Look Who's "Harmful" Now Posted by Heather Hurlburt

Is there no end to the list of Americans whose concerns -- heck, whose rights -- can be tagged as somehow "harmful to the war on terror?"

OK, that was a rhetorical question.  But the latest entrant in this shameful category -- as all the leading Democratic candidates have come out for ending "don't ask don't tell" -- is last week's letter from Under Secretary of Defense* David Chu to Senator Ron Wyden, in which Chu asserts:

A national debate on changing Title 10, United States Code, Section 654, with the accompanying divisiveness and turbulence across our country, will compound the burden of the war.

Ummm, crummy care for wounded veterans, weakening of the VA, a mushy economy, terrible public diplomacy... those things compound the burden of the war.

*Thanks to alert reader and frequent commenter Zathras for catching my earlier mistake.

Fall Guys and Fantasies Posted by Rosa Brooks

The fallout from the Lubby conviction just keeps on, uh, falling. The right wants Libby pardoned because a) it just ain't fair to be convicted of perjury etc. when there was (they claim) no underlying crime, and b) it just ain't fair anyway, because he was just following orders from the Prince of Darkness. Meanwhile, the ladies and gentlemen of the press continue to beat their breasts over the alleged threat to journalistic integrity posed by Fitzgerald's (SHOCKING! UNTHINKABLE! EVIL!) subpoenas to journalists.

Could we inject a little reality here? All of these claims and concerns are somewhere between baseless and just stupid, not to mention hypocritical, whiny, etc.

Playing the Muslim Card to the White House Posted by Shadi Hamid

It looks like Obama is finally beginning to realize that his Muslim background is - or at least can be - an asset on the campaign trail. Here's hoping he'll keep on making points like this:

And although my stepfather wasn’t a practicing Muslim either, you know, I obviously was immersed in the culture that, you know, in which Islam played a role. I think it does make a difference. I think it makes people feel that I am less likely to engage in stereotypes and that I’m less likely to respond out of fear toward the Muslim world. That I’m willing and able to listen. And most importantly, I think, in our foreign policy, that I’m dealing with people on the basis of mutual dignity and respect. . . . one of the biggest problems with the Bush administration’s . . . foreign policy is a general dismissiveness, a sense that we will do what we please and we expect the world to align itself with whatever decisions that we make.

UPDATE: Matt Yglesias provides a note of caution about politicians who've spend a lot of time in Indonesia:

"[Obama] once got in trouble for making faces during Koran study classes in his elementary school,' writes Kristof, "but a president is less likely to stereotype Muslims as fanatics -- and more likely to be aware of their nationalism -- if he once studied the Koran with them." One would certainly hope so. On the other hand, the last major American political figure to be knowledgable about Indonesia was . . . Paul Wolfowitz.

I tend to think that Wolfowitz gets a bit too much of a bad rap from liberals. Still, I'd venture to say that Wolfowitz would be a lot worse if it wasn't for the time he spent in Indonesia. Unlike some other neo-cons, I've always sensed a genuine empathy for Arabs on the part of Wolfowitz, an empathy which clearly drove his advocacy for the Iraq war. And, wait, isn't Wolfowitz dating a Tunisian woman?

The Libby verdict & Carnage in Iraq Posted by Rosa Brooks

So Scooter Libby has been convicted on four out of the five charges against him (relating to obstruction of justice, making false statements to the FBI, and perjury). As prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald put it to the jury on Feb. 21, "There is a cloud over the vice-president.... there is a cloud over the White House."

True enough. But as the media plays up the inside-the-beltway drama element of all this (who lied to whom/is Libby the fall guy/will he be pardoned/will Fitzgerald run for office blah blah blah), let's not forget that the lies told by Scooter Libby had a very specific purpose: preventing the American public from understanding the truth about the pre-war intelligence on Iraq, and persuading Congress and the public to support the rush to war. It was those lies that brought us here and here.

Today's Conservative Movement: Can't see the Forest for the Sleaze Posted by Lorelei Kelly

So Sunday I went over to the Omni Shoreham hotel for the waning hours of the Conservative Political Action Committee Conference. I got there right when Gingrich was speaking...Lots of geeks and weenies in the lobby ( I say this with fondness, as one who has the trifecta of dorkiness in my past: Model UN, Future Problem Solvers of America and Dungeons and Dragons) It was a melancholy atmosphere, really, interspersed with defensiveness and nostalgia maybe? I got a conference package.... Reading through it, one can really see the angst and divisions in the conservative movement. Which is good. But still, the movement is rife with contradiction. For them to allow Ann Coulter on the same stage as Republican presidential candidates (she was introduced by Mitt Romney) shows that the conservatives aren't serious yet about reclaiming some responsibility for public policy.(although these ad pulls are a good start) The screeching harpy lounge act was the same as usual, offensive comments, lots of notoriety....and media scavenging.

Here's a post by Mark Steyn about why this contradiction works for the Right. They see the Left as actually worse than themselves, as this angry caller demonstrates, hence the rationalization that anything goes. I must admit, having done my share of lefty talk shows...that he's got somewhat of a point here. I don't agree that the Left is as anti-social as the Right in these cases, but I do agree that ideological laziness is a huge problem. Especially on national security issues. Maybe its just the rhetoric. Having studied conflict resolution, I've never met anyone who has worked in the field who thinks hardened violent intentions can be met with negotiations, but the sorts of easy answers that he says he gets on "liberal" talk radio (although I consider NPR to be very mainstream) are pretty inadequate.

Here's an excerpt:
“I didn’t mean that,” she said. “I meant going on those shows doesn’t sell a lot of books.” As she sees it, your nutso right-wing author does ten minutes on WZZZ Hate-Talk AM at three in the morning and the local Borders sells out the next day. Whereas he’s interviewed for an hour by Terry Gross on NPR, and it sends precisely two listeners out to their bookstore, and only to buy that Andrew Sullivan doorstopper on everything that’s gone wrong with conservatism."

Read the whole thing here.

At the Movies: The Prisoner Posted by Heather Hurlburt

The filmmakers who brought us Gunner Palace  (American and East German, which should resonate all by itself) have put together something which sounds extraordinary (please note, I haven't seen the film and this is NOT an endorsement of it or its contents):

The Prisoner or: How I Planned to Kill Tony Blair

Baghdad, September 2003: In a middle class house on a quiet street, a family is fast asleep. Without warning, the front door is crashed and American soldiers storm the house looking for weapons and bomb-making material.  Cameraman Michael Tucker documents the event as the men in the house are cuffed and forced to kneel in the garden. A search of the house uncovers no incriminating evidence, however Yunis Khatayer Abbas and three of his brothers are taken and detained.

The Failure to Integrate: It’s a Religious Problem Too Posted by Shadi Hamid

This is one of most amusing pictures I’ve seen in quite some time. It’s even funnier if you let your mind wander a bit (click on it).

On a more serious note, I think this image captures quite well the manifold complexities of a religious culture confronting modernity. Everywhere in the Muslim world, the religious and non-religious find themselves in an uneasy embrace. And it provokes a very fundamental question that people are grappling with from Egypt to England. To what extent can a traditional culture truly become part of a commercial, “hypersexual” society that holds little as sacred? In asking such a question, sex, politics, culture, religion, and economics become inextricably intertwined. It is at once frightening and fascinating.

Two weeks ago, I went to a talk by BBC correspondent and author of Only Half of Me, Rageh Omaar. He downplayed the problems of Muslim integration in Britain and argued that the vast majority of Muslims are mainstream and moderate, while a fringe minority gives them a bad name. He himself is a perfect example of the well-integrated British Muslim who has found a richness and comfort in a “dual identity.” But, as he himself noted, he is a “non-observant” Muslim. That’s important, and it lends credence to something I’ve been thinking about for some time. I would posit that the less observant you are, the easier it is for you to integrate into Western culture. And the more observant you are, the harder it is. Because Western Muslims on average tend to be more observant (or, if you like, “scripturally-aware") than their non-Muslim counterparts, this may help explain why they will find it harder to integrate in Western society than their Irish, Jewish, and African counterparts before them: if you don’t go to pubs, if you don’t date, if you are not at ease with members of the opposite sex, if you can’t sing along to the chorus of “Hey Jude” or “Wonderwall”; if you can’t appreciate just how darn good The Arctic Monkeys are (i.e. because you consider the use of string instruments a violation of Islamic law); well, then, you simply cannot and will not be able to integrate into British culture. In many ways then, the failure to integrate is not simply a structural problem that can be explained away through socioeconomics or politics. Rather, what we're talking about is, at least in some respects, a clash of cultures. I don’t think there should be a clash. I don’t think there has to be. But there is one.

Why asymmetrical warfare is so effective against the US Posted by Rosa Brooks

Former Democracy Arsenal guest blogger Ike Wilson's study of asymmetrical conflicts is discussed in today's Washington Post. (Don't Send a Lion to Catch a Mouse).  Short version: "the analysis showed that the odds of a powerful nation winning an asymmetrical war decrease as that nation becomes more powerful.... the likelihood of a great power winning an asymmetrical war went from 85 percent during 1800-1850 to 21 percent during 1950-2003."

Samantha Power on how to stop genocide in Iraq Posted by Rosa Brooks

Samantha Power, who knows a little something about how the US has historically handled (or failed to handle) genocides, has a strong piece in today's LA Times: How to stop genocide in Iraq:

Although critics of withdrawal do a masterful job of painting a grim picture of the apocalypse that awaits, they offer no account of how U.S. forces in Iraq will do more than preserve a status quo that is already deteriorating into wholesale ethnic cleansing.... What is needed to stave off even greater carnage than we see today is neither assuming massacres won't happen nor suspending thought until the surge has demonstrably failed in six months — at which point other options may no longer be viable. Rather, we must announce our intention to depart and use the intervening months to prioritize civilian protection by pursuing a bold set of measures combining political pressure, humanitarian relocation and judicial deterrence.

Iraq: Wishing there had been Whistleblowers Posted by Suzanne Nossel

A piece yesterday in the NYT about an ex-British diplomat who parted ways with his country's foreign service after testifying to intelligence lapses over Iraq's weapons program got me thinking: what would have happened if, two or three years ago, a chorus had arisen among the sitting military leadership, State Dep't and Pentagon policymakers and others in government decrying the direction of our policies to try to stabilize Iraq?  Would we be in a better position now and, if so, are there ways to ensure such silence doesn't hobble the effectiveness of our policymaking going forward?

The most famous example of official heresy concerning the occupation of Iraq came from General Erik Shinseki, former Army Chief of Staff, who was criticized and snubbed by his Pentagon superiors for telling the Senate Armed Services Committee in February 2003 that the mission would require several hundred thousand US servicemembers to be done right.  Three and a half years later, in November, 2006, General John Abizaid admitted that Shinseki had gotten it right. 

Shinseki's fall from grace was widely cited as having a chilling effect on other military and Administration personnel.  While retired generals have spoken out loudly against the course of the war, those still in uniform have been mostly silent.  Accounts suggest that the retired generals were motivated in part by their conviction that the mistakes of Vietnam-and the silence of top military officers as those errors unfolded-must not be repeated.  But to the extent that avoiding a pattern of silent acquiescence in a failed and deadly war requires cultural change in the military, Iraq suggests that the transformation hasn't yet happened.

It's impossible to measure the Shinseki effect, or to know what information or opinions might have come to light had the Administration better tolerated dissent.  What is certain is that years of Iraq policy have been made in an environment of remarkable opacity as far as how well the effort was going, the motives and strength of the insurgency, and the efficacy of various US tactics.   

The New Conservatives Posted by Shadi Hamid

Andrew Sullivan recounts his experience at the CPAC conference. This captures quite well what the Republican party has become:

All I heard and saw was loathing: loathing of Muslims, of "illegals," of gays, of liberals, of McCain. The most painful thing for me was the sight of so many young people growing up believing that this is conservatism. I feel like an old-style Democrat in 1968.