Good post, good point.

I think the public is way ahead of the punditry on this one. On Matthews’ show yesterday Andrew Sullivan claimed conservative disaffection stemmed from the budget problems. David Gregory said that every time Congresspeople go back to their districts, what they hear about is complaints about the Iraq fiasco.

In the SF Chronicle this am there was a long article about disaffection in the GOP heartland (San Diego County) that was peripherally about the special election in CA-50 (disaffected R’s interviewed at a Francine Busby house party) but more about the disaffection itself. Iraq was a big part of it, and person after person said we are no safer. They seemed to realize he had gone after the wrong target.

You are right. The fundamental question is, if fighting terror is worth the loss of our civil liberties, why aren’t we winding down Iraq so we can concentrate on it? And why is Afghanistan trying a man for converting to Christianity, with death as the possible penalty? And if we aren’t trying to curb terrorists (other than Zarqawi), and this is really all about increasing the power of the executive, let’s get that on the table.

Mimikatz,

Well said, particularly your last paragraph.

I’m very fascinated with the CA-50 election this year. I lived in Poway (home of the Wilkes mafia, affectionately referred to as CowPie) in high school. And my SD Chamber of Commerce father was involved in Republican politics (though not, AFAIK, involved in graft and corruption). But folks like my dad were the exception in that corner of the county: he had no connection to either the military or the Mormon Church (about 1/2 of my friends’ folks were military in some sense, and 1/6 of the high school was LDS). In other words, it’s a conservative area, but with two very specific groups pushing those politics. But it works out to be an interesting demographic, managing to be both ultra conservative and very cosmopolitan at the same time. So it’ll be interesting to see how that very SoCal inland empire demographic responds to the election.

Ardant

I’m curious what you’re looking for. Do you want to be better prepared to convince your sister she’s a nut? You’d have to say more about why she’s a nut. For example, my brother’s a nut who fancies himself a libertarian, so I beat him up over how much he relies on the government. Is your sister a nut because she believes what she’s told? I’ve made some progress with people like that by asking about sourcing. â€How does Fox know this?†It’s a hard question for Fox nuts to answer, and certainly gets them thinking.

But if you’re talking more generally, I’d say three favorite general books for a perspective on the world are:

Kevin Phillips, Wealth and Democracy. Phillips just came out with a new book on theocracy and oil, which is getting great press. But I go back to Wealth and Democracy because it gives a superb overview of the relationship between accumulations of wealth and the type of government, as well as the cyclical failure of empires as their economies become entirely dependent on financial markets rather than real economic activity.

David Fromkin, A Peace to End All Peace. This is a history of the British involvement in the ME during and following the fall of the Ottoman Empire. It provides a lot of great background to the problems of the ME (basically a snapshot of the rise of the modern ME). And it’s uncanny the degree to which we are repeating all the British mistakes in the Middle East.

Daniel Yergin, The Prize. This is a history of the oil age. Its analysis of WWI and WWII explains why our country is so desperate to dominate access to oil, basically arguing that the guy with the oil supplies wins the war. And it also details the rise of the public-private partnership between big oil and our government.

None of these are going to make you happy with things as they are. But they’re invaluable for giving a wide-ranging perspective on why we’re in the state we’re in.

Of course, the Administration’s answer to this is that it all has to be a secret. The larger truth behind your post is that there is no (and I mean none, not even a hint of) evidence that all these expanded powers and nasty techniques have helped at all in our fight against Bin Laden and crew. In fact, there’s plenty of evidence that every single unprecedented technique that the Administration claims is essential has done more harm than good.

Torture – No useful intelligence gathered and plenty of new enemies created because many of those we’ve tortured were completely innocent.

Rendition – Same as above.

Ilegal domestic wiretapping – No plots uncovered, just a lot of wasted time for the FBI.

Illegal physical searches??? – ???

A little personal note for folks who don’t think this affects them. Back in the early eighties, I was in grad school in Austin. A couple of acquaintances of mine asked me to donate to their latest cause. They were members of CISPES (Committee In Solidarity with the People of El Salvador). I didn’t agree with all of the group’s tactics (too much publicity-seeking, not enough actually helping people, in my opinion), but they were at least trying to oppose our government’s stupidly wrong policies in Central America. Anyway, I gave them $5 (in cash, it was my lunch money). Of course, they added my name to their donor list (I didn’t ask to be anonymous). A few years later I found out that an informant in Dallas had convinced the FBI that they were planning terrorist activities. The FBI pulled more than one â€black bag†warrantless search of their Austin offices and did workups on all their contributers. I assume that included me.

Fast forward 20+ years to today. I work with lots of Arabs and other Moslems (not to mention Hindus, Brits, Africans, etc. Software development is a very international field). I’m just waiting for the day when I become the link that TIA discovers between â€Islamo-fascists†and â€Commie sympathizersâ€. Pretty bizarre for a Baptist preacher’s kid.

Another area that it is important to understand is economics, specifically how the GOP has been transferring wealth from us to them (the top 1%) for decades. David Cay Johnston’s book â€Perfectly Legal†talks about the last few years. William Greider’s â€Who Will Tell The People?†shows how it was done in the Reagan years. He has undoubtedly written something since, besides his â€Nation†columns.

Greider wrote a good book on globalization, â€One World Ready or Not,†and another proscriptive one on how to make capitalism a force for good, â€The Soul of Capitalism.â€

But IMO, the best book on globalization is David Korten’s When Corporations Rule the World, followed closely by Joseph Stiglitz’ Globalization and Its Discontents.

Yes! janinsanfran. Yes. Yes. Yes.

There are two issues here – incompetence and bad policy – and I’m becoming increasingly disturbed by the single-minded focus on the first to the practical exclusion of the second. (I’m not saying you’re falling for that, ew; your followup comment shows you’re obviously not.) But this is a widespread, and imo, pernicious theme throughout left wwwLand.

—

Those are good book recommendations, at least the four I’ve read. When it comes to the oil story, however, I much prefer Anthony Sampson’s Seven Sisters: The Great Oil Companies and The World They Shaped. It’s 30 years old, so it’s missing a few pieces, but it still provides a good foundation for how oil politics got us where we are.

Many thanks to everyone for taking the time to respond to my request for reading material. The generosity, intellect, and humor displayed on this site is superb. EW – you are my favorite. There, I said it.

â€But very little substantive about any progress we’re making at combatting Al Qaeda.â€
Another, as per usual, great post, emptywheel, Bush’s policies are creating a lot more â€terrorists†than we are killing. On Charlie Rose, Feingold mentioned several times, the â€War on Al-Queda.†It seems to me this term, the â€War on Al-Queda†is a key Democratic soundbyte leading into midterms and beyond. Evidently Rumsfeld told Bush the â€metrics†of a war against Saddam would â€look better on teevee†than the â€metrics†of a war Al-Queda.

I was sort of surprised to see how clearly and openly National Intelligence Council’s so-called Project 2020 defines/discusses GWOT in relation to the purported goal of globalization.

http://www.cia.gov/nic/NIC_2020_project.html

â€The global driver in the current era of transnational terrorism is not America’s perceived role as imperial hegemon, nor its continued support for the state of Israel, but rather the historical reality of globalization’s progressive advance into traditional Islamic societies. There, people exist who are motivated to fight this penetration in the manner of all-out war…

â€Understanding that the current era’s Global War on Terrorism is nothing more than the continuation of a long historical arc associated with the expansion of the functioning core of the global economy (traditionally defined by the market economy, free expression, and the opportunities they entail) is crucial to determining both the length of the strategic struggle ahead…â€

Of course to make progress along these lines, you need a public pretext for actions that would normally be considered hostile and invasive. It therefore serves the interests of the ’functioning core’ to maintain the specter of islamo-facism within public discourse. In other words, the last thing you would want to do is actually capture Zarquawi or Bin Ladin.

Regarding reading matter, for â€deep background†I can’t recomment too highly Daniel Quinn’s novel â€Ishmaelâ€.
If you haven’t read it, it’ll kmock you socks off, guaranteed!
It will answer that feeling that there is something fundamentally wrong underlying our society. â€If we’re so smart, how come we have so many problems?â€

You know, what I am really waiting to see in blogland is some discussion of the Iraqi constitution.

For instance, the mechanism by which political districts can dissociate and recombine themselves into new regional districts seems highly dubious.

I wonder why more people arn’t analyzing this right now? Isn’t the constitution the main reason Sunnis are disenfranchised? Isn’t this related to the secretarian violence that we now see?

I am no expert on constitutions, but it seems like if we want to stablize the area and bring our troops home, we are going to have fix that constitution.

A recap of last fall’s events would be a good start, e.g. when Bush failed to lead on the federalism issue at the Sunni’s behest. This seems like a job for the blogosphere.

As to books — many of those mentioned, particularly â€The Prize†— but in addition I would recommend Janet Wallach’s bio of Gertrude Bell, Desert Queen. (Anchor Books, 1996.) Gert Bell was the lady who spent 30 years in the desert doing geographical and archeological ventures, and upon whom the â€boys†depended when it came to drawing the lines on the map to make Iraq. She founded the museum in Baghdad that was looted at the beginning of the occupation, but she also committed suicide in the city when in 1924 it all seemed lost to her. Look at the pictures of the British Biggies — Churchill and Allanby and all standing in front of the Egyptian Pyramids, — and there is Gert in her big hat — and when you track the communications — Gert is there. She is also there when Woodrow Wilson wanted a map drawn that would create the right mandate.

Janet Wallach who also with her husband did a bio of Arafat, did this bio of the British wonam who created Iraq, even to the point of nailing together the Indian tea chests to make a throne for an Iraqi monarchy. But Bell spoke seven Arabic dialects plus Farsi — and she made clear all the clan and tribal matters that needed to be addressed. And one of the reasons she committed suicide probably was because no one listened to her — either because they did not like the message, or because of her gender. This needs sorting out obviously.

American Feminist Historians need to pay some attention to the not necessarily feminists in history. Gert Bell was not a feminist — but she was a female, and the only reason she was appointed a British Political Officer was because of World War One. — Janet Wallach does a grand job dealing with those qualifications — but why is she ignored? Nutered?

Perhaps some don’t want to compare her knowledge and education and all with the folk whom Heritage brought in with the Conserative Vita’s and all — Gert had 30 years of rooted experience plus seven dialects of Arabic, and the guys that were going to reorganize everything had an ideology.

Another book worth reading is Matt Simmons â€Twilight in the Desertâ€. It provides an in-depth look at Saudi oil production and why its peaking soon. 90% of Saudi oil comes from 5 wells that have been producing for the past 40 years. And Simmons provides a nice counterpoint to Dan Yergin cheerleading for big oil.

I don’t remember the title or author of this book that I read a few years ago that showed a strong correlation between rising commodity prices and geopolitical tensions leading to war. It made the case that the fall of the Soviet Union was not because of the Reagan arms build up but because commodity prices collapsed and devastated its economy. With the rise in oil, natural gas and metals prices Russia now has a trade surplus and huge dollar reserves. Its stock market index has risen from 50 in 1998 to 1400 today. And Putin has begun a major modernization and rearming of the Russian military. Chavez is putting Venezuela on an independent path and thumbing his nose at Bush as his economy is booming.

Compare that to our financial situation. We need China, Russia and the PetroSheikhs to lend us $2 billion a day to pay our bills. As long as they are willing to accept our paper for their goods and resources the inevitable financial reckoning gets postponed. But one of these days they will take a stand against us on some issue and will have us over a barrel.

Ardant, I’ll suggest some books which may or may not be exactly what you’re interested in.

â€Worse than Watergate†by John Dean, of Watergate fame, why dishonest leadership guarantees disaster – specifically applied to the â€â€™W’ Administration.†Nixon’s abuses lead to many of the laws that this administration would specifically like to destroy.

â€The Lexus and the Olive Tree†by Thomas Friedman, an easier and brighter view of globalization than his new book â€The World is Flat,†— probably now also having some interesting historical perspecive.

I also like â€The Prize†as ew mentioned, a great story and important history.

I’ll add another one about dishonesty, â€Den of Thieves†by James Stewart. This is a fabulous book about insider trading on Wall Street, financial immorality. The massively flawed characters could easily inhabit many of the scandals percolating in DC (Delay et al, Abramoff et al, Cunningham et al… the Supine Republican Congress).

â€The Global Soul†by Pico Iyer, one of my all time favorites, a semi-serious travelogue about living and working in many cultures. (Probably not what you want but I couldn’t help recommending it).

I’m looking forward to reading some of the other good suggestions made earlier.

ew, mamayaga

Geez, you know Moussoaui’s trial was the first example I thought of. But then I forgot it with all the other excellent examples. Thanks for the reminder.

The http://www.washingtonpost.com/…..00763.html had a good editorial on this on Monday. It also hits on how the military commissions, which were set up because they would be â€more efficient†than real judicial proceedings, have not yet tried a single suspect at Guantanamo, and how the screwups in the public cases further undermine the trustworthiness of the secret trials and procedures.