perfidy

If you look just at the quote from the Guardian, there is sense there. Before the libervation, we had good reason to believe that Saddam was developing or had developed WMD. Compare the situation to North Korea. North Korea, despite its nastiness, does not either sit on, or threaten neighbors that sit on, a natural resource essential not merely for us, but for the entire free world. Which of two vile dictatorships do you target first? That is not shallow thinking, in my opinion. We seem to have a list of nations that we would like to do something about. It makes sense to prioritize that list based on a combination of immediate threat, geopolitical significance, and ease of operations against them.

Mike, the reason I asked you that is so that I could ask you this:

So what?

Young men fight in wars, and older men are usually at the head of governments. This has always been the case. Despite the whines of pollyannas, putting old men in the firing line would not really change things. What matters is why wars are fought, and what the result is (who wins.) The Civil War was won by the right side. Slavery died. This is good. WWII was fought by young, often poor, men while the Rockefellers, Fords, Kaisers and Roosevelts stayed at home and ran the government and industry. But we kicked Nazi ass, and that is good. American wars have (largely) been for good reasons, against bad people.

If American historians hate and villify the Irish Americans, they are the only ones doing it. I haven't noticed any anti-Irish bigotry in the wider world.

Ladies: I think I'm gonna stay out of the political debate until I think of something smart to say. Should be a while.

Buckethead, as for your post on Iran, I'd say there's a heck of a lot disturbing about the very idea of libervading Iran. I totally agree that, should the time come to pass, we should not rely on mercenaries and former enemies to wage a proxy war on our behalf. I think I'm on safe ground in asserting that it's never a good idea. But I would go one step farther and ask why it's necessary to head into Iran to begin with. By your own lights, all signs suggest that it's not a stable state to begin with. Why not give the situation some time to marinate and see if the mullahs' power crumbles all on its own? It would be much, much easier, cheaper, and dignified to be able to sweep into Iran because a popular revolution started rolling on its own. (And hey, if that happened, maybe for once we won't be decried as the A-holes of the world! (Yeah... right.))

Your (admittedly rhetorical) argument that we're in the neighborhood anyway is lightweight--about the same as my wanting to finish the last two beers in the twelve-pack because they look so lonely in there without their friends. Goodwife Two-Cents always pulls me back from that brink, and with good cause. Convenience is not an excuse for a hangover, much less a war. And although I totally agree with you about the perfidy of the mullahs and the USAity of some of the Iranian population, that doesn't sell me on a war either. And payback? Are we Bruce Willis? (Or Mel Gibson, but that was one crappy movie so I'm disqualifying him.)

We should not be too quick to jump into another conflict until it's proven that we are in fact ably committed to helping Iraq rebuild, until the same can be said for Afghanistan, until the Palestinian 'situation' (as you say) is resolved, until diplomacy has had time to work, until the waiting game is doing more harm than good (to Americans and Iranians alike), and until it's proven that our armed forces, economy, and national creed can handle it. That, and I still oppose such hijinks on principle anyway.

Or, we could just (as you say) nuke 'em.

Some in the Pentagon are saying that Iran is the proper target, and are proposing the use of covert operations to engineer the collapse of the Iranian fundamentalist theocracy. Those pushing this plan feel that the collapse of the Iranian government is the only way to forestall the development of nuclear weapons which could be used against American targets. 

One disturbing aspect of the plan is that it would include the use of a group currently classified as a terrorist organization by the US government. The MEK was a group sponsored by Saddam's regime in an attempt to destabilize it's rival neighbor. After the fall of the Baathist government in the wake of the American libervation, the American government and the MEK agreed to a ceasefire, and the MEK disarmed. However, MEK forces are still in existence and the weapons are in storage. 

Many of the arguments for regime change in Iraq apply equally well to Iran - a government resolutely inimical to American interests, state support of terrorist groups, development of WMD, and oppression and brutalization of their own population. With Iran, we get the added bonus of payback for the hostage crisis. Where the population of Iraq seems genuinely happy to be rid of Saddam, but lukewarm about the American presence; word is that the Iranian people are very much pro-American. Numerous articles by Michael Ledeen of the National Review, among others, have told the story of the widespread protests against the regime in Tehran and Qum, as well as many other regions. The people of Iran, I think would greatly support any effort by the US to overthrow the Mullahs. 

As a charter member of the Axis of Evil, Iran should certainly be on our list. And given the new strategic situation, we are in a prime position to move on Iran - we have them bracketed on two sides - Iraq and Afghanistan - three, really, if you count the Persian Gulf. I don't think we need to use some of Saddam's thugs to achieve our goals, however. We should be working with the Poles, the Australians and the Brits if we choose to go down that path. 

But we should not be too quick to jump into another conflict while we are still committed to Iraq, and while the Palestinian situation is still unresolved. We should give the UN time to work the diplomacy angle, and see if... Aw, fuck it, let's just nuke 'em. 
 

The Washington post reports today that Bush administration officials are now conceding that " it may take a long time, if ever, before they are able to prove the expansive case they made to justify the war." 

Glad they made it to the party. I'm not quite sure what to make of this admission by the Bush camp that their Weapons! Of! Mass! Destruction! are currently nothing but VaporWare. I see three possibilities.

• The WMD's exist, but in the run-up to the war, Iraq had time to sell, hide, or export them. If this is the case, both the US and its erstwhile opponents (France et. al) will blame the other side for allowing this to happen. The US will claim that the delays they conceded to while the Weapons Inspectors did their thing allowed Iraq the time to play their shell game, and the US' opponents will claim that if said Inspectors had been given just one more day we'd now know where the 120 tons of Anthrax have gone.
• There never were any WMD's. Whatever!
• Hussein is wilier than we thought, and as we ruminate, the chemical weapons are now in various undisclosed locations on the Syrian border, in bunkers deep underground, defended by the Elite Republican Guard, and a big robot Saddam Clone at the end. Jeez, where's Sgt. BJ Blazcowicz* when you need him? 

In my unprofessional and uninformed opinion, I'd lay 3:2 odds the first is true, 100:1 on the second, and 5:1 on the third, except the Robot Saddam part. 

EVERYBODY knows Hussein had ridiculous amounts of biological and nerve agents after the end of Gulf War I: First Blood. He proved that when he gassed the Kurds. But, in the eleven years since, isn't it possible that every two-bit terrorist who could put together a suitcase of nonconsecutive bills came away from a visit with Saddam with a couple armloads of Sarin and a bag o' Anthrax? Granted, we haven't seen these weapons used by any Islamic terrorists, but there's a LOT of caves we haven't looked in yet, and the War! On! Terror! will never be over. 

*I can see the ad now: "He vanquished the Nazis, he destroyed the Zombies, now Sergeant BJ Blazcowicz faces his most dangerous assignment ever. WOLFENSTEIN III: IRAQ & ROLL!" Now THAT would be a game I would play. 

[moreover] Calpundit links to a loooong list of quotes from the Bush administration about WMD's, saying, "So please don't insult our intelligence by pretending that WMD wasn't the main selling point of the war. We all know it was." Yup.

And I hope Johno feels better soon. Though likely, he will pretend to be ill for longer than strictly necessary, if only to get more attention from Goody Two-Cents.

Mike, you raised an interesting point - it is really the elephant in the refrigerator of this whole issue. Oil is why we are interested in the Middle East, but not, say, Burkina Faso. Oil is the corrupting influence throughout the region. We, and some other parts of the world, are wealthy. We got this way not because we were sitting on enormous goldmines of strategic and valuable resources. We got wealthy through industry, trade, and work. These nations fell into staggering amounts of cash through no effort of their own, and like the white trash lottery winner, it has done nothing to improve their lives beyond making possible a lenghty drunken bender. When the cash runs out, they will be worse off than before. The presence of billions of dollars in easy money is a vast temptation, especially in areas that don't have our traditions of rule of law and so on.

If it is the case that representative government is impossible in the corrupting presence of oil wealth, then the Middle East is screwed for the foreseeable future. Hybrid cars reduce the need for oil, but do not eliminate it. Electric or fuel cell vehicles only change the way oil is used - instead of burning it in your car directly, oil is burned in power plants. Germany used synthetic fuels in the second world war, but only because they had no other choice. They are, and are likely to remain very expensive. Also, oil is used for plastics and many other things besides fuel. Unless fusion power becomes magically available, or the left stops opposing fission power, oil and coal remain the only viable sources of energy.

But Arab totalitarianism is not co-extensive with oil wealth. Egypt has no appreciable oil reserves, nor does Syria. Libya has some, but Algeria doesn't. Lebanon, Tunisia and Jordan seem somewhat freer and to our eyes better. While forming a republican government in Iraq may be difficult, it is worth the effort.

To move on to Johno's question, the only way to foster republican ideals is to begin at the lowest level. Touqueville observed that the root of the American experience with democracy was that we practiced it at every level, both by electing city councils, mayors, sherriffs, and dogcatchers; and by participating in civic organizations that elect leadership. These everyday experiences give us the confidence to believe that when we vote for and elect leaders on the national level, the system is working the same way that we experience it on the local level. Totalitarian regimes try to extinguish all relationships except that between the individual and the state. Iraq has little in the way of civic life. The only way to start the process is to - before allowing any national elections - give the Iraqis control over their local affairs. Set up a system of munipal government where the people elect their city councils, mayors, sherriffs and dog catchers. Then, when they have some experience, move on to regional and then national elections. This could work.

And as for Mike's comment on end results of democracy - we can interfere if they don't get it right. Do you think we wouldn't have intervened in Germany if there had been a communist takeover from within, in 1950? We will not allow a fundamentalist theocracy to take power, and hopefully not another authoritarian state either. We have a responsibility, now that we have libervated Iraq, to give them a responsible government. They don't have experience with that, so we can provide training wheels for the early stages, until they have more skill and confidence.

To respond, albeit a bit late, to John's big question, how oh how shall the United States foster republican government in Iraq and Afghanistan, I'll offer my thoughts. First, this begs the question, is it the place of the United States to foster any sort of government in those countries? Well, we broke it so we'd better buy it. At this point it does seem irresponsible not to lend a hand, seeing as we're pretty much the folks that punched them in the nose. I'm uncomfortable with American conduct viz-a-viz those countries, but what's done is done, and I admit that fostering republican governments is probably the way to proceed at the moment.

The thing is, if those republican governments should return a majority of anti-republican parties who want to remake the political structure of their own country, then tough. We can't say, "You can have a representative government, provided they play ball on our field by our rules." We used to say, "You can have a repressive dictatorship (and we said this to Hussein as well) provided you play ball," so no more of that shit. Pays your money, takes your chances.

But cliches aside, how to foster republican government in Afghanistan? No idea. That's a tough one. As to Iraq, the answer, though this might seem strange, could very well lie in Europe.

European states rely heavily on the near east for oil. The United States relies more on its own resources and South America, but we're talking about Europe and the near east. Oil producing countries tend to lean toward the repressive dictatorship side of things, as those who control the oil tend to control the country. Take Saudi Arabia for instance. On the other hand, as a friend of mine not long ago pointed out, in a strange reversal of fortune, my grandmother's country, Lebanon, has a significantly more representative government than other near eastern states at this point. Despite the civil war of the 1970s and 1980s, and a complete collapse of governance, as well as the personal loss of family members and possibly a legitimate claim on an olive tree farm, Lebanon has nonetheless risen from the ashes like the proverbial phoenix. It may be that it is because Lebanon has no oil.

Therefore, remove the oil from the equation, and possibly pave the way for representative government in Iraq. If the Europeans switch to synthetic/alternative fuels when they become available, or start driving hybrids, it could eliminate the he-who-controls-the-oil-controls-the-government-in-a-non-representative-fashion factor. If that is the case, the answer to Iraqi representative government lies not in Baghdad, but in Paris.

I meant that in the sense that those who freak over nukes have a problem with nukes over and above any real concern about the destructive power or utility of explosives of a given size. This is sentimentality, rather than a rational appraisal of the utility of a given weapon. Fallout is bad, but very limited. A 1/100 Hiroshima nuke (150 tons, far bigger than any practical conventional explosive, and twenty times more powerful than the Daisy Cutter.) would probably release less radioactivity than a coal fired powerplant. And radioactivity, while sometimes dangerous, has no supernatural power to harm, especially when compared to the chemical by-products of a conventional explosive.

In any event, we would almost certainly never use them. The threat would probably be sufficient for most purposes.

Buckethead, I respectfully think you're dead wrong on nukes. I would assign a far greater seriousness to the "sentimentality" you so laughingly brush aside. Is (even a tiny amount of devastating) fallout merely sentimental? We can already do 1/100 a Hiroshima, with conventional weapons. Why unearth the revenant that's been so dangerous and troublesome in the past? 
 

So... you brilliant co-bloggers and esteemed readers. Based upon your own innate genius, unique insight, and tarot readings, how shall the United States and its allies best proceed in fostering a republican government in Iraq and Afghanistan. Indeed, is that the best idea for them?

I know what I think. What do YOU think?

If you find yourself completely in agreement with Chappaquiddick Ted, its time to worry. There is no military difference between nuclear and non-nuclear weapons, except for explosive yield. People freak out over nukes, both the explosive and power generating kind. It is not a matter of reason, it is sentimentality. Of course, there are larger concerns over using nukes - but only because others react irrationally. If the military really has a need to develop weapons like this, then fine - there has long been a gap between the largest conventional explosives and the smallest nuclear explosives. The trend for the last two decades has been toward generally smaller explosives, if only because of greater precision. But the interplay between offensive and defensive technology means that people realize that we can drop a bomb exactly where we want, and will redouble their efforts to armor stuff they don't want blown up. Eventually, they will reach a point where an armored bunker target is largely immune to any conventional explosive device, no matter how accurately delivered. (Flip side of that is that armoring is very expensive.) A small nuclear device in a penetrating casing is the perfect bunker buster. The fact that there will be some radiation is not the horrifying spectre that some make it out to be. Chemical explosives have toxic residues. So does rocket exhaust. And car exhaust for that matter.

The daisy cutter of Afghanistan fame was 7.5 tons yield. Hiroshima was 2000 times larger, at 15 Kt. In all likelihood, 1/100 of Hiroshima would be more than adequate.

The Senate today voted to resume development of smaller, more useable nuclear devices, citing as a reason the changing nature of American foreign conflicts and the need for a better bunker-buster.

I will try very hard to keep the sophomoric sarcasm at bay as I ask why this is really necessary. Should we be developing these devices because other nations are? Should we use them as bunker-busters because conventional weaponry aren't getting the job done? Is it worth scaring the hell out of half the world for the sake of some Strangelovian worst-case histogram that says it's a good idea?

Obviously, I would answer "no" to all my leading questions. I don't see the strategic utility of nuclear devices in any conflict except a cornered-rat scenario. Moreover, there's the very real risk that other nations may use this initiative to justify their own renewed efforts at evelopment. And, of course, after everything else, there's the moral issues. Senator Ted Kennedy summed it all up nicely, saying "Is half a Hiroshima OK? Is a quarter Hiroshima OK? Is a little mushroom cloud OK?"

But maybe there's something I'm missing. I urge you to read the article, decide for yourself, and let me know if I'm just doomey-eyed.

[update]: Jeez, I really gotta lay off the Doom 'n Gloom stuff for a while and post about puppies, topless dancers, and stupid hijinks. I'm a fairly unserious person-- I'm sure my compatriots would agree-- and analysis of global issues isn't exactly a market I can corner.

I sure hope the bulk of this isn't true. Via Instapundit comes this front-line account arguing that things generally remain pretty crappy in Iraq, with power, order, and food still in short supply. More troops! More engineers! More food, water, and Humvees to carry them! And don't forget the X-Men action figures for the kiddies! Go!

Could it be that the MAGIC COLOR-ALERT TERROR WARNING RAINBOW SYSTEM is a-- no!-- political tool? This person sure thinks so.

I agree. I simply don't understand what is going on. This morning, watching the news with Goodwife Two-Cents, I sat through a featurette on the Saudi bombings that concluded with a note that "further attacks are expected imminently, possibly within the United States. The terror alert system is currently at yellow."

Call me nuts, but if Al Qaeda has just pulled off multiple successful attacks against westerners, doesn't that rate some renewed vigilance? After all, we raised the alert level to Tangerine when we libervaded Iraq, and Iraq isn't exactly sending terrorists out in waves against us. (Disagree? PROVE IT.) So why are we at Yellow, and why has Tom Ridge not yet gone on TV with that oddly cardboard avuncularness he's got and reminded us: a) we are winning the war; b) but buy duct tape anyway just in case; and c) look out for strangers?

Well, if the Terror Alert Rainbow isn't for alerting us about terror, what the hey is it for?

I can see a possible future where the President raises and lowers the Terror Alert every time he needs a campaign boost. Naw.... who would be that cynical?

nota bene: Even if Ridge is on the TV right now, comforting the nation even as I write this, I still don't take it back. I stand by my paranoid rantings, goldurnit!

Well, they did it. A theoretically well-meaning lawsuit has been filed in Belgian court against Tommy Franks, accusing him of war crimes in prosecuting the war in Iraq. The main body of the charges relate to the use of cluster bombs and their landmine-like ability to sit around until a kid blows his arm off. The story is here, and a longer debate is in Counterpunch. The hope is that, since the US is a NATO power, and NATO is based in Brussels, the charges against Franks will have some weight and heft. Fat chance.

And people think an international criminal court is a GOOD idea?

I realize that the world can no longer be easily divided up into discrete nations, if it ever could, and therefore, some see a compelling rationale for a world court. If anything, the multinational nature of terrorism may underscore that need. However, any international court would have to be very narrowly empowered, so as to minimize instances like the Franks Affair. The very last thing the world needs is American-style torts brought by nations against nations, or enclave against enclave, for the sake of publicity.

Moreover, accusing Tommy Franks of war crimes totally undermines the very concept. I will grant that there are many people in the world who object to the US's libervasion of Iraq, and I will even grant that, in the course of the war, people died. That's no shock. But so far, we have totally failed to find the bodies stacked like cordwood, the US-run death camps, the firing squads, the rape brigades, the engineered famines that would amount to actual war crimes. There's enough of that in the world. If Hussein had been doing these things to anybody but his own people, he would have been a war criminal himself. Perhaps then France and Germany would have chosen to act with us. As it stands, he was merely a distasteful dictator of a third-rate country that the international community needn't have bothered with (but I digress.. I'm being unnecessarily bitchy).

Which brings me to an interesting point. If war crimes, and "crimes against humanity" are such a big deal for the United Nations and related bodies, why aren't sickos like Mugabe, Hussein, and for that matter the entire government of North Korea busted every time they travel? I'm not sure I understand how such things are decided-- is it merely convenience?

Bottom line: Cluster bombs suck. Here's hoping they never use them again. But to argue that the same law can be used against Tommy Franks that could be used against perpetrators of wholesale genocide is missing the point of such laws.

nota bene: I repeat: I don't like cluster bombs, any more than I like landmines. I don't understand why the US chose not to sign the Landmine Ban, and I hope that the use of cluster bombs will be eschewed in future campaigns. They're horribly inefficient and in practice work against the US military goal of not killing bystanders. That being said, this suit is still horseshit.

also nota bene: tomorrow I'm going to disagree with myself, arguing that it is important that the campaign against cluster bombs gets all the exposure it can, by any means. Tune in to watch the fun!!

The Washington Times (I know...) has this story about how the French government recently helped Iraqi Ba'ath Party officials escape through Syria with the aid of French passports. Thanks a lot, guys. Big help. Big help.

Read 'em and weep. The TotalElfFina scandal just gets worse, the more the company's ties to the Hussein regime come out. Aside from the multi-billion dollar extraction contracts TEF had with Iraq under Hussein, there is growing evidence of massive corporate corruption up to and including government payoffs. Blech. The Guardian has this story:

An Iraqi-born British billionaire told a French court yesterday how he had paid millions of pounds in kickbacks to French oil executives. Nadhmi Auchi, 65, reputedly Britain's seventh-richest man, is one of 37 company administrators and business partners accused of being involved in France's biggest postwar financial scandal in which the oil firm, now TotalFinaElf, allegedly paid out huge sums in bribes and backhanders to expand its empire.

N.B. Auchi is a native Iraqi who has had ties with Saddam Hussein in the past, and whose brothers were murdered by said dictator.

Also see this story, from last month:

The former head of Elf admitted yesterday that the French oil giant had secretly paid out millions of pounds to political parties of both right and left in an illegal campaign to buy backing. In testimony that will shake France's political system, Loik Le Floch-Prigent, one of 37 defendants on trial in its biggest postwar sleaze scandal, said nearly all the cash had gone to Jacques Chirac's conservative RPR party until the former president Francois Mitterrand demanded it be spread more evenly.

Even better (worse), Auchi is also on the board of the French Bank that holds $13b in Iraqi Oil-For-Food money, funds that are now suspected of being misused by Iraq. Good news! Here's the NY Times abstract from April.

I'm not going to claim that France's anti-Iraq-libervasion stance was purely about the oil-- it was also about sticking it to the USA, and also about living by their EU-European collectivist ethos. But stories like these make the picture rather darker, and bring the underpinnings of Chirac's stance into question.

Side note: France are one of the leading vendors to Iraq under the Oil For Food program. That program goes away if economic sanctions are lifted, as the USA wants. Let's sit back and watch! This'll be fuuun!

Popular Science is running an article about the latest advances in "less-than-lethal" weaponry at the Pentagon's Joint Nonlethal Weapons Directorate. There is some very excellent analysis of the pros and cons of nonlethal crowd-control weaponry (after all, guns all look like guns, no matter what they are firing), some suitably awestruck descriptions of the improbable sci-fi devices currently in beta testing, and even a self-test of one of the farthest out of the weapons. Why do I suddenly feel like I've stepped into a James Bond film? From the piece: 

Broadly speaking, the directorate slots nonlethals into three categories, depending on their intended strategic use: counter-personnel, counter-materiel and counter-capability. Counter-personnel objectives, naturally enough, include controlling crowds, incapacitating individuals, denying areas to personnel and clearing people from buildings or battle areas. Counter-materiel systems are used to deny areas to vehicles, vessels or aircraft, and to disable or neutralize equipment. Counter-capability objectives include disabling or neutralizing facilities and systems, and denying use of weapons of mass destruction. As you ascend this scale, from humans to systems, from soft targets to hard, there are bumps along the way at which on-the-ground reality seems likely to strain the semantic tolerances of the word nonlethal. Take, for instance, the high-tech end of the counter-materiel category, where we find supercaustic agents designed to rapidly corrode metals; depolymerizing agents that dissolve or decompose plastics; and, most impressively, the Advanced Tactical Laser, which will produce a four-inch-diameter beam of energy that can slice through a tank from a distance of 9 miles, presumably counting on the quickness of enemy soldiers to maintain its nonlethal credibility. (Indeed, in recognizing that no weapon or confrontation can be controlled well enough to justify the term nonlethal, the directorate prefers the phrase "less than lethal.") 

On the counter-personnel front, the technology is only marginally more tame. Nonlethal, after all, does not mean nonviolent. Although information here remains scarce—and the directorate won't share details—the pulsed-energy projectile rivals the Active Denial System pain beam in its sci-fi promise. The weapon will fire a pulsed (in brief shotlike bursts) deuterium-fluoride laser that will produce an ionized plasma on whatever surface it hits. That in turn will cause both pain and a kinetic shock, and could literally knock people off their feet.

Later in the article, the author takes a couple shots with the "pain beam" right in the back!! It hurts!! Cool!!

Live from Baghdad, Salam! Pax! Is! Back! 

(for those of you who don't know, 'Salam Pax' is an Iraqi twentysomething(?) who has been posting to a weblog from Iraq since February or so. He just coughed up about six weeks' worth of posts that have backed up since Baghdad lost internet connection. Sweet! And, incredibly interesting. Read it! Read it! Read it! 
 

Well this is interesting...

The New York times is reporting that the looting of the National Museum in Baghdad is likely much, much, MUCH less severe than originally thought. The Times cites a number of twenty-nine items verifiably missing, down from 170,000. I’m going to be a nut here and suggest that the damage lies somewhere in the middle range, probably closer the high end. Nevertheless, this sucks slightly less than previously thought.

In other news, Orin Kerr suggests that, if librarians are in a purple rage over the Patriot Act's provisions pertaining to libraries, they should also be campaigning against about pre-existing statutes. Whereas the Patriot Act makes it possible for the FBI to obtain library and bookstore records secretly, that power has long existed for any enforcement agency who can get a subpoena for them. So there. I'm married to a librarian, and respect them very much. I just want to make sure they don't get off on some Quixotic campaign and ignore other possible dangers to the integrity of their profession and the privacy of patrons.