Gary Farber of Amygdala (and sometime contributor to the comments here) is having some serious troubles. He’s put out a plea for help (as in $$$) — or for work he can do remotely as an editor, proofreader, or researcher.
Just think — if we had a decent health care policy in this country, this wouldn’t be an issue.
We’re in big trouble.
Have a look at The Washington Note, whose latest begins like this:
Washington intelligence, military and foreign policy circles are abuzz today with speculation that the President, yesterday or in recent days, sent a secret Executive Order to the Secretary of Defense and to the Director of the CIA to launch military operations against Syria and Iran.
The President may have started a new secret, informal war against Syria and Iran without the consent of Congress or any broad discussion with the country.
If this is true, we’re in very big trouble. Or, if the rumor was sparked by an order ‘only’ authorizing clandestine operations (or, worse, bombardment) as a form of provocation, this is serious stuff. But even if it’s not at all true in any way, we’re in pretty big trouble, as the spread of this rumor means we’ve reached a point in our politics when sober, quite moderate, people like Steve Clemons are starting at shadows.
I can only remember one time that felt like this: when Nixon was in the last weeks of his Presidency, and people — including the then-Secretary of Defense– got worried that Nixon might try to start a war to distract the country from his troubles, or even stage some sort of coup. People in DC even began to speculate as to what military forces could be assembled as a counterweight in the event that Nixon, rumored to be drunk and unstable, chose to subvert the Constitution.
According to reports published after Nixon resigned, Defense Secretary James Schlesinger even went as far to tell some of the highest-ranking military officers to inform him if any ‘extraordinary orders’ went out from the White House and to refrain from carrying out any orders which came from the White House outside the normal military channels. (An action, incidentally, of dubious formal legality on the part of both James Schlesinger and his generals.)
Those were not good times.
Any time there is serious speculation by ordinarily sober people that the President has launched a secret war against one — or two! — countries, well, those are not good times either.
I think this is true whoever you think is at fault — the administration for being Hell-bent for lunacy, or the DC Democrats (or if you prefer the DC Establishment), for being a bunch of strategic cowards. Whenever the level of trust within the governing class has so broken down, we are in for hard times indeed.
And if, as Clemons’s article suggests, the White House is launching a new secret war (or two), then we’re far worse off than we were in 1974, for who in the modern White House would cast him or herself as our modern James Schlesinger?
U.S. Forces Raid Iranian Consulate in Iraq, Detain 5 (Update2)
U.S. forces in Iraq raided Iran’s consulate in the northern city of Arbil and detained five staff members, a state-run Iranian news service said.
The U.S. soldiers disarmed guards and broke open the consulate’s gate before seizing documents and computers during the operation, which took place today at about 5 a.m. local time, the Islamic Republic News Agency said. There was no immediate information on whether any of those detained are diplomats.
Was this a premeditated and intentional provocation? I’d bet yes. We’ll know I’m wrong and that it wasn’t if the US releases the diplomats and issues a full apology in the next very few hours. Any longer than that and they did it on purpose.
Recall, in this context, how the US felt when Iranian students, supported by their government, seized the US embassy in Tehran…
Update: The first US statement is encouraging. It is not bellicose:
U.S. forces detained six Iranian officials for questioning in the northern Iraqi city of Irbil, seat of the Kurdish regional government, an American official said Thursday.
But the official disputes accounts from Iran that the troops broke open a consulate gate and conducted a raid.
“No shots were fired. No altercation ensued,” the U.S. official. “It was a knock on the door and ‘Please come out.’ “
Iran’s government-run Islamic Republic News Agency reported five people were detained and said U.S. forces disarmed guards, broke open the consulate gate and confiscated computers and documents.
The U.S. official asserted the Iranians were not inside an officially designated diplomatic consulate or embassylike building.
Iraqi state-run TV network Al-Iraqiya identified the site as an Iranian consulate, but the Iraqi Foreign Ministry described the building as a “diplomatic representation.”
The U.S. official would not identify the Iranian officials or say why they were being questioned.
Codeweavers, the people who make Windows apps run under Linux, have just released version 6.0 of CrossOver Office, with a ton of support for popular applications, notably World of Warcraft.
But according to the CodeWeavers – CrossOver Office – Change Log, they still don’t support the one application I need most of all: Wordperfect for Windows.
Today is the International Day to Shut Down Guantanamo.
And there are major reasons to shut that place down now. See, for example, Human Rights Watch, Guantanamo Five Years Later: It’s Time for Justice.
There will demonstrations all over the world — including here in Miami. A friend writes:
The Miami Chapter of Amnesty International will be participating the in the demonstration on Thursday, January 11, 2007 asking for the closure of Guantanamo. It will be at the intersection of NW 87 Ave and 36 St, one block from Southcom from 7:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m.
The flyer for this event has this additional info:
Park at the Miami West Park, 3000 N.W. 87th Ave. 3 blocks south of the event. This park is also a peaceful rest area, should you need to sit down for a spell.
The Guantanamo prisoners have never been charged, tried, or convicted of any crime. We are a nation of laws and our humanity is threatened when we accept or allow unjust imprisonment, torture and even deaths in the name of America.
Many of us will wear orange jumpsuits and hoods. We will each take on the name of one prisoner and stand for their rights.Miami for Peace is sponsoring this action with Global Exchange, CODEPINK Women for Peace, United for Peace and Justice, the Bill of Rights Defense Committee, Veterans for Peace South Florida, Miami Chapter of Amnesty International and many others.
As DKos asks, Will This Outrageous Outlawry Never Be Stamped Out?
Bush looked scared.
The so-called new tactics are not new, the escalation while large in human terms is too small to matter in strategic terms, the troops being sent over will not in the main have proper equipment (the armor hasn’t been built yet), and they will not “win” the conflict — whatever “win” means in this context.
Rattling the saber against Iran and Syria is sort of new — it’s been policy for a while, but this is more open.
Overall, I see this as a bookend to Bush’s post-9/11 speech, about a week after the attack. I cried at that one — I saw it as making an open-ended commitment to an endless, formless, armed conflict against vague enemies, a conflict so prolonged it would eat my children, then quite young. I didn’t cry today, I’m too numbed by all that’s led up to this.
Best case: Today is the day that Bush started to lose his base, at least as much on body language as on bankrupt policy. But will the loss come quickly enough to slow or stop the carnage?
Worst case: We’re all seriously f***ed.
Update: image via Gen. JC Christian, Patriot.
Jotwell Blenderlaw