1115.org

(1) Who is Eric Edelman?
That is to say, other than the Under Secretary of Defense dope who fired off a “stinging rebuke” at Hillary Clinton when, in her capacity as a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, she wrote to the Secretary of Defense asking whether the U.S. military has drawn up plans for withdrawal from Iraq.

ThinkProgress lays it out:
• He’s bum chums (nullus) with Vice President Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz and Scooter Libby.
• From 2001-2003, Edelman served as a national security adviser to Cheney.
• In 2003, he was named as U.S. ambassador to Turkey… Turkish columnist Ibrahim Karagul noted, “Edelman is probably the least-liked and trusted American ambassador in Turkish history.”
• He was recess appointed as Under Secretary of Defense on Aug. 9, 2005, to replace Douglas Feith.
• As per emptywheel at The Next Hurrah, he was the one who came up with the idea of leaking Valerie Plame’s identity to the press as a way to rebut Joseph Wilson.

Will Secretary of Defense Robert Gates stand up to Eric Edelman the way he did to Army Secretary Francis J. Harvey? Stay tuned. (For the record, Swami Sarabeth says: “No!”)

(2) Time’s Winged Chariot
Which of these things did Republicans not say last week about the Iraq war?
• Bush has f**ked up the war.
• I agree that we had the wrong plan for three years.
• I have “grave reservations” that “an abrupt withdrawal” could produce “dire consequences.”
• The Salazar-Alexander amendment — which would use the Iraq Study Group’s 79 recommendations as a blueprint for ending the war — “might have had a chance if given enough time“.*
• Harry Reid needs to play less politics, and the president needs to be more flexible.

(3) 2 + 2 = $400,000
The Pentagon paid the Rand Corp $400,000 for a 211-page study that explains how to boost “the image and effectiveness of U.S. military operations around the world” by “’shaping’ both the product and the marketplace, and then establishing a brand identity that places what you are selling in a positive light”. Key insights include:

In an urban insurgency, for example, civilians can help identify enemy infiltrators and otherwise assist U.S. forces. They are less likely to help, the study says, when they become “collateral damage” in U.S. attacks, have their doors broken down or are shot at checkpoints because they do not speak English.

Dear U.S. Joint Forces Command, I have a Ph.D. of good pedigree, and I too can spout obvious banalities couched in impressive language; moreover I would do so for half the price the Rand Corp. charges. Be fiscally responsible; hire me instead.

* To which the poet pretty much replied (apparently in the 17th century):

Had we but world enough, and time,
This coyness, baby, were no crime.
[...]
But at my back I always hear
Time’s winged chariot hurrying near