Sorry, Easter will be Cancelled this year
They found the body!Seriously, christianity, can we talk for a minute? Because this whole thing has been going on for far too long. Come on. There's science fiction and there's real life. Science fiction is fine, I really liked "The Lathe of Heaven" and "Stranger in a Strange Land". But you read them for entertainment, for insight, for pleasure, y'know? You do not build an entire worldview that includes, oddly, a list of who to hate, out of a sixteen hundred year old tale of intrigue and adventure.
Pay attention here, this is important. People do not come back from the dead. Not physically possible. In fact, that's pretty much the definition of dead. Not coming back. Sure, there have been cases where the person wasn't actually dead, and people who made the determination were just plain wrong, but I don't think that's what you're saying about jesus. It would be hard to build a worldwide cult around an incompetent Roman Doctor.
But then, it's pretty odd to build a worldwide, respected cult around something that every 8 year old knows is impossible. For that matter, I am fascinated how sensitive christians are if you question their two-thousand year old fairy tales. It's almost as if they know, in their deepest hearts, that this story is nonsense, that it simply couldn't have happend that way, and they'd really prefer to avoid any rational scrutiny.
So come on, you guys. Try to remember that you're grownups. The DaVinci Code and The Lost Tomb of Jesus are fiction. So is the Bible. So when you find yourself arguing about which work of fiction is going to guide your life, you need to back up and rethink. It's like a couple of fourteen year old boys arguing about Dungeons and Dragons. It's very important in their own little fantasy world, but it ultimately just doesn't matter.
Upon Further Review
You know, something's just not right here. I mean, it smells more than a little fishy. Think about it. Back in early 2003, the right wing conservatives had it all. They had the power, in the President and an unusually powerful Vice President. They controlled both houses of congress, by significant margins. They were well on their way to controlling the supreme court. Their influencers, the Neo-Cons and the K Street Lobbyists, had unfettered access and unprecedented control. In the post 9/11 world, they could do anything they wanted, and the opposition party could do nothing but quietly acquiesce, out of fear of being labeled as unamerican.
Here we are, just four years later. The Neo-Cons are utterly discredited. The President has an approval rating in the low 30% range. The 2006 midterms were a disaster for the conservatives, a shutout in the congressional races. All of it due to the unmitigated disaster that is the Iraq occupation.
I look at this situation and it makes me wonder. They have given up so much power, so much prestige, so much hard-won political capital, and still they fight to continue, indeed to
expand, the Iraq quagmire. Why? Why don't they simply make a simple calculation, declare victory and get out of Iraq? Instead they seem willing to give up anything, even everything in order to just keep America bleeding in the Arabian desert. Again, why? What do they hope to gain?
This only makes sense if they are actually achieving what they wanted to achieve. If this situation somehow represents the original goal - not so much in detail, but in broad strokes. Think about it like this. If the entire goal was nothing more than to ensure a permanent American Military presence on the oil fields, then perhaps the worst possible outcome for them would be a peaceful and stable Iraq that would no longer require the American military. Wouldn't the American people, at that point, demand our troops come home? But a permanent state of conflict, the region in a certain amount of turmoil, threats of expanding conflict and shifting alliances - these are conditions that will require the American military to stand between the current chaos and some horrific conflagration.
So if this is an ugly, messy outcome, they still get what they want - Multiple division strength US military presence in the gulf from which to explicitly threaten Iran and implicitly threaten Saudi, and of course, with which to protect America's spoiled, juvenile delinquent child, Israel. If you think about it, it makes almost perfect sense. If you accept this worldview, there's still one nagging, terrifying question.
If the Neo-Cons are willing to give up so much in order to keep American troops in the region, how does this plan deal with the 2008 presidential elections? Sure, when they started this they were clapping each other on the back, celebrating what they believed to be their "permanent majority". But now, after the disastrous (for them) 2006 midterms, why aren't they doing something to appease the vast majority of America's displeasure with the status quo? There are, perhaps, four options, none of them pretty:
- They don't intend to allow the 2008 elections to go forward. This is a whole debate in and of itself, and I don't believe the professional US military would allow a coup d'etat like that, but it is not inconceivable that they are at least thinking about this.
- They expand the war into Iran and by the time of the '08 elections, they are completely discredited and run out of office, but with the region going up in flames, America has no choice but to stay and at least try to keep the oil flowing.
- Before the elections, the Bush administration negotiates a treaty with Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan to base troops in Kuwait and Jordan to offset the growing Shiite expansionism. The new Democratic administration would be faced with either living with or abrogating this treaty.
- It is possible that I overestimate their commitment. Perhaps Bush simply doesn't care what happens when he leaves office, and will hand over the keys and walk away.
While it's hard to see the plan going forward, to look at the situation in this light certainly offers at least a small explanation for their otherwise inexplicable behavior. Or maybe, once again, I'm simply overanalyzing them again.
This is Just CRAZY
From the Associated Press:
During Friday's interview in Sydney with ABC News, Cheney said, "I'm not sure what part of it is that Nancy disagreed with. She accused me of questioning her patriotism. I didn't question her patriotism. I questioned her judgment."
This in response to her perfectly reasonable challenge to Cheney's position that her position on Iraq is helping al Quaida. Let's set aside, for now, this game of "Who's Helping Osama", they've been throwing this ludicrous nonsense around now for six years. No, I'm taking very serious exception to the theory that Dick Cheney, the man that has been wrong about EVERY GODDAM THING from WMDs to "Greeted as Liberators" to the insurgency "in it's last throes" to the British pullout being a good sign, can still stand up and question anybody's judgement.
How many passes do these people get? At what point are we going to be able to tell them, "Look, just shut up, you have contributed nothing of value to the discussion since you took your oath of office".
What do you suppose Cheney thinks his job actually is? Because all I ever see him doing, when he's not in some "undisclosed location" is starting international dustups. He rattles sabers at North Korea, Iran, Syria, China, Russia, he started a war with Iraq almost on his own. Do you suppose he feels any responsibility to do anything positive or constructive other than assisting his old friends at Haliburton get richer from war profiteering?
If your head hasn't exploded from the cognitive dissonance and unintended irony in the administration's statements, I offer you this, from the same interview:
"You also have to be accountable for the results. What are the consequences of that? What happens if we withdraw from Iraq?," he said.
Yes. This is Dick Cheney taking the position that some nebulous "you" have to be accountable for results. Who do you suppose he's refering to? Because he's done nothing but direct failed policies, disaterous military adventures and domestic and international failures of the first order. Yet he has not been accountable to anyone, from the American People to the Administration he has served so poorly to the international community who have to live with the consequeces of his madness.
All the News that's Fit to Print
Lots of things in the news this week, running the gamut from crazy to sad. Let's take a look at the paper, shall we?
Scooter Libby TrialPoor Scooter. Talk about taking one for the team. Oh, they're sweeping out his cell, make no mistake. The only mystery left is whether there's a deal in place to pardon him. I mean, think about it. His entire story, so ridiculous, so ham-handed, so easily refuted - and by so many different, highly credible people. He's almost acting as if he's playing it out, knowing he'll be pardoned in the end. I originally thought this was crazy talk. I was excited about the possibility that once convicted, facing lots of federal time, he could make some sort of sentencing deal and roll over on Cheney. But now, more and more, I'm coming to the realization that this entire process has been choreographed from the beginning. It's not like bush/cheney have to worry about public opinion, right? To doubt this scenario may well be to take an insufficiently cynical view of this administration.
Blair's Timeline for WithdrawalAs with many political events, I think there may be more here than meets the eye. Tony Blair still holds the prime spot on GW Bush's lap, and will continue to perform tricks when instructed to do so. But one must factor in the fact that Blair steps down as prime minister in just three months. I think it's at least reasonable that he put this timetable in place to try to prevent he successor, Gordon Brown most likely, from just bowing to intense political pressure and withdrawing all the British Troops immediately. It is, in any case, amusing that cheney says this is a sign of progress. Ok. Britain withdrawing troops is progress. America withdrawing troops is surrender. Once again, life can be good in an alternate reality.
The Iraqi Rape CrisisIt's hard to tell about these things. Not whether it happened or not. No, just read
Riverbend to understand how little doubt there can actually be. But with Maliki's bizarre reaction, to label the Sunni woman a criminal and reward the Shiite Police/Rapists, one wonders if this might turn out to be a very big event, like the battle of Faluja and the bombing of the Samara Mosque. The Shi'a militias had for the most part stood down during the surge, and the Sunni insurgents were being fairly effectively impeded. Now, the prime minister himself has drawn a line in the blood. He has clearly supported sect over law, without even the slightest pretense or window dressing. The Sunnis may well now determine that they have no hope of getting a fair deal from this government, and now will simply fight to topple it. Rest assured, the Kurds are watching this decision-making process with concern. They are beginning to understand that their interests will not be well-served by this government, and the best option for them might well be secession.
Condi and The RussiansSo our well-dressed but sadly ineffective Secratery of State is once again bumbling around with her international blinders on. Does she honestly believe that you cannot have interests that do not coincide with America's interests? Does she not understand that another nation will act in what it perceives as it's own best interests, regardless of what she says? Anyway, here's the deal. General Nikolai Solovtsov, the commander of Russian Strategic Forces, made a remark that really should not have surprised anyone. He said that if America installs missile defense sites in Poland and the Czech Republic, those nations should expect to be targeted by Russian missiles. If the Russians installed missile defense sites in Mexico, would anyone be surprised if America targeted them? Of course not. But the esteemed Ms. Rice took exception to those remarks, calling them "extremely unfortunate". Condi Rice is a tremendous disappointment. She is a smart, worldly, educated person and I believe she is far less likely to support military solutions over all others as her colleagues in the Administration do, but she has been oddly ineffective in her role at State. She seems unable to broker agreements, bring about compromise and move negotiations forward.
The Iran Nuclear Deadline
The UN Security Council deadline for Iran to cease enrichment of Uranium is today. The IAEA will report to the Council on Thursday on Iranian compliance. If the US follows the script, they will seek another UNSC Resolution, this one with Chapter Seven teeth built in. If they get it, they will use some kind of trumped up "non-compliance" issue to attack Iran. If they don't get it, they will "grudgingly" be forced, once again, to act unilaterally to "bring Iran into compliance". There is nothing at this point that Iran could do to prevent the coming American attack. With the US and Iranian navies very active in the tiny Persian Gulf, it will not be dificult for the US to create another "Gulf of Tonkin Moment" and use that as the pretense for launching strikes. It is unlikely that the administration will want to start this war in an election year, so it's likely to happen sooner rather than later. Are you ready for ten dollar gasoline?
Non - Nuclear Winter
One of the things in the world I have always found fascinating is the Law of Unintended Consequeces. Since the consequences are unintended, they are usually not forseen (which is most emphatically not the same as unforseeable), and therefore can come as quite a surprise.
In May of 2005 the Republican majority in the Senate came within hours of permanantly changing Senate rules by way of the so-called "
Nuclear Option". Had that rule change been invoked, it would no longer require a 60 vote supermajority to attain cloture, end debate and bring an action to a floor vote. Through negotiations brought about by the actions of the "Gang of 14", the threat of the Nuclear Option, while never completely ended, was lifted from the ongoing debate over judicial nominees.
Ah, but what if? What if, in the hubris of their supposed "permanant majority", the Republicans had actually used their position to invoke this rule change? It would be in effect today, and the Democrats now enjoy majority status, if only very slight.
This week, in a classic case of the shoe fitting nicely on the other foot, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has been able to prevent a cloture vote on the non-binding resolution on the Iraq escalation not once, but twice. Now you could sit back and say, well, the Republicans who vote against even allowing debate on the Iraq war are going to have to face their constituents, and they will pay a political price - and you'd be right. But imagine, after all the shouting and gnashing of teeth, the
Sturm und Drang if you will, that would have been generated by the invocation of the Nuclear Option back in 2005, things would have settled down into some kind of "new normal" as they usually do. Then would have come the November 2006 midterms and suddenly, like weapons left behind after a defeat, the Democrats would have the majority and the minority would no longer have one of it's most powerful tools. Where would things stand then?
Yep, that law of unintended consequences can be a bit of a bitch. It's always there, and when you take an action you think is in your interest, you may well be setting the conditions for your own disasterous failure. There's a powerful lesson here. Do you think anyone is paying attention?
What Would Hillary Do?
It's time to clarify a position on Hillary Clinton and her candidacy. Yes, Hillary, like many other Senators who lacked political, if not personal courage, voted to authorize the use of military force against Iraq. And, of course, history is being revised to something along the lines of "sure, we gave him the authority, but we didn't know he'd
abuse it so badly".
First, my biggest problem with this is actually a simple constitutional matter. The constitution places on the legislative branch the power to declare war. The framers did that for a specific reason. They did not want to provide the executive branch with monarchal powers. They wanted to make certain that if America went to war, it was in America's interest to do so, not just in the interest of certain individuals. So to me, each and every congressman and woman, and each and every Senator who voted to abdicate their constitutional responsibilities that week in October 2002 irrevocably violated their oath of office and should be forced to resign.
Ok, I'm pretty sure that's not going to happen, so let's move on.
So now, everywhere Hillary goes, she gets pounded for her vote on the AUMF. People keep saying she has to say it was a mistake. Other people keep saying this is being driven by the extreme left wing of the party. And I have been very vocally critical of Hillary on matters of war and peace. But I honestly don't care if she says it was a mistake, if she believes it was a mistake, or if she has political consultants telling her to ride this out, it will be so much worse if she says the "M" word.
I don't need Hillary to do an act of contrition. I need Hillary to ACT. In her speeches and interviews she seems all too ready to employ the American military in most any given situation. In this area I see awfully little daylight between her and GW Bush. Now sure, she's certainly got to make people realize that even if she is a woman, she's tough enough to make the hard decisions the presidency will require of her. And if a real situation actually did require the US to act militarily, I would want a president that could make that decision. But as a people we've been horribly victimized by a political leadership that decided to make war when it was NOT necessary, to accept the costs in lives and treasure and world opinion for nothing other than personal gain and ego. So forgive me if I'm a little suspiscious.
I don't care if she never admits the vote was a mistake. And I appreciate the strength of her verbal attacks on the architects of that futile debacle. But come on. Hillary Clinton is in a position of great power - she is a United States Senator, one of only 100 in the country. I need to see her taking strong, decisive action to end the war and bring the American troops home promptly. I don't need to see her voting to
disapprove of the escalation. I need to see her voting to cut off funds, cap troop levels, end combat operations and redeploy the Americans out of Iraq.
No, she doesn't have to admit the vote was a mistake. And she already acknowledges that the war was a mistake. So now I just need to see her doing something concrete to rectify that mistake. If she continues to talk while people are bleeding, she will lose. If she takes real action, she may not win, but she will at least be on the right side...
McConnell's Law: For Every Action, there is an Equal and Opposite Inaction
Wow. That's some dynamic congress we've got in Washington, huh? Let's check in with them on Iraq. The Senate has stopped even arguing about whether we should argue about "The Surge". Apparently, some Republicans led by John Warner got together with Harry Reid to craft language on a Non-Binding Resolution that they could all vote for. They actually co-sponsored the bill, signing their names to it's content. Then the Republicans, led by John Warner, voted against cloture, so the bill could not come to the floor for a vote. Is this what we get? Is this the best they can do? Is anybody embarrassed, even a little?
Ok then, let's go over to the House of Representatives. Surely, with the strong Democratic majority and the less esoteric rules, they've got something going. And sure enough, they are spending three days giving each Representative 5 minutes to offer their position on the bill. Let's see what kind of tough, angry language they're using in H. Con. Res. 63.
Resolved by the House of Representatives (the Senate concurring), that -
(1) Congress and the American people will continue to support and protect the members of the United States Armed Forces who are serving or who have served bravely and honorably in Iraq; and
(2) Congress disapproves of the decision of President George W. Bush announced on January 10, 2007, to deploy more than 20,000 additional United States combat troops to Iraq.
Waitaminute. That's IT? Nothing about the lies, the deceit, the waste, the fraud? Nothing about ending the futile bloodshed? Congress
disapproves of the escalation? This is what we celebrated our victory in November for? This is what we get? A stupid, meaningless, useless expression of
disapproval? This is obscene. Do they not understand that the American people understand this was a stupid political stunt, an illegal war of aggression, a war of choice? That we know what we're looking at, and we want it over? NOW!!
My gawd, what is it going to take to get the politicians to respond to the will of the people? We elect them to do OUR business. They act as if they came to these positions dynastically, by virtue of blood or marriage, as if they are not answerable to their constituency. They need to act, strongly, forcefully and directly, without political subterfuge. And if there is not the political will in congress to end this war, the 2008 elections will look a great deal different than the punditocracy thinks.
Well, anyway, at least in the House they are having a debate, right? I'm sure that they are offering thoughtful, reasoned opinions that will cause us to think, to consider, to perhaps understand. Here's Roy Blunt:
''While there is no silver bullet to make our mission in Iraq easier, it is clear that eliminating or cutting funding for our men and women who wear the uniform of the United States of America is not a plan for ensuring stability in the Middle East. It is, rather, a recipe for empowering our enemies and endangering our troops.'' _ House Minority Whip Roy Blunt, R-Mo.
Huh? He said what? Setting aside, for a moment, that there is no legislation on the table that cuts funding to the American military operations overseas, lets consider what he's actualy saying. The Congress is elected to go to Washington to do the people's business. To represent the people of their district and support their opinions in the legislature. Instead, out of an embarrassing fear of people halfway around the world, they seek to stifle debate in order to appease those people who are threatening us. May I offer a small suggestion?
FUCK THEM!!
This is the United States of America. We are going to operate our representative democracy, we are going to do the people's business, we are going to exercise our values without fear. And if some people in the Middle East don't like it, we are NOT going to alter our democratic values in hopes they don't attack us or our interests. So Mr. Blunt? Grow a pair, or go home...
What's Up with the Wacky Dictator with the Bad Hair?
I don't get it. What's the plan?
Kim Jong-il has suddenly rolled over? Doesn't make sense. Oh sure, we're all just sitting back, waiting for him to "fail to live up to the terms of the agreement". But why play this game, this way? I don't think that anybody could be faulted for being a little skeptical that Kim would give up his nuclear weapons for fuel oil. What's he planning on heating? The crumbling grey apartment blocks where the people are trying to live on a handful of rice, tree bark and an occasional rat?
I think it's reasonable to assume that pressure from China has something to do with this move. I can hear Hu Jintao now, laying it out for the politically naive Kim
. "Look, my friend, America is currently out of it's mind. Batshit insane. There is an old proverb, 'a man who taunts an insane person will find himself at the wrong end of a chainsaw'. We are doing pretty well over here manufacturing crap for the Americans to buy at Walmart, keeping our currency artificially low and banking nearly one trillion dollars in hard currency. You are rocking the boat, and that's not acceptable. You need to agree to a deal with the Americans. You can string them out for a few months, then accuse them of not living up to their commitments and break the deal. But for now, cool it".
Northeast asia is truly the far corner of the world. They have nothing of note. No agriculture. No resources. No oil. America threw away 36 thousand lives there fifty years ago. There's a lesson there. It's not worth it. We're not holding the line there, unless you call preventing unification of the penninsula "holding the line". The same rules that applied during the cold war apply now, to North Korea as well as Iran. If they were actually to use a nuclear weapon, at least if they used it against an American ally, they would suffer complete atomic destruction. They know that. You can't win if you can't live to enjoy your winnings. So any concern America might have over their nuclear development program is very likely a pretext for engaging them over something else.
That something else, in the case of North Korea, is a long-standing case of knee-jerk anti communism. The same mindless political calculation that has kept the Cuba embargo in place for decades after it no longer mattered. Hopefully, nobody was truly willing to spend lives in that rotten place again. I don't think Kim was particularly concerned about US military action, considering there's no oil, the North could demolish Seoul with tremendous loss of life in a few hours and the demonstration that they may be able to deliver a nuclear weapon. So what do you suppose caused him to accept this deal?
It seems to me, like many small but vocal nations, he was winning in a way simply by standing up to the United States. Like Cuba, Iran, Venezuela, Hezbollah and the like, they win by not losing. If the mightiest of militaries, the US and Israel, for example, cannot rorce them to acquiesce to authority, their stock rises. It seems odd that he would actually trade away the power and prestige provided by nuclear weapons in exchange for something as transient as fuel oil and food aid. There has to be something else going on here. I just can't see it yet.
Cultural Insanity
OK, it's official. Americans are insane. I'm not sure how we decide what's important and what isn't, but the process doesn't seem to include logic, critical thinking or any rational process whatsoever. Our collective cultural prudery, knee-jerk understanding of right and wrong and the ongoing brainwashing process have contributed to a completely irrational worldview.
What's got me going off like this? Well,
I heard this report on NPR this morning. And I had to wonder. How many killings, savage beatings, brutal rapes and wall-to-wall near random
gunplay do we see in movies? Smoking and sex are bad. No amount of horrors, brutality, the worst kind of abuse, hatred and
misogyny are even important enough to comment upon.
Now personally, I don't get really wound up about what's portrayed in movies and television. People know that it is story-telling. Reading a novel is a much richer, more profound experience and yet down through the years I have heard nobody saying that we must control what our kids read for fear it will encourage them to act out those same awful behaviors. Nope, the fact of the complaint is not an issue for me.
The substance of the story, on the other hand, most certainly is. What it says about
Americans sense of propriety. The things we find acceptable, and the things we don't. Most effectively represented by our long nightmare of being so horribly tormented by a glimpse of Janet Jackson's right breast. The horror! Jack Bauer can kill, maim and torture and people rave about the quality of the program. But a perfectly lovely, harmless breast causes a national
upheaval. That's bizarre.
This is representative of the American people's odd sense of cultural acceptability. People who rail against abortion, who are determined to make certain that every woman carry every pregnancy to term without consideration for the consequences, not just for the woman but the child, will then turn around and with a straight face happily endorse capital punishment. Life is sacred, I guess, right up until that belief interferes with some kind of dark-ages, biblical reprisal killing.
Now don't read this as somehow "pro-smoking". Smoking is nasty. It smells bad, kills you without even providing a decent buzz. I cannot for the life of me understand why cigarettes remain legal in America. The only theory I have is that they provide no pleasure whatsoever, so our puritanical society will allow them to be sold and distributed. If they got you high, they'd be gone by now, except for a thriving underground tobacco business. For that matter, I don't really care what they show in movies - let the person telling the story tell it the way they envision it. But it is the priorities, the categorization of "good" and "bad" actions, those things we find unacceptable and those things we embrace. It just seems that the American population needs a good dose of pragmatism.
Required Reading
Chalmers Johnson has a clue. Actually, he has quite a few of them. You must take time out of your day to sit down and read
this piece he wrote for Harpers. It's critically important that Americans begin to understand the consequences of the course we have allowed our leaders to embark on. There are no good outcomes. Indeed, there are only catastrophic outcomes. It truly might be too late...
Pitchers and Catchers Report Wednesday
And so it begins anew. Unlike previous years, I enter this baseball season mostly bereft of hope. Since the begining of the Dusty Baker era, I looked forward to each season with anticipation. Those were teams that were likely to make the playoffs, and indeed, in 2002 came within 5 outs of a championship. Now don't get me wrong, the '07 Giants have some strengths. But the NL west has improved, and the holes in the giants lineup should make their presence known fairly quickly. Those holes are simple. Runs will be precious, age and declining health will cause Bochy to retool this team on the fly many times over the long season, and the bullpen will have much to prove.
The Giants enter 2007 with the best starting rotation in the west, possibly in the league. Behind Zito, Cain, Lowry, Morris and Ortiz, this team stands to be in a lot of games. But with an offense powered by a 42 year old cripple and not much else, the starting staff has little margin for error. Infield defense will be very good, with feliz at third, vizquel at short, durham at second and aurelia or klesko at first. Outfield D will always be questionable with Bonds in left, but Roberts in center and Winn in Right should do ok, no better.
Bonds is a problem, in many ways. When teams walked him in 2003 it was a rally starter. Now, it's a rally killer. It will take power to advance him from first, let alone drive him in, and other than Feliz, the giants power is an aging and questionable Ray Durham. I can't wait for the moment that Bonds and Molina are on base at the same time. Just jog off the field, boyz, you ain't gonna score.
But it's spring training, with the smell of the fresh-cut grass, the leather and the rosin, the crack of the bat and pop of the glove. Everybody's equal now, and nobody is a loser. Baseball, with it' hope and rebirth and commitment and joy. People will come Ray. The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been...
Well, you know...
Identification: Friend or Foe
The US military held a briefing today on Iran's alledged contribution to the insurgency's ability to kill American servicemen and women by providing advanced arms and training. Here's the money shot:
A senior defense official from the U.S.-led Multinational Force in Baghdad told a briefing that 170 coalition troops had been killed by Iranian-made roadside bombs known as explosively formed penetrators (EFPs) that he said were smuggled into Iraq.
Now follow the logic with me. We are allies of the elected Iraqi government, who, by dint of majority status are Shiites. As our allies, we are not fighting them, and they are not (supposedly) fighting us. Americans are engaging in combat against the Sunni, Neo-Baathist and al Quaida led insurgency. Bu there's no way Iran would supply weapons to the Sunnis. They might well supply weapons to the Shiites to use either in defense against the Sunnis or to actually kill Sunnis, either to ethnically cleanse certain neighborhoods or to perpetuate a long-running blood feud. So if the Shiites are our allies, and Iran supports the Shiites, and those 170 soldiers were killed by Iranian weapons, what conclusions can we draw about who our friends and foes are?
Well, it comes down to a rather stark choice. Certainly the Sunnis aren't receiving Iranian weapons unless they are buying them from third parties on the black market, which certainly would absolve Iran from any acusation that they are actively supplying the insurgency. In fact, the Sunnis buy many American supplied weapons from the corrupt and greedy Iraqi government. Maybe we should interdict ourselves? But if 170 American servicemembers were killed by Shiites, whether they be the Mahdi Army or Badr Brigades, then they are not our allies and we really need to rethink what it is we are trying to accomplish. The American charges lead to three options.
- The Iranians are for some reason supplying the Sunni insurgency with weapons. If this is the story, the Americans are going to have to explain why this is so.
- The Shiite Iraqi government is actually secretly fighting the Americans. If this is true, once again, the Americans are obligated to explain why they are doing so, and must stop treating them as an ally.
- The Americans are lying in order to create the pretext for an armed conflict with Iran, which the bush/cheney cabal is going to create, one way or another.
If neither 1 or 2 is true, than 3 must be true. I'm looking forward to the intrepid reporter who will stand up and demand the US military explain these facts and take a position about who our friends and who our enemies are in Iraq...
From the "Having the Balls to State the Obvious" Desk
Putin, issuing perhaps his harshest public rebuke of the United States, said it had "overstepped its national borders in every way" and that its plans for an anti-missile shield "could provoke nothing less than the beginning of a nuclear era."
"Today we are witnessing an almost uncontained hyper-use of military force in international relations, force that is plunging the world into an abyss of permanent conflicts," Putin said in a clear allusion to the U.S.-led war in Iraq.
Putin also decried what he called "greater and greater disdain for the basic principles of international law" and criticized "first and foremost the United States" for forcing its values on other countries.
"This is visible in the economic, political, cultural and educational policies it imposes on other nations. Well, who likes this? Who is happy about this?" Putin said.
You're going to have to be pretty far gone down the path of American Exceptionalism to fail to immediately recognize the truth and accuracy of these statements. Sure, Vlad's got his own agenda, and he's not the best example of an admirable statesman. But make no mistake. Just as the American Congress and corporate lapdog press is slowly beginning to lose it's instinctive fear of the cheney administration, other national leaders of government and business are beginning to realize that it might be safe to come out and state in public what they've been saying in private for at least four years.
Under the bush/cheney cabal, America HAS become a rogue state, by any definition you'd like to use. Aggressively Attacking/Invading/Occupying sovereign nations, rattling sabers at other nations, refusing to speak diplomatically to nations with whom we have differences or grievances, attempting to impose our will in terms of what technology which nations will be allowed to develop, undercutting/abrogating treaties, utterly disregarding the will of the Unitedd Nations and acting unilaterally. There has never in history been a case where a nation with such power at it's disposal acted in such a unilateral fashion.
Perhaps this is because historically, there have always been other powerful nations to act as a check against a rogue state's worst instincts. But since the fall of the Soviet bloc, the world has been forced to depend on America acting as a force for good in the world, when there was nothing coercing her to do so. And, like a bad roll of the dice, in the 2000 elections, bush and cheney won (effectively, if not actually) and the world lost.
When they took power, bush and cheney had one huge overriding misconception that has driven them to become the latter-day stalins they have become. They believed that there were absolutely NO limits to what could be accomplished with American military power. So they felt more than
empowered to use force in every situtation, they felt
compelled to do so. And it turned out they were tragically wrong, not just in one but in two very significant ways. First, you cannot do effective counter-terrorism with armored brigades, artillery and air power. You do effective counter-terrorism first with effective intelligence gathering, and second, with small units of special warfare operators appearing out of nowhere to kill the people who enable, fund and create terrorism. This has the advantage of limiting both the numbers of dead and the numbers of innocents killed accidently. Worldwide, since 9/11, the dead could have numbered less than 1000, even if some were mistakes. And yet, in fairly short order it would have become very dificult to find people willing to serve in those roles. The second cheney miscalculation was that overwhelming force and firepower makes your army invulnerable. You'll notice that cheney never served in vietnam, so he had no firsthand understanding of what small-unit guerillas fighting with asymetric tactics could do to the most powerful army in the world.
Armies are for fighting armies, and the American military can defeat any military in the world in classic warfare. But when facing an insurgency with plenty of funding, a willing cadre and the support of the people, a traditional military force will find itself at a disadvantage every time. Every thing this army does to find, fix and destroy this elusive enemy only contributes to their ranks and coffers. There will never be another large army vs. army conflict, and now bush and cheney, in their childish impudence, have demonstrated for all the world to see the inherent limits to American military might. We can take a fight beyond our borders, but to stay after the fight is to bleed. And now everyone knows it.
The lesson to take away from this is not that Putin was correct. That is an indisputable truth. The key is to understand the far reaching, long term consequences of the greedy, venal, mindless and arbitrary "leadership" of the bush/cheney cabal. It's hard to even begin to grasp the costs America will be paying for generations to come, but you can be sure of one thing. When people start talking about 3000+ American dead, 1 trillion dollars burned irretrevably for no gain and a million dead in Iraq, they are only addressing the tip of the iceberg. Those dynamics which we have let loose in the field of international relations will snowball in ways we can only dimly see, and the global cost, not just economically or militarily, but in chaos and human rights and ethinc cleansing will be too high to calculate. When our grandchildren are leaders of nations, and one of them wants to commit an evil act, will they invoke the United States of America as the empowering example?
Ok, I quit. The Terrorists have Clearly Won
What does it take to paralyze a modern American city? To shut down its roads, its public transportation, it's business? What would a terror cell require to cause so much consternation, disruption, so much
terror? Would it be explosives? Nerve gas? A "dirty bomb"? Hijacked airliners, poisoned water supplies and maybe even nukes?
Nope. As it turns out, you just need a few Lite-Brite knockoffs and a couple kids to distribute them. Just another little marketing campaign, and the great city of Boston wets it's collective pants. Nobody had to bring terror to Boston, they were more than happy to create it out of whole cloth.
How did we get here?They say 9/11 changed everything. Perhaps it did. The intention of the planners of the terrorist attacks was to terrorize America. And if, over five years later, a major American city is shut down for hours because of a marketing campaign for a cartoon, then it's time to turn mother's picture to the wall, get out the white flag and surrender. Because we clearly are not about fighting terror, we are about being victims again and again.
Then there is the unbridled joy and excitement of the right wing every time they even THINK there might be another attack on American soil. Why do they get so excited? Could it be that they know that our response will be more killing, more destruction and more movement toward the world clash between the west and Muslims? Let's take a serious look at where we are today. The American people are getting harder to terrorize. They take less seriously the fear mongering of the republican politicians and their pundit-class water carriers. On the other hand, the law enforcement and "Homeland Security" responders have lost any ability to discern the reality of a terrorist attack as opposed to day to day real life with it's little surprises. At the same time, the warmongering right has been so thoroughly discredited that they are actually hoping for another devestating attack on American soil so popular sentiment turns once again to military action.
This is a crazy situation. We cringe and cower in fear, reacting to the most banal examples of daily urban life. We cannot fly without jumping through hoops. We waste huge amounts of our treasure trying to harden our nation against small unit assymetrical assaults that cannot be defended. We have lost. We are effectively terrorized, and some part of our population is hoping for more. After Iraq, Afghanistan, all the hearings and government reorgs, we lost on that September day, and we're still losing. Those 19 guys who flew those planes into those buildings are still the winners. And until we find the courage to shake off that awful day and learn to live in a twentyfirst century world that includes, along with cancer, traffic, global warming and poverty a risk of terror attacks, we will always be the losers...
