US Foreign Policy

presidential Prevarication

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Josh Marshall in his article The Post-Modern President, Washington Monthly September 2003, discusses presidential deception and has this to say about the bush administration:

Bush and his administration, however, specialize in a particular form of deception: The confidently expressed, but currently undisprovable assertion.

They may be slipping though. Rice and Rumsfeld have been arguing that our occupation experience in Iraq is similar to post war Germany. Their problem, though, is that the post war Germany experience is verifiable and as this Slate article asks:

So, how did this fanciful version of the American experience in postwar Germany get into the remarks of a Princeton graduate and former trustee of Stanford’s Hoover Institute (Rumsfeld) and the former provost of Stanford and co-author of an acclaimed book on German unification (Rice)? Perhaps the British have some intelligence on the matter that still has not been made public. Of course, as the president himself has noted, there is a lot of revisionist history going around.

I think the pressure getting to be too much for them and we are starting to see major cracks in the administration facade. If this is indeed the case we are likely to see increasingly drastic and dangerous maneuvers on the part of the bushies as they struggle to maintain power.
Via Walter at idols of the marketplace.

fuzzy words drive fuzzy policy

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When looking for the answer to a complex problem it is often the simplest that provides the most clarity. Eugene Oregon, responding to a Postrel post, provides a pretty simple answer to why the US invaded Iraq:

Thus, the simplest explanation for why we started this war is because the neo-cons wanted to. And September 11th just gave them a convenient excuse to do so.

While he is probably correct about why we started the war Eugene does not really address the question that Postrel

But Bush’s vagueness is maddening to people who are paying attention and confusing to people who aren’t.

and Josh Marshall are talking about:

But the White House is being run by men and women who’ve already made a lot of really stupid mistakes that are going to cost a lot of American lives, money and credibility. And now they’re trying to hide from accountability in their own idiot abstractions.

Not only can they hide from accountability but they can also forge ahead with their agenda for as long as they are able to fool enough people with fuzziness. If there is no tangible enemy there does not have to be a tangible end to the fight and this may be exactly what the bushies want.

Retired Thugs

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Amy, at The Fifty Minute Hour, asks why thugs like Idi Amin live out a cush life instead of spending it spread out on a hill of fire ants(my words, not hers):

The current theory among many Ugandans is that there’s a Muslim conspiracy to protect dictators afoot:

“Why no extradition and trial? One Ugandan theory argues that the Saudis simply will not let an African Muslim potentate be toppled, tried and convicted by a predominantly Christian African state. That’s an argument loaded with religious and ethnic explosives, too hot and politically incorrect to touch. However, East Africans I know believe it. Post 9-11, it may not seem so outlandish.”

The argument, true or not, raises an obvious question. Why is the international community willing to bow to the will of Saudi Arabia on the issue of human rights in Africa? The Saudis certainly have an opinion as to what should happen to dictators like Amin, but why does their view prevail?

Read her interesting answers here. Andrew Case, in the comment thread, suggests what I think may often be the answer: the unbothered retirement was the payoff for the thug(s) to step down.

Foreign Media Reaction Site

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The Department of State has an interesting and potentially useful site called Foreiegn Media Reaction:

Each business day, the U.S. Department of State’s Office of Research produces an Issue Focus of foreign media commentary on a major foreign policy issue or related event. These reports provide a global round-up of editorials and op-ed commentary from major newspapers, magazines and broadcast media around the world. Following a one-page analysis of the commentary, readers will find block quotes sorted by geographic region and country.

Each report has 3 sections: Key Findings, Major Themes and Editorial Excerpts and not unexpectedly seems to have an administration bias (sample size is 2).
The most recent report is titled MIDDLE EAST: IRAQ SIGNALS NEED FOR ‘DEMOCRATIC REFORMS and has these key findings:

** Kuwaiti and non-Arab writers assailed the Arab League for rejecting the Iraq Governing Council, a “body that is the most representative Iraq has ever known.”
** Other Arab papers declared they are “eagerly awaiting a legitimate government” in Baghdad.
** The American occupation could result in “possible geopolitical changes” in the Arab world.
** Critics dismissed U.S. attempts at “open infiltration of the Arab media.”

The bad news is that there are no links in the Editorial Excerpts section though I assume that a lot of this material has been translated.
Thanks to Brett Marston for the pointer.