On August 8th, Democrats in Connecticut will go to the polls to choose who will represent them in the November election for U.S. Senator. They have two candidates to choose from: Ned Lamont and the incumbent, Joseph Lieberman. If they vote for Mr. Lamont, they will be voting for a Democrat to represent them. If the vote for Mr. Lieberman, they will be wasting their vote.

Mr. Lieberman has already stated that if he loses the upcoming Democratic primary, he will run in the November election as an independent. Therefore, a Democratic vote for Mr. Lieberman is a wasted vote. Mr. Lieberman does not need the votes of Connecticut Democrats in the Democratic primary - he has said so. So any vote cast in his favor would be a wasted vote - it would signify nothing. On the other hand, Mr. Lamont needs and wants the votes of Connecticut Democrats. He has campaigned hard for these votes. He has fought an often-lonely battle against a 35-year incumbent to get to this point. He has worked hard to become the Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate from the great state of Connecticut. Democratic voters in Connecticut have only two meaningful choices: cast a vote for Ned Lamont or stay home. A citizen's vote is his or her most powerful weapon in the arena of democracy - to cast that vote for a person who neither wants it or values it is a wasted exercise is democracy.

While Mr. Lamont has campaigned on the most important issue of the day, Mr. Lieberman has asked the Connecticut Democrats to ignore the issues and vote for him as a matter of inertia. Here is how Mr. Lieberman framed the decision facing Connecticut Democrats in his debate with Mr. Lamont:

Connecticut Democratic voters have a clear choice to make on primary day. I'm running for a better future for Connecticut based on my 18 years of service and results for our state. Ned Lamont seems just to be running against me, based on my stand on one issue, Iraq. And he is distorting who I am and what I have done.

Well, let me take Mr. Lieberman up on his offer on clarifying who he is and what he has done. Let's clarify Mr. Lieberman's stance on Iraq - the one issue, as he says. How many of you readers think that we are making progress in Iraq? If you do, please raise your hand. If you are like me or anyone else with sensory perception, you might be inclined to believe that a death rate of 3000 civilians per month is not progress in Iraq. However, if you are Senator Lieberman, you have a different yardstick. Here's the Senator from the debate:

The situation in Iraq is a lot better, different than it was a year ago. The Iraqis held three elections. They formed a unity government. They are on the way to building a free and independent Iraq. Their military -- two-thirds of their military is now ready, on their own, to lead the fight with some logistical backing from the U.S. or stand up on their own totally. That's progress.

And the question is, are we going to abandon them while they are making that progress?

Let me repeat. I'm not for an open-ended commitment to Iraq. The sooner we're out of there, the better it will be for the Iraqis and for us. But if we leave too soon, we will create disaster there. A terrorist state, civil war, regional instability, and the terrorists will be emboldened to strike us again.

So I am confident that the situation is improving enough on the ground that by the end of this year, we will begin to draw down significant numbers of American troops, and by the end of the next year more than half of the troops who are there now will be home. But not because we set a deadline. That would make it harder. [Emphasis added by me.]

I know what you are thinking. You are thinking that I quoted George W Bush instead of the Senator just to trick you. I assure you that I quoted Joe Lieberman above. They read off the same Republican talking points. Either the Senator is incompetent because he can't tell the difference between "progress" and "disaster" or the Senator is lying. I don't know which it is and I don't care. Neither should you. Both explanations suggest that he is no longer fit to be a United States Senator.

The fact that Mr. Lieberman defended his and Mr. Bush's stance on Iraq in the debate is not at all surprising. But what is surprising is the way in which he attacked Mr. Lamont, a fellow Democrat. Lieberman was crass, at times vulgar, and always offensive. He was dismissive and arrogant. He was in complete attack dog mode:

The Joe Lieberman television viewers saw on Thursday night in his debate with maverick challenger Ned Lamont was not the mellow, sleepy-voiced, decent, religiously observant man we used to know. No, this was Joe Lieberman, the savvy, battle-hardened, and very aggressive politician.

Face to face with his rival, Lieberman came across as a man absolutely determined to save his career in the Senate, a man who wasn't going to bother being genteel.

The real question is, why, time and time again, faced with Mr. Bush's disaster in Iraq, his wiretapping, his Guantanamo Bay failures, etc. has Mr. Lieberman never felt the need to get aggressive? Instead he has preferred to kiss up to Mr. Bush on almost every significant issue of the last six years. When faced with a Democrat asking legitimate questions about our national security, the Senator thought that a civil tone was not warranted. Mr. Lieberman is a disgrace as a Democrat. If the Democrats lose the seat to a Republican in November, they will not have lost much. Mr. Lieberman already carries water for the Bush Administration - I doubt any registered Republican could carry more water or has a bigger bucket.

Mr. Lieberman is using Connecticut Democrats as cannon fodder. If he succeeds in the primary, he will use them some more. If he loses, he will toss them aside and defecate all over the will of the Connecticut Democrats. He will exercise his "option" to run against the Democratic nominee in November. Here's the Senator again describing why he alone knows he is better for Connecticut regardless of the will of the voter:

I intend to win the primary, but I want to say, why did I do what I announced the other day, create the option? It's because I believe this man can't be elected in November.

And I know -- and I have to say this directly -- that I can do a better job for the people of Connecticut, a lot of whom are going to need some special help in the next six years than either he or Alan Schlesinger can, and I want to give all the voters, including a lot of Democrats, the opportunity to make that final decision in November.

Such arrogance is usually reserved for kings and tyrants - not United States Senators. This man must go - he views his job as an entitlement. That is an insult to all citizens. Furthermore, if he runs against the Democratic nominee in November, he will hinder the election of a Democrat to the U.S. Senate by dividing the Democratic vote. No Democratic party supporter would willingly do such damage to his party - except Lieberman, he is no Democrat.

While Mr. Lieberman has mutated into a vulgar mouthpiece who is only capable of aping his master, George W Bush, Mr. Lamont has shown steady poise and decency. He has grown in stature and confidence as this campaign has progressed. He did well to stand toe-to-toe in the debate against his more experience and rabid opponent. Since then he has gained even more confidence. I saw him last night on The Colbert Report and was thoroughly impressed by his confidence and his good humor. He appears to be a man of conviction and values that all Democrats can be proud of. He took a courageous stand on the Iraq War when most Democrats were still running for the hills. It appears now that his party is beginning to catch up to him.

Mr. Lamont is a Democrat with courage and conviction - the kind of Senator we need on the Hill. We have had enough of Democrats like Zell Miller and Joe Lieberman. We need real Democrats who will be able to come together as a viable opposition party in the United States Congress. It is time to nominate Ned Lamont as the Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate from Connecticut.

Weep not for Joe Lieberman, he has a cabinet seat warmed up and waiting for him next to Mr. Bush.

Meet our newest best friends: the Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counter-Terrorism, or, ARPCT for short. Our latest best friends are at the vanguard of President Bush's Global War On Terror, or as those who know the lingo like to call it, the GWOT. So the ARPCT were our guys in the GWOT and so we bankrolled them. They were tasked with hunting down al Qaeda and eliminating them. The only problem was they did not have much support from the very people they were tasked to defend against the scourge of al Qaeda. To add insult to injury, when the people found out that the ARPCT was backed by GWB in the GWOT they actively turned on the ARPCT. So now the ARPCT is defeated and on the run. And with their defeat the Bush Administration has suffered an embarrassing setback in the GWOT.

The ARPCT is a recently rebranded group of Somali warlords who were funded by the United States. They were just routed in the Somali capital of Mogadishu by Islamist militants. The ARPCT warlords are now on the run as the Islamists, known as the Islamic Courts Union (ICU), establish control over war-torn Somalia. The United States claims that the ironically named ICU harbor al Qaeda members and therefore pose a danger to the civilized world. The ICU has thus been branded as "terrorists" for harboring al Qaeda. Seeing an opportunity to cash in, the always opportunistic Somali warlords refashioned themselves into a group of  "anti-terrorist" militias. In the "us" versus "them" world of George W Bush, these thugs became "us" and thus became worthy of our support.

Since February, with US financial backing, the ARPCT has engaged in fierce fighting with the ICU. But the ICU gained influence in Somalia by offering the people what they had been craving for decades - a sense of security and stability. When the warlords decided to stop fighting each other and rebrand themselves as the ARPCT they were now fighting against the stability provided or promised by the ICU. The people of Somalia were tired of the warlords and rejected the ARPCT in favor of the ICU. One by one, towns fell under the control of the ICU as they advanced on Mogadishu, until finally Mogadishu also fell a few days ago.

The talibanization of Somalia has begun. Just like in Afghanistan, the Somali people are unsurprisingly choosing security over constant violence and insecurity. With no functioning central government, the people have turned to the ICU for protection. In return, the people have accepted Islamist control over their lives. This is an essential concept that the Bush Administration repeatedly fails to understand. If given a choice between democracy without security and security without democracy, the people will overwhelmingly choose the latter. Failure to grasp this obvious fact and wallowing in an ideological soup that preaches "freedom is on the march" will have the opposite effect. In fact, in much of the world where the United States has engaged militarily in the GWOT, freedom is on the ropes. This is true for Afghanistan, this is true for Iraq, and this is true for Somalia.

Somalia, like Iraq and Afghanistan, has a complex political landscape that does not lend itself to the simplistic "us" and "them" rhetoric. There are no good guys in Somalia. The very warlords who now claim to be "anti-terrorist" forces were fighting the United States and presumably harboring al Qaeda in 1993. These are some of the very people who fought the United States during the first Battle of Mogadishu, which led to the deaths of 18 American servicemen. The Bush Administration has now decided to break bread with these thugs in an ill-conceived attempt at counter terrorism in the Horn of Africa.

What the Somali people crave is stability and security. The United States, instead of backing warlords, should perhaps try a defter approach instead. If Iraq has taught us anything, it should be that killing people is not the best way to win hearts and minds.

In an article in the Washington Post, John Prendergast argues for a more balanced counter-terrorism strategy to salvage the situation in Somalia. He states in part:

A successful counterterrorism effort would require the United States to pull the political and military threads together into a coherent strategy of broader engagement. U.S. officials and those from other governments throughout the region uniformly have told me that long-term counterterrorism objectives can be achieved only by American investment in the Somali peace process. Yet the State Department has just one full-time political officer working on Somalia -- from neighboring Kenya, and he was just transferred out of the region for dissenting from the policy on proxy warlords. Somalia's ineffectual transitional government remains confined to the shaky central town of Baidoa, where it is still struggling to overcome internal divisions.

A functioning government that could ensure security would be a win-win scenario for Somalis and the United States, enabling the state apparatus to address the criminality and extremism that undermine progress in the country. This would provide a real partner for the war on terrorism in an area that has a track record for exporting trouble.

The continuation of Washington's current approach in Somalia would ensure that U.S. interests and those of other countries in the region remain dangerously vulnerable to terrorist attacks from this collapsed state. Continued fighting between Islamist elements and the U.S.-backed warlord alliance will breed resentment, attract recruits to the extremist cause and provide a training ground for new militants. The United States can no longer afford not to engage more deeply and directly in state reconstruction efforts in Somalia. It is in our national security interest to do so. [Emphasis added by me.]

Support for Somalia does not mean boots on the ground. After the experience of the 1990s it would be foolhardy for the United States to return militarily to Somalia. But, the only way to prevent the slide into extremism that is occurring in Somalia is to offer the people a viable alternative to the ICU. This will require regional involvement as well as involvement from the major powers such as the United States and Western Europe.

We cannot afford to let Somalia continue as a failed state. The Somali people crave and need a stable civil society and international investment and engagement can and will lead to a secure Somalia. The war against extremism is a war for hearts and minds. What is required is a lot of butter. Leave the guns at home.

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The big story yesterday from the Los Angeles Times was that the United States has decided to omit parts of Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions from the latest Army Field Manual on interrogation. The Pentagon has apparently decided to omit the "humiliating and degrading treatment" clause of the Article. This has caused outrage in the Human Rights community. The military's judge advocates general and the State Department have also fiercely opposed this omission.

According to the LA Times, the State Department had argued that this change would be a blow to American standing internationally:

Defense officials said the State Department and other agencies had argued that adopting Article 3 would put the U.S. government on more solid "moral footing," and make U.S. policies easier to defend abroad.

Some State Department officials have told the Pentagon that incorporating Geneva into the new directive would show American allies that the American military is following "common standards" rather than making up its own rules. Department officials declined to comment for this article about the directive or their discussions with the Pentagon.

The focus of the concern about the omission has been on abandoning the part of Article 3 that prohibits "humiliating and degrading treatment". However, the focus should really be on torture instead.

The Geneva exemption is part of a broader effort by the Bush Administration to systematically justify the use of torture by lawyering around the international Conventions that it is signatory to. As I discussed in an earlier post, the United States has already narrowed its definition of "torture" from the definition found in the United Nations Convention Against Torture. The United States has also asserted that when it ratified the Convention Against Torture, it only ratified the "torture" portion of the Convention and not the "cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment" part of the Convention. By narrowing the definition of "torture" and not accepting the remaining portions of the Convention, the United States can now effectively claim that interrogation techniques that do not cause serious injury such as "organ failure" or "even death" do not rise to the level of "torture". Furthermore, since the United States only accepts the "torture" part of the Convention, anything short of the US definition of "torture" does not violate America's obligations under the Convention Against Torture.

The narrowed United States definition of "torture" has been in place since 2002 when the "Torture Memo" was written by the Justice Department. However, the United States military was still bound by the Army Field Manual, which adhered to Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions. Up until now, only non-military personnel (CIA) were able to take advantage of the narrower definition of "torture" during interrogations. Article 3 still prevented the military from engaging in interrogations that were short of the US definition of "torture" but were caught by Article 3's prohibition on "humiliating and degrading treatment". Dropping these parts of Article 3 now allows the United States military to engage in behavior that falls under the Convention Against Torture's definition of "torture" but not under the US definition of "torture". Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions was the last check against a uniform policy of torture that can now be implemented across all branches of the United States government, including the military.

A final obvious but important aspect of the overall torture policy is that acts performed under the narrow definition of "torture" would constitute a crime if committed within the United States where US Courts have jurisdiction. That is the reason why Guantanamo Bay exists.

It is important to call attention to this cleverly disguised attempt by the United States Government to enlist the military in its policy of torture. The Administration would much prefer to debate what constitutes "humiliating" or "degrading" behavior. That is a murky area that the Administration hopes will cloud the real issue. The real issue is on the other side of the interrogation spectrum. The real issue is what constitutes torture. This Administration is playing word games while it pursues a policy of torture. Our moral authority in the world is not the only thing that is being compromised - we as a people are complicit in torture if we allow it to continue.

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May 25th, 2006 will be remembered as the day America acknowledged defeat in Iraq. In a press conference at the White House President Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair signaled a humiliating end of the American and British intervention in Iraq that began on March 20, 2003. The pair were a picture of weariness as they repeated over and over again that, in spite of the setbacks, invading Iraq was the right thing to do and that we must "complete the mission." The phrase "complete the mission" has become code for "orderly withdrawal". The American and British mission is no longer about "winning" in Iraq, it is about not "losing" in Iraq.

This is a tragic day for the United States. American military might has been thwarted by a band of determined insurgents and a cabal of shrewd politicians. America has been used by the Islamists in Iraq to do their bidding and now the time has come to be shown the door. A tired Bush and Blair are quoted in The Washington Post as two defeated men:

"Despite setbacks and missteps, I strongly believe we did and are doing the right thing," Bush said Thursday evening in a White House news conference with Blair. "Not everything has turned out the way we hoped."

For his part, Blair declared that after a meeting earlier this week with Iraq's new prime minister, "I came away thinking the challenge is still immense, but I also came away thinking more certain than ever that we should rise to it."

Bush and Blair were asked about mistakes they might have made that they regret now. President Bush acknowledged what the rest of the world has known ever since Bush came into office - that you should "walk softly and carry a big stick" and not the other way around:

In unusually introspective comments, Bush said he regrets his cowboy rhetoric the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks such as his "wanted dead or alive" description of Osama bin Laden and his taunting "bring 'em on" challenge to Iraqi insurgents.

"In certain pa[r]ts of the world, it was misinterpreted."

Mr. Blair for his part acknowledged what was obvious before the invasion:

Blair regretted the way in which Saddam Hussein's political allies were purged from the Iraqi military and government soon after the fall of Baghdad. Critics have said the sudden purge left a security vacuum in Iraq and encouraged former regime loyalists to take up arms against the newly installed government.

Blair also said allies seriously underestimated the insurgency.

"It should have been very obvious to us" from the beginning, Blair said. [Emphasis added by me.]

Respectfully, Prime Minister, it was obvious from the beginning but the Administration chose to ignore the advice of its own experts in favor of wildly optimistic scenarios painted by Vice President Cheney and his merry band of neo-conservatives. Here is Vice President Cheney speaking 4 days before the Iraq invasion on March 16, 2003:

Now, I think things have gotten so bad inside Iraq, from the standpoint of the Iraqi people, my belief is we will, in fact, be greeted as liberators.

From those carefree comments from Mr. Cheney to the confessions at today's press conference, we have descended step by each humiliating step into defeat.

Today in Iraq sectarian violence claims the lives of about 30 innocent civilians every day. Bodies with drill holes in their heads are left on street corners like garbage to be picked up by the grim reaper. The islamist Dawa party slowly but steadily tightens its grip on the reigns of power in Iraq while their masters in Tehran rejoice in their good fortune. Ordinary Iraqis live in fear where the most mundane tasks of everyday life have become acts of fear and courage. Militias roam the streets and don the uniform of the Iraqi Police. Insurgents strike with impunity as their IEDs and suicide attacks continue to end lives and replenish the morgues. American soldiers retreat further into their barracks as it becomes increasingly more difficult to discern friend from foe.

There is nothing good in today's news. The President of the most powerful nation in the world stood in front of the cameras today and looked for all the world to see to be a muddled schoolboy. Perhaps we have reached the bottom of the bucket of humiliation that is the American engagement in Iraq. Tomorrow promises to be the beginning of the American disengagement from Iraq. Tomorrow promises to also be the beginning of American abandonment of Iraq. American self-preservation will mean that Iraq will be left to suffer on its own for years to come.

Today is a milestone in an American and Global tragedy brought about by a President who fancied himself a cowboy. May the world see better days than this.

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When President Bush nominated General Michael Hayden for the position of Director of Central Intelligence he threw down a gauntlet to the Democrats. He dared the Democrats to do battle on this nomination. He dared the Democrats to vote against Hayden and he dared the Democrats to hold up the nomination. He dared the Democrats to leave vacant the CIA Director's position while the United States is engaged in wars in Afghanistan and in Iraq. Predictably, the Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee saw the gauntlet, turned tail, and fled.

With the notable exception of Senators Feingold, Wyden and Bayh, the remaining Democrats on the Committee voted to send Hayden's nomination to the floor. By voting for the nomination the 4 Democratic Senators have fallen into the political trap set for them by the Administration. The Administration has put the Democrats in a vise. If Democrats vote against the nomination, the Administration can claim that the Democrats are obstructionist and weak on national security. If the Democrats vote for the nomination, the Administration is inoculated against charges that it overstepped its authority by conducting warrant-less surveillance. A vote for Hayden is in effect an acceptance of the Administration's position on the NSA spying. Either way the Democrats vote they will be beat upon relentlessly in the run up to the November elections.

Democrats have rightly decided that blocking Hayden's nomination will damage them politically going into the November elections. However, voting for the architect of the NSA spying program is an even worse option. A vote for Hayden, in addition to giving the Administration a green light on the NSA spying, will also alienate the Democratic base - and the base is crucial in the November elections where turnout will likely determine the outcome of many races. A vote for Hayden will damage the Democrats just like John Kerry's Iraq votes damaged him in the 2004 Presidential elections. Here the Administration has figured out that they can have their cake and eat it too - they get the nominee through and they damage the Democrats politically.

I propose a third option for the Democrats. When the nomination comes up for a vote on the Senate floor, the Democrats should neither try to block it nor vote against the nomination. Instead the Democrats should abstain. Abstaining on the nomination vote blunts the Administration's logic and outflanks them politically. The Democrats cannot be seen as obstructionists when they do not hold up the nomination. The Democrats cannot be seen as weak on national security when they do not vote against the nominee. The Bush Administration will also fail in their gambit to inoculate themselves from charges that the NSA spying is illegal. The Democrats can say that they stood on principle and could not vote for a nominee who has a questionable record on protecting American civil liberties, and on the other hand, the Democrats can say that they could not vote against the President's nominee for the crucial position of Director of Central Intelligence in a time of war. 

When the Bush Administration picked General Hayden, no doubt they believed they had a horse on which they could win multiple political points ahead of the elections. They counted on the Democrats to cower at the prospect of a nomination fight. They counted on the Democrats to lose the game. Instead of capitulating on the playing field laid out by Karl Rove and his friends the Democrats need instead to move the playing field. It's a simple strategy yet it holds the promise of success. 

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What is an acceptable ratio of death between the enemy and an innocent civilian? Is it 4 to 1? Is it 2 to 1? Are you willing to kill one innocent life to be able to kill 4 of the enemy? Are you willing to kill one innocent life to kill 2 of the enemy? How far are you willing to go to defend freedom? Would you offer your own life so that 2 or maybe 4 of the enemy may be killed? I want to know.

Today in Afghanistan the United States military launched air strikes in the village of Azizi in Kandahar that killed 60 suspected Taliban militants and 16 innocent civilians. One report puts the estimated number of civilians killed as high as 35. The lower number puts the ratio of Taliban to civilians killed at 4 to 1.

The Associated Press quotes eyewitnesses as saying the suspected Taliban militants ran into peoples' homes to seek shelter from US bombing of their positions in a nearby madrassa:

Many of the wounded sought treatment at Kandahar city's Mirwaise Hospital. One man with blood smeared over his clothes and turban said insurgents had been hiding in an Islamic religious school, or madrassa, in the village after fierce fighting in recent days.

"Helicopters bombed the madrassa and some of the Taliban ran from there and into people's homes. Then those homes were bombed," said Haji Ikhlaf, 40. "I saw 35 to 40 dead Taliban and around 50 dead or wounded civilians."

Another survivor from the village, Zurmina Bibi, who was cradling her wounded 8-month-old baby, said about 10 people were killed in her home, including three or four children.

"There were dead people everywhere," she said, crying.

Reuters quotes the Governor of Kandahar, Khalid Assadullah, as follows:

Khalid said the 16 civilians had been killed in air strikes after Taliban took up positions in their houses.

"The Taliban used people's houses as their trenches. They were killed in the bombardment," he said.

Some of wounded civilians were brought to Kandahar's main hospital.

A wounded boy, Daad Mohammad, said all seven members of his family were killed.

"They are all dead," he told Reuters from his hospital bed.

MSNBC quotes the Governor of Kandahar:

"These sort of accidents happen during fighting, especially when the Taliban are hiding in homes," he told reporters. "I urge people not to give shelter to the Taliban."

The Associated Press quotes a US military spokesman:

U.S. military spokesman Col. Tom Collins said the coalition forces targeted a Taliban compound and "we're certain we hit the right target."

"It's common that the enemy fights in close to civilians as a means to protect its own forces," he added.

The latest fighting is part of the heavy fighting that has broken out in recent weeks as a result of the resurgence of the Taliban in Afghanistan. Despite 4 years of American military dominance and American reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan, the Taliban have not been defeated. In fact, the Taliban are increasingly seen as the protectors of Afghanistan against foreign occupation. Jim Maceda of NBC News reported just last week:

The Taliban's comeback is not only on the battlefield, but, increasingly, in the hearts and minds of Afghans. Why?

Analysts say the democratic values embodied by Afghan President Hamid Karzai haven't caught on.

"In a lot of parts of the country, nothing really has changed from a few years ago," says Brad Adams of Human Rights Watch.

...

Despite some $12 billion in aid and the loss of more than 220 U.S. soldiers, many Afghan men in the street want the Taliban back.

Increasingly, the Taliban is seen here as a protector of Islamic values against the invasion of Western ways.

Kabul is now dotted with luxury hotels and malls, and Afghans say they like their higher salaries, but not the crime and prostitution that are also on the rise.

"We need the Taliban," one Afghan man says. "Otherwise Westerners and foreigners will corrupt our religion."

The battle with the Taliban in Afghanistan is more about hearts and minds than military engagements. In that battle we are losing, perhaps we have already lost. We have installed ruthless warlords as Governors in provinces all over Afghanistan. We cannot engage in the same heavy handed tactics as these thugs. They may not value human life but we must. Every time we bomb a village and kill innocent civilians, we are creating more enemies. The people of Afghanistan do not have the luxury of choosing between a grand idea of Liberty and the darkness of the Taliban. From their perspective the choice boils down to who will keep them safe. If the Americans will indiscriminately bomb their villages to try to kill a few Taliban, the choice for the Afghan man or a woman becomes rather clear. When an errant American bomb destroys an Afghan family, the surviving members will not be worshipping Americans as their saviors. They will instead look to the Taliban to offer them protection. This very need for protection is what led to the rise of the Taliban in Afghanistan in the mid 1990s. Hearts and minds are won by offering security and stability not by offering Democracy at the point of the gun.

The United States, with every civilian death, is creating more ill will toward itself in Afghanistan. As in Iraq, liberation has been morphing into heavy-handed occupation. Afghan nationalism that demands American withdrawal will be the result of this spin toward failure. In this environment the Taliban will find fertile ground to preach their brand of hate by offering, once again, security at the expense of liberty. The legacy of the American invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan is becoming clear. The United States is creating the very extremism it tried to defeat when it invaded Afghanistan and Iraq. In the case of Iraq, the extremism was created as a consequence of American actions. In the case of Afghanistan, the extremism that crept into the shadows during the initial invasion has been given fertile soil as a result of American actions.

There must be a better way to fight extremism without creating more death and hate. Surely a 4-to-1 or 2-to-1 ratio of extremists to innocent civilians is not an acceptable mathematical formula for success in the War on Terror. Innocent life has value far greater than the term "collateral damage" suggests. So I ask again, how much is an innocent life worth?

Also posted at my web site.

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On June 1st of this year the life of a man who has spent half his life in prison will be extinguished in Pakistan. Mirza Tahir Hussain, a 36-year Pakistani-British dual citizen, will be hanged for the crime of murder. He will be hanged after an Islamic court in Pakistan found him guilty of murdering a taxi driver in 1988. He will be hanged after he was acquitted of all charges by the Pakistani High Court.

How can a man acquitted of murder by Pakistan's High Court be hanged for murder by Pakistan's Islamic court? Good question. The answer lies in Pakistan's dueling judicial systems - one secular and one Islamic. If you are found innocent in one system, you can be tried in another. You get two for the price of one - Double Jeapardy knows no better home.

Amnesty International describes the facts of the case as follows:

Mirza Tahir Hussain was tried and convicted of murdering a taxi driver while travelling to the village of Bhubar from Rawalpindi, Punjab Province, on 17 December 1988. The taxi driver reportedly stopped the car and produced a gun, and Mirza Tahir Hussain, who was 18 years old at the time, was reportedly physically and sexually assaulted by the taxi driver. In the scuffle that followed, the gun went off, and the taxi driver was fatally injured.

Mirza Tahir Hussain was sentenced to death in 1989 at the Sessions Court in Islamabad. Following an appeal, this sentence was dismissed by the Lahore High Court, which noted discrepancies in the case. The case was returned to the Sessions Court where Mirza Tahir Hussain was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1994. Following a second appeal, the Lahore High Court then dismissed this sentence in 1996, and Mirza Tahir Hussain was acquitted of all charges against him.

A week later, Mirza Tahir Hussain’s case was referred to the Federal Shariat Court on charges from the original case, including robbery involving murder, which fall under Islamic offences against property law. The Federal Shariat Court’s duties include reviewing laws to ensure they conform with Islamic doctrine and dealing with appeals of cases tried under Islamic Law. The entire case against Mirza Tahir Hussain was reopened, and in 1998, he was sentenced to death by the Federal Shariat Court, despite their acknowledgment that no robbery had taken place due to the taxi being hired. The death penalty sentence by the Federal Shariat Court was based on a split two to one judgement, with the dissenting judge strongly recommending that Mirza Tahir Hussain be acquitted. Amnesty International believes that Mirza Tahir Hussain has not received a fair trial due to the contradictory statements of the different courts. Also, the Islamic provision under which he was tried requires that the death penalty should only be imposed if reliable eyewitness accounts or a confession to the court are submitted. In this case, neither was obtained.

The Washington Post also quotes the strong dissent by one of the judges in the Islamic court:

In August 1998, in a split 2-1 verdict, the Islamic court's judges sentenced him to death again, although the legal provision he was tried under required a confession or witness to the crime. The prosecution had neither.

The dissenting judge, Abdul Waheed Siddiqui, gave a scathing assessment of the prosecution in a 59-page judgment. He described Hussain as "an innocent, raw youth not knowing the mischief and filth in which the police of this country is engrossed." He said police introduced false witnesses and "fabricated evidence in a shameless manner" against Hussein, who had no criminal record.

Mr. Hussain's real crime was voluntarily surrendering to the police in the hopes of getting justice. The corrupt police in Pakistan and other developing countries make a mockery of the rule of law and terrorize their citizens. They are the real enemies in the War on Terror.

Mr. Hussain's brother describes Tahir Hussain's despair:

"Sometimes he just feels like getting this over and done with. He once told me don't bother to try and help, because whatever God ordains is going to happen," Amjad Hussain said. "That scares me."

We cannot allow this miscarriage of justice to be carried out without raising our voices. We must demand clemency or a fair trial for this soul. Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf has the ability to intervene and has so far refused to do so. The United States, Pervez Musharraf's real masters, has considerable sway over his actions. As in the case of Mukhtar Mai the light of the world's attention can shame this act of cowardice from being carried out. Please take the time to contact your senators and congressmen to put pressure on the Government of Pakistan to stop this execution. Please contact the White House and the State Department and let them know that the United States has a duty to speak up in defense of Human Rights. Please contact the Pakistani Embassy in your country and tell them the world is watching. Please send a note to Pervez Musharraf and tell him the world will not forget.

I also ask Muslims in Pakistan and around the world to protest this imminent hanging. This miscarriage of justice is ostensibly being carried out in our name. This man's death will shame us all. In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful I ask all Muslims to show the quality of mercy in Islam and save this man's life.

Time is short. Please act now.

Please contact the following:

• Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf via the President's website.

• Email the Pakistani Ambassador to the United States, His Excellency Jehangir Karamat, at ambassador@pakistan-embassy.org.

• Email the White House at comments@whitehouse.gov.

• Contact your senators and congressmen.

• Contact Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice through the State Department website.

Also posted at my web site.

"For the purposes of this Convention, the term "torture" means any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in or incidental to lawful sanctions. " - Article I, paragraph 1 of the Convention Against Torture ratified by the United States onApril 18, 1988.

The United Nations Committee Against Torture released its State Report for the United States on May 18, 2006. In an 11-page indictment of the United States the Committee laid bare America's loss of moral authority in the world. The report was a product of the 36th session of the Committee Against Torture. Of the 7 countries reviewed during the session only the United States provided a written defense of its torture policies to the Committee. More so than the Committee report the written response of the United States demonstrates that the United States has been engaged in a systematic campaign of torture since the attacks of September 11, 2001. The report and the American response shed light on a shameful chapter in American history.

 The American defense of torture is based on four pillars of argument:

1. The United States defines torture differently than the United Nations Convention Against Torture.
2. The Convention Against Torture does not apply during times of armed conflict.
3. The Convention Against Torture only applies to the United States when it commits torture on the territory of the United States.
4. Kidnapping and disappearance perpetrated by the United States do not constitute torture.

 The Committee report indicts the United States on the following grounds:

• The United States should ensure that psychological torture be defined according to the Convention and not according to the U.S. contention that only "prolonged mental harm" constitutes torture. The definition of torture in the Convention clearly states that torture is defined as "any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession."
• The Committee cites articles 1 and 16 of the Convention that states that the Convention Against Torture applies at all times and not only during peacetime as the United States has contended. The United States had made the absurd assertion that only the "law of armed conflict" should apply during wars and that applying the Convention Against Torture would "<font face="TimesNewRoman">result in an overlap of the different treaties which would undermine the objective of eradicating torture".</font&gt
• The Committee clarified to the United States that the Convention applies to all territories (including Guantanamo Bay) under the control of the United States, and not only on acts of torture committed by the United States within the borders of the United States. The United States has used this absurd geographical limitation as a basis for perpetrating torture on detainees at Guantanamo Bay and elsewhere around the world.
• The Committee chastised the United States for not registering some prisoners and hiding them from international observers. This tactic effectively removes all safeguards against torture.
• The Committee noted that secret detention facilities run by the United States without any international oversight violate the Convention Against Torture. The United States response to the Committee's inquiry was a "no comment" and is a tacit admission of guilt by the United States.
• The Committee pointed out the obvious fact lost upon the United States that enforced disappearances of persons by the United States is a violation of the Convention Against Torture.
• The Committee informed the United States that extraordinary rendition of persons to countries known to commit torture puts the United States in violation of the Convention Against Torture. This clever sleight of hand by the United States does not absolve it of its responsibilities under the Convention.
• The Committee noted that the indefinite detention of persons at Guantanamo Bay and elsewhere is a violation of the Convention Against Torture. The Committee recommended that the Guantanamo Bay detention facility be closed to bring the United States into compliance with the Convention.
• The Committee pointed out that techniques such as "waterboarding", use of dogs and "short shackling" that have led to deaths are a violation of the Convention Against Torture. The United States had argued rather bizarrely that cruel and inhuman punishment is not necessarily torture.

The United States has come a long way from the Clinton days when our biggest moral dilemma was whether or not fallatio constituted sex. The fact that the United States finds itself in the untenable position of arguing that it does not torture on tortured definitions of the word "torture" and geographical jurisdiction of the Convention should give all citizens pause. Our Government is essentially arguing that torturing someone on foreign soil is not torture. Our Government is arguing that the word "torture" can be defined so that most torture (like beating a man until he dies) can be construed as not being "torture". Our Government is arguing that kidnapping someone so that they disappear from the face of this planet is not torture because the person is now a non-person and no one can hear his or her screams. Our Government is arguing that if a bear shits in the woods and no one is there to see it, the bear did not in fact shit in the woods. Our Government is arguing that we can only torture someone if we are at peace with him or her. If we declare war on someone we are free to stick baseball bats up their asses to our hearts' content and be safe in the delusion that we are not torturing them.

Our Government has lost its collective mind when it comes to torture. Is it any wonder that we are losing hearts and minds in the War on Terror? By our condoning of torture, by our tortured defense of torture, by our complete lack of humanity we are now viewed in the world as a rogue state. This must end.

For centuries the United States has been a beacon of hope for people fleeing torture and persecution. For centuries the wretched of the earth have pointed to the United States and said, "there, that is where there is hope; that is where there is justice." For centuries people have come to our shores with wounds emotional and physical and we have given them shelter and given them solace. We cannot be the great country we have been, the shining example to the World of human dignity and human achievement, if we allow our Government to torture and destroy all that this country has stood for.

This must end. This must end now. We, the people of the United States of America, must say in one voice to our Government that We do not torture. You will not torture, not in Our name. This must end now.

Also posted at my web site.

Behold the intelligence of the man who wants to be your next President. Today on Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer, Senator Bill Frist confirmed the existence of the NSA phone records collection program first revealed by USA Today. The following is the transcript of Frist's exchange with Wolf Blitzer on CNN:

BLITZER: Let's talk about the surveillance programs here in the United States since 9/11. USA Today reported a bombshell this week. Let me read to you from the article on Thursday.

"The National Security Agency has been secretly collecting the phone call records of tens of millions of Americans using data provided by AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth. The NSA program reaches into homes and businesses across the nation by amassing information about the calls of ordinary Americans, most of whom aren't suspected of any crime. With access to records of billions of domestic calls, the NSA has gained a secret window into the communications habits of millions of Americans."

Are you comfortable with this program?

FRIST: Absolutely. Absolutely. I am one of the people who are briefed...

BLITZER: You've known about this for years.

FRIST: I've known about the program. I am absolutely convinced that you, your family, our families are safer because of this particular program.

I absolutely know that it is legal. The program itself is anonymous, in the sense that identifiers, in terms of protecting your privacy, are stripped off. And, as you know, the program is voluntary, the participants in that program.

And it comes to the reality -- it faces the reality that we're in the 21st century. And the only way to connect the dots, whether around the world or in this country, to prevent another 9/11, whether it's in the Pentagon or in New York or back in Nashville, Tennessee, is to connect those dots. And the only way to connect those dots is to use 21st-century technology that protects your privacy, and that's exactly what this does.

BLITZER: Can you tell the American people right now that over these past almost five years since the phone records have been collected -- I'm not talking about the warrantless surveillance, the warrantless wiretaps -- the phone records, that has resulted in thwarting one terrorist attack in the United States?

FRIST: You know, I am not going to comment on the program until the appropriate time. There has not been even a confirmation of the USA Today program itself. I...

BLITZER: But have you been briefed on one success story?

FRIST: I can tell you I've been briefed in a classified way, and I can tell you that I am absolutely, 100 percent sure, confident that this has protected and saved lives in the United States of America.

BLITZER: But has there been one success story that you can point to?

FRIST: I just don't want to be pulled in...

BLITZER: Without specifics, just tell us that there has been a terrorist attack that was plotted and, as a result of collecting these phone calls, was thwarted.

FRIST: You know, in appropriate hearings and settings, this will come out. But this is classified information about a classified program. You know, the more we talk about these programs, the more we're giving our playbook to the terrorists who are sitting out around this country right now, who did plan 9/11 and what happened at the Pentagon today. And they are in this country now. They are waiting. And the more we talk about these programs, we're giving them the playbook, and that empowers them to be able to have an attack on this country. And it's just not the right thing to do. [Emphasis added by me.]

I think the Department of Justice should crack down on leakers of classified information before they further help the terrorists. DOJ should start by asking Senator Frist about why he divulged the existence of a classified NSA program on national television. Apparently it is ok to divulge the existence of the classified program but it is not ok to mention if even one terrorist has been caught as a result of the program.

Senator Frist is the first Government official to publicly confirm the existence of the NSA spying program. Unless he has been authorized to declassify this information, he is likely in violation of a number of laws aimed at protecting classified information. Clearly Senator Frist cannot be trusted to keep our nation's secrets protected. Perhaps his security clearance should be revoked.

As the Administration continues its witch hunt to silence leakers of classified information, it needs to look hard at the Senate Majority Leader's loose lips. Senator Frist, don't you know the terrorists are watching?

Also posted at my web site.

The latest revelation that the National Security Agency has gathered phone records of millions of ordinary Americans has generated outrage and controversy across the political spectrum. The NSA has gathered phone records apparently without court orders in violation of existing statutes. It appears that the NSA is attempting to use this vast database of phone records to connect the dots between known terrorists by using software to look for links and patterns in the records. Unfortunately, the fact that the phone records contain the phone numbers of millions of ordinary and innocent Americans opens the door to abuse of the database and guilt by association.

The NSA is likely using link analysis techniques in an attempt to connect known targets separated by multiple degrees of separation. Link analysis is a simple yet powerful tool that can be used very effectively on structured relational data. Link analysis is nothing but the high tech equivalent of the "Kevin Bacon Game".

The image above shows an example of how NSA would connect Bad Guy #1 with Bad Guy #2. To do so, NSA would need the phone records of Bad Guy #1, Person A, Person D, Person G and Bad Guy #2. By traversing the phone record tree from both directions the NSA could connect Bad Guy #1 and Bad Guy #2 by finding that they both are connected to intermediate Persons A, D or G.

In order for the NSA to do link analysis with a court order, the NSA would have to first get a warrant for the phone records of Bad Guy #1. It would then have to get a warrant for phone records for each person on Bad Guy #1's phone record (i.e., persons A and B) and then get warrants for the persons on the phone records of the next set of people and so on. At some point, the NSA would have a difficult case to make that one of these intervening people was legitimately connected to an ongoing investigation. Even if it succeeded in making the case for the warrant, the logistics of getting a warrant at every step of the process would make this kind of link analysis cumbersome and nearly impossible to perform in real time. I suspect that is why the NSA and the President decided to go around the law. When faced with a question of law, instead of asking Congress to update the law, the Government chose to ignore the law.

The problem in this approach for the NSA was that getting the phone records of intervening persons between two known bad guys requires court orders. There is perhaps a simple way to achieve the goals of the NSA without the court orders and the violations of privacy that results if the court orders are not sought. I propose that instead of seeking the actual phone numbers from the phone companies, the NSA should seek secure hashed equivalents of the phone numbers. That is, all phone records handed over to the NSA should contain secure hashed ids instead of the actual phone numbers of American citizens. The phone company would keep the actual phone records and the mappings between the phone numbers and their hashed equivalents. This will ensure that the NSA does not have a database of phone numbers of ordinary Americans. I also believe there is no law that would be violated by the phone companies turning over this data to the NSA.

Briefly, secure hashing is a technique that is commonly used to store passwords and to digitally sign electronic messages. The power of secure hashing lies in that when a number or string is hashed to produce a message digest, there is no way to get back to the original number or string. However, the same number, if secure hashed repeatedly will result in the same message digest. This feature allows one to store data, a password or phone record for example, in a database without the original password or phone record being compromised. Given the original phone number or password, one can secure hash it and then compare it to data in the database to find its matching hash. SHA-1, the most commonly used secure hashing algorithm was designed by none other than the National Security Agency.

This new database maintained at the NSA, using secure hashed ids in lieu of phone numbers, would be just as effective for data mining and link analysis. If the NSA knows the phone number(s) of a known target or targets, they can simply convert the phone number to its secure hashed equivalent (or "message digest" ). These message digests then can be used to perform link analysis on the database. Using the example in the image, the NSA would secure hash the phone number of Bad Guy #1 and look up the phone record equivalents in the database. They would find the hashed message digests representing Persons A and B. When they look up the records for the message digest of person A, they would similarly find the message digest of Person D. Similarly, coming from the other side, the NSA would secure hash the actual number for Bad Guy #2 and find the message digest of Person G. In looking at the records of Person G, the NSA would find the message digest of Person D. Then, Voila!, the NSA will have connected Bad Guy #1 to Bad Guy #2 without knowing the phone numbers of Persons A, D and G. Armed with the message digests of Persons A, D and G, the NSA can now approach the court for a warrant based on probable cause. The phone companies can then provide the NSA with the actual numbers and identities of Persons A, D and G by mapping the message digests to their original phone numbers that the companies would keep in their own databases. The phone records of all other persons not involved between Bad Guy #1 and Bad Guy #2 will remain unknown to the NSA.

This simple use of existing cryptography techniques may eliminate the need for the massive intrusion into the privacy of ordinary Americans that is currently occurring. This solution allows the NSA to troll and mine to their hearts content in an attempt to keep us safe without violating our hard earned civil liberties. Who knows, with any luck it will come to light that the NSA is already doing this and all this fuss will have been about nothing. However, the fact that Qwest balked at handing over phone records to the NSA suggests to me that the NSA is not using this simple but effective technique.

Also posted at my web site.

The response of the United States to the letter sent by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad amounts to the Superpower version of "Talk to the hand". In my previous post on the subject I had suggested that perhaps a better approach might be to actually talk to the Iranians. But the Bush Administration seems to never miss an opportunity to look monumentally incompetent on the international stage. Thus, with characteristic bravado the Administration dismissed the Iranian letter (the first of its kind from Iran since 1979). I am sure that the chicken hawks in the Administration are patting themselves on the back for their machoness in rubbing the noses of the Iranians in the dirt. The rest of the world however saw the Iranian letter and its rejection by the United States as a missed opportunity. From the Administration's point of view there is really only one thing left to do: Bomb Iran.

It wasn't always like this. Back in 1998 the Clinton Administration sent a similar letter to Iran through the Swiss Government in an attempt to begin direct talks with the Government of Iran. CNN reported at the time:

The Clinton administration recently sought to open a government-to-government dialogue with Iran, sources said, sending a secret letter to Iranian President Mohammad Khatami through diplomatic channels in the second week of August.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, the sources said Iran did not reply through those same channels, but U.S. officials viewed Khatami's moderate statements about respect for the American people, made last month and again in a CNN interview this week, as the answer to the U.S. overture.

...

The letter to Iran, sources said, contained no provisos and simply asked the Iranians if they were ready to conduct talks with the United States.

The sources said such a letter would have been signed by U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. It was written, they said, after a long administration debate in which one camp argued that Washington should wait for Iran to make the first approach.

In the world of diplomacy events can sometimes move at a glacial pace. With that in mind, the letter from Ahmadinejad may actually have been a reply to the 1998 letter. There may also have been back channel talks between Iran and the United States during the Clinton years:

Contrary to a Washington Post report Friday, sources said, the Swiss channel has been much used for practical communication, not just angry ideological exchanges.

The Swiss government represents U.S. interests with the Iranians. The sources said the Swiss Embassy in Washington regularly spends up to 20 percent of its time on Iranian contact on behalf of the United States. [Emphasis added by me.]

I am probably not in much danger of being incorrect if I believe that these back channel contacts with the Iranians ceased when George W. Bush became President of the United States. The new Administration apparently treats diplomacy as if it's an unwanted stepchild. They pay lip service to diplomacy being the first option while they are busy undermining it. Secretary Rice, our chief diplomat, had this to say about talking with Iran:

Rice asserted yesterday that "the absence of communication is not a problem with the Iranians" because there have been plenty of proposals advanced through the Europeans and the Russians. But, alluding to Iran's alleged failure to respond constructively to those proposals, she asked: "What is to be gained if Iran is not prepared to show that it is ready to accede to the demands of the international community?" [Emphasis added by me]

The chief diplomat of the United States is not doing her job. Instead, she has out-sourced U.S. foreign policy to the Europeans and Russians. This Administration wants us to believe that we are in the midst of a dangerous nuclear standoff with Iran and yet it is not even willing to communicate with Iran. Mr. Bush's assertions that the United States considers diplomacy the primary option vis-à-vis Iran rings kind of hollow in light of Dr. Rice's bizarre statements.

The Washington Post reports today that Foreign Policy experts from both sides of the aisle as well as foreign diplomats are speaking out and urging the United States to resume direct talks with Iran. The Germans, one of the Europeans who Dr. Rice is relying on, are venting their frustration with Washington:

Germany is one of the three European Union countries that have jointly held inconclusive talks with Tehran. German officials have made little secret of their belief that diplomacy will not succeed without direct U.S. intervention. Ruprecht Polenz, the influential chairman of the foreign affairs committee of the German parliament and an ally of Chancellor Angela Merkel, lashed out last Friday against the administration's policy after returning from a two-day visit to Iran. "Washington's refusal to join direct talks with Iran won't make it any easier to achieve a diplomatic solution to the current nuclear dispute," he said. [Emphasis added by me.]

Former secretary of state Madeleine Albright, who last month wrote an opinion piece jointly with 5 former European foreign ministers urging President Bush to open direct talks with Iran, explained rather succinctly how diplomacy should be practiced:

But Albright said yesterday that the letter, despite its invective and religious musings, should be viewed as an opportunity both for a dialogue with Iran and to influence world opinion. She likened it to President John F. Kennedy's choosing to selectively respond to -- and ignore -- conflicting messages from his Soviet counterpart during the Cuban missile crisis.

"In diplomacy, you make your opportunities," Albright said. "Acting in a dismissive way doesn't get you anywhere." [Emphasis added by me.]

I find Madam Albright's comparison to President Kennedy's deft handling of Khrushchev during the Cuban Missile Crisis to be very appropriate and instructive here. The Administration would do well to heed these calls for dialogue.

The Bush Administration however does not respond well to good advice. The Bush Administration is likely to dig in further on its hardline stance against Iran. In doing so it is likely to further isolate itself in the diplomatic dance with Iran. The military option, for the Bush Administration, will become a self-fulfilling prophecy. War with Iran is the likely outcome as long as this Administration and its policy of petulant diplomacy continue.

Also posted at my web site.

President Bush has had a fantastic 5 years as the President of the United States. He has learned many things, met many interesting people, visited with many friends, and had a whale of a time. There have been many highs and lows. But, overall it's been great fun.

Asked what his worst moment as President was, Mr. Bush pointed to the infamous "My Pet Goat" moment (or 7 minutes):

"In such a situation it takes a while before one understands what is happening," Bush said. "I would say that this was the hardest moment, once I had the real picture before my eyes."

Asked what his best moment as President was, Mr. Bush finally settled on fishing:

"You know, I've experienced many great moments and it's hard to name the best," Bush told weekly Bild am Sonntag when asked about his high point since becoming president in January 2001.

"I would say the best moment of all was when I caught a 7.5 pound (3.402 kilos) perch in my lake," he told the newspaper in an interview published on Sunday.

Clearly Mr. Bush loves fishing. Who wouldn't? It's not as if one has to stop living just because the country is at war. But it occurred to me that Mr. Bush might have missed a lot of things that have happened in this great big world while he was out fishing. So, as a public service I compiled some things he may have missed into the video below:

[CLICK FOR VIDEO PAGE]

Also posted at my web site

The story goes like this: Negroponte is unhappy with Goss. Negroponte goes to Bush for help in getting rid of Goss. Bush approves. Goss is fired. Hayden is looked upon as a likely replacement. Bush will announce on Monday that Hayden is the new CIA Director.

That is the story that the major news outlets are peddling based on some high octane spin coming from the White House. Karl Rove must be losing what hair he has left burning the midnight oil.

I have one major problem with this story line. The problem is that Porter Goss dropped everything on Friday and ran to the White House with virtually no notice to quit. That is simply not done when you are the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency in the middle of an intelligence driven War on Terror. His hasty exit has left the CIA in turmoil. If he was pushed out as a result of a power struggle the Administration would have had a successor at the ready to smooth the transition. Not having a successor ready is either monumentally irresponsible or an indication of a scandal that is big enough that all other considerations seemed not to matter to Goss and the President.

Adding fuel to the fire, asked about his resignation Porter Goss was decidedly unhelpful:

Porter Goss said Saturday that his surprise resignation as CIA director is "just one of those mysteries," offering no other explanation for his sudden departure after almost two years on the job.

It looks like Porter Goss is not on board with the program. Look for Goss to sing like a canary in the near future.

We are also to believe that John Negroponte was involved in a power struggle with Goss.  To buy into this spin, we would have to believe that Mr. Negroponte takes his job seriously. Unfortunately, Mr. Negroponte is so engaged in his job as the Director of National Intelligence that he spends three hours of his busy workday relaxing at a ritzy private club:

On many a workday lunchtime, the nominal boss of U.S. intelligence, John D. Negroponte, can be found at a private club in downtown Washington, getting a massage, taking a swim, and having lunch, followed by a good cigar and a perusal of the daily papers in the club’s library.

“He spends three hours there [every] Monday through Friday,” gripes a senior counterterrorism official, noting that the former ambassador has a security detail sitting outside all that time in chase cars. Others say they’ve seen the Director of National Intelligence at the University Club, a 100-year-old mansion-like redoubt of dark oak panels and high ceilings a few blocks from the White House, only “several” times a week.

...

But there seems to be a new, relaxed John Negroponte. And some close observers think they know why.

He’s figured out the job. Which is to say, he really doesn’t have much control over the 16 U.S. intelligence agencies.

It does not appear that Negroponte was struggling with much of anything let alone struggling with the Director of the CIA.

If there was a power struggle, it might have been between the Defense Department and the CIA. The Defense Department appears to be usurping most of the intelligence budget and activities from the CIA. Mr. Negroponte is a hapless bystander in this power struggle as the following exchange with Senator Diane Feinstein illustrates:

“We appointed you to be the person to (run) all intelligence,” Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., lectured Negroponte at a Feb. 28 hearing of the Senate Select Intelligence Committee. (CQ Transcripts: Senate Select Intelligence Committee hearing, Feb. 28, 2006)

Feinstein asked Negroponte about “recent media reports [that] have spotlighted a number of activities that appear to be related to intelligence collection or covert action, but that well may be outside of the official intelligence community’s channels.

“For example,” Feinstein continued, “military databases of suspicious activity reports . . . by the (domestic military) counterintelligence field activity, or CIFA; and, secondly, a Pentagon program to secretly pay Iraqi newspapers to run pro-American articles.

“Were these activities subject to your approval and oversight?”

Negroponte’s answer was short-circuited by an unidentified voice, according to the CQ transcript, quite possibly his deputy, former Air Force general and NSA chief Michael Hayden.

“Ma’am, I don’t believe that either of those activities would fall into Mr. Negroponte’s area. They are Department of Defense programs, I believe.”

“Now, let me raise this problem then,” Feinstein continued.

“Now, I know how tough it is. But if you didn’t know and you didn’t give a go-ahead [to domestic military spying], it indicates to me that, for 85 percent of the budget, which is defense-related, that you’re not going to have the controls that you should have,” Feinstein said.

“You want to comment?”

Negroponte, who not long ago in Baghdad was dismissing senior military officers with the wave of his hand, had to be feeling an acute wave of heartburn.

The Director of National Intelligence was forced to concede that the U.S. intelligence activities Feinstein was asking him about had “not risen to the level of my office.” In any event, they came “under the direction of the undersecretary of defense for intelligence” — a pipsqueak, relatively speaking.

Negroponte said he “understood” that the Pentagon was doing an internal review of spying programs because of a congressional uproar.

“But will you get the results of that review?” Feinstein asked.

“Yes,” promised Negroponte, dismissed like a schoolboy, “I will get those results.”

Enter General Michael Hayden. He apparently is the forerunner to be the new CIA Director. If he is nominated it will be a victory for Dick Cheney and will further diminish the power of the CIA vis-à-vis the Defense Department. Michael Hayden after all is Dick Cheney's go to guy for warrant-less eavesdropping. The former Director of the National Security Agency was the implementer and chief public defender of the Administration's warrant-less domestic spying program. General "Bill of Rights" Hayden of course famously excised the "probable cause" clause from the Fourth Amendment:

QUESTION: Jonathan Landay with Knight Ridder. I'd like to stay on the same issue, and that had to do with the standard by which you use to target your wiretaps. I'm no lawyer, but my understanding is that the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution specifies that you must have probable cause to be able to do a search that does not violate an American's right against unlawful searches and seizures. Do you use --

GEN. HAYDEN: No, actually -- the Fourth Amendment actually protects all of us against unreasonable search and seizure.

QUESTION: But the --

GEN. HAYDEN: That's what it says.

QUESTION: But the measure is probable cause, I believe.

GEN. HAYDEN: The amendment says unreasonable search and seizure.

QUESTION: But does it not say probable --

GEN. HAYDEN: No. The amendment says --

QUESTION: The court standard, the legal standard --

GEN. HAYDEN: -- unreasonable search and seizure.

QUESTION: The legal standard is probable cause, General. You used the terms just a few minutes ago, "We reasonably believe." And a FISA court, my understanding is, would not give you a warrant if you went before them and say "we reasonably believe"; you have to go to the FISA court, or the attorney general has to go to the FISA court and say, "we have probable cause." And so what many people believe -- and I'd like you to respond to this -- is that what you've actually done is crafted a detour around the FISA court by creating a new standard of "reasonably believe" in place in probable cause because the FISA court will not give you a warrant based on reasonable belief, you have to show probable cause. Could you respond to that, please?

GEN. HAYDEN: Sure. I didn't craft the authorization. I am responding to a lawful order. All right? The attorney general has averred to the lawfulness of the order.

Just to be very clear -- and believe me, if there's any amendment to the Constitution that employees of the National Security Agency are familiar with, it's the Fourth. And it is a reasonableness standard in the Fourth Amendment. And so what you've raised to me -- and I'm not a lawyer, and don't want to become one -- what you've raised to me is, in terms of quoting the Fourth Amendment, is an issue of the Constitution. The constitutional standard is "reasonable." And we believe -- I am convinced that we are lawful because what it is we're doing is reasonable.

He is just the guy we need to head our spy agency.

Michael Hayden, the Defense Department and Dick Cheney (even perhaps Negroponte) may be jockeying to take advantage of the power struggle caused by Goss's departure but it is not plausible to conclude that they were the primary cause of his departure. The New York Daily News asserts today that its "all about the Duke Cunningham scandal" (better known as Hookergate). The Wall Street journal also reports that Goss's number 3, Kyle "Dusty" Foggo, may be under federal criminal investigation for his involvement in Hookergate. Josh Marshall widens the net by looking at possible misdeeds at the DHS related to Hookergate contracting. No one however has yet connected Porter Goss directly to the scandal. The involvement of Foggo with Hookergate does not explain the abruptness of the Goss exit. Something else must have spooked Goss. Whatever caused his sudden flight probably involves him directly, not tangentially.

There is way too much smoke here for there not to be fire. There is much original reporting to do here. I trust that our worthy investigative reporters will leave no stone unturned to unearth the roots of this scandal. The Nixon Watergate scandal started with a third rate burglary. The reality challenged G. Gordon Liddy has always claimed that the real story involved hookers. Mr. Liddy may finally get his wish in that the new Watergate scandal is starting with hookers. Where it leads is anyone's guess. However, it does promise to be a hot summer in Washington.

Also posted at my web site.

Today in Iraq a suicide bomber killed 17 police recruits in Fallujah. In Baghdad, 37 people were found handcuffed and shot to death. That 54 people lost their lives in Iraq in one day has become so commonplace that the news did not even warrant a prominent place on The Washington Post web site. As I write this the headline on The Washington Post web site is a story about the Washington Nationals baseball team.

Against this backdrop of mayhem in Iraq, Senator Joseph Biden and Leslie Gelb have put forward a five-point plan to prevent a further slide into Civil War in Iraq. In an op-ed piece in The New York Times, Messrs. Biden and Gelb argue that Iraq should be divided into ethnic federations along the Bosnian model. While it is commendable that Senator Biden has finally proposed a thoughtful alternative to the Administration's jingoistic and simplistic "stay the course" plan, the proposal does have some fundamental flaws that need to be addressed.

Senator Biden and Mr. Gelb believe that it is a zero sum game between the American military and the insurgents. They state:

As long as American troops are in Iraq in significant numbers, the insurgents can't win and we can't lose. But intercommunal violence has surpassed the insurgency as the main security threat.

This is a fundamental misreading of the situation in Iraq. The United States has already lost Iraq. The war in Iraq is not about military victories; it is about local, regional and global politics. The United States military cannot hope to win enough battles in Iraq to reverse the political loss the United States has already suffered. Insurgencies win against foreign occupations not by vanquishing the occupier on the battlefield but by making continued occupation a painful and counterproductive path for the occupier. By that measure the United States has lost in Iraq and the only political and military calculation left to make is how to withdraw and when. The communal violence in Iraq has not surpassed the insurgency but in fact is a direct consequence of the insurgency and America's inability to quell it. For better or for worse, civil war in Iraq has been a goal of the insurgency. That civil war has made America's presence in Iraq irrelevant at best and counterproductive at worst.

 The centerpiece of the Biden and Gelb proposal is a division of Iraq into autonomous zones along ethnic lines:

The first is to establish three largely autonomous regions with a viable central government in Baghdad. The Kurdish, Sunni and Shiite regions would each be responsible for their own domestic laws, administration and internal security. The central government would control border defense, foreign affairs and oil revenues. Baghdad would become a federal zone, while densely populated areas of mixed populations would receive both multisectarian and international police protection.

This proposal has appeal given, as the authors point out, that Iraq is already headed toward violent division. However, the proposal glosses over some difficult truths about Iraq's ethnic and geographical structure that cannot be ignored.

First, there are sizable minorities that live within majority Shia, Sunni and Kurdish areas. Any partition into autonomous zones would lead to large scale ethnic cleansing and quite likely violent migration patterns as the minorities flee these newly formed autonomous zones. Though Iraq is distinctly divided into Shia, Sunni, Kurd, Turkmen and other minorities demographically, it is not necessarily divided along those lines geographically (except perhaps in the Kurdish controlled north where ethnic cleansing has already taken place). The proposed division of Iraq is less likely to look like Bosnia and more likely to look like the partition of India into India and Pakistan in 1947. In that instance there was large-scale migration of Hindus and Muslims resulting in violent clashes and significant loss of life. The end result was a geographical monstrosity that led to three wars and finally the formation of an independent Bangladesh in 1971.

Second, the proposal glosses over the thorny issue of oil revenues. Iraq's oil fields are largely concentrated in the predominantly Shia South and in the contested city of Kirkuk in the North. The Sunni areas are largely devoid of oil reserves. The geographic distribution of the oil fields is a major stumbling block in any proposed partition of Iraq along ethnic lines. The city of Kirkuk in particular generates half of Iraq's oil revenue. The Kurds have historically laid claim to this city and will not cede control of the city or its oil revenues under any federalist agreement. Though the problem of Kirkuk has gone largely unaddressed by the United States, I believe it will be the epicenter of a larger struggle for the future of Iraq. With Kirkuk as their capital, the Kurds have ambitions for a greater Kurdistan that spans Iraq, Turkey and Iran. This is a goal the Kurds are unlikely to give up through any negotiation that does not give them full control of Kirkuk and its oil revenues. Turkey and Iran will almost certainly intervene if and when an autonomous Kurdistan in Iraq comes into being. This is a powder keg that will cause major regional instability and is the fly in the ointment of the partition proposal. There is already cross border fighting between Iran, Turkey and the Kurdish region of Iraq and this will likely flare into open warfare in the event of a partition [via Juan Cole].

The other points in the proposal that offer Sunnis financial incentives, offer protection to women, recommend an orderly withdrawal of U.S. forces, and recommend convening of regional summits all have merit but are eclipsed by the difficult task of overcoming the demographic and geographical challenges in Iraq. The incentives to Sunnis and the protection of women in fact argue for a stronger central government rather than a loose federation as has been proposed.

Senator Biden and Leslie Gelb have begun the process of exploring alternatives to the current policy of failure. The White House characteristically has rejected this proposal out of hand. However flawed the proposal is it is perhaps the first step in working our way out of the mess in Iraq and hopefully will spur other serious alternatives that may stem the civil war already raging in Iraq. The prospects of turning back from a violent restructuring of Iraq are bleak, but any proposal that attempts to avert further bloodshed should be given serious consideration.

Also posted at my web site.

General Pervez Musharraf, the dictator of Pakistan, sat down recently with The Guardian of Britain for an interview to proclaim that he is not a dictator. Musharraf insisted that he is a believer in democracy and his mission is to bring democracy to Pakistan:

Gen Musharraf said his mission was to democratise Pakistan. "My popularity has gone down ... but at this moment my country needs me. I've put a strong constitutional democratic system in place. That will throw up a successor. I'm a strong believer in democracy."

Like President Bush, General Musharraf believes that democracy can be achieved with the power of the gun. While Mr. Bush is experimenting with gunboat democracy on an international level, General Musharraf is implementing this theory at the domestic level:

"It is ironic that I'm sitting in uniform talking of democracy ... but to bring democracy into Pakistan I thought I needed it," he said.

Democracy, according to Musharraf, must be properly nurtured and trained. One key element in Musharraf's theory of democracy is to ensure that there is no viable opposition.  What better way to encourage democracy than to send your opposition leaders packing to a democratic country to learn about democracy:

The leaders of the two main opposition parties, Benazir Bhutto of the Pakistan Peoples party and Nawaz Sharif of the Pakistan Muslim League, are in exile and face arrest if they return home. Meeting in London this week they launched a fresh political alliance and called for western support.

In spite of General Musharraf's good intentions there are still those that criticize his stewardship of Pakistani democracy. To these unbelievers, he has this to say:

Criticism of his military-driven strategy came from "people who sit in drawing rooms and talk", he said, but added that a political solution was also being sought.

Clearly too much talk is not good for a healthy democratic society. General Musharraf also is nurturing freedom of the press. However, there are times when a General has to take matters into his own hands in dealing with the press. Sacrifices must be made for the sake of democracy:

An American Predator drone fired Hellfire missiles at a house in Bajaur tribal agency in January, killing 18 people but missing their target, al-Qaida's second in command, Ayman al-Zawahiri. The attack near the Afghan border caused public uproar and brought renewed accusations that Gen Musharraf was a US puppet.

Local journalist Hayatullah Khan, who photographed missile fragments linking the strikes to the US, disappeared four days later and is still missing. A western diplomat said he was probably being held by Pakistani intelligence and may have been mistreated. [Emphasis added by me]

Democracy in Pakistan is a high ideal. To achieve it, General Musharraf understands that he must get tough on some elements in his country. There are terrorists in Pakistan and they must be crushed if democracy is to take hold:

Gen Musharraf defended his tactic of using military force instead of negotiation to quell the violence and said some collateral damage was inevitable when militants' hideouts were attacked.

"We take extreme care to be 100% sure of the target from all sources of intelligence ... There is minimum collateral damage. If someone happens to be very close to [the target], that somebody is an abetter and they suffer the loss. Sometimes, indeed, women and children have been killed but they have been right next to the place. It's not that the strike was inaccurate but they happen to be there, so therefore they are all supporters and abetters of terrorism - and therefore they have to suffer. It's bad luck," he said. [Emphasis added by me.]

There is no doubt that supporters and abetters of terrorism must be snuffed out. You certainly do not want to take any chances that a 2 year old (who is clearly already supporting terrorists) might one day grow up and become really dangerous. General Musharraf is, if nothing else, thorough. He will not only kill you, but he will kill your entire family, to ensure that freedom remains on the march.

General Musharraf also has a good handle on unrest in Pakistan. He has assessed the situation and decided that it is well in hand. He has also determined that his enemies are pygmies:

Gen Musharraf also played down unrest in the resource-rich province of Baluchistan, where nationalist militants are blowing up gas pipelines and trains and attacking army positions. He described the rebels as "mercenaries" and their attacks as "pin pricks", and said the disturbances were confined to one-twentieth of the province's area.

"So what revolt are you talking about? People talk about an East Pakistan situation," he said, referring to the secession of Bangladesh in 1971. "I understand strategy. These people are pygmies."

With General Musharraf in charge of the effort to bring democracy to Pakistan, I feel that Mr. Bush's vision of bringing democracy to the Muslim world is well on its way to fruition. It is reassuring to know that we have allied ourselves with such a courageous patriot and a lover of freedom and the rights of man. My hat is off to this thug named Musharraf.

Also posted at my web site.