Narcissus

Another Dick Cheney interview today with Larry King. From many bits that one could pick out, there's this --

When he's [Bush] finished, I'm finished. We walk out of here on January 20th of '09, and I think we'll be able to hold our heads high knowing we did the best we could for the country. That's what counts more than anything else.

Counts more than the actual outcomes of their policies?

Ragemember

Nigel Powers: ... There's only two things I hate in this world. People who are intolerant of other people's cultures and the Dutch.

Christopher Hitchens: It is often said that resistance to jihadism only increases the recruitment to it. For all I know, this commonplace observation could be true. But, if so, it must cut both ways. How about reminding the Islamists that, by their mad policy in Kashmir and elsewhere, they have made deadly enemies of a billion Indian Hindus? Is there no danger that the massacre of Iraqi and Lebanese Christians, or the threatened murder of all Jews, will cause an equal and opposite response? Most important of all, what will be said and done by those of us who take no side in filthy religious wars? The enemies of intolerance cannot be tolerant, or neutral, without inviting their own suicide. And the advocates and apologists of bigotry and censorship and suicide-assassination cannot be permitted to take shelter any longer under the umbrella of a pluralism that they openly seek to destroy.

On the more serious side, it's strange for Hitchens to pick out as examples of Islamic provocation Kashmir -- which for better or worse, began as a nationalist struggle -- and the perilous position of Iraqi Christians. After all, the latter did fairly well under Saddam.

The Australian War on Terror

It's getting ugly. Or in view of what's already happened to Mohamed Haneef, uglier. What looks like selective release of IM transcripts, with sentences open to multiple interpretations being given only one.

Unique, indeed

Dick Cheney in an interview for CBS --

Q What do you make of the campaign as it's going so far? I know you want to stay neutral, and I'm not asking you to take issues, but you must watch with great interest what the Democrats are up to.

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Sure, I watch with great interest on both sides, both Republicans and Democrats. Our presidential campaigns are one of the unique and distinguishing features of our society. And the process by which we select Presidents and then hold them accountable is unique in many respects here in the United States.

If by "unique" he's referring to not selecting presidents by popular vote majorities, declaring some kind of legal immunity in the face of every attempt to hold them accountable, and leaving the head of government in place even after he's lost the support of the legislature, then he's right.

He was right the first time

Credit the BBC's Nick Robinson for being on the spot in real time to catch what was apparent from the instant it was uttered a mis-statement by Gordon Brown, or least a mis-statement relative to what George Bush wanted him to say. Because Gordon said --

Afghanistan is the front line against terrorism, and as we have done twice in the last year, where there are more forces needed to back up the coalition and NATO effort, they have been provided by the United Kingdom.

Thus going completely off-message on Iraq as the central front in the war on terror. Hence Nick's question --

And Prime Minister, you talked of Afghanistan being the front line in the struggle against terror, not Iraq. Do you believe that British troops in Iraq are part of the struggle against terrorism, or as many people now believe, making that harder, not easier, to win?

PRIME MINISTER BROWN: Well, perhaps I should deal with it first and then pass on to you, President.

In Iraq, you're dealing with Sunni-Shia violence, you're dealing with the involvement of Iran, but you're certainly dealing with a large number of al Qaeda terrorists. And I think I described Afghanistan as the first line in the battle against the Taliban, and of course the Taliban in Afghanistan is what we are dealing with in the provinces for which we've got responsibility, and doing so with some success.

Gordon's account of what he had said just a few minutes before is clearly wrong, with his new version being close to redundant as the Taliban are an Afghan movement.

UPDATE: The Telegraph's Toby Harnden subtitles Gordon's faux pax (via Iain Murray).

Bush-Cheney '08

Revealingly ambiguous terminology from the general in charge of US policy towards Iraq, David Petraeus --

Asked about media reports that Washington envisioned a substantial American force remaining in Iraq through mid-2009, General David Petraeus told ABC News: "Sustainable security is, in fact, what we hope to achieve.

"It's in our campaign plan. We do think it will take about that amount of time, as you discussed, to establish the conditions for it."

So his "campaign plan" will dump the inevitable withdrawal into the lap of Bush's successor and after next year's election campaign, leaving Bush free to complain that he stayed the course as long as the pesky constitution allowed him to. It's pretty bad when the job of a general becomes working on the legacy of the incumbent president.

That new Brown policy towards the US in full

AP Photo/Charles Dharapak; caption

In the passenger seat of a golf cart being driven by George Bush -- having earlier hit his head on Bush's helicopter.

UPDATE: Watertiger notes this one with Bush clearly not watching where he is going.

FINAL UPDATE: Guido goes with the head smash.

Osama really loves emoticons

As people try to piece together the extent of the domestic surveillance that the US government has been up to in the last few years, there's been a sudden burst of relevant government leaks to various newspapers. This Wall Street Journal editorial hints at one aspect of what George Bush's spooks have been up to: looking for ways to snoop on Internet traffic without a warrant.

The Journal claims that if an Internet telephone call (or, presumably, an IM conversation) was between two foreign-based suspects but routed through US servers, it becomes a domestic conversation for the purpose of US law and so a warrant would be required to intercept it. Here's the (presumably) hypothetical example the WSJ gives

If an al Qaeda operative in Quetta calls a fellow jihadi in Peshawar, that call may well travel through a U.S. network.

Indeed it could -- if the terrorists use Skype. But are we really expected to believe that the evildoer in Quetta would go the trouble of finding a broadband connection to Skype with his fellow evildoer in Peshawar -- when he could just pick up the phone and dial him direct, on plain old Pakistani phonelines that don't come anywhere near the US? And anyway, aren't these evildoers always supposed to be "on the run" in caves somewhere, where Skype access is not an issue?

2 more things to note. First, the Bush surveillance is likely just massive data mining of all Internet activity, without any attempt to sort out who is where at each end of the transaction. Second, it might be time to take another look at those French concerns that Blackberry could be part of the problem.

UPDATE: David Rivkin and Lee Casey, again on the apparently well-briefed Wall Street Journal editorial page, go with the same claim that overseas calls might pass through US-based servers and so George W. Bush would need to be able to listen in without a warrant. Apart from anything else, these people don't seem to realize that the long-term consequence of allowing George W. Bush access to US-based Internet servers is that other countries will develop their own infrastructure to sidetrack the US. A big source of comparative advantage would be gone.

FINAL UPDATE 3 AUGUST: It seems that the briefing to newspapers were part of a shadow debate going on about revision of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, with this claim about electronic conversations between foreign parties cross US soil being a key part of the White House argument.

VERY FINAL UPDATE: While it's typical of Republican buffoonery that Congressman John Boehner apparently discussed classified information (see also here) in explaining why a new law was needed, note that it's clear from our WSJ links above that the same information -- the alleged need for a warrant to intercept communications overseas using US wires -- was being leaked to favoured news outlets before Boehner blabbed.

Cheney watch ends .. or begins?

In his first public appearance in nearly 2 months, Dick Cheney spoke today at the retirement ceremony for the Vice Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Edmund P. Giambastiani, whom George Bush had creatively nicknamed "G." As usual with Cheney, you couldn't tell from his remarks that his senior military officers have gone from one mistake to another in Iraq e.g. --

It will be said, as well, that the years of General Pace [chairman] and Admiral G were years of extraordinary leadership and accomplishment. These two officers, with combined service of more than seven decades, have been a remarkable team for the United States of America.

So remarkable that they're both being replaced. But anyway, it's news simply that Cheney showed up and left evidence of his presence, unlike his stint as acting President last week in what is clearly medical procedures week for the 2 Deciders.

It's strange timing though, because Cheney will go to hospital tomorrow to have his heart defibrillator replaced -- surely he wouldn't want to give the impression of squeezing in one public event just in case the worst happens.

UPDATE: Dick got the battery replaced and its shows. A burst of events includes an opening at George Washington University Hospital, and two interviews -- one with Mark Knoller and one (coming tomorrow with Larry King).

Indirect fire

Photo by Richard Termine, Sesame Workshop, via the US Department of Defense

Against the backdrop of George Bush's complaining about how "death on our TV screens" is undermining his otherwise perfect war in Iraq, it apparently takes an oblique product from Sesame Street to being the war home to people. The acclaimed special production in which Elmo's dad gets deployed. Explained in more detail here.

Not a great alibi

Among the eyebrow raising anecdotes in this New York Times story about the US has publicly deemphasized its rift with Saudi Arabia over policy towards Iraq --

WASHINGTON, July 26 — During a high-level meeting in Riyadh in January, Saudi officials confronted a top American envoy with documents that seemed to suggest that Iraq’s prime minister could not be trusted.

One purported to be an early alert from the prime minister, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, to the radical Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr warning him to lie low during the coming American troop increase, which was aimed in part at Mr. Sadr’s militia. Another document purported to offer proof that Mr. Maliki was an agent of Iran.

The American envoy, Zalmay Khalilzad, immediately protested to King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, contending that the documents were forged ... The American officials said they had no doubt that the documents shown to Mr. Khalilzad were forgeries, though the Saudis said they had obtained them from sources in Iraq. “Maliki wouldn’t be stupid enough to put that on a piece of paper,” one senior Bush administration official said. He said Mr. Maliki later assured American officials that the documents were forgeries.

This from the same Administration which believed that Saddam would leave a paper trail on that famous attempted purchase of uranium from Niger. Note also how the US resolution of the alleged forgeries entirely hinges on taking Maliki's word for it. They probably find the alternative too horrible to contemplate.

Weak link

One specific angle in the Bulgarian babies for sale racket exposed by the BBC is that the smuggler had determined that the best route for this trade into Britain was from France to Ireland on the ferry and then over to England or Wales the same way. This revelation comes not long after the floating bales of cocaine case off the southwest coast, with one of those smugglers having a fraudulent Irish passport. The signs are there for anyone looking that lax Irish border controls are a disaster waiting to happen.

Hurling clubs in the USA

It's getting difficult for them. The Wall Street Journal explains (link should work for non-subscribers). One issue not mentioned: many towns back in Ireland would have trouble putting together a hurling team too.

A shot of vodka and a packet of capital gains, please

It's been a while since we did any Guinness/Diageo posts so the Financial Times brings news that Diageo has again squelched rumours that it would sell the Irish brand, referring instead to a goal of increasing sales in Africa (where they offer a higher alcohol version) to compensate for declining sales in Ireland --

Mr [Paul] Walsh [CEO] said a continuing fall in Guinness sales in Ireland had "nothing to do" with Diageo’s marketing of the brand, and was instead due to "structural" changes in consumption as people spent less time in pubs.

Guinness accounts for about 13 per cent of Diageo’s total sales revenues, which were £7.26bn (€10.8bn) in the 2006 financial year. Guinness sales fell 1 per cent globally and were down 4 per cent in Europe in the six months to December.

"We have to continue to grow the brand outside its home market," Mr Walsh said, adding that sales of Guinness outside Ireland had risen 4-5 per cent.

Despite marketing abominations like Surger and Ice, he's probably right that changes in Irish drinking culture have more to do with the decline in sales. Incidentally, the article also says that Diageo is interested in buying the Swedish government-owned Absolut operation. Now, Diageo could do like everyone else and borrow the money to finance that purchase. But one option not explicitly ruled out by the claim that they won't sell Guinness is selling the St James' Gate Brewery.

All the world's a stage

Among the risks that George Bush has run with today's speech highlighting the US claim that the head of al-Qaeda in Iraq is a fictional character is that al Qaeda in Iraq could simply have Abu Omar al-Baghdadi pop up in person to issue an actual statement. Of course then the US would claim that that person was also an actor. But remember that George Bush's speech was supposed to make it clearer who it is that his troops are fighting.

Another risk with the speech is that more people might wonder how it is that the Iraqi prisoner Khaled Abdul-Fattah Dawoud Mahmoud al-Mashadani who was the source of such talking-point-ready information started talking so quickly once he was in captivity. It couldn't be that the CIA interrogation program is being used in Iraq, now could it?

Another risk is highlighted by Bush's use of the passive voice in explaining how al Qaeda in Iraq got started.

UPDATE: It's particularly bizarre to see the Wall Street Journal editorial page screaming for al-Mashadani to be sent to Gitmo for further interrogation since he's clearly already singing like a canary under the interrogation regimen in Iraq.

The Holy Trinity

Actual lead sentence of a National Review editorial --

If the results of Sunday’s Turkish election had been designed by a committee consisting of Henry Kissinger, Bernard Lewis, and Dick Morris, they could scarcely have come up with a better or more calming outcome.

That would be Henry "Bomb Cambodia" Kissinger, Bernard "Strong Horse" Lewis and Dick "Toe-sucker" Morris. It's going to be a rough year for Turkey.

George Bush is to Osama bin Laden as ...

... Christopher Hitchens is to George Galloway. They perfectly reinforce each other's blunderbuss approach to political analysis, and each finds the other an incredibly useful brush for tarring all critics. Watch Hitch associate everyone opposed to the war in Iraq with Galloway. Watch him use unrelated corruption investigations (e.g. Chirac's activities when mayor of Paris) as evidence of corrupt motives in opposition to the war. If that's the game, Hitch, have you checked Halliburton's profits recently?

Tell it to George

One of the big bits of news in Gordon Brown's first full press conference today was surely his repeated invocation of climate change as the likely culprit in the floods e.g.

Obviously like every advanced industrial country we are coming to terms with some of the issues surrounding climate change. It is pretty clear that some of the 19th century structures for dealing with infrastructure and where they were sited, that is something that we are going to have to review. That will be part of the review that Hilary Benn has authorised. Equally at the same time we are going to have to look at drainage, surface water as well as river water, and what we are going to be able to do in the future in relation to that.

It's a sign of changed times that the kind of attribution that was once seen as the province only of environmental loonies has gone mainstream. It's what happens when the loonies keep turning out to be right.

A Blitz of corn husks

Tomorrow sees the release of a Dick Cheney hagiography by Stephen Hayes. The promotion machine is in full swing as Hayes writes an e-mail to Powerline readers, via "Trunk", about the book and its subject --

The result is a meaty biography that traces Cheney’s life from his birth in wartime Nebraska (1941)

Thus an utterly gratuitous attribution of wartime experience to the infant Cheney -- one shared in terms of date by hundreds of millions of other people, many of whom were a lot closer to the frontlines than Nebraska. But with a later military career encompassing 5 deferments from the war he was actually eligible to fight, and then a great eagerness to send others into war in his political career: you write up the military experience that you have, not the one that you'd want.

Carnoustie

What does it take to get ABC to show any of co-leader Padraig Harrington's shots?

UPDATE: Apparently he has to be sole leader.

FINAL UPDATE: Co-leader with 2 holes to play is also sufficient. But what was going on prior to the 16th when he was right there near the top?

VERY FINAL UPDATE: ABC's Invisible Man.

Waterboarding them there so we don't have to waterboard them here

Once one gets past the thought that "US bans terror suspect torture" is news, actual reading of the relevant Bush executive order makes clear that the mystery CIA detention program to which the order applies could be in use in Iraq --

General Determinations. (a) The United States is engaged in an armed conflict with al Qaeda, the Taliban, and associated forces. Members of al Qaeda were responsible for the attacks on the United States of September 11, 2001, and for many other terrorist attacks, including against the United States, its personnel, and its allies throughout the world. These forces continue to fight the United States and its allies in Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere, and they continue to plan additional acts of terror throughout the world.

(ii) the conditions of confinement and interrogation practices are to be used with an alien detainee who is determined by the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency:

(A) to be a member or part of or supporting al Qaeda, the Taliban, or associated organizations; and

(B) likely to be in possession of information that:

(1) could assist in detecting, mitigating, or preventing terrorist attacks, such as attacks within the United States or against its Armed Forces or other personnel, citizens, or facilities, or against allies or other countries cooperating in the war on terror with the United States, or their armed forces or other personnel, citizens, or facilities;

This could be another aspect in explaining George Bush's insistence that the insurgents in Iraq are "the same people who attacked us on September 11." Nor does anything in the order preclude its applicability to permanent residents of the United States.

So could it be that the Army in Iraq hands over some detainees to the CIA program? Consider for example the suddenly talkative "Hamid the Mute" and the loquacious Iraqi source (Abu Shahid) for the information that the head of al Qaeda in Iraq is a fictional character.

UPDATE 27 JULY: A LA Times op-ed piece notes the potentially broad application of the order (via Dan Froomkin).

Maybe there's no White House room dark enough

The continuing absence of Dick Cheney from the public eye will extend even to tomorrow, when for a few hours he will formally have the powers of the Presidency with George Bush under anasthetic for a colonoscopy. Here's the strange thing, as revealed by Press Secretary Tony Snow --

Q Where will the Vice President be?

MR. SNOW: He will be at his home on the Eastern Shore.

That would be Cheney's huge pad in St Michael's, next to Rummy's. Doubtless they have much to discuss. But he's not up for at least the appearance of being at the White House when formally in charge?

Poster boys

One of today's press releases from Multinational Forces Iraq -- hot on the heels of their success in declaring an elusive opponent to be imaginary:

Coalition Forces captured a suspected terrorist with close ties to the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps-Qods Force (IRGC-QF) in a raid Thursday in Kharnabat near Baqubah.

No shots were fired when Coalition Forces conducted a raid to capture or kill a highly-sought operative with connections to senior leaders of the IRGC-QF. The captured terrorist is suspected of facilitating the transport of weapons and personnel from Iran into Iraq. The captured terrorist is also believed to have facilitated the flow of deadly Explosively Formed Projectiles (EFPs) into Iraq from Iran to be used against Coalition Forces.

During the raid, Coalition Forces confiscated a large sum of U.S. currency, weapons and photographs of juveniles with weapons.

That's 4 Iran mentions in a few sentences. But anyway, note the emphasis on the evilitude of the operative in having pictures of juveniles with weapons. Couldn't happen in America, let alone be endorsed by a prominent right-wing blogger. Indeed.

Remember the Domino

It's too much of a broken record to be going through yet another rambling George Bush Q&A like today's in Nashville (and the questions were nearly as much of a fiasco as the answers), so just this thought from him near the end on an issue that has dogged him before --

See, one of the interesting things about this war [Iraq] I forgot to tell you is, unlike, say, the Vietnam War, that if we fail in Iraq, the enemy won't be content to stay there. They will follow us here. That's what different about this struggle than some of the others we're had. What happens overseas matters.

Does he forget the rationale of the Vietnam war -- and the Cuban blockade, and the American interventions in Central America etc -- was precisely the claim that Communism wouldn't stop in one place and had in fact an ultimate goal of encircling the "free world", eventually leading to its collapse?

Bring your lunch

By playing with this Google map, one can see how the geography and roads conspire so that one bridge in Leenane being washed out can add a lot of time to what is a common trip for tourists in Galway and Mayo at this time of year.

The worst healthcare money can buy

Here, via the Wall Street Journal (subs. req'd), is the essence of why the American healthcare system is so bad relative to all the money spent on it. One of the biggest health insurance companies announced their financial results today --

UnitedHealth's medical-loss ratio, or the percentage of premium revenue used to pay patient bills, was 80.5%, a decrease of 1.1 percentage points, year-to-year, and 2.2 percentage points sequentially.

80 percent of premiums go on healthcare bills. The other 20 percent goes where? Not on hospital administration -- that's in the patient bill. But on payment and eligibility administration i.e. the insurance company's own costs for all the staff and bureaucracy that it has. With no insurance companies and the government just paying for everyone, all those administrative costs would be gone. Make everyone eligible. Pay for everyone. Collect taxes or levies from everyone to do it. 20 percent cheaper than what's being done now.

He forgot his recyclable shopping bag

You'd think that they'd know better by now after the fiasco of John McCain's stroll around a supposedly safe Baghdad market, but here we go again. The above is the dismal Bush loyalist General Peter Pace, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff and mercifully forced into retirement in a couple of months. He's on what is claimed to be an impromptu stroll around a Ramadi market, with everyone in sight wearing equipment that is doubtless available to the average Iraqi shopper as well.

In explaining the unplanned nature of the trip, the associated news release says that it happens because a sandstorm grounded his helicopter so he decided to take a walk around. Any possibility that the sandstorm grounded the insurgents as well?

Like that season of "Dallas"

In early March of this year, the current head of the umbrella insurgent group, the Islamic State of Iraq, Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, was reported captured. In early May, somewhat inconveniently, he was reported killed -- in a separate engagement from the one in which he had been captured. The irrepressible al-Baghdadi later popped up again, sounding remarkably in tune with the White House in denouncing Iranian interference in Iraq -- an announcement was soon followed up by a car bomb attack outside the Iranian embassy in Baghdad.

Faced with such a persistent opponent, the US military has come up with a new approach: a declaration that al-Baghdadi is imaginary. Really. This comes with the report of the latest talkative insurgent captured by the US military, who despite repeatedly claiming to be up against a foreign-led insurgency, only ever seems to capture Iraqis. So --

Khaled Abdul-Fattah Dawoud Mahmoud al-Mashhadani, also known as Abu Shahid, was captured in Mosul on July 4, said Brig. Gen. Kevin Bergner, a military spokesman.

"Al-Mashhadani is believed to be the most senior Iraqi in the al-Qaida in Iraq network," Bergner said. He said al-Mashhadani was a close associate of Abu Ayub al-Masri, the Egyptian-born head of al-Qaida in Iraq.

Bergner said al-Mashhadani served as an intermediary between al-Masri and Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida No. 2 Ayman al-Zawahri. "In fact, communication between the senior al-Qaida leadership and al-Masri frequently went through al-Mashhadani," Bergner said.

"Along with al-Masri, al-Mashhadani co-founded a virtual organization in cyberspace called the Islamic State of Iraq in 2006," Bergner said. "The Islamic State of Iraq is the latest efforts by al-Qaida to market itself and its goal of imposing a Taliban-like state on the Iraqi people."

In Web postings, the Islamic State of Iraq has identified its leader as Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, with al-Masri as minister of war. There are no known photos of al-Baghdadi. Bergner said al-Mashhadani had told interrogators that al-Baghdadi is a "fictional role" created by al-Masri and that an actor is used for audio recordings of speeches posted on the Web.

"In his words, the Islamic State of Iraq is a front organization that masks the foreign influence and leadership within al-Qaida in Iraq in an attempt to put an Iraqi face on the leadership of al-Qaida in Iraq," Bergner said.

This is truly a classic of irrefutable claims. They can't capture al-Baghdadi, so he's declared not to exist. The insurgency that says it's Iraqi is in fact foreign, but they can't prove that, so they claim that the Islamic State of Iraq is really just an e-Qaeda.com, lacking perhaps only a blogger to complete its Internet presence. And all this just a few days after a White House official likened the actual al-Qaeda, which really does exist, to an imaginary character from childhood nightmares.

One likely driver of this shadow-chasing is that George W. Bush's talking points really need the name of the insurgent group in Iraq to be al-Qaeda in Iraq, so that he can disengenuously claim that they are the group which carried out the 9-11 attacks. The rebranding of that group as an all-Iraqi outfit would be a big problem.

UPDATE: Here's the official Pentagon story on Bergner's new theory about al Qaeda in Iraq, and here's an extensive roundup of (sceptical) coverage of the new theory.

The new median voter

Could it be that Karl Rove's research show that "some dude sitting in an office cubicle" is a key swing voter? Consider George Bush's itinerary over the next couple of days, via Dan Froomkin --

Bush will be talking about health care tomorrow [Wednesday] at Man and Machine Inc., a Landover, Md., company that manufactures liquid-proof keyboards. Then on Thursday it's off to Tennessee to talk about the budget at the Nashville Bun Company.

i.e. conceptually the shop that sells office guy his muffin and cup of coffee before he spills the latter on his liquid proof keyboard.

The fertile crescent

From the declassified section of the new US National Intelligence Estimate on terrorism: an admission that Iraq has become the 2nd pillar of al-Qaeda, which it was not before the invasion --

we assess that al-Qa’ida will probably seek to leverage the contacts and capabilities of al-Qa’ida in Iraq (AQI), its most visible and capable affiliate and the only one known to have expressed a desire to attack the [US] Homeland. In addition, we assess that its association with AQI helps al-Qa’ida to energize the broader Sunni extremist community, raise resources, and to recruit and indoctrinate operatives, including for Homeland attacks.