First, We Kill All The Lawyers

Assistant Secretary of Defense Cully Stimson told Federal News Radio that the nation’s major corporate CEOs ought to pressure their law firms not to represent “terrorists”:

"I think, quite honestly, when corporate CEOs see that those firms are representing the very terrorists who hit their bottom line back in 2001, those CEOs are going to make those law firms choose between representing terrorists or representing reputable firms, and I think that is going to have major play in the next few weeks. And we want to watch that play out."

Mr. Stimson is a lawyer and ought to know better, he graduated from George Mason Law School and worked for the Navy. He is the top Pentagon official in charge of detainee detention. I would like to think that one could not graduate from law school without a firm understanding of the American legal system. Fundamental to the process is the notion that the defendant enjoys a right to a lawyer. John Adams (our second president) represented the British troops responsible for the Boston Massacre.

No wonder that he Bush Administration has so long run afoul of basic legal rights, it’s lawyers are so stupid. The other possibility of course is that Bush lawyers are merely craven and they do no better. I don’t know which possibility is worse. Is the attitude of Mr. Stimson a function of the 9-11 attacks, or was the attitude merely given cover by the attacks? I wonder whether the evidence against the detainees is so weak that no possibility exists of proving a case in any adversarial forum.

Bush Demonstrates His Contempt For Diplomacy

I am surprised he waited. Mere hours after declaring war on Iran, US soldiers raided an Iranian consulate in Iraq. Now we have six Iranians personnel held hostage and the circle is complete. The helpful White House PowerPoint presentation lists attacking Iran right up front, as a Key Tactical Shift: "Increase operations against Iranian actors"

Under International law and practice, embassy grounds may not be entered by the host country without permission. That after all is the whole point of refugee asylum in embassies. Even the North Koreans respect this, that is why North Korean nationals in China flee to third-party embassies.

Lawlessness in Iraq now being spread by the United States. What other country would President Bush dare to attack an embassy? Can even Prime Minister Blair tolerate standing with the President on this one? The governments of the world will condemn us.

The President's action demonstrates the contempt with which he holds diplomacy. Unless the military quickly exposes the facility as a bomb producing plant, we have some explaining to do.

Division Of Iraq

History, that wicked wretch, sneaks up, extend it’s palm and begs for alms. History meets us at the airport chanting “Hare Krishna.” History arrives in the post, “You may already have won!” Try as we might, never will history shake itself loose.

In his editorial Making the Surge Work, which started appearing on the 7th, David Brooks advocates using President Bush’s miliary escalation in Iraq to divide the country in ethnic parts.

"Perhaps, in other words, it’s time to merge the military Plan B — the surge — with a political Plan B — flexible decentralization. That would mean using adequate force levels (finally!) to help those who are returning to sectarian homelands. It would mean erecting buffers between populations where possible and establishing order in areas that remain mixed. It would mean finding decentralized governing structures that reflect the social and psychological facts on the ground.

"The record shows that in sufficient numbers and with sufficient staying power, U.S. troops can suppress violence. Perhaps more U.S. troops can create a climate in which decentralized arrangements can evolve.

"We can’t turn back time. But if the disintegration of Iraqi society would be a political and humanitarian disaster, perhaps we should finally commit military resources, and create a political strategy, commensurate with the task of salvaging something. "

Brooks should take a look at India's experience in Partition. The Viceroy Lord Mountbatten viewed the ethnic strife between Hindu, Muslim, and Sikh populations which exploded after the plan to keep India unified but ruled by ethnic provinces. He persuaded the British Parliament to abandon this plan after the rioting became full-blown civil war. The India Independence Act caused the migration of over 15 million Indians as the new countries exchanged populations. Millions died during riots, civil war, and migration.

After division, the region saw continued wars, in 1965, the Indio-Pakistan War, in 1971 again Indio-Pakistan but also the division and birth of Bangladesh. The 1971 war includes the genocide of Bengalis, by 1972 Newsweek reported over 10 million Bengal refugees. The Kargali War of 1992 witnessed conflict between nuclear armed neighbors. Tensions between the new countries continue today, with a nuclear armed Indian and Pakistan still fighting over Kashmir. India continues to be tormented by Kashmiri separatist terrorists, including attack on the India Parliament building by separatist gunmen.

The division of India should inform military planners in Iraq. The massive population displacement, the millions dead from secular fighting, and the continued regional tensions do not bode well for similar response in Iraq.

Millions dead, many more millions displaced, and generations of violent tension. Is that what America hopes to duplicate in the Middle East? While division does seem to be where the inertia at work in Iraq seems headed, the British might be of even more help in planning than they have proved so far. After all, they have India, Afghanistan, and Israel experience before us. They tried and filed and now we have tried and failed. The lessons of Colonialism seem to be revisited on the world wherever our "national interests" demand.

Rosecoveredglasses Comments on Daisy Post

There are good points in your article. I would like to supplement them with some information:

I am a 2 tour Vietnam Veteran who recently retired after 36 years of working in the Defense Industrial Complex on many of the weapons systems being used by our forces as we speak.

If you are interested in a view of the inside of the Pentagon procurement process from Vietnam to Iraq please check the posting at my blog entitled, “Odyssey of Armaments”

http://rosecoveredglasses.blogspot.com/2006/11/odyssey-of-armaments.html

The Pentagon is a giant, incredibly complex establishment, budgeted in excess of $500B per year. The Rumsfelds, the Administrations and the Congressmen come and go but the real machinery of policy and procurement keeps grinding away, presenting the politicos who arrive with detail and alternatives slanted to perpetuate itself.

How can any newcomer, be he a President, a Congressman or even the new Sec. Def.Mr. Gates, understand such complexity, particularly if heretofore he has not had the clearance to get the full details?

Answer- he can’t. Therefore he accepts the alternatives provided by the career establishment that never goes away and he hopes he makes the right choices. Or he is influenced by a lobbyist or two representing companies in his district or special interest groups.

From a practical standpoint, policy and war decisions are made far below the levels of the talking heads who take the heat or the credit for the results.

This situation is unfortunate but it is absolute fact. Take it from one who has been to war and worked in the establishment.

This giant policy making and war machine will eventually come apart and have to be put back together to operate smaller, leaner and on less fuel. But that won’t happen until it hits a brick wall at high speed.

We will then have to run a Volkswagen instead of a Caddy and get along somehow. We better start practicing now and get off our high horse. Our golden aura in the world is beginning to dull from arrogance.

Remember Daisy

Daisy , a 30-second campaign ad featuring a little girl pulling petals from a daisy may well have put Lyndon Johnson in the White House in 1964. Superimposed over her count comes the familiar launch countdown, then a nuclear mushroom cloud. Finally President Johnson states, "These are the stakes! To make a world in which all of God's children can live, or to go into the dark. We must either love each other, or we must die." Another voice over then says, "Vote for President Johnson on November 3. The stakes are too high for you to stay home."

Anyone over a certain age remembers Daisy.



Among the first pieces of business the Senate Armed Forces Committee must do is crack open Pentagon planning for "tactical" nukes against Iranian nuclear facilities. Sy Hersch at The New Yorker reported in April17, 2006, on Bush plans for Iran. Now Israel has also revealed such planning according to the London Sunday Times .

What a crazy world! and this from the people that brought you the Summer of Love. What happened to these people. We have a president who seems to understand the world in terms of the sound bites devised for him, featuring "Post-911 World" and "The War On Terror" which make his so very dangerous.

As the Iraq War clearly demonstrates, we can not face Islam Radicalism by declaring war on the Middle East. Terrorism remains a strategy for political and social change and not state action. defeating terrorism requires a completely different approach than the nationalism and militarism now prevalent. These are the same "isms" that ushered in the great military conflicts of modern history.

Furthermore, the War on Terror consumes vast resources which should be put to use in funding a new economy. The planet can no longer balance an economy based on burning carbons. We must spend the wealth, both human and capital, on going green. Our future depends upon it.

President Bush would certainly push the Iraq debacle a notch down in "Huge Blunders By President Bush" (an already incredibly long list) by filling the top spot with "Nuking Iran" or even allowing Israel to nuke Iran for us. There is no question in my mind that the Pentagon has been gaming the scenario. Could there really be an outcome that ends positively for the world?

The Right Man At The Wrong Time

The President finally appointed a new commander in Iraq, Lt. Gen. David H. Petraeus. Gen. Petraeus commanded the 101st Airborne during a tour in Iraq in 2003. He managed the most successful integration of the military in Iraq society. Petraeus rejected the prevailing military view that the Iraqis were terrorists who needed to be pacified. Instead he made the focus of his attention living among the Iraqis and struggling to see the world fro their point of view. Petraeus enjoyed startling successes in 2003.

Petraeus reflects a change in two significant ways. The military must view appointment to the Iraq theater as a necessary step in a career path. This ensures that he best and the brightest seek a tour there. Otherwise, the military culture will write off the Iraq war and focus attention elsewhere. Second, the military and the White House needs to stop seeing Iraqis as the enemy.

The problem, of course, remains that the appointment, while amounting to a significant change in military orientation, comes far to late to matter. US Military commitment can no longer make much difference in Iraq. We have proved incapable of separating the parties vying for power, for revenge, for chaos, for world view. We never made any attempt to understand the Middle East before entering Iraq. The President had to have the various religious sects explained to him, well after he ordered bombing to begin.

The Shia/Sunni divide hardly needs US troops for targets. The struggle in the Middle East for dominance started coming apart at the seams (again) soon after the rise to power of a Shiite government in Iran, after the fall of Reza Shah in 1979. The US felt the tremors first in the kidnapping of Americans from the embassy.

Any settlement of violence in Iraq, and the avoiding of spreading further in Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan, lays in resolving this timeless rift in Islam. Something America is uniquely unqualified to do. A beginning must be made and that means negotiating with Iran. We may have little to say to one another, but we must begin.

Another positive note may be appointment to the UN of Zalmay Khalilzad.