The United States has plunged itself and the world into an unstable mix of factors that threaten the destabilize the Middle East, spread warfare [conventional and unconventional] beyond the Middle East arena and re-enervate the deadly nuclear arms proliferation race. The threat to the world at large lies not only from the potential for misguided deliberate actions by world leaders, but also from inadvertent, accidental and unintended consequences of circumstances and actions that are being taken. When placed in an atmosphere of actual threats, aggression and bellicose rhetoric from the United States, so-called “rogue” states of North Korea, Iran, Syria and others targeted by US foreign policy salvos can easily be understood when they seek to escalate their arms capability as a deterrence to such threats. The reasoning is neither obscure nor far fetched. All the predicates for disaster are manifest and documented. We need only look at the situation with objective, unbiased and unclouded vision.
The Iraq invasion and occupation has been the subject of massive, but totally unnecessary, public “debate” regarding its bona fides. Despite all the smoke, propaganda and deception that has lasted over three years, the public is finally beginning to awaken to the facts that have been manifest firmly establishing that the Bush Administration manipulated intelligence in order to orchestrate a predetermined strategy to invade Iraq for the purpose of regime change. That such actions were a clear violation of international law seems not to have sunken into the American consciousness generally.
A myriad of independent sources have put forward compelling evidence that the Bush Administration initiated the strategy of invasion prior to obtaining any resolution, authorization or approval from the UN or the US Congress. Internal memoranda, statements from former White House operatives and the Downing Street Memoranda all confirm that Bush intended to depose Saddam Hussein even prior to his inauguration. The manifest evidence also confirms that the Bush Administration knew that there were no viable “weapons of mass destruction” [WMD] or biological weapons systems in Iraq. Although the US had provided such weaponry to Iraq under the Bush I Administration, the years of sanctions and intervening events had eliminated the capacity of Saddam Hussein to maintain or advance these programs. Moreover, continual international monitoring gave the US and the world reasonable confidence that no such systems existed to seriously threaten Iraq’s neighbors, and certainly not the US.
The recently released book by Bob Woodward, “State of Denial,” further documents the faulty judgments by the White House and Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld in preparations for and execution of the invasion of Iraq. The White House continues to make public speeches about how well it is doing in the Iraqi conflict, and progress that is being made. They do this in the face of almost weekly reports from knowledgeable observers regarding the actual state of affairs in Iraq. Just a day or two ago, the entire city of Baghdad had to be placed on lockdown curfew. Despite reports of “progress” in training and preparing the Iraqi army and security forces, a recent report confirmed that only 25% of Iraqis in the national security forces reported for duty when deployed to defend Baghdad. That hardly sounds like “progress” even under the most generous characterization of the state of Iraqi readiness.
The ersatz “War on Terrorism” has been equally disestablished. Richard Clarke’s book amply documents the existence of information and briefings regarding the potential threat of an attack by Terrorists led or incited by Al Qaida leader Osama Bin Laden long before the September 11, 2001 attack on the World Trade Center. Other independent reports statements and documents from government officials from the Department of Defense and the CIA confirm the multiple failed attempts were made to raise the level of priority and urgency within the White House enclave. Public pronouncements by the White House and Condoleeza Rice have been, one after another, proven to be blatant lies. That the Administration would try to “spin” or whitewash the facts is not surprising. The remarkable aspect is the arrogance of doing so with clear knowledge that the disproof of their assertions is available through multiple corroborating sources. The discrepancies were not simply a difference of “interpretation,” the Administration attempted to gainsay documented facts relating to the very occurrence of certain events or existence of certain documents.
The most remarkable observation of all is the apparent willingness of the American public to turn a blind eye to the incompetence, corruption and blatant deception by the White House and Congressional leadership. The media has been far too complicit for too long in this process, by ignoring or burying stories that would disclose the deceit and failures of the Administration. However, now that the truth is appearing in print, and despite the Right Wing “talking heads” who continually try to downplay or discount the governmental incompetence and misconduct, the public still has not mobilized in any meaningful way to demand accountability of the White House and Congress. It would appear that the American public has bought into a kind of self delusional mindset that allows them to accept statements that they know to be untrue, as long as they appear to support some jingoistic mantra of “national security” or “war on terror.”
Hard evidence of torture used on US detainees is sidestepped or ignored as long as it was proclaimed necessary to fight terrorism. Never mind that torture of a crime under national and international law, that in most instances we know about the torture was inflicted upon people who were not terrorists and the Administration has been unable or unwilling to give the public any concrete evidence to support the claimed necessity for using illegal and morally reprehensible tactics. We ignore weekly reports of the devolution of Iraq into civil war and chaos as the President exhorts us to “stay the course” and continue to pour over $8 Billion per week of precious US resources and numerous lives of US military personnel into an Administration adventure that Bush cannot even hazard a guess as to when it can be brought to a successful conclusion. This is the case even if we allow the Administration to define a “successful” conclusion.
All of this is done in the name of the American people and with the lives of our children and citizens and with our precious financial resources. There are none so blind as those who will not see. Unfortunately, the American people and our children will pay the price for this willful disregard for many years to come.
Sunday, October 01, 2006
Friday, September 29, 2006
“We Must Destroy You to Save You”
A classic philosophical dilemma continually surfaces to challenge leaders and policymakers: whether the “ends” justify the “means” employed to achieve them. Embarking upon that path has proven a difficult and slippery slope. Excessive focus upon some theoretically laudable ends can divert attention from a moral compass that guides or governs the tactics we employ. Losing sight of that moral compass can lead to the abandonment or destruction of the very principles that are the foundation of the “ends” being sought.
There are no doubt instances when aggressive and unpleasant tactics are necessary to achieve a greater good. Yet each decision to employ these undesirable measures should be examined in the context of whether their adoption changes who we are fundamentally, and whether their use undermines the essential values upon which we have built our society. That a tactic can be used or even that it may be effective cannot be the end of the inquiry into whether a tactic or procedure is justifiable. Nor can the immorality of the foe or opponent be used as a valid excuse for resort to fundamentally abhorrent and inhumane measures. To do so is both dishonest and corrupting. The existence of the Geneva Conventions confirm that, despite the horrors and inhumanity of war, there are standards of conduct below which civilized peoples must not stoop.
These fundamental standards of civilized behavior are distilled from experience and from the basic tenets of a wide array of religions and articles of faith throughout the world. It is not determinative whether the standard is incorporated into some self enforcing edict. Theft and murder are inherently wrong because we accept these restrictions on behavior as part of our collective moral compass, not because they are illegal. So passing a law that immunizes someone who commits a murderous or inhumane act does not make the action less wrong, simply because the authority of a court to punish the act is curtailed.
This brings us to the soon to be enacted legislation advanced by the Bush Administration regarding detention, interrogation and trial of persons that the Administration designates as “suspected terrorists” or “enemy combatants.” The Senate has passed legislation, with support from Republicans and some Democrats, which authorizes the practices demanded by President Bush as "essential tools" in his war on terrorism. For decades, by international treaty and domestic law, the American people have accepted that torture and inhumane treatment of detainees or prisoners is illegal. On a societal level, we have generally accepted that such practices are morally wrong. Yet this legislation sidesteps legal and moral standards by “dressing up” the practices with euphemistic labels such as aggressive interrogation or “alternative procedures.” But a rose by any other name is still a rose.
Moreover, law enforcement and military experts with actual knowledge and understanding of armed conflict and battle situations tell us that torture and inhumane coercive tactics are usually counterproductiveat and often useless. The “intelligence” or information that is obtained under such procedures has less than a 50% chance of being accurate or useful because the detainee will say whatever he or she believes the interrogator wants to hear, simply to cause the torture to stop. In addition, use of these tactics provides an invitation to opponents to use equally inhumane or perhaps escalated tactics against detainees of American personnel or allies. As General Colin Powell admonished the Bush Administration recently, the world is beginning to question the moral basis for the actions of the US in its "war on terror."
The extent to which the adoption of the legislation and the tactics it authorizes diminishes the character of the American people themselves is a more direct and fundamental issue. While it is important how the rest of the world views the American people, it is essential that we carefully consider how we view ourselves. The proposed law condones practices and pardons American government agents, including the President and Secretary of Defense, for actions that have historically constituted war crimes under the Geneva Conventions and the US War Crimes Act. The law establishes a new and revised standard of American character and morality. Upon passage, the activities that the Administration has engaged in since 9/11: extraordinary renditions, torture, isolation, water boarding, electroshock, hypothermia, use of threats with attack animals, harsh psychological intimidation, use of religious tenets to coerce prisoners and other “alternative procedures” are all to be declared legal and acceptable behaviors. Officials at the highest levels who authorized such measures are immunized from future prosecution for war crimes.
Individuals, including American citizens, may be arrested and detained indefinitely without being formally charged. They would have no right to a habeas corpus hearing to challenge the legitimacy or basis for their detention, or even to show that they are not the person that the authorities intended to arrest. They simply “disappear” to Guantanamo or some secret prison like the countless individuals lost in the Pinochet and other authoritarian regimes. IF the Bush Administration chooses to charge the detainee and put him or her on trial, there is language in the law that provides some limited due process protections. However, the basic principle of due process that prohibits indefinite imprisonment without formal charges, and a showing that the government has at least a reasonable basis for believing that the detainee has engaged in prohibited conduct, is woefully lacking. So the simple solution for the Bush Administration under the new law is to imprison the person secretly and refuse to formally charge or bring the person to trial.
Add to those measures the legislation moving forward in Congress to authorize domestic wiretapping and search and seizure of private information and communications without warrants. These measures, we are told, are necessary “tools” in the war against terrorism. They would appear to violate the Fourth Amendment protections under the US Constitution against unreasonable search and seizure by government authorities. But the encroachment on freedom and personal liberty is essential, we are told, to protect us from the potential threat of a terrorist attack. We must simply trust the government not to abuse us once we have relinquished these rights.
Thus, in order to “protect” Americans and to secure our safety from “terrorism” in this new and dangerous world, we are instructed that we must now condone torture, kidnapping, and indefinite imprisonment without due process. Anyone who opposes or disagrees with these tactics and measures is "soft on terrorism and national security." These naysayers are presumably a threat to the American "way of life." We must sacrifice these long standing moral principles and fundamental tenets of our democracy in order to protect our “way of life.” Protecting “freedom” and our “way of life” are the “ends” that the Bush Administration and GOP controlled Congress seek. The means they would employ to achieve those ends make each and every one of us complicit in acts that are inhumane and immoral, and they require us to relinquish basic rights of freedom and liberty upon which our “way of life” was established.
That is who YOU, the American citizen will become with the adoption of this legislation. And that is why the White House asserts that it must destroy you in order to protect and save you. It is assumed that you will appreciate all that the Administration is doing for you. And it is also assumed that you are fine with the demise and destruction of character and moral authority that this country once had. After all, your “way of life” is protected.
There are no doubt instances when aggressive and unpleasant tactics are necessary to achieve a greater good. Yet each decision to employ these undesirable measures should be examined in the context of whether their adoption changes who we are fundamentally, and whether their use undermines the essential values upon which we have built our society. That a tactic can be used or even that it may be effective cannot be the end of the inquiry into whether a tactic or procedure is justifiable. Nor can the immorality of the foe or opponent be used as a valid excuse for resort to fundamentally abhorrent and inhumane measures. To do so is both dishonest and corrupting. The existence of the Geneva Conventions confirm that, despite the horrors and inhumanity of war, there are standards of conduct below which civilized peoples must not stoop.
These fundamental standards of civilized behavior are distilled from experience and from the basic tenets of a wide array of religions and articles of faith throughout the world. It is not determinative whether the standard is incorporated into some self enforcing edict. Theft and murder are inherently wrong because we accept these restrictions on behavior as part of our collective moral compass, not because they are illegal. So passing a law that immunizes someone who commits a murderous or inhumane act does not make the action less wrong, simply because the authority of a court to punish the act is curtailed.
This brings us to the soon to be enacted legislation advanced by the Bush Administration regarding detention, interrogation and trial of persons that the Administration designates as “suspected terrorists” or “enemy combatants.” The Senate has passed legislation, with support from Republicans and some Democrats, which authorizes the practices demanded by President Bush as "essential tools" in his war on terrorism. For decades, by international treaty and domestic law, the American people have accepted that torture and inhumane treatment of detainees or prisoners is illegal. On a societal level, we have generally accepted that such practices are morally wrong. Yet this legislation sidesteps legal and moral standards by “dressing up” the practices with euphemistic labels such as aggressive interrogation or “alternative procedures.” But a rose by any other name is still a rose.
Moreover, law enforcement and military experts with actual knowledge and understanding of armed conflict and battle situations tell us that torture and inhumane coercive tactics are usually counterproductiveat and often useless. The “intelligence” or information that is obtained under such procedures has less than a 50% chance of being accurate or useful because the detainee will say whatever he or she believes the interrogator wants to hear, simply to cause the torture to stop. In addition, use of these tactics provides an invitation to opponents to use equally inhumane or perhaps escalated tactics against detainees of American personnel or allies. As General Colin Powell admonished the Bush Administration recently, the world is beginning to question the moral basis for the actions of the US in its "war on terror."
The extent to which the adoption of the legislation and the tactics it authorizes diminishes the character of the American people themselves is a more direct and fundamental issue. While it is important how the rest of the world views the American people, it is essential that we carefully consider how we view ourselves. The proposed law condones practices and pardons American government agents, including the President and Secretary of Defense, for actions that have historically constituted war crimes under the Geneva Conventions and the US War Crimes Act. The law establishes a new and revised standard of American character and morality. Upon passage, the activities that the Administration has engaged in since 9/11: extraordinary renditions, torture, isolation, water boarding, electroshock, hypothermia, use of threats with attack animals, harsh psychological intimidation, use of religious tenets to coerce prisoners and other “alternative procedures” are all to be declared legal and acceptable behaviors. Officials at the highest levels who authorized such measures are immunized from future prosecution for war crimes.
Individuals, including American citizens, may be arrested and detained indefinitely without being formally charged. They would have no right to a habeas corpus hearing to challenge the legitimacy or basis for their detention, or even to show that they are not the person that the authorities intended to arrest. They simply “disappear” to Guantanamo or some secret prison like the countless individuals lost in the Pinochet and other authoritarian regimes. IF the Bush Administration chooses to charge the detainee and put him or her on trial, there is language in the law that provides some limited due process protections. However, the basic principle of due process that prohibits indefinite imprisonment without formal charges, and a showing that the government has at least a reasonable basis for believing that the detainee has engaged in prohibited conduct, is woefully lacking. So the simple solution for the Bush Administration under the new law is to imprison the person secretly and refuse to formally charge or bring the person to trial.
Add to those measures the legislation moving forward in Congress to authorize domestic wiretapping and search and seizure of private information and communications without warrants. These measures, we are told, are necessary “tools” in the war against terrorism. They would appear to violate the Fourth Amendment protections under the US Constitution against unreasonable search and seizure by government authorities. But the encroachment on freedom and personal liberty is essential, we are told, to protect us from the potential threat of a terrorist attack. We must simply trust the government not to abuse us once we have relinquished these rights.
Thus, in order to “protect” Americans and to secure our safety from “terrorism” in this new and dangerous world, we are instructed that we must now condone torture, kidnapping, and indefinite imprisonment without due process. Anyone who opposes or disagrees with these tactics and measures is "soft on terrorism and national security." These naysayers are presumably a threat to the American "way of life." We must sacrifice these long standing moral principles and fundamental tenets of our democracy in order to protect our “way of life.” Protecting “freedom” and our “way of life” are the “ends” that the Bush Administration and GOP controlled Congress seek. The means they would employ to achieve those ends make each and every one of us complicit in acts that are inhumane and immoral, and they require us to relinquish basic rights of freedom and liberty upon which our “way of life” was established.
That is who YOU, the American citizen will become with the adoption of this legislation. And that is why the White House asserts that it must destroy you in order to protect and save you. It is assumed that you will appreciate all that the Administration is doing for you. And it is also assumed that you are fine with the demise and destruction of character and moral authority that this country once had. After all, your “way of life” is protected.
Thursday, September 28, 2006
Wizardry at the White House
President Bush, still attempting to maintain the façade of the “Wizard of Oz,” proclaims that the recent National Intelligence Estimate [NIE] supports the Administration’s position, while refusing to declassify and release the NIE document that would either support or disprove his assertion. What we do know from leaks of portions of the NIE findings is that the Iraq fiasco has made the world and the US less safe and more vulnerable to terrorist attack. We also know the intelligence community consensus is that continuation of the current path will lead to greater risk. How these stark findings can be “spun” into an assertion that the report bolsters the Bush Administration’s current policies [rather than calling for a serious rethinking of those policies in light of their lack of success] is a marvel to behold. The excuses and rationale put forward by Administration talking heads are so weak and transparent that the public must be total idiots or be able to suspend belief in reality to accept them.
Since exactly when did this Administration become concerned about protecting the identity and lives of agents and intelligence operatives. More specifically, is it not more likely that this Administration would deliberately disclose and compromise, rather than protect, the identity of CIA operatives who give assessments that contradict the President’s agenda? Consider the fate of Valerie Plame carefully before you answer.
The first part of the rationale may have some merit. We know that the public admission by the President of “secret prisons” in foreign countries used to hold “suspected terrorists” has created a firestorm of disapproval. These secret enclaves used for extraordinary rendition and torture were not operations that our allies were eager to associate themselves with. These other countries have a far different respect for international law and the Geneva Conventions than Bush appears to have. Public disclosure of such practices in intelligence assessments could undercut the lies and deceit used by the Administration to maintain working relationships with countries not fully aware of the US Administration’s practices.
The second part of the rationale is laughable. The experience of Richard Clark tells us a great deal about the Bush Administration’s true regard for the independence of intelligence and counterterrorism professionals. Clark had worked as a high level intelligence professional on counter terrorism operations under at least four different administrations, GOP and Democrat. He was repeatedly sent back to the drawing board by the Bush - Cheney White House because his “independent” analysis did not match the Bush – Cheney agenda. Subsequent revelations have confirmed the pervasive attitude of the White House. Either you told them what they wanted to hear or you were out of a job in a New York minute. Release of the NIE could scarcely do harm to the “independence” of these professionals that has not already been accomplished through White House intimidation that has gone on for years.
This phrase and meaning contortion is worthy of circus billing. What we know of the findings by the intelligence professionals is that they report exploitation of the chaotic situation in Iraq by terrorist groups who use the confusion and lack of order as a cover for training extremists in terroristic methods and indoctrination. The report also [and quite logically, I would add] suggests that many of these trainees are sent from or choose to leave Iraq to establish cells and train others in different parts of the world. One obvious reason is that the situation in Iraq has deteriorated to the point that it is an unsafe environment even for the terrorists. Active combat training in guerilla and urban warfare is supplied by the uncontrolled environment in Iraq. It provides a real life "boot camp" that allows these extremists to try out and hone their skills and training. However, unless they are intimately involved in the sectarian and tribal militias and death squads running rampant in Iraq, these Islamic extremists trained to be terrorists find it safer to leave Iraq than to stay and risk being killed in the crossfire of the Iraqi civil war. Their time in Iraq is a temporary way station. Perpetuating the chaos in Iraq, as noted by intelligence experts, thus serves as a recruitment and training tool for global terorrists. We have reduced the Iraqi citizenry to residents in the functional equivalent of a large artillery range or mock battleground where competing teams conduct "war games" more for the sake of miklitary exercises than for the achievement of actual control and stabilization of the battleground. Traditionally, military exercises to train troops have been conducted in deserted areas to prevent civilian casualties. Unfortunately for the Iraqi civilians, the US occupation seems to have dispensed with that precaution.
The battle in Iraq had nothing to do with Al Qaida at the beginning, and has very little to do with Al Qaida now. Al Qaida was not a presence or contender for a ruling regime in Iraq before the US invasion, and does not now seek to govern the country. The current battle is simply about restoring some semblance of a rule of law in an otherwise lawless environment. It is not, in any rational sense, a battleground between the US and international terrorist groups. The battle is between Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish factions attempting to position themselves for control in any resulting governance of Iraq. The deaths of more than 300 Iraqis per month, as a result of sectarian violence, tells us that the war is for control of the Iraqi territory and not some epic "struggle for civilization." The US has lost the war to control the government of Iraq, in failing to install a proxy regime. The US has legitimate concerns about what form of centralized regime or balkanized republics will ultimately arise out of the chaos the US invasion and occupation have precipitated. But it is by no means clear that continued occupation of the country will further US interests. Indeed, the NIE briefing strongly suggests the opposite. In any event, Iraq is clearly NOT a bulwark against terrorists or a "central front" in the war on terrorism.
It is time to pull back the curtain and expose the Wizard as a charlatan. When Intelligence professionals candidly assess the situation, military experts evaluate the conditions and available options, humanitarian agencies investigate and report on the circumstances on the ground, and all of them say that the mission has failed, it is time to at least consider a correction in course or policy adjustment. Unfortunately, the Bush Administration would choose to ignore all of the available evidence and exhort us to support the “stay the course” mantra. There are examples of such behavior: Custer at the Little Big Horn, the Titanic in the North Atlantic, and the Light Brigade charge in North Africa. None of these examples are particularly confidence-inspiring toward the leadership. In the Wizard of Oz, Dorothy and her pals learned that success lay not in chasing some useless and impossible quest, but rather in facing the truth that was right before them and within themselves. Perhaps that is the fiction to which we ought to be paying attention, instead of the “Snow” being broadcast by the White House.
Press secretary Tony Snow said releasing the full report, portions of which President Bush declassified on Tuesday, would jeopardize the lives of agents who gathered the information.
Since exactly when did this Administration become concerned about protecting the identity and lives of agents and intelligence operatives. More specifically, is it not more likely that this Administration would deliberately disclose and compromise, rather than protect, the identity of CIA operatives who give assessments that contradict the President’s agenda? Consider the fate of Valerie Plame carefully before you answer.
It would also risk the nation's ability to work with foreign governments and to keep secret its U.S. intelligence-gathering methods, Snow said, and "compromise the independence of people doing intelligence analysis."
The first part of the rationale may have some merit. We know that the public admission by the President of “secret prisons” in foreign countries used to hold “suspected terrorists” has created a firestorm of disapproval. These secret enclaves used for extraordinary rendition and torture were not operations that our allies were eager to associate themselves with. These other countries have a far different respect for international law and the Geneva Conventions than Bush appears to have. Public disclosure of such practices in intelligence assessments could undercut the lies and deceit used by the Administration to maintain working relationships with countries not fully aware of the US Administration’s practices.
The second part of the rationale is laughable. The experience of Richard Clark tells us a great deal about the Bush Administration’s true regard for the independence of intelligence and counterterrorism professionals. Clark had worked as a high level intelligence professional on counter terrorism operations under at least four different administrations, GOP and Democrat. He was repeatedly sent back to the drawing board by the Bush - Cheney White House because his “independent” analysis did not match the Bush – Cheney agenda. Subsequent revelations have confirmed the pervasive attitude of the White House. Either you told them what they wanted to hear or you were out of a job in a New York minute. Release of the NIE could scarcely do harm to the “independence” of these professionals that has not already been accomplished through White House intimidation that has gone on for years.
In the bleak National Intelligence Estimate, the government's top analysts concluded Iraq has become a "cause celebre" for jihadists, who are growing in number and geographic reach. If the trend continues, the analysts found, the risks to the U.S. interests at home and abroad will grow… Snow said the report confirms the importance of the war in Iraq as a bulwark against terrorists. "Iraq has become, for them, the battleground," he said. "If they lose, they lose their bragging rights. They lose their ability to recruit."
This phrase and meaning contortion is worthy of circus billing. What we know of the findings by the intelligence professionals is that they report exploitation of the chaotic situation in Iraq by terrorist groups who use the confusion and lack of order as a cover for training extremists in terroristic methods and indoctrination. The report also [and quite logically, I would add] suggests that many of these trainees are sent from or choose to leave Iraq to establish cells and train others in different parts of the world. One obvious reason is that the situation in Iraq has deteriorated to the point that it is an unsafe environment even for the terrorists. Active combat training in guerilla and urban warfare is supplied by the uncontrolled environment in Iraq. It provides a real life "boot camp" that allows these extremists to try out and hone their skills and training. However, unless they are intimately involved in the sectarian and tribal militias and death squads running rampant in Iraq, these Islamic extremists trained to be terrorists find it safer to leave Iraq than to stay and risk being killed in the crossfire of the Iraqi civil war. Their time in Iraq is a temporary way station. Perpetuating the chaos in Iraq, as noted by intelligence experts, thus serves as a recruitment and training tool for global terorrists. We have reduced the Iraqi citizenry to residents in the functional equivalent of a large artillery range or mock battleground where competing teams conduct "war games" more for the sake of miklitary exercises than for the achievement of actual control and stabilization of the battleground. Traditionally, military exercises to train troops have been conducted in deserted areas to prevent civilian casualties. Unfortunately for the Iraqi civilians, the US occupation seems to have dispensed with that precaution.
The battle in Iraq had nothing to do with Al Qaida at the beginning, and has very little to do with Al Qaida now. Al Qaida was not a presence or contender for a ruling regime in Iraq before the US invasion, and does not now seek to govern the country. The current battle is simply about restoring some semblance of a rule of law in an otherwise lawless environment. It is not, in any rational sense, a battleground between the US and international terrorist groups. The battle is between Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish factions attempting to position themselves for control in any resulting governance of Iraq. The deaths of more than 300 Iraqis per month, as a result of sectarian violence, tells us that the war is for control of the Iraqi territory and not some epic "struggle for civilization." The US has lost the war to control the government of Iraq, in failing to install a proxy regime. The US has legitimate concerns about what form of centralized regime or balkanized republics will ultimately arise out of the chaos the US invasion and occupation have precipitated. But it is by no means clear that continued occupation of the country will further US interests. Indeed, the NIE briefing strongly suggests the opposite. In any event, Iraq is clearly NOT a bulwark against terrorists or a "central front" in the war on terrorism.
It is time to pull back the curtain and expose the Wizard as a charlatan. When Intelligence professionals candidly assess the situation, military experts evaluate the conditions and available options, humanitarian agencies investigate and report on the circumstances on the ground, and all of them say that the mission has failed, it is time to at least consider a correction in course or policy adjustment. Unfortunately, the Bush Administration would choose to ignore all of the available evidence and exhort us to support the “stay the course” mantra. There are examples of such behavior: Custer at the Little Big Horn, the Titanic in the North Atlantic, and the Light Brigade charge in North Africa. None of these examples are particularly confidence-inspiring toward the leadership. In the Wizard of Oz, Dorothy and her pals learned that success lay not in chasing some useless and impossible quest, but rather in facing the truth that was right before them and within themselves. Perhaps that is the fiction to which we ought to be paying attention, instead of the “Snow” being broadcast by the White House.
Wednesday, September 27, 2006
An Impossible Dream?: Truth in Government
One of the most remarkable elements of political campaigning and governmental policy these days is the stark contrast between the public representations and any factual or concrete basis. We have gone from an environment of "bending" the facts and record to what amounts to a compound fracture of reality. The public is well acquainted with a divergence of political viewpoints when candidates attempt to differentiate their positions by "coloring" the facts and "interpreting" them through the lens of their political philosophy. However, the past decade has seen a marked shift in which the point of departure for the bend or "spin" is no longer an objective and concrete set of facts or even a semblance of the truth. What we see and hear repeatedly these days are complete fabrications, often 180 degrees from any reasonable conclusion drawn from underpinning facts. And even worse, these openly false representations are made in the face of readily available facts that disprove the truth of the assertions.
Let's talk examples. In Massachusetts, there is a current debate over "taxes" and which candidate would raise or roll back taxes. Set aside, for the moment, the reasonableness of the political dogma that declares taxes as bad in all circumstances. The public debate turns upon whether a candidate can successfully claim that fee increases or other "revenue enhancements" are not taxes, and thus contend that taxes have not been raised. We all know, at least those of us that adhere to some logical integrity, that inflation and cost increases for government services require either more revenue or reduced services. Government services and state aid to local governments have been cut, whether by direct reductions or by failing to adjust funding for inflation and permitting a de facto reduction to occur. We also know that there have been some increases in government revenue. So the public debate is based upon common factual underpinnings, but positions are differentiated by sophistry and labels, or "characterizations."
No candidate wants to campaign on a promise to cut services, so each candidate must face the problem of how to address the need for increased revenue. One party claims that it will "not raise taxes," but resorts to fee increases and revenue enhancers that it says are not "taxes" despite the fact that they look and act precisely like taxes. The other party claims that the public deserves more "honesty" and accountability. This opposing party asserts that when the government imposes economic burdens in order to raise revenue, the attempt to disguise that action as something other than a tax is not being fair or honest with the public. Whether you ascribe to the technicality approach or the "quacks like a duck" approach, this is fair political debate because neither side denies the common facts that the government has raised revenues that it needed to carry out a public purpose.
Enter the new era of public debate. Congress passes legislation called the "Clean Skies" law that one can see, upon cursory reading, permits an increase in the volume of air pollution permitted by industries that are prime contributors to air contamination. These industries have provided strong lobbying and large political campaign contributions to the GOP legislators that control Congress. The "Help America Vote" Act passed by Congress imposes measures that require use of electronic voting machines that have been shown by objective testing to be highly prone to hacking, manipulation and corruption of voting results tabulation. This legislation also imposes voter ID requirements of questionable constitutionality, with which the states and local governments cannot comply for lack of funding and resources. The direct and objective result of the legislation is to suppress voting and to undermine the integrity of the voting process. Were these acts of Congress subject to FDA or truth in packaging approval, they could never be released fButublic consumption. Butu there is no requirement that Congress act honestly or that legislation must be labeled truthfully.
President Bush yesterday proclaimed that Americans can "read for themselves" the National Intelligence Briefing report that critics of the administration have cited in support of assertions that the Bush Administration invasion and occupation of Iraq has made the world less safe from terrorism. In fact, the White House has declassified only a portion of the 3 page "key findings" summary from that report. In fact, the public cannot read for themselves what the consensus of all major intelligence agencies reported regarding the recent historical background, current status and future prospects regarding one of the largest issues facing this country in its history. These examples are different from the "taxation vs. fees" debate. These involve outright lies, prevarication and deliberate deception of the public in the face of clear and objective information that proves the lie.
We might question why the President of the United States would go on public television and declare that the National Intelligence Briefing does not say that the world and the country is less safe as a result of the invasion and occupation of Iraq, when even the selective portion released by the White House under pressure patently does provide that assessment. Indeed we should raise that question. It is one thing to publicly disagree with the report. Underlying foundation, political philosophy and one's connection with reality can be debated on common factual grounds. It is an entirely different matter when an elephant is standing in the room for all to see, and the President of the United States declares publicly that it is not an elephant but rather a mouse we are seeing. This is not a matter of nuance; it is a matter of basic competence. We can all understand that the President would like the report to have said that he has done a successful job of protecting national interests and reducing the threat of terrorism. But regardless of one's sympathies toward the Commander in Chief, the NIB summary that we have seen states otherwise. If there are other portions of the report that contradict the summary findings, it behooves the President to release them publicly. Any claimed threat to national security from releasing the report is outweighed by the legitimate concern that the person occupying the most powerful position on the planet is entirely out of touch with reality and incapable of even comprehending, much less following the best available expert advice.
A fundamental tenet of the political doctrine of democracy is that freedom of information and debate will enable the better ideas to percolate to the surface and guide the governance of the country and body politic toward a reasonably viable future. What we have currently is an environment in which important factual information is withheld from the public on the purported basis of "national security." Furthermore, the leaders who are keeping such information secret are openly and audaciously lying to us. They are telling us that a set of facts and circumstances are true when they know that those facts are not true. They are not coloring the facts in order to lead us; they are deliberately misrepresenting the facts in order to mislead us.
Perhaps the most frightening and hopeful sign of late is the increasing number of highly experienced and respected professionals and experts who were within the Bush Administration. They are now departing from the ranks and exercising the courage to tell the public what they know about the development of our current situation. They acknowledge that they were unable to be open or honest with Congress or the American people while in the Administration, and they explain why. We know that their reasons are valid because we have ample instances of persons who dissented while in office and were summarily relieved of their duties. But these experts do not come forward expecting us to hold them blameless for their failings and complicity. They come forward because they fear that the current course this government and this country is on, based upon their knowledge and experience, portends far greater peril that we have so far experienced. The Bush Administration would label these people traitors, when in truth there are few acts of patriotism needed more by this country than the service these people are providing.
Let's talk examples. In Massachusetts, there is a current debate over "taxes" and which candidate would raise or roll back taxes. Set aside, for the moment, the reasonableness of the political dogma that declares taxes as bad in all circumstances. The public debate turns upon whether a candidate can successfully claim that fee increases or other "revenue enhancements" are not taxes, and thus contend that taxes have not been raised. We all know, at least those of us that adhere to some logical integrity, that inflation and cost increases for government services require either more revenue or reduced services. Government services and state aid to local governments have been cut, whether by direct reductions or by failing to adjust funding for inflation and permitting a de facto reduction to occur. We also know that there have been some increases in government revenue. So the public debate is based upon common factual underpinnings, but positions are differentiated by sophistry and labels, or "characterizations."
No candidate wants to campaign on a promise to cut services, so each candidate must face the problem of how to address the need for increased revenue. One party claims that it will "not raise taxes," but resorts to fee increases and revenue enhancers that it says are not "taxes" despite the fact that they look and act precisely like taxes. The other party claims that the public deserves more "honesty" and accountability. This opposing party asserts that when the government imposes economic burdens in order to raise revenue, the attempt to disguise that action as something other than a tax is not being fair or honest with the public. Whether you ascribe to the technicality approach or the "quacks like a duck" approach, this is fair political debate because neither side denies the common facts that the government has raised revenues that it needed to carry out a public purpose.
Enter the new era of public debate. Congress passes legislation called the "Clean Skies" law that one can see, upon cursory reading, permits an increase in the volume of air pollution permitted by industries that are prime contributors to air contamination. These industries have provided strong lobbying and large political campaign contributions to the GOP legislators that control Congress. The "Help America Vote" Act passed by Congress imposes measures that require use of electronic voting machines that have been shown by objective testing to be highly prone to hacking, manipulation and corruption of voting results tabulation. This legislation also imposes voter ID requirements of questionable constitutionality, with which the states and local governments cannot comply for lack of funding and resources. The direct and objective result of the legislation is to suppress voting and to undermine the integrity of the voting process. Were these acts of Congress subject to FDA or truth in packaging approval, they could never be released fButublic consumption. Butu there is no requirement that Congress act honestly or that legislation must be labeled truthfully.
President Bush yesterday proclaimed that Americans can "read for themselves" the National Intelligence Briefing report that critics of the administration have cited in support of assertions that the Bush Administration invasion and occupation of Iraq has made the world less safe from terrorism. In fact, the White House has declassified only a portion of the 3 page "key findings" summary from that report. In fact, the public cannot read for themselves what the consensus of all major intelligence agencies reported regarding the recent historical background, current status and future prospects regarding one of the largest issues facing this country in its history. These examples are different from the "taxation vs. fees" debate. These involve outright lies, prevarication and deliberate deception of the public in the face of clear and objective information that proves the lie.
We might question why the President of the United States would go on public television and declare that the National Intelligence Briefing does not say that the world and the country is less safe as a result of the invasion and occupation of Iraq, when even the selective portion released by the White House under pressure patently does provide that assessment. Indeed we should raise that question. It is one thing to publicly disagree with the report. Underlying foundation, political philosophy and one's connection with reality can be debated on common factual grounds. It is an entirely different matter when an elephant is standing in the room for all to see, and the President of the United States declares publicly that it is not an elephant but rather a mouse we are seeing. This is not a matter of nuance; it is a matter of basic competence. We can all understand that the President would like the report to have said that he has done a successful job of protecting national interests and reducing the threat of terrorism. But regardless of one's sympathies toward the Commander in Chief, the NIB summary that we have seen states otherwise. If there are other portions of the report that contradict the summary findings, it behooves the President to release them publicly. Any claimed threat to national security from releasing the report is outweighed by the legitimate concern that the person occupying the most powerful position on the planet is entirely out of touch with reality and incapable of even comprehending, much less following the best available expert advice.
A fundamental tenet of the political doctrine of democracy is that freedom of information and debate will enable the better ideas to percolate to the surface and guide the governance of the country and body politic toward a reasonably viable future. What we have currently is an environment in which important factual information is withheld from the public on the purported basis of "national security." Furthermore, the leaders who are keeping such information secret are openly and audaciously lying to us. They are telling us that a set of facts and circumstances are true when they know that those facts are not true. They are not coloring the facts in order to lead us; they are deliberately misrepresenting the facts in order to mislead us.
Perhaps the most frightening and hopeful sign of late is the increasing number of highly experienced and respected professionals and experts who were within the Bush Administration. They are now departing from the ranks and exercising the courage to tell the public what they know about the development of our current situation. They acknowledge that they were unable to be open or honest with Congress or the American people while in the Administration, and they explain why. We know that their reasons are valid because we have ample instances of persons who dissented while in office and were summarily relieved of their duties. But these experts do not come forward expecting us to hold them blameless for their failings and complicity. They come forward because they fear that the current course this government and this country is on, based upon their knowledge and experience, portends far greater peril that we have so far experienced. The Bush Administration would label these people traitors, when in truth there are few acts of patriotism needed more by this country than the service these people are providing.
Monday, September 25, 2006
On the Home Front
Attention that has been focused in this Blog and others on International crises, not the lease of which are the conflicts in the Middle East, Sudan and Indonesia, can be a distraction from the problems we face domestically. The distraction does not, however, make the problems any less real or serious. Indeed, some would argue that the occupation in Iraq and the drumbeat from the Bush Administration, preparing the country for a military assault on Iran, are intended to pull attention away from the failed domestic policies and the deteriorating economic situation in the US.
Two economic sectors have traditionally been reliable indicators of the way in which macro economic policies and Wall Street translate to real world circumstances faced on Main Street in the USA: the Housing and the Automobile Industries. The Housing market represents the major repository of family assets for the average American citizen. Many retirement and mutual funds include real estate backed securities as part of the typical portfolios as well. Admittedly, we are not describing assets of the small segment of the populace whose annual incomes exceed $250,000 and have personal stock portfolios. The Automobile industry represents a bellwether for the state of the labor market and for the vitality of the durable goods market as well. The decisions that average families make regarding the immediate purchase or delayed purchase of a vehicle, and the type of vehicle they purchase, depend heavily upon their confidence in their current and near term future outlook. The plethora of manufacturing and distribution jobs that are associated with and dependent upon the Automobile Industry give us guidance respecting the health of the jobs outlook for the country. So let’s take a look at what the factual reports indicate about the prospects for the domestic economy.
Recent reports from National Realtor Association studies reveal that housing prices are declining in real terms for the first time in eleven years. We know that the housing market experiences ups and downs over time, but over the past decade the “downs” usually have been simply plateaus or lessening rates of increase in prices and values. Soft markets can be identified in various geographic markets as a result of overbuilding and other transitory factors. The current situation is different, in that it suggests a true recession in home values. Without falling into the hyperbole of the “housing boom or bust speculation,” we can focus on some real life consequences from the current trend. The steady run up in prices caused two significant reactions among home buyers. The first was a drive to buy more house than the homebuyer could reasonably afford, on the theory that the rising value would create equity. Lenders ventured into higher risk mortgage products that went beyond variable rate mortgages and interest only instruments, to includesome truly exotic negative amortization products. These high risk exotic products banked upon the steadily increasing home prices to maintain the loan to value ratios. With the real decline in home prices and real estate values, combined with increased interest rates, these incautious homebuyers [many of whom were misled by aggressive mortgage brokers and builder based finance agents] now face potential economic crisis and foreclosures. In short, they face loss of their homes and destruction of their credit rating.
Builder confidence [Builders' Association National Survey] has dropped to a low not seen for more than a decade, and there is a larger than average inventory of properties that would have been readily absorbed by home buyers and speculators in the past years. Since many builders depend upon turnover of stock and sale of speculative properties to support cash flow and the development of new properties, this stagnant period threatens the viability of many small and medium sized home builders. The only real bright spot in these developments is the growth in the home improvement sectors, when home buyers turn to fixing up and staying in their homes rather than attempting to sell their houses and move to a newer or larger property. But the volume of the “Home Depot” sales is unlikely to offset the drop in sales for lumber, plumbing fixtures and other staple components of the home building industry.
The Automobile Industry looks even worse. The UAW is reeling from the recent split in the AFL/CIO that took away a large segment of its membership, a defection by union members who were dissatisfied with effectiveness of union leadership. Ford Motor Company and GM have both announced losses in excess of $1 Billion over each of the past three fiscal quarters. Ford announced that it will be reducing its labor force by more than 30,000 jobs by the end of 2008, and will be shuttering 16 plants [up from 14 plants a few months ago] by 2009. This is a desperate attempt to stem the huge losses as Ford seeks to find its “Way Forward” in the new economic environment. The American automakers are steadily losing market share, but seem oblivious to the factors that drive their demise. Foreign auto makers have focused attention on high quality, fuel efficient vehicles. US automaker fleets are still replete with gas guzzling dinosaurs like the Dodge Durango, Lincoln Navigator and Ford 150 series. Vice President Dick Cheney stated that it is "every American’s right" to own a road hogging, gas guzzling SUV if they want to do so. That arrogant posture may sit well for someone with Cheney’s wealth and the dividends from Halliburton pouring into his family trust. But the average American has to be a bit more pragmatic, even if oblivious to the political and environmental irresponsibility of the Cheney dogma.
The timing for the loss of these 30, 000 jobs is being advanced by a recent Ford offer to buy out any of its hourly workers immediately. Obviously, the losses cannot all come from retirees or even from persons taking an early retirement inducement. And the Ford example is one among many places within the spectrum of the Automobile Industry related employment array. The parties in the Automobile Industry, union and management, have engaged in the same kind of willful denial and delusion that led to the demise of the domestic steel industry in this country.
The layoff and loss of pensions by thousands of Delphi employees highlighted the fact that one cannot produce competitive motor vehicle products in the US with a labor force cost of over $65 per hour, when the same product can be manufactured elsewhere for less than half that cost. Even when importation and shipping costs are added, the resulting products will have a significant price advantage. The result is that Toyota can sell a competitive product at 5-10% below the cost of a comparable US vehicle and profit because the actual cost to Toyota may be 30% less. Add that to the Toyota focus on fuel efficient models and it is easy to see why Ford and GM are in such trouble. The production jobs being lost are ones paying $65 to $130k or more. They are disappearing rapidly.
The jobs created by the Bush Administration over the past 6 years consist largely of lower paying jobs, and a large number of artificial jobs in the “homeland security” industry created by the Administration to under gird its fear based political agenda. [The recent National Security Briefing Report confirms that the country is less safe from terrorism that it was before the 9/11 World Trade Center Attack, and that the occupation of Iraq has exacerbated rather than lessened the problem of terrorism worldwide.] The ironic ethnocentricism and bigotry that is being promoted by the Far Right, by demonizing Mexican undocumented workers is a strange phenomenon. [There is, in fact, no demonstrable increase in risk or connection between the illegal immigrant problem and "national security" than the risk that existed a decade ago. The predominant crime problems associated with illegal immigration from Mexico and Central America related to human traffiking and drug related incidents, not terrorist attacks.] These workers are taking the low wage and unskilled jobs that are increasingly the only ones available in the developing economy. There may be some subconscious or subliminal resentment that these jobs are being swallowed up, together with the resentment that the primary jobs that are available are those that were previously thought "undesirable."
While we hear many “man on the street” comments about the importance of “national security” being a high priority, the FACT is that we are no safer than before the 9/11 attack. The Bush Administration seeks to capitalize on the issue of Homeland Security, but is the least desirable or rational alternative to which that citizen should turn for protection. The record of actual performance demonstrates the failure and incompetence of the current policies in making us safer from the threat of terrorist attack. Other than the incitement and belligerent rhetoric of the Bush preemptive war doctrine, we are at no greater risk of terrorist attack than we were prior to 9/11. To the extent that there may be greater risk, that risk is caused and enhanced by the very parties who claim to be the protectors of our national security. And fear and insecurity leads to economic stagnation. People tend not to spend freely when they feel uncertain about their future.
The improvements that we see in the Dow Jones Averages for the Stock Market must be interpreted. The media either fails to inform or assist our understanding of the meaning of these "indicators," or deliberately defers to the Right Wing spin that distorts and confuses. In the economic climate that we currently face, return on shareholder investment has to come from either increased revenue above the cost margin, or from reducing costs. Since the highest cost factor in most production and service businesses is the unit labor cost, the prime target for reducing costs is to lay off employees, cut wages, cut benefits or other steps that negatively affect the resident of Main Street. In an economy where housing values are declining, job security is tenuous at best and wages are not increasing above the inflation level, the prospect of generating revenues from increased sales is not great. So when one sees the stock market push upward, it is more than likely to precede or coincide with significant reductions in jobs and benefits for the average American. The corresponding result, however, is an increase in the stock portfolio of the wealthy.
Under the current economic circumstances, the ones most likely to see real gain are the participants in the “Ownership Society” that is the true constituency of the GOP and the Bush Administration. The wealthiest 5% who are not dependent upon daily job security issues, those who hold stock portfolios in pharmaceutical, chemical and munitions manufacturing companies, those who participate in the corrupt practices of influence peddling and lobbying for large special interest groups and the participants in war profiteering and non-bid government contracts arising out of disasters like the Iraq occupation and Hurricane Katrina are all participants in the “Ownership Society.” But they are not the residents of Main Street USA.
When the November election comes, the crucial question is whether we will succumb to the politics of fear that has us distrusting and distancing ourselves from our neighbors. The alternative is to look toward our neighbors and look out for the economic well-being of our neighbors and vote for the candidates that understand and respect the crisis that looms on Main Street USA. Those who are currently in control of Congress and the White House have proven that they either do not comprehend or do not care about Main Street. The proof is not in opinion or hyperbole, the proof is in the objective facts described above [and these are only a few examples of the deteriorating situation] and others that are playing out each and every day. As stated before, we will get the worst government that we are willing to accept, and only the best government we are willing to work to create and sustain.
Two economic sectors have traditionally been reliable indicators of the way in which macro economic policies and Wall Street translate to real world circumstances faced on Main Street in the USA: the Housing and the Automobile Industries. The Housing market represents the major repository of family assets for the average American citizen. Many retirement and mutual funds include real estate backed securities as part of the typical portfolios as well. Admittedly, we are not describing assets of the small segment of the populace whose annual incomes exceed $250,000 and have personal stock portfolios. The Automobile industry represents a bellwether for the state of the labor market and for the vitality of the durable goods market as well. The decisions that average families make regarding the immediate purchase or delayed purchase of a vehicle, and the type of vehicle they purchase, depend heavily upon their confidence in their current and near term future outlook. The plethora of manufacturing and distribution jobs that are associated with and dependent upon the Automobile Industry give us guidance respecting the health of the jobs outlook for the country. So let’s take a look at what the factual reports indicate about the prospects for the domestic economy.
Recent reports from National Realtor Association studies reveal that housing prices are declining in real terms for the first time in eleven years. We know that the housing market experiences ups and downs over time, but over the past decade the “downs” usually have been simply plateaus or lessening rates of increase in prices and values. Soft markets can be identified in various geographic markets as a result of overbuilding and other transitory factors. The current situation is different, in that it suggests a true recession in home values. Without falling into the hyperbole of the “housing boom or bust speculation,” we can focus on some real life consequences from the current trend. The steady run up in prices caused two significant reactions among home buyers. The first was a drive to buy more house than the homebuyer could reasonably afford, on the theory that the rising value would create equity. Lenders ventured into higher risk mortgage products that went beyond variable rate mortgages and interest only instruments, to includesome truly exotic negative amortization products. These high risk exotic products banked upon the steadily increasing home prices to maintain the loan to value ratios. With the real decline in home prices and real estate values, combined with increased interest rates, these incautious homebuyers [many of whom were misled by aggressive mortgage brokers and builder based finance agents] now face potential economic crisis and foreclosures. In short, they face loss of their homes and destruction of their credit rating.
Builder confidence [Builders' Association National Survey] has dropped to a low not seen for more than a decade, and there is a larger than average inventory of properties that would have been readily absorbed by home buyers and speculators in the past years. Since many builders depend upon turnover of stock and sale of speculative properties to support cash flow and the development of new properties, this stagnant period threatens the viability of many small and medium sized home builders. The only real bright spot in these developments is the growth in the home improvement sectors, when home buyers turn to fixing up and staying in their homes rather than attempting to sell their houses and move to a newer or larger property. But the volume of the “Home Depot” sales is unlikely to offset the drop in sales for lumber, plumbing fixtures and other staple components of the home building industry.
The Automobile Industry looks even worse. The UAW is reeling from the recent split in the AFL/CIO that took away a large segment of its membership, a defection by union members who were dissatisfied with effectiveness of union leadership. Ford Motor Company and GM have both announced losses in excess of $1 Billion over each of the past three fiscal quarters. Ford announced that it will be reducing its labor force by more than 30,000 jobs by the end of 2008, and will be shuttering 16 plants [up from 14 plants a few months ago] by 2009. This is a desperate attempt to stem the huge losses as Ford seeks to find its “Way Forward” in the new economic environment. The American automakers are steadily losing market share, but seem oblivious to the factors that drive their demise. Foreign auto makers have focused attention on high quality, fuel efficient vehicles. US automaker fleets are still replete with gas guzzling dinosaurs like the Dodge Durango, Lincoln Navigator and Ford 150 series. Vice President Dick Cheney stated that it is "every American’s right" to own a road hogging, gas guzzling SUV if they want to do so. That arrogant posture may sit well for someone with Cheney’s wealth and the dividends from Halliburton pouring into his family trust. But the average American has to be a bit more pragmatic, even if oblivious to the political and environmental irresponsibility of the Cheney dogma.
The timing for the loss of these 30, 000 jobs is being advanced by a recent Ford offer to buy out any of its hourly workers immediately. Obviously, the losses cannot all come from retirees or even from persons taking an early retirement inducement. And the Ford example is one among many places within the spectrum of the Automobile Industry related employment array. The parties in the Automobile Industry, union and management, have engaged in the same kind of willful denial and delusion that led to the demise of the domestic steel industry in this country.
The layoff and loss of pensions by thousands of Delphi employees highlighted the fact that one cannot produce competitive motor vehicle products in the US with a labor force cost of over $65 per hour, when the same product can be manufactured elsewhere for less than half that cost. Even when importation and shipping costs are added, the resulting products will have a significant price advantage. The result is that Toyota can sell a competitive product at 5-10% below the cost of a comparable US vehicle and profit because the actual cost to Toyota may be 30% less. Add that to the Toyota focus on fuel efficient models and it is easy to see why Ford and GM are in such trouble. The production jobs being lost are ones paying $65 to $130k or more. They are disappearing rapidly.
The jobs created by the Bush Administration over the past 6 years consist largely of lower paying jobs, and a large number of artificial jobs in the “homeland security” industry created by the Administration to under gird its fear based political agenda. [The recent National Security Briefing Report confirms that the country is less safe from terrorism that it was before the 9/11 World Trade Center Attack, and that the occupation of Iraq has exacerbated rather than lessened the problem of terrorism worldwide.] The ironic ethnocentricism and bigotry that is being promoted by the Far Right, by demonizing Mexican undocumented workers is a strange phenomenon. [There is, in fact, no demonstrable increase in risk or connection between the illegal immigrant problem and "national security" than the risk that existed a decade ago. The predominant crime problems associated with illegal immigration from Mexico and Central America related to human traffiking and drug related incidents, not terrorist attacks.] These workers are taking the low wage and unskilled jobs that are increasingly the only ones available in the developing economy. There may be some subconscious or subliminal resentment that these jobs are being swallowed up, together with the resentment that the primary jobs that are available are those that were previously thought "undesirable."
While we hear many “man on the street” comments about the importance of “national security” being a high priority, the FACT is that we are no safer than before the 9/11 attack. The Bush Administration seeks to capitalize on the issue of Homeland Security, but is the least desirable or rational alternative to which that citizen should turn for protection. The record of actual performance demonstrates the failure and incompetence of the current policies in making us safer from the threat of terrorist attack. Other than the incitement and belligerent rhetoric of the Bush preemptive war doctrine, we are at no greater risk of terrorist attack than we were prior to 9/11. To the extent that there may be greater risk, that risk is caused and enhanced by the very parties who claim to be the protectors of our national security. And fear and insecurity leads to economic stagnation. People tend not to spend freely when they feel uncertain about their future.
The improvements that we see in the Dow Jones Averages for the Stock Market must be interpreted. The media either fails to inform or assist our understanding of the meaning of these "indicators," or deliberately defers to the Right Wing spin that distorts and confuses. In the economic climate that we currently face, return on shareholder investment has to come from either increased revenue above the cost margin, or from reducing costs. Since the highest cost factor in most production and service businesses is the unit labor cost, the prime target for reducing costs is to lay off employees, cut wages, cut benefits or other steps that negatively affect the resident of Main Street. In an economy where housing values are declining, job security is tenuous at best and wages are not increasing above the inflation level, the prospect of generating revenues from increased sales is not great. So when one sees the stock market push upward, it is more than likely to precede or coincide with significant reductions in jobs and benefits for the average American. The corresponding result, however, is an increase in the stock portfolio of the wealthy.
Under the current economic circumstances, the ones most likely to see real gain are the participants in the “Ownership Society” that is the true constituency of the GOP and the Bush Administration. The wealthiest 5% who are not dependent upon daily job security issues, those who hold stock portfolios in pharmaceutical, chemical and munitions manufacturing companies, those who participate in the corrupt practices of influence peddling and lobbying for large special interest groups and the participants in war profiteering and non-bid government contracts arising out of disasters like the Iraq occupation and Hurricane Katrina are all participants in the “Ownership Society.” But they are not the residents of Main Street USA.
When the November election comes, the crucial question is whether we will succumb to the politics of fear that has us distrusting and distancing ourselves from our neighbors. The alternative is to look toward our neighbors and look out for the economic well-being of our neighbors and vote for the candidates that understand and respect the crisis that looms on Main Street USA. Those who are currently in control of Congress and the White House have proven that they either do not comprehend or do not care about Main Street. The proof is not in opinion or hyperbole, the proof is in the objective facts described above [and these are only a few examples of the deteriorating situation] and others that are playing out each and every day. As stated before, we will get the worst government that we are willing to accept, and only the best government we are willing to work to create and sustain.
Wednesday, September 13, 2006
Dangerous Foolishness
P. T. Barnum attributed his commercial success to the maxim that one would never go broke overestimating the intelligence of the American public. In other words, no matter how smart you think the public should be, chances are they are more stupid than you think; and there is profit to be made from such stupidity. He built his wealth on the belief that you can fool most of the people most of the time. Today we are faced with a more macabre circus with a ringmaster that appears to be applying those same principles. The salient difference is that Barnum’s product was relatively harmless amusement [albeit with some arguably inhumane treatment of people with deformities in his sideshows], while the current ringmaster, George W. Bush, sells war and bloodshed. Few would agree that the staggering and climbing death toll from the Bush Follies is amusing or entertaining.
President Bush spoke to the nation on September 11 and urged the country to unite behind his “struggle for civilization” against the Islamic terrorists who want to kill us and destroy our way of life. He tells us that the struggle in Iraq is a “critical front” in the “war on terror” and that progress is being made. His Administration spokesmen assure us Iraq is not descending into a civil war. Yet each day we receive independent reports demonstrating that the White House is lying to the American people about the magnitude of the chaos and killing. The current situation certainly fits the definition of a chaotic civil war, regardless of the label or spin that the White House would place on it.
Perhaps some elements of the fundamentalist right have bought into the modern day “Crusades” policy, that the US has the God given mandate to rescue the people of Persia and Mesopotamia from heathen godlessness as European Christian soldiers believed in the Middle Ages. In retrospect, we see that religion was simply a tool used by the ruling class as an excuse for conquest and colonization to exploit the wealth of the regions attacked. That paradigm seems to be equally at play in the Bush policy. Certainly, the current economic elite have no need to buy into the religious mythology when they can busy themselves with shoveling in profits derived from US government expenditures on war making at the rate of more than $6 Billion per month.
Less myopic analysis shows that the Bush foreign policy and the invasion of Iraq have caused enormous loss of life, destruction of homes and displacement of millions of people, loss of standing and respect in the international community and growing hostility against the US around the world. The cost of admission to a Barnum & Bailey circus was about a half week’s wages during depression times, an amount most families could ill afford. But the cost of the Bush Follies threatens to mortgage our children’s future and permanently taint this country’s reputation.
But the question that is still perplexing is why the rest of the country has either bought into or acquiesced in this fallacious enterprise. Is it that we have been so heavily bombarded by false information and messages that we are unable or unwilling to see the current situation as it really is? Has the educational system in this country degraded to the point that the average American lacks the intelligence to connect the dots and recognize that it has been and is being duped? Or are we simply living proof of the P. T. Barnum saying? Did we not learn this lesson from past experiences, including the Viet Nam catastrophe?
But there is another saying: “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me!”
President Bush spoke to the nation on September 11 and urged the country to unite behind his “struggle for civilization” against the Islamic terrorists who want to kill us and destroy our way of life. He tells us that the struggle in Iraq is a “critical front” in the “war on terror” and that progress is being made. His Administration spokesmen assure us Iraq is not descending into a civil war. Yet each day we receive independent reports demonstrating that the White House is lying to the American people about the magnitude of the chaos and killing. The current situation certainly fits the definition of a chaotic civil war, regardless of the label or spin that the White House would place on it.
US military can do little to secure region in western Iraq. The chief of intelligence for the Marine Corps in Iraq recently filed an unusual secret report concluding that the prospects for securing that country's western al Anbar province are dim and that there is almost nothing the U.S. military can do to improve the political and social situation there, said several military officers and intelligence officials familiar with its contents… The officials described Col. Pete Devlin's classified assessment of the dire state of Anbar as the first time that a senior U.S. military officer has filed so negative a report from Iraq… One Army officer summarized it as arguing that in Anbar province, "We haven't been defeated militarily but we have been defeated politically - and that's where wars are won and lost." [Washington Post, Sept 11, 2006]
BAGHDAD, Iraq - Police recovered 60 bodies over the past day across Baghdad, most bound and tortured, officials said on Wednesday, highlighting how sectarian death squads are still plaguing the Iraqi capital despite a major security drive... The Health Ministry has yet to publish its complementary full data for other violent deaths in August. Figures for July put the total at more than 3,000 people, concentrated in Baghdad, where more than one in four Iraqis live. [Reuters, Sept. 13, 2006]
The American military did not count people killed by bombs, mortars, rockets or other mass attacks including suicide bombings when it reported a dramatic drop in the number of murders in the Baghdad area last month, the U.S. command said Monday. [Associated Press, Sept. 12, 2006]
Perhaps some elements of the fundamentalist right have bought into the modern day “Crusades” policy, that the US has the God given mandate to rescue the people of Persia and Mesopotamia from heathen godlessness as European Christian soldiers believed in the Middle Ages. In retrospect, we see that religion was simply a tool used by the ruling class as an excuse for conquest and colonization to exploit the wealth of the regions attacked. That paradigm seems to be equally at play in the Bush policy. Certainly, the current economic elite have no need to buy into the religious mythology when they can busy themselves with shoveling in profits derived from US government expenditures on war making at the rate of more than $6 Billion per month.
Less myopic analysis shows that the Bush foreign policy and the invasion of Iraq have caused enormous loss of life, destruction of homes and displacement of millions of people, loss of standing and respect in the international community and growing hostility against the US around the world. The cost of admission to a Barnum & Bailey circus was about a half week’s wages during depression times, an amount most families could ill afford. But the cost of the Bush Follies threatens to mortgage our children’s future and permanently taint this country’s reputation.
But the question that is still perplexing is why the rest of the country has either bought into or acquiesced in this fallacious enterprise. Is it that we have been so heavily bombarded by false information and messages that we are unable or unwilling to see the current situation as it really is? Has the educational system in this country degraded to the point that the average American lacks the intelligence to connect the dots and recognize that it has been and is being duped? Or are we simply living proof of the P. T. Barnum saying? Did we not learn this lesson from past experiences, including the Viet Nam catastrophe?
But there is another saying: “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me!”
Sunday, August 27, 2006
Towards a Political "Theory of Relativity"
Einstein taught us that much of the world of physics can be explained through logic and mathematics. Understanding the relationship between mass, acceleration and energy has opened doors to novel applications and brought us tremendous power. That power can be, and has been, used for beneficial or evil purposes. A critical variable has been the intelligence and wisdom of those who control such power. What is needed, therefore, is a “theory of relativity” to help us explain the laws and principles of the human intelligence and human behavior, at least with respect to world leaders. It is by no means certain that such inescapable principles, or “laws,” do exist. But hope for survival of the planet and the human race suggests that we should attempt to find out if they do.
Most proven laws of science began with observation and recognition of apparent relationships. Exploration of those relationships led to hypotheses of durable and constant characteristics in those observed relationships. Theoretical proofs followed to explain the countless potential variables and permutations until we reached a consensus that theories about the observed relationships were valid. So let us begin likewise, by making observations about relationships between intelligence, wisdom and the use of power.
Some relationships seem evident, if only by their disproof. While education can provide enlightenment and insight to an intelligent person and we can suppose that they are “related,” it is apparent that education does not truly “cause” intelligence or wisdom. We have many examples of highly “educated” individuals who wield great power, but who have displayed a remarkable lack of intelligence and wisdom. President George W. Bush who graduated from Yale University is one such example, although in fairness to his alma mater he was not a very good student [i.e. highly but not well educated] Dick Cheney, Condoleeza Rice and Donald Rumsfeld are other examples of individuals with strong educational backgrounds, but who have displayed a gigantic dearth of wisdom and intelligence in their use of power. If “intelligence” follows the scientific principle of stasis, the process of adaptation to external factors that threaten survival by adjusting systems and behavior to ensure greater chances for success, then we might observe that these “leaders” seem to lack the essential “property” of intelligence. Neither education at institutions of higher learning nor experience has imparted wisdom or enlightenment to these people. Individually, and as a group, these leaders have stubbornly resisted acknowledgement of gross errors in judgment and observation, despite mountains of information and evidence of failure, and clung to dysfunctional foreign policy strategies that are causing daily increases in hostility and bloodshed and undermining world peace and domestic security.
This leaves us with two salient hypotheses to explore. One theory was eloquently set forth by the philosopher “Forest Gump” when he stated that “stupid is as stupid does.” When a person has access to information, expert advice and almost unlimited resources, yet repeatedly chooses to ignore those assets and chooses ignorant and unwise courses of action, that person acts with stupidity and without regard to educational potential. Such evidence supports the “Gump” theory.
The second possible theory is that power corrupts, and that otherwise intelligent people become stupid when entrusted with great amounts of power. Former President Clinton seems to have succumbed to or supported this hypothesis. A man with near genius level intelligence and the highest level education chose to act stupidly in his personal affairs and permitted his critics to derogate most of the positive accomplishments of his administration by exposing his peccadillo with Monica Lewinski. But the latter transgression was neither pervasive nor characteristic of the Clinton administration. And Clinton’s folly or "stupidity" did not result on thousands of American soldier deaths and tens of thousands of innocent civilians being killed.
The administration of a “corrupted” intelligent President gave us a budget surplus, a stable economy, relatively balanced and effective foreign policy and a populace that generally had faith in the institutions of government, despite legitimate criticism of specific policies. The administration of a “stupid” President has brought us historical budget deficits, an intractable and unnecessary preemptive war, loss of credibility for the US in the international community and widespread distrust of US government institutions because of displayed incompetence, illegal domestic spying and other serious concerns. General observation and common sense tells us that we would be better off risking the potential corruption of an intelligent President, than electing a stupid President who seems incapable of making intelligent and wise decisions or acknowledging and correcting mistakes. But the laws of physics are not democratic principles that atoms and elements can choose to obey. The relativity laws expressed here are subject to choices by the electorate. Since the electorate has power, will they choose to exercise it intelligently and wisely? Or will they follow the “Gump” theory and make stupid choices in the coming national elections as they seem to have done in the recent past?
[Yes, I am aware that George W. Bush did not win the popular vote, and that there was substantial evidence of voting compilation fraud in Ohio.]
Most proven laws of science began with observation and recognition of apparent relationships. Exploration of those relationships led to hypotheses of durable and constant characteristics in those observed relationships. Theoretical proofs followed to explain the countless potential variables and permutations until we reached a consensus that theories about the observed relationships were valid. So let us begin likewise, by making observations about relationships between intelligence, wisdom and the use of power.
Some relationships seem evident, if only by their disproof. While education can provide enlightenment and insight to an intelligent person and we can suppose that they are “related,” it is apparent that education does not truly “cause” intelligence or wisdom. We have many examples of highly “educated” individuals who wield great power, but who have displayed a remarkable lack of intelligence and wisdom. President George W. Bush who graduated from Yale University is one such example, although in fairness to his alma mater he was not a very good student [i.e. highly but not well educated] Dick Cheney, Condoleeza Rice and Donald Rumsfeld are other examples of individuals with strong educational backgrounds, but who have displayed a gigantic dearth of wisdom and intelligence in their use of power. If “intelligence” follows the scientific principle of stasis, the process of adaptation to external factors that threaten survival by adjusting systems and behavior to ensure greater chances for success, then we might observe that these “leaders” seem to lack the essential “property” of intelligence. Neither education at institutions of higher learning nor experience has imparted wisdom or enlightenment to these people. Individually, and as a group, these leaders have stubbornly resisted acknowledgement of gross errors in judgment and observation, despite mountains of information and evidence of failure, and clung to dysfunctional foreign policy strategies that are causing daily increases in hostility and bloodshed and undermining world peace and domestic security.
This leaves us with two salient hypotheses to explore. One theory was eloquently set forth by the philosopher “Forest Gump” when he stated that “stupid is as stupid does.” When a person has access to information, expert advice and almost unlimited resources, yet repeatedly chooses to ignore those assets and chooses ignorant and unwise courses of action, that person acts with stupidity and without regard to educational potential. Such evidence supports the “Gump” theory.
The second possible theory is that power corrupts, and that otherwise intelligent people become stupid when entrusted with great amounts of power. Former President Clinton seems to have succumbed to or supported this hypothesis. A man with near genius level intelligence and the highest level education chose to act stupidly in his personal affairs and permitted his critics to derogate most of the positive accomplishments of his administration by exposing his peccadillo with Monica Lewinski. But the latter transgression was neither pervasive nor characteristic of the Clinton administration. And Clinton’s folly or "stupidity" did not result on thousands of American soldier deaths and tens of thousands of innocent civilians being killed.
The administration of a “corrupted” intelligent President gave us a budget surplus, a stable economy, relatively balanced and effective foreign policy and a populace that generally had faith in the institutions of government, despite legitimate criticism of specific policies. The administration of a “stupid” President has brought us historical budget deficits, an intractable and unnecessary preemptive war, loss of credibility for the US in the international community and widespread distrust of US government institutions because of displayed incompetence, illegal domestic spying and other serious concerns. General observation and common sense tells us that we would be better off risking the potential corruption of an intelligent President, than electing a stupid President who seems incapable of making intelligent and wise decisions or acknowledging and correcting mistakes. But the laws of physics are not democratic principles that atoms and elements can choose to obey. The relativity laws expressed here are subject to choices by the electorate. Since the electorate has power, will they choose to exercise it intelligently and wisely? Or will they follow the “Gump” theory and make stupid choices in the coming national elections as they seem to have done in the recent past?
[Yes, I am aware that George W. Bush did not win the popular vote, and that there was substantial evidence of voting compilation fraud in Ohio.]
Friday, August 25, 2006
Martin & Maya – What of Educational Equality?
Martin Luther King, Jr. advised the nation in his famous Washington, DC address that: “I have a dream.” Maya Angelou admonished us of the terrible price to be paid in social terms when that dream is frustrated in her eloquent poem, “A Dream Deferred.” More than 50 years ago, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that segregated public school systems are “inherently unequal.” Subsequent decisions clarified that the inequality exists whether the segregation is de jure [deliberately imposed] or de facto [allowed to occur indirectly or as a result of other external factors].
The Bush Administration has now formally weighed in to battle the use of any form of racial classification in the assignment of children to public schools in cases pending from Louisville and Seattle. The Supreme Court’s ruling that upheld use of race as one factor[among many] in the achievement of a demographically balanced and diverse student body at the University of Michigan Law School is not being directly assailed, but the teeth of the saw blade can clearly be felt upon the tree limb. The Bush Administration argues that past discrimination has been fully remedied and that any racially based criteria are constitutionally forbidden. This same argument was asserted recently in opposition to extension of the Voting Rights Act, despite a recent Supreme Court ruling that a Texas redistricting plan was unconstitutional because it deliberately moved Latino voters out of a district where that group was approaching a majority.
According to the US Solicitor, the school districts whose attempts to achieve or maintain racial diversity are challenged did not advance past discrimination as the basis for their enrollment procedures. Therefore, the Bush Administration has intervened in support of white parents whose children were denied their first choice of school enrollment.
The public has been chastened by the Right Wing from supporting any "social compact" notion that a diverse school environment is more beneficial than a racially and socio-economically segregated school environment for purposes of preparing students to live in the society of today and of the future. Psycholinguistic demonization of terms like “quotas” and “affirmative action” tend to discourage open debate about the impact of ethnicity and class on the education of our children and the hopes of realizing the dreams of which Dr. King and Ms. Angelou passionately spoke.
The very premise of the school enrollment challenges suggests that the effects of past discrimination are not yet fully removed. The contention that their children are entitled to their first choice of schools is derived, at least in part, from a sense of perceived privilege that stems most often from socio economic status. However, there is no constitutional right to attend a “neighborhood” school. The states are required to provide a public education, and most are bound by their state constitutions to provide an "equal educational opportunity" to students. The assignment of students to particular schools is driven by logistics and economic pressures, but is not an equal protection issue. Better schools tended to be built and maintained in areas of the city with higher tax bases from property values. Proprety taxes frequently were the primary basis for schjool funding. Conversely, poorer schools tended to be found in poorer, or lower tax base, neighborhoods. Yet, at least in theory, the state has an equal responsibility to provide the same quality education in each school.
The de facto segregation that historically arose in public schools was driven by factors of perceived entitlement to attend “neighborhood” schools and reliance upon property taxes as the primary funding resource for schools. Neither factor is mandated by the US Constitution. While it would shock the white parents challenging the Louisville and Seattle school district programs, a logical and perfectly legal system could be imposed in which every student in the school district would be assigned to any school, totally randomly and without regard to race or ethnicity. Their children might wind up attending a school down the block or across town, depending upon the lottery results. The white parents living in the million dollar homes would doubtless be dismayed to find their children assigned to a poor inner city school surrounded by homes valued at a far lower value than their own. Yet if the school district is required to assign students entirely without regard to race or ethnicity, and prohibited from using some measures to accommodate neighborhood school concepts without violating the law regarding maintenance of segregated schools, a random process would seem the most logical. The costs of busing and transportation, as well as local political pressures, augur against use of a purely random enrollment process.
The legal issues are thorny, and the intelligence and eloquence of Thurgood Marshall available during the Brown v. Board of Education debate will likely be missing among the lawyers currently presenting arguments, as surely as it is missing from the Supreme Court Bench. Equal protection is a Constitutional protection that must be considered carefully. But the challenge lies in how to provide that protection. If school enrollment decisions are driven by facially neutral factors, such as residential address, which result in a de facto segregated schools, equal protection is denied. If racial classifications are used in a heavy handed manner to construct a racially balanced school population, then equal protection is denied as well. In an ideal world, where the effects of past discrimination would be truly eliminated, every school would provide comparable resources and equal educational opportunity. It would not matter to parents which school their child attended. But the real world is very far from that ideal. The current intervention by the Bush Administration in these cases seeks to further entrench the inequality that does exist and preserve the “privilege” of its constituents who are either in an elevated socio-economic status or are motivated by racism and fear of social integration.
Logic and the beauty of the dreams expressed by Dr. King and Ms. Angelou seem to be cast aside. Census numbers tell us that the Latino population is the fastest growing segment of the US population. Why would I not want my children to attend a school with a complement of Latino, Black, Asian and White students? Would there be a better way to prepare my child to function and compete in society and the business world of tomorrow. Should not all children in this country have the ability to interact and learn in such an environment? How could I believe that “sheltering” my child from exposure to children of other ethnic backgrounds would be better for my child in the long term? But then, as an African American and Native American, I was never brought up to believe that I was “entitled” to my first choice in every matter. And I was never brought up to believe that any child I encountered was “better” than me or “less” than me simply because of skin color. Perhaps if I had been, I would be more sympathetic to the cause of the white parents in Seattle and Louisville. It is even conceivable that I might side with the US Solicitor, but I doubt it.
The Bush Administration has now formally weighed in to battle the use of any form of racial classification in the assignment of children to public schools in cases pending from Louisville and Seattle. The Supreme Court’s ruling that upheld use of race as one factor[among many] in the achievement of a demographically balanced and diverse student body at the University of Michigan Law School is not being directly assailed, but the teeth of the saw blade can clearly be felt upon the tree limb. The Bush Administration argues that past discrimination has been fully remedied and that any racially based criteria are constitutionally forbidden. This same argument was asserted recently in opposition to extension of the Voting Rights Act, despite a recent Supreme Court ruling that a Texas redistricting plan was unconstitutional because it deliberately moved Latino voters out of a district where that group was approaching a majority.
According to the US Solicitor, the school districts whose attempts to achieve or maintain racial diversity are challenged did not advance past discrimination as the basis for their enrollment procedures. Therefore, the Bush Administration has intervened in support of white parents whose children were denied their first choice of school enrollment.
The public has been chastened by the Right Wing from supporting any "social compact" notion that a diverse school environment is more beneficial than a racially and socio-economically segregated school environment for purposes of preparing students to live in the society of today and of the future. Psycholinguistic demonization of terms like “quotas” and “affirmative action” tend to discourage open debate about the impact of ethnicity and class on the education of our children and the hopes of realizing the dreams of which Dr. King and Ms. Angelou passionately spoke.
The very premise of the school enrollment challenges suggests that the effects of past discrimination are not yet fully removed. The contention that their children are entitled to their first choice of schools is derived, at least in part, from a sense of perceived privilege that stems most often from socio economic status. However, there is no constitutional right to attend a “neighborhood” school. The states are required to provide a public education, and most are bound by their state constitutions to provide an "equal educational opportunity" to students. The assignment of students to particular schools is driven by logistics and economic pressures, but is not an equal protection issue. Better schools tended to be built and maintained in areas of the city with higher tax bases from property values. Proprety taxes frequently were the primary basis for schjool funding. Conversely, poorer schools tended to be found in poorer, or lower tax base, neighborhoods. Yet, at least in theory, the state has an equal responsibility to provide the same quality education in each school.
The de facto segregation that historically arose in public schools was driven by factors of perceived entitlement to attend “neighborhood” schools and reliance upon property taxes as the primary funding resource for schools. Neither factor is mandated by the US Constitution. While it would shock the white parents challenging the Louisville and Seattle school district programs, a logical and perfectly legal system could be imposed in which every student in the school district would be assigned to any school, totally randomly and without regard to race or ethnicity. Their children might wind up attending a school down the block or across town, depending upon the lottery results. The white parents living in the million dollar homes would doubtless be dismayed to find their children assigned to a poor inner city school surrounded by homes valued at a far lower value than their own. Yet if the school district is required to assign students entirely without regard to race or ethnicity, and prohibited from using some measures to accommodate neighborhood school concepts without violating the law regarding maintenance of segregated schools, a random process would seem the most logical. The costs of busing and transportation, as well as local political pressures, augur against use of a purely random enrollment process.
The legal issues are thorny, and the intelligence and eloquence of Thurgood Marshall available during the Brown v. Board of Education debate will likely be missing among the lawyers currently presenting arguments, as surely as it is missing from the Supreme Court Bench. Equal protection is a Constitutional protection that must be considered carefully. But the challenge lies in how to provide that protection. If school enrollment decisions are driven by facially neutral factors, such as residential address, which result in a de facto segregated schools, equal protection is denied. If racial classifications are used in a heavy handed manner to construct a racially balanced school population, then equal protection is denied as well. In an ideal world, where the effects of past discrimination would be truly eliminated, every school would provide comparable resources and equal educational opportunity. It would not matter to parents which school their child attended. But the real world is very far from that ideal. The current intervention by the Bush Administration in these cases seeks to further entrench the inequality that does exist and preserve the “privilege” of its constituents who are either in an elevated socio-economic status or are motivated by racism and fear of social integration.
Logic and the beauty of the dreams expressed by Dr. King and Ms. Angelou seem to be cast aside. Census numbers tell us that the Latino population is the fastest growing segment of the US population. Why would I not want my children to attend a school with a complement of Latino, Black, Asian and White students? Would there be a better way to prepare my child to function and compete in society and the business world of tomorrow. Should not all children in this country have the ability to interact and learn in such an environment? How could I believe that “sheltering” my child from exposure to children of other ethnic backgrounds would be better for my child in the long term? But then, as an African American and Native American, I was never brought up to believe that I was “entitled” to my first choice in every matter. And I was never brought up to believe that any child I encountered was “better” than me or “less” than me simply because of skin color. Perhaps if I had been, I would be more sympathetic to the cause of the white parents in Seattle and Louisville. It is even conceivable that I might side with the US Solicitor, but I doubt it.
The True "War on Terror"
Only in the “Joe McCarthy” era and the WW II internment of Japanese Americans have we seen the type and level of hysteria and fear mongering currently wielded by the Bush Administration toward its detractors. Instead of the “communist sympathizer” label or presumed enemy status merely because of ethnicity, current targets are being labeled “terrorists.” Opponents of the President’s policies are labeled as sympathizers giving support to the enemies of freedom and democracy. They are accused of undermining national security and the “War on Terror.” The debate rages on whether this demonization process involves an extremely cynical manipulation of the public psyche, or an exhibition of gross incompetence and insensitivity borne of xenophobia and racist or religious intolerance. The result, in any event, is a serious derogation of the civil rights and freedoms upon which this country was allegedly founded. Further, the process and approach of the Bush Administration has undercut the credibility and moral authority that the United States used to hold in the international community. The risk of such recklessness is potential global war.
As noted by reputable historians, experienced military commanders and other expert observers, “terrorism” is a tactic and not an entity. Thus, a “war on terror[ism]” can neither be effectively fought nor won. The Bush Administration has succeeded in luring the country and the world into a military-backed “mission” to stamp out and “enemy” that cannot be clearly identified, contained or defeated. Yet thousands of lives and Billions of dollars have been expended in this fallacious venture. A “terrorist” is a criminal, like a murderer, bank robber, rapist or other malfeasant. As such, criminal justice organizations throughout the world have extensive experience in tracking and dealing with such criminals. The tragedy of the September 11 attack was not the emergence of Al Qaida as a “terrorist” organization, but rather the abject failure of the law enforcement authorities in the US to communicate with each other and the failure of the Bush Administration to place appropriate priority upon clear warnings that were provided. While no crime is completely preventable, subsequent reports indicate that the September 11 attack could have been diverted, deflected, prevented or reduced in scale if the law enforcement authorities and the White House had done their jobs more competently. Instead of owning up to these failures, the Bush Administration sought to deflect criticism by creating an illusory monster to which the public, in its vulnerable state of grief, could attach their anger and fears. Thus was born “the War on Terror.” But are we are own worst enemy?
We are repeatedly admonished that this is a “different and more dangerous world” we live in after the 9/11 attack. The Bush Administration even contends, on advice from its chief legal officer Gonzalez, that the Geneva Convention is “quaint” or “obsolete” and not binding upon the Bush Administration in its “War on Terror.” By any objective measure, the primary reason that the world may be more dangerous is the continued bellicose, threatening and arrogant rhetoric and actions of the Bush administration, and its proxies, that serve to inflame sensitive political situations and provide fertile recruiting opportunities for extremist groups. This goes directly to the debate of whether the Bush Administration is deliberately manipulating the situation for political purposes.
General Odom in addition to noting that terrorism is a tactic, not an enemy, pointed out that the Bush tactic of rounding up all military age males in Iraq immediately after the invasion not only failed to put an end to the insurgency, but resulted in a serious and durable hostility toward the US military presence. While 90% of those rounded up were ultimately released because they had neither intelligence value nor connection to the insurgency, after imprisonment in harsh and crowded conditions including some proven acts of torture, this brutal and unfair treatment bred in many of these men a motivation to join forces with those factions opposing US military presence. The Bush Administration, deliberately or ineptly, succeeded in fostering the violent “terrorist” movement that it claimed to be fighting. The numerous incidents involving US military misconduct and violation of internationally accepted rules of engagement and treatment of prisoners that have come to light publicly, including the Abu Ghraib prisoner torture, the Fallujah massacre and use of white phosphorous on civilians, the Hadditha rape torture and killing of civilians and other examples have fueled a recruitment of resistance fighters whose enmity toward the US cannot be dismissed merely as jihadi zealotry. In fairness, they have reason to hate and oppose the US military presence.
The term “terrorist” has now become both a talisman and a sham. The same is true of the distortion of the concept of “self defense.” Looking across the political landscape today, we see example of how the irresponsible bandying of “terrorist” and “national security” by the Bush Administration has enabled others to cloak their nefarious agendas in euphemistic rhetorical terms in a similar manner. Consider the public statements of commanders of the Mahdi Army who acknowledge the capture and summary execution of persons “suspected” of being “Saddamists” or Sunni Muslims who oppose the authority of Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr:
Asked about the Mahdi Army's role in the surge of killings immediately after the Samarra mosque bombing, the Mahdi Army commander in short sleeves at the restaurant frowned, and answered carefully. "Terrorists" were at work then, he said, using a term employed by Shiites for Sunni insurgents. "There was an immediate need to move and contain these groups," he said.
"This is part of defending yourself," the commander said. "This is a ready-made verdict -- we don't need any verdict."
You can find in any religion the right of self-defense," said another commander, senior enough to be referred to as the Sheik, who was interviewed separately by telephone.
“The takfiris, the ones who kill, they should be killed," said the Sheik, using a term commonly employed by Shiites for violent Sunni extremists. "Also the Saddamists, whose hands are stained with blood, they are sentenced to death."
[excerpts from Washington Post article -8/25/06]
The nearly complete destruction of the infrastructure of southern Lebanon, the attacks on UN observation posts, the bombing of schools, hospitals and ambulances and the killing of thousands of innocent civilians in the latest Israeli Defense Forces assault purportedly upon Hezbollah in retaliation for the capture of two Israeli soldiers is another example of rhetoric used as political cover for a sub rosa agenda. The entire international community, save the Bush Administration, condemned the disproportionate response and the indiscriminate killings. They refused to accept the Israeli characterization of the response as “self defense” in response to a “terrorist” organizations attack on Israel. Logic tells us that Israeli commandos could have engaged Hezbollah in Southern Lebanon and attempted to free the Israeli soldiers, without the mass destruction and indiscriminate loss of life and displacement resulting from the massive assault. The Israeli action could be more appropriately viewed as an attempt to punish the people of southern Lebanon for sheltering Hezbollah than actually engaging Hezbollah fighters. But such action – “collective punishment” – would be prohibited by international law. So the “self defense” and “terrorist” talismans were trotted out as public spin to explain the IDF actions.
The Bush Administration cannot be held directly accountable for the actions of the Mahdi Army or the Israeli Defense Force, of course. [We set aside, for the moment, the US munitions sales and expedited delivery of the “smart” bombs used by Israel in its assault on Lebanon.] But the reckless and ill conceived policies of the Bush Administration have arguably provided political “cover” for such extremist actions that are actually grounded in vendetta and longstanding ethnic and religious feuds. And nothing said here seeks to condone Sunni attacks on Shiites or the Hezbollah rocket attacks on northern Israeli civilians. The US refuses to acknowledge that the situation in Iraq has devolved into a civil war. The mutual destruction feud between Israel and Hezbollah must be disengaged and resolved through peaceful and political means, because military “solutions” have failed despite decades of hostilities. The issue is the manner in which the reckless foreign policy of the Bush Administration, by example and by proxy, has given license to various factions to disregard internationally accepted standards of engagement and conduct. The current course of “Cowboy Diplomacy” does not lead to any apparent peaceful resolution, but rather to an ever downward spiral of violence and retaliation.
The incessant fear mongering and divisive rhetoric employed by the Bush Administration gives alarming new life and vitality to the phrase: “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” Only when we discard the deception, smoke and obfuscation of these rhetorical gimmicks will the world be able to effectively face the true underlying problems and address the deeper and very real concerns of the people in these trouble spots of the world. Continued deceit and delusion, in lieu of rational foreign policy, is likely to lead to widespread global conflict, which is the only true “terror” that we should be concerned about.
As noted by reputable historians, experienced military commanders and other expert observers, “terrorism” is a tactic and not an entity. Thus, a “war on terror[ism]” can neither be effectively fought nor won. The Bush Administration has succeeded in luring the country and the world into a military-backed “mission” to stamp out and “enemy” that cannot be clearly identified, contained or defeated. Yet thousands of lives and Billions of dollars have been expended in this fallacious venture. A “terrorist” is a criminal, like a murderer, bank robber, rapist or other malfeasant. As such, criminal justice organizations throughout the world have extensive experience in tracking and dealing with such criminals. The tragedy of the September 11 attack was not the emergence of Al Qaida as a “terrorist” organization, but rather the abject failure of the law enforcement authorities in the US to communicate with each other and the failure of the Bush Administration to place appropriate priority upon clear warnings that were provided. While no crime is completely preventable, subsequent reports indicate that the September 11 attack could have been diverted, deflected, prevented or reduced in scale if the law enforcement authorities and the White House had done their jobs more competently. Instead of owning up to these failures, the Bush Administration sought to deflect criticism by creating an illusory monster to which the public, in its vulnerable state of grief, could attach their anger and fears. Thus was born “the War on Terror.” But are we are own worst enemy?
We are repeatedly admonished that this is a “different and more dangerous world” we live in after the 9/11 attack. The Bush Administration even contends, on advice from its chief legal officer Gonzalez, that the Geneva Convention is “quaint” or “obsolete” and not binding upon the Bush Administration in its “War on Terror.” By any objective measure, the primary reason that the world may be more dangerous is the continued bellicose, threatening and arrogant rhetoric and actions of the Bush administration, and its proxies, that serve to inflame sensitive political situations and provide fertile recruiting opportunities for extremist groups. This goes directly to the debate of whether the Bush Administration is deliberately manipulating the situation for political purposes.
General Odom in addition to noting that terrorism is a tactic, not an enemy, pointed out that the Bush tactic of rounding up all military age males in Iraq immediately after the invasion not only failed to put an end to the insurgency, but resulted in a serious and durable hostility toward the US military presence. While 90% of those rounded up were ultimately released because they had neither intelligence value nor connection to the insurgency, after imprisonment in harsh and crowded conditions including some proven acts of torture, this brutal and unfair treatment bred in many of these men a motivation to join forces with those factions opposing US military presence. The Bush Administration, deliberately or ineptly, succeeded in fostering the violent “terrorist” movement that it claimed to be fighting. The numerous incidents involving US military misconduct and violation of internationally accepted rules of engagement and treatment of prisoners that have come to light publicly, including the Abu Ghraib prisoner torture, the Fallujah massacre and use of white phosphorous on civilians, the Hadditha rape torture and killing of civilians and other examples have fueled a recruitment of resistance fighters whose enmity toward the US cannot be dismissed merely as jihadi zealotry. In fairness, they have reason to hate and oppose the US military presence.
The term “terrorist” has now become both a talisman and a sham. The same is true of the distortion of the concept of “self defense.” Looking across the political landscape today, we see example of how the irresponsible bandying of “terrorist” and “national security” by the Bush Administration has enabled others to cloak their nefarious agendas in euphemistic rhetorical terms in a similar manner. Consider the public statements of commanders of the Mahdi Army who acknowledge the capture and summary execution of persons “suspected” of being “Saddamists” or Sunni Muslims who oppose the authority of Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr:
Asked about the Mahdi Army's role in the surge of killings immediately after the Samarra mosque bombing, the Mahdi Army commander in short sleeves at the restaurant frowned, and answered carefully. "Terrorists" were at work then, he said, using a term employed by Shiites for Sunni insurgents. "There was an immediate need to move and contain these groups," he said.
"This is part of defending yourself," the commander said. "This is a ready-made verdict -- we don't need any verdict."
You can find in any religion the right of self-defense," said another commander, senior enough to be referred to as the Sheik, who was interviewed separately by telephone.
“The takfiris, the ones who kill, they should be killed," said the Sheik, using a term commonly employed by Shiites for violent Sunni extremists. "Also the Saddamists, whose hands are stained with blood, they are sentenced to death."
[excerpts from Washington Post article -8/25/06]
The nearly complete destruction of the infrastructure of southern Lebanon, the attacks on UN observation posts, the bombing of schools, hospitals and ambulances and the killing of thousands of innocent civilians in the latest Israeli Defense Forces assault purportedly upon Hezbollah in retaliation for the capture of two Israeli soldiers is another example of rhetoric used as political cover for a sub rosa agenda. The entire international community, save the Bush Administration, condemned the disproportionate response and the indiscriminate killings. They refused to accept the Israeli characterization of the response as “self defense” in response to a “terrorist” organizations attack on Israel. Logic tells us that Israeli commandos could have engaged Hezbollah in Southern Lebanon and attempted to free the Israeli soldiers, without the mass destruction and indiscriminate loss of life and displacement resulting from the massive assault. The Israeli action could be more appropriately viewed as an attempt to punish the people of southern Lebanon for sheltering Hezbollah than actually engaging Hezbollah fighters. But such action – “collective punishment” – would be prohibited by international law. So the “self defense” and “terrorist” talismans were trotted out as public spin to explain the IDF actions.
The Bush Administration cannot be held directly accountable for the actions of the Mahdi Army or the Israeli Defense Force, of course. [We set aside, for the moment, the US munitions sales and expedited delivery of the “smart” bombs used by Israel in its assault on Lebanon.] But the reckless and ill conceived policies of the Bush Administration have arguably provided political “cover” for such extremist actions that are actually grounded in vendetta and longstanding ethnic and religious feuds. And nothing said here seeks to condone Sunni attacks on Shiites or the Hezbollah rocket attacks on northern Israeli civilians. The US refuses to acknowledge that the situation in Iraq has devolved into a civil war. The mutual destruction feud between Israel and Hezbollah must be disengaged and resolved through peaceful and political means, because military “solutions” have failed despite decades of hostilities. The issue is the manner in which the reckless foreign policy of the Bush Administration, by example and by proxy, has given license to various factions to disregard internationally accepted standards of engagement and conduct. The current course of “Cowboy Diplomacy” does not lead to any apparent peaceful resolution, but rather to an ever downward spiral of violence and retaliation.
The incessant fear mongering and divisive rhetoric employed by the Bush Administration gives alarming new life and vitality to the phrase: “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” Only when we discard the deception, smoke and obfuscation of these rhetorical gimmicks will the world be able to effectively face the true underlying problems and address the deeper and very real concerns of the people in these trouble spots of the world. Continued deceit and delusion, in lieu of rational foreign policy, is likely to lead to widespread global conflict, which is the only true “terror” that we should be concerned about.
Thursday, August 03, 2006
Exchange - Mideast
From friend and fellow Blogger:
Paul,
You know I love you and in addition no human with a heart and a brain sits around applauding the sacrifice of innocent life, however, I disagree categorically that the inhumane treatment that takes place in the Middle East lies in any way at the feat of the Government of Israel. If the current crisis proves anything it is that there is nobody for Israel to make peace with. I contend that should Hezbollah & Hamas get their way (there constitution call not only for the destruction of Israel but for death to Jews wherever they live on the face of the earth) and the people of Israel were pushed into the sea it would not change the situation on the ground in the Middle East by a scoot. Abu Musab al Zarqawi called Shiites apostates and Dogs deserving of death... Peaceful?
I would further suggest that what current situation proves is any group of evangelic murdering terrorists with Katyusha rockets can hold sovereign nations (and their populations) hostage regardless of the existence of a peace treaty. Do you really believe that Hezbollah's opinion would be any different if Israel and Palestine had reached an agreement when they came so close back during the Clinton Administration? No a culture that thinks it can restore Arab Glory through repression, intolerance, sexual apartheid and terrorism will remain mired in the same mud they have lived in for a millennium. In fact even the most moderate Arab regimes need Israel so that there people don't notice that over the last 50 years India, Ireland, South Korea, Japan, Poland, China etc... have pulled them selves out of the muck previous regimes had cosigned there populations too.
Does this mean I excuse our current Texas Cracker in the White House... No! We are asking Israel to negotiate with Hezbollah while missiles rain down on their cities while George Bush won't even speak with Syria or Iran because they are... I don't know mean? Bush, Cheaney, Rumsfield and Rice are an abomination and there complete lack of engagement (not to mention the cruel stupidity and lies by which the USA has meandered into Iraq) accounts for much of the complete melt down now roaring through the Middle East.
My Reply:
Dear _________________:
I fully agree that there is no honor or rectitude whatsoever in The Hezbollah use of the Lebanese [and remember that many of the southern Lebanese victims are revictimized refugees] people as "human shields." I also agree that there is validity to the "live by the sword, die by the sword" truism. Any government or group [and the distinction seems to get conveniently blurred] that believes that making war is a road to peace is, simply put, insane. Labeling Hezbollah a "terrorist" organization and Israel a "nation state" is of no real consequence. Nazi Germany was a nation state, but that fact does not excuse their behavior. You mistake my criticism of Israel's current actions as support for their enemy.
I see no justification or excuse in the extreme "disproportionate response," as it is called, currently going on in Southern Lebanon. Israel and its apologists seem to excuse their indiscriminate bloodshed and deliberate attacks on hospitals, ambulances and schools, killing civilians, women and children, by claiming that they are not really people, but simply agents or supporters of Hezbollah [and a recent addition has been "people who know people who support Hezbollah."] To this I must object. It has gone far beyond any reasonable or human response to the capture of an Israeli soldier. That act was an improper and inexcusable one and a deliberate provocation. Hezbollah shelling in northern Israel is reprehensible. But neither wrong excuses the actual conduct of the other in this case. The Israeli attacks are inhumane and totally unjustifiable in absolute terms, as is blindly firing Katyushas into Israeli cities and villages.
What we really have are factions within the Israeli military and government who have felt frustrated and pent up since Ariel Sharon decided to pursue a more diplomatic and pragmatic approach to peace through "unilateral disengagement." Without the open sanction to go out and play with their deadly weapons, they got frustrated and angry. Any excuse to let loose the dogs of war was all that was needed. Hezbollah KNEW and cynically planned that Israeli militarists would not respond in a rational or measured way. And without Sharon to contain them, we see the response.
Over 900 PEOPLE have been killed in Southern Lebanon in the last three weeks, and the estimates from both sides indicate that only about 100 were Hezbollah fighters. That does not suggest to me a measured tactical response. Quite frankly, the Israeli defense force is much more competent than that. The deliberate attacks on ambulances, hospitals and the refusal to allow International Red Cross relief and rescue teams safe passage to reach the dead and wounded, and bring in humanitarian aid speaks volumes. The Israeli attacks have resulted in a massacre of far far too many innocent people.
A mother in Israel should not be hit by a rocket just because she lives in the north of Israel, particularly when she has never done anything in her life to deliberately harm a palestinian or Lebanese person across the border. Likewise, an arab or muslim mother should not be slaughtered just because her home is in southern Lebanon or in Beirut, when she has never even met or tried to harm an Israeli. The current political rhetoric and vitriol invite the excuse to dehumanize the tragedy that is happening.
So I blame and hold the government of Israel accountable for its own actions and the indiscriminate and inhumane slaughter of innocent civilians, women and children. I do not fault the Israeli desire to dismantle and defang Hezbollah, and I support the need to neutralize Hezbollah on a more permanent basis. However, acting like a savage mad dog and destroying everything in sight is no logical, practical or humane way to achieve that objective. I do not support Hezbollah when I say this. The fact that approximately 1000 Hezbollah fighters have been able to carry on a fight with over 10,000 Israeli soldiers dispatched to Lebanon should inform someone that the strategy needs to be rethought. Israel ought to look to the example of its prime ally, the US, and its quagmire in Iraq. Cluster bombs, white phosphorous on civilians and total destruction of Fallujah did nothing to bring peace or stability. In fact, the incompetent strategy of the Bush Adminnistration ahs pushed Iraq into civil war. Those same weapons are being used in Southern Lebanon, and will prove equally ineffective unless the only goal is to wipe out as many Lebanese people as possible. But let us not pretend that Israel's actions are to "defend" Israel, or are a measured response to the capture of an Israeli soldier. [It is more likely that the bombing by Israel killed that soldier, rather than his captors doing him harm.] I simply look at the behavior of the Israeli government in objective and in human terms and find it unacceptable.
Our debate underscores the problem with the US - Israel relationship. There is absolutely nothing wrong with supporting and aiding an ally. Support of Israel is vital. However, to openly back an ally that you know is engaged in reprehensible conduct says volumes about any pretention to a moral compass that the US might claim. If Germany were our ally in 1941, would we stand to the side and applaud Hitler during the Holocaust? I know that is tough language, but what Israel is now involved in, in simple objective terms, is attempting to annihilate the Lebanese people in Southern Lebanon. That is not "defense" nor is it reasonably calculated to establish a foundation for anything other than 4 more decades of blood feud and violence.
All that you say may be valid criticism of Hezbollah leadership. But the people getting killed in Southern Lebanon are not Hezbollah leaders. Nothing that you have said will protect the life of the innocent children who will die today or tomorrow when their home, school or place of worship is bombed by Israeli F-16 jockeys eager to try out their new and shiny weapons. If their death could be avoided, which clearly is the case here, then I cannot quietly condone the actions of the IDF. Moreover, I have to condemn the US government who is rushing to sell and deliver even more bombs for the IDF to drop on those children. The same holds true of condemnation of Iran and Syria who are delivering the rockets to Hezbollah to rain down on the Israeli children.
I hold my citizenship of the World and my humanity above any flag or patriotic allegiance. The situation will, in my view, be resolved only when the situation is viewed in human terms rather than in political one upsmanship.
I am not sure we are in disagreement, but if we are, we will have to agree to disagree.
Paul
Paul,
You know I love you and in addition no human with a heart and a brain sits around applauding the sacrifice of innocent life, however, I disagree categorically that the inhumane treatment that takes place in the Middle East lies in any way at the feat of the Government of Israel. If the current crisis proves anything it is that there is nobody for Israel to make peace with. I contend that should Hezbollah & Hamas get their way (there constitution call not only for the destruction of Israel but for death to Jews wherever they live on the face of the earth) and the people of Israel were pushed into the sea it would not change the situation on the ground in the Middle East by a scoot. Abu Musab al Zarqawi called Shiites apostates and Dogs deserving of death... Peaceful?
I would further suggest that what current situation proves is any group of evangelic murdering terrorists with Katyusha rockets can hold sovereign nations (and their populations) hostage regardless of the existence of a peace treaty. Do you really believe that Hezbollah's opinion would be any different if Israel and Palestine had reached an agreement when they came so close back during the Clinton Administration? No a culture that thinks it can restore Arab Glory through repression, intolerance, sexual apartheid and terrorism will remain mired in the same mud they have lived in for a millennium. In fact even the most moderate Arab regimes need Israel so that there people don't notice that over the last 50 years India, Ireland, South Korea, Japan, Poland, China etc... have pulled them selves out of the muck previous regimes had cosigned there populations too.
Does this mean I excuse our current Texas Cracker in the White House... No! We are asking Israel to negotiate with Hezbollah while missiles rain down on their cities while George Bush won't even speak with Syria or Iran because they are... I don't know mean? Bush, Cheaney, Rumsfield and Rice are an abomination and there complete lack of engagement (not to mention the cruel stupidity and lies by which the USA has meandered into Iraq) accounts for much of the complete melt down now roaring through the Middle East.
My Reply:
Dear _________________:
I fully agree that there is no honor or rectitude whatsoever in The Hezbollah use of the Lebanese [and remember that many of the southern Lebanese victims are revictimized refugees] people as "human shields." I also agree that there is validity to the "live by the sword, die by the sword" truism. Any government or group [and the distinction seems to get conveniently blurred] that believes that making war is a road to peace is, simply put, insane. Labeling Hezbollah a "terrorist" organization and Israel a "nation state" is of no real consequence. Nazi Germany was a nation state, but that fact does not excuse their behavior. You mistake my criticism of Israel's current actions as support for their enemy.
I see no justification or excuse in the extreme "disproportionate response," as it is called, currently going on in Southern Lebanon. Israel and its apologists seem to excuse their indiscriminate bloodshed and deliberate attacks on hospitals, ambulances and schools, killing civilians, women and children, by claiming that they are not really people, but simply agents or supporters of Hezbollah [and a recent addition has been "people who know people who support Hezbollah."] To this I must object. It has gone far beyond any reasonable or human response to the capture of an Israeli soldier. That act was an improper and inexcusable one and a deliberate provocation. Hezbollah shelling in northern Israel is reprehensible. But neither wrong excuses the actual conduct of the other in this case. The Israeli attacks are inhumane and totally unjustifiable in absolute terms, as is blindly firing Katyushas into Israeli cities and villages.
What we really have are factions within the Israeli military and government who have felt frustrated and pent up since Ariel Sharon decided to pursue a more diplomatic and pragmatic approach to peace through "unilateral disengagement." Without the open sanction to go out and play with their deadly weapons, they got frustrated and angry. Any excuse to let loose the dogs of war was all that was needed. Hezbollah KNEW and cynically planned that Israeli militarists would not respond in a rational or measured way. And without Sharon to contain them, we see the response.
Over 900 PEOPLE have been killed in Southern Lebanon in the last three weeks, and the estimates from both sides indicate that only about 100 were Hezbollah fighters. That does not suggest to me a measured tactical response. Quite frankly, the Israeli defense force is much more competent than that. The deliberate attacks on ambulances, hospitals and the refusal to allow International Red Cross relief and rescue teams safe passage to reach the dead and wounded, and bring in humanitarian aid speaks volumes. The Israeli attacks have resulted in a massacre of far far too many innocent people.
A mother in Israel should not be hit by a rocket just because she lives in the north of Israel, particularly when she has never done anything in her life to deliberately harm a palestinian or Lebanese person across the border. Likewise, an arab or muslim mother should not be slaughtered just because her home is in southern Lebanon or in Beirut, when she has never even met or tried to harm an Israeli. The current political rhetoric and vitriol invite the excuse to dehumanize the tragedy that is happening.
So I blame and hold the government of Israel accountable for its own actions and the indiscriminate and inhumane slaughter of innocent civilians, women and children. I do not fault the Israeli desire to dismantle and defang Hezbollah, and I support the need to neutralize Hezbollah on a more permanent basis. However, acting like a savage mad dog and destroying everything in sight is no logical, practical or humane way to achieve that objective. I do not support Hezbollah when I say this. The fact that approximately 1000 Hezbollah fighters have been able to carry on a fight with over 10,000 Israeli soldiers dispatched to Lebanon should inform someone that the strategy needs to be rethought. Israel ought to look to the example of its prime ally, the US, and its quagmire in Iraq. Cluster bombs, white phosphorous on civilians and total destruction of Fallujah did nothing to bring peace or stability. In fact, the incompetent strategy of the Bush Adminnistration ahs pushed Iraq into civil war. Those same weapons are being used in Southern Lebanon, and will prove equally ineffective unless the only goal is to wipe out as many Lebanese people as possible. But let us not pretend that Israel's actions are to "defend" Israel, or are a measured response to the capture of an Israeli soldier. [It is more likely that the bombing by Israel killed that soldier, rather than his captors doing him harm.] I simply look at the behavior of the Israeli government in objective and in human terms and find it unacceptable.
Our debate underscores the problem with the US - Israel relationship. There is absolutely nothing wrong with supporting and aiding an ally. Support of Israel is vital. However, to openly back an ally that you know is engaged in reprehensible conduct says volumes about any pretention to a moral compass that the US might claim. If Germany were our ally in 1941, would we stand to the side and applaud Hitler during the Holocaust? I know that is tough language, but what Israel is now involved in, in simple objective terms, is attempting to annihilate the Lebanese people in Southern Lebanon. That is not "defense" nor is it reasonably calculated to establish a foundation for anything other than 4 more decades of blood feud and violence.
All that you say may be valid criticism of Hezbollah leadership. But the people getting killed in Southern Lebanon are not Hezbollah leaders. Nothing that you have said will protect the life of the innocent children who will die today or tomorrow when their home, school or place of worship is bombed by Israeli F-16 jockeys eager to try out their new and shiny weapons. If their death could be avoided, which clearly is the case here, then I cannot quietly condone the actions of the IDF. Moreover, I have to condemn the US government who is rushing to sell and deliver even more bombs for the IDF to drop on those children. The same holds true of condemnation of Iran and Syria who are delivering the rockets to Hezbollah to rain down on the Israeli children.
I hold my citizenship of the World and my humanity above any flag or patriotic allegiance. The situation will, in my view, be resolved only when the situation is viewed in human terms rather than in political one upsmanship.
I am not sure we are in disagreement, but if we are, we will have to agree to disagree.
Paul
Tuesday, July 25, 2006
Too Difficult to Reconcile
Today I am a bit too preoccupied and a bit too numb to launch into any critique of the often misguided conduct of the Bush Administration. Instead, I would ask those who follow this Blog to read the following news reports of the past few days. At times, I question whether my outlook and perspective are sufficiently objective. I review the facts and reports coming in concerning the current situation in Lebanon from multiple and independent sources, including eyewitness accounts. Try as I might, I cannot seem to reconcile these accounts and any rational or humane course of conduct by any country pretending to any semblance of decency, integrity or adherence to international standards of human rights. The Israeli military, the Israeli government and its people, those who support the current Israeli assault and those who would be apologists for their actions are all responsible.
When I think of the current plight of the civilians, especially the children in southern Lebanon and Beirut, I am painfully reminded of the US attack on Fallujah in Iraq. In that assault, purporting to oust an insurgent stronghold, the town and surrounding area was decimated by US use of the same munitions, including white phosphorous on civilian population areas. There too, the US claimed “officially” to be using legal weapons, while hard evidence on the ground established the use of internationally banned inhumane incendiary weapons resulting in charred bodies and horribly maimed women and children.
Whatever "justification" or excuse the Israeli’s may try to pose, including the argument that Hezbollah “terrorists” started the current stage of the conflict, cannot justify the unnecessary and incredibly inhumane carnage to civilians being wrought upon the Lebanese people by the Israeli assault. No facile expression of "regret" about civilian casualties can ring true in the face of deliberate attacks upon hospitals, ambulances, cvars containing families with small children and clearly marked UN observation posts. These attacks are being carried out, with the blessing, encouragement and armaments of the US and the Bush Administration. Bush is not my President, but this is my country. And I, for one, am deeply ashamed for what is being done purportedly in my name.
Consider the following:
New York Times - Washington- July 22, 2006:
The Bush administration is rushing a delivery of precision-guided bombs to Israel, which requested the expedited shipment last week after beginning its air campaign against Hezbollah targets in Lebanon, American officials said Friday.
The decision to quickly ship the weapons to Israel was made with relatively little debate within the Bush administration, the officials said. Its disclosure threatens to anger Arab governments and others because of the appearance that the United States is actively aiding the Israeli bombing campaign in a way that could be compared to Iran's efforts to arm and resupply Hezbollah.
The munitions that the United States is sending to Israel are part of a multimillion-dollar arms sale package approved last year that Israel is able to draw on as needed, the officials said. But Israel's request for expedited delivery of the satellite and laser-guided bombs was described as unusual by some military officers, and as an indication that Israel still had a long list of targets in Lebanon to strike.
Pentagon and military officials declined to describe in detail the size and contents of the shipment to Israel, and they would not say whether the munitions were being shipped by cargo aircraft or some other means. But an arms-sale package approved last year provides authority for Israel to purchase from the United States as many as 100 GBU-28's, which are 5,000-pound laser-guided bombs intended to destroy concrete bunkers. The package also provides for selling satellite-guided munitions.
An announcement in 2005 that Israel was eligible to buy the "bunker buster" weapons described the GBU-28 as "a special weapon that was developed for penetrating hardened command centers located deep underground." The document added, "The Israeli Air Force will use these GBU-28's on their F-15 aircraft."
________________
By Dahr Jamail - Iraq Dispatches - Monday 24 July 2006
Hundreds of Lebanese refugees languish in a city park in downtown Beirut. Fleeing southern Lebanon, as well as south Beirut, thousands have already made their way through this camp as they are farmed out to schools, abandoned buildings and anyone willing to take them in.
"Aren't people seeing all of this," asked Supinesh, a 50 year-old woman sitting with her family while children collected water from a nearby UNESCO water tank, "They should see the massacres, then they can decide who is just in this conflict."
After spending about an hour there, we decided to go see some of the damage in southern Beirut. Not wanting to go too deep into the demolished area, our driver said he could show us some of it without taking much risk. It still wasn't in the Dahaya district of Beirut, which is the area which has, according to many observers, been 75% destroyed. Thus, I felt reasonably settled inside about having a look.
The roads were mostly empty, as we drove past bomb craters and several overpasses which had been bombed. Some of them, still on the outskirts of the areas most heavily bombed, lay shattered with metal bars and chunks of blasted concrete hanging listlessly in the tense air. A hospital, blasted by shrapnel, sat empty near one of the blasted bridges.
Several building fronts were blasted by bomb shrapnel, and as we drove a little further several Hezbollah fighters were buzzing by us on scooters with M-16 assault rifles slung over their backs.
After passing by another blasted bridge we came upon several journalists running towards their cars in an area heavily damaged by bombs. Smoke languidly drifted down the street towards us from a smoldering building as journalists and their Lebanese fixers, in a panic, jumped in their cars as tires began to squeal.
"One of our spotters just told us he has seen Israeli jets coming," a panicked Hezbollah fighter on a scooter told our driver, "Get out of here now!"
We wheeled around and drove straight out of the area, managing our way through a couple of bottlenecks of cars as we all fled.
Once clear, my colleague, our driver and I decide to go have lunch and catch our breath. After a falafel sandwich and sharing a Nargeela pipe, we decided to go visit one of the main hospitals in the area.
Astoundingly, the assistant director of the Beirut Government University Hospital, Bilal Masri, told me today that there was a 30% casualty rate thus far-meaning that of all the people struck by bombs, 30% of them are killed.
"This is a higher percentage than we had during the civil war," the haggard assistant director told me while patients shuffled through the lobby of the busy hospital, one of the largest in Beirut, "And 55% of the casualties are children under 15 years of age."
So far, the official count of dead Lebanese civilians is nearing 400, with over 1,200 wounded.
Masri, himself holding US citizenship told me that his hospital was now operating with only 25% of its staff, as the rest of the employees had either been unable or unwilling to return to work.
"The Israelis are bombing everything that moves, along with cutting so many bridges and roads, so people have been unable or too scared to come back to work," he said, "So those of us who have stayed are eating, sleeping and working here 24 hours a day. I myself have barely slept in the last 13 days."
It was still sinking in that the casualty rate was so incredibly high, so I asked him how that could be.
"The Israelis are using new kinds of bombs, and these bombs can penetrate bomb shelters," he explained sternly, "They are bombing the refugees in the bomb shelters!"
Just then an irate man was yelling maniacally nearby. Several security guards went and began to escort him from the lobby of the hospital.
"My son who was wounded, was treated and now discharged, but where are we to go," he yelled, "Our home has been pulverized! We do not want to go to a city park, or a school to sleep on the ground!"
He continued pleading to anyone who would listen as he was walked outside.
Masri shook his head, not wishing to comment, as he turned back to me.
"We have kid here who don't know their parents are dead yet," he said while shaking his head. "And recently the Ministry of Interior has confirmed that the Israelis have used white phosphorous in the south."
I showed my surprise at this confirmation. Seeing this, he added, "We also have unconfirmed reports that they are dropping cluster bombs as well, along with other types of illegal weapons."
Before leaving he explained that his hospital was already beginning to run short of medicine and supplies, and thus far had had no help from any international organization.
"We are ok today, but soon we will face big problems if this situation continues," he said tiredly, "We're already going to the Ministry of Health to get extra supplies we are running out of. We hope the UN manages to convince the Israelis to open a safe passage to the south, but at the same time, when that happens, we will be deluged with patients and I don't know how we'll be able to handle all of them."
____________________
Associated Press -July 25, 2006
Jawad Najem, a surgeon at the hospital, said patients admitted Sunday had burns from phosphorous incendiary weapons used by Israel. The Geneva Conventions ban using white phosphorus as an incendiary weapon against civilian populations and in air attacks against military forces in civilian areas. Israel said its weapons comply with international law.
"Mahmoud Sarour, 14, was admitted to the hospital yesterday and treated for phosphorous burns to his face," Najem said. Mahmoud's 8-month-old sister, Maryam, suffered similar burns on her neck and hands when an Israeli rocket hit the family car.
The children were with their father, mother and other relatives when the car was hit by an Israeli missile. Their father died instantly.
The Sarour family was evacuated from Tyre to Cyprus on Monday aboard a ferry chartered by Germany.
The Sarours had to go to the port by taxi because the Lebanese Red Cross suspended operations outside Tyre after Israeli jets blasted two ambulances with rockets, said Ali Deebe, a Red Cross spokesman in Tyre.
In the incident Sunday, one Red Cross ambulance went south of Tyre to meet an ambulance and transfer the wounded to the hospital.
"When we have wounded outside the city, we always used two ambulances," Deebe said.
The rocket attack on the two vehicles wounded six ambulance workers and three civilians - an 11-year-old boy, an elderly woman and a man, Deebe said.
"One of the rockets hit right in the middle of the big red cross that was painted on top of the ambulance," he said. "This is a clear violation of humanitarian law, of international law. We are neutral, and we should not be targeted."
Kassem Shalan, one of the ambulance workers, told AP Television News nine people were injured. "We were transferring the wounded into our vehicle and something fell, and I dropped to the floor," he said.
Amateur video provided by an ambulance worker confirmed Deebe's account of damage to the vehicles, showing one large hole and several smaller ones in the roof of one ambulance and a large hole in the roof of the second. Both were destroyed.
The Israeli military said it was investigating the incident.
________________________
AP - BEIRUT, Lebanon – July 25, 2006
An Israeli bomb destroyed a U.N. observer post on the border in southern Lebanon Tuesday, killing three observers and leaving another feared dead, officials said. U.N. chief Kofi Annan said Israel appeared to have struck the site deliberately.
The bomb made a direct hit on the building and shelter of the observer post in the town of Khiyam near the eastern end of the border with Israel, said Milos Struger, spokesman for the U.N. peacekeeping force in Lebanon known as UNIFIL.
Annan said two observers were killed with two more feared dead. Later, a U.N. official confirmed that a third body had been recovered.
Rescue workers were trying to clear the rubble, but Israeli firing “continued even during the rescue operation,” Struger said.
U.N. officials said four observers were in the post when the bomb hit, and the building had been destroyed. Two bodies had been recovered and two were unaccounted for, apparently still in the rubble. They spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.
When I think of the current plight of the civilians, especially the children in southern Lebanon and Beirut, I am painfully reminded of the US attack on Fallujah in Iraq. In that assault, purporting to oust an insurgent stronghold, the town and surrounding area was decimated by US use of the same munitions, including white phosphorous on civilian population areas. There too, the US claimed “officially” to be using legal weapons, while hard evidence on the ground established the use of internationally banned inhumane incendiary weapons resulting in charred bodies and horribly maimed women and children.
Whatever "justification" or excuse the Israeli’s may try to pose, including the argument that Hezbollah “terrorists” started the current stage of the conflict, cannot justify the unnecessary and incredibly inhumane carnage to civilians being wrought upon the Lebanese people by the Israeli assault. No facile expression of "regret" about civilian casualties can ring true in the face of deliberate attacks upon hospitals, ambulances, cvars containing families with small children and clearly marked UN observation posts. These attacks are being carried out, with the blessing, encouragement and armaments of the US and the Bush Administration. Bush is not my President, but this is my country. And I, for one, am deeply ashamed for what is being done purportedly in my name.
Consider the following:
New York Times - Washington- July 22, 2006:
The Bush administration is rushing a delivery of precision-guided bombs to Israel, which requested the expedited shipment last week after beginning its air campaign against Hezbollah targets in Lebanon, American officials said Friday.
The decision to quickly ship the weapons to Israel was made with relatively little debate within the Bush administration, the officials said. Its disclosure threatens to anger Arab governments and others because of the appearance that the United States is actively aiding the Israeli bombing campaign in a way that could be compared to Iran's efforts to arm and resupply Hezbollah.
The munitions that the United States is sending to Israel are part of a multimillion-dollar arms sale package approved last year that Israel is able to draw on as needed, the officials said. But Israel's request for expedited delivery of the satellite and laser-guided bombs was described as unusual by some military officers, and as an indication that Israel still had a long list of targets in Lebanon to strike.
Pentagon and military officials declined to describe in detail the size and contents of the shipment to Israel, and they would not say whether the munitions were being shipped by cargo aircraft or some other means. But an arms-sale package approved last year provides authority for Israel to purchase from the United States as many as 100 GBU-28's, which are 5,000-pound laser-guided bombs intended to destroy concrete bunkers. The package also provides for selling satellite-guided munitions.
An announcement in 2005 that Israel was eligible to buy the "bunker buster" weapons described the GBU-28 as "a special weapon that was developed for penetrating hardened command centers located deep underground." The document added, "The Israeli Air Force will use these GBU-28's on their F-15 aircraft."
________________
By Dahr Jamail - Iraq Dispatches - Monday 24 July 2006
Hundreds of Lebanese refugees languish in a city park in downtown Beirut. Fleeing southern Lebanon, as well as south Beirut, thousands have already made their way through this camp as they are farmed out to schools, abandoned buildings and anyone willing to take them in.
"Aren't people seeing all of this," asked Supinesh, a 50 year-old woman sitting with her family while children collected water from a nearby UNESCO water tank, "They should see the massacres, then they can decide who is just in this conflict."
After spending about an hour there, we decided to go see some of the damage in southern Beirut. Not wanting to go too deep into the demolished area, our driver said he could show us some of it without taking much risk. It still wasn't in the Dahaya district of Beirut, which is the area which has, according to many observers, been 75% destroyed. Thus, I felt reasonably settled inside about having a look.
The roads were mostly empty, as we drove past bomb craters and several overpasses which had been bombed. Some of them, still on the outskirts of the areas most heavily bombed, lay shattered with metal bars and chunks of blasted concrete hanging listlessly in the tense air. A hospital, blasted by shrapnel, sat empty near one of the blasted bridges.
Several building fronts were blasted by bomb shrapnel, and as we drove a little further several Hezbollah fighters were buzzing by us on scooters with M-16 assault rifles slung over their backs.
After passing by another blasted bridge we came upon several journalists running towards their cars in an area heavily damaged by bombs. Smoke languidly drifted down the street towards us from a smoldering building as journalists and their Lebanese fixers, in a panic, jumped in their cars as tires began to squeal.
"One of our spotters just told us he has seen Israeli jets coming," a panicked Hezbollah fighter on a scooter told our driver, "Get out of here now!"
We wheeled around and drove straight out of the area, managing our way through a couple of bottlenecks of cars as we all fled.
Once clear, my colleague, our driver and I decide to go have lunch and catch our breath. After a falafel sandwich and sharing a Nargeela pipe, we decided to go visit one of the main hospitals in the area.
Astoundingly, the assistant director of the Beirut Government University Hospital, Bilal Masri, told me today that there was a 30% casualty rate thus far-meaning that of all the people struck by bombs, 30% of them are killed.
"This is a higher percentage than we had during the civil war," the haggard assistant director told me while patients shuffled through the lobby of the busy hospital, one of the largest in Beirut, "And 55% of the casualties are children under 15 years of age."
So far, the official count of dead Lebanese civilians is nearing 400, with over 1,200 wounded.
Masri, himself holding US citizenship told me that his hospital was now operating with only 25% of its staff, as the rest of the employees had either been unable or unwilling to return to work.
"The Israelis are bombing everything that moves, along with cutting so many bridges and roads, so people have been unable or too scared to come back to work," he said, "So those of us who have stayed are eating, sleeping and working here 24 hours a day. I myself have barely slept in the last 13 days."
It was still sinking in that the casualty rate was so incredibly high, so I asked him how that could be.
"The Israelis are using new kinds of bombs, and these bombs can penetrate bomb shelters," he explained sternly, "They are bombing the refugees in the bomb shelters!"
Just then an irate man was yelling maniacally nearby. Several security guards went and began to escort him from the lobby of the hospital.
"My son who was wounded, was treated and now discharged, but where are we to go," he yelled, "Our home has been pulverized! We do not want to go to a city park, or a school to sleep on the ground!"
He continued pleading to anyone who would listen as he was walked outside.
Masri shook his head, not wishing to comment, as he turned back to me.
"We have kid here who don't know their parents are dead yet," he said while shaking his head. "And recently the Ministry of Interior has confirmed that the Israelis have used white phosphorous in the south."
I showed my surprise at this confirmation. Seeing this, he added, "We also have unconfirmed reports that they are dropping cluster bombs as well, along with other types of illegal weapons."
Before leaving he explained that his hospital was already beginning to run short of medicine and supplies, and thus far had had no help from any international organization.
"We are ok today, but soon we will face big problems if this situation continues," he said tiredly, "We're already going to the Ministry of Health to get extra supplies we are running out of. We hope the UN manages to convince the Israelis to open a safe passage to the south, but at the same time, when that happens, we will be deluged with patients and I don't know how we'll be able to handle all of them."
____________________
Associated Press -July 25, 2006
Jawad Najem, a surgeon at the hospital, said patients admitted Sunday had burns from phosphorous incendiary weapons used by Israel. The Geneva Conventions ban using white phosphorus as an incendiary weapon against civilian populations and in air attacks against military forces in civilian areas. Israel said its weapons comply with international law.
"Mahmoud Sarour, 14, was admitted to the hospital yesterday and treated for phosphorous burns to his face," Najem said. Mahmoud's 8-month-old sister, Maryam, suffered similar burns on her neck and hands when an Israeli rocket hit the family car.
The children were with their father, mother and other relatives when the car was hit by an Israeli missile. Their father died instantly.
The Sarour family was evacuated from Tyre to Cyprus on Monday aboard a ferry chartered by Germany.
The Sarours had to go to the port by taxi because the Lebanese Red Cross suspended operations outside Tyre after Israeli jets blasted two ambulances with rockets, said Ali Deebe, a Red Cross spokesman in Tyre.
In the incident Sunday, one Red Cross ambulance went south of Tyre to meet an ambulance and transfer the wounded to the hospital.
"When we have wounded outside the city, we always used two ambulances," Deebe said.
The rocket attack on the two vehicles wounded six ambulance workers and three civilians - an 11-year-old boy, an elderly woman and a man, Deebe said.
"One of the rockets hit right in the middle of the big red cross that was painted on top of the ambulance," he said. "This is a clear violation of humanitarian law, of international law. We are neutral, and we should not be targeted."
Kassem Shalan, one of the ambulance workers, told AP Television News nine people were injured. "We were transferring the wounded into our vehicle and something fell, and I dropped to the floor," he said.
Amateur video provided by an ambulance worker confirmed Deebe's account of damage to the vehicles, showing one large hole and several smaller ones in the roof of one ambulance and a large hole in the roof of the second. Both were destroyed.
The Israeli military said it was investigating the incident.
________________________
AP - BEIRUT, Lebanon – July 25, 2006
An Israeli bomb destroyed a U.N. observer post on the border in southern Lebanon Tuesday, killing three observers and leaving another feared dead, officials said. U.N. chief Kofi Annan said Israel appeared to have struck the site deliberately.
The bomb made a direct hit on the building and shelter of the observer post in the town of Khiyam near the eastern end of the border with Israel, said Milos Struger, spokesman for the U.N. peacekeeping force in Lebanon known as UNIFIL.
Annan said two observers were killed with two more feared dead. Later, a U.N. official confirmed that a third body had been recovered.
Rescue workers were trying to clear the rubble, but Israeli firing “continued even during the rescue operation,” Struger said.
U.N. officials said four observers were in the post when the bomb hit, and the building had been destroyed. Two bodies had been recovered and two were unaccounted for, apparently still in the rubble. They spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.
Thursday, July 13, 2006
Arlen Specter’s New Science Project
If he proceeds with proposed legislation regarding judicial oversight of government domestic wiretapping, Sen. Arlen Specter, Chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, will present a novel science project to the public. The question: Whether Congress should be classified as an invertebrate animal or one with a spine.
Many of the behavior characteristics of this Congress have certainly given strong indication that it is indeed invertebrate. It took a close decision of the Supreme Court, packed with justices beholden to the GOP, to declare what most sentient vertebrates have known for quite a while, that the President was violating the law and Geneva Convention in its treatment of detainees and proposed Military Commissions for Guantanamo detainees. The President has openly admitted to domestic surveillance without approval from the FISA Court. This program clearly violates the statute enacted by Congress to preclude the precise activity in which the President is engaged. The President has also admitted to collecting personal and business banking information on millions of Americans without obtaining any form of permission or oversight by the judiciary. He has also told Congress that he refuses to provide them specific information about what he has been doing because to reveal secrets would threaten “national security.”
The measure proposed by Sen. Arlen Specter would allow the President to seek review of his domestic wiretapping by the FISA court, IF the President wants to allow the review. The legislation would remove the mandatory oversight presently required by law under the 4th Amendment. It would effectively gut the FISA legislation and disembowel the FISA court. In addition, the bill Specter proposes would create a new offense for revealing secret information about government surveillance programs. In other words, if any person in the government came forward to challenge the legality of the President’s surveillance programs or activity, that person would not only lose whistleblower protection that exists under the law, but may be subjected to criminal prosecution. So the proposed bill would allow the President to do whatever he wants, whenever he chooses, without judicial or Congressional scrutiny, and with the threat of criminal prosecution for anyone who spills the beans about Presidential activity that may violate the law or the Constitution.
So, my fellow Americans, what do you think? Does this kind of legislation by a co-equal branch of government entrusted with enacting laws that protect the people and provide for protection of our Constitutional rights and liberties sound like the behavior of an animal with a spine? Or does it resemble a jellyfish that is incapable of standing or resisting pressure? There will be a Quiz on November 7, 2006.
Many of the behavior characteristics of this Congress have certainly given strong indication that it is indeed invertebrate. It took a close decision of the Supreme Court, packed with justices beholden to the GOP, to declare what most sentient vertebrates have known for quite a while, that the President was violating the law and Geneva Convention in its treatment of detainees and proposed Military Commissions for Guantanamo detainees. The President has openly admitted to domestic surveillance without approval from the FISA Court. This program clearly violates the statute enacted by Congress to preclude the precise activity in which the President is engaged. The President has also admitted to collecting personal and business banking information on millions of Americans without obtaining any form of permission or oversight by the judiciary. He has also told Congress that he refuses to provide them specific information about what he has been doing because to reveal secrets would threaten “national security.”
The measure proposed by Sen. Arlen Specter would allow the President to seek review of his domestic wiretapping by the FISA court, IF the President wants to allow the review. The legislation would remove the mandatory oversight presently required by law under the 4th Amendment. It would effectively gut the FISA legislation and disembowel the FISA court. In addition, the bill Specter proposes would create a new offense for revealing secret information about government surveillance programs. In other words, if any person in the government came forward to challenge the legality of the President’s surveillance programs or activity, that person would not only lose whistleblower protection that exists under the law, but may be subjected to criminal prosecution. So the proposed bill would allow the President to do whatever he wants, whenever he chooses, without judicial or Congressional scrutiny, and with the threat of criminal prosecution for anyone who spills the beans about Presidential activity that may violate the law or the Constitution.
So, my fellow Americans, what do you think? Does this kind of legislation by a co-equal branch of government entrusted with enacting laws that protect the people and provide for protection of our Constitutional rights and liberties sound like the behavior of an animal with a spine? Or does it resemble a jellyfish that is incapable of standing or resisting pressure? There will be a Quiz on November 7, 2006.
The Self Defense Myth - The Neverending Story
The conflict in the Middle East is once again on the rise with Israel engaged in bombing raids, rocket and ground assaults in Gaza and now in Lebanon. This renewed cycle of violence brings to mind once again the prediction of Nostradamus that the war to end all wars, the apocalypse, would begin in the Middle East. All sides of the conflict claim to be engaged in justifiable actions of "self defense." Some of theses rationalizations are far fetched at best. To sidestep the polemics, however, we need to examine some hard cold facts that define the current situation and provide useful information in moving toward a resolution.
The most recent actions by Israel were provoked by incursions into what the international community generally accepts as Israeli territory, and the capture or killing of Israeli soldiers. It is pointless to engage in debate about whether the Palestinian or Hezbollah raids were justified by past transgressions by Israel and imprisonment of Palestinians. The fact remains that the incursions have prompted the resulting invasions by Israel. Another issue which need not be debated on moral grounds is whether the Israeli response is “proportional” in the eyes of the international community and humanitarian organization. Israel has demonstrated that disapproval of its decimation of infrastructure and killing of innocent civilians is unlikely to change its actions, although it may cause Israel to provide a modified public justification or rationale for its actions. The important fact is that Israel has the resources and the capability to send overwhelming military force against the Palestinians. When you decide to pick a fight, it is useful to take into account the size and capability of the one you plan to attack. David vs. Goliath is an interesting parable, but we must remember that it took a miracle for David to succeed.
The Israeli government and people’s goal of being able to live in peace within secure borders is both reasonable and justified. The decades of conflict must be something that Israelis long to be free from. Going to the market should not be the equivalent of a reconnaissance mission involving threat to life and limb. Surveys show that the majority of Israelis would welcome peace with the Palestinians and are willing to give back land seized by Israel to achieve that objective. What is less clear is whether the Israeli government and officials have the same goals and objectives. The policies and actions by Israel, especially since the departure of Sharon, have been more likely to promote continued violence and bloodshed than achieve peace. Indeed, since the democratic election of Hamas, Israel has turned disappointment into petulance and refused to even engage in peace talks with the legitimate government of the Palestinian people. I support the Israeli position that it need not establish official peace agreements with a terrorist organization. But one man’s “terrorist” is another man’s “freedom fighter.” It depends upon your perspective, which goes a long way toward explaining the Palestinian election results. Israel ought to recognize that hard reality rather than continue denial that their actions are oppressing the Palestinian people. It costs nothing to talk to your opponent. Self defense is legitimate only when it is, in fact, self defense.
In the face of overwhelming odds and resources against them, Palestinian militants and politicians need to recognize those types of actions and responses that could bring the support of the international community to their aid. Those acts may not involve steps to invoke sympathy, but may also have to include leverage. In many ways, the Israel Lobby in the US is more driven by a corporate mentality than morality. That is why Israel can engage in the types of extreme reactive measures and other police and military based oppressive actions without any move by the US government to restrain it ally. Israel can engage in arms sales and maintain nuclear capability while watching the US threaten Iran for trying to acquire the same capability. The relationship is based upon economic advantage and strategic geopolitical advantage for the US government. Turkey, for example, would provide the same or better strategic benefits, but there is no Turkish Lobby in the US of any significance. The strategic location of Iraq, with oil reserves and an educated populace, provides a more realistic explanation for the US invasion than any fantasy notion about the “need” to depose Saddam Hussein for "self defense" purposes. The Palestinians need to focus attention on building alliances that counter the proclivity of such outrageous reactions by Israel with US support. Egypt, Iran and Saudi Arabia are the most likely candidates. But to gain their support, the Palestinian leadership and government must show that it can act in a coordinated and
disciplined manner in governing the Palestinians. In addition, the Palestinian government needs to reach out to and embrace Palestinians and their supporters all over the world.
As for the sides currently engaged in the combat and violence, a hard look at what is happening quickly explodes the myth of the “self defense” justification. The Palestinian raids were an attempt to gain a political advantage that might enable them to humble Israel and obtain freedom for some long imprisoned Palestinians. They have not asked, at least initially, for release of persons who were engaged in military or violent actions. Instead, the Palestinian militants asked for release of women and children imprisoned by Israel. The odds of successfully negotiating a prisoner swap were marginal, but it may be the only leverage the Palestinian militants believed could work under the circumstances. It was not, however, an action of "self defense."
Nothing that Israel has done in response to the Palestinian raids seems well calculated to recapture of the Israeli soldiers. Nor are these action consistent with any reasonable concept of "self defense." Of course, if your mission is to annihilate the Palestinians as a way to make sure than no Palestinian will ever attack Israel or its people, then the current approach might be the path to take. But that is madness. You have not converted an opponent just because you have silenced him. And placing the Palestinians in a similar position that European Jews faced after the holocaust should be a lesson that Israel ought not forget and might take to heart. Isreal's current actiona are reminiscent of the psychological theory that, if your parents beat you as a child, you are prone to violence against your children and others when you grow up.
Besides, in a fight where the 6’ 4” bully is standing over the 5’5” and weak opponent with a baseball bat and beating the #%@$ out of the smaller guy, who is already down, it is hard to evoke much sympathy for the big guy who is claiming to be acting in “self-defense.” In addition, the actions Israel is taking are not directed at or calculated to directly punish the persons who engaged in the raids and capture of Israeli soldiers. Israel is punishing and subjugating the entire Palestinian population, and now waging war on all of Lebanon. The aggressor must put down the club and act with temperate and rational steps calculated to end violence and unprovoked attacks. All sides know very well that the current approach leads only to continuing violence and bloodshed that can last for generations.
And for the Palestinian militants who refuse to follow their political leaders and support their efforts to obtain a peaceful solution, we can only say that, if you truly desire peace, then act like you deserve it. Stop picking fights that you cannot win, particularly at times when your leadership is nearing a breakthrough that might well have revitalized the peace process and brought many to the side of Palestinians in the struggle for a separate state homeland. Your cause is hopeless only if you believe that it is. Ultimately, it is for the Palestinian people who want peace and who suffer from Israeli bombardment and oppression to reign in the militants who would destroy the last vestiges of hope for peace.
The most recent actions by Israel were provoked by incursions into what the international community generally accepts as Israeli territory, and the capture or killing of Israeli soldiers. It is pointless to engage in debate about whether the Palestinian or Hezbollah raids were justified by past transgressions by Israel and imprisonment of Palestinians. The fact remains that the incursions have prompted the resulting invasions by Israel. Another issue which need not be debated on moral grounds is whether the Israeli response is “proportional” in the eyes of the international community and humanitarian organization. Israel has demonstrated that disapproval of its decimation of infrastructure and killing of innocent civilians is unlikely to change its actions, although it may cause Israel to provide a modified public justification or rationale for its actions. The important fact is that Israel has the resources and the capability to send overwhelming military force against the Palestinians. When you decide to pick a fight, it is useful to take into account the size and capability of the one you plan to attack. David vs. Goliath is an interesting parable, but we must remember that it took a miracle for David to succeed.
The Israeli government and people’s goal of being able to live in peace within secure borders is both reasonable and justified. The decades of conflict must be something that Israelis long to be free from. Going to the market should not be the equivalent of a reconnaissance mission involving threat to life and limb. Surveys show that the majority of Israelis would welcome peace with the Palestinians and are willing to give back land seized by Israel to achieve that objective. What is less clear is whether the Israeli government and officials have the same goals and objectives. The policies and actions by Israel, especially since the departure of Sharon, have been more likely to promote continued violence and bloodshed than achieve peace. Indeed, since the democratic election of Hamas, Israel has turned disappointment into petulance and refused to even engage in peace talks with the legitimate government of the Palestinian people. I support the Israeli position that it need not establish official peace agreements with a terrorist organization. But one man’s “terrorist” is another man’s “freedom fighter.” It depends upon your perspective, which goes a long way toward explaining the Palestinian election results. Israel ought to recognize that hard reality rather than continue denial that their actions are oppressing the Palestinian people. It costs nothing to talk to your opponent. Self defense is legitimate only when it is, in fact, self defense.
In the face of overwhelming odds and resources against them, Palestinian militants and politicians need to recognize those types of actions and responses that could bring the support of the international community to their aid. Those acts may not involve steps to invoke sympathy, but may also have to include leverage. In many ways, the Israel Lobby in the US is more driven by a corporate mentality than morality. That is why Israel can engage in the types of extreme reactive measures and other police and military based oppressive actions without any move by the US government to restrain it ally. Israel can engage in arms sales and maintain nuclear capability while watching the US threaten Iran for trying to acquire the same capability. The relationship is based upon economic advantage and strategic geopolitical advantage for the US government. Turkey, for example, would provide the same or better strategic benefits, but there is no Turkish Lobby in the US of any significance. The strategic location of Iraq, with oil reserves and an educated populace, provides a more realistic explanation for the US invasion than any fantasy notion about the “need” to depose Saddam Hussein for "self defense" purposes. The Palestinians need to focus attention on building alliances that counter the proclivity of such outrageous reactions by Israel with US support. Egypt, Iran and Saudi Arabia are the most likely candidates. But to gain their support, the Palestinian leadership and government must show that it can act in a coordinated and
disciplined manner in governing the Palestinians. In addition, the Palestinian government needs to reach out to and embrace Palestinians and their supporters all over the world.
As for the sides currently engaged in the combat and violence, a hard look at what is happening quickly explodes the myth of the “self defense” justification. The Palestinian raids were an attempt to gain a political advantage that might enable them to humble Israel and obtain freedom for some long imprisoned Palestinians. They have not asked, at least initially, for release of persons who were engaged in military or violent actions. Instead, the Palestinian militants asked for release of women and children imprisoned by Israel. The odds of successfully negotiating a prisoner swap were marginal, but it may be the only leverage the Palestinian militants believed could work under the circumstances. It was not, however, an action of "self defense."
Nothing that Israel has done in response to the Palestinian raids seems well calculated to recapture of the Israeli soldiers. Nor are these action consistent with any reasonable concept of "self defense." Of course, if your mission is to annihilate the Palestinians as a way to make sure than no Palestinian will ever attack Israel or its people, then the current approach might be the path to take. But that is madness. You have not converted an opponent just because you have silenced him. And placing the Palestinians in a similar position that European Jews faced after the holocaust should be a lesson that Israel ought not forget and might take to heart. Isreal's current actiona are reminiscent of the psychological theory that, if your parents beat you as a child, you are prone to violence against your children and others when you grow up.
Besides, in a fight where the 6’ 4” bully is standing over the 5’5” and weak opponent with a baseball bat and beating the #%@$ out of the smaller guy, who is already down, it is hard to evoke much sympathy for the big guy who is claiming to be acting in “self-defense.” In addition, the actions Israel is taking are not directed at or calculated to directly punish the persons who engaged in the raids and capture of Israeli soldiers. Israel is punishing and subjugating the entire Palestinian population, and now waging war on all of Lebanon. The aggressor must put down the club and act with temperate and rational steps calculated to end violence and unprovoked attacks. All sides know very well that the current approach leads only to continuing violence and bloodshed that can last for generations.
And for the Palestinian militants who refuse to follow their political leaders and support their efforts to obtain a peaceful solution, we can only say that, if you truly desire peace, then act like you deserve it. Stop picking fights that you cannot win, particularly at times when your leadership is nearing a breakthrough that might well have revitalized the peace process and brought many to the side of Palestinians in the struggle for a separate state homeland. Your cause is hopeless only if you believe that it is. Ultimately, it is for the Palestinian people who want peace and who suffer from Israeli bombardment and oppression to reign in the militants who would destroy the last vestiges of hope for peace.
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