by Fred Reed
It's all but official: The war in Iraq is lost. Report after leaked report says so. Everybody in Washington knows it except that draft-dodging ferret in the White House. Politicians scurry to avoid the blame. One day soon people will ask aloud: How did we let 3000 GIs die for the weak ego of a pampered liar and his desperate need to prove he's half the man his father was?
The troops from now on will die for a war that they already know is over. They are dying for politicians. They are dying for nothing. By now they must know it. It happened to us, too, long ago.
The talk among pols now is about finding an "exit strategy." This means a way of pulling out without risking too many seats in Congress. Screw the troops. We must look to the elections. Do we really want an exit strategy? A friend of mine, with two tours in heavy combat in another war, has devised a splendid exit strategy. It consists of five words: "OK. On the plane. Now." Bring your toothbrush. Everything else stays. We're outa here.
It is a workable exit strategy, one with teeth, and comprehensible to all. But we won't use it. We will continue killing our men, calculatedly, cynically, for the benefit of politicians. The important thing, you see, is the place in history of Bush Puppy. Screw the troops.
Face it. The soldiers are being used. They are being suckered. This isn't new. It happened to my generation. Long after we knew that the war in Vietnam was lost, Lyndon Johnson kept it going to fertilize his vanity, and then Nixon spoke of the need to "save face"—at two hundred dead GIs a week. But of course Johnson and Nixon weren't among the dead, or among the GIs.
I saw an interview on television long ago in which the reporter asked an infantryman near Danang, I think, what he thought of Nixon's plan to save face. "His face, our ass," was the reply. Just so, then, and just so now. Screw the troops. What the hell, they breed fast in Kansas anyway.
Soldiers are succinct and do not mince words. This makes them dangerous. We must keep them off-camera to the extent possible. A GI telling the truth could set recruiting back by years.
The truth is that the government doesn't care about its soldiers, and never has. If you think I am being unduly harsh, read the Washington Post. You will find story after story saying that the Democrats don't want to do anything drastic about the war. They fear seeming "soft on national security." In other words, they care more about their electoral prospects in 2008 than they do about the lives of GIs. It's no secret. For them it is a matter of tuning the spin, of covering tracks, of calculating the vector sum of the ardent-patriot vote which may be cooling, deciding which way the liberal wind blows, and staying poised to seem to have supported whoever wins. Screw the troops. Their fathers probably work in factories anyway.
Soldiers do not realize, until too late, the contempt in which they are held by their betters. Here is the psychological foundation of the hobbyist wars of bus-station presidents. If you are, say, a Lance Corporal in some miserable region of Iraq, I have a question for you: Would your commanding general let you date his daughter? I spent my high-school years on a naval base, Dahlgren Naval Proving Ground as it was then called. Dahlgren was heavy with officers, scientists, and engineers. Their daughters, my classmates, were not allowed to associate with sailors. Oh yes, we honor our fighting men. We hold them in endless respect. Yes we do.
For that matter, Lance Corporal, ask how many members of Congress have even served, much less been in combat. Ask how many have children in the armed services. Look around you. Do you see many (any) guys from Harvard? Yale? MIT? Cornell? Exactly. The smart, the well-off, the powerful are not about to risk their irreplaceable sit-parts in combat. Nor are they going to mix with mere high-school graduates, with kids from small towns in Tennessee, with blue-collar riffraff who bowl and drink Bud at places with names like Lenny's Rib Room. One simply doesn't. One has standards.
You are being suckered, gang, just as we were.
It is a science. The government hires slick PR firms and ad agencies in New York. These study what things make a young stud want to be A Soldier: a desire to prove himself, to get laid in foreign places, a craving for adventure, a desire to feel part of something big and powerful and respected, what have you. They know exactly what they are doing. They craft phrases, "Be a Man Among Men," or "A Few Good Men," or, since girls don't like those two, "The Few, The Proud." Join up and be Superman.
Then comes the calculated psychological conditioning. There is for example the sense of power and unity that comes of running to cadence with a platoon of other guys, thump, thump, thump, all shouting to the heady rhythm of boots, "If I die on the Russian front, bury me with a Russian c__t, Lef-rye-lef-rye-lef-rye-lef..." That was Parris Island, August of '66, and doubtless they say something else now, but the principle is the same.
And so you come out in splendid physical shape and feeling no end manly and they tell you how noble it is to Fight for Your Country. This might be true if anyone were invading the country. But since Washington always invades somebody else, you are actually fighting for Big Oil, or Israel, or the defense industry, or the sexual ambiguities who staff National Review, or the vanity of that moral dwarf on Pennsylvania Avenue. You will figure this out years later.
Once you are in the war, you can't get out. We couldn't either. While your commander in chief eats steak in the White House and talks tough, just like a real president, you kill people you have no reason to kill, about whom you know next to nothing—which one day may weigh on your conscience. It does with a lot of guys, but that comes later.
You are being suckered, and so are the social classes that supply the military. Note that the Pentagon cracks down hard on troops who say the wrong things online, that the White House won't allow coffins to be photographed, that the networks never give soldiers a chance to talk unedited about what is happening. Oh no. It is crucial to keep morale up among the rubes. You are the rubes. So, once, were we.
Tuesday, December 19, 2006
Tuesday, December 12, 2006
Smoke and Mirrors
A group of military experts consisting of three retired generals and two academics advised Bush not to withdrawal troops from Iraq, yesterday. Wow, what a surprise!
Expecting anybody military to suggest a decrease in troop strength in Iraq is like expecting a race car driver to suggest the best thing for racing is to go slower, it aint gonna happen.
So Bush continues pulling the wool over the eyes of Americans by seeking “advice” from “experts.” These sessions are little more than staged events the outcome of which are determined in advance for the benefit of the emperor. Bush will go before the public and claim that he has listened to the advice of the military and low and behold, withdrawing from Iraq would not be pertinent, the military says so!
In scripted testimony the five agreed, “…the Army and Marine Corps both need to be bigger, and also need bigger budgets.”
White House officials emphasized that although the experts gave a bleak assessment, they still believe the situation in Iraq is "winnable."
"I appreciate the advice I got from those folks in the field," Bush said after emerging from the morning session. "And that advice is . . . an important component of putting together a new way forward in Iraq."
The carefully choreographed meetings are coming on the heels of the release last week of the Iraq Study Group's report, which pronounced the situation in Iraq "grave" and recommended fundamental shifts in how the Bush administration handles the war. To stem the deteriorating situation in Iraq, the report said, the administration should shift the focus of its military mission from direct combat to training Iraqi troops, while pressing harder for a diplomatic solution by engaging Iran and Syria -- something Bush has pointedly refused to do. - Washington Post
What are we to make of these meetings? Simple, when the Iraq Study Group issues it’s report condemning the administration for it’s handling of the war, the White House cobbles together their own panels whose suggestions come out in opposition to what the Baker commission recommends so that it appears that the President is open to differing opinions. In reality it is just political cover for “stay the course.” The faces may have changed but the policy stays the same.
Expecting anybody military to suggest a decrease in troop strength in Iraq is like expecting a race car driver to suggest the best thing for racing is to go slower, it aint gonna happen.
So Bush continues pulling the wool over the eyes of Americans by seeking “advice” from “experts.” These sessions are little more than staged events the outcome of which are determined in advance for the benefit of the emperor. Bush will go before the public and claim that he has listened to the advice of the military and low and behold, withdrawing from Iraq would not be pertinent, the military says so!
In scripted testimony the five agreed, “…the Army and Marine Corps both need to be bigger, and also need bigger budgets.”
White House officials emphasized that although the experts gave a bleak assessment, they still believe the situation in Iraq is "winnable."
"I appreciate the advice I got from those folks in the field," Bush said after emerging from the morning session. "And that advice is . . . an important component of putting together a new way forward in Iraq."
The carefully choreographed meetings are coming on the heels of the release last week of the Iraq Study Group's report, which pronounced the situation in Iraq "grave" and recommended fundamental shifts in how the Bush administration handles the war. To stem the deteriorating situation in Iraq, the report said, the administration should shift the focus of its military mission from direct combat to training Iraqi troops, while pressing harder for a diplomatic solution by engaging Iran and Syria -- something Bush has pointedly refused to do. - Washington Post
What are we to make of these meetings? Simple, when the Iraq Study Group issues it’s report condemning the administration for it’s handling of the war, the White House cobbles together their own panels whose suggestions come out in opposition to what the Baker commission recommends so that it appears that the President is open to differing opinions. In reality it is just political cover for “stay the course.” The faces may have changed but the policy stays the same.
Debt
U.S. government debt now tops $9 trillion, before taking into account its unfunded obligations for Social Security and Medicare -- debts that the retiring boomers will soon have their hands out to collect.
After adding in Social Security, Medicare and all the government's other pay-later obligations, the current debt actually comes in at over $60 trillion-an amount so large, not one person in a million has a real sense of it. So let's try to put that number into perspective.
A trillion is 1000 X 1000 X 1000 X 1000, or a million millions. In his first address to Congress, President Reagan, himself a big spender, accurately pointed out that a stack of $1,000 bills four inches high makes you a millionaire, and that a trillion dollars would be a stack 67 miles high!
The U.S. government owes 60 of those sky-piercing stacks of $1,000 bills.
It's a lot of money. And it's not just any kind of money. Amazingly, this unbacked currency of a bankrupt government is still the reserve currency of virtually every nation in the world today. But not, we think, for much longer.
To service its debt and keep the game going, the U.S. government must sell on the order of $2.5 billion per day in new Treasury bills, much of it to foreigners already sitting on something like $6 trillion of U.S. paper.
Absent the foreign buyers of U.S. Treasury securities, the whole scam begins to unravel. And once it begins to unravel in earnest, with wealthy foreigners and then governments rushing to switch out of dollars, the speed and steepness of the monetary collapse will be breathtaking.
After adding in Social Security, Medicare and all the government's other pay-later obligations, the current debt actually comes in at over $60 trillion-an amount so large, not one person in a million has a real sense of it. So let's try to put that number into perspective.
A trillion is 1000 X 1000 X 1000 X 1000, or a million millions. In his first address to Congress, President Reagan, himself a big spender, accurately pointed out that a stack of $1,000 bills four inches high makes you a millionaire, and that a trillion dollars would be a stack 67 miles high!
The U.S. government owes 60 of those sky-piercing stacks of $1,000 bills.
It's a lot of money. And it's not just any kind of money. Amazingly, this unbacked currency of a bankrupt government is still the reserve currency of virtually every nation in the world today. But not, we think, for much longer.
To service its debt and keep the game going, the U.S. government must sell on the order of $2.5 billion per day in new Treasury bills, much of it to foreigners already sitting on something like $6 trillion of U.S. paper.
Absent the foreign buyers of U.S. Treasury securities, the whole scam begins to unravel. And once it begins to unravel in earnest, with wealthy foreigners and then governments rushing to switch out of dollars, the speed and steepness of the monetary collapse will be breathtaking.
Monday, December 11, 2006
Daily Reckoning excerpt
And along the same lines, a dinner companion said on Saturday night,
"What is really driving the U.S. economy is the war in Iraq and the war
against terror."
"They're spending $75 billion per quarter...that's $300 billion a year.
And it's in addition to the regular budget. People think that money goes
to building roads and schools in Iraq. But most of it - all but 15% or so
- is spent in the United States. It goes to contractors for computer
programs, weapons, and supplies. That has a huge impact on the economy.
And that's why there is so little opposition to the war. People know that
when the war stops, the economy goes into recession."
Our friend is a contractor for the Pentagon:
"It is unbelievable how much money is being spent. They are spending
billions right on the Pentagon building itself. And now there's a lot of
argument about where the money is being spent. People in New York are
complaining about spending money in Montana. And they've got a point, of
course. Montana is not exactly the front lines in the war against terror.
But from a defensive point of view, almost all the money is wasted anyway,
so it probably doesn't make much difference. "
What a strange and wonderful war. Rather than tightening our belts, the
war is taken as a pretext to spend more money.
"What is really driving the U.S. economy is the war in Iraq and the war
against terror."
"They're spending $75 billion per quarter...that's $300 billion a year.
And it's in addition to the regular budget. People think that money goes
to building roads and schools in Iraq. But most of it - all but 15% or so
- is spent in the United States. It goes to contractors for computer
programs, weapons, and supplies. That has a huge impact on the economy.
And that's why there is so little opposition to the war. People know that
when the war stops, the economy goes into recession."
Our friend is a contractor for the Pentagon:
"It is unbelievable how much money is being spent. They are spending
billions right on the Pentagon building itself. And now there's a lot of
argument about where the money is being spent. People in New York are
complaining about spending money in Montana. And they've got a point, of
course. Montana is not exactly the front lines in the war against terror.
But from a defensive point of view, almost all the money is wasted anyway,
so it probably doesn't make much difference. "
What a strange and wonderful war. Rather than tightening our belts, the
war is taken as a pretext to spend more money.
Wednesday, December 06, 2006
Fine Print in Defense Bill Opens Door to Martial Law
Fine Print in Defense Bill Opens Door to Martial Law
By Jeff Stein, CQ National Security Editor
It’s amazing what you can find if you turn over a few rocks in the anti-terrorism legislation Congress approved during the election season.
Take, for example, the John W. Warner Defense Authorization Act of 2006, named for the longtime Armed Services Committee chairman from Virginia.
Signed by President Bush on Oct. 17, the law (PL 109-364) has a provocative provision called “Use of the Armed Forces in Major Public Emergencies.”
The thrust of it seems to be about giving the federal government a far stronger hand in coordinating responses to Katrina-like disasters.
But on closer inspection, its language also alters the two-centuries-old Insurrection Act, which Congress passed in 1807 to limit the president’s power to deploy troops within the United States.
That law has long allowed the president to mobilize troops only “to suppress, in a State, any insurrection, domestic violence, unlawful combination, or conspiracy.”
But the amended law takes the cuffs off.
Specifically, the new language adds “natural disaster, epidemic, or other serious public health emergency, terrorist attack or incident” to the list of conditions permitting the President to take over local authority — particularly “if domestic violence has occurred to such an extent that the constituted authorities of the State or possession are incapable of maintaining public order.”
Since the administration broadened what constitutes “conspiracy” in its definition of enemy combatants — anyone who “has purposely and materially supported hostilities against the United States,” in the language of the Military Commissions Act (PL 109-366) — critics say it’s a formula for executive branch mischief.
Yet despite such a radical turn, the new law garnered little dissent, or even attention, on the Hill.
One of the few to complain, Sen. Patrick J. Leahy, D-Vt., warned that the measure virtually invites the White House to declare federal martial law.
It “subverts solid, longstanding posse comitatus statutes that limit the military’s involvement in law enforcement, thereby making it easier for the President to declare martial law,” he said in remarks submitted to the Congressional Record on Sept. 29.
“The changes to the Insurrection Act will allow the President to use the military, including the National Guard, to carry out law enforcement activities without the consent of a governor,” he said.
Moreover, he said, it breaks a long, fundamental tradition of federal restraint.
“Using the military for law enforcement goes against one of the founding tenets of our democracy.”
And he criticized the way it was rammed through Congress.
It “was just slipped in the defense bill as a rider with little study,” he fumed. “Other congressional committees with jurisdiction over these matters had no chance to comment, let alone hold hearings on, these proposals.”
No matter: Safely tucked into the $526 billion defense bill, it easily crossed the goal line on the last day of September.
Silence
The language doesn’t just brush aside a liberal Democrat slated to take over the Judiciary Committee come January. It also runs over the backs of the governors, 22 of whom are Republicans.
The governors had waved red flags about the measure on Aug. 1, sending letters of protest from their Washington office to the Republican chairs and ranking Democrats on the House and Senate Armed Services committees.
No response. So they petitioned the party heads on the Hill — Sens. Bill Frist, R-Tenn., and Harry Reid, D-Nev., Speaker of the House J. Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., and his Democratic opposite, Nancy Pelosi of California.
“This provision was drafted without consultation or input from governors,” said the Aug. 6 letter signed by every member of the National Governors Association, “and represents an unprecedented shift in authority from governors . . .to the federal government.”
“We urge you,” they said, “to drop provisions that would usurp governors’ authority over the National Guard during emergencies from the conference agreement on the National Defense Authorization Act.”
Again, no response from the leadership, said David Quam, the National Governors Association’s director of federal relations.
On Aug. 31, the governors sent another letter to the congressional party leaders, as well as to Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, who had met quietly with an NGA delegation back in February.
The bill “could encroach on our constitutional authority to protect the citizens of our states,” they protested, complaining again about how the provision had been dumped on a midnight express.
“Any issue that affects the mission of the Guard in the states must be addressed in consultation and coordination with governors,” they demanded.
“The role of the Guard in the states and to the nation as a whole is too important to have major policy decisions made without full debate and input from governors throughout the policy process.”
More silence.
“We did not know until the bill was printed where we stood,” Quam said.
That’s partly the governors’ own fault, said a Republican Senate aide.
“My understanding is that they sent form letters to offices,” she said. “If they really want a piece of legislation considered they should have called offices and pushed the matter. No office can handle the amount of form letters that come in each day.”
Quam disputed that.
“The letter was only the beginning of the conversation,” he said. “The NGA and the governors’ offices reached out across the Hill.”
Blogosphere
Looking back at the government’s chaotic response to Katrina, it’s not altogether surprising that the provision drew so little opposition in Congress and attention from the mainstream media.
And of course, it was wrapped in a monster defense bill related to the emergency in Iraq.
But the blogosphere, of course, was all over it.
A close analysis of the bill by Frank Morales, a 58-year-old Episcopal priest in New York who occasionally writes for left-wing publications, spurred a score of liberal and conservative libertarian Web sites to take a look at it.
But a search of The Washington Post and New York Times archives, using the terms “Insurrection Act,” “martial law” and “Congress,” came up empty.
That’s not to say the papers don’t care: There’s just too much going on in the global war on terror to keep up with, much less write about such a seemingly insignificant provision. The martial law section of the Defense Appropriation Act, for example, takes up just a few paragraphs in the 591-page document.
What else is in there? More intriguing stuff, it looks like — and I’m working my way through it.
By Jeff Stein, CQ National Security Editor
It’s amazing what you can find if you turn over a few rocks in the anti-terrorism legislation Congress approved during the election season.
Take, for example, the John W. Warner Defense Authorization Act of 2006, named for the longtime Armed Services Committee chairman from Virginia.
Signed by President Bush on Oct. 17, the law (PL 109-364) has a provocative provision called “Use of the Armed Forces in Major Public Emergencies.”
The thrust of it seems to be about giving the federal government a far stronger hand in coordinating responses to Katrina-like disasters.
But on closer inspection, its language also alters the two-centuries-old Insurrection Act, which Congress passed in 1807 to limit the president’s power to deploy troops within the United States.
That law has long allowed the president to mobilize troops only “to suppress, in a State, any insurrection, domestic violence, unlawful combination, or conspiracy.”
But the amended law takes the cuffs off.
Specifically, the new language adds “natural disaster, epidemic, or other serious public health emergency, terrorist attack or incident” to the list of conditions permitting the President to take over local authority — particularly “if domestic violence has occurred to such an extent that the constituted authorities of the State or possession are incapable of maintaining public order.”
Since the administration broadened what constitutes “conspiracy” in its definition of enemy combatants — anyone who “has purposely and materially supported hostilities against the United States,” in the language of the Military Commissions Act (PL 109-366) — critics say it’s a formula for executive branch mischief.
Yet despite such a radical turn, the new law garnered little dissent, or even attention, on the Hill.
One of the few to complain, Sen. Patrick J. Leahy, D-Vt., warned that the measure virtually invites the White House to declare federal martial law.
It “subverts solid, longstanding posse comitatus statutes that limit the military’s involvement in law enforcement, thereby making it easier for the President to declare martial law,” he said in remarks submitted to the Congressional Record on Sept. 29.
“The changes to the Insurrection Act will allow the President to use the military, including the National Guard, to carry out law enforcement activities without the consent of a governor,” he said.
Moreover, he said, it breaks a long, fundamental tradition of federal restraint.
“Using the military for law enforcement goes against one of the founding tenets of our democracy.”
And he criticized the way it was rammed through Congress.
It “was just slipped in the defense bill as a rider with little study,” he fumed. “Other congressional committees with jurisdiction over these matters had no chance to comment, let alone hold hearings on, these proposals.”
No matter: Safely tucked into the $526 billion defense bill, it easily crossed the goal line on the last day of September.
Silence
The language doesn’t just brush aside a liberal Democrat slated to take over the Judiciary Committee come January. It also runs over the backs of the governors, 22 of whom are Republicans.
The governors had waved red flags about the measure on Aug. 1, sending letters of protest from their Washington office to the Republican chairs and ranking Democrats on the House and Senate Armed Services committees.
No response. So they petitioned the party heads on the Hill — Sens. Bill Frist, R-Tenn., and Harry Reid, D-Nev., Speaker of the House J. Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., and his Democratic opposite, Nancy Pelosi of California.
“This provision was drafted without consultation or input from governors,” said the Aug. 6 letter signed by every member of the National Governors Association, “and represents an unprecedented shift in authority from governors . . .to the federal government.”
“We urge you,” they said, “to drop provisions that would usurp governors’ authority over the National Guard during emergencies from the conference agreement on the National Defense Authorization Act.”
Again, no response from the leadership, said David Quam, the National Governors Association’s director of federal relations.
On Aug. 31, the governors sent another letter to the congressional party leaders, as well as to Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, who had met quietly with an NGA delegation back in February.
The bill “could encroach on our constitutional authority to protect the citizens of our states,” they protested, complaining again about how the provision had been dumped on a midnight express.
“Any issue that affects the mission of the Guard in the states must be addressed in consultation and coordination with governors,” they demanded.
“The role of the Guard in the states and to the nation as a whole is too important to have major policy decisions made without full debate and input from governors throughout the policy process.”
More silence.
“We did not know until the bill was printed where we stood,” Quam said.
That’s partly the governors’ own fault, said a Republican Senate aide.
“My understanding is that they sent form letters to offices,” she said. “If they really want a piece of legislation considered they should have called offices and pushed the matter. No office can handle the amount of form letters that come in each day.”
Quam disputed that.
“The letter was only the beginning of the conversation,” he said. “The NGA and the governors’ offices reached out across the Hill.”
Blogosphere
Looking back at the government’s chaotic response to Katrina, it’s not altogether surprising that the provision drew so little opposition in Congress and attention from the mainstream media.
And of course, it was wrapped in a monster defense bill related to the emergency in Iraq.
But the blogosphere, of course, was all over it.
A close analysis of the bill by Frank Morales, a 58-year-old Episcopal priest in New York who occasionally writes for left-wing publications, spurred a score of liberal and conservative libertarian Web sites to take a look at it.
But a search of The Washington Post and New York Times archives, using the terms “Insurrection Act,” “martial law” and “Congress,” came up empty.
That’s not to say the papers don’t care: There’s just too much going on in the global war on terror to keep up with, much less write about such a seemingly insignificant provision. The martial law section of the Defense Appropriation Act, for example, takes up just a few paragraphs in the 591-page document.
What else is in there? More intriguing stuff, it looks like — and I’m working my way through it.
Tuesday, November 28, 2006
It's official...Civil War
WASHINGTON, Nov 28 (Reuters) - Over White House objections, The New York Times and other U.S. news outlets have adopted the term "civil war" for the fighting in Iraq, reflecting a growing consensus that sectarian violence has engulfed the country.
After NBC News' widely publicized decision on Monday to brand the conflict a civil war, several prominent newspapers, including the Los Angeles Times, pointed to their use of the phrase.
"It's hard to argue that this war does not fit the generally accepted definition of civil war," New York Times Executive Editor Bill Keller said in a statement.
The Bush administration has for months resisted the notion that Iraq is embroiled in a civil war, a position analysts say is hard to justify. Experts predict a shift in language could deepen public discontent with U.S. involvement in Iraq.
Asked at a news conference in Estonia on Tuesday what the difference was between the current bloodshed and civil war, President George W. Bush said the latest bombings were part of a 9-month-old pattern of attacks by al Qaeda militants aimed at fomenting sectarian violence by provoking retaliation.
White House national security adviser Stephen Hadley said the Iraqis "don't talk of it as a civil war" because the army and police had not fractured along sectarian lines and the government continued to hold together.
U.S. officials' reluctance to use the words "civil war" is more than a semantic difference. The phrase carries a political dimension as well because it could further weaken Americans' support for a war that has already helped remove Bush's Republican Party from control of Congress.
Sectarian violence between Sunnis and Shi'ites has increased dramatically this year. Multiple bombings in a Shi'ite neighborhood of Baghdad last Thursday killed more than 200 people and drew reprisal attacks in Sunni neighborhoods.
Analysts say the U.S. public will not tolerate troops being used as referees between warring Iraqi factions.
MSNBC, NBC's cable network, on Tuesday displayed a graphic reading "Iraq: The Civil War" in its Iraq coverage. Other U.S. networks said they would continue reporting under broader terms like "War in Iraq."
The shift in coverage reflects a growing consensus among foreign-policy experts that the conflict is a civil war, said American University communications professor Chris Simpson.
"When those elites shift, the media typically follows," Simpson said. "To some extent the media do play a role in shaping that opinion, but mostly they follow it."
The Los Angeles Times said it had adopted the term in October "without public fanfare," making it the first major news outlet to use the term.
The Christian Science Monitor and McClatchy Newspapers, which include the Minneapolis Star Tribune and the Sacramento Bee, are among the other newspapers that have described the bloodshed as a civil war.
The New York Times said it would use the term sparingly and not to the exclusion of other labels, as the conflict also has elements of an insurgency, an occupation, a battle against terrorism and "a scene of criminal gangsterism."
The Washington Post said it has no policy to describe the conflict.
CNN, ABC and CBS said some of their correspondents have referred to the rising sectarian violence as a civil war, or examined the debate among experts over whether the term is appropriate.
The decision not to label the conflict a civil war "does not in any way diminish the sheer volume of reporting we're doing from there," ABC spokesman Jeffrey Schneider said. "That reporting certainly points toward civil war."
A Fox News spokeswoman said, "We have no plans to change our usage." -
As I wrote in October concerning the decision of the networks to ban the term "Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party" when referring to the Georgia-Florida game, "What makes this dangerous is that it is the climate in the country. The university president’s didn’t come up with this out of the blue; they take it from the leadership of the nation, the Bush administration.
They are the masters of “new-speak”; re-defining an issue to lessen the impact on the public. That’s why the media refers to the civil war in Iraq as “sectarian-violence”.
The problem with re-defining an issue is that regardless of what you call something, it doesn’t affect the reality of it. Giving euphemistic titles to tough issues is just a way to avoid dealing with them, which is quickly becoming Americas’ favorite pastime."
I am glad to see that the election results have weakened Bush enough so that the media is beginning to take seriously it's responsiblity to report the news accurately.
Regardless of how it is called the situation in Iraq has been a civil war for over a year at least.
After NBC News' widely publicized decision on Monday to brand the conflict a civil war, several prominent newspapers, including the Los Angeles Times, pointed to their use of the phrase.
"It's hard to argue that this war does not fit the generally accepted definition of civil war," New York Times Executive Editor Bill Keller said in a statement.
The Bush administration has for months resisted the notion that Iraq is embroiled in a civil war, a position analysts say is hard to justify. Experts predict a shift in language could deepen public discontent with U.S. involvement in Iraq.
Asked at a news conference in Estonia on Tuesday what the difference was between the current bloodshed and civil war, President George W. Bush said the latest bombings were part of a 9-month-old pattern of attacks by al Qaeda militants aimed at fomenting sectarian violence by provoking retaliation.
White House national security adviser Stephen Hadley said the Iraqis "don't talk of it as a civil war" because the army and police had not fractured along sectarian lines and the government continued to hold together.
U.S. officials' reluctance to use the words "civil war" is more than a semantic difference. The phrase carries a political dimension as well because it could further weaken Americans' support for a war that has already helped remove Bush's Republican Party from control of Congress.
Sectarian violence between Sunnis and Shi'ites has increased dramatically this year. Multiple bombings in a Shi'ite neighborhood of Baghdad last Thursday killed more than 200 people and drew reprisal attacks in Sunni neighborhoods.
Analysts say the U.S. public will not tolerate troops being used as referees between warring Iraqi factions.
MSNBC, NBC's cable network, on Tuesday displayed a graphic reading "Iraq: The Civil War" in its Iraq coverage. Other U.S. networks said they would continue reporting under broader terms like "War in Iraq."
The shift in coverage reflects a growing consensus among foreign-policy experts that the conflict is a civil war, said American University communications professor Chris Simpson.
"When those elites shift, the media typically follows," Simpson said. "To some extent the media do play a role in shaping that opinion, but mostly they follow it."
The Los Angeles Times said it had adopted the term in October "without public fanfare," making it the first major news outlet to use the term.
The Christian Science Monitor and McClatchy Newspapers, which include the Minneapolis Star Tribune and the Sacramento Bee, are among the other newspapers that have described the bloodshed as a civil war.
The New York Times said it would use the term sparingly and not to the exclusion of other labels, as the conflict also has elements of an insurgency, an occupation, a battle against terrorism and "a scene of criminal gangsterism."
The Washington Post said it has no policy to describe the conflict.
CNN, ABC and CBS said some of their correspondents have referred to the rising sectarian violence as a civil war, or examined the debate among experts over whether the term is appropriate.
The decision not to label the conflict a civil war "does not in any way diminish the sheer volume of reporting we're doing from there," ABC spokesman Jeffrey Schneider said. "That reporting certainly points toward civil war."
A Fox News spokeswoman said, "We have no plans to change our usage." -
As I wrote in October concerning the decision of the networks to ban the term "Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party" when referring to the Georgia-Florida game, "What makes this dangerous is that it is the climate in the country. The university president’s didn’t come up with this out of the blue; they take it from the leadership of the nation, the Bush administration.
They are the masters of “new-speak”; re-defining an issue to lessen the impact on the public. That’s why the media refers to the civil war in Iraq as “sectarian-violence”.
The problem with re-defining an issue is that regardless of what you call something, it doesn’t affect the reality of it. Giving euphemistic titles to tough issues is just a way to avoid dealing with them, which is quickly becoming Americas’ favorite pastime."
I am glad to see that the election results have weakened Bush enough so that the media is beginning to take seriously it's responsiblity to report the news accurately.
Regardless of how it is called the situation in Iraq has been a civil war for over a year at least.
Monday, November 27, 2006
Mexican workers replaced with felons
Am I the only one who sees the irony in replacing supposed criminals with convicted criminals?
Stillmore — Felons on probation and homeless men have filled some of the poultry jobs left by illegal Mexican laborers deported in raids two months ago.
About 40 convicted felons from the Macon Diversion Center are bused in each day to work at the Crider Poultry plant in Stillmore — the focus of the raids.-AJC link
The Mexicans who’ve committed the outrageous crime of entering the country to work at low paying menial jobs will be replaced by tried and convicted felons? Yeah, that should work out nicely, just good old hard working church going fellows who’ve fallen on some hard luck.
Hopefully we can revisit this story in a year and see how the well the cons are working out.
As for the homeless men, well I’m sure their turnover will be low.
Give me a break. The plant will be out of business in a year or relocated.
Stillmore — Felons on probation and homeless men have filled some of the poultry jobs left by illegal Mexican laborers deported in raids two months ago.
About 40 convicted felons from the Macon Diversion Center are bused in each day to work at the Crider Poultry plant in Stillmore — the focus of the raids.-AJC link
The Mexicans who’ve committed the outrageous crime of entering the country to work at low paying menial jobs will be replaced by tried and convicted felons? Yeah, that should work out nicely, just good old hard working church going fellows who’ve fallen on some hard luck.
Hopefully we can revisit this story in a year and see how the well the cons are working out.
As for the homeless men, well I’m sure their turnover will be low.
Give me a break. The plant will be out of business in a year or relocated.
Leaving Iraq, Honorably
Leaving Iraq, Honorably
By Chuck Hagel
Sunday, November 26, 2006
There will be no victory or defeat for the United States in Iraq. These terms do not reflect the reality of what is going to happen there. The future of Iraq was always going to be determined by the Iraqis -- not the Americans.
Iraq is not a prize to be won or lost. It is part of the ongoing global struggle against instability, brutality, intolerance, extremism and terrorism. There will be no military victory or military solution for Iraq. Former secretary of state Henry Kissinger made this point last weekend.
The time for more U.S. troops in Iraq has passed. We do not have more troops to send and, even if we did, they would not bring a resolution to Iraq. Militaries are built to fight and win wars, not bind together failing nations. We are once again learning a very hard lesson in foreign affairs: America cannot impose a democracy on any nation -- regardless of our noble purpose.
We have misunderstood, misread, misplanned and mismanaged our honorable intentions in Iraq with an arrogant self-delusion reminiscent of Vietnam. Honorable intentions are not policies and plans. Iraq belongs to the 25 million Iraqis who live there. They will decide their fate and form of government.
It may take many years before there is a cohesive political center in Iraq. America's options on this point have always been limited. There will be a new center of gravity in the Middle East that will include Iraq. That process began over the past few days with the Syrians and Iraqis restoring diplomatic relations after 20 years of having no formal communication.
What does this tell us? It tells us that regional powers will fill regional vacuums, and they will move to work in their own self-interest -- without the United States. This is the most encouraging set of actions for the Middle East in years. The Middle East is more combustible today than ever before, and until we are able to lead a renewal of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, mindless destruction and slaughter will continue in Lebanon, Israel and across the Middle East.
We are a long way from a sustained peaceful resolution to the anarchy in Iraq. But this latest set of events is moving the Middle East in the only direction it can go with any hope of lasting progress and peace. The movement will be imperfect, stuttering and difficult.
America finds itself in a dangerous and isolated position in the world. We are perceived as a nation at war with Muslims. Unfortunately, that perception is gaining credibility in the Muslim world and for many years will complicate America's global credibility, purpose and leadership. This debilitating and dangerous perception must be reversed as the world seeks a new geopolitical, trade and economic center that will accommodate the interests of billions of people over the next 25 years. The world will continue to require realistic, clear-headed American leadership -- not an American divine mission.
The United States must begin planning for a phased troop withdrawal from Iraq. The cost of combat in Iraq in terms of American lives, dollars and world standing has been devastating. We've already spent more than $300 billion there to prosecute an almost four-year-old war and are still spending $8 billion per month. The United States has spent more than $500 billion on our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. And our effort in Afghanistan continues to deteriorate, partly because we took our focus off the real terrorist threat, which was there, and not in Iraq.
We are destroying our force structure, which took 30 years to build. We've been funding this war dishonestly, mainly through supplemental appropriations, which minimizes responsible congressional oversight and allows the administration to duck tough questions in defending its policies. Congress has abdicated its oversight responsibility in the past four years.
It is not too late. The United States can still extricate itself honorably from an impending disaster in Iraq. The Baker-Hamilton commission gives the president a new opportunity to form a bipartisan consensus to get out of Iraq. If the president fails to build a bipartisan foundation for an exit strategy, America will pay a high price for this blunder -- one that we will have difficulty recovering from in the years ahead.
To squander this moment would be to squander future possibilities for the Middle East and the world. That is what is at stake over the next few months.
The writer is a Republican senator from Nebraska.
By Chuck Hagel
Sunday, November 26, 2006
There will be no victory or defeat for the United States in Iraq. These terms do not reflect the reality of what is going to happen there. The future of Iraq was always going to be determined by the Iraqis -- not the Americans.
Iraq is not a prize to be won or lost. It is part of the ongoing global struggle against instability, brutality, intolerance, extremism and terrorism. There will be no military victory or military solution for Iraq. Former secretary of state Henry Kissinger made this point last weekend.
The time for more U.S. troops in Iraq has passed. We do not have more troops to send and, even if we did, they would not bring a resolution to Iraq. Militaries are built to fight and win wars, not bind together failing nations. We are once again learning a very hard lesson in foreign affairs: America cannot impose a democracy on any nation -- regardless of our noble purpose.
We have misunderstood, misread, misplanned and mismanaged our honorable intentions in Iraq with an arrogant self-delusion reminiscent of Vietnam. Honorable intentions are not policies and plans. Iraq belongs to the 25 million Iraqis who live there. They will decide their fate and form of government.
It may take many years before there is a cohesive political center in Iraq. America's options on this point have always been limited. There will be a new center of gravity in the Middle East that will include Iraq. That process began over the past few days with the Syrians and Iraqis restoring diplomatic relations after 20 years of having no formal communication.
What does this tell us? It tells us that regional powers will fill regional vacuums, and they will move to work in their own self-interest -- without the United States. This is the most encouraging set of actions for the Middle East in years. The Middle East is more combustible today than ever before, and until we are able to lead a renewal of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, mindless destruction and slaughter will continue in Lebanon, Israel and across the Middle East.
We are a long way from a sustained peaceful resolution to the anarchy in Iraq. But this latest set of events is moving the Middle East in the only direction it can go with any hope of lasting progress and peace. The movement will be imperfect, stuttering and difficult.
America finds itself in a dangerous and isolated position in the world. We are perceived as a nation at war with Muslims. Unfortunately, that perception is gaining credibility in the Muslim world and for many years will complicate America's global credibility, purpose and leadership. This debilitating and dangerous perception must be reversed as the world seeks a new geopolitical, trade and economic center that will accommodate the interests of billions of people over the next 25 years. The world will continue to require realistic, clear-headed American leadership -- not an American divine mission.
The United States must begin planning for a phased troop withdrawal from Iraq. The cost of combat in Iraq in terms of American lives, dollars and world standing has been devastating. We've already spent more than $300 billion there to prosecute an almost four-year-old war and are still spending $8 billion per month. The United States has spent more than $500 billion on our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. And our effort in Afghanistan continues to deteriorate, partly because we took our focus off the real terrorist threat, which was there, and not in Iraq.
We are destroying our force structure, which took 30 years to build. We've been funding this war dishonestly, mainly through supplemental appropriations, which minimizes responsible congressional oversight and allows the administration to duck tough questions in defending its policies. Congress has abdicated its oversight responsibility in the past four years.
It is not too late. The United States can still extricate itself honorably from an impending disaster in Iraq. The Baker-Hamilton commission gives the president a new opportunity to form a bipartisan consensus to get out of Iraq. If the president fails to build a bipartisan foundation for an exit strategy, America will pay a high price for this blunder -- one that we will have difficulty recovering from in the years ahead.
To squander this moment would be to squander future possibilities for the Middle East and the world. That is what is at stake over the next few months.
The writer is a Republican senator from Nebraska.
Friday, November 17, 2006
Superpower?
Is the United States the sole superpower? What if any evidence do we have to support this contention? Supposedly the United States has the most well trained, well equipped military on the planet. Why then are American troops bogged down in a war nearly four years on in the backwater of Iraq? Why hasn’t the greatest military might on the face of the earth made short work of a rag tag Iraqi resistance? Why hasn’t the mighty American military quelled the uprising in Mesopotamia?
There is no question that the United States spends more on it’s military than any other country, that is indisputable. But what kind of value are we getting for our money?
During the early days of the occupation of Iraq a common complaint of soldiers and their families was that soldiers did not have the proper armor for their persons and their vehicles.
How is it possible that the greatest military force on planet earth could send troops into harms way without the proper armament? How do we as a people reconcile the discrepancy?
A very well known episode occurred in Kuwait when Army Spc. Thomas Wilson asked Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, “Why do we soldiers have to dig through local landfills for pieces of scrap metal and compromised ballistic glass to uparmor our vehicles?"
Rumsfeld’s response was, "As you know, you have to go to war with the Army you have, not the Army you want."
We are told that we have the most modern, sophisticated, well trained and without a doubt the most well funded Army in the world. We are told this over and over and over again. How is it that our troops were scavenging materials out of dumps to armor their vehicles? How can the United States have the best military on the planet when it’s soldiers and vehicles aren’t armored to the greatest degree? How?
Perhaps we’ve been lied to.
There is no question that the United States spends more money on the military than any other ten nations combined, but maybe all of that money isn’t getting to where it is supposed to. If soldiers are digging around in scrap heaps and families are purchasing body armor in the private sector then obviously something is amiss.
It’s no secret that Americans pay more for their military than any other country on the planet. Where is the money going if it isn’t getting to troops in the field?
The top ten defense contractors made 94.8 billion dollars in 2005. Over the last four years the CEO’s of these companies have made over half a billion dollars. Lockheed Martin earned 19.4 billion in 2005. Boeing made 18.5 billion. Northrop Grumman brought in 13.5 billion.
So yes the United States spends obscene amounts of money on “defense”. Yet for all of that money being spent troops are sent into battle ill equipped.
Military units are also being forced to pull multiple tours of combat duty in Iraq. The third infantry division based in Georgia will be embarking on their third tour of duty in Iraq next year.
“The multiple deployments and rapid turnaround are evidence that the service is stretched so thin it may have to request broader access to National Guard units to meet demands being made on it, Army officials said recently at an infantry conference at Fort Benning.”- Atlanta Journal Constitution
Let’s stop kidding ourselves and pretending that our military is invincible when there is no evidence to support that notion. The military is made up of regular Americans just like the rest of us. They have been overstretched and poorly equipped since the beginning of the invasion of Iraq. National Guard and reserve units have been used in place of regular army military units without reasonable explanation.
These reserves are supposed to be on call primarily for times of disaster or disturbance on the state level. The fact that Louisiana and Mississippi units were deployed to Iraq when Hurricane Katrina hit is thought to be of major significance in the lack of response to the New Orleans disaster.
“The deployment of thousands of National Guard troops from Mississippi and Louisiana in Iraq when Hurricane Katrina struck hindered those states' initial storm response, military and civilian officials said Friday.
Lt. Gen. Steven Blum, chief of the National Guard Bureau, said that "arguably" a day at most of response time was lost due to the absence of the Mississippi National Guard's 155th Infantry Brigade and Louisiana's 256th Infantry Brigade, each with thousands of troops in Iraq.
"Had that brigade been at home and not in Iraq, their expertise and capabilities could have been brought to bear," said Blum.”-CNN
There is no question that the United States spends more on it’s military than any other country, that is indisputable. But what kind of value are we getting for our money?
During the early days of the occupation of Iraq a common complaint of soldiers and their families was that soldiers did not have the proper armor for their persons and their vehicles.
How is it possible that the greatest military force on planet earth could send troops into harms way without the proper armament? How do we as a people reconcile the discrepancy?
A very well known episode occurred in Kuwait when Army Spc. Thomas Wilson asked Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, “Why do we soldiers have to dig through local landfills for pieces of scrap metal and compromised ballistic glass to uparmor our vehicles?"
Rumsfeld’s response was, "As you know, you have to go to war with the Army you have, not the Army you want."
We are told that we have the most modern, sophisticated, well trained and without a doubt the most well funded Army in the world. We are told this over and over and over again. How is it that our troops were scavenging materials out of dumps to armor their vehicles? How can the United States have the best military on the planet when it’s soldiers and vehicles aren’t armored to the greatest degree? How?
Perhaps we’ve been lied to.
There is no question that the United States spends more money on the military than any other ten nations combined, but maybe all of that money isn’t getting to where it is supposed to. If soldiers are digging around in scrap heaps and families are purchasing body armor in the private sector then obviously something is amiss.
It’s no secret that Americans pay more for their military than any other country on the planet. Where is the money going if it isn’t getting to troops in the field?
The top ten defense contractors made 94.8 billion dollars in 2005. Over the last four years the CEO’s of these companies have made over half a billion dollars. Lockheed Martin earned 19.4 billion in 2005. Boeing made 18.5 billion. Northrop Grumman brought in 13.5 billion.
So yes the United States spends obscene amounts of money on “defense”. Yet for all of that money being spent troops are sent into battle ill equipped.
Military units are also being forced to pull multiple tours of combat duty in Iraq. The third infantry division based in Georgia will be embarking on their third tour of duty in Iraq next year.
“The multiple deployments and rapid turnaround are evidence that the service is stretched so thin it may have to request broader access to National Guard units to meet demands being made on it, Army officials said recently at an infantry conference at Fort Benning.”- Atlanta Journal Constitution
Let’s stop kidding ourselves and pretending that our military is invincible when there is no evidence to support that notion. The military is made up of regular Americans just like the rest of us. They have been overstretched and poorly equipped since the beginning of the invasion of Iraq. National Guard and reserve units have been used in place of regular army military units without reasonable explanation.
These reserves are supposed to be on call primarily for times of disaster or disturbance on the state level. The fact that Louisiana and Mississippi units were deployed to Iraq when Hurricane Katrina hit is thought to be of major significance in the lack of response to the New Orleans disaster.
“The deployment of thousands of National Guard troops from Mississippi and Louisiana in Iraq when Hurricane Katrina struck hindered those states' initial storm response, military and civilian officials said Friday.
Lt. Gen. Steven Blum, chief of the National Guard Bureau, said that "arguably" a day at most of response time was lost due to the absence of the Mississippi National Guard's 155th Infantry Brigade and Louisiana's 256th Infantry Brigade, each with thousands of troops in Iraq.
"Had that brigade been at home and not in Iraq, their expertise and capabilities could have been brought to bear," said Blum.”-CNN
Liberalism’s Flaw
If you listen to liberals for very long you will begin to notice several tenets they generally espouse. Since we’ve just had an election, I want to point out one of the more popular creeds that we’ve heard from liberals of late.
Liberals rightly point out that the right wing is intolerant of homosexuals unless you are a high level republican staff member or congressman and then you have to remain in the closet, ala Mark Foley.
Liberals rightly point out that the gay marriage bans on the ballot recently in many states are discriminatory. They rightly point out that discriminating against a group of people is a bad thing.
They will point this out until they need discrimination to serves their own ends.
The curtains aren’t even measured in the congressional offices and already you are beginning to hear the chorus coming from the left to re-institute the estate tax.
See liberals are against discrimination, unless they perceive you to be rich and then it is perfectly acceptable to discriminate. Liberals have no problem with the government confiscating your money when you die.
They ordinarily couch their argument by saying that the estate tax is only applicable for two percent of the population or some figure there about. But if the law applies to only two percent of the population then it is discriminatory by definition.
A law that doesn’t apply equally to the entire population is precisely what liberals will tell you is wrong with a ban on gay marriage. But the class envy leftists easily turn a blind eye when it comes to what they perceive as sticking it to the rich.
Liberals will yell at the tops of their lungs about oil companies receiving tax breaks from the government. They have a valid point.
Corporations don’t deserve tax breaks that the rest of us cannot take advantage of, just as certain segments of the population do not deserve to have to an unequal portion of their money taken by the government.
Whether the discrimination is based on race, religion, sexual orientation or financial status, it is still discrimination. Laws need to apply equally no matter a person’s account balance. Aren’t we told constantly that laws shouldn’t favor the rich, the inverse applies as well.
If a rich man is pulled over for speeding doesn’t he get the same fine a poor man receives? The law sees no distinction. Why should the law apply differently when it comes to a person’s estate?
Liberal arguments will vary across the spectrum as to the reasons why it is beneficial for the government to confiscate someone’s money. What it boils down to however is a seemingly innate class envy that is ingrained in most liberals.
It’s fairly easy to fall into this trap when we see all of the corruption and graft that has taken place in Washington lately. If you are of a mind to say that the rich have benefited disproportionately from tax breaks, I won’t argue with you. The income tax is unconstitutional to start with and no matter what, it is always the middle and lower income folks who pay the most, they’re the majority of the population. But that still doesn’t give the government just cause to confiscate people’s money at the barrel of a gun because they die.
Liberals rightly point out that the right wing is intolerant of homosexuals unless you are a high level republican staff member or congressman and then you have to remain in the closet, ala Mark Foley.
Liberals rightly point out that the gay marriage bans on the ballot recently in many states are discriminatory. They rightly point out that discriminating against a group of people is a bad thing.
They will point this out until they need discrimination to serves their own ends.
The curtains aren’t even measured in the congressional offices and already you are beginning to hear the chorus coming from the left to re-institute the estate tax.
See liberals are against discrimination, unless they perceive you to be rich and then it is perfectly acceptable to discriminate. Liberals have no problem with the government confiscating your money when you die.
They ordinarily couch their argument by saying that the estate tax is only applicable for two percent of the population or some figure there about. But if the law applies to only two percent of the population then it is discriminatory by definition.
A law that doesn’t apply equally to the entire population is precisely what liberals will tell you is wrong with a ban on gay marriage. But the class envy leftists easily turn a blind eye when it comes to what they perceive as sticking it to the rich.
Liberals will yell at the tops of their lungs about oil companies receiving tax breaks from the government. They have a valid point.
Corporations don’t deserve tax breaks that the rest of us cannot take advantage of, just as certain segments of the population do not deserve to have to an unequal portion of their money taken by the government.
Whether the discrimination is based on race, religion, sexual orientation or financial status, it is still discrimination. Laws need to apply equally no matter a person’s account balance. Aren’t we told constantly that laws shouldn’t favor the rich, the inverse applies as well.
If a rich man is pulled over for speeding doesn’t he get the same fine a poor man receives? The law sees no distinction. Why should the law apply differently when it comes to a person’s estate?
Liberal arguments will vary across the spectrum as to the reasons why it is beneficial for the government to confiscate someone’s money. What it boils down to however is a seemingly innate class envy that is ingrained in most liberals.
It’s fairly easy to fall into this trap when we see all of the corruption and graft that has taken place in Washington lately. If you are of a mind to say that the rich have benefited disproportionately from tax breaks, I won’t argue with you. The income tax is unconstitutional to start with and no matter what, it is always the middle and lower income folks who pay the most, they’re the majority of the population. But that still doesn’t give the government just cause to confiscate people’s money at the barrel of a gun because they die.
Monday, November 13, 2006
Hubris
"Far be it from me to dispute the Bush administration's inability to carry out its announced intentions, but these were always pipe dreams that couldn't have been implemented even by the most competent regime imaginable. The U.S. occupation is being defeated by objective circumstances, i.e., the near-complete absence of support from the Iraqi people, and not by the exigencies of American politics. While this may strike a blow at the conceit that U.S. troops are invincible and only need to muster an act of will in order to achieve victory, this mindset is itself typical of the hubris that tempted us to invade in the first place.
I contend that these results were eminently foreseeable, that in fact they were foreseen by the very policymakers who urged us on to war. Anyone with even a passing familiarity with Iraqi demographics and the history of the country since the fall of the Ottomans could have confidently predicted the disaster we are seeing. The dynamics of the conflict in Iraq lead, ineluctably, to war with Iran: that is the likely culmination of events, if we stay on the present course. And it is one that the Bush administration apparently has no appetite for, at least at the present time – although some would disagree." - Justin Raimondo
I contend that these results were eminently foreseeable, that in fact they were foreseen by the very policymakers who urged us on to war. Anyone with even a passing familiarity with Iraqi demographics and the history of the country since the fall of the Ottomans could have confidently predicted the disaster we are seeing. The dynamics of the conflict in Iraq lead, ineluctably, to war with Iran: that is the likely culmination of events, if we stay on the present course. And it is one that the Bush administration apparently has no appetite for, at least at the present time – although some would disagree." - Justin Raimondo
Thursday, November 09, 2006
Ding Dong the Witch is Dead!
Rumsfeld out, Bush picks Gates
By RON HUTCHESON
McClatchy Newspapers
WASHINGTON — Chastened by a “thumpin’” at the polls, President Bush heeded voters’ call for change Wednesday by ousting Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld.
Bush’s surprise decision to replace Rumsfeld with former CIA director Robert Gates was the most dramatic event in a series of rapid-fire developments triggered by the Democratic takeover in Congress.
Gates is a protege of Brent Scowcroft, who was national security adviser to the first President Bush, and a member of the bipartisan Iraq study group led by former Secretary of State James A. Baker, who perhaps was the senior Bush’s closest adviser. That commission is expected to deliver its report to the president as early as next week.
The mainstream foreign-policy experts are not poised to make radical suggestions, but official Washington has expected both parties to seize on their ideas for political cover.
Gates’ selection to lead the Pentagon was the latest evidence that the senior Bush — often reported to be skeptical about U.S. involvement in Iraq — might be advising his son on how to extricate U.S. forces with minimal political and diplomatic damage.
Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., who would head the Senate Foreign Relations Committee if Democrats capture the Virginia Senate seat and control of the Senate, said he understood Gates “has a much more pragmatic and realistic view of the place we find ourselves” in Iraq and is much more willing to work with the uniformed military than Rumsfeld was.
Unhappiness with the war was a major element of voter dissatisfaction Tuesday — and the main impetus for Rumsfeld’s departure.
His ouster came a week after Bush told reporters he wanted the defense secretary to stay on the job until end of his presidency. Despite what he said, Bush had already concluded he wanted “a fresh perspective” at the Pentagon, although he had not interviewed Gates or worked out final details of Rumsfeld’s resignation.
Bush said he kept his intentions secret before the elections because, he said, he did not want U.S. military personnel to think he was making key decisions “based upon politics.”
Rumsfeld showed little of his characteristic cockiness at a brief appearance with Bush and Gates later Wednesday, but he maintained his sense of humor.
“I have benefited greatly from criticism,” he said, borrowing a line from Winston Churchill, “and at no time have I suffered a lack thereof.”
Members of Congress from both parties welcomed Rumsfeld’s departure as a sign that Bush is open to new ideas on Iraq. Critics say the 74-year-old defense secretary:
• Ignored his commanders’ advice
• Invaded Iraq with too few troops
• Set a tone that encouraged the abuse of war captives
• Failed to develop a credible postwar plan
• Imposed backbreaking burdens on the Army and Marine Corps
In contrast to Rumsfeld, Gates is considered a pragmatic foreign policy realist, with a tendency to see the world in shades of gray, rather than black and white.
“This is the death knell of the neoconservative approach,” Biden said. “I think the president is going to necessarily have to find new ground.”
However, Bush signaled he would continue to oppose a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq until victory is within reach.
“The election has changed many things in Washington, but it has not changed my fundamental responsibility, and that is to protect the American people from attack,” Bush said. “If the goal is success, we can work together. If the goal is get out now, regardless, then that’s going to be hard to work together.”
Hearst Newspapers and The Washington Post contributed.
THE RUMSFELD FILE
The defense secretary will be remembered as ...
• The square-jawed face behind the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan
• The man who introduced America to “shock and awe” bombing in Baghdad
• The leader who twice offered his resignation during the furor over prisoner abuse at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq
• A hard-liner who supported U.S. tactics handling terror suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba
QUOTE: “It will be a different Congress, a different environment, moving toward a presidential election and a lot of partisanship, and it struck me that (leaving now) would be a good thing for everybody.”
By RON HUTCHESON
McClatchy Newspapers
WASHINGTON — Chastened by a “thumpin’” at the polls, President Bush heeded voters’ call for change Wednesday by ousting Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld.
Bush’s surprise decision to replace Rumsfeld with former CIA director Robert Gates was the most dramatic event in a series of rapid-fire developments triggered by the Democratic takeover in Congress.
Gates is a protege of Brent Scowcroft, who was national security adviser to the first President Bush, and a member of the bipartisan Iraq study group led by former Secretary of State James A. Baker, who perhaps was the senior Bush’s closest adviser. That commission is expected to deliver its report to the president as early as next week.
The mainstream foreign-policy experts are not poised to make radical suggestions, but official Washington has expected both parties to seize on their ideas for political cover.
Gates’ selection to lead the Pentagon was the latest evidence that the senior Bush — often reported to be skeptical about U.S. involvement in Iraq — might be advising his son on how to extricate U.S. forces with minimal political and diplomatic damage.
Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., who would head the Senate Foreign Relations Committee if Democrats capture the Virginia Senate seat and control of the Senate, said he understood Gates “has a much more pragmatic and realistic view of the place we find ourselves” in Iraq and is much more willing to work with the uniformed military than Rumsfeld was.
Unhappiness with the war was a major element of voter dissatisfaction Tuesday — and the main impetus for Rumsfeld’s departure.
His ouster came a week after Bush told reporters he wanted the defense secretary to stay on the job until end of his presidency. Despite what he said, Bush had already concluded he wanted “a fresh perspective” at the Pentagon, although he had not interviewed Gates or worked out final details of Rumsfeld’s resignation.
Bush said he kept his intentions secret before the elections because, he said, he did not want U.S. military personnel to think he was making key decisions “based upon politics.”
Rumsfeld showed little of his characteristic cockiness at a brief appearance with Bush and Gates later Wednesday, but he maintained his sense of humor.
“I have benefited greatly from criticism,” he said, borrowing a line from Winston Churchill, “and at no time have I suffered a lack thereof.”
Members of Congress from both parties welcomed Rumsfeld’s departure as a sign that Bush is open to new ideas on Iraq. Critics say the 74-year-old defense secretary:
• Ignored his commanders’ advice
• Invaded Iraq with too few troops
• Set a tone that encouraged the abuse of war captives
• Failed to develop a credible postwar plan
• Imposed backbreaking burdens on the Army and Marine Corps
In contrast to Rumsfeld, Gates is considered a pragmatic foreign policy realist, with a tendency to see the world in shades of gray, rather than black and white.
“This is the death knell of the neoconservative approach,” Biden said. “I think the president is going to necessarily have to find new ground.”
However, Bush signaled he would continue to oppose a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq until victory is within reach.
“The election has changed many things in Washington, but it has not changed my fundamental responsibility, and that is to protect the American people from attack,” Bush said. “If the goal is success, we can work together. If the goal is get out now, regardless, then that’s going to be hard to work together.”
Hearst Newspapers and The Washington Post contributed.
THE RUMSFELD FILE
The defense secretary will be remembered as ...
• The square-jawed face behind the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan
• The man who introduced America to “shock and awe” bombing in Baghdad
• The leader who twice offered his resignation during the furor over prisoner abuse at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq
• A hard-liner who supported U.S. tactics handling terror suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba
QUOTE: “It will be a different Congress, a different environment, moving toward a presidential election and a lot of partisanship, and it struck me that (leaving now) would be a good thing for everybody.”
Wednesday, November 08, 2006
Dems Take Congress
The tsunami that everyone supposed would careen onto the political landscape, last night did just that. The republicans were resoundingly thrashed at the polls losing, as of this time, 27 seats in the house. It looks like the Dems will also take the Senate but Virginia and Montana have yet to be called.
The mood of the country has been fiercely anti-administration as Bush seems to be totally oblivious to the growing chorus of Americans speaking out against the war in Iraq. The most blatant corruption in generations has been splashed across the news practically daily for quite a while.
Bush’s evangelical base has been sorely depressed by the revelation that a multitude of closeted gay men fill the upper ranks of the republican leadership’s staff, as well as some members themselves. Many republicans that I’ve spoken to lately were just plainly disgusted with the party as a whole.
The Republicans, for their part, will now become preoccupied with identifying the reasons for their stunning defeat – and making sure it doesn't happen again. What is clear is that the neoconservative principles embodied by this administration – not only a foreign policy of unmitigated aggression, but also a high-spending, big-government domestic policy that has thrown overboard the old conservatism of fiscal restraint and reflexive opposition to centralized power – have led the GOP down the garden path to disaster. The Iraq war was a gigantic albatross hung 'round the neck of Republican candidates on every level: even Lincoln Chafee, who had distanced himself from the president and did not approve of the Iraq war, was felled in the November massacre. The voters punished the Republican Party because they identified it with the War Party – and all Republicans suffered as a result. Republican moderates suffered such major casualties this time around that they appear headed for extinction: Rep. Jim Leach, perhaps the leading moderate figure with any national prominence, was also defeated in his reelection bid. – Justin Raimondo
Will the Democratic take over result in a new policy on Iraq? Will the overreaching legislation the administration has shoved down American’s throats get rolled back? Is it a new day in America? We shall see….
The mood of the country has been fiercely anti-administration as Bush seems to be totally oblivious to the growing chorus of Americans speaking out against the war in Iraq. The most blatant corruption in generations has been splashed across the news practically daily for quite a while.
Bush’s evangelical base has been sorely depressed by the revelation that a multitude of closeted gay men fill the upper ranks of the republican leadership’s staff, as well as some members themselves. Many republicans that I’ve spoken to lately were just plainly disgusted with the party as a whole.
The Republicans, for their part, will now become preoccupied with identifying the reasons for their stunning defeat – and making sure it doesn't happen again. What is clear is that the neoconservative principles embodied by this administration – not only a foreign policy of unmitigated aggression, but also a high-spending, big-government domestic policy that has thrown overboard the old conservatism of fiscal restraint and reflexive opposition to centralized power – have led the GOP down the garden path to disaster. The Iraq war was a gigantic albatross hung 'round the neck of Republican candidates on every level: even Lincoln Chafee, who had distanced himself from the president and did not approve of the Iraq war, was felled in the November massacre. The voters punished the Republican Party because they identified it with the War Party – and all Republicans suffered as a result. Republican moderates suffered such major casualties this time around that they appear headed for extinction: Rep. Jim Leach, perhaps the leading moderate figure with any national prominence, was also defeated in his reelection bid. – Justin Raimondo
Will the Democratic take over result in a new policy on Iraq? Will the overreaching legislation the administration has shoved down American’s throats get rolled back? Is it a new day in America? We shall see….
Friday, November 03, 2006
Go team!
It is often with a great sense of irony that an American, who is interested, will find his nation's history. At the present time, days before the 2006 mid-term elections, the national mood of the United States is a seething contempt for the current regime, which is a republican Senate, House and President.
The nearly four year old "war" in Iraq has degenerated into…a war. Exactly what war was supposed to look like prior to our invasion of Mesopotamia is anyone's guess. The American public however is a fickle lot and with the epidemic of attention deficit disorder plaguing a fairly large segment, it's no wonder that Americans have become somewhat disheartened by our lack of a clear cut football-esque type victory over the desert tribes, although our aim was never to battle them, only their despotic regime.
So to set the stage for those who may read this at some point in the future I will describe the teams as they now sit. As was stated previously the republicans maintain majorities in all branches of the government. The democrats need to take fifteen seats in the house to gain a majority and about eight in the Senate. Democrats are charged and republicans are dispirited. All prognostications seem to indicate that democrats will sweep into Washington on a tsunami wave of upheaval.
The current regime has drawn the ire of the American public in a number of ways, foremost of which is a perceived abuse of executive power. I'll use the word perceived for this purpose basically because it all depends on which team you happen to cheer for as to whether you "perceive" the abuse of power or whether you tend to ignore it. If you cheered the republicans at the beginning of this high stakes match you will have a tendency to support all of the invasive measures the president claims to have, such as, warrantless wiretapping of American civilians, suspending habeas corpus, torturing prisoners, and invading foreign countries, just to name a few.
At first a great majority of the country was supportive of these measures because of the hijacked jets that were flown into the World Trade Centers and the pentagon. Overnight the stars and stripes appeared on practically every bumper in America. America was ready for vengeance and George Bush was just the man for the job. The congress unflinchingly passed the Patriot Act into law with most members having never read it. That was the first mistake.
Then the Congress approved giving the president the power to make war on whomever he decided was behind the Trade Center attacks. This was mistake number two.
Without going into an in depth history of the past four years, suffice it to say that after not too long a time the bumper sticker flags went away and people got back to disliking each other. The entire notion that somehow, because the United States was the victim of a terrorist attack, civility would permeate the nation and crime would disappear and everyone would get along forever and ever was an altogether deluded concept in the first place. No, the terrorist attacks did not change the demeanor of the United States, but the Bush administration did.
So now the power grab by the neo-cons, the splendid war that didn't go as planned, the fiasco in New Orleans, and the virtual laundry list of corrupt republican politicians has most of the American public pretty well disgusted, and rightly so.
I want to state clearly that this time it is the democrats who want to limit the power of the executive and it is the republicans that want us to believe the president should be given broad powers, outside the scope of the constitution. It wasn't always like this.
At one time, the folks on the left cheered for dictatorial powers for the president.
"Flynn's prototype American fascist was not a thug in a brownshirt or SS uniform; it was the American statesman who sought to erode the people's power in Congress and to concentrate undue authority in the hands of the President (Roosevelt). Flynn warned against militarism and imperialism; yet his cry for constitutional government was to become purely a rallying cry for the Right-wing in American life. Liberals then defended the tradition of Presidential power, which was conceived as the repository of all virtue in political life. "
When the democrats take back the Congress we'll see if they truly do loathe the new powers of the executive as much as they tell us they do. No, they will quickly adjust to aggressive wars, deficit spending, invasive snooping, and a host of other issues they now find distasteful. And the republican team will suddenly realize that maybe it isn't such a good idea for a president to be able to designate people "enemy combatants" on a whim and that exit strategies actually are necessary when it comes to war. (Like they told us when Clinton went to war in Bosnia.)
Yes the tables will turn and the people who cheer for things now will in the future scream about them. And people who loathe a thing right now will lobby dearly for the same thing later. And people will adjust their "beliefs" to the prevailing wind as necessary and believe the things they need to believe when they need to believe them.
The nearly four year old "war" in Iraq has degenerated into…a war. Exactly what war was supposed to look like prior to our invasion of Mesopotamia is anyone's guess. The American public however is a fickle lot and with the epidemic of attention deficit disorder plaguing a fairly large segment, it's no wonder that Americans have become somewhat disheartened by our lack of a clear cut football-esque type victory over the desert tribes, although our aim was never to battle them, only their despotic regime.
So to set the stage for those who may read this at some point in the future I will describe the teams as they now sit. As was stated previously the republicans maintain majorities in all branches of the government. The democrats need to take fifteen seats in the house to gain a majority and about eight in the Senate. Democrats are charged and republicans are dispirited. All prognostications seem to indicate that democrats will sweep into Washington on a tsunami wave of upheaval.
The current regime has drawn the ire of the American public in a number of ways, foremost of which is a perceived abuse of executive power. I'll use the word perceived for this purpose basically because it all depends on which team you happen to cheer for as to whether you "perceive" the abuse of power or whether you tend to ignore it. If you cheered the republicans at the beginning of this high stakes match you will have a tendency to support all of the invasive measures the president claims to have, such as, warrantless wiretapping of American civilians, suspending habeas corpus, torturing prisoners, and invading foreign countries, just to name a few.
At first a great majority of the country was supportive of these measures because of the hijacked jets that were flown into the World Trade Centers and the pentagon. Overnight the stars and stripes appeared on practically every bumper in America. America was ready for vengeance and George Bush was just the man for the job. The congress unflinchingly passed the Patriot Act into law with most members having never read it. That was the first mistake.
Then the Congress approved giving the president the power to make war on whomever he decided was behind the Trade Center attacks. This was mistake number two.
Without going into an in depth history of the past four years, suffice it to say that after not too long a time the bumper sticker flags went away and people got back to disliking each other. The entire notion that somehow, because the United States was the victim of a terrorist attack, civility would permeate the nation and crime would disappear and everyone would get along forever and ever was an altogether deluded concept in the first place. No, the terrorist attacks did not change the demeanor of the United States, but the Bush administration did.
So now the power grab by the neo-cons, the splendid war that didn't go as planned, the fiasco in New Orleans, and the virtual laundry list of corrupt republican politicians has most of the American public pretty well disgusted, and rightly so.
I want to state clearly that this time it is the democrats who want to limit the power of the executive and it is the republicans that want us to believe the president should be given broad powers, outside the scope of the constitution. It wasn't always like this.
At one time, the folks on the left cheered for dictatorial powers for the president.
"Flynn's prototype American fascist was not a thug in a brownshirt or SS uniform; it was the American statesman who sought to erode the people's power in Congress and to concentrate undue authority in the hands of the President (Roosevelt). Flynn warned against militarism and imperialism; yet his cry for constitutional government was to become purely a rallying cry for the Right-wing in American life. Liberals then defended the tradition of Presidential power, which was conceived as the repository of all virtue in political life. "
When the democrats take back the Congress we'll see if they truly do loathe the new powers of the executive as much as they tell us they do. No, they will quickly adjust to aggressive wars, deficit spending, invasive snooping, and a host of other issues they now find distasteful. And the republican team will suddenly realize that maybe it isn't such a good idea for a president to be able to designate people "enemy combatants" on a whim and that exit strategies actually are necessary when it comes to war. (Like they told us when Clinton went to war in Bosnia.)
Yes the tables will turn and the people who cheer for things now will in the future scream about them. And people who loathe a thing right now will lobby dearly for the same thing later. And people will adjust their "beliefs" to the prevailing wind as necessary and believe the things they need to believe when they need to believe them.
Friday, October 27, 2006
Do the dems take the house?
Do the dems take the house in two weeks? The liberal talk radio sure seems to think so. Democrats are charged while republicans are deflated. Many republicans are plainly disgusted. This should hold the voter turn out down on the republican side. Democratic turn out can never be gauged very well, but it seems like it may be large. Two weeks is a short time but it is also a very long time and I don't think we've seen every surprise yet...
Thursday, October 26, 2006
Redefine and conquer
Earlier this week, the newspaper ran a story on the Georgia-Florida game. According to the story the networks, CBS and ESPN, have forbidden their commentators to use the term “World’s Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party” during the broadcast. The reason being, that the two university presidents “want to do away with the game’s reputation as a drunkfest for tailgaters”.
Let me get this straight, if we abstain from referring to the game as a cocktail party, then suddenly no one will drink? Yeah, that makes sense. While we’re at it, why don’t we just refer to colleges as “convents”, then we can stop the drinking on campus as well.
What makes this dangerous is that it is the climate in the country. The university president’s didn’t come up with this out of the blue; they take it from the leadership of the nation, the Bush administration.
They are the masters of “new-speak”; re-defining an issue to lessen the impact on the public. That’s why the media refers to the civil war in Iraq as “sectarian-violence”.
The problem with re-defining an issue is that regardless of what you call something, it doesn’t affect the reality of it. Giving euphemistic titles to tough issues is just a way to avoid dealing with them, which is quickly becoming Americas’ favorite pastime.
In the financial vernacular “re-stating earnings” is a way to gloss over a loss. In housing prices don’t drop, they “correct.” In the economy, negative growth becomes a “rough-patch”.
Maybe if melanomas were called age spots, they wouldn’t be cancer. Anybody can see the idiocy of such a notion. Pretending that cancer isn’t cancer only guarantees that it will become worse. It’s the same with everything else.
Let me get this straight, if we abstain from referring to the game as a cocktail party, then suddenly no one will drink? Yeah, that makes sense. While we’re at it, why don’t we just refer to colleges as “convents”, then we can stop the drinking on campus as well.
What makes this dangerous is that it is the climate in the country. The university president’s didn’t come up with this out of the blue; they take it from the leadership of the nation, the Bush administration.
They are the masters of “new-speak”; re-defining an issue to lessen the impact on the public. That’s why the media refers to the civil war in Iraq as “sectarian-violence”.
The problem with re-defining an issue is that regardless of what you call something, it doesn’t affect the reality of it. Giving euphemistic titles to tough issues is just a way to avoid dealing with them, which is quickly becoming Americas’ favorite pastime.
In the financial vernacular “re-stating earnings” is a way to gloss over a loss. In housing prices don’t drop, they “correct.” In the economy, negative growth becomes a “rough-patch”.
Maybe if melanomas were called age spots, they wouldn’t be cancer. Anybody can see the idiocy of such a notion. Pretending that cancer isn’t cancer only guarantees that it will become worse. It’s the same with everything else.
Wednesday, October 18, 2006
The Daily Reckoning by Bill Bonner
"The surest way to ruin a man who doesn't know how to handle money is to
give him some."
-George Bernard Shaw
Approximately two weeks ago, a group of regulatory agencies voiced their concern about what have become standard practices in the mortgage business. They released what amounted to a new set of standards, in a report entitled "Interagency Guidance on Nontraditional Mortgage Product Risks."
And now, cometh the Comptroller of the Currency, John C. Dugan, speaking about the innovations of the mortgage industry: "Lenders who originate these types of loans should follow sound underwriting practices that consider the borrower's repayment capacity."
Traditionally, the lender judged both his man and his market. If both were deemed solid, he would take a chance, lending the man a mortgage and hoping that the market was strong enough to allow him to recover his money if the man failed.
Nontraditionally, however, lenders wouldn't even bother with the man; instead, they would judge the market...and judge it foolproof. As long as house prices were rising at double-digit annual rates, non-traditional lenders considered mortgage lending a 'can't lose' enterprise; any fool could do it.
They were right. It was a no-brainer, in the sense that anyone with any brain at all would have avoided the new products. From reading the newspaper, we learned about the number and variety of non-traditional mortgages that flourished in the last six years. Adjustable rates, of course, became common. But so did mortgages with zero-down payments, alluringly low starter rates...including interest-only mortgages, flexible payments, and 'stated income' applications...in which the borrower is left
to use his own imagination in describing his financial circumstances.
From Grant's Interest Rate Observer, we learn also that as recently as 2000, only 25% of sub-prime mortgages were of the 'stated income' variety. Only one percent consisted of 'piggyback loans' - junior mortgages designed to eliminate the need for a real down payment. And none were I.O., or interest only.
Today, 44% of sub-prime loans have 'limited documentation,' 31% are piggyback loans, and 22% are I.O. And now that rising housing prices are no longer a sure bet, lenders are becoming more careful. They're beginning to do on their own, precisely what the feds are encouraging; that is, they're beginning to ask if the customer can really pay for what he is trying to buy.
Daily Reckoning readers will chuckle to themselves recalling that the stated purpose of both the federal government's housing policy and that of the lenders themselves was to 'help Americans buy their own homes' or words to that effect. Easy credit was meant to increase homeownership; renting was seen as a social disease awaiting a cure.
But the effect of 'EZ credit' was to turn Americans into a race of housing speculators, not of homeowners. At the margin - where renters were enticed to become homeowners - people did not actually buy houses...they merely paid for an option to buy them in the future. That's what an interest-only mortgage actually is, and as the I.O.'s, limited doc, flexible payment ARMs reached farther and farther into the general population of homeowners, fewer and fewer people really owned their homes at all. More and more of them became gamblers, betting that property values would rise
fast enough for them to keep on refinancing until they actually pulled in enough to afford to pay the principal down.
Meanwhile, we will all get an even bigger chuckle when we consider that the gullibility of the poor, sub-prime borrowers is at least matched by the gullibility of the great, super-prime lenders. Cheap suits, expensive suits - when you got down to it, they all fell for the same line of guff.
While the marginally lumped idiots took out ARMs, the hedge fund, pension fund, and insurance fund geniuses bought MBSs, mortgage-backed securities. The securities were backed by the mortgages, which were in turn backed by the imaginary incomes of the borrowers. Thus, the credit agencies rightly judged the quality of the mortgages as less than perfect, BBB. And then with the miraculous powers of modern finance, these same mortgages were put into MBSs and turned into triple-A credits!
This particular feat is attributed to the fact that the sliced and diced processed mortgages - the Spam of the lending industry - are less risky than the individual cuts. While this may be true for an individual 'can'of the stuff, it certainly cannot be true for the whole lot of it. The grease and fat that went in has to come out somewhere. In other words, one MBS buyer might get lucky, but they can't all do better than average. We don't know, but we suspect that when the tins are finally opened, the glop inside will not be very appealing.
give him some."
-George Bernard Shaw
Approximately two weeks ago, a group of regulatory agencies voiced their concern about what have become standard practices in the mortgage business. They released what amounted to a new set of standards, in a report entitled "Interagency Guidance on Nontraditional Mortgage Product Risks."
And now, cometh the Comptroller of the Currency, John C. Dugan, speaking about the innovations of the mortgage industry: "Lenders who originate these types of loans should follow sound underwriting practices that consider the borrower's repayment capacity."
Traditionally, the lender judged both his man and his market. If both were deemed solid, he would take a chance, lending the man a mortgage and hoping that the market was strong enough to allow him to recover his money if the man failed.
Nontraditionally, however, lenders wouldn't even bother with the man; instead, they would judge the market...and judge it foolproof. As long as house prices were rising at double-digit annual rates, non-traditional lenders considered mortgage lending a 'can't lose' enterprise; any fool could do it.
They were right. It was a no-brainer, in the sense that anyone with any brain at all would have avoided the new products. From reading the newspaper, we learned about the number and variety of non-traditional mortgages that flourished in the last six years. Adjustable rates, of course, became common. But so did mortgages with zero-down payments, alluringly low starter rates...including interest-only mortgages, flexible payments, and 'stated income' applications...in which the borrower is left
to use his own imagination in describing his financial circumstances.
From Grant's Interest Rate Observer, we learn also that as recently as 2000, only 25% of sub-prime mortgages were of the 'stated income' variety. Only one percent consisted of 'piggyback loans' - junior mortgages designed to eliminate the need for a real down payment. And none were I.O., or interest only.
Today, 44% of sub-prime loans have 'limited documentation,' 31% are piggyback loans, and 22% are I.O. And now that rising housing prices are no longer a sure bet, lenders are becoming more careful. They're beginning to do on their own, precisely what the feds are encouraging; that is, they're beginning to ask if the customer can really pay for what he is trying to buy.
Daily Reckoning readers will chuckle to themselves recalling that the stated purpose of both the federal government's housing policy and that of the lenders themselves was to 'help Americans buy their own homes' or words to that effect. Easy credit was meant to increase homeownership; renting was seen as a social disease awaiting a cure.
But the effect of 'EZ credit' was to turn Americans into a race of housing speculators, not of homeowners. At the margin - where renters were enticed to become homeowners - people did not actually buy houses...they merely paid for an option to buy them in the future. That's what an interest-only mortgage actually is, and as the I.O.'s, limited doc, flexible payment ARMs reached farther and farther into the general population of homeowners, fewer and fewer people really owned their homes at all. More and more of them became gamblers, betting that property values would rise
fast enough for them to keep on refinancing until they actually pulled in enough to afford to pay the principal down.
Meanwhile, we will all get an even bigger chuckle when we consider that the gullibility of the poor, sub-prime borrowers is at least matched by the gullibility of the great, super-prime lenders. Cheap suits, expensive suits - when you got down to it, they all fell for the same line of guff.
While the marginally lumped idiots took out ARMs, the hedge fund, pension fund, and insurance fund geniuses bought MBSs, mortgage-backed securities. The securities were backed by the mortgages, which were in turn backed by the imaginary incomes of the borrowers. Thus, the credit agencies rightly judged the quality of the mortgages as less than perfect, BBB. And then with the miraculous powers of modern finance, these same mortgages were put into MBSs and turned into triple-A credits!
This particular feat is attributed to the fact that the sliced and diced processed mortgages - the Spam of the lending industry - are less risky than the individual cuts. While this may be true for an individual 'can'of the stuff, it certainly cannot be true for the whole lot of it. The grease and fat that went in has to come out somewhere. In other words, one MBS buyer might get lucky, but they can't all do better than average. We don't know, but we suspect that when the tins are finally opened, the glop inside will not be very appealing.
Friday, October 13, 2006
U.S. to allow spare parts exports to Iran airline
U.S. to allow spare parts exports to Iran airline
The Associated Press
Despite a standoff with Iran over its nuclear programs, the United States said Wednesday it was approving export of spare parts to Tehran for its national airline because safety was at issue and the United States had no interest in threatening civil aviation. link
Over the past year, through a relentless blitz of press conferences, radio addresses and television shows, the Bush administration has informed the public that, short of the third Reich, Iran is the most dangerous nation the history of the world.
So though we may be on the brink of war with this fanatical nation determined to wipe Israel off the map and enrich uranium for weapons, out of the kindness of their hearts the administration has seen fit to make sure Iran’s civil aviation is safe.
Sure, we may have to attack Iran in the near future but we can’t allow any civilian aircraft to threaten public safety due to the lack of spare parts.
What a crock of shit!
When it comes to policy we see that it is firmly in place… in the hands of the corporations.
IHT, “State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said the General Electric Co. was in line to receive a license from the Treasury Department to provide the equipment to Iran.”
Rules need not apply to General Electric, number 14 on the top 100 defense contractors list, when it comes to policy concerning Iran.
Iran is vilified on a daily basis by Bush, Rice and a host of others, but apparently they aren’t nasty enough to preclude GE getting big contracts on the sale of parts.
It reminds me of the Chavez paradox. Chavez the president of Venezuela, who would be an unknown leftist hack were it not for the vast amount of oil his country sits on, derives all of his power from the money his country makes from selling oil to Americans. While Bush rails publicly on what a menace Chavez is to the entire region.
It’s all a game. Incite the rubes with rhetoric while lining the pockets of the corporations with the money received from supposed enemies. What a farce!
The Associated Press
Despite a standoff with Iran over its nuclear programs, the United States said Wednesday it was approving export of spare parts to Tehran for its national airline because safety was at issue and the United States had no interest in threatening civil aviation. link
Over the past year, through a relentless blitz of press conferences, radio addresses and television shows, the Bush administration has informed the public that, short of the third Reich, Iran is the most dangerous nation the history of the world.
So though we may be on the brink of war with this fanatical nation determined to wipe Israel off the map and enrich uranium for weapons, out of the kindness of their hearts the administration has seen fit to make sure Iran’s civil aviation is safe.
Sure, we may have to attack Iran in the near future but we can’t allow any civilian aircraft to threaten public safety due to the lack of spare parts.
What a crock of shit!
When it comes to policy we see that it is firmly in place… in the hands of the corporations.
IHT, “State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said the General Electric Co. was in line to receive a license from the Treasury Department to provide the equipment to Iran.”
Rules need not apply to General Electric, number 14 on the top 100 defense contractors list, when it comes to policy concerning Iran.
Iran is vilified on a daily basis by Bush, Rice and a host of others, but apparently they aren’t nasty enough to preclude GE getting big contracts on the sale of parts.
It reminds me of the Chavez paradox. Chavez the president of Venezuela, who would be an unknown leftist hack were it not for the vast amount of oil his country sits on, derives all of his power from the money his country makes from selling oil to Americans. While Bush rails publicly on what a menace Chavez is to the entire region.
It’s all a game. Incite the rubes with rhetoric while lining the pockets of the corporations with the money received from supposed enemies. What a farce!
Friday, September 29, 2006
House Approves Warrantless Wiretap Law
House Approves Warrantless Wiretap Law
By LAURIE KELLMAN
The Associated Press
Friday, September 29, 2006; 1:27 AM
WASHINGTON -- The House approved a bill Thursday that would grant legal status to President Bush's warrantless wiretapping program with new restrictions. Republicans called it a test before the election of whether Democrats want to fight or coddle terrorists.
"The Democrats' irrational opposition to strong national security policies that help keep our nation secure should be of great concern to the American people," Majority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, said in a statement after the bill passed 232-191.
"To always have reasons why you just can't vote 'yes,' I think speaks volumes when it comes to which party is better able and more willing to take on the terrorists and defeat them," Boehner said.
Democrats shot back that the war on terrorism shouldn't be fought at the expense of civil and human rights. The bill approved by the House, they argued, gives the president too much power and leaves the law vulnerable to being overturned by a court.
"It is ceding the president's argument that Congress doesn't matter in this area," said Rep. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md.
The bill, sponsored by Rep. Heather Wilson, R-N.M., that give legal status under certain conditions to Bush's warrantless wiretapping of calls and e-mails between people on U.S. soil making calls or sending e-mails and those in other countries.
Under the measure, the president would be authorized to conduct such wiretaps if he:
_ Notifies the House and Senate intelligence committees and congressional leaders.
_ Believes an attack is imminent and later explains the reason and names the individuals and groups involved.
_ Renews his certification every 90 days.
The Senate also could vote on a similar bill before Congress recesses at the end of the week. Leaders concede that differences between the versions are so significant they cannot reconcile them into a final bill that can be delivered to Bush before the Nov. 7 congressional elections.
For its part, the White House announced it strongly supported passage of the House version but wasn't satisfied with it, adding that the administration "looks forward to working with Congress to strengthen the bill as it moves through the legislative process."
But with Congress giving Bush the other half of his September anti-terrorism agenda _ a bill setting conditions on how terrorism suspects are to be detained, interrogated and tried _ Republicans shifted from lawmaking to campaign mode.
After the House voted 253-168 to set rules on tough interrogations and military tribunal proceedings, Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., was even more critical than Boehner.
"Democrat Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and 159 of her Democrat colleagues voted today in favor of more rights for terrorists," Hastert said in a statement. "So the same terrorists who plan to harm innocent Americans and their freedom worldwide would be coddled, if we followed the Democrat plan. "
Retorted Pelosi: "I think the speaker is a desperate man for him to say that. Would you think that anyone in our country wants to coddle terrorists?"
She and other Democratic critics of the GOP's September anti-terrorism agenda contend the Republican-written bills make Bush's programs vulnerable to being overturned in court. More broadly, they argue the legislation reflects the White House's willingness to fight the war on terrorism at the expense of civil and human rights.
A Democratic majority in either House would set the balance right, Democrats say. "In 40 days, we can put an end to this nonsense," said Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass, referring to the election.
A federal judge in Detroit who struck down the warrantless surveillance program turned aside a government request for an indefinite stay Thursday. U.S. Judge Anna Diggs Taylor said the government could have a week to appeal.
___
The House bill is H.R. 5825; the Senate bill is S. 3931.
___
On the Net:
By LAURIE KELLMAN
The Associated Press
Friday, September 29, 2006; 1:27 AM
WASHINGTON -- The House approved a bill Thursday that would grant legal status to President Bush's warrantless wiretapping program with new restrictions. Republicans called it a test before the election of whether Democrats want to fight or coddle terrorists.
"The Democrats' irrational opposition to strong national security policies that help keep our nation secure should be of great concern to the American people," Majority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, said in a statement after the bill passed 232-191.
"To always have reasons why you just can't vote 'yes,' I think speaks volumes when it comes to which party is better able and more willing to take on the terrorists and defeat them," Boehner said.
Democrats shot back that the war on terrorism shouldn't be fought at the expense of civil and human rights. The bill approved by the House, they argued, gives the president too much power and leaves the law vulnerable to being overturned by a court.
"It is ceding the president's argument that Congress doesn't matter in this area," said Rep. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md.
The bill, sponsored by Rep. Heather Wilson, R-N.M., that give legal status under certain conditions to Bush's warrantless wiretapping of calls and e-mails between people on U.S. soil making calls or sending e-mails and those in other countries.
Under the measure, the president would be authorized to conduct such wiretaps if he:
_ Notifies the House and Senate intelligence committees and congressional leaders.
_ Believes an attack is imminent and later explains the reason and names the individuals and groups involved.
_ Renews his certification every 90 days.
The Senate also could vote on a similar bill before Congress recesses at the end of the week. Leaders concede that differences between the versions are so significant they cannot reconcile them into a final bill that can be delivered to Bush before the Nov. 7 congressional elections.
For its part, the White House announced it strongly supported passage of the House version but wasn't satisfied with it, adding that the administration "looks forward to working with Congress to strengthen the bill as it moves through the legislative process."
But with Congress giving Bush the other half of his September anti-terrorism agenda _ a bill setting conditions on how terrorism suspects are to be detained, interrogated and tried _ Republicans shifted from lawmaking to campaign mode.
After the House voted 253-168 to set rules on tough interrogations and military tribunal proceedings, Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., was even more critical than Boehner.
"Democrat Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and 159 of her Democrat colleagues voted today in favor of more rights for terrorists," Hastert said in a statement. "So the same terrorists who plan to harm innocent Americans and their freedom worldwide would be coddled, if we followed the Democrat plan. "
Retorted Pelosi: "I think the speaker is a desperate man for him to say that. Would you think that anyone in our country wants to coddle terrorists?"
She and other Democratic critics of the GOP's September anti-terrorism agenda contend the Republican-written bills make Bush's programs vulnerable to being overturned in court. More broadly, they argue the legislation reflects the White House's willingness to fight the war on terrorism at the expense of civil and human rights.
A Democratic majority in either House would set the balance right, Democrats say. "In 40 days, we can put an end to this nonsense," said Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass, referring to the election.
A federal judge in Detroit who struck down the warrantless surveillance program turned aside a government request for an indefinite stay Thursday. U.S. Judge Anna Diggs Taylor said the government could have a week to appeal.
___
The House bill is H.R. 5825; the Senate bill is S. 3931.
___
On the Net:
Many Rights in U.S. Legal System Absent in New Bill
Many Rights in U.S. Legal System Absent in New Bill
By R. Jeffrey Smith
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, September 29, 2006; A13
The military trials bill approved by Congress lends legislative support for the first time to broad rules for the detention, interrogation, prosecution and trials of terrorism suspects far different from those in the familiar American criminal justice system.
President Bush's argument that the government requires extraordinary power to respond to the unusual threat of terrorism helped him win final support for a system of military trials with highly truncated defendant's rights. The United States used similar trials on just four occasions: during the country's revolution, the Mexican-American War, the Civil War and World War II.
Included in the bill, passed by Republican majorities in the Senate yesterday and the House on Wednesday, are unique rules that bar terrorism suspects from challenging their detention or treatment through traditional habeas corpus petitions. They allow prosecutors, under certain conditions, to use evidence collected through hearsay or coercion to seek criminal convictions.
The bill rejects the right to a speedy trial and limits the traditional right to self-representation by requiring that defendants accept military defense attorneys. Panels of military officers need not reach unanimous agreement to win convictions, except in death penalty cases, and appeals must go through a second military panel before reaching a federal civilian court.
By writing into law for the first time the definition of an "unlawful enemy combatant," the bill empowers the executive branch to detain indefinitely anyone it determines to have "purposefully and materially" supported anti-U.S. hostilities. Only foreign nationals among those detainees can be tried by the military commissions, as they are known, and sentenced to decades in jail or put to death.
At the same time, the bill immunizes U.S. officials from prosecution for cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment of detainees who the military and the CIA captured before the end of last year. It gives the president a dominant but not exclusive role in setting the rules for future interrogations of terrorism suspects.
Written largely, but not completely, on the administration's terms, with passages that give executive branch officials discretion to set details or divert from its protections, the bill is meant to provide what Bush said yesterday are "the tools" needed to handle terrorism suspects U.S. officials hope to capture.
For more than 57 months after the 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, Bush maintained that he did not need congressional authorization of such tools. But the Supreme Court decided otherwise in June, declaring the administration's detainee treatment and trial procedures illegal, and ruling that Bush must first seek Congress's approval.
Now Bush has received much of the authority he desired from party loyalists and a handful of Democrats on Capitol Hill. "The American people need to know we're working together," Bush told senators before yesterday's vote.
But Tom Malinowski, the Washington office director for Human Rights Watch, said Bush's motivation is partly to protect his reputation by gaining congressional endorsement of controversial actions already taken. "He's been accused of authorizing criminal torture in a way that has hurt America and could come back to haunt our troops. One of his purposes is to have Congress stand with him in the dock," Malinowski said.
The bill contains some protections unavailable to the eight Nazi saboteurs who came ashore in the United States in 1942 and were captured two weeks later. Six were executed that year after a closed military trial on the fifth floor of Justice Department headquarters. That proceeding was upheld by the Supreme Court in a decision it explained two months after the electrocutions.
Under the new procedures, trials are supposed to be open, but can be closed to protect the security of individuals or information expected to harm national security. Defendants have a right to be present, unless they are disruptive, and a right to examine and respond to the evidence against them. Proof of guilt must exceed a reasonable doubt.
Many constitutional experts say, however, that the bill pushes at the edges of so much settled U.S. law that its passage will not be the last word on America's detainee policies. They predict it will shift the public debate to the federal courts, a forum where the administration has had less success getting its way on counterterrorism policies.
"This is a full-employment act for lawyers," said Deborah Perlstein, who directs the U.S. Law and Security Program at the New York-based nonprofit group Human Rights First.
Former White House associate counsel Bradford A. Berenson, a supporter of the bill and one of the authors of the rules struck down by the Supreme Court, agreed. "Some of the most creative legal minds are going to be devoted to poking holes in this," he said.
Anticipating court challenges, the administration attempted to make the bill bulletproof by including provisions that would sharply restrict judicial review and limit the application of international treaties -- signed by Washington -- that govern the rights of wartime detainees.
The bill also contains blunt assertions that it complies with U.S. treaty obligations.
University of Texas constitutional law professor Sanford V. Levinson described the bill in an Internet posting as the mark of a "banana republic." Yale Law School Dean Harold Koh said that "the image of Congress rushing to strip jurisdiction from the courts in response to a politically created emergency is really quite shocking, and it's not clear that most of the members understand what they've done."
In contrast, Douglas W. Kmiec, a professor of constitutional law at Pepperdine University, said Congress "did reasonably well in terms of fashioning a fair" set of procedures. But Kmiec and many others say they cannot predict how the Supreme Court will respond to the provision barring habeas corpus rights, which he said will leave "a large body of detainees with no conceivable basis to challenge their detentions."
There are other likely flashpoints. In the Supreme Court's June decision overturning previous administration policies, four members of the court who joined the majority opinion said conspiracy is not a war crime. The new bill says it is.
Georgetown University law professor Neal Katyal said the bill's creation of two systems of justice -- military commissions for foreign nationals and regular criminal trials for U.S. citizens -- may violate the Constitution's 14th Amendment, which requires equal protection of the laws to anyone under U.S. jurisdiction.
"If you're an American citizen, you get the Cadillac system of justice. If you're a foreigner or a green-card holder, you get this beat-up-Chevy version," he said.
© 2006 The Washington Post Company
By R. Jeffrey Smith
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, September 29, 2006; A13
The military trials bill approved by Congress lends legislative support for the first time to broad rules for the detention, interrogation, prosecution and trials of terrorism suspects far different from those in the familiar American criminal justice system.
President Bush's argument that the government requires extraordinary power to respond to the unusual threat of terrorism helped him win final support for a system of military trials with highly truncated defendant's rights. The United States used similar trials on just four occasions: during the country's revolution, the Mexican-American War, the Civil War and World War II.
Included in the bill, passed by Republican majorities in the Senate yesterday and the House on Wednesday, are unique rules that bar terrorism suspects from challenging their detention or treatment through traditional habeas corpus petitions. They allow prosecutors, under certain conditions, to use evidence collected through hearsay or coercion to seek criminal convictions.
The bill rejects the right to a speedy trial and limits the traditional right to self-representation by requiring that defendants accept military defense attorneys. Panels of military officers need not reach unanimous agreement to win convictions, except in death penalty cases, and appeals must go through a second military panel before reaching a federal civilian court.
By writing into law for the first time the definition of an "unlawful enemy combatant," the bill empowers the executive branch to detain indefinitely anyone it determines to have "purposefully and materially" supported anti-U.S. hostilities. Only foreign nationals among those detainees can be tried by the military commissions, as they are known, and sentenced to decades in jail or put to death.
At the same time, the bill immunizes U.S. officials from prosecution for cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment of detainees who the military and the CIA captured before the end of last year. It gives the president a dominant but not exclusive role in setting the rules for future interrogations of terrorism suspects.
Written largely, but not completely, on the administration's terms, with passages that give executive branch officials discretion to set details or divert from its protections, the bill is meant to provide what Bush said yesterday are "the tools" needed to handle terrorism suspects U.S. officials hope to capture.
For more than 57 months after the 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, Bush maintained that he did not need congressional authorization of such tools. But the Supreme Court decided otherwise in June, declaring the administration's detainee treatment and trial procedures illegal, and ruling that Bush must first seek Congress's approval.
Now Bush has received much of the authority he desired from party loyalists and a handful of Democrats on Capitol Hill. "The American people need to know we're working together," Bush told senators before yesterday's vote.
But Tom Malinowski, the Washington office director for Human Rights Watch, said Bush's motivation is partly to protect his reputation by gaining congressional endorsement of controversial actions already taken. "He's been accused of authorizing criminal torture in a way that has hurt America and could come back to haunt our troops. One of his purposes is to have Congress stand with him in the dock," Malinowski said.
The bill contains some protections unavailable to the eight Nazi saboteurs who came ashore in the United States in 1942 and were captured two weeks later. Six were executed that year after a closed military trial on the fifth floor of Justice Department headquarters. That proceeding was upheld by the Supreme Court in a decision it explained two months after the electrocutions.
Under the new procedures, trials are supposed to be open, but can be closed to protect the security of individuals or information expected to harm national security. Defendants have a right to be present, unless they are disruptive, and a right to examine and respond to the evidence against them. Proof of guilt must exceed a reasonable doubt.
Many constitutional experts say, however, that the bill pushes at the edges of so much settled U.S. law that its passage will not be the last word on America's detainee policies. They predict it will shift the public debate to the federal courts, a forum where the administration has had less success getting its way on counterterrorism policies.
"This is a full-employment act for lawyers," said Deborah Perlstein, who directs the U.S. Law and Security Program at the New York-based nonprofit group Human Rights First.
Former White House associate counsel Bradford A. Berenson, a supporter of the bill and one of the authors of the rules struck down by the Supreme Court, agreed. "Some of the most creative legal minds are going to be devoted to poking holes in this," he said.
Anticipating court challenges, the administration attempted to make the bill bulletproof by including provisions that would sharply restrict judicial review and limit the application of international treaties -- signed by Washington -- that govern the rights of wartime detainees.
The bill also contains blunt assertions that it complies with U.S. treaty obligations.
University of Texas constitutional law professor Sanford V. Levinson described the bill in an Internet posting as the mark of a "banana republic." Yale Law School Dean Harold Koh said that "the image of Congress rushing to strip jurisdiction from the courts in response to a politically created emergency is really quite shocking, and it's not clear that most of the members understand what they've done."
In contrast, Douglas W. Kmiec, a professor of constitutional law at Pepperdine University, said Congress "did reasonably well in terms of fashioning a fair" set of procedures. But Kmiec and many others say they cannot predict how the Supreme Court will respond to the provision barring habeas corpus rights, which he said will leave "a large body of detainees with no conceivable basis to challenge their detentions."
There are other likely flashpoints. In the Supreme Court's June decision overturning previous administration policies, four members of the court who joined the majority opinion said conspiracy is not a war crime. The new bill says it is.
Georgetown University law professor Neal Katyal said the bill's creation of two systems of justice -- military commissions for foreign nationals and regular criminal trials for U.S. citizens -- may violate the Constitution's 14th Amendment, which requires equal protection of the laws to anyone under U.S. jurisdiction.
"If you're an American citizen, you get the Cadillac system of justice. If you're a foreigner or a green-card holder, you get this beat-up-Chevy version," he said.
© 2006 The Washington Post Company
We've lost
jurisprudence
The Blind Leading the Willing
A compromise between those who don't care and those who don't want to know.
By Dahlia Lithwick
Posted Wednesday, Sept. 27, 2006, at 6:11 PM ET
Is it still called a compromise when the president gets everything he wanted?
A major detainee bill hurtling down the HOV lane in Congress today would determine the extent to which the president can define and authorize torture. The urgency to pass this legislation has nothing to do with a new need to interrogate alleged enemy combatants. The urgency is about an election.
Last time Congress rubber-stamped a major terrorism-related law no one had bothered to read in the first place, we got the Patriot Act. That alone should lead us to wonder whether there shouldn't be a mandatory three-month cooling-off period whenever Congress enacts broad laws that rewrite the Constitution.
The White House version of the detainee bill met with some resistance among ranking GOP members of Congress last week, but not enough to matter. And now, with a "compromise" at hand, nobody seems to agree on the meaning of the bargain we've struck. Sen. John McCain still believes that he's won on the bedrock principle of U.S. adherence to the Geneva Conventions. The Bush administration sees it as granting the president the authority to decide what Geneva really means.
That led to all the confusion last Sunday, when, appearing on Face the Nation, McCain claimed that the current bill "could mean that … extreme measures such as extreme deprivation—sleep deprivation, hypothermia, and others would be not allowed." This, on the same weekend that the editors at the Wall Street Journal crowed: "It's a fair bet that waterboarding—or simulated drowning, the most controversial of the CIA's reported interrogation techniques—will not be allowed under the new White House rules. But sleep deprivation and temperature variations, to name two other methods, will likely pass muster." So, what did we agree to? Is hypothermia in or out? What about sexual degradation or forcing prisoners to bark like dogs? Stress positions?
I'd wager that any tie goes to the White House. One hardly needs a law degree to understand that in a controversy over detainee treatment between the executive and legislative branches, the trump will go to the guy who's holding the unnamed detainees in secret prisons.
That brings us to a second stunning aspect of the so-called compromise: Not only do our elected officials have no idea what deal they've just struck, but they also have no idea what they were even bargaining about. In his Face the Nation interview, McCain revealed that he was in fact quite clueless as to what these "alternative interrogation measures"—the ones the president insists the CIA must use—actually include. "It's hard for me to get into these techniques," McCain said. "First of all, I'm not privy to them, but I only know what I've seen in public reporting."
Asked whether he had "access to more information about this than any of us because you've been in the negotiations," the senator was not reassuring. He knows "only what the president talked about in his speech." To clarify: McCain, the Geneva Conventions' great defender, is signing off on interrogation limits he knows nothing about. And so, it appears, will the most of the rest of Congress.
But that's not all. Congress doesn't want to know what it's bargaining away this week. In the Boston Globe this weekend, Rick Klein revealed that only "10 percent of the members of Congress have been told which interrogation techniques have been used in the past, and none of them know which ones would be permissible under proposed changes to the War Crimes Act." More troubling still, this congressional ignorance seems to be by choice. Klein quotes Sen. Jeff Sessions, the Alabama Republican, as saying, "I don't know what the CIA has been doing, nor should I know." Evidently, "widely distributing such information could result in leaks."
We've reached a defining moment in our democracy when our elected officials are celebrating their own blind ignorance as a means of keeping the rest of us blindly ignorant as well.
Over at the National Review Online they exult that the CIA torture program isn't just the president's project anymore. "Now it is just as much the program of Congress and of John McCain." Not quite right. Now it's the president's program that John McCain chooses not to know about.
And just to be completely certain, Congress is taking the courts down with it. No serious reader of the detainee-compromise bill can dispute that the whole point here is to sideline the courts. This bill immunizes some forms of detainee abuse and ignores others. It strips courts of habeas-corpus jurisdiction and denies so-called unlawful enemy combatants (a term that sweeps in citizens and noncitizens, Swiss grandmothers and Don Rumsfeld's neighbor if-that-bastard-doesn't-trim-his-hedge) the right to assert Geneva Convention claims in courts. Many detainees may never stand trial on the most basic question of whether they have done anything wrong. And courts will apparently now be powerless to do anything about any of this.
For the five years since 9/11, we have been in the dark in this country. This president has held detainees in secret prisons and had them secretly tortured using secret legal justifications. Those held in secret at Guantanamo Bay include innocent men, as do those who have been secretly shipped off to foreign countries and brutally tortured there. That was a shame on this president.
But passage of the new detainee legislation will be a different sort of watershed. Now we are affirmatively asking to be left in the dark. Instead of torture we were unaware of, we are sanctioning torture we'll never hear about. Instead of detainees we didn't care about, we are authorizing detentions we'll never know about. Instead of being misled by the president, we will be blind and powerless by our own choice. And that is a shame on us all.
Dahlia Lithwick is a Slate senior editor.
Article URL: http://www.slate.com/id/2150495/
Copyright 2006 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC
The Blind Leading the Willing
A compromise between those who don't care and those who don't want to know.
By Dahlia Lithwick
Posted Wednesday, Sept. 27, 2006, at 6:11 PM ET
Is it still called a compromise when the president gets everything he wanted?
A major detainee bill hurtling down the HOV lane in Congress today would determine the extent to which the president can define and authorize torture. The urgency to pass this legislation has nothing to do with a new need to interrogate alleged enemy combatants. The urgency is about an election.
Last time Congress rubber-stamped a major terrorism-related law no one had bothered to read in the first place, we got the Patriot Act. That alone should lead us to wonder whether there shouldn't be a mandatory three-month cooling-off period whenever Congress enacts broad laws that rewrite the Constitution.
The White House version of the detainee bill met with some resistance among ranking GOP members of Congress last week, but not enough to matter. And now, with a "compromise" at hand, nobody seems to agree on the meaning of the bargain we've struck. Sen. John McCain still believes that he's won on the bedrock principle of U.S. adherence to the Geneva Conventions. The Bush administration sees it as granting the president the authority to decide what Geneva really means.
That led to all the confusion last Sunday, when, appearing on Face the Nation, McCain claimed that the current bill "could mean that … extreme measures such as extreme deprivation—sleep deprivation, hypothermia, and others would be not allowed." This, on the same weekend that the editors at the Wall Street Journal crowed: "It's a fair bet that waterboarding—or simulated drowning, the most controversial of the CIA's reported interrogation techniques—will not be allowed under the new White House rules. But sleep deprivation and temperature variations, to name two other methods, will likely pass muster." So, what did we agree to? Is hypothermia in or out? What about sexual degradation or forcing prisoners to bark like dogs? Stress positions?
I'd wager that any tie goes to the White House. One hardly needs a law degree to understand that in a controversy over detainee treatment between the executive and legislative branches, the trump will go to the guy who's holding the unnamed detainees in secret prisons.
That brings us to a second stunning aspect of the so-called compromise: Not only do our elected officials have no idea what deal they've just struck, but they also have no idea what they were even bargaining about. In his Face the Nation interview, McCain revealed that he was in fact quite clueless as to what these "alternative interrogation measures"—the ones the president insists the CIA must use—actually include. "It's hard for me to get into these techniques," McCain said. "First of all, I'm not privy to them, but I only know what I've seen in public reporting."
Asked whether he had "access to more information about this than any of us because you've been in the negotiations," the senator was not reassuring. He knows "only what the president talked about in his speech." To clarify: McCain, the Geneva Conventions' great defender, is signing off on interrogation limits he knows nothing about. And so, it appears, will the most of the rest of Congress.
But that's not all. Congress doesn't want to know what it's bargaining away this week. In the Boston Globe this weekend, Rick Klein revealed that only "10 percent of the members of Congress have been told which interrogation techniques have been used in the past, and none of them know which ones would be permissible under proposed changes to the War Crimes Act." More troubling still, this congressional ignorance seems to be by choice. Klein quotes Sen. Jeff Sessions, the Alabama Republican, as saying, "I don't know what the CIA has been doing, nor should I know." Evidently, "widely distributing such information could result in leaks."
We've reached a defining moment in our democracy when our elected officials are celebrating their own blind ignorance as a means of keeping the rest of us blindly ignorant as well.
Over at the National Review Online they exult that the CIA torture program isn't just the president's project anymore. "Now it is just as much the program of Congress and of John McCain." Not quite right. Now it's the president's program that John McCain chooses not to know about.
And just to be completely certain, Congress is taking the courts down with it. No serious reader of the detainee-compromise bill can dispute that the whole point here is to sideline the courts. This bill immunizes some forms of detainee abuse and ignores others. It strips courts of habeas-corpus jurisdiction and denies so-called unlawful enemy combatants (a term that sweeps in citizens and noncitizens, Swiss grandmothers and Don Rumsfeld's neighbor if-that-bastard-doesn't-trim-his-hedge) the right to assert Geneva Convention claims in courts. Many detainees may never stand trial on the most basic question of whether they have done anything wrong. And courts will apparently now be powerless to do anything about any of this.
For the five years since 9/11, we have been in the dark in this country. This president has held detainees in secret prisons and had them secretly tortured using secret legal justifications. Those held in secret at Guantanamo Bay include innocent men, as do those who have been secretly shipped off to foreign countries and brutally tortured there. That was a shame on this president.
But passage of the new detainee legislation will be a different sort of watershed. Now we are affirmatively asking to be left in the dark. Instead of torture we were unaware of, we are sanctioning torture we'll never hear about. Instead of detainees we didn't care about, we are authorizing detentions we'll never know about. Instead of being misled by the president, we will be blind and powerless by our own choice. And that is a shame on us all.
Dahlia Lithwick is a Slate senior editor.
Article URL: http://www.slate.com/id/2150495/
Copyright 2006 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC
Wednesday, September 27, 2006
Bizzaro Conservatism
September 27, 2006Bizarro Conservatism
And its discontents by Justin Raimondo
Our parent organization, the Randolph Bourne Institute, is named after an early 20th-century liberal famous for, among other things, his trenchant observation that "war is the health of the State" – a phrase that takes on quite a different connotation in our degraded era. In these dark times, Bourne's statement might be taken as meaning approval of war: after all, the State, in this age of Big-Brotherism and "big government conservatism," is a Good Thing, and it's only natural in this context to wish it good health: the more overweening and built-up, the better.
There was a time, however, when Americans feared the accumulation of power, especially when it accrued to the federal government in Washington: conservatives of the Goldwater stripe (and, further back, the followers of Sen. Robert A. Taft), were especially vigilant against this danger. The liberals of Bourne's day, before they were Wilsonized and Rooseveltized, were wary of government's coercive essence. Both Left and Right were joined at the root by the American libertarian consensus – a reflexive distrust of government power rooted in history and reinforced by a rebellious temperament embedded in the American consciousness.
No more: today, the "conservatives" on the Fox "News" channel and the Rush Limbaugh-radio talk show circuit are worshippers at the altar of State Power. No expansion of governmental authority is too vast, too broad, too brazenly contrary to the spirit and letter of the Constitution to evade their enthusiastic endorsement. Liberals, to some extent, are regaining their old distrust of government power, largely in reaction to the radical incursions on our civil liberties authored by the Bush administration. Yet the liberal mainstream, which extends from the Hillary Clinton Fan Club on the "far left" to the editors of The New Republic in the supposed center, stood by in silence or else openly applauded while this president eviscerated our civil liberties.
A massive attack on the traditional principle of habeas corpus – which means that the authorities must have some stated reason, some evidence that a crime has been committed, to hold an individual in detention – would, in normal times, have provoked a storm of protest. However, that was before 9/11, before the impact of those planes on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon tore a gaping hole in the space-time continuum and propelled us into an alternate universe known to avid readers of Superman comics as Bizarro World – a parallel plane of existence where up is down, right is wrong, and the Constitution is really a mandate for the president's unlimited authority.
The Republican Party, previously devoted to the principles of less government, decentralized authority, and economic liberty, immediately transformed itself into the champion of more government, including a significant increase in federal spending and, more ominously, the establishment of a rudimentary police state. Thus was born Bizarro Conservatism, an ideology that, in every conceivable aspect, inverts the core principles of pre-9/11 conservatism.
Accordingly, Bizarro Conservatives welcome a government that routinely spies on its own people and has the power to indefinitely detain anyone, including U.S. citizens, without having to explain why to a judge or a jury. This "right" has been claimed by the administration, on behalf of the president, on the theory that the executive branch enjoys effectively unlimited power in wartime, and now they are moving to consolidate this aspiring presidential dictatorship in legislative form [.pdf], as the Washington Post reports:
"Lawmakers and administration officials announced last week that they had reached accord on the plan for the detention and military trials of suspected terrorists, and it is scheduled for a vote this week. But in recent days the Bush administration and its House allies successfully pressed for a less restrictive description of how the government could designate civilians as 'unlawful enemy combatants,' the sources said yesterday. They spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of negotiations over the bill."
The question of just who is or can be an "unlawful combatant" – and therefore, according to the Bush administration, may be seized and jailed without trial or even an acknowledgment from the authorities – is the issue at hand, and the authoritarian "conservatives" of the Bizarro persuasion are pushing hard to breach the inner battlements of the Constitution, as the Post piece makes all too clear:
"Human rights experts expressed concern yesterday that the language in the new provision would be a precedent-setting congressional endorsement for the indefinite detention of anyone who, as the bill states, 'has engaged in hostilities or who has purposefully and materially supported hostilities against the United States' or its military allies. The definition applies to foreigners living inside or outside the United States and does not rule out the possibility of designating a U.S. citizen as an unlawful combatant."
The ultimate expansion of the "unlawful combatant" definition to include any and all opposition to the War Party, whether military or political, is only a matter of time, and not much time at that. This administration and its allies have long maintained that their critics are "objectively" aiding the terrorist enemy. If Iraq is the main theater of our war on terrorism, then criticism of the war effort, such as organizing an antiwar demonstration, amounts to "material support" for "hostilities against the United States." And if we include in this legal interdict all criticism of our "military allies," then participating in a demonstration against Israeli aggression in Lebanon could also get one designated an "unlawful combatant."
According to Kate Martin, director of the Center for National Security Studies, the inclusion of individuals said to have "supported hostilities" – as opposed to those who "engage in acts" of warfare against the U.S. – shows that "the government intends the legislation to sanction its seizure and indefinite detention of people far from the battlefield." Which raises an important point: where is the battlefield, anyway? When it comes to the all-pervasive "war on terrorism," it is everywhere. As Suzanne Spaulding, former assistant general counsel at the CIA, explains it, the proposed legislation,
"Would give the administration a stronger basis on which to argue that Congress has recognized that the battlefield is wherever the terrorist is, and they can seize people far from the area of combat, label them as unlawful enemy combatants, and detain them indefinitely."
First they came for José Padilla. Now they're coming for the rest of us…
The War Party cannot carry out its program of overseas conquest and "regime change" without cracking down on the home front – that is, by equating antiwar sentiment with treason, including in the legal sense. The "area of combat" is far wider than the mountainous passes of Afghanistan or the growing mountain of bloodstained rubble that is Iraq: the main battlefield, as this administration well knows, is on the home front. It is a war for the hearts and minds of Americans – the one theater of operations in which they cannot afford to lose.
War is indeed the health of the State, because all states are simply instruments of coercion. It is precisely in time of war that governments exercise their core function, which is the large-scale deployment of organized violence. The efficient delivery of this violence, in such places and instances as required, demands a highly centralized, authoritarian command structure, one ideally suited to the mindset and proclivities of our Bizarro Conservatives in that it brooks no dissent.
For once, I agree with Andrew Sullivan:
"Whatever else this is, it is not a constitutional democracy. It is a thinly-veiled military dictatorship, subject to only one control: the will of the Great Decider. And the war that justifies this astonishing attack on American liberty is permanent, without end. "
I might add, however, that Sullivan is only getting what he asked for. After all, he was one of the biggest and loudest supporters of the invasion of Iraq: he railed and ranted for months on end until he finally got what he wanted. It was Sullivan who declared, shortly after 9/11, that the late Susan Sontag and the intellectual elites on the East and West coasts amounted to an intellectual "fifth column" in the struggle against Osama bin Laden. Nor do I recall him protesting when this president declared that the hostilities would last for at least a generation. Now he's shocked – shocked! – that the War Party is moving to seize "emergency powers" in what amounts to a coup d'état against the Constitution.
Sullivan may protest that no, he never asked for this, but what did he imagine would happen in the atmosphere of war hysteria he and his erstwhile neocon allies promoted? In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, when the anthrax letters sent to the media and congressional offices opened up a whole new level of public panic, Sullivan was demanding that we use nuclear weapons on the Iraqis. We had to "act now," he screeched, certain in the knowledge that the Iraqis had sent the anthrax, and "draw a line." While this "need not mean nuclear weapons," on the other hand, it just might mean nuking the crap out of Baghdad.
In the face of such emotionalism as was unleashed by the events of 9/11 and their immediate aftermath, no measure, no matter how draconian or cruel, seemed unreasonable to some, like Sullivan, who had even fancied themselves "libertarians." (See Cathy Young's extraordinary endorsement of police-state measures in the "libertarian" Reason magazine for a particularly reprehensible example.)
Of all those now decrying this administration's political and legal onslaught against our civil liberties, Sullivan is the one least entitled to feign surprise. He and his fellow neocons utilized the emotionalism and hysteria generated by 9/11 to unleash the U.S. military on Iraq and prepare the ground for further "regime change" throughout the region, including Iran and Syria. What Sullivan apparently didn't realize – or, rather, washes his hands of – is that this meant regime change on the home front as well.
The program of the War Party – perpetual war and the creation of an American empire – had to mean the overthrow of our constitutional republic, and the rise of… something else. Something that has been, so far, alien to America, but is now, sadly, a looming possibility: a dictatorship "legally" empowered by "emergency" measures, such as the one presently before the Senate [.pdf].
Bizarro Conservatism, birthed in the firestorm of intellectual radioactivity sparked by 9/11, is the mutant offspring of a philosophy that once meant something quite other than war, torture, and the police state. That Sullivan is coming around to this realization rather late – and with a history of having helped midwife this monster into existence – is cold comfort for those of us who warned of this outcome from the very beginning.
And its discontents by Justin Raimondo
Our parent organization, the Randolph Bourne Institute, is named after an early 20th-century liberal famous for, among other things, his trenchant observation that "war is the health of the State" – a phrase that takes on quite a different connotation in our degraded era. In these dark times, Bourne's statement might be taken as meaning approval of war: after all, the State, in this age of Big-Brotherism and "big government conservatism," is a Good Thing, and it's only natural in this context to wish it good health: the more overweening and built-up, the better.
There was a time, however, when Americans feared the accumulation of power, especially when it accrued to the federal government in Washington: conservatives of the Goldwater stripe (and, further back, the followers of Sen. Robert A. Taft), were especially vigilant against this danger. The liberals of Bourne's day, before they were Wilsonized and Rooseveltized, were wary of government's coercive essence. Both Left and Right were joined at the root by the American libertarian consensus – a reflexive distrust of government power rooted in history and reinforced by a rebellious temperament embedded in the American consciousness.
No more: today, the "conservatives" on the Fox "News" channel and the Rush Limbaugh-radio talk show circuit are worshippers at the altar of State Power. No expansion of governmental authority is too vast, too broad, too brazenly contrary to the spirit and letter of the Constitution to evade their enthusiastic endorsement. Liberals, to some extent, are regaining their old distrust of government power, largely in reaction to the radical incursions on our civil liberties authored by the Bush administration. Yet the liberal mainstream, which extends from the Hillary Clinton Fan Club on the "far left" to the editors of The New Republic in the supposed center, stood by in silence or else openly applauded while this president eviscerated our civil liberties.
A massive attack on the traditional principle of habeas corpus – which means that the authorities must have some stated reason, some evidence that a crime has been committed, to hold an individual in detention – would, in normal times, have provoked a storm of protest. However, that was before 9/11, before the impact of those planes on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon tore a gaping hole in the space-time continuum and propelled us into an alternate universe known to avid readers of Superman comics as Bizarro World – a parallel plane of existence where up is down, right is wrong, and the Constitution is really a mandate for the president's unlimited authority.
The Republican Party, previously devoted to the principles of less government, decentralized authority, and economic liberty, immediately transformed itself into the champion of more government, including a significant increase in federal spending and, more ominously, the establishment of a rudimentary police state. Thus was born Bizarro Conservatism, an ideology that, in every conceivable aspect, inverts the core principles of pre-9/11 conservatism.
Accordingly, Bizarro Conservatives welcome a government that routinely spies on its own people and has the power to indefinitely detain anyone, including U.S. citizens, without having to explain why to a judge or a jury. This "right" has been claimed by the administration, on behalf of the president, on the theory that the executive branch enjoys effectively unlimited power in wartime, and now they are moving to consolidate this aspiring presidential dictatorship in legislative form [.pdf], as the Washington Post reports:
"Lawmakers and administration officials announced last week that they had reached accord on the plan for the detention and military trials of suspected terrorists, and it is scheduled for a vote this week. But in recent days the Bush administration and its House allies successfully pressed for a less restrictive description of how the government could designate civilians as 'unlawful enemy combatants,' the sources said yesterday. They spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of negotiations over the bill."
The question of just who is or can be an "unlawful combatant" – and therefore, according to the Bush administration, may be seized and jailed without trial or even an acknowledgment from the authorities – is the issue at hand, and the authoritarian "conservatives" of the Bizarro persuasion are pushing hard to breach the inner battlements of the Constitution, as the Post piece makes all too clear:
"Human rights experts expressed concern yesterday that the language in the new provision would be a precedent-setting congressional endorsement for the indefinite detention of anyone who, as the bill states, 'has engaged in hostilities or who has purposefully and materially supported hostilities against the United States' or its military allies. The definition applies to foreigners living inside or outside the United States and does not rule out the possibility of designating a U.S. citizen as an unlawful combatant."
The ultimate expansion of the "unlawful combatant" definition to include any and all opposition to the War Party, whether military or political, is only a matter of time, and not much time at that. This administration and its allies have long maintained that their critics are "objectively" aiding the terrorist enemy. If Iraq is the main theater of our war on terrorism, then criticism of the war effort, such as organizing an antiwar demonstration, amounts to "material support" for "hostilities against the United States." And if we include in this legal interdict all criticism of our "military allies," then participating in a demonstration against Israeli aggression in Lebanon could also get one designated an "unlawful combatant."
According to Kate Martin, director of the Center for National Security Studies, the inclusion of individuals said to have "supported hostilities" – as opposed to those who "engage in acts" of warfare against the U.S. – shows that "the government intends the legislation to sanction its seizure and indefinite detention of people far from the battlefield." Which raises an important point: where is the battlefield, anyway? When it comes to the all-pervasive "war on terrorism," it is everywhere. As Suzanne Spaulding, former assistant general counsel at the CIA, explains it, the proposed legislation,
"Would give the administration a stronger basis on which to argue that Congress has recognized that the battlefield is wherever the terrorist is, and they can seize people far from the area of combat, label them as unlawful enemy combatants, and detain them indefinitely."
First they came for José Padilla. Now they're coming for the rest of us…
The War Party cannot carry out its program of overseas conquest and "regime change" without cracking down on the home front – that is, by equating antiwar sentiment with treason, including in the legal sense. The "area of combat" is far wider than the mountainous passes of Afghanistan or the growing mountain of bloodstained rubble that is Iraq: the main battlefield, as this administration well knows, is on the home front. It is a war for the hearts and minds of Americans – the one theater of operations in which they cannot afford to lose.
War is indeed the health of the State, because all states are simply instruments of coercion. It is precisely in time of war that governments exercise their core function, which is the large-scale deployment of organized violence. The efficient delivery of this violence, in such places and instances as required, demands a highly centralized, authoritarian command structure, one ideally suited to the mindset and proclivities of our Bizarro Conservatives in that it brooks no dissent.
For once, I agree with Andrew Sullivan:
"Whatever else this is, it is not a constitutional democracy. It is a thinly-veiled military dictatorship, subject to only one control: the will of the Great Decider. And the war that justifies this astonishing attack on American liberty is permanent, without end. "
I might add, however, that Sullivan is only getting what he asked for. After all, he was one of the biggest and loudest supporters of the invasion of Iraq: he railed and ranted for months on end until he finally got what he wanted. It was Sullivan who declared, shortly after 9/11, that the late Susan Sontag and the intellectual elites on the East and West coasts amounted to an intellectual "fifth column" in the struggle against Osama bin Laden. Nor do I recall him protesting when this president declared that the hostilities would last for at least a generation. Now he's shocked – shocked! – that the War Party is moving to seize "emergency powers" in what amounts to a coup d'état against the Constitution.
Sullivan may protest that no, he never asked for this, but what did he imagine would happen in the atmosphere of war hysteria he and his erstwhile neocon allies promoted? In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, when the anthrax letters sent to the media and congressional offices opened up a whole new level of public panic, Sullivan was demanding that we use nuclear weapons on the Iraqis. We had to "act now," he screeched, certain in the knowledge that the Iraqis had sent the anthrax, and "draw a line." While this "need not mean nuclear weapons," on the other hand, it just might mean nuking the crap out of Baghdad.
In the face of such emotionalism as was unleashed by the events of 9/11 and their immediate aftermath, no measure, no matter how draconian or cruel, seemed unreasonable to some, like Sullivan, who had even fancied themselves "libertarians." (See Cathy Young's extraordinary endorsement of police-state measures in the "libertarian" Reason magazine for a particularly reprehensible example.)
Of all those now decrying this administration's political and legal onslaught against our civil liberties, Sullivan is the one least entitled to feign surprise. He and his fellow neocons utilized the emotionalism and hysteria generated by 9/11 to unleash the U.S. military on Iraq and prepare the ground for further "regime change" throughout the region, including Iran and Syria. What Sullivan apparently didn't realize – or, rather, washes his hands of – is that this meant regime change on the home front as well.
The program of the War Party – perpetual war and the creation of an American empire – had to mean the overthrow of our constitutional republic, and the rise of… something else. Something that has been, so far, alien to America, but is now, sadly, a looming possibility: a dictatorship "legally" empowered by "emergency" measures, such as the one presently before the Senate [.pdf].
Bizarro Conservatism, birthed in the firestorm of intellectual radioactivity sparked by 9/11, is the mutant offspring of a philosophy that once meant something quite other than war, torture, and the police state. That Sullivan is coming around to this realization rather late – and with a history of having helped midwife this monster into existence – is cold comfort for those of us who warned of this outcome from the very beginning.
Tuesday, September 26, 2006
Terrorism...a technique
Lest anyone forget, if this war on terrorism is suppose to make "us and our allies safer" allow me to refresh your memory. No the US hasn't been hit by terrorism since 9-11, but what about London. The UK hadn't been targeted by Muslim terrorists before they joined the US to invade Iraq. Terrorists bombed the london subway last year and killed 52. The terrorists, contrary to what is continually spewed by the administration were not middle eastern but all British. One bomber was of Jamaican decent.
In 2004, the Madrid commuter train system was bombed, which resulted in the deaths of 191. The attacks were in response to Spain's support of the US and UK's invasion of Iraq.
As I've said before any nut who wants to commit suicide will be practicly impossible to stop. These wackos who committed these atrocities did not know bin Laden. They weren't affiliated with al Quaeda, they just rallied around the jihadist movement which the invasion of Iraq has inflamed.
The next extremist or group of extremists that want to kill themselves will do so. The 911 hijackers were in country a long while before they acted. The London bombers were all home grown and the bombers in Spain were already there. The war in Iraq isn't preventing jihadists from entering the US or Europe, they're already in place just waiting for the right blend of inflammatory rhetoric to set off the loose screw they have in their head. The continued aggression of the West will be utilized as a rallying point for extremist rabble rousers, giving whack jobs who are already close to the edge the impetus to go over the line and become mass murderers.
In 2004, the Madrid commuter train system was bombed, which resulted in the deaths of 191. The attacks were in response to Spain's support of the US and UK's invasion of Iraq.
As I've said before any nut who wants to commit suicide will be practicly impossible to stop. These wackos who committed these atrocities did not know bin Laden. They weren't affiliated with al Quaeda, they just rallied around the jihadist movement which the invasion of Iraq has inflamed.
The next extremist or group of extremists that want to kill themselves will do so. The 911 hijackers were in country a long while before they acted. The London bombers were all home grown and the bombers in Spain were already there. The war in Iraq isn't preventing jihadists from entering the US or Europe, they're already in place just waiting for the right blend of inflammatory rhetoric to set off the loose screw they have in their head. The continued aggression of the West will be utilized as a rallying point for extremist rabble rousers, giving whack jobs who are already close to the edge the impetus to go over the line and become mass murderers.
Bush claims Intelligence Estimate "niave"
Well, here we go again, Bush is again claiming that you shouldn't believe the intelligence estimate that was put together by the sixteen US government spy agencies. (I had no idea there were sixteen and could not tell you the names of more than three) Here's there modus operandi, you must trust us, our intelligence tells us this that and the other, then later, the intelligence we told you that you should trust us on is crap, don't pay any attention to what we said...
I'll just dive right in to some quotes from the IHT...
President George W. Bush said Tuesday that he had ordered the declassification of key parts of a major intelligence report that reportedly found that the Iraq war has helped produce a new generation of Islamic radicals and increased the threat of terrorism.
The president was clearly unhappy that findings from the document, a National Intelligence Estimate completed in April, had made their way into news reports. The New York Times disclosed some of the details in its Sunday editions.
"Some people have guessed what's in the report and concluded that going into Iraq was a mistake," the president said. "I strongly disagree."
"I think it's naïve. I think it's a mistake for people to believe that going on the offense against people that want to do harm against the American people makes us less safe."
Noting that evidence-gathering for the assessment had concluded in February, and that the report itself had been finished two months later, he said: "Here we are, coming down the homestretch of an election campaign and it's on the front page of your newspapers. Isn't that interesting?"
The president made the announcement during a brief White House news conference alongside a key ally in the terror fight, President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan.
Saying that people were drawing the wrong conclusion from the leaked news reports, Bush said he had asked John Negroponte, the director of national intelligence, to declassify key findings of the assessment, which reflects the consensus of the nation's 16 intelligence agencies.
Bush made it clear that the matter rankled.
"I think it's a bad habit for our government to declassify every time there's a leak," he said, before saying that he had told Negroponte to do so.
"I told the DNI to declassify the document, you can read it for yourself," Bush said. "Everybody can make their own judgments."
It was not immediately clear when the declassified text would be released.
The House Democratic leader, Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, then asked her colleagues to convene a highly unusual secret session of the full House to discuss the intelligence analysis, which she called "the administration's worst nightmare." But Republicans control the chamber, and rejected the proposal.
No such session has taken place since July 1983, when lawmakers met behind closed doors to discuss U.S. support for paramilitary operations in Nicaragua, according to The Associated Press.
Democrats have seized on reports that the document linked the war in Iraq to a rising terror threat - a potentially damaging blow to the central administration argument that the war has made Americans safer. The Democrats hope to keep voters focused on setbacks in Iraq even as the administration wants them to think about its efforts to fight terrorism.
Several Democrats had called for the declassification.
Representative Jane Harman of California, the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, joined those calls Tuesday. She said that the Iraq war had "made the global jihadist threat more dangerous."
"We created a failed state by removing Saddam Hussein and established a recruiting tool and training ground for global jihadists."
The administration had resisted the declassification. But as the security debate has exploded ahead of the Nov. 7 legislative elections, the pressure to respond to Democrats' furious criticism may have tipped the balance.
In earlier responses, the administration had said that the news reports about the intelligence document did not reflect it fairly or wholly, and gave too little credit to the administration for its understanding of a complex and evolving terror threat.
The leaked intelligence assessment was not the only one in recent weeks to question the administration's underlying assumptions about Iraq. The Washington Post reported Sept. 11 that the chief of intelligence for the Marine Corps in Iraq had filed a secret report concluding that chances for securing Anbar Province were extremely dim. Officials told The Post this was the first time a senior U.S. military officer had filed so negative a report from Iraq.
Bush also said Tuesday that he would not be drawn into an argument with the former President Bill Clinton, who said in an interview aired Sunday on Fox-TV that the Bush administration had done too little in its first months in office to counter the Al Qaeda threat.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice did not shy from confronting those criticisms, doing so in an interview published Tuesday in The New York Post.
She directly challenged a claim by Clinton that he had done more than many of his conservative critics, including some in the Bush administration, to pursue Osama bin Laden.
And she rejected Clinton's assertion that he had left behind a comprehensive plan to fight Al Qaeda.
"What we did in the eight months was at least as aggressive as what the Clinton administration did in the preceding years," she said, according to a transcript provided by the State Department.
Some Republicans have suggested that Clinton's furious rejoinder to the Fox interviewer - accusing him of carrying the water of Clinton's political foes - was more calculated than it might have seemed, aimed at giving Democrats the courage to fight back when Republicans brand them as weak on terror.
Clinton's wife, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, appeared to say as much.
"I just think that my husband did a great job in demonstrating that Democrats are not going to take this," she told Newsday on Monday.
The political adviser James Carville told NBC-TV on Tuesday that his former boss had given Democrats "a spinal implant."
Bush also used the news conference Tuesday to urge Congress to act quickly to pass legislation covering permissible treatment of suspected terrorists and the military commissions at which they may be tried.
Lawmakers are set to leave Washington at the end of the week to return to their districts to campaign ahead of the November elections, and the administration fears key legislation might not come to a vote.
I'll just dive right in to some quotes from the IHT...
President George W. Bush said Tuesday that he had ordered the declassification of key parts of a major intelligence report that reportedly found that the Iraq war has helped produce a new generation of Islamic radicals and increased the threat of terrorism.
The president was clearly unhappy that findings from the document, a National Intelligence Estimate completed in April, had made their way into news reports. The New York Times disclosed some of the details in its Sunday editions.
"Some people have guessed what's in the report and concluded that going into Iraq was a mistake," the president said. "I strongly disagree."
"I think it's naïve. I think it's a mistake for people to believe that going on the offense against people that want to do harm against the American people makes us less safe."
Noting that evidence-gathering for the assessment had concluded in February, and that the report itself had been finished two months later, he said: "Here we are, coming down the homestretch of an election campaign and it's on the front page of your newspapers. Isn't that interesting?"
The president made the announcement during a brief White House news conference alongside a key ally in the terror fight, President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan.
Saying that people were drawing the wrong conclusion from the leaked news reports, Bush said he had asked John Negroponte, the director of national intelligence, to declassify key findings of the assessment, which reflects the consensus of the nation's 16 intelligence agencies.
Bush made it clear that the matter rankled.
"I think it's a bad habit for our government to declassify every time there's a leak," he said, before saying that he had told Negroponte to do so.
"I told the DNI to declassify the document, you can read it for yourself," Bush said. "Everybody can make their own judgments."
It was not immediately clear when the declassified text would be released.
The House Democratic leader, Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, then asked her colleagues to convene a highly unusual secret session of the full House to discuss the intelligence analysis, which she called "the administration's worst nightmare." But Republicans control the chamber, and rejected the proposal.
No such session has taken place since July 1983, when lawmakers met behind closed doors to discuss U.S. support for paramilitary operations in Nicaragua, according to The Associated Press.
Democrats have seized on reports that the document linked the war in Iraq to a rising terror threat - a potentially damaging blow to the central administration argument that the war has made Americans safer. The Democrats hope to keep voters focused on setbacks in Iraq even as the administration wants them to think about its efforts to fight terrorism.
Several Democrats had called for the declassification.
Representative Jane Harman of California, the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, joined those calls Tuesday. She said that the Iraq war had "made the global jihadist threat more dangerous."
"We created a failed state by removing Saddam Hussein and established a recruiting tool and training ground for global jihadists."
The administration had resisted the declassification. But as the security debate has exploded ahead of the Nov. 7 legislative elections, the pressure to respond to Democrats' furious criticism may have tipped the balance.
In earlier responses, the administration had said that the news reports about the intelligence document did not reflect it fairly or wholly, and gave too little credit to the administration for its understanding of a complex and evolving terror threat.
The leaked intelligence assessment was not the only one in recent weeks to question the administration's underlying assumptions about Iraq. The Washington Post reported Sept. 11 that the chief of intelligence for the Marine Corps in Iraq had filed a secret report concluding that chances for securing Anbar Province were extremely dim. Officials told The Post this was the first time a senior U.S. military officer had filed so negative a report from Iraq.
Bush also said Tuesday that he would not be drawn into an argument with the former President Bill Clinton, who said in an interview aired Sunday on Fox-TV that the Bush administration had done too little in its first months in office to counter the Al Qaeda threat.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice did not shy from confronting those criticisms, doing so in an interview published Tuesday in The New York Post.
She directly challenged a claim by Clinton that he had done more than many of his conservative critics, including some in the Bush administration, to pursue Osama bin Laden.
And she rejected Clinton's assertion that he had left behind a comprehensive plan to fight Al Qaeda.
"What we did in the eight months was at least as aggressive as what the Clinton administration did in the preceding years," she said, according to a transcript provided by the State Department.
Some Republicans have suggested that Clinton's furious rejoinder to the Fox interviewer - accusing him of carrying the water of Clinton's political foes - was more calculated than it might have seemed, aimed at giving Democrats the courage to fight back when Republicans brand them as weak on terror.
Clinton's wife, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, appeared to say as much.
"I just think that my husband did a great job in demonstrating that Democrats are not going to take this," she told Newsday on Monday.
The political adviser James Carville told NBC-TV on Tuesday that his former boss had given Democrats "a spinal implant."
Bush also used the news conference Tuesday to urge Congress to act quickly to pass legislation covering permissible treatment of suspected terrorists and the military commissions at which they may be tried.
Lawmakers are set to leave Washington at the end of the week to return to their districts to campaign ahead of the November elections, and the administration fears key legislation might not come to a vote.
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