Month: August 2007

I was looking back over my own track record here to see what I’d said early on about Iraq and ran across this quote from Edmund Burke that I’d used in a different context:

The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.

Excerpts from a single comment responding to multiple inquiries at yet another Blue Oregon post on Sen. Wyden’s Town Hall on Iraq.

One commenter asked me why I thought Wyden hadn’t been active enough in ending the war. After all he’s voted against it whenever he got the chance, didn’t he?

Every time I have to do some research to bolster my point is going to mean picking at Wyden’s record. I think some people might prefer that it would be enough for me to state my opinion that I don’t think Wyden’s been active enough in opposing the war, and you could disagree with me about how active he actually has been, but if you really want to challenge my opinion, I’ll do some research.

Wyden doesn’t have his news releases from 2002 online, but his 2003 news releases with Iraq in the title consist solely of items related to wasteful spending on Iraq reconstruction projects. So far as I can tell, there’s nothing there in something like 130 news releases expressing opposition to the war. He “SPEAKS OUT AGAINST ENERGY BILL” and he “urges BPA to Stop Rate Increase for Power Customers by Settling NW Utility Lawsuits” — both good things — but nothing in that first year calling for an end to the war.

2004, 2005, 2006, and 2007 will have to wait for another day.

Or, take a look at the timeline he distributed at the meeting Tuesday. What’s the first item on there about directly ending the war? April 8, 2006. Three years after the war began. Prior to that, he’d voted to prohibit excessive deployments, examine the Iraq intelligence, reqire the president to submit reports on his plans, investigate contracts (again), and call for 2006 to be the Year of Iraqi Sovereignty (and to set a timetable, although not mandating any dates), and not to establish permanent bases.

He didn’t introduce any of the items he voted on in those first three years. He didn’t co-sponsor any of the amendments he voted on in 2003, 2004 or 2005. There’s a hell of a big gap in the items between June 23, 2004 and November 10, 2005. Seventeen months with nothing. And that’s Wyden’s own timeline.

So yeah, I think a more active opposition to the war may have been called for, particularly since the senator — as a member of the intelligence committee who voted against the Iraq AUMF — presumably knew that there was no credible evidence that Iraq had been a threat to the United States.

And Blue Oregon czar Kari Chisolm tried several times to say that Wyden’s response was just a joke.

Let me get this straight, Kari.

Your contention is that Wyden was being sarcastic when he was telling me that he was my representative in Washington and that he was protecting my interests? That he didn’t really mean what he was saying?

That he was, in effect, telling me that he was not my representative in Washington and that he was not protecting my interests.

Frankly, I liked him better when he was just wrongly trusting the Bush administration. You make it sound like he actively despises the people who elected him senator.

Kari knows Wyden better than I do. Tuesday was the first time I’d ever spoken to him. I should probably defer to Kari’s superior knowledge of the man in judging just how contemptuous he is of his constituents.

But I’d rather give Wyden the benefit of the doubt. “Doveryai no proveryai” as the Russians say.

I mentioned earlier how fond Sen. Ron Wyden seems to be of President Ronald Reagan’s phrase “trust but verify”. Well, apparently, Reagan not only didn’t originate the phrase but like some other people he tended to use it a lot:

TIME magazine, 21 December 1987

This time the two men seemed to hit it off personally from the first handshake to the last. In some of their public appearances, they traded quips like a well-rehearsed vaudeville team. At the White House treaty-signing ceremony, for example, Reagan repeated the Russian phrase doveryai no proveryai (trust but verify), only to be interrupted by Gorbachev’s good-natured observation, “You repeat that at every meeting.” When the laughter of the 250 assembled guests died down, Reagan flashed his off-center grin, gave Gorbachev a little bow and replied, “I like it.” The audience exploded with laughter again. Said Gorbachev just before his final departure: “I think we trust each other more.”

Reagan at least gave credit where credit was due and cited the original source. If Wyden keeps using it, maybe he could just call it an “old Russian proverb” or something of the sort.

I’m sure some folks will assume that Sen. Ron Wyden may not have meant to imply that he actually trusted the Bush administration when he said he believed in the Reagan doctrine of “Trust but verify” in response to my question about whether he trusted the administration. It’s a line he seems to like — a lot — so it’s entirely possible that he just popped it out as a part of his usual spiel.

Apart from the obvious, literal interpretation of the phrase (the first word is fairly unambiguous) and Wyden’s words that followed (as I related in the original post), let’s consider it in the context of Tuesday’s Town Hall on Iraq as a whole.

Wyden brought up the Petraeus report due out in September at least two or three times in answers to questions about the war, saying that it was possible that it would have an effect on shifting the course of the war by convincing Republicans. Willamette Week‘s coverage of the meeting quotes him:

“I don’t think that General Petraeus can prove that we are getting the job done,” said Wyden.

Comments like that were greeted with jeers at the town hall.

What Wyden said might be correct if the report conformed to reality, but nobody with any amount of skepticism really expected the report to do that even when it was first announced. Who could possibly have predicted this:

Despite Bush’s repeated statements that the report will reflect evaluations by Petraeus and Ryan Crocker, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, administration officials said it would actually be written by the White House, with inputs from officials throughout the government.

Perhaps people like Wyden should have been paying attention three months ago, when General “I lost 190,000 weapons in Iraq” Petraeus said this:

Baghdad – Three months into the job, General David Petraeus says it is difficult to predict how well the surge of troops in Baghdad will succeed before the full number of troops arrive and that he would not have a definitive answer about prospects for stability by September, when he is to report back to Congress.

If Wyden doesn’t expect the report to be accurate, then he shouldn’t pretend it will have some transformative effect on the GOP. Maybe he thinks that when they see what a crock it is that they’ll throw their hands up in disgust, but that doesn’t excuse peddling it to the crowd in Hoffman Hall as if it had some sort of validity.

For myself, I take the senator at his word. I think that hope beyond hope he trusts the administration to finally get their act together and do the right thing. I think that his words about the Petraeus report changing the minds of Republicans were sincere. I believe the guy says what he means.

I just think he’s gullible.

Theodore Van Kirk was the navigator of the Enola Gay, the B-29 that dropped the “Little Boy” atomic bomb on Hiroshima on 6 August 1945. He’s interviewed in the documentary White Light, Black Rain: The Destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and just before the end of the movie he has this to say:

You always have these oddballs in a group and somebody says, “Ah, we should drop a nuke over in Iraq.” The stupid jerk doesn’t even know what a nuke is. If he did, he wouldn’t say that.

This is just sort of an embarrassing headline to link to.

LoadedOrygun on the Wyden thing.

From White Light, Black Rain: The Destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, about 15 minutes in:

dr. shuntaro HIDA
hiroshima

In 1945, I was a doctor at Hiroshima Army Hospital. At the start of the war with America many Japanese were excited, believing that we were winning. But then their sons began dying one after another. Mothers and wives began to feel an increasing anxiety as the war continued. Though the government kept saying that we were winning, the people realized Japan couldn’t win.

Just as a little pre-emptive in case anyone claims Sen. Ron Wyden didn’t say “Trust but verify” about the Bush administration; here are some examples of his previous usage of the phrase.

From the Corvallis Gazette-Times, 23 February 2006:

Throughout the evening, Wyden discussed the difficult task of balancing national security issues with civil liberties and the necessity of giving the nation’s executive branch flexibility in fighting terrorism, while demanding accountability.

To drive the point home, he quoted Ronald Reagan: “Trust but verify.” And he assured his audience of roughly 60 that “It is possible to fight terrorists ferociously without throwing our civil liberties in the trash can.”

From Wonkette‘s liveblogging of the confirmation hearings for CIA chief Michael Hayden, 18 May 2006 (posts are in their original bottom to top order):

12:02 — Wyden misquotes Reagan’s “trust but verify” line. We think he’s a good person to be the dick to Hayden because it’s hard to think of him as a partisan firebrand showboating Schumer type, as he clearly is about to start crying.

11:59 — Ron Wyden — He’s the best we’re gonna get for contentious question, but the problem is, he’s 12 years old. Ron Wyden — Boy Senator! To be played by little Ronnie Howard! Ron Wyden — castigating the entire Bush Administration for breaking the law, but sounding like he’s Linus explaining the true meaning of Christmas.

From an AP story at the First Amendment Center, 29 April 2005:

“We’re to some extent doing oversight in the dark,” said Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore. “I operate under the Ronald Reagan theory: trust but verify. What I do know is we haven’t gotten the report that is supposed to be filed.”

From the Senator’s news release on a hearing with then-DNI John Negroponte and Hayden (who was NSA chief at the time), 2 February 2006:

Washington, DC – U.S. Senator Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) questioned Director of National Intelligence John D. Negroponte and NSA Chief General Michael Hayden at a hearing of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence today on issues of domestic surveillance and terrorist threats worldwide. In today’s hearing, Wyden said that the right position on NSA wiretapping should be to say “trust, but verify,” allowing Congress the opportunity to do effective oversight to verify citizens are being adequately protected.

…

WYDEN: Mr. Director, that answer isn’t good enough for me. That answer is essentially: “Trust us. The Congress and the public just have to trust us.”

And Ronald Reagan put it very well. He said, “Trust, but verify.”

And we have no way to verify that citizens are being protected the way you have outlined today.

Of course, Ronald Reagan was the guy whose administration was selling arms to the Iranians to raise funds for the contras in Central America to circumvent the Boland Amendment that Congress passed to prevent the US government from giving money to the contras, so I’m not exactly sure why Wyden (and any number of other Democrats) want to use Reagan’s words to give the impression that they’re on the ball, vigilance-wise. Perhaps they could come up with their own original and untainted philosophy some day.

Here’s a little A. Whitney Brown from the day.

More about that here.

A lot of bloggers have been pushing around the news today that the Petraeus report that Sen. Wyden was basing all his Iraq plans on yesterday in the Town Hall on Iraq yesterday is going to be written by the White House’s heavy hand:

After years of slogans and soundbites Americans deserve an even-handed assessment of conditions in Iraq. Sadly, we will only receive a snapshot from the same people who told us the mission was accomplished and the insurgency was in its last throes. We’ve spent hundreds of billions of dollars and lost thousands of lives in Iraq. An honest report from our generals and diplomats about the status of the war isn’t too much to ask.

Oh, wait, that was no blogger. that was Rep. Rahm Emanuel according to Greg Sargent at TPM Cafe (via Shrillblog).

Was this at all foreseeable? Did we really need to wait for the Petraeus report to tell us what was going to happen? Or could you have assumed that the Bush administration would pull this kind of crap from the beginning of the surge? I mean, that is, unless you were gullible enough to trust them.

Better get out your verification boots. It’s going to be deep wading, and you don’t even want to know what you’re going to be wading through.