New adventures of Maverick

Funny stuff.

The POW coverup?

This is a story that makes everyone uneasy as it dredges up memories of Vietnam and has been a cause driven by conspiracy-minded people who fly POW/MIA flags in their yards and over their gas stations. The findings of the select committee were also celebrated as a bipartisan success at unearthing the final truth and easing the minds of those whose loved ones were still uncounted for. John Kerry mentioned his work with John McCain on it often during the 2004 campaign.

But it is definitely another of those things from McCain's past the candidate would rather not be hearing about these days.

John McCain, who has risen to political prominence on his image as a Vietnam POW war hero, has, inexplicably, worked very hard to hide from the public stunning information about American prisoners in Vietnam who, unlike him, didn't return home. Throughout his Senate career, McCain has quietly sponsored and pushed into federal law a set of prohibitions that keep the most revealing information about these men buried as classified documents. Thus the war hero who people would logically imagine as a determined crusader for the interests of POWs and their families became instead the strange champion of hiding the evidence and closing the books.

Almost as striking is the manner in which the mainstream press has shied from reporting the POW story and McCain's role in it, even as the Republican Party has made McCain's military service the focus of his presidential campaign. Reporters who had covered the Vietnam War turned their heads and walked in other directions. McCain doesn't talk about the missing men, and the press never asks him about them.

The sum of the secrets McCain has sought to hide is not small. There exists a telling mass of official documents, radio intercepts, witness depositions, satellite photos of rescue symbols that pilots were trained to use, electronic messages from the ground containing the individual code numbers given to airmen, a rescue mission by a special forces unit that was aborted twice by Washington—and even sworn testimony by two Defense secretaries that "men were left behind." This imposing body of evidence suggests that a large number—the documents indicate probably hundreds—of the US prisoners held by Vietnam were not returned when the peace treaty was signed in January 1973 and Hanoi released 591 men, among them Navy combat pilot John S. McCain.

It's never been clear to me why McCain has been so adamant in his denial that evidence exists that American servicemen may have been left behind. Angry, resentful denials.

Thanks to alert reader "RO" for the tip.

Our allies

A reminder...

KABUL, Afghanistan - Pakistani troops fired at American reconnaissance helicopters near the Afghan-Pakistan border Thursday, and ground troops then exchanged fire, the U.S. military said.

No injuries were reported, but the incident heightened tensions as the U.S. steps up cross-border operations in a volatile region known as a haven for Taliban and al-Qaida militants.

Two American OH-58 reconnaissance helicopters, known as Kiowas, were on a routine afternoon patrol in the eastern province of Khost when they received small-arms fire from a Pakistani border post, said Tech Sgt. Kevin Wallace, a U.S. military spokesman. There was no damage to aircraft or crew, officials said.

U.S. Central Command spokesman Rear Adm. Greg Smith said Pakistan and American ground troops exchanged fire after Pakistani forces shot at the helicopters.

...that John McCain is "dangerously naive" when it comes to foreign policy as well as the economy.

McCain warned America could not afford the "confused leadership of an inexperienced candidate who once suggested bombing our ally Pakistan" and suggested talks without preconditions with US foes.

Someone should ask him about that if they can find him tomorrow night.

U.S. troops under Iraqi command?

Oh hum. Another day. Another breach of the U.S. Constitution.

Bruce Ackerman and Oona Hathaway write in an opinion column for Time that what is being billed as a leaked draft of the agreement between Bush and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, recently published in Iraq by the newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat, would clearly contravene the U.S. Constitution:

"The breadth of the President's powers as Commander in Chief is one of the most controversial issues in constitutional law. Nevertheless, there is one point on which everybody agrees: The President can't unilaterally surrender his command over the military to somebody else and tell the troops to treat this outsider as Commander in Chief. The authority he has as Commander in Chief is not his to transfer.

"The published draft agreement violates this bedrock principle by creating a joint U.S.-Iraq committee and giving it, not the President, the authority to coordinate military operations, resolve operational disputes and even 'determine the tasks and level of the troops that will focus on training and supporting Iraqi security forces.' The agreement creates only one exception: American troops can act unilaterally in self-defense without obtaining the committee's permission.

"The constitutional violation is plain: the agreement would cede the President's authority over U.S. forces in the field to a committee, on which the Iraqis would have veto power."

They continue: "There have been occasions when foreigners have been given some control over American troops in connection with NATO and U.N. peacekeeping operations. But these delegations of command authority occurred under treaties ratified by two-thirds of the Senate, not by presidential fiat. Worse still, the agreement would govern military relationships well into the next Administration. President Bush is proposing to give away not only his own powers as Commander in Chief but also those of his successor.

"The published draft agreement also usurps congressional power over the Treasury. It obligates the United States to pay for the construction and modification of military installations that will revert to Iraqi ownership when U.S. troops leave. This is an open-ended commitment that goes beyond the funds already appropriated by Congress. By taking this step, the President seeks to remove the most fundamental check on the abuse of executive power -- the power of the purse."

So why haven't we heard any of this before?

"The media discussion of the negotiations between the Iraqi and U.S. governments, fueled only by leaks, has focused on more sensational topics such as a timetable for withdrawal of American troops and the al-Maliki government's efforts to prosecute American contractors for crimes committed on Iraqi soil."

Imagine if a Democratic president had put U.S. troops under foreign control.

Some enterprising journalist might want to ask John McCain -- if the straight talker ever answered questions from the press -- if he thinks that's change we can believe it.

"A series of tubes"

Ruh roh, I don't think McCain's team has figured out the intertubes.

www.mccainforpresident.com

www.mccain.com

McCain's activism

Jeffrey Toobin listened to McCain's speech on appointing federal judges -- a speech he delivered in as obscured manner as he possibly could -- and hears the dog whistles for the conservative base.

The giveaway here was that McCain did not reveal the subject matter of this supposed judicial outrage. The case was Roper v. Simmons, in which a seventeen-year-old boy murdered a woman after breaking into her home, and was sentenced to death. Justice Anthony M. Kennedy’s opinion overturned the sentence and held that the Constitution forbids the death penalty for juvenile offenders. McCain’s reference to the Court’s “discourse” on the law of “other nations” refers to Kennedy’s observation of the “stark reality that the United States is the only country in the world that continues to give official sanction to the juvenile death penalty.” Likewise, Kennedy noted that the only other countries to execute juvenile offenders since 1990 have been China, Congo, Iran, Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen. According to McCain, the United States apparently belongs on this dismal list.

Nor were his references to penumbras and emanations accidental. Those words come from Justice William O. Douglas’s 1965 opinion for the Court in Griswold v. Connecticut, in which the Justices recognized for the first time a constitutional right to privacy, and ruled that a state could not deny married couples access to birth control. The “meaning of life” was a specific reference, too. It comes from the Court’s 1992 opinion in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, which reaffirmed the central holding of Roe v. Wade, and forbade the states from banning abortion. In short, this one passage in McCain’s speech amounted to a dog whistle for the right—an implicit promise that he will appoint Justices who will eliminate the right to privacy, permit states to ban abortion, and allow the execution of teen-agers.

Toobin goes on to explain that, unlike most McCain positions these days (the Bush/McCain Iraqi debacle not included), McCain really means it.

Ramp up those air strikes, baby

Hmmm, trying to get a few more air strikes in, before Musharraf flees office, is unlikely to help our relations with his replacements.

Over the past two months, U.S.-controlled Predator aircraft are known to have struck at least three sites used by al-Qaeda operatives. The moves followed a tacit understanding with Musharraf and Army chief Gen. Ashfaq Kiyani that allows U.S. strikes on foreign fighters operating in Pakistan, but not against the Pakistani Taliban, the officials said.

About 45 Arab, Afghan and other foreign fighters have been killed in the attacks, all near the Afghan border, U.S. and Pakistani officials said. The goal was partly to jar loose information on senior al-Qaeda leaders, including Osama bin Laden and his lieutenants, by forcing them to move in ways that U.S. intelligence analysts can detect. Local sources are providing better information to guide the strikes, the officials said.

A senior U.S. official called it a "shake the tree" strategy. It has not been without controversy, others said. Some military officers have privately cautioned that airstrikes alone -- without more U.S. special forces soldiers on the ground in the region -- are unlikely to net the top al-Qaeda leaders.

The campaign is not designed to capture bin Laden before Bush leaves office, administration officials said. "It's not a blitz to close this chapter," said a senior official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of ongoing operations. "If we find the leadership, then we'll go after it. But nothing can be done to put al-Qaeda away in the next nine or 10 months. In the long haul, it's an issue that extends beyond this administration."

That said, shouldn't somebody ask John McCain about this tactic.

H/T Kevin Drum

Irrational exuberance

The market soars! Let's privatize Social Security. Quick.

"50 soccer games"

McCain is surely right about one thing, even though he retracted it later, he will lose if more progress isn't made in Iraq.

Mr. McCain said he believed opinion was shifting to his point of view, referring to a recent USA Today poll that, he said, showed that “now the majority of Americans believe the surge is succeeding.”

The USA Today/Gallup poll he was apparently referring to, however, found that not a majority, but 43 percent of Americans believed the troop increase was “making the situation there better,” an increase from 22 percent last July.

The poll, conducted Feb. 8 to 10, also underscored just how unpopular the war continues to be, with 60 percent saying it was a mistake.

Yet the new dynamic in Iraq — with American casualties plummeting and violence in Baghdad falling to 2005 levels — has altered the political landscape for Mr. McCain since last summer, when American troop deaths spiked and his candidacy ran aground.

That's not a true correlation. McCain's campaign didn't stall because of Iraq. Republicans don't like him, that's why he stalled. He just got extremely likely that Romney never could get traction, Giuliani ran a really bad campaign, Huckabee never had the resources, and Thompson...well...enough said about him.

Anyway, McCain know defines "victory" as "it's generally quiet."

Mr. McCain has continued to paint a far rosier picture than the Democratic candidates, Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama, about military progress in Iraq, as well as political gains. He said Monday that his close friend and supporter Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, had just returned from Iraq, where he flew over Baghdad and counted “50 soccer games going on.”

“It’s generally quiet,” Mr. McCain said, “recognizing there will be suicide bombers for the foreseeable future, just as the Israelis continue to encounter suicide bombers because they’re the most difficult thing to counter in warfare.”

It's interesting, we've really stopped talking about "Iraq," but rather focus almost exclusively on "Baghdad." Don't know much about geography, but I believe it's a fairly large failed state. So let's see, we should be about ready to reduce troop levels soon, right?

Lt. Gen. Carter Ham, head of operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters that by July the troop total was likely to be 140,000. There were 132,000 troops there when President Bush approved orders to send five more Army brigades to Iraq to improve security and avert civil war.

General Ham also announced that the Pentagon believed that United States force levels in Afghanistan would be at 32,000 in late summer, up from about 28,000 now. The current total is the highest since the war began in October 2001, and 3,200 more marines are scheduled to deploy to Afghanistan this spring.

It had been widely expected that some support troops sent to Iraq with the five extra brigades would need to remain, even after July. But until now it was not clear what the number would be.

General Ham stressed that his projected number of 140,000 was subject to change depending on security conditions, but it was the first time the Pentagon had publicly estimated the total.

Asked if the total would be below 132,000 by the time President Bush leaves office next January, General Ham said, “It would be premature to say that.” Among the support forces needed beyond July, General Ham said, are military police officers, logistics troops, aviation forces and a headquarters staff to command combat forces in an area south of Baghdad. The headquarters of the Third Infantry Division was installed there as part of President Bush’s increase in forces in April. It will be replaced this summer by an unspecified unit, General Ham said.

But Huckleberry Graham saw some soccer games. From a helicopter. What gives?

BAGHDAD — An explosion aboard a crowded bus traveling to the Syrian border from Mosul killed at least nine passengers on Tuesday morning, according to Iraqi officials.

There was confusion about the source of the attack. Military officials said a passenger detonated a suicide vest aboard the bus. Employees at the bus company where the driver worked attributed the explosion to a roadside bomb.

The attack took place about 500 yards from an Iraqi Army checkpoint in the town of Tmerat, 50 miles west of Mosul, where scores of recruits routinely gather at an Iraqi Army base, according to a military official who spoke on condition of anonymity. The recruits were probably the target and the bomb may have exploded prematurely, he said. Brig. Khalid Abdulsatar confirmed that nine had been killed and eight injured.

United States military pressure coupled with a change of allegiances by Sunni insurgents and a cease-fire by Shiite militias in southern and central Iraq has pushed remaining insurgents north to Mosul, US and Iraqi officials say. The city of two million has been the scene of fierce fighting in recent months and Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki recently promised a “decisive battle” with insurgents there after 45 civilians were killed a month ago when a building was blown up in a Mosul neighborhood.

In northern Iraq, fighting continued for a fifth day as Turkish forces attacked P.K.K. rebel bases, while the Iraqi cabinet in Baghdad condemned the incursion and, in a statement, demanded its immediate halt.

So, now U.S. troops are in the midst of a civil war and an expanding regional conflict.

Turkey's current military offensive inside northern Iraq has touched off a crisis - one to which several other players in the region have contributed.

Although the ultimate responsibility for ending this crisis falls on Turkey, all of the others, including the United States, must do their part to prevent a larger regional conflagration.

Turkey's ostensible reason for sending 10,000 troops into the mountainous north of Iraq is to punish the separatist guerrilla group known as the PKK for its terrorist operations and attacks on Turkish soldiers inside Turkey.

However, the Kurdish Regional Government in the north of Iraq has charged that Turkey has an ulterior motive: to destabilize that relatively peaceful and prosperous area.

Ah, the sound of silence.

The transcendent bullshit of the 21st century

I think Dionne's right on this.

WASHINGTON--The boilerplate in a candidate's speeches gets little attention because words used over and over never constitute "news."

But one of John McCain's favorite lines--his declaration that "the transcendent challenge of the 21st century is radical Islamic extremists," or, as he sometimes says it, "extremism"--could define the 2008 election.

Whether McCain is right or wrong matters to everything the United States will do in the coming years. It's incumbent upon McCain to explain what he really means by "transcendent challenge."

Presumably, he's saying that Islamic extremism is more important than everything else--the rise of China and India as global powers, growing resistance to American influence in Europe, the weakening of America's global economic position, the disorder and poverty in large parts of Africa, the alienation of significant parts of Latin America from the United States. Is it in our national interest for all these issues to take a backseat to terrorism?

McCain makes his claim even stronger when he uses the phrase "21^st Century." Does he mean that in the year 2100, Americans will look back and say that everything else that happened in the century paled by comparison with the war against terror?

But such a debate won't happen unless Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton challenge McCain's assertion directly and offer an alternative vision.

There is reason to suspect they might be fearful of doing so. They shouldn't be.

Dionne goes on to note that in all likelihood all the high priced consultants advising the Clinton and Obama campaigns will warn against going after McCain on this; that they'll look "soft on terrorism," or something.

Truth is, anyone willing to believe that Osama bin Laden represents a threat as grave as Hitler, Mussolini, and Tojo all rolled into one, is already going to vote for Daddy McCain. It's the voters who somehow instinctively know that the world is more complicated than McCain's simple-minded, Cheney-like world view that are the ones the Democratic nominee needs to appeal to.

Rush!

"What you say about his company, is what you say about society."

Or something.

In that vein, the daily spankings Mr. Limbaugh has been administering over the air to Mr. McCain are about more than the host’s practiced outrage over the senator’s olive branch to liberals and moderates. Mr. Limbaugh has also seized on the ascension of Mr. McCain to remind the world that his nationally syndicated program still matters and that he has not lost his long-demonstrated penchant for making mischief.

“Folks, can we agree, just between us,” he told his listeners, sotto voce, on Wednesday, “has it not been brilliant how strategically I have inserted myself in this campaign?”

His appropriate namesake.

"Making mischief." So that's what they call it?

McCain and "the base"

NPR was all over the "how did the McCain campaign implode so quickly" story. Throughout the story, they repeated a couple of times the notion that McCain was "the prohibitive favorite" at the start of this thing. I don't believe that was true, at least if you're talking about actual primary voters. The likely GOP voters still hated McCain for his opposition to George W. Bush in 2000, McCain-Feingold, and his full-throated (though bogus) opposition to the president on torture, the Geneva Conventions, etc. And their hatred was refreshed by his support for the Immigration bill.

The only group for whom McCain was "the prohibitive favorite" were the reporters and pundits covering his campaign.

But worst of all in the NPR report was the repetition of the claim that McCain's campaign fell apart because of his embrace of "an unpopular war."

That's seriously untrue, as Greenwald expains.

This is wrong on several levels, and independently, it is a counter-productive theme to be peddling. In fact, the opposite is true: no presidential candidate can possibly hope to win the GOP nomination unless he fervently supports the war in Iraq.

It is not support for the Iraq war which dooms a GOP presidential candidacy, but the opposite: any real questioning of the wisdom of the war or any agitating for withdrawal or opposition to Bush's commitment would immediately and single-handedly destroy the viability of a GOP candidacy. Ask Ron Paul, or Chuck Hagel, or even Sam Brownback, whose flagging campaign has triggered the wrath of the base despite his radical social conservativism as a result of his ongoing questioning of Bush's Iraq policy.

The war in Iraq remains popular with the GOP base. They want to stay and keep waging war. They would immediately turn against anyone who advocated withdrawal or even questioned the wisdom of staying. The Republican Party continues to be the Party of the Iraq War, and -- directly contrary to the conventional wisdom that is arising -- loyal support for the Iraq War is an absolute pre-requisite for winning the nomination.

In fact, the only praise McCain has received over the last several months from the GOP's base is due to his unwavering support for the war. McCain's candidacy is failing not because of excessive support for the Right's war in Iraq; that was the only thing keeping it afloat. Instead, it is due to his excessive deviation from the Right's mandated views -- on torture, on McCain-Feingold, and especially on immigration.

To claim that McCain's unapologetic support of the Iraq War is what destroyed his candidacy is to misapprehend completely the nature of the Republican Party base. What they demand, first and foremost, is unwavering loyalty to the Cause, and that Cause is shaped predominantly by Middle East militarism, beginning with Iraq.

Dispositive proof of how false is this new conventional wisdom comes in the form of the positions of the other leading GOP candidates, who are at least as supportive as McCain is of Bush's policy in Iraq, if not more so. This, for instance, is what Fred Thompson said in March when interviewed by Chris Wallace on Fox News:

WALLACE: What would you do now in Iraq?

THOMPSON: I would do essentially what the president's doing.