Right Wing Nut House

The New York Times says of the debate over detainee rights: “It is one of those rare Congressional moments when the policy is as monumental as the politics.”

Indeed. And the fact that the debate is taking place almost solely and exclusively among Republicans and conservatives says volumes about the cynicism and lack of courage on the part of Democrats in both houses of Congress.

Perfectly content with throwing rhetorical bombs on the issue of detainee rights for months, not offering any solutions but rather tossing exaggerated epithets at the President and Republicans, Congressional Democrats are cowering on the sidelines as the most important debate in the War on Terror unfolds on the Hill:

At issue are definitions of what is permissible in trials and interrogations that both sides view as central to the character of the nation, the way the United States is perceived abroad and the rules of the game for what Mr. Bush has said will be a multigenerational battle against Islamic terrorists.

Democrats have so far remained on the sidelines, sidestepping Republican efforts to draw them into a fight over Mr. Bush’s leadership on national security heading toward the midterm election. Democrats are rapt spectators, however, shielded by the stern opposition to the president being expressed by three Republicans with impeccable credentials on military matters: Senators John McCain of Arizona, John W. Warner of Virginia and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina. The three were joined on Thursday by Colin L. Powell, formerly the secretary of state and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in challenging the administration’s approach.

If Democrats think they are being clever by not falling into the Republican “trap” of engaging in a debate on this issue, they have outthought themselves once again. All they are doing is being made to appear as weak and vacillating on matters related to the war as Republicans say they are. They are proving to the American people that they are unworthy of ascending to power this November by sitting on their hands while some of the most important issues relating to both our national security and national identity are decided.

What kind of country do we want to be? How much is our view of ourselves tied up in how others see us? Can we still protect ourselves while desiring to be a “good citizen” of the world? Can our Constitution be stretched in order to recognize the rights of those who wish to destroy us? How much power should be granted the Executive during a time of war?

These are not “political” questions in the traditional sense. And I doubt very much whether any nation in history has had such a unique and soulful argument about many of these issues that go to the heart of our sovereignty as well as the core of our Constitutional form of government.

At issue is the law - international and domestic - and how it should apply to prisoners who fall into our hands. On one side is the President and an obedient Congressional leadership who seek to have the broadest possible interpretation of international statutes relating to torture and the incarceration of prisoners. The President wants to give the CIA the authority to use “enhanced” interrogation techniques on high value prisoners while adjudicating the cases of other detainees using the rather blunt judicial instrument of Military Tribunals.

The problem with the former is that those lining up in opposition - notably Senator McCain and Colin Powell - fear that any deviation from a relatively strict interpretation of the Geneva Convention protocols will place captured American military and intelligence personnel in greater danger of being abused (although it is hard to imagine no matter what our policy about interrogations, how much more danger our people would be in if captured by al-Qaeda or a state that supports the terrorists).

As for the latter, the President wants Military Tribunals to be able to withhold evidence of a classified nature from detainees during their judicial proceedings. McCain & Co. want rules of evidence more in keeping with American Constitutional protections.

On this issue, both sides have strong arguments. Given the nature of the war and how it is being fought, oftentimes the only evidence gathered against a prisoner is via other interrogations or informants whose lives would be placed in danger if their identity were revealed. On the other hand, unless a detainee attorney can assess the evidence against his client, it becomes virtually impossible to defend him. And if the purpose of the Tribunal is to establish the guilt or innocence of the prisoner - a process desperately needed given the uncertainty surrounding the circumstances where many detainees at Guantanamo were captured - then one would hope that the more rigorous standards of evidence would be adopted for the proceedings.

The good news is that the President seems willing to compromise:

“The most important job of government is to protect the homeland, and yesterday they advanced an important piece of legislation to do just that,” Bush told reporters. “I’ll continue to work with members of the Congress to get good legislation so we can do our duty.”

The re-interpreting of Geneva Convention protocols against torture has drawn the most fire from McCain and his supporters. What the White House calls a “redefinition” many experts on international law say is an attempt to circumvent the Geneva articles while immunizing American personnel (especially the CIA) from any charges of war crimes. This is extremely shaky legal ground for the Administration and it has apparently not sat well with lawyers at the Pentagon:

Senior judge advocates general had publicly questioned many aspects of the administration’s position, especially any reinterpreting of the Geneva Conventions. The White House and GOP lawmakers seized on what appeared to be a change of heart to say that they now have military lawyers on their side.

But the letter was signed only after an extraordinary round of negotiations Wednesday between the judge advocates and William J. Haynes II, the Defense Department’s general counsel, according to Republican opponents of Bush’s proposal. The military lawyers refused to sign a letter of endorsement. But after hours of cajoling, they assented to write that they “do not object,” according to three Senate GOP sources who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were divulging private negotiations.

It is likely that this “redefinition” will be altered or even jettisoned in any final version of the bill.

The Republicans certainly had ulterior political motives in bringing this legislation to the fore 6 weeks before a mid term election in order to highlight the Democratic party’s unfitness and irresponsibility on national security issues. But the fact remains that the heartfelt opposition to the President’s proposals by conservatives carries far more weight in this debate than anything the politically motivated Democrats could muster. McCain, Powell, and the rest have proven that they are not only good Americans. They have also proven that they are good Republicans as well. This despite the probability that their opposition to the President will not win Republicans any votes in November nor advance their personal ambitions with core Republican supporters.

It proves to me that there are still people of conscience in the Republican party. In that respect, it may be worth it even if their opposition costs the party control of one or both houses of Congress in November.

UPDATE

James Joyner is in basic agreement (and makes the same comment I did about McCain’s rational regarding torture):

On the merits, I agree with McCain and company, although not necessarily for the reasons they give. It is patently absurd to argue that our terrorist enemies are going to abide by the Geneva Conventions if we do so.

Graham is right that abiding by international law and our living up to our ideals sends the correct message. I’m more skeptical than he is about our ability to persuade Muslims that we’re the good guys, given that their information is filtered through al Jazeera, the mullahs, and others hostile to us. Still, every documented American attrocity fuels the propaganda fire against us with very little offsetting advantage.

McQ at Q & O:

I agree. Now there are certainly appealing arguments to be made on both sides of the issue, but to this point, that’s really not happened. It is indeed refreshing, as Taylor points out, to see a policy discussion happening which isn’t completely driven by politics. It is equally refreshing to see the president go to Congress to discuss the issues.

So for the time being ignore the press characterizations of this being a rebuff for Bush or a rebellion in the Republican ranks. It is something, had Congress been doing its job, which should have been settled long before this. And in this case, better late than never.

Sullivan (Hysterical as always but his heart is in the right place):

The sight of so many Republican senators and one former secretary of state finally standing up against the brutality and dishonor of this president’s military detention policies is a sign of great hope. It turns out there is an opposition in this country - it’s called what’s left of the sane wing of the GOP. Slowly, real conservatives are speaking out loud what they have long said in private. The apparatchiks of the pro-torture blogosphere can vent, but it is hard to demonize the new opposition as “leftist” or “hysterical.”

Andrew seems a little vexed that the President will use the issue as a club to beat the Democrats with. It is moronic to think the President would do otherwise. With the kind of opposition Republicans face - exaggerated and hyperbolic charges like those contained in Sullivan’s post - what does Andrew and the rest of the unhinged opposition think the President and Republicans are going to do? Sit back and let their opponents have an open field? Allow them the luxury of remaining quiet while they spout their nonsensical and unfair rhetoric?

As I point out in the post, Bush is in fact playing politics with the issue - any President of either party would do the same if placed in his position. To pretend otherwise is to ignore the major electoral dynamic that has been with us since Jefferson was elected: The best defense is a good offense.

The votes are in from this week’s Watchers Council and the winner in the Council category for best post was Jimmie at The Sundries Shack for “It’s Not a War. It’s a Trendy Buzzword!”

There was a three way tie for second:

Yours truly for “9/11 Tin Foil Hats are Melting”

“It Is Time for Jews to Think About Leaving Western Europe” byJoshuapundit

“Condi’s Civil War’ by Done with Mirrors

Finishing first in the non Council category was “Hezbollah Probably Lost the War, But They May Never Have Been In It To Win” by Mere Rhetoric.

If you’d like to participate in the Watchers weekly vote, go here and follow instructions.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has to be one of the most ineffective international organizations in history. They have yet to prevent any nation anywhere who wished to develop nuclear weapons from doing so. In fact, one could successfully argue that many of their actions have contributed in no small way to the development of nuclear weapons in these countries despite the fact that the Agency is in charge of verifying that signatories to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty abide by their commitments.

Part of the problem is the dual nature of their mission. Not only are they charged with verification of compliance with the NPT, they are also required to promote the “peaceful” use of nuclear energy. By definition, this means helping countries build reactors and nuclear infrastructure that, with some modifications, could be used to construct a bomb.

Of course, there are many steps between fueling a reactor and building a nuke and some of those steps would require forays into the international nuclear markets - markets that are closely watched for just such activity. The sale of fissile material for instance is one of the most regulated activities in the world. Despite this, Israel and South Africa (whose nuclear program while presently dismantled could probably be reactivated with little trouble) were able to gather enough nuclear technology and fuel to build nuclear weapons.

This points up the need for a real international nuclear watchdog. Not a poodle but rather a Rottweiler - preferably one with great big teeth and a nasty bite. Instead, under Nobel Peace Prize winner and Chief Nuclear Enabler Mohamed ElBaradei, the IAEA has proven that rather than confronting rogue states who wish to build the ultimate weapon, the Agency does everything in its power not to offend the thugs and potential mass murdering crazies who seek the means to make their nuclear fantasies come true.

Case in point is the reaction by the IAEA to the report issued last month by House Republicans on the Intelligence Committee who have had it up to here with ElBaradei’s wishy washiness toward the radioactive mullahs in Iran. In a letter to Chairman Hoekstra, the IAEA angrily pointed to 5 major inaccuracies in the report:

The agency noted five major errors in the committee’s 29-page report, which said Iran’s nuclear capabilities are more advanced than either the IAEA or U.S. intelligence has shown.

Among the committee’s assertions is that Iran is producing weapons-grade uranium at its facility in the town of Natanz. The IAEA called that “incorrect,” noting that weapons-grade uranium is enriched to a level of 90 percent or more. Iran has enriched uranium to 3.5 percent under IAEA monitoring

[snip]

Among the allegations in Fleitz’s Iran report is that ElBaradei removed a senior inspector from the Iran investigation because he raised “concerns about Iranian deception regarding its nuclear program.” The agency said the inspector has not been removed.

A suggestion that ElBaradei had an “unstated” policy that prevented inspectors from telling the truth about Iran’s program was particularly “outrageous and dishonest,” according to the IAEA letter, which was signed by Vilmos Cserveny, the IAEA’s director for external affairs and a former Hungarian ambassador.

It should be pointed out that no Democrats on the Intelligence Committee signed off on this report and that it was written by an ex-CIA Committee staffer who may or may not have an ax to grind with ElBaradei. The CIA also came in for some scathing criticism in the report for its National Intelligence Estimate written last summer that stated the Iranians were a decade or more away from building a nuke. The Israelis believe that they mullahs could go nuclear in 5 years or less.

And someone else agrees with the Israelis; ElBaradei himself:

IAEA chairman Muhammad ElBaradei on Monday confirmed Israel’s assessment that Iran is only a few months away from creating an atomic bomb.

If Tehran indeed resumed its uranium enrichment in other plants, as threatened, it will take it only “a few months” to produce a nuclear bomb, El-Baradei told The Independent.

And the allegation that ElBaradei removed a senior inspector is true. But the reason he did it is even more craven than indicated by the House report: the Iranians demanded it. The reason? The inspector believed that the Iranians were building nuclear weapons:

Iran has asked the International Atomic Energy Agency to remove the head of the inspection team probing Tehran’s nuclear program, U.N. officials said Sunday.

The inspector, Chris Charlier, has not been back to Iran since April because of Iranian displeasure with his work, the officials said.

However, Charlier remains the head of the team, they said, speaking on condition of anonymity because the issue was confidential.

The German newspaper Welt am Sonntag reported Sunday that Charlier had been removed from his post and assigned to other duties. It quoted him as saying he believes Iran is operating a clandestine nuclear program and suggested it was linked to weapons.

IAEA spokespeople in Vienna, Austria, declined comment Sunday.

Charlier, 61, has previously complained publicly that Iranian constraints made inspection work there difficult.

In other words, in order to avoid a confrontation, ElBaradei acceded to Iranian demands that the inspector be cashiered. The IAEA chief can spin it anyway he would like but the fact is his chief inspector isn’t even allowed into Iran to do his job and the Iranians appear to have a veto over IAEA personnel matters.

As far as ElBaradei having an “unstated” policy that inspectors not tell the truth about the Iranian program, just what the hell are we supposed to think when the Iranians can order him around like a poodle and pick and choose which inspectors will be allowed into their country? In fact, it would make sense for ElBaradei to have such a policy if only to prevent further erosion of his authority - if that’s possible.

As for the belief that there is Highly Enriched (HE) uranium at the Natanz nuclear site, I guess we can chalk this up to “naturally occurring” uranium enriched to weapons grade levels:

The U.N. atomic agency has found traces of highly enriched uranium at an Iranian site linked to the country’s defense ministry, diplomats said Friday. The finding added to concerns that Tehran was hiding activities that could be used to make nuclear arms.

The diplomats, who demanded anonymity in exchange for revealing the confidential information, said the findings were preliminary and still had to be confirmed through other lab tests. But they said the density of enrichment appeared close to or beyond weapons grade _ the level used to make nuclear warheads.

The IAEA has only recently revealed this fact and are casting about desperately to find an explanation for it - anything except the possibility that the Iranians are already able to enrich uranium not to the measly 3.5% they have demonstrated so far but rather to the 80% or 90% necessary to build a bomb.

While there is a possibility that the HE uranium is there as a result of the contamination of the equipment when it was being used in another country - Pakistan comes to mind - we haven’t heard a peep from the IAEA that what is going on at Natanz is anything other than what the House Committee speculates that it is; bomb making.

While there is little doubt that the House Committee exaggerated the shortcomings of both the IAEA and the CIA in the monitoring of Iran’s nuclear program, there is equally little doubt that both organizations are doing their best at bureaucratic CYA rather than aggressively confronting the mullahs over their nuclear program.

The fact is, I don’t trust either the CIA or the IAEA to do the job of monitoring Iran’s nuclear program and giving American policymakers enough warning to prevent the catastrophe of the fanatics in Tehran from getting their hands on nuclear weapons. But for the moment they’re all we have. And since they’re the only game in town, we are going to have to swallow our doubts about their shortcomings and hope that they can do their jobs in preventing the mullahs from acquiring the ultimate defense against cartoon blasphemy.

UPDATE

I find it a little amusing and very revealing that the left has swallowed the IAEA letter to Hoekstra hook, line, and sinker, without even batting an eyelash.

In fact, Kevin Drum is pouting because the House report made it to page A1 last month while the IAEA letter appears on A17:

Today, the IAEA — which, you may recall, turned out to be right about Iraq — wrote Hoekstra a letter complaining that the report contained “erroneous, misleading and unsubstantiated statements.”

I’ve reproduced the Washington Post’s coverage of these two events below. Do you notice any differences? I’ve provided some subtle clues in case you’re having trouble figuring it out.

And, just for the record, the IAEA report was so full of qualifiers and spin that if it turned out Saddam had an underground nuclear arsenal they could have pointed to the report and still said ” See? I told you so.”

Would it have been too much trouble for Drum and others to point out the laughable discrepancies between the charges made in the IAEA letter and the truth?

Join me this morning from 7:00 AM - 9:00 AM Central Time for The Rick Moran Show on Wideawakes Radio.

A pot pouri of stuff today - Iraq, Afghanistan, the left, the right - everything but the kitchen sink. And Kender might throw that in for good measure. Join me for the fun!

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Many conservative commentators, including yours truly, have recently come out in favor of sending more troops to Iraq to deal with the increased levels of sectarian violence as well as the continuing insurgency. Most recently, two high profile hawks have done a 180 degree turn and called for an infusion of troops to get a handle on the security situation in Baghdad. Rich Lowry and Bill Kristol wrote in the Washington Post that their previous stance on the “small footprint” in Iraq was mistaken and that only a substantial increase in our military presence can bring order to the Iraqi capitol and its immediate environs:

The bottom line is this: More U.S. troops in Iraq would improve our chances of winning a decisive battle at a decisive moment. This means the ability to succeed in Iraq is, to some significant degree, within our control. The president should therefore order a substantial surge in overall troop levels in Iraq, with the additional forces focused on securing Baghdad.

There is now no good argument for not sending more troops. The administration often says that it doesn’t want to foster Iraqi dependency. This is a legitimate concern, but it is a second-order and long-term one. Iraq is a young democracy and a weak state facing a vicious insurgency and sectarian violence. The Iraqis are going to be dependent on us for some time. We can worry about weaning Iraq from reliance on our forces after the security crisis in Baghdad has passed.

This is all well and good - if there were indeed additional troops to send. And if this piece in The New Republic is to be believed, the problem isn’t only in the numbers of combat ready personnel that are available for deployment to Iraq (or anywhere else we might need them) but also the quality of those troops and the condition of the equipment they would be using on the battlefield:

Combat-readiness worldwide has deteriorated due to the increased stress on the Army’s and the Marines’ equipment. The equipment in Iraq is wearing out at four to nine times the normal peacetime rate because of combat losses and harsh operating conditions. The total Army–active and reserve–now faces at least a $50 billion equipment shortfall. To ensure that the troops in Iraq have the equipment they need, the services have been compelled to send over equipment from their nondeployed and reserve units, such as National Guard units in Louisiana and Mississippi. Without equipment, it’s extremely difficult for nondeployed units to train for combat. Thus, one of the hidden effects of the Iraq war is that even the troops not currently committed to Iraq are weakened because of it.

[snip]

But the decline in equipment readiness is nothing compared with the growing manpower crisis. The Army is trying to keep the dam from breaking, but it is running out of fingers and toes. After failing to meet its recruitment target for 2005, the Army raised the maximum age for enlistment from 35 to 40 in January–only to find it necessary to raise it to 42 in June. Basic training, which has, for decades, been an important tool for testing the mettle of recruits, has increasingly become a rubber-stamping ritual. Through the first six months of 2006, only 7.6 percent of new recruits failed basic training, down from 18.1 percent in May 2005.

Alarmingly, this drop in boot camp attrition coincides with a lowering of recruitment standards. The number of Army recruits who scored below average on its aptitude test doubled in 2005, and the Army has doubled the number of non-high school graduates it can enlist this year. Even as more allowances are made, the Government Accountability Office reported that allegations and substantiated claims of recruiter wrongdoing have increased by 50 percent. In May, for example, the Army signed up an autistic man to become a cavalry scout.

These are extremely troubling figures, especially boot camp attrition and the lowering of educational standards. Part of this is surely the result of a roaring economy as the military has to compete with private industry for soldiers to fill the ranks. And the good news is that retention is still excellent - especially in theaters of combat in Iraq and Afghanistan. Apparently, those who have served in the war zones feel they have a personal stake in seeing the job through to the end.

But dedication, bravery, and the will to win - something our military has demonstrated time and time again are attributes they have in abundance - get a modern army only so far. And if what Korb et al are reporting is true - and I have no reason to believe otherwise - our military is not ready for the challenges it will almost certainly face in the very near future.

What can be done? Simply throwing money at the problem is not the entire solution. A redirection in spending priorities would help alleviate the material problems in the long term. But a question to be asked is Donald Rumsfeld the man to lead this effort? I have been blunt in my criticism of the Defense Secretary, mostly for his myopic and disingenuous pronouncements on our progress against the insurgency in Iraq. But this kind of criticism goes directly to the heart of Secretary Rumsfeld’s philosophy of a “leaner more agile” military that he brought with him to the office in 2001. This was before Iraq, before Afghanistan, before 9/11 and before the forces of Islamic fascism have been emboldened to regain lost ground in the Pakistan-Afghanistan theater as well as the election of a certified fanatic in Tehran.

The cost and technical sophistication of our weapons and equipment were largely designed to meet the Soviet threat of the 1980’s. Most our our primary weapons platforms today - tanks, armored vehicles, air craft - are improved and enhanced versions of systems designed in the 1980’s. Indeed, war planning at that time envisioned a short, violent confrontation with the Red Army where we would use up our pre-positioned stocks of war material in one huge effort to beat back the Soviets. Anything else was unthinkable in that the longer a conflict went on, the more likely one side or the other would go nuclear. Better to quickly and decisively defeat Soviet arms and forestall such an eventuality.

By necessity, we sacrificed durability for sheer technical battlefield dominance. It goes without saying that the more complex a machine, the more chances there are for something to breakdown. This is apparently true in Iraq where weather and overuse may be stretching the design specifications of much of our equipment to the limit.

The equipment problems will not be solved overnight. A $50 billion shortfall cannot be made up in a year or two. And while it is worrisome, the problems with material pale in comparison to the difficulties in attracting the quality and quantity of personnel needed to fight the war effectively. Whether the problems can be rectified with increased incentives and other monetary enticements is not the issue. The issue is that if these problems do indeed exist, precious little has been done to address them to date.

If it’s broke, let’s fix it before these problems become so severe that the military will be unable to respond to the many challenges that hover ominously just over the horizon.

Join me this morning from 7:00 AM - 9:00 AM Central Time for The Rick Moran Show on Wideawakes Radio.

Today we’ll have news and views on Iraq. And we’ll spend a good deal of time looking at the mid term elections. Are Republicans making a comeback?

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It may be that one day, after the partisan dust has settled and 9/11 itself has faded in its emotional impact if not significance, that ABC’s docudrama The Path to 9/11 will be seen exactly as it should be; a sincere attempt to tell the story of how the tragedy came about and how our national leaders failed in the end to stop it.

The hatchet job done this past fortnight by the left in attacking the project as nothing more than a partisan witch hunt aimed at smearing President Clinton has been remarkable for the way that several different political interests fused to give rise to the major critiques used by Democrats to tar the film unfairly. These include:

* The vanity and sheer ass covering of Clinton aides and Clinton himself in not wanting to be portrayed in any kind of negative light.

* The potential candidacy of Hillary for President for which it is vitally important that the two terms her husband served in that office be seen as years of competent administration and successful protection against terrorists.

* Democratic electoral prospects in the 2006 mid terms which could be affected if the public sees the left as weak on terror.

* The threatening prospect that The Narrative the left has used to undermine the Bush Administration for the last 5 years was being challenged by the facts. A recent poll showing that more than 50% of Americans now blame Bush for 9/11, up from 34% in 2002 shows just how successful The Narrative has been at spinning history.

For all these reasons and more the left has thrown down the gauntlet from here on out regarding the showing of history in any form - documentary, docudrama, or even fictionalized accounts based on real events - and that not only will future projects involving Bush or Republicans be scrutinized with a magnifying glass but, more ominously, the political affiliations and even religious beliefs of the various producers, writers, and directors will come under the microscope as well.

The current avenue of attack by the left on the project is the alleged “religious right” cabal that directed and wrote the film. This theme was first presented at HuffPo by Max Blumenthal who wrote a laughably inaccurate and shockingly dishonest piece about 1) “a secretive evangelical religious right group” behind the film; and 2) the conservative leanings of writer/producer Cy Nowrasteh.

Blumenthal’s piece appeared in a slightly altered form in The Nation but still with its deliberate falsehoods and exaggerations intact. (Read my takedown of Blumenthal for an idea of just how inaccurate and dishonest his analysis is.)

The first question one may have is what is so “secretive” about the group mentioned by Blumenthal, the Youth With a Mission (YWAM), a world class, mainstream protestant missionary group? Blumenthal peppers his critique with idiotic scare words like “secretive” and “mysterious” in a juvenile attempt to make the perfectly legitimate associations of the film’s director look ominous.

The Guardian picks up on this ridiculous theme and goes Blumenthal one better; they redefine “extremist” Christian views:

The film’s director, David Cunningham, is active in Youth With a Mission (Ywam), a fundamentalist evangelical organisation founded by his father, Loren Cunningham. According to its publications, the group believes in demonic possession, spiritual healing and conservative sexual morality.

Last month David Cunningham addressed a conference in England organised by the group at its UK headquarters in Harpenden, Hertfordshire, on the making of the film. His talk was entitled Christ-like Witness in the Film Industry.

The last time I looked, “demonic possession, spiritual healing and conservative sexual morality” were not beliefs limited to wild-eyed right wing Christians. Perhaps the Guardian should look first at the Catholic church (ever hear of Lourdes?) who believe in the very same things as well as most protestant denominations.

Not content with attacking mainstream religious people by comparing their beliefs to radical Christian fundamentalists, both Blumenthal and the Guardian question screenwriter Nowrasteh’s political beliefs.

Blumenthal in fact, goes to great pains to misquote Nowrasteh in an interview he did with Frontpage. Compare what Blumenthal quoted with what Nowrasteh actually said. Blumenthal first:

With the LFF now under Horowitz’s control, his political machine began drumming up support for Cunningham and Nowrasteh’s “Untitled” project, which finally was revealed in late summer as “The Path to 9/11.” Horowitz’s PR blitz began with an August 16 interview with Nowrasteh on his FrontPageMag webzine. In the interview, Nowrasteh foreshadowed the film’s assault on Clinton’s record on fighting terror. “The 9/11 report details the Clinton’s administration’s response—or lack of response—to Al Qaeda and how this emboldened Bin Laden to keep attacking American interests,” Nowrasteh told FrontPageMag’s Jamie Glazov. “There simply was no response. Nothing.”

Here’s what Nowrasteh actually said:

The 9/11 report details the Clinton’s administration’s response—or lack of response—to Al Qaeda and how this emboldened Bin Laden to keep attacking American interests. The worst example is the response to the October, 2000 attack on the U.S.S. COLE in Yemen where 17 American sailors were killed. There simply was no response. Nothing.

Blumenthal’s failure to note that Nowrasteh was talking about Clinton inaction regarding terrorism only as it related to the USS Cole bombing while making it appear that the screenwriter was condemning Clinton for having “no response” to terrorism in general is incredibly dishonest. How a supposedly mainstream publication like The Nation allowed this calumny onto its pages is a mystery. Perhaps the fact checker was off that day.

Surprisingly, the New York Times injects a little sanity into this debate about right wing connections to the film. This piece by Edward Wyatt, while rightly questioning some of the film’s accuracy, points out the silliness of this line of attack by the left:

The project would appear to have more benign roots however. Stephen McPherson, the president of ABC Entertainment, and Quinn Taylor, the senior vice president for motion pictures for television and miniseries at ABC, first conceived the idea of a mini-series based on the independent Sept. 11 commission’s best-selling report in 2004. Mr. Taylor contacted Mr. Platt, who had a production deal with Touchstone, the Disney unit that produces series and movies for ABC and other networks. In addition to films like “Legally Blonde,” Mr. Platt, formerly chairman of Sony’s TriStar Pictures, had produced television projects, including a 2005 version of “Once Upon a Mattress,” starring Carol Burnett and Tracey Ullman, for ABC.

After several attempts to find a director, Mr. Taylor settled on Mr. Cunningham, who had directed “Little House on the Prairie” for ABC’s “Wonderful World of Disney.” And Mr. Platt and Mr. Taylor decided on Mr. Nowrasteh as the screenwriter after reading his script for “The Day Reagan Was Shot,” a 2001 television movie that was shown on the Showtime cable network.

“I thought that was an effective dramatization of an historic event,” Mr. Platt said, “and it seemed Cyrus had the ability to deal with lots of research and sources.”

Nowrasteh was skewered by conservatives for his portrayal of Reagan Administration figures in the The Day Reagan Was Shot. I guess he forgot for a while that he was supposed to be a right wing nut.

The screenwriter, an Iranian immigrant, has said on more than one occasion that he is more libertarian than conservative. Judging by his work on both the Reagan and 9/11 projects, one would have to conclude that it is probable Mr. Nowrasteh leaves his ideology at the door when writing and concentrates more on being “dramatic.”

And this brings us to the real villain in all of this; ABC and their over-hyping this project as more of a documentary than a drama. Some of this controversy could have been avoided if the network hadn’t left themselves wide open to criticism for inventing scenes out of whole cloth and putting words in people’s mouths they didn’t say. Their promotion of the film as “based on the 9/11 Commission Report” was also inaccurate. When I first saw the advertising for the program, I actually thought it would be a dramatization of what was in the Commission’s report. What it turned out to be was a mish mash of stuff pulled directly from the report (”Everything is blinking red!”), composite scenes that give the gist of what policy makers were thinking, and invented drama used to illustrate certain themes and to suggest how characters may have acted in real life.

This is hardly documentary film making. And ABC should have known better when promoting it.

That being said, the dishonesty and hysterical exaggeration about the inaccuracies in the film by the left only seemed to draw more attention to it. The film won the ratings race on Monday night (after finishing a distant second to football on Sunday evening). And as Tom Kean pointed out today in the New York Times, many times more people watched the film than ever read the Commission’s report.

The controversy over the film has been unnecessary, overblown, and, in the end, self-defeating for the left. It probably won’t change anyone’s mind about who was to blame for 9/11. History has made that judgment already. And it isn’t Bush, or Clinton, or any other American president but rather Osama Bin Laden and his ideology of death and terror.

It’s “My Kind of Town.” It’s the “City of Big Shoulders.” It’s “The City That Works.” It used to be “Hog Butcher to the World” until the hogs left and allowed their cousins on the City Council to wallow and feed at the public trough - much to the amusement and entertainment of its citizens. For, in truth, before there was television, or radio, or talking pictures, there was the endless diversion and riotous comedy offered by the antics of one of this country’s most colorful and peculiar legislative bodies; the City Council of Chicago.

Recently, one of this body’s more colorful and peculiar members, Alderman Joe Moore, apparently decided that the City Council had been maintaining too low of a national profile of late and sponsored a couple of colorful and peculiar pieces of legislation that changed the image of the Council from “colorful and peculiar” to “overbearing and ludicrous.”

The so-called “Big Box” ordinance, passed in July, requires stores with more than 90,000 square feet of retail space and $1 billion in annual sales to pay their employees an absolute minimum wage of $10 per hour plus $3 an hour in benefits. The economic geniuses on the Council, including Ald. Moore, actually believed that Wal-Mart, Target, and other giant retailers would shrug off the nearly doubling of an entry level workers’ wage and gladly continue with their expansion plans within the city.

“There is a buck to be made, a lot of bucks,” asserted Moore. “If they are to continue to remain profitable, they must expand.”

Wal-Mart had a rather bemused reaction. They were in the process of opening their very first “Superstore” within the Chicago city limits in one of the poorest neighborhoods in the city. They promised that they would open that store but “[P]ut more time and effort in the suburbs, in particular focusing on those close to the city in order to draw shoppers across city lines. It would stand to reason that we would ring Chicago with Supercenters,” according to Michael Lewis, Wal-Mart’s VP of Store Operations in the Midwest.

Making the city an economic graveyard was apparently not in the re-election plan of Mayor Daley who vetoed the legislation yesterday:

Three aldermen, including one hungry for the jobs that a new Wal-Mart store would bring to her impoverished South Side ward, said they will switch sides and support Mayor Richard Daley’s veto Monday of the “big-box” minimum wage ordinance.

It was his first veto in 17 years as mayor, and he obviously knew he had the support to make it stick.

Indeed, if Daley’s opponents thought the Mayor may have been wounded by the charges of corruption in hiring practices swirling around his office, Daley disabused them rather quickly. All Hizoner had to to was crack the whip and he immediately peeled away three Alderman that made sure his veto would be upheld.

The business community breathed a huge sigh of relief:

“I think that this encouraging news is not only good for the business community,” said Gerald Roper, president of the Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce, “it’s equally good for parts of the city that need economic development and jobs.”

“I understand and share a desire to ensure that everyone who works in the city of Chicago earns a decent wage,” Daley said in the letter. “But I do not believe that this ordinance, well intentioned as it may be, would achieve that end.

“Rather, I believe it would drive jobs and businesses from our city, penalizing neighborhoods that need additional economic activity the most,” Daley said. “In light of this, I believe it is my duty to veto this ordinance.”

But Daley’s sudden spasm of rationalism didn’t end there. Going on the offensive against another one of Alderman Joe’s nanny state phantasms, the Mayor attacked the recently passed ordinance banning the sale and serving of foie gras and may have some allies on the Council who are having second thoughts about being made to look like nursemaids to their constituents:

As Mayor Richard Daley vetoed a controversial ordinance on Monday, two aldermen said they are seeking to repeal another: Chicago’s ban on foie gras.

Ald. Bernard Stone (50th) and Burton Natarus (42nd) originally voted in favor of the measure when it was approved by the City Council in April. But both since have had second thoughts.

Stone contended that Chicago has become a national laughingstock since outlawing the delicacy, which is made from the livers of geese and ducks.

Daley, who enjoys foie gras, referred to the ordinance as “the silliest law to come down the legislative pike at City Hall.” And the backlash against the city may be causing other aldermen to rethink their original position:

“Hallelujah!” declared Chris Robling, an industry spokesman, after hearing of the repeal attempt. “This is wonderful.

“My fingers were crossed,” said Robling, who speaks for Artisan Farmers Alliance, which represents North America’s foie gras producers and some distributors. “That’s great news.”

Copperblue executive chef and owner Michael Tsonton, who last week became the second restaurateur cited by the city for serving foie gras after the ban went into effect, also cheered the move by Natarus and Stone.

“The foie gras thing was beyond silly,” Tsonton said. “It was irresponsible.”

One of my commenters on this post where I highlighted the foi gras ban gave the lie to the animal rights nutter’s claims about goose torture in force feeding the birds:

This comment is about food animal welfare. I sell cattle for a living and used to have hogs as well. Food animals ARE NOT TORTURED OR MADE TO SUFFER in any way. An animal that is suffering and/or is ill will not grow, will not gain weight and will not make the producer money. This is true across the spectrum, regardless of species. What animals want is 1) a steady water & food supply 2)a dry place out of the wind to rest and 3) a desire to breed (if they haven’t been neutered. They don’t want anything else.

This thought is echoed by one of Chicago’s finest chefs:

“Some of my friends, chefs outside Illinois, have named Chicago the `Nanny City’–nanny, like the person who takes care of your children,” said Allen Sternweiler, executive chef at Allen’s–The New American Cafe, 217 W. Huron St. “I’ve gotten a few letters, with people saying, How would you like a tube stuck down your throat?

“My throat is not like a duck’s throat. If you have some tragedy like an oil spill or a fire around a wetland, they would be using an exact same feeding tube to feed those injured ducks.”

Alderman Joe seems unbowed by the fact that his campaign to make Chicago a socialist nanny enclave seems to be falling victim to an outbreak of clear thinking and rationality:

Ald. Joe Moore (49th), who sponsored the foie gras measure, said Monday that it “is simply an ordinance that tried to stop the practice of animal torture, pure and simple.

“My reaction is the City Council had a vote,” Moore said. “It was 48-1 in favor. Time to move on.”

My own theory is that the reason the Council debated and passed these ordinances is that they simply don’t have enough to do. Idle minds are the devil’s playground and all that. Maybe we should design some kind of jobs program for them.

Anything to keep them away from the Council chambers. They seem to be doing a lot of damage there lately.

On the 25th of this month, this blog will celebrate its second anniversary. During that time, I have used this site exactly three times to solicit funds.

The first time I requested monetary assistance, I think I had a grand total of 175 readers a day. Nevertheless, people were very generous and I was surprised and grateful at the response.

The other two blegs came this year with one in January and one in June. Both times I was amazed that so many were willing to help support me in my “mid life change of career” to writing. But I vowed to myself to make the bleg only a twice-a-year event for the blog, believing that anything more smacked of hubris.

Thus, it is with the greatest reluctance that I impose upon your good will and generosity, gentle reader, by asking that you assist Sue and I in dealing with something of a family emergency.

No one’s life is at risk, thank God. But Sue must leave her job for a few weeks in order to attend to a health problem involving a member of her family. This means that our primary source of income for the next few weeks will not be flowing into the household account.

Thankfully, Sue and I live extremely modest lives with very little in the way of monthly bills to worry about. (The largest single bill we have outside of rent for the house is the $165 a month for cable TV/broadband). We share the use of one car (paid for), rarely go out, and haven’t had a vacation for almost two years. Prior to my beginning this quest to try and make a living as a writer/commentator, we paid off all of our debt (we have one credit card between us), and reduced expenses to the absolute minimum.

So our needs are modest. And unlike the last two solicitations, I am going to request that no more funds be given once the target amount is achieved. That amount is $450, which combined with other income and my savings, will get us over the hump until Sue gets back to work in 2 or 3 weeks.

I know from experience that you will be supportive in your response. I have provided a link to both my PayPal and Amazon donation accounts below.

Thank you.

UPDATE:

Right before 8:00 PM Central this evening, my target of $450 was reached.

To all of you who gave so generously, Sue and I thank you. I really am humbled that so many of you were willing to help us.

I hope I can continue to give you what you come here for - a little diversion from the everyday and a little pep to rev up your soul.

Rick Moran

I thought that the second part was much better than the first. The pace was much better - not as much extraneous information. And the last 20 minutes showing the attacks was absolutely riveting.

A few quibbles.

The order to shoot down the planes was never established conclusively as coming from the President. Incredibly, Air Force I was having problems communicating with the Sit Room. Cheney swears that Bush told him but the Commission can’t confirm it.

Overall, I think that they portrayed the Bush Administration as more concerned about terrorism than they actually were. At least that’s the impression I got. That said, I was happy to see the decisive meeting of September 4 in the movie. It was at this meeting that I think the Administration decided to take on al Qaeda and the Taliban. The latter is very important for obvious reasons. Whether the Administration would have followed through with anything is a matter of conjecture but I think both the August 6 PDB and the heightened alerts from around the world probably convinced Bush’s people that they had to deal with the threat.

Too little too late? Considering they were in office only 8 months is a mitigating factor but there should be no excuse for the delay. Protecting the country is not something that that you should “grow into.” That job should be up to snuff from day one.

“The wall” was portrayed accurately. I just wish they would have highlighted who it was that made it even stronger.

I thought despite what some on the left were saying, the arguments made by the Clinton people about why they couldn’t go after al Qaeda, the Taliban, or Bin Laden came across as sound (from their point of view). Certainly Albright had a point when in the movie she talked about any action taken against al Qaeda affecting the Arab-Israeli peace process. And she was right when she said that the peace negotiations were more important than going after “people in caves.” Please remember that precious few people in government thought al Qaeda capable of much more than truck bombs and suicide missions against small targets.

This, of course, was the failure of imagination that the 9/11 Commission talked about. And I find it curious that the hysterical critics of this film were opposed to showing even things that the Clinton people admitted to.

As for the attacks, they were staged well. But if you want to see a much better representation of what the FAA and the military were doing while the attacks were under way, your best bet would be to see United 93. It’s an eye opener.

In my view, Tenet got something of a pass in the film. There is little doubt that he is one of the most spectacularly incompetent DCI’s we’ve ever had with the possible exception of Stansfield Turner who served under Carter and was almost universally hated by agency analysts and operatives. Tenet may have been a good bureaucratic operator but in our hour of need he failed the United States twice - on 9/11 and Iraq WMD’s.

Condi Rice also was treated better than she deserved. Her “re-organization” of the NSC was, as the 9/11 Commission showed, an unnecessary exercise and served only to marginalize a few Clinton holdovers like Clark.

Clark himself comes off the hero which I’m sure pleases him to no end. But he was one of the only Executive Branch employees who realized what al Qaeda was and what we were up against.

I would give this film 2.5 stars out of a possible 4. Less for accuracy. More for the production values. It was entertaining and not preachy while hitting the nail on the head more than once. Universally good acting, good directing, less than stellar writing, but the editing, music, and FX were all first class.

This film is good enough to buy for your DVD library and I plan on doing so.