Used To Be Big News

US Special Forces raided a house in Somalia and killed an Al Qaeda leader purportedly linked to the African Embassy bombings in 1998.

Helicopter-borne US special forces carried out a revenge raid in Somalia that killed a top al-Qaida commander high on the FBI's most wanted terrorist list, US officials in Washington said last night.

Saleh Ali Nabhan, 28, a leader of al-Shabab, a group closely linked to al-Qaida, was alleged to have been involved in the bombings of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998 that killed 229 people. He is also accused of involvement in attacks in 2002 on a hotel in Mombasa, Kenya, popular with Israelis, in which 15 people died, and a botched missile attack on a plane carrying tourists from Mombasa to Israel.

A US official said two men travelling in a car in Somalia were killed when helicopters opened fire yesterday, and two others were wounded and captured. Another official said it was most likely that Nabhan, who had been on the FBI wanted list for several years, had been killed.

Also yesterday, the FBI rolled up a terror cell in New York City with swift action, obtaining an emergency warrant and briefing the relevant committees in Congress while arresting members of the cell.

I seem to remember a breathless day of news reports every time the Bush Administration captured or killed the #3 in Al Qaeda, which they claimed to do with regularity. Also, the media would get alerted about some major terrorist event thwarted, which would quickly fall apart upon scrutiny (they were trying to blow up the Sears Tower! I mean, talking about it. I mean, they couldn't afford to get from Miami to Chicago. I mean, never mind).

Doesn't seem that the Obama Administration uses these arrests or raids for political purposes, just to carry out orders. There may be issues with their methods, but they aren't being exploitative. I don't think the 9-12ers will be satisfied that the Administration is doing what pretty much everyone wanted to do on 9-12; that is, capture suspected terrorists and stop attacks before they happen.

Bring On The Privateers

Ron Paul has a supa-awsom plan to stop piracy off the Somalian coast - Hessians! Fuckin' Rambo armed to the teeth Hessians!

A little-known congressional power could help the federal government keep the Somali pirates in check — and possibly do it for a discount price.

Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) and a growing number of national security experts are calling on Congress to consider using letters of marque and reprisal, a power written into the Constitution that allows the United States to hire private citizens to keep international waters safe.

Used heavily during the Revolution and the War of 1812, letters of marque serve as official warrants from the government, allowing privateers to seize or destroy enemies, their loot and their vessels in exchange for bounty money.

The letters also require would-be thrill seekers to post a bond promising to abide by international rules of war.

We're supposed to dangle money as a kind of X Prize to get mercenaries to do the work of the foreign policy apparatus? Because private military contractors in Iraq worked out so well? And isn't Ron Paul the guy who doesn't want the federal treasury spending one penny?

Aha, but he has a cunning plan. You see, the privateers would get to keep the treasure they get from the pirates. That sweet, sweet treasure.

But privateering was essentially government licensed piracy. Say, we're at war with the French. Congress gives me a letter of marque and then I have the US government's permission to go out and capture French ships on the high seas. I then bring the French ship back to a 'prize court' and if everything's in order, it's mine and I get to sell it [...]

Now, there are a few problems with this. But here's the big one. Are you going to fit out a a group of small armed warships in order to vie for the chance of bringing in and being able to sell off some inflatable motor boats piloted by a few Somali 'pirates'? Maybe you could even sell one of their outboard motors on Craiglist?

Now, this think tank conservative from the Competitive Enterprise Institute recognizes that the pirates have no treasure, and they would have to be subsidized with bountys (which I'm sure would result in a very competitive bidding process). But he thinks it's a snappy idea anyway!

“If we have 100 American wanna-be Rambos patrolling the seas, it’s probably a good way of getting the job done,” said Competitive Enterprise Institute senior fellow and security expert Eli Lehrer. “Right now we have a Navy designed mostly to fight other navies. The weapons we have are all excellent, but they may not be the best ones to fight these kinds of pirates. The only cost under letters of marque would be some sort of bounty for the pirates.”

This is the same type of corporate lobbyist trying desperately to get Robert Gates to keep the military budget bloated and focused on massive weaponry, even though the challenges of the 21st-century are increasingly failed states and pirates.

Conservative logic is so convoluted it makes my head hurt. But I gather that Ron Paul actually believes this stuff. He thinks the "free market" has a better chance of stopping pirates than actually addressing the root causes of piracy.

Remember, he got more votes than Rudy Giuliani, and he kicked off this tea party movement.

Stop The Anarchy, Stop The Piracy

Obviously, the three shots to the head have not deterred the pirates in the Gulf of Aden from continuing their pillage. They hijacked four more ships on Tuesday and attempted to board another US boat, but failed. They are armed with not just guns but rockets, according to the report from the Liberty Sun.

Obviously the US Navy has superior equipment and skills and can deal with such attacks and hijackings if needed. But it's simply impractical to guard the entire ocean when the problem remains on land, in the lawless region of Somalia where piracy represents the only economic opportunity. Russ Feingold wrote to the President yesterday asking him to address the root causes of this piracy, unlike the Bush Administration, who exacerbated them.

As you know, piracy off the coast of Somalia is a symptom of the state collapse and instability on land; thus, any military actions we take will only be stopgap measures. In recent Congressional testimony, Director of National Intelligence Blair and Defense Intelligence Agency Director Army Lt. General Michael Maples cited lawlessness and economic problems on land for the rise in piracy at sea. The ultimate solution to the problem of piracy, then, is the establishment of a functional government that can enforce the rule of law. During the rule of the Council of Islamic Courts in 2006, there was a notable decline in piracy that can be attributed, in large part, to the rise of a central authority in southern Somalia. Without replicating the repressive rule of the Courts, we must keep in mind that establishing a central governing structure in Somalia is critical to resolving, not just stopping, the problem of piracy [...]

I met with President Sheik Sharif during a trip to the region this past December, just before his election, and met last month with the new government’s Foreign Minister here in Washington D.C. In both meetings we discussed the importance of an inclusive process to unite Somalia and the importance of U.S. support to achieve that goal.

Just as you have personally become engaged in the problem of piracy off Somalia’s coast, it is essential that you personally engage in U.S. efforts to address its origins on land. As a first step, I urge you to call President Sheik Sharif and indicate a clear commitment to work with his government not only on maritime insecurity issues, but also to help establish security and functional, inclusive governance within the country. This should be coordinated with other levels of engagement and complemented by ongoing discussions with our regional and international partners on a comprehensive plan to support this transitional government and stabilize Somalia.

I actually disagree with Feingold in part, and I think he disagrees with himself. President Sheik Sharif is a moderate member of the ICU, and has some manner of legitimacy in the country despite his ties to that "repressive" regime. Anyone with legitimacy is favored over Ethiopian invaders or a puppet transitional government. You have to make peace with the group that can secure it.

Matthew Yglesias has a good piece laying out the historical markers at The Daily Beast. Military action by the Bush Administration has CONTRIBUTED to the rise of piracy in the region, and it should not be replicated. Instead, we need to support, or just leave alone, those who can move the country into some semblance of stable governance. Jeffrey Gettleman has more.

Let's Get Them

John Bolton never passes up an opportunity to start another war:

FOX HOST: Ambassador, if you were serving in this administration, would it be your recommendation that they go in to, militarily with air strikes and/or boots on the ground, into these so-called feral cities, where these pirates are taking hold? Should we go in and take those people out, and take their installations out, now, militarily? Is that what you’re suggesting?

BOLTON: Yes. … Unless we go in and really end this problem once and for all, we will simply see it grow over time.

This is the same John Bolton, of course, who opposed the Clinton Administration efforts to prevent a failed state in Somalia.

Bolton isn't completely wrong - the crisis in Somalia absolutely feeds piracy. But a full-scale ground invasion that would FURTHER destabilize the area, if that's possible, clearly won't solve the problem. Unfortunately, I don't think the Administration has the political will to do what's necessary. Yes, they're talking about attacking pirate bases and aiding the Somali government both with economic development support and the kind of funding to go after the problem themselves, and they appear mindful of the need to get local support before doing anything. However there's nothing resembling a comprehensive solution, which would have to include a political accommodation that would be acceptable to a broad consensus of the Somali people, which probably means including the ICU. I'm not saying that would be at all easy to get, but there doesn't seem to be any attempt to try. Which turns the whole situation into a discussion about appropriate levels of military force.

In a related development, Rep. Donald Payne (D-NJ) saw his plane out of Mogadishu fired upon, allegedly in retaliation for the pirate deaths. Obviously, letting the piracy problems grow to this level means that such attacks are inevitable, but the significant work of nation-building, not nation-destroying, must be the response.

...and, um, this was not a military victory for Obama. Nor was it a military test for Obama. He followed the standard protocols and let the professionals do their work. If that's a victory, fine.

Daring Rescue

Nicely done.

An American ship captain was freed unharmed Sunday in a swift firefight that killed three of the four Somali pirates who had been holding him for days in a lifeboat off the coast of Africa, the ship's owner said.

A senior U.S. intelligence official said a pirate who had been involved in negotiations to free Capt. Richard Phillips but who was not on the lifeboat was in custody.

Phillips, 53, of Underhill, Vermont, was safely transported to a Navy warship nearby.

This is obviously great news. Now hopefully we can orient US policy to stop piracy at the root, on land in Somalia instead of through great expense and effort on the high seas. It's not that our military is incapable of defeating this menace, as this rescue shows. But a legitimate government and economic opportunity in Somalia could save our military from 4-day standoffs in the Gulf of Aden when there are additional threats worldwide.

...apparently the Navy pulled an Ali-Foreman on the pirates. According to this report the Somalis ran out of ammo.

By Land, Not By Sea

As we wait another day for the resolution of this hostage situation by the Horn of Africa, it's worth understanding the nature of the piracy problem off the Somali coast, which has exploded over the past several years. Matt Yglesias, who unlike most people in the media has actually written a fair bit about Somalia, has a great short piece on this, and at the risk of just reiterating it let me just summarize his two basic points.

First, it's a big ocean, and no amount of sophisticated monitoring systems or military patrols will be able to proactively stop pirating. If the areas near the coasts become secure, the pirates just move out further into open water. You're not going to secure the entire 70-odd percent of the planet covered by the oceans. And accompanying every shipping container with a military protector vessel is impractical.

Second, the way to end piracy is to provide opportunity for the pirates on land. Somalia has essentially had no government for close to 20 years, and the money that can be made from piracy significantly dwarfs the money that can be made on land.

To make a long story short, to curb the Somali pirate problem you need to fight them on land. This was recognized by everyone back in December but it hasn’t materialized since nobody really wants to try to mount a serious operation to bring Somali territory under control. And far be it from me to question that decision. I don’t want to either. But given that reality, while we can try to mitigate the pirate problem at sea, we’re never going to resolve it and suggestions that the Obama administration should snap its fingers and make this problem go away are absurd. What we need to do is wait until such time as someone or other establishes some kind of coherent control over Somali territory and then deal with piracy issues as part of our relationship with that person / group / organization or whatever it may be.

Unfortunately, the last time it appeared that a coherent de facto government was emerging in Somalia—the Islamic Courts Movement—we helped sponsor an Ethiopian invasion that plunged the country back into chaos. We need to stop doing that!

Ian Welsh concurs. Peace can only be had with the groups that can secure it. The Ethiopians couldn't hand off Somalia to a transitional government that had no legitimacy. The new "unity government" in Somalia actually includes some more moderate ICU members, and they've vowed to deal with the piracy problem, if they get some funding help. But the hardliners in the al-Shabab movement continue to fight. The Obama Administration apparently is watching al-Shabab closely, but hasn't come to a decision. I don't think we know if the unity government has the legitimacy inside the country among the people yet, but I think striking the al-Shabab camps at this point wouldn't help matters. Whatever the case, there needs to be a larger effort to understand the problems on land in Somalia as a means of stopping the problems at sea, as Russ Feingold has been saying for years.

“With more than a thousand miles of coastline along the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean, however, increased maritime patrolling can only do so much. Until stability, the rule of law and effective governance are established, Somalia will remain a safe haven for these pirates. Moreover, until a functioning economy can be established, piracy will remain the most lucrative business in the region.

Look For The Union Label To Kick Your...

Earlier this morning, the big news was that Somali pirates attacked and hijacked a US-operated container vessel in the Indian Ocean, with 20 crewmen on board. As it turned out, the crew regained control of the ship and put one of the pirates into custody. Go American shipping container crewmen! And, as it turns out, go unions.

...it's important to note that like all the people involved with the safe landing of US Airways Flight 1549 in the Hudson River in January, the crew members of the Maersk Alabama are union members. The unions in question are the Seafarers International Union, which represents 12 of the 20-person crew, the Marine Engineers’ Beneficial Association (MEBA), and the International Organization of Masters, Mates & Pilots (MM&P). As former safety chairman of the Airline Pilots Association, Chesley Sullenberger, the hero pilot of Flight 1549, fought to make sure his colleagues got the training they needed to do what he did in January. And as I just heard on Fox News (and confirmed with the SIU), crew members of the Maersk Alabama received anti-piracy training from (where else?) their union.

Surely that message won't get lost on the corporate media, which welcomes advertisers who organize against union membership and anti-busting efforts like the Employee Free Choice Act? Surely the go-America jingoists will point out this key piece of information?

World Report

This has been a long time coming.

• Gaza: Gazans are quickly rebuilding the smuggling tunnels, making one wonder why 1,300 Palestinians had to die in what amounts to a large war crime, for no strategic gains. This of course hurts the chances for peace from Israel's perspective as well, as Bibi Netanyahu can demagogue that the current leaders "didn't finish the job" in Gaza, and as Prime Minister, he would. It's a sad pattern that wars embarked upon by "liberal" Israeli politicians do nothing but strengthen the hand of neoconservatives. I find the American engagement into the peace process promising, but without any partners, its success will be limited.

• Zimbabwe: Yet another failure to form a unity government while the countryside suffers from hyper-inflation and cholera attacks. Mugabe simply won't give up power, and the long-term crisis under his rule have to be a factor in the other nations in the region forcing his removal. I can't see how he stays on. There's a Southern African Development Conference summit this week - the other nations have a responsibility to the Zimbabwean people, let's see if they commit to it.

• Iraq: I have no idea what Ryan Crocker thinks he's accomplishing with this statement, warning against an "abrupt troop withdrawal" while simultaneously assuring everyone that Obama isn't doing that. Thanks, Ambassador, for boldly warning against the impact of a non-existent takeover of the government from a non-existent liberal hippie brigade calling for a non-existent immediate airlift of every US soldier. God, these guys are incompetent.

• Somalia: Nobody could have predicted that, when the Ethiopians invaded Somalia, they would soon pull out and leave the country to the same Islamists they went in to "vanquish." I hope the new Administration learns that you work for peace with the elements in a country who can actually enforce it. Creating "transitional authorities" never works.

• China: Man, the Chinese authorities don't mess around when their corporate executives screw up, do they? The death penalty for the head of the dairy implicated in the tainted milk scandal? Ouch.

• Congo: This is very good news in the bloodiest conflict in the world (also the bloodiest one you never hear about):

It seems the government of Rwanda cut a deal with the government of Congo to form an agreement to crack down on Hutu militias the Rwandans don’t like and have Rwanda turn on its proxy, the rebel leader Laurent Nkunda who Rwanda used to fight the Hutus but who’d been making all sorts of trouble and attempting, as Rwanda-backed rebels in Congo tend to, to overthrow the central government.

This is generally seen as an unexpected but positive move. Among African nations who are weary of war, perhaps Congo is the weariest.

• Sri Lanka: It looks like the Sri Lankan army is going to wrap up a successful counter-insurgency, now seizing Tamil Tiger strongholds and breaking the back of the rebels. Somebody should pay a visit to Colombo and find out how they did it. Hopefully the civilian casualties in this long-running war will stop.

World Report

Been a while since I got into this.

• Iraq: The speaker of the Parliament has been officially ousted in a move that doesn't seem to bother anyone, not even the speaker, who was kind of a loose cannon. But if anything, it's a symbol of the political power plays that have gripped the country for the past six months, leading into provincial elections. The Prime Minister is surely consolidating power, using a narrow amount of goodwill engendered by security gains to muscle his competition for power. Maliki wants a strong central government because he's at the head of it, while the Sunni and Kurdish factions want their own authority and independence.

“Maliki is monopolizing all the political, security and economic decisions,” said Omar Abdul Sattar, a Sunni member of Parliament. He listed political parties that he said were turning against the prime minister, including a powerful Shiite party, the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, which is fighting Mr. Maliki’s drive to centralize power in Baghdad and pushing to give more to the provinces — where the party has important power bases, particularly in the south. “It’s simply the story of the transformation from a democratic prime minister into a dictator,” he said.

Given Iraq's history with dictatorships, and the fractious nature of ethnic and sectarian divides in the country, this is a natural state of affairs, which is why the hopeful talk of democratic transformation in the heart of the Middle East was always such rubbish. We invaded Iraq to remove a dictator so they could eventually install another one, this time with a more overtly religious cast. Not that Iraq was a threat to the United States beforehand, but it's hard to see how this made our country any safer, especially when factoring in the human and financial costs.

• Israel: I'm very worried that full-scale fighting is about to break out between Israel and Hamas in Gaza. Hamas ended its cease-fire last week, and has been lobbing dozens of rockets into Israeli territory. Since Hamas' electoral victory, Israel has sealed off the Gaza strip, turning it into essentially a large prison. Egypt, which has been offering aid and assistance to the Palestinians in Gaza, wants to mediate a truce, but I don't think it's likely. There is a faction in Israel that sees crushing Hamas as part of the road to peace - and that's the LESS hawkish faction! This is going to explode in the next several days. Very worrying.

• Japan: The Pacific Rim nation is mired in another deep recession, as industrial output cratered and deflation appeared imminent. Japan was growing largely on the back of American consumption of their goods the past few years, and so this was inevitable. As America's rise back to prominence is tied to stimulating a home-grown industrial base, it's hard to see how Asian nations like this improve unless we give up and try to return to an unsustainable consumption model again.

• Somalia: The President of the transitional (read: powerless) government is resigning. By next year, I gather that you will see the Islamic Courts Union back in power here. Ethiopia will pull all their forces out in the next few weeks, and there is little to stop the ICU. And so a US-sponsored war will have produced nothing but more bloodshed and the rise of a powerful cadre of pirates, who reduced global economic trade through thievery. It was a shortsighted solution lacking a regional context, and it failed totally.

• Guinea: I'm not going to lie and say that I am perfectly well-versed about Guinea (not to be confused with Guinea-Bissau or Papua New Guinea), but they've had a coup by a military junta, which is the 10,834th of the military-led coups in Africa since, oh, last week. The latest in Guinea followed the death of a longtime dictator, Lansana Conte. The cycle of coups and state-sponsored repression is so commonplace on the continent, that it's hard to find a glimmer of hope. The African Union is simply not a strong enough institution to deter the practice.

• Europe: European leaders are talking about accepting some Guantanamo detainees as a gesture of goodwill toward the new President. Obama is going to have a global honeymoon period where he can really get a lot accomplished, and closing Gitmo should be at the top of that list as pertaining to foreign policy. One possible red flag is the persistence of Robert Gates at the helm of the Defense Department. He is being sued by Guantanamo detainee lawyers for signing a false affidavit that allowed him to sidestep disclosure of torture. That will not help any charm offensive. Pro Publica has a good roundup of the year in Gitmo here.

Yo Ho, Yo Ho, A Pirate's Life For Me

Like most people, I'm completely gobsmacked that Somali pirates can take over a giant oil tanker and plunder enough to make $150 million a year in ransoms. But as Matt Yglesias notes, this is a failure of policy as well as just something to snicker at.

In particular, at the end of the day it’s not easy to fight pirates at sea. The ocean is extremely large, boats move around, and circumstances are generally unfavorable to law enforcement. You need to fight the piracy on land. If you tried to run a pirate ring out of San Diego, you wouldn’t get very far — there are police in southern California. But Somalia has, obviously, been in a state of political chaos for a long time now. And when the country looked like it was heading for a measure of political stability under the Islamic Courts Movement, the US decided it would be smart to back an Ethiopian invasion-and-occupation of the country that ultimately wound up resulting in more chaos than ever. But whatever you think of the past, going forward you would ultimately want to solve this issue on land. In other words, by creating some kind of political stability in Somalia.

Interestingly enough, it's the Islamists who are stepping into the vacuum and claiming that they will now fight the pirates. If they succeed they will have the trust of a nation and probably a free hand to regain power, until we decapitate them again. That would be a mistake. It would be far better to create stability rather than let anarchy reign. That means that you make peace with those who can keep it.

...that said, if the pirates want to buy Citigroup that's OK with me. As long as my ATM card still works. (warning: parody ahead!)

World Report

Because I'm almost out of here, I'll just mash these together, but they're all important, and would all merit a post of their own.

• So the ruling party in Pakistan chose Benazir Bhutto's widow, Asif Ali Zardari, to be their President. Of course, when Bhutto was Prime Minister, she and Zardari bilked the country for millions upon millions. Zardari doesn't want to reinstate Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, the head of the Supreme Court, because Chaudhry might then arrest him. So this is cutting a wedge through the fragile coalition. The former Prime Minister, Nawaz Sharif, wants to slash the Presidential power before Zardari accedes to the position. Sharif's Muslim League also wants Chaudhry back on the bench. Pakistan is a mess, and a mess we can't afford right now.

• While George Bush finally came around on a withdrawal timeline, he's still not all the way where Muqtada al-Sadr needs him to be:

The debate over a deal that would chart the future of U.S. troops in Iraq has reignited the rhetoric coming from Shiite Muslim cleric Muqtada Sadr, who denounced the plan Friday for not setting a firm date for American withdrawal [...]

Iraq's government spokesman, Ali Dabbagh, reiterated Friday that any departure of U.S. troops was "subject to Iraqi national security" and that the dates were hypothetical. The final departure date "will be jointly set" by Iraq and the United States, he said, downplaying suggestions that the draft was the final deal.

At the weekly prayer service in Sadr's Baghdad stronghold of Sadr City, chants of "No to the agreement!" rang out through loudspeakers positioned along the street. Worshipers responded with applause and repeated the chant as the service ended and people drifted away [...]

At prayer services across the country, Sadrist preachers said any deal struck with the Americans was a blow to Iraq's sovereignty. In Sadr City, listeners agreed.

"Everyone is talking about how it will really serve the interests of the Americans, not the Iraqis," said Mohammed Fadim, whose well-stocked grocery store overlooks the wide avenue where worshipers knelt side by side in prayer. "Everyone knows the U.S. administration. Once they occupy a country, if they want to make an agreement to stay, 80% of the terms will fulfill their interests."

This is bad news. Sadr leads a cultural movement regardless of who holds the guns, and Maliki was pushed to a timeline in the first place because of pressure from the Sadrists. If Sadr turns against a deal pushed by the Parliament, Maliki's team will be crushed in the provincial elections. Just the act of getting this ratified (Maliki is going through the Parliament) could rip the country to shreds. Not good.

• In a neglected corner of the "war on terror," Somalia is going to crap.

Islamic militants said Saturday they had seized control of Somalia's third largest city after three days of fighting that left about 70 people dead and saw thousands flee Kismayo.

The Islamic courts movement, which controlled the capital, Mogadishu, and much of the south for six months in 2006, said it wrested control of the southern port city of Kismayo from clan militias.

The ICU never really stopped fighting, as the US paid little or no attention, despite the fact that Somalia, with almost no real government and extreme poverty, is a hotbed for extremism. This goes down as another failure of Bush-era foreign policy.

• Russia is leaving Georgia. Mostly leaving. Georgia is apparently disputing the checkpoints Russia has set up in Georgian territory. It's a bit dodgy, but to characterize it as the greatest crisis since the Cold War is king of nuts.

World Report

Actually, quite a few things have been brewing on the world stage over the past couple days, and so, you know, here they are:

• I've heard this Osama bin Laden is dead canard several times, but not from a Taliban commander in Pakistan. Of course, there's not really any accountability for this, and no telling whether or not it's true.

• Ehud Olmert, the Prime Minister of Israel, may be bumped right out of the government after new allegations that he took over a hundred and fifty thousand dollars in bribes from an American businessman over fifteen years, much of which funded his personal lifestyle. Ehud Barak and others have called upon Olmert to resign. This could completely upset any hope for peace talks and change the complexion of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Major news, stay tuned.

• The Presidential candidates are saying all the right things on Darfur. One of the three isn't exactly trustworthy, but hopefully the next Presidency will reflect a change in policy.



• After an IAEA report criticizing Iranian behavior and potential concealment of their nuclear weapons program, the Iranians have threatened to limit their access even further, which was the whole point of the IAEA report. This threat came from Ali Larijani, the former top nuclear negotiator who is now the new Speaker of the Parliament, which is an odd place for a major critic of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, if you believe that he's a dictator and not merely a functionary in a government ruled by the Supreme Leader. With any luck, Bush will leave in favor of Obama in January 2009, and Ahmadinejad, who is unpopular due to economic difficulties, will be voted out the same year, and we'll have a chance for a saner policy between both nations.

• Good news in Nepal, where the monarchy has been abolished, to a massive celebration in the world's most recent secular republic. Freedom is on the march - especially if you don't intervene in sovereign countries and demand it.

• Bad news elsewhere. Somalia is as close to a state of total anarchy as there is in the world, and when you add global economic recession and a world food crisis to that mix, you could have a total collapse with mass death. There's almost no hope there.

• There's been a spasm of violence against immigrants in South Africa, leading the government to consider refugee camps for those displaced by rioting. I hope this isn't a sign that global hate is on the rise.

• Oh, and there's Iraq. The Sunni bloc has suspended talks to re-enter the government, and Muqtada al-Sadr has very cannily called for the Iraqi people to vote on any security arrangement between Iraq and the United States, burnishing his carefully cultivated image as a nationalist man of the people.

That's a lot of stuff!

World Report

Every so often I look at the world, and make a report. This is that report.

• Zimbabwe is the biggest hell hole on Earth. Inflation is over 100,000% annually. You actually need a wheelbarrow to carry around money. And in a country dependent on international food aid, the ruling party of Robert Mugabe is using food aid as a weapon to force the public to vote for them. "No ZANU Card, No Mealie Meal," as Hilzoy puts it. I'm sickened. Among the many insufferable dictators around the globe, Mugabe may be the worst, and I would have little problem with a humanitarian intervention to force equal distribution of food aid.

• Speaking of dictators and Africa, a leader of the Janjaweed militia is finally admitting what everyone already knew, that he received his orders to rape and murder the Darfurians from the Sudanese government in Khartoum, as well as heavy weaponry. Even though this has been assumed, it's the first time a Janjaweed leader has gone public.

• So desperate to reach any kind of fig leaf of a deal in the Middle East that would signify something resembling a "legacy," the Bush Administration is now talking about allowing Hamas to participate in talks with Israel, using Egypt as an intermediary. This is mainly about negotiating a cease-fire, not some overarching agreement on Palestine. But the softening stance is probably a good thing in the long run.

• Speaking of Bush toning down his arrogant foreign policy, apparently they've discovered that nobody really likes Pervez Musharraf, and are stopping their praise of him, instead trying to cozy up to the opposition parties. Might be a little late for that, but of course we rarely learn out foreign policy lessons.

• So I guess a substantial number of our troops (at least a dozen) have been subject to accidental death by electrocution in Iraq, and Henry Waxman wants to get to the bottom of it. Support the troops, I believe, is the phrase. Man, they must be living in a pit over there, paid for by our tax dollars (funneled to unfeeeling corporations who do shoddy work, that is).

• The Islamists in Somalia, though defeated in last year's war, have not been vanquished, and in fact they beheaded three Somali soldiers, prompting the UN to raise alarms and plead for peace talks. Even the proxy wars Bush fights and wins are never actually won.

• There's some additional news from Tibet, where the authorities have arrested dozens inside the autonomous region and have acknowledged unrest outside the province, in other parts of China. Chinese police have shot Tibetan protesters in Sichuan province, wounding four. So far, the estimate from protests in Lhasa is 13 deaths, which is probably low. Meanwhile, the Dalai Lama sits in exile in India, and relations between India and China may grow strained as a result. It's a bad situation, but pressure must continue to be put on the Chinese government to allow for independence or at least some peaceful solution.

• And finally, Doraemon is a Japanese ambassador. When I went to Bangkok a while ago, we saw this Doraemon piggy bank in the Thai version of a 7-11. The bank was free with a hot dog, and my friend didn't want the hot dog but was willing to pay the price for the bank. The clerk refused to give the bank without the hot dog. It was an amusing cultural misunderstanding that hopefully Doraemon, in his new diplomatic role, will help to prevent.

Old Wars Get Me Bored

We've almost gone a whole term without any new invasions, which is just so ordinary. Finally, the Bush Administration has snapped out of it and decided to spice things up.

The U.S. launched an airstrike Monday on a Somali town held by Islamic extremists to go after a group of terrorist suspects, U.S. defense officials said.

Three missiles hit Dobley, a town four miles from the Kenyan border, destroying a home and seriously injured eight people, police and witnesses said. The remnants of an Islamic force that had once ruled much of southern Somalia took over Dobley last week.

"It was a deliberate, precise strike against a known terrorist and his associates," one U.S. military official said in Washington, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to comment on the record.

That's not entirely new, of course, since we ran a proxy war with Somalia last year, using the Ethiopian army, and have bombed suspected Al Qaeda targets on the Horn of Africa in the past. The fact that we're still having to provide ordnance after that war was supposed to be "over" suggests that the Islamists are still alive and well.

But the NEW war could be in South America, where Hugo Chavez has massed troops on the border with Colombia.

Venezuela and Ecuador ordered troops to their borders with Colombia, sharply raising tensions after Colombia killed a top rebel leader on Ecuadorean soil.

President Hugo Chavez on Sunday promised Venezuela would respond militarily if Colombia violates its border, where he ordered tanks as well as thousands of troops. He also ordered closed Venezuela's embassy in Bogota.

Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa said he deployed troops to the border while also withdrawing his government's ambassador from Bogota and expelling Colombia's top diplomat.

''There is no justification,'' Correa said Sunday night, snubbing an earlier announcement from Colombia that it would apologize for the military incursion.

Seems like a clear case of Colombia violating Ecuador's border sovereignty. And this might just be posturing. But consider - The White House has wanted to depose Chavez for years. They even aided an attempted coup back in 2002. Colombia's major donor of military aid is the United States. Of course, most of that goes to fighting the useless Drug War. But the mix of a US-backed government in a threatened war with Venezuela is combustible. Watch to see if we send any "advisors" down there in the next few weeks.

They've Already Won The Iran Debate

We're having a debate about Iran in this country, a debate between reason and utter insanity. It's clear that the Cheney Administration has found the next Hitler in the guy who controls the traffic signals in Tehran; and they will be relentless in fostering a climate of fear in the American pschye, designed to turn them into a quivering mass who will submit to their father-protectors. Whether or not this is the work of the mentally ill is besides the point. The point is this:

Every day we talk about Iran is one less day we're talking about Iraq.

This has been a classic distraction strategy from the very beginning. I mean, yes, we all know that the Administration is crazy enough to unilaterally strike Iran and bomb what they perceive to be an imminent nuclear threat. So sure, you have to counsel patience, you have to ask for direct talks, as Chuck Hagel did today, or you cede the debate to the neocons in the White House and their enablers in the Senate, and end up with a situation where the public is on board with an attack on Iran, beyond all reason. But all of that energy expended on rebutting the Iran claims doesn't go to ending this tragic occupation in Iraq, which, contrary to wingnut belief, has not magically turned the corner. Indeed, there has been no movement whatsoever on the political front, with the country due to lapse into a warlord state where local gangs fight for power at the local level. But none of these cases are being made, crowded out by the drumbeat to Iran.

Did you even know that the Democrats are considering dropping another $50 billion on Iraq before they go home for the recess? There's no way to organize around that when it barely registers a peep. I don't know if Bush wants to attack Iran or not. What I do know is that it is a great way for him to tie everyone up in knots around the question, so that he can say that Congress wasted its time trying to stop the occupation without repercussions. I think the strategy to fearmonger around Iran is less about scaring the Iranians and more about scaring the Democrats and the American people. Scaring them into silence.

Because the truth is that what we're witnessing is the collapse of Bush's foreign policy, although you wouldn't know it. Throughout the world, from an increasingly violent Pakistan, where every public official is a target, to a Turkey on the verge of an invasion of Kurdistan, to Somalia, which has become so restive that the prime minister has quit, to Afghanistan, where our airstrikes are angering the population and our poppy eradication tests are driving citizens into the arms of the Taliban, to Egypt, which has decided on the exact same program as Iran on nuclear energy, which could escalate proliferation in the Middle East by exacerbating Sunni-Shiite tensions (why is it OK for Egypt to get civilian nuclear energy and not Iran, you can hear people say).

None of this is being discussed in any serious fashion because everyone has gone code red on Iran. This is by design, because it's precisely the moment where the Bush foreign policy is at its lowest ebb.

The Bush administration once imagined that its presence in Afghanistan and Iraq would be anchored by friendly neighbors, Turkey to the west and Pakistan to the east. Last week, as the situation in Iraq and Afghanistan continued to deteriorate, the anchors themselves also came loose [...]

After Sept. 11, when the Bush administration launched its global “war on terror,” the United States enjoyed some clear assets in fighting the al-Qaida terrorist network. In the Middle East, the United States had the support of secular Turkey, a NATO member. The long relationship of the powerful Pakistani military with that of the United States enabled Bush to turn the military dictator Musharraf against the Taliban, which Pakistan had earlier sponsored. Shiite Iran announced that it would provide help to the United States in its war on the hyper-Sunni Taliban regime. Baathist Syria and Iraq, secular Arab nationalist regimes, were potential bulwarks against Sunni radicalism in the Levant.

Like a drunken millionaire gambling away a fortune at a Las Vegas casino, the Bush administration squandered all the assets it began with by invading Iraq and unleashing chaos in the Gulf. The secular Baath Party in Iraq was replaced by Shiite fundamentalists, Sunni Salafi fundamentalists and Kurdish separatists. The pressure the Bush administration put on the Pakistani military government to combat Muslim militants in that country weakened the legitimacy of Musharraf, whom the Pakistani public increasingly viewed as an oppressive American puppet. Iraqi Kurdistan’s willingness to give safe haven to the PKK alienated Turkey from both the new Iraqi government and its American patrons. Search-and-destroy missions in Afghanistan have predictably turned increasing numbers of Pushtun villagers against the United States, NATO and Karzai. The thunder of the bomb in Karachi and the Turkish shells in Iraqi Kurdistan may well be the sound of Bush losing his “war on terror.”

And we're all talking about this potential war in Iran. It's a brilliant, brilliant maneuver.

I don't know what really can be done about this; it would be folly not to take Bush seriously about anything megalomaniacal. But let's be clear that saber-rattling on Iran serves multiple goals, not the least of which is wriggling out of the failed foreign policy choices that will define this Presidency far into the future.

SORT OF RELATED: I love how the US giving Turkey intelligence on the PKK guerrillas in Kurdistan is supposed to solve everything. News flash: we don't have good intel in Iraq. We rely on tips. If we had good intel we wouldn't see 100 bombing attacks a day. This isn't going to help anything.

The Global Iraq Effect

Even when excepting the death of Kurt Vonnegut, I feel like the entire world is spiraling out of control. And this flaring up of violence in numerous trouble spots is happening in direct connection to a new British report alleging that the occupation of Iraq has spawned "new terror" in the region. The headlines over the past few days show this to be undeniably true.

Just look at what's been happening over the past few days:

• 1,000 people have died in clashes in Mogadishu, where unrest and anarchy still reign after the supposedly successful effort to drive Islamic fundamentalists from the capital. Half of the city's population, well over a million people, have fled.

• Two major suicide bombings have killed dozens in Algeria, where local groups affiliated with Al Qaeda have claimed responsibility. This tracks with increasing fundamentalist activity throughout North Africa, including but not limited to Somalia.

• Just look at Sudan, where Janjaweed militia killed hundreds in eastern Chad by opening fire on villagers, moving the Darfur genocide across the border and threatening a wider war. Incredibly, this came as President Bush's Ambassador to Sudan, Andrew Nastios, claimed that there is no genocide going on in Darfur.

MENENDEZ: Do you consider the ongoing situation in Darfur a genocide, yes or no? […]

NATSIOS: There is very little violence in Darfur right now.

MENENDEZ: I asked you to answer my question.

NATSIOS: I just answered your question.

MENENDEZ: Is the circumstances in Darfur today a continuing genocide? Yes or no?

NATSIOS: There is very little fighting between rebels and the government and very few civilian casualties going on in Darfur right now.

Incidentally. 80,000 Darfurians have fled from attacks in just the past two months.

• And there's a reconstituted, newly resurgent Taliban operating from strongholds in Pakistan, bolstered by members of their group who are returning from Iraq, teaching new techniques like suicide bombing and IED attacks, and pulling off attacks with unusual sophistication and deadly force.

This is EXACTLY the type of global landscape we should expect to see given the total lack of leadership, and the harm caused by the irrational and ridiculous occupation of Iraq. Let's go back to the British report about Iraq spawning new terror:

The countries had tried to "keep the lid on" problems by military force and had failed to address the root causes, the Oxford Research Group warned.

It said Iran, Syria and North Korea had become "emboldened", while the Taleban was on the rise in Afghanistan [...]

"Treating Iraq as part of the war on terror... created a combat training zone for jihadists," it says.

Lead study author Chris Abbott said: "There is a clear and present danger - an increasingly marginalised majority living in an environmentally constrained world, where military force is more likely to be used to control the consequences of these dangerous divisions.

"Add to this the disastrous effects of climate change, and we are looking at a highly unstable global system by the middle years of the century unless urgent action is taken now."

We know the direct results of jihadist training in Iraq and how that relates to a resurgent Taliban in Afghanistan. In North Africa, the Iraq effect plays itself out in a mix of negligence, bolstered jihadist action, and a neoconservative unilateralist foreign policy which alienates allies to collectively act on behalf of the less fortunate. That we have not yet gotten a hold on Darfur is to the world's undying shame. That we used Ethiopia as a proxy to defeat Somalian Islamists without concerning ourselves with the fact that Ethiopia is hated in Somalia has led to the continued chaos in that nation. That we have given recruiting posters for Al Qaeda and jihadism every passing day in Iraq leads to events like that in Algeria (although it's also home-grown). It's not that the cauldron wasn't simmering already; what we've done is turn the heat up to 500 degrees and closed the lid tighter.

We cannot afford 22 more months of this global anarchy, where Iraq is a hot poker stoking the fires of violence in that country and all over the region. This lack of leadership is actually costing us the war on terrorism, which we are undeniably losing.

How We Doin'?

It's bad enough how much respect the United States has lost in the past six years under the current junta. What's worse is that they're still trying to make it all better, and in the process continuing the non-stop fuckitude not unlike a baby who knocks over her milk, and when they see you angry about it knocks over the applesauce too. Consider:

• After knocking off the only enemies to Iran in the Middle East, and weakening two Sunni governments while allowing a Shiite Crescent to flourish, we're now advising a Pakistani militant group to undertake terrorist strikes inside Iran. Pakistanis are mainly Sunnis, and a militant group of this stripe almost certainly has ties to at least the ISI, if not Al Qaeda themselves. In fact, the leader of the group used to fight WITH the Taliban. This is the same kind of tactic that caused the blowback which installed the Taliban in Afghanistan in the first place. We actually PAY PEOPLE to do this shit.

• We wanted to take military action to rescue the 15 British sailors who were eventually freed last week, including military strikes and moving naval carriers into position. It took Tony Blair to essentially put the US in the timeout chair to get the neocons to stop:

In the first few days after the captives were seized and British diplomats were getting no news from Tehran on their whereabouts, Pentagon officials asked their British counterparts: what do you want us to do? They offered a series of military options, a list which remains top secret given the mounting risk of war between the US and Iran. But one of the options was for US combat aircraft to mount aggressive patrols over Iranian Revolutionary Guard bases in Iran, to underline the seriousness of the situation.

The British declined the offer and said the US could calm the situation by staying out of it. London also asked the US to tone down military exercises that were already under way in the Gulf. Three days before the capture of the 15 Britons , a second carrier group arrived having been ordered there by president George Bush in January. The aim was to add to pressure on Iran over its nuclear programme and alleged operations inside Iraq against coalition forces.

This, of course, is exactly the course of action geniuses like Bill Kristol wanted the country to take, which shows that news of the neocon's demise are greatly exaggerated, and that they still run the foreign policy show inside the White House. It's just that they're making things so impossible for our allies that Britain has to practically beg them to shut up.

• Another return performance for this crowd is allowing supposed enemies to arm friends:

Three months after the United States successfully pressed the United Nations to impose strict sanctions on North Korea because of the country’s nuclear test, Bush administration officials allowed Ethiopia to complete a secret arms purchase from the North, in what appears to be a violation of the restrictions, according to senior American officials.

The United States allowed the arms delivery to go through in January in part because Ethiopia was in the midst of a military offensive against Islamic militias inside Somalia, a campaign that aided the American policy of combating religious extremists in the Horn of Africa.

Is this not Iran-Contra all over again, regardless of the more recent efforts to get a deal out of North Korea? Ethiopia is killing the people we want killed, so they can negotiate and do commerce with the same despots we assail in speeches.

It's not comforting to know that, not only has the bumbling foreign policy decisions of the White House not changed since the 2006 election, it hasn't changed since the mid-80s, still using the same belligerence, the same shady arms deals, the same pretexts for blowback, the same means to dig the same holes that have grown bigger than ever.

Don't Call It A Comeback

I'm getting sick of having to report this same sorry story:

As Al Qaeda rebuilds in Pakistan’s tribal areas, a new generation of leaders has emerged under Osama bin Laden to cement control over the network’s operations, according to American intelligence and counterterrorism officials.

The new leaders rose from within the organization after the death or capture of the operatives that built Al Qaeda before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, leading to surprise and dismay within United States intelligence agencies about the group’s ability to rebound from an American-led offensive.

It has been known that American officials were focusing on a band of Al Qaeda training camps in Pakistan’s remote mountains, but a clearer picture is emerging about those who are running the camps and thought to be involved in plotting attacks.

There's no such thing as a finite amount of terrorists. That's why hoping to capture or kill them all is a fool's errand. It doesn't mean you try to stop capturing or killing, like the President has done with Osama and the Taliban, but it means that you should understand that there are other important means to this "war" (which isn't a war, it's an ongoing police action). There's trying to fight global poverty and inequality, the stew out of which extremism spreads. There's homeland security, funding for which is part of the "pork" in the Iraq bill which is necessary and just. There's understanding where the global hotspots truly are, like in Somalia, where even more troops are needed and insurgent activity continues.

The current strategy fundamentally misunderstands the so-called "war on terror" and makes us less safe from attack. It's a sad story that I tire of retelling.

World Report

Iraq was invaded as part of a global security strategy. How are things going arounfd the globe?

Afghan women are setting themselves on fire with increasing frequency, as they prefer a gruesome death to life under an increasingly resurgent fundamentalist strain, including the Taliban.

Mortar attacks are increasing in Somalia, where the insurgency there shows no signs of letting up months after the Ethiopian army defeated the Islamic Courts Union. As Eric Martin put it:

Interestingly enough, despite Ethiopia's penchant for unrestrained brutality and disregard for international norms, as well as relatively inattentive media coverage, it appears that an insurgency is taking root and thriving regardless. To such a degree that Ethiopian forces are heading for the exits and the current Somali government can barely take up residence in the nation's capital.

Why, it's almost as if insurgencies can get by without the aid and comfort of American leftists, humanitarian groups, the UN and the treasonous Western media. One might even conclude that, at times, insurgents have goals and motivations that provide their own animating impetus - not derived solely from the domestic political situation in the occupier's home country. Imagine the implications.

Perhaps we could extrapolate that Iraqi insurgents would be fighting on regardless of whether or not Jamil Hussein is a real person, or whether or not six Sunnis were set on fire that one time?

In Colombia, Chiquita Banana Corp. funneled $1.7 million dollars to organizations listed as terrorist groups, including the FARC, who has kidnapped thousands of people over the years, including American citizens.

In one of the real trouble spots in the world, Zimbabwe, ruled by a fearsome de-facto dictator, Robert Mugabe, opposition leaders have been arrested, jailed and tortured leading up to national elections.

In Russia, practically anyone opposing the policies and the rule of Vladimir Putin gets tossed out a window.

It's reductive to ascribe all of these separate events around the world to the war in Iraq, but in many ways the US sets the tone for global leadership, and whether it's turning a blind eye to dictators and tyranny and terrorists, or giving hope and energy to insurgencies and anti-American groups all over the world, or failing to protect the most downtrodden elements of societies, we have a foreign policy that is dashed on the rocks and unable to function. We've lost our credibility, the support of our key allies, our ability toimpact world opinion, and our moral leadership.

This is a very distressing anniversary.

UPDATE: While I still believe that the Democrats have not done a good enough job articulating a coherent foreign policy strategy (the domestic one, however, is fairly robust), I agree that this is a great idea:

Democratic presidential hopeful John Edwards on Thursday outlined his plan to tackle global poverty that calls for educating 23 million children in poor countries and creating a Cabinet-level position to oversee other initiatives.

Seeking to link poverty in other countries to U.S. national security, Edwards argued that militant extremists in nations torn apart by poverty and civil war have replaced government educational systems and are teaching young people to hate the United States.

"When you understand that, it suddenly becomes clear: global poverty is not just a moral issue for the United States -- it is a national security issue for the United States," he said at Saint Anselm College.

"If we tackle it, we have the chance to change a generation of potential extremists and enemies into a generation of friends," Edwards said.

This is certainly an area where the United States can set a more moral course and kill extremists with kindness rather than bullets. And it can work. Marginalizing extremists is part of everyone's war on terror strategy. It's what I meant by using liberal ideas with conservative means; the way to promote democracy is to give people the hope that they can achieve it.

Russ Feingold is Not Holding Back

Here's what I like about Senator Russ Feingold. He's able to look at the big picture instead of making purely political statements individually. In addition to teaming with John Kerry to deliver a resolution demanding more resources go to Afghanistan (you'll probably never hear about that outside of the blogs), Feingold today laid into his fellow Democrats for inadequately fighting to put an end to the war in Iraq. This dual move is not one that can be reductively called pacifist, but instead it looks at the totality of our responsibilities around the world and comes to conclusions on each of them based on the merits. Feingold was unsparing about the war in Iraq:

Russ told us the Inside-the-Beltway consultants (the old Clinton crowd) supported this war and know now they made a mistake of great historical proportions. They "don't want to come out of this with egg on their faces" and "they are setting the parameters of the debate"-- and Democratic senators are still listening to them.

Yep, the man best qualified to be president of the United States, but who decided not to join the crowded field-- which even includes a pygmy like Joe Biden-- basically reinforced what I was afraid of: "The people of this country want this war over." And referring to the Inside-the-Beltway power-brokers, he said "It is us against them... There is consensus to end this war everywhere but in Washington. And people don't want us to slow-walk this."

What Russ said is needed now is a clear direction from Democrats so public pressure will build and effect change. "This is not a time to finesse the situation." And finessing the situation is exactly what he feels the Warner-Levin bipartisan, nonbinding symbolic resolution is. "It's loaded with language that blocks-- or at least makes more difficult-- the logical next steps" as well as endorses escalation in al-Anbar Province. To Senator Feingold the Warner-Levin resolution "looks more like a reauthorization or more like the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution" than something he could support. "Let's support binding legislation to end the war.

(Bob Geiger has more from this conference call)

On Afghanistan, Feingold clearly sees the need to stop the Taliban from reclaiming the country five years after the initial invasion. It can be argued that our neglect of Afghanistan in favor of Iraq has led to the tenuous situation in both countries.

“While the Administration moves forward with its escalation plans for Iraq, it has failed to address deteriorating security conditions in Afghanistan.” Feingold said. “We should not be reducing our forces in Afghanistan. Instead, we should be strengthening our efforts to defeat a resurgent Taliban – the same movement that harbored and supported the terrorist elements that attacked our country on 9/11.”

Citing a number of statistics showing the steep decline of conditions in Afghanistan in just the last 18 months -- Taliban attacks on United States and allied forces increased from 1,558 in 2005 to 4,542 in 2006 and roadside bomb attacks more than doubled from 2005 to 2006 -- the resolution would make the following demands of Bush:

Strengthen U.S. commitment to establishing long-term stability and peace in Afghanistan.

Maintain or increase the total number of troops serving in Afghanistan and not sacrifice that effort to bolster America's failed presence in Iraq.

Partner with the International Security Assistance Force and the government of Afghanistan and increase efforts to eradicate the Taliban, terrorist organizations, and criminal networks currently operating in Afghanistan.

Increase economic assistance to Afghanistan for reconstruction, social and economic development, counter narcotics efforts and democracy promotion.

Encourage members of the international community to deliver on their financial pledges to support development and reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan [...]

“When Afghanistan becomes a second priority or, as a senior military officer recently put it, an 'economy of force' operation, it offers a sobering example of this Administration’s misguided approach to the global fight against terrorist networks,” Feingold said. “Because of the Administration’s Iraq-centric foreign policies, we have neglected situations around the world with a direct impact on our national security, in Afghanistan, Somalia and other countries.”

Feingold's the only guy who talks about Somalia in the entire Senate, I should add.

I'm almost mad at this guy for denying me the opportunity to vote for him for President. He's the only politician on the national stage who understands the nature of the threats that we face, without overhyping them, and who will hold the President to account for ignoring those threats. And he's perfectly willing to criticize his own party when they go weak at the knees. Ultimately, I think today's events worked out well for the Democrats on a rhetorical level, but they need to actually enliven the debate by discussing a real resolution that has some specifics to it. Feingold is an important point man to bring this debate away from the Beltway consensus and toward the consensus agreement of the American people.