Blogger Code Question - Am I required to have an opinion on the Peter Arnett business?

Does It Get Any Better? - Early on, some people were titillated by the "Russian GRU site" perporting to offer inside dope on the Iraq War from contacts in Russian military intelligence. Others pooh-poohed it is likely inauthentic and of dubious accuracy. I figured the scientific thing to do was to wait awhile. Now they've got a track record to look at, and we can ask, have they done any better than the admittedly problematic US media. Answer: nah. Let's just take the first few days of postings, since they're the ones that have had the most time to test out.

First update, March 17:

It seems likely that the combat operations will begin on 19-22 of March at around 2-4 am local time.

Well okay, they got the day right, though by that point everyone on earth knew it was coming.

The first phase of the operation will consist of a strategic air operation which, according to the US command, will last between 8 and 10 days. The goal of this operation will be complete suppression of Iraqi air defenses, disruption of command and control structures, destruction of main command and communication centers, disruption of the main Iraqi forces, destruction of the military infrastructure and defense industry facilities.

In this and succeeding paragraphs, the Russians never quite get around to saying when the ground troops will roll. The impression given is that they're predicting a short version of Desert Storm II before Desert Saber Redux. The least you can say is that they failed to predict the near simultaneous launch of air and ground action, despite numerous anonymously-sourced reports in the western media that it would happen exactly that way.

March 18, 2003, 0126hrs MSK (GMT +3), Moscow - According to the information received from one of the Russian Defense Ministry's radio intercept units, certain aspects of the planned military operation against Iraq were uncovered by the Russian military intel. During one of the radio communications between Kurd troops information was intercepted indicating that during the next 48 hours there may be a large-scale airdrop of US troops in Kurd-controlled northern Iraq.

Maybe it's not entirely absurd that GRU contacts would share out "sources and method" info like this, so much else in Russia being on offer to reasonable bids, but let the record show that the 173rd Airborne Brigade didn't parachute into Kurdistan until the 27th.

BTW, I asked my own sources, meager as they are, "Why do you parachute into an airfield that your allies already control?" The answer I got was that you do this because it counts as a combat jump and you get nice wings.

The same item claims that some 200 British SAS troops are in Kurdistan scouting Iraqi forces. Google confirmeth not the claim, but god knows I can't rule it out. Undecided. Their claim that the northern front troops could be ready for combat operations within five days of landing has a chance to come true or not by Wednesday. Bruce Rolston doubts it.

March 19, 2003, 0403hrs MSK (GMT +3) - "Russian military intelligence" predicts line of advance that bears an arguable resemblance to the one we ended up with, if you allow for friction, and also predicts that the alleged drive on Basra would be feint. Someone should tell the British.

March 20, 2003, 1015hrs MSK (GMT +3) - Some claims about failed coups and Iraqi leadership security that, for all I know, is true.

March 21, 2003, 0930hrs MSK (GMT +3) - Gripping tale of the "possible" maneuvers of the US 4th Infantry and 1st Armord Divisions. Apparently, some of the First Armored is actually in Iraq. The rest of it should arrive sometime in April, along with the entire 4th Infantry Division.

To be fair to the Russians, they footnote their own report that "it can't be 4ID. And since the claim is that these reports are based on Russian signals intelligence, it's at least theoretically possible that the US was engaging in deceptive communications to confuse the Iraqis about which units they were facing.

March 22, 2003, 0800hrs MSK (GMT +3) - Scary. They puncture the "surrender of the 51st division story, correctly. They also claim a US plane was lost in action. To this day the coalition denies losing any planes. While I don't believe everything the coalition tells me, the loss of a plane seems like something that would generate talk even embedded reporters would pick up on. This item boldly predicts that a combined US-UK force is about to storm Basra.

And so on. It's not that they're never right. You just can't count on any given item being less wrong than what the US press has at that time. And there remains the question of whether their occasional hits are due to inside dope, decent analysis or sheer luck.

Why have I gone into this in so much detail? Because I still don't want to write about the weekend's suicide bombing!

With a Whimper - From ABC News . . .

No 'Smoking Gun'
Hit on Ansar Al-Islam Camp Finds No Signs of Chemical Weapons

. . . The site they hit was identified by Secretary of State Colin Powell in his argument for war before the U.N. Security Council on Feb. 5 as a base for the radical group Ansar al-Islam. Powell said the group linked Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network to Saddam Hussein, and had plotted chemical attacks across Europe.

Powell showed a satellite photograph of what he said was a chemical weapons training center in northern Iraq used by al Qaeda and protected by Ansar al-Islam, calling it evidence of a "sinister nexus between Iraq and the al Qaeda terrorist network."

We sent special forces (and ABC News) in, "expecting to find hard evidence Ansar al-Islam has biological and chemical weapons." Nada.

ABC reports that on This Week, Donald Rumsfeld explained that

We saw from the air that there were dozens of trucks that went into that facility after the existence of it became public in the press, and they moved things out," said Rumsfeld. "They dispersed them and took them away. So there may be nothing left. I don't know that. But it's way too soon to know."

It could well be. Of course, it means that, according to Rumsfeld, during the same run-up to the war when we were steadily bombing Iraqi air defense installations, we couldn't spare any bombs for convoys of trucks leaving an alleged chemical weapons facility. Or maybe Rummy's just saying stuff.

Oh Dear - Virginia Postel's weblog has a new address and a new design. You can link to a specific item by clicking on the "Printer Friendly Version" link. That's to the good. The font size is too small for these middle-aged eyes, though, and it uses "dark" grey rather than black type for the body text, making it worse. The design itself is clean and enjoyable. It would be quite a nice site if I could read it.

More Warblogging - Leonard of Unruled has a fascinating piece on the economics of the JDAM.

For the Defense (Dept.) - In which I try to make a case for the "rolling start" (if you believe it really is a rolling start and not just "oops! better send some more troops!"). Tacitus, who is doing some good analysis of the war, notes that the force levels currently in Iraq violate the principle of mass. To wit, "they cannot win the war," our four-odd divisions. So why start the war when you have to bring reinforcements from overseas before the big push?

The best answer I can come up with is that, by engaging the enemy, you force the enemy to concentrate in defense, which makes it easier to bomb them. That softens them up by the time you have enough troops in theater to attack in force. Had this war begun with a pure bombing campaign, wouldn't it have been much harder to identify ground force targets? Wouldn't the Iraqis have an easier time hiding their army?

That's the best I can do.

From the Front - Jay Price of McClatchy newspapers interviews refugees and prisoners in a field hospital in South-Central Iraq and gets testimony from the patients about Iraqi paramilitary units' exploitation of civilians. Excerpt:

Ghaleb, 43, a farmer, said that Iraqi Republican Guard troops sent a note to his home demanding that he report to them. Then, Ghaleb said, he and several hundred others were forced to dress as Iraqi soldiers and told to gather near a prominent road. Some were given fake guns.

Ghaleb said he thinks the idea was to reinforce the message that Iraqi troops were fighting, not running. They were told if they tried to flee they would be shot, Ghaleb said.

Ghaleb gets interviewed a lot. Here he is in the Post:

Among them was a man named Ghaleb, with bandages wrapped around his leg and a 43-year-old farmer and gunshot victim from Diwaniyah. He told reporters that U.S. Marines shot him on Tuesday, but he blamed Iraqi Republican Guard units. He said they forced him to stand between them and the Marines as a human shield.

Aside from the fact that the first sentence is awful (yeah yeah, I should talk), it's a prime example of the annoying Post habit of paraphrasing what people actually say. It's also a substantially different story.

Ghaleb also appears in a report by Mark Johnson of Knight-Ridder:

Ghaleb, a 43-year-old farmer from the Nasiriyah area, said Republican Guard troops forced him to put on an Iraqi army uniform, gave him a nonfunctioning rifle and told him and six or seven other men to stand at a highway checkpoint to draw the attention of American soldiers.

"They couldn't go back," a translator relayed, "because whoever goes back gets shot."

Iraqi army units waited to ambush the Americans, Ghaleb said. The ambush failed, but the Americans did attack and Ghaleb was wounded in the leg.

Which sounds a whole lot more like the McClatchy report than the Post report.

So what do we have here? On Ghaleb's testimony, he was impressed into military service against his will. He was not used as a "human shield," if we take that to mean "civilians placed between Iraqi fighters and coalition troops to restrain coalition troops from firing on the fighters." By putting Ghaleb in uniform they make him look less like a civilian. Coalition troops encountering Ghaleb and his unfortunate comrades believed they were encountering uniformed belligerents and acted accordingly, as they had every right to - that's how Ghaleb got shot in the leg. To use Ghaleb as a human shield, you would keep him in civvies and stand behind him.

None of the three hospital interviews presents testimony on the Big One - Iraqi troops forcing women and children ahead of them into battle. That emphatically does not mean that Iraqi soldiers or paramilitaries are not doing it. But if the media is taking any steps to confirm the story, they're keeping it to themselves.

In the hospital stories, the patient Abbas "said Iraqi troops had put an anti-aircraft gun in his residential neighborhood, and when it came under attack by coalition forces, his family tried to get out." This might be done as for tactical reasons (i.e. field of fire requirements) or in hopes that the coalition would be reluctant to target the weapon.

Regardless, we know Iraq is violating many of the laws of war. We know that Iraqi paramilitaries are fighting in civilian garb. We know that yesterday's suicide bomber was dressed as a civilian taxi driver. We know that Iraqi troops have engaged in false surrenders. (There are reports that the Iraqis have set up command posts in schools, but it turns out that we have too. So that one is a wash.) Given what the Iraqis have done, it's way too soon to move the "screens of women and children" story to the list of things that turned out not to be true. But it still looks premature to accept it as fact.

UPDATE: This New York Times story contains reports by American GIs who have seen Iraqi soldiers mixing among civilians.

Looking on the Bright Side - Hesiod thinks the war has about two weeks to go yet.

The reason for that is pretty obvious. We are now absolutely pulverizing Republican Guard units surrounding Baghdad.

We can certainly hope. One assumes that the current airstrikes are taking out some of those T-72s Btuce Rolston was worrying about. If the Republican Guard gets the idea that they can never counterattack, which means that they can never win, then the surrenders might come. And when totalitarian regimes collapse, they collapse fast. The things to worry about in the meantime are probably maintenance, fatigue in the front line troops and the supply of precision-guided munitions. Things for the Republican Guard to worry about in the meantime: getting blown to smithereens and the possibility that the unit next to you will surrender first.

Weekly Fitness Blog Post - 184 pounds, 36 5/8" waist. No change on the weight from last week, the final number represents an uptick from midweek figures, when the scale reached 182. I wouldn't be surprised to see another multi-pound drop by next week's item.

This week's item might be called "Strike Two for Atkins." I got my blood tests back, and while most things were good, including blood sugar, my lipid levels were awful - a deadly combination of high LDL and low HDL. Since I have other cardiac risk factors - high blood pressure and mitral valve prolapse - my readings are bad enough to indicate drug management. I see the doctor tomorrow and will find out if he wants to use medicine or diet as a first resort.

So far, I've demonstrated that I can lose a lot of weight on Atkins, but not that I can maintain healthy blood pressure or lipid chemistry. I should stress the limits of our findings so far: they apply to me, not necessarily anyone else; since there's been a three-year gap in my blood work, I don't know how much worse my blood pressure and cholesterol might have been before starting to diet; nor can I (yet) say that a different diet would have produced superior blood pressure or lipid benchmarks. Then there's the question of exercise - might reintegrating aerobics help one or both conditions? As always on these personal odysseys, there are an awful lot of uncontrolled variables. Assuming that my doctor and I decide to radically change the sort of things I've been eating, I'm still inclined to call the whole experience worth it. In addition to losing a lot of weight, I was able to break my relationship with some things that were unquestionably bad for me - sugared beverages and processed starch snacks, specifically - and to reduce portion sizes considerably. If I have to go to a low-fat diet now, it should be easier to do that than it was before. We'll see.

On the exercise front, a couple of readers wrote in about my back complaints. Reader Gilda Abromowitz suggests Pilates. "I've been doing Pilates for two years, and only in the last half year has everything really started to come together--but you need to use the abs to protect the lower back." And Dave Lull offers more links to information about the Egoscue Method, including a back pain page. I can certainly believe I have a posture problem, as my posture has always been bad. If anyone cares to report on their personal experience with Pilates or Egoscue, I'd love to hear it.

You Know Nothing, Nothing - Brendan I. Koerner has a semi-useful article in Slate on the "thumbs-up controversy" in Iraq. The question is whether Iraqi civilians giving the thumbs up to coalition forces mean it in a nice way. In the first week of the war, hawks assumed yes, while certain doves pointed out that "many veteran travelers insist that the gesture is a crass Middle Eastern insult" (meaning, essentially, "up yours"). Koerner points out the possibility that Iraqis making the gesture aren't being traditional, but rather adopting the western meaning from media and exposure to US troops during Gulf War Phase I.

According to a recent D[efense] L[anguage] I[nstitute] manual on international gestures, after the first Gulf War "Middle Easterners of the Arabian Peninsula adopted this hand movement, along with the OK sign, as a symbol of cooperation toward freedom." Iraqi civilians may have noted this shifting meaning, perhaps via TV reports.

Which may be true. So add the thumb gesture story to the list of things we just don't know for sure. As for why Koerner's article is semi-useful, couldn't someone just ask Iraqis? Or is that not done?

Music Notes - Warren Zevon's last album is almost done, per Rolling Stone.

Let's You and Him Fight - I thought I would do the "right winger gives advice to liberals" thing, because they love it so much. There's a bit of a disagreement between Atrios and Calpundit over the issue of mainstream versus fringe liberals. Calpundit, aiming for a New Republic sort of vibe, complains about "Congressmen who travel to Baghdad to criticize American foreign policy on nationwide TV, gay rights parades that seem deliberately designed to repulse as many ordinary people as possible, college professors who publicly hope for lots of American deaths in Iraq, and tooth-and-nail opposition to bans on partial birth abortion" and professors complaining about the Oscars. In return, Atrios argues that "The 'liberal extremists' only hurt the center because people like CalPundit keep apologizing for them. It's a great way to get a Fox News gig . . . "

This is strange. Atrios adores Bill Clinton as much as I despise him. Bill Clinton at least made rhetorical gestures in the "Calpundit direction" and won two terms handily. (Helped, of course, by the little man with the big ears and the annoying voice.) Atrios' other hero, Al Gore, turned away from his DLC roots and ran the most unabashedly liberal campaign since Walter Mondale - hell, maybe Hubert Humphrey - and couldn't get a majority with a strong economy and weak opposition going for him. The favorite explanation of your diehard Gorephiles - it was the So-Called Liberal Media that did him in - won't cut it, because the same people say the So-Called Liberal Media were unrelentingly vicious to Bill Clinton too. And Clinton won. The only Democrat to actually get his ass into the White House since the Iranian hostage crisis was the one who at least played the Anti-Liberal Extremist Game. The diehards next advert to the Evil Ralph or Stolen Election theory. But ask yourself: if Bill Clinton were eligible for a third term, would he have kicked GWB's ass or what? I think he obviously would have, though not through any doing of mine.

At the very least some epistemological modesty about what hurts the center and helps the center seems called for.

Everybody's a Critic Cont. - When a site called "Cointelpro Toll" showed up in my referrer logs, I expected something critical and was not disappointed. You can't beat "More Boneheaded Analysis from Jim Henley" as a subject hedder. He's responding to my items about the nascent meme of declaring the ordinary Iraqis we came to liberate for their deaths at the hands of coalition forces, which he calls a "strawman" argument, which seems to mean "argument I do not like" here. He wants substantiation of my charges and he wants it now, dammit.

Let me clarify: First, as I believe the original item makes perfectly clear, I was making a prediction. Arthur Silber already found another example. I'm saying there will be more as the war goes on. The test of my thesis takes place over time. Second, when I say "the Pentagon," I mean the Secretary of Defense and his merry band of civilian geniuses, not the uniformed military services, in that building or elsewhere. As I've made pretty clear over the last several months, I give great credeence to the argument that there is a serious rift between the two groups. Third, it's certainly possible that what I mean by "the Pentagon" may never need to make even sanitized, off-the-record versions of the arguments from the Ayn Rand Institute and Silent Running pieces - they may rely on their freelance apologists. In that case, I'll be partially wrong. In any case, watch the evolving policy to find out what they're thinking.

Ditto, Hed (sic) - God knows I disagree with much of what liberal alpha-blogger Atrios has to say. But there's not one word of this item that doesn't get a wholehearted "me too."

On the Othe Hand - Tory dove Matthew Parris argues that the Iraq War scenario may yet prove rosy - he provides some reasons why that might be so - and that, in that case, " Those who, like me, remain unconvinced of the case for war should prepare for a spell of unfashionability." Upshot:

How would I reply? I should then anchor my response in two arguments.
The first is very strong, but will cut no ice at all in public debate; in fact, it will sound pathetic. It is the same response we might offer a wayward brother who, against all advice, bet the family silver on a racehorse, at odds of two to one — and won. ‘You had no reason to be confident of that,’ we would murmur, morally certain that such strictures were fair, but resigned to the fact that they were unlikely to be heard above the popping of champagne corks. That a gamble might have gone horribly wrong tends to be overlooked when it happens to have gone right. ‘Ah well,’ sigh the wise, ‘our advice was sound — and no less sound for being unproven on this occasion.’ But few listen.

My second reply points to the anxiety we would feel about our wayward brother’s next investment. This, we would fear, will only send him back into the betting shop for an even bigger flutter. I hope Saddam and his administration turn tail now, and believe that they may; but I fear the new confidence this will engender in the President of the United States and the British Prime Minister — and a gathering international storm.

Radio Daze - I listened to a few minutes of the G. Gordon Liddy show this afternoon in the car. Yes, I know, I deserve what I get in that case. A caller talking about "exit strategies" wanted to remind Liddy that, while WWII ended in 1945, West Germany didn't become (nominally) sovereign again until after the Berlin Airlift, Japan not until some time after that, and the states of war with those countries only ended in the early 1950s and here it is 2003 and we still have 60,000 troops in Germany and umpty-ump in Japan and Italy and people needed a better sense of history, and Liddy agreed wholeheartedly.

Here's the thing: for both caller and host, all this info was supposed to be reason to worry less about the outcome of the adventure in Iraq.

New Frontiers in Spam

Your name was given to me as someone who might be interested in innovative medical solutions. First, you should know that "penis enlargement" is a myth propagated by unethical operators who prey on the insecure and gullible. And even if it did work, it's not as if you could display it before prospective conquests or work your new, larger member into casual conversations. Our patented Hand Elongation Technology, on the other hand . . .

TTFN - Gary Farber sees off Richard Perle. Of course, Perle isn't exactly gone. He's resigned from the chairmanship of the Defense Policy Board, but Rumsfeld has asked him to remain a member.

The Buck Stops in Qatar - From the Pentagon briefing today:

Q: Mr. Secretary, as you know, there has been some criticism, some by retired senior officers, some by officers on background in this building, who claim that the war plan that is in effect is flawed and our number of troops on the ground is too light, supply lines are too long and stretched too thin. Would you give us a definitive statement, if you would, to the effect that you agree that the war plan is sound and that this criticism is unfounded, or that there's some substance to it?

Rumsfeld: Well, we're one week into this, and it seems to me it's a bit early for history to be written, one would think. The war plan is Tom Franks' war plan. It was carefully prepared over many months. It was washed through the tank with the chiefs on at least four or five occasions.

Myers: Exactly -- more, more.

Rumsfeld: It has been through the combatant commanders. It has been through the National Security Council process. General Myers and General Pace and others, including this individual, have seen it in a variety of different iterations. When asked by the president or by me, the military officers who've reviewed it have all said they thought it was an excellent plan. Indeed, adjectives that go beyond that have been used, quite complimentary.

Rumsfeld is a standup guy. You have to stand up when you're hanging someone out to dry, after all. And I have to say, the transcript doesn't do justice to the effect of hearing Rumsfeld attach just about everyone in the national security bureaucracy to the Cunning Plan before tossing in "this individual" toward the rear of his mighty column of words.

But this article from Government Executive magazine on the genesis of the plan indicates that "this individual" made some important changes late:

By far the most dramatic and disruptive change to the battle plan, however, was Rumsfeld's decision last November to slash Central Command's request for forces. This single decision essentially cut the size of the anticipated assault force in half in the final stages of planning, and it had a ripple effect on Central Command and Army planning that continues to color operations to this day.

Notably, the Pentagon scrapped the Time Phased Force Deployment Data, or "TipFid," by which regional commanders would identify forces needed for a specific campaign, and the individual armed services would manage their deployments by order of priority. The result has meant that even as Central Command chief Gen. Tommy Franks was launching the war, forces identified for the fight continued to pour off ships in the Kuwaiti port of Doha, and not necessarily in the order of first priority.

There's more; for instance, the "Pentagon's decision not to activate many transportation Reserve units before last Christmas also created personnel shortages. Meanwhile, COSCOM itself has only 150 heavy transport trucks for an operation that Army planners estimate requires 700."

All this comes with the proviso that sudden developments may yet make Rumsfeld and his edition of the Best and the Brightest look like the geniuses they take themselves to be. But I ain't bettin' that way. Why? Look at the passage about the trucks again. Now remember the old adage: Amateurs talk strategy, professionals talk logistics, and consider the implications.

Stop the War! Bruce Rolston of Flit is taking the weekend off. No War Without Bruce Rolston Analysis! is my watchword.

Quote of the Day comes from Max Sawicky:

What we have seen here is a endless sequence of rumors whose durations dovetail end to end chronologically. By the time one story is finally put to rest, another has risen to take its place. The upshot is that the public digests a continuous dose of bullshit.

UPDATE: Waxy.org looks at who links to the rumors, who links to the corrections and who does both.

ISO INFO - Dear Readers: I would appreciate links/pointers to any authoritative, independent accounts of Iraqi use of human shields. By authoritative and independent, I mean not "coalition spokesmen say" but "we saw," or, especially, "here are the pictures. Thanks.

You Don't Deserve to Live - More on the . . . evolving attitude toward Iraqi civilians from Oliver Willis and Arthur Silber. Arthur, an objectivist, is positively offended at the item from the Ayn Rand Institute, and is in the process of responding in series. Part 1 is here; here's Part 2 and keep checking the main page for more. If this keeps up, I'm going to have to stop making fun of Objectivists.

Maybe - MSNBC reports "U.S. forces dig in for the long haul." Which is probably true. Or maybe there's a task force coming toward Baghdad from Jordan on a flanking maneuver right now, or maybe the 101st Airborne, part of it anyway, isn't heading up the highway to join the 3rd Infantry at all - or maybe only the 1st Brigade is, while the other two are being flown into western airfields secured by special forces. Maybe the reports of 120,000 reinforcements getting ready to ship out are a smokescreen. Hey, remember the pretend invasion of Kuwait by sea in 1991. Maybe, just as the war wasn't going nearly as well as the Pentagon pretended in the first few days, it isn't going nearly as badly as the critics think now.

Maybe.

Don't Be Fooled - Al Jazeerah is not Al Jazeera, the famous satellite network. How can you tell? For one thing, you can actually reach the Al Jazeerah website. (I don't recommend that you do - it's creepy.) You can't reach Al Jazeera.

The Lunatic Atmosphere of War - The mask is starting to slip, just a little, when it comes to Iraqi civilians. This article from the Ayn Rand Institute is representative of the first stirrings I'm seeing among the more firebreathing hawkish bloggers. From there it should spread to NRO and, in due course, the Pentagon:

Moreover, the objection contains a mistaken assumption: it is false that every civilian in enemy territory—whether we are speaking of Hitler's Germany or Hirohito's Japan or the Taliban's Afghanistan or Hussein's Iraq—is innocent.

        Many civilians in the Mid-East, for example, hate us and actively support, materially and/or spiritually, those plotting our deaths. Can one seriously maintain, for instance, that the individuals in the Mid-East who celebrated by dancing in the streets on September 11 are innocent?

        Other civilians in enemy states are passive, unthinking followers. Their work and economic production, however meager, supports their terrorist governments and so they are in part responsible for the continued power of our enemies.

No apologist for Hamas could put it better. Hell, Osama bin Laden couldn't put it better. Actually, the terror apologists make a superficially stronger case - that since Americans (Israelis, Brits, whatever) are citizens of a democracy they are more responsible for the actions of their governments than the subjects of a totalitarian regime. I reject the arguments of Hamas and Al Qaeda, so I have to reject this one too.

What's going on here? Frustration, and fury - the damned Iraqis are not, so far, playing their assigned part. If there are any "uprisings" outside of Kurdistan, they are minor and hesitant. They appear only fitfully grateful for such humanitarian aid as has been distributed. They seem to look on us as - invaders. And that's in the anti-Saddam south.

It was a month into the War For The KLA before the allies began deliberately striking civilian targets. It may yet happen in this war. There's a rational case to be made that less care for Iraqi civilians would save more allied soldiers, and end the war sooner, which is really good for everybody, and so on. But the Ayn Rand Institute article is about finding reasons to blame the civilians we kill. Look for more of it, mostly from the people who kept telling us pre-war that the US had no conflict with the people of Iraq, just their rulers.

Sorry, This is Unqualified Offerings. You Want rumsfeld@dod.gov - Subject header on e-mail come on from Art Today : "An easy way to manipulate your images."

Reading Around - Jim, you ask, are there any intervention skeptics out there who haven't completely lost their sense of humor? Oh indeed, Loyal Reader: Mr. Justin Slotman of the legendary (and legendarily ugly) Insolvent Republic of Blogistan. Musical questions asked, but not answered, include:

Dang it. When all the neocons form a giant robot, what do they call it? Imperius Rex? Rovinator? Machiavelli Max? Cybertron, my Cyberton, I weep rusty tears for ye.

Lively. Tonic. Slotman.

Teresa Nielsen-Hayden reports the news:

India and Pakistan have been firing off deeply alarming test missiles. North Korea’s just getting nuttier. The economy’s singing “My Heart Will Go On.” And the expectation that the Iraqis would give liberating US troops a rapturous welcome has been downgraded from “a disappointment” to “an embarrassment” to “a slot in the world history register of manifest follies.”

Eve Tushnet has a long colloquy with a reader about why she came to support the war.

Hesiod notes that the Coulter Plan is on schedule.

Speaking of fundamentalist Christianity and things I found on Counterspin, is it a sign of the end times when Moammar Ghaddafi starts making sense?

Radley Balko says Glenn Reynolds is setting the "victory" bar a little low. Okay, a lot low.

Kieran Healy wrote what is already a classic blog post the other day (if such things exist) about CNN, Al Jazeera and hypocricy. He follows that up with an attempt to improve on Descartes.

Your Talking Dog explains how Rumsfeld hamstrung the Iraq War at Camp Gitmo. Plus, because this is a Talking Dog entry, more.

Salam Pax still hasn't been heard from since Monday. Worth reading through the archives, though, all the way back before Salam discovered what Trotsky meant when he said "You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you."

Check Back in June for war news. Maybe we'll know something by then - not about what will happen, but about what has happened. Consider:

The US military has been forced to admit the 8,000 Iraqi soldiers they claimed to have captured last week are now battling British forces.

Meanwhile, there may not be a convoy of Republican Guards heading south to counterattack the US forces after all.

Return of the Long Twilight Struggle - Arthur Silber on what the hawks have wrought.

I have one cavil. Arthur titles his piece "THE PREDICTABILITY OF UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES." I think he's wrong that the consequences are unintended. The same group of wonks and journalists that argued us into the current war were agitating for a new cold war with China before Zacarias Moussaoui ever enrolled in flight school. They wanted to turn a single snafu over a surveillance plane into a casus frigid belli in the spring of 2001.

Now they're getting what they want, is all. This is the big reason you don't see much "It's all about Israel" on this blog - because I don't think it is. The conflation of (the neoconservative view of) US interests with (the Likud Party view of) Israeli interests is more a symptom than a cause of our present difficulties. If Israel did not exist, our benevolent hegemons would have to invent it. Their goal is what they call "national greatness." Support for Israel (as they define support) is a means to that, not the end of it.

Keep your eye on Russia too. During the first cold war, Moscow was the world's number one sponsor of international terrorism. Those days too could return if Russia decides to make opposition to the Bush Doctrine their central foreign policy principle.

Actual Warblogging Post - The hawks are surely right that we needn't worry about the ultimate outcome of the invasion phase of the war. Ultimately, the US has complete air supremacy, which makes genuine counterattacks by Iraq almost impossible. The bad news of Sunday and the apparent pause today probably don't add up to much. The big sandstorm will, like the snow that covered the Ardennes Offensive, end, and supplies will catch up with the ground troops. (Today's sally against the 7th Cavalry by a force of unknown size seems to have used the sandstorm for cover.)

The only worry I have is political: will Iraqi resistance be successful enough to cause the US and Britain to significantly loosen the rules of engagement, driving up civilian casualties and poisoning the postwar well? The other possibility is if the Administration undertakes siege warfare around Baghdad while waiting for the rest of the invasion force to arrive.

The military has clearly been fighting in a manner calculated to make their postwar lives as viable as possible, but if push comes to shove, the Pentagon and the White House will trade goodwill for victory. Let's hope they don't have to.

Things that are too recent and unclear to be worth talking about: the possible Basra uprising. Is it happening? How big is it? Are they just anti-Saddam or also pro-Coalition? (Or are they pro-Iranian?)

Things that are starting to become not too recent to talk about: the "chemical factory" where "U.S. military investigators have found no evidence that weapons have been made in recent years at a suspected chemical plant secured by U.S. troops in southern Iraq." The "decapitation strike": at this point we have to say that if Saddam is dead, it doesn't matter - the regime is holding together.

Final thought: I'm convinced that the regime is toast, but I'm not sure they are. Like the US, they seem to be fighting the war with political goals firmly in mind. The war crimes committed so far - the fedayeen attacking without distinctive insignia, as the laws of war require for guerillas; the attacks by soldiers pretending to surrender - are appalling but purposeful: they have the political effect of making the attackers distrustful of the locals and therefore making it more risky for the locals to cooperate. It's now much more dangerous for an Iraqi soldier contemplating surrender than it was last week, and otherwise friendly civilians have to fear US/UK troops will think them enemies.

Then there's the Iraqi air force. Someone on the radio in the last couple of days pointed out that allied air dominance is so complete that Iraq hasn't put a single plane in the air. But why not, I wonder? If this is gotterdammerung, what have you got to lose? The planes don't do you any good in their bunkers.

I can come up with two answers. They're saving them up for a last hurrah outside Baghdad. OR . . .

. . . they want to keep them for after the war.

Yeah, it sounds nuts that Saddam and Co. think they'll have an "after the war" to worry about. But as someone else on the radio put it, this gang has been around for thirty years now, and they've been "on their way out" for much of that time. They must look around the bunker and think, "We've been here before."

All of which leads to the one thing I think I've figured out about the war so far. You can't trust what anyone tells you, but watching how they fight will tell you what they're thinking.

Sign of the Times - I had my first fishing session yesterday, though you couldn't prove it by the fish. But while driving from spot to spot I determined that PepCo, our local power company, has closed its Rocky Gorge and Triadelphia reservoirs to recreational use. Until this year, you could pay $30 or so and hike, picnic, fish or hunt (bow and powder, in season) on PepCo's land. Fear of terrorists contaminating the water, which I'm given to understand would actually be very hard to do.

Suggested Reading - I come across a lot of people who say they used to like Instapundit.com but can't stand it any more. Those people might want to try GlennReynolds.com, the MSNBC-sponsored sister site. The writing-to-citing ratio is much greater, the posts are more textured and nuanced and there's less - almost no, really - reflex linkage to the most mouth-breathing of hawkish bloggers. Here's a good post on victory conditions for the Iraq war and another on Matt Welch's "keep your eye off the ball" principle. Even the obligatory French-bashing piece has a certain air of detachment.

I kind of ignored the MSNBC site at first, but it's developed a distinctly different personality from Reynolds' main site, and isn't simply leftovers from Instapundit.

The Good Old Days - The Pontificator doesn't think of them that way, but I sure do. But the worst irony of all? While a lot of Republicans criticized Bill Clinton's War for the KLA, not enough of them did. Too many "We’re in it, so we’ve got to win it" McCainiacs in the GOP.

Opening a Door into a Dark Room - Max Sawicky has a good list of things we don't know about the war yet. Some of his commenters have added useful items.

The Sun Never Sets - Interesting writing on neo-imperialism and its discontents.

Max Sawicky: ANTI-IMPERIALISM: AS AMERICAN AS CHERRY PIE. First of a planned series.

Gene Healy: Anti-Imperialism: The American Way. Mark Twain, the Anti-Imerialist League and left-right alliances of yesteryear.

Arthur Silber: THE "NEW" COLONIALISM: CALL IT WHAT IT IS, AND RECOGNIZE ITS COSTS.

Which brings up something else: the other day, Virginia Postrel wrote

It's common on the left and even more common among isolationist libertarians to charge that the United States is, or is becoming, an "empire" because of interventions abroad. Hearing it the other day, I was struck by how utterly absurd the term is.

Well I resemble that remark. But aside from the fact that I think she's just wrong about the applicability of the term, her list of offenders seems awfully partial. How about neoconservative intellectual Dinesh D'Souza ("In praise of American empire", Christian Science Monitor)? Max Boot ("The Case for American Empire", The Weekly Standard)? Sebastien Mallaby ("The Reluctant Imperialist: Terrorism, Failed States, and the Case for American Empire," Foreign Affairs.) That's leaving aside all the, ahem, code words like "Pax Americana" and "benevolent global hegemony."

A couple of things, Virginia allows that " Saying the word empire is the wrong one doesn't imply that U.S. foreign policy is correct, merely that another term is needed. A 21st-century representative democracy with a large regulatory bureaucracy and many overseas involvements may be problematic." In return, I'll allow that "neo-imperialism" or the ungainly coinage "neo-empire" might be more appropriate than "empire" per se, if the alternatives weren't so ungainly. For that reason, I'll still use the term from time to time, with the proviso that I mean by it what its present-day enthusiasts mean.

Everybody's a Critic - First, from the Being a Hawk Means Never Having to Say You're Sorry Department, blogger Andrew Olmsted says I should get with the program:

We're at war in Iraq now. Regardless of whether it was a good idea or not, it's happened. The debate over war is over. Now it's time to worry about what we need to do next. Rebuilding Iraq, for example, is going to be a long process where we'll often be tempted to take shortcuts. Do we need to set another target after Iraq? What about North Korea? These are all important issues that demand intelligent discussion. Maybe it's time to worry less about who was right and who was wrong, and worry more about what we can do from here.

I skipped the personal stuff about me, because it's the general point that matters. At first I thought Andrew was merely wrongheaded - not so much about the fact that I've been a bit of a slacker about pointing readers toward all the problems that are cropping up with the war so far (Hesiod's your man for that) but about the whole "let's talk about the future now, we've put the past away" aspect of it. We can't decide the wisdom of "setting another target" without determining the wisdom of having set this one, for instance. Heaven knows that , if the war goes reasonably well, which it yet may, it will be presented as an argument for "setting."

That was what bothered me until I remembered what Andrew wrote last summer, when advocating a Congressonal debate on declaring war:

Those who oppose such an invasion would have to explain and defend their position, and place themselves on the record should a future attack prove to have come from Iraq.

So, no "Regardless of whether it was a good idea or not, it's happened" when the option is peace. No placing oneself on record if the option is war.

I ain't takin' that deal.

In other news, Gary Farber has an interesting response to my item about the "code word theory" response to critiques of neoconservatism. In some ways it's a "depends on what your meaning of is is" post. Gary argues that when I wrote

If you seriously maintain that "neoconservative" is a code word for "Jewish," you are an ass.

I might better have added "inevitably" or "always" to the verb. (Reader Andrew Shimmin e-mailed the same opinion.) I see the point, however, I was not responding to nuanced statements. See William Kristol ('He dismisses the claim "that neoconservatives, which really means Jews, hijacked the Bush administration. It's a little creepy." ') and David Horowitz ('Third, I am not a "neo-conservative," whatever that means, other than Jew').

I don't see much nuance there, and it's not hard to come up with other examples of neoconservatives making such blanket accusations. Horowitz is especially instructive, since he denies that the term could mean anything "other than Jew." Coming from a former leftist who turned right because of perceived excesses in the civil rights movement and dismay over the left's softness on foreign policy - that is, coming from an archetypal neocon - it's absurd.

Note that in the clear-cut case of "neoconservative = Jew" that David Frum adduces in his hit job on right-wing peaceniks, there's no "code word" issue whatsoever: Joseph Sobran, who creeps me out, writes 'The situation changed somewhat when many Jewish intellectuals, upset by liberal criticism of Israel, became what were called “neoconservatives.” This term implied no deep adherence to conservative principles, but only the adoption of a few ad hoc principles useful to Zionism, with no basic departure from New Deal liberalism insofar as it was useful to Zionism. “Neoconservatism” was really a sort of “kosher” conservatism.' That's pretty uncoded. I take Sobran as meaning what he says. (And I avoid him, for that reason.) I take the writers who don't make the equation as meaning what they say too.

UPDATE: Andrew Olmsted responds. He apologizes for any personal offense and elaborates his original argument. I still think he's wrong, and that he misunderstands my purpose. The bottom line is, we disagree on what's best for the country. I don't see any way to square that. But that's the issue - what's best for the country.

Weekly Fitness Blog Post - 184 pounds, 37" waist. Down two more pounds from last week.

Of the various fitness factors commonly adduced - muscular strength, resting pulse, blood pressure, work capacity, endurance, oxygen transport etc. - the single most important would have to be "dominating your age-gender cohort. Thus my sheer, egotistic joy at Thursday night's Pinewood Derby for Offering Boy's cub scout den, when I realized that I was in better shape than most of the men in the room. This was the most exhilaratiing diet benchmark since the day, sometime around the turn of the year, when I was, for the first time in years, able to see my dick when I peed without having to bend forward at the urinal.

No, you're wrong - you did need to know that.

Speaking of benchmarks, I bought three new pairs of pants today, size 36". (They fit - remember, clothing manufacturers lie like hell. And my 38" pants stopped hanging right even with a belt this week.)

On the downside, Mrs. Offering and I did a lot of housecleaning yesterday, and our backs just killed us. Among other things, this means I haven't found a good lower back exercise for my workout routine yet. For the record, the general routine is:

Dumbbell squats
Calf raises
Leg lifts (hip abduction)
Shoulder press
Biceps curls
Prone chest flyes
Ab crunches

All exercises are with dumbbells. The leg lifts were useless, in fact, until I started letting a ten-pound weight rest on my leg while doing them. Then, whooh! That's work.

About every other week I swap in stiff-legged dead lifts, which should be working the lower back but plainly aren't.

We now have a control for the Super Slow principles experiment, as Mrs. O simply refuses to give up her Firm tapes for slow-cadence weight training only. Her exercise experiment will make a useful comparison.

More fitness a week from now.

Return of the Chili Blog Post - Mrs. Offering and I just got back from an Oscar party at the swank South Baltimore rowhouse of Jesse Walker and his new fiancee, and I can now report that Jesse's chili is absolutely the best I've ever tasted. Period.

Just Like Oscar I'm staying away from war news today. This is your good news distraction blog for until Monday AM.

It Followed Her to School One Day - I guarantee I did not wake up expecting to see the following Lycos headline:

Police Probe Classroom Sheep Beatings

The story is, unlike the headline, far from amusing.

March Madness - Bruce Rolston of Flit has a morning analysis, current as of General Franks' morning (EST) briefing. Skip CNN and stick with Flit, I say.

Nothing from Salam Pax since just before "A-Day" began. Hang in there, Salam.

More useful looking military charities: books for the troops (via Electrolite) and CDs (via Virginia Postrel). These are likely to be especially useful - remember, the war will probably be short, but the occupation will be forever. Our guys and gals are going to need some way to pass the time.

Note: I will update as soon as the RIAA declares that sending used CDs to service members constitutes theft.

On the War is the Health of the State front, this report on preliminary details of war finance, from Reuters. The article says the Bush administration is proposing a $75 billion war finance package, but the numbers suggest otherwise. The plan, per Reuters calls for $62 billion for the defense department, $13 billion in foreign aid - which is $75b right there - plus, "Billions more will beef up security in New York and other possible terrorist targets in the United States." On top of that

Under pressure from some lawmakers, the administration is also considering including aid to cash-strapped U.S. airlines.

and

Experts say occupation costs could far exceed the direct military costs of the war.

Congress has already trimmed the President's tax cut proposal by $100 billion, just to be ready, I guess. (Surely liberals will learn to love this war.)

Where's the humble foreign policy I was promised, dammit.

Nothing to See Here, Folks, Move Along - From the Sydney Morning Herald:

The United States closed its embassy in Pakistan yesterday for an indefinite period as protests grew countrywide against the US-led attack on Iraq.

Non-essential embassy staff flew out of Pakistan on Thursday, leaving a small number of personnel and marine guards. Private US citizens have been advised to consider leaving the country, as have nationals of allied countries, including Australia.

Pakistan. That's the muslim country that really does have nuclear weapons, right?

The war itself seems to be going well. The rest of the world? Not so well.

A Fanboy's Notes - Finally got around to watching Minority Report tonight with Mrs. Offering. I liked a lot of it - the "we don't cut off your security access once we start hunting you down like a dog" thing gave me pause - but I can now say for sure that the best Philip K. Dick movie is still the one not based on a Philip K. Dick story.

Prepare! - Just in case there's something to the whole six guys in Mexico thing, remember to review these helpful antiterrorism tips.

It's So Easy - The Pentagon tells us that bomb damage assessment is hard and takes time. CNN and its analysts, on the other hand, can instantly tell, based on the coverage I saw at lunchtime today, whether bombs have struck civilian targets or not. Turns out the bombs never do.

The Lunatic Atmosphere of War II - Justin Raimondo on jerk protesters in San Francisco. Not all the lunatics are hawks.

The Lunatic Atmosphere of War I - Now and then I dip into Best [Neocon-Approved Items] of the Web to see if it still stinks, and it always does. Today it reads

It turns out Rangel doesn't think very much of those who actually are making the sacrifice of serving in our volunteer military. This morning Rangel was one of only 11 House members to vote "no" on a nonbinding resolution "expressing the support and appreciation of the nation for the president and the members of the armed forces who are participating in Operation Iraqi Freedom." (The Senate unanimously approved a similar resolution yesterday.)

This was not a pro-war resolution, just a show of support for the troops. Along with Rangel, the following members, all Democrats, voted "no":

A bald-faced lie. Skipping past the Whereases, we come to the Resolveds:

Resolved by the House of Representatives (the Senate concurring), That
the Congress expresses the unequivocal support and appreciation of the
Nation--

(1) to the President as Commander-in-Chief for his firm leadership and
decisive action in the conduct of military operations in Iraq as part
of the on-going Global War on Terrorism;

(See resolution text.) That's not all the Resolveds - clauses 2 and 3 thank and praise the troops and their families. After praising the President for "his firm leadership and decisive action." But first this Republican-drafted resolution has to praise the President first. AND claim that "operations in Iraq" are "part of the on-going Global War on Terrorism," which, as even James Taranto should know is, as a practical matter, the very heart of the dispute over the wisdom of the war.

Going through the Whereases too will make it even clearer that Taranto speaks the opposite of the truth - this was a thoroughly political resolution and a pro-war resolution. It's the simplest of blue-pencil exercises to turn the actual text into the kind of resolution Taranto only claims it to be. All the reports on the debate make it clear that the political content was the sticking point.

This is no doubt why Taranto links to the roll call itself but not the text of the resolution or any news reports about it. What a sham. And anyone who forces me to sympathize with Charles "Tax cuts are racist" Rangel gets my undying enmity.

On a related topic, Joseph Stromberg suggests that "Not for the first time in US history, the evil and stupid parties have changed places." Me, I just figure that nothing makes the Democrats look quite as good as removing the reins of power from their sweaty little hands. Of course, that goes for the Republicans too. Stromberg also says it's time to impeach Antonin Scalia. And his suggested method of following war news would make a great weblog idea, actually. It involves making four columns.

(Link via Franklin Harris, who has a lot of red meat posts for anti-interventionist types the last day or two.)

UPDATE: I should acknowledge that the early Whereases say nice things about the troops before segueing into policy matters. What you actually have is a sandwich with troops on top, troops at the bottom, and a whole lot of politics in the middle. I wouldn't eat it, myself.

More Support - Nell Lancaster's Lexington, VA based peace group's site points me to Operation Uplink, which takes donations. OU (note: not "UO") provides service members and their families with free phone cards. I can't imagine that this is much use if you're crossing the Iraqi desert, but surely it could benefit rear-echelon troops immediately. For the next few days apparently, you can also get donations of useful items to the American Friends Service Committee. They will air-ship it to Jordan and from there get it to Iraqi refugees.

I have no personal experience with or knowledge of the bona fides of either effort, though you figure the Quakers aren't going to rip you off, right?

Not Exactly - Glenn Reynolds quotes this MSNBC report

In the town of Safwan, Iraqi civilians eagerly greeted the 1st Marine Division.

One little boy, who had chocolate melted all over his face after a soldier gave him some treats from his ration kit, kept pointing at the sky, saying “Ameriki, Ameriki.”

and comments

This is the "peace" movement's worst nightmare, isn't it?

Speaking on behalf of my little corner of the "peace" "movement," I have two that are worse: first, what this kid's parents think about "Ameriki" in one year, what his older brother thinks in five and what he thinks in twenty. That will be the measure of our practical success. Second, that Americans will imagine that the immediate reaction of the locals decides the question.

Warblogging - Find the best by Bruce Rolston of Flit. He's a Canadian military officer and his expertise adds genuine insight to the links. He's got a regularly updated map, too.

Public Notice - If you seriously maintain that "neoconservative" is a code word for "Jewish," you are an ass. The only question is whether you're an ignorant ass, one who somehow missed a thirty-year-plus intellectual tradition and yet feels unaccountably qualified to comment on political matters, or a dishonest ass.

William Kristol can't plead ignorance. Some of the rest of you may have had an excuse. No longer.

Supporting the Troops if not their bosses. Operation Homefront takes donations to help military families in San Diego and El Paso. I'd bring the families' loved ones home tomorrow, but it's not up to me and it's not up to them either If this had been an actual emergency, you'd want these people between you and trouble. You can help their families, who make do with crappy pay and the dislocations attendant on separation from spouses and parents. Fair warning: Operation Homefront is not rated by Charity Navigator and I know nothing about their bona fides. (Link via Virginia Postrel.)

Quote of the Other Day

The correct terminology here is obviously not "code name", for Christ's sake, but "brand".

Colby Cosh on "Operation Iraqi Freedom."

Quote of the Day

gevalt, if either our side or theirs is faking a gay anti-war anti-Saddam weblog, either they are much smarter than I thought or the CIA is no longer screening for current drug use

Eve Tushnet

Modest Proposal - I've argued, along with Robert Wright and others, that the real problems come after the current war. Broadly speaking, they are the likely dangers of the occupation and the temptation to use Iraq as a base for what John Smith calls the Rolling World War. I'd like things to work out for us and the Iraqi people more than I would like to be right about the dangers, and I'm not temperamentally suited to root against an easy victory that would tend to lead us into further temptation. Prudence demands we get the hell out after winning. But what about the reconstruction? There needs to be some sort of transition. The question is, if not a US-run regency, what? I don't trust the UN to do it. (I told you people I was a right winger.) UN officials would have the women of Iraq in Bosnia-style brothels quicker than you can say "padded expense account." Plus the UN largely comprises the sort of thuggish kleptocrats we're supposed to be ushering out of Iraq. That's one of the problems with turning the job over to the Arab League too - another case of "meet the new boss . . . "

So, who fills the bill? To this, a general answer and a specific one.

For my sins I listened to the CNN radio feed today. And Ari Fleischer or whoever began the White House press conference by talking about the ever-growing Coalition of the Willing to do Everything but Say Who They Are. But some of them do say who they are, and Fleischer made much of "countries that have themselves only recently escaped tyranny" who have signed on.

And there's your transitional administration: the best liberal politicians and government officials from Eastern Europe. They understand, in the transition from tyranny to freedom, what has to be tossed out, who has to be held to account and when, instead, mercy must do the work of justice. They've lived it. They understand ethnic strife and where, unmanaged, it can lead. One country has even provided the rare example of constituent parts divorcing peacefully.

Which leads to the specific answer: some one foreigner has to be in charge of all this for a time. It would be a fine thing if it were not an American military officer for political reasons. It should be someone friendly to the United States, fierce in devotion to freedom and individual rights, renowned for conscience and, not incidentally, currently underemployed.

Ladies and gentlemen, the sane, logical and inspired choice:

Vaclav Havel. Pass it on.

What Now - To be perfectly clear, it isn't important what I choose to do with this website in the changed circumstance of a formal shooting war between Iraq and the US. Atrios has had a lot of fun with the grandiloquent pronouncements of some bloggers - well, you ain't catching me, Mr. 15,000 Visits a Day! The world will little note nor long remember what I say here. With a couple of exceptions: it matters to me, by definition, and probably to some subset of the people who are kind enough to read this site on a regular basis. So here's the plan:

As to the war itself, I hope we win and win quickly, with minimal loss of American life and minimal loss of Iraqi life. And I hope that whatever happens in the coming years to underscore the folly of the "Bush Doctrine" and the grand strategy of "benevolent hegemony" first laid out in 1992 is, miraculously, nearly pain free in terms of actual lives lost and ruined. We'll see. What I won't be doing:

o Stopping with the "antiwar" talk, as Radley says he will;

o "Warblogging" in the "following every twist and turn of every available report" sense. Hesiod and Glenn Reynolds, from their separate perspectives, were the most energetic This-Is-Blogistan reporter sorts yesterday, and I suspect that will continue. I enjoy following such blogging, with reservations, but have neither the work schedule nor the inclination to engage in it myself. In a very real sense, I consider it a waste of time. Three factors tend to make most up-to-the-minute war reporting useless - the media gets initial reports reliably wrong; the allies fill the airwaves with propaganda and misdirection; the Iraqis do likewise. There may indeed be mass surrenders of Iraqi troops, for instance. But some "pre-war" reports of these appear to be wishes fathering thoughts. (See John Smith on the situation in Northern Iraq.) I doubt the validity of this poorly sourced Independent story about a supposed Iraqi helicopter attack on a Kurdish village yesterday. There are strong operational and political reasons for both parties to the war to lie and structural reasons for the press to sieze on rumors. Hesiod and Instapundit both spent much of yesterday tracking and then refuting the rumor that Tariq Aziz had defected, been captured or killed. They did a good job, but they can have it. Obviously, as long as his access lasts, Salam Pax is your source for news from Baghdad itself.

o I won't be installing the Iraqi Body Count doodads, as suggested by my Stand Down colleague Rachel Cunliffe. I'll regret each death, but my opposition to the war has always been rooted in a concern for Americans, not Iraqis. I also instinctlively distrust the reliability of such tracking programs - the people behind them have agendas too, and their own motives for fudging the figures.

o Hawks will sieze on every short-term thing that goes right with the war as proving its merits. After a dozen years of WTC I, the African embassies, the Cole and the massacres of September 11, 2001, one still encounters hawks saying that there was no terrorist backlash from Gulf War Phase I, as opponents had predicted. I will try to resist the countervailing temptation to trumpet every reversal we encounter during the battle as demonstrating that I was right all along. We'll see how I do.

o Return to writing in the third-person impersonal as a symbolic protest. UO promises.

What I will do:

o Write about the war and US foreign policy from what I hope will be a somewhat longer view.

o Link to war coverage by bloggers and others that strikes me.

o Write about other things. Fitness blogging and (soon!) fishing reports will continue, so also with items on domestic politics, comic books, games and, who knows, maybe even music and movies at some point.

o Continue to make the case for a foreign policy grounded in republican virtue and discretion. I obviously have a lot of work to do here.

o Track the injuries to decency that I've been cataloging under that phrase of Orwell's, "the lunatic atmosphere of war."

o Finally clean out my @##$%^ inbox. I apologize for having been so lame about it. Part of the in-box cleaning will include the Kenneth Pollack and torture-related mail that came in this month. I would disagree with any argument that these issues are no longer relevant "because the war changes everything." The war, I think, changes very little (not least because it's been going on for twelve years already). As I've said before, never confuse politics with current events.

o Try to figure out what the hell ant-interventionists should do next. I have, simply, no flipping idea right now.

Anyway, all that starts tonight.

News That Stays News

Our names shouted in a certain dawn...a message...a summons...There must have been a moment, at the beginning, where we could have said... no. But somehow we missed it. Well, we'll know better next time

Tom Stoppard, "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead"

The Lunatic Atmosphere of War - "Sergeant Stryker" goes down an ugly path in this upbraiding of that moral reprobate - Salam Pax:

God forbid war should cut-off Mr. Oppressed Person's Internet access. I've often wondered how someone who lives in such an oppressed country could afford all he describes. It is curious.

Although I do agree with him. We shouldn't have a war for the sole purpose of bringing democracy to people who would rather live with the status quo under a dictator than live free. It's so much easier to be a smart-ass on a computer than to actually risk your life and leave or stay and fight. Of course, the Kurds and Marsh Arabs actually tried and we left them holding the bag the last time. But at least they tried, unlike our friend here who lives in apparent luxury compared to those outside Baghdad and who would have much to lose if those that have been ground under Saddam's boot actually have a say in how things are run after the war. The Good Days are about to end, Salam. Your patron will be gone shortly and a settling of accounts will take place. Our bombs are the least of your concerns.

The sheer obtuse viciousness on display here is boggling, and I say that as someone who has not previously had any particular axe to grind against Stryker. It's never appealling when the citizen of a relatively free country sits in luxuriant moral judgment of the ordinary subject of an oppressive one. The ordinary person encountering Salam's description of his quotidian existence might react less with conviction that Salam must be an agent of the regime than by adjusting his mental picture of the texture of ordinary life under totalitarianism. Having done that, said person might better understand how totalitarian regimes are able to maintain themselves.

Beyond all that, two ugly features: first, the way war and its prospect foster hatred of the people of the enemy nation; second, the same mindset that justifies terror. Stryker says, as much as dammit, that Salam personally has it coming for allowing Saddam Hussein to do bad things. By this same logic our enemies argue that we have it coming - after all, we (unlike Iraq) are a democracy, so we perforce consent to whatever our government does and are therefore legitimate targets. They're wrong and so is he.

Gosh, Jim, aren't you being rather harsh on what is probably the military equivalent of pre-game locker room talk? Maybe. That's the point, though. In kinder times, Stryker, on the evidence of his writing, was a pretty decent guy. The inevitable deforming of the personalities of decent guys, for what one hopes is a temporary period, is one of the chief moral reasons why one should never fight "optional wars."

Must Read - Salam Pax, on the eve of war.

Salam, I hope you and your family live through this. Odds of that are fair to very good, I'd think. And I hope the better life the hawks are sure you'll live is waiting for you on the other side of the imminent unpleasantness. But my apologies in advance if the odds go wrong. And thanks for a great blog.

The rest was best said by someone else.

Over There - In an interesting item, Max Sawicky, disagreeing with Justin Raimondo and I (and does that take nerve or what?) about the wisdom of "direct action," argues that Gandhi would see things differently. Max offers all sorts of stipulations about the kinds of civil disobedience he thinks would be counterproductive, but concludes

. . . there is no getting around the symbolic power of peaceable disruption of business as usual, not to mention the war machine itself.

I'm sure he's right about Gandhi, but Gandhi's campaign had a crucial advantage. He was protesting the actions of an alien Other. Even if his movement inconvenienced locals in doing so, the locals instinctive identification was with the protesters, the people "like them." The instinctive identification of, say, harried commuters or most news viewers will be, not with a bunch of ectomorphs with black do-rags over their faces, but with the people working on behalf of state policy.

The Lunatic Atmosphere of "Social" "Science" - PulpCulture's Franklin Harris on problems with the latest study purporting to show that violent kids television leads to "aggressive" adults.

The Lunatic Atmosphere of War - A couple of signs that suggest just how bad things could get. From the Seattle Times:

OLYMPIA — An anti-terrorism bill has spurred debate among lawmakers: Is a gun a weapon of mass destruction?

The fight could jeopardize the sweeping bill proposed by Gov. Gary Locke and Attorney General Christine Gregoire to create six new terror-related crimes with harsher penalties than allowed under current state law.

A group of House Democrats wants House Bill 1210 to specifically include firearms as weapons of mass destruction, to make it clear that a terror-related gun crime would be punishable by the stiffer penalties.

Link via Jesse Walker on Hit and Run.

From IDG News Service:

Witnesses and representatives at the U.S. House Judiciary Committee (news - web sites)'s Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet, and Intellectual Property hearing Thursday did express fears that profits from widespread copying of movies, music, and software outside the United States were being funneled into terrorist organizations, but the hearing produced no concrete examples of that happening.

Show me a hobby horse and an organized interest group and I'll show you an attempt to yoke it to the "war on terror." This is our near future. (Our farther future I prefer not to contemplate just now.) We're about to launch a war not so we can be safe but so we can feel safe, for a time at least. That means every rent seeker in the lobby of every legislature in the country will try to make us feel unsafe - unless his favored subvention or prohibition is swiftly and zealously enacted.

This has, by the way, everything to do with the enthusiasm for torturing "terrorists," a word whose meaning determined operators will be seeking to expand for some time to come. So read Arthur Silber on Hannah Arendt on torture.

What Oft Was Said - Radley Balko saves me a lot of typing. Scroll up for some interesting follow-ups.

Hawks all too Clear on the Concept - Your neocon quote of the day, from the Sacramento Bee . . .

"It takes little imagination to dream up other scenarios that might call for pre-emptive military action," said Thomas Donnelly, a military analyst at the American Enterprise Institute, a Washington think tank that has led the charge for war against Iraq.

Yeah, that's the problem all right.

No Action - Superb column this morning in which Justin Raimondo upbraids "direct action" advocates in the antiwar movement. Excerpt:

Nothing is wrong with peaceful and legal protests on the day war breaks out, but the advocates of disruption who self-righteously howl "No business as usual!" and advocate illegal acts have got to be told off, in no uncertain terms. How dare they endanger the rest of us, and subject the organized antiwar movement to State repression at a fateful moment like this?! It's outrageous, and impermissible. In San Francisco, in the aftermath of the last mass protests, a contingent of self-proclaimed "anarchists," who go under the vague general rubric of the "Black Bloc," split off from the main march and descended into the financial district, breaking windows, throwing rocks, and creating havoc. Dozens were arrested, but most were out of jail in a few hours later, and all charges were dropped.

As to the notion of a "general strike," it apparently takes a right-winger to remind leftist organizers that

Most people, of course, can't afford to miss a day of work, and, in this economy, can hardly afford to be fired.

Well worth everyone's time, particularly frustrated peace advocates who might be otherwise tempted toward the "asshole path." As a bonus, the "I-word" does not appear.

Weekly Fitness Blog Post - 186 pounds, waist still fluctuating between 37 and 38". It's no longer a gut issue so much - it's my damned haunches. My largest remaining stores of fat are north of the buttocks to the bottom of the rib cage and laterally - your classic (and I hate the phrase) "love handles." Fat seems to be melting preferentially off other areas, like arms and legs. My new plan is not to worry unduly. So long as I keep losing, it has to come off eventually.

Last week I wrote about Atkins for the first time. One reason I hadn't brought it up is its "red flag" quality, as seen in the recent Reason brouhaha. Another is that I consider my personal Atkins jury to be out until I get not only transitional (during weight loss) but maintenance blood test results.

While I consider the effectiveness of Atkins very much an open question - even thirty pounds later - a concern I have is that there seem to be at least two Atkins plans that people debate: the one Atkins actually wrote and the one people seem to think he wrote. For instance, Fumento's original critique quotes the 1973 AMA report:

"The notion that sedentary persons, without malabsorption or hyperthyroidism, can lose weight on a diet containing 5,000 calories a day is incredible," the article says.

The "5,000 calories a day" we'll get to. It's the "sedentary persons" I have problems with. I've never seen a copy of Atkins original book, but the newer one explicitly, repeatedly and voluminously preaches the need for exercise, stating, in so many words, that if you're not exercising you're not really on the Atkins program.

The "5,000 calories" figure is also one I didn't encounter in the book I read. It has its cousin in RiShawn Biddles joke that " three steaks a day isn't exactly going to keep the pounds off either."

This is also at variance with anything I've actually read by Atkins, who repeatedly also says that No, you can't eat as much as you want, you should eat only until you feel full - not stuffed.

There's also the curious claim I've seen in various places that Atkins doesn't work because people who go off the diet gain the weight back. Here I'm not sure quite what they mean. I have no doubt that if I were to once again make soda, fries and chips my core food items I'd be back up to 220 pounds and beyond, particularly if I stopped working out. But how would that be the fault of the Atkins diet itself? A claim that people on the maintenance phase of the diet can't actually maintain their goal weight would be at least a sensical criticism, and one that could be tested. But that doesn't seem to be what they're saying.

Many of the less useful critics also imply that the induction phase - when carbohydrate intake is limited to 20 grams a day from salad vegetables only - is the whole of the program. In fact, you get to add both number of carb grams and variety of carb sources back as the diet progresses. I'm presently consuming about 50-60 grams of carbohydrate a day, with spikes on indulgence days. Those carbs come mostly from vegetables, berries and nuts, though I now have a slice of whole wheat toast under my eggs in the morning. (Never could stand to eat just eggs by themselves - it's a texture thing.) I ate more healthy vegetables a day during induction (the most restrictive phase) than I ever did before I started my diet, when my carbohydrates came chiefly from sugar and processed starches.

I happen to think that portion control more than dietary composition per se probably is the real key to weight loss. I also think that Atkins is an effective way for some people to achieve portion control. (I agree with Diana Moon when she says that "The weight-loss regimen that works for you is the one you can stand to do consistently." Not everyone can stand to do a controlled-carb diet.) I also think that the key to Atkins is to exercise to a level of fitness where you maximize the number of good carbohydrates you can eat. I think, if you're a classic meat & potatoes man like I was, you need to pick one or the other. I think a whole bunch of other things that I can't prove but have only sort of subjectively experienced.

Next week: calories in, calories out, and conservation laws.

All Niger, All the Time! - I continue to be on this story like a tick on your eyelid. The latest reports deepen the Italian Connection:

WASHINGTON -- Phony weapons documents cited by the United States and Britain as evidence against Saddam Hussein were initially obtained by Italian intelligence authorities, who may have been duped into paying for the forgeries, U.S. officials said Friday.

Which is not to say that the Italians just made them up . . .

U.S. officials said Friday that they still do not know who forged the documents, but the disclosure that they were first obtained by Italian authorities sheds light on how they came to the attention of American intelligence.

"I don't mean to suggest that Italy created the documents. I don't think they have any reason to," one U.S. official said. "It's conceivable that some con man sold it to them."

But you could fairly accuse the LAT of burying the lede here:

The CIA first heard allegations that Iraq was seeking uranium from Niger in late 2001 but did not obtain the documents until about a month ago, and it promptly turned them over to U.N. inspectors, the official said.

Initially, the existence of the documents "was reported to us second- or third- hand," the official said. "We included that in some of our reporting, although it was all caveated because we had concerns about the accuracy of that information."

What interesting timing. The CIA got the documents "about a month ago." The President gave his State of the Union address, where he brought up the Niger claims, two months ago. So the President was selling Congress and the American people information that "was reported to us second- or third- hand."

Rockefeller's move provoked a pointed response from the committee chairman, Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.).

"The implication of Sen. Rockefeller's letter is that the intelligence community forged these documents to somehow bolster the case against Iraq," he said in a statement. "The United States does not need this one piece of evidence to make its case against Iraq."

If their other pieces of evidence are so good, why do they keep throwing this crap out there?

Preemptive Punditwatch - The Pontificator lists the questions that need to be asked this morning. One cavil: he's hot to blame things on the CIA, which would be weird, the CIA being a hotbed of antiwar sentiment. (After the State Department, the CIA is reliably the second-most dovish national security organ on almost any policy.)

In fact, this Washington Post article claims

The CIA, which had also obtained the documents, had questions about "whether they were accurate," said one intelligence official, and it decided not to include them in its file on Iraq's program to procure weapons of mass destruction.

Of course, it also claims that

But Iraq never surrendered the blueprints for its nuclear program, and it kept teams of scientists employed after U.N. inspectors were forced to leave in 1998.

which is sort of, in its way, true, though the implication is that Iraq forced the inspectors to leave, which isn't true.

The latest reports suggest that

Forged documents that the United States used to build its case against Iraq were likely written by someone in Niger's embassy in Rome who hoped to make quick money, a source close to the United Nations investigation said.

But quick money from whom, is the question. Some obvious candidates:

Israel - It's way too soon to conclude, as Justin Raimondo does, that it must be the Israelis. They're a logical cui bono suspect (rather like Iraq was a logical suspect in the September 2001 massacres), but that can only be a starting point, not an ending point. One imagines that the Mossad could produce better fakes.

Iran - This one comes a bit out of left field, but there are some indications that Iran hopes to advantage itself in the confusion. My first question was, Are the Iranians that stupid? After all, they're number two or three on the Official Regime Change list. Iraq may be their ancient enemy, but why help the US to a base of anti-Iranian operations right next door? The answer that has since come to me is, if you think the Americans are coming anyway, and you think you can successfully create a buffer zone of renegade Iraqis between you and them, you might take the gamble. Strikes me as pretty high-stakes though.

Turkey - Depending on how much they really want Kirkuk and Mosul. (These documents have been around since well before the parliamentary defeat for US basing rights.)

China - if you believe the "China's grand strategy is to draw the US into overextending itself" argument. China is our strongest geopolitical rival and has nnot been engaging in the kind of veto talk we hear from France and Russia. I assume this is because they don't need to - not so long as France and Russia are up for the job.

Jordan - if they think there's a "Hashemite Restoration" possibility. (Connection: doesn't Prince Hassan live in Rome?

Kuwait - progenitors of the "Incubator Myth" and possibly the concocters of the "GHWB Assassination Attempt" too.

Time Bomb - I've speculated before that there might be a covert war against the war being waged by the US/UK intelligence bureaucracies. Including a crude fake in the Iraqi bill of attainder might have been intended to cause later embarrassment.

More likely, we're simply witnessing the curruption - perhaps "beat-down" might be a better way of putting it - of the intelligence analysis function by its political masters. In the face of relentless pressure from above, dubious defector reports get upgraded to reliable, dodgy-looking documents get reclassified as authentic. Then its off to the UN or the Halls of Congress (SOTU, e.g.) with the "evidence."

That's What I'm Tonkin About! - From ABC News:

The top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee asked the FBI on Friday to investigate forged documents the Bush administration used as evidence against Saddam Hussein and his military ambitions in Iraq.

Sen. Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia said he was uneasy about a possible campaign to deceive the public about the status of Iraq's nuclear program.

Probably not in time to stop the war, but maybe, just maybe, we won't have to wait quite so long for the lies to be detailed this time. Of course, it could be a short, easy probe if the FBI talks to the right people:

Secretary of State Colin Powell has denied the U.S. government had any hand in creating the false documents.

"It came from other sources," Powell told a House committee Thursday. "We were aware of this piece of evidence, and it was provided in good faith to the inspectors."

So, first stop: Colin Powell. First question: "Um, Colin. So where did this thing come from?"

Come to think of it, what do we need the FBI for? Why couldn't - I don't know - ABC News ask him?

I'll have to ask you to forgive my ignorant questions. I was born in a different country, and I'm still getting used to how things work in this one.

Airplane Glue - Bruce Rolston of Flit on the "smoking gun" "unmanned chemical warfare vehicle" that turns out to have been, well, a model plane:

NOTE: Does this mean I think the Iraqi drone on display, that can only fly 2 miles, is the best they've got at their little ersatz Area 51? Of course not. When war comes, and the Humvees pull up with the keys to the blast door of the secret hangar, they will find the drone Mk. 2, that can fly at least 100 per cent farther than that. With an actual lawnmower engine this time. And carrying a small hand grenade.

He also writes:

Speaking of press appearances without substance, it's getting to difficult to find ANYTHING in Colin Powell's presentations to the UN that can stand up to any scrutiny.

Reminder: this is (inexplicably) a war supporter talking. He also links to a New Republic story about more pro-war falsehoods.

All of which makes this Charles Dodgson item seem particularly relevant. (Warning: Major Godwin's Law violation. But the antiwar camp is running a major Godwin's Law deficit compared to the pro-war camp so far, so Dodgson comes in under budget.)

Department of I Did Not Know That - Atrios appears to have signed on as a contributor to "Billboard" group blog of the famously right wing - and fabulously entertaining - New York Press.

Fantasy Girl - Avedon Carol responds to my ribbing about her Gore fantasies. She also wonders if she should add Julian Sanchez to her "Loyal Opposition" list. Well duh! was my first reaction. Julian rocks, and he could probably even explain about how libertarians have already figured out that "all Big Institutions can turn ugly on you, even when they are privately-owned." But the question got me thinking: who else should be on Avedon's list of the "loyal opposition." Herewith, my nominations:

Eve Tushnet - because what blogroll is complete without a brilliant, pro-life, anti-authoritarian Catholic conservative? Eve already has some impressive synergy going on with Christian leftists like Jeanne d'Arc, but she makes a great "loyal opposition" for almost anyone.

Julian, of course.

Colby Cosh - Because Canadian conservatism was never this funny. As for opposition value on Avedon's site, I don't think he's even against the war. Particularly underrated!

Franklin Harris - Anarcho-capitalist fanboy. Who doesn't want to know what someone like that thinks?

Unruled - Sort of like Franklin Harris, but without the insights into Battle of the Planets. A sharp, no-nonsense writer.

I'd offer a longer list, but I've stopped reading any blog who's author uses the verb coinage "Fisk" without irony.

Toothless Hags - In internationalist gospel, the problem with the League of Nations was that it lacked enforcement powers and/or the power of the United States to compel states to respect its decisions. Thus it could neither prevent nor reverse Italy's conquest of Abyssinia, which aggression led, with other things, to World War II. Meantime, the United States is at least declaring that the UN can't prevent it from conquering Iraq. Critics can justly call the UN irrelevant no matter which way things shake out - if the US goes to war without the blessing of the Security Council, the UN is impotent and irrelevant. If the US actually secures authorization, the UN is nothing but a (balky) rubber stamp for determined US policy. A toothless hag like the League of Nations.

But one of the Fates was a toothless hag too. Let's turn it around for a second. Don't look at the 1930s from the perspective of the "international community." Look at it from the perspective of Italy. Would Italy have been smart to heed the clear sentiment of the League? They conquered Abyssinia, and thereby set in motion a train of events that led to ruinous war, German and then allied occupation and, not incidentally for the country's political class, the execution of much of the government.

Not such a good deal for the Italians. I'd argue that the League condemnation was a signal of what they were letting themselves in for. My point is not that US policy toward Iraq is nothing but Italian policy toward the Horn of Africa. My point is that one ignores alarms at one's peril. I would never want the UN to have veto power over US security. It's a talking shop, and should be. But what the talking shop is saying is that the "coalition of the unwilling" threatens to metastasize. We'd be fools not to take that seriously.

Read it and Weep - The UN Convention Against Torture, signed and ratified by the United States of America. (link via So It Goes. Pedro has been on the torture beat - in German - since February.) See particularly Articles 2 and 3:

Article 2

2. No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat or war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture.

Article 3
1. No State Party shall expel, return ("refouler") or extradite a person to another State where there are substantial grounds for believing that he would be in danger of being subjected to torture.

Article 2, Section 2 and Article 3, Section 1 about cover all the legal issues. They told us in college that ratified treaties have the force of US Law. Article VI, Clause 2 of the US Constitution reads - and forgive me for this exercise in nostalgia - "This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding."

Moral issues aside, it appears to be illegal to do what we're doing. Period. If the government wants to open a campaign to withdraw from the UNCAT, I'll take my chances on the debate. As it stands, many officials appear to be breaking the law under color of official duty. That sounds like a high crime rather than a misdemeanor.

Long Fuse - The torture proponents keep bringing up the hypothetical "ticking bomb" scenario. They also adduce the famous 1995 "Philippines Affair" on the effectiveness of torture as an investigative tool, about which Eve quoted a report yesterday:

The Philippine intelligence agencies, suspecting a plot, arrested and tortured a man they thought was one of the terrorists. They broke most of his ribs, burned his genitals with cigarettes and poured water into his mouth until he couldn't breathe. After 67 days, he came up with the information which enabled the Filipinos, together with the Americans - who were provided with the fruits of the interrogation - to frustrate the plot.

67 days. A committed subject can hold out against unspeakable cruelty for 67 days. Do the timers on those Al Qaeda nukes go up that high?

Old joke: Man asks a woman in a bar, "Would you sleep with me for a million dollars?" Woman allows that, well, for that kind of money, she supposes she would. How about for this shiny new quarter? the man continues. The woman, outraged, demands, "What the hell do you think I am??" "We've already established that," the man replies. "Now we're just haggling over the price."

And that's the function of the "ticking bomb" scenario.

Over There - I just posted a few observations on the ever-dicier British situation on Stand Down.

Self-Parody Watch - I adore Avedon Carol, but this adventure in wishful thinking reminded me of a column I read in 1980 by George Will or William Buckley or someone like that, in Jimmy Carter's voice, in which, for the good of the country, he laid out all the reasons why he was withdrawing from the Presidential race and urging Americans to vote for his opponent, Ronald Reagan, instead.

Compare and Contrast - In his No to War post, Arthur Silber reminds us that most legislators voted for the USA-PATRIOT Act without having read it. Similar stories have appeared about legislators not knowing the details of what was in t