Too Many Alternatives

So much to talk about and so little time... There are so many offenses at so many levels and I can choose only one at a time to explore.

The President's nomination of Gen. Hayden to head the CIA is a natural for me. Mr. Bush, in clear violation of FISA and the "Patriot Act," sets the NSA on a program of domestic spying; and now he nominates his director of that program, an officer of the U.S. Air Force sworn to defend the Constitution, to head the CIA. On the other hand, the neo-fascists have done their preparation well, and more than 60% of Americans are more in fear of their "enemies" than of losing their civil liberties.

I'm leaning toward state or local stories.

A Bay-area judge has suspended the California high school exit exam because it discriminates against... well, basically kids who can't pass it. His points are well-taken, that English-learners and the poor have a harder time passing the test. In my opinion, it is this kind of thinking that has made a high school diploma worthless. The exit exam tests English and math competency at the ninth grade level, and if a "graduate" can't pass that then how on Earth can I give him a job? How does he break out of the cycle of poverty?

The California Governor contest exemplifies why I stopped working on campaigns. Steve Westly appears to be a fiscal conservative who sings to a majority of voters in the polls, but Angelides is getting the Democratic Party endorsement apparently because... in the tradition of Gray Davis and Cruz Bustamente... he's next in line, works well for or with public employee union leaders, and has a ton of money from his real estate developer connections.

Meanwhile, Arnold, whose only virtue was that "his heart is in the right place," has also suddenly found a ton of money for next year's budget to pay off/pay back the money he "borrowed" from public programs during the first two years of his administration. The poorest and most disadvantaged? Well, they need better connections, don't they?

Both parties are stumping for the ultimate election-year lie: the $37 Billion building program with "no new taxes!" Why is California's bond rating right down there with Louisiana's? Could it be because Californians... as many Americans... don't recognize that debt must eventually be repaid? "Win-Win" my ass. It's at least 30 years of debt-service (interest), and hopefully an eternity of refinancing so you never have to repay the principal.

P.S. I didn't mention that the levee repairs at New Orleans won't be ready by June 1st after all.
When you see people such as Secretary Rumsfeld complaining that criticism of the Administration is damaging the U.S. position overseas you just want to scream: "Then stop lying! You are accountable to us! We're supposed to challenge you! That we catch you at it is your fault!"

Where to start...

Through the Looking Glass

I know... believe me, I know... that I've been horrible about blogging. I wish I had a better handle on why that is, but there are moments when I have to say something or spend years telling myself that I should have said something.

Today I awoke to the news that TSA was putting federal agents - air marshals - on Los Angeles' Metrolink. This is being marketed as "test" but the public is reminded that the 'T' in TSA covers all forms of transportation. This is apparently a "test" being conducted across the country.

This is one of those incremental changes that people say I overreact to... Like when I-5 and I-15 were blocked by Border Patrol checkpoints on the San Diego County line at least 75 miles north of the US-Mexican border. The one response I got was that they were successfully catching "a lot" of drug smuggling activity.

For forty two years I was taught that totalitarian government was the antithesis of liberty. I was employed for twenty years in the defense of that concept. The very idea of a central Department of Homeland Security brought to mind nothing so much as the Soviet KGB. Now I am forced to accept that federal surveillance and intervention is acceptable to protect us... not from (other) totalitarian governments but from common criminals.

I am mindful of the quotation attributed to Benjamin Franklin: "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."

For the record, I object to federal interference/intervention in the internal affairs of the city and county of Los Angeles and the state of California. If TSA wants to ride Metrolink, make them buy a ticket.

P.S. While I have the soapbox out, Mr. Bush did not take us to war in Iraq on the basis of faulty intelligence. He took us to war in Iraq on the basis of manipulated intelligence, and he damn well knew it.

Further Thoughts on Lies & Liars

I hate it when I let myself get sidetracked.
As CopCar and others have pointed out, my issue with Newsweek getting - in my opinion - punked on the story about desecration of the Quran by detention facility personnel is arguably no big deal. It is an old story in any case; and, whether it's the Quran or Moby Dick, it's a book. I am reminded of the furor that arose when the Taliban blew up the Buddhist statues carved into the cliffs in Afghanistan... it was ancient and it was art but they weren't blowing up the Buddha.
What I missed was the pattern. I am reminded of Dan Rather getting sloppy in documenting that George Bush pretty much blew off a lot of his National Guard obligation. That Mr. Bush did so was pretty well established in the public record by then, but suddenly the focus was shifted from Mr. Bush's failures to the failures of 60 Minutes.
That detention facility personnel have used practices offensive to Muslims in order to provoke responses from detainees has also been fairly well established in the public record, but once again the focus has suddenly shifted from those practices to, this time, Newsweek. Now Muslims are rioting not because we have offended them at almost every turn, but because of Newsweek.
Never mind the message... blame the media.
One must admit it... it works for them.

Thoughts on Lies and Liars

More or less as an aside, I need to say this about the dust-up from the item regarding desecration of the Quran reported in Newsweek.
Mark Whitaker says that the piece was legitimate and vetted, but that now their anonymous source has wavered... is no longer sure he read what he said he'd read. Newsweek has retracted the story and apologized.
In my opinion, Newsweek has just been punked. You get a piece, you run the piece, the crap hits the fan in part because of the piece... and suddenly your anonymous inside source isn't sure anymore. Gotcha!
In a time when God knows how many are dead because of the lies of the Bush administration, they are using you as a pinata because of a blurb that was entirely plausible based on proven disregard for Muslim beliefs and institutions at Gitmo and Abu Ghraib, and you have no defense because you can't name your source.
Now the White House is saying that an apology isn't enough and you must do more to make up for the real consequences of your "lie." They want you to help them tell their version of the truth. One might reasonably ask when the White House will begin to make up for their lies.
Newsweek got burned on a blurb in its Periscope section... probably, again in my opinion, by the White House. One would hope they will have the confidence and courage to work through this without becoming another conduit for administration propaganda and disinformation.

Thoughts on Values

I keep thinking that I'm going to get more disciplined in my writing. There are several things I mean to address, but then I get distracted as something catches my eye and then things seem to coalesce into another subject entirely... or perhaps not entirely.
I've been ruminating on Tamar's post the other day regarding the pervasive nature and global extent of politics. The next thing I'm reading is this piece in The Guardian about U.S.-Sudanese cooperation in the "Global War on Terror." Now today's MSN Quote of the Day is from Emmanuel Levinas: "Politics is opposed to morality, as philosophy to naïveté." It came to me that this could account for a lot.
I had intended to ask the six percent of voters who voted for GW six months ago but who now feel that he sucks in his job for an explanation. What changed? What was concealed from them in November that is apparent to them now? (Like they're all reading my blog!) It came to me that in run-up to November the talk was all about "values." The neocons just did a superb job of distracting people from their politics. Men who never served a minute in combat... who avoided service... were able to impugn the character of a decorated veteran by challenging his freedom of speech. They had better salesmen.
No WMD? Never mind because Saddam was a dictator and the U.S. doesn't do dictators... except throughout the 1980's when he was gassing Iranians, Shi'ites and Kurds somewhat indiscriminately. The U.S. is all about human rights and the principles of democracy... except in Saudi Arabia and China and Russia because business is business. In public we seek to condemn the Sudanese government in the U.N. for genocide while in the background we still do business with their intelligence apparatus.
Core values dictate that we must not take life, that we must not steal, that we must not bear false witness, etc. Politics dictate that "you have to go along to get along" and that the end justifies the means. You clean up Iraq as much as you can before you leave and you can write off the whole damn war as a humanitarian effort, and in a few years who will remember the lies?
Does it make any sense then for me to rant because politicians are amoral? Yeah, it does. It does because this is a republic, and these people do not in fact represent my values. From elementary school I've been told that we hold certain truths to be self evident, but there is little testament that our government values those truths. Our government is made up of politicians. Our government is made up of politicians because we are too damn lazy or distracted or otherwise engaged to think beyond buzzwords and sound bites.
Would it kill us to make the effort to identify and elect people to represent us who weren't so flagrantly for sale? I refuse to believe that George W. and Arnold Schwarzenegger represent our best and our brightest hopes for the future. Is it not possible to elect people you would allow to sit your kids?

Pardon My Incredulity

So... I am asked to believe that the U.S. backed Iraqi police have elicited unforced confessions confirming U.S. allegations of Syrian support of terrorism which are being broadcast on U.S. sponsored Iraqi television.
I don't know if this link still works... it's a report in the Washington Post last month on the continued employment of pre-OIF police interrogators and their continuing use of pre-OIF methods. Any of those guys look a little the worse for wear to you?
At least one Iraqi blogger also has reservations about the validity of these "confessions."

I could swear that I've seen instances of captives being paraded in front of cameras to confess to all manner of things before... sometime... somewhere...

Thoughts on George W.

Doug Wead says now that he regrets sharing the conversations he had with then Governor Dubya.
I have considered teaching as a career. One sticking point I encountered was that the paperwork required a disclosure of any history of arrests and any history of drug or alcohol abuse... I have had two DUIs... the most recent in 1975. It had not been an issue with military security clearances and no one I spoke with in Sacramento even thought the record still existed... but I knew, and I felt obliged to provide a response. That's just me. That's why I was a little... put off?... that one of the Bush daughters is teaching in a D.C. area school despite a history of underage drinking.
Mr. Bush, on the other hand, in anticipation of his running for President, apparently felt that the voters had neither the right nor the need to be made aware of his... involvement?... experimentation?... with drugs and alcohol. Presumably there was not a concern that the voters were being asked to buy a pig in a poke. Do or say whatever it takes to get elected, and the necessary dissimulation and chicanery can be written of as the end justifying the means. This is the representation of American Values to the world.
Mr. President, I'm actually kind of sorry that this story even came out. I honestly did not want to know... and I'm not sure who is served by our knowing... what a grasping sleaze you are. There are times such as this... we're stuck with you for four more years regardless... when I think a little more ignorance might actually be better.

Thoughts on Security and Well-Being

Let me tell you, for an old Navy Chief life doesn't get much better than finding out that coffee reduces cancer risk. At least one of my (former) longstanding habits won't hasten my departure from this life.
This morning on my way into work I was reflecting on the nature of military service and the commitment we all shared. People, even in the '60s, came into the service for any number of reasons, but they all showed up... ready and willing to serve. This is one of the reasons I refuse to discuss the nature of military service with people who've never served... because they either never got the call or they chose not to answer it or whatever, but they've never felt that bond between people whose lives depended on the person next to them. We didn't necessarily like one another, but we knew we were all in the same boat.
Who cared about the respective service records of the candidates for President? Well, both Republican and Democratic senators are saying that the 2006 VA budget won't be adequate to maintain current services. The nominal increase of 1% over 2005 dollars won't even compensate for inflation. The proposal eliminates funds for long-term care and cuts about 5,000 nursing home beds. VA medical staff will be reduced by 3700 positions. Quite frankly, I think this is what happens when you elect people you wouldn't trust to cover your back.
Most people don't really care a lot about military people though... I know that and it's okay... but the rest of you can't breathe easy either. David Kuo, the former Deputy Director of the (Bush)White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives wrote regarding the failure of the Administration to fund the initiatives that, "No administration since [Lyndon B. Johnson's] has had a more successful legislative record than this one. From tax cuts to Medicare, the White House gets what the White House really wants. It never really wanted the 'poor people stuff.' "
Do you really want to let this man invest your Social Security funds for you? Never mind whether or not he could actually name five... or three... people he's met who actually need to live on their social security benefits. Do you believe that you can depend on him to be there for you? I knew then and now what a President means when he talks about Defense... Wall Street never made a dime investing in manpower. Why would anyone with sense rely on Bush to manage their social security funds? If your last name isn't Bush then you have to know that it's all about money to be made by someone!
Have you glanced at this article or one like it about the budget projections from 2010 onward?
Honestly... I keep thinking that I must be missing something... a whole bunch of you people are ready to buy (another) used car from this guy, and for the life of me I have no idea why.

Thoughts on Success

I've been putting this off... I don't like the way I feel about this Administration... I want to admit that perhaps they were right about just plopping our culture and values into a country like Iraq and everyone living happily ever after... I can't do that and it irritates me. This is the guy who was flown out to the Abraham Lincoln on May 2, 2003, to announce "mission accomplished" in Iraq... not that we had Sadam Hussein in custody at the time... or Osama bin Laden for that matter (remember him?... the one who did attack us?). I just can't buy into it.
I think Eric Alterman captured where I'm coming from today. It goes a little deeper maybe... Even if the new Iraqi government goes on to write a beautiful constitution and to hold fair and free elections and survives in peace and prosperity for a thousand years, that does not make invading Iraq right. A happy ending would be nice, but we have not treated others as we would wish to be treated.
If you scroll down in Alterman's blog, you'll notice a letter from Charles Pierce that I'm going to copy here, too. It mirrored my thoughts as I looked at the pictures of people who had walked for hours to stand in line to vote in Iraq. On the best day of George Bush's life all he did was to perhaps hasten their opportunity. Those folks... .whether it was 70% or 50% or 10%... literally walked the walk... no kevlar... no armor... to vote. Bless their hearts.
From Charles Pierce:
You do not own their courage.
The people who stood in line Sunday did not stand in line to make Americans feel good about themselves.
You do not own their courage.
They did not stand in line to justify lies about Saddam and al-Qaeda, so you don't own their courage, Stephen Hayes. They did not stand in line to justify lies about weapons of mass destruction, or to justify the artful dodginess of Ahmad Chalabi, so you don't own their courage, Judith Miller. They did not stand in line to provide pretty pictures for vapid suits to fawn over, so you don't own their courage, Howard Fineman, and neither do you, Chris Matthews.
You do not own their courage.
They did not stand in line in order to justify the dereliction of a kept press. They did not stand in line to make right the wrongs born out of laziness, cowardice, and the easy acceptance of casual lying. They did not stand in line for anyone's grand designs. They did not stand in line to play pawns in anyone's great game, so you don't own their courage, you guys in the PNAC gallery.
You do not own their courage.
They did not stand in line to provide American dilettantes with easy rhetorical weapons, so you don't own their courage, Glenn Reynolds, with your cornpone McCarran act out of the bowels of a great university that deserves a helluva lot better than your sorry hide. They did not stand in line to be the instruments of tawdry vilification and triumphal hooting from bloghound commandos. They did not stand in line to become useful cudgels for cheap American political thuggery, so you don't own their courage, Freeper Nation.
You do not own their courage.
They did not stand in line to justify a thousand mistakes that have led to more than a thousand American bodies. They did not stand in line for the purpose of being a national hypnotic for a nation not even their own. They did not stand in line for being the last casus belli standing. They did not stand in line on behalf of people's book deals, TV spots, honorarium checks, or tinpot celebrity. They did not stand in line to be anyone's talking points.
You do not own their courage.
We all should remember that.

Thoughts on Trust

It's the afternoon of Inauguration Day... the awful deed is done and I need to just deal with it. I so want to believe that I'm just missing the many virtues of these people who will govern for the next four years... I want to believe that...
Condi Rice certainly expressed shock and dismay that her credibilty was questioned during her confirmation hearings. I'd like to give Dr. Condileeza Rice formerly of Stanford University the benefit of the doubt... I'd like to... It would almost be better to have a Secretary of State who was stupid rather than... disingenuous?
Mr. Cheney apparently feels that we'd be golden in Iraq right now if only we'd known that all the alternative leadership in Iraq had been killed off in 1991. You'd think we'd have known that, wouldn't you? I mean we could pinpoint all of Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction so why didn't we notice that those "hundreds of thousands of people" weren't there any more? You don't suppose any of them could have been in the kill-zone during the invasion or subsequent operations do you?
It was reassuring to read (I couldn't bear to listen) that Mr. Bush said "freedom, by its nature, must be chosen,” and he promised “America will not impose our own style of government on the unwilling.” You know... all evidence to the contrary...
Closer to home, of course, Mr. Bush and his minions have been spending some long and sleepless nights working on the salvation of our Social Security programs... No, I'm sorry... I've got to go with the Crabby Old Lady on this one, too. This guy's trying to sell me snake oil... again.

Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?

Okay, I know it doesn't matter, and I can't believe that I'm citing The Scoop, but Sun Myung Moon bought a table at the Inauguration? Somebody tell me this is a hoax!
People were having conniptions because Gore was consorting with ChiComs in 2000 (the HsiLai temple in Hacienda Heights, California which is a branch of a temple in Taiwan not mainland China and they're buddhists for Pete's sake), and the poster boy for the Religious Right is taking a $250,000 boost from the Unification Church for his inauguration? Please tell me that the Republic has not come to this. Tell me there's been a misunderstanding.
There's more on this at cultnews.

Thoughts on Possibilites and Limitations

I saw a piece this morning... poll results detailing Americans' hopes for the future under this President. My eye stuck on a line that Bush needed "to find a way to have the whole second term be about more than just Iraq." That put me in mind of Lyndon Johnson's last term... so shoot me but there are parallels!
I saw the statistic that put the percentage of respondents who think it's unlikely Iraq will have a stable government at 53%... 53%!!! What on earth is wrong with the other 47% of you? The Kurds have wanted nothing so much as an independent Kurdish state since forever (which will engage Turkey and Iran)! The Shi'ites and Kurds outnumber the Sunnis by some huge margin and do they ever have scores to settle! Whether it serves them right or not, the Sunnis are pretty much screwed and they know it... Forget about tribal and family turf issues! There is no best case scenario!
Hearts and minds of the people? Have you ever read an Iraqi blog? The people who don't live inside the Green Zone are not loving us so much. You've got to admit that in January, 2005 it sort of sucks to be an Iraqi in Iraq.
My particular beef... apart from humanitarian concerns... is there are more than a hundred thousand of my brothers and sisters under arms in Iraq as you read this whose job it is to try to make this travesty actually work. When the folks who voted to continue this Administration and its policies welcome their sons, daughters, brothers, sisters, husbands, wives home from Iraq... what will they say? This isn't WW II... this isn't Korea or even VietNam... this is us, the United States of America, blowing all of the good wishes after 9-11 and destabilizing the entire Arab world on a pretense. Armchair Generalist has a really good piece today on why this is impossible for them.
The Administration would like for the second term to be about more than the war in Iraq... I'd like to be skinny, good-looking, and rich... but it ain't gonna happen.
Footnote: 5/2/2009 I was wrong; it also became about the collapse of the world economy.

Is This an Iraq War Blog?

There were a couple of things that caught my eye this morning...
Sure enough, the President voiced his regrets last night for language that hurt diplomacy. Let's see... he wanted bin Laden "dead or alive" and then committed us to the war in Iraq... and in the face of Iraqi resistance (which he personally doesn't have to face) said "bring it on." He thinks his choice of words might have suggested to Muslims of the world that the U.S. is not their friend. You think?
Okay, personally I have an issue with someone who has never served more than two weeks a year active duty saying things like "bring it on." No, that isn't true... I have great respect for people who have honorably fulfilled their entire National Guard/Reserve commitments. My visceral response to people who let their mouths write checks that my ass has to cover is, "Get yourself to a recruiting station or shut the f*** up!" That's just me.
The bigger issue is that as a direct result of our bone-headed conduct of international affairs we've created how many more actual and potential terrorists? I could be wrong but Dana Priest writes about it in the Washington Post.
Mr. Bush expressed some optimism that disaster relief efforts might leave Islamic countries feeling the love, but... it's disaster relief... it's not diplomacy. His problem... our problem... is that if you ask yourself the question: If Iraq is a Christian caucasian country do we go to war with them in 2003... well, you see our international diplomacy problem. "Ye shall know them by their fruits."

Confounded

I'll admit it... I'm a little farklempt. We've stopped "looking" for WMD?
I always thought that this Administration... certainly by now!... would arrange to "find" some Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq. For years there have been pieces written on how to dispose of the CW agents deteriorating in storage at Dugway... publicized because environmentalists didn't want that stuff moved anywhere! Back when we first went into Iraq I figured it was only a matter of time... you dig up a few cannisters... you scrape off some U.S. Army markings... maybe you add some Iraqi markings... a few days later it gets dug up in the Iraqi desert! Voila!
Okay... so what? It was too dangerous to handle, and so they just decided to wait until after the 2004 elections to say to hell with it and give up the charade of looking? I know it wasn't character that kept them from doing it!
"The president knows that by advancing freedom in a dangerous region we are making the world a safer place." Alrighty then! So, all evidence to the contrary, there are actually fewer people in the world who hate us now?

Thoughts in Retrospect

This has bugged me for awhile... but I didn't have this site up and I was just reminded of it last night.
It bothered me from right after 9/11 that the Administration was talking about the "War on Terror." My first thought was, "Right, because the War on Drugs has been working really well."
To my mind the attack on 9/11 was a crime... a mass murder... not unlike the Oklahoma City bombing. Knowing who was behind the attack, and knowing that we have in the past been able to pinpoint bin Laden's location, what's the "War" all about? Next time we see him let's just take him out... the Mossad's been doing that for years if we needed a class on it. In a sense, declaring a War on Terror legitimized bin Laden and his organization as something other than an organization of vicious murderers. By the way, he's still not dead or in custody.
Last night... and I never think to link to the video feed while it's on... KNBC in Los Angeles aired a piece on two Gold-Star Mothers, one of whom shared her late son's misgivings about the invasion of Iraq, and the other who said that she and her late son had been all for the invasion.
The second mother, who described herself as a Christian fundamentalist, said in so many words that the war was necessary, that they had attacked us, and that her son had died so she'd never have to wear a burkha. According to my beliefs, someone is going to pay for lying to that woman and her child... if not in this lifetime then in the future.
Now my question is... who in the Administration decided in the hours after the attacks on 9/11 to call for a War on Terror and was it a deliberate choice to establish a pretext for all of our subsequent acts?

One Other Thing

I don't know if Glenn Reynolds has ever been anything other than a talking head... I'm sure his mom loved him. So he writes in this piece that George W. Bush is really a pretty generous guy after all... in part because he diverted an entire amphibious group from returning to port for some R&R and repair work to disaster relief! Now, I've had my ship turned around before, and I can promise you two things: if they had had a vote the crews would have voted to turn around, but they were not asked for their vote. This is more of Mr. Bush' mouth writing checks that somebody else's ass has to cover.
Again, I have no issue whatever with turning the ARG around... it's clearly a mitzvah... but for that braying ass to take credit for the sacrifice of those thousands of sailors and marines really... and probably inappropriately... chaps my hide.

Topical Thoughts

People are dumping on the President for not getting out in front on the tsunami disaster... Hello? Have we not known since 2000 that the man lacks a global perspective? He doesn't know those people and he doesn't care about those people. Fifty two percent of you just reelected him. Deal with it.
Speaking of limiting one's perspective... dumping Jami Miscik at the CIA?... and Mr. Goss has been replacing the professionals with his former House aides?... is anyone else concerned with the nature and extent of American "Intelligence?"
I want to mention bare-handed fishing. I've been berating myself for some of the things I've said about "red-staters" and then I see this. Okay, it's still wrong of me and I apologize. I'd shake hands but... I don't know where theirs have been.
Another thing... I don't like it when people appropriate words. Here I specifically refer to the term "anti-semitic." Anyone with a dictionary ought to know that this refers to a bias against those of mid-East descent, but it has been co-opted by the pro-Zionists to relate exclusively to an anti-Jewish bias. Clearly... to me at least... the European Jews who drove the establishment of Israel don't particularly care for Arabs, and I therefore object to their labeling of anyone as an anti-semite. It's the Judeo-Christians vs Islam. Let's say so and deal with it honestly.

What Can You Say About the Administration?

The insights into the Bush White House just keep on coming...
I'm pretty much over Bernard Kerik... I mean why would anyone want to do a background investigation of the nominee for the Secretary of Homeland Security? I hate the use of "Duh!" as an expression, but...
Today I'm reading where we've continued to do business with a known Russian arms smuggler, Victor Bout... a "Merchant of Death" no less... and once again a Halliburton subsidiary is involved (insert look of surprise here).
The piece that I took a little bit personally was the one about Jenna Bush getting a teaching position in a D.C. public school. I thought about doing that for awhile five years ago, but with a record of reckless driving and DUI convictions in the early 1970s I was kind of "iffy" on whether I could be relied upon to mold impressionable young minds. So... is it me?... is it California?... is it D.C? Is it politics?
I need to mention this business of prisoner abuse... and here... at Gitmo, in Afghanistan, in Iraq?... but it's always the aberrant behavior of a few troops... nothing systemic... and if you do manage to get something out of them by whatever means... well, it would be a shame to let that information just go to waste... Please! We're doing it! Cop to it! Geez, you people in D.C. are worse than my kids about taking responsibility!