The current controversy in Europe, specifically in Italy and now in Germany, regarding the proper response to alleged crimes of kidnapping, unlawful detention and torture of citizens of those countries provides and interesting look into the state of democratic values. The actions of these governments give us a glimpse of how the rest of the world, that previously viewed the United States, as a bastion of freedom, justice and the rule of law, are now all but compelled to view America
In the Italian case, Abu Omar was snatched off the streets by CIA operatives with the support and complicity of Italian intelligence operatives. He was removed from Italy in an operation now commonly referred to as “extraordinary rendition.” The Italian Court system is seeking extradition of US operatives involved in the incident. It would appear that abduction of an Italian citizen by foreign agents, without resort to the Italian judicial or legal system, is beyond the standards that the Italian government and society accept as within the boundaries of a democratic society that respects the rule of law.
Similarly, The German government is now considering formal charges against 13 CIA operatives involved in the abduction of Khaled Masri, a German citizen of Lebanese descent. Masri was kidnapped, jailed and allegedly tortured during five months of captivity. He too was released without charges or any confirmed justification for his abduction and detention. There have been legislative inquiries into the level of knowledge and complicity by high level German officials in the rendition. Nevertheless, the abduction of a German citizen by US operatives without formal resort to the German judicial or legal system is viewed an illegal and potentially criminal.
The dilemma facing these governments, and by extension their societies, is whether the power and influence of the US government can override the basic civil rights and principles of justice that these countries have guaranteed to their citizens. The clandestine complicity of German or Italian operatives could be a complicating factor. However, a distinction can be clearly seen between the German government’s treatment of its own citizens, and the treatment of German citizens the German or Italian government should permit other governments to exercise. The White House is undoubtedly surprised that these governments would have the temerity to challenge the actions of CIA who were allegedly pursuing the “War on Terror.” The Bush Administration had openly declared that it did not consider its agents subject to international law or treaty restrictions.
The governments of Italy and Germany have squarely addressed the basic question whether the “end justifies the means” in combating a perceived threat of terrorist violence. Their legal systems are asking whether a society is willing to sacrifice its fundamental principles for expediency in addressing a problem that may threaten great harm to its people. Is it acceptable to destroy a society’s system of justice in order to protect that society? In these cases, the question does not arise in the face of an actual or imminent threat of assault, attack or invasion by an identifiable enemy, but rather in the face of an unidentified and speculative “foe” purposely created by hype and public hysteria. To be sure, terrorist attacks on the public have occurred with devastating results. But there is no real evidence that traditional police and investigatory methods that fall within accepted principles of existing legal systems are incapable of addressing such threats. Most of the successful raids and interdictions of alleged terrorist plots have been conducted by traditional police agencies, who are now working with greater coordination in light of a heightened sense of threat. But these actions have been conducted within the confines of established legal standards. So the question is whether these governments should allow their citizens to be abducted without warning or any semblance of due process in order to support the Bush “War on Terror.” Or is it possible that the cure is worse than the disease?
To answer these questions, the Italian and German governments can no longer look to the United States for guidance in resolving these fundamental questions. As the perpetrator of these actions, America no longer has credibility or standing to advise others on the principled application of the rule of law and the assurance of constitutional protections to citizens. And our inability to provide that guidance that has traditionally been a hallmark of our system of government should cause each American to reflect.
In reality, the current crisis is about much more than Iraq. It can fairly be argued that the mission in Iraq was lost when the Bush Administration launched the invasion without a plan for what should be done once the intended regime change was effected. However, the United States has lost far more in the process of pursuing Bush’s Mission” in Iraq and his “War on Terror.” Our moral compass and our role as an exemplar of justice and the rule of law in a democratic society have been sacrificed.
Wednesday, January 31, 2007
Friday, January 19, 2007
Thank Heavens For Moms
When the thicket of intertwined Congressional representative allegiances, political favors, lobbying pressures and future political aspirations gets so dense that logic and common sense seem beyond hope, leave it to some Moms to cut through it all and say, “Enough!”
Recently, Lynn Woolsey and Maxine Waters stepped forward to sponsor legislation that would cut funding for the Bush troop escalation in Iraq , now being called a "surge." Their rationale was clear and unassailable.
First, the great majority of military and political experts in a position to speak knowledgeably about the situation in Iraq [Democrats and Republicans] have stated that the “surge” is a mistake, as is deepening US involvement in what is now an Iraqi civil war.
Second, neither the proposed Resolution advanced by several prominent Senators [Biden, Hagel & Levin] or any other “statement” will do anything to stop the young men and women being sent to Iraq from dying. Something concrete must be done to stop or impede Bush’s troop buildup because he clearly will not change course on his own volition.
This is the kind of clear reasoning moms have used for centuries to break up unproductive squabbling among kids so caught up in the argument that they have lost sight of the rest of the world around them. Not one more mother’s child should have to die in Iraq. Sending more US troops into that conflict will only increase the unnecessary suffering and tears of yet more mothers.
Recently, Lynn Woolsey and Maxine Waters stepped forward to sponsor legislation that would cut funding for the Bush troop escalation in Iraq , now being called a "surge." Their rationale was clear and unassailable.
First, the great majority of military and political experts in a position to speak knowledgeably about the situation in Iraq [Democrats and Republicans] have stated that the “surge” is a mistake, as is deepening US involvement in what is now an Iraqi civil war.
Second, neither the proposed Resolution advanced by several prominent Senators [Biden, Hagel & Levin] or any other “statement” will do anything to stop the young men and women being sent to Iraq from dying. Something concrete must be done to stop or impede Bush’s troop buildup because he clearly will not change course on his own volition.
This is the kind of clear reasoning moms have used for centuries to break up unproductive squabbling among kids so caught up in the argument that they have lost sight of the rest of the world around them. Not one more mother’s child should have to die in Iraq. Sending more US troops into that conflict will only increase the unnecessary suffering and tears of yet more mothers.
Ooopps, I Did It Again!
No, this is not a career comeback for Brittany Spears. Instead, the comment reflects the clumsiness and lack of tact or competence on the part of US Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez. This is the man appointed by President Bush and confirmed by a GOP controlled Senate to be the top legal officer of the United States. He is a co-author of a legal memorandum advising the President that torture of prisoners and detainees of the US government was legal in some circumstances, and that the Geneva Convention was obsolete. The memo was intended as “advice of counsel” upon which Bush Administration officials could rely if prosecuted as war criminals. What was he thinking?
Now consider his most recent testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, testimony that confounded even ranking GOP Senator Arlen Specter (who supported his confirmation):
Gonzalez: "There is no expressed grant of habeas in the Constitution; there's a prohibition against taking it away,"
Specter: "Wait a minute. The Constitution says you can't take it away except in case of rebellion or invasion. Doesn't that mean you have the right of habeas corpus unless there's a rebellion or invasion?"
Gonzalez: "The Constitution doesn't say every individual in the United States or citizen is hereby granted or assured the right of habeas corpus. It doesn't say that. It simply says the right shall not be suspended except in cases of rebellion or invasion. "
Specter: "You may be treading on your interdiction of violating common sense."
This apparent new “gloss” on the Constitution is advanced by the Bush Administration instead of the Supreme Court which is usually charged with such fundamental tasks. In an expansion of this imperial Presidency, the testimony of Gonzalez would suggest that American citizens are not entitled to the right and privilege of habeas corpus that we had thought the Constitution guaranteed us for over 200 years. It seems that Gonzalez believes that while Congress is not allowed to take away the right of habeas corpus from anyone who has the right. The Executive branch gets to decide, in the absence of a specific act of Congress granting the right to certain individuals, whether you or I have the right. Aside from the acknowledgement of inalienable rights of citizenship in the Preamble, the Sixth Amendment spells out pretty clearly that the right to speedy trial, to know the charges asserted, to confront accusers and to compel testimony of witnesses. Anyone completing a high school civics class would appear better informed than the top legal officer of the nation.
While the Founding Fathers who wrote the Constitution and Bill of Rights may be turning over in their graves, there is little that they can do at this point to save Americans from the dangers every American may face from its own government, the Justice Department. We don’t know if Gonzalez truly failed to grasp what he was saying and its implications, a question of mental acuity. Given the chance in friendly questioning to correct himself, and failing to do so, we might assume that Gonzalez both understood and believes what he said. That would represent arrogance and a disregard for centuries of legal precedent. Could we realistically expect such a legal mind to view any action by the White House as unlawful?
At the same time comes a report that up to seven Attorneys General have been fired and replaced with political operatives closely aligned with Karl Rove and the Bush Administration. Those relieved of duty include Carol Lam in San Diego who successfully prosecuted Former Congressman Cunningham for fraud, corruption and malfeasance in office. No longer shielded from oversight by a GOP controlled Congress, the Bush Administration is taking steps to assure that illegal and corrupt actions will not be prosecuted. The accidental choice of an independent minded prosecutor in the Scooter Libby case taught Karl Rove and Bush a lesson. They don't intend to make the same mistake twice.
Now consider his most recent testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, testimony that confounded even ranking GOP Senator Arlen Specter (who supported his confirmation):
Gonzalez: "There is no expressed grant of habeas in the Constitution; there's a prohibition against taking it away,"
Specter: "Wait a minute. The Constitution says you can't take it away except in case of rebellion or invasion. Doesn't that mean you have the right of habeas corpus unless there's a rebellion or invasion?"
Gonzalez: "The Constitution doesn't say every individual in the United States or citizen is hereby granted or assured the right of habeas corpus. It doesn't say that. It simply says the right shall not be suspended except in cases of rebellion or invasion. "
Specter: "You may be treading on your interdiction of violating common sense."
This apparent new “gloss” on the Constitution is advanced by the Bush Administration instead of the Supreme Court which is usually charged with such fundamental tasks. In an expansion of this imperial Presidency, the testimony of Gonzalez would suggest that American citizens are not entitled to the right and privilege of habeas corpus that we had thought the Constitution guaranteed us for over 200 years. It seems that Gonzalez believes that while Congress is not allowed to take away the right of habeas corpus from anyone who has the right. The Executive branch gets to decide, in the absence of a specific act of Congress granting the right to certain individuals, whether you or I have the right. Aside from the acknowledgement of inalienable rights of citizenship in the Preamble, the Sixth Amendment spells out pretty clearly that the right to speedy trial, to know the charges asserted, to confront accusers and to compel testimony of witnesses. Anyone completing a high school civics class would appear better informed than the top legal officer of the nation.
While the Founding Fathers who wrote the Constitution and Bill of Rights may be turning over in their graves, there is little that they can do at this point to save Americans from the dangers every American may face from its own government, the Justice Department. We don’t know if Gonzalez truly failed to grasp what he was saying and its implications, a question of mental acuity. Given the chance in friendly questioning to correct himself, and failing to do so, we might assume that Gonzalez both understood and believes what he said. That would represent arrogance and a disregard for centuries of legal precedent. Could we realistically expect such a legal mind to view any action by the White House as unlawful?
At the same time comes a report that up to seven Attorneys General have been fired and replaced with political operatives closely aligned with Karl Rove and the Bush Administration. Those relieved of duty include Carol Lam in San Diego who successfully prosecuted Former Congressman Cunningham for fraud, corruption and malfeasance in office. No longer shielded from oversight by a GOP controlled Congress, the Bush Administration is taking steps to assure that illegal and corrupt actions will not be prosecuted. The accidental choice of an independent minded prosecutor in the Scooter Libby case taught Karl Rove and Bush a lesson. They don't intend to make the same mistake twice.
Thursday, January 18, 2007
Capitol Hill Tea Party
The world of politics is indeed a strange one. It would seem that logic holds no sway when it comes to taking positions against the opposition. Take for example the latest blast from GOP legislators and the White House against the passage of a Democratic sponsored Bill to cut interest rates on some federally subsidized student loans. The GOP criticized the measure for “not doing enough” and for not also “providing additional funding for grants to students.”
To be sure, the Democratic legislation to aid students is imperfect and does not even purport to correct fully the plight of students whose dream of a college education now seems more elusive as their economic circumstances deteriorate and the cost of higher education rises constantly. Cynics also point out that some colleges may raise tuition costs and defeat the intended beneficial impact of the legislation. But the measure is at least an effort and a step in the right direction.
What defies logic is the nature of the GOP criticism. During absolute control of the Congress and the White House for six years, the GOP failed to take any of the steps that they now complain that the Democratic measure lacks. Intent upon raiding the treasury to grant tax cuts to the wealthiest 1% of Americans and bankrupting future revenues with the tab for the Bush war in Iraq, GOP Congressional leaders failed to take any steps to assist students obtain their dreams of a college education. Now they complain that the Democrats are not doing enough.
The Mad Hatter presses Alice, insisting that she take “more tea.” Alice protests that she cannot have more tea since she has not yet had any tea. And so the mad party continued. We will no doubt hear more of this type of nonsensical repartee in the Congress as the year progresses.
To be sure, the Democratic legislation to aid students is imperfect and does not even purport to correct fully the plight of students whose dream of a college education now seems more elusive as their economic circumstances deteriorate and the cost of higher education rises constantly. Cynics also point out that some colleges may raise tuition costs and defeat the intended beneficial impact of the legislation. But the measure is at least an effort and a step in the right direction.
What defies logic is the nature of the GOP criticism. During absolute control of the Congress and the White House for six years, the GOP failed to take any of the steps that they now complain that the Democratic measure lacks. Intent upon raiding the treasury to grant tax cuts to the wealthiest 1% of Americans and bankrupting future revenues with the tab for the Bush war in Iraq, GOP Congressional leaders failed to take any steps to assist students obtain their dreams of a college education. Now they complain that the Democrats are not doing enough.
The Mad Hatter presses Alice, insisting that she take “more tea.” Alice protests that she cannot have more tea since she has not yet had any tea. And so the mad party continued. We will no doubt hear more of this type of nonsensical repartee in the Congress as the year progresses.
Guest Article - Bush and the Psychology of Incompetent Decisions
Friends-
I came across this well written and researched article by clinical psychology experts and felt it was important enough to share with you. I am including the article in its entirety for you. It is not a polemic dressed in technical jargon. It is a careful analysis of observed and objective evidence to which accepted psychological and psychiatrict principles have been applied. I hope it provides food for thought. P
___________________________
Bush and the Psychology of Incompetent Decisions
By John P. Briggs, MD, and J.P. Briggs II, PhD
t r u t h o u t Guest Contributors
Thursday 18 January 2007
President George W. Bush prides himself on "making tough decisions." But many are sensing something seriously troubling, even psychologically unbalanced, about the president as a decision-maker. They are right.
Because of a psychological dynamic swirling around deeply hidden feelings of inadequacy, the president has been driven to make increasingly incompetent and risky decisions. This dynamic makes the psychological stakes for him now unimaginably high. The words "success" and "failure" have seized his rhetoric like metaphors for his psyche's survival.
The president's swirling dynamic lies "hidden in plain sight" in his personal history. From the time he was a boy until his religious awakening in his early 40s, Bush had every reason to feel he was a failure. His continued, almost obsessive, attempts through the years to emulate his father, obtain his approval, and escape from his influence are extensively recorded.
His biography is peppered with remarks and behavior that allude to this inner struggle. In an exuberant moment during his second campaign for Texas governor, Bush told a reporter, "It's hard to believe, but ... I don't have time to worry about being George Bush's son. Maybe it's a result of being confident. I'm not sure how the psychoanalysts will analyze it, but I'm not worried about it. I'm really not. I'm a free guy."
A psychoanalyst would note that he is revealing here that he has been worrying about being his father's son quite a lot.
Resentment naturally contaminated Bush's efforts to prove himself to his father and receive his father's approval. The contradictory mix showed up in his compulsion to re-fight his father's war against Iraq, but this time winning the duel some thought his father failed to win with Saddam. He could at once emulate his father, show his contempt for him, and redeem him. But beneath this son-father struggle lies a far more significant issue for Bush - a question about his own competence, adequacy and autonomy as a human being.
We have seen this inner question surface repeatedly, and we have largely conspired with him to deny it:
· On September 11, 2001, we saw (and suppressed) the image of him sitting stunned for seven minutes in a crowd of school children after learning that the second plane had hit the Twin Towers, and then the lack of image of him when he vanished from public view for the rest of the day. Instead, we bought the cover-up image, three days after the attack, of the strong leader, grabbing the bullhorn in New York City and issuing bellicose statements.
· In 2004, we saw and denied the insecurity displayed when the president refused to face the 9/11 Commission alone and needed Vice President Cheney to go with him.
· In 2003, we saw and suppressed the dark side of the "Mission Accomplished" aircraft carrier landing, in which a man who had ducked out on his generation's war and dribbled away his service in the Texas Air National Guard dressed up like Top Gun and pretended that he was a combat pilot like his father.
· Asked by a reporter if he would accept responsibility for any mistakes, Bush answered, "I hope I don't want to sound like I've made no mistakes. I'm confident I have. I just haven't - you just put me under the spot here, and maybe I'm not quick - as quick on my feet as I should be in coming up with one." What we heard, and yet didn't hear, was a confession of his feelings of inadequacy and an arrogant denial those feelings all at once.
· In early 2006, when his father moved behind the scenes to replace Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and the son responded, "I'm the decider and I decide what's best" - and when he clenched his fist at a question about his father's influence, proclaiming, "I'm the Commander in Chief" - we glimpsed what was going on.
To cover up and defend himself against his feelings of his inadequacy and incompetence, Bush developed a number of psychological defenses. In his school years he played the clown. (His ability to joke about his verbal slip-ups is an endearing adult application of this defense to public life.) His heavy drinking was a classic way to anesthetize feelings of inadequacy. Indeed, drinking typically makes the alcoholic grandiose, which has led some commentators to argue that Bush has the "dry drunk" syndrome, where the individual has stopped drinking but retains the brittle psychology of the alcoholic. Other defenses now play especially powerful roles to protect the president against his internal feelings of insufficiency.
The Christian Defense
Bush has carefully let it be known that he believes the decisions he makes in office are directed by God. His famous claim to make decisions by "gut" ("I'm a gut player," he told Bob Woodward) equates with his claim of the spiritual inspiration he receives through prayer, his own and the prayers of others. Whatever else it is, this equation of his own choices with God's will has unparalleled advantages. It creates the perfect defense against any doubts he or anyone else might have that he can't make the right decision. The need to engage in analysis and explore alternatives to get there comes off the table. Instead, he has his gut; he has his God.
Being "born again" also allows the president to present himself as having relegated to the past all those previously inadequate behaviors of his younger days: the poor academic performance, the drinking, the failed businesses. He's a new man, no longer incompetent but now supremely competent as a result of his faith.
When Woodward asked Bush if he had consulted his father before invading Iraq, he replied, "He is the wrong father to appeal to in terms of strength. There is a higher father that I appeal to." How wonderfully that appeal must seem to resolve the internal conflict about adequacy we have described above.
The Bully Defense
Bush's mother, Barbara (sarcastic, mean, disciplinarian, always with an acid-tongued retort), is probably the model for another major defense Bush deploys to defend himself against feelings of inadequacy. A friend at the time described her as "sort of the leader bully."
That bullies are insecure people is well known and fairly obvious. A bully covers insecurity with bluster and intimidation so that others won't find an opening to see how weak he feels.
Much of the world outside the US considers Bush a bully. "You're either with us or against us" is a bully's threat that anyone can recognize. The Bush doctrine of pre-emptive strikes is a bully's doctrine.
For his intimates and those closer to home, Bush appears to be what is called an emotional bully. An emotional bully gains control using sarcasm, teasing, mocking, name calling, threatening, ignoring, lying, or angering the other and forcing him to back down. Bush administration insider accounts describe this sort of behavior from the president. He's well known for his dismissive remarks. His penchant for giving nicknames to everyone has its dark, bully's side. Naming people is a way to control them.
In report by Gail Sheehy in 2000, recalled recently by New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd, we get a glimpse of how Bush's pervasive fear of failure (his absolute refusal to consider "failure as an option") and his bully defense go together. Sheehy interviewed friends from his teenage years and college years. In basketball or tennis games he would insist points be played over because he wasn't ready; he would force opponents who had beaten him to continue playing until he beat them. At Yale he would interrupt his fellow students' studying for exams (helping them fail) to compete in a popular board game, "The Game of Global Domination," at which he was the player noted for taking the most risks, being the most aggressive.
It's likely that speculations about Vice President Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and Condoleezza Rice functioning as Bush's puppet-masters are 180 (or at least 160) degrees off. Bush is the president; he gets his way, and they know it. Chances are they have learned to channel his "gut" and give him policy advice that matches it. They may even imagine they are steering him, not clear about the ways that he has bullied them, elicited in them "The Stockholm Syndrome," in which hostages come to identify with and even defend the very person who is threatening them. This is the same dynamic evident in the behavior of battered spouses and members of gangs.
Ron Suskind described the small group around the president: "A disdain for contemplation or deliberation, an embrace of decisiveness - a sometimes bullying impatience with doubters and even friendly questioners."
Biographical reports tell us that Bush's parents taught him to keep his inner feelings to himself. As psychiatrist Justin A. Frank noted in Bush on the Couch, this results in a "self-protective indifference to the pain of others." This is another aspect of his bully defense, projecting his inner pain onto others. Bush's remarkable drive for the power to torture terrorist suspects and his reported glorying in Texas executions during his terms as governor testify to his lack of compassion, despite his recent statement of qualms about seeing Saddam Hussein drop through the trap.
The Man of Splits and Oppositions
Being in the world, for all of us, involves the challenge to somehow integrate the opposites of our nature and to select our way through the many opposing choices presented us in life. The bully polarizes the natural ambivalence (the internal opposition) anyone feels about whether he is strong or weak, safe or vulnerable. A person who needs to feel invulnerable and completely adequate all the time, or who always feels helpless and inadequate, has polarized these emotions and leads a deformed life. The degree of internal polarization in President Bush appears to be serious - and widespread. Commentators have made lists of the president's polarities: the proclaimed uniter who is a relentless divider, the habit of "saying one thing and doing another," as Vermont Senator Jim Jeffords put it. The list is long and growing. It should include the oppositions that show up in his famous Bushisms, such as:
There is no doubt in my mind that we should allow the world worst leaders to hold America hostage, to threaten our peace, to threaten our friends and allies with the world's worst weapons.
They [the terrorists] never stop thinking of ways to harm our country and our people - and neither do we.
To a psychiatrist, these are not mere malapropisms and mistakes in speech. They suggest ambivalence oscillating violently between poles. They suggest a desperate uncertainty about everything that the president reflexively seeks to hide by taking absolutist, rigid positions about "victory," "success," "mission accomplished," "stay the course," "compassion," "tax cuts," "no child left behind," and a host of other issues.
The Presidential Defense
Once Bush took the bullhorn at ground zero, he found perhaps the ultimate defense for his secret fears of inadequacy. As he told Bob Woodward, in Bush at War, "I'm the commander - see, I don't need to explain - I do not need to explain why I say things. That's the interesting thing about being the president. Maybe somebody needs to explain to me why they say something, but I don't feel like I owe anybody an explanation." As commander in chief, as a war president, he could assemble his other psychological defenses around him. He could split the world into good and evil and the country would follow. His internal oppositions could be projected without much resistance from the populace or his adversaries. He could be the gut-led, divinely inspired "Decider," to save the country. He could project own internal fears of being "discovered as a fraud" into a threat "out there" waiting to happen. He could surround himself with loyalists whom he could emotionally bully, creating a new family that would admire him and that he could control. Meanwhile the ambiguities of political decisions that can always be rationalized offer a safe haven. Until history judges me (and that's a long way off, maybe never) I can't be definitively seen as incompetent.
But as much as the presidency is a perfect defense for disguising incompetence, it's also the perfect trap. It accelerates the positive feedback loop that was set in motion when he "changed his heart" around age 40 (committing himself to God) and presumably put his failures, and his feelings of failure behind him.
In recent weeks, anyone following the news must have intuitively sensed from watching and hearing the president that he would reject the Iraq Study Group's report, co-authored by a person he must have felt was the emissary of his father come to tell him that he had failed again. He chose escalation, the one solution most knowledgeable people agree cannot succeed, in order to keep alive the fiction that success still lies in the future.
The dynamic is becoming obvious to almost everybody.
But how much is Bush aware of this psychological dynamic and of the secret he's keeping? Not aware enough. That's the problem. Psychotherapists use the term "unconscious," but it isn't quite an accurate descriptor. We are aware of feelings, sensations and scripts that occur when one of our unseen psychic mechanisms is triggered. So, when an interviewer asked about the generals who demanded Rumsfeld be removed, and the president knew his father had been working behind the scenes to replace Rumsfeld, the question would not have triggered the conscious thought: there goes dad again trying to make me feel incompetent. Instead, the president may have felt a hollow sensation or a flush of anger, an urge to form a clownish grin to cover his watery feelings, and a script that would come out of his mouth as "I'm the decider." Beneath that would be the inadequacy and cover-up dynamic outlined here.
A president's psychology and his inner secrets are his or her own business, except in one important area. That is area covered by the question, "Does the psychology of this individual interfere with his or her ability to make sound decisions in the best interest of the nation?" Recent history has certainly been witness to presidents with psychodynamics that have damaged their historical legacies. Bill Clinton and Richard Nixon come to mind. But in neither case was the very ability to make sound decisions compromised to the extent we believe it is with this president.
A Failed Process
Many accounts of the president suggest that his decision-making process is a failed one; in an important sense, it is no process at all.
Ambivalent feelings are normal at certain stages of decision-making, and the ability to tolerate ambivalence has been shown to be the hallmark of creative thinkers. The inability to tolerate uncertainty because you think that may imply incapacity brings decision-making to an end.
Thus, instead of focusing on the process needed to arrive at a decision, Bush marshals his defenses in order not to feel incompetent. That doesn't leave much room for exploring the alternatives required of competent decision-making. Not interested in discussion or detail (where the devil often lies), he seeks something minimal, just enough so he can let the decision come to him; it's his "gut" (read "God") that will provide the answer. But these gut feelings are the very feelings associated with his deep sense of inadequacy and his defenses against those feelings. So while he brags that he makes the "tough decisions," psychologically, he's defending himself against the very feelings of uncertainty that are the necessary concomitant to making tough decisions. His tough decision-making is a sham.
In the recent maneuvering toward the "new strategy" in Iraq, we have witnessed a great pretense of normal decision-making. But the president clearly made up his mind almost as soon as the "surge" alternative appeared, and apparently moved to cow others, including his new secretary of defense Robert Gates (his father's man) in the process. "Success" is the only alternative for him. "Failure" and disintegration of Iraq is unthinkable because it would be synonymous with his own internal disintegration.
As his decisions go awry, he exudes a troubling, uncanny aura of certitude (though some find it reassuring). He seems to expect to feel despised and alone (and probably has always felt that), as he has always secretly expected to fail. That expectation of failure leads to sloppy, risky, incompetent decisions, which in turn compel him to swerve from his fears of incompetence.
At this point, the president seems to have entered a place in his psyche where he is discounting all external criticism and unpopularity, and fixing stubbornly on his illusion of vindication, because he's still "The Decider," who can just keep deciding until he gets to success. It's hard not to feel something heroic in this position - but it's a recipe for bad, if not catastrophic, decisions.
Psychologically, President Bush has received support for so long because many have thought of him as "one of us." Most of us feel inadequate in some way, and watching him we can feel his inadequacies and sense his uncertainties, so we admire him for "pulling it off." His model tells us, "If you act like you're confident and competent, then you are." We are the culture that values the power of positive thinking and seeks assertiveness training. We believe that the right attitude can sometimes be more important than brains or hard work. He's bullied us, too. We don't dare to really confront the scale of his incompetent behavior, because then we would have to face what it means to have such an incompetent and psychologically disabled decision-maker as our president. It raises everyone's uncertainty. And that is, in fact, happening now.
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John P. Briggs, MD, is retired from over 40 years of private practice in psychotherapy in Westchester County, New York. He was on the faculty in psychiatry at the Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center in New York City for 23 years and was a long-time member of the American Academy of Psychoanalysis. He trained at the William Alanson White Institute in New York. J.P. Briggs II, PhD, is a Distinguished CSU professor at Western Connecticut State University and is the senior editor of the intellectual journal The Connecticut Review. He is author and co-author of books on creativity and chaos, including Fire in the Crucible (St. Martin's Press); Fractals, the Patterns of Chaos (Simon and Schuster); and Seven Life Lessons of Chaos (HarperCollins), among others. He is currently at work with Philadelphia psychologist John Amoroso on a book about the power of ambivalence in the creative process.
I came across this well written and researched article by clinical psychology experts and felt it was important enough to share with you. I am including the article in its entirety for you. It is not a polemic dressed in technical jargon. It is a careful analysis of observed and objective evidence to which accepted psychological and psychiatrict principles have been applied. I hope it provides food for thought. P
___________________________
Bush and the Psychology of Incompetent Decisions
By John P. Briggs, MD, and J.P. Briggs II, PhD
t r u t h o u t Guest Contributors
Thursday 18 January 2007
President George W. Bush prides himself on "making tough decisions." But many are sensing something seriously troubling, even psychologically unbalanced, about the president as a decision-maker. They are right.
Because of a psychological dynamic swirling around deeply hidden feelings of inadequacy, the president has been driven to make increasingly incompetent and risky decisions. This dynamic makes the psychological stakes for him now unimaginably high. The words "success" and "failure" have seized his rhetoric like metaphors for his psyche's survival.
The president's swirling dynamic lies "hidden in plain sight" in his personal history. From the time he was a boy until his religious awakening in his early 40s, Bush had every reason to feel he was a failure. His continued, almost obsessive, attempts through the years to emulate his father, obtain his approval, and escape from his influence are extensively recorded.
His biography is peppered with remarks and behavior that allude to this inner struggle. In an exuberant moment during his second campaign for Texas governor, Bush told a reporter, "It's hard to believe, but ... I don't have time to worry about being George Bush's son. Maybe it's a result of being confident. I'm not sure how the psychoanalysts will analyze it, but I'm not worried about it. I'm really not. I'm a free guy."
A psychoanalyst would note that he is revealing here that he has been worrying about being his father's son quite a lot.
Resentment naturally contaminated Bush's efforts to prove himself to his father and receive his father's approval. The contradictory mix showed up in his compulsion to re-fight his father's war against Iraq, but this time winning the duel some thought his father failed to win with Saddam. He could at once emulate his father, show his contempt for him, and redeem him. But beneath this son-father struggle lies a far more significant issue for Bush - a question about his own competence, adequacy and autonomy as a human being.
We have seen this inner question surface repeatedly, and we have largely conspired with him to deny it:
· On September 11, 2001, we saw (and suppressed) the image of him sitting stunned for seven minutes in a crowd of school children after learning that the second plane had hit the Twin Towers, and then the lack of image of him when he vanished from public view for the rest of the day. Instead, we bought the cover-up image, three days after the attack, of the strong leader, grabbing the bullhorn in New York City and issuing bellicose statements.
· In 2004, we saw and denied the insecurity displayed when the president refused to face the 9/11 Commission alone and needed Vice President Cheney to go with him.
· In 2003, we saw and suppressed the dark side of the "Mission Accomplished" aircraft carrier landing, in which a man who had ducked out on his generation's war and dribbled away his service in the Texas Air National Guard dressed up like Top Gun and pretended that he was a combat pilot like his father.
· Asked by a reporter if he would accept responsibility for any mistakes, Bush answered, "I hope I don't want to sound like I've made no mistakes. I'm confident I have. I just haven't - you just put me under the spot here, and maybe I'm not quick - as quick on my feet as I should be in coming up with one." What we heard, and yet didn't hear, was a confession of his feelings of inadequacy and an arrogant denial those feelings all at once.
· In early 2006, when his father moved behind the scenes to replace Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and the son responded, "I'm the decider and I decide what's best" - and when he clenched his fist at a question about his father's influence, proclaiming, "I'm the Commander in Chief" - we glimpsed what was going on.
To cover up and defend himself against his feelings of his inadequacy and incompetence, Bush developed a number of psychological defenses. In his school years he played the clown. (His ability to joke about his verbal slip-ups is an endearing adult application of this defense to public life.) His heavy drinking was a classic way to anesthetize feelings of inadequacy. Indeed, drinking typically makes the alcoholic grandiose, which has led some commentators to argue that Bush has the "dry drunk" syndrome, where the individual has stopped drinking but retains the brittle psychology of the alcoholic. Other defenses now play especially powerful roles to protect the president against his internal feelings of insufficiency.
The Christian Defense
Bush has carefully let it be known that he believes the decisions he makes in office are directed by God. His famous claim to make decisions by "gut" ("I'm a gut player," he told Bob Woodward) equates with his claim of the spiritual inspiration he receives through prayer, his own and the prayers of others. Whatever else it is, this equation of his own choices with God's will has unparalleled advantages. It creates the perfect defense against any doubts he or anyone else might have that he can't make the right decision. The need to engage in analysis and explore alternatives to get there comes off the table. Instead, he has his gut; he has his God.
Being "born again" also allows the president to present himself as having relegated to the past all those previously inadequate behaviors of his younger days: the poor academic performance, the drinking, the failed businesses. He's a new man, no longer incompetent but now supremely competent as a result of his faith.
When Woodward asked Bush if he had consulted his father before invading Iraq, he replied, "He is the wrong father to appeal to in terms of strength. There is a higher father that I appeal to." How wonderfully that appeal must seem to resolve the internal conflict about adequacy we have described above.
The Bully Defense
Bush's mother, Barbara (sarcastic, mean, disciplinarian, always with an acid-tongued retort), is probably the model for another major defense Bush deploys to defend himself against feelings of inadequacy. A friend at the time described her as "sort of the leader bully."
That bullies are insecure people is well known and fairly obvious. A bully covers insecurity with bluster and intimidation so that others won't find an opening to see how weak he feels.
Much of the world outside the US considers Bush a bully. "You're either with us or against us" is a bully's threat that anyone can recognize. The Bush doctrine of pre-emptive strikes is a bully's doctrine.
For his intimates and those closer to home, Bush appears to be what is called an emotional bully. An emotional bully gains control using sarcasm, teasing, mocking, name calling, threatening, ignoring, lying, or angering the other and forcing him to back down. Bush administration insider accounts describe this sort of behavior from the president. He's well known for his dismissive remarks. His penchant for giving nicknames to everyone has its dark, bully's side. Naming people is a way to control them.
In report by Gail Sheehy in 2000, recalled recently by New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd, we get a glimpse of how Bush's pervasive fear of failure (his absolute refusal to consider "failure as an option") and his bully defense go together. Sheehy interviewed friends from his teenage years and college years. In basketball or tennis games he would insist points be played over because he wasn't ready; he would force opponents who had beaten him to continue playing until he beat them. At Yale he would interrupt his fellow students' studying for exams (helping them fail) to compete in a popular board game, "The Game of Global Domination," at which he was the player noted for taking the most risks, being the most aggressive.
It's likely that speculations about Vice President Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and Condoleezza Rice functioning as Bush's puppet-masters are 180 (or at least 160) degrees off. Bush is the president; he gets his way, and they know it. Chances are they have learned to channel his "gut" and give him policy advice that matches it. They may even imagine they are steering him, not clear about the ways that he has bullied them, elicited in them "The Stockholm Syndrome," in which hostages come to identify with and even defend the very person who is threatening them. This is the same dynamic evident in the behavior of battered spouses and members of gangs.
Ron Suskind described the small group around the president: "A disdain for contemplation or deliberation, an embrace of decisiveness - a sometimes bullying impatience with doubters and even friendly questioners."
Biographical reports tell us that Bush's parents taught him to keep his inner feelings to himself. As psychiatrist Justin A. Frank noted in Bush on the Couch, this results in a "self-protective indifference to the pain of others." This is another aspect of his bully defense, projecting his inner pain onto others. Bush's remarkable drive for the power to torture terrorist suspects and his reported glorying in Texas executions during his terms as governor testify to his lack of compassion, despite his recent statement of qualms about seeing Saddam Hussein drop through the trap.
The Man of Splits and Oppositions
Being in the world, for all of us, involves the challenge to somehow integrate the opposites of our nature and to select our way through the many opposing choices presented us in life. The bully polarizes the natural ambivalence (the internal opposition) anyone feels about whether he is strong or weak, safe or vulnerable. A person who needs to feel invulnerable and completely adequate all the time, or who always feels helpless and inadequate, has polarized these emotions and leads a deformed life. The degree of internal polarization in President Bush appears to be serious - and widespread. Commentators have made lists of the president's polarities: the proclaimed uniter who is a relentless divider, the habit of "saying one thing and doing another," as Vermont Senator Jim Jeffords put it. The list is long and growing. It should include the oppositions that show up in his famous Bushisms, such as:
There is no doubt in my mind that we should allow the world worst leaders to hold America hostage, to threaten our peace, to threaten our friends and allies with the world's worst weapons.
They [the terrorists] never stop thinking of ways to harm our country and our people - and neither do we.
To a psychiatrist, these are not mere malapropisms and mistakes in speech. They suggest ambivalence oscillating violently between poles. They suggest a desperate uncertainty about everything that the president reflexively seeks to hide by taking absolutist, rigid positions about "victory," "success," "mission accomplished," "stay the course," "compassion," "tax cuts," "no child left behind," and a host of other issues.
The Presidential Defense
Once Bush took the bullhorn at ground zero, he found perhaps the ultimate defense for his secret fears of inadequacy. As he told Bob Woodward, in Bush at War, "I'm the commander - see, I don't need to explain - I do not need to explain why I say things. That's the interesting thing about being the president. Maybe somebody needs to explain to me why they say something, but I don't feel like I owe anybody an explanation." As commander in chief, as a war president, he could assemble his other psychological defenses around him. He could split the world into good and evil and the country would follow. His internal oppositions could be projected without much resistance from the populace or his adversaries. He could be the gut-led, divinely inspired "Decider," to save the country. He could project own internal fears of being "discovered as a fraud" into a threat "out there" waiting to happen. He could surround himself with loyalists whom he could emotionally bully, creating a new family that would admire him and that he could control. Meanwhile the ambiguities of political decisions that can always be rationalized offer a safe haven. Until history judges me (and that's a long way off, maybe never) I can't be definitively seen as incompetent.
But as much as the presidency is a perfect defense for disguising incompetence, it's also the perfect trap. It accelerates the positive feedback loop that was set in motion when he "changed his heart" around age 40 (committing himself to God) and presumably put his failures, and his feelings of failure behind him.
In recent weeks, anyone following the news must have intuitively sensed from watching and hearing the president that he would reject the Iraq Study Group's report, co-authored by a person he must have felt was the emissary of his father come to tell him that he had failed again. He chose escalation, the one solution most knowledgeable people agree cannot succeed, in order to keep alive the fiction that success still lies in the future.
The dynamic is becoming obvious to almost everybody.
But how much is Bush aware of this psychological dynamic and of the secret he's keeping? Not aware enough. That's the problem. Psychotherapists use the term "unconscious," but it isn't quite an accurate descriptor. We are aware of feelings, sensations and scripts that occur when one of our unseen psychic mechanisms is triggered. So, when an interviewer asked about the generals who demanded Rumsfeld be removed, and the president knew his father had been working behind the scenes to replace Rumsfeld, the question would not have triggered the conscious thought: there goes dad again trying to make me feel incompetent. Instead, the president may have felt a hollow sensation or a flush of anger, an urge to form a clownish grin to cover his watery feelings, and a script that would come out of his mouth as "I'm the decider." Beneath that would be the inadequacy and cover-up dynamic outlined here.
A president's psychology and his inner secrets are his or her own business, except in one important area. That is area covered by the question, "Does the psychology of this individual interfere with his or her ability to make sound decisions in the best interest of the nation?" Recent history has certainly been witness to presidents with psychodynamics that have damaged their historical legacies. Bill Clinton and Richard Nixon come to mind. But in neither case was the very ability to make sound decisions compromised to the extent we believe it is with this president.
A Failed Process
Many accounts of the president suggest that his decision-making process is a failed one; in an important sense, it is no process at all.
Ambivalent feelings are normal at certain stages of decision-making, and the ability to tolerate ambivalence has been shown to be the hallmark of creative thinkers. The inability to tolerate uncertainty because you think that may imply incapacity brings decision-making to an end.
Thus, instead of focusing on the process needed to arrive at a decision, Bush marshals his defenses in order not to feel incompetent. That doesn't leave much room for exploring the alternatives required of competent decision-making. Not interested in discussion or detail (where the devil often lies), he seeks something minimal, just enough so he can let the decision come to him; it's his "gut" (read "God") that will provide the answer. But these gut feelings are the very feelings associated with his deep sense of inadequacy and his defenses against those feelings. So while he brags that he makes the "tough decisions," psychologically, he's defending himself against the very feelings of uncertainty that are the necessary concomitant to making tough decisions. His tough decision-making is a sham.
In the recent maneuvering toward the "new strategy" in Iraq, we have witnessed a great pretense of normal decision-making. But the president clearly made up his mind almost as soon as the "surge" alternative appeared, and apparently moved to cow others, including his new secretary of defense Robert Gates (his father's man) in the process. "Success" is the only alternative for him. "Failure" and disintegration of Iraq is unthinkable because it would be synonymous with his own internal disintegration.
As his decisions go awry, he exudes a troubling, uncanny aura of certitude (though some find it reassuring). He seems to expect to feel despised and alone (and probably has always felt that), as he has always secretly expected to fail. That expectation of failure leads to sloppy, risky, incompetent decisions, which in turn compel him to swerve from his fears of incompetence.
At this point, the president seems to have entered a place in his psyche where he is discounting all external criticism and unpopularity, and fixing stubbornly on his illusion of vindication, because he's still "The Decider," who can just keep deciding until he gets to success. It's hard not to feel something heroic in this position - but it's a recipe for bad, if not catastrophic, decisions.
Psychologically, President Bush has received support for so long because many have thought of him as "one of us." Most of us feel inadequate in some way, and watching him we can feel his inadequacies and sense his uncertainties, so we admire him for "pulling it off." His model tells us, "If you act like you're confident and competent, then you are." We are the culture that values the power of positive thinking and seeks assertiveness training. We believe that the right attitude can sometimes be more important than brains or hard work. He's bullied us, too. We don't dare to really confront the scale of his incompetent behavior, because then we would have to face what it means to have such an incompetent and psychologically disabled decision-maker as our president. It raises everyone's uncertainty. And that is, in fact, happening now.
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John P. Briggs, MD, is retired from over 40 years of private practice in psychotherapy in Westchester County, New York. He was on the faculty in psychiatry at the Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center in New York City for 23 years and was a long-time member of the American Academy of Psychoanalysis. He trained at the William Alanson White Institute in New York. J.P. Briggs II, PhD, is a Distinguished CSU professor at Western Connecticut State University and is the senior editor of the intellectual journal The Connecticut Review. He is author and co-author of books on creativity and chaos, including Fire in the Crucible (St. Martin's Press); Fractals, the Patterns of Chaos (Simon and Schuster); and Seven Life Lessons of Chaos (HarperCollins), among others. He is currently at work with Philadelphia psychologist John Amoroso on a book about the power of ambivalence in the creative process.
Wednesday, January 17, 2007
When and How to “Cut” and “Run”
Some have expressed doubt of the power or ability of Congress to rein in an Executive Branch that has exceeded or misused authority granted under an emergency Resolution. The issue is not one of legal authority, as the Constitution clearly allows Congress the power to declare war or refrain from doing so, to revoke or rescind authority granted by an act of Congress and to cut off funding of actions that it does not support or authorize. The problem currently faced is one of practicality and political willpower to exercise any of those powers.
President Bush requested authority to use military force in Iraq, based upon the premise that Saddam Hussein was harboring weapons of mass destruction and biological weapons which he intended to use against the United States and its allies or interests. This grant of authority followed the failure of the United States to persuade the United Nations to pass a resolution indicating that international intervention was warranted. While some nations refused to align themselves with the US position regarding the invasion for political reasons, most rejected the proposal on grounds that military force was unwarranted and likely to be unproductive when diplomatic measures had not been exhausted. Others were skeptical of the alleged “proof” of weapons of mass destruction.
Subsequent events have shown us that President Bush planned to invade Iraq and put those plans into motion even without United Nations approval or support. The purported justification for the attack has been shown to be false, as it was based upon erroneous intelligence or deliberately “cooked” reports and analyses. There were no weapons of mass destruction, no biological weapons being developed or stockpiled and there was no actual threat of attack by Iraq or Saddam Hussein against the United States or any of its allies. The alleged link between Osama Bin laden and Saddam Hussein made by the Bush Administration has been thoroughly discredited. In consequence, the entire basis or justification for the Congressional authorization to use military force in Iraq has been proven false and unsubstantiated.
The justification that Bush now advances for keeping troops in Iraq is not a legal justification, it is clearly a bootstrap rationale. Having invaded Iraq, overthrown its government and destabilized its security and military organizations, Bush now justifies keeping American troops in Iraq based upon predictions that the situation will descend further into chaos and civil war if our troops leave. Rhetoric of “winning” in Iraq has been replaced with talk of “prevailing,” while neither term has been clearly defined for the American public nor the military personnel asked to sacrifice life and limb for the mission. In this regard, the current situation resembles Viet Nam.
Sen. Kennedy is on the right track in his Senate speech declaring that under any analysis possible, the current situation in Iraq does not resemble or reflect the circumstances or purpose for which Congress was requested to grant authority for military action in Iraq. Some might argue that by continuing to fund the continuously morphing “Mission” advanced by the Administration, Congress has implicitly renewed the authorization. However flawed this argument may be, it also supports the argument that cutting funding is an appropriate way to revoke that implied consent. Cutting off funding for any increase in troop deployment should be accompanied by a conditional appropriation that requires the President to provide Congress withy a detailed plan for extricating US military forces from Iraq.
But Congress needs to go a step further. An express finding that the basis for the prior authorization was unsubstantiated should be followed by a vote to rescind the authority. This action of cutting off the legal foundation for pursuing the “Mission” that Bush advances in greater and greater isolation would leave the President no choice except to develop and execute a strategy for bringing the troops home as promptly and safely as possible. While Bush is the Commander in Chief of military forces, this function only enables him to determine the manner in which military action authorized by Congress can be carried out. He does not have the unilateral authority to declare war or prosecute a military action not authorized by Treaty or an act of Congress.
When a beast has gone mad and is out of control, it must be “run to ground” and captured so that it cannot do harm to others. In a figurative sense, President Bush is acting like a mad animal. He refuses to listen to the mandate of the public, clearly expressed in the election last fall. He refuses to listen to military and foreign policy experts who have advised him or the risks and errors of his actions. He rejects the concerns of Democratic legislators as partisan sniping, and also rejects the advice and concerns expressed by members of his own party.
And so it falls to the Congress that unleashed the beast to run him to ground. To be sure, it is a scary and downright unpleasant task. We all would hope that the president would wake up some morning and see the situation as it really is and act rationally. But he has proven that he is incapable or unwilling to see past the delusions. Unless and until Congress takes action, the death toll and irreparable damage caused by the Bush rampage in Iraq will increase. So the time has clearly come to “cut” off the authority and funding for the mission, and to “run” the rampaging and uncontrolled beast to ground.
President Bush requested authority to use military force in Iraq, based upon the premise that Saddam Hussein was harboring weapons of mass destruction and biological weapons which he intended to use against the United States and its allies or interests. This grant of authority followed the failure of the United States to persuade the United Nations to pass a resolution indicating that international intervention was warranted. While some nations refused to align themselves with the US position regarding the invasion for political reasons, most rejected the proposal on grounds that military force was unwarranted and likely to be unproductive when diplomatic measures had not been exhausted. Others were skeptical of the alleged “proof” of weapons of mass destruction.
Subsequent events have shown us that President Bush planned to invade Iraq and put those plans into motion even without United Nations approval or support. The purported justification for the attack has been shown to be false, as it was based upon erroneous intelligence or deliberately “cooked” reports and analyses. There were no weapons of mass destruction, no biological weapons being developed or stockpiled and there was no actual threat of attack by Iraq or Saddam Hussein against the United States or any of its allies. The alleged link between Osama Bin laden and Saddam Hussein made by the Bush Administration has been thoroughly discredited. In consequence, the entire basis or justification for the Congressional authorization to use military force in Iraq has been proven false and unsubstantiated.
The justification that Bush now advances for keeping troops in Iraq is not a legal justification, it is clearly a bootstrap rationale. Having invaded Iraq, overthrown its government and destabilized its security and military organizations, Bush now justifies keeping American troops in Iraq based upon predictions that the situation will descend further into chaos and civil war if our troops leave. Rhetoric of “winning” in Iraq has been replaced with talk of “prevailing,” while neither term has been clearly defined for the American public nor the military personnel asked to sacrifice life and limb for the mission. In this regard, the current situation resembles Viet Nam.
Sen. Kennedy is on the right track in his Senate speech declaring that under any analysis possible, the current situation in Iraq does not resemble or reflect the circumstances or purpose for which Congress was requested to grant authority for military action in Iraq. Some might argue that by continuing to fund the continuously morphing “Mission” advanced by the Administration, Congress has implicitly renewed the authorization. However flawed this argument may be, it also supports the argument that cutting funding is an appropriate way to revoke that implied consent. Cutting off funding for any increase in troop deployment should be accompanied by a conditional appropriation that requires the President to provide Congress withy a detailed plan for extricating US military forces from Iraq.
But Congress needs to go a step further. An express finding that the basis for the prior authorization was unsubstantiated should be followed by a vote to rescind the authority. This action of cutting off the legal foundation for pursuing the “Mission” that Bush advances in greater and greater isolation would leave the President no choice except to develop and execute a strategy for bringing the troops home as promptly and safely as possible. While Bush is the Commander in Chief of military forces, this function only enables him to determine the manner in which military action authorized by Congress can be carried out. He does not have the unilateral authority to declare war or prosecute a military action not authorized by Treaty or an act of Congress.
When a beast has gone mad and is out of control, it must be “run to ground” and captured so that it cannot do harm to others. In a figurative sense, President Bush is acting like a mad animal. He refuses to listen to the mandate of the public, clearly expressed in the election last fall. He refuses to listen to military and foreign policy experts who have advised him or the risks and errors of his actions. He rejects the concerns of Democratic legislators as partisan sniping, and also rejects the advice and concerns expressed by members of his own party.
And so it falls to the Congress that unleashed the beast to run him to ground. To be sure, it is a scary and downright unpleasant task. We all would hope that the president would wake up some morning and see the situation as it really is and act rationally. But he has proven that he is incapable or unwilling to see past the delusions. Unless and until Congress takes action, the death toll and irreparable damage caused by the Bush rampage in Iraq will increase. So the time has clearly come to “cut” off the authority and funding for the mission, and to “run” the rampaging and uncontrolled beast to ground.
Friday, January 12, 2007
Seriously Now Folks!
There is a joke about a fellow driving the wrong way down a busy street where all the other traffic is headed the other way. Someone yells out to him that it is a one way street. To this he replies: “I’m only going one way!” George Bush, if he has heard the joke, must have misunderstood. He clearly has sided with the driver. Our President is nothing if not resolute and impervious. He is impervious to public opinion, expert advice, rational logic and common sense.
Every conceivable interested party, with the exception of Bush and Iraqi Prime Minister Malaki (whose motives as well as his capabilities must be held suspect), has spoken out against the wisdom or even sanity of the Bush troop surge plan. Bush has declared his intention to send more than 20,000 additional American troops into Iraq and spend an additional $1 Billion dollars on “reconstruction” projects. With a cost of $500 Billion for the Iraq war to date, the additional deployment is projected to cost at least $5 Billion more per month. There is no end date indicated in the Bush “New Strategy” and he says it is justified by “commitments” from the Iraqi government to form a unity government and to end political interference with military security initiatives. There is no concrete basis for confidence that the iraqi Prime Minister can deliver. Moreover, there is no deadline or target date for the Iraqi government to meet these so-called commitments. Nor are there any defined benchmarks that the Iraqi government has to meet to demonstrate compliance with or progress on meeting its commitments. When asked what the Bush Administration would do if the Iraqi’s failed to honor these commitments, Secretary Gates replied to the Senate Committee that they would have to “re-look at this strategy.”
Military experts with intimate knowledge of Iraq have stated publicly and privately that they do not support the troop surge for a number of reasons. The most salient reasons seem to be that it will be as ineffective as prior attempts to do the same thing, costing unjustified loss of life, and also that the military does not currently have the troops to rationally commit to such an initiative. They fear that the Bush strategy will push the military beyond the breaking point, as there has been no concurrent plan developed or executed to build up troop strength prior to proposing the deployment. In addition to the effect on morale from a failed mission, military experts point out that the initiative can only be accomplished by extending existing deployments and sending troops that have already served in Iraq back into the conflict.
The American people have demonstrated quite consistently over the past year that they do not support Bush’s handling of the Iraq situation. Polls have consistently shown disapproval ratings for Bush on Iraq at 65% or more. The public opposition to the current proposal approaches 80% in recent public polls. The Congressional election last fall demonstrated a clear message from the public that a change of course in Iraq was necessary. Bush’s response was to package more of the same policies and strategy and label it “New” while proceeding to ignore the voter mandate.
The worst tragicomedy can be found in Congress. A substantial number of Republican Representatives and Senators have taken the duplicitous position that they will support the President, because he is the “Commander in Chief,” despite being unable to articulate any rational basis for supporting the troop surge plan itself. They also decline to endorse the plan specifically because of fear of the voter reaction in the next election. Those vocally supporting the deployment have failed to state any specific reason why they believe that the additional troops will be successful in bringing an end to the sectarian violence. They bandy about undefined and largely meaningless terms about “winning” the war in Iraq.
Democrats have captured control of the House of Representatives and the Senate, but seem to have utterly failed to consider or plan what they would do in the event that they gained control and needed to confront the President on his Iraq policies. They propose a weak “resolution” against the troop surge that is non-binding. Sen. Kennedy has shown the courage to introduce a Bill that would restrict government funding for any additional troop deployment, while continuing funding of current troops. The legislation would also call for a plan by the administration for a gradual redeployment of troops out of Iraq. The measure is not “new” because similar legislation was introduced in connection with the Viet Nam War to pressure the Administration to end involvement there. However, Democrats are squabbling among themselves about whether such a measure is appropriate. Ironically, the Kennedy Bill is probably the closest reflection of the voter mandate of the fall election: Support the troops; develop and implement a plan to bring them home; and end US involvement in what has become an Iraqi civil war.
The family of Ron-Michael Pellant of Minnesota represents a real life example of the impact of this political insanity. As a military reservist, he has been deployed in Iraq and was scheduled to come home in March of this year. His family learned from the media that his deployment would be extended an additional 125 days, and Ron-Michael still has not been officially informed. This tends to validate the assessments by top military professionals (Bush incidentally has relieved them of command) that the surge would require the extension of existing deployments.
Other GI’s have spoken out against the plan and troop morale will clearly be affected. Many reservists are scrambling to get out of their enlistment and reserve commitment because repeated deployment in Iraq was never what they contemplated when they signed on for the National Guard. At a time when the US Military needs to step up recruiting simply to fulfill basic staffing needs, the administration Iraq policies is further depleting the pool of recruits.
Despite this overwhelming consensus against deployment of additional troops in the middle of a civil war that most believe can only be resolved through a political solution, Bush stubbornly forges ahead with his so-called “New Strategy.” He continues to go his own “one way.” GOP Senator Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, a 2008 Presidential hopeful, publicly called the Bush troop surge proposal strategy the “worst strategic blunder since the Viet Nam War.” To paraphrase a quote borrowed from Charles Barkley: “(Chuck) may be wrong, but I doubt it!”
Every conceivable interested party, with the exception of Bush and Iraqi Prime Minister Malaki (whose motives as well as his capabilities must be held suspect), has spoken out against the wisdom or even sanity of the Bush troop surge plan. Bush has declared his intention to send more than 20,000 additional American troops into Iraq and spend an additional $1 Billion dollars on “reconstruction” projects. With a cost of $500 Billion for the Iraq war to date, the additional deployment is projected to cost at least $5 Billion more per month. There is no end date indicated in the Bush “New Strategy” and he says it is justified by “commitments” from the Iraqi government to form a unity government and to end political interference with military security initiatives. There is no concrete basis for confidence that the iraqi Prime Minister can deliver. Moreover, there is no deadline or target date for the Iraqi government to meet these so-called commitments. Nor are there any defined benchmarks that the Iraqi government has to meet to demonstrate compliance with or progress on meeting its commitments. When asked what the Bush Administration would do if the Iraqi’s failed to honor these commitments, Secretary Gates replied to the Senate Committee that they would have to “re-look at this strategy.”
Military experts with intimate knowledge of Iraq have stated publicly and privately that they do not support the troop surge for a number of reasons. The most salient reasons seem to be that it will be as ineffective as prior attempts to do the same thing, costing unjustified loss of life, and also that the military does not currently have the troops to rationally commit to such an initiative. They fear that the Bush strategy will push the military beyond the breaking point, as there has been no concurrent plan developed or executed to build up troop strength prior to proposing the deployment. In addition to the effect on morale from a failed mission, military experts point out that the initiative can only be accomplished by extending existing deployments and sending troops that have already served in Iraq back into the conflict.
The American people have demonstrated quite consistently over the past year that they do not support Bush’s handling of the Iraq situation. Polls have consistently shown disapproval ratings for Bush on Iraq at 65% or more. The public opposition to the current proposal approaches 80% in recent public polls. The Congressional election last fall demonstrated a clear message from the public that a change of course in Iraq was necessary. Bush’s response was to package more of the same policies and strategy and label it “New” while proceeding to ignore the voter mandate.
The worst tragicomedy can be found in Congress. A substantial number of Republican Representatives and Senators have taken the duplicitous position that they will support the President, because he is the “Commander in Chief,” despite being unable to articulate any rational basis for supporting the troop surge plan itself. They also decline to endorse the plan specifically because of fear of the voter reaction in the next election. Those vocally supporting the deployment have failed to state any specific reason why they believe that the additional troops will be successful in bringing an end to the sectarian violence. They bandy about undefined and largely meaningless terms about “winning” the war in Iraq.
Democrats have captured control of the House of Representatives and the Senate, but seem to have utterly failed to consider or plan what they would do in the event that they gained control and needed to confront the President on his Iraq policies. They propose a weak “resolution” against the troop surge that is non-binding. Sen. Kennedy has shown the courage to introduce a Bill that would restrict government funding for any additional troop deployment, while continuing funding of current troops. The legislation would also call for a plan by the administration for a gradual redeployment of troops out of Iraq. The measure is not “new” because similar legislation was introduced in connection with the Viet Nam War to pressure the Administration to end involvement there. However, Democrats are squabbling among themselves about whether such a measure is appropriate. Ironically, the Kennedy Bill is probably the closest reflection of the voter mandate of the fall election: Support the troops; develop and implement a plan to bring them home; and end US involvement in what has become an Iraqi civil war.
The family of Ron-Michael Pellant of Minnesota represents a real life example of the impact of this political insanity. As a military reservist, he has been deployed in Iraq and was scheduled to come home in March of this year. His family learned from the media that his deployment would be extended an additional 125 days, and Ron-Michael still has not been officially informed. This tends to validate the assessments by top military professionals (Bush incidentally has relieved them of command) that the surge would require the extension of existing deployments.
Other GI’s have spoken out against the plan and troop morale will clearly be affected. Many reservists are scrambling to get out of their enlistment and reserve commitment because repeated deployment in Iraq was never what they contemplated when they signed on for the National Guard. At a time when the US Military needs to step up recruiting simply to fulfill basic staffing needs, the administration Iraq policies is further depleting the pool of recruits.
Despite this overwhelming consensus against deployment of additional troops in the middle of a civil war that most believe can only be resolved through a political solution, Bush stubbornly forges ahead with his so-called “New Strategy.” He continues to go his own “one way.” GOP Senator Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, a 2008 Presidential hopeful, publicly called the Bush troop surge proposal strategy the “worst strategic blunder since the Viet Nam War.” To paraphrase a quote borrowed from Charles Barkley: “(Chuck) may be wrong, but I doubt it!”
Sunday, January 07, 2007
Bush's "New Strategy" in Iraq - More Questions Than Answers
Advance information about the new "Iraq Strategy" being prepared for release this week suggests that the President will propose more troop deployment by the US and Iraq plus a commitment of approximately $1 Billion dollars for reconstruction projects. There are many pertinent questions to be raised and answered regarding such a strategy. Hopefully, Congress will ask these questions and demand answers before taking any further steps to authorize action or to fund Bush "new" escapade. Let's just address a few of the more obvious questions:
A. More Troops?
Did the development of this "new" strategy have the benefit of internal debate and thorough analysis of its weaknesses as well as its potential strengths? Last week, Bush has dismissed dissenting Generals who have questionewisdomwisdon or objected to the proposed deployment of more US troops.
Does the "promise" by the Iraqi Prime Minister to deploy up to five Iraqi Security Forces brigades have any credibility? More than three years of "training" effort by US forces has yielded, at most, only one fully capable Iraqi brigade. Evidence of desertion rates suggests that we have been most effective in training local militia forces that are now engaged in the sectarian strife, attacks and atrocities on Sunni civilians and the civil war combat. Even if deployed, would such forces create any greater stability or security, given the lack of trust they engender among Iraqi civilians?
Why would additional US troops create greater suppression of the civil war violence at this time when such "surges" in the past have failed? Gen. Casey, Gen. Powell and other knowledgeable military experts have concluded that such deployments at this time would be ineffective and potentially counterproductive.
B. Reconstruction Funding
Why would expenditure of $1Billion in additional reconstruction not be wasteful at this time? Although the Administration has endeavored mightily to prevent public release of the information, substantial evidence establishes that millions of dollars have been totally wasted in prior "reconstruction" efforts because no competent, reliable or secure means to administer the reconstruction efforts existed. The situation now is less stable and less secure.
Why should the administration be trusted to handle the proposed reconstruction? The Bush Administration previously sent marginally qualified political representatives to Iraq to handle reconstruction. This resulted in bags of cash being tossed off the back of trucks without any accounting and millions of dollars transferred to foreign accounts by corrupt Iraqi politicians and US contractors. More than a year has passed since Hurricane Katrina. The Bush Administration has been unable to administer substantial reconstruction authorization of less than $1Billion in an area that is stable and welcoming. The Bush administration has not proven itself capable of mobilizing and executing a reconstruction program on a substantially smaller scale in a non-hostile environment.
Why should the US taxpayers support the cost of reconstruction at a time when there is no real central government in Iraq and Iraq has the resources in petroleum reserves to fund its own needs? It is true that the US invasion destroyed much of the infrastructure, but repair of the damage from the constant bombing of roads and buildings need not be placed on the US taxpayer's tab.
To the extent that expertise is needed, the US or other civilian contractors could provide such assistance when the Iraqi people decide to create enough internal stability to make such construction feasible. Such efforts should not be controlled by the same failed Bush policies that led to no-bid and exclusive contracts to GOP cronies.
The presence of US troops provides a distraction and easy target for sectarian militia and other factions. With the American occupation force available as a common “enemy” the local Iraqi populace is not required to squarely confront the implications of sheltering those factions when they obstruct the rehabilitation and reconstruction of basic services in the cities and towns.
These are just the most basic practical questions that need to be addressed and have nothing to do with partisan politics. These and similar questions need to be addressed in order to provide even the most basic accountability. Bush wishes to invest more American lives and more financial resources in an adventure that to date has been an abysmal failure. The American people deserve some clear and direct answers before any such investment is even considered.
A. More Troops?
Did the development of this "new" strategy have the benefit of internal debate and thorough analysis of its weaknesses as well as its potential strengths? Last week, Bush has dismissed dissenting Generals who have questionewisdomwisdon or objected to the proposed deployment of more US troops.
Does the "promise" by the Iraqi Prime Minister to deploy up to five Iraqi Security Forces brigades have any credibility? More than three years of "training" effort by US forces has yielded, at most, only one fully capable Iraqi brigade. Evidence of desertion rates suggests that we have been most effective in training local militia forces that are now engaged in the sectarian strife, attacks and atrocities on Sunni civilians and the civil war combat. Even if deployed, would such forces create any greater stability or security, given the lack of trust they engender among Iraqi civilians?
Why would additional US troops create greater suppression of the civil war violence at this time when such "surges" in the past have failed? Gen. Casey, Gen. Powell and other knowledgeable military experts have concluded that such deployments at this time would be ineffective and potentially counterproductive.
B. Reconstruction Funding
Why would expenditure of $1Billion in additional reconstruction not be wasteful at this time? Although the Administration has endeavored mightily to prevent public release of the information, substantial evidence establishes that millions of dollars have been totally wasted in prior "reconstruction" efforts because no competent, reliable or secure means to administer the reconstruction efforts existed. The situation now is less stable and less secure.
Why should the administration be trusted to handle the proposed reconstruction? The Bush Administration previously sent marginally qualified political representatives to Iraq to handle reconstruction. This resulted in bags of cash being tossed off the back of trucks without any accounting and millions of dollars transferred to foreign accounts by corrupt Iraqi politicians and US contractors. More than a year has passed since Hurricane Katrina. The Bush Administration has been unable to administer substantial reconstruction authorization of less than $1Billion in an area that is stable and welcoming. The Bush administration has not proven itself capable of mobilizing and executing a reconstruction program on a substantially smaller scale in a non-hostile environment.
Why should the US taxpayers support the cost of reconstruction at a time when there is no real central government in Iraq and Iraq has the resources in petroleum reserves to fund its own needs? It is true that the US invasion destroyed much of the infrastructure, but repair of the damage from the constant bombing of roads and buildings need not be placed on the US taxpayer's tab.
To the extent that expertise is needed, the US or other civilian contractors could provide such assistance when the Iraqi people decide to create enough internal stability to make such construction feasible. Such efforts should not be controlled by the same failed Bush policies that led to no-bid and exclusive contracts to GOP cronies.
The presence of US troops provides a distraction and easy target for sectarian militia and other factions. With the American occupation force available as a common “enemy” the local Iraqi populace is not required to squarely confront the implications of sheltering those factions when they obstruct the rehabilitation and reconstruction of basic services in the cities and towns.
These are just the most basic practical questions that need to be addressed and have nothing to do with partisan politics. These and similar questions need to be addressed in order to provide even the most basic accountability. Bush wishes to invest more American lives and more financial resources in an adventure that to date has been an abysmal failure. The American people deserve some clear and direct answers before any such investment is even considered.
Thursday, January 04, 2007
Heroism or Naivete? 2007 - Lesson #1
A man, who considers himself just a typical New Yorker, acted with split second instinct and heroic judgment to save the life of a teenage youth who had fallen from a New York City Subway platform after suffereing a seizure. This "average" man left his two young daughters on the platform, jumped down onto the tracks and used his body to shield the youth in the sunken cavity between the tracks as the oncoming subway train ran over them both. They both survived, though the cavity was only about 24 inches deep.
Wesley Autrey, a Black ex-Navy veteran, went where few of us would have dared to enter. He decided to risk his own life to save a youth he did not even know. He risked leaving his two young daughters fatherless, acting in a manner in which he believes that any true New Yorker should respond in a crisis. Some have called him foolish for undertaking the risk. What if he had been killed in front of his daughters? But Mr. Autrey apparently only knew that he was confronted with a crisis in which a young man faced life or death; and that he, Mr. Autrey, had the opportunity to do something about it. So he acted, and the youth's life was saved.
Whether his actions were naive and foolish or heroic bravery is perhaps in the mind of the beholder. But not since the firefighters and police responded to the disaster on September 11, 2003 have New Yorkers seen such a clear exposition of the selflessness and outright humanity that New Yorkers are capable of in times of crisis. Mr. Autrey sought no personal gain, and appears to be a man of limited means despite prior military service to his country. Indeed he even lacked the resources or the motivation to dress up in a suit and tie for national media exposure on the Today Show the next morning when the story broke. the only adornments he brought with him were his daughters, who witnessed their Daddy teach them a lesson in courage, humanity and humility that we all could benefit from. There will undoubtedly be hype and hoopla, but it is very doubtful that such attention was on the mind of Mr. Autrey when he dove beneath the train.
Perhaps we can take a page from the lesson book of Mr. Autrey. If he was capable of heroic response to a major crisis, by acting upon his beliefs and stepping up to help his fellow citizen, may we not feel emboldened to step up and support and defend our beliefs and help our fellow citizens as we face much less daunting challenges each day? Can we retrieve and revive an America "of the people and for the people," working together to help each other for the benefit of all, the way Mr Autrey apparently sees it? Or will we continue in the wasteland of self centered opportunism and arrogant greed and venal corruption that ignores the needs of our fellow man, our community and our children?
And what lessons are we teaching our children? Are we modeling courage and sacrifice to our children? Or are we supporting and praising short sighted greed and corruption that will leave an impoverished legacy for our children. The object lesson Mr. Autrey has brought us comes at an auspicious and an opportune time. May we study it well as we embark uppon the journey into 2007. And let us be thankful that men like Mr. Wesley Autrey are not yet extinct.
Wesley Autrey, a Black ex-Navy veteran, went where few of us would have dared to enter. He decided to risk his own life to save a youth he did not even know. He risked leaving his two young daughters fatherless, acting in a manner in which he believes that any true New Yorker should respond in a crisis. Some have called him foolish for undertaking the risk. What if he had been killed in front of his daughters? But Mr. Autrey apparently only knew that he was confronted with a crisis in which a young man faced life or death; and that he, Mr. Autrey, had the opportunity to do something about it. So he acted, and the youth's life was saved.
Whether his actions were naive and foolish or heroic bravery is perhaps in the mind of the beholder. But not since the firefighters and police responded to the disaster on September 11, 2003 have New Yorkers seen such a clear exposition of the selflessness and outright humanity that New Yorkers are capable of in times of crisis. Mr. Autrey sought no personal gain, and appears to be a man of limited means despite prior military service to his country. Indeed he even lacked the resources or the motivation to dress up in a suit and tie for national media exposure on the Today Show the next morning when the story broke. the only adornments he brought with him were his daughters, who witnessed their Daddy teach them a lesson in courage, humanity and humility that we all could benefit from. There will undoubtedly be hype and hoopla, but it is very doubtful that such attention was on the mind of Mr. Autrey when he dove beneath the train.
Perhaps we can take a page from the lesson book of Mr. Autrey. If he was capable of heroic response to a major crisis, by acting upon his beliefs and stepping up to help his fellow citizen, may we not feel emboldened to step up and support and defend our beliefs and help our fellow citizens as we face much less daunting challenges each day? Can we retrieve and revive an America "of the people and for the people," working together to help each other for the benefit of all, the way Mr Autrey apparently sees it? Or will we continue in the wasteland of self centered opportunism and arrogant greed and venal corruption that ignores the needs of our fellow man, our community and our children?
And what lessons are we teaching our children? Are we modeling courage and sacrifice to our children? Or are we supporting and praising short sighted greed and corruption that will leave an impoverished legacy for our children. The object lesson Mr. Autrey has brought us comes at an auspicious and an opportune time. May we study it well as we embark uppon the journey into 2007. And let us be thankful that men like Mr. Wesley Autrey are not yet extinct.
Why Not Just Kill The Messenger?
In a “shocking” [strike that] “startling” [no, not really, strike that too”…oh well..] “significant” development, following the broadcast of video footage of the execution of Saddam Hussein, the Iraqi government announced that arrests were made respecting the unofficial depiction of misconduct by Iraqi officials handling the execution. The arrests, however, were of the persons accused of exposing the misconduct to the public. No charge has yet been publicly lodged that the persons being arrested were actually perpetrating the disrespectful and disgraceful taunting that preceeded the hanging or the cheering over Hussein’s dead body. While it may yet be revealed that the cell phone video footage was taken as a “souvenir” by Shiite attendees hoping to brag about their “final conquest”of Saddam Hussein, all that we know for certain is that the persons accused of revealing to the public the shoddy behavior and the disgraceful handling of what should have been a serious and official event have been arrested and accused of unlawful conduct. Since there was an Official Government Video of the event, any misrepresentation of the proceedings in the bootleg video could easily have been demonstrated. But the iraqi government has not disputed the accuracy of what was reported, only the public revelation of the truth.
In a better world, we might have hoped for the official response to focus on the perpetrators of the misconduct and the officials responsible for managing the execution with civility and due respect. However, in the current environment of cynicism and official corruption the response of attacking the messenger does not seem at all unpredictable. At least the public attention drawn to the matter, for whatever motives, will expose the baseness and inhumanity to which Iraqi society [and the international community] has sunk.
Perhaps the incident will also open the eyes of the US Congress to the obvious fact that the situation in Iraq has deteriorated into a civil war that no US military force can “win.” The continuing bloodbath is clearly no longer about defeating an insurgency. It is a power struggle, carried out in bloody street warfare, over control of territory and resources in a deeply divided and chaotic country left with a leadership vacuum because of the bungled US invasion and subsequent occupation. Since our misguided President seems determined to pursue the absurd mission of “winning the war”in iraq, only the actions of Congress can intervene to limit further unnecessary loss of US military personnel. Whether by cutting off funding, except under a specific plan to withdraw forces, or through impeachment (if necessary), Congress must act to restore some sanity to US policy respecting Iraq.
In a better world, we might have hoped for the official response to focus on the perpetrators of the misconduct and the officials responsible for managing the execution with civility and due respect. However, in the current environment of cynicism and official corruption the response of attacking the messenger does not seem at all unpredictable. At least the public attention drawn to the matter, for whatever motives, will expose the baseness and inhumanity to which Iraqi society [and the international community] has sunk.
Perhaps the incident will also open the eyes of the US Congress to the obvious fact that the situation in Iraq has deteriorated into a civil war that no US military force can “win.” The continuing bloodbath is clearly no longer about defeating an insurgency. It is a power struggle, carried out in bloody street warfare, over control of territory and resources in a deeply divided and chaotic country left with a leadership vacuum because of the bungled US invasion and subsequent occupation. Since our misguided President seems determined to pursue the absurd mission of “winning the war”in iraq, only the actions of Congress can intervene to limit further unnecessary loss of US military personnel. Whether by cutting off funding, except under a specific plan to withdraw forces, or through impeachment (if necessary), Congress must act to restore some sanity to US policy respecting Iraq.
Tuesday, January 02, 2007
Gerald Ford - Rest in Peace
The rise to power of Gerald Ford was as improbable as it was fortuitous for this country. Here was a man who became President and validated the maxim that the person most suited for the job is the person who does not seek it. Yet he answered the call of his country when perhaps it needed him most.
Torn asunder by a Viet Nam conflict that much of the country neither understood nor supported, and shaken by the revelation of extreme venality and cynical corruption by the President of the United States, the country needed a humble and essentially honest man. That commodity is something one would not expect to find in great supply in the halls of Congress. Yet from the ranks came Gerald Ford, a man who was more concerned about doing the peoples' business than doing side deals to line his pockets or increase his personal power.
Many question his decision to grant Nixon a pardon. Ford believed that history would judge Nixon, and in retrospect he was right. It was more important for the country to focus its energies upon healing and unification than persecuting a fallen leader who had resigned in disgrace. That decision seems so inconceivable in the context of the Congress that we have had for the past decade, one so immersed in political extremism and vendetta. The GOP led Congress would allow the country to sink into the sewer while focusing its energy upon scoring political points against the "enemy" Democrats. And the Democratic Congressional leadership has been quite willing to play along with the game while the White House has led an administration of global corruption that would make the puny efforts of Nixon look like those of a schoolyard punk.
The calm grace and humanity of President Ford, his support of Betty Ford at a time when many politicians would have turned their back upon an ailing wife {consider Newt Gingrich), and his ability to shift focus away from his person to the job he was determined to get done requires that history judge him kindly and with great respect. He deserves our thanks and our prayers. Rest in Peace, Mr. President.
Torn asunder by a Viet Nam conflict that much of the country neither understood nor supported, and shaken by the revelation of extreme venality and cynical corruption by the President of the United States, the country needed a humble and essentially honest man. That commodity is something one would not expect to find in great supply in the halls of Congress. Yet from the ranks came Gerald Ford, a man who was more concerned about doing the peoples' business than doing side deals to line his pockets or increase his personal power.
Many question his decision to grant Nixon a pardon. Ford believed that history would judge Nixon, and in retrospect he was right. It was more important for the country to focus its energies upon healing and unification than persecuting a fallen leader who had resigned in disgrace. That decision seems so inconceivable in the context of the Congress that we have had for the past decade, one so immersed in political extremism and vendetta. The GOP led Congress would allow the country to sink into the sewer while focusing its energy upon scoring political points against the "enemy" Democrats. And the Democratic Congressional leadership has been quite willing to play along with the game while the White House has led an administration of global corruption that would make the puny efforts of Nixon look like those of a schoolyard punk.
The calm grace and humanity of President Ford, his support of Betty Ford at a time when many politicians would have turned their back upon an ailing wife {consider Newt Gingrich), and his ability to shift focus away from his person to the job he was determined to get done requires that history judge him kindly and with great respect. He deserves our thanks and our prayers. Rest in Peace, Mr. President.
Put another in the “W” Column
Just when we were prone to think that President George W. Bush had pushed the limits of imagination in terms of incompetence, arrogance and poor judgment, our feckless leader seems to find a new way to top his latest achievement.
One recent rung achieved on the ladder of incredulity is the decision to send additional (ranging from 20,000 to 40,000) troops to Baghdad in the face of the deteriorating Iraqi civil war currently playing out. The Joint Chiefs of Staff have expressed their professional opinion that sending such additional troops would be ill-advised and quite possibly counterproductive. Past troop surges have done little or nothing to quell the rising sectarian violence and have provided additional cannon fodder, both political and physical, to warring factions who object to the US occupation forces. Additional troops signal Bush Administration intent to stay in Iraq indefinitely and to occupy the country under an already discredited puppet regime. Additional troops also provide more physical targets upon which these warring sectarian factions can direct and vent their wrath.
Former high ranking military officials, including Gen. Colin Powell (former Head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and former Secretary of State), have stated that there really are no additional troops to send. The redeployment would require sending troops who have already served their tours of duty back to Iraq, and requiring those already in theater to remain longer. While it is not news that President Bush would ignore seasoned professional military advice regarding Iraq, his current proposal in the face of an already overtaxed military constitutes dereliction of responsibility as Commander in Chief.
Rising to even greater heights, or sinking to lower depths (depending upon one’s political viewpoint) the Bush Administration has also displayed publicly how poorly it can manage the Iraq fiasco. Just prior to the end of 2006, and coinciding roughly with the Hajj, one of the most holy events in the Muslim world, the Shiite led Iraqi regime that is tenuously propped up by the Bush Administration and US occupation forces chose to execute Saddam Hussein. This execution was carried out in haste, without time for a thorough appeal process or the opportunity for international diplomacy to weigh in. Moreover, the execution was apparently conducted in an unruly and disrespectful manner ill befitting a responsible government. The execution was recorded in video on a cell phone and the footage was subsequently broadcast, showing scandalous jeers and cheering by Shiite officials in charge of the proceeding. There is little wonder that Sunni claims of unfairness, political vendetta and impropriety could feel well grounded.
More importantly, history has taught those of us willing to learn that a martyr is a far more powerful foe than a deposed and incarcerated one. President Bush, rather than use his influence to forestall the execution, went to bed leaving an aide to issue a vacuous press statement following the hanging of Saddam Hussein. In an Iraq rife with sectarian violence, Bush took no action to prevent fuel from being thrown upon the current conflagration. This response to the official execution of a major "villain" over whom the President has taken this country to war and sacrificed the lives of many thousands is a travesty. And having allowed the conflict to escalate, through incompetence or impotence, Bush now wants to send yet more US soldiers into Iraq to add more deaths to the toll that has already climbed above 3000. He has failed to articulate any strategy or plan that would justify the additional deployment or respond rationally to the clearly stated opposition voiced by experienced military experts. Folks, I would say that it cannot get any more absurd than this, but I believe I said that last time….
One recent rung achieved on the ladder of incredulity is the decision to send additional (ranging from 20,000 to 40,000) troops to Baghdad in the face of the deteriorating Iraqi civil war currently playing out. The Joint Chiefs of Staff have expressed their professional opinion that sending such additional troops would be ill-advised and quite possibly counterproductive. Past troop surges have done little or nothing to quell the rising sectarian violence and have provided additional cannon fodder, both political and physical, to warring factions who object to the US occupation forces. Additional troops signal Bush Administration intent to stay in Iraq indefinitely and to occupy the country under an already discredited puppet regime. Additional troops also provide more physical targets upon which these warring sectarian factions can direct and vent their wrath.
Former high ranking military officials, including Gen. Colin Powell (former Head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and former Secretary of State), have stated that there really are no additional troops to send. The redeployment would require sending troops who have already served their tours of duty back to Iraq, and requiring those already in theater to remain longer. While it is not news that President Bush would ignore seasoned professional military advice regarding Iraq, his current proposal in the face of an already overtaxed military constitutes dereliction of responsibility as Commander in Chief.
Rising to even greater heights, or sinking to lower depths (depending upon one’s political viewpoint) the Bush Administration has also displayed publicly how poorly it can manage the Iraq fiasco. Just prior to the end of 2006, and coinciding roughly with the Hajj, one of the most holy events in the Muslim world, the Shiite led Iraqi regime that is tenuously propped up by the Bush Administration and US occupation forces chose to execute Saddam Hussein. This execution was carried out in haste, without time for a thorough appeal process or the opportunity for international diplomacy to weigh in. Moreover, the execution was apparently conducted in an unruly and disrespectful manner ill befitting a responsible government. The execution was recorded in video on a cell phone and the footage was subsequently broadcast, showing scandalous jeers and cheering by Shiite officials in charge of the proceeding. There is little wonder that Sunni claims of unfairness, political vendetta and impropriety could feel well grounded.
More importantly, history has taught those of us willing to learn that a martyr is a far more powerful foe than a deposed and incarcerated one. President Bush, rather than use his influence to forestall the execution, went to bed leaving an aide to issue a vacuous press statement following the hanging of Saddam Hussein. In an Iraq rife with sectarian violence, Bush took no action to prevent fuel from being thrown upon the current conflagration. This response to the official execution of a major "villain" over whom the President has taken this country to war and sacrificed the lives of many thousands is a travesty. And having allowed the conflict to escalate, through incompetence or impotence, Bush now wants to send yet more US soldiers into Iraq to add more deaths to the toll that has already climbed above 3000. He has failed to articulate any strategy or plan that would justify the additional deployment or respond rationally to the clearly stated opposition voiced by experienced military experts. Folks, I would say that it cannot get any more absurd than this, but I believe I said that last time….
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