More Fox War Mongering; Extra Disgust.

I often question (mainly to myself) the value of anecdotes when it comes to news coverage. Obviously, they're terribly subjective, and second, they're not necessarily representative of the world at large. It's like when conservatives rail against affirmative action, and they point to Colin Powell or Condi Rice. "See," they'll say, "Black people are achieving! They don't need special treatment. Powell and Rice were/are some of the most powerful people in the world. Affirmative action is no longer necessary!" One or two cases - or even thousands - is not enough to substantively establish a larger change in a social issue like race dynamics. Just because one or two African Americans make it to Secretary of State isn't necessarily indicative of a sudden birthing of substantive racial egalitarianism.

That said, however, anecdotes do act as powerful symbols, and when it comes to public policy rhetoric, these symbols can be powerful motivators which drive action. Obviously, using anecdotes to achieve policy aims isn't the strict purview of conservatives - us libs use them all the time. Michael Moore uses symbols - personal anecdotes more specifically - to make very powerful arguments about violence in America, or health care, or the effects of globalization. It can be hard, then, to penetrate the emotional power of symbols to get down to the nitty-gritty of policy development; just the facts, ma'am.

But even then, public policy is a very emotional process. It isn't like market exchanges in which material things are exchanged for greater utility. People's well-being and emotional states are critically linked to their quality of life. When people suffer, even if they're part of a small minority, it matters. That said, Fox News has really taken the use of symbols to a ridiculous extreme. I can't imagine anybody running this piece and still claiming to adhere to any sort of code of ethics. I suppose one (from Fox) could argue that, hey, this is just one man's story. But it's inclusion as part of their World Coverage is troubling. Below is the entirety of the piece. It's relatively short.

Michael J. Totten is an independent journalist reporting on the
war in Iraq. Here is a portion of his latest journal entry provided exclusively
for FOXNews.com.

Iraqis who are not American citizens and who work as interpreters
for the American military cover their faces when they work outside the wire.
Mahdi Army militiamen and Al Qaeda terrorists accuse of them of collaboration
with the enemy. They and their families are targets for destruction.

Here is the story of one such interpreter who works with the 82nd
Airborne Division in Baghdad. He calls himself “Hammer.”

Michael J. Totten (MJT): Why do you have to cover your face?

Hammer: To protect my family. My family lives in Iraq. If they go to
the U.S. I won’t have to do it. But I don’t want anyone to know me, to follow me
and see where I live and kill my wife and son.

MJT: How did you feel when the U.S. invaded Iraq?

Hammer: Happy. It was like I was living in a jail and somebody set me
free. I don’t want Saddam ruling me. Never. I was just waiting and waiting for
this moment.

MJT: What do you think about the possibility of Americans
leaving?

Hammer: It is like bad dream. Very bad dream. A nightmare. Worse
than that. Like sending me back to jail. Like they set me free for four years
then sent me back to jail or gave me a death sentence.

MJT: Tell us about living under Saddam Hussein.

Hammer: It was crazy life, like feeling safe inside a jail. If they
sent you to an actual jail nothing changed. They arrested everyone, literally
everyone, for no reason and sent them to jail for two weeks just so they could
see the jail.

I went there three times. The first time because I worked for a movie
company. They sent all of us to jail. It had nothing to do with me.

I was given a three year sentence. My family has money, so I paid the
judge $50,000. I gave it directly to the judge, plus four new tires for his car
and a satellite TV. He gave me a three-month sentence instead of a three-year
sentence. He scratched “3 years” off my sentence and wrote “3 months” in by
hand.

They sent me to Abu Ghraib. I saw so many things. If you want me to
talk about that I would need a whole newspaper.

MJT: Is there a solution to the problem in this country?

Hammer: Nuke Iraq.

MJT: Be serious.

Hammer: I am serious. If you screen all Iraqis, 5 million of them would
be good people. Clear them out, then kill everyone else. Syria and Iran would
surrender. [Laughs.]

Right now they see 100 corpses every day in the streets.
It’s not okay to kill the bad people who do that?

OK, if you want a serious solution try this:

Charge money to the families of insurgents. Fine them huge amounts of
money if anyone in their family is captured or killed and identified as an
insurgent. Make them pay. You can put it into law. Within one week they won’t do
anything wrong because they want money. Their familes will make them stop.

The militias pay them $100 to set up IEDs. Fine them thousands of
dollars if they are caught and their families will make them stop. Give them
that law. Go ahead. Try it.

Is this guy frickin' serious!?

I see what Fox is trying to do. This interview by an "independent journalist" (whatever that means) puts a human face on those who stand to suffer if the U.S. pulls out of Iraq, and I'm sure that we're all sympathetic to his plight. It's a tough situation to be in for sure. Assuming good faith (as I am inclined to do), this man just wants to do something good for his country, and make some money for his family; not that different from the rest of us. Hell, I say, give his ass a green card, and ship him stateside once we leave, he's earned it.

One issue I have with this piece is that Totten neglects to ask some pretty obvious (at least to me) questions that I think should probably have been asked. I don't know, maybe he asked them and they were just clipped. Only he and "Hammer" know for sure. Hammer says, in the answer to the first question, "If [my family] goes to the U.S. I won't have to [cover my face to avoid retribution]." Has he tried to get his family sent to the U.S.? I would imagine so, since he brought it up without prodding and didn't mention a more feasible alternative like Syria or Jordan. The problem is, though, that the U.S. has allowed fewer than 200 Iraqi immigrants into the country since October. If we're really serious about helping this loyal ally to the United States, then perhaps Fox should look at some of the very serious moral issues that have surfaced when it comes to protecting the family of these critical U.S. allies in Baghdad. I think it's a legitimate question to ask, especially considering the likelihood of a U.S. draw down after 2008 (one would hope). Of course, Fox is too busy cheerleading a long term occupation of the country to support any sort of contingency plan once our occupation (inevitably, in my opinion) fails.

Those questions aside, though, the content of this interview was pretty disturbing.

MJT: How did you feel when the U.S. invaded Iraq?

Hammer: Happy. It was like I was living in a jail and somebody set me
free. I don’t want Saddam ruling me. Never. I was just waiting and waiting for
this moment.

Hmmm... was it worth it, Hammer? I mean, really. I think that question should be the automatic follow up to answers like these. I'm serious. Liberty, and Democracy, and Freedom more generally are all things that I value dearly. But you know what? Stability is pretty frickin' important. Of course this man doesn't want the U.S. to leave. But does he feel safer now that Saddam Hussein is dead? Is his family safer? Are his friends? Is it worth it?

Of course, we then get the obligatory story about how atrocious Hussein's regime was. I believe it, for sure. And I see why Fox is high-lighting this anecdote. Hussein was a terrible man, tortured, killed, started wars, etc etc etc. I get it. However, he wasn't the worst dictator, and if he were still around, he still wouldn't be the worst. How many people have died in Iraq since March 2003? I don't know, and neither does anybody else. So many people have died that it's almost impossible to count. The Lancet suggests that 655,000 Iraqis have died as a result of this war. 655,000! That's the mid-range. I read the report (via JSTOR, sorry, can't link to those), and the margin of error, while high, still allows for a low-end estimate of something like 400,000 and a high end of nearly 1 million. These numbers out of a starting population of 30 million; revolting.

And then there's this question...

MJT: Is there a solution to the problem in this country?

Hammer: Nuke Iraq.

MJT: Be serious.
Hammer: I am serious. If you screen all Iraqis, 5 million of them would be
good people. Clear them out, then kill everyone else. Syria and Iran would
surrender. [Laughs.]

SO FUNNY!

Of course, turns out he was joking. But you know what's even funnier? His "serious" solution...

Charge money to the families of insurgents. Fine them huge
amounts of money if anyone in their family is captured or killed and identified
as an insurgent. Make them pay. You can put it into law. Within one week they
won’t do anything wrong because they want money. Their familes will make them
stop.

The militias pay them $100 to set up IEDs. Fine them thousands
of dollars if they are caught and their families will make them stop. Give them
that law. Go ahead. Try it.

OF COURSE! FINE THEM! Jesus H. Christ, I can't believe Gen. Petraeus hasn't thought of this yet! It's so obvious! The State of Washington doesn't want me to speed on I-5. I tried it once, and I had to pay a fine. Do I speed? Well, sometimes, but you know, whatever.

Fine them. First of all, punishing the family for the actions of an individual is immoral. Isn't that what "Hammer" is afraid will happen to his family? Of course, fining someone and killing them are completely different ball parks, but it's the same logic. But let's assume that the Iraqi Parliament passes a law which outlines fines for the families of known insurgents (since, you know, that Oil law hasn't been making any progress... maybe they'll try this one out). Who is going to enforce that law? Who is going to collect that fine? How are they going to pay for it? There's no significant respect for the rule of law in that country, obviously, and the state has zero capacity to exert its will on even the capital city! They can't extract sufficient revenue to run the place via taxes right now, how does one expect them to collect fines that no one is inclined to pay, not to mention the problems with selective enforcement...

Anyway, I guess my real point regarding all this is that it's ridiculous. This interview adds nothing to the debate, provides no information, and doesn't even really inspire empathy for interviewee. Typical Fox News garbage.



(Hat Tip: Tzepish)

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Michael Duffy: official idiot

First, Kevin Drum points out how he botches Reid-Levin and how his criticism of total withdrawal is wrong.

Here’s my take on why his call for partial withdrawal is also wrong:

Partial withdrawal basically means getting your ass shot at three or four times — first when you go through all the work of extricating part of your troops while moving others to consolidate them into fewer bases, etc.; second when you make yourself targeted by being in fewer bases, meaning insurgents’ attacks can be consolidated; third, by being more vulnerable to attacks when you do go on patrol, because you have fewer patrols from fewer bases, so street attacks against troops can also be consolidated — plus you have less firepower to disrupt this consolidation; then, fourth, when you finally do withdraw the rest of the troops, you get shot at again.

And, that’s not all. It means taxing military leaders to craft two sets of complex, complicated plans, one for the initial, partial withdrawal and another for the final withdrawal; it means extra expenditure of resources and probably means extra casualties.

Partial withdrawal is the stupidest thing.

Cross-posted at Socratic Gadfly and Out of Iraq Bloggers Caucus.

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I have to disagree with Kevin Drum on the Reid gambit

Kevin claims it was “too labyrinthine” for most people to follow. I disagree, and here’s why:

While Reid's gambit have been too labyrithine for John/Jane Doe, it most assuredly was NOT too labyrinthine for Washington bureaus, or even for P1 copy desks at major dailies.

Here's the headline for the Bryan-College Station (Texas) Eagle, an area that is certainly not a hotbed of liberalism, though the paper’s op-ed page is actually somewhat progressive:

“GOP defeats legislation on troop withdrawal.”

Not much simpler than that.

Besides that, this is a media failing, not a GOP victory, in other ways. Good reporters are supposed to do, or their editors are supposed to do, news analysis sidebars on things like this, and they basically didn’t.

Now, I do agree with Drum that, because Reid is pulling the defense appropriation bill, thereby squelching GOP alternatives on Iraq, Mitch McConnell’s victory may well be a Pyrrhic one. That said, that’s not a given, either, and especially when soldiers’ lives are at stake, a potential bigger bird in the hand down the road vs. a smaller one today isn’t the best trade.

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So filibuster already

Dare I say it? Do I let my hopes out of the box?

Did we get Harry Reid’s damned attention when we got snippy and reminded him that we did not flunk Civics and know what the hell constitutes a filibuster, and what is just parliamentary masturbation masquerading as a filibuster?

Could be.

Think Progress is reporting that he is calling their bluff. If they don’t allow an up or down vote, on Tuesday night the cots come out:

Moments ago, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) announced that in response to conservative obstructionism, he plans to force war supporters to physically remain in the Senate and filibuster Iraq withdrawal legislation.

Reid accused conservatives of “protecting the President rather than protecting our troops” by “denying us an up or down vote on the most important issue our country faces.” He said that if a vote on the Reed/Levin Iraq legislation is not allowed today or tomorrow, he will keep the Senate in session “straight through the night on Tuesday” and force a filibuster. From Reid’s speech:

Republicans are using a filibuster to block us from even voting on an amendment that could bring the war to a responsible end. They are protecting the President rather than protecting our troops.

They are denying us an up or down — yes or no — vote on the most important issue our country faces.

I would like to inform the Republican leadership and all my colleagues that we have no intention of backing down.

If Republicans do not allow a vote on Levin/Reed today or tomorrow, we will work straight through the night on Tuesday.

The American people deserve an open and honest debate on this war, and they deserve an up or down vote on this amendment to end it.

Well Amen and Hallelujah! This fighting Dem has just one thing to say…What took you so f***ing long?

The always-excellent Bob Geiger has more.

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Doolittle joins Domenici in call for pullout

Just hours after Senator Pete Domenici appeared to abandon his support for aWol and his failed Iraq strategy, Representative John Doolittle, a conservative Republican congressman from California announced he is withdrawing his support for the mess in Mesopotamia.

Speaking to members of the editorial board of the Sacramento Bee, he said Americans must disengage “as soon as possible” and turn the security of the country over to the Iraqis.

A longtime supporter of the war, Doolittle called the situation in Iraq a "quagmire" on Thursday. "We've got to get off the front lines as soon as possible," Doolittle said at Rocklin City Hall, the Bee reported. "And in my mind that means something like the end of the year. We just can't continue to tolerate these kinds of losses.

"I don't want to keep having our people dying on the front lines. I am increasingly convinced that we never are going to succeed in actually ending people dying (in Iraq). I think it's going to be a constant conflict ... and if that is going to happen ... it needs to be the Iraqis dying and not the Americans."

Later he told the Bee's editorial board: "My belief is that the majority of my colleagues on the Republican side have become skeptical of all of this. And that's a big change."

Doolittle said colleagues in Congress -- including an increasing number of Republicans -- believe the war "is something different than we believed it to be. And we're gravely at risk by constantly having our troops exposed."

Doolittle has been a key supporter of the administrations Iraq (cough) “policy” thus far, as has Domenici. Losing their support almost simultaneously is significant.

Now mind you, neither one of them have cast a vote or done anything besides pay a bit of lip service. But think about it for a second: this just isn’t a political climate where equivocating is going to be tolerated by the American public. We are pissed off. We are as collectively pissed off as we have ever been. A politician who says what his constituents want to hear and then continues on his merry feckless way is a politician soon to be unemployed. Domenici, in Class II, will have to face the voters in his state in 2008 if he wants to retain his seat, and he is already in the doghouse over the firing of David Iglesias. He knows he’s in trouble there, because he hired Lee Blalack, consigliere to the powerful and connected when they think they might end up in the slammer.

Sure, it’s purely political, and somewhat craven, to abandon a position they held “on principle” right up to the moment it was no longer politically expedient to do so, but whatever route they took to arrive, they got there. It will be up to their constituents to hold them to account next November. In the meantime, it’s up to us to keep the pressure on the powerful and make certain they cast votes accordingly. Next November is coming, and accounts will certainly be settled. But in the interim, I will take all the Republican defections I can get if will get my brothers and sisters the fuck out of the sandbox.

[Cross-posted from Blue Girl, Red State and OOIBC Caucus Central]

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Once again Gen. William Odom gets it right on Iraq

He says Congressional Democrats need to grow a spine:

If the Democrats truly want to succeed in forcing President Bush to begin withdrawing from Iraq, the first step is to redefine "supporting the troops" as withdrawing them, citing the mass of accumulating evidence of the psychological as well as the physical damage that the president is forcing them to endure because he did not raise adequate forces. Both Democrats and Republicans in Congress could confirm this evidence and lay the blame for "not supporting the troops" where it really belongs – on the president. And they could rightly claim to the public that they are supporting the troops by cutting off the funds that he uses to keep U.S. forces in Iraq. …

The president is strongly motivated to string out the war until he leaves office, in order to avoid taking responsibility for the defeat he has caused and persisted in making greater each year for more than three years.

To force him to begin a withdrawal before then, the first step should be to rally the public by providing an honest and candid definition of what “supporting the troops” really means and pointing out who is and who is not supporting our troops at war. The next step should be a flat refusal to appropriate money for to be used in Iraq for anything but withdrawal operations with a clear deadline for completion.

The final step should be to put that president on notice that if ignores this legislative action and tries to extort Congress into providing funds by keeping U.S. forces in peril, impeachment proceeding will proceed in the House of Representatives. Such presidential behavior surely would constitute the “high crime” of squandering the lives of soldiers and Marines for his own personal interest.

September, with the Petraeus report, etc., is the last date Congressional Democrats can halfway reasonably be expected to act before 2009. After September, if they won’t stand up to GOP pressures then, the cycle of the election calendar will see them paralyzed until after the November 2008 general election.

Cross-posted at Socratic Gadfly and Out of Iraq Bloggers Caucus.

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Bloomberg bubble — hold the phone on Iraq

Via TPM Election Central, it appears Big Mike does NOT favor an immediate or a full pullout from Iraq.
At a speech at Google HQ Monday:

“We are in trouble overseas. There’s obviously an unpopular war, but a war that has no easy answers. The people that say, ‘let’s just automatically pull troops out,’ I don't think have really looked at the consequences of destabilizing the world, and the genocide that may or may not occur, depending on who you believe.”

The only other quotes TPM EC has about Bloomberg’s position are pre-invasion; any further information about his stance between then and now, to flesh out the picture, is welcome.

In any case, the first picture of him on Iraq is that he won’t be more progressive than any Democrat to the left of JoeMentum Lieberman (whom Bloomberg endorsed over Ned Lamont).

So, contrary to somebody like M.L. Rosenberg over at TPM, right now, I personally don’t have a hankering for Bloomberg, and, unless he changes positions on Iraq, Corpus Juris is probably right that he’ll draw more from Republicans, should he jump in.

Also, and something I missed, Bloomberg’s been ginning up speculation for a month, even to the point of a possible VP to run with him.

Only days after Bloomberg’s [mid-May] Houston appearance, maverick Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) hinted broadly that he was considering joining forces with the billionaire mayor to run for the White House as independents.

So, his Hamlet-like demeanor will wear thin soon enough.

Cross-posted at Socratic Gadfly and Out of Iraq Bloggers Caucus.

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A New Slogan

Jonathon Alter has an interesting column in the June 25th issue of Newsweek. The premise is finding a slogan which will explain Democrats' plan for withdrawal from Iraq "without looking like surrender monkeys."
Alter notes that Congressional Democrats want to get out of Iraq and get tough on Al Qaeda at the same time, but that message isn't getting through. He has a suggestion:

Now, Democrats should embrace what I like to call "pull and strike"—pull forces from the streets of Baghdad, but strike hard at Qaeda positions in the Sunni areas and in Afghanistan, mostly from air bases outside Iraq. In other words, saying no to the folly of intervening in a civil war between Iraqi Sunnis and Shiites isn't enough. Critics must also say yes—loudly—to calling in airstrikes on foreign fighters, who are increasingly being identified by friendly local sheiks determined to chase them out of their country.

The idea behind pull and strike isn't new, but its predecessor catchphrase—"strategic redeployment"—lacked a certain muscular quality and never caught on. Whatever it's called, the logic is clear. Pinpointing the whereabouts of Qaeda strongholds requires beefed-up intelligence, which has little to do with the large-scale presence of American ground forces. In fact, when we leave, and remove a major source of irritation, intelligence on the true terrorists will likely get better.

I like Alter's idea. To me, there is no question that we must remove our military from Iraq. We cannot win the civil war taking place there. But we also must deal with the terrorist threat from al Qaeda. Certainly the Iraqis no more want al Qaeda in country than they want the U.S. military.

Alter also notes that Democrats must deal with their forgeting to bring up Al Qaeda and bin Laden when they talk to voters. Every time one of Bush's minions mentions 9/11 Democrats must respond by reminding voters the man behind 9/11 remains at large because Bush stopped looking for him. Every time a Republican says war critics are forgetting what happened on 9/11 we need to respond by pointing out it is Republicans who have forgotten who was responsible for 9/11 and ask why bin Laden is still at large. Reporters need to be reminded of this, as well.

Alter's last two grafs are also notable:

To get a sense of how inept Democrats are at framing the debate, imagine if 9/11 had occurred under a Democratic president. You can bet that Republicans would go on the floor of Congress (and on cable TV) and say, "This is day 2,110 since 9/11 and the man who ordered the massacre is still at large." The next day, they would say it again, and again the day after that.

Whether Democrats call it pull and strike or something else, they've got to better communicate the two-pronged nature of their approach. This isn't about sloganeering. It's about clearly and memorably conveying the complex truth that leaving Iraq is not enough.

Keith Olberman reminds us each evening how many days have passed since "Mission Accomplished" in Iraq. It's time we all start reminding the American people how many days have passed "since 9/11 and the man who ordered the massacre is still at large."

Today is the 2,109th day since 9/11 and the man who ordered the massacre is still at large.

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Big Three Democratic candidates all OK with partial pullout from Iraq

Speaking to AFSCME, Clinton, Edwards and Obama all, in various ways, talked about a partial pullout from Iraq, not a complete one.

Hmm, what’s going to happen when a new “timelines” bill comes up in the Senate, for Obama and Clinton? And, how will Edwards challenge them to vote without getting his own stance challenged?

Cross-posted at Socratic Gadfly.

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