War on Terrorism

Representing America

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Mark Danner writes in the New York Review of Books:

What is clear is that the Abu Ghraib photographs and the terrible story they tell have done great damage to what was left of America’s moral power in the world, and thus its power to inspire hope rather than hatred among Muslims. The photographs “do not represent America,” or so the President asserts, and we nod our heads and agree. But what exactly does this mean?
I agree that the photographs do not represent America but what has become abundantly clear is that the photographs do represent the bush administration (article is from the Wall Street Journal ($)):
Bush administration lawyers contended last year that the president wasn’t bound by laws prohibiting torture and that government agents who might torture prisoners at his direction couldn’t be prosecuted by the Justice Department.
For more details see Bilmon, Phillip Carter, and Kevin Drum who states the issue clearly:
The United States has fought many wars over the past half century, and in each of them our causes were just as important as today’s, information from prisoners would have been just as helpful, and we were every bit as determined to win as we are now. But we still didn’t authorize torture of prisoners. FDR, Truman, Eisenhower, LBJ, Reagan � all of them knew it wasn’t right, and the rest of us knew it as well.
So what’s different this time? Only one thing: the name of the man in the White House. Under this administration, we seem to have lost the simple level of moral clarity that allowed our predecessors to tell right from wrong.
Do we really have to wait for an election to toss these people out of office?
That congress has not initiated action to do so suggests that a majority of these folks have also lost their moral compass and should be booted out as well.

rumsfeld tells it like it is

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rumsfeld says:

The troubling unknown, he said, is whether the extremists — whom he termed ”zealots and despots” bent on destroying the global system of nation-states — are turning out newly trained terrorists faster than the United States can capture or kill them.
”It’s quite clear to me that we do not have a coherent approach to this,” Rumsfeld said at an international security conference.
His remarks showed a level of concern about the long-term direction of the U.S.-led global fight against terrorism that Rumsfeld rarely addresses in public.
His remarks also elicited commentary:
Digby:
Should we put this quote on every campaign web-site, bumper sticker and campaign commercial going forward?
Heavens, yes.
The Poor Man:
The Bush Administration appears to be in the grips of irrational Bush-hatred
Brad Delong:
If even Donald Rumsfeld believes that Al Qaeda is growing stronger, who is left to defend the Bush administration’s conduct of the War on Terror?
Oliver Willis
The Failure Of Donald Rumsfeld
I can’t believe he said this.
Rumsfeld fears U.S. losing long-term fight against terror
Pessimist at The Left Coaster at the end of a long commentary:
It’s time for another regime change. Here in the United States of America. This November if not sooner.
Stageleft:
An interesting phrase given who he works for….. anything less than complete confidence and unswerving loyalty to the administration line isn’t high on the top 10 list of ways to get yourself invited to a certain ranch in Texas.
Yep, rummie should have resigned when he had the chance.

Iraq Occupation to End!

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This administration works very hard to get their preferred spin on what they consider to be their issues. And now, as noted by the NPR folks after the speech both bush in the speech and other administration officials over the last several weeks have been acknowledging that the liberators have now become the occupiers.
What the NPR folks did not comment on is that we now know when the occupation will end! bush told us:

The first of these steps will occur next month, when our coalition will transfer full sovereignty to a government of Iraqi citizens who will prepare the way for national elections. On June 30th, the Coalition Provisional Authority will cease to exist, and will not be replaced. The occupation will end, and Iraqis will govern their own affairs. (emphasis added)

There you have it. But, he then goes on to say that US troops will remain in Iraq.
It all seems to be games with words and for this administration that means it is all about politics and relection and suggests the following:
First, and likely the bush expectation, is that starting on July 1 the bush election campaign administration will tell us that our troops are the invited guests of the new puppet oversight authority (it is hard to call something not created by the Iraqis a government). Nothing meaningful will have changed but the administration will try to sell the ongoing occupation as not owned by bush and hope that the American people will not see through the semantic shenanigans.
The second scenario is that the new oversight authority tells the occupiers to get out(and do not think that the puppets will make this decision on their own). This could happen as an alternative to the first scenario or as a follow on.
Rove and company will be waving their wet fingers in the wind to decide when the second option will play best with the largest chunk of likely voters. They will trade their hard core war supporters for a victory in November if necessary…and all under the guise of they told us to leave.
We now know the reason the administration has been so focused on June 30. They believe that they will be able to deflect criticsim and blame for staying in Iraq, departing Iraq, killing civilians by saying that all they do is at the request of the Iraqi interim authority.
The main plan bush gave the American people was one to cover his tracks.

Tonight”s Speech

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I wonder how bush will explain this in his talk tonight. Somehow it just doesn’t seem like stay the course will suffice.
Jack K at Ruminate This rightfully argues that if it hasn’t been happening then this should be happening:

…people way deep down into the Pentagon chain of command would be having the experience of having to explain to the Commander in Chief, without benefit of squaring stories or prior practice, just how the hell it is…
that this happened.
If this is in fact the wedding party it appears to be there is, of course, no acceptable excuse for the attack.