When All Logic And Proportion Have Fallen Sloppy Dead»

Make it stop! No more Doug Feith. Satyam at ThinkProgress catches Feith using a line he’s been field-testing in War And Decision these days:

FEITH: We took an extremely strongly pro-Geneva Convention position in the Pentagon. And what I said when I briefed Secretary Rumsfeld on this, and briefed the President on it, is we have troops all over the world. There is no country in the world that has a stronger interest in promoting respect for the Geneva Conventions than the United States, and there’s no institution of the U.S. government that has a stronger interest in that than the Pentagon. … [T]hey are a part of the law of the United States, they’re treaties in force, and I thought the Pentagon had an extremely strong interest in promoting respect for the Geneva Conventions.

Violating the Geneva Conventions as a matter of policy: it’s the new “extremely pro-Geneva”! What Feith needs to recognize is that the effect his very existence has on the rest of us is in and of itself a Geneva violation.

History Rears Up To Spit In Your Face»

Speaking of that GAO report, Marcy Wheeler at FireDogLake does the yeoman work of compiling a brief timeline of that counterterrorism record Doug Feith is so proud of.

January 25, 2001: Clarke sends the “Strategy for Eliminating the Threat” document to Condi Rice, noting that “we urgently need … a Principals level review” of the threat posed by Al Qaeda.

September 4, 2001: Condi holds first Principals Committee meeting dedicated to Al Qaeda.

February 14, 2003: The Bush Administration unveils the National Strategy for Combating Terrorism, which includes the objective: “Eliminate terrorist sanctuaries and havens.”

July 22, 2004: The 9/11 Commission releases its report. The first recommendation is:

The US government must identify and prioritize actual or potential terrorist sanctuaries. For each, it should have a realistic strategy to keep possible terrorists insecure and on the run, using all elements of national power. We should reach out, listen to, and work with other countries that can help.

June 23, 2006: The Bush Administration announces the indictment of the Liberty City Seven, an alleged terrorist cell the FBI admits is “more aspirational than operational.”

They’ve Got a Bomb, They Can’t Wait To Use It On Me»

So yesterday Doug Feith said a “notable accomplishment” is that the administration’s “strategy’s goal of preventing another attack” has worked for 6 years. Reality, however, has a way of pummeling Doug Feith into a sloppy, gurgling mess. A new report from the GAO says:

al Qaeda is now using the Pakistani safe haven to put the last element necessary to launch another attack against America into place, including the identification, training, and positioning of Western operatives for an attack. It stated that al Qaeda is most likely using the FATA to plot terrorist attacks against political, economic, and infrastructure targets in America “designed to produce mass casualties, visually dramatic destruction, significant economic aftershocks, and/or fear among the population.”

If God forbid there’s another attack, will Doug Feith call for an intensification of every policy he’s advocated so far that led us further and further into the abyss?

When I Get In Trouble With Language, The Fate Of The World Is What’s At Stake»

Marty Lederman does something I should’ve thought of: letting the choicest War And Decision quotes speak for themselves. Lace up your LOLerskates!

“I saw the Geneva Conventions as a high-water mark of civilization.” (p.39) [Pages 162-165 then present Feith himself as the stalwart defender of the Geneva Conventions during the early 2002 debates within the Administration.]

“Rumsfeld liked to cite the United States Constitution and often lectured his subordinates on scrupulous obedience to the law.” (p.161)

[Referring to Abu Ghraib]: “Despite Rumsfeld’s astute forebodings about becoming the world’s jailer, he was not able to head the problems off.” (p.165)

“The Administration, without controversy, had from the outset recognized [the Geneva Conventions] were applicable in Iraq.”

Ah, the taint of occupation!

The Greatest Love Of All»

We’re live in the Mortara building on the Georgetown campus, where Doug Feith, the smartest fucking person on the face of the planet is showing us why he earned his nickname. Outside are 14 students — one in a Dead Kennedys t-shirt! — chanting “torture is not a Jesuit position. Woo! Inside, my homie Colin Kahl from CNAS and Georgetown has a big pie-eating grin on his face as Feith talks…

… Feith: 9/11 was caused by al-Qaeda, sure, but the next attack could have come from a network — “a global movement of Islamist extremists” — and “their state sponsors,” so it didn’t make sense to focus “just” on al-Qaeda. Yup! The next attack could have come from the Popular Front For the Liberation of Palestine. It really is monolithic communism all over again…

… Some people, after 9/11, wanted to “hit” those responsible. “There’s a certain logic to that,” Feith says. But better to not hit those responsible when we could make them stronger by invading Iraq…

… The danger: a second attack could lead us to “destroy our free and open society” in the wake of mass hysteria. So we had to beat the terrorists to it!…

… A “notable accomplishment” is that the administration’s “strategy’s goal of preventing another attack” has worked for 6 years. Because al-Qaeda’s operational planning is totally dependent on Bush’s political calendar or something… Read the rest of this entry »

Deceitful, That’s All You’ve Been»

Oh, Dougie, please. Don’t go around telling people the Bush administration didn’t say the Iraq war wouldn’t be easy:

LEHRER: The public was never told that the Parade of Horribles were considered possibilities. Instead we were told it would be a cakewalk. Were you–

FEITH: You weren’t told that by the administration. Absolutely not.

Did you think Ali and ThinkProgress wouldn’t notice that? Do you think it’s safe out there? Because it’s not safe. Trust me on this one. I’m looking out for you. As Pusha once said, I’m your friend;I will help you through this. All you have to do is tell the truth.

To see to that, I’m going to stop by Feith’s reading at Georgetown later this afternoon and liveblog it.

Let Me See Your Other Hand»

OK, back to Dougie. So yesterday we learned that Steve Hayes doesn’t like the way Feith used him like a gym sock furtively placed under a mattress. (That sound you hear is coming from the world’s tiniest violin.) But now we learn how sneaky Feith is as a writer, at least when the subject is the non-existent Saddam-al Qaeda connection. It provides a lesson in how to read a text like Feith’s.

On page 214 of War And Decision, Feith begins to discuss the state of questions about Iraq and al Qaeda in the immediate aftermath of 9/11. The explicit text says that the concern isn’t about an actual connection, but rather a potential connection. Remember that for later, as it’s important. Here goes:

After 9/11, President Bush promptly asked the obvious questions: Was Iraq tied to the attack, or to al Qaida? CIA officials never reported a substantial tie between Iraq and 9/11. Nor did they quickly produce an authoritative report on what they knew of the interactions of al Qaida and the Iraqi regime over the years. When the President decided at Camp David that our first military operation in the war on terrorism should target al Qaida and the Taliban in Afghanistan, the question of action against Saddam Hussein was deferred.

Still, our concerns about Iraq intensified after 9/11 — but not because anyone thought Saddam had actually conspired in the 9/11 attack. No one I know of believed Saddam was part of the 9/11 plot; we had no substantial reason to believe he as. Nor did we have any intelligence that Iraq was plotting specific operations with al Qaida or any other terrorist group. Rather, the concern reflected our general recognition of the dangers posed by Saddam’s regime — and Saddam’s hostility to the United States.*

Got that? We’re talking potential threat here. Dangers gathering and so forth. Not an actual manifested threat.But wait! you say. What’s that asterisk for? Good question. Answer after the jump. Read the rest of this entry »

You Said You’d Never Leave Me»

Sure, I’m not going to like Doug Feith’s book, but I’m an Islamofascist stooge or whatever. Steve Hayes of the Weekly Standard is just a garden-variety stooge. And he doesn’t like the book!

See, Feith slapped together a fantasy about al-Qaeda colluding with Saddam Hussein. It found its way into Steve’s trembling, sweaty, credulous hands, and the Standard published the lie. Only Feith doesn’t play the role he’s supposed to play: standing up for Steve, who walked the plank for Feith’s deceit. And Steve, caught out in the cold swells of a deep and vast ocean of bad faith,flails his arms wildly:

In op-eds and interviews, Feith has defended himself by challenging the criticism and distancing himself from the memo that bears his name. He continues this effort in “War and Decision” and it gets him in trouble.

Feith writes that his “list became the subject of a cover story in The Weekly Standard that incorrectly depicted it as my ‘case’ for claiming a close connection between Iraq and al Qaeda. That supported the magazine’s own editorial position, but in fact the list was no such thing.”

Either Feith is unfamiliar with the contents of the memo that bears his name or he is simply misrepresenting its contents. Consider, for instance, item No. 37. “Sensitive reporting indicates senior terrorist planner and close al Qaeda associate [Abu Musab] al Zarqawi has had an operational alliance with Iraqi officials.” Elsewhere, Feith describes a “credible” source with “close access” to Osama bin Laden and concludes “bin Laden is seen as heavily involved with Iraq.” In his memo, then, Feith points to an “operational alliance” between Zarqawi and the Iraqi regime and argues that al Qaeda’s leader was “heavily involved” with Iraq. But in his book Feith denies he ever made those arguments and tells his readers that he never claimed a close connection between Iraq and al Qaeda. Falsus en uno. … [snip]

In the end, Feith provides a detailed account of the national security issues that will define George W. Bush’s presidency. But his inaccurate characterization of the memo that bears his name should make readers wonder how many of those details are true.

Oh Steve. As a wise man once asked: Ever get the feeling you’ve been cheated?

(Crossposted to The Streak)

I’m A Hustler Baby I Just Want You To Know»

What Doug Feith memoir would be complete without slavish devotion to Ahmed Chalabi, the hustler-exile and BFF of Moqtada Sadr whom Feith and friends portrayed as an Iraqi George Washington? Certainly not War And Decision!

I’ll have more to say on this — oh, so much more — later, but one quick passage deserves attention. First, in a footnote to p.487:

On April 6, 2004, Scott Carpenter, director of the CPA’s governance team, told my staff that without Chalabi’s help, the CPA would not have achieved many of its successes: the law on direct foreign investment, the flat individual and corporate income tax, the November 15 agreement, or the interim constitution. Carpenter said, “We go to Chalabi on a day-to-day basis to solve problems.”

Am I a nerd if I admit I LOL’d at this? First, Feith is hoping you don’t know that Scott Carpenter is himself a Chalabi-boosting neocon implanted at the State Department under Liz Cheney after the CPA went out of business. Citing him as a disinterested expert on Chalabi’s value as an imperial proxy is like citing me as a disinterested expert on Matt Yglesias’s awesome book that you should order from Amazon. I’m sure that Carpenter sincerely thinks Chalabi is nifty, much as I think Heads In The Sand is an awesome book that you should order from Amazon. But the full context is rather necessary here.

Second, even from Feith’s perspective, giving Chalabi credit for the achievements of the CPA is truly to erect a monument upon quicksand. Hail Chalabi! Our bold redeemer, astride a white horse, brought a flat corporate income tax to Baghdad with the stroke of his mighty pen and the flash of his daring! God I love Doug Feith. This truly is the taint of occupation.

I Made An American Squirm»

Doug Feith channels Michael Cera.

This might not be the best way to testify to Congress:

From that point forward, the remaining officer [at PCTEG], Chris Carney, a university professor in civilian life, became the PCTEG’s sole member. In discussing this once with Senator Carl Levin at a congressional briefing, I said that PCTEG’s true history raised the Zen question: Can you have a one-person “group”? Senator Levin did not find that funny.

Can’t imagine why not!

Empty Words Have Always Meant Nothing»

Can Doug Feith please stop playing hims