event horizon: the boundary of a black hole beyond which nothing can escape from within it

-- Merriam-Webster Online

After five years and change of turned corners and dead enders and last throes, is it possible that we're approaching an event horizon in our Middle East miasma? Stuff seems to happen faster than anyone can deny it occurred these days, and from the sound of things, it won't be too long before we're committed to getting out of Iraq in smart fashion or sucked into staying there until kingdom come.

In direct opposition to this 1994 statement, Dick Cheney was a primary catalyst for the 2003 Iraq debacle. Pundits and people living in perpetual denial, far outside the realms of reality -- like Karl Rove -- will attempt to claim that what was true about invading Iraq before September 11, 2001 was no longer true after September 11.

Anyone watching the video of Dick Cheney's 1994 statements can see the truth of what he said then as it materializes in the quagmire we have now. The pundits and the enablers, the collaborators and complicit Congressional representatives, are instantly discredited.

Eight years of the Republican control of the three branches of government -- an out of control Executive protected by Republican Congressfolk and investigations derailed, denied and thwarted by a complicit Department of Justice -- have brought our nation to economic, social, moral and intellectual disaster.

That's not something that the GOP can lay at the feet of anyone else. The facts really are clear -- and they have a decidedly "liberal" bias.

This is an Open Thread.

originally posted 2008-04-28 10:19:13 -- as DEFuning says in the comments, this one is scarily prescient. -- Cho

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld created the Office of Strategic Influence shortly after the 9/11 attacks to bolster support for the Bush administration’s war on terror. Air Force Brigadier General Simon P. Worden, OSI’s director, envisioned the organization as having "a broad mission ranging from 'black' campaigns that use disinformation and other covert activities to 'white' public affairs that rely on truthful news releases."

The furor over his establishment of what amounted to an Orwellian Ministry of Truth caused Rumsfeld to disband the OSI in February 2002, but he later promised that when it came to manipulating public perceptions to suit his agenda, “I'm gonna keep doing every single thing that needs to be done and I have.”

There’s one nice thing you can say about Rumsfeld: he keeps his word.

originally posted 2008-07-09 00:03:03 -- bumped, cho

I was heartened last February when the University of Virginia's Miller Center of Pubic Affairs announced the formation of the National War Powers Commission, and I was ecstatic to hear the commission would be headed by foreign policy heavyweights James A. Baker III and Warren Christopher. The results of the Commission's intensive studies have just hit the street, and I couldn't be more disenchanted.

The Commission proposes a new and improved War Powers Consultation Act of 2009 to replace the old broken down War Powers Resolution of 1973. Lamentably, when you read the old and new titles, you've seen all the substantial difference there is between the proposed Act and the standing Resolution.

I have known and served with many military intelligence officers. A handful of them were brilliant. The preponderance of them validated the adage that says military intelligence is to intelligence what military music is to music.

I have also known and worked with many Air Force officers, and every one of those bug lovers is dedicated to the Air Force's primary mission, which is to prevaricate its way into possession of the entire defense budget.

Since CIA director Michael V. Hayden is an Air Force intelligence officer and a Bush appointee to boot, anything he says tends to be standard issue effluvium, and what he's saying now about his agency's right to privacy stinks to high heaven.

Watch as Rep. Steve Cohen questions David Addington as to the status of the Vice Presidency, resulting in Cohen defining the Veep as "kind of a barnacle" attached to the Executive Branch.

Hat-tip ThinkProgress.

Thus, we can refer to Mr. Cheney as nothing more than a barnacle that should be scraped off the hull of our Ship of State, yes?

This is an Open Thread.

Keystone Kondi Rice is back in the news. This time she's helping her boss make boo noise about what the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) calls Iran's "relentless pursuit of nuclear weapons."

On January 8, speaking at an AIPAC conference, Condi said that the Iranians, "continue to inch closer to a nuclear weapon." This despite the November 2007 National Intelligence Estimate finding (.pdf here) that stated, "We judge with high confidence that in fall 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program."

Condi and AIPAC and the rest of the neoconservative universe have treated the November NIE the way it treats all inconvenient facts; they've ignored it. And once again, the mainstream media, most notably the New York Times, have been their willing partner in crime.

Alas, irony. White House Press Secretary Dana Perino calling former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan “sad” is like McClellan calling Perino a “Bush administration whore.” They’re both right, but look who’s talking.

No, Scott didn’t really call Dana a Bush administration whore—not in public, anyway. Dana really did call Scott sad though, and she really is a Bush administration whore.

Dana should have taken it easy on Scott. He’s just the latest in a long line of former Bush liegemen who wrote books so they can make enough money to buy their way out of hell. Dana’s time will come. After her press secretary gig is over and people start calling her out for fibbing about the surge, she’ll get to dwelling on the fate of her immortal soul and boy, will her tune ever change.

Donald Rumsfeld’s short lived Office of Strategic Influence spawned a termites’ nest of truth ministries; the Office of Special Plans, the Information Operations Task Force and the Iran Directorate are just a few of the ones we know about.

The Pentagon’s latest information warfare effort involves a network of foreign language web sites that promote U.S. interests. I doubt whether anyone at the Pentagon seriously thinks foreign language web sites are going to win over any foreign hearts and minds, but foreign language web sites could be neat placea to plant covert propaganda that can migrate into the domestic press without anyone knowing it originated at the Pentagon, huh?

Predicting what might happen in a shooting match with Iran is a perilous errand. The Clausewitzean concepts of fog and friction apply to modern war every bit as much as they do to the conflicts of bygone eras. For all our fantastical weaponry and information gizmology, stuff still breaks at the worst possible time and the information is often as not wrong. Predicting what might happen in a shooting match with Iran is a perilous errand. The Clausewitzean concepts of fog and friction apply to modern war every bit as much as they do to the conflicts of bygone eras. For all our fantastical weaponry and information gizmology, stuff still breaks at the worst possible time and the information is often as not wrong.

Nonetheless, we can do a back-of-the-envelope operational analysis to estimate whether any conceivable benefit of attacking Iran can justify the risks involved.