Office of the Independent Blogger

Because all women like to be remembered: happy birthday Iran-Contra! Can you believe it? Our unloved scandal is all grown up. (I know that technically I missed Iran Contra’s twentieth but that’s because I don’t like to write about anniversaries and the past so much as current affairs. It also is because I forgot.)

The Iraqi Prime Minister said today that the Iraqis can take over next June, and now — now the President shows why we pay his war profiteers the big bucks. Do we remain in Iraq past this point or latch onto next June as our parting time? If it were up to me, I’d choose real soon and I believe the choice would be to begin the withdrawal in June because I believe that at this point, their Civil Holy War is not something that can be fixed by our presence in Iraq.

The Iranian President wrote the American public an open letter and you can read it here. I won’t excerpt it, but if you read it you’ll find a ton of lovey-dovey nonsense about truth-seeking and compassion that he doesn’t really mean. People all over the blogosphere are referring to his letter as a measure of good-faith or proof that the Bush Administration is making up the Iranian threat but in this casem they’re playing silly. Adolf Hitler used to write messages just like it.

The German nation has no feeling of hatred towards England, America or France; all it wants is peace and quiet. The nations will in a short time realize that National Socialist Germany wants no enmity with other nations; that all the assertions as to our intended attacks on other nations are lies, lies born of morbid hysteria,or of a mania for self-preservation on the part of certain politicians…

See? Mahmoud Ahmaniac is an Islamic Fundamentalist with one hell of an agenda. Let’s not pretend that this letter means anything or that it proves the desireability of appeasement. So the son of a bitch can write a fancy letter better than our President can. That doesn’t take away from the fact that he’s a future War criminal. If the World allows it.

Don’t make me put on my Winston Churchill mask. I’d rather be a Cowboy.

The man whose ultimate wet dream as Speaker of the House was the possibility of a double impeachment leading to dual resignations leading to his ascension to the Presidency (making his wet dream a wet but bloodless coup) wants to be the Gingrich who Stole Free Speech, more here.

Gingrich, speaking at a Manchester awards banquet, said a “different set of rules” may be needed to reduce terrorists’ ability to use the Internet and free speech to recruit and get out their message. “We need to get ahead of the curve before we actually lose a city, which I think could happen in the next decade,” said Gingrich, a Republican who helped engineer the GOP’s takeover of Congress in 1994. Gingrich spoke to about 400 state and local power brokers last night at the annual Nackey S. Loeb First Amendment award dinner, which fetes people and organizations that stand up for freedom of speech. Gingrich sharply criticized campaign finance laws he charged were reducing free speech and doing little to fight attack advertising. He also said court rulings over separation of church and state have hurt citizens’ ability to express themselves and their faith.

Maybe we should cut out elections, because if we get infiltrated by enough terrorists, they might elect a Democrat. And maybe we should cut out campaign financing because the terrorists might finance a Republican. And maybe someone should tell newspaper editors that Newt Gingrich is not a viable Presidential candidate and never will be so they should stop pretending that he is. He’s a Mayberry Machiavelli and his ideas suck, too. My ISP couldn’t Steal my right to free Speech; let alone Newt Gingrich and his army of none.

Through the press, a couple of messages have been sent today: first, George W. Bush has pledged that America will remain in Iraq. I’m not sure I believe him. He did, after all, promise Rumsfeld’s continuance for the remainder of his Presidency. It could very well be lip service to Conservatives before he flipflops in light of the coming Baker Report on Iraq. Who knows? Just don’t be surprised if he doesn’t stick to his word.

The second message sent through the press today was this one, the news that American military officials are publicly blaming Iran for violence in Iraq and for funding terrorism. It is very much a sign, to me, that the Administration is desperately looking to avoid Iran’s assistance — or asking for it, anyway, as it’s doubtful that Iran would help us genuinely in Iran — and is, therefore, looking to shake things up internationally and draw more support for efforts to stop the Iranian bomb.

At this point it looks like Iran will get the bomb in time, and Iran looks like the most unstable country to possibly have one. I still doubt that they’d nuke Israel, considering the fact that the third Holiest Islamic city is there, but it’s possible, and if anyone would do it, it’s Iran. And to that effect, it looks like today’s news is a Signal to the Iranians and the rest of the world telling them that the US wants a confrontation. That is probably not a good Signal to shoot into the sky, but it’s inevitable. With Iran.

When I came across this in Editor and Publisher, I found it fascinating. The media is beginning to refer to Iraq’s Civil War without quotes around the term, “Civil War,” and that of course marks a major turning point. It is true that the Iraqis have been in a state of Civil War for perhaps a year, but nobody ever said that was more than a possibility. In hindsight we the American public and the American government were fooling ourselves and now, we’re calling it what it is. I’d be happier if people referred to the Civil War as a Civil Holy War as that is more like what it is.

Baby steps, though I do hope that the White House has understood now that we’re not just involved in a Civil War — it’s a Holy War, too, giving us far more to deal with. But one has to be foolish not to understand that this is a Civil Holy War and therefore, it’s in our best interest to back away because they’ll be fighting to the death for several years. The President has clearly come to terms with the changes necessary in Iraq (be it withdrawal, phased withdrawal or an addition of troops, the last one being something I’d like but that won’t happen because we don’t have the troops to add), and he’s now referring to Iraq as being in a “new phase,” which is good and bad.

They’re in the Holy Civil War phase. But, hey. At least he knows that. (I’d like to point out that the article says Bush is pushing for more international support to our effort in Iraq with soldiers and diplomacy which is nice. He doesn’t deserve much credit for doing something now that should’ve been done and could’ve been done way back when, but all the same, with this guy, it’s worth noting that he’s doing it at all.)

Picked up the Chicago Reader at the train station yesterday and read it as I got to my destination (dinner with a friend). The title of the feature story was interesting enough, but once I read the piece — “Magic Bullet or Menace“ about an “AIDS spray” that kills the disease, and its “creator’s” story — I was grateful for the Chicago Reader whose tireless investigative work matches that of many mainstream newspapers.

Samuel Evans is a military man who is also a journeyman, in sports terms, never accomplishing very much in any one field and moving from profession to profession. Reading about him, he comes off as a hustler and nothing more, and that impression cements when you get to his AIDS spray. He says it’s for sale in some countries, but there haven’t even been shipments to them; he talks about his spray being scientifically proven to work, but he adds that it’s in China and pretends that Chinese scientists are comparable to American ones. (A controversial statement to make, I know, but there’s a reason that the Chinese government doesn’t hold their scientists to our standards.) To me, this is the key passage:

He says that a team of researchers, including gynecologists, urologists, and biochemists, went to work on his idea and that by 1998 they’d developed a microbicide spray people could use to coat the vagina or penis before having sex. He also says a series of lab tests determined the spray was “effective in destroying HIV in under 30 seconds.” Anna Forbes says successful lab tests don’t mean much: “Soap and water kills HIV in a test tube. It doesn’t mean it’s capable of killing it in humans.”

But Evans says Genvia was tested further on 100 people at Gulou Hospital in Nanjing for about a year, adding, “I don’t absolutely know whether that one year was 10 months or 12 months.” He also says that in 2000 he received a certificate from the Chinese Academy of Medicine stating that Genvia had “passed all standards” for use as a “topically applied disinfectant” effective against HIV. He plans to post the test data on a Web site so other researchers can scrutinize it, but the AIDS Foundation’s Jim Pickett doesn’t understand why Evans has waited six years. “With a valid trial you want that data out there,” he says. “You’re dying to get it out there.” Evans says the trial was valid and the quality of the testing was “extremely close” to what would have been done in the U.S. He adds, “Anyone who thinks the tests weren’t as thoroughly done is wrong.”

Later on, he says that the reason he doesn’t do these tests in America is because American scientific standards are set far higher than the Chinese and it would cost him millions and millions dollars more. If he already did it “extremely close” to American standards, why was it so much cheaper? Maybe because he’s a liar and a scam-artist who is going to get a ton of people infected with AIDS when they find out the hard way that his spray doesn’t work. Assuming that he ever gets his spray on the market anywhere in the world.

Sam Brownback, the Conservative Senator from Kansas, is planning a run for President. Believe it or not, I think he has a better chance than any of the other Republicans to win the nomination but he reminds me of a zesty Bob Dole. I’d urge you to ignore the word zesty, though, as being a reminder of Bob Dole isn’t a good thing no matter what adjective you put in before it.

Chuck Hagel has written an op-ed calling for us to pullout of Iraq. I’m not sure where I stand on the matter just yet. I’m going to take time to digest it.

One of the saddest things in today’s world is that Cuban baseball players must flee Cuba on a boat. The harrowing trips that had to be taken by Orlando Hernandez and Jose Contreras to flee Cuba are sad reminders that there is still tyranny in today’s world. Now Hugo Chavez of Venezuela is talking about keeping Venezuelan ballplayers in Venezuela. I believe that the embargo on Cuba is in dire need of death and that Fidel Castro is in dire need of death. If Hugo Chavez goes down this road and keeps my beloved Freddy Garcia in Venezuela — or, worse, winds up exiling him from his home — like has happened to my dear Jose Contreras, then he’ll deserve the same fate Castro does. (Though they can keep Santana, if that’s what’ll get him out of Minnesota.)

When Chavez talks about economics and enriching his country and its people, that’s one thing (largely the bullshit of a criminal, to be sure, but all populists have some legitimate grievances) but there is no way to defend him if he were to pull this stunt. I don’t think he will, when he wins re-election, but if he does, the American government ought to sanction him for holding a significant portion of his populace hostage.

Off the subject of heavy politics, let’s get to something a little less life-or-death serious: Kramer from Seinfeld, as everybody now knows, called hecklers at one of his comedy shows “niggers” and told them that half a century ago they’d be hanging upside down. He was in a fit (appeared to be drugged out of his mind) and in my opinion, it’s obvious he’s a racist. You don’t tell someone that they’d be gassed in Nazi Germany or hanging in Confederate America unless there’s a deep hatred bubbling in your heart. Besides that, he really isn’t funny, but the guys who he cursed out aren’t exactly victims, as evidenced by their demands of an “apology and maybe some money.” Am I the only one who finds the following — from the news piece — funny:

“Our clients were vulnerable,” Allred said. “He went after them. He singled them out and he taunted them, and he did it in a closed room where they were captive.” The video of Richards’ outburst shows several people getting up and walking out as he shouts at the audience.

Uh?

Like father like son: some say that it’s better for the Boy in Washington to listen to the Man in exile, but I disagree, to a point, as the elder Bush is clearly too old to be of much worth to public policy – and as dishonest as he used to be too. Tigers don’t change their stripes just because they retire, and there’s no reason to listen to a senile feline. The President would be better suited talking to the King of Jordan and the Prime Minister of England than to his dad at this point. He might want to pull a Nixon and talk to the portraits (especially Truman’s), but he should avoid Lyndon Johnson’s altogether unless they get together to commiserate.

I’ve experienced a drastic change of heart on Iraq recently, with this news.

Shiite militiamen doused six Sunni Arabs with kerosene and burned them alive as Iraqi soldiers stood by, and killed 19 other Sunnis in attacks on their mosques Friday, taking revenge for the previous day’s attack on a Sadr City slum. The mosque attacks came after the government, in a desperate attempt to avert civil war, imposed a sweeping curfew on the capital, shut down the international airport and closed the country’s main outlet to the shipping lanes in the Persian Gulf.

The Mahdi Army militiamen, armed with machines guns and rocket-propelled grenades, swept through Hurriyah neighborhood near an Iraqi army post, burning four mosques and several homes, and attacking worshippers as they left Friday services, said police Capt. Jamil Hussein. Gunmen loyal to the radical anti-American Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr had begun to take over the mixed neighborhood this summer and a majority of its Sunni residents had fled.

Sorry Iraqis, but you can’t “avert” the Civil War. It has begun, and it means that the American role should dwindle. Listen, it’s one thing to wage a war against a machine, like the Third Reich or North Korea. It’s another to fight against people who are fighting amongst themselves, like Vietnam. There is little we can do, militarily, to prevent the Iraqis from fighting at this point and not just because they want to, but because the US is Christian and the Iraqis are Muslims. They are fighting a Holy Civil War, and we can not possibly stop it militarily. If we step in, we will die in the crossfire; if we step out, the Iranians will take sole possession of Main Influenceurs in Iraq. It’s a situation as nasty as Vietnam’s for Johnson wherein he can stay and fight a War he knows he can’t win or leave and allow the possibility of Soviet/Chinese domination in the region.

What to do with the Iraq War now? It’s impossible to tell, but I think (though I hope I’m wrong) that the Iraqis will continue to fight and Americans will keep dying in the middle for years to come.

Forgive me, do, for yesterday’s lack of entry. I adopted a kitten who had been abandoned and spent the evening washing Lina and helping her become accustomed to her new home. Today is El Dia del Pabo, and so I won’t spend too much time writing, but there are a couple of interesting things out there, and this is one of them.

The treatment of his war minister connotes something deeply wrong with George W. Bush’s presidency in its sixth year. Apart from Rumsfeld’s failures in personal relations, he never has been anything short of loyal in executing the president’s wishes. But loyalty appears to be a one-way street for Bush. His shrouded decision to sack Rumsfeld after declaring he would serve out the second term fits the pattern of a president who is secretive and impersonal.

Lawrence Lindsey had been assured that he would be retained as the president’s national economic adviser, but received word on Dec. 5, 2002, at around 5 p.m. that he would be fired the next day. Before Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill embarked on a dangerous mission to Afghanistan, he requested and received assurances that he would still have a job when he returned. Instead, he was dismissed in tandem with Lindsey.

Bob Novak thinks the President did wrong and is going public with it. That’s interesting and displays, I think, a newfound distaste for Bush among the hard-right in Congress and the public policy realm in general. I’d note, however, that it’s pretty off for Novak to call Rumsfeld the “War Minister.” I don’t know if that’s what Bush considered Rummy and now Gates, or if that’s what Rumsfeld considers himself, but if it is then that’s a sign of serious vision problems in Washington.

Howard Dean recently got into it with James Carville, per Slate, and I’d urge you to read it. I take Dean’s side in this spat, as his philosophy of building the Party everywhere is going to reward Democrats in 2008, 2010, 2012 and beyond! (and the past, too, as it certainly helped us in 2006.)

At a message board I frequent there used to be a Conservative poster who would reply to anything anti-war or anti-death penalty as being a hippie proposition and then he would go on an extended rant about hippies and soldiers who were spit on when returning from Vietnam. I thought he was absolutely nuts and it’s hard to disagree, given that he had paranoid delusions about hippies behind every corner. That said, a Kentucky newspaper is running an op-ed with the headline Hippies still trying to ruin the country and it’s a delicious read, if you like the taste of vomit creeping up your throat from laughing and gagging at the same time.

Good political news today: Democrats are planning a series of ethics reforms, and that’s always a good thing. If they don’t get these reforms passed through both Houses of Congress they’ll lose them both in 2008, and they’ll deserve it.

Short and sweet today. Like me. (I recently came to terms with the fact that I’m five foot seven and always will be.)

Like with Religion, everyone has a right to practice politics to his own, but as with religion, everyone else has a right to deride your political views if they’re nuts. Like if, say, you worship a crocodile or if Tom Cruise is on your side. A political idea equivelant to Scientology is out today, and it is easily the stupidest thing I have ever heard.

The Global Orgasm for Peace was conceived by Donna Sheehan, 76, and Paul Reffell, 55, whose immodest goal is for everyone in the world to have an orgasm Dec. 22 while focusing on world peace. ‘’The orgasm gives out an incredible feeling of peace during it and after it,'’ Reffell said Sunday. ‘’Your mind is like a blank. It’s like a meditative state. And mass meditations have been shown to make a change.'’ The couple are no strangers to sex and social activism. Sheehan, no relation to anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan, brought together nearly 50 women in 2002 who stripped naked and spelled out the word ‘’Peace.'’ The stunt spawned a mini-movement called Baring Witness that led to similar unclothed demonstrations worldwide. The couple have studied evolutionary psychology and believe that war is mainly an outgrowth of men trying to impress potential mates, a case of ‘’my missile is bigger than your missile,'’ as Reffell put it.

I’m not sure which mass meditation caused what great change in the history of mankind. I know that my girlfriend meditates to fall asleep, and that I live by the motto Be still and know (often meditating on it before doing something competitive), but I very much doubt that anything greater than that has been achieved through meditation. And last I checked, nobody has ever ejaculated their way to greatness. Unless Dirk Diggler is a great man!

(I’ve long been a critic of political movements that make absolutely no sense. Gay Pride parades are in the same realm, which isn’t to say that I don’t understand the concept of Gay Pride — I just can’t figure out what good it does anyone for a bunch of homosexuals to get naked and dance in the street. The worst bit of political activism, though, might be the Conservative brand in which they don’t protest (unless it’s a book burning) and just go out and vote in Republicans. Horrible!)

Onto the environment, specifically Chicago. I’ve long been proud of this city’s fine environmental tradition, but I must say I’m a little down by this piece.

Mayor Richard Daley’s ambitious plan to run Chicago government partly on wind and solar energy has drawn praise from environmentalists, envy from other cities and a speaking invitation from actor Robert Redford. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency was so impressed that it named the city its green power Partner of the Year in 2002. But five years after Daley pledged to buy a fifth of the city’s electricity from renewable sources by the end of 2006, Chicago’s energy mix isn’t so green. Nearly all of the megawatts powering City Hall and other government buildings are still coming from nuclear and coal plants.

Unacceptable. This isn’t a promise killed by Republicans or industry. Nothing in Chicago can kill something that the Mayor wants to get done. This is a promise killed by poor government, and while I generally admire the job done by Daley, I’m deeply disappointed. I’m a Boy who believes in Promises and keeping them.

Finally, there’s this news, the news that I, perhaps, should’ve led the post off with: Charlie Rangel, Democrat, believes we should reinstate the Draft as a way to ensure our government accountable and keep ourselves ready for anything. I’m perfectly fine with a Draft that takes in people 18-26, provided it doesn’t rip them from their lives but for the case of War. Ultimately it doesn’t matter, though, because it’ll never be passed — or, rather, it won’t be passed for Iraq, and it has little, if any, chance, unless there is a War with Iran.

This morning I rose from my grave, did my morning things and decided to prepare this entry. Went to the Huffington Post where a headline read, “Scowcroft On Rumsfeld’s Replacement: “He’s Crazy To Take The Job”…” I said to myself, “Self, I’ll bet he said nothing of the sort or it’s being misconstrued,” but I also braced myself thinking that Scowcroft is a foreign-policy “realist” and critic of the War, so he might be saying that, but it turns out that he wasn’t. “I think he’s crazy to take the job,” said Mr. Scowcroft, the national security adviser to the first President Bush, “and I’m very glad he’s doing it.”

The rest of the article is a puff-piece on New Defense Secretary Gates’ life. It’s interesting if you’re into that sort of thing. But I don’t give a damn that his students loved him in Texas. I care if he can handle the Iraq War, and that can’t be judged for awhile, though Henry Kissinger believes we can no longer “win” the War.

“If you mean by ‘military victory’ an Iraqi Government that can be established and whose writ runs across the whole country, that gets the civil war under control and sectarian violence under control in a time period that the political processes of the democracies will support, I don’t believe that is possible,” he said on the BBC’s Sunday AM breakfast show. But Kissinger warned against a rapid withdrawal of troops, saying it could lead to “disastrous consequences,” destabilizing Iraq’s neighbors and causing a long-lasting conflict.

Kissinger, whose views have been sought by the Iraqi Study Group, led by former Secretary of State James Baker III, called for an international conference bringing together the permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, Iraq’s neighbors and regional powers like India and Pakistan to work out a way forward for the region. He also said that the process would have to include Iran and that the U.S. must enter into dialogue with the country. Asked if it was time for President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair to change course, he responded: “I think we have to redefine the course, but I don’t think that the alternative is between military victory, as defined previously, or total withdrawal.

It seems, to me, that my ideas for the War in Iraq seem to be becoming the consensus. At least, I hope that what Kissinger is proposing — which is about what I’ve proposed, except that my proposal includes a warning to the Iraqis that we’re going to reduce troops in a year — is the new consensus.

The American West has often been a model of Progressive thought, though it isn’t often looked to as such. It was the Western states that gave women the right to vote before others did, for instance, and it is the Western states that hold the future for the Democratic Party as much as the Midwest does. Some say that Democrats should look to the South, and that’s fine by me. I have no issue with Democrats making stands in North Carolina, Florida, Georgia Tennessee and Kentucky, but for my money, Colorado, Arizona and Montana are just as important to the future of the Party. The recent election of Democrats in Montana (as Governor, most significantly) signifies, to me, a wide opening for future electoral success, and so does this news out of Boulder Colorado.

Voters in this liberal college town have approved what environmentalists say may be the nation’s first “carbon tax,” intended to reduce emissions of heat-trapping gases. The tax, to take effect on April 1, will be based on the number of kilowatt-hours used. Officials say it will add $16 a year to an average homeowner’s electricity bill and $46 for businesses. City officials said the revenue from the tax — an estimated $6.7 million by 2012, when the goal is to have reduced carbon emissions by 350,000 metric tons — would be collected by the main gas and electric utility, Xcel Energy, and funneled through the city’s Office of Environmental Affairs.

The tax is to pay for the “climate action plan,” efforts to “increase energy efficiency in homes and buildings, switch to renewable energy and reduce vehicle miles traveled,” the city’s environmental affairs manager, Jonathan Koehn, said. The goal is to reduce the carbon levels to 7 percent less than those in 1990, which amounts to a 24 percent reduction from current levels, Mr. Koehn said.

Glad to see. Good to see.

I’m taking a break from the dry politics of the Potomac to briefly discuss the film Borat, a film that provides the perfect mix of sophomoric humor and dry wit. Some people have complained that it presents a crude picture of America as a place where everyone is stupid, and others praise it for this very thing. Truthfully, I don’t think it presents that bad an image of the United States or its people. Except for the College kids at the end, but we’ll get to that. (I don’t want to spoil too much of the film, however.)

First, the things I liked: as a satire, I deeply appreciated the moments the film had with prominent social and political movers and shakers. When he sass-mouthed Bob Barr, and got Alan Keyes to explain that a homosexual’s “friendship” with him was more than that, I beamed, and I felt the same way when he asked the Feminists his loaded, ridiculous questions, though in that scene I saw a trait that I find most unappealing in humans. I think people need to get over themselves, and that more than anything showed in that segment. Life is too short to live not being able to laugh at something ridiculous or to live incapable of letting someone else’s ignorance slide. I’m notorious for smirking as someone insults me, and I thought it was a little sad that the Feminists threw a hissy fit and stormed off because a foreigner let his cultural beliefs show.

I thought the College kids at the end showed off a very bad side of America but beyond that, I don’t think anything in the film was particularly negative about America (though the, ah, cowboy who said we should hang gays was quite over-the-top). Everyone was courteous to Borat (except when he tried to kiss them on the street) until he really crossed the line, at which point nobody brutalized him or anything.

It’s a good, entertaining film. Just don’t look to it for too much of a glimpse into American society. No book or movie can really illustrate a society as well as it should be illustrated because wherever you go, you’re bound to find people that blow away your perceptions.

This article here is the clearest answer to What’s Plagued Bush’s Public-Perception?

The U.S. government has vowed that Americans will never be hungry again. But they may experience “very low food security.” Every year, the Agriculture Department issues a report that measures Americans’ access to food, and it has consistently used the word “hunger” to describe those who can least afford to put food on the table. But not this year. Mark Nord, the lead author of the report, said “hungry” is “not a scientifically accurate term for the specific phenomenon being measured in the food security survey.” Nord, a USDA sociologist, said, “We don’t have a measure of that condition.”

The USDA said that 12 percent of Americans — 35 million people — could not put food on the table at least part of last year. Eleven million of them reported going hungry at times. Beginning this year, the USDA has determined “very low food security” to be a more scientifically palatable description for that group.

The United States has set a goal of reducing the proportion of food-insecure households to 6 percent or less by 2010, or half the 1995 level, but it is proving difficult. The number of hungriest Americans has risen over the past five years. Last year, the total share of food-insecure households stood at 11 percent.

Less vexing has been the effort to fix the way hunger is described. Three years ago, the USDA asked the Committee on National Statistics of the National Academies “to ensure that the measurement methods USDA uses to assess households’ access — or lack of access — to adequate food and the language used to describe those conditions are conceptually and operationally sound.”

It makes my heart go pitter pat when my leaders talk to me like bureaucrats. Judging from the 2006 Election Results, it makes your heart go pitter pat, too.

The Democrats picked a Majority Leader in the House and Murtha lost. Whether that’s an affirmation of moderation in foreign policy or a refusal to take bribes “at a later time” remains to be seen.

Horrifying news out of Pyongyang today: scarlet fever is spreading and threatening to tear that country apart. North Korea, as should become more widely known (forward this article to all your friends, and tell them that Greg Pratt sent you!), has little capability to deal with medical issues and most of the people are starving. It’s a terrible thing that their leadership would do what it has done to the Korean public.

Over at Slate today is a Fred Kaplan article on the new Defense Secretary and Iraq. Before I share a few thoughts, I’ll excerpt a little here and there.

Bartlett’s remark is reminiscent of—and, perhaps unwittingly, confirms—the comment that a Bush “senior adviser” made to journalist Ron Suskind two years ago that the days of the “reality-based community” were over. “We’re an empire now,” this ill-educated adviser boasted, “and when we act, we create our own reality.” This has been the problem all along—a willful neglect, even defiance, of reality. To be a visionary is one thing; to have visions is another.

After discussing the role Clark Clifford played in the de-escalation of the Vietnam War, Kaplan writes (still on Clifford):

When a reporter asked if he was a hawk or a dove, he replied, “I am not conscious of falling under any of those ornithological distinctions.” But Johnson wanted peace talks, as did the Democratic establishment. So, Clifford ordered a halt to the bombing of North Vietnam, set a limit on the number of U.S. troops sent there, and told the South Vietnamese they’d have to assume a greater share of the burden. (Richard Nixon reversed this course and escalated the bombing after he became president in 1969. But if Nixon hadn’t won the election, Clifford might now be known as the man who laid the path toward a much earlier end to the war.)

It’s not quite clear what George W. Bush wants Robert Gates to do. But it’s doubtful Gates would have come back to Washington, from his pleasant perch as president of Texas A&M, if the job description read “staying the course on Iraq.” Just what steps he’ll take on Iraq will become clearer when James Baker’s commission releases its recommendations. Since Gates was an active member of the panel, it is widely assumed that the report will become the new policy. Whether that assumption is right, and whatever the report ends up saying, here are some practical steps that Gates can take immediately upon entering office:

Start to redeploy U.S. troops inside Iraq, with an eye toward withdrawing one-half to two-thirds of them by the end of next year. Victory, in the sense that Bush defined it at the outset, is no longer possible. A consensus seems to be forming around a less ambitious, more realistic mission. Senior military officers are openly stressing the goal of a self-sustaining Iraqi government, not a democratic one. Proposals are circulating for U.S. forces to assume a much lower profile—retreating to their massive “forward operating bases,” abandoning street patrols and counterinsurgency efforts (for which we don’t have enough troops in any case), and focusing instead on logistics, air support, intelligence, border security, and the training of the Iraqi army. These tasks can be sustained with around 30,000 troops. An additional 10,000 troops or so could be sent out with Iraqi units as embedded advisers. Fort Riley, Kan., home of the Army’s 1st Infantry Division, has started to train midlevel officers to be such advisers at the rate of 2,000 a month.

Increase the size of the U.S. Army by about 80,000 combat personnel. Many Democratic and Republican lawmakers favor this move. The ground forces are exhausted from their frequent combat rotations. The National Guard and Reserves have been misused as the instruments of a backdoor draft. There is not a single serious military analyst who doesn’t think the U.S. Army is too small. Well, actually, there is one—Donald Rumsfeld. Kick some gumption into the active-duty officer corps. It is pathetic to see so many three- and four-star generals reduced to quivering yes-men by the dismissive vindictiveness of the sitting secretary of defense. Their kowtowing may be motivated by respect for civilian authority, but obeying lawful orders is different from abrogating professional responsibility. The master-servant relationship that Rumsfeld has established with his officers—and which his officers have too obsequiously accepted—is a terrible thing for morale; it sets an intimidating example to career officers of lower rank; and, most of all, it’s bad for national security. A defense secretary shouldn’t feel he has to take an officer’s advice—quite often, he shouldn’t—but he should at least hear it in unvarnished form. If Gates’ tenure is to be a period of restoration, one of the most useful things he could do is to persuade senior officers that they can speak their minds again without fear of demotion or reprisal.

I’m, of course, of the opinion that we need more soldiers in the military and Iraq, and that our goal should be the beginning of withdrawal next year, late next year, and I’m glad that Kaplan and I share some points, although I do believe that we should accompany our increase in troops with messages to the Iraqis saying, “We’re about to go.”

Now, I must say that I’m not enamored with Speaker Pelosi or Congressman Murtha (though I do love Harry Reid, Chuck Schumer and Rahm Emmanuel), and I’m not particularly enamored with the race for House Leadership, but I’ve got to reply to this. Some have criticized Jack Murtha’s ethics, and he refers to the criticism as “Swift Boating.” Sorry sir, but when your lobbyist brother makes money off of bills you passed, you don’t have a right to say, “I’m a soldier, don’t criticize me!” in response. This isn’t the Army, and the Democratic Party isn’t your private, Jack.

I’m rooting for his opponent for Majority Leader, Steny Hoyer, and not merely by default although Murtha’s loud mouth and crooked ethics does play a part.