By all accounts, Shaha Ali Riza seems like an incredibly intelligent and successful women. Educated at the London School of Economics and done gone to Oxford for International Relations. Senior Communications Officer (and acting manager of external affairs) for the Middle East and North Africa Regional Office at the World Bank, she speaks at least five languages and is a noted supporter of women’s rights in the Arab world. Immediately before joining the World Bank, she worked at the National Endowment for Democracy, where she led the endowment’s Middle East programs. Yet, evidence indicates that in the affairs of the heart, she was not quite so proficient. This daughter of Libyan and Syrian parents fell for Paul Wolfowitz, the bad boy son of Polish Jewish immigrants. They first met in the early 1990s while each was married. By 2001, both had divorced, and though rumors flew, it wasn’t until 2005 that that “RizaWitz” was a sure item.

After Wolfie's job at the Defense department didn’t work out (for reasons I’d rather not get into), he got the President to give him a presidency of his own at the World Bank, which happened to be the office at which his girlfriend worked. How sweet--they could commute together.

But then, he pulled what had to be one of the most benign oversights of his career--he transfered Ms. Riza to another office and gave her a pretty raise of about $60,000. This made her the highest paid person at the State Department, topping Condoleezza Rice’s $157,000 taxable pittance. Perhaps it was Wolfowitz’s way of saying “Sorry for kicking you out of your job, honey. Believe me, I know how that feels." In cases like this, flowers and a Teddy-gram just don’t cut it.

But, evidently, there are no Cupids on the World Bank Ethics Committee. An ethics review concluded that Wolfowitz violated staff rules when he arranged the raise and transfer for Ms. Riza. Now Wolfowitz has finally resigned, but only after negotiating his departure like a wandering violinist in a cheap French restaurant, annoying the World Bank into tipping him before he agreed to go.

Of course, it was never really about the raise for Ms. Riza. Can we honestly be expected to believe that a group of European men would be shocked by someone showing his girlfriend special favors at the office? Perhaps they would have been more accomodating to pretty-young-mistress kind of scenario. The thought of two older, unmarried intellectuals getting it on must have come across as uncivilized.

Anyway, the European selected World Bank officials have never been fans of Wolfowitz or his boss, especially after President Bush forced Wolfowitz on them. It didn’t take long for them to use Wolfowitz’s relationship with Ms. Riza against him.

But she was good for him. She pushed hard at the World Bank to tie aid to democratic reforms and women’s rights. Maybe they shared the same ambitious views on reshaping the Middle East. Maybe Wolfowitz was truly driven to give his love the perfect gift: a democratic Middle East blossoming from a liberated Iraq. But for these star-crossed lovers, the outcome turned out to be much different.

The truth is that those in power and influence are subject to the same failings as the rest of us. Who out there hasn’t helped a loved one get a better job, raise or promotion? Who hasn’t shared a dream with another and deployed thousands of troops and billions of dollars in hope of watching it bloom?

But that's something for the story books. In a scenario that has become all too common for women today, she’s now stuck with an unemployed man who has lost his last two jobs and will likely be sitting around the house all day mad at the world (bank). Meanwhile, she’ll head off to work, trying to rebuild a career that was moving along quite nicely until HE showed up, thank you very much!

(Sigh) Why are all the good men taken?

The final insult in this latest scandal’s media storm was reserved for Ms Riza. This champion for women’s rights around the world has been relegated to the roll of simply “the girlfriend.”

In lack of any substantial message to debate, I thought I'd give a general run-down of my view of the evening:

Most hilarious: Mike Gravel

Bushiest eyebrows: Chris Dodd/Joe Biden (tie)

Highest handicap: John Edwards

Best dressed: Hillary Clinton

Most likely to hold prior mafia connections: Bill Richardson

Most even-shouldered: Barack Obama

Most seeming-surprised to be asked a question: Bill Richardson

Best George C. Scott sound-alike: Chris Dodd

Shortest tough guy on the block: Dennis Kucinich

Person, given only tonight's debate, I would most want to know: Mike Gravel

Person, given only tonight's debate, I would most want to play tennis with: John Edwards

Person, given only tonight's debate, I would most want to do shooters with (not the bang-bang kind): Bill Richardson

Most prescient quote: (I paraphrase) America is caught up in a military-industrial complex and we're too stupified to see it. Mike Gravel

Person who was, dammit, on message: Hillary Clinton

Person who was not, and could'a-should'a been: Barack Obama

Today on Salon.com, Glenn Greenwald offers a scathing critique, based on the House panel investigating the spin machine behind the Tillman and Lynch incidents, of a thoroughly rotted government mirrored by an obsequious press:

"First, it has been well-known for several years that the U.S. military outright invented lies regarding literally every aspect of the Jessica Lynch story. And the Tillman family for years has been vocally complaining about the lies they were told by the Pentagon regarding the circumstances surrounding Pat Tillman's death...None of this is new. So why is Congress holding hearings to investigate these matters only now?

The answer, of course, is because the Republicans who controlled Congress for the last four years absolutely suppressed any attempt whatsoever to exert oversight on the administration...Our government literally ceased to function the way it is designed to, because Congressional Republicans deliberately abdicated their duty of checks on the executive and actively helped to conceal every improper and deceitful act."

What's worse, the media were eager dupes for the hero stories from their first moments:

"Over and over and over, our most influential American media outlets publish false stories based on government "sources" who purposely lie to them, and they never report on the real story -- who are the government sources lying to the American public while hiding behind shields of anonymity granted to them, and maintained by, our nation's "journalists"?"

And then there is the military itself, which is supposed to be a bastion of strength for the nation but which is in fact afraid of its own shadow, spooked by its sudden image in the glass.

Pat Tillman (and so many like him) died for what he hoped, or believed, or prayed was a noble cause, despite what the neo-Con military activists like Lt. Col. Ralph Kauzlarich suggest about Tillman's aethiesm. (Kauzlarich is, I believe, the definition of someone afraid of his own shadow.) What Tillman depended on was the honesty and integrity of a military that had asked those things of him, and promised them in return. Tillman gave the Army his life, and in exchange, the Army gave him a lie, because, evidently, the service he gave was just not good enough. Mothers: warn your sons.

US Navy Captain [corr. see below] Nowak is the now “former” NASA astronaut who attacked the girlfriend of a fellow astronaut for whom she left her husband. I mean, like, that’s all she did? Lordy, it’s a wonder she only tried to kidnap and bludgeon her rival and didn’t fly the space shuttle in the women’s house. Naturally, the Orlando police have now revealed that along with all the weapons she was carrying, she also had photos of sexual bondage scenes on computer discs. Yeah, guys, military chicks really ARE freaky! Remember that the next time you think about asking one of us on a date.

In terms of role models, I’m even less inspired by the British seaman, Fayne Turney, recently released by the Iranians. She was evidently the first to submit to the will of her captures (though fortunately for us girls, her male crew members proved equally pliable). Back home, she was the first to sell her story to the press under a special “one day only sale” rule granted by the British government. In her tale, she described her ordeal and how she was fooled into false confessions by the threat of imprisonment and the ole “sizing me up for a coffin trick,” which has evidently still not seen its last sucker. Turney’s commander, Royal Navy Lt. Felix Carman, called the book deal “unsavory”, but commented that she was at least securing a financial future for her child. And cha-ching, another great female roll model is born.

There are great women military leaders out there—there just isn’t much interesting to say about them. They lead, fight, save lives and die everyday. But that really isn’t enough for a news lead. Now you have to do something outrageous first. Whether that reflects poorly on popular taste is a matter of debate, but whether it reflects poorly, by association, on those of us in uniform is not even a question. When we're no longer associated with those around us who do silly or crazy things, then I'll believe we really have been accepted as equals in the military. But not yet.

First of all, the British Navy has some work to do. They let their guard down by letting their helo coverage return to the ship before the merchant ship inpections were finished. Coalition Forces were conducting extensive military exercises off the Iranian coast that week--the British navy should have expected the Iranians to be on edge.

And though I hate to reference the Washington Times, reporter Bill Gertz quoted a British military official on why the crew lacked sufficient prisoner-of-war training to understand how to avoid being used as propaganda. The official said, "We're not talking about people in a war environment...[so] the level of training is different." How strange. The Persian Gulf isn't a wartime environment?

We may soon learn what kinds of duress the Iranians used on the crew, but darn, they made it look easy. The crew's videotaped statements were obviously canned, but the sailors seemed almost too much at ease. Was an Iranian interrogator standing just off camera with a gun to their heads? I'm not suggesting American servicemen would be braver in the same situation, but it's hard to imagine a Marine confessing so casually, chatting and smoking with his Iranian captors, if only because of the real beating he could expect from his Marine buddies on his return home.

Flying for the US Air Force, I had to go through "POW resistance training" to prepare for these sorts of things. I don't know if I would have performed any better in that frightening situation. But the British crew didn't seem to understand that you don't have to be at war to be exploited for propaganda. Maybe they did resist, and it simply didn't make the video cut. But looking at the final staged photo op with the Iranian President and the British sailors being freed, smiling and waving in their new suits, it made them look like they were leaving on holiday. Either the Iranian interrogators are very good or the British were, pardon the pun, over their heads.

There is a policy lesson here for the US as well. We're allowing ourselves to lose the media war. The current administration evidently believes that detentions at Guantanamo Bay and holding Iranians in secret prisons inside Iraq are national security entitlements. In fact, they put us at greater risk. The Iranians made the point of keeping the British prisoners healthy, clean, and fed. Was it for show? You bet! But it was an effective show, built for Al Jazeera prime-time.

What's more, just three weeks ago, we were finger-wagging at the Italians for helping trade five Taliban prisoners for La Repubblic journalist Daniele Mastrogiacomo. Yet, now, an Iranian diplomat missing in Iraq several months ago has suddenly reappeared, and the government has agreeed to let Iranian officials meet with the five Iranians we're holding in Iraq.

Despite the despicable parading of the British troops, this incident was a publicity win for Iran and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Iran looked strong, savvy and in control. Britain looked weak and slow to react. And the US looked like a lawless world dominating bully.

Guilty to what? “Training with Al Queda, guarding a Taliban tank and scouting a closed American embassy building,” as per the NY Times. While, as the Times continues, “there is no evidence he was considering a terrorist attack or capable of carrying one out,” that’s no excuse for a brothers-in-arms wannabe who dropped out of school in 9th grade and “ran away” when the bombs started dropping in Afghanistan.

With the heart of a true killer, Hicks, after five years and four months at Guantanamo, pleaded guilty to the above charges and also signed a statement recanting his accusations of being mistreated during detention and also promised not to talk to reporters for a year. Indeed, his lawyer, Major Michael Mori of the Marines, told the court that Hicks wished to apologize to Australia and the United States for his behavior, as Hicks himself was far too mousy and terrified to speak himself.

Lead prosecutor Lieutenant Colonel Kevin Chenail told the court, Senator McCarthy-style: “Today in the courtroom, we’re on the front lines of the global war on terror. The enemy is sitting at the defense table.” He then shot a lightening bolt at Hicks, who promptly wet his pants and responded, somewhat off cue, that he had “never been abused while in detention by the United States at Guantanamo Bay or anywhere else.”

“Silence!” spake the judge. “Let’s have a ruling!”

For his heinous, carefully-calculated and ultimately devastating allegiance with Al Qaeda, Hicks was given nine months, roughly the time for dealing heavily in marijuana, yet another reason pot should be outlawed.

The lesson here is: Stay in school. Read your history books and score high on your standardized tests, and you will very likely never suffer the fate of David Hicks. As for him, despite his oath-of-silence with the press, he will nonetheless go down in history as the first bird to fly over this particular cuckoo’s nest.

As we soon move into the fifth year of war in Afghanistan and Iraq, what was once a hot debate—women in combat roles—has been overtaken by the sheer magnitude of loss we’ve suffered in those countries.

The last real debate over women in combat occurred in May of 2005 when the House Armed Services Committee, responding to the increase in female casualties, wanted to ban service women from combat support. “We want women to serve everywhere, except in ground combat,” said Rep. John McHugh, R-N.Y. McHugh, then chairman of the personnel subcommittee. But the Army, having a hard enough time keeping troops in the field, gave McHugh a stiff elbow to the ribs and tossed a little bureaucratic-ease at the press…they said that female soldiers weren’t “assigned” but rather “attached” to combat units, which made the it all sound much safer and more legitimate.

Still, there are some, like Elaine Donnelly of the Center for American Readiness, who keep trying to resuscitate the moral dilemma of women in combat. In fact, the number of women now serving in “combat” roles (air force) and “combat support” roles (army) has made the debate all but moot. But Ms. Donnelly sticks to her guns, if you’ll pardon the mixed metaphor, all the same. Using the argument that embedding of female troops with infantry is prohibited by DoD regulations (which it is), she seems more interested in the letter of the law than in the reality of life inside the Green Zone. Can you imagine, for example, American men attempting to search local Muslim women at checkpoints inside Baghdad?

There was a point some years ago when people inside and outside the military hesitated over the possibility of women serving in combat roles. We’re past that now. No one can ignore the dead and wounded returning from overseas. Female service members like Captain Harris are earning the respect they deserve, though at a terrible price. Last Sunday, Harris was buried with full military honors, while her fiancé watched from the graveside.

Sadly, this was a far cry from the 1962 image of UN Ambassador Adlai Stevenson staring down the USSR on the floor of the UN, showing the world on live TV pictures of Soviet missiles going into Cuba. It was credible evidence, from a credible source, for all to see. Now, it seems that credibility is becoming another of our scarce resources. Perhaps the Bush administration is gun shy around the UN after its last credible source, Colin Powell, was hung out to dry for faulty pre-war intelligence. Still, one would think the administration had watched enough episodes of "Law & Order" to develop a credible case, especially in the new skeptical environment in which they find themselves.

That Iran is making special armor piercing weapons is almost assuredly true. The markings on bomb fragments are easy enough to trace, showing when and where they were likely made.

Now it’s been claimed that Iran is smuggling them across the boarder. Well, they are being smuggled. Munitions and other things come illegally into Iraq from several countries, including Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Turkey. Smuggling is a way of life in Iraq and the patchily guarded boarders make it all the easier. (By the way, U.S. officials didn't say anything about what they were doing to close down the boarder and stop the weapons from entering.)

Next, the group claimed that the EFPs were intended to kill Americans. It's true that the weapons are designed to the penetrate thick armor worn primarily by American soldiers. Perhaps EFPs are a logical counter to our “up armored” vehicles. One would only expect an adversary to respond to your tactics. But of the nearly 2700 US combat related deaths in Iraq, over 170 have been caused by EFPs. Though I hate to stand over US casualties with a calculator, that's about 6 percent. Nearly four times more troops have died from accidents. And far more attacks on US troops over the past four years have come from Sunni groups. If the reports are saying that the Shia policy is primarily to target Americans, then our troop are truly caught in between the Sunni and Shia and should get out.

But, alas, the claim that this tactic is being directed from the top of the Iranian government is the hardest to prove. The press conference officials claimed to have evidence from recent raids on Iranian offices in Iraq. But unfortunately, the documents were not presented and the detainee from whom they were extracted was not available. (Secretary of Defense Gates came out a few days later and said, "the evidence speaks for itself."--whatever that means.) Here's the problem: accusations about apolitical leader should come from a political leader. Even Russian President Putin understood this when he railed against US foreign policy the same weekend. It's bad form to have it done from back rooms in a war zone.

This press conference seemed more like a presidential campaign 529 attack ad on Iran. A small group slings mud and sees what sticks. Even the Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had the good sense to refute the charges on the Today Show.

The conventional wisdom in Washington is that all of this is aimed at effecting the argument on Iranian Nuke weapons program. Perhaps this means we've given up on Iraq and moved onto greener pastures ripe and ready for the bombing.

I'm sure Iran enjoys watching the US flounder in Iraq. However, the Bush administration should either make a more convincing argument or focus on finishing one war before starting another.

I was not horrified because the video was of the "heads-up display" of an American A-10 that accidentally fired on a British convoy in Iraq in 2003, killing a soldier. That was simply tragic, because the accidental "blue on blue" killing of friendly forces is, to some extent, unavoidable and acceptable in wartime. I was horrified for another reason: because the tape was so clear. I found myself listening to it, getting caught up in the drama of the kill, knowing the language and remembering it from my own little war, and knowing--knowing--that the kill was going to result in the death of a British soldier, and wanting to hear it anyway, and also wanting to hear what came next, how the pilot would react (predictably, with tears, anger, and denial). I was, in short, a voyeur.

“We’re in jail, dude,” the wingman says over the frequency after they learn from the command station on the ground that they’ve just killed a British soldier. There's a heavy silence. This is not how they began the day.

(True to form, the British come in long after the action is over and tell the A-10 fighters to “abort”—military slang to call off the mission.)

There is a lot of heavy breathing on the last part of this tape. A lot of silence. A lot of pondering, in which you can almost hear the pilots’ minds turning over and over, wishing to call back the moment, the missile, anything to bring them back to that time before they had committed a crime, before they had become killers.

And that, of course, was my second horrifying thought. That in a part of my mind, they had only just then become killers.

At the largest protest to date against the war in Iraq, Jane Fonda addressed the roughly 100,000-strong crowd:

"I haven't spoken at an anti-war rally in 34 years because of lies about me that were used to hurt the anti-war movement," she said.

Well, yeah. The photo props of her straddling a North Vietnamese anti-aircraft gun were just elaborate hoaxes, like the UFOs spotted in Nevada and the JFK assasination.

Susan Sarandon, another well-known political activist and professor emeritus of international relations (right?), was also there.

"We should have asked more questions in the beginning,'' Sarandon said. "Something as huge as war, something as big as sending your kids off to kill, should have some kind of discussion.''

She might be surprised to know that some of us were asking questions from the beginning. Some of us even knew where the war was taking place and had kids going to it.

It's better late than never, I guess. Now that it's clear to 91% of the people in America that the Iraq war wasn't such a hot idea, two Hollywood dreamgirls have decided it won't hurt their careers to stand up and speak out. But where were they three years ago?

And, just out of curiosity, at this most recent demonstration, where was Cindy Sheehan?

Together, we have a chance to serve the American people by solving the complex problems that many don't expect us to tackle, let alone solve, in the partisan environment of today's Washington. To do that, however, we can't play politics as usual.

"Politics as usual" being pitcher and batter working for the same team. This essay has cleared up a few things for me. For one, evidently, the whole message from us—the voter—in this last midterm election was *not* our displeasure with his administration’s handling of the Iraq war, the Afghanistan war, global warming, Hurricane Katrina, a pedophile-friendly Republican congress, and other cats-and-dogs scandals dating back to our national love affair with Haliburton. It was about Tom Delay and Jack Abramoff. Those lobby-loving bastards.

I believe that when America is willing to use her influence abroad, the American people are safer and the world is more secure.

In a similar way, a disgruntled, intellectually-challenged, socially-insecure postal worker will take a semi-automatic weapon into his workplace for the purpose of getting a little respect.

I believe that wealth does not come from government.

No—he's right—it goes to government.

Our priorities begin with defeating the terrorists who killed thousands of innocent Americans on September 11, 2001--and who are working hard to attack us again. These terrorists are part of a broader extremist movement that is now doing everything it can to defeat us in Iraq.

Those “extremists” who’ve taken over the country of Iraq and brought it to civil war purely for the purpose of slapping us in the face, which they had already done on Sept 11th and are “working hard” on another attack somewhere well outside the borders of Iraq, where all of our resources are engaged.

But, perhaps, I appreciated most of all the fourth grade lesson on American politics. Bush was kind enough to explain the difference between the executive and legislative branches in Schoolhouse Rock language we can all understand:

The majority party in Congress gets to pass the bills it wants. The minority party, especially where the margins are close, has a strong say in the form bills take. And the Constitution leaves it to the president to use his judgment whether they should be signed into law.

Oh, it’s the Congress who makes law, is it? The Constitution has gone all topsy-turvy over the last few years, so it’s hard to keep up with who’s pushing what these days.

The fact that Mr. Bush finds himself in a position to give Congress moral guidance is disturbing, as though the “secret processes” he admonishes were not the very same ones he depended on to achieve his own goals during his first six years in office.

Bush's opinion piece is a well-scripted message in a vacuum from the ultimate boy in the bubble. It offers nothing. It admits nothing. And it takes no responsibility. It might well have been labeled “What America Can Do for Me.”

Frankly, James Baker should have known better than to write his recommendations in a book. Books are elitist, and they have all those tedious pages. Kagan delivered his presentation in fifty-six, black-and-white, bullet-formed slides. Optimistically titled “Choosing Victory: A Plan for Success in Iraq, Phase I Report,” it has the encouraging tone of a weight watchers lecture—just follow these simple steps and you’ll be free of that extra burden forever!—and the soothing promise of follow-on phase reports.

No wonder Bush is preparing to come out of his Christmas cocoon fully rested and ready for another round of gunfights in and around the Shia held provinces of Iraq. Here’s slide five:

Victory Is Possible

- 1.1 million ground forces/400,000 in Iraq
- America contained ethno-religious conflict in Bosnia/Kosovo--we can do so in Iraq
- American resources are great: 300 million people, $12 trillion in GDP compared to 25 million Iraqis, $100 billion GDP in a country the size of California
- Success requires effort and will, but we need not choose to lose

The depth of ignorance implicit in this slide is hard to fathom. I guess that because our GDP is bigger than theirs (and we'll ignore for a moment our excessive dependence on oil), we'll have no problem squashing them. Gee. Victory is possible. It’s all right here, a revisionist dream. The disastrous civil war we’ve created and the political capital we’ve squandered can be corrected through a simple force of arms. Iraq is just like Bosnia, right? (Answer: yes, except for all those NATO and UN guys running around in Bosnia.) And bigger is better, right?

The most appealing part of the plan is that there would be no need to get involved in diplomacy with Iraq’s neighbors Iran and Syria. They’re so complicated. Like, do you send Christmas cards or Kwanza cards or nothing at all? Besides, as the Daily Show’s John Oliver said, you should only talk after every possible military option has been tried.

Kagan makes clear that no military action should take place unless the US is plans to “fully fund” reconstruction in the held areas—but that’s all part of Phase II. We don’t really have to worry about all that yet. Now, you might infer that the Iraq Study Group proposed a troop withdrawal because it was quite clear the US has not and would never “fully fund” reconstruction. But, as the above slide so aptly says, “we need not choose to lose.”

The U.S. military is a powerful and costly tool. It can win battles, but only politics and diplomacy can win wars. Without a serious commitment to either, this plan will make short term military gains, but ultimately it will fail. But why pay attention to such trivialities when we have motivators like the last line in the Kagan brief (the last line, that is, before the artfully presented Q&A section, which aids the administration in figuring out what questions to ask, and then answers the questions for them.)

WE CAN WIN IN IRAQ, AND WE MUST

Because when you put something in capital letters, it becomes an affirmation. And this has been an administration built on affirmations, if shy on policy. Meanwhile, as of today, the number of U.S. troops killed in Iraq tops the 2973 killed in the September 11, 2001 attacks. How’s that for an inspirational message?