Per Capita GDP and Per Capita CO2 Emissions

It's clear that economic output and CO2 emissions go together, but I wondered how strong the relationship really was. To find out, I compared GDP per capita with CO2 emissions per capita. Here is what that relationship looks like:


The GDP data can be found here and the CO2 data can be found here. Each symbol represents one country in the world, and that point way out to the right is Luxembourg. The red symbol is the United States. The other 4 colored symbols are the nations of the EU-4 (Great Britain, Germany, France and Italy). The trend line shows that as GDP per capita increases, CO2 output per person increases as well. No surprise there. But you can also see that the EU-4 nations fall a bit below the trend line, which means that they produce less CO2 than you'd expect given the size of their economies, whereas the United States falls above the trend line, which means that we produce more CO2 per person than you'd expect given the size of our economy.

Our economy has been growing smartly but CO2 emissions have remained almost constant since Bush took office, so that red point is essentially walking straight right toward the trend line. I'm not sure why our CO2 output is higher than you'd expect given the size of our economy, but part of the problem may be that we are really spread out (which means long drives to work, large trucks crisscrossing a country 3000 miles wide, etc.). Well, first quarter GDP growth was a dismal 0.6%. Quarterly GDP statistics don't really mean much (the same was true that quarter when we had 7% growth), but if we do have an economic slowdown this year, our CO2 output for 2007 ought to be impressively low. That's something, I guess.

What are those 4 really high points on the chart? Those high-CO2-output countries are Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Kuwait. I had not realized that these Arab countries are really cranking out the CO2 emissions.

China is one of the points way down and to the left (near the origin), but it is going to move up fast, an that's the real CO2 problem we face.

Declare a War on Global Warming

I don't understand why the U.S. must be this way:

BERLIN (AP) - The United States rejects the European Union's all-encompassing target on reduction of carbon emissions, President Bush's environmental adviser said Tuesday.

The politically expedient thing to do would be to agree to the new targets and then promptly ignore them. Canada, for example, used that strategy with respect to the Kyoto Protocol. So did most of the European countries. Is anyone mad at them? No. I say we follow their example. Boldly pronounce our new war on greenhouse gas emissions, and set a bunch of silly targets like this:

Germany, which holds the European Union and G-8 presidencies, is proposing a so-called "two-degree" target, whereby global temperatures would be allowed to increase no more than 2 degrees Celsius—the equivalent of 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit—before being brought back down. Practically, experts have said that means a global reduction in emissions of 50 percent below 1990 levels by 2050.

These people appear to be suffering from delusions of grandeur, but who knows? A technological miracle could happen between now and 2050, so let's just sign on to this. And then let's consider the real problem we face:

China and India balked at carbon dioxide emissions cuts after the Kyoto Protocol ends in 2012.

Well, no kidding. Those two countries alone have about 40% of the world's population, their economies are growing rapidly, they have large stores of cheap coal, and they are building coal-fired power plants at the speed of light. And as I noted yesterday, China's ability to stop the construction of new power plants seems extremely limited even if they wanted to do that (which they don't).

But there is something to be said for declaring a new war on global warming anyway. If nothing else, it will make people feel better. And those of us who would like to reduce our dependence on foreign oil have much in common with those who believe that we can control the temperature of the globe (e.g., we probably both favor increasing fuel-efficiency standards). It's good to be green even if you don't believe that agreements like these are going to affect global warming.

The Kyoto Protocol was signed in the late 1990s. It sets a goal for ramping back CO2 output to below 1990 levels. News reports often show progress by reporting how countries are doing in relation to that goal (i.e., in relation to 1990 output). But to see the effect of the treaty itself, it seems more useful to look at the change on CO2 output since the treaty was signed. Those numbers can be found here, and I charted them for your consideration:


The "Annex I" parties are all of the nations with relatively advanced economies that signed the agreement. The EU-4 (Great Britain, German, France and Italy) is always our most sensible comparison group. Among that group, only France and Germany increased their emissions, with Italy increasing by 5% (which brought up the average of that group). As a whole, their emission increased slightly less than emissions in the U.S., though I wish I could find statistics through 2006. As I noted here, U.S. emissions are now only 1.1% above 2000 levels. I wonder how the EU-4 is doing over the last 2 years?

As a whole, the EU-15 is clearly headed in the wrong direction. Among two other notable signatories, Japan is doing fairly well, but Canada is really out of control. Canada faced a choice between maintaining economic growth and cutting CO2 emissions. They made their choice, and it's the same one that China and India are going to make.

As you can see, there does not appear to be much of a difference between the nations that signed on to the Kyoto Protocol and the United States. And the U.S. achieved this low percentage increase while having an economy that was expanding much faster than any of these comparison groups (except for Canada, which experienced about the same level of growth). We should have participated in the Kyoto agreement and then just done what everyone else seems to be doing. That chart would look exactly the same, but the feel-good gesture of signing the agreement would make people less angry at America (a little, anyway).

You could still reasonably say that America has more of an obligation than other nations of the world to reduce CO2 emissions because our CO2 output (like our economic output) is the highest in the world, but these numbers are still useful for keeping things in perspective. That's what I love about data.

The Importance of Living a Carbon-Neutral Lifestyle

I just read through a long and detailed report written by atmospheric scientists at M.I.T. called "The Future of Coal" (available here). If you believe that CO2 emissions contribute substantially to global warming, it is must reading. After you read it, you'll realize that you can just forget all this nonsense about living a "carbon-neural" lifestyle. That's an unserious fad that will be a quaint memory in 3 year's time. To do something about CO2 emissions, you have to do something about coal-fired power plants. It's not going to be easy, and it's not going to happen during the course of a brief fad. Here's why (quoting from the report):

We believe that coal use will increase under any foreseeable scenario because it is cheap and abundant.
...
Coal is certain to play a major role in the world’s energy future for two reasons. First, it is the lowest-cost fossil source for base-load electricity generation... And second, in contrast to oil and natural gas, coal resources are widely distributed around the world.

China, India and the US (and lots of nations) have all the coal they need, and it provides a cheap way to keep the lights on. It is going to be increasingly used in the decades to come. This seems especially true of China. Although no one knows for sure, some pessimistic (and realistic, I'd say) estimates have the Chinese building a huge number of coal-fired plants over the next 25 years, which will lead to a massive increase in CO2 emissions:


The Chinese now say they won't build so many plants, but what they say is not necessarily closely related to what they will do. And if oil remains expensive, as it probably will, it seems likely that China will have no choice but to turn to coal:

The inevitable dominance of fossil fuels in China is not good news for the global climate. But the severity of the problem will depend on the proportions of oil, gas, and coal in China’s future energy mix, and that is much less certain. In one scenario, China, like almost every country that has preceded it up the economic development ladder, will rapidly shift from reliance on solid fuels towards oil and gas, with gas playing an increasingly important role in electric power generation, in industrial and residential heating, and potentially also in transportation.

In an alternative scenario, China will remain heavily dependent on coal for electric power, for industrial heat, as a chemical feedstock, and increasingly, for transportation fuels, even as demand continues to grow rapidly in each of these sectors. The prospect of continued high oil and gas prices make the coal-intensive scenario more plausible today than it was during the era of cheap oil.

These two scenarios pose very different risks and benefits for China and for the rest of the world. For the Chinese, the heavy coal use scenario would have the merit of greater energy autonomy, given China’s very extensive coal resources. It would also mean less Chinese pressure on world oil and gas markets. But the impact on the environment would be substantially greater, both locally and internationally.

I don't know about you, but I understand this section to mean that there is basically no chance that China won't be building a huge number of coal-fired plants in the years to come. Moreover, it is not clear that this could be prevented even if the Chinese government agreed to stop building them. That's the point of my post today. I'm going to make that point by continuing to quote from the MIT report (in a way that I hope accurately conveys what they are trying to say):

First, especially at the national level, China’s energy-related governmental bureaucracy is highly fragmented and poorly coordinated.
...
...the remarkably rapid growth of energy consumption in China has been possible because a host of infrastructural issues are being resolved very quickly by individuals and organizations operating well below the level of national energy corporations. Almost daily, actors at the grass roots level are making key decisions about China’s physical and technological infrastructure—decisions with profound consequences for its long-term energy development.
...
Thus, it is a mistake to attribute China’s aggregate energy demand growth—or even the actions of the state-owned energy companies to central government agendas or geopolitical strategy. What many outsiders see as the deliberate result of Chinese national ‘energy strategy’ is in fact better understood as an agglomeration of ad hoc decisions by local governments, local power producers, and local industrial concerns. These local actors are primarily motivated by the need to maintain a high rate of economic growth and few, if any, have the national interest in mind. They are rushing to fill a void left by the absence of a coherent national-level energy strategy. Amidst surging energy demand and frenetic local decision-making, agencies and individuals in the central government are scrambling simply to keep abreast of developments on the ground. China’s astonishingly rapid energy development may well be spinning the heads of outsiders, but it is vexing, perplexing, and even overwhelming to Chinese governmental insiders too.

In other words, China's energy markets are simply out of control. Even if China signed on to the Kyoto Protocol, and even if, unlike the current signatories, the Chinese made efforts to stick to the agreement, many coal-fired plants would still be built. Here's more:

The reality, however, is far more complex. For example, as central government officials themselves acknowledge, of the 440,000 MWe of generating capacity in place at the beginning of 2005, there were about 110,000 MWe of ‘illegal’ power plants which never received construction approval by the responsible central government agency (the Energy Bureau of the National Development and Reform Commission, a part of the former State Planning Commission.) These plants were obviously all financed, built, and put into service, but nobody at the center can be sure under what terms or according to what standards.
...
The fact that 110,000 MWe of installed capacity is ‘illegal means neither that the plants are hidden in a closet nor that they lack any governmental oversight. What it does mean is that they are not part of a coherent national policy, that they frequently operate outside national standards, and that they oft en evade control even by their ostensible owner at the national corporate level.

This is not a system that will be easily changed any time soon.

On the one hand, this is not a system that is capable of responding deftly to either domestic or international mandates, particularly when such mandates call for dramatic near-term change, and particularly when such change carries economic costs. Indeed, the response by subordinate officials to dictat from above is more likely to come in the form of distorted information reporting than actual changes in behavior. The response by local officials in the late 1990s to central mandates for closure of locally-owned coal mines—a response that generally involved keeping local mines open but ceasing to report output to national authorities—is indicative of how the system reacts to dictat.

So forget about your carbon-neutral lifestyle. The problem is that oil is expensive and coal is cheap, and emerging nations have an interest in keeping the lights on. What that means is that China is going to build a lot of coal-fired power plants, and Chinese government officials don't seem to be in a position to stop the trend even if they wanted to (which they don't). If you decide to live a carbon-neutral lifestyle, good for you. If we all did it, and if we all kept it up for the next 100 years (which isn't likely), the effect would be fairly trivial compared to effect of new coal-fired power plants that are coming you way soon.

So, how important is it to live a carbon-neutral lifestyle? Not very. It would be a noble gesture, but addressing the problem in a serious way is going to be much, much harder than that.

George Bush: Staunch Anti-Global-Warming Warrior

Consider what Al Gore thinks we need to do, right now:

Gore: Time Is Running Out, Freeze All C02 Emissions NOW...

From Al Gore's Speech At NYU Law Today:

So, what would a responsible approach to the climate crisis look like if we had one in America?

Well, first of all, we should start by immediately freezing CO2 emissions and then beginning sharp reductions. Merely engaging in high-minded debates about theoretical future reductions while continuing to steadily increase emissions represents a self-delusional and reckless approach. In some ways, that approach is worse than doing nothing at all, because it lulls the gullible into thinking that something is actually being done when in fact it is not.

Al Gore talks the talk, but George Bush walks the walk:

U.S. Carbon Emissions Fell 1.3% in 2006

By Juliet Eilperin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, May 24, 2007; A14

U.S. carbon dioxide emissions dropped slightly last year even as the economy grew, according to an initial estimate released yesterday by the Energy Information Administration.

The 1.3 percent drop in CO-2 emissions marks the first time that U.S. pollution linked to global warming has declined in absolute terms since 2001 and the first time it has gone down since 1990 while the economy was thriving. Carbon dioxide emissions declined in both 2001 and 1991, in large part because of economic slowdowns during those years.

Actually, the US economy expanded slightly in 2001 relative to 2000. Growth was weak, but there was still growth, not shrinkage. Despite the fact that economic output increased from 2000 to 2001, CO2 emissions declined.

The article goes on to say:

In 2006 the U.S. economy grew 3.3 percent, a fact President Bush touted yesterday as he hailed the government's "flash estimate" that the country's carbon dioxide emissions dropped by 78 million metric tons last year.

In fact, the news is even more interesting than that. Emissions statistics are available for the first 6 years of Bush's term in office (2001-2006). Contrary to what you might believe, CO2 emissions in 2006 were a mere 1.1% higher than they were in 2000, which was Clinton's last year in office. By comparison, CO2 emissions over the last 6 years of Clinton's term increased by more than 10%. Here is a chart showing the emissions trend since 1990:


The red dots depict the Bush years. You can see that the value for 2006 is about the same as the value for 2000. This is true even though the U.S. economy in 2006 was a whopping 16% larger than it was in 2000. If you think that 2000 was a statistical aberration, then we can use 1999 instead. The economy was 21% larger in 2006 than it was in 1999, but CO2 emissions were only 4% higher than they were then.

Here is a chart that captures both economic growth in America and CO2 emissions since 2000:


The magenta symbols show the U.S. GDP in constant dollars, and the blue symbols show our CO2 output. As you can see, economic growth has been substantial during the Bush years (increasing by 16%). Despite that, CO2 emissions have not changed appreciably (increasing by only 1%). Thus, for the moment at least, we seem to have achieved the freeze on CO2 emissions that Al Gore thinks we need to legislate before time runs out.

We obviously don't know that this favorable trend will continue, but can't we give George Bush at least one tiny iota of credit here? The credit he deserves is approximately equal to the hysterical opprobrium and scorn you would have heaped upon him had greenhouse gas emissions increased by 10% on his watch. I suspect that this graph -- which shows that we have almost "frozen" CO2 emissions on Bush's watch -- does not correspond to what most green-oriented liberals believe to be true.

There is something else you need to think about if you are green activist working to curtail greenhouse gas emissions in America. It is a noble gesture, but it is also largely irrelevant. Why? Because, in the future, the greenhouse gas emissions problem is largely going to be caused by non-OECD nations, as this chart from the Department of Energy shows:


The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) is described like this:

The OECD is a group of like-minded countries. Essentially, membership is limited only by a country’s commitment to a market economy and a pluralistic democracy. It is rich, in that its 30 members produce almost 60% of the world’s goods and services, but it is by no means exclusive.

As you might expect, the relatively rich nations of the OECD produce a lot greenhouse gas emissions. As best I can tell, the US -- with its large population and vibrant economy -- contributes about half of the OECD total. However, the chart presented above shows that it is the non-OECD nations that will soon take the CO2 emissions lead (and then they will dwarf the non-OECD nations on that score). Countries like China and India have huge populations and rapidly growing economies. As you can see in the chart above, by 2030, CO2 emissions for the OECD nations will not have increased a great deal. By contrast, the CO2 emissions of developing nations are going to skyrocket. It does not really matter much what the OECD nations do (e.g., imagine the OECD bar being 20% lower in 2030 than the estimate that is shown in the chart -- would that help?). It is India and China that are the problem.

Now, if you are on the left of the political spectrum, you are likely to subscribe to the fanciful theory that if America would just take the lead and torpedo our own economy in a futile effort to rescue the planet from greenhouse gas emissions, then the developing nations of the world would be so mightily impressed by our altruistic leadership that, instead of seizing the glorious opportunity to dethrone America as the world's only superpower, they would follow our lead and reduce their own emissions (despite the fact that they would be plunging themselves right back into third-world status). That's not a theory I share. A more believable theory is that substantial greenhouse gas reductions in the OECD nations will do far more to shift the economic and military center of gravity to the Far East than it will to stave off global warming.

But here's the main point. America is doing something about its greenhouse gas emissions already. As our economy grows, it is becoming ever less dependent on greenhouse gas emissions. I am reasonably sure that this is not the case in China and India, where GDP growth is being fueled by greenhouse gas emissions. Thus, if you are feeling green and want to do something about global warming, you are largely wasting your time by focusing on SUVs in America. Here is the real problem:

New coal plants bury 'Kyoto'
New greenhouse-gas emissions from China, India, and the US will swamp cuts from the Kyoto treaty.

So much for Kyoto.

The official treaty to curb greenhouse-gas emissions hasn't gone into effect yet and already three countries are planning to build nearly 850 new coal-fired plants, which would pump up to five times as much carbon dioxide into the atmosphere as the Kyoto Protocol aims to reduce.

This article includes a helpful chart showing that the US is building some of the coal-fired power plants, but China and India are the real culprits:


Look at the "likely scenario" and then forget about SUVs in America. If you want to fight global warming, you need to either fight power-plant construction in China or, better yet, support research on making emissions from coal-fired power plants cleaner (e.g., by sequestering CO2 emissions underground). The real point is that coal-fired power plants are the problem, the world is going to build a lot of them (including signatories of the Kyoto Protocol who want to keep their lights on), and nothing is going to help unless that problem is addressed.

Oh, and one more thing: those theoretical savings that will come from the Kyoto Protocol? It's not going to happen. Kyoto was a feel-good agreement, not a serious attempt to do anything about global warming, as I explained here. And this brings me to my final point. Politically, the U.S. should do what the left leaning nations of the world do: make a big fuss about the dangers of global warming, triumphantly commit to achieving various green goals, and then ignore those commitments completely. A recent article suggests that China may be cutting back on its power plant construction but also acknowledges uncertainty about that because it is based on little more than vows made by the Chinese government. And the Chinese have turned out to be just like the Kyoto nations:

In 2002, the Chinese government vowed to cut sulfur emissions by 10 percent by 2005. Instead, they rose 27 percent. If Chinese officials act swiftly, sulfur emissions could be halved in the next couple of decades, power officials and academic experts say. But if China continues to do little, sulfur emissions could double, creating even more devastating health and environmental problems.

Politically, we should do what everyone else has learned to do (i.e., make vows). It's not serious, but it's cheap and it seems to make some people less angry than they otherwise would be. Meanwhile, we should also do something serious, like fund research investigating how to make the burning of coal a cleaner process. A substantial reduction in CO2 emissions depends on the success of that research (nothing else).

The US Economy in Perspective

I still occasionally find myself in discussions with people who proclaim that the U.S.economy is in dire straits, so I decided to do another quick check on that issue. This time, I used the data supplied by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). I found this
I highlighted the nations of the G7 (i.e., the advanced industrialized nations of the world) because they form the only sensible comparison group. As you can see, Canada's growth basically matches that of the U.S., but everyone else lags well behind. During both the Clinton and Bush administrations, the U.S. economy has done really well.

Here is their per capita GDP figure for 2005:


In agreement with all other statistical sources, the OECD database shows that, among large industrialized economies, the U.S. stands alone.

So why do people think that the U.S. economy is in such bad shape? I looked to DailyKos to find the answer, and I found this common concern highlighted:

At an increase of about $330 billion in 7 months, monthly debt issuance comes out to an average of 47 billion. With 8 months left in the year we've got another $376 billion to add to our national debt total.

That means by the end of the year we're looking at $9.216 trillion in debt.

The U.S. economy is huge, so any numbers that are expressed in absolute terms will always be huge as well. If I said "He has $40,000 run up on his credit cards," you might say "wow, that's a huge number; he's in big trouble." But your attitude would change instantly if I said "oh, and his name is Bill Gates."

See what I mean? Everything is relative. What you need to do is look at our cumulative debt relative to the size of our economy. And then you need to compare that figure to the value for other nations, and then you need to see how the figure has changed over time. Once you've done that, you will have placed the debt value into some perspective.

I went to the International Monetary Fund database to do that, and here is what I found:


The red bar shows what that huge dollar figure translates into once you correct for the overall size of the economy (by expressing the value as a percentage of GDP). What you see is that the debt that DailyKos laments is actually smaller than every nation of the G7 except for the United Kingdom. Perhaps our debt is still too large, but it needs to be kept in some kind of perspective.

I had my doubts about the high number for Japan, but this Wikipedia article suggests that it is correct:

Japan's national debt has increased rapidly since 1993 to more than 170% of GDP, sometimes the world's largest, depending on exchange rate, over $700 billion is added yearly to the total of over US$8 trillion, testing the world financial system. However, almost all of it is financed domestically, but still manages to severely cripple the national government.

Using a debt to GDP ratio is one of the most accepted measures of assessing a nation's debt. For example, one of the criteria of admission to the European Union's Euro currency is that a country's debt does not exceed 60% of that country's GDP.

I realize that, unlike Japan, much our debt is financed by foreigners and many are concerned about that, but the issue for today is the size of our debt.

Here is a chart that shows the cumulative debt for the U.S. over the years (and projecting forward to 2008):


This provides more perspective. Our current debt is less than it is for most nations of the G7 and, as this graph shows, has not really changed all that much since 1990. The number dipped a bit during the bubble economy years (when our annual deficit turned into a surplus for a few years), but otherwise the current value is historically favorable.

Finally, on an unrelated note, I've heard it said that infant mortality in the US is higher than in other nations of the world and this reflects badly on our health care system. I've also heard it said that the reason why infant mortality appears to be higher in the U.S. is because we count premature births as live births, whereas other nations do not (so the comparison is misleading). At the OECD web site, I stumbled across the first confirmation of that latter claim:

2. In the United States, Canada and some Nordic countries, very premature babies with a low chance of survival are registered as live births which may not be the case in other countries.

I wish they would give some additional information about that, but I suspect that they would not mention it if it were not true. Here are the infant mortality rates for the G7 nations:


The number for the US is relatively large, and the number for Canada is somewhat smaller, but they both suffer by registering very premature babies with a low chance of survival as live births.

I wonder if this also artificially reduces the statistic for average life expectancy in the US relative to other nations? I wish someone would find a way to compute the numbers in a comparable way across countries so we could see how the U.S. really compares on this score. I'll be sure to let you know if I find any such comparison.

Something is Afoot With Respect to Iran

I'm not really sure what is going on, but I suspect that the Bush administration and our allies (and even the UN) have decided to give Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad a heart attack. Almost simultaneously, we learned of four new and interesting developments. First, we are putting on a show of military force in the Persian Gulf:

US issues nuclear warning to Iran as armada enters Gulf

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The United States threatened new UN sanctions to punish Iran's nuclear drive as it ratcheted up tensions with the biggest display of naval power in the Gulf in years.

A bristling US armada led by two aircraft carriers steamed into waters near Iran for exercises Wednesday...

Second, we learn that Bush is ramping up covert action against the Iranian regime:

Bush Authorizes New Covert Action Against Iran

The CIA has received secret presidential approval to mount a covert "black" operation to destabilize the Iranian government, current and former officials in the intelligence community tell the Blotter on ABCNews.com.

The sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the subject, say President Bush has signed a "nonlethal presidential finding" that puts into motion a CIA plan that reportedly includes a coordinated campaign of propaganda, disinformation and manipulation of Iran's currency and international financial transactions.

Third, we learn about a similar covert program aimed specifically at Iran's nuclear program:

U.S., allies sabotaging Iran's nuclear program: CBS

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. and allied intelligence services are attempting to thwart Iran's nuclear program using industrial sabotage, CBS News said on Wednesday.

CBS said the methods included modifying components and making changes to technical documents that make them useless.

Finally, and at the same time that everything else is happening, we learn that even the UN is ramping up pressure on Iran:

Agency: Iran continues to defy U.N. on nukes
IAEA cites Tehran for expanding its uranium program

VIENNA, Austria - Iran continues to defy U.N. Security Council demands to scrap its uranium enrichment program and has instead expanded its activities, the International Atomic Energy Agency said Wednesday in a finding that sets the stage for new council sanctions.

The report from Mohamed ElBaradei, the head of the U.N.’s nuclear watchdog agency, also faulted Tehran for blocking IAEA efforts to probe suspicious nuclear activities, saying that meant it could not “provide assurances about ... the exclusively peaceful nature” of its atomic program.

And, in new and worrying phrasing, it expressed concern about its “deteriorating” understanding of unexplored aspects of the program, despite four years of a probe sparked by revelations that Tehran had been clandestinely developing enrichment and other nuclear activities that could be used to make weapons for nearly two decades.

I suspect that all of this is happening to increase psychological pressure on the Iranians in hopes that they will do something about their looney tunes leader.

Right now is a good time to think about an aspect of decision making that is almost always overlooked. When dealing with a closed police state, you never know for sure what they are up to. What that means is that there is always a chance of making an error, and there are two kinds of errors you can make with respect to a secret nuclear program:

1. you can mistakenly assume that the Iranians are not building a nuclear bomb when, in fact, they are

2. you can mistakenly assume that the Iranians are building a nuclear bomb when, in fact, they are not

With regard to Iraq, we made the first kind of mistake in the early 1990s when we were shocked to discover after the first Gulf War that Saddam was very close to building his first nuclear bomb. In 2003, we made the second kind of mistake by assuming that he had large stockpiles of WMDs and might be closing in on a nuclear bomb once again (when, in fact, the threat was not as severe as we thought).

But you already knew about these two types of error, didn't you? Here's what you don't know (probably): these two errors trade off. If you are on guard about making error #1, you become much more prone to making error #2. If, instead, you guard against making error #2, you become much more prone to making error #1.

This is a fundamental truth, and it is not arguable. You might think "Why can't we just stop making errors with respect to our intelligence about closed police states?" Everyone already agrees that we should do everything possible to minimize errors. As much as you would like to believe that our intelligence community is "incompetent," the truth is that their level of competence is almost certainly about as good as our best minds can make it. What that means is that, like it or not, the CIA is going to continue to make mistakes in the future. Once you realize that (which requires that you let go of the emotions that dumb you down when you think about this), you further realize that the hard job is to decide how much weight to attach to these two errors, knowing full well that if you guard against making one type of error, you become more likely to make the other.

That's precisely what happened with respect to Iraq. Having made error #1 in the early 1990s and having been attacked on 9/11, the intelligence community was -- quite reasonably -- on guard not to miss another threat that might be brewing. I'm guessing that, had you been asked about it at the time, you would have approved of the new emphasis on not missing a threat. What you would not have realized, though, is that a new emphasis like that meant that we were more prone to making the second kind of error (which is precisely the kind of error we later made with respect to Saddam's WMDs). There is no escaping the reality of this tradeoff of errors.

Choosing which error you would rather make is the hard job. The easy and mostly useless job -- the one that everyone loves to take on -- is to imagine that we can get rid of intelligence errors about closed police states if we just had a more competent CIA (e.g., by having more human intelligence on the ground or whatever). The CIA will always learn from its errors and always adjust accordingly, and it really does not help very much to have our elected leaders put their hands on their hips, wag their fingers, and diagnose how to do a better job next time. Almost all of that is irrelevant showmanship. Intelligence about closed police states is never going to get a whole lot better than it is now, and pretending otherwise is just a way of avoiding the hard decision that you really face. You don't get to choose not to be wrong. You do get to choose which error you would rather make.

Which brings me back to Iran. Everyone thinks the Iranians are pursuing WMDs, but no one really knows for sure that they are or how close they are to achieving their goal of a nuclear bomb (or if they will ever succeed). Everyone is talking about Iran now in exactly the same way that they were talking about Iraq before the war. You do not get to know the answer with certainty right now. What you can do is choose the error you would rather make. And if it turns out that we are making an error about Iran's hot pursuit of a nuclear bomb, you can be sure that, in retrospect, Joe Wilson (or someone just like him) will write an op-ed for the New York Times and "prove" that the ultra-evil Bush administration was lying about the threat posed by Iran.

A Democrat Opens his Eyes

Former Democratic Senator Bob Kerrey (and member of the 9/11 Commission), who is now president of the liberal New School in Manhattan, wrote an amazing editorial yesterday. In it, he said:

The critics who bother me the most are those who ordinarily would not be on the side of supporting dictatorships, who are arguing today that only military intervention can prevent the genocide of Darfur, or who argued yesterday for military intervention in Bosnia, Somalia and Rwanda to ease the sectarian violence that was tearing those places apart.

Suppose we had not invaded Iraq and Hussein had been overthrown by Shiite and Kurdish insurgents. Suppose al Qaeda then undermined their new democracy and inflamed sectarian tensions to the same level of violence we are seeing today. Wouldn't you expect the same people who are urging a unilateral and immediate withdrawal to be urging military intervention to end this carnage? I would.

This is an actual Democrat taking note of the obvious fact that al Qaeda is attempting to undermine democracy in Iraq. This is so incredibly rare that it deserves special mention. Kerrey goes on to say:

American liberals need to face these truths: The demand for self-government was and remains strong in Iraq despite all our mistakes and the violent efforts of al Qaeda, Sunni insurgents and Shiite militias to disrupt it. Al Qaeda in particular has targeted for abduction and murder those who are essential to a functioning democracy: school teachers, aid workers, private contractors working to rebuild Iraq's infrastructure, police officers and anyone who cooperates with the Iraqi government. Much of Iraq's middle class has fled the country in fear.

There he goes again, acknowledging the critical role play by al Qaeda. Ordinarily, you don't get points for acknowledging that which is transparently obvious, but because so many Democrats remain in an eerie state of denial about this I give the man extra credit. Kerry goes on to ask this question:

With these facts on the scales, what does your conscience tell you to do? If the answer is nothing, that it is not our responsibility or that this is all about oil, then no wonder today we Democrats are not trusted with the reins of power. American lawmakers who are watching public opinion tell them to move away from Iraq as quickly as possible should remember this: Concessions will not work with either al Qaeda or other foreign fighters who will not rest until they have killed or driven into exile the last remaining Iraqi who favors democracy.

The key question for Congress is whether or not Iraq has become the primary battleground against the same radical Islamists who declared war on the U.S. in the 1990s and who have carried out a series of terrorist operations including 9/11. The answer is emphatically "yes."

Not to mention obviously "yes." The only people who don't realize this are the people who bounce talking points off the walls of a liberal echo chamber while ironically convincing themselves that Bush is in a state of denial about Iraq.

After all of this reality-based analysis, though, Kerrey surprised me by saying this:

Finally, Jim Webb said something during his campaign for the Senate that should be emblazoned on the desks of all 535 members of Congress: You do not have to occupy a country in order to fight the terrorists who are inside it. Upon that truth I believe it is possible to build what doesn't exist today in Washington: a bipartisan strategy to deal with the long-term threat of terrorism.

Jim Webb? I usually don't think of him as being serious about al Qaeda in Iraq, but perhaps I judged him too quickly. I went to his web page to get an update on his view about this, and here is what I found:

There's no one in this Congress who wants anything more than to support those people that we put into harm's way, and I believe people should be very careful on this floor to discuss political motivations of our military, which reflects very closely the political views of the country at large. Poll after poll shows that. In respect to these accusations about defeatism and surrender, the question becomes: defeat by whom? And surrender to whom?

Umm, Senator, is there some reason why you don't know the transparently obvious answer to your own question? See Bob Kerrey's column and perhaps it will shed some light on the subject for you. The enemy to whom we would be surrendering is not very hard to identify. Webb further says:

This administration claims that our deciding to withdraw from the internal problems of Iraq will embolden the enemy. And then the question becomes, after we hear this repeatedly, just which enemy? Do they mean the enemy that attacked us on 9/11? We all know that was Osama Bin Laden. He not only wasn't in Iraq but he was opposed to the continuation of Saddam Hussein's regime because it was secular government.

Good grief. This is Nancy-Pelosi-level thinking (i.e., reverting to a claim about the state of pre-war Iraq to address an issue about Iraq today), and that's about as bad as it gets. Yes, the administration does, indeed, mean the enemy that attacked us on 9/11. They are called al Qaeda, and they are wreaking havoc in Iraq. Is this really that difficult to comprehend? He goes on to say:

And the Malaki government is not going to bring peace among Iraq's competing factions without the strong, overt, diplomatic cooperation of other countries in this region. And despite the rhetoric to the contrary, these other countries - all of them - do have an incentive in seeing a stable Iraq.

The mind simply boggles. First, he doesn't even know (or he professes not to know) that immediate withdrawal is tantamount to surrendering to al Qaeda -- the very terrorist organization that attacked us on 9/11 -- and then he actually suggests that Iran wants to help stabilize the region. And what evidence does he cite in support of this cockamamie idea? None whatsoever, as usual. That tells you something. It's just an evidence-free belief that Democrats assert as being true. Here is some evidence against that idea that he might find interesting:

Iran is secretly forging ties with al-Qaida elements and Sunni Arab militias in Iraq in preparation for a summer showdown with coalition forces intended to tip a wavering US Congress into voting for full military withdrawal, US officials say.
...
The official said US commanders were bracing for a nationwide, Iranian-orchestrated summer offensive, linking al-Qaida and Sunni insurgents to Tehran's Shia militia allies, that Iran hoped would trigger a political mutiny in Washington and a US retreat. "We expect that al-Qaida and Iran will both attempt to increase the propaganda and increase the violence prior to Petraeus's report in September [when the US commander General David Petraeus will report to Congress on President George Bush's controversial, six-month security "surge" of 30,000 troop reinforcements]," the official said.

Iran is doing this for you, Jim Webb. I don't know why Bob Kerrey, in his otherwise thoughtful column, mentioned Webb in a positive light. Webb is an intentionally clueless Democrat. He knows the answers to the questions he asks, but he doesn't want Americans to know because that might not be politically advantageous to the Democrats. As he flails around trying to figure out who the enemy is in Iraq, he might want to consider information like this:

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- President Bush on Tuesday declassified intelligence showing in 2005 Osama bin Laden planned to use Iraq as a base from which to launch attacks in the United States, according to White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe.
...
"This shows why we believe al Qaeda wants to use Iraq as a safe haven," said Johndroe. He added the president will talk about al Qaeda's "strong interest in using Iraq as a safe haven to plot and plan attacks on the United States and other countries."

Could it be that the Democrats caved on the war spending bill because they made a gesture to their angry radical base just to get that out of the way and are now getting serious about Iraq? That would be nice. Here is how one Republican reacted to the new bill:

"Democrats have finally conceded defeat in their effort to include mandatory surrender dates in a funding bill for the troops, so forward progress has been made for the first time in this four-month process," said House Republican leader John Boehner, R-Ohio.

And here is the interpretation offered by the radical left, which is much the same:

The question is not whether House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid flinched in their negotiations with the Bush administration over the continuation of the Iraq occupation.

They did. Despite some happy talk about benchmarks that have been attached to the Iraq supplemental spending bill that is expected to be considered by Congress this week, the willingness of Pelosi and Reid to advance a measure that does not include a withdrawal timeline allows Bush to conduct the war as he chooses for much if not all of the remainder of his presidency. This failure to abide by the will of the people who elected Democrats to end the war will haunt Pelosi, Reid and their party -- not to mention the United States and the battered shell that is Iraq.

Throw a bone to the radical base, then get serious about Iraq. I'm fine with the Democrats doing that. In fact, that's exactly how an opposition party should behave.

A Category Mistake in Discussions of Torture

Three of our soldiers are still being held in Iraq by a group that seems to be loosely affiliated with al Qaeda. Imagine that you had secret information about what was planned for them and that you learned that the worst it would be was one session of water boarding. Would you be outraged at our soldiers being tortured like that, or would you be profoundly relieved that they were not going to have bones broken, electric shocks delivered, and power drills used on them? I, myself, would be profoundly relieved. And that's why I don't put water boarding in the "torture" category.

The issue of how you classify interrogation techniques is important. Instead of using just two categories (torture vs. not torture), let's use three:

1. basic interrogation techniques (used on typical, low-level detainees), such as those listed in the Army Field manual

2. harsh interrogation techniques (used only on high-level al Qaeda detainees), which cause no real physical harm, and any longer term psychological harm that may occur is purely theoretical, such as water boarding, sleep deprivation and standing for 8 hours in a chilly room.

3. torture (used, if at all, only in the "ticking time bomb" scenario in which an al Qaeda operative has information about a nuclear bomb set to go off in a major city), which involves the infliction of pain using all kinds of terrible procedures.

The techniques that I'd place into the "harsh" category are those that we are willing to use on our own soldiers during training (which has been true of water boarding) and that would actually bring a sense of relief if we knew that worse techniques would not be used on our captured soldiers in Iraq. Once interrogation techniques are sensibly classified like this, I'd declare myself to be against torture, except perhaps in the ticking time bomb scenario. In fact, that is my actual position on this issue. I'm anti-torture except in that one extreme case.

Of course, opponents of "torture" generally want to set themselves apart from others (it's a self-image thing for many), and the easiest way to do that is to declare any harsh technique to be "torture." Once everything is classified like that, they can artificially elevate their own personal sense of decency by accusing anyone who supports the use of harsh interrogation techniques for high-level al Qaeda detainees as supporting the use of torture. Having made that category mistake, they then often say dopey things like "if we torture enemy detainees, they'll torture our captured soldiers." Setting aside the absurd notion that al Qaeda's interrogation techniques will be influenced in any way whatsoever by how we treat their detainees, this tit-for-tat scenario is precisely what we want. That is, if we use harsh interrogation techniques on their detainees (nothing worse), then they will use harsh interrogation techniques on ours (nothing worse). That would be good. But if you misclassify standing up for 4 hours as "torture," and if you worry that al Qaeda will follow the tit-for-tat scenario, then you are basically saying "if we make their detainees stand up for 4 hours, then they'll inflict 3rd-degree burns on our captive soldiers!" That doesn't make any sense.

Torture vs. not-torture is a categorical distinction that is far too broad. It's like classifying people as being either rich or poor. If you make $40,000 a year, are you rich or are you poor? Well, you are neither, and that's the point. That's how it is with interrogation techniques as well.

Lack of Access to Health Care in America

In honor of Michael Moore's new documentary "Sicko," I have started to look into American health care. What I've discovered right off the bat is what I always discover when I look into an issue: it is far more complicated than you think.

Here's what you think (probably): it's an outrage that 50 million Americans lack health insurance. We're the richest nation on earth, but 50 million poor people have been left behind with no health care coverage whatsoever. We need to fix that problem by getting rid of the Republicans who lack the human decency to care about the poor, and then, as decent and caring Democrats, we have provide universal health care insurance so poor people can get the health care they need.

Is that what you think? If so, what evidence did you rely on to form your opinion that health care coverage and access to health care are one and the same?

A recent study published in the Annals of Family Medicine (vol. 4, pp. 359-365, 2006) looked into why some people lack regular medical care. After all, that's a big part of the problem we want to address. Health care insurance is more about who pays for health care than who receives it, which I first realized only after hearing Al Franken make this exact point on Air America some months ago. Say what you will about Franken, but he often looked into the facts of the matter instead of responding reflexively. He still always came down on the liberal side of the argument (e.g., favoring universal health care insurance), but I always appreciated his interest in the details. With his recent departure from Air America, there are no liberals like that on the radio, and that's really too bad. I always want to hear the liberal side of the argument, but only when it is based on some factual knowledge (not on reflexive, angry emotion).

Anyway, getting back to this interesting study, the methodology they used was typical and is described like this:

The 2000 MEPS-HC consists of 12,280 households, comprised of 23,839 adults who initially participated in the 1998–1999 National Health Interview Survey...After excluding those who did not respond for themselves and those less than 18 years of age, 9,011 adults were included in this analysis. The main outcome variable was respondents’ self-report of whether they had a usual source of care, defined as "a particular doctor’s office, clinic, health center, or other place one goes to if one is sick or needs advice about health."...Adults who reported they did not have a usual source of care were also asked to indicate their primary reason for not having one.

Finding out who lacked regular access to health care and why was the main purpose of this study. The people surveyed came from all walks of life. 78% were white, 12% black and 10% Hispanic. 55% had an annual income of less than $25,000. Only 16% had an annual income greater than $50,000. About 50% had a high school diploma or less, 25% had some college, and another 25% had a college degree.

They found that 20% of the sample did not have access to a usual source of health care. If your outrage detector is set on full blast, you are probably aghast that these poor people did not have the insurance coverage they need to get regular health care. Instead of jumping to that conclusion, however, you might want to consider the results of this study. Reality is always more interesting than whatever theory happens to be guiding your thinking. Here is what they found:


What you see is that the vast majority of people who do not have access to regular health care are in that condition for reasons other than cost. The researchers concluded:

We also found...that the most common reason respondents cited for lacking a usual source of care was that they were seldom or never sick. Cost was cited by only 10.2% of respondents...Overall, 72% of the estimated 42.7 million adults without a usual source of care in 2000 apparently had little or no preference for one, and a minority (28%) appeared to prefer to have one, if they could.

By ignoring the possibility that many adults do not have a usual source of care because they either do not want one or place low value on having one, important implications and true barriers are obscured.

And that's the main point I want to make today. You might think that providing universal health care coverage is going to solve a big health care problem in America. If that's what you think, I'm guessing that you have not delved into the matter in any great detail. I am only just beginning my own inquiry, and I've immediately stumbled on two issues that make this a hard problem, not evil corporate Republicans vs. decent and caring Democrats. My first eye-opening discovery was that access to new, life-saving (and extremely expensive) cancer drugs is much faster in America than anywhere else in the world. It might make sense to deny Americans access to these life saving drugs and to use the money saved to provide health insurance to the poor, but the point is that there are tradeoffs to be made. Once you come to appreciate that fact, the needle on your outrage detector will come down off its maximum value. I read somewhere that Michael Moore thinks that France has the best health care system in the world. Maybe, but I don't think he'd hold that view if he lived in France and had cancer (and was told that they pay for their number-one system by not paying for the extremely expensive drugs that could save his life).

My second surprise was that the lack of access to regular health care in America was largely due to factors unrelated to health care coverage, which means that providing universal coverage won't address that issue in any way. The authors of the study put it this way:

From this analysis, 2 subpopulations of respondents emerged from those who do not have a usual source of care. Three of 4 respondents who do not have a usual source of care appeared to have little or no preference for one. For this group, the value of a usual source of care may not be appreciated. Thus, rather than the commonly assumed need to remove cost, transportation, or other barriers to continuity of care for all those who do not have a usual source of care, a more appropriate strategy might be to teach the importance of having one. Stratified analysis shows that persons most likely to place low value on having a usual source of care are men, younger adults, Hispanics, either never married or divorced, without insurance, in better health, in the South and West, and in urban areas. Educational messages about the importance of a usual source of care might be targeted to these groups, perhaps through schools, public service messages, and the popular media.

Health care in America could undoubtedly be vastly improved, and I suspect that this is true of the systems used by Canada and France as well. And, more to the point, improvement means tradeoffs. If France does have the best health care coverage in the world, they have accomplished that with chronically high unemployment rates and an otherwise stagnant economy that is falling ever further behind America's (which, I assume, is the real reason they just elected a veritable Bush clone to bring them back to reality).

When think about health care, think about the tradeoffs. If you don't, you are not being serious.

How the Left Actually Thinks about Iraq

Yesterday, I tried to figure out what those on the left must believe will happen if American soldiers leave Iraq (which is what they want to see happen). For the most part, left wing thinkers are strangely silent about that, just as they are eerily silent about the role played by al Qaeda in Iraq. As if on cue, Kevin Drum -- a man of the left -- provides some insight into this matter (thanks to reader Counterfactual for pointing me to this post).

When I puzzled over what proponents of immediate withdrawal must think, I said:

So, how does a moral paragon of virtue reconcile open support for genocide in Iraq with a self-image that involves an inflated sense of personal decency? Such people never say, so I can only assume that they have convinced themselves that genocide is in the cards no matter what we do, so we might as well get the carnage out of the way now rather than waiting another year or two.

It seemed to me that the cognitive dissonance between the usual self-image of someone on the left (in which goodness and decency often loom large) and the horrific sectarian carnage that would ensue upon our departure could only be resolved by adopting the firm belief that Iraq is fated to suffer that outcome no matter what we do. That way, one can favor immediate withdrawal without feeling any challenge whatsoever to one's morally superior sense of self. Well, that's what I imagined a liberal proponent of immediate withdrawal would think. Kevin Drum makes it a reality:

Our presence in Iraq is doing nothing for Iraq itself, which is doomed to sectarian civil war no matter what we do.

Just as I thought. This, by the way, is his entire analysis of sectarian civil war in Iraq. It amounts to nothing but an expression of his own internal pessimism. It's not unreasonable to be pessimistic about Iraq given al Qaeda's incredible success in deliberately provoking sectarian civil war over the last year and a half. But the problem with Drum's position is obvious, and I summarized it in advance as follows:

The carnage that will result is precisely the carnage that al Qaeda has been working to achieve for years. The Sunnis who are now turning against al Qaeda will have no choice but to once again join forces with al Qaeda in order to stave off the Shiite militias. That is al Qaeda's nefarious and ingenious plan for Iraq.

Drum's pessimistic assertion about the future of Iraq offers no indication that he appreciates the role of al Qaeda in deliberately fueling sectarian conflict. He does not seem to appreciate either their huge role in this conflict or their strategic reasons for provoking it. One really ought to look into that matter before making confident pronouncements about the future of Iraq.

Speaking of al Qaeda (as I often do), I also tried to figure out how the left wing mind could reconcile our hasty departure with the obvious advantage that would accrue to al Qaeda once we departed. Specifically, I said:

Although I don't know for sure, I can imagine liberal proponents of quick (as opposed to delayed) genocide suggesting that al Qaeda is somehow doomed when we leave. That is, somehow, one might fantasize that the Sunni tribes of the Anbar Province will continue to turn against al Qaeda even as the Shiite militias rain death and destruction upon them when we depart from Iraq.

Usually, those on the left ignore or deny the role played by al Qaeda, but I feel sure that they will eventually wake up to that threat. When they do, they will suddenly be faced with this choice: (a) support or efforts against al Qaeda in Iraq or (b) make up a fantasy according to which al Qaeda is doomed when they accomplish their goal of driving us from Iraq by provoking sectarian warfare. Which option did Drum choose? Do I even need to ask? He says this about our presence in Iraq:

It's actively hindering the destruction of al-Qaeda in Iraq, which will almost certainly proceed more quickly and more ruthlessly once we leave.

Really? That's interesting. What is the detailed thinking behind this remarkable assertion? Who is it, exactly, who is not ruthlessly attacking al Qaeda today but would be ruthlessly attacking them as soon as we leave? Muqtada al Sadr's Mahdi Army? That's what they were trying to do before the troop surge. Their technique was to slaughter Sunni civilians in Baghdad at an ever increasing rate that approached 1000 per month by the time the surge began. They were doing that in an effort to stop al Qaeda from bombing Shiite mosques and indiscriminately slaughtering Shiite civilians. Is that the anti-al-Qaeda scenario Drum has in mind? Or does he think the Sunni tribes will eradicate al Qaeda? Those tribes have turned against al Qaeda only recently, and they have done so only because of the troop surge (and because the Mahdi Army has pulled back a bit). Will the Sunni tribes continue to turn on al Qaeda when the Mahdi Army resumes and then greatly accelerates its horrific slaughter of Sunnis upon our departure? Or does he imagine that Iraqi security forces will magically rise to the occasion and take out al Qaeda? He just doesn't say, as if it is obvious.

I don't know if Kevin Drum is always this superficial in his reasoning about Iraq, but I have noticed (and have said before) that many on the left do not seem to appreciate the difference between evidence-based reasoning and argument by mere assertion. Drum simply asserts that (a) Iraq is headed for a civil war no matter what we do and (b) al Qaeda will be automatically defeated when we leave. The detailed reasoning -- and the evidence -- behind these mere assertions are nowhere to be found.

Finally, Drum exhibits the same remarkable lack of curiosity that I often encounter when I debate Iraq my friends on the left. He says this of our presence there:

It's produced a relentlessly worsening foreign policy catastrophe by swelling the ranks of Middle Eastern Muslims who support anti-American jihadism in spirit, even if they don't directly support al-Qaeda itself. And it's turned into a bonanza of recruiting and fundraising among those who do directly support al-Qaeda.

You can say that, but the very newspaper for which he works provides a bit of perspective that Drum appears to lack:

Support for Bin Laden, Violence Down Among Muslims, Poll Says

By Robin Wright
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, July 15, 2005; Page A13

Osama bin Laden's standing has dropped significantly in some pivotal Muslim countries, while support for suicide bombings and other acts of violence has "declined dramatically," according to a new survey released yesterday.

As I have noted before, our presence in Iraq is, indeed, drawing religiously crazed jihadis out of the woodwork while at the same time al Qaeda's reputation is plummeting throughout the Muslim world. That's the balanced view, one that does not hide from the facts, good or bad. The crazed jihadis coming to Iraq do, indeed, want to fight Americans, but they also want to kill Shiites (who they also hate with a passion). Perhaps you have noticed that most al Qaeda suicide bombers are not attacking American troops. Instead, most are indiscriminately slaughtering Shiite civilians. Any compelling analysis of Iraq has to factor that into the equation. Why is al Qaeda doing that if their only motivation is to fight Americans on Muslim holy lands? If you don't know, it means that you have not looked into this matter in sufficient detail.

Al Qaeda is slaughtering Shiites because they have a plan for Iraq. And their suicide bombers are not going to dry up when we leave, not so long as Osama bin Laden and Zawahiri call on them to fight for Iraq. I have no doubt that fewer religiously crazed jihadis would pack their suicide belts and head for Iraq with visions of 72 virgins dancing in their heads once we left, but I also have no doubt that al Qaeda would still have plenty available to kill a few hundred Shiite civilians every few weeks. After all, we still have soldiers in Afghanistan, and that's the recruiting tool al Qaeda will use when they no longer have the presence of American troops in Iraq to rely on. And the recruits will go where al Qaeda sends them, not just to Afghanistan. So if you really believe that al Qaeda will suddenly be at al loss for suicide bombers when we leave, you must finish the thought by explaining why. Should we leave Afghanistan as well so we don't swell "...the ranks of Middle Eastern Muslims who support anti-American jihadism in spirit?" And when al Qaeda chases us from Afghanistan as well as Iraq, what will be the consequences for that terrorist organization?

It's odd to think that the way to defeat al Qaeda is to give in to them, in Iraq and (I assume) in Afghanistan. We've tried that before, and it hasn't worked out too well. Drum should read the report issued by the Iraq Study Group, which said:

Al Qaeda will portray any failure by the United States in Iraq as a significant victory that will be featured prominently as they recruit for their cause in the region and around the world. Ayman al-Zawahiri, deputy to Osama bin Laden, has declared Iraq a focus for al Qaeda: they will seek to expel the Americans and then spread “the jihad wave to the secular countries neighboring Iraq.”
...
Al Qaeda would depict our withdrawal as a historic victory. If we leave and Iraq descends into chaos, the long-range consequences could eventually require the United States to return.

And he should also read this National Intelligence Estimate (NIE):

If such a rapid withdrawal were to take place, we judge that the ISF would be unlikely to survive as a non-sectarian national institution; neighboring countries—invited by Iraqi factions or unilaterally—might intervene openly in the conflict; massive civilian casualties and forced population displacement would be probable; AQI [i.e., al Qaeda in Iraq] would attempt to use parts of the country—particularly al-Anbar province—to plan increased attacks in and outside of Iraq; and spiraling violence and political disarray in Iraq, along with Kurdish moves to control Kirkuk and strengthen autonomy, could prompt Turkey to launch a military incursion.

And he should read that earlier NIE that was gleefully leaked by Democrats because it correctly acknowledged that we are increasing the ranks of religiously crazed jihadis by our presence in Iraq. But is also presented the rest of the story. This is the line from that NIE that Democrats wanted you to read:

The Iraq conflict has become the cause celebre for jihadists, breeding a deep resentment of US involvement in the Muslim world and cultivating supporters for the global jihadist movement.

And here is the part Democrats did not leak because they did not want you to read it:

...we judge that al-Qa’ida will continue to pose the greatest threat to the Homeland and US interests abroad by a single terrorist organization.
...
Should jihadists leaving Iraq perceive themselves, and be perceived, to have failed, we judge fewer fighters will be inspired to carry on the fight.

If we get out now, will jihadists leaving Iraq perceive themselves, and be perceived, to have failed? Or will the opposite perception prevail? The answer is obvious.

Read Drum's analysis. You'll find that it consists mostly of unsubstantiated assertions, which is a style of argument that does not appeal to me. I try not argue by mere assertion. That does not mean that I am right and Drum is wrong. No one knows what lies in store for Iraq, but just trading unsupported assertions is no way to think through a problem. In my response to Drum's argument, I've tried hard to support my assertions instead of just pronouncing them as if there were fact.

Did al Qaeda Kidnap our Soldiers?

I've struggled to understand who was behind the recent attack on American soldiers in Iraq that resulted in 3 of them being kidnapped. Press reports attributed the attack to al Qaeda, but I subsequently began to have my doubts. As of today, we have this new information:

Army Gen. David Petraeus, the senior American commander in Iraq, told the Army Times newspaper in an interview Friday night that U.S. forces were focusing on an insurgent who is “sort of an affiliate of al-Qaida.”

It sounds like this is not al Qaeda per se, but some tangentially related organization. That would explain the initial news reports attributing this attack to al Qaeda as well as the fact that the attack did not bear the hallmarks of al Qaeda (e.g., no suicide bombers were involved).

Thinking Through What the Left Must Think about Iraq

Many on the left think of themselves as being moral proponents of "social justice," and they are vitally concerned with America's declining "moral authority" in the world. Moveon.org represents the far left of this way of thinking, and they currently say this on their web page:

On Wednesday, most Democrats voted to support an amendment that would have mandated a swift withdrawal from Iraq . Unfortunately, a few Democrats voted against it-- including Senator Carl Levin--a key leader in the Senate. Since Senator Levin's vote can influence the way a lot of other senators vote, it was a big failure of leadership. We need to send Sen. Levin a message: The American people want a swift end to the occupation in Iraq.

Good for Levin and Hoyer, but my real focus is on the idea that "...a swift end to the occupation in Iraq" is the approach that a moral paragon of virtue would advocate. Virtually no one disputes the notion that a quick withdrawal of our forces from Iraq would lead to anything other than a hellacious explosion of genocidal carnage. Advocates of withdrawal never discuss the consequences of that course of action either for al Qaeda in Iraq or for the people of Iraq. They just want to "end the occupation." They sometimes point to polls showing that the Iraqi people do not want us there, but these are like polls in France showing that the French hate everything about America. When they are actually given a chance to act on those feelings in a vote (one that has consequences), they use their heads and vote in a pro-American Bush clone (to exaggerate just a tad). Similarly, the Iraqis voted for people who want Americans forces to stay and they did not vote for people who want American forces to leave. The voting was free, and they made their choice. If a referendum were held on the subject today, I suspect the Iraqis would again vote to keep our forces there instead of choosing genocide for themselves. I'd like to find out.

So, how does a moral paragon of virtue reconcile open support for genocide in Iraq with a self-image that involves an inflated sense of personal decency? Such people never say, so I can only assume that they have convinced themselves that genocide is in the cards no matter what we do, so we might as well get the carnage out of the way now rather than waiting another year or two. That is, they do not see themselves as advocating genocide because, in their own minds, genocide is inevitable.

Well, I think that must be it. What else could it be? I don't think of people on the left as being moral paragons, and I am often amused by the non-serious stances they take (e.g., "Unlike my ultra-evil political opponents, I'm against torture, but I refuse to say one word -- not one single word -- about the harshest interrogation techniques that I would support"), but I am also quite sure that they do not really advocate genocide. And they cannot possibly doubt that the policy they prefer is a policy that will promote anything but genocide in Iraq. Thus, they must believe that a horrific escalation of violence is in the cards no matter what we do (i.e, that we are just delaying the inevitable by refusing to withdraw).

It's harder to come up with an explanation of how moral paragons of virtue on the left reconcile what will become of al Qaeda in Iraq when we leave. The carnage that will result is precisely the carnage that al Qaeda has been working to achieve for years. The Sunnis who are now turning against al Qaeda will have no choice but to once again join forces with al Qaeda in order to stave off the Shiite militias. That is al Qaeda's nefarious and ingenious plan for Iraq.

If you are a moral paragon of goodness and decency (the self-image that applies to many on the left), how do you reconcile your support for quick (as opposed to delayed) genocide with the benefits that will accrue to al Qaeda? Usually, as I have relentlessly documented in the past, the problem of al Qaeda is just ignored altogether or is flagrantly denied by those on the left side of this debate. This is as unserious as being opposed to "torture" without specifying the harshest interrogation technique that you would favor.

Although I don't know for sure, I can imagine liberal proponents of quick (as opposed to delayed) genocide suggesting that al Qaeda is somehow doomed when we leave. That is, somehow, one might fantasize that the Sunni tribes of the Anbar Province will continue to turn against al Qaeda even as the Shiite militias rain death and destruction upon them when we depart from Iraq. That's a fantasy that I have a hard time accepting.

Meanwhile, in a thoughtful and detailed article that just appeared in US News and World Report (link via RealClearPolitics), the basic facts about Iraq are discussed:

Petraeus Tries to Make Headway in Iraq
By Linda Robinson
Posted 5/20/07
...
Reviewing his record since February, Petraeus sits in a straight-back chair, arms folded, with a somber look on his face. Some neighborhoods are safer and fewer Iraqis are being murdered by Shiite death squads, he says, but there have been setbacks as well--particularly the devastating car bombs largely blamed on the Sunni terrorist group al Qaeda in Iraq.

Why am I the only one having a fit over the glaring contrast between the transparently obvious reality on the ground in Iraq (which involves al Qaeda seeking to provoke civil war) and the Democratic portrayal of this conflict as nothing but a spontaneous civil war between Shiites and Sunnis? Even if you are a moral paragon of virtue who favors instant genocide in Iraq, how do you explain the fact that the leadership of your party (and your preferred political action committees, such as Moveon.org) never so much as mention al Qaeda in Iraq unless they are explicitly (and preposterously) denying its role there and suggesting that the "real terrorists" are in Afghanistan? I'll never understand that, nor will I ever understand why so few people are bothered by this eerie state of affairs. These are the very people who repeatedly claim that George Bush is in a state of denial about Iraq.

Here is more from the article:

Since the last of five additional U.S. brigades will not be on the ground until June, Petraeus argues that it will not be possible to assess the results of the security plan until summer's end. But it is critical to get some political progress before then, he says. "This [strategy] is about buying time for Iraqis to reconcile," he says. The Shiite majority has already agreed in principle to share oil revenues with the Sunni and Kurdish minorities, but the details need to be enshrined in law.
...
The Petraeus plan differs dramatically from past strategies in two respects: It is focused on providing security for the population rather than chasing down elusive fighters. And it sees that security as a means to an end, a political settlement rather than an old-fashioned military victory.
...
"There is a pretty substantial effort ongoing to reach out to groups that at least want to oppose al Qaeda," Petraeus says, "which has been helped enormously by having a British three-star who has Northern Ireland experience that is really quite instructive." His deputy commander, Lt. Gen. Graeme Lamb, has been meeting with insurgents, militias, and tribal chiefs to see who might be ready to reconcile.
...
Negotiators see the opportunity to wean large numbers of Sunnis away from the armed struggle, as increasing numbers are fed up with al Qaeda's relentless bombing campaign against civilians and its foreign influence. Tribes in Diyala and Salahuddin province now want to follow the lead of Sunni tribes in Anbar province, who joined provisional militias called "emergency response units" last year and began fighting al Qaeda.
...
The mounting pressure from Washington may help prod Iraq's government. But officials here say that the American bargaining leverage will be fatally weakened if the United States is determined to withdraw from Iraq at all costs. The various Iraqi factions then have no incentive to compromise and instead will seek safety in their own sect's armed camp.

Even CNN seems to appreciates what will happen if Democrats get their way in Iraq:

No safe way for U.S. to leave Iraq, experts warn

(CNN) -- Pulling U.S. forces from Iraq could trigger catastrophe, CNN analysts and other observers warn, affecting not just Iraq but its neighbors in the Middle East, with far-reaching global implications.

Sectarian violence could erupt on a scale never seen before in Iraq if coalition troops leave before Iraq's security forces are ready. Supporters of al Qaeda could develop an international hub of terror from which to threaten the West. And the likely civil war could draw countries like Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Iran into a broader conflict.
...
A rapid withdrawal of all U.S. troops would hurt America's image and hand al Qaeda and other terror groups a propaganda victory that the United States is only a "paper tiger," CNN terrorism analyst Peter Bergen said.

"It would also play into their strategy, which is to create a mini-state somewhere in the Middle East where they can reorganize along the lines of what they did in Afghanistan in the late '90s," Bergen told CNN.com.

All of this is obviously true. The only surprise is that a reality-based analysis like this appears on CNN, which usually prefers to air propaganda videos for the enemy in Iraq.

What do moral paragons of virtue on the left think about this? They won't say, so today I just tried to imagine what they really think. I wonder if I am right?

The State of the Surge

I've noticed various reports suggesting that Shiite militias in Baghdad have resumed the high levels of sectarian killing that was underway before the troop surge began. For example, this development sounds ominous:

'More troops' call as Iraq murders soar
234 bodies dumped in Baghdad in only 11 days

Peter Beaumont, foreign affairs editor
Sunday May 13, 2007
The Observer

The US military surge in Iraq, designed to turn around the course of the war, appears to be failing as senior US officers admit they need yet more troops and new figures show a sharp increase in the victims of death squads in Baghdad.

In the first 11 days of this month, there have already been 234 bodies - men murdered by death squads - dumped around the capital, a dramatic rise from the 137 found in the same period of April. Improving security in Baghdad and reducing death-squad activity was described as one of the key aims of the US surge of 25,000 additional troops, the final units of whom are due to arrive next month.

I also checked jihadunspun.com (an al Qaeda news site) and found this:

Shiite Murder Spree Back To Full Operation Under US “Security Plan” Cover
May 17, 2007
Muhammad Abu Nasr | Iraqi Resistance Report

Some 308 tortured bodies of Sunnis have been recovered so far this month, the handiwork of Shia Death Squads whose violence was used as the excuse by the Bush administration for the “troop surge” and is operating with the full knowledge of the US administration.
...
The recovery of these bodies brings the total number of murder victims whose bodies have been recovered in May to 308 according to official figures issued by the puppet regime. That level of murder by the Shi‘i sectarian death squads clearly reflects the return to full activity of gunmen whose killings were the excuse used by the Bush administration for the imposition of the “troop surge” and “New Security Plan” begun nearly three months ago. After an initial drop in the activity of the Shi‘i sectarian militias, that activity has now returned to where it was prior to the American “New Security Plan” only this time under the aegis of the US security arrangements.

To check on the validity of these claims, I went to the best source of casualty information, Iraq Coalition Casualty Count, and tabulated civilian deaths through May 17. Here is what I found (the numbers represent the number killed so far):

257 -- apparently killed by Shiite Militias (bodies of Sunnis dumped in the streets of Baghdad)

203 -- apparently killed by al Qaeda Terrorists (mostly targeting Shiites using truck bombs and suicide bombs)

386 -- everything else (mortar attacks, collateral casualties from roadside bomb, Baghdad-like sectarian violence in other cities, etc.)

If you project the number of deaths caused by Shiite militias out to the end of the month, the number comes to 469, which is about where it has been since the troop surge began (down from approximately 1000 before the surge). Also, there has been a total of 846 civilian deaths in Iraq so far this month, which projects to 1542 by the end of the month, which, again, is about equal to the number of deaths that have been observed over the last few months.

So, for the moment, forget claims that things are getting worse, and don't put too much stock in claims that things are getting better. The Iraq Index, compiled by the Brookings Institution, has this summary, which seems to correspond exactly to the analysis that I have been presenting:

APRIL 30, 2007- Viewing trends through the month of April, it is possible to be a bit more specific now about what is working and what is not working with the surge-based strategy so far. That said, it must be underscored that with only 3 of the 5 additional planned U.S. brigades in place, and only about half of all "joint security stations" established throughout Iraq's neighborhoods, results must be viewed as provisional.

On the positive side, extrajudicial killings are down substantially in Iraq, with official US data showing a 2/3 reduction relative to January levels. This reflects a broader reality--much of the civil warfare that characterized Iraq in 2006 has been suppressed, at least temporarily. This is largely due to the willingness of the major Shia militias, including the Mahdi Army of Moqtada al-Sadr, to lie low for the time being. However any such restraint may prove just temporary.

There are some additional good signs. Most notably, the willingness of Sunni tribal leaders in al-Anbar province to collaborate with each other as well as U.S. and Iraqi authorities in opposing al-Qaeda in that region has been very heartening. Correspondingly, violence is down in the region, with reported daily attack rates in and around Ramadi declining from 25 to just 4 over recent weeks.

That said, on balance it is hard to view the surge as a success to date. Two major problems stand out. As a result of these two unfavorable trends, many derivative problems and challenges remain largely intractable to date.

The first major enduring problem is the continued resilience of al Qaeda and related terrorist elements. Their use of vehicle bombs and vest bombs has been sufficiently extensive that overall fatality rates in Iraq have not declined since the surge began, at least according to the best available data. A corollary of this fact is that the Shia in Iraq are suffering a disproportionately high share of the casualties at present. (Not all bombings are aimed at them, but many are, and with the Shia militias showing restraint in their extrajudicial killings, the dominant form of violence is in fact affecting Shia the most.)

Second, Iraqi political compromise remains very limited. All American officials including General David Petraeus underscore the degree to which the surge cannot succeed based on a narrow military logic. At best, it can create political space for compromise that has often proved elusive during Iraq's periods of most intensive violence. Unfortunately, there is little sign of progress along such lines to date.

As the article notes, the troop surge is still unfolding. The Iraq Index provides this chart to show where the surge stands (with something like 18,000 troops eventually destined for Baghdad):


The bottom line is that the militias are killing fewer people and al Qaeda in Iraq is killing more (in order to get the Shiite militias back into the fight). Still, the trends are against al Qaeda. And overall violence is holding steady while surge continues to unfold.

Global Warming Simulations

Having stumbled across an official U.S. temperature calculator yesterday, I've been ignoring world events and playing with that instead. What I've learned just reinforces my previously stated position on the subject: one should have reasonably high confidence that temperatures are on the rise but only moderate confidence that man-made CO2 is the culprit.

First, let's look at temperature trends in the U.S. since 1985:


The temperatures appear to be stable for the most part, except in recent years. Sometime after 1980, it seems that an increasing temperature trend began.

From 1895 to 2006, the average temperature was 52.86 degrees and the standard deviation (a measure of variability) was 0.86 degrees. In other words, the large majority of annual temperature readings over this time period fall in the range of 52.86 plus or minus 2 standard deviations.

I wondered what the graph would look like if temperatures varied randomly in this range. Would trends like the one you see above show up frequently (just by chance) even if temperature variation were truly random? To get a quick sense of that, I generated 5 sets of random temperatures, each with an average temperature of 52.86 degrees and a standard deviation of 0.86 degrees. Here are 5 separate charts showing what the random data look like:






This is not an exhaustive analysis by any means, but it looks to me as if random temperature fluctuations would very rarely produce the increasing temperature trend that is evident in the actual data. This does not mean that the increasing trend that you see in the real data will continue into the future. It just means that, as of now, the trend is far more likely to be real than not.

On the other hand, as I noted yesterday, the idea that the increasing trend is the result of CO2 emissions instead of, say, variations in solar energy output, is a bit more hypothetical. Here is a chart that combines two charts from yesterday (CO2 data can be found here):


One could create a model according to which the recent rise in temperature was caused by CO2 emissions exceeding some critical threshold. For example, there is no doubt that one could create a model according to which CO2 gases begin to create a greenhouse effect when CO2 output climbs above 5000 metric tons per year (as happened in the late 70s or early 80s).

I don't know how convincing an atmospheric model like that would be because I am not an atmospheric scientist. However, I know a lot about quantitative models in general, and the more you know about such models, the more you appreciate the fact that they cannot give you high confidence in what they suggest. It would be different if the model passed some extremely precise and stringent test (e.g., if your model predicted that light would bend around a planet by .000765492 degrees -- and then exactly that happened when you put it to the test). But models in the atmospheric sciences, like models in the behavioral science (and in economics) are not like that at all. They are imprecise and laden with assumptions. Economic models predict economic disasters all the time. Occasionally, they are right. An atmospheric model that predicts a global warming calamity might be right as well, but don't bet the farm on it. Instead, have low to medium confidence that the model is right.

UPDATE: Coincidentally, this story just appeared on CNN:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- The Southern Ocean around Antarctica is so loaded with carbon dioxide that it can barely absorb any more, so more of the gas will stay in the atmosphere to warm up the planet, scientists reported Thursday.
...
The Southern Ocean is one of the world's biggest reservoirs of carbon, known as a carbon sink. When carbon is in a sink -- whether it's an ocean or a forest, both of which can lock up carbon dioxide -- it stays out of the atmosphere and does not contribute to global warming.

The new research, published in the latest edition of the journal Science, indicates that the Southern Ocean has been saturated with carbon dioxide at least since the 1980s.

One could argue that the reason why temperatures in the US did not start to rise until the 1980s was because, before then, the Southern Ocean was serving as a carbon sink (locking up carbon dioxide). After that, CO2 was more widely distributed and began to cause global warming. I'm not sure how convincing all of this is, but it does not sound like a preposterous explanation.

Did al Qaeda Kidnap Our Soldiers in Iraq?

Al Qaeda is wreaking havoc in Iraq, but I'm beginning to doubt that they were responsible for the most recent attack on US soldiers. First, we have this:

The commander for the 4th Battalion told CNN's Arwa Damon that two of those in U.S. military custody have admitted to being involved in the attack. They do not appear to be al Qaeda members, the commander said. They told interrogators they were paid by a middle man to take part in the attack.

Next, I went to the Jihadupsun.com web site, which is the English Language news site for the Islamic State of Iraq (which is, essentially, al Qaeda in Iraq). I expected to find gleeful claims of responsibility and a greatly exaggerated casualty count for the Americans (which is what usually happens). Instead, I found this:

As the US military mounted an intensive search for three members of a patrol said to have been captured by the Islamic State of Iraq following an ambush in Mahmoudiya on Saturday that also killed four others US soldiers, the State released details of a spectacular martyrdom operation it carried out against the Interior Ministry in Arbil.

According to a US military statement seven American soldiers and their Iraqi interpreter came under attack at 4:44 a.m. Saturday about 12 miles west of Mahmoudiya about 20 miles southwest of Baghdad.
...
While mainstream press quoting “websites that frequently post Islamic State statements” as of press time, JUS has received no official statement confirming the claim.

That would be odd if al Qaeda were behind this attack. Finally, the attack did not involve suicide bombers, which is the signature of al Qaeda in Iraq. Instead, it seems to have been a coordinated attack involving numerous gunmen:

A senior U.S. military official said officers believe that the kidnapping was a "planned snatch" because of the manner in which it was carried out and that 10 or more insurgents had to be involved to make the ambush work.

The kidnapping was part of a "complex attack," meaning the attackers used many different weapons such as firearms and grenades, but the source wouldn't be specific on the kinds of weapons used.

Anyway, in light of all this, I am, for the moment, taking this one off my list of attacks carried out by al Qaeda in Iraq. It's important to establish the enormous role played by al Qaeda in Iraq, but it's equally important not to exaggerate that role while doing so. Perhaps this was an attack by al Qaeda, but I think more information is needed before we can confidently attribute it to them.

Global Warming Update: U.S. Temperatures Since 1930

I saw a link on the Drudge Report to a story indicating that temperatures in the U.S. for the just completed month of April were below average.

The information was provided by the National Climactic Data Center, and they provide a calculator that you can use to compute the average temperature in the U.S. over the years. I can never resist a toy like that, so I immediately plotted up temperature data going back to 1930. Here are the results:


Odd, isn't it? From 1955 to 1985, temperatures were almost always below the average temperature for this 75-year time period. You can see why some environmental hysterics in the 1970s were warning of global cooling and suggesting that we were at the dawn of a new ice age.

An apparent increase in average temperatures for the U.S. does not occur until about 1998, and then it is almost a step function. That is, temperatures leaped up to between 54 and 55 degrees in that year, and they have stayed there for several years now.

I looked up information on global CO2 emissions (since I assume our temperatures are affected by that, not just by CO2 emissions in the U.S.), and found the data here:


Not much of a change between 1930 and 1950, but a pretty rapid increase since then. I don't see anything special happening in 1998 that might account for a sudden leap in U.S. temperatures.

As I have said before, the theory of global warming is a matter of confidence. I can imagine a temperature trend in the U.S. that would make me a lot more confident that global warming is real and that it is caused by human activity. Still, I don't reject the claims by most scientists that it is a real phenomenon. I'm just not 100% confident about it.

Fifty years from now, we'll know if the recent increase in temperatures reflects an inexorable trend caused by CO2 emissions or just another fluctuation in an ever changing temperature profile. For now, we just have to muddle through the debate as best we can, without being certain (over even highly confident) one way or the other.

Plan B

What if the troop surge fails? What's Plan B?

John McCain doesn't have one:

McCain Sees ‘No Plan B’ for Iraq War

WASHINGTON, APRIL 13 — Senator John McCain said that the buildup of American forces in Iraq represented the only viable option to avoid failure in Iraq and that he had yet to identify an effective fallback if the current strategy failed.

“I have no Plan B,” Mr. McCain said in an interview. “If I saw that doomsday scenario evolving, then I would try to come up with one. But I cannot give you a good alternative because if I had a good alternative, maybe we could consider it now.”

This political cartoon seems like a pretty fair summary of the situation:


A few days ago, Mort Kondracke offered his Plan B:

Plan B For Iraq: Winning Dirty

The 80 percent alternative involves accepting rule by Shiites and Kurds, allowing them to violently suppress Sunni resistance and making sure that Shiites friendly to the United States emerge victorious.
...
Winning will be dirty because it will allow the Shiite-dominated Iraqi military and some Shiite militias to decimate the Sunni insurgency. There likely will be ethnic cleansing, atrocities against civilians and massive refugee flows.
...
Prudence calls for preparation of a Plan B. The withdrawal policy advocated by most Democrats virtually guarantees catastrophic ethnic cleansing - but without any guarantee that a government friendly to the United States would emerge.

Although I understand why someone would think along these lines, this Plan B does not seem very promising to me. It is, in essence, what was already happening in Iraq before the troop surge began. Back then, the Shiite militias were executing 1000 Sunnis a month in Baghdad, and the country appeared to be on the verge of falling apart. Worse, Kondrake's Plan B happens to coincide perfectly with al Qaeda's Plan A (as does the plan favored by the Democrats). If the Shiite militias come down hard on the Sunnis (as they were doing in the Fall), the Sunnis will suddenly find themselves in desperate need of al Qaeda's help to stave off genocide. In fact, the whole reason why Zarqawi (the late former head of al Qaeda in Iraq) thought it would be a good idea to relentlessly slaughter Shiite civilians was precisely because it would provoke the Shiite militias to start eradicating Sunnis (which would make the Sunnis seek out al Qaeda for protection). As a result of the troop surge, the Sunnis are finally turning against al Qaeda. Every day brings a new story about this amazing development, one that the Democrats would short circuit and then completely reverse if they succeed in forcing America to surrender to the terrorist organization that attacked us on 9/11 by pulling our troops from Iraq:

Al-Qaeda Loses an Iraqi Friend

Al-Qaeda has lost its most powerful friend in Iraq: Harith al-Dari, the country's most influential Sunni cleric and a prominent anti-American figure, has rejected al-Qaeda's vision of an Islamic state, telling TIME that Iraqis "will not accept such a system." In a sharp departure from his long-standing view of the terror group, al-Dari now says al-Qaeda has "gone too far." He also repudiates recent statements on Iraq by Osama bin Laden's deputy, saying: "Ayman al-Zawahiri doesn't represent Iraqis."

So what is Plan B? Uncontrolled genocide that seems sure to follow a precipitous troop withdrawal (i.e., the Democratic solution) or controlled genocide (the Kondrake solution)? Neither. The problem with both of those plans is that they fit right in with what al Qaeda wants to see happen.

If the Sunnis continue to turn against al Qaeda, then my proposal is that we should start to side with the Sunnis against the Shiite militias. No, we should not help the Sunnis re-impose a Saddam-Hussein-like dictatorship. Democracy is the only form of government we should accept, and that means that the Shiites are always going to have the advantage. But that doesn't mean that the Shiite militias, who are aligned with Iran, need to have the advantage. They are the ones who threaten the Sunnis, and Zarqawi's brilliant plan was designed to exploit that fact.

In the past, I have frequently argued that Muqtada al Sadr's Mahdi Army was working as our effective ally in Iraq. Although the Mahdi Army hates Americans and wants our troops out of Iraq (and they participate in IED attacks against our troops), they were also brutally attacking Sunni males in Baghdad because of their support for al Qaeda suicide bombings against Shiite civilians and mosques. That is, Muqtada al Sadr was fighting against al Qaeda, and it is in that sense that he was operating as our effective ally. But the Sunni tribes would be an even more effective ally, and if they turn fully against al Qaeda, we should offer them the protection from the Shiite militias that al Qaeda was hoping to offer to them. And if that requires armed confrontation with the Mahdi Army, so be it. The last time that happened, the Mahdi Army was decimated. That's what will happen again.

My Plan B has as it essential component the defeat of al Qaeda in Iraq. No matter what else happens there, al Qaeda must lose, and they must be perceived as having lost. In that case, they will have forever torpedoed their reputation in the Muslim world (a reputation that is already in the toilet and can only be restored by a perceived victory over America in Iraq). And in the long term, that is what is important. We don't have to "win the hearts and minds" of the Muslim world (a truly dopey idea that holds no appeal whatsoever for me). Instead, terrorism in general and al Qaeda in particular need to lose the support of the Muslim world. Let them hate us. But now that the scourge of terrorism -- which they once admired -- has turned against Muslims in a horrific way in Iraq, let them hate al Qaeda even more. That's all we really need.

The "State of Denial"

Mainstream media reporters are brazenly (and unknowingly) ironic in their relentless efforts to convince their readership that President Bush is in a state of denial about the "insurgency" in Iraq. Bob Woodward wrote a book called "State of Denial" that prompted this news report:

Bob Woodward: Bush Misleads On Iraq

(CBS) Veteran Washington reporter Bob Woodward tells Mike Wallace that the Bush administration has not told the truth regarding the level of violence, especially against U.S. troops, in Iraq.

Similarly, a USA Today editorial had this to say:

During the nearly four years of the Iraq war, the administration has consistently failed to deal with crises before it was too late. Most fundamentally, it was for too long in denial about the insurgency that has plunged the country into civil war.

And, in a new article in Newsweek, Sharon Begley repeats the claim (via RealClearPolitics):

This could all be dismissed as psychobabble, except for one thing. Psychology researchers, including some who advise politicians, have reached the same conclusion. "I do think there is denial on Bush's part in his running of the war," says Kerry Sulkowicz, clinical professor of psychiatry at New York University Medical Center. "He seems unmoved by the extent of the evidence that things are far worse than he believes. The tip-off for denial is perpetual optimism, a pathological certainty that things are going well."

Oh, I see. A left wing clinical professor of psychiatry jumps on the liberal "Bush-is-in-denial" bandwagon, so that certifies the point.

Sorry, it is psychobabble. In the extreme. How can you tell? Because none of these people do anything but make vague references to what Bush says about the "insurgency," and they make no reference at all to what Democrats say about al Qaeda in Iraq. Unlike them, I am going to briefly show you what Bush actually says about the "insurgency" and what leading Democrats say about it. And when I do, I don't think it will be hard to see who is in a state of denial.

Here is an interview with President Bush in which he demonstrates a command of the facts that Democrats (not Bush) are in a state of denial about:

MR. LEHRER: Just today, another 35 people were killed in bombings; 80 over the weekend.

PRESIDENT BUSH: Yeah, there is a difference between - look, death is terrible - but remember, some of these bombings are done by al-Qaida and their affiliates, all trying to create doubt and concern and create these death squads or encourage these death squads to roam neighborhoods.
...
MR. LEHRER: And you're an optimist - you're optimistic about it all at this point?

PRESIDENT BUSH: I am. No question there's a - look, a year ago if we'd been having this discussion prior to the Samarra bombing, I'd have been - look what happened. And then the enemy responded. And by the way, it was al-Qaida that bombed the Samarra mosque. It was al-Qaida that said, we're losing; democracy is something we can't stand, so let us kill innocent lives and bomb a holy site in order to try to provoke sectarian violence. And they were successful. This guy, Zarqawi, did a good job.

It's important for the American people to understand it is al-Qaida that is doing a lot of these spectacular bombings. Why? Because they want a safe haven. They still have ambitions about hurting America. The very same guys - type of guys that flew those airplanes on September 11th are still the ones that are battling against a young democracy in Iraq. And we've got to defeat them, we got to defeat them there.

According to President Bush -- the one who is supposedly in a state of denial -- the main enemy in Iraq right now is al Qaeda. Bush knows the details about what caused sectarian violence to escalate in 2006, as you can plainly see from his interview responses. As such, he knows what to make of recent stories like this:

Bombings blamed on Sunni Islamist al-Qaida have killed 400 people in Shiite areas across the country in the past week.

That is, he knows who did this and, more to the point, he knows why they did it. These attacks were not part of the civil war in Iraq; they were efforts to incite that civil war. That's what al Qaeda did in March to achieve that goal. Here is what they did in April:

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Suspected al Qaeda militants killed nearly 200 people in a wave of car bombings in Baghdad on Wednesday, including one that was the single deadliest attack in the Iraqi capital since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.

Bush also understands that our soldiers are in a fight with al Qaeda in Iraq:

1. BAGHDAD - An al-Qaida-linked group posted a Web statement Tuesday claiming responsibility for a suicide car bombing that killed nine U.S. paratroopers and wounded 20 in the worst attack on American ground forces in Iraq in more than a year.

2. U.S. Air Force F-16s obliterated three truck-mounted anti-aircraft weapons and killed 10 to 14 al Qaeda operatives near Fallujah on Tuesday, according to the military.

3. BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- A terror group with links to al Qaeda in Iraq claimed responsibility Sunday for the weekend attack that sparked a manhunt for three missing U.S. soldiers, according to a statement on the Internet.

But according to the mainstream media, which has no reservations at all about making the most preposterous assertions imaginable, it is Bush who is in a state of denial about the "insurgency" in Iraq. In sharp contrast to Bush, the Democrats never show a command of the facts concerning what happened in Iraq in 2006, and they almost never so much as acknowledge al Qaeda in Iraq. When they do, they openly deny that we are in a fight against them. Here is Senator Christopher Dodd a few days ago:

Again, this is a civil war going on in Iraq. This is not the United States versus Al Qaida. It's Shia versus Sunnis tearing each other apart.

As you can, it's just a civil war. End of story. Here is Harry Reid:

After more than four years of a failed policy, it's time to remove our troops from an open-ended civil war and for Iraq to take responsibility for its own future.

No one peep about al Qaeda in Iraq, the organization that gleefully celebrated his claim America lost the war (to al Qaeda) in Iraq. Who is in a state of denial again? Here is Democratic House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer:

After listening to Gen. David Petraeus, Hoyer said he thinks the fight in Iraq is not against al Qaeda but is "a virulent sectarian battle against various factions within the Iraq populous that has not been brought under control by the Iraqis themselves."

Here is Nancy Pelosi:

Rather than sending more troops into the chaos that is the Iraq civil war, we must be focused on bringing the war to an end.

Here is John Murtha:

According to the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, Second Edition, the definition of a civil war is a "war between political factions or regions within the same country." That is exactly what is going on in Iraq, not a global war on terrorism, as the President continues to portray it.

And here is Ted Kennedy:

The American military will not police Iraq’s civil war indefinitely.

Now, go back to the top of my post and re-read President Bush's analysis, re-read those news stories, and re-read the various analyses provided by leading Democrats. Then you tell me who is in a state of denial. President Bush is obviously in command of the facts. Equally obvious is the fact that the Democrats are in an eerie state of denial about what is happening in Iraq (right before their very eyes). To them, it's all just a big 'ol civil war.

Unlike Sharon Begley, when I accuse someone of being in a state of denial (and when I explain why Bush isn't), I cite direct evidence -- not the psychobabble of some left wing clinical professor of psychiatry -- to defend my claim. I'll let you decide who made the stronger case.

"This is not the United States versus Al Qaida"

Echoing the eerie Democratic mantra on Iraq, Senator Dodd said:

Again, this is a civil war going on in Iraq. This is not the United States versus Al Qaida. It's Shia versus Sunnis tearing each other apart.

A few days ago, I noted a very clear example of how this is obviously not the U.S. vs. al Qaeda:

Al-Qaida group claims killing of 9 GIs in Iraq

MSNBC News Services
Updated: 4:54 p.m. PT April 24, 2007

BAGHDAD - An al-Qaida-linked group posted a Web statement Tuesday claiming responsibility for a suicide car bombing that killed nine U.S. paratroopers and wounded 20 in the worst attack on American ground forces in Iraq in more than a year.

Today, we have yet another perfect example of how this is merely a civil war, not the U.S. vs. al Qaeda:

Insurgent group says it captured, killed U.S. troops

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- A terror group with links to al Qaeda in Iraq claimed responsibility Sunday for the weekend attack that sparked a manhunt for three missing U.S. soldiers, according to a statement on the Internet.
...
Five personnel were killed in the Saturday ambush south of Baghdad, including three U.S. soldiers and an Iraqi army interpreter, military spokesman Maj. Gen. William B. Caldwell said Sunday.
...
Islamic State of Iraq -- an umbrella insurgent group that includes al Qaeda in Iraq -- said in the statement that it fought Saturday with "Crusader" forces, killing some and taking others prisoner. It was unclear from the statement if the captured soldiers were alive.

Though the posting appeared on Web sites commonly used by the group -- and such statements in the past have rung true -- CNN is unable to verify the authenticity of the claim.

How long can the state of denial among the Democrats be maintained? I credit CNN for actually reporting this news, but the title of their story is preposterous. Al Qaeda is a terrorist group seeking to incite a civil war, not an insurgent group seeking to free Iraq from occupying forces. Congratulations to CBS News for using this more appropriate title for their story about this incident:

Terror Group: U.S. Soldiers Are Captives

CBS is right and CNN is wrong. This attack was carried out by a terrorist organization, not by an insurgent group. Al Qaeda is, of course, seeking to inflict on America the same humiliating defeat that the Democrats are trying to engineer with their troop withdrawal proposals in Congress, but al Qaeda's goal is most certainly not to liberate Iraq from "crusaders." Their goal is to chase out (and humiliate) the "cross worshippers" so they can get on with their plan to plunge Iraq into sectarian violence, which is a situation they can exploit to their advantage (namely, the forced imposition of Sharia law and the expansion of jihad to other states of the region). More than 90% of Iraqis oppose al Qaeda in Iraq.

It may be easy to assume that as the Iraqi people become more supportive of attacks on U.S.-led forces (see WPO main article), they may grow warmer toward al Qaeda—the probable source of a significant number of attacks on U.S. forces. However, this does not appear to be the case. Al Qaeda is exceedingly unpopular among the Iraqi people.

Overall 94 percent have an unfavorable view of al Qaeda, with 82 percent expressing a very unfavorable view.
...
Views of Osama bin Laden are only slightly less negative. Overall 93 percent have an unfavorable view, with 77 percent very unfavorable. Very unfavorable views are expressed by 87 percent of Kurds and 94 percent of Shias. Here again, the Sunnis are negative, but less unequivocally—71 percent have an unfavorable view (23% very), and 29 percent a favorable view (3% very).

If you think that what al Qaeda is doing amounts to liberating Iraq from imperialistic crusaders, then there is something very wrong with you, and I suggest that you have your head examined without delay. The Iraqi people know that al Qaeda is a terrorist group with a nihilistic vision of the future, not an insurgent group working to liberate them from imperialistic crusaders.

Here is more clear evidence that it's all just a big ol' civil war in Iraq now, having nothing at all to do with the war on terror and the fight against al Qaeda:

From The Sunday Times
May 13, 2007

Al-Qaeda planning militant Islamic state within Iraq

A RADICAL plan by Al-Qaeda to take over the Sunni heartland of Iraq and turn it into a militant Islamic state once American troops have withdrawn is causing alarm among US intelligence officials.

A power struggle has emerged between the self-styled Islamic State of Iraq, an organisation with ambitions to become a state which has been set up by Al-Qaeda, and more moderate Sunni groups. They are battling for the long-term control of central and western areas which they believe could break away from Kurdish and Shi’ite-dominated provinces once the coalition forces depart.
...
The Islamic State is spearheading the insurgency against US forces and troops loyal to Nouri al-Maliki, the prime minister. In recent months it has been responsible for chlorine gas bombs and numerous suicide attacks on civilian targets.

It is also behind the deadliest roadside bombs that have racked up American casualties this year, although US military sources are now confident that in recent weeks they have gained the upper hand with raids aimed at both the Islamic State’s leadership and its bomb-making factories.

But don't worry. Be happy! It's just a big ol' civil war based on ancient sectarian hostilities between Shiites and Sunnis, nothing more. After all, Senator Dodd says so. So do Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi and John Murtha and John Kerry and all other leading Democrats who have embraced either the eerie code of silence or the eerie code of denial about the role of al Qaeda in Iraq.

To conclude, I present below the suicide bombing attacks by al Qaeda (not by the Baathist insurgents, who do not use this method of attack) in just the first 12 days of May. Fortunately, they have not yet pulled off a mass-casualty attack (as they did several times in March and April), but it is not for lack of trying. Unfortunately, one of those spectacular attacks is likely to come soon. As you can see from these stories, in addition to killing American soldiers, al Qaeda is also effectively killing Iraqi civilians and Iraqi security forces. But don't worry, it's just a big ol' civil war having nothing at all to do with al Qaeda. Of that you can be sure. After all, that's what the leading figures in the Democratic party all say as they urge the President to pull our troops from Iraq. Surely they would not mislead anyone about this, right?

BAGHDAD - Suicide truck bombers struck Iraqi police checkpoints on two bridges in a Shi'ite area south of Baghdad, killing 22 people. [AP reports 11 police and 12 civilians — and wounded 57, police said]

ARBIL - A suicide truck bomber killed 14 people and wounded 87 when he blew up his payload near the Kurdish regional government's interior ministry in Arbil, north of Baghdad, local officials said.

Al-Bothyab - 12 citizens were and 25 wounded in a suicide car bomb explosion in Al-Bothyab village where Al-bu Risha tribe live (the tribe which leads the tribes’ coalition against Qaida in Anbar province south Iraq around 11.30 am.

KHANAQIN - A suicide bomber killed two policemen and wounded 23, including 10 civilians, when he targeted a police station in the town of Khanaqin, north of Baghdad, police said.

KUFA - At least 16 people were killed and 70 wounded when a suicide car bomb exploded at a crowded market in the Shi'ite city of Kufa

Baghdad - 8 policemen were killed and 12 were wounded when a suicide car bomb targeted a policeman check point in Al Salam district to west outskirt of Baghdad around 11,30 am .

SAMARRA - A suicide car bomber killed 12 police officers and wounded another 11 after detonating himself at a police headquarters in the city of Samarra, the U.S. military said.

BAGHDAD - A suicide car bomber killed one policeman and wounded five others when he rammed his vehicle into the Karkh police directorate in western Baghdad, one police source said.

Baghdad- 9 citizens were killed and 13 others wounded when two suicide car bombs tried to attack a recruiting center for the Iraqi army in Al Haswa area west Baghdad .

BAGHDAD - A suicide car bomber struck in the main Shiite district of the capital yesterday, killing at least nine people...Three policemen and six civilians were killed and 34 people were wounded, police said.

RAMADI (near) - suicide car bombings at a market and at a police checkpoint in Ramadi in Anbar province killed 13 people and wounded 35 others, police said. Authorities initially reported a higher number...

Gaining Access to New Anti-Cancer Drugs

It's hard to weigh in on the American health care system in relation to the health care systems of Canada and Europe because the issue is incredibly complex, and the information you need to formulate an opinion is hard to come by. I really don't know how our system compares to other systems on the whole, but I am always on the lookout for clues. One just came my way, and that's what I am going to discuss today.

In America, you hear about the poor who lack health insurance, and many people reflexively (and mistakenly) think that these people therefore lack health care. I once heard Al Franken discussing this issue on Air America (back when he was doing his talk show), and even he acknowledged that the health insurance issue is far more about the financing of health care than the actual delivery of health care. People without health insurance already receive health care that they do not pay for, but it's expensive because they use the emergency rooms of hospitals to get it. If they had health insurance, most believe that they still wouldn't take the time to get preventive care (which would be ideal), but they'd be cheaper to treat when they got sick. That's the real issue (according to Franken) even though most people reflexively believe that the absence of health insurance means the absence of health care (and so, to them, this issue falls under the banner of "social justice").

In any case, a new article that is relevant to the overall health care situation in America caught my attention:

The researchers studied Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Japan, South Africa and the US, as well as 19 European countries, with a total population of 984 million, and looked at access to 67 newer cancer drugs.

Dr Nils Wilking, a clinical oncologist at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, said: "Our report highlights that in many countries new drugs are not reaching patients quickly enough and that this is having an adverse impact on patient survival. Where you live can determine whether you receive the best available treatment or not.

"To some extent this is determined by economic factors, but much of the variation between countries remains unexplained. In the US we have found that the survival of cancer patients is significantly related to the introduction of new oncology drugs."

The war against cancer is making steady progress, and if you have cancer, you obviously want access to the newer and more effective drugs. If you get that access, you live longer. It's a pretty simple equation.

Cancer patients in America are getting access to those drugs much more quickly than cancer patients in other countries. This is especially true of the new wonder drug, Avastin. Avastin is an antiangiogenic drug that works by inhibiting the growth of new blood vessels (i.e., angiogenesis) that tumors need in order to grow. You already have all of the blood vessels you need, so a drug that stops the creation of new blood vessels starves cancer cells that depend on angiogenesis to thrive. Avastin will undoubtedly be effective in treating all sorts of cancers, but, so far, it is approved by the FDA only for colorectal cancer. Approved in 2004 for metastatic colorectal cancer, it is already being widely used in America (i.e., its "uptake" here was rapid):

The greatest differences in the uptake of drugs were noted for the new colorectal and lung cancer drugs.

The proportion of colorectal cancer patients with access to the drug Avastin was 10 times higher in the US than it was in Europe, with the UK having a lower uptake than the European average.

I went to the research article (published in the Annals of Oncology) and pulled the relevant graph for this drug. Here it is:


The graph shows the per capita usage of Avastin (bevacizumab), which, as you can plainly see, is much higher in the US than in Europe or Canada. We pay more for health care in America, but it seems that, in some respects at least, you get what you pay for.

Why do new life-saving cancer drugs reach patients faster in America than elsewhere? The authors of the research article say this:

The successful development of the USA pharmaceutical industry, FDA’s comparably short drug approval process, as well as the economic attractiveness of the USA health care market may explain why pharmaceutical companies today chose the United States as the first country of launch.

Here is a table showing that trend:


As you can see, before 1995, new cancer drugs were not released preferentially in the U.S., but now they clearly are. Here is more from the article:

The short approval times in the United States has led to a change in strategies among the major pharmaceutical companies. In the mid-1990s, EU was the most common authority to submit the first application for a new drug, but this changed in the late 1990s and early 2000s when United States instead became the most common authority to submit first applications.

I've never heard anyone say anything good about the FDA, but it looks like they are doing a pretty good job in this respect.

The U.S. is not only getting new cancer drugs to patients in a more timely fashion, it is also funding cancer research at a vastly greater rate than other countries of the world:

Significant investment is being made in cancer research. From a public funding perspective, the EU lags behind the United States.

Here is a graph that makes that point rather emphatically:


This chart corrects for population differences, and it shows that America's commitment to fighting cancer is rather impressive compared to other nations of the world. Avastin was developed by the US company Genentech. I am sure that they invested a great deal of their own money in its development, but I am equally sure that its development depended on the vast encyclopedia of knowledge about cancer cells that comes from publicly funded research for the basic sciences. When Avastin makes its way to Europe, as it eventually will, we can at least take some secret pride in the fact that a cancer survivor carrying that "Down with America" protest sign is alive only because of the way we do things here in America.

But back to the health insurance issue. Are only the rich getting access to Avastin in America? No. If you have health care coverage (as most Americans do), and if you are diagnosed with colorectal cancer, you'll get access to Avastin (though other drugs may need to be tried first). But what about those with no health insurance? I don't know. I suspect that they are not less likely to get access to the drug than Europeans, who are not yet getting very much access to it at all. And I also found this:

A press release also said patients may find financial help through charities that provide co-pay assistance and through it's Genentech Access to Care Foundation, which provides the drug free for certain eligible people who have no health insurance.

So, at the moment anyway, I suspect that more poor people with no health insurance in America are getting access to Avastin than the poor people of Europe. But I can't find any specific statistics on that, and, even if it is true, I don't know that it will remain true down the line. Ten years from now, more poor people in Europe will probably have access to Avastin than poor people in America. But by then, there will be an even better anti-cancer drug available, and only the poor in America will have access to that.

America's Wavering Resolve

Here again is what Senator Christopher Dodd said about Iraq last Sunday:

Again, this is a civil war going on in Iraq. This is not the United States versus Al Qaida. It's Shia versus Sunnis tearing each other apart. It's gone on for centuries, but particularly here right now.

And here is a story from yesterday showing how this is obviously not the United States versus al Qaeda:

U.S. Air Force F-16s obliterated three truck-mounted anti-aircraft weapons and killed 10 to 14 al Qaeda operatives near Fallujah on Tuesday, according to the military.

The military believes they were al Qaeda terrorists engaged in an operation targeting coalition aircraft.

Either the military is lying and all evidence bearing on this issue is wrong, or Senator Dodd and all leading Democrats are in a state of denial. Take your pick.

Why deny that we are fighting al Qaeda in Iraq? First, it's easy to do. Al Qaeda terrorists do not wear uniforms, and they do not mass troops before moving them into the theater of operations. Thus, to detect their presence, you have to piece together information, and that allows for some degree of uncertainly. And if there is any uncertainty at all, it is an opening for denial. Second, it is politically expedient for the Democrats to deny that Iraq is the central front in the war on terror and to portray it as a hopeless civil war. That's because Americans who think they are watching a civil war (which is most Americans) want to withdraw, and the Democrats want to capitalize on that. If Americans instead realized that our main enemy is al Qaeda, they'd show some resolve, so the best thing to do (from the Democratic point of view) is to exploit the small uncertainty about al Qaeda's role and pretend that it's "...not the United States versus Al Qaida."

Well, that's what I thought anyway. After searching around for some relevant polling data, I am no longer quite so sure. First, look at these unsurprising poll results:

"Do you think Iraq is currently engaged in a civil war, or do you not think Iraq is currently engaged in a civil war?"

A Civil War --- 69%
Not a Civil War --- 22%
Unsure --- 9%

"In your opinion, should the United States withdraw troops from Iraq right away, or should the U.S. begin bringing troops home within the next year, or should troops stay in Iraq for as long as it takes to win the war?"

Withdraw Right Away --- 19
Withdraw Within Year --- 46
Stay as Long As It Takes --- 30
Unsure --- 5

No surprise so far. Americans think it's all a big ol' civil war now, so they want to withdraw. The Democrats are exploiting this to their advantage by preposterously asserting that we are not fighting al Qaeda in Iraq. But here is the poll result that caught me by surprise:

"Do you agree or disagree with those who say that if U.S. forces withdraw from Iraq before the country is secure, Iraq will become a safe haven for Al Qaeda and other terrorists?"

Agree --- 65%
Disagree --- 25%
Unsure --- 10%

What's this? Americans want to withdraw even knowing that Iraq would become a safe haven for al Qaeda? Have we already forgotten that al Qaeda's exploitation of the failed state of Afghanistan ultimately led to the attacks of 9/11? If al Qaeda gets its way in Iraq, they are not going to set up training camps that are easily targeted by cruise missiles and surgical strikes by special forces. That's because, contrary to what everyone seems to believe, al Qaeda is not stupid and they learn from their past mistakes. In Iraq, their new operation will be distributed, much as it is right now. We won't be able to fight them by air or with a few "targeted operations." If you think we will be able to do that, then you also think that al Qaeda is run by a bunch of incompetent idiots. If that's what you think, you need to come to grips with the fact that the current sectarian violence in Iraq and your own wavering resolve were both deliberately engineered by al Qaeda, and you don't even know it. That's not the handiwork of incompetent idiots. Quite the contrary.

I'm surprised by this poll result, but I still think that Americans would be less likely to favor withdrawal if they really understood the degree to which the current fight involves the U.S. vs. al Qaeda. But I do not believe that Americans understand this at all. For example, here is how I predict they'd answer the following poll question if it were ever put to them:

"In your opinion, has Iraq fallen into a civil war in the aftermath of the invasion mainly because centuries of hostility between Shiites and Sunnis was allowed to emerge in the power vacuum or because al Qaeda has been using suicide bombers to deliberately provoke sectarian fighting in order to create a failed state and to demoralize America?"

Centuries of hostility --- 70%
Caused by al Qaeda --- 20%
Unsure --- 10%

That's how I think Americans would respond to this question. This is largely based on personal experience. Everyone I talk to about Iraq conceptualizes spectacular mass-casualty bombings there as episodes in the civil war. Almost no one realizes that these are suicide bombings (not just "truck bombs"), that they are conducted by al Qaeda, and that their purpose is to provoke sectarian violence (which means that they are not examples of sectarian violence). Changing the way Americans think about the war in Iraq before the next presidential election seems essential to me. I don't really care if we elect a Democrat or a Republican so long as the person we elect understands that the war in Iraq really is the central front in the war on terror. I do care if we elect an air head who thinks like Senator Dodd, and the only way to avoid that outcome is for minds to change (in the direction of truth, not fantasy) about what is happening in Iraq. The surprising poll result I cited above makes me wonder if even that will work, but even if it doesn't, I feel sure that facing the truth is better than clinging to a fantasy. Right now, most Americans are clinging to a fantasy about Iraq, and that's not good.

The Mainstream Media Should Target al Qaeda in Iraq

As Democrats slowly wake up the indisputable fact that the central front in the war on terror lies in Iraq (because Osama bin Laden decided to make it so), you can expect to see the argument that the US presence there only serves al Qaeda's purposes. According to this way of thinking, the sight of our soldiers occupying Muslim holy lands merely inflames the passions of Arabs everywhere. As a result, more and more otherwise peaceful Muslim shopkeepers and cabdrivers are signing up for the global jihad. Therefore, we should leave Iraq and put an end to this glorious propaganda victory for al Qaeda.

In truth, as you probably already know, al Qaeda's image in the Muslim world has suffered greatly from their brutal attacks on Muslim civilians in Iraq. Just to remind you of that:

Support for Bin Laden, Violence Down Among Muslims, Poll Says

By Robin Wright
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, July 15, 2005; Page A13

Osama bin Laden's standing has dropped significantly in some pivotal Muslim countries, while support for suicide bombings and other acts of violence has "declined dramatically," according to a new survey released yesterday.

However, it is also undeniably true that Iraq is a magnet for the more religiously deranged jihadists around the world. Those deviants have been drawn out of the woodwork, so to speak, which means that our actions in Iraq have almost certainly created more terrorists -- terrorists who are now flocking to Iraq to maniacally blow themselves to pieces. Thus, both claims are true:

1. Al Qaeda has suffered a devastating propaganda defeat in the Muslim world

2. The number of religiously deranged jihadists that al Qaeda can use as suicide bombers in Iraq is larger than it would be had we not invaded

What matters most are the long term trends. In the long term, it is essential that we win the propaganda war so that the countries that spawn these jihadists become less tolerant of them. Al Qaeda knows that. For example, I've noticed that they quickly claim credit for attacks on US and Iraqi security forces (which Muslims around the world just love), but they never claim credit for mass casualty attacks on Muslim civilians in Iraq (because ordinary Muslims are less pleased about that). To me, that's very interesting. It means that al Qaeda clearly recognizes the propaganda losses they have suffered because of the brutally effective strategy they have adopted in Iraq. They want to kill Shiite civilians to infuriate the Shiite militias so they will once again enter the civil war (because that suits al Qaeda's purposes), but they don't want to be blamed for doing so. All of this is reflected in the posting on jihadunspun.com (the English-language news outlet for the Islamic State of Iraq -- which is al Qaeda in Iraq). Having noticed no claims of responsibility for mass-casualty attacks against Shiite civilians in the mainstream media, I looked on their web site to see if they claimed responsibility there. Many attacks by al Qaeda terrorists are detailed there, including suicide bombing attacks (which are called "martyrdom operations"). Do they also mention martyrdom attacks against Shiite civilians, which are the attacks that have damaged their reputation so badly in the Muslim world? To find out, I focused on two attacks in particular.

At the end of March, an al Qaeda suicide bomber did this:

Tal Afar bomb toll hits 152, deadliest of Iraq war

BAGHDAD, Iraq - The Iraqi government raised the death toll on Saturday from a truck bomb in the town of Tal Afar to 152, making it the deadliest single bombing of the four-year-old war.
...
Khalaf said 100 homes had been destroyed in the main blast, which officials have blamed on al Qaeda. The explosion left a 75-foot-wide crater.
...
Bombings blamed on Sunni Islamist al-Qaida have killed 400 people in Shiite areas across the country in the past week.
...
Officials had earlier this week said 85 people died in the Tal Afar bombing, which triggered reprisal attacks by gunmen and police in a Sunni neighbourhood of the town hours later.

Officials said earlier up to 70 were killed in the revenge attacks, but Khalaf put the number at 47. He said most of the attackers were police. Much of the force is made up of Shi’ites.

Note how perfectly this scenario fits with Zarqawi's evil plan for Iraq. Zarqawi believed that if al Qaeda strikes Shiites, the Shiites will respond by killing Sunnis (i.e., "civil war" will result). That's precisely what happened here, and it has happened a lot in Iraq (exactly as al Qaeda planned). But the point I want to make here is that, so far as I know, al Qaeda did not claim responsibility for this attack. Moreover, on their news archive site, there is hardly any mention of the suicide bombing, but there is a very detailed description of the reprisal attacks against Sunnis:

Massacre In Tal Afar: 70 Sunnis Murdered
Mar 29, 2007
Muhammad Abu Nasr | Iraqi Resistance Report

In a dispatch posted at 10:50am Makkah time Wednesday morning, Mafkarat al-Islam reported that members of the puppet police together with pro-Iranian Shi‘i sectarian militias had carried out a massacre of Sunni Iraqis in the northern city of Tall ‘Afar, about 55km west of Mosul.
...
Previously Iraqi puppet officials had confirmed that armed men had stormed a Sunni area in the town, which is inhabited by Arab Sunnis and Shi‘ah as well as Turkomans, and killed nearly 50 people in an apparent act of sectarian revenge for explosions that took place in the city on the day before that left 55 people dead and 120 others injured.

That brief reference to "...explosions that took place in the city on the day before..." is the only reference to the Tal Afar bombing anywhere on the entire web site so far as I can determine. They do not say anything about who might have been responsible for that bombing (in sharp contrast to their extremely detailed accounting later in the article of who was behind the reprisal attacks against Sunnis). Obviously, al Qaeda does not want to advertise the fact that they are deliberately slaughtering Shiite Muslims. In fact, al Qaeda has always been that way. Zarqawi's infamous letter, which lays out the battle plan for killing Shiites and bombing their holy sites, was supposed to be a secret internal communique, not a public propaganda device.

Don't let your mind wander into the ridiculous territory occupied by clueless Democratic senators. That is, do not try to seriously entertain the possibility that the mass-casualty attacks against civilians in Iraq were not carried out by al Qaeda. If your mind wants to go there (e.g., if you really think that al Qaeda does not have a plan to kill Shiites or if you think they are too principled an organization to do that sort of thing), then I strongly encourage you to look into the matter. You could start here. What you'll find is a veritable mountain of evidence supporting the claim that these attacks are carried out by al Qaeda. Importantly, you'll find something else as well: there is not one shred of evidence -- not one shred -- weighing against that theory. It is not only the evidence in favor but it is also the absence of evidence against that makes the case against al Qaeda so compelling. If the evidence were equally strong both ways (i.e., if a lot of evidence pointed to al Qaeda as the possible culprit and a lot of other evidence pointed to, say, Baathist insurgents), then it would make sense to remain uncertain about who is behind these attacks. But it is not like that. All of the evidence -- and there is a lot of it -- points to al Qaeda.

If you find yourself resisting the inevitable conclusion despite the fact that you can point to no evidence against it, you should consider the possibility that there is something wrong with the way you think. Your views need to be shaped by the evidence, not by what you wish to be true. If you are still denying the role of al Qaeda in Iraq, then I am quite sure that you simply do not want it to be true (probably because you do not want George Bush to be right when he says that Iraq is the central front in the war on terror). You should forget Bush for a moment and just add up the evidence, and then let your thinking be influenced accordingly.

Another al Qaeda atrocity not mentioned on the jihad unspun web site is this:

Suspected Qaeda bombs kill nearly 200 in Baghdad
Wed Apr 18, 2007

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Suspected al Qaeda militants killed nearly 200 people in a wave of car bombings in Baghdad on Wednesday, including one that was the single deadliest attack in the Iraqi capital since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.

No one publicly claimed responsibility for this attack, so far as I know. Similarly, there is not one single word about this attack on al Qaeda's news archive site. Not even a brief reference to "explosions" that took place yesterday, which is how they briefly referred to the Tal Afar suicide bombing. Many other suicide bombing attacks (and mortar attacks and IED attacks) are documented on the news archive site, but the only ones listed all target US soldiers ("cross worshipers") or Iraqi police ("apostates"). They do not take credit for (and, in many cases, do not even mention) mass-casualty strikes against Shiite civilians or their holy places. The only possible explanation for this is that they do not want to suffer further propaganda losses as their carry out their evil plan for Iraq. In other words, they are not complete idiots.

Which brings me to the main point of my post today: the mainstream media in the US is missing the opportunity to more severely damage the reputation of al Qaeda in Muslim countries around the world. Although our news is presented in English (not Arabic), the message pushed by our media makes its way around the world. In order to further tarnish the reputation of al Qaeda -- and to also report the news more truthfully (which is an added benefit) -- reporters should not hesitate to label the suicide bombers of Iraq as probable al Qaeda terrorists, as they sometimes do (and as they did in the stories cited above). Too often, though, in a truly pathetic attempt to remain "objective," they refer to these attacks as being carried out by Sunni "extremists" or "insurgents." They should instead always attribute these attacks against innocent civilians as likely having been carried out al Qaeda terrorists. They should further remind their audience, much more clearly than they do now, that the purpose of these attacks is to infuriate Shiite militias so they will begin to slaughter Sunni civilians. That's al Qaeda's stated plan.

This is the message that the Muslim world needs to hear, and it has the added benefit of being true: al Qaeda is working to ensure that Muslims kill Muslims in large numbers. Americans need to hear that message, too, so they can climb out of the big-ol'-civil-war schema that currently enfeebles their thinking about Iraq.

Senator Dodd is Not Telling the Truth about al Qaeda in Iraq

Redstate caught Christopher Dodd in what I consider to be a brazen inaccuracy (to put it mildly) about Iraq. For months, I have documented the eerie code of silence that characterizes most Democratic pronouncements on Iraq. Ordinarily, the Democrats strangely make no reference at all to Qaeda (that's the eerie code of silence), but occasionally they explicitly deny that al Qaeda is involved in Iraq. Democrats who do that have graduated to the next stage of development, which I call the eerie code of denial.

Here is what Senator Christopher Dodd said about this last Sunday:

Again, this is a civil war going on in Iraq. This is not the United States versus Al Qaida. It's Shia versus Sunnis tearing each other apart. It's gone on for centuries, but particularly here right now.

Dodd is clearly not being truthful about what he knows. He says "This is not the United States versus Al Qaida," but he surely knows all about this:

Al-Qaida group claims killing of 9 GIs in Iraq

MSNBC News Services
Updated: 4:54 p.m. PT April 24, 2007

BAGHDAD - An al-Qaida-linked group posted a Web statement Tuesday claiming responsibility for a suicide car bombing that killed nine U.S. paratroopers and wounded 20 in the worst attack on American ground forces in Iraq in more than a year.

That looks like the United States versus Al Qaeda to me. What does it look like to you?

But let's take a more systematic tour through the evidence concerning the critical role played by al Qaeda in Iraq. In response to the senator's claim, I am going to overwhelm you with compelling evidence from multiple sources showing that al Qaeda is the main enemy we are fighting in Iraq. In light of that evidence (none of which is top secret), I am suggesting that Senator Christopher Dodd is being deliberately misleading. And I am challenging you to prove me wrong.

If you decide to rise to my challenge, take note of the fact that I cite sources, I analyze casualty data, and I quote our generals as well as theirs (i.e., I quote General Petraeus and Osama bin Laden). That's what you should do, too. Merely expressing attitudes, opinions and pessimism does little more than illustrate your own internal psychological condition. It is your sources of evidence that matter. Here is the evidence that shapes my view of Iraq:

1. In 2004, we intercepted a letter written by Zarqawi. Who is he? Until he was killed last year, he was the leader of al Qaeda in Iraq. His stated (and brilliant) plan was to slaughter Shiites and destroy their holy places in a deliberate effort to provoke the Shiite militias into killing Sunnis. As he put it:

The Shi'a in our opinion, these are the key to change. Targeting and striking their religious, political, and military symbols, will make them show their rage against the Sunnis and bear their inner vengeance...Then, the Sunni will have no choice but to support us in many of the Sunni regions.

Is that clear enough? Al Qaeda's plan is to attack the Shiites, not as part of a civil war, but to incite a civil war. Think about that until that distinction is clear in your mind. Al Qaeda is not participating in the civil war. Instead, they are trying engineer a civil war (one that, at the time the letter was written, was not happening on its own).


2. Democrats often say (bizarrely) that the "real terrorists" are in Afghanistan. The truth is, Osama bin Laden sent the real terrorists to Iraq to fight Americans (this from a Newsweek article published in December of 2003):

Bin Laden’s Iraq Plans
At a secret meeting, bin Laden’s reps give bad news to the Taliban: Qaeda fighters are shifting to a new front

Dec. 15 issue - During the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, three senior Qaeda representatives allegedly held a secret meeting in Afghanistan with two top Taliban commanders.
...
At that meeting, according to Taliban sources, Osama bin Laden’s men officially broke some bad news to emissaries from Mullah Mohammed Omar, the elusive leader of Afghanistan’s ousted fundamentalist regime. Their message: Al Qaeda would be diverting a large number of fighters from the anti-U.S. insurgency in Afghanistan to Iraq. Al Qaeda also planned to reduce by half its $3 million monthly contribution to Afghan jihadi outfits.

All this was on the orders of bin Laden himself, the sources said. Why? Because the terror chieftain and his top lieutenants see a great opportunity for killing Americans and their allies in Iraq and neighboring countries such as Turkey, according to Taliban sources who complain that their own movement will suffer.
...
Until now, the attacks on Americans and other Coalition members have come mainly from local Saddam loyalists rather than an influx of foreign jihadists. But if the Taliban sources are correct, bin Laden may be aiming to help turn Iraq into “the central front” in the war on terror.
...
The Arabs informed Mullah Omar’s two representatives—one a former cabinet minister and the other a senior Taliban military commander—that bin Laden believed Al Qaeda had to widen the scope of its anti-infidel efforts as new opportunities arose. According to Sharafullah, the Qaeda representatives quoted bin Laden as saying, “The spilling of American blood is easy in Iraq. The Americans are drowning in deep, rising water.” Many Qaeda men are keen to go to Iraq, bin Laden’s delegates at the meeting allegedly added, and they again quoted “the sheik” as saying: “I’m giving men who are thirsty a chance to drink deeply.”
...
Judging from bin Laden’s taped messages over the years, his strategy has always been to sap America’s will and drive U.S. troops out of Arab lands altogether.

As you can see, Osama bin Laden decided to make Iraq -- not Afghanistan -- the central front in the war on terror. And in case you haven't noticed, almost all of the suicide bomb attacks carried out by foreign jihadists these days are happening in Iraq (not Afghanistan). Democratic senators like Christopher Dodd seem not to have noticed. Either that, or they are pretending not to have noticed.


3. Bin Laden was joined at the hip with Zarqawi:

In Iraq, a clear-cut bin Laden-Zarqawi alliance
Audiotape of Al Qaeda leader, released Tuesday, coincided with deadly insurgent attacks.
December 30, 2004

AMMAN, JORDAN – The connection between Osama bin Laden and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was cemented with Mr. bin Laden's latest taped statement on Tuesday, in which he praised the Jordanian militant and said anyone who participates in Iraq's Jan. 30 election will be considered an infidel and fair game for attack.
...
Since the Iraq invasion, bin Laden has repeatedly called Iraq a battleground against the "crusader" West, even as Zarqawi has emerged as his principal agent. Zarqawi has positioned himself at the head of a growing network that US officials believe has been behind more than 70 car-bombings inside Iraq...
...
By combining their resources, Zarqawi and Al Qaeda seem to be aiming to further amplify their message of total war against the US, the Middle Eastern regimes it favors, and Israel, with an expanded Internet reach and ongoing attacks against US and Iraqi forces.
...
Bin Laden's latest statement urged Muslims to attack the US and any Iraqis that work with the interim arrangements, including voters and election workers. In the two-minute, five-second audio tape, he referred to what he sees as "the third world war," led by the "Crusader Zionist Alliance" against Muslims who, in turn, "have a rare and precious opportunity to get out of the dependency and slavery to the West."

4. In February of 2006, al Qaeda destroyed the Shiite Golden Mosque in Samarra, which -- precisely as Zarqawi had planned -- brought the Shiite militias into the battle. Sectarian violence escalated relentlessly after that attack, and it did not begin to subside until the troop surge began. The al Qaeda operative who organized that attack was later captured:

Iraq Cites Arrest of a Top Local Insurgent
Officials Call Detainee No. 2 in Al-Qaeda Group

Monday, September 4, 2006; Page A01

BAGHDAD, Sept. 3 -- U.S. and Iraqi forces have captured a top al-Qaeda leader who ordered the bombing of a Shiite Muslim shrine in Samarra that triggered a wave of ferocious sectarian killings, Iraqi officials said Sunday.

Here is a chart, based on casualty statistics maintained at Iraq Coalition Casualty Count (details here and here), showing how violence against civilians in Iraq increased after that attack by al Qaeda:


The black bar shows the month in which the shrine was attacked. The 3 blue bars represent the months of the unfolding troop surge. As you can see, civilian casualties were stable before the Shrine was bombed. That stability was bad news for al Qaeda (for reasons explained by Zarqawi in his letter). After the shrine was bombed, the Shiite militias took their gloves off, and killings increased dramatically, which is exactly what al Qaeda had in mind.

I wonder if you understand the significance of this? The "civil war" was not the spontaneous result of centuries of enmity between Sunnis and Shiites. Instead, it was deliberately engineered by al Qaeda, and they did it precisely because the spontaneous fighting was occurring at too low a level to stop democratic progress in Iraq. Senator Dodd knows this. Even so, he acts as if al Qaeda in Iraq is irrelevant.


5. Human Rights Watch weighed in with this analysis:

The groups that are most responsible for the abuse, namely al-Qaeda in Iraq, Ansar al-Sunna and the Islamic Army in Iraq, have all targeted civilians for abductions and executions. The first two groups have repeatedly boasted about massive car bombs and suicide bombs in mosques, markets, bus stations and other civilian areas.

Human Rights Watch gets the picture, but Christopher Dodd remains in the dark. Either that, or he is being deliberately misleading (just as many of his Democratic colleagues are).


6. The suicide bombers of Iraq are mostly foreign fighters, and they are they are funneled into Iraq by al Qaeda (not by the Baathists who make up the Sunni insurgency). It is a well-financed and well-organized operation. It is the exact operation that Osama bin Laden described to the disappointed Taliban:

'Martyrs' In Iraq Mostly Saudis
Web Sites Track Suicide Bombings

By Susan B. Glasser
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, May 15, 2005; Page A01

Who are the suicide bombers of Iraq? By the radicals' account, they are an internationalist brigade of Arabs, with the largest share in the online lists from Saudi Arabia and a significant minority from other countries on Iraq's borders, such as Syria and Kuwait. The roster of the dead on just one extremist Web site reviewed by The Washington Post runs to nearly 250 names...
...
Many of the Arabs, according to the postings, were drawn to fight in Iraq under the banner of al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, the group run by Jordanian militant Abu Musab Zarqawi that has taken credit for a gruesome series of beheadings, kidnappings and suicide attacks -- many of them filmed and then disseminated on the Internet in a convergence between the electronic jihad and the real-life war.

7. Suicide bombings in Iraq, which have been occurring for a long time, have greatly increased in response to the troop surge. Here is a tabulation of such attacks according to the media reports at Iraq Coalition Casualty Count:


That's al Qaeda's response to the troop surge. Does Senator Dodd really believe that these attacks have nothing at all to do with al Qaeda? That these are simply Baathist insurgents fighting a centuries-old civil war? No, he doesn't. He knows precisely who these suicide bombers are, and he knows they are trying to bring the Shiite militias back into the battle so that they will start killing more Sunnis. He knows it; he just doesn't want you to know it.


8. Spectacular mass-casualty bombings against Shiite civilians are attributed to al Qaeda by most observers. Here are just two of many examples:

Suspected Qaeda bombs kill nearly 200 in Baghdad
Wed Apr 18, 2007

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Suspected al Qaeda militants killed nearly 200 people in a wave of car bombings in Baghdad on Wednesday, including one that was the single deadliest attack in the Iraqi capital since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.

The bombings were by far the bloodiest in Baghdad since U.S. and Iraqi forces launched a security crackdown two months ago in an attempt to halt the country's slide into sectarian civil war.


Car bomb kills 57 near Iraqi Shi'ite shrine

KERBALA, Iraq (Reuters) - A suicide car bomber killed 57 people and wounded nearly 160 near one of Iraq's most revered Shi'ite Muslim shrines in the city of Kerbala on Saturday, in an attack likely to inflame sectarian tensions.
...
The attack bore the hallmarks of Sunni Islamist al Qaeda, which U.S. and Iraqi officials accuse of trying to tip Iraq into full-scale civil war between the majority Shi'ites and minority Sunni Arabs, once dominant under Saddam Hussein.

9. The Islamic Army in Iraq consists of former Baathists fighting an insurgency against American and Iraqi security forces. They are not religious radicals (despite their name), they do not use suicide bombers, and they do not target civilians for mass slaughter. Recently, they have split with their former al Qaeda allies in Iraq because of al Qaeda's brutal attacks on Shiite civilians. They even called on Osama bin Laden to stop al Qaeda in Iraq from continuing these assaults:

Last week, an influential nationalist group, the Islamic Army in Iraq, asked Osama bin Laden to rein in al-Qaeda in Iraq's more extreme tactics, such as targeting Iraqi civilians and brutally enforcing Sharia Law.

Why would the Islamic Army in Iraq (i.e., the Baathist insurgents) appeal to Osama bin Laden to stop these attacks by foreign jihadists? Is it because those attacks have nothing at all to do with al Qaeda? That would be strange. Obviously, they appealed to bin Laden because al Qaeda is calling the shots in Iraq.


10. The Sunni tribes of the Anbar Province are also turning against al Qaeda in Iraq:

Iraqi Sunnis set up fatwa body to combat al Qaeda

By Suleiman Al-Khalidi
REUTERS
10:33 a.m. April 9, 2007

AMMAN – Mainstream Sunni Muslim clerics in Iraq have formed a body to issue edicts aimed at curbing the influence of al Qaeda militants whose activities kill civilians, not only foreign troops, a leading cleric said on Monday.

Again, Sunni insurgent organizations and Sunni tribes are turning against Sunni al Qaeda. But Christopher Dodd says that all we are seeing in Iraq is a centuries old conflict between Shiites and Sunnis. There is something else happening in Iraq as well, and the elephant in the room is called al Qaeda in Iraq.

11. The Iraq Study Group had this to say (and much more) about al Qaeda in Iraq:

Iraq is vital to regional and even global stability, and is critical to U.S. interests...It has the world’s second-largest known oil reserves. It is now a base of operations for international terrorism, including al Qaeda.
...
As one Iraqi official told us, “Al Qaeda is now a franchise in Iraq, like McDonald’s.” Left unchecked, al Qaeda in Iraq could continue to incite violence between Sunnis and Shia. A chaotic Iraq could provide a still stronger base of operations for terrorists who seek to act regionally or even globally. Al Qaeda will portray any failure by the United States in Iraq as a significant victory that will be featured prominently as they recruit for their cause in the region and around the world. Ayman al-Zawahiri, deputy to Osama bin Laden, has declared Iraq a focus for al Qaeda: they will seek to expel the Americans and then spread “the jihad wave to the secular countries neighboring Iraq.”
...
Al Qaeda would depict our withdrawal as a historic victory. If we leave and Iraq descends into chaos, the long-range consequences could eventually require the United States to return.

12. General Petraeus had this to say:

The U.S. military commander in Iraq, General David Petraeus, said on Thursday al Qaeda was bent on committing what he called "sensational" attacks designed to fuel more sectarian violence.

Speaking in Washington, Petraeus said al Qaeda was now "probably public enemy number one" in Iraq.

Is General Petraeus lying? Is he just making this up? Surely you don't believe that.

Again, Senator Dodd said "This is not the United States versus Al Qaida." I am saying that Senator Dodd is not being truthful.

Does that seem harsh? It seems harsh to me, but it also seems like an inescapable conclusion based on the evidence. Evidence that I actually cite in great detail. I am challenging you to prove me wrong. Not with your opinions, which are entirely predictable, but with cited evidence. I don't think it's doable, but I look forward to being proven wrong.

When the going gets tough...

A new column by the incomparable Charles Krauthammer reminded me of the "imminent threat" mumbo jumbo that soiled the last presidential campaign in America. I am sure you recall that many complained about Bush's assertion that Iraq posed an imminent threat to our nation. Krauthammer points out that Bush was actually quite clear in saying that we should not wait until Iraq becomes an imminent threat (instead of saying that Iraq already did pose an imminent threat). Here is what Bush said in a speech to the nation (not exactly a top secret forum) shortly before the invasion of Iraq:

Some have said we must not act until the threat is imminent. Since when have terrorists and tyrants announced their intentions, politely putting us on notice before they strike? If this threat is permitted to fully and suddenly emerge, all actions, all words, and all recriminations would come too late. Trusting in the sanity and restraint of Saddam Hussein is not a strategy, and it is not an option.

In other words, Bush was disagreeing with the idea that we should wait until Iraq poses an imminent threat because he thought it would be too dangerous to do so. He was not saying that Iraq already posed an imminent threat (as many charged at the time). In fact, the whole reason why this was an "illegal war" under international law was because we invaded even though there was no imminent threat (even according to Bush). Preemptive strikes are legal under international law if the enemy is, for example, massing troops on the border or placing armed missiles on the launchpad (i.e., if the threat actually is imminent). The Bush doctrine holds that, when it comes to state sponsors of terror, you strike before it gets to that point. That's why the Bush doctrine is illegal under international law. Whether UN Resolution 1441 gave the invasion legal cover is a separate issue. Generally speaking, preventive wars are illegal.

Bush did say that Iraq posed a "grave and gathering threat," and many just assumed that he was trying to say that Iraq posed an imminent threat. Perhaps that's what you thought, too. But that says something about you, not Bush. Bush said "grave and gathering." Thus, according to one reasonable analysis, Bush openly violated international law by invading without waiting for the threat to become imminent (according to his own words). He was not pretending to abide by existing international law by claiming that the threat had already become imminent.

Here is a press briefing from January 2004 where Scott McClellan gets it wrong and a reporter seems to have it right. McClellan accurately points out that Bush never said that Iraq posed an imminent threat, but he seems confused about the different between a preemptive strike (which is legal) and a preventive strike (which is illegal):

Q On the question of Iraq, two issues. First, you've been using the phrase, "gathering threat" and "grave danger," which obviously are words that the President, himself, used many times before the war. You have not used the word "imminent threat." And the essence of Dr. Kay's comments recently would suggest that there was no way for there to be an imminent threat.

Does the President now believe that, in fact, while the threat was gathering, while the threat may have been grave, that, in fact, it was not imminent?

MR. McCLELLAN: I think we've said all along that it was a grave and gathering threat. And that in a post-September 11th world, you must confront gathering threats before it's too late.

I think some in the media have chosen to use the word "imminent." Those were not words --

Q The President himself never used that word?

MR. McCLELLAN: Those were not words we used. We used "grave and gathering threat." We made it very clear that it was a gathering threat, that it's important to confront gathering threats in this post-September 11th world, because of the new dangers and new threats that we face.

Q So then under your interpretation, if you're not using the word "imminent" and the President didn't use it, this was not a preemptive attack, this was a preventative war? Is that the White House position?

MR. McCLELLAN: No, again, September 11th taught us that we must confront gathering threats before it's too late. Saddam Hussein -- Saddam Hussein had ample opportunity to come clean.

Q I hear you, Scott. But there's a definitional difference. "Preemptive" has to do with imminent threats. "Preventative" has to do with non-imminent threats.

MR. McCLELLAN: He was a gathering threat, and it was important that we confront that threat. I don't know that I necessarily agree with your distinctions that you're making there.

Actually, the reporter nailed it. Here is a Wikipedia article that seems to get it right as well:

In discussions of this aspect of the Bush Doctine, the terms "preventive war" and "pre-emptive war" are sometimes used interchangeably, although they represent very different strategies. A pre-emptive war occurs when a state believes an attack to be imminent (for example, the enemy is gathering troops on his border) and launches an attack to get the first strike. A preventive war, on the other hand, occurs when a state launches an attack on another state that is not currently a threat, but may become one at some point in the future. By these definitions the 2003 war in Iraq was waged as a preventive measure.

A doctrine of preventive war is historically difficult to sustain for two reasons. First, it is aggressive, which makes domestic and especially international support for the doctrine difficult to sustain, and causes hostility against the initiator. Second, it requires sound intelligence to justify wars before any concrete threat has materialized. Such intelligence is difficult to obtain on a regular basis.

All that sounds right to me. They could have added that, under international law, preventive wars are also illegal. Hence, according to one reasonable way of thinking, Bush's invasion was illegal, and he never tried to pretend that was legal by asserting that Iraq posed an imminent threat. His argument in favor of the legality of the invasion was that a UN resolution (Resolution 1441) specifically authorized the use of force (though others dispute that). That's where the case for legality rests, not on the imminence of the threat posed by Iraq. It's amazing how wrong everyone was about that.

Krathammer finishes his column with this observation:

Outside of government, the case for war was made not just by the neoconservative Weekly Standard, but -- to select almost randomly -- the traditionally conservative National Review, the liberal New Republic and the center-right Economist. Of course, most neoconservatives supported the war, the case for which was also being made by journalists and scholars from every point on the political spectrum -- from the leftist Christopher Hitchens to the liberal Tom Friedman to the centrist Fareed Zakaria to the center-right Michael Kelly to the Tory Andrew Sullivan. And the most influential tome on behalf of war was written not by any conservative, let alone neoconservative, but by Kenneth Pollack, Clinton's top Near East official on the National Security Council. The title: "The Threatening Storm: The Case for Invading Iraq."

Everyone has the right to renounce past views. But not to make up that past. It is beyond brazen to think that one can get away with inventing not ancient history but what everyone saw and read with their own eyes just a few years ago. And yet sometimes brazenness works.

Brazenness does, indeed, work. You can claim that Bush lied when he did no such thing and when his chief accuser (Joseph Wilson) was himself exposed as a liar by a Senate Intelligence Committee investigation, you can claim that Bush falsely asserted that Iraq posed an "imminent threat" even when it is an easily documented lie to do so, and you can, with a straight face, lament a "jobless recovery" even in the face of a historically low 6% unemployment rate (a rate last seen in France more than 30 years ago). You really can, in other words, just brazenly make stuff up, and the media will roll with it. And since most Americans don't pay close attention to the details, it gets traction (incredibly). That's the most important lesson I learned in the last presidential campaign. I never thought it would be that way, and I was simply amazed that I turned out to be wrong about that. No matter how brazen the lie, it can live forever if it makes sense to liberal reporters and if leaders in the Democratic party get together and push the lie in unison. Today, the lie concerns al Qaeda in Iraq, but that's another story.

I only know of one person who repeatedly claimed that Iraq posed an imminent threat. That person is current presidential candidate John Edwards, who said this:

I mean, we have three different countries that, while they all present serious problems for the United States -- they're dictatorships, they're involved in the development and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction -- you know, the most imminent, clear and present threat to our country is not the same from those three countries. I think Iraq is the most serious and imminent threat to our country.
...
And they do, in my judgment, present different threats. And I think Iraq and Saddam Hussein present the most serious and most imminent threat.

John Edwards was not a liar, and he was not misled (as he, himself, clearly explains elsewhere). Yet he actually did use the words that many mistakenly believe that Bush used. Bush was relentlessly savaged for declaring Iraq to be an imminent threat. Edwards? The left is infatuated with him. It's a weird world we live in.

History is being brazenly rewritten before your very eyes. As James Taranto observes:

Think of all the politicians and commentators who supported the Iraq war with their votes and words, then switched sides once the going got tough. If opinion polls are to be believed, somewhere between 25% and 40% of the public did the same.

Who is going to undergo such a transformation honestly? There are a precious few who acknowledge that they supported war back when they honestly believed that Saddam Hussein had WMDs and when they thought that the military operation would be short and easy. Having been proven wrong on both counts, they have now changed their minds and oppose the war. Such people are few and far between. Most politicians are of lesser character, so they will try to escape responsibility for their past finger-in-the-wind decisions by pathetically claiming to have been misled by George Bush. It's brazen, but the media loves it, so the lie will live forever.

No "eerie code of silence" for al Qaeda in Iraq

Harry Reid won't talk about al Qaeda in Iraq, but al Qaeda in Iraq will talk about Harry Reid.

The web site "jihadunspun.com" is an English-language news outlet for the Islamic State of Iraq. As I noted here, the Islamic State is an umbrella organization of al-Qaeda-affiliated jihadist groups in Iraq. They are the ones who have ramped up suicide bombing operations in hopes of re-igniting civil war and demoralizing Americans as the troop surge gets underway. Here is a recent story that may be of interest:

The Islamic State of Iraq has issued a statement that speaks to the utter collapse of America’s so-called “new security plan” and the upheaval that is taking place in the US Congress over how to extract itself from the Iraqi quagmire.
...
Here is their statement, published uncut and uncensored, as translated by JUS...


THE PLANS OF THE CROSS WORSHIPPERS AND THEIR HENCHMEN HAVE COLLAPSED

In The Name Of Allah The Most Gracious The Most Merciful

All praise be to Allah, The Cherisher and Sustainer of the worlds. Peace and prayer be upon our prophet, Muhammad, his family, and his companions.

Allah Almighty says:

“ They will not fight you (even) together, except in fortified townships, or from behind walls. Strong is their fighting (spirit) amongst themselves: thou wouldst think they were united, but their hearts are divided: that is because they are a people devoid of wisdom.” Qur’an 59-14

It is apparent to every watchful eye that recent events over the past few days have exposed a huge crack in America’s administration. With weak declarations from their leaders about events on the ground in Iraq just two months after the so-called “Baghdad security plan” commenced and a growing dispute about funds spent on the Iraq and Afghan wars, the American command has now said “The current security plan is the last chance for the American army and the Maliki government”.

As usual, this was followed by a swift visit by the new (American) Defense Minister “Gates” who said, “The American support to the Maliki government is not unlimited”, insinuating that the American administration is impatient with the Maliki government that is incapable of handling the strikes of the Mujahideen. This comes on the heels of an important statement by House Majority Leader Harry Reid who previously said, “The Iraqi war is hopeless and the situation in Iraq is same as it was in Vietnam.”

That's al Qaeda talking. To them, what Harry Reid said was important (even though they don't have his position in our government quite right). I wonder if Reid will have this statement by al Qaeda framed and placed in a prominent location in his Senate office, so he can view it with pride on a daily basis? Someone should send it to him as a gift. After all, he had to know that his words would inspire the enemy in just this way.

It's fine to disagree with the troop surge, but it's illegitimate to maintain an eerie code of silence about al Qaeda in Iraq when you do. But that's precisely what the Democrats are doing with their "it's just a big ol' civil war now" lie. It's a lie by omission because they know all about al Qaeda in Iraq (having been briefed on that very topic by General Petraeus). But they also know that their political fortunes depend on Americans not fully appreciating what al Qaeda is doing and what their plans for Iraq really are. Even so, it is inexcusable for Democrats to simply pretend that al Qaeda in Iraq does not exist and that the "real terrorists" are in Afghanistan.

The Democrats should stand up and acknowledge that their views line up with the views of al Qaeda in Iraq, that the enemy takes comfort from what Democratic legislators are trying to do, and that al Qaeda is gleefully using the words of prominent Democrats like Harry Reid for propaganda purposes. After acknowledging those facts, the Democrats should explain why their actions (and their plans for Iraq) are perfectly OK anyway. Instead, they have willfully adopted an eerie code of silence about al Qaeda in Iraq. That's dishonest, which is ironic given that liberals charge Bush with lying at the drop of a hat.

It's time for Harry Reid to look into a mirror and ask himself if he is being completely honest with the American people on the subject of al Qaeda in Iraq. Better yet, some reporter should ask him about that. I won't hold my breath.

G7 National Leadership Election Scorecard

I know you've heard all about the fact that the world has turned against America because of George Bush's imperialism, his opposition to the Kyoto Protocol, his tendency to torture terrorist detainees, his refusal to endorse "we-are-all-in-this-together" proposals like the International Criminal Court, and on and on. Because of him, Americans cannot walk around with their heads held high anymore. We know this because polls often show that people in other countries have an unfavorable image of America. And to many on the left, that's a big problem. I always ask them why, and I have not yet heard one good answer. Not one. In fact, people are invariably surprised by my question because they've never really thought about it. It sounds bad at first ("everybody hates us!"), but the concern tends to vaporize once you think through it a bit. It's just a popularity contest, after all, one that translates into nothing of importance. Nothing at all. Surprisingly, this point applies to our standing in Muslim nations as well. Popularity polls there, as elsewhere, just don't matter.

By contrast, a different kind of poll -- the kind that France just took -- really is important. And that's the kind of poll that shows America's true standing in the world. If America's standing really were so low, presidential candidates should be able ride anti-Americanism to victory. This should be especially true in France and Germany -- the two most anti-American states in Western Europe (according to popularity polls, anyway).

With today's election in France, the advanced industrialized democracies of the world (i.e., the G7) have all had a chance to weigh in since the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Who won those elections anyway, the anti-American hysteric, or the pro-American supporter of the war on terror? Here is the scorecard:

Pro-American supporters of the war on terror:

United States (George Bush, 2004)
Great Britain (Tony Blair, 2005)
Germany (Angela Merkel, 2005)
Japan (Junichiro Koizumi, 2005)
Canada (Stephen Harper, 2006)
France (Nicolas Sarkozy, 2007)

Anti-American opponents of the war on terror:

Italy -- (Romano Brodi, 2006)

6-to-1 pro-American (or, if you prefer, pro-Bush), with all polls taken since the invasion of Iraq. Germany and France, once the most vocal advocates of indefinitely propping up the genocidal dictator in Iraq, have now elected leaders who sound just like Bush. For example, here are some words of wisdom from Merkel before the invasion of Iraq:

Two things have been highlighted once again by the EU decision. First, the danger from Iraq is not fictitious but real. Second, working not against but jointly with the United States, Europe must take more responsibility for maintaining international pressure on Saddam Hussein. As is argued in the EU summit declaration, this means advocating military force as the last resort in implementing U.N. resolutions.

It is true that war must never become a normal way of resolving political disputes. But the history of Germany and Europe in the 20th century in particular certainly teaches us this: that while military force cannot be the normal continuation of politics by other means, it must never be ruled out, or even merely questioned -- as has been done by the German federal government -- as the ultimate means of dealing with dictators. Anyone who rejects military action as a last resort weakens the pressure that needs to be maintained on dictators and consequently makes a war not less but more likely.

And while Sarkozy can't really be listed as a supporter of the invasion of Iraq, he was accused by his opponent of apologizing to Bush for France's opposition to the invasion (as well he should have). And note this description of the policies he favors:

So now the man set to govern the oldest (and arguably the most temperamental) ally of the United States for the next five years is someone whose message will be easy to translate: lower taxes, harder work for more money, greater consumption as the key to more employment and ever tougher measures against criminals and terrorists.
...
Sarkozy writes in the preface to the U.S. edition of “Testimony,” “I have no intention of apologizing for feeling an affinity with the greatest democracy in the world.” Opting more for Bushism than Gaullism, Sarkozy extols the transatlantic alliance with the United States “that enabled France and Western Europe to preserve their freedom.”
...
While he tends to wriggle around the question of French opposition to the war in Iraq, hinting he would eschew the kind of “verbosity” shown by outgoing President Jacques Chirac when Sarkozy was serving in his cabinet, the former interior minister is unquestionably a hard-liner in the wider fight against terrorists. “Now at the start of the 21st century, the United States and France again stand together in the same camp against a serious threat to global freedom.” Every time “terrorism strikes,” he says, “it is freedom that is the target. Facing such a threat, free countries have no choice but to pool their forces and work together.”

Amazing. They might as well have just elected George Bush.

Unlike popularity contests, which don't matter at all, these polls reflect America's actual standing in the major industrialized democracies of the world. Maybe Hugo Chavez of Venezuela is the one who is on the right track, while France, Germany, Great Britain, Japan and Canada have all veered off onto the wrong track, but I somehow think it might be the other way around.

An Insurgent-vs.-Terrorist Tutorial

The mainstream media and prominent Democrats have trouble distinguishing between terrorists and insurgents in Iraq, but most normal people don't. I thought I'd briefly look into two major Iraqi groups that popped up in the aftermath of the invasion to underscore this point. One is an insurgent group; the other, a terrorist group.

1. Islamic Army in Iraq:

This sounds like a bunch of of religiously deranged Islamic radicals, but this group actually comes closest to what starry eyed leftists occasionally refer to as "freedom fighters." As described in the Wikipedia article:

The Islamic Army in Iraq (IAI)...is one of a number of underground Baathist, Islamist, militant, or mujaheddin, organizations formed in Iraq following the 2003 invasion of Iraq by United States and coalition military forces and the subsequent collapse of the Baathist government headed by Saddam Hussein. Although it carries an Islamic title, the group is thought to be the largest militant group that consists of former Baathists and has been labelled as "resistance" by Iraq's Sunni Vice-President Tariq al-Hashemi despite regular attacks against Iraqi soldiers and policemen and Shi'ite militias such as the Mahdi Army and the Badr Organization.

As you can see, these are mostly former Baathists seeking restore themselves to power. I certainly would not call them freedom fighters because, although they wish to oust foreign forces, they also wish to imprison (not liberate) the 80% of the Iraqi population that is not Sunni. Democracy is the farthest thing from their minds. Still, it's not insane for the media to refer these people as insurgents. They do things like kidnap and kill journalists and contractors, assassinate politicians, and attack coalition and Iraqi security forces with IEDs and small arms fire. They are the ones who released the infamous sniper video that CNN aired, thereby helping the Islamic Army's propaganda campaign. They don't have suicide bombers, so far as I know, and I do not think they target innocent civilians for mass slaughter. In fact, they are the ones who recently pleaded with Osama bin Laden to call off the suicide bomb attacks against civilians carried out by al Qaeda in Iraq. Thus, for the most part, it seems reasonable to refer to them as insurgents.


2. Islamic State of Iraq:

This sounds a bit like the first group, but they are not insurgents and they are also not freedom fighters. Instead, they are religiously deranged terrorists seeking to impose Shariah law on the people of Iraq by force. Here is how they are described:

The Global Islamic Media Front, a long-time "umbrella" propaganda organization for Islamic extremists, has released a propaganda video announcing the establishment of the "Islamic State of Iraq."

The Arabic language video - the latest in a series of online videos called Sout Al Khilafa (Arabic for "Voice of the Caliphate") - was released on November 6, 2006, and posted to a blog called the "Caliphate Voice Channel."

The announcer claims the Mujahideen Shura Council, created by Al Qaeda in Iraq and five of the country's other terrorist groups in January 2006 to unify their efforts and coordinate attacks, has announced the establishment of the "Islamic State of Iraq," where Shariah law will prevail and serve to protect the Sunni people in Iraq.
...
The announcer comments on Iraq's unique geographical location, calling it a starting point "for the Islamic nation['s] fighters in the battle to liberate Palestine from the Zionist entity." The video then ends with clips from older Al Qaeda videos, including footage of Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan before the September 11 terrorist attacks.

Basically, this is an umbrella organization of like-minded al-Qaeda-affiliated jihadist psychopaths, and they are acting as if they already are the new government of Iraq. A web site called Jihadunspun.com seems to be an Engligh-language news outlet for this organization. All of their recent military operations seem to be documented there. Many are inaccurate, but they are not completely fabricated. Instead, they are often exaggerations of actual attacks (I looked up several to check on that). Some think it's a CIA front operation, but I highly doubt it.

They refer to our soldiers as "cross worshippers," they call Shiites "apostates" (at least I think that's who they are referring to when they use that word), and they describe suicide bombings as "martyrdom operations." I'm not sure how we should refer to them. "Death worshippers," perhaps? In any case, here is something they reported on that site that is worth noting:

The Islamic State of Iraq has carried out six martyrdom operations as the al-Karama Expedition, declared by the Amir of the Islamic State, Abu Omar Al-Baghdadi, gains momentum in an all out effort to cripple America’s so-called new plan for Iraq.

The six attacks that were carried out throughout Anbar province and indicates that the Islamic State is ramping up their efforts to counter to the US “troop surge” to thwart the US effort before it gets off the ground.

Thus, the Islamic State of Iraq (i.e., al Qaeda) represents the Iraqi front of the anti-troop-surge battle. Unfortunately, there is an American front in that battle as well.

I'll never understand why it doesn't bother Democrats when their views line up with those of the enemy. Opposing the troop surge is a legitimate political position, of course, but to oppose it without acknowledging that it perfectly dovetails with al Qaeda's plans (and without then explaining why that's perfectly OK) is illegitimate from my my view. Instead of doing that, the Democrats are clearly lying about what is happening in Iraq. No, this is not an unsubstantiated charge. Go read that post if you think I am going too far in making that accusation. The Democrats are lying by omission -- it's not even an arguable point -- by refusing to so much as acknowledge al Qaeda in Iraq (much less explain why withdrawing from Iraq is OK in light of what al Qaeda has planned).

Don't get confused about this. In occasional spasms of bravado, al Qaeda claims that they want more US troops to come to Iraq so that they can kill them:

Zawahiri says, "We ask Allah that they only get out of it after losing 200,000 to 300,000 killed, in order that we give the spillers of blood in Washington and Europe an unforgettable lesson."

Right. They want US forces to further occupy Muslim lands. Well, if that's what you think al Qaeda's goal is, you need to wake up to the fact that their bravado does not match their strategic objectives. Al Qaeda's ability to kill Americans in Iraq is actually extremely limited. At the current rate, it would take them about 3 centuries to kill that many soldiers. What they say on propaganda tapes is to be believed only if it also matches what they say on intercepted communiques, and I don't think any of those express the hope that more US soldiers occupy Muslim lands. Zarqawi's letter, intercepted in 2004, certainly said no such thing.

Al Qaeda's actual goal is to deal America a humiliating defeat while plunging Iraq into sectarian chaos, and they have been doing a very good job of that lately. The idea that we are "playing into their hands" with the troop surge simply does not compute. The troop surge has caused the Muqtada al Sadr's Mahdi Army to largely stand down (the exact opposite of what al Qaeda wants) and has emboldened the Sunni tribes of the Anbar Province to finally turn against al Qaeda (also the exact opposite of what they want). Al Qaeda is pulling out all the stops to the re-ignite sectarian violence, and they have also started to attack Sunnis to push them back into line.

I'm not sure how it will turn out, but, thanks to the troop surge, the current trends in Iraq are against al Qaeda. Here in America, the trend appears to be headed in the opposite direction, thanks largely to a mainstream media and Democratic leaders who both want you to believe that what is happening in Iraq involves a civil war between insurgents (like the Islamic Army in Iraq) and Shiite militias. But what about the Islamic State of Iraq? You know, the organization that has unleashed an amazing wave of suicide bombers to re-ignite sectarian violence in Iraq (i.e., to re-ignite the civil war) and to demoralize Americans? What about, you know...al Qaeda?

Silence. Dead silence. As if al Qaeda does not exist, or as if the "real terrorists" are in Afghanistan, not Iraq. If you think the Democrats have a better plan for Iraq, you need to ask yourself how they managed to devise such an excellent plan while remaining utterly oblivious to al Qaeda in Iraq (even while al Qaeda deliberately slaughters hundreds of Iraqi civilians every month -- right before your very eyes). Obviously, they don't have a better plan for Iraq. Their plan has only to do with gaining partisan political advantage here at home. Such a plan need not acknowledge al Qaeda in Iraq. In fact, the plan will work best if everyone adopts an eerie code of silence about that. And that's precisely what the Democrats have chosen to do. Aren't you impressed?

Validity Check on Casualty Statistics

I track casualties in Iraq very carefully -- as carefully as one can sitting at a computer half a world away from the action, anyway. It's not a trivial undertaking, but I've worked on it, and I always pay attention to information that either confirms or discomfirms the numbers I extract from Iraq Coalition Casualty Count (ICCC). If you try it yourself, you need to be very careful because they occasionally just throw in huge additional tallies that can be extremely misleading. Most tallies exclude morgue reports because it's not clear what to do with them. Are they accurate? Do they represent deaths that have already been counted? No one knows. But if you are going to add them in, you have to add them in every month, not just in a few selected months. ICCC seems to have added them in for 4 months only (most recently February and March), and I always take them out to analyze trends.

When you take the huge additional counts out, the ICCC data show 1381 civilian deaths in February and 1631 in March. Here is a news story that reports two other tabulations for those two months:

Despite the ongoing bloodshed, figures compiled Tuesday from Iraqi government reports show that the number of Iraqi civilian deaths fell nearly 20 percent from 1,872 in March to 1,501 in April.
...
An Associated Press tally, however, found that the number of Iraqi civilians killed in April was at least 1,648, just 3 percent fewer than at least 1,701 killed during March. The AP figures are based on daily police reports, while the monthly compilations were provided by ministry officials who released them on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to give them out.

Here is a chart showing the numbers for those two months according to the 3 different sources:


They don't agree exactly, of course, but they all put the figures in a similar range (on the order of 1600 per month), and they all suggest that the two months did not differ greatly from each other. That increases my confidence that the ICCC method is useful for tracking trends in Iraq. No method is perfect, but theirs is pretty good (except when they just occasionally throw in an extra 1400 deaths for no good reason).

Also, using the information at ICCC, I estimated that there were at least 34 suicide attacks in Iraq in the month of April, which is a sharp increase over prior months. That's probably an underestimate because news stories often report car bomb attacks or truck bomb attacks without mentioning the fact that there was a suicide bomber at the wheel (and the ICCC method relies on news reports). Is the figure accurate? This story puts the number slightly higher:

Suicide bombings in Iraq are averaging roughly 42 a month, American military officials said.

That's the right ballpark. It's not 12 (or 86), for example, so, again, this gives me confidence that the ICCC method yields fairly accurate results.

All of this is probably not that important to you, but it's important to me. Opinions need to be grounded in factual data. I, at least, feel lost without some hard evidence to anchor my thinking. When it comes to tracking casualties in Iraq, the ICCC method seems useful for that, I am happy to say.

Deviants Walking Free and the Murder Rate

A reader sent me a link to a fascinating post on the relationship between the murder rate in America and the rate at which deviant people are institutionalized (in prisons and mental hospitals). As I'll show you in a moment, when fewer people are institutionalized, the murder rate goes up.

Before I get to that, I want to remind you of the rather stunning relationship between the murder rate and the execution rate over the years (relevant data here and here):


The number of executions (blue line) can be read off the vertical axis on the left and the murder rate (magenta line) can be read off the vertical axis on the right. What you see is a fairly clear result: as the execution rate falls, the murder rate goes up, and as the execution rate goes up, the murder rate goes down. The correlation coefficient is a whopping -.70, which is highly, highly significant (p < .0001).

Correlation does not imply causation, but it's hard for me to look at a chart like this and be highly confident that the death penalty does not serve as a deterrent to murder (which is what most people believe to be true). At the "bumper sticker" level of analysis, I would say that executions appear to deter murder. Or, to put that another way, taking a few guilty lives would appear to save many innocent lives.

My actual beyond-the-bumper-sticker view is that murderers are deterred when certain attitudes prevail in society, and they are less deterred when other attitudes prevail (an idea that I think might be attributable to Francis Fukayama). Liberal attitudes (for lack of a better term) have many effects, and one of those effects is that murderers are less likely to be put to death. You can see that phenomenon in the chart above. As liberal attitudes began to prevail in the 1960s, executions dropped to zero. Lots of people think that was good. But the murder rate skyrocketed, and that's obviously bad. As conservative attitudes began to prevail in the 1980s, executions returned once again, and the murder rate dropped.

But liberal attitudes did not affect only executions (obviously). In a fascinating new post, Bernard Harcourt shows the relationship between the murder rate and the rate of institutionalization (i.e., the rate at which we put deviant people in prisons and mental hospitals). The chart is poorly constructed and is hard to read, so I've added some labels in an effort to make it easier:


The murder rate trend is the same one as in the first chart above. The red vertical line simply marks the year 1960, which is the beginning of a decade during which liberal attitudes began to prevail. As you can see, fewer and fewer people were put in prisons and in mental hospitals during those years. But with fewer people institutionalized, the murder rate increased. In the 1980s, when conservative attitudes began to prevail again, the rate of institutionalization began to increase again as well. And, as you can see the murder rate came down.

One idea is simply that when you allow a lot of deviant people to run around in the streets, they tend to murder people. And this phenomenon would be expected to have effects at the state level (unlike executions). If New York releases a lot of prisoners, it's likely to affect the murder rate in New York much more than in California. As I have noted before, any deterrent effect of executions is unlikely to operate that way (because, I would think, potential murderers do not carefully track state-level death-penalty practices).

On the other hand, as I have also noted before, it's not just the murder rate that increased in the 1970s. Violent crimes of all kinds increased as well, and property crimes increased enormously, too. I don't think it is possible to explain so many crimes specifically on the people who were released from institutions because I don't think there was enough of them even if they all committed crimes. Instead, the large forces at play affected the criminality of many additional people as well. Still, that's just an impression I have, so I'll have to look into the matter more carefully.

My suggestion is that when society adopted a liberal mind set, the number of executions and the rate of institutionalization both decreased. Many other changes occurred as well, and, collectively, those changes resulted in an increase in the rate of murder (and an increase in criminal behavior in general). When society adopted a more conservative mind set, the number of executions and the rate of institutionalization both increased. Many other changes occurred as well, and, collectively, those changes resulted in a decrease in the rate of murder (and a decrease in the crime rate as well).

Many bad things may also happen when conservative attitudes prevail (e.g., there might be more "unnecessary wars"). But an increase in the murder rate does not appear to be one of them. Many good things may happen when liberal attitudes prevail (e.g., there might be more creativity and ingenuity). But one of the bad things that happens is that the murder rate goes up because of a whole variety of societal changes that accompany liberal attitudes (including the elimination of capital punishment and a reluctance to institutionalize).

The Democrats are Lying about the War in Iraq

My current (and long-standing) obsession is obviously the issue of al Qaeda in Iraq. What I've noticed in my relatively short blogging career is that I become obsessed with an issue when the facts strongly support a point of view that is at variance with the point of view that almost everyone else shares. With regard to Iraq, almost everyone believes that the Sunnis and Shiites are fighting a civil war and that we have already had -- and have already settled -- the debate about that.

I've been hammering away on this issue by repeatedly emphasizing the fact that what al Qaeda is doing is not an example of sectarian violence and, therefore, is not part of the civil war between Shiites and Sunnis. Yes, al Qaeda consists of Sunnis, but, no, they are not killing Shiites out of a sense of revenge or in an effort to defeat them in a civil war. Instead, they are killing Shiite civilians to goad vengeful Shiite militias into once again murdering Sunnis in large numbers. That is, they are trying to re-ignite (not participating in) the civil war that has decreased in intensity since the troop surge began. If they succeed in re-igniting that civil war, they know that Americans will become predictably demoralized and start saying things like "this war is lost." They also know that the Sunnis of the Anbar Province will have no choice but to turn to al Qaeda for protection from the enraged Shiite militias. That's their nefarious and unbelievably effective plan. None of this is debatable. Also not debatable is the fact that virtually all of the spectacular, mass-casualty attacks from Iraq that made the news in the just-completed month of April was of the non-civil-war, non-sectarian variety conducted by al Qaeda in Iraq. Were you aware of that?

I have also argued that, to get people to change their minds about what is happening in Iraq, just emphasizing the role played by al Qaeda is not enough. People have difficulty mentally assimilating information about al Qaeda so long as their minds are enfeebled by the obsolete civil war schema through which all information is processed. It is the false civil war schema that causes mainstream media reporters to write one story after another suggesting that mass-casualty terrorist attacks by al Qaeda are actually attacks by "Sunni insurgents" and that they constitute examples of "sectarian violence." That happened time again last month even though it was almost never true. When Americans read stories like that, they think "civil war," and they infer that what is happening in Iraq is just the latest chapter in a centuries-old conflict between Sunnis and Shiites. Unless you specifically explain to people that it is quite wrong to think along those lines, they will continue to do so. Thus, I have suggested that Bush should not only highlight the role played by al Qaeda in Iraq (as he has in the past) but that he should also specifically draw attention to the fact that these attacks not examples of sectarian violence (and, therefore, are not part of the civil war). Instead, they are al Qaeda terrorist attacks (not Sunni insurgent attacks) designed to re-ignite a de-escalating (not an escalating) civil war. Bold assertions like that have a tendency to wake people up.

Well, Bush is either reading my mind or I am reading his. Or, perhaps, or we are both just in touch with the same reality on the ground. Here is what Bush said in a speech yesterday:

The primary reason for the high level of violence is this: al Qaeda has ratcheted up its campaign of high-profile attacks, including deadly suicide bombers carried out by foreign terrorists. In the past three weeks, al Qaeda has sent suicide bombers into the Iraqi parliament. Or they send a suicide attack into an American military base. These attacks may seem like random killing; they're not. They're part of al Qaeda's calculated campaign to reignite sectarian violence in Baghdad, to discourage the Iraqi citizen, and to break support for the war here at home. This is what these murderers are trying to achieve.
...
The recent attacks are not the revenge killings that some have called a civil war. They are a systematic assault on the entire nation. Al Qaeda is public enemy number one in Iraq. And all people of that society ought to come together and recognize the threat, unite against the threat and reconcile their differences.

That is Bush telling the undeniable truth. Got that? Bush. Iraq. War. Truth. And it's not even arguable. Or would you care to dispute any detail at all? I didn't think so because to dispute any of this would be to make a fool of yourself. By contrast, here, via Realclearpolitics.com, is Russ Feingold, a Democratic senator, joining Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi in telling a deliberate lie (albeit a lie by omission):

We can't keep giving in to this Administration on Iraq. Every time the Administration gets its way, it means that our troops will remain stuck in the middle of Iraq's civil war, and our national security will continue to be undermined. With so many Americans demanding that our involvement in this war come to an end, backing down is not the answer. No one else should die in Iraq to give political comfort to dealmakers in Washington.
...
Today, 150,000 U.S. troops are in the middle of a civil war that is straining our military, and hurting our ability to go after al Qaeda worldwide. Too much is at stake for us to back down -- the new Congress has got to stand firm. It's a time to listen to the American people and finally start to bring our troops out of Iraq. Their lives and our national security depend on it.

There you have it. The obsolete civil war schema. And not one word about al Qaeda. Well, I take that back. He does mention al Qaeda exactly once, and here is what he says:

Today, 150,000 U.S. troops are in the middle of a civil war that is straining our military, and hurting our ability to go after al Qaeda worldwide.

Thus, according to Democratic Senator Russ Feingold, al Qaeda is not in Iraq. They are elsewhere in the world, and we are not confronting them because our soldiers are bogged down in a civil war in Iraq.

That's a lie. It is a lie by omission because it does not tell the rest of the story. Russ Feingold knows perfectly well that all of the spectacular mass-casualty attacks from Iraq that make the news are attacks by al Qaeda. He also knows that those attacks are designed to do precisely what George Bush said they are designed to do (i.e., to re-ignite civil war and demoralize Americans). He knows because he was briefed by General Petraeus on this very subject. Petraeus says that al Qaeda is public enemy number one in Iraq. But Feingold also knows that the Democrats will retain a partisan political advantage so long as Americans don't appreciate these facts. So long as Americans believe that Iraq has descended into civil war and that it has nothing to do with the war on terror, they will want to leave (and they will favor Democrats who prefer that policy to Republicans who don't). That's why, I assume, Feingold chooses to lie by omission.

Am I wrong? If so, I am asking someone -- anyone -- to explain where my logic has gone astray. I certainly do not want to behave like those who continued to charge Bush with lying about Iraq's WMDs even after he was fully vindicated by a bipartisan investigation of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. He turned out to be wrong about those WMDs, but he was not lying.

Could the same be true here? Could the Democrats simply be wrong? I am open to the suggestion, but I currently don't see how that could be. The truth was explained to them by General Petraeus. And even if you don't believe him (i.e., if you preposterously believe that he is lying), I assume that Democratic Senators in Washington read the Washington Post:

Suspected Qaeda bombs kill nearly 200 in Baghdad
Wed Apr 18, 2007 5:42 PM EDT

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Suspected al Qaeda militants killed nearly 200 people in a wave of car bombings in Baghdad on Wednesday, including one that was the single deadliest attack in the Iraqi capital since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.

This was the very attack that Harry Reid made reference to when he claimed that "this war is lost." The evidence of al Qaeda is everywhere, and the Democrats are aware of it. Still, they choose to make no mention of it as they push the idea that our troops are stuck in the middle of a civil war in Iraq (and that's all there is to it).

I would never lightly charge anyone with lying, and that's because it is too easy to turn policy disagreements into lies. Liberals in America charged Bush with lying about Saddam's WMDs, liberals in Britain did the same to Blair, liberals in Australia did the same to John Howard, and liberals in Denmark did the same to Anders Rasmussen. Obviously, there was no worldwide conspiracy. Instead, they all sincerely believed that Saddam possessed WMDs (and for good reason).

But this isn't like that. There really does seems to be a kind of conspiracy among Democrats to maintain a strict code of silence about what they know to be true in Iraq. How else can do you explain the fact that one Democrat after another fails to acknowledge the role of al Qaeda while they harp on the idea that Iraq has descended into a state of civil war? Do you think that they all really believe that al Qaeda is in Afghanistan but not Iraq? It's either that, or they are lying by omission. It seems obvious to me that they are doing the latter, but I am begging you to set me straight if you can detect a flaw in my reasoning.

Here is Harry Reid:

After more than four years of a failed policy, it's time to remove our troops from an open-ended civil war and for Iraq to take responsibility for its own future.

Go read that statement. Not one word about al Qaeda. Here is House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer:

After listening to Gen. David Petraeus, Hoyer said he thinks the fight in Iraq is not against al Qaeda but is "a virulent sectarian battle against various factions within the Iraq populous that has not been brought under control by the Iraqis themselves."

He mentions al Qaeda, but he gets it exactly backwards (right after being briefed by General Petraeus). Here is Nancy Pelosi:

Rather than sending more troops into the chaos that is the Iraq civil war, we must be focused on bringing the war to an end. We can do that today by passing this bill that transforms the performance benchmarks that have already endorsed by President Bush and Iraqi leaders into requirements.

Al Qaeda? They appear not to exist in her mind. Here is John Murtha weighing in with his scholarly analysis:

According to the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, Second Edition, the definition of a civil war is a "war between political factions or regions within the same country." That is exactly what is going on in Iraq, not a global war on terrorism, as the President continues to portray it.

But (as usual), Ted Kennedy takes the cake:

The American military will not police Iraq’s civil war indefinitely.

Sectarian violence in Baghdad continues unabated -- despite the Administration’s claims to the contrary. According to an April 25 report by the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq, “civilian casualties of the daily violence between January and March remained high concentrated in and around Baghdad.” The violence is so bad that the Iraqi Government has refused to provide mortality figures to the UN.
...
The report also states that, “Despite reports from Iraqis in late February that security had somewhat improved, there were a series of indiscriminate attacks targeting civilians, and the rate of kidnappings remained high.”

Hello? Indiscriminate attacks targeting civilians? Any ideas about who might be behind those attacks?

Russ Feingold, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Steny Hoyer, John Murtha, Ted Kennedy -- they are all deliberately lying (by omission) about the role played by al Qaeda in Iraq. They are doing so, I assume, because they do not want Americans to know that Iraq really is the central front in the war on terror (because al Qaeda has decided to make it so). Instead, they want Americans to falsely believe that Iraq is all about a civil war between indigenous Sunnis and Shiites (because it helps them politically). By sharp contrast, Bush is telling the unvarnished truth. Without revisiting the past, I hope someone will rise to the occasion and explain how the facts prove that it is the other way around (i.e., that Bush is a contemptible liar and the Democrats are boldly telling the unvarnished truth).

UPDATE: Go here to see the White House setting the record straight about al Qaeda in Iraq. Like me, they cite news stories and the words of General Petraeus to make their (incontrovertible) case. Also, they include this quote from Osama bin Laden (in case you think it might be a different al Qaeda that we are dealing with in Iraq):

BIN LADEN: "I now address my speech to the whole of the Islamic nation: Listen and understand. The issue is big and the misfortune is momentous. The most important and serious issue today for the whole world is this Third World War, which the Crusader-Zionist coalition began against the Islamic nation. It is raging in the land of the two rivers. The world's millstone and pillar is in Baghdad, the capital of the caliphate." (Text Of Bin Laden's Audio Message To Muslims In Iraq, Posted On Jihadist Websites, 12/28/04)

Osama bin Laden thinks it is the Third World War. But if you are a leader in the Democratic party, the thing to do (apparently) is to not even mention the problem of al Qaeda in Iraq (because, as we all know, it's just a big ol' civil war now, and that's all there is to it).

Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi Lie by Omission

Before the invasion of Iraq, the President said this about Saddam Hussein:

Now, let's imagine the future. What if he fails to comply and we fail to act, or we take some ambiguous third route, which gives him yet more opportunities to develop this program of weapons of mass destruction and continue to press for the release of the sanctions and continue to ignore the solemn commitments that he made? Well, he will conclude that the international community has lost its will. He will then conclude that he can go right on and do more to rebuild an arsenal of devastating destruction.

And some day, some way, I guarantee you he'll use the arsenal...In the next century, the community of nations may see more and more of the very kind of threat Iraq poses now--a rogue state with weapons of mass destruction, ready to use them or provide them to terrorists, drug traffickers, or organized criminals who travel the world among us unnoticed.

If we fail to respond today, Saddam, and all those who would follow in his footsteps, will be emboldened tomorrow by the knowledge that they can act with impunity, even in the face of a clear message from the United Nations Security Council, and clear evidence of a weapons of mass destruction program.

You might think that this was a deliberate attempt to mislead the American people by exaggerating the threat posed by Saddam Hussein, but I don't. We simply did not know that Saddam has largely rid himself of his WMDs by 1995 (according to the Dulfeur report). Still, if you think the President was lying when he spoke these words years after that, so be it. I think he was telling the truth (do click that link) as he understood it at the time.

But that was then, this is now, and my question for you today is this: who is misleading the American people about what is happening in Iraq? In vetoing legislation that calls for the unconditional surrender to the terrorist organization that attacked us on 9/11, Bush said this:

Even as sectarian attacks have declined, we continue to see spectacular suicide attacks that have caused great suffering. These attacks are largely the work of al Qaeda -- the enemy that everyone agrees we should be fighting. The objective of these al Qaeda attacks is to subvert our efforts by reigniting the sectarian violence in Baghdad -- and breaking support for the war here at home. In Washington last week, General Petraeus explained it this way: "Iraq is, in fact, the central front of all al Qaeda's global campaign."

I have been hammering away on this very point for a long time, but I was still almost shocked to hear the President speak these words. Is anyone, anywhere bold enough to suggest that Bush is misleading the American people in any way when he makes these points? I sincerely doubt it. These points are unarguable. Not only are they unarguable, they are the key points in this debate.

That's precisely why no news stories anywhere include this statement from Bush's short speech (at least not so far as I can tell). You have to read the veto statement itself to find this critical paragraph, and that's because reporters think it's more important to focus on the fact that this was the 4th anniversary of the "Mission Accomplished" speech and the fact that Nancy Pelosi says that the Democrats are not going to give the president a "blank check." But those are trivially unimportant issues compared to the central issue of this debate.

What do the leading Democrats have to say about Bush's suggestion that we are fighting al Qaeda in Iraq -- "the enemy that everyone agrees we should be fighting?"

Nothing, of course. Not -- one -- word. Let me ask you a question that gets at the main point of my post today: By rigidly adhering to the eerie code of silence on the issue of al Qaeda in Iraq, is Harry Reid being completely honest with the American people, or is he attempting to mislead them? Isn't that a fair question?

In a video taped statement on his web site, Reid says:

As we know our president has put our troops in the middle of a civil war.
...
We need to pull our troops out of an intractable civil war...

There it is, the obsolete civil war schema that enfeebles the thinking of Democrats everywhere. They just cannot get themselves out of that mental trap. What does he say about al Qaeda in Iraq? After all, even the civil war he laments was deliberately engineered by al Qaeda when they bombed the Golden Mosque more than a year ago. As such, they would seem to deserve at least a fleeting reference. Go listen to his statement and find out for yourself what he says about this. What you'll find is that there is not one single word spoken about al Qaeda.

OK, maybe Nancy Pelosi will weigh in on the subject of al Qaeda in Iraq. Here, in discussing the Iraq Accountability Act, she asserts that "The President has to face the reality on the ground in Iraq," but she does not mention al Qaeda in Iraq. That's ironic, don't you think? She seems to have adopted the "new realism" of presidential candidate Bill Richardson. That new realism just happens to coincide with the old fantasy about Iraq (i.e., it's all just a big ol' civil war, and we need to get out now).

Democrats once made a federal case over Bush's supposed lying about Saddam's pre-war connections to al Qaeda. Now, however, it is the Democrats who are being deliberately misleading about the role of al Qaeda in Iraq (presumably because it is politically expedient to do so). Harry Reid is the worst offender. On April 19, he said "...this war is lost and the surge is not accomplishing anything as indicated by the extreme violence in Iraq yesterday." The violence he was referring to (which had occurred on the previous day) was this:

Suspected Qaeda bombs kill nearly 200 in Baghdad
Wed Apr 18, 2007 5:42 PM EDT

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Suspected al Qaeda militants killed nearly 200 people in a wave of car bombings in Baghdad on Wednesday, including one that was the single deadliest attack in the Iraqi capital since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.

Despite this "reality on the ground," Reid maintains a strict code of silence on the issue of al Qaeda on Iraq. That's misleading, and it is downright bizarre that the Democrats would savage President Bush for supposedly lying about Saddam Hussein's ties to al Qaeda before the war while giving Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi a complete pass for lying by omission about al Qaeda in Iraq today.

Washington Post columnist David Broder nailed Reid and Schumer in a column called "The Democrats' Gonzales." In it, he said:

On "Fox News Sunday," Schumer offered this clarification of Reid's off-the-cuff comment. "What Harry Reid is saying is that this war is lost -- in other words, a war where we mainly spend our time policing a civil war between Shiites and Sunnis. We are not going to solve that problem. . . . The war is not lost. And Harry Reid believes this -- we Democrats believe it. . . . So the bottom line is if the war continues on this path, if we continue to try to police and settle a civil war that's been going on for hundreds of years in Iraq, we can't win. But on the other hand, if we change the mission and have that mission focus on the more narrow goal of counterterrorism, we sure can win."

That makes a lot of sense, doesn't it? Reid won't even so much as briefly mention the spectacular mass-casualty attacks by al Qaeda in Iraq -- he won't even acknowledge the existence of these attacks, and he will declare the war lost in response to them -- and we are supposed to believe that he has the counterterrorism plan that will work. OK, I'm listening. What's the plan, exactly? Here it is, in its entirety, as it appears in the Iraq Accountability Act:

After the conclusion of the redeployment specified in subsections (c) and (d), the Secretary of Defense may not deploy or maintain members of the Armed Forces in Iraq for any purpose other than the following:

(3) Engaging in targeted special actions limited in duration and scope to killing or capturing members of al-Qaeda and other terrorist organizations with global reach;

Gee, that's reassuring. Reid won't mention al Qaeda in Iraq (ever), and he won't provide any details whatsoever about how we should confront terrorism. Even so, we are just supposed to assume that these few words in a bill sent to the president prove that, unlike the bumbling and incompetent Bush, Reid has thought through the problem posed by al Qaeda and has devised a clear plan of action. Well, his plan of action seems clear enough to me. Al Qaeda kills 200 innocent civilians on a single day in Iraq, and, on the very next day, Reid responds by declaring the war in Iraq to be lost and that the time has come to redeploy our troops.

Lying by omission may not be as bad as lying by commission, but I think it is completely fair to suggest that Reid is lying to the American people about al Qaeda in Iraq. If you are a liberal supporter of Reid (as impossible as it it is for me to imagine anyone falling into that category), you will reflexively respond to this charge by pointing out that Bush lied, too. Try to inhibit that reflex, which prevents many liberals from thinking through to the next step. Forget Bush for one fleeting moment and ask yourself these questions:

1. Is Reid being truthful about al Qaeda in Iraq or not?

2. Does Reid have a clear plan to address al Qaeda or not?

The answers to these questions seem clear enough to me. Whatever happened in the past, Bush is being clear and truthful about the problem of al Qaeda in Iraq. By contrast, Reid is lying by omission. General Petraeus has given Reid the gory details about the role played by al Qaeda in Iraq's civil strife, so it's not like he doesn't know. Instead, he is choosing not to provide the details in an effort to gain partisan political advantage. Even so, Democratic Senators stand firmly behind him in this letter sent to the Washington Post:

Sen. Reid's Fine Leadership

We, the members of the Senate Democratic Caucus, contest the attack on Sen. Harry Reid's leadership by David S. Broder in his April 26 column, "The Democrats' Gonzales."

In contrast to Mr. Broder's insinuations, we believe Mr. Reid is an extraordinary leader who has effectively guided the new Democratic majority through these first few months with skill and aplomb...It is hard to imagine a better model for leadership.
...
Finally, in this age of scripted politicians speaking only to their base or claiming that they "don't recall" anything, the fact that Mr. Reid speaks his mind should be applauded, not derided. His brand of straight talk is honest, comes from the heart and speaks directly to the people.

It's hard for Democrats to imagine a better model for leadership. And they think that his straight talk is honest and that it comes from the heart. I'm saying the exact opposite. Who do you think has the better argument?

UPDATE: In case it was not apparent, the quotation at the beginning of my post was from President Clinton, not President Bush. Usually, that surprises people. No one here seems surprised (or they did not click that link!).

The "New Realism" of Presidential Hopeful Bill Richardson

Glenn Reynolds linked to Bill Richardson's plan for Iraq. Richardson is running for president. Ironically, he advocates a "new realism in Iraq" that just happens to match the old fantasy about Iraq. Here is Point 7 in his 7-point plan:

7. Redeploy to Address Real Threats: We must redeploy some of our troops to stop the resurgence of the Taliban and to fight the real terrorists who attacked this country on 9-11.

We certainly don't want to stay in Iraq where there are no real terrorists. For example, there are obviously no real terrorists here:

Iraq Raises Death Toll in Tal Afar Bomb

Sunday April 1, 2007 12:46 AM

BAGHDAD (AP) - The Iraqi Interior Ministry on Saturday raised the death toll in last week's suicide truck bombing against a Shiite market in Tal Afar to 152, which would make it the deadliest single strike since the war started four years ago.
...
The explosion, which was blamed on al-Qaida in Iraq, led to angry reprisal shootings against Sunnis, and the officials said at least 45 people were killed in the rampage.

None here either:

Suspected Qaeda bombs kill nearly 200 in Baghdad
Wed Apr 18, 2007 5:42 PM EDT

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Suspected al Qaeda militants killed nearly 200 people in a wave of car bombings in Baghdad on Wednesday, including one that was the single deadliest attack in the Iraqi capital since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.

And no real terrorists are attacking our troops, that's for sure:

Al-Qa'ida group behind US deaths in Iraq

Published: 25 April 2007

A group linked to al-Qa'ida has claimed responsibility for two suicide truck bombs that killed nine US soldiers and wounded 20 in Diyala province in one of the deadliest attacks on American forces in the past year.

In fact, I can't find any signs whatsoever of any real terrorists in Iraq:

Car bomb kills 57 near Iraqi Shi'ite shrine

Reuters
Saturday, April 28, 2007; 2:31 PM

KERBALA, Iraq (Reuters) - A suicide car bomber killed 57 people and wounded nearly 160 near one of Iraq's most revered Shi'ite Muslim shrines in the city of Kerbala on Saturday, in an attack likely to inflame sectarian tensions.
...
The attack bore the hallmarks of Sunni Islamist al Qaeda, which U.S. and Iraqi officials accuse of trying to tip Iraq into full-scale civil war between the majority Shi'ites and minority Sunni Arabs, once dominant under Saddam Hussein.

I guess all the real terrorists have gone to Afghanistan, because they are clearly not doing anything like this in Iraq.

4:11 p.m. April 30, 2007

Police said 32 people were killed and 63 wounded when the suicide bomber struck the Shiite funeral in Khalis, about 50 miles north of Baghdad. The bomber walked into a tent filled with mourners and detonated a belt of explosives hidden beneath his clothes, police said.

Attacks on funeral gatherings are not uncommon. Suicide attacks are the hallmark of Sunni religious extremists, notably al-Qaeda in Iraq.

All of these stories are from the just completed month of April alone. According to the new realism, these terrorists aren't real. Therefore, it's time to withdraw.

Makes sense to me.

April Troop Surge Statistics

Only about 2/3 of the surging troops are in place now, and they really have not yet had a chance to do much of anything (like build walls around irreconcilable subpopulations in Baghdad). Still, major changes have taken place in response to their presence. The changes do not have to do with the overall number of civilian casualties, which have remained about the same. Instead, what has changed is the nature of the violence. But before getting to that, let's take a look at overall civilian casualties in Iraq:


[note: the casualty statistics for February and April have been increased to the levels that would have been observed had those months had 31 days. Go here to see the method I use to compute all of the statistics presented in today's post]. The black bar represents the month in which al Qaeda bombed the Golden Mosque in Samarra. That attack was not an example of sectarian violence, nor was it part of the civil war in Iraq. Instead, it was specifically designed by al Qaeda to goad the Shiite militias into killing Sunnis, and that's precisely what happened shortly thereafter. You can see that violence ramped up over the ensuing months to the very high levels that occurred back in the Fall. The blue bars represent the months during which the troop surge has been unfolding. You can see that the upsurge in civilian deaths has leveled off (and has even dropped slightly). Remember this chart the next time you read an article suggesting that violence in Iraq is "escalating." That's not the right word to use, but it's a word that is used all the time.

Here is the same chart but with the data averaged over 3-month blocks to eliminate some of the random error:


The first bar represents the average number of civilian casualties per month in May, June and July of 2005, the next bar represents the next three months, and so on. The last bar represents the 3 months of the unfolding troop surge. This graph accurately shows that violence was more or less stable before the bombing of the Golden Mosque, then it ramped up, and now it has stabilized once again (dropping slightly, in fact).

What you can't see in this graph is that the way in which civilians are dying in Iraq has changed dramatically since the surge began. To begin to get a sense of what has changed, let's look at Baghdad per se. Here are the civilian casualties in that city (where the troop surge is mainly concentrated):


Here you can see that violence has abated noticeably after it was spiraling out of control from October through January. Violence has come down mostly because the execution-style killings of Sunnis in Baghdad by Muqtada al Sadr's Mahdi Army have declined. Those killings have declined because (as I confidently predicted would happen) Muqtada al Sadr decided to cooperate with the troop surge. The next chart illustrates that development more clearly. It is exactly like the previous chart, but the bars now break down the violence between "executions" (which are always reported like this: "police found the bodies of 16 people in various parts of Baghdad...") and "other killings" (with the "other killings" coming from car bombs, suicide bombs, mortar fire, gunfire, etc.):


The blue bars represent the execution style killings, and you can see that they remain suppressed. These killings are what people mean by "civil war" and "sectarian violence." Such violence has abated substantially since the troop surge began. General Petraeus says that those killing have dropped to a third of what they were. My analyses suggest that they are half of what they were. Either way, they have dropped considerably. Thus, the civil war in Iraq in not escalating. Instead, it is de-escalating.

If the civil war has abated in Baghdad, has the civil war moved to other regions of Iraq? Is that why overall civilian casualties remain high, as shown in my first two charts?

No, and this is the most important fact to understand about what is happening in Iraq today. Violence has, indeed, moved to other parts of Iraq, but it is not sectarian violence (nor is it civil war). Instead, it consists of al Qaeda suicide bombers seeking to re-ignite the civil war that has decreased in its intensity. A decrease in the intensity of the civil war is the opposite of what al Qaeda wants, and they have decided to do something about it. To illustrate this, I used the information at Iraq Coalition Casualty Count to just add up the number of media reports of suicide bomber attacks in Iraq over the last 7 months. As I explained here, virtually all of these suicide bombers appear to be affiliated with al Qaeda. Thus, this next chart shows al Qaeda's response to the troop surge:


This is the same kind of analysis that I performed here, but I believe that the Iraq Coalition Casualty Count is a more reliable source than the Wikipedia article I used before (though the same trends are evident). As you can see, suicide attacks are up very sharply in Iraq. And that's precisely why overall civilian casualties in Iraq have remained high even though casualties have come down in Baghdad. I haven't yet calculated the number of deaths associated with these attacks, but I will soon. You've been hearing about these deaths every few days in news reports, and you've been thinking, mistakenly, that those reports reflect civil war in Iraq. However, what should be clear just from this analysis is that in response to the troop surge, two dramatic changes have occurred:

(a) sectarian violence (i.e., the civil war) has abated to a substantial degree

(b) al Qaeda's efforts to re-ignite sectarian violence and civil war has increased dramatically

What al Qaeda is doing is often erroneously reported as "sectarian violence" (or as "Sunni insurgents" attacking Shiites). But that is all wrong. These are terrorists, not insurgents. And they are not fighting a civil war, nor are they engaged in sectarian violence to defeat the Shiites. Quite the opposite. They are seeking to provoke such violence, as they previously did with the bombing of the Golden Mosque back in February of 2006. Get the difference? There is the civil war on the one hand and then there is al Qaeda trying to provoke that civil on the other. This distinction is critical to understand, but very few reporters do (which is why very few Americans do). Even when reporters do understand this, they often fail to report that the latest mass-casualty suicide bombing is an example of al Qaeda in action, not an example of sectarian violence. They mix it all up by first reporting the latest attack as an example of sectarian violence (perpetrated by "Sunni insurgents," which makes everyone think in terms of civil war), and then they go on to acknowledge that al Qaead is seeking to provoke civil war. That's the work of a reporter who is almost -- but not quite -- there.

Almost all of the news from Iraq in April about civilian casualties involved al Qaeda in action (not sectarian violence or civil war). Think about that the next time you read about a mass-casualty bombing of a Shiite marketplace (or a Shiite mosque or a Shiite funeral).

Do you doubt what I say? That's excellent. That's step one of ridding yourself of the obsolete civil war schema that enfeebles the thinking of all Democrats (save for Joe Lieberman) and most mainstream media reporters (and, sad to say, most Americans who now wish to withdraw from what they see as nothing more than a civil war in Iraq). In your state of doubt, investigate the matter. Don't take my word for it. Look into it. Test my theory. And then update your thinking because I know what you'll find. On your path to awakening, you are likely to travel through these typical stages:

1. repression, which involves ignoring the issue altogether (this is the stage of development in which Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi find themselves)

2. denial, which involves specifically asserting that what is happening in Iraq does not involve al Qaeda (this is the stage in which House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer finds himself)

3. rationalization (this is the stage in which you try to convince yourself that it is a different al Qaeda from the one that attacked us on 9/11, so we don't really have to worry about them)

4. magical thinking (this is the stage in which you try to convince yourself that our departure from Iraq will not result in genocide because the Iraqis can handle things on their own, even though al Qaeda is doing very well right now despite the fact that 150,000 American troops, the Shiite militias and, now, the tribes of the Anbar Province cannot contain them)

5. acceptance (this is the stage in which you are awake to the problem and you finally ask: what should we do now?)

If you investigate the matter for yourself, I am reasonably sure that you will end up in stage 5. That's because, as far as I can tell, there is a mountain of evidence consistent with my theory and no evidence whatsoever against it (though if you find any, do tell).

Finally, let's look at US military casualties over the last few years. Each point represents an average of 3 months (so, for example, the last point represents average monthly casualties during the troop surge):


As you can see, casualties (number killed per month) are somewhat higher than they have been in the past, but the upswing actually began before the troop surge.

Our troops are in a war with al Qaeda in Iraq. If you don't realize that, then you are probably stuck in stage 1 or stage 2, which simply means that you haven't looked into the matter. Instead, you are just reading the first two or three paragraphs of media reports on the latest atrocity from Iraq. If you do that, you'll find nothing to challenge your hardened idea that Iraq has fallen into a state of civil war. But even when that civil war was raging in full force, it was important to keep in mind that it was specifically engineered by al Qaeda (i.e., it was not the spontaneously eruption of long-suppressed ethnic hostilities like you thought it was). Al Qaeda is now trying to replicate their past success.

I'd like to close by connecting this point to Harry Reid's infamous claim on April 19 that "...this war is lost and the surge is not accomplishing anything as indicated by the extreme violence in Iraq yesterday." What, exactly, was the extreme violence he was referring to, anyway? Here is Reuters getting it right once again:

Suspected Qaeda bombs kill nearly 200 in Baghdad
Wed Apr 18, 2007 5:42 PM EDT

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Suspected al Qaeda militants killed nearly 200 people in a wave of car bombings in Baghdad on Wednesday, including one that was the single deadliest attack in the Iraqi capital since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.

Al Qaeda strikes in a deliberate effort to provoke civil war in Iraq and to demoralize the people of America. Almost unbelievably, Harry Reid responds -- pointing to that very attack -- to announce that the war is lost. But you have to believe it because it's true (and it's not an arguable point). Harry Reid and other leading Democrats have adopted an eerie code of silence on the issue of al Qaeda in Iraq. Will that bizarre phenomenon continue until they engineer our defeat at the hands of the very terrorist organization that attacked us on 9/11? I wish I knew.