JustinLogan.com

How to Play Tee-Ball

First, somebody puts the ball on the tee.

Then, you hit it.

Tiger Force: Back Again

Today I got an email from the fellows at thisisrumourcontrol.org (almost as good as "Liberals Against Terrorism") leading me to this link:

In October of 2003, after two years of work, the Toledo Blade newspaper published a harrowing account of Tiger Force's [JL - Tiger Force was the alleged perpetrator of some of the grossest human rights violations on our side during Vietnam] merciless patrols through Vietnam's remote and deadly Central Highlands. Good soldiers of conscience blew the whistle but no one stepped in to stop the carnage. Later when the Army did investigate, even recommending murder charges, the case was dropped and forgotten until it was discovered by the Blade decades later. The Blade series won a Pulitzer Prize and the publicity prompted the Pentagon to begin anew an investigation into the old war crimes.

"This is Rumor Control" has learned that the same Judge Advocate General officer who was charged with re-investigating Tiger Force also handled the Army's review of Abu Ghraib. His report on the Tiger Force atrocities was due over a year ago. No one from the Army has offered an explanation for its delay and the story itself is in danger of receding back into history.

Now this is just bloody bizarre.  Do the people who handle these things know how bizarre it's going to look to have the Tiger Force re-investigator handling Abu Ghraib?  Does the guy have a book deal or something?  What the hell is the story here?  I imagine the fellows at thisisrumourcontrol.org want you to check back:

Over the next few days, I will be posting some of the testimony taken by Army investigators -- word for word accounting from soldiers who witnessed or participated in one of the darkest episodes in American military history. I think it's important that you know what they said.

Next week, watch for the final chapter including an interview with a Tiger Force whistleblower that refuses to let the story die.

And just fyi, I blogged about Tiger Force here.

In Which I Play Liberal Internationalist

Before my liberal internationalist friends give themselves strokes or throw their laptops out the window over the latest news on U.S. policy in Sudan, can we get a little perspective?

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States is prepared to make a quick commitment of $50 million to $60 million to support an expanded African Union peacemaking mission in an effort to halt the violence in Sudan's troubled Darfur region, U.S. officials say.

[...]

The African Union, with strong U.S. encouragement, on Thursday decided to expand its military and police force in Darfur from 3,320 to 7,731 troops by September. The AU also asked NATO for logistical support.

[...]

An official said [the State Department's Sudan expert Mike] Ranneberger came away [from a visit to Darfur] even more impressed with the AU's "very activist approach...They are aggressively getting out into the field and patrolling humanitarian roads."

Now, it's my understanding that liberal internationalists want to be known as such and not as "liberal imperialists."  Fair enough.  But the knee-jerk interventionism of Laura Rozen & Co. on this score is doing just as much to expand American imperialism as is Max Boot and Charles Krauthammer.  Instead of reacting emotionally, we'd do well to think about solutions other than a western invasion.

The African Union has been fairly clamoring, not for US or NATO troops, but for cash and logistical assistance for sometime now.  We should have given it to them a long time ago.  The last I saw, the AU force, in a poetic twist, is led by a contingent from Rwanda.  They have shown every willingness to do the job themselves, but they're short on funds, logistics, and materiel.  We should give it to them.

In this case, we have the ability to devolve our imperial role to a local institution that by all accounts is willing and able to do the job.  Moreover, we have an opportunity to cultivate the AU as an enduring institution that could take up these matters (probably more effectively than we could) if they should emerge again in the future.  We should absolutely seize on this opportunity, and not sneer at the AU's willingness to do the job as somehow insufficient or irrelevant.

Now, some of us were calling for this type of solution a long time ago, and thousands of lives could likely have been saved.  Instead, by incessantly bleating for a Western invasion - which is unacceptable to many Americans and many politicos - some on the left have likely stalled what could have been a good, effective solution some time ago.

Turning Taiwanese, I Think He's Turning Taiwanese...

I really think so.

Now that the US seems to be inextricably bogged down in Iraq with no hope for a decisive exit, the neocons have remounted their old hobby-horse, The China Threat.  AEI's Tom Donnelly recently remarked at a forum on Bush's foreign policy in the second administration that its greatest challenge would be figuring out "how to apply the Bush Doctrine to China."  Praktike pointed to this Robert Kaplan article, where he gets really excited about PACOM and predicts a new cold war between the US and China.  (I have a lot of thoughts about the article, positive and negative, and I hope to have time to comment on them this weekend.)

But one of the larger problems I've seen as an observer of US-China policy for around a year now is the abject and naked Taiwan partisanship of a lot of analysts.  One stands out in particular: John Tkacik of the Heritage Foundation.

Tkacik can be counted on every time, in every circumstance, to stand for Taiwanese independence.  Now, I think that's a remarkably daft idea for a US analyst to take, but I suppose one could make the argument that it's in our interest to do so.

But Tkacik doesn't even bother to make that argument.  Instead he resorts to shoddy moral arguments and what by all appearances is some sort of perverse dual allegiance.

Tkacik has long allied himself with and advised pro-independence Taiwanese groups such as the World Federation of Taiwanese Associations and the Formosan Association for Public Affairs.  At a FAPA event in February of last year, Tkacik wondered:

"Why can't we say there is one China and one Taiwan? Taiwan is a full-fledged independent democracy after all.  If you accept that China has sovereignty over Taiwan, then you legitimize China's use of force against Taiwan.  If you want to lessen the chance of war, you need to lessen the legitimacy of China's threat to use force."

This is, of course, insane.  The notion that we can influence China's perception of the righteousness of its claim to Taiwan is pure fantasy.  It would be as if a small band of Confederates had escaped to Hilton Head Island under the protection of a foreign power and thumbed their noses at us from across the water.  Absurd.

More recently, Tkacik took part in protests here in Washington of China's anti-secession law.  An article from Taiwan's Central News Agency (that is mysteriously no longer available on its website, but can be found on news archive services) described the proceedings thus:

Washington, March 26 (CNA) Nearly 1,000 members from 17 Taiwanese associations in North America congregated at Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. Saturday to protest China's recently enacted Anti-Secession Law targeting Taiwan.

The demonstration was jointly organized by the [pro-independence] World Federation of Taiwanese Associations (WFTA) and the Taiwanese Association of America in support of a mass rally held in Taiwan that same day to defend the nation's democracy and peace.

[...]

During the rally, some of the demonstrators presented a satirical play on China's enactment of its "bullying and irrational" law, which gives China the so-called "legal right" to use non-peaceful means against Taiwan if the country moves toward independence.

The protesters, divided into several groups, marched down the street to the Chinese Embassy to protest the controversial law, shouting "Democracy, Peace, Defend Taiwan."

The rally attracted many reporters, while John J. Tkacik, a U.S. Heritage Foundation senior researcher familiar with cross-Taiwan Strait affairs, also expressed his support for Taiwan's protest.

Meanwhile, over 800 Taiwanese expatriates and students gathered in the square in front of United Nations Headquarters in New York to voice their opposition to the law.

The protesters shouted "Shame on China, " "Peace for Taiwan, " "China Hands off Taiwan Now, " and "Anti-Secession, China Aggression."

"Reporters."  Right.

Tkacik, during this congressional testimony in which he strongly implied that the responsible thing to do would be to move toward recognition of Taiwan, noted that he had served as a diplomat in "Peking," an extremely undiplomatic swipe at the notion of the PRC's claim to be the legitimate government of China.  (The name change back to "Beijing" symbolized the legitimacy of the government seated there.)  Bizarre, I would say, and reflective of a larger psychological disposition, I imagine.  (Of course, he was among friends on the Taiwan-China question during that hearing.)

Now, Republicans have long been recognized as the "grown ups" when it comes to foreign policy.  I would humbly ask, though, is it grown up to get as cozy as Mr. Tkacik has to the Taiwan lobby?  Is it even possible to keep America's interests at the forefront of one's thoughts when he is attending pro-independence protests, advising pro-independence groups, and seems to have conflated Taiwan's interests with America's entirely?

Is supporting Taiwanese independence a "grown up" foreign policy?  I don't think it is.  But Tkacik has a fellow traveler who's argued passionately and frequently on behalf of Taiwanese independence, both as a paid consultant to its government and as a private citizen.  Know who I'm talking about?  Have a look.

Hawkosphere: Still Silent on Iran

I continue to be perplexed by the deafening silence from the hawkosphere on a rather important topic: Iran.  I know it's not as important as, say, Togo, but in the words of a neocon progenitor, what is to be done?

Time in this case is likely not on the prevent-Iran-from-getting-the-bomb-by-all-means-necessary side.  A notable but largely unnoted shift in rhetoric appeared recently from Richard Boucher, when he dialed back the panic rhetoric:

At the State Department, spokesman Richard Boucher noted that U.S. intelligence agencies, in assessing Iran's nuclear program, have used ''an estimate that said that Iran was not likely to acquire a nuclear weapon before the beginning of the next decade. That remains the case.''

Now, I suppose it's possible that neos (cons and libertarians) buy that.  It's a perfectly coherent position.  But, if that is true, to borrow a phrase, there's no crisis.  Is that the neos' position?  Are we on board or off board with the evildoers' EU3's attempts at negotiation?  Or is the position that we should outsource the thing to Israel?  Or do we want to wait until Iraq simmers down a bit and then liberate Iran?

Or do they support whatever the president says, and hence don't know what to support since he hasn't staked out an actionable position?

I'm not read by many warbloggers (surprise!), so I'd like to pass this meme on to anybody out there in the 'sphere and see if we can get any of the usual suspects to go on record. 

Best to make it real clear: It becomes increasingly evident that negotiations will fail, and that Iran is X number of months away from acquiring a working nuclear weapon.  The UN Security Council doesn't authorize military action, and none of the European countries sign up to support military action.  What is the right thing to do if it looks like a choice between attacking Iran and learning to stop worrying and live with the Iranian bomb?  What kind of effects do we expect from our chosen policy?

No copout answers like "No, if we start funding dissidents, the problem will magically disappear!" allowed.

Anybody?

What is to be done?

Eating Crow, Page A21 Edition

Quote of the week: Former CIA director George J. Tenet says he regrets telling President Bush in 2002 that he had "slam dunk" evidence that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.

"Those were the two dumbest words I ever said," Tenet told about 1,300 people at a Kutztown University forum Wednesday.

How about giving back your Presidential Medal of Freedom, then?

Unrelated Thoughts

1.) Quote of the day:

"The missiles we are providing to Syria are short-range anti-aircraft missiles that cannot reach Israeli territory.  To come within their range, you would have to attack Syria. Do you want to do that?"

--Vladimir Putin on the first visit to Israel by a Russian head of state

2.) The 42 bus is an absolute abomination and should be ended immediately.  Note to self: waiting 45 minutes for an S- bus is preferable to jumping immediately on a 42, period.

3.) Two brilliant timewasters from Dad.

Iran and the Bomb

But separate!

Foreign Policy magazine stole our idea and* ran a Think Again piece (not yet online) about Iran, with a few short bursts treating the "Iran and the bomb" angle.  It's pretty decent, though not the brilliant work-up we were intending.  So I'm casting off the let-Iran-have-the-bomb thesis indefinitely.  (Sorry, Otto!)

In the same issue, Robert Strange McNamara argues that the US should do away with its nuclear arsenal because it is "immoral, illegal, and dreadfully dangerous."  The first point is silly and wrong, I think, the second point he has a good argument for, and his main complaint on the third point is that we should take our nukes off the Cold War-era hair trigger of 15 minutes to launch.  I think I'd go along with that.

Pick up a copy of the May/June ish if you're interested in either.  It's a pretty good mag, even though they didn't run our Iran and the Bomb piece.

* The table of contents notes that "When FP set out to find the right person to dispel many of the myths surrounding Iran, we had one condition: He or she had to live there.  That is why we turned to [Christopher de] Bellaigue, who has been reporting from Tehran for The Economist for years."  Hmph.

Wrestling with Pigs

Julian Sanchez, unfortunately for him, is still reading Instapundit.

Fortunately for the rest of us, he took the time out to give a particularly heinous post the treatment.

"Heh."

XV + I = ?

Thomas Fleming's got an interesting little background on the new pope's nominal predecessor up at HNN.