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Before we invaded Iraq, Colin Powell said, “You break it, you buy it.” How badly have we broken it?

The civilian death toll is now running at roughly 100 a day, with many of the victims gruesomely tortured with power tools or acid. Over the summer, more Iraqi civilians died violent deaths each month than the number of Americans lost to terrorism on Sept. 11. Meanwhile, the electricity remains off, oil production depressed, unemployment pervasive and basic services hard to find.

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Growing violence, not growing democracy, is the dominant feature of Iraqi life. Every Iraqi knows this. Americans need to know it too.

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Acknowledging the hard facts of today’s Iraq must be more than a political talking point for the president’s opponents. It is the only possible beginning to a serious national discussion about what kind of American policy has the best chance of retrieving whatever can still be retrieved in Iraq and minimizing the damage to wider American interests.

“A serious national discussion” might seem fruitless so long as Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld are in charge. But someday they will be gone, and it will become possible to try to fix what they’ve broken, and partisan platitudes, from either side, will not be up to the task.

Shamefully, we have never taken this war very seriously. That must end.

We’ve been worried about Iran getting nuclear weapons. We know Pakistan already has nukes. We know that al Qaeda and Taliban fighters found refuge in remote areas of Pakistan after the U.S. attacked Afghanistan. So this is pretty scary:

Panicky rumors of a coup swept through Pakistan on Sunday after a power outage interrupted national television broadcasts and later plunged much of the country into darkness.

With the president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, away on an extended trip to the United States and Canada at a time of regional tensions and growing insurgency in neighboring Afghanistan, many Pakistanis speculated that he had been overthrown in absentia.

The chairman of the national power administration, Tariq Hamid, said at a 10 p.m. news conference in Lahore that the outage was caused by technical problems and that no sabotage had been involved.

Right after the terror attacks in 2001, even the folks poking fun at George W. Bush believed that he would rise to confront history’s challenge. It’s five years later, and boy, were we ever wrong!

The Bush administration continues to get good poll numbers on the War on Terror.

Oh, sure, Bush’s tax policies have looted the treasury for the benefit of the very rich. Sure, he’s filled important government jobs with incompetent cronies. Sure, he’s turned budget surpluses into the biggest deficits in history, and saddled our children and grandchildren with trillions of dollars of new debt. Sure, his Medicare changes were a nightmare of complexity and confusion. Sure, he invaded a country that never attacked us, based on false and falsified intelligence. Sure, he turned his back on the people of New Orleans when Hurricane Katrina struck.

But he’s doing a fine job fighting terror, right?

That’s not what U.S. intelligence agencies are saying:

A stark assessment of terrorism trends by American intelligence agencies has found that the American invasion and occupation of Iraq has helped spawn a new generation of Islamic radicalism and that the overall terrorist threat has grown since the Sept. 11 attacks.

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The intelligence estimate, completed in April, is the first formal appraisal of global terrorism by United States intelligence agencies since the Iraq war began, and represents a consensus view of the 16 disparate spy services inside government. Titled “Trends in Global Terrorism: Implications for the United States,” it asserts that Islamic radicalism, rather than being in retreat, has metastasized and spread across the globe.

An opening section of the report, “Indicators of the Spread of the Global Jihadist Movement,” cites the Iraq war as a reason for the diffusion of jihad ideology.

The report “says that the Iraq war has made the overall terrorism problem worse,” said one American intelligence official.

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In early 2005, the National Intelligence Council released a study concluding that Iraq had become the primary training ground for the next generation of terrorists, and that veterans of the Iraq war might ultimately overtake Al Qaeda’s current leadership in the constellation of the global jihad leadership.

But the new intelligence estimate is the first report since the war began to present a comprehensive picture about the trends in global terrorism.

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[T]he Council on Global Terrorism, an independent research group of respected terrorism experts, assigned a grade of “D+” to United States efforts over the past five years to combat Islamic extremism. The council concluded that “there is every sign that radicalization in the Muslim world is spreading rather than shrinking.”

“The Iraq war has made the overall terrorism problem worse.” Worse! Not “little improved,” but “worse”. For that, a grade of “D+”?

The War on Terror is their strong suit, their best thing, and they’re doing more harm than good.

I say flunk ’em.

Once again, Bob Geiger has a fresh batch of political cartoons.

Today is the start of Banned Books Week, and I can’t think of a better way to observe this week than to read George Orwell’s 1984:

Whether he wrote DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER, or whether he refrained from writing it, made no difference. Whether he went on with the diary, or whether he did not go on with it, made no difference. The Thought Police would get him just the same. He had committed — would still have committed, even if he had never set pen to paper — the essential crime that contained all others in itself. Thoughtcrime, they called it. Thoughtcrime was not a thing that could be concealed for ever. You might dodge successfully for a while, even for years, but sooner or later they were bound to get you.

Or, you could read Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five, John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men, or Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird.

The Catcher in the Rye. Lord of the Flies. The Color Purple. The Outsiders.

Any of the Harry Potter books. Any of the Goosebumps series. Or maybe Where’s Waldo?

Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, all about a different kind of totalitarian society.

Or you could read Tom Sawyer or Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain.

Any of those would be good. They’re all frequently-challenged books.

Censorship is non-partisan. There are books challenged by liberals, books challenged by conservatives, books challenged by the ultra-religious and books challenged by atheists.

I generally like to read in a nice quiet place, but I like to read banned and challenged books as publicly as possible — poke my finger in the eye of the people who would like to make these books unavailable, so to speak. And say, as loudly and clearly as possible, thought is not a crime, and:

DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER
DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER
DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER
DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER
DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER

Jim Wallis, evangelical Christian, progressive, and author of God’s Politics, has a blog. Currently it features a dialogue with Ralph Reed, the right-wing former leader of the Christian Coalition.

Has potential.

Hey, a new movie! Al Franken: God Spoke. (The website uses a Flash application that doesn’t want to run in my regular browser. C’mon, guys. A little less fancy, a little more accessible, please.)

Distribution seems to be very limited. It will be here in Columbus, Ohio for one day next month. What, did they only make one print?

The trailer and clips look interesting, but distribution and that strange Flash application make it look like they’re trying to hide this movie.

Update: When I bought my ticket, I was told Franken was originally supposed to appear in person, but wouldn’t be here in Columbus. Maybe that’s why the movie’s showing in just one city at a time.

George W. Bush’s polling numbers remain positive in one area: the War on Terror. Naturally, in this year’s elections, Republicans are running on this one great strength. How do you measure the Bush administration’s success against al Qaeda? Here’s one way:

After the September 11 terrorist attacks, Gary Weddle followed the news so closely he forgot to shave. After a week he decided not to shave until Osama bin Laden was caught or killed.

If he’s not careful, Mr. Weddle might get rounded up by the Bush administration and shipped off somewhere for torture.

Atrios on the Republicans’ complaints about Democrats:

They’ve been telling us to clap louder for 3 and a half years, and this is the consequence.

Abraham Lincoln’s Annual Message to Congress on December 1, 1862:

Fellow-citizens, we cannot escape history. We of this Congress and this administration, will be remembered in spite of ourselves. No personal significance, or insignificance, can spare one or another of us. The fiery trial through which we pass, will light us down, in honor or dishonor, to the latest generation.

The current Republican leadership has chosen “dishonor,” and they don’t want to let go of it.

The Washington Post reports that John McCain’s fight to respect the Geneva Conventions and oppose legalized torture is gonna cost him:

Sen. John McCain’s bid to position himself as the natural heir to President Bush as a wartime commander in chief and to court conservative leaders in advance of his likely 2008 presidential campaign has threatened to run aground in recent days, as the two men clash over how to detain and try terrorism suspects.

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In a reprise of criticism showered on McCain during his 2000 campaign, some prominent conservatives are branding him a disloyal Republican and an unreliable conservative because of his assertiveness on the detainee issue.

Let me understand this. Torture is now one of the core values of the Republican Party, and you’re not a good Republican if you’re against it?

Bill Frist (he of the Fristian Bargain) says Republicans will filibuster an interrogation bill if it contains McCain’s anti-torture language:

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist signaled yesterday that he and other White House allies will filibuster a bill dealing with the interrogation and prosecution of detainees if they cannot persuade a rival group of Republicans to rewrite key provisions opposed by President Bush.

Frist’s chief of staff, Eric M. Ueland, called the dissidents’ bill “dead.”

You know what’s dead? The Party of Lincoln.

Bob Geiger:

How did Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN) commemorate Constitution and Citizenship Day, when he returned to the Senate floor on Monday? In an odd twist of logic, he blamed the minority party for how little work has been done in the 109th Congress.

September 17, which fell on Sunday, celebrated the ratification of the United States Constitution and Frist used that occasion to announce that Senate Democrats are actually the reason that the last 20 legislative months have been proclaimed the “Do-Nothing Congress.”

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Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), who has endured this Congress with control of no committees, an inability to pass any meaningful legislation and no say over the Senate’s legislative agenda, was on Frist faster than Halliburton snaps up a no-bid contract.

“For more than 3 years, this Congress, which has been given the name of the ‘do-nothing Congress,’ has turned a blind eye to the intractable war in Iraq, ignoring the administration’s many mistakes and allowing it to stay on a failed course,” said Reid. “Here we are, with 6 days left in the 109th Congress, and the Republicans, who control the House and Senate and the White House, have not held one hearing — not one — into the President’s wartime failures.”

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Reid went on to give the Senate leadership a quick history lesson on how Congress is suppose to work and how it indeed operated before the current crop of Bush rubber-stampers took over:

During the Civil War, President Lincoln was faced continually with oversight hearings by his Congress. Of course, we know during World War II, there were a number of commissions. The most famous was that conducted by Senator Harry Truman of Missouri, which led to his becoming Vice President. Some say, but for that he would not have been chosen as Vice President.

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“This Republican Congress has wasted 20 months on horse slaughtering; the Schiavo case, dealing with someone’s personal relationship, which should not even have been before this body; gay marriage; the nuclear option; flag burning; repealing the estate tax,” said Reid. “But they could not find a day for some time to look at the President’s mistakes, missteps, and misconduct, which have hurt American security and plunged Iraq into a civil war — not a day.”

There’s more. Go read the whole thing. There’s video at Alternet — click the picture of Liza Minelli and Joel Grey. (No, I don’t know why it’s a picture of Liza Minelli and Joel Grey.)

Some physicists have speculated that there might exist countless parallel universes, each different in some small or large way.

Intrigued by this idea, I’ve done some exploring, and discovered a parallel earth almost identical to our own, except that Americans were greeted as liberators after invading Iraq. With a crude telephone constructed with two tin cans and a piece of string theory, I’ve been able to communicate with this alternate world’s version of myself.

He wasn’t surprised to hear from me because he had been working on an identical telephone himself. In several long conversations we established just how similar our two worlds were: I described a dust bunny under his coffee table, and he told me where I’d left my VCR remote.

“Okay — who’s your vice president?” I asked.

“Dick Cheney,” he replied. “Former congressman from Wyoming. He was Secretary of Defense for Bush’s father, Chief of Staff for Jerry Ford. Real jerk.”

“Same guy. Did — did he shoot a guy with a shotgun earlier this year?” I asked.

“Yeah, in a hunting accident. Fortunately the guy survived. Cheney apologized for being so careless.”

“Cheney apologized?” I said. “In this world, the guy he shot apologized to Cheney.”

There was a long silence. Then my alternate self said, “Ha ha. Very funny. Who is this, really?”

“Really, really, it’s true,” I said. “See, there’s a difference right there. But what I really want to know is why Americans were greeted as liberators in your world and not here. Let’s run through it again.”

“Okay,” my other self said. “War starts. Dubya was president, Cheney vice-president. Colin Powell was Secretary of State, now it’s Condi Rice. Rumsfeld at Defense.”

“Yeah, just like here,” I said, frustrated. “And before the invasion, Rummy said he would fire the next man who said we needed a post-war plan.”

“All right, funny guy, I’m hanging up right now,” my other self said angrily.

“I wish I was joking, but I’m not,” I said.

“Good Lord!” he said. “I mean — the military’s very tough on mistakes, you know? Admiral Kimmel and General Short lost their commands after Pearl Harbor. Colonels Geraghty and Gerlach were raked over the coals after the Beirut truck bombing even though they hadn’t been given adequate intelligence. The navy can throw a sailor in the brig just for smoking on deck at night, because the glow might give away the ship’s position. It’s a tough culture, because one mistake can get a lot of people killed. But deliberate obstruction of essential planning — that’s a whole other level. That’s criminal. So, what happened to your Rumsfeld when it came out that he actively interfered with post-war planning? Hanging? Firing squad? I’ll bet, since he’s a civilian, that he got off with just life in prison.”

“He got off, alright,” I said. “He’s still Secretary of Defense, still calling the shots in Iraq, and calling those who criticize him ‘appeasers’. Some retired generals have called for him to resign, but Bush is sticking with him.”

“Okay, Charlie, joke’s over,” said my counterpart. “You didn’t fool me for a minute. Parallel worlds I can believe, but next time, if you want to string somebody along, you’ve got to make the story at least half-way believable. I’ve never heard anything so stupid in my life.”

I felt a sharp tug on my tin-can telephone, and it vanished.

From Crooks and Liars, Bill Maher on MSNBC’s Scarborough Country:

Let me suggest that in a world turned hostile to America, the smartest message we can send to those beyond our shores is, “We’re not with Stupid.” Therefore, I maintain that ridiculing this president is now the most patriotic thing you can possibly do.

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And by the way, when people like me ask questions about “does it still make sense to have these troops under fire?” That is supporting the troops. Asking for a plan is supporting the troops. Sitting around and parsing the meaning of “civil war”, that’s not supporting the troops, that’s supporting the President, and he’s not a troop, he just plays one on TV.