Terri Schiavo vs Elian Gonzales

Well, old boy Jonah Goldberg is at it again, making points that I disagree with. His points tend not to be obviously wrong, they usually need some exploration and examination before we can dismiss them. So what can I say? Jonah's a good writer for me to beat up on.
BTW, I saw the comment "Can we beat up Jonah about the expansion of eligibility for join the Army? He can put on a uniform and fight in Iraq now!" We probably could, but the only people who would care are fellow progressives anyway. Here, Jonah disagrees with the notion that the legislative overreaching in the Terri Schiavo case will politically harm conservatives:

First, keep in mind that what has prompted the most recent bout of panic is the passionate — and legitimate — differences over the Terri Schiavo case. Just as hard cases make bad law, they also tend to make for bad analysis. Lots of people are pointing to the fact that the polls do not support Congress's decision to intervene on Schiavo's behalf (even as the nature of that involvement has been often wildly exaggerated). The Republican party has exposed itself, if these pessimists are to be believed, with a dangerous overreach that will haunt it for years.

Uh, not likely. Whatever you think of the legislative branch's involvement, it's doubtful the issue will be a political albatross for the GOP any more than, say, the Elian Gonzales scandal permanently tarnished the Democrats. Indeed, recall that the Clinton impeachment drive was far more deleterious for the GOP's standing in the polls over a far longer period of time, and if that effort did permanent damage to the Republican party, it's hard to find today. The federal government is run by Republicans for as far as the eye can see.

Was the Elian Gonzales case a matter of overreaching? Certainly it got people excitable, it prompted much hate and discontent towards President Clinton and Janet Reno, Clinton's Attorney General, certainly came in for her share of verbal abuse as well. There are extremely significant difference's in the two cases, though. One, the Gonzales case was not Clinton's idea. Elian was found at sea clinging to a raft. This was quite naturally seen as a dramatic moment and for his father, a patriotic Cuban who didn't object to Fidel Castro's rule over the island, to ask for his son to be returned was seen by "America the Beautiful" conservatives as an outrage. The seizure of Elian from his relatives in America was legally correct, but was seen as a betrayal of American values.
The Terri Schiavo case, on the other hand, was a case of Republicans President Bush and Senate Majority Leader Tom DeLay and Florida Governor Jeb Bush deciding to make a major federal case out of what should have remained a private family matter, a subject for the courts as opposed to being a subject for national debate.
Another problem is that the courts were very firmly on the side of the husband Michael Schiavo and against Terri's parents, the Schindlers. Republicans took the side of the Schindlers against the courts. In the Gonzales case, Clinton took the same side as the courts did. In both cases, Democrats stood for legal principles and the rule of law. In both cases, Republicans have stood for immediate political advantage, taking the easy, unprincipled and what they thought would be a popular position.

As I've mentioned in my occasional comments on the abortion issue, the Schiavo case for me boils down to "Who has the authority to make a final decision?" In both cases, authority cannot be split or shared. The final decision must be unambiguous and final. People can't "split the difference" and people can't reach a meaningful compromise. The fetus must either be brought to term or aborted, Terri could either hang onto life support forever or she could be allowed to perish.
The authority could have been placed in the hands of her parents, it was instead given to her husband. People have argued that as Michael had a relationship with another woman while Terri was in the condition of "Lights on, but nobody home", than he surrendered his right as a husband and authority should have instead gone to her parents. Law simply doesn't work that way. If the relevant law does not specify that adultery makes a husband ineligible to decide on his spouses fate, then Michael's adultery is legally beside the point. Michael was given the authority to represent his spouse and he was fully competent to exercise that authority. All the bitching and griping and whining and complaining about how he was unfit misses the point that legally, he never became incompetent to retain the authority to make the decision to withdraw Terri's life support. The fact that her life support was described as merely her being fed is irrelevant.
If people don't like his decision, then their only option is to rewrite the law to prevent a recurrence.

As far as the ultimate political impact of the Schiavo case goes, Jonah is correct that the impact may not amount to much of anything. What might make it matter is if the Democrats draw parallels, make explicit connections, present the Schiavo case as representing something larger, something that reveals something unpleasant and repellant about the Republican Party.
Winning a political fight is not enough. The victory must be exploited if it's to have any long-term impact.

Comments on latest Iraq War views from the top

As to the US political/military strategy in Iraq, leftists, liberals and progressives have long since concluded that the Iraqi resistance fights American troops using Fourth Generation or Asymmetric warfare. This should not have been a surprise as the State Department did a yearlong study from April 2002 until the fall of Baghdad that anticipated precisely such an insurgency. Considering that Iraq had gone through just such an insurgency in the years following World War I and that Algeria had driven out the French in the 1950s after a similarly long struggle, an extended insurgency was quite predictable and indeed, predicted by the Future of Iraq Project. A Report (PDF) from the Pentagon's Defense Science Board agrees that the insurgency is home-grown and that it proceeds from very real grievances and disagreements with US policy.

Unfortunately, the Bush Administration appears to believe that the Iraqi resistance is a foreign entity or a group with a classic triangular chain of command that's tightly organized along traditional lines. This theory has come under considerable skepticism a great many times over the past two years, but somehow continues to fascinate our Secretary of Defense and presumably, most of our military chain of command.

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Note: I've posted these two paragraphs on my photo-essay on the March 19th demonstration in New York. Check out especially the third picture here for a look at just why liberals are so skeptical about the even-handedness of the press.

Terri Schiavo case "America is watching"

Peggy Noonan is correct. Writing in Opinion Journal, she declares "America is watching" the Terri Schiavo case. But Peggy is wrong in thinking that Republican politicians are doing the right thing. We're instead watching Republican politicians make complete fools of themselves. Terri Schivao used to have a complete, healthy, functioning brain in her cranial cavity. Today, it's very largely spinal fluid that's up there. Mrs. Schiavo is not quite a vegetable, she is instead in a vegetative state. She's never going to get better. She will never advance beyond a living, but helpless and unaware state.
Once again, as it has so many times over the past five years, the media has disgraced itself by failing to point out the well-known facts of the case as seen by the reputable doctors and scientists who have examined her. No, I don't count Doctor/Senator Frist as being among that company.
Mrs. Schiavo's husband is the single person closest to Terri and has every right to speak on her behalf and make her life and death decision for her. Her parents have no such right as long as he is alive and capable.
UPDATE (05Mar23): Polls are running very, very strongly against the Republican Party on this issue. The utter hypocrisy of defending the precious sanctity of marraige against those "awful" gays who wanted to "degrade" marriage by getting married to each other is now considered irrelevant to defending the right of a parent to overrule a spouse in making life-or-death decisions.

Messing up a six-word phrase

Michelle Malkin quotes anti-war protesters as saying: "Oppose the war, support the troops". As a person who has taken part in over a dozen anti-war marches, I can testify that the correct phrase is “Support the troops, bring them home”!

Obviously, if a person can't even get a six-word phrase right, nothing else she says can be trusted.

ANOTHER "middle finger" appointment

DailyKos tells us that Paul Wolfowitz, the Assistant Secretary of Defense and second member of perhaps the three most incompetent men ever to serve in the Pentagon (Donald Rumsfeld is number one, Douglas Feith is number three.) . Again, as with the appointment of Alberto Gonzales to the post of Attorney General, this appointment is a big middle finger, not to the domestic opposition this time, but to the whole world.

Democrats scolded on Iraq

First of all, the writer Sebastian Mallaby comments on the Democrat's refusal to offer a detailed Social Security plan of their own. Atrios has a whole list of links to people who have commented on this. Basically, it's a stupid idea because after nearly five years of pushing for the privatization of Social Security, the Bush Administration is not offering a detailed plan either. For the Democrats to offer a plan in the absence of any plan by Bush simply makes their plan the target for attack ads. It's Bush's pet project, let him offer the plan. Mallaby says:

Last year Democrats impaled themselves on the Iraq war. They were so anxious to denounce the invasion that they failed to acknowledge the most basic point of all: that, having waded into Iraq, the United States could not leave prematurely. By attacking the Bush policy relentlessly, Democrats sounded negative. By refusing to say clearly that they would finish the Iraq job, they sounded irresponsible.

Now, when a person sets a price for a house or a car, a process known as negotiating takes place. The Bush Administration has shown absolutely zero interest in negotiating anything whatsoever about the Iraq War. One does not negotiate with bad, evil people (Well, in theory one does not negotiate with, for instance, Iranian hostage-takers, but somehow the Reagan Administration did so.) And the Bush Administration has demonstrated time and again that it considers opponents of the Iraq War to be bad, evil people.

Must the US "stay the course"? Is maintaining a US presence in Iraq at all costs something that the US must do? Here's a letter from a 60-year-old Iraqi citizen who was educated in the US:

We Iraqis are afraid to go out for fear of being kidnapped by criminal gangs roaming the country with an ineffective police force. We are also afraid of going out for fear that we might be killed by a bomb directed at your troops, or killed, or shot at by trigger-happy and nervous American troops.

The innocent Iraqi population is not using armored personal carriers, nor do they use armored cars to help them protect themselves. More innocent Iraqi civilians are killed by your troops shooting at them than those killed by the criminal gangs. You probably know, Mr. President, that your trigger-happy and nervous troops enjoy freedom from prosecution for these unlawful killings. From what I have witnessed those killers do not even stop to say "sorry" for their actions.

Allow me respectfully to remind you, Mr. President, that now more than 60% of the Iraqi work force in your "liberated" Iraq is unemployed as compared to 30% before your liberation. It looks like your action has doubled the number of Iraqis "liberated" from earning a decent pay or a decent work.

The U.S. Congress issued a report on Iraq at the end of June 2004. In that report they say that, in May 2003 (just after the invasion), 7 out of the 18 governorates had more than 16 hours of electricity per day. It also says that this number was reduced to one governorate in May 2004, one year after the invasion. Now, we are very lucky if we get 6 hours of electricity per day in Baghdad, a city of 5 million people.

Health services have continued to deteriorate during the past 22 months of occupation. Hospitals still lack even the simplest things. Drugs are not available. Fewer patients seek medical treatments or examination because of the security situation and the closed streets. Doctors are not safe at hospitals. They have been physically attacked by relatives of patients blaming, or venting their frustration on the poor helpless doctors.

Due to lack of security and poor police force, criminal gangs have kidnapped for ransom a few hundred doctors. Some were threatened. As a result, hundreds of highly qualified doctors have fled the country and it has resulted in a further deterioration of health services. These highly qualified doctors did not run away from the tyranny of the dictator, Mr. President, but because of the chaos and lawlessness in your "liberated Iraq."

Records show, Mr. President, that the Iraqi government smuggled up to a hundred thousand barrels a day of refined diesel fuel through Turkey, with your government's knowledge. These figures indicate that the Iraqi refineries had an excess refining capacity allowing the country to export refined oil products.

During the "liberation" of Iraq, refineries were not targeted as they had been In 1991, so one assumes that the damage was minimal. I wonder why refineries are not fixed yet after 22 months of "liberation." I still cannot understand why Iraq continues to import refined oil products from Turkey, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia -- and to my amazement from Israel. We Iraqis need to know why our money is being spent, unwisely, to import gasoline now, when we were an exporting nation. I might understand that Halliburton and KBR needed to import gasoline for a few months, but not after 22 months of "liberation."

In 1991, our refineries were severely damaged by the bombing. We the Iraqi people were able, despite the sanctions and without help from the Halliburtons, to fix the refineries in only a few months. We kept them working and going for 13 years and we were exporting products. Similarly the Iraqi people were able to restore the electricity in a few months. The Iraqi people reconstructed every building damaged by the war of 1991 in less than a year. Seeing the lack of any reconstruction efforts after 22 months of "liberation" makes me sad.

Mr. President, in 1991 America promised that Iraq will be returned to the "pre-industrial" age and they nearly did that by bombing and destroying everything. The Iraqi people surprised the world by reconstructing what was bombed. On top of that, new projects were implemented despite the sanctions. As an Iraqi this makes me extremely proud of our achievement in 1991. We the Iraqis set the standards of reconstruction. After 22 months of "liberation" and the lack of honest and visible reconstruction work I feel that America miserably failed to meet that standard.

For 13 years, Iraqis were living on food rations given by the government. We were told that our government was robbing us and providing us with only 2200 Kcal per day. The "liberated" government of Iraq after the liberation is still providing us with about 2200 Kcal per day of food rations.

The government of Iraq used to spend about $150 million a month to import and distribute the food rations. According to your CPA Inspector General, $8.8 billion dollars were unaccounted for in one year. Mr. President, these $8.8 billion are enough to feed all the people of Iraq for nearly 60 months. This fiscal irresponsibility and the lack of transparency in spending our money make me wonder about the aim of the "liberation" of Iraq. I'm sorry to say that the Iraqi people are being robbed blind. We are also being "liberated" from our wealth.

So what I'm not at all clear on is: exactly what constructive good are Americans doing in Iraq? What exactly are Americns accomplishing? We "must" stay in? Why?

Why Joe Lieberman is a traitor

Amazingly, this is a fact that requires explanation. There are still people out there who just don't get it. The Republicans put up S. 256, the Bankruptcy Reform Bill to make bankruptcy harder while of course making life easier for credit card companies. Thus, the citizen gets hit with reduced financial options, while the people profiting off of financial hardship get to make more money than ever. As the LA Times says:

The bankruptcy bill that passed a key vote in the Senate on Tuesday is driven by the premise that the nation is under siege by an army of deadbeats running up credit card bills, declaring personal bankruptcy and sticking honest Americans with the tab. That's the credit card and banking industries' story, and they're sticking to it. We can all guess who will profit from the bill.

Senator Joe Lieberman is identified as one of the Senators who made the bankruptcy bill possible. Apparently, he had second thoughts:

Lieberman Statement on Vote Against Bankruptcy Reform Bill

WASHINGTON - Senator Joe Lieberman (D-CT) today made the following statement on the passage of S. 256 the Bankruptcy Reform Bill by a vote of 74 to 25.

“I have always supported bankruptcy reform legislation in the Senate when it has reflected a bipartisan effort to enact a balanced bill for both debtors and creditors and I have opposed it when confronted with a bill that seemed one-sided. This is not a balanced bill. I voted against this bill because it failed to close troubling loopholes that protect wealthy debtors, and yet it deals harshly with average Americans facing unforeseen medical expenses or a sudden military deployment. The Senate simply rejected out of hand many worthwhile amendments that would have protected these and other working Americans who find themselves in dire financial straits through no fault of their own. As a result, I believe this is a seriously flawed bill and I am disappointed at its passage.”

The Bull Moose responds with a piece describing Lieberman's on-the-one-hand, on-the-other-hand, voting-versus-editorializing stance as:

This should be a lesson for all those lefties who have been in a full-throated fury against Joe. He is a Democrat in the proud tradition of Truman, JFK and Scoop. Unfortunately, some in the party are in a purge mode to ensure that the donkey will be in the wilderness as long as old Moses and the chosen ones.

As for the Moose, he prefers tough, independent and smart donkeys. Undoubtedly, apologies will be on the way to Joe from those misguided lefties.

Major problem here. There was an appropriate time and place to force the Republicans to go back to the drawing board and come up with an alternative to the bankruptcy bill. Senators (and Representatives) have frequently sent bills back to be re-thought, re-negotiated and re-justified. That time was during the time when the bankruptcy bill was being voted on. Now that the bill is law, it's a completely useless waste of time and space to say “Gee, I wasn't completely happy with that bill.”

Example of what I mean involve what some consider netiquette (Internet etiquette). When one posts a full article without qualifying it in any way, that's considered an endorsement in full. An acquaintance of mine sent out an email in 1998 calling Bill Clinton's behavior with Monica Lewinsky “disgusting” and that railed on about how awful Clinton was and how he should be impeached. My acquaintance was very distressed because liberals she had sent the email to “...acted as though I had written it! I was just passing it on!”. As we in the Navy say about various crimes and misdemeanors, she “knowingly and deliberately” passed it on. She passed the message on in the full knowledge of what it said and should have been aware of how people would take it. Another example is that I recently had a buddy pass on an email about how Giuliana Sgrena got shot at near an American roadblock in Baghdad. I hit the “reply all” button and said that I thought the headline blaming the Americans for deliberately opening fire went beyond the evidence provided in the piece (I've since concluded there is strong evidence to believe the accusation is true, but that doesn't excuse the headline as they still went beyond the evidence that was available at the time.) My buddy told me later that he had doubts about the article. Well, again, according to netiquette, the time and place to have said so was in the message that contained the original article. My buddy passed on the article wholesale and without comment, meaning he endorsed it in full.

By the same token, there was a time and a place for Lieberman to have objected to the bankruptcy bill. That was when the bill was being voted on in the Senate. For Lieberman to come out later saying he wasn't entirely happy with the bill was a classic case of “too little, too late”. Lieberman is a traitor to the Democratic Party and should be campaigned against in 2006.

Absolutely amazing incompetence

Amazing! Just absolutely amazing. Again, as we've often had, we have the question of “What does it mean to 'Support the Troops' “? Obviously to me and other progressions and I would hope to all true red-blooded Americans, it would mean to push for competent leadership and plenty of advice and criticism for leaders who are incompetent. Here's an article that calls that into question.

The war in Iraq was hardly a month old in April 2003 when an Army general in charge of equipping soldiers with protective gear threw the brakes on buying bulletproof vests.

The general, Richard A. Cody, who led a Pentagon group called the Army Strategic Planning Board, had been told by supply chiefs that the combat troops already had all the armor they needed, according to Army officials and records from the board's meetings. Some 50,000 other American soldiers, who were not on the front lines of battle, could do without.

In the following weeks, as Iraqi snipers and suicide bombers stepped up deadly attacks, often directed at those very soldiers behind the front lines, General Cody realized the Army's mistake and did an about-face. On May 15, 2003, he ordered the budget office to buy all the bulletproof vests it could, according to an Army report. He would give one to every soldier, "regardless of duty position."

The article then categorizes misstep after inexplicable delay after sheer idiocy.

In the case of body armor, the Pentagon gave a contract for thousands of the ceramic plate inserts that make the vests bulletproof to a former Army researcher who had never mass-produced anything. He struggled for a year, then gave up entirely. At the same time, in shipping plates from other companies, the Army's equipment manager effectively reduced the armor's priority to the status of socks, a confidential report by the Army's inspector general shows. Some 10,000 plates were lost along the way, and the rest arrived late.

This just an absolutely staggering story. An unqualified person was just handed a contract that was critical to the lives and safety of our troops. The fellow not only had no experience, “He struggled for a year, then gave up entirely. “ The contract was limited to just this one fellow? Nobody in the Pentagon ever got back to this fellow to see to it that he could do the job? Nobody monitored his progress? Nobody gave a rat's patootie to see how the contract was going? DailyKos is right. “For this alone, Rumsfeld should resign. It is inexcusable. “

David Horowitz explained

Horowitz is a bit of a puzzle. He used to be a left-winger and is now a right-winger. What makes his case unusual is his apparent sincerity.

Back when I was in the Navy, I noted that people have the tendency to be very consistent. If a sailor took a careless, lackadaisical attitude towards swabbing the deck (mopping the floor) or filing records or keeping a sharp eye on watch, it was very likely that the sailor also wouldn't be very good at more urgent tasks like keeping a sailors pay accounts updated, making sure that the machinery that kept helicopters aloft were in good working order or seeing to it that items being craned up from the pier made it safely into our cargo holds. If a person could not be trusted to do one type of task, it was usually futile to hope they'd be good at another.

Conversely, if the sailor took a conscientious attitude towards non-vital tasks, treating them as though they were important, it was extremely likely they'd be trustworthy at tasks that truly were important. This fundamental attitude towards one's work was not something that fluctuated over time. Someone who took a good attitude last year usually had a good attitude this year and can reasonably be expected to maintain their good attitude next year. Of course their attitude can change, but if a change takes place, it's usually obvious why. A crisis has taken place in the sailor's life or a person in their life has had an effect on them.

Susan Faludi, author of Backlash and prominent feminist, wrote a piece on “faux feminists” who:

...define themselves as "dissenters" within the feminist ranks, but they never joined feminism in the first place; they have met each other mingling at conservative academic gatherings (like the "anti-P.C." National Association of Scholars) and conservative Washington networking circuits, not the feminist trenches of pro-choice demonstrations and clerical unionizing meetings.

Their slogan is "I am a feminist, but ... "--as in "I am a feminist, but ... I don't believe women face discrimination anymore; I don't see any reason for women to organize politically; I don't think the pay gap, sexual harassment, rape, domestic violence, or just about any other issue feminism has raised are real problems; I don't see why we even need to bother with gender analysis anymore; and, on the whole, I find feminists to be little more than victim-mongering conspiracy nuts." These are "feminists" who weigh in to the debate only to speak out against feminism's "excesses."

Faludi makes the case that women who play the game of pretending to have once been feminists do so for manipulative reasons, that there truly aren't many people who have undergone that sort of sea change in their ideology. The importance of this observation is to demonstrate that a person's political leanings are an essential part of their personality. Do people ever make an about-face in their elder years? Yes, but it doesn't happen often.

There are two public figures who have shifted from the left wing to the right wing, The comedian and former Saturday Night Live cast member Dennis Miller and the former writer for The Nation Christopher Hitchens.

In both cases, their motivations are pretty transparent. Miller moved on from SNL to be a movie actor whose characters usually got killed off and a comedian who couldn't get a good gig. People from the right wing made an offer and he very pragmatically took them up on it. Hitchens appears to have adopted a real fondness for alcohol and it seems to have affected his judgment along with his general physical health.

As neither explanation appears to apply to Horowitz, the former 60s activist who once edited the magazine Ramparts, I was most intrigued by the explanation offered in a blog commentary section by Michael Berube. I've reproduced our discussion on because he had technical problems with his blog that erased the reference I was going to use.

• Pooey! I was in the middle of a blog post where I pass on the revelation that Horowitz is still conflicted because he continued to support the Weathermen long after more respectable leftists gave up on them. If anyone has the source for that quote, I’d like to get that. Relatedly, Horowitz’ indiscriminately sweeping up everything (Katie Couric as a leftist!?!?!) fits in with the idea of his feeling guilty over supporting a group of thugs as the Weathermen had become.

Personally, I went over to discoverthenetwork and found an entry where he lumps in the entire Iraqi resistance with Saddamist thugs. I wrote him an email questioning his sanity. He hasn’t responded. Dunno why not.

Posted by Rich on 03/04 at 09:15 PM

• Actually, I don’t believe Horowitz ever lined up with the Weathermen. His late-in-the-day infatuation with the Panthers was, in fact, all the stranger precisely because he’d been reasonably skeptical (up to that point) of the cults of violence and of personality that defined and destroyed the furthest fringes of the New Left.

Posted by Michael on 03/04 at 11:14 PM

• So you don’t think that David has difficulty drawing distinctions between different kinds of political actors in general? It appeared to me that lumping in all sorts of leftists with Islamic “bad guys” was of a piece with failing to distinguish between “New Left” people back in the old days.

Posted by Rich on 03/05 at 10:13 AM

• Yeah, actually I do think he has trouble making those distinctions. He just never signed up with the Weather Underground, that’s all. I believe he was in England when the Weathermen split off from the SDS (which amounted to, what, 200 people out of a membership of 100,000), and according to someone who was around at the time, he never really understood the phenomenon by which the other 99,800 stayed on the left while not sliding off into sheer barking New Far Left lunacy.

Anyway, my initial point about Horowitz and leftist distinctions was simply that he demands we make them in his case (he was never a Stalinist, never a member of the Weathermen or the SLA, etc.) while stitching together Ramsey Clark and Katie Couric.

Posted by Michael on 03/05 at 10:56 AM

And as an added bonus, someone else added:

• Rich:

Not quite. The right actually believes that 60’s leftist groups and radical Islamist movements are literally one and the same. From Thomas Y M Barnett’s best-selling “The Pentagon's New Map:”

What really happened in the 1990s is that many of these [sixties extreme left ] terrorist groups, cut off from Soviet material and ideological support, fundamentally reinvented themselves as religiously motivated terror movements.”

Apparently, Horowitz doesn’t go this far, but he’s trying to make this association in people’s minds without being held responsible for saying it. (Needless to say, Barnett’s assertion is insane. I checked with a genuine expert on the extreme left in the 60’s and he agreed. )

By the way, the context has not been distorted for the Barnett quote. A longer excerpt can be found here. Hard to believe this book is being taken seriously, but it is.

Posted by tristero on 03/05 at 10:55 AM

So unlike the Faux Feminists examined by Susan Faludi and the pragmatic side-switchers exemplified by Dennis Miller and the physically and morally declining Christopher Hitchens, Horowitz was awfully confused to begin with. He ceased to draw careful distinctions between different kinds of lefties back in the old days and judging by the statement I've copied below, doesn't really draw distinctions between foreign opponents either:

What has now changed is not the intention of the leaders of the anti-American peace movement. What has changed is that the enemy is so nakedly the aggressor against us (and not some hapless Third World people like the South Vietnamese). What has changed is not that the enemy is more evil, but that he is more transparently evil. But that is all. The totalitarian agendas of Saddam Hussein and Yassir Arafat are no different from those of Ho Chi Minh and Kim Il Sung --- or Fidel Castro and Daniel Ortega for that matter.

I couldn't resist copying items from the following as well, just to demonstrate how far Horowitz has declined in understanding:

During our lifetimes the so-called "progressive" Left opposed:

4.The Vietnam War (to save South Vietnam and Cambodia from Communist conquest) (1964)
7. The War to liberate Central America from Communist dictators and guerillas (1983)
11. The Bush Administration's plan to finish the War to liberate Iraq (2002)

Horowitz lists several not-so-bad wars along with justified wars, but these particular items really jumped out at me

Purpose of the press corps

A writer from Michnews.com does a long, long post (90 kilobytes!) on liberals and newspeople and the press corps and lots of other things. The writer is very, very angry at how liberals are so mean and write such terrible things about the president and conservatives in general and all sorts of other things. Facts? Arguments? Good points? As Jon Stewart says “Not so much”.

One of the major points he makes in his concluding round-up of terrible liberals is that “Ian Williams of the Far Left rag, The Nation” has been working with (Gast! Shudder!) the United Nations!!

Um..okay. What else has he got on Ian?

Seems the organization that he's part of, the United Nations Correspondents Association, has been employing someone who wasn't cleared through US Immigration.

Tim Russert, who has come under frequent scathing criticism from the Daily Howler for shamelessly supporting Republicans, whether they were in the opposition during Clinton's term or whether they've been in power since Bush took office, is also listed as a liberal-loving lefty.

Another indication as to how professional and accurate and trustworthy the article is:

Cameron, who’s one of the best White House correspondents in Washington, referred to John Kerry as a “metrosexual” in a private e-mail about Kerry’s over-the-top grooming habits. But it was inadvertently posted on Foxnews.com and, subsequently, the pro-Kerry media pounced.

FOXNews.com, a corporate news website, inadvertently posted a piece that just happened to smear a presidential candidate? The idea that a corporate news website that has all sorts of writers, editors and technicians, would allow a piece that just happened to support their political point of view to be accidentally posted calls for a serious suspension of disbelief. No evidence has been produced to back up this flimsy excuse. .

Much of the column is devoted to a biased and inaccurate re-telling of the Guckert/Gannon story, the guy who somehow obtained clearance to pose as a reporter, allegedly for a legitimate news organization, and was outed after two years of being able to ask President Bush along with Press Secretaries Ari Fleischer and Scott McClellan questions during press conferences. How he got this access is a mystery as he also had a few websites where he posted naked pictures of himself and offered his sexual services to men.

The most interesting part of the piece is when the author complains that:

The bottom line is these disingenuous media leftists don’t really care that Gannon’s not from one of their precious Ivy League J-Schools: Their main gripe is that Gannon’s a pro-Bush conservative who they think shouldn’t have been allowed exclusive membership in their restricted clubhouse.

What exactly is the value of having a “pro-Bush conservative” in the press corps? If the guy is just going to ask softball questions designed to make the President look good, can't that be done in another context? This president holds fewer press conferences than did anyone in the 20^th Century. Do we really need to use up valuable air-time by letting a “pro-Bush conservative” speak?

Can't the president just appear on a FOX News talk show/interview and put out his words of the day that way? Why exactly do press secretaries need friendly faces in the press corps?

Is it really the job of the press corps to be gentle with administration personnel? The advice columnist Judith Martin, who goes by the name “Miss Manner” said that she was once speaking to a journalist who opined that it was their job to make the president (Nixon at the time) look good. Martin replied quite correctly that “It's the president's job to make the president look good.”

I read a piece that suggested that there are, quite properly, different standards for journalists who support the president (Whoever he happens to be at the time) and for those who are in the opposition. That's okay and preference should be given to opponents.

I agree completely. Opposition journalists should be given the ability to do their job. If a pro-administration person and an opponent of the administration both want to ask a question, preference should be given to the opponent. The author of the MichNews piece feels (Jumping up and down, banging on the table, hollering and screaming-feels) that journalists should be loyal to the President. The President has all the time he needs to deal with friendly journalists who gently toss him softball questions. The American People don't need a “journalist” like Guckert/Gannon who's there to be a friendly face in the crowd.

Interesting statement on possible war with Iran

"This notion that the United States is getting ready to attack Iran is simply ridiculous," Bush said. "And having said that, all options are on the table."

He said he was "getting good advice from European partners," who agreed with the United States that "it's in our interests for them not to have a nuclear weapon."

Um...er...okay. Let me get this straight now. The US is not getting ready to attack Iran. The US maintains the right to attack. If Iran obtains nuclear weapons, the US will consider that not to be in our interest. Gee, I don't remember what the US would do if something that wasn't in our interest came to pass.
Can we say "smokescreen"?
The run-up to the invasion of Iraq was preceded by all sorts of dishonest, misleading rhetoric. There's no reason to think the Bush Administration has gotten any more honest or honorable in the meanime.

Bush Administration's tenuous grasp on reality

See, this is the sort of quote from our president that just makes me shake my head and wonder at the guy's grasp on reality:

“We do not accept a false caricature that divides the Western world between an idealistic United States and a cynical Europe.”

I'm like - Huh?!?! Who in the heck is presenting such a caricature? Where does this caricature come from? What's it based upon? It's said next to comments upon Iraq. How can anyone possibly describe America's Iraq policy under Bush as idealistic? I suppose if you're insane, you'll ignore the fact that the US invaded in a war that religious authorities refused to describe as a "just war", that over 100,000 Iraqis are estimated to have perished in, that our latest “ambassador” (Read: pro-consul) is said to have been heavily involved with death squads in Honduras and seems to be running new death squads in Iraq. and ran an election that now threatens to result in an Iranian-style theocratic state. I suppose if one ignores alll that, one could concentrate on the fact that elections were held in the first place and just say that American objectives have been achieved.

This was also a rather amazing claim:

"America's Operation Iraqi Freedom is still producing shock and awe, this time among the blame-America-first crowd," he crowed. Then he said, "We continue to discover biological and chemical weapons and facilities to make them inside Iraq." Apparently, most of the hundreds of people in attendance already knew about these remarkable, hitherto-unreported discoveries, because no one gasped at this startling revelation.

Keep in mind, this is a statement made by a sitting Congressman of the US. It's like "What are these people on?" How in the heck could American troops (The inspection team tha scoured the country for WMD broke up a few months ago and joined the rest of the US occupation force in combatting the Iraqi resistance.) possibly find time to uncover more WMD when they never found any in the first place?

How can we possibly have any sort of conversation with these people when they appear to be living on a different planet?

UPDATE: Just heard a statement on TV whre Bush described the American and European disagreement over Iraq as a “past disagreement”. With the US asking Germany and France to contribute troops to the inferno over there, how can it possibly be described as “past”? From their perspective, the US has offered them absolutely no reason to want to contribute anything.

Business Privilege Tax from Stan via Marlene

Yesterday's public hearing at City Council on elimination of the Business Privilege Tax was the public coming out party for One Philadelphia. No one on City Council can ever pretend anymore that there is only one opinion out there on radical tax-cutting. I think Marc McDonald in the Daily News got it right: the tide is running our way (although he didn't give us enough credit.) Here's a link to his article, if you didn't see it, along with the Inquirer's take, which I think also captured pretty well what occurred and where we are. You'll note that while the Daily News gave One Philadelphia an organizational mention, the Inquirer didn't, but did note the range of opinions expressed. It also quoted our sign, if not our testimony.

Although I think the day was overall a big plus for us and our credibility -- our testifiers were outstanding -- some of us were disturbed that we weren't allowed at the witness table until near the end of the day. Councilman Cohen was vocally offended at that placement on our behalf, and I don't think it will happen next time.

Next time, btw, is Tuesday April 13 when the subject will be the entire budget, not just the tax bills. I've already signed up for One Philadelphia. Public testimony starts at 2:30 PM. I was told I was the third person to sign up. Please hold the date and think of signing up to testify individually or on behalf of your organization. To get on the list, call Anita Massara-Levin at 215-686-7740.

Next week we'll get back to building our broader program for the city when our policy committee meets. The committee will meet Wednesday at 1:00 at 1319 Locust St. (Jobs with Justice). Anyone who wants to talk about what our city should look like should come. Then Thursday we'll all meet to strategize our next steps both in the near and long term. That meeting will be at DC 47, 1606 Walnut St., 3rd Floor, from 12-2.

I look forward to seeing you all next week.

Stan

Reading too much into things

New York Magazine looks at a statement by Markos Moulitsas in DailyKos, that “January was the third bloodiest month for U.S. and allied troops. Will that cease now that Iraqis have voted? Nope . . . The war will continue unabated.” The author reads into this statement that Moulitsas is hoping for a US defeat. Personally, I read it as a simple statement of fact. By the time this issue of the magazine was published, the war has resumed its prior ferocity and the level of attacks are unchanged from a week before the elections.
The author also feels that the elections are a great and significant victory for the Bush Administration that should cause lefties everywhere to rethink their opposition to the war. I noticed that he also feels that:

....our heroic and tragic liberal-intellectual capaciousness is facing its sharpest test since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Back then, most of us were forced, against our wills, to give Ronald Reagan a large share of credit for winning the Cold War. Now the people of this Bush-hating city are being forced to grant the merest possibility that Bush, despite his annoying manner and his administration’s awful hubris and dissembling and incompetence concerning Iraq, just might—might, possibly—have been correct to invade, to occupy, and to try to enable a democratically elected government in Iraq.

I have no idea what this guy is talking about. When I was a freshman in college in 1978, I was aware that the Soviet Union was a declining power and that they had become a stodgy, flabby country without any real fire or imagination. Their misadventures in Afghanistan, their inability to secure the place, made their weakness all the more obvious. When they finally collapsed in 1989, Reagan was far more the guy who had been sitting in the Presidential Chair than he was any sort of conquering hero. If any of Reagan's actions were responsible for decisively weakening the Soviet Union, I'm not aware of them. The claim has been made that it was Reagan's arms buildup that did the trick. Leaving aside the fact that President Carter began that buildup after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, there was little evidence then and there has been none since to indicate that it made any serious difference to the Soviet economy. Mikhail Gorbachev has written that the Soviet Union had deep and serious economic problems that had become quite serious long before he or Reagan ever took office.

My feeling on the election is that it would have been nice had they really meant anything and yes, it's possible they still might, but nothing can be considered as really accomplished yet.

Administration figure is correct

The temporary CIA director, Porter Goss says:

Islamic extremists are exploiting the Iraqi conflict to recruit new anti-U.S. jihadists, These jihadists who survive will leave Iraq experienced and focused on acts of urban terrorism. They represent a potential pool of contacts to build transnational terrorist cells, groups and networks in Saudi Arabia, Jordan and other countries.

The Washington Post words it very gently, saying this is one of the "unintended consequences of the war in Iraq." An article from Inter-Press Service emphasizes something liberals have been saying since well before the Iraq War (This particular piece is about the accusation that Saddam Hussein tried to have the elder George Bush killed):

Saddam, according to the report, was convinced that the CIA had thoroughly penetrated his regime and thus would know not only that he had dismantled his WMD (which the CIA apparently did not), but also would know about his plans for important intelligence operations.

-snip-

The report even concluded that Iraq was willing to be Washington's ''best friend in the region bar none''.

The fact that the U.S., under Bush Sr. and Clinton, did not show interest was apparently a source of bewilderment to the Iraqi leader, according to the Duelfer report.

In other words, the Hussein regime had nothing to do with terrorism. Porter Goss is entirely correct in saying that terrorism from Iraq is now, currently, at this moment, a serious problem. What's clear is that this became a problem only upon the US invasion of that country.

Jonah Goldberg responds to critics

CHICKENHAWK REDUX [Jonah Goldberg ]

Sorry for reopening what may be for most folks an old and tedious argument.

It's an argument that Jonah lost. See Steve Gilliard's blog for details.

That’s not my intention. Unfortunately, my recent spat with Juan Cole has launched a second front of hate mail, spam and blog flames. And since I don’t have the time or energy to respond to every email or ever blog post, I figured I could respond here and then I’d at least have a link I can send back to folks.

As you may recall, Cole advocated the position that every able bodied male in America who supported the Iraq war should have enlisted.

True. Notice especially the “supported the Iraq war” provision. If you don't support it, you're under no moral obligation to go. You may be under a legal obligation later, but that's another issue.

In response to these and similar “chicken-hawk” arguments I mentioned in passing that “a few” of the reasons I never signed up before the war were my age, my financial situation, my brand new baby daughter and my physical condition.

The point is that these were the few reasons that he saw fit to mention. The following quote was pretty much it. If there were other reasons, he forgot to mention them.

As for why my sorry a** isn't in the kill zone, lots of people think this is a searingly pertinent question. No answer I could give -- I'm 35 years old, my family couldn't afford the lost income, I have a baby daughter, my a** is, er, sorry, are a few -- ever seem to suffice.

The blogger Atrios considered this an “incredible” admission as have several other leftwing bloggers. The moral outrage seems to be based on what I can only figure to be several misunderstandings and one fair point. The misunderstandings include the fact that I never said these were the “only” reasons I didn’t sign up. Merely that these were among them. I never expected Atrios to be a fair reader (he’s too concerned with my looks). But apparently this misreading has now become the official one among many on the web. I’ve received lots of email from folks who sincerely believe – for one reason or another – that I was saying my family or my financial situation was more important than those of the soldiers, marines and airmen in Iraq who also have families and, often, even greater financial challenges. So let me just say here that this was never my intention nor my meaning. If I gave that impression, I’m sorry.

Jonah did indeed give that impression by only listing those reasons. Apology accepted.

While obviously my family is everything to me, I have never thought in those terms. And I have never done anything but marvel at the contributions of America’s warriors. And, having gone to Walter Reed this weekend to meet with wounded vets, my gratitude and admiration for their sacrifices is even greater.

Visitng vets in the hospital is to be commended.

What I was trying to say was that it doesn’t matter what my reasons for not enlisting were, it wouldn’t matter to people who think it’s more satisfying or effective to hurl insults than engage in arguments.

It's not Jonah's business to psychoanalyse his critics. If he doesn't want to engage his critics, he can ignore them, but nothing gives him the right to sit there and try to read our minds and guess what our motives are.

Indeed, the fact that I am too old to enlist seems to bounce off of most of these people (to serve at my age I would need to have already served before or be in the reserve).

At age 35, he j-u-u-u-st barely made it over the line. He could have signed up when it became obvious that the war wasn't over back in July or August 2003. He would have had plenty of time then. There's nothing stopping him from doing other things there. Iraq has long needed civilian help doing paperwork-type jobs, running government services, setting up communications between the American occupation forces and the Iraqi people.

But as for the larger argument, I still think it is absurd. Every morning I get these emailed images of white feathers sent to me by folks who think I should sign up. The reference is to WWI when women would give young men not in uniform feathers to shame them into enlisting. It’s a clever bit of web-bullying I suppose. But the analogy is stupid. Those women supported the war.

Irrelevant. The point that the ladies of World War I were making was that the men who received white feathers were cowards who couldn't put their own butts on the line when their buddies were doing so.

The people reprising the role of WWI prim ladies on the homefront do not. Daily Kos’ reaction to the mutilation of American contractors in Iraq was "I feel nothing over the death of the mercenaries [sic]. They are there to wage war for profit. Screw them."

That’s not the sort of thing one says when in support of the war effort.

The lefty blogs love pointing out conservative hypocrisy. Fair enough. But this chickenhawk nonsense itself is grotesquely hypocritical. Recently many on the left took great umbrage at Peter Beinart’s suggestion that much of the left opposed the Afghanistan war. No we didn’t! They declared. Well, okay. But if they didn’t oppose it, why didn’t they sign up? What about for the first Gulf War? Or Bosnia?

These were all extremely short wars where the fighting was over long before anyone could have finished boot camp. Heck, Bosnia was an air war where American forces did no serious ground fighting at all. Again, the point where it would have been appropriate to sign up would have been when it became obvious that the war was far from over and that the Army/Marines were short of troops. As I said, July or August of 2003 would have been an appropriate time.

Look, in the age of the all-volunteer military, and in a country which prides itself on civilian control of that military, there is no shame in not signing up.

There's no shame IF you're not loudly supporting the war.

Or even if there is shame, it’s personal not political. We have, by my rough estimate, some 70 million men of military age. Should they all join-up the moment they agree the military should do something dangerous?

No, but when the military is obviouusly overstretched (July 2003, the US agreed to pay $200 million plus $40 million in transportation costs to get a Polish 9,000 troop contingent over to Iraq.) and we have young men back home who are fully able to contribute, young men who are loudly supporting the war should get themselves into uniform.

I favor aggressive law enforcement at home, does this mean I should become a cop? Of course not.

I supported the war and I support the work the military is doing there now. I make no apologies for that. I do not believe they’re there on a fool’s errand nor do I consider them to be hapless dupes and slaves to a cause not worth fighting. About the folks sending me these feathers, I know no such thing.

Ah, there we go “Lefties are all dupes!” Of who, exactly? Perhaps Michael Moore is secretly beaming orders into our heads? What are these mysterious people trying to accomplish? Auugh! “They're all trying to (gasp) make peace!!”

Note: I fixed a couple typos from the version I originally posted.

Posted at 06:39 AM

Amazingly callous statement from Wolfowitz

Wow! Just...wow. How do I even begin to describe the sheer carelessness, evil and heartlessness behind a comment like this?

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The number two Pentagon official said reducing American casualties in Iraq was more important than bringing US troops back home -- and pointed to the rising Iraqi death toll as evidence this strategy was working.

"I'm more concerned about bringing down our casualties than bringing down our numbers," Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz said in an interview with PBS television's "The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer" program. "And it is worth saying that since June 1, there have been more Iraqi police and military killed in action than Americans." (emphasis mine)

Hey, these guys are doing great work for us! Oh yeah, a lot of them are dying as well. Oh well! No biggie!

This is hopeful however. American officials are definitely not onboard with this idea, but it's a very good sign that British officials are openly talking about withdrawal.

British officials believe that the time has come to give an "indicative timetable" for departure over the next 18 months or so, the Daily Telegraph said Thursday, citing unnamed sources.

There would be no firm deadline for the withdrawal, and it would depend on Iraqi armed forces becoming able to deal with security in the country, meaning foreign troops would not leave until around mid-2006, the report said.

British officials argue that however tentative a timetable, it would boost Iraq's transitional government and undermine claims from insurgents that Washington intends to occupy the nation indefinitely, the paper said.

"Giving a timetable would be an important political signal that we intend to leave Iraq," what was named as a "well-placed Whitehall source" -- meaning an official rather than a member of the government -- told the newspaper.

"The main Iraqi parties are already talking about when coalition forces should be drawn down. American knows it will have to deal with the issue soon."

It was pointed out the other day that the ones who want to see withdrawal from Iraq are largely Democrats amd those who want to "stay the course" are largely Republican.

Talk of withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq is simmering on Capitol Hill.
It's mostly from Democrats - Edward Kennedy on Thursday became the first senator to say "we must begin" withdrawal.

-------------

President Bush won't set a timetable and Iraq's interim prime minister, Ayad Allawi, says it's too soon to talk about American forces leaving.

Looks like the British agree more with the Democrats than the Republicans.

My view on the Iranian people vs their government

Essentially, I see the Iranian people's atitudes towards their own government through the "lens" or "filter" of my early readings on the Ukrainians of the Eastern Front in World War II. Naturally, the Iranian people have not suffered brutality from their government on anywhere near the scale that the Ukrainians suffered under "collectivization" under Joseph Stalin in the 1930s and Iranian suffering under American occupation will most likely not be as bad as the Ukrainians underwent when they were under the German occupation of 1941-1944.

Nevertheless, when people speak of the Iranian desire for liberation or the Iranian patriotism vs possible American attack, I think of the Ukrainians. My understanding based on the few sources I've looked at is that the Ukrainians were pleased when the Soviets were kicked off of their land and felt at first that they had been liberated. Very quickly, the Nazis made it clear that they had no interest in pursuing a military/political alliance with the Ukraine and, what was even more distressing, the Nazis had no interest in disbanding the hated communes and allowing free enterprise to flourish on the farms.

Very quickly, the Ukrainians became "partisans" and undertook a guerrilla war against the occupiers. I seriously doubt that the Soviets had much control over this "underground". My guess is that the partisans operated independently, perhaps accepting directions from other Ukrainians or perhaps listening to Soviets when the Soviets presented themselves, not as communists or even as Russians, but as lovers of the land and of Eastern traditions and haters of the Nazi occupiers.

When the tide of the war turned, Ukrainians were largely fighting on the side of the Soviets on a "The devil you know versus the devil you don't" basis.

My understanding is that if the Americans invade Iran, Iranians are not all that wild about their government, but their lack of enthusiasm about their goverment will NOT translate into enthusiasm for American occupation. Iranians are of course fully aware of the complete mess that Americans have made of Iraq, the lack of power, water, personal safety, etc.

Is it all possible that the US might foment revolution there against the will of the government? No. America, back during the struggle against the Sandinistas of Nicaragua were completely unable to spark disturbances in the heavily-populated Pacific Coast region of that country, despite the Nicaraguan Contras being perhaps the most well-funded, lavishly supplied guerrillas in world history up to that time. The Contras were able to make incursions into the sparsely-populated North-Eastern part of the country, but by the mid-1980s they couldn't even do that.

UPDATE: Seems Condi Rice is champing at the bit to invade Iran.

Iran The EU asked Condi to join them in seeking a diplomatic solution to the Iran nuclear crisis. Condi declined, saying that the US is is actively seeking “régime change” but did not mention how the US would go about achieving this.

Gee, I wonder how they'd do that? Amazingly enough, France and Germany resisted Dr Rice's attempts to persuade them to contribute troops to the American disaster in Iraq.

Triumphalism over Iraq vote smacks into reality

Oops!

Leading Shiite cleric says new Iraq must embrace Islamic law

By Steven Komarow, USA TODAY

BAGHDAD — A high-ranking Shiite cleric who helped a coalition of religious parties to apparent victory in Iraq's elections eight days ago said Sunday that the new constitution must embody Islamic law.

"We will accept no compromise," said a statement by Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Ishaq al-Fayad, one of the three top Shiite clerics who serve beneath the most senior religious leader, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani. Al-Fayad said separation of religion and state must be "completely rejected."

Vice President Cheney, on Fox News Sunday, cautioned against jumping to conclusions about what kind of document Iraq's Transitional National Assembly will write. He indicated the United States plans a hands-off approach. "We need to step back a bit now," Cheney said. "The bottom line for everybody to remember here is, this is not going to be, you know, an Iraqi version of America. This is going to be Iraqi."

Cheney predicted Iraqis would try to avoid recreating what they've seen next door in Iran: "a religious theocracy that has been a dismal failure."

Hmm, Cheney and predictions..lemme see...yeah, here it is:

Now, I think things have gotten so bad inside Iraq, from the standpoint of the Iraqi people, my belief is we will, in fact, be greeted as liberators.

So much for Cheney's predictive capabilities. Poor Allawi has gotten such a small percentage of the vote and Sistani has gotten so much of it that it's starting to look like he might short-circuit US plans and demand a speedy withdrawal.

Alberto Gonzales – further reasons why Senate should not vote in

Rewriting the Laws of War for a New Enemy

claims that liberals have “resorted to hyperbole” in describing the atrocities of Abu Ghraib, that the tortures performed by US troops caused a liberal to “go so far as to compare [the utterly inexcusablw atrocities of Abu Ghraib] to Nazi atrocites”. The author starts off well by saying “The Geneva Convention is not obsolete “. (Note that the author does not recognize that "Geneva Conventions" should be stated in the plural as there were several related documents.) But so far, so good. By the fourth paragraph, the author starts getting slippery on us by saying “The Geneva Convention provisions make sense when war involves nation-states” as though the Trung Sisters of Vietnam did not engage in the first guerrilla war back in 40 AD or as though the Irish Republican Army had not arisen in 1919 and fought a guerrilla war until 1921 or as though Ukrainianshad not greeted invading Nazis as liberators only to turn against their new occupiers and fought what was called "partisan" warfare until 1944, when the Soviets (who had killed millions of Ukrainians through forced collectivization. Note that that means the guerrilla warfare in the Ukraine against the Nazis was independent of the Soviet state.) took back over. Quite obviously, the signers of the Geneva Conventions were fully aware that not all armed conflicts took place exclusively between nation-states. The article goes on to claim that the main threats of today come from “terrorist organizations and rogue nations.“ and that "Al Qaeda, a non-state actor" does not warrant Geneva Conventions protections.

As to "rogue nations" -

Pseudo-states control areas and populations subject to personal, clan or tribal rule. A leader supported by a small clique (like Hussein and his associates from Tikrit) or a tribal faction (like the Pashtuns in Afghanistan) rule. Political institutions are weak or nonexistent. Loyalties depend on personal relationships with tribal chiefs, sheiks or warlords, rather than allegiance to the nation.

Quasi-political bodies such as the Iraqi Baathist Party, the Taliban or even the Saudi royal family exercise government power. Defeat of the "national" leader or clique typically results in the complete disintegration of the regime.

This is an interesting definition that draws in all manner of states and regimes and political parties and other groups. The problem with distinguishing between a group engaged in a nationalist rebellion such as the IRA of 1919 and between a terrorist, non-state actor such as jihadists who have traveled to Iraq from other Arab states specifically to fight American troopsversus the home-grown Iraqi resistance that fights for nationalist or religious reasons is a difficult call to make, especially when one is dealing with captives and must decide when the Geneva Conventions do and do not apply.

Do the authors suggest the setting up of any sort of international tribunal to decide these questions? No. They suggest that such questions should be left entirely up to the "good" states. In other words, the Geneva Conventions should be tossed overboard due, not to any serious changes in warfare or the international situation, but just because they feel like it and that individual states should feel free to reinterpret or reject the Geneva Conventions at their convenience.

Alberto Gonzales should be rejected as someone who does not respect the Geneva Conventions in any way, shape or form and who shows no respect for law in general. If the above article is the best his defenders can do to argue that the Conventions can be disregarded, then all American citizens must speak with one voice and reject the appointment of Gonzales to the office of Attorney General.