I’ve sometimes wondered how many people can be fooled into supporting a bill or policy simply because it has a cute name. You know, like “Patriot Act,” “Clear Skies,” “We Love Children Act,” or whatever. I suspected that such marketing might have some sway on those who don’t follow the particular issue. After all, what uninformed person wouldn’t support whatever noble objective a catchy title claimed said law would achieve?
Apparently, it’s not just Joe Blow on the street who can thus be tricked by a bill’s name. Last weekend on Tim Russert Thomas Friedman admitted (boasted?) that he would support a proposal simply because it was entitled a “free trade” agreement. That’s right: forget what a pact says (or doesn’t say) regarding labor, the environment, or security; as long as its proponents use the magic words “free trade,” our supposed guru on economics and world trade is on board.
It’s remarkable what can learn from world-class big journalism.

Last week on Hardball with Chris Matthews, Former CIA operative Bob Baer had a couple interesting comments on developments in the Middle East:

MATTHEWS: [Regarding regime change in Iraq] Have we basically put the Shia, the more militant groups of Shia, into the driver’s seat in the Middle East?
BAER: Absolutely. And this is–you know, what happened when we invaded Iraq was we essentially turned the country over to radical Shia, and the leadership in Baghdad is radical Shia. I know most of these guys. In the ’90s, they took refuge in the southern suburbs of Beirut, with Hezbollah. There’s a close connection between the government in Baghdad and Hezbollah.
And what we’re seeing now is the development of a radical Shia arc, which goes from Tehran, Baghdad, Damascus, and Beirut now, which is what has the Sunni–and that’s Saudi Arabia and the rest of the Gulf and Egypt and Jordan–so worried, and this is why they’ve come out against Hezbollah.
MATTHEWS: You know, I’ve heard that from the mouth of one of the leaders of one of those Sunni countries. As you just describe it is the wave he described it, the fear of an emerging Shia crescent across all the Middle East.
The Sunni governments which tend to be moderate are now being overwhelmed by something we may have had a hand in triggering, the continuity now from Tehran, through Baghdad, down through Beirut. We may have created our worst enemy. Do you believe that?
BAER: Chris, this is a catastrophe, Iraq, and this is going to go on for years. Iraq is going to change us. We’re not going to change Iraq. I got calls from Damascus just before I got on the phone with you, and the Sunni are worried. They’re leaving Damascus, afraid that this war in Lebanon is going to spread to Syria, and they’re going to pay the Sunni. You know, they’re going to flee to the Gulf, wherever they can.
The division between the Shia and the Sunni in the Middle East is our greatest threat to the United States. When people talk about World War III, it’s not a traditional war against us from nuclear bombs or anything, it’s from the split that will lead to a regional war which will ultimately and I repeat–will affect oil supplies.

Generally, I’ve thought of a looming Iraq disaster in a domestic framework: the nation becomes embroiled in civil war and perhaps fractures. This regional scenario is obvious far worse, and quite disturbing in its plausibility. Baer’s comment about Iraq “changing us” rather than the other way around is a telling suggestion that those running the show don’t understand the Middle East. But we already knew that.
One last note: it’s interesting that the warmongers currently beating the drums for strikes against Iran and Syria (for their ties to Hezbollah) aren’t mentioning Iraq’s role in this. I wonder why that is?

A tool once used for finding stolen cars will soon be available so that anyone can track a license plate as a vehicle moves around.
Big Brother marches forward.

TPM, quoting The Nelson Report

The announcement by Secretary of State Condi Rice that she was going to the region, but would not seek direct meetings with Syria, the country the US claims to be at the heart of any “solution” to the Lebanon crisis, has sparked much international criticism, and rekindled debate in the US over the basic lack of Bush Administration policy.
Or, put another way, the Lebanon situation has exposed, once again, that US policy, under Bush, is largely whatever the Israeli government says it wants. So the long term effect of this on US-Arab relations generally, and the US ability to be constructively involved in any serious peace process, is once again under debate.

Mixed messages do abound, not the least of which being Rice’s promise of U.S. aid to Lebanon, even as America rushs to send more weapons to Israel. Seems we could save money on the aid by simply not sending the bombs.

It seems like just a few months ago that we were being told the regime change in Iraq would set the dominoes of peace and freedom falling across the Middle East.
Things have been falling over there, alright, but not quite what we were lead to expect. Operation Flowering Freedom is going so swimmingly that CNN currently has a story entitled “ Iraq: The forgotten war.”
No doubt there are some who would like us to forget Iraq. To some degree, I suspect some are using this “World War III” mantra to change the subject from their earlier prognostications on that mess. Let’s wipe the slate clean and start with a fresh war.
There are plenty of distractions. Billmon identifies the following feuds:

We’ve got: Israeli Jews fighting Lebanese Shi’a and Palestinian Sunnis; Palestinian Fatah militants who’ve stopped fighting Hamas militants, but only because they’re both fighting the Israelis; Saudi Sunni fundamentalists issuing fatwas against Hezbollah Shi’a fundamentalists; Egyptian Sunni fundamentalists backing those same Hezbollah Shi’a fundamentalists; Iraqi Sunnis killing Iraqi Shi’a and vice versa; Iraqi Shi’a (the Mahdi Army) jousting with Iraqi Shi’a (the Badr Brigade); Iraqi Kurds trying to push Sunni Arabs and both Sunni and Shi’a Turkomen out of Kirkuk; Turks threatening to invade Kurdistan; Iranians allegedly shelling Kurdistan, Syrian Kurds rebelling against Syrian Allawites who are despised by Syria’s Sunni majority but allied with the Lebanese Shi’a who are hated and feared by the House of Saud and its Sunni fundamentalist minions. Oh, and American and Israeli neocons threatening to bomb both Syria and Iran.

Slate has a chart of who’s friends or enemies with who. Go here and click on “The Middle East Buddy List.”
What you see is a picture that I’m afraid is too complicated for our one-dimensional, morally clear leadership to deal with.