Boy, the story of New Medicare is pretty darned scary.

A story of lobbying.
The structuring of voting. The longest 15 minute vote on history.
Cost estimation gone nuts.

Not good.

Given recent events surrounding the Catholic church in Boston and elsewhere, lots of elsewheres, in fact, I find it odd that whether John Kerry should take communion is an issue that the Bishops would actually want to pursue. Now that’s political savvy.

From Kurdo’s World:

Moving on to Fallujah.. I think this current event has dramatic events about the American dream of a model Iraq.
Perhaps Iraq will be a democratic country, but not the way the Americans want.. Following the killing of about 650 people in Fallujah it will not have a good reaction from the other Iraqis.
Look at it in this way, say you are a man with no interest in politics, you once hear that an occupation army has killed 650 from you in your neighbouring city, it makes you feel angry and pushes you to do something about it..
That is what is happening across South and Middle Iraq (Sunni and Shia)…Anti-US and occupation feelings are very tense and high at this moment.. This is not in US favour.

Now if there were any elections in the future, Radical Islamicists and far right Iraqi Nationalists will definitely win ! And this is not in the US favour either !

What the Americans are doing is that they are uniting the Shias and the Sunnis against them, something that Al-Qaeda was trying to do for ages. But the Americans have done it by themselves..
Instead of usign heavy military to attacka town like Fallujah, what they could have done was using intelligence to target specific people, like leaders of the resistance or radical clerics. What they had to avoid was to create mass-anti-civilians military operations…at the same time, providing jobs and education and entertainments to ordinary civilians..

From Boots on the Ground:

For us, it is not about fighting for the glory of America, it is fight for each other. It’s all about the men next to you, and that’s it. America is still suffering from her wounds she received in Vietnam. I don’t want to have to deal with a new one. We are kicking the hell out of the insurgence, and yet it seems like we are losing the war. It is really hard to understand. Other times, I do really wonder if American lives are worth losing trying to save Iraq from herself. I don’t know how this situation will be resolved with us being there. The militias and terrorists, who are now desperate, and taking hostages to stop the onslaught. If we negotiate with them, it only allows them to get more time to re-organize and prepare for more attacks. I don’t believe negotiating with them will work, I think we should just go in a crush them. However, we win militarily, but we lose politically no matter what. The only hope that I have right now that the nation I love and care for so much, to not be sent home in disgrace is if Bush stays in office. I think that will be really hard. Anyone who thinks Bush is real popular is delusional. Alot of people are upset with him. I want us to stay there and finish the job, and if we do not have the intestinal fortitude to crush this resistance, then I fear we will have to pull out in disgrace. I don’t think Americans are worth losing if you’re not willing to go all the way.

Criticism against Richard Clarke’s book Against all Enemies has tended toward circumstantial ad hominem. Contentions are flying about truth, bias, and motive. How does a reader read the book is a good question. The answer is as an insider’s story. Its not a study of 9/11 or of policy, although it does describe these things, as it must.

But the ideas we’re dealing with about “good government” and who has the “ethos” to speak about it these days are big enough to warrant a glance at the text. Something about Clarke’s demeanor is intriguing in its implacability and in its risk. In may ways, he claims things in the book that, if untrue, could too easily be contradicted by too many people and such contradiction just hasnt surfaced. Hundreds of people could refute even the most diminutive charge. These hundreds have yet to surface. Two such major payers are George Tenet of the CIA and Colin Powell, Secretary of State, and these two have been silent on Clarke.

The book, however, isn’t as troubling as reactions have made it seem, yet its implications are complex. To me, there are complex and nuanced reasons why this administration has been such a disaster in foreign and domestic policy (for readers of this weblog, this opinion will come as no surprise). And this complexity comes as an underlying thesis in the book: the Bush administration may have been an effective administration 20, 30 years ago, but not now, because they came into power making inoperable assumptions about the nature of contemporary threats, at least this is Clarkes charge, and appeared to blow-off anything sniffing of Clinton. Nevertheless, much of the content of Against All Enemies, the mundane and the controversial, have been made public already, even the revolving door of heads of critical positions in counterterrorism.

The writing itself is revealing. Clarke’s prose is almost is as bizarre as his TV image. Unusually and dispassionately precise isn’t as accurate as I can get (Clive Cussler might have been able to give the dialogue some semblance of natural sound). On television Clarke comes off as having a trap-door memory, remembering dates, events, names, conversations, and tactical method with a weird unprepared quickness, packaged with an intimidating bluntness, embrasured with a grin. Clarke seems like the kind of guy who once he gets hold of something, given a task, given the meat to work with, he’s not going to let it go until someone screws the baton out of his fist. He also seems like the kind of guy who would put people off, simply because he has the correctives at the ready. He’d remember Continuity of Government procedures at the drop of a lead pipe (see Chapter 1). If we put hacks or irrational people in charge of COG, then thats what we do, I figure.
Continue reading →

Three views:

From A View from Baghdad:

I know lots of people at the CPA. 95% of them are well-meaning, and 75% of them are competent and 30% of them are pretty amazing people. Bremer, for instance, is one of the most hard-working, dedicated and smartest public figures I have met. I can say that for many of the top people I have encountered. However, CPA seems to be victim to an organizational inertia that overwhelms brilliance.

Part of it is completely out of the hands of anyone in Baghdad. There is a machine in Washington that spits out money, and nearly as I can tell it is completely arbitrary and sporadic in its functioning. The fabled $18 billion in reconstruction money would be helpful in getting things calmed down here. If people had jobs, if the streets in Sadr City were paved, if the schools were not floating on sewage, then people would be less inclined to follow a young, loud-mouthed upstart… which is what he was last summer.

From Citizen Smash:

. . . Political disagreements about the reasons for going to war aside, Iraq IS the critical battlefield in the War on Terror. We are now seeing indications that these three groups, which in the past have been at odds with one another, may be coordinating their actions against the Coalition. Indeed, it now appears that al Qaeda may be attempting to pull their own forces away from Afghanistan and elsewhere in order to engage Coalition forces directly in Iraq.

. . . .

These groups cannot realistically expect to defeat the Coalition in direct combat. Any gains they make on the battlefield will be temporary, and extremely costly in terms of men and resources. They know this.

The goal of this offensive, therefore, is not to take and hold any particular piece of territory in Iraq; but rather to create and reinforce the impression that the United States is bogged down in an increasingly costly and unwinnable war. The objective is nothing less than to break the American fighting spirit, and force an ignominious withdrawal from the Middle East. Their models are the American experience in Vietnam and the Soviet defeat in Afghanistan.

In this goal, our enemies have found unlikely allies in the West amongst those who believe, for political or ideological reasons, that they stand to benefit from seeing the United States humbled and defeated. . .

From Baghdad Burning:

. . . And now Muqtada Al-Sadr’s people are also fighting it out in parts of Baghdad and the south. If the situation weren’t so frightening, it would almost be amusing to see Al-Hakeem and Bahr Ul Iloom describe Al-Sadr as an ‘extremist’ and a ‘threat’. Muqtada Al-Sadr is no better and no worse than several extremists we have sitting on the Governing Council. He’s just as willing to ingratiate himself to Bremer as Al-Hakeem and Bahr Ul Iloom. The only difference is that he wasn’t given the opportunity, so now he’s a revolutionary. Apparently, someone didn’t give Bremer the memo about how when you pander to one extremist, you have to pander to them all. Hearing Abdul Aziz Al-Hakeem and Bahr Ul Iloom claim that Al-Sadr is a threat to security and stability brings about visions of the teapot and the kettle

Then Bremer makes an appearance on tv and says that armed militias will *not* be a part of the New Iraq where has that declaration been the last 12 months while Badir’s Brigade has been wreaking havoc all over the country? Why not just solve the problem of Al-Sadr’s armed militia by having them join the police force and army, like the Bayshmarga and Badir’s Brigade?! Al-Sadr’s militia is old news. No one was bothering them while they were terrorizing civilians in the south. They wore badges, carried Klashnikovs and roamed the streets freely now that they’ve become a threat to the ‘Coalition’, they suddenly become ‘terrorists’ and ‘agitators’.

Now theres an arrest warrant with his name on it, although the Minister of Justice was on tv claiming he knew nothing about the arrest warrant, etc. He basically said that he was washing his hands of any move against Muqtada Al-Sadr. Dont get me wrong- Id love to see Muqtada behind bars, but it will only cause more chaos and rage. Its much too late for that… he has been cultivating support for too long. Its like a contest now between the prominent Shia clerics. The people are dissatisfied- especially in the south. The clerics who werent given due consideration and a position on the Governing Council, are now looking for influence and support through the people. You can either be a good little cleric and get along with Bremer (but have a lot of dissatisfied people *not* supporting you) or you can be a firebrand cleric and rally the masses…

Just a few riddle-like things:

1. If someone claims that 5 + 5 is 9, it is not politics to suggest that that’s the wrong answer.

2. If the crystal ball is fairly clear (reasonable presumption) and ten murderous despots are holed up in a hospital filled with children and it is foretold that they will in the future murder millions, it is right to blow up the hospital. However, should we?

3. The man who tears down his house looking for other one hundred dollar bills that must be there given that he’d already found one inside a wall is a rational person.

The problem of insurgency in Iraq at the moment is an incredible problem for current and future American policy. I’d hate to turn the latest maelstrom into a laboratory on order and “good government,” so I won’t, but the question remains concerning how to proceed. This BBC article has a little to say on the issue, though the suggestion is hidden.

I’ve neglected to write about this issue because of the welter of news and incident on the issue. There are too many arrows; too many splits; I’d call it a Yeats moment, so I will.

What is the evidence America winning the war against this insurgency? When will we be able to step back, since we’re stuck? The answer (I certainly don’t have it) will come when the politics subsides and rational strategy comes back into the picture–for that we have to wait till next year.

From Baghdad Burning:

There’s also a new ‘Mukhaberat’ or “National Iraqi Intelligence Organization” (or something to that effect). The irony is that while the name is new and the head is Ali Abd Ul Ameer Allawi (a relative of the Puppet Council President Ayad Allawi), the faces of the new Mukhaberat promise to be some of the same as the old. They’ve been contacting the old members of the Iraqi Mukhaberat for months and promising them lucrative jobs should they decide to join the new Iraqi intelligence (which, we hope, will be an improvement on American intelligence- Id hate to have us invade a country on false pretenses).

The weather is quite nice lately (with the exception of dust every once in a while). We spend the electricity-less evenings out in the little garden. We pull out plastic chairs and a little plastic table and sit around gazing at the sky, which is marvelously clear on many nights. E. is thinking of starting a count the stars project. Hes going to allot a section of the sky to each member of the family and have them count the number of stars in their designated astral plot. Im thinking of starting a cricket choir with some very talented six-legged pests located under a dried-out rose bush…

In a few days, Ill have to go up and wash out the roof or sattih. Last year, wed sleep on top of the roof on the hot nights without electricity. We lay out thin mattresses on the clean ground and wet some sheets to cover ourselves with. Its not too bad until around 6 a.m. when the sun rises high in the sky and the flies descend upon the sleepers like… well, like flies.

These last couple of weeks have been somewhat depressing for most people. You know how sometimes you look back at the past year and think to yourself, What was I doing last year, on this same day? Well weve been playing that game constantly lately. What was I doing last year, this very moment? I was listening for the sirens, listening for the planes and listening to the bombs fall. Now we just listen for the explosions- its not the same thing.

Even in the heart of it, the night sky is a reminder of order. In such a case, how far away is that sky?

This is a culture question. But I wonder if college composition can really be effective, however it’s taught, if students in the these kinds of courses don’t read or write as a matter of habit in their own personal lives?

Another issue: soon I’ll be doing a debate on the matter of American juries, and I’m wondering if students will come to class with any context, such as the problem with the Tyco case. Will a few news snippets do to lay context? Or should people come in to class having read about it? Will people really have knowledge about background?

It’s one thing to distrust print and TV news (which calls for criteria of judgement, and some warranting of distrust: distrust is often a herd response), but does this mean that we should ignore issues entirely? Shouldn’t people in general, especially if they are college students, be aware of what’s going on in the world, whatever that may mean? Then the question: can composition be effective if people come into class without some cultural context? The key term is “effective.”

So, to repeat: This is a culture question. But I wonder if college composition can really be effective, however it’s taught, if students in the these kinds of courses don’t read or write as a matter of habit in their own personal lives?

P.S. The writing that I’m getting in composition and literature courses is not a reflection of peopls’s lack of intelligence (my students are all really smart, some smarter than I am, of course) or potential but it does reflect a true imbalance in understanding of basic writing conventions and basic logic “in writing.” Given this, is composition basically an obsolete affair?

I find this article interesting because it goes to a point about how to report what people say and what do with it when it comes, and other tidbits about reactions and denials via Letterman. From the New York Times’s Paul Krugman (needs registration for reading). Here’s the final paragraph, a little nudge.

And administration officials shouldn’t be able to spread stories without making themselves accountable. If an administration official is willing to say something on the record, that’s a story, because he pays a price if his claims are false. But if unnamed “administration officials” spread rumors about administration critics, reporters have an obligation to check the facts before giving those rumors national exposure. And there’s no excuse for disseminating unchecked rumors because they come from “the White House,” then denying the White House connection when the rumors prove false. That’s simply giving the administration a license to smear with impunity.

Politically speaking, there are some people networks and politicians don’t want to anger or inspire: David Letterman is one of those people. Here’s why:

TUESDAY: CNN played the clip the day Tuesday morning, stating that the White House had called and said the Late Show did some editing to the piece and what was shown never actually happened. We see the clip of CNN anchorperson Daryn Kagen making the above claim from Tuesday morning. Two hours later, CNN showed the clip again and this anchor person said that the boy was at the speech, but was not standing behind the President as we had seen. We are shown that clip of CNN anchorperson Kyra Phillips adjusting the CNN claim from earlier that morning. Dave informs America that neither statement from CNN is true. The boy was at the rally and the boy was standing behind the President. Something strange is going on, and Dave smells a cover up. While talking about this very incident, CNN sent a message to the Late Show and claimed the White House never called CNN. CNN admitted they had made a mistake.

WEDNESDAY: But why would CNN say the White House HAD called if the White House never did? Hmmm. Dave reveals that our source, a very good source, confirms the White House DID call the CNN.

THURSDAY: CNN admits their mistake and apologizes to Dave. We see a clip of the CNN apology delivered by CNN anchorperson Daryn Kagen. Although the apology seemed diverting and evasive at times, Dave is elated that for the first time in his 25 years on the air, somebody apologized to him. And to top it all off, the young boy from Orlando Tyler Crotty has agreed to be on our show Friday night.