Following up on the below post about the prisoner torture in Iraq, if you want to read some quality coverage on this, make sure and look at Juan Cole's Informed Comment.  Scroll down to get some of the key coverage. 

In general, Cole is an unmitigated badass, and his site is seriously informative. 

12:12:19 PM    comment []

Take a look at the latest William Safire atrocity.

Summary of first two paragraphs:  Everything in Iraq is going straight to hell.

Paragraph three: 

"However, a certain grim logic suggests a turn for the better may be coming this summer."

Paragraphs four through ten:  Brahimi is a jerk, and the UN is corrupt, but we're giving them power anyway on June 30.

Paragraphs 11-13:  Iraqis have to step up the plate now.  My Kurdish friends are the best.

Paragraph 14:  The Sunni Triangle is a real mess.  I hope we haven't given up there, because it didn't seem too bright to give control to one of Saddam's guys.

Paragraphs 15-16:  What's the deal with the Shia?  They're really blowing it.  They need to step up.

Paragraph 17 (conclusion):  Most Iraqis want freedom.  We want freedom. 

Let's take a closer look, again, at the theme of this piece:

"However, a certain grim logic suggests a turn for the better may be coming this summer. "

Grim logic?  No logic.  There's not a single thing in this piece that even attempts to make an argument that any optimism is justified.  The whole sense of optimism seems to be premised upon the notion that the June 30 deadline is firm, but then Safire undercuts that by going after the entity to which we're turning power authority.

It's not just that this is more terrible journalism from Safire.  It's that this sense of moronic, indefensible optimism continues to pervade the treatment of the Iraq situation by neoconservatives.  I'm pretty sure that if we pulled out of Iraq and Osama bin Laden was named the new president, the neocons would talk about how great it is that Saddam is gone.

12:08:03 PM    comment []

I'm not out in front of this story by any stretch, but given how lame Enough was last week, I've got to play some catch-up.

The prisoner abuses in Iraq are terrible.  Terrible.  But the situation is so much more serious than just some human rights abuses and bad judgement.  I don't know the details of the story--I've not read Seymour Hersh's undoubtedly revelatory piece in the New Yorker--but it strikes me that the question of whether the abuses were done based on orders, with or without oversight is not the key concern.

The key concern, as many have pointed out, is that this is a positively devastating blow to the United States image in the Arab World, and frankly it's hard to believe that that can actually get any worse.  As such, it's a terrible blow to the war on terror. 

The Bush Administration has absolutely sucked at what should be over half of the war--the diplomatic/economic/social elements required to win hearts and minds.  They can sure be hardasses about the world, but when hardassery isn't in order they'll the freaking Keystone Kops.  This prison torture situation isn't directly the fault of the Administration (though, as Josh Marshall  points out, the Administration's lies have laid the groundwork for all sorts of terrible things, like this) but it is their job to make up for it.  They have to

1.  Talk about this.  A lot.  Presently, this story is evidently running way in the back of the newspapers, if it's covered at all, and Americans think it's stupid but really no big deal.  It's against the tenor the Bush Administration to make it a big deal, but they need to.  It IS a big deal, and not brushing it off can only help in the larger (read: global) campaign to address it.

2.  Punish the perpetrators to the fullest extent.  These idiots (whether instructed or not) have done immeasurable damage to our country.

3.  Ask for international oversight of POWs in Iraq.  Send in the Red Cross and the Red Crescent.  Get the Arabs involved.  Transparency good.

That's just a start, but the point is that our image, already shattered, has now been splintered.  We have to start somewhere.  Pick up the shards, try and glue them together.

Let me repeat that I don't blame the Bush Administration for this, per se.  However, I do blame them for putting us in a situation where the Arab world, already distrustful, resentful, and full of rage, has the largest piece of fodder they need.  And by "putting us in a situation", I not only mean the invasion of Iraq and it's terribly mishandled aftermath, but in a broader context the hideous missteps taken which only isolate us further from the Arabs.  Giving the finger to the Middle East is not a foreign policy.

8:47:24 AM    comment []