Tonight I read this article about the recent protests in Berkeley, CA over Marine recruitment. The group Code Pink had recently convinced the Berkeley City Council to officially come out against military recruitment. Today the pro-military group Move American Forward demonstrated against this decision.

I was particularly struck by this letter signed by about 30 Republican members of Congress encouraging President Bush to rescind earmarks meant for Berkeley (of course all earmarks should be rescinded, but that is a another story)

"The military does not "selectively defend our country, its people, or our freedom. Therefore, we should not reward jurisdictions that selectively support our troops." read more »

I read this editorial in the New York Times on Sunday about Darfur. I was particularly struck by the last paragraph:

"The world’s leaders say they care desperately about Darfur’s suffering. But caring is not enough. What is needed is troops, equipment and a lot more diplomatic pressure on Sudan. The word of the United Nations is on the line, and so are the lives of Darfur’s people."

A few questions jump to my mind: read more »

• What good did UN troops do in Rwanda?
• Are UN troops really the answer as there is a history of despicable actions such as rape on the part of these troops?

In Newsweek, in Baghdad, violence is down 50%.

Key quotes:
IED attacks across the country are at their lowest point since September 2004, down 50 percent just since the surge peaked last summer. There hasn't been a successful suicide car bombing in Baghdad in five weeks, and the few ones in recent months have been small and ineffective. There used to be four a day, many of which claimed scores of lives each.

So the following observations do not come so much from the brass: Al Qaeda in Iraq is starting to look like a spent force, especially in Baghdad. The civil war is in the midst of a huge, though nervous, pause. Most Shiite militias are honoring a truce. Iran appears to have stopped shipping deadly arms to Iraqi militants. The indigenous Sunni insurgency has declared for the Americans across broad swaths of the country, especially in the capital. read more »

In 2003, a German businessman was kidnapped near Macedonia (or 'detained without charge and flown to another country for questioning' if you prefer) and taken to a US run prison in Afghanistan, where he was held for four months. It was a case of 'mistaken identity' that caused heated relations between Germany and the European Union on one side, and the US on the other. Condoleezza Rice apologized to Angela Merkel in private in an attempt to defuse the situation, but when Khaled al-Masri sued the United States for his wrongful detention, US courts chose not to hear his case. Why, you may ask? The US government argued that hearing the case would involve disclosure of "state secrets" so the court declined to hear the dispute. read more »

Can we agree yet that there is significant military AND political progress in Iraq?

And even if you answer "no" (and I don't see how you could), can we agree that this is a good thing (from frontpagemag.com):

IRAQIS REACH AGREEMENT ON REFORMS

By Ed Morrissey

It looks like the Iraqi political leadership remained on the job during their August recess. Representatives of all main sects in Iraq announced agreement on the most contentious issues, including a deal to initiate revenue sharing on oil production that concerned the American Congress most (via Power Line):

Iraq's top Shi'ite, Sunni Arab and Kurdish political leaders announced on Sunday they had reached consensus on some key measures seen as vital to fostering national reconciliation. read more »

This time it's noted Bush-worshippers Dick Durbin, Bob Casey, Jack Reed, and Carl Levin:

Democrats praise military progress

By KIMBERLY HEFLING, Associated Press Writer Wed Aug 8, 7:33 PM ET

WASHINGTON - One senator said U.S. troops are routing out al-Qaida in parts of Iraq. Another insisted President Bush's plan to increase troops has caused tactical momentum.

One even went so far on Wednesday as to say the argument could be made that U.S. troops are winning.

These are not Bush-backing GOP die-hards, but Democratic Sens. Dick Durbin, Bob Casey and Jack Reed. Even Sen. Carl Levin, chairman of the Senate Armed Services committee, said progress was being made by soldiers. read more »

The Wall Street Journal's James Taranto has been mercilessly hammering John Kerry recently for his statement that there was no bloodbath in Southeast Asia after the US exited Vietnam. On Saturday, the Journal (and its opinion website, opinionjournal.com) published a letter from Kerry defending his statement (http://opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110010427). And today, Taranto, in a brilliant stroke, has allowed readers to respond, line by line, to Kerry's letter (http://opinionjournal.com/best/?id=110010435).

The responses themselves are striking, for the most part, in both their clearheadedness and in their civility (though a couple are a bit combative in tone). I wonder if these characteristics are due to Taranto's choices, to the demographics of WSJ readers, or due to constitutional differences between thinking conservatives and thinking liberals. I have long held that while unthinking noisy gongs on both sides are obnoxious, that the thinking conservatives tend to be much more reasonable and accommodating than their liberal counterparts (present website company excluded, of course). At any rate, I don't think the editors of The New Republic or The Nation (or The New York Times/LA Times/other major papers, or CBS/NBC/ABC/MSNBC/CNBC/PBS/NPR) would have gotten the quality of responses shown here. More tellingly, I'm not sure it would have occurred to them to seek those responses. read more »

...Victor Davis Hanson is God. And he's doing nothing to quell my shameless man-crush on him. Check out his latest column.

I don't believe he's making many friends on the right or the left.

Here's the money graf:

"After four years of effort in Iraq, Americans may well tire of that cost and bring Gen. Petraeus and the troops home. We can then go back to the shorter-term remedies of the past. Well and good.

But at least remember what that past policy was: Democratic appeasement of terrorists, interrupted by cynical Republican business with terrorist-sponsoring regimes." read more »

Daniel Larison wrote a very thought provoking piece yesterday about how his beliefs have changed since the beginning of the Iraq War. Here are some things he believed that he now feels otherwise:

1) First among these was my assumption that most Americans who called themselves conservatives distrusted government and feared the expansion of government power.

2) One of my other false beliefs connected to this was that most conservatives were conservatives first and GOP partisans second (if at all), and would therefore be just as outraged by GOP government activism and overreach as they had been in the 1990s. This was the worst sort of naivete on my part, and it was repeatedly shown to be false. read more »

It seems obvious by now that, only one month in, the surge is already producing amazingly positive results in Iraq. See, among many others, this article in today's Wall Street Journal. In fact, I don't think I've seen a single negative post-surge analysis (and believe me, if the evidence was there the MSM would be trumpeting it loudly).

So here's my question -- regardless of whether you think we should have gone to Iraq in the first place, to what standard should the surge be held? What results will prove to you that it was a wise choice? read more »

Good intentions make bad policy, Africans tell Bono.

After his impassioned defense of aid, an African man in the audience asked Bono, "Where do you place the African person as a thinker, a creator of wealth?"

Celebrities make easy targets. Many at TED attacked Bono (ironically the catalyst for holding a conference in Africa in the first place) less for what he has done and more for what he represents. He has done more for raising Africa's profile and our awareness about debt relief, unequal trade, malaria and HIV/AIDS than perhaps any human being in history. He represents a game we have all played for nearly fifty years whose only winners have been corrupt governments and the international development industry.

read more »

As anyone who has been following the infighting between gurufrisbee and myself about the Democratic Presidential nominee, you'll know that I support Bill Richardson and gurufrisbee supports "the front-runner" of the Democratic party. He hasn't yet declared, but he has told me on several occasions that it is pointless to support anyone but the "top tier" candidates because it will just pull the party apart and put a Republican in the White House. read more »

Oh, you have got to love this.

The Bush administration's efforts to circumvent the Geneva Conventions are well documented. If you recall, the attempts to circumvent the conventions were based on the argument that those held were "unlawful combatants", not prisoners of war, so therefore, the Geneva Conventions did not apply. By transferring detainees to Guantanamo Bay, the theory was that the United States could create an enclave where neither US domestic law nor international law applied, and the US could do at it wished without interference from pesky things like treaties and rights. The plan hit a snag when the US Supreme Court made it clear, in no uncertain terms, that the detainees did have rights in the US Court system. In the wake of the ruling, Congress, which has the power to regulate the jurisdiction of the inferior courts, then drafted and passed Bush's wet dream, the Military Commissions Act of 2006, which attempts to give the illegal treatment of detainees the appearance of fairness. Its a kangaroo court. read more »

The Chavez revolution continues.

By Alex Kennedy

May 25 (Bloomberg) -- Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez plans to put the nation's most popular TV network off the air this weekend, accusing the broadcaster of ``coup-mongering'' and causing ``moral damage'' with violent, sex-filled programming.

Chavez is refusing to renew the license for Radio Caracas Television, known as RCTV, whose mix of news, soap operas, comedy and reality programming makes Venezuela's oldest private network also its most watched. At midnight May 27, RCTV stands to become the country's first network to lose its license. read more »

John Edwards came out today in a defense policy speech and said that the "global war on terror" is simply a Bush administration ideological doctrine and that there is no GWOT. I can already visualize the mouth-frothing on right-wing sites and the "Amen, he is speaking truth to power" silliness on left-wing sites.

However, this is a worthwhile discussion that deserves some serious thought and dialogue. Is it possible that we can provide a platform here to have that conversation? Prove me right folks.

The US has just signed a $1.5 billion dollar deal to supply Iraq, Iraq, with weapons. Just what they need- more weapons. Just what we need, more arms in a volatile region.

How much do you want to bet that in a few short years, the weapons we deliver to Iraq, along with Iraq's close ties to Iran, will be cited as a basis for further US weapons spending?

This one should be fun. I hear an awful lot of criticism of Bush's foreign policy from both the right and the left, but what I seldom hear is any coherent alternative vision. My contention is that, whatever errors were made in the planning of the post-invasion Iraq, the Bush Doctrine is fundamentally sound. To wit, we were attacked on 9/11 by a terrorist organization with no borders, no diplomats, no uniformed personnel. The only way this organization exists as an effective force is with the shelter and succor of rogue regimes. So we gave notice that anyone offering shelter and succor to the enemies who attacked us would be considered enemies as well, and proceeded to enforce that principle on Afghanistan and Iraq. read more »

I thought US politicians were bad about demogoguery and fear mongering. It seems the erudite and nuanced French have us beat on this one. Presidential contender Segolene Royal had this to say about her opponent Nicolas Sarkozy:

"Choosing Nicolas Sarkozy would be a dangerous choice. It is my responsibility today to alert people to the risk of (his) candidature with regards to the violence and brutality that would be unleashed in the country (if he won)" Pressed on whether there would be actual violence, Royal said: "I think so, I think so," referring specifically to France's volatile suburbs hit by widespread rioting in 2005.

I suppose desperate times call for desperate rhetoric.

...what a rational, reasonable, stunningly intelligent supporter of the War in Iraq has to say about it, I strongly urge you to read Victor Davis Hanson's piece in National Review Online.

Hanson founded the Classics Department at Cal-Fresno and is an expert on military history. He's also certainly no shill for Bush, as NRO fans know.

I sincerely doubt anyone here will change anyone's mind on the Iraq war, at least not anytime soon. But it's good for both sides to look beyond their stereotypes about their opponents and see a reasonable case being made.

Today, the Senate narrowly passed a bill requiring troop withdrawals to begin no later than October 1, 2007. While many conservative politicians decry the measure as irresponsible, I think it is irresponsible for congress to NOT enact limits on the Commander-in-Chief in a wartime scenario.

When a valid case has been made for war, Congress should support the President and authorize the measure. Such authorization, however, should not be open ended. Any administration that fails to show progress and define a desired end state should be held responsible. What exactly is the Bush administration's desired end state for Iraq? I'm not sure anyone knows. read more »