I’m Not Going to Do This Every Day

George W. Bush gave a long speech at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base yesterday making his case, for, well, for following whatever his lead is in Iraq. On bit keeps bugging me:

As this debate unfolds, I ask people on both sides to keep an open mind, and to take a close look at the situation on the ground. Here is what one scholar and critic of the war recently wrote: “No one can spend some 10 days visiting the battlefields in Iraq without seeing major progress in every area. If the United States provides sustained support to the Iraqi government — in security, governance, and development — there is now a very real chance that Iraq will emerge as a secure and stable state.”

And….that’s it. No mention of who this “scholar and critic of the war” is. Who is this person? Fred Kaplan? I kinda doubt it’s him. Dick Cheney? Some 5th Grader in Houston? A product of the fertile mind of a Bush speechwriter? Also, no mention of whether the “critic of the war” quoted had actually been to Iraq recently, or had just been reading Bush Administration press releases.

Please, W. At least give us a little effort here…

The Pentagon is suddenly less interested in publicizing an internal study that found no evidence of a direct link between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda. Hmm.

In keeping with my longstanding tradition of providing the best in global insight by, um, recommending people who actually know what they’re talking about, I present the latest from Rootless Cosmopolitan: A guest column by Mark Perry of Conflicts Forum on the ouster of William “Fox” Fallon. Enjoy.
UPDATE: Fred Kaplan at Slate has a similar take.

This, from Soldier’s Home, Newsweek’s blog about life after Iraq, cracks me up. The blogger, David Botti, empties out his notebooks from interviews he did with marines in his unit in Iraq in 2003. It’s all interesting, and in some cases moving, but the part that made me laugh out loud is this:

If you could speak to the Iraqi people on television, what would you say?

• -“I have a ten inch c*ck – just kidding. I’d say Saddam is gone, but the job is not done. Make sure you help us get you a new government, so we can get out. Never become as cowardly as suicide bombers.”
• -“You owe us.”
• -“That’s all you had?”
• -“Look forward to a brighter future.”
• -“If you’re happy we’re here, good. If not, we’ve won, f*ck you, we did it fast. Your country sucks d*ck and I don’t know why you stay here.”
• -“Bring me meat and bread.”

Two interesting bits in today’s papers to give one pause:

From the Washington Post:

Dragonfly or Insect Spy? Scientists at Work on Robobugs

Which is of course creepy–what, are you going to have to carry around a bug zapper now every time you want to have a little privacy outdoors–but also a little reassuring, because, after all, our government doesn’t spy on its citizens.

Oh.

Fred Kaplan has his usual good thoughts on Iraq, this time asking the obvious question: If we’re spending $500 billion a year on our military budget NOT COUNTING the billions we’re wasting in Iraq and Afghanistan, what are we getting for our money?

Mike Hirsh has a very nice piece about Blackwater, Bush, and the no-accountability presidency.

And Tony Karon continues his brilliant thoughts about the U.S. and Iran

I’ve long been fascinated by the role private security contractors like Blackwater, Triple Canopy and DynCorp play in Iraq. Here’s a whole class of heavily armed people wandering around the country accountable to, well, their consciences, I guess. The Wash Post has a fascinating bit about Blackwater today. Best part:

To a large degree, the companies regulate themselves. Lawrence T. Peter, director of the Private Security Company Association of Iraq, which represents at least 50 security companies, also serves as a $40-per-hour consultant on security issues to the Pentagon’s Defense Reconstruction Support Office, which issues contracts.

Peter, during an interview in Baghdad, said that while serving as an adviser to the Coalition Provisional Authority he wrote the initial drafts of Memorandum 17, dated June 26, 2004, which established operating guidelines for security companies and remains “the extant law for private security contractors in Iraq.”

The rules on use of force are introduced in capital letters with the statement: “NOTHING IN THESE RULES LIMITS YOUR INHERENT RIGHT TO TAKE ACTION NECESSARY TO DEFEND YOURSELF.”

A separate document, CPA Order 17, dated June 27, 2004, granted the private security companies immunity from Iraqi law.

……
Over the past year, the military has issued a series of “fragos,” or fragmentary orders, designed to impose greater accountability on security contractors operating under Defense Department contracts. Blackwater was not covered because it reported to the State Department.

The new rules included procedures for the registration of weapons and streamlined the reporting of shooting incidents. The U.S. military’s director of security for the Green Zone, where approximately three dozen private security firms are based, has conducted sweeps that netted hundreds of unauthorized weapons.

…..
None of the new orders applied to Blackwater, which has received $678 million in State Department contracts since 2003 and operates under the department’s authority.

“I’m not gonna go chasing after non-DoD organizations, going, ‘Uh, you didn’t submit an incident report for this,’ ” said Maj. Kent Lightner of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, who monitors shooting incidents involving private security contractors under Defense Department contracts.

Um, actually, doesn’t it seem like the very definition of the job of someone who “monitors shooting incidents involving private contractors” is to get those incident reports? UPDATE: See Lightner’s response in comments below. Clearly, this isn’t a simple issue, and I apologize for my somewhat flip comment. 

Still, if you’re going to read just one story about private contractors in Iraq, don’t. Instead, listen to this fantastic bit by Nancy Updike, called “I’m from the Private Sector and I’m Here to Help,” produced for This American Life in 2004. It’s at the same time the best thing done on contractors and the best thing ever on TAL.

Tony Karon, who’s got a blogful of smart postings about the Bush Administration’s adventures in Iraq, outdoes himself with this really nice assessment of the media’s role in the runup to the Iraq War, and the parallels he sees today in making the case for attacking Iran:

Imagine, for a moment, that U.S. troops invading Iraq had, as they neared Baghdad, been fired on by an artillery unit using shells filled VX nerve gas — an attack that would have lasted minutes before a U.S. aircrew had taken out the battery, and may have brought a horrible death to a handful of American soldiers. Imagine, further, that the conquering troops had later discovered two warehouses full of VX and mustard gas shells. And later, that inspectors in a science lab had discovered a refrigerator full of Botulinum toxin or even anthrax.

The Administration and its allies in the punditocracy would have “proved” their case for war, and the media would have hailed President Bush as the kind of Churchillian visionary that he imagines himself to be. And goodness knows what new adventures the Pentagon ideologues would have immediately begun planning.

Now, ask yourself, had the above scenario unfolded and the “case for war” (on the terms accepted by the media and the Democrats) been proven, would Iraq look any different today? Would it be any less of a bloodbath; any less of a quagmire for U.S. troops; any less of a geopolitical disaster; any less of a drain on U.S. blood and treasure? Would the U.S. mainland or U.S. interests and allies worldwide be any safer today? In short, would the Iraq invasion seem any less of a catastrophic strategic blunder had the U.S. discovered some caches of unconventional weapons in Iraq?

The answer to all of those questions is obviously no.

And it’s from that point that we must begin our discussion on Iran, and the media’s role in preparing the American public for another disastrous war of choice. The “necessity” in the American public mind to go to war in Iraq was established through the mass media — a failure for which there has been precious little accounting. But that failure runs far deeper than is typically acknowledged even by critics: It was not simply a case of the media failing to properly and critically interrogate the spurious claims by the Administration of Iraq’s Weapons of Mass Destruction capability. Sure, even the likes of France and Germany suspected that Saddam may, in fact, have still had a few piles of chemical munitions left over from the Iran-Iraq war. The point, however, is that they did not see these as justifying a war. They recognized from the outset that invading Iraq would cause more problems than it would solve.

The more important failure of the U.S. media, then, is its failure to question the basic proposition that if Iraq had, indeed, had unconventional weapons, then an invasion and occupation of that country was a wise and prudent course of action.

There’s more:

The very idea that there are certain categories of weapons that draw down a red mist over rational discussion of geopolitical options is an exceedingly dangerous one — that should be one of the key lessons drawn from Iraq. And that’s exactly what’s being cooked up over Iran, too.

The very same crew of neocons and liberal hawks and the Israeli political establishment and its allies in Washington, are goading America to attack Iran. They insist Iran is going hell for leather to acquire nuclear weapons, and allowing it to do so represents a mortal threat to the West, Arab moderates and Israel. And just when a convenient excuse was needed for the U.S. failure in Iraq and Afghanistan, wouldn’t you know it, it’s those darn Iranians “interfering”. Don’t even think about discussing, what, are you Neville Chamberlain or something? Don’t you know it’s 1938 all over again?

Really, it’s one the smarter things you’ll read on the topic. What are thinking? Check it out now.

My friend Tony Karon, who is to international geopolitical soccer analysis what KBR is to cost overruns, has a fab bit on the the Iraq soccer team and what their match today means; if you read one bit on this, make sure it’s this one.

UPDATE: Iraq wins the pennant! Iraq wins the pennant!

News and notes from a random Monday:

• I want one of these. How cool is a printer that can print out Tupperware?
• Lost: Really, it’s going to come to an end. In, um, 2010. Sheesh. (In a related note, for those of you not reading Jim Poniewozik’s excellent Lostwatch on his Tuned In blog, you, well, you should be ashamed of yourself, Mister.)
• Though it doesn’t always make perfect sense (or, more likely, I just can’t figure it out) Free Darko has been providing some of the best writing out there on the NBA playoffs. Check out their “basketball is the new jazz” bit, and decide for yourself.
• And, for those of you looking for more, um, substantial reading, I recommend Tony Karon’s latest Rootless Cosmopolitan bit on Condi, Iran and “diplomacy.”