Paying the military to spy on us

It appears that the California National Guard, which is supported by state tax dollars, has been secretly spying on Californians engaged in peaceful protest led by mothers of those killed in the war! I personally feel complete outrage when I read this story. The Guard Unit, in an attempt to play this down, has talked about how this spying was limited. But who gives a damn about such assurances. We don't pay our government to spy on us.

I'm fascinated by the endless efforts of those in the current administration to collect information on anyone voicing political dissent--particularly, info about those on the left. All the terrorist incidents in the U.S. that I can remember have involved either rightwing nut-cases or foreign militants who were, at some point, at least partially trained by the CIA or a U.S. ally. And yet someone somewhere has determined that the greatest threat to the nation is a dozen or so aged protesters holding antiwar signs in front of the Californian capitol. The fact of the matter is that these protesters aren't a threat to us (the American people) but are a threat to the regime in Washington. I ask all of you once more: WHY ARE OUR TAX DOLLARS BEING SPENT TO PAY THE MILITARY TO SPY ON US?

Daily Kos's reaction is right on target:

WTF? really, what else is there to say? How can these people justify spying on the mothers of the soldiers who died fighting your war of choice? . . . If they really want someone to spy on spy on me, seriously, follow me around, and see all the stuff I say bad about these fuckers, I say plenty. But please leave the people alone whose families have been torn apart by a war of choice. I will take on the burden, I know I can't stop you from spying, so just redirect your spying, I'm sure a few more people will step up to volunteer, why? Because we are liberals and we like to suffer for a good cause, it's something in the water in the blue states. Seriously folks, I joke because if I didn't I'd be climbing the tower with a rifle. This is truly just fucked up, and it needs to be exposed and stopped immediately.

The San Jose Mercury News story (as printed in the Montery Herald, emphasis added):

SACRAMENTO - Three decades after aggressive military spying on Americans created a national furor, California's National Guard has quietly set up a special intelligence unit that has been given ''broad authority'' to monitor, analyze and distribute information on potential terrorist threats, the Mercury News has learned.
Known as the Information Synchronization, Knowledge Management and Intelligence Fusion program, the project is part of an expanding nationwide effort to better integrate military intelligence into global anti-terrorism initiatives.

Although Guard officials said the new unit would not collect information on American citizens, top National Guard officials have already been involved in tracking at least one recent Mother's Day anti-war rally organized by families of slain American soldiers, according to e-mails obtained by the Mercury News.

Creation of California's intelligence unit is already raising concerns for civil libertarians who point to a string of abuses in the 1960s and 1970s when the military collected information on more than 100,000 Americans, infiltrated church youth groups, posed as reporters to interview activists, monitored peaceful protests and even attended an elementary school Halloween party in search of a ''dissident.''

''The National Guard doesn't need to do this,'' said Christopher Pyle, a former Army intelligence officer who first exposed the military's domestic spying operations in 1970. ''Its job is not to investigate individuals, but to clear streets, protect facilities and help first responders.''

Top Guard officers said that they have no intentions of breaking long-established rules barring the military from gathering information on Americans and that the evolving program is meant to help California and the nation thwart terrorist attacks.

''We do not do any type of surveillance or human intelligence or mixing with crowds,'' said Lt. Col. Stan Zezotarski. ''The National Guard does not operate in that way. We have always had a policy where we respect the rights of citizens.''

Forming the unit

Generally, the National Guard is called upon to help the state deal with natural disasters and riots. But the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have put major strains on the military, which has started drawing more on Guard soldiers to fight overseas. And now Guard units are being integrated into anti-terrorism efforts in the United States.

The intelligence unit was quietly established last year by Major Gen. Thomas Eres, the National Guard leader who was forced by the Schwarzenegger administration to retire earlier this month. Eres left amid allegations that he failed to prove his shooting skills for a trip to Iraq, set up a questionable military flight for a Republican friend's political group, and improperly used money meant to stem the flow of drugs for anti-terrorism programs.

Just before Eres retired, the Guard hired its first director for the intelligence unit who has ''broad authority'' and is expected to ''exercise a high degree of independent judgment and discretion,'' according to the job description obtained by the Mercury News.

''However, highly controversial or precedent-setting decisions, directives and policies are discussed with the appropriate senior leadership prior to implementation,'' the description states.

Col. Robert J. O'Neill, a veteran intelligence officer who started last week as director of the new program, said he envisions his team as being a one-stop shop for local, state and national law enforcement to share information. Intelligence officers will have access to sensitive national security information that they can analyze and potentially share with state and local law enforcement, he said.

''We are trying to integrate into their systems and bring them information that they don't have,'' O'Neill said.
He said his unit would not cross any legal lines into spying on Americans. But the Guard's role in monitoring at least one demonstration has already alarmed civil libertarians.

Tracking the rally

Last month, a group of anti-war activists, including the parents of American soldiers killed in Iraq, held a small Mother's Day rally at the Vietnam Veteran's Memorial near the California Capitol to call for the return of all National Guard troops by Labor Day.

Three days before the rally, as a courtesy to the military, an aide in Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's press office alerted the Guard to the event, according to e-mails obtained by the Mercury News. The information was passed up the chain of command directly to Eres and other top Guard officials including Col. Jeff Davis, who oversees O'Neill's operation. ''Sir,'' Guard Chief-of-Staff Col. John Moorman wrote in the e-mail to Eres that was copied to Davis and other top commanders. ''Information you wanted on Sunday's demonstration at the Capitol.'' In response, Davis indicated that Guard intelligence officers were tracking the rally.

''Thanks,'' Davis wrote. ''Forwarding same to our Intell. folks who continue to monitor.''

That rainy Sunday, the protest organized by Gold Star Families for Peace, Raging Grannies and CodePink, drew about three-dozen supporters. Guard spokesman Zezotarksi said that the monitoring did not involve anything more than keeping tabs on the protest through the media and that no one went to observe the demonstration.
But he said the military would be ''negligent'' in not tracking such anti-war rallies in the event that they disintegrate into a riot that could prompt the governor to call out troops.

''It's nothing subversive,'' said Zezotarksi. ''Because who knows who could infiltrate that type of group and try to stir something up? After all, we live in the age of terrorism, so who knows?''

Civil libertarians scoffed at such defenses.

''That's ludicrous,'' said Joseph Onek, a former Carter and Clinton administration official who now heads the Liberty and Security Initiative for The Constitution Project at Georgetown University. ''That's not what the American people expect its military to be doing.''

"Mission creep"

Pyle, the Army officer who exposed the abuses in the 1970s and is now a professor at Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts, said the evolving intelligence programs are susceptible to dangerous ''mission creep'' that led to overaggressive tactics during the Vietnam War.

Since the Civil War, the United States has tried to create firm barriers preventing the military from getting involved in domestic issues. The 1878 Posse Comitatus Act prevents the U.S. military from taking part in domestic law enforcement.

The Army got involved with collecting intelligence on Americans in the 1960s when it was called in to deal with civil rights protests and riots. Its role expanded as the decade wore on and the anti-Vietnam War movement grew more confrontational.

At the time, according to congressional records, the military collected files on more than 100,000 Americans and embraced aggressive tactics to try to undermine anti-war groups, including attending a Halloween party for kids and infiltrating church youth groups.

In response, Congress and the military set up new rules to strictly regulate military spying in the United States.
But Sept. 11 raised concerns that the controls had gone too far. Since then, the FBI and military have been expanding their intelligence operations.

Intelligence centers

The notion of creating intelligence ''fusion centers'' is slowly gaining momentum. Massachusetts is setting up one, but it is housed in the State Police headquarters, not its National Guard.

Currently, federal law allows the U.S. military to gather information on Americans under exceptionally tight restrictions. The intelligence must be essential to its mission, publicly available or related to national security issues.

The Pentagon has created a new operation in Colorado known as the Northern Command to help protect the nation from terrorist attacks. Its leader, Gen. Ralph Eberhart, raised some concerns among civil libertarians last year after telling a National Guard group that ''we can't let culture and the way we've always done it stand in the way'' of gathering intelligence.

Last year, the U.S. military came under fire after it was reported that two Army lawyers in civilian clothes attended a forum on sexism in Islam and later demanded a roster of attendees, along with a videotape of the conference, after being questioned by three Middle Eastern men during the event.

Army officials said the attorneys had ''exceeded their authority'' and ordered a refresher course for agents.

The smell of napalm

It has come to light that the U.S. Military has used not only used firebombs in Iraq but has then lied about the use to British officials. Common Dreams provides the details to the story (emphasis added):

Despite persistent rumors of injuries among Iraqis consistent with the use of incendiary weapons such as napalm, Adam Ingram, the Defense minister, assured Labour MPs in January that US forces had not used a new generation of incendiary weapons, codenamed MK77, in Iraq. But Mr Ingram admitted to the Labour MP Harry Cohen in a private letter obtained by The Independent that he had inadvertently misled Parliament because he had been misinformed by the US. "The US confirmed to my officials that they had not used MK77s in Iraq at any time and this was the basis of my response to you," he told Mr Cohen. "I regret to say that I have since discovered that this is not the case and must now correct the position." Mr Ingram said 30 MK77 firebombs were used by the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force in the invasion of Iraq between 31 March and 2 April 2003. They were used against military targets "away from civilian targets", he said. This avoids breaching the 1980 Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW), which permits their use only against military targets. Britain, which has no stockpiles of the weapons, ratified the convention, but the US did not. The confirmation that US officials misled British ministers led to new questions last night about the value of the latest assurances by the US. Mr Cohen said there were rumors that the firebombs were used in the US assault on the insurgent stronghold in Fallujah last year, claims denied by the US. He is tabling more questions seeking assurances that the weapons were not used against civilians.

Mike Whitney, on Z-Net, discusses the U.S. media's strange silence on this story:

Two weeks ago the UK Independent ran an article which confirmed that the US had “lied to Britain over the use of napalm in Iraq”. (6-17-05) Since then, not one American newspaper or TV station has picked up the story even though the Pentagon has verified the claims. This is the extent to which the American “free press” is yoked to the center of power in Washington. As we’ve seen with the Downing Street memo, (which was reluctantly reported 5 weeks after it appeared in the British press) the air-tight American media ignores any story that doesn’t embrace their collective support for the war. The prospect that the US military is using “universally reviled” weapons runs counter to the media-generated narrative that the war was motivated by humanitarian concerns (to topple a brutal dictator) as well as to eliminate the elusive WMDs. We can now say with certainty that the only WMDs in Iraq were those that were introduced by foreign invaders from the US who have used them to subjugate the indigenous people.

Afghanistan: Downing of chopper

In the most recent blow to U.S. operations, the U.S. Military lost 17 troops (Navy SEALs?) who were aboard a special operations helicopter that was downed by hostile fire to the west of Asadabad. The article claims that the Afghan insurgency is now widening rather than winding down and may soon reach Iraqi levels of intensity. A number of bloggers are discussing the significance and implications of the incident.

The Betamax Guillotine suggests the shooting may be from the Chechen playbook:

While it's impossible to tell what happened at this early stage (and it may be impossible to tell what happened from CENTCOM's after-action report), this sounds like it could very well be a strategy straight out of the playbook of the Chechen rebels: Ambush and pin down ground force away from artillery support and in bad weather conditions (to lessen effectiveness of air support), hug ground force to lower probability of aerial assault both with the end goal being to draw in helicopters and shoot them down. The Chechens (and the Afghans mujaheddin before them) have used similar tactics against the Russians.

The Left Coaster wonders why the military, with its modern equipment, has been unable to tract the aircraft and provide a report on who was aboard:

Every family of every person serving in Afhganistan instantly worried and is still worried sick this very second about their loved ones. It’s been an extremely difficult 19 hours for them. Please tell us the fate of our service people on that helicopter now. After the treatment Pat Tillman got I simply assume the military lies when it feels it needs to, and with the timing of the Chimperor’s speech yesterday I’m positive we’re being lied to—again.

Rubicon places the crash in a wider perspective:

The problem is not Iraq. The problem is not Afghanistan. The problem is empire. The care and nourishment of the US empire requires soldiers stationed around the globe—as of 2001, about 475,000 people at 725 bases from Iceland to Australia . . . It's time to bring the troops home, all of them. Bring them home from Germany and Japan, from Iceland and Australia, from Iraq and Afghanistan. We do not need an empire—and if we insist on maintaining one, the blowback will eventually be truly catastrophic.

Support dwindling

Cut to the Chase has an excellent post on the recent poll showing dwindling support for the war.

Bloggers must drink, too

Having failed to make much money selling canned rants and derisive diatribes, Swerve Left has now launched its own brand of canned cow juice. The product line will begin with the politically nuetral Swerve but will later include, in its autumn line, Swerve Right (a sour cream that goes well with burnt meat) along with Swerve Left (an organic cream).

Fire from a burning bush

Yesterday I was interested in hearing the latest spin on Bush's speech so I turned to a U.S. propaganda . . . I mean, uh . . . news station. On Scarborough Country, the two people they chose two interview about Bush's speech were an active-duty soldier and a retired general. When asked a series of leading questions, the active-duty soldier nervously provided the "right" answers, as if being grilled before a promotion board. The retired general, after a couple of verbal jabs at Rumsfeld, also pretty much repeated the standard administration line. And then it was off to Aruba for the latest distraction--a story with no connection with the speech. Although the subtext was similar (Innocent white people are being killed by evil brown people) with the unspoken conclusion that something decisive (and hopefully violent) must be done! I really think news is dead in this country. So-called "news" has become a disjointed editorial that periodically interrupts advertisements. This is bad news. At least you'd expect the editorial writers to be entertaining. They aren't.

Since we can't rely on help from the clerks in the Ministry of Propaganda and Disinformation, we'll have to sort out the Bush speech on our own. The speech begins with the oft-repeated lines about how Shrub's War in Iraq is an essential part of the "War on Terror." We Americans are at this point so confused by the litany of excuses for attacking Iraq that we can't keep them straight. Was it WMDs or UN resolutions or attacks on sovereign nations or 9/11? Fortunately, we won't have to take a quiz at the end. The President's speech doesn't go into why Iraq has become so dangerous and such an ideal haven for terrorists. A thinking person might conclude that the current situation has something to do with the U.S. invasion of the country, but we aren't being forced to think, so as Ram Dass said, we should live in the moment.

In his speech, Bush kept referring to the tremendous support that the U.S. is receiving from Iraqis and the "international community." If there's so much support, one has to wonder why the occupation relies so heavily on U.S. troops and money. Isn't Bush being a bit loose with the logic? Are ten or twenty troops from some island somewhere a major contribution by the "international community"? If academic researchers were allowed to make the same sort of weak claims, economists would be blaming fluctuations in the U.S. housing market on the rising cost of vanilla in Madagascar.

Bush and others (e.g., Biden) have talked a lot about training Iraqis to defend their own country. I'm a bit skeptical about the idea that this is really the problem. If there were significant numbers of Iraqis wanting to put down the insurgency and defend the U.S. occupation, it would be happening. The Chinese Communists, after all, put together an invincible army out of ignorant peasants with pitch-forks. I'm sure these peasants all lacked training (not to mention, a steady supply of the latest high-tech weapons).

Bush at least had the sense to not push for higher troop levels. Even had he wanted to do so, there's the question of where the troops would come from. But more than that, the increased presence would strike many as an admission that things were going wrong. And there's one thing about being a scion from a wealthy and powerful family: being rich means never having so say you're sorry.

P.S. Rob's Blog has a good post on the speech, criticizing Bush's continued conflation of the 9/11 hijackers and Iraqi insurgents.

Think Progress had the following interesing observation: "On the same day President Bush will use the soldiers at Fort Bragg as a backdrop for his address on Iraq, conservatives in the House have voted to underfund veterans’ health care by at least $1 billion."

Transcript of President Bush's speech

Speech given today (June 28, 2005)

Thank you and good evening. I am pleased to visit Fort Bragg, home of the Airborne and Special Operations Forces. It is an honor to speak before you tonight. My greatest responsibility as President is to protect the American people, and that is your calling as well. I thank you for your service, your courage, and your sacrifice. I thank your families, who support you in your vital work. The soldiers and families of Fort Bragg have contributed mightily to our efforts to secure our country and promote peace. America is grateful and so is your Commander in Chief.The troops here and across the world are fighting a global war on terror. This war reached our shores on September 11, 2001. The terrorists who attacked us and the terrorists we face murder in the name of a totalitarian ideology that hates freedom, rejects tolerance and despises all dissent. Their aim is to remake the Middle East in their own grim image of tyranny and oppression by toppling governments, driving us out of the region and exporting terror. To achieve these aims, they have continued to kill in Madrid, Istanbul, Jakarta, Casablanca, Riyadh, Bali and elsewhere. The terrorists believe that free societies are essentially corrupt and decadent, and with a few hard blows they can force us to retreat. They are mistaken. After September 11, I made a commitment to the American people: This nation will not wait to be attacked again. We will take the fight to the enemy. We will defend our freedom. Iraq is the latest battlefield in this war. Many terrorists who kill innocent men, women and children on the streets of Baghdad are followers of the same murderous ideology that took the lives of our citizens in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania. There is only one course of action against them: to defeat them abroad before they attack us at home. The commander in charge of coalition operations in Iraq, who is also senior commander at this base, General John Vines, put it well the other day. He said, "We either deal with terrorism and this extremism abroad, or we deal with it when it comes to us." Our mission in Iraq is clear. We are hunting down the terrorists. We are helping Iraqis build a free nation that is an ally in the war on terror. We are advancing freedom in the broader Middle East. We are removing a source of violence and instability and laying the foundation of peace for our children and our grandchildren. The work in Iraq is difficult and dangerous. Like most Americans, I see the images of violence and bloodshed. Every picture is horrifying and the suffering is real. Amid all this violence, I know Americans ask the question: Is the sacrifice worth it? It is worth it, and it is vital to the future security of our country. And tonight I will explain the reasons why. Some of the violence you see in Iraq is being carried out by ruthless killers who are converging on Iraq to fight the advance of peace and freedom. Our military reports that we have killed or captured hundreds of foreign fighters in Iraq who have come from Saudi Arabia, Syria, Iran, Egypt, Sudan, Yemen, Libya and other nations. They are making common cause with criminal elements, Iraqi insurgents and remnants of Saddam Hussein's regime who want to restore the old order. They fight because they know that the survival of their hateful ideology is at stake. They know that as freedom takes root in Iraq, it will inspire millions across the Middle East to claim their liberty as well. And when the Middle East grows in democracy, prosperity and hope, the terrorists will lose their sponsors, lose their recruits and lose their hopes for turning that region into a base for attacks on America and our allies around the world. Some wonder whether Iraq is a central front in the war on terror. Among the terrorists, there is no debate. Hear the words of Osama Bin Laden: "This Third World War is raging" in Iraq. "The whole world is watching this war." He says it will end in "victory and glory or misery and humiliation." The terrorists know that the outcome will leave them emboldened or defeated. So they are waging a campaign of murder and destruction. And there is no limit to the innocent lives they are willing to take. We see the nature of the enemy in terrorists who exploded car bombs along a busy shopping street in Baghdad, including one outside a mosque. We see the nature of the enemy in terrorists who sent a suicide bomber to a teaching hospital in Mosul. And we see the nature of the enemy in terrorists who behead civilian hostages and broadcast their atrocities for the world to see.

These are savage acts of violence but they have not brought the terrorists any closer to achieving their strategic objectives. The terrorists, both foreign and Iraqi, failed to stop the transfer of sovereignty. They failed to break our coalition and force a mass withdrawal by our allies. They failed to incite an Iraqi civil war. They failed to prevent free elections. They failed to stop the formation of a democratic Iraqi government that represents all of Iraq's diverse population. And they failed to stop Iraqis from signing up in large numbers with the police forces and the army to defend their new democracy.The lesson of this experience is clear: The terrorists can kill the innocent but they cannot stop the advance of freedom. The only way our enemies can succeed is if we forget the lessons of September 11, if we abandon the Iraqi people to men like Zarqawi and if we yield the future of the Middle East to men like bin Laden. For the sake of our nation's security, this will not happen on my watch. A little over a year ago, I spoke to the nation and described our coalition's goal in Iraq. I said that America's mission in Iraq is to defeat an enemy and give strength to a friend, a free, representative government that is an ally in the war on terror and a beacon of hope in a part of the world that is desperate for reform. I outlined the steps we would take to achieve this goal: We would hand authority over to a sovereign Iraqi government; we would help Iraqis hold free elections by January 2005; we would continue helping Iraqis rebuild their nation's infrastructure and economy; we would encourage more international support for Iraq's democratic transition; and we would enable Iraqis to take increasing responsibility for their own security and stability.In the past year, we have made significant progress: One year ago today, we restored sovereignty to the Iraqi people. In January 2005, more than 8 million Iraqi men and women voted in elections that were free and fair and took place on time. We continued our efforts to help them rebuild their country.

Rebuilding a country after three decades of tyranny is hard and rebuilding while at war is even harder. Our progress has been uneven but progress is being made. We are improving roads and schools and health clinics and working to improve basic services like sanitation, electricity and water. And together with our allies, we will help the new Iraqi government deliver a better life for its citizens. In the past year, the international community has stepped forward with vital assistance. Some 30 nations have troops in Iraq, and many others are contributing nonmilitary assistance. The United Nations is in Iraq to help Iraqis write a constitution and conduct their next elections. Thus far, some 40 countries and three international organizations have pledged about 34 billion dollars in assistance for Iraqi reconstruction. More than 80 countries and international organizations recently came together in Brussels to coordinate their efforts to help Iraqis provide for their security and rebuild their country. And next month, donor countries will meet in Jordan to support Iraqi reconstruction.Whatever our differences in the past, the world understands that success in Iraq is critical to the security of all our nations. As German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder said at the White House yesterday, "There can be no question a stable and democratic Iraq is in the vested interest of not just Germany, but also Europe." Finally, we have continued our efforts to equip and train Iraqi security forces. We have made gains in both the number and quality of those forces. Today Iraq has more than 160,000 security forces trained and equipped for a variety of missions. Iraqi forces have fought bravely helping to capture terrorists and insurgents in Najaf, Samarra, Fallujah and Mosul. And in the past month, Iraqi forces have led a major anti-terrorist campaign in Baghdad called Operation Lightning, which has led to the capture of hundreds of suspected insurgents. Like free people everywhere, Iraqis want to be defended by their own countrymen, and we are helping Iraqis assume those duties. The progress in the past year has been significant and we have a clear path forward. To complete the mission, we will continue to hunt down the terrorists and insurgents. To complete the mission, we will prevent al-Qaida and other foreign terrorists from turning Iraq into what Afghanistan was under the Taliban _ a safe haven from which they could launch attacks on America and our friends. And the best way to complete the mission is to help Iraqis build a free nation that can govern itself, sustain itself and defend itself. So our strategy going forward has both a military track and a political track. The principal task of our military is to find and defeat the terrorists and that is why we are on the offense. And as we pursue the terrorists, our military is helping to train Iraqi security forces so that they can defend their people and fight the enemy on their own. Our strategy can be summed up this way: As the Iraqis stand up, we will stand down.

We have made progress but we have a lot more work to do. Today Iraqi security forces are at different levels of readiness. Some are capable of taking on the terrorists and insurgents by themselves. A larger number can plan and execute anti-terrorist operations with coalition support. The rest are forming and not yet ready to participate fully in security operations. Our task is to make the Iraqi units fully capable and independent. We are building up Iraqi security forces as quickly as possible, so they can assume the lead in defeating the terrorists and insurgents.Our coalition is devoting considerable resources and manpower to this critical task. Thousands of coalition troops are involved in the training and equipping of Iraqi security forces. NATO is establishing a military academy near Baghdad to train the next generation of Iraqi military leaders, and 17 nations are contributing troops to the NATO training mission. Iraqi army and police are being trained by personnel from Italy, Germany, Ukraine, Turkey, Poland, Romania, Australia and the United Kingdom. Today dozens of nations are working toward a common objective: an Iraq that can defend itself, defeat its enemies and secure its freedom.To further prepare Iraqi forces to fight the enemy on their own, we are taking three new steps:First, we are partnering coalition units with Iraqi units. These coalition-Iraqi teams are conducting operations together in the field. These combined operations are giving Iraqis a chance to experience how the most professional armed forces in the world operate in combat.Second, we are embedding coalition "transition teams" inside Iraqi units. These teams are made up of coalition officers and noncommissioned officers who live, work and fight together with their Iraqi comrades. Under U.S. command, they are providing battlefield advice and assistance to Iraqi forces during combat operations. Between battles, they are assisting the Iraqis with important skills such as urban combat and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance techniques.Third, we are working with the Iraqi Ministries of Interior and Defense to improve their capabilities to coordinate anti-terrorist operations. We are helping them develop command and control structures. We are also providing them with civilian and military leadership training, so Iraq's new leaders can more effectively manage their forces in the fight against terror.The new Iraqi security forces are proving their courage every day. More than 2,000 members of the Iraqi security forces have given their lives in the line of duty. Thousands more have stepped forward and are now in training to serve their nation. With each engagement, Iraqi soldiers grow more battle-hardened and their officers grow more experienced. We have learned that Iraqis are courageous and that they need additional skills. That is why a major part of our mission is to train them so they can do the fighting and our troops can come home.I recognize that Americans want our troops to come home as quickly as possible. So do I. Some contend that we should set a deadline for withdrawing U.S. forces. Let me explain why that would be a serious mistake. Setting an artificial timetable would send the wrong message to the Iraqis, who need to know that America will not leave before the job is done. It would send the wrong message to our troops, who need to know that we are serious about completing the mission they are risking their lives to achieve. And it would send the wrong message to the enemy, who would know that all they have to do is to wait us out. We will stay in Iraq as long as we are needed and not a day longer.

Some Americans ask me, if completing the mission is so important, why don't you send more troops? If our commanders on the ground say we need more troops, I will send them. But our commanders tell me they have the number of troops they need to do their job. Sending more Americans would undermine our strategy of encouraging Iraqis to take the lead in this fight. And sending more Americans would suggest that we intend to stay forever, when we are in fact working for the day when Iraq can defend itself and we can leave. As we determine the right force level, our troops can know that I will continue to be guided by the advice that matters: the sober judgment of our military leaders.The other critical element of our strategy is to help ensure that the hopes Iraqis expressed at the polls in January are translated into a secure democracy. The Iraqi people are emerging from decades of tyranny and oppression. Under the regime of Saddam Hussein, the Shia and Kurds were brutally oppressed and the vast majority of Sunni Arabs were also denied their basic rights, while senior regime officials enjoyed the privileges of unchecked power. The challenge facing Iraqis today is to put this past behind them and come together to build a new Iraq that includes all its people.They are doing that by building the institutions of a free society, a society based on freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, freedom of religion and equal justice under law. The Iraqis have held free elections and established a transitional national assembly. The next step is to write a good constitution that enshrines these freedoms in permanent law. The assembly plans to expand its constitutional drafting committee to include more Sunni Arabs. Many Sunnis who opposed the January elections are now taking part in the democratic process, and that is essential to Iraq's future.After a constitution is written, the Iraqi people will have a chance to vote on it. If approved, Iraqis will go to the polls again to elect a new government under their new, permanent constitution. By taking these critical steps and meeting their deadlines, Iraqis will bind their multiethnic society together in a democracy that respects the will of the majority and protects minority rights.

As Iraqis grow confident that the democratic progress they are making is real and permanent, more will join the political process. And as Iraqis see that their military can protect them, more will step forward with vital intelligence to help defeat the enemies of a free Iraq. The combination of political and military reform will lay a solid foundation for a free and stable Iraq.As Iraqis make progress toward a free society, the effects are being felt beyond Iraq's borders. Before our coalition liberated Iraq, Libya was secretly pursuing nuclear weapons. Today the leader of Libya has given up his chemical and nuclear weapons programs. Across the broader Middle East, people are claiming their freedom. In the last few months, we have witnessed elections in the Palestinian territories and Lebanon. These elections are inspiring democratic reformers in places like Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Our strategy to defend ourselves and spread freedom is working. The rise of freedom in this vital region will eliminate the conditions that feed radicalism and ideologies of murder and make our nation safer.We have more work to do, and there will be tough moments that test America's resolve. We are fighting against men with blind hatred and armed with lethal weapons who are capable of any atrocity. They wear no uniform; they respect no laws of warfare or morality. They take innocent lives to create chaos for the cameras. They are trying to shake our will in Iraq just as they tried to shake our will on September 11, 2001. They will fail. The terrorists do not understand America. The American people do not falter under threat and we will not allow our future to be determined by car bombers and assassins. America and our friends are in a conflict that demands much of us. It demands the courage of our fighting men and women, it demands the steadfastness of our allies and it demands the perseverance of our citizens. We accept these burdens because we know what is at stake. We fight today because Iraq now carries the hope of freedom in a vital region of the world, and the rise of democracy will be the ultimate triumph over radicalism and terror. And we fight today because terrorists want to attack our country and kill our citizens, and Iraq is where they are making their stand. So we will fight them there, we will fight them across the world and we will stay in the fight until the fight is won.America has done difficult work before. From our desperate fight for independence, to the darkest days of a Civil War, to the hard-fought battles against tyranny in the 20th century, there were many chances to lose our heart, our nerve or our way. But Americans have always held firm, because we have always believed in certain truths. We know that if evil is not confronted, it gains in strength and audacity and returns to strike us again. We know that when the work is hard, the proper response is not retreat, it is courage. And we know that this great ideal of human freedom is entrusted to us in a special way and that the ideal of liberty is worth defending. In this time of testing, our troops can know: The American people are behind you. Next week, our nation has an opportunity to make sure that support is felt by every soldier, sailor, airman, Coast Guardsman and Marine at every outpost across the world. This Fourth of July, I ask you to find a way to thank the men and women defending our freedom by flying the flag, sending letters to our troops in the field or helping the military family down the street. The Department of Defense has set up a Web site, AmericaSupportsYou.mil. You can go there to learn about private efforts in your own community. At this time when we celebrate our freedom, let us stand with the men and women who defend us all.To the soldiers in this hall, and our servicemen and women across the globe: I thank you for your courage under fire and your service to our nation. I thank our military families; the burden of war falls especially hard on you. In this war, we have lost good men and women who left our shores to defend freedom and did not live to make the journey home. I have met with families grieving the loss of loved ones who were taken from us too soon. I have been inspired by their strength in the face of such great loss. We pray for the families. And the best way to honor the lives that have been given in this struggle is to complete the mission.I thank those of you who have re-enlisted in an hour when your country needs you. And to those watching tonight who are considering a military career, there is no higher calling than service in our Armed Forces. We live in freedom because every generation has produced patriots willing to serve a cause greater than themselves. Those who serve today are taking their rightful place among the greatest generations that have worn our nation's uniform. When the history of this period is written, the liberation of Afghanistan and the liberation of Iraq will be remembered as great turning points in the story of freedom. After September 11, 2001, I told the American people that the road ahead would be difficult and that we would prevail. Well, it has been difficult. And we are prevailing. Our enemies are brutal, but they are no match for the United States of America and they are no match for the men and women of the United States military. Thank you. And may God bless America.

Sacred back-problems

In a recent L.A. Times article Does God Have Backproblems too?, David Barash points out the inconsistencies of the Intelligent Design "theory" as it's currently put forward:

Current believers in . . . "intelligent design," argue . . . that only a designer could generate such complex, perfect wonders.

But, in fact, the living world is shot through with imperfection. Unless one wants to attribute either incompetence or sheer malevolence to such a designer, this imperfection — the manifold design flaws of life — points incontrovertibly to a natural, rather than a divine, process, one in which living things were not created de novo, but evolved. Consider the human body. Ask yourself, if you were designing the optimum exit for a fetus, would you engineer a route that passes through the narrow confines of the pelvic bones? Add to this the tragic reality that childbirth is not only painful in our species but downright dangerous and sometimes lethal, owing to a baby's head being too large for the mother's birth canal.

This design flaw is all the more dramatic because anyone glancing at a skeleton can see immediately that there is plenty of room for even the most stubbornly large-brained, misoriented fetus to be easily delivered anywhere in that vast, non-bony region below the ribs. (In fact, this is precisely the route obstetricians follow when performing a caesarean section.)

Why would evolution neglect the simple, straightforward solution? Because human beings are four-legged mammals by history. Our ancestors carried their spines parallel to the ground; it was only with our evolved upright posture that the pelvic girdle had to be rotated (and thereby narrowed), making a tight fit out of what for other mammals is nearly always an easy passage.

My feelings on this is the creationists want it both ways. They want to selectively ignore certain scientific facts while clothing their own conclusions in the authority of science. The enterprise is doomed from the outset: either you believe in science or you don't. If you do, you need to argue from observed facts instead of from pre-formed conclusions.

The uncatholic church

My sister-in-law, who studies in France, is visiting our house right now, and since she's Catholic, she's been attending the mass each Sunday. After visiting a number of U.S. Catholic churches, she was struck by the presence of the U.S. flag next to the altar of all these churches, which claim to be "catholic." She says a flag in a Catholic Church is unimaginable in France.

Jesus did say, "Render into Caesar that which is Caesar's . . ." and this statement has engendered a lot of controversy, yet no matter how much we twist the wording, it doesn't seem to be advocating a marriage of church and state. Which makes me wonder why Christians are so eager to place the flag so close to the church altar. Has modern Christianity irrevocably conflated the state, the capitalist economic system, and religion? Is being Christian now just another marker of one's identity as a full-fledged member of a broadbased club? Of course, it isn't just Christians who are pandering to nationalist sentiments. In Thailand, we have Buddhist monks blessing tanks, and in the Middle East, Muslims fighting for a veiled world that never existed (and never will). But the American fundamentalist movement is perhaps even more ominous since it tries to capitalize on the convergence of religious zeal, military force, and economic power. Among the advantages that religion brings is its capacity to serve as a counter-balance to unwholesome human tendencies (e.g., instincts that drive us towards greed, violence, and ignorance). Can it still perform this function when married to the apparatus of the state? And is the American Catholic church, with flags waving next to the pulpit, a great vehicle guiding the faithful through darkness, or has the church completely ceased to be catholic?

King Bush knows what's best

In the Sunday Times, the American general who commanded allied air forces (Lieutenant-General Michael Moseley) during the Iraq war appears to have admitted in a briefing to American and British officers that coalition aircraft waged a secret air war against Iraq from the middle of 2002 (nine months before the invasion began). Why does this matter? I suppose it doesn't if Bush is King and we are his loyal subjects. The Honorable King has the right to unilaterally make war on whomever he so chooses--in a monarchy. Or in a fascist system.

Fortunately, more Americans are waking up from their patriotic slumber. Robert Steinback wrote an excellent piece recently about this that everyone should read. The article begins:

Do you want to know?

That's the only popular division that matters in the United States today: Those who want to determine once and for all if President Bush knowingly "fixed the facts'' regarding Iraq, thereby misleading Congress and the American people into supporting an unnecessary war, and those who will cover their ears and hum loudly in order to maintain their belief that Bush and his advisors remain above reproach.

You're in one camp or the other. Either you want to know if you've been lied to, or you don't.

In other words, there are still a few people around who are hopelessly mired in the past, still attached to the outmoded notion that the U.S. is a democracy in which the little people have access to key information about what the government is doing and why. Then there are those who look forward to a brighter, simpler future in which situations are presented in rustic sepia hues and King Bush and his corporate minions make decisions for the people, not disturbing them with awkward facts.

Scientology and Cruise

Tom Cruise has put Scientology in the news once more. My only brush with this "religion" was when I back-translated part of a scientology book. The scientologist who hired me somehow forgot to pay me until I threatened to show up at his door with my trusty translator's baseball bat (a very necessary tool of the trade). As for the text, it struck me as a well-written condensed version of late-20th century pop psychology and self-help books.



As an example of this, we find the following description of the mind on the Scientology website (my summary):

The mind has two very distinct parts.

The analytical mind, which thinks, observes data, remembers it and resolves problems has a standard memory capacity with mental image pictures, and uses this capacity to make decisions that promote survival. When a person is fully conscious, his analytical mind is fully in command.

The reactive mind contains physical pain and painful emotions When the individual is “unconscious” in full or in part, the reactive mind cuts in. The reactive mind exactly records all the perceptions of negative traumatic incidents, including what happens or is said around the person. It also records all pain and stores this mental image pictures called engrams. These engrams are a complete recording.

Granted, the claims are a bit exagerrated, but essentially we're in the world of pop psychology. Paradoxically, while I think Scientology is simply an uninteresting watered-down version of Freud, I must applaud Tom Cruise's anti-drug comments during his recent argument with Matt Lauer. We all probably need to be a little bit more skeptical about the psychaitric community's current love affair with drugs. Even so, I'm not quite ready to replace my science journals with a copy of Dianetics.

Other blogments on Scientology can be found at Chortler (spoof), Roemerman on the Record, and Destined to be the Crazy Cat Woman.

The world's police force at work

I thought the following news was interesting:

An Italian judge on Friday ordered the arrests of 13 CIA officers for secretly transporting a Muslim preacher from Italy to Egypt as part of U.S. anti-terrorism efforts — a rare public objection to the practice by a close American ally. The Egyptian was spirited away in 2003, purportedly as part of the CIA's "extraordinary rendition" program in which terror suspects are transferred to third countries without court approval, subjecting them to possible torture . . . Judge Guido Salvini said Nasr's seizure violated Italian sovereignty.

Evidently, some of these countries in the old Europe don't realize that there's currently only one world hegemon and that the notion of "sovereignty," while quaint, is an anachronism.

Production problems

Mark in Mexico insist that the Downing Street Memos "bruhaha" can be settled very quickly and very simply if the reporters would simply "produce the memos." If original copies of everything is the new standard of proof, why don't we hold the current administration to the same golden standard: produce the WMD; produce the proof of links between Saddam and Al Qaida; produce the mobile weapon labs; produce the intel reports (the "original memos") saying that Saddam was the greatest threat to the U.S.; produce the proof that Iraqi subcontracting was done fairly; and produce peace and stability in the Middle East.

Stop the Internet had the following to say about Mark in Mexico's demands:

Not one government official has challenged the authenticity of what the memo is saying. Here's what would have happened if these memos weren't available to anyone in a theoretical investigation of war crimes:
Step 1: Reporter patriotically releases documents purporting to be minutes from a War Council meeting in the UK. They say that "the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy."Step 2: Tony Blair reads about this in the London Sunday Times. She changes her panties and calls her boyfriend, George.Step 3: George, after berating his girlfriend about her inability to keep her pets quiet, tells her to go back to her house and figure out how to discredit the released information.Step 4: Tony comes back and tells George that she has no way of doing so. She is physically abused before she goes to her mom's house and cries to her mom about how nice of a guy George is.

Mark, look at the Administration we have right now. The Vice President is a former CEO of a company receiving a no-bid contract in Iraq because they're the only ones that can get it done. The Secretary of State, formerly the National Security Advisor, has a goddamn oil tanker named after her by Chevron. Bush Jr. has been running oil companies (into the ground, I might add) before becoming governor of Texas and President of our threatened country.

Are you telling me these people are worthy of unfaltering trust? Are you equating the level of faith you place in those in power with the same expected when worshipping a God? Because right now, it sounds like we should completely ignore the facts until we get information that's impossible to reach until we stop ignoring the facts. This is not a partisan issue. This is the defense of our country from the inside, because it's under attack motherfucker. It's time for people to wake up and at least admit to themselves "Yes, it is a possibility that my government lied to me. It's possible that I let them." It's a tough revelation, but a relieving one when taken to heart...

Other blogments: Pajamahadeen, After Party, PSOTD, Winds of Change, Michelle Malkin, The Pete, Liberal Forum, Think Progress, Stoptheinternet, Suburban Guerrilla, SoCal Pundit, The Captain, Flopping Aces, Martini Republic, Red Harvest, Say Anything, RatherGate, Wizbang, All Things Conservative, Daly Thoughts, Phidoux, Open Source, MBLOG, Les Enfants Terrible, Information Upload, Progressive Justice, Ace of Spades, Joust the Facts, Another Day in the Empire, Loonatic Left, Pandagon, UNCoRRELATED, Strata-Sphere, The Anchoress, Point Five, Mudville Gazette, Basil's Blog.

From the mouth of a drug addict...

Silent Lucidity has an excellent post on the latest forgery meme put out by R.L. to dismiss the Downing Street memo.

[Excerpt] If the DSM "doesn't say anything" or if it's "old news" then why would anyone go to all the trouble to forge them, knowing the kind of trouble that could bring to the Times, and knowing the serious personal consequences that would be the result of English Libel Law? Hmmm?

Multiple news organizations have authenticated the documents. Smith has stated publicly that he destroyed copies of the documents and returned the originals to protect the source. The originals were not destroyed as erroneously reported in a single AP report. There is good reason to destroy the copies, however, because copy machines can be traced by the pattern of ink dots sprayed on the paper during the copy process.

The Associated Press released excerpts from the memos, including the July 23 memo, on June 18. "The following are excerpts from material in secret Downing Street memos written in 2002. The information, authenticated by a senior British government official, was transcribed from the original documents," the AP wrote.

Officials in both the American and, perhaps more importantly, the British governments have said the "memos" are authentic. If that were not the case, then you can be pretty damned sure that Blair would bring Mr. Smith and the Times to court under British libel laws, which differ quite a bit from U.S. laws.

Blair sits quietly, and so do the British Ministers who are also implicated. They would be, at the very least, publicly threatening lawsuits if they thought these documents were fake.

"In fact, no one involved has disputed the authenticity of the Downing Street memo -- not Blair; not Sir Richard Dearlove, the head of British intelligence who wrote it; not the CIA; not the FBI; not the Defense Department; not the White House. And they've all had seven weeks in which to do so." - CJR

Got it, Rush?

Good.

Now, why are they still paying you to be on television and radio?

In addition to these good reasons for believing that the memos are authentic, we have Blair's statement that the memos don't contain anything new. This would be an odd statement to make about forgeries. If someone created a fake memo of a meeting attended by numerous cabinet members, the thing to do would be to simply say that the memo was fake. End of story. What's interesting is that Blair's statement is surprisingly candid. For most of us, the memos indeed don't contain anything "new." We have known for a long time now that the Bush administration cooked intelligence.

P.S. Check out the cheat sheet on the DSM at Rolling Stone (courtesy of Cut to the Chase).

Christians who follow Christ!

Evidently, we have all been wrong and there are Christians with a conscience. Jim Hightower has an excellent article on Christians who aren't impressed with Bush's brand of "compassionate conservatism." An American Prospect article (via Cut to the Chase) also discusses the same phenomenon. The article describes the emergence of the Christian Alliance for Progress (CAP). In the article's header, we find:

"A new, well-organized religious group has emerged. And guess what: It actually supports Christian values."

Perhaps we'll finally find out the answer to that American koan: Who would Jesus bomb?

Other Religion-related blogments discussing the CAP can be found at: Blah (pro) and Jesus Politics (con).

Fixing the situation

According to Raw Story, Senator Kerry along with other Senators (Johnson, Corzine, Reed, Lautenberg, Boxer, Kennedy, Harkin, Bingaman, and Durbin) have sent a letter to the Senate Intelligence Committee pressing for answers on the Downing Street Memo and other Downing documents.

The "Let's Pander to Jingoism" Amendment

A constitutional amendment (proposed by Rep. Randall Cunningham [R-CA] ) to outlaw flag-burning (H.J. Res 10) passed in the House Wednesday with 94% of Republicans supporting it and 60% of Democrats opposing. The amendment's designed to overturn a 5-4 Supreme Court ruling in 1989 that flag burning is a protected free-speech right. (The 1989 ruling threw out a 1968 federal statute as well as flag-protection laws in 48 states.) The bill faces an uphill battle in the Senate, where it is called S.J. Res 12. The proposed new article to the constitution would read:

"The Congress shall have power to prohibit the physical desecration of the flag of the United States."



This pandering to jingoism has a long history among Republicans. When we take away silly proposals such as flag-burning amendments and Commandments posted on walls, the only truly original idea that the current administration has provided is the idea that a small group of wealthy elites should be allowed to monopolize government largesse along with the world's resources. Looking at the previous flag-debate back in 1997, I ran across the following nugget from representatives who opposed the amendment:

H.J. Res. 54 responds to a perceived problem-flag burning-that is all but nonexistent in American life today. Studies indicate that in all of American history from the adoption of the United States flag in 1777 through the Texas v. Johnson decision in 1989 there were only 45 reported incidents of flag burning.

What does that work out to? One burnt flag every 5 years of so. And for this, we need a Constitutional amendment? Perhaps our representatives have too much time on their hands. Maybe we need to set up a textile mill next to the capitol so that we can at least get a little worthwhile work out of them.

Bloggers from both sides of the political spectrum have voiced their opposition to the flag-burning amendment (check out Dummocrats, Seeing the Forest, Nashville Truth, That's Life in the 125 , The Old Dominion, Scrutiny Hooligans, and Daily Curmudgeon.) I also ran across a useful page titled A brief history of flag burning. I wonder what's next. Will our diligent representatives next propose a follow-up amendment forbidding the desecration of our flag with poetry?

Iraq: From the people on the ground

I must confess that I sometimes lapse into blogger bravado, claiming that we will someday completely replace reporters. But in saner moments, I realize that most of us simply don't have the time to gather the hard facts. Blogging is thus limited to opining on the latest news as it trickles forth from the standard news outlets. One happy exception to this is the growing number of blogs that report news from where the news is happening. While these bloggers may have only a limited perspective, they frequently have greater familiarity with the actual facts on the ground. In most cases, I would take the word of someone living or working in a place over that of a reporter who temporarily flew into an area or simply wrote up an article based on a press conference. Today, I perused the blogosphere searching for the latest news out of Iraq. These are some of the reports that I found:

A number of bloggers (even those who support the war) lament the tremendous government waste and corruption. For example, there's this from Jackie in Iraq:

State Department’s bureaucratic regulations and confusion really make me wonder about this whole mission. I think people really have no idea what’s going on. Money is tremendously wasted, from Steve’s totally unnecessary PSD team that cost the government about $2 mil per year to keep up, to stupid regulations for timesheets and the waste of time and paper to process them. Invest in International Paper, they’re a gold mine, just in government contracts alone!!

The more inefficiency I see, the less I support the mission out here. There are much more efficient ways to run this place, but that’s not the government’s strong point. It’s amazing how much money the US could save if the government didn’t waste billions and billions of dollars on crap: tons of unnecessary office supplies, contracts for life support which include paying KBR $40/person for shitty dfac meals, programs, regulations, and policies for travel around the country, but no resources to support DOS policies.

Other bloggers discuss the sorry state of Iraq's infrastructure, noting in particular, problems with water, electricity, sewage, and roads. The following excerpts come from Baghdad Burning:

Water has been a big problem in many areas all over Baghdad. Houses without electric water pumps don’t always have access to water. Today it was the same situation in most of the areas. They say the water came for a couple of hours and then disappeared again. We’re filling up plastic containers and pots just to be on the safe side. It is not a good idea to be caught without water in the June heat in Iraq.

The electrical situation differs from area to area. On some days, the electricity schedule is two hours of electricity, and then four hours of no electricity. On other days, it’s four hours of electricity to four or six hours of no electricity. The problem is that the last couple of weeks, we don’t have electricity in the mornings for some reason. Our local generator is off until almost 11 am, and the house generator allows for ceiling fans (or “pankas”), the refrigerator, television and a few other appliances. Air conditioners cannot be turned on and the heat is oppressive by 8 am these days.

There were also several explosions and road blocks today. It took the cousin an hour to get to work, which was only twenty minutes away before the war. Now, he has to navigate between closed streets, check points, and those delightful concrete barriers rising up everywhere.

What people find particularly frustrating is the fact that while Baghdad seems to be falling apart in so many ways with roads broken and pitted, buildings blasted and burnt out and residential areas often swimming in sewage, the Green Zone is flourishing.

Unlike Cheney, who assures us that everyone arrested is a bad egg, those closer to the action tell a different story of arbitrary arrests and torture:

From Baghdad's Burning:

Detentions and assassinations, along with intermittent electricity, have also been contributing to sleepless nights. We’re hearing about raids in many areas in the Karkh half of Baghdad in particular. On the television the talk about ‘terrorists’ being arrested, but there are dozens of people being rounded up for no particular reason. Almost every Iraqi family can give the name of a friend or relative who is in one of the many American prisons for no particular reason. They aren’t allowed to see lawyers or have visitors and stories of torture have become commonplace. Both Sunni and Shia clerics who are in opposition to the occupation are particularly prone to attacks by “Liwa il Theeb” or the special Iraqi forces Wolf Brigade. They are often tortured during interrogation and some of them are found dead.

Michael Yon (a reporter with a blog!), on the other hand, points out the military importance (as well as dangers) involved with capturing insurgents:

Capturing the enemy creates a cascading effect through the insurgency. A dead enemy is just dead. Game over. But every singing captive leads to another and another and another, and Deuce-Four can hardly keep pace with the flow of information. As sobering as the casualty numbers are for May, the number of insurgents captured and in custody in that same month—133—are a strong indicator of the success that is mounting. The success comes with a high price: it's always more dangerous to capture an enemy than to kill him.

Michael Yon applauds the freedom and access that the U.S. military has provided reporters. Asserting that casualty counts are accurate, Yon puts the numbers in perspective and states a dire conclusion--that a civil war has already begun:

Iraq has a population approaching that of California; but in the region most under siege by insurgents, it's closer to that of Florida. Imagine if Florida had 800 deaths in one month caused mostly by bombings, shootings, and beheadings. We would call that civil war. Calling it that is the easy part. Stopping a civil war takes a lot more—more determination, more skill, more ammunition and armor, and more faith in the value of a future that is drastically different from the present. Mostly, stopping the civil war in the Sunni Triangle will take time.

(Nur al-Cubicle provides some lists of casualty reports for June that provide a sense of the current lawlessness of the country.)

An ideal source of information about the war should be coming from soldiers in the field. Unfortunately, soldiers' blogs may be subject to censorship (or self-censorship) due to policies requiring soldiers to register their blogs. My advice to all soldiers--don't register anything! You have a right to free speech. If you don't have this right, there sure in the hell isn't much point in fighting abroad for "democracy." Fortunately, many soldiers are speaking out regardless of the threats of would-be censors.

Some soldiers have complained of a negative bias of some reporters. Zachary (A Soldier's Thoughts) while remaining fairly upbeat about the U.S. military, expresses doubts about the hows and whys of the current war:

I believe more and more each day that things like freedom can't be given. They must be fought for and earned to have value. Perhaps that is one of the reasons that the Iraqi people don't rise up against the insurgency themselves.That isn't the only way that things could have been better. We could have come here initially with ENOUGH troops. Troops to close the borders (which are still mostly left open) from foreign fighters, and enough troops to have brought security and stability to the cities.

Other soldiers have a more upbeat sense that the war is winnable. For example, we find on Citizen Frank (albeit, from a March post):

It is still dangerous here in Baghdad. There are still occasional mortars and rockets and suicide bombers, etc...
However, the frequency and intensity of such attacks have tapered off dramatically.

Other upbeat comments can be found among Iraqi blogs such as Ibn Alrafidain's blog or this from the Mesopotamian:

Just a quick note, to the American public: this is no time to lose heart, the fight is just now changing gear. We the Iraqis are confident of winning this battle. This so-called “insurrection” may be characterized as the “Unpopular Revolt” rather than the opposite. It is doomed to failure.

Zachary also has an upbeat prediction about Americans' ability to see through the current smoke-screen of deception.

At the same time right now we have a Grizzly bear we call America. Unfortunately it is a Grizzly which is asleep and is kept that way by being fed its daily dose of FOX "Fair and Balanced" medicine. This medicine is fortified with essentials which keep most Americans happily oblivious to what is happening in Iraq and to news stories like the Downing Street Memo... It won't be long however, until this Grizzly wakes up and when it does it is going to be pissed that it has been lied to and so many have been killed because of those lies.

Summer jobs

Announcement

On September 24, a massive protest will be held in Washington DC at noon in front of the White House at the same time as similar protest in San Francisco and Los Angeles, to demand that George W. Bush and his administration be held accountable for ongoing lies to the American people. The protest will be pushing for impeachment of Bush on the following grounds:

Articles of Impeachment of President George W. Bush and Vice President Richard B. Cheney, Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, and Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez

The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.

ARTICLE II, SECTION 4 OF THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

President George W. Bush, Vice President Richard B. Cheney, Secretary of Defense Donald H.Rumsfeld, and Attorney General John David Ashcroft have committed violations and subversions of the Constitution of the United States of America in an attempt to carry out with impunity crimes against peace and humanity and war crimes and deprivations of the civil rights of the people of the United States and other nations, by assuming powers of an imperiled executive unaccountable to law and usurping powers of the Congress, the Judiciary and those reserved to the people of the United States, by the following acts:

1) Seizing power to wage wars of aggression in defiance of the U.S. Constitution, the U.N. Charter and the rule of law; carrying out a massive assault on and occupation of Iraq, a country that was not threatening the United States (see the Downing Street Memo), resulting in the death and maiming of tens of thousands of Iraqis, and hundreds of U.S. G.I.s.

2) Lying to the people of the U.S., to Congress, and to the U.N., providing false and deceptive rationales for war.

3) Authorizing, ordering and condoning direct attacks on civilians, civilian facilities and locations where civilian casualties were unavoidable.

4) Authorizing, ordering and condoning assassinations, summary executions, kidnappings, secret and other illegal detentions of individuals, torture and physical and psychological coercion of prisoners to obtain false statements concerning acts and intentions of governments and individuals and violating within the United States, and by authorizing U.S. forces and agents elsewhere, the rights of individuals under the First, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth and Eighth Amendmentsto the Constitution of the United States, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

5) Making, ordering and condoning false statements and propaganda about the conduct of foreign governments and individuals and acts by U.S. government personnel; manipulating the media and foreign governments with false information; concealing information vital to public discussion and informed judgment concerning acts, intentions and possession, or efforts to obtainweapons of mass destruction in order to falsely create a climate of fear and destroy opposition to U.S. wars of aggression and first strike attacks.

6) Violations and subversions of the Charter of the United Nations and international law, both apart of the "Supreme Law of the land" under Article VI, paragraph 2, of the Constitution, in anattempt to commit with impunity crimes against peace and humanity and war crimes in wars and threats of aggression against Afghanistan, Iraq and others and usurping powers of the United Nations and the peoples of its nations by bribery, coercion and other corrupt acts and by rejecting treaties, committing treaty violations, and frustrating compliance with treaties in order to destroy any means by which international law and institutions can prevent, affect, or adjudicate theexercise of U.S. military and economic power against the international community.

7) Acting to strip United States citizens of their constitutional and human rights, ordering indefinite detention of citizens, without access to counsel, without charge, and without opportunity to appear before a civil judicial officer to challenge the detention, based solely on the discretionary designation by the Executive of a citizen as an "enemy combatant."

8) Ordering indefinite detention of non-citizens in the United States and elsewhere, and without charge, at the discretionary designation of the Attorney General or the Secretary of Defense.

9) Ordering and authorizing the Attorney General to override judicial orders of release of detainees under INS jurisdiction, even where the judicial officer after full hearing determines a detainee is wrongfully held by the government.

10) Authorizing secret military tribunals and summary execution of persons who are not citizens who are designated solely at the discretion of the Executive who acts as indicting official, prosecutor and as the only avenue of appellate relief.

11) Refusing to provide public disclosure of the identities and locations of persons who have been arrested, detained and imprisoned by the U.S. government in the United States, including in response to Congressional inquiry.

12) Use of secret arrests of persons within the United States and elsewhere and denial of the right to public trials.

13) Authorizing the monitoring of confidential attorney-client privileged communications by the government, even in the absence of a court order and even where an incarcerated person has not been charged with a crime.

14) Ordering and authorizing the seizure of assets of persons in the United States, prior to hearing or trial, for lawful or innocent association with any entity that at the discretionary designation of the Executive has been deemed "terrorist."

15) Institutionalization of racial and religious profiling and authorization of domestic spying by federal law enforcement on persons based on their engagement in noncriminal religious and political activity.

16) Refusal to provide information and records necessary and appropriate for the constitutional right of legislative oversight of executive functions.

17) Rejecting treaties protective of peace and human rights and abrogation of the obligations of the United States under, and withdrawal from, international treaties and obligations without consent of the legislative branch, and including termination of the ABM treaty between theUnited States and Russia, and rescission of the authorizing signature from the Treaty of Rome which served as the basis for the International Criminal Court.

Making the world safe for terrorists

According to a CIA report, the Iraq insurgency now poses an international threat greater than the formation of the Taliban in the 1980s. Iraq is now said to be an ideal training ground for fighters developing a broad range of deadly skills to include urban car bombings, assassinations, and tightly coordinated conventional attacks on police and military targets. The report, issued by U.S. intelligence itself, underscores the fact that Shrub's War, instead of creating the foundation of Middle East peace, has in fact only increased the threat of terrorism by providing vast lawless areas in the Middle East along with an ideological justification for terrorist recruitment.

Some firsthand accounts of Shrub's War

Yesterday I ran into an old friend who was in the Army in Iraq at the beginning of Shrub's War. She's the second person I've known who worked in prison camps. The impression I get from her account (corroborated by the account of another friend) is that the U.S. initially had tremendous popular support in the immediate wake of the invasion but that the sense of goodwill has been completely squandered. Both of these people, working at different prisons at different times, indicate that the incidents we hear so much about--the beating of prisoners, the arrest of children, sexual intimidation--is standard procedure everywhere (although not necessarily on the scale of Abu Ghraib.) So much for the bushshit we've been fed about a few bad apples. Of course, war is war and the reality is, I'm sure, never pretty. We'd probably be much better off if our so-called leaders admitted as much and cut out all this hypocritical hype about the U.S. having some "higher standard." There clearly isn't one.

Both of these friends describe tremendous failings in planning, to include a lack of body armor and armor for vehicles. My female friend also described incompetent leadership on the ground in Iraq. These firsthand accounts mesh very well with the text of the Downing Street memo and other leaked British memos that describe a complete lack of a U.S. game plan following the invasion.

In spite of the pollyanic optimism expressed in some corners of the blogosphere (check out Chrenkoff), I fail to see any light at the end of the tunnel. Documentaries on Iraq all show a country with a complete lack of security where contractors and reporters have to risk their lives just to get from the Green Zone to the airport. The insurgents clearly have solid support from much of the population. (If this weren't the case, they wouldn't be able to operate while avoiding detection.) The U.S. has definitely lost the war for the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people.

While I was happy to see my good friend after so many years (and see her alive and well), it was sad to hear her say that she felt some guilt over the part she played in Iraq and the things she was forced to do. If any of you out there are thinking of enlisting, you should sit down with a few people like my friend and listen to some firsthand accounts. She, like you, was once filled with patriotic zeal about being part of this great crusade for freedom and democracy, but she returned feeling that she was a dupe. She now has some minor disabilities she'll have for the rest of her life (which the military has refused to compensate her for). And to make matters worse, she's now concerned that the military will pull her out of the inactive reserve and send her back to Iraq for a second tour. So if you're considering it, don't enlist! Don't support the war! And hold Shrub accountable for deceiving the U.S. people before going into the war and mishandling the war after it started!

Censorship can be fun!

Blogophiles the world over are rightfully upset over the recent case of Microsoft collusion with censorship in China. One does come across an occasional post justifying Microsoft's decision on the grounds that Microsoft is "a corporation after all" and thus can't be expected to join us in the moral universe of karmic cause and effect, but such spineless rants can usually be attributed to a sudden case of idiotitus brought on by consuming excessive quantities of uncooked Peking Duck.

In response to Microsoft's anti-democratic practices, a number or bloggers have suggested a boycott of the Chinese site or, better yet, of Microsoft itself. My guess is that the Chinese site's traffic has probably jumped up (at least temporarily) due to all of the attention. So I have another suggestion. Whenever we write anything, especially some internet document that provides useful information necessary for Chinese industrialization and technological advancement, we should place a list of banned words (freedom, democracy movement, Falun Gong, etc.) at the bottom of the text so that the document becomes invisible to Chinese search engines. If the words clutter up the document too much, they can be put at the end with a font color (e.g., white) that blends in with the page background.

Other blogments:

Greg Yardly speculates on the reasons for the sudden interest in Microsoft’s censoring of Chinese MSN Spaces blogs is spite of the fact that the censoring, as well as reports on it, aren't new.

Danny Sullivan discusses other instances of internet censorship.

On CNBlog (Chinese), Isaac is calling for a boycott of MSN Spaces.

Tiananmen Square, peace protests, democratic processes, Chinese dissidents, anti-government protests

Abortion: Is there a third position?

I'm always a bit dumbfounded when I come across an issue for which there doesn't seem to be a middle ground--any room for discussion or compromise. We're all born with the same senses, similar experiences, and the capacity to reason. So how can people disagree so completely on certain issues. Is it because one or the other side (or possibly both) are affected by deeply held illusions or biases that prevent them from seeing the truth?

Abortion is perhaps the paradigmatic example of such an issue. Americans are sharply divided between those who see abortion as the murder of an innocent life and those who see it as an unfortunate, yet necessary, form of birth-control.

My feeling is that both sides on this issue actually present poor arguments and that those on both sides are acting in bad faith. That is to say that they themselves, if they thought about it long and hard, would find themselves unable to fully accept the implications of their position.

The Pro-choice Position

Let's start with those who say that abortion should be legal. Pro-choice advocates make the seemingly reasonable claim that women have an inalienable right to determine the circumstances of their lives. Abortion is a personal choice that shouldn't be made by the government. A further argument is often made that legislative efforts to ban or partially ban abortion jeopardize women's health and prevent physicians from making decisions that reflect their best medical judgment. Virtually all pro-choice advocates admit that abortion is not the ideal form of birth control but claim that it is sometimes necessary when other birth control methods fail. One of the more emotional arguments made by pro-choicers is that it is inhuman to ban abortion when pregnancy results from rape or incest, or when continuing the pregnancy threatens the woman's health.

Problems

The pro-choice advocates intentionally sidestep the issue of whether the fetus is a human life. This awkward question is somehow deemed not worth answering or as trivial. But nothing could be further from the truth. Pro-life advocates are absolutely right--any decision on abortion, for or against, must be based on the more fundamental question regarding the nature of a fetus. The pro-choice position only makes sense if the choice is truly about the mother herself and not about a third party. As is often pointed out, the pro-choice position, when taken to extremes, leads to some ludicrous conclusions. Is a fetus not a human life immediately prior to birth? What happens if labor is induced? Is the child, born earlier than expected, not human? Does it instantly transform into a human being the second it exits the womb?

Economic arguments, being secondary in this case, have considerably less force. To the common argument that abortion keeps unwanted children from being born into the world, abortion advocates point to waiting lists for orphans (an argument that can't be applied worldwide).

The Pro-life Position

Those who oppose abortion generally believe that human life begins at conception. Abortion is therefore tantamount to murder, which we all condemn. Murder, as aggression directed towards an innocent human being (the fetus), is not within the sphere of individual prerogative. Abortion is therefore related to other practices that seem to devalue life, such as euthanasia. A secondary argument is that the acceptance of abortion encourages mistaken attitudes about sex, parenthood, and responsibility.

The pro-life position is almost always based on a religious convictions such as Christianity. In Christianity, human beings are endowed with souls and are thereby qualitatively distinct from the soul-less remainder of creation. Pro-life advocates generally claim that a human life begins the instant an egg is fertilized by a sperm.

Problems

Although the pro-life position is generally based on religious faith, we should assume that there are some wise and spiritual people of the faith who are able to fully appreciate the inherent sanctity of life in an experiential (versus purely intellectual) sense. If this is the case, and if abortion is truly murder, we'd expect them to react to abortion as they would to any other death. Yet this is clearly never the case. When a culture of fertilize cells is tossed out in a fertility lab, no Christians run over screaming at the deaths of the tiny humans. The parents, having successfully (or unsuccessfully) used the eggs they want, feel no remorse at seeing the additional fertilized eggs die. One can go from cemetery to cemetery and never see a funeral or wake for the dead cells. This discussion may sound humorous and sarcastic but it really isn't meant to be so at all. If people really believe something, we expect their actions to conform to their believe. But this never happens.

Single fertilized cells are clearly very different from us. I'm sure they don't think or feel or have emotions like we do (they don't have brains or central nervous systems after all). But there may be an extremely subtle sense in which they are sentient since they are alive. But here once more we find a huge discrepancy between pro-life belief and action. If pro-life advocates are so attuned to every living thing, no matter how small, we'd expect them to all be vegetarians. With their deep compassion for the smallest living matter, they probably woudn't merely skip going to barbecues--they'd be living like the Jains in India, sweeping before themselves as they walk lest they step on a bug. But we don't find this extremely well-developed compassion. To the contrary, it is often these same pro-lifers who are downing six-packs and laughing as they watch bombs rain down on foreign cities. In other words, they seem to have a lack of empathy for other fully formed human beings, making us wonder how they have developed such compassion for miniature life forms.

The Real Problem with Both Positions

The problem with both pro-life and pro-choice is that both positions are derived from beliefs that aren't very heart-felt. In other words, no one really believes what they say they believe. No pro-choice person (unless they're a callous murderer) would slice up a newborn baby without any remorse simply because it had been born a day early. So it doesn't make sense to do this when the baby's still in the womb. By the same token, nobody really believes that a single tiny cell is a human being.

If this is the case, how can we explain the tenacity with which both sides adhere to their position? Perhaps the biggest reason is simply group-think. Christians who go to church are told how to think on the issue. Liberals, on the other hand, adopt their position, urged on by feminists who claim that the pro-life lobby is trying to control women's bodies.

One aspect of the debate that is often overlooked, however, is the extent to which the two positions are the same. Both groups claim that human life begins in a single instant; that there's a sharp divide between matter and human life.

Does this makes sense? If we reflect at all on other life, we certainly find this isn't true. The pollinated flowers of a tree don't instantly gain tree-hood the second the tree is pollinated. Rather, there's a long process of development that occurs over time. Rather than bursting forth from nothingness, the tree springs forth from the natural material world as a result of properties that were already inherent within matter itself. In other words, there's an inherent continuity between life and matter.

This is an extremely commonsense observation yet it's vehemently denied by everyone. How can we explain this? I think part of the reason is that modern humans have a fear of nature, a fear of realizing that we don't stand apart from the universe but are merely a part of it. And this is ultimately related to our fear of death. We would like to think that we're made of some different soul-stuff that exists eternally, apart from the dead matter around us. The truth is that matter isn't really so dead, and our lives are bound up with it.

My Position

For this reason, I think a more sensible approach to abortion would be to acknowledge that a pro-life position is preferable, while remaining aware of the tremendous demands of such a position. But if we really aren't able to become non-violent, pacifist vegetarians, for consistency's sake, we should probably adopt a more mixed position. As the fetus develops, it becomes more human-like, and we find it naturally repugnant to kill this life form that's in the process of becoming one of us. In terms of the legal system, we could place more stringent requirements on abortion at successive stages, being as lenient regarding the killing of stem cells as we are regarding the killing of mosquitos, but as strict on late-term abortions as we are on the murder of infants.

Other blogs that discuss abortion include:

12th Harmonic
Brainshavings
Democracy for Virginia
Edgwise
Hammer and Nail
Kos
Land of the Free, Home of the Brave
La Shawn Barber's Corner
Lawyers, Guns and Money
Mouse Words
Pinko Feminist Hellcat
Redwood Dragon
Salon
Terrette

Time to trade in that Harley

This is exciting news. A British firm, Intelligent Energy, has developed a hydrogen-powered motorbike. The firm hopes to begin selling the bike late next year for a very affordable $6,000. The motorcycle's fuel cell develops the equivalent of eight horsepower and allows speeds up to 50 miles an hour and a range of about 100 miles on a tank of fuel. At current prices, a hydrogen fill-up would cost about $3! The fuel cell itself can be taken out and carried around like a small suitcase. The company says it foresees being able to use the same fuel cell for different applications, such as a boat. With fewer moving parts than a conventional motorcycle, the hydrogen-powered motorcycle is extremely quiet. I guess the next question on the agenda is where all the hydrogen is going to come from?

I will fight more forever

I've said before statements to the effect that the so-called "War on Terror" represented a potentially permanent state of war. The Bush administration has now come out and explicitly stated this.

Delaware Democratic Sen. Joseph Biden recently asked Deputy Associate Attorney General J. Michael Wiggins whether the Justice Department had "defined when there is the end of conflict."

Wiggins responded, "No, sir."

"If there is no definition as to when the conflict ends, that means forever, forever, forever these folks get held at Guantanamo Bay," Biden said.

"It's our position that, legally, they can be held in perpetuity," Wiggins said.

Earlier, the committee's top Democrat, Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, said the United States may face terrorism "as long as you and I live." He asked Brig. Gen. Thomas Hemingway, who oversees military trials of Guantanamo prisoners, if that means that the U.S. can hold prisoners that long without charges.

"I think that we can hold them as long as the conflict endures," Hemingway responded.

DSM

Breaking news! Hearings on the Downing Street Memo will be held at 2:30 tomorrow (Thursday) at the U.S. Capitol!

Small victory

The law-makers in Washington evidently haven't completely lost their hearing. In apparent response to public outcry, they voted 238-187 today to block the Justice Department and the FBI from using the Patriot Act to spy on people's library records and bookstore sales slips. (A number of libraries had been getting rid of patrons' records so they wouldn't be available if sought under the law.) Of course, if the people in Washington had any sense, they'd simply scrap the so-called Patriot Act altogether. We don't pay our government to spy on us.

The Preserving Monopoly in Telecom Act

The House just introducted a bill, the so-called Preserving Innovation in Telecom Act” (H.R. 2726), that will make it unlawful for communities to provide any “telecommunications service, information service or cable service." In other words, if you're a large corporation, you can create a virtual monopoly and overcharge customers for lousy service, but if you're a small community and decide to pool your resources together to create a cheaper and more efficient service, the corporations will sue you. The bill really shows the extent to which this country is now run by large corporations. Why should a community have to get permission from a corporation if it chooses to pool its resources together? And it's not as if U.S. corporations are doing a good job. My corporate-provided internet connection and cell phone services suck, cost a fortune, and require me to buy into one- or two-year plans. In my area, there's virtually no competition for either phone or internet. Our community could step in and provide much faster service for a fraction of the cost.

(Thanks go to Nick Lewis for pointing out this story.)

We should all be steaming

Philip Cooney, chief of staff of its Council on Environmental Quality, has resigned. Cooney had altered reports on climate change, but was exposed by a whistleblower, Rick Piltz. So where will Cooney, with head bowed down in shame, be heading? It turns out that he will join Exxon Mobil Corporation. I wonder what Cooney's cover sheet in his job ap looked like. "Have worked hard for Exxon in the public sector, and would now like to use these talents in the private sector. Am a a good team-player." White House spokeswoman Dana Perino insisted that Cooney's departure was "completely unrelated" to the disclosure two days earlier that he had altered several government climate change reports that were issued in 2002 and 2003. Yeah. Well. I guess we'll all believe that if you really want us to. Don't wanna get anyone's temperature up.

Towards the rectification of names

We now find ourselves in an era in which words have shifted in meaning. We're supposedly fighting a "war" but the war isn't against a single enemy but rather an enemy that can be anywhere (and can include members of the U.S. population). This "war" has not been declared, nor does it have a fixed objective or time-frame. Our opponents in this war, the terrible "butchers" and "sadists," were just a few years ago respectable clients or mercenaries employed or sponsored by the U.S. or its allies. The term "nation" has also become problematic. For while there's talk of a "community of nations" that have the right to self-determination, some nations are clearly more equal than others with extraterritorial privileges. Amidst this conceptual babel, people on both the right and left find themselves increasingly arguing over terminology.

This problem of terminology has historically haunted political discourse. One of the key Eastern philosophers to discuss this issue was Confucius. Living during the tumultuous times just prior to China's Warring States Period, Confucius (551-479 B.C.E.) lamented the way in which words and ideals had declined do to their misuse. One key passage related to this idea is found in the following passage from the Analects (my own translation).




Tsze-lu said, “The ruler of Wei has been waiting for you, so as to administer the government [based on your advice]. What will you consider the first thing to be done?”

The Master replied, “What is necessary is to rectify names.” “Oh, really!” said Tsze-lu. “That seems a bit farfetched! Why must there be such rectification?”

The Master said, “Yu! You are such an uncultivated schmuck! A superior man, in regard to what he does not know, shows a cautious reserve.

“If names aren't correct, language won't be in accordance with [the civilizing culture of the true Way]. If language ins't in accordance with [the Way], affairs won't be carried out successly.

“When affairs aren't carried out successfully, edifying cultural practices (literally, "rites") and edifying music (literally, "music") won't flourish. When the norms and music don't flourish, punishments won't be properly awarded. When punishments aren't properly awarded, the people won't know how to move hand or foot.

“Therefore a superior man considers it necessary that the names he uses may be spoken appropriately, and also that what he says may be appropriately put into practice. What the superior man requires is nothing less than that in his words there may be nothing incorrect.”

In this passage, Confucius isn't advocating some rigid logical correspondence between language and reality (as Russel once dreamed of). The idea is that Chinese civilization was based on classical ideas that established harmony throughout society and that these ideas had been watered down by generations of corrupt leaders.

Of course, America isn't founded solely on cultural patterns appearing in its literature (although Bloom might argue this). Rather, it's founded on laws, on the idea of Constitutional norms, international treaties, and so on, that delineate the proper roles of government. In the Constitution, the term "war" presumably has a fixed meaning. Did the founders envision a war against ideas (as in "a war on poverty") being conflated with a war of agression (as in "war on terror")? Did they envision a war that would go on indefinitely? There doesn't seem to be anything in U.S. law that clarifies the role of the government in the guise of world policeman or international hegemon.

So now we have the spectacle of Democratic legislators asking how long the U.S. will have a prison in Guantanamo. I wish somone could have thought to ask this question earlier. Since the "war" isn't exactly a "war," and the "prison" not exactly a "prison," and the "torture" of the prisoners not exactly "torture," we'll have to wind our way through the overgrown thickets of Wonderland before we get a clear answer.

But the real problem here isn't simply clarity of thought. The ambiguity in terminology is being exploited by Bush and others in their attempt to establish a robust Executive Branch that can rule by fiat. We now have the paternal Cheney lecturing us about how we are simply supposed to trust the government to run around and arrest and detain indefinitely anyone whenever it choses to do so. Accountability and the rule of law is to be replaced by these warm fuzzy creatures called "trust" and "loyalty."

Clearly, we need to borrow a page from Confucius and have our own campaign to rectify names. I wouldn't go as far as the old sage and attempt to fit current parlance into the conceptual world of our "golden" past. But we should find ways to refer to practices so as to avoid distortions or bias. If sleep deprivation, when used as a technique by North Korean guards, is described as a common form of torture, then the same practice should go by the same name when we use it. If Saddam was a murderer when Bush and Powell were beating the war drums, he was also a murderer when the CIA was sponsoring his coup d'etat or when Rumsfeld was shaking his hand in Baghdad. If the current war is to wipe out terrorism from the globe, then the U.S. leaders should simply come out and say the obvious: America has launched a war designed to go on forever. We should then do away with the pretense of this being a special time of sacrifice (with the need for military stop-loss policies and so on) and write the increased military spending into our normal budget. And if Bush is to have virtually absolute power without having to be accountable for his lies to the public, we should change the name of the office to king and call ourselves his subjects.

P.S. The original inspiration for this post, came from a discussion of the Patriot Act in the comments of a post on Nashville Truth.

P.P.S. Another key passage often considered the locus classicus for the Rectification of Names doctrine is the short saying "Let the ruler be ruler, the minister minister, the father father and the son son" (Analects, XII, 11).

P.P.P.S. Other bloggers and articles that reference the Rectification of Names doctrine:

China Post article on doctrine of the rectification of names and the Taiwan/China dispute.
The Poor Man's light-hearted take on the doctrine
The American Thinker on the rectification of names and suicide bombers
Catallaxy

Democracy in the Arab world

Baheyya has an excellent post on America's attempts(?) to encourage democracy in the Arab world:

[Excerpt] Need it really be pointed out that real Arab democratisation means Arab citizens having a real say in every aspect of their lives, rather than submitting to new control projects masquerading as “curriculum and school reform,” “NGO capacity building”, “empowering women,” “modernising religious discourse,” “gradually opening up the political system,” “transparency and accountability,” and all the other euphemisms for continued government tutelage with American blessings? Above all, real Arab democratisation means the right to oppose U.S. and Arab government policies without being accused of anti-Americanism, recidivist Arab nationalism, Islamic “fundamentalism”, shrill whateverism, and generally being treated like a mental patient who only needs a good dose of American “public diplomacy” to make everything all better.

Smoking guns, smoking chimneys

The Mahablog asks, "So How Many Smoking Guns Do We Need?"

"This is getting ridiculous. If we piled up all the evidence of Bushie prevarication we could sink Australia, you know. At what point does the overwhelming preponderance of evidence stop being a crazy conspiracy theory?"





There's an old Korean saying, "Would smoke come out of the chimney if the fire wasn't lit?" Now if it was just a wisp of smoke, there might be a way to dismiss the Downing Street Memo. But we're talking about a chimney billowing smoke for years.

The Washington Post’s Walter Pincus wrote a front-page story this weekend calling attention to information that has come out in other British memos that support the Downing Street Memo. For example, Pincus uncovered a British memo warning of post-war instability that would arise because the Bush administration was unrealistic about the post-war phase. Bush's failure to plan for post-war Iraq seems to be a leitmotiv running through both the British papers as well as testimony by military experts in the U.S. But the most damning feature of the memos is their confirmation that the Bush administration “fixed” the intelligence around its policy of attacking Iraq.

British Knew Iraqi WMD Were Not a Threat: “There is no greater threat now that [Saddam] will use WMD than there has been in recent years, so continuing containment is an option.” [Iraq: Options Paper]

Evidence Did Not Show Much Advance In Iraq’s Weapons Programs: “Even the best survey of Iraq’s WMD programmes will not show much advance in recent years on [the] nuclear, missile or CW/BW fronts: the programmes are extremely worrying but have not, as far as we know, been stepped up.” [Ricketts Paper, 3/22/02]

Evidence Was Thin on Iraq/Al Qaeda Ties: “US is scrambling to establish a link between Iraq and Al [Qaida] is so far frankly unconvincing.” [Ricketts Paper, 3/22/02]

“No Credible Evidence” On Iraq/Al Qaeda Link: “There has been no credible evidence to link Iraq with UBL and Al Qaida.” [Straw Paper, 3/25/02]

Wolfowitz Knew Supposed Iraq/Al Qaeda Link Was Weak: Wolfowitz said that “there might be doubt about the alleged meeting in Prague between Mohammed Atta, the lead hijacker on 9/11, and Iraqi intelligence (did we, he asked, know anything more about this meeting?).” [Meyer Paper, 3/18/02]

A full set of links and an excellent discussion of these papers can be found at Think Progress.

As I was writing this post, I just heard that yet another memo [7/21/02] has been leaked confirming that it was "necessary to create the conditions" for the legality of the Iraq War.

The memo has been discussed by The Times , Shakespeare's Sister, The Heretik , Freiheit und Wissen and the St. Petersburg Times.

At some point, the preponderance of evidence has to be taken at face value. The question we must ask now is not, "Did Bush lie?" but rather, "Do we care?"

Personally, I care.

Find Your Spot survey

I took the Find Your Spot survey (via Dialogic) that is supposed to tell me my ideal spot to live. The results seem pretty accurate (although, I'm not so sure about the cherry-pit-spitting contest in pick #1.) I was surpised though that I didn't get a single selection from Washington State (I've always loved the rural areas near Seattle.) I guess my preference for low-cost housing nixed that area from my list.

Milwaukie, Oregon City of DogwoodsThis "City of Dogwoods" is home to an extravagant Bing Cherry festival each year, complete with pie-eating and cherry-pit-spitting contests・
Population: 20,500 Average Home Price: $170,000 Precipitation: 37" Snow: 7"

Astoria, Oregon Where the Eagles FlyThe picturesque views of this historic port have served as the backdrop for numerous movies including Kindergarten Cop and Free Willy・
Population: 9,800 Average Home Price: $140,000 Precipitation: 66" Snow: 5"

Silver City, New Mexico Four Gentle Seasons
Population: 10,500 Average Home Price: $135,000 Precipitation: 15" Snow: 12"

Williamstown, Massachusetts Old New England At Its BestThis town's Clark Art Institute features one of the largest collections of Renoir and other Impressionist artists in the world...
Population: 8,400 Average Home Price: $227,000 Precipitation: 45" Snow: 64"

Northampton, Massachusetts Arts Town ExtraordinaireThis small town at the foot of the Berkshires has been recognized for its cultural offerings, many of which are supported by the area's five colleges・
Population: 29,000 Average Home Price: $227,000 Precipitation: 41" Snow: 48"

Middllebury, Vermont Progressive College TownThis recreationally lucky spot is located in Vermont's Champlain Valley, between the Green Mountains and Lake Champlain・
Population: 8,200 Average Home Price: $156,000 Precipitation: 40" Snow: 60"

Patriot Act: It ain't done nuttin'

Arran's Alley has an excellent post on the Patriot Act in which he discusses how it has actually had a minimal effect on terrorist arrests (in spite of some very fuzzy math). My theory is that the Patriot Act and other such provisions are just a foot in the door--to get Americans used to the idea of "trusting" its leaders and being "loyal" to the government. Hence, the silly moniker attached to the bill. As if giving up our constitutional rights will somehow make us all patriots!

Guantanamo's not the issue

In the wake of stories of prison abuse, there are increasing calls for the government to close the Guantanamo Bay prison. Cheney insists there are still no plans to close it and that "the people that are at Guantanamo are bad people." Needless to say, Cheney and other neocons will only head in the right direction after being dragged there by angry mobs. Even so, it is at least conceivable that the administration, at some point, will shut down the prison simply to get its policies away from public scrutiny. For those of us on the left, the closing of the prison would be a propitious development.But at this juncture, I think that we who oppose Guantanamo should keep in mind why we oppose it. It isn't because we have a problem with people being held on the island of Cuba. (Even if Guantanamo is shut down, there are still presumably another dozen such camps around the world.) Rather, it's the procedures surrounding the prisoners' detention.

Forgive me for repeating what everybody already knows, but I think it's crucial that we reflect deeply on how far we've come in the last few years. People in the U.S. military or other government agencies are picking up people all over the globe (to include, in some cases, U.S. citizens), frequently not telling anyone who they've picked up or why, holding them indefinitely without a trial, and in numerous cases (well-documented), torturing or killing them. Cheney, in his defense of Guantanamo, assures us that these "are bad people." Perhaps I missed something in my high school civics class, but when did we start trusting the American Executive branch to judge who's been good or bad? (I thought this was St. Nick's job.) When did we give them the authority to capture, hold, and torture people without access to a trial or legal advice? Democracy isn't built on the people's trust of plutocrats to tell us who's been good or bad; it's based on laws and transparency. For this reason, we shouldn't be demanding simply that the U.S. close the Guantanamo Prison but that it close all such prisons--for good.

Bush supporters are the majority?

The Republicans keep telling us to get with the program: Everyone loves Shrub and the direction he's taking the country. The latest poll numbers tell a different story:

45% support bush's foreign policy
35% think the country is going in the right direction
37% approve of bush's handling of social security
43% support bush's handing of economy

It hardly sounds like a mandate.

Dark cloud over the next generation

As DC Media Girl said, "Something has gone terribly wrong." Evidently, instead of raising our children to think independently, we're indoctrinating a new generation of faithful lapdogs. After the identity of Deep Throat came out, one high school teacher in Baltimore used the incident as the basis of her honor's philosophy class. The responses show the degree to which students have succumbed to the current zeitgeist. Only three students defended Felt's decision to guide reporter Bob Woodward, and the public's right to know the behavior of its elected leaders."

At least there's a small glimmer of hope. One student asked, "How are people supposed to elect the president if they don't know if he's doing the right thing or the wrong thing?" (The billion-dollar question. We should all be chanting this as we throw rocks at the White House.) Unfortunately, most of the 12 juniors in the class said it was unethical for Felt to talk to Woodward! One student said Felt's job was "to go to his superiors," while another expressed the opinion that the public "should only know so much." (I guess this compassionate student was concerned lest we find the news coming out of Washington overly upsetting.) Our Republican "leaders" can at least take heart from one aspect of this story: No child is being left behind in the steady march to totalitarianism.

The Sunsenbrenner meltdown

Hopefully, all of you caught C-SPAN yesterday. The debate on the Republican side got bizarre at points. When discussing the federal government's demand for library records under the Patriot Act, one of the Republican reps started shouting at the Amnesty International representative--name some names? What librarians have been forced to turn over records? The AI rep did come up with a name, but the point is that any librarian who admits to having received a request by the government could be prosecuted under the Patriot Act! So we're in this bizarre catch-22 world in which the law forbids people from submitting evidence that is being demanded in order to demonstrate the extreme nature of the law. After extremely acrimonious debate, during which the Republican representatives refused to discuss the matter at hand (the Patriot Act and violations of civil liberties) and chose instead to dwell on sensationalist news stories, a Republican staffer abruptly turned off the microphones. One of the witnesses whose testimony was abrubtly ended, James Zogby of the Arab American Institute, had this to say about the event:

"I just saw something...totally inappropriate. No mic on and no record being kept. But I think as we are lecturing foreign governments about the conduct of their behavior with regard to opposition -- when I see the behavior I saw here today as an American -- I'm really troubled about what kind of lesson this is going to teach to other countries in the world about how they ought to conduct an open society that allows for an opposition with rights. I'm sorry, I'm very offended."

Surprise! War on terror not quite over!

Dick Cheney recently warned international special operations soldiers that the War on Terror was far from over. If this statement has any meaning beyond its propaganda value, does it mean that Cheney and others really envision a day when there are no terrorist incidents on the planet? Does anyone out there honestly think that some righteous Republician president a decade from now will step up to a podium, flanked with his fellow belligerati, and declare terrorism vanquished forever? If this is so and the Republicans really have access to such magical powers, we should have chosen a better target for our war. We could have fought a war against poverty (oh, we already did that, didn't we) or a war against mental anguish. Of course, those sound a little too, uhm, Islamic and Buddhist respectively for the Old Testament folks in the U.S. Well if not that, maybe the neocons could have led a war on stupidity--beginning with themselves and their followers. Who knows? After all the fighting and vanquishing the evils of poverty, suffering, and ignorance, we might find the War on Terror winnable after all.

Patriot Act: Watching the sun set

C-Span showed the House Judiciary Committee discussion of the sunsetting provisions of the Patriot Act. The Patriot Act contains more than 150 separate sections in 10 major titles. About a tenth of the law sunsets this year unless Congress votes to reauthorize it. Experts provided testimony about how the latitude provided by the act has encouraged abuses, and how these abuses, in turn, have tarnished America's international image and weakened the struggle against terrorism. The Democratic Party along with the ACLU and other organizations are generally opposed to the renewal of expiring provisions of the Patriot Act, while Republicans (the party of BIG government) are generally for it.

The Bush administration is pushing to not only reauthorize the act, but to expand it. The Patriot Act, according to Bush, has been important in bringing charges against more that 400 suspects. As so often happens, the facts have not been friendly to Bush's propaganda blitz. A study by Syracuse University indicates that the vast majority of these 400 suspects' cases were minor, non-terrorism offenses. (Indeed, these individuals posed such little threat to national security that most served no jail time.) So the act clearly hasn't led to more success in the so-called "War on Terror."

The greatest issue at hand, however, concerns the Patriot Act's constitutionality. Some expansions of the Patriot Act have already been ruled unconstitutional and other challenges are sure to follow. Under section 215 of the Patriot Act, judges who sit on a secret court must approve a request for records about people's health, wealth or the transactions of their daily life if the law enforcement agents say they require it for a foreign intelligence investigation. None of these requests has ever been denied. The order includes a permanent gag order, reducing accountability. The White House has refused the common sense requirement that there be specific facts connecting the records requested to a foreign agent. In other words, the motivation for a request could be virtually anything (e.g., purely political). To make matters worse, the White House is now pushing for administrative subpoenas. These would allow the FBI to issue and sign its own search orders - without prior judicial approval. If this becomes law, we will go from a weak system of judicial approval to none at all, virtually eliminating the notion of checks and balances.

Although the press has been relatively silent about the widespread dissent to the act, nearly 400 U.S. communities and 7 state legislatures have passed resolutions calling on Congress to bring the Patriot Act in line with the Constitution. Leading libertarian, liberal and nonpartisan organizations have found common ground in reforming the Patriot Act.

Some particular concerns about the Patriot Act include:

Section 213, which expands the government's ability to execute criminal search warrants (which need not involve terrorism) and seize property without notifying the target for weeks or months.

Section 215, which allows the FBI to seize a vast array of sensitive personal information and belongings – including medical, library and business records – using secret intelligence tools.

Sec. 215 Allows the FBI to use FISA court orders to seize any "tangible thing," including highly sensitive medical, library, business and travel records, from a wide variety of institutions under an extremely weak standard of judicial review.

Sec. 505 Authorizes the government to seize financial, Internet, credit and telephone records without prior judicial review and without articulable suspicion that the target is a terrorist or spy.

Sec. 507 Expands access to student records without individual suspicion.

Sec. 901 Permits the head of the the intelligence community to set "requirements and priorities" for domestic spying, which would put the CIA back in the business of monitoring Americans’ political activities.

Shrub's own Whitewater scandal

Remember the Republican histrionics over Whitewater? With such high sensitivity levels to government corruption and backroom deals, I wonder how the same people will react to hear of the Everglades land scandal. In 2002, the Bush administration offered to overpay a prominent Florida family of Bush supporters for oil and gas rights to Everglades land by as much as $80 million. Members of the Collier family gave more than $121,000 to Republican candidates in the last election cycle, including at least $5,000 to Jeb Bush, according to the Washington-based Center for Responsive Politics, which tracks campaign donations. The Interior Department's inspector general says that the deal was "at best, foolish and, at worst, complicit."

The facts reek of backroom deals and political quid pro quos. In a report to the Senate Finance Committee, Inspector General Earl Devaney said the department nearly tripled earlier estimates of the value of the mineral rights. President George W. Bush announced in May 2002 that the federal government would fork over $120 million in cash plus an undetermined amount in tax deductions to prevent the Colliers's privately held Collier Resources Co. from drilling for oil and gas on the 400,000 acres of land it owns in what he called the "critical parts of the Everglades.'' However, two previous government assessments valued the rights much lower, between $5 million and $68 million. Fortunately, it looks like the deal, receiving increased scrutiny, will be scuttled.

Devaney (attempting humor?) claims that "the intentions behind the attempted acquisition have always appeared to be firmly grounded in the department's righteous desire to protect the environmentally sensitive Everglades from potential harm." (Is the administration going to start buying mineral rights in Alaska next to prevent environmental harm?) The report says that Ann Klee, a Bush administration political appointee, helped reach an agreement with the Collier family shortly after Kell was named in January 2001 to administer the transition at the Interior Department between presidential administrations. Klee and two Interior Department lawyers, Barry Roth and Peter Schaumberg, relied on a private consultant's estimate that recommended the $120 million payment after soliciting several appraisals. What is odd is that all of the appraisals were lower. At least one career Interior Department official contested the high estimate.

As one would expect, everyone is suddenly being very tight-lipped about all of this. Tina Kreisher, communications director at the Interior Department, muttered something about how they "were trying very hard to protect the Everglades.'' Department spokesman Hugh Vickery wouldn't return phone. White House spokesman Taylor Gross said he was unaware of the report.

Devaney's report also says the government may have already owned the mineral rights because the Colliers sold the government surface rights for the same land in 1988. In addition, the report finds little evidence the rights had significant value.

So let's get this straight. The Bush administration has been caught redhanded giving away $70 or $80 million dollars of tax-payers' money to its wealthy patrons for overpriced mineral rights that it owned already, and then sweetening the deal with a tax deduction! And as a final slap in our face, it has used this as propaganda to offset its appalling environmental record.

Other blogments on this topic can be found at Slyblog and TalkLeft.

Bush love

I culled this little gem from Cul over on Ratboy's Anvil:

The U.S. Postal Service has created a stamp with a picture of George W. Bush to honor his first-term achievements. But it has been learned that the stamp is not sticking to envelopes. This has enraged the President, who demanded a full investigation.

After a month of testing, a special presidential commission has made the following findings:

1) The stamp is in perfect order.
2) There is nothing wrong with the applied adhesive.
3) People are spitting on the wrong side.

Let's grok our world!

Grok Your World has an excellent post titled If Watergate Happened Now. The post discusses rightwing revisionism, Felt's role in bringing down Nixon, and reflections on the Downing Street Memo.

Watch, ride, and report

This sign recently appeared on the Marc train from Baltimore to Union Station in D.C. The blogosphere pundits are still debating whether it's an official poster or guerilla art. I personally thinks its an attempt to capture the dark-skinned commie gay democracy-hating Islamo-fascist terrorist demons with body-cloaking devices that through sabotage and subterfuge keep making the Marc trains derail about every other day.

The Downing Street Memo

The Downing Street Memo, originally reported in the The Times of London, May 1, 2005, continues to be downplayed in the mainstream media and ignored by Bush and Blair. The memo is of a meeting attended by Jack Straw and other cabinet members along with key British intelligence personnel. Now either the memo is fake or it's real. If it's fake, you would think the UK government would say so. It's not as if the memo refers to an obscure event. The meeting was attended by a large group of top British cabinet members and intel personnel.. The memo says exactly who was present. If the memo is real, it is the final nail in the coffin of Bush's credibility. As a tax-payer forced to finance this war, I'd like to hear Blair explain: Did this meeting take place? Were these things said? I'd like to hear Bush explain: Why were the U.S. people told one thing and our allies another? Was the Bush administratin lying to our allies or to the U.S. people? The memo has been copied below (emphasis added):

SECRET AND STRICTLY PERSONAL - UK EYES ONLY

DAVID MANNING
From: Matthew RycroftDate: 23 July 2002S 195 /02
cc: Defence Secretary, Foreign Secretary, Attorney-General, Sir Richard Wilson, John Scarlett, Francis Richards, CDS, C, Jonathan Powell, Sally Morgan, Alastair Campbell

IRAQ: PRIME MINISTER'S MEETING, 23 JULY

Copy addressees and you met the Prime Minister on 23 July to discuss Iraq.

This record is extremely sensitive. No further copies should be made. It should be shown only to those with a genuine need to know its contents.

John Scarlett summarised the intelligence and latest JIC assessment. Saddam's regime was tough and based on extreme fear. The only way to overthrow it was likely to be by massive military action. Saddam was worried and expected an attack, probably by air and land, but he was not convinced that it would be immediate or overwhelming. His regime expected their neighbours to line up with the US. Saddam knew that regular army morale was poor. Real support for Saddam among the public was probably narrowly based.

C reported on his recent talks in Washington. There was a perceptible shift in attitude. Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy. The NSC had no patience with the UN route, and no enthusiasm for publishing material on the Iraqi regime's record. There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action.

CDS said that military planners would brief CENTCOM on 1-2 August, Rumsfeld on 3 August and Bush on 4 August.

The two broad US options were:

(a) Generated Start. A slow build-up of 250,000 US troops, a short (72 hour) air campaign, then a move up to Baghdad from the south. Lead time of 90 days (30 days preparation plus 60 days deployment to Kuwait).
(b) Running Start. Use forces already in theatre (3 x 6,000), continuous air campaign, initiated by an Iraqi casus belli. Total lead time of 60 days with the air campaign beginning even earlier. A hazardous option.
The US saw the UK (and Kuwait) as essential, with basing in Diego Garcia and Cyprus critical for either option. Turkey and other Gulf states were also important, but less vital. The three main options for UK involvement were:
(i) Basing in Diego Garcia and Cyprus, plus three SF squadrons.
(ii) As above, with maritime and air assets in addition.
(iii) As above, plus a land contribution of up to 40,000, perhaps with a discrete role in Northern Iraq entering from Turkey, tying down two Iraqi divisions.
The Defence Secretary said that the US had already begun "spikes of activity" to put pressure on the regime. No decisions had been taken, but he thought the most likely timing in US minds for military action to begin was January, with the timeline beginning 30 days before the US Congressional elections.
The Foreign Secretary said he would discuss this with Colin Powell this week. It seemed clear that Bush had made up his mind to take military action, even if the timing was not yet decided. But the case was thin. Saddam was not threatening his neighbours, and his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea or Iran. We should work up a plan for an ultimatum to Saddam to allow back in the UN weapons inspectors. This would also help with the legal justification for the use of force.
The Attorney-General said that the desire for regime change was not a legal base for military action. There were three possible legal bases: self-defence, humanitarian intervention, or UNSC authorisation. The first and second could not be the base in this case. Relying on UNSCR 1205 of three years ago would be difficult. The situation might of course change.
The Prime Minister said that it would make a big difference politically and legally if Saddam refused to allow in the UN inspectors. Regime change and WMD were linked in the sense that it was the regime that was producing the WMD. There were different strategies for dealing with Libya and Iran. If the political context were right, people would support regime change. The two key issues were whether the military plan worked and whether we had the political strategy to give the military plan the space to work.
On the first, CDS said that we did not know yet if the US battleplan was workable. The military were continuing to ask lots of questions. For instance, what were the consequences, if Saddam used WMD on day one, or if Baghdad did not collapse and urban warfighting began? You said that Saddam could also use his WMD on Kuwait. Or on Israel, added the Defence Secretary.
The Foreign Secretary thought the US would not go ahead with a military plan unless convinced that it was a winning strategy. On this, US and UK interests converged. But on the political strategy, there could be US/UK differences. Despite US resistance, we should explore discreetly the ultimatum. Saddam would continue to play hard-ball with the UN.
John Scarlett assessed that Saddam would allow the inspectors back in only when he thought the threat of military action was real.
The Defence Secretary said that if the Prime Minister wanted UK military involvement, he would need to decide this early. He cautioned that many in the US did not think it worth going down the ultimatum route. It would be important for the Prime Minister to set out the political context to Bush.
Conclusions:
(a) We should work on the assumption that the UK would take part in any military action. But we needed a fuller picture of US planning before we could take any firm decisions. CDS should tell the US military that we were considering a range of options.
(b) The Prime Minister would revert on the question of whether funds could be spent in preparation for this operation.
(c) CDS would send the Prime Minister full details of the proposed military campaign and possible UK contributions by the end of the week.
(d) The Foreign Secretary would send the Prime Minister the background on the UN inspectors, and discreetly work up the ultimatum to Saddam.
He would also send the Prime Minister advice on the positions of countries in the region especially Turkey, and of the key EU member states.
(e) John Scarlett would send the Prime Minister a full intelligence update.
(f) We must not ignore the legal issues: the Attorney-General would consider legal advice with FCO/MOD legal advisers.
(I have written separately to commission this follow-up work.)

MATTHEW RYCROFT
(Rycroft was a Downing Street foreign policy aide)
[emphasis added]

Major Players:the officials present at the secret meeting

Below is a breakdown of the various individuals mentioned in the memo - all of whom were present during the meeting with the Prime Minister and subsequently received copies of these minutes.

Foreign Policy Advisor - David Manning•
Matthew Rycroft - aide to Manning, wrote up the minutes
Defence Secretary - Geoff Hoon
Foreign Secretary - Jack Straw
Attorney-General - Lord Goldsmith
Cabinet Secretary - Sir Richard Wilson
Chair of the Joint Intelligence Committee - John Scarlett
Director of GCHQ - Francis Richards, head of the UK's "signals intelligence establishment"
Director of SIS (aka MI6) - Sir Richard Dearlove, identified as 'C' in the meeting minutes
Chief of the Defence Staff - Admiral Sir Michael Boyce
Chief of Staff - Jonathan Powell
Head of Strategy - Alastair Campbell
Director of Political & Govt Relations - Sally Morgan

Note: The relatively junior level of Rycroft bears no relevance to the contents of the minutes, which summarize what the principals said at the meeting to each other.

Environmentalists, come to your senses!

Delftsman in a recent post (in blue) had the following harsh words for the environmentalist movement:

Enviroweenies Proved Wrong...AGAIN

Enviromentalists are always touting wind power, solar power, etc etc, but when a viable wind power farm is set up, they yell that "the birds will die". Well, Writing in the Royal Society's journal Biology Letters, researchers say previous estimates of collision risk have been "over-inflated". Seems the birds are smarter than the enviromentalists and just bypass the wind farms.

I'm afraid Delftsman is on to something here. Anything we build to produce energy can conceivably have a negative effect on the environment. But energy has to come from somewhere and wind is an excellent source. If we look at our environmental policy in terms of realistic choices, wind comes out way ahead: it's completely sustainable, has minimal effects on the environment, doesn't produce pollution, and doesn't have the same disastrous effects on fish populations (although, hydro-electric power also has its advantages). Delftsman's post continues:

And the "experts" are forecasting the demise of caribou herds if Anwar is drilled for oil....these are the same "experts" that predicted the same thing when the Alaska Pipeline was being built...guess what? the herds have almost doubled in size around the pipeline area, because the pipeline heats the area and provides extra food and shelter....

This is where I disagree with Delftsman. Without getting into a debate on the immediate effect of drilling on particular wildlife, I'm extremely wary of these proposals to aggressively go after all the minerals and fossil fuels underfoot as a way to dig ourselves out of fuel shortages. The problem is that our fossil fuels will continue to decline so the costs, both economic and environmental, will continue to rise as we go after more remote resources. We can see the absurdity of such a policy in West Virginia where they're tearing down every mountain in sight to get at coal--a dirty, polluting energy source. If we consider the negative externalities associated with fossil fuel extraction and use, wind power comes out far ahead. And as Delftsman says, the birds will probably figure out a way to live with windmills.

Wired News recently had an excellent article on wind power's potential (excerpt below, bolding mine):

Wind power could generate enough electricity to support the world's energy needs several times over, according to a new map of global wind speeds that scientists say is the first of its kind. The map, compiled by researchers at Stanford University, shows wind speeds at more than 8,000 sites around the world. The researchers found that at least 13 percent of those sites experience winds fast enough to power a modern wind turbine. If turbines were set up in all these regions, they would generate 72 terawatts of electricity, according to the researchers.

That's more than five times the world's energy needs, which was roughly 14 terawatts in 2002, according to the U.S. Department of Energy. The researchers readily admit that existing buildings, land rights and other obstacles would make it impossible to set up turbines in every single one of the identified regions. But they point out that even 20 percent of those sites could satisfy world energy consumption as it stands today. More importantly, the study shows that wind can be a feasible alternative to fossil fuels, said study co-author Cristina Archer.

According to the Sierra Club, a single modern wind turbine can produce enough power to meet the annual electricity needs of 500 average homes. And investment in the resource could lead to an economic boom--particularly in rural areas (are you rural Republicans reading this?)

As a growing power source, wind energy can become a major force for economic development. Wind development can save consumers money and bring construction jobs, leasing royalties, and increased tax revenues to local communities. Supplying even 5 percent of the country's electricity with wind power by 2020 would add $60 billion in capital investment in rural America, provide $1.2 billion in new income for farmers and rural landowners, and create 80,000 new jobs.

To infinity and beyond

The MARSIS radar experiment aboard the ESA's Mars Express satellite will soon be sending very low frequency waves into the Martian surface to detect water or ice deposits--a necessary building block for life on Mars. Such experiments using satellites (and occasionally rovers or robots) have vastly expanded our knowledge of Mars and other planets. For this reason, I see little reason to focus so much at this point on manned space flight. The U.S. space program seems to have been hijacked recently by the political agenda of the Shrub administration which grasps at any opportunity to prove that it really isn't opposed to science. (It is.) We should scrap plans for human space flight and launch more satellites. At the same time, we should be working on the construction of large space-based telescope arrays that could detect distant constellations and planets. Before we invest in manned flights, we should develop the science of developing artificial eco-systems and terraforming--technologies that could have practical application here on earth as we seek to reclaim deserts and other barren areas. After the technological groundwork has been established, we'll be able to begin human flight at a fraction of its current cost.

Those Walmart blues

Having moved to suburbia, I've pretty much been forced to shop at the big chain stores as there are few options. I've been to Walmart now about four or fives times. After my last ill-fated trip, I took an oath never to return. I just can't believe how shoddy the merchandise is! Among the smaller items I've purchased, about a fifth have fallen apart (or the cap has come off). The larger items have turned out to be junk. And the service is awful with hour long lines whenever I want to return something. I realize that many people are fed up with Walmart's race to the bottom in terms of wages and quality, the stores negative effect on local economies, and it attacks on unions. But even when these factors are disregarded, I can't see an advantage to going there. If you have to spend extra time returning things to get an item that is functional, the time and hassle spent minus the minimal (if any) savings doesn't seem work out.

Shrub's War: Falling apart abroad and at home

Twenty-two Iraqi soldiers have been kidnapped near Syria and four US soldiers were killed in less than 24 hours in attacks north of the capital. Back here on the home-front, a reporter (Reuters correspondent Steve Holland ) has finally asked Bush about the Downing Street Memo.

Bush's response: "There's nothing farther from the truth," Bush told reporters as Blair stood at his side. "Both of us didn't want to use our military." "It was our last option."

Blair added, "The facts were not being 'fixed' in any shape or form at all."

That sure in the hell isn't what the memo says. So who are we to believe? A president who has lied to us at every turn or an official memo that is completely consistent with other information that has come out? According to the memo (bolding mine):

But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy. The NSC had no patience with the UN route, and no enthusiasm for publishing material on the Iraqi regime's record. There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action.

Why would they discuss the aftermath? As long as they've got their hands on the oil contracts, who gives a damn about the people who will die?

It seemed clear that Bush had made up his mind to take military action, even if the timing was not yet decided. But the case was thin. Saddam was not threatening his neighbours, and his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea or Iran. We should work up a plan for an ultimatum to Saddam to allow back in the UN weapons inspectors. This would also help with the legal justification for the use of force.

And all the U.S. media can talk about is a washed-up singer and old report cards.

Butter knives and bloody chainsaws

A few days ago, we witnessed the spectacle of a school principal who was caught with a butter knife being added to the terrorist list. Evidently, the U.S. anti-terrorist patrols have a thing against butter knives. For around the same time, on April 25, Gregory Despres arrived at the U.S.-Canadian border crossing at Calais, Maine, carrying a homemade sword, a hatchet, a knife, brass knuckles and a chain saw stained with what appeared to be blood. Although U.S. customs agents confiscated the weapons and fingerprinted Despres, they let him into the United States. He was later discovered to have decapitated a 74-year-old country musician named Frederick Fulton. The musician's head was in a pillowcase under a kitchen table. Despres's common-law wife was discovered stabbed to death in a bedroom. Of course, the folks manning the border can't really be blamed. Depres, after all, wasn't carrying a butter knife.

Bad grades for Patriot Act II

I flipped on the TV news twice today for a couple minutes. The first story I saw was something about Kerry and Bush's grades (haven't those fellows graduated yet?) and then a long piece about a devoted fan of Michael Jackson. And meanwhile, the Senate is working to broaden the scope of The Patriot Act. The act's new provisions that have now been passed through the committee would allow the FBI to subpoena records in terrorism investigations without the approval of a judge or grand jury. The Patriot Act was a delplorable idea ab ovo, so it's sad to think that the government is trying to extend it. One part of the act that I personally find particularly offensive is the provision allowing the secret searches of people's library records.

This provision recently got some press (USA Today) when a library in Deming, Washington went to court to challenge an FBI subpoena for records of people who had borrowed a biography of Osama bin Laden. The biography had words written in the margin: "If the things I'm doing is considered a crime, then let history be a witness that I am a criminal. Hostility toward America is a religious duty and we hope to be rewarded by God." This passage was actually just a quote from bin Laden in an interview with Time magazine in 1998, not a library patron's original statement.

While many rightwing lapdogs will undoubtedly be wagging their tails to see Big Brother's powers expanded, there is actually much more at stake than what is immediately apparent. We can imagine a situation in which someone who is a government or law enforcement employee feels compelled to not read certain books out of concern that her/his name might turn up in a future search and lead to unnecessary suspicions. If a person has nothing to hide, "Who cares?" you say. Yet when government security clearances are at stake such suspicions might be enough in themselves to cost a person their career.

In a truly free society, there should be an assumption that as long as I'm following the law, it's none of the government's damn business what I do in my personal life. For this reason, I applaud the librarians in one local library I used to attend in California. Once I asked them to bring up my old records to find the name of a book I had checked out but was told that it was impossible since they immediately deleted all records after books were returned. The librarian explained that they did this to avoid being forced to turn patrons' records over to the government. Ben Ostrowsky, with similiar concerns, has proposed a system involving anonymous library cards. I love it--the spirit of resistence to government's unnecessary intrusion into our lives. True democracy in action.

Other blogments and articles on the subject:

You Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet: Patriot II on the Way by Miriam Drake, Georgia Institute of Technology
ACLU
Cut to the Chase

The defenseless nation

One frequently heard refrain from the sky-is-falling brigade is that America's doves have cut down U.S. military spending to the point that the U.S. is seriously threatened by attack by our foes. As we contemplate all those Iraqis and Afghans on their camels taking the Californian beaches, we might keep the following facts in mind:

"World military expenditure in 2004 is estimated to have been $975 billion at constant (2003) prices and exchange rates or $1035 billion in current dollars. This is just 6 per cent lower in real terms than at the 1987/1988 peak of cold war world military spending. ...The major determinant of the world trend in military expenditure is the change in the USA, which makes up 47 per cent of the world total. US military expenditure has increased rapidly during the period 2002-2004 as a result of massive budgetary allocations for the global war on terrorism, primarily for military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. These have been funded through supplementary appropriations on top of the regular budget. The supplementary appropriations for this purpose allocated to the Department of Defense for financial years 2003-2005 amounted to approximately $238 billion and exceeded the combined military spending of Africa, Latin America, Asia (except Japan but including China) and the Middle East in 2004 ($193 billion in current dollars), that is, of the entire developing world."

If we feel threatened despite these expenditures, I wonder how the rest of the world feels.

Solzhenitsyn on "absurd projects"

Those wascally Wussians. A few days ago, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, so beloved by the right for his ascerbic critique of the Russian political system, gave his first interview in the past three years with the Vesti Nedeli TV program on Russia's Channel Two. Solzhenitsyn flatly stated that Russia still has "had no democracy" or anything even "remotely similar to democracy." But then Solzhenitsyn departed from the rightwing script and actually had the gall to turn his invective toward the U.S.--the promised land itself. Solzhenitsyn said that over the last decade the US has "launched an absurd project to impose democracy all over the world" and that "the US has a strange idea of democracy." Solzhenitsyn's advice? "The US must understand that democracy cannot be introduced by force, by the army."

Poor Alexander. All those years being dissed and disciplined as a disgruntled dissident, and you still don't get it. These wars have absolutely nothing to do with democracy or altruistic projects and everything to do with pipelines and pocketbooks. If we Americans wanted a democratic leader, we would have elected one. But we wanted a wealthy oil man to grease the gears of elite privilege and corporate growth. And so now we're fighting these wars for our oil man and his small group of oil tycoons. Your point about democracy not coming through the force of arms is quaint, but wake up and smell the crude. As any history book on the Middle East will tell you, oil can be extracted and stolen through the force of arms. Such projects are only absurd to the tax-payers paying for the wars or to the people fighting them. To the people making the money, they are completely sensible.

Rightwing stridor

Kevin Myers recently weighted in on the Deep Throat outing (bolding mine):

"Whatever the motive, the project was utterly disastrous for Nixon, and nearly as disastrous for journalism. For contrary to what most members of my profession believe, we journalists are not a particularly courageous or morally gifted species and, moreover, are pathologically inclined towards group thinking. And so, inspired by the Watergate example, all over the English-speaking world, young journalists got it into their not very imaginative heads that their primary duty was to expose corruption in government."

Heaven forbid that reporters, instead of simply reporting what the President or Pentagon spokesman tell them, actually try to investigate or analyze information. To do so, would be to be "disloyal." I've gotta tell ya, if I hear this word "loyalty" just one more time, I'm gonna scream (and the sound of Karlo screamin' ain't purdy.) Any perusal of rightwing blogs will find the word loyalty bandied about like a klansman's secret handshake. But loyalty isn't the first word that comes to mind when I think of democracy. For democracy to survive, it needs investigation, accountability, independent thought, dialog, and debate. Loyalty is a fine virtue in certain circumstances, for example, if you're a lapdog or a foot-soldier in a fascist state. Or if you're simply too intellectually and morally feeble to think for yourself. The rest of the time, we get by just fine without it.

Republican babes

For those looking for levity, check out Former Republican Babes on World O' Crap.

The North Korean conundrum

U.S. and North Korean officials met in New York on Monday. Washington is trying to get NK to return to the stalled talks on its nuclear weapons program. Within government and academic circles, people have been trying to pick apart North Korea's motives. Does the country really want nukes? How much is it willing to risk to get them? Is it holding out for an offer of money from the U.S. and its allies? Can it be trusted?

These are difficult questions for anyone to answer. North Korea is the all time master of strategic ambiguity, which it has artfully combined with Nixon's madman doctrine: Make your enemy think you are irrational and unpredictable. But is the North really so mad? If I were president of NK and had watched the U.S. ability to wage war (on the flimsiest of excuses) in Iraq, I'd be doing anything I could do to get my hands on a nuke and the hardware required to hit the U.S.

Despite all the casual talk of attacking North Korea, U.S. options are actually quite limited. North Korea could certainly be destroyed in an all-out U.S. attack. But the repercussions would be severe. In the case of such an attack, anti-American sentiment in South Korea (which would also be destroyed in even a short war) would be extreme. And then there would be the reaction in China. I've heard rightwing pundits lecture casually about how a pre-emptive strike might be required to eliminate North Korea's nuclear capability. I think we should appoint all these pundits as our diplomatic mission to Pyeongyang right before any such attack is launched.

The sad fact is that this generation will almost undoubtedly get to witness a nuclear weapon being used in war firsthand. And it will probably be used by the U.S. as another way to defeat an enemy while reducing American casualties on the battlefield. In spite of the U.S. nuclear and conventional threats, I doubt very much that many nations that are really close to going nuclear will pass up the opportunity. The warm and fuzzy feel of being part of the "family of nations" just doesn't provide the same security as a weapon that could take out Los Angeles. Bush has done his part in extending the age-old doctrine that might makes right. And North Korea has learned the lesson. Will they even risk war to get nukes? They just might.

Another terrorist falls in the War on Terror!

In a thrilling demonstration of U.S. intelligence networks working together, the Bush government has nabbed the evil mastermind Cecilia Beaman. Masquerading as a 57-year-old grandmother and principal at Pacific Middle School in Des Moines, this evil terrorist was caught red-handed smuggling a butter-knife aboard a U.S. plane. Terrorist experts speculate that the so-called "Mrs. Beaman" had planned an elaborate scheme by which she would threaten to slice up the crew and pilots "like butter" unless they flew her through the U.S. We can now all rest a little bit easier with Cecilia's name on the Terrorist List. "Mrs. Beaman" is currently being held in Gauntanamo, under heavy questioning. In a related story, a Guantanamo guard who was accused of pissing on her Bible claims that the charge is completely fabricated. In questioning by a military investigator, the guard explained, "I was listening to President Bush's inspiring talk on capturing terrorists. As I listened, I happened to be pissing into the wind. The redhot Cuban wind, whirling around from the El Nino effect and updrafts due to global warming, suddenly twisted around, flinging my piss down the hall and onto terrorist Beaman's Bible."

Why do Grandmothers hate America?

Rich man, poor man

A Tiny Revolution has an excellent short post titled Of the Big Whoredom.

It's official: Saddam was no threat!

While the mainstream news keeps treating the Downing Street Memo as a minor story, bloggers, and a few of the reporters still doing their job, keep asking the question: When will Bush be held accountable for his lies to the American people? Here are just a few of the things people are saying:

Trailing Edge Blog: The Downing Street Memo by itself is adequate grounds for Impeachment.

Geov Parrish, Seattle Weekly: I have a three-word response to the media frenzy that followed revelation of the long-secret identity of Deep Throat: Downing Street Memo .

National Catholic Reporter: Perhaps it is unrealistic to expect a country hip deep in a war that seems to defy explanation -- and that is going far worse than the Bush administration had ever anticipated -- to stop and ask questions at this late date about why we are there. Asking such questions would mean retracing so many steps that feinted past so many obstacles that it would be difficult to establish what really happened. It’s much easier to simply buy the line that has evolved, the line that says the United States and its rather thin coalition are out to plant democracy, to spread freedom and liberty, and leave it at that. The very democracy we so nobly talk of spreading around the world, however, demands that the questions be asked. The war, after all, is being fought in our name and with our money. At the same time, the evidence keeps mounting that the entire enterprise was a fabrication of falsehoods from the start.

Driftglass: George Bush had pretty clearly decided to go to war against Iraq about five minutes after “Fat Tony” Scalia anointed him President in 2001. Probably even earlier than that. Probably the day his Daddy was humiliated by Bill Clinton, GW said to himself, “Some day when I’m all grows up, if I can stay sober long enough, I’mna git that Saddam fella. Show him and Daddy and them fucking Liberals who the Big Man is.”Now add the substance of the “Downing Street Memo” to the scale.Go back and add the ignored warnings of a pending terrorist attack.Add in the lies told by “Curveball”.The lies told before Congress.The lies told in front of the UN.The lies in the State of the Union Address.The lies during the Presidential Debates.The lies about torture and murder and “extraordinary rendition.”There’s one helluva long list of lies to choose from -- just pick a half dozen of your favorites.So to the many Moderate Republicans who are angling for their tiny places in history – for the elementary school cafeterias and highway on-ramps that they hope will one day be named for them – I would ask in all seriousness just how in the Hell do you think history will judge you?At this point, you know the Administration was and is lying to you.You know that our children are dying for those lies and the treasure-house of respect and honor that two centuries of successive Administration have carefully stored up is now being pissed away into the sands of Iraq. . .

And this interesting tidbit from Daily Kos:

This morning on C-Span's "Washington Journal" a guy called in with this:

"I listen to WJ every morning. Yesterday I heard two guests refer to the 'Downing Street Memo,' but it wasn't explained. Can you tell me what they were talking about?"

Reply from C-Span host: "I have no information on the Downing Street Memo. Perhaps you could find something if you check the internet. Next caller."

WTF?

I'd like to take this opportunity to introduce After Downing Street, a coalition of veterans' groups, peace groups, and political activists, which launched on May 26, 2005 a campaign to urge the U.S. Congress to begin a formal investigation into whether President Bush has committed impeachable offenses in connection with the Iraq war. The campaign focuses on evidence that recently emerged in a British memo containing minutes of a secret July 2002 meeting with British Prime Minister Tony Blair and his top national security officials. In order to bring further attention to this organizaion, The Big Brass Alliance was recently organized by Shakespeare's Sister. The alliance is comprised of more than 100 progressive bloggers working to bring attention to the After Downing Street organization.

The art of lying

You remember when [Secretary of State] Colin Powell stood up in front of the world, and he said Iraq has got laboratories, mobile labs to build biological weapons....They're illegal. They're against the United Nations resolutions, and we've so far discovered two.* And we'll find more weapons as time goes on, But for those who say we haven't found the banned manufacturing devices or banned weapons, they're wrong. We found them." (italics ours) --WP, May 31, 2003

On Oct. 11, 2000, then-Texas Gov. Bush said: "I think what we need to do is convince people who live in the lands they live in to build the nations. Maybe I'm missing something here. I mean, we're going to have kind of a nation-building corps from America? Absolutely not."

"Our intelligence officials estimate that Saddam Hussein had the materials to produce as much as 500 tons of sarin, mustard and VX nerve agent.” State of the Union Address – 1/28/2003

“We have also discovered through intelligence
that Iraq has a growing fleet of manned and unmanned aerial vehicles that could be used to disperse chemical or biological weapons across broad areas." State of the Union Address – 1/28/2003

"Evidence from intelligence sources, secret communications and statements by people
now in custody reveal that Saddam Hussein aids and protects terrorists, including members of Al Qaida." State of the Union Address – 1/28/2003

"Our intelligence sources tell us that he (Saddam) has attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes suitable for nuclear weapons production." State of the Union Address – 1/28/2003

"The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa." State of the Union Address – 1/28/2003

"We know he's been absolutely devoted to trying to acquire nuclear weapons, and we believe he has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons." VP Dick Cheney – “Meet the Press” 3/16/2003



And now we have the Downing Street Memo .

Why are we so different?

A frequent meme in conservative conversations is the loss of a common culture. Terry Teachout, for example, has an interesting article in Commentary that looks back longingly on the mass media and speculates on the divisive nature of blogs (bold highlights are mine):

[Excerpts] The simplest description of this change is also the starkest one: the common culture of widely shared values and knowledge that once helped to unite Americans of all creeds, colors, and classes no longer exists. In its place, we now have a “balkanized” group of subcultures whose members pursue their separate, unshared interests in an unprecedented variety of ways.

One thing of which I am sure is that the common culture of my youth is gone for good. It was hollowed out by the rise of ethnic “identity politics,” then splintered beyond hope of repair by the emergence of the web-based technologies that so maximized and facilitated cultural choice as to make the broad-based offerings of the old mass media look bland and unchallenging by comparison. For all the nostalgia with which I look back on the days of the Top 40, the Book-of-the-Month Club, and The Ed Sullivan Show, I prefer to make my own cultural decisions, and I welcome the ease with which the new media permit me to do so.

This is the rub. We all have nostalgia for the simple past, but would hate to live within its narrow confines.

Kris over on the Dummocrats adds:

While it's true that pop culture has become more splintered, does pop culture truly define our culture? I contend that America isn't what it is because of Life Magazine or The Book of the Month Club. American culture is best defined by the concept of the American Dream . . . a chance at a better life . . . That is what makes us Americans.

Kim du Toit, lamenting the same "crisis," points the finger at the teaching of diversity.

How then is the traitor able to create and maintain perpetual disunity and instability? By creating social division. Thus we find the common glue of communication, the English language, replaced with a multiplicity of tongues and the concomitant social irritation, all under the guise of “equality”. We find likewise our common culture and heritage replaced by a policy of relativism, whereby foreign cultures are as worthy as our own, and therefore our common culture is replaced by a multiplicity of cultures, all in the name of “diversity”.

I would certainly agree that technology has facilitated the creation diverse forms of cultural life. And recent talk of red and blue states, while entertaining, has created a deceptive picture of stark divisions at the state level. And the emphasis on celebrating diversity has probably encouraged people to maintain or develop their own cultural practices that differ from the ideal of 1950s WASP culture. But if diversity's really a problem, the right should probably reserve the greatest blame for corporate marketing. (Kris touches on this a little with his discussion of pop-culture.) Corporations have created a nation of consumers who are told to be unique, to always want something different that sets them apart and defines them as individuals. So we wear different fashions as we zoom zoom zoom around in different cars, each item immediately telling everyone about our personal "style." Academics spouting Foucault can do whatever they want--they're going to have little effect on people who sit in front of the idiot-box most of their lives.

I'm not convinced that cultural diversity is really a problem, but even if it is, conservatives seem to be barking up the wrong tree. If our conservative brethren are so serious about creating a common culture, they should be serious about creating a subsidized mass-transit system (instead of a heavily subsidized private car system). Then people would have to actually come face to face with others from their community each day as they commuted to work. Conservatives should also get rid of taxcuts and subsidies for the wealthy. Then we might have a society where hard work is rewarded, where those who make similar contributions to our economy received a fair share of the fruits of the labor, and where the citizenry wasn't sharply divided into economic classes. Hard-working people everywhere in America might find they have a hell of a lot in common.

P.S. Into the Blogosphere has an excellent article on political discourse and blogs that is somewhat related to this topic.

The new Army

In a sign of the times, the US military has stopped battalion commanders from dismissing new recruits for drug abuse, alcohol, poor fitness, and pregnancy in an attempt to halt the Army's sky-rocketing attrition rate.

The best evidence

A federal judge has ordered the Army to comply with the Freedom of Information Act and release Abu Ghraib photos (in redacted form) to the American Civil Liberties Union. The judge made the commonsense remark last week that he believed photographs "are the best evidence the public can have of what occurred" at the prison. Clearly, we can't rely on the current administration to honestly provide accurate information about anything. It's about time. The ACLU filed a law suit seeking this information way back in October 2003. I can't believe we live in a country where we have to sue the Army to release non-classified information about its actions. And I'm tired of the U.S government pretending its my benign daddy, deciding what I should see and hiding things that might be disturbing. This is a democracy. We the People own the military, not Shrub or Rummy.

The 10 worst ideas

In response to the 10 most harmful books list that I discussed in a previous post, Pax Nortona has posted his own list (his preface included):

I am not one to call for the burning of books. Therefore you won’t read a list of my most dangerous books. Nor will I compile a conservative enemy’s list. Both of these activities call for elimination: of thought or of persons. But it is fair to list the ten worst ideas, actions and attitudes that the extreme wRong perform in this society:

1. The placement of profit over every other value, including moral ones.
   
2. Denial of atrocity or minimizing the signifigance of atrocity committed by their own.
   
3. The compilation of enemies lists. McCarthyism/Coulterism.
   
4. The compilation of “bad” books lists.
   
5. Insistance that the tax burden be placed on those who can afford it the least.
   
6. The usurpation of civil liberties in the name of security.
   
7. Monopolization of the media so that only their voices can be heard. The use of doublespeak in those forums so that people do not know what the administration is actually up to.
   
8. The insistance that personal character is more important than policy. The use of this to hinder investigation.
   
9. The use of disinformation to obscure facts in the name of preventing reasonable discourse about current problems. This includes the Straussian technique of writing./speaking in such a manner that your true intentions cannot be discerned.
   
10. The use of fringe moral values as a way of distracting citizens from issues that affect their prosperity and job security.
    

Confessions of a traitor within

Delftsman, after our latest sparring match, pointed me to a relatively well-written (if note well-reasoned) article by Kim du Toit. Since the argument in Kim's article is related to some of my posts during the last few days, I'd like to provide a rebuttal of some of its points. Kim's article begins with a quote from Cicero (a self-serving aristocrat of the Roman Empire) and then goes on to warn us of traitors "within our walls." To give his argument an academic ambience, Kim makes historical analogies with the events leading up to France's fall to the Germans in WWII. Kim views the strengths of France at the time as being in its military and bureaucracy, and feels that these wonderful institutions were undermined by a number of traitors assisted by an unloyal press, an apathetic public, a pacifist mentality, and a lack of concern for constitutional rights. He also cites the divisive appeal of fascism and communism. The lesson Kim draws from this is that the U.S. is threatened by just such forces and traitors today.

When discussing the specific modus operandi of the traitors, Kim mentions the following specific points:

1. The attempt to "change our government completely" by making it a direct democracy without the Electoral College.

As one of those traitors who would love to see this happen, I stand guilty as charged. However, the realistic odds of enough states (many of whom benefit from the current status quo) supporting such a constitutional change are nil. So I won't even bother to rebut the silly argument that our system is necessary to keep big states from picking on little ones.

2. The attempt to void basic freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution.

Judging from his silence about virtually all other infringment of rights, Kim evidently is talking exclusively about gun control and property rights. Once again, we're warned of something that definitely won't happen in the foreseeable future. Personally, I'm tempted to join the conservative enemy on this issue. Let the conservatives have all the guns they want. Hell, maybe we should all go out and buy an arsenel. We may need them. With that point taken care of, perhaps we should consider a few other areas of the Constitution. Doesn't it concern anyone that things like freedom of speech, freedom to gather and protest, freedom to a trial before one's peers, freedom of confidentiality regarding one's papers, and myriad other basic rights are being trampled, like never before, by the current administration? Why do people on the right only care about guns?

3. Disunity. America's coming apart!

Here Kim talks about the multiplicity of languages being spoken (i.e., Spanish) and laments the alleged loss of "our common culture and heritage" replaced by relativism imposed on an unwilling populace. I suppose Kim envisions an America more like Germany or France where national identity is synonymous with language and culture. If this is what America's really "about," wealthy business men probably need to stop bringing over cheap labor (whether it be Chinese or Hispanic) to exploit. Then we can go about creating our little 1950ish society of shared suburban values. This would require some pretty radical changes in order to get all of the outliers to conform to the beer-belly of the bell curve. There will still be a large group of people who will never agree to toe the line. Perhaps Kim envisions a cultural revolution so that these folks get with the program--or at least, get off the main streets. (I suppose that's why Kim placed so much emphasis on the guns.)

4. Kim also lambasts those “progressives”, “socialists”, “communitarians”, “populists”, “globalists” and other moonbats who are trying to replace the Republic with "another type of state" and "one which serves their own ambitions or goals" (sounds good to me) "—or, most reprehensibly, the ambitions and goals of those outside our borders" (and live in harmony with others. Even I find this reprehensible!) We traitors are accused here of supporting “open borders.” Actually, the political support for open borders is generally from Republican businessmen who want cheap labor, and by immigrant groups themselves. But I guess we shouldn't let a few pesky facts get in the way. It's a fine-sounding argument. And while I'm one of those traitors who actually doesn't believe in states, if we're going to have states, I don't see why we'd want to let in illegal immigrants. Now if we can just convince those traitorous businessmen and factory owners.

Kim's original half-baked comparison of the U.S. with pre-WWII France gets lost somewhere. It's just as well. Unlike the U.S., France was never a world hegemon and was only a European hegemon for an extremely brief interlude. Sandwiched between the then-world superpower (Britain) and the up-and-coming superpower (Germany), France's options were limited. The idea that the U.S. is now a struggling country threatened by powerful aggressors is not only mistaken, but is patently ridiculous. Does Kim see a Canadian or Mexican invasion on the horizon? Were the motley groups of religious kooks who took over some planes using pepper spray somehow similar to invading Nazis? For analogies, Kim should have stuck with the source of his original quote--an overconfident Rome weakened by wealthy elites like Cicero.

In true bad-ass conservative fashion, Kim ends his diatribe with a veiled threat to kill all of us "traitors within."

"And lest anyone think that simply desiring a different form of government is neither treason nor traitorous, it should be noted that after France was liberated by the Allies in 1944, and after a long and exhaustive trial, Pierre Laval was executed by firing squad."

My advice to all of you pointing fingers and gathering guns. It's much better if we can keep our differences in the forum of democratic debate. Because when we introduce violence and executions by firing squad, there might be some of us who have a very different idea of what makes a person a traitor. And you might not like where you find yourself.

Rightwing revisionism

A while back, the blogosphere witnessed a heated discussion on the Japanese revision (or denial) of its history and China's reaction to it. And then we had the spectacle of Shrub berating the Russian president for not being sorry enough for Russian history. But I would suggest to Shrub and all his little Shrublings that they turn their gaze inward and attempt to cast out the demons of historical revisionism that exist closer to home sweet home.

These demons have been appearing steadily since the discovery of the identity of Deep Throat. When it came out that Felt was in fact the long-sought-after whistle-blower, I was sure that all American citizens whose historical memory stretches back to tricky Dick would be singing Felt's praises. Instead, we've had this bizarre reaction from the right.

Pat Buchanan, the Nixon speechwriter-turned-conservative commentator, of course has had harsh words for Felt. "We've always conceded that the `old man' handled it badly. But he was not brought down by a band of angels. He was brought down by a band of Nixon-haters ... and whom we now learn used a snake in the FBI." Buchanan went on to call Felt "sneaky" and "dishonorable" on MSNBC's Hardball.

Rumsfeld, true to form, has suggested that Felt was wrong for reporting this to the American people instead of to "authorities." What a dumb-ass! When will Rummy figure out that the "authorities" in a democracy are the American people?

Gordon Liddy, the Nixon operative who engineered the 1972 break-in at the Democratic National Campaign headquarters in the Watergate building in Washington, whines on about how Felt "violated the ethics of the law enforcement profession." I don't know about you, but I'd prefer to get lectured on ethics by people who aren't themselves unrepenting criminals.

And what do we find in the hallowed halls of blogosphere conservatism. Here are just a few examples (the bold highlighting is my own):

New England Conservative: "It was obvious that liberals loathed Nixon because of the anti-communist influence he had dating back to the late 1940's. They would do anything to avenge his love for America. Republicans just didn't want a rapist in the White House."

Then we have this dumber than dumb remark on Dummocrats: "[Felt is] no hero. He's just a man. Kind of like how Nixon was no evil villain, he was just a man too."

In typical fashion, conservative swarms are attacking Felt's character. On Captain's Quarters, for example, we find, "At 91, one would expect Felt to have grown past any need for self-aggrandizement."

Then there's the conservative meme (from Ben quoted on Steve Sailor's blog) about how governments that aren't allowed to carry out criminal activities are somehow crippled. "So Gray was slipping info to the White House, and Felt was slipping info to the Post, and every GS-9 in Washington was enjoying himself immensely gossiping around the water cooler or Mr. Coffee pot, and we got about seven years of obsessing over bureaucratic minutiae, a much more open government, but also a government that was much less effective in carrying out its basic obligations in foreign policy and domestic law enforcement and other critical functions." Ben is certainly right. Fascist governments are much more "effective" and have an easier time with "domestic law enforcement."

Some commentary on Fox News has also suggested that Felt is a criminal. I guess the idea is that one should be loyal to the powers-that-be, even when the powerful are gangsters. This idea, incidently, is simply unadorned fascism. And it's the same sort of thinking that formed the basis for monarchies, or for organized criminal operations like the mafia. The fact that conservatives embrace this sort of thinking demonstrates the conservative movement has become morally bankrupt.

Fortunately, there is at least a little light during these dark times. As Laura says so eloquently on War and Piece, "May these new revelations re-inspire conviction that the forces of political malfeasance, corruption and lying to the public are ultimately vulnerable to the forces of truth -- and the decent people willing to sacrifice something for helping get it out there."

Ellsberg really bring this point home on Salon, "Felt was one of a dozen people who had access to information that the White House was lying. I'd like each of those people to ask themselves why they weren't Deep Throat, how they justified not sharing that information with the world. We desperately need more Mark Felts right now, and we needed them back in 1964. He played an important part in holding the government accountable, and should receive an honorary Nobel Prize."

The 10 most harmful books

A conservative site, Human Events, has recently come up with a list of the 10 most harmful books of all time. I realize that it isn't good to pass on conservative memes, but I figure that we on the left need to encourage any dialog that gets the conservatives to actually refer to a book instead of a radio host or Fox News anchor. So let's look at this list of the "Ten Most Harmful Books of the 19th and 20th Centuries" put together by conservative "scholars."

1. The Communist Manifesto
Fair enough. People on the right don't like communists. The situation in Europe (and Britain in particular) which Marx was criticizing is evidently much preferable: child labor, a complete lack of protections for the average person, and an economy set up to benefit a small class of extremely wealthy individuals. (Does this sound familiar?) We make choices in our lives and if your choice is to sympathize with the wealthy instead of the poor then so be it.

2. Mein Kampf
As Human Events says, "The book was originally ignored. But not after Hitler rose to power." There's probably a good reason why it was ignored before it was rammed down people's throats. I tried to go through Mein Kampf once and was amazed at how foggy-headed it was. If anything, the Nazi movement seems to have succeeded in spite of the book instead of because of it. It reads pretty much like Fox News sounds--endless ranting without even a hint of logical structure behind it. If you're already a rabid racist, you "get it." If not, it's hard to make it to page zwei.

3. Quotations from Chairman Mao
Once again, I can't imagine that this book was really influential in terms of ideas. Intellectually, it's a very dull book that presents Chinese Marxism in a tiring fashion--a stodgy Germanic form of Chinese Confucianism. Oddly enough, Human Events bemoans the book's strident attack on Western Imperialism. The most damming quote they come up with is, "It is the task of the people of the whole world to put an end to the aggression and oppression perpetrated by imperialism, and chiefly by U.S. imperialism." So what's the problem with that? These conservative "scholars" putting together the list need to put down the remote and read a history book or two. China had spent the last century crawling with foreigners that were pillaging the country and trying to get the entire Chinese populace addicted to opium. Of course the Chinese weren't too happy working as coolies and prostitutes for Western fatcats. And when a dedicated group of peasants managed to liberate the country from the Western imperialists and their local accomplices, most Chinese were setting off fireworks. I hardly see this anti-imperialist note as the book's major shortcoming.

4. The Kinsey Report

5. Democracy and Education by John Dewey

6. Das Kapital

I wonder how many conservatives have read Das Kapital. My guess is very few. I tried to wade through those waters and must confess that I didn't make it very far. For that matter, I wonder how many Marxists have read this supposedly seminal work. My guess is that we'd find few fingerprints on the pages of this classic sitting around in libraries across the world. But I'm being facetious--it's ideas have been influential. And unfortunately, many on the far left have followed Marx with an almost religious devotion reminiscent of fundamental Christians quoting passages from Leviticus. Marx was brilliant for his time, but his theories needed to evolve through time.

7. The Feminine Mystique

8. The Course of Positive Philosophy by Comte

This is about the only book I'd agree on. Positivism was a death-knell for Western philosophy since it limited it to the clarification of theoretical formulations. The mistake (exemplified by Russel in his early years) was to think that philosophy was nothing more than empirical science's ugly step-sister. Western philosophy still hasn't recovered from the blow. Of course the conservative "scholars" on Human Events attack the book for other reasons--its failure to make philosophy the whore of religion.

9. Beyond Good and Evil

I am no great fan of Nietzsche (although I'm sure many conservatives are). But once again, the conservative "scholars" manage to criticize the one positive quality in the work--the existential insight that people must ultimately be responsible for what they do, that knowledge--no matter how extensive--never frees us from choice.

10. General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money by Keynes

The authors here criticize Keynes idea that "When the business cycle threatens a contraction of industry, and thus of jobs . . . the government should run up deficits, borrowing and spending money to spur economic activity." These scholars need to talk to Bush (having failed to talk to Reagan). In a nutshell, this quote sums up the entire economic platform of the American conservatives.

The Human Events website includes some honorable mentions.

I would agree that Beyond Freedom and Dignity by B.F. Skinner is a book with some dangerous ideas which have had some harmful effects in a number of areas. Even so, the book is recommended as a thought-provoking account of a "great" idea (behaviorism). I'd also agree that Madness and Civilization by Michel Foucault presents a dangerous idea, especially for the left, in that it introduces notions of relativism into intellectual discourse. (Foucault is ultimately to blame for the crappy lyrics of the otherwise awesome band Phish. The post-Foucault young find it impossible to take anything seriously; hence the current generation hasn't been able to produce a Dylan.)

The Origin of the Species by Charles Darwin is of course a very telling pick. The cromagnon scholars would evidently like to see us reading the Vulgate for scientific knowledge and inspiration. Evidently, a great many people also felt threatened by The Second Sex. I read this ages ago but I have a hard time remembering any passages threatening to castrate all males or storm thecitadelss of power, but who knows. Perhaps I missed something.

Shocking news

Well I finally broke down and got cable (it came bundled with the only fast internet service I could get). So at lunch time yesterday, I turned on the bubetoob and watched Fox "News." There appears a young Fox news anchor beginning a short story on Buddhist monks. He prefaces the story with some remark like, "Buddhist monks supposedly only love peace." (Hearing this, I'm thinking--some monk here in the U.S. must have gone on a shooting rampage or something.) He then goes on to say (without providing any background whatsoever) that some Buddhist monks in Thailand were caught brawling and were thereby defrocked!

I'd like to say a few things about this story. First, if Fox wanted to dig up dirt about decadent non-Christians around the world, they could have done better than this. There are millions of Buddhists around the world and while some have undoubtedly achieved an impressive degree of inner peace and social consciousness, I'm sure there are some deranged people wearing robes. Of course, the same could be said of any large group of people. This being the case, I have a hard time seeing how a handful of Buddhist monks fighting is newsworthy. The Fox News folks must all be extremely devout Buddhists who previously thought 100% of the Buddhist monastic order were enlightened sages. What a let-down it must have been to hear of monks fighting!

I wonder if any of Thailand's major TV news stations have ever run a similar story on American Christians. I can imagine the story now: "Christians are supposedly concerned for the poor and believe that it is virtually impossible for a rich man to enter heaven. Yet our news reporters have just discovered the story of an American Christian minister driving around a Cadillac!" Would such a story be newsworthy?

What's shocking to me is not that there are some bozos supported by some rich people with an axe to grind who are calling themselves a news station. The world is full of people spouting nonsense (occasionally, I even have lunch with them). What does surprise and upset me is that a large group of the U.S. population claim, with a straight face, that Fox News is the paragon news station, willing to tell the whole truth without a grain of bias. This is scary! People actually claim to believe this! (I still can't quite believe that they really do.) Are a couple of Thai monks fighting "a story" in any place besides a bar or a barber shop? Evidently, on Fox, it's something the entire U.S. populace needs to know about.