Why I read the Indepundit every day- two great posts up:
1.) Vietnam veterans who are serving in Iraq.
2.) Why he hates the flag burning amendment.
by John Cole| 4 Comments
This post is in: Excellent Links
Why I read the Indepundit every day- two great posts up:
1.) Vietnam veterans who are serving in Iraq.
2.) Why he hates the flag burning amendment.
by John Cole| 22 Comments
This post is in: War on Terror aka GSAVE®
Max Boot in the LA Times (Bug Me Not):
No wonder public support for the war is plummeting and finger-to-the-wind politicians are heading for the exits: All the headlines out of Iraq recently have been about the rebels’ reign of terror. But, lest we build up the enemy into 10-foot-tall supermen, it’s important to realize how weak they actually are. Most of the conditions that existed in previous wars won by guerrillas, from Algeria in the 1950s to Afghanistan in the 1980s, aren’t present in Iraq.
The rebels lack a unifying organization, ideology and leader. There is no Iraqi Ho Chi Minh, Fidel Castro or Mao Tse-tung. The top militant is Abu Musab Zarqawi, a Jordanian who has alienated most of the Iraqi population, even many Sunnis, with his indiscriminate attacks on civilians.
Support for the insurgency is confined to a minority within a minority
by John Cole| 88 Comments
This post is in: Politics
Here is Karl Rove’s entire speech, and anyone who doubts that when Rove said liberal he meant Democrat should just be ignored:
Let me now say a few words about the state of liberalism. Perhaps the place to begin is with this stinging indictment:
“Liberalism is at greater risk now than at any time in recent American history. The risk is of political marginality, even irrelevance. Liberalism risks getting defined, as conservatism once was, entirely in negative terms.”
These are not the words of William F. Buckley, Jr. or Sean Hannity; they are the words of Paul Starr, co-editor of The American Prospect, a leading liberal publication.
There is much merit in what Mr. Starr writes
by John Cole| 21 Comments
This post is in: War on Terror aka GSAVE®
I have been very careful to try not to label the allegations we have heard coming out of Guantanamo Bay as torture, or even abuse, because I don’t know where the lines are drawn. Sure, I have a gut sense of what is abuse and what is torture, and I know what is indefensible, but I don’t want to run around haphazardly calling our boys (whether they be military, civilian contractors, CIA, etc.) torturers.
Apparently, if this story is accurate (always a big if these days) our government has made a distinction:
Washington has for the first time acknowledged to the United Nations that prisoners have been tortured at US detention centres in Guantanamo Bay, as well as Afghanistan and Iraq, a UN source said.
The acknowledgement was made in a report submitted to the UN Committee against Torture, said a member of the ten-person panel, speaking on on condition of anonymity.
“They are no longer trying to duck this, and have respected their obligation to inform the UN,” the Committee member told AFP.
“They they will have to explain themselves (to the Committee). Nothing should be kept in the dark.”
UN sources said it was the first time the world body has received such a frank statement on torture from US authorities.
The Committee, which monitors respect for the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, is gathering information from the US ahead of hearings in May 2006.
The folks at Powerline might want to slow down their claims that this is nothing more than “worrying that a terrorist’s air conditioning might not be properly adjusted.”
US Reports Cases of Torture at Guantanamo?Post + Comments (21)
by John Cole| 40 Comments
This post is in: Politics
Tom Maguire, in a defense of Rove, writes:
OK. First, let me say that they don’t pay me quite enough to wade into this – even though Karl was speaking to a partisan audience, he had to know this would make news, and he might have opted for a more temperate tone.
Second, let me say that they don’t need to pay me – I live for this nonsense, so let’s bring it on!
Let’s start with John Cole, the Contrary Conservative, who is outraged. Mr. Cole reminds us that on Sept. 14, 2001, Congress passed the Use of Force resolution by votes of 420-1 and 98-0, with no mention of the word “therapy”.
Good point. Let me remind Mr. Cole that last Palm Sunday, Congress passed the Terry Schivao Relief Act with the unanimous consent of the Senate. Does he consider the two parties to have been equally enthusiastic in her defense, and equally responsible for the subsequent turns of event? Or, is it possible that one of the parties went along for the ride, since they had not had time to do any polling or focus-grouping?
So much to respond to in so little time, so I will just use bullets.
– I don’t know how ‘conservative’ I am anymore, at least not by the current definition of ‘conservative.’ If ‘conservative’ means what I have seen over the past few years, then I never really was a ‘conservative’ and was laboring under a false label.
– I am not outraged, I am disgusted. There is a difference, and I do understand why liberals are outraged.
– I need no reminder of the Palm Sunday farce. It is the one event that has led to this several month breaking of the camel’s back.
– Is Tom suggesting that the Republicans only passed the Schiavo legislation because they had done the polling and thought it would help them politically? And that maybe the Democrats didn’t oppose because they knew the Rove led GOP would then spend the next three months calling those who felt it was inappropriate for Congress to insert itself in this matter as adherents to the “Culture of Death.” In other words, Republican support was because of a craven political calculation, and the Democratic support was out of cowardice?
– Is Tom suggesting that the September 14th Joint Resolution of force was just a political gesture by Republicans?
And just for the record- Republicans have spent years painting liberal as a dirty word and all Democrats as liberal. Tom’s later attempts to claim Rove was only talking about liberals and not, necessarily, Democrats, is absurd. I would also submit that it is quite possible to hate MoveOn, George Soros, and Michael Moore, and still think that Rove’s remarks were inappropriate. I have managed to do so…
by John Cole| 15 Comments
This post is in: Foreign Affairs
Looks like our policy of extraordinary rendition is continuing to make friends and influence people overseas:
An Italian judge has ordered the arrest of 13 CIA agents for allegedly helping deport an imam to Egypt as part of U.S. anti-terrorism efforts, an Italian official familiar with the investigation said Friday.
The agents are suspected in the seizure of an Egyptian-born imam identified as Abu Omar on the streets of Milan in February 2003, according to the official, who requested anonymity because he was not authorized to release the information.
The U.S. Embassy in Rome declined to comment.
Prosecutors believe the agents seized Omar as part of the CIA’s ”extraordinary rendition” program, in which terror suspects are transferred to third countries without court approval, according to reports Friday in newspapers Corriere della Sera and Il Giorno.
Investigators traced the agents through check-in details at Milan hotels and their use of Italian cell phones during the operation, the reports said. All the agents are American and include three women, Il Giorno said.
The reports said another six agents were being investigated for helping prepare the operation…
Italian papers have reported that Omar, 42, called his wife and friends in Milan after his release last year, recounting he had been seized by Italian and American agents and taken to a secret prison in Egypt, where he was tortured with electric shocks.
Fabulous.
by John Cole| 17 Comments
This post is in: Politics
It is looking more and more like Rove’s offensive remarks were, as always is the case with the Rove, a political strategy:
Rove’s new comments come on the heels of an interview with David Gregory on MSNBC on Tuesday, in which Rove provided indications that Bush’s new PR blitz to regain support for the war in Iraq may include the implication that criticizing Bush’s plan is tantamount to supporting the insurgency.
When Gregory asked Rove about the dwindling public support for the war, Rove answered: “We need to remember, that’s part of the goal of the insurgents. Their goal is to weaken our resolve by being so violent and so dangerous and so ugly that they hope that we will turn tail and run.”
And consider that all this is coming from a man who in April, in a talk at Washington College in Chestertown, Md., lit into the press corps for hyping political conflict.
Sullivan seems to agree:
Rove’s strategic decision to make social security reform the center-piece of the second term has also, shall we say, not gone according to plan. So what to do? You do what you always do. You create a scenario in which you cannot be out-demagogued. You deflect from the awful fall-out from the decision to exempt terror suspects from bans on cruel and inhumane treatment to a senator’s analogy to the Gulag. And instead of leveling with the country about the real difficulty of the war we’re in, acknowledging error and sketching a unifying vision for winning, you divide the country into good folk and “liberals” and hope it works as well as it always has. If you want to know how well the administration really believes the war is going, listen to their rhetoric. And start worrying.
SOMETIMES I WONDER if Karl Rove is as smart as everyone says. But just as the Durbin affair was dying down, he makes a comment about liberals and the war that leads Democrats — itching for payback — to angrily demand his resignation.
Trouble is, those demands just provide an excuse for Republicans to repeat every single stupid or unpatriotic thing that every Democratic politician ever said. And there are a lot of those. Examples can be found here, and here, and here. And, of course, there’s this. And because the usual suspects in the media could be expected to pick up on the Rove story much faster than the Durbin story (as they did) now there’s a news hook.
Yeah, he’s pretty smart.
Well, then- I guess if we are only calling liberals traitors for partisan political purposes, and we don’t really mean it, I guess it is ok. [/sarcasm]
Some party we have here.