Sixty-seven Years After Infamy....

"December 7, 1941.... a date which will live in infamy.... the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan. "

So said President Franklin D. Roosevelt as he asked Congress for a Declaration of War sixty-seven years ago.

On that day Japan also attacked Hong Kong, Guam, the Philippine Islands, Wake Island and Midway Island.

In response to this all-out attack, Roosevelt clearly and forcefully declared.... "As commander in chief of the Army and Navy I have directed that all measures be taken for our defense. But always will our whole nation remember the character of the onslaught against us...."

Today it is much different. Seemingly nationless enemies strike civilian populations.... cloaked suicidal terrorism is the new norm, not declarations of war between nations.

As Richard A. Clarke who was the White House counterterrorism coordinator under presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush explains today in his op-ed "Plans of Attack" (WaPo) .... "Ten young men land a small boat at a quay in a city of 18 million people. Within minutes of setting ashore, they are throwing grenades and raking crowds with automatic weapons fire. Days later, almost 200 people are dead, more are wounded, the financial capital of a nation of a billion people has ground to a halt, and the world is riveted.

"To most of the world, the Mumbai massacre seems inexplicable and random, like the periodic devastation caused by typhoons or tornadoes, or simply pointless, just killing for killing's sake. But the attack was neither random nor pointless. The carnage in Mumbai was goal-oriented, an attempt to advance an overall strategy that is being ruthlessly pursued by the Islamist radical network."

That is the face of conflict today.

Even Osama bin Laden's dastardly 9/11 attack on the twin towers wasn't a Pearl Harbor.... it wasn't backed by a nation declaring war. The very nationless nature of the attack allowed the Bush presidency to name its own target for retaliation.... Iraq.... leading America down the shadowy path of their selective-intelligence "war on terrorism."

Clarke maps out the terrorism minefield facing the Obama administration.... "Seven years after 9/11, the United States has neither eliminated the threat from al-Qaeda nor secured Afghanistan, where bin Laden's terrorists were once headquartered.

"To accomplish these two tasks, we must now eliminate the new terrorist safe haven in Pakistan. But that will require effective action from a weak and riven Pakistani government. It might also depend upon dealing with the long-standing India-Pakistan rivalry."

In the wake of Pearl Harbor, Roosevelt galvanized the nation through his leadership and call for shared sacrifice as he declared war on Japan. It now falls to Barack Obama to rally the nation, and the world, to a common goal.... the defeat of the hydra-headed terrorist monster.

Coming Together on Iraq Divide

It's not often that this blog is on the same page on the subject of Iraq as Washington Post's conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer.

This crafter of the "Reagan Doctrine" supported the preemptive invasion of Iraq, although he kept in mind the downside, stating on the eve of the war in 2003.... "reformation and reconstruction of an alien culture are a daunting task. Risky and, yes arrogant." Indeed. Not to mention imperialistic.

In February 2004, a worried Krauthammer cautioned on the war, "it may yet fail. But we cannot afford not to try. There is not a single, remotely plausible, alternative strategy for attacking the monster behind 9/11. It's not Osama bin Laden; it is the cauldron of political oppression, religious intolerance,and social ruin in the Arab-Islamic world--- oppression transmuted and deflected by regimes with no legitimacy into virulent, murderous anti-Americanism."

All of the buzz words here, "9/11, ".... regimes with no legitimacy,".... "anti-Americanism."

So, today, it was surprising, but welcome, to read in Krauthammer's weekly column his current thinking.... "The Partitioning of Iraq."

It is worth quoting his latest turn of mind: "A weak, partitioned Iraq is not the best outcome. We had hoped for much more. Our original objective was a democratic and unified post-Hussein Iraq. But it has turned out to be a bridge too far. We tried to give the Iraqis a republic, but their leaders turned out to be, tragically, too driven by sectarian sentiment, by an absence of national identity, and by the habits of suspicion and maneuver cultivated during decades in the underground of Saddam Hussein's totalitarian state.

"All of this was exacerbated by post-invasion U.S. strategic errors.... we now have to look for the second-best outcome."

Those who opposed the war would argue that the neocons should have known the Iraqis and their culture before our "risky" and "arrogant" invasion. But, that would be to dwell on how we got into the mess we're in, as tempting as that is, and not on a way forward.

Krauthammer credits presidential candidate Sen. Joe Biden (D-DE) along with other "thoughtful scholars and politicians" with long calling for partition. And he hopes for success of such a solution because unlike other colonial-style partitions, "The lines today are being drawn organically by self-identified communities and tribes. Which makes the new arrangement more likely to last."

We can only hope The Decider will listen to this common sense solution offered by all sides of the political spectrum.

The Decider Babbles On...

President Bush held a press conference yesterday.... asserting that the economy is strong.... in the real world the stock market DOW was in the process of losing almost 390 points.... and then took questions, or should we say listened to questions and then drifted off into la-la land when answering.

Example.

QUESTION: "Given the decision to commute the sentence of Libby, given the performance of Iraqi leaders, is it fair for people to ask questions about your commitment to accountability."

BUSH: [After declaring himself "deliberate in my decision-making" and a "fair person"... he wandered back to his favorite subject, Iraq.] ..... "It matters if the United States does not believe in the universality of freedom. It matters to the security of people here at home if we don't work to change the conditions that caused 19 kids to be lured onto airplanes to come and murder our citizens.

"The first question one has to ask on Iraq is: Is it worth it? I could not send a mother's child into combat if I did not believe it was necessary for our short-term and long-term security to succeed in Iraq."

Whoa! Work to "change the conditions" that caused "19 kids" to be "lured" onto airplanes on 9/11. That sounds like clowns handing out lollipops to beardless innocents.

First of all, the terrorists weren't kids. They ranged in age from the early twenties to 33.

And, to "change the conditions" that caused the terrorists to act we should have invaded Saudi Arabia. Of the nineteen "kids," fifteen were from Saudi Arabia, two from the United Arab Emirates, one from Egypt and one from Lebanon.... none were from Iraq.

Bush was asked about Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki's current (and photographed) hand-holding visit with Iran's madman President Ahmadinejad, where it was reported that Maliki said "he appreciated Iran's positive and constructive stance" on Iraq.

Bush's delusional reply, "Now if the signal is that Iran is constructive, I will have a heart to heart with my friend, the prime minister. Because I don't believe they are constructive.

"I don't think he, in his heart of heart, thinks they're constructive either."

Oh no.... The Decider is looking into another Putinish soul and opining.

Will someone please tell Bush his hair is on fire! That we are fighting Iran's war for them in Iraq.... that both Maliki and Iran are Shiites.... and, that as soon as we turn our backs Maliki will rush into Iran's arms... if not sooner.

Eugene Robinson in his op ed today, "Just Another Vacation From Reality" (WaPo) asks why Iraq or any nation would appreciate being invaded, occupied and having Western democracy imposed at the point of a gun?

They wouldn't. But, The Decider justifies.... "I firmly believe it is an ideological struggle. And I believe it's a struggle between the forces of moderation and reasonableness and good and the forces of murder and intolerance.

"And what has made the stakes so high is that those forces of murder and intolerance have shown they have a capacity to murder innocent people in our own country....."

The Decider won't recognize that the "forces of murder".... no longer "kids," I guess.... weren't from Iraq, but from Saudi Arabia.

What he "thinks," and his neocon ideology justifies, is clear. As long as he is in office he'll wage war in Iraq, regardless of the facts on the ground or the price our country is paying.

Bush turns a deaf ear to the American public's answer "NO" when he asks... "Is it worth it?."

As Robinson says.... "if you think Bush is going to care what [Gen.] Petraeus's report says in September, get out of the sun immediately and drink lots of water. You're delirious."