Politics and Press

The interaction of the press and politics; public diplomacy, and daily absurdities.

U.S. Foreign Policy

The Budget: Bush’s Strategy for America

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The budget that President Bush presented to the Congress yesterday is a near culmination of his shell game. It goes something like this. He produces a tax break for the rich, spends billions on a fiasco war in Iraq, develops a huge deficit, then comes up with a budget which he says will reduce the deficit he created – but not by reducing defense budgets, which will continue to increase at a time when the country’s defense expenditures are greater than the total for all other countries together.

Rather, for Bush it has become time to reduce support of programs aimed at ordinary people – programs such as Medicare, Medicaid, education and environmental agencies, heating assistance for low-income families, etc. At the same time he wants to make his tax cuts for the wealthy, permanent.

It has been clear from the beginning of this odious presidency that he was intent on changing the nature of the American experience by returning the country’s operating ethos to that of pre-Roosevelt days. It would, in a sense, be a matching domestic legacy to that of his foreign policy, which has given us the Iraq disaster, distaste and anger from the citizens of former allies, the loss of the country’s moral edge, the end of bipartisan commitment to America among its people and the end of American prestige and honor.

German Realpolitik Redux

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An earlier posting to this blog reviewed the case of Khaled el-Masri, a German-Lebanese who was kidnapped by CIA agents and spirited off to Syria for five month interrogation at the end of which the CIA had learned that he had been a salesman in Bavaria – whoops. Munich prosecutors then indicted the CIA operatives and Munich’s liberal paper the Sueddeutsche Zeitung commented, “The great ally is not allowed to simply send its thugs out into Europe’s streets.”

Our friends the MacKenzie brothers commented that the German Foreign Minister was unlikely to press the issue with his American counterpart since realpolitik bothers the Germans – a view which seemed right to this writer.

In today’s Washington Post, Craig Whitlock provides a different slant that indicates that realpolitik might just be alive and well in certain circles within Germany. It turns out that German intelligence agents were directly involved in the rendition of another German citizen, Mohammed Haydar Zammar, who had been involved in the Hamburg cell that planned the 9/11 attack. He is being held in Syria and the German role has created a political, if not moral, dilemma for a country that publicly tends to resist realpolitik while privately behaving like one of the boys.

Bush and the Germans; Rendition and Iraq

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The German judiciary is looking to indict several CIA operatives for their kidnapping of a German-Lebanese citizen suspected of terrorist activities. He was sent to a prison in Afghanistan where he was questioned and – according to him tortured – for five months before being told that “whoops – we got the wrong guy” and sent home.

There are some interesting insights into the CIA program and the run-up to the Iraq invasion in an interview of the former chief of the CIA’s Europe Division (Tyler Drumheller) on the website of the German news weekly, Der Spiegel. Drumheller is the author of On the Brink, a memoir of his time in the CIA. A few quotes from the interview are below. The full interview can be read here.

Drumheller: It was Vice President Dick Cheney who talked about the “dark side” we have to turn on. When he spoke those words, he was articulating a policy that amounted to “go out and get them.” His remarks were evidence of the underlying approach of the administration, which was basically to turn the military and the agency loose and let them pay for the consequences of any unfortunate — or illegal — occurrences.

Drumheller: …I once had to brief Condoleezza Rice on a rendition operation, and her chief concern was not whether it was the right thing to do, but what the president would think about it. …

SPIEGEL: One of the crucial bits of information the Bush administration used to justify the invasion was the supposed existence of mobile biological weapons laboratories. …

Drumheller: … Curveball was an Iraqi who claimed to be an engineer working on the biological weapons program. … Curveball was a sort of clever fellow who carried on about his story and kept everybody pretty well convinced for a long time. … The administration wanted to make the case for war with Iraq. They needed a tangible thing, they needed the German stuff. They couldn’t go to war based just on the fact that they wanted to change the Middle East. They needed to have something threatening to which they were reacting.

SPIEGEL: …it turned out to be the centerpiece in Powell’s presentation — and nobody had told him about the doubts.

Drumheller: I turned on the TV in my office, and there it was. So the first thing I thought, having worked in the government all my life, was that we probably gave Powell the wrong speech.


EL-BARADEI VS. BUSH-CHENEY

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One of the key ingredients to Bush-Cheney’s**, successful selling of the Iraq invasion was its PR campaign aimed at belittling Hans Blix on the weapons of mass destruction issue. As we know Bush lied and Blix turned out to be both honorable and correct. But Bush-Cheney was intent on invading and invade we did. The cost of that decision has been enormous and continues to grow as Bush-Cheney flounders around looking for a way out and perhaps finding Iran.

Blix’s successor as Head of the International Atomic Energy Commission is Muhammad el-Baradei and yesterday he spoke out strongly at the World Economic Forum in Davos, warning the West, and particularly Bush-Cheney, that attempting to bomb Iran’s nuclear capability would be unjustified at this point, probably counter–productive and a catastrophe.

Golnaz Esfandiari, an Iranian émigré journalist, has written a solid review of the situation for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s website. It places el-Baradei’s comments in a broader context than that which Americans normally get from their press (and politicians) and describes a fairly broad international consensus that an attack by either Bush-Cheney or Israel could be catastrophic, and that as in the Iraq invasion in 2003, there is insufficient evidence to support military action.

We shall see – cornered beasts do desperate things.

**Note: In this context Bush-Cheney is seen as a kind of Chimaera – the two-headed beast of mythology

Thomas In Wonderland

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My local rag runs a syndicated weekly column by Thomas Sowell and I always look forward to reading it for the insight it provides into the diehard neocon mind.  Today’s is a gem.

From its title – “As in Vietnam, the Media May Cost us Victory” – I knew where this was going and also knew that the fun would be in the trip, not the destination – which is somewhere south of the Cuckoo’s Nest. Here are some quotes:

“American troops scored a big victory on the battlefield in 1968 that was presented in the American media as a big defeat – and that began the political unraveling of that war….

Most of today’s media, led by The New York Times, have been even more blatantly one-sided in their reporting. Everyone I have heard from in person who has been in Iraq paints a far different picture from that of the gloom and doom of the media.,,,

The success or failure of the troop surge in Iraq may depend far more on whether those troops will again be hamstrung by politically restrictive rules of engagement than on how many troops there are.”

Sowell then proceeds to explain that not only are the media to blame for the mess in Iraq, BUT – the Iraqis must share that blame:

“Our choice may become whether we are prepared to sacrifice more American lives in order to prop up the al-Maliki government or whether we are prepared to sacrifice the al-Maliki government in order to restore law and order in Iraq.

That government is a product of our “nation-building” under the banner of a democracy for which Iraq may not have been ready.”

It is simply impossible to understand why any sane editor would run such utter nonsense.  I assume it is a cheap way to feed the animals

U.S. Public Diplomacy: Skating on Thin Ice

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There has been a surge (pardon the term) in discussion about the need for a stronger, more effective U.S. public diplomacy program, particularly in the Middle East but not restricted to that part of the world. By all accounts the worldview of the U.S. is at an all time low and recent attempts to improve international opinion on the U.S. have been feeble at best.

So the American media hype over Michelle Kwan going to China as a public diplomacy ambassador has to be viewed as what it appears to be: American public diplomacy directed toward America. Ms. Kwan is, by all reports, a delightful, smart young woman. But what does it do in the grand scheme of things to send a champion ice skater to China to fly our flag? Are we saying that in America a woman of Chinese descent can become a champion? Soon enough the Chinese will produce their own. What this story does is make us feel good about ourselves.

Recognizing the difficulty in mounting an effective public diplomacy program during a period of seriously flawed foreign policy, it is nonetheless past time for the U.S. to develop a coherent, substantive long-term program aimed at improving understanding of the positive parts of American life, including our tolerance for other cultures. Sending world class athletes abroad is not bad, it is simply too meager.

Brooks and Will Strikeout for Bush

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George Will and David Brooks are the establishment defenders of Bush’s Iraqi Follies but do so in a way to make Bush proud of them – dishonestly. Both are working to shift attention from the men (and women) who have scripted, directed and produced the Follies to the poor souls who will, in the end, have to pick up the pieces.

Their argument goes something like this: “President Bush has made some mistakes in managing the Iraq War but he has now produced a new strategy and critics have offered no alternative.” In a discussion with Mark Shields and Jim Lehrer last week, Brooks made that argument while Shields reminded him that Bush had developed no actually new strategy and that there were, after all, several alternatives out there any one of which would reduce the damage being done to the U.S.’s national interest by Bush’s failed policies in Iraq.

Alternatives include those developed by the Iraq Study Group, the concept of partition in Iraq, the concept of gradual U.S. withdrawal and redeployment outside of Iraq, the concept of simply beginning to leave and allowing the various players to sort it out. None of these approaches is perfect – indeed there is no perfect solution to the mess Bush has created. But at some point stopping the flow of American blood and money in a doomed-to-fail attempt to salvage Bush’s reputation will happen – the question now is when.

Brooks and Will both admit that there is little hope that Bush’s “new strategy” will work but, like Bush, are simply unwilling to consider the alternatives that they will not even admit exist.

Bush, Iran, Diplomacy and War

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Last April in an exchange with a friend I wrote about the possible role of diplomacy in the Bush Universe. I post it now as Bush appears to be embarking on a widening of his Iraq fiasco; much of what was said in April seems worth considering nine months later:

“In general I think diplomacy trumps war almost every time. There are no guarantees in diplomacy but neither are there any in war that I am aware of, but the search for common ground – or at least a modus vivendi – is to me worth a better effort than this administration (and I suppose earlier ones) has put forth. But this administration has a special place in the Land of Oz, crippled by its blind arrogance of (illusionary) power. And yes I would say the same about N. Korea. I think we have refused to talk to either country directly because they are “evil” and we are “good” – and we have therefore a self-induced consequence. And it is the consequence that the administration wants so it can change the world to fit its picture of what reality should be. Iraq is the current best example of the results of this kind of thinking.

I think the N. Korean situation is in some ways more complicated. We did a deal with them in which we and the S. Koreans and the Japanese would build nuclear energy plants in return for their not building nuclear weapons. It was, according to the diplomat who was given the unenviable task of managing that agreement – an “orphan” from the start. The U.S. (particularly the Congress – not the smartest lamps in the light store) never really made a serious effort to fulfill their part of the deal and when The Glorious Leader wanted to talk directly to the U.S. there was simply no way anyone could do that and retain domestic political support.

I don’t know whether direct negotiations would have or could have led to different scenarios – but then neither does anyone since it was never tried. I trust Iran and N. Korea about as much as I would trust Cheney/Bush if I were an Iranian given our Iraq adventure….

Would the world be a better place if Iran and N. Korea did not ever have nuclear weapons? Of course. But is it worth going to what amounts to war to stop it without attempting to negotiate? In my view, “no”. We could kiss S. Korea goodbye and we could kiss any hopes for peace on any level in the Middle East goodbye.

Also – I am not sure that the IAEA is as guilty of incompetence on the Iran issue as some say – they were aware as far back as 1996 that Iran was screwing around with nuclear stuff and Blix reported that concern. And it does not help IAEA with policing the nonproliferation pact when Bush plays it fast and loose with India, Brazil etc. We discussed this earlier and I remain concerned on the existential issue – if we give permission to India then we give it to others (in the existential sense – we lose the moral edge).
Of course we cannot blame Bush for every bad thing that happens – but I blame him for the mess in Iraq – we were better off with Saddam in power in a secular country with no WMD than we are now – it has cost us billions of dollars and thousands of lives (many thousands if we want to include Iraqis), has diverted our attention from the important work at hand and has made it easier for the likes of Iran to screw around with us.

I think this is a disaster that has no foreseeable end. It is a mess and the U.S. has played the major role in making it worse than it needed to be. As to whether anything else would have worked better – we will never know.”

April 18, 2006

For BUSH, All The World’s a Stage

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Three events in the last 24 hours suggest that Bush’s struggle to save his presidency from history’s dustbin is heading toward some kind of a military intervention aimed at Iran. Bush threatened Iran in his speech last night; today U.S. forces in Iraq raided an Iranian government office in Irbil, and today in Washington Secretary Rice refused to rule out military operations against Iran while testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Having lied to get us into Iraq there is little question that he would lie to get us into Iran if he thought it might save his deeply diminished reputation. While the governor of Kurdistan and Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, expressed their “disturbance and condemnation” over the predawn operation and urged the US military to release individuals arrested during the raid, this is likely to mean nothing to Bush who has transformed himself into a cross between Lady MacBeth and Falstaff when what we need is a Henry the Fifth.

Also fitting into this pattern of fantasy face-saving, it is apparent that the blame for failure in Iraq is being not so subtly shifted to the Iraqis who did not actually invite us in, who did not ask to have their infrastructure destroyed, who did not ask to be transformed from a secular to a Muslim fundamentalist society, who did not ask for its borders to be opened to Al Quada operatives, and who did not ask  for American troops to occupy their country. They want us out and the American people want us out. The administration retains its dogged stupidity and arrogance in the face of advice from military leaders, analysts, world leaders and the American people. Go figure.

BUSH’s SURGE

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There is so much that could be said about the latest Bush “plan” for Iraq but it is almost impossible to consider wasting time expounding so much on the obvious. Below are some excerpts from emails sent among some of the politicsandpress regulars. While these are random and somewhat disconnected it is just not worthwhile to develop a coherent response to the pile of nonsense served up by Bush last night.

1. This one showed up from New Zealand several hours before the speech but after the details had been reported:
GENTS : I say cut and run and quit arguing about surges. I am not being partisan. Strategically it makes sense to me to get out, let the region descend into the fratricide it needs to get out of its system. As long as we are there we are supporting the perception that it is a clash of West vs Islam which is bullshit. The West is way over being about religion. Let the region see that their problems are of their own making and that they can’t rely on selling their resources to feed their religious habit; they have to work and make a life. Anyway,if we’re not there they can attend to their own homemade hell. PLUS oil will go to $100 and we will then HAVE to cut consumption and find better, safer fuels. Cut and run. That’s the ticket.

2. From after the speech also from kiwiland: Watched Bush and the responses. Sick. There is so much differentiated push-back that there is no effective opposition. Obama got’s his plan coming but it isn’t Teddy’s; Edwards has his; Durbin gives the reaction speech but then Pelosi and Reid even nuance that.
… O’Maliki won’t be able to resist sodder-man’s militia; Saudis etc will be tempted to help the Sunnis b4 long….. The presidential race virtually assures there will be no meaningful w/drawal b4 elections.

3. From Washington DC: Listened to the Man myself last night too. He said absolutely nothing to convince any reasonable person that his SURGE was going to accomplish anything other than kill more troops. Caught David Brooks prior to the wizard’s appearance [well, not the wizard actually – the guy in front of the curtain – the wizard is behind the curtain] saying that we don’t have any choice but to add the troops and give it six months. Six months – Brooks is an idiot too. And who should the idiot name for praise in his speech last night, alone of the 535 members of Congress, but one Joe Lieberman. And Reid is saying, well, we’ll have to see. …

4. From Massachusetts: Ken Adelman was on NPR this morning while I was driving to the dump and I felt like ripping out my radio and chucking in with the trash.

The message is partly: “If we leave, the Middle East will become unstable” . What planet are they living on? The middle East and Gulf region MIGHT become UNSATABLE?? Maintaining some semblance of stability in the region was historically our strategic policy – until Dubya invaded. We now have a war in which we are fulfilling the interests of Iran and Syria – our actual “enemies”. Creating a Shiite state leaves the Saudis with no choice but to fund the Sunnis. Al Queda had no operational ability in Iraq pre-invasion; they are now using it as a terrific recruiting and training ground. Iraq used to be a secular state; it will now become a fundamentalist Muslim state. Turkey now also has interests which we have screwed with, and apparently throwing our support to the Shiites screws the Kurds – again. I don’t even think that Israel gains from this mess – even though it is likely that the neocons who masterminded this did it for Israeli reasons. As long as we send troops there we have no hope of getting serious negotiations going within the region and instability – which we have mightily increased will be the rule for a long long time.

It is hard to think of a more disastrous administration than this one In the history of America. Two more years is too long a time to wait for the Congress to find its backbone.