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Join us tonight for a fun-filled evening of politics under the influence at the Seattle chapter of Drinking Liberally. We meet at 8PM at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E.

No doubt a hot topic for tonight will be the new GAO report suggesting that the Bush administration is cooking the books on sectarian violence in Iraq. (Perhaps another hot topic will be the shameless way that Republicans have blown off the restless leg syndrome constituency….)

If you find yourself in the Tri-Cities area this evening, check out McCranium for the local Drinking Liberally. Otherwise, check out the Drinking Liberally web site for the dates and times of a chapter near you.

I’ve been on KEXP-90.3 on Saturday mornings for over a decade, and for the last several years we’ve been running an extremely popular weekly overview of news from Iraq. Since there’s a lot more of it than I have time to run through (and links don’t work well on the radio), for a while now I’ve also been posting the weekly summaries over at Booman Tribune. It occurs to me that it might make sense to post it locally, too. And so, with your indulgence (and hopefully interest), here is the first of a weekly compilation of news you may or may not have seen or read regarding America’s most disastrous war.

Much of the last week, in D.C. and the Green Zone, was spent by various parties trying to pave the way for their spin on the congressionally mandated report on the escalation “surge” due at the end of next week.

That included George Bush making a surprise Labor Day PR visit to Anbar Province — a profile in courage somewhat undermined in that he stayed protected by a 13-mile perimeter and 10,000 troops, not venturing outside the base to see for himself the wonderful progress he has been touting. But more importantly, days previous, Bush hinted that he’s already made up his mind regardless of what Gen. Petraeus has to say, suggesting that he would send still more troops to Iraq after the 15th and announcing that he would ask Congress for yet another $50 billion “emergency” war appropriation.

Meanwhile, the impartial investigative arm of Congress, the General Accountability Office, released a report that flatly contradicted the White House, finding little progress in Iraq during the escalation surge. Specifically, the GAO looked at the 18 benchmarks set by Congress. Unlike a White house report last month that tortured logic and semantics in order to find “progress” in only eight of the 18 benchmarks, the GAO found progress in only three and declared the war effort to be failing on all the most important ones.

Other indicators that things didn’t have the rosy glow insisted upon by Bush and his apologists: a New York Times report that while deaths this summer are down from their peak in Baghdad — perhaps because ethnic cleansing has progressed so far that there are fewer people left for the death squads to kill — nationwide the rate of sectarian deaths is double what it was in 2006. (Even in Baghdad, it’s still higher than 2006, just lower than the cooler months of Spring.) And the Center for American Progress released a study declaring that American troops can be safely withdrawn from Iraq in one year, again undercutting the war hawks’ argument that without all those American soldiers and weapons the violence would get worse.

Oh, and there was also the little-noticed tidbit that Gen. Petraeus intervened to “soften” the language of the recent National Intelligence Estimate to reflect recent “progress.” (Even so, the NIE basically said Baghdad was somewhere around the seventh circle of Hell.) Plus, the U.S. leaned on five leading Shiite and Sunni exile politicians to announce a “deal” on America’s desired give-Iraqi-oil-to-American-oil-companies oil law, prisoners, and a few other concessions. But it was largely for show, and American consumption: the deal didn’t bring Sunnis back into the government, won’t get any of the agreed-upon items through Parliament, and the remaining Iraqi politicians allegedly running the country are mostly returned exiles with no constituency outside the Beltway and no relevance outside the Green Zone.

On the other side of that wall, a far more damning measure of how the escalation surge is going, namely how it’s affecting actual Iraqis, emerged last week. Over 5,000 cholera cases have now been reported in Northern Iraq, primarily among refugees living in shanty towns in areas of the country without much fighting. (The UN High Commissioner for Refugees estimated last week that 4.2 million Iraqis, one in every six, has been uprooted by the war.) Why is this important? Cholera is a disease of the extremely poor, normally seen only in areas where poverty is extreme and government services nonexistent. In this case, as in much of Iraq, there is no longer clean drinking water and, of course, no public health sector to speak of. The government has no presence, local militias and tribes can only do so much, and many of the doctors and technocrats have fled the country or been killed. That’s what the escalation surge means to the average Iraqi.

Want more? Iraqis are no longer eating fish out of the Tigris or Euphrates Rivers, in part because there are so many dead bodies in the rivers — which the fish nibble on — that Iraqis are afraid of contracting diseases associated with cannibalism.

In the south of Iraq, 52 people died last week in Karbala firefights (widely reported in the US as “riots”) between members of Moktada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army and the Maliki-aligned Badr Organization, both Shiite militias vying for control (and wider imposition of sharia law) as British soldiers complete their withdrawal from southern Iraq. After the fighting, al-Sadr ordered the Mahdi Army to stand down for six months to try to avoid widening the civil war. We’ll see how long it lasts. Prime Minister Maliki, the great American-sponsored statesman, blamed Sunni clerics from Saudi Arabia for somehow provoking the Karbala bloodshed, in an effort to deflect attention from his Badr friends. This is our voice of political reconciliation during the escalation surge.

Another important front was emerging in coverage of Iraq last week: a widening scandal (finally) over corruption and where all that American money and weaponry I mentioned earlier has actually been going for four years. McClatchy newspapers reported that hundreds of thousands of dollar in U.S. rebuilding money went to insurgents (still only a fraction of the billions that went missing overall). The Army accused Lee Dynamics International of paying hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes to US officials to get $11 million in contracts. The New York Times reported that several federal agencies are investigating weapons sales, disappearances, fraud, kickbacks, and black market profiteering by US officials. And one investigation involves senior official who worked with a Gen. David Petraeus — yes, that Gen. Petraeus — when he was heading the effort to arms and train Iraqi militias and death squads army and police units in 2004-05. (Heckuva job, Davie.) Also from the Times: US weapons given to the Iraqi army are being found used by criminal gangs in Turkey. (No surprise there — we’ve flooded the black market in arms the world over by handing out AK-47s etc. like candy in Iraq.) And, Deputy Undersecretary of Defense Paul Brinkley (another political appointee) was accused last week by a DoD task force of mismanaging government money in Iraq — and also engaging in public drunkenness and sexual harassment.

Big picture: The Project on Government Oversight reported last week that the top 50 Iraq contractors paid over $12 billion in fines and restitution for violating various federal laws over the last 10 years. Being scofflaws not only hasn’t disqualified them from the Iraq feeding trough, but seems to be an entrance requirement.

Finally, in the most unintentionally hilarious incident since Larry Craig got Restless Leg Syndrome, the U.S. military characterized as “regrettable” a Baghdad incident last Tuesday in which eight Iranians, including two diplomats, were released hours after being arrested. In a country awash with guns and where security details are essential for normal travel for VIPs, the eight were singled out because the Iraqi security guys they’d hired had an “unauthorized” AK-47 and two pistols in the trunk of their car. Not entirely coincidentally, President Bush was in Reno that day, telling an American Legion convention that Iranians were arming the insurgency, as part of the steadily increasing PR campaign for a military strike on Iran — which several credible reports this weekend, including this one in the Times of London, say will be massive and imminent. Attacking Iran would not only be illegal and immoral, but politically, militarily, and economically disastrous — the time to mount public opposition to this insanity is now.

So, I kinda missed last week’s “this week”. So even though it’s still kinda sparse, it’s totally two weeks’ worth.

* By now you’ve probably ceased to want to care, but some time long ago, Roger Stone was making the news being a loon. Saying crazy shit about Spitzer. And also, if you want to attack Spitzer, maybe it’s best not to have the quality you ascribe to him in spades.

* Bi-Partisan bullshit: Former Clinton speech writer Michael Cohen is upset about us mean bloggers. But he does acknowledge our right to hate America, so you can see he’s a serious person.

* In case you’re wondering, the fact that Larry Craig tried to have sex in a bathroom proves that it’s the Democrats who are obsessed with sex. Republicans are only obsessed with sex when they can’t see an electoral downside.

* President Bush came to town this week (Did this blog report on that? I just can’t remember.) and he gave a bullshit speech.

Locally, I can only think of two things that are bullshit:

* Phone books.

* and Pudge.

This is another open thread.

The second Marvin Stamn Highlight Reel is posted.

Let’s take a moment on Labor Day, 2007 to remember that America was built into the great nation it is today on the sweat and blood of no-bid contractors.

And now, a Labor Day message from our President:

Tonight on “The David Goldstein Show”, 7PM to 10PM on News/Talk 710-KIRO:

7PM: Is Seattle a modern day Sodom and Gomorrah?
In his book “Shattered Tablets: Why We Ignore the Ten Commandments at Our Peril,” Discovery Institute senior fellow David Klinghoffer argues that Seattle is a “wayward city,” sanctioned by God to be “left a ruin forever, as a warning to others.” Oh. My. God. Klinghoffer joins me for the hour.

8PM: Is Death a racist?
According to a new study, a black man in California can expect to live 68.6 years on average, compared to 75.5 years for a white man… numbers that largely reflect national trends. Co-author Helen Lee joins me by phone to discuss the study and the possible causes of this disturbing disparity.

9PM: TBA

Tune in tonight (or listen to the live stream) and give me a call: 1-877-710-KIRO (5476).

The Seattle Times is unhappy with the choice King County Council District 6 voters have between gadfly Richard Pope and barfly Jane!™ Hague. And typically, they blame the Dems:

State Democratic Party Chairman Dwight Pelz or King County Democratic Party Chairwoman Susan Sheary failed voters in a significant way.

Even before the June 2 driving incident, both knew that although Hague was a leader on the county budget, she was not the most compelling councilmember. They knew, too, that her campaign office had difficulties with contributions and that her district is turning more Democratic every day. Where were these two when there was a chance to mount a strong challenge against her?

Truth is, I haven’t been shy about criticizing my party for failing to be in a position to take advantage of this opportunity, and have openly ridiculed the hopeless primary write-in campaign. But in all fairness, the blame deserves to be spread more broadly, and shared not just by the party leadership but also by the unimaginative field of potential challengers who refused to take a fly at the unimpressive if well-funded Hague.

The most heavily recruited challenger was state Rep. Ross Hunter (D-48), who might have decided to run had he received a little encouragement from key Dems on the council who rightly perceived him as a threat to their ambitions for the executive’s office. Not that it would have mattered, as his relapse of lymphoma would have pulled Hunter out of the race well before the filing deadline. I also know that an effort was made to recruit Darcy Burner, who surely would have kicked Hague’s drunken ass, with or without the public scandal… that is, if Burner wasn’t already running for Congress, and, um, you know, if she actually lived in the district.

Those are the only names I know for sure, but I can think of at least three or four state legislators who stood a decent shot at winning, while risking little damage to their careers in a loss. It would have been nice to see somebody like, say… Rodney Tom take one for the team. But not a single Dem stepped up to the plate.

That said, there is a choice in this election, and I hope both the Times and my fellow Dems eventually focus back on this race with a fresh perspective. Richard Pope may be more than a little odd, but he’s smart, well-informed, and he doesn’t drink let alone drive drunk. If you actually sit down and talk with Pope about the kind of issues that routinely come before the council, he does generally come across as both reasonable and a Democrat, and his personal experience fighting for an education for his autistic daughter should make him a powerful advocate for adequate state funding of our schools.

I don’t expect the Democratic Party to embrace or support Pope, but I do strongly encourage my fellow Dems not to work against him. I’ve heard some talk of launching a write-in campaign in the general, to which I say “show me the money,” for unless Dems come up with a few hundred thousand dollars and a compelling candidate, any such effort would be counterproductive. Instead, I suggest the party and its surrogates focus all their efforts on attacking Hague, and educating voters on her blatant disrespect of both the law and our law enforcement officers.

And if we somehow stumble into Bizarro World and Pope actually wins an election, what’s the downside for Democrats? Nobody is going to blame the Dems if Pope’s antics cause embarrassment, and what would the Dems rather face in 2011, a general election battle with Jane Hague (or more likely, her incumbent, appointed replacement,) or a primary battle against Richard Pope? I’d choose the latter.

Of course, there is the Doomsday scenario: Pope not only wins, he turns out to be no worse than your average councilmember. Now that would be an embarrassment to both parties, and to the many journalists, editorialists and bloggers who have had so much fun poking fun at Pope over the years.

With much of our foreign policy focus on the Middle East these days, we haven’t been looking that much at what’s been happening closer to home:

Alarmed by rising threats to Mexican law and order from ever-more-brazen drug lords, the Bush administration is quietly negotiating a counternarcotics aid package with the Mexican government that would increase US involvement in a drug war south of the border.

The fact that Mexico – which has historically been averse to any assistance from the US that could be construed as a breach of its sovereignty – is seeking the increased aid shows how serious a threat President Felipe Calderón sees drug gangs posing to his country.

When Calderón took office last year, he immediately sent troops into areas where drug trafficking was common and attempted to disrupt the organizations that control the pipeline of drugs that make their way into the United States. The effort was so successful that the country’s powerful drug cartels are now trying to figure out whether or not they will work together or fight each other for the massive profits. The reality in Mexico is the same as it always has been. The drug cartels are too powerful to take down. They will always have the money to buy out law enforcement officials in both Mexico and the United States. The $40 million dollars we’ve been giving them annually in aid is a drop in the bucket compared to the money that the cartels have to spend on weapons and bribes.

As a result, Calderón is trying to get a much heftier aid package from the United States in order to wage his war. To his credit, he’s been placing the blame where it needs to be placed:

Mexico already appears to be laying the groundwork to frame the plan not so much as an aid package but as the United States facing up to problems that are a consequence of American drug consumption. Calderón, often a cautious public speaker, has sternly called for the United States to pay more to combat the cartels.

“The language that they’re using is that the U.S. has a large responsibility for this problem,” said Ana María Salazar, a former high-ranking Clinton administration drug official who was involved in implementing the U.S.-funded program for Bogota, known as Plan Colombia.

There’s no question that American drug consumption is driving this problem. For years, we’ve deluded ourselves into thinking that the drug trade is the case of a foreign enemy trying to “poison” us with their dangerous wares. But that’s never been an accurate picture of what’s happening. Millions of Americans choose to use illegal drugs. They’re not being coerced by shifty foreigners trying to get us hooked. Only a small percentage of them are addicts. And as domestic drug law enforcement has driven many of the supply networks south of the border, the cartels have generated the kind of wealth and power than make Al Capone and his gang of bootleggers look like a Girl Scout troop.

The Nixon and Reagan Administrations laid the foundation for this disaster, but the Clinton Administration followed right in their footsteps. They launched Plan Colombia in 2000, the multi-billion dollar initiative in South America’s most prolific coca growing nation that failed to decrease cocaine production, increased corruption in the Colombian government, and actually lowered the price of cocaine in the United States. It’s often jokingly said that the Bush Administration’s policies were determined by looking at Clinton Administration policy and doing the opposite, but I only think that applied to the things that Clinton was doing that were actually smart.

Colombia’s problems have been around for decades, even before we started throwing money and weapons at them to fix them. Leftist guerrillas have waged a bloody civil war for over 40 years, in part because cocaine profits have kept their movement afloat while similar ideological movements in other countries have become an ignored fringe. Today, though, the Uribe government has been winning the military battle against these rebel groups, but finding that more and more of the drug trafficking is just occurring within its own ranks.

Another aspect of the damage being done in Colombia is their current emigration problem:

In the last decade, large-scale emigration has marked Colombian society, with roughly one of every 10 Colombians now living abroad. Internally, the country has been confronted with a major humanitarian crisis, as forced displacement has reached alarming proportions during the same period. Political, social, and economic problems, coupled with widespread insecurity, have fueled both voluntary and forced migration, while the same factors have acted as powerful deterrents for immigration to the country.

Considering that Plan Colombia gave money to American companies who sprayed dangerous chemicals across vast coca growing regions, killing all crops, not just coca; introduced more sophisticated weaponry into the already brutal civil war; and essentially thumbed their noses at any civilian concerns; the fact that millions of people have been fleeing the country shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone. What should be a surprise is why anyone thinks that this is a good thing to try in Mexico right now.

Granted, there would be some major differences between Plan Mexico and Plan Colombia. Mexico is more of a transit point for drugs, rather than a source. No aerial eradication is going to happen in Mexico. However, there will certainly be an investment in high-tech weaponry that is sure to escalate the violence that has already been sending millions of people north in search of opportunity and relative peace. Mexico’s (and other Central American) drug cartels haven’t been tied to the country’s leftist guerrilla movements in the same way that exists in Colombia. What seems likely to happen is that the extra weaponry will be used to squash Calderón’s leftist political opponents, while he remains in a permanent stalemate with the drug lords. Corruption will be inevitable, and the drug smugglers will end up having some amount of Plan Mexico’s weapons bounty to maintain control of border towns like Laredo and Juarez where much of the country’s drug shipments enter the United States.

Why do we keep doing this to ourselves? Mainly because we don’t allow ourselves to see the alternatives. American drug consumption is not going to go away, no matter what we do. Three decades of trying to scare Americans out of doing drugs by filling our prisons to record levels hasn’t worked. In the process, we’ve wasted over a trillion dollars in taxpayer money and accomplished nothing. Now, as we look out at the massive drug war failures in Afghanistan, in Colombia, and even here at home in our ravaged and violent inner cities and meth-addled small towns, can we finally get past our fear of what a bunch of plants grown in foreign countries can do to us and start doing something that actually makes sense? Can we finally accept the fact that a certain percentage of America’s population can and does use illegal drugs without the kinds of negative repercussions that require us to lay waste to the rest of the world to prevent it? Can we start distinguishing between drug use and drug abuse and stop thinking that a person who uses marijuana or even does a line of cocaine on the weekends is not a danger to himself and others?

These questions are ones that politicians fear having to answer. Many of them know the right answers, but can’t say them out loud. The paranoia over drugs has been built up over the years to the point where moderate, reasonable ideas are portrayed as the rantings of a radical fringe and still get political figures labeled as crackpots. But we’re nearing the point where we’ll no longer be able to afford the charade. Plan Mexico is expected to cost over $1 billion. That would just be another billion dollars that could have been spent more wisely on other things. A mistake that this country has made more than a thousand times over.

Tonight on “The David Goldstein Show”, 7PM to 10PM on News/Talk 710-KIRO:

7PM: The Stranger Hour with Josh and Erica
The Stranger’s Josh Feit and Erica C. Barnett join me for our weekly roundup of the week’s news, and look forward to coming events. Tonight’s topics will surely include a discussion of Monday’s presidential fundraiser for Dave Reichert Darcy Burner, Ted Haggard’s family values fake charity, and of course, our good friend Stefan’s brilliant ham-fisted PR coup disaster.

8PM: Are you rooting for a housing slump?
Washington state’s housing market continues to defy gravity and national trends, with prices continuing to increase even as other markets tumble in the midst of a spreading credit crunch. Seattle/Bellevue scored an impressive 9.89% increase, while Wenatchee (yes, Wenatchee) led the nation with an astounding 23.54% gain. Um… is this a good thing? Are you cheering our housing market on, or quietly rooting for a slump so that you can swoop in and scoop up a bargain? And why are so many folks so eager to live here in a place that is steadily being destroyed by liberal Democrats like me? (Or so I’m told.)

9PM: The Blogger Hour with McJoan
Idaho native and Daily Kos front page blogger superstar Joan “McJoan” McCarter joins me for the hour to discuss the Craig Affair, the Warner retirement and other issues of national import.

Tune in tonight (or listen to the live stream) and give me a call: 1-877-710-KIRO (5476).

As expected, Idaho Sen. Larry Craig announced his resignation today after losing support from fellow Republicans in the wake of his arrest and guilty plea for lewd behavior in a public restroom. Craig will be remembered as much for his wide stance on the toilet as his narrow stance on social issues.

Joan “McJoan” McCarter, a native Idahoan and front page Daily Kos blogger, will join me in the studio tonight during the 9PM hour of “The David Goldstein Show” on News/Talk 710-KIRO to discuss the Craig affair and other issues of national interest. You can stream live at 710KIRO.com.

UPDATE:
Julie from Red State Rebels live blogs the Craig resignation on Daily Kos.

The Sierra Club is suing for the chance to attack the Roads and Transit in this fall’s Voters’ Guide. They’re unhappy that anti-transit guys Kemper Freeman Jr. and others are behind the wheel on the “No” campaign.

My question: “Did you even ask to be on the voter statement during the public process?”

I don’t think it was on their radar. Other groups have been bird dogging RTID since the Sen. Jim Horn era. The Sierra Club is just late to the dance.

I don’t like the Voters’ Guide idea in the first place. Who’s the official “Yes” side, and who’s the “No” side, and who decides? The Sierra Club doesn’t want the “No” campaign to be dominated by road guys. Does that mean that John Stanton, Reagan Dunn, and Shawn Bunney are going to split from the “pro” campaign so that they can tell their side of the story? After all, these guys could give a rip about light rail. Do they sue to give their reasons why Roads and Transit is awesome? It’s ridiculous. These sort of measures probably shouldn’t be included in the Voters’ Guide in the first place.

And to kick off the weekend in style, I give you the Inaugural Marvin Stamn Highlight Reel.

The Seattle Times calls for Idaho Sen. Larry Craig to resign, and I couldn’t disagree more:

Craig could stand for election next year, and be slaughtered at the polls. That would be grossly unfair to his Republican Party.

Actually, a doomed Craig campaign is exactly what his Republican Party deserves. Craig’s sexuality has long been Idaho’s worst kept political secret, and yet he and his party continued to present him as a “family values” candidate, a champion of the divisive, anti-gay, uniquely Republican jihad that actually perpetuates the restroom cruising culture that ultimately brought him down. As Dan Savage points out over on Slog, “The overwhelming majority of men cruising toilets .. are desperate, pathetic closet cases.” You know, desperate, pathetic closet cases like Sen. Craig.

Think about it. I find it a little gross to even pee in the typical mens room, let alone have sex in one. Regardless of sexual preference, how much shame and self-loathing must a man have to sit down in the filthy, stinking stall of a public restroom, and get turned on by the thought of the stranger taking a dump in the stall next to you?

So hang in there Sen. Craig. By firmly standing your ground and refusing to resign, you will finally give Idaho the kind of US Senator it deserves. A Democrat.

UPDATE:
Just listen to Craig get all hot for that “naughty, naughty” Bill Clinton:

See, this is why we need to repeal the estate tax.

A couple years ago I first snagged an invite to one of those parties where the political and media hoity-toity hang out together over booze and barbecue. I knew of most of the folks there, but knew few of them personally; I was just some blogger and well, I just kinda felt out of place. So I grabbed myself a plate, a beer and a chair, and fell into a long and ranging conversation with a nice, somewhat grandmotherly woman camped out at the kitchen table. I found her easy to talk to and endlessly interesting, but there seemed to be an awful lot of VIPs milling about, waiting to make their hellos, so I moved on.

“I see you met Karen,” one of the hosts said to me later, pointing back at the table where she appeared to be holding court. “Karen who?” I replied. My host looked at me like I was some country bumpkin. “Karen Marchioro,” he said, “… the most powerful woman in the state.”

I have no idea if Karen knew who I was, but I was certainly clueless about her. The name didn’t even ring a bell. I guess I was a country bumpkin.

As Washington State Democratic Party chair from 1981 to 1992, and until her death this morning from cancer, Karen Marchioro helped reshape the party into the powerhouse it has become today. She was 73.