Monday, October 27, 2003

[10:28 PM] Muslims are into the second day of Ramadan. This is the month to best see how little Americans know about Islam and how insensitive (although a good part is unintentional) and patronizing they can be. And you don’t have to talk to the man on the street, you can just watch the news. I’ll try for the month to demonstrate this.

Today on NPR’s morning edition (NPR!!!), Jacki Lyden referred to Ramadan as the Muslim Holy Month of Fasting (we’re fascinated by that fasting aspect). Yes, let’s focus on practice and not what Ramadan celebrates. Christmas, the Christian holiday of gifts…

Then of course there’s CNN’s Lou Dobbs, who should not be allowed to do stories on anything but finance. Tonight he took to task an emailer who objected to Dobbs’ use of the words “radical Islamists.” Dobbs got hot, adopted a tone, and told the emailer, whose name is Hashim Hamandi, that the radical Islamists were the problem. Dobbs said “As you know, Hashim, every act of terror against this country has been carried out by radical Islamists.” I’d like to give him the benefit of the doubt and think that he meant on September 11. Cynically I think that Dobbs tips his own hand and reveals some prejudice by forgetting about Timothy McVeigh. If you think that’s a leap, check out the entire exchange


And on the subject of my use of the term "radical Islamists," to describe terrorists at war against this country, from New York, New York, "Your repeated quotes about radical Islamist terrorists is really a veiled attack on Islam and Muslims. Have some decency. You are only helping those terrorists bolster their argument. CNN should be ashamed of having someone like you on their staff." That from Hashim Hamandi.

The Bush administration has chosen to call this war, Hashim, against those radical Islamists a war on terror. As you know, Hashim, every act of terror against this country has been carried out by radical Islamists.

I chose long to go to call the terrorists what they are, radical Islamists. I notice you didn't deny that fact. Calling terrorists what they are, radical Islamists, is not a veiled attack or any other kind of attack on Islam, nor on Muslims.

My audience is very smart and clearly understands the difference between as Muslim and a radical Islamist. I'm only disappointed you are more concerned about my language than you are about the very real attacks on your very religion by those who murder and terrorize in the name of your religion.

You might notice that Hashim never identified himself as a Muslim; Lou just assumes that based on his name. And the most egregious part of the exchange is really ugly, “You ought to be concerned with your nasty Islamist brethren than with me.” I guess Lou will take responsibility for General Jerry Boykin’s ugly comments.

# posted 10:28 PM

[9:40 PM] When most news stories report U.S. casualties, somewhere toward the end of the article is usually something that reads, “there have been x number of casualties since President Bush declared the end to major hostilities in May. Perhaps in light of this weekend’s catastrophic violence in Iraq, this should be reframed to read “number of casualties since President Bush baited potential attackers” with this idiotic quip

There are some who feel like that, you know, the conditions are such that they can attack us there. My answer is bring them on. We got the force necessary to deal with the security situation.

# posted 9:41 PM

Sunday, October 26, 2003

[6:03 PM] A must read on Saddam's nonexistent pre-war nuclear program from the WP.

# posted 6:04 PM

Saturday, October 25, 2003

[5:19 PM] PBS is running a great documentary about T.E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia to you). It’s a fascinating portrait of Lawrence, but even more it details very nicely the making of the modern Middle East. Check it out.

# posted 5:19 PM

Thursday, October 23, 2003

[2:30 PM] I’ve been poking around trying to find a really good analysis of Iran’s decision to completely open up its nuclear program. I’m still looking. I’d to see some one examine in detail the issue that I heard Mike Shuster mention on NPR two days ago—that is that this is the way to go for Iran if it really does have nuclear weapons ambitions. It allows it to keep its nuclear infrastructure, conduct research, and possibly when the time is right, withdraw from the NPT, and be well on its way (much further than Saddam ever got) to having a bomb. That’s how I’d do it.

In the meantime, check out Carnegie’s Iran page for some good links.

# posted 2:31 PM

Sunday, October 19, 2003

[12:28 PM] Here’s an excerpt from an excellent and very readable essay by James Rubin in the September/October Foreign Affairs

Why did most of the world abandon Washington when it went after Saddam Hussein? The war in Iraq could never have been an easy sell, but nor should it have been such a difficult one. The Bush administration badly botched the prewar maneuvering, presenting a textbook study in how not to wage a diplomatic campaign.

The entire article is available online and I highly recommend it.

# posted 12:28 PM

Saturday, October 18, 2003

[5:07 PM] I don’t like Tucker Carlson. Unlike many of his other conservative talk show brethren, he seems afraid to admit his conservative, exclusive, and exclusionary views on politics and especially social issues. He instead tries to couch his “views” and statements as simply pointing out liberal hypocrisy and illogic. He won’t admit he has a problem with homosexuals, he only wants to point out how wishy-washy Howard Dean is on the issue the issue of gay marriage (the gay issue comes up a lot, and it’s very clear how Tucker feels about gays, he’s just not man enough to admit his own personal problems with gays, which understandably affect the positions he takes on Crossfire). But I digress. Here was Tucker on Crossfire Thursday

But first, the best daily earthquake on television, our CROSSFIRE "Political Alert."

Well, Bill Clinton has done a lot of brazen things over the years. But nothing quite comes close to a speech he gave yesterday in which he claimed that, at the end of his term, he warned President Bush that Osama bin Laden was the single greatest threat to national security. Bush, he implied, ignored him, hence 9/11.

Think about this for a minute. After doing almost nothing to respond to al Qaeda's attacks on the World Trade Center in 1993, the Saudi national guard training center in Riyadh in 1995, the Khobar Towers in 1996, the American embassies in Africa in the 1998, and the Cole attack in 2000, not to mention his lack of credible response to bin Laden's declarations of war against the U.S. in 1996 and yet again in 1998, Clinton is now claiming that al Qaeda was actually his No. 1 security priority.

Well, this would be shocking, if it weren't so perfectly Clinton. And it is perfectly Clinton.

I’ve written here before that this is one of the most interesting (and apparently unread) post-9/11 stories about the Clinton administration’s efforts to find Usama Bin Laden. Here is Tucker Carlson’s own network reporting on the Washington Post’s revelations under the headline “Officials reveal two earlier plans to get bin Laden.” Talk about disingenuous.

# posted 5:08 PM

Monday, October 13, 2003

[8:54 PM] Most U.S. administrations want you to ignore their nuclear double standard when it comes to Israel (the U.S. ally) having nuclear weapons, and no one else in the region. Okay, that makes sense. But it certainly is insulting and a bit disingenuous to portray other states that aren’t U.S. allies and who want nuclear weapons as having some sort of unreasonable or irrational views of their own security. In this case I’m thinking about Iran.

This LA Times article reports that Israel now has nuclear capable cruise missiles (modified from a U.S. missile) ostensibly to have a retaliatory threat that is virtually unreachable by an adversary. The article says that the U.S. was leaking news of the new delivery option as a warning particularly to Iran. Okay, so why shouldn’t Iran want its own deterrent threat?

This is all a bunch wink wink business as usual foreign policy, but its tiring to hear the Iranians portrayed as a bunch of loose canon lunatics who sponsor terrorism and now want the bomb as well. If Iran didn’t want a nuclear deterrent to counter Israel, then we’d have to really take a close look at their rationality.

# posted 8:55 PM

Thursday, October 09, 2003

[7:00 PM] Writing in Slate, Fred Kaplan echoes what I wrote about what David Kay actually said in his report and how he subtly tries to equate intent and capacity with the existence of a WMD program. Check it out and also listen to him talk about it on the Slate/NPR joint venture “Day to Day.”

# posted 6:58 PM

Saturday, October 04, 2003

[10:29 PM] The Doctor is in. I wrote yesterday about the irony of General Myers lamenting the lack of Arabic linguists in the military, while at the same time several were dismissed from the Defense Language Institute last year because they were gay. Dr. Howard Dean is also on the case

End the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy. Last November, several Arabic and Korean linguists from the Army's Defense Language Institute were discharged for being gay despite the critical need for qualified linguists in the war on terror. That was wrong. As President, I will offer gay and lesbian soldiers the opportunity to serve our country openly.

# posted 10:29 PM

[10:06 PM] A while ago I wrote (and forgot about) an op-ed concerning the proliferation of small arms and in particular the impact it is having for coalition forces in Iraq. Check it out here.

# posted 10:07 PM

Friday, October 03, 2003

[9:44 PM] I’ve had some conversations over the past few days with friends about the democratic presidential candidates. A number of friends are ardent Howard Dean supporters. A few however, express sentiments that the political analysts have had from the start: he’s too liberal to get elected. I mention this not to delve into domestic politics but to talk again about the Iraq war and its aftermath. Howard Dean’s opposition to the war is seen in some circles as a death sentence for his candidacy in the long run. One of the tragedies of the modern American media, especially television is its shallowness. This is a difficult issue. Saddam Hussein was a tyrant who inflicted pain and death on untold thousands of innocent people. That’s not the issue at hand. We can argue that it should be, but that’s another argument. This is about national security. And national security in this case means U.S. national interests. Fields Report is an American. Again, if we want to talk of regional threats, that’s a different conversation. Saddam was not a threat any way you slice it to the U.S. If we want to talk about human rights and protecting them and promoting democracy, let’s turn our attention to sub-Saharan Africa instead where many more innocent people have died in the last two decades, especially in Zaire/Congo than died in the Iran-Iraq war or were killed in Iraq by Saddam Hussein. But we just can’t conflate the issues of U.S. national security and ousting a despotic regime. The U.S. did both, but built on phony assertion about what it was doing at the outset. This can’t be ignored; not the discrepancy, but the fact that the two different rationales have different implications. Implications for people like Howard Dean or for the average person who wants the whole truth before deciding whether he or she supports a war or not.

# posted 9:44 PM

[5:58 PM] I can’t help but hammer on this point. Am I the only one that sees the irony? This from Thursday’s Rumsfeld DoD briefing

Q: Mr. Secretary…are any new efforts being made to recruit Arabic translators in the military as a result of this?

[The first part of the question referred to the Arabic translator arrested and removed from his position at Guantanamo. Rumseld answers that part of it.]

[…]

Rumsfeld: Yes?

Q: Can --

Q: Apparently there is an extreme shortage -- excuse me -- of Arabic speakers in the U.S. military. Are you moving to address that even more rapidly now?

Myers: We were well before this happened. It is a language skill that has been in short supply, certainly probably not just the military, but throughout a lot of government agencies, and we've got to do everything we can do to find people to help...So we're looking for all sorts of ways to fill that -- fill that gap.

As I wrote here last year, doing everything we can doesn’t include allowing gay Arabic linguists to stay in the military. We can sacrifice some of our civil liberties and trust our leaders that they can’t tell us everything in the name of national security – we’re at war after all – but once we know your gay, shortage of Arab linguists or not, war ain’t that important, you’ve got to go.

# posted 5:59 PM

[5:22 PM] I’ve been following a couple of debates and thoughts on other weblogs about the Kay report. [I want to stay true to my original idea of this not becoming a name-dropping list of links to other weblogs so I won’t mention who they are – but they are the typical big names] One of the arguments being made – and it is along the same lines as the Bush administration – was 'see, we told you had these programs; we never said he necessarily had the weapons themselves, but his programs represented and imminent threat.'

There are several problems with this. The first of which is now the administration wants to make the firm distinction between a weapons program and the programs themselves. Sure, no weapons, but we have evidence of the programs. But before the war and even before the inspectors left, the administration used those terms synonymously, creating an image in the public mind that a program and WMD went hand in hand and where you find one, you find the other. So in making the case for war, saying Saddam had a program meant he was hiding weapons.

The next problem undermines the first no matter which side you’re on. What constitutes a program? My interpretation of Kay’s report is that he goes out of his way to use careful language to avoid declaring the discovery of a program.

It’s one thing to have a program and another to maintain the expertise to start a program. Unless you rounded up all the nuclear physicists, chemists, and engineers in Iraq – including those not working on anything scientific, even non-weapons related – one could still say that Saddam maintained the expertise to start a nuclear program. It’s not a black and white issue, but Kay also doesn’t specifically say that evidence of a program (chem, bio, or nuclear) was found.

We have discovered dozens of WMD-related program activities and significant amounts of equipment that Iraq concealed from the United Nations during the inspections that began in late 2002.

A clandestine network of laboratories and safehouses within the Iraqi Intelligence Service that contained equipment subject to UN monitoring and suitable for continuing CBW research.

Documents and equipment, hidden in scientists' homes, that would have been useful in resuming uranium enrichment by centrifuge and electromagnetic isotope separation (EMIS). [note: Kay characterizes, ‘useful’ not ‘essential’.]

Here are more Kay examples that were cited by a particular weblog (and the author of the weblog to be fair has no particular technical expertise) as indications of Saddam maintaining a threat (which I concede) to the U.S. (which is untrue).

* A line of UAVs not fully declared at an undeclared production facility and an admission that they had tested one of their declared UAVs out to a range of 500 km, 350 km beyond the permissible limit.

* Continuing covert capability to manufacture fuel propellant useful only for prohibited SCUD variant missiles, a capability that was maintained at least until the end of 2001 and that cooperating Iraqi scientists have said they were told to conceal from the UN.

* Plans and advanced design work for new long-range missiles with ranges up to at least 1000 km - well beyond the 150 km range limit imposed by the UN. Missiles of a 1000 km range would have allowed Iraq to threaten targets through out the Middle East, including Ankara, Cairo, and Abu Dhabi.

* Clandestine attempts between late-1999 and 2002 to obtain from North Korea technology related to 1,300 km range ballistic missiles --probably the No Dong -- 300 km range anti-ship cruise missiles, and other prohibited military equipment.

Again Kay is fuzzy on specifics. What does “continuing covert capability” mean? What does “advanced design work” mean? Advance in progress or technology (the classified report probably address the latter issue)?

But those points aside, none of these four points represents a threat to the U.S. It’s worth noting that the four points deal with delivery systems. Fourteen years after then end of the Cold War only two countries could strike the U.S. with a ballistic missile (and no North Korea cannot): China and Russia. Why? Because it’s damned hard to build an ICBM. This is why even if all of these findings were even more advanced, I’d still sleep well. Again, let’s concede that Saddam is bad guy and that he probably wanted, and likely up until the summer of 2002, had weapons of mass destruction in the literal sense. Be he still at that point didn’t represent a threat to the U.S. Today we’re even further removed from that threat and we’re not even sure if these weapons existed going back to my generous starting point. If we want to talk about regional threats or threats to human rights and liberty, fine. But we can’t parse words and exaggerate when it comes to hardware. A program is a program, not wishful thinking even if there are people who could in reality constitute it. By that token then the U.S. has a biological weapons program and so does every other highly industrialized nation. I make this last point not to be hyperbolic but to say it is that important to be precise about weapons, programs, equipment, and intent – especially if we ask people to risk their lives because of these things.

# posted 5:23 PM

[1:39 PM] Lots of parsing of words in the media and from the Bush administration of David Kay’s testimony about what has and hasn’t been found by the Iraq Survey Group. After groggily listening to President Bush’s statements this morning, I assumed the report must have been fairly damning in what little it did find. But that is not entirely the case. Bush said


Let me tell you what the report said...It states that Saddam Hussein's regime had a clandestine network of biological laboratories.

That’s misleading and not entirely accurate. The declassified version of Kay’s comments read

Debriefings of IIS officials and site visits have begun to unravel a clandestine network of laboratories and facilities within the security service apparatus. This network was never declared to the UN and was previously unknown. We are still working on determining the extent to which this network was tied to large-scale military efforts or BW terror weapons, but this clandestine capability was suitable for preserving BW expertise, BW capable facilities and continuing R&D - all key elements for maintaining a capability for resuming BW production.

That assessment sounds much more cautious – although it seems written to sound alarmist – than what Bush said. Kay doesn’t explicitly say that they were biological laboratories and seems to imply that even if they were, it would still need to be determined if they were in fact related to a BW program.

I notice a lot parsing along these lines. “Equipment” that could be used for a BW program. What does that mean? Is it dual-use equipment that but one purpose when found in the context of biological laboratory? Or is it common “equipment” that one would find in any biological lab, and sure it could be used for BW, and since we are talking about the Iraqis, then will skip a few steps in deductive reasoning?

# posted 1:39 PM