Rewriting History

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Now playing: Ben Folds - The Last Polka
via FoxyTunes In a recent ghost-written essay for the journal Foreign Affairs, Rudy Giuliani said the following:

"America must remember one of the lessons of the Vietnam War. … Many historians today believe that by about 1972 we and our South Vietnamese partners had succeeded in defeating the Vietcong insurgency and in setting South Vietnam on a path to political self-sufficiency. But America then withdrew its support, allowing the communist North to conquer the South. The consequences were dire, and not only in Vietnam: numerous deaths in places such as the killing fields of Cambodia, a newly energized and expansionist Soviet Union, and a weaker America."

The whole essay has already gotten all of the criticism it deserves from people much more knowledgeable than I am on foreign policy. But I wanted to point out this excerpt from Giuliani's ridiculous essay in light of a speech that our illustrious President gave today at the VFW convention:

"Three decades later, there is a legitimate debate about how we got into the Vietnam War and how we left," Bush told members of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, at their convention in Kansas City, Missouri.

"Whatever your position in that debate, one unmistakable legacy of Vietnam is that the price of America's withdrawal was paid by millions of innocent citizens, whose agonies would add to our vocabulary new terms like 'boat people,' 're-education camps' and 'killing fields,' " the president said.

There are differences, of course. Giuliani says "Many historians say," while Bush chooses "[T]here is a legitimate debate." Giuliani speaks of dire consequences while Bush speaks of an unmistakable legacy. But they're really saying the same thing, and that thing is utterly insane. It leads me to only one conclusion.

Bush and Giuliani both have parts of history that they'd love to rewrite. Giuliani has been trying desperately (and, depressingly, successfully) to rewrite the history of 9/11, positioning himself as a hero who did no wrong, and who in fact stood proud guard over Ground Zero until the last rescue worker had left. Bush has been trying to rewrite the history of why we went to Iraq, why we stayed in Iraq, why we escalated troop levels in Iraq, and why we should be there indefinitely. Both of those revisions are bound to fail. So what do they do? Simple. In a classic Rovian move, they start to revise history that had nothing to do with them.

Remember in 2004 and 2006 when Rove had the GOP start spending all kinds of money in solidly blue states to make everyone think that the swing states were already locked up for the Republicans? It worked in 2004, but failed miserably in 2006. Well, Giuliani and Bush are doing the same thing. In talking about the controversy that exists over Vietnam (ed. note: it really doesn't exist), both Giuliani and Bush are taking their own revisions of history as givens. They're allocating their rhetorical resources to something that makes no sense, to make us think that they've already won their own battles.

In Giuliani's case, that 9/11-fresh sheen still hasn't worn off, so he's unlikely to be called on his lies and revisionism. But if this is an example of the Bush we're likely to see in the post-Rove era, trying badly to employ Rovian tactics, then if I might borrow a phrase, I hope he bring[s] it on.

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Sectarian Violence Down in Iraq?

General Petraeus recently told reporters that the troop surge in Iraq is working. As evidence, he presented them with the undeniable fact that sectarian murders are down:

The top U.S. commander in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus, told reporters that sectarian murders in Baghdad have been reduced by about one-third since the beginning of the year.

"That is an important development, because sectarian murders can be a cancer in a neighborhood," he said after separate briefings in the Senate and House on Wednesday.

In addition, "progress in Anbar is something that is breathtaking," he said of the vast Sunni-dominated province where many U.S. troop deaths have occurred, including one Monday.

Huge inroads have been made, he said, in regard to learning a "great deal more" of the "nefarious" Iranian involvement in the war in Iraq. He did not elaborate on whether he meant the Iranian government or outside factions.

Well, undeniable except for this one pesky, nagging fact:

U.S. officials who say there has been a dramatic drop in sectarian violence in Iraq since President Bush began sending more American troops into Baghdad aren't counting one of the main killers of Iraqi civilians.

Car bombs and other explosive devices have killed thousands of Iraqis in the past three years, but the administration doesn't include them in the casualty counts it has been citing as evidence that the surge of additional U.S. forces is beginning to defuse tensions between Shiite and Sunni Muslims.

Well, McClatchy's just trying to stir up trouble, right? If they're excluding car bombs from the statistics they're using to prove their point, it must be because there haven't been very many people killed by them, right?

Bush administration officials have pointed to a dramatic decline in one category of deaths - the bodies dumped daily in Baghdad streets, which officials call sectarian murders - as evidence that the security plan is working. Bush said this week that that number had declined by 50 percent, a number confirmed by statistics compiled by McClatchy Newspapers.

But the number of people killed in explosive attacks is rising, the same statistics show - up from 323 in March, the first full month of the security plan, to 365 through April 24.

Oh. So there still are a lot of bombings going on.

To be fair, deaths are down in Baghdad since December.

Overall, statistics indicate that the number of violent deaths has declined significantly since December, when 1,391 people died in Baghdad, either executed and found dead on the street or killed by bomb blasts. That number was 796 in March and 691 through April 24.

Nearly all of that decline, however, can be attributed to a drop in executions, most of which were blamed on Shiite Muslim militias aligned with the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. Much of the decline occurred before the security plan began on Feb. 15, and since then radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr has ordered his Mahdi Army militia to stand down.

But if this is true even with the bombs included, why would the spokespeople for the war not include them? I don't get it. While it's good that civilian deaths are down in Baghdad, there seems to be something deeply dishonest about not including one of the major killers in the official statistics.

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The Justice Department Strikes Back

Stories like this really should surprise me, but they just don't anymore. I guess that's indicative of how bad things have gotten.

The dispute is the latest and perhaps the most significant clash over the role of lawyers for the detainees. “There is no right on the part of counsel to access to detained aliens on a secure military base in a foreign country,” the Justice Department filing argued.

Under the proposal, filed this month in the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, the government would limit lawyers to three visits with an existing client at Guantánamo; there is now no limit. It would permit only a single visit with a detainee to have him authorize a lawyer to handle his case. And it would permit a team of intelligence officers and military lawyers not involved in a detainee’s case to read mail sent to him by his lawyer.

The proposal would also reverse existing rules to permit government officials, on their own, to deny the lawyers access to secret evidence used by military panels to determine that their clients were enemy combatants.

Many of the lawyers say the restrictions would make it impossible to represent their clients, or even to convince wary detainees — in a single visit — that they were really lawyers, rather than interrogators.

Did you catch that? Not only do the detainees lack basic human rights now, but the people who would represent them lack the right to visit them to do their job. I assume the Justice Department thinks it's being cute with this proposal. If asked, they'd probably say that they're being quite generous in allowing any visits at all, based on the premise that "There is no right on the part of counsel to access to detained aliens on a secure military base in a foreign country."

It seems to me that there's a Supreme Court decision that's relevant to this, isn't there?

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Edwards Responds to Rudy

After Rudy Giuliani's asinine statement this morning about how 9/11 will happen again unless we elect a Republican President in 2008, Kevin Drum had a lot of criticism for what he saw as the tepid response of Hillary and Obama. I didn't feel as strongly about it as he did, and frankly, I was glad that they said something rather than being afraid to go after "America's Mayor" (Obama referred to Rudy by this nickname in his statement, although from the context it seemed as though it was sarcastic at best). Here's Kevin's take on what should have been said:

Whining just reinforces the message that Democrats are wimps. The real way to be "hard hitting" is to explain why Giuliani is wrong and what Democrats would do instead — and why the average Joe and Jane would be safer and better off without guys like Giuliani bumbling recklessly around the globe leaving a stronger al-Qaeda and a weaker America in their wake. Until they do, Rudy and the Republicans are going to win every round of this fight.

I share Greg Sargent's skepticism on whether that's entirely true, but Kevin does have a point. If this is the kind of combative rhetoric that we're to expect from now on from the Republicans, then we shouldn't be afraid to use strong language in return. In that regard, Sargent noted Edwards' response to Giuliani's idiocy. Here's the money quote:

As far as the facts are concerned, the current Republican administration led us into a war in Iraq that has made us less safe and undermined the fight against al Qaeda. If that's the 'Republican' way to fight terror, Giuliani should know that the American people are looking for a better plan. That's just one more reason why this election is so important; we need to elect a Democratic president who will end the disastrous diversion of the war in Iraq.

Good. Hit him on the substance of the statement, rather than on being too divisive. I feel like nobody wants to hear, at this point, divisive arguments about who's being more divisive. It's like having an argument about whether we're having an argument.

As a post-script, I enjoyed the DNC's official response to Rudy, as well:

How can the man who failed to prepare NYC for a second attack after the first one, quit the 9/11 commission because he was too busy raking in money from sketchy business deals, can't assess if the surge is working or if Iran and North Korea have nuclear weapons claim that he will keep America safe?

I like that they're not ceding 9/11 to Rudy anymore. Hit him where he lives.

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Bobbin' in the Float...

Via Danger Room (another blog you should probably be reading if you aren't), a story of a problem in Iraq. There's no one part that sums it up, so do yourself a favor and take 10 minutes to read it. Sometimes it helps cement how horrible it really is over there to look at some specifics. Numbers can get numbing. I guess that's why they're called numbers.

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Random Links

Here's a few links to things that are noteworthy, but wouldn't generate a post of their own.

• Kevin Tillman and Jessica Lynch testified before Congress today about the falsehoods told about by the military, exaggerating the heroism of Jessica and of Kevin's brother Pat. You know, it's a sad day when the stuff that would formerly have been considered the province of conspiracy theorists turns out to be true.
• If you haven't seen it, and you have the capacity to watch video on the computer, check out Jon Stewart's interview with John McCain from last night's Daily Show. I can't help but comment on how much Stewart's grown into his role at The Daily Show, and how fearless and articulate he's become. Two and a half years ago, when Stewart delivered his now-legendary performance on CNN's Crossfire, he was visibly nervous. Almost shaking. Today he's strong, confident, and not afraid to look a man like John McCain in the face and tell him exactly where he's wrong.
• There's a few of blogs that I love, that have provided outstanding commentary on all sorts of things. If you're not reading them, you should. They are, in no particular order, Talking Points Memo, The Carpetbagger Report, and Political Animal. TPM is particularly valuable in getting all relevant updates in the ongoing Prosecutor Purge scandal. The Carpetbagger Report and Political Animal give thoughtful analysis of a large variety of political issues, both from a left-leaning perspective, of course. While I'm at it, I'll throw a link to the one right-leaning blog that I read: Mark Coffey's Decision '08. Most of the time I don't agree with him and his analysis, but he's thoughtful and well-written and has a thriving comment section where reasonable discussion from all sides is encouraged. Good stuff all around.

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Taxi to the Darkside

Via Andrew Sullivan, here's a link to a trailer for a movie called Taxi to the Darkside. It's about the American use of torture over the last 5 or 6 years, which is an issue about which I am very passionate. I'd seen the clips of President Bush used in the trailer before, but they still give me chills. At the very end, a man says, "If they think so very little of life, and clearly 9/11 exemplified that, screw them. Anything goes."

And so it has.

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An Important Question

I stumbled across this article this morning, and it's too important not to pass on. Basically, the author, Robert Dreyfuss, considers the conventional wisdom (If we leave Iraq, it will erupt into unimaginable violence) and asks the pertinent question: how do we know?

I won't belabor the point, because he says it better than I could, but the main point underpinning the whole thing is that the falsely optimistic conventional wisdom underlying the start of the Iraq War (greeted as liberators, Iraqi oil will pay for it, etc.) turned out to be wrong. Why is it simply assumed at this point that the extremely pessimistic conventional wisdom is right?

But if it was foolish to accept the best-case assumptions that led us to invade Iraq, it’s also foolish not to question the worst-case assumptions that undergird arguments for staying. Is it possible that a quick withdrawal of U.S. forces will lead to a dramatic worsening of the situation? Of course it is, just as it’s possible that maintaining or escalating troops there could fuel the unrest. But it’s also worth considering the possibility that the worst may not happen: What if the doomsayers are wrong?

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The Ol' Ball & Cheney

I don't have enough for a long post. More an observation, really.

The Bush Administration has often been quoted as saying that success in Iraq is crucial to the future of our country. They're putting all their eggs in the Iraq basket in the hopes of getting people on board. It's that serious, right? If we don't achieve "victory" in Iraq, then we do so at our nation's peril. More than that, we jeopardize the very foundation of our nation.

So when Dick Cheney tells reporters that the main problem with Iraq is that the American people lack the stomach to see the job through, it's understandable, in a way. Sure, it's disgusting and repulsive to have the Vice President slander a clear majority of the country in that way. But on the other hand, to say anything else would be to admit that we've entrusted the foundation of our country, if you believe their other rhetoric, to the Iraqis. If we believe that there's nothing more we can do in Iraq, and that we're just getting in the middle of a civil war, then you believe that we have no control over what the Administration has framed as the decisive conflict of our time.

So while I certainly don't agree with almost anything that the Vice President says, I can understand that his position has been shown so many times to be wrong that he's got no choice but to lash out at us.

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Surge Protectors

No, not those kind of surge protectors. I'm talking about President Bush's "surge" of troops to Iraq (12/1/2006):

President George W. Bush admitted this morning that “mistakes have been made” in Iraq and “the responsibility rests with me” but insisted the only way out of the dire situation was to send 21,500 more troops into the country.

So two months ago, the President said we needed to send 21,500 more troops to Iraq. But today, we hear something entirely different from that:

The administration's estimate of approximately 21,000 extra troops only counts combat units, according to the analysis, and because combat units require support forces, the actual number of additional troops who will be in Iraq will likely exceed 35,000.

The way I see it, troops is troops is troops. Whether they're combat troops or support troops, they're going to the mess that is Iraq. It looks like we can add "21,500 troops" to the list of falsehoods that have been told to support the disaster that is the conflict in Iraq.

The real question, though, has to do only tangentially with Iraq. Our rhetoric against Iran is becoming increasingly inflammatory, and we're sending between 35,000 and 48,000 troops into Iran's direct neighbor. Anybody else see where this is going?

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Saddam's Death

Last night Darren and I walked over to the diner to meet Oliver and Eli, who had been drinking. Oliver called me up and told me that we should be loud and make a scene as we walked in. You know, just be in an argument over something. And given the news that we'd just received, and the images playing incessantly on the TV in the diner, it was easy to decide that that scene would be about.

Our "scene" didn't last long, and nobody really paid us any attention. It was already loud in the diner in the first place, and everybody was either drunk or weary of drunks. Not the best atmosphere in which to be noticed. But the argument that Darren and I were staging is one that, in retrospect, would be worth having for real. I was arguing the anti-death-penalty side, Darren was arguing that Saddam should have been tortured for a few months before being executed. The extreme positions, obviously, for maximum effect.

But really, in the grand scheme of things, what good does Saddam's death do? Does it prove the strength of the Iraqi government? Not at all. The U.S. had to hold onto Saddam until the end of the whole thing, giving him up to the Iraqis only on the eve of his execution. Does it prove that the Iraqi government is civilized and now has a justice system based on the rule of law and not on revenge? Consider this:



The first picture, obviously, is of Saddam being fitted with his noose (you can watch video at consumptionjunction already, which I'd figured). The second is of the unfortunate American contractor Nick Berg awaiting his beheading. It's certainly not just me who noted the similarity between the "executioners" in these two cases. Add to that the fact that one of the executioners reportedly exclaimed, "Long live Muqtada al-Sadr!" (incidentally prompting Saddam's last words, a derisive, mocking "Muqtada al-Sadr") and this whole thing is nothing but one more death in the steady stream of carnage that's been issuing from Iraq for years now. This one's more high profile and more televised, but the fact that it bears such similarity to the criminal militia groups' executions, the fact that it was carried out under Saddam's execution rules, the fact that sectarian epithets were hurled about on the gallows, and the fact that the execution was evidently held on a date that maximized Sunni/Shiite strife, all of these things make it a sham at best, and a travesty at worst.

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