News That Isn't News

Gotta love the Crappy News Network for reporting on this "story," something that I addressed in my thesis (back in 2006!!!) and which has been discussed at length in various academic articles including a major essay in Foreign Affairs in 2006. It goes like this:

Saddam Hussein let the world think he had weapons of mass destruction to intimidate Iran and prevent the country from attacking Iraq, according to an FBI agent who interviewed the dictator after his 2003 capture.

According to a CBS report, Hussein claimed he didn't anticipate that the United States would invade Iraq over WMD, agent George Piro said on "60 Minutes," scheduled for Sunday broadcast.

"For him, it was critical that he was seen as still the strong, defiant Saddam. He thought that (faking having the weapons) would prevent the Iranians from reinvading Iraq," said Piro.

During the nearly seven months Piro talked to Hussein, the agent hinted to the Iraqi that he answered directly to President Bush, CBS said in a posting on its Web site.

"He told me he initially miscalculated ... President Bush's intentions. He thought the United States would retaliate with the same type of attack as we did in 1998 ... a four-day aerial attack," Piro said. "He survived that one and he was willing to accept that type of attack."

"He didn't believe the U.S. would invade?" Correspondent Scott Pelley asked.

"No, not initially," Piro answered.

Once it was clear that an invasion was imminent, Hussein asked his generals to hold off the allied forces for two weeks, Piro said. "And at that point, it would go into what he called the secret war," the agent said, referring to the insurgency.

But Piro said he was not sure that the insurgency was indeed part of Hussein's plan. "Well, he would like to take credit for the insurgency," he said.

Hussein had the ability to restart the weapons program and professed to wanting to do that, Piro said.

"He wanted to pursue all of WMD ... to reconstitute his entire WMD program."

So he was playing a game of chicken, relying on a belief that Bush was as half-determined as Clinton to deal with the Saddam problem, and had intent to reconstitute his WMD programs. I enjoy reading articles like this because they re-affirm things which I argued almost two years ago and put a measure of justification to the decision to remove Saddam from power in Iraq. Unfortunately for Saddam, his posture put him in a variation of the Prisoner's Dilemma, in which it was always in his best interest to maintain the appearance of maintaining WMD and, according to the democracy promotion aspects of the Bush Doctrine, it was always in America's best interest to remove Saddam. The two combined to be his downfall.

Stream of Consciousness

Boredom is reigning supreme today, and after having entered "110753" and "31.5" into a computer a couple hundred times this morning I'm finding myself thinking that there has got to be more to life than this. So to help alleviate this, I'm going to keep this window open for a good chunk of the morning and pop in whatever pops into my head that may be discussion-worthy and press "Publish Post" at the end of the day and see what comes of it.

* I was glad to read last week that Iran gave up uranium enrichment for the purpose of producing a nuclear weapon in 2003. So that means the Iraq War is now responsible for: getting rid of Saddam Hussein, compelling Qaddafi to forsake terrorism, establishing a democratic bridgehead in the Middle East, and getting Tehran to stop pursuing nuclear weapons. These are 4 very strong positives. It's unfortunate that there have been as many negatives to emerge as a consequence as well.

* Pursuant to my recent post on US Presidential 2008, I'm pretty much certain that if it's not Giuliani or McCain I'll be supporting the Democrats.

* Canada fancies itself a progressive country, and Halifax embodies that attitude. If that's true, why are Canadians and Haligonians seemingly very supportive of one of the following two tracks regarding prostitution: legalization or maintainig the status quo in which women are criminalized for being used as a thing? Seems to me that the real progressive countries, ones that are genuinely dedicated to equality, are taking the approach that regarding women as things to be purchased and then disposed of is an act of violence against them and is a criminal offence. You don't see Sweden, ranked #1 in the world in terms of gender equality, undertaking sting operations to throw prostituted women in jail. Progressive means moving away from failed policies towards new ones that positively affect citizens, does it not?

* Christmas shopping has been a lot more fun this year. I'm still glad I'm done, though.

* Environmental activists are mad at John Baird because he went back to a meeting that would potentially get results for the environment rather than stick around to take a browbeating from them. You just can't win, eh?

* I saw a trade rumour that had Saku Koivu and Michael Ryder being shipped to San Jose in exchange for Patrick Marleau and Jonathan Bernier. If Marleau and Bernier can score and avoid taking selfish penalties, it might not be a bad idea.

Down to Business

I'll freely admit that I've been paying relatively scant attention (by my standard, anyways) to the 2008 US Presidential Race. As a Canadian, it's something of an abomination to see a two-year campaign cycle, and the amount of money required to run a campaign is equally grotesque. One of the greatest accomplishments of Jean Chretien's career was to drastically reduce the influence of the wealthy and virtually wipe out the ability of large corporations to disproportionately affect an election race to their preferred outcomes. It is commendable that Stephen Harper has followed up on this, further limiting the extent to which an individual can contribute. None of these restrictions apply in the United States, and thus we hear of a $250 million warchest for George W. Bush and a not much smaller one for John Kerry in 2004.
One of the great problems with such a prolonged campaign is that someone who appears to be a virtual lock in the early stages turns into a total non-factor by the time the actual election occurs--hello and goodbye, Howard Dean. The potential for a timebomb to appear at a strategic time is also increased--witness Swift Boat Veterans for Truth or Dan Rather's accounting of GWB's Vietnam record. There is always the possibility for similar things in a Canadian election cycle, of course, but the compressed timeframe means that we're not subjected to multiple variations of the same theme ad nauseum. Thirdly, there are relatively few things that are discussed at a YouTube debate in August 2007 that are likely to still be resonating in the minds of voters by the time November 2008 rolls around. It's merely preliminary verbal jousting for months on end that does little to establish long-term positioning, especially in this, the era of "the flip-flop."
However, the primary season is almost upon us, and that means it is time to start paying attention. What is said in the next few weeks will determine where the Democratic and Republican bases park their votes. True frontrunners are likely to emerge in the next 50 days, while players that were playing well previously will be compelled to throw their weight behind others that have a genuine shot at winning their party's nomination. The mid-carders will start dropping off shortly, and the high-profile main eventers will have a greater number of even more intense spotlights shining on them. That means tough choices for a number of candidates, and that means the intrigue and interest will certainly be picking up.
Off the start, let me say that I am quite likely to be supporting a Democrat for 2008 unless either John McCain or Rudy Giuliani take the Republican nomination. There are a number of shortcomings facing the other Republican candidates that almost instantly disqualify them in my eyes. I cannot reasonably support a candidate who says such things as, and I'm paraphrasing here, "While Mitt Romney was promising to do more for gay rights than Ted Kennedy, I was moving in the opposition direction." It's unfathomable to me that a candidate for President of the United States would be proud to say that he was moving to deny a group of people rights--and of course, Romney himself no longer supports gay rights for Americans. With so many of the Republican candidates pandering to the religious right, they're alienating themselves from people like me who believe, to borrow Irwin Cotler's term, "a right is a right is a right." Other major issues for me include:
* Foreign Policy - I'll be looking for positions regarding the continuance of the Bush Doctrine, seeing who adopts what and who seeks to be the un-Bush when it comes to America's strategic role and primacy in the world. The candidate who articulates the strongest vision for American leadership, victory in Iraq and the broader War on Terror and Tyranny, ending genocide and human suffering, counter- and nonproliferation of WMDs, and the remaking of the system of international institutions is likely to earn my support.
* Domestic Policy - though I like my American leaders to largely follow the principle of the imperial presidency and leave the domestic agenda largely to Congress (and let's be honest here, being Canadian, what Americans do within their own borders is less relevant than what they do beyond them), there are some initiatives I would like to see. Someone has to reasonably tackle the challenge of increasing violence in the United States--against women, among gangs, as a result of drug trafficking, and otherwise. There's the looming Social Security and Medicaid crises. Education is another big issue. Homeland security and intelligence reform.

There's a lot going on in America that will be relevant and pertinent to a successful candidate for 2008. I'm looking forward to seeing who emerges in the coming weeks and months.

Waterboarding = Torture

It has once again appeared in the news cycle that terror detainees are being waterboarded as part of the coercive interrogation process. For those who don't know what this practice is, it's basically simulated drowning. A person is blind-folded, tilted back in a chair, and the interrogator pours copious amounts of (usually cold) water over them. Imagine the horror that a person would feel in that situation. The people who worked over Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the orchestrator of 9/11, were impressed at his ability to withstand the treatment for over two minutes before confessing to his intimate involvement in planning the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington.
Yet today we hear President Bush flatly stating that the United States "does not torture people." I would defy anybody to say with a straight face and a perfectly clean conscience that the above description of the waterboarding technique does not constitute torture. Instilling the sheer horror of imminent death in another human being--no matter how despicable that person may be--is torture. It is not a practice that should be used by Americans if they want to reasonably claim any semblance of the moral high ground vis-a-vis the likes of al Qaeda, Hezbollah, or any of the other groups out there that seek to kill innocent lives.
It is often noted that during war the lines of moral clarity become greatly obscured. When evil is everywhere and death omnipresent, retaining a sense of dignity and value for human life becomes very difficult. What I find so disturbing is that George W. Bush once held such a sense of compassion. Watching only the media clips of the press conference today makes me question whether that still exists. He has clearly lost the initiative and the command over American foreign policy and grand strategy that he demonstrated all the way into 2005. He seems lost, wandering, and resigned to simply serve out his term with the hope that Iraq doesn't completely implode under his watch. I find this most disturbing--and disappointing--of all.

Sunday Night Quick Hits

• The press around Brian Mulroney's upcoming memoirs, including the CTV special tonight, has given me a new sense of respect for the former PM. Unfortunately, despite all my studies in Canadian political science and political history, I've never gotten a real lesson on his era, and I'm too young to remember what Canadian life was like under his leadership. Obviously I live with the GST and NAFTA, but I've never fully known why he is so hated by so many people. He is to liberals what Pierre Trudeau is to conservatives: a man to be loathed for all eternity for undermining their vision of Canada. Also, my respect for Trudeau has been consistently diminishing for some time now, and this past week hasn't helped my perception of him much.
• In two weeks I'll be seeing the Montreal Canadiens in action for the first time since 2003. Really looking forward to it, even if it's just pre-season hockey. At least I'll get a look at Carey Price before he (hopefully) makes the team.
• Roger Federer is simply too good.
• The number of rapes on Canadian university campuses during the first week of school is deeply disturbing and highlights the prevalence of male violence against women. So prevalent is it that first-year students aren't even surprised by it anymore. From the TorStar today: Jenevieve Narbay, 18, and Victoria Goutsouliak, 18, both in their first year at York, said they're not surprised by the attacks. "It's such a big university and it's happened here before," Goutsouliak said. "We've become desensitized to it."
• As always I encourage people from the Maritime region to get involved with the White Ribbon Campaign - Halifax. I've got some promotional materials and would appreciate some help with distributing them and setting up a larger-scale organization. All email inquiries can be sent to: whiteribbonhfx@eastlink.ca
• Make sure to pay attention to the Petraeus Report tomorrow. Its impact on the American direction in Iraq will be huge, and likely to shape policy for the next few months, possibly resulting in drawdown of American forces there.

British Withdrawing; America Alone?

Word going around is that tomorrow British PM Tony Blair is going to announce a timetable for the withdrawal of British forces from Iraq. The initial "stand down" will be some 1500 troops, rumoured to be completed within weeks, and another 1500 by year's end. That represents almost half of the British contingent of 7,000 troops, most of whom are stationed in the predominantly Shi'ite south of Iraq, in places such as Basra and Umm Qasr. These areas, while far less dangerous than Baghdad and the rest of the Suuni Triangle, still have their share of danger, and the British have done an admirable job of bringing a significant measure of security to that region of the war-torn country.

CNN's Wolf Blitzer was quick--almost a little too quick--to highlight that the British have been America's most steadfast ally in the Iraq War and that this move by Britain represents a potential split between the two allies, citing that they may not be "on the same page." To me, this sounds like an attempt to portray the United States and the Bush Administration as isolated on Iraq. I can't believe that Blair would announce such a significant policy without at first consulting with Bush, giving him something of a heads-up. Blind-siding your best friend and ally isn't something in Blair's character, so my wager is that Bush was aware of this maneuver and gave it his blessing. He may be frustrated at the move, as it does seem a paradox that Britain is lowering its force output while America is "surging" its troop numbers in Baghdad, but he has no other option but to respect the sovereign decision of London.

Where does this leave Washington? Getting closer and closer to fulfilling Bush's prophecy of some years ago that "at some point, we may be the only ones left" fighting in the War on Terror & Tyranny. Though I remain supportive of the theoretical framework behind the Iraq War, it is clear that there have a number of wasted opportunities to rebuild the country and further assist its transition to a functional, secure, and fully sovereign democratic state. Though the UN was formally given a role in reconstruction via the passage of a Security Council Resolution internationalizing post-war Iraq, the United States has been unable to get other states to assist it. Whether due to lingering wounds over the war debate or a reluctance to allow other states to carry the weight (a point on which I can empathize to an extent), the inability to get other states more on-board, to get them to feel as though they have a stake in the country's future, is a diplomatic failure for which Secretary Rice needs to be held accountable. She has been largely invisible in recent months, notwithstanding her recent trip to Iraq, a major disappointment given the promise she held when she first took over the role from the much-respected Colin Powell.

In the end, the only thing that matters at this point is securing Iraq to the extent that it can at least govern itself without permitting terrorist organizations or neighbouring Iran to hold significant influence over its future. Either of these scenarios would represent a nightmare, antithetical to the stated objectives of the United States for removing Saddam Hussein. The British have not announced a total withdrawal, and it is in their interest as well as Washington's to consider the notion of moving troops closer to the middle of the country to help out in the most dangerous regions. That is something which only Britain can ultimately decide, but the close London-Washington relationship and Britain's own considerable stake in the outcome of Iraq would hopefully lead them to consider all the options that are on the table before them.