Obsidian Wings

I Know It's Not Zimbabwe's Biggest Problem, But:

by hilzoy

I happened on this excellent site earlier this evening -- blogs from all over the world -- and as I was wandering around some blogs from Africa, I ran across a story with the astonishing headline: Zimbabwe State Security Agents Seize Sanitary Pads. I thought: huh? (or, as Sokwanele, whose blog it is, wrote, rather more articulately: "Does the Zanu PF government expect Zimbabweans to believe that sanitary ware for women is now an issue of national security - that tampons and pads are lethal weapons?") Apparently so:

"The Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions has just received news that state security agencies last week seized a consignment of sanitary pads meant for distribution to farmworkers in Zimbabwe’s farming areas of Concession and Mvurwi.

The pads were allegedly seized by police and later the dreaded Central Intelligence Organization was drawn into the matter. The ZCTU had given the General Agricultural and Plantation Workers’ Union of Zimbabwe (GAPWUZ) its allocation of the pads sourced with the help of international partners.

On seizure, the farmworkers were told that the pads had been poisoned by former white commercial farmers, which is a blatant lie as the ZCTU, with the help of international partners and friends sourced for the sanitary ware.

However, the ZCTU is disturbed by this development because the sanitary pads were meant for women who cannot afford them. We deplore the actions of government, done through its security arms."

On further investigation, it turns out that this is part of a longer story, which I had completely missed, and will outline below the fold.

Marking Time

by Andrew

Prediction, Andre Gide once observed, is very difficult, especially about the future. That is certainly the case in Iraq, where the situation remains grim while President Bush considers suggestions for new courses of action. Hilzoy is upset that President Bush is dithering while Iraq burns, noting that "[w]e do not have all the time in the world in which to figure out what to do." This is certainly true, although there is a corollary, which is that doing the wrong thing may well do more harm than good.

As should be obvious, as bad as the situation in Iraq currently is, it could get much worse. Low-level warfare could expand to open warfare, for example. The insurgency might attempt to place a full-court press on American forces in Iraq, attempting to infiltrate a FOB in conjunction with a direct attack. Things could get a lot more ugly in Iraq before all is said and done. The new direction American forces take in Iraq therefore needs to at least be sure we don't make things still worse. Of course, the trouble with that is, doing nothing might still make things worse.

The only chance we have of salvaging some degree of success in Iraq is if the constituency of Iraqis interested in maintaining a relatively democratic and intact Iraq win the civil war. The problem with that is, as near as can be determined from this distance, that constituency is minimal at best. The other contestants for control of Iraq include the Kurds, who are willing to be loosely affiliated with Iraq as long as they can run things as they like in their area, to include Kirkuk, the Baathists who want to return to the good old days when they were in charge, Sunnis who are willing to share power but who want assurances they won't be overwhelmed by the Shia and Kurds, Shia who know that they're the biggest power in Iraq and want the power commensurate with that, Shia who would like to ally themselves with Iran, non-Iraqis who want to take advantage of the current situation to install a favored government, and doubtless other groups I haven't thought of. And as long as any of those groups are willing to fight rather than submit to the government (whatever government ends up in charge) and are strong enough to stand up to the government, the war will continue.

That is what has been driving the American attempts to develop the Iraqi Army. If Iraq's Army is built up to the degree necessary to make it the toughest force in Iraq, it can determine who runs the show. Unfortunately, there's a lot of evidence to suggest that most units in the Iraqi Army continue to see themselves as Shia or Sunni first, and Iraqis second, which means the government cannot use the army to establish itself as the dominant force in Iraq. Unless that obstacle can be overcome, that means that training and equipping the Iraqi Army is simply providing additional weapons and expertise to be used in the civil war. I think we can all agree that that would fall under making the situation worse as noted above (and this may be part of the reason why the U.S. has been oddly delinquent in making the Iraqi Army self-sufficient).

I have little doubt that this is why the road ahead is so unclear. If the Iraqi Army cannot be built up to the degree necessary to restore order, there aren't any particularly good alternatives available to us. Staying in Iraq may help to keep a ceiling on the violence, but that is a ticket to an indefinite presence in Iraq that will not only mean neverending losses for both our forces and Iraqi civilians, but an ongoing goad to Islamists who will seek to strike us in the United States in retribution for our occupation of Iraq. Leaving Iraq may open the floodgates to a level of violence that would make the current carnage a fond memory.

Ultimately, we have no good choices unless there's a way I'm not aware of to create a national consciousness in the Iraqi Army. As such, while I hate to say it, I think that withdrawal may be the best available option. Yes, the enemy would trumpet that as a success to the high heavens (with some justification, I should note). Yes, we'd be condemning a lot of Iraqis to die (and I believe Hilzoy is correct that we should take in as many Iraqis as want to come if we do leave). Yes, the Middle East would be left all higgledy-piggledy. But there are good sides to withdrawal as well. We could stop the gradual degradation of our armed forces, allowing us to rebuild them in case they are needed elsewhere. We could reestablish a credible deterrent to Iran's nuclear ambitions, while removing a handy means for Iran to threaten us. We would at least reduce the rate at which we're generating new terrorists looking to strike at America for our perceived crimes. Over the longer term we might even remove ourselves from our current position as target number one for the angry and disaffected millions who see our poking around their countries as good reason to return the favor.

I make no pretense that this would be a good answer. I hate the thought of abandoning so many Iraqis to their fates, even if we do attempt to get as many Iraqis as possible to the United States to protect those who have risked so much for us. No matter how many we get out, there will still be plenty left for the slaughter when we're gone. And there's little doubt in my mind that our withdrawal will inspire further attacks on the U.S., so we still need to find a way to deal with that. But maintaining the status quo shows little evidence that it will lead us to a good outcome, and there is good reason to believe it may leave us worse off over the long term. Unless the Bush administration can present a reasonable plan to Congress that is widely seen as offering a reasonable chance of success, rather than simply promising to forestall some feared future doom, it's time to look at how to extract our forces from Iraq with the least amount of risk to them and those Iraqis who have worked with us.

Cross-posted at Andrew Olmsted.

Good Start!

by hilzoy

From the Washington Post:

"Democratic leaders declared a temporary moratorium on special-interest provisions known as earmarks as they attempt to cope with a budget crisis left by the outgoing Republican-led 109th Congress."

I completely agree with those who say that earmarks are small potatoes in the -- gosh, where to go with this metaphor? -- in the vast tureen of fetid green bubbling slime that was the Republicans' fiscal policy. But they are unusually repellent, and it's nice to see the Democrats forswear them.

Oh Dear God

by hilzoy

CNN:

"Many of the 45 killed and 148 wounded by a suicide truck bomb blast in central Baghdad Tuesday morning were unemployed Iraqis lured toward the explosion by an offer of work, according to an official with the Iraqi Interior Ministry.

A pickup truck, loaded with about 200 kilograms (440 pounds) of explosives, pulled into Tayaran Square at 7 a.m., a time when hundreds of unemployed Iraqis were gathered with their picks and shovels seeking a day's work.

The driver signaled to the would-be workers that he had jobs for them -- causing a crush of people around the truck -- and he detonated his bomb, the official said.

The U.S. military said Monday that four American soldiers were killed and three wounded by two roadside bombs Sunday in Baghdad as suspected sectarian violence cost another 51 Iraqis their lives."

[UPDATE: The AP has a slightly different version, with updated casualty figures:

"Suspected insurgents set off two bombs in a main square of central Baghdad where scores of Iraqis were waiting for jobs as day laborers on Tuesday, killing at least 57 people and wounding 151, police said.

The carefully coordinated attack in Tayaran Square at 7 a.m. involved a parked car bomb and a suicide attacker who drove up in a minibus, pretended to hire day laborers, then set off his explosive as they got into his vehicle, said police Lt. Bilal Ali.

He said at least 57 Iraqis, including seven policemen, were killed in the attack and 151 people wounded."

END UPDATE]

***

I just want to take this opportunity to say that this charade in which George W. Bush wanders around trying to give the impression that he's interested in other people's views on Iraq strikes me as a very bad idea. This is a war. We do not have all the time in the world in which to figure out what to do. Iraq does not have a magic "pause" button that we can press while we dither. The people who are fighting are still doing things, things that will probably make the prospects of success in Iraq even more minute than they already are. We cannot afford to waste the month we have already wasted waiting for Bush to get the Iraq study group report, get his other reports, draft the speech he is supposedly going to give before Christmas, but which he might delay, etc., etc., etc.

If we're lucky, no one will attack our supply lines or try to overrun the Green Zone while Bush is figuring out what to do. But it doesn't seem that smart to count on good luck when we ought to be taking action.

More On Our Tragic Loss

by hilzoy

Just so we're clear on exactly what counts as "a loss to us all", here's a before and after picture of one Carmen Gloria Quintana.

And a more recent shot:

So, you ask, before and after what, exactly? What happened to the smiling young woman on the left? Well:

"On the morning of July 2, 1986, a day of national protest against the military dictatorship, a military patrol commanded by Fernandez Dittus intercepted a group of young people in Los Nogales, municipality of Estacion Central in the capital. All escaped except Rojas and Quintana, who were severely beaten by military personnel, and later soaked with gasoline and set afire. Once in flames and unconscious, patrol members wrapped them in blankets and drove them to an isolated road in the outskirts of Santiago.

Rodrigo Rojas and Carmen Gloria Quintana were taken to a hospital by local dwellers who found them, but Rojas died four days later due to his injuries. Carmen Gloria Quintana underwent a long medical treatment in Chile and Canada, but still sustains disfiguring scars as a result of her burns."

Just remember: for all we know, the number of nineteen year old engineering students set on fire by Allende's government might have been even higher, if Allende had been allowed to serve out his term. I mean, engineering departments all over Chile might have been completely depopulated! The hypothetical Allende government might have had to start torching students from neighboring disciplines, like metallurgy or computer science. Who knows where it might have ended -- fricasseed literature majors? Chemist kebabs?

Thank heavens for Pinochet.

Pinochet (Or: Moral Relativism At RedState)

by hilzoy

I hadn't intended to write anything about the death of Augusto Pinochet, on the grounds that one should not speak ill of the dead. But then I read Thomas' post on RedState, in which he informs us that "Pinochet's death is actually a loss for us all." Somehow I don't think he says this because he would rather have seen Pinochet tried for his crimes.

Thomas acknowledges that "Pinochet is probably directly or indirectly responsible for ten thousand deaths", but adds: "how many would Allende have inaugurated?" Well, we'll never know, will we? However, we can take a stab at it. Here's the Economist (h/t Randy Paul in comments here); the "white book" it refers to was put together by the Pinochet regime shortly after he took power:

"The new pamphlet, citing the old white book, records 96 “political” deaths, on right and left, during the Allende years. Hardly any, except a few during a minor mutiny in mid-1973, can be (or were) blamed on the official forces. In contrast, the pamphlet admits 1,261 such deaths—82 among the armed forces—in the few months after the coup. The pamphlet ascribes this to “bitter and brutal” fighting during a left-wing revolt. The 1,261 died, it says, “in the course of the struggle.”

They did not. It would be an odd urban struggle in which “well trained, highly armed” extremists lose more than a dozen men for every one they kill. In fact, as many have related who were merely held or tortured there, most of the deaths occurred in the national stadium in Santiago, where real or alleged enemies of the new order were held, to be singled out by masked informers, often for immediate execution. And that still leaves at least 800 later deaths under the regime, when it was in total control, to be accounted for. Or whitewashed?"

So: according to Pinochet's regime itself, there were a grand total of 96 political deaths, most not attributed to the Allende regime at all. If we assume that Allende had served out his term, he would have had three more years in which to kill people (Chilean Presidents' terms were capped at six years, according to Wikipedia). Granting for the sake of argument that Pinochet's figures are right, and pretending still further that all those 96 political deaths were in fact Allende's doing, which even Pinochet's government did not allege, we still arrive at a total of 192 deaths in all. Pinochet, by contrast, was responsible for the death or "disappearance" of 3197 people. (And just in case anyone says: oh, but Pinochet was in office for 17 years: he was responsible for around 188 deaths per year. Even given the ludicrous assumptions made above, that's still about six times Allende's rate.)

By the way: does anyone wonder how they made all those people disappear? Well:

"In September, Guzman and police detectives watched from a boat as divers brought up pieces of iron rails from under the Pacific Ocean just off Chile's central coast.

Judges here investigate and prosecute, as well as try cases. Guzman had evidence that the rails were tied to bodies of political prisoners tortured and killed in the 1970s and then dropped from helicopters into the sea."

The Pinochet regime was also responsible for the torture of over 27,000, and the exile of 100,000. Nowadays, you can visit some of the camps where they were held:

"A guide shows visitors the spot where military vehicles drove over the legs of prisoners. Mock-ups of wooden boxes that held as many as six prisoners each, the swimming pool into which detainees were dunked, and a replica of the tower used as a torture chamber and extermination center are all on display. The Muro de los Nombres lists the names of the 226 people killed or "disappeared" by the military at the villa."

Gotta love that "spot where military vehicles drove over the legs of prisoners", right, Thomas? So crunchy and screamy.

Those who were tortured included 88 children under the age of 13. But I suppose we don't know how many children Allende would have tortured had he remained in power, do we?

But, you might ask, mightn't Allende have seized power in a coup? Well, it's possible. Who knows what Allende might have done had he been allowed to serve out his term? However, there doesn't seem to be much evidence of that. There are allegations that he had a secret plan to establish a dictatorship, which the CIA concluded were disinformation. There were allegations of Cubans in the country, about which the Economist has this to say:

"The 17,000 Cubans—in one popular version, 17,000 armed Cubans—remind one of the soldiers allegedly sent by tsarist Russia to Britain during the first world war: no one saw them land, no one saw them sail away, but they were seen marching through Scotland, their Russian origin betrayed by the snow on their boots. Certainly these Cubans must have slid away craftily, their boots doubtless crusted with tobacco: the military regime just after seizing power claimed there had been 13,000 foreigners (by now they have become “foreign extremists”) illegally in the country when it took over. Of that total, 9,600 were from Argentina, Bolivia and Uruguay."

Given the actual evidence, it seems pretty lame to try to defend Pinochet on the grounds that Allende might, for all we know, have killed more people had he remained in power. He might have done, but then he might also have paved the streets of Santiago with gold, or fielded an army of flying monkeys, or turned into a giant talking toaster oven. When you're playing with counterfactuals and you don't require any actual evidence that something was likely to happen, there is no end to the possibilities you have at your disposal.

We should also not forget that Pinochet participated in a program of extraterritorial killings, assisted by the US, that included killing two people in Washington DC with a car bomb; and that the head of DINA (Chile's secret police) during one of its worst phases was a CIA asset:

"The CIA made Gen. Manuel Contreras, head of DINA, a paid asset only several months after concluding that he “was the principal obstacle to a reasonable human rights policy within the Junta.” After the assassination of Orlando Letelier and Ronni Moffitt in Washington D.C., the CIA continued to work with Contreras even as “his possible role in the Letelier assassination became an issue.”"

Above all, we should not forget that Pinochet toppled a democratically elected government in a country that had a long tradition of democratic rule, and that while we did not instigate his coup, we both knew about it and had planned (but not carried out) previous coups in Chile, and were very closely involved with the Pinochet regime. No one who cares about promoting democracy could possibly regard this as a good thing, whatever she thinks about the democratically elected government in question.

Thomas seems to like his economic policies, which are, in other circles, a matter of considerable debate. The fact that Hitler made the trains run on time is not normally taken to be a justification of his regime, and it's not clear why even the most devoted adherent of Milton Friedman should have difficulty saying that Pinochet was a corrupt and brutal thug who brutalized his people.

But then, since the people who were killed were probably just "an uncompromising, barely human mass of malignancy", "human filth", or "gibbering yard apes", I suppose Pinochet wasn't so bad after all.

Pop Quiz!

by hilzoy

Over at Next Hurrah, emptywheel proposes pop quizzes for legislators. Some of emptywheel's sample questions:

"1. The terrorist group Al Qaeda is overwhelmingly made up of what kind of Muslims?

a. Shiite
b. Sunni
c. Kurds
d. Nation of Islam

2. The known nuclear proliferator, AQ Khan, comes from which country?

a. North Korea
b. Iran
c. Pakistan
d. Libya
e. Iraq

3. Which of the following countries is known to have nuclear weapons?

a. Israel
b. Iraq
c. Iran
d. Libya

4. Which of the following leaders was elected in an election deemed to be fair by outside observers?

a. King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia
b. King Abdullah of Jordan
c. Hugo Chavez of Venezuela
d. Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan"

There are more, though I think that if the aim is to ensure that lawmakers aren't completely clueless, some of them are probably too detailed. However, a few additions:

h1. which of the following have war powers under the Constitution?

a. The President
b. The Congress
c. The DC Circuit Court of Appeals
d. The President and the Congress

h2. Fill in the blank: According to the Constitution, the Congress is _______ to the Executive.

a. Subservient
b. Coequal
c. Inferior
d. Wait -- the answer is 'craven, cringing, and utterly dependent', so why is the next word 'to'?

h3. Fill in the blank: According to the Constitution, the role of the Executive is to:

a. Execute the laws passed by Congress
b. Make all the important decisions
c. Decide who will be on the Supreme Court
d. Throw the first pitch on opening day

h4. If the President disagrees with an existing law, the Constitution gives him the right to:

a. Ignore it
b. Override it
c. Ask a legislator to introduce legislation to change it, just like anyone else
d. Quarter troops in people's houses during peacetime

h5. According to the Constitution, who can the President decide to imprison without due process of law?

a. Anyone he wants -- he's the decider
b. Enemy combatants
c. Enemy combatants who are not US Citizens
d. No one

h6. To whom does the Constitution give some legal rights?

a. Troops quartered during peacetime
b. United States citizens
c. All persons
d. Campaign contributors

Anyone have any more suggestions?

Just Shoot Me Now...

by hilzoy

WWLTV.com, New Orleans:

"Congressman William Jefferson has been re-elected to Congress, according to WWL-TV election analyst Greg Rigamer.

With two-thirds of the vote counted, Jefferson had a 6,000-vote lead over challenger Karen Carter.

"I'm a little worried about what this is going to say to the nation," said City Councilwoman Cynthia Hedge-Morrell, a Carter supporter."

Gee, you think? -- Jefferson isn't just winning; with 68% of the votes counted, he's up 59-41. What on earth can New Orleans be thinking?

Sometimes I just despair. Not for long, usually: the world is too complicated for overall despair to be at all plausible, and after a certain amount of wailing and gnashing of teeth, it occurs to me that it would be better to find something worth doing and do it, and of course buy some new unrent garments and wash the ashes out of my hair.

Still.

"Do You Speak Spanish?"

by hilzoy

Via TPMMuckraker, an interview with Silvestre Reyes, the new chair of the House Intelligence Committee:

"Al Qaeda is what, I asked, Sunni or Shia?

“Al Qaeda, they have both,” Reyes said. “You’re talking about predominately?”

“Sure,” I said, not knowing what else to say.

“Predominantly — probably Shiite,” he ventured.

He couldn’t have been more wrong.

Al Qaeda is profoundly Sunni. If a Shiite showed up at an al Qaeda club house, they’d slice off his head and use it for a soccer ball.

That’s because the extremist Sunnis who make up a l Qaeda consider all Shiites to be heretics.

Al Qaeda’s Sunni roots account for its very existence. Osama bin Laden and his followers believe the Saudi Royal family besmirched the true faith through their corruption and alliance with the United States, particularly allowing U.S. troops on Saudi soil. (...)

And Hezbollah? I asked him. What are they?

“Hezbollah. Uh, Hezbollah...”

He laughed again, shifting in his seat.

“Why do you ask me these questions at five o’clock? Can I answer in Spanish? Do you speak Spanish?” (...)

I apologized for putting him “on the spot a little.” But I reminded him that the people who have killed thousands of Americans on U.S. soil and in the Middle East have been front page news for a long time now.

It’s been 23 years since a Hezbollah suicide bomber killed over 200 U.S. military personnel in Beirut, mostly Marines.

Hezbollah, a creature of Iran, is close to taking over in Lebanon. Reports say they are helping train Iraqi Shiites to kill Sunnis in the spiralling civil war.

“Yeah,” Reyes said, rightly observing, “but . . . it’s not like the Hatfields and the McCoys. It’s a heck of a lot more complex.

“And I agree with you — we ought to expend some effort into understanding them. But speaking only for myself, it’s hard to keep things in perspective and in the categories.”"

Actually, it's not more complicated than the Hatfields and McCoys -- at least if you're talking about keeping Shi'a and Sunni groups straight, rather than figuring out all the various subgroups into which each can be divided. Moreover, even the most minimal knowledge of the Middle East would help. For instance, could anyone who knows that Osama bin Laden is Saudi and that Saudi Arabia is Sunni -- not exactly arcane facts -- possibly be in doubt as to whether al Qaeda is Sunni or Shi'a? If it comes to that, could anyone who knows that Saudi Arabia is the guardian of the holiest places in Islam not figure out that it must be Sunni, given that Sunni Islam is the mainstream orthodoxy from which Shi'a Islam split off? I mean, this is like wondering whether the Vatican City is Protestant or Catholic: its structural features tell you what you need to know, given any understanding at all of the history of the religion in question.

The only way one could possibly be confused on this question would be if one had no background whatsoever in the history of Islam or the Middle East, and were instead trying to memorize various people's religious allegiances using flash cards. If all you had were unfamiliar names, it might be difficult. If you had any sense at all of the underlying story -- even in its broadest outlines -- it wouldn't be.

I suppose I should say: well, at least he's not corrupt. But I think that's way too low a bar.

Bush Hunkers Down

by hilzoy

From Kevin Drum (h/t rilkefan), McClatchy reports:

"Top Democrats in Congress left a White House meeting with President Bush on Friday frustrated over what they perceived as his reluctance to embrace major recommendations from the bipartisan Iraq Study Group. (...)

Bush began his talk by comparing himself to President Harry S Truman, who launched the Truman Doctrine to fight communism, got bogged down in the Korean War and left office unpopular.

Bush said that "in years to come they realized he was right and then his doctrine became the standard for America," recalled Senate Majority Whip-elect Richard Durbin, D-Ill. "He's trying to position himself in history and to justify those who continue to stand by him, saying sometimes if you're right you're unpopular, and be prepared for criticism."

Durbin said he challenged Bush's analogy, reminding him that Truman had the NATO alliance behind him and negotiated with his enemies at the United Nations. Durbin said that's what the Iraq Study Group is recommending that Bush do now - work more with allies and negotiate with adversaries on Iraq.

Bush, Durbin said, "reacted very strongly. He got very animated in his response" and emphasized that he is "the commander in chief.""

And USNews reports:

"Former White House advisers to George H.W. Bush are keenly disappointed and concerned about the current President Bush's initial reaction to the report by the Iraq Study Group.

They consider him rather dismissive of the group's conclusions, issued yesterday, which include the view that current Iraq policy is failing. The group recommends a variety of important changes, such as assigning U.S. troops to play more of an advisory and training role and less of a combat role. (...)

"We have a classic case of circling the wagons," says a former adviser to Bush the elder. "If President Bush changes his policy in Iraq in a fundamental way, it undermines the whole premise of his presidency. I just don't believe he will ever do that.""

Surprise, surprise. Some time ago, I wrote:

"To be the drunken, screwed up child of a famous father; to do everything he did well and fail; to be unable to cut loose from your family but equally unable to live up to their expectations; not to be financially independent until after 40: these are things that eat away at your self-esteem. In order to survive, you more or less have to develop the ability to hunker down in the face of doubts: both other people's doubts about you and your doubts about yourself.

If you actually reflected on those doubts, asked yourself if there was anything to them, and took the answer to heart, you would not get to be forty years old before doing anything to change your life. To manage that, you need to be able to pretend the doubts aren't there: to pull off some psychological equivalent of putting your fingers in your ears and screaming 'I CAN'T HEAR YOU!!' Because the moment you let those doubts really sink in, the abyss opens.

The ability to ignore doubts about himself is, I think, a skill that George W. Bush has developed over time, and practiced until he has it note-perfect. By contrast, the ability to take criticism to heart and learn from it is one that he has never practiced at all; I suspect that any capacity for questioning himself atrophied a long time ago. And this, I think, means that he is not going to make the kinds of changes he would have to make if he wanted to salvage his presidency.

And that means that it's going to be a long two and a half years."

Back in the late 90s, during the Clinton impeachment hearings, Republicans used to say that character matters in politics. I always agreed with them about the broader point; I just never thought that whether or not someone was faithful to his wife was a particularly good indicator of the kinds of character that were important in a President. The fact that we now have a President whose response to the catastrophe that is Iraq is to say that Truman was unpopular too -- exactly as though he were an untalented musician who explained away the hostile responses his work got from audiences by saying that people didn't appreciate Beethoven right off the bat either -- is a perfect illustration of why character does matter. I just wish it was a hypothetical one.

It should surprise no one that, having started a war that is a disaster by any standard you care to name, Bush is claiming that history will vindicate him instead of trying to figure out what on earth to do, let alone actually registering the costs of his errors to all the families, Iraqi and American, that his war has blown apart. This is what he has spent his life doing. We knew this going in. And this is who a majority of Americans voted for in 2004. May God forgive us.