Jay Reding.com

Austin Bay has an interesting piece on what is going on in Baghdad besides adding extra troops:

Adding 20,000 troops to Iraq in a five- to six-month window is a significant increase but in and of itself not decisive, and certainly not a “new strategy.”

The relentless, focused targeting of Shia and Sunni extremist organizations is a far more important feature of what Iraqis are calling “the new security plan” than more U.S. troops. The coalition’s effort to better integrate the economic and political development “lines of operation” with security operations could have greater long-term effects.

Everyone seems to be talking about the troop numbers, but that’s actually only one part of this new plan. It’s quite a bit more comprehensive than that, and it finally does a number of things that should have been done a long time ago. The fact that it has caused Moqtada al-Sadr to run to Iran with his tail tucked between his legs demonstrates that it’s already changing the status quo in Iraq. Al-Sadr wouldn’t have run if he didn’t think it were absolutely necessary — and marginalizing al-Sadr’s thugs is the first step towards restoring some order in Baghdad.

It’s going to be a while before we get an idea how well things are working, although there are some encouraging signs already in terms of al-Sadr leaving and many Baghdadis coming back into the city. What needs to happen is for the key elements of the “insurgency” to be removed. We can’t stop everyone who is engaging in violence, but we can take out the weapons dealers, the ringleaders, and the financiers who keep the death squads running.

Our biggest problem is time. A successful counterinsurgency takes years to develop and complete, but it is clear that the political will in Washington is weak. We have to get the Iraqis into the best position we can before we can think about leaving, and the progress has been unacceptably slow. While the British are in a position where withdrawal is possible — the Shi’ite south doesn’t have the sectarian violence problems of Baghdad nor the al-Qaeda infestation of al-Anbar, the Sunni Triangle remains dangerous.

We’re developing a better strategy, but it remains to be seen whether we can make enough of a difference before the political will in Washington runs out. We must ensure that Iraq does not descend into abject chaos and destabilize the rest of the region, but we don’t have the luxury of time in order in doing it. The enemies of a free Iraq know that their best, if not only, chance of winning is to run out the clock — which is why it is so crucial we ensure that the Iraqis can fight back once we leave.

It looks like I caught the attention of the lefty blogosphere, which explains why the comments are full of some rather febrile rantings. I’m approving all of them, mainly as it provides a nice pool of evidence the next time I make the assertion that the left is increasingly unhinged.

Atrios points to a comment I made back in October of 2002:

There’s no reason why this isn’t doable. Deposing Hussein will the easy part. Remember that people were saying that Afghanistan would be “the graveyard of empires” and that we’d have no better luck than the Russians? It turned out that Afghanistan can be won… and since we didn’t come to colonize or conquer, we proved those predictions to be wrong. Iraq will be little different.

If anything, Iraq will be easier than Afghanistan. Iraq hasn’t been in continuous warfare for years. Iraq has oil reserves that can fuel reconstruction, and many Iraqi people secretly harbor the dream of a free and democratic Iraq. No, we won’t see democracy spring up in a few months or perhaps not in a few years, but it will come.

There’s nothing wrong with worrying about our troops… in fact, I’d say that it’s natural and understandable to do so. But we should all take comfort in the fact that they are part of the best fighting force that has ever walked this Earth, and the most elite of the Iraqi military don’t hold a candle to them. This is what they were trained to do, and they will see this through.

Mr. Black is obviously trying to argue that I was somehow delusional back then. The problem with that argument is that what I said then was largely true. We did defeat the Hussein regime in short order — faster and with fewer casualties than I would have predicated before the start of the war.

Was I rather too optimistic on the issue of reconstructing Iraq? Obviously I was. The oil funds weren’t enough to pay for the reconstruction, and the sectarian tensions that threaten the future of Iraq were much greater than I would have thought they’d be. Still, most of our problems in Iraq stem not from inevitable consequences, but from mistakes we and others made along the way. We didn’t have enough troops to keep the peace, we tied their hands too much, and we failed to deal with al-Sadr when we had the chance to do so.

Still, I stand by what I said back then, and find nothing unreasonable about the conclusions I made back then. The left keeps claiming that they were right all along, which is simply not the case. They predicted that everything was going to be a disaster, that Saddam would use his WMDs against us or against Israel, that we’d suffer mass casualties taking Baghdad, that we’d have a major humanitarian disaster in Iraq. In wars, bad things happen, and when one predicts disaster at every turn sooner or later one will be right. That doesn’t mean that those people are particularly wise or prescient any more than it means that John Edward is really a psychic.

As an advocate of the war in Iraq, I cannot support a position that would have us leave the Iraqi people in chaos and leave a ruined country in our wake. My support for doing whatever it takes to leave Iraq in the best position possible is based on a moral imperative — and if a bunch of left wing bloggers want to take me and others to task for it, they have every right to do so. However, this is not and should not be an issue of partisanship. If we leave, the suffering of the Iraqi people will increase to a level that is far worse than the already intolerable situation they are in now. We have an obligation to help the people of Iraq, and if it makes me a “warmonger” or a “chickenhawk” or whatever slur is leveled at me, that is fine. I have my principles, and they’re far larger than supporting a particular administration or even a particular political ideology. The willful blindness of the anti-war side to the humanitarian results of a US withdrawal is deeply disturbing to me — but sadly, not to those who seem to value rank partisanship above all else.

UPDATE: Mark Kleiman has an interesting response. Most of his points are pretty fair. However, he says:

Yes, I’m tired of the triumphalism of people who tell me that their early opposition to the war demonstrates their omniscience, and that anyone one who wasn’t opposed to the war before it started should either practice criticism and self-criticism or just STFU. But I’m much tireder of the happy-go-stupid “Sh*t happens” attitude that takes lightly the shedding of lots of other people’s blood. What I can’t forgive the contemporary Right is its fundamental lack of seriousness, which it somehow manages to combine with hysterical fear-mongering.

The problem I have with this is that it’s the left that lacks seriousness in this case. The left has absolutely no plan for dealing with what would happen to Iraq if we were to leave. It is hopelessly naive to assume that the bloodshed would stop, and it’s virtually assured that it would get worse. The Iraqi government might survive, but at great cost.

Everything I see from sites like Eschaton, Kos, and the like is that the motivation for the left on Iraq has nothing to do with Iraq and everything to do with Bush. The reality is that Bush is irrelevant at this point. Even if Iraq goes well, he’s not going to end up with the credit at this point. The opposition to the war, at least for many on the left, is inextricably linked with their personal hatred of the President.

It’s one thing to destroy a President, it’s another to do so in a way that advances the agenda of our enemies and creates a humanitarian catastrophe in the heart of an already unstable region. We can sit around and point fingers about five-year-old events or we can do our utmost to keep the chaos from spreading. My biggest beef with the left right now is that they’re more interested in pointing fingers than in trying to make things better. If the left had some kind of reasonable plan for dealing with Iraq it would ameliorate some of those concerns — but no such plan exists.

If we leave Iraq, things will get worse. The left keeps dodging that undeniable proposition, which is why it is the anti-war left that isn’t looking at the situation with an appropriate level of seriousness.

The Washington Post had a rather interesting story on how the radical “netroots” are targeting a moderate California Congresswoman:

The Democratic majority was only three weeks old, but by Jan. 26, the grass-roots and Net-roots activists of the party’s left wing had already settled on their new enemy: Rep. Ellen O. Tauscher (D-Calif.), the outspoken chair of the centrist New Democrat Coalition.

Progressive blogs — including two new ones, Ellen Tauscher Weekly and Dump Ellen Tauscher — were bashing her as a traitor to her party. A new liberal political action committee had just named her its “Worst Offender.” And in Tauscher’s East Bay district office that day in January, eight MoveOn.org activists were accusing her of helping President Bush send more troops to Iraq.

Politically, the netroots are probably the worst thing that could happen to the Democratic Party. They got lucky in 2006 — endorsing Democrats in a Democratic year will guarantee you win, but for the long-term future of the Democratic Party they’re only going to push the Democrats farther and farther to their radical leftist vision. You have a group of people who have absolutely no sense of compromise and will try and destroy anyone who doesn’t meet their ideological purity tests now grabbing the Democrats by the hair and screaming if they so much as protest.

If I were a moderate Democrat, I’d be scared as hell.

Thomas Barnett finds it all to be a sign of a group of people who have gotten too big for their britches:

Why do these guys like Kos and Ralph Reed and the rest of them always get so drunk on themselves and start acting so creepy and intolerant the minute they gain the slightest pull over others? Where does their humanity go?

I’m not talking about not pushing hard or maintaining all the necessary ego for the fight. I’m talking that nasty, creepy, hate-filled sense or moral superiority that I associate with fascism and other over-the-top, emotionally distorted, authoritarian tendencies we normally link to retarded social development?

It’s just so pathetically millennial.

Why does America so often nowadays see its politically ambitious types grow so power mad so fast?

It’s just really depressing because it’s so childish, in that devolving sort of way. Most of these people I wouldn’t want anywhere near my kids. I feel dirty enough when they spew their bile here or wherever else I get posted. You just want to keep your distance from these types, like the nasty drunks in the bar or the impotent creeps who threaten your family.

It is disturbing. It isn’t necessarily unprecedent — American politics has frequently been just as vitriolic, but the effect of mass media has been to make things worse rather than better. What is the message that’s being sent by the “netroots” these days? That either you do what we want or we’ll “take you down?” If you’re a Catholic Democrat who believes strongly in the Democratic Party due to your views on social responsibility, what is your reaction to Amanda Marcotte going to be? Is that going to make you more likely to vote Democratic? What about someone who is a moderate in the vein of Ellen Tauscher? The message that’s being sent by the “netroots” is you’re not partisan enough to be a “real” Democrat.

There’s no question that the “netroots” can do what they’re doing. If they want to drive the Democrats over a cliff, that’s their prerogative. However, the question that the “netroots” should be asking is whether they should be engaging in activities that alienate their own moderates.

That’s the problem with extremists. They never bother to examine the consequences of their actions, and in a party motivated by the most base hatred of the opposition, disagreement is treason and moderation is evil. It’s interesting how much projection is involved in all the critiques of the “vast right-wing conspiracy” that float around the left-wing of the blogosphere.

Sooner or later the Republicans will wake up to the fact that moderates define elections — and when they do, the result could well be a political realignment the likes of which we haven’t seen in a very long while…

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit has issued a 2-1 decision upholding the Military Commissions Act and holding that federal courts do not have the jurisdiction to hear habeas corpus claims made by enemy combatants imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay. The Court uses the case of Johnson v. Eisentrager, 339 U.S. 763 (1950) as their basis for determining that the Military Commissions Act is compatible with the Suspension Clause (U.S. Const., Art. I, § 9, cl. 2). In that case, the Supreme Court held that German nationals imprisoned by US forces on German territory had no right to the writ of habeas corpus. The case law doesn’t give any grounds for one to argue that an alien combatant who is not being held on US territory should have access to the writ.

I haven’t had much time to digest the dissenting opinion yet, but the opinion doesn’t seem all that surprising to me. Congress does have the power to strip jurisdiction from the federal courts, and even the Supreme Court on certain cases. (Congress may not remove the original jurisdiction of the Supreme Court under Article III, however.) The Military Commissions Act did exactly that. There simply isn’t a precedent holding that states that an enemy combatant has the right to petition US courts for a writ of habeas corpus. As Eisentrager makes clear, there are many very compelling policy reasons why that should not be allowed.

I have a feeling that this will be appealed to the Supreme Court, as it seems to conflict with the Court’s prior holding in Rasul v. Bush, 542 U.S. 466 (2004). The lower court in that case also used Eisentrager as the controlling precedent, and the Court disagreed. However, Congress responded by passing the Detainee Treatment Act (which dealt with the Court’s reservations in Rasul) and the Military Commission Act (which dealt with similar issues presented by the Hamdan decision). The Court seems likely to have a pressing need to deal with the conflict between their prior holdings in Rasul and Hamdan and the jurisdiction-stripping measures in the Military Commissions Act.

I’m not sure how that possible appeal would play out with the Supreme Court now that Justices Roberts and Alito are on the bench. Both seem likely to follow the dissenting opinions in both Rasul and Hamdan and preserve Eisentrager as valid precedent. It depends on whether Justice Kennedy (now the swing vote) could be persuaded to change his opinion. In Rasul, Kennedy wrote a concurring opinion which distinguished that case from Eisentrager on two grounds: one that Guantanamo Bay was an area of American jurisdiction (unlike occupied Germany) and secondly that the defendants in Eisentrager had already been given process to determine their status as enemy combatants. Kennedy also wrote that there is some room for an area of military expertise upon which the judiciary is not to interfere. Kennedy’s position on the case at hand in this D.C. Circuit ruling could go either way.

It will be interesting to see if the Supreme Court does invalidate the Military Commissions Act — certainly with the change of the political climate it seems much less likely that the Congress would act to once again strip jurisdiction on these issues from the courts. However, the issues presented in this case may be sufficiently distinguished from those in Rasul and Hamdan to either clarify whether or not an enemy alien held in Guantanamo does or does not have the right to a writ of habeas corpus and whether the jurisdiction stripping measures of the Military Commissions Act are a violation of the Supreme Court’s original jurisdiction to hear cases arising under the Constitution. At this point, the way the Court may come out on those issues — assuming certiorari is granted at all — is anyone’s guess.

UPDATE: Marty Lederman takes a critical look at the decision and notes some flaws in the majority’s reasoning. It will be interesting to see how the Supreme Court will view the findings of the D.C. Circuit, and whether some of the objections raised in Rasul and Hamdan will come up once again in this case.

Rich Lowry argues that John Murtha’s “slow bleed” strategy is unconstitutional:

The president, not Congress, is the commander in chief. Congress was never meant to, nor is it suited to, direct tactical military decisions, as Murtha seeks to do with his restrictions.

Arguably, his maneuver will be the most blatant congressional intrusion on the president’s war-making powers in the nation’s history. Congress choked off the Vietnam War in the 1970s, but only after U.S. ground troops were mostly already out of the country and chiefly as a matter of cutting off aid to South Vietnam.

What Murtha is doing is most certainly wrong and repugnant to the future of this country (and that of Iraq), but I’m not entirely sure that it is unconstitutional. Art II, § 2, cl. 1 does make the President the Commander in Chief of the nation’s military. Furthermore, Art. II, § 1, cl. 1 vests the President with the executive power. If that were the whole of the story, Lowry would certainly be right.

However, one can argue that Congress does have more than the mere power of the purse in deciding how the military can be run. Art. I, § 8, cl. 14 gives Congress the power to “make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval forces” — which is what Murtha is arguably doing.

Still, while there’s some room for ambiguity, I agree with Lowry that Murtha’s plan is certainly repugnant to the spirit of the Constitution, and possibly the letter as well. Congress does have the power to provide for the government and regulation of the Armed Forces — for instance through setting up the Uniform Code of Military Justice. However, the idea that the Founders intended to give Congress the ability to directly influence military policy in such a direct way does not seem to be justified. The President is the Commander in Chief of the nation’s military. The Founders deliberately placed that power in the hand of the Executive Branch rather than the Legislative Branch because an effective military cannot run with 535 commanders trying to call the shots. War is not democratic, but requires a clear chain of command.

What Murtha is trying to do is undercut the war powers vested in the executive by the Constitution. His goal in that regard is eminently clear, and it could very well precipitate a Constitutional crisis.

For all the Democrats thinking that’s a good thing, sooner or later a Democratic President will have to use the same powers. A precedent that allows Congress to invade into the powers of the executive is not a healthy thing for American democracy, regardless of one’s current political affiliation. The Founders did not intent for Congress to have such direct control over the nation’s military affairs. Congress most certainly can cut off funding to stop a war — but despite all the rhetoric about how the nation really wants us out of Iraq, Congress seems to have no interest in exercising their constitutional prerogatives. We’re told that 60% of the American people want the war to end now — which if true would make cutting off funding a political no-brainer. But the Democrats don’t seem to want to do that. Even Murtha is trying to mask his intentions.

The reality is that the Democrats don’t want to be accountable for what’s happening in Iraq. All the fatalistic rhetoric is an effort to get themselves off the hook. If it’s all Bush’s fault, then they can’t be blamed for what happens. The problem with that logic is that they’re in charge of Congress now. Bush bowed to their pressure with the “surge” and now Democrats like Sylvestre Reyes have flipped their position on the issue. They either have to decide to accept that the consequences of withdrawal are too dangerous to be seriously considered or cut the funding. They have Bush right where they want him — for the most part he’s a lame duck, and he’s politically rudderless. Murtha’s attempt to create a “slow bleed” is a disgusting political calculation designed to do what Congress does not apparently have the will to do openly — which is not what the Founders ever intended Congress to be able to do. If they want to see failure in Iraq, then Congress can make it happen by cutting the funding for future operations. But that would leave them in the position of taking some responsibility for the situation. For a Congress that was supposed to embrace the value of accountability, it seems that they’re doing all that they can to avoid it.

Amanda Marcotte, John Edward’s former blogger, has a piece that defends vulgarity as a form of populism. In it, she demonstrates exactly why the left wing of the blogosphere’s only real impact will be in raising funds and embarrassing political candidates. She writes:

The word “vulgar” was by far the favorite word of critics, and make no mistake, it was used in a way that was consistent with its classist roots as a term denoting the lowly language, taste, behavior, and entertainments of the common people. John Broder of the NY Times made the classist connotations of the term explicit by suggesting that Edwards would teach us to use a more “civil tone”. Bloggers are the vulgar common people and in order to get into the hallowed halls of politics, we need to become civilized. Joan Walsh, in her companion article to mine in Salon, also drew on class-based metaphors to describe what was distressing about the blogger invasion, when she called our style “street-fighing”. Bill Donohue provided as religion hook to excite the masses, but I think the mainstream media was willing to entertain his baseless accusations because it provided them another opportunity to rail against the vulgar bloggers.

Now, it’s hardly surprising that a radical feminist would find evidence that anything somehow intersects with the Holy Trinity of the Secular Left (race, gender, or class — and usually some combination of the above). However, in its own mode of analysis, she does have a point. Blogging is seen as being a lesser form of media by the establishment.

Marcotte does go on to say something that is quite interesting:

This is where blogs step in, at least on the left. Blogging is a real counterpoint to the thoughtless, elitist, soundbite-driven mainstream media, where we’re supposed to absorb an endless stream of soundbites and photo ops and our participation is limited mostly to a vote every couple of years. Blogs are bringing back the 19th century debate culture, where people would attend real debates and political rallies and listen to speeches for hours at a time. The irony about the vulgar people is that the vulgar people crave analysis, debate and participation, because these things validate our intelligence and our right to be citizens. The blogs are still appealing only to a small segment of society right now, but they’re still relatively new and have the potential to reach a much larger audience over time.

Now, I’ll say that Marcotte’s writing is cheap invective, not real debate. She’s the Ann Coulter of the left, and while both have moments of clarity, they thrive on the sort of high-school rhetoric that has much more in common with Beavis and Butthead than with Lincoln and Douglas.

However, her populist argument isn’t without some merit. However, we have to ask ourselves if that form of populist expression is really good for our democracy. Democratic debate can’t be more than a bunch of people calling their political opposition “Christofascists” and “wankers.” I’m not sure how that sort of thing validates anyone’s intelligence, except in the negative. Yes, blogging can be incredibly edifying, which is why so many people do it. Yes, it does in many ways harken back to the pamphleteer culture of the 19th Century.

Marcotte then demonstrates why the blogosphere will never be the asset to the left that it could be otherwise:

Right now, the American left has ceded the populist ground that should be ours for the taking. In part, it’s because we respect the moral obligation not to pander on sexist, racist, or religious grounds.

For one, when has the American left ever declined to pander? Secondly, if Marcotte’s idea of retaking the populist high ground is trying to push the envelope more and more and be as vulgar (in the truest sense of the word) as they can, then blogging not only won’t have much mainstream appeal, but it shouldn’t. Do we really want a political culture that’s descended to such depths? Where the ad hominem, not the rational discussion of policy, is the predominant type of discourse?

There’s something totalitarian about that comment as well — that while the left trumpets the values of “tolerance” and “diversity” and engages in actions such as enforcing mandatory speech codes on college campuses, there’s a desire to ensure that ethical bounds don’t apply to those on the “right” side of the issues. Amanda Marcotte can make whatever disgusting slurs she wants in the name of her ideology, but the same people would accuse anyone making a similar comment about Islam as a racist, bigot, and a danger.

In the end, it’s the same constant self-rationalization leading to intellectual incoherency. Marcotte and her ilk won’t have much impact over the long-term because being vulgar is hardly new or exciting. There’s plenty of people who can lash out at the “wingnuts” and the “Christofascists” just as well. It’s the people who can actually think that make a difference, and those are the people who will influence politics.

Being vulgar is nothing to be proud of. Playing to the passions of the mob is not great rhetoric. Slinging filth is not a sign of a great mind. It’s all been tried before, and better to boot.

MINOR SPOILERS FOR BATTLESTAR GALACTICA FOLLOW:

There’s an interesting observation on federalism and Battlestar Galactica over at The Corner:

The president has her undies in a bundle over what law to try Gaius Baltar under. Caprican? Sagitarrian? I have a hard time buying that the 12 Colonies could have a strong colonial military, president, beauracracy (roslin was 43rd in line of succession), etc, without having some sort of Colonial statute against treason, or say a Colonial law system.

Of course, maybe I should just ‘lighten up, francis’ and enjoy the damned show.

We do know that the Colonies started as 12 different states, then united 52 years before the Cylon attack under the Articles of Colonization. (This took place around the time of the first war against the Cylons.) The Articles of Colonization are, unsurprisingly modeled after the American Articles of Confederation, so it is not all that surprising that there wouldn’t necessarily be a strong federal system in place.

However, it is interesting that there wouldn’t be some Colonial law out there — after all, we know that the Articles of Confederation had at least a bicameral legislature and an Executive (the Quorum of Twelve plus another lower house and a Presidency) and that there was even a Cabinet-level position for education. One would think that if the Colonial government could control educational funding, they’d certainly have punishments for things like treason and abetting the genocide of human race.

Either they haven’t quite thought these things through, or we’ll all a bunch of obsessive nerds with too much time on our hands.

I’m voting for the latter…