any more until next Sunday.)

This wasn’t a case of holding back the juicy details because it would make for a better book. Had I known how the CPA’s hiring practices worked while I was The Post’s bureau chief in Baghdad — or many of the other anecdotes I relate in the book — I certainly would have written about it. But I didn’t learn most of the these details until I returned home and began working on the book. It wasn’t a question of being embedded. I wasn’t. I lived outside the Green Zone, in a neighborhood with Iraqi families. You need to understand that the CPA was run much like the Bush White House. Reporters weren’t allowed to troll the halls without an escort from the Strategic Communications Office. And even if you could get a CPA staffer alone, it was tough to determine what was really going on. Many of them were told, in no uncertain terms, that they were not speak to reporters without a minder present. (I urge you to read Chaper 7 for a fuller account of how the StratComm office, run by Dan Senor, operated.) It wasn’t until CPA staffers returned home to the United States, and many of them began to question the administration’s policy in private, that I was able to get some of them to open up to me, often only under the condition of anonymity. That said, if you visit my Website, http://www.rajivc.com, you’ll see, on my bio page, a link to a three-part series of stories I wrote for The Post in June 2004, before the occupation was ended. I dare say it was popbably the most critical account of the CPA that appeared in any American newspaper. I’m not trying to argue the press is blameless. There was certainly more the American media could have done during the occupation to reveal what Bremer and Co. were really up to, but in my case, it wasn’t for lack of trying.

RC

My fear, never far away usually, is that Reid et al. will not tolerate the kind of investigations that are needed. The media is now full of righteous “let’s get along”. And Believe me, the Homeland Security Dept. Committee headed by Joe Lierman will do no such investigations. So that door is already closed.

But Pelosi had better be ready to call some witnesses. However, I would not be surprised if even the dems stonewalled in order to appear bipartisian. And the Old Dog will be against investigations because he was scalded already and doesn’t want a repeat.

Rajiv – welcome aboard! I’m sure we’re all happy to have two weeks with you so don’t hold back!

And thank you for responding so clearly to Teddy’s question.

Jane Hamsher @ 22

Jo Fish @ 14

I do think about that, Jo. They’re going to look back and wonder how we ever stood back and allowed the Rule of the Stupids.

Read Harry Truman’s oral autobiography that was edited and prepared by Merle Miller.

Truman’s comments on his fears for American Democracy seem eerily resonant with today’s political climate.

“I feel that if our constitutional system ever fails, it will be because people got scared and turned hysterical and someone in power will demagogue them right into a police state of some kind.

That’s what I’ve always worried about. And still do.”

Democrats push for Iraq withdrawal

Sunday 12 November 2006, 20:13 Makka Time, 17:13 GMT

Democrats, who won a majority in the US Congress in last week, say they will push for a phased withdrawal of US troops from Iraq to begin in four to six months.

Senator Carl Levin, a Michigan Democrat, who is expected to be chairman of the Senate armed services committee in the new Congress, said: “The first order of business is to change the direction of Iraq policy.

“Cowboy capitalism…man oh man ain’t the pickin’s good. Ah jest flash my hawg-leg and they give up the gold”.

From the epic Western novel “Pound Sand” as told by Junya “Jack ‘em Up” Bush and Darth “Dead-eye” Cheney” as the pair rode off into the sunset after plundering bringing law and order to Baghdad.

MayDaze @
16

They have wet dreams about changing our country (or any country) into their simple-minded Randian utopia. They are, essentially and always, reality deniers.

Not Randian. Straussian.

Of course either state can and does lead to denial of reality, either through inability to utilize logical empiricism as a processing component of reality, or through the overt misuse/destruction of empirically derived knowledge due to ‘unacceptable’ internal conflict between objective reality and subjective ideal.

Big words…little dinks

;>)

don’t know if this is allowed in book salon, feel free to delete

but pelosi got stabbed in the back already, c&l has this;

Something strange is cooking on the John Bolton nomination. . .

First of all, John Bolton’s nomination was formally sent to the U.S. Senate yesterday, Thursday, between 10:00 a.m. and 10:30 a.m. when the Senate was called to order for a pro forma session designed just to exhange letters and paperwork between the various branches of government.

In other words, correspondence from the White House to the Senate was received during this time.

Remarkably, House Speaker-elect Nancy Pelosi was caught off guard by the Bolton nomination. The nomination is a Senate matter — but it is also a political matter — particularly when the theme of the President’s lunch yesterday with Pelosi was “trust-building behavior” and “bipartisanship.”

Rajiv Chandrasekaran @
24

Teddy,

I couldn’t resist jumping in right now. (Jane, forgive me for answering a question this week. I promise I’ll hold off answering any more until next Sunday.)

This wasn’t a case of holding back the juicy details because it would make for a better book. Had I known how the CPA’s hiring practices worked while I was The Post’s bureau chief in Baghdad — or many of the other anecdotes I relate in the book — I certainly would have written about it. But I didn’t learn most of the these details until I returned home and began working on the book. It wasn’t a question of being embedded. I wasn’t. I lived outside the Green Zone, in a neighborhood with Iraqi families. You need to understand that the CPA was run much like the Bush White House. Reporters weren’t allowed to troll the halls without an escort from the Strategic Communications Office. And even if you could get a CPA staffer alone, it was tough to determine what was really going on. Many of them were told, in no uncertain terms, that they were not speak to reporters without a minder present. (I urge you to read Chaper 7 for a fuller account of how the StratComm office, run by Dan Senor, operated.) It wasn’t until CPA staffers returned home to the United States, and many of them began to question the administration’s policy in private, that I was able to get some of them to open up to me, often only under the condition of anonymity. That said, if you visit my Website, http://www.rajivc.com, you’ll see, on my bio page, a link to a three-part series of stories I wrote for The Post in June 2004, before the occupation was ended. I dare say it was popbably the most critical account of the CPA that appeared in any American newspaper. I’m not trying to argue the press is blameless. There was certainly more the American media could have done during the occupation to reveal what Bremer and Co. were really up to, but in my case, it wasn’t for lack of trying.

RC

Rajiv — thanks for chiming in, feel free to do so (Jerome Armstrong too, as I remember, was anxious to get in and chat with book salon people in the first week, we appreciate it). In answer to Teddy’s questions, I also imagine that a lot of narratives did not become clear until you sat down to write the book, and many of he interviews sound like they were given by people after-the-fact, when it became apparent what had happened and they’d had time to process their own experiences.

TeddySF,

Beyond what Rajiv says, there were other stories at the time — such as this Washington Monthly article — although they were few and far between.

darkblack @ 30

MayDaze @
16

They have wet dreams about changing our country (or any country) into their simple-minded Randian utopia. They are, essentially and always, reality deniers.

Not Randian. Straussian.

Of course either state can and does lead to denial of reality, either through inability to utilize logical empiricism as a processing component of reality, or through the overt misuse/destruction of empirically derived knowledge due to ‘unacceptable’ internal conflict between objective reality and subjective ideal.

Big words…little dinks

;>)

Bill Kristol wasn’t loved as a child either. I wonder if it is a postulate of modern psychological development that neglect and tiny cock lead directly to Strauss?

For those interested in the subject of congressional investigations into Iraq policy:

September 19, 2006

The Honorable Donald Rumsfeld

Secretary of Defense

The Pentagon

Washington, DC 20301

Dear Secretary Rumsfeld:

Earlier this week, the American public learned about yet another deeply troubling Iraq policy decision by the Bush Administration that greatly jeopardizes our chances for success there. According to a new book “Imperial Life in the Emerald City” by Rajiv Chandrasekaran, Bush Administration officials based hiring decisions at the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) on political connections rather than substantive expertise, thereby harming our efforts to secure and stabilize Iraq. I believe it is essential that you address these charges when you appear before the Senate this Thursday and also indicate your support for and cooperation with a thorough investigation by the Defense Department’s Inspector General.

According to a story in this weekend’s Washington Post adapted from Mr. Chandrasekaran’s book, the Defense Department official responsible for screening candidates for positions with the CPA is reported to have “sought resumes from the offices of Republican congressmen, conservative think tanks and GOP activities. He discarded applications for those his staff deemed ideologically suspect, even if the applicants possessed Arabic language skills or postwar rebuilding experience.” One young man was pronounced “an ideal candidate” when, according to this account, “his chief qualification was that he had worked for the Republican Party in Florida during the presidential election recount in 2000.” One staffer noted to a reporter over lunch, “I’m not here for the Iraqis, I’m here for George Bush.”

Perhaps not surprisingly, the author concluded, “the decision to send the loyal and the willing instead of the best and the brightest is now regarded by many people involved in the 3 ?-year effort to stabilize and rebuild Iraq as one of the Bush Administration’s gravest errors. Many of those selected because of their political fidelity spent their time trying to impose a conservative agenda on the postwar occupation, which sidetracked more important reconstruction efforts and squandered goodwill among the Iraqi people.”

Earlier today, Senators Durbin, Schumer and Lautenberg called upon Thomas Gimble, the Acting Inspector General at the Department of Defense, to investigate the Bush Administration’s hiring practices for the CPA. I hope this new information and its troubling consequences for our troop’s efforts in Iraq means you will support such an independent investigation.

I also call upon you to address these disturbing charges at your briefing to all Senators this Thursday and to express your support for a full and independent investigation by your Department’s Inspector General.

Sincerely,

Harry Reid

United States Senate

And this was sent by Waxman:

September 21, 2006

The Honorable Donald H. Rumsfeld
Secretary of Defense
1000 Defense Pentagon
Washington, DC 20301

Dear Mr. Secretary:

I am writing to request information about allegations that political influence may have played an undue role in hiring employees for the Coalition Provisional Authority. The Government Reform Committee is scheduled to hold a hearing on Iraq reconstruction on Thursday, September 28, 2006, and the Defense Department has been invited to testify. I would appreciate a substantive response to this request prior to that hearing.

As you know, when allegations of cronyism at the CPA first surfaced in 2004, the Defense Department denied that political ideology played any role in hiring decisions. In a front-page Washington Post story in May 2004, a Pentagon spokesman declared that “there was no organized effort to hire Republicans.” He also stated: “Nowhere did we ask party affiliation.” Although the spokesman admitted that the Pentagon turned to the Heritage Foundation as a source of potential CPA personnel, he claimed that “this was a one-time event.”

This week, the Pentagon’s claims have been contradicted in another front-page Washington Post story, which states that a Defense Department political appointee, Jim O’Beirne, directed an organized and systemic screening process to hire Republican loyalists for key CPA positions. The article reports that O’Beirne’s office “posed blunt questions” about the political leanings of CPA applicants, including, “Did you vote for George W. Bush in 2000?” Contrary to the Pentagon’s 2004 statements, the Post now reports that the Pentagon’s outreach program to Republican political operatives was much more than a “one-time event.” As the article states:
To recruit the people he wanted, O’Beirne sought resumes from the offices of Republican congressman, conservative think tanks and GOP activists. He discarded applications from those his staff deemed ideologically suspect, even if the applicants possessed Arabic language skills or postwar rebuilding experience. … [Frederick Smith, the deputy director of CPA’s Washington office] said O’Beirne once pointed to a young man’s resume and pronounced him “an ideal candidate.” His chief qualification was that he had worked for the Republican Party in Florida during the presidential election recount in 2000.

Not only did Pentagon officials reportedly seek out Republican operatives for these CPA positions, but they now seem to argue that they were legally entitled to do so. The Post article states that Mr. O’Beirne, the Pentagon political appointee in charge of screening CPA applicants, “used an obscure provision in federal law to hire many CPA staffers as temporary political appointees, which exempted the interviewers from employment regulations that prohibit questions about personal political beliefs.” In other words, the Pentagon claimed in 2004 that it never asked political questions, but it now claims that it was authorized to do so.

In addition to these reports, there are disturbing accounts of direct political interference by the White House in hiring decisions. For example, this week’s Post article describes how Frederick Burke Jr., an eminent and talented physician who had worked with USAID in Kosovo and Somalia, was replaced as the head of efforts to rehabilitate Iraq’s health care system just one week after the fall of Baghdad. Another USAID official reported that the White House wanted a “loyalist” in the job.

In light of these inconsistencies between the Defense Department’s previous statements and recent press accounts, I request the following information:

(1) A list of the names of all individuals who were hired to work at the CPA (a) as temporary political appointees or (b) by Mr. O’Beirne or his staff, as well as the titles of their positions and descriptions of their employment responsibilities;

(2) A list of the names of all individuals who applied for, sought out, or were otherwise considered for temporary or full-time employment with the CPA, but were rejected by Mr. O’Beirne or his staff;

(3) Copies of all resumes, CVs, lists of references, letters of recommendation, and any other materials submitted by the individuals described in (1) or (2), as well as any notes or other evaluations of these individuals by Mr. O’Beirne or his staff; and

(4) Copies of all communications, including e-mails, between Mr. O’Beirne or his staff and the Heritage Foundation, other think tanks, political activists, or the offices of members of Congress regarding potential CPA employees.

In addition to these documents, I request that you provide a comprehensive list of the names of all individuals who worked for the CPA as temporary or full-time employees. Finally, I request a briefing from Mr. O’Beirne, prior to the Committee’s September 28 hearing, regarding his actions in recruiting and screening CPA personnel, as well as the legal authority for such actions.

Sincerely,

Henry A. Waxman
Ranking Minority Member

Can Waxman legitimately subpoena whether O’Beirne has ever used the word “sandpaper” in conjunction with any part of his wife’s anatomy?

given those requests, perhaps Rumsfeld will find it convenient to retire offshore somewhere?

very interesting letters Rajiv – thank you!

Siun @ 38

given those requests, perhaps Rumsfeld will find it convenient to retire offshore somewhere?

very interesting letters Rajiv – thank you!

I’m betting against Deutchland!

oh JohnSwifty! whatever makes you think that?!

perhaps that Paraguay spot is being outfitted for a compound for them all!

I remember quite a bit of dicussion about the article here at FDL at the time.

My first assumption is that these documents (detailed Waxman’s letter) were not made available. How likely is it that they still exist?

Swopa notes:

Why the Baker commission on Iraq doesn’t matter
By Swopa
Nov 12 2006 – 12:26pm

http://www.needlenose.com/node…..3d821da663

Rajiv 35 — That is very heartening. We wrote about it when Dorgan had his DPC hearings (when Reid wrote his letter):

http://www.firedoglake.com/200…..e-like-it/

It is a very hopeful sign. It would be great if they would be supportive of Waxman too, instead of running around sabre rattling and using him as a poster boy for the Libruls who want to take over the party that Must Be Defeated.

Jane, — thanks so much for highlighting this important book — and welcome to the author. We appreciate your stopping by today.

This book is incredibly valuable, I believe, because it goes to the ultimate question of what the Bush regime was about and why it has failed, not just in Iraq, but almost on every front. The election analysts are struggling with this very question about why the regime failed. Was it, as some have argued, just a bunch of hopelessly ideological radicals who were not intellectually equipped or predisposed to deal pragamatically with what they found? Or was this a problem of incredible incompetence, fosterd/protected by a culture of cronyism and thus unable to bring in people who could recognize the realities and deal with them? Or some combination?

What seems to be emerging — and this book will certaintly support this, I think — is not just from Iraq but also from the Katrina response and many other areas. It now appears that the Bush regime was populated at all critical points with people who had a deep antipathy for government, who had no constructive image of government legitimacy and necessity, let alone a view that would allow a competent goverment to emerge. So even if we hadn’t been a conquering, occupying force in a region whose institutions/traditions were very different from our own, and even if there had been no major security problem, the Bush regime and the CPA would have failed because the people Bush sent had no concept of a constructive and beneficial government. Each civilization has centures of understanding the essential role of government, but the Bush people rejected that view or at least considered it dangerous and thus to be limited. If given enough time, they would bring the same chaos to America that they brought to Iraq, and the extreme conditions of Katrina showed that this could happen anywhere in America, eventually.

Rajiv is the greatest.

Like many of you, I have been a close observer of Congress for a long time. Do not worry about Henry Waxman or the others. They take their Constitutional duties very seriously and they are tough as nails.

Siun @ 40

oh JohnSwifty! whatever makes you think that?!

perhaps that Paraguay spot is being outfitted for a compound for them all!

I remember an eighties band called Spandau Ballet (sp?). I can only hope there will be a host of bad band names available from the remains of Rummy’s tenure here on earth ;-}

Jane wrote: In answer to Teddy’s questions, I also imagine that a lot of narratives did not become clear until you sat down to write the book, and many of he interviews sound like they were given by people after-the-fact, when it became apparent what had happened and they had time to process their own experiences.

Very preceptive — and correct. Most of my best reporting was reconstructive. I went back to people I had met and talked to briefly in Baghdad and, once they got home to the States, sat down with them, sometimes for four or five hours at a stretch, and got them to open up to me.

Scarecrow – great points … connecting the dots between the Iraqi disaster and Katrina

Talk about “culture of corruption” … phew!

Rajiv Chandrasekaran 36 — I can’t tell you how happy I was to get confirmation of the O’Beirne story. A reader had written to me about it a while back and I tried to verify that he was with the CPA and responsible for hiring those Heritage Foundation interns, but I couldn’t find anything in print to back it up. I was absolutely delighted to finally see it in your book.

In the wake of this news…

The Shiite prime minister promised Sunday to reshuffle his Cabinet after calling lawmakers disloyal and blaming Sunni Muslims for raging sectarian violence that claimed at least 159 more lives, including 35 men blown apart while waiting to join Iraq’s police force.

Among the unusually high number of dead were 50 bodies found behind a regional electrical company in Baqouba, 35 miles northeast of Baghdad, and 25 others found scattered throughout the capital. Three U.S. troops were reported killed, as were four British service members.

… I’d like to ask Rajiv, is there anything that can be done at this point to keep things from descending into all-out chaos?

As we’re waiting to hear the Baker commission’s recommendations, is there anything worth recommending?

Hats off to the FDL leadership for highlighting Rajiv’s book here today. It is an important historical record of the debacle that was the first year of the occupation, and of course the folly of putting ideological purity above even the most basic professional qualifications.
Joe

Rajiv, thanks for presense today as well as the superb book!

Quick questions now that you’ve peeked from behind the curtains. *g*

A good deal of what you have written about in Imperial Life in the Emerald City takes place in the relative immediate aftermath of the fall of Baghdad.

My question is that now, 3 1/2 years later, do you see any difference in the “style” and “mode” of the plundering?

Have the “glory days of greed”, the “gonna get me some” pillaging enthusiasm changed at all?

Has any change occurred to become more of a everyday, systemic American-style “pick-any-pocket-you-can”, “if they don’t catch you, it’s legal” capitalism?

Sorry, I should have addressed my question to Rajiv- as a guess, to what extent to you think that the actual documents requested by Waxman still exist?

Rajiv Chandrasekaran @ 47

Very preceptive — and correct. Most of my best reporting was reconstructive. I went back to people I had met and talked to briefly in Baghdad and, once they got home to the States, sat down with them, sometimes for four or five hours at a stretch, and got them to open up to me.

I’m very much looking forward to reading this, Mr. Chandrasekaran. I’m sure this will be the first in a line of many on the subject that will make me ill. I will probably continue to blame the media for treating the American public like mushrooms; but, tell me, was there some other means that I might have come by the information you uncovered in your reporting, if only just a hint?

Joe Wilson @
51

Hats off to the FDL leadership for highlighting Rajiv’s book here today. It is an important historical record of the debacle that was the first year of the occupation, and of course the folly of putting ideological purity above even the most basic professional qualifications.
Joe

Thanks, Joe. Always good to see you.

It always goes back to the same mess, doesn’t it?

Hi Rajiv,

Incredible book! Great job!

Not really book related but I was wondering if you knew the back story about why Barbara Bodine suddenly left Baghdad after just a few months?

Greetings Amb. Wilson! Welcome back.

Good evening,
I’m new to the site … came here via link on nedlamont.com after the election, looking for explanations. I hope it won’t sound presumptuous to say that the humor and intelligence and elation over the national dem victory here got me through my more local disappointment. Thank you for that.

Just two thoughts to share – as a native San Franciscan and child of Mill Valley, I am very proud of Nancy, Barbara, and Diane.

And as a 14 year resident of CT and in line with previous comments about holding Ole Joe’s feet to the fire – shouldn’t we ask why with all his “pull”, Sikorsky Aircraft just lost a $13 billion military contract? And, why did the presidential helicopter program go to a European company which has now delayed delivery by 2 years?

Thanks for letting me vent! And read – you are all wondrous!
Susan

darkblack @ 30

MayDaze @
16

They have wet dreams about changing our country (or any country) into their simple-minded Randian utopia. They are, essentially and always, reality deniers.

Not Randian. Straussian.

Of course either state can and does lead to denial of reality, either through inability to utilize logical empiricism as a processing component of reality, or through the overt misuse/destruction of empirically derived knowledge due to ‘unacceptable’ internal conflict between objective reality and subjective ideal.

Big words…little dinks

;>)

Richard Dawkins is on C-Span at 7 PM Eastern giving a talk on his latest book The God Delusion and towards the end of the Q&A is challenged by a student from Liberty University to explain how evolution could account for the development of critical thinking. Dawkins replies that it seemed to him easy enough to explain that, but he was at a loss to explain the development of noncritical reasoning. Left unsaid in his reply was his belief that Liberty U. was peddling just that. The whole Q&A was a hoot, as it was taped in Lynchburg, the home of Falwell.

Swopa @ 37

Can Waxman legitimately subpoena whether O’Beirne has ever used the word “sandpaper” in conjunction with any part of his wife’s anatomy?

SPEW ~ We are talkin’ Mr. Ole 60 Grit?

707

I have to say, that book review was REALLY hard to write. There is just so much material. And it only just begins to scratch the surface of what actually happened, I imagine. We’ll be sorting through the debris of this one for years.

I know this is off subject, but I can’t resist talking a bit about Lieberman. His appearance on MTP today should comfort all who worked for Lamont. It is clear that Lieberman is dangerously out of touch. While I recognize the politics of it, the idea that Dems need to genuflect to somebody they should be shunning is repugnant. His reelection is not a mandate for him so much as it is a reflection of how hard breaking up can be. Ditto the reelection of Shays. Joe

JohnSwifty @ 34

It’s a subject with growing interest for some

;>)

scarecrow @ 44

Jane, — thanks so much for highlighting this important book — and welcome to the author. We appreciate your stopping by today.

This book is incredibly valuable, I believe, because it goes to the ultimate question of what the Bush regime was about and why it has failed, not just in Iraq, but almost on every front. The election analysts are struggling with this very question about why the regime failed. Was it, as some have argued, just a bunch of hopelessly ideological radicals who were not intellectually equipped or predisposed to deal pragamatically with what they found? Or was this a problem of incredible incompetence, fosterd/protected by a culture of cronyism and thus unable to bring in people who could recognize the realities and deal with them? Or some combination?

What seems to be emerging — and this book will certaintly support this, I think — is not just from Iraq but also from the Katrina response and many other areas. It now appears that the Bush regime was populated at all critical points with people who had a deep antipathy for government, who had no constructive image of government legitimacy and necessity, let alone a view that would allow a competent goverment to emerge. So even if we hadn’t been a conquering, occupying force in a region whose institutions/traditions were very different from our own, and even if there had been no major security problem, the Bush regime and the CPA would have failed because the people Bush sent had no concept of a constructive and beneficial government. Each civilization has centures of understanding the essential role of government, but the Bush people rejected that view or at least considered it dangerous and thus to be limited. If given enough time, they would bring the same chaos to America that they brought to Iraq, and the extreme conditions of Katrina showed that this could happen anywhere in America, eventually.

I think they just figured whatever happened, the U.S. military was powerful enough to keep things reasonably in check, and they’d be able to spin their way out of it from there.

Infinite faith in the military and their own PR. Or maybe just their own PR.

Welcome Susan. Those are great questions, but for answers, best to post them again on another thread. Usual protocol for the book thread is “on topic” only, but I see that Jane forgot to add that caveat, which she usually does. So, you probably will not get many responses here on the book thread.

I was so distressed after I started reading the book I had to wait until after 7 November to continue with it. These people had to work hard at getting it totally wrong. I recommend the people investigating this fiasco reinforce their determination to shine the light on the crooks by reading a little of the book each morning. Thank goodness the author had the stomach to record some of the appalling tale.

Jane Hamsher @ 55

Joe Wilson @
51

Hats off to the FDL leadership for highlighting Rajiv’s book here today. It is an important historical record of the debacle that was the first year of the occupation, and of course the folly of putting ideological purity above even the most basic professional qualifications.
Joe

Thanks, Joe. Always good to see you.

It always goes back to the same mess, doesn’t it?

We crossed the Rubicon in Iraq when we opted to invade instead of letting the inspectors complete the job. So it all goes back to the neocons and PNACERs. They should all be banned from the adult table of foreign policy debate in the future.

OT – Lieberman (since Ambassador Wilson brought up the subject, I presume it is okay for me to follow up)… Tim Tagaris just made a major announcement over at My Left Nutmeg in a discussion thread. Here it is:
—-
I am going to create a site (4.00 / 1)
and host it at joelieberman.org
It will contain the opposition research I have on Joe. Not oppo in the negative conotation (although it will include info on Haddasah and how Joe became a millionaire while a U.S. Senator), but more about his actual voting record, past statements, and campaign pledges.

My hope is that it will be a resource for everyone hoping to hold Joe accountable in the coming weeks, months and years.

Tim

http://www.myleftnutmeg.com/showDiary.do ?diaryId=4605

scarecrow @ 44

…It now appears that the Bush regime was populated at all critical points with people who had a deep antipathy for government, who had no constructive image of government legitimacy and necessity, let alone a view that would allow a competent goverment to emerge…

The only positive thing one could say about Junya’s crew is that they’d make really good grave-robbers.

We now have avenues of redress. Let’s not drop the ball. Let’s make those American soldiers deaths in Iraq really mean something.

Jane Hamsher @ 61

I have to say, that book review was REALLY hard to write. There is just so much material. And it only just begins to scratch the surface of what actually happened, I imagine. We’ll be sorting through the debris of this one for years.

It’s one of those things that if you think about it hard enough, your head will explode. My question is whether or not anyone has any kind of realistic assessment of how we can get out and what happens next. Amb. Wilson? Anyone? Bueller?

Ah, well I see that Joe Wilson has brought up Lamont and Lieberman.

Amb. Wilson- as for “breaking up is hard to do”, what are the parties/ individuals in the menage? Are you including the voters of CT?

Question: is there anything that can be done at this point to keep things from descending into all-out chaos?

I wish I had the magic answer.

I’ve gone on the record saying that an immediate withdrawal of American forces would almost certainly lead to a dramatic escalation in sectarian killings. But before you all pounce on me, let me raise on other point:

First, however, a caveat. Since I am a working journalist, I do not intend this comment, or any others to follow here today and next week, to be viewed as my policy prescription for Iraq. I report the facts. I leave it up to those in government to make policy.

That said, one scenario, and admittedly this is a best-case scenario, if U.S. forces redeploy to Kurdistan and border regions is that you could see a split in the Sunni insurgency, with indigenous, ex-Baathist, nationalist Sunnis turning on the foreign-born Wahabbists who have come to Iraq to further their idea of global jihad. If the nationalist Sunnis, who have thus far been working in concert with the Wahabbists, deny the foreigners and indigenous religious extremists aid and comfort, and even turn on them, you could see a drop off in attacks on Shiites. Remember, the nationalist, ex-Baathists Sunnis aren’t out to kill every Shiite — they just oppose the presence of foreign forces on Iraqi soil. If Sunnis attacks on Shiites drop, you might see steps among the Shiite community to de-escalate tensions and remove militia members from the security forces. I caution, however, that this is an optimistic, best-case scenario. And if there’s anything we’ve learned from Iraq over the past three years, it’s that the best-case scenario never occurs.

RC

I’m sure this will be tossed into mod for too many paragraphs, but this is so important and should be spotlighted I would hate to see it spread all over with this trivial errors due to fingers trying to keep up with thoughts:

When asked on Friday when about where the Government Reform Committee might begin its investigations — ???

nine jailed prostituted – should probably be “prostitutes”

draconian editcs – should be “edicts”

model of efficienty — should be “efficiency”

to “stay home with their failies” – with their “families”

(this is within a quoted passage) want to coe back anyway — “come” back anyway

to the hiring applicants for — should be either “to hiring applicants for” or “to the hiring of applicants for”

I’m not trying to be a bitch, but I used to be a legal proofreader and once it’s in the blood… And any error would be pounced upon by the MSM and others as evidence of God only knows what…

Valley Girl @ 72

Ah, well I see that Joe Wilson has brought up Lamont and Lieberman.

Amb. Wilson- as for “breaking up is hard to do”, what are the parties/ individuals in the menage? Are you including the voters of CT?

Absolutely the CN voters.

jeffreyw @ 16

Teddy @ 9, I guess I have to ask, knowing the answer. Did he answer your questions?

I have been unsuccessful in locating the WaPo Chatz Transcript, and do not want to mis-quote our future guest. He did answer my questions.

Joe Wilson @ 62

I know this is off subject, but I can’t resist talking a bit about Lieberman. His appearance on MTP today should comfort all who worked for Lamont. It is clear that Lieberman is dangerously out of touch. While I recognize the politics of it, the idea that Dems need to genuflect to somebody they should be shunning is repugnant. His reelection is not a mandate for him so much as it is a reflection of how hard breaking up can be. Ditto the reelection of Shays. Joe

Lord, he was insufferable! I’m very happy to be in such esteemed company to find the man absolutely disgusting. To think that I was sitting on my couch, spitting my coffee at the tube with similar vehemence to that of Ambassador Joe Wilson; well, somethings about America are still quite marvelous. You warm my heart, Sir (in place of my coffee), thank you.

This is a seminal book. Rajiv, are you able to get establishment media bookings, TV spots?

Jane – a slight transposition of the e and the k in Chandrasekaran’s name…….

Following up on my earlier comment, here is a link to the post by Tim Tagaris – hopefully it works. Tim details the contradictions between Lieberman’s MTP appearance and his prior campaign pledges to start bringing troops home.

http://www.myleftnutmeg.com/sh…..aryId=4605

Marion- I assume those typos are in Jane’s post. Jane has always said that she welcomes corrections. I could fix it right now, but I want to keep up with the conversation. But, someone will fix, I suspect.

Marion in Savannah — thanks!

JohnSwifty @ 54

Rajiv Chandrasekaran @ 47

Very preceptive — and correct. Most of my best reporting was reconstructive. I went back to people I had met and talked to briefly in Baghdad and, once they got home to the States, sat down with them, sometimes for four or five hours at a stretch, and got them to open up to me.

I’m very much looking forward to reading this, Mr. Chandrasekaran. I’m sure this will be the first in a line of many on the subject that will make me ill. I will probably continue to blame the media for treating the American public like mushrooms; but, tell me, was there some other means that I might have come by the information you uncovered in your reporting, if only just a hint?

The Washington Monthly piece someone mentioned would have provided a hint. There was also the piece on the front page of The Post, written by a colleague, about how Simone Ledeen and others who had applied for jobs at the Heritage Foundation got jobs with the CPA. But those were about it. Naomi Klein’s Harper’s piece and William Langewiesche’s piece in the Atlantic, for instance, didn’t come out until the CPA had been dissolved.

Jane Hamsher @ 10

TeddySanFran @ 9

I suppose my question next week for the author is of the Woodwardian variety. I asked it during Rajiv Chandraskearan’s WaPo chat when his book first came out. How is it that a reporter could find all this, uncover all this, and save it for a book? Was all of this discovered — uncovered — in the aftermath, sitting in Washington with the post-intern pro-life Young GOPers?

And if not — if this was known when the author was in Bahgdad — where was the reporting? Why did the American people not know about this as it was happening, if this reporter learned about it on the ground contemporaneously? Was the reporting officially censored? Did the WaPo editors spike these stories?

There is a narrative here America must fully understand before we allow our media to embed again with the government. What price did we pay?

Good questions, Teddy.

In Grey’s Ghost Plane he also notes an early story on the torture renditions by Chandraskearan and another WaPo Journo. He expected all kinds of things to come from that, but instead WaPo and the journos dropped it all, flat and dead, after that intitial story.

It does make you wonder why.

Pachacutec @ 78

This is a seminal book. Rajiv, are you able to get establishment media bookings, TV spots?

I think an appearance on the Daily Show is overdue. Jon Stewart has shown a talent for discussing the surreal,the absurd and the tragic. These qualities are in abundance in this book, to put it mildly.

jeffreyw @ 59

Dawkins replies that it seemed to him easy enough to explain that, but he was at a loss to explain the development of noncritical reasoning.

Even more easily explicable is the sub rosa manipulation and exploitation of impulses within those who dabble incautiously in such.

Qui bono, ad infinitum

Sorry – didn’t read the whole thread first and didn’t realize the author was commenting today. I didn’t meant to speak in the third person.

Rajiv Chandrasekaran @ 46

Jane wrote: In answer to Teddy’s questions, I also imagine that a lot of narratives did not become clear until you sat down to write the book, and many of he interviews sound like they were given by people after-the-fact, when it became apparent what had happened and they had time to process their own experiences.

Very preceptive — and correct. Most of my best reporting was reconstructive. I went back to people I had met and talked to briefly in Baghdad and, once they got home to the States, sat down with them, sometimes for four or five hours at a stretch, and got them to open up to me.

I stepped away.

Thanks for your response, Rajiv. I mis-remembered and used the word “embed” in characterizing your experience, as I recall now that you lived outside the Green Zone.

Swopa

I think they just figured whatever happened, the U.S. military was powerful enough to keep things reasonably in check, and they’d be able to spin their way out of it from there.

Infinite faith in the military and their own PR. Or maybe just their own PR.

If that’s true, it shows an amazing level of confusion. American military technical superiority works against technically inferior traditional armies. There was never any question about whether the US could defeat Sadam’s armed forces under those terms. But as Bush I and his aides understand, that’s the easy part.

The harder question, which the Bush regime didn’t even think was relevant, was can you govern the country once you topple the Iraqi regime? Answer 1: well, not without virtually all of the old regime and its bureaucracy in place, so be careful when you cut off the head. 2nd Answer: the Bushies don’t even know how to govern America, where there are no insurgents (yet) and where everyone accepts the legitimacy of the elected government and the bureaucracy is always in place.

“Life in the Emerald City”. A keeper.

Wonder how ‘Life in the Imperial White House, 2000-2008′ will one day read. And who, with credibility, will write this book?

Unfortunately I have to run off to give a speech. I’m really looking forward to the conversation next Sunday. I promise I’ll answer all the outstanding questions from today’s chat when I return next Sunday. I hope everyone will have had a chance to read some of the book by then. I don’t promise an uplifting read, but I think it’s an important story that needs to get out there. If you want to learn more about the book or if you want to send me a private note, please visit my Website, http://www.rajivc.com. See you next Sunday!

RC

Pachacutec @ 78

This is a seminal book. Rajiv, are you able to get establishment media bookings, TV spots?

That’s why I was so excited and wanted to have Rajiv on as soon as I read the WaPo excerpts on O’Beirne and Kerik. I think as time goes on we’ll be referring to this book over and over again (my copied is already well-underlined with pages turned and margin notes) as we sit and sip hot cocoa together and watch Henry Waxman on CSpan doing to the war profiteers what he did to the Tobacco industry.

Good times.

Oklahoma kiddo @ 90

“Life in the Emerald City”. A keeper.

Wonder how ‘Life in the Imperial White House, 2000-2008′ will one day read. And who, with credibility, will write this book?

I think Bob Woodward may be the only person in the world who can actually stand the smell.

Thanks, Rajiv. Our house is open to you any time. See you next week!

Rajiv Chandrasekaran @ 91

Unfortunately I have to run off to give a speech. I’m really looking forward to the conversation next Sunday. I promise I’ll answer all the outstanding questions from today’s chat when I return next Sunday. I hope everyone will have had a chance to read some of the book by then. I don’t promise an uplifting read, but I think it’s an important story that needs to get out there. If you want to learn more about the book or if you want to send me a private note, please visit my Website, http://www.rajivc.com. See you next Sunday!

RC

Thanks so much, Rajiv. We are looking forward to it. Hope you stop by and enlighten us with some frequency as we enter Congressional Oversight Season.

Is discussion of this book going on right now? Just got it last week. Going between this and Richard Dawkins ‘God Delusion.’

Only asking because I just got home from work.

All right – please explain how this book thing works. Do you always have the author online when you do “week 1″, “week 2″ or is it simply a discussion amongst the readers of that book?

Rajiv Chandrasekaran @ 73

I’ve gone on the record saying that an immediate withdrawal of American forces would almost certainly lead to a dramatic escalation in sectarian killings.

As the person who asked the question, let me say that I agree with you. And that I don’t know of anyone who’s followed the situation reasonably closely who disagrees.

The brutal dilemma is that (1) we can’t sustain our presence much longer, much less forever, and (2) it’s hard to see any alternate path that doesn’t lead to the same ending, albeit a little later.

Rajiv Chandrasekaran @ 83

The Washington Monthly piece someone mentioned would have provided a hint. There was also the piece on the front page of The Post, written by a colleague, about how Simone Ledeen and others who had applied for jobs at the Heritage Foundation got jobs with the CPA. But those were about it. Naomi Klein’s Harper’s piece and William Langewiesche’s piece in the Atlantic, for instance, didn’t come out until the CPA had been dissolved.

Well, I would have been more happy had there been a complete dearth prior to your reporting; but I’ll console my self that there wasn’t blessed much. I too, like Jane and others, concern myself that posterity will look back on our generation and wonder what the hell we were up to. On, the plus side, Germany now has a moral impetus on the world stage to try any and all for war crimes; presumably from having been a society that so very much missed the boat on that subject. Perhaps America will become a country that the rest of the world allows to try heads of nations on allegations of idiocy.

Joe Wilson:

We crossed the Rubicon in Iraq when we opted to invade instead of letting the inspectors complete the job. So it all goes back to the neocons and PNACERs. They should all be banned from the adult table of foreign policy debate in the future.

As should all of their wannabe-Rumsfeldian admirers. Service to the Empire in the Emerald City should disqualify anyone from further public service in the USA.

Amb. Wilson, if you are still around- do you have any thoughts about the possible role of the UN in dealing with the Iraq mess? If we were to have a trustworthy and honest broker as UN Ambassador, that is?

scarecrow @ 44

Jane, — thanks so much for highlighting this important book — and welcome to the author. We appreciate your stopping by today.

This book is incredibly valuable, I believe, because it goes to the ultimate question of what the Bush regime was about and why it has failed, not just in Iraq, but almost on every front. The election analysts are struggling with this very question about why the regime failed. Was it, as some have argued, just a bunch of hopelessly ideological radicals who were not intellectually equipped or predisposed to deal pragamatically with what they found? Or was this a problem of incredible incompetence, fosterd/protected by a culture of cronyism and thus unable to bring in people who could recognize the realities and deal with them? Or some combination?

What seems to be emerging — and this book will certaintly support this, I think — is not just from Iraq but also from the Katrina response and many other areas. It now appears that the Bush regime was populated at all critical points with people who had a deep antipathy for government, who had no constructive image of government legitimacy and necessity, let alone a view that would allow a competent goverment to emerge. So even if we hadn’t been a conquering, occupying force in a region whose institutions/traditions were very different from our own, and even if there had been no major security problem, the Bush regime and the CPA would have failed because the people Bush sent had no concept of a constructive and beneficial government. Each civilization has centures of understanding the essential role of government, but the Bush people rejected that view or at least considered it dangerous and thus to be limited. If given enough time, they would bring the same chaos to America that they brought to Iraq, and the extreme conditions of Katrina showed that this could happen anywhere in America, eventually.

this is something even repuke licans have to admit;

the republians in office by their very principles HATE government

a person that HATES government will by that very principle undermine successfull government programs so that the public disgards that program

for instance, the drug program, make it incredibly ineficient so they can say;

“see?…government can’t do this”…THAT’S why they eliminated bargaining power

same thing with social security

they’ve given the assets social security has aquired over generations, given those investments to people so wealthy they will never ever spend it.

then they claim;

“see?..it’s going to go bankrupt unless we do something about it”

HEY!!1…IDIOT!!! take the money you STOLE from me, GET IT FROM THE PEOPLE YOU GAVE IT TO, out it BACK where it belongs, WITH INTEREST and BING…NO SOCIAL SECURITY PROBLEM

why aren’t the democrats intercetpting the social security issue and PUT IT BACK IN THEIR FACE?

you can’t have people or philosophy that hates government running government, they will make sure it fails to prove their point

Jane Hamsher @ 8

I didn’t have time to get into the privatization of companies which BushCo. decided should be one of their objectives for the country, but it was equally lunk-headed.

The guy tasked with implementing it — Peter McPherson, who took a leave of absence from Michigan State University to serve in Iraq:

To McPherson, looting was a form of much-needed shrinkage. If the theft of government property promoted private enterprise — such as when Baghdad’s municipal bus drivers began driving their own routes and pocketing the fees — it was a positive development in his view. “I thought the privatization that occurs sort of naturally when somebody took over their state vehicle, or began to drive a truck that the state used to own, was just fine,” he said. Fellow CPA officials were aghast. Hundreds of police cars had been stolen and turned into private taxis — good for the private sector but bad for law enforcement. The same problem plagued the Ministry of Trade’s food-distribution system. Many of the trucks that had transported monthly rations were being used to haul private reconstruction supplies. “The Robin Hood philosophy might have sounded good to economists inside the palace,” one CPA ministry adviser said, “but when you looked at the real-world impact, it was lunacy.”

I think it’s important to note that these are the same pricks who see “privatization” as the panacea for all America’s economic woes.

Is this their vision of an ideal future?

The program to assign zip cdes in Iraq was another laugher. I suppose putting white picket fences in front of every house was on the list somewhere also ; )

This beautifully written introduction has given me inspiration to read this book.

I think Riverbend’s diaries need to be read in conjunction with Rajiv’s book in order to understand the impact our staffing policies had on normal Iraqi citizens, not to mention the massive amount of war profiteering that these policies encouraged. I particularly remember one diary where Riverbend discussed a friend of hers, a man who owned an engineering company, and his story of bidding on a bridge to be reconstructed. The Iraqi engineer felt terribly guilty putting in a bid for about $200,000, as I recall. Later, it was found out that the American firm who eventually received the contract, submitted a bid for over $1 million. Shameful.

*xyz @ 84

Pachacutec @ 78

This is a seminal book. Rajiv, are you able to get establishment media bookings, TV spots?

I think an appearance on the Daily Show is overdue. Jon Stewart has shown a talent for discussing the surreal,the absurd and the tragic. These qualities are in abundance in this book, to put it mildly.

I think Rajiv was on TDS.

Valley Girl @ 100

Amb. Wilson, if you are still around- do you have any thoughts about the possible role of the UN in dealing with the Iraq mess? If we were to have a trustworthy and honest broker as UN Ambassador, that is?

Any lasting solution has to be largely political and involve the insurgents, their foreign supporters, neighbors and a collection of European powers and Russia. It will require international leadership, which is not something the US currently commands in the region. The UN would be an alternative convening power. But you are right that having had Bolten up there offending everybody for a year, it may be tough to generate a lot of enthusiasm for anything proposed by the US.

Siun @ 40

oh JohnSwifty! whatever makes you think that?!

perhaps that Paraguay spot is being outfitted for a compound for them all!

It’s New Zealand.

All right – please explain how this book thing works. Do you always have the author online when you do “week 1″, “week 2″ or is it simply a discussion amongst the readers of that book?

Week One: Book chat without the author, with a post up top by one of our regulars.

Week Two: Book chat with the author, with rigorous “on-topic” discipline from the moderators.

Yes, this is Week One. Apparently, some smartass flushed the author from his lurk.

I wanna know what happened at/to Camp Falcon:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v…..&eurl=
*especially @3:59

Mr. Wilson:

Thanks for lending support to Dave Meijas.

Joe Wilson, presuming Ambassador-not Bolton must return home, have you any thoughts about who W might nominate in his place?

Wordsmith @ 110

Mr. Wilson:

Thanks for lending support to Dave Meijas.

And thanks for supporting Ned Lamont as well.

Sectarian violence is a way of life in Iraq. The American government under Bush helped to promote this. Violence will continue, regardless of when we let our soldiers come home. So… why not pull out now and get it over with? If we get out sooner rather than later, then perhaps, we may save lots and lots of American lives. Let the Iraqi’s decide their country’s fate. We have no business being there.

TeddySanFran @ 108

Week One: Book chat without the author, with a post up top by one of our regulars……

Yes, this is Week One. Apparently, some smartass flushed the author from his lurk.

Cool! Thanks for answering.

TRex @ 71

Jane Hamsher @ 61

I have to say, that book review was REALLY hard to write. There is just so much material. And it only just begins to scratch the surface of what actually happened, I imagine. We’ll be sorting through the debris of this one for years.

It’s one of those things that if you think about it hard enough, your head will explode. My question is whether or not anyone has any kind of realistic assessment of how we can get out and what happens next. Amb. Wilson? Anyone? Bueller?

It is a mess to be sure. I have argued that we not discuss next steps in terms of withdrawal but rather in terms of what is appropriate to ask our troops to do at this stage of the occupation. Stop putting Americans unneccessarily in harm’s way; stop unneccessarily killing Iraqis; and use whatever international leadership capacity remains to promote an international conference or concert of nations to include the insurgents, their foreign supporters, key nations in the neighborhood, Europe and Russia, to try to move the power struggle into a political rather than military arena.
It is a longshot but I think we owe it to them and to ourselves.
Whatever we do going forward, we still need to hold the administration accountable for the greatest strategic blunder in the history of the country. And all to appease the fanatasies of a small group of parasites — the neocons.

Some Google video of Rajiv (9 minutes) ~ Foreign Exchange with Fareed Zakaria — Inside the Emerald City

Wordsmith @ 110

Mr. Wilson:

Thanks for lending support to Dave Meijas.

It was an honor to stand with such a fine candidate. And a pleasure to call Peter King what he is: a Rove toady and lickspittle

TeddySanFran @ 111

Joe Wilson, presuming Ambassador-not Bolton must return home, have you any thoughts about who W might nominate in his place?

I like some of what Steve Clemons has been suggesting at the Washington Note. Linc Chaffee or Jim Leach. Good republicans but also good Americans with lots of foreign policy experience.

*xyz @ 112

Wordsmith @ 110

Mr. Wilson:

Thanks for lending support to Dave Meijas.

And thanks for supporting Ned Lamont as well.

I thought Ned was a great candidate. It was just too tough in the absence of a republican candidate. But the important thing is that he stood up and changed the conversation in America in an important way. I hope he will continue to speak out.

“Follow the money!” — Deep Throat

Oversight committee hearings which discover how much money has gone missing or was stolen are essential if the Dems are to prove themselves to be fiscally responsible.

Therefore, we can start with Rumsfeld’s press conference on 9/10/01 (one day before the tragedies) where he said the DoD had simply lost track of 2 trillion dollars! Then we can go forward from there to include monies handed out by the CPA, no-bid contracts, and the like.

It ought make for good reading and it would inform the public of what kind of people the Bush Repubs are and it would give them a better idea of what has actually happened in the last 5 years and (to my delight) who is responsible.

See, isn’t being a ‘responsible adult’ fun?

Accountability is priority #1. Not only to punish, but perhaps more importantly, to set an example.

Will check out Clemons on that, but I thought the resume would require time-served in Poppy’s Posse. Like Eagleburger replacing Gates on the B/H commission, it seems the circle of acceptable voices is self-limiting as always, but in a new (non neo-con, 1988-realist) way.

Joe Wilson @ 115

Whatever we do going forward, we still need to hold the administration accountable for the greatest strategic blunder in the history of the country. And all to appease the fanatasies of a small group of parasites — the neocons.

Ambassador, holding the crooks accountable seems paramount on our national stage (and I have high hopes for Mr. Waxman’s efforts, among others). But what of the international efforts we are still currently embroiled in. I undertand your cogent arguments, in theory, on how to proceed in the future. But what do we do right now? Both Mr. Waxman’s efforts and the theories you have given the germ of, well, they take time.

I get the distinct impression that time is of the essence to save American lives; but, more important in terms of shear volume of humanity, to curtail an Iraqi civil war as much as may be possible at this late stage. What can we do right now to get the idiots out and get some more intelligent direction in, immediately?

Must we let this Baker gambit be the only option on top of other failures? It just seems so depressing.

Joe Wilson @
67

Jane Hamsher @ 55

Joe Wilson @
51

Hats off to the FDL leadership for highlighting Rajiv’s book here today. It is an important historical record of the debacle that was the first year of the occupation, and of course the folly of putting ideological purity above even the most basic professional qualifications.
Joe

Thanks, Joe. Always good to see you.

It always goes back to the same mess, doesn’t it?

We crossed the Rubicon in Iraq when we opted to invade instead of letting the inspectors complete the job. So it all goes back to the neocons and PNACERs. They should all be banned from the adult table of foreign policy debate in the future.

Might it be worthwhile to consider precluding AIPAC from joining “the adult table of foreign policy debate…”? While we’re on the subject of AIPAC, who bankrolls it to the tune of forty million dollars per year?

Oklahoma kiddo @ 120

Accountability is priority #1. Not only to punish, but perhaps more importantly, to set an example.

And to prevent resurrection of the players, ala BigTime and Rummy!

TeddySanFran @ 122

Will check out Clemons on that, but I thought the resume would require time-served in Poppy’s Posse. Like Eagleburger replacing Gates on the B/H commission, it seems the circle of acceptable voices is self-limiting as always, but in a new (non neo-con, 1988-realist) way.

Bob Kimmitt would be a good candidate. Arnie Kantor another one. Clemons touts Paula Dobriansky. I am not a big fan. But then again, I doubt W is going to call and ask for my thoughts.

If Ambassador Wilson is still here, a quick question for you:

Do you have any thoughts about whether the newly-empowered Democratic Congress will/should investigate the Administration’s actions against you and your wife Valerie?

Amb. Wilson –

Do you have any thoughts as to the relevance of the “Iraq Study Group” of old Bush hands, w/r/t some of the solution elements you sketch out in your post #115?

Baker and Gates. Yuk. Who is the Bush clan trying to fool with these wheeler dealers?

Joe Wilson @ 125

I doubt W is going to call and ask for my thoughts.

I don’t know, I hear he’s in the market for a new ‘brain,’ just don’t beat him in any book reading contests.

If you haven’t seen it yet, four Brits were killed today in the Shaat Al Arab waterway in Iraq.

They were killed in a boat and were victims of some sort of IED.

Also, Iran is running drone spy video of US aircraft carriers loaded for bear off of their coast.

That area is really heating up too much for my comfort.

Not to mention Israel is firing up some of the pre-emptive strike rhetoric against Iraq’s nuke program.

In the words of Pete Townshend: “It’s all building up to something that can olny be redeemed with fire.”

-GSD

It’s gonna take one heck of a lot of diplomacy to keep the lid from blowing off the whole region.

JohnSwifty @ 123

Joe Wilson @ 115

Whatever we do going forward, we still need to hold the administration accountable for the greatest strategic blunder in the history of the country. And all to appease the fanatasies of a small group of parasites — the neocons.

Ambassador, holding the crooks accountable seems paramount on our national stage (and I have high hopes for Mr. Waxman’s efforts, among others). But what of the international efforts we are still currently embroiled in. I undertand your cogent arguments, in theory, on how to proceed in the future. But what do we do right now? Both Mr. Waxman’s efforts and the theories you have given the germ of, well, they take time.

I get the distinct impression that time is of the essence to save American lives; but, more important in terms of shear volume of humanity, to curtail an Iraqi civil war as much as may be possible at this late stage. What can we do right now to get the idiots out and get some more intelligent direction in, immediately?

Must we let this Baker gambit be the only option on top of other failures? It just seems so depressing.

I said in another post that I think we should take a hard look at what we are asking the troops to do right now with an eye to getting them out of harm’s way as much as possible, and getting them out of the busines of killing Iraqis unneccessarily. Then focus on an international concert of nations.
But there are no easy answers here.

Mad Dogs @ 126

If Ambassador Wilson is still here, a quick question for you:

Do you have any thoughts about whether the newly-empowered Democratic Congress will/should investigate the Administration’s actions against you and your wife Valerie?

They should. I don’t know if they will. After all treason was committed and Rove still has his security clearance.

It’s rule one of imperial conquest to enlist the old elite to your side. This was the only chance to avoid the anarchy that exists now but that doesn’t mean things could not have gotten just as bad, but only in a different way. In addition such would have contained a bit of chance that a strong Iraq could have re emerged in a decade or so.

Thus I will always believe that Bremmers decision was made with knowlege aforethought that Iraq would become a destablized mess and killing zone. Such was in our best strategic interest as seen at the time.

The whole idea that Iraq would become a stable beacon of democratic stability closely aligned with the US was possibley believed by many but they were simply all fools. One can bet that Cheney and his team, neocon or not, never believed it for a second. What we have was their goal but that goal is only interem. Near total elimination of functional Muslim states is the ultimate goal.

Lou Costello @ 109

Frankly, although there was an attack and apparent significant damage occured, IMO there wasn’t the large number of casualties alluded to by some sources. There might be some success covering up the facts for a while on individual cases (like Pat Tillman’s, for example)…But not everybody is ‘on the reserve’, so to speak. No way to shut everybody up.

As for the large flash at 3:57…Big munitions cookoff, non nuclear…No EMP.

Take a cheap video camera out at night with nothing but ambient and distant artificial light, let the aperture adjust…Then point a halogen flashlight at the lens and turn it on. Same effect, lens flare grossly out of proportion to light source size.

Joe Wilson @ 132

Mad Dogs @ 126

If Ambassador Wilson is still here, a quick question for you:

Do you have any thoughts about whether the newly-empowered Democratic Congress will/should investigate the Administration’s actions against you and your wife Valerie?

They should. I don’t know if they will. After all treason was committed and Rove still has his security clearance.

Unfortunately, we’re in a situation where the Democrats have to do triage on all the different varieties of treason to be investigated.

VidaLoca @ 127

Amb. Wilson –

Do you have any thoughts as to the relevance of the “Iraq Study Group” of old Bush hands, w/r/t some of the solution elements you sketch out in your post #115?

I have a lot of respect for Baker and Hamilton and a lot of the members and staff support of the group. I think they are getting a lot of good views (my own included). And I think they are serious about finding a way ahead. Their report also provides political cover to whomever wants to use it. An agent of change.

Arguing over whether we were deceived in the runup to war is, I think, a bit pointless — of course we were, and anybody who doesn’t believe it now isn’t likely to anytime soon.

I could not disagree more strongly, although not about the whether, but the how. Until it is publicly disclosed how this lie was foisted upon the world, and the guilty brought to justice, little hope exists for preventing future misadventures. This is Vietnam 2.0 Somebody better drive a stake through somebody elses heart.

Joe Wilson @
106

Valley Girl @ 100

Amb. Wilson, if you are still around- do you have any thoughts about the possible role of the UN in dealing with the Iraq mess? If we were to have a trustworthy and honest broker as UN Ambassador, that is?

Any lasting solution has to be largely political and involve the insurgents, their foreign supporters, neighbors and a collection of European powers and Russia. It will require international leadership, which is not something the US currently commands in the region. The UN would be an alternative convening power. But you are right that having had Bolten up there offending everybody for a year, it may be tough to generate a lot of enthusiasm for anything proposed by the US.

Late to the party as usual (sigh)

Once again Ambassador Wilson, you hit the nail on the head, I agree wholeheartedly, for whatever my opinion is worth, I offer as evidence …

The Tale of the Red Knight

The Bush clan actually believes they were born to rule. We will be dealing with the residue and remnants of the this family far into the future. That is if the Bush gang has left us any future. I have hope though.

Joe Wilson @ 131

I said in another post that I think we should take a hard look at what we are asking the troops to do right now with an eye to getting them out of harm’s way as much as possible, and getting them out of the busines of killing Iraqis unneccessarily. Then focus on an international concert of nations.
But there are no easy answers here.

Sadley, no. Of that, all experts agree; merely a question of which bad choice will be least damaging at this point. It’s just that I ‘know’ the Baker version of a bad choice will be made for his masters’ concerns: oil, oil, oil. He didn’t get to be one of Pappy’s boys without knowing where his bread was buttered. Thank you for your responses.

Just started grazing from the top. I didn’t realize we had an Ambassador in the house. Good evening sir.

Joe Wilson @ 131

JohnSwifty @ 123

Joe Wilson @ 115

Whatever we do going forward, we still need to hold the administration accountable for the greatest strategic blunder in the history of the country. And all to appease the fanatasies of a small group of parasites — the neocons.

Ambassador, holding the crooks accountable seems paramount on our national stage (and I have high hopes for Mr. Waxman’s efforts, among others). But what of the international efforts we are still currently embroiled in. I undertand your cogent arguments, in theory, on how to proceed in the future. But what do we do right now? Both Mr. Waxman’s efforts and the theories you have given the germ of, well, they take time.

I get the distinct impression that time is of the essence to save American lives; but, more important in terms of shear volume of humanity, to curtail an Iraqi civil war as much as may be possible at this late stage. What can we do right now to get the idiots out and get some more intelligent direction in, immediately?

Must we let this Baker gambit be the only option on top of other failures? It just seems so depressing.

I said in another post that I think we should take a hard look at what we are asking the troops to do right now with an eye to getting them out of harm’s way as much as possible, and getting them out of the busines of killing Iraqis unneccessarily. Then focus on an international concert of nations.
But there are no easy answers here.

Baker. He’s got Blair back on his meds and talking up the Syria/Iran angle. If he convinces Bush he’ll look like a genius for doing it, it’s a go. The new fulcrum of the Mid-east will not be Baghdad, but Kirkuk. Our troops will go into Kurdistan either way, and the Kurds will get heavy weapons and training.

“Whatever we do going forward, we still need to hold the administration accountable for the greatest strategic blunder in the history of the country. And all to appease the fantasies of a small group of parasites — the neocons.”

Amb. Wilson is so right! The damage to our Constitution can hopefully be repaired; however, the precedents created by the criminals who caused the damage can never be un-done. (IMHO it is the Constitutional equivalent of the first A-bomb test; the fact that it can be done will never go away.) The current group of criminals must be punished in-order to give pause to the next George Bush.

john in sacramento @ 139

Joe Wilson @
106

Valley Girl @ 100

Amb. Wilson, if you are still around- do you have any thoughts about the possible role of the UN in dealing with the Iraq mess? If we were to have a trustworthy and honest broker as UN Ambassador, that is?

Any lasting solution has to be largely political and involve the insurgents, their foreign supporters, neighbors and a collection of European powers and Russia. It will require international leadership, which is not something the US currently commands in the region. The UN would be an alternative convening power. But you are right that having had Bolten up there offending everybody for a year, it may be tough to generate a lot of enthusiasm for anything proposed by the US.

Late to the party as usual (sigh)

Once again Ambassador Wilson, you hit the nail on the head, I agree wholeheartedly, for whatever my opinion is worth, I offer as evidence …

The Tale of the Red Knight

Tale of the Red knight is a good story.
Sorry we couldn’t get Charlie Brown over the bar. I doubt that Doolittle will still be in office in two years so Sacramentoans will know that they reelected a crook.

Joe Wilson @ 132

Mad Dogs @ 126

If Ambassador Wilson is still here, a quick question for you:

Do you have any thoughts about whether the newly-empowered Democratic Congress will/should investigate the Administration’s actions against you and your wife Valerie?

They should. I don’t know if they will. After all treason was committed and Rove still has his security clearance.

As much as I also would love a Congressional investigation, I’d at the same time hate to see an “Ollie North” result where the miscreants’ testimony prejudices any criminal prosecution.

Don’t know if we can have it both ways, but want it still the same!

MarcLord @ 142

Baker. He’s got Blair back on his meds and talking up the Syria/Iran angle. If he convinces Bush he’ll look like a genius for doing it, it’s a go. The new fulcrum of the Mid-east will not be Baghdad, but Kirkuk. Our troops will go into Kurdistan either way, and the Kurds will get heavy weapons and training.

Like I said, depressing! People die in every era, I’m enough of a pragmatist to know that. But part of the great romance that is America is that we are the good guys. We’ve played the bad guys, the ugly guys, the ignorant guys and now we’re playing the really, really stupid guys. Perhaps it’s merely national pride, but after the Tuesday election part of me felt like, “NOW we can stop being international idiots!” It is a sad reality that idiocy has no immediate cure.

darkblack @ 134

Lou Costello @ 109

Frankly, although there was an attack and apparent significant damage occured, IMO there wasn’t the large number of casualties alluded to by some sources. There might be some success covering up the facts for a while on individual cases (like Pat Tillman’s, for example)…But not everybody is ‘on the reserve’, so to speak. No way to shut everybody up.

As for the large flash at 3:57…Big munitions cookoff, non nuclear…No EMP.

Take a cheap video camera out at night with nothing but ambient and distant artificial light, let the aperture adjust…Then point a halogen flashlight at the lens and turn it on. Same effect, lens flare grossly out of proportion to light source size.

That was a televison / broadcast camera BTW, not a cheapie. But more than that is that the blast was 12 miles(?) outside of town and that mushroom cloud looks pretty big from that far. Just sayin’

And THX to Amb. Wilson for coming around. Stop by anytime.

Mad Dogs @ 146

Joe Wilson @ 132

Mad Dogs @ 126

If Ambassador Wilson is still here, a quick question for you:

Do you have any thoughts about whether the newly-empowered Democratic Congress will/should investigate the Administration’s actions against you and your wife Valerie?

They should. I don’t know if they will. After all treason was committed and Rove still has his security clearance.

As much as I also would love a Congressional investigation, I’d at the same time hate to see an “Ollie North” result where the miscreants’ testimony prejudices any criminal prosecution.

Don’t know if we can have it both ways, but want it still the same!

Any investigation should take place after the disposition of whatever cases Fitzgerald brings.

Steve @ 143

“Whatever we do going forward, we still need to hold the administration accountable for the greatest strategic blunder in the history of the country. And all to appease the fantasies of a small group of parasites — the neocons.”

Amb. Wilson is so right! The damage to our Constitution can hopefully be repaired; however, the precedents created by the criminals who caused the damage can never be un-done. (IMHO it is the Constitutional equivalent of the first A-bomb test; the fact that it can be done will never go away.) The current group of criminals must be punished in-order to give pause to the next George Bush.

Hear! Hear!

Blog Call to Action!

According to Josh Pelosi has announced she wants Murtha as her majority leader. It’s time to do some phone banking. We need to create a list of representatives for and against. We need to call them and get them to endorse Murtha. Pelosi has reached out to us and coordinated with us. Its time to support her.

If Pelosi wants Murtha she gets Murtha.

Amb. Wilson- what European nation/s do you see as the best and most likely to come to the table for a political solution (such as it may be) in Iraq? I ask about Europe, as a “representative” of the “Western” view, if you see what I mean.

There are huge, I’m talkin’ mega fish to fry. “Watergate”? What was that? Not even a spike in the history of political crimes, compared to what’s coming.

Pelosi in; Hillary out.

Valley Girl @ 151

Amb. Wilson- what European nation/s do you see as the best and most likely to come to the table for a political solution (such as it may be) in Iraq? I ask about Europe, as a “representative” of the “Western” view, if you see what I mean.

The French have the trust of the Arab world. The Scandanavians, especially the Norwegians have been very credible as interlocutors. The Germans have historic interests in the region as do the Poles who were our protecting power after the first gulf war.

Here’s the problem. The MSM trope on this is going to be that this is all politics and not policy. This MSM absorption of the Rovian line is out biggest problem right now. The idea that there can be actual policy failure is completely out of keeping with their “balanced” reporting.

This gets even worse in Iraq because there is no good policy position. As someone else on the web has said, demanding alternatives from democrats is like someone who has driven a car off a cliff demanding suggestions from a back seat passenger.

Worse, the republicans show no evidence of wanting to pursue a policy solution. The only motivation I can see is one of minimizing political damage. While this is, in the long haul, a bad political strategy, in the short haul it is doing enormous damage to the US.

I suppose that the entrance of Baker, Gates and other progenitors of Iran-Contra are meant to a shift to a policy oriented approach. But there are two people in the White House who don’t seem to get that.

I gotta run. Bye all. Joe

I read Josh’s post about Pelosi wanting Murtha, but now I’m flummoxed. Do I email my Congresswoman to ask her to vote for Murtha?

The perils of having one’s Congresswoman as Speaker are becoming apparent, but I’ll still take the deal!

@150..good for her..Murtha has a lot of negatives but Steny is a real weasel. If the House Dems. don’t salute and say yes’m to Pelosi’s choice, then I hope she really kicks some ass. It’s going to be a long, hard two years and if she can’t get the majority leader she wants, then we are truly fucked. It will be the sign that the Dems are more interested in K-street then the country.

Joe Wilson @
157

I gotta run. Bye all. Joe

Thanks again, Joe. Much appreciated.

darkblack @ 135

Lou Costello @ 109

Frankly, although there was an attack and apparent significant damage occured, IMO there wasn’t the large number of casualties alluded to by some sources. There might be some success covering up the facts for a while on individual cases (like Pat Tillman’s, for example)…But not everybody is ‘on the reserve’, so to speak. No way to shut everybody up.

As for the large flash at 3:57…Big munitions cookoff, non nuclear…No EMP.

Take a cheap video camera out at night with nothing but ambient and distant artificial light, let the aperture adjust…Then point a halogen flashlight at the lens and turn it on. Same effect, lens flare grossly out of proportion to light source size.

My #148 is in moderation(?) so I’ll just say that’s an awfully big mushroom cloud filmed from 12miles(?) away.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/i…..cleId=3566
http://content.answers.com/mai….._blast.jpg

jayackroyd @ 153

Here’s the problem. The MSM trope on this is going to be that this is all politics and not policy. This MSM absorption of the Rovian line is out biggest problem right now. The idea that there can be actual policy failure is completely out of keeping with their “balanced” reporting.

This gets even worse in Iraq because there is no good policy position. As someone else on the web has said, demanding alternatives from democrats is like someone who has driven a car off a cliff demanding suggestions from a back seat passenger.

Worse, the republicans show no evidence of wanting to pursue a policy solution. The only motivation I can see is one of minimizing political damage. While this is, in the long haul, a bad political strategy, in the short haul it is doing enormous damage to the US.

I suppose that the entrance of Baker, Gates and other progenitors of Iran-Contra are meant to a shift to a policy oriented approach. But there are two people in the White House who don’t seem to get that.

As Amb. Wilson has aptly pointed out, any solution attempt to lessen the coming disaster in Iraq is going to rely on negotiations and detailed agreements between our military, all of the Iraqi factions, all of the neighboring countries, and the Europeans/other major powers as well.

The Congress can’t get all of those people in a room to talk; only the President can. And the broad American public understands that.

Joe Wilson @ 145

The Congressman “won” by a little over 3% – I predicted it would be less than 5%. The Congressman had to use every trick in the book (robocalls, slanderous mailers …) to “win”, and I’m not even going to get into any of my theories about why he “won”. Suffice it to say Diebold was used in every county – I’m just sayin’. I could go on, but …

But, seriously, thanks so much for coming and helping out, it gave us a lot of heart and energy to phonebank and canvass.

If you want to hear a great and classy concession speech – listen to Charlie’s here should be the first video on the top

Aravosis has some ISG thoughts as well:
http://americablog.blogspot.co…..ed-to.html

Jane Hamsher @ 82

Marion in Savannah — thanks!

I can’t tell you how glad I am that you do what you do, and if I can help in a tiny way by catching typos, AND get an “atta girl” from you, life is good!

John Swifty @ 34: Yes, I believe it’s neglect, tiny cock AND short stature that leads to Strauss.

It’s a good theory and I’m sticking to it!

Steve @ 158

@150..good for her..Murtha has a lot of negatives but Steny is a real weasel. If the House Dems. don’t salute and say yes’m to Pelosi’s choice, then I hope she really kicks some ass. It’s going to be a long, hard two years and if she can’t get the majority leader she wants, then we are truly fucked. It will be the sign that the Dems are more interested in K-street then the country.

Murtha has his negatives, yes, but it would be much harder for the media to accuse Pelosi of being some kind of “liberal extremist” (never mind the oxymoron) if her ML runs toward the more conservative end of the party spectrum. Besides, Murtha has a well-earned reputation for integrity and being able to take the heat after taking the stance he has on Iraq…and he doesn’t strike me as the type to cover for child molestors, either.

JohnSwifty @ 146

MarcLord @ 142

Baker. He’s got Blair back on his meds and talking up the Syria/Iran angle. If he convinces Bush he’ll look like a genius for doing it, it’s a go. The new fulcrum of the Mid-east will not be Baghdad, but Kirkuk. Our troops will go into Kurdistan either way, and the Kurds will get heavy weapons and training.

Like I said, depressing! People die in every era, I’m enough of a pragmatist to know that. But part of the great romance that is America is that we are the good guys. We’ve played the bad guys, the ugly guys, the ignorant guys and now we’re playing the really, really stupid guys. Perhaps it’s merely national pride, but after the Tuesday election part of me felt like, “NOW we can stop being international idiots!” It is a sad reality that idiocy has no immediate cure.

It may not be idiocy, but it’s sure grasping, brutal, and embarrassing. And like Joe Wilson said, it won’t work without an international solution that the Iraqis respect. Hard to see how that could happen, because it will involve 4 US-Anglo oil companies giving up hundreds of billions in profits. It’s cheaper to buy off Iran, Turkey, Israel, and Syria.

Joe Wilson- I have admired you for a couple years now and expect history will consider you an American hero. You are smart, informed, articulate and possibly even presidential. However, I must disagree with you regarding James Baker and Lee Hamilton as I see both men to be dispicatble human beings motivated by the supression of the truth. I do think this country and the world would do well to consider your recommendations regarding Iraq.

Jane- hope you have an opportunity to convey to Amb. Wilson how appreciated his comments and responses to questions were today. Just seemed distracting to clutter up the thread with “thank you for your response” comments.

@165..I think Murtha has earned the job..but better yet Pelosi is not playing it safe. She is committing her-self and will see who is with her. She could have played it safe..”well who ever you guys want, blah..blah”

A critical time in our nation’s history has intersected with Nancy Pelosi and I think we are very lucky.

Ambassador Wilson:.

It is a mess to be sure. I have argued that we not discuss next steps in terms of withdrawal but rather in terms of what is appropriate to ask our troops to do at this stage of the occupation. Stop putting Americans unneccessarily in harm’s way; stop unneccessarily killing Iraqis; and use whatever international leadership capacity remains to promote an international conference or concert of nations to include the insurgents, their foreign supporters, key nations in the neighborhood, Europe and Russia, to try to move the power struggle into a political rather than military arena.
It is a longshot but I think we owe it to them and to ourselves.
Whatever we do going forward, we still need to hold the administration accountable for the greatest strategic blunder in the history of the country. And all to appease the fanatasies of a small group of parasites — the neocons.

I think this is valuable insight. It’s almost as if we need to think about our involvement in Iraq as though we weren’t there today, and then ask, “If we went in now, what would we do and what would we need? Is there a constructive role involving our military that is both realistic and likely to succeed?” Then with that answer, we could define what we should do when already there. The answer to the question might well be, “there’s nothing constructive we could do that would be likely to succeed, so we should stay out.” If that is true, then we get out as quickly and safely as possible. If there is something we could do that would work, we’d know what to do next. But it all requires us to, literally, “think outside the [Iraq] box.”

Another thought is that we should be thinking from the outside in. It may be that the solution in terms of international/regional cooperation does not start with what we do in Iraq but with what we do in Israel, Palestine and Lebanon. A demonstration of a constructive, peace-leaning, honest broker role there could lay the foundation for regional cooperation on Iraq. If that’s not there, why should the regional powers bail us out of our own mess?

Having suggested both of these options, the reality may be that neither of them is possible with the current regime in the WH. I’m coming to the conclusion that we cannot solve anything in that region until the current Bush/cheney regime is removed from office — it would be a powerful signal to the world that something constructive was possible. I don’t know how we send that message with the current regime in place, and all of Daddy Bush’s friends probably can’t fix that.

The Ambassador is on top of the issues as as usual. Most importantly, lets stop the bloodletting. Have Condi or whomever work with the UN, Arab League and Iran to convene a regional meeting to listen to all parties and try to set a timetable for an initial agreement. What combination of efforts worked so well for Clinton (and Wesley Clark) in Yugoslavia?

Second, think about a post-war Marshall plan and try to involve the region. Third, congressional hearings and perhaps censure. Fourth, (kudos to Dean, et al.) develop a 15-year plan to decrease dependence on oil.

Oilfieldguy @ 138

Arguing over whether we were deceived in the runup to war is, I think, a bit pointless — of course we were, and anybody who doesn’t believe it now isn’t likely to anytime soon.

I could not disagree more strongly, although not about the whether, but the how. Until it is publicly disclosed how this lie was foisted upon the world, and the guilty brought to justice, little hope exists for preventing future misadventures. This is Vietnam 2.0 Somebody better drive a stake through somebody elses heart.

OFG: Yes. This is less about convincing more voters that they were lied to; it’s about creating the record about who did it and how it was done. There are lessons to learn, and so far, most of them are not documented as well as they should be. We need to know who ordered the lies to be told, and why, and who spread the lies, even though they knew they were lies. How did they use the press, and which ones? There’s lots more here that needs to be exposed, because we still have a basically lazy and intellectually supine media.

*xyz @
85

Pachacutec @ 78

This is a seminal book. Rajiv, are you able to get establishment media bookings, TV spots?

I think an appearance on the Daily Show is overdue. Jon Stewart has shown a talent for discussing the surreal,the absurd and the tragic. These qualities are in abundance in this book, to put it mildly.

Oh, if only KO could interview him….

Oklahoma kiddo @
90

“Life in the Emerald City”. A keeper.

Wonder how ‘Life in the Imperial White House, 2000-2008′ will one day read. And who, with credibility, will write this book?

Gee, good question… I wonder if, once KKKarl Rove has been renditioned retired to a tropic isle somewhere with no television, no telephone and no internet so he can’t spread any more fear and poison, just about any member of the current WH staff would be ready, willing and able to stab him in the gizzard? You can only tolerate so much living in fear and repression before the urge to strike back becomes almost uncontrollable…

Marion in Savannah @ 174

*xyz @
85

Pachacutec @ 78

This is a seminal book. Rajiv, are you able to get establishment media bookings, TV spots?

I think an appearance on the Daily Show is overdue. Jon Stewart has shown a talent for discussing the surreal,the absurd and the tragic. These qualities are in abundance in this book, to put it mildly.

Oh, if only KO could interview him….

Ironically, this may be something perhaps better suited for a more neutral, popular Larry King interview — the story of how we created the mess inside Iraq is important to understanding which if any options would work to improve the situation.

scarecrow @ 173

Oilfieldguy @ 138

Arguing over whether we were deceived in the runup to war is, I think, a bit pointless — of course we were, and anybody who doesn’t believe it now isn’t likely to anytime soon.

I could not disagree more strongly, although not about the whether, but the how. Until it is publicly disclosed how this lie was foisted upon the world, and the guilty brought to justice, little hope exists for preventing future misadventures. This is Vietnam 2.0 Somebody better drive a stake through somebody elses heart.

OFG: Yes. This is less about convincing more voters that they were lied to; it’s about creating the record about who did it and how it was done. There are lessons to learn, and so far, most of them are not documented as well as they should be. We need to know who ordered the lies to be told, and why, and who spread the lies, even though they knew they were lies. How did they use the press, and which ones? There’s lots more here that needs to be exposed, because we still have a basically lazy and intellectually supine media.

I just know this is EPU, but:

1) the lies/propaganda was done professionally, and effectively, as opposed to INCOMPETENTLY.
2) which means, along with evience in this book (as detailed here; I’ve not read it yet.) that the rest was done is essence, with ‘malice aforethought.’ Not incompetent execution.

new thread

Heads up. The Iron Lady backs Murtha.

From Roll Call

Pelosi Puts Weight Behind Murtha in Leader Bid
http://tinyurl.com/yajgx2

Iraq was bad, but wasn’t barbaric under Saddam Hussein. Sure, Hussein and his sons practiced barbaric tactics, but usually only against anyone that they thought threatened their control of Iraq. Otherwise, they left pretty much everyone else alone. And provided some semblance of security and stability.

Then, Bush, Cheney, Chalabi, Bremer, Kerik and a lot of right-wing nut jobs entered the Iraqi picture, and now most of Iraq has devolved into runaway barbarism. But, then again, these right-wing nut jobs really aren’t very good at nation building (as they’ve stated), but they are definitely experts in nation destroying.

And now this Baker/Hamilton Iraq Study Group, with Lee Hamilton providing fake bipartisan cover, is just another attempt by the “culture of corruption and incompetence” Republicans to coverup the massive screwups of the current Bush administration.

Hopefully, incoming Democratic leaders will demand major concessions over any part of the newest Republican Iraq Plan that does not meet the needs of our troops over in Iraq, or leaves our troops in the middle of the barbaric civil war that Bush’s 2003 invasion has generated.

Funny, don’t you think, that just as with the Bolton renomination, the Republicans are desperate to have their lame-duck Congress debate the newest BushCo Iraq Plan, presumably, I believe, to give the outgoing Republican majority one last chance to really screw things up even more.

Lou Costello @
109

I wanna know what happened at/to Camp Falcon:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v…..&eurl=
*especially @3:59

Well, I don’t speak Arabic. This link is about 9 minutes of hand-held video footage shot by a Marine who, by the way, sounds SO young:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v…..mp;search=

It’s probably the least-covered big news to ever not come out of Iraq…

Cozumel @ 102
The program to assign zip cdes in Iraq was another laugher. I suppose putting white picket fences in front of every house was on the list somewhere also ; )

Oh, I recognize these people now! They’re the same kind who moved to Santa Fe and put in lawns, and want everything to be just like it was in California.

Oklahoma kiddo @ 90

“Life in the Emerald City”. A keeper.

Wonder how ‘Life in the Imperial White House, 2000-2008′ will one day read. And who, with credibility, will write this book?

I was thinking 2000-2007. After the hearings and the trials.

Does the postman deliver electricity and potable water?

darkblack @
135

Lou Costello @ 109

Frankly, although there was an attack and apparent significant damage occured, IMO there wasn’t the large number of casualties alluded to by some sources. There might be some success covering up the facts for a while on individual cases (like Pat Tillman’s, for example)…But not everybody is ‘on the reserve’, so to speak. No way to shut everybody up.

As for the large flash at 3:57…Big munitions cookoff, non nuclear…No EMP.

Take a cheap video camera out at night with nothing but ambient and distant artificial light, let the aperture adjust…Then point a halogen flashlight at the lens and turn it on. Same effect, lens flare grossly out of proportion to light source size.

For sure there were no nukes or anything even close, but when your whole frickin’ ammo dump cooks off, and even the Marines who are watching it happen are asking “did we have that much ammo?” one would think it would turn up in the news… And maybe even be discussed by the Sunday Morning Gasbags… Just saying…

The cite for the Marine’s comment is here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v…..mp;search=

patience @ 150

Blog Call to Action!

According to Josh Pelosi has announced she wants Murtha as her majority leader. It’s time to do some phone banking. We need to create a list of representatives for and against. We need to call them and get them to endorse Murtha. Pelosi has reached out to us and coordinated with us. Its time to support her.

If Pelosi wants Murtha she gets Murtha.

Woo-Hoo!

Thanks Patience.

And thanks Speaker-Elect Pelosi.

And – um – firepups – I’d benefit from a crow pie recipie thread. I’ve a heap to eat.

For what it’s worth, I’ve bashed the Speaker-Elect here and at our ruler’s place. I thought she was a DLC type.

I was wrong. I apologize for that and for my rude statements here (and at our leader’s) on the topic.

Go Speaker-Elect Pelosi!

Go Majority Leader-Elect Murtha!

JohnSwifty @ 98

Rajiv Chandrasekaran @ 83

The Washington Monthly piece someone mentioned would have provided a hint. There was also the piece on the front page of The Post, written by a colleague, about how Simone Ledeen and others who had applied for jobs at the Heritage Foundation got jobs with the CPA. But those were about it. Naomi Klein’s Harper’s piece and William Langewiesche’s piece in the Atlantic, for instance, didn’t come out until the CPA had been dissolved.

Well, I would have been more happy had there been a complete dearth prior to your reporting; but I’ll console my self that there wasn’t blessed much. I too, like Jane and others, concern myself that posterity will look back on our generation and wonder what the hell we were up to. On, the plus side, Germany now has a moral impetus on the world stage to try any and all for war crimes; presumably from having been a society that so very much missed the boat on that subject. Perhaps America will become a country that the rest of the world allows to try heads of nations on allegations of idiocy.

People in Washington read the Post articles and others, and hoped that electing Kerry would help. Congress was inert and the press was dead. The usual feedback mechanisms weren’t available. We were kind of floundering around, seeking traction.

Oilfieldguy @
138

Arguing over whether we were deceived in the runup to war is, I think, a bit pointless — of course we were, and anybody who doesn’t believe it now isn’t likely to anytime soon.

I could not disagree more strongly, although not about the whether, but the how. Until it is publicly disclosed how this lie was foisted upon the world, and the guilty brought to justice, little hope exists for preventing future misadventures. This is Vietnam 2.0 Somebody better drive a stake through somebody elses heart.

First, follow the money and corruption in a never-ending series of Congressional hearings. An enormous amount of information about how we were lied into Iraq will flow out of that… But first we’ve got to capitalize on what the American People voted for: less corruption. Follow the money…

Jane Hamsher @
22

Jo Fish @ 14

When we’re all dead and gone decades hence, students of history will look back at some of these works and wonder how brain-dead some of the electorate in this country were to have allowed this all to happen.

I do think about that, Jo. They’re going to look back and wonder how we ever stood back and allowed the Rule of the Stupids.

Let’s make sure that the students of history look back at 2006 and say “In this year the madmen were stopped, and the country was restored to sanity and dignity and the rule of law.”

Let’s make them proud, and remind them that the price of freedom is indeed – eternal vigilance.