Politics

Back in Iraq

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Once again, artist Steve Mumford has made the trek to Iraq and has produced yet another entry in the Baghdad Journal series. As always, he provides a much needed different perspective on Iraq:

After checking in at my hotel, we spend the day wandering around downtown Baghdad. I’m trying to gauge how much things have changed since I was here last, back in March, before all the violence with Muqtada Sadr and in Falluja. We’re hanging out in the park, underneath the massive sculptural mural in Tarir Square when Esam notices that someone’s got a gun underneath his shirt. We leave, but in fact, I can’t shake the impression of a certain optimism pervading at least this area. Businesses are open; the streets are relatively clean and bustling. People seem as friendly as ever. One shopkeeper kisses my shoulder when I tell him I’m American. Esam advises me to tell Iraqis that I’m Canadian. I find myself oddly resistant to telling this lie. I haven’t yet encountered overt hostility. I’ve met a lot of Iraqis while out drawing. If they haven’t been happy about my nationality, they’ve politely kept it to themselves. Yet it would be foolish to imagine that I’m safe here.

It’s funny, I’m beginning to recognize many of Mumford’s friends from previous columns. Indeed, Mumford appears to have made some truly good friends over there:

Looking across at the crowd of journalists eating and chatting, I’m reminded of summer dinner parties in New York, among artist friends. But thinking of my companions here in Iraq, I feel proud to be with them. My project has allowed me the time and luxury to become close to people with whom I don’t need to have a professional relationship. I’m wondering if it will ever be possible for them to travel as Iraqi tourists to the U.S.

Excellent, stuff, as usual. If you’re not familiar with Mumford’s work, you might want to check on the previous installments of the Baghdad Journal. Highly recommended.

In Smash’s World

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Mr. Smash has made something of a habit of attending anti-war rallies and recording some of their less-than-savory aspects for posterity. Reading about these events is a strange experience; it doesn’t seem like reality. It almost feels like I’m reading one of Frank’s In My World posts. Smash’s latest piece crystalized it for me. Specifically, the people involved. You’ve got the former Ukrainian there to enlighten the A.N.S.W.E.R. folks. Then you’ve got a Guardian Angel named “Sledge” there to provide some protection, if needed. Best of all, there is “Red”. Red is a recurring character in Smash’s exploits. I say “character” becaues Red is so over-the-top that he is almost a caricature of himself.

I recognized Pete Reilly (aka “Red”) from a previous A.N.S.W.E.R. rally in San Diego. He was the guy who called me a “f—ing fascist,” and then ran off to complain to the cops. This time around, Red made the mistake of approaching Eric first, perhaps assuming that he was the most easily intimidated of the three.

“Why don’t you get out of here, you f—ing fascist?” It was Red’s favorite opening line.

It’s funny, Smash posted a picture of Red this time, and he looks exactly how I pictured him. Smash likes to keep quiet and blend into the crowd, allowing him a certain fly on the wall perspective that gives him some funny opportunities (such as this interview). As I said, it feels strange reading this, as if it isn’t reality… but it is.

Inherently Funny Words, Humor, and Howard Stern

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Here’s a question: Which of the following words is most inherently funny?

  • Boob (and its variations, such as boobies and boobery)
  • Chinchilla
  • Aardvark
  • Urinal
  • Stroganoff
  • Poopie
  • Underpants
  • Underroos
  • Fart
  • Booger

Feel free to advocate your favorites or suggest new ones in the comments. Some words are just funny for no reason. Why is that? In Neil Simon’s The Sunshine Boys, a character says:

Words with a ‘k’ in it are funny. Alkaseltzer is funny. Chicken is funny. Pickle is funny. All with a ‘k’. ‘L’s are not funny. ‘M’s are not funny. Cupcake is funny. Tomatoes is not funny. Lettuce is not funny. Cucumber’s funny. Cab is funny. Cockroach is funny — not if you get ’em, only if you say ’em.

Well, that is certainly a start, but it doesn’t really tell the whole story. Words with an “oo” sound are also often funny, especially when used in reference to bodily functions (as in poop, doody, booger, boobies, etc…) In fact, bodily functions are just plain funny. Witness fart.

Of course, ultimately it’s a subjective thing. To me, boobies are funnier than breasts, even though they mean the same thing. To you, perhaps not. It’s the great mystery of humor, and one of the most beautiful things about laughter is that it happens involuntarily. We don’t (always) have to think about it, we just do it. Here’s a quote from Dennis Miller to illustrate the point:

The truth is the human sense of humor tends to be barbaric and it has been that way all along. I’m sure on the eve of the nativity when the tall Magi smacked his forehead on the crossbeam while entering the stable, Joseph took a second away from pondering who impregnated his wife and laughed his little carpenter ass off. A sense of humor is exactly that: a sense. Not a fact, not etched in stone, not an empirical math equation but just what the word intones: a sense of what you find funny. And obviously, everybody has a different sense of what’s funny. If you need confirmation on that I would remind you that Saved by the Bell recently celebrated the taping of their 100th episode. Oh well, one man’s Molier is another man’s Screech and you know something thats the way it should be.

There has been a lot of controversy recently about the FCC’s proposed fines against Howard Stern (which may have been temporarily postponed). Stern has been fined many times before, including “$600,000 after Stern discussed masturbating to a picture of Aunt Jemima.” Stern, of course, has flown off the handle at the prospect of new fines. Personally, I think he’s overreacting a bit by connecting the whole thing with Bush and the religious right, but part of the reason he is so successful is that his overreaction isn’t totally uncalled for. At the core of his argument is a serious concern about censorship, and a worry about the FCC abusing it’s authority.

On the other hand, some people don’t see what all the fuss is about. What’s wrong with having a standard for the public airwaves that broacasters must live up to? Well, in theory, nothing. I’m not wild about the idea, but there are things I can understand people not wanting to be broadcast over public airwaves. The problem here is what is acceptible.

Just what is the standard? Sure, you’ve got the 7 dirty words, that’s easy enough, but how do you define decency? The fines proposed against Stern are supposedly from a 3 year old broadcast. Does that sound right to you? Recently Stern wanted to do a game in which the loser had to let someone fart in their face. Now, I can understand some people thinking that’s not very nice, but does that qualify as “indecent”? Apparently, it might, and Stern was not allowed to proceed with the game (he was given the option to place the looser in a small booth, and then have someone fart in the booth). Would it actually have resulted in a fine? Who knows? And that is what the real problem with standards are. If you want to propose a standard, it has to be clear and you need to straddle a line between what is hurtful and what is simply disgusting or offensive. You may be upset at Stern’s asking a Nigerian woman if she eats monkeys, but does that deserve a fine from the government? And how much? And is it really the job of the government to decide these sorts of things? In the free market, advertisers can choose (and have chose) not to advertise on Stern’s program.

At the bottom of this post, Lawrence Theriot makes a good point about that:

Yes a lot of what Stern does could be considered indecent by a large portion of the population (which is the Supreme Court standard) but in this case it’s important to consider WHERE those people might live and to what degree they are likely to be exposed to Stern’s brand of humor before you decide that those people need federal protection from hearing his show. Or, in other words, might the market have already acted to protect those people in a very real way that makes Federal action unnecessary?

Stern is on something like 75 radio stations in the US and almost every one of them is concentrated in a city. Most people who think Stern is indecent do not live in city centers. They tend to live in “fly-over” country where Stern’s show does not reach.

Rush Limbaugh by comparison (which no one could un-ironically argue is indecent in any way) is on 600 stations around the country, and reaches about the same number of listeners as Howard does (10 million to 14 million I think).

So in effect, we can see that the market has acted to protect most of those who do not want to hear the kind of radio that Stern does. Stern’s show, which could be considered indecent is not very widely available, when you compare it to Limbaugh’s show which is available in virtually every single corner of the country, and yet a comparable number of people seem to want to tune in to both shows.

Further, when you take into account the fact that in a city like Miami (where Stern was taken off the air last week) there may be as many as a million people who want to hear his show, any argument that Stern needs to be censored on indecency grounds seems to fly right out the window.

Anyway, I think both sides are making some decent points in this argument, but I hadn’t heard one up until now that took the market and demographics into account until last night, and we all know how much faith I put in the market to solve a lot of society’s toughest questions, so I thought I’d point this one out as having had an impact on me.

In the end, I don’t know the answer, but there is no easy solution here. I can see why people want standards, but standards can be quite impractical. On the other hand, I can see why Stern is so irate at the prospect of being fined for something he said 3 years ago – and also never knowing if what he’s going to say qualifies as “indecent” (and not really being able to take such a thing to court to really decide). Dennis Miller again:

We should question it all; poke fun at it all; piss off on it all; rail against it all; and most importantly, for Christ’s sake, laugh at it all. Because the only thing separating holy writ from complete bullshit is your perspective. Its your only weapon. Keep the safety off. Don’t take yourself too seriously.

In the end, Stern makes a whole lot of people laugh and he doesn’t take himself all that serious. Personally, I don’t want to fine him for that, but if you do, you need to come up with a standard that makes sense and is clear and practical to implement. I get the feeling this wouldn’t be an issue if he was clearly right or clearly wrong…

The Eisenhower Ten

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The Eisenhower Ten by CONELRAD : An excellent article detailing a rather strange episode in U.S. History. During 1958 and 1959, President Eisenhower issued ten letters to mostly private citizens granting them unprecedented power in the event of a “national emergency” (i.e. nuclear war). Naturally, the Kennedy administration was less than thrilled with the existence of these letters, which, strangly enough, did not contain expiration dates.

So who made up this Shadow Government?

…of the nine, two of the positions were filled by Eisenhower cabinet secretaries and another slot was filled by the Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve. The remaining six were very accomplished captains of industry who, as time has proven, could keep a secret to the grave. It should be noted that the sheer impressiveness of the Emergency Administrator roster caused Eisenhower Staff Secretary Gen. Andrew J. Goodpaster (USA, Ret.) to gush, some 46 years later, “that list is absolutely glittering in terms of its quality.” In his interview with CONELRAD, the retired general also emphasized how seriously the President took the issue of Continuity of Government: “It was deeply on his mind.”

Eisenhower apparently assembled the list himself, and if that is the case, the quality of the list was no doubt “glittering”. Eisenhower was a good judge of talent, and one of the astounding things about his command of allied forces during WWII was that he successfully assembled an integrated military command made up of both British and American officers, and they were actually effective on the battlefield. I don’t doubt that he would be able to assemble a group of Emergency Administrators that would fit the job, work well together, and provide the country with a reasonably effective continuity of government in the event of the unthinkable.

Upon learning of these letters, Kennedy’s National Security Advisor, McGeorge Bundy, asserted that the “outstanding authority” of the Emergency Administrators should be terminated… but what happened after that is somewhat of a mystery. Some correspondance exists suggesting that several of the Emergency Administrators were indeed relieved of their duties, but there are still questions as to whether or not Kennedy retained the services of 3 of the Eisenhower Ten and whether Kennedy established an emergency administration of his own.

It is Gen. Goodpaster’s assertion that because Eisenhower practically wrote the book on Continuity of Government, the practice of having Emergency Administrators waiting in the wings for the Big One was a tradition that continued throughout the Cold War and perhaps even to this day.

On March 1, 2002, the New York Times reported that Bush had indeed set up a “shadow government” in the wake of the 9/11 terror attacks. This news was, of course, greeted with much consternation, and understandably so. Though there may be a historical precident (even if it is a controversial one) for such a thing, the details of such an open-ended policy are still a bit fuzzy to me…

CONELRAD has done an excellent job collecting, presenting, and analyzing information pertaining to the Eisenhower Ten, and I highly recommend anyone who is interested in the issue of continuity of government to check it out. Even with that, there are still lots of unanswered questions about the practice, but it is still fascinating reading….

Welcome to the Hotel Baghdad

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Steve Mumford has made his way back to Iraq and posted the seventh installment of his brilliant Baghdad Journal. Once again, he puts the traditional media reporting to shame with his usual balanced and thoughtful views. Read the whole thing, as they say.

For those who are not familiar with Mumford, he is a New York artist who has travelled to Iraq a few times in the past year and published several “journal” entries detailing his exploits. I’ve been posting his stuff since I found it last fall. Here are all the installments to date:

They’re all excellent. I highly recommend you check them out. There’s usually some nice art as well. In the most recent installment, he meets up with several friends he made, and written about, on previous visits:

At Hewar, I meet Qassim, who says he’s waiting for some of “your countrymen.” He’s preparing one of his renowned grilled fish lunches. Soon the guests arrive: it’s the Quakers with Bruce Cockburn, who eye me warily. I don’t think Qassim realizes how much foreigners tend to avoid one another in their jealous rush to befriend Iraqis. Or maybe he does, and enjoys watching the snubs and one-upmanship. I take my leave, and relax in the teahouse, when the artists Ahmed al Safi and Haider Wadi show up. They seem like old friends now, and I’m happy to see them.

That evening Ahmed and the painter Esam Pasha come by the hotel for dinner. Esam gives me a great bear hug. It’s terrific to see him again.

Again, excellent reading. [Thanks must go again to Lexington Green from Chicago Boyz for introducing me to Mumford’s writings last fall]

Updates: Several updates have been made, adding links to new columns in the series.

Ladies and gentlemen, we got him

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U.S. forces have captured Saddam Hussein. This is exceptional news! And it figures that I had just commented on how intelligence successes are transparent, that we never see them. D’oh! This is a major intelligence victory. We developed an intelligence infrastructure that allowed us to find Hussein, who had burried himself in a hole in a family member’s cellar. We captured him with shovels. This will most likely lead to an intelligence windfall, as already captured Iraqi officals who may have been biting their tongue for fear of Saddam may start talking… (not to mention Saddam himself)

The circumstances of the arrest are about as good as we could ever hope:

  • It is speculated that he was turned in by a family member (this is looking less likely, I’m not sure how we found him…)
  • Not a single shot fired, not even by Saddam. He had ample opporunity to shoot himself, but he didn’t. That he was captured alive and well will be very beneficial, as it will shut up those conspiracy theorists who would have claimed that it was very convenient that Saddam “killed himself.” I’ve actually seen people who said the same thing about Saddam’s sons express suprise that he was taken alive.
  • That it took so long to get him demonstrates just how dedicated and persistent we are when it comes to tracking down someone of Saddam’s importance. I wonder how Osama must feel…
  • That his actions were so cowardly (and his visual appearance) will go a long way towards demolishing his image.

This will increase support from the U.S. public as well as support from the Iraqi people. A major worry of Iraqis was that Saddam would come back and punish those who cooperated with the coalition. No more. This will allow the Iraqi people to embrace the new government without fear of retribution from Saddam (though they do still have to worry about the terrorists). And this will represent a major blow to the terrorists. No one knows how involved Hussein was in the attacks against coalition forces, but in almost any scenario, this is bad for the terrorists. I believed Bush to be very vulnerable, but this is big for him. The Democratic candidates have been roundly criticising Bush for this, and this will hurt them.

A lot will depend on how things go from here. The impending trial and how it is executed will be very important. We will also need to make sure Saddam doesn’t kill himself or get killed (a la Goering or Oswald). If he turns up dead, we’ll lose out on a lot.

Lots of others are commenting on this, so here goes:

  • Glenn Reynolds: Duh. He has several good posts, including one in which he mentions: “THE LESSON: Saddam’s capture also shows the importance of patience, and of ignoring the kvetching of the Coalition Of The Pissy. While people bitched, the military just kept gathering intelligence and keeping Saddam on the run until he slipped and they caught him.”
  • A BBC reporters log: “We all imagined that if the Americans got a tip off they would just bomb somewhere off the face of the earth.” [via Instapundit]
  • Steven Den Beste: “He’ll almost certainly end up on trial in an Iraqi tribunal which was created just a few days ago.”
  • Merde in France: “Baghdad celebrates, and Paris frowns.”
  • Hammorabi: An Iraqi blogger comments
  • Baghdad Skies: Another blog run by an Iraqi
  • Deeds: CPA member John Galt comments
  • Buzz Machine: Lots of good stuff from Jeff Jarvis
  • The Command Post: They’re all over this. More here.
  • L.T. Smash: A veteran of this war comments and has a good collection of links…
  • IRAQ THE MODEL: Iraqi blogger Omar comments: “Thank you American, British, Spanish, Italian, Australian, Ukrainian, Japanese and all the coalition people and all the good people on earth.

    God bless the 1st brigade.

    God bless the 4th infantry division.

    God bless Iraq.

    God bless America.

    God bless the coalition people and soldiers.

    God bless all the freedom loving people on earth.

    I wish I could hug you all.”

  • Dean Esmay: “Score!” My thoughts exactly!
  • Belmont Club: Wretchard comments and makes a good point too: “The magnificence of nations often conceals the smallness of their acts; and from their petty corruptions and idiocies this tapestry of tragedy has been woven.” Saddam wasn’t the only one responsible for the suffering of Iraqis… Look for more from him, as he has proven very insightful…
  • Random Jottings: John Weidner comments. “My guess is that they will now sneer that ‘we were promised peace after Saddam was captured.’ Well. Tough luck.”
  • Porphyrogenitus: Porphy comments: “Today, for me, is a day of happiness for the people of Iraq, off of whom finally the shadow of Saddam will lift.”
  • Winds of Change is on the case…
  • The Dissident Frogman: “I’m under the impression that Saddam Hussein would deserve an award for the Most Ridiculous Fall for a Dictator”
  • Sneaking Suspicions: Fritz Schrank comments: “And by the way, who told Hussein it was a good idea to try to pass himself off as Ted Kazsynski?” Heheh, check out the picture he has…
  • Tacitus: “Got him. Good. Now comes the real fun — weeks and months of debriefing and interrogation at our hands, followed by trial at the hands of his fellow Iraqis. There are so many questions that he can answer: his regime’s true WMD status; the nature of and preparation for the Ba’athist-supported insurgency; the tragically long missing persons list from Kuwait and among his own people; the true extent of his collaboration with terror networks abroad. Psychologically, it will be a fascinating experience — the closest we may ever have come to having a truly Stalinesque personality in the dock. Will he prove himself pliable and brittle, or will sick megalomania impart qualities of fierce resistance?”
  • Jim Miller: “I just heard that December 13 may become a national holiday.”
  • Donald Sensing: “CNN says that an Iraqi gave the tip to US forces. Only three hours later, we had him.”
  • Baghdaddy: He comments: “Early Sunday morning, the U.S. Army delivered to the peoples of the world, an early Christmas present. The capture of Saddam Hussien. There is such celebrating among the general population, that the spirit of Baghdad has changed to one of jubilation. … The celebratory fire, and the smiles on everyones faces is reminisent of the victory scene at the end of Return of The Jedi, when the Death Star was destroyed signifying the end of the Empire. The scene here in Baghdad is truly one worthy of a John Williams soundtrack!” Ha!
  • A Small Victory: Michelle has lots of stuff… “We got the bastard!”
  • The Messopotamian: Iraqi blogger Alaa comments: “The Baghdadis are expressing what they really think again. Can you hide this now CNN & others? I don?t like swearing, but for those foul friends of the murderers, of all nationalities and kinds, it is like a spike has shot up their asholes to come out of their mouths.”
  • Chicago Boyz: Lex comments: “All morning I have been breaking into a smile and Motorhead’s Ace of Spades has been running through my head” Other ChicagoBoyz comment.
  • Solport: Don Quixote comments…
  • Horsefeathers: Stephen Rittenberg has a roundup of the Democratic candidate’s reactions
  • Tim Blair has lots, including a roundup of Aussie reactions…
  • Calpundit: Kevin Drum comments
  • Joe User/Right Wing Techie: Brad Wardell comments…
  • Lee Harris comments “The man who called upon his countrymen and fellow Muslims to sacrifice their own lives in suicide attacks, to blow themselves to bits in order to glorify his name, failed to follow his own instructions. He refused the grand opportunity of a martyr’s death…”
  • Boots on the Ground: Kevin, a soldier in Iraq, comments on this and his experiences when Uday and Qusay were killed.
  • The End Zone: Hamas is echoing Lee Harris: “CNN reports the head of Palestinian Hamas has issued a statement expressing outrage that Saddam would encourage martrydom in others, yet personally go down without a fight.”
  • HipperCritical has an anti-war blogger reaction roundup… [via instapundit]
  • Power Line has lots of good info…
  • Andrew Olmsted comments with a nice Bull Durham reference: “Yes, it is phenomonal news that Saddam has been captured, and I’ve been fairly bouncing up and down with excitement since I heard the news. … But as good as this news is, this moment, too, is over.”
  • Wolverines!

Gah! Information overload! I could probably find a million other links to put here. Perhaps more later…

Update: I’ve been updating the link list like crazy…


V is for Victory!
A Thumbs up from Kuwaitis

Update: Dean Esmay steals my picture! Hee hee. He’s got more good stuff as well..

Update 12.15.03: And I thought yesterday represented information overload. Tons of new stuff appearing today, much of it excellent, and a lot of it having to do with the challenge of what to do with Hussein…

  • Belmont Club: I told you so – another excellent and insightful article today which examines the strengths of Saddam’s current position.
  • Chicago Boyz: Along the same lines, Lex questions the assumption that “it will go well for the ‘prosecution’ and end without too much hassle in Saddam’s execution.”
  • Stephen Den Beste weighs in on the situation, focusing more on the success of US intelligence and the importance and effects of what we do with Saddam.
  • Ralph Peters also talks about the intelligence successes in Iraq.

Revisionist Thoughts

Politics / /

A few weeks ago, Donald Sensing posted an excellent article by one Fawaz Turki, an outspoken critic of the war in Iraq who has since adopted a “revisionist view” of the conflict:

At issue here is whether the Iraqi people have benefited from the overthrow of the Baathist regime and whether the American occupation will eventually benefit their country even more. I’m convinced – and berate me here from your patriotic bleachers, if you must – that what we have seen in the land between the Tigris and the Euphrates in recent months may turn out to be the most serendipitous event in its modern history. …

Washington may not succeed in turning Iraq into a “beacon of democracy” but it will succeed, after all is said and done, in turning it into a society of laws and institutions where citizens, along with high-school kids, are protected against arbitrary arrest, incarceration, torture and execution.

Intrigued by Turki’s commendable self-critical attitude, I looked up some of his other writings. To be sure, he has been a relentless critic of US foreign policy, but he does appear to have a good understanding of America and it’s virtues as well. He lays this out in his article Only in America, Folks rather well:

No, I said, the relentless criticism that he has been reading in my column over the years is of American politics – or more accurately American foreign policy – not the American political system. When he began to carp about “Jewish power” on the Hill, I explained that when Arab-Americans, along with Muslim Americans, one day become smart enough, organized enough and influential enough to exercise their constitutional right to lobby Congress effectively, as the Jewish community is doing today, which is what the whole shebang of “Jewish power” is about, then I’ll take my hat off to them.

There’s nothing sinister or arcane about the process. Organize your community, get the votes out, and lobby your leaders, demanding that they represent your interests. Then sit back and see how the system will work for you.

It is an excellent article and he makes a point I’ve long thought obvious, but have rarely seen – that Muslim Americans need to “one day become smart enough, organized enough and influential enough to exercise their constitutional right to lobby Congress effectively, as the Jewish community is doing today.” Fawaz Turki is a critic of my country, yes, but he is a reasonable critic who makes valid points and does not respond with reflexive hatred of all things American. Check out his stuff, it’s good reading…

Leaks

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A memo detailing the working relationship between al-Qaeda and Iraq and addressed to the Senate Intelligence Committee was recently leaked to the The Weekly Standard.

The memo, dated October 27, 2003, was sent from Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas J. Feith to Senators Pat Roberts and Jay Rockefeller, the chairman and vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee. It was written in response to a request from the committee as part of its investigation into prewar intelligence claims made by the administration. Intelligence reporting included in the 16-page memo comes from a variety of domestic and foreign agencies, including the FBI, the Defense Intelligence Agency, the Central Intelligence Agency, and the National Security Agency. Much of the evidence is detailed, conclusive, and corroborated by multiple sources. Some of it is new information obtained in custodial interviews with high-level al Qaeda terrorists and Iraqi officials, and some of it is more than a decade old. The picture that emerges is one of a history of collaboration between two of America’s most determined and dangerous enemies.

Naturally, the memo’s contents are interesting, but what concerns me is that this memo was leaked at all, and that it surfaced so quickly after it was sent (October 27, 2003). Doug Feith, the memo’s author, appears to already be on thin ice… Oh, and it turns out that, though interesting, the memo’s contents are also “inaccurate” (according to a DOD statement). This seems to be an excellent example of “stovepiping” in action: it contained raw intelligence with no analysis and no conclusions. Of course, since it was leaked to the media, the public will no doubt make their assumptions. Or so the leaker hopes. David Adesnik notes:

My guess is that someone in the government feels very strongly about this report, and is trying to get the White House to stand behind it by indirectly going public. But if the case can’t be made on its own merits within the government, then something may be very wrong. We’ll find out exactly what that is when the Washington press corps gets a hold of the story and starts telling us far more than the Weekly Standard’s source wants us to know.

This leak is yet another example of the fragile state of U.S. Intelligence that I wrote about last week. It is a purely partisan political maneuver in a field that is supposed to be devoid of such pettiness. We need to be better than this. [Thanks to Citizen Smash for the pointers]

Update 11.20.03: Citizen Smash has more on this subject. For what it’s worth, I was not attempting to comment on the validity of the report in the post above (though you could read it that way). My point is that this should not have been leaked at all, and, to a lesser extent, that such raw intelligence should include analysis (which confirmed my recent thoughts on the state of our intelligence community). As the DOD says: “Individuals who leak or purport to leak classified information are doing serious harm to national security; such activity is deplorable and may be illegal.”

That said, Hayes’ article brought a lot of new information to light which should prompt further investigation… but the only Congressional response so far has been to condemn the act of leaking. Everybody got that? Citizen Smash has done more intelligence oversight than Congress.

Yet another Baghdad Journal

Politics / /

The fifth installment of New York artist Steve Mumford’s excellent Baghdad Journal is up. As usual, it makes for excellent reading. Good art too.

Update 10.31.03 – Kevin Murphy comments, “The amazing thing is that it is the best eyewitness reporting coming out of Iraq right now, and it isn’t coming from the press but from an internet art magazine.” Heh.

Hindsight isn’t Necessarily 20/20

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It is conventional wisdom that hindsight is 20/20, but is that really accurate? I get the feeling that when people speak of clarity in hindsight, what they are really talking about is creeping determinism. They aren’t really examining the varied and complex details of a scenario so much as they are rationalizing an outcome perceived to have been inevitable (since it has already happened, surely it must have been obvious). This is known in logic as “begging the question” or “circular logic.”

In the creeping determinism sense, hindsight is liberally filtered to the point where only evidence that leads to the scenario’s conclusion is seen. All other evidence is dismissed as inaccurate or irrelevant.

Which leads me to an excellent article by Adam Garfinkle called Foreign Policy Immaculately Conceived. In it, he argues:

The immaculate conception theory of U.S. foreign policy operates from three central premises. The first is that foreign policy decisions always involve one and only one major interest or principle at a time. The second is that it is always possible to know the direct and peripheral impact of crisis-driven decisions several months or years into the future. The third is that U.S. foreign policy decisions are always taken with all principals in agreement and are implemented down the line as those principals intend – in short, they are logically coherent.

When these premises are laid out in such a way, one can’t help but see them for what they really are. And yet so much of what passes for commentary these days is based wholly upon this immaculate conception theory of U.S. foreign policy .

Case in point, the American liberation/occupation of Iraq is often portrayed as a failure. They say that we are not “winning the hearts and minds” of the Iraqis, or that we have “gone into the God business” and that “we want the Iraqis to love us for destroying their orchards too.” (Never mind that this is emphatically not what we’re doing, but I digress) These people are engaging in creeping determinism before the situation has even played out! They’ve started with a conclusion, that we have failed in Iraq, and they then collect any and all negative aspects of the occupation and proclaim this outcome inevitable (some perhaps hoping for a form of self-fulfilling prophecy).

But even this is hardly new. Jessica’s Well points to a pair of magnificent historical examples. Do you remember that other time when we were mired in a quagmire, failing to win the hearts and minds of our occupied foes? The one in Europe, circa 1946? Yes, you know, the one that resulted in Europe’s longest unbroken peaceful period since Charlemagne? These articles are amazingly familiar. Replace “Hitler” with “Saddam”, “Nazis” with “Baathists”, and “Germany” with “Iraq” and you’ll see what I mean.

Naturally, since the overwhelmingly positive results of the US military occupation of Europe are generally acknowledged, these articles are pushed by the wayside, dismissed as irrelevant and forgotten forever (or until an intrepid blogger takes the initiative to post it). Success in Europe was by no means inevitable, both during and after the war, and in a certain respect, these articles are a great example of creeping determinism or Garfinkle’s immaculate conception theory of U.S. foreign policy.

They’re also an example of just how shortsighted pessimistic reporting on a lengthy process can be. As Garfinkle notes:

American presidents, who have to make the truly big decisions of U.S. foreign policy, must come to a judgment with incomplete information, often under stress and merciless time constraints, and frequently with their closest advisors painting one another in shades of disagreement. The choices are never between obviously good and obviously bad, but between greater and lesser sets of risks, greater and lesser prospects of danger. Banal as it sounds, we do well to remind ourselves from time to time that things really are not so simple, even when one’s basic principles are clear and correct.

Indeed. Hindsight isn’t necessarily 20/20, but it always purports to be.

Update 10.21.03 – I don’t remember where I found this, but I had bookmarked it: That Was Then: Allen W. Dulles on the Occupation of Germany provides some more perspective on post-war Germany. He outlined many of the difficulties they faced and lamented, despite his obvious respect for those in charge, that “the problems inherent in the situation are almost too much for us.” It’s an excellent piece, so read the whole thing, as they say…