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Comment on: Message for Mr. Putin - washingtonpost.com on 6/6/2007 8:58 AM

Putin has been a problem for Russia and much of the rest of the world from the get-go. Looks can be deceiving, of course, but most adults are savvy enough to look at this guy and know he's dangerous. Thus it remains a continuing testamonial to our peculiar president's profound lack of insight that when he and Putin met back in 2001, he could say at the following press conference "I looked him in the eye . . . I got a sense of his soul" and annoint him as "trustworthy." Many of us knew then that not only was Russia in trouble, we were too. We were right on both counts.

Comment on: Robert D. Novak - Thompson Off the Sidelines - washingtonpost.com on 5/31/2007 7:18 AM
Wow. This is pretty exciting stuff. Fred Thompson says "I think the biggest problem we have today is what I believe is the disconnect between Washington, D.C., and the people of the United States. People are looking around at the pork-barrel spending and the petty politics, the backbiting. The fighting over all things, large or small, is creating a cynicism among our people." How original! What a fresh voice! With insight like that, how can Fred Thompson fail to pull the Republican Party out of its tailspin and to put those nasty Democrats on the ropes? Yes, it's inspiration right out of "Law and Order." Oh, wait. Have I heard these great insights before? Do they sound like, oh, George W. Bush, especially in 2000? Or was it Bill Clinton in 1992? or maybe Jimmy Carter in 1976... or was it Ronald Reagan in 1980 . . . or was it . . .? Gee, all those guys won the presidency with that great insight into our national psyche but somehow, here we are in 2007 and Senator Fred sees the same problems that have beset the country for more than a generation and, having seen them, will solve them, unlike Carter, Reagan, Clinton and Bush. Oh,good. I feel better now. Go, Fred.

Comment on: New Strategy for War Stresses Iraqi Politics - washingtonpost.com on 5/23/2007 9:06 AM
Am I missing something or does this 'new strategy' implicitly acknowledge that all that has gone before has failed? First, we forget about transitioning security/military duties to the Iraqis because they cant handle it so we have to. (Failure: we stand down as they stand up.) Second, acknowledge that the Iraqi "government" governs little outside the Green Zone. (Failure: all the baloney from the administration about the 'sovereign' Iraqi government. Third, rid the governemnt of the many officials who have greater loyalty to their own sect or tribe or criminal interests than to the nation state of Iraq. (Failure: all the purple fingers.) Fourth, get the many factions that are killing each other day after day after day to 'make nice.' (Failure: all the Bushian assurances of "progress being made." Alas.

Comment on: Comments: Eugene Robinson - Gonzales's Signature Moment - washingtonpost.com on 5/19/2007 8:55 AM
Kudos to the headline writer. It's perfect.
Those of us who are long of tooth remember the terrible days of Watergate when the images of Nixon,Agnew, Haldeman, Erhlichman, Mitchell and the lesser criminals regularly appeared on our television screens and on the pages of newspapers across the nation. Those images came in short time to represent corruption and criminality in government. The miscreants looked guilty. It was like the old joke about looking up "criminality" in the dictionary and finding pictures of the Watergate guys next to the definition. Gonzales has now joined that wretched pantheon of bad guys, along with, of course, the Decider, Darth Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Rice. One can't see images of these people anymoe without experiencing a visceral reaction. Currently Gonzo is at the head of the list for me. He not only is a bad guy, he looks like one. Who knows, maybe this will be his undoing. We have a tremendous capacity to tolerate people who are thoroughly unadmirable in fact so long as they look good. This accounts for the Decider's initial and, for some, continuing support among the populace. He's a nice looking guy, so many folks ignore the bad values and instincts inside him. His attorney general, on the other hand, now looks simply slick and sleazy. Eventually they're going to have to keep him under a rock.

Comment on: 60 Die in Iraq; Study Warns Of Collapse - washingtonpost.com on 5/17/2007 9:34 PM
I am certainly no expert on "failed states" but isn't the definition of one a state that has no real control over its supposed territory? Isn't a critical element the absence of a monopoly on the legitimate use of power? It seems to me to be hard to argue that Iraq is not already a failed state and that the arguments of those who most strongly support the continued presence of American troops there are implicitly based on the premise of failed state. No American troops, chaos. Is this not a "failed state"? The sanctum sanctorum of the Iraqi government, the Green Zone, has been hit by mortar shells each of the last three days. The British sector around Basra is so insecure that Prince Harry cannot safely be deployed there even if surrounded by the British Army. American troops are hunkered down and hardening their positions throughout Baghdad, never sure from moment to moment whether their position may be attacked by unahappy Sunnis or unhappy Shiites or by al Quaeda forces. The Iraqi legislature has to be threatened by Vice President Cheney, who has to sneak into the country to play the role of stern taskmaster, not to take a two month vacation while their country is sinking ever deeper into a maelstrom of violence and despair. Two million or so of the country's most capable citizens, on whom the welfare of the country depends, have fled for other lands while millions of other Iraqis have been internally displaced from their homes by sectarian cleansing. If this condition is only "close to being a failed state", one wonders what the real thing looks like.

Comment on: Richard N. Perle - How the CIA Failed America - washingtonpost.com on 5/11/2007 8:15 AM
It's get even time. Gee, could it be that both Tenet and Perle are full of baloney? The only good that has accrued to Tenet from the publication of his book has been the multi-million dollar advance he received from the publisher. His attempt to salvage his reputation has been a fall-flat-on-your-face failure. If there is anyone who has sympathetic feelings toward Tenet, I haven't met him. The publication of the book has simply provided a new opportunity to consider his complicity in the Iraq invasion.
On the other hand, Richard Perle is at the heart of the 'endless war' cabal. He and William Kristol and their neocon colleagues were champing on the bit waiting to invade and occupy Iraq. They are correct of course in reminding us that the world has a lot of very nasty people in it, some of who would do us harm unless deterred. They were and are wrong in thinking that use of our armed forces is the only or best way to protect ourselves. These are the guys who see the US as the global hegemon, the enforcer of pax Americana. It's not accurate to characterize their view as US as a global 'policeman' because policemen are supposed to enforce the Law, and these folks don't consider the US bound by any law. They are contemptuous of international treaties and the whole idea of international law, including, e.g., the international criminal court, the Kyoto protocols, the Geneva Conventions, etc. Perle and his neocon buddies in the think tanks, media, and government are why so many in the world consider the US as the greatest threat to world peace. Whether or when Perle made the statement attributed to him by Tenet, his responsibility for the catastophe in Iraq cannot reasonably be doubted.

Comment on: Bush Told War Is Harming The GOP - washingtonpost.com on 5/10/2007 8:38 AM
Re the meeting: it's about time.

Re the headline: How about "Bush Told Sun Rises in the East" or "Bush Told Pope is Catholic." The Decider and Commander Guy is poison to all around him. Colin Powell, Andy Card, Rumsfeld, Rice, Gonzales, Meir, Ashcroft, all have what the comedian Norm Cosby used to call "the aura of reek" because of their association with this president. It's bad enough that he's going down in flames; it's worse that he's taking his party and the country's leadership role in the world with him.
Comment on: Comments: Commanders in Iraq See 'Surge' Into '08 - washingtonpost.com on 5/9/2007 12:08 PM
Can someone help me out on the math of the expanded 'surge.' If Baghdad is about 6,000,000 people, and there will be 25 US battalions and 38 Iraqi battalions are to be committed there, isn't that roughly one combat battalion per 10,000 residents? If the population is roughly equally divided between men and women, it is one combat battalion per 5,000 males residents. If the male population consists of about 50 percent the young and the elderly and 50 percent men of "fighting age", that's one combat battalion per 2,500 fighting age males. What is the average size of US and Iraqi batallions? How close are we getting to a ration of 1 to 1 in terms of combat troops and fighting age males in Baghdad? By the way, this count doesn't even include those Iraqi police forces we heard so much about for so long from the US (mis)leaders. Remember those great press conferences with Rumsfeld and Rice and others: "There are now (insert number) police trained in Iraq." What a sick joke. What a tragedy for our nation and for theirs.

Comment on: Commanders in Iraq See 'Surge' Into '08 - washingtonpost.com on 5/9/2007 9:35 AM
Let me get this straight: 25 US combat battalions and 38 Iraqui battalions are to be committed JUST to Baghdad? 63 combat battalions PLUS those highly-trained Iraqi police personnel we've been hearing about for the last 3 and a half years? The years when we were continually reassured by Bush and Cheney and Rumsfeld and Rice that "progress is being made" in Iraq? Was it ever the case that Saigon had to have 63 combat battalions committed to it? Does that come out to about one combat battalion per 10,000 residents, i.e., men, women, children, the halt and the lame, the elderly, etc.? Are we getting to the point where there will be combat troops on every street corner in Baghdad? That it is necessary to commit this many combat troops to the capitol city more than 4 years after the American invasion and 3 and 1/2 years of occupationis a sure indication that we are "in a world of hurt." I can hardly express the anger I feel as our country sinks deeper and deeper into the quicksand of Iraq.
Without disparaging the integrity of General Petraeus, one may be forgiven about the the looming significance of his report due next September. He is to report on whether the "surge", i.e., escalation, is "working." "Working" is another word for "progress", you know, like the "progress" we've been making for the last few years. With 63 combat battalions, or something approaching that, in the city, of course there will be some "progress" to report, if nothing else, the "progress" of filling the city with combat troops and making it more difficult for local residents to kill one another. One wonders what kind of influence the White House and the Pentagon will have on General Petraeus' report, how much 'vetting' it will receive for political impact and acceptability. Are Bush and Cheney really likely to let the good general just "tell it like it is", regardless of how the report is received by the Congress, the media, and the American public? I'm afraid that Bush and Cheney and their neoconservative cheerleaders have put our country and Iraq into a hole that they will not climb out of during my lifetime. We learned nothing from Vietnam. Perhaps if Bush and Cheney and their elite buddies had spent a year or so there like tens of thousands of the rest of us did, they would have seen this coming and not been so cocksure of success when they launched this invasion and occupation of another country.

Comment on: Troops at Baghdad Outposts Seek Safety in Fortifications - washingtonpost.com on 5/8/2007 7:22 AM
In June of 1965, I flew from Iwakuni Japan to DaNang via Chu Lai to take part in my country's last great deadly misadventure. My unit got a briefing from the 1st Marine Air Wing intelligence people on the number of hostile personnel in our Tactical Area of Responsibility. Six months later, after dropping an enormous tonnage of bombs, innumberable combat patrols and artillery salvos, etc., we learned that the estimated number of hostiles had doubled. By the beginning of 1966, most of the Marines in my unit thought this war was going to end badly and, of course, from the point of view of the American government, it did, but not until hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese and 58 thousand Americans had been killed and many more wounded. Many Vietnamese and Americans are still suffering from that war, and will until they die.
When the Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld-Rice team started the rhetorical drum roll for the current deadly misadventure in Iraq, I took out my dog tags from Vietnam and started wearing them again, as I do to this day. I wear them to remind myself never to trust what politicians and generals say about war. They lied to us back in the 60s and early 70s about Vietnam, they lie to us now about Iraq. Now we have the Pentagon Papers, Robert McNamara's memoir, and a host of other documents to demonstrate that the boys in Washington knew early on that the Vietnam adventure would not produce the promised results. Eventually we will have documents showing the same thing about Iraq, although the current administration has done all in its power to make public access to the truth onerous.
Meanwhile, our soldiers and Marines live in mortal danger every day, in the conditions described in this article, wondering what the point of it all is. They are indeed, as suggested in the article, wondering what the end game is or whether there is an end game and whether they and their comrades will live to see it. These "joint security stations" seem to me to be basically fortified police stations situated in the middle of high crime zones where many of the IPs, or indiginous personnel, hate the cops. I hope I'm wrong, but the stations look to me like traps, stationary targets for hostile forces, Fort Apaches. Unless the government puts this city of approximately 6 million on 'lock down' and stations reliable soldiers and Marines at every street corner, it will be impossible to keep offensive weapons out of Baghdad, to be used against our troops. I think every day of these soldiers and Marines and of how they have been let down by our governmen, including the guys wearing the shiney stars in the Pentagon. Tell me again how Iraq is so different from Vietnam but give me a moment to hold on to my dog tags to remind myself of the real world.