Edgewise

Florida and Michigan--Rebels on the Run

Leaving aside everything else about this campaign, I’d like to zero-in on whether the delegates from these two states should or should not be seated. So, I have composed this imaginary statement in the name of the Democratic National Committee:

STATEMENT

—Barak Obama promised not to campaign in Florida, and he kept his word. He must be punished.

—Mr. Obama promised not to campaign in Michigan, and he kept his word. He even took his name off the ballot!. He must be severely punished.

—To all the other state parties who had also sought to hold earlier primaries, but in the end agreed to keep to the rules. Just kidding!

—By seating these two delegations, we are trying to send a message to you and to all 50 states about the primaries that will come up in 2012: Go ahead and ignore our warnings. There will be no sanctions to back them up! See, they did it, and nothing happened to them.

—To the voters in Michigan and Florida, please don’t hold it against your own state party leaders for invalidating your votes. This was their decision. They are the ones who willfully and deliberately put you in this position. But is it fair to hold them accountable for it?

—This all started when we decided to preserve a tradition: Primary season opens with the slow-paced, multi-candidate, face-to-face “retail politics†of the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary.

This year, the Iowa caucuses took place on January 3. But think how great it would have been if you had jumped ahead of them, pushing the primaries back into 2007. The attention! The coverage! The Red Carpets!

Of course, after we seat Florida and Michigan this year, you will have a lot of company and competition in the 2011/2012 cycle. We could have a two-year long primary season!

Why did Barack Obama have to go and keep his word? What an idiot! We’ve got to nip this in bud.

Will There Be US Bases in Iraq?

Absolutely not.

“The U.S. ambassador…told Congress last week that the deal would not establish permanent bases in Iraq nor specify the number of forces to be stationed” there. —Washington Post, 4-15-08

This unspecified number of troops will not be housed in bases, but since they will be stationed there for an also unspecified period, the Army plans to consruct Stations. Military architects envision a standardized high-domed Grand Central Station motif, encircled by tall, tapering blast-walls. The Army, you know; they’re just sentimental.

Capitalism and the Homeowner: Contempt Hidden in Plain Sight

Marxists have long suggested that home ownership is encouraged under capitalism because when masses of people own small-scale properties, they identify with and defend large-scale capitalist ownership of true wealth in the means of production. Homeowners in America, then, are comparable to the land-owning peasantry in the Old Countries, unwitting bastions of reactionary economics.

From Marxists, this can sound a bit conspiracy/paranoidish. So, let’s hear it from The Man

[My BF]: “[Greenspan] said that the subprime boom would boost home ownership and was ‘worth the risk.’ ...[because] ‘protection of property rights, so critical to a market economy, requires a critical mass of owners to sustain political support.’†http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/20/AR20080320037082.html?nav=rssemail/components&sid=ST2008032003800

And political support there has been! Ordinary people insisting on tax cuts for multimillionaires. It has worked amazingly well, indeed, insanely well.

Worth the risk. Greenspan is a risk-assessor extraordinaire, legendary. So, how much pain was he willing to risk inflicting?

For instance, how many millions of life-plans, some carefully provided for over many years, was he willing to see shredded in an instant? How many millions of secure retirements gone to Hell? How many educations snatched from outstretched fingers? How much poverty and homelessness, night-terrors and desperation suicides was he willing to risk inflicting on America?

All of these consequences, we are told, while not inevitable, are definitely in prospect.

But it was “worth the risk.” Clearly, he does not express this as a close call, but as a small price to pay to “sustain political support” for what he still whimsically terms “a market economy.” For the wealth class, It is a small price because it will be paid by small people: the working people, the unemployed, the literally dispossessed. In a famous phrase, the “little people,” who, unlike the rich, have to pay their income taxes.

As Greenspan notes, capitalism requires legions of small owners over the long term: their false hopes, flotsam businesses, and fragile 401(k) sense of ownership. In good times, when obscene wealth is vulnerable to the disgust of decency, they are indispensable. But things change. We have rocky seas. The bet turned bad. But here is the Greenspan world’s courage on display, disregarding the extreme danger of splash marks on their vests, they have the guts to throw the small owners overboard like garbage.

And in the midst of this, the unconscionable cynicism of an Alan Greenspan can be stated publicly in the newspaper, and pass unnoticed.

The Obama Charisma Recoi. "Have a little faith; there's magic in the night."

I wrote this in response to an article on another list, but the general attitude I responded to is common enough. It is a recoil at the sight of Barak Obama’s rallies and speeches mostly, but also his political positions. The typical terms include: platitudes, revivalist, naive, empty, credulous, cult, spell, euphoria, fervor, creepy, messianic. It is a revulsion of the sophisticated from what they see as mesmerized, mindless mass hysteria.

So, some responses to all of that:

8 things come to mind. (Most of them, I notice, are more than 30 years old.)

1. When I was working in the Bob Scheer for Congress campaign in 1966, people would say he was using us, and I would say, “Never trust a politician who isn’t using you.”

2. When I wrote an endorsement of McGovern for President in 1972, people would say he wasn’t going to do what he says that he will do, and I would say, “Then he is building us a protest movement; what have we got now?”

3. When we said in 1964, “Don’t trust anybody over 30,” I honestly think that expressed, “Don’t trust anybody who is over 30 in 1964.” Because we saw a generation for whom every mass political gathering was the growth of fascism. That was the life they had lived. They had reason. We have no excuse.

4. A “cult.” I used to indulge in making fun of Mormonism. And one day someone said it was not a religion, but a cult. And I realized, “What am I doing?” A Jew deriding someone else’s religion. I could describe Christianity or Judaism, using accurate detail, in such a way that it sounded like a cult. You can describe any congregation of belief, good or bad, as a cult. The Anti-Vietnam War movement was a cult. Thank God for it.

5. Platitudes. “We Shall Overcome.” “Freedom Now!” “Keep Your Eye on the Prize.” Platitudes. Thank God for them.

“Black and white together.” A wild, desperate hope. How credulous can you get? How unsophisticated and naive can you be? And it takes many years. And it is far from being done. But when we see some of it in action, in big-time action, in credulous, youth-driven action, why can’t we rejoice? Even if the hope and heart we see this day, this time around, should end in disappointment, should only move us one step forward, why can’t we rejoice? I am proud of holding hands in a vast, naive, credulous circle, singing platitudes with a thousand other fools. Thank God for that folly; it did good. This, today, is doing good.

Virtue needs our help more than folly needs our disapproval.

1. In the days of “Listening to Prozac,” I saw something in my own subculture, a commitment to despondency, an implacable cynicism. If you were sensitive, you were miserable, and if anyone was happy, they weren’t facing reality.

2. “Obama’s….going around issuing promissory notes on the future that he can’t possibly redeem…. Promises to heal the world with negotiations with the likes of Iran’s President Ahmadinejad.”

Talk is not cheap. If talks with Iran meant nothing, this administration would have yielded to them long ago. But, settlements are too much within reach. They fear a settlement. Syria and Iran have both offered comprehensive settlements, including Palestine. But we refuse to give up “regime change,” which means overthrowing their governments and installing ones that we approve. (Yes, that is our policy.)

Talks mean normalization, regional security, renouncing the overthrow of their governments. In return, Assad suggests he could even turn off Hamas, which in turn would turn off the Israeli Right. Talks mean peace, and we will not allow it.

1. Talk isn’t cheap at home. Health reform. Someone asked Obama what he would do if that couple from the 1990s TV commercials were brought back, the folksy ones who destroyed health reform by saying the government would choose your doctor and dictate your medical care. Obama said that he would go on television and say that they were lying.

That was actually deep. I think he, and no one else around—in part because of his so objectionable inclusiveness—could really do that and be listened to. When the truth is listened to, more often than not it is believed.

Bush has cut taxes for the rich repeatedly for the last eight years. He got away with it because there was no talk. Let’s have a national discussion. Let’s bring in both Left and Right. Are we afraid of that?

Most of Bush’s policies have been totally indefensible. Let’s make somebody defend them. Let’s go back to Square 1 and defend the assumptions we have made. We should be eager for an open-ended talk about fundamental questions. For example:

“Are the wealthy the engines of progress, of economic growth? You used to say it was the marketplace, ordinary people with money in their hands, well informed, making their own decisions, driving economic growth. Only the wealthy who served them would prosper, and the rest would fade away. Now you say bypass the ordinary people and give money directly to the wealthy, all of them, not because they serve, but just because they’re rich. What good does that do? Could you please defend that policy?”

But they cannot defend that policy. The Right cannot survive such talk. If we all put our cards on the table, we will have the stronger hand. And I can see why old fighters returning to the ring are not likely to precipitate it. Maybe Obama, the bland, open to all, folksier-than-thou, but still, please notice, insisting on a core of serve the people, and putting youthful eyes on politics, maybe Obama can make a start.

What have we got now?

Life Affirming -- Dorothy Paker Style

Resume

—Dorothy Parker (1893-1967)

Razors pain you;

Rivers are damp;

Acids stain you;

And drugs cause cramp.

Guns aren’t lawful;

Nooses give;

Gas smells awful;

You might as well live.

Illegality of Marijuana May Cause Lung Disease

A few studies now suggest that marijuana may increase the risk of lung disease—not the marijuana itself, but its illegality, which makes it expensive, causing people to hold the smoke deep inside their lungs.

The DEA is all about Public Health. They will undoubtedly now campaign to make marijuana legal and cheap, so the smoking styledoesn’t harm the lungs. Already, they reassure us that today’s crops are much more potent—trying to get across that marijuana is now safer: less smoke, same effect.

And how delighted they must be that the new smokeless vaporizers have proved as effective as the smoke itself. They’ll probably tell parents “Kids listen. Protect them with straight talk about the health benefits of vaporizers.” Maybe they’ll back a tax credit.

—David

If Jews had met Budhists

Great religious coincidence. Last week I wrote to a friend:

“But mainly the sense of Jewish superiority was in relation…to the idol worshipers. It would have been interesting if there were strong contact between Jews and Buddhists, but it didn’t happen. So there were not other high religions [in their world] to [give] respect [to], except in certain ways the mystery religions, but they were in a slightly different line of business.”

Today, a quote from the Talmud unlike any I’ve ever seen:

“Whoever repudiates idolatry is called a Jew.”

• Babylonian Talmud, Megillah 13a

New from Aristotle

This came in this morning’s Aristotle message:

“To be conscious that we are perceiving or thinking is to be conscious of our own existence.”

It came as news to me that he had said this. He never mentioned to me before. And if I am remembering the dates right, it must have come before Descartes’ “I think, therefore I am.”

(In a more serious vein, I do realize that Descartes’ point on this score was much more fundamental, that it was the starting point, and the only possible starting point, for any other knowledge whatsoever.

Which in turn electrified the challenge raised by the late Paul Feyerabend, our cantankerous and really beloved Philosophy of Science prof at UCB, who argued persuasively that it was not possible to come to know something without already knowing something.)

—David

Sitting next to my father

It could be a very curious experience sitting next to my father watching a bad movie. He thoroughly enjoyed anticipating the next line of a predictable dialog.

This involved more than just getting the words right. There was also the timing. It had to be quick, and had to hit on the half-beat in the movie’s pacing, exactly midway between two lines spoken on the screen. So I’d hear my father first, courteously sotto voce, and then hear the actor on the screen repeating him! As in…

“Have you completely lost your senses?”

 <em>No, I've just come to them.</em>

“No, I’ve just come to them!”

Or this one:

“What’s stopping you? Nobody will know.”

 <em>I'll know.</em>

“I’ll know!”

In remembrance,

David

Sort of about Chanukah and Christmas

Got this in the email today:

The lasting achievement of the Maccabees was not that they won a war but that they rekindled the light of hope in Jewish hearts and saved the faith of monotheism from defeat. - Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, Chief Rabbi of Great Britain, 1997

[Background: Chanukah celebrates the victory in the 160s BCE of a Jewish People’s War/guerrilla war (possibly the first of its kind) against the gigantic armies sent from Persia to impose Greek culture and religion on them. The Jews were the last hold-outs who insisted on retaining a religion and culture of their own. The Maccabees were the leaders in the war.]

Rabbi Sachs is surely wrong about monotheism; it has enough juice in it to have emerged somewhere besides Palestine (and indeed it did, including, in a different way, the Mysteries). But Christianity? That’s different. That might really be so: No Judaism in Palestine, no Jesus and Christianity.

Besides its origins, the Jewish legacy was an indispensable impetus to the growth of Christianity, not just because of monotheism, but also the deep ethical dimension so weirdly absent from the culture of the Greeks. Communities who cared for the widow and orphan, for all of the needy, and who affirmed a fundamental equality before God for all, were an immense part of the attraction that drew to Christianity such vast numbers in Rome and the Roman Empire.

There would still be some kind of tree complementing the Menorah at the Winter solstice, but it might have been a different kind of tree.

Funundrum

Nobody knows what the Sun really looks like. —DKo

Philosophical Courage

I’ve been getting an Aristotle Quote of the Day on my (Google) home page. Today it was,

“Character is habitual action.”

And—totally apart from the content—I am thinking, “What guts! To say something so flat out straightforward, so intellectually committed as those four words.” And there is nothing obviously true about these words.

Where are the self-protective qualifications? Where are the noncommittal “Cover Your Ass” phrases and clauses? After all, Character is elusive and complex. Less obviously, so is Habit. So, complicate it! Sophisticate it up! Who could blame you? They say there is safety in numbers; in philosophy there is safety in supererogation.

I understand this sentence didn’t earn its living in the stark isolation I see on my computer. There is context par excellance in the celebrated chapter where it makes its home.

Nevertheless, if you were a philosopher who wanted to draw a connection between Character and Habit, there would a thousand insightful, subtle, and suggestive points that you could make, cautious, but still estimable points.

But this is Aristotle. He says what he thinks, and a philosophical view doesn’t get any more lucidly blunt than this. It rushes back to me why I revere him.

(By the way, he also says that you can change your character, not by a single act of will, but by a long succession of right choices, each one moving your character just a little bit in a better direction.)

Drop by Drop

“In our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart until, in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God.” —Aeschylus

I wish to Hell I didn’t know what he was talking about. But I do. We all do. Or if you don’t know yet, you will. And how the Hell did he find a way to say it? That must have cost him something too.

I read this in Newseek! Bobby Kennedy cited it, calling Aeschylus his “favorite poet,” the night he had to tell a crowd of people, few of whom had yet heard, that Rev. Martin Luther King had been shot and killed that day.

So, without knowing it, he was also speaking to the people who would watch him die a few weeks later. He was, like King, an avatar of the hard truth in America, a country with politics so shallow you really can kill an idea with a bullet. One more for Wallace, with his divisive vote on the Right, and you’ve got Nixon, and you can forget about the truth.

I don’t think either Nixon or the Bushes ever needed to be warned to stay away from Aeschylus if they didn’t want to feel their lies sucking out their breath and cutting their own throats.

How honest WAS he?

“To the tune of” the stand-up comedian’s standard intonation.

How honest WAS he?

HE was so honest that when he got the “Bank Error in Your Favor” card in Monopoly, he paid the money back!

Buried Alive in Water: Leave No Marks; Suffer No Penalties

This article in today’s Washington Post distills into one and half pages a straight-to-the-point legal history of Waterboarding, and plainspoken descriptions of the actual physical experience. It is worth more than all the other obtuse, vacillating, shallowly researched, tongue-tied, contortedly circumspect coverage I have seen, all of it, combined.

The author, Evan Wallach, is a Federal judge of obviously unshakable courage and integrity, committed to the rule of law down to the bottom of his boots. He serves at the U.S. Court of International Trade in New York.

He is also my beloved cousin.

Here’s the WP article:

Waterboarding Used to Be a Crime

By Evan Wallach

Sunday, November 4, 2007; B01

As a JAG in the Nevada National Guard, I used to lecture the soldiers of the 72nd Military Police Company every year about their legal obligations when they guarded prisoners. I’d always conclude by saying, “I know you won’t remember everything I told you today, but just remember what your mom told you: Do unto others as you would have others do unto you.” That’s a pretty good standard for life and for the law, and even though I left the unit in 1995, I like to think that some of my teaching had carried over when the 72nd refused to participate in misconduct at Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison.

Sometimes, though, the questions we face about detainees and interrogation get more specific. One such set of questions relates to “waterboarding.”

That term is used to describe several interrogation techniques. The victim may be immersed in water, have water forced into the nose and mouth, or have water poured onto material placed over the face so that the liquid is inhaled or swallowed. The media usually characterize the practice as “simulated drowning.” That’s incorrect. To be effective, waterboarding is usually real drowning that simulates death. That is, the victim experiences the sensations of drowning: struggle, panic, breath-holding, swallowing, vomiting, taking water into the lungs and, eventually, the same feeling of not being able to breathe that one experiences after being punched in the gut. The main difference is that the drowning process is halted. According to those who have studied waterboarding’s effects, it can cause severe psychological trauma, such as panic attacks, for years.

The United States knows quite a bit about waterboarding. The U.S. government — whether acting alone before domestic courts, commissions and courts-martial or as part of the world community — has not only condemned the use of water torture but has severely punished those who applied it.

After World War II, we convicted several Japanese soldiers for waterboarding American and Allied prisoners of war. At the trial of his captors, then-Lt. Chase J. Nielsen, one of the 1942 Army Air Forces officers who flew in the Doolittle Raid and was captured by the Japanese, testified: “I was given several types of torture… . I was given what they call the water cure.” He was asked what he felt when the Japanese soldiers poured the water. “Well, I felt more or less like I was drowning,” he replied, “just gasping between life and death.”

Nielsen’s experience was not unique. Nor was the prosecution of his captors. After Japan surrendered, the United States organized and participated in the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, generally called the Tokyo War Crimes Trials. Leading members of Japan’s military and government elite were charged, among their many other crimes, with torturing Allied military personnel and civilians. The principal proof upon which their torture convictions were based was conduct that we would now call waterboarding.

In this case from the tribunal’s records, the victim was a prisoner in the Japanese-occupied Dutch East Indies:

A towel was fixed under the chin and down over the face. Then many buckets of water were poured into the towel so that the water gradually reached the mouth and rising further eventually also the nostrils, which resulted in his becoming unconscious and collapsing like a person drowned. This procedure was sometimes repeated 5-6 times in succession.

The United States (like Britain, Australia and other Allies) pursued lower-ranking Japanese war criminals in trials before their own tribunals. As a general rule, the testimony was similar to Nielsen’s. Consider this account from a Filipino waterboarding victim:

Q: Was it painful?

A: Not so painful, but one becomes unconscious. Like drowning in the water.

Q: Like you were drowning?

A: Drowning — you could hardly breathe.

Here’s the testimony of two Americans imprisoned by the Japanese:

They would lash me to a stretcher then prop me up against a table with my head down. They would then pour about two gallons of water from a pitcher into my nose and mouth until I lost consciousness.

And from the second prisoner: They laid me out on a stretcher and strapped me on. The stretcher was then stood on end with my head almost touching the floor and my feet in the air… . They then began pouring water over my face and at times it was almost impossible for me to breathe without sucking in water.

As a result of such accounts, a number of Japanese prison-camp officers and guards were convicted of torture that clearly violated the laws of war. They were not the only defendants convicted in such cases. As far back as the U.S. occupation of the Philippines after the 1898 Spanish-American War, U.S. soldiers were court-martialed for using the “water cure” to question Filipino guerrillas.

More recently, waterboarding cases have appeared in U.S. district courts. One was a civil action brought by several Filipinos seeking damages against the estate of former Philippine president Ferdinand Marcos. The plaintiffs claimed they had been subjected to torture, including water torture. The court awarded $766 million in damages, noting in its findings that “the plaintiffs experienced human rights violations including, but not limited to … the water cure, where a cloth was placed over the detainee’s mouth and nose, and water producing a drowning sensation.”

In 1983, federal prosecutors charged a Texas sheriff and three of his deputies with violating prisoners’ civil rights by forcing confessions. The complaint alleged that the officers conspired to “subject prisoners to a suffocating water torture ordeal in order to coerce confessions. This generally included the placement of a towel over the nose and mouth of the prisoner and the pouring of water in the towel until the prisoner began to move, jerk, or otherwise indicate that he was suffocating and/or drowning.”

The four defendants were convicted, and the sheriff was sentenced to 10 years in prison.

We know that U.S. military tribunals and U.S. judges have examined certain types of water-based interrogation and found that they constituted torture. That’s a lesson worth learning. The study of law is, after all, largely the study of history. The law of war is no different. This history should be of value to those who seek to understand what the law is — as well as what it ought to be.

Evan Wallach, a judge at the U.S. Court of International Trade in New York, teaches the law of war as an adjunct professor at Brooklyn Law School and New York Law School.

DKo: Judge Wallach also has a quite fascinating Website.http://lawofwar.org/ Well worth a visit.

—David

All Time's the Wrong Time

[My boldface]

Vetoing health care for children. President Bush explained:

“[W]ith federal revenues at an all-time high and the deficit declining, now is not the time to raise taxes.”

It goes without saying that when federal revenues are low and the deficit rising, that is also not the time.

So it’s a lot like Iraq and Vietnam.

—When you are losing, that is the worst time to leave.

—When you are winning, that is also the worst time.

—A third worst time is when it’s just middling—because you really ought to do a six month assessment.

It will always be the wrong time to provide health insurance to children. If that’s the case, let’s do it now.

Snack-Size Candy Bars

At this time of year, nutrition experts urge parents to remember that “snack-size” candy bars only that. There’s just not enough there in one bar for an entire meal.

The eerily missing word

Even if you slept through most of Social Studies in high school, the word “Extraterritoriality” was almost impossible to avoid. It was going to be on the test. Yet, in the weeks since the mass slaughter by Blackwater in Baghdad, it has been absolutely eerie in its total absence from the news.

It referred to the unilateral impunity of the citizens of the ruling powers within the territory of their humiliated subordinates. It was virtually synonymous with Colonialism, which every reporter is required to know does not exist.

Therefore, even the Quiz Question answer sheets of high school history have become Too Liberal to Mention in the American press. So here’s a quick refresher course for American journalists of what they should have learned just to get out of 11th grade:

“In the 19th cent. Western powers, often through coercion, secured unilateral extraterritorial rights for their citizens in China, Egypt, Japan, Morocco, Persia, Siam, and Turkey in the belief that these ‘uncivilized’ states were incapable of establishing justice….

“Extraterritoriality of this type was strongly resented as an infringement of sovereignty and was abolished in Japan in 1899, in Turkey in 1923, and in Egypt in 1949….

“In 1924 the USSR voluntarily abandoned its privileges in China, as did the United States and Great Britain in 1943. Italy and Japan lost their special status during World War II because they were enemies of China. In 1946, when France abandoned its privileges, nondiplomatic extraterritoriality in China came to an end.”

—The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia Copyright © 2004

So it was expelled from China in 1946, but it is alive and well, and living in Iraq.

Do these people even read what they write?

This was in a letter from my credit-card company:

“So that you have no surprises, know that your APR’s, fees and other terms can change at any time.”

—I guess they mean no surprising surprises.

Happy Rosh Hashana! L'Shana Tovah! Happy New Year!

May your name be inscribed for good in the Book of Life!

I understand there is another New Year, celebrated on January 1, but I think we need all the New Years we can get. The Jews actually have two. One is the start of the first month of the Jewish Calendar, in the Spring, when life sprouts out of the ground for reasons it will not reveal.

The reason we have Rosh Hashanah as a second New Year is that it is the birthday of the Universe. Happy Birthday Universe!

My Own Obviously Optional Religious Note:

Rosh Hashanah has another importance too, because of the Book of Life. This is, of course, the book we are writing just by being alive. Rosh Hashanah is an ideal time to take stock of what we have written in this year’s edition. The saying is, “On Rosh Hashanah it is written; on Yom Kippur it is sealed.” My friends from publishing will understand this very well. On Rosh Hashanah it is in galleys; on Yom Kippur it is shipped. So, many people use these days to make their last minute corrections.

But, wait! We can make corrections any time, and they are reflected in all that was written in the past.

Here we have these two ideas on the table: One is you can make a turning any moment of any day. When you choose it, it is there. Every time you close your eyes, every time you open them, you see the promise of forgiveness waiting.

The other is a structure that forces you to stop and face yourself, that asks what you’ve been doing with your life, have you measured up to your own idea of kindness, is there someone you’ve forgotten and wanted to forget. You know them all, because they are your questions, but now you feel you have to answer. Why now? Because this is the time.

Two ideas on the table. I’ll take both!

There are some really wise ideas structured into the Rosh Hashanah tradition. The ten days between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur are called the “Days of Awe.” A lot of things we’d like to repent of require some preparation first. So it takes time.

Sometimes we have to earn our repentance. When we are sincere, God would be willing to just forgive us everything, right then and there. But that just isn’t possible. If you have offended God, God can forgive you. But if you have wronged another person, how can God forgive you? Only the one you have wronged can do that.

So the Days of Awe are sacred to forgiveness, for going to the person I’ve avoided, looking them in the eye and, speaking on the level, expressing my regret. It is required that if there are amends to be made, I make them first. If recompense is owed, I pay it. I must sincerely intend not to repeat what I have done, and I must express that too. Then your regret has been earned.

On the other side, during the Days of Awe, forgiveness cannot be withheld--not without violating the spirit of the days, which has come down to us as a gift, and is prepared to set us free, if we will set each other free.

You can’t go back, but you can turn around.

Terrorism and Appalling Taste

“After Mr. Qaddafi’s renunciation of terrorism and his agreement to end programs to develop unconventional weapons, the United States last year removed Libya from its list of state sponsors of terrorism.” NYT">

DKo: It was the “unconventional weapons” that really got our generals’ goats. Qaddafi painted his fighter-bombers in the most garish purples and pinks. He had machine-guns that fired smelly pellets of Limburger cheese. No respect! It was an embarrassment for everyone. We put a stop to it.

Deadline Approaches. Bush Unconcerned.

“President George W. Bush and his Democratic foes…fire the opening shots in a long-brewing clash likely to seal the fate of US war strategy….set[ting] the stage for Bush’s critical progress report,…due by September 15.” AFP

DKo: So, why is Bush so unconcerned about this deadline bearing down? The answer, say confidants, is he plans to download a paper from the Internet.

The Ticking Time Bomb

“They would put people naked for up to 40 days in cells where they were deprived of any kind of light.”

“History Will Not Absolve Us,” Nat Hentoff, the Village Voice, August 28th, 2007

DKo: Why does it go on and on? For one thing, they frighten us with stories of the “ticking time bomb.” This prisoner knows exactly where it is. How can we be so sure? Because the scene is taught primarily in movies. We saw him do it; we saw it with God’s eye. So we beat the Hell out of him. It’s a movie, so it works.

But I don’t think that ticking time bombs tick for forty days. I don’t think we know what we are looking for. I don’t think the torture gets it out. So, please, tell us: How many ticking time bombs have you actually stopped? In the last four years, how many? Was it even one? You have tortured thousands. So, tell us, out of thousands, was it even one?

If there has been one, and someone beat the Hell out of him, and really stopped a bomb going off, and lives were really saved, then charge and try him—he broke the law. I promise you, he will be probationed; he will be pardoned.

You keep them in the dark. You keep them there forever. If you stopped a ticking time bomb, try the truth.

Concerning Vampires

From the promo for a play I’m going to see, “DRACULA,” Bram Stoker, “We think you’ll find it nothing less than epic…”

I can believe it. There certainly must be something fundamental about the Vampire. There’s not much that competes with it for perpetual fascination. There used to be the gunfighter; I remember watching 15-20 Westerns a week, and the gunfight never got old. No more.

The Martial Artist is a contender. I don’t think The Rock Star is, not as the subject of stories anyhow. Angels were coming on strong for several years, but faded. Certainly, The Babe. (In the fifties, they came up with the phrase “Sex Symbol.” Marilyn Monroe was a Sex Symbol. Where did they get that? Jung, I suppose. So, it is probably true, but they were also in denial about just plain Sex.) The Babe who is also The Martial Artist is newish, but I think she’s here to stay; she has it all.

The Zombies are always hanging around, but in a second tier. Spies need to be in really good movies now, to steer clear of farce. Then there’s the Slasher. Always a kind of farce, appreciated by the audience. I am just too old to get it, but they have the numbers.

The non-Slasher Serial-Killer has become an irresistible protagonist, but I suspect more to the screenwriters, as prefabs for loosely integrated and yearned-for multi-orgasmic plots. By now the story has to carry the appeal; I doubt it’s a bona-fide audience-driven archetype.

Superheroes, for sure! I don’t care what the superpower is; I want to see that movie. This place used to be filled by the Galahad Knight, or simply by The Hero. Hercules was mortal, but a demigod, based on his Heroics. He must have founded a thousand cities. He had an inexhaustible litany of locales and legends to his name. I don’t think Achilles had “legs” like that.

Anyway, I am always up for a vampire.

The Torah says many times, “Thou shall not eat the blood, for the blood is the life.” The Breath is mentioned at the Creation, but mainly it is the blood.

A non sequitur story I liked from the Buffy series spinoff, Angel. (He’s a Vampire with a soul. Drinks animal blood.) A Demon makes him go through memories of all the people he had killed (before the soul). He says he can no longer live with it. The Demon says he doesn’t have the courage to end his life. He says, “I don’t need courage. I just need the sun to rise.”

—David

The Straitjacket of Socialism

It would be mighty convenient if everybody put the “Printer Friendly” button in the same place on their Web pages. But that’s exactly what the communists would do!

Lawful Combatants, but not POWs

US changes status of 14 detainees, AP, 8/10/07

“…Pentagon spokesman Lieutenant Commander Chito Peppler said the proceedings….do not distinguish between lawful and unlawful combatants.”

DKo: So, we took lawful combatants prisoner in the War in Afghanistan and they were not Prisoners of War.

—Probably a bunch of unpaid parking tickets.

Etiquette Tip: Belated Birthday or Holiday Cards

Sometimes you just don’t manage to get all your cards out on time. Nevertheless, you don’t want to appear rude. So here’s an easy etiquette tip that solves the problem. Write at the top on the front of the card:

I can’t understand why this is just now reaching you! I mailed it weeks ago.

Shiite Insurgents. Shiite Insurgents!

“Shiite Insurgents.” The Bush administration has been rolling this surprising combination out in recent weeks. I think we’ll be hearing more of it.

For years, “Insurgents” has meant Sunnis, because they are trying to bring down the government. Shiite fighters, have been “Militants,” and “Extremists,” but they haven’t been “Insurgents.” Whom would they be insurgent against? There is already a Shiite government in Baghdad. At the same time, Sunni fighters are being transmogrified into “Allies.” Allies of whom? The US Army?

My basis for the following is very thin at this point, but I suspect we are about to be sold a major “paradigm shift,” an extremely dangerous one. that “Shiite Insurgents” represents. If so, the inexorable Iraq Study Group plan—the Bush version of it, anyhow—would turn very ugly as we watch its generalities turned into specifics.

The Generalities:

—We end “Combat Operations.”

—We concentrate on training.

—We continue to strike at just one remaining target.

They used to say this target was Al Qaeda in Iraq; but increasingly they say it is “Terrorists.” (So, we’ll strike terrorists, but not truck bombers. Truck bombers would be “Combat Operations.” What do you have to do to be a terrorist around here?)

The Specifics (according to my very speculative suspicions):

1- “Combat Operations” turn out to be operations coordinated with, and subject to, the Iraqi government. Majority rule in Iraq has become an annoyance. We’ll cut the government out.

2- “Training” bypasses the government and goes directly to the army—or rather to the parts of the army we select. Maybe (discreetly) to our new Sunni Allies too. Our favored Training Units get good food, supplies, armor, weaponry, Intel, and logistics. They get paid on time. They get patronage. They bond directly to us. They stop answering Maliki’s phone calls.

3- “Terrorists” will be whoever we say they are, including these new Shiite Insurgents (probably Moktada’s forces), and definitely the vast network of Iranian-controlled (i.e., anti-US Shiite) terrorist cells that we say riddle the country.

The Shiite Insurgents turn out to be insurgent against us.

Seeing Strange Things

Every so often I like to just stop and click over to the Ames Room for a moment, because it really helps undermine my perspective on things.

It gets my vote for the greatest of all optical illusions. The two people you see are actually the same height. It’s just that someone has carefully constructed a very funny sort of room. Scroll down the page for an explanation.

Way worth a click.

—David

FAQ in Windows Messenger Help: "Why can't my contacts see my music?"

One of the FAQs in the Windows Messenger Help is:

“Why can’t my contacts see my music?”

I think Microsoft was very gutsy even getting into this. Anyhow, this is the answer from Tech Support:

“If some of your contacts can’t see your music, they have probably been dropping some really weak acid.

“It might help to sit back in a nice comfortable chair, close their eyes, and picture the music coming right out of the instruments in big, soft, cartoon balloons. Works for us.”

DKo: This is the kind of thing that makes me such a strong supporter of drug testing in the schools. There has been some really bogus acid going around, and a whole lot of good kids are getting burned.

"Tough" and "Harsh"

Bush alters rules for interrogations, AP, 7/20/07

The Supreme Court had ruled in June 2006 that trying detainees in military tribunals violated U.S. and international law, so Bush urged Congress to change the law. He also insisted that the law authorize CIA agents to use tough methods to interrogate suspected terrorists.

DKo: I have found that the choice between the terms “tough” and “harsh” occurs with remarkable frequency and is exceptionally well worth watching.

For Kirkuk Aficionados

An email yesterday triggered my continuing Kirkuk obsession. So…

David,

Has the major fight over Kirkuk begun?

Ever since you wrote about it (was it two or three years ago?) that I’ve been waiting for the perfect storm to begin.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070716/aponremiea/iraq

Reply:

[Why am I still so up on this? Because, I’ve imposed a self-discipline on my vanity-punditry, restricting it to this, Centrifuges, and Unlawful Enemy Combatants.]

It is heating up, isn’t it? And, my narrow-focus speculation-intensity has by now become kind of weirdly intricate. To wit:

The closer it gets to actual annexation, the more the level of violence will rise. An anti-annexation consensus among all the other fighting forces is emerging—the non-Moktada Shiites (i.e., under the Hakim leadership) may be forced by competition to fall into line—and Maliki says the Surge is driving violence North and away from Anbar anyhow.

The referendum is scheduled constitutionally for December, and Maliki says it will go ahead. That would require a census very soon. I’d guess the opposition will make that impossible, by killing the personnel, blowing up offices, etc. Then the Kurds would probably move unilaterally.

It will go a little differently if the Kurds agree to a delay, though I don’t think they can sign on to an oil law—which determines the crucial control of the contracts on new oil—without owning Kirkuk. And they will be pressed to move, with or without a referendum (i.e., moving in a governmental structure in de facto annexation) sometime before the US withdrawals in the Winter/Spring.

A lot of the people in the US who want to “re-deploy,” mean move to Kurdistan. Because it is so peaceful, they say. But increasingly it won’t be, and it would require a politically implausible, hurried shift away from the supposedly all-important Baghdad “crackdown.”

If it occurred in the context of annexation, It would set the US squarely against all the Arabs in Iraq—which is not that different from the long-term alliance advanced by Iraq Study Group gurus, but it is supposed to be drawn-out, Saudi-backed, below the surface and subtle.

I think Turkey will do whatever they see as necessary to prevent annexation. Weapons, commandos, (aerial?) intelligence, logistics, at least. They’ll also open a “second front” in the North. Will they come in with the heavy infantry and fighter planes? Maybe I promised too much. We’ll find out.

It matters how heavy the Kurdish weaponry will be. What shape will Kurdish “counter-terror” repression begin to take? It is likely to be in a form that will set off both mainstream Arabs and Turkey. And any large-scale killings of Turkmen will put Turkish politics into a volatile frenzy, especially the still quasi-ruling military, whose controlling role in Turkish politics is currently up for grabs, with elections impending.

Stay tuned.

Who Will Control the Past?

Americans don’t like to admit that they have changed their minds. We convince ourselves that somehow or other, in some way or another, we have always thought what we are thinking now.

The media are foremost enthusiasts of this fantasy, driven by their own heartfelt passion for self-justification. So, inevitably, Iraq, like Vietnam, will come to be boilerplated as “an unpopular war,” as if it had always been unpopular.

The overwhelming, 24/7, gun-barrel chauvinism, the imbecile credulity about evanescent WMDs, and the subsequent more flaccid, but equally resolute pandering of “Stay the course!” all will fade away. There will be no headlines, “Exposed! We Ignorantly Led You into Murderous Catastrophe!”

Here are two things I fear we will not see:

—Apologies and gratitude to those who helped to make the war unpopular.

—An effective distinction between preemptive hegemony and humanitarian intervention (Darfur, Rwanda).

Meanwhile, I’d watch the denouement of the Iraq Study Group, after its inexorable humiliation of George Bush over the next few months is complete, for “Who Will Control the Past?” this time around.

Let's Put a Lid on Prisoner Exchanges

I don’t get the point of why countries make prisoner exchanges. It must be a case of “The grass is always greener on the other side.”

What makes them think they’re going to get a better class of prisoners out of this, compared to the ones they are sending away? More likely, the new prisoners will be every bit as bad as the old! (Not to be cynical, but if the other country liked them, why would they be trading them?)

I think it is far better to just let your hair down and try and work things out with the prisoners you’ve got.

—David

One of the All-Time Great "Thought Experiments"

This must have come from Galileo, I guess. In any case, it is to show that heavy objects don’t fall faster than lighter objects.

Imagine three identical bricks falling—at the same speed, obviously. Two of the bricks have adhesive on their sides.

As they fall, these two bricks happen to touch, and the adhesive joins them together.

Does this double-weight object suddenly begin to fall faster than the third brick?

Mass Confusion over "ASST"

I’m sure I’m not the only one who gets confused by the terribly ambiguous abbreviation “ASST.” I mean, all you have to do is take one look at:

ASST VEGETABLES

and

ASST DA’s

Don’t you often find yourself reading them:

Assistant Vegetables

and

Assorted DA’s

Please, sign-makers, a little clarity wouldn’t hurt.

A Four Star Officer Is Something to Be

“[Vice Adm.] Olson, 55, has been the command’s deputy chief since August 2003. If confirmed by the full Senate, he would receive a fourth star and…”

I can totally relate. I once won a Gold Star for getting all the words right on a Spelling Test. It was a terrific motivator. And it still works with adults!

"Enemy Combatant" vs. "Unlawful Enemy Combatant"--A Technicality?

The Guantanamo prisoners were found by pre-trial tribunals to be “enemy combatants,” but not necessarily “unlawful enemy combatants.” US officials have characterized this as a “technicality,” and the press has bought in to that.

Shockingly, even Sen. Levin’s proposed revamp “would make the commissions act’s definition of ‘unlawful enemy combatant’ the same as it is in the review tribunals, effectively eliminating the problem identified at Guantanamo on Monday.” (Boston Globe) Just run them through again.

(I am, as usual, disclaiming legal expertise here, but…)

We were at war in Afghanistan, fighting primarily the Taliban army, the only army that nation had. If a tribunal finds you an enemy combatant, what they have found is you were an enemy soldier.

A captured enemy soldier is a Prisoner of War. To be deprived of the rights of a POW (including no interrogation beyond “name, rank, and serial number”), you must be found an “unlawful combatant,”not a technicality. There are many criteria never considered before. For example:

—Were you wearing a uniform? (Do “black pajamas” pass muster?)

—Were you part of a military command structure? (Has any evidence been brought on this?)

—Did you show yourself as a soldier? (Keeping in mind that Army snipers and mine-setters obviously count as soldiers.)

Any revamped tribunals must adhere to Geneva standards.

And, politically, everyone has to realize that fighting against American soldiers in war—or even chauffeuring Al Qaeda leaders or attending their training camps—does not, in itself, make you a terrorist.

Apocalypse from the Moment of Conception

US charges 4 men in plot to blow up JFK airport, Boston Globe, 6/3/07

“[T]he alleged plot was never close to fruition. The FBI had been tracking the alleged plot since 2006, and a member of the group was an FBI informant. In addition, the suspects lacked both the expertise and equipment [explosives, for example] necessary to turn their aspiration into a reality…”

DKo: It was barely a gleam in the eye. But this is the Bush administration’s Article of Faith: Every horrendous aspiration has, from the very moment of its conception, the right to treated as full-grown, real life threat. I mean, it’s not like they just hype something up whenever things have been too quiet. Is it?

“Roslynn Mauskop, the US attorney in Brooklyn, described the arrests as a major victory that broke up ‘one of the most chilling plots imaginable…’”

DKo: This person needs to read some Edger Allen Poe.

Why Should Halliburton Have to Suffer?

“Democrats accepted a GOP plan to establish 18 benchmarks….If Iraqis fall short, they could forfeit U.S. reconstruction aid.” Washington Post

DKo: Forfeit U.S. reconstruction aid!

Why should Halliburton have to suffer for Iraqi failures? We know that $16 billion in US reconstruction aid has provided negligible benefit to Iraqis. This won’t hurt them. But Halliburton will face severe hardship. Securing contracts is their core competence. Take that away and you leave them with nothing. [WP Article]

If we learned anything from Katrina, it is that people who are already in misery have little to complain about. We continue to learn that even years later. Well, who is more already miserable than the Iraqis!

But if Halliburton is thrown to the wolves, who bid for contracts and carp about performance, nobody is truly safe. Not even the wealthiest, who have so terribly far to fall, and so terribly much to lose—not even they are sure of being spared. They could be treated unconscionably, as if they were themselves Iraqis, for God’s sake. It breaks your heart.

Where the humanitarians now!

"The Constant Gardener"

I have just seen a beautiful film, “The Constant Gardener.” (Based on a John LeCarre novel, it is both a thriller and a love story. Rachel Weisz won the Oscar for her role.)

I remember years ago seeing the definitive James Bond farce “Our Man Flint,” and laughing myself silly at the punch-line of the plot. The villain was not a government at all, nor even a phantasm like 007’s SPECTRE, but a private company, The Phone Company. What a laugh that was! What a lark!

In “The Constant Gardener,” the villain is again a private company—a pharmaceutical giant inflicting fraudulent, deadly drug testing on poor people in Kenya, then murderously suppressing the truth about this practice. And now it is not incongruous at all, no longer What a lark! Now, it is Of course! Of course these bastards will stop at nothing in their callousness and greed.

Now, we know better. I didn’t laugh myself silly at this film. That silliness is gone, and I am sadder for it. It is a time of bitter laughter. The loathsome and outrageous have turned commonplace. Cover-up? Mass graves, a private company, government complicity? Of course.

—David

Two year olds!

Despite warnings, most U.S. babies watch TV Reuters, 5/7/07

About 90 percent of U.S. children under age 2…are regular watchers of television…

Two year olds! It’s like talking to a wall. You warn them and warn them, but they just won’t listen!

Economics Joke

Here’s a tip. It won’t make you a fortune, but it’ll be well worth your while.

Take a look at the dollar bills in your wallet. To the right of George Washington (the first President of the United Sates), and downward and leftward of the round green seal, you will see a date. Most of your bills will say “SERIES 2003 A.” But you’ll still find a few that date back to “SERIES 1999.”

Hang on to them! Any sophisticated economist will tell you that, because of inflation, 1999 dollars are worth considerably more than 2003 dollars. Do this consistently. Over time, you’ll find that little extra effort adds up to a tidy sum.

I figure as long as I have my expertise in economics, I might as well share it with my friends.

—David

Bush's "Loyalty" to Wolfowitz and Gonzales

It’s the people who have done the most dirt for you, who can do the most damage, if they should feel betrayed.

Washington Post

Wolfowitz Says He Is Target of ‘Smear’ Tactics

Never Stab a Stabber

People without integrity have been indispensable to Bush, but they may also lack the internal loyalty that would make it safe to let them go.

See Washington Post

Did Bush Trade Kirkuk for Kurdish Brigades in the Baghdad Surge?

I’ve had Kirkuk on the brain for quite a while now. Since I am not a pro, I figure I’m willing to be off base or completely wrong. Besides, it’s too long to read. So, since I have thought about it a lot, this is my Sharing Time contribution for today:

It seemed like a foregone conclusion. Everybody with any sense, including the inexorably all-powerful Iraq Study Group, had decided that the Kirkuk census and referendum, constitutionally scheduled for this December, must be put off. The Kurds threatened to simply seize Kirkuk if that happened, but some way would be found to avert that move.

Everybody knew Kirkuk would be deferred. But it looks like something must have happened. The Maliki government said last week it was going to proceed with paying Arabs to leave Kirkuk. He was not compelled by anything to suddenly bring this up.

The Kirkuk Arabs credibly claim the population, in preparation for the census, has already been “packed” with tens of thousands of Kurds who are not post-Saddam “returnees” at all, but rather had never lived there. So encouraging a further exodus of Arabs came to many as a shock.

Will the census and referendum, against predictions, go ahead? Maybe not; the settled expectations may hold good. But, if they do go ahead, why? I have a guess at part of the reason.

But, first, background: Why not go ahead?

If the Kurdistan autonomous region annexes the immensely oil-rich and gas-rich Kirkuk, either by referendum or by seizure, every gun in Iraq is going to be turned: The resident minorities in Kirkuk, who include Sunni and Shiite Arabs, Turkomens, Assyrians, Christians and others, will take up arms.

The Iraqi Sunni forces at large (the “Insurgents”)—whose central region would then be really bereft of gas and oil—will mobilize against an annexed Kirkuk in force. Baghdad will become secondary to them. The Al Qaeda elements will re-unite with the domestic Sunnis, and join them in this.

The Moktada-led Shiites, with their own central-region base of two million in Sadr City alone, who have already begun a pattern of attacks, will join in absolutely full force. The Shiites of the competing Badr Brigades might also be “shamed,†as Arabs and as Shiites, to back this effort at least to some degree.

Turkey may not invade, as threatened, with a modern force of 100,000 already massed at the border, but arms, logistics, commando forces, up-to-date NATO technology will be thrown in against the Kurds. Iran, like Turkey fearful of its own large Kurdish minority merging into a wealthy new Kurdish nation, will do everything it can as well. The Iraqi Army and police, except for Kurdish units, will certainly resist fighting against these forces, and, as Arabs, might join them in substantial numbers.

On the other side, the Kurds, who constitute the only militarily serious component of the Iraqi army, plus their Pesh Merga militia, well over 100,000-strong, trained, disciplined, and well armed will defend Kirkuk with utter desperation. Besides the oil, it is the heart of deeply felt Kurdish national aspirations, their Jerusalem; they will stop at nothing to “get it back.”

They have the advantages of a loyal populace fighting for their homes on intimately familiar ground, many of them fighting as partisans outside the regular army. And they have the advantages of defense, a deeply prepared, entrenched, hidden, possibly mined, war-gamed defense that has been years in the making.

The Americans? The Americans will be securing Baghdad. Possibly no military will have ever been caught this thoroughly out of position. And who are the most serious allies at their side in Baghdad? The Kurds, the fully staffed Kurdish Brigades.

That is where my guesswork begins, concerning why the referendum might nevertheless actually go ahead this year. When Bush announced his surge, there were a number of “benchmark” commitments from the Iraqi government that went with it. But only one of them was immediate, visible, and indispensable. Iraq must match us brigade-for-brigade in the build-up. And these must be fully staffed brigades, not the usual 55%.

This was The Benchmark. The others were hard to understand and easy to forget. Without The Benchmark being met, upfront, right now, there was not even a Republican who would go along with Bush on the war. Without it, his total presidential meltdown would be swift, public, and complete. He needed those brigades. Where would they come from?

The good brigades were the Kurdish ones, the reanointed Pesh Merga militia in the North. The Kurds had very largely kept their own brigades at home, and they certainly had no incentive to send them into Baghdad. The Kurds would need to get something in return. Well, how about a commitment to hold the Kirkuk referendum on time? Indeed, if the referendum were moved to the next December, how many US troops would still be around, and how free would they be to act?

There were other commitment we’ve seen hints of since, especially in the oil law. The approved draft reported out to parliament, not yet ratified (unattainable Benchmark?), gives the Kurdish region effective authority to make its own contracts with international oil companies, along with accounting provisions worth many billions of dollars. (What counts as oil revenue going the central government vs. other compensation from the same corporation that could remain in the region? What can you subtract from the revenue as costs before you send the net amount in? Your local army, maybe? It is a wise saying that “Profit is what’s left over after everyone is finished stealing.”)

But for the Kurds, the referendum would have come first.

So, now Bush has some brigades and a surge. What’s next for Kirkuk? If there is fighting for Kirkuk, whether around a referendum or an impatient forcible annexation, the Kurdish surge brigades will leave Baghdad for home. Every other benchmark will be going up in flames. And US forces—supply lines in the South suddenly vulnerable—won’t know where to go or whom to fight.

Steal More from Renters!

“[K]ey Senate Democrats said Wednesday that hundreds of millions of dollars of new federal aid may be needed to assist homeowners at risk of foreclosure.” Washington Post, 4/11/07 (Link below.)

So, the most progressive legislators in the country say home owners should get more public money. Renters, rolling in dough, will once again get nothing.

Now, I don’t mind letting people who were tricked into mortgages break even and return to renting. But the overarching Cult of the Home Owner makes me sick.

Homeowners get the tax deduction on their housing costs, which is worth about 25%. Let’s call that The Home-Owners-Only 25% Discount on housing costs. Renters don’t need a 25% discount.

But that’s just the beginning. They also get The Home-Owners-Only 25% Discount on

—Credit card interest (attached to a housing line of credit) —State and local income taxes —State and local sales taxes —Gasoline taxes —Some medical and dental expenses —Union dues —Charitable contributions —Job education —Casualty and theft losses

Renters don’t need a 25% discount on any of those.

When homeowners make money selling a home, they generally pay no income or Social Security tax, as one does for money earned by work. Let’s call that The Home-Owners’ 35% Unearned Income Bonus.

These subsidies to homeowners—let’s call them First Class Citizens—are substantially paid for by renters—let’s call them Second Class Citizens—in the extra taxes they have to pay to make up the deficiency in tax-revenue.

But it turns out that the 25% Discount on expenses and the 35% Bonus on income just aren’t enough. Renters have to give them more.

We could cut out a lot of bureaucratic expense by having each homeowner steal directly from the nearest renter they can find. They could then deduct the cost of burglar tools and firearms on their next 1040 (Long Form).

WP Article

Confessions by prisoners are an ugly business.

“Tehran has released footage and letters that it says are confessions that the 15 entered Iranian waters.”

I don’t know where this ship really was, but such confessions—by imprisoned people who have no legal recourse and no idea what is going to happen to them—are inherently an ugly business. That’s true for Tehran as well as Gitmo—or the basement of a police department somewhere in New York City or Chicago. The Washington Post article

Berkeley senior citizens may remember confessions from US pilots held in North Vietnam, which were published in the Berkeley Barb. They included references to Captain Clark Kent and Captain Marvel. Funny, but then, on second thought, also not so funny.

I once had to check out confessions from the crew of the US Navy ship “Pueblo,” which had been seized by North Korea, under the claim it had violated their territorial waters. I went to the room of giant maps in the Berkeley library and found that the Pueblo was not even fast enough to have traveled through the successive positions they had confessed to.

It’s not just that it may be a lie, it’s that these people are terrified, and their terror is being politically exploited.

Former Senator Fred Thompson

For those who have managed to avoid the “Law and Order” TV series all these years, the recent Presidential boomlet for Fred Thompson - who plays the DA, to whom the protagonists go for wisdom and tough choices - is probably not a big deal. But let me tell you, this guy is so palpably appealing that it is very scary.

I don’t mean just a “recognition” carryover from his being a TV star. It’s that his demeanor will be the same in a campaign; it is very natural to him: steady, wise, avuncular, likable, reasonable, the very figure of a Statesman President. So, there it is, it could just be me, but maybe not.

I think he would be a far stronger Republican nominee than any of those currently in the field, and a far more formidable opponent for the Democrat. I have no idea what he has to say about Iraq, Bush, abortion rights, gays, or anything else. Hopefully, he would get himself in trouble over something.

But it’s hard to see how such troubles could be worse than what McCain and Guiliani already face. McCain’s problem’s are going to keep on getting worse because of the war (and his lack of a Surge Suppressor). Guiliani is going to be set back hard because of himself. The better he is known, the worse he looks, including the social issues and personal history/scandals. And his honeymoon period with the press is already ending.

Thompson could beat them both. I’m hoping that he’s had dozens of divorces and sordid affairs. If Thompson is reasonable on social issues, that could complicate things within the party. But, on reflection, it may not be just happenstance that the two current leading contenders are to the left of their party’s traditions. It’s possible that if Thompson came out as a True Conservative, that would hamper him, either in the primaries or in the general election.

The other hope is that deeply entrenched powers in the Republican Party - money-sources, local political machines, influence peddlers and the companies and industries they serve - have too much at stake already, are too committed, to allow someone new to take all the marbles.

Yes, Josh, There Is a Bill of Rights

Back in 2002, I got this email from my brother’s brother-in-law, Josh Kiok. Kind of relevant.

Dear David,

Once again I’m shocked, shocked! I suspect you already know about this, but just in case you don’t, a recent series of articles appeared in the SF Chronicle about the FBI/CIA spying on the Free Speech Movement. You can find them at <>

Josh

* [Me, per a famous newspaper column answering a little girl who had asked if there really was a Santa Claus.]

Yes, Josh, There Is a Bill of Rights

Of course, you are shocked, Josh. You have heard thoughtless adults imply that the Bill of Rights is just a pleasant story that we tell to children.

But rest assured, Josh, as long as we can dream, as long as we can fantasize, as long as we can pretend, there will always be a Bill of Rights.

Bush vs. Watergate - Who Wins?

A lot of people have said that the Bush/Cheney White House re-established Presidential powers that had been eroded since Watergate. How could they tell? Congress has not been testing Presidential power, because it was backing Presidential policy.

Now there are two fighters in the ring, and we may at last get to see whether it is Bush-Cheney or the Watergate legacy that has indeed prevailed.

Quoting here from my own old Watergate wrap-up:*

“[T]here has normally been little reason to think of Congress as a political unit set off against the Executive…. Congress as a whole could at any time have had its way, if there had been a way it wanted very much to have….

“…Nixon’s logical extension of other Presidents’ abuses was also the reductio ad absurdum, for it left Congress without leverage in any traditional transactions.

“When Senator Muskie asked incredulously, ‘Under your definition [of executive privilege] Congress has no power to command the production of the testimony of anyone in the executive branch in any circumstances?’ Kleindienst replied ‘If the President so commands it.’

“The various claims to privilege invoked by Presidents are by and large flimsy and incoherent—so much so that even a sympathetic judiciary would find them unsustainable (courts are not guided by pure logic, but a minimum of logic is a precondition of their work).”

*”Gerald Ford—Understudy for Defeat,” Ramparts, October, 1974. (I have re-sequenced these excerpts.)

Well, now, let’s find out!

Jail the Walter Read reporters!

Defense Secretary Sends Stern Message About Accountability WP, 3/3/07

DKo: Shouldn’t they investigate the reporters for divulging the Army’s methods and resources for protecting the wounded? Jail the Walter Read reporters!

WP Article

Edgewise Readers. I’m duplicating this to make Edgewise links show up in the WP pages for both of their stories. They display the line or two just above their link.

Jail the Walter Reed Reporters!

Army Secretary Ousted Second Firing Follows Walter Reed Revelations; Bush Vows a Probe, WP, 3/3/07

DKo: Shouldn’t they investigate the reporters for divulging the Army’s methods and resources for protecting the wounded? Jail the Walter Read reporters!

WP Article

An Irresistible Reprise

In light of stories like this one, I can’t resist reprising part of an Edgewise post from 11/9/06. Of course, it’s still just a start, and this week’s zig can be next week’s zag.

First, the current story:

The White House Gets Neighborly in the Middle East, WP, 2/28/07

“On Jan. 11,…Rice…explain[ed] why ‘those who talk about engagement with Syria and Iran’ are all wet. ‘That’s not diplomacy — that’s extortion,…’

“When the Iraq Study Group ..proposed talking with Iran and Syria…the administration summarily dismissed the idea…

“Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn)…wondered why the administration was only now ‘backing into some consistency with the Iraq Study Group.’ Replied Gates: ‘I don’t know the answer to that question.”

And from Edgewise, 9/9/06

Bush—at least the Bush we know—may find he is a President out of the loop. He shot down every Baker initiative in advance. But Baker is acting on behalf of the broad Bush-appalled military, foreign policy, and corporate establishment. He smiled and waited, but the rangy little president is in for a surprise.

The WP article

The Isolation of George W. Bush

[T]he neocons seem ready now to start acting unilaterally again [against Iran]….[A] grand bargain wouldn’t serve America’s purpose in the middle east…”

http://www.counterpunch.org/brand02172007.html

DKo, 2/23/07

Well, there is “America’s purpose in the middle east,” and there are the neocons—increasingly two different animals. “America’s purpose,” (as defined by the ruling elites, and represented by the Iraq Study Group and the Council on Foreign Relations) is just not as “patriotic” as the neocons are. And by now they don’t see exclusive hegemony over Iran as attainable, anyway. It could go like this…

The neocons, including Bush/Cheney, will be isolated domestically. Apparently they won’t bend, and will have to be broken.

The Dems in congress appear to have decided to make the Iraq Study Group, rather than conditional war funding, the club with which to beat Bush. It will be the substantive framework of an updated War Powers Resolution.

The one part of the ISG report that hardly anyone has criticized is the opening of diplomacy with Syria and Iran. It is going to serve as the way Republicans as well as conservative Democrats can back or ignore Bush on the Surge, vote against the new WP Resolution, but still put some distance between themselves and him.

Iran/Syria diplomacy probably has a sizable majority in both houses even as we speak. It may not be veto-proof, but it also may be so lopsided as to be irresistible.

You Don't Have to Be a Genius

Diplomats Seek Way to ‘Reengage’ Iran, WP, 2/27/07

Really? They’re not “seeking” very hard. Try this:

1. START TALKS, without preconditions.

2. If you can’t make a deal, STOP TALKS.

The WP article

Will the US Attack Iran?

I think an attack on Iran has to be pre-opposed, but I don’t think it’s going to happen. Sufficient in itself is the presence of American “hostage-troops” in Iraq. The vulnerable supply-lines from the south—and their personnel—would be ravaged by Iranians and Iraqi Shiites, including much of the Iraqi Army, cutting off the rest of the US troops, many of whose outposts would anyway be overrun. Ships in the gulf will be sunk—missiles and “kamikaze” boats and planes.

Any attack on Iran “worth doing” would need to be sustained, but this would be convulsed, not “rallied round,” with Mid-East and European allies in revolt, bipartisan domestic politics in revolt, including the Republican nominees.

The attack would also have to be elaborately prepared. I think Bush and Cheney are increasingly on their own. They will be headed off. Politically, again, including all the Wise Men and foreign policy establishment in force. The military would, in effect, refuse—they have ways.* Europe, China, and Russia will have peeled off and made a separate peace.

That’s my guess.

*Note this rather amazing article:

US generals ‘will quit’ if Bush orders Iran attack The London Sunday Times, 2/25/07

SOME of America’s most senior military commanders are prepared to resign if the White House orders a military strike against Iran, according to highly placed defence and intelligence sources.

No template for you!

U.S. holds out North Korea deal as model for Iran, Reuters

…White House spokesman Tony Snow called the deal a “template…”

But this is the precisely the template the US has refused!

We talked with North Korea, both in the six-party talks and in bilateral meetings, without preconditions. We could start Iranian talks tomorrow morning, if we would agree to that with them.

Personally, I think we should take seriously Iran’s insistence on the right to do enrichment. The supreme ruler, especially, uses the term right in every statement.

That would explain why they are willing to yield on enrichment as part of a negotiated agreement (where everyone gives up things they have a right to), but not as a precondition to talks (where it is like a criminal turning herself in).

Of course, they’d expect us to renounce the overthrow of their government too, as part of the reciprocity.

Serious Word Play

The specific wording of a widely reported statement by Israeli Prime Minister Olmert, following his recent meeting with Secretary Rice, might actually become significant at some point.

“Olmert said any Palestinian government must accept the three conditions laid down by the ‘Quartet’ of Mideast mediators…”

Previously, it was also Hamas itself that had to accept the conditions, not just a unity government Hamas might lead. Hamas had argued this point, saying that the Likud Party was still committed to the expansive boundaries of a Greater Israel, even while the Likud-led government was party to agreements that abandoned those boundaries.

The Military Commissions--Worse than Just Procedures

Pentagon sets rules for terrorism suspect trials

WASHINGTON (Reuters), 1/18/07 - The Pentagon on Thursday gave broad discretion to judges to decide what evidence may be presented against suspected…Taliban members facing trial in the new military commissions court system.

DKo: So, suspected terrorists and suspected Taliban members may be regarded interchangeably. And, indeed, that is consistent with the basic setup of these commissions—even though the Taliban were the government of Afghanistan; their army was the army of Afghanistan; they were fighting a war against the American army within Afghanistan; and no claim is made that the Taliban even had knowledge of the terrorist attacks to be launched in the United States.

It is laudable that the commissions are being criticized on the basis of their egregious procedures, including the use of testimony-by-torture. Still, it reminds me of something I read long ago from Bertrand Russell (from memory here), that if the government announced plans to sterilize all deviants, the liberals would demand due process.

The FBI Effort to Drive Dr. King to Suicide

To me, this was the most disgusting part of the FBI’s campaign against Dr. Martin Luther King. It is pretty well known by now that the FBI had bugged King’s hotel rooms, and had recorded explicit sexual episodes. They used these tapes against him for years, and even played them for selected journalists. I heard about them from Sidney Zion, then legal editor of the New York Times. (He thought they were funny.) In 1964, they mailed King a tape anonymously, along with a threatening letter.

From the “Church Committee” Congressional Report, 4/23/76 [My boldface]:

“According to Congressman [Andrew] Young a letter had accompanied the tape, stating that the tape would be released in 34 days and…threatening ‘there is only one thing you can do to prevent this from happening.’ Congressman Young said, ‘we assumed that the letter and the tape had been mailed 34 days before the receipt of the Nobel Prize, and that this was a threat to expose Martin just before he received the Nobel Prize.’ Congressman Young testified. ‘I think that the disturbing thing to Martin was that he felt somebody was trying to get him to commit suicide…’ Both Young and Ralph Abernathy…interpreted it as inviting Dr. King to take his own life. The letter stated in part:

“‘King, look into your heart. You know you are a complete fraud and a greater liability to all of us Negroes….The American public, … will know you for what you are…’

“‘King, there, is only one thing left for you to do. You know what it is….You are done. There is but one way out for you. You better take it before your filthy fraudulent self is bared to the nation.’”

http://www.icdc.com/~paulwolf/cointelpro/churchfinalreportIIIb.htm [Search for “34 days.”]

Kurds Killing Arabs to Stabilize Iraq?

Anger Mounts Over Deployment of Kurdish Forces to Baghdad

By Nidhal al-Laithi and Marsi abu Tareq

Azzaman, Iraq, 1/7/07

Kurdish leaders have decided to deploy their own militias in the fighting now taking place in Baghdad….This will be the first time Kurdish armed groups will fight in Baghdad, and specifically against their co-religionists, Arab Sunnis. The majority of Kurds are also Sunni….

In a city like Baghdad which is riven with sectarianism, it’s hard to know if the Kurds will actually engage in battle, given the religious decrees of top Sunni clerics - many of whom are Kurds – forbidding the taking up of arms against the resistance….

The Mahdi Army itself is a sworn enemy of the Kurdish Peshmerga militias and is spearheading the resistance to Kurdish moves to annex the oil-rich city of Kirkuk in the Kurdish autonomous region.

Many see the possibility of Kurdish militias fighting in Baghdad as a dangerous step, and one which is bound to deepen ethnic divisions and add fuel to the current sectarian fire.

There are two sides to every question.

“Mortgage rates jump on strong labor market, inflation pressures

“WASHINGTON (Reuters) 1/11/2007— Average interest rates on 30-year mortgages crept upward in the latest week to 6.21% from 6.18%, according to a survey by finance company Freddie Mac on Thursday.”

"I'll give you these concessions, but then I'm going to shoot you."

Three Bush Foreign-Policy Hypotheses

I won’t undertake to substantiate these, just to offer them as hypotheses.

1. We (i.e., the Bush administration) are refusing talks with Syria and Iran, because we are afraid the talks would succeed.

2. We are afraid of the talks succeeding, because we’d have to renounce regime-change. (It is diplomatically untenable to say, “I’ll give you these concessions, but then I’m going to shoot you.”).

3. We won’t renounce regime-change, because being the only remaining superpower would be pointless if we couldn’t even threaten uncooperative governments.

No Magic Bullet

Barak Obama is, among other things, a unique personal phenomenon, a political happenstance. And that is frightening in a way, because America is a country where, as with both of the Kennedys, you can kill an idea.

I'm not afraid to say it

“This documentary visits Ingmar Bergman, one of the 20th century’s greatest film directors…” http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1167037-bergman_island/about.php

Only the 20th century! I’m not afraid to say it—I think he was one of the greatest film directors of all time!

Splendid Isolation

“The administration also does not plan to alter its strategy of isolating adversaries Iran and Syria, despite mounting pressure…” —NYT, 12/1/06

DKo: We are very close to standing alone, as we isolate Iran, Syria and, in effect, the entire world.

So, that was the mistake.

We really need to go invade a better country!

Washington Post, 11/29/06:

“As Iraq Deteriorates, Iraqis Get More Blame”

Two Headline-Writer Roommates

“Want to garner a DVD tonight? We could nab a good one.”

“I’ll mull it, but don’t get roiled if I don’t. I’m not inking anything.”

Only in the Torah? Abraham challenges God.

And now for something completely different…

In this week’s synagogue Torah reading, Genesis 18:1 - 22:24, God tells Abraham that Sodom and Gomorrah are to be destroyed, and Abraham challenges the morality of this decision. He morally challenges God. And God accepts.

“Will You sweep away the innocent along with the guilty? What if there should be fifty innocent within the city; will You then wipe out the place and not forgive it for the sake of the innocent fifty who are in it? Far be it from You to do such a thing, to bring death upon the innocent as well as the guilty, so that innocent and guilty fare alike. Far be it from You! Shall not the Judge of all the earth deal justly?” And the Lord answered, “If I find within the city of Sodom fifty innocent ones, I will forgive the whole place for their sake.”

There follows a marvelous ethical bargaining session in which Abraham gets the number down from 50, first to 45

“Here I venture to speak to my Lord, I who am but dust and ashes: What if the fifty innocent should lack five? Will You destroy the whole city for want of the five?” And He answered, “I will not destroy if I find forty-five there.”

Then 40, then 30, then 20, and finally,

“Let not my Lord be angry if I speak but this last time: What if ten should be found there?” And He answered, “I will not destroy, for the sake of the ten.”

What I have just learned is that there is a curiously awesome Midrash (the parallel oral tradition that was not written down until the Talmud) that provides more detail:

“According to Rabbi Levi, Abraham said to God, ‘If You seek to have a world, strict justice cannot be exercised; and if You seek strict justice, there will be no world. Do You expect to take hold of the well’s rope at both ends? You desire a world and You also desire justice? You can have only one of the two. If You do not relent a little, the world will not endure’ †(Genesis Rabbah 39:6).

Bush may find he is a President out of the loop..

While both the President and the Democrats have promised to seek new approaches on Iraq, pundits have noted that new approaches may just not be available. In particular, they say not to expect something new to be discovered by the Baker commission. But, the Baker mandate (report due at the end of the year) may have been greatly underestimated and deeply misunderstood.

The Republicans that Pelosi “finds common ground” with could be a lot less Bush and a lot more Baker—and she may find that most Congressional Republicans have gravitated there too. Baker himself may have been waiting for the election to provide him with new partners.

So, are the Baker Boys really just out there holding seminars, brainstorming Fresh Ideas, and intensely cogitating? More likely they are actively checking out what can be arranged—going over Bush’s head, preparing, almost pre-negotiating, a new foreign policy for the entire Mid-East.

It is hard to solve any one Mid-East problem without solving all of them. The postures of Syria and Iran will change fundamentally on all issues if Baker is ready to normalize relations and renounce subversion and Regime Change. The help we seek in Lebanon and Palestine may only be possible for them if we can bring Israel to deliver a breakthrough on the West Bank. If Hamas and Hezbollah lost their regional leverage (and Syria recovered the Golan Heights), a real two-state peace could follow, and from that many other lines of cleavage in the Mid-East would close up. If the US reigned in the Kurds, that would also make a lot of friends.

Who knows if Baker can pull it off, where so many and so much have failed? But regardless of that, Bush—at least the Bush we know—may find he is a President out of the loop. He made a perverse point before the election of shooting down every then reported Baker initiative in advance. But Baker is acting on behalf of the broad Bush-appalled military, foreign policy, and corporate establishment. He smiled and waited, but the rangy little president is in for a surprise.

An appreciation, and some electoral arithmetic.

Thanks and congratulations to our own Christian Crumlish and Cecil Vortex, who epitomized for us the heart and soul of the committed Long Haul.

And thank you to Howard Dean, whose controversial decision to spend on party-building in all 50 states, not just limited battleground states, has been well vindicated by the competitive races and victories that popped up unexpectedly all over the country this year.

Also, here’s some interesting nuts-and-bolts electoral arithmetic: Unlike House elections, Senate elections are cumulative; you don’t start back at square-one each time, because the winners from last time still retain their seats.

Moreover, in this last election, the Democrats faced, and overcame, a statistically very quirky and very disproportionate “risk-burden,” which will have shifted to the Republicans next time around, in 2008.

Of the current 45 Democratic seats, a disproportionate 40% (18) were “at risk,” this year. Of the 55 Republican seats, only 28% (15) were “at risk.” For the Democrats to take the Senate, they had to win 24 of the 33 Senate races, nearly three-fourths of the total.

In 2008, the disproportionate “at-risk” burden shifts to the Republicans. Of the 49 Republican seats, 43% (21) will be “at risk.” Of the 51 Democratic seats, only 24% (12) will be.

If the Democrats win just half the races in 2008 (as compared to this year’s three-fourths), their Senate margin will still rise to 55.5-44.5 (half Senators are not all that unusual!).

For the Baker-Hamilton Suggestion Box

Note: This is very dense and wonky, and only marginally informed considering how definite it sounds.

I’m just noodling with limited information, but I have a realpolitik suggestion for the Baker-Hamilton Commission. It can’t be much worse than what has been bruited about so far. It is a variation on the federated partition idea, and involves my old hobby-horse Kirkuk, with its immense gas and oil reserves. I hope the Commission is following this blog.

Every discussion of partition has characterized the central region of Iraq as a) Sunni and b) devoid of oil.

It is not devoid of oil—at least not yet. I guess they consider Kurdish annexation of Kirkuk as a done-deal. It is not a done-deal—yet. Kirkuk is still outside the current three provinces of the autonomous Kurdish region. If it remains that way, the central region would have plenty of oil. Kurdistan is already much better off than the rest of Iraq without Kirkuk, and they would still get a share of its oil revenue.

It is not completely Sunni. Moktada has increasing strength in the south, but his primary base is among the two million people of Sadr City in Bagdad. He is naturally less interested in federation than are rival Shiites; he aligned himself with the Sunni opponents of the recent legislation for federation. He is also very disinclined to let Kirkuk be annexed to Kurdistan, and has vowed to send an army there to prevent it.

So Moktada’s Shiites and the Sunni insurgents could have a common interest in an oil-rich central region, and conceivably could form a united front, possibly a military alliance, against Kurdish expansion. If US occupation were actually winding down, this would give them a reason to come to terms with one another. So if that were the kind of federation the US promoted on its way out, it really might reduce communitarian violence, which none of the other plans shows any promise of achieving.

As a practical matter, Arabs and Kurds can be partitioned; Sunnis and Shiites cannot. And I think once the conflict can be rendered geographical, it stands a chance of being politically resolved.

The Kurds meanwhile have vowed to go to war, if the are not awarded Kirkuk. So this would require the US to completely reverse field and cut loose from its long alliance with the Kurds, including its hope of establishing permanent military bases in Kurdish territory. However, alignment with the Kurds is becoming increasingly problematic in any case, because of…Turkey. Turkey already has more than 100,000 troops on the Iraqi (Kurdish) border, and many more to draw upon in their modern, well equipped NATO army. Turkey has two issues in Iraq over which they are willing to go to war.

Kirkuk. The Turks say they will use force to prevent Kurdish annexation of Kirkuk. An expansive Kurdistan in Iraq would inevitably come to encompass the even larger population of separatist-minded Kurds on the Turkish side of the border. Turkey has waged a bitter and bloody counter-insurgency against them in very recent years.

Cross-border guerillas. Turkey has served notice that they will cross the Iraq border to suppress them, unless the US can somehow accomplish that itself within the next year.

So continued alignment with the Kurds leads to a perilous collision with Turkish military force. Better to slide over to the Turkish side, and at the same time become champions of Arab nationalism. The neocons really want those Kurdistan bases; maybe we could give them Masters of the Universe video games instead.

Is North Korea Nuts?

This viewpoint should be common knowledge.

North Korea: A Nuclear Threat—An exclusive account of what Pyongyang really wants. Newsweek International Edition

On Sept. 19, 2005, North Korea signed a widely heralded denuclearization agreement….to “abandon all nuclear weapons and existing nuclear programs.” In return, Washington agreed [to] “respect each other’s sovereignty, exist peacefully together and take steps to normalize their relations.”

Four days later, the U.S….imposed sweeping financial sanctions against North Korea…branding it a “criminal state”….

The Bush administration says that this sequence of events was a coincidence…. North Korean leaders view [it as an] effort by dominant elements in the administration to undercut the Sept. 19 accord….

When I warned against a nuclear test,…several top officials replied that “soft” tactics had not worked….

It was no secret to journalists…that the agreement was bitterly controversial within the administration and represented a victory…over proponents of “regime change”….

[Chief North Korean negotiator, Vice Foreign Minister] Kim Gye Gwan…said over and over to me, “How can you expect us to return to negotiations when it’s clear your administration is paralyzed by divisions …? So many of your leaders, even the president, have talked about regime change. We have concluded that your administration is dysfunctional.”

Well, they're not all that concerned.

“The Republican Party is taking pro-family conservatives for granted,” said Mike Mears, executive director of the political action committee of Concerned Women for America, which promotes biblical values.

—“Some Seek ‘Pink Purge’ in the GOP,” LA Times

DKo: No, it’s not a mistake; I’ve seen him quoted before.

The Democrats Will Have to Be Detained

I’ve put together a couple of things President Bush has revealed recently about the Democrats in Congress; it is awfully sobering, but very clear, what he is going to have to do.

(My italics.)

Bush: [I]f somebody from al Qaeda is calling into the United States…we need to know…what they’re planning …. 177 Democrats voted against listening in on terrorist communications…[they] said, you know, we don’t think we ought to be listening to the conversations of terrorists. Speech.

DKo: My God, these Democrats are recklessly naive!

Bush: [T]he best way to deal with this enemy is to bring them to justice before they hurt the American people again….If you listen closely to some of the leaders of the Democrat Party, it sounds like…they think the best way to protect the American people is, wait until we’re attacked again. Speech.

DKo: Wait! Not damn well likely. Are they rooting for Al Qaeda? Al Qaeda couldn’t pay for such weakening of American defenses. It supports their hostilities very materially. Yet, the Democrats went ahead and purposefully voted against these measures.

So, let’s see—the Democrats have purposefully and materially supported hostilities against the United States.

But that means…

Whoa! Nearly half the US Congress are unlawful enemy combatants!

(Bush quotes cited in the Washington Post.)

Though the President will take no pleasure in it, he has no choice but to round them up instantly. As US citizens, they will be highly privileged over the other unlawful enemy combatants. They may have the right to habeas corpus, even possibly a trial. The Senators, at least, could be out well before the War on Terror is finally won.

I hope they appreciate the blessings of citizenship.

The real mistake in the first moon words was ruthlessly suppressed.

I first reported years ago the real mistake in the first moon words, and that mistake’s potentially staggering costs to our nation.

When I give you the details, the words Why didn’t the biggest newspapers in America grab this story and run with it as front page news? will leap to your lips!

This is the mistake post-mission re-analysis actually uncovered::

When Neil Armstrong stepped down and uttered, “One Giant Step for mankind,” he completely forget to say, “Mother, May I.”

The entire Moon Mission would have to be done over!

We still get fun diversionary stories like this in WashPost, because they weren’t about to let that out. This is serious money. Hence, the ruthless suppression of my report. I have suffered chronic stiff-necks over the years, just from watching my back. But (as you know) I cannot keep silent.

—David

Getting tough, within reason.

“Don’t even think about it!

“Uh, well, of course, you can think about it. I mean, you couldn’t resolve not to do it, if you couldn’t think about it.

“But, don’t even contemplate enacting it!”

Then, Why Not Torture?

“[Sen. Allen] said the United States needs to interrogate terrorism suspects effectively. ‘I don’t want to stop these interrogations,’ he said. ‘I’m not for torture … but some of these techniques have been very helpful to us.’” Article,” Washington Post.

DKo: Then why not torture? Wouldn’t those interrogations be even more effective? Wouldn’t those techniques be even more helpful?

These folks think the Geneva Conventions were naive. You have to make them talk, but you can’t even humiliate them? Absurd! Then how do you make them talk?

You don’t. The conventions didn’t naively miss the point; that is the point. For soldiers, it is “name, rank, and serial number.” For others, there is not even rank and serial number. That’s it.

Newsweek says: “The question is whether waterboarding, however effective, is torture…” No, that is not the question! You don’t get to make them talk.

Here’s a personal note to the national security people. You know, if you stop imprisoning and abusing thousands of innocents and functionaries and chauffeurs and Taliban government soldiers in Guantanamo, Kandahar, and elsewhere in the world, and if that legendary and so far entirely mythical case should arise where you beat someone up because a literal time-bomb is literally ticking, you might get some understanding. You might even get a pardon. Hell, Richard Nixon got a pardon! But please don’t pretend it’s legal.

Regarding torture, the advocates of “tough” interrogation have an ethical/political problem when they try to draw the line at torture. The Right to Life people are in a similar position when they allow for abortion in cases of rape and incest. Why draw that line? If abortion is murder, how can you murder this fetus, regardless of how it was conceived?

Senator Allen, like President Bush, says, “I’m not for torture.” But I suspect they are.

They signed it, didn't they? The letter stays in the show!

Military Lawyers Caught in Middle on Tribunals, NYT, 9/15/06

On Wednesday evening, the night before a crucial Senate vote…the Pentagon general counsel, William J. Haynes II, summoned the senior uniformed lawyers [judge advocates general] from each military service to a meeting.

…Mr. Haynes sought to enlist the lawyers on the administration’s side by asking whether any would object to signing a letter….The lawyers agreed, but only after hours of negotiating over specific words, so that they would not appear to be wholly endorsing the plan.

Early Thursday morning, White House allies distributed the letter…as evidence that the group, known as Jags, now supported the administration plan.

That prompted loud protests from Republican senators opposed to the plan. They dismissed the letter on grounds that the lawyers would have signed it only under pressure.

DKo: Pressure? Is that fair? “Humiliating and degrading treatment” of one’s subordinates, perhaps. An “outrage upon the personal dignity” of the military’s most senior legal officers, maybe. Is that pressure?

Hell, maybe it was the only way to make them sign.

I do smell appeasement somewhere.

Dick Cheney:

Some in our own country claim retreat from Iraq would satisfy the appetite of the terrorists and get them to leave us alone.

DKo:

Some in our own country claim conquest of Iraq would satisfy the appetite of the Bush Administration and get them to leave the rest of the world alone.

—There’s the recycled history of great-power appeasement. And they tell us to remember Munich!

How Could I Have Missed the Joke?

For those of a certain age.

Republicans’ comments may hurt at polls, AP

“One Republican senator [Burns, MT], described his house painter as a ‘little Guatemalan man.’ Another [Allen, VA], called an Indian man a ‘macaca,’ a type of monkey.”

“[T]he comments by Burns and Allen have garnered heavy attention as their party is trying to improve its showing among minorities.”

Burns and Allen! Now I understand. Theyve been doing a Burns and Allen impression!

Two Red Herrings

My Google news alerts have whispered to me that two Red Herrings are diverting the focus of media coverage these days. Since I seem to have been programmed from youth to pass on what I think I’ve learned, here’s my guesswork:

Iran Sanctions. The solidity of the six-nation alliance confronting Iran is thought to rest on the question of sanctions. Indeed, sanctions apparently won’t pass the Security Council, as Russia has already publicly parted company with the US on this. But the key point is not sanctions; it is the refusal to negotiate.

It is not so easy for six nations to refuse to negotiate. It only takes one, in this case Russia, to pursue discussions with Iran, which they have emphatically promised to do. If they come back with something interesting, the other five nations will have to listen. They’re not refusing to negotiate with Russia.

France and Germany have reaffirmed that without a complete nuclear suspension, there will be no talks. At the same time, they have sounded awfully soft on this question. For example, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier told the meeting of European Union foreign ministers in Brussels, “…Iran must understand that we cannot sit at the negotiating table if new centrifuges are built every day”—indicating that they just might sit at the table if the number of centrifuges does not grow.

This potentially puts the Bush administration’s core credibility at risk. It is one thing to have Russia and China split off on sanctions. But if France and Germany should split off on the refusal to talk, that is a diplomatic humiliation and a complete failure of policy. That leaves the US isolated—and on a very sore-headed point of policy too.

Disarming Hezbollah. Hezbollah will not be making use of its arms in the area where UN forces are present anyway, and they are not likely to shoot missiles over the heads of the UN forces, from further north. The key issue here is re-armament by sea and across the Syrian border. The UN forces will not disarm Hezbollah, but they will block the border, if the Lebanese government asks them to, and it will be extremely awkward for them not to ask. The Rules of Engagement do call for the use of force to enforce this provision of the cease-fire.

The non-disarmament of Hezbollah will look like a victory for them, but non-rearmament eventually puts them out of business.

If only the White House had access to Google!

The Office of The Suspector

There has been speculation* that somewhere in the national security establishment there is an official known as The Suspector. When someone wants to wiretap conversations with an individual, they bring that person’s name to The Suspector, and ask, “Do you suspect this person of having terrorist connections?” The Suspector says, “Yes.” (After all, you are bringing this person’s name to me.) This establishes that the person is suspected of terrorist connections.

Only after this procedural safeguard has been satisfied can phone calls with the Person Suspected of Terrorist Connections be wiretapped without a warrant.

*Full Disclosure. I am one of those people known as The Speculators. After I speculate about something, one can say, “There has been speculation.”

Two Countries Need to Be Put on the Spot

“With hard-liners riding high in Tehran, there’s little chance of changing minds there. But the White House should still try, offering security guarantees in exchange for Iran’s giving up technology that could feed a nuclear weapons program.” NYT Editorial, “Still Spinning,” 8/14/06

Well, will the White House “still try, offering security guarantees”? Is the White housing willing to try that, i.e., willing to give up its “regime change” program, or is the dream of overthrowing the Iranian government so important that they would rather watch the nuclear enrichment grow than give it up.

And what about Iran? Would they give up on the nuclear enrichment program in exchange for normal relations and security, or is the program too important for them to give it up?

Their public message at least suggests they are prepared to make that trade. Ali Larijani, Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator, was asked, “What kind of ambiguities are you referring to [in the current six-power proposal]”

His answer: “For instance…we want to find out what they mean by long-term cooperation. Does long-term cooperation mean a relationship in all fields with Iran or only in nuclear activities? Depending on the answer, our interpretation of the package will be different. For instance, one of the provisions of this package mentions talking to Iran about regional security arrangements.” IRNA (Islamic Republic News Agency), New Delhi, “For the US, Iranian nuclear issue is just an excuse, Larijani,” 8/9/06

Is Iran willing? Is the US willing? There are two countries that need to be put on the spot next week, when Iran’s response to the six-power package comes out. So far, we have only been hearing about one of them.

[Note: Also in question will be whether Iran keeps a small number of centrifuges spinning, possibly with no Uranium gas being fed in. The US says none, but it is not a deal-breaker for at least Germany, Russia, and China.]

[High School chemistry joke: The Iranians reject a suspension of the nuclear program, but they may be willing to emulsify it.]

Are the Republicans Tough Anymore?

In the aftermath of the foiled terror plot in the UK, it seems as if the Bush administration and congressional Republicans have suddenly lost their bearings. For a few months this year, they were relentlessly focused on the keys to a safe America, but now they are all over the map. Americans want to know which party has the toughness to face down terrorism. Republicans need to get back to Republican priorities.

—They are talking about beefed up security at US airports! Have they so quickly forgotten that Iraq is the “central front in the War on Terrorism”? This is a crisis! There are children here! The entire corps of US Air Marshals must be immediately redeployed to Baghdad, where they can strike at the heart of the enemy.

—The Republicans used to care about flag burning. Can anyone doubt that the short attention span of congress in The War on Flag-Burning has emboldened our enemies? Congress must immediately take tougher action in this crisis. The ATF must be must be broadened to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Flag Burning. Laugh that off, Mr. Terrorist!

—For a time, terrorists around the world were stunned, intimidated, and immobilized by the Republicans’ steely resolve in the crisis of same sex marriage. “Who wants to take on those guys? They’re tough!” But when it came to naught, you could just hear the terrorists laughing, “And they call themselves Imperialists? Come on! Who’s afraid of them?”

The Democrats? I don’t think bin Laden is worried about people who can’t even stand by an American minimum wage that has served as a symbol of fairness for years.

A Hard Look at the West Bank Settlers

It is past time to take a good hard look at the West Bank Settlers, who have led Israeli politics around by the nose now for decades, as if Israel’s right to exist were one and the same with their right to keep their settlements!

I believe that peace with the Palestinians has long been available, by pulling the settlers back within Israel’s pre-1967 borders. Even the most seemingly intractable issue, the status of Jerusalem, has been resolved in detail since the last days of the Clinton administration. I believe the demand for the “Right of Return” will be exchangeable for a secure, economically developed, Palestinian state in the entire West Bank and Gaza.

I believe that the Palestinians, who feel they have nothing to lose, can come to have everything to lose, in secure sovereignty and prosperous economic development. The willing economic bakers are many, the population numbers are small, and the money already being spent on war and “peacekeeping” is vastly greater than a full, advanced Palestinian economic infrastructure would require. I believe that the Palestinians themselves would become the most ardent guardians of the peace, against anyone’s attempt to restore their former desolation.

There is plenty of support and detailed evidence for these contentions, but I won’t go into it, except to append a post I made last June, Palestinian Public Opinion, which bears on this. In polls, both the Israeli and Palestinian publics support the same path to peace.

Skeptical? It has never been tried. So try it!

What do we have instead? The horror of the current conflict and an unfinished wall cutting into the territory of a future Palestinian nation.

The most incredible part of all this is that the Israeli people have long been willing to make this trade-off. Support for the West Bank settlements has been a maddeningly feckless sleepwalk into disaster. Israel has acted as if indulging the settlers’ infantile delusion of a Greater Israel were a free ride, and always would be. (They grabbed another hilltop? Let them have it. They must really want that hilltop. We don’t want them throw a tantrum!)

But, if you back the settlers, you back them with military force, and eventually you back them with a war in Lebanon.. It is not a free ride. It has been a drugged sleepwalk.

The drugs?

—Military and technological contempt for the Arabs. Arabs can fire missiles! Arabs can construct stronghold entrenchments! Arabs can stand and fight!

Yes, they can. The bubble of invulnerability has been a drug.

—Overly broad, unconditional support from the US for Israeli West Bank policy. I say overly broad, not overly deep. Let it be deep! Deep means support for Israel’s right to exist. Overly broad means support for the West Bank policies.

American Jews and American politicians have been unwilling to speak the truth about Israel’s West Bank policies. This combined unconditional support has been a drug.

We need to become a counterweight. We need to repudiate, even, in time, to anathemize as murderous, continued West Bank settlements.

It is time to wake up to the suffering.

Is the timing bad? It will get better. The fighting will end. There will be negotiations. If sovereignty over the West Bank is in prospect, they can go well. If it is not, they will be hopeless.

Palestinian Public Opinion
Edgewise, June 21, 2006, David Kolodney

Note: I did do some “cherry-picking” for the data I liked best! Also: PIPA (Program on International Policy Attitudes), the source of this report, is well regarded as credible.

—David

Reported by WorldPublicOpinion.org (Publication of the Program on International Policy Attitudes)

Near East Consulting (NEC) poll of Palestinians, Jan. 27-29,

Hamas position calling for the elimination of Israel

Hamas should change its position: 63%

Hamas should maintain its position: 21%

“Even among those who voted for Hamas, only 37 percent support Hamas’ position that Israel does not have the right to exist.”

“[E]ighty percent support a peace agreement.”

JMCC poll (Jerusalem Media & Communication Center) poll of Palestinians, Feb. 8-12,

Two-state solution: 58%

“A bi-national state on all of historic Palestine”: 22%

Islamic state (a volunteered response): 3%

Among those who said they voted for Hamas, the reason given:

Hamas “political agenda”: 12%

Hoped Hamas would end corruption: 43%

“The poll also found that 73% do not want [President] Abbas, a Fatah leader, to resign from the presidency.”

Discomfiting the Apologists of Dickensian Predation.

This is a year old; I came across it in a search. But it’s worth noting. It ought to discomfit the apologists of Dickensian predation. (Old New-Left? Me?)

How Costco Became the Anti-Wal-Mart July 17, 2005 NYT

“But not everyone is happy with Costco’s business strategy. Some Wall Street analysts assert that Mr. Sinegal is overly generous not only to Costco’s customers but to its workers as well.

“Costco’s average pay, for example, is $17 an hour, 42 percent higher than its fiercest rival, Sam’s Club. And Costco’s health plan makes those at many other retailers look Scroogish. One analyst, Bill Dreher of Deutsche Bank, complained last year that at Costco ‘it’s better to be an employee or a customer than a shareholder.’”

The Commodious Ambiguity of "Optimism"

[I seem to be working my way back into rambling Philosophy mode here.]

General Abizaid said: “So the question is, am I optimistic whether or not Iraqi forces, with our support, with the backing of the Iraqi government, can prevent the slide to civil war? My answer is yes, I’m optimistic that that slide can be prevented.” NYT

This is subtle. My guess is he was actively trading on a systematic ambiguity about optimism.

Why? Today’s generals really do operate under a serious, post-Vietnam, military compunction. It is strongly felt within the services that the Vietnam generals sold out the troops when they lied about the prospects of that war.

The ambiguity:

Why does he introduce and lean on optimism?

On returning from a tour of the situation, you might say “I am optimistic about our prospects,” and that would indicate your conviction that what you saw gave you good reason to be hopeful.

But you also might say “I am optimistic” because you had a big glass of Happy Juice on the flight back, and it made you optimistic about everything. Nonetheless, you were truthful when you expressed your optimism.

The general could have been thinking that his job as a military leader is to be optimistic. So saying he is optimistic does not really render his strategic opinion; it just reports an optimistic state of mind. He is supposed to be optimistic.

Now absent the Happy Juice, the mental state he is reporting does not exist. So the report is a deception—but only a dutiful, understandable, expected, pro forma deception. In contrast, if he’d said, “I believe that the slide is likely to be prevented,” instead of merely “I’m optimistic that the slide can be prevented,” it would have been bald deception.

"The Next Six Months"

We have been told over and over again the last few years that “The Next Six Months” will be decisive for our Iraq invasion to succeed.

Doesn’t that mean at some point that the last six months already were decisive?

Health Coverage That's Better than Being Uninsured!

The Medicare people were proud when the AARP reported last January that “for many Americans, Medicare drug plans…can cost less than buying the same drugs across the border [DKo: which is forbidden under the Medicare coverage].” Those results have held up since then.

Was this something to be proud of? Suppose you asked whether an employer’s health insurance coverage was any good, and they said, “Oh yes! In fact, for many people, it’s better than being uninsured!”

Thanks for the Memories

In the post below, I said, ” So, I would appreciate hearing from those ‘of a certain age’: Did you learn about this at the time. Or only later? Or never, until now?”

Thanks for the replies!

“I remember it happening and have heard many reports since, but I was in the Army for much of the aftermath so wouldn’t have heard much follow up coverage, I do remember the vehement Mexican government denials at the time.”

“It was covered in the mainstream media and left wing media at the time.”

“I’m amazed that I don’t recall anything at all about this story. I was 20 and in college at that time, but that was before my political awareness which began sometime within the next year. As I recall, I was only barely interested in upcoming U.S. presidential election (I was too young to vote) with only superficial knowledge of the issues.”

“I learned of this at the time. How did I learn it? From Ramparts of course. I was in high school then. I wasn’t reading a mainstream newspaper regularly at the time so I don’t know what if any coverage the NY Times gave to this. I recall reading the Ramparts article and believing that it had to be true of course because it was in Ramparts. But then after finishing the article I was totally shocked wondering if that could really be true. It didn’t sound as if that crowd of protesters was doing anything that I hadn’t done multiple times at demonstrations in NYC and DC. How could a government indiscriminately open fire on a peaceful defenseless crowd killing all those people? Sure governments are bad, but only Nazis would do something like that, I thought naively. Surely that couldn’t have happened. If that really happened then millions of Mexicans would have risen up and taken over the government which is what seemed to me was the only appropriate response. Since the Mexican government didn’t immediately get overthrown maybe the events that were reported in Ramparts really didn’t happen.”

I'm wondering who knew...

…about these student killings at the time?

Mexico Charges Ex-President in ‘68 Massacre, AP, 7/1/06

“Echeverria was interior secretary, a powerful position overseeing domestic security, when Mexican troops ambushed mostly peaceful student protests at Mexico City’s Tlatelolco Plaza on Oct. 2, 1968, just before the capital hosted the Olympics. Officially, 25 people were killed, though human rights activists say as many as 350 may have died.

“Special prosecutors say they have reviewed military documents indicating 360 sharpshooters fired from buildings surrounding Tlatelolco Plaza. The attack is considered one of the darkest moments of modern Mexican history.”

Obviously my question applies only to those who were old enough to have heard about it. It occurred virtually on the doorstep of the 1968 Olympics, best remembered by many for the dramatic, gloved Black Power salute given from the winners stand by two American runners.

I was at Ramparts at the time. We had people there to cover the Olympics, and they filed harrowing reports of the killings, which we ran. Because I was so focused on our coverage, I just assumed that everybody knew about the event. But over the years, it began to seem that many people you’d expect to know about it, actually didn’t—even though thousands of reporters were on the spot for the Games. It was certainly heavily covered up in Mexico itself for many years. “Disappeared,” but bloodily, in a public square.

So, I would appreciate hearing from those “of a certain age.” Did you learn about this at the time. Or only later? Or never, until now? I guess it’s kind of a reality test. I’ll print any answers I receive wherever you are reading this now, unless you tell me No.

Thanks, David

Shameless

NYT

“[In 2005] Amir Attaran, a law professor at the University of Ottawa and fiery advocate on malaria…testified that the American agency, the United States Agency for International Development, was too cozy with ‘the foreign aid industrial complex.’

“Only 1 percent of the agency’s 2004 malaria budget went for medicines, 1 percent for insecticides and 6 percent for mosquito nets. The rest was spent on research, education, evaluation, administration and other costs.”

Will Iran Unanimity Turn Around to Bite Bush?

President Bush has been basking in the unanimity he fashioned concerning Iran among the “Five plus One” countries: the five veto-wielding members of the Security Council (US, UK, France, Russia, and China) plus Germany. With this diplomatic triumph, Bush is shedding his image of “My way or the highway” unilateralism.

But only at the cost of considerable risk. The more he relies on this success, the deeper he “digs himself into a hole,” if he should veto an Iranian counter-offer that others would accept (even just one or two of the others.)

The unanimity among the six nations was secured only by leaving a key provision unsettled. All agreed that Iran must “suspend” its Uranium enrichment program, but there was no consensus on what this “suspension” would require.

The US insists, in terms that sound non-negotiable, that there is no suspension “while one centrifuge spins.” But, others seem ready to permit some modest spin. It would allow Iran to have stood up for its principle of autonomy—and, equally important, to have stood up to the United States and won.

Iran’s upcoming counter-proposal is, in fact, very likely to include some centrifuges—monitored at a number not considered serious for bomb-making, possibly along with a commitment to forego injecting Uranium gas into the machines. Of the six allies, China is the most likely to accept such an Iranian offer, and after China, Russia and Germany.

If the US vetoes such a compromise, Bush’s diplomatic triumph will implode, the UN sanctions we want will not be imposed, and Iran’s nuclear program can go full speed ahead. The responsibility for this disaster would go to Bush’s no-compromise, no-diplomacy, no-alliance intransigence.

If this occurs, it will be shortly before the mid-term congressional elections.

"Convinced that the Iranian government was on the verge of collapse"

In case you missed it…

In 2003, U.S. Spurned Iran’s Offer of Dialogue—Some Officials Lament Lost Opportunity

By Glenn Kessler, Washington Post Staff Writer, Sunday, June 18, 2006; Page A16

Just after the lightning takeover of Baghdad by U.S. forces three years ago, an unusual two-page document spewed out of a fax machine at the Near East bureau of the State Department. It was a proposal from Iran for a broad dialogue with the United States, and the fax suggested everything was on the table — including full cooperation on nuclear programs, acceptance of Israel and the termination of Iranian support for Palestinian militant groups.

But top Bush administration officials, convinced the Iranian government was on the verge of collapse, belittled the initiative. Instead, they formally complained to the Swiss ambassador who had sent the fax with a cover letter certifying it as a genuine proposal supported by key power centers in Iran, former administration officials said.

DKo: So far the Bush people have found neither WMDs in Iraq nor a Government on the Verge of Collapse in Iran.

This story ran on Page 16 of the Washington Post, in the Houston Chronicle, The People’s Daily, China, and East Day, China, and nowhere else, based on a Google news search I did on a phrase in the text.

The Looming Pitched Battle for the City of Kirkuk

I’ve been following the thread of the story of the Iraqi city of Kirkuk, and it seriously looks as if in late 2007 that city is going to move Iraq into a new, bloodier, level of warfare: pitched battle for territory, with full-scale armies on the attack.

It is hard to believe, even for me: If Kirkuk is really this alarming, how could it be getting so little attention? But, here are the signs.

Kirkuk is a city of 1 million that controls 40% of Iraq’s oil reserves and 70% of its natural gas. It is located just south of the northern provinces slated to become the Kurdish third of the new federated Iraq. The southern third is oil rich, and will make up the pure Shiite component of the federation. In the middle third there is no oil, unless there is Kirkuk.

“Kurdish politicians regard Kirkuk as key to their sustained autonomy; to more militant Kurds, the city is a cornerstone of a future Kurdistan nation.” (“Tensions Simmer as Kurds Reclaim Kirkuk,” 5/12/2006, Los Angeles Times, Solomon Moore)

“Many Iraqi Arabs, both Sunni and Shiite, are adamantly opposed to relinquishing Kirkuk, among them Sadr and his political followers.” (“Shiite Militias Move Into Oil-Rich Kirkuk, Even as Kurds Dig In,” April 25, 2006, Washington Post Foreign Service, Jonathan Finer)

“Iraq’s constitution, …calls for a referendum on the future of the region by the end of 2007, but many key details are in dispute, such as who will be permitted to vote.” (WP)

“Kirkuk, with a population of about 1 million, has long been home to a mix of Kurds, Turkmens and Arabs, both Shiite and Sunni Muslims, and a smattering of Christians….[A]bout 250,000 Kurdish residents [who had been forced] to give up their homes to Arabs in the 1970s…. have returned to Kirkuk…along with as many as 100,000 newcomers.” (LAT)

“Kurdish leaders speak openly of their intention to use force if necessary to gain control of the city, which they consider the historical capital of a vast Kurdish nation also extending into Iran and Turkey…Kurds have already demonstrated their impatience with Baghdad and the U.S.-led reconstruction effort by independently approving at least two oil exploration deals in Kurdistan.” (LAT)

The Kurds already have in place a serious regular army of as many as 100,000 (NYT), the peshmerga “militia,” created in the US protected No-Fly Autonomous Zone, while Hussein was still in power. Much of it has already morphed into the Iraqi Army in their region.

The diffuse Sunni “Insurgency” will certainly concentrate its attention on Kirkuk. It is the only potential oil resource of their middle-third of the country. Even now, Sunni “Insurgents” keep oil production and transport there at a standstill, through sabotage, infiltration, and killings. Real Kurdish economic control would require at the very least a bloody and prolonged counterinsurgency, even after annexation.

For the Shiite forces of Moqtada al Sadr, their primary base is not in the southern third of Iraq, but in Baghdad’s Sadr City. “Sadr’s representative in [Kirkuk], Abdul Karim Khalifa, told U.S. officials that more armed loyalists were on the way and that as many as 7,000 to 10,000 Shiite residents were prepared to fight alongside the Mahdi Army if called upon. Legions more Shiite militiamen would push north from Baghdad’s Sadr City slum…” (WP) And in those circumstances, it would be hard to imagine the competing Shiite Badr brigades just sitting things out.

Indeed, it is hard to imagine the Shiite-led Iraqi federal government doing any kind of neutral “peacekeeping” here. The 2007 preelection census (voter registration) will surely be politicised, ill-defined, contested, and inconclusive—something the usual election observers will be ill-equipped to “monitor. ” Even if it requires a parliamentary realignment of Shiites and Sunnis together against the Kurds, the Iraqi government is at least as likely to actively back the “Arab side” to “enforce law. and order” (according to their own interpretation of events). Or, it is also possible the government would become procedurally frozen and officially immobilized. But then its component militias will simply open out and go to war.

Turkey has already threatened to send its own army in response to any Kurdish annexation of Kirkuk. Turkey is driven by fear of its own rebellious Kurdish minority, ranged along the Iraqi border. They, in turn, would be almost sure to wage at least a local war across Turkish supply lines.

Even if the US wanted to rush its forces back to respond the crisis, whom would they fight for or against, and why?

I know I am assuming that any compromise (joint sovereignty? revenue-sharing?) will be unacceptable to some or all of the parties. Maybe not. But, personally, I just don’t see where compromise will come from. It will take more from the United States than faith-based projections of stability, “standing up and standing down.” (We classify the city as already stabilized, and our troops have largely moved out.) National politics and the press need to face the the reality of the Kirkuk conflict, study it, anticipate it, deal with it. The arrogance of our ignorance has already caused immeasurable grief.

The Fine Print on Direct Talks

NYT, 5/29/06

“To avert sanctions, Iran has hinted at readiness to limit the number of centrifuge machines producing enriched uranium….

“Diplomats…say that Iranian engineers stopped pouring a raw form of uranium, called UF6, into arrays of centrifuges after just 12 days….the Iranians kept the empty centrifuges spinning, as is standard practice because slowing the delicate machines can cause them to wobble and crash….

“[S]aid a senior European diplomat who monitors the Iranian program,…’They could probably have gone faster. But they don’t want to provoke.”

“But they also do not want to stop, and that is the crux of the standoff…

“Meanwhile, President Bush and his advisers have maintained that no negotiations can resume between Europe and Iran ‘while one centrifuge spins’ in the country.”

From Secretary Rice’s Press Conference

“But let’s remember what is not happening here. This is not a bilateral negotiation between the United States and Iran on the whole host of issues that would lead to broader relations between Iran and the United States.”

“By the way, we have done this with regimes with which we have serious problems. We have been doing it with the North Korean regime also in a multilateral setting.”

“QUESTION… [A]re you also saying that the U.S. is not going to actively try to undercut, overthrow, undermine the Iranian Government.

“SECRETARY RICE: We have been very clear and nobody is confused about the nature of this Iranian regime. We know precisely about the nature of this Iranian regime….Nobody is confused about the nature of this regime…. What’s being provided legitimacy here is the negotiating process to which we have long been committed.”

“[W]e have not been asked about security assurances and I don’t expect that we will be.”

Mr. Dylan on Mr. Cool J

In case you missed mention of it, Bob Dylan is DJ on a weekly “Theme Time Radio Hour” on satellite radio.

This was his intro to LL Cool J’s “Mama Said Knock You Out” on the show with a Mother’s Day theme. (II’ll put in some line breaks.)

Here’s LL Cool J

Don’t call it a comeback.

He’s been here for years,

rockin’ his peers,

puttin’ ‘em in fear,

makin’ tears

rain down like a monsoon,

explosions overpowerin’ the competition.

LL Cool J is towerin’.

Why we resist direct talks with North Korea and Iran

Why does the US resist direct talks with Iran and North Korea? This may be part of it:

The Bush Doctrine had two basic tenets: Preemptive Force and Regime Change. The second has gotten relatively little notice, compared with the first. The idea behind regime change is that when a country poses a serious threat to us, say WMDs, getting them to back off of the threat, agreeing to a monitored end to the threatening policy or program, is simply not enough. They will hide their weapons, endlessly string us along, beguile our less vigilant allies. The only real end to the specific threat is to overthrow the government entirely.

I’m not sure exactly why, but the Bush government certainly appears to associate direct talks with settling for a policy change, and forgoing regime change. They fear that in direct talks they may get an offer too complete and comprehensive to refuse, and one which would certainly involve a simple promise of non-aggression from us.

North Korea has loudly made a non-aggression pledge a central issue, saying that without it they need the WMDs for self-protection. Iran has at least implied as much.

The key concession made by the US in ending the Cuban Missile Crisis was our promise not to launch a second invasion (the first being the Bay of Pigs). Some on the right still rue that commitment.

The Mysterious Pyramid Coincidence

Bosnian Hill an Ancient Pyramid, AP

[Note: Joke, hopefully, ensues]

So, we have yet another example of the mysteriously universal practice of pyramid building, which took hold at a certain time in every ancient human civilization, in every corner of the world.

Maybe it’s just a coincidence. There was certainly no possible route of human-to-human communication that could have accounted for the spread this practice around the world at that time.

And maybe this is also a coincidence: In every single instance, the pointy part of the pyramid was facing upward, the very direction from which any extraterrestrial guidance of these isolated early cultures would have had to come.

A coincidence? I’m sure.

You Can't Have One, but You Can Have Them All

“Can we get Person A’s phone records, without a warrant?”

No.

“Can we get everybody’s phone records, including Person A’s, without a warrant?”

Sure. No problem.

Can it really be so simple? It’s hard to see why not.

We should think, before we don't worry.

“According to a Washington Post-ABC News poll released yesterday, 63 percent of Americans said they found the NSA program to be an acceptable way to investigate terrorism, including 44 percent who strongly endorsed the effort.”

Americans appear so far to have been soothed by government reassurances such as this: “The database… includ[es] called and calling numbers and the duration of calls, but nothing related to the substance of the calls.”

This makes it sound very impersonal, unprivate, and abstract. But what about “the substance,” not of the calls, but of the numbers? After all, this pattern analysis would be pretty dry if it just spotted patterns like who makes an inordinate number of two-minute phone calls between 7:04 and 7:13 on Wednesday mornings.

But the identities of the phone numbers, even without the content of the conversations, could really spice things up. Who’s been calling mosques, or peace groups, or gay bars? Is calling the ACLU perhaps a “gateway drug” that marks a high risk of later terrorist communications? Worth some serious data-mining, no doubt. Maybe the government should keep a list.

Besides names, phone numbers have associated addresses. Addresses correspond to neighborhoods, including ethnic neighborhoods. Racial and ethnic profiles will be data-mined that make all earlier profiling seem paltry by comparison. You just have to ask the wrong questions.

Indeed—just in case it should turn out to be useful at some point—the government might want to keep a permanent list of everyone who has ever dialed a phone-sex number. Those people can be risky, vulnerable to blackmail. “What if the truth should slip out?” J. Edgar Hoover had the goods on every member of congress, but never on the entire American population.

Hmm. Vulnerable to blackmail. That could come in handy—to protect the public.

This thing is only in its infancy!

Kill it before it grows?

No one knows exactly what “price gouging” is supposed to mean in a capitalist economy. Price fixing and collusion are a different matter, but that so far does not appear to be the issue currently with gasoline.

There are some relevant things we do know.

As traffic volume increases, private cars become less efficient: traffic jams, higher fuel consumption and GAS PRICES!, problems parking (for 22+ hours daily storage of two tons of idle equipment).

As traffic volume increases, mass transit becomes more efficient: more passengers carried on the same train or bus, lower fuel consumption per passenger, more frequent service (at three-minute intervals, there is no such thing as missing or waiting for your train), more convenient routes and stops, more shuttle service to and from major hubs, little increase in parking/storage burden, lower costs, lower fares. (Indeed, the entire current fare-box revenue of public transit in America could be offset by a few cents per gallon increase in the gas tax.)

(And note, it is the commute we’re really concerned with here. That’s what burns the gas, not shopping trips and family rides in the country. Keep a car! It is second and third cars per household that have dominated the overflow of autos in America. We should at least give more people an incentive to live near transit and ride to work.)

So mass transit is a potential blessing for the public and a horrendous threat to America’s core industrial corporations: autos and petroleum. This caused GM and Firestone to buy up and destroy the tracks and cables of 200 mass transit systems in the US during the 1930s and 40s.

In the Bay Area, this was the Key Line, which ran across the lower level of the Bay Bridge (and through the Solano Tunnel). The agreements under which they sold off the remnant properties forbid reestablishment with anything other than rubber wheels.

For the corporations, the advantages of expanding mass transit are a slippery slope. Can they kill it before it grows?

"Dear Mr. President"

This video “DearMr. President” is very powerful, insightful, and seriously moving. The singer, Pink, is a top-rank music star, and I think it will probably be playing on MTV. She opens it by saying, “This is the most important song I have ever written.”

This second one, “I’m the Decider,” is just very clever, ingenious, and plain funny. It takes off from “I am the Walrus.” The simulation of the Beatles’ vocals is great. I don’t recognize the artists.

My Wild Speculation on Iran

LBJ liked to leak escalations, then deny them—two or three times over. When they actually occurred, it was already Old News. Such sequences can easily have a six-month or two-year time-line, if you wish to align them with elections.

Is there an Iran strike in the pipeline? There is no good reason. It will be some ten years before Iran can have a weapon, during which international consensus will solidify, the physical targets will become more definite and vulnerable, and sanctions—with Iran’s bordering Arab neighbors fully engaged in them—would have plenty of time to work.

It’s true that China and Russia have economic stakes that have made them cautious and deliberate about Iran, but over time neither of them will just forget about a nuclear threat, nor about their reserved parking spaces in the world nuclear oligopoly.

The Bush neo-cons would certainly love to strike/invade Iran, but the difficulties are formidable: guaranteed political catastrophe in Iraq, entailing huge slaughter among US forces—who are, in effect, military hostages there. US domestic resistance, including panicky Republicans, utter diplomatic isolation, and Oil, Oil, Oil—soaring prices and economic free-fall.

On the other hand, US neo-imperialism desperately needs an invasion, because an invasion implies its own necessity. It establishes that unilateral warfare by the sole superpower is indispensable to the safety of the world. Successful UN diplomacy, backed by international sanctions, would, on the other hand, be an neo-imperial disaster. Already the power to affect Iran, the premier global crisis, has been too obviously in the hands of Russia and China, with the US as an impotent bystander.

It has not yet really sunk in politically that sanctions work, but before too long, it must come into focus. Sanctions devastated Iraq and effectively prevented Saddam from pursuing WMDs. It was the prospect of sanctions, not US military threats, that prompted latest softenings in Iran’s nuclear stance. It was sanctions that turned Libya around. And they are the subtext of all current pressures on North Korea.

Sanctions are inherently multilateral, and they make the UN, rather than the US, the center of international power. Effective sanctions and multilateral military pressure devalue America’s uniqueness. They reduce the US to just one among a number of Great Powers. If sanctions and multilateral power should succeed in Iran and North Korea, it will be the neo-imperialists’ downfall.

So, yes, they need to attack Iran. On the other hand, they may not be able do so. So, is it in the pipeline? I guess it would have to be: “Very unlikely, but could happen.”

Key Bush quote decouples two issues

“The Smoking Quote”?

In this item from ABC news, the wording of the quote they cite from President Bush decouples what he refers to as the “leak of classified information”— within this specific context —from the particular leak of Plame’s CIA identity:

“He also spoke out after allegations surfaced that administration officials had leaked the identity of CIA officer Valerie Plame, who is Wilson’s wife.

“‘I don’t know of anybody in my administration who leaked classified information. If somebody did leak classified information, I’d like to know it…and we’ll take the appropriate action,’ he said at the time.”

Reuters: Bush said likely to replace Treasury chief Snow

I don’t think Bush is really qualified for that position, but the move does show some humility, and at least he wouldn’t be President anymore.

Does the Bush team need fresh blood? Part II

The Bush team has no difficulty infusing fresh blood; they generate it in vast quantities and on a global scale.

But the political problem remains: they flame out when exposed to daylight, and they can't see their own reflection in a mirror.

Dead giveaway.

Shake-up? Does the Bush team need fresh blood?

Cheney Dismisses Suggestions of Shake-Up Associated Press

"Senior Republicans and others have said the Bush team may need an infusion of fresh blood..."

DKo: Well, there's always corporate Middle Management. They haven't bled them completely dry just yet.

We would welcome Iranian financing to influence our politics.

Washington Post
"The Bush administration is asking Congress for $75 million...to promote democracy in Iran....The plan...includes fostering independent media inside Iran.

"The final $15 million would go toward nongovernmental organizations and civic education on the lines of what the federally chartered National Endowment for Democracy carries out in a wide variety of countries."

DKo:

This Endowment also provides campaign funding to political parties in elections in a number of countries.

Why is the Iranian government getting so upset about this? It's a two-way street. We would welcome Iranian government financing of independent media and civic organizations to influence politics in the US. We would welcome all foreign government financing in our elections

Wouldn't we?

The WP article http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/13/AR2006031301761_2.html?referrer=email&referrer=email

What About the Misidentified Victims?

A growing number of people, having been duly convicted of heinously violent crimes, are now being released and put back on the street, based on newly fashionable legal technicalities such as DNA mismatches. We hear the predictable chorus of soft-on-crime lobbies, running on ad nauseum about the precious civil rights of misidentified convicts--even when the crimes involve the most brutal murders, rapes, and physical mutilation.

Have these champions of the rights of misidentified convicts given even the slightest thought to the rights of the misidentified victims? Or the rights of the misidentified families of misidentified victims?

It is about time these convicts took full responsibility for every last one of their past mistakes.

Oops! The truth!

House Speaker Dennis Hastert, an Illinois Republican, said in a statement that Cunningham's sentence "should send a strong message that no one is above breaking our nation's laws, including the Members of Congress who make them."

Words we'll soon retire

Farewell to...

--Like a broken record

--Carbon copy

--Trick photography

Kind of sad.

So far, we have replacements for two: Clone. Special effects (though with Special morphing to oblivion). We'll have to get to work on Broken record.

Global Warming Walking Points

http://money.cnn.com/2006/02/24/technology/fastforward_fortune/index.htm

Gore's speech enumerates well-documented scientific evidence that the global climate is changing significantly -- and fast. Here are a few data points:

Global CO2 levels are way outside what have been historical norms over several hundred thousand years.

All ten of the hottest years on record, globally, have occurred in the last 15 years.

Last summer, all-time heat records were set in both the U.S. West and East.

Global ocean temperatures are far outside of historical norms.

Even after last year's devastating Hurricane Katrina, the subsequent Hurricane Wilma was briefly the most severe hurricane ever recorded.

Last year Japan hit an all-time record for typhoons --10. The previous record was 7.

The largest downpour ever seen occurred last summer in India.

Thirty-five years ago there were an average of 225 days when Alaska's tundra was frozen enough for trucks to drive. Today there are only 75.

National Security--China and Everywhere Else

The Click That Broke a Government's Grip, Washington Post

The government has sought to control what people read and write on the Web, employing a bureaucracy of censors and one of the world's most technologically sophisticated systems of filters.

DKo: Only when the government has determined there is a danger to national security. If you are not guilty, you have nothing to worry about.
Article

There's an irony in that irony (Plus me showing off).

In 2004, "radical Shiite Muslim cleric" Muqtada Sadr took control of the holy places in Kerbala and led a bloody, extended anti-US uprising there. In the end, the US military was compelled by Shiite leaders to allow Sadr's Mahdi Army to leave the city under the protection of a cease fire. However, the US still vowed to crush Sadr in the future.

I posted this on Edgewise on 11/11/04...
The Iraqization Program
DKo: The apparent reliance on former Kurdish militia as backup is explosive.... All of which tends to make Moktada al Sadr the tipping point, hence the kingmaker. Will the US accept that? Can Bush sell it as the success that vindicates the war?

And sure enough, per the NYT this Wednesday, 2/15/06...
Radical Cleric Rising as a Kingmaker in Iraqi Politics
Late Saturday night, on the eve of a crucial vote to choose Iraq's next prime minister, a senior Iraqi politician's cellphone rang. A supporter of the Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr....said that there's going to be a civil war among the Shia if Mr. Sadr's preferred candidate was not confirmed....The widely favored candidate lost by one vote, and Ibrahim al-Jaafari...was anointed as Iraq's next leader.
"Everyone was stunned; it was a coup d'etat"....It was a crowning moment for Mr. Sadr....The man who led the Mahdi Army militia's two deadly uprisings against American troops in 2004 now controls 32 seats in Iraq's Parliament, enough to be a kingmaker. He has an Islamist vision of Iraq's future, and is implacably hostile to the Iraqis closest to the United States--the mostly secular Kurds, and Ayad Allawi, the former prime minister.

So, there's the first irony.

And, per the LA Times today, 2/16/06
Iraqi Shiite Bloc Showing Cracks
Leaders of [Muqtada Sadr's] party threaten to break away if the alliance doesn't reach out to Sunnis and restrain paramilitary groups.

And there's the second.

At Last! A Voice for "The Aspirations of the Iranian People"

Rice Asks for $75 Million to Increase Pressure on Iran, Washington Post

"...including expanding radio and television broadcasts into Iran and promoting internal opposition to the rule of religious leaders....'[W]e are going to work to support the aspirations of the Iranian people for freedom in their own country,' Rice told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee..."

DKo: At last! A voice for "the aspirations of the Iranian people." For far too long, we have just stood by and left Iranian politics to be dominated by special interests.

(The Post article)

Cultural Conservatism--Eerily Apt from Lenin

"In civilized Europe [i.e., the USA of his day], with its highly developed machine industry, its rich, multiform culture and its constitutions, a point of history has been reached when the commanding bourgeoisie, fearing the growth and increasing strength of the proletariat, comes out in support of everything backward, moribund, and medieval ..."

(V. I. Lenin, "Backward Europe and Advanced Asia," Collected Works, Vol. 19, pp 9pff. Quoted from Against Method, Paul Feyerabend, page 147)

This calls for at least 200 recommendations!

Disaster Response Changes Promised
Administration Admits Katrina Flaws, Moves to Retool Homeland Security

[A] government-wide review due later this month...[will] make more than 100 recommendations..."

Washington Post

DKo: I think this calls for at least 200 recommendations.

If it was unlawful, they are whistleblowers

Inquiry Into Wiretapping Article Widens NYT
"...a rapidly expanding criminal investigation into...a New York Times article...that disclosed the existence of a highly classified domestic eavesdropping program..."

---------------------------
DKo: I have no legal expertise, but this is my instinctive lay-person's reaction:

If the NSA eavesdropping was unlawful, or even if it's lawfulness was so seriously questionable as to require a legislative/judicial review, or if the secrecy surrounding it was illicit, then the leakers and reporters involved were whistleblowers, and are entitled to the standard legal protections due to whistleblowers.

(And the rewards: If the program is halted, or if the spending on it was unlawful at the time--prior to some future enabling legislation--then they should be paid a percentage of the spending, the standard whistleblower's reward.)

If they do face punishment, that may give them legal "standing" to compel judicial review of the program's legality in their trials, independently of congress. But if congress proceeds with investigations or even considers remedial legislation, without invoking protection for the people who showed the courage to bring it to their attention, it will be sickening cravenness.

World-Class Complacency

Bush acknowledges problems in drug plan's rollout Reuters

[Bush] said officials were trying to make sure more information is shared by Medicare, the health plans and the states, and that it is up-to-date. "We're making good progress," Bush said.

DKo: Sharing information. Keeping it up-to-date. What a good idea! And now is the perfect time for it. You don't want to peak too early.

Imagine a Fire-chief saying, when asked when his trucks were going to make it to the scene of a fire, "We're making good progress."

Bush's Dream Headline

Would any news organization fall for Bush's ludicrous attempt to associate the LA plane-threat story with the totally unrelated surveillance he is currently defending in Washington? Well, there's at least one born every minute. The AP came through for the Dunce award:

Bush: U.S. Surveillance Helped Stop Attack AP
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060210/ap_on_go_pr_wh/bush_35

Not Just Single-Blind

Low-Fat Diet Does Not Cut Health Risks, Study Finds NYT 2/8/06
The largest study ever to ask whether a low-fat diet reduces the risk of getting cancer or heart disease has found that the diet has no effect.

DKo: Remember to avoid health advice drawn from traditional Chinese medicine, Hindu Ayurvedic medicine, herbalism, etc. It is really flaky.

Are You Lying?

It occurs to me that under the humbling burden imposed on the Commander-in-Chief in wartime, especially in a harrowing war without borders that could last virtually forever, the President--strictly as required to protect equally extraordinary implicit wartime powers--might be compelled to authorize an Attorney General to give false testimony to a Senate committee.

They should ask him.

How Very Modest the Rule of Law Turns Out to Be

"Lawmakers cannot reverse wrongdoing that has already occurred. But they can express outrage (in a resolution or on the floor) that the president saw fit to usurp Congress's power to set the ground rules for secret surveillance."
--From legal commentary by NYU law professor Noah Feldman in the NYT Magazine 2/5/06

DKo: Similarly, when a Mafia boss is found to be carrying out a program of murder and mayhem, the law "cannot reverse wrongdoing that has already occurred," it can, however, express outrage--exerting pressure to cease the murder and mayhem in the future.

"Drop a dime, and we'll bust a cap."

AP today:

As Democratic lawmakers argued for more details, CIA Director Porter Goss lamented the leak of classified information on a variety of ongoing intelligence operations.

"I'm sorry to tell you that the damage has been very severe to our capabilities to carry out our mission," Goss said. "It is my aim, and it is my hope, that we will witness a grand jury investigation with reporters present being asked to reveal who is leaking this information."

----------------------
DKo: At least we know how to deal with snitches.

Last Minute Request

Reuters tells us that the Supreme Court refused last night "to let Missouri execute a death-row inmate contesting lethal injection...turning down Missouri's last-minute request to allow a midnight execution."

That's right, the "last minute request" was from the state. They were irreparably deprived of their last opportunity to kill this man yesterday at midnight.

I know what a "last minute request" is to stay an execution. If you don't get immediate relief, then at one minute after midnight, you are dead.

A "last minute request" to allow an execution? If you don't get immediate relief, then at one minute after midnight, it is such a disappointment.

Elections--A Luxury in Wartime?

In peacetime, it is vitally important to our American democracy that we adhere to the legally scheduled election-cycles in choosing and changing our high public officials. This allows candidates and parties who are not currently in power to challenge and, if they prevail, to replace those presently in office.

In wartime, however, when the very lives of our citizens and the survival of our freedoms are at risk, it may become necessary for the Commander-in-Chief to accept the constitutional responsibility to temporarily suspend the legal election-cycle--whose inherent uncertainties and often debilitating domestic conflicts are well known to our enemies--and therefore, only for the duration, to...

Oh well, you know the rest.

Basic Facts as a Wondrous Surprise

There are so many basic facts about the world that we, as grownups, take for granted, yet to a child are matters of wondrous surprise. Living here with my eight-year-old grandson Seaney has really brought that home to me. The process of opening up the wider world to him has been an inspiration and a privilege. Here is a small sample of the knowledge I have been able to pass on to him just in the past year:

-- When it is daytime in the Northern Hemisphere, it is nighttime in the Southern Hemisphere.
-- When birds hibernate South for the Winter, they just close their eyes, and the next thing they know, they wake up in a warmer climate hundreds of miles away.
-- Most automobile accidents occur within the home.
--Three-fifths of the Earth's population is under water.

It all makes me feel like a regular Mr. Science.

Malevolent Design

Proponents of Intelligent Design argue that it is just an alternative theory that open minds will agree should be taught as a possibility alongside Darwinian evolution.

Another alternative theory that merits such treatment is Malevolent Design. Though still in its infancy, Malevolent Design has a strong scientific advantage, because it is a testable hypothesis that predicts species change can be significantly affected by Devil Worship.

Thus one subspecies of fruit flies could be subjected to a documented quantity of Devil worship aimed at a particular outcome, while another subspecies, not subjected to Devil worship, can serve as an experimental control. Does the predicted outcome show up as a statistically significant difference under the two experimental conditions?

American high school students would benefit from being exposed to all three possibilities Darwinism, Intelligent Design, and Devil Worship. And Devil Worship easily lends itself to becoming a really fun class science project--the kind of openness that Intelligent Design advocates would heartily welcome.

Well, what's he waiting for?

In Address, Bush Says He Ordered Domestic Spying NYT [Boldface added]

As a result of the [NYT's] report, he said, "our enemies have learned information they should not have, and the unauthorized disclosure of this effort damages our national security and puts our citizens at risk."

He said the Senate's action "endangers the lives of our citizens..."

---------------------------
DKo: The New York Times and the Senate. Fortunately, we now have places for people like that.

Why do we buy that Bush Administration torture is intended to extract the truth?

We read now about an Al Qaeda prisoner whom we sent to Egypt to be tortured. He eventually came up with a fabricated story that Saddam Hussein had trained Al Qaeda members in chemical and germ warfare. This testimony became a favorite piece of smoking-gun evidence, cited repeatedly by top officials in favor of their war. He has since recanted.

It is gross naivete to say "You have defeated your own purposes. You wanted to get the truth, but testimony under torture is notoriously unreliable, so you ended up getting falsehoods instead."

But what about when it was falsehoods you were seeking in the first place? Torture is routinely used to extract confessions from the innocent, force them to implicate innocent associates, and to substantiate insidious Big-Lie policies.

We know the falsehood that got this man out of Egypt. And we know that the truth led only to continued torture.

Stalin's infamous "Purge Trials" showed the world a series of pitiful, torture-broken defendants incriminating themselves and others, and detailing elaborate fantasies of conspiracy against the state. Do we say that Stalin's inquisitors had defeated their own purpose, because they didn't get the truth?

Could anyone have foreseen this? --Just about.

Washington Post

Without ever using the words "mistake" or "error," Bush said the administration miscalculated by clearing insurgents out of a city and then moving onto another assignment, only to allow enemy forces to retake control.

DKo:
Could anyone have foreseen this? Just about anyone. However, it is never fair to criticize Mr. Bush for mistakes not made within the last 24 hours.
Article

The President Who Could Not Violate the Law

From today's Washington Post:

The [previous] Post article reported that CIA interrogators in the overseas sites have been permitted to use interrogation techniques prohibited by the U.N. convention or by U.S. military law. Asked about this apparent contradiction, Rice told reporters: "Our people, wherever they are, are operating under U.S. law and U.S. obligations."

DKo: "Apparent contradiction"? Not at all. Since they hold that American law does not apply to prisoners held abroad, nothing we do to those prisoners could possibly violate American law.

It is not even clear how Mr. Bush could go about not "operating under U.S. law and U.S. obligations."

He is allegedly empowered to declare any detainee an "enemy combatant," nullifying the applicability of American laws and treaties. So how could anything he did violate them?

He is also empowered to suspend these laws and treaties. A suspended treaty cannot be violated.

I seriously believe that Rice et al have this fingers-crossed-behind-the-back, juvenile mendacity in mind. It is consistent with previous wiggles, and it has their signature.

The only way the President could violate the law would be this:
--I order this man tortured, as I define torture.
--I do not declare him an enemy combatant.
--I do not suspend any laws or treaties.
--I determine this order to be a violation of United States' laws and treaties.
--As soon as it is carried out, I will turn myself in to the proper authorities.

Today’s Post Article

"Pin the Tail on the" ...Argh!

Mr. Kolodney's transmission was inexplicably cut off in mid-sentence. He has not been heard from since.

The complete transcript of his report begins with these excerpts from an article in today’s Washington Post. (Boldface, italics, and brackets are Mr. Kolodney’s.)

Wrongful Imprisonment: Anatomy of a CIA Mistake
German Citizen Released After Months in "Rendition"

Masri was held for five months largely because the head of the CIA's Counterterrorist Center's [CTC] al Qaeda unit "believed he was someone else," one former CIA official said. "She didn't really know. She just had a hunch." [The Dark Side of The Force.]

….Khaled Masri came to the attention of Macedonian authorities on New Year's Eve 2003. …. He was taken off a bus at the Tabanovce border crossing by police because his name was similar to that of an associate of a 9/11 hijacker.

….Others were doubtful. They wanted to wait to see whether the passport was proved fraudulent. The unit's director won the argument. She ordered Masri captured and flown to a CIA prison in Afghanistan.

….Back at the CTC, Masri's passport was given to the Office of Technical Services to analyze. By March, OTS had concluded the passport was genuine. The CIA had imprisoned the wrong man.

….On the day of his release, the prison's director, who Masri believed was an American, told Masri that he had been held because he "had a suspicious name," Masri said in an interview.

DKo: One of the crucial reasons for strict secrecy in these matters is to protect the United States' exclusive, ultra-advanced intelligence methods. If other countries were able to copy these techniques, it would give an immensely dangerous boost to their own intelligence-gathering capabilities. Fortunately, as things stand, they are not yet even familiar with "Pin the Tail on the" ….Argh!

Note: Mr. Kolodney insisted on anonymity, because of the extremely sensitive nature of this information.

Are you sure that's the only problem?

U.S. Lacks Plan to Curb Terror Funds, Agency Says, NYT

The government's efforts to help foreign nations cut off the supply of money to terrorists…have been stymied by infighting among American agencies, leadership problems and insufficient financing, a new Congressional report says.

Senator Charles E. Grassley, the Iowa Republican who leads the Senate Finance Committee…said he was disappointed…"they haven't gotten very far yet".….Mr. Grassley said: "It's as simple as learning to stop the infighting and turf protection and get on with the job.”

-----------------------------------------------------------
DKo: Are you sure that's the only problem?

I read years ago that investigations into the laundering of "drug-money" were stalled, because the techniques used were indistinguishable from the standard tax evasion methods of major "legitimate" corporations--whom no one would wish to embarrass.

Too Mean to Miss

Washington Post
A tearful [Ohio governor] Taft pleaded no contest Aug. 18 to misdemeanor charges. After vowing earlier not to tolerate ethics violations in his administration, he said he had failed to live up to his own standards and public expectations.

"I am disappointed in myself," said Taft, the son and grandson of U.S. senators and the great-grandson of President William Howard Taft. "I just want to say there are no words to express the deep remorse that I feel over the embarrassment I have caused."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Pigs grunt.

--David

(I know it's not fair.)

Thanksgiving from The Buddha

Let us rise up and be thankful,
for if we didn’t learn a lot today,
at least we learned a little,
and if we didn’t learn a little,
at least we didn’t get sick,
and if we got sick,
at least we didn’t die;
so, let us be thankful.

-The Buddha

The last part fits well with something the Stoic philosopher Epictitus said: “If I am afraid I am not dead, and if I am dead I am not afraid.”

An interesting story about Epictitus, who was a slave. His master was twisting his arm. He said to his master, “If you twist my arm any further, you will break it.” But he kept twisting. And the arm broke. Epictitus said, “You see.”

Love,

David

Old War Stories

There is a good polling graph in this Christian Science Monitor article.

Among other things, check out the long, lonely first two or three years of the Vietnam War (they actually don’t say when they are counting from—maybe the Bay of Tonkin).

This is just the Mistake number. The Withdrawal number, phased or otherwise, grew much more slowly. Even "Negotiations Now!" was quite a big deal. News articles routinely began with a "boilerplate" paragraph: While no one seriously considers withdrawal from Vietnam… Just in case anyone forgot.

In the nostalgia newsreels, it all looks so popular, so obvious and easy, that it can be painful to watch. There were few retractions or apologies from the press, even to the draft resistors who remained in prison. Nor to those who had suffered and died needlessly in the war zone itself.

It is heartening to read in this story about a kind of "booster shot" for the Vietnam Syndrome:
Scholars like Mueller at Ohio State speak of an emerging "Iraq syndrome" that will have consequences for US foreign policy long after American forces pull out…."Iraq syndrome" seems to be playing out, too, with the American public.

Immaculately Conceived Torture 2--Optional reading for extra credit

Query to DKo: I know that JC was produced by immaculate conception but this is the first time I heard that Mary was also.

DKo: No, JC was not produced by Immaculate Conception, but by Virgin Birth. That is, Mary was not penetrated by a human male member emitting semen. Instead, the Holy Spirit (in the form of a Dove, I think) just hovered over her, and that’s how she became pregnant with Jesus. (I believe most people think of "the Virgin Mary" as a life-long virgin. But it is flatly stated in the New Testament that Jesus had four brothers—one of them James—and probably sisters, as well. You might say, Joseph did eventually "get some.")

It is only Mary who was produced by Immaculate Conception, and not by Virgin Birth. Mary's mother was penetrated by a human male member emitting semen; she got pregnant with Mary in the usual way. That's why there was the potential of her catching Original Sin. This potential was stronger than just a possibility; it was an inevitability (as it is for everyone), except for the miraculous fact that God intervened and prevented the Sin from actually reaching her. He purified the semen, I guess, as it was being ejaculated.

They wanted something for Mary's birth that would do the job. But it should not be as good as what Jesus' birth had. For Jesus, God went the extra mile.

BTW, I'm pretty sure there used to be a parallel in cases of artificial insemination. Legally, if it was performed by an MD, the paternity of the sperm donor was not transmitted in the semen. But, if it was performed by a non-MD, the sperm donor was legally the father. This may still be the law; I don't know. No kidding. Praise HIM!!

(It will be interesting to see if asexual sperm donation by a brother will trigger the same incest taboo as sexual intercourse. Or will it be demoted to a problem of inbreeding and Best-Practices eugenics? It is bound to come up at some point soon.)

I'm glad I was able to make this crystal clear.

Immaculately Conceived Torture

Immaculate Conception is different from the Virgin Birth. Mary gave birth as a virgin, which precluded Original Sin from being transmitted from Joseph. But what about Original Sin being transmitted from Mary?

Well, Mary, though not herself the offspring of a Virgin Birth, was also free from sin, because she was produced by Immaculate Conception. In the Virgin Birth, there was not even the potential of sin. In the Immaculate Conception, there was the potential of sin, but it was stayed by a the Hand of God from becoming actual.

This then brings us to the miraculous power over the Sin of Torture that can be conferred by the Divine Hand of Bush. In his capacity of Commander-in-Chief in Wartime (you can't say this stuff without a whole lot of capital letters), Bush is able to stay potential sin--the sin of violating the Geneva Conventions and US law against torture--from being actualized in himself and in those under his authority.

Now the question has arisen: Does the miracle of Bush's Hand extend to the Iraqi government and its ministries? Our diplomats have pronounced a resounding No to that. The United States is unalterably opposed to torture conducted by other nations.

Prior to the transfer of Sovereignty, that would have been different, of course. But when Sovereignty was restored to Iraq, the Bush Torture Immunity was apparently cut off.

The Iraq Interior Ministry, seems to have been confused on two counts:

--They did not fully appreciate the completeness of their ascension to sovereignty, because their country remains under occupation by American forces. This confusion can only be increased by the announced investigation of torture charges by the FBI, America's domestic Federal law-enforcement agency. Why does the US have any special rights or responsibilities over the sovereign actions of this independent country?

--The Bush administration has never made it clear whether this inherent power of the Commander-in-Chief in Wartime applies to the Commanders-in-Chief of all countries, or only to the Commander-in-Chief of the United States (a flagrant example of what used to be known as "American Exceptionalism." See also "Manifest Destiny.")

The Two CIA Leaks Are Not the Same!

CIA Article Sidebar: A Story of Deja Vu
Some Critics See a Plame Parallel
Media Notes By Howard Kurtz, Washington Post 11/14/05

"[S]aid author and radio host Bill Bennett, a fierce critic of the Post story. ‘The hypocrisy here is for the media establishment to say some great wrong was done to Valerie Plame, but where is the outrage about Dana Priest? [Author of the Post story]’"

DKo: I guess he means the great harm done to the alleged US torturers in Eastern Europe. House Republicans are investigating this CIA leak, as retaliation for the investigation that led to Scooter Libby’s recent indictment.

When I was an editor of Ramparts magazine, we published the first critical examination of the National Security Agency. In that article we revealed (since corroborated) that the NSA could then, already, pinpoint the location of every Soviet nuclear-armed submarine, the supposedly untrackable, hence invulnerable, arm of their, and our, “nuclear deterrent.” They had all the subs displayed on a huge map at their headquarters.

My reasoning went like this:

The government has a right--even, as in the Plame case, an obligation--to keep some secrets. A paradigm is tactical military details, like the location of particular units in wartime.

But when the government lies publicly about what it knows secretly, and it is a strategic fact on which it invites the body politic to form its political judgments, it gives up its right to keep the secret that refutes the public lie.

At that time, Defense Secretary Melvin Laird was engaged in one of the periodic “Missile Gap” scare campaigns. He claimed that the Soviets had gained a dangerous edge over us, which required from us heavy increased nuclear weapons spending, and a hard line against them internationally. The truth was the opposite.

(Our article was highlighted on the front page of the New York Times. Fortunately for the editors, the government chose to respond, “We wish we had those capabilities.”)

Currently, the government is lying about whether or not it adheres to international law against torture, and it invites the public the rely on those lies politically, even in the face of pending legislation. Reporters have the right to reveal secrets that set the record straight.

The truth hurts. Lies kill.

How the War Has to Compete with the War-Profiteers

Especially when it's only mere Iraqis who die.

From the NYT

Lack of Armor Proves Deadly for Iraqi Army

"The Iraqis put quite a few more people in their trucks, and those trucks aren't armored," Major Warren said. "No armor plus more people in the truck equals a substantially higher casualty rate."

The Army unit in charge of equipping and training the Iraqis, the Multi-National Security Transition Command-Iraq, said it was trying to replace much of the Iraqi fleet with new armored trucks.

But it has largely restricted its shopping to American companies that are still swamped by orders for American troops. The unit's biggest initiative, to give the Iraqis 1,500 armored Humvees, will not begin until December, and most will not be built until next summer, military and company officials said.

The Pentagon still has only one contractor in Ohio armoring the Humvees, and a backlog of orders for American troops that dates to the early months of the war has forced the Iraqi troops to the end of the line.

These US soldiers in Iraq present such an excruciating paradox.

These US soldiers in Iraq present such an excruciating paradox.

On the one hand, we have seen how, with the right (i..e., wrong) people and setting, the slippery slope of prisoner abuse plummets deep into the abyss.

But then there is the astonishing generosity, altruism, self-sacrifice that can show up, something that they almost take for granted. They are young, really just older children to me now, but they have spouses and children, which sadly is the accepted, routine, cover for every kind of craven selfishness.

When I see something like this, it moves me:

"Gutierrez said he was scared the first time he went back out looking for bombs after his Humvee was hit. But when the Buffalo patrol found three IEDs, two of them were detonated without injuries.
"'Now I'm not scared,' Gutierrez said. 'I''m angry. If I'm not going to do this, who is?'"

It is straight out of Rabbi Hillel's famous dictum:

If I am not for myself, who will be for me?
If I am only for myself, what am I?
If not now, when?

I don't think I have ever seen this kind of decency, moral responsibility, anywhere in the business world, nor in academia--though I have seen it in The Movement, notably from the imprisoned draft resisters (who have yet to receive our proper acknowledgment, respect, and gratitude).

And here it is in people who are making war.

A Sweet Old Baseball Rivalry

The Chicago White Sox' unexpected sweep of the Boston Red Sox in this year's World Series calls to mind the mostly forgotten early years of the game, when Baseball franchises were owned mainly by the major cookie companies, and the classic rivalry was between the Baltimore Oreos and the Chicago Hydrox.

If getting pregnant were like catching a cold

If getting pregnant were like catching a cold, just something that people randomly came down with, I doubt the government would even think of coercing those who caught it to take the pregnancies to term--even though the Pro Life-Baby Killer considerations would be just the same.

There is definitely a sexual anxiety at play here that can't stand to see people "getting away with" having sex with impunity.

Be Prepared

HANOI (Reuters) - The spread of Asia's deadly bird flu to Europe is a "troubling sign" and the world must work faster to prepare for a potential flu pandemic, U.S. Health Secretary Mike Leavitt said on Friday.

-----------------
I hear that Bush White House officials are assembling a team of top Public Relations experts from around the country, to minimize any harm the millions of deaths might cause.

More on "Appearance of a Conflict of Interest"

I am inspired by Dumpster's post below, to make a general point about "The Appearance of a Conflict Interest." I believe the meanings of the key terms here have become distorted and compromised in recent years. It may not affect this EPA ruling directly, but the Inspector General did contribute to the convenient confusion surrounding the subject

So...

Favoritism is when I have an interest in unfairly favoring one side, and I act on/succumb to it.

Conflict of Interest is when I have an interest in unfairly favoring one side, whether or not I act on/succumb to it.

Let's say I own stock in one of the companies affected. I must "recuse myself"--take myself out of the decision making process--simply because I own the stock. If I did not "recuse myself," I would be guilty of having a conflict of interest--whether or not I actually committed favoritism by acting on my interest.

Simply to continue acting, despite having a conflict of interest, is itself a crime. And simply to hold an official position covering an area in which I have a conflict of interest is also a crime--unless the area of conflict is merely peripheral to the position, openly acknowledged, and quarantined by recusal.

The idea of "the appearance of a conflict of interest" is just a fabrication, a diversion. It would be something like appearing to own the stock, but not really owning it.

The function of this phrase has been to draw attention away from the fact that having a conflict of interest, even when it is not acted on, is indeed a crime. Or to put it another way, one needn't prove that it has been acted on, for it to be a crime (punishable ethics breach, etc.).

The "Barbara Bush Principle"

Papers Offer Peek at Miers's Views
Washington Post

Miers, President Bush's nominee to the Supreme Court, said in her 1995 letter to Bush that the legislation was a blatant attempt to protect a "handful of greedy, but immensely rich and powerful" trial lawyers.

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DKo: The legislation in question protected the use of a lawyer's "contingency fee." The idea here is that if you think you have been damaged, and can't afford to hire a lawyer to sue, you can offer a lawyer 1/3 of the awarded compensation, in the event that you win.

This bumps right up against what we may now call the "Barbara Bush Principle": We needn't worry too much about the living conditions of people who were already "underprivileged" anyhow.

Similarly, if you can't afford to hire a lawyer, you must not have much that could suffer worrisome damage.

We see this too--except when publicity bears down--in the wealthy who avoid prison, because "they have suffered enough already," in lost prestige, social standing, etc. Since the poor already lack these things, they must be sent to prison, if they are to suffer more.

Barbara Bush deserves a ton of props for exquisitely crystallizing this principle in her post-hurricane remarks. And it is reassuring to see them so lovingly preserved across the generations of Bush Family Values, soon to be personified again by an old friend on the new Supreme Court

In Honor of the Yom Kippur Fast

This is from the weekly prophetical reading that is designated for Yom Kippur (Beginning this year on the evening of October 12.):

Jeremiah 58

6 ...this is the fast I desire:
To unlock the fetters of wickedness,
And untie the cords of the yoke
To let the oppressed go free;
To break off every yoke.

7 It is to share your bread with the hungry,
And to take the wretched poor into your home;
When you see the naked, to clothe him,
And not to ignore your own kin.

8 Then shall your light burst through like the dawn

---------------------------
May we all strive for its fulfillment, and may your name be inscribed for good in the book of life.

Love,

David

Sorry Gallows Humour

The real problem with medical marijuana, the DEA says, is not its specific effects on health, but that it "sends absolutely the wrong message to elderly people."

This age group tends to view debilitating diseases as "cool," and statistical studies indicate powerful peer-pressure for illness and pain at this age. It may also be a "gateway condition" for harder, fatal diseases.

Shock and Opossumism

Bush 'encouraged' despite report on Iraqi troops, Reuters

During congressional testimony on Thursday, Gen. George Casey, top U.S. commander in Iraq, and Gen. John Abizaid, top U.S. commander in the Middle East, said the number of such battalions [that can go into combat without the help of the U.S. military] had dropped since July to one from three, out of the roughly 100 Iraqi battalions.

Bush...sought to repair any damage. He said on Saturday the U.S. military and its allies are "constantly adapting our tactics to the changing tactics of the terrorists."

---------
DKo: "Playing opossum," a tactic the wily frontiersman commander mastered during his own service in the National Guard.

According to my sources, even with the drop from three to one, he is 'still not satisfied." "There is still a lot more work to be done." As soon as he detects someone showing signs of life, the nation's CEO intends to "delegate forcefully," and finish the job.

George W. Ozymandias

It is hard to express how catastrophic these kinds of results from a very mainstream survey are for the President of unilateral "shock and awe."

There is no middle ground. The last great military Superpower must either rule the world , or else become mere meathead muscle for the policies of other lands

Public Rejects Using Military Force to Promote Democracy

"Only 35% favored using military force to overthrow dictators"

"Americans do favor the US promoting democracy through diplomatic and cooperative methods."

"Support is also strong for working multilaterally. Sixty-eight [68] percent said....it is better to work through the UN....while 25% said it is better for the US to act on its own because the US can act more decisively and effectively. "

------------------------
This is a good time to remind Mr. Bush of a poem they used to teach in every school, and which he may have had to learn "by heart," as a child.

Ozymandias
By Percy Bysshe Shelley
1792-1822

...on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies,...frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command....
And on the pedestal, these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings,
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay...

War Is Where You Find It

Anti-war protesters pick up steam and take cause to D.C. .
"Organizers expect more than 100,000 people for a march around the White House on Saturday. Sheehan is scheduled to speak. Rallies by war supporters are expected along the route."
USA Today 9/24/05

--The war supporters are expected to include some who support the current war being waged in Iraq.

A Little Understanding, Please...

Aside from the very slight chances of a hurricane and a flood occurring coincidentally, planners had to identify and assign personnel according to their skills. It must be remembered:

--Every hurricane or flood is different. Some call for public-safety skills, boats and sandbagging, while others require clockmakers and paleontologists.

--The records had to be, by definition, antediluvian. [Def: "Bible. Occurring or belonging to the era before the Flood."]

--Hence, they were written in cuneiform. [Def: "Characters formed by the arrangement of small wedge-shaped elements, used in ancient Sumerian, Akkadian, Assyrian, Babylonian, and Persian."] Many of our cuneiform translators are currently on assignment overseas.

--Finally, we know from President Bush's own case, the Guard keeps its records in unmarked cartons, distributed at random locations throughout the country

Sympathy for the FEMA

"In Louisiana's capital, Baton Rouge, the head of FEMA, Michael D. Brown said power outages, rising waters and violence by looters and others shooting at rescuers had complicated relief efforts." .-LA Times

How is FEMA supposed to function effectively under these kind of adverse conditions? Rising waters! Power outages! Looters! Who can be expected plan for that?

Let's please remember how proudly FEMA shines when they have good weather and well-functioning transportation and communications systems to work with.

Let's face it. This place is a disaster area!

Deep Thinker at the Helm

And they say his imagination is limited...

...in Air Force One. Turning to his aides, he said: "It's totally wiped out. ... It's devastating, it's got to be doubly devastating on the ground." (Newsweek)

Yes, I get sophomoric when I vent.

President Bush has announced his first priority response to the disaster in New Orleans has been to head off flooding in all major waterways surrounding Crawford, Texas. "We are not about to fall back into a passive, reactive, defensive strategy on this. If we do not fight flooding in Crawford today, we will be fighting it in New Orleans tomorrow."

Bush pointed to a sharp decline in population density in the New Orleans area in recent days as a sign that the threat there was diminishing. "The is a very positive sign, a milestone." However, "There is still a lot of hard work to be done, before the process is complete."

Today, on the heels of his success against Crawford flooding, Bush is shifting location to tackle the crisis in New Orleans itself, or possibly in Washington, or in other appropriate vital locations--despite the fact that emergency-response units in these areas are not even equipped with the same model of bicycle on which Mr. Bush has qualified in the course of his training.

Bush has not actually been seen in any of those places, however there are official records of his having kept a dental appointment "directly in the very heart of some very same vicinity."

The President refused to set a date on when his long, strategically planned vacation might end, saying that information would only give encouragement to the flooding, disease, and economic hardship we are suffering, and would send absolutely the wrong message that these problems are seriously impacting us.

"Indeed, I have no information to indicate that any of these conditions have actually had any substantial impact on us at all, based on what I have seen personally, nor from the high-level daily briefings I receive--briefings which he emphasized were maintained "without fail, every single day," even during the most intense periods of vacation.

Action Movies--History of Advanced Fighting Techniques

As far back as Blade Runner it was already well established that the fastest way to cross a room was by a sequence of rapidly repeated back flips. Bit it was only in the Matrix films we learned that bullets cannot harm you as long as you are engaged in tumbling exercises of any kind.

The Course

"...the Americans, who have already expressed their frustration with the Sunnis, have recently become irritated with what they regard as the stubbornness of the Shiites as well." NYT, 8/26/05

I can't understand this criticism. Each of the three Iraqi factions is doing its utmost to emulate the American model. They are Staying the Course and they are Not Cutting and Running. These are the things they owe to the mourned sacrifices of their dead, respectively.

If we can succeed in planting the seeds of a new intransigence in Iraq, it could launch a widening revolution of intransigence throughout the entire Middle-East and, hopefully, in the hearts of all people throughout the world.

Basketball Practice

I know this isn't really a usual topic for me, but one thing I find a little bit embarrassing for the professional NBA basketball players is that you can see them out there--just minutes before the game starts--and they're practicing! I mean, isn't it a little late for that? They should have thought of it before.

We Shall Overcome

Deep in my heart,
I do believe,
We shall overcome someday.

I sang it a hundred times. But, how sure was I really? How hard did I believe?

And have we overcome?

A lot of us on the left would answer, almost reflexively, "No!" Because there is no cause to be satisfied or complacent about where things stand today. I think about the circle. "Housing segregation--that's because of jobs. Job inequality--that's because of education. Education inequality--that's because of housing."

We put a lot of weight on the promise of education, even though it seemed intolerably distant and indirect. And it has yet to be redeemed.

I know that the social status and respect earned by people like Academy Award winners Denzel Washington and Halle Berry is in no way typical of America at large. But we still can learn a lot from them, even as paradigms.

I think we must do honor to the truth of how despicable and ugly this thing actually was. All of these things, heartbreakingly, had relevance within my lifetime:

They all look alike to me. (Who? Michael Jordan and Bill Cosby?)
The character of the doctor just happened to be black.
Would you want your sister to marry one?
Do you think you could kiss a Negro?

So, Yes. For a moment I can feel Yes. We have overcome a lot.

--David

The Invention of the Zero--Part II

Before the invention of the zero, the DEA announced a policy of "Hardly Any Tolerance for Drugs."

The Invention of the Zero

Before the invention of the zero, even when something was free, you still had to pay a penny for it.

Violins

Disturbing report I heard on NPR radio. This expert said that the prevalence of violins in the media could easily lead to more violins in the street, and even to domestic violins.

Usurpation as a Life-Long Commitment

And they don't always win...
I have freely excerpted and rearranged from this LA Times piece.

"Watergate Weighs on Today's White House," By Peter Wallsten., LA Times Staff Writer, June 7, 2005

[L]ingering weaknesses remain in the executive branch's authority, officials around Bush have said.

**********
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, a Nixon aide who also served as chief of staff to Ford, tried to stop Congress' post-Watergate broadening of the Freedom of Information Act. The act requires the government to disclose certain records to citizens.
Working with Cheney, Rumsfeld persuaded Ford to veto the legislation, according to declassified documents obtained last year by the National Security Archive at Georgetown University. Congress overrode Ford's veto.

*********
Vice President Dick Cheney, who worked in the Nixon White House and served as chief of staff to President Ford, has spoken of using his current position to restore powers of the presidency that he believes were diminished as a result of Watergate and the Vietnam War....Cheney has tried to rekindle a broad view of executive authority.

Cheney was defending his refusal to disclose information about private meetings with energy industry representatives to help formulate the administration's national energy policy. Cheney's actions were upheld by the Supreme Court, a ruling that legal experts said enhanced the powers of the executive branch.

[DKo: Still, it was only about private, non-members of the Energy Task Force that info didn't have to be disclosed. The court merely refused to affirm that they had become, de facto, members.]

**********
Critics point to other examples of the Bush White House acting to enhance or preserve executive power. For example, the White House initially refused to let then-national security advisor Condoleezza Rice testify before the commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks. She ultimately testified.
[DKo--My italics.]

[DKo: Note too that, originally, Bush was not even going to allow the post-Vietnam "War Powers Act" to mandate a congressional vote on Iraq.]

An Encouraging Poll Result

I find this report of a US poll encouraging, and better than I'd have expected/feared:

Asked if Muslims can go to heaven only 12% said they cannot, 50% said they can and 24% said they do not believe in heaven.
Newsweek, May 2004.

Deep Throat: The Two Major Loose Ends

Mark Felt is going to publish a final "tell-all" book soon, and Bob Woodward is also going to publish his final wrap-up on Watergate. What could conceivably come out of these?

Well, there remain at least two major loose-ends to the story, one Major and the other Huge.

Major: Thomas Eagleton. He was the vice-presidential running-mate who came out of the Democratic convention with George McGovern. At that point, McGovern's momentum was extremely high. I think McGovern was still the front-runner at the time. (I'm not going back to re-research my old files, as I suppose I really should--my apologies.)

Soon after the convention, there was a leak of Eagleton's medical records, easily available to Presidential authority--even from IRS returns and government Health Plan records. They showed that he had been treated (hospitalized?)for depression. (I remember thinking a depressed President was exactly what we do need in America: "War? I don't really feel up to it today. Try me again next week.")

The normal expectation was that Eagleton would voluntarily step down, for the good of the party. But he did not. He left McGovern twisting day after day, saying it was up to him. This forced McGovern to fire him over his somewhat mature and courageous confronting of a psychological setback in his life. McGovern's big momentum immediately disappeared.

(Curiously, Nixon and Eisenhower had had a similar contretemps. Nixon's southern-California big-money backers had been supplying him with a secret, unaccounted for, "slush fund." When this came out, Eisenhower privately urged Nixon to step down voluntarily, but Nixon refused. Instead, he went on television with his famous "Checkers" speech. The slush-fund was all frugality and innocence, and he was not going to give up his little dog Checkers, whom his daughters loved so much. This played so well, that he won a lot of sympathy, and Eisenhower publicly embraced him once again.)

Huge. Governor George Wallace of Alabama. Wallace had run as a segregationist third-party candidate in 1968, taking so many votes away from Nixon's first run for President that Hubert Humphrey came quite close to winning the election for the Democrats.

Wallace repeated this venture in the 1972 Watergate election. But he was shot by an attempted assassin, and partially paralyzed ("curiously martyred from the waist down," I wrote at the time.) He then withdrew from the race. It was the subtraction of his vote that made the difference between Humphrey's close loss in 1968 and McGovern's landslide loss in 1972.

The circumstances around this shooting were suspicious. The shooter, Arthur Bremmer, had been identified and tracked by the Secret Service as a threat, but had not been thwarted. And after the shooting, the Secret Service managed to be the first to identify, locate, and get to Bremmer's apartment--to sift for evidence--with a blinding speed that stunned and mystified the nationwide FBI and local agencies who would normally have been first on the scene.

The most cynical conspiracy theorists--myself, for example--thought Bremmer had been enabled to slip through normal security safeguards in a way that allowed him to turn a close race into a landslide win for Nixon.

Deep Throat, operating in the FBI, might not have had access to information on this, one way or the other. But, if he does happen to be saving it for his own book, it would be one last blockbuster Watergate story, even after all these years gone by.

A Tax Backgrounder: The Bush Tax Time-Bomb

Just a bit of a "backgrounder" on a looming Republican political crisis:

Even if the Democrats continue to fail to come up with a vision of their own, the key Bush tax cuts have always had built into them a "time-bomb," which is bound to do heavy damage to the Republicans in congress. It is hard to see how more than a year or two can go by before the issue comes politically front and center.

In the Bush scheme, two competing priorities were "Left Till Later." Later is getting to be be Now.

1. The key cuts for the wealthy were passed with short life spans. That allowed for headline numbers on ten- year budget projections that were relatively more digestible, because they could count these cuts as being in effect for only about five of the ten years.

2. The Alternative Minimum Tax, established years ago so that the wealthy, even if their tax favors would normally wipe out all their taxes, would have to pay at least a (differently calculated) Minimum Tax.

The level at which this kicks in was not "indexed" to rise with inflation. So each year it affects, in addition to the Wealthy, more and more of the Very-Well-to-Do.

It is indispensable to the Republicans that the Wealthy and the Very-Well-to-Do have common interests in their respective levels of privilege. But the total budget will not sustain both. So there is going to have to be a trade-off, a choice, a schism: Either make the key cuts "permanent" or raise the ever-declining--and broadening--level where the Minimum tax kicks in.

So now we get to see how this unfolds. I think it's going to be fairly traumatic for the GOP.

What If This Had Been a New Pill Made by Bayer?

And what if, among a huge proportion of the at-risk population, this new pill made people 23 percent less likely to die from any cause...30 percent less likely to die from cardiovascular disease and 49 percent less likely to die from cancer? What if it were devoid of side-effects? And immediately available?

I know you can't compare the whole extended FDA process with a report, even from a respectable journal. And I know that preliminary studies are preliminary. Nevertheless, even at this stage, the buzz should be tremendous. The stock market should be atwitter. And many millions should be redeployed for competitive research, based on the potential profits from the patent.

But there is no Bayer here, no pill, no patent, no millions. And, so far, no buzz!

Well, let's see what follow up we hear from this on the news. Meanwhile, here are some excerpts from the story. The boldface is mine.

Meditation...Lengthens Life
SOURCE: American Journal of Cardiology, May 2, 2005.

Increasing evidence suggests that transcendental meditation may not only reduce stress, but also may help adults with high blood pressure to live longer, according to a new study. "There are many non-drug techniques for reducing blood pressure, but none...extend life," study author Dr. Robert H. Schneider....
Transcendental meditation is a technique...to allow individuals to enter a state of "restful alertness," in which the body is awake but the mind is not engaged in conscious thought....
The new report, published in this month's American Journal of Cardiology, is based on a review of data from two studies that....included 202 men and women, about 72 years old on average, who had pre-hypertension or mild hypertension. They were assigned to a transcendental meditation group, or to various comparison groups of other relaxation techniques.
Participants in the two studies were followed for about eight years on average -- a maximum of nearly 19 years -- during which 101 individuals died.
Overall, men and women who practiced transcendental meditation...were also 23 percent less likely to die from any cause,...30 percent less likely to die from cardiovascular disease and 49 percent less likely to die from cancer.
The "integrated holistic" transcendental meditation technique does not have any harmful side effects, Schneider said.

Schneider is the director of the Institute for Natural Medicine and Prevention, funded by the National Institutes of Health's National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine.

Even the Oldest Joke May Have Its Day

Dear Mr. Etiquette,

Should carrots and celery be eaten with the fingers?

--No, the fingers should be eaten separately.

The Odds Are Looking Up

"People who are overweight but not obese have a lower risk of death than those of normal weight, federal researchers are reporting today." NYT, 4/20/2005

--I think anything below 100% would be a breakthrough.

You hear it, but what does it say?

I don't know if it comes through, with so little context, but this passage from Xenophon's history is such a sweet example of the imperturbably impenetrable logic of Greek diplomatic style. A Greek army of 10,000 has become trapped, isolated thousands of miles within Persian territory. The Persian king delivers an ultimatum...

"...the king desired us...to inform you that while you remain in this place a truce is to be considered as exist­ing between him and you; but, if you advance or retreat, there is to be war. Give us, therefore, your answer on this point ...."

Clearchus replied, "Report, therefore, on this point..., that our resolution is the same as that of the king."

"And what is that?" said Phalinus.

Clearchus replied, "If we stay here, a truce; but if we retreat or advance, war."

Phalinus again asked him, "Is it a truce or war that I shall report?"

Clearchus again made the same answer: "A truce, if we stay; and if we retreat or advance, war."

I Want These Officers to Live in Terror of the Truth

NYT, 4/11/05 (My italics.)
"...the arresting officer recalled, it took four police officers to haul him down the steps of the New York Public Library and across Fifth Avenue. 'We picked him up and we carried him while he squirmed and screamed,' the officer, Matthew Wohl, testified in December. 'I had one of his legs because he was kicking and refusing to walk on his own.'

"...But one day after Officer Wohl testified, and before the defense called a single witness, the prosecutor abruptly dropped all charges. During a recess, the defense had brought....A videotape...[that] showed Mr. Kyne agitated but plainly walking under his own power down the library steps, contradicting the vivid account of Officer Wohl, who was nowhere to be seen in the pictures. Nor was the officer seen taking part in the arrests of four other people at the library against whom he signed complaints..."

-------------------
I want this officer to see years of hard prison time. How much felonious perjury is laid out right here in these paragraphs? How much casual impunity does it imply? A subculture of police-perjury, of life-threatening and career-ending lies by police against innocents arbitrarily accused.

Ironically, this is where hard-line penal deterrence can really change the way the world works--far more effectively than punishment of the destitute and drug-addicted, where deterrence can make a sadly minimal difference to the actual prospects of people's already wounded lives.

Police-perjury is manifestly epidemic in America. To return to the NYT article, as a small indication of the scale:

"For Mr. Kyne and 400 others arrested that week, video recordings provided evidence that they had not committed a crime or that the charges against them could not be proved, according to defense lawyers and prosecutors."

------------
Little Brother is watching them, and we must all be Little Brother to helpless people who are accused falsely of crimes.

Caution: A Joke to Make Your Head Spin!

Based on results of the latest brain-imaging technologies, it turns out the right side of the brain does not control the left side of the body and vice versa.

It only seems that way because, inside the brain-case within the scull, the brain is actually facing backwards! (No fool, that brain.)

"Kill It before It Grows"

A BBC World Service poll that surveyed 23,518 people in 23 countries finds...

--"There is an extraordinary degree of consensus in favor of the UN becoming 'significantly more powerful in world affairs.'
--"This prospect is seen as 'mainly positive' in every country (21 a majority, 2 a plurality) and by an average of 64 percent. A mere 19 percent on average sees this prospect as mainly negative....
--"Six in ten Americans (59%) favored it, with only 37 percent opposed."

And...

--"In all countries but one, more people favor than oppose the idea of giving the UN Security Council the power to override the veto of a permanent member....
--"Respondents in the US, Britain, France, Russia and China were reminded in the question that their own country would lose the veto....
--"In the US, 57 percent favor giving up the absolute veto (34% opposed)"

What was the US really pre-empting with its pre-emptive war? Not Saddam, but effective UN sanctions and inspections. They had to be stopped before they could succeed and spread--metastasizing peace and eroding the diktat of the world's only remaining Great Power.

Remember When Conservatives Believed in Free Markets?

Once upon a time, Conservatives advocated a free market, with "consumer sovereignty," for healthy Capitalist development.
Consumers would have money to spend. Businesses that efficiently offered them things they wanted to buy would get a larger proportion of consumer spending. They would thus be rewarded for their efficiency and desirable selection of offerings.
These businesses would thrive, and with their superior rate of profit, they would invest, hire, and grow, thus directing additional economic resources into efficient production of desirable products and services. The growing wages they paid would put money into the hands of consumers so they could afford to purchase the things they want--again rewarding the best busnesses.
In those days, Conservatives had faith in the "invisible hand" of consumer sovereignty as the engine of economic growth--specifically of efficient growth in desirable directions.

But wait a minute! What about the businesses that do not efficiently produce things that people want to buy? Is this fair to them? They make their campaign contributions just like everybody else. They hire retired legislators and former government regulators--in fact, they do more of this than the businesses that are better run. So all of a sudden they are arbitrarily cut out?

The answer to this dilemma is called "Supply-Side Economics." Give money, in subsidies and tax breaks, to all businesses and all the wealthy, not just those that happen to be efficient in meeting consumer demand. Furthermore, give them incentives for all the things they were already doing, not just incentives for which they have to do more, more investing and more hiring than they would have done anyway.
If you give enough money to the wealthy, some of it is bound to be spent in ways that benefit consumers, wage-earners, and society at large. They can't just grab, spend, and waste it all. Can they?

Indiscriminately subsidized Capitalism is fair to all business and wealth. It is the heart of our American system. The most subversive threat to Capitalism today is consumer sovereignty in a free market economy. Frittering money away on wage-earning consumers only gets in the way.

A Favorite Paradox

With thanks to Bertrand Russell...

"I thought your boat was larger than it is."

"No, my boat is not larger than it is."

Shamefully Truncated Abstinence Programs

The Bush administration is now funding a sexual abstinence program as part of its contribution to fighting AIDS in Africa. Abstinence is also a mainstay of its efforts against both youth pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases within the US. So that is consistent.

But there are rumors that backsliders in the administration want to restrict all the abstinence programs to unmarried couples only! What kind of consistency is that?

The Sadr City War on Drugs

A fairly harsh crackdown in the War on Drugs--primarily alcohol--has apparently taken hold in Sadr City and other Iraqi centers where US military power is weak.

I personally find this overzealous, hard-line Islamist drug-law enforcement to be both abusive and intolerant--though I don't doubt they can point to many depredations of alcohol on individuals and families that would trouble anyone.

But if the American Right wishes to deploy our military forces to protect Drug King Pins, I am sure they could find plenty of work counterattacking DEA offensives much closer to home.

And save a whole lot on gas.

Haitians and Maccabees - A Tribute

Having so recently told my grandson for the first time the Chanukah story--the defeat of three successive, heavily armored Hellenic colonial armies by agrarian Jewish guerillas in 168 BCE--I read this in the paper today, and the juxtaposition brought me to tears.

...an astounding, and forgotten, episode in Western history. Since Haiti alone produced as much foreign trade at that time as the whole of the 13 colonies of North America, it was potentially a great loss. It belonged to France, but Britain supplied it with slaves, a valuable trade since the slaves were intentionally worked to death - it was cheaper to replace them than to sustain them - so the market for Africans was very brisk. Uprisings had long been frequent in the West Indies, but at long last rage in Haiti converged with the tactical brilliance of Toussaint L'Ouverture and others and the slaves seized the island. This part of the story is familiar. But there is more.

First the British and then the French under Napoleon sent huge forces against the Haitians. The British sent a larger army against Haiti than it had dispatched to fight in the American Revolution. And it buried 60 percent of those soldiers in Haiti. The two greatest powers on earth went up against a population of half-starved, desperate people and were utterly defeated.

NYT Books

[My italics]

Lesson from a Master

Lai-chui Hsien of Hopei achieved great mastery of Chinese neijia ("internal martial art"--Tai-Chi, etc.)

"Sometimes when following the technique exactly, you feel that your body is not coordinated, your abdomen does not feel good, the postures are bad, and you are not happy.

"Do not worry! You have gained something and are at a point where you can solve your problems. Do not despair! Instead, ask guidance of your teacher. You then comprehend, everything will crystallize in your mind, and out of great confusion will come bliss, certainty. and progress."

Lovely, interesting

A 30,000-year-old instrument is uncovered in southern Germany:

His early experimentation suggests that the old flute would have allowed a relatively sophisticated level of musical variation. "The tones are quite harmonic," he says. They don't seem to follow a diatonic scale, he notes, but rather the rules of the pentatonic scale that predominates in Asia.

Here's a melody that the flute would have been capable of playing.

Do Economists Indulge in Parenthetical Witticisms?

Thursday 12/16/2004
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RELEASE: In October, Czech retail sales continued to follow the trend of the preceding months and increased...1.1% on a seasonally adjusted month-to-month basis. On a year-ago basis, retail sales advanced 1.7% (not seasonally adjusted).

DKo: A full-year seasonal adjustment? It must make sense somehow, but it does sound funny. Economists don't indulge in parenthetical witticisms. Do they?

I suppose we could make a kind of full-year "seasonal adjustment," if we based it on the Kondratieff "long-business-cycle" (45-60 years, really, look it up), in which case 2004 would indeed feel like a long, pervasive, "seasonal" downturn.

--David

Biting the feed that feeds us

David Kolodney sends us an update on a suspicion he had:

Good Eye!

This is mainly of journalistic interest, but I'm sending it around anyway, (It won't be on the midterm):"

I guess I'm gloating. In the Washington Post yesterday, it came out that the NYT's main WMD reporter, Judith Miller, has been channeling the Pentagon's protégé Ahmad Chalabi, for most of her big stories:

By Howard Kurtz, Washington Post Staff Writer, May 26, 2003

"Judith Miller, … acknowledges that her main source for such articles has been Ahmad Chalabi, a controversial exile leader who is close to top Pentagon officials. Could Chalabi have been using the Times to build a drumbeat that Iraq was hiding weapons of mass destruction?" ... Miller: "He has provided most of the front page exclusives on WMD to our paper."

Re: 5/11/03 article: "Trailer is a Mobile Lab Capable of Turning Out Bioweapons, a Team Says," by Judith Miller

It is very odd, as if a different person wrote the first paragraph, the only place where it says just flatly: "A team of experts … has concluded that a trailer found near Mosul in northern Iraq in April is a mobile biological weapons laboratory...."

Everything else in the article is more circumspect. The headline says only: "a Mobile Lab Capable of Turning Out Bioweapons." So we can all agree it is a mobile lab of some kind.

Further in the text, it says: "The members acknowledged that some experts were still uncertain whether the trailer was intended to produce biological agents." Even the phrase "intended to produce" is much weaker than "is a …weapons laboratory." Was it ever actually used as intended? How long ago? Etc. And they were "still uncertain" even of whether it was so intended.

Worse: … "the lab contained equipment that could be used to make vaccines ... as well as deadly germs for weapons...."

And again: "… the equipment he took apart would support the production of peaceful germs, as well as those for weapons." What then proved it was weapons? "…the presence of equipment to contain the emission of gasses … indicated that [they] ... did not want traces of what they were making to be detectable." Highly interpretive for a smoking gun!

"The team did not find any protective clothing or biocontainment system.... But the team leader said he was not surprised by the absence ... 'We've already seen what a low regard for human life this regime had,' the leader said." Well, they had protective gear in immense quantities everywhere else in the country, except in this weapons lab.

"Finally, they considered the possibility that the lab was intended for chemical production. 'There are still some experts who think that ... we haven't totally ruled it out....'"

So it is indisputably a germ warfare lab, unless, of course, it was for chemicals.

Please take another look at this.

Sincerely,

David Kolodney