Category: Politics

Heh. I was right last night; the troops are pushing towards Baghdad. It’s been a successful advance so far. Note the destruction of the dam in that last story; that was a definite coup, since there’s been some worry that Saddam would be able to flood the river valley and slow down advancing troops.

This is another point at which Saddam is likely to use chemical weapons if he has ‘em. Up till now there’s been no new convincing evidence that he does, but one of the BBC embeds filed a report that his troops found instructions to an Iraqi Chemical Warfare Officer. (John Simpson, at 11:11 GMT.) Not hard evidence, just the most relevant thing we’ve found so far. I don’t count the chem warfare suits, no. We have a bunch of those too.

Current Department of Defense thinking about post-war Iraq includes an extension of the 1996 Iran-Libya Sanctions Act. The ILSA called for sanctions on any country which made 40 million dollars or more in new investments in Iran; this includes such countries as Britain, Italy, and Japan. The ILSA has never been invoked before, unsurprisingly.

Remember, folks, Bush is a master of diplomacy. Actually, this would make sense if he’s planning on cutting Rumsfeld loose — focus the resentment of the world on the DoD, and let Powell and State ride in to save the day. I’ve been wondering this flurry of negative press about Rumsfeld is a way of preparing the ground for such a move, but Seymour Hersh is kind of an unlikely agent of the Republicans. So it seems doubtful.

Oh, yeah, the war itself. We’re still in that regrouping phase I talked about last time I did a war update. Things are getting tense in the rear, due to the Iraqi strategy of disguising themselves as civilians. The suicide bombing didn’t help. It’s fascinating me, actually — we may have thought we’d seen televised wars before, but this time the whole world really is watching. That shooting at the checkpoint is an undeniable tragedy, but it would have gone unnoticed even ten years ago. It’s not that we care more now, it’s that we see more now.

What effect will this have on the prosecution of future wars? Damned if I know. I will predict that we have at least one more quantum level in transparency to go, though; when smart drones with cameras are cheap enough to be disposable and have the range to get from Philadelphia to Saigon and back, we’ll have even — I was going to say better. Perhaps not. Even more powerful technology to see what’s going on.

US air strikes are at a fever pitch, oriented towards a) reducing the effectiveness of the Medina Division of the Republican Guard and b) knocking out the Iraqi leaderships command and control facilities. The latter has turned out to be really tough, which is one of the reasons we’re still seeing effective coordination of Iraqi troops on the ground. The US has enough resources to keep on trying for a while, though. It’s just kind of important to knock those facilities out before pushing further, since it’ll make the rest of the war significantly easier.

The former goal — weakening the Iraqi troops between the US and Baghdad — is also important, and is also nearly necessary before the final push. There’s no indication that it’ll fail, but it’s good to watch.

Bruce Rolston points out that there’s no reason to hurry to the next stage, especially since reinforcements have a while yet to come. (You could be reading him instead of my stuff, by the way; he’s smarter about all this than I am.) The only caveat I’d make is that we’re about two months away from looking damned silly for not accepting the Chilean compromise resolution. If the war takes three months, we wouldn’t have lost anything by accepting that one and we might have gained a stronger coalition plus a majority vote in the Security Council, which at least gets Tony Blair out of any trouble he might be in now. However, Bush was in a hurry — partially in order to avoid a summer war — so no such luck.

That hurry makes sense if the war lasts a couple of months. If it drags on into June, it isn’t as sensible. If we hit August (unlikely but possible), it makes no sense at all. So that’s my long-winded way of saying that I can see at least one reason to pressure General Franks to move before reinforcements show up. If the air bombardment weakens the Republican Guard sufficiently, the coalition may at least encircle Baghdad in the next three weeks.

What else? No news in Northern Iraq, except some withdrawal on the part of the Iraqis, for no apparent reason. I can’t imagine Saddam withdrawing from Kirkuk, but it’d be pretty clever if he managed to pull the Kurds into the city. That’s one clear trigger point for a Turkish invasion of Northern Iraq.

And Stratfor is good; excellent maps and interesting news. My money’s well spent.

How Appealing is blogging the Supreme Court oral arguments in the University of Michigan affirmative action cases. Sort of like the Agonist for the war, but with silly wigs. Wait: I’ve been corrected, that would be the British legal system. Sorry.

Sometimes, it all depends on what your cause is. Kevin Drum took some heat recently for arguing that liberal extremism drives away the mainstream. He clarified later, exposing one of those unfortunate side-effects of a democratic winner-take-all system — you need to appeal to the middle of the road to get elected, so the fringes need to be carefully managed. This has the effect of muting certain extremes of discourse…

A tangent, here. By forcing extremists to mask their views in order to gain any kind of political power, we make them more effective. Interesting little paradox. If the Patriot movement could win some political success without sneaking into the Republican Party, they’d be a far clearer target for those who oppose their views, and I could say similar things about various leftist groups. It’s like the TB virus — by forcing it to evolve in order to get past antibiotics, we make it stronger. Anyhow, I was talking about something else.

Ah yes. So, Kevin makes an accurate point regarding the need to appear moderate. But then he bumps into Martha Burk, and says (again accurately) that “The reason Burk harps on Augusta National is because no one pays attention to her when she’s talking about substantive issues.” True enough. And nobody pays attention to gay rights activists when they’re talking about non-flashy issues, either.

It never dies!

People in the comments of my earlier post keep saying “aid and comfort,” which in today’s climate is one of those ominous codes meaning “he’s a traitor.” One guy even said “What Arnett has done would have gotten him arrested and jailed in WWII.” So I thought I’d do a little research on the nature of treason.

Turns out it’s a slippery beast. In particular, you have to prove that the guy wasn’t acting under duress, and you have to prove that there was the intent to cause harm. In Cramer v. United States, the Supreme Court said “On the other hand, a citizen may take actions which do aid and comfort the enemy… but if there is no adherence to the enemy in this, if there is no intent to betray, there is no treason.” If Arnett believed that he was providing aid and comfort, that’s probably sufficient. If he didn’t — and see a slew of previous comments from me on the reasonable belief that most of what he said was nothing you couldn’t read in a million other places — that’s probably not.

Now, in Chandler v. United States, Douglas Chandler was found guilty for participating in propaganda broadcasts from Nazi Germany. But he was paid by the German government and actively assisted in planning the broadcasts, and clearly showed intent to betray. Aid and comfort alone are simply not enough. In Chandler’s case, there weren’t countless US media outlets saying the same things he was.

(I still think Arnett certainly deserved to be fired.)

The Tokyo Rose case, Toguri v. United States, is also fairly interesting and relevant. (Iva Toguri broadcast on Radio Tokyo during World War II, and in fact was convicted for treason, but President Ford later pardoned her on the grounds that the trial was a sham.)

One might enjoy The Law of Treason in the United States, by James Hurst, if one would like a good comprehensive background on what treason actually is.

Peter Arnett has found a home at the Daily Mirror, UK tabloid par excellence. Screw the silly treason charges; he’s pretty much blown any chance of being taken seriously as a journalist now. It’s fairly obvious that his priority is remaining in front of the cameras, and I think they teach you at journalism school that you aren’t supposed to be the story. Anyhow, the New York Times pretty much nails it. Note also this Walter Cronkite editorial.

Actually, the Mirror is kind of interesting. Incongruous to my US-born eyes, it’s a violently left-wing tabloid. There’s something you don’t see over here.

Edit: quick primer for the Den Beste readers, since Den Beste himself didn’t bother to read any of my other posts…

1. I think Arnett deserved to be fired.
2. I think it would be exceedingly difficult to try Arnett for treason; it’s not as easy as you think it is.
3. Faulting someone for providing readily available information to Iraq is silly (that’d be this post).

Back to your regularly scheduled post…

Den Beste has his own commentary on the Arnett issue, and completely misses, and I think it’s a bad enough miss to be worth some discussion.

His issue is with the portion of the interview in which Arnett says “So our reports about civilian casualties here, about the resistance of the Iraqi forces, are going back to the United States. It helps those who oppose the war when you challenge the policy to develop their arguments.” Den Beste claims that Arnett’s interview — and specifically that interview — will encourage the Iraqi leadership to kill civilians in an attempt to turn public opinion against Bush.

I have to wonder how stupid Den Beste thinks Saddam is. Is he, perhaps, under the impression that Saddam has no idea what’s on CNN? What the front page of BBC News looks like? Saddam doesn’t need Peter Arnett to tell him or anyone that public opinion, particularly as it relates to civilian casualities, is an important factor in this war. Arnett’s error wasn’t giving Saddam information he already had. His error was using his position as a reporter to legitimize false information.

Den Beste’s condescending assumption that Arnett is telling Saddam something he doesn’t know smacks of the same arrogance that led our leaders to believe that the regime would collapse as soon as we invaded. They’re just Iraqis, after all. Treating an enemy as stupid, alas, is one of the quickest ways to wind up in more trouble than is necessary.

But there’s more than that here, because if you follow Den Beste’s logic a little further you’re forced to consider the possibility that anyone reporting on public opinion has the blood of dead Iraqi civilians on their hands. (“But if this does encourage the Iraqi government to start creating lots of death scenes to blame on us, then the people killed will actually be dead, and their blood will be on Arnett’s hands.”) This is the belief that by controlling the flow of information, you can control what people will do. It misses one very important point.

We don’t live in that era anymore. You cannot control information flow. Weblogs, smart mobs, embedded reporters — information (both true and false) will flow no matter what you do, and arguing about how best to control and contain it is a futile game.

People like talking to each other. Give the world a megaphone, and it will collectively use it.

Peter Arnett gave Iraqi television an interview over the weekend, and got fired for it. My first reaction to the news was, well, he ought to be fired for giving a propaganda interview. He’s supposed to be a reporter. Would that MSNBC routinely fired people who gave propaganda interviews; god knows we’ve seen enough of ‘em on Fox.

Let’s break down the transcript. First off, he gives Iraq credit for being cooperative and courteous; probably untrue but meaningless fluff. Second, he says there’s “growing challenge to President Bush about the conduct of the war and also opposition to the war.” He also says “It helps those who oppose the war when you challenge the policy to develop their arguments.” The first is true, mostly due to media coverage of recent events, and the second — well, if we fired people for saying that, we’d have to fire Ann Coulter.

Second statement: “… the population is responsive to the government’s requirements of discipline…” That’s pure propaganda and I’m kind of uncomfortable with it.

He then goes on to discuss the marketplace bomb, and points out that both the US and Iraq are pointing fingers; true enough, and I don’t see anything objectionable there. He follows that up with more discussion of the danger of civilian casualities. All accurate and true.

Finally, he says that the administration misjudged the likely resistance and that they’re rewriting the war plan. You can read similar statements in the New York Times and the Washington Post; can’t find anything to fault there.

So is the bit where he talks up the resistance of the population enough to fire him for? Not, I think, if he said it on the air on a US station. But with the knowledge that it would be broadcast on Iraqi television as a propaganda piece for Saddam? I think he was walking really close to the line. Arnett has been eager to get back into the spotlight since CNN fired him and I have to wonder how far he’d be willing to go to get good stories.

Well, that’s interesting. I figured when the Solomon Islands politely extricated themselves from the coalition, it was just one of those things and a good excuse to poke some fun at Bush. A diplomatic error but not a really important one.

So what do I say when it happens again? This time, Slovenia is saying “Hey, wait, include us out.” This time it’s after we accidentally included them in the wartime budget. No kidding; we were slated to give ‘em four and a half million until the Prime Minister of Slovenia said they didn’t want our money.

This story on a couple of Iraqi soldiers who surrendered in Umm Qasr is revealing all the way through. Start with the fact that they were both recent conscripts, one only seventeen years old. Notice how they didn’t feel safe surrendering until an old Iraqi who’d been through the first Gulf War told them it’d be OK. They were really happy to surrender once they thought it was safe, though.

On the other hand, they wouldn’t call their parents to tell them they were OK because their father would have been disappointed in them. And who’s willing to handle prisoners? The British; the Americans didn’t want ‘em.

I’m glad these two (and others like them) are OK.