While I’m busy blogging the Tibet crisis on the other blog, see Pastor Dan on the Jeremiah Wright/Barack Obama flap.
Monthly Archives: March 2008
Free Tibet Again
There are huge demonstrations going on in Lhasa, Tibet, and the Chinese military is cracking down. I haven’t yet heard of any deaths, but demonstrators (including monks) have set fire to Chinese-built markets, police cars, and possibly a tourist bus. I’ll be updating events as I learn about them on the other blog.
Free Tibet
Lately most of the news I’ve read about Tibetan activists has been from AlJazeeraEnglish. Make of that what you will.
For more background on what’s been going on lately, see the other blog.
Schandenfreude
Paul Kane writes at the Washington Post:
The former treasurer for the National Republican Congressional Committee transferred as much as $1 million in committee funds into his personal and business accounts, officials announced today, describing a scheme that could prove to be one of the largest campaign frauds in recent history.
For at least four years, Christopher J. Ward, who is under investigation by the FBI, used wire transfers to funnel money out of the NRCC and into other political committees he controlled, then shifted the funds into his own personal accounts, the committee said.
“The evidence we have today indicated we have been deceived and betrayed for a number of years by a highly respected and trusted individual,” said Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.), NRCC chairman.
Heh. Enjoy.
Another Resignation
Lost in the news about resignations is news about another resignation. Admiral William Fallon, chief of the United States Central Command, resigned Tuesday. It is widely believed he was forced to resign because he opposed military action against Iran.
The resignation may have been triggered by an Esquire interview of Fallon by Thomas P.M. Barnett. Barnett wrote,
If, in the dying light of the Bush administration, we go to war with Iran, it’ll all come down to one man. If we do not go to war with Iran, it’ll come down to the same man. He is that rarest of creatures in the Bush universe: the good cop on Iran, and a man of strategic brilliance. His name is William Fallon, although all of his friends call him “Fox,” which was his fighter-pilot call sign decades ago. Forty years into a military career that has seen this admiral rule over America’s two most important combatant commands, Pacific Command and now United States Central Command, it’s impossible to make this guy–as he likes to say–“nervous in the service.”
And the moral is, weenies like Dubya and Dick don’t like real men who stand up to them.
There also may have been a clash between Fallon and Gen. Petraeus. From today’s Los Angeles Times:
The inside story of the battle between Adm. William J. Fallon, former head of U.S. Central Command, and Gen. David H. Petraeus, the U.S. commander in Iraq, may be studied by military historians years hence. The animosity between the two top military men was personal (Petraeus reportedly thought Fallon was trying to micromanage him). It was political (Petraeus is President Bush’s favorite general, while Fallon’s views put him increasingly at odds with the administration). And it was strategic (Petraeus’ mission is to win in Iraq, while Fallon feared an extended heavy presence there would sap U.S. strength needed to deal with other global challenges). …
… The timing of Fallon’s resignation is provocative. In less than a month, Petraeus will testify again before Congress. The troop surge he recommended is coming to an end in July, as scheduled, because even with extended 15-month deployments, the Army has no more troops to send. The U.S. will be back to its pre-surge troop strength of 130,000, although many military analysts believe that it can sustain a deployment of only 80,000 to 90,000 without breakingthe back of the Army. Nevertheless, Petraeus is expected to ask for a “strategic pause” in further troop withdrawals in order not to jeopardize the much-improved security climate in Iraq. Petraeus will be grilled on whether the less than impressive Iraqi political progress justifies an extended U.S. troop presence.
David Ignatius (yeah, I know, it’s David Ignatius) wrote,
In a May 15 piece from Baghdad, I quoted an upbeat Petraeus: “How long does reconciliation take? That’s the long pole in the tent.” I asked Fallon if he had an assessment of his own, and he said, specifically rebutting Petraeus: “We’re chipping away at the problem. But we don’t have the time to chip away. Reconciliation isn’t likely in the time we have available, but some form of accommodation is a must.”
By last fall, it was clear to Fallon that the key issue was the pace of U.S. withdrawal. If the surge strategy was “conditions-based,” and the surge was going well, Fallon wondered, why weren’t we pressing the advantage and moving for a faster timetable?
IT IS a worrisome sign that Defense Secretary Robert Gates had to accept the obviously forced resignation of Admiral William Fallon, chief of the United States Central Command. Even if Gates was right to say, as he did Tuesday, that it would be “ridiculous” to take Fallon’s departure as an augury of war with Iran, the fate of the outspoken admiral suggests that President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney have learned nothing about the value of letting uniformed military chiefs speak their minds, particularly when they disagree with questionable administration doctrines.
The abrupt resignation yesterday of the top U.S. commander in the Middle East, Admiral William J. “Fox” Fallon, has sparked a new round of speculation that President Bush and Vice President Cheney have some sort of plan in the works to attack Iran before their time is up.
Fallon’s resignation — or firing — was apparently precipitated in part by a recent Esquire profile that depicted him as brazenly pushing back against the White House hawks eager to launch another war.
Now it turns out that what Thomas P.M. Barnett, a former Naval War College professor, wrote in that profile was eerily prescient: “How does Fallon get away with so brazenly challenging his commander in chief?
“The answer is that he might not get away with it for much longer. President Bush is not accustomed to a subordinate who speaks his mind as freely as Fallon does, and the president may have had enough.
“Just as Fallon took over Centcom last spring, the White House was putting itself on a war footing with Iran. Almost instantly, Fallon began to calmly push back against what he saw as an ill-advised action. Over the course of 2007, Fallon’s statements in the press grew increasingly dismissive of the possibility of war, creating serious friction with the White House.
“Last December, when the National Intelligence Estimate downgraded the immediate nuclear threat from Iran, it seemed as if Fallon’s caution was justified. But still, well-placed observers now say that it will come as no surprise if Fallon is relieved of his command before his time is up next spring, maybe as early as this summer, in favor of a commander the White House considers to be more pliable. If that were to happen, it may well mean that the president and vice-president intend to take military action against Iran before the end of this year and don’t want a commander standing in their way.
“And so Fallon, the good cop, may soon be unemployed because he’s doing what a generation of young officers in the U. S. military are now openly complaining that their leaders didn’t do on their behalf in the run-up to the war in Iraq: He’s standing up to the commander in chief, whom he thinks is contemplating a strategically unsound war.”
This comes as a serious blow to any sane policy in the Mid-East.
Resignations
Years ago, Geraldine Ferraro really was a heroine of feminism. I can remember being thrilled when she was named to be on Walter Mondale’s ticket in 1984.
Geraldine — I wished you’d STFU’d. First Eliot Spitzer, now you. Leave me with a couple of illusions, OK?
Keith Olbermann ripped the Clinton campaign a new one in his special comments tonight. Here are the highlights. I hope to be able to embed a video soon.
Via Nicole Belle, here is the Rev. Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite, who puts former heroine Ferraro in her place.
Update: Here’s the video.
Update 2: If the video doesn’t work, as it doesn’t seem to at the moment, you can see it here.
Obama Wins Mississippi
Dear television bobbleheads: The Dems are not going to win Mississippi in the general election. It doesn’t matter whether the nominee is Clinton or Obama. Ain’t gonna happen. And Obama did worse among white voters in Mississippi than in other states because of racism. Mississippi has no cosmopolitan areas like Atlanta to lift it from its sodden backwardness. You should have expected that, dear bobbleheads. Stop acting surprised.
While We Were Being Disappointed
In the past few hours, eight U.S. soldiers died in Iraq. This brings the total to just over 3,900, I believe.
Eugene Robinson writes in today’s Washington Post:
Has anyone noticed that Iraq, supposedly transformed into an oasis of peace and tranquility by George W. Bush’s troop surge, is growing less peaceful and tranquil by the day?
The nation’s attention has been riveted by the presidential campaign, with its compelling characters and its edge-of-your-seat story line. Iraq is treated almost as a theoretical issue: What would happen there if Barack Obama became president, as opposed to what would happen if Hillary Clinton became president, as opposed to what would happen if John McCain became president? There has been little debate about what’s happening in Iraq right now.
That seems likely to change.
Wow. And after they celebrated over that damn ugly cake. Be sure to read all of Robinson’s column, which make a good argument that Iraq is still a failure, no matter what the Bushies say.
Warren P. Strobel writes for McClatchy Newspapers:
An exhaustive review of more than 600,000 Iraqi documents that were captured after the 2003 U.S. invasion has found no evidence that Saddam Hussein’s regime had any operational links with Osama bin Laden’s al Qaida terrorist network.
The Pentagon-sponsored study, scheduled for release later this week, did confirm that Saddam’s regime provided some support to other terrorist groups, particularly in the Middle East, U.S. officials told McClatchy. However, his security services were directed primarily against Iraqi exiles, Shiite Muslims, Kurds and others he considered enemies of his regime.
The new study of the Iraqi regime’s archives found no documents indicating a “direct operational link” between Hussein’s Iraq and al Qaida before the invasion, according to a U.S. official familiar with the report.
This is not exactly news to most of us. But just last week I saw Christopher Hitchens on Bill Maher’s HBO show talking about Saddam’s support of al Qaeda. I doubt Hitchens will ever admit to the truth; he’s too emotionally invested in his Glorious Little War. When the report comes out, expect the Right Blogosphere to come up with some reason why the Pentagon couldn’t possibly know what it’s talking about.
Stung
This doesn’t exonerate Gov. Spitzer, but Scott Horton suggests that Spitzer was “stung” because of a Justice Department investigation targeting him. In other words, he didn’t just happen to get caught because of an investigation of a prostitution ring. Rather, the investigation of Spitzer led to his involvement with the prostitution ring.
Quoting ABC:
The federal investigation of a New York prostitution ring was triggered by Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s suspicious money transfers, initially leading agents to believe Spitzer was hiding bribes, according to federal officials. It was only months later that the IRS and the FBI determined that Spitzer wasn’t hiding bribes but payments to a company called QAT, what prosecutors say is a prostitution operation operating under the name of the Emperors Club. …
The suspicious financial activity was initially reported by a bank to the IRS which, under direction from the Justice Department, brought in the FBI’s Public Corruption Squad. “We had no interest at all in the prostitution ring until the thing with Spitzer led us to learn about it,†said one Justice Department official.
As I said, this doesn’t exonerate Spitzer. This episode also brings up the point that just because someone’s been in the public eye for years, as Spitzer has been in New York, doesn’t mean you know him.
This Is Disappointing
I don’t know if Spitzer should resign, but this is a huge letdown for New York progressives.