It Was Never About Rove

Matt Drudge is kvetching about the slowness of the left-blogosphere in reacting to the announcement that Karl Rove will not be charged with any crimes in the Plame investigation, but regular readers of Antiwar.com will not be surprised by this turn of events — because we reacted to it last summer. See here, here, and here. As I wrote nearly a full year ago:

“What if Karl Rove isn’t guilty of knowingly leaking Valerie Plame‘s name as a covert CIA agent involved in nuclear proliferation issues? What if Rove’s lawyer, Robert Luskin, is correct when he says that he’s been assured by prosecutors that his client is not a target of the ongoing investigation into Plame-gate? I’m going to swim against the tide, here, and against the expectations of my readers, by suggesting that this investigation isn’t about Rove – and, furthermore, that Rove is a victim, in an important sense, someone who was used and abused by the real culprits. And who are these mysterious culprits? We’ll get to that in a moment …”

And, a few days later:

“It’s not about Rove, Bob Novak, Judith Miller, or any of the other bit players caught up in this maelstrom. It’s about a small group of strategically placed players in the national security bureaucracy who functioned as a two-way transmission belt of treason: feeding the White House, Congress, and the American public a steady diet of lies in the guise of “intelligence,” and, in the other direction, feeding vital U.S. secrets to its foreign sponsors and allies …”

Patrick J. Fitzgerald isn’t done, though: his investigation points in the direction of the Office of the Vice President, and, while I’m not making any predictions, several Cheney aides are no doubt preparing for the worst. Antiwar.com was on to Scooter way before anyone else — and there are others in that crowd who would do well to consult their lawyers. Stay tuned ….

Some Job

Regarding the Haditha massacre, we have been told by the Pentagon that 99.9 percent of soldiers perform their jobs magnificently. Let’s hope not. What is their job? It is to kill people and break things. The job of U.S. soldiers is to bring death and destruction to people in a country that was no threat to the United States. Some job. It would be better if it was only .1 percent that were doing their job.

Good News for al-Qaeda? and a Prophetic Post

Is the death of al-Zarqawi good news for the US military? Or is it good news for al-Qaeda?

Reports from April indicate that Zarqawi had been “demoted” within al-Qaeda. Huthayfah Azzam, son of Abdullah Azzam, the mentor of both Osama bin Laden and Mr. Zarqawi, said Zarqawi was stripped of his political duties two weeks ago due to concerns that his actions were hurting the Iraqi insurgency’s support in the Arab world.

On Wednesday, June 7, a mere 24 hours before the announced killing of al-Zarqawi, this piece was posted on Strategypage.com:

Zarqawi Scheduled for Martyrdom

The relationship between terrorist leader Abu Musab al Zarqawi and and the mainline al Qaeda leadership continues to deteriorate. Zarqawi’s recent audio messages have not only attacked the U.S. and the Shia-dominated government in Iraq, but also Iran. He’s even claiming that the U.S., Iran, and Shia in general, are in cahoots to destroy Islam. He has also called for continued attacks against Shia.

Except for his verbal attacks on the U.S. and the Iraqi government, he is almost totally distanced himself from the central leadership. Other al Qaeda leaders have been trying to down play anti-Iranian and anti-Shia rhetoric, and have been strongly discouraging attacks on civilians.

Given that Zarqawi has become a loose cannon and that his actions are handicapping Al Qaeda’s efforts, it seems reasonable to expect that an accident may befall him at some point in the near future. If handled right it can be made to look like he went out in a blaze of glory fighting American troops or that he was foully murdered. Either way, al Qaeda gets rid of a problem and gains another “martyr.”

General Bill Caldwell has revealed that US forces relied on information that came from within Zarqawi’s own organization.

No doubt the home-grown Iraqi insurgency is glad to see Zarqawi go. But it is also very likely that StrategyPage.com is correct that they have lost a problem and gained a martyr.

Turning Point #10

That’s David Weigel’s count, anyway:

It’s fantastic news that U.S. forces have killed a terrorist who murdered hundreds or thousands of Americans and Iraqis in cold blood. It’s definitely not wise for pundits to take that news and bash Iraq War skeptics over the head with it. Doing so has become a ritual after every milestone in the war – the fall of Baghdad (and the Saddam statue), the killing of Uday and Qusay, the capture of Saddam, the transfer of power to the provisional government, the victory in Fallujah, the killing of al-Zarqawi’s deputies, the first election, the second election, the third election, and now the killing of al-Zarqawi. Every time, when victory didn’t swiftly follow, support for the war and faith in America’s Iraq policy ebbed a little further.

10 major turning points! That’s more than most countries have in a century! Awesome. Can we leave now?

In all likelihood, no. The violence will continue in Iraq, as we learn that Zarqawi wasn’t as indispensable to the insurgency as the Pentagon made him out to be. (Show of hands, warbloggers: how many of you know that Ho Chi Minh died in September 1969?) The ongoing slaughter will, of course, mean that we must stay the course. Some other world-historic something or other will happen, the warbloggers will celebrate, nothing will change, ad infinitum.

So Long as It’s NIMBY

Radley Balko has done some excellent work covering the militarization of law enforcement in the War on Drugs. In his most recent post on the subject, he includes a letter written by a man whose niece was shot and killed by a gung-ho cop “during a drug raid that went to the wrong address.” It’s a good letter, on the whole, but I’m struck by the assumptions underlying one part of it:

I don’t want illegal drugs in my community or in any other, but I also fear what possibly poorly trained, led and informed paramilitary types with the supposedly legal authority to swoop down upon us, without any warning, can and might do. I believe those in our police departments who enjoy playing these types of games need to be removed from law enforcement and encouraged to join the U.S. Army.

Hmm… what does this say, without really meaning to, about the average American’s perceptions of (a) the U.S. military and (b) the relative worth of American and foreign lives? Because what I’m getting is

(a) Let’s put all our trigger-happy psychos where they belong – not prison, but the Army,
(b) Where they can do the exact same thing to Iraqis, Afghans, or the residents of any of the other numerous places graced by U.S. bases.

Now before you write me some nasty letter about my smearing the troops, note that I’m simply boiling down the thoughts of a random American, who was presumably not trying to make an anti-military statement of any kind. I’ve heard similar comments my whole life from people who I’m sure considered themselves pro-military, things like We oughta put those gangbangers in the Marines, where they can do some good. Well, good news: apparently, some of them are “giving back to society,” as reported by the Chicago Sun-Times:

The Gangster Disciples, Latin Kings and Vice Lords were born decades ago in Chicago’s most violent neighborhoods. Now, their gang graffiti is showing up 6,400 miles away in one of the world’s most dangerous neighborhoods — Iraq. …

Of paramount concern is whether gang-affiliated soldiers’ training will make them deadly urban warriors when they return to civilian life and if some are using their access to military equipment to supply gangs at home, said Barfield and other experts.

And gangbangers looking for a paycheck and weapons training aren’t the only baddies drawn to “the service.” From a 1999 profile of Eric Harris:

Eric Harris thought about war, fantasized about war and wrote about war. He was thrilled when he heard, one morning in philosophy class, that the United States was on the verge of bombing Yugoslavia. Rebecca Heins, who sat next to him, remembers Harris saying, “I hope we do go to war, I’ll be the first one there.” He wanted to be in the front lines, he said. He wanted, as he put it, to “shoot everyone,” Heins recalls.

Harris said that morning that he hoped he would get drafted. But then he took direct action to improve his chances of becoming a real warrior: He tried to enlist in the Marines. He seemed a good candidate, physically trim and extremely smart. But he was not destined to storm a beach or parachute behind enemy lines in the uniform of his nation.

On a visit to his home April 15, Marine recruiters learned from Harris’s parents that their son took a powerful antidepressant called Luvox.

Harris had explicitly stated on his application that he did not take any prescription drugs, so the Marines rejected him.

Five days later, Harris and his buddy Dylan Klebold staged their own private war at Columbine High School, killing 13 people before they finally killed themselves.

Yes, it’s true Harris was turned down – for lying about taking an antidepressant. Had he not been taking the drug – which clearly had no positive effect on him anyway – what would have stopped him from enlisting? The same institutional safeguards that weeded out (oops!) Timothy McVeigh and John Allen Muhammad?

Not every member of the U.S. military is a McVeigh, Muhammad, Harris, or Vice Lord. (The point is so obvious I shouldn’t have to mention it, but I will.) But is it any wonder that the massive standing army of a country that routinely aggresses against others, and whose public shows little concern for the lives and property of foreigners, will attract and/or produce such men?