As conservatives continue to tout the good news, Time Magazine’s Andrew Sullivan on The Chris Matthews Show (not Hardball) just comes out and states what the corporate media pretends doesn’t exist: The Emperor has no clothes…or a clue, for that matter.
Pretending Lemons Are Lemonade
During a press conference Friday, President Bush proudly declared that American foreign policy no longer seeks to "manage calm," and that the violence in the Middle East was evidence of a more effective foreign policy. He repeated this line during Saturday's radio address: "For decades, American policy sought to achieve peace in the Middle East by promoting stability in the Middle East, yet these policies gave us neither," Bush said, clearly implying that long-term peace is best achieved through instability. This is a shallow attempt by President Bush to excuse his administration's lack of consistent engagement in the Arab-Israeli conflict, and a false effort to portray the current bloody violence as a positive in and of itself. As former U.S. Middle East Envoy Dennis Ross has observed, a stable process is necessary in the Middle East because "process absorbs events -- without a process, events become crises." Sen. Hagel said on Friday, "[Ross] was right. Look at where we are today in the Middle East with no process. Crisis diplomacy is no substitute for sustained, day-to-day engagement."
Yesterday saw the Mideast crisis escalate further, with the tragic loss of dozens of Lebanese lives after an Israeli air strike in Qana, and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's aborted second effort at diplomacy. It's important to remember how we got here: Since President Bush took office, and even more so following the September 11 attacks, there has been wide bipartisan agreement on America's national security priorities: to support a sustained NATO-led effort to help rebuild the failed state in Afghanistan; to aggressively contain Iraq and weaken Saddam Hussein's regime with targeted sanctions; to work with allies to battle the global threats of terrorist networks, nuclear proliferation and climate change, with particular focus on the nuclear threats in Iran and North Korea; and to lead the Middle East to a comprehensive resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In each case, President Bush disregarded the consensus, and the consequences are evident in the crises erupting around the globe. Now, with the Middle East upturned again by the war in Lebanon, the case for a return to this progressive bipartisan national security consensus is stronger than ever.Addressing
The Root Cause Of Hezbollah and Hamas
Former National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft wrote on Sunday that Hezbollah is not the "root cause" of the current Mideast crisis, as President Bush and administration officials have said; "it is a derivative of the cause, which is the tragic conflict over Palestine that began in 1948." Others have echoed his analysis. Former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell (D-ME), who led diplomatic advances in Northern Ireland and the Middle East, said recently, "There's only one resolution of this conflict and that's going to be through a negotiation that produces a two state solution, Israeli and Palestinian." Likewise, in a speech to the Brookings Institution on Friday, Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-NE) argued that the "core of all challenges in the Middle East remains the underlying Arab-Israeli conflict. The failure to address this root cause will allow Hezbollah, Hamas and other terrorists to continue to sustain popular Muslim and Arab support, continuing to undermine America’s standing in the region, and the governments of Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and others -- whose support is critical for any Middle East resolution."
Stonewalling For A Reason
Sen. Pat Roberts (R-KS), chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, is continuing to stall the completion of a report examining the Bush administration's use of prewar intelligence. The investigation "remains in limbo after almost three years" and has "virtually no chance" of being finished by the midterm elections in November. Despite saying nine months ago that "his report was near completion and there was no need for the fuss," the committee has only completed two of the report's five sections. The other three sections, which will probe the administration's handling of prewar intelligence and whether it manipulated evidence in its case for war against Iraq, have yet to be drafted. This latest stalling tactic is just another notch in Roberts' long record of hindering progress on the report. Last November, he dismissed the necessity of investigating the administration's use of prewar intelligence, stating, "I don’t know the relevancy of that." Later that month, three committee members wrote a letter to Senate leaders noting that Roberts was not conducting a thorough investigation, including his refusal to pursue “additional interviews and documents.” Roberts' continued stonewalling of the report's release has earned him the an appropriate nickname: chairman of the Senate Cover-up Committee.
"We Will Stand Down When They Stand Up"
The Financial Times reported "that US troop levels in Iraq rose to 132,000 during the past week -- the highest since late May -- from 127,000 at the start of the week." The increase of troop presence, confirmed by a Pentagon spokesman, is a response to the increasing level of sectarian violence that has nearly doubled since the beginning of the war. The rise in violence will prompt fears that the "U.S. is becoming increasingly bogged down in an unwinnable conflict." A new Gallup Poll released Friday shows signs of growing domestic disapproval of the Iraq war policy that "eerily echo attitudes about the Vietnam war in 1970." According to the poll, 52 percent of Americans want to see a complete pullout of U.S. troops within a year. During the summer of 1970, 48 percent wanted a withdrawal from Vietnam within the same time frame. After the Iraqi elections in December, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld announced that troops would be reduced this year. In May, Rumsfeld reversed course and said that troop reductions this year were unlikely. The Gallup poll also revealed that 56 percent of Americans believe that invading Iraq was a mistake -- the same number who felt the Vietnam war was wrong in 1970.
Quickies:
Rove attacks the media during his commencement speech at GWU graduate school of political management, Rove lambasted journalists for playing what he said was a "corrosive role" in politics by "focusing on process, not substance."
Is the U.S. prodding Israel to attack Syria? The Jerusalem Post reports, "[Israeli] Defense officials told the Post last week that they were receiving indications from the United States that the US would be interested in seeing Israel attack Syria." Along those same lines, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad told the Syrian military on Monday to raise its readiness, pledging not to abandon support for Lebanese resistance against .
Arguing Iraq is a central front in the war on terror, Iraqi officials are demanding that they be compensated with economic and military assistance for fighting terrorists on behalf of other countries.
"Iraq is now defending not only Iraqis but is also defending the region and the world," national security adviser Mowaffak al-Rubaie said. "So what is the world giving us in return?"
The Special Inspector General for Iraq reported recently that the State Department agency in charge of $1.4 billion in reconstruction money in Iraq used an accounting shell game to hide ballooning cost overruns on its projects there and knowingly withheld information on schedule delays from Congress [see additional Weekend Politique on this site].
The Boston Globe investigates the world of consumer debt in the United States, finding "a system where debt collectors have a lopsided advantage, debtors are often treated shabbily by collectors and the courts, and consumers can quickly find themselves in a life-upending financial crisis."
Fidel Castro announced Monday night in a letter read by his secretary live on state television that due to illness he was temporarily relinquishing the presidency to his brother and successor Raul, the defense minister.
(Sources: Boston Globe, FOXNews, NY Times, Townhall.com, DemocracyInAction, Center For American Progress, Editor And Publisher, MSNBC, Reuters, Brookings, White House Website, Washington Post)
No comments:
Post a Comment