Karl Rove's departure is a generally ominous sign...

Karl Rove is set to leave the White House at the end of August, and the news asks more questions than it answers. I don't really understand it, and I don't really like it, although I feel like I should like it. I've been waiting for this guy to be out for five years, but I always hoped it would be under some cloud of suspicion, or as the result of one of his many scandals. This farewell is downright joyful, and the guy (according to Bush et al) is set to go down as some sort of national hero.

Now I know that Bush would say he was a hero no matter the circumstances. Witness Rumsfeld and all the other incompetents who WERE forced out in shame, only to be immortalized by a wonderful speech from Bush. But this departure really does smack to me of Rove simply realizing that there is nothing more that needs to be done with this Presidency. I mean, the guy has less than 18 months left in office, which pretty much means that he can't be impeached. It's just too late, unless somebody finds a 12-year-old boy handcuffed and ball gagged in one of the Lincoln bedroom closets. If the scandals thus far haven't been enough to finish him, nothing will be.

Likewise, it has become pretty clear that we will still be in Iraq when Bush leaves office. If the Democrats haven't sacked up and made the move thus far, it is unlikely they will be able to before they get a Democratic President.

Every other issue on the table has clearly already been won or lost. Immigration is not getting fixed before Jan 09, the tax breaks aren't getting repealed, social security will still be broken, gay marriage will still be illegal, abortion will still be legal, etc, etc, etc.

So Rove leaves with a bit of a victorious smirk on his fat, balding face. Fuck that guy, I hope he has a heart attack and dies tomorrow. He's in a neck and neck race with Cheney for evilest guy in the country.

One Crystallization of our basic problem in Iraq

A huge Shia march is planned for this week in Iraq, and there is significant (and justified) fear about a Sunni attack on the column of pilgrims. One of them had the following to say:

Sami Faraj, a 52-year-old government employee, said they would march nevertheless. "We do not care about the bombings and the terrorists. We are ready to sacrifice ourselves for the cause and for the sake of the prophet's descendants," Faraj said.

Here is a link to the article:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-wires/20070807/iraq/

By the way, this guy isn't a zealous preacher. He's the Iraqi equivalent of the fat guy with the lazy eye and hippie beard who takes the bus to work at the Department of Ecology. He's a nobody.

And yet he's talking in personal terms about the basic disagreement of a religious dispute that has been going on for nearly two thousand years. The furor over the succession of Mohammed was THE reason the Shias and Sunnis became the Shias and Sunnis, and this guy announced into a microphone that he was willing to die for it. And he MEANT it. There is a measurable percentage chance that some Sunni nutjob puts a bomb in the middle of that march. That's how personal this conflict is t the average Iraqi.

Ask yourself how many people you know in America would march for their religion. Not even march against abortion or something, just march for being right. Now ask yourself how many people in this country would bomb religous marchers. Finally, think of how many of those few (I assume it is few, unless you live in Utah) people-willing-to-march that you know would STILL MARCH if they knew there were people in the same CITY that were fully planning if possible to, in fact, kill them.

It is beyond folly to think that Sunnis and Shias are EVER going to live in the same physical space. They are fundamentally different than we are. They have not had a revolutionary event (In the Jeffersonian sense) to galvanize them into caring more about Iraq than about Mohammed. Until and IF they do, we have no shot, and it's irresponsible of politicians to pretend otherwise.

Petraeus blames bookkeeping for the missing weapons

Check this article on WashingtonPost.com:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/07/AR2007080701726.html?hpid=topnews

Petraeus blamed record-keeping errors for the loss of weapons in Iraq, then he said something that floored me. With regard to the lack of proper record-keeping procedures during the building of Iraqi forces, he said:

"We occasionally likened it to building the world's largest aircraft while in flight and while being shot at," the general said. "But we gradually started putting those procedures into place."

Really? When did you liken it to that? And who were you speaking to when you did it? I pay pretty close attention to the news, and I'm willing to bet you didn't say it to a reporter. All I seem to remember any administration spokesman saying was how great the Iraqi security forces were doing, and how much progress we were making over there.

See, you don't get to spend five years telling us how great everything is, and then when something goes horribly wrong, turn around and justify yourself by saying how difficult the situation was. I didn't believe you when you said how easy it was, but that doesn't mean you get points for coming clean. Three months ago, maybe, but now the only honesty involved is that which makes your terrible mistake seem more justifiable.

Weapons, journalistic priorities both missing

Here's a link to a disturbing little story:

http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/meast/08/06/iraq.weapons.reut/index.html

This story is about how we have lost 190,000 weapons in Iraq, including 110,000 AK-47 Assault Rifles, and how many of those weapons are now being used to fight against American Troops. Awesome. Hope that gets in the progress report we get in September, somehow I would be willing to bet it slips through the cracks.

My question is, why isn't this a bigger story? cnn.com leads with a story of 6 miners getting trapped in a mineshaft. Tragic, but almost a quarter million deadly weapons getting lost in the most dangerous place on earth is a bigger story than 6 miners getting killed, or 60 miners getting killed. How many people will get killed with those weapons?

HuffPost leads with Rudy Giuliani's daughter's facebook page. Seriously. She joined the "1 Million Strong for Barack" facebook group, and now that's a national news story bigger than taxpayer dollars being used to arm out enemies.

Foxnews leads with the coal miners, followed by the facebook page and a twelve-year old "Messiah" getting arrested in France. Ummm...okay. What the hell is wrong with the media in this country?

Obama might just be my guy

Saw this article today:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2007/08/01/obamas-terrorism-speech_n_58815.html

The article chronicles Obama's efforts to break from the democratic interest groups, including: Promising to go into Pakistan is they refuse to root out the terrorists hiding in their mountains (obviously still getting us out of Iraq), Raising the social security age without privatization, putting teachers on a merit pay system, and chastising black men who abandon their children.

Apparently a lot of people are trying to say this will hurt him. I've got news for those people. It won't hurt him with me. This guy is more right on every time he opens his mouth. I'm still technically undecided with regard to my primary vote, but I'm leaning towards Obama with an option to fall at any time. This guy is saying the things I've been waiting for a politician to say for a really long time.

Rove testimony may be the lynchpin...

Remember those contempt subpoenas issued by Congress against Josh Bolten and Harriet Myers lat week? Well, now they're considering going after Karl Rove, and I am just delighted. Bush is trying to block Rove's testimony pretty hard...good call, Bush. For some reason, I have a gut feeling that Rove testifying would degenerate pretty quickly, for two reasons. One, the guy has his finger in every pie in the world, the level of dirty tricks he has committed is basically the same as the total number of dirty tricks played and secreted by this administration. Second, and perhaps more important, Rove is a smarmy asshole who thinks he is smarter and better than everyone else, including congress. I'll bet he would happily stoop to perjury, or at least get up there and act like he had a perfect right to choose which questions to answer and which questions not to answer. God that is a scene I would love to see on C-Span, Harry Reid screaming at Karl Rove and Karl Rove just smiling back up at his with his bald head gleaming, calmly saying something about executive privilege. Happy days.

Ted Stevens Home becomes historic site with latest huge embarrasing scandal.

Ted Stevens home was raided today...He's the "The internet is a series of tubes" guy who got elected as senator from, you guessed it, Alaska or Florida. My questions are: When will some of these guys start having to leave office, and how many of them have to be forced out before we can impeach the President?

The answer to the first question is unknown and probably disappointing. The answer t the second question is. If anyone knows the answer to this question, please contact me immediately.

I'm really hoping there's some language/translation problems between my ears and the Iraqi parlaiment

Check this article on the absenteeism of the Iraqi parliament in the days leading up to their month-long vacation in August:

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-fg-missing27jul27,0,4508518.story?coll=la-home-center

First of all, it's just shocking that they would take a month-long break right now. That's already been beaten to death in the media and on blogs for months. They had to cancel the first month of that vacation under heavy protests. But now I read, in this article, that a lot of the delegates don't show up for the sessions, at least in part because they are resistant to US pressure in setting them an agenda to talk about. That's fucking balls, right there.

The reason I reference a translation problem is because the quotes from these delegates makes them come off like Paris Hilton. It's absurd how they sound. Consider:

"The Americans don't understand," (Othman, a Kurdish lawmaker) said. "The more they insist, the more there will be opposition and we will never pass it."

Uhhh...what? Are you a five year old sitting on the at the dinner table refusing to eat something he likes just because his mother told him to eat it? The US isn't trying to ram some ridiculous proposal down their throats, it's trying to make them take steps that represent the only hope for their fledgling country.

Let me just say that I HATE US policy in Iraq. I hate it. And I acknowledge that it isn't Othman's (or any of the other delegates) fault that this situation was created. It is our fault, America's fault. We should have left Saddam Hussein in power, evil as he was, but we didn't. This is the situation now. And the simple fact that those delegates have accepted the positions they have (and the $65,000 a year, by the way. More than twice as much money as I make), makes them responsible, not for the situation, but for trying to find a way out of it. To shirk that responsibility by failing to work hard, as a response to perceived US influence, borders on the criminal.

Also, let's remember what is actually at stake here. It isn't the security of the US, at least not directly. The latest wargames estimates show that Al Qaeda won't take over in Iraq if we leave. We'll probably be better off, actually, because once we leave we can go to Pakistan and take care of the real enemy in short order. Now there's an invasion I could get behind.

All that will happen if we leave is that Iraq will burn itself to the ground. Tens of thousands of people will die, if not hundreds. Torture, religious, and ethnic cleansing will be the order of the day, and sometime far down the line, a rough, three-state scenario will emerge.

That's all we're trying to prevent. The Iraqi Parliament had better wake up and help us, because I can unequivocally say that the patience of this country is running out. We ARE leaving, and the amount of work they are able to get done before we do will directly influence the amount of Iraqi blood that is shed in the next ten years.

The very thought of a Gonzales Perjury investigation makes my stomach churn

I should have been ecstatic over the prospect of a perjury investigation into Alberto Gonzales like the one proposed in this article:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-wires/20070726/congress-gonzales/

Instead I am lukewarm at best, and deep down I am dreading it because I already know nothing will ever come of it. The problem is that we've let these obvious liars and villains reach such strongholds of power, they can't be investigated or stopped by any traditional means.

For example, Congress has issued Contempt of Court citations for Josh Bolten and Harriet Miers, two of Bush's top political aides, for their refusal to even APPEAR to testify with regard to the politically motivated firings at the Justice Department. That doesn't matter, though, because that same justice department has already said they will refuse to enforce the citations. So the ones we are trying to investigate are the same ones whose help we need to execute an investigation. How well is this going to work?

In a similar way, how are we going to try Alberto Gonzales for perjury? The guy is the top of the heap as far as prosecutions are concerned. He is supposed to be the most gung-ho prosecutor in the entire country, yet now he is blatantly violating the laws in a ridiculous effort to defend the leader of the free world. What are we supposed to do?

Michael Vick...worse than a child molester?

This is a sampling of one article on the Michael Vick dog-fighting case that I chose more or less at random:

http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/07/26/vick.dogfighting/index.html

The thing to notice here is that one of the lawyers involved said of the protests going on outside the courtroom that they were the most extreme he has ever seen. Really? The most extreme he's ever seen? I'm pretty sure that guy has been around some HUMAN murder trials, pedophilia trials, etc, in his time.

Now I'm not making the slightest excuse for Vick. Animal cruelty laws are on the books for a reason, and he should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of them. But this is a striking trend that I've noticed happening in a number of animal-related cases.

For example, when I was in High School in Oregon, a kid in the area tied a cat to the roof of a shed and set it on fire. Now that's awful. The local papers and the kid's lawyer (full disclosure: the kid's lawyer was my dad) received hundreds of letters suggesting that the kid, a victim himself of systematic abuse, should be burned to death in turn. The outpouring of hatred and bile in the direction of this kid was incredible. That same week, my Dad took a case involving a five and a three year old kid. Those kids' parents were meth heads, who made extra money by inviting people over, and forcing the kids to run back and forth across the living room while paying customers shot at them with paintball and pellet guns. There were no letters sent in this case, no press coverage, no nothing. The parents got off on a technicality.

What does this have to do with Michael Vick's case? There is a war going on right now that claims innocent human lives every, single day. Atrocities are committed on people all over the world with shocking regularity. In our own country, children are abused EVERY SINGLE DAY. Where is the public outcry for this? I look out my window, or I turn on the news every night, and I don't see people protesting the War in Iraq (I have gone to a few protests myself). Why do we in this country seem to love animals and hate people so much?

I realize that Vick's high profile makes this a national case (shouldn't, but does), and I realize that dog-fighting is a bad thing. It's cruel, it's inhumane, and it's criminal. At issue here isn't whether Vick ought to be let off the hook or not. Nobody is suggesting he should. My point is that, with all the horrific things going on in the world, I think people with extra energy to burn on protests could find better outlets.

I'm back

Okay, I've been at a family reunion since Friday, so no updates. I'll be back at it tomorrow full bore...stay tuned, there have been serious developments.

Shocking News from the capitol

In a shocking development, and one that I in no way predicted two days ago in a post on this very blog, the senate has filibustered the vote on ending the war in Iraq. Turns out that despite the all nighter, the Dems didn't have the votes. Oh well, at least I didn't waste my time and stay up until 4 am watching meaningless debate.

Damn that's a lotta C-Span

I've been watching C-Span for a really long time. This is by far the most C-Span I have ever watched in one sitting. It's in first place and the race isn't even close. Here are a few thoughts:

First, I don't think John McCain or anyone else who supports the war should be able to refer to "the opinion of the generals" ever again. Let's just look at a little history lesson. Remember when there were other generals, before Petraeus, who said the surge was a shit idea? Then remember when you got rid of those generals and put in Petraeus, because he subscribed to the neocon strategy? Okay, at that point you stopped being able to refer to the opinion of the generals as a way to prove that we should do what you want to do. In fact, it's dishonest to refer to "the opinion of the generals" as if that opinion is one unified thing. There are a whole bunch of generals that agree with the democrats. They think we should end this war as soon as possible and get all our troops out or Iraq post haste. So don't sit here and try to say that we need to respect the opinion of the generals, because they don't really have any idea of what is going on either.

Second, the Democrats need to get off their ass and stop being such slaves to decorum. Some dipshit GOP senator got up and gave some bullshit, swiss cheese justification, and then Hillary got up there (she looked like warmed over death, by the way. Clearly these people are not used to being up until 5 am.) and started off her spiel with "I'd like to thank my friend and colleague from the great state of blah blah blah... Screw that. If you're going to stay up all night and keep my ass up all night, at least have a goddamn DEBATE. Get up there and point out the ten obvious flaws in his argument. It's not hard. I was sitting here in my living room doing it in real time. And you should be smarter than me.

Third, I'd just like to say that the procedures followed in the damn senate are at least 75% fluff. They have spent the last 20 minutes doing a "Quorum call" and some sort of procedural vote to GET ALL THE SENATORS IN THE CHAMBER. What?!?! We're taking up time with all this debate and the other senators are out of the chamber? Are they getting high? (Okay, obviously Ted Kennedy is getting high, and drinking a bottle of blue label, but still...) Get their asses in there and let's have us a real debate, or better yet, let's get a vote going. I can't take this shit anymore, I'm going to bed. I'm not getting any money out of this, I'm not going to be a live blogger for C-Span while nothing is happening...

Vick indictment by far most interesting thing going on today

Atlanta Falcons Quarterback uber-bust Michael Vick was indicted today on charges relating to a dog-fighting ring he was running out of his mansion. Wow. Just...wow. Honestly, these charges seem too weird not to be true. Like if I was going to make up some fake charges to try and discredit a black superstar athlete, I don't think my go-to move would be "running an illegal dog-fighting ring". I'd just say the guy stabbed somebody, probably his wife or girlfriend, like they usually do, and that would be that. But dog-fighting? Is this the 1800's? Did Michael Vick somehow become embroiled in the plot of "The Great Train Robbery?"

As you can see, it's a somewhat slow news day. The only interesting thing happening other than this is a plane crash in Brazil, which is tragic but fairly cut and dried. And, oh yeah, the senate is going to meet all night tonight to discuss a renewed vote on the Iraq war. Look guys, nobody would be happier with a renewed war vote than I would, but the bottom line is that it takes sixty votes to get around a filibuster. So either you have the sixty votes or you don't. It doesn't take all night to figure that out. You just count the votes and either move to the resolution stage, or you go home, wait for a couple hundred more soldiers, and a couple thousand more Iraqis to die, then come back and see if anyone else has woken up and decided to listen to reason. All this debate and crap is just ego-stroking for Harry Reid and the rest of the politic hacks on Capitol Hill. We get it, you hate the war, it's a bad idea. Two thirds plus of the country agrees with you, and the other third still thinks Saddam Hussein was flying one of the planes that hit us on 9/11, and thinks those planes contained biological weapons. They're idiots. Who are you trying to convince? How about the 41 or so idiots in congress like Lindsay Graham, who I could happily condemn to death? The problem is that those fucks won't be convinced by debate on the issues. Staying up all night fighting about it isn't helping anything. They need the political heat of dead soldiers in order to change their minds. That's all that will get it done.

The press has failed us...

I saw Bush today say that "The same people bombing innocent people in Iraq are the ones who attacked us on 9/11". Now, that is bullshit, not to put too fine a point on it. Two weeks ago, Bush admitted that Al Qaeda accounts for less than a quarter of the violence and fighters in Iraq. And even those fighters don't work for Osama bin Laden, they are Al Qaeda in name only. But here's the thing -- Nobody pointed that out to Bush. The reporters present at the time just sat there and nodded like idiots. Nobody said anything. If nobody is going to say anything, OF COURSE he's just going to keep spouting that unadulterated bullshit. It is totally absurd. Fuck the press, fuck the government, they are in this together as far as I am concerned. What happened to the muckraking, take no shit, call everyone's bullshit of journalists past. Ed Murrow, we hardly knew ye...

Palestine...Lost in the shadow of Iraq, but still with lessons for us.

I just saw this really interesting guy named Dennis Ross on Charlie Rose. He's an author and a think tank guy on the middle east. He made some interesting statements about the elections in 2005 (the ones in which Hammas took power, and directly after which the world cut off foreign aid to the region). This guy claimed that those elections should never have taken place, because Hammas refused to abide by the election criteria established during the previous elections in 1996. Apparently, the Bush administration pushed for these elections to take place anyways, and were the first to condemn them when Hammas won power.

There is an interesting parallel here between the kind of faith-based decision making that Ross describes, and the kind of faith-based decision making that has gotten us into such incredible trouble in Iraq. That is, Bush pushed for elections in Palestine because he had faith that free elections were a prescriptive wunderkind that would solve problems in any context. Now, from his own janky election victory, he should have known categorically this was not true. At least as importantly, he should have seen that with Fatah (the party opposed to Hammas in those elections) in shambles at the time, the better organization and message discipline of Hammas would allow them to triumph in spite of being in fact a minority party. After that happened, Bush (and much of the democratic world) was left in the awkward position of opposing a duly elected democratic regime, because of human rights violations and explicitly religious values.

Similarly, in Iraq, faith based decision making has gotten us in trouble across the board. We had faith that Iraqis cared more about freedom than they did about religion. To put it another way, we had faith that Iraqis cared more about being Iraqis than they did about being Sunni or Shia Muslims.

We also had too much faith in the superiority of US troops and firepower. My best friend is a US Marine, and I have as much respect for their capability as anyone, but they were tasked to use less than a quarter million troops to pacify a nation of more than twenty million. And to do so on that nation's home turf, more than a quarter world away from home. There simply aren't enough bodies to occupy that much space. US troops can achieve any specific tactical objective, but they cannot be present in the entire country at once. It's like trying to sop up twenty gallons of liquid with a single rag. There's no question the rag can absorb water, but at the same time, there's no question there is more liquid than a single rag can absorb.

At the core, the Bush administration is guilty of the same faith based error as the general in the Kubrick film "Full Metal Jacket". The general confronts Joker wearing ambivalent imagery on his uniform, and says that the US must prevail in Vietman because "Inside of every Gook there is a red-blooded American trying to get out." Replace "Gook" with "Iraqi" (or with "Towelhead", if the slur must stick), and you have a pretty accurate description of the Bush attitude towards the middle east. We are finding out, to our detriment, just like to the film's General, that this is simply not the case. Whether Palestine, Iraq, or anywhere else in the Middle East, Muslims are simply, categorically, and finally different than us. They care about different things, they live in different ways. The only way they are like us is that they are willing to fight and die for their families and their beliefs.

So many scandals its actually muddying the water

The Bush administration may have come up with a new tactic: Create so many scandals at once that none of them gets extreme coverage, and then claim that none of them are such a big deal, and wait for them to start dropping off the national radar. There's so many freaking scandals now that every time there's a new development in one of them, I kind of have to jog my memory of exactly what it was all about. It's really incredible how this guy can still be in office. I don't think he's gone more than a few weeks without a major scandal in months.

$282 Million sounds like a lot until you put it in perspective...

I saw a huge front page story today about how a bank in Baghdad got robbed to the tune of $282 million dollars. Sure seems like a huge heist, right? Sure seems like terrorists are gonna end up with that money, right? Let me just point out two things.

First, what the hell is $282 US Dollars in cash doing in a bank in Iraq? That country is in the middle of a civil war. The only real surprise is that it took this long to get robbed. For that matter, along the same line, what the hell is a bank doing open for business in Baghdad? That city in under seige by multiple armies of desperate men. See above for the completion of this point.

Second, $282 million is a huge heist. Hell, that's bigger than the heist in "Ocean's 11", and that one was just cooked up by some screenwriter who could have said anything he wanted. He could have had Clooney say "Let's steal eleventy billion dollars from Terry Benedict", yet even at the limits of his imagination, that writer chose less than the REAL heist in Baghdad.

Yet let's think about the dollar amount the US spends in Iraq (not even counting the lives lost every day). The figure is ten billion a month. Break that down and you get...$333 million a day. So they stole less than one day's treasure in a war that has lasted more than five years. Ouch.

What the hell does "Mixed Bag" even mean?

It never ceases to amaze me how Bush will take language that seems meant to describe a round of golf and apply it to the war in Iraq. Today he issued a progress report on Iraq that said the government there had made satisfactory progress on about half their benchmarks, and called the results there a "mixed bag". You know, a mixed bag, like "I hit a few birdies, a few too many bogies, I was in the rough a lot off the tee, but I putted pretty well." That's a mixed bag. "We quelled the resistance in Al-Anbar at the cost of hundreds of dead Americans and thousands of dead Iraqis, but Baghdad is still hostile despite the mass death there." That's not a mixed bag. That's an unmitigated disaster.

This administration's willingness to use rhetoric, and this President's ability to use his supposedly "simple" grasp of language to minimize problems is truly incredible. But what is really shocking is the way the mainstream press just reports this bullshit. Every single paper who reported this White House update as if it were factual in any way should be ashamed. In fact, the administration should not be allowed to report on the state of the war at all. It's like a parent telling a five year old to clean her room, and then taking her word that it's done instead of opening up the door and looking for themselves. Gee, I wonder if she's going to say she's made more progress than she really has.

What it is really like, though, is the Enron case. It's like during the trial, Enron issued an internal report saying that there was reasonable doubt about the defendant's guilt. And then, in the middle of the trial, Enron's defense lawyers pulled out the report and said, "See, this report says there's doubt, so they can't be guilty." And then the jurors (played here by the media) said "Well, they must be right, look, it's right there in that report." People are such GD idiots.

Okay I'm back

Hi Everybody, I'm back at it full swing as of today. I got all the footage I need for my movie, and with Bush releasing this BS progress report in Iraq and again calling it a "mixed bag", I just can't keep my mouth shut any more. Here goes...

This has nothing to do with the news

News update, everything is still turning slowly into shit. I just finished my first day of shooting on my first short film. Holy shit, it was awesome. This is totally out of context for this blog, but fuck it. I'm not reporting the news to you, my few but faithful readers, because there is too much shit going on in my personal life. We shot interiors today, and I don't know what is going to happen tomorrow. It went fabulously today, I couldn't have asked for more. Our insurance is fucked up, I'm not sure how we're going to get our exterior shots, but I'm living the dream, and I'm happy. For today, at least, I'm happy.

Scooter Libby gets what's coming to him

Bush did it. I knew it was coming, but this halfway bullshit doesn't fool me at all. Scooter Libby got a pardon, whether they call it that or not. He got two and a half years of his life back, and as for the fine? As for the loss of reputation? I'll bet anybody a million dollars that Scooter Libby doesn't have any trouble getting a job somewhere, and I'll bet he makes waaaay more than a quarter million dollars (the amount of his fine) in the next thirty months.

I actually don't have a problem with Scooter getting a pardon. In fact, Bush SHOULD have pardoned him, since Scooter was clearly doing exactly what Bush wanted. If he hadn't pardoned him, it would have been a supreme act of disloyalty. What I have a problem with is Bush pardoning him, in the context of Bush's unwavering support for tough sentences and mandatory minimums. I've written on this blog about the kid who got a DECADE in prison for having consensual sex with a fifteen year old girl when he was seventeen. Bush took a look at that case and decided not to intervene with a pardon. But now less than three years is too much for a guy who perjured himself to obfuscate the process by which this country was led into a war has resulted in thousands of deaths. Seems a little strange to me.

The question this raises is whether Scooter was, as I just heard someone so eloquently put it, a "designated defendant" for Bush and Cheney. It is interesting how quickly Libby changed his tune about putting Cheney on the stand in his trial. He just kind of took his lumps...almost as if he knew he was going to get off the hot seat when it came down to it.

So although Bush has the power to pardon anybody he wants, isn't it fair to say there's a conflict of interest here? The guy was supposed to go to prison for protecting Bush. Now Bush is pardoning him. So you know what? I think that's what they call a flaw in the system.

All the coverage in the world doesn't change policy

Washington Post has a profile of Bush today, and it crystallized something that had been nagging me for a while. There's no shortage of administration coverage out there. Quite the opposite, in fact. The problem is that every story I read diagnoses the same problem. It just diagnoses the same set of incorrect decisions and refusals the change, over and over and over. There is never a prescription for a set of concrete steps that would fix any of these problems.

Now by "these problems" I don't mean specific issues. There are plenty of articles and Op-Ed pieces on what to do about immigration, or the war in Iraq, Social Security, whatever. I mean what to do about the problem of the prospect of the next year and a half with a President that is an embarrassment and a danger to himself and others.

The article today on WaPost quotes some pundit as saying that Bush has "a knack for not looking in the rearview mirror". He reads some limited newspapers, but he doesn't really read about himself or his failings that much, and he considers the stubborn support of his positions a virtue.

The logical end of this line of thinking is that talking about how shitty Bush is will simply not have the desired effect. I want to see an article about what we, outside of the President's purview, can do to change policy. Basically, I want somebody to start talking about impeaching this guy. Why did Nancy Pelosi say that is off the table? What the fuck is her problem? I want this guy gone. Not in 18 months. Now.

Everything is getting worse

I woke up this morning depressed, and THEN I looked at the headlines. I actually don't even have the will to pick a story and rail about anything. We're losing in Iraq, more of our guys are getting killed than ever, everyone in the world hates us, out political system is hopelessly screwed up, our Constitution is in tatters and George Bush is using those tatters to wipe his ass after he just shit across all our faces. The supreme court has gone totally conservative on everything except protecting said Constitution, and Roe v. Wade will fall before the end of Bush's presidency. We're going to get terror attacked again within the next five years, and with any luck it'll happen in Hollywood and take me with it. Happy Friday.

Congress issues meaningless subpoena 5 years too late.

This article on HuffPost:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-wires/20070627/eavesdropping-subpoenas/??

describes the subpoenas issued today by the congress for a whole slew of documents related to warrantless wiretapping, and other blatantly illegal programs employed by the administration during the war on terror.

First, I would point to the same insightful comment I posted a few days ago. Tying this up in the courts is, for the administration, just as good as killing the subpoenas. 2008 looms closer and closer, and all Bush et al has to do is get to the end of his term. It would take a fool to believe that these problems will follow him back to his ranch in Crawford, whence he will disappear in January '09, only to emerge for $250,000 speaking engagements in front of morons who worship him.

Goddamn I hate this guy.

The Washington Post on Cheney, Part 3

Here is the third part of that profile on Cheney:

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/cheney/chapters/leaving_no_tracks/index.html


Finally, here is some of the muckraking that ought to have been the standard for this entire run of articles. This section focuses on Cheney's continued and viscous attempts to undercut environmental regulations for the benefit of industry, particularly the energy industry.

Like yesterday's article, there isn't a broad theme that I didn't already know existed. If you had asked me whether Cheney was Pro-Environment or Pro-business, I would have guessed the right side of the coin. But still, the details are enough to chill the blood.

Now, this is an issue that is near and dear to my heart. I'm a hugely Pro-Environment person, to give full disclosure. I believe that the degradation of the environment is the number one issue facing humanity today, and that a solution (or rather a comprehensive solution, involving countless small changes and fixes, in both regulation and personal behavior) is in the interests of EVERYONE. And if you're a farmer, or a fisherman, or a logger, who thinks your industry will suffer from increased regulation, too bad. You shouldn't have over-fished, clear-cut logged, or over-irrigated in the first place. You've been doing whatever you want for a hundred years, now it's time for Mother Nature to get some back.

To return to Cheney, I'd like to point out something about his tendency to "reach down" and talk directly to the people involved in the issues of interest. It's something for which he has been universally praised, and that's just ridiculous. Cheney called the 19th ranked person at the EPA, and left a message on her voice mail instructing her to "call the White House." That's not attention, that's intimidation.

What I mean, of course, is that what has been interpreted as Cheney "sinking his teeth" into an issue or some such bullshit, is Cheney going low enough on the totem pole to find people he can easily intimidate with his office, and people he can fire easily if they fail to respond to his intimidation.

And fire them he has. Over and over in the article, we see evidence of the Vice demanding his way, and demanding (and getting) resignations from people that disagreed with him. He abused his position by using it as a bully pulpit against people flustered and surprised at even receiving a call from the second most powerful man in the country.

To conclude, I place a ton of blame at the feet of the people who resigned instead of fought, and on the whole did so without a lot of clarity (or outright lies) about why they were resigning. One example is the head of the EPA, who said she was resigning for "Personal Reasons". Now she comes out for this article and says that it was actually because of the White House's behavior over environmental regulation.

Coming forward now, after it's too late to do anything except place blame on top of a large heap, is a cowardly, expedient thing to do. Where was her anger and her whistle-blowing when it would have made a difference? Then she just didn't want to be bothered with the heat that would have come down for her position. Now that the popular kids are saying what a bad guy Cheney is, she figures she'll jump on the pile.

It is this kind of cowardice that facilitates the kind of abuses described in this article. See lady, when you leave, they just put someone in your place who agrees with them. That's how we got in this shitty mess. All the people of principle (I'm talking to you Colin Powell) leave, and Bush/Cheney put talking heads in their place. It's pathetic.

To anyone left in the government with some principle: Ask yourselves why you got into government in the first place. Was it to protect the things you care about? This woman was the head of the EPA. Her career had nowhere else to go. Yet she saved face and, I assume, saved her "career" by resigning for "Personal Reasons" instead of stopping play and calling foul. That is a failure of the system, it is a failure of policy, and it is a failure of personal courage.

I'M DONE WITH PARIS HILTON

Paris Hilton got out of jail last night. She says she has changed. Either that is true or it isn't. If it is true, there's no more story. If it isn't true, I'm not giving that attention whore any more reinforcement. I refuse to be a party to her co-dependency with the tabloids a moment longer. If she comes on TV, I'm changing the channel.

The Washington Post on Cheney, Part 2

Here is the second part of the WaPost Article on Cheney:

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/cheney/chapters/a_strong_push_from_back_stage/index.html

I know I said I wasn't going to be updating as regularly, but I don't want to lose any regular readers I might have gained, and I have a few minutes, so...

I found this article deficient in the ways that the first installment was, but not nearly as bad. I think the basic problem the Post has is that they want to be perceived as objective, but if they wrote an objective piece on Cheney it would come off as a hack-job because the guy is so fucking evil.

Or maybe I'm just reading the article as a free pass because the things they are saying aren't a surprise to me. Looking at their narrative, it is actually a rather stark description of a Vice-President seeking to expand his power by deceiving anyone he has to, including the President. It's just that I already knew that was Cheney's MO. It's like a guy in prison for murder, and then somebody tries to shock me by telling me that he shot a guy. It's like, yeah, I get it, the guy's a killer. Tell me something I don't know.

Also, the article really hasn't dealt with a lot of the newer stuff about Cheney, and that's the stuff that I find the most problematic and absurd. I mean, compared with the transparently, flagrantly dishonest shit he's trying to pull now, the "I'm not part of the Executive Branch thing, all the stuff he's done as a run-up to that seems tame.

As a side note, I heard something really insightful on Hardball last night about that whole affair. I think it was David Gregory who said "Cheney is just trying to run a delay right now. He knows how much longer he has in office, and if he can stall with these ridiculous tactics for that long, he can do whatever he wants until he leave office." Great point. Cheney may indeed be the Anti-Christ.

Back to the article: One thing I did find really interesting was their blow-by-blow description of how Cheney got his way on the specifics of Bush's 2003 Tax Cuts. First, he screwed Greenspan (Chairman of the fed and most respected economist in the country) out of getting his say by placating him and then discrediting his evidence. Then, when Bush didn't want to include the capitol gains break that Cheney wanted, Cheney pitched the idea directly to members of the relevant House committee, had them put it in the bill, then went back and told the President that he had to give in to get the bill passed. Asshole.

So overall this profile has been a disappointment so far. Hopefully they'll get more into the meat tomorrow. I'll make sure to blog again at that point.

Temporary slowdown of posting

Hello to any loyal readers,
I'm currently directing a film, and we're really stepping up preproduction. I'm going to try and continue posting, but things are getting pretty crazy and I won't be able to update every day. Please bear with me, and I promise that starting July 11th, I'll be back up and posting multiple times a day.

Yours,
OGWiseman

Pay attention to Rhetorical shifts or you'll be in a diferent conversation without knowing it

I just found an EXCELLENT, GREAT, SUPERLATIVE article on Salon.com that I wanted to share:

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/06/23/al_qaeda/index.html

This article describes the rhetorical shift among the bush administration and the military leaders from calling the people we are fighting "insurgents" or "Sunni/Shia fighters" to calling them "Al Qaeda". This is the kind of thing that changes conversations, and the fact is that (as the article states) the Bush administration only a few years ago freely admitted that only the smallest portion of the enemy was actually Al Qaeda affiliated.

This is the kind of reporting that is truly important, and keeps people honest, particularly if others take notice and start to call officials on it directly.

At least as important, the author points out that the NY Times has picked up the administration rhetoric and put it in dozens of stories. Papers that are infamously liberal (at least according to those on the right) like the NYT should not blindly accept terminology changes like this, especially ones that are obviously bullshit. That's how conversations get changed, and rhetorical battles get won.

I've just written a letter to both the times and salon.com, chiding the one and congratulating the other. I suggest you all do likewise. This is an absolutely CRITICAL issue.

'08 Race degenerating quickly

Most of the articles about the '08 candidates online right now deal with issues like:

1) Obama saying that the religous right has stolen religion and used it to split the country. (which is true)
2) Giulani's reasons for quitting the Iraq study group. (which we'll never really know)
3) The lobbyists on McCain's staff. (Which doesn't matter since he has absolutely no shot anyway)
4) Bloomberg marching in a gay rights parade. (Uhhh...he's not even a candidate)

Now I really think that, with the other critical stories to cover around the world, there shouldn't be any stories about the '08 candidates. It's too early, and there's too damn many of them to keep the news focused on them right now.

But, since they are covering them, let me just point out that NONE of these stories have ANYTHING to do with any relevant issue. The news just is not reporting on candidates actual positions. It's ridiculous.

You know what would make a great article? Some papers should just publish a list of issues, and where each of the candidates stack up on those issues. How come that's not in any of the mainstream sites or papers? Maybe I'll put that on the blog, if I get time to compile it.

The Washington Post on Cheney, Part 1

The Post has a four part profile of the Vice Prez coming out this week, and I am going to be tracking it on this blog. I think that this is, while not the most important story in the news right now, certainly the freshest and most interesting. It has the potential to give us a glimpse into the most powerful Vice in the history of this country, at a time when he is kind of on the ropes.

The first part, though, reads like a puff piece. They spend a lot of time talking about his personality, his "kindness to subordinates, etc. Uhh...do they mean kindness to subordinates like taking career revenge on anyone who stands in his way? Or using Alberto Gonzales to deceive the President into taking his advice, as they report him having done in the article? Or do they mean that he remembers people's names? Cause remembering people's names can be interpreted as kindness, or it can be interpreted as setting them up to be used as tools. Most of the sociopaths I know are great with names.

They also talk a lot about how Cheney isn't interested in any verdict but history's, and how he honestly believes that what he is doing is good for the country. You know who else believed in what he was doing, and wasn't interested in the opinions of his contemporaries? Hitler.

To the CIA: Bend Over and Get Ready

Saw this morning that 700 pages of documents detailing illegal CIA activities are set fr release next week. I'm not going to speculate too heavily before I get a look at the docs themselves, but I think this should get real interesting. Stay tuned for updates, and buckle up...

PS-- The current CIA chief referred to the documents, which purportedly show illegal surveillance activities and unlawful imprisonments of enemies of the state, as "ancient history". Uhh...did that guy read about warrantless wiretapping and Guantanamo Bay? Cause I did. Memo to CIA Chief: Something happening a long time ago doesn't make it not relevant or excusable.

The Medium is the Massage (That's a joke, not a typo)

Check out this article:

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB219/index.htm

on George Washington University's excellent National Security Web Site. The article discusses the manipulation of media in Post-Saddam Iraq, and the transition from state-controlled media to an "Iraqi Free Media", whose message would, ironically, be controlled exclusively by the US, hence the white paper describing the apparatus and appropriate message to push.

The point here is not to notice that we wanted to manipulate the media in Iraq. I didn't need a Freedom of Information Act request to tell me that the USG wants to control the message in a time of war. They learned their lesson from Vietnam on that one.

The point IS that they did such a poor job of envisioning and planning how that might have been done. There is no mention in this document of any kind of alternative news sources, including low-budget, pirate TV news, nor does it give any thought to the internet (along the lines of Al Jazeera). This failure of imagination is staggering.

So even if we had won the military conflict, conducted a successful counter-insurgency operation, and executed our media-control strategy (we did none of these, except maybe the first), we would have been in the shit. If you can get a message out there, you can start a revolution.

That's what is so ironic about this whole document. Trying to find a way to truly control the message in this day and age is like writing a paper about how to square a circle. It's impossible by definition.

People have said, "The medium is the message". I don't know if that's true, but I think we can say that some time in the last quarter century, the medium became more important than the message. We live in an age of such volume of message that any particular thing is lost in the shuffle (a trend of which this blog is a symptom). Trying to control a message in that morass of soapboxes is, as I just said, impossible.

This fundamental misunderstanding of the situation with regard to message is a microcosm of this entire war. We have a politics and an attention span in this country with no appreciation for subtlety or nuance, and a situation in Iraq that is nothing but nuance. Trying to sum it up in a white paper, to say nothing of a political speech or, god forbid, a sound byte, is not an option. These matters take years of experience and honed instinct, something which few of our current leaders possess. They are really good at getting elected, laughably bad at understanding or governing. At least, it would be laughable if not for the death screams of all those people.

Dick Cheney is whatever he says he is

Just saw this article:

http://oversight.house.gov/story.asp?ID=1371

on HuffPost regarding the way in which Dick Cheney claimed his office was not required to follow government-wide procedures for safeguarding national security information, because his office is "not a part of the executive branch."

Okay, first of all, that statement is absurd on a number of levels. First, yes it is. Second, all Dick Cheney talks about is the need for secrecy and the protection of national secrets, so this is coming totally out of left field. It's just a deeply confusing position for the guy to try and take.

Second, there is another cover-up at work here. When Representative Waxman, Chairman of a House Oversight Committee, wrote to, guess who, Alberto Gonzales over at DOJ and requested he force the Vice-President to follow procedure, guess what Cheney did? If you said complained to Gonzo and tried to get the administrative office of the National Archives (the office that oversees the procedures) shut down, paste a gold star next to whatever computer you're sitting at.

As a side note, for a more complete listing of Cheney's unprecedented efforts at secrecy, follow this link:

http://oversight.house.gov/documents/20070621095118.pdf

I've accepted the fact that Cheney is going to do whatever he wants. I'v accepted the fact that he isn't going to tell anyone what he's doing. I've even accepted the fact that the Democrats are too pussy to do anything about it. Fine. That's their fault, not Cheney's. But then an ironic thought occurred to me. It was a memory, something I had once read...let's see, I'm calling up the memory banks...

Oh yeah. Remember this article?

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,198829,00.html

They put the money shot right up front. It reads:

Invoking executive privilege, Vice President Dick Cheney refuses to disclose details of meetings he held last year with Enron officials.

Looks like Cheney had a change of heart sometime since 2002. His status as a member of the executive is about the only area in which he's shown the least bit of flexibility. Sorry Dick, can't have it both ways.

Oh, and also, I put together this post in 30 minutes with nothing more than my memory and Google. How much does anyone want to bet that none of the major news networks run anything like this? You know what show might? The Daily Show. See, cause this sort of calling leaders on their bullshit is only acceptable as a firm of comedy. Otherwise, people might actually start to demand action.

Children and the Realities of the War on Terror

This is it. It's finally happened. The paradox of our War on Terror has finally crystallized today. For some reason it's not being reported on any of the major 'net new sites, but I just saw a report on Tucker Carlson's show on MSNBC that the US launched an air strike on a "high-value" Al Qaeda target in Pakistan and destroyed the compound he was living in, KNOWING that there were at least seven innocent children inside the building.

I say it's a paradox for the following reasons: My first thought is one that I've had before. At this point, what is the difference between us and the Terrorists? If we knowingly murder innocents in the pursuit of our military goals, how are we different than they? The answer is we are not.

My second thought is that the Terrorists knowingly put children in harm's way when they have them inside of a Terrorist compound. Because the fact is that the logical conclusion of my argument means that all Osama bin Laden has to do is strap a kid onto his back, and he is invulnerable. I mean, according to my own premise, if Osama constantly has a child within a twenty foot radius of his person, we can NEVER attack him without sinking to the Terrorists' level.

Now let me say that I am all in favor of finding and killing Osama bin Laden. If I had the chance I would pull the trigger on him myself. He is a truly evil, destructive man, and the world would unequivocally better without him.

So the real paradox is not with the Terrorists, but with us. America has set itself in an impossible position of needing to fight a war, but also needing to maintain the ethos that the death of innocents is totally unacceptable. This is a paradoxical position, because the prosecution of a war always involves the death of innocents, just as it always involves the kinds of abuses we saw on display at Abu Ghraib.

We have in this country the paradigm that the ultimate good is zero deaths. Our goal is that everyone should live forever, and nobody should suffer pain for which they do not recieve compensation. That paradigm is antithetical to the concept of warfare, which involves senseless death and the infliction of pain for which there can be no compensation. That's just the way it is. And the sooner we allow ourselves to percieve this paradox, the sooner we can start making sense of our situation, and start trying to find a way to extricate ourselves, either by deciding to get out, or by deciding to do what's necessary in the service of a greater goal. Just as they did in the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, and both World Wars, and just as we have failed to do in The Vietnam War, the Iraq War, and countless other, smaller conflicts in between.

Mike Bloomberg Changes Everything

Mike Bloomberg, the Mayor of New York, today renounced his membership in the Republican Party and registered as an Independent. Now, that doesn't mean he's running for President, but it does set him up for a Perot-Like run at an Independent candidacy. He's worth billions, and he can spend a billion dollars on this campaign and not even sweat it, and the guy is undeniably a genius.

For those of you wondering about his politics, I've done some research. There's a great website called "OnTheIssues.org" that analyzes candidates voting record in order to determine their overall stance on issues. Here's a basic Bloomberg rundown:

He's STAUNCHLY Pro-Choice and Pro-Gay Marriage.

He's STAUNCHLY Pro-Gun Control.

His stance on the War in Iraq is still unclear. He hasn't had to take a coherent position as Mayor of New York, so we'll have to wait and find out when and if he actually gets into the race. Stay tuned for updates.

On taxes, Bloomberg is fairly liberal, especially for a rich guy. He raised Property Taxes 18% as Mayor in order to balance the budget. He favors increases in spending for programs like Education, Health Care, and Defense. His positions aren't AS clear as they are on some other social issues, however.

Overall, I think we can safely call Bloomberg a moderate, but a social liberal. I've got to emphasize that he's not in the race yet, and at this point I must agree with the majority of the Pundits that Bloomberg will wait until the two parties have their nominees in place before deciding what to do.

If the nominees are really split to the left and right, along the lines of Obama and Thompson, look for Bloomberg to get in. If it's Hillary and Rudy, forget it, there's no room in that race for an independent, especially since that would mean three New Yorkers in the same race.

In any case, I love the idea of an independent candidacy whether or not I end up voting for Bloomberg. I've often said that what this country needs is the end of the two-party system. We need to go to more of a European system, where multiple parties more fully represent nuanced views and a variety of possible positions. No matter what ends up happening, this is a step in the right direction.

FoxNews should be ashamed

Right now, on FoxNews' front page, there are seven stories that relate to idiosyncratic, singular court cases whose primary appeal is "shock value" (meaning they are gross or disgusting violations of the law. One woman made a sex contract between her fifteen year old daughter and her thirty seven year old boyfriend. That's awful, but is that news?). The same page has only five stories relating to the war in Iraq. Of those five, one is negative and five are positive. FoxNews, you are the scum of the earth. You play one good story a week, and the rest of your reporting is propaganda. It is pathetic.

Audobon Society Report and the Paradigm of Consumption

I woke up this morning and read the following article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/19/opinion/19tue4.html?em&ex=1182398400&en=7d44618606a080ac&ei=5087%0A

The article talks about the disappearance of some of the most common bird species in N. America, with an average population reduction of 68%. It isn't so much that this comes as a surprise, but I was feeling really good this morning, until I read this and a pit settled in my stomach at the spectre of what is actually the most important issue facing humanity today. The article puts a fine point on the real problem:

"The trouble with humans is that even the smallest changes in our behavior require an epiphany."

The fact is that the only "solution" to the environmental problem is a total paradigm shift in human behavior across the board. We don't need a percentage reduction in fossil fuel emissions. We need a reduction by half of the amount people drive and fly in airplanes. We need huge and stringent controls on land use and air quality. And we can't even approach that in this country, much less developing countries.

What I refer to when I say paradigm shift is the fact that people are so resistant even to small changes. It take a national fight and a huge amount of political will to get a five percent reduction in fossil fuels. The first thing that has to happen is we are to save ourselves is people have to stop scoffing at the idea. Maybe that will take a few more Hurricane Katrinas, a few more Ritas, and even a few uprisings by the third world, whose access to basic services and potable water will be totally gone within the next few decades. It's a sad fate, but one we have earned, and one we are laughing in the face of. It scares the hell out of me.

MSNBC News Shows failure today

Okay, let me say first that I think the Pundits and hosts on MSNBC are the best of all the 24 hour news networks. Top to bottom, they ask the best questions and let the smallest number of egregious statements go unremarked.

That said, they failed today with regard to the Karl Rove email story. Chris Matthews and Tucker Carlson both devoted extensive coverage to Presidential Elections more than a year away, and neither did so much as mention the fact that 88 or more members of the current administration have broken the law, and that increasing evidence is available that they violated both the Hatch Act and the Presidential Records Act. These newest revelations are damning on a number of levels, and are but a further example of the duplicitous and decietful nature of the administration in general.

The only Pundit to give it proper coverage was Keith Oberman. Bravo Keith, but the problem is that he is too liberal for it to make a difference. That is, Oberman is going to cover ANY story that looks bad for Bush, so him being the only one to cover it makes it look like a liberal issue, which it is not. This is a well-established legal precedent that dates from early in the last century, and it should have been a lead story on any network. Bad form, MSNBC

Voting and sympathy for the poor

I just had a two-hour argument with my roomates about welfare (and by welfare we were talking about a host of social security and other programs in this country designed to benefit the poor) in this country, in which I argued that not that many people get on welfare who don't need it, that welfare fraud doesn't cost taxpayers that much money, and that it is money well spent since people kicked off welfare would likely turn to crime, and it costs much more money to incarcerate someone than it does to just cut them a check every month.

Now, I believe in all those points. I believe that people on Welfare by and large don't want to be on it, and that they would get jobs if they could find jobs that paid a living wage and that they could execute. Many of them are mentally ill, or just plain stupid and illiterate. I have a lot of sympathy for such people. Not in the least because many of them came from families trapped in cyclical poverty, without any reasonable parents or guardians.

But there is one thing about poor people that pisses me off, and I'm not just talking about people on welfare. It pisses me off about black people, poor people, and a host of other groups that legitimately complain that they get the shaft in this country: They don't vote.

Less than half this country votes even in the most important elections. The national elections that determine much of this country's policy every four years, and its really the middle and upper classes, and old people, that determine the outcome of those polls.

And even among groups that do vote, and I'm thinking here of poor religous people, many don't vote in their actual interests. They vote on three social issues: Abortion Rights, Gay Marriage, and Stem Cell Research. So they vote Republican, even though on EVERY SINGLE OTHER ISSUE, they should be voting Democrat.

If every single person in this country voted, and voted according to what was actually in their overall interests, this country would experience a sea change overnight. We would take a gigantic leap to the left (although I hate even making left/right distinctions), and the politicians could finally stop pandering to a small group that actually votes and has all the money.

My point isn't that I hate poor people. It's not even that poor people need to "pull themselves up by the bootstraps" or some bullshit like that. It's just that voting is free. It costs nothing. It's hardly even an effort. So I get sick of defending people who are too apathetic even to do that.

If this isn't the final straw we have to just declare Bush "King of America"

Check out this article on HuffPost:

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/06/16/counsel-hatch-probe/

Here is the pertinent passage:

The White House has admitted that roughly 20 agencies have received a PowerPoint briefing created by Karl Rove’s office “that included slides listing Democratic and Republican seats the White House viewed as vulnerable in 2008, a map of contested Senate seats and other information on 2008 election strategy.”

Politicization of the federal government has been illegal for decades. The 1939 Hatch Act specifically prohibits partisan campaign or electoral activities on federal government property, including federal agencies.

Okay...so this is it, right? There must be some criminal charges forthcoming. The White House has ADMITTED that this happened, and there is no grey area. This is illegal. If they can't touch Rove on this, because of some Executive Privilege bullshit, this is the last straw. I'm renouncing my citizenship and moving to Europe.

The truth we've all known about Abu Ghraib...a few years too late.

Everyone should read the following article from the New Yorker:

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/06/25/070625fa_fact_hersh?currentPage=1

My comments are my own. All quotations are from the above article.

This article describes the intricate procedures and chain of command by which events like Abu Ghraib are allowed to transpire, and the calculation with which deniability is manufactured by high ranking members of the military, as well as civilian leadership.

Now, it has been obvious for a while that these horrific events were not simply the work of a few low-level soldiers. My friends serving in Iraq have told me as much in confessional tones, that these behaviors are the exception rather than the rule, and that the only violation of procedure in this case was the photographic documentation of the acts.

The basic problem is that, given the strict control of the civilian press by the military, the only people in a position to expose these abuses are the ones with the most vested interest in keeping them a secret: The US Military. All that stands in the way of this cover-up is the integrity and honesty of common soldiers and officers. The same qualities that the armed forces deem secondary to loyalty and blind obedience.

The other mechanism in place to prevent these abuses is, of course, congressional oversight. The article says:

By law, the President must make a formal finding authorizing a C.I.A. covert operation, and inform the senior leadership of the House and the Senate Intelligence Committees. However, the Bush Administration unilaterally determined after 9/11 that intelligence operations conducted by the military—including the Pentagon’s covert task forces—for the purposes of “preparing the battlefield” could be authorized by the President, as Commander-in-Chief, without telling Congress.

So there is problem number one. Congress (which is not nearly aggressive enough in oversight anyway) was kept in the dark by an administration driven mad by fear-induced power.

The second problem was related, and potentially as serious: Those in the Special Operations community suffering under the same delusion of power, who decided to operate (or were forced by circumstances to operate) outside of designated guidelines. Again, the NY Article:

J.S.O.C.’s special status undermined military discipline. Richard Armitage, the former Deputy Secretary of State, told me that, on his visits to Iraq, he increasingly found that “the commanders would say one thing and the guys in the field would say, ‘I don’t care what he says. I’m going to do what I want.’ We’ve sacrificed the chain of command to the notion of Special Operations and GWOT”—the global war on terrorism.

So either way what we have here is a breakdown in the checks and balances that are supposed to control the behavior of our armed forces. The fact is that we will never know which it was, such are the pitfalls of allowing people to classify their missions and prevent transparency from ever being achieved.

But what we can say is that the secrecy of our secret operations has gotten totally out of control. From the article:

A former high-level Defense Department official said that, when the Abu Ghraib scandal broke, Senator John Warner, then the chairman of the Armed Services Committee, was warned “to back off” on the investigation, because “it would spill over to more important things.” A spokesman for Warner acknowledged that there had been pressure on the Senator, but said that Warner had stood up to it—insisting on putting Rumsfeld under oath for his May 7th testimony, for example, to the Secretary’s great displeasure.

What the article fails to mention is who could possibly have put pressure on a high-ranking senator. Who could have the secrecy to avoid being named in the article, yet have the power to force a sitting senator to "stand up to" him, rather than simply tell him to shut the hell up?

The very existence of any such person is a huge problem for this country. It literally smacks of the SS, or the KGB under the worst auspices of Communist Russia. I am not merely using these analogies to make a point. We in the free world CANNOT allow people to wield this sort of power from the shadows, any more than we can allow the people high up in our military or civilian leadership to claim they were unaware of abuses as a defense of their inaction. In a lengthy quote from the article:

Nevertheless, Rumsfeld, in his appearances before the Senate and the House Armed Services Committees on May 7th, claimed to have had no idea of the extensive abuse. “It breaks our hearts that in fact someone didn’t say, ‘Wait, look, this is terrible. We need to do something,’ ” Rumsfeld told the congressmen. “I wish we had known more, sooner, and been able to tell you more sooner, but we didn’t.”

Rumsfeld told the legislators that, when stories about the Taguba report appeared, “it was not yet in the Pentagon, to my knowledge.” As for the photographs, Rumsfeld told the senators, “I say no one in the Pentagon had seen them”; at the House hearing, he said, “I didn’t see them until last night at 7:30.” Asked specifically when he had been made aware of the photographs, Rumsfeld said:

"There were rumors of photographs in a criminal prosecution chain back sometime after January 13th . . . I don’t remember precisely when, but sometime in that period of January, February, March. . . . The legal part of it was proceeding along fine. What wasn’t proceeding along fine is the fact that the President didn’t know, and you didn’t know, and I didn’t know.
And, as a result, somebody just sent a secret report to the press, and there they are,” Rumsfeld said.

Taguba (A full General, the primary investigating officer into the scandal, who has since taken a forced retirement), watching the hearings, was appalled. He believed that Rumsfeld’s testimony was simply not true. “The photographs were available to him—if he wanted to see them,” Taguba said. Rumsfeld’s lack of knowledge was hard to credit. Taguba later wondered if perhaps Cambone had the photographs and kept them from Rumsfeld because he was reluctant to give his notoriously difficult boss bad news.

There are two possibilities here. One is that Rumsfeld is lying, and he was aware of the abuses. In that case, he is a human rights violator not qualitatively different than Saddam Hussein. The other is that he is telling the truth, and he didn't know. What it's impotrant to understand is that having your underlings in a place where they fail to inform you of something this serious is not deniability, it is negligence. It is not WORSE is Rumsfeld's underlings knew of this and failed to tell him, and he failed to ask, but it isn't that much better. He has still failed this country miserably. And anyone else in the chain of command, up to and including the President, who was similarly ill-informed, is equally negligent.

Finally, we come to the cover up, always the easiest part to prove and, in this case, actually the easiest to condemn. I've seen the Abu Ghraib photos, and they are terrible, but I do not hate the soldiers in them. I've often said that these kinds of abuses have occured in every war that has ever been fought, and will occur in every war that is ever waged. The point is that you cannot dehumanize a population enough to kill them, yet maintain an understanding of their dignity as human beings, enough to prevent rape and torture from occurring.

So the question of real importance is whether this torture was the sad but natural consequence of war, or the calculated policy of those tasked to oversee and prosecute the strategy. The following quote from the article may shed some light:

The former senior intelligence official said that when the images of Abu Ghraib were published, there were some in the Pentagon and the White House who “didn’t think the photographs were that bad”—in that they put the focus on enlisted soldiers, rather than on secret task-force operations. Referring to the task-force members, he said, “Guys on the inside ask me, ‘What’s the difference between shooting a guy on the street, or in his bed, or in a prison?’ ” A Pentagon consultant on the war on terror also said that the “basic strategy was ‘prosecute the kids in the photographs but protect the big picture.’ ”

Let me answer the question posed in that second to last sentence. The difference between shooting a guy in the street, as opposed to in his bed or in a prison, is that in the street, the guy has a chance to shoot back. That's the difference between a war and a massacre.

There are basically two sides in this conflict (That would be the conflict over the cover-up/information failure in Abu Ghraib. There are, unfortunately, many more sides than that in the Iraq War.). One side is the portion of the civilian and military leadership that claims no abuses are occuring, and no cover-up has occured, with reference to Abu Ghraib. They claim that aggressive investigation techniques are just that, and that the reported acts that are clearly torture did not occur. The other side is the other portion of the leadership, which says that there are unimaginable abuses happening at Abu Ghraib and other places around the world, and that the leadership, particularly the civilian leadership, right up to and including former Secretary Rumsfeld, did everything they could to obfuscate the acts.

Now, I want to point out two things. One is that one of the primary people on the second side is General Taguba, the guy who was specifically assigned to investigate this matter, who has spent more time than anyone looking at these issues, and who has since been (by his own account) ostracized by the military leadership and forced into early retirement in spite of his years of dedicated service. The second is that what we are really arguing about here is the semantics of torture, and whether or not the things that occured at Abu Ghraib are widespread or isolated instruments. What actually happened there is not at issue. As I said, I have personally SEEN PICTURES of people being tortured. That case is closed.

Normally I am all about shades of grey, but in this case, one or the other group is lying. Their accounts of what has happened are diametrically opposed. Either Rumsfeld had seen the pictures or he hadn't. Either he told people to cover it up or he did not. Either instructions came down to put the MP's in charge of softening prisoners up, or they did not. There doesn't seem to be a lot of middle ground here, as much as Rumsfeld, et al would like to create one.

The leadership insisting there is no torture and no coverup (Rumsfeld, et al) are protecting an organization which makes them among the most powerful people in the world. They are also protecting themselves from criminal prosecution from human rights violations. And they are doing it by sacrificing people with no power or voice to fight back.

The leadership claiming a coverup (Taguba, et al) are stirring up a hornet's nest within an organization they have dedicated their lives to. They are being widely criticized and ostracized by their peers, and in many cases they are ruining their careers.

The nice thing about a blog is that it is not a court of law. I don't have to prove anything, I don't even have to draw conclusions. So let me just pose this question. Given the two previous sets of circumstances, who does it seem would be more likely to lie?

Saddam Hussein and a Time Machine

As anyone who reads this blog obviously knows, I'm very much against the war in Iraq. It seems that most of the congresspeople in this country are against it also. I hear Republicans use the rhetorical device of asking "Well do you think we would be better off with Saddam Hussein still in power?" and forcing people to address that question on their terms. Why do Democrats, or any reasonable person, allow that to happen?

The answer to that question is simple. If it meant that we had never invaded Iraq, and this whole mess had never started, yes, I think we would be much better off with Saddam Hussein still in power. Not only would we be better off, but the Iraqi people would be better off. We are now killing a hundred Iraqi civilians a day, by the Pentagon's own estimates. Saddam wasn't doing that. Political repression through violent means? Yes. A hundred dead a day? No. So yes, everyone involved would be better off if Saddam were still in power.

By the way, guess what will happen once we leave: Someone like Saddam or worse will come into power. That's after a period of ethnic cleansing and civil war to rival anything happening in Africa. Thousands dead, and then we'll be, and the Iraqis will be, just as bad off as we all were before, if not worse. They will have less infrastructure, less ability to meet basic needs, and still no democracy or freedom. Nice.

Follow up to the arming of Sunni Insurgents

I just read an interesting although somewhat confusing article on slate.com regarding the arming of Sunni Insurgent groups that I posted on yesterday:

http://www.slate.com/id/2168400/fr/flyout

This article seems at times to make opposing points, and may simply be a symptom of how confused and hopeless our entire Iraq situation has become, but it suggested one interesting point to me that I thought worth making here.

The article says that "The main Bush argument for the surge has been that a withdrawl would embolden Al Qaeda in its actions in Iraq and around the world." I've heard Bush make versions of this argument many times, some version of the idea that "Iraq is the frontline of the war on terror and the fight against Al Qaeda."

Now, hardly anyone disputes that Al Qaeda had no significant presence in Iraq until we arrived there. Even the idea that Saddam supported and sponsored terrorism has been disproven, much less the idea that there was a terrorist presence actually inside the country. So we created the Al Qaeda presence there by going there and setting up shop.

Now if I, as a member of society, start a fight. If I throw a punch on someone, and they start to fight back, and they get the upper hand, and then I kill them, I get charged with murder. That is, the fact that the person was fighting me and might have killed me is not a mitigating circumstance, because I started the fight. The situation would never have existed had I not thrown the first punch. Yet it seems that in the case of nations, such behavior is justified, at least according to the logic of this administration.

Why is it that behavior not allowed within a country is nonetheless practiced by the country. Doesn't this seem hyperbolically hypocritical? We should not be able to use Al Qaeda as a justification for our continued presence in Iraq, because we brought them there and inflicted them on the Iraqi people.

Footsteps of the Apocalypse

I just learned about this story on "The Daily Show", and I had to google it to find it on any mainstream news website. Here is the NYTimes link:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/11/world/middleeast/11iraq.html?ref=todayspaper

This is a story about how the US Military is now arming the Sunni insurgeny that was killing our troops scant months ago, on the condition that those troops promise to fight only Al Qaeda from here on out. The US commanders supporting the plan admit that it is "fraught with risk."

Did I miss the part where we lifted the prohibition in the Army against hallucinogenic drugs? What are these guys fucking on? I mean look, I know the blogosphere is generally blowing up about this, and I know at least 99% of the comments are exactly the same as this one, but the reason for that is simple: People who take the time to write blogs also generally take the time to read at least a little bit of history. Read about ANY time in the history of this or any other country that we have provided weapons to an insurgent or revolutionary group. The result is ALWAYS that group using the weapons to our desire in the short-term, then turning them on us in the long term. There's one group that everyone knows that has followed this pattern: The Taliban.

So the question isn't whether the Sunni's will break their word, but when they will do it. It's a simple issue of the moral scale: If you're willing to kill someone, it means nothing to lie to them, especially when needed supplies and weapons hang in the balance. It's the same principle that allows our soldiers to abuse and torture Iraqi prisoners with such apparent disregard. Torture is less than murder, so what's the problem?

The lack of understanding on the part of our generals is gross and disturbing. In fact, it is unbelievable. The only logical conclusion is that they aren't ignorant. They're desperate. This is a last resort, it has to be. If not it is the single stupidest, most unnecessary blunder in the history of organized warfare.

This is the last gasp of a dying fish lost in an endless desert. The come-down from a crack binge that started at the edge of memory. It's not hyperbole to say that this is the lowest point in American history since I was born.

Chris Matthews did an hour long show today without mention of this story. It's not leading on any of the news web sites right now. I follow news rabidly, and I didn't hear about this until just now. That's trouble for this country. Big trouble.

Shrine Attacks and the Definition of Insanity

Today's attack on one of the holiest shrines in Baghdad underscores a transition in my understanding of US policy in Iraq in general -- What was once merely misguided is now teetering on the brink of insanity.

The definition of insanity is repetition of the same action over and over with the expectation of different results. Today, after the shrine was bombed, General Petraeus said on ABC that he was optimistic, and that Iraq's leadership had done the right thing in universally condemning the attacks and calling for calm.

Is this some sort of new step? Was there a time at which Maliki's government was not condeming terrorism and not calling for calm? I hardly think so. So, Petraeus should not claim optimism in the face of renewed tactics that have proven ineffective in the past. Ineffective at least in the sense that today's attack was part of the result. Calling for calm and condemnation, sad to say, just doesn't mean anything to terrorists. And the regular people of Iraq have no reason to believe those calls will be effective, since we have shown no ability to enforce that calm.

Petraeus also claimed that the attacks today were the work of Al Qaeda. Maybe he's right, maybe not. But whether they were or not is immaterial, because either way it's bad news. I'm not even sure which would be worse: Either our forces are so ineffective against Al Qaeda that they were able to carry out a major attack against a known target in the center of the city which is the lynchpin of this entire conflict, or a homegrown terrorist cell is operating within the context of the greater civil war happening there. Wow, what a shitty set of options.

If we examine this in the context of our options going forward, we see that the result is the same in either case. Let's say it was Al Qaeda. They are doing this to stir up the ethnic hatreds that fuel the civil war, to make our situation there more untenable. The silver lining is that in doing so, Al Qaeda is itself stirring up the ire of the Iraqis, which means that when we leave, Al Qaeda is likely to find no firm purchase for recruiting or other operations.

If it wasn't Al Qaeda, then it is clear that the civil war is escalating, and it is equally clear that when we leave, things are going to get a lot worse, and in a hurry. What we must have the courage to face is that this is going to happen no matter when we leave, whether tomorrow of fifty years from now. This conflict has been going on for hundreds of years, so waiting even fifty years for us to leave means nothing to the Sunni or Shia.

Either way, this is yet another sign that it is time to get out -- Immediately. A failure to do so at this point, and insistence on the same optimism and impotent calls for a truce that have led us to this point, is a textbook case of insanity.

Evolution and the Presidency

I just heard Mike Huckabee say "I don't think anyone in America cares about whether their presidential candidates believe in evolution." Uhh...really? Actually, Governor Juckabee, I care. To me that's like saying nobody cares whether their candidates believe in Gravity. If you don't believe in either of those things, you are not competent to enter into any sort of reasonable discourse, because you clearly are not persuaded even by overwhelming evidence. The problem is not evolution per se, but the idea that scientific proof must be seen to put argument to rest. It's the fact that a refusal of the principle of evolution is a refusal of the scientific paradigm, and that is simpy no longer acceptable in a mainstream candidate for president.

Huckabee went directly onto say "I think there are issues Democrats and Republicans can agree on. We have 2 kids drop out of High School every second, and others who put their heads down and take the most expensive nap in America." So I guess Huckabee is trying to push himself as the pro-education candidate.

Hey Mike, what do you think they teach in those schools? If you want kids to agree with you that evolution is bullshit, you don't need to wake them up, you just need to make sure they sleep through science class.

Paris Hilton and a Black Honor Student from Georgia

I just read this:

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,280572,00.html

article on Foxnews.com, which I only usually read to keep up on what the enemy is saying. This time though, I'll say that they reported an important story that puts other issues in a reasonable context.

This kid, an honor student, was 17 when he got a blowjob from a 15-year old girl. The key here is that there was no rape involved, she totally consented to the encounter. There was a video made of the incident (not by the accused), prosecutors showed that video to a jury, and the kid got 10 YEARS in prison. Let me repeat that. A kid in High School got a decade in prison for getting head from another kid in High School. Uuhhhhh...WHAT?

By the way, if that's a crime, I should probably confess that when I was a senior in High School, there was plenty of hook-ups between guys in my class and Sophmore girls (I had a Senior GF at the time), and none of them got anything more than a Hi-5. This makes me absolutely sick, and it smacks of extreme racism. I don't know for sure, but I'd give someone 5 to 1 odds that the "Victim" (who never claimed to be a victim) was white. Maybe 10 to 1.

So the kid just got his sentence reduced on appeal, by the one judge in all of Georgia with an ounce of common sense. And now the prosecutor is appealing THAT decision, trying to keep this honor student in prison -- for nothing.

The real question is this: What is more dangerous, consensual sex between two underage kids who attend the same high school, or multiple drunk driving and driving with a suspended license violations?

Maybe someone should send this story to Paris Hilton in jail, or to Sheriff Lee Baca, or better yet, to Alberto Gonzales and George Bush. This is an absolute traventy of justice, and my heart really goes out to this kid and his family. I wasn't as much of a news junkie when this story first broke as I am now, but I can't believe it. Where is the outcry? Where is the fairness, and the justice in this justice system?

The sad part is that some small part of me was starting to feel for Paris, because I was becoming convinced that maybe she was getting unfairly prosecuted for her celebrity. And maybe that's the case. But sorry Paris, your case has been usurped in my heart by all the much greater transgressions of the Justice System that happen in this country EVERY SINGLE DAY.

Paris, America is burning

I just heard a reporter say the following words: "Here is video of Paris Hilton leaving her home just a few minutes ago...sorry we couldn't bring this to you live, but we had to cut away to get a report from the Pentagon. We're back now though."

Ouch. I think our country might be fucked.

Dick Cheney and the Mona Lisa

Today there were "new revelations" in the NSA wiretapping case that showed that ***pause to register my incredible shock*** Dick Cheney may have been directly involved in the effort to circumvent legal challenges to the warrantless wiretapping program, and that he vindictively blocked the promotion of the career attorney involved in promulgating those challenges.

My question is, was there ever any doubt in anyone's mind that this was the case? Does anyone believe that Alberto Gonzales made a spirited and in all probability illegal effort to legalize a program invented by the white house, without the prodding of Cheney/Bush? Isn't it likely that he had some kind of impetus, from somewhere, and if it is, where else could that impetus have come from than the only masters he serves?

To make my point without rhetorical questions: Alberto Gonzales, whether his efforts were illegal or not, certainly went to extrordinary and extreme lengths to make this program legal. Furthermore, people do not resort to such extreme measures without the instruction of, or at very least the approval of, those above them. Finally, there is nobody above Alberto Gonzales except the President and Vice President. So, one or both of them must have told him to do it, or he wouldn't have.

I don't even have to point out the obvious fact that Cheney is one of the most evil men I have ever been made aware of to make this point, but that don't hurt either, ya dig?

This is all so silly because the fact is we can all see the picture. We can all see the chain of events that obviously happened, and the ricidulousness of the stonewalling currently under way by anyone who might be thought to be responsible. It's just that apparently, unless Cheney or Bush actually says they did this, there's nothing anyone can do. And since it's apparently a given in this country that neither them nor anyone who works for them can be called or compelled to testify about anything, they will never have to face the choice of admitting the obvious or perjuring themselves. Not that they would hesitate to perjure themselves, but it would be some satisfaction to me to know they had done it, instead of having to watch them smugly explain why they don't have to tell anybody shit.

This is a little like if I went to France and put my finger over one of the Mona Lisa's eyes, and then told everyone that the Mona Lisa had been stolen. And then someone told me the Mona Lisa was right there, and would I please stop touching it. And then I said "No, look, the Mona Lisa has two eyes, this painting only has one. And people kept pointing out that I was just, in fact, covering a tiny part of the picture, and that didn't change the fact that the painting was the Mona Lisa. And then I told everyone to stop looking at me and I spit in anyone's face who got too close. That's literally how ridiculous I find this entire situation.

Scooter Libby and Diminishing Returns on Justice

Scooter Libby got 30 months in prison today, and a lot of the pundits are saying that it is for his role in the "Plame leak case." Uhhh, no its not. Scooter Libby had no role in the leak case. He perjured himself as part of the cover up.

This is what happens when, as so often is the case, the cover up becomes more a news article than the scandal itself. We punish the cover up and consider the crime itself avenged. But should the people (Rove, Cheney, and by extension, Bush...oh, did I mention Rove?) who actually perpetrated the crime of exposing Valerie Plame be let off the hook because we caught Scooter Libby lying about it? Obviously not. And furthermore, isn't it overwhelmingly likely that the people who committed the initial crime are the same people who 'requested' that Libby perjure himself?

It always seems ridiculous to me that lower level people like Libby are willing to commit crimes to protect those above them, who obviously don't give a shit about them. It doesn't jive with my commonsense understanding of pop psychology, according to which people are willing to blame pretty much anyone. Not only that, most of the people I know seem to have a certain relish for abdicating themselves from blame by shifting responsibility to anyone and everyone else.

I will give that to this current crowd we have sliming their way around the white house. Whether it's because they inspire fear, love, or whatever, or even if it's just because they hire morons in the mold of Lenny from "Of Mice and Men", they (again, Rove, Cheney, whomever) would never have been able to avoid prosecution for a litany of offenses this long without the obsequious loyalty of their underlings.

So what are we left with? A series of sacrifices on the altar of justice that don't even come close to appeasing the conscience of the people. It's been so long since someone in the highest ranks actually got what they deserved that the country has come to accept an adulterated version of justice as a matter of course. And that's really a shame.

Talking Heads and The War

I'm watching Hardball with Chris Matthews (MSNBC) right now. It's my favorite of the bullshit talking head shows, a category into which I don't put excellent shows like Charlie Rose, et al. Anyways, Matthews does a nice job, but he is so limited by the format of his show that I can barely stand to watch it at times.

Today he had Bob Shrum on, a pundit who I actually like, and they spent 20 minutes talking about Krum's book, and Matthews was grilling him on comments he had made about the Presidential candidates. Things like Edwards saying gays made him uncomfortable at times, and a bunch of other meaningless crap. And I suddenly thought "Hey, did the Iraq war end during the last commercial break? Or is Chris Matthews just helping Shrum pimp his book at the expense of genuine content?"

I yelled at the TV for a minute, then my roomate told me to shutup and calm down. It's not that there's anything wrong with pimping books, and I understand that it's a hour-a-day show, and they can't have hard-hitting discussion every single second, but it's so damn frustrating to watch them talk about BS for twenty minutes, and then have to cut off discussion of an actual issue because they "ran out of time". Can we have two commercial breaks discussion about the most important issue in the world, and maybe chop 10 minutes out of the Bob Shrum advertisement? Is that too much to ask?

Coercive Interrogation is Bullshit

I just finished reading a fascinating article:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19032165/site/newsweek/page/0/

In which the Steven Kleinman, a veteran interrogator from as far back as WWII, argues that coercive interrigation techniques (read: torture) are indefensible on grounds of effectiveness, rather than any particular moral or legal problem. This is something that has made common sense to me for quite some time, and I was glad to see a mainstream publication giving voice to the position.

Kleinman favors instead the use of empathetic techniques, the defusal of resistance postures through counter-intuitive, overly friendly and helpful stances that create rapport and a desire to please on the part of the subject.

In one of the article's most interesting exchanges, the interviewer suggests that the level of fanaticism found in terrorists today would render non-coercive techniques ineffective. Kleinman pushes against this point by insisting that Nazi fanaticism (during the period he was cutting his teeth with these techniques) was commensurate with terrorists devotion to Osama bin Laden today.

It seems to me that, even if he is wrong, and the terrorists today are greater fanatics than the Nazis, that only makes his case stronger. Fanaticism (defined by me as the willingness to suffer and inflict suffering for a person or cause) is more help in resisting torture than in resisting empathetic techniques.

Kleinman's techniques involve more subterfuge and deception than coercive techniques, and those weapons are more likely to circumvent fanaticism than a head on challenge. In fact, physical suffering plays directly into the fanatics hands by allowing him to "offer up" that suffering to his God or figurehead.

A friend of mine who was an on-the-ground interrogator attached to an infantry unit in Iraq told me that by far the most effective technique he has seen used on the terrorists was a religous reversal. That is, convincing a religous fanatic that Allah had intended for him to survive whatever battle he had been captured during, and that Allah's will now was for him to cooperate with the US. (Otherwise, Allah would have allowed him to die) The point about this technique is that when it works, it works all the way. No disinformation, no withholding, as opposed to coercove techniques which force interrogators to fight tooth and nail for every gain.

Kleinman also made an interesting point with regard to the assumed effectiveness of coercive techniques. He said that shows which depict torture (most notably "24") show it (falsely) to be such an effective method, that even the opponents of torture tend to oppose it on legal or moral grounds rather than pressing on the expected results. This is a huge mistake.

The question is whether the creators of such shows bear any responsibility to the public trust, in terms of spreading this disinformation. I have the same question about shows (I was watching "Mission Impossible III" last night, and they did this.) that depict someone performing CPR, pressing sharply on someone's chest, and restarting a stopped heart. This is medically impossible, that technique is only useful for keeping minimally oxygenated blood flowing through the veins until actual medical help can be obtained. Do people actually try this? And if so, should the creators of such shows be held responsible for creating this dangerously fictional perception?

Finally, I fail to understand why opponents of torture (Notably John McCain. There isn't even really a debate in the Democratic Party.) fail to utilize these arguments in their opposition to torture. During the last debate, McCain said "We could never gain as much from torture as we would lose in international opinion." (That quote is close, it may not be on the money.) Those kinds of arguments are inherently weak, because A) loss of international opinion is a hypothetical future event and B) It should be clear from the 2004 election that 51% of this country doesn't give a shit about international opinion. If McCain (and others) would step up and make the debate much more about the ineffectiveness of torture rather than the abhorrent nature of the means, they wouldn't come off as such wussies. And they would still be right.