A concise distillation and sober analysis of a veritable mountain of evidence about pre-war Iraq, based on official documents and recordings, eyewitness testimony, and other interviews.

A special, double-length article from the upcoming May/June issue of Foreign Affairs, presenting key excerpts from the recently declassified book-length report of the USJFCOM Iraqi Perspectives Project.

U.S. Joint Forces Command (USJFCOM) commissioned a comprehensive study of the inner workings and behavior of Saddam Hussein's regime based on previously inaccessible primary sources. Drawing on interviews with dozens of captured senior Iraqi military and political leaders and hundreds of thousands of official Iraqi documents (hundreds of them fully translated), this two-year project has changed our understanding of the war from the ground up. The study was partially declassified in late February; its key findings are presented here.

...

As far as can be determined from the interviews and records reviewed so far, there was no national plan to embark on a guerrilla war in the event of a military defeat. Nor did the regime appear to cobble together such a plan as its world crumbled around it. Buoyed by his earlier conviction that the Americans would never dare enter Baghdad, Saddam hoped to the very last minute that he could stay in power. And his military and civilian bureaucrats went through their daily routines until the very end.

Only slowly did Saddam and those around him finally seem to realize that they were suffering a catastrophic military defeat.

Saddam's Delusions: The View from the Inside

I previously mentioned that Francis Fukuyama had a new book on the way. A certain someone said they were looking forward to it. FYI, it's now on sale everywhere.

Francis Fukuyama’s criticism of the Iraq war put him at odds with neoconservative friends both within and outside the Bush administration. Here he explains how, in its decision to invade Iraq, the Bush administration failed in its stewardship of American foreign policy. First, the administration wrongly made preventive war the central tenet of its foreign policy. In addition, it badly misjudged the global reaction to its exercise of “benevolent hegemony.” And finally, it failed to appreciate the difficulties involved in large-scale social engineering, grossly underestimating the difficulties involved in establishing a successful democratic government in Iraq.

When I read that, I couldn't help but see it as yet another unfortunate missed opportunity for the General Memetics Corporation.

Fukuyama explores the contention by the Bush administration’s critics that it had a neoconservative agenda that dictated its foreign policy during the president’s first term. Providing a fascinating history of the varied strands of neoconservative thought since the 1930s, Fukuyama argues that the movement’s legacy is a complex one that can be interpreted quite differently than it was after the end of the Cold War. Analyzing the Bush administration’s miscalculations in responding to the post–September 11 challenge, Fukuyama proposes a new approach to American foreign policy through which such mistakes might be turned around—one in which the positive aspects of the neoconservative legacy are joined with a more realistic view of the way American power can be used around the world.

America at the Crossroads | Francis Fukuyama

NEW YORK (AP) -- Isaac Hayes has quit "South Park," where he voices Chef, saying he can no longer stomach its take on religion.

Hayes, who has played the ladies' man/school cook in the animated Comedy Central satire since 1997, said in a statement Monday that he feels a line has been crossed.

Too bad.... The creators make an interesting point at the of the article about why he's quitting, though.

11Alive.com: Atlanta Entertainment - Isaac Hayes Quits 'South Park'

New Web 2.0 venture!

"People always used to approach me to try and talk about this or that. I wanted to punch them in the throat. Now they leave me the hell alone. Thanks isolatr!" - Doc Searls

isolatr beta

It has the face of a rat and the tail of a skinny squirrel -- and scientists say this creature discovered living in central Laos is pretty special: It's a species believed to have been extinct for 11 million years.

CNN.com - Rat-squirrel back after 11-million-year absence - Mar 9, 2006

The Politic wrote:
I ask this question constantly of my students. I teach history at a community college, no big deal, but it shapes me as much as I shape anything... I ask them if they feel information can be controlled. Their answer is hell no.

I don't think so. Repressive regiems certainly try, but they mostly succeed at creating inconvenience rather then absolutely controlling access. The degree to which information can be controlled largely relates to whether people are willing to accept the controls and how much they are willing to learn or risk to spread the information.

At the root of this, I think, is that there is a symbiotic relationship between the control of information and the management of perception. If, for example, you've managed to convince all of the proles in your dictatorship that the western media is corrupt and dishonest, chances are most of them won't have a problem with your blocking of "libelous and misleading" media. The blocking will keep the seeds of certain ideas from being sewn in people who have been culturalized to distrust such sources from the outset, and so it becomes self reenforcing. A systemic willful ignorance. On the other hand, if freedom of speech is enshrined at the root of your culture, any attempt to control it will be immediately distrusted, and you're going to have a hell of a hard time keeping certain kinds of things under wraps without a long term project of conterveilling cultural programming.

RE: Myspace stumbles

Like a lot of people, I find that the web is becoming my main source of news. Some of the sites I read are published by individuals, but I find the most informative sites are those published by groups of writers/editors/correspondents, including those put out by Main Steam Media (MSM). However for the past three months my main source of "what's new" has been a new breed of website that collaboratively votes on the best links.

This genre does not have an official name yet, but each of these sites supplies readers with pointers to news items that are ranked by other readers. None of these sites generates news; they only point to it by filtering the links to newsy items. Using different formulas they rank an ever moving list of links on the web. The velocity of their lists varies by site, but some will have a 100% turnover in a few days. I check them daily.

This is a nice overview of the competition (minus reputation...)

Cool Tool: Consensus Web Filters

We must be ever-vigilant against those who would strongarm the judiciary into adopting their preferred policies. It takes a lot of degeneration before a country falls into dictatorship, but we should avoid these ends by avoiding these beginnings.

NPR : O'Connor Decries Republican Attacks on Courts

Why I have an "irrational hatred" of George Bush.

The executive branch shall construe the provisions of [The Reauthorized Patriot Act] that call for furnishing information to [Congress], such as sections 106A and 119, [which require the Inspector General of the Department of Justice to audit the effectiveness and use, including any improper or illegal use, of access to business records and national security letters,] in a manner consistent with the President's constitutional authority to supervise the unitary executive branch and to withhold information the disclosure of which could impair foreign relations, national security, the deliberative processes of the Executive, or the performance of the Executive's constitutional duties.

In other words, "Checks and balances? We don't need no stinking checks and balances!"

The Volokh Conspiracy - Patriot Act Audits and Article II Powers:

Recently retired Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan believes that there will be a major independent candidate for president from the nation's political center, according to a published report.

Report: Greenspan predicts indie presidential candidate - Mar. 10, 2006