Goodbye to 2006, by far the worst year of my life. I've waited for New Year's arguably since 4 a.m. January 1 '06, but I held out hope then that things would turn around. By June 16, 2006, one of the worst days I've ever experienced -- nope, this year needed to end. But it ground on, relentlessly spiraling into ever-worse permutations of all the evil it had represented so far. So many times in 2006 I've tried to calm down by reminding myself of the billions and billions of people whose lives are infinitely worse than mine. Still, this year, from beginning until (almost) end -- no good.

Part of me feels like crying. Not merely because the year is ending, but because of the awful prospect that 2007 might be even half as miserable as 2006. Let's make this promise: we won't let 2007 get to that point. If we can't control it, let's accept that we can't control it. Happy New Year.

No. 1334-06 IMMEDIATE RELEASE
December 31, 2006
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DoD Identifies Army Casualty

The Department of Defense announced today the death of a soldier who was supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Spc. Dustin R. Donica, 22, of Spring, Texas, died Dec. 28 in Baghdad, Iraq, of wounds received from small arms fire while conducting combat operations. He was assigned to 3rd Battalion, 509th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 4th Airborne Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division, Fort Richardson, Alaska.

For more information on this soldier, contact the U.S. Army, Alaska, public affairs office at (907) 389-6666.

No. 1335-06 IMMEDIATE RELEASE
December 31, 2006
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DoD Identifies Army Casualties

The Department of Defense announced today the death of two soldiers who were supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom.

They died Dec. 27 in Baghdad of wounds received from an improvised explosive device that detonated near them while on dismounted patrol. Both soldiers were assigned to 4th Battalion, 31st Infantry Regiment, 2d Brigade Combat Team, Fort Drum, N.Y.

Killed were:

Sgt. Christopher P. Messer, 28, of Petersburg, Fla.

Pfc. Nathaniel A. Given, 21, of Dickinson, Texas.

For more information on these soldiers, contact the Fort Drum public affairs office at (315) 772-5461.

UnfoggeDCon is upstairs. For now, this picture from an injustice that responds to the height of injustice:

The room was quiet as everyone began to pray, including Mr. Hussein. “Peace be upon Mohammed and his holy family.”

Two guards added, “Supporting his son Moktada, Moktada, Moktada.”

Read the names of the dead below. Ask yourself if a cynical show trial was worth the life of a single one of them.

Bush said, with no evident awareness:

Today, Saddam Hussein was executed after receiving a fair trial -- the kind of justice he denied the victims of his brutal regime.

Fair trials were unimaginable under Saddam Hussein's tyrannical rule. It is a testament to the Iraqi people's resolve to move forward after decades of oppression that, despite his terrible crimes against his own people, Saddam Hussein received a fair trial. This would not have been possible without the Iraqi people's determination to create a society governed by the rule of law.

Bush is a torturer, so he wouldn't recognize a fair trial if he observed one. (I surely hope Baltasar Garzon will one day instruct him in what a fair trial looks like.) As Al Gore once observed, he dragged the name of the United States through Saddam Hussein's torture prison. The idea that Bush's hypocrisy and deception could force one to divert attention from the death of Saddam is a disgusting thing, but yet the coward who decrees an outcome and calls it justice demands condemnation. Perhaps the right thing to say is: One down, one to go.

No. 1333-06 IMMEDIATE RELEASE
December 29, 2006
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DoD Identifies Marine Casualties

The Department of Defense announced today the death of three Marines who were supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Cpl. Christopher E. Esckelson, 22, of Vassar, Mich.

Lance Cpl. Nicholas A. Miller, 20, of Silverwood, Mich.

Lance Cpl. William D. Spencer, 20, of Paris, Tenn.

All three died on December 28 while conducting combat operations in Al Anbar province, Iraq. Esckelson and Miller were assigned to Marine Forces Reserve's 1st Battalion, 24th Marine Regiment, 4th Marine Division, Lansing, Mich. Spencer was assigned to Marine Forces Reserve's 3rd Battalion, 24th Marine Regiment, 4th Marine Division, Nashville, Tenn.

For further information in regard to these Marines the media can contact the Marine Forces Reserve public affairs office at (504) 678-4177.

No. 1332-06 IMMEDIATE RELEASE
December 29, 2006
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DoD Identifies Army Casualty

The Department of Defense announced today the death of a soldier who was supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Pvt. Clinton T. McCormick, 20, of Jacksonville, Fla., died Dec. 27 in Baghdad, Iraq, of wounds suffered when an improvised explosive device detonated during combat operations. McCormick was assigned to the 2nd Brigade Support Battalion, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division, Fort Carson, Colo.

For further information in regard to this release the media can contact the Fort Carson public affairs office at (719) 526-3420.

Victor. Davis. Hanson. He's out to defend neoconservatism. The dream, he tells us, will never die!

Iraq in the climate of post-9/11 was an effort to find a consistent US position of toughness with terrorists and murderous dictators, and principled consistent support for reformers.

Principled consistent support for reformers. Like... I'm thinking. Mithal al-Alusi? Who got nothing from the U.S. of any significance. Iyad Allawi? We never quite got around to sponsoring his coup. The Kurdish warlords? The U.S. in Iraq has had consistent support for no one. Regardless of what you think of them, ask Ahmed Chalabi or Ibrahim Jaafari. Really, VDH must have his own magical newspaper that no one else can read.

Furthermore, there's not a single "antipode" of neoconservatism that is remotely as discredited as neoconservatism after the Iraq war. Rarely in history has a programme been executed as faithfully as the neocon drive to invade Iraq. (For those neos who maintain that they never wanted an "occupation," I don't recall, say, the Standard tearing its garments in 2003 or 2004 over the occupation; I recall them denying there was an occupation.) However, it's funny to read that one such discredited antipode was "the deal for arms for hostages with the theocracy," when VDH's Corner Colleague Michael Ledeen helped set the trade up.

Bonus Fun Fact: VDH considers one such ill-advised policy "arming the crazies in Afghanistan to fight the Soviets." I had no idea he had a problem with enmeshing the Soviets in their very own Vietnam! VDH: soft on communism!

On less important topics, after finishing an essay for a forthcoming issue of a quarterly magazine, I've spent my afternoon spying on the websites and MySpace profiles of the Top Chef chefs. With the exceptions of Cliff, Sam, Elia and Ilan, it seems to me that everyone from Candice on up from season 1 could cook the shit out of the season 2 crowd. God bless Miguel Morales, whose delightfully exuberant website gives me everything that I'd want from Chunk Le Funque. Lee Anne, in her MySpace, definitely comes across as a sweetheart. Here's Marisa from season 2. From these guys you can find most everyone on TC, and so I'll stop coming across like the obsessed fan I am.

I'm warming to the Scanners record after not liking it for a month. The first song, "Joy," is pretty crummy, but it gets a lot better. Similarly, the Blow might be my new favorite band from 2006, and they should be yours too. They're fast becoming a Kriston Capps favorite, judging by his facility to turn an ordinary broom into a guitar and play "Pile of Gold."

Currently reading Yglesias' copy of Off the Books: The Underground Economy of the Urban Poor and enjoying it a great deal. The rest of the house is feverishly preparing for UnfoggeDCon tomorrow, while I do precious little but troll the internet for Top Chef effluvia. See everyone tomorrow evening.

Daveed Gartenstein-Ross might want to take some remedial reading-comprehension classes. Matt and I are not, contra DGR, "question(ing) whether the Islamic Courts Union (ICU) -- the radical group that Ethiopia is currently battling in Somalia -- is really linked to terrorism." There are lots of jihadist entities in Somalia. But the issue for the United States is not terrorism, the issue is al-Qaeda. (And remember, when I use "al-Qaeda," I mean the broad bin-Ladenist movement.) Speaking strategically, the question is whether the ICU is in bed with al-Qaeda right now or whether Somalia under the ICU will in the future develop into some sort of sponsored haven for al-Qaeda.

As I wrote in my original post, the evidence for the right-now scenario is murky at best. Perhaps within the intelligence community or the military better evidence will emerge that establishes a direct connection. Indeed, Aweys, the nominal leader of the ICU, strikes me as perhaps the most direct evidence of a connection, making it all the more significant that no one in the administration or, to my knowledge, the IC is making Aweys the issue.

But DGR presents a fusillade of conflations and circumstantial evidence passing as a definitive answer to the right-now question. For instance, on the matter of al-Sudani, Nabhan and Mohammed, who were involved in the 1998 embassy bombings:

Fazul Abdullah Mohammed and Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan, members of al-Qaeda's Somali cell, had returned to Somalia. They were financed by Sudanese al-Qaeda operative Tariq Abdullah (a.k.a. Abu Talha al-Sudani), who operated between Somalia and the UAE. Mohammed and Nabhan were involved in preparations for the 1998 embassy bombings, and masterminded the November 2002 Mombasa attack on the Paradise Hotel. They were aided in the Mombasa attack by Somali associates Suleiman Ahmed Hemed Salim (a.k.a. Issa Tanzania, captured in April 2003), and Issa Osman Issa. After the attacks, the group returned to Somalia. The ICG report notes that "[t]he members of al-Qaeda's Somalia cell are today among the most wanted fugitives on the planet."

Does it really need to be said that the presence of these guys in Somalia is not evidence of ICU partnership with al-Qaeda? Somalia before the ICU was for all intents and purposes chaos. To the best of my knowledge, these three returned to Somalia before there even was an ICU. This International Crisis Group report cited by DGR is rather informative about the presence of jihadists in Somalia. What it does not do by any stretch is establish a connection between al-Qaeda and the ICU. Is this so difficult to comprehend?

Again: perhaps further, more definitive evidence will arise settling the right-now question. It certainly wouldn't surprise me that the ICU would function in this manner. The issue is precision, which is badly lacking on this question -- and without precision, we can expect a morass of poor judgment and improper decision-making. And where might we have seen that before?

Did I ever tell you about the time I met Joe Lieberman? He attended an off-the-record lunch at The New Republic around New Year's 2004 to argue for the magazine's endorsement, which he ultimately got. (Against, for the record, the overwhelming recommendation of the staff.) Knowing he was in friendly territory, Lieberman felt no need to strenuously make the case for himself. But I had attended a New Year's party in which -- surprise, surprise -- a great deal of antipathy for the man bubbled to the surface, and so I asked him what he made of that. His response is off the record, and I intend to respect that, but suffice it to say he didn't care what the liberals thought. Whether that was pandering to what he figured TNR wanted to hear, I can't say, but it made quite an impression on me.

So given that Lieberman isn't very interested in the world outside of his mind, we get this, in his op-ed backing escalation today:

I saw firsthand evidence in Iraq of the development of a multiethnic, moderate coalition against the extremists of al-Qaeda and against the Mahdi Army...

Bullshit. Name them. Who are they; what sect do they belong to; what do they benefit by telling you what you want to hear; etc. I'm sure there were many valiant South Vietnamese politicians and military officers who impressed visiting U.S. senators with their dedication, patriotism and resolve. Lieberman's entire argument is based on bolstering the "forces of moderation" that he gives no effort to identifying. He uses the phrases "victory for Iran" and "setback" with blithe abandon, with no attempt to think through what they might look like or ultimately mean. For instance:

Hezbollah and Hamas would be greatly strengthened against their moderate opponents.

Ah, the undifferentiated Islamist menace, spreading like a cancer, on the nefarious march. I would ask Lieberman to give an iota of effort to explaining how a U.S. withdrawal strengthens Hamas to the detriment of the United States. But to him all this is surely self-evident.

No. 1327-06 IMMEDIATE RELEASE
December 28, 2006
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DoD Identifies Army Casualty

The Department of Defense announced today the death of a soldier who was supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Spc. Michael J. Crutchfield, 21, of Stockton, Calif., died Dec. 23 in Balad, Iraq, of a non-combat related injury.Crutchfield was assigned to the 3rd Battalion, 4th Air Defense Artillery Regiment, Fort Bragg, N.C.

Crutchfield's death is under investigation.

For more information in regard to this release the media can contact the Fort Bragg public affairs office at (910) 303-0617.

No. 1329-06 IMMEDIATE RELEASE
December 28, 2006
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DoD Identifies Marine Casualties

The Department of Defense announced today the death of two Marines who were supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Cpl. Joshua M. Schmitz, 21, of Spencer, Wis.

Lance Cpl. William C. Koprince Jr., 24, of Lenoir City, Tenn.

Schmitz died December 26 and Koprince on December 27 while conducting combat operations in Al Anbar province, Iraq. Both Marines were assigned to 3rd Battalion, 2nd Marine Regiment, 2nd Marine Division, II Marine Expeditionary Force, Camp Lejeune, N.C.

For further information in regard to these Marines the media can contact the 2nd Marine Division public affairs office at (910) 450-6575.

No. 1328-06 IMMEDIATE RELEASE
December 28, 2006
Media Contact: (703) 697-5131/697-5132
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DoD Identifies Army Casualties

The Department of Defense announced today the death of two soldiers who were supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom.They died of injuries suffered when the vehicle they were in was involved in a rollover incident on Dec. 26 in Baghdad, Iraq.They were assigned to the 3rd Battalion, 509th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division, Fort Richardson, Alaska.

Killed were:

Spc. Joseph A. Strong, 21, of Lebanon, Ind.

Spc. Douglas L. Tinsley, 21, of Chester, S.C.

The incident is under investigation.

For further information on these soldiers the media can contact the U.S. Army Alaska public affairs office at (907) 389-6666.

Where have we seen this before?

According to residents, troops from the transitional government, along with Ethiopian soldiers who had been backing them up, poured into the capital from the outskirts of the city while militiamen within Mogadishu occupied key positions, like the port, airport and dilapidated presidential palace.

"The government has taken over Mogadishu," a transitional government leader, Jama Fuuruh, told Reuters by telephone from Mogadishu’s port.

"We are now in charge."

Mogadishu’s new powers immediately had to deal with a rising level of chaos, as armed bandits swept the city and fragmented clan militia began to battle each other for the spoils of war. Witnesses said an intense gun battle raged around a former Islamist ammunition dump and that clan warlords had instantly reverted back to setting up roadside checkpoints and shaking down motorists for money. Many terrified residents stayed in their homes behind bolted doors and the few that ventured into the streets carried guns.

"No one is really in command," said one adviser to Western diplomats who has close contacts with both the Islamists and the transitional government. "Chaos is in command."

The ICU forces have "disintegrated." I hope the Ethiopian defense minister knows what an insurgency is.

I decided to take up Matt's challenge to the D.C. press: Who are the mystery terrorists in Somalia, and what's their connection to the Islamic Courts Union?

First stop was the State Department. In June, Assistant Secretary of State for Africa Jendayi Frazer visited East Africa and said that "it is very clear that there are foreign terrorists in Somalia." She specifically referred to three individuals suspected of involvement with the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania: Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan and Abu Tahai al-Sudani. All three are suspected of arriving in Somalia long before the ICU took power. Furthermore, the nominal leader of the ICU, Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys, used to be the vice-chairman of al-Itihaad, a bin-Laden jihadist organization that supposedly no longer exists. Shortly after 9/11, the administration placed al-Itihaad on the Terrorism Exclusion List, an authority under the Patriot Act that limits activity within the U.S., but not on the Terrorism List.

Just two problems. First, Frazer did not single out Aweys as a concern, despite being perhaps the most intuitive link to al-Qaeda. That suggests either that the information on him isn't all it's cracked up to be or that diplomatic concerns militated against linking the ICU through Aweys to al-Qaeda. So I called up the State Department and spoke to Leslie Phillips in the press office. She said that "we do not have any information on these terrorists. That's an intelligence matter." She neglected to explain why Frazer could talk about these guys publicly but the State Department had to defer to the intelligence community.

Fine. So I called Carl Kropf in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. When I asked Carl about who these guys were that we should be concerned about, he remarked, "huh, that's a good question," and proceeded to look into it for me. A couple hours later, he e-mailed me a New York Times story from June that told me what I already knew. He added, "We decline to offer any response on the relationship with the ICI." I'm guessing that he meant the ICU.

So there you have it, for now. The administration believes three terrorists are in Somalia, with unclear or unstated connections to the ICU. Then there's the issue of Aweys, whom the U.S. isn't officially making an issue, for unclear reasons. Decide for yourself if this is a good reason to instigate a regional war.

No. 1323-06 IMMEDIATE RELEASE
December 27, 2006
Media Contact: (703) 697-5131/697-5132
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DoD Identifies Army Casualty

The Department of Defense announced today the death of a soldier who was supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Spc. Elias Elias, 27, of Glendora, Calif., died Dec. 23 in Baghdad, Iraq, of wounds suffered when an improvised explosive device detonated near his vehicle while on patrol.Elias was assigned to the 3rd Squadron, 61st Cavalry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division, Fort Carson, Colo.

For further information in regard to this soldier the media can contact the Fort Carson public affairs office at (719) 526-1264 or (719) 526-5500.

Lance Cpl. Stephen L. Morris, 21, of Lake Jackson, Texas, died Dec. 24 while conducting combat operations in Al Anbar province, Iraq.Morris was assigned to 2nd Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment, 3rd Marine Division, III Marine Expeditionary Force, Kaneohe Bay, Hawaii.
For further information in regard to this release the media can contact the Marine Corps Base Hawaii public affairs office at (808) 257-8870.

David Ignatius has lost his mind.

Bush's "state of denial," as Bob Woodward rightly called it, has officially ended. He actually spoke the words "We're not winning" last week in an interview with The Post, coupling it with the reverse: "We're not losing." But in truth, he cannot abide the possibility that Iraq will not end in victory. So a day after his "not winning" comment, he half took it back, saying: "I believe that we're going to win," and then adding oddly, as if to reassure himself: "I believe that -- and by the way, if I didn't think that, I wouldn't have our troops there. That's what you've got to know. We're going to succeed."

Wow, does it suck when your material rebels against the frame you try to force it into.

Funny Ignatius-related story. In April of 2003, I went home to my mother's for Passover. Ignatius was in Iraq, and he needed to reach Kanan Makiya. He knew I had Kanan's number, so he rang me from Baghdad. Unfortunately, I was out cold, so my mother answered. "It's David Ignatius calling," he told my mom. "I'm very important." My mother was furious and woke me up. Now, I maintain to this day that the guy must have said "It's very important," since no one would ever call up a total stranger and announce his own inherent value, and after all, the guy was calling from 8,000 miles away. But still, my mother holds Ignatius in high contempt. (My father likes his spy novels.)

No. 1317-06 IMMEDIATE RELEASE
December 27, 2006
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DoD Identifies Marine Casualty

The Department of Defense announced today the death of a Marine who was supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom.
Lance Cpl. Myles C. Sebastien, 21, of Opelousas, La., died Dec. 20 from wounds suffered while conducting combat operations in Al Anbar province, Iraq.Sebastien was assigned to 1st Battalion, 6th Marine Regiment, 2nd Marine Division, II Marine Expeditionary Force, Camp Lejeune, N.C.
For further information in regard to this release the media can contact the 2nd Marine Division public affairs office at (910) 450-6575.

No. 1316-06 IMMEDIATE RELEASE
December 27, 2006
Media Contact: (703) 697-5131/697-5132
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DoD Identifies Army Casualties

The Department of Defense announced today the death of three soldiers who were supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom.They died Dec. 23 in Salman Pak, Iraq, of wounds suffered when an improvised explosive device detonated near their vehicle during combat operations.They were assigned to the 1st Battalion, 125th Infantry, Big Rapids, Mich.

Killed were:

Spc. Chad J. Vollmer, 24, of Grand Rapids, Mich.

Pfc. Wilson A. Algrim, 21, of Howell, Mich.

Pvt. Bobby Mejia II, Saginaw, Mich.

For further information on these soldiers the media can contact the Michigan National Guard public affairs office at (517) 481-8140.

Echoing Yglesias and Chris Hayes From The Bronx: this is not a surge. This is escalation. Just look at Keane and Kagan:

The United States faces a dire situation in Iraq because of a history of half-measures. We have always sent "just enough" force to succeed if everything went according to plan. So far nothing has, and there's no reason to believe that it will. Sound military planning doesn't work this way. The only "surge" option that makes sense is both long and large.

But K & K themselves are half-steppin'. They argue against a surge in substance, but call their plan a surge as well, since they know that what they actually endorse -- escalation -- is vastly more unpalatable to the public.

Well, enough of this. Liberals, journalists, I'm calling on you. We must never talk about a surge unless we're actually talking about a surge -- a temporary infusion of troops. We should resist that as well. But now, if the proponents of escalation have escalation on their agenda, we must bring this out in the open and defeat it. Deal?

Echoing Yglesias and Chris Hayes From The Bronx: this is not a surge. This is escalation. Just look at Keane and Kagan:

The United States faces a dire situation in Iraq because of a history of half-measures. We have always sent "just enough" force to succeed if everything went according to plan. So far nothing has, and there's no reason to believe that it will. Sound military planning doesn't work this way. The only "surge" option that makes sense is both long and large.

But K & K themselves are half-steppin'. They argue against a surge in substance, but call their plan a surge as well, since they know that what they actually endorse -- escalation -- is vastly more unpalatable to the public.

Well, enough of this. Liberals, journalists, I'm calling on you. We must never talk about a surge unless we're actually talking about a surge -- a temporary infusion of troops. We should resist that as well. But now, if the proponents of escalation have escalation on their agenda, we must bring this out in the open and defeat it. Deal?

NEWS RELEASES from the United States Department of Defense

No. 1315-06 IMMEDIATE RELEASE
December 26, 2006
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DoD Identifies Army Casualty

The Department of Defense announced today the death of a soldier who was supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Sgt. Jason C. Denfrund, 24, of Cattaraugus, N.Y., died Dec. 25 in Baghdad, Iraq, of wounds suffered when an improvised explosive device detonated near his unit while on patrol. Denfrund was assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 14th Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division (Light Infantry), Fort Drum, N.Y.

For more information on this soldier the media can contact the Fort Drum public affairs office at (315) 772-5461.

No. 1314-06 IMMEDIATE RELEASE
December 26, 2006
Media Contact: (703) 697-5131/697-5132
Public/Industry(703) 428-0711

DoD Identifies Army Casualties

The Department of Defense announced today the death of five soldiers who were supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Spc. Joshua D. Sheppard, 22, of Quinton, Okla., died Dec. 22 in Baghdad, Iraq, of wounds suffered when his patrol came in contact with the enemy using small arms fire. Sheppard was assigned to the 642nd Engineer Support Company, 7th Engineer Battalion, 10th Mountain Division (Light Infantry), Fort Drum, N.Y. For more information about this soldier the media can contact the Fort Drum public affairs office at (315) 772-5461.

Sgt. Curtis L. Norris, 28, of Dansville, Mich., died Dec. 23 in Baghdad, Iraq, of wounds suffered when an improvised explosive device detonated near his vehicle. Norris was assigned to the 210th Brigade Support Battalion, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division (Light Infantry), Fort Drum, N.Y. For more information about this soldier the media can contact the Fort Drum public affairs office at (315) 772-5461.

Spc. John Barta, 25, of Corpus Christi, Texas, died Dec. 23 in Buhritz, Iraq, of wounds suffered from indirect enemy fire during combat operations. Barta was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 12th Cavalry Regiment, 3rd Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division, Fort Hood, Texas. For more information about this soldier the media can contact the Fort Hood public affairs office at (254) 287-9993.

Pvt. Evan A. Bixler, 21, of Racine, Wis., died Dec. 24 in Hit, Iraq, of wounds suffered from enemy indirect fire during security operations. Bixler was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 6th Infantry, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division, Baumholder, Germany. For more information about this soldier the media can contact the 1st Armored Division public affairs office at 011-49-611-705-4859.

Pfc. Eric R. Wilkus, 20, of Hamilton, N.J., died Dec. 25 at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center, Landstuhl, Germany, of a non-combat related injury Dec. 22 in Baghdad, Iraq. Wilkus was assigned to the 57th Military Police Company, 8th Military Police Brigade, Schofield Barracks, Hawaii. The incident is under investigation. For more information about this soldier the media can contact the 25th Infantry Division public affairs office at (808) 655-4815 or (808) 655-8729.

Quote of the day, courtesy of the Los Angeles Times:

"Ethiopia is my enemy, I will not sell bananas anymore," he said. "I will take my gun and go for jihad. Otherwise I am sure they will kill me in my banana kiosk if I wait for them here."

Cliff May asks: "Maybe we can learn something from the Ethiopians in Somalia?" Let's put that to the test.

So the Islamic Courts Union attempts to consolidate its hold over Somalia. In doing so, it pushes intolerably close to the Ethiopian border. Ethiopia, evidently with the support of the United States, invades. Its conventional superiority forces a retreat by the ICU back to its Mogadishu stronghold. Cliff, like many, considers this an initial success. And it may indeed be. But let's not pretend we haven't seen this movie before: the ICU is retrenching, intending to draw the Ethiopians into a densely populated urban area where its soldiers can be slowly bled to death by shadowy guerrilla forces. If you were an ICU commander, you would do the same thing -- that is, redraw the battlefield on favorable terms.

The question now becomes how much pain Ethiopia is willing to endure. If its actual strategic consideration is to force the ICU away from its border, then mission accomplished. But if its goal is to crush the ICU, reinstate the U.S./U.N. ancien regime and guarantee its survival, the battle is just beginning. The ICU has called upon jihadis to join the battle and has been relieved in part by 2,000 soldiers from Eritrea, Ethiopia's traditional enemy. In short, Ethiopia may have been drawn into a pincer: its forces get stretched and slowly drained to the southeast while Eritrea reignites a conflict on its north. It would appear that Ethiopia has an interest in keeping the war as brief and as contained as possible; but by going to the Mog, it's going to ensure precisely the opposite. Never mind what we can learn from Ethiopia. The question is what Ethiopia should have learned from us.

No. 1313-06 IMMEDIATE RELEASE
December 26, 2006
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DoD Identifies Army Casualty

The Department of Defense announced today the death of a soldier who was supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Staff Sgt. Jacob G. McMillan, 25, of Lafayette, La., died Dec. 20 in Baghdad, Iraq, of wounds suffered when an improvised explosive device detonated near his vehicle and was followed by enemy small arms fire.McMillan was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 501st Parachute Infantry Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team (Airborne), 25th Infantry Division, Fort Richardson, Alaska.

For further information related to this release the media can contact the U.S. Army Alaska public affairs office at (907) 384-6666.

Do it, Brian. Get rid of Randy Johnson. Make it a dignified end. Johnson went 17-11 last season, but with a 5.00 ERA, he probably would have only won, say, 12 games had he not had the offensive explosion of the Yankees carrying him. He's proven himself too far past his prime to be an ace. His six-inning no-hitter in August was as impressive as the way he blew it was heartbreaking. A rotation of Pettitte, Igawa, Mussina, and Wang is a hell of a good one, and chances are we have to start Pavano just so we can shop him around. Of the four real starters, who would you bench for a 43-year old RJ coming off of back surgery and acting surly in the clubhouse?

I passed by Fenway as I took a cab to South Station on Sunday. I'll admit it: it was impressive, and I was filled with respect for the house of my enemy. But it now plans to nurture a rotation of Matsuzaka, Papelbon and Beckett, with Lester -- get well soon, man; seriously -- iffy, no bullpen to speak of and Mike Timlin closing. It makes a lot of sense to unload Johnson's contract and put him back on a club like Arizona, where he can be a sentimental favorite, earn a dignified retirement and improve the rotation. The only losers here are the proper losers: the Boston Red Sox.

No. 1312-06 IMMEDIATE RELEASE
December 26, 2006
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DoD Identifies Marine Casualty

The Department of Defense announced today the death of a Marine who was supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Lance Cpl. Fernando S. Tamayo, 19, of Fontana, Calif., died December 21 while conducting combat operations in Al Anbar province, Iraq. Tamayo was assigned to the 3rd Battalion, 4th Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division, I Marine Expeditionary Force, Twentynine Palms, Calif.

For further information in regard to this release the media can contact the Twentynine Palms public affairs office at (760) 830-3760.

No. 1311-06 IMMEDIATE RELEASE
December 26, 2006
Media Contact: (703) 697-5131/697-5132
Public/Industry(703) 428-0711

DoD Identifies Navy Casualty

The Department of Defense announced today the death of a sailor who was supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Hospitalman Kyle A. Nolen, 21, of Ennis, Texas, died Dec. 21 in Al Anbar Province, Iraq, as a result of enemy action.Nolen was assigned to H Company, 3rd Battalion, 4th Marine Division, Regimental Combat Team 7, I Marine Expeditionary Force Forward, 29 Palms, Calif.

For further information related to this release the media can contact the Navy public affairs office at (703) 697-5342.

John McCain, please read this op-ed by Emily Miller. It's about her brother, an Army National Guard soldier serving in Iraq, and our responsibility to him and his brethren.

What are you, fellow citizens, willing to do to defend our Constitution? Will you dignify the sacrifices of our soldiers? Will you honor my brother's faith in our system? Will you let my brother or others die to eke out a slightly smaller disaster in Iraq? These are the questions we face in the wake of the Baker-Hamilton report.

My brother is betting his life that you are not going to ask this of him. He has placed his trust in the idea that we will not ask him to die for anything less than the necessary defense of our democracy. Reasonable people may at one time have disagreed about the necessity of the Iraq war, but now that it has become abundantly clear from every quarter that we cannot win, will you be responsible for asking my brother to stay?

McCain's son Jimmy is now a marine, with all the honor joining the Corps confers and implies. Jimmy McCain will surely be part of McCain's preferred "surge" option; and even if the surge never happens, he will probably be sent to Iraq anyway. McCain apparently seeks to separate his thoughts on what to do about the war from his son's fate. In one sense, that is statesmanship: the recognition that one's own sacrifice and the national sacrifice must be distinguishable. But in another sense, it is an exculpation, an inhuman desire to see those serving in Iraq as belonging to someone else. It wouldn't be such an awful thing to see the soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines in Iraq as the most precious national commodity we possess. Instead it would clarify that they cannot be sacrificed on the altar of a decent interval or vainglorious pursuit of an illusory honor.

Senator, see your son as your son, and then see his comrades as your sons as well. Then you might do the courageous thing.

Saw The Good Shepherd with Matt and Tom last night. They didn't really like it much; I did. DeNiro -- who for some reason named the Wild Bill character Sullivan instead of Donovan -- basically made Spookfellas. I see Kurt Loder contended that the film doesn't have a story so much as it presents a "corporate biography." That's not really right. The James Jesus Angleton character, Edward Wilson, takes us through the development of This Thing Of Ours and through his descent, we see what the dark side does to us as a country -- we become shortsighted, parochial, paranoid, craven, brutal. It's not unlike how Henry Hill took us through Goodfellas.
This is all underscored by a brief but hilarious scene with Joe Pesci in which Pesci, a vulgar, family-oriented mafioso, expresses fear and impotent hatred of Matt Damon's Wilson.

One quick thing about counterintelligence master James Jesus Angleton. (One of his handles was "the Good Shepherd.") If we're to view the Wilson character as Angleton, DeNiro presents a remarkably subtle and often sympathetic portrayal of Angleton. Wilson is presented as, at worst, moderately paranoid. Angleton believed Henry Kissinger was a Soviet agent. Wilson dips his toe into domestic spying. Angleton was the architect of a massive spying campaign targeting elements within the antiwar movement, which is what led to his downfall. In short, if Wilson really is Angleton, he starts off and ends up with way too much of a soul. Indeed, Angleton's excesses make Michael Ledeen's enthusiasm for the man appear all the more... eccentric, I believe, is the nice word.

Marc Cooper has a piece in The Nation that I wish I wrote: a curtain-raiser on the Appeal For Redress, an active-duty military protest against the Iraq War. It's a fascinating story that traces the boundaries of dissent and responsibility.

Interviews with more than two dozen signers, both in Iraq and on domestic US military bases from Fort Stewart in the east to Hawaii's Hickam Air Force Base, reveal a movement that includes low-level grunts and high-ranking officers, as well as a rich diversity of racial, economic and educational backgrounds. The signers offered a variety of motivations--ideological, practical, strategic and moral--but all agreed the war was no longer worth fighting and that the troops should be brought home. As the debate on Iraq sharpens in the wake of the Baker-Hamilton report and as a new Democratic Congress is seated, the collective voice of active-duty opponents of the war is likely to add considerable clout to the antiwar movement.

This Martin Luther King holiday weekend, members of the Appeal will appear on Capitol Hill to formally present the petition to Congress to press their case. For an all-volunteer force, says Eugene Fidell, president of the National Institute of Military Justice, "it's simply unprecedented."

(snip)

Frank says he can pinpoint the precise moment when he turned against the war: last June 23. He was on patrol with his Iraqi unit when they came upon an illegal checkpoint set up by Sadr's Mahdi militia. The militants were using ambulances taken from the Ministry of Health to block the roads, thereby preventing American troops from maneuvering. He was flabbergasted when the Iraqi Army troops refused not only to take down the checkpoint but also returned to the militia a number of automatic weapons that had been seized from them by the army.

This sort of depressing reality is what prompted Frank to sign the Appeal. "I proudly joined the Appeal for Redress out of the sense of hopelessness that I had inside for what we are actually doing here," he says. He's angry with both the Bush Administration and the top brass in Iraq. "They sit behind their desks in the Green Zone and filter reports to their bosses. No one wants to admit that we are failing." Frank says he's quite open about his views, and finds overwhelming support for them among his fellow soldiers. "Yes, yes, yes," he says, "My entire team feels the same way I do. And the other battalion [trainers] that I have come across feel that way, including my commanders.... In fact, I have not had one person in the last five months disagree with me. The typical response is, 'I know what you mean.'"

The Appeal will be presented to Congress around the MLK holiday. I'll be in Iraq then, reporting my own story for The Nation that will now seek to pick up a bit where Cooper's excellent piece leaves off. Too bad I won't be in Washington for this presentation, because the Appeal signatories want the Democratic Congress to go outside of its intended comfort zone of scrutinizing bad management of the war and using it to club Bush. They, of course, want Congress to end the war, which I have much sympathy for and much agita about.

The absence of Chappelle's Show is painfully acute when watching that God-awful T-Mobile "Fave 5" commercial with Dwyane Wade and Charles Barkley. The sketch needs to be "how commercials should really end." When the exuberant white waitress asks D-Wade if Barkley is his dad, Barkley needs to bark, "Bitch! Do I look like his fucking father?" Wade should shake his head and say, "Man, no matter what we do, no matter how famous we get, they still play us like this whenever we go out to eat." Barkley gets up: "Fuck this, man. Let's get a burger or something." He exclaims to the now-nervous patrons and embarrassed waitstaff, "Tomorrow I'm buying this place! Get used to working for Dwyane Wade's father! Motherfuckers!"

Via Feministing, I learn that my philosophy degree from Rutgers is "an integral part of the U.N. Feminist Rumor Mill." My God! I feared they would learn the truth about my sappho-marxist concentration! Who knew the right-wing blogosphere had cracked the code?

Via Yanks Fan vs. Sox Fan, here's a true Christmas message and the essence of liberalism. It's Jackie Robinson in 1951 declaring eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the minds of men:

At the beginning of the World Series of 1947, I experienced a completely new emotion, when the national anthem was played. This time, I thought, it is being played for me, as much as for anyone else. This is organized major league baseball, and I am standing here with all the others; and everything that takes place includes me. About a year later, I went to Atlanta, Georgia, to play in an exhibition game. On the field, for the first time in Atlanta, there were Negroes and whites. Other Negroes, besides me. And I thought: What I have always believed has come to be. And what is it that I have always believed? First, that imperfections are human. But that wherever human beings were given room to breathe and time to think, those imperfections would disappear, no matter how slowly. I do not believe that we have found or even approached perfection. That is not necessarily in the scheme of human events. Handicaps, stumbling blocks, prejudices--all of these are imperfect. Yet, they have to be reckoned with because they are in the scheme of human events. Whatever obstacles I found made me fight all the harder. But it would have been impossible for me to fight at all, except that I was sustained by the personal and deep-rooted belief that my fight had a chance. It had a chance because it took place in a free society. Not once was I forced to face and fight an immovable object. Not once was the situation so cast-iron rigid that I had no chance at all. Free minds and human hearts were at work all around me; and so there was the probability of improvement. I look at my children now and know that I must still prepare them to meet obstacles and prejudices. But I can tell them, too, that they will never face some of these prejudices because other people have gone before them. And to myself I can say that, because progress is unalterable, many of today's dogmas will have vanished by the time they grow into adults. I can say to my children: There is a chance for you. No guarantee, but a chance. And this chance has come to be, because there is nothing static with free people. There is no Middle Ages logic so strong that it can stop the human tide from flowing forward. I do not believe that every person, in every walk of life, can succeed in spite of any handicap. That would be perfection. But I do believe--and with every fiber in me--that what I was able to attain came to be because we put behind us (no matter how slowly) the dogmas of the past: to discover the truth of today, and perhaps find the greatness of tomorrow. I believe in the human race. I believe in the warm heart. I believe in man's integrity. I believe in the goodness of a free society. And I believe that the society can remain good only as long as we are willing to fight for it--and to fight against whatever imperfections may exist. My fight was against the barriers that kept Negroes out of baseball. This was the area where I found imperfection, and where I was best able to fight. And I fought because I knew it was not doomed to be a losing fight. It couldn't be a losing fight--not when it took place in a free society. And, in the largest sense, I believe that what I did was done for me--and that my faith in God sustained me in my fight. And that what was done for me must and will be done for others.

Dear Jon,

A long time ago, we used to be friends. My best wishes go out to you, Robin, Joanna & Benjy for a happy and prosperous New Year. You remain one of the brightest lights of American liberalism, and for that, we owe you a debt of gratitude. Please believe me when I say I'm being sincere.

That said, I read your column with some dismay. The points you make about neoconservatism playing itself by its association with Bush on the Iraq war apply with greater force to, well, The New Republic. After all, the Standard et. al. had something to gain by the pact they made -- their emergence as the court philosophers of the administration. The magazine, and yourself, had no such investment. You, better and earlier than anyone else, pointed out that the central fact about Bush is that he's a liar. And yet, for a variety of reasons, you and the magazine bought the war.

Now, TNR's editorial position, which I shared at the time, was that there was a broader democratization project that the war advanced, and despite the demonstrated venality of Bush, the project was worth supporting. You didn't buy this, and much to your credit. Your arguments had to do instead with what you believed about Saddam Hussein, WMD and the world order. The trouble with this, as you would probably concede at this point, is that it reduced in late 2002 in significant ways to believing Bush. What I mean by that isn't simply a matter of accepting Bush's statements about WMD. I mean as well that one needed to buy -- or at least suspend disbelief about -- Bush's contentions about the jolly outcomes of removing Saddam. You point out in your column that the Standard and others had coherent reasons to disbelieve that the mission was feasible given the size of the military. But they went along, for the bargain described above. Why did you?

You might object that this is a matter of score-settling, pursued by a disgruntled ex-TNR employee who in any case went along with the war himself. Fine. But I don't mean it like that. I mean it to say that going forward, it's important to separate what we believe about the consequences of, say, withdrawal from the way Bush describes it. Of course, just because your apparent belief that post-occupation Iraq would be a nightmare tracks with Bush's doesn't mean in any way that you're buying into his framework. Decent and well-intentioned people can believe widely divergent things about the way Iraq will look after a U.S. withdrawal. However, I would ask that you consider whether your thinking about this question is implicated in the same self-suckering dynamic you identify in your column. Because you're too smart and too good for that.

See you at Five Guys, I hope, some day.

An international incident in the making. Iranians detained by U.S. forces in Iraq, despite the wishes of the (sovereign!) Iraqi government. One "Western official" helpfully explains to the New York Times that the detentions are "based on information." It just gets better and better!

In the raids, the Americans also detained a number of Iraqis. Western and Iraqi officials said that following normal protocol, the two Iranian diplomats were turned over to the Iraqi government after being questioned. The Iraqis, in turn, released them to the Iranian Embassy. An Iraqi official said his government had strained to keep the affair out of the public eye to avoid scuttling the talks with Iran that were now under way. ...

All in the car were detained by the Americans. The mosque’s imam, Sheik Jalal al-deen al-Sageir, a member of Parliament from Mr. Hakim’s party, said the Iranians had come to pray during the last day of mourning for his mother, who recently died. He said that after the Iranians left, the Iranian Embassy phoned to say that they had not arrived as expected. “We were afraid they were kidnapped,” Sheik Sageir said.

But he said he was later informed that the diplomats, whom he said that he did not know well, were in the custody of Americans. “I had nothing to do with that,” Sheik Sageir said. “I don’t know why the Americans took them.”

The predawn raid on Mr. Hakim’s compound, on the east side of the Tigris, was perhaps the most startling part of the American operation. The arrests were made inside the house of Hadi al-Ameri, the chairman of the Iraqi Parliament’s security committee and leader of the Badr Organization, the armed wing of Mr. Hakim’s political party.

Another helpful U.S. official calls this a "clarifying moment" and explains that "It's our position that the Iraqis have to seize this opportunity to sort out with the Iranians just what kind of behavior they are going to tolerate." So, if we understand this correctly: We're going to force the Iraqi Shiites to deliberately insult Iran in order to compel a choice between us and them. We're going to do this at a time when we're trying to use Abdul Aziz al-Hakim as a wedge to gain Shiite support and marginalize Moqtada Sadr.

Now, if I'm Hakim, I seize this opportunity. I denounce the U.S. aggression, demand the release of all Iranian detainees, proclaim my desire for a new era of peaceful coexistence with Iran, etc. Maybe I even demand an American apology. Through the other side of my mouth I tell Washington not to worry; and that if they're for-reals about promoting me as an alternative to Moqtada, I need this to gain some street cred. And if any Sunnis are upset about my closeness with Iran -- well, fuck the Sunnis; they don't vote for us anyway.

But if Bush really wants to "clarify" that he has a willing Shiite vassal, then ignore the above paragraph. On the lounge chair next to the couch, Matt suggests, probably correctly, that the history of imperialism holds that this was probably a spur-of-the-moment decision by some low-level official with no coordination with Washington, and now it's all gone pear-shaped. I buy that for now. Now, Bush and Hakim might in fact be able to use this to their advantage, but it would require a degree of cleverness and prioritizing that's been altogether absent from the occupation so far. So expect the worst! It'll probably happen.

NEWS RELEASES from the United States Department of Defense

No. 1307-06 IMMEDIATE RELEASE
December 22, 2006
Media Contact: (703) 697-5131/697-5132
Public/Industry(703) 428-0711

DoD Identifies Army Casualty

The Department of Defense announced today the death of a soldier who was supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Spc. Robert J. Volker, 21, of Big Spring, Texas, died Dec. 20 in Baghdad, Iraq, of injuries suffered when an improvised explosive device detonated near his HMMWV.He was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 5th Cavalry Regiment, 2nd Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division, Fort Hood, Texas.

For further information related to this release, contact the Fort Hood public affairs office at (254) 289-3883.

NEWS RELEASES from the United States Department of Defense

No. 1309-06 IMMEDIATE RELEASE
December 22, 2006
Media Contact: (703) 697-5131/697-5132
Public/Industry(703) 428-0711

DoD Identifies Marine Casualties

The Department of Defense announced today the death of two Marines who were supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom.
Lance Cpl. Ryan J. Burgess, 21, of Sanford, Mich.
Lance Cpl. Ryan L. Mayhan, 25, of Hawthorne, Calif.
Burgess and Mayhan died Dec. 21 while conducting combat operations in Al Anbar province, Iraq. They were assigned to 3rd Battalion, 4th Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division, I Marine Expeditionary Force, Twentynine Palms, Calif.
For further information about these Marines, please call the Twentynine Palms public affairs office at (760) 830-3760.

James Brown is dead. I'd like to think that a more thoughtful post could follow these first impressions, but perhaps not.

A debate rages about whether James Brown ended up doing more harm than good to soul music. That's a testament to his enormous capacity for political and personal self-destruction. For the man who announced, transcendently, that he was black and proud to shill for Nixon was unthinkable. Similarly, his drug, alcohol and women abuse infused the ugliest personal demons into a political context, thanks to the overwhelming political and cultural fury contained within his music. This were serious infractions. The way Brown tarnished his platform gave excuses for the bigots who are too happy to conflate black liberation with marauding license.

But the frisson that travels up your back when you hear Say it loud -- I'm black and I'm proud! during a time when cities burn rather than recognize that sentiment... nothing could be more electric, and for that electric moment every promise of chanting down Babylon is fulfilled. When L.L. announces that he's got the Funky Drummer drumming, it's irrefutable testimony to the power of Brown's music to achieve true timelessness -- not as an artifact worthy of half-hearted respect, but an enduring standard of style, relevance and taste. No matter how many times the man pimped "I Feel Good," there's still the danger and possibility of Black Caesar. He paid the cost to be the boss. RIP.

Lieutenant General Raymond Odierno. Chief uniformed advocate of The Surge. Capturer of Saddam. Master of brutality. How is he at strategic thinking? Last year, when Odierno was head of plans for General Myers, I got a peek into his brain:

GOODMAN: Okay. Gentleman from The New Republic in the back.

QUESTIONER: Thank you. Sorry about that. General, you just quoted the policy — the strategy's end state, including a representative government that respects the rights of all Iraqis. How do the reports that we've been hearing about Shi'ite death squads operating both inside and outside of the Ministry of Interior fit into that? Has U.S. training and equipping of forces inside the Ministry of Interior gone to people who've gone into these operations? And what's the responsibility of policymakers and U.S. troops on the ground with respect to these forces?

ODIERNO: I can't specifically answer your question on whether equipment we've given has gone direct — I know, for example, it has not gone directly to these forces. And how many of these forces are formed — I really can't answer that question. I would leave that to the people that are on the ground.

But what I will say is we have developed the military transition teams that are with all Iraqi army forces, and we also have police transition teams that are embedded with police forces. And the intent of these — there's a number of things. First, it is to talk about and monitor how they're doing. It's also to establish and show them how we lead; to live with them, understand our way of building military forces. So it helps in them seeing what we believe are the right things to do.

In addition to this, we have partnering units with at least the military units, where we partner one battalion — a coalition battalion with an Iraqi battalion. And the reason we are doing this is so that we can walk them through how we believe — (audio break) — military operations should be conducted, along the lines of international law and moral convictions.

Now, again, I want to go back to what I said. This will take time to do this. The people of Iraq were raised under very different conditions than Western coalition forces were.

We have found them to be extremely successful. They thirst for relationships with American forces on the ground. And we have found very positive results when we interact on a regular basis with them. They have this thirst for learning. They have a respect for Western and U.S. forces and how we conduct operations.

But it's going to take some time. It's not going to happen overnight. It's education. It's leadership training. And we have these programs established, and they continue to grow. They still aren't at the level we want them to be, but they continue to grow. And I think the interaction with coalition forces is helping us.

We still have some problems, and we still have a lot — a ways to go on this. But we see progress being made.

They have this thirst for learning! And the only thing that can slake it... is a cold... refreshing... Surge!

Logan Airport. Twenty after four. Brain is still a bit pickled from the weekend. No Cambridge bookstore I could find stocks Zola's The Belly of Paris. What's with that? I ended up picking up Orwell's Down and Out in Paris and London, and, eight pages in, it was an excellent choice. At some burger joint near Harvard Square, Elana looked up from the final pages of Liar's Poker to see me half-laughing, half-coughing.

The United gate is kind enough to broadcast football on a massive flatscreen; the Giants are unkind enough to get massacred by New Orleans, 30-7. Reggie Bush rushed for 126 yards, as you've probably read already. Merry Christmas. Now it's Cincinatti-Denver. I'm going to be in this terminal for hours. I get into Dulles -- ugh -- about 8:30 or so and intend to go straight to Red Room for some proper Jewish Christmas Eve.

Meanwhile, fashionable as it is to hate on John Kerry, sentiments like these vindicate all the residual Kerry-Edwards stickers on people's bumpers. Quite a clever Churchill quip at the end, as well. It would be facile to suggest that had he explained his changing war stance like this in 2004, he'd be president -- after all, in 2004, he wasn't prepared to endorse withdrawal, and neither was the public. And he's kidding himself if he thinks that a U.S. threat to leave can coerce Iraqi reconciliation. (That might have worked years ago, but not anymore.) But Kerry's flashes of statesmanship are impressive things.

Peter.

It is young "reality-based" liberals, having watched the Bush administration's theological denial of global warming and its theological approach to the Iraq war, who today champion empiricism over ideology. In foreign policy, they prefer liberal democracy to dictatorship but doubt America's capacity to remake societies we don't understand. In domestic policy, they want a larger government role but don't share the easy optimism of Great Society liberals, who witnessed the extraordinary government-led progress of the postwar decades.

You have my number, man. Call me. Jooooiiiiin ussssssssssssss.

Attention THFTNR readers: I'll be in Boston/Cambridge this weekend. If you feel like grabbing a beer on Saturday afternoon with me and Jeff Dubner -- particularly if you want to parse the postseason moves of the Yanks & Sox -- I think we'll be in Central Square. I'll be the short fellow in the Robinson Cano t-shirt perpetually on the verge of getting pummeled by those wishing they could pummel Theo "$70 mil for J.D. Drew? Fuck yeah!" Epstein. Inquiries can be sent to my name (at) gmail-dot-com. See you there.

Lord knows I am no political scientist. But there are some big conceptual problems with Matt Continetti's cover story in the Standard this week. Continetti argues that an overlook partisan divide in America centers around what he terms the Peace Party and the Power Party. You can guess which is which. And, I suppose, it's true enough, in a banal sense. But problems lurk beneath the surface.

The evidence Continetti marshals doesn't actually hover around power as such. It has to do with war, or perhaps more accurately, militarism. He does a good job of demonstrating that Democratic voters are vastly more skeptical of military force. But the conceptual slip is in the conflation of military power with American power. Consider this paragraph:

In November 2005 the MIT Public Opinion Research Lab conducted a more specific survey. The data are revealing. One question asked whether the United States had made a mistake in invading Afghanistan in October 2001. Ninety-four percent of Republicans said the policy of regime change in Afghanistan had not been a mistake. Only 59 percent of Democrats agreed. In the MIT survey, only 4 percent of Democrats thought the war in Iraq had been worth fighting. Republicans were more likely than Democrats to support the use of U.S. combat troops, and by greater margins. This was the case when respondents were asked whether they would approve of using U.S. troops to protect oil supplies (10 percent of Democrats said yes versus 41 percent of Republicans), to spread democracy (7 percent versus 53 percent), to destroy a terrorist base (57 percent versus 95 percent), to intervene in a humanitarian disaster such as a genocide or civil war (56 percent versus 61 percent), and to protect American allies under attack (76 percent versus 92 percent). In only one area did more Democrats than Republicans support the use of troops: helping the United Nations "uphold international law" (71 percent versus 36 percent).

Now, were I to parse this data, the term I would give to the Republican Party would not be the Power Party. It would instead be the War Party. I don't mean this as a pejorative term, but as a descriptive one. The data here show that GOP voters have a deep well of support for any deployment of U.S. combat troops, whereas Democratic voters have a more circumscribed base of support. Furthermore, Continetti finds the interesting point to be one of partisan contrast. But clearly there is support within the Democratic Party for ground-force deployments; and within the Republican Party, support is deep but not inexhaustible -- 41 percent is quite a high number for sending the 1st Armored Division to take the Dharan oil fields, but it's not even a majority for a baseless act of imperialism. And indeed, the gap narrows quite a bit on the genocide question.

But notice that the question is a question about ground troops. It's not even a question about air or sea power. It's not a question about intelligence capabilities. And it's certainly not a question about other aspects of American power, like alliance-building, diplomatic engagement or negotiation or economic influence. If the real question Continetti wants to address is a question of power, here's where the rubber hits the road. Military force is only the most overt and explicit aspect of power. Ask a question about, say, whether the U.S. should continue its support for Israel -- perhaps the most provocative and important question of America's indirect reach of power -- and you'll find a substantial amount of Democratic head-nodding. In short, much like in Britain in the late 19th century, or Gaullist France, early 21st century America is defined politically by different conceptions of imperial management. One is radical and one is cautious. You can guess which is which.

Then there's the deeper question. If we're going to talk about military enthusiasms, Continetti owes it to his readers to spend some time grappling with the wisdom of GOP militarism. There are nearly 3,000 American consequences, and more to come, of this predilection. What has it gained America? What did it gain America to invade Lebanon in 1982? etc. Sometimes the exercise of military force is justified (Afghanistan, the Gulf War, we can debate the Balkans) and sometimes it isn't (Iraq Iraq Iraq Iraq Iraq). Relying on military force all the time is a recipe for rapidly increasing the sphere of circumstances in which it becomes necessary. And in a democracy, that isn't even sustainable for the War Party --if nothing else, ask a GOP congressman as he cleans out his office. Continetti implies that there's a patriotic rot in the sentiment that "American power is not always a force for good in the world." But of course it isn't always a force for good in the world; one should question the judgment of those who would issue such blandishments. For it's clear enough where they lead: to war, again and again and again.

You know whose opinion on a troop surge in Iraq I've been dying to hear? Oh, shit, McKivergan -- you knew! It was Al Haig's! It totally was!

In a true heh-indeed-er, McK just let Haig rip with no commentary. It was a silence that said, "This is Al Fucking Haig talking! You know who that is? If 50 Cent was elected president, he'd bring Haig out of retirement for another go-round at Foggy Bottom! So shut the fuck up and listen! Haig, spit that shit!"

Mike O'Hanrahanrahan says: "Although it has been said before about previous new years, it seems very likely that 2007 will be make or break time in Iraq."

Insults don't come more direct and unrestrained than this:

By Jim Garamone
American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, Dec. 21, 2006 - Elmo and the characters of Sesame Street are going to give Americans at large a chance to see what military families go through when their loved ones deploy to war zones.

Sesame Street will air "When Parents Are Deployed" on most Public Broadcasting System stations Dec. 27. Armed Forces Network stations will air the special in January.

"The special focuses on giving people an understanding of the sacrifices servicemembers' families make in a deployment," said Barbara Goodno, a senior program analyst with the Pentagon's Office of Family Policy.

In Reuel's New York Times op-ed ("Surge and attack the Sunnis first; then most of the Shiites"), there's this questionable assertion:

Mr. Sadr and his radicalized followers — temperamentally, they are as much children of Saddam Hussein as are the savage Sunnis who glorify the murder of Americans and Shiite civilians — are unlikely to become peaceful players in Iraqi politics. But Mr. Sadr’s reputation can be reduced and his charisma countered if ordinary Shiites have more moderate alternatives, backed by American power, who can protect them from insurgency-loving Sunnis and death-squad Shiites.

Why believe this? If the U.S. throws its weight behind Hakim -- which is what we're talking about, really, if we're talking about "more moderate alternatives" -- Sadr's charisma is way more likely to grow. Sadr's calling card is his family history; his unyielding anti-occupation stance; and now his willingness to murder Sunnis. All of a sudden his chief rival joins with the occupation and begins purging fellow Shiites. As Tony Shadid has shown in Night Draws Near, there isn't a single Shiite political figure that can hope to match Sadr's political charisma. Setting up a pale alternative in Hakim, in all probability, will unite the fracturing Sadr movement and convince the mass of Iraqi Shiites that the U.S.-sponsored political process that so far has worked to the Shiites' benefit holds nothing for them but the choice of collaboration or death. (Furthermore, I don't quite understand what Gerecht's end-state for Sadr is in this scenario, but let's leave that aside for the time being.)

The big lacuna right now is the groundless and dangerous belief that there's some option out there that can simultaneously strengthen Shiite power and weaken Sadr. Guess what: Sadr is Shiite Iraq now. He is the player that matters. He is the one to whom people want to give their loyalties. Believe whatever you want about the strength of Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, but Sadr will outlast him. If we're talking about a surge, a last push, an 80-percent solution, a New Way Forward, or what have you, get used to the idea of your sons and daughters dying to protect the power and the privilege of Moqtada Sadr.

UPDATE: From today's Washington Post:

"At this time, whoever has his hands with the Americans or Jews is not an Iraqi," said Hussein, as he chopped up cubes of lamb. "So how could Hakim put his hands with the Americans? There will be tensions because Sayyed Moqtada Sadr is a revolutionary man, like his father. Even if Hakim tries to come back to Sadr, Sadr will never receive his hand."

No. 1301-06 IMMEDIATE RELEASE
December 20, 2006
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DoD Identifies Army Casualty

The Department of Defense announced today the death of a soldier who was supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Staff Sgt. Brian L. Mintzlaff, 34, of Fort Worth, Texas, died Dec. 18 in Taji, Iraq, from injuries suffered when his Bradley Fighting Vehicle rolled over.He was assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 8th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division, Fort Hood, Texas.

The incident is under investigation.

For further information related to this release, contact the Fort Hood Public Affairs Office at (254) 287-9993.

Let's talk about Rocky Balboa.

It manages to be worse -- way worse -- than even a revival of the Rocky franchise has a right to be. Truly, Rocky Balboa should be studied in courses on Derrida, because rarely has a film so undermined its own subtext. The painful, undisguised allegorical element of Rocky Balboa, of course, is Sylvester Stallone's inability to accept the end of his stardom. So he sends out an SOS to the past, calling on his most beloved character to tell you and I: Hey, if you wanna see Rocky still compete, and you know he ain't too old, well, I mean, I'm just sayin'...

The truth, however, is that Rocky has nothing to say beyond that vulgar screen-test message. Again and again the movie flirts with making its supporting characters real, or giving Rocky a broader pallete, but then decides... no. Should Mason "The Line" Dixon parallel Rocky, in the sense that neither of them got the respect they deserved? ... Nah, not really -- just give Rocky a guy to punch. Should Rocky's son show the same internal fortitude that Rocky himself showed in Rocky I, in order to bring the story full circle, and demonstrate that the boxing ring truly is an allegory? ... Nah, not really -- just give Milo Ventimiglia a couple scenes. OK, if we're not going to do that, should Steps become Rocky's surrogate son, and heir to his emotional strength? ... Nah, not really -- let's just have the audience laugh at Rocky's attempt to deal with an inter-racial teenager in 2006. All that's left is naked, manipulative references to the earlier movies: running up the steps, punching the carcasses in the meat locker, drinking the raw eggs, a sports-training montage. Suddenly it occurs: ah, so this is why Sylvester Stallone's career is over.

There were some enjoyable moments, if not many. I'm a sucker for dogs, and the movie features an adorable dog for a couple minutes of screen-time. There was also -- no, it was really just the dog. The dog, Punchy, is the highlight of the film. I suppose a close second is Max Kellerman's cameo, just because I went to summer camp with his brother Jack. Really not much beyond that. The two incredibly cute bartenders at Zengo gave me a free drink for suffering through the movie, and that wasn't bad. Ah well. Stallone should have done Rambo in Iraq instead.

No. 1300-06 IMMEDIATE RELEASE
December 20, 2006
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DoD Identifies Marine Casualty

The Department of Defense announced today the death of a Marine who was supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom.
Cpl. Joshua D. Pickard, 20, of Merced, Calif., died Dec. 19 while conducting combat operations in Al Anbar province, Iraq. He was assigned to 2nd Assault Amphibian Battalion, 2nd Marine Division, II Marine Expeditionary Force, Camp Lejeune, N.C.
Media with questions about this Marine can call the 2nd Marine Division public affairs office at (910) 450-6575.

My homey Chris Hayes asks an important question:

So why is it the word oil never crossed the lips of any of the reporters at today's press conference?

Reporters and editors, in my experience, don't want to appear conspiratorial. Asserting that we wouldn't care at all about the Middle East if it had no oil is, for a variety of reasons, the language of conspiracy. I would suggest that the U.S. has a fraught history with seeing itself as an empire. Empires tend to seek to maximize their control over the world's natural resources. Oil is the prime natural resource necessary to power the global economy. This is pretty basic stuff.

However, it also cuts against American self-perception as an "empire of liberty," and it also raises the unfortunate and unpalatable prospect of perennial imperial mobilization and scramble. The history of imperialism is a trail of tears for everyone. Better to have an empire and not face up to it. And here the press has an important role: describing the Middle East as a "vital region," without making explicit why that is. You can have Bush shout himself hoarse that we, say, can't allow al-Qaeda to control an oil-rich nation, and the press can dutifully report that he said it. What the press isn't very good at -- for reasons of preserving its position of influence within mainstream American self-perception -- is pointing out the implications of why America seeks to deny its adversaries control of the world's most important resources.

Cue up David Ignatius. He's come around to the position that "America's security interests are not served by remaining indefinitely as an occupying power in Iraq." OK, so what now?

A radical approach to Iraq is to try to visualize an American presence that would be sustainable whether things went well or badly. What would it look like? For starters, we would treat Iraq more like a normal country. Americans would be in a fortified embassy compound rather than the Republican Palace. U.S. troops would be redeployed so that they could assist allies and punish enemies, rather than remaining hunkered down in the midst of a civil war, providing easy targets to both sides. The United States would pull back enough to have some freedom of maneuver. But it would remain engaged enough that it could intervene quickly to prevent a bloodbath. It would set red lines rather than try to dictate events.

What's radical about this at all? Ignatius's plan is... Zalmay Khalilzad's. Earlier this year, I thought it was as good a diplomatic approach as was available. But it didn't work. Faced with that, it won't do to say Americans would be garrisoned in Iraq to do... God-knows-what. How do we enforce "red lines"? The Iraqi government is killing Sunnis right now; and Bush is throwing his weight behind that very government. All else has failed. The only, only, only option is withdrawal. But you see now why I'll never have a Washington Post column.

Zengerle once asked where the Bob Dylan of the war on terror is. Myself, I would nominate Sleater-Kinney, whose 2002 One Beat would probably be considered shrill by The New Republic -- having the misfortune of being prematurely correct, in their view -- but is an absolute classic and was the right album at the right time. But it did make me wonder what had happened to punk rock -- the real, 180-proof, basement-show hardcore punk -- that it hadn't really produced music up to its subject matter. How could the Balkan massacre have produced Aus-Rotten but the war on terror hadn't?

Enter Behind Enemy Lines's brand-new record, One Nation Under The Iron Fist of God. Oh my God -- I'm blasting it into my brain via my iPod right now, and by track five it's clear that this is what punk rock in the age of Bush needs to be. Windows kicked in, storefronts smashed wide open, trash cans set aflame, tear gas canisters releasing their contents into the winter air, too late for compromise, too early for victory; but everyone is now a combatant. Way too shrill for TNR. It helps that these guys were in some of my favorite DIY hardcore bands of my youth: the Pist and Aus-Rotten. I was listening to this while I walked Kingsley, and even the dog seemed angrier, ready to sink his teeth into Dick Cheney. When a record can inspire a good-natured animal into a frenzy of exploded frustration, Zengerle has an answer.

No. 1297-06 IMMEDIATE RELEASE
December 19, 2006
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DoD Identifies Army Casualties

The Department of Defense announced today the death of three soldiers who were supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom. They died of injuries suffered when their HMMWV struck an improvised explosive device while on mounted patrol Dec. 16 in Taji, Iraq. They were assigned to the 1st Squadron, 7th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division, Fort Hood, Texas.

Killed were:

Staff Sgt. David R. Staats, 30, of Pueblo, Colo, died Dec. 16 in Taji, Iraq.

Spc. Matthew J. Stanley, 22, of Wolfeboro Falls, N.H., died Dec. 16 in Taji, Iraq.

Pfc. Seth M. Stanton, 19, of Colorado Springs, Colo., died Dec. 17 in Balad, Iraq.

For further information related to this release, contact the Fort Hood public affairs office at (254) 287-9993.

Lance Cpl. Matthew W. Clark, 22, of St. Louis, Mo.

Lance Cpl. Luke C. Yepsen, 20, of Kingwood, Texas.

Both Marines died December 14 due to injuries suffered from enemy action in Al Anbar Province, Iraq. Clark was assigned to 2nd Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment, 3rd Marine Division, III Marine Expeditionary Force, Kaneohe Bay, Hawaii. Yepsen was assigned to 1st Tank Battalion, 1st Marine Division, I Marine Expeditionary Force, Twentynine Palms, Calif.

Media with questions about Clark can call the Hawaii public affairs office at (808) 257-8870. Media with questions about Yepsen can contact Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center Twentynine Palms public affairs office at (760) 830-5472.

Elliot -- a long-lost bandmate/scenemate/ex-ex-friend -- passes along this hidden gem: Football Outsiders' Aaron Schatz is a closet post-hardcore enthusiast.

God, I've forgotten how great Spitboy were. I'm listening -- as you can probably tell from the hed -- to their split LP with Los Crudos, and yes, I put on the Spitboy side before the Crudos side. Anyone know where I can get a copy of True Self Revealed again?

No. 1293-06 IMMEDIATE RELEASE
December 19, 2006
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DoD Identifies Marine Casualties

The Department of Defense announced today the death of two Marines who were supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Lance Cpl. Nicklas J. Palmer, 19, of Leadville, Colo.

Capt. Kevin M. Kryst, 27, of West Bend, Wis.

Palmer died Dec. 16 while conducting combat operations in Al Anbar province, Iraq. He was assigned to the 1st Combat Engineer Battalion, 1st Marine Division, I Marine Expeditionary Force, Camp Pendleton, Calif.

Kryst died Dec. 18 from wounds received while conducting combat operations in Al Anbar province, Iraq. He was assigned to Marine Light-Attack Helicopter Squadron 267, Marine Aircraft Group 39, 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing, I Marine Expeditionary Force Camp Pendleton, Calif.

Media with questions about these Marines can call the Camp Pendleton public affairs office at (760) 725-5044.

Tagged with the "Five Things You Don't Know About Me" meme. Let's see.

1. I have a ridiculously soft spot for the Statue of Liberty. My mother made the mistake of taking me to see her when I was a toddler, and for the next -- oh -- four, five years I insisted on going all the time. Even now, when I'm in Brooklyn and drive Ma to the Fairway in Red Hook, I can see her and I get choked up. Before I know it, I've been transfixed for five minutes, reflecting on her majesty.

2. I may hold a record for the number of times by a white person stopped/accosted by police and never arrested. I'm up to something like six, all of them in high school. On two of these occasions -- one in Brooklyn, the other in Philadelphia -- the cops threatened me with severe physical violence; and the Brooklyn cop, part of the notorious Abner Louima-abusing 70th Precinct, told me that if he ever saw me again, "no one ever would." I cut off my liberty spikes as soon as I got home from school. On another, in Danbury, Connecticut, I had to lie face down in the street, fingers interlocked behind my back, as three cop cars disgorged their cargo, all of whom had guns drawn at me and my bandmates. It was out in front of the club where we were supposed to play our first show. A punk-rocking time was had by all; my bassist was the only one charged, and the charges were quickly dismissed.

3. I once baked and served a batch of vegan cookies for a swap meet/record fair at ABC No Rio that had glass in them. The problem was that I had a jar of soy lecithin in my locker at school, and it ended up cracked under a textbook. There was no chance of getting another jar in time, and I needed those records -- it was like the first Charles Bronson seven-inch and the One Eyed God Prophesy album had just come out. My friend Sam and I picked out the notable shards of glass and figured, ok, let's just work with what we have. We got to ABC, warned our friends not to eat any of the cookies, and served. The cookies were a gigantic hit. As we were driving away, with not a single casualty to our names, our friend Jesse's girlfriend (name long since lost to me) took a bite of an errant leftover cookie and immediately started squirting blood from her mouth. A shard of glass had lodged itself in her tongue piercing. Win some, lose some.

4. I went through about an 18-month hard-right phase in college. It makes sense to me why ex-leftists & liberals do this -- everyone they know is either a fellow leftist or liberal, the arguments get either parochial or sectarian or sedate, and the intellectual frisson of taking a vastly unfamiliar position is thrilling in a juvenile way. For awhile I tried to justify it to myself that I was just a libertarian, but when I went on an Institute for Humane Studies summer seminar, it was clear to me that I was a conservative. I shuddered and slouched back to liberalism, but not before I slept with an engaged woman from Bari, a coastal Italian city, who was ten years older. As a result, I'll always have fond memories of conservatism.

5. I once filmed an impromptu, amateur Mentos commercial in Amsterdam in order to see the Dandy Warhols for free. My friends Gaston and Michael -- Michael is the aforementioned bassist against whom charges were dismissed -- and I flew to Paris for spring break 2001. The two of them loved the Dandys; I was lukewarm. They set to work goading me into using my New York Press credentials into linking up with the Dandys' European tour, and soon enough, I was yelling into payphones at promoters, insisting that I had four days to meet up with the band, and both my photographer and online guy had to get there as well. We had tickets waiting for us in Brussels, when Gaston met Zia McCabe's then-fiancee-now-husband Travis, who was selling t-shirts. An exchange of controlled substances occurred, and Travis happily offered to get us in free to the next day's show in Amsterdam.

We hopped on a Eurail and sped out. Fast forward a couple of hours and a few mind-altering substances, and we spied the Dandys in a Japanese restaurant near the club doing an interview. We couldn't remember if Travis had indeed promised to get us in free, so we decided to take matters into our own hands. This meant something audacious. Michael and I would hold up to the restaurant's plate-glass window a homemade sign reading SHOW SOLD OUT -- GET US IN FREE? while Gaston filmed on his digital videocamera. When we got the band's attention, Michael and I would each pull out a tube of Mentos, tip our chins like they do in the commercials, and we'd all share a laugh.

This is much harder than it seems when you're extremely high.

But sure enough, it worked, the Dandys doubled over laughing, and we got into the show for free. At one point during their set, Courtney Taylor-Taylor requested some candy from the audience, and Gaston threw him a Mento. It turns out that the only Mentos we could find in the tourist district of Amsterdam were black licorice. Courtney remarked, truthfully, "These taste like shit."

OK. I tag Kanishka, Adrienne, Heather, Justin, and Jen.

You know that feeling when your favorite band puts out a new record and it's the greatest thing you've ever heard? In a different context, that's how I feel right now. Hooray!

Eric puts on my jam! No offense to George, with whom I'm friends and have absolutely no beef.

Marine Major Ben Connable asks an important question in his New York Times op-ed: shouldn't advocates of withdrawal from Iraq think through what the effect of withdrawal would be? Why, yes, we should -- in fact, we have an obligation to do so. So allow me to offer a brief response.

Connable argues that we have sufficient evidence from Falluja -- in between the aborted April 2004 siege and the November 2004 invasion -- to see what an Iraq free of U.S. forces would look like. I rather agree. His picture is this:

The insurgents celebrated their self-described victory and exploited the withdrawal for propaganda purposes. Baathist-led insurgents used the opportunity to establish training camps and weapons caches in the farmland and along the river banks while other groups, including Al Qaeda, smuggled in fighters, suicide bombers and money to support operations in Ramadi, Falluja and Baghdad. Western Iraq became a temporary haven for criminals, terrorists and thousands of local thugs who made up de facto mini-regimes in the absence of a stabilizing force.

When the Seventh Marines returned to western Anbar it was essentially forced to retake some of the towns it once controlled. Many local Iraqis were openly hostile; the battle for the hearts and minds of the population was set back months, if not years. With the politicians murdered, local civil administration was almost nonexistent and any influence held by the central government was lost.

I concede every point in every particular. The trouble with Connable's scenario is that he draws no distinctions among what the insurgency is and what America's interests are. To disaggregate, the Sunni insurgency consists of Sunni ex-Baathists, Sunni Baathist-revanchists (that is, those fighting for a Baathist return to power), Sunni indigenous jihadis, Sunni non-Baathist anti-Americans, and Sunni non-Baathist anti-Shiite forces. To their ranks are added Sunni foreign fighters, including al-Qaeda. In practice, the distinctions are not always so hard and fast.

However, one distinction that's always held is the one between Iraqis and foreigners. And here Connable leaves out an important bit of the picture from Falluja during the relevant timeframe. The longer Fallujans got to know al-Qaeda, the more they hated them. What kept them united was the occupation and its collaborators.

So, then, what would happen if the U.S. left? Presumably, the foreigners and the Sunni Iraqis have a common interest in fighting the Shiites at this point. Lots and lots and lots of Iraqis will die. But at least in the near term, what we would see is the use of al-Qaeda in the Iraqi civil war, as opposed to the exfiltration of al-Qaeda forces to the U.S. or to Europe. (I would probably expect that if the civil war becomes a regional war, al-Qaeda would attack Shiite strongholds in, say, Iran, the Dharan province of Saudi Arabia and perhaps even Lebanon.)

And that leads to an important point: withdrawal from Iraq will most likely lead to the deaths of large numbers of Iraqis -- which is already happening in the civil war. This is not to be minimized or wished or explained away. But it is to be distinguished from deaths of Americans at the hands of al-Qaeda. Remember as well that al-Qaeda fighters are not the greatest: Ghaith Abdul Ahad documented both the disillusionment by Fallujans with the foreigners and their relatively poor military skills. In short, the Sunnis have reason to ally with al-Qaeda in a civil war or against an occupation; but when al-Qaeda starts to do something they don't like, the Sunnis will defeat them themselves -- unless they continue to face an external threat from Shiites or from Americans. In short, without us in Iraq, al-Qaeda holds a losing hand.

I'll be going to Iraq next month to investigate this myself. It may very well be that when I see conditions on the ground I'll need to adjust my analysis. But I would submit that the U.S.'s primary interest in Iraq is to prevent the growth of al-Qaeda's power -- and that the only way we can do that is by leaving. This won't lead to nice, lovely consequences: I once believed it was possible to save Iraqi democracy through withdrawal, but the civil war has obviated all that. What is possible is to prioritize what our interests are and to advance them: not a salvation of the Iraqi political process or the fledgling Iraqi military, but the deliverance of a setback to al-Qaeda. That happens if we go, not if we stay. If we follow Connable's advice, we weaken our military in the name of a futile mission that hurts, not helps, our interests. We have to say: No.

Welcome to your rights as an American citizen detained under mistaken pretenses in Iraq. You have no right to an attorney to challenge the basis for your detention. You have the right to sleep on a worn foam mattress on a concrete floor. You have the right to florescent lighting blasting your cell at all times. You have the right to be kept in 50-degree conditions at all times. You have the right to be kept as long as the U.S. military determines you should be kept.

I'll be going to Iraq next month (insh'allah) and will be studying the terms of my embedding contract very carefully.

Welcome to the redesign, courtesy of J'myle, who's a goddamned genius.

Someone explain to me the logic of trading Melky Cabrera for Mike Gonzalez. Marchman? Dad? Gonzalez's numbers are pretty good for the National League. Repeat: for the National League. Melky, on the other hand, is a great franchise player. With the departure of Sheffield, I would much rather have Matsui & Giambi platoon at DH and Bernie on the bench than Melky gone. Even if you put Matsui in left, give Melky time at left or even center. I can see getting rid of Melky for someone really special, but the Yankees have a very good bullpen at this point, and on balance, Gonzalez hardly seems worth it.

No. 1288-06 IMMEDIATE RELEASE
December 17, 2006
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DoD Identifies Army Casualty

The Department of Defense announced today the death of a soldier who was supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Staff Sgt. Theodore A. Spatol, 59, of Thermopolis, Wyo., died of a non-combat related illness in Thermopolis on Dec. 14. Spatol was assigned to the 1041st Engineer Company, Rock Springs, Wyo.

For further information related to this release, contact the Wyoming National Guard Public Affairs Office at (307) 772-5253.

So, why must JTF-GTMO take a harder line on detainees, Admiral Harris?

He and Colonel Dennis both asserted that Camp 4 — where dozens of detainees rioted during an aggressive search of their quarters last May — represented a particular danger.

Admiral Harris said detainees there had used the freedom of the camp to train one another in terrorist tactics, and in 2004 plotted unsuccessfully to seize a food truck and use it to run over guards.

“Camp 4 is an ideal planning ground for nefarious activity,” he said.

No. I've seen Camp 4 with my own eyes. It's true that it's the least-restrictive camp in Guantanamo Bay's Camp Delta complex. What that means is that there's some communal living and a recreation yard in Camp 4, luxuries unavailable at the other five camps and reserved for the most compliant detainees. But. Any time there's any vehicular movement anywhere in Camp Delta, men with guns are right there. There is no chance -- none at all -- that any plot to hijack anything anywhere in Camp Delta would have a prayer of success. It would be an act of suicide. The idea that the detainees were attempting to do this is either a) a lie, or b) a frightening indicator of their total desperation.

OK, enough blogging. It's time for Ezra's party.

No. 1286-06 IMMEDIATE RELEASE
December 16, 2006
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DoD Identifies Army Casualty

The Department of Defense announced today the death of a soldier who was supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Pfc. Paul Balint Jr., 22, of Willow Park, Texas, died Dec. 15 in Ar Ramadi, Iraq, of injuries suffered when his unit came in contact with the enemy using small arms fire during combat operations. He was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 37th Armor Regiment, 1st Brigade Combat Team, 1st Armored Division, Friedberg, Germany.

For further information related to this release, contact the 1st Armored Division public affairs office at 011-49-611-705-4859.

I had a choice to make at 14 years old, faced with a fixed income and no chance for another year at working papers: records or comic books. For as long as I could remember, comic books had been with me, from the Peter David run of the Incredible Hulk to the excellent early Shooter-Lapham days at Valiant to anything Grendel-related to Cerebus. I waited 28 long days for another 22 pages of Sandman, right as people were starting to think there was something about this Neil Gaiman fella. You get the idea. There was a new sheriff in town, and it was punk rock. Crunch the numbers any way you want, but you still have to choose between the Blanks 77 picture 7" and the latest Hellblazer. I chose the records.

Now, however, I make my own living. And I can afford both hardcore records and comic books. Were you to ask me a year ago if I would eagerly give my paycheck over to Profane Existence and Fantom Comics, I would dismissively say you should check with my 18-year old self. Now I'm asking myself if I really need that Behind Enemy Lines record on CD -- so it can easily be imported to my iPod -- or on vinyl, the form that punk rock was meant to be heard on. (I take that back. Punk rock is meant to be heard on a fourth-generation cassette, and I don't know how you kids will make do now that you have no cassettes. Vinyl is the ideal form for album artwork. Imagine the Crass Feeding of the 5000 without the massive poster.) Now I'm arguing with the guys at Big Monkey about when exactly you could have redeemed the career of Rob Liefeld. Now I'm a vastly bigger nerd -- as Kate observed when Kriston and I got home from the comic store -- than I ever was.

And I say: fuck it. Embrace nerdiness if nerdiness is the brilliant new record from Tragedy, Nerve Damage. Jesus tapdancing Christ, now that's some serious hardcore. It helps, I think, to have stepped out of the scene for seven years, so the intermediate steps hardcore took to yield up the perfected incarnation of Tragedy are completely unfamiliar. This is hardcore as it was intended to be: stripped down, furious, intelligent, DIY and, above all -- this one's for you, Sam -- brutal.

Also embrace nerdiness if nerdiness is the Ultimate Marvel Universe. (As it surely is.) Basically, for those who, like me, had no idea what this was until a few months ago, Marvel created an alternate universe where writers -- principally the brilliant Mark Millar -- could re-start Marvel characters from year zero. The Fantastic Four could be teenagers. Nick Fury could look like Samuel L. Jackson, and S.H.I.E.L.D could function as a supremely powerful military juggernaut. Thor could be an anti-globalization activist. Beast could be a character that doesn't suck. You get the idea. Ultimate Galactus is a form of comic book perfection plucked right from the essence of Jack Kirby. A lust for these books has inspired a long argument between myself, Kriston and Yglesias about whether Iron Man could in fact take out the X-Men. (The caveat being no Jean Grey and no Professor Xavier.) This later became a somewhat inappropriate consideration of which of our ex-girlfriends could beat up which of our other ex-girlfriends. For Catherine, a house filled with exclamations of "oh, dude! Wolverine and Jean finally hook up?!!" must be a living hell. But this is a joy forgotten in the onset of (an apparently temporary) maturity.

No. 1285-06 IMMEDIATE RELEASE
December 15, 2006
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DoD Identifies Army Casualties

The Department of Defense announced today the death of two soldiers who were supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom. They died Dec. 4 in Ar Ramadi, Iraq, of injuries suffered from small arms fire while conducting security and observation operations. They were assigned to the 1st Battalion, 9th Infantry, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division, Fort Carson, Colo.

Killed were:

Pfc. Albert M. Nelson, 31, of Philadelphia.

Pfc. Roger A. Suarez-Gonzalez, 21 of Miami.

The incident is under investigation.

For further information related to this release, contact the Fort Carson Public Affairs Office at (719) 526-3420.

On Tapped, Schoomaker's people respond.

NEWS RELEASES from the United States Department of Defense

No. 1284-06 IMMEDIATE RELEASE
December 15, 2006
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DoD Identifies Army Casualty

The Department of Defense announced today the death of a soldier who was supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Spc. Nicholas P. Steinbacher, 22, of La Crescenta, Calif., died of injuries suffered when an improvised explosive device detonated near his HMMWV in Baghdad, Iraq, on Dec. 10. Steinbacher was assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 5th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division, Fort Hood, Texas.

For further information related to this release, contact the Fort Hood public affairs office at (254) 287-9993.

So... Rumsfeld has his farewell ceremony at 1:15 this afternoon at the Pentagon, and with his exodus, his handpicked Army chief of staff, General Pete Schoomaker, goes on a bit of a tear: