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The Ramadan phase

I'm trying to get ahold of this sudden turn of events in the war, this monster that keeps crashing one way and another. The daylight savings time change has extended the everlasting winter night, which easily turns into brooding sort of time which gave us Bob Dylan, for example. I'm watching the elections though, and it would be so much more enjoyable if things weren't going wrong all over. At least I've got some more time to hide at college until things blow over, unlike these poor bastards who have to work for a pittance at department stores and other shitty service jobs. Then there's the whole strike over at the U, and the ongoing madness elsewhere in the world...

As an ardent atheist, religiously motivated violence bothers me, beause it clearly stems from factors besides the religion. The violence can reveal intractible spiritual illnesses, and the choices that Bush makes are somehow never capable of containing the sickness. The whole Boykin "smash their idols" thing, who could possibly say anything more foolish while handling the Pentagon's counter-terror agency?

More waves of ghastly violence sweep Iraq on the first day of Ramadan. The hated Baghdad curfew was finally eased for after-dark ceremonies. The day after trying to kill Wolfowitz with a barrage of rockets (and a helicopter shot down), someone bombed four police stations and the Red Cross headquarters, killing at least 30 and wounding around 200 Iraqis, including plenty of police. That's about as horrible as anything I could possibly imagine...

Salam Pax said Oct. 19 that

Iraqi Police kick major ass. Much respect. Wherever you go now and open up that subject you will see a lot of sympathy with those brave men and women and a total incomprehension to what this so called resistance is doing. They are killing Iraqis now. They say Jihad against the Infidel Occupier and they go kill those Iraqi police men. The Baghdad Hotel, the Turkish embassy and many more.

It is not the Infidel the attackers are killing but Iraqis and this just might be good because the general sentiment now is "what the fuck do the Jihadis think they are doing?". I wrote or said some time ago that most Iraqis are just sitting on the fence, well the last couple of attacks are tipping the balance against the Jihadis because they are killing all those Iraqis, they are putting bombs in streets and in front of schools, threatening to bomb banks where Iraqis are standing in line waiting to get their new Iraqi Dinars.

So as we say here [biha saleh ? something good will come out of it] maybe the people who are dying in those attacks are helping us understand that what those saboteurs are doing is just pure evil, telling people they are Muslim Jihadis doesn?t cut it anymore because they are killing civilians indiscriminately.

Besides the 25 attacks on American forces a day, what about the growing violence between religious sects?

"We've seen many similar cases in this area," says Saddam hospital doctor Muhammad Dahham. [but] "It has never reached the level of murder before this morning." Dr Dahham is referring to the simmering inter-sect tensions in the teeming slums of western Baghdad, which in the last week appear to have taken a bloody new turn....

The two bodies in the freezer belong to Sheikh Ahmed Khudeir and his brother Walid Khudeir, who were killed walking back home in the Washash neighbourhood early on Sunday morning after dawn prayers. The dead teenager - Taisir Falih - used to act as eyes for the 40-year-old sheikh, who was blind. Brother Walid was also disabled....

The deaths have shocked the poverty-stricken Washash slum, but the manner of their killing has added to their anguish. Fifteen Kalashnikov rounds for the sheikh, 13 for his brother and nine for the young boy, according to people in Washash who had gone with the bodies to Saddam hospital. "The gunmen killed them first and then emptied the magazines into the dead bodies," said one resident....

As far as the mosque faithful are concerned, there is only one explanation for what happened on Sunday morning. Ahmed Khudeir was a Sunni sheikh at a Sunni mosque and he was killed by members of the local Shia militia, they believe. The militia they have in mind - the Badr brigades - belongs to a leading Shia political party which has a seat on the US-appointed Governing Council.

Newsweek is now reporting that Mr. Douglas Feith, Neo-con Pentagon baller, has been kicked out of Iraq reconstruction meetings. The CPA, on the whole, does not measure up too well today. (DKos)

...contractors in Iraq complain that the CPA?s staff consists largely of political appointees who don?t understand the process. "CPA is run by a bunch of political hacks and incompetents who have no idea what they?re doing," said a project manager for a firm working on a major USAID contract. "Every time we turn around there's a new order coming from CPA, 'Do it this way?no, do it that way instead.' It?s just unbelievable." Privately, some CPA officials admit the staff is less than the best the United States has to offer. Right now, "we're not talking A-team, even B-team. We?re talking C-team," says one official with the CPA. The Bush administration denies that any major changes are afoot, but all these problems have prompted a new reckoning back in Washington: Douglas Feith, Rumsfeld?s policy chief and a key official involved in postwar planning, is no longer sitting in on reconstruction meetings, NEWSWEEK has learned, and the White House has wrested oversight from the Pentagon.

Prof. Juan Cole speculates on Ramadan and possible bombers:

US officials actually came out and said that progress in Iraq cannot be measured by a few bombs going off! Uh, without security nothing else follows, friends. Not financial investments, not NGO aid, not more troops sent by allies. The Red Cross is needed for Iraq's reconstruction, but it is likely more or less to get out of Iraq now. The UN has already largely been chased out....

That the driver was foreign indicated to some observers that the attack was pulled off by al-Qaeda-linked foreign Mujahidin. It is also often alleged that Ramadan is seen by Muslim radicals as a particularly auspicious time to attack. Of course, I do not have any idea who planned the car bombings on Monday, but I don't think this reasoning resolves the problem. The regime of Ali Abdullah Saleh in Yemen is Arab nationalist; so is that of Syria. There are lots of Arab nationalists in both countries. Arab nationalism is not dead as a sentiment, and for those devoted to it, going to Iraq to fight now makes as much sense as defending Abdel Nasser during the Suez Crisis of 1956. That is, the Western press equates foreign fighters with Sunni radicalism, but Arab nationalism is international, too.

As for Ramadan, I'd be interested in knowing if Sunni radicals have actually ever struck then. In Arabian society Ramadan was a truce month... It is not as if there is any mandate that one must or ought to fight in Ramadan; quite the opposite, the default would be to avoid fighting in that month and spend it on spiritual meditation. On the other hand, a secular Arab nationalist like Sadat was perfectly happy to fight the 1973 war during Ramadan.

I suspect that Sunni Arab nationalists are actually the most logical suspects, as they have been all along. The Coalition forces don't have a single proven al-Qaeda operative in custody in Iraq, but have lots of ex-Baathists.

On the topic of Wolfowitz, he points out that Wolfie's visits always have overtones of political domination, as he deems it necessary to visit touchy cities like Tikrit and Najf, rather than stick to real military business.

Wolfowitz's trip was an unadulterated disaster. His announcement that he was sleeping in Tikrit was clearly a dig at Saddam and the Baathists; but then a Blackhawk was downed there while he was at the US base in Tikrit (one US soldier was wounded). And then his hotel was struck in Baghdad, with a US colonel killed and 17 other persons wounded, several of them military. Wolfowitz was visibly shaken, his voice quavering, immediately after the attack. US personnel were forced out of the hotel, perhaps permanently. The colonel was probably the highest ranking officer killed in Iraq so far.

....The last time Wolfowitz went to Iraq, he inadvertently provoked huge demonstrations in Najaf and Baghdad by followers of Muqtada al-Sadr, who feared that the extra security measures in Najaf preparatory to Wolfowitz's arrival indicated that al-Sadr was going to be arrested. Wolfowitz got out of Najaf just ahead of the demonstrations.....

The problem with Wolfowitz's trips to Iraq is that they are clearly political, requiring visits to touchy places such as Najaf and Tikrit, to make political points about US dominance of the country. But the Deputy Secretary of Defense should only be visiting Iraq for military reasons, and his visits should be conducted secretly so he can see military commanders and troops. If Wolfowitz goes on campaigning to be mayor of Tikrit, he is liable to get himself killed.

The Red Cross may pull out much of its foreign staff, like the UN did.

Before they attacked the Red Cross, the story was the awful treatment of wounded Americans, whose numbers the Pentagon avoids talking about. There are now about 2,000 injured American troops. Apparently Cher anonymously called in to a show on CSPAN today and the host figured out it was her. Cher went to Walter Reed hospital and was terribly upset that Bush tries to hide the wounded. Fortunately someone has already made the Cher CSPAN T-shirt. That's what I call news cycle culture.

Today in Iraq, a site which links every violent incident reported in the media, is staggeringly awful to look at.

Will this new month of violence taper off in a few days? Could the toll on local people weaken their support for resistance activities?

Can the U.S. handle things this month, or will chaos rule Iraq's long November nights?

Leo Strauss, the Wise, the Gentlemen and the Vulgar; CIA vets forged Niger docs?

They love the taste of blood
I don't know what that means, but I know that I mean it
Maybe they're as evil as they seem
Or maybe I only look out the window when it's scenic

The first lines from Atmosphere's new album. Suits my mood just right... the video of this song (their first music video) "Trying to Find a Balance"(QT) (realmedia) is good, and it struck me that at last section of the melody shows US soldiers rushing into Iraq.

God Bless America, but she stole the B from 'Bless' (Accept it!)
Now I'm too fucked up to dance
So I'ma sit with my hand down the front of my pants
You can't achieve your goals if you don't take that chance
So go pry open that trunk and get those amps

The Atmosphere video moves back and forth, from domestic harmony to civil disorder, the LA riots, US weapons. How do we maintain the balance? How do we keep it together?

I'm about to attack these midterm essays for Contemporary Political Theory. The questions: What is one-dimensional society? and, What is the difference between Critical Theory, orthodox Marxism and social positivism? Ahh, the simple things...

At first when investigating these kinds of things, you feel damn worried when you start to believe things that 99% of America would never buy. But pieces start coming together, and the Rational Official Story becomes pretty tissue paper. When you punch through it, you fear the madness that lies on the other side.

I'm not insane
In fact I'm kind of rational

Here's some suitable reading for the wee hours of the night, when the outside world fades and the intrigues begin. and what better way to get in the mood to think about how people are manipulated than a little more on that strange philosopher, Leo Strauss.

The more you peer into these things, the worse it gets. Look at this marvellous interview with leading Strauss critic Shadia Drury on OpenDemocracy.net (a site which impresses me often). Snips:

The effect of Strauss?s teaching is to convince his acolytes that they are the natural ruling elite and the persecuted few. And it does not take much intelligence for them to surmise that they are in a situation of great danger, especially in a world devoted to the modern ideas of equal rights and freedoms. Now more than ever, the wise few must proceed cautiously and with circumspection. So, they come to the conclusion that they have a moral justification to lie in order to avoid persecution. Strauss goes so far as to say that dissembling and deception ? in effect, a culture of lies ? is the peculiar justice of the wise... Nihilistic philosophers, he believes, should reinvent the Judaeo-Christian God, but live like pagan gods themselves ? taking pleasure in the games they play with each other as well as the games they play on ordinary mortals.

There is no doubt that Strauss?s reading of Plato entails that the philosophers should return to the cave and manipulate the images (in the form of media, magazines, newspapers). They know full well that the line they espouse is mendacious, but they are convinced that theirs are noble lies.

There are three types of men [to Strauss]: the wise, the gentlemen, and the vulgar. The wise are the lovers of the harsh, unadulterated truth. They are capable of looking into the abyss without fear and trembling. They recognise neither God nor moral imperatives. They are devoted above all else to their own pursuit of the ?higher? pleasures, which amount to consorting with their ?puppies? or young initiates. The second type, the gentlemen, are lovers of honour and glory. They are the most ingratiating towards the conventions of their society ? that is, the illusions of the cave. They are true believers in God, honour, and moral imperatives. The third type, the vulgar many, are lovers of wealth and pleasure. They are selfish, slothful, and indolent.

Like Plato, Strauss believed that the supreme political ideal is the rule of the wise. But the rule of the wise is unattainable in the real world. The real Platonic solution as understood by Strauss is the covert rule of the wise. This covert rule is facilitated by the overwhelming stupidity of the gentlemen. The more gullible and unperceptive they are, the easier it is for the wise to control and manipulate them.

For Strauss, the rule of the wise is not about classic conservative values like order, stability, justice, or respect for authority. The rule of the wise is intended as an antidote to modernity. Modernity is the age in which the vulgar many have triumphed.

There's a hell of a lot more! And all of it will make you feel better about reality! Especially when you think about Straussians' mad intelligence manipulations going on at the Pentagon. Seymour Hersh at the New Yorker has been doing a damn fine job looking at this mess. Hersh's "The Stovepipe" (referring to channeling spurious intel up the chain) was just posted on their website: (Agonist on the link)

The point is not that the President and his senior aides were consciously lying. What was taking place was much more systematic?and potentially just as troublesome. Kenneth Pollack, a former National Security Council expert on Iraq, told me that what the Bush people did was "dismantle the existing filtering process that for fifty years had been preventing the policymakers from getting bad information. They created stovepipes to get the information they wanted directly to the top leadership. Their position is that the professional bureaucracy is deliberately and maliciously keeping information from them."

The people in the policy offices didn?t seem to care [that they might be wrong about Iraq plans]. When the official asked about the analysis, he was told by a colleague that the new Pentagon leadership wanted to focus not on what could go wrong but on what would go right. He was told that the study?s exploration of options amounted to planning for failure.

....As the campaign against Iraq intensified, a former aide to Cheney told me, the Vice-President?s office, run by his chief of staff, Lewis (Scooter) Libby, became increasingly secretive when it came to intelligence about Iraq?s W.M.D.s. As with Wolfowitz and Bolton, there was a reluctance to let the military and civilian analysts on the staff vet intelligence.

"It was an unbelievably closed and small group," the former aide told me. Intelligence procedures were far more open during the Clinton Administration, he said, and professional staff members had been far more involved in assessing and evaluating the most sensitive data.

...Senior C.I.A. analysts dealing with Iraq were constantly being urged by the Vice-President?s office to provide worst-case assessments on Iraqi weapons issues. "They got pounded on, day after day," one senior Bush Administration official told me, and received no consistent backup from Tenet and his senior staff. "Pretty soon you say ?Fuck it.?" And they began to provide the intelligence that was wanted.

There's lots on the Niger stuff, including new details about the unknown Italian source. Imagine if those fake Niger uranium documents (Yellowcake-Wilson-Plame Affair) had actually been produced by retired CIA agents because they were pissed off at the hawks for using such terrible intelligence! Theoretically the ex-CIA were hoping someone would catch the hawks selling the lies. And then they saw the State of the Union, and Things took a Turn.

[a source said] that a small group of disgruntled retired C.I.A. clandestine operators had banded together in the late summer of last year and drafted the fraudulent documents themselves.

"The agency guys were so pissed at Cheney," the former officer said. "They said, ?O.K, we?re going to put the bite on these guys.?" My source said that he was first told of the fabrication late last year... "Everyone was bragging about it??Here?s what we did. It was cool, cool, cool.?"

"They thought that it was the only way to go to nail these guys who were not practicing good tradecraft and vetting intelligence... They thought it?d be bought at lower levels?a big bluff." The thinking, he said, was that the documents would be endorsed by Iraq hawks at the top of the Bush Administration, who would be unable to resist flaunting them at a press conference or an interagency government meeting. They would then look foolish when intelligence officials pointed out that they were obvious fakes. But the tactic backfired, he said, when the papers won widespread acceptance within the Administration. "It got out of control."

Just to round things out, it turns out that Saddam never had any damn WMD.

The following instructions [were sent] from the Top Man [Saddam]?"give [UNSCOM] everything... I know all the scientists involved, and they chat. There is no W.M.D."

Jafar explained why Saddam had decided to give up his valued weapons: Up until the 91 Gulf war, our adversaries were regional... But after the war, when it was clear that we were up against the United States, Saddam understood that these weapons were redundant. "No way we could escape the United States." Therefore, the W.M.D. warheads did Iraq little strategic good.

Hot damn! Which suggests another possibility: Saddam planned for this sort of invasion a long time ago, and stashed stuff all over the desert.

Midterms strike; an exclusive interview with Middle East expert

Right now I've just sat down to write this major midterm paper for International Politics class, but I thought I ought to update the site quickly before I dive in. Fall break is coming right up, fortunately, and we are going to see Atmosphere at First Ave. this Friday, which should be excellent.

A significant event: Atmosphere makes a music video! You can see it here on Quicktime or via links on their site.

The big deal for me this week has been my Mac Weekly interview with Middle East expert, Columbia history professor and occasional Palestinian diplomat Rashid Khalidi, who presented his paper "The Past and Future of Democracy in the Middle East" at this year's Macalester Roundtable. I thought that he was an excellent and informed speaker, and it rather made my day when he spoke at length about the significance of that neo-con document, "A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm," and how for him, it described a "template" for American-Israeli hegemony over the Middle East. This is decidedly a minority viewpoint today but I strongly believe it. When the history of the neo-con parlor game which produced the Iraq war is written, Khalidi's angle will be profoundly valuable. He also told me that Ahmed Chalabi is trying to purge Sunnis in Iraq and provoke a civil war. Also he told me that the Revisionist Zionist leader Vladimir Jabotinsky provides much of the philosophical basis of neoconservatism. Want more?

Please look at my interview with Khalidi and the Roundtable story, which due to space had to be too short to provide details on his talk.

Also look at this collection of Iraqi children's drawings, which I found profoundly moving. (link Schwartz :)

Additionally there is Josh Marshall's review of "America Unbound," with an extensive critique of the neoconservative foreign policy experience, online now.

Soo now it's back to work. Damn midterms.

Bolivia rebellion?

New poll!! To hell with California!
There has been a lot of unrest in Bolivia directed towards their president, because he has taken pro-US policies in trade and drug control, as well as attempted to build a natural gas pipeline. So now the capital is under siege as protesters (a great part of whom are indigenous farmers and coca growers) swarm around. About 50 have been killed in violence. It's interesting how South American politics works: where it's so poor, the coca growers have a real slice of the economic activity (as they have for centuries) and they just don't accept U.S. dominance over their culture. On the other hand, maybe they are just immoral narcotraficantes. Latest Reuters:

LA PAZ, Bolivia, Oct 15 (Reuters) - Bolivia's army fought to stop columns of protesters from streaming into the food-starved capital on Wednesday as a popular uprising against the president spread.

Catholic Church officials reported that two miners were killed and six other protesters injured 50 miles (110 km) outside of La Paz. Protests also raged in the eastern city of Cochabamba, where marchers threw rocks at police and Molotov cocktails at a government palace.

Analysts predict President Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada, whose coalition is crumbling, will have to make concessions to protesters to prevent more violence from toppling his administration. The monthlong revolt against his U.S.-backed policies have left at least 53 people dead.

The government in South America's poorest nation, where six out of 10 people live on less than $2 a day, is under attack for a host of grievances ranging from its U.S.-led eradication of coca to a plan to export natural gas to the United States.

A more radical interpretation via ZNet says that

Once again, this time ironically, Bolivian President Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada has summed up the situation succinctly: a tiny minority is trying to divide the country. Sánchez de Lozada?whose approval rating stands at 8%--and his inner circle have dug in their heels, raised their voices in contempt, and adopted bellicose postures. The US Embassy, the media, and the upper layers of the military and police are the only remaining supports of the regime. The opposition sectors insist on the resignation of Sánchez de Lozada and his draconian ministers, Carlos Sánchez Berzaín and Yerko Kukoc, as well as a change in the law regulating petroleum multinationals.

It remains to be seen whether the opposition movements, led by the highland Aymara, will succeed in overthrowing Sánchez de Lozada, implementing a Constituent Assembly, and forging a new Bolivia, or whether rightwing authoritarianism a la Uribe will be imposed with the aid of the US Embassy. The situation is unfolding with such rapidity that predictions are of marginal utility, but one thing is certain: the Aymara working class and peasantry of the western highlands; the coca growers of the eastern lowlands; the Quechua-speaking Indian peasantry of the southern highlands and valleys; the working class of La Paz and Cochabamba; in other words, the people who produce Bolivia?s wealth are demanding an end to 511 years of looting, exploitation, and political domination. They insist on becoming the beneficiaries of their labor, on taking the political decisions that affect their lives and exercising sovereignty over natural resources.

Here is another ZNet article.

Army officer sends 500 fake letters to newspapers; bad stuff in Karbala

An army Colonel drew up a form letter trumpeting his unit's accomplishments around Kirkuk, and had soldiers in his unit sign it and send it back to their hometown papers. Unfortunately people caught on quickly and now it's a bit of a PR flap.

Amid the daily headlines of bloodshed and unrest in Iraq, Caraccilo wanted to draw attention to the work of his troops by mailing a form letter to soldiers' hometowns.

"The quality of life and security for the citizens has been largely restored, and we are a large part of why that has happened," reads the five-paragraph, typed letter sent in late summer.

MacDonald said no one was forced to sign the letter, though most did. At least one soldier contacted by Gannett News Service said he never signed the letter that appeared in his hometown newspaper in Charleston, W.Va. Several parents also said they knew their sons had not written the letters that appeared in local newspapers.

News of the letter-writing campaign emerged over the weekend as President Bush and other administration officials were conducting their own campaign to emphasize successes in Iraq.

Also the Boston Globe has a report. The always-interesting Justin Raimondo is on the case as well, pointing out that oil production up there is going horribly, with frequent, unreported pipeline bombings. There's talk that the Turks are going to enter the country, against the wishes of virtually every Iraqi.

There is some nasty stuff brewing at the major Shia shrines in Karbala. It seems that followers of hard-liner Moqtada al-Sadr have been trying to seize control of the shrines from the more moderate Shia who follow Ali Sistani of the group SCIRI. Sadr also stated that he wanted to form a "shadow government" but that has been withdrawn for now. Sadr has been accused of fomenting violence in Iraq. The sharp Middle Eastern professor Juan Cole has some analysis on what's going on between the Shia militias.

He also wrote a really lengthy look at the different Shia groups, such as al Dawa, SCIRI and the Sadr family for the Boston Review. If you ever wanted to know how SCIRI and the INC fit together you should look at it. His conclusion was apt:

Whether Iraq?s Sunnis will turn to radicalism and reinforce al Qaeda is as yet unknown. But what does seem clear is that the Iraq war has proved a detour in the War on Terror, drawing away key resources from the real threat of al Qaeda and continued instability in Afghanistan. The old pillars have proven more resilient than the hawks imagined. What really needs to be changed are U.S. support for political authoritarianism and Islamic conservatism, and acquiescence in Israeli land grabs on the West Bank. Those two, together, account for most of the trouble the United States has in the Muslim world. The Iraq war did nothing to change that.

A small update on the Feith-Zell-Chalabi international law firm story.

Army collectively punishes Iraqi farmers, West Bank style

The Army bulldozed a lot of orchards in a contentious Sunni area, in a bid to punish farmers for not reporting guerilla activity to the Americans.

This is a direct echo of the actions of the Israeli Defense Force in the occupied territories, which frequently bulldozes orchards that it claims provide cover for militants. From the story, however, it seems a little worse because the army doesn't claim that they are getting fired on from the orchards. It's purely punishment.

US soldiers driving bulldozers, with jazz blaring from loudspeakers, have uprooted ancient groves of date palms as well as orange and lemon trees in central Iraq as part of a new policy of collective punishment of farmers who do not give information about guerrillas attacking US troops.

Nusayef Jassim, one of 32 farmers who saw their fruit trees destroyed, said: "They told us that the resistance fighters hide in our farms, but this is not true. They didn't capture anything. They didn't find any weapons."

Other farmers said that US troops had told them, over a loudspeaker in Arabic, that the fruit groves were being bulldozed to punish the farmers for not informing on the resistance which is very active in this Sunni Muslim district.

Seikh Hussein Ali Saleh al-Jabouri, a member of a delegation that went to the nearby US base to ask for compensation for the loss of the fruit trees, said American officers described what had happened as "a punishment of local people because 'you know who is in the resistance and do not tell us'." What the Israelis had done by way of collective punishment of Palestinians was now happening in Iraq, Sheikh Hussein added.

Informing US troops about the identity of their attackers would be extremely dangerous in Iraqi villages, where most people are related and everyone knows each other. The farmers who lost their fruit trees all belong to the Khazraji tribe and are unlikely to give information about fellow tribesmen if they are, in fact, attacking US troops.

Israel attacks Syria

The big news this week, now almost forgotten under this Calidiocy, was Israel's attack on an abandoned Palestinian camp in Syria. I wrote a lengthy analysis of the situation on Everything2.com.

It's a pretty good piece with plenty of depth of background detail. It also asks about the morality of Hezbollah, an interesting question. The piece concludes that the whole bombing incident was a symbolic act to solidify the neoconservative Israeli-American hegemon. What am I talking about? Go see: e2: Israel attacks Syria.

I am satisfied that waaay back in April I predicted the neocons would Attack Syria by a variety of means. It's weird how things can unfold like that. I really didn't think that Sharon would straight-up bomb the place.

Frank Luntz: Ultimate GOP spinmaster and 'impartial' MSNBC pollster

Watching the recall gunk unfold yesterday, I flipped to MSNBC and caught this guy named Frank Luntz talking about how unpopular establishment pols might have to dive for cover after this. A general notion, but Luntz is no general commentator.

Luntz is very suspicious, and the way MSNBC frames him describes everything you need to know about the network. He is just an "MSNBC pollster" on his bio box. However, in reality he is a high-ranking GOP political consultant, who uses his regular appearances on MSNBC to subtly assassinate Democrats and warp issues. He was considered one of the 'key architects' of the Republican swarming of the capitol in 1993.

He specializes in focus group type work, but he has finely developed the art of spinning a focus group. For example, once on MSNBC I saw a focus group on the democratic primaries. He made sure to end the focus group with "Now who thinks Al Sharpton would make a viable candidate for President?" Naturally virtually no one raised their hand. The end. That's what a Republican operative does: creates images of Dem. unpopularity. A panelist on Hardball immediately hassled him about it, but he feigned innocent intentions.

Make no mistake, this is how he works. Every word he says is carefully chosen as part of a plan.

And what better platform than his new show on MSNBC, "America's Voices"?

I've seen him tell Chris Matthews that he 'leans right' but, crucially, omit that he is a Republican consultant. Such is the state of today's corporate media.

Today the NyTimes said that

"If I were a governor from a different state with a huge deficit and bad poll ratings, I'd be scared senseless," said Frank Luntz, a Republican pollster who frequently offers advice to the nation's Republican governors. "If you're a governor in a recall state, this will send chills down your spine."

Here's a description from someone in one of Luntz's fabulous focus groups:

I'd like to let you know about my experience as a participant on Hardball in November 2000 during the recount fiasco. I was part of a Frank Luntz "focus group," that pitted 10 Republicans against 10 Democrats.

We were told to come to a hotel in West Palm Beach an hour before the show. Upon arrival, we were checked off a list and segregated by party. I was close enough to the Republicans to see a man passing out "talking points" to his fellow panelists - telling them that it would be great if they could incorporate them into whatever they said- and to make it sound personal.Each side had a few more people than they actually needed- so Frank and the Producer started to hand pick the participants and show them to their seats.

Interestingly, I was passed over initially (perhaps they smelled a trouble maker). I made it on when a gentleman had to recuse himself.

So here we sat for what was said to be a "sound check." The guy next to me explained in whispers that this was actually an "attitude check," and that the Producers were identifying who might possess a brain along with an attitude. During the show, those folks would be avoided and interrupted at all costs, my new friend said- unless they sat on the Republican side.

All said, the show looked liked a one-sided Jerry Springer show (Matthew's good friend, you know) with the well dressed and rehearsed Republicans winning sizable airtime with their facist talking points. I found the whole experience very disturbing.

An excellent piece from Media Whores Online goes into more detail about how Luntz works.

Let's examine the discourse between Luntz and Brian Williams after the second Presidential debate on October 11, 2000:

WILLIAMS: A group of uncommitted voters has been with us all evening long under the good auspices of Frank Luntz, political pollster, who joins us now from Cincinnati, city in the crucial battleground state of Ohio. Frank? LUNTZ: Brian, this is now the third time that we've gathered these undecided voters but there's something that thisnight featured that we never saw before. We do have a clear winner. And you can all demonstrate by a show of your hands: How many of you believe that George Bush exceeded your expectations for what you expected this evening? Please raise your hands. Brian, that's almost everybody.

Did you notice that Frank made a statement about a winner and then asked a completely different question regarding expectations?

Still not convinced that Frank might intermingle his own opinion with his pollstering? Take a look at the Young Republicans Online Community Network website (YRock.com), where he was not only their pollster for the 2000 election, but also a weekly columnist. Titles to his commentaries include, Saying Yes to Jobs and No to Minimum Wage Increase; Ending Racial Preferences; and The Real Truth About The Gore Plan.

He's not just a Republican, he's a super Republican with the power to influence public opinion to his advantage, and he's done it before. Luntz's bio on the Harry Walker Agency site, touts:

-USA Today labeled him one of the nine most influential minds in the GOP -Advisor to New York Mayor, Rudolph Giuliani - One of the strategic architects in the Republican landslide in 1994 - Key role in creating Gingrich's Contract With America (he is often noted in articles written in the mid 90's as Newt's pollster)

Would you not agree that the Contract With America took partisanship to new heights? Luntz was instrumental in conducting the research for the Contract and in the fall of 1994, he declared that all 10 provisions cited by the Contract had overwhelming public support.

The AAPOR asked to see the research supporting HIS claim that at least 60% of the public favored each of the elements in the GOP contract. He refused on the grounds of client confidentiality.

Frank Luntz was capable of creating the dubious notion that the Contract With America was embraced by most Americans in 1994 and Republicans benefited in Congressional elections that year. In the 2000 election, Frank Luntz helped to perpetuate the low bar of expectation for George W. Bush. Although he didn't win the popular vote and most certainly the electoral vote, it was much closer than it should have been. Frank Luntz is still on MSNBC, folks.

A Luntz-friendly site described him thusly:

Named the "Hottest Pollster" by Boston Globe, One of the Most Innovative Marketers of Political Ideas

Dr. Luntz, famous among campaign pros for his research on language and politics, is one of the most innovative marketers of political ideas. He has served as an adviser to New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, and numerous candidates in this country and abroad.

He was one of the strategic architects of the Republican landslide in 1994 that gave Republicans control of the House of Representatives for the first time in 40 years and made Newt Gingrich speaker. Dr. Luntz had a key role in creating Gingrich's Contract with America.

So when you see this punk pop up on MSNBC, watch for semantic tricks and deceptiveness. Yes.

California Dems terminated

I had my fingers crossed that this wouldn't come to pass. But now its happened: the GOP precipitated a novel majority/plurality election and managed to vaporize the value of serious political discourse in America's most important state. Their candidate, a totally inexperienced, steroid-addled, wealthy movie star, provided that certain STRONG MAN FIX IT vibe, while surrounding himself with all the usual Republican operatives. Davis seems to have been a seriously terrible politician, so good riddance. Bustamante ran a wounded, half-assed campaign. Gee, thanks. (Maybe he's waiting for Arnold to alienate the Latinos with social service cuts)

Everyone should be highly disappointed that there wasn't any sort of real debate whatsoever. I think several proper debates for statewide office should be federal law, if otherwise we are going to have more of this garbage. Also plurality and majority votes shouldn't be on the same ballot, because it prevents the goverment from properly defending itself to the public while challengers maneuver to lead the field. In all, a squelching of discourse and a flood of static. Damn.

Why the hell do Democrats get such cold feet when it comes to supporting each other? Davis refused to campaign --hard-- for Bustamante, because he's a selfish, annoying man. Just like when Clinton didn't really campaign with Gore. The Rebubs are very good at slicing up these kinds of relationships by making it appear that the Dems have something to lose by appearing together. This is so messed up because the incumbent Dem's strength is the institution they hold. Until the D's learn to stand up and fight together then the R's will just divide conquer and make donkeys look scared. D's been fooled twice. Let this be the last time.

Fortunately the Rebubs can finally no longer play the sexual integrity card against the Ds. Which of course works more in their favor because Democrats don't philander as much as Rebubs.

The Cali economy: who knows what the hell these Rebub institution trolls will dream up... somehow I suspect it will shaft Hispanic and minorities on social services, while refusing to fix the property tax.

The big problem with Davis was that he was so damn chicken. The power companies literally walked out with the whole state treasury and he doesn't even seem pissed off. Why didn't he demand investigations, blame them for the budget and all that? Why why why?

As for the infinite-repeat recall problem: I don't think anyone wants to see a permanent recall loop, which could easily happen with such a polarized and crisis-ridden state. I really hate Schwizzy but it clearly would be unfair to force a recall before, say, this summer.

If Arnold is as partisan as he looks to be (lets set aside the generic outsider rhetoric and look purely at his advisers) then he will not be able to cut a deal with the Ds. He is so inexperienced he probably won't know how to hold carrots and sticks properly. California may be stupid, but they're not stupid. If he's an incompetent Repub. bastard who doesn't get it done, the stage will be set for a summer recall.

Dear god, then there's the very good chance that the Terrorists will attack California and we will see the superhero standing dramatically in some wreckage... Talk about the unity of fantasy and reality.

The whole campaign vibe was that Arnold could save the day like his movies. But we should remember how T3 ends: Arnold obediently, rationally, marches the world straight to the Apocalypse and never tries to stop it. That's California 2003.

Neocon DOD Undersec. Douglas Feith's law partner is a right-wing Zionist settler

The big news this week is Israel's surprise attack on an adandoned Palestinian militant camp in Syria. I am working on a big analysis of that situation which will be here in a bit. In all the hubbub, I just ran across this piece in the Guardian which clarifies how closely important neo-cons are linked to the Israeli settler movement, and hence have an incentive to perpetuate the occupation.

For those of you who are still comfortable with neocons, you might want to avoid this Guardian article which reports that Doug Feith's law partner Zell is a ardent supporter of the settler Gush Emunim movement and an Israeli living in the West Bank.

Hence, Zell has a personal stake in continuing the occupation, and like Feith has used his legal training to argue in favor of expanding West Bank settlements. He is the Zell of "Fandoz.com," the one working with that greaseball Chalabi's nephew to hook international businesses into Iraq. This ought to be bigger news, but of course anything involving settlers gets muted in the media...

Zionist settler joins Iraqi to promote trade: Chalabi's nephew and US lawyer turned rightwing Israeli activist offer help and advice on doing business with Baghdad

An ultra-Zionist Israeli settler has joined forces with the nephew of the Iraqi leader Ahmad Chalabi to promote investment in Iraq.

The venture - which has excellent connections with the Pentagon and the new Iraqi government - is the first joint Israeli-Iraqi business project publicly documented since the fall of Saddam Hussein.

Sam Chalabi's "partner for international marketing" is Marc Zell, a rightwing Zionist lawyer who has offices in Jerusalem and Washington and previously ran a legal practice with Douglas Feith - now a leading Pentagon hawk with responsibility for the reconstruction of Iraq.

Until recently, Mr Zell - an Israeli citizen - was the registered owner of the Iraqi firm's website. Registration was transferred to Sam Chalabi's name on September 25 - the day after Mr Zell's ownership of the site was revealed by an article on Guardian Unlimited.

Data buried in the "Iraqi" website's source code has not been changed, however, and shows that the content was produced by a member of Mr Zell's Jerusalem office staff.

American-born Mr Zell, 50, became interested in Zionism in the mid-1980s and made several trips to Israel - one of them sponsored by the Gush Emunim (Bloc of the Faithful) movement, which claims the territories occupied in 1967 were given to Israel by God.

In 1988, at the start of the first Palestinian uprising, Mr Zell moved with his family to the Jewish settlement of Alon Shevut on the West Bank, acquiring Israeli nationality.

The settlement was surrounded by barbed wire and sometimes came under attack, but the Zells said it was an ideal place for children. "It's like a small town in Iowa," they told Jewish Homemaker magazine.

In the 1996 Israeli election Mr Zell campaigned for the rightwing Binyamin Netanyahu and was also at one time a member of the Likud party's central committee and policy bureau.

Since then, he has been a frequent spokesman for settlers.

In a recent law journal article, written with a colleague, Mr Zell argued that the right of return for Palestinian refugees "is not only ungrounded as a matter of law, but also unjustified in historical retrospective".

Everyone's national disaster

I've been quite busy this week, and if you're like me then now, finally, it might be safe for us to breathe again. Through all those Clinton years we were treated to one smear incident after another, Travelgate, Watergate, Monicagate... all these inconsequential scandals with one special prosecutor after another.

And now this Administration, with its 'crown jewels' of 'credibility and integrity' or whatever they call it, now finally has that unmistakeable tarnish of a real political disease upon it. The schism between the government agencies (the CIA never really bought this bullshit all along) has exploded all over the cable news, months after it should have...

Actually that's one interesting aspect. Novak wrote his column back in mid-July, and Bush only publically said anything about this national security crisis a few days ago. One guy points out that's 75 days of sitting on his ass. True.

What to make of this? What damage? Who's spinning?

FOX News has been hilarious the last few days. First, they didn't want to talk about it. They avoided noting the Justice investigation for quite a while. Brit Hume disparaged the whole thing, anchors noted that 'nothing ever comes of these things, why bother?' Silliest of all, one rightie after another has said Wilson was some partisan peacenik yahoo, who existed to hassle the Bush administration. This doesn't quite fit with Wilson's work around the first Gulf war, where he was the US unofficial ambassador to Iraq, and the last American to meet with him prior to the war. He received much praise from Poppa Bush for his work. He also has given money to Republican candidates recently. No one's partisan, really.

I also like the line of reasoning which claims that because 'all he did was sip tea' in Niger rather than, I don't know, break into offices and kidnap officials, he could never have done a thorough job investigating the uranium story. (this is what Brit Hume and resident AEI Neo-con bitch Reuel Marc Gerecht talked about, because they didn't want to talk about the leak itself) But these fools don't know how the uranium business works. The mine is run by a large European conglomerate licensed under the IAEA. It's on the level. Really.

Novak himself is putting out all kinds of nonsense, but it's like he's compelled to share national security secrets with the public. for one thing, he said that she was known as an agent to insiders and "well known" in Washington, so it's not a big deal that he ran her name. What the hell is he talking about? So just now he decided to tell the name of her CIA front company. Good, that will help destroy their cover overseas. On CNN he said:

"Joe Wilson, the -- everybody knows he has given campaign contributions in 2000 to both Ford -- I mean to both Gore and to Bush. He gave twice as much to Gore, $2,000, $1,000 over the limit. The government -- the campaign had to give him back $1,000. That very day, according to his records, his wife, the CIA employee gave $1,000 to Gore, and she listed herself as an employee of Bruster, Jennings and Associates (ph).

There is there no such firm, I'm convinced. CIA people are not supposed to list themselves with fictitious firms if they're a deep cover. They're supposed to be real firms, or so I'm told. So it adds to the little mystery."

The Washington Post now reports

After the name of the company was broadcast yesterday, administration officials confirmed that it was a CIA front... The inadvertent disclosure of the name of a business affiliated with the CIA underscores the potential damage to the agency and its operatives caused by the leak of Plame's identity. Intelligence officials have said that once Plame's job as an undercover operative was revealed, other agency secrets could be unraveled and her sources might be compromised or endangered.

Thanks, Novak! You're a great journalist! These clips come via DailyKos.

There is one piece of fallout from the crime we can't deny: whoever was ever associated with agent Plame overseas is in danger. What remains in question is what, exactly, Plame did. Calpundit piles up the public facts so far. It seems to be emerging that Plame ran networks of foreign informers who passed on information about biological, chemical, and nuclear material. Let me say that again: Plame's job was to collect intelligence on weapons of mass destruction, to monitor and prevent them from being used against the United States. Now anyone who can be tied to her can be compromised.

That's something that is really a disaster for everyone. That's the central point. Politics don't enter into calculating this.

Yet it is political. The leaker went after Wilson to intimidate anyone else who might attack the Bush folks falsification of war intelligence.

Let me offer a prediction about who was probably behind the leak: the Vice President's Chief of Staff, Scooter Libby. There have been insiders saying that the bad guy works in the Executive Office Building, where Cheney's people are. If I'm right about this, I definitely win a cookie.

On a related topic, you need to see this report which says that FOX News watchers were the most likely to believe in misinformation about the war, namely that WMD have already been found, and Saddam was acively engaged with Al-Qaeda. Fair and Balanced!

In following these developments, naturally the Internet is the best source. Lately my reliable wisdom has come from the Daily Kos, Eschaton and The Agonist. If you keep an eye on these then you'll probably catch most of what's going on. Also much respect is due to Washington reporter Josh Marshall, who writes the Talking Points Memo, and kept the story alive since July. Marshall also has recently interviewed Wilson and Wesley Clark.

Actually, Clark told Marshall something important about neoconservatives:

TPM: I noticed that Doug Feith, who's obviously the Undersecretary of Defense for Policy, had a statement a while back saying that the connection between terrorist organizations and state sponsors was, I think he said, the principal strategic thought behind the administration's policy.

CLARK: It's the principal strategic mistake behind the administration's policy. If you look at all the states that were named as the principal adversaries, they're on the periphery of international terrorism today. Syria -- OK, supporting Hezbollah and Hamas -- yeah, they're terrorist organizations. They're focused on Israel. They're getting support from Iran. It's wrong. Shouldn't be there. But they're there. What about Saudi Arabia? There's a source of the funding, the source of the ideology, the source of the recruits. What about Pakistan? With thousands of madrassas churning out ideologically-driven foot soldiers for the war on terror. Neither of those are at the front of the military operations. ...

The ability to conduct foreign policy draws not only on the president himself but on the leadership of the administration. If you were to start here and work backwards, you'd say this administration was doctrinaire. You'd say that it didn't have a real vision in foreign policy. It was reactive. Hobbled by its right-wing constituency from using the full tools that are available -- the full kit-bag of tools that's available to help Americans be in there and protect their interests in the world.

Clinton administration: broad minded, visionary, lots of engagement. Did a lot of work. Had difficulty with two houses in congress that [it] didn't control. And in an odd replay of the Carter administration, found itself chained to the Iraqi policy -- promoted by the Project for a New American Century -- much the same way that in the Carter administration some of the same people formed the Committee on the Present Danger which cut out from the Carter administration the ability to move forward on SALT II.

TPM: This being the same neo-conservatives that people hear about in the press today?

CLARK: Right, some of the same people. And then, you know, if you go back to the Bush administration, they were there when the Berlin Wall fell.

This whole statement that the neo-cons actually used the PNAC to undercut the administration's options is a kind of inverted view of issue advocacy (and it's fun to tie them to Carter). Marshall strongly agrees with the idea, and it got a bunch of nasty feedback from neocons. Very interesting. I am happy Clark is on the right page with neo-con deviousness, because that would be so fun to see him go off about in the democratic debates.

I suggest everyone sit back and watch the fireworks. This mess has just begun to unfold.