Right Wing Nut House

I have given up my one man quest to protect the English language from right wing Visigoths who insist in raping, pillaging, and burning their way through the dictionary - corrupting definitions and creating havoc with meaning while doing their utmost to make intelligent discourse impossible.

Why bother? Definitions of “socialism” and “Communism” have been bent, spindled, and mutilated until they are not words anymore at all, but rather daggers with which they plunge their hate and unbalanced, unreasoned antagonisms into the breast of their political opponents. Apparently, many on the right have no more reverence for the conventions of language than many on the left who are guilty of similar transgressions against our shared lexicon. In this way, the connecting tissue is excessive ideology where all convention is eschewed and made to serve as slave to the passions of the political moment.

Case in point: Today’s blow up over the flag at Ground Zero being pulled up before President Obama spoke. Or something. Doug Ross, among others, rushed into the fray after a tweet from ABC News White House correspondent Jake Tapper that read; “One minute to air and they decided to take the flag down from the live shot!” President Obama didn’t want the American flag to spoil his moment in the sun, and equating the waving flag with “spiking the football” - or at least that’s what Ross and other bloggers firmly believed.

It turns out that the photo - and Tapper’s comment - were from an hour after Obama had his photo-op at Ground Zero. Before then, an excitable and indignant Ross wrote:

This administration and, by extension, the Democrat Party are now so thoroughly divorced from the history, traditions and morals of America that we might as well admit the Marxist left has executed a successful coup d’état on this Republic.

The mindlessness, the out of control idiocy represented in that one comment says volumes about many on the right, who toss around words like “Marxist” and concepts like “coup d’etat” as casually as if they were discussing the weather. The actual, literal meaning of Marxism is irrelevant as is what the concept of coup d’etat represents. What matters, according to the fire breathers, is that they are weapons in the unending battle against the forces of evil and no convention is too sacred to toss aside in search of victory in this war.

If challenged, they fall back on definition by example, i.e. “Well, dey took over dem car companies, right? Marxists, I say!” It is doubtful that Ross, or any of the bloggers who linked and aped his manifestly absurd blog post would know a true Marxist if they came up and bit him. Democrats are Democrats. Marxists are Marxists. The Democrats are a political party. Marxism is a political philosophy. They resemble each other like an apple resembles an 800 pound gorilla. To use them in the same sentence, much less aver that Marxists have taken over the Democratic party (yes, the Democratic party, not the “Democrat party”), is an insult to the common language that is our birthright as Americans.

Never mind that Ross et al made a stupid mistake about the flag. Liberals do that all the time and never apologize or even recognize it. What concerns me and should concern anyone with any reverence for the English language, is that jamokes like Ross - and there are thousands of them on the right who use these ill-chosen descriptives every day - are either too ignorant to know what the real definitions of “socialist,” “communist,” and “Marxist” are, or don’t care about the violence they do to language by using them.

I guess referring to Obama and the Democrats as “liberals” just doesn’t cut it anymore.

This post originally appears on The Moderate Voice

It is incomprehensible how the White House has screwed the pooch in the aftermath of their most spectacular success; the killing of Osama bin Laden.

Incomprehensible because one would have to believe that they discussed the potential fallout from the attack, as well as how they might exploit any political advantage that came their way.

It’s a good bet they talked about what to do in the event of catastrophe - failure to capture OBL, firefights with Pakistani troops, even a helicopter or two shot down by Pakistani air defenses.

It stands to reason that they should have examined issues that have come up in the wake of the raid for which it is painfully obvious the White House was shockingly unprepared to explain. The basic outline of what happened on the ground in Osama’s compound has changed three times by my count. The number of unfriendlies has risen and fallen depending on who is telling the story. Which son died has been changed twice. Which wife was used as a human shield - or not - or maybe yes - or maybe kinda, sorta - has now collapsed into total disbelievability.

They can’t get straight how bin Laden died. They can’t get straight the problem with the helicopter. They can’t agree on whether there was live fire coming from one person, or several, or none.

Agreed, this was a top secret mission, apparently using helicopters that no one has seen before, involving the nation’s most effective, most deadly, and most secret counterterror outfit, and based on intelligence using a combination of gee-whiz technology and brute human brain power. If they are deliberately trying to protect any of that by being obtuse, then they should get a pass.

The administration’s only believable spokesman is soon to be former CIA chief Leon Panetta. Ironically, the reason he’s got credibility is because it is Panetta who has been contradicting much of the administration version of events - not on deep background but in all his quotable glory. Panetta is telling tales out of school, even going so far as to advocate releasing the bin Laden death pictures over what appears to be the objections of a majority within the administration.

Why is Panetta off the reservation ? A purely speculative reason is that Panetta believes his spooks are getting short shrift from an administration constantly spinning the events to give reflected glory to their chief. The fact is, the SEALs wouldn’t have been needed without some incredible work by our spy agencies. Panetta might think that their story is being pushed into the background in favor of the “boom-boom” narrative of courageous (they were) SEALs busting in the door and with ruthless efficiency, working their way to the third floor to take down Osama.

The 4 years prior to those moments is pretty boring stuff comparatively speaking. The agonizingly slow process of tracking Osama’s courier across the entire expanse of Pakistan and then spending another year focusing on where he was living might not make quite the Hollywood movie as a SEAL assault would, but is an astonishing achievement in its own right. We haven’t heard much about that effort and Panetta could be a little pissed at that.

Regardless, the question arises; do we really need to know what happened during the assault? There is going to be a lot of information on how they carried out the mission that is classified - as well it should be. But if the White House spokes people can get up in front of reporters and give a falsified or confused blow by blow account of what they say happened in Abbottobad, then the American people have a right to know the truth. And given the absolute dearth of credibility of the administration on this subject, someone has to step up and tell the story in a credible way.

That pretty much leaves it up to an independent commission or at least, a formal, bi-partisan select committee of congress. I don’t think it matters as long as national security is protected and as much of the story that can be told is released - not to squelch any cockamamie conspiracy theories but to present to the American people a plausible account of how this vitally important moment in history occurred.

The administration believed that the American people were owed this account, else they would have kept their mouths shut. If they were trying to show Obama in the most positive light and shaped the story to fit a preconceived narrative - in other words, telling little white lies to buttress the image of their boss - the American people have a right to know this. If confusion and incompetence led to the competing, false, and changing story of what happened, we need to know that too. But most of all, we deserve to know the facts because, like other seminal moments in history, Americans need to catalog and store this event in our national memory.

And the least the government can do is make sure that Osama’s death goes into our national storybook detailing the truth and nothing but the truth.

Here’s a piece I wrote before Osama bin Laden was killed and published at FrontPage.com yesterday. It riffs off the White House Correspondent’s dinner on Saturday night, examining the connection between the media, Hollywood, and celebrity.

A sample:

We can trace the marriage of politics and celebrity to the rise of Hollywood as a national medium in the 1920s. But it was the presidency of John F. Kennedy that witnessed the first real effort to bind the two together and make politicians themselves indistinguishable from movie stars.

In their book The Kennedy’s: An American Drama, Peter Collier and David Horowitz relate some telling anecdotes about JFK’s numerous trips to Hollywood prior to his first run for Congress in 1946. The purpose of these trips was largely to bed starlets. But, according to Chuck Spaulding, a childhood friend of JFK, the future president became fascinated with what he termed “charisma.” What was it? How did one go about getting it? After having dinner with Gary Cooper, Kennedy was struck by the sheer ordinariness of the actor and wondered why women swooned and men wanted to meet such a near non-entity.

Kennedy wanted what they had. As his father Joe had pointed out to him, since the Depression and New Deal had obliterated the “old social hierarchies,” Hollywood had the ability to “manufacture status overnight” and create a “new aristocracy.” The family would, as Joe famously put it, sell Jack “like a box of soap flakes.” He wasn’t kidding. With his vast wealth and intimate contacts in the national media, JFK was appearing on the cover of every news magazine in feature articles that touted his “vigor” and “charisma.” Jack had precious little of either, being a sickly young man (probably afflicted with Addison’s disease), and a terrible case of stage fright. But the PR build up was intense — and it worked. By 1956, despite a paltry record in Congress, Kennedy was being taken seriously for the number 2 spot on the Democratic ticket.

The first television presidency was a triumph of hype and image creation. Kennedy actually accomplished very little in 3 years but he is still ranked by the public as one of the top 10 presidents of all time.

It was in 1968 that the Democratic party fully embraced celebrity. The party took advantage of a new generation of actors who, free of the rigidity of the studio system that was terrified of political activism and the potential for bad publicity, spoke out against the war, racism, poverty and the rest of the liberal “social justice” issues for which they are so closely associated with today. The candidacy of Eugene McCarthy galvanized the liberal Hollywood community and led to McCarthy’s surprising showing in New Hampshire that convinced Lyndon Johnson not to run for another term.

The Republicans got on board the celebrity bandwagon too, but it wasn’t until 1980 and the campaign of Ronald Reagan that endorsements from Hollywood became important for fundraising to the party. Most of the GOP celebrities were older, established Hollywood types who became famous under the studio system and whose patriotism and conservatism blended naturally with the Republican party. Once the Democrats abandoned many of the values that were shared with ordinary Americans, they, like Reagan himself, left the Democratic party for the friendlier confines of the GOP. Today, the GOP has its share of celebrity endorsers, most notably in the country music industry and among sports figures.

ABC News had 2 reporters covering the “red carpet” entrance to the Hilton and if you closed your eyes and listened, you’d would have been hard pressed to distinguish between celebrity and politician in their answers to questions. That is the perilous junction we find ourselves today, with the media slavishly serving both Hollywood and Washington.

It’s hard to imagine a worse situation given the immense problems we face today.

You won’t want to miss tonight’s Rick Moran Show, one of the most popular conservative political talk shows on Blog Talk Radio.

Tonight, I welcome Jazz Shaw of Hot Air, Richard Baehr of the American Thinker, and Fausta Wertz of Fausta’s blog. We’ll discuss the political, international, cultural, and personal aspects of the death of Osama bin Laden.

The show will air from 7:00 - 8:00 PM Central time. You can access the live stream here. A podcast will be available for streaming or download shortly after the end of the broadcast.

Click on the stream below and join in on what one wag called a “Wayne’s World for adults.”

Also, if you’d like to call in and put your two cents in, you can dial (718) 664-9764.

My latest is up at FrontPage.com where I examine in detail how our intelligence and military professionals carried out what should be considered one of the most daring raids since World War II.

A sample:

The story of how Osama bin Laden was killed begins in the secret prisons abroad and the Guantanamo Bay detention center where some detainees told interrogators of several couriers used by al-Qaeda to avoid electronic surveillance. One such courier piqued the interest of the CIA: a protege of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and a trusted assistant of al-Qaeda number 3 Abu Faraj al-Libbi (captured in 2005). Other detainees mentioned that bin Laden himself trusted this particular courier. However, all the CIA had on the target was his al-Qaeda nickname.

KSM, who had, by this time, been cooperating with his jailers, was confronted with the name of the courier and denied knowing him. The denial spurred the analysts to action and they began a worldwide search for the full name of the courier. Later that year, the CIA learned his full name, it is thought, through interrogations at one or more of the secret prisons the CIA maintained at the time.

It took two more years to focus on where the courier actually lived in Pakistan. No details have emerged as to how this part of the investigation was carried out, but it would imply both human assets and technical surveillance was involved.

Then, in 2009, intelligence began to zero in on where the courier and his brother operated. The fact that the courier was taking extraordinary precautions, strictly adhering to operational security, gave analysts hope that they were indeed on the right track.

The break came in August 2010, when the courier was spotted on an Islamabad street. It should be noted that there was nothing “lucky” about this break. The lead was the product of long hours of painstaking examination of the tiniest slivers of intelligence, agonizing over whether the nuggets of information were valuable, making intelligent judgments about where the information might fit into the overall picture they were developing, and finally being rewarded with a breakthrough.

Luck had nothing to do with it.

I don’t think Clinton would have given the go ahead on this mission. It’s 50-50 whether George Bush would have done it either. There was only a “60-80%” probability that bin Laden was even in the house. President Obama deserves all the accolades he’s getting for the success of this mission. It was ballsy, but a good gamble in retrospect. No doubt, the 15 years of chasing this fanatical murderer was a prod for Obama’s brave decision.

Perhaps it should be noted what he was risking. There was the risk to our men - presidents can tell themselves all they want that they will be steadfast when ordering men into high risk situations but it couldn’t have been easy given the probability of American casualties and perhaps even civilian deaths as well.

Then there was the high stakes involved in our relationship with Pakistan. If a regiment of Pakistan soldiers had showed up, were the SEALs authorized to start shooting? A collapse in US-Pakistan relations engendered by a failure of the mission and possible civilian casualties would have left our forces in Afghanistan high and dry.

Certainly failure would have been an embarrassing personal defeat leading to even more unflattering comparisons with Jimmy Carter. And then there was the prestige of the US to consider in ordering the attack.

I have no doubt Obama weighed all of these factors before giving the “go” code. The fact that he went ahead shows a willingness to protect America and American interests - something many conservatives, including myself, have criticized him in the past for not doing.

Is he taking too much credit for the success? Of course he is. And so would a Republican president. Recall Reagan’s “You can run, but you can’t hide” crack after bombing Libya. As long as he didn’t criticize Bush for not getting OBL - and he hasn’t yet - I find it perfectly appropriate that his aides are spinning events like crazy to shine the brightest possible light on the president. Those pious folks who wish to banish politics from such moments, are deluded. Anything a president does becomes political sooner or later. If the mission had ended in failure, the right would have pounced like a hungry Leopard. Since it was a success, Obama gets to bask in the reflected glory of the magnificent job performed by our military and intelligence professionals.

That’s life. That’s politics.

I labored into the early morning on this FrontPage.com article, detailing what we knew at the time about Osama bin Laden’s death.

A sample:

At a time of economic despair and uncertainty, a time of doubting our abilities to overcome obstacles and questioning our national greatness, the death of Osama bin Laden temporarily, at least, has lifted nation’s spirits and reminded us who we are and of what we are capable.

But it is important to remember that bin Laden’s death is more a symbolic statement - a clear marker on the long road to victory over Islamic extremism. He was a symbol of Islamic hatred toward the United States and the march of modernity that is being so fiercely resisted by the remnants of al-Qaeda, their franchises around the world, the Taliban, and other Islamic terrorist groups from Hamas, to Hezballah, to the Muslim Brotherhood. It is a blow to their self-esteem and their belief in the ultimate victory of their cause. That he should be shot down in a brilliant operation carried out by the American military only pours salt in their wounds.

Of course, with every victory in this war comes the realization that the enemy will seek to retaliate as quickly and as brutally as they can. The State Department has issued a travel warning, telling Americans abroad that there is an “enhanced potential for anti-American violence” in many areas where al-Qaeda garnered sympathy.

President Obama called former President Bush and gave him the good news. Bush issued a statementcalling the event a “momentous achievement” that “marks a victory for America, for people who seek peace around the world, and for all those who lost loved ones on September 11, 2001.”

More of this story will no doubt come out in the days and weeks ahead. But the epochal news that Osama bin Laden is dead will be a defining moment in the War on Terror and an event that serves to remind us that we can accomplish any goal as long as we put our minds to it.

I would liken the psychological boost that bin Laden’s death has given the country to that which occurred in 1980 with the victory of our Olympic hockey team over the Soviet Union and subsequent capture of the Gold Medal. The surge of patriotic emotion that flowed to the surface as a result of that event is mirrored in the happy faces crowding close to the White House and gathering at Ground Zero. Pride, relief, happiness - it’s as if a great weight has been lifted from the American psyche at just the moment when we needed such a boost.

President Obama should get an immediate, if transitory boost from the news. That’s fine with me. I’d congratulate the devil himself if Osama had been killed on his watch.  For in the end, it is once again more important to realize what unites us, rather than what divides us.

My latest PJ Media column looks at the stubborn stupidity that is the Birther movement in the wake of the release of Obama’s birth certificate:

A sample:

For the true-blue, dyed-in-the-wool, never-say-never birthers, the only thing that will apparently convince them of the provenance of Obama’s birth is a document that tells them exactly what they believe — that the president wasn’t born here and is therefore ineligible to hold office. Any evidence to the contrary is dismissed as fake or forged, or is simply ignored as not worthy of their attention.

To wit: When confronted with irrefutable proof that you have been wrong all along, concentrate on minutiae that, at least in your own mind, can keep the theory alive. Here’s a comment from Roger L. Simon’s “Teachable Moment” post on the Tatler:

A color copy, and everyone uses black ink to sign their name? 90% of pens in the world are blue.

This is an obvious forgery.

It is sad and pathetic, yes. After having gone through several hundred comments on sites ranging from Hot Air to Newsbusters, the only conclusion I can draw is the astonishing fact that not one single birther admits to error. I would hope that there are some birthers who have seen the light and are too embarrassed or depressed to comment about it. But those that took the trouble either searched valiantly for the kind of detail our friend above found, or speculated about ways the certificate of live birth could have been forged:

Witness Protection forges documents all the time. Whose [sic] to day [sic] this is not one? Same for CIA. BUT – the big question is why hide it?

The answer to that question was given by White House Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer:

Earlier Wednesday, White House Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer said the debate has been “really bad for the Republican Party.”

The so-called “birther” debate is “good politics” but “bad for the country,” said Pfeiffer.

With 75% of the country believing that President Obama was either definitely or probably born in America, and 45% of Republicans believing the opposite, the White House didn’t have to lift a finger to “prove” anything. The GOP was doing a bang-up job of making themselves look like paranoid nutcases without any help. The old political adage that states “Never get in the way of your opponent when they are self-destructing” applied here.

I urge everyone to read Richard Hofstadter’s old essay “The Paranoid Style in American Politics” to understand the mindset at work among the Birthers. I think most objective observers today would admit that Hofstadter allowed his partisanship to intrude far too often in his observations (later in life, he abandoned the new left and embraced conservatism as a philosophy). But much of what he writes can be applied to either the right or left fringe, which makes many of his points ring true.

When so much of one’s intellectual and emotional capital is invested in paranoid beliefs, it becomes impossible to admit error because one isn’t just admitting they are wrong about a single issue, they are admitting that their worldview is incorrect. The entire notion of  how they experience reality is challenged. Therefore, it becomes imperative to protect their beliefs, even if every piece of  objective evidence says otherwise.

With Donald Trump now leading the GOP field, it’s a good bet that other paranoid fantasies will be resurrected. I can’t believe some of the people who are cheering this irresponsible lout on. He’s more arrogant than Obama. He’s more of a narcissist, less experienced in government, and less patient and prudent. He’s got an ego the size of Mount Everest and would likely betray Republicans as often as he would hammer the Democrats.

If Trump wins the nomination even after making some of the most outrageous statements ever uttered by a serious candidate for president - that we should take Libya’s oil, for instance - then the Birthers will look downright rational next to a Republican party that had truly lost its collective mind.

PLEASE NOTE: THE RICK MORAN SHOW WILL STREAM ONE HOUR EARLIER THAN USUAL - FROM 6-7 PM CENTRAL TIME.

You won’t want to miss tonight’s Rick Moran Show, one of the most popular conservative political talk shows on Blog Talk Radio.

Tonight, I welcome Jazz Shaw of Hot Air, Doug Mataconis of Below the Beltway, and Jeff Dunetz of Yid with a Lid. We’ll look at the Ryan Lizza piece in the New Yorker yesterday about the president’s foreign policy as well as GOP presidential politics.

The show will air from 6:00 - 7:00 PM Central time. You can access the live stream here. A podcast will be available for streaming or download shortly after the end of the broadcast.

Click on the stream below and join in on what one wag called a “Wayne’s World for adults.”

Also, if you’d like to call in and put your two cents in, you can dial (718) 664-9764.

I suppose I shouldn’t care about the birther issue so much. After all, I am not a Republican anymore. If the party wants to blow itself up, it shouldn’t concern me.

But most of those making this idiotic argument dare to call themselves “conservative.” They are not. They are far right wackos who live in a paranoid world where truth, and logic, and reason are banned by law. These are people who are proud of their ignorance, despise achievement, denigrate intelligence, eschew excellence, and wallow in mediocrity. Their heroes are political lightweights — bomb throwers who glory in their very averageness. It excites the mouth breathers that Sarah Palin is no smarter than they are. They swoon at Bachmann’s nonsensical political attacks and paranoid fears about policies of which she is deliberately ignorant.

The Bachmann’s, the Palin’s, the West’s, the Caine’s - these are all politicians who are proud of their inability to elevate political dialogue and rise above the petty resentments of their constituencies in order to inspire, not hate. They are leading legions of people astray and I despise them for it.

Using what used to be conservatism’s good name in order to push these jaw dropping theories about Obama’s origins brings the fringe to the mainstream. The internet amplifies and broadcasts this claptrap, placing it in the feedback loop that is conservative online media, and since most conservatives refuse to expose themselves to alternate ideas and worldviews - automatically dismissing information not based on its relevance or logic, but rather based solely on its source - birther nonsense gains traction. What belongs in the closet is brought into the light because the birthers have no sense of proportion, no idea how to weigh and judge authoritative proof for their paranoid theories. In fact, the more authoritative the evidence, the less it is believed. All alternative sources are suspect as being part of the conspiracy or hopelessly biased in favor of the president.

Communicating among themselves, citing each other’s “evidence” as proof for their theories, relying on evidentiary standards that wouldn’t pass muster in a Kangaroo Court, and descending into an ever more involved and twisted exercise in dot connecting, birthers are immune to any appeals to logic or reason.

Arizona Governor Jan Brewer vetoed a birther bill last week that was a poorly disguised religious test and, as even some conservative legal scholars have pointed out, exceeds the authority of the state in that it adds requirements not found in the Constitution. Here, she points out the obvious:

“It’s just something I believe is leading our country down a path of destruction and it just is not serving any good purpose,” Brewer said, calling it a distraction from the much more pressing issue of the economy.

“I think we really just need to move on,” Brewer continued. “Everybody’s had two years to prove, if they wanted to, that he was not born in Hawaii. They haven’t come up with any of that kind of proof.”

The vast majority of the country is not crazy. This quest to uncover evidence that doesn’t exist - a quest supported to varying degrees by 45% of Republicans - will finish the Republican party as a serious political force for god knows how long. This doesn’t seem to bother the Chairman of the RNC Reince Priebus:

“It doesn’t worry me,” Priebus said at a Tuesday breakfast with reporters sponsored by the Christian Science Monitor. “But the reality is that I’m chairman of the RNC … In regard to this birther issue, I’ve got better things to worry about.”

Sorry Mr. Chairman, you’re dead wrong. When nearly half your flock embraces a theory on par with believing the earth is flat, it’s time to get concerned. Very concerned.

And the weak kneed, lily livererd GOP politicians who are fully aware of the insanity of the birther movement aren’t talking, or are even going so far as issuing mealy-mouthed statements like the Chairman above - we’ve got better things to do than concentrate on this “non-issue.”

Earth to GOP pols: Half your fricking constituency doesn’t think this is a “non-issue” and are worried about it. Maybe a strong, unequivocal statement, calling the birthers what they are - certifiable kooks - might knock the chocks from underneath their bandwagon. I realize you can’t criticize Trump for using the birthers to further his political ambitions because you all have been doing the same thing for years. But maybe you can stop the Mickey Mouse, condemn the nutcases for being outside the bounds of sanity, and then get on with beating the Democrats.

I realize this will fall on deaf ears with most of the birthers. For it is not evidence they want, it is a revelation - a religious event where God reveals the truth and hits them over the head with it. Since such an occurrence is unlikely, I expect the birthers to continue to make fools of themselves.

I wouldn’t mind so much except they are claiming the mantle of conservatism while doing so. And to my mind, that is perhaps their greatest sin and their most spectacular flight from reality of all.

My latest is up at FrontPage.com where I tackle the rapidly deteriorating situation in Yemen.

A sample:

The Saudis have a direct stake in finding a peaceful outcome in Yemen. But America’s interest in guiding Yemen out of this morass toward stability is no less urgent. For 15 years, President Saleh has successfully parlayed America’s desire to fight terrorism into aid for his regime and a hammer that he could use against the opposition. Many in Yemen wonder just how serious the al-Qaeda threat truly is, as Saleh has used terrorism as an excuse to undertake several crackdowns on those wanting democratic change. And while Saleh is considered a strong ally in the war on terror, a debate has raged in Washington for years about his real value, given his autocratic nature and his less than persistent efforts to attack the terrorists ensconced in the mountainous Northern provinces.

Nevertheless, Saleh has allowed our drones to attack al-Qaeda targets, given permission for special forces to train Yemeni counterterrorism units, and gone over to the offense in the battle against AQAP. All of this is now by the boards as Saleh has retrenched and withdrawn his army and the counterterror forces, concentrating them around the capitol of Sanaa. He has also forbidden drone strikes. This has given AQAP the opening it needed and the terrorists have now moved into towns and villages, filling the void left by the army and police.

AQAP has reportedly taken over a town in Abyan province and declared an “Islamic Emirate.” Most observers scoff at the idea of an independent al-Qaeda emirate, but the AQAP move demonstrates that the chaos roiling the streets and provinces of Yemen is benefiting the terrorists as Saleh’s control of the country continues to shrink to Sanaa and a few other urban centers.

In addition to AQAP in the north, there is another insurgency in the formerly independent south. Separatists there have also taken advantage of the chaos to push into areas formerly controlled by the central government. It would appear that the longer the political crisis goes on in Sanaa, the more advantageous the situation will be for AQAP and the Iranian backed Houthi rebellion in the north, and the separatists in the south.

What has the Obama administration done about the situation? As in Egypt, they have abandoned a long-time ally, while pushing for “reforms.” On April 5, the White House released a statement condemning the violence in Yemen and calling on President Saleh to step down. Privately, they were hoping that Saleh could broker a deal that would have him remain in power in some capacity. Richard Fontaine of Foreign Policy Magazine believes that a “best case scenario” would see a situation where “Yemeni politics could reach a more stable footing and, through a new openness, undermine the appeal of extremism.” Fontaine also hopes that “Washington might pursue a broad relationship that extends beyond security cooperation and aid to active support of a budding democracy.” Out of this relationship might be forged a new counterterrorism dynamic based on a more stable foundation than the mercurial Saleh.

But the collapse of the GCC agreement makes that scenario a remote possibility. Hundreds of thousands of protestors were in the street on Sunday calling for Saleh’s immediate departure. Meanwhile, the GCC announced that it would conduct no more negotiations; the two sides must accept the agreed framework.

I think there’s still a possibility that Saleh will drop the most objectionable particulars in the GCC agreement and will leave peacefully - as long as he gets immunity from murdering his own citizens. Opposition politicians seem willing to do this, but the youth in the streets utterly reject the idea. They are also rightly suspicious that a government made up of former Saleh loyalists and a few opposition politicians will hardly be representative of the Yemeni people.

One can sympathize with the kids but also realize that what they are asking is probably beyond the ability of Yemen’s political culture to enact. Politics is the art of the possible, and if the goal is to get Saleh and his cronies out of power, the best way to do it is to compromise on the immunity question. No doubt Saleh deserves a war criminal’s death — but at the expense of peace and the avoidance of civil war in Yemen? It’s a tough call but you have to ask yourself what kind of government would emerge from a civil war? Would it be better than the one that would emerge as a result of the GCC agreement?

It may all be a moot point anyway. Saleh may very well try to ride out the storm and stay afloat despite the leaky, rickety boat he will be using to attempt such a feat. He is trying to reverse a hurricane using a Japanese hand fan and his efforts can only end badly — not only for himself but for American interests as well.