All Alone in the Night

Have you heard the latest from Baghdad? Probably not, since it hasn't been bad enough of late. Here we are, a couple weeks into the "surge," which at this point is a primarily Iraqi operation (we only have an additional brigade on the ground so far), and the current reports indicate that we are having an effect.

First, the number of attacks is down by nearly 50%. This is significant, although the nay sayers will complain that there are still attacks happening. Yes, we have not yet eliminated the insurgency, but we weren't really expecting to, especially not in just a couple weeks. However, it is clearly becoming much more difficult for insurgents to operate in the city - many of the attacks that have been reported so far have occurred at Iraqi Army or Police checkpoints, when vehicles or individuals have been stopped for inspections. Deprived of the soft, spectacular targets they hoped for (markets, schools, etc.), the insurgents have chosen to kill themselves in the hopes of at least taking a couple of Iraqi soldiers with them - not exactly a winning strategy for the insurgents, as they depend on the spectacular attacks for their media efforts.

Second, as Omar at Iraq the Model reports, the populace of Baghdad is responding to the operation. Displaced families are returning to their homes, mosques are reopening or being returned to their original owners, some Sunni and Shia congregations are holding joint services - generally, the people seem hopeful about the success of the operation, and the fact that Iraqi and American troops are demonstrating that they intend to stay in the city, rather than withdrawing to secure bases outside it, has generated a huge increase in the number of anonymous tips about insurgent hideouts.

Oh, and the round up of the Mahdi Army continues, with nearly 500 arrested so far. Seems their will to fight has lessened significantly since their leader took an extended vacation...

Of course, its still too early to call this one. The major problem with counter-insurgency warfare is that it takes a long time. To quote the Army's new manual on the subject, the average time it takes to win this type of fight is 12 to 13 years. But it only takes 9 to lose it - people just give up and let the enemy win in the end.

So the hard part, really, is sustaining our will to fight. The current operation in Baghdad is a good start, and I'm sure Gen. Petreaus will build on it if it should continue to be fruitful.

You never want to be the only person still standing when the music stops, and it appears that Major General George W. Weightman found himself in that position yesterday. As those who have been following the news are doubtless aware, MG Weightman was the commander of the Army's Walter Reed Medical Center, which has recently been in the news due to some abysmal conditions there for soldiers convalescing after being wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan.

But MG Weightman appears to have been only the latest in a long line of commanders who failed to take care of the troops in their care, and Lieutenant General Kevin C. Kiley already has served as commander of WRMC and did nothing of note to deal with these problems in the past. He may fix them now that they're news, but firing Weightman while keeping Kiley on sends an interesting message to generals: it's ok to screw your troops, as long as nobody finds out about it.

Relief has been a measure long lacking in this war. In the United States' successful wars, commanders have been relieved regularly. Abraham Lincoln went through six commanders of the Army of the Potomac until he settled on Grant (although Meade actually retained command of the Army through the end of the war). Commanders at all levels were fired if they couldn't get the job done during World War II. Under those circumstances, the situation in Iraq would surely have led to generals being relieved, yet instead the first general to lose his job is one who commands a stateside hospital.

This is what tends to give the lie to claims that the Iraq war holds some unique importance for us. If it really mattered, we would be willing to go to far greater lengths to fight it. Instead we have shuffled along with half-measures and, while I do hope that the surge does work, if we do succeed in Iraq it will be despite, not because of our leadership.

(And I realize this is a short entry, but I'm on vacation, so don't expect much for the next few days at least.)

Guess what - this isn't about Iraq (more on that another time). Today's topic is what's going on right here in America.

I drive about an hour to get to work each day, and the same to get home again, and in that time on the road I tend to think a great deal about my fellow Americans. Generally, I'm thinking what lousy drivers they are, but also, I wonder why everyone seems so rude these days.

Have you noticed that? Look at the guy who refuses to yield to the car coming up the onramp, even though traffic is at a standstill, and it wouldn't cost him anything. Or the driver who passes you in the no passing zone so he can get to the traffic light one car length ahead of you. What's up with these people?

It goes beyond the roads as well. Ever use a public restroom? I sincerely doubt that any of the people who trashed some of the ones I've been in do the same thing in their own home - so why do they feel its acceptable to do it in a public bathroom?

I could go on here, but I think you get the idea. What I still ponder is, why? If you look back in history, say a hundred years ago, society was much more polite. Even as late as the 30's and 40's, there were accepted norms of behavior for people in public. But somewhere in the last 60 years or so, all of that went out of fashion it seems. Now its all about "me," and people don't seem to care about how their actions affect others, or the consequences to themselves when these things come back to them (how many times have I seen a driver shouting in anger at someone who just cut him off, 30 seconds after he did the exact same thing to someone else?).

I get very concerned for our society, and America in general, when I think about this. A nation of self-centered people is not a strong one, certainly. I fear that we are the victims of our own success - our nation has historically been very secure, prosperous and forgiving, and so people have become spoiled. There is little incentive for them to think of others, only of themselves.

My greatest fear is that the only thing that might reverse this trend is a true disaster, something worse than Sept. 11th. And I wonder if we can survive anything of that magnitude as a nation and a people.

OK, after a few weeks of vacation time, I have returned, so once I get oriented to the news again, we'll start seeing regular posting again. Then I just need to goose Mr. Garibaldi and we should be back on track. Thanks for your patience.

That's politics for you. Lying to a grand jury or stealing classified documents is no big deal as long as you have that all-important D after your name, but God help you if you have the temerity to do something like that as a Republican. So I. Lewis 'Scooter' Libby discovered this past week when he was convicted of lying to a grand jury about his role in the infamous Plame Affair.

I have little sympathy for Mr. Libby. Republicans were once expected to be the party that placed national security above partisan politics, though that reputation was doubtless markedly overstated, to be charitable. It seems pretty clear that no laws were broken in revealing that Valerie Plame was the reason Joe Wilson made his tea-drinking trip to Niger, but despite that, Plame's decision to involve herself in partisan politics did not make it appropriate for the White House to expose her, because her work as a covert operative could well be damaged even if she hasn't been covert for years. Spies are often discovered by making connections, and anyone Plame recruited became an obvious target for their nation's counterintelligence agencies once her identity was broached. The White House was wrong to do what they did, and they deserved to get clobbered in the media and at the polls for it. But listening to people who cheer when classified information is leaked that damages the administration suddenly discover a concern for national security when that too could hurt the administration was a bit difficult to stomach, and I confess I was somewhat concerned that a lot of leftists may have hurt themselves performing such a sharp turnaround.

Where was this concern when Sandy Berger decided to sneak classified documents out of the National Archives and then destroy them? He got off with a fine, a slap on the wrist, having ensured that any history of the Clinton administration now will be missing who-knows-what data about their anti-terrorism efforts. I do not subscribe to the theory that Berger was destroying information that would have been harmful to the Clinton administration, but his actions have ensured that we will never know for sure. Was his crime worse than Libby's? What harm accrued because Libby lied to a grand jury about a matter in which no crime was committed? I seem to recall a lot of people complaining about President Clinton's impeachment over perjury; after all, he only lied about sex, right? Of course, his lies were arguably more self-serving than Libby's, as Clinton would eventually settled Paula Jones' lawsuit to the tune of $850,000 (and it is not hard to visualize how differently that entire episode would have played out had Clinton borne the scarlet 'R').

We have come to a time in our history where there are two separate systems of justice, one for Democrats and one for Republicans. (OK, really there's four: Democrats, Republicans, rich people and the rest of us. Guess where most convictions come from.) It seems not too much of a stretch to suggest that this might be a bad thing. President Bush and his administration have already demonstrated the lengths they are willing to go in order to try and cement their hold on power. How much further might Democrats be willing to go when they can rest easy with the knowledge they won't even have to fear serious prosecution?

Jumping off from Zathras' article regarding the dearth of civility in contemporary America, I'd like to add a few thoughts of my own regarding the direction America is moving in.

As I noted in our first entry here, we may be standing at the door of a sea change in world history. The 20th century was indisputably the American century, ushered in by Teddy Roosevelt and the Great White Fleet, punctuated by the United States' balance-tipping entry into the First World War and America's central role in the century's second war to end all wars, and cemented with the decline of the Soviet Union and the emergence of the sole superpower. But the world is a dynamic place. Where America stood at the dawn of the 21st century, while differing in scope, was not all that different from where Greece and Rome and Britain stood at earlier times in human history. And each of those nations, in their turn, saw their influence ebb or disappear completely. While that does not mean that it is certain that America will follow a similar course, such an end does not seem implausible, either.

Sole powers are rarely popular, and with good reason. No matter how benign a hyperpower may wish to be, it will fail and its failures will generate resentment. Europe dislikes the U.S., among other reasons, because it is a painful reminder that Europe's time of world dominance has passed. Much of the Islamic world despises the U.S. because its culture undermines the foundations of their belief system. The Arab world hates the U.S. for its support of Israel and its perceived role in keeping the Palestinians subjugated. South America dislikes the U.S.'s historical penchant for interfering in their affairs. In many of these cases the U.S. can defend itself. The U.S. can hardly be blamed if other nations like American culture, for example, and the U.S. did not cause Europe to lose its relative influence over the rest of the globe. And when the U.S. has interfered overseas, it claims to do so for the best of reasons: good intentions. Such intentions are cold consolation for people whose families have been uprooted or killed in wars financed by American dollars, however, and many good intentions have ended in situations akin to what we now see in Iraq, where 26 million Iraqis live lives flavored with omnipresent fears of where and when the next bomb will explode.

Nor would isolationism solve America's problems, although it might well do less harm than America's current course. When nations are not cursing the United States for its interference, they are complaining that the U.S. is failing by not getting involved in some project or other; witness the common complaint held by many that the U.S. is at once wrong to be in Iraq and not to be in Darfur. The fact the United States possesses such great power relative to the rest of the globe means that people will generally want to see that power put to use for their pet causes. Recall Madeleine Albright's famous complaint of Colin Powell: what good is a great military if you can't use it? America's possession of a good military has led it into no small number of cases where it has chosen to rely on military force because it could. As a wise man once observed, when you're good with a hammer, every problem tends to look like a nail to you. So it is with American power: because it exists, people are going to want to see it used to further their own ends.

Add to this the changes that have reshaped American society over the past century. America was founded on the ideal of a place where people could come and be and do as they pleased. If you didn't like where you were, you could light out for the territories and live as you chose. The frontier closed down in the late nineteenth century, and American society had to change to deal with that. There was some degree of consensus for the first half of the century, albeit a consensus maintained primarily by the exclusion of nonwhites and females from power in almost every field. As other Americans were finally permitted to pursue that original American dream and more and more people shifted from relatively independent farms to cities where specialization and cooperation were required to survive, the consensus view of what America was or should be began to dissolve, and nothing has yet emerged to replace that.

Americans today are increasingly Americans only as an accident of geography. Even on September 11, 2001, when most Americans pulled together, if only briefly, in the wake of those attacks against them, filmmaker Michael Moore was asking why the terrorists had struck New York when New York was opposed to President Bush. In his logic, the ties that bound New Yorkers to the rest of the country were less important than their differences, and the terrorists should have realized that. Moore exists towards the extreme end of the spectrum, but his thinking is not irrational. Politically, the United States in many ways has split into two disparate nations (a tremendous oversimplification, of course, but bear with me) as we can see here.

There remain points where we are all generally in agreement, but do they truly bind us together as Americans? In 2000 and 2004, leftists threatened to flee the country if the Republicans won, although few actually were willing to go that far. Right wingers seem less predisposed to that type of threat, but the rhetoric leading up to the 2006 elections was redolent with claims that voting Democratic was tantamount to handing the U.S. over to Osama bin Laden, a vicious claim that certainly implied that the Democrats were not fit to defend the country from its enemies, whether willfully or not. For a republic to survive in the long term, its citizens need to be confident that the system works; that whoever the electorate chooses to represent it, that person will be (on average) reasonably competent and will do a decent if not inspiring job. If enough people believe that is unlikely to happen, they will consider other methods to accomplish that goal. If enough Republicans and Democrats believe that the other party will produce leaders that will damage the country (and President Bush has done a great deal to justify that belief for Democrats), they will seek ways to ensure that those candidates cannot reach office. This is the justification for much of the electoral fraud seen around the world: the other guy would be a disaster, so it's ok to break the rules to make sure he doesn't get elected. It is a significant leap to decide that it is also ok to resort to violence to prevent such occurences, but that is merely a difference in scale once the decision it's ok to break the rules has been made.

America is not at that point yet. Despite President Bush's victory in 2004, the Democrats did not flee the country en masse. I am aware of no attempts to kill Nancy Pelosi or Harry Reid to derail the Democrats from pursuing their political agenda now that they are in the majority. Nor can I say with any certainty that this is necessarily going to change.

Despite that, I wonder just how long habit will out. Different parts of the country are growing less alike as time goes by. Having lived in many parts of America, I can attest that life is very different in different regions. American culture still exists, but it is a backdrop to the dominant culture in those areas, and it does not seem implausible that the people of America will grow further apart with time as those cultures continue to develop. As the federal government continues to grow in power, will there come a day when some subordinate elements of America decide that they no longer wish to have their lives controlled by distant populations with little chance for the locals to control their own destiny.

We have seen this before, of course. The American South broke away from the union in 1861 because they feared (probably rightly) that the federal government would force emancipation on them. That schism led to the greatest conflict yet fought in the western hemisphere, and the bloodiest conflict the United States has yet suffered. A future attempt to break away from the federal government might lead to the same thing, a far deadlier concept in an era when weapons far outstrip the destructive capabilities available from 1861-1865. Any such breakup, therefore, would need to be amicable if it were not to risk horrific devastation. Unfortunately, habit and fear of change would be likely to defeat any amicable moves towards separation; it would likely only occur if one side felt that it was the only option, and would then almost certainly lead to the federal government attempting to put it down violently once again.

Yet there is something perversely tempting about the idea of breaking the United States into a number of smaller states. Unlike 1861, there is no great moral issue that would be exacerbated by separation. Geography would ensure a great degree of cooperation among the new nations, which would probably retain some European Union-style agreements that would still allow people to travel without passports or undue paperwork. Smaller nations would allow people a greater degree of say in how their government ran. And an American military divided into four to six separate forces would no longer present such a tempting stick for leaders seeking to impose their preferences on faraway places, but would still be easily integrated if necessary for a truly defensive requirement.

I have no illusions about the likelihood of this occurring. American history has been one of greater centralized authority almost since the day the Constitution was adopted. I see little reason to expect that to change without a major upheaval. Which leaves unanswered the question of what may happen when that central authority does something people decide goes too far, an occurrence that is a matter of when, not if.

This is the kind of thing that just makes me want to give up any hope of the possibility for rational discourse in the blogosphere. Hilzoy points to claims in Salon that the Army is sending medically unfit soldiers back to Iraq. She posts a large quote from the article and then asks why the Army is doing such a thing. The very first commenter posts a link to The Questionable Authority that reviews the claims (actually taking the time to look at what both sides said) and that notes correctly that no Army commander would intentionally bring a soldier to Iraq if the soldier wasn't medically fit. In the ten comments that follow, not one notes the link or questions for a second that Salon's claim might not be accurate.

We all have our prejudices and biases, and those affect how we see things and weigh evidence. And if there is one thing I have learned in observing the blogosphere, it is that the supply of people who can set aside their biases even for a few moments is vanishingly small. The Salon article confirmed something that the left wants to believe, and so it is, in the lexicon of the media, too good to check. The left already knows that ChimpyMcBushCoHalliburton is evil and are in the process of destroying the world. When a story comes out that backs that up, contrary evidence can be safely ignored.

Of course, when your assessment of data is predicated on what your political beliefs are, the odds of your coming to any common ground with opponents is pretty close to zero. (For those who think this is just a problem on the left, check out Conservapedia.) To throw out a simple example, consider the treatment of Clarence Thomas and Bill Clinton in the 1990s. Both were accused of sexual harrassment by subordinates many years after the alleged harrassment occurred. Neither had any evidence of their careers having been harmed by the alleged harrassment. Both were media sensations. I'll wager that you can discern most people's political beliefs with one simple question: who do they think was lying, Anita Hill, or Paula Jones? When Anita Hill came forward, the left assured America that women don't lie about things like sexual harrassment, that sexual harrassment was a horrific crime that merited harsh punishment, and there was little doubt among lefties that Hill was scrupulously honest. The right was far more skeptical. A few years later when Jones came forward, the left turned on a dime and explained that Jones was just trailer trash seeking publicity and even if what she said was true, there was no evidence she suffered any harm. Conversely the same righties who were skeptical of Hill suddenly saw in Jones the truth, doubtless because she provided them with ammunition with which to batter the Clinton administration.

The facts don't matter any more in political discourse. Whether the issue is global warming, terrorism, health care, you name it, facts will not decide the arguments. What decides arguments is who can shout the other side down. The left isn't going to listen to the right, and the right isn't going to listen to the left, and both sides will moan and complain about why the other side doesn't understand why they're wrong while never conceding the possibility they might be wrong. And the blogosphere will continue to devolve into two separate warring camps, a (hopefully) more extreme version of American society.

Update: I should note that I have no idea what the facts are in this case. It seems implausible to me that any unit would want to take medically unfit soldiers with them into combat, but without further investigation I see no way of knowing where the truth lies. My objection is simply to those who seize on initial reports to bolster something they already believe with little to no regard for the facts.

It is time to address some serious problems with the U.S. military. With the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan having uncertain horizons and the potential need for an effective and deadly military for future conflicts always present, the United States cannot afford to have a military force that is not as close as possible to the top of its game. Chronic issues can no longer be permitted to fester under the surface, as they are simply doing too much damage to the force and undermining the military's ability to accomplish the missions set before it.

I am referring to how the military handles women. As the volunteer force as evolved since its inception, women have played a more and more important role in America's military. The U.S. military long since passed the point where it could operate without women, in fact, which is one of the reasons so many more women are ending up with combat experience, as well as the nature of the Iraq war. This importance has not been accompanied with a cultural shift in the military, however, and this is the problem.

Many male soldiers are decent, upright, honorable men who treat their female comrades with the respect they merit as soldiers. That still leaves plenty of male soldiers who treat women improperly, ranging from relatively mild failings like making the occasional inappropriate remark up to sustained sexual harrassment and in extreme cases, rape and sexual assault. These problems are exacerbated by predominantly male commanders who often simply don't recognize the severity of them or who are sexist themselves and therefore dismiss the complaints of female soldiers. The end result is a military culture that can be exceptionally unwelcoming to women, a result which often drives qualified women out of the service, something the military cannot afford at a time when it needs the best available people filling its ranks.

There will always be some friction between male and female soldiers. The military brings together young people who are often single, puts them into stressful situations, and acts surprised when sex enters the picture. It then exacerbates the problem by laying down one-size-fits all rules and doing very little to educate its leadership about the problems they are likely to face and the right ways to deal with them.

While I won't pretend to know how to solve all of these problems, I think the one thing the military needs to do beyond anything else is to start taking the issue seriously by holding commanders' feet to the fire. This should involve two avenues. First, leader education should involve training in dealing with the problems mixed-sex units are likely to face and how to deal with them, with particular emphasis given to helping men understand just what female soldiers are dealing with. The military tends to be a place where you are expected to deal with problems on your own if at all possible, which often leads to female soldiers keeping their problems to themselves or not being treated seriously if they do raise a stink because there is a perception of weakness. Add to that the fact men just aren't well equipped to comprehend the world women live in and some detailed education would go some distance in helping commanders to nip sexual harrassment problems in the bud.

That won't be enough, because too many senior personnel came up in the old school, where women aren't supposed to be in the military unless they're tough enough to take it as it is. That attitude discourages women from reporting problems, and encourages men who should know better that they can get away with inappropriate activities. Solving the problem is going to require a cultural change that needs to start with commanders making it clear that female soldiers will be treated as soldiers, and making it stick.

Doing this won't be easy. It will require the input of the female leadership at all levels to make sure that the education given to commanders and soldiers alike covers the proper topics. Male soldiers need to understand what is inappropriate and why while still understanding that female soldiers are no less tough than the men. Male soldiers should be able to avoid sexually harrassing females without getting the idea in their heads that female soldiers are therefore somehow less capable. It will be a difficult road that will require significant changes in thinking at all levels, and adjustments will have to be made as the culture shifts. But it is absolutely necessary if the military is to become what America needs it to be. No organization can be world-class if it systematically excludes half of the available population, and while military leaders know this in their heads, until their actions match their words, the U.S. military will not be all it can be.

There has of course been a great deal of controversy over the last several days concerning the comments of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Marine General Peter Pace, concerning homosexuals in the military. The purpose of this post is not to expound my views on this topic, but to ask our readers this: why did General Pace decide to make these comments now?

It is a reasonable assumption that General Pace is an intelligent and very media-aware individual, given his education, assignments and experience. It would be very difficult for anyone to convince me that he didn't think his comments would cause this sort of reaction. So why did he do it? Why these comments, now?

Simple misdirection? Could be. Between this and the pursuit of the Adjutant General, I certainly haven't seen anything about the troop surge on the news in the last few days. One might actually believe from the press that there haven't been any bombings or attacks. Or is there something deeper?

My campaign is a disaster, Moe. I hate the public so much! If only they'd elect me. I'd make 'em pay! Aw, Moe, how do I make 'em like me?

Homer Simpson, "Trash of the Titans"

Among the myriad offenses committed by Karl Rove, of whom I expect someone on the left will claim causes tooth decay and cancer before the end of 2008, is that he has polarized the electorate. Before Rove, goes the narrative, the citizens of the U.S. existed in peaceful harmony, presumably singing on a hill somewhere while sipping Coca-Cola. When President Bush came to power, Rove advised him that the middle was barren of voters and the base was where votes could be found, and Bush governed on that assumption, throwing bipartisanship to the wolves. And so the Democrats were reluctantly forced into opposition because the evil Rove would not permit them any role in government.

That narrative is powerful in no small part because there's some truth in it. As a cynic once observed, the best way to get people to swallow a big lie is to wrap it in a kernel of truth, and the ratio of lie to truth is much better in this case. While the Bush administration did make some bipartisan moves early in the first term (No Child Left Behind is likely the best example), that tendency disappeared fast and was nowhere in evidence in the aftermath of September 11, 2001, when the President appears to have made little effort to bring the Democrats into the planning process in either Afghanistan or Iraq, and little appears to have changed up until the Democratic victory in the 2006 elections which have required Bush to shift gears.

But is it possible that Rove was right? Over at Obsidian Wings, a site that is at least theoretically devoted to conversation across party lines, the conversation regarding presidential candidate and New York Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton has produced the following gems:

if she gets the nomination we will all vote for her because, well, have you seen any those repub candidates? Arg!

Not only vote for her, but work tirelessly to get her elected.

I should add: of course I will support her over any GOP candidate now running, because I think she'd make a better President than any of them. (Good Lord, what a weak field.)

So, to sum up, HRC is a bad candidate and we don't want her, but we'd vote for Genghis Khan before marking a ballot next to a Republican candidate's name. Exaggeration? Only because Khan won't be running for president on any slate. Those people aren't going to vote Republican for president, period. Which is their business. But it rings a trifle hollow when they then complain that the Republicans don't seem interested in listening to their opinions. Why on Earth would they?

President Bush has expanded federal involvement in education like no other President in history and is responsible for the biggest new entitlement program since the Great Society, and Democrats still hate him. Oh, those programs aren't any good, they complain, demonstrating a shocking lack of foresight. Whether the programs are good or not, Bush has established the federal role for both of them, and if there's one thing we've learned about the federal government it is that it never lets go of anything once it has sunk its teeth into it. So the merits of the programs Bush has instituted, while important, pale in comparison to his having brought the federal government into those areas. Had a Democratic president tried either of those moves, Republicans would have fought him tooth and nail. Now those programs are locked in, and the Democrats can 'fix' them at their leisure. Regardless of Bush's actions overseas, Democrats ought to be on their knees worshipping him for giving them two openings they might never have gotten on their own.

Instead we have nominally thinking people pretty much demonstrating Rove's thesis: their votes are decided long before the first primary ballot is cast. Which means there is absolutely no electoral reason for Republicans (or Democrats, for that matter; if it seems like I'm picking on the Democrats, that's only because I'd rather wade through Obsidian Wings' comments section than RedState's; certainly President Bush's attacks on Democrats who supported the Iraq war in 2002 demonstrates the principle as well) to compromise with Democrats, because there aren't any votes to be had there. And in the modern era of American politics, where getting elected is far more important than doing anything once you are, that carries a lot of weight.

This does not actually mean Karl Rove was correct in his thesis. Whatever its stated purpose, Obsidian Wings is dominated by Democrats, not centrists, and even in an ideal world it would be ridiculous to expect registered Democrats to vote Republican save in unusual situations. There may, in fact, be a reservoir of centrist voters who are looking for candidates who are more interested in doing what's right than ensuring their reelection. American voting results, however, don't provide much support for that thesis. And so we careen merrily along, two separate peoples forced to live together via an accident of geography.

My earlier post about changing how the military treats women included a link to a Salon article about women and war. While much of the article is good, it does include a claim by Janis Karpinski, a former general who was in command at Abu Ghraib when many of the worst abuses there were committed, that female soldiers were dying of dehydration in Iraq because they were afraid to use the latrines. Like every other word that passes Karpinski's lips, that's a lie, and Mike Dunford at The Questionable Authority has the goods on this one.

That doesn't take away from my piece, nor the rest of the Salon article's accounts of some of the many problems female soldiers face, but I would rather chew my own foot off than even suggest Karpinski might be in any way, shape, or form credible, as I noted in an earlier comment.

One of the primary complaints I've seen raised against Hillary Rodham Clinton as she pursues the Democratic nomination for president is that she appears to have no center of beliefs. Similar to complaints made against her husband, she is said to be strictly poll-driven, and therefore is not a good choice for president. Yet her interview in the New York Times this morning seems to thoroughly dispel that notion.

In the interview Clinton says that as president she would maintain a smaller garrison of U.S. troops in Iraq to deter Iran, protect the Kurds, and go after al Qaeda. That hardly seems like a response calculated to pull in votes. The Democrats are looking for a candidate who will get the troops out of Iraq the day after they're inaugurated, if not sooner. If Clinton were simply looking to maximize her chances for getting the nomination, she'd steer far clear of any hint she'd keep troops in Iraq any longer than absolutely necessary. Nor does saying she'd keep troops in Iraq necessarily help her in the general election, as most Americans either want the U.S. to do what's necessary to win in Iraq or get out, not steer some middle course that leaves U.S. troops still coming home in boxes without fixing the problem.

In point of fact, Clinton's response is one of the most realistic I've read from a presidential candidate in some time. Most candidates offer weasel words and lies; consider how many candidates have promised to move the U.S. embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, for example. Then when they get into office, reality intrudes and U.S. foreign policy goes on generally unchanged. (This, btw, is why I chuckle when people claim we wouldn't be Iraq right now if Al Gore had won in 2000. History shows us that predicting what a person will do as President by their actions as a private citizen is a fool's game. How many Confederates assumed that Abe Lincoln wouldn't go to war over secession based on his virulently antiwar credentials until 1860?) The standard answer I'd expect from most candidates would have been either some variation of 'we'll have to weigh the situation as it stands when I take office' or some red meat to the base. Clinton deserves a great deal of credit for offering an answer that, while it certainly wouldn't be precisely what she'd do if she won, would probably at least be a beginning point for a realistic policy.

On a related note, one of the quotes in the Obsidian Wings thread I noted yesterday argued:

Your thoughts on Clinton echo mine. The attacks on her in the left blogosphere for being Republican, a warmongerer, evil triangulator, etc. are patently silly. At the same time she obviously lacks political guts. There's a time to compromise and evade in politics, and there's a time to take a bold stand. She's taken no bold stances whatsover since getting burnt in 1994. She'd be a good caretaker president and do the political equivalent of making the trains run on time. But she wouldn't do anything important or historical, and after the Bush years we have both need and opportunity to get some big stuff done. Obama and Edwards both have strategies to make a difference - Obama attacks the divisiveness the Bushites need to prevent real reform and Edwards is working for a mandate for a lot of specific policies.

From where I sit, if true, that's a feature, not a bug. Presidents who want to do things that are 'important or historical' tend to make shoddy leaders, because they're too busy trying to make history to worry about the effects their policies may actually have. Need I point any further than the current occupant of the Oval Office to note what can happen with Presidents worried about making their mark? Personally, I could go for a nice run of caretaker presidents who didn't do anything big and who preside over several decades of peace and prosperity. I don't know if HRC is really in that mold, but if so, she'd make a better President than either Obama or Edwards.

I will be off the station for the foreseeable future, as events on Narn require my presence. Thanks to the Centauri, internet access on Narn is intermittent at best, so I may not be particularly active or responsive to comments on my posts. I am confident that the rest of the staff will pick up the pace in my absence, however.

Dan Froomkin rightly points out that the President is not entirely correct in his claims that the enemy will follow the U.S. home if it withdraws from Iraq. Certainly very few, if any, of the enemies the U.S. currently faces in Iraq will turn their attention to attacking the United States once the U.S. leaves. It's possible a few members of Al Qaeda in Iraq may try to do so, but the vast majority of those fighting the United States in Iraq will be quite happy to turn their attention to more immediate issues, whether that is killing Kurds/Shia/Sunnis to improve their sect's chances of controlling Iraq, trying to drive out the foreigners who have been fighting the U.S. in Iraq, or simply returning to a civilian life.

It will not end there, however. America's enemies are watching Iraq carefully to see what happens next. If the United States is seen as fleeing Iraq because it is unwilling to sustain the level of casualties it has seen over the past four years, America's enemies will be encouraged to challenge the U.S. in other areas, thinking that America is weak. Nations like Iran may be more inclined to press the U.S. even when it doing so may lead to war on the assumption that the U.S. either will not go to war because it's gun-shy after Iraq or that the U.S. will not follow through with war and so the risk is acceptable. Nations rarely go to war against countries that appear strong; most wars are the result of nations believing that their enemy is weak and will fall easily. If America's enemies draw that perception from Iraq, the U.S. may see itself challenged more often on the world stage in the future.

This is not an argument for continuing the war indefinitely. Regardless of how the U.S. leaves Iraq, it has already gained a number of new enemies among Arabs and other Muslims who believe the U.S. made war on Iraq to go after Islam or to keep the Arabs down, causes which have inspired we-don't-know how many jihadis to take up the sword. Whether or not the war in Iraq has killed terrorists faster than it has created them is an open question, but even if the math is in the U.S.'s favor, the terrorists it is creating outside Iraq will remain a problem long after the U.S. has left Iraq. It may be that an attack on the U.S. ten years from now will turn out to have included terrorists who decided to attack America on the basis of the U.S. involvement in Iraq, a sad turn of events that will, if we aren't careful, lead to yet another war that inspired new grievances.

Most of those who will follow the U.S. back to the western hemisphere have already been inspired to do so. But how the U.S. leaves Iraq will have some impact on the number of people willing to go great distances to kill people. Whether it is the Bush administration or whomever takes over for him, the President who orders the U.S. to leave Iraq needs to think long and hard about how that is accomplished to minimize the damage it will cause in terms of inspiring still-more hatred towards the U.S.

I'd blog more if I could remember the password, address and my username better.

I am pleased to see that a DoD investigation of Pat Tillman's death is calling for nine officers to be held accountable for their roles in the aftermath of Tillman's death. Far too often in this war, senior officers have been able to get away scot free while junior officers and enlisted personnel pay the price. This is precisely opposite what we should be seeing. Senior officers are paid to take responsibility, not to shirk it, and when their unit does something wrong, they should be the first to pay the price, not the last.

I am not suggesting that the entire chain of command should be relieved every time a unit does something wrong. But I am suggesting that should be a possibility. When something goes wrong, whether it be the abuse of prisoners or detainees, criminal activities by soldiers, or tactical errors that result in the death of soldiers, part of the investigation should focus on the chain of command and what they did or did not do to prevent such actions. Sometimes the investigation will show that the command took reasonable precautions, even though they failed to prevent the activity. Sometimes the investigation may conclude that the incident was unlikely to be anticipated, although this would be rare. And occasionally the investigation would find that the chain of command failed to put measures in place to prevent a predictable problem, resulting in the breakdown. And when that occurs, the chain of command ought to suffer serious consequences. At Abu Ghraib, the chain of command either knew what was going on or was so wholly inept the abuse could occur behind their backs. In either case, the command bore supervisory responsibility for the abuse and should have been punished accordingly. The same is true of many less well-known incidents as well.

Until now, however, most senior personnel have gotten no more than a slap on the wrist. A few have been relieved of command, which is a good first step, but I'm aware of no serious consequences or prosecutions of any officers above the rank of Captain, a fairly junior pay grade. If the recommendations of this report are accepted and the DoD follows through, it will be a very small step towards reawakening the sense of responsibility and accountability that ought to be a prerequisite for reaching high ranks in the U.S. military.

While most of the world's attention is on Iraq and to a lesser extent Afghanistan, the big problem child that may determine just how ugly the 21st century is is Pakistan, where President/General Pervez Musharraf is facing a crisis. Musharraf came to power via a coup in 1999 and has been a key factor in the war thanks to his ISI's influence over the Taliban in the years leading up to the September 11 attacks and how willing he has and has not been to deal with terrorists in and around Pakistan.

Musharraf has become increasingly unpopular in a nation where the U.S. isn't particularly well-regarded, and his latest move, removing a Supreme Court Justice for unspecified abuses of his authority has done little to make him any more popular. And while it would not break my heart to see Pakistan return to a more republican system of government, Pakistan is the only nation on Earth right now that combines an Islamic-majority population and nuclear weapons, a combination that could theoretically be unfortunate, to say the least.

On the other hand, as Iran continues to pursue its own nuclear development program, it is clear that the relatively limited nuclear club is going to expand to other Islamic nations sometime in the next 10-20 years. Pakistan may well be the canary in the coal mine, showing us where that development will lead.

It is my opinion that, while a Pakistan dominated by Islamic extremists would not be a good thing, it is unlikely it would lead to the use of nuclear weapons, either by Pakistan or by an Islamic terrorist group. The risks of massive retaliation are too great for any but a madman to take the chance by handing a bomb over to someone willing to use it against a Western city. Still, while the chances of that occurring are slim, they are not zero. What happens in Pakistan over the next few years should provide a good testbed for seeing how other nations may act as they join the nuclear club, assuming that Musharraf will have to relinquish power at some point in those years.

While the West cannot and should not try to influence this process directly, there are things they can do to make the transition as risk-free as possible. A good start would be ending the habit Western powers have of treating third world nations as children. While Europe at least has the excuse of having been colonial powers for centuries, even the U.S. has a bad habit of telling other nations what is in their best interests and what they should or should not be doing, a recipe for resentment and pushback. The West would be far wiser to treat all third world nations like relative equals worthy of respect.

The 21st century is going to see the continued advance of technology, including technologies capable of greater and greater destruction. Since nations will acquire this technology sooner or later no matter what the West does to try and stop them, the only logical answer to this problem is changing how the international system operates to give smaller nations incentives to use it rather than violence to achieve their goals. Pakistan is a good testbed for working out these strategies before they're absolutely necessary.

The United States is executing a show of force mission off the Iranian coast, flying simulated attack missions off two U.S. carriers. While I have seen no formal declarations stating that the purpose of the mission is to demonstrate the U.S.'s ability to project force against Iran, that seems to be a clear basis for the mission. As Iran continues its quest to join the nuclear nations, the U.S. may be getting more desperate to stop them, placing the two nations on a dangerous course.

While I would prefer to see Iran refrain from developing nuclear weapons, I do not believe it is worth going to war to stop them. As has been seen in Iraq and North Korea, too many nations believe that they need to have nuclear weapons to forestall an American attack on them. American protestations that they have no intention of attacking any particular nation ring hollow because the United States has demonstrated its willingness to strike anywhere it feels its interests are threatened. To Americans, these attacks may appear judicious and justified, but to an outsider, the attacks underscore the risks other nations face if they do not have a method for deterring U.S. action against them. Hence the Iranian quest for nuclear weapons. While it is possible that Iran will follow through on its threats to strike at Israel with nuclear devices, I'm not at all convinced they're willing to commit suicide no matter how much they may dislike Israel and Jews in general.

This is not a problem that can be solved in the short term. The ongoing U.S. occupation of Iraq and threats against Iran provide ample evidence for the rest of the world that the U.S. is capable and willing of attacking other nations when and where they so choose. Even were the U.S. to withdraw from Iraq and cease any belligerent moves against Iran, it would take at least five to ten years of no further bellicosity before the rest of the world might begin to feel comfortable with the U.S. While that comfort level was growing, Iran and nations like it would likely continue to maintain nuclear weapons programs to guard against the U.S. backsliding. Conversely, the problem will remain as long as the U.S. arrogates to itself the right to strike anywhere in the world whenever they consider it in their best interests.

I am not opposed to preemptive warfare akin to that practiced by Israel in 1967, when there was ample evidence the Arab world was going to strike at Israel, so they struck first. If the U.S. were to receive solid evidence of an impending attack against it, it would be within its rights to strike first. But preemptive warfare akin to Iraq is more likely to do harm than good. It forces other nations to seek means to prevent such attacks against themselves, which right now means nuclear weapons. Were the U.S. to renounce such tactics, it would go no small difference in reducing the perceived threat the U.S. poses to the rest of the world.

Readers may be offended by my assertion that the U.S. poses a threat to other nations. The U.S., after all, prides itself on only acting from the highest of motives, and I believe that it has done so more often than not over the past 20 years. But while the U.S. may claim purity of intent, the fact remains it has launched five wars of varying intensity during that time, only one of which could be claimed as justified in defense of the U.S. Regardless of the U.S.'s intentions, what the world sees is a behemoth that holds itself to a different standard than the rest of the world and that all too often lashes out as lesser powers. As long as the perception holds, the U.S. will face greater difficulties than it should. Given how easy it would be to reduce and eventually eliminate that perception, perhaps it's about time the U.S. began.

A good start would be ending shows of force like the one mentioned above.

The spammers have found this site, so to avoid inundation with spam, we are requiring all commenters to log in through TypePad. It's a bit of a nuisance, but it is the only way to prevent the comments from becoming uselessly clogged by spam. Our apologies for the trouble, and please bear with us. If you have trouble posting a comment, send it to gkar at allaloneinthenight dot com. Thank you.

In a move that should shock precisely no one, members of the Bush administration are suddenly very reluctant to testify under oath to anyone. This is taken as further proof (as if they needed any) of the guilt of pretty much anyone who has the temerity to be Republican to those on the left, and in some cases they may well be right, as this administration has hardly been a model of propriety and openness. Nonetheless, in their rush to their preferred judgement, it seems to me that the left is perhaps overlooking a rather obvious reason for Republicans to avoid saying anything under oath: I. Lewis 'Scooter' Libby.

It's possible that Libby was involved in truly criminal acts. Whether or not Valerie Plame met the legal definition of a covert operative, the Bush administration's decision to unmask her in order to undermine her husband's testimony was wrong, and I've got no heartburn with them paying a harsh political price for it. (If only the left were so concerned about national security when their own people undermine it, but I digress.) Nonetheless, whether because of a cover up or because Plame didn't meet the rather stringent requirements for the Intelligence Identities Protection Act, there's no evidence of which I am aware that points to Libby breaking any laws other than lying under oath.

Perjury, do not mistake me, is a serious offense. I was among those who believed that while Ken Starr went well beyond the proper limits of his investigation in his zeal to get a conviction, once President Clinton perjured himself, he should have been tossed our of the White House on his ear. And if Libby did, in fact, perjure himself, I have no particular heartburn with him spending a few years in jail, although it does seem incongruous that Libby may do more time than your average rapist. Still, the evidence I've seen against Libby isn't all that strong. It basically hinges on a he said-she said between Libby and Tim Russert, who has been known to misremember things before.

But then, we all misremember things. I remember being quite the stud in my youth, but friends who knew me in high school and college insist that isn't really the case. I suspect that few of us don't have some memories that aren't quite in sync with reality; that's part of the trouble with eyewitness testimony. Ask any cop and she'll tell you that if you have four witnesses to an accident, you'll get four different stories about what happened, and nobody will be lying. (By lying I mean telling an intentional mistruth, for clarity.) No two people see anything quite the same way. We all bring our own prior experience and prejudices to each situation, and those shape our perceptions.

Back to the question of testifying under oath. Maybe Libby perjured himself intentionally, lying to protect his boss. Or maybe Libby told the truth as he remembered it, but was mistaken. Maybe Russert told the truth as he remembered it, but was mistaken. I am not trying to get Libby off; the courts have spoken, and I have no interest in trying to overrule them. But I suspect a large number of Republicans saw what happened to Libby and came to a similar conclusion: even if you tell what you think is the truth under oath, you may end up going to jail. The average Republican, after all, probably believes Libby when he says he told the truth in his testimony, so how will they feel knowing that they could end up in the same place Libby is now? Given that, if you were called upon to testify, wouldn't you think twice before putting your neck on the chopping block?

The Democrats have gotten their pound of flesh, although it remains to be seen whether Libby will in fact serve any time. But regardless of the merits of this prosecution, they have also given word to every member of the Republican party to be extremely cautious about what they say under oath. To which they will respond 'Good, you should tell the truth when you're on the stand,' but when the truth comes down to a question of who the jury believes, Republicans know that they in danger of incriminating themselves even if they tell the truth as they remember it. I cannot blame any Republican for choosing to exercise his fifth amendment rights rather than risking jail time because his memory conflicts with someone else's.

I have no doubt that Patrick Fitzgerald believes in his heart that Libby is guilty. But the second-order effects of Fitzgerald's decision are likely to do a lot more harm than good.