Friday, November 26, 2004Postpone Iraq elections?Funny thing. I've seen arguments for this in a couple newspapers and here and there on the web. What's most striking is that those arguing most strongly for a hearing for the Sunnis (who are pushing for a delay) are the same ones who in the run-up to the elections were arguing that Iraq could never be set aright because of conflict between the Sunnis, the Shiites and the Kurds. Now that the Iraqi government and U.S. forces are more freely taking apart the militant Sunni organizations and (re)capturing the areas they control, the Sunnis are suddenly open to negotiation - to a point. Bull. That the Sunnis are talking at all is an admission that our military operations and Iraq's efforts to build a civil society are working... but that the heretofore obstructionist Sunnis had been too busy banking on bringing it all down to get their own act together and get ready. Too damn bad. The Sunnis need to learn that threat of arms, threat of violence and even incessant whining are not the answer, only serious efforts to buy into and build into an emerging civil society. This is a moment when the most obstructionist Sunnis, having focused on blowing it all up, get to sit out in the cold while those who were at least better at calculating if not sincere in a desire to move forward are rewarded for choosing the political route. Rearranging elections and election timetables and proving the naysayers right about problems bringing democracy to Iraq is the wrong way to go. The Iraqi governing council should proceed with election plans, announcing each and every day the importance of its being replaced with a government with greater democratic legitimacy and casting as anti-Iraqi independence anyone who suggests that the U.S. created, U.N. backed council should be in a day longer than necessary to get Iraq ready to select its own leaders. 
posted by gbarto at 11:39 PM Thursday, November 25, 2004About those CIA departures...A few more biggies have apparently left the CIA, making as big a stink as former spooks can do in the process. Which is, perhaps, healthy. News reports are talking about traditional lines of authority being broken, old procedures being undermined, etc. One feels bad who for those who feel they have been "dissed" or that the rug got pulled out from under them. But... the CIA does not exist for the comfort of its employees or for the sake of tradition. It exists because our country needs clandestine agents to make the contacts necessary for learning what's going on in the world and influencing it when possible. As directed by the political leadership of the country. Politics is, of course, a big issue here. The NYT report (found on AOL, no link) has this: "The C.I.A. is a line organization like the military," said Christopher Mellon, a former intelligence official at the Defense Department and the Senate Intelligence Committee. "When staff guys insert themselves, that causes confusion and discontent."That's very nice, but if a senior officer short circuits the chain of command and a lieutenant balks, the lieutenant can find himself in considerable trouble. Resentment is allowed. On one's own time. But it sounds like in the CIA, it went beyond that, since the CIA is not, in fact, a military organization. After all, the army does not cross the president, under any circumstances, because it is understood that part of what separates the US from your average junta is that the military leadership serves the political leadership. The closest we've come, of late, is Colin Powell's actions in regard to the gays in the military question. One wonders, given the nature of the griping that we're hearing, if certain CIA officers understand that you don't necessarily follow the president's directives because he's right, but because he has the authority to give them and make decision about them, whereas even the smartest CIA agent has not stood for election and therefore is not entitled to decide what the people really need. While there is much in the buzz about the CIA that may disconcert, the idea that old-timers must work with the president's team and the president's policies or face being pushed out is good news. Now if we can get the same process started at State.
posted by gbarto at 11:36 PM Wednesday, November 24, 2004on AOL, from AP:Despite Gaping Deficits, Budget Bill Packed With PorkThis wouldn't be happening if the Republicans were in charge! Er... Unfortunately, pork-barrel spending is a time-honored tradition, even if there is no other honor in it. I see, among other things, that the Democratic senators from Michigan are boasting about getting a public transportation program set up in Traverse City. Whoopee! While I seem to scoff, I am concerned. Republicans always decry this sort of thing, but we've had pretty significant power for some years now. What's going on? Well, there's an easy answer, and a good Republican one: Blame the media! The other day, dapper Dan Rather stepped down, and it's about time. But that's not before he launched multiple hatchet jobs on Bush, including one with phony documents. Over the past six months, if a soldier died in Iraq, it got six inch high type across the front of the Times and a special segment on at least one of the nets. And if a thousand Iraqis were trained for jobs that would enable them to take back control of their country? A short write-up in the New York Post was the most that could be hoped for. Because successes in Iraq weren't fit to print. Bottom line: During the Reagan years, Ronald Reagan went over the press's heads, projecting his message directly to the people in a way that filled Democrat reps' and senators' mailbags with angry letters. And bound by some sense of fair play, the media played his stuff anyway. He was the president and if he said something it was therefore newsworthy. But since the Contract with America, the media hasn't fallen for the trap. Republicans giving press conferences - even presidents, senate leaders and speakers of the House, have been relegated to cable, and increasingly to Fox news. The war, in one sense, has been very healthy - it finally made a national election, at least, about issues. But in local elections, it's still been hard to get ideology into the races. Yes, the intense partisans are very much driven by ideology, but the vast bovine middle that doesn't know quite where it stands, that votes for the person, not the politics, must be won if elections are to be won. The question is whether the Republicans, with renewed power, will at least make the effort. If press conferences are given, papers are issued and stirring speeches are offered, but it takes a google search to find out about them, don't blame the Republicans for pork-barrel politics. Blame the media!
posted by gbarto at 8:02 AM Monday, November 22, 2004Oops... Here is the link for the Hewitt post on Fallujah and the NBA (mentionned 2 posts down).And Hewitt is beginning to sound a little more careful on the Target matter: This is also Target's problem, for these new [exurban, more traditionalist] communities with church and family at their heart are very generous and also very sensitive to the antipathy of cultural elites, and judging from what I was told by two audiences of more than 600 on Friday and Saturday night, and from my e-mail, Target has deeply offended a significant portion of these new communities of faith and family. (By no means all, of course, and some aren't bothered in the least, but Target isn't gaining any customers from exiling the Salvation Army, only losing them.) Target may not have acted out of antipathy, but because its action matches so much of the anti-Christian tenor of the times, it is being categorized as among that group determined to whitewash the public square of religious belief. (Read the post and comments at CrookedTimber to understand why this merging occurs.) It doesn't have much time to change course as consumer patterns, once shifted, will be hard to reconstruct. E-mail guest.relations@target.com --polite, please-- and urge them to allow the bell ringers back on Friday through Christmas. (my emphases)Target does, of course, have a real problem if it is perceived as not being of the communities in which it operates, or worse, contrary to them. It has handled the p.r. badly. But it is not necessarily the anti-Christ, come to abolish all that's good from the land. It is a business that made a call for its own reasons and apparently blew that call. It is nice to see the "polite, please" warning and that little bit of nuance, suggesting that what is thought of Target's move is a matter of perception, not simple fact. I hope for the sake of Target's employees that this ends with the folks who made the call having some 'splainin' to do to the stockholders, not with those who rely on its seasonal jobs to do Christmas shopping or pay the higher heating bill for winter out of work. (We can play the "vale of tears" card too...)
posted by gbarto at 3:22 PM Sunday, November 21, 2004  Dog BloggingLast weekend, the clan (TurkeyBlogger, TurkeyGal and TurkeyDog) went to San Carlos, where they've got a small but neato park with a few trails for walking your dog off-leash. Today we went to Boulder Creek for the afternoon. A trip to the local pet store resulted in a new bone for the TurkeyDog.
posted by gbarto at 10:59 PM Hugh Hewitt is right on about the contrast between the actions of our brave men in Fallujah and the idiocy of the basketball brawl. Between the Monday Night Football thing (which struck less as offensive than off-target and screwy - can't they just run a promo for their show?) and the basketball bit, it seems odd to think that this is where we look for heroes when things settle down. Be sure to read the Times story Hewitt links. And put your hard-earned cash toward something more useful than making it possible for men to behave like boys for millions while the real men - and women! - earn a lot less to lay their lives on the line for us.
posted by gbarto at 10:48 PM Cicero worries about the ascent of our governor and what he represents: This man came to America the perfect vacuous bourgeois, seeking the things he valued most: money, power, and fame.Actually, I doubt the GOP would actually let someone with his liberal social values get to the top of the ticket, particularly because he is closer to Cicero and I than most Republicans (and Democrats) vis-à-vis gay marriage. Don't think his abortion stance is going far either. Arnold is a sharp guy. In particularly, he's sharp enough to know that it's better to have other people talk about you as a potential candidate than go through the mess of becoming one. And better to have the president owe you one than be a president who owes so many people. He'll toy around at the margins enough to stay in the news and be a force. But I don't see him running for president.
posted by gbarto at 2:53 AM |
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