Right Wing Nut House

I am pleased to announce that I have signed on as the Chicago Editor for Pajamas Media effective next Monday.

My association with PJM goes back to the beginning when I signed on to accept advertising on my site under their rubric. Then last year, Roger Simon, CEO of Pajamas, asked me to write for the site - an opportunity I relish to this day.

Now, I’ll be even more closely associated with this growing and changing concern. I look forward to a happy and productive collaboration with the good folks there and hope you stop by a couple of times a day to see what’s new. The site is undergoing a major redesign with some exciting things on tap for the future. It will truly be a unique opportunity for me to work for a company on the cutting edge of the revolution in blogs and news dissemination.

I don’t expect too many of you to agree with me about the shame I believe that John Yoo and the Bush Administration has brought upon America as a result of their attempt to legally justify the torture of prisoners. From what I’ve been reading for years on other conservative sites, I know that many of you believe that any treatment we hand out to terrorists is too good for them, that they deserve to suffer and besides we need the information that only torture will elicit. Beyond that, there is a troubling rationale used by many conservatives that posits the notion of reciprocity; that because the terrorists treat prisoners in a beastly manner, it is perfectly alright for us to do the same to them.

It vexes me that conservatives believe such nonsense - believe it and use it as a justification for the violation of international and domestic law not to mention destroying our long standing and proud tradition of simply being better than that. Why this aspect of American exceptionalism escapes my friends on the right who don’t hesitate to use the argument that we are a different nation than all others when it comes to rightly boasting about our vast freedoms and brilliantly constructed Constitution is beyond me.

But for me and many others on the right, the issue of torture defines America in a way that does not weigh comfortably on our consciences or on our self image as citizens of this country. I am saddened beyond words to be associated with a country that willingly gives up its traditions and adherence to the rule of law for the easy way, the short cut around the law, while giving in to the basest instincts we posses because we are afraid.

I do not wish terrorists to be tortured. I wish them dead. But if they must surrender themselves to our custody or if we find it to our tactical advantage to hold them, then we have no alternative but to treat them as Americans treat prisoners not as the terrorists themselves treat their captives. This is self evident and it is shocking at times to be reviled as a “terrorist lover” just because I wish that our tradition of human decency and adhering to the rule of law be upheld.

The specifics of what is or what is not torture matter not. Inflicting pain is not something you can put on a scale and judge whether an interrogation technique crosses some invisible line between just being a little painful and outright agony. Mental and physical pain inflicted on purpose is a crime according to international law and our domestic statutes. It is pure sophistry to argue otherwise.

Let’s be clear on this; John Yoo’s memo does a tap dance around the Constitution, the UN treaty banning torture, and domestic laws prohibiting our public officials from engaging in acts that cause bodily harm to another person.

I am not a lawyer. But I can read. When a document is written in order to justify what otherwise would be illegal acts during peacetime (something that is clearly on Yoo’s mind throughout much of his memo), one would hope that something besides expanding the power of the executive to grant immunity to those who carry out the erstwhile illegalities would be used as a legal framework. Yoo makes little attempt, from my reading, to do so.

One example of this breathtaking and troubling expansion of executive authority:

On Page 47 of the Yoo memo, if I’m not mistaken, there’s the amazing assertion that the Convention Against Torture doesn’t apply whenever the president says it doesn’t. “Any presidential decision to order interrogations methods that are inconsistent with CAT would amount to a suspension or termination of those treaty provisions.” Doesn’t this mean that whether or not a treaty has been ratified, with or without express reservations, Yoo is saying that the president can implicitly and on his own authority withdraw the United States from the treaty simply by not abiding by it? Is there precedent for such a claim? In my quick scan so far of the tortured (sorry) reasoning here, I can’t find anything other than ipso facto—because I say so, the president says so.

From the memo Part II, page 41, we see a similar justification for defense against charges of torture, i.e. the president says it’s OK:

As we have made clear in other opinions involving the war against al Qaeda, the Nation’s right to self-defense has been triggered by the events of September 11. If a govenunent defendant were to harm an enemy combatant during an interrogation in a manner that might arguably violate a criminal prohibition, he would be doing so in order to prevent further attacks on the United States by the al Qaeda terrorist network. In that case, we believe that he’ could argue that the executive branch’s constitutional authority to protect the nation from attack justified his actions. This national and international version of the right to self-defense could supplement and bolster the government defendant’s individual right.

How can any conservative believing in limited government not at the very least look twice at such an expansion of government authority?

I believe that Vice President Cheney is correct when he says that executive power suffered as a result of naked power grabs by the Democratic Congress back in the 1970’s. But this goes far beyond redressing any imbalances that occurred as a result of abuses of executive authority uncovered in Watergate and Viet Nam. It does not appear that Mr. Yoo has deigned to supply any limits whatsoever to executive power during wartime.

As for his justifications for torture, some of Yoo’s reasoning is positively Orwellian:

As to mental torture, Richard testified that “no international consensus had emerged [as to] what degree of mental suffering is required to constitute torture[,]“but that it was nonetheless clear that severe mental pain or suffering “does not encompass the normal legal compulsions which are properly a part of the criminal justice system[:] .interrogation, incarceration, prosecution; compelled. testimony against a friend, etc,-notwithstanding the fact that they may have the incidental effect of producing mental strain.” Id. at 17. According to Richard, CAT was intended to “condemn as torture intentional acts such as those designed to damage and destroy the human personality.” Id. at 14. This description of mental suffering emphasizes the requirement that any mental harm be. of significant duration and supports our conclusion that ( mind-altering substances must have a profoundly disruptive effect to serve as a predicate.act.

It is a mindset like this that can justify barbarity.

I don’t buy the argument that because it only hurts “a little” that it’s not torture. The difference between having your fingernails pulled out and being forced to stand for 24 hours is irrelevant. It is the intent that matters. And if the intent is to cause suffering in order to get a prisoner to talk, that is torture whether it is chaining a terrorist to the floor and turning up the heat or making him believe he is drowning as a result of waterboarding.

Ed Morrissey, Christian gentleman that he is, wrestles mightily with this issue and comes up short. First, he attempts to spread the blame for torture authorization to the Congress:

First, the 2003 memo didn’t authorize the start of coercive techniques. As early as September 2002, Congressional leadership of both parties got briefed on interrogations of three al-Qaeda operatives. The CIA gave members of both parties dozens of classified briefings which detailed such techniques as waterboarding, stress positions, and other controversial methods that Congress later acted to ban. This obviously predates the Yoo memo.

Yoo also didn’t occupy any position that could have authorized any interrogative techniques. He provided a legal analysis when asked, but the responsibility for relying on the analysis falls to the CIA, Pentagon, and White House. Congress certainly appeared to agree in that same time frame; the reporting on the briefings notes that none of the Congressional delegation raised any objections during the briefings. One specifically asked whether the interrogations should be made tougher.

I would say to Ed that just because two branches of our government signed off on torture does not make it right. Whether it makes it legal or not may be another question. But it seems to me that Ed is trying to spread the blame for the US using torture techniques around and include Congress. If that is what he is trying to do, I find it irrelevant.

And I would agree with Ed that Yoo is hardly a “war criminal” as Lambchop would have us believe. There was no force of law behind this memo. As Ed rightly says it was the CIA, the Pentagon and especially the White House who relied on this memo to justify acts that would ordinarily violate international and domestic laws. Yoo was asked to give an opinion nothing more. This was no “Wannsee” scenario where justification for implementing the Nazi “Final Solution” were developed and discussed. Yoo himself may have been surprised that his memo became policy although I’m sure he didn’t mind it at the time.

The fact that his memo was withdrawn a year later and others substituted for it makes me think that the liberal criticism of the memo being a slap-dash, insufficiently fleshed out document with poor or non-existent justifications for such a massive change in policy to be pretty close to the mark. Again, I’m no lawyer but in reading it, I was struck again and again by how almost everything could be squeezed into the broad executive authority that Yoo was creating by expanding the limits of executive power. Ed Morrissey says in his piece that Yoo defined the president’s limits. This he did. But Ed did not mention that Yoo vastly expanded those limits from where they were in peace time. Did he expand them too much? I believe he did.

At some point in the future, we will be able to look back at the decisions that were made in the aftermath of 9/11 and make judgements based on how history unfolded. Some of those judgements will almost certainly meet with near universal approval. Others may prove to be less than efficacious.

But I sincerely doubt whether history will be kind to John Yoo or the president he thought he was serving when he used his considerable legal talents to justify throwing the law, the Constitution, and our good standing in the world out the window by giving a “legal” basis for torture.

I will have author/embed/war correspondent/film maker J.D. Johannes on my Blog Talk Radio show tonight to discuss recent events in Iraq and his film “Outside the Wire.”

The show will stream live from 7-8 PM Central time and can be accessed here:

If you would like to call in and join the discussion, the number is (718) 664-9764. A podcast of the show will be avalible about 15 minutes after its conclusion at the link above.

The film has received critical acclaim for its gritty, realistic portrayal of the American soldier’s experience in Iraq. You won’t want to miss this special appearance by one of the most knowledgeable journalists in America about Iraq.

UPDATE

Definition of “gritty”:

The anti-war crowd has been saying for years that it is possible, indeed necessary, for the United States to simply walk away from Iraq by systematically drawing down its forces without regard to the security of the Iraqi government or people.

Also for years, I have been saying that despite monumental blunders and stupidities committed by our side, that such a scenario just wasn’t a viable option unless we could be assured of leaving behind some kind of stable government that at the very least, couldn’t be hijacked by al-Qaeda and made into a base of operations that would threaten us and our friends around the world.

I still believe that to be a viable, sensible, logical position to hold - but just barely. Once again, I feel myself “stretching” to defend a position that even just a few days ago I felt quite comfortable with.

Almost a year ago, I responded to my critics who accused me of changing my mind about Iraq by writing a post that tried to show how events can undercut long held assumptions and present you with the choice of being dishonest about how you truly feel by stretching your logic and reason in order to have your beliefs comport with your original assumptions or change the underlying assumptions on which you base your beliefs in order to reflect a new reality:

One by one, assumptions I had formed at the beginning of the war and occupation fell victim to changing realities in Iraq. This is not the same place it was 4 years ago nor is it even the same as it was a year ago. And if it has changed – if the facts, perceptions, and reality has changed, what did that do to the underlying justification for my opinions?

Once I began “reaching” to justify my opinions, I got very uncomfortable. The threads of logic became more tenuous the more I examined those pesky assumptions. I realized that many (not all) of my original assumptions were basically obsolete, done in by the cruel logic of domestic politics and a growing realization that the the US military could do everything that was asked of it and more and still come up short thanks to the balking politicians in Iraq, the twisted narrative of the war being spun by the left and the Democrats, Administration failures to implement a strategy that would win the war, and a growing belief that the country was sliding out of control.

So if you’re in my shoes, what do you do? Continue to defend a position you know is becoming untenable as a result of changing realities (and new information not available at the time you formed your original assumptions)? Or do you alter your assumptions and change your opinion?

Until I got on the internet, I always believed it was the mark of a thoughtful man to constantly challenge one’s beliefs and adjust them if necessary to the changing realities of the world. This is how I went from believing in liberalism to thinking like a conservative. There came a time after college graduation where liberal dogma refused to stand the test of rigorous self-examination and I gravitated toward a much more conservative worldview. Within that conservative framework, I have altered my opinions many times regarding many issues. For instance, I am much more conservative on immigration than I was even just a few years ago while I have perhaps moderated my views on issues like affirmative action and minority set asides.

Those are small examples but telling. Think about it. What kind of idiot - right or left - would maintain a mindless belief on an issue even after the original assumptions on which they based that conviction have been superseded by events or a different set of facts?

The situation in Iraq at the moment is quite fluid and not beyond repair. A return to some kind of status quo albeit with a weakened Maliki and suddenly ascendant al-Sadr is possible. But I think that some of those underlying assumptions about Iraq that I held just a week ago have proven themselves to be changing - and not for the better.

To wit:

1. It was always an assumption that the Iraqi militias would have to be destroyed or neutralized in order for peace and security to come to Iraq.

But 6 days of fighting in Basra shows that Iraqi army incapable of doing either. And any political solution regarding the militias would necessarily put them on the police force or in the army where their loyalties would always be suspect.

2. It has been an assumption from the beginning that the Iraqi army was capable of “standing up” without American assistance so that we could safely draw down our forces.

I don’t believe the Iraqi army did that badly in Basra. There are enough credible reports that they stood up to some pretty vicious assaults by the Mehdis and may, in some instances, have been facing an enemy with superior arms including heavy weapons not in their arsenal. What is clear is that the spin on this battle has been incredible. Reports of “defections” by the army to the Mehdis have been wildly exaggerated while every temporary setback by the Iraqi army was given glowing coverage.

But their performance was nevertheless disappointing. Their inability to make much headway against the Mehdi in most neighborhoods and their reliance on American and British air power shows that they still have a long way to go before they can handle internal security for the country much less beat off an invading army from Iran or Syria.

How much more training can we give them? My military friends who read this site will no doubt tell me that it is a very difficult task to build an army from scratch and that leadership on the battlefield is a difficult commodity to recognize and encourage. I will buy that notion but will also point out that there is a political clock ticking here at home and performances like that shown in Basra by the Iraqi army do not engender confidence that they can “stand up” before time runs out and Congress (or a new president) pulls the plug.

3. It has been an assumption that Malki could unite the country despite dragging his heels on reconciliation measures.

This is one that has been slipping away for months. In fact, Maliki is proving to be not a uniter but a divider, interested in pursuing power for his coalition at the expense of other Shia parties and the Sunni minority. This was certainly a large part of the rationale he used for entering Basra in the first place. And in the end, it may be his undoing.

4. It has been an assumption that al-Sadr must die.

Mookie may have become too large a player in Iraqi politics to take him out. He and his party have become the “agents of change” in the south where precious little has been done with regards to reconstruction of basic services like electricity and sewage. His power in the national government may be small but the power of the national government is nothing to shake a stick at. If nothing else, he has become a powerful regional actor who both the US and Maliki must now deal with. His ties to Iran notwithstanding, perhaps it is time to if not embrace him, at least stop trying to kill him and the Mehdi. In other words, turn a huge negative into a slightly net positive.

5. It has been an assumption that the Kurdish north is not a big problem and that we can allow the Iraqis to deal with security in that area.

This is definitely one of those assumptions that is changing. Al-Qaeda has made its presence known in Mosul and Kirkuk while a low intensity conflict between Shias and Kurds for control of the vital oil center of Kirkuk has been going on for almost a year. Is there anything the US can reasonably be expected to do to alter that situation?

6. It has been an assumption that the US must stay in Iraq in order to kill the remnants of al-Qaeda.

This is probably the strongest argument for maintaining a large combat force in Iraq. But the Sunni militias have proven that they are very effective in securing their neighborhoods against al-Qaeda attacks while also rooting out terrorist cells on their own. Will we soon get to a point where the Sunnis can “stand up” so we can “stand down?”

These are just a few of the underlying assumptions about Iraq that most reasonable people, I believe, would have to say are in flux at the moment. Does this mean I believe we should walk away from Iraq? Not at this point. But unless some of these basic assumptions about our role as occupier and friend of Iraq can be changed for the better, I can certainly envision a day where such a course of action would become self-evident.

In 1911, the great English physicist Ernest Rutherford brought forth a model of the structure of the atom that revolutionized science. He did it with 20 research assistants (including some of the greatest minds in 20th century physics) in the basement of a rambling old stone house known as the Cavendish Laboratory.

Conditions in the lab were appalling. The roof leaked. It was cramped beyond belief. And Rutherford was a notorious skinflint when it came to paying his assistants.

But between 1907 and 1932, one by one the secrets of the atom gave themselves up to Rutherford and his “boys.” Using simple, handmade experimental apparatus for the most part, Rutherford unlocked “the mind of God” as Einstein put it. Considering his funding came from the Royal Society and not the government and his stipend per year was usually around 15 thousands pounds, Rutherford probably advanced human knowledge of the universe more by doing with less than any other scientist in history.

That was then. This is now.

The Large Hadron Collider is the largest collaborative scientific effort in history. It involves more than 2000 scientists from 34 countries as well as hundreds of universities and laboratories. It has taken 14 years to build at a cost of $8 billion and is scheduled to begin serious research work later this year.

And that work is mindboggling. The Collider seeks to accomplish nothing less than giving us a view of what the universe was like about one trillionth of a second after the Big Bang when the 4 fundamental forces in the universe - electromagnetism, the strong and weak nuclear forces, and gravitation - first split apart. By sending particle beams in opposite directions along a 17 mile underground circular track and accelerating them to near light speed while directing the particles with superconducting magnets to points where they are likely to collide, scientists hope to unravel some of the basic mysteries of the universe. Dark matter, extra dimensions, the nature of gravity, perhaps the fate of the universe itself could be revealed by these collisions and the subatomic particles they leave behind.

This kind of research cannot be done in the basement of a leaky house. It requires massive government funding to accomplish. The same can be said for virtually every other scientific discipline - space exploration, gene and DNA research, and climate change are no different. The days when a Rutherford or Edison could set up a lab and run it on a shoestring while making seminal discoveries about the universe are behind us.

Government funding means taxpayers are footing the bill for these research projects. As such, we should have a say when the potential exists for cataclysmic effects to occur as a result of experiments. We are very careful not to allow some altered genes outside of very tightly controlled labs because no one knows what the effects of that gene mixing with the biology that already exists on planet earth would be.

And as far as the Hadron Collider is concerned, very serious questions have been raised about some of the effects of the research on the planet - questions that we taxpayers need to have answered even if the possibility of disaster is extremely remote.

The world’s physicists have spent 14 years and $8 billion building the Large Hadron Collider, in which the colliding protons will recreate energies and conditions last seen a trillionth of a second after the Big Bang. Researchers will sift the debris from these primordial recreations for clues to the nature of mass and new forces and symmetries of nature.

But Walter L. Wagner and Luis Sancho contend that scientists at the European Center for Nuclear Research, or CERN, have played down the chances that the collider could produce, among other horrors, a tiny black hole, which, they say, could eat the Earth. Or it could spit out something called a “strangelet” that would convert our planet to a shrunken dense dead lump of something called “strange matter.” Their suit also says CERN has failed to provide an environmental impact statement as required under the National Environmental Policy Act.

Although it sounds bizarre, the case touches on a serious issue that has bothered scholars and scientists in recent years — namely how to estimate the risk of new groundbreaking experiments and who gets to decide whether or not to go ahead.

Scientists believe the possibility is very small that either scenario involving the strangelet or the mini-black hole will come to pass. But the fact that they are looking carefully to make sure they won’t would seem to indicate that it is not an impossibility.

It hearkens back to the Trinity explosion in 1945 where a couple of scientists theorized that the detonation of the first nuclear bomb would set the atmosphere on fire. It didn’t, of course, but the tiny chance that it would didn’t stop the experiment from going forward.

In this instance, because taxpayers are footing the bill (and have been able to follow developments in the unclassified program) these questions are getting more than a fair and thorough airing:

Physicists in and out of CERN say a variety of studies, including an official CERN report in 2003, have concluded there is no problem. But just to be sure, last year the anonymous Safety Assessment Group was set up to do the review again.

“The possibility that a black hole eats up the Earth is too serious a threat to leave it as a matter of argument among crackpots,” said Michelangelo Mangano, a CERN theorist who said he was part of the group. The others prefer to remain anonymous, Mr. Mangano said, for various reasons. Their report was due in January.

This is not the first time around for Mr. Wagner. He filed similar suits in 1999 and 2000 to prevent the Brookhaven National Laboratory from operating the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider. That suit was dismissed in 2001. The collider, which smashes together gold ions in the hopes of creating what is called a “quark-gluon plasma,” has been operating without incident since 2000.

The fact that scientists are not laughing at the idea of destroying the earth as a result of an experiment shows the wisdom of taxpayers like Wagner questioning everything - even though his expertise and knowledge may fall short of those he is criticizing. I would hope the same holds true for some bio-medical research that has the potential to loose upon the planet something that could destroy life as well as those working in the artificial intelligence field who some have theorized could end up being quite unfriendly to their creators.

We are entering a new age of scientific exploration where the basic mysteries of the universe have a chance of being unraveled. From studying the smallest sub-atomic particles to discovering the fate of the cosmos, taxpayers will be asked to fund ever grander, more expensive research projects in our quest to understand ourselves and the natural world around us. It is the purest of pursuits, this quest for knowledge. And deciding not only whether it is worth it but also if it is safe must become part of the debate when setting priorities for our governments.

This blog post originally appears in The American Thinker 

Will they ever learn?

Another anti-war movie is tanking at the box office. Overnights for Friday show the film “Stop Loss” garnering an anemic $1.4 million for a projected $4 million opening weekend. This despite a huge build up and massive ad campaign with great reviews from movie/war critics.Not one Iraq war movie has been anything close to a financial success. In fact, it is fair to say that every single anti-war film to date has lost its shirt:

 In the Valley of Elah (2007) - $6.8 million.
Redacted (2007) - $.06 million.
The Kingdom (2007) - $47.4 million.
Rendition (2007) - $9.7 million.
Lions for Lambs (2007) - $15 million.
Home of the Brave (2006) - $.04 million.
(HT: Cinematical)“The Kingdom” - a drama about the FBI investigating a terrorist attacks on Americans in Saudi Arabia - ended up getting about half its $80+ million budget back in receipts. It’s actually an exciting film and doesn’t even mention Iraq (although the last scene shows a moral equivalence between terrorism and our efforts to stop it).

“It’s not looking good,” a studio source told me before the weekend. “No one wants to see Iraq war movies. No matter what we put out there in terms of great cast or trailers, people were completely turned off. It’s a function of the marketplace not being ready to address this conflict in a dramatic way because the war itself is something that’s unresolved yet. It’s a shame because it’s a good movie that’s just ahead of its time.”

“Ahead of its time?” Moviegoers “not ready” to see Iraq War movies? Allahpundit scoffs at that notion:

They keep making ‘em even though we keep not watching ‘em, which shows you how committed they are to the message and/or fearful of testing that “America’s not ready yet” hypothesis with a pro-war flick. Check out the trailer for this abortion if you missed it last year. One shopworn anti-war contrivance after another, right down to the cringeworthy graphic of a tattered flag. No wonder even the left doesn’t want to sit through this crap.

Allah is off base suggesting that Hollywood places more importance on the anti-war message than on the idea that the film will make any money. If there is one place in the United States where money is worshipped more than in Hollywood, I can’t think of it. When a production company spends $80 million on a film and loses nearly $40 million, the chances of them getting backing from a major studio to make another film is severely reduced.  This alone is motivation to make a film they are pretty certain will make money.That $40 million in losses is real money. Even losing half that is a catastrophe. The exception to this was probably De Palma’s “Redacted” (Cost: $5 million of DePalma’s own money) where the director admitted he wanted to instruct the American people on how to feel about the war and ended up making an incoherent mess of a movie that even anti-war critics panned. 

Film historian Jonathan Kuntz of UCLA points out that most memorable war films appear many years after a conflict ends, when the nation has had time to reflect on the experience and a historical consensus emerges about the war’s successes and failures.The classic films about Vietnam — starting with “The Deer Hunter,” “Coming Home” and “Apocalypse Now” in 1978 and 1979 and ending with “Born on the Fourth of July” in 1989 — came out years after the last U.S. serviceman had left the battlefield. “M*A*S*H,” which was essentially an anti-Vietnam film but set in the Korean War, was released nearly 20 years after the Korean armistice. But the outcome in Iraq remains an open question, with America’s military commitment to the country under constant debate.

There may be something to that. We all may be too close to the political arguments and the emotional investment in defending or opposing the war to be able to see the war as a diversion or as entertainment.

Eventually, we may reconcile our feelings about the war and place it into the context of our national narrative. Until then, it appears that the American people just want to be left alone.

Anyone who is cheering on what is happening in Iraq probably also roots for crashes at NASCAR races and train derailments.

Admittedly, the situation is so confused and bloggers and the MSM are spinning the news to such dizzying lengths that getting a semi-clear picture of what is actually transpiring in Basra, in Kut, even in Baghdad has become a guessing game.

We know that after some initial success, the Iraqi army is bogged down in a battle for Basra that has degenerated into running gun battles with Mehdi militiamen who appear to be equally or better armed than the US supplied government troops.

There is word that American air power is being employed to help the Iraqi army:

The air strikes are the clearest sign yet that the coalition forces have been drawn into the fighting in Basra. Up until Thursday night, the American and British air forces insisted that the Iraqis had taken the lead, though they acknowledged surveillance support for the Iraqi Army.

The assault on militia forces in Basra has been presented by President Bush and others as an important test for the American-trained Iraqi forces, to show that they can carry out a major ground operation against insurgents largely on their own.

But the air strikes suggest that the Iraqi military has been unable to successfully rout the militias, despite repeated assurances by American and Iraqi officials that their fighting capabilities have vastly improved.

A failure by the Iraqi forces to secure the port city of Basra would be a serious embarrassment for the government of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki and for the Iraqi Army, as well as for American forces who are eager to demonstrate that the Iraqi units they have trained can fight effectively.

The airstrikes were against a “Mahdi stronghold” and a mortar position, according to the Times who quoted American military sources.

Bombing in residential areas nearly always results in collateral damage to surrounding buildings. This almost certainly isn’t making residents of Basra very happy to see us.

But the tell here is the fact that we bombed a “mortar team” for the Iraqi army.

Now I hate to get into areas where my expertise is limited but don’t Americans learn how to take a fortified position in basic training? Isn’t that like “Soldiering 101?” Correct me if I’m wrong but why, after three years of training can’t Iraqi troops manage this feat on their own?

I would take that as a sign that the Iraqi army, while not throwing down their arms and fleeing in terror, are not up to the challenge of operating independently yet. And this begs the question of why Prime Minister Maliki gave the go-ahead for this operation?

Daniel Davies asks some questions that I haven’t seen anywhere else:

John is right to be suspicious of this kind of “this looks like such a stupid idea that he must have some private information that explains it all” argument, and there was always the possibility that in fact, it just looked crazy because it was crazy – either a reckless desperation gamble, a wholly unrealistic assessment of the situation or a calculated attempt to precipitate enough of a crisis to force the USA to commit more resources. With the Maliki forces seemingly having made no progess toward their objective in Basra, and with rioting and curfews in Baghdad and actual armed battles in Kut, it looks like Maliki’s gamble is going badly wrong. Napoleon’s maxim is relevant here; “if you set out to take Vienna, take Vienna!” – having picked the fight, Maliki absolutely had to win it, and failure here is likely to mean political failure too.

It’s hard to see a good way out of this. John’s prediction record here is substantially better than mine, and he thinks that we settle back down to a lower-energy state of affairs, with some kind of renegotiated ceasefire, but I’m now less optimistic than that. It seems to me that Moqtada al-Sadr’s control over the movement bearing his name is weakening; the man himself is in Qom, Iran, studying Islamic scripture and trying to stay out of trouble[2]. Meanwhile, the Mehdi Army[3] has clearly been getting more and more restless over the six months of ceasefire and still seems to me to be potentially quite fissiparous. The really interesting question to which I don’t know the answer is; to what extent do the uprisings across Shia Iraq reflect different branches of the Mehdi Army supporting one another, and to what extent are they local flare-ups which were precipitated by the attack on Basra but not coordinated responses to it?

First, I think going after the Mahdi was the next logical step for the government to take if they were ever going to have a “monopoly on violence” in the country. Basra and most of the surrounding towns and villages were lawless outposts ruled by gangs, rogue militias, and party warlords who vied for control in a low intensity conflict that the Brits couldn’t handle because of their sensitivity to suffering too many casualties. It would be a huge boost to the government’s credibility with Sunnis and many Shias if they could reduce the power of the Mahdi in Basra while gaining control of the region.

Second, Maliki is no doubt looking to the provincial elections in the fall and feared al-Sadr’s influence and especially his ability to rig elections in the south to give the Mahdi a favorable outcome. Pure power politics has its uses when everyone has a gun.

Third, I have little doubt that the Americans have been urging this course of action on Maliki for a long time. Not only will emasculating the Mahdi help the security situation in Iraq, but a demonstration of armed prowess by the Iraqi army would be good for the American electorate and especially GOP Congressmen who are getting antsy about funding the war with so little in the way of proof that the Iraqi military is coming along and will be able to handle security well enough that we can start to draw down our forces significantly.

But it is hard to see how this can end up a net positive for Maliki unless he destroys the Mahdi Army. That’s becaue any negotiated end to the fighting with the Mahdi still in Basra will be spun as a victory by al-Sadr - just as he spun his defeat in Najaf as a victory over the Americans.

This is from a Mahdi militiaman who was on the Basra police force and who took off his uniform to join his comrades in this fight against the Iraqi army:

“We know the outcome of the fighting in advance because we already defeated the British in the streets of Basra and forced them to withdraw to their base,” Abu Iman told The Times.

“If we go back a bit, everyone remembers the fight with the US in Najaf and the damage and defeat we inflicted on them. Do you think the Iraqi Army is better than those armies? We are right and the Government is wrong. [Nouri al] Maliki [the Iraqi Prime Minister] is driving his Government into the ground.”

According to the Times Online, several hundred of these policemen (out of 10,000) switched sides - not unexpected given the level of infiltration by the militias in the police force but worrying nonetheless.

With fighting breaking out in several other southern cities, Maliki may have bitten off more than the Iraqi army can chew. And that doesn’t include the fighting in Baghdad where the Iraqis aren’t even attempting to enter Sadr City, leaving that job to the US military:

U.S. forces in armored vehicles battled Mahdi Army fighters Thursday in Sadr City, the vast Shiite stronghold in eastern Baghdad, as an offensive to quell party-backed militias entered its third day. Iraqi army and police units appeared to be largely holding to the outskirts of the area as American troops took the lead in the fighting.

Four U.S. Stryker armored vehicles were seen in Sadr City by a Washington Post correspondent, one of them engaging Mahdi Army militiamen with heavy fire. The din of American weapons, along with the Mahdi Army’s AK-47s and rocket-propelled grenades, was heard through much of the day. U.S. helicopters and drones buzzed overhead.

The clashes suggested that American forces were being drawn more deeply into a broad offensive that Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, a Shiite, launched in the southern city of Basra on Tuesday, saying death squads, criminal gangs and rogue militias were the targets. The Mahdi Army of cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, a Shiite rival of Maliki, appeared to have taken the brunt of the attacks; fighting spread to many southern cities and parts of Baghdad.

We’ve used our airpower in Sadr City as well - a move that saved American lives I’m sure but I am equally certain that bombing a residential area also made a poor impression on the people who live there. And for the fourth day in a row, the Green Zone is getting hit hard:

Baghdad was on virtual lockdown Friday as a tough new curfew ordered everyone off the streets of the Iraqi capital and five other cities until 5 p.m. Sunday.

That restriction didn’t stop someone from firing rockets and mortar rounds into the capital’s heavily fortified International Zone, commonly known as the Green Zone. One slammed into the office of one of Iraq’s vice presidents, Tareq al-Hashemi, killing two guards.

An American government worker also was killed in rocket and mortar attacks Thursday in the International Zone.

U.S. warplanes pounded Baghdad’s Sadr City neighborhood Friday, killing six people and wounding 10.

Who is doing the shooting? Please don’t ask the American State Department:

U.S. State Department official Richard Schmierer said the rocket attacks appeared to be coming from fighters affiliated with al-Sadr who were “trying to make a statement” about the government offensive in Basra. He blamed the violence on “marginal extremist elements” who have associated themselves with the Sadrist movement.

When one of those “statements” kills an American and another crashes into the office of the 3rd ranking political figure in Iraq while the entire 2 million residents of Sadr City are being terrorized by thousands of Mehdi Army militiamen who have ordered shops and schools closed, you have to think that the resistance goes a little beyond “marginal extremist elements.”

It seems to me that the Iraqi government is already starting to weigh the domestic unrest caused by this move against any gains that might be made in Basra. If so, expect a cease fire by the end of the weekend and a humiliating pullback by Iraqi troops leaving the field to the Mehdi Army.

I never would have thought it possible to say but I believe now it is a powerfully good thing that our presidential nominating process is such a long, drawn out affair.

How else were we ever going to confirm that Barack Obama is a most accomplished and shameless liar?

Obama lies with an ease that bespeaks a comfortable familiarity with the practice. At first, when his lies about his friend Tony Rezko were revealed and then confirmed by the candidate himself, I thought to myself that every politician lies at some point and that Obama telling the press that he barely knew Rezko, that he was one of a thousand contributors, and that he only raised around $50,000 for his campaigns could be written off as a candidate simply blowing smoke about a problematic associate. (It turned out that Rezko was Obama’s most important fundraiser, a patron, and that he raised closer to $275,000 for the candidate.)

And then came the lies about the house he purchased with the help of Rezko. Obama addressed most of the questions in a sit down with the Chicago Tribune and Sun Times reporters - where further information came to light once again contradicting Obama’s previous statements about the extent to which he and Rezko cooperated in securing the home.

In Obama’s original statements about the purchase, he denied coordinating anything about the purchase with Rezko. He also denied knowing that Rezko was under investigation at the time when the entire city of Chicago knew that the “Fixer” was in trouble due to his fundraising activities for Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich. (He admitted during the Trib interview that he had heard of Rezko’s troubles.) He also tried to paint Rezko as some eager beaver lobbyist who was just trying to get close to him.

In fact, one could say that Obama’s original explanation of his relationship with Rezko and much of what he said about the purchase of his house was nothing but a tissue of lies - swallowed for the most part by the national press. It was left to local reporters to ferret out the true story and put the pressure on Obama to come clean.

Again, when most of these revelations came to light, I was inclined to give Obama a break. Nothing unusual about a politician faced with an indicted associate trying to distance himself from the dirt. But I should have made note of the ease with which Obama first lied about his relationship with Rezko and then corrected the record without apolology and with zero damage to his credibility with his supporters.

But then came the Reverend Wright fiasco and Obama’s lying took on an entirely different character. His speech on race - done out of political necessity but nevertheless a thought provoking and wonderfully crafted address - contained many statements about Wright and his relationship with the preacher that strain credulity. John Derbyshire pointed out several of these “sleight of mouth” prevarications by Obama. And Obama’s biggest fibs about whether he heard Wright utter his hate filled sermons were given a pass by almost everyone.

It is breathtaking the way Obama has changed his narrative about Wright. He has done it with an ease and slipperiness that should disturb anyone who believes a president telling the truth must be placed fairly high on any list of qualifications for office. We’ve just spent 16 years dealing with Presidents who proved to be less than honest on big issues. Can’t we do better this time around?

Lies about Wright, about his grandmother, about the context in which he heard Wright’s remarks when attending Trinity Church - and finally, this whopper Obama blurted out in an interview scheduled to air today:

“Had the reverend not retired, and had he not acknowledged that what he had said had deeply offended people and were inappropriate and mischaracterized what I believe is the greatness of this country, for all its flaws, then I wouldn’t have felt comfortable staying at the church,” Obama said Thursday during a taping of the ABC talk show, “The View.” The interview will be broadcast Friday.

Let’s leave aside the extraordinarily self serving notion that Obama would have left the Church after 20 years of sitting in its pews listening to the hate spewing from the mouth of Reverend Wright not because he found the words objectionable but because it would have complicated his run for the presidency. Let us instead look at the ease with which he lied on a very popular TV show watched by millions of women by stating that Wright had “acknowledged that what he had said had deeply offended people” and that the remarks “were inappropriate.”

Did he indeed?

Tom McGuire:

So, when did Wright acknowledge that what he had said was deeply offensive and inappropriate? The AP story recounts some of Wright’s controversial comments but oddly omits to mention his apology, as does all other news coverage with which I am familiar. And I am strangely certain that a Wright apology would have made the news - unless he never made it publicly.

So what are we supposed to believe - that Wright apologized to Obama, who is now apologizing to the rest of us on Wright’s behalf? For heaven’s sake, this really does show that Obama is made of Presidential stuff - maybe he can do an Apology Tour, just as Bill Clinton did.

But why is Wright apologizing to Obama, who only heard these remarks second hand - well, “second hand” if we still believe Obama’s insistence that he missed every service with these controversial comments (Huffington Post) but heard others (The Speech) but didn’t hear anything at all (town hall). Shouldn’t Wright be apologizing to those of us who took offense? Or after thirty years of delivering three sermons per week, has Wright developed a fear of public speaking?

Is this a little lie? Or a big one? Considering the fact that if Wright had indeed issued this tepid apologia it would place Obama’s defense of his minister in an entirely different, more palatable light, it certainly is not insignificant.

But what concerns me more than the lies themselves is the ease with which Obama employs them. Most politicians are pretty good liars but Obama, like Bill Clinton (unlike George Bush who is a horrible liar) is very, very good at it. And what’s even worse is his ability to turn 180 degrees and embrace the truth when he is discovered while barely acknowledging or ignoring the lie.

I will probably end up doing a post soon on McCain’s whoppers as well. The guy can’t keep his story straight about his support for amnesty, the Iraq War, or campaign finance reform, or any number of issues he has dealt with over the years. McCain doesn’t have quite as much to lie about - or at least about his personal associations.

For two guys running on how honest they are, it’s depressing to think that if these guys are the straightest talkers we have in the political class, our republic is in deep trouble.

The votes are in from this week’s Watchers Council and the winner in the Council category is “Fisking the Obama Speech” by Rhymes With Right. Coming in second was “Judge Not Lest You Be Judged” by Bookworm Room.

Finishing first in the non-Council category was “David Mamet: Why I Am No Longer a ‘Brain-Dead Liberal’ by The Village Voice.

If you would like to participate in next week’s Watcher’s Council vote, go here and follow instructions.

I’m sure most of you have heard this little ditty at one time or another. It’s from Monty Python’s scathingly blasphemous satire The Life of Brian.

The plot is too involved to get into here but it involves a 1st century AD Jew by the name of Brian Cohen who is mistaken for the Messiah. Brian is a reluctant savior and keeps trying to tell everyone that he’s just an ordinary guy but to no avail.

Of course, the Romans crucify poor Brian. And while on the cross, another victim being crucified breaks into song:

Some things in life are bad
They can really make you mad
Other things just make you swear and curse.
When you’re chewing on life’s gristle
Don’t grumble, give a whistle
And this’ll help things turn out for the best…

And…always look on the bright side of life…
Always look on the light side of life…

If life seems jolly rotten
There’s something you’ve forgotten
And that’s to laugh and smile and dance and sing.
When you’re feeling in the dumps
Don’t be silly chumps
Just purse your lips and whistle - that’s the thing. (Words and music by Eric Idle)

The song has become wildly popular in Britain. It is the single most requested song to be played at funerals. It was sung by the chaps on the HMS Sheffield after their destroyer was hit during the Falklands War by an Exocet missile and they were awaiting rescue. It’s become a popular ditty sung at soccer games as well.

But you really have to see it in the film to understand the full scope of its irony. There are about 25 guys being crucified along with Brian, including the magnificent Eric Idle who is hanging next to him. Out of the blue, Idle breaks into this tune complete with a whistling interlude in the chorus. He is soon joined by the rest of the condemned men who whistle along on their crosses - some even trying to dance a bit.

I realize that there are probably quite a few of you who find nothing funny about the film. It skewers organized religion and excessive religiosity but not Christianity - a film I believe that Christ himself would have found funny since the Pythons were not mocking him at all.

At any rate, apropos of the times we live in, the song is perfect.

If Iraq has got you down
or you think Obama’s a clown,
or Hillary a danger to our nation and a witch.
There’s something you can do
to make your dreams come true
Just drink a fifth of scotch and drop some “X.”

And…always look on the bright side of life…
Always look on the light side of life…

Al-Sadr’s out a-thuggin’
His pals are run and gunnin’
Malki’s really kickin’ ass and taking names.
C’mon now, don’t be blue
Just sniff a little glue
And things will soon be almost right as rain.

And…always look on the bright side of life…
Always look on the light side of life…

Your mortgage is balloonin’
Foreclosure is a-loomin’
The housing market’s tanking something bad.
Just read a funny joke
And snort a gram of coke
Soon your troubles won’t make you feel so sad.

And…always look on the bright side of life…
Always look on the light side of life…

Liberals are a-droolin’
The right a-feared of losin’
McCain he is a wooden headed chump.
Just take your .38
No real need to wait
Just say goodbye and kiss your ample rump.

And…always look on the bright side of life…
Always look on the light side of life…