Tuesday, March 30, 2004
Blog Return: I was away, in Australia and Viet Nam. I’ll limit myself to apt political points.
- Australia’s P.M. John Howard, who has studiously followed a pro-Cheney line, is in possible trouble, a candidate to join Spain’s Aznar as a casualty of their joining the deceitful Bush Administration in Iraq. The opposition’s mis-steps, however, may yet save him.
- Viet Nam’s population is predominantly young and doesn’t tend to focus on the American war on Vietnam, ancient history to many. Yet, their nationalism and knowledge and understanding of the past is keen. Huge throngs visit Ho Chi Minh’s embalmed body and the nearby War Museum each and every day.
- Agent Orange remains a focus. Though with an almost dispassionate tone, periodicals note the ongoing damage to Agent Orange victims. There’s also modest, consistent noting of the lawsuit in US Federal Courts against the companies that produced the 76 million litres that were sprayed on victims during Operation Ranch Hand. (Quaint!) One activity has been a petition calling on Bush, other governmental officials and the chemical companies to compensate Victnamese victims.
- Dien Bien Phu is the focus of the year, as this is the 50 year anniversary of the final battle that kicked out the French. Veterans, in full uniform, were most evident in Hanoi.
- Viet Nam is poor, but striving and competent, witness their masterful bridge building (U.S. planes bombed out all of northern Vietnam’s bridges during the American War). Development is everywhere, at the usual cost of pollution and dislocation. Motorbikes have taken over Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi.
- Like many other countries, Australia is forging partnerships with Viet Nam. I talked with the Dean of U. of South Australia’s Ed School who was heading to Hanoi to set up a campus in Hanoi; another school, the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology had similarly decided to open a second campus in Viet Nam.
- The focus of the international community was on the disputed Korean election and the implications of the assassination of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin. One other issue- the notable attempt to trap important al-Qaeda “assets” in Pakistan- was a charade that is well-summed up by Aziz-ud-DinAhmad:
In the meanwhile prodding from Washington continues unabated. There are a number of US officials, some acting as good cops, others as bad cops trying to push Gen. Musharraf in their peculiar ways to do more to help them. On Sunday Zalmay Khalilzad told Associated Press that two Taliban commanders located in Pakistan were orchestrating attacks inside southern Afghanistan while some of the al-Qaeda leaders were also there. While a Foreign Office spokesman has strongly reacted to the statement, there is likely to be more action in the tribal areas to please the Americans. Unless the government combines puts more emphasis on persuasion, the ongoing operation tied up with the agenda of the American elections could lead to disastrous results http://www.nation.com.pk/daily/Mar-2004/25/EDITOR/op3.asp
Passing through L.A., I noted the LA Times had produced still another account of the pre-war intelligence distortions, that Colin Powell’s infamous UN presentation was heavily reliant on details from a discredited source. Bob Drogin’s and Greg Miller’s account of defector “Curveball” notes that
Curveball's story has since crumbled under doubts raised by the Germans and the scrutiny of U.S. weapons hunters, who have come to see his code name as particularly apt, given the problems that beset much of the prewar intelligence collection and analysis. http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/iraq/complete/la-fg-curveball28mar28,1,6627511,print.story?coll=la-home-headlines
I return to an improved political situation. Over the last months, an accumulation of incidents and the Dean campaign has helped the Democrats and the media to begin to find their voice. It’s good to see that the culture no longer focuses on Dick Clark, the eternally youthful host of American Bandstand and New Year’s Eve. Now Dick Clarke is The Man.
Working backwards, the Administration activities have become more transparent. Last night’s NBC report wrapped with the following:
U.S. officials told NBC News that the full record of Clarke’s testimony two years ago would not be declassified. They said that at the request of the White House, however, the CIA was going through the transcript to see what could be declassified, with an eye toward pointing out contradictions. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4623066/
Wow; to admit to your dirty tricks when chatting with the press on ‘background’…
Clarke has won the initial rounds; the lies and contradictions in defending them have been all too obvious. The claims that they were always focused on terrorism- we all remember that tax cuts and strategic defense were the entire agenda pre 9/11.
Let’s recall: On 4/30/01 the Bush Administration’s released the annual report on terrorism. It broke with previous Administrations when it decided to specifically de-emphasize bin Laden. http://www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0104/30/ip.00.html
Then, keep in mind Bush’s comment that "Prior to September the 11th, we thought oceans could protect us." Yet, Warren Rudman and Gary Hart’s Commission on National Security had warned in January of 2001 of massive attacks on the U.S. Yet that report was essentially rejected. Instead, Cheney announced that he would head a task force to analyze the threat himself. The Administration then slowly assembled this group over a five month period and never did hold a meeting prior to 9/11.
Clarke was oh so clear on Tim Russert’s show http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4608698/ where he demolished the charges against him.
MR. CLARKE: Well, I think that this is part of a general pattern of the White House and the Republican National Committee and the president's re-election committee distributing talking points like that to senators and to press and to media trying to make me the issue and trying to engage in character assassination. I'm not the issue. Now, we can talk about the specifics of their allegations.
MR. RUSSERT: Is there any inconsistency between your sworn testimony before the September 11 Commission last week and two years ago before the congressional committee?
MR. CLARKE: No, there isn't. And I would welcome it being declassified, but not just a little line here or there. Let's declassify all six hours of my testimony.
MR. RUSSERT: You would request this morning that it all be declassified?
MR. CLARKE: And I want more declassified. I want Dr. Rice's testimony before the 9-11 Commission declassified, and I want the thing that the 9-11 Commission talked about in its staff report this week declassified, because there's been an issue about whether or not a strategy or a plan or something useful was given to Dr. Rice in early January. And she says it wasn't. So we now have the staff report of the 9-11 Commission, and it says, "On January 25th, Clarke forwarded his December strategy paper to the new national security adviser, and it proposed covert action to the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan, significantly increasing CIA funding, retaliating for the USS Cole, arming the Predator aircraft, going after terrorist fund raising."
Now, Dr. Rice has characterized this as not a plan, not a strategy, not a series of decisions which could be made right away, but warmed-over Clinton material. Let's declassify that memo I sent on January 25th and let's declassify the national security directive that Dr. Rice's committee approved nine months later on September 4th, and let's see if there's any difference between those two, because there isn't. And what we'll see when we declassify what they were given on January 25th and what they finally agreed to on September 4th, is that they're basically the same thing and they wasted months when we could have had some action.
The Administration ignored Sandy Berger’s warning that they will (need to) focus on bin Laden. Instead, the Administration persisted in their emphasis on states as the cause of terrorism, not groups that are not reliant on state sponsors but are merely housed in host states. Newsweek’s Fareed Zakaria tackled this and noted the incessant obsession of doing the opposite of Clinton.
The Bush team, distrustful of anything Clinton's people said, did not see Al Qaeda as an urgent threat. They held few meetings on it and in other ways were inattentive to it. One example from the panel's report: the senior Pentagon official responsible for counterterrorism is the assistant secretary for special operations and low-intensity conflict. Even by September 11, 2001, no one had been appointed to that post.
The Bush administration came to office with different concerns. During the 1990s conservative intellectuals and policy wonks sounded the alarm about China, North Korea, Cuba, Iran and Iraq, but not about terror. Real men dealt with states. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4615876/
And, yet, after 9/11, that orientation continued, as Iraq and the rest of the axis of evil became the focus, not the difficult-to-find bin Laden.
Then, there’s the perverse Bill Frist accusing Clarke of perjury, and Crossfire’s Robert Novak- the ‘outer’ of Valerie Plame- pathetically claiming reduced the issue to Clarke being a racist:
ROBERT NOVAK: Congressman, do you believe, you're a sophisticated guy, do you believe watching these hearings that Dick Clarke has a problem with this African-American woman Condoleezza Rice?
Walter Pincus, Dana Milbank had a fine summary in the Washington Post:
This week's testimony and media blitz by former White House counterterrorism chief Richard A. Clarke has returned unwanted attention to his former boss, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice.
The refusal by President Bush's top security aide to testify publicly before the commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks elicited rebukes by commission members as they held public hearings without her this week. Thomas H. Kean (R), the former New Jersey governor Bush named to be chairman of the commission, observed: "I think this administration shot itself in the foot by not letting her testify in public."
At the same time, some of Rice's rebuttals of Clarke's broadside against Bush, which she delivered in a flurry of media interviews and statements rather than in testimony, contradicted other administration officials and her own previous statements.
Deputy Secretary of State Richard L. Armitage contradicted Rice's claim that the White House had a strategy before 9/11 for military operations against al Qaeda and the Taliban; the CIA contradicted Rice's earlier assertion that Bush had requested a CIA briefing in the summer of 2001 because of elevated terrorist threats; and Rice's assertion this week that Bush told her on Sept. 16, 2001, that "Iraq is to the side" appeared to be contradicted by an order signed by Bush on Sept. 17 directing the Pentagon to begin planning military options for an invasion of Iraq.
Rice, in turn, has contradicted Vice President Cheney's assertion that Clarke was "out of the loop" and his intimation that Clarke had been demoted. Rice has also given various conflicting accounts. She criticized Clarke for being the architect of failed Clinton administration policies, but also said she retained Clarke so the Bush administration could continue to pursue Clinton's terrorism policies.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A25177-2004Mar25?language=printer:
Bush Comedy: A royal turn-off was Bush’s attempt to transform the scandal of wmd b.s. into comedy. David Corn of The Nation summed it up.
Disapproval must have registered upon my face, for one of my tablemates said, "Come on, David, this is funny." I wanted to reply, Over 500 Americans and literally countless Iraqis are dead because of a war that was supposedly fought to find weapons of mass destruction, and Bush is joking about it. Instead, I took a long drink of the lovely white wine that had come with our dinner. It's not as if I was in the middle of a talk-show debate and had to respond. This was certainly one of those occasions in which you either get it or don't. And I wasn't getting it. Or maybe my neighbor wasn't. http://www.thenation.com/capitalgames/index.mhtml?bid=3&pid=1336
Other News:
Air America Radio begins tomorrow- only 4 outlets, but presumably on the web as well.
Air America Radio, a progressive talk radio network, announced today it will hit the airwaves on March 31st.
"Air America Radio is launching in the top U.S. markets with leading talent that will provide compelling and entertaining programming on the radio, on satellite feeds, and on the web," said Mark Walsh, Chief Executive Officer of Air America Radio. “We aim to build an important new media franchise that delivers results.”
The network’s on-air personalities represent today’s top political and popular satirists, commentators and activists. Comedian, and best selling author Al Franken, who was recently taken to court when Bill O’Reilly and Fox News were seeking an injunction to halt distribution of "Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right," and is known for fact-based, drug-free satire, will host a weekday show on the network called “The O’Franken Factor.” http://www.centralairmedia.com/
French socialists win big
French socialists won about half the votes in regional elections. Agence France-Presse termed this a “stunning defeat” for President Jacques Chirac's conservative government. http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=1504&u=/afp/20040329/ts_afp/france_vote_040329103149&printer=1
Saddam’s Defense:
Jacques Verges, a French lawyer who defended Klaus Barbie and Carlos the Jackal, will be Saddam’s lawyer. He suggested in an interview with Reuters that his strategy would be to focus on the role played by the U.S. and other countries in supporting Saddam in the 80s. Verges specifically cited his intention to make Defense Secretary Rumsfeld an issue, that Rumsfeld would "take a seat next to the leader.". http://www.reuters.com/printerFriendlyPopup.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=4677009
-R
- Australia’s P.M. John Howard, who has studiously followed a pro-Cheney line, is in possible trouble, a candidate to join Spain’s Aznar as a casualty of their joining the deceitful Bush Administration in Iraq. The opposition’s mis-steps, however, may yet save him.
- Viet Nam’s population is predominantly young and doesn’t tend to focus on the American war on Vietnam, ancient history to many. Yet, their nationalism and knowledge and understanding of the past is keen. Huge throngs visit Ho Chi Minh’s embalmed body and the nearby War Museum each and every day.
- Agent Orange remains a focus. Though with an almost dispassionate tone, periodicals note the ongoing damage to Agent Orange victims. There’s also modest, consistent noting of the lawsuit in US Federal Courts against the companies that produced the 76 million litres that were sprayed on victims during Operation Ranch Hand. (Quaint!) One activity has been a petition calling on Bush, other governmental officials and the chemical companies to compensate Victnamese victims.
- Dien Bien Phu is the focus of the year, as this is the 50 year anniversary of the final battle that kicked out the French. Veterans, in full uniform, were most evident in Hanoi.
- Viet Nam is poor, but striving and competent, witness their masterful bridge building (U.S. planes bombed out all of northern Vietnam’s bridges during the American War). Development is everywhere, at the usual cost of pollution and dislocation. Motorbikes have taken over Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi.
- Like many other countries, Australia is forging partnerships with Viet Nam. I talked with the Dean of U. of South Australia’s Ed School who was heading to Hanoi to set up a campus in Hanoi; another school, the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology had similarly decided to open a second campus in Viet Nam.
- The focus of the international community was on the disputed Korean election and the implications of the assassination of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin. One other issue- the notable attempt to trap important al-Qaeda “assets” in Pakistan- was a charade that is well-summed up by Aziz-ud-DinAhmad:
In the meanwhile prodding from Washington continues unabated. There are a number of US officials, some acting as good cops, others as bad cops trying to push Gen. Musharraf in their peculiar ways to do more to help them. On Sunday Zalmay Khalilzad told Associated Press that two Taliban commanders located in Pakistan were orchestrating attacks inside southern Afghanistan while some of the al-Qaeda leaders were also there. While a Foreign Office spokesman has strongly reacted to the statement, there is likely to be more action in the tribal areas to please the Americans. Unless the government combines puts more emphasis on persuasion, the ongoing operation tied up with the agenda of the American elections could lead to disastrous results http://www.nation.com.pk/daily/Mar-2004/25/EDITOR/op3.asp
Passing through L.A., I noted the LA Times had produced still another account of the pre-war intelligence distortions, that Colin Powell’s infamous UN presentation was heavily reliant on details from a discredited source. Bob Drogin’s and Greg Miller’s account of defector “Curveball” notes that
Curveball's story has since crumbled under doubts raised by the Germans and the scrutiny of U.S. weapons hunters, who have come to see his code name as particularly apt, given the problems that beset much of the prewar intelligence collection and analysis. http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/iraq/complete/la-fg-curveball28mar28,1,6627511,print.story?coll=la-home-headlines
I return to an improved political situation. Over the last months, an accumulation of incidents and the Dean campaign has helped the Democrats and the media to begin to find their voice. It’s good to see that the culture no longer focuses on Dick Clark, the eternally youthful host of American Bandstand and New Year’s Eve. Now Dick Clarke is The Man.
Working backwards, the Administration activities have become more transparent. Last night’s NBC report wrapped with the following:
U.S. officials told NBC News that the full record of Clarke’s testimony two years ago would not be declassified. They said that at the request of the White House, however, the CIA was going through the transcript to see what could be declassified, with an eye toward pointing out contradictions. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4623066/
Wow; to admit to your dirty tricks when chatting with the press on ‘background’…
Clarke has won the initial rounds; the lies and contradictions in defending them have been all too obvious. The claims that they were always focused on terrorism- we all remember that tax cuts and strategic defense were the entire agenda pre 9/11.
Let’s recall: On 4/30/01 the Bush Administration’s released the annual report on terrorism. It broke with previous Administrations when it decided to specifically de-emphasize bin Laden. http://www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0104/30/ip.00.html
Then, keep in mind Bush’s comment that "Prior to September the 11th, we thought oceans could protect us." Yet, Warren Rudman and Gary Hart’s Commission on National Security had warned in January of 2001 of massive attacks on the U.S. Yet that report was essentially rejected. Instead, Cheney announced that he would head a task force to analyze the threat himself. The Administration then slowly assembled this group over a five month period and never did hold a meeting prior to 9/11.
Clarke was oh so clear on Tim Russert’s show http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4608698/ where he demolished the charges against him.
MR. CLARKE: Well, I think that this is part of a general pattern of the White House and the Republican National Committee and the president's re-election committee distributing talking points like that to senators and to press and to media trying to make me the issue and trying to engage in character assassination. I'm not the issue. Now, we can talk about the specifics of their allegations.
MR. RUSSERT: Is there any inconsistency between your sworn testimony before the September 11 Commission last week and two years ago before the congressional committee?
MR. CLARKE: No, there isn't. And I would welcome it being declassified, but not just a little line here or there. Let's declassify all six hours of my testimony.
MR. RUSSERT: You would request this morning that it all be declassified?
MR. CLARKE: And I want more declassified. I want Dr. Rice's testimony before the 9-11 Commission declassified, and I want the thing that the 9-11 Commission talked about in its staff report this week declassified, because there's been an issue about whether or not a strategy or a plan or something useful was given to Dr. Rice in early January. And she says it wasn't. So we now have the staff report of the 9-11 Commission, and it says, "On January 25th, Clarke forwarded his December strategy paper to the new national security adviser, and it proposed covert action to the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan, significantly increasing CIA funding, retaliating for the USS Cole, arming the Predator aircraft, going after terrorist fund raising."
Now, Dr. Rice has characterized this as not a plan, not a strategy, not a series of decisions which could be made right away, but warmed-over Clinton material. Let's declassify that memo I sent on January 25th and let's declassify the national security directive that Dr. Rice's committee approved nine months later on September 4th, and let's see if there's any difference between those two, because there isn't. And what we'll see when we declassify what they were given on January 25th and what they finally agreed to on September 4th, is that they're basically the same thing and they wasted months when we could have had some action.
The Administration ignored Sandy Berger’s warning that they will (need to) focus on bin Laden. Instead, the Administration persisted in their emphasis on states as the cause of terrorism, not groups that are not reliant on state sponsors but are merely housed in host states. Newsweek’s Fareed Zakaria tackled this and noted the incessant obsession of doing the opposite of Clinton.
The Bush team, distrustful of anything Clinton's people said, did not see Al Qaeda as an urgent threat. They held few meetings on it and in other ways were inattentive to it. One example from the panel's report: the senior Pentagon official responsible for counterterrorism is the assistant secretary for special operations and low-intensity conflict. Even by September 11, 2001, no one had been appointed to that post.
The Bush administration came to office with different concerns. During the 1990s conservative intellectuals and policy wonks sounded the alarm about China, North Korea, Cuba, Iran and Iraq, but not about terror. Real men dealt with states. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4615876/
And, yet, after 9/11, that orientation continued, as Iraq and the rest of the axis of evil became the focus, not the difficult-to-find bin Laden.
Then, there’s the perverse Bill Frist accusing Clarke of perjury, and Crossfire’s Robert Novak- the ‘outer’ of Valerie Plame- pathetically claiming reduced the issue to Clarke being a racist:
ROBERT NOVAK: Congressman, do you believe, you're a sophisticated guy, do you believe watching these hearings that Dick Clarke has a problem with this African-American woman Condoleezza Rice?
Walter Pincus, Dana Milbank had a fine summary in the Washington Post:
This week's testimony and media blitz by former White House counterterrorism chief Richard A. Clarke has returned unwanted attention to his former boss, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice.
The refusal by President Bush's top security aide to testify publicly before the commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks elicited rebukes by commission members as they held public hearings without her this week. Thomas H. Kean (R), the former New Jersey governor Bush named to be chairman of the commission, observed: "I think this administration shot itself in the foot by not letting her testify in public."
At the same time, some of Rice's rebuttals of Clarke's broadside against Bush, which she delivered in a flurry of media interviews and statements rather than in testimony, contradicted other administration officials and her own previous statements.
Deputy Secretary of State Richard L. Armitage contradicted Rice's claim that the White House had a strategy before 9/11 for military operations against al Qaeda and the Taliban; the CIA contradicted Rice's earlier assertion that Bush had requested a CIA briefing in the summer of 2001 because of elevated terrorist threats; and Rice's assertion this week that Bush told her on Sept. 16, 2001, that "Iraq is to the side" appeared to be contradicted by an order signed by Bush on Sept. 17 directing the Pentagon to begin planning military options for an invasion of Iraq.
Rice, in turn, has contradicted Vice President Cheney's assertion that Clarke was "out of the loop" and his intimation that Clarke had been demoted. Rice has also given various conflicting accounts. She criticized Clarke for being the architect of failed Clinton administration policies, but also said she retained Clarke so the Bush administration could continue to pursue Clinton's terrorism policies.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A25177-2004Mar25?language=printer:
Bush Comedy: A royal turn-off was Bush’s attempt to transform the scandal of wmd b.s. into comedy. David Corn of The Nation summed it up.
Disapproval must have registered upon my face, for one of my tablemates said, "Come on, David, this is funny." I wanted to reply, Over 500 Americans and literally countless Iraqis are dead because of a war that was supposedly fought to find weapons of mass destruction, and Bush is joking about it. Instead, I took a long drink of the lovely white wine that had come with our dinner. It's not as if I was in the middle of a talk-show debate and had to respond. This was certainly one of those occasions in which you either get it or don't. And I wasn't getting it. Or maybe my neighbor wasn't. http://www.thenation.com/capitalgames/index.mhtml?bid=3&pid=1336
Other News:
Air America Radio begins tomorrow- only 4 outlets, but presumably on the web as well.
Air America Radio, a progressive talk radio network, announced today it will hit the airwaves on March 31st.
"Air America Radio is launching in the top U.S. markets with leading talent that will provide compelling and entertaining programming on the radio, on satellite feeds, and on the web," said Mark Walsh, Chief Executive Officer of Air America Radio. “We aim to build an important new media franchise that delivers results.”
The network’s on-air personalities represent today’s top political and popular satirists, commentators and activists. Comedian, and best selling author Al Franken, who was recently taken to court when Bill O’Reilly and Fox News were seeking an injunction to halt distribution of "Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right," and is known for fact-based, drug-free satire, will host a weekday show on the network called “The O’Franken Factor.” http://www.centralairmedia.com/
French socialists win big
French socialists won about half the votes in regional elections. Agence France-Presse termed this a “stunning defeat” for President Jacques Chirac's conservative government. http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=1504&u=/afp/20040329/ts_afp/france_vote_040329103149&printer=1
Saddam’s Defense:
Jacques Verges, a French lawyer who defended Klaus Barbie and Carlos the Jackal, will be Saddam’s lawyer. He suggested in an interview with Reuters that his strategy would be to focus on the role played by the U.S. and other countries in supporting Saddam in the 80s. Verges specifically cited his intention to make Defense Secretary Rumsfeld an issue, that Rumsfeld would "take a seat next to the leader.". http://www.reuters.com/printerFriendlyPopup.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=4677009
-R
