Out of some perverse curiosity, after watching the frightening interview of Kenneth Timmerman, author of Countdown to Crisis: the Coming Nuclear Showdown with Iran, on the Daily Show, (more on Mr. Timmerman later) I tuned to Letterman to check out Dave’s guest for the evening, the smiling, swaggering prevaricator Bill Clinton. The lilting cadence and timbre of Clinton’s speech is mesmerizing to the extent that after a few minutes one finds oneself doing a, “Huh? What?” kind of snapping out of it asking, “What did he just say?” The first, seemingly interminable part of Dave’s interview centered on open heart surgery, trying to establish camaraderie of sorts. Bill is too egocentric to play along with any perspective that requires sharing the narrative. So the ensuing minutiae of Clinton’s health, eating habits, and CSI-style medical observations ensued for several mind-numbing minutes. After a commercial break, Dave and Bill spent several minutes of talking about the Tsunami relief efforts, including encomiums from Bill toward George Herbert Walker Bush, “A nice man; I like him very much,” declared at least four times, Dave, when, out of nowhere asks, “So what do think about this Downing Street Memo? Have you heard of this thing?” (Quote approximate), to which Clinton asks, “What’s that?” He had that same, “I did NOT, have SEX, with THAT WOMAN,” look. Dave explained essentially what the documents were, what their implications are, and asked Bill C. to comment on their import. Clinton admitted he may have heard something about this, and mentioned how Cheney had been hanging around the CIA for all of those months leading up to the invasion, and that he wasn’t there having coffee. And, he also admitted that many in the Bush Administration had every intention of removing Saddam early on in their first months following the inauguration. Clinton should have known this, after all. He was sent this letter in 1997 by the undersigned strongly urging then President Clinton to do just that. Here is an excerpt with the signatories: Dear Mr. President:
We are writing you because we are convinced that current American policy toward Iraq is not succeeding, and that we may soon face a threat in the Middle East more serious than any we have known since the end of the Cold War. In your upcoming State of the Union Address, you have an opportunity to chart a clear and determined course for meeting this threat. We urge you to seize that opportunity, and to enunciate a new strategy that would secure the interests of the U.S. and our friends and allies around the world. That strategy should aim, above all, at the removal of Saddam Hussein’s regime from power. We stand ready to offer our full support in this difficult but necessary endeavor.
Sincerely,
Elliott Abrams Richard L. Armitage William J. Bennett Jeffrey Bergner John Bolton Paula Dobriansky Francis Fukuyama Robert Kagan Zalmay Khalilzad William Kristol Richard Perle Peter W. Rodman Donald Rumsfeld William Schneider, Jr. Vin Weber Paul Wolfowitz R. James Woolsey Robert B. Zoellick
Of course, Clinton espoused the same “moderate”, i.e. knows more than he’s saying, knows less than he’s saying, doesn’t know a damn thing, line of “staying the course” and other horse manure. Conspiracy theorists love to say that the Bush’s and the Clintons are significantly and surreptitiously aligned vis-à-vis the Trilateral Commission, Yale, and a mutual distaste for Al Gore. Clinton’s on his way to Kennebunkport this weekend to swing with Big George in some golfing, fishing, and lobster finger-fucking. Whether or not they smell each other’s fingers, I do not know. But there is definitely something fishy going on here.
Of course, yesterday had the Downing Street Memo hearing(s) on C-Span 3. The panel was well prepared and eloquent, while the House Representatives in attendance were succinct, tenured, and reserved overall. While nothing new was really expected, and certainly there were no revelations, the die was cast, the first step toward Congressional hearings was taken, and where it all leads remains to be seen. CNN prior to, during, and after the hearings was almost tacit on the subject, preferring to run propagandistic, 30 minute stories in series, of a family whose entire male contingent, four brothers and a father, have served or are serving in Iraq presently. No scenes of the insanity of war; only the pep talk by the CO, declarations of patriotism, and obligatory heart tugging familial scenes. Then there was a 20 minute piece on Ford motor vehicles that are being recalled because the cars are bursting into flames. Both stories could have been done much more succinctly without loss of efficacy. Wasn’t there a recent time when the White House called CNN to tell them not to play a certain clip where a young boy seated behind the podium falls asleep as the President is speaking? I got the feeling the networks had received a call from McClellan telling them to avoid the DSM hearing as well. No proof; just a hunch. When CNN did discuss the DSM memo today, it countered with a clip of Gephardt, sounding like a crazy uncle, saying that people should stop talking about how or why we got there (Iraq), and focus on winning. How about some cake and ice cream Dick?
Allow me to double back and discuss Jon Stewart’s guest Thursday night. First, remember Kenneth Pollack and his Next Stop Baghdad? Mr. Pollack was propped up as a ubiquitous talking head on every 24-hour news network during the swelling of the war and justification process. Now, if you’re paying attention it is Kenneth Timmerman, author of Countdown to Crisis: the Coming Nuclear Showdown with Iran, who has become ubiquitous, and equally as facile, psychotic, and fear-mongering in his approach to Iran. (See his Washington Times commentary today.) Iran is going through a transition that will change its geopolitical makeup for decades. The median age in Iran is 23 years old. Their internal politics is in flux, and the populace seems intent on modernization culturally, economically, and certainly politically. This is inevitable. An excellent book reflecting upon modern Iranian culture and political resistance is In the Rose Garden of the Martyrs, by Christopher de Bellaigue. This is a book for those who enjoy literature and quality writing. If you’d prefer more policy wonkering, you can poison you mind with Pollack’s, Persian Puzzle. Just beware the likes of Kenneth Timmerman, who the administration will be using to fortify their posturing toward Iran in the coming months.
Moving on, I don’t always agree with Mr. Jacob G. Hornberger (whisper: he’s a libertarian), but he sure as hell nailed the overview with this piece:
From Communism to Terrorism
Then read this post:
One of the reasons that the Iraq war will likely to turn out to be a disaster for the United States lies with the U.S. soldiers whom U.S. officials have been placed in a position of “Kill or be killed” in Iraq. Given the confusion over why President Bush invaded Iraq in the first place, the soldiers themselves have to be filled with confusion as to what they’re killing or dying for. WMD? Democracy-spreading? Liberation? Establishing an Islamic Shi’ite regime? Getting Saddam? Fighting the “war on terrorism”? Serving as magnet for “terrorists”? Vengeance for 9/11? Anger over the assassination attempt on the president’s father? Oil? Protecting Israel? Regime change? Each U.S. soldier has probably settled on one or two favorite rationales as a way to motivate himself. But how can he really be sure as to the real reason for going to war? And the disclosure of the smoking-gun Downing Street Memo only makes things more confused for the individual soldier. Imagine lying there on the ground in Iraq, dying with shrapnel in your gut and asking your commanding officer, “Sir, what exactly was this all about again?”
His piece yesterday on the Kurdish abduction of minority Arabs and Turkmen is also worthy of your consideration.
Also worthy of your consideration are the Bush appointments of Paul Wolfowitz to head the World Bank (done) and John Bolton to be ambassador to the United Nations. Both of these guys, as you recall from above, were signatories on that letter to Clinton in 1997. That’s because they both belong to this noble group, the Project for the New American Century (William Kristol, Chairman). Now, consider the ideas in this article by Ron Paul:
The “United Nations Reform Act of 2005” masquerades as a bill that will cut US dues to the United Nations by 50% if that organization does not complete a list of 39 reforms. On the surface any measure that threatens to cut funding to the United Nations seems very attractive, but do not be fooled: in this case reform “success” will be worse than failure. The problem is in the supposed reforms themselves-- specifically in the policy changes this bill mandates. The proposed legislation opens the door for the United Nations to routinely become involved in matters that have never been part of its charter. Specifically, the legislation redefines terrorism very broadly for the UN’s official purposes-- and charges it to take action on behalf of both governments and international organizations. What does this mean? The official adoption of this definition by the United Nations would have the effect of making resistance to any government or any international organization an international crime. It would make any attempt to overthrow a government an international causus belli for UN military action. Until this point a sovereign government retained the legal right to defend against or defeat any rebellion within its own territory. Now any such activity would constitute justification for United Nations action inside that country. This could be whenever any splinter group decides to resist any regime-- regardless of the nature of that regime.
And one further point for further consideration: Bush seemed to be implying early last week that he was giving serious consideration to the idea of closing Guantanamo. Then Cheney came sweeping down like a bird of prey to state emphatically that this will never happen (with the incoherent support of Rumsfeld). Perhaps the fact that another Halliburton company has a contract to build a $30 million jail at Guantanamo has something to do with Dick’s consternation in the matter. Read here. (I tried to cut & paste from the article five times, and five times Microsoft Word mysteriously had problems and had to shut down…”Paranoia will destroy ya.” –the Kinks). Anyway, did I say Cheney? I meant Tom Cruise.
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