The bloody country has spent the past four years pissing away one opportunity after another becuase it can stop gnawing away at it's [sic] own bloody bollocks

I'm surprised you think the current U.S. administration is flexible enough at this point to gnaw away at that particular part of its metaphorical anatomy.

A thought: The unwillingness of the Bush admin to even appear on al-Jazeera, or engage with the Arab mainstream opinion at all - only really paying attention to US domestic politics - reveals the imperialist flavour to the neocon project: You don't talk to the natives on your level. Their democracy-building was democracy-imposing. The old Middle East needed to be swept out, into the dustbin of history, to make way for the New Middle East, which would be just like the West.

rather than childishly whinging on about terminology and pretending if only they don't bloody admit how bad it is, some magical intervention will somehow rescue them from the now inevitable disaster.

I seem to recall Bush recently comparing Iraq to Vietnam, but only to argue that Vietnam went badly because the public lost the will to see it through blah blah blah.

This would explain the reasoning supplied by fruitbats on the Right. Using the term "civil war" will scare the American public and ultimately result in a failure like Vietnam (again, entirely buggered perception, but there it is).

And I remember Condoleezza Rice recently saying that Iraqis should learn from how Vietnam has handled its relations with the US. I suppose she meant post 1970s, but, really, do they hire people because they're politically tone-deaf, or is that part of the job training at the White house?

Anyway, semi-on topic, I felt I had to share this mysteriously ignored little 2003 gem from one of most high-profile neoconistas in the US, Michael Ledeen. Who, I gather, has also advised the Bush admin on national security affairs. Just for a little extra taste of the lunacy.

jesus fuck...just read it...I knew he was a tosser, but not batshit insane.

Curse you alle, for linking to that article.

Dear all(e),

my comment on that article would have to be:

HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

That is truly a GEM. Good to have so it can forever be hurled into his face. I do wonder though: Has Ledeen ever BEEN to either France or Germany?

Benador Associates keeps creeping up these days ... which I do find interesting.

--MSK

Colin Powell, be still my heart:

Former Secretary of State Colin Powell has just announced that he "would call [Iraq] a civil war" and urged world leaders to follow suit. Speaking from a world leaders forum in Dubai, Powell explains that he uses the term because he likes to "face the reality." He said that he might recommend the use of the term by the administration, if he were still head of the State Department.

(via FP blog)

I knew he was a tosser, but not batshit insane

Ledeen has to take meds for three weeks to come down to merely batshit insane.

And his daughter, was it, was running a good part of Iraq for while.

MSK -- "Benador Associates keeps creeping up these days ... "

Yes they do. But it's good they promote themselves, it would be much harder to tell what agenda these people have if they didn't label it Benador. Now one can simply have a look at the members gallery to find out what worldview they're paid to be pushing.

I recognize about half or one-third of the names, and associate all with either anti-Muslim bigotry, or MENA domino-theory lunacy/neoconism, or, more commonly, both. (And oh, if it isn't Amir Taheri, of previous Aqoul fame.)

... but some seem misplaced: Saadeddin Ibrahimi, who I thought was an Egyptian good guy, Kanaan Makiya, ditto Iraqi, and Richard Pipes, whose politics I know nothing about -- maybe he's just been included because of his nutjob son. And oh fuck, what is Ayman Nour doing in there? Someone should tell him he's in bad company, and I don't mean the mafiosi he's presently incarcerated with. Even more odd considering Benador Associates' Arnaud de Borchgrave has done all he could to undermine him in American eyes.

If there's a plot, it thickens.

Dear alle,

Amir Taheri is a weird case. Even WEIRDER, however, is that he is a regular commentator of both Arab News (the #1 Saudi English-language paper) and Al-Sharq al-Awsat (where he is also the main book reviewer). I can see where the Saudis don't mind his pro-Shah credentials of the 70s, when he was editor-in-chief of the main Iranian newspaper ... but he is openly & virulently pro-Israel (in the pro-Sharon/Netanyahu/etc. sense of the word).

As for the Benadoristas - I have to confess that I am somewhat intrigued by the boss-lady. Is she the Latina equivalent of Oriana "Exterminate the Muslims!" Fallaci?

Re: Saad al-Din Ibrahim & Ayman Nur ... I wouldn't worry too much about their inclusion. We don't know at what time their were put on the list. They both were (and to an extent still very much are) domestic Egyptian personas and thus may have been picked up by Benador when the latter thought that they'd fit the general template. Ditto, btw, for Azar Nafisi.

As for Richard Pipes, well ... he does fit the mold quite nicely.

--MSK

Richard Pipes is an old-timer Cold Warrior historian of Russia and the Soviet Union. A brief bio is here, but one really has to read his stuff to get the full flavor.

Oh, yeah, Pipes was on Team B, wasn't he. The group that, while the Soviet Union was in a process of internal collapse that the CIA missed completely, was advising the government that the CIA's assessments of their capacities was dangerously understated.

Daniel did not fall far from the tree.

You have to wonder with Ledeen whether his hangin' out with Iranian assets like Ghorbanifar shouldn't be taken into account in the batshit insane adjustment.