buggieboy

Relocating to the MilPub

2009-06-13T21:21:00.001-07:00

We have decided to relocate to the MilPub Tap Room, a warmly lighted place where everyone is welcome and several have already accepted the invitation to participate.

Our thanks to JD Henderson for letting us borrow Buggieboy to keep some of the old Intel-Dump gang in touch for the past year or so. Please amble on over and join the crew.

The Lunatic Fringe

2009-06-12T12:08:00.000-07:00

Over some wine and cheese last night, an Oxford educated, local retired Greek cardiologist and I pondered a variety of things, large and small. In a semi-joking way, while discussing the differences between American and European socio-political culture, he said that in the area of lunatic fringe violence, America seems to have it backwards. In Europe, it's the left wing fanatics that are known for violence and assassinations. Conservative political leaders need greater security than left wing ones. In the US, he observed, it seems that right wingers are the people to fear. He, as do most Europeans, fear for an liberal, African American President's safety.

Paul Krugman seems to have the same view!

Heart Breaking News

2009-06-07T10:19:00.000-07:00

Today's IHT had this piece on Soldier suicides. I thought about it a lot today, and wonder if this is an unavoidable result of expecting a relatively small volunteer force to conduct an excessively long campaign.

My thoughts, of course, are based on anecdotal experience, but the fact remains that the US has not called called upon soldiers to face such stress in the past 100 years. While the Doughboys of WWI, the GIs and Marines of WWII, Korea and Viet Nam may have seen much more direct combat action, there is a vast difference in the human dynamics of today's AVF GWOT GI and his predecessors.

1. The twin operations in Iraq & Afghanistan have gone on longer than WWI, WWII or Korea.

2. While we fought for seven years in VN, troops were assigned to combat tours primarily on an individual replacement basis.

Number 2 is the one that occupied my thoughts today. During VN, it was common to see one's comrades in arms leave the service. In fact, "ETSing" was a regular occurrence. Similarly, we came and went from the combat zone as individuals, and when not in RVN, our activities were focused on the job at hand, not refitting and retraining to redeploy. And, we enjoyed more than 12 to 14 months between deployments, and rarely served with the same people on subsequent combat tours. Further, the average time in combat with the soldiers in a unit was 6 months, as rotation dates were spread out across the year.

Today's AVF soldier cannot escape Iraq/Afghanistan. After about 6 months stateside, he and those he recently served with begin the refit/retrain cycle to deploy again - together. Thus, the soldier might very well serve five or six years, including multiple in theater tours of 12 to 14 months, with the same fellow soldiers the entire time. The bonding has got to be intense.

At first blush, this bonding might seem a good thing. Yet, I clearly remember that leaving my colleagues in VN was more difficult than any other PCSes, and I had been with them an average of six months. They were still in harm's way, and I was going to "safety". The relief of surviving the tour was offset by worries for those left behind. Further, there was no "shame" on those who simply served their contractual terms and returned to civilain life. The draft ensured a constant flow of new talent.

But today's soldier does not face the "normality" of people leaving the service as commonly as we did in VN. He knows that the Army is hard pressed to fill it's ranks and that retention is critical. Further, he is much more closely bound to those around him than we were in VN, and believe you me, we were tight. I can easily see where some Soldiers might wish to move on in their lives, yet feel as if doing so would be tantamount to deserting their buddies. In short, almost trapped with no honorable way out.

Iraq/Afghanistan is our first protracted campaign using an all volunteer force. There have been several signs of stress induced behavior. Marines killing themselves in significant numbers by reckless motorcycle riding. Spousal abuse. And, suicide. And, there really is no end on the immediate horizon. Perhaps we need to re-evaluate the assumptions of the AVF, and address its real limitations, or more accurately, the limits it places on US power projection.

I never did like the guy!

2009-05-17T22:22:00.000-07:00

Back in the good old "Intel-Dump" days, my favorite moniker for the then serving SecDef was "Secretary Rumsnamara". As time passes by, more and more of the players of that time are providing insights and vignettes that paint this clown as a disaster of immense proportions.

There's an old Jackie Leonard one-liner that came to mind early on as I observed Rumsnamara, "She'd be a good looking broad if it weren't for her face and figure." In those politically incorrect days of the 50's, Leonard was simply stating that in terms of the two principal components of "looks" the subject woman failed, and that failure obviously was complete. After all, what was left?

Of course, there are more than two necessary attributes to quality leadership. But as one views the life and actions of Mr Rumsnamara, he comes across as lacking, if not in virtually all, at least all the primary virtues of a leader. GQ magazine just published an article about the man, and, while pretty revealing, it isn't "pretty". I was truly enraged by this crap, as well as his campaign to transform network military analysts into “surrogates” and “message force multipliers”. Perhaps my "Rumsnamara" was too kind a label, and "Goebelsfeld" could be more appropriate.

Here's a man who was definitely not a team player, seemed to be more interested in serving himself than his nation and was an obstructionist at heart! Is it any wonder that slowly, more and more retired senior officers stepped forward and did the unthinkable - called for his resignation?

If we only view this clown in terms of the GWOT (Iraq/Afghanistan) and Katrina, it is staggering to consider the amount of damage he did to our country and others. Add to that the pain, injury and death he needlessly inflicted upon individuals, and he easily sits amongst the greater villains of all time.

Of course, Rumsnamara was enabled by Bush/Cheney and Company. Without their style, goals and objectives, he would never had the free hand to do the damage he did. And that damage is profound, as he shaped the senior ranks of the uniformed military to fit his desires, and that shaping will be lurking in the background for a few years to come.

Please, President Obama, spend the time and resources to investigate, expose and prosecute, as appropriate, the people who took our nation down this lawless and costly road. We, The People, deserve better!

Is the Noose Tightening?

2009-05-07T00:33:00.000-07:00

It is hard to read the "responsible" press and not find an article or editorial pertaining the the practice of torture by the Bush administration. Today's IHT reported on the backlash that John Yoo and Jay Bigbee face as a result of their outlandish memos claiming that previously outlawed treatment of detainees was legal. It would appear as if many of their fellow members of the bar and academia are uncomfortable with them in their midst, making them as unwelcome in US circles as they are in the Spanish circles seeking to prosecute them.

This editorial cries for full disclosure.

It very well might become increasingly difficult for the Obama administration to follow a line of "only looking forward". As nasty, embarrassing and divisive as a full inquiry might be, it seems to me that the support for punitive as well as curative action is growing.

But then, I'd really like to see these vermin suffer for the abominable acts they so gleefully approved. No claims of objectivity on this old geezer's part.

Farewell to the USAF???

2009-04-25T08:11:00.000-07:00

Paul Kane lashes out at the good old USAF in his recent NY Times OpEd. Yes, he is right that the USAF has no major on site role in the current hostilities in Iraq and Afghanistan. Yup, they are not "sharing the pain".

Sorry, Mr Kane, but life itself is not fair. To make airpower a permanent subservient element of the other three services would be a foolish move. What we don't need today, we may very well need tomorrow. The current military services do not duplicate all the capabilities of the USAF. Perhaps we should turn the Navy over to the Army, as the Army had tremendous experience in operating floating vessels.

And, of course, the USMC's mission could easily be absorbed by the Army, which already has infantry, armor, artillery, amphibious vessels and aircraft.

I have no objection to tweaking the roles and missions of the services, especially as it pertains to aircraft operations, but there are benefits in having proponency for operations in the air in the hands of a separate service. Just as long as it isn't a strangle hold.

Al

Revamping the DOD

2009-04-21T22:24:00.000-07:00

Well, I know it has been discussed elsewhere, but one of the gang mentioned this NY Times OpEd, and I have no reluctance to discuss some of the flawed thinking in it.

I don't know a lot about Mr Kane, and simply stating that he is "a Marine veteran of Iraq " says not much more than "Eddie Slovik was an Army Veteran of WWII".

I won't address his "disband the Air Force" or "Universal National Service" ideas just yet, but save them for two separate threads to keep the dialogue focused.

But, I will address his thoughts on "Up or Out" and manpower planning.

There are some drawbacks to "Up or Out". Yes, the services lose some good people. The difficulty is that the services only need "X" number of captains, for example. If Captain vacancies are limited by allowing the least competitive to remain as long as they wish, then good Lieutenants cannot advance, and the lesser qualified Captains perform the jobs that more promising Lieutenants might be promoted to and fill. There have been "Selective Retention in Grade" programs to allow twice passed over officers to remain in uniform as a manpower management tool, and this exception to "Up or Out" is a fine idea. Note the use of the term "Selective". Sometimes trying to maximize manpower quality can be tough. I am reminded of what the Colonel from the Marine Officer Selection Office said to us when visiting our college campus, "We select our officer candidates with one thing in mind. Not every Lieutenant will become Commandant, but every Commandant was once a Lieutenant. Thus, to the best of our ability, our material for Lieutenant should be material for the top as well." Potential for advancement helps provide a good pool of candidates for higher level billets.

Unlike private sector employment, the military can not seek a pool of permanent, career first-line workers. There are a variety of reasons for this, not the least of which is that aged riflemen are not as capable of the rigors of the trade as young bucks. Also, unlike the private sector, the military cannot tap other employers for people to laterally transfer into the NCO and Officer ranks. They have to grow their own. Part of that "growing" is winnowing, unfortunately. The age old addage of "Mission first, then the welfare of the troops" is the only way the military can succeed.

The military is, by public policy, an organization of designed capability, and thus of a defined size. It must maintain it's warfighting capability within this defined size. Further, it is totally depended upon UNITS to accomplish its mission. It is not a collection of individual players. Thus, it tries to use manpower management tools to staff the ranks for current and future needs, yet cannot "overhire" as a tool for the future. Civilian employment has similar tools. When a company has too many employees in a given category, they conduct layoffs. Very often those selected for furlough are not the least able, but the least senior. Were it not for age discrimination laws, many would be the older, higher paid, to save even more money, and in fact this is often accomplished by incentives to retire.

There is a limited place in the military for "Selective Retention in Grade" or technical specialists (WO Aviators, for example) that can be less subject to "UP or Out". But it is not a "One Size Fits All" solution.

Assailing "Up or Out" has great emotional appeal, as well as the financial accounting suggestion Kane makes. And, they might just be fine for organizations that do not have to be near 100% capable of accomplishing a defined LIFE OR DEATH mission at all times. I am just not convinced that the manpower and operating tools of American private sector business are 100% appropriate for the defense of our country. They were clearly not so for the defense of our economy!

Al

It's Great to Talk "Shop" Again!

2009-04-12T12:14:00.000-07:00

One of my friends in our village, Nikitas, is a 78 year old retired Greek Navy Admiral who was THE JAG before talking a final assignment in the Defense Ministry. He's a fellow US Naval War College grad, lives in a modest house on an acre of land or so and makes fabulous wines. It's a refreshing treat to see retired flag officers who choose to live modestly, as opposed to the opulent lifestyles our guys enjoy, usually benefiting from selling their souls to defense contractors.

His two sons are currently serving Naval officers, and both have been to Newport for Command & Staff College. I pass my issues of the NWC Review to them after I finish reading them.

Panagiotis, his older son just returned from a 5 month deployment to the Somalia region, where he was the legal advisor to the Greek flotilla commander. As in the past, he's on the island for the week before Easter (we're a week later than the West this year), and we played "catch up" this morning over coffee following the Palm Sunday service in our village church. His brother arrives on Monday.

Panagiotis laid out the difficulty of patrolling 1.5 million square miles of international waters, heavily trafficked by all kinds of vessels. He said it's prime fishing waters, fished by boats from a variety of countries. It's not a "counter-terrorism mission", but a classic naval law enforcement mission, maintaining freedom of navigation and keeping the sea lanes open. It's just not possible, legally or logistically to check every ship in the region to see if they are involved with pirate operations. He did offer some insights into pirate tactics, NATO interdiction tactics and the like.

Brought back warm memories of being at Newport, and it was a pleasure speaking to a military man who isn't blinded by the phony GWOT. Our talk did wander to that, and he was frank in his disdain for the last administration's approach to things military. He did assure me that the US Navy fully understood the mission in the region. The Spaniards took command of the NATO flotilla from the Greeks.

While Panagiotis never mentioned it, his dad did brag on his son's ship's performance in the theater. Four prevented attempts, and five captured pirates.

Add our chat to the successful rescue of the Maersk Alabama's Skipper, and today was a wonderful day for an old Marine/Soldier!

Al

Say WHAT?

2009-04-10T11:30:00.000-07:00

Karl Rove writes in the Wall Street Journal that "President Barack Obama "'has the most polarized early job approval of any president' since surveys began tracking this 40 years ago. The gap between Mr. Obama's approval rating among Democrats (88%) and Republicans (27%) is 61 points. This "approval gap" is 10 points bigger than George W. Bush's at this point in his presidency, despite Mr. Bush winning a bitterly contested election."

Mr. Rove then criticizes the President for this "approval gap," blaming Mr. Obama's "actions and rhetoric." Mr. Rove claims that in the face of Republican attempts to help shape policy, Mr. Obama's response has been a "brusque dismissal that "I won." Mr. Rove claims that Mr. Obama has left Republicans out of the deliberative process, hence this "approval gap" among the American people.

WHAT?

Even now my jaw hangs open at such a blatant dismissal of logical reasoning.

Mr. Rove, citing a poll from the Pew Research Center, has concluded that a president currently holding staggeringly-high approval ratings among the American people is "divisive." Think about that. If an amazingly high percentage of Americans approve of Mr. Obama, he should be considered "divisive."

Well, after all, it is true that Republicans appear to have a very low opinion of Mr. Obama, while Democrats view him favorably. That is the "approval gap" cited by Mr. Rove. For this Mr. Obama's rhetoric and actions may very well be to blame - when you vote for a losing candidate because you disagree with the winning candidate, the winning candidate is likely to do things you disagree with. Remember, if you vote AGAINST a politician because you DISAGREE with him, you are likely to DISAGREE with him even after the election.

But that is not the logical fallacy here. Mr. Rove is an acknowledged master at twisting and distorting facts, but the fallacy is not that Mr. Obama is doing things his political opponents disagree with - that does not make Mr. Obama responsible for some disagreement. It means Americans can agree to disagree, and they settle on what to do by voting on it - with some of us guaranteed to not prevail in our opinions on what we should do. After the last eight years of conservative rule, many of us know what it is like to disagree with the decisions made by a president. There is an "approval gap" between Mr. Obama's party and the party that opposed him - not exactly something that should shock anybody. But that is not the glaring fallacy here.

The fallacy is this: the implication in Mr. Rove's article is that this "polarized approval gap" makes Mr. Obama a divisive figure. He should therefore be less divisive - but how is that true given Mr. Obama's amazingly-high approval ratings? How can he be "divisive" if more Americans approve of him than they did on election day - an election he won handily, with all major networks declaring the election decided within minutes of the polls closing on the West Coast? Mr. Obama's election victory was not exactly a nail-biter. So if more Americans approve of him NOW than they did when he won his landslide victory, how is it that Mr. Rove can attack Mr. Obama for being "divisive" and cite real - and presumably accurate - polling data to support his position that Mr. Obama is driving us apart as a nation?

Because Mr. Rove fails to understand math. See, it works like this: voters each get only one vote. The candidate that wins the most votes gets elected. If he wins in a landslide, he has a lot of support. Even if some citizens really, really wanted him to lose, if a huge majority of Americans vote for a presidential candiate then he is not a "divisive figure," he is the winner of the election. If 10 weeks after taking office his approval ratings are even better than his margin of victory, the evidence does not support a finding that he is "divisive." In fact, the American People overwhelmingly approve of his performance so far.

But what about the data? Mr. Rove points out that most Republicans do not approve of Mr. Obama, while lots of Democrats (88%) do approve. Isn't that divisive?

Not when a lot of Americans decided to not support the Republican party in the last election. If you have 100 voters, and they are in two groups - Republicans and Democrats, and 100% of Republicans disapprove of you while 100% of Democrats approve of you, aren't you a divisive figure? Not if you got 90% of the vote. If only 10 voters disapprove - and they may very well REALLY disapprove - but you have the support of 90% of the electorate, then the People overwhelmingly approve of you and you are not a "divisive" figure driving Americans apart. Given your hypothetical 90% approval rating, you have united 9 out of 10 of Americans in support of you. But Mr. Rove will conclude from these same facts that you are the most divisive figure of all.

An "approval gap" between the dwindling and defeated Republican party, now only a majority in a handful of states, and the majority Democratic party, now triumphant, does not mean Americans are divided. They are in fact overwhelmingly supportive of our (note this Mr. Rove - OUR, yours and mine alike) new president. They are not more divided, they are in fact less divided than they were even on election day. Right now most Americans like Mr. Obama, including many who did not vote for him - he has been effective in gaining and maintaining the approval of the American people. There are those who would have preferred - and voted for - Sen. McCain, and yes, most of them disapprove of Mr. Obama just as on election day. But Mr. Obama won in a landslide, and his approval rating now exceeds his margin of victory on election day. Thus Mr. Obama is not a "divisive" president and Mr. Rove's misleading and untruthful editorial won't change that. Even a smart and experienced liar skilled in deception, like the masterful Mr. Rove, won't change a currently very unified and united American people facing unprecedented crisis after crisis into a divided and partisan on-the-brink-of-civil-war enemies who turn on each other.

But you can rely on Mr. Rove and those who still (somehow) agree with him to do their very best to try.

Education deserves a thread of its own!

2009-04-01T01:51:00.001-07:00

In a previous thread, JP posted: "We need a national debate about what we expect public education to accomplish."

Well, folks, we may not represent a "National Debate", but the gang here debates well. I agree with JP. When you ask the question of what K-12 education should accomplish, you are most often provided with vague outcome descriptions.

Now, for starters, let's look at one aspect of No Child Left Behind (NCLB), testing. NCLB says that in order to receive a diploma attesting to satisfactory achievement in a 12 year curriculum, you must test satisfactorily during the 10th year! So, the standard for a HS diploma is based upon a test of slightly less than 10 years of that schooling. Is there something wrong with this picture?

And, what do we want these students to learn? Well, that shifts from edubabble fad to edubabble fad. Has anyone wondered what the lack of long term internal discipline and consistency in the field of education has done to the effectiveness of that education?

Lastly, and sorrowfully, I have to admit that I do not accept that every child in the US is capable of earning a meaningful diploma in 12 years. And, gasp - gasp -gasp, there are some who are incapable of earning one at all. There are a variety of reasons (both voluntary and involuntary) for this, but the reasons (causes) are inescapable and most likely incurable.

But first and foremost, JP's question must be answered, and what a "diploma" means must be narrowly and fully defined. And the debate has nothing to do with the expectations of students and their parents. What does our society need? We've spent a few decades catering to the students, and it doesn't seem to have benefited the greater society that much.

Al

Spanish Lawyer: Ex-US Officials Must Face Torture Charges

2009-03-30T06:52:00.000-07:00

Well, something many of of have been clamoring for may just come to pass! A Spanish lawyer has placed the wheels of justice in motion against a gaggle of Bush Administration stooges. The complain alleges the men gave legal cover to the torture of terrorism suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, by claiming that the U.S. president could ignore the Geneva Conventions and by adopting an overly narrow legal definition of torture.

The all star cast includes: Alberto Gonzales; Douglas Feith; former Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff David Addington; Justice Department officials John Yoo and Jay S. Bybee; and Pentagon lawyer William Haynes. The complaint has a long road ahead of it, and only addresses lawyers who rendered legal advice enabling torture.

It's a start!

Al

GWB's "Ownership Society"

2009-03-26T09:10:00.000-07:00

A recent article on line cites a 2007 Federal Reserve Bank survey that found that the average American approaching retirement had amassed a staggering $60,000 in 401(k) savings. Since that was pre-meltdown, one can only wonder what they are worth today. Perhaps enough for part of a "Golden Year in the Sun". The use of the singular is not a typo.

The article goes on to give insights into the number of firms that are going to reduce or terminate matching contributions to 401(k) and similar defined contribution plans. In short, more and more future retirees are going to be in less that stellar financial shape.

What gave me pause about GWB's "Ownership Society" and the attendant privatization of part of Social Security is that if you are living hand to mouth, as at least 50% of the population is doing, the investment in the future you are able to make is paltry, if any at all. Take Social Security and make part of it subject to the vacillations of the market, and today's paltry can look robust compared to tomorrow's down market.

For example, my Mom worked until she was 70, as it was her major form of entertainment. The last 15 years of that time, she pumped as much as she could into a 401(k). She retired in late Summer of 2000, and six months later began receiving mandatory distributions of her 401(k). Less than 2 years later, due to the market tumble following 9/11, every dollar she was forced to withdraw over the next 2 1/2 years had originally cost her an average of $1.50. She had no idea of what was going on, nor did I, as I was totally unaware that her monthly "pension" included these 401(k) funds until late in the game. My "bad" for not knowing where the money really came from, I guess. Had I known at retirement time, I would have encouraged her to move the funds from a stock based portfolio to lower yield, lower risk investments. But, since these were mandatory distributions, once the market fell, the damage was done. She couldn't halt distributions to wait for the market to rise.

"Ownership Society" is a truly Orwellian term. It refers to something that, for a significant portion of the population, really only exists in the abstract. As Yogi Berra would have said, "You can't own anything until you own it." Like it or not, the lower 50% of the income scale in the US do not earn enough to "own" a lot, and it takes a lot to retire. We didn't even encourage building equity in one's home the past 10 years. Placing the whole monkey on their backs is fine, but just don't make it look like a glorious, slam dunk ticket to a secure future.

But then, for the private firms that would receive this privatized Social Security money to invest, the scale of what they could own as a result would be staggering. And, as we have seen, the US financial industry truly has the everyday working stiff's best interests at heart.

WASF

Al

AIG, I Quit!

2009-03-26T00:39:00.000-07:00

This letter was published in numerous newspapers. My initial reaction was sort of sympathetic to the man's words. However, with the opportunity to mull it over, I now feel more inclined to view it as the puerile bleating of a whiner. So, I decided to write back.

Dear Mr DeSantis:

When I first read your letter, my gut response was “Way to go, Jake. You told it like it is.” But, Jake, after finishing a cup of coffee and allowing my mind to wrestle with your words, my visceral and intellectual reaction is now, “So who cares, you self centered fool.”

Why the 180 degree turn? Well, for openers, you are not the only one in our country with whom an employer, the financial community (including AIG), his neighbors and/or the government have broken faith. It’s just that the numbers seem bigger when applied to your case. At least in your eyes. AIG not only broke faith with you, it broke faith with all of us. Perhaps not your specific division, but the company as a whole, and in the short run, you and your division reaped benefit from the actions of the whole.

Secondly, I find it interesting that your magnanimous offer is to turn the “post tax” proceeds of your bonus to “those suffering from the global economic downturn”. Is this an attempt to paint the government as the enemy, lest they tax your bonus too heavily and thereby punish those already victimized by the AIGs of this country? Prior to the public outcry, were you planning to be so beneficent? Does your offered contribution amount to the slightest drop in the bucket of damage that AIG and it’s fellow travelers have inflicted upon the common working stiff as they recklessly sought profits. Can you produce another letter, over your signature, calling upon AIG to be more prudent back when the seeds of this disaster were being planted.

As to those whom your recently proclaimed donation is said to benefit, are you aware of the relative difference between their current suffering and that which you express in the claim against your million dollar bonus? Will you lose your home and find it difficult to put a roof over your family's head? Will you be unable to afford routine health care? Has your retirement been wiped out? Or are we talking about a minor lifestyle adjustment?

Yes, Jake, you worked 10 to 14 hours a day, expecting to receive a million or so bucks for a year’s work. Others had to work the same hours, hoping to receive some 40,000 bucks, make ends meet and still have a job at the end of the year to start the process all over again. Actions of firms like AIG shattered the modest hopes of a couple of million of these folks, and you feel like you have been singled out for shabby treatment?

I wish you well, Jake, even if I find your whining repulsive. If you really want to impress us, divest yourself of all the wealth you have amassed, buy a middle class home, spend a couple of years working 10 to 14 hours a day at the median income, try to restart a retirement plan from scratch and then report back how righteous you feel.

Too much freedom can be a curse!

2009-03-24T02:01:00.000-07:00

As we old gits tend to do, my mind recently wandered back some 40 years to my days at Ft Wolters, Texas. One of the finer pieces of wisdom I received there was from the base pediatrician. He wrote a great series of parenting pamphlets, and in one, he addressed the subject of offering choices to our young ones.

His sage wisdom? Limit the choices your child is offered, and once they decide, hold them to it. His logic? If offered unlimited choices, one has great difficulty in evaluating them all to make a sound decision. Further, life will indeed involve limitations at times, and the sooner we learn this, the better we will be able to deal with it.

Thus, he said, rather than asking your offspring the seemingly innocuous question, "What would you like for dinner tonight?", he recommended offering a choice between two selections, one of which would be served to the whole family. Further, he said that such decision making should not be offered every night, but just often enough to involve the child in occasional family decision making.

In broad terms, the good Doc summarized that self discipline cannot be developed when we are allowed to be "children in the candy store with an unlimited allowance". (Credit cards were not in vogue at the time). And, he continued, the offer of limitless choices ultimately becomes a greater frustration when one suddenly bumps up against the notion of not being able to have all two, three or four that are "tied for first place". Doc posited that if the menu of choices is so expansive as to cause decision making to be virtual random guessing, no decision making skills nor sense of responsibility is developed.

If only the good Doc had been at the helm of our society the past 30 years or so. We are now at an economic crossroads where difficult choices need to be made, and all too many of us are angry for having to do so, no less unable to do so. The "all you can eat for $5 buffet" is closing, and no one wants to return to a fixed menu.

WASF

Al

Sometimes an Education is Unsettling

2009-03-12T01:34:00.001-07:00

My area of study, back when I thought a PhD would look nice following my name, was Labor Market Theory, particularly "Dual Labor Market" theory. There were basically two faculty/student "teams" studying the subject. Our team looked at the structural aspects, while the other looked at the sociological side.

To explain a bit. Dual Labor Market refers to a phenomenon in which there is a "Primary" and a "Secondary" Labor Market. Jobs turnover in the Primary market tends to be relatively stable, and earnings are strongly predicted by education level, years of experience, seniority on a job, etc. All those classic factors that instinctively pop into mind.

The Secondary market, on the other hand is characterized by high job turnover and very low earnings. The only statistically significant predictors of earnings are the prevailing minimum wage and hours worked. A PhD working in the secondary market will earn the same as a high school drop out. A person with 10 years on the job will not earn significantly more than the one hired yesterday.

While I was not seriously involved in the sociological side of the subject, several findings remain with me to this day. One was that if an individual works in secondary market jobs for more than two years, the odds of escaping that workforce diminish dramatically. Education, skill, training, and all the typical remedies for low earning do not work, unless it is retraining. For example, consider a graduate engineer with 10 years professional experience, who has to take a secondary market job(s) for a couple of years, perhaps due to a layoff. After about two years in secondary market employment, he suffers a high probability of remaining there. His probability of returning to primary market employment increased somewhat if he took, for example, a trade school course in auto mechanics and changed career fields, even if there were engineering jobs around. A career change was more promising than if he tried to return to engineering, even if he did more studies in engineering! In short, the Secondary Labor Market is the "Roach Motel" of employment.

As I said, my area of concentration was the structural side of the issue, so my insights into the sociology were limited. Thus, I can only offer the glimpse above. While this was back in the late 70's, early 80's, I can't help thinking about it today.

The good news is that if the above holds true, the laid off geniuses who brought this mess upon us might very well be flipping burgers for years to come! The bad news is that if middle class jobs stay off the radar for too long a period of time, many fine people may be trapped in their new found mess.

Another piece of bad news is that if people cannot readily return to a field where they have gained useful experience, that field loses the experience which they had gained. Sort of a brain drain.

Al

Is the US Economy Sustainable?

2009-03-03T10:08:00.001-08:00

For quite a while, I have felt that if the US economy was so dependent on consumer debt, there was no way it's growth could be sustained. Sooner or later, unless wages across the entire population rose more than the growth in GDP, the proverbial "minimum monthly payment" on consumer debt would surpass their ability to make those payments. In an economy such as the US, where consumer spending is such a major component of GDP, growth in consumer spending needs to be backed by growth in consumer real wages, or sooner or later, the house collapses. And it has.

I ran across an interesting article today. Someone seems to agree with my reasoning. I sure wish I was wrong, for my reasoning carried me to conclude that America needs a significant reset of its economy, and that means that either we accept a significantly depressed economy, or wealth must be distributed differently.

Note that I am not suggesting a "redistribution of wealth". But, somehow, more wealth needs to land into the hands of the masses for them to be able to spend without the assistance of excessive debt. In sort, if the rich keep getting richer and the poor keep getting poorer, the consumer spending of the rich will not support the economy. "Trickle Down" is pure horse-hockey.

Temporarily, however, as a result of the economy going over the edge, the only way to "prime the pump" of the masses' ability to spend is a redistribution of wealth, and Obama's tax policy is the only available tool in the tool box that can do that.

But, to get the rich to understand that they are better off in the long run to be slightly less rich requires a major culture shift. So far, all too many of them operate under the delusion that their personal well being is all that is needed for a robust society and economy. As more and more of the other 95% see that their economic well being is what really drives the economy, times in the US could get very interesting.

Unfortunately, however, we will have to sell the boat

2009-02-15T21:38:00.000-08:00

As I listen to the robber barons of Wall Street moan and groan about salary and bonus limitations that accepting a taxpayer bailout involves, I am reminded of an incident some 38 years ago, when I was stationed at Ft Wolters,TX instructing helicopter flying.

Officer students attending flight school at Ft Wolters encountered new found wealth. It was a TDY assignment, and they drew flight pay. Thus, they were drawing full pay and allowances, PLUS $24 in per diem (Tax free), PLUS $150/month flight skins (taxable), and would do so for 11 months, or about $9,500 more than "usual" while in training. I the late 60's/early 70's that was significant bucks.

So, our dauntless students looked at this new found wealth and began to elevate their lifestyles with, most typically, new cars. Being able to easily make 11 monthly payments of $870 or more could buy a couple of cars back then, and they did. Our local auto dealers were more than qualified to explain how it was done. And, since flight school was normally followed by a year in RVN, where even more $$$ could be saved, some extended the plan to include the financial windfall of that.

But then, shock of shocks, DOD did its periodic review of per diem rates and found that they should only be receiving $21/day! Talk about gloom, doom and mayhem! LTs and CPTs scrambling to figure out how to stay afloat with $120/month less. We actually had to set up financial management classes to help them avoid defaulting. So, a number of us permanent party were given training on how to conduct small group ( 5 or 6 students) counseling sessions and we went for it. The sessions began by having each student express their plight and what they thought they must do.

At the first session I conducted, I was amazed at how shattered these guys were, and how stumped some were as to how to handle it. Some were outright hostile toward DOD over the change. The last one, however, seemed quite calm, and sure of a solution. He said that he and his wife had been quite prudent. Rather than buying a Corvette, like so many others, they stuck to the Ford Mustang. One for each of them, along with a Ford station wagon for "family use." They had only bought an amount of furniture that could fit in a U-Haul trailer(TDY moves don't cover household goods), another reason for the station wagon. They would pay a car-less student to drive one of the Mustangs to Ft Rucker for the second half of training.

In closing, he said, "So, you see, with a bit of prudent planning, and a willingness to sacrifice a bit, it need not be a crisis. Unfortunately, however, we will have to sell the boat."

I shared that story with my colleagues, and the student's final words became an oft quoted quip when one of us was expressing mock sympathy.

Al

Down with the Old, Up with the New

2009-01-30T09:18:00.000-08:00

Probably no photo of the Iraq invasion has been hyped more than the pictures of a statue of Saddam being toppled in Baghdad.

Since then, some of those who participated in toppling the statue have expressed regrets.

Now a new monument has been erected concerning the war.

Why would children at an orphanage assist an artist to memorialize the shoe recently thrown at George Bush?

From David Knowles:
But why are these Iraqis so ungrateful to our former president given that the tyrant who led them, Saddam Hussein, has been deposed and executed? Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that 5.1 million Iraqis were displaced by the war and the sectarian violence that ensued. According to the International Organization for Migration, that figure represents the largest human relocation in modern times.

Consider, too, the mind-boggling number of orphans caused by the war. The Iraqi Government estimates that the conflict has left 5 million children without parents.

Given these hard realities, perhaps a shoe-sculpture can be viewed as a civilized reaction to the legacy of Mr. Bush.

Surely a totally unexpected monument to your legacy, Mr Bush!

Al

McConnell says GOP "must change"

2009-01-30T00:22:00.000-08:00

"After crushing defeats in back-to-back elections, the top Senate Republican warned Thursday that the GOP risks remaining out of power in the White House and Congress unless it better explains its core principles to woo one-time faithful and new loyalists."

What is amazing to me is that McConnell thinks that the "core principles", as operationalized over the past 10 years,are attractive to more than a minority of the population.

As I read further, it seems that the GOP feels that their "message" is either not getting out or is misunderstood. Are they unable to understand that it is not a matter of "message", but the impact of their rule that has turned off so many voters.

What planet are these people living on?

Al

The Rich Get Richer and the Poor Get ????

2009-01-29T05:29:00.000-08:00

Todays IHT had this piece on Wall Street. Seems the geniuses in the financial industry managed to rake in the sixth highest level of total bonus dollars in history. Not bad for a gaggle of boys who posted record losses, bankrupted many, and helped push the world into a near depression.

Granted, 2008's $18.4 billion in bonuses is down 44% from 2007. The average bonus for 2008 was only $112,000, or only 3 times the average US worker's annual wages. Three times the average worker's wages for losing other peoples' money. Or, in another perspective, it's three times the annual budget for the city of Chicago! And that's just the bonuses, not base salaries, stock options and benefits.

The firms argue that it's necessary to pay this to retain "bright, hard working employees". If they were so bright, why did they set their investors up for calamity? Perhaps they really need employees who don't work so hard, and the losses could be less?

And, many of these firms were on the taxpayer dole with bailout/TARP money. Why did I (or more accurately, my grandkids) get stuck with part of financing rewards for people who couldn't turn a profit?

WASF

Al

The Campaign is over - now the work begins

2009-01-20T23:15:00.000-08:00

Watching yesterday's Inauguration, I was reminded of the old joke about the Senator who dies and arrives at the Pearly Gates. He's offered the chance to choose between Heaven and Hell, and given a chance to spend a day in each place. In Hell, much to his surprise, he sees cocktail parties, yachting, golf, bridge tournaments and sunny beaches. Heaven is simply clouds and harp music. He tells St Peter that while Heaven seems nice, Hell seems less boring. St Peter accepts this and places the Senator back on the elevator. When the elevator doors open in Hell, the Senator steps out into pure fire and brimstone, misery and suffering. He accosts the Devil and asks, "What is going on. When I was here yesterday, this was a pleasant and lively place. Now, it's hellish!"

"Simple", say the Devil. "Yesterday we were campaigning for your vote. Today is a different story."

Through the campaign and in his inauguration address, President Obama promised a better America. Yesterday, he clearly denounced many of the practices and habits that have brought great harm to our country, the family of nations and this earth.

Both Mr Obama and the American people have a lot on our plates that needs to be corrected. He used the pronoun "we" regularly, and I find that dead on.

To achieve what Mr Obama speaks of, Americans must undergo a major cultural shift. I hope we can rise again to the task.

Mixed Emotions

2009-01-12T01:38:00.000-08:00

There's and old saying that the ultimate in mixed emotions is watching your worst enemy drive off a high cliff - in your brand new Mercedes.

Well, this piece in the IHT raises such mixed emotions.

Deep in my heart of hearts, as well as firmly in my intellect, I am convinced that GWB & Co broke the law. Further, I would like to see him and all who enabled him pay for such transgressions, returning the functioning of our republic to that of a nation of law. Yet, on the other hand, I clearly remember the never ending story of GOP v. Clinton and the vast resources expended in that witch hunt.

There are arguments for and against a wide ranging investigation. Some of the "against" arguments say that it would cause a "chilling effect" on INTEL operations, as the agents who did certain things were assured by the administration that their actions were lawful, and would be hesitant to act decisively in the future. This kind of "Eichmann" defense is chilling in its own way.

One reason for the mess in Afghanistan was GWB taking his "eye off the ball" by invading Iraq. At present, I am tempted to think that that Mr Obama & Congress have a huge target to engage in terms of our collapsing economy. While I would like to see every torturer, every proponent of torture, and every tolerater of torture hung by his or her heels, perhaps we should let our elected officials get their arms around the economy first, and then turn to on investing time and energy in bringing the GWB criminals to justice.

To be frank, I would welcome a year or two without reference to, or reminders of Bush & Co. Condemn and outlaw the old practices on 20 Jan. Then give us all a break.

Al

Hearts and Minds

2009-01-08T23:13:00.000-08:00

Those of us of the Viet Nam era remember so well the "Hearts and Minds" mantra. Of course, it was used to refer to the hearts and minds of other peoples we were trying to "free".

Today's IHT had three interesting pieces.

http://www.iht.com/articles/2009/01/08/mideast/vatican.php
http://www.iht.com/articles/2009/01/08/opinion/edkhalidi.php
http://www.iht.com/articles/2009/01/08/opinion/edlichfield.php

The first surely raises eyebrows. A Roman cardinal comparing Gaza to concentration camps. A bit strong? Perhaps. But taken in concert with the second article, one surely must recall a city called Warsaw. The only significant difference is that Gaza is far more than a city, and all of Gaza is a ghetto. It is difficult to describe it any other way.

Quite chilling is Khilidi's comment:

Far more revealing are the words of Moshe Yaalon, then the Israeli Defense Forces chief of staff, in 2002: "The Palestinians must be made to understand in the deepest recesses of their consciousness that they are a defeated people."

So, rather than win the "hearts and Minds" of the Palestinians, folks like Yaalon wish to crush them. With this mindset, can a workable accord, such as that suggested in the Lichfield piece, ever be reached? Do people with minds such as Yaalon have a heart?

Al

P.S. While speaking of "hearts and minds", there are conflicting forces in my heart and mind. My maternal family hails from Kobryn, Belorus, where the Nazis diligently recorded their success in eradicating 99.9% of the Jewish population, all of my relatives included. My mind reels at the totality of this barbarity, and my heart is pierced by my innocent kinfolks' slaughter. I do cry "Never Again!" But then, statements such as understanding that "in the deepest recesses of their consciousness that they are a defeated people", is calling for genocide of the spirit. The reduction of a people to eternal underclass status in the notion that Jewishness trumps all others. Have people like Yaalon failed to understand the broader reality of the Halocaust? No one should suffer the fate of my kin - physically or spiritually. Never!

I WANT TO BELIEVE

2008-11-20T14:52:00.000-08:00

In 1990 the Dow Jones began flirting with 3,000 for the first time ever. The internet and the computer revolution led the market to heights of euphoria, and the Dow Jones passed 10,000 for the first time in 1999 - a stunning rise from less than 3,000 to over 10,000 in less than ten years.

It took over a hundred years for the Dow to go from 100 to 10,000. It went from less than 3,000 to over 10,000 in less than ten years (1990-1999). This is an unsustainable rise in stock prices, just like during the first depression - and since then we added more than 4,000 more points, reaching the peak in October of last year.

The Great Depression saw similar markets before the '29 crash. It took nearly 22 years for the Dow Jones Industrial Average to rise from 100 to 200. But it took barely over a year for the average to vault the next hundred points. The industrial average hit precisely 300 on the last day of 1928. It had soared 48% that year, making 1928 one of the best in history. The only better have been 1915 and 1933 - until now, of course, when the market tripled from 1990 to 1999, and then added another 4,000 or so.

The market added more value from 2000 to 2008 than the worth of the entire market in 1990. Thus the stock market has proclaimed that from 1990 to 2008 (before this crash), the worth of American companies has gone from an index of less than 3,000 to over 14,000 - that is to say, it doubled, then doubled again, and then some more. This did not make sense in the 1920s, and it does not make any sense now - but unfortunately, the reasons for the rise in the '20s - the adoption of electricity for mass production - undoubtably had more impact on society than the adoption of computers and the internet in our time, but our market went crazier than it did back then. The first doubling of the Dow Jones took 22 years, and the last time the market doubled in less than a decade led directly to the Great Depression. This time we tripled the market in less than a decade and kept going. While market crashes are not the only reason for a depression, there is a real possibility that this Depression may be worse than last time, just as WWII was worse than WWI despite how much humanity thought it had learned from the World War, now called the First World War.

The Dow Jones website asks:

Why the huge increase in the 1920s? ''I call it the final fling upward,'' says Richard Stillman, a former professor and author who has written a book on the DJIA. ''This was a great era of euphoria. Prosperity was an explosion: Automobiles were in mass production, radios were in mass production,'' and telephone and aerospace industries were taking off.

And I would add that the rise of easy credit led Americans to add more debt in the 1920s than ever before, resulting in a large part of the American market being rooted in loans that were unlikely to ever be paid. Sound familiar? No-money down for cars, washing machines, telephones, you name it. And Americans bought and bought, and then the bottom fell out. It was the 20th-century version of the "sub-prime mortgage mess." Except we have more debt than Americans did then (in % terms and per capita) and that debt is not for things we could do without back then - phones, cars, etc. - but for our HOMES. In other words, this time the data looks worse.

Dow Jones' website adds

Professor Stillman thinks that Herbert Hoover's victory over New York Governor Al Smith in the 1928 presidential race also helped the Dow industrials surmount 300. ''The political climate continued to be highly favorable to business,'' he says. Mr. Hoover favored ''rugged individualism,'' and the less interference in business, the better.

This is strikingly similar to "compassionate conservatism" and the withdrawal of government regulations since 1990 and especially since the beginning of the Bush era.

Dow Jones provides that "after hitting 300, the Dow industrials would soar further in 1929, peaking at 381.17 in September. But in the crash of 1929 and the Depression, they would plummet. It would take a quarter century -- until 1954 -- before they would surmount the 300 barrier again." We peaked at 14,093 on October 12, 2007. Today the market closed at 7,552. We don't know when the market will again reach the peak of 14,093, but it is not unreasonable, even though we hate to think it, that it will take another quarter century to return to that valuation. That would be the year 2033.

Most people know that "the Dow Jones Industrial Average did miserably during the Depression of the 1930s. It began the decade at 248.48, down from a high of 381.17 before the crash of 1929. By July 1932, the depths of the Depression, the industrial average was crawling at 41.22. It ended 1939 at 150.24." If we apply the same percentage drops, the peak of 14,093 would reach all the way down to 1,524 if it dropped as much as the market did in what we may begin calling the First Great Depression. That is, 41.22 to 381.17 is the same percentage drop as 1,524 to 14,093.

If the market merely should have doubled from 1990, then it would be at a mere 6,000 today - perhaps not an undervaluation. In terms of market history, doubling the market from 3,000 to 6,000 in 18 years is a good performance. We moved from 3,000 to over 14,000 in that time. In short, it does not make sense.

Those investing now at 7,552 hoping to game the market when it reaches "bottom" should reconsider and perhaps protect their own bottom instead. We don't know where the bottom is, and by that I mean WE WON'T KNOW WHERE THE BOTTOM IS UNTIL AFTER WE GET THERE. If this Second Great Depression is only half as bad on stock market prices as the last one, then the bottom will be 3,048. The market is more than twice as high today. WE DON'T KNOW.

We keep telling ourselves "it won't be as bad as back then" but few economists or reporters can explain WHY. I don't see why it should be easier this time, and as discussed above, many factors look worse.

From the Dow Jones website:

What many investors don't know is that the 1930s were also the most volatile decade on record for stock prices. Investors, their nerves rubbed raw by the Depression, were prone to fits of euphoria and despair. Thus, the industrial average plunged 52.7% in 1931 and 32.8% in 1937, but it rose 66.7% in 1933 and 38.5% in 1935. Daily volatility was also intense. Strange as it may seem, seven of the 10 biggest up days in history, on a percentage basis, occurred during the 1930s.

The volatility we have seen in the past few months is the most volatile in the history of the market. We have seen day after day of triple-digit gains or losses - usually losses - and we are now almost halfway down from the peak. The idea that the bottom is near is comforting, but it is not supported by the evidence.

This kind of turmoil led to the rise of fascism and world-wide conflict last time. This kind of turmoil (albeit on a lesser scale and not world-wide) led to the fall of the Soviet Union. What will this kind of world-wide turmoil lead to now? Add in global warming and corresponding famine/massive migration, the end of the age of oil, our staggering national debt (which we should not even worry about balancing at this point, not right now), and the fact that many nations now possess nuclear weapons, and we are in for quite a ride.

I want to believe those pundits and economists who say that this time won't be as bad as the 1930s, that this is a "bad recession, possibly worse than the one in 1981-1982." I want to believe them. But I saw this coming long before they spoke out about it, and they have been wrong, consistently wrong, and they give no reasons for their belief that this time it won't be as bad, that we are not due another Depression on the scale of the 1930s. They believe that, but they believed the "fundamentals of our economy are sound" long after I saw the fundamentals were clearly indicating otherwise.

I want to believe those who tell me it won't be as bad, but at this point I don't. Buckle up, it will be rougher ride than any of us have ever taken in our lifetimes, and most people don't have any idea how bad it is going to get.

[I took much of my information on the 1920s and 1930s from the Dow Jones website found at http://www.djindexes.com/]

FLYING COLORS

2008-11-07T10:49:00.000-08:00

I wept with joy on Tuesday night. I expected President-elect Obama to win, yet I was surprised at how much emotion I felt when, finally, the minute the polls closed here in California I heard Jim Lehrer call the election. Expecting it all night, I was prepared to shout my joy aloud.

Instead, and to my surprise, as the words "Obama wins" scrolled across the screen, I sat down and found myself out of breath, dizzy, overcome with emotion that I did not expect to feel. "It really just happened" I kept saying to myself. My wife was popping champagne, but I had to take a moment first.

Thanks to Phil Carter for making it possible for me to play a small part in this defining moment in history. And thanks to him for continuing to serve the Republic with his work on the most impressive and professional campaign in a generation, possibly in history. But the joy I felt was not partisan. It was more than that. It was not about red versus blue, or even defeating the movement that gave us George W. Bush, the most despised president in our history. It was not even about the majesty of a nation founded upon slavery electing a black man as our leader in a time of crisis. It was all of those things, yes. But it was even more than that. It was about, as the campaign slogan said, HOPE.

I have been reading about FDR and the Great Depression recently, from William Manchester's The Glory and the Dream. As an employment attorney I knew the market crash was coming for some time. Many of my peers knew it too. We began to use the phrase "over the cliff" last year when referring to the economy. We knew the house of cards was coming down.

We face the very real possibility of the Second Great Depression. There is sure to be much more pain to come. Even with the hyperbole of the 24-hour cable networks, the true extent of the economic disaster is not yet fully understood by most. It will be worse than most people fear.

But with smart, honest, dedicated and idealistic people working to make America better, we will come through this challenge stronger, and with more freedom, than before. It will not be easy. All of us will sacrifice. But I am confident in the United States of America. I have hope.

Nobody knows what the future will bring. We face economic catastrophe, xenophobia, isolationism, famine, global climate change, resultant mass migrations on a scale never seen in human history, and the age-old scourge of war. Not the "war on terror." WAR. War between nation-states. Not because we want it. Not because others want it. Because when resources become scarce and people become afraid and xenophobic, when people are hungry and angry, they tend to fight. It is a flaw in human nature - an evolutionary survival mechanism gone awry in our modern industrialized world. There will be war - hopefully not involving us, but probably it will. World War I appeared to many at the time to have put an end to war. Europeans, people knew, had learned how horrible war was and were determined to avoid such disaster in the future. As the "Lost Generation" came to power they knew better than others how terrible war truly is, and they would not repeat the mistakes of the past. And then came the Great Depression. And then came xenophobia, instability, revolution, nationalism, and eventually the bloodiest conflict in the history of man. And only a generation after the previous bloodiest conflict in the history of man.

Now we face the Second Great Depression, global climate change, the end of the age of oil, and most of all, fear. Fear in third world nations. Fear in modernized, western nations. Hatred of the "other." Changing climate patterns resulting in famines in some areas, bounty in others. And a power vacuum left over by the end of the Cold War that has yet to be filled. And America herself, the "hyper-power," is facing the same scale of economic crisis that led to the demise of the Soviet Union.

But given the tears of joy on November 4th as our system gave voice to a people choosing hope over fear, I expect we will remain true to the ideals of our Revolution. As we did on Tuesday, as we did in 1941, as we did in 1932, and in 1860, and in 1776, the People of the United States will choose the hard right over the easy wrong. We just did so again. We will address the many challenges we face and we will come out stronger. Better. Of course not all of us. In 1860 many of us chose the path of tyranny. But as a People we will choose to reform ourselves and to do what must be done. Democracies don't necessarily make better decisions than other forms of government. Our strength is that we can change without blood in the streets. We can experiment. We can change our minds. We can replace our most powerful leaders simply by choosing to do so. And on Tuesday, the 4th of November, 2008, we did just that. Our Revolution again impressed all of humanity. We changed.

Shortly before the economic crisis became news I decided to re-read Manchester and see what we did right, and what we did wrong, the last time we faced a crisis similar to what we face now. And it was exactly on point. And scary. And yet, with the election of Barack Hussein Obama, comforting. He is not FDR, but he may be in the same league. And he needs to be. And I think he can do it. But if not, we will be ok. Because if he can not be transformative figure that FDR was, if he can not do what FDR did, we will simply get somebody who can. That is the magic of democracy. It is not about any one person. It is about the power of all of us.

If George Washington had fallen in battle, our Revolution would simply have replaced him. The People fought our Revolution, not just General Washington. He had only the power we gave him to do what we were ordering be done. WE can. Not just president-elect Obama. All of us, the American People, can and will do what we need to do. We recognize the greatness in our greatest presidents, but all power comes from the People, and if presidents, or Congress, fail us, we replace them. Our nation has decided on a different path, and we have chosen president-elect Obama to lead us there. And he will lead us there. Or we will get somebody who can. Yes we can.

In 1932 FDR was the president-elect of a bankrupt nation. As he took office the foes of freedom gathered enormous strength and prepared to attack. And we were attacked. The entire world went up in flames and evil appeared to triumph. Democracy was seen as weak and inept - because some democracies were weak and inept. Yet by the time he died in office in 1945 our nation was the richest, most powerful nation in human history - and for the most part we held true to our ideals in the midst of the worst crisis since the threat of the traitorous Confederacy. We came out better than before. We defeated Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy and Imperial Japan - and the Depression. We had the New Deal rewrite the social contract and improve the lives of the average American. The cost was staggering, in pain and in blood and in money, but we came out better than before. Yes we did.

This current crisis, while certainly the worst in our lifetimes, is not on a par with what FDR faced, nor Lincoln, and certainly not George Washington. The next few years will be terrible in many ways - many of them unforeseen and horrible - but we will come out of this crisis better than before. We will hold true to our ideals. The nation spoke on Tuesday, and our experiment with self-government passed yet another test. There will be more to come, and we shall pass those tests as well - and with flying colors.

With flying colors.

I put out the American flag today. I haven't done that for a while. Too many people attempted to make that flag stand for something I did not believe in - hate, fear, jingoistic nationalism, xenophobia. I became reluctant to fly that flag I love because it appeared to send a message I was not in agreement with.

But today it seemed to stand for only what I always thought it should stand for all along: the Republic, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

I am flying that flag today. Long may she wave.

Attorney - Client Privilege ?

2008-11-01T11:37:00.000-07:00

In the never ending saga of warrantless wiretaps by the Bush administration, a federal judge has ordered the Justice Department to produce White House memos that provide the legal basis for the Bush administration's post-Sept. 11 warrantless wiretapping program.

What I find amazing, is the claim of attorney - client privilege by the Justice Department as the rationale to withhold release of these memos. Am I wrong in thinking that the clients of the Executive Branch are We, The People? While it was the President who requested a legal opinion, and the Justice Dept who rendered same, the notion that the Justice Dept represents the President to the exclusion of the people is a rather unique twist. Had Bush sought legal advice from in house counsel, perhaps he would have a legitimate case, but when Justice provides this counsel and then seeks to hide it from the people, is that not a conflict of interest of mammoth proportions? In a situation such as this, who then, represents the people? Do I, as a citizen, have the same protection in my communications with a Justice Dept lawyer? I would seriously doubt it.

I guess the approach is to start by claiming "National Security". Then claim "Executive Privilege". Now, "attorney - client privilege". Next, perhaps, we will hear that these memos were exchanged using personal Yahoo e-mail accounts, and are thus private, personal communications, not governmental ones.

In the broadest and most extreme of views, this reeks of a government that has turned upon its people.

Al

Hats off to Brother Carter!

2008-10-27T23:46:00.001-07:00

Those of us who met on the old INTEL-Dump and have continued our cyber friendship will appreciate this IHT article. Whatever your politics, we owe a "hats off" to Phil Carter, as whatever level of camaraderie we share, Phil made it possible, and I thank him for introducing me to all of you, as well as many of the "old timers" with whom we no longer have contact.

INTEL-DUMP came into existence because Phil cares. The participants joined in the fray because we cared. Phil used a level of intellectual discourse that generally made the discussion stimulating.

Best to Phil, and best to all of you.

Al

Does this leave you a little ill at ease?

2008-10-20T04:33:00.000-07:00

I found this "Challenge Coin" today on the internet. Versions for each branch of service are available.

Are there not limits on what one can use the official seals of government agencies for? Can one use the service seals to promote obviously sectarian religious beliefs?

Is the mission of the US military "to stand against the devil's schemes"? If so, which schemes? To many who read Ephesians as part of their faith, unjust war is a scheme of the devil.

Is that a Crusader? If so, not only Muslims would be offended. Orthodox Christians still remember the sack of Constantinople.

For me, this is much more than a little bit unsettling. It's offensive.

Al

What does the story of Joe the Plumber tell us?

2008-10-18T01:57:00.000-07:00

Last night, while waiting at the port for the bride to return on the ferry from Athens, I grabbed a cappuccino and watched the news at the cafe on Greek TV. A full 5 minutes were devoted to the unfolding story of "Joe the Plumber". The newscaster's comments were certainly unflattering toward Joe, John McCain and US politics in general. My fellow coffee drinkers watched and when the unexpected turn of events were given, laughed heartily at how McCain had failed to get the real story on Joe, his occupation and less than honest representations to Obama.

There is, however, at least to me, a very telling lesson to be learned here. John McCain is running for the highest office in the land. Amongst his many claims for being highly qualified is his military service. If there is anything I learned in the military, it was that you "never come to class without having done your homework". Apparently, John forgot, or never learned this lesson.

But more significant to me, a lover of numbers and the challenge of making sense of them, Joe's comments didn't hunt from the very beginning. First, Obama's $250,000+ income population represents about 2% of the households in the US. Was this guy saying he was going to buy a plumbing firm that would set him above 98% of the households in the country? Quite a stretch. Then I thought about what level of business a plumbing firm would have to do to turn a quarter million in profit. At a 20% profit margin, he'd have to have annual sales of $1.25 million. That's a hell of a lot of plumbing at a very high profit %.

When McCain jumped upon Joe as an example of "middle class workers", that really blew me away. Again, Joe's question pertained to tax rates on the highest 2% of households. I doubt there are many "workers" in that category, and by definition, no middle class households. But, it looked like a great "GOTCHA" moment. Rather than simply say that Obama simply wanted to "spread the wealth", McCain decided to make Joe an icon of how Obama would repress the working class.

The Story of Joe the Plumber, as presented to the world by John McCain, is a fraud. First, the tax proposal being bashed does not apply to the working class. Second, Joe will never make $250,000 by buying his boss's two man plumbing operation. Third, at present, Joe cannot buy the company and operate under current licensing laws in his area.

Anyone who has taken a freshman level course in business should have seen the holes in Joe's original comments. Anyone versed in public policy should have recognized that $250,000 annual income is not representative of the middle class. Anyone who served in the military should have thought about doing some homework before thrusting this incident onto the world stage as a campaign transforming event. John McCain claims expertise in all three of these areas. As cute as it was, it just didn't hunt.

That the campaign, along with it's candidate, chose this path raises some very serious questions about both. But, in this age of sound bites, cute and gotchas, those serious questions will never be as fully addressed as, let's say, where Bill Clinton stuck a cigar.

So, what the story of Joe the Plumber tells us, is that no matter how bad our government and our elected officials perform, we deserve it. We keep electing people like this.

WASF

Al

So, what is this thing called infrastructure?

2008-10-05T00:51:00.000-07:00

A recent news item quoted snippets from the two candidates about the economy:

"I will rebuild the middle class and create millions of new jobs by investing in infrastructure and renewable energy," vowed Obama.

McCain pledged to "open markets around the globe for our products, cut taxes and expand domestic production of energy ... I will create jobs and get the economy on the right track."

I find Obama's use of the term infrastructure interesting, not because our infrastructure is not in need of investment, but because it is probably one of the more neglected and misunderstood elements of America.

On the other hand, McCain touts "market expansion" as the cure all. Expanding markets create jobs. You know, like the vast expansion of the mortgage market.

First, one should keep in mind that many significant elements of our infrastructure are not serious long term "GDP multipliers". Rebuilding sorely neglected bridges creates jobs for the construction project's duration. The bridge may be enduring, but the jobs are not. Thus, the cash infusion is finite, and any workers trained and employed in these projects will be looking for new employment at the project's completion. Yet, we need to bite the bullet and tend to this task. To me, the sound approach would be a long term infrastructure building and maintenance program that would establish, at the least, a stable labor pool, and an "industry" with a long term life expectancy. The difficulty is doing this in a tax averse, profit seeking society. We must have "growing markets", and if we are talking about tax funded infrastructure, the end result is higher taxes to "grow the market opportunities", especially if profit making firms have a vested interest in the "market". But many elements of infrastructure are societal needs, not simple capitalist markets.

So, we must avoid the pitfalls of never ending public works projects. Taxes must support necessary infrastructure. Infrastructure vital to the nation's well being. Otherwise, we become like the former Soviet Union, where vast fortunes were spent building unnecessary facilities solely to create jobs - year after year after year. Exquisite amphitheaters for band performances to entertain passing boats along the Volga River waterway, for example. When we cruised up the Volga in 1992, we saw numerous amphitheaters, facing the river, kept neat and clean, but never used. As our Russian friend said, "Build it. Engage a staff to keep it clean. Lots of jobs. Lots of Jobs. But nothing meaningful produced - not even music." Adding to the horrific burden that caused the government to collapse of its own weight.

And all infrastructure is not simply brick and mortar. Consider air transportation. Since the start of airline deregulation, the US has really had no serious air transportation policy. Safety regulations, operating regulations, airport building programs and the air traffic control system, yes. Those four areas are pretty much what represents the infrastructure of the US air transport system, and these are what are addressed in allocating the current resources and planning for the future air transportation needs of the country. Notice I didn't mention airlines. During the blood bath of "Fare Wars" in the early 1990's, Bob Crandall, then CEO of American Airlines, said that airlines were no longer anything other that the purveyors of a commodity - "cheap seats between point A and Point B". Anyone with enough borrowed money could enter "the market" with a couple of aircraft and offer cheap seats, whether or not these seats were necessary, and whether or not the business plan could ever realistically offer a profit. These low price airlines drove the rest of the industry to match their prices, as any cash flow is better than no cash flow.

Now, one might say the the flying public benefited, because they were able to save considerable money in airfares, and many more people got the opportunity to fly. On the other hand, look closely at what this "commodity" approach to airlines has created over the last 18 or so years. Employment in the industry is highly unstable. Real wage levels in the industry have fallen. Route structures are unpredictable. Every major airline (I'm including Southwest) in existence in 1990, except two, has either gone out of business or declared bankruptcy to stay in business. Billions in retirement plans as well as employee and investor saving have evaporated. All but one major airline now ships its "major maintenance" tasks to foreign sites, where quality oversight is questionable. But even if the quality is OK, highly skilled jobs are lost in the US, diminishing the domestic size of this talented labor pool in the long run. And, as we now see, all airlines are having to significantly reduce total capacity to survive, driving fares up and eliminating cities from the route network. And this contraction has hit the domestic market harder than international routes, resulting in fewer US jobs. In short, allowing "market forces" to make airlines commodity suppliers rather than an integral part of the air transportation infrastructure has had enormous long term societal cost.

If you want to jump up and shout, "What about Southwest?", I would respond that Southwest is a "niche" airline that has wisely identified and dominates its niche. It is not part of the US airline "system" in any respect other than using airports and air traffic control. You cannot book travel through Southwest outside its own system. Part of the savings in using Southwest is its use of outlying or secondary airports. If you want to travel from Amarillo, TX (as well as dozens of other cities that Southwest serves) to London, for example, you will have to change airports (at your time and expense) to connect to the transatlantic flight, carrying your baggage with you in the taxi, train or bus. And, if your SW flight is late or canceled, the airline to which you are connecting has no legal obligation to accommodate this problem. Unlike "regular" airlines, a Southwest ticket carries no cash value outside Southwest. I am not saying Southwest isn't great. I am just saying that upon close inspection, it is operating in a system of its own and provides a service separate and different from what we see as the "air transportation system". It does, however do its job well and at benefit to the flying public. But if all airlines were to adopt Southwest's model, there would be no "system" and travel would be truly chaotic.

Placing the airlines into the "infrastructure" of the air transportation system of the US would indeed stabilize the industry, and that could be done to a great measure by establishing a national air transportation policy. Here in Europe, the discounters are restricted to point to point niche markets by requiring them to generally use a secondary airport at one end of each route. Niche markets are recognized and encouraged. What Southwest does to lower costs, European regulators do to preserve infrastructure. And everybody benefits.

But the air transport system is not the only element of infrastructure that has fallen prey to free market forces. Anyone remember ENRON, or the financial "system"?

"Infrastructure" has such a noble ring. And, in the main, US infrastructure in many areas is deteriorating, often to make way for "free market" profits, as well as to gain political capital by lowering taxes. But in the end, failing to recognize, build and maintain essential infrastructure delivers a down stream bill which often far exceeds the tax savings and short term profits initially enjoyed.

Hopefully, Mr Obama knows a bit more about infrastructure than our national track record demonstrates. Should he be the successful candidate, and if he understands even the basics of national infrastructure, we may very well benefit.

Al

Thought provoking piece by John Eisenhower

2008-10-03T09:21:00.000-07:00

Today's IHT has this piece by John S.D. Eisenhower, Ike's son.

I offer it without comment, other than it's revelations and opinion are thought provoking.

What do you think?

Al

Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness

2008-09-29T13:57:00.000-07:00

One of the most delightful "finds" we made during our many summers cruising on our boat in Canadian waters was the writings of Canadian author and historian, Pierre Berton. Over time, we ended up purchasing and reading some 30 of his works.

Berton often wrote about what he perceived as a fundamental cultural difference between Canada and its neighbor to the south, a difference which he considered profound. America, he wrote, was born by an act of violence (The Revolution) and in the founding document, The Declaration of Independence, expressed that government existed to preserve certain inalienable rights, chief among which are "Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness". In short, Berton posits, a society where the sovereignty of the individual trumps the collective well being.

Canada, on the other hand, came into being some 100 years later by a rational and peaceful act of Parliament (The North America Act of 1867), and in that Act, it is stated that the purpose of the government was to ensure "Peace, Order and Good Government". Berton held that this reflects a society where the collective well being trumps the desires of the individual.

Briefly here, let me address the business of "Trickle Down Economics", also known as "The Horse and Sparrow Paradigm". This view holds that if the privileged are allowed to satisfy their desires for "Life, Liberty and Happiness", the lot of the underprivileged will rise as a byproduct, whether the wealthy want this or not. If we allow the rich to get even richer, the additional money they spend and/or invest will ultimately trickle down to the benefit of everyone. Similarly, overfeeding a horse benefits the sparrow, who will find more undigested oats in the horse's feces than it would if the horse were simply fed an adequate diet. The horse need not care about the well being of the sparrow, and indeed it doesn't. The more gluttonous the horse's behavior, the more the sparrow will benefit every time the horse shits. Greed and gluttony become suitable replacements for good intentions and human caring. Two of the "Seven Deadly Sins" are thereby redeemed and become virtues. In fact, envy, pride, lust and wrath can also be redeemed by this mindset, leaving sloth as the only real "Deadly Sin". And, the lazy deserve to suffer, don't they?

Whether or not Berton is totally accurate in his assessment of the two countries, he does make a very interesting point, and events of the past several years could readily be described as reflecting his characterization of the US. One could readily say that the excesses of the financial markets, mortgage markets and real estate markets ran unchecked because certain individuals did indeed benefit. Not every American, but enough to keep the wheels spinning as they did. During the past 7+ years, more and more Americans lost health care coverage, and more and more Americans fell into poverty. But also during those years, enough Americans acquired enough wealth and "toys" to ensure a majority that was enjoying enough "Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness" to hungrily encourage the economy and financial institutions to run higher and higher risks.

So, after 7+ years of virtually unregulated activity, the financial institutions of the US have finally screwed the pooch too much and are in desperate straits. And the general reaction? "What, use my tax dollars to bail out those greedy Wall Street pigs? Bail out people who took out mortgages they couldn't afford? They made their beds, now they can sleep in them! " Except it is not the bed that is ill made. It's a major part of the foundation of the house itself. And who will bear the greatest burden of a financial collapse? Not the rich. Not the upper middle class. Those with considerable means may suffer a lifestyle adjustment, but those of little means will find their very lives imperiled. We have devolved into a society where the least among us are dependent upon the fecal oats, and the horses' diets are about to be cut. The problem with the foundation is more rooted in culture than economics. Greed was fully acceptable to many as long as the debt creation machine catered to enough folks.

I find it interesting to see that Paulson's initial proposal was to simply burden us all to feed the horse. While I am sure he "believed" this would result in more fecal oats for the sparrows, the sparrows' well being still remains a byproduct and is totally dependent upon the horses' metabolism being over served. If you think about it, in its totality, it isn't even an efficient model, no less an effective one. At least in terms of the "common good". Resources that could directly address human needs are not available at the outset, but only after being passed through the colons of the rich. And this waste has to be picked through to find the nutrition. But then, it is not the rich that have to pick through this waste, is it?

I do not claim to know what the financial answer to the melt down might be. But I do know that the culture shift necessary for tending to the common good would be a total shock to American society. Sharing some of the oats before they are ingested by the gluttonous horse is totally inconsistent with "Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness" as we perceive it. The least of us should be thankful that oat rich feces are available for them. And if the horse suddenly has to cut its dietary intake to a simply adequate nutritional level for himself, eliminating the nutritious content of his feces, isn't the horse "sharing the pain"? I'm sure the horse sees it that way. And the sparrows can always go to the emergency room.

WASF

Al

Words worth pondering

2008-09-28T23:31:00.000-07:00

Roger Cohen recently wrote about Pakistan in the IHT.

A very notable quote from Pakistani President Zardari: "After he talked of revenge for his wife, Benazir's death, Zardari added this: "I am not a warmonger. I am not interested in physical might which is not the expression of my strength. I have many strengths, and one of them is that I can take pain, not give pain. I don't consider anyone who can give pain brave, I consider anyone who can take pain brave. That is why I consider a woman a stronger gender because she can take much more pain than a man."

Perhaps he should have been an adviser to our interrogation theory pundits!

Al

Feudal Privileges

2008-09-26T10:29:00.000-07:00

At the end of the Roman Empire Europe fell into disarray and central government ceased to exist. In its place local nobles - rich people in positions of power - began to control their own fiefdoms, leading to the degradation and inequality of feudal times. Under the feudal system wealth and power were inherited, not earned. Wealth and power had to be protected, but not earned in the first place. And as part of the feudal system, peasants were essentially owned by the nobility. The land belonged to the nobility, and the peasants working that land owed much of what they produced to the rich people that possessed that land. They also owed the rich people a duty of performing a certain amount of labor without compensation. The rich grew richer, the peasantry lived in squalor, everybody worshiped the same Jesus, and that evil system lasted for hundreds of years. Descendants of some of those "noble" families persist today, as seen in the monarchies that live on in Europe still.

Our nation fought a revolution against inherited wealth and privilege, believing in the American Dream that if you worked hard and kept your nose clean, you could prosper and leave your children in a better place than the one you were born into - in short, the "Land of Opportunity."

Today the greatest single indicator of where you end up economically at the end of your life is how much money your parents had the day you were born. There is little upward social mobility, and likewise little downward mobility. If you are born rich you are almost certain to die even richer. Born poor you will die poor, and your children will be poor. Inherited wealth and privilege are in charge again. If you don't earn over $1 Million a year, look forward to outright peasantry.

As part of an attempt to save the very rich from their own gambling addiction, our government is bailing out Wall Street to the tune of $700 Billion dollars. This will not go to hard-pressed homeowners to help them pay mortgages (something that would help the very institutions the money will instead go directly to) but rather it will be simply dumped on Wall Street. If there is junk paper out there, the taxpayer will buy it. If we don't, we are told by the very same people that led us into this staggering mess - AFTER THEY WERE WARNED OF THE CONSEQUENCES - that the system will crash. See, it was not the elimination of New Deal era laws designed precisely to prevent the very same situation we now face that was the cause of this Second Great Depression. Oh no, not that at all. Nope. If the market crashes it will be because we did not agree to shoulder a $700 billion dollar burden in order to help the very rich. If we do not do so then the system will crash and it will be our fault. It will not be the fault of a rabid and unreasonable free-market ideology, what used to be called laissez-faire capitalism (an already thoroughly-discredited notion that the very rich repackaged as "deregulation" and "freeing the markets"). It will be because we decided not to give Wall Street $700 Billion Dollars. And when questioned about whether this will even work, we are told that, honestly, nobody knows what else to do.

But what, really, does this mean?

Here is one way to look at it. There are currently about 350 million Americans. The federal minimum wage is currently $6.55 an hour. And if the bailout is $700 Billion, then each and every American - from the newborn infant to the elderly and everybody in between - is on the hook to Wall Street whiz kids (like Treasury Secretary Paulson just a few years ago) in the amount of $2,295.08. In terms of the number of hours at federal minimum wage, the government is going to order us to donate, free of charge, without compensation, over 350 hours of labor each. That translates into almost nine weeks (8.76 to be precise) of free labor for Wall Street by each of us - young and old alike, able-bodied or not, each one of us is now obligated to perform free labor for Wall Street for nine weeks. This will, somehow, help us by ensuring those that took risks with their money (not ours) and who enjoyed enormous profits and tax breaks as the rich grew richer than ever (not us) will not lose their shirts because we - the peasants, apparently - will donate nine weeks of labor to them so that the can keep their boats and cars and jet planes and servants and, in the case of Senator McCain, an unknown number of luxury homes.

And if we don't agree to that, then somehow our failure to do so will be responsible for the largest man-made and entirely-avoidable economic disaster that has ever befallen any nation in the history of the world. Not looting and corporate cronyism at the highest levels of our government. Not deliberate decisions that went against the face of history in removing safeguards put in place in the 1930s that were designed to - and while in place, DID - prevent exactly what has happened. Oh no. It will be because we didn't agree to pay, each and every one of us, over $2,000 each to Wall Street - and on top of the largest budget deficit the world has ever seen.

And the most aggravating thing of all is, to neutral and impartial observers, this "bailout" will not even work. The markets are going to fail anyway because they are unsound, they are a house of cards. But at least the rich will stay rich as we enter the Second Great Depression. After all, that is what is important to those in power. They just need to lie to us and get us riled up - abortion, terrorism, gay marriage, whatever. And we will then agree to it and despise those who try to save us from our madness because they are "liberal."

The Roman Empire had bread and circuses to distract the masses. We have 24-hour news networks - all owned by the very rich - to do the same.

Or, we could say no. We could fight back. We could vote intelligently. But given our recent history and the "issues" being discussed in this election (lipstick on pigs, Palin's "experience," whether Obama is a Muslim, and Jesus Jesus Jesus (the Savior is apparently now very comfortable with the rich and has decided He cares little for those less fortunate)), we will vote with our "gut."

Hail to the new boss, same as the old boss. And get to work - you have a staggering national debt to pay off and now Wall Street wants to cut out the middlemen and just have your tax dollars go directly to them.

I say we should let the system crash. It will be very, very painful, but it will take less time to fix and we will be able to focus our resources on those most in need of assistance as our house of cards tumbles. We will be able to rebuild on a solid foundation. And the risks of investment will be borne by investors, helping to avoid a repeat farther in history. And here is the kicker - if we decide not to do so, the system will STILL crash of its own weight, but the very rich will escape and remain rich.

I always wondered what it would be like to live through historical times. Now I wish I did not know.

Constitution??? We don't need no stinkin' Constitution!!!

2008-09-23T09:40:00.000-07:00

In an excellent piece in today's IHT, the Bush administration is exposed, once again, as having no regard for the Constitution. While we hear over and over again that we need judges who will stick to the Constitution as the Founders intended it, apparently the Executive Branch is under no such restrictions. Vice Emperor Cheney sees his office outside the restrictions of government. GWB regularly and routinely paints himself and the Executive Branch as immune to the law.

And now, to handle our current economic crisis, the Secretary of the Treasury proposes:

"Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency," the original draft of the proposed bill says.

"The Secretary is authorized to take such actions as the Secretary deems necessary to carry out the authorities in this act," the proposed bill read when it was first presented to Congress, "without regard to any other provision of law regarding public contracts."

It goes on to say, "Any funds expended for actions authorized by this Act, including the payment of administrative expenses, shall be deemed appropriated at the time of such expenditure."

Indeed, as Sorkin offers, this is the financial equivalent of the Patriot Act. In fact, in my opinion, it makes the Patriot Act look like small potatoes in terms of subverting the Constitution. This is lunacy!

According to another IHT piece, Senator Chris Dodd had strong words for Paulson this morning:
He called the Treasury proposal "stunning and unprecedented in its scope and lack of detail."

Asserting that the plan would allow Paulson to act with "absolute impunity," Senator Dodd said, "After reading this proposal, I can only conclude that it is not only our economy that is at risk, Mr. Secretary, but our Constitution, as well."

But then, when has this administration really exhibited any concern for the Constitution?

I have to hand it to Paulson, however. Asleep at the switch since he came into office, he now proposes himself as the unitary figure to dole out a staggering sum of taxpayer money, demanding accountability to no one at all. Truly a Bush Republican.

Mercifully, it seems that players on both sides of the aisle have reservations with Paulson's creation of a totally autonomous new branch of government. Hopefully, saner heads will prevail and quickly put a workable solution in place before a total meltdown occurs.

Perhaps GWB & Co's next crisis management step should be to postpone the Nov election indefinitely. It would be in keeping with their track record so far.

WASF

Al

When Government fails to govern

2008-09-14T23:14:00.000-07:00

Perhaps it is time for our populace to read the dictionary entry for the word govern, a word which arises from the Latin gubernare; to steer. Implicit in the noun "government" is the action of "governing". And governing involves controlling, guiding, directing and other actions that significantly influence the course of events in the entity being governed - for the positive. We had governors on our aircraft engines, specifically to prevent catastrophic overspeeds. One would expect those who are in the position of governing to act, in advance, to prevent societal overspeeds as well.

Comment by Alan Greenspan in regard to the current financial melt down:

"This is a once-in-a-half-century, probably once-in-a-century type of event," Greenspan said in an interview on ABC. "I think the argument has got to be that there are certain types of institutions which are so fundamental to the functioning of the movement of savings into real investment in an economy that on very rare occasions — and this is one of them — it's desirable to prevent them from liquidating in a sharply disruptive manner."

It's an interesting statement, but it leads me to ask, "If certain types of institutions are so fundamental to the functioning of the movement of savings into real investment in an economy, and these institutions have been subject to federal oversight and regulation, why didn't you oversee or regulate them?"

I have posted before that our current "free market" capitalism is unfettered capitalism only until things go horribly wrong, and then a government (socialist) solution is applied, at taxpayer expense. The bill for the "free lunch" always arrives. It's just delivered at a later day to someone who never got to eat the meal. If our government were to govern, then bail outs would not be so necessary.

My simple summary of the mess is that folks saw that there was money to be made in the mortgage market. But there is a finite number of people who can really afford taking on a mortgage obligation. Thus, the market for soundly issued mortgages was fixed. The lenders were faced with a pie of finite size that they had to fight over. But fixed size markets are not the American way. So the market had to be expanded, and that was done by issuing mortgages to people who did not have any business borrowing such sums of money. Thus, the creation of new mortgage packages that made it appear, by smoke and mirrors at the time of issuance, that the borrower did qualify. Sort of like Army enlistment standards - when you can't find enough people who meet the realistic standard, redefine reality and lower the standard. Within a short period of time, these marketing geniuses had written billions and billions of dollars in mortgages to a hell of a lot of people who had nowhere near the means to successfully meet the long term conditions of these mortgages. And Bob's your uncle. Totally predictable. Lots of short term profit and impressive "economic health" indicators, but a toxic mix with a ticking detonator.

My cynical take is that our GOP friends ( and perhaps most of the country) have no concept of what Infrastructure is, and how it is vital to the sound functioning of the country. Profits are not infrastructure. Expanding markets are not infrastructure. Infra structure holds and supports the organism. When you weaken infrastructure, the organism collapses. Infra structure requires preventative maintenance. Infrastructure needs to be maintained in a manner that supports current and future need for the organism to be healthy. Governing is part of that task.

So, we awake this morning to the collapse of Lehman and Merrill-Lynch. Both as a result of a failure of the government to govern. And yet, there is a cry from a certain segment of the population for even less governing.

And as a P.S. about government failing to deliver, here's a piece from the IHT about us overseas voters getting assistance in casting our ballots this Nov. Note that is is not our government that established this exceptionally helpful program.

WASF

Al

Theater of the Absurd

2008-09-11T02:01:00.001-07:00

While riding our Vespas around northern Italy, we were able to pick up snippets of the presidential (and vice) selection process on the TV. No indepth coverage (perhaps mercifully) but enough to witness theater of the absurd unfold before our very eyes.

We arrived home late last night, and in this morning's IHT, found two very appropriate pieces. Reporting from Lake Woebegon, Garrison Keillor hits the nail right on the head (or is it "hits the finger right on the nail"?) when he describes the state of affairs as "Forget the past - it's only history". From the very start of the John and Sarah show, my mind drifted back to the days when Abe Beame ran for mayor of New York City on a platform of cleaning up the fiscal disaster the city was suffering. Bill Buckley, one of his opponents, wisely noted that Beame was, for all intents and purposes, running against his own record, as his was the sitting Comptroller of the city, and had previously served as budget director for several years.

Now, we have a couple of GOP "mavericks" running for office against, make that stridently against, the record and actions of their own party over the past 10 years or so. And thousands of convention supporters cheered them on. Not one seemed to realize that the mess they are screaming to clean up is not only of their own making, but rooted in the very ideals of their party. A good summary of the past seven years of GOP wonderment was also provided in the IHT this AM as well.

And then there is the new approach to "Family Values" we find. Now, a high school junior who becomes pregnant out of wedlock is a national role model because she is "going to keep the baby". Apparently abstinence is unnecessary as long as you decide to keep the child. Wasn't it just a few years ago when a sitting president's extra-marital BJs were condemned for the "horrible example" it set for America's youth? While the sins of the children should not be visited upon the mother, isn't it a bit absurd that this unwed, pregnant child has been elevated to role model super star? Hell, what I wouldn't have done for a role model like that when I was in high school. All those girls who held onto their virginity out of fear of pregnancy would have easily fallen to my charms if they were presented with the stardom of the GOP's current day moral standards.

I wonder who the McCain/Palin pair would be willing to identify as the top 20 GOP Pork Barrel violators? I also wonder if they would be maverick enough to tell their constituents to throw those 20 out of office this Nov? Indeed, while serving as Gov, Palin's Alaska received more pork $$$ per capita from the US than any other state. Virtually all with Palin's support or by her request.

Oh, well, we Americans must be bringing it upon ourselves. We are a new country with no sense of history and a corresponding lack of memory.

But then, even if it's Theater of the Absurd, at least it's theater.

Al

Six little words

2008-09-05T14:51:00.000-07:00

Six little words

David Sirota, Creators Syndicate, Inc.

Friday, July 25, 2008

History books teem with six-word phrases, from the comforting ("Nothing to fear but fear itself") to the inspiring ("Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall") to the embarrassing ("Read my lips, no new taxes"). But the six words, "on the basis of union membership" could be more momentous than any of those. Though hardly Franklin D. Roosevelt's rhetoric, Ronald Reagan's bluster or George H. W. Bush's clumsiness, the clause could solve America's wage crisis.

Of course, when Tom Geoghegan told me this in a Chicago park two weeks ago, I almost snarfed my coffee through my nose. Solving major social problems typically demands more than six words. But as the longtime labor lawyer and author explained his idea to me on a muggy afternoon, it started making sense.

Geoghegan reminded me that data show the more union members in an economy, the better workers' pay. The problem, he said, is that weakened labor laws are allowing companies to bully and fire union-sympathetic workers, thus driving down union membership and wages.

Enter Geoghegan's six words. If the Civil Rights Act was amended to prevent discrimination "on the basis of union membership," it would curtail corporations' anti-labor assault by making the right to join a union an official civil right.

"Hang on," I interrupted. "Joining a union isn't a civil right?"

Correct.

Under current law, if you are fired for union activity, you can only take your grievance to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) - a byzantine agency deliberately made more Kafkaesque by right-wing appointees and budget cuts. Today, the NLRB takes years to rule on labor law violations, often granting victims only their back pay - a tiny cost of doing business.

Union leaders are now focused on reforming the NLRB - an admirable goal - but Geoghegan's plan implies that workers are harmed by being legally leashed to Washington in the first place. His proposal says rather than being forced to rely on an unreliable bureaucracy for protection, workers should be empowered to defend themselves.

The six words would do just that. Regardless of whether the NLRB is strengthened or further weakened, persecuted workers would be able to haul union-busting thugs into court. There - unlike at the NLRB - plaintiffs can subpoena company records and win costly punitive damages.

Bolstering his argument, Geoghegan told me to consider variations in corporate behavior.

For example, because the Civil Rights Act bars racial discrimination, businesses are motivated to try to prevent bigotry: They want to avoid being sued. This is why no company brags about being racist.

But when it comes to unions, there is no such deterrent. The lack of civil rights protection effectively encourages businesses to punish pro-union employees - and publicize the abuse to intimidate their workforce. By making the six words law, the dynamic would shift. Companies would have a reason - fear of litigation - to respect workers' rights.

When Geoghegan and I finished chatting, I remembered why I believe he is America's most talented writer and thinker on labor issues. His relative anonymity is a tragicomic commentary on the media and the American Left. The Milton Friedmans are celebrated by pundits and cast in bronze by conservative think tanks, while the Geoghegans are dismissed by the chattering class and ignored by a progressive movement that regularly venerates Hollywood celebrities as its heroes.

Perhaps, though, this proposal will change things. In developing a way to shift incentives, Geoghegan has discovered a solution that both unionists and economists can love. It cribs the best from liberals' pro-union sympathies and conservatives' distrust of Big Government, and should make him famous (or at least a Cabinet secretary). After all, anyone who can bring such disparate ideologies and adversaries together is worthy of serious consideration - as is his six-word stroke of genius.

David Sirota is a bestselling author whose newest book, "The Uprising," was released in June. He is a fellow at the Campaign for America's Future and a board member of the Progressive States Network - both nonpartisan organizations. His blog is at www.credoaction.com/sirota.

This article appeared on page B - 11 of the San Francisco Chronicle

DNC Video tonight

2008-08-27T12:58:00.000-07:00

UPDATE: Here is the link to the video: http://gallery.demconvention.com/Default.html?VideoID=525

and on Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JLq8hmmxcOA

I am in a video that will be shown at the DNC convention. It is scheduled to air between 7 and 8 pm Denver time. Here is an article that appeared in Variety today about it:

http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117991199.html?categoryid=1064&cs=1

Spielberg DNC film honors veterans

Tom Hanks narrates Cohen/Jinks production

By TED JOHNSON

Steven Spielberg has directed a film short on the country's military veterans that is scheduled to unspool tonight at the Democratic National Convention.
Spielberg plans to attend the convention tonight, although he is not expected Thursday night when Barack Obama accepts the nomination at Invesco Field, according to a spokesman for the director.
The film is narrated by Tom Hanks and was produced by James Moll, Bruce Cohen and Dan Jinks. The music was composed by John Williams
The Democratic National Convention Committee is drawing on industry talent throughout this week. Davis Guggenheim, director of "An Inconvenient Truth," is reportedly working on an Obama film to be shown Thursday. Ken Burns and Mark Herzog were behind the video tribute to Edward Kennedy on Monday. Linda Bloodworth-Thomason and Harry Thomason made the Hillary Clinton film that was shown before her convention appearance on Tuesday.
Spielberg has taken creative roles in conventions past. In 2004, he consulted on a documentary about John Kerry that was directed by James Moll.
Spielberg endorsed Clinton in the primaries, but he and his partners in DreamWorks, Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen, are expected to host a fund-raiser for Obama, perhaps in September, if the candidate's schedule can be so arranged.

Sixty Years Since Truman Desegregated the Military

2008-07-23T05:42:00.000-07:00

July 26 is the 60th anniversary of Truman's desegregation executive order. The AP has an interesting Insight piece on the subject.

Our comrade, IRRSoldier has posted often about ROTC abandoning certain demographics. Well, according to the AP piece:

A review of congressional nominations to the military academies shows that black and Hispanic lawmakers often recommend fewer students.

The fewest appointments to the academies came from Rep. Nydia Velazquez, D-N.Y., who forwarded just three names for the classes of 2009-2012. Two other members of Congress _ Massachusetts Democrat Michael Capuano and New York Democrat Jose Serrano_ sent up five names.

According to Pentagon data, the number of lawmakers who failed to nominate at least one candidate to each academy increased from 24 in 2005 to 38 this year. Of the 75 lawmakers overall who did not nominate someone to each academy in all four years, 40 were either black or Hispanic.

It would appear that some members of Congress have no interest in people from their constituencies becoming career military officers. Or, perhaps, the people in their districts do not seek military careers, even for a free education. IMHO, another downside of the AVF.

Al

But he's not "endorsing" Obama

2008-07-19T22:19:00.001-07:00

Woke up to this interesting tidbit.

Seems that the Iraqi prime minister would like to see us out of his hair as soon as possible. Perhaps he feels that our presence only keeps the pot stirred. Further, McCain's "100 years, if necessary" cannot be a pleasant thought.

It will be interesting to see what comes of Obama's visit to Iraq.

And the beat goes on

2008-07-15T09:28:00.000-07:00

In response to a question today as to why he had not stepped up and encouraged Americans to start conserving fuel, Pres Bush stated that the consumer was smart enough to to see the current price of fossil fuel and figure it out for himself. He said that consumers respond to market forces, and there was no need for a president to tell them what to do. That's why he lowered taxes, so that more money would be in the hands of these wise consumers to use as they see fit.

If that's the case, Mr President, then why are trillions of tax dollars going to be spent to rescue the free market mortgage and banking industries from greed, consumer excesses and flat out stupidity? Is it not incumbent upon a "leader" to offer sage counsel on issues effecting the nation at large? Or would suggestions of reigning in markets run amok be bad for business?

WASF

Al

Not Even Original Thought

2008-07-02T01:05:00.000-07:00

This morning's IHT had an interesting piece on the origins of harsh prisoner treatment at Gitmo. Seems that our people can't be given a passing grade for originality on that program. Weren't even creative enough to rewicker the chart used, other than to change the title to remove the reference to the ChiComs.

I must add, they weren't even creative in using the materials. Same names for the techniques, etc.

So tell me all you commie hating, democracy loving folks, how does it feel to know we simply mimicked what we condemned 30 years ago?

Surprised? Hell no. Saddened? Extremely.

FISA and immunity for telecoms companies

2008-07-01T15:21:00.000-07:00

My excellent Congressman responded regarding FISA and immunity for telecoms. I am not sure I agree with his rationale entirely, but he certainly provided a lot of detail and food for thought (below).

He refers to Mr. Bush's program as the "terrorist surveillance program." I think that is a mistake.

This is not about terrorists. Of course we should listen in on terrorists. And if Americans are involved in terrorism (Tim McViegh certainly was), we should listen in on them too. OF COURSE we should. Wiretaps are necessary.

This is about who oversees those wiretaps - the courts, like the People commanded in the Constitution, or just Mr. Bush and those he appoints - not a group known for getting things right on anything in the past, not a group known for putting partisan politics aside, thus not a group we should trust in the future.

I want all terrorists and suspected terrorists bugged, monitored, surveillance on them 24/7, I want their mail opened and read, I want their Internet activity in the hands of the government. I want the same for suspected terrorists. I want us to find them and eliminate them. That is not what this debate is about.

The problem is that Mr. Bush says he can't do that successfully if he has to allow a judge to be involved in that process in any way. Because of "national security." And he won't explain why, he just wants us to trust him. When questions are raised he attacks the questioners and pretends the issue is whether we should listen to terrorists. That is not - never has been - the issue.

Yes, we should listen to terrorists and suspected terrorists. Damn right we should spy on them. I don't hear anybody who says otherwise. But why can't a judge oversee that process like the Founding Fathers commanded? Mr. Bush won't even explain, he just keeps insisting that it is "complicated" and "national security" and "we need to listen in on terrorist phone calls." Well, yes, we do, but why not allow a judge to oversee the warrants like we do for every other kind of dangerous crime? Like the Constitution says? Like the FISA law passed by Congress and signed by President Ford says after they considered those same issues very carefully?

Yes we need to listen in on terrorist phone calls, but why can't we trust our judicial branch instead of trusting only the executive branch? The Constitution says they both have to agree that a warrant is necessary - but wiretaps can start immediately without any warrant, a judge just reviews it later - and there is even a special, secret, top-security clearance court just for that - the FISA Court, with judges that have the highest security clearances around. They even approved 99.99 of all warrants that were asked for in the past (the president won't even ask them). And they are fast - ask for a warrant after you have already started, and you will have a response in hours - and you never, ever, ever have to wait before you listen, you listen first and then ask later - and if the warrant is denied (less than .001 of 1 percent of the time) you aren't in trouble, you just have stop because the very-agreeable top-security clearance court thinks you are way out of line (such as "we have to bug Obama's office - terrorism you know."). The president didn't even ask for warrants - he just ordered the NSA to listen in anyway and screw the Constitution and the rule of law and the People and the Judicial Branch. And this wasn't in the hours and days after 9/11, this went on for years, and even after he pushed through the Patriot Act. He never even asked for a law to allow him to do so even when the Republican majority was giving him anything he wanted including a war in Iraq. He didn't even ask - he just did it, and still won't say why. And then, when it was a problem, he stopped (or says he has) - but if it was so vital to our national security, why? He still refuses to explain. After all, he is the president and there are scary terrorists out there you know.

Why couldn't the president use that special secret court and stay within the law? He refuses to explain - instead, as I said, he twists the discussion so it becomes one about whether we should bug terrorist phones instead of how we do it. He won't trust the FISA court, but he wants us to trust him - and he is breaking the law every time he refuses to get a warrant. Why? He won't say. Is it possible that perhaps he is spying on his political opponents, digging up blackmail info against congressmen, etc. Oh, of course not. He would never stoop so low, right? Right?

Sorry, Mr. Bush - the people didn't trust George Washington with such power (warrantless searches), and I think we had (and have) a little more confidence in his abilities and fidelity to the law than to you. If we didn't trust George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, or FDR, given the huge threats they faced, I really don't see that we should confer such authority on you. That you just decided to take it anyway, hoping that by calling it the "terrorist survelliance program" it would silence critics because you could make the debate about scary terrorists and "weak-kneed liberals" rather than getting warrants like the law says, is certainly not a reason for us to trust you - even if you had a good track record of honesty and being right, which you sure as hell don't.

Which leads us to the immunity for telecoms companies that gave the executive branch of the federal government all of your emails and phone calls (yes, you too - ATT, for instance, allowed the NSA to monitor and copy everything on their networks - not just terrorists or suspects, but every email, phone call, text message, everything - yours and mine too. And they still have that data.). The president was willing to trust ATT, and ATT trusted the president - and the courts and the Constitution be damned, the president didn't trust either one.

And now lawsuits against ATT and others are tossed out. I was against that idea. Mr. Schiff voted for it. He explains why below, and I think he may be right. In any case, it was a tough call and he explained why he voted as he did. I am not sure I agree, but I sure will be proud to vote for Congressman Schiff again. I wish there were more dedicated public servants like him in Congress:

Dear Mr. Henderson:

Thank you for contacting me regarding the recent vote on the FISA Amendments Act. I appreciate hearing from you and welcome your feedback.

As you know, the House recently considered H.R. 6304, the "FISA Amendments Act of 2008." This legislation is intended to update the original Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) to ensure that our intelligence agencies can operate effectively, while ensuring that we respect the rule of law and the privacy and civil liberties of the American people.

In December 2005, we learned that the President was engaged in warrantless eavesdropping of Americans, contrary to law. In response, I introduced the "NSA Oversight Act" - legislation that clearly prohibited these actions by reiterating the exclusivity of FISA and our criminal wiretap statutes with regard to domestic electronic surveillance. After the Republican Leadership refused to consider my legislation, I offered an amendment on the House Floor that came within 7 votes of shutting down the President's Terrorist Surveillance Program unless it was brought under court supervision. Shortly after, the President announced that the activities under that program would be ceased and brought under FISA.

Nevertheless, I continued to believe it was necessary for Congress to respond to the President's dangerous assertion of unilateral authority in this area. Therefore, I offered an amendment on the House Floor in 2007 that clearly stated that FISA is the exclusive authority for engaging in domestic surveillance for foreign intelligence purposes. My amendment passed by a vote of 245-178, and marked the first time that Congress spoke on this issue. Unfortunately, this language was stripped out by Senate conferees.

As you know, Congress has continued to work to address this issue in order to formally bring all of our intelligence activities within the framework of FISA. Last year, Congress hastily passed the so-called "Protect America Act," legislation that I strongly opposed. Since that time, Congress has considered alternatives in order to restore civil liberties protections in this area. Earlier this year, a measure was proposed that passed overwhelmingly in the Senate. The Senate bill did not include sufficient protections for the civil liberties of Americans, and included provisions that would provide for retroactive immunity to certain telecommunications companies. I could not support this bill.

In order to prevent enactment of the Senate bill - or a reauthorization of the so-called "Protect America Act" - an alternative compromise bill, the "FISA Amendments Act of 2008," was proposed on the House side. While this legislation was imperfect and included items that I would have preferred were removed, the bill also included important civil liberties protections that I have fought for over the last two and half years.

As you know, the final bill included language that provides a summary procedure in the district court to determine whether the telecommunications companies should be immune from civil liability for complying with the surveillance requests of the Bush Administration. I pushed for a different process by which a court could fully hear arguments on the merits of these cases, including any defenses available in current law, while also ensuring that classified information was protected. Under this process, an inspector general would be tasked with representing the privacy rights of the American people, and the court could make an independent determination about whether companies violated the law by cooperating with the government. My proposal was not adopted in the compromise, and regrettably, far weaker language was adopted on this issue.

Although this was not the language I preferred on the immunity issue, the final bill also included key provisions that will protect the civil liberties of Americans. Specifically, the bill finally responds to the President's assertion that he can eavesdrop on Americans without a court order, by clearly stating that FISA and our criminal wiretap statutes are the exclusive authorities governing this area. Without this language, nothing will stop this president or future presidents from claiming the inherent authority to wiretap Americans without a court order. The proposal also provides for important oversight by the FISA court on the front-end, contains new protections against warrantless surveillance of U.S. persons abroad, and includes important safeguards to protect against reverse targeting of Americans. These important provisions made this a compromise I could support on balance, and I joined Speaker Pelosi, Senator Obama , and others in supporting this compromise.

The bill requires a full review by the Inspectors General of our national security agencies and of the President's warrantless wiretapping program to determine what took place in the past and to ensure accountability going forward. I continue to believe that Congress should fully investigate the actions of the Administration in this area. No immunity is provided to any government official who may have violated the law.

As a member of both the House Judiciary Committee and the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, I intend to carefully monitor our nation's intelligence activities and to closely review the report by the Inspectors General. Since the bill includes an important sunset provision that calls for the expiration of the law in 4 years, Congress will be able to make any additional revisions needed and to ensure that any abuses are addressed.

An on-going job of a Representative in Congress is to help constituents solve problems with federal agencies, access services, and get their questions answered promptly. I also encourage you to subscribe to the Washington Update, my email newsletter which contains information on local events, my work in Washington , and even lets you weigh in on important issues through online polls. Visit me online at http://schiff.house.gov to subscribe. Please know that you can always reach me at (626) 304-2727 or via my website if I can ever be of additional assistance.

Thank you again for your thoughts. I hope you will continue to share your views and ideas with me.

Sincerely,

Adam B. Schiff

Member of Congress

Supporting a Declaration of War Should Be The Same As Volunteering to Fight It

2008-06-26T18:54:00.000-07:00

The same day I posted my idea for a "token draft" of 10% of the force to ensure all Americans are at war, not just the military, this appeared in the USA Today. No, I did not read it before my post, it was simply a coincidence. I think the history is off - during most of America's history we had an all-volunteer force supplemented by a draft in wartime, not just since 1973 - but the points are valid. Here is the article in full:

All-volunteer Army: An ongoing experiment

By Leonard Wong and Stephen Gerras

In 1973, the military draft ended, and our nation began the experiment of manning an Army exclusively with volunteers.

A decade later, Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger proclaimed, "To all the American people, I would say that the experiment is over. We know that an all-volunteer force can succeed, and we know what it takes to make it succeed."

And yet, perhaps today we really don't know all it takes to make the all-volunteer force succeed. Five years of war have turned recruiting for the Army into a continuous struggle. The challenge, however, is not merely recruiting enough soldiers, but "quality" soldiers.

A "quality" soldier is motivated to serve, learns quickly and flourishes in the Spartan conditions of military life. To assess "quality," the Army relies on a high school diploma as an indicator of motivation, higher aptitude test scores as a marker of trainability, and the absence of a criminal record.

Lower standards

Because more recruits lack high school diplomas or require waivers for misconduct, the Army developed plans for programs such as a prep school to attain a GED or more focused training to compensate for lower aptitudes. These recruits have proved very competent.

But the Army is more than enlisted soldiers. There is also the officer corps. Unlike the enlisted force where re-enlistment rates have been high, officer retention continues to be a problem.

The Army's recent incentives, including a $35,000 bonus, have failed to persuade enough captains to stay in uniform, especially officers from top-tier ROTC schools or West Point. These officers, who eventually account for the majority of Army senior leaders, are critical in providing the future direction of the military. These officers are also extremely marketable, even in a tight job market.

What should be done? One option is to mimic the enlistee-recruitment approach. The Army can lower standards to bring in more lieutenants, bypassing the requirement to attend ROTC, West Point or even college. Good training can compensate at the tactical level for the lack of an ROTC or West Point experience in the short term.

Future leadership

As officers progress through their careers, they are called on more for their ability to handle the unknown. But unlike corporations, the Army cannot hire external senior leaders. Bringing in lower-quality lieutenants today will result in lower-quality generals tomorrow.

Another option is a significant drawdown in Iraq, thereby giving our warriors a break from multiple deployments. Besides being a political rather than a military decision, however, this alternative is only a short-term fix that sidesteps the real issue.

The real issue confronting today's Army derives from three aversions held by Americans:

* We are skeptical of a sizable military. "The spirit of this country," Thomas Jefferson noted, "is totally adverse to a large military force."

* While many Americans yearn for some form of national service, few are eager to revisit the inequities of conscription.

* Americans have a low tolerance for long wars.

When the all-volunteer Army was envisioned 35 years ago, few predicted that it would be downsized from a force of 800,000 then to 547,000 today. It was assumed that the all-volunteer force would be supported by a standby draft and that long wars would not be measured in decades, but in years. The result is an Army struggling to maintain quality — especially in its officer corps — in an environment unforeseen by its architects.

Even after we eventually leave Iraq, the Army will still have to attract and retain quality people. Considering the circumstances, it appears this experiment called the all-volunteer Army is not over.

Retired lieutenant colonel Leonard Wong and retired colonel Stephen Gerras are faculty members at the Army War College. Their views are not necessarily those of the Army.

Posted at 12:15 AM/ET, June 25, 2008 in Forum commentary, Military issues - Forum

The Last Full Measure of Devotion - at a discount rate

2008-06-25T12:47:00.000-07:00

As the war in Iraq drags on, I would like to point out something that all Americans should agree with regardless of whether you support the war or, like me, thought it idiocy from the start. That something is this: the burdens of this war have not been equally shared by the American People.

The Army and Marines are at war, the rest of us are not. It is not fair. It is a national disgrace.

We have never before asked, to paraphrase Winston Churchill, of so much from so few. And yes, we owe them so much. But we should never have asked for so few to bear the burden of this war. The Army said it needed more soldiers before we invaded. It still, over five years later, does not have them. We should be ashamed of ourselves. If the "surge is working," imagine if we had enough troops at the start! But here is the problem: regardless of whether the surge is working or not, we are still fighting in Iraq and we are sending the same soldiers over and over and over again. That is despicable.

It is not ok to say "well, they volunteered." The idea of our "all-volunteer military" was never, NEVER, intended to be like that of the French Foreign Legion. They are not a mercenary force and must not become one or we are all in danger. In World War Two we did not use only our pre-war all-volunteer military. We as a nation went to war, not just the Army and Marines.

An "all-volunteer military" is a standing army, in peacetime and for short and quick engagements, not for times of extended war. That has ALWAYS been the case in American history. We have had an "all-volunteer military" before - in fact, for most of our history the Army has been all-volunteer. We only initiated a peace-time draft - for the first time in US history - in 1940, to prepare for World War II. Why? Because it was understood - and always understood - that an all-volunteer military serves in peacetime so that we are prepared for war, but once we are in a war that lasts, that can't be handled quickly, the nation will - and should and must - mobilize. That is what we have done in the past. We did that because it was the right thing to do - whether our wars were just or unjust, our nation went to war as a nation. Agree or disagree, but we were in it together. E Pluribus Unum. The United States. When we don't do that we lose the war - and we lose our soul. And we are losing our national soul.

We have not mobilized. Five years down the line, with the Army and Marines worn out by repeated combat tours, we still have not mobilized. Whether you agree or disagree with Mr. Bush's Iraq policy, we should have mobilized to fight a war that we as a people authorized. We should be angry - and ashamed - of our betrayal of our volunteer military. We have betrayed our troops.

This is not, as some have called it, "Mr. Bush's war." Mr. Bush had to get - and he recieved - Congressional authorization for invading Iraq. OUR NATION DECLARED WAR, NOT MR. BUSH BY HIMSELF. And yet we let the same soldiers return to Iraq again and again and again and again. How disgraceful and shameful.

When the idea of a draft for this war was first raised, pre-invasion, many who "support the troops" were against it because it would harm the professionalism of an all-volunteer military. I disagree. We can keep the professionalism by having a limited - call it a "token" if you will - draft, ensuring that most of the Army remains volunteers, but ensuring that when our nation is at war that we all face the risk that we or our loved ones will face danger and might die. Perhaps a draft of 10% of the force - if the Army has 550,000 soldiers, we draft 55,000 young men and women to serve alongside the volunteers, and the same percentage for the Marines - and we ensure they serve in combat. For each draftee that does not make it through training and join a unit, we draft another. 1 draftee among 10 volunteer soldiers will not harm the professional nature of our all-volunteer military, and it will mean something much more - that our nation feels it is at war instead of just the military being at war. We will be in it together - as we should be when we declare war - not the Army, which does not and should not have the power to order our nation to war. We have that power - and we should face the consequences. Anything less is national cowardice.

And if that is "politically impossible" for this war, what does that say about this war? And what does it say about our nation? If our nation truly must wage war, it must do so. If not, it should not. To say we must wage war but not me or my family, send somebody else, I'm busy is a recipe for the destruction of the republic, a dangerous recipe for military adventurism without domestic political safeguards, and a recipe of absolute betrayal of our troops so many bumper stickers so easily - and falsely - claim to support.

If the nation is not willing to draft soldiers to fight the war, then the nation is not willing to fight the war and the People will have spoken. Agree or disagree as you may, that is the will of the People and that is supposed to be how our nation conducts itself - with the People as sovereign. Those who would not want to even ask the People to do so because they are afraid the People will refuse such a draft are doing two things:

1) betraying the troops they falsely claim to support - by not supporting them, and
2) betraying the cause of democracy they claim this war is all about.

For those who refuse to "enable" this war by a draft because they disagree with it, they are doing two things:

1) betraying the troops they falsely claim to support - by not supporting them, and
2) betraying the cause of democracy they claim their opposition to this war is all about.

Since 9/11 we have acted as a terrorized nation filled with cowards. Tough talk? Shocked by my words? Then imagine this: you are at a party with 1,000 people. There are 300 "bad guys" outside who attack and try to kill guests. 100 party guests who see what is going on rush to defend everybody inside the party, and they are outnumbered and are struggling to hold back the "bad guys." The rest of the 900 guests continue to party. The band plays on, the dances go on, the guests feast on shrimp cocktails, while the initial 100 guests fight to hold back the angry horde of bad guys who want to rush in and attack everybody. The host of the party occasionally takes the stage and says "let's have a round of applause for the volunteers!" and the guests cheer and then go back to partying. When the volunteers are exhausted they stagger back inside to rest - and after catching their breath, they are ordered back to the fight by men in tuxedos munching on shrimp who pat them on the back and say "I support you" and then return to the dance floor rather than help. When some guests criticize the way the fight is being conducted, the host tells them they don't understand the nature of the "bad guys" and the crowd boos the critics, accusing them of not supporting the 100 volunteers. The 100 volunteers return again and again to the fight. The 900 guests never do - they just continue partying while talking about how much they admire the volunteers. Eventually few of them even want to talk about the fight, they mostly ignore it.

Now imagine a similar scenario, except the "bad guys" didn't start it, and the 100 volunteers warned that it would be a disaster and said they needed help - and were ignored. Now imagine 5 years of this. You don't have to do so, it is the war in Iraq.

We as a nation have betrayed our Army. The Army remains loyal to the will of the People, but we as a people have not remained loyal to our Army. We have not supported them. We have instead partied on. Now we don't even talk about the war - it has mostly disappeared from the news.

A friend of mine who was killed last year - a great man, I served with him for years and my wife and his wife went to college together and we introduced them, and they were the only guests at our wedding (we eloped) - has two daughters. He served long before 9/11 and long after. He died from an IED in Iraq. The pain from his death continues - and most of us have no idea of that pain, it is not real for us, the dead are, for most of us, not real people, the soldiers in Iraq are not people we know. Our nation is not at war, only the military. My friend's wife wrote this recently about the death of her husband (I didn't ask her for permission to post this so I have redacted all identifying info):

I remember standing in the Atlanta airport, stranded, telling my crying daughter we would make it home and it was going to be ok, but not knowing where home was or if it was going to be ok. And fitful sleeps, violent dreams, and living off a cup of coffee and a brownie, one of our friends brought by. And reading the last letter, mailed just days before his death, then finding the notes hidden in our Christmas stockings, "Daddy will be home soon, I love you."

[redacted]'s loss is still so hard to fathom. But he loved me enough, to help me find my strength and use it. He loved me enough to show me the way. He loved me enough to make me a home. He loved me enough to show me how to have pride in honor, duty, and country. Our wounds will never heal fully. It is a daily struggle of learning to live with them, and trying to finding the joy in today and remembering the joy of the past.

A joy of the past... One of my favorite stories that makes me smile and laugh was our last motorcycle trip together to Charleston, North Carolina. It was gorgeous, the flowers were blooming the spring weather was perfect, and our new headsets were working great. We could talk helmet to helmet or listen to the radio. As we were headed back, I began one of my many bla, bla, rantings, or so [redacted] must have thought. He unplugged my headset so he wouldn't have to listen! I couldn't believe it, "plug me back in," I tried to scream through the helmet. He motioned back that he couldn't hear me, and I could see the huge grin behind his helmet. "Every husbands' dream," I thought, as I now sat in silent solitude on the back of the bike, "a mute button for the wife." A few miles down the road, I was magically plugged in again, on the condition that my rantings were over, and we had a good laugh.

Well, enough of my rambling, remember the grin, the huge arms and broad shoulders, and all those funny stories. In our hearts he will live forever.

He certainly will live on in my heart. Those fighting and dying in Iraq and Afghanistan are real flesh-and-blood people. They don't want to die. They don't want to be deployed. They love their families. They prefer being home to read bed-time stories to their children over facing danger and filth and tragedy in a foreign land for years at a time. But they do it because they obey the orders of the People - imagine the dedication to democracy it takes to obey such an order. Now imagine it if you have a family and you are facing your fourth tour. Imagine if, like a dear friend of mine, you are facing another tour in Iraq and your son was killed in Anbar province in 2005 because he followed in your footsteps. What have you done to support him? Plaster a bumper sticker on your car? How brave and selfless of you. For those who think he chose to serve in Iraq because he volunteered, my friend did not volunteer to fight in Iraq - he joined the Army in the early 1980s. He served - and continues to serve - to protect and defend the Constitution. He remains loyal to it. He didn't start the war. We did. What are you doing to support him? Don't you think you should do a little to support the Constitution too, since you and the rest of us are the reason for his being in Iraq? Or is it ok to just let him and his family bear the cost for our decisions?

We have betrayed these soldiers. We are dancing at the party and ignoring what we ordered them to do, as if it were their decision to wage war instead of our own. "Oh, I was against the war so it is not my fault." Yes, it is. Our nation declared war and you are part of it. That you let others bear the burden is not ok. And many soldiers were against the invasion too - but they did their duty. It is our duty too. We have shirked it. We have let a mere few bear the burden and that is national cowardice. We refuse to make hard choices - although we made the "easy" decsion to go to war. We started it, we have avoided the consequences, letting the same few face the danger time and again. That is cowardice. There is no other word that fits. It is cowardice.

If our nation thinks the way to wage wars is to send the same men again and again and again and again while the rest of us continue to party, we have become an evil and despicable people. If you disagree and think us better than that - then I ask WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO SUPPORT THE TROOPS? Call your congressperson, write to your Senator, and let them know we should have a "token draft" - and you should do this whether you are for or against the war. This isn't about politics, it is about support for our troops. It is about our nation bearing responsibility for our national decisions. It is about self-government. It is about whether democracy should survive in the United States.

And if you do not, all the bumper stickers you paste on your cars are nothing but lies. And you know it.

Speaking of "Patriots"

2008-06-24T02:04:00.000-07:00

FRESNO, Calif. (June 23) - John McCain distanced himself Monday from a top adviser who said another terrorist attack on U.S. soil this election year would benefit the Republican presidential candidate. Barack Obama's campaign called the comment a "complete disgrace."

Were I able to make my mind live in OZ, I would be able to say that Black's comment surprises me. Sadly, I have come to the conclusion that winning the election is much more important than the well being of our nation and its people.

I have received all too many right wing e-mails that support this tortured logic. Stuff like "The terrorists are holding back only to get Obama elected.", or "If Obama gets elected, we deserve another 9/11."

I would not be surprised if these mutts haven't put together a campaign package ready to capitalize politically on any terror incident between now and Nov.

It is quite perplexing that one can be charged with a felony for discussing the impact of a bomb while in an airport, but not for discussing the political "benefit" of it in a magazine interview. How anyone can discuss a terror attack in terms of "benefit" is beyond me, unless, of course, you are the terrorist.

I would be so uplifted to hear anyone say, "Discussing human tragedy in terms of the political gain it can deliver is blasphemy."

WASF

I just couldn't resist

2008-06-24T00:51:00.000-07:00

On a flight from Athens to London last week, I ended up sitting in the waiting area next to two young ladies who had just graduated from a major university. An Australian woman was talking to them, and she expressed her confusion over our recent "primaries and caucuses" and how it seemed that there wasn't a consistency. One young lady said, "Well, we elect our presidents by using an electoral college." In response to the Aussie lady's obvious increased confusion, I offered a very brief explanation of the primary and caucus process, explaining that these were how the parties, using party rules, selected the delegates to the conventions, and the final candidate was officially selected at the convention. Each state has relatively free to determine how it selected it's delegates, I added.

The Aussie lady, then asked the two young ladies who they were supporting. Again, the same girl answered, "Well, I really don;t think I could vote for Obama", which drew the expected response, "Why". "Well, I come from a conservative family. Even if I didn't, there's a lot about Obama I can't accept. I am more patriotic, I guess." The second girl simply stayed out of the conversation.

The conversation then drifted to what the girls would do upon return to the US. The quiet one said she would be continuing in an MBA program. The other said she wasn't sure, but was thinking about doing something that could be a "life altering experience" first, such as a couple of months of missionary work in Guatemala.

I ended up in the row in front of the two on the plane, and we exchanged a couple of pleasantries about this and that. Learned that the more talkative one attended the same high school as our oldest grandson. They asked what I did, and I told them that I was retired military.

As we were deplaning, I wished the MBA candidate good luck with her studies, and then said to the other, "Are you really looking for a life altering experience? Why don't you consider military service?" Her initial response was to look at her friend, who gave a "Well, why not?" look. "Oh, heavens", she said. "I'm not cut out for that at all." I responded, "We need bright, educated officers who are dedicated to our country. How would you know you aren't cut out for something you haven't tried?"

Well, she hummed and hawed and then said, "My dad served in the Navy. I don't think he'd want me to join."

I decided to let it end at that. The MBA candidate was grinning from ear to ear. I wished them both well and went on my way.

I have wanted ever so long to pose "The Question" to a self professed patriotic conservative college kid. I just couldn't resist.

Another Fighter for Freedom - RIP George Carlin

2008-06-23T12:46:00.000-07:00

Rest in Peace, George. You are already missed.

In his honor:

you know the seven don't you? Shit, Piss, Fuck, Cunt, Cocksucker, Motherfucker, and Tits, huh? Those are the heavy seven. Those are the ones that will infect your soul, curve your spine and keep the country from winning the war.

You don't have to serve in the military to further the cause of freedom. Thank you for all your criticism of our United States of America, George. Our Republic is better off because of it, not in spite of it.

Learning from the United States

2008-06-18T04:40:00.000-07:00

The Bush Administration has been trying to get China to adopt a more market driven monetary policy. This recent snippet from AP gives a glimpse of how much authority our suggestions carry:

China has pledged to loosen currency controls, but has not given any timetable, saying that sudden change would expose the country's shaky financial system to excessive risks from outside speculators.

During the talks in Annapolis, Md., China's central bank governor, Zhou Xiaochuan, alluded to such risks by asking about the regulatory mistakes that may have helped precipitate recent U.S. financial troubles.

"China always hopes to draw lessons from the U.S. experience in macroeconomic management and market development," the official Xinhua News Agency quoted Zhou as saying. "However, during this time of discussion, we are also interested in drawing lessons from the U.S. financial turbulence."

Among the questions Zhou said raised was the role exchange rates can play "in maintaining the world's financial stability."

Seems China is more interested in learning from this administration's mistakes than the administration itself!

What's that old Chinese curse about interesting times?
215 DAYS, 10 Hrs, 15 Min, 44.8 Sec - but who's counting?

This is how they support our troops

2008-06-16T12:20:00.000-07:00

Soldiers risk ruin while awaiting benefit checks

2008-06-16 14:07:45
By MICHELLE ROBERTS Associated Press Writer

SAN ANTONIO (AP) — His lifelong dream of becoming a soldier had, in the end, come to this for Isaac Stevens: 28, penniless, in a wheelchair, fending off the sexual advances of another man in a homeless shelter.

Stevens' descent from Army private first-class, 3rd Infantry Division, 11 Bravo Company, began in 2005 — not in battle, since he was never sent off to Iraq or Afghanistan, but with a headfirst fall over a wall on the obstacle course at Fort Benning, Ga. He suffered a head injury and spinal damage.

The injury alone didn't put him in a homeless shelter. Instead, it was military bureaucracy — specifically, the way injured soldiers are discharged on just a fraction of their salary and then forced to wait six to nine months, and sometimes even more than a year, before their full disability payments begin to flow.

"When I got out, I hate to say it, but man, that was it. Everybody just kind of washed their hands of me, and it was like, `OK, you're on your own,'" said Stevens, who was discharged in November and was in a shelter by February. He has since moved into a temporary San Antonio apartment with help from Operation Homefront, a nonprofit organization.

Nearly 20,000 disabled soldiers were discharged in the past two fiscal years, and lawmakers, veterans' advocates and others say thousands could be facing financial ruin while they wait for their claims to be processed and their benefits to come through.

"The anecdotal evidence is depressing," said Rep. John Hall, D-N.Y., who heads a subcommittee on veterans disability benefits. "These veterans are getting medical care, but their family is going through this huge readjustment at the same time they're dealing with financial difficulties."

Most permanently disabled veterans qualify for payments from Social Security and the military or Veterans Affairs. Those sums can amount to about two-thirds of their active-duty pay. But until those checks show up, most disabled veterans draw a reduced Army paycheck.

The amount depends on the soldier's injuries, service time and other factors. But a typical veteran and his family who once lived on $3,400 a month might have to make do with $970 a month.

Unless a soldier has a personal fortune or was so severely injured as to require long-term inpatient care, that can be an extreme hardship.

The Army, stung by the scandal last year over shoddy care at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, has been working to help soldiers during the in-between period, said Col. Becky Baker, assigned to injured soldier transition at the U.S. Surgeon General's Office.

In a change in policy that took effect last August, the Army is allowing wounded soldiers to continue to draw their full Army paychecks for up to 90 days after discharge, Baker said. It is also sending more VA workers to Army posts to process claims more quickly, and trying to do a better job of informing soldiers of the available benefits and explaining the application process.

"We make certain that we've covered all the bases before we discharge the soldier," Baker said.

She acknowledged, however, that the changes have been slow to take hold across an Army stretched by war. "It's definitely a practice that is new. It takes awhile for new practices to be institutionalized," the colonel said.

Stevens was moved to the Operation Homefront apartment after a social worker at Tripler Army Medical Center in Hawaii, acting on her own initiative, rescued Stevens from a homeless shelter there.

"This is a situation where someone used their common sense and they did the right thing, versus saying, `This is the rules. We can't do this,'" Tripler spokeswoman Minerva Anderson said of the social worker.

Typically, the first 100 days after discharge are spent just gathering medical and other evidence needed to make a decision on disability, VA officials say. If paperwork is incomplete, or a veteran moves to another state before the claim is decided, the process can drag on longer. Disagree with the VA's decision, and the wait time grows.

"The claims are a lot more complicated than people think," said Ursula Henderson, director of the VA's regional office in Houston.

Amy Palmer, a disabled veteran and vice president of Operation Homefront, which helps newly disabled servicemembers, said: "Nobody's assigned to them. You're on your own once you get out."

Hall is pushing legislation that would force the VA to use compatible computer systems and more consistent criteria and to reach out to veterans better.

"A veteran goes and serves and does what the country asks them to do," the congressman said. "But when they come back they're made to jump through these hoops and to wait in line for disability benefits."

Simon Heine served three tours in Iraq as a tank mechanic before he was discharged with severe post-traumatic stress disorder.

His wife quit college so she could figure out how her four children could live on less than $1,000 a month. Eventually, she moved the family of six into an Operation Homefront apartment so they could finish navigating the bureaucracy and wait out the arrival of Social Security and VA benefits.

"It is like giving you a car and taking the steering wheel off. They say, `There is the gas and the brake. Just go straight,' and hopefully, you are going in the right direction," Heine said.

Freedom is...

2008-06-15T18:21:00.000-07:00

F the CC

I used to listen to the radio
And I don't guess they're listenin' to me no more
They talk too much but that's okay
I don't understand a single word they say
Piss and moan about the immigrants
But don't say nothin' about the president
A democracy don't work that way
I can say anything I wanna say

So fuck the FCC
Fuck the FBI
Fuck the CIA
Livin' in the motherfuckin' USA

People tell me that I'm paranoid
And I admit I'm gettin' pretty nervous, boy
It just gets tougher everyday
To sit around and watch it while it slips away
Been called a traitor and a patriot
Call me anything you want to but
Just don't forget your history
Dirty Lenny died so we could all be free

Steve Earle
From the CD: Revolution Starts Now

France Bashing

2008-06-14T02:11:00.000-07:00

Received the following from our 47 yr old son.

A group of Americans, retired teachers, recently went to France on a tour. Robert Whiting, an elderly gentleman of 83, arrived in Paris by plane. At French Customs, he took a few minutes to locate his passport in his carry on. 'You have been to France before, monsieur?' the customs officer asked sarcastically. Mr. Whiting admitted that he had been to France previously. 'Then you should know enough to have your passport ready.' The American said, 'The last time I was here, I didn't have to show it.'

'Impossible. Americans always have to show their passports on arrival in France !' The American senior gave the Frenchman a long hard look. Then he quietly explained. 'Well, when I came ashore at Omaha Beach on D-Day in '44 to help liberate this country, I couldn't find any Frenchmen to show it to.'

I'm sure it was an innocent sharing of "humor", but it hit my hot button and I told him so, sharing a bit of history with him.

While France bashing became vogue under this inept administration, the details of history make us look less than stellar compared to 1940's France.

Yes, the Germans did indeed invade and conquer France with 136 divisions, 2,600 tanks and 3,200 aircraft, defeating the French military, and driving the British Army's 10 divisions into the sea at Dunkirk. They occupied only 1/2 of the country, and the first two years of occupation were "benevolent" by Nazi standards. Immediately after the fall of the French Govt, the Resistance began to grow. Accurate numbers are not available, except for the German records of Resistance members captured and imprisoned. That was about 56,000 over 4 years, of whom about 1/2 survived. The Resistance was a number of individual groups, all working to thwart or drive out the Germans. It is estimated that on D-Day, the Resistance numbered some 250,000 and about 100,000 members assisted the Allies landing at Normandy. Eisenhower is said to have opined that without this assistance, the landing might have failed. By the end of 1944, it is estimated that there were some 1.2 million Resistance members.

Many factors are said to have contributed to the lack of a more violent initial general resistance to the German occupation. First was the belief by many French that help was on the way from their old allies, the US and Britain. Of course, Britain was preoccupied with its own survival in 1940, and the general population of the US couldn't care less about France. The somewhat benevolent nature of the occupation in the beginning helped generate a "patience", reinforced by the belief that the Vichy govt was free to work out a "plan" and the Allies could be expected to help. Of course, while Vichy France was not occupied, the German intelligence network knew everything that was going on, and the Vichy govt quickly learned this and the consequences of resistance.

Summarizing the Resistance in terms of the general French population (40 Million), there was about 0.5% of the population in the Resistance on D-Day, rising to some 2.5% within a few months.

On 9/1/91, 19 men attacked the US armed with boxcutters. No divisions, no tanks, and just 6 highjacked airplanes. These 19 people stirred up such a great level of fear in the American population that they willfully surrendered many of their Constitutional rights and supported an invasion of another country out of fear of a third or forth rate dictator and weapons he did not possess. A general "war on terror" was launched. The main forces in this war were the Army and Marine Corps. On 9/1/01, they represented 0.4% (active and reserve) of the population. Seven years later, these forces still represent 0.4% of the population, and it has taken extreme measures (Lower standards, big signing bonuses, raising max enlistment age to 42, etc) to maintain that level of manning. In short, the numbers of people "answering the call" following 9/11/01 has been nothing like the 2.5% figure of 1944 France.

The French were wrong in thinking the US would immediately come to their defense in May 1940. Indeed, we did not enter the war until 19 months later, and then only after we were attacked by the Japanese.

The French were right in saying that Saddam posed no WMD threat to anyone, nor was he a major player in 9/11 or any other Al Qaeda operations.

So, how do you justify French bashing??

Just needed to vent.

Al

Sad News - RIP Gen. William Odom

2008-06-05T11:27:00.000-07:00

Our nation lost one its most distinguished and brightest public servants recently, Gen. William Odom, US Army, Ret.

Gen. Odom was a brainiac. With such intelligence and such dedication he could have done anything. He chose to be a soldier. His service to our republic was exemplary.

General Odom spoke truth to power. He did not "go with the flow" and was not a general that would "go along to get along." In other words, he would have been forced out during this administration. He was one of the finest general officers the US Army has ever produced.

As the Bush Administration continues to claim that "everybody" thought it was right to invade Iraq based on "the intelligence" they had at the time, Gen. Odom's words before we invaded show the lie that truly is:

“The issue is not whether the Iraqi people will greet U.S. soldiers as their liberators, but what will they do six months after that,” Mr. Odom told The Washington Post in February 2003. “I find it naïve and disingenuous to claim that you can create democracy in Iraq any time soon.

“The administration has already assured us that the U.S. will not stay there for very long,” he added, “and, if that is the case, then the goal of establishing a constitutional system in Iraq is a joke.”

....Mr. Odom was dismissive of Iraq as a potential threat to the United States. Once the war was under way, he argued that the United States was in effect fighting only for the interests of Iraq’s regional rivals, Israel, Iran and Al Qaeda.

The Odom family's service to our republic continues. I had the honor of serving under the command of Gen. Odom's son, LTC Mark Odom, the most outstanding and inspiring and dedicated officer I ever met.

Rest in Peace, General Odom. You have my gratitude for all you did to protect and defend the Constitution and the fine example you set for the soldiers of the United States Army. The Army was a better institution for your having worn that honored uniform.

Freedom of the Very Expensive Press

2008-05-30T11:37:00.000-07:00

From the NYT:

Katie Couric, the anchor of “CBS Evening News,” said on Wednesday that she had felt pressure from government officials and corporate executives to cast the war in a positive light.
Speaking on “The Early Show” on CBS, Ms. Couric said the lack of skepticism shown by journalists about the Bush administration’s case for war amounted to “one of the most embarrassing chapters in American journalism.” She also said she sensed pressure from “the corporations who own where we work and from the government itself to really squash any kind of dissent or any kind of questioning of it.” At the time, Ms. Couric was a host of “Today” on NBC.
Another broadcast journalist also weighed in. Jessica Yellin, who worked for MSNBC in 2003 and now reports for CNN, said on Wednesday that journalists had been “under enormous pressure from corporate executives, frankly, to make sure that this was a war presented in a way that was consistent with the patriotic fever in the nation.”....
Mr. Williams, who was an anchor on MSNBC at the time, emphasized the climate of “post-9/11 America.” In the early days of the war, he said, he would hear from the Pentagon “the minute they heard us report something they didn’t like.”

Not everybody agreed the press had failed America:

“I think the questions were asked,” Mr. [Charles] Gibson, who was a host of “Good Morning America” before the war began, said in response to Ms. Couric. “It was just a drumbeat of support from the administration. It is not our job to debate them. It is our job to ask the questions.”

Is that the same Charlie Gibson who along with George Stephanopoulos were the moderators of a Democratic debate and spent most of that time asking about American Flag lapel pins? He is right - he asked very important questions. Here is part of an article about that debate:

For the first 52 minutes of the two-hour, commercial-crammed show, Gibson and Stephanopoulos dwelled entirely on specious and gossipy trivia that already has been hashed and rehashed, in the hope of getting the candidates to claw at one another over disputes that are no longer news. Some were barely news to begin with....

Gibson sat there peering down at the candidates over glasses perched on the end of his nose, looking prosecutorial and at times portraying himself as a spokesman for the working class. Blunderingly he addressed an early question, about whether each would be willing to serve as the other's running mate, "to both of you," which is simple ineptitude or bad manners. It was his job to indicate which candidate should answer first. When, understandably, both waited politely for the other to talk, Gibson said snidely, "Don't all speak at once."
For that matter, the running-mate question that Gibson made such a big deal over was decidedly not a big deal -- especially since Wolf Blitzer asked it during a previous debate televised and produced by CNN.

Thanks for your input, Chuck. I am sure your corporate masters are pleased with your response. Here is a pat on the head, and run along and play now. Good Boy.

I am not sure Ms. Couric's or Brian William's corporate masters are pleased with them, though:

A spokeswoman for General Electric, which owns NBC and MSNBC through its division NBC Universal, declined to speak about the specifics of the comments but said, “General Electric has never, and will never, interfere in the editorial process at NBC News.”

Well, GE, Ms. Couric just said that was not true. Are you lying, or is she? You can't both be right, you know. Either GE is lying, or Ms. Couric and Brian Williams - two of NBC's premier anchors - are liars.

Not all journalists drank the kool-aid. Some took brave stands and spoke truth to power. Some paid a high price. And many journalists have died in Iraq trying to bring the truth home to the People - more reporters have died covering the Iraq war than any other. And Phil Carter, a lawyer and a journalist, volunteered for a year-long tour in combat in Iraq with the 101st Airborne, and he did not cheerlead this war and has questioned authority. He and I disagreed about the war before it began (I always thought it would lead to disaster and was not justified) but he never once questioned my patriotism and admitted he was unsure about it. Not all journalists drank the kool-aid.

But most did. Some were like Charlie Gibson - they chugged down gallons of the stuff, wallowed in it, swam in it. They enabled this war. And they still are.

So here in the USA we have a free press. As long as you have millions of dollars to pay for it, it is free for you to buy and manipulate how you want. Our press is pretty much just like our federal government these days - free to the first buyer, and the price is very high.

And the price for us allowing that to happen? Our freedom.

A Secret Plan to End the War? Nooooo........

2008-05-28T21:15:00.000-07:00

From CNN:

Sen. John McCain strongly criticized Sen. Barack Obama Wednesday for not visiting Iraq in more than two years and for turning down the Arizona senator's suggestion that the two should make a joint trip to the country....

McCain's comments come the same day the Republican National Committee launched a clock on its Web site noting how many days it has been since Obama traveled to Iraq, and three days after his supporter Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-South Carolina, suggested the presumed Republican nominee and Obama tour the country together.

Gee, thanks for not trying to score cheap political points off of the war, Senator McCain. Sure, Mr. Bush might try to make unseemly and shameful partisan political attacks while overseas to score a few votes. But not Senator McCain. Oh, no. Not him. He would never stoop to cheap partisan tricks like Mr. Bush, instead he puts America first.

When two US Senators who are the presumed nominees of their respective parties and are actively campaigning against one another for the presidency spend several days "touring" the combat zone together there would be no chance of partisan politics and unseemly campaigning overseas, correct? Can you think of a better way to ensure we don't bring our messy partisan disputes into another country than by having the two leading candidates tour the combat zone together to present a united front? After all, what could go wrong? Neither would try to use such a visit to score cheap points, instead they would put our nation and our soldiers first and display national unity and patriotism, right?

McCain later said he agreed the Democratic presidential contender should accompany him on an upcoming trip, adding that he would "seize that opportunity to educate Sen. Obama along the way."

Sigh....

Sen. McCain didn't even finish out the day without trying to score points off of his proposed visit. Way to show you are the anti-Bush, Senator McCain! What better way than to follow the Rove playbook and make our soldiers and their sacrifices merely another shameful 30-second sound bite again, the war merely a "gotcha" event suitable for dividing our once United States yet again. Way to support the troops, Senator! Just like with his opposition to the GI Bill, Senator McCain supports the troops all the way.... to yet another tour in Iraq.

Perhaps on your trip you can educate Mr. Obama on economics, Senator McCain? Maybe by visiting a market and talking about how safe it is? As you do so, be sure to share your expertise with him. Mr. Obama's inexperience and lack of military training foolishly and naively led Mr. Obama to warn the invasion of Iraq was not a good idea. Yep, what a fool he made of himself, right Senator McCain? Share your "expertise" and "educate" him, Senator McCain.

Before the invasion McCain was one of the most prominent voices telling the American people that Iraq would be “easy” and that Americans would be "welcomed as liberators." Now he wants to "educate" Senator Obama. Here is how Senator McCain tried to "educate" the American people before we invaded Iraq:

“And I believe that the success will be fairly easy.” [CNN, Larry King Live, 9/24/02]

“I believe that we can win an overwhelming victory in a very short period of time.” [CNN Late Edition, 9/29/02]

“Do you believe that the people of Iraq or at least a large number of them will treat us as liberators?” “Absolutely. Absolutely,” replied McCain. [MSNBC, Hardball, 3/12/03]

“There’s no doubt in my mind that once these people are gone that we will be welcomed as liberators.” [MSNBC, Hardball, 3/24/03]

Ahhh, the expertise, the experience, the just plain being as wrong as one can be.

But don't think Bush or McCain are the only ones to use a war to gain cheap votes. Nixon was elected in part because he claimed he had a "secret plan to end the war." Of course there was no plan., Although he was elected in 1968 we didn't pull out combat troops until 1973. Eisenhower famously said he would go to Korea, and that helped elect him - but did nothing to end the Korean conflict. Guess who Eisenhower's running mate was? Richard "secret plan to end the war" Nixon. McCain is merely following a shameful and despicable precedent.

What a straight-talking maverick. Now imagine if he somehow wins the election and becomes president.

'bout time you admitted what we all know

2008-05-28T00:09:00.000-07:00

via CNN:

The spokesman who defended President Bush's policies through Hurricane Katrina and the early years of the Iraq war is now blasting his former employers, saying the Bush administration became mired in propaganda and political spin and at times played loose with the truth.

In excerpts from a 341-page book to be released Monday, Scott McClellan writes on Iraq that Bush "and his advisers confused the propaganda campaign with the high level of candor and honesty so fundamentally needed to build and then sustain public support during a time of war."

Really? Gosh, what a shock that all of the critics turned out to be right, and all of the defenders of the administration turned out to be wrong. Well, not a shock exactly, five years into this war, post-Katrina, with Bush and Osama Bin Laden now battling it out for who the American People are more disgusted by (I vote Bush, Osama never lied to us and killed fewer Americans, and he admits he despises us and admits the harm he has done).

My question is this: why should we allow those who betrayed our nation and furthered policies they KNEW to be wrong and dishonorable to profit from such tell-all books? In some states so-called "Son of Sam" laws prevent people from profiting from their crimes, such as murder, by selling books recounting the gory details - instead all the profits are taken away and given to the relatives of the victims. We can't ban free speech, but it would be nice if the relatives of the dead soldiers could sue those like Scott McClellan, who watched the administration betray the People, could have done something about it but instead helped that betrayal, and who now wants to sell books and make money off of his crime.

I hope somebody on his book tour asks him why he did not speak out or resign, and keeps pressing if he tries to avoid the question like he did all questions in his press conferences - if he doesn't answer the question, the host should say "the book sucks, don't buy it."

But I know I am dreaming. The truth is, they got away with what they did to America.

At times they played loose with the truth? Yep. And the rest of the time they just lied their ass off.

Update: Stephen Colbert puts it nicely: "Scott McClellan's new book accuses Bush of lying to get us into Iraq. That took balls, Scott... FIVE YEARS AGO."

That's one reason the man has his own show. I write pages and pages, he says more in single sentences.

A Sign of the Times

2008-05-25T22:54:00.000-07:00

After seven years of observing what I thought was repugnant political manipulation of and pandering to the military, I am heartened to see that ADM Mike Mullen has begun to tell the troops to stay out of partisan politics.

Mullen said he was inspired to write the essay after receiving a constant stream of legitimate, if troubling, questions while visiting U.S. military personnel around the world, including, "What if a Democrat wins?" and, "What will that do to the mission in Iraq?"

While his writings address his spot-on guidance, sure would like to know how he handled this on the fly, and, if he answered in a manner consistent with his "all hands" message, whether intermediate commanders had the courage to fully reiterate this important guidance.

During the Clinton impeachment, there was a desire amongst some of the more vocal Republicans to see if the service chiefs would be willing to testify as to whether the troops willingness to obey the president had been weakened by the scandal. Since none of the chiefs took the stand, it would appear that the then serving crop of generals were not about to get sucked in to what I would call a pure and simple mutiny. Perhaps ADM Mullen's Navy roots helped him stand up to the plate and caution the troops to avoid mutiny and preserve one of the most sacred ideals of our American military.

It does offer a bit of hope.

Al

A Call To Arms and Minds

2008-05-25T14:13:00.000-07:00

I sure hope we pay attention to this short essay by Ben Stein, "Running Out of Fuel, But Not Out of Ideas".

I'll quote part of it:

imports supply nearly two-thirds of our daily needs, according to the United States Energy Information Administration. Most of this oil comes from countries that are either unstable (Nigeria) or whose leaders or people dislike us (Venezuela, Saudi Arabia).... If there were another oil embargo, we would be in real trouble. If Mexico fell into chaos, if Venezuela stopped sending us oil, there would be extreme hardship.
Beyond that, what if we are close to peak oil — that point at which we have pumped out more than half the oil on the planet? What if supply slips and demand continues to skyrocket, as they are already doing, and these trends continue indefinitely? What if the world has a bitter fight over its remaining oil? Even if this battle is fought with money and not guns, we are at a disadvantage with our pitiful currency and our budget and trade deficits.
In my humble view, we are now in a short-term oil bubble. It will pass and correct, as bubbles do. And speculators will make millions, whichever way it goes. But the long run is terrifying. If we are at or past peak oil, if oil states stop or even hesitate to send us the juice, if Canada decides not to fill our needs, we are in overwhelming trouble....

He suggests we provide incentives to the oil companies. Most of us may not agree that oil companies need "incentives" other than profit. Profits are incentives. They need not be windfall profits to be effective incentives. Still, the profit margins of the oil companies are not relevant to the amount of, and finite nature of, the supply of the oil they sell. They don't make it, they just go and get it. When it runs out they can't make any more - and it will run out regardless of what they charge us for it.

He doesn't view global warming as a crisis on a par with running out of gasoline, but whether we go green or risk disaster from global warming we will still stop using fossil fuels. That is the nature of a finite supply - it will not remain abundant.

I agree with Mr. Stein that we are in a temporary oil bubble - there has not been a slow-down in production world-wide, all trade routes are open, and while demand continues to rapidly rise as China and India industrialize, it isn't rising faster than predicted. There is a record price in oil but no record shortage to go along with it. But the price of oil today, high or low, is not the point.

Mankind - and this may include our great-grandchildren in the near future - is going to stop using fossil fuels like it or not. I don't know if the needle on the gauge of the world's gas tank is closer to F, at the half-tank mark, or closer to E. That low-fuel light might be blinking, I don't know. We could argue about how much is left in the tank all day long. What should concern us is there are no filling stations with more gas for us ahead. Not "no gas next 100 miles." No gas for forever.

The Oil Age will end. The solution, hopefully, is to develop alternative energy. Mr Stein cites Glenn Beck, warning "we need a new moon-shot mentality here."

Sort of. I think we need to treat it as a national crisis to a larger degree. We need to plan for what to do in case of emergency, and we need a long-term plan to ensure our standards of living do not fall. We need to think in terms of the Cold War, yes, but not just the moon-shot - this effort will need to be much greater than that. The moon shot was only part of the Cold War. Think of the entire effort. We face our own tsunami, typhoon, hurricane, earthquake, whatever you want to call it - and this is not dismissive of the tragedy of events like the current tragedies in Burma and China. A worldwide and persistent fuel crisis has the potential to cost more lives, to reduce standards of living even lower, than any earthquake or flood or storm. Unlike a storm or earthquake, though, this threat might be and should be preventable.

And if not, then we prepare for it and carry on as a republic and a civil society - but we must face this crisis with more courage and more wisdom than we have used so far.

WHY IS SEN. MCCAIN NOT SUPPORTING THIS GI BILL?!?!

2008-05-22T20:32:00.000-07:00

“I take a back seat to no one in my affection, respect and devotion to veterans,” Mr. McCain said. “I will not accept from Senator Obama, who did not feel it was his responsibility to serve our country in uniform, any lectures on my regard for those who did.”

This was in response to Sen. Obama's criticism of Sen. McCain due to his opposition to the new GI Bill. When Obama learned McCain opposed the New GI Bill he said:

“I respect Senator John McCain’s service to our country. But I can’t understand why he would line up behind the president in opposition to this G.I. Bill.”

And thus Sen. McCain's response, above.

Given that when Sen. Obama turned 18 there was no draft and, like today, we had an all-volunteer military, my first of two questions is this:

Is there anything wrong, in a time of an all-volunteer military, with Sen. Obama - like the vast majority of Americans - not choosing to enlist?

If there is something wrong with that, why does that just apply to Sen. Obama and not to the vast majority of American citizens who have not volunteered to serve since the draft ended in 1973? Of course it would apply to all of them too. Sen. McCain just insulted the majority of the American voting public, implying that they did wrong when, just like Sen. Obama, they did not voluntarily enlist in the military.

And if a citizen is not doing wrong if they don't enlist, how is Sen. McCain's response in any way relevant to the debate over the New GI Bill - a bill designed to help those who DID volunteer, in a time of war, to serve in the military? Why does Sen. Obama's not enlisting - like 98% of his peers and all young men since then - mean that Sen. McCain is right to oppose this New GI Bill to help those who have served since 9/11? Of course the answer is IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THE NEW GI BILL.

Most people don't voluntarily enlist. I chose to do so, and I am glad I did so, but I never thought less of my fellow citizens who did not want to join the Army. I never thought they were second-class citizens or that they lacked patriotism. Apparently Sen. McCain does.

So on to my second question, with a quick fact for those who don't know me: I am a US Army infantry veteran who enlisted, served as a rifleman, drill sergeant, and commissioned infantry officer. I am proud of my service.

I don't know why my second question should only come from veterans, but it seems important to Sen. McCain. So here it is, Senator McCain: from someone who did choose to serve in uniform:

Why is Sen. McCain opposed to providing the same opportunity and recognition to this generation of combat veterans as our nation provided for our World War Two veterans?

It seems to me that this generation of veterans deserves it - especially since they are ALL volunteers, and this generation of soldiers has seen more combat - MUCH MORE - than did the generation of soldiers who fought World War Two.

This is not (or should not be) a conservative/liberal question, a red state/blue state question. This should be about whether this new GI Bill is something today's new veterans deserve.

I think they deserve it. Why don't you, Senator McCain?

FYI I am not speaking out of self-interest. I am not a veteran who will benefit from this new GI Bill - I was out of the military and a civilian attending law school on 9/11, and Sen. Webb's new GI Bill only benefits those veterans who have served in wartime since 9/11 - thus not me.

The Chain of Blame

2008-05-20T19:19:00.000-07:00

From a comment I made at Phil's new blog:

I am so sick of hearing how the Army was unprepared for counterinsurgency warfare in Iraq. It is BS. It is not true.

We had full-spectrum capability in March of 2003. We trained to fight in full-scale "high intensity warfare" using tanks, infantry fighting vehicles, heavy artillery, etc. We did it too, and successfully, in the first Gulf War and again in the invasion of Iraq in March 2003. We knew how to do that in March of 2003.

We trained in mid-intensity combat as well, prepared to fight modern foes in urban terrain with more limited heavy forces and with noncombatant civilians on the battlefield - we trained for it for years at the JRTC. And we did it too, in Panama for instance (and what we did wrong we discussed - such as not having enough civil affairs, relief supplies, etc.) We knew how to do that in March of 2003.

We trained in low-intensity combat scenarios as well, including counter-insurgency. It was part of every rotation at the NTC (during RSOI week) and at the JRTC, and we even have an entire branch expected to master it - the Special Forces branch. But SF is not expected to wage such wars alone. Many units had FID/UW mission on their METL, and our experiences in Vietnam left a whole host of literature on the shelf - something I was expected to know as a junior "conventional" infantry officer. We even had debates about "nation-building," remember, long before the "election" of 2000? And we did it too, or were prepared to do it, in places like Macedonia, Bosnia (SFOR for instance), and Columbia (advisors and aviation only for the latter). And we watched as other nations struggled with such missions, including European nations in the former Yugoslavia, or Russia in Chechnya. We knew how to do counter-insurgency in March of 2003.

We even trained for smaller-scale contingencies, which used to be called "OOTW" - operations other than war. And we did it too, in places like Haiti, or with Cuban refugees, and in disaster relief operations after earthquakes and hurricanes. We knew how to do that in March of 2003.

And in Iraq the Army was ordered - ORDERED - not to plan for the post-war occupation and EXPECTED insurgency. Why? Because each time the Army began to plan for it the result was clear: the Administration was lying to Congress and the People about what it would take to win in Iraq. And the Army, through the Chief of Staff, warned that it would take hundreds of thousands of more troops, and billions more dollars, and many more years, to succeed in Iraq - and he was ignored. When he retired he was snubbed. Turns out the Army was exactly right.

The story that the Army did not know what to expect and did not understand what was coming and did not possess the capability to respond is false. It is a lie. It is a way to blame the Army for the sins of the president - and the sins of a rubber-stamp, cowardly congress that cared little about anything but avoiding being painted by Rove as weak on national security after 9/11.

And why would they fear that? Because a frightened and uninformed public refused to pay attention to anything other than 30-second commercials and 10-second sound bites. In short, ALL OF US ARE TO BLAME. We were a stupid electorate, and we got a stupid government in response. That is how democracy worked. We are to blame.

But not the Army. Had it been allowed to do what it knew best to do, what it said must be done, without partisan political interference by this worst-ever of all administrations, it would have and could have succeeded - but only at great cost. There was never a way to easily succeed in Iraq - the nation is too large, and our presence too unwelcome, to be easy. But it was possible - even probable - if resourced and fought properly. We have done it before - in the Philippines. In Occupied Germany and Japan (and don't forget Italy, which was even more quickly successful). And in our own nation after our terrible civil war. And at least the cost of success in Iraq would have been known upfront, before we invaded, and the American People could have made a knowing and informed decision about whether they were prepared to make sacrifices to win in Iraq, or instead preferred other options.

Instead the president lied. And ordered the Army not to plan so that the public would not find out the true cost of success. And our reaction at learning there were no weapons of mass destruction? We re-elected Bush in 2004. Hell, why not lie to the public? There is apparently no cost in doing so, they don't seem to recall they were betrayed and lied to and ended up in a terrible and bloody war by mistake. In 2004 we returned Bush to office. We might have been lied to, but we subsequently authorized the lies, telling our children and generations yet to come that it was ok with us that we were betrayed and lied to and manipulated. That is, apparently, just fine with us. Start a war on false pretenses after ignoring all professional military opinion, and then lose that war due to gross incompetence and interference with the military and serial neglect and old-fashioned stupidity? Get re-elected. Cut taxes. Don't draft. Send the same men off to die, year after year after year. Our Army today has more combat experience, on average, than any Army in American history. Think about that. Our soldiers, on average, have spent more time under fire than in any war we have ever fought. Their reward? PTSD and a neglected and underfunded VA.

And still many blame the Army for this war because men like Gen. Sanchez and Petraeus and Pace wear a uniform and parrot the administration and betray their own, sending others to risk lives while they won't even risk their career. And why not? Those officers who spoke out, like Gen. Shinseki, were ignored anyway. (Thank you Gen. Shinseki for honoring your oath. Men like Gen. Pace or Casey or Miller can kiss my ass).

Quit blaming the damn Army for our own mistakes. This mess was not the result of an unimaginative, incompetent Army, nor the result of a hide-bound, unimaginative, plodding officer corps. It was the result of partisan, petty, stupid politics. The idiot generals that parrot the administration and betray their oath have always existed. In every service, in every nation, in every society, throughout human history, you can always find an ass-kissing yes man if you look hard enough. Such men are not in the majority in our Army - but they were the only ones rewarded during this war. Case in point? Sanchez, who should be court-martialed for dereliction of duty. But fools like Sanchez are ALWAYS available. The key is to pick others - to pick the best men - while weeding out those who do not succeed, even if they kiss your ass all day long and you personally like them because they tell you what you want to hear.

Now think of how many generals, or colonels, who have been relieved of command during this war. Contrast that with now many were cashiered in WWII. We won WWII. See the difference? It is called "accountability." It is called taking responsibility. It is called leadership. And we don't have it, and have not since January 20, 2001. Why? Because the electorate did the same thing as Bush did - rewarded those politicians that told them what they wanted to hear, and fired those who told them what they needed to hear, who spoke unwelcome truths. Bush did the same with his generals.

The Army was put into an impossible situation after warning it would be a mess. Now some want to blame the Army for the mess. They want to talk about how "conventional" officers didn't understand insurgent warfare, how the Army paid too much attention to high-intensity armored combat, and not enough to light-infantry combat and insurgencies. How if the Army had smarter people a lot of this would not have happened.

And it is another lie, one of many in this failure of a war.

In March of 2003 the Army had the institutional expertise and experience to successfully wage insurgent warfare. It was forbidden from doing so. Soldiers were even forbidden from describing the situation in Iraq honestly - the use of words like "guerrilla war" and "insurgency" and "civil war" - all technical military terms, yet made partisan by this administration. Remember that? Civil war is a technical term, a military term, and you are either in one or you are not. Insurgency, same thing. Instead the Army had to use incorrect terms like "terrorist" to describe insurgents - and insurgents fight differently, and respond differently, than terrorists do, but the Army had to fight against "Terrorists" while being attacked by insurgents. And then people who are smart enough to recognize "hey, that is stupid" wonder why the Army can't figure out it simply won't work that way.

Blame Bush. Blame the Republican Party. Blame those many (MANY, including Hillary) Democrats who enabled and often actively supported Bushco. Blame ourselves.

But stop blaming the Army. Hasn't our nation betrayed the soldiers enough, still today fighting a holding action without proper resources or manpower five years later while we all go shopping? Haven't we learned that our Army will do what we order it to do - and if we issue stupid orders, the Army will do stupid things even if soldiers die in the process? The Army obeys our orders. We issued those orders. We own it.

We were warned. We allowed this to happen. And the Army pays the price, not us.

What a tragic and unnecessary and entirely-avoidable F'ing mess. But we get the government we deserve. And when we aren't paying attention, or when we do stupid things, we deserve exactly what we get. For good or ill, in a democracy the People get what they deserve. That can even be tyranny, if the People are foolish enough to prefer safety from a small bunch of fanatics over freedom and civil rights.

We get - or will get - what we deserve. Not the soldiers though.

They deserved - and deserve - better.

Blackwater is indispensible?

2008-05-10T22:25:00.000-07:00

This article from the IHT is almost frightening. Blackwater Worldwide is still going strong as a contractor in Iraq because State Department officials say they do not believe they have any alternative.

"We cannot operate without private security firms in Iraq," said Patrick Kennedy, under secretary of state for management. "If the contractors were removed, we would have to leave Iraq."

This is worrisome from a couple of viewpoints. If there are no other contractors willing or capable of taking over State Dept security (a force of some 800 guards), then we need to seriously reconsider our total dependence on contractors for such a necessary mission. If this is simple laziness or cronyism by State, then a good, old fashioned purge is in order. I would suspect the latter, as the article says neither DynCorp nor Triple Canopy were ever approached to see if they could pick up the mission.

What I find amazing, is a statement that claims that private security is the only answer. Placing this mission into the for-profit versus government employee sector is a policy decision, not an operational necessity. The resources consumed in just trying to determine whether or not the US government has jurisdiction over these clowns when they ran amok could probably have financed a training program for civil service guards.

To me, the sensible scenario, following the Iraqi concerns raised by the "gunfight at the Baghdad Corral", would have been for the ambassador to call Condi and say, "Look, Boss, as a display of good faith, we need to suck it up and convert the security mission to one conducted by US federal employees. Might cost a few more bucks and sweat at first, but it would show a touch of sensitivity." But then, expecting sensibility or sensitivity from "The Gang that Couldn't Shoot Straight" is a fool's errand.

Many years ago, I heard a tongue-in cheek saying, "The key to success is sincerity. Once you can fake that, you are on your way." Could it be that this has become administration policy?

Al

Where Is Everybody?

2008-05-06T12:18:00.000-07:00

Some of you may have heard about Helen Thomas' recent question "where is everybody?" referring to the lack of inquiry about Mr. Bush's recent admission he knew and approved of the use of torture. As the same old lies poured forth from Dana Perino's mouth, Helen appeared alone, although in a room crowded with "reporters."

But other reporters were there, and they were holding the Bush administration to account, demanding answers. Try to imagine a questioner of Stalin, Mao, Hitler, or the Dear Leader in North Korea asking a more fawning question:

Q Thank you, Dana. Two questions. The AP in Kuwait quotes Secretary of State Rice as saying, "The United States is not going to deal with Hamas. And we had certainly told President Carter that we did not think meeting with Hamas was going to help." And my question: Since the result of this telling was that Mr. Carter proceeded directly to violate this U.S. policy and meet with these terrorists, what is President Bush prepared to do to put an end to this one-man defiance of our policy which so gratified the terrorists?
MS. PERINO: Well, former President Carter is a private citizen, and he made a decision to not comply with what the State Department asked him to do. What I think the President would focus on is, if you go back to what reportedly Hamas said to former President Carter, that they were willing to take these steps for peace, that the very next day, that they went ahead and murdered many people at the Gaza crossing. And I think actions speak louder than words, and we remain very concerned about the situation. That's why Secretary Rice was in the region.
Q If the President, as our nation's chief law enforcer, fails to order Mr. Carter's passport revoked, how many more people like Carter may want to plot U.S. policy in this regard, do you imagine?
MS. PERINO: I don't know, you'll have to take a national survey.

Left is right, white is black, war is peace, and we're all free. Imagine revoking the passport of a former President of the United States - could anything be a clearer signal of how out of control and dangerous this Bush administration truly is, how threatening Bushco is to our liberty, to our freedom, to our United States? Ms. Perino should have angrily denounced the very idea of Bush revoking President Carter's passport merely because he disagreed with Bush policy. She did not.

This reveals how radical and extremist the Bush administration has become in its last months in office. We all hope that Bush won't harm us even more - but that is all we have to prevent him from doing so, mere hope.

But of course my saying that only helps the terrorists win.......

The Pentagon vs. America

2008-05-06T10:50:00.000-07:00

I had to share this essay. If the name Scott Ritter sounds familiar, it should.

As we enter what will likely be the worst crisis since the 1930s/1940s, one we may not come out of successfully, we need to be aware of the dangers we face. This is real and this is scary. If we make the wrong decisions, or make the right decisions too late, then our experiment with democracy will end. Our generation faces a growing, and possibly fatal, crisis.

By Scott Ritter

May 5, 2008

I recently heard from an anti-war student I met while I was speaking at a college in northern Vermont. The e-mail included the following query:

“I told you about how I wanted to build a career around social activism and making a difference. You told me that one of the most important things was to make myself reputable and give people a reason to listen to you. I think this is some of the best advice I’ve received. My issue however is that you mentioned joining the military as a way to do this and mentioned how that is how you fell into it. ... We talked extensively about all of our criticisms of the military currently and our foreign policy. ... What I don’t understand is, how can you [advise] someone who wants to make a difference with the flawed system, to join that flawed system?”

The question is a valid one. Throughout my travels in the United States, where I interact with people from progressive anti-war groups, I am often confronted with the seeming contradiction of my position. I rail against the war in Iraq (and the potential of war with Iran) and yet embrace, at times enthusiastically, the notion of military service. It gets even more difficult to absorb, at least on the surface, when I simultaneously advocate counter-recruitment as well as support for those who seek to join the armed services.

The notion that the military and citizens of conscience should be at odds is a critical problem for our nation. That confrontation only exacerbates the problems of the soldier and the citizen, and must be properly understood if it is to be defeated. Let us start by constructing a framework in which my positions can be better assessed.

First and foremost, I do not view military service as an obligation of citizenship. I do view military service as an act of good citizenship, but it can under no circumstance be used as a litmus test for patriotism. There are many ways in which one can serve his or her nation; the military is but one. I am a big believer in the all-volunteer military. For one thing, the professional fighting force is far more effective and efficient than any conscript force could ever be.

There are those who argue that a draft would level the playing field, spreading the burdens and responsibilities associated with a standing military force more evenly among the population. Those citizens whose lives would be impacted through war (namely those of draft age and their immediate relatives) would presumably be less inclined to support war.

Conversely, the argument goes, with an all-volunteer professional force, the burden of sacrifice is limited to that segment of society which is engaged in the fighting, real or potential. Two points emerge: First, the majority of society not immediately impacted by the sacrifices of conflict will remain distant from the reality of war. Second, even when the costs of conflict become discernable to the withdrawn population, the fact that the sacrifice is being absorbed by those who willingly volunteered somehow lessens any moral outcry.

I will submit that these are valid observations, and indeed have been borne out in America’s response to the Iraq war tragedy. However, simply because something exists doesn’t make it right. The collective response to the Iraq war on the part of the American people is not a result of there not being a draft, but rather poor citizenship. An engaged citizenry would not only find sufficient qualified volunteers to fill the ranks of our military, but would also personally identify with all those who served so that the loss of one was felt by all. The fact that many Americans today view the all-volunteer force not so much as an extension of themselves, but more along the lines of a “legion” of professionals removed from society, illustrates the yawning gap that exists between we the people and those we ask to defend us.

Narrowing this gap is not something that can be accomplished simply through legislation. Reinstating the draft is illusory in this regard. There is a more fundamental obstacle to the reunion of our society and those who take an oath in the military to uphold and defend the Constitution. Void of this bond, the inherent differences of civilian and military life will serve to drive a wedge between the two, regardless of whether the military force is drafted or volunteer.

Lacking a common understanding of the foundational principles upon which the nation was built, a citizenry will grow to view military service as an imposition, as opposed to an obligation. Simply put, one cannot willingly defend that which one does not know and understand. The fundamental ignorance that exists in America today about the Constitution creates the conditions which foster the divide between citizen and soldier that permeates society today. America must take ownership of its military, not simply by footing the bill, but by assuming a moral responsibility for every aspect of military service. The vehicle for doing this has been well established through the Constitution: the legislative branch of government, the Congress, which serves to represent the will of the people.

Congress, especially the House of Representatives, was never conceived of as separate and distinct from the people, but rather as one with the people, directly derived from their collective will via the electoral process. Unfortunately today, few Americans identify with Congress. An “us versus them” mentality pervades. This mentality creates the crack in the moral and social contract which exists regarding a citizenry and its military. Congress is responsible for maintaining the military. Congress is the branch of government mandated with the responsibility for declaring war. When the bond is strained between the people and Congress, the bond between citizen and soldier is broken. Congress, left to its own devices, will begin to view the military not as an extension of its constituents, but rather as a commodity to be traded and used in a highly politicized fashion.

This is the reality we find ourselves in today (and indeed which has existed for some time). The 2006 midterm elections highlight this reality, where a strong anti-war sentiment upon the part of the voters resulted in a Democratic majority in both the House of Representatives and the Senate. Having assumed the mantle of legislative power, however, those who were elected on the coattails of anti-war sentiment were able to shun their anti-war constituents. They did so by taking full advantage of the reality that the anti-war movement was in fact not a movement at all, but rather a concept pushed forward by a disparate mass without much political viability.

Where anti-war sentiment did in fact cross over from the ranks of the progressive left and into the mainstream of American society, it was quickly quashed through the dishonest logic that if one truly supported the troops (as most red-blooded Americans swear they do), then one must by extension support the mission. This flawed connectivity empowered Congress to sidestep the issue of withdrawing American forces from Iraq, and enabled it to continue rubber-stamping funding for a war which long ago lost any connection, perceived or otherwise, to the general security of the American people.

And so U.S. service members continue to fight and die in Iraq, a conflict which grows more unpopular with the American people each passing day. The question thus emerges: What is the appropriate response on the part of the American citizenry? While we insulate ourselves from political duplicity, the soldiers ultimately pay the price for the cowardice of those whom we elect to represent us in higher office. This seems to be the path taken by most Americans, who have grown numbly indifferent to the incessant stream of disappointment over the continued failure of Congress to truly represent the will of the people. We have therefore built a wall which separates we the people from the one aspect of republican governance which is, by design, supposed to give us voice.

In doing so, we likewise create a buffer between citizen and soldier, as those who are constitutionally mandated to fund the care, equipping and utilization of the military now operate in ambiguity created by the vacuum of citizen apathy. Thus liberated from the moral compass provided by the people, Congress has lost its ability to defend its own role in governance, and over time has demeaned its constitutional mandate by transferring powers inherent to the legislative branch to an executive branch which has assumed the role of caretaker of the military. By vesting absolute power in the hands of the executive, Congress has all but assured that America has become a nation no longer governed by the rule of law, but rather the rule of man. This sort of tyranny is what Americans fought a revolution to free themselves from 233 years ago.

An executive that operates in accordance with a unitary theory of governance is one that views the capacity to defend the state as being in fact the capacity to defend the realm. As such, one sees a gravitation of emphasis: Rather than focusing on external threats to the collective, the realm becomes obsessed with internal threats to its ability to retain power. The Patriot Act is a clear-cut example of how a unitary executive has undermined and corrupted the legitimate law enforcement mechanisms of the land by vesting the executive with powers normally associated solely with the legislative branch. In this regard, we see the armed forces similarly abused, with the creation of military command structures (namely U.S. Northern Command) which exist not to protect the people, but rather protect the realm from the people. This is not a stated objective, but rather one inferred from the fact that, for the first time since the imposition of posse comitatus in 1876, the United States has positioned its armed forces so that they can participate in normal state law enforcement. In short, instead of serving as a force of protection for the American people from external threats, the military views the American people as the threat, “targets” which need to be investigated as potential threats to the military.

An example of just how far off track the executive branch, facilitated by an all too complicit legislative branch, has strayed when it comes to the common defense is the Pentagon’s controversial Counterintelligence Field Activity, ostensibly created in a post-9/11 world to “… protect the [Defense] department by supporting the detection and neutralization of foreign espionage.” The CFA operates under the umbrella of U.S. Northern Command, created in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks to ostensibly safeguard the American homeland. A major aspect of the CFA’s work is something known as the Joint Protection Enterprise Network, or JPEN.

The JPEN network enables the Defense Department to share unverified information with civilian police departments, the FBI and other government agencies such as the National Security Agency (NSA). Originally dubbed Project Protect America, the JPEN system came into being in July 2003 with the full support of then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. The heart and soul of the JPEN system is the “Threat and Local Observation Notice,” or TALON report, the brainchild of then-Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz. In the conduct of its work, the CFA created and distributed thousands of TALON reports via the JPEN system on the activities of private U.S. citizens, with a particular focus of those engaged in anti-war protests.

The CFA is slated in the near future to be morphed into a larger Defense Intelligence Agency-run Counterintelligence and Human Intelligence activity. Far from limiting the scope and scale of the activities currently undertaken by the CFA, this new organization will simply increase the level of illegal and unconstitutional activities currently undertaken by the CFA against the American “target.” The fact that the U.S. military now views the American citizenry as its target, as opposed to the object of its defense, shows just how broken the circle of trust is between citizen and soldier. Additional TALON reports are being assembled on anyone deemed to be a potential threat to the U.S. military, including all who are involved in “counter-recruitment” activities designed to provide alternatives to military service for today’s youths. This myopic approach toward installation and facility security undertaken by the Pentagon is not only intellectually weak but constitutionally prohibited. The legislative branch, operating amid constituent apathy, continues to fail in its mission of upholding the rule of law.

In similarly deplorable fashion, the Pentagon has allowed itself to be hijacked by the radical right wing of the Republican Party. The fact that Fox News has become the channel of choice for the U.S. military speaks volumes about the mind-set which has gripped those who lead it. The military has always been a conservative institution. Yet when wearing the uniform of the United States serves more as a front for defending a political ideology (a rabid one at that) rather than upholding and defending the Constitution, the military does itself a disservice. The disconnect between those who serve in the military and those whom they are sworn to protect can be fatal when one realizes the recruiting pool no longer identifies with the military as a legitimate expression of patriotism and citizenship.

The scope of this ideological hijacking is broad, yet barely recognized. One can glimpse just how deep and nefarious this ideological shift is when one considers the extent to which evangelical Christians have infiltrated the U.S. Air Force Academy, proselytizing their heavily politicized religion to the future officers and leaders of that service. The past comments of Lt. Gen. William Boykin , a decorated Army Special Operations veteran who described America’s post-9/11 “war on terror” as a conflict between “Christian” America and “radical Islam,” are widely embraced within the U.S. military. President Bush has echoed Boykin in his speeches and statements, and the military’s favorite presidential candidate, Republican Sen. John McCain, has become the embodiment of Boykin’s philosophy. The Constitution prohibits the notion that America be defined as a Christian nation. To allow the military, sworn as it is to uphold and defend that document, to posture itself as Christian, becoming in effect the “sword of God,” is unthinkable and unforgivable.

The implications of such posturing are far-reaching, especially from the military recruitment standpoint. The all-volunteer military succeeds when it attracts to its ranks those who have a sincere desire to serve their nation. It succeeds greatly when those it attracts come from the broadest possible cross section of the American demographic. There has always been an economic aspect to the all-volunteer force; service is not slavery, and the military has always promised the security of a middle-class lifestyle to those who choose to enlist. But military service, properly motivated, has never been solely about the money. It is about defending a greater good, the people of the United States of America and their values and ideals as defined by the Constitution.

It has become increasingly difficult to motivate enough of today’s youths to serve in the armed services based upon the call of duty alone. One of the primary reasons for this shortfall is the unfortunate perception, not improperly derived, that military service is not in keeping with the concept of “doing the right thing.” This perception, born of an unpopular war and the dishonest foreign policies of successive administrations, is further exaggerated by the reality that the military not only operates as a separate and distinct part of American society (this has always been the case) but, due in large part to post-9/11 hysteria, has been positioned to view the American people as a threat. The inherent problems of the military trying to recruit from a population base which is under attack from the military are self-evident. Genuine patriotism was once a viable recruitment pitch. Now, economic incentives, false promises and pseudo-patriotism are used as the bait to lure the youths of today into America’s legions. Like the legions of the past, these new warriors march not on behalf of the citizens they are sworn to protect, but rather the emperor who commands them. This may be viewed as an overly harsh statement, but there is no other way to describe the abuses of a unitary executive who positions himself above the Constitution and Congress in a time of war.

Having described the current state of the military and military service in this manner, why would I ever encourage a citizen of military age to consider service in the armed forces? First and foremost, one needs to understand that the entire military system has not been corrupted. There are still men and women of honor who serve with dedication and pride. They are, in fact, in the majority. It takes only a few bad apples to spoil the lot, however, and our military today, thanks to a nebulous mission and lower recruiting standards, is full of bad apples. Likewise, to quote a Russian general, “a fish stinks from its head,” and nothing smells worse today than the “head” of the United States. Our commander in chief has disgraced the office he was entrusted with, and in doing so has severely damaged the foundation of American civil society as well as the institutions sworn to uphold and defend it.

The solution, however, cannot be “cut and run.” Simply identifying the problem and pointing a finger at the perpetrators will do nothing to resolve these critical issues. Our military cannot change unless we the people re-establish the link between ourselves and the legislative branch of government and rebuild the bond of trust between citizen and soldier. This cannot happen in stages, but rather must occur simultaneously. While the vast majority of America struggles to regain its moral and ethical compass through the re-establishment of the rule of law as set forth by the Constitution, we need to continue to maintain a military which is capable of defending us.

This requires good people to serve, even if the conditions of their service are not ideal. Do I want to have an intelligent, morally grounded soldier on the front line in Iraq, making the decisions about the use of force in the framework of an illegal and unjust occupation, or do I want to relinquish that job to a former felon lacking even a high school diploma? Do I want the troops of today led by Bible-wielding zealots or Constitution-wielding patriots? While we struggle to re-establish the bond between citizen and soldier, we have an absolute requirement to ensure we continue to field a military composed of citizen soldiers. The only way to prevent our military from becoming the new Roman Legion is to staff it with citizens of principle who reject such an abominable label. We are a nation at war, not just abroad, but with ourselves. Now, more than ever, we need citizens of standing to answer the call to service, not in the name of a criminal president or an illegal war, but rather in defense of the Constitution and all that it stands for, against all enemies, foreign and domestic.

Do We Have A "Free" Press? We Do Not.

2008-04-30T10:22:00.000-07:00

On Phil's blog a commenter, AMviennaVA, wrote

"The Bushies are greatly at fault. But I place greater fault at the feet of the press. Why were they, and why are they, so docile and compliant? As Helen Thomas put it, "where is everybody, for God's sakes?""

I felt that this question deserves its own post.

So where is "Everybody?" "Everybody" is not a reporter. "Everybody" may want the truth to come out, but the networks are owned by only a few major corporations and a tiny elite of incredibly rich people. They, as all interest groups do, serve their own interests.

Our democratic process is drowned out by the noise created by the right-wing owned media. This is the same "mainstream media" excoriated by the right wing for ANY reports not favorable to their ideology - remember when the criticism of the reporting in Iraq was that it did not report all the "good news" from Iraq, as if the reports of growing chaos and anarchy and bloodshed were false?

Well, five years on, were they false? Doesn't matter, as shown by the ABC "News" democratic candidate debate, they are all drinking the right-wing KoolAid now. All the attention of Rev. Wright, none of Rev. Hagee? Why?

Where was our 4th estate, our free press uncontrolled by the government that our republic relies upon when the People make their decisions?

Here is where the media was:

* Disney, "New" Viacom (and its former parent CBS Corporation, the former "Old" Viacom), TimeWarner, News Corp, Bertelsmann AG, and General Electric together own more than 90% of the media holdings in the United States.

* Among other assets, Disney owns ABC, Buena Vista Motion Pictures Group, ESPN, and Miramax Films.

* CBS Corporation owns CBS, CBS Radio (formerly Infinity Radio), Simon & Schuster editing group, a 50% ownership stake in The CW, etc.

* Time Warner owns CNN, Time, AOL, a 50% ownership stake in The CW, etc.

Rupert Murdoch, the media magnate, apart of News Corp., also owns British News of the World, The Sun, The Times, and The Sunday Times, as well as the Sky Television network, which merged with British Satellite Broadcasting to form BSkyB; in the US, he owns the Fox Networks and the New York Post. Since 2003, he also owns 34% of DirecTV Group (formerly Hughes Electronics), operator of the largest American satellite TV system, DirecTV, and Intermix Media (creators of myspace.com) since 2005. He recently purchased the Wall Street Journal and is in the process of firing those whose opinions he dislikes and replacing them with fellow right-wing "true believers."

On June 2, 2003, FCC, in a 3-2 vote under Chairman Michael Powell, approved new media ownership laws that removed many of the restrictions previously imposed to limit ownership of media within a local area. The changes were not, as is customarily done, made available to the public for a comment period.

* Single-company ownership of media in a given market is now permitted up to 45% (formerly 35%, up from 25% in 1985) of that market.

* Restrictions on newspaper and TV station ownership in the same market were removed.

* All TV channels, magazines, newspapers, cable, and Internet services are now counted, weighted based on people's average tendency to find news on that medium. At the same time, whether a channel actually contains news is no longer considered in counting the percentage of a medium owned by one owner.

* Previous requirements for periodic review of license have been changed. Licenses are no longer reviewed for "public-interest" considerations.

Cross-Ownership Proceedings

The FCC voted December 18, 2007 to relax media ownership rules, including a statute that forbids a single company to own both a newspaper and a television or radio station in the same city. FCC Chairman Kevin Martin circulated the plan in October 2007.

Martin's justification for the rule change is to ensure the viability of America's newspapers and to address issues raised in Powell's 2003 FCC decision that was later struck down by the courts. The FCC held six hearings around the country to receive public input from individuals, broadcasters and corporations. Because of the lack of discussion during the 2003 proceedings, increased attention as been paid to ensuring that the FCC engages in proper dialogue with the public regarding its current rules change.

FCC Commissioners Deborah Taylor-Tate and Robert McDowell joined Chairman Martin in voting in favor of the rule change. Commissioners Michael Copps and Jonathan Adelstein, both Democrats, opposed the change.

In short, we do not have government-controlled media in America, but we do not have a free press either. Instead we have big business-controlled media AND big business-controlled government.

Corporate "ownership" of our government is a textbook perfect definition of fascism. No, not Nazism, with its anti-antisemitism - rather simple fascism, which puts the interests of the wealthy ahead of the interests of the people.

We need to keep fighting the American Revolution. If we don't our "liberty" is just a product name for a jeep.

In the meantime, Wolfie and Bushco will not only "get away with it," if McCain is elected they will continue their fascist path.

I know this makes me sound like a conspiracy nut, and I wish that was all I was, but the war in Iraq and the mess here at home are facts, not conspiracy theories. I wish I were wrong. You readers know I am not.

The question is, what can we do to save our liberty from rapacious corporations willing to stop at nothing to maintain profits and control? If we have a corporate-controlled press, how do we stop the madness? How do we even debate it when it turns into a shouting match, with the loudest shouts coming from those who want to drown out debate and information in the first place?

What do we do when our "free press" is very expensive and owned by the "bad guys?" What do we do now?

A REALLY BAD IDEA

2008-04-25T15:43:00.000-07:00

The war drums continue to beat loudly - now the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Mullen, says "the Pentagon is planning for 'potential military courses of action' against Iran, criticizing what he called the Tehran government's 'increasingly lethal and malign influence' in Iraq."

When will the crazy train stop? This is exceedingly dangerous.

First, is Iran meddling in Iraq? Of course Iran is attempting to influence events in Iraq. If Iran had invaded Canada and occupied it, would we stand idly by? And that is a bad example because Iran suffered hundreds of thousands, possibly as many as a million casualties, in the war between Iran and Iraq. Iraq started that war. It is ridiculous to expect Iran to stand idly by as their sworn enemy the USA attempts to remake their neighboring country Iraq, which attacked them once before with devastating and terrible results. Yes, Iran is attempting to influence events in Iraq and Iran will not stop - NO NATION in Iran's position would do any different. Iran's actions are not a cassus belli, they are merely a rational (albeit unwelcome) response to anarchy on their doorstep. I don't care about "proof" of Iranian involvement with Shia militias, or "proof" of Iranian weapons and explosives showing up in Iraq. We did even more for the Afghan tribesmen fighting the Soviet Union after they foolishly invaded Afghanistan. Iran's actions are not a reason to go to war! I say this knowing that Iran's actions have almost certainly helped lead to the death of friends of mine. But I say this because it is true. Yes, Iran is involved in Iraq, any national security professional that is surprised by that should be fired immediately. As it was inevitable and expected that Iran would do so as a result of our invasion of Iraq, we can not claim we are justified in invading Iran because they are doing exactly what we expected them to do, what we would do in the same situation, what ANY nation would do in their shoes. Their actions are not grounds for war, their actions are instead reasonable, rational, and harmful to us. That last part - harmful to us - is not a justification for war. We caused the harm to ourselves by invading Iraq. We brought ourselves to the Iranian border, Iran did not come to us. And Iran must, for its own national security, be involved in what takes place in Iraq. They have little choice. For us to consider it a cause for war means we expected, or should have expected, to go to war with Iran when we invaded Iraq in 2003 - for war would be the outcome of our actions, not Iran’s. We had, and have, a choice, while Iran has few options. Iran must be involved in what occurs in Iraq, we don’t have to be.

Second, and perhaps more important: WE WOULD LOSE. A war with Iran would not end with a "liberation" of Tehran. No friendly regime would be installed in Iran were we to foolishly attack. Iran would not surrender. Iranians would not greet us as liberators. The most ardent opponents of the current Iranian regime would rally round their flag and fight us (remember Bush’s approval ratings of 90%? 9 out of 10 of us actually supported him following 9/11 - and the same reaction would occur in Iran, it is human nature). It would cost us thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands, of US casualties. It would require a draft, a LARGE draft, just to prevent our entire force currently in Iraq from being overrun. Our nominal Shia "allies" in Iraq would side with Iran - not because they are "bad," or because all Muslims are “bad,” or because they are devious, but because they don't consider Iran an enemy, they are co-religionists, and Iran gave shelter and support to many Shia who fled Saddam's brutal regime. In other words, they would side with Iran because it is entirely rational for them to do so, while siding with us would be irrational. The Maliki "government," Sadr, Badr, you name it - all would side with Iran. The Sunnis already hate us, so don't expect support from them, although they would not welcome and would likely fight against any Iranian troops in Iraq as many hate the Shia (Sunnis sometimes refer to Shia Iraqis as Iranians or Persians). So we would be beset on all sides.

What would be our response? Good question. The answer is “not much other than killing lots of civilians and destroying Iranian infrastructure.” We don’t have the resources for a war with Iran.

We have no reserves left. Our conventional (read: heavy armor tank-on-tank manuever warfare) capability is nothing like it was in 2003 - it basically does not exist. Few (if any) infantry or tank commanders have any idea how to conduct the kind of operation we launched against Iraq in 2003 - we haven't trained that way in years, we no longer conduct force-on-force maneuver training at any of our CTCs, something that is critical if our much-vaunted "conventional" capability is to be effective. In short: the Army of 2003 no longer exists. Today's Army is not trained and not very well-equipped to mount a conventional campaign. As a result our expectation of a lightning-fast, brilliantly-executed campaign is a false expectation. Our army and marine corps are simply not trained and equipped to do that anymore - we haven’t done it since 2003 and we don’t train for it anymore, and a campaign like the invasion of 2003 is something that an army has to practice, practice, and practice at in order to execute it. We don’t train that way anymore at all. By way of comparison, we used to run anywhere from 9 to as many as 14 force-on-force maneuver rotations at the National Training Center (the NTC) a year. We do none - NONE - now, the entire NTC now trains brigades for Iraq, not for maneuver warfare. Tank companies don’t train in their tanks to fight other tanks. Infantry units don’t train to fight conventional forces on a conventional battlefield. We train for our missions in Iraq and Afghanistan because that is all our tiny and overworked and overburdened and neglected and mis-used army and marines have time to do.

But why worry? We have control of the air. As Adm. Mullen notes,

a conflict with Iran would be "extremely stressing" but not impossible for U.S. forces, pointing specifically to reserve capabilities in the Navy and Air Force.

The problem is that if you expect our air power to win a ground conflict with Iran you are AN IDIOT.

If airpower were capable of winning a ground conflict against a ground force, why did we invade Iraq? And why are we still there if air power can suffice in the place of boots on the ground? Iran could send 300K+ ground troops into Iraq if we were stupid enough to think dropping bombs would cause them to stop meddling in Iraq. Instead our 140K troops in Iraq would find themselves under fire from all sides. And air power? If we think the Iranian military is stupid enough to expose themselves to our air power, why are we so concerned about them as a threat? If they are real threat we must assume they are not dummies - and that they will know how to counter our airpower superiority. It isn't hard to do. The North Vietnamese did it. The Iraqi insurgents do it. The Afghans did it to the Soviets. They do it to us now. But Iran? No, they wouldn't figure out that their best option would be to use ground troops who deploy in terrain (an urban environment) that negates our air superiority. Because I guess they can't read and aren't paying attention to what is happening in Iraq - oh, and yet that is why we apparently need to fight them - because of what they are doing in Iraq.

We have no capability left other than to drop bombs, most likely on civilians. On families. And we would hope that our "shock and awe" from our air power would result in Iranian capitulation, rather than result in an angry Iranian people becoming even more determined to fight against our soldiers than they were before the first bomb dropped. Sure, that will happen, just like the British surrendered to Nazi Germany as a result of the London Blitz - oh wait. Well, like the Germans surrendering to the Allies as a result of the air - oh, I think a few ground troops were needed there too. Well, like the Algerian resistance capitulated to France - oh. Well, like the North Koreans and Chinese defeat in Korea... hmm. The Vietnam War? hmmm.... Well, our shock and awe campaign worked in Iraq... umm, wait, no it didn’t.

The only way to win a ground war against Iran is to fight on the ground against Iran.

But Adm. Mullen says we have reserves in air power. That is, in effect, an almost straight-forward admission that we do NOT have reserves in land power, that our ground forces are fully committed. But do we really need anybody to tell us that? If you do, then here: we are fully committed and have no ground reserves left, any conflict of even middling size would require a draft in order to respond effectively with ground troops. Now you have been told.

To put it simply: we would fight like hell, the Iranians would fight like hell, but we would not and could not defeat them and occupy Iran, and we might end up in an unmitigated disaster that swallows our tiny army and marines and leaves us incredibly vulnerable. We would not be better off if we went to war with Iran. It would be world-class stupid. And that scares me because this administration is a big fan of doing things that are world-class stupid.

The Washington Post notes

But while Mullen and Gates have recently stated that the Tehran government certainly must know of Iranian actions in Iraq, which they say are led by Iran's Revolutionary Guard, or Quds Force, Mullen said he has "no smoking gun which could prove that the highest leadership [of Iran] is involved in this."

That is what scares me the most. This is not mere saber-rattling, you can rattle sabers without tak like this. This is an attempt to build an actual reason to actually go to war - this is preparation to draw the saber, not merely rattle it, because this kind of talk is not aimed at Iran, it is aimed at the American people!

It is like the specter of WMDs - the debate over whether they existed became the key factor in whether to invade Iraq, instead of the better question: with or without WMDs, did Iraq present a threat requiring an invasion? Even WITH nerve agent, blood agent, or other chemical weapons, there was not a sufficient threat from Saddam's Iraq to justify invasion. Somehow that point of debate was swept away by red-herring WMD discussions. Had we found a WMD program in Iraq, had one actually still existed and we found it, we would still be in the same mess and the invasion would still be a mistake. Having a weapon does not mean there is an intention or a capability to use it. If Saddam had chemical weaponry, so what? We KNEW he had it in the 1980s and did not invade even after he used it, so why invade in 2003 just because he had it? The existence or non-existence of WMDs did not justify the invasion, but when the question became "does he have WMDs?" it made the most important follow-up question, "and if so, should we invade?" simply disappear. It became a deadly and incorrect assumption: “if Iraq has WMDs we must invade, so does Saddam have them?” The real question was simpler: “should we invade Iraq?” The answer appears as clear now to 80% of Americans as it did to most military professionals then: NO. Hell No. It would be a really bad idea - and it was. But the red-herring question of "does Saddam have WMDs?" swallowed that debate entirely, leaving us with a really bad idea executed really badly.

Here, the issue of a "smoking gun" showing top-level Iranian government support for our enemies in Iraq is the red herring. Is Iran meddling in Iraq? WE ALWAYS EXPECTED THEM TO DO SO. It would be unreasonable and crazy to assume they would not - given the recent history of Iran and Iraq, if an Iranian leader did not attempt to influence events in Iraq that leader would be betraying his people - we thought Iraq such a threat that we went to the other side of the planet to invade, Iraq is now totally chaotic, and Iran shares a long border and a history of warfare with Iraq. That "smoking gun," if it ever comes out, is NOT A CASSUS BELLI - IT IS NOT A REASON TO GO TO WAR. The way Adm. Fallon puts it, if the smoking gun proof of Iranian involvement is shown, well BAM we go to war. But if we thought Iraq such a threat that we had to invade, why is it a justification for war if Iran is attempting to influence events and outcomes in that same nation just like we expected?

It is not.

I am not saying we should ignore their efforts. I am not saying it is ok with me that Iran helps Iraqis to kill Americans. I am saying it is not a reason or a justification to go to war with Iran.

And even if it were, we would not be better off in going to war because the millions of people in Iran will not submit just because we lob some bombs. Instead they will do just what you and I would do - they will fight back, and the mess created by the Bush regime will do even more damage than even I expected when I warned not to invade Iraq back in 2002 and 2003.

War with Iraq was a really bad idea. War with Iran is a worse idea. It is worse by an order of magnitude. It is the worst idea of the Bush administration, EVER. Think about how bad an idea has to be to get that honor - worst idea of the Bush administration.

If this is debated elsewhere watch those who support war with Iran talk of nuclear weapons and appeasement. The issue of Iranian involvement in Iraq is separate from talk of nuclear weapons and should be handled differently, but watch it be put front and center, just like WMDs were with Iraq.

And the idea that the only alternative to war is appeasement, or the only alternative to appeasement is war, is patently and absurdly silly - but watch it take place nonetheless. I am not saying do nothing, I am saying war with Iran is a really bad idea. For that I will be called an appeaser and a coward, as I was in 2002 and 2003 when I foolishly and unpatriotically spoke out against the idea of invading Iraq because I thought it would be a really bad idea, really bad for my nation. Guess I really blew that one - because I did not try hard enough to stop that bad idea, it harmed America, and I feel guilty I did not do more to stop it.

Unless enough wimps like me try to stop this foolish march to war, WASF - and this will make our mess in Iraq look like a walk through the damn park.

War with Iran is A REALLY BAD IDEA.

Right when I thought it couldn't get worse

2008-04-19T21:46:00.000-07:00

In a few hours, the rest of you are going to wake up to this article by David Barstow (http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/04/20/america/20generals.php). This lengthy piece concerns the use of media "military analysts" to further the administration and Pentagon's propaganda efforts to paint a favorable picture to the population. Retired senior officers, many of whom had significant financial stake in pleasing the decision makers and Rummy, were given access, the party line info and then sent out to speak on the media as if they were totally independent "analysts".

This practice, and all who supported it, are truly below contempt. And, it is sickening that they were so easily able to enlist a large number of our former comrades in arms in this despicable domestic psyops effort.

During the Eisenhower administration, in an effort to differentiate America from the "Godless Communists", the Pledge of Allegiance was modified to say:

"One nation, under God"

In the spirit of current American culture, perhaps, this administration should amend it to read:

"One nation, on message"

Have you no shame, gentlemen? Have you no shame?

Addendum: As I mull this over in my geriatric mind, all sorts of questions arise.
- Does this point to the dangers of excessive for-profit (contractor) interests in military operations and/or public policy?
- Is it time to prohibit retired senior officials from doing business with the government?
- Will the public be outraged over this blatant domestic propaganda effort, or is it a bit too subtle for them to grasp?
- Is our military leadership so corrupt, morally bankrupt or inept that no questions about this were raised from the inside?

Or, am I over-reacting?

An Existential Threat

2008-04-18T08:51:00.000-07:00

Since joining this august body a couple of years ago on Intel Dump, I have read and engaged in discussions of how there is currently no existential threat to the US. Typically, this is in the context of the events of 9/11, the GWOT, and the like.

As the current economic events unfold, my thoughts return to a conversation I had with a friend back around 1963. He was a strategic economist for a major NY bank at the time. He was born and raised in Hong Kong, and did his graduate work at Oxford. Was quite unusual to find a Chinese person in such a responsible position in the "lily white" world of NY banking.

A group of us were enjoying an evening of beer and bull shit at a local tavern. The conversation turned to the "Red Menace". Nothing extreme, but intelligent conversation, much as we generally enjoy in this group. Victor said, "The threat to the US by Communist China is not military. The threat China poses to our existence, as we know it, is purely economic, it is massive and, probably, inevitable."

Victor then went on to address some of the reasoning behind his prediction. At the top of the list was the availability of massive, truly massive, amounts of cheap labor. Once China began to industrialize, this huge labor pool would offer a cost advantage and production capacity previously unknown in the world. I haven’t taken the time to check the stats of 1963, but today, slightly more than one out of every five inhabitants of this planet lives in China. Further, China is nowhere near having tapped the available manpower for industrial production. 76% of the Chinese population still lives in rural areas, versus 25% of Americans.

Victor was not concerned just about "competition", but addiction. He said that once China began to produce inexpensive goods for export, the US would become addicted, and thus dependent upon Chinese goods. And, China could afford to keep their prices low for an incomprehensibly extended period of time, because the vast pool of untapped labor would keep that cost element down considerably as compared to nations where the bulk of the labor pool is employed. He then spoke about the flow of money out of the US, and the resulting "ownership" of the US that could result. He also addressed some of the advantages that a Communist government/economy has in the manipulation of currency, especially the ability to operate without classical market considerations, for an extended period of time.

Now, this was in 1963, and the only significant "trade partner" offering cheap goods was Japan, and back then, Japanese "stuff" had not fully climbed above the "recycled beer can" level. America was still a major producer of the necessities of life purchased by Americans.

In summary, Victor said that all China had to do was begin to industrialize on a scale modest in proportion to its population, establish market inroads in the US and then be patient. Our voracious appetites and quest for a quick buck would succumb to good old patience and overwhelming numbers.

So, my good friends, are we wasting our time worrying about a military existential threat, when our own cultural propensities make us a sitting duck for economic suffocation by China? Does our need to incur debt to grow suffer a major strategic weakness in comparison to China’s almost "cash and carry" economy? Or, to draw on one of JD’s oft repeated phrases, have 19 miscreants with box cutters diverted our attention from 1.3 + billion industrious Chinese?

I’ve just grazed the surface of this issue. I leave it up to your comments to flesh it out!

Great link - sad but undeniably funny

2008-04-12T23:36:00.000-07:00

http://www.theonion.com/content/node/77228/1?slideshow=0

http://www.theonion.com/content/node/77210

It hurts and it is funny at the same time.

America Loves a Winner (by BG)

2008-04-10T19:42:00.000-07:00

By BG, a frequent commenter from the old Intel-Dump:

America Loves a Winner

Isn't it interesting how character traits can both be one's greatest strength, and at the same time one's greatest weakness. This extends to national character as well.

Patton's famous speech to 3rd Army:

"Americans love a winner. Americans will not tolerate a loser. Americans despise cowards. Americans play to win all of the time. I wouldn't give a hoot in hell for a man who lost and laughed. That's why Americans have never lost nor will ever lose a war; for the very idea of losing is hateful to an American."

One of the Republican/Neocon's greatest arguments against the Clinton administration (and even a failure of the Reagan years) was cutting and running when things got tough. Obvious examples are Somalia and Beruit. These moves were considered to "embolden" our enemy. There is no way the current administration will ever accept a strategy that could be considered the same mistake. Instead, they will drag on the decision to withdraw leaving it to the next administration who they will blame for failing to “stay the course.”

We must “win”, or we will not leave. We can say it is ego, we can say it is pride, but we can also say it is national character and psychology to the point of flaw. What the smart politicians are trying to do is redefine what "win" means. Which side of the isle one sits will greatly impact that definition. This is why we saw all three Presidential candidates make a rare reappearance in Washington this week.

Link

McCain finds himself inescapably intertwined with the current policy and therefore his definition of winning must be compatible (i.e., security, political reconciliation, etc).

How will Democratic leadership define “winning?” Will winning simply be defined as “winning” the White House? Maybe winning will be redefined as Obama states in yesterday’s Senate hearing, as “a messy, sloppy status quo but there's not huge outbreaks of violence, there's still corruption, but the country is struggling along, but it's not a threat to its neighbors and it's not an al-Qaida base.”

What ever the definition, and whatever the politics, Patton’s words ring true today as they did 50 years ago. Americans love a winner, and will not tolerate a loser. Whichever candidate that can best portray themselves as having a winning strategy, or at least best cast blame for losing on someone else, will have an advantage in the upcoming election.

Strategy for Success TWO AND A HALF YEARS LATER?

2008-04-08T14:36:00.000-07:00

The article from which excerpts are posted (below) was posted on August 29, 2005. Many soldiers who have served in Iraq comment about the "GroundHog Day" effect - that is, same thing day in, day out, no progress, no regress, just a grind of the same thing again and again and again.

Today Gen. Petraeus is testifying about progress in Iraq and the "success" of the surge.

Reading excerpts from a post from OVER TWO AND A HALF YEARS AND THOUSANDS OF LIVES AGO and see if we have made any "progress" yet:

A Strategy For Success

Amid the two extremes of "stay the course" and "pull out now" comes a third option - do what it takes to win in Iraq.

The September/October edition of Foreign Affairs contains an article by Andrew F. Krepinevich, Jr. entitled "How to Win in Iraq."

The basic problem is that the United States and its coalition partners have never settled on a strategy for defeating the insurgency and achieving their broader objectives. On the political front, they have been working to create a democratic Iraq, but that is a goal, not a strategy. On the military front, they have sought to train Iraqi security forces and turn the war over to them. As President George W. Bush has stated, "Our strategy can be summed up this way: as the Iraqis stand up, we will stand down." But the president is describing a withdrawal plan rather than a strategy.

Without a clear strategy in Iraq, moreover, there is no good way to gauge progress. Senior political and military leaders have thus repeatedly made overly optimistic or even contradictory declarations. In May of 2004, for example, following the insurgent takeover of Fallujah, General Richard Myers, chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, stated, "I think we're on the brink of success here." Six months later, before last November's offensive to recapture the city, General John Abizaid, the commander of U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, said, "When we win this fight — and we will win — there will be nowhere left for the insurgents to hide." Following the recapture, Lieutenant General John Sattler, the Marine commander in Iraq, declared that the coalition had "broken the back of the insurgency." Yet in the subsequent months, the violence continued unabated. Nevertheless, seven months later Vice President Dick Cheney claimed that the insurgency was in its "last throes," even as Lieutenant General John Vines, commander of the multinational corps in Iraq, was conceding, "We don't see the insurgency expanding or contracting right now." Most Americans agree with this less optimistic assessment: according to the most recent polls, nearly two-thirds think the coalition is "bogged down."

The administration's critics, meanwhile, have offered as their alternative "strategy" an accelerated timetable for withdrawal. They see Iraq as another Vietnam and advocate a similar solution: pulling out U.S. troops and hoping for the best. The costs of such premature disengagement would likely be calamitous. The insurgency could morph into a bloody civil war, with the significant involvement of both Syria and Iran. Radical Islamists would see the U.S. departure as a victory, and the ensuing chaos would drive up oil prices.

Instead of a timetable for withdrawal, the United States needs a real strategy built around the principles of counterinsurgency warfare. To date, U.S. forces in Iraq have largely concentrated their efforts on hunting down and killing insurgents. The idea of such operations is to erode the enemy's strength by killing fighters more quickly than replacements can be recruited. Although it is too early to tell for sure whether this approach will ultimately bring success, its current record is not good: even when an attack manages to inflict serious insurgent casualties, there is little or no enduring improvement in security once U.S. forces withdraw from the area.

Instead, U.S. and Iraqi forces should adopt an "oil-spot strategy" in Iraq, which is essentially the opposite approach. Rather than focusing on killing insurgents, they should concentrate on providing security and opportunity to the Iraqi people, thereby denying insurgents the popular support they need. Since the U.S. and Iraqi armies cannot guarantee security to all of Iraq simultaneously, they should start by focusing on certain key areas and then, over time, broadening the effort — hence the image of an expanding oil spot. Such a strategy would have a good chance of success. But it would require a protracted commitment of U.S. resources, a willingness to risk more casualties in the short term, and an enduring U.S. presence in Iraq, albeit at far lower force levels than are engaged at present. If U.S. policymakers and the American public are unwilling to make such a commitment, they should be prepared to scale down their goals in Iraq significantly.

Simply put, we either win or fail. If failing costs more than winning then we should win. And "not losing" is failing.

Krepinevich is the author of The Army and Vietnam, and none of his ideas are new. Neither are the most effective battle drills, and for the same reasons - they have proven effective time and again.

In the same issue is an excellent article by F. Gregory Gause III on how democratization is not automatically in our best interests.

The United States is engaged in what President George W. Bush has called a "generational challenge" to instill democracy in the Arab world. The Bush administration and its defenders contend that this push for Arab democracy will not only spread American values but also improve U.S. security. As democracy grows in the Arab world, the thinking goes, the region will stop generating anti-American terrorism. Promoting democracy in the Middle East is therefore not merely consistent with U.S. security goals; it is necessary to achieve them.

But this begs a fundamental question: Is it true that the more democratic a country becomes, the less likely it is to produce terrorists and terrorist groups? In other words, is the security rationale for promoting democracy in the Arab world based on a sound premise? Unfortunately, the answer appears to be no.

In the comments somebody called "American Citizen" wrote - TWO AND A HALF YEARS AGO - the following:

J.D. writes "Simply put, we either win or fail. If failing costs more than winning then we should win. And "not losing" is failing."

What if winning costs more than failing?

What if we win (make America safer) by losing in Iraq?

The goal we should hold above all others is to make America safer. That was the putative goal of the initial invasion - to find WMDs. The retrospective justification for the invasion - Iraqi democracy - would hopefully make us safer.

There are three large effects of "staying the course":
1) In the struggle amongst various Iraqi factions for power, we put our thumb decisively on the Iraqi government side. This means creating law and order in some places where there wouldn't be otherwise.
2) Anti-American Iraqi forces continue to attack us. the positive effect is that perhaps that draws anti-Iraqi-government fire away from the Iraqu government, troops, and police. There is a large human cost to us, and any unfortunate civilians caught in the crossfire or near bomb blasts.
3) Anti-American foreigners will sneak into Iraq. Many will lose their jihadi spirit by becoming casualties or by getting it out of their system. Others will return to their native countries, or our country, and cause trouble.

The Iraqi constitution looks set to create a fractious theocracy, so is effect #1 all that important? Once we go, would it matter so much who is in charge, given that we can't seem stage-manage a Turkish or Indonesian-type result?

I think we should do what we can in the short-term, whether it's the suggestions put forth by Mr. Krepinevich, or the recent WaPo op-ed by Gen. Wesley Clark. If that doesn't work, or if we "stay the course" with no change in strategy or tactics, we will better off conducting a staged withdrawal and accepting the loss. After all, you don't reinforce failure, and we still need to find Osama bin Laden.

I responded:

American Citizen asks "What if we win (make America safer) by losing in Iraq?"

Simple. Then we lose. And quickly. And we will be better off for it. If pulling out tomorrow helps America then we should have done it yesterday.

However, I don't think the list of reasons you have for "Staying the Course" is exhaustive. There are certainly other reasons we should stay and win besides Iraqi democracy or what is the best for the Iraqi people. I tend to view the world in views of what is best for America - period. What is best for the Iraqi people enters into my thinking only as to what impact it will have on the American people. I think "accepting the loss" should not be viewed from an "ego" standpoint, but from an honest assessment of what impact such a loss will have on our national security in both the long and short term. I think that Iraq has parallels with Vietnam (most especially when it comes to politicans ignoring sound military advice) but there is one clear difference: when we "declared victory and went home" in Vietnam our loss (for that is what it was) hurt us in the short term, but not in the long term. True, losing sucked, but we won the Cold War, our military might increased relative to the rest of the world thereafter, and the "trade" we lost in Vietnam was miniscule. Vietnam grows rice and exports shrimp. Oh well. Iraq is different. It is not only incredibly oil-rich, it is surrounded by unstable and hostile regimes vital to our national security. We don't run our economy on rice. We do on oil. And Vietnam doesn't and never did have the ability to attack us at home. Iran is working on nukes, and Pakistan has them. Iraq is much, much, much more important to our national security than Vietnam ever was. And the oil wealth in that region also translates into money, and into power. We don't want that power used against us. Even if we were self-sufficient in energy the region would be a vital national interest.

And I think I was clear that I view "staying the course" is not a recipe for winning, but merely for not losing "yet."

Just as there were an infinite number of possibilities in between the false choice of "invade or appease," there are many courses of action between "get out now" and "stay the course."

Clearly articulated goals should be provided to the American people, along with honest and competent analysis of the costs of victory v the costs of defeat. Any blind non-reasoning "victory is always better" thinking should be recognized for what it is - a lack of thinking. Any "we must immediately pull out because we will lose more if we don't" should likewise be put into the same category. Then we can rationally decide what the better course of action is based upon the costs and benefits of various options, from immediate pull-out to a "generational commitment" to "stay the course" and everything in between.

My take now? That we are not prepared to do what it takes to win in Iraq in terms of manpower. A draft would be needed, plus more money (higher taxes are already needed given the size of our debt today), plus lots else (the military alone can not win this war).

If we are not going to win then we need to get out. I think we need to get out because we are clearly not doing what it will take to win, just "not lose just yet."

GroundHog Day, all over again.

When should we get out? Two and a half years ago would have been a good time.

Your thoughts?

CONTINUE THE DISCUSSION

2008-04-08T12:16:00.001-07:00

As most of you know, Phil is taking Intel-Dump to the Washington Post. I wish him the best of luck. Thank you Phil!

My favorite part of the Dump was the comments, though. The level of discourse, the (usual) civility, and the ability to "vent" were all what brought me to the Dump. I don't think that is possible on a blog that is part of the Washington Post.

I would like to try it here. To comment you need to sign up with Google - which you should do anyway, Gmail is amazing - and then you can comment here.

For regulars, please try and keep your old names so we know who FDChief is, Seydlitz, etc.

And thanks to all for the kind and unexpected words about me over at the last Intel-Dump post.

To start this thread, what about Gen. Petraeus' testimony today? Did it ring true, was it clear and forthright, or did it appear he was parroting the White House in a partisan way? Either way, was it accurate, and if not, why not? What facts were wrong, or missing?

Please comment away, for me that is the best part - the conversation.

What if the "worst-case scenario" happens?

2007-06-05T10:36:00.000-07:00

When conducting war games a wise commander will ensure that he plans for the enemy's most-likely AND most-dangerous course of action. The purpose of war games is to include possible enemy actions in the planning process.

Our Army was forbidden to plan for the "worst-case scenario" in occupying Iraq. In fact, the Army was forbidden to plan for the most-likely scenario as well. Why? Because it showed the true cost of the Iraqi invasion at a time when the war was being sold as cheap and easy, a Desert-Storm II. The Army was ordered to assume that our likely enemies would instead welcome us. They are still welcoming us, every day, with bombs and bullets.

Are we planning properly today? It is hard to over-emphasize the danger of a "fighting withdrawal," (a "retrograde movement under enemy pressure") either when discussing the possible casualties, or the effect it will have on our foreign policy goals and objectives.

If we have to fight our way out of Iraq - and that possibility exists - then we need to do it as masterfully as the initial invasion in 2003. That takes planning, it takes preparation, and it takes training and equipment.

We are not preparing at all. And it gets scarier - what if, instead of fighting our way out of Iraq, we find ourselves under attack in Iraq - by Iran? Unlikely? No, it isn't. We are face-to-face with Iran and Bush is not backing down. During the Korean War we were face-to-face with the Communist Chinese, but everybody knew they would not dare attack us. Until, of course, they did just that.

If we find ourselves facing Iranian formations (most likely called "volunteers" similar to the Chinese "volunteers" we faced in the Korean War) we risk a repeat of the Chosin Reservoir debacle, except that this time we have no reserves left. There is a real possibility that we will find ourselves drafting young Americans and throwing them into combat with a bare minimum of training, just as we did in the Korean War only a few years after we had finished WWII with some of the best-equipped, best-trained, and toughest, most lethal soldiers in the world. Just a few short years later and we had Task Force Smith, and then the failure of our under-trained and unprofessional Army at Chosin. We have the same risks today.

While we debate whether to pull out of Iraq now or later, we are not discussing the very real and very possible risks our nation faces. Our Army and Marines are not as effective as they were in 2003 - not by half. They don't train for even mid-intensity combat anymore, much less train for high-intensity manuever warfare. We are so short-handed and so over-committed that we train our troops only for the low-intensity warfare they face in Iraq against irregular forces - and we don't even have the time to train them adequately for that, with units returning to Iraq with only a year to refit/re-equip/retrain after their last Iraqi tour. Thus our troops may know how to fight when they outnumber the untrained enemy in urban terrain - but what about a trained formation, that outnumbers our forces, when our supply lines are cut and our troops find that they are under determined attack for days, even weeks, at a time? Do we have a plan to deal with that possibility?

We are now vulnerable as hell. The truth is that we have pissed off the world, we are rattling the sabers again with Iran, and we have over 100,000 men pinned down and under fire today on the borders of Iran. That and we have no strategic or operational reserves left.

We were surprised when the Chinese "volunteers" poured into Korea and slammed us so hard. Later, historians wondered why the hell we were surprised.

And now we think the only possibility of a war with Iran is Bush deciding to start one. But what if they expect him to do so, and hit us first? The Chinese did just that. And only a few years after we had fought WWII, we found we had no trained troops to send to Korea, drafted kids and sent them to combat with only weeks of training. Some of our conscripts never qualified with their rifles before seeing combat. One tank battalion gathered together for the first time on board a ship enroute to Korea, and only six weeks after being formed they were in combat (no, they did not do very well). We pulled Sherman tanks out of museums and dropped engines in them and sent them to Korea. And we got our ass kicked, losing tens of thousands of men. And we were pushed out of North Korea with repurcussions that last to this day.

Guess what? In 2003 we had the most powerful force the world has ever seen. WE DON'T HAVE THAT FORCE ANYMORE. And now we may face Iranian formations attacking our troops. Are we prepared? Or are we just assuming that they wouldn't be that "crazy" and dare attack us? Well, they might, and we aren't as powerful as we were just four years ago. As I said, we are vulnerable. What are we doing to ensure the national security of the United States? Is the Army even being allowed to plan for such a possibility? Has the Army planned for how to withdraw from Iraq, on the assumption that it just may happen? Or is the Army forbidden to plan because planning a withdrawal, it is assumed, may somehow make it more likely to come to pass?

With that in mind, this from Medley Global Advisor's Policy Monitor. The article was written by Colonel W. Patrick Lang, US Army, Retired:

Iraq: Convoys under attack

While most of the media reporting and politics in Washington is focused on the flailing "surge strategy" in Baghdad and the Sunni "Triangle of Death" just south of the capital, well-placed US military sources report an ominous rise in the frequency and sophistication of Shia militia attacks on US supply convoys from Kuwait. The attacks on the convoys -- which are almost daily and can comprise up to 500 trucks at a time -- have in recent days led to fewer hot meals or fresh fruits and lettuce available to US troops.

An unclassified notice went out on Monday on "Theater-Wide Delay in Food Deliveries" warned that MREs (Meals Ready to Eat) will have to take the place of at least one hot meal a day. While in itself not an undue hardship, it does mark the first time
the US military was not able to maintain its supply lines since the invasion of Iraq in 2003, which is raising eyebrows among Army logistics planners working with troop levels already stretched.

More ominously, military intelligence in Baghdad believe the attacks are being orchestrated by Iranian-backed Shia militias, both as "live" training in tactics should the need arise in confronting the US military more directly, and as counter signal to Washington's naval exercises with battle carrier groups in the Persian Gulf.

Read My Mind

2007-06-04T10:38:00.000-07:00

This veteran's words express my feelings exactly. This guy has been there, done that, got the t-shirt, came home, and now wants to know WTF the Democrats are thinking in backing down to President Bush. He was and is proud to be a soldier, he sees the Army and his reserve unit being ground down around him, and he wants something done.

He writes:

Despite the fact that I signed on the dotted line and promised to defend America, chickenhawk conservatives would accuse me of being a communist and a bad Soldier. Never mind that I abhor Communism and earned several medals for my military service. To them, being a good Soldier meant agreeing with conservative policy and keeping your mouth shut. I always told them that if they thought I was doing such a bad job then they should enlist and take my place. Then I'd hear a million excuses as to why they don't want to sign up. And when I mentioned Bush's cuts to VA funding and the like, they'd just respond with "well Democrats did it during the 90's", as if that made it alright. It's not alright. I don't care what party is responsible. It's wrong!

This quote is priceless:

Where is your spine, Democrats? Why is it that you constantly cave to the conservatives as they destroy our country and military? What will it take for you to grow a pair and take charge? We gave you the keys to the country for a reason! Take charge, dammit!

The response to the State of the Union address by Sen. Webb should have set the tone. Either Bush backs down and lets the People change his policies, or we will show him the way - and the door.

For the sake of our troops, our nation, our freedom, and our children, write to your Congressperson and demand impeachment. Don't buy into the "oh, they don't have the votes and he would not be removed from office" crap. It isn't about that. It is about the impeachment trial that would finally force this president to answer questions that should have been asked and answered for years.

Impeach, dammit!

I'm Back. How's our democracy doing?

2007-06-02T23:15:00.000-07:00

After blogging on www.intel-dump.com for quite some time, I am back to posting on my own. I would like to thank Phil Carter for his generosity - both with allowing me to post and for serving in Iraq.

To start, a free press:

Freedom of the press in Venezuela(from the Economist)

The Price of Free Airwaves(NY Times)

The first tells of Hugo Chavez' decision to shut town a television station that was openly critical of his regime. Instead of shutting it down the old-fashioned way, with troops and arrests, he simply refused it permission to renew its broadcasting license.

Mr Chávez announced that RCTV's broadcasting licence would not be renewed when it expired on May 27th. The government's reasons are that the channel acted as an opposition mouthpiece, and that it backed a short-lived coup against Mr Chávez in April 2002.

The reason this is so terrible is that

Democracy is about much more than just elections—as the left itself has often argued. It is also about political freedoms, the rule of law and checks on executive power. Precious little of this still exists in Venezuela. With television and the press now pretty much under the government's thumb, how will anyone be able to call the next election free and fair?

In the bad old days in Latin America, military dictators simply sent troops to close down obstreperous broadcasters and newspapers. Mr Chávez is more subtle. He has preserved the forms of democracy while gradually, but inexorably, eviscerating it.

Then this editorial in today's NY Times, which says

America lets radio and TV broadcasters use public airwaves worth more than half a trillion dollars for free. In return, we require that broadcasters serve the public interest: devoting at least some airtime for worthy programs that inform voters, support local arts and culture and educate our children — in other words, that aspire to something beyond just minimizing costs and maximizing revenue.

Using the public airwaves is a privilege — a lucrative one — not a right, and I fear the F.C.C. has not done enough to stand up for the public interest.... Every eight years, broadcasters must prove that they have served the public interest in order to get license renewal....

The problem is that.... [d]enials on public interest grounds are extraordinarily rare.

Same technique exactly. The writer makes great points about how important it is that broadcasters serve in the public interest, and has some great ideas on how they could help our democracy, but his method - making license renewal tougher and more frequent (he suggests the license expire every 3 years instead of the current 8 years) - is a recipe for governmental, and thus partisan political, control of our nation's airwaves. Who could doubt in this time of the "Patriot Act" that the current administration would hesitate to use this power against broadcasters? My guess is that it DOES use this power, but wants more. Eight-year renewal periods means a president only gets one crack at a license denial - surely that can't be good, right? Hmmmm...

The writer claims good intentions and lists admirable goals, such as

• ensuring stations show programs on local civic affairs (apart from the nightly news), or set aside airtime for local community groups;

• ensuring they broadcast political conventions, and local as well as national candidate debates;

• In an era when owners may live thousands of miles from their stations, ensuring stations meet with local community leaders and the public to receive feedback;

• and making sure the station’s so-called children’s programming actually, in the view of experts, is educational.

The author says that "all of this information ought to be available on the Web so people can see how their airwaves are being used."

His proposals - making FCC renewal tougher and more frequent - will simply result in what Mr. Chavez has done. That is, government-imposed censorship and control of broadcasters. As for the people seeing how their airwaves are being used, it seems more important to see how our government is being used - and that requires as free and independent a press, including television broadcasters, as we can make it.

Something else I noticed in the Economist article:

Under Venezuelan law [denying a renewal license] is a matter for the regulator and the courts, not the president. Coincidentally, Mr Chávez has just merged the supposedly independent regulator with the Communications Ministry.

Unfortunately for us, the "independent" FCC has been in the hands of the executive branch for some time, and is now filled with loyal Republican appointees who hate the Children's program "Arthur." God help out-and-proud Spongebob Squarepants if they get their hands on him.

Again from the Economist:

in pulling the plug on RCTV Hugo Chávez's leftist government has taken another big step away from democracy.

Haven't we taken enough steps away ourselves in the past six years? I say shortening the renewal time from 8 years to 3 is a really, really bad idea. The price of free airwaves may be high, but the price of government-controlled airwaves is simply unacceptable. Give me liberty or give me death.

In case you hadn't noticed

2005-11-22T23:30:00.000-08:00

I am blogging at Intel-Dump while my friend Phil is serving in Iraq: http://www.intel-dump.com/

taking stock of a forever war

2005-09-13T01:15:00.000-07:00

2005-09-12T11:02:00.000-07:00

From the AP:

Bush said Congress should consider whether the federal government should have more authority to step into disaster areas without a request from the states. He said lawmakers should examine what happened and make recommendations for change so the government can prepare for future disasters, including the possibility of a biological attack.

Wow. He is good. Look at that quote. There is so much going on in it. First, it deflects criticism of the federal government's mismanagement of the Katrina disaster by implying that the federal government didn't have a request from Gov. Blanco. She asked for "everything you can give me" from the federal governemnt, but you can't attack Bush for being inaccurate because he never mentions her or accuses her of failing to ask for help. He just implies it.

Next, he implicitly blames Congress ("Congress should consider...") and thus suggests the bungling was the fault not of an inept executive but of the legislature's failure to allow the federal goverment to "step into" disaster relief like it surely would have if only it had been allowed, or asked to do so.

He works in WMD talk to keep playing the terrorism card, and at the same time his suggestion (that Congress trample over states rights) is politically hard to argue with right now because if you state the obvious (that the federal goverment should not interfere with a disaster until asked to do so by a state) you simultaneously make his case that the federal government isn't at fault here, and at the same time you look like you support "red tape" over saving lives - the exact position he wants you in if you are one of his critics.

Well, i'm not running for office, so I'll say it: NO. No Congress should NOT allow the federal government to "step into" a state's domain if the state doesn't ask for it. AND the bungling and failures of FEMA AFTER they WERE asked for assistance should be thoroughly examined by a bi-partisan commission instead of white-washed or delayed until it can't impact an election. It SHOULD impact an election.

Am I playing the "blame game?" No, I'm playing the "accountability and responsibility game." It is my obligation as an American citizen, and anyone who isn't willing to hold their government and their president accountable should leave this republic, because YOU are the enemy of our revolution.

Watch This

2005-09-09T20:21:00.000-07:00

This article is worth watching.

Well said

2005-03-20T21:55:00.000-08:00

"Leadership in the democratic army means firmness, not harshness; understanding, not weakness; justice, not license; humaneness, not intolerance; generosity, not selfishness; pride, not egotism."
Omar Bradley

You MUST read this post from a guy in Iraq. I've said it before, but he says it better - serving is a privilege, and those who serve aren't "economic draftees" but the best our nation has to offer.

Here is the link: http://thunder6.typepad.com/365_arabian_nights/2005/03/the_sat.html

http://thunder6.typepad.com/365_arabian_nights/2005/03/the_sat.html

Hypocrisy

2005-02-28T08:17:00.000-08:00

The controversy over Harvard President Summers' remarks got me to thinking. The left is castigating him for his remarks, and he may lose his job in a no-confidence vote of the faculty. Even if he keeps his job Harvard will lose some funding from people who will refuse to donate in protest. Summers has been called a chauvinist, and worse, for suggesting in an academic workshop that all possible reasons why women are underrepresented in the hard sciences be explored, even including whether men have more natural aptitude.

And it is crap. The left-wing crusaders out to get him are simply wrong.

In exploring why women are underrepresented nothing should be left on the table, even topics that some find offensive. When the Army was fighting to stay segregated some suggested that "colored" soldiers simply couldn't perform like white soldiers due to whites' superior aptitude. So the Army did a study. Racists didn't like the results because of course they showed that wasn't true. But if the study had not been done it would have been harder to integrate the force. And it is a fact that boys show mathmatical aptitude earlier than girls, while girls show greater verbal aptitude. Whether this is due to nature or nurture is surely deserving of exploration. Men are many times more likely to suffer autism than women, something that may be related to mathematical aptitude. Or not. And reading the remarks Mr. Summers actually made shows that he was not saying he felt women don't have as much aptitude for hard science as men, but that the issue should be discussed in order to understand why so few women are on the hard science faculties of major universities. Result: he is condemned.

The right-wing has come to his defense, claiming (rightly, no pun intended) that punishing Summers threatens academic freedom and intellectual inquiry in general. I say "right on" (pun intended.) The purpose of intellectual inquiry is to discover truth and sometimes that makes people uncomfortable. Tough. Free speech is vital in academia, and if it doesn't exist there it surely exists nowhere at all. Regardless of how offensive a comment is, the way to address it is to show it is true or false in a logical, civil debate. Those who want Summers removed are threatening all of us. Self-censorship from fear of being "Larry Summered" will do all of us harm.

But then there is the case of Ward Churchill, an ethnic studies professor who made idiotic comments comparing 9/11 victims to nazi criminals. He actually was stupid enough to blame the 9/11 victims for their own murders because they were serving the "capitalist system." Ok, he is a nutbag and maybe a commie. And calling 9/11 victims "little Eichmanns" as he did turns my stomach. But guess what? Those who want Churchill punished are threatening all of us. Self-censorship from fear of being "Ward Churchill'ed" will do all of us harm. Free speech is vital in academia, and if it doesn't exist there it surely exists nowhere at all. Regardless of how offensive a comment is, the way to address it is to show it is true or false in a logical, civil debate.

Hmmm... many of the same people defending Larry Summers' academic freedom are the ones calling for Ward Churchill's removal. And many of the same people attacking Larry Summers are the ones defending Ward Churchill's academic freedom (although, to be honest, there are actually few defending Churchill since he is clearly a nut, and his "scholarship" is mush-headed dribble).

But I want to go on record as defending Ward Churchill's academic freedom. I do not agree with what he said, but I think he should be free to say it. I don't think his saying it will force anybody to believe what he says or do any harm except to his own credibility. Punishing him for his ideas does great harm to all of us.

To quote Oliver Wendell Holmes, the "free marketplace of ideas" is vital. The way to defeat communism wasn't to ban the Communist Manifesto or punish Marxist university professors but to show that the ideas were wrong. It is ok to debate those who disagree with you - it helps you understand your own position even better. While you may never convince the Marxists themselves you will be able to convince others. And even Marxist ideas contributed to our nation, believe it or not. While we were defending "freedom" our communist enemies delighted in pointing out how segregation and Jim Crow laws showed that the US was not truly free. On that point they were right. Instead of shutting out the criticism we changed the system, communism fell, and we were better off for having listened to what our enemies were saying. Even a broken clock is right twice a day.

So I think Churchill is a flaming idiot, and I think Summers deserves a little credit for trying to explore why there aren't more women at the top of hard science academia, surely not a chauvinistic thing to do. And I think those who would defend Summers and not Churchill are as wrong as those attacking Summers. They are hypocrites. Defending "free speech" when you agree with it is easy. It is defending speech when you disagree with it that is the true measure of how much you like freedom.

Voltaire famously said "I may disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."

So to Mr. Summers and to Mr. Churchill, I say I think you should be allowed to speak without being fired. Continue to speak up and speak out. The free and open marketplace of ideas will decide how much weight should be given to what you say.

Myth Number One

2005-02-11T12:05:00.000-08:00

I have decided to debunk the cherished myths of the radical right, one by one, on this blog. Today I start with the first of many myths: Bush Supports the Troops.

You've seen them - the bumber stickers on the backs of SUVs that proclaim proudly "I support the President and Our Troops." By implication, to support the President is to support the troops. You have seen how Bush trots out troops at every occasion, either as a backdrop for a partisan political speech ("Mission Accomplished" ring any bells?) or to deflect criticism (inaguaration too lavish in a time of war? Invite some troops!)

So how can we tell if Bush and the radical right support our troops? No, I'm not going to discuss the well-known "junk armor" controversy, or the refusal to permanently enlarge the ranks of the Marines or Army, or the recent budget request which increases defense spending, but DECREASES money for the Army. I'm not even going to discuss the "backdoor draft" controversy. Or Rumsfeld's refusal to personally sign letters to the families of our dead, or Bush's order preventing any photos of our honored dead on their way home.

There is another way to see how much the radical right really cares about our troops. How do they treat our nation's veterans, those that have already served? It is our veterans that have made it possible for us to even have this discussion. Those serving in harm's way now are heroes, but how is Bush and the radical extremist neo-con movement treating yesterday's heroes? Are they treating them with as much respect and admiration as they claim they have for our nation's warriors? Are they walking the walk or just talking the talk?

Here are the facts:

Under the latest Bush budget proposal, veterans would now have to pay an enrollment fee of $250 for VA care. Their copay for prescription drugs would rise from $7 to $15. Many of these veterans are from the "Greatest Generation" that fought WWII, and as they age they have many prescriptions. Many of them live on fixed incomes. More than doubling the cost of their prescriptions, combined with the new $250 "enrollment fee," will be a huge burden. On top of that, the healthcare they receive is now more limited than ever. In spite of the growing number of veterans from recent wars, the increasingly severe health needs of older veterans, and overall increases in health costs, the administration is asking for just a 2.7 percent increase for "discretionary" health care. That is the rate of inflation or below, not the rate at which health care costs increase, so the "increase" actually is a decrease in real terms, and at at time when the system is coming under increasing strain from increased demand.

The goal of the administration, which has made similar proposals in the past, is to save close to a half-billion dollars by coaxing more than 200,000 veterans to seek care in other venues. But increasing numbers of older Americans have been turning to VA clinics and hospitals because they have lost their employment-based insurance and discovered that Medicare will not start covering prescription drug costs until 2006. Many of these veterans do not have affordable alternatives. According to Representative Stephen Lynch of South Boston, veterans in his district often have to wait eight months to see a doctor.

The administration lamely defends these charges by noting that they are for "higher-income" veterans without service-connected disabilities. This implies that "rich" vets will simply have to pay a little more, and nobody is really harmed. After all, hasn't the "left" been demanding that the rich pay their "fair share?" How can the President win if he is criticized for giving breaks to the rich, and now he is criticized for making them pay just a little more?

According to the American Legion, the administration defines "higher income" as $25,000 or more, which hardly qualifies as "rich." A VA spokesman said the income level is based on local conditions. He could not provide a national average. In monthly terms, that is $2083.00 a month. Make $2,000 a month and you are now "higher income?" Vets who make $480 a week are now "higher income" vets and have to pay the increased fees. It makes the record $40 million dollars spent on the many lavish parties during the inaguaration look even more obscene.

Supporting the troops indeed.

What about retirees? Undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness, David Chu, recently stated that the growth of military retiree and veteran's benefits in recent years was hampering America's ability to fight the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Chu, in an interview with the Wall Street Journal, was reported as saying that "Congress has gone too far in expanding military retiree benefits" and added that the unchecked growth in such benefits was "starting to crowd out two things: first, our ability to reward the person who is bearing the burden right now in Iraq or Afghanistan ... (second) we are undercutting our ability to finance the new gear that is going to make that military person successful five, 10, 15 years from now."

Really? Military retirees are "undercutting" our defense?

The national commander of the American Legion, Thomas P. Cadmus, wrote the Wall Street Journal: "I resent the implication ... that veterans are nothing more than greedy pigs feeding off the government trough... [Chu's] remarks ... are a slap in the face to every veteran who took the oath to uphold and defend the Constitution against all enemies."

Another retired Army colonel, William F. Sullivan of Normandy Park, Wash., also wrote a letter to the newspaper. "Retirement benefits, health care and pension were a carrot on the stick to compensate for moving my household 23 times in 22 years of marriage; being separated from my family for four years; having my daughters attend three high schools; having my son attend 11 schools in 12 years; and owning one house for three weeks and another for nine months before having to sell them at a loss because of changes in orders."

According to the Boston Globe, "We need to be living up to our promises to the people who wore the nation's uniforms for 20 or 30 years, whose families bore the strain of frequent transfers and moves and long, long absences of their breadwinner serving in one or another combat zone. They were promised lifelong health care and a decent pension for faithful service."

I say THAT would be supporting the troops. Certainly a lot more than slapping a bumper sticker on the SUV and then cutting benefits for the veterans of this great nation.

Myth number one debunked.

2005-01-17T13:16:00.000-08:00

The Brownshirting of America

By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS

James Bovard, the great libertarian champion of our freedom and civil liberties, recently shared with readers his mail from Bush supporters (Lewrockwell.com, October 12). For starters here are some of the salutations: "communist bastard," "asshole," "a piece of trash, scum of the earth." It goes downhill from there.

Bush's supporters demand lock-step consensus that Bush is right. They regard truthful reports that Saddam Hussein had no weapons of mass destruction and was not involved in the September 11 attack on the US--truths now firmly established by the Bush administration's own reports--as treasonous America-bashing.

As well, Bovard is interpreted as throwing cold water on the feel-good, macho, Muslim butt-kicking that Bush's invasion of Iraq has come to symbolize for his supporters. "People like you and Michael Moore," one irate reader wrote, "is (sic) what brings down our country."

I have received similar responses from conservatives, as, no doubt, have a number of other writers who object to a domestic police state at war with the world.

In language reeking with hatred, Heritage Foundation TownHall readers impolitely informed me that opposing the invasion of Iraq is identical to opposing America, that Bush is the greatest American leader in history and everyone who disagrees with him should be shot before they cause America to lose another war. TownHall's readers were sufficiently frightening to convince the Heritage Foundation to stop posting my columns.

Bush's conservative supporters want no debate. They want no facts, no analysis. They want to denounce and to demonize the enemies that the Hannitys, Limbaughs, and Savages of talk radio assure them are everywhere at work destroying their great and noble country.

I remember when conservatives favored restraint in foreign policy and wished to limit government power in order to protect civil liberties. Today's young conservatives are Jacobins determined to use government power to impose their will at home and abroad.

Where did such "conservatives" come from?

Claes Ryn in his important book, America the Virtuous, explains the intellectual evolution of the neoconservatives who lead the Bush administration. For all their defects, however, neocons are thoughtful compared to the world of talk radio, whose inhabitants are trained to shout down everyone else. From whence came the brownshirt movement that slavishly adheres to the neocons' agenda?

Three recent books address this question. Thomas Frank in What's the Matter With Kansas, locates the movement in legitimate conservative resentments of people who feel that family, religious, and patriotic values are given short shrift by elitist liberals.

These resentments festered and multiplied as offshore production, jobs outsourcing, and immigration took a toll on careers and the American dream.

An audience was waiting for rightwing talk radio, which found its stride during the Clinton years. Clinton's evasions made it easy to fall in with show hosts, who spun conspiracies and fabricated a false consciousness for listeners who became increasingly angry.

Show hosts, who advertise themselves as truth-tellers in a no-spin zone, quickly figured out that success depends upon constantly confronting listeners with bogymen to be exposed and denounced: war protesters and America-bashers, the French, marrying homosexuals, the liberal media, turncoats, Democrats, and the ACLU.

Talk radio's "news stories" do not need to be true. Their importance lies in inflaming resentments and confirming that America's implacable enemies are working resolutely to destroy us.

David Brock's The Republican Noise Machine lacks the insights of Thomas Frank's book, but it provides a gossipy history of the rightwing takeover of the US media. Brock is unfair to some people, myself included, and mischaracterizes as rightwing some media personalities who are under rightwing attack.

Brock is as blindly committed to his causes as the rightwing zealots he exposes are to theirs. Unlike Frank, he cannot acknowledge that the rightwing has legitimate issues.

Nevertheless, Brock makes a credible case that today's conservatives are driven by ideology, not by fact. He argues that their stock in trade is denunciation, not debate. Conservatives don't assess opponents' arguments, they demonize opponents. Truth and falsity are out of the picture; the criteria are: who's good, who's evil, who's patriotic, who's unpatriotic.

These are the traits of brownshirts [fascists]. Brownshirts know they are right. They know their opponents are wrong and regard them as enemies who must be silenced if not exterminated.

Some of Brock's quotes from prominent conservative commentators will curl your toes. His description of the rightwing's destruction of an independent media and the "Fairness Doctrine" explain why a recent CNN/Gallup poll found that 42% of Americans still believe that Saddam Hussein was involved in the September 11 terrorist attack on the US and 32% believe that Saddam Hussein personally planned the attack.

A country in which 42% of the population is totally misinformed is not a country where democracy is safe.

Today there is no one to correct a lie once it is told. The media, thanks to Republicans, has been concentrated in few hands, and they are not the hands of newsmen. Corporate values rule. If lies sell, sell them. If listeners, viewers, and readers want confirmation of their resentments and beliefs, give it to them. Objectivity turns listeners off and is a money loser.

In his book, Cruel and Unusual, Mark Crispin Miller, professor of media studies at New York University, explains how rightwing influence has moved the media away from reporting news to designing our consciousness. "The Age of Information," Miller writes, "has turned out to be an Age of Ignorance."

Miller makes a strong case. His description of how CNN and Fox News destroyed the credibility of Scott Ritter, the leading expert on Iraq's weapons, reveals a media completely given over to propaganda. Ritter stood in the way of the neocon's invasion of Iraq. See Patriotism.

CNN's Miles O'Brien, Eason Jordan, Catherine Callaway, Paula Zahn, Kyra Phillips, Arthel Neville, and Fox News' David Asman and John Gibson portrayed Ritter as a disloyal American, a Ba-athist stooge on the take from Saddam Hussein, and compared him to Jane Fonda in North Vietnam.

With this, the rightwing talk radio crazies were off and running. Anyone with the slightest bit of real information about the state of weapons development in Iraq was dismissed as a foreign agent who should be shot for treason.

By substituting fiction for reality, the US media took the country to war. The CNN and Fox News "journalists" are as responsible for America's ill-fated invasion of Iraq as Cheney and Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and Perle.

With a sizable percentage of the US population now addicted to daily confirmations of their resentments and hatreds, US policy will be increasingly driven by tightly made up minds in pursuit of unrealistic agendas.

American troops are in Iraq on false pretenses. No one knows all the fateful consequences of this mistaken adventure. Bush's reelection would be seen as a vindication of aggression, and more aggression would likely follow. A continuing expenditure of blood, money, alliances, good will, and civil liberties is not a future to which to look forward.

Paul Craig Roberts is John M. Olin Fellow at the Institute for Political Economy and Research Fellow at the Independent Institute. He is a former assistant secretary of the U.S. Treasury. He is the co-author of The Tyranny of Good Intentions

WMDs? so what.

2005-01-17T01:22:00.000-08:00

Bush abandons WMD search?

THE PRESENCE OF WMD’S WAS NOT A REASON TO INVADE. Even if Saddam had tons of nerve agent sitting around, it was NOT a good reason to invade? Why? Because I’m a weak-kneed pacifist? No. Because invading Iraq was bound to HARM our national security even if he had tons of WMDs laying around.

Forgive me for shouting, but few people on either side of the political spectrum seem to even ask the right questions about WMDs, much less give the right answers. So here is my try:

THE THREAT OF SWLD

WMD's – “Weapons of Mass Destruction” is a terribly inaccurate way to describe chemical or biological or radiological weapons. Only one type of weapon deserves such a scary name – nuclear weapons. And we KNEW Saddam didn’t have them and wasn’t on the way to getting them, which I will discuss below. So WMD should be replaced by a more accurate term, such as SWLD - "Sucky Weapons of Little Destruction." That would be more accurate.

Here is why:

CHEMICAL WEAPONS ARE NOT VERY GOOD WEAPONS.

Chemical weapons are World War One technology. All armies came to the conclusion during WWI that chemical weapons sucked, and stopped using them. In WWII Hitler had a large inventory and didn't use them. Because he was a nice guy? I doubt it. Because he was terrified of our response? Of course not. Japan at first used both chemical and biological weapons on China, but found, like everybody else, that they suck. And Japan put a lot of vital resources into developing chemical and biological weapons, but after much effort came up with nothing. The United States COULD have put a lot of resources into chemical or biological weapons research during WWII, but our government wisely followed the advice of scientists and military experts who told them chemical and biological weapons suck, and instead developed the first WMD – the atomic bomb. It is still the only type of weapon that is a WMD. Chemical and biological weapons should never be described that way. The only reason to do so is to scare people.

CHEMICAL WEAPONS ARE NOT VERY EFFECTIVE AT KILLING, AND ONLY EFFECTIVE AT “TERROR” IF PEOPLE REMAIN IGNORANT

Boo. Did I scare you? No? Well how about this? WMD. Stop crying, I was just kidding. I promise I won't use that term again to try and scare you. Too scary.

How about this instead: “Nerve gas.” “Blood agent.” “Blister agent.” “Mustard Gas.” “Sarin.” “DX or DN or VX” and on and on and on.

Are you scared? Don’t be. The government should tell you this, but they seem to have a vested interest in fear. I don’t. Read on.

MUSTARD GAS SITED IN YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD!

you are often exposed to WMDs without ill effect. Any country that can make chlorine for swimming pools has a "WMD program” and could make mustard gas (lots of it) almost immediately if it chose to do so. And LOTS of countries can and do make industrial chemicals like chlorine or bleach. High school chemistry labs often are equipped with the makings of deadly chemical weapons. But you don’t see the Dept. of Homeland Security worrying about them, so neither should you. If you still don’t believe me please read on.

NERVE AGENT IS EVERYWHERE

If you have a can of RAID under your sink or in your garage - you are in possession of deadly nerve agent. Not much of a threat – unless, of course, George W. Bush launches a pre-emptive invasion of your kitchen because of the “lessons of September Eleventh.” Deadly and destructive industrial chemicals and gases such as hydrogen sulfide and hydrogen selenide travel our freeways every day – possibly right by your house TONIGHT. That is a WMD. It can easily be “weaponized” by terrorists. So why don’t they do it (or, if you think they will, why don’t we secure all that stuff as we sought to do with the non-existent WMDs in Iraq?)

SO WHAT?

Conventional weapons are much more effective at killing people than the “WMDs” I just mentioned. Conventional weapons such as gunpowder, dynamite, or a fertilizer bomb are also easier for terrorists to acquire. Well, actually, chemical weapons are sometimes much easier to acquire, but still those who might acquire them usually know that dynamite will cause more damage and is much easier to use.

Chemical weapons are not as terribly destructive and all-powerful as you probably thought. But would I want to be caught in a cloud of mustard gas? Hell no. Still, I don’t think I would be any better off being blown up by TNT or any other conventional explosive. And my chances of survival would be much higher if terrorists foolishly believe what most Americans seem to believe – that chemical or biological weapons can cause “mass destruction” on a grander scale than conventional weapons. Well, technically, they can. But so can gunpowder, or, if you think about it, 19 evil men with nothing more than boxcutter Exacto-knives.

Even Saddam stopped using chemical weapons against Iran during that war - because he found, like every other military force in the world already knew, that they suck. His infamous attack on the Kurds with chemical weapons doesn't look so scary if you consider that the same number of HE artillery shells would have killed as many, and conventional air-strikes more, and a fuel-air explosive device even more, so chemical weapons were actually less destructive than many, many other things he might have used. Plus, civilians have little defense against hot shrapnel or firestorms unless they live in bunkers, but a simple gas mask can protect civilian populations in the event some group is stupid enough to begin chemical attacks. You just carry one around – as the British civilians in London did during WWII. But as I said, even Hitler didn’t use them because they are so ineffective.

BUT WHAT IF SADDAM SHARED WITH THE TERRORISTS?

Ahh, but you say “military use is one thing, but in the hands of terrorists…” Let’s pretend that there was some connection between Saddam’s Iraq and terrorists that pose a threat to the United States (there isn’t, and wasn’t, and it was well-known there wasn’t, and it was well known that groups like Al Queda hated secular rulers like Saddam as much or more than they hate us – but pretend anyway). We HAD to invade because otherwise Saddam would have provided WMDs to Osama and company, right? Right?

Wrong. Because even if he DID share his WMDs with Osama, there was no threat to the United States – or, indeed, to Kuwait. At least no larger threat than there was if we knew for sure what turned out to be true – that there were no WMDs. But, for the sake of argument, assume some terrorists got their nasty hands on nerve agent.

So what.

In the hands of terrorists chemical weapons are no more effective than in military hands. The Japanese cult “Aum Shiriko” terrorists spent over a decade and millions of dollars to engineer the most sophisticated and deadly terrorist chemical weapon attack in history, with delivery devices at least as good as any in Saddam's inventory. They placed deadly Sarin nerve agent dispensers at numerous locations throughout the Tokyo subway system. Sarin is about as nasty as chemical weapons get. It’s nasty. And the Aum Shiriko had a LOT of Sarin.

Result: 19 dead, a few hundred hospitalized, and the trains were up and running again in a short time. Contrast this with Madrid. 191 dead, hundreds more wounded, and the rail system suffered extensive damage. Yes, it is true, I prefer terrorists to try chemical attacks - they will do less damage, and we will all be safer. But call them "WMD"s and they scare the heck out of people. “A car bomb killed 19 people in Iraq!” “So. What’s for lunch?” “Terrorists may have nerve agent!” “Oh my God, head for the shelter!!!!!

DEATH MATH

Then there is the "death math." Hysterical pundits proclaim "one drop of nerve agent can wipe out 1,000 people" or "NYC" or "the Western hemisphere." It's BS of course. Using their math, the Aum Shiriko attack should have killed thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, of people. It killed 19, with no major infrastructure damage. Tim McVeigh killed a lot more than that, and destroyed a federal building, with a bomb made out of fertilizer. Don't you wish he had tried chemical weapons instead? Fewer Americans would have died in Oklahoma City.

Using the same kind of rules that pundits use to calculate the deadly effects of chemical weapons, 10 lbs of gunpowder can kill thousands of people. It just has to be delivered the right way - a few grains of powder at a time, just enough to propel a fatal bullet in the head. Of course we don't call gunpowder a WMD, even though more people have died because of it than will ever die from chemical weapons.

BIOLOGICAL WEAPONS ARE EVEN LESS SCARY THAN CHEMICAL ONES

Then there are biological weapons - a true BS bogeyman story. We have had bio warfare since the first time a well was deliberately poisoned, probably in Ur thousands of years ago. And the anthrax attacks? How many died in the deadliest biological weapons attack in US history? Five. The Unabomber killed 3 by himself, and he injured many more. 223 died in the embassy attacks in Africa. A Navy warship (USS Cole) was almost sunk by conventional explosives on a rubber boat that pulled up alongside. So what do we freak about?

Anthrax.

More people died from unbuckled seat belts yesterday than have died in the worst bio attack in history. Yet as reputable a source as the BBC reports that an anthrax attack on a major us city could kill 123,000 people, basing it on a missile containing 1 KG of antrhax spores. Sure, if the spores somehow were able to distribute themselves equally over the entire city, so that every human in the city inhaled enough to become infected, and no spores died from the heat of the blast, or that killer of anthrax spores, sunlight. Perhaps the terrorists could hire Fedex and UPS to hand-deliver the spores, they would stand a better chance. Oh, and the US anthrax "terror" was from a US strain developed by our government, not from any “rogue” regime.

NUCLEAR WEAPONS – OK, I’M SCARED.

Then there is nuclear - yes, that is the only one deserving of WMD status. Truly terrifying. No, not the "dirty bomb" that would freak people out (but probably kill less than anthrax.) Dirty bombs use things like medical waste and the like to scatter radiation. Again, it would kill and be destructive, but conventional explosives could do much more damage. No, not a dirty bomb. I mean the terrible atomic bomb. A terrorist could smuggle a crude nuclear weapon into a major American city in a variety of ways. In a truck, the back of a van, or in a boat just as large drug shipments are smuggled. Even more likely, they just ship it in a shipping container. Imagine if one went off in the Port of Los Angeles/Long Beach: hundreds of thousands, maybe millions, dead, and the economic impact from the LA port shutting down would be devastating. Nuclear weapons are REALLY weapons of mass destruction.

So what do we worry about? Not nuclear. Pakistan, an unstable nation with MANY Islamic terrorists and “Madrasa” schools that teach young boys to grow up and kill Americans and Jews, develops nuclear bombs. Our response? We are ok with that. Gen. Musharif is a “key ally in the war on terror.” India gets it too. Cool, we don’t care. Pakistan's chief nuclear scientist admits selling atomic secrets to Libya (and probably others) and Pakistan punishes him by, uhh, by... they called him a hero and forgave him. We were ok with that too. After all, as I said, Gen. Musharif is a “key ally.” Iran works toward one, and we grumble a little. And North Korea works on one (the nation most likely to sell completed weapons to terrorists, or use one against us themselves) and what do we do? Invade Iraq of course. Because if we don't WMDs will kill us all, right?.

CONCLUSION

So, yes, no WMDs were found and Bush has finally given up (AFTER the election of course.) But he actually told the truth recently when he said that WMDs didn't matter when deciding if the invasion of Iraq was a good idea. And he is right. Because even if we had found tons of nerve agent or anthrax AND proof that he was giving it away free to terrorists THERE WAS STILL NO THREAT FROM SADDAM. He presented less of a threat to us in March of 2003 than he did in 2000, or 1995, or 1992, or 1988. He grew weaker every year since the first Gulf War, and was weaker the day we invaded than he was the minute Schwarzkopf stopped the advance in '91. If we did have a good reason to invade, it sure as heck wasn’t WMDs or any “threat” Saddam posed to us.

WMDs? How about LMDs. Lies of Mass Destruction. And most of America bought it, and still buys it. Bush knew better at the time, because hell, I did. It was well-known in professional military and national security circles that WMDs in Iraq presented little to no threat to us. But nobody addressed the issue of whether "WMDs" were truly a threat, just the issue of whether Saddam had them or not. And they still don't.

How about “W” of Mass Destruction. George W.

Talk about terrifying and dangerous to the USA...

Links on the subject:

http://armchairgeneralist.typepad.com/my_weblog/2005/01/hollywood_needs.html

http://www.bt.cdc.gov/agent/smallpox/disease/movies.asp

http://www.strategypage.com/dls/articles/2004113.asp

http://www.terrorismanswers.org/weapons/sarin.html

Reefer Madness

2005-01-08T18:08:00.000-08:00

Today I was perusing the NY Times online edition (because I am one of "them thar librals" who prefer the NY Times over Fox news).

I was shown an anti-marijuana ad when I clicked on one story, and I clicked on the website. It is at http://www.theantidrug.com/drug_info/drug_info_truth_healthhazards.asp

Lies. Lies. And more lies.

Why are so many people so determined to keep Pot illegal, but care nothing about the terrible effects of alcohol on our youth - indeed, on our entire society?

Well, I don't know, but that isn't what this topic is about. It is about the "dangers" of marijuana use.

In the interests of candor, I will admit (as I did on every security clearance I ever filled out) that I have used it. Not while on active-duty, but that is because I took an oath to obey the UCMJ and the UCMJ forbids it. I always felt it stupid to outlaw it though, as I watched my peers drink themselves into a stupor every weekend, as I watched Regimental Calls and Prop Blasts and Rotor Washes and Hail and Farewells (all kinds of military parties) constantly degenerate into drunkfests, often with the blessing of commanders and senior NCOs. Sure, guzzle Tequila every night, you are ok as long as you don't report to duty intoxicated. Smoke a joint during your leave back home and you become a "bad" soldier and your career ends. I never thought that made much sense.

But maybe I was just lucky that Marijuana didn't destroy my brain. Those who feel any "libral" has a destroyed brain can rest assured that intelligence tests place me in the top 2% nationwide, technically a "genius." My opinion is that I am very good at taking tests written by people who think like me, and people who don't score as high on standardized tests can and often are twice as smart as me. Intelligence tests are crap, but I can point to them to show that smoking pot did not destroy my brain. But as I said, maybe I was lucky. So lets get the "facts" from the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy's National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign.

"Effects of Marijuana on the Brain. Researchers have found that THC changes the way in which sensory information gets into and is acted on by the hippocampus. This is a component of the brain's limbic system that is crucial for learning, memory, and the integration of sensory experiences with emotions and motivations. Investigations have shown that THC suppresses neurons in the information-processing system of the hippocampus. In addition, researchers have discovered that learned behaviors, which depend on the hippocampus, also deteriorate."

Ok, that sounds bad. But look at it closely: "THC changes the way sensory information" is "acted on by the hippocampus." Wow. But if it didn't you wouldn't get high. You know what else changes the way your body processes sensory information? Cocaine. Heroin. LSD. Of course it should be illegal. Oh, and beer. Scotch Whiskey. Wine. Tylenol 3. Over the counter pain-killers to a small extent, prescription pain-killers to a large extent. The change to the way the body processes sensory information is just a fancy, scary way of saying "getting high." Changing the way you feel is not harmful in and of itself, and in the case of pain relief, it is a positive good. If you expect somebody who is intoxicated - whether with legal or illegal substances - to NOT have trouble with learning, memory, or the "integration of sensory experiences with emotions and motivations" then you are intoxicated yourself. As for "emotions" and how they are affected by pot, I would much rather hang out with a stoned "I love you man" dude than either a crying drunk or a drunk who thinks he can kick the entire world's ass. Give a bunch of rednecks some dope and they get high and act stupid - by themselves, and usually the biggest problem is they are laughing too loud. Give them whiskey and get ready for a brawl. So the key to all this is how long does the effect last? Is it permanent? Does it do lasting damage? This scary paragraph presents absolutely no facts that indicate marijuana is harmful, only that it makes you high.

"Effects on the Lungs. Someone who smokes marijuana regularly may have many of the same respiratory problems that tobacco smokers have. These individuals may have daily cough and phlegm, symptoms of chronic bronchitis, and more frequent chest colds. Continuing to smoke marijuana can lead to abnormal functioning of lung tissue injured or destroyed by marijuana smoke. Regardless of the THC content, the amount of tar inhaled by marijuana smokers and the level of carbon monoxide absorbed are three to five times greater than among tobacco smokers. This may be due to marijuana users inhaling more deeply and holding the smoke in the lungs."

Ok, this is bad. It appears smoking harms your lungs. Surprise. Yet tobacco is legal. Well, dope smokers absorb three to five times more tar and carbon monoxide, which "may be due to" holding the smoke in the lungs and inhaling deeply. Still, we don't see anything here that suggests it should be illegal. And the "may be due to" is crap. The government says that so that it can't be proven a liar. Legal tobacco is consistent, manufactured to an industry standard, with few impurities and with quality control in place. Marijuana is illegal, thus it varies widely in its quality and its delivery mechanism. If dope were legal then it would be legal to study ways to lessen the effects of smoking on the lungs. For instance, a higher THC content coupled with higher-quality leaf could result in faster, more efficient delivery of THC to the smoker, coupled with much, much less a percentage of impurities. With more powerful joints that contain fewer impurities it is totally concievable that smoking dope can be made much less harmful than smoking cigarettes. But we will never know, will we?

In addition, marijuana can be ingested in many other ways than smoking. It can be reduced into pill form, with absolutely NO effects on the lungs. It can be baked into brownies - no effect on the lungs. Thus this paragraph is no reason to keep dope illegal, but MAY be a reason to include that "Surgeon General's Warning" on packs of joints sold legally. Maybe.

"Effects of Heavy Marijuana Use on Learning and Social Behavior. A study of college students has shown that critical skills related to attention, memory, and learning are impaired among people who use marijuana heavily, even after discontinuing its use for at least 24 hours. Researchers compared 65 "heavy users," who had smoked marijuana a median of 29 of the past 30 days, and 64 "light users," who had smoked a median of 1 of the past 30 days. After a closely monitored 19- to 24-hour period of abstinence from marijuana and other illicit drugs and alcohol, the undergraduates were given several standard tests measuring aspects of attention, memory, and learning. Compared to the light users, heavy marijuana users made more errors and had more difficulty sustaining attention, shifting attention to meet the demands of changes in the environment, and in registering, processing, and using information. The findings suggest that the greater impairment among heavy users is likely due to an alteration of brain activity produced by marijuana."

Wow. So dope makes you stupid. Doesn't it?

Read it again. "A" survey? After years of research by a government eager to prove dope is harmful we have "a" survey? One? Which compared 65 "heavy" users to 64 "light" users? That is it? No wider study? Hmmm.

Then there is the nature of the study itself. It compared "stoners" to the occasional "toker." Have we any data comparing heavy drinkers to social drinkers? Why was there no control group which didn't use marijuana at ALL? My guess is that "drunks" also suffer impairment to their learning and social behavior. Don't you think so? This "scary" paragraph shows that people who get stoned every day have greater difficulty processing information than those who don't. Duh. We needed a study? The same holds true for alcohol, or narcotics, or any mind-altering substance. This "study" simply shows that people who overuse dope have "issues." People who have too much water DROWN. That doesn't mean you should blame the water, because the cause is TOO MUCH WATER, not WATER. Same for dope.

Then, as I said, why didn't they compare the light users to non-users? I'll bet they did, but the government simply didn't report what the study surely found - there was no difference.

And there is the "chicken or the egg" question. Did heavy users have trouble processing information because they smoke dope, or do they smoke so much dope because they have trouble processing information? At my high school the champion stoners were almost always those who were laggards academically and/or socially from elementary school onward. They had "issues" well before they ever smoked a joint. The few exceptions (me being one) who smoked a lot of dope but were "good" students and fit in socially seemed to suffer no ill effects. I myself was a national merit scholar, graduated a top-20 law school, and smoked dope. Isn't it possible, even likely, that those who decide to smoke dope heavily may have had their problems BEFORE they smoked dope, and this study's findings actually can be interpreted in reverse? By this I mean "a study of marijuana use has shown that those who have problems with learning and social behavior are more likely to be heavy users of marijuana." There are several ways to determine this, but it has not been done? Well, at least it wasn't reported on the antidrug.com's website.

So this paragraph doesn't give any reasons why the drug should be illegal, or that it is harmful to society. It says that those who smoke too much have problems. So do those who drink too much. Or eat too much.

"Longitudinal research on marijuana use among young people below college age indicates those who used have lower achievement than the non-users, more acceptance of deviant behavior, more delinquent behavior and aggression, greater rebelliousness, poorer relationships with parents, and more associations with delinquent and drug-using friends."

"Longitudinal" research? WTF does THAT mean? Maybe I'm just too much of a "stoner" to understand such fancy language. Oh, wait, I'm a damn lawyer, I LIVE for fancy language. So what is "longitudinal research" mean? It simply means the study followed the young people over a period of years. I wonder why a website designed to communicate with the public used such a fancy word. My guess is to make it sound more clinical and "truthful" and convincing. So anyway, this "longitudinal study" found that non-users had higher achievement than users. Again we have the chicken and the egg problem, but remember, this study deals with people below the drinking age. Those that engage in any form of law-breaking are more likely to be non-achievers, aren't they? The same results could be found in studies of alcohol use - and have been found. The same results could be found when comparing those who abide by a curfew when compared to kids who don't, or when comparing strict parents with those who aren't. The study does NOT show that dope causes less achievement. Less achievement may result from factors that also make it more likely to smoke dope, though. Or drink. Or have sex. Or get arrested. Getting arrested doesn't cause lower achievement any more than smoking dope. All of the factors listed (more delinquent behavior and aggression, greater rebelliousness, poorer relationships with parents, and more associations with delinquent and drug-using friends) are not CAUSED by smoking dope, but a result of other issues that LED to smoking dope before the kid was old enough to legally drink.

Then there is the shocking relevation that non-users were less accepting of "deviant behavior" than users. Well, doesn't that make sense? If the non-users were more accepting of "deviant behavior" wouldn't they be more likely to engage in it, and the fact that they don't engage in deviant behavior, such as smoking dope, is because they don't accept deviant behavior? Duh? Classic chicken or egg problem.

That is it on the anti-drug.com's "health hazards and effects" page. that's all. In short, the government's website designed to communicate the health hazards of dope was a mish-mash of mis-information and misdirection. No wonder kids that have tried dope are more rebellious. They know the adults lecturing them on the "dangers" of pot are full of crap.

Oh, but it is the "gateway" drug, right? If you smoke dope on Monday, by Friday you are smoking crack, right? Well, maybe not on Friday, but you are LOTS more likely to use hard drugs, right? right?

Well, that little-respected think-tank always involved in loony research, High Times has - ooops, I mean THE RAND CORPORATION, has done a study that shows this simply isn't true. Here is a link: http://www.rand.org/news/press.02/gateway.html

The study says that "associations between marijuana and hard drug use could be expected even if marijuana use has no gateway effect. Instead, the associations can result from known differences in the ages at which youths have opportunities to use marijuana and hard drugs, and known variations in individuals' willingness to try any drugs, researchers found." It goes on to say that when "enforcement resources that could have been used against heroin and cocaine are instead used against marijuana, this could have the unintended effect of worsening heroin and cocaine use."

Hmm. So efforts to prevent marijuana use are a misuse of resources. Those Rand guys are all stoner freaks anyway, right? No, I don't think so - and if they are stoners, it should pretty well dismiss all the claims that smoking dope makes you stupid.

Antidrug.com also says "Kids who use marijuana weekly are four times more likely to engage in violent behavior than those who don't." Well, does marijuana cause the violence? This is simple to determine. The effects of THC on the brain are well-known, and a tendency toward violence is NOT an effect of THC. In fact, THC seems to have the opposite effect. Smoking dope does NOT make you more likely to engage in violent behavior. Hard alcohol, on the other hand... Plus, I wonder what the rate of violent behavior is among kids who drink alcohol weekly. See how they twist the truth? "Kids who use marijuana weekly" - how does that relate to "adults" or less than "weekly" or the use of other illegal substances (and both alcohol and tobacco are illegal substances for kids, remember). As an adult I don't even drink weekly. Any kid who smokes dope weekly is engaging in illegal behavior on a weekly basis. Surprise - they are also more likely to engage in violent behavior. Did marijuana cause this? No. No way. As anybody who has been around somebody stoned (or have been stoned themselves) knows, you are more likely to end up with somebody who thinks the Cartoon Network is the funniest thing ever (try Aqua-Teen Hunger Force if you want to see them die from laughter while stoned. It's pretty funny when you are sober too.) More violent? No way, dude. Again, simply more disinformation and scare tactics by our government.

What other scientific studies does the Antidrug.com have to buttress their case of the dangers of dope? See http://www.theantidrug.com/drug_info/drug_info_research_truth.asp. Count how many of these studies either include alcohol (legal) or other actually-dangerous drugs in the study, meaning dope is guilty by association rather than anything directly related to marijuana's "harmful effects."

The government even goes so far as to say "Research shows that marijuana use can lead to addiction." What research is that? This "research" shows that dope "can" lead to addiction. Well, tobacco DOES, and it is legal, and alcohol is much more likely, and there are LOTS of studies showing that dope is NOT addictive. Google this if you want "research" to prove me right, or want to attempt to prove me wrong. You might even find the "research" that shows dope can lead to addiction, because I couldn't.

I'm not suggesting kids should be allowed to smoke dope legally any more than I would suggest they should be allowed to drink or smoke tobacco or drive without a license or any other potentially risky activity. But I am not a kid, and I don't like my government telling me I can't grow or smoke dope because kids might come to harm - especially when their data is scant, misleading, or simply wrong.

In a supposedly free society, shouldn't it be the government's job to prove my use of dope harms others, instead of my job to prove it doesn't? Well, even if there are no studies to support it, if the people have passed laws then that is the way it is - which is why I never smoked dope on active duty. I promised the nation I wouldn't.

That isn't the point, though. It seems very dangerous to me that our government would seek to justify keeping dope illegal through misinformation, deception, lies, and misdirection. Giving an honest assessment of the harms of marijuana, or lack thereof, is not harmful to democracy. The truth never is. Having a government that doesn't mind misleading us, or lying to us, seems much more of a "harmful effect" than anything that can come from your lighting up a joint on your porch and watching the sun set while BB King plays on the stereo and Pasadena traffic passes by below. But then, I'm a hippie radical don't you know.