The new classified National Intelligence Estimate on the situation in Iraq, according to sources in the government, is very pessimistic about the outcome of our policies in Iraq:
The estimate outlines three possibilities for Iraq through the end of 2005, with the worst case being developments that could lead to civil war, the officials said. The most favorable outcome described is an Iraq whose stability would remain tenuous in political, economic and security terms."There's a significant amount of pessimism," said one government official who has read the document, which runs about 50 pages.
And this assessment was completed before things got significantly worse over the last few weeks, with our military commanders in Iraq admitting that there are significant portions of Iraq that are no longer under our control, not to mention the sharp increase in insurgent activity that appears to be more coordinated and sophisticated than ever, leading to this:
US military officers in Baghdad have warned they cannot guarantee the security of the perimeter around the Green Zone, the headquarters of the Iraqi government and home to the US and British embassies, according to security company employees.
At a briefing earlier this month, a high-ranking US officer in charge of the zone's perimeter said he had insufficient soldiers to prevent intruders penetrating the compound's defences.The US major said it was possible weapons or explosives had already been stashed in the zone, and warned people to move in pairs for their own safety. The Green Zone, in Baghdad's centre, is one of the most fortified US installations in Iraq. Until now, militants have not been able to penetrate it.
The symbolic handover of power to an Iraqi government (which no one really took seriously, knowing that the US was still in charge of what went on), done in the hopes of diminishing the appeal of the insurgency, appears to have failed miserably in that task. And as usual, the response of the politicians is not to have a serious discussion on how to solve the problem, but how to best spin it for their side:
As described by the officials, the pessimistic tone of the new estimate stands in contrast to recent statements by Bush administration officials, including comments on Wednesday by Scott McClellan, the White House spokesman, who asserted that progress was being made."You know, every step of the way in Iraq there have been pessimists and hand-wringers who said it can't be done," Mr. McClellan said at a news briefing. "And every step of the way, the Iraqi leadership and the Iraqi people have proven them wrong because they are determined to have a free and peaceful future."
President Bush, who was briefed on the new intelligence estimate, has not significantly changed the tenor of his public remarks on the war's course over the summer, consistently emphasizing progress while acknowledging the difficulties.
Mr. Bush's opponent, Senator John Kerry, criticized the administration's optimistic public position on Iraq on Wednesday and questioned whether it would be possible to hold elections there in January.
"I think it is very difficult to see today how you're going to distribute ballots in places like Falluja, and Ramadi and Najaf and other parts of the country, without having established the security,'' Mr. Kerry said in a call-in phone call to Don Imus, the radio talk show host. "I know that the people who are supposed to run that election believe that they need a longer period of time and greater security before they can even begin to do it, and they just can't do it at this point in time. So I'm not sure the president is being honest with the American people about that situation either at this point."
Kerry is no doubt correct in that assessment, but he's offered absolutely nothing in the way of a solution. Alexander Cockburn offers the best assessment I've seen of the utterly incompetent Kerry campaign. In noting that Kerry has made little use of the mountains of damning evidence in the 9/11 commission's report, including manipulation of intelligence and much more, Cockburn says:
But no, Kerry hops around on the issue all summer and then, after all the war-whoops in Boston, he loses it at the Grand Canyon, saying that 'knowing then what he knows today' about the lack of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons in Iraq, he still would have voted to authorize the war. This was after he sent out Jamie Rubin, former spokesman at the State Department, to tell the Washington Post that 'in all probability', Kerry would have launched a military attack to oust Hussein by now if he were president.As a piece of tactical stupidity it's hard to beat, particularly when there was absolutely no pressure on Kerry to say, or have Rubin say, any such thing. There on the plate in front of Kerry was probably the best documented account of White House deceptions in living memory and he thrust it away. Fake WMDs are off the table.
In fact the whole war is off the table, vanishing into velleities as Kerry refines and redefines, shifts from foot to foot and says he would have done it all different, As the WMD issue vanished back into the kitchen and Kerry began to plummet in the polls Rubin was redeployed. He apologized to the Washington Post for his 'in all probability' phrase and ventured that it was 'unknowable' whether Kerry would have waged the war. How about that for a rallying cry to those millions of antiwar voters out there! From No to Unknowable.
Cockburn is right. This is easily the most vulnerable incumbent president since Jimmy Carter, and Kerry can't make headway against him because Kerry is an astonishingly bad campaigner and his political team, next to Bush's, looks like the Bad News Bears against the New York Yankees. But on a much larger level, it just shows once again the utter vacuousness of our electoral system. No real issues discussed. No real solutions offered. Only spin, by both parties. No one is talking about the fact that we are trillions of dollars in debt. In fact, Kerry and Bush are both proposing over $2 trillion in new spending. The only difference between them is that Kerry wants to raise taxes to pay for the new spending, while Bush wants to delay the higher taxes until he's out of office, when the next guy will have to raise them to pay the interest on the debt he ran up in office. No one is talking seriously about how we confront the threat from Islamic fundamentalism. Cockburn sums it up beautifully:
The left is in a funk, spouting nonsensical scenarios about 9/11, abandoning all long-term issues. Meanwhile the Empire is out of money, the housing bubble due to burst in the not too distant future. Why talk about that? In this election reality is off the table. As someone said, back in 1995, "Political campaigns are the graveyard of real ideas and the birthplace of empty promises." Who said that? Teresa Heinz in the Utne Reader, just before she married Kerry.
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It is weird isn't it? The Republicans are more exposed on National Security than I've ever seen them in my adult life and the dems just can't seem to sink a lay-up on it.
Oh well. I doubt the Republic will fall if Bush is re-elected again. Bush is great fun to ridicule and all problems will be his problems. And my guess is his WH will be about ripe for about 20 different scandals.
With interest rates headed higher, oil poised to double, Al Qaeada running unconstrained in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and Iraq festering, I don't really envy the winner in November.
I think the problem the dems make is similar to the one I see scientists who aren't familiar with the tactics of creationism make when they're opposing it.
They're too nice. They're too civil. They don't respond to sound bits and ugly rhetoric, thinking that somehow the public will see them as the better man. And that does not work when a large portion of the public is composed of fundamentalist Christians who are balancing things like the Iraq boondoggle against manufactured issues like Gay Marriage.
To counter the Big Lie, you have to Shout The Ugly Truth Often. You can't play nice with goons.
This election becomes more frustrating by the day. Not long ago, I knew I was voting for Kerry. Not because I liked him- I don't. It was just that I hated Bush more than can be described. In fact, the man terrifies me.
Now I don't know what to do. The lesser of two evils argument has never seemed more absurd than now. The utter incompetence with which Kerry has handled this campaign makes Gores fiasco four years ago look like Clinton's smash sucess in '92. I voted for Nader in 2000, but he's done nothing to build a stronger groundwork for a viable third party since then. As you recently pointed out, Ed, in linking to Positive Liberty, the Libertarian party has nominated a nutjob. So what do I do here? Do I grit my teeth and vote Kerry The Clown? Do I once again make the largely symbolic vote for a third party candidate, knowing that neither candidate will likely make serious efforts to build their party's prominence?
Honestly, more and more it begins to feel like I should just stay home this year. Normally I wouldn't consider doing that, but I am having trouble convincing myself that battling the crowds and traffic is at all worth it. It seems increasly clear that no matter what I do this November, we're all completely screwed. So why bother? I really just don't know what to do at the moment.
Uggg.
Chris-
I think there are a whole lot of people who feel the same way. It's very frustrating. It's truly sad to see how far we've fallen. Our political discourse has gone off the edge of a cliff. Where once we published the Federalist and Anti-Federalist Papers and were home to the Lincoln-Douglas debates, our disagreements are now settled through dishonest 30 second spots and dueling catchphrases. I fear we have seen our republic crumble, never to return.
I would like to humbly suggest that the answer to our problem is not partisan politics. Electing or defeating flawed human beings (politics tends to attract the worst people, not the best) attached to flawed institutions (political parties) will never get us anywhere.
It doesn't matter much who we vote for. What matters is what we do on issues. We need to mobilize huge numbers of people to create specific change on specific issues, and force our elected representatives (no matter what their party is), to give us what we want, through the power of our combined weight.
Think Cobden and Bright, and the Corn Laws, only we can do what they did better and faster using modern technology, like the Internet.
Public opinion matters. But it has to be mobilized. This has been difficult in the recent past, but technological innovation opens up new possibilities. MoveOn.org points the way, althought their approach can be improved upon dramatically, I think.
Kerry is the still the best bet imo. He's pretty smart and unlikely to do somethine rash. He is unknown, but Bush a known, an ineffective and msitake prone known.
Mostly, to reclaim any remainder of international goodwill to our side, Bush has to go. The world is just not going to deal with him.
About the only people outside of the US I can imagine rooting for Bush would be Al Qaeada.
Mostly, to reclaim any remainder of international goodwill to our side, Bush has to go. The world is just not going to deal with him.
I do think there is some truth to this, and Lynn and I were just talking about that earlier. The only solution I see to the Iraq situation is to try and turn it over to a truly multinational force, not only for peacekeeping but for a serious effort to rebuild the country and get them on their feet. That's something Bush is absolutely not going to do, nor would they respond positively if he suggested it. A new president, whether it's Kerry or anyone else they put up against Bush, would at least have a window of opportunity there that could be used to bring some other nations together to do something positive. But I've seen nothing from Kerry to suggest that he would actually do anything like that. He seems so politically spineless that I can't imagine him doing something that bold.
This is a very good point, and one of the biggest problems with concentrating on Vietnam service. Even if Kerry is elected, garnering international support is far from a given. Is not just Bush's rash handling of the war, but the war itself as well. Unless Kerry presents a clear exit strategy, I doubt we'll get any more help- from the U.N. or anyone. This war is really a mess, and it's insane that there's no actual debate about it. All I've heard Kerry say is that he would get international support (though he doesn't say how) and that he will send an additional 40,000 troops to Iraq to fight a war that may very well not be winable. I am highly doubtful that the Iraqi's will accept any government backed by the U.S. or the U.N.
But like you say, Ed, Kerry is completely spinless on the issues. Reading that article at Counter Punch and the list of topics that won't be included at the debates, one has to wonder just what will be left to talk about. Kerry had the issues handed to him on a silver platter. The economy, a diasterous war, unemployment- yet he chooses to ignore all this. Yet listening to so called liberal commentators (Air America Radio, I'm looking at you), one would think there's no problem. They talk about how great Kerry is, how strong. They truly just mirror the mindless rhetoric of the right. This is truly like some bizzarre Twilight Zone episode. We're heading right for the edge of the cliff, and no one wants to be the one to actually turn the wheel.
I disagree that it will be hard to get other nations involved. Iraq has oil, we're entering a possible global production shortage or worse, and it seems ano brainer to me that they will want to get in on that resource. I think they'll line up to be included.
What has our country come to when the best we have to offer -- for the highest office in the land -- is either George W. Bush or John Kerry? That depresses me to no end because it reflects our national character. It's not just depressing; for the first time in my life, I'm truly worried about the future. Perhaps not so much for myself, but for my kids. These people to whom we are entrusting the nation's future are ruining it. What the hell is wrong with us? I never thought I'd live to see the day.
I know how you feel. I'm don't have kids, I'm only 24. But I have friends with kids, and the future at this point scares the hell out of me. I mean, I'm not even sure how long MY generations future's going to be at this point. It strikes me that this is what many Germans must have felt like to wake up that fateful morning and find out that Hitler had been elected. You see the impending disaster and wonder how things got this bad this quick. After 9-11 I knew we were doomed. I didn't in my wildest nightmares think we were THIS doomed.
Don't be too anxious. It's always seemed like the world was going to end at any time for as long as I can remember. There was one short repreive, and that was from the end of the cold war, to the advent of 9/11.
I've never been fond of doomsday concerns.
Things are better now than they ever have been in the history of the world. The "average human being" today knows more, can do more, and has more, than any previous "average human."
The qualitiative life of even the Sun King was vastly inferior to the qualitiative life of even the poor in the developed world today. And much the same holds true even in the undeveloped world.
How many wings of how many palaces would Louis XIV have traded for a transistor radio, or a TV set, or a shot of penicillian? Or a visit to a modern dentist?
What's doomed is our political sector. But then, it always has been doomed, and the sooner the better in my opinion. Politics doesn't work. Kerry and Bush are just the natural result of a flawed process. Garbage in, garbage out.