Friday, May 28, 2004
Oil and Blood /War on Terror:
Taking the gloves off, Mike Davis focuses on oil in “an age of diminishing supply and soaring prices.”
If the curve of global oil production is indeed near the point of descent, as these experts believe, it has epochal implications for the world economy. More expensive oil will undercut China's energy-intensive boom, return OECD countries to the bad old days of stagflation, and accelerate the environmentally destructive exploitation of low-grade oil tars and shales.
Most of all, it will devastate the economies of oil-importing third-world countries. Poor farmers will be unable to purchase petroleum-based artificial fertilizers just as poor urban-dwellers will be unable to afford bus fares. (Already, rising oil prices have brought chronic blackouts to cities throughout the globe's southern hemisphere.)
The only certain beneficiaries of this coming economic chaos will be the big five oil corporations and their corrupt partners: the Nigerian generals, Saudi princes, Russian kleptocrats, and their ilk. Crude oil truly will become black gold.
The rising value of an increasingly scarce resource is a form of monopoly rent, and a future permanent crude-oil regime of $50 per barrel (or higher) would transfer at least $1 trillion per decade from consumers to oil producers. In plain English, this would be the greatest robbery by a rentier elite in world history. Someday, Enron may seem like the equivalent of a liquor store hold-up by comparison.
The oilmen in the White House, of course, have the best view of the lush terrain on the far side of Hubbert's peak. No wonder, then, that a map of the 'war against terrorism' corresponds with such uncanny accuracy to the geography of oil fields and proposed pipelines. From Kazakhstan to Ecuador, American combat boots are sticky with oil.
To cite two recent, almost random examples: First, the Malaysian foreign minister warned in late May that Washington was exaggerating the threat of terrorist piracy in the Straits of Malacca in order to justify the deployment of forces there -- right at the chokepoint of East Asia's oil supply.
Second, T. Christian Miller, reporting in the Los Angeles Times, revealed that U.S. Special Forces, as well as the CIA and private American security contractors, are integrally involved in an ongoing reign of terror in Columbia's Arauca province. The aim of "Operation Red Moon" is to annihilate the leftwing ELN guerrillas threatening the oilfields and pipelines operated by LA-based Occidental Petroleum. The result, Miller reports, has been a slow-motion massacre. http://www.nationinstitute.org/tomdispatch/index.mhtml?pid=1458
What’s Happening, Iraq: Human Rights, Civilian Casualties:
Comments from Human Rights Watch; They’re concerned.
At least 13 and perhaps as many as 40 non-Iraqis have been abducted over the past week. Most if not all of those seized were civilians working for foreign firms and media. The abductors of 4 Italians and 3 Japanese threatened to kill their hostages unless those governments withdraw their forces from Iraq. On Wednesday, Fabrizio Quattrocchi, one of the Italian captives, was executed. The 3 Japanese were released on Thursday.
“Taking and holding hostages violates the core of international humanitarian law,” said Joe Stork, acting executive director of Human Rights Watch’s Middle East and North Africa division. “The killers of Fabrizio Quattrochi should be brought to justice and all those holding individuals for purposes of political extortion should free them immediately and unconditionally.”
Human Rights Watch also expressed grave concern at reports of heavy civilian casualties as a result of U.S. military operations in Falluja, a city of 200,000 west of Baghdad. U.S. Marines entered the city on April 6, in part to apprehend those responsible for the ambush, murder, and mutilation of four U.S. private security firm employees on March 31. http://www.hrw.org/english/docs/2004/04/16/iraq8446.htm
Richard Cohen op ed in the Washington Post:
…it's hard to feel confident that the Bush administration is prepared for the challenge ahead. It has been unforgivably incompetent so far, going to war for one reason, staying for another and layering contradictory facts with Sunday-school rhetoric. Fallujah, a compromised compromise, becomes a sterling success in the president's mouth. A systemic failure to abide by the Geneva Conventions becomes the kinky work of a few. The war over WMDs becomes one over terror. And Ahmed Chalabi, the erstwhile George Washington of Iraq, becomes Benedict Arnold virtually overnight. One moment he's Laura Bush's guest at the State of the Union speech; the next he's ranting anti-American screeds in Baghdad. http://65.54.186.250/cgi-bin/linkrd?_lang=EN&lah=9b2438195cd67eea4bb41c737734caa1&lat=1085670821&hm___action=http%3a%2f%2fletters%2ewashingtonpost%2ecom%2fW4RH05B9F322EEBA439543FD223B30
International Institute for Strategic Studies: Al Qaeda doing fineThe
US and British occupation of Iraq has accelerated recruitment to the ranks of Osama bin Laden's terrorist network and made the world a less safe place, according to a leading London-based think-tank.
The assessment, by the International Institute of Strategic Studies (IISS), states that the occupation has become "a potent global recruitment pretext" for al-Qa'ida, which now has more than 18,000 militants ready to strike Western targets. http://www.iiss.org/news.php?selectID=804
Abuse: A Thorough Inquiry? Bradley Graham’s Washington Post article thinks so.
In response to mounting evidence that detainees in U.S. military custody were badly abused in Iraq and elsewhere, the Pentagon has launched an array of investigations, assessments and reviews aimed, officials have insisted, at exposing those responsible for the misdeeds and preventing recurrences.
But a close look at what is being investigated, and who is doing the investigating, reveals gaps in the web of probes as well as limitations on the scope, with none of the inquiries designed to yield a complete picture of what went wrong or address suspicions of a possible top-secret intelligence-gathering operation that may have helped set the stage for the misconduct.
"I can't tell if all the inquiries represent attempts to patch new holes opening in the boat every day, or if they're part of some carefully designed strategy to have lots of activity going on around the center of this thing without probing the center itself," said John Hamre, who served as deputy secretary of defense under President Bill Clinton and now heads the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A58765-2004May26?language=printer
Gore:Why don’t the Democrats nominate people like this?
He promised to "restore honor and integrity to the White House." Instead, he has brought deep dishonor to our country and built a durable reputation as the most dishonest President since Richard Nixon.
Honor? He decided not to honor the Geneva Convention. Just as he would not honor the United Nations, international treaties, the opinions of our allies, the role of Congress and the courts, or what Jefferson described as "a decent respect for the opinion of mankind." He did not honor the advice, experience and judgment of our military leaders in designing his invasion of Iraq. And now he will not honor our fallen dead by attending any funerals or even by permitting photos of their flag-draped coffins.
How did we get from September 12th , 2001, when a leading French newspaper ran a giant headline with the words "We Are All Americans Now" and when we had the good will and empathy of all the world -- to the horror that we all felt in witnessing the pictures of torture in Abu Ghraib.
To begin with, from its earliest days in power, this administration sought to radically destroy the foreign policy consensus that had guided America since the end of World War II. The long successful strategy of containment was abandoned in favor of the new strategy of "preemption." And what they meant by preemption was not the inherent right of any nation to act preemptively against an imminent threat to its national security, but rather an exotic new approach that asserted a unique and unilateral U.S. right to ignore international law wherever it wished to do so and take military action against any nation, even in circumstances where there was no imminent threat. All that is required, in the view of Bush's team is the mere assertion of a possible, future threat - and the assertion need be made by only one person, the President. http://www.moveonpac.org/goreremarks052604.html/
Kerry I: Feeling the Squeeze on Iraq Policy
From the LA Times (Ronald Brownstein)
While Bush moves ever closer to his challenger's ideas, more Democrats are calling for a pullout.
Sen. John F. Kerry faces a stark new challenge in the campaign skirmishing over Iraq: As President Bush has moved toward his position, the Democratic Party is moving away from it.
From one side, Kerry confronts calls from growing numbers of Democrats to establish a deadline for withdrawing U.S. forces from Iraq. That idea will receive a major boost today when Win Without War, a coalition of 42 liberal groups, launches a campaign urging the U.S. to set a date for ending its military presence in Iraq.
From the other direction, Bush has come much closer to Kerry's view that the U.S. should rely more on the United Nations to oversee the transition from occupation to a sovereign Iraqi government, thus blurring the contrast between the two men.
In the long run, these shifts in Democratic attitudes and Bush's strategy may pressure Kerry to break more sharply from the administration on Iraq, a step he has firmly resisted.
More immediately, the squeeze is encouraging Kerry to subtly shift his critique of Bush on the war. In his response to Bush's speech on Iraq on Monday night, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee focused less on criticizing the president's policies than on questioning whether he could provide the international leadership to implement them. http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/2004/la-na-kerryiraq27may27,1,731544,print.story?coll=la-home-headlines
Kerry II: in the NY Times:
His foreign policy speech Thursday was substantive, but was heavily criticized for its soporific delivery; tough to have followed the energetic, blunt Gore. And, Wednesday was a deadly day for Kerry in the Times.
Nicolas Kristof underscored Kerry’s foolhardy echoing of Bush’s support of Sharon- they compete to support a myopic policy that is unjust, that damages our credibility around the world and that severely undermines our efforts in Iraq; http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/26/opinion/26KRIS.html?n=Top%2fOpinion%2fEditorials%20and%20Op%2dEd%2fOp%2dEd%2fColumnists%2fNicholas%20D%20Kristof
William Safire addressed “The non-debate about Iraq” between Kerry and Bush: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/26/opinion/26SAFI.html?n=Top%2fOpinion%2fEditorials%20and%20Op%2dEd%2fOp%2dEd%2fColumnists%2fWilliam%20Safire
And, a news item- Adam Nagourney and Richard Stevenson’s article on Candidates’ Iraq Policies Share Many Similarities. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/26/politics/campaign/26POLI.html
New York Times Comes Clean: We messed up pre-war
Finally, an apology…of sorts. They didn’t put it on page 1, they didn’t name Judith Miller, their correspondent, as the conduit of Chalabi’s inventions that led to the unnecessary invasion. Then again, no one, thus far, is apparently responsible for the deaths of the 800 Americans and 11,000+ Iraqis.
The problematic articles varied in authorship and subject matter, but many shared a common feature. They depended at least in part on information from a circle of Iraqi informants, defectors and exiles bent on "regime change" in Iraq, people whose credibility has come under increasing public debate in recent weeks. (The most prominent of the anti-Saddam campaigners, Ahmad Chalabi, has been named as an occasional source in Times articles since at least 1991, and has introduced reporters to other exiles. He became a favorite of hard-liners within the Bush administration and a paid broker of information from Iraqi exiles, until his payments were cut off last week.) Complicating matters for journalists, the accounts of these exiles were often eagerly confirmed by United States officials convinced of the need to intervene in Iraq. Administration officials now acknowledge that they sometimes fell for misinformation from these exile sources. So did many news organizations — in particular, this one.
Some critics of our coverage during that time have focused blame on individual reporters. Our examination, however, indicates that the problem was more complicated. Editors at several levels who should have been challenging reporters and pressing for more skepticism were perhaps too intent on rushing scoops into the paper. Accounts of Iraqi defectors were not always weighed against their strong desire to have Saddam Hussein ousted. Articles based on dire claims about Iraq tended to get prominent display, while follow-up articles that called the original ones into question were sometimes buried. In some cases, there was no follow-up at all. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/26/international/middleeast/26FTE_NOTE.html?pagewanted=2&8dpc
Democracy Now was characteristically blunt:
The Times said it had reached a low point in its 152-year history. I agreed. But not because of the Jayson Blair affair. It was TheTimes coverage of the Bush-Blair affair.
”When George W. Bush and Tony Blair made their fraudulent case to attack Iraq, The Times, along with most corporate media outlets in the United States, became cheerleaders for the war. And while Jayson Blair was being crucified for his journalistic sins, veteran Times national security correspondent and best-selling author Judith Miller was filling The Times' front pages with unchallenged government propaganda. Unlike Blair's deceptions, Miller's lies provided the pretext for war. Her lies cost lives…. http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=04/05/26/1610213
The Minneapolis Star Tribune : Bush's Speech Simply more of the same
Let's be clear at the outset: President Bush's much-anticipated speech Monday night at the Army War College in Pennsylvania wasn't about Iraq. It was about the general election on Nov. 2 and Bush's frantic desire to stop his inexorable slide in public opinion polls, the latest of which has his approval rating at a dismal 41 percent. A Bush aide said as much Sunday, telling the New York Times that the Monday night speech was designed to dispel "this idea that we don't know what we're doing" in Iraq.
Did Bush succeed? Not by a long shot. It's arrogant of a president to believe speeches can dispel the skepticism borne of three years of lies and incompetence on the ground. Lies about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Incompetence in sizing the American troop strength that would be required to pacify Iraq following the inevitably quick opening combat. Incompetence in failing to plan well for dealing with an occupied Iraq. Incompetence in ceding control of American foreign policy to a small cabal of self-delusional neoconservatives who threw traditional American pragmatism -- conservative pragmatism -- overboard in favor of grandiose plans for remaking the Middle East into a peaceful, democratic region in one fell swoop. http://www.startribune.com/stories/1519/4793841.html
Compare that with the Washington Post- "A Speech Meant to Rally Public Support Doesn't Answer Key Questions." And the NY Times’ uncritical "Bush Lays Out Goals for Iraq: Self-Rule and Stability"
Media: Doing Better?Paul Krugman charts the progress in his Friday column:
Amazing things have been happening lately. The usual suspects have tried to silence reporting about prison abuses by accusing critics of undermining the troops — but the reports keep coming. The attorney general has called yet another terror alert — but the press raised questions about why. (At a White House morning briefing, Terry Moran of ABC News actually said what many thought during other conveniently timed alerts: "There is a disturbing possibility that you are manipulating the American public in order to get a message out.")
It may not last. In July 2002, according to Dana Milbank of The Washington Post — who has tried, at great risk to his career, to offer a realistic picture of the Bush presidency — "the White House press corps showed its teeth" for the first time since 9/11. It didn't last: the administration beat the drums of war, and most of the press relapsed into docility.
But this time may be different. And if it is, Mr. Bush — who has always depended on that docility — may be in even more trouble than the latest polls suggest. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/28/opinion/28KRUG.html?hp
That Liberal Media: NPR Taps Republicans more than Democrats Peter Goodman of Newsday:
Despite a perception that National Public Radio is politically liberal, the majority of its sources are actually Republicans and conservatives, according to a survey released today by Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, a left-leaning media watchdog.
"Republicans not only had a substantial partisan edge," according to a report accompanying the survey, "individual Republicans were NPR's most popular sources overall, taking the top seven spots in frequency of appearance." In addition, representatives of right-of-center think tanks outnumbered their leftist counterparts by more than four to one, FAIR reported.
Citing comments dating to the Nixon administration in the 1970s, the report said, "That NPR harbors a liberal bias is an article of faith among many conservatives." However, it added, "Despite the commonness of such claims, little evidence has ever been presented for a left bias at NPR."
The study counted 2,334 sources used in 804 stories aired last June for four programs: "All Things Considered," "Morning Edition," "Weekend Edition Saturday" and "Weekend Edition Sunday." For the analysis of think tanks, FAIR used the months of May through August 2003.
Overall, Republicans outnumbered Democrats by 61 percent to 38 percent, a figure only slightly higher now, when the GOP controls the White House and both houses of Congress, than during a previous survey in 1993, during the Clinton administration.
"Some people may think is too left of center because they are contrasting it to the louder, black-and-white sloganeering of talk radio," said FAIR's Steve Rendall, a co-author of the report. "It could be that, just by contrast, the more dulcet [tone] and slower pace and lower volume of NPR makes many people think it must be the opposite of talk radio." http://www.newsday.com/entertainment/news/ny-flnpr3818138may25,0,5744514,print.story
Terror Alert Not much mystery here. Not only was it needed to change the subject from Iraq, it also followed the embarrassment of the erroneous jailing of Brandon Mayfield, the Oregon lawyer held in connection with the Madrid bombings. Many weeks ago the Spanish were questioning the validity of Mayfield’s alleged fingerprint, but the FBI jailed him anyway for almost 3 weeks.
Kuttner on Bob Woodward
Kuttner corrects the misimpression that Woodward skewered Bush. He reminds us that Woodward’s citing his 75 sources is NOT reassuring, that they were almost entirely Administration folk who were happy to share. Indeed, the book is trumpeted on Re-elect Bush web sites as a “recommended” read.
For the White House, however, the real significance is not the mild embarrassment to lesser officials. One high official in particular comes across looking just terrific. And that is George W. Bush.
Woodward gives away the game plan when he recounts a strategy meeting between Bush and Rove, at which Rove, in a PowerPoint presentation, identifies the key attributes for Bush to project in his presidency and re-election campaign: Strong Leader. Bold Action. Big Ideas. Peace in the World. More Compassionate America. Cares About People Like Me. Leads a Strong Team.
By some funny coincidence, this is exactly the Bush persona projected in Woodward's book.
As in his first hagiography, Bush at War, Woodward chooses to paint this president as a resolute and decisive leader, one who listens carefully to differing views among his cabinet and then makes astute choices. A more skeptical reporter could have taken the same raw material and emphasized that Bush doesn't read, has little curiosity about the complexities of foreign affairs, is easily manipulated, looks for "facts" that fit his preconceptions; not surprisingly, his policy turns out to be a disastrous blunder. http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewPrint&articleId=7730
-R
Taking the gloves off, Mike Davis focuses on oil in “an age of diminishing supply and soaring prices.”
If the curve of global oil production is indeed near the point of descent, as these experts believe, it has epochal implications for the world economy. More expensive oil will undercut China's energy-intensive boom, return OECD countries to the bad old days of stagflation, and accelerate the environmentally destructive exploitation of low-grade oil tars and shales.
Most of all, it will devastate the economies of oil-importing third-world countries. Poor farmers will be unable to purchase petroleum-based artificial fertilizers just as poor urban-dwellers will be unable to afford bus fares. (Already, rising oil prices have brought chronic blackouts to cities throughout the globe's southern hemisphere.)
The only certain beneficiaries of this coming economic chaos will be the big five oil corporations and their corrupt partners: the Nigerian generals, Saudi princes, Russian kleptocrats, and their ilk. Crude oil truly will become black gold.
The rising value of an increasingly scarce resource is a form of monopoly rent, and a future permanent crude-oil regime of $50 per barrel (or higher) would transfer at least $1 trillion per decade from consumers to oil producers. In plain English, this would be the greatest robbery by a rentier elite in world history. Someday, Enron may seem like the equivalent of a liquor store hold-up by comparison.
The oilmen in the White House, of course, have the best view of the lush terrain on the far side of Hubbert's peak. No wonder, then, that a map of the 'war against terrorism' corresponds with such uncanny accuracy to the geography of oil fields and proposed pipelines. From Kazakhstan to Ecuador, American combat boots are sticky with oil.
To cite two recent, almost random examples: First, the Malaysian foreign minister warned in late May that Washington was exaggerating the threat of terrorist piracy in the Straits of Malacca in order to justify the deployment of forces there -- right at the chokepoint of East Asia's oil supply.
Second, T. Christian Miller, reporting in the Los Angeles Times, revealed that U.S. Special Forces, as well as the CIA and private American security contractors, are integrally involved in an ongoing reign of terror in Columbia's Arauca province. The aim of "Operation Red Moon" is to annihilate the leftwing ELN guerrillas threatening the oilfields and pipelines operated by LA-based Occidental Petroleum. The result, Miller reports, has been a slow-motion massacre. http://www.nationinstitute.org/tomdispatch/index.mhtml?pid=1458
What’s Happening, Iraq: Human Rights, Civilian Casualties:
Comments from Human Rights Watch; They’re concerned.
At least 13 and perhaps as many as 40 non-Iraqis have been abducted over the past week. Most if not all of those seized were civilians working for foreign firms and media. The abductors of 4 Italians and 3 Japanese threatened to kill their hostages unless those governments withdraw their forces from Iraq. On Wednesday, Fabrizio Quattrocchi, one of the Italian captives, was executed. The 3 Japanese were released on Thursday.
“Taking and holding hostages violates the core of international humanitarian law,” said Joe Stork, acting executive director of Human Rights Watch’s Middle East and North Africa division. “The killers of Fabrizio Quattrochi should be brought to justice and all those holding individuals for purposes of political extortion should free them immediately and unconditionally.”
Human Rights Watch also expressed grave concern at reports of heavy civilian casualties as a result of U.S. military operations in Falluja, a city of 200,000 west of Baghdad. U.S. Marines entered the city on April 6, in part to apprehend those responsible for the ambush, murder, and mutilation of four U.S. private security firm employees on March 31. http://www.hrw.org/english/docs/2004/04/16/iraq8446.htm
Richard Cohen op ed in the Washington Post:
…it's hard to feel confident that the Bush administration is prepared for the challenge ahead. It has been unforgivably incompetent so far, going to war for one reason, staying for another and layering contradictory facts with Sunday-school rhetoric. Fallujah, a compromised compromise, becomes a sterling success in the president's mouth. A systemic failure to abide by the Geneva Conventions becomes the kinky work of a few. The war over WMDs becomes one over terror. And Ahmed Chalabi, the erstwhile George Washington of Iraq, becomes Benedict Arnold virtually overnight. One moment he's Laura Bush's guest at the State of the Union speech; the next he's ranting anti-American screeds in Baghdad. http://65.54.186.250/cgi-bin/linkrd?_lang=EN&lah=9b2438195cd67eea4bb41c737734caa1&lat=1085670821&hm___action=http%3a%2f%2fletters%2ewashingtonpost%2ecom%2fW4RH05B9F322EEBA439543FD223B30
International Institute for Strategic Studies: Al Qaeda doing fineThe
US and British occupation of Iraq has accelerated recruitment to the ranks of Osama bin Laden's terrorist network and made the world a less safe place, according to a leading London-based think-tank.
The assessment, by the International Institute of Strategic Studies (IISS), states that the occupation has become "a potent global recruitment pretext" for al-Qa'ida, which now has more than 18,000 militants ready to strike Western targets. http://www.iiss.org/news.php?selectID=804
Abuse: A Thorough Inquiry? Bradley Graham’s Washington Post article thinks so.
In response to mounting evidence that detainees in U.S. military custody were badly abused in Iraq and elsewhere, the Pentagon has launched an array of investigations, assessments and reviews aimed, officials have insisted, at exposing those responsible for the misdeeds and preventing recurrences.
But a close look at what is being investigated, and who is doing the investigating, reveals gaps in the web of probes as well as limitations on the scope, with none of the inquiries designed to yield a complete picture of what went wrong or address suspicions of a possible top-secret intelligence-gathering operation that may have helped set the stage for the misconduct.
"I can't tell if all the inquiries represent attempts to patch new holes opening in the boat every day, or if they're part of some carefully designed strategy to have lots of activity going on around the center of this thing without probing the center itself," said John Hamre, who served as deputy secretary of defense under President Bill Clinton and now heads the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A58765-2004May26?language=printer
Gore:Why don’t the Democrats nominate people like this?
He promised to "restore honor and integrity to the White House." Instead, he has brought deep dishonor to our country and built a durable reputation as the most dishonest President since Richard Nixon.
Honor? He decided not to honor the Geneva Convention. Just as he would not honor the United Nations, international treaties, the opinions of our allies, the role of Congress and the courts, or what Jefferson described as "a decent respect for the opinion of mankind." He did not honor the advice, experience and judgment of our military leaders in designing his invasion of Iraq. And now he will not honor our fallen dead by attending any funerals or even by permitting photos of their flag-draped coffins.
How did we get from September 12th , 2001, when a leading French newspaper ran a giant headline with the words "We Are All Americans Now" and when we had the good will and empathy of all the world -- to the horror that we all felt in witnessing the pictures of torture in Abu Ghraib.
To begin with, from its earliest days in power, this administration sought to radically destroy the foreign policy consensus that had guided America since the end of World War II. The long successful strategy of containment was abandoned in favor of the new strategy of "preemption." And what they meant by preemption was not the inherent right of any nation to act preemptively against an imminent threat to its national security, but rather an exotic new approach that asserted a unique and unilateral U.S. right to ignore international law wherever it wished to do so and take military action against any nation, even in circumstances where there was no imminent threat. All that is required, in the view of Bush's team is the mere assertion of a possible, future threat - and the assertion need be made by only one person, the President. http://www.moveonpac.org/goreremarks052604.html/
Kerry I: Feeling the Squeeze on Iraq Policy
From the LA Times (Ronald Brownstein)
While Bush moves ever closer to his challenger's ideas, more Democrats are calling for a pullout.
Sen. John F. Kerry faces a stark new challenge in the campaign skirmishing over Iraq: As President Bush has moved toward his position, the Democratic Party is moving away from it.
From one side, Kerry confronts calls from growing numbers of Democrats to establish a deadline for withdrawing U.S. forces from Iraq. That idea will receive a major boost today when Win Without War, a coalition of 42 liberal groups, launches a campaign urging the U.S. to set a date for ending its military presence in Iraq.
From the other direction, Bush has come much closer to Kerry's view that the U.S. should rely more on the United Nations to oversee the transition from occupation to a sovereign Iraqi government, thus blurring the contrast between the two men.
In the long run, these shifts in Democratic attitudes and Bush's strategy may pressure Kerry to break more sharply from the administration on Iraq, a step he has firmly resisted.
More immediately, the squeeze is encouraging Kerry to subtly shift his critique of Bush on the war. In his response to Bush's speech on Iraq on Monday night, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee focused less on criticizing the president's policies than on questioning whether he could provide the international leadership to implement them. http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/2004/la-na-kerryiraq27may27,1,731544,print.story?coll=la-home-headlines
Kerry II: in the NY Times:
His foreign policy speech Thursday was substantive, but was heavily criticized for its soporific delivery; tough to have followed the energetic, blunt Gore. And, Wednesday was a deadly day for Kerry in the Times.
Nicolas Kristof underscored Kerry’s foolhardy echoing of Bush’s support of Sharon- they compete to support a myopic policy that is unjust, that damages our credibility around the world and that severely undermines our efforts in Iraq; http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/26/opinion/26KRIS.html?n=Top%2fOpinion%2fEditorials%20and%20Op%2dEd%2fOp%2dEd%2fColumnists%2fNicholas%20D%20Kristof
William Safire addressed “The non-debate about Iraq” between Kerry and Bush: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/26/opinion/26SAFI.html?n=Top%2fOpinion%2fEditorials%20and%20Op%2dEd%2fOp%2dEd%2fColumnists%2fWilliam%20Safire
And, a news item- Adam Nagourney and Richard Stevenson’s article on Candidates’ Iraq Policies Share Many Similarities. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/26/politics/campaign/26POLI.html
New York Times Comes Clean: We messed up pre-war
Finally, an apology…of sorts. They didn’t put it on page 1, they didn’t name Judith Miller, their correspondent, as the conduit of Chalabi’s inventions that led to the unnecessary invasion. Then again, no one, thus far, is apparently responsible for the deaths of the 800 Americans and 11,000+ Iraqis.
The problematic articles varied in authorship and subject matter, but many shared a common feature. They depended at least in part on information from a circle of Iraqi informants, defectors and exiles bent on "regime change" in Iraq, people whose credibility has come under increasing public debate in recent weeks. (The most prominent of the anti-Saddam campaigners, Ahmad Chalabi, has been named as an occasional source in Times articles since at least 1991, and has introduced reporters to other exiles. He became a favorite of hard-liners within the Bush administration and a paid broker of information from Iraqi exiles, until his payments were cut off last week.) Complicating matters for journalists, the accounts of these exiles were often eagerly confirmed by United States officials convinced of the need to intervene in Iraq. Administration officials now acknowledge that they sometimes fell for misinformation from these exile sources. So did many news organizations — in particular, this one.
Some critics of our coverage during that time have focused blame on individual reporters. Our examination, however, indicates that the problem was more complicated. Editors at several levels who should have been challenging reporters and pressing for more skepticism were perhaps too intent on rushing scoops into the paper. Accounts of Iraqi defectors were not always weighed against their strong desire to have Saddam Hussein ousted. Articles based on dire claims about Iraq tended to get prominent display, while follow-up articles that called the original ones into question were sometimes buried. In some cases, there was no follow-up at all. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/26/international/middleeast/26FTE_NOTE.html?pagewanted=2&8dpc
Democracy Now was characteristically blunt:
The Times said it had reached a low point in its 152-year history. I agreed. But not because of the Jayson Blair affair. It was TheTimes coverage of the Bush-Blair affair.
”When George W. Bush and Tony Blair made their fraudulent case to attack Iraq, The Times, along with most corporate media outlets in the United States, became cheerleaders for the war. And while Jayson Blair was being crucified for his journalistic sins, veteran Times national security correspondent and best-selling author Judith Miller was filling The Times' front pages with unchallenged government propaganda. Unlike Blair's deceptions, Miller's lies provided the pretext for war. Her lies cost lives…. http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=04/05/26/1610213
The Minneapolis Star Tribune : Bush's Speech Simply more of the same
Let's be clear at the outset: President Bush's much-anticipated speech Monday night at the Army War College in Pennsylvania wasn't about Iraq. It was about the general election on Nov. 2 and Bush's frantic desire to stop his inexorable slide in public opinion polls, the latest of which has his approval rating at a dismal 41 percent. A Bush aide said as much Sunday, telling the New York Times that the Monday night speech was designed to dispel "this idea that we don't know what we're doing" in Iraq.
Did Bush succeed? Not by a long shot. It's arrogant of a president to believe speeches can dispel the skepticism borne of three years of lies and incompetence on the ground. Lies about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Incompetence in sizing the American troop strength that would be required to pacify Iraq following the inevitably quick opening combat. Incompetence in failing to plan well for dealing with an occupied Iraq. Incompetence in ceding control of American foreign policy to a small cabal of self-delusional neoconservatives who threw traditional American pragmatism -- conservative pragmatism -- overboard in favor of grandiose plans for remaking the Middle East into a peaceful, democratic region in one fell swoop. http://www.startribune.com/stories/1519/4793841.html
Compare that with the Washington Post- "A Speech Meant to Rally Public Support Doesn't Answer Key Questions." And the NY Times’ uncritical "Bush Lays Out Goals for Iraq: Self-Rule and Stability"
Media: Doing Better?Paul Krugman charts the progress in his Friday column:
Amazing things have been happening lately. The usual suspects have tried to silence reporting about prison abuses by accusing critics of undermining the troops — but the reports keep coming. The attorney general has called yet another terror alert — but the press raised questions about why. (At a White House morning briefing, Terry Moran of ABC News actually said what many thought during other conveniently timed alerts: "There is a disturbing possibility that you are manipulating the American public in order to get a message out.")
It may not last. In July 2002, according to Dana Milbank of The Washington Post — who has tried, at great risk to his career, to offer a realistic picture of the Bush presidency — "the White House press corps showed its teeth" for the first time since 9/11. It didn't last: the administration beat the drums of war, and most of the press relapsed into docility.
But this time may be different. And if it is, Mr. Bush — who has always depended on that docility — may be in even more trouble than the latest polls suggest. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/28/opinion/28KRUG.html?hp
That Liberal Media: NPR Taps Republicans more than Democrats Peter Goodman of Newsday:
Despite a perception that National Public Radio is politically liberal, the majority of its sources are actually Republicans and conservatives, according to a survey released today by Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, a left-leaning media watchdog.
"Republicans not only had a substantial partisan edge," according to a report accompanying the survey, "individual Republicans were NPR's most popular sources overall, taking the top seven spots in frequency of appearance." In addition, representatives of right-of-center think tanks outnumbered their leftist counterparts by more than four to one, FAIR reported.
Citing comments dating to the Nixon administration in the 1970s, the report said, "That NPR harbors a liberal bias is an article of faith among many conservatives." However, it added, "Despite the commonness of such claims, little evidence has ever been presented for a left bias at NPR."
The study counted 2,334 sources used in 804 stories aired last June for four programs: "All Things Considered," "Morning Edition," "Weekend Edition Saturday" and "Weekend Edition Sunday." For the analysis of think tanks, FAIR used the months of May through August 2003.
Overall, Republicans outnumbered Democrats by 61 percent to 38 percent, a figure only slightly higher now, when the GOP controls the White House and both houses of Congress, than during a previous survey in 1993, during the Clinton administration.
"Some people may think is too left of center because they are contrasting it to the louder, black-and-white sloganeering of talk radio," said FAIR's Steve Rendall, a co-author of the report. "It could be that, just by contrast, the more dulcet [tone] and slower pace and lower volume of NPR makes many people think it must be the opposite of talk radio." http://www.newsday.com/entertainment/news/ny-flnpr3818138may25,0,5744514,print.story
Terror Alert Not much mystery here. Not only was it needed to change the subject from Iraq, it also followed the embarrassment of the erroneous jailing of Brandon Mayfield, the Oregon lawyer held in connection with the Madrid bombings. Many weeks ago the Spanish were questioning the validity of Mayfield’s alleged fingerprint, but the FBI jailed him anyway for almost 3 weeks.
Kuttner on Bob Woodward
Kuttner corrects the misimpression that Woodward skewered Bush. He reminds us that Woodward’s citing his 75 sources is NOT reassuring, that they were almost entirely Administration folk who were happy to share. Indeed, the book is trumpeted on Re-elect Bush web sites as a “recommended” read.
For the White House, however, the real significance is not the mild embarrassment to lesser officials. One high official in particular comes across looking just terrific. And that is George W. Bush.
Woodward gives away the game plan when he recounts a strategy meeting between Bush and Rove, at which Rove, in a PowerPoint presentation, identifies the key attributes for Bush to project in his presidency and re-election campaign: Strong Leader. Bold Action. Big Ideas. Peace in the World. More Compassionate America. Cares About People Like Me. Leads a Strong Team.
By some funny coincidence, this is exactly the Bush persona projected in Woodward's book.
As in his first hagiography, Bush at War, Woodward chooses to paint this president as a resolute and decisive leader, one who listens carefully to differing views among his cabinet and then makes astute choices. A more skeptical reporter could have taken the same raw material and emphasized that Bush doesn't read, has little curiosity about the complexities of foreign affairs, is easily manipulated, looks for "facts" that fit his preconceptions; not surprisingly, his policy turns out to be a disastrous blunder. http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewPrint&articleId=7730
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