A Field Position Game

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Mark Kleiman argues that the Democrats should see BushCo’s refusal to turn over proof that they buried details about Pat Tillman’s death as a godsend. This is the scandal, he argues, over which the Democrats should choose to confront Bush.

This is a Godsend for the Democrats in Congress. The committeesshouldn’t compromise at all; this is the case we want to go to warover, in the courts and the court of public opinion. The Tillmancover-up is a far smaller scandal than the U.S. Attorney firings, butit’s much easier to understand.

Most of the country is only vaguely aware of the Tillman case, sincethe press has been not very interested in advertising how badly it wasfooled, and how supinely it participated in the "Wag the Dog" foolingof the public. But if the facts got out there, everyone, including mostof the Republican base, would be outraged. Publicity about the fightover documents and testimony is also publicity about Tillman’s"friendly fire" death and the effort to cover it up, so it’s a no-winsituation for the White House.

Moreover, even the wingnuts are going to have a hard time claimingwith a straight face that the President needs to protect theconfidentiality of the process by which he Read more →

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A Second Strategic Failure

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I’m more and more convinced this is Dick Cheney’s design. Failure in Afghanistan, which might lead to the collapse of Pakistan’s western-friendly government, which might lead to a regional war between Sunni and Shiite.

Ashdown told The Observer that Afghanistan presented a graver threat than Iraq.

‘Theconsequences of failure in Afghanistan are far greater than in Iraq,’he said. ‘If we fail in Afghanistan then Pakistan goes down. Thesecurity problems for Britain would be massively multiplied. I thinkyou could not then stop a widening regional war that would start off inwarlordism but it would become essentially a war in the end betweenSunni and Shia right across the Middle East.’

‘Mao Zedong used torefer to the First and Second World Wars as the European civil wars.You can have a regional civil war. That is what you might begin to see.It will be catastrophic for Nato. The damage done to Nato inAfghanistan would be as great as the damage done to the UN in Bosnia.That could have a severe impact on the Atlantic relationship and maybeeven damage the American security guarantee for Europe.’

What other logic is there–besides pure stupidity–for ignoring nuclear-armed and increasingly extremist Pakistan–while ratcheting up war against Iran? Wasn’t this whole Middle Eastern fuckup Read more →

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The “Embarrassment Privilege”

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We’ve got to start calling these refusals to testify what they are–because they surely aren’t executive privilege. With Sara Taylor’s plea to avoid testifying because she admires–and apparently took a vow to–Bush it’s not executive privilege because she didn’t speak to him about the USA firings. But we might call her refusal to testify the "I love me my Prezident privilege"–because that’s about as serious as the legal discussion behind it is.

And then there’s Harriet Miers. To justify her refusal to even show up, some DOJ hack suggested that the branches of government are so independent that they cannot force the other branch to show up. They say:

The President is an independent branch of government. He may not compel Congressmen to appear before him.

Someone better tell Duke Cunningham and William Jefferson, because for some reason, when the Executive Branch required them to show up and be investigated, they showed up–Jefferson only even got limited immunity for his Congressional office. Maybe Cunningham can get out of the Executive Branch’s prison, once he asserts the Independent Immunity Privilege, huh?

But the real absurdity is BushCo’s refusal to show up and reveal the truth about when it learned that Pat Tillman was killed by Read more →

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The Guy Who Failed Points Fingers

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ThinkProgress had a piece the other day about Stephen Hadley visiting the Hill and blaming the military for the failure in Iraq.

Two weeks ago, Sen. Richard Lugar (R-IN) shifted his position on Iraqin a speech on the Senate floor, where he called for a reduction of theU.S. military presence. After the speech, National Security AdviserStephen Hadley attempted to “calm Republican waters” over Iraq with avisit to the Hill, but his efforts “failed and appeared to some GOPlawmakers to be an effort to put the blame for Iraq War failures on the military.”

Stephen Hadley … Stephen Hadley. Isn’t he the guy who was supposed to be doing all the things the new Iraq War Czar has now been doing? As I recall, neither Hadley nor his former boss could hack that job.

So here we are again, 3 years later, trying to appoint someone inNational Security Council who can do what the National Security Advisoris supposed to do. Sure, this time it’s Stephen Hadley, and not hisformer boss, Condi, who is not up to the task. But the reason is thesame.

We taxpayers pay a National Security Advisor to make sure thatsomeone mediates the opinions and agendas of the many strong-willedpeople running Read more →

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AQ Khan’s on the Loose

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Does it bother anyone that–at a time when Pakistan’s Interior Ministry is raising concerns about the Taliban taking over significant chunks of Pakistan, the father of Pakistan’s nuke program is on the loose? [Thanks to Mimikatz for the spelling correction.]

Authorities have eased the virtual house arrest imposed on A.Q. Khan,the disgraced scientist who sold Pakistan’s nuclear secrets to Iran,North Korea and Libya, officials said Monday.

[snip]

However, two senior government officials told the AP that therestrictions were eased several months ago and that Khan could now meetfriends and relatives either at his home or elsewhere in Pakistan.

"He is virtually a free citizen," said one of the officials, who is attached to the nuclear program.

It just seems to me that the conjunction of these two events–Al Qaeda’s state ally taking over Pakistan at the same time as Pakistan’s chief nuclear proliferator goes free–that would raise the concerns of the same people who brought us to war against Iraq because of Saddam’s phantom nukes and phantom ties to Al Qaeda.

But apparently Dick Cheney (and the non-experts he’s got in charge of our Pakistan policy) has it all under control, and we don’t have to worry about countries that could give Al Qaeda nukes anymore. Read more →

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PFIAB and OVP

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I’d like to point out a teeny detail in the report that Henry Waxman cites as his source that OVP isn’t providing ISOO with information about OVP’s classification and declassification activities:

PFIAB and OVP did not report data through the SF 311 to ISOO this year. This report, therefore, does not include any data from these two entities.

It was not just OVP that blew off ISOO in 2003. It was also PFIAB.

PFIAB is the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, a group of big-wigs providing outside oversight into our intelligence activities:

The President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board (PFIAB) provides advice   to the President concerning the quality and adequacy of intelligence   collection, of analysis and estimates, of counterintelligence, and of other intelligence   activities. The PFIAB, through its Intelligence Oversight  Board, also advises the President on the legality of foreign intelligence activities.

In 2003, the board included such luminaries as:

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Pope Keeps Blair Out of Heaven because of Iraq

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Via Cannonfire, I see that Pope former-Nazi has finally done something worthwhile with his position: he told the Poodle that God meant it about that commandment that, Thou shalt not kill.

Tony Blair yesterday used his last official foreign engagement beforeleaving office to tell Pope Benedict he wanted to become a RomanCatholic, a Vatican source said last night.

But, in talks lasting more than half an hour, the outgoing PrimeMinister was left in no doubt that the Pope took a dim view of hisrecord in office.

[snip]

Vatican sources said the Pope remained unmoved in his view that Blair had been wrong over Iraq.

The whole exchange seems worthy of Monty Python, really. Now perhaps we can hope that Pope former-Nazi starts telling American far right Catholics that that commandment not only applies to Bush’s little war, but also to the death penalty.

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Cheney’s Method

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There’s a remarkable paragraph close to the start of Barton Gellman and Jo Becker’s story on Cheney today:

Cheney is not, by nearly every inside account, the shadow president ofpopular lore. Bush has set his own course, not always in directionsCheney preferred. The president seized the helm when his No. 2 steeredtoward trouble, as Bush did, in time, on military commissions. Theirone-on-one relationship is opaque, a vital unknown in assessingCheney’s impact on events. The two men speak of it seldom, if ever,with others. But officials who see them together often, not all of themadmirers of the vice president, detect a strong sense of mutualconfidence that Cheney is serving Bush’s aims.

Consider the logic of the paragraph. Cheney is not the shadow president, they say. Bush has taken (some) actions independent of Cheney, they say. Cheney is implementing Bush’s goals, they say. But then they say, "Theirone-on-one relationship is opaque, a vital unknown in assessingCheney’s impact on events." None of the other claims made in the paragraph stand in the presence of that fact. So long as no one knows what happens between Bush and Cheney, we can never say whether Cheney is serving Bush’s aims or Bush is serving Cheney’s. 

But the article does provide a great deal of meat to the skeleton understanding of how Cheney operates. I’d like to look at what the story implies, but doesn’t say.

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Rummy’s Plausible Deniability

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