Moon of Alabama Brecht quote
September 29, 2006
GWOT Status

Rumsfeld was in Montenegro a few days ago and asked for troops for the wars on Iraq and Afghanistan. When the boss of the mightiest military of the world from a country with 300 million inhabitants has to ask help from the 2,500 strong force of 650,000 inhabitant country, something must be in a dire state.

The U.S. is losing in Iraq and, together with NATO, has no chance to win in Afghanistan.

The only question left is to the degree of escalation (war on Iran, a draft, a fundamentalist coup in Pakistan, …) that will (need to?) happen before, under some excuse, defeat is conceded.  If lucky, we will get rid of NATO during the process and imperialism under the false flag of freedom and democracy will be dispised for some time.

Some quotes on the status of the Global War of Terror:

Five years after September the 11th, 2001, … America is winning the war on terror.
President Bush Discusses Progress in the Global War on Terror, Sept. 2006

According to Woodward, insurgent attacks against coalition troops occur, on average, every 15 minutes, a shocking fact the administration has kept secret. “It’s getting to the point now where there are eight, 900 attacks a week. That’s more than a hundred a day. That is four an hour attacking our forces,” says Woodward.
via TPM

Afghanistan Attacks on American troops along Afghanistan’s eastern frontier have tripled since a truce between the Pakistani army and pro-Taliban tribesmen. That’s according to a U-S officer in the Afghan capital who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
U.S official: Taliban attacks triple in east Afghanistan since Pakistan peace deal

"New explosive devices are now used in Afghanistan within a month of their first appearing in Iraq," said the report.
Al Qaeda gains recruits from Iraq war: UN study

We assess that the underlying factors fueling the spread of the movement outweigh its
vulnerabilities and are likely to do so for the duration of the timeframe [5 years] of this Estimate.
Declassified NIE Key Judgements (PDF)

The Al Qaeda ideology has taken root within the Muslim world and Muslim populations within western countries. Iraq has served to radicalise an already disillusioned youth and Al Qaeda has given them the will, intent, purpose and ideology to act.

The West will not be able to find peaceful exit strategies from Iraq and Afghanistan – creating greater animosity…and a return to violence and radicalisation on their leaving. The enemy it has identified (terrorism) is the wrong target. As an idea it cannot be defeated.
Key quotes from a leaked Ministry of Defence think-tank paper

Comments

This Is What Waterboarding Looks Like

Below are photographs taken by Jonah Blank last month at Tuol Sleng Prison in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. The prison is now a museum that documents Khymer Rouge atrocities. Blank, an anthropologist and former Senior Editor of US News & World Report, is author of the books Arrow of the Blue-Skinned God and Mullahs on the Mainframe. He is a professorial lecturer at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and has taught at Harvard and Georgetown. He currently is a foreign policy adviser to the Democratic staff in the Senate, but the views expressed here are his own observations.
His photos show one of the actual waterboards used by the Khymer Rouge.
The similarity between practices used by the Khymer Rouge and those currently being debated by Congress isn’t a coincidence. As has been amply documented (“The New Yorker” had an excellent piece, and there have been others), many of the “enhanced techniques” came to the CIA and military interrogators via the SERE [Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape] schools, where US military personnel are trained to resist torture if they are captured by the enemy. The specific types of abuse they’re taught to withstand are those that were used by our Cold War adversaries. Why is this relevant to the current debate? Because the torture techniques of North Korea, North Vietnam, the Soviet Union and its proxies–the states where US military personnel might have faced torture–were NOT designed to elicit truthful information. These techniques were designed to elicit CONFESSIONS. That’s what the Khymer Rouge et al were after with their waterboarding, not truthful information.

Posted by: John Francis Lee | Sep 29 2006 14:28 utc | 1

War Crimes Immunity: “What Are We Becoming?” Cafferty…

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Sep 29 2006 15:17 utc | 2

Many Rights in U.S. Legal System Absent in New Bill (Washington Post) Yale Law School Dean Harold Koh said that “the image of Congress rushing to strip jurisdiction from the courts in response to a politically created emergency is really quite shocking, and it’s not clear that most of the members understand what they’ve done…

Oh, I suspect they knew exactly, what they were doing.

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Sep 29 2006 16:14 utc | 3

Eyeopening article in Spiegel on Afghanistan. With Germany taking over the leadership of the NATO command there, looks like we’ll finally get some real reporting there – much more damning (and, of course, much, much more factual) than the current Newsweek cover story on the same topic. A few excerpts here:

The Wild East
By Susanne Koelbl
Sheer desperation is driving many Afghans back into the arms of the fanatical Taliban movement. Once again, the holy warriors have taken control of entire regions and are seeking to ensnare the Western allies in a bloody guerilla war.
…….
A vicious circle has driven the population back into the arms of the Islamists: the Taliban’s withdrawal created a power vacuum in the country’s main opium hub. The central government, international troops and aid organizations showed little interest in the residents – who live in miserable conditions, cut off from civilization and dependent for survival on feudal overlords. The only outsiders passing through the region were U.S. soldiers on missions and American warplanes that bombed villages suspected of harboring terrorists. This past spring, international teams arrived to destroy the poppy harvest, threatening the locals’ livelihoods without offering viable alternatives.
Whenever foreigners came, they were hostile. The Taliban offered protection.
……..
The Afghans believed wholeheartedly in a new dawn. A parliament was elected, the new constitution adopted. A police force, army and department of justice are currently being established. The books show that the plan dreamed up at the Petersberg Conference has been implemented. “But it’s all a sham. There’s no substance,” says the security expert,slowly emptying a sachet of sugar into his coffee. He was in Somalia. He was in the Balkans. He has no illusions. It was a good plan. Countries gave generously. To date, $6 billion have been spent on the reconstruction effort, an additional $10.5 billion earmarked for the next five years.
Then the international relief workers descended on Kabul. Suddenly, hundreds of foreigners were racing around the city in new Toyota land cruisers and setting up home in Wazir Akbar Khan, the old villa district. Noisy generators run day and night in this skeleton of a city – producing electricity for its foreigners and water pumps. Monthly rents for houses have soared to an average of $5,000 – 20 times the annual income of most Afghans.
Now hordes of Westerners are chauffeured to the ministries of a morning, and picked up in air-conditioned vehicles of an afternoon. The foreigners have brought new customs to the capital as well; jeans are now on sale, although many women still walk the streets in burkas. Every Thursday, before the Afghan weekend starts, UNHAS – the UN air service that transports embassy and aid organization employees around the country – registers a miraculous spike in passengers to Kabul from the provinces: It’s party time! And the revelry behind the façades of the capital’s aging mansions is as riotous as anything to be found in Berlin or New York.
At a French shipping company’s toga bash, men donned fake laurel wreathes, bared their torsos, wrapped themselves in sheets and pranced around like Roman emperors. At the garden party arranged by an international consulting firm, hundreds of foreigners whooped it up until the wee hours, dancing amid a decorative backdrop of camels. Strictly outlawed in the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, alcohol flowed freely.
The Afghans have always been conservative but moderate Muslims. They are accepting toward different cultures and willing to share their last meal with guests: “He who does not share his bread will die alone,” a proverb states. The outlanders are far less magnanimous: a Turkish road construction company with a contract from the Americans pays its Afghan employees $90 a month. The company’s Turkish workers earn 10 times as much. “They don’t appreciate us,” an indignant Afghan engineer complains.
A major in the 203rd Afghan Corps in the eastern province of Paktia can find few charitable words for his U.S. comrades in arms. He bemoans their arrogance, the way they treat the locals. Afghans traveling in open trucks are used as human shields for convoys, while the GIs sit secure in their Humvees, he complains. And in the evening, the Americans tuck into turkey washed down with Coca-Cola, while the Afghans survive off dry nan bread and green tea: “The Soviet occupying forces treated my father better than our American friends treat us.”

Entire story well worth reading and can be found here:
Link to der Spiegel article

Posted by: Anonymous | Sep 29 2006 16:40 utc | 4

Bernhard, thank you for the Asia Times link. It provides an exceptionally good summary and analysis.
Here is the Telegraph article Mr. Bhadrakumar cites:
You will be driven from Afghanistan just as we were, Russian generals warn

Posted by: Alamet | Sep 29 2006 17:10 utc | 5

Check out this great post on Congress & Torture over at AmericaBLOG:
Waterboard Rep Mark Foley
We need more like these… many more.

Posted by: Bea | Sep 29 2006 17:37 utc | 6

This explains a LOT:

Woodward writes that former secretary of state Henry A. Kissinger has played a key role as an outside adviser to Bush on the Iraq war. Kissinger, according to Woodward, sees the Iraq war through the prism of his own experience in the Nixon administration during Vietnam, and has counseled Bush to “stick it out” and not even entertain the idea of withdrawing troops.
At one point, to emphasize his position, he gave Michael Gerson, then a White House speech writer, a copy of a memo he wrote to Nixon in September, 1969. “Withdrawal of U.S. troops will become like salted peanuts to the American public; the more U.S. troops come home, the more will be demanded,” Kissinger wrote.

Once a war criminal, …

Posted by: b | Sep 29 2006 17:42 utc | 7

Republican Rep. Mark Foley of Florida will not run for reelection amid questions about e-mails he sent to a former Capitol Hill page, Republican sources say.

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Sep 29 2006 19:18 utc | 8

from cnn ô holy source of truth blessed be it upon itself

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Sep 29 2006 19:20 utc | 9

The disconnect between reality and the political process has passed the State of Denial into Insanity.
The truth is that the USA has invaded lots of places. Iraq and Afghanistan are just the latest. The Canada Invasion of 1812 and Vietnam were complete flops. Mexico in 1847 and Philippines in 1898 were relatively successful. The Civil War and World War II invasions and occupation were successful at least until the compromise of 1877 and the Bush Administration. A successful invasion requires huge mass armies, taxes, sacrifice and a strategic plan. The only way the USA can occupy Iraq and Afghanistan is with an all out effort to make them the 51st and 52nd States.
Fighting wars of occupation on the cheap always ends in defeat but apparently messengers of truth are killed in focus groups. Democrats are tarred as “cut and run”. Truth is America’s enemy.

Posted by: Jim S | Sep 29 2006 20:14 utc | 10

A second recess appointment for John Bolton? Could be.

Steve (Clemons) has pointed out that perhaps Bolton will receive a second recess appointment from President Bush, but agree to serve without pay. This speculation is drawn from legislation passed by the Congress on an annual basis stating that no funds may be spent on the salary of “any person for the filling of any position for which he or she has been nominated after the Senate has voted not to approve the nomination of said person.” The provision was found in the previous legislative session under H.R. 3058, the Transportation, Treasury, and Housing and Urban Development, the Judiciary, the District of Columbia, and Independent Agencies Appropriations Act, 2006. It is also found in pending legislation for Fiscal Year 2007.
Perhaps the Bush administration would argue in response that the Senate never “voted not to approve the nomination” – in fact, it simply failed to bring the nomination to a vote, and that’s not the president’s fault.
But, this being the presidency of the unitary executive, they are taking it a step farther. On November 30, 2005, President Bush issued a ‘presidential signing statement’ noting the following:
Section 809 seeks to prohibit the expenditure of funds for the salaries of “any person for the filling of any position for which heor she has been nominated after the Senate has voted not to approve the nomination of said person.” The executive branch shall construe this provision in a manner consistent with the President’s constitutional authority to make recess appointments.

Posted by: lonesomeG | Sep 29 2006 23:36 utc | 11

Revolt of the Generals, from a conservative’s perspective:

A revolt is brewing among our retired Army and Marine generals. This rebellion–quiet and nonconfrontational, but remarkable nonetheless–comes not because their beloved forces are bearing the brunt of ground combat in Iraq but because the retirees see the US adventure in Mesopotamia as another Vietnam-like, strategically failed war, and they blame the errant, arrogant civilian leadership at the Pentagon.
—-
This kind of protest among senior military retirees during wartime is unprecedented in American history–and it is also deeply worrisome. The retired officers opposing the war and demanding Rumsfeld’s ouster represent a new political force, and therefore a potentially powerful factor in the future of our democracy. The former generals’ growing lobby could acquire a unique veto power in the future by publicly opposing reckless civilian warmaking in advance.
—-
I speak regularly to retired generals, former intelligence officers and former Pentagon officials and aides, all of whom remain close to their active-duty friends and protégés. These well-informed seniors tell me that whatever the original US objective was in Iraq, our understrength forces and flawed strategy have failed, and that we cannot repair this failure by remaining there indefinitely. Fundamental changes are needed, and senior officers are prepared to make them. According to my sources, some active-duty officers are working behind the scenes to end the war and are preparing for the inevitable US withdrawal.
—-
The dissenting retired generals are bent on making Iraq this nation’s last strategically failed war–that is, one doggedly waged by civilian officials largely to avoid personal accountability for their bad decisions. A failed war causes mounting human and other costs, damaging or entirely destroying the national interest it was supposed to serve.
—-
The senior military dissenters will not rest until they indict the mistakes of Rumsfeld and his principal civilian aides at Congressional hearings. The military always plays this game of accountability for keeps. Should the Democrats gain control of a Congressional chamber in the November midterms, televised Capitol Hill hearings in 2007 will feature military protagonists speaking of “betrayal” and “tragically wasted sacrifices.” The retired generals believe nothing would be gained, and much would be lost, by keeping the truth about Iraq from the families of America’s dead and wounded.

Whalen includes analysis of the strategic debacle Bushco has created for the US as the “realists” see it and his view of the best possible way out, assuming the realists prevail, though the best may not actually happen. Anyway, he paints a picture of a military brass that wants civilian scalps for this disaster, which makes me wonder what kind of back room talk is going on between them and Dems. It’s hard for me to imagine Dems leading a charge even if they win one of the houses, esp since Rove will call up the Swift Boat generals in response, but we’re down to Hail Marys here so I hope they and the generals get their shot. Can’t make things any worse.
Interesting (to me) aside, Whalen writes that Nixon’s secret plan to end the Viet Nam war included a summit with the Soviets (leading to detente?) and an opening to China in return for their help getting us out. He also claims the end of the draft proceeded from the decision to exit Viet Nam. I’d never heard any of that. For what it’s worth…

Posted by: Anonymous | Sep 30 2006 0:08 utc | 12

The human face of torture: Carlos Mauricio

In 1983, Carlos Mauricio, a professor at the University of El Salvador, was abducted from his classroom by individuals dressed in civilian clothes who forced him into an unmarked vehicle. Mauricio was detained at the National Police headquarters in San Salvador for approximately a week and a half. During his first week in detention, he was tortured and interrogated in a clandestine torture center at the National Police headquarters as a suspected FMLN (Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front) commander. Mauricio’s captors at the National Police headquarters strung him up with his hands behind his back over his head and repeatedly hit him with a metal bar covered with rubber, inflicting injuries to his face and torso. During the first 2-3 days of detention, he was given no food to eat. He was denied use of a bathroom throughout his confinement in the torture center.
In 2002, Carlos Mauricio, along with two other torture victims, won a $54 million verdict against two retired Salvadoran generals. He has continued to speak out against torture and other human rights abuses.

Here, is what Prof. Mauricio has to say about the US government’s role in perpetrating torture.

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Sep 30 2006 0:17 utc | 13

Oops. #12 was me.

Posted by: lonesomeG | Sep 30 2006 0:29 utc | 14

The Rep. Foley story, which will come up soon. The House thug leadership knew about this a long time ago. Think they were trying to squeeze past the elections? Think there isn’t dirt enough here to sink the whole congressional thug enterprise separate and apart from all the other malfeasance and sleaze afflicting this administration, compressed into this post industrial swamp? Which is not to say that the dems present much to cheer for.
We take what we can get.
Link to Josh

Posted by: DonS | Sep 30 2006 1:18 utc | 15

Re: Rep Foley
It can fairly be said that Republican politicians are weird fuckers. In every sense of the word.

Posted by: Ferdzy | Sep 30 2006 1:59 utc | 16

Our economic bones are breaking; the flesh sags on our staggering Empire like the wrinkled breasts on an aging whore.
The political and financial elites are cashing out the middle class and even the infrastructure of our nation as fast as the new extreme secrecy will permit.
If it ain’t nailed down, it’s already gone. If it is nailed down, it is only one ’emergency’ away from being carted off as well.
Emergency measures is now the sole organizing principle of the Bush regime, just as it was for Hitler’s. The Unitary Executive principle is just different wording for der Fuhrerprinzip, the idea that all rules are suspended during a political emergency, and the supreme executive leader may not be challenged in any way.
The happiest survivors of our staggering Republic will be those thieves who keep at least one step ahead of the public outrage and blowback that will thunder and blow from sea to sea once their crimes are plain even to the rubes of America.
The unhappy survivors will be the rubes of America, the believers and the moderates who keep thinking there is some floor under this down elevator, some level from which it all bounces back. There isn’t.
Keep in mind that behind all these political shenanigans, all these overseas oil crusades, all this repression at home — is common theft on a massive scale.
You been sold down the river, child. Massa Boosh just ain’t been by to say so to your face. You wanna wait for that?”
You have no pension, not really. You have no insurance, no Medicare, no Social Security, no safety net. It’s all gone the moment an ’emergency’ decrees that those resources are needed to preserve the State, the American way of life, or some such balderdash.
You get on down the river, now. There’s a new life waiting for you in a much hotter place.

Posted by: Antifa | Sep 30 2006 2:54 utc | 17

Re: that UK anti-ISI DoD paper, leaked to the BBC.
No wonder Musharraf is now telling the world that he was blackmailed into supporting the US in Afghanistan, since the US/UK openly announce they are looking to reward their longstanding ISI allies by dissolving them — in a country they don’t even occupy (i.e. pretend to control).
When Musharraf made his deal in Waziristan I immediately thought the US (and UK) had finally gotten smart: that they finally recognized that Wahhabi tribesmen from Waziristan are not the same as the Taliban and that the Taliban are not the same as al Quaeda. But no, of course not: until further notice cosmic rule number one, that Anglos will always choose the absolute stupidest course, is still intact. So now they are looking to destabilize Pakistan. And are announcing it. Obviously Musharraf has had enough advance warning to be able to write a book. Hilarious. But hilarious with nukes this time around. Man, you couldn’t invent these jerks if you tried.

Posted by: Guthman Bey | Sep 30 2006 3:04 utc | 18

Nice delirium Antifa,
if one lumps together your apocalyptic left-wing economic delirium with the Bush administration’s right-wing omnipotence delirium and with the various Abrahamic End-of-Days deliria, one cannot help but conclude that America is still, and perhaps more than ever, the land of dreams. Mushrooms anyone?

Posted by: Guthman Bey | Sep 30 2006 3:15 utc | 19

i’ll partake of antifa’s mushrooms anyday. been wondering about antifa the last few dismal days.

Posted by: conchita | Sep 30 2006 3:58 utc | 20

I’m back from a two night trip over to the fever swamps, where I was trying to ascertain how this concentration of power in the hands of one man is an expression of conservative values and an example of proper governance.
The spittle flew, carpets were chewed in impotent rage, heads spun about, but in the end, after asking, always politely, FOUR times……..nada. The Believers feel that as long as Bush doesn’t abuse the spirit of the MCA, all will be well. My concern was that since Shrub has already abused a number of laws, he might offend again. This was pronounced as evidence of my mental illness and hatred of Amerika. Then we had pie.
But it was interesting: sprinkled among the true believers, I sense some buyer’s remorse creeping in. A couple of the boys hinted that this latest move might be a bit over the top, what with the Unitary Decider and all. I felt the same dis-ease at a couple of other stops on my Dark Side Tour.

Posted by: montysano | Sep 30 2006 4:05 utc | 21

montysanto,
what is the MCA?
I googled, but somehow doubt that your MCA is either the Memphis College of Art, nor the Maritime and Coast Guard Agency (U.K.), nor the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, nor the Mustang Club of America. So what is it?

Posted by: Guthman Bey | Sep 30 2006 4:18 utc | 22

I have no wish to trade ad hominems with a scholar and gentle soul like Guthman Bey.
I’ve no patience for it at the moment.
I will point out that if there is a singularity at the core of the American experiment, and at the core of all Western jurisprudence, and at the heart of Western civilization since the Dark Ages, it is the concept of habeas corpus
that no human being can be deprived of their liberty without soon facing their accusers, soon seeing evidence against them, and soon standing before a jury of their peers.
All our jurisprudence rests on that. Without it, it is all hollow. The difference losing it makes to our Republic is the same as the difference between a horse before it is shot and after it is shot.
The horse is still there. It’s right there. But it no longer there.
My dear Guthman, may your optimism never fade, may your best hopes for all of us come true in years ahead, and may you find good reason to mock me to your heart’s content as our nation and Constitution is restored.
I’m not waiting.

Posted by: Antifa | Sep 30 2006 4:24 utc | 23

I have no wish to trade ad hominems with a scholar and gentle soul like Guthman Bey.
I’ve no patience for it at the moment.
I will point out that if there is a singularity at the core of the American experiment, and at the core of all Western jurisprudence, and at the heart of Western civilization since the Dark Ages, it is the concept of habeas corpus
that no human being can be deprived of their liberty without soon facing their accusers, soon seeing evidence against them, and soon standing before a jury of their peers.
All our jurisprudence rests on that. Without it, it is all hollow. The difference losing it makes to our Republic is the same as the difference between a horse before it is shot and after it is shot.
The horse is still there. It’s right there. But it no longer there.
My dear Guthman, may your optimism never fade, may your best hopes for all of us come true in years ahead, and may you find good reason to mock me to your heart’s content as our nation and Constitution is restored.
I’m not waiting. I’m not going down that river.

Posted by: Antifa | Sep 30 2006 4:26 utc | 24

hmmm… still guessing. Macacas Contra Allen maybe?

Posted by: Guthman Bey | Sep 30 2006 4:27 utc | 25

Antifa,
given the inordinate loss of reality that stems from our various collective deliria, it seems fairly safe to predict that we will ALL go down that river. I say, let’s have as much as fun as we can in the maëlstrom and all this in the best hedonist tradition of the US of A: after all it was the postulation of a general pursuit of happiness that originally defined this country.
As Slim Pickens happily screamed when he rode the bomb in Dr. Strangelove: Yeeeeeeeeeeeeehawwww…
(Yes OK fine, I am drunk, so what).

Posted by: Guthman Bey | Sep 30 2006 4:40 utc | 26

i believe “happiness” in those days meant “security”. life, liberty, and the pursuit of security. of which we have even less now. maybe even those apparatchiks who commit treason and renege on their oath to protect & defend the constitution. may their seats be transfered next to president sulfur & his gang in the dock.

Posted by: b real | Sep 30 2006 5:24 utc | 27

Military Commissions Act.
Will become the first edict from the first Dictator of the United States of America.

Posted by: pb | Sep 30 2006 5:33 utc | 28

Bush Cites Progress in Pakistan, Afghanistan, WaPo, Sep 30, 2006
10 Killed in Kabul Suicide Bombing, WaPo, Sep 30, 2006

Posted by: b | Sep 30 2006 6:14 utc | 29

Coup in Baghdad avoided?

Posted by: b | Sep 30 2006 7:06 utc | 30

The story of the 24 hour baghdad curfew came out about 8 hours ago here and there has been nothing more said.
It’s difficult to belief anyone would/could stage a coup given the anarchic state that Iraq is in. I’ve been wondering if this isn’t some desperate accelrated phoenix style plan. The intensive operations in and around Baghdad over the last weeks have done nothing to reduce the violence so perhaps some Eichmann or Westmoreland type psychopath has come up with a scheme to waste alla the ‘bad eggs’ in one hit.
Or maybe the rethug legislators are planning on a little campaigning in downtown Iraq. pressing the flesh, kissing babies and telling a bunch of perplexed Arabs what a pleasure it has been to bring them freedom.

Posted by: Debs is dead | Sep 30 2006 9:47 utc | 31

@ Guthman Bey,
MCA = Military Commissions Act = the torture/detention bill.
Sorry abou that. I banged out that comment after getting home from a business dinner that involved vast amounts of sake.

Posted by: montysano | Sep 30 2006 11:29 utc | 32

Antifa 23 –
An extraordinary articulation of habeas corpus as the beating heart of the US system of justice! Great!
My first thought, upon report that Congress had actually passed the bill, with no Senator falling on a sword and fillibustering, was to buy a flag just so I could fly it at half-mast for the death of the nation of the Constitution. But then it occurred to me that to change Constitutional law, an amendment is supposed to be required. Will this SC let it pass, or are they still sufficient advocates of law to throw it out? Can barflies with better knowledge of law and judiciary elucidate?
Bea 6 –
Thanks for the link. Did anyone else note the suggestion of Jiim Gerrity(sp? of NRO) in the CNN clip, re timing of Foley story? He suggested the possibility that release of Foley story at this moment was designed to blunt the full effect of the release of Woodward’s damning account of Iraq, clutter the political discussion space with a sex scandal.
Does anyone know who gave ABC the story? Certainly doesn’t seem to be Congressional Repubs since they don’t have their story coordinated. Any fairy godfathers in the WH?
Or is Gerrity’s suggestion unlikely? Does the story only add fuel to fire general public perception of Repubs as incompetent and corrupt; thus, would never deliberately be used by a Repub political operative to screen out the bigger Iraq story?

Posted by: small coke | Oct 1 2006 16:45 utc | 33