Oh, my mistake. I inadvertently placed this two-year-old video of Sen. John McCain and his Republican buddies (Senators Joseph Lieberman, Susan Collins and Lindsey Graham) going to stroke Qadaffi's - ah, ego - to get him to purchase US military systems for his country. I really like the little bow that McCain gives to Qadaffi. He must have had a stroke and forgotten this visit when he  recently traveled to Libya to tell the rag-tag Rebel Alliance how great they were, and how THEY should be getting America's weapons. Similarly, Sen. Lindsey Graham calls for increased NATO bombing of Tripoli on CNN's "State of the Union."

Oh, but I forgot, it's the retired generals and admirals who are the problem in the defense industry...  at least I don't see them selling weapons to both sides of a conflict. Hat tip to Steve Benen.

As I was knee-deep in researching our book Over The Cliff, where we examine how the Tea Party was created and by who, I came to understand how vitally important it was to understand our political history. I've written some pieces on C&L that reflect some of what I found out.

I also learned which historical politician had the strongest influence among modern-day conservative operatives. You might think it was Barry Goldwater, since he got the ball rolling as the New Right was born to follow him, but in reality it was Richard Nixon who set the tone for our current state of politics with his 'dirty tricks" and "the ends justify the means" tactics. If you need an example of his influence and how far it goes back, just read up on Karl Rove and Alan Dixon back in 1970:

In the fall of 1970, Karl Rove, current Bush Administration Deputy Chief of Staff, used a false identity to enter the campaign office of Alan J. Dixon, who was running for Illinois State Treasurer, and stole 1000 sheets of paper with campaign letterhead. Rove then printed fake campaign rally fliers promising "free beer, free food, girls and a good time for nothing," and distributed them at rock concerts and homeless shelters, with the effect of disrupting Dixon's rally (Dixon eventually won the election). Rove's role would not become publicly known until August 1973. Rove told the Dallas Morning News in 1999, "It was a youthful prank at the age of 19 and I regret it."

Rove has continued on this path of ratf*&king his opponents ever since. By extension we then had the Lee Atwater-Willie Horton ad, Swift Voters For Truth's smear of John Kerry, and the latest version, the O'Keefe videos. The slime continues along on its merry way to destroy people.

Rick Perlstein writes an excellent piece for Mother Jones which outlines the history of the GOP's Fact Free Nation:

Reagan rode into office accompanied by a generation of conservative professional janissaries convinced they were defending civilization against the forces of barbarism. And like many revolutionaries, they possessed an instrumental relationship to the truth: Lies could be necessary and proper, so long as they served the right side of history.

"We ought to see clearly that the end does justify the means," wrote evangelist C. Peter Wagner in 1981. "If the method I am using accomplishes the goal I am aiming at, it is for that reason a good method."

This virulent strain of political utilitarianism was already well apparent by the time the Plumbers were breaking into the Democratic National Committee: "Although I was aware they were illegal," White House staffer Jeb Stuart Magruder told the Watergate investigating committee, "we had become somewhat inured to using some activities that would help us in accomplishing what we thought was a legitimate cause."

Even conservatives who were not allied with the White House had learned to think like Watergate conspirators. To them, the takeaway from the scandal was that Nixon had been willing to bend the rules for the cause. The New Right pioneer M. Stanton Evans once told me, "I didn't like Nixon until Watergate."

Though many in the New Right proclaimed their contempt for Richard Nixon, a number of its key operatives and spokesmen in fact came directly from the Watergate milieu. Two minor Watergate figures, bagman Kenneth Rietz (who ran Fred Thompson's 2008 presidential campaign) and saboteur Roger Stone (last seen promoting a gubernatorial bid by the woman who claimed to have been Eliot Spitzer's madam) were rehabilitated into politics through staff positions in Ronald Reagan's 1976 presidential campaign. G. Gordon Liddy became a right-wing radio superstar.

"We ought to see clearly that the end does justify the means," wrote evangelist C. Peter Wagner in 1981. "If the method I am using accomplishes the goal I am aiming at, it is for that reason a good method." Jerry Falwell once said his goal was to destroy the public schools. In 1998, confronted with the quote, he denied making it by claiming he'd had nothing to do with the book in which it appeared. The author of the book was Jerry Falwell.

Direct-mail guru Richard Viguerie made a fortune bombarding grassroots activists with letters shrieking things like "Babies are being harvested and sold on the black market by Planned Parenthood." As Richard Nixon told his chief of staff on Easter Sunday, 1973, "Remember, you're doing the right thing. That's what I used to think when I killed some innocent children in Hanoi."...read on

And so the lying liars were born. Today they continue on their path of corruption -- one sanctioned even by their supposed men of God, because their hearts were in the right place when they lied. Most Americans don't live their lives this way, so it's kind of foreign to them to even think about such things, but there is no excuse for the Beltway media being as complicit as they are. Then again, they do love their access. But the corrosive nature of the right wing oppo-men has had a truly corrosive affect on our entire political system.

Digby writes:

This history provides an important foundation for my ongoing quest to understand the right's ability to operate without the constraints of hypocrisy or consistency in an environment of epistemic relativism so extreme that we end up believing that wrong is right. It's literally mind-boggling.

National Defense magazine reports that President Obama has recognized that our defense program is way overextended, and it's now time to develop long-term strategic objectives for national defense. Tweets Sandra Erwin, "Obama calls for fundamental review of DOD missions a year too late. The 2010 QDR was supposed to do that." Serious military analysts are skeptical.

“Without a change in strategy, cuts in spending are worse than doing nothing,” said Christopher Preble, director of foreign policy studies at the libertarian Cato Institute.

The absence of “strategic choice” is the reason why decisions about where to cut defense spending have been nearly impossible to make, said Gordon Adams, American University professor and former director of the Office of Management and Budget. Cutting the defense budget should not be about doing the same with less, Adams said. 

A serious strategic review would have to determine what missions to scale back, so the military could be downsized accordingly. Only then can major cost savings be achieved, Adams contended. “At the end of the day, it’s about policy makers restraining their impulse to use the military in the reckless way it’s been used in the past 20 years.”

Meanwhile, the right wing will flip out over any proposed cuts in defense. Faced with Obama's announcement of cutting $400 billion over a ten-year period, Thomas Donnelly loses it and accuses the president of "gutting defense."

Indeed, it will be very difficult to ‘do it again’ on the modernization accounts; there’s not too much left to cut or stretch out. And further reductions in the size of the force, particularly among American land forces, is a way of asking those in uniform to again to more with less.

What’s also likely to be in the ‘do it again’ category is the pace of military operations.  The president pretends he will conduct a “fundamental review of America’s missions, capabilities and role in a changing world” as though he can alter fundamental facts about the international system – the world, for better or worse, will not function in the same way as American military power wanes – like an investment portfolio. Nor has he, in the White House, acted much differently than his predecessors.

Yes, the defense budget has doubled in ten years, but Donnelly only sees an anemic shadow of the former war machine that took Iraq and Afghanistan down. Despite huge operating costs and spiraling acquisition costs, all must be maintained, nay, more money spent. He would believe that the world will still force the US military to invade its regions to maintain Freedom and Democracy for America, and Democrats are the only ones who live in an illusion as they plan out military budgets. What a world. 

There's nothing so dramatic to illustrate the point that neoconservatives think along the same lines as liberal interventionists than this case of arguing about intervening in Libya's civil war. On the right, we have this joker Paul Wolfowitz, who wants to illustrate that his political ideology of using military force to spread democracy and liberty throughout the Middle East is in fact a good and just one.

The answer to the first of these questions can only come after establishing direct contact with the new authorities, but the delivery of supplies should not be such a problem, either through the many ports along the Libyan coast or across the Egyptian border. Nonlethal assistance could be important, including basic supplies such as food and medicine. So could broadcasting assistance to discourage Gadhafi's forces from fighting. The concern that American weapons might end up in the wrong hands must definitely be considered before supplying shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles, but other weapons pose less of a risk—particularly accurate antitank weapons. In any case, forcing the Libyans to turn to other countries for arms would repeat the mistakes of Afghanistan in the 1980s and Bosnia in the 1990s.

It is only in the context of a larger assistance strategy that a no-fly zone should be considered. It would be different from the prolonged and largely futile zones imposed over southern Iraq from 1991-2003 or over Bosnia from 1992-1995. Intended to stop the genocides of the Marsh Arabs in Iraq and of the Muslim population of Bosnia, they did neither. Critics accurately point out that the massacre of 11,000 Muslims in Srebrenica took place under a NATO-imposed no-fly zone. But the situation in Libya would be very different if the Libyan people are properly armed.

Yes, the Clinton administration's policies were certainly ill-considered, look how many people didn't get killed and how many countries weren't invaded. But this jackass, this mad joker, doesn't want to be concerned about the fallout of any US military aid to Libya. I recall seeing mention that the Libyans who came to Iraq and Afghanistan to fight against the American occupation over the past few years came from the eastern side - where the rebels are. What do you think they're going to do with those anti-tank and anti-aircraft weapons after the civil war ends, Mr. Wolfowitz? As MoDo correctly asks, does this guy know when to shut the hell up?

Now we have the clowns on the left to deal with. Ann-Marie Slaughter, former Director of Policy Planning in the Obama State Department and now political professor at Princeton, slams President Obama for not doing enough to intervene on behalf of the Libyan rebel force.  "It is time to act," she demands, in the form of a no-fly zone.

The United States should immediately ask the Security Council to authorize a no-flight zone and make clear to Russia and China that if they block the resolution, the blood of the Libyan opposition will be on their hands. We should push them at least to abstain, and bring the issue to a vote as soon as possible. If we get a resolution, we should work with the Arab League to assemble an international coalition to impose the no-flight zone. If the Security Council fails to act, then we should recognize the opposition Libyan National Council as the legitimate government, as France has done, and work with the Arab League to give the council any assistance it requests.

Any use of force must be carefully and fully debated, but that debate has now been had. It’s been raging for a week, during which almost every Arab country has come on board calling for a no-flight zone and Colonel Qaddafi continues to gain ground.

Except that many senior military analysts have pointed out that establishing a no-fly zone will require bombing radar sites and anti-aircraft sites in Libya, and then what? If that's not effective, do we then target the tanks and loyalist forces? And then do we send in peacekeepers to hold the ground while a new government is formed? Where does this end? Matt Yglesias remembers a more prudent Slaughter talking about the Iraq occupation, in which she argued for a more rules-based global order that wasn't based on active military operations. But she was in favor of invading Iraq, just like all the other liberal interventionists. There is no limit on pointless, expensive wars in which we can engage.

The smart thing to do would be to contact Qadaffi and say, "look, man, your day is done. We can get you a plane out and into any country that you want with a million dollars in unmarked bills. Or you can stay here, and if you thought Libya was isolated between 1988 and 2003, well, you haven't seen 'isolated' yet." No, instead we're going to hear from the European Union and the Arab League as to why U.S. warplanes need to intercede over Libyan skies. Hey, guys, you want peace that bad, send your own planes. Ours are busy over Iraq, Afghanistan, South Korea, Japan, Europe, and along the borders of the United States.

In this Washington Post op-ed ridiculously titled "Egypt protests show George W. Bush was right about freedom in the Arab world," Elliot Abrams attempts to show how GWB's democracy agenda forecast the desire for the Arab peoples of the Middle Eastern nations to be free. He says:

The three decades Hosni Mubarak and his cronies have already had in power leave Egypt with no reliable mechanisms for a transition to democratic rule. Egypt will have some of the same problems as Tunisia, where there are no strong democratic parties and where the demands of the people for rapid change may outstrip the new government's ability to achieve it. This is also certain to be true in Yemen, where a weak central government has spent all its energies and most of its resources simply staying in power.

All these developments seem to come as a surprise to the Obama administration, which dismissed Bush's "freedom agenda" as overly ideological and meant essentially to defend the invasion of Iraq. But as Bush's support for the Cedar Revolution in Lebanon and for a democratic Palestinian state showed, he was defending self-government, not the use of force. Consider what Bush said in that 2003 speech, which marked the 20th anniversary of the National Endowment for Democracy, an institution established by President Ronald Reagan precisely to support the expansion of freedom.

"Sixty years of Western nations excusing and accommodating the lack of freedom in the Middle East did nothing to make us safe - because in the long run, stability cannot be purchased at the expense of liberty," Bush said. "As long as the Middle East remains a place where freedom does not flourish, it will remain a place of stagnation, resentment and violence ready for export."

Now I'm no foreign policy expert, but I'm thinking that GWB was meaning to use this phrase in the context of his preventive invasion of Iraq, to justify the burning, looted buildings and mass chaos that he left in the wake of that unnecessary violence. As Greg Sargent points out, the sad thing about neocons claiming credit for the unrest in Tunisia and Egypt is how they think that the model for democracy requires using foreign military intervention as a prerequisite. Yes, if only Elliot Abrams had been in charge of developing foreign policy in the Middle East so that democracy and freedom could "reign" across the region. Oh, wait. HE WAS.

While neocons want to somehow take credit for understanding the Middle East, the current conflict is more indicative of the failures of US foreign policy than any successful understanding. Considering that Abrams was heavily involved in the Iran-Contra scandal, a signatory of PNAC, and one of the main cheerleaders for the Iraq invasion, you'd think that he would be the one of the last people on earth that a responsible Democrat in the White House would call. And you would be wrong. Really, Mr. President? Have you no pride or sense at all? What a mistake.

On Sunday's "Beat the Press," David Gregory asked Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) what he thought about the future of US forces in Afghanistan. Graham doesn't see an end to US forces' occupation of that country, rather he calls for an "enduring relationship... in perpetuity."

I think [a permanent US military presence] would be enormously beneficial to the region, as well as Afghanistan.  We've had air bases all over the world.  A couple of air bases in Afghanistan would allow the Afghan security forces an edge against the Taliban in perpetuity.  It would be a signal to Pakistan that the Taliban are never going to come back in Afghanistan.  They could change their behavior.  It would be a signal to the whole region that Afghanistan is going to be a new and different place.  And if the Afghan people want this relationship, they're going to have to earn it.  But I hope they will seek a relationship with the United States of where we can have an enduring relationship, economic and militarily and politically.  And a couple of air bases in Afghanistan will give us an edge militarily, give the Afghan security forces an edge militarily, to ensure that country never goes back into the hands of the Taliban, which would be a stabilizing event throughout the whole region.  That has to be earned by the Afghan people, and it has to be requested by them.

The mind reels. I thought the Bobblehead Translations was exaggerating, but there it is. I know some will point to Germany, South Korea, and Japan as examples where we have "enduring relationships" in the form of military bases, but those bases aren't used to prop up corrupt governments and to fight internal conflicts. Rather, the point of US bases in Germany, South Korea, and Japan are to act as staging bases for actions against the former Soviet Union and China, the dirty commies of the twen-cen period.

The other argument is based on the classic domino theory, in that if the Taliban take over Afghanistan, al Qaeda will start up training camps in that country. Then the Taliban will raid Pakistani army depots for nuclear weapons and give them to AQ, who will in turn bring them into the United States and nuke New York City, despite the multiple, layered defenses and full might of the US intelligence, law enforcement, and military community that is aimed at such terrorist activity.

Lindsey Graham and John McCain are clear evidence of the mind-numbing, corrosive effect of the Tea Party crowd and the Repubs' willing decision to allow morals and good judgment to disappear in relation to the chance to bloviate on national television about their extremist politics. Shameful.

At the NRO corner, Sarah Palin (or her ghostwriter) takes a moment to rally the Republican Senators against the evil that is New START. "It's a trap!" she screams. "Run away!"

New START recognizes a link between offensive and defensive weapons – a position the Russians have sought for years.  Russia claims the treaty constrains U.S. missile defenses and that they will withdraw from the treaty if we pursue missile defenses.  This linkage virtually guarantees that either we limit our missile defenses or the Russians will withdraw from the treaty.  The Obama administration claims that this is not the case; but if that is true, why agree to linking offensive and defensive weapons in the treaty?  At the height of the Cold War, President Reagan pursued missile defense while also pursuing verifiable arms control with the then-Soviet Union.  That position was right in the 1980’s, and it is still right today.  We cannot and must not give up the right to missile defense to protect our population – whether the missiles that threaten us come from Russia, Iran, China, North Korea, or anywhere else. I fought the Obama administration’s plans to cut funds for missile defense in Alaska while I was Governor, and I will continue to speak out for missile defenses that will protect our people and our allies.

It would be too easy to rebut her many incorrect assumptions and faulty logic, especially about the actions she may or may not have taken during her half-term as governor. It's not as bad as Romney's tirade against New START, but it's damned close in the level of stupidity and backwardness. Fortunately, there's a writer who has presented a counter-argument in The American Conservative magazine, of all places.

This is one thing in the treaty debate that has never made much sense. Treaty opponents are overwhelmingly drawn from the ranks of people who viscerally dislike and distrust the Russian government, but they ought to be among the first to want to put Russia under a verification regime. As it stands, they are working very hard to prevent the re-establishment of any verification regime. Whether or not they claim to want some ideally superior means of verification, they are taking the position that the regime established by this treaty should not be implemented.

Despite the best efforts of some hawkish interventionists to pretend that arms control is a relic of the past and irrelevant to today’s problems, they are the ones most likely to portray Russia as an existing or emerging threat to its neighbors. They should be the ones most eager to limit and constrain Russia through treaty obligations. Even if they don’t believe that Russia will comply with the treaty, it is hawks who should want to impose obligations and limits on Russia’s arsenal. Instead, it is the most anti-Russian and hawkish figures who are effectively enabling Russian power. What is remarkable about this is that these are the same people who could not stop haranguing the administration for betraying Poland and the Czech Republic when there was no betrayal, and they are the ones who remain convinced that it is the administration that is giving in to Russian demands when Russia has obtained virtually nothing tangible from the “reset.” Now that they are presented with an opportunity to side with European allies in support of greater U.S. and European security, they have opted instead for a rejectionist position that would keep the U.S. largely blind to Russian activities, increase uncertainty about Russia’s arsenal, and add to allied anxieties about potential Russian threats.

It's a no-brainer. Moderate Republicans should support New START because it does in fact limit Russian nuclear weapons and it sets up the opportunity to re-engage them on other issues, such as tactical nuclear missiles. The hard-right Republicans just want Russia to portray a symbol of unending threat, so it justifies spending lots of money on defense programs. The latter don't need arms control treaties to make their argument; the former recognize the need, but have to drum up the courage to stand up to their colleagues. We'll see who wins this round, sanity or madness.

Sarah Palin should stick to issues she understands, like shooting moose or wolves from planes, rather than addressing serious national security issues of which she has no comprehension. At the least, reflexively going against an arms control initiative because the Bush-initiated agreement might be completed under Obama's term, while every former Secretary of State and all of the active duty general officer is for it, is really not a great idea.

SHORTER David Broder: "If President Obama wants New START badly enough, he'll give Sen. Kyl everything he wants."

Yeah... except Kyl was already offered a robustly funded nuclear weapons budget and promises that the treaty wouldn't hurt the US national missile defense program, everything he asked for. Kyl just doesn't like arms control treaties, which I can understand better than the false acts of these so-called moderate Republicans pretending that they don't know which side to take.

Consider Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME). She thinks that it would help to get either Bush 41 or Bush 43 to publicly support the treaty, while ignoring the existing support from Republican statesmen James Baker III, Henry Kissinger, Brent Scowcraft, George Schultz, Kenneth Duberstein, Howard Baker, and Collen Powell. And then of course there's the numerous military four-stars, active and retired, who have all come out for this treaty. The "moderate" Senate Repubs can't cross the Borg Republican mind-hive, but they also know the New START treaty is good enough to ratify by anyone's measures. It does make one wonder who the real adversary is.

I've not been in favor of the idea of the US government selling M1 Abrams tanks and F16 aircraft to the the Iraqi army. It's not just that their past experience has been limited to Soviet-era equipment (cheap, not state-of-the-art, but it works), but also because I just never thought they could sustain the capability. I think I was largely right, based on Walter Pincus's article in the WaPo.

Although the Interior Ministry has "matured" in its budgeting processes, it "could not effectively plan and contract to procure repair parts to support the Iraqi police vehicle fleet." For example, when the Interior Ministry requested the purchase of a $200 million helicopter fleet, it did not provide for spare parts, maintenance support or required infrastructure facilities.

With about $10 billion in military equipment on hand by end of 2011, Iraq would need about $600 million annually to maintain it, according to the defense IG. In 2010, however, the Iraq Defense Ministry allocated only $40 million for maintenance. Its processes for "identifying requirements, budgeting and executing contracting were broken," the report concluded.

Take the Iraqi army's system for allocating fuel to its commands.

The division commanders do not send their broken vehicles for repair, nor do they report those that are destroyed, because fuel is supplied based on the quantity and types of vehicles on their books. A local commander told the IG investigators that "it was more advantageous to keep unserviceable vehicles in order to continue receiving full fuel allocations and have enough fuel to operate the rest of his fleet."

It was always a mistake to think we could turn the Iraqis into a mini-US military element. It would be a bigger mistake to force US military weapon systems onto the Afghan military, but the Repubs have always thought of enriching their donors before actual national security interests.

There's a lot to like about Marines. They're bright people, loyal to the Corps, strong-minded and elite warriors troops. Most of them are more well-versed on military history than the majority of Army soldiers. And yet, when they latch onto a bad idea, they will stubbornly refuse to consider that they made a really bad decision in the first place. And so we watch as General James Amos, newly minted commandant of the Marine Corps, follows his predecessor in saying that the Marines aren't ready for "Don't Ask, Don't Tell."

In comments to reporters in California this weekend, General Amos said that ending the ban in the middle of two wars would involve “risk” for Marines, who, unlike other service members who generally have private quarters, share rooms to promote unity. “There is nothing more intimate than young men and young women — and when you talk of infantry, we’re talking our young men — laying out, sleeping alongside of one another and sharing death, fear and loss of brothers,” said General Amos, 63. “I don’t know what the effect of that will be on cohesion. I mean, that’s what we’re looking at. It’s unit cohesion, it’s combat effectiveness.”
------
The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Mike Mullen effectively rebuked General Amos when he told reporters in Melbourne, Australia, “I was surprised by what he said and surprised he said it publicly.” Admiral Mullen, who supports repeal, also called General Amos on Sunday night to speak directly with him about the comments, said General Amos’s spokesman, Maj. Joseph M. Plenzler. Major Plenzler said he did not know the tone of the call or specifics about the conversation.

Mr. Gates, in his own comments to reporters en route to security and diplomatic talks in Australia, said, “I would like to see the repeal of ‘don’t ask, don’t tell,’ but I’m not sure what the prospects are and we’ll just have to see.”

Someone needs to show Gen. Amos this 1993 RAND report that suggested that the presence of homosexuals in police and firefighter organizations within the United States, as well as in foreign militaries, did not in fact cause any losses of unit cohesion or trust. These points are probably irrelevant to him and others who continue to stubbornly refuse to listen to the majority of the United States citizens who believe that it's time to repeal this act. DADT is going to go away, despite the slow-roll approach being implemented by DOD leadership. But as Kevin Drum notes, the real villains are the Republican politicians who are ignoring their own constituency and the Dem politicians who are ready to roll over and play dead on this issue.

Democratic spinelessness on this is worth mocking. But let's get real: the problem isn't with Senate Democrats, 97% of whom voted to repeal DADT in September. The problem is with Republicans, 100% of whom voted against repeal even though, as the Gallup poll above shows, repeal is favored by 60% of Republicans, a majority of conservatives, the Secretary of Defense, and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

100%. Not one single Republican was willing to buck the tea party hordes and vote for DADT repeal. Even Susan Collins of Maine, the only Republican who publicly supports repeal, concocted a transparently bogus excuse not to vote for it.

Democrats may not be profiles in courage here, but they aren't the villains on DADT repeal. They just aren't. Republicans are. They're willing to unanimously filibuster funding for the military in order to pander to the small percentage of their own party that thinks gay people are icky. And they'll keep doing it, too. They don't care about the military report due in December and they don't care whether DADT repeal would actually affect military readiness in any way. They'll defund the entire Pentagon if that's what it takes to keep the tea partiers happy. They're the enemies of national security here, not Democrats.

But somehow, I think that message will get lost in the debate on the Hill. The Dems are just that stupid and afraid that they can't see the opportunity that's been handed to them: to demonstrate how out of touch the Republican leadership really is.