A Good Look At The War

Pity James Baker, Lee Hamilton, James Baker, Sandra Day O'Connor, William Perry, Vernon Jordan and Lawrence Eagleburger for this view across the table.

If this is what "the new openness" looks like (based on the sole shot the White House elected to publish of today's supposed "think in" with the Iraq Working Group), heaven help Iraq, the brain trust listed, and those hair brained harebrained pictured.

Assuming she was in the room, was Condi left out of the pic because of the camera angle, or because she might actually have looked interested?

(image: Eric Draper/White House.  November 14, 2006.  Washington.  whitehouse.gov)

Comments

[lindsey Kiser]

sorry for the pedantry: it's "hare-brained" you meant to write.

[GeorgeF]

Interesting to see that a team is getting together to decide about the fate of a far away country and neither an expert for nor anyone from that country is around.

[Ernest Tomlinson]

Interesting to see that a team is getting together to decide about the fate of a far away country and neither an expert for nor anyone from that country is around.

Kinda like Munich!

[GeorgeF]

LOL - but if you say so: who is playing whose role? I mean, in Munich there were AH, Mussolini, Chamberlaine, Daladier. Any idea who is playing which character?

[Ernest Tomlinson]

George W. is definitely Mussolini. The weakest of the bunch and the mouthpiece for others' ideas (as William Shirer reported.) The part of Hitler is probably Cheney's, because he's the one who'll be making all the demands and expecting them to be followed.

But who's Daladier? The one who goes along with things even though he knows it's going to be a disaster? I don't know.

[jt from BC]

After checking the individuals on Bakers team, What's To Pity ? looks like a good time party ahead, as Condi and Sandra share other pleasantries out of sight.

'A Sneak Peak at the Baker Commission Report'
http://www.counterpunch.org/werther11142006.html

[ummabdulla]

I was just thinking yesterday that Condi hasn't been very visible since the elections, at least as far as I've seen. Out of curiosity, I looked for her in yahoo photos.

She was at Bush's side when he spoke in the Rose Garden on 9 November.

She was there for the Martin Luther King Jr. memorial groundbreaking. (Here she is with Rove and Bush afterwards.)

And of course, she wouldn't miss meeting with the Israeli Prime Minister.

Oh, and she named figure skating champion Michelle Kwan the public diplomacy ambassador to represent American values. Karen Hughes was there, too.

And she met the Mexican President-elect.

I keep hearing that on the day after the mid-term elections, the 2008 presidential campaign begins. So is she running?

Anyway, seeing photos of this Iraq Study Group got me curious about who is actually in the group. (Yeah, I'm wasting time at the moment.)

So here's a list of the members. How did they choose these people? They're not exactly experts on the region. And c'mon, Ed Meese?!? What's the purpose of having a former attorney general and a former Supreme Court justice, neither of whom is known for their interest of expertise in this area? Does one of their agenda items have something to do with keeping Americans out of international courts of justice?

Sorry to be cynical, but I assume Vernon Jordan and Sandra Day O'Connor are there so it's not just a panel of old white men.

[Martin]

That image looks like a jpeg from an Iraq policy-themed Internet advent calendar.

[Lightkeeper]

I share your cynicism, ummabdulla, as I'm sure many others do as well. Looks like poppa Bush is coming to Bush {the lesser's) rescue once again.

How can one not be cynical considering the curriculam vitae's of some of these panel members?

Well, at least they'll make sure Empire continues to run smoothly.

YAY for cynicism...

[donna]

They're just trying to pull the interests of the oil companies out of the ashes of Iraq. I mean, c'mon, like they give a damn about what happens there as long as they can all profit from it somehow.

I'm so sick of these people.

[MonsieurGonzo]

We, the Policed

“ For so many living in the U.S. there is just the enormous, dare I say, silly web of poking and prodding that transform the everyday – and it seems that it is really for this, after all, that havoc is being wreaked half way across the world. For this “security” which now serves as a substitute for peace.

Can anyone really speak of “peace” anymore – the sort of peace whose originary affect is compassion...

...the sort of peace based on reciprocal knowledge, even a churlish tolerance.

Of course, there are more violent systems of policing – the detentions, the renditions, the surveillance – that are but a step away. I have often wondered how one sort of terror and violence (arbitrary searches) comes to substitute for another sort of terror (al-Qaeda) while making invisible the experience of that substitution.

Why aren’t we horrified? Why aren’t we terrified?

And I can’t help but feel that a component of it lies in these asinine daily rituals which confirm our participation in the broad network of policing – as the policed – which then allows a certain smugness to paper over what could have been that horror of what is taking place.

Is it really possible, then, to counter violence and terror without fundamentally imaging the very forms that are being opposed? How can one deploy the Abu Ghraib image of the hooded man with any certainty anymore, for instance? Do notions of “good intentions”, “context” etc., matter when in this age of internet promiscuity, it is no longer possible to claim that those borders can be drawn? ”

– excerpt from {underfire} Image as Event