News That Would Make a Wingnut Squirm

If this is true, I'm quite certain we'll see someone denounce it as appeasement, right?

Iran and the United States have been engaged in secret "back channel" discussions for the past five years on Iran's nuclear programme [sic] and the broader relationship between the two sworn enemies, The Independent can reveal.

One of the participants, former senior US diplomat Thomas Pickering, explained that a group of former American diplomats and experts had been meeting with Iranian academics and policy advisers "in a lot of different places, although not in the US or Iran".

"Some of the Iranians were connected to official institutions inside Iran," he said in a telephone interview from Washington. The group was organised by the UN Association of the USA, a pro-UN organisation. Its work was facilitated by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, a government-funded think-tank chaired by the former chief UN weapons inspector for Iraq, Rolf Ekeus.

Could this be one of the reasons why Deputy Secretary of State Negroponte went to Pakistan earlier this year? As a cover story for meeting with Iranian officials? If this ends up being the case, will Negroponte become the poster boy for appeasement and face withering attacks from the neoconservatives like John Bolton:

John Bolton, the former US ambassador to the United Nations, told Tory delegates today that efforts by the UK and the EU to negotiate with Iran had failed and that he saw no alternative to a pre-emptive strike on suspected nuclear facilities in the country.

Mr Bolton, who was addressing a fringe meeting organised by Lord (Michael) Ancram, said that the Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, was "pushing out" and "is not receiving adequate push-back" from the west.

"I don't think the use of military force is an attractive option, but I would tell you I don't know what the alternative is.

"Because life is about choices, I think we have to consider the use of military force. I think we have to look at a limited strike against their nuclear facilities."

He added that any strike should be followed by an attempt to remove the "source of the problem", Mr Ahmadinejad.

Clearly, the choice has been to try to negotiate. This marks a reversal wholesale rejection of neoconservative rhetoric and returns us to the policy advocated early on by former Secretary of State Colin Powell, before he put his common sense, his decency, and his integrity into a blind trust to be opened only after all of the Bush neocons are out of office. Too bad there's so much intellectual dishonesty out there--it would do wonders for the political discourse in this country to acknowledge the wisdom of negotiation and diplomacy as a means of solving problems. It doesn't make you a "pussy" if you don't want to bomb people or torture them, you know.

Too Easy To Forget People Who Make a Stand

Just a reminder of what could have been. These people had the courage to quit.

Love of country and professional self-respect compelled each of us to speak out, in the only honorable way open to us, by resigning. In our letters to Secretary of State Colin Powell, we opposed invading a country that posed no genuine threat to the United States. We underscored that our invasion would not be understood by our allies, that our occupation would be resisted, and that the consequences of the war would be dire for both Americans and Iraqis.

The war happened, with tragic but predictable consequences. Mistakes by ambitious, ignorant political appointees worsened the fiasco. For domestic political reasons, the Bush Administration could not adapt its policies to the reality that its “war on terrorism” was actually an intricate maze of local conflicts into which it had blundered without a guide.

The invasion of Iraq had a terrible impact on America’s relationship with the world. The tricks of totalitarian manipulation of public opinion the White House used to “sell” the war at home — simplification of the issues, repetition of empty phrases, demonization of foreigners, and falsification of history — simply did not work abroad.

By counting on such methods, Bush appointees tainted the US informational, educational, and cultural programs that once were the beating heart of America’s public diplomacy efforts. The desperate PR campaign by Mr. Bush’s Texas confidante, former Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs Karen Hughes, failed utterly to repair the damage.

Five years later, we are convinced that the Bush administration is still on the wrong path for regional stability. Key officials lack the empathy and local knowledge needed to wield the tools of US diplomacy effectively in the Middle East. America’s outsized military presence is the principle around which local fanaticism organizes itself, to the detriment of the ordinary Arabs and Kurds America aspired to help. A rapid withdrawal from Iraq, coordinated with Iraqi factions and neighboring states, is the least destructive option remaining.

Our gesture earned us a brief moment in the media and the cautious respect of our colleagues. Five years later, we do not regret our decision to leave the profession we loved. Faced with a flawed policy we had no power to change, the three of us embraced the hope Brady expressed in his resignation letter, that “our democratic process is ultimately self-correcting; [we] hope in a small way to contribute from outside to shaping policies that better serve the security and prosperity of the American people and the world we share.”

Welcome Back, General Powell

The first Sunday in ages that I don’t binge on political news, opting instead to do Nana-type stuff, General Powell relocates his spine! Talking to Tim Russert on Meet the Press this morning, he blasted the notion of “Military Commissions” and the very existence of Guantanamo.

If you missed it, you can read the transcript here. The passage I excerpt can be found at the top of page 4.

GEN. POWELL: They are. Guantanamo has become a major, major problem for America’s perception as it’s seen, the way the world perceives America. And if it was up to me, I would close Guantanamo not tomorrow, but this afternoon. I’d close it. And I would not let any of those people go. I would simply move them to the United States and put them into our federal legal system. The concern was, “Well, then they’ll have access to lawyers, then they’ll have access to writs of habeas corpus.” So what? Let them. Isn’t that what our system’s all about? And, by the way, America, unfortunately, has two million people in jail all of whom had lawyers and access to writs of habeas corpus. And so we can handle bad people in our system. And so I would get rid of Guantanamo and I’d get rid of the military commission system and use established procedures in federal law or in the manual for courts-martial. I would do that because I think it’s a more equitable way to do it and it’s more understandable in constitutional terms. I would always—I would also do it because every morning I pick up a paper and some authoritarian figure, some person somewhere is using Guantanamo to hide their own misdeeds. And so, essentially, we have shaken the belief that the world had in America’s justice system by keeping a place like Guantanamo open and creating things like the military commission. We don’t need it, and it’s causing us far damage than any good we get for it. But, remember what I started in this discussion saying, “Don’t let any of them go.” Put them into a different system, a system that is experienced, that knows how to handle people like this. (emphasis added)

Okay – Powell gets it. And everyone else should get it by now, too.

When you stop upholding American principles it’s a short step to losing that which made our nation a beacon of hope to the oppressed everywhere.

I absolutely hate what has been done by these people, ostensibly in my name.