Category: Politics

Glenn Reynolds, once again, is confused.

THE REAL WILSON SCANDAL: Forget Valerie Plame, the big scandal is why anyone in the Bush Administration would ever have tasked a guy with Wilson’s views with an important mission.

If you follow the link, you’ll find Bill Hobbs ranting about a speech Joseph Wilson gave on June 14th, 2003. The very perceptive among us will notice that June 14th is somewhat later than the date on which Wilson went to Niger to look into the yellowcake assertions.

Let’s say you went to Niger to investigate claims that Niger sold yellowcake to Iraq, and you found out that the claims were false. You made a report to that effect. Despite your report, Bush kept claiming that Niger sold yellowcake to Iraq. It became an important component of his justification for war, and you knew it was a lie. It further became evident that the remainder of Bush’s allegations concerning WMD were inaccurate.

Might your views change?

What’s more likely: that Bush chose an investigator who was deeply and fundamentally biased, or that Joseph Wilson altered his opinions in light of the way his report was treated?

It kind of boggles me, in either case, that Reynolds could claim with a straight face that views Wilson expressed on June 16th, 2003 were a good reason to not send him to Niger in 2002.

Some polling tidbits from Iraq, via Juan Cole — 94% of Baghdad residents think Baghdad is more dangerous now than it was before the invasion. 29% of Baghdad residents have a favorable view of the US; 55% have a favorable view of France.

On the other hand, countrywide, 33% of those polled think they’re better off now than they were before the invasion, but 67% think they’ll be better off in five years. Which actually strikes me as fairly accurate. Mind you, they could be thinking “as soon as the Americans leave,” which bodes poorly for our long-term ability to work with Middle Eastern countries.

Aqila al-Hashimi died. Old news, but as long as I’m on the subject of Iraq…

Also, we’re calling up more troops. We’re not getting any help from India and while we still want Turkey to send troops, Iraqi leaders are not thrilled about the idea.

Syria’s willing to help, though.

There was a certain amount of inaccurate news regarding the woman condemened to death by stoning in Nigeria. Thus, I thought I’d note that her sentence has been overturned. That’s the good news; the bad news is that it was overturned on a technicality, and the law’s still in place.

California Indian tribes have donated $6.7 million to various recall candidates this year. Most of that’s gone to Bustamante (and he’s had to return most of them). Schwarzenegger has reacted with attack ads directed at the tribal gaming lobby; deeply ironic, considering his anti-immigration stance. Then again, he’s not really anti-immigration; he’s pro European males. It’s ok to immigrate illegally if you’re him.

One of the members of the Iraqi Governing Council was shot today. Potential motivations are plentiful. Akila al-Hashimi is a woman, she cooperates with the United States, she is a Shiite, and she was a Ba’athist.

There are indications that women aren’t being treated so well in Iraq these days. Certainly cooperating with the United States can be dangerous. The Sunnis are worried about Shiite power gains, which has motivated recent killings. And nobody likes the Ba’athists.

Regardless, expect this to fuel the perception that the US can’t effectively secure Iraq.

Here’s a conjunction of stories that bears investigation. Both Chevron and Exxon are bidding for a stake in YukosSibneft. YukosSibneft is the biggest oil company in Russia, and one of the biggest in the world. Meanwhile, the US and Russia are discussing Russian oil contracts in Iraq.

The obvious question is whether or not we’re seeing some quid pro quo here. Would the Kremlin speed up the Yukos/Sibneft merger and expedite the purchase by either Chevron or Exxon if the US agreed to honor Russia’s oil contracts? Would the US find it more worthwhile to make that deal if Chevron was getting a chunk of the revenues via a Russian company?

Well, there might be a quid pro quo, but YukosSibneft is not among the Russian companies with Iraqi oil interests. So, sure, there’s probably a dealinvolving Security Council votes and oil contracts, but the US doesn’t seem to have much of a stake in the YukosSibneft negotiations. Advantage: “there’s no conspiracy here, citizen.”

Juan Cole has more to say about the second order effects of getting too close to Pakistan. It’s unclear to me that Pakistan is that close to fundamentalist destabilization, but the effects of such destabilization would be pretty serious, so it behooves us to keep being careful.

Partial credit for this one.

“There’s no question that Saddam Hussein had al-Qaida ties…. We have no evidence that Saddam Hussein was involved with the Sept. 11 attacks.”
— George Bush

Well, 50% accuracy on those particular facts is a step up for him. But what’s that imply about his determination to go after Iraq as soon as possible post-9/11? And isn’t it clear that Pakistan had much stronger Al Qaeda ties? So why Iraq first?

More saber-rattling for the benefit of Syria the last few days. The timing is impeccable; nothing will tell Syria we’re serious like making threats at the same time we’re telling Iran to shape up. Cause we’ve got all those available troops sitting around doing nothing.

In related news, the White House slip of the day comes from Press Secretary Scott McClellan:

David Kaye, who’s leading the Iraq survey group, which is — they’re interviewing people, they’re talking to Iraqis, they’re gathering all the intelligence to pull together a complete picture of Iran — of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction program and their weapons of mass destruction.

And what about North Korea?

Hey, wasn’t Ann Coulter gonna start keeping a blog?

The date on that first post in the archives, by the way, is a lie. That sucker’s been there since late June, when they first claimed Ann was about to start blogging.