The entire media-scape is littered with accusations, speculation, refutation, and rhetoric regarding the allegations by a faction within the Bush Administration that Iran is supplying shaped explosive charges to militias who engage in armed conflict with American and coalition forces in Iraq. The whole thing boils down to a very dubious set of facts and … Read more
Link: BillHop.com – Arizona. Hate the Arizona Legislature’s billtracker? I do. It is cludgey, hard to edit, badly designed, and not easy to refer to. Maybe that’s all intentional… Moreover, it is hard for distributed, loosely coordinated groups to collaborate to markup and publicize bills they like and don’t like. Blogs have their place, but … Read more
Russell Lowes will be speaking about nuclear power this weekend. Russell is a Drinking Liberally regular and I encourage you to attend if you want to learn more about why restarting the nuclear industry in America is not a solution to our energy and greenhouse gas emissions problems. Talk: "Nuclear Power is a Threat to … Read more
I have enormous respect for General Odom. I met him when he was campaigning on behalf of Howard Dean. He’s enormously learned in military, diplomatic, and strategic intelligence matters. I read several of his books, and have followed his work ever since. I was pleased to see him publish the following op-ed in the WaPo this Sunday. The thinking in this op-ed didn’t spring from Odom’s head like Athena: he’s been thinking through the strategic moves that Iraq necessitates for some time now. Some further articles that you might be interested in by General Odom are "How to Cut and Run" and "Know When to Fold ‘Em" written earlier this year and late last year. I think Odom’s writings are so important to re-framing the debate on Iraq, that I reproduce his WaPo op-ed here in its entirety:
Victory Is Not an Option
The Mission Can’t Be Accomplished — It’s Time for a New Strategy
By William E. Odom
Sunday, February 11, 2007
The
new National Intelligence Estimate (full text pdf) on Iraq starkly delineates the gulf
that separates President Bush’s illusions from the realities of the
war. Victory, as the president sees it, requires a stable liberal
democracy in Iraq that is pro-American. The NIE describes a war that
has no chance of producing that result. In this critical respect, the
NIE, the consensus judgment of all the U.S. intelligence agencies, is a
declaration of defeat.
Its gloomy implications — hedged, as intelligence agencies prefer, in rubbery language that cannot soften its
impact — put the intelligence community and the American public on the
same page. The public awakened to the reality of failure in Iraq last
year and turned the Republicans out of control of Congress to wake it
up. But a majority of its members are still asleep, or only half-awake
to their new writ to end the war soon.
Perhaps this is not
surprising. Americans do not warm to defeat or failure, and our
politicians are famously reluctant to admit their own responsibility
for anything resembling those un-American outcomes. So they beat around
the bush, wringing hands and debating "nonbinding resolutions" that
oppose the president’s plan to increase the number of U.S. troops in
Iraq.
For the moment, the collision of the public’s clarity of
mind, the president’s relentless pursuit of defeat and Congress’s
anxiety has paralyzed us. We may be doomed to two more years of chasing
the mirage of democracy in Iraq and possibly widening the war to Iran.
But this is not inevitable. A Congress, or a president, prepared to
quit the game of "who gets the blame" could begin to alter American
strategy in ways that will vastly improve the prospects of a more
stable Middle East.