When the Tiger Chastises the Lion for Being a Predator

The Orwellian nature of the US response to Russian action in South Ossetia and Georgia has been comical at best, and a bellicose display of overt hypocrisy at worst. As I wrote mid-August, US leaders were able to simultaneously declare "the days of spheres of influence behind us" and sign a missile-defense pact with Poland (to compliment the existing deal with the Czech Republic) to, in essence, extend their sphere of influence. Thus, they went a step further than the typical hypocritical foreign policy stances and were actively engaged at that precise moment in exactly the thing they were speaking out against.

It is certainly a mark of supreme arrogance to engage in such practice, to make it so blindingly clear that the rules one would apply to others shall have no application to oneself, and perhaps in a bygone era the US's argument would have flown. But the Iraqi occupation is not yet a thing of the past, and the moral standing of the US, already shaky, has worn perilously thin. Here was one predator to another saying, "Thou shalt not eat meat." And the entire Western world nodded in unison.

The US continued its campaign of unintentional brevity yesterday, by withdrawing from a nuclear pact with Russia (at least temporarily), as a means of punishing them and teaching them those lessons we never felt beholden to ourselves. But, it seems, recent history has caught up to the administration, as they withdrew that proposition today.

The Bush administration, after considerable internal debate, has decided not to take direct punitive action against Russia for its conflict with Georgia, concluding that it has little leverage if it acts unilaterally and that it would be better off pressing for a chorus of international criticism to be led by Europe.

Their aversion to unilateralism is perhaps a few years too late, but laudable nonetheless. Of course, the underlying accusations are the same, the Bush administration just realized it has no leverage. They still believe that only certain nations are allowed satellites, only certain nations are granted retaliatory action, and only certain nations are to be given so much as a matter of weeks to withdraw its forces from a country.

That this comes from a country that invaded a country that had performed not a single act of aggression towards it (Georgia, however, did attack Russian citizens in South Ossetia), and a country that still occupies a country more than five years after it declared the end of a war, has met with only miniscule cynicism speaks volumes as to the waning influence of reason and logic in American politics.

The reality of the situation can be debated, but no matter the conclusion of such banalities it remains true that none in power are concerned with the outcome of such an argument. Reality does not matter. Reality is not indicated by truth or objective assessment, but by success. That is to say, that which breeds the desired result shall stand as reality. If the ends sought should change, so, too, will 'reality' be bent to serve them.

Though they may plea otherwise, the dealings of the past three weeks have been nothing if not overt exertion of spheres of influence, those despised relics from the past. Georgia's inclusion in NATO, and by extension, further isolation of Russia, is all that is sought, and the arguments are being bent around that goal (inevitability, rather). Standards of democracy do not apply. Even such basic tenets of forward-progressing time do not apply, as Georgia's initial incursion into Ossetia has been effectively flushed down the memory hole.

Such assaults on logic and reason are not merely tolerated, but celebrated. The realpolitik of a new generation, citizens, pundits, and journalists alike stumble over each other to play the game better than the next. Citizens can be expected to be overly credulous. On foreign policy, pundits range between 10 and 9.5. But journalists should provide a voice of reason, or at least an honest accounting of facts. That they don't is the pillar of the degradation of American democracy, for without an independent, functional media corps, democracy ceases to exert the will of the people and rather begins to merely echo the sentiments of the ruling class.

This doesn't have to be so. But as long as the economics of today's corporate media dictate producing news as cheaply as possible, journalists will continue to rely on the easiest source of that news: the very people they're meant to cover. As long a journalists defer to their subjects to preserve open channels of communication (what was once called propaganda), they fail the population in performance of their nominal task. If journalism was meant to be mere repetition of the company line, it would be sufficient for the government to also be the sole source of news.

Assuming that the majority of Americans would be adverse to a Ministry of Truth for a new era, the time has long since passed to begin calling on journalists to perform their jobs effectively. Cheap sources of news are not necessarily the best sources of news. Sometimes stories must be worked for, sought out, recovered from the abyss. At the very least, journalists could begin by pointing out conspicuous absurdities in the government line, such as those that have propagated themselves surrounding the Russia-Georgia conflict.

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Haiti: A Case Study In Condi's 21st Century Foreign Policy

Plenty of blatantly hypocritical assumptions and proclamations have made their way onto the scene as a result of the conflict over South Ossetia, but Condoleezza Rice deserves an award for the masterpiece she uttered, straight-faced even, the other day:

Russia is a state that is unfortunately using the one tool that it has always used whenever it wishes to deliver a message and that's its military power. That's not the way to deal in the 21st century.

Any member of the press present that did not instantly burst out into uncontrolled laughter should have their credentials revoked. President Bush, no stranger to rhetorical one-upsmanship, won't go down without a fight, though:

The Cold War is over. The days of satellite states and spheres of influence are behind us...Bullying and intimidation are not acceptable ways to conduct foreign policy in the 21st century.

A formidable challenger, to be sure.

There is no country on Earth to which Condi's epithet is more applicable than the United States, for when it comes to finding a military solution to every perceived problem, the US is without peer. Running a close second is the US's baby brother, Israel, with the aid of US arms. For all the animosity flung in the direction of Iran, Iraq under Saddam, and North Korea, none have invaded another country in the past ten years, a claim the US is in no position to make.

Haiti, one of the poorest nations in the hemisphere, provides but one prescient example of the US's dependency on military solutions to diplomatic problems, presenting us with perhaps history's only example of a country performing a second coup on the same democratically-elected leader in 2004. Not surprisingly, the first came in September 1991 under the first President Bush, when the US funded a coup that forced out Jean-Bertrand Aristide, who had beaten out 11 opponents with a massive 67 percent of the vote. (For comparison, our current president didn't even capture a majority against a single opponent the first time around.)

Aristide was reelected in November 2000, again democratically, but hadn't yet learned his lesson. As he again moved to push out the criminal elements of the military, democratize the government, and begin other social programs sure to be unpopular in the boss of the hemisphere to the north. In February 2004, the US kidnapped Aristide and took him to the dictatorial Central African Republic. The official narrative, dutifully repeated verbatim by a complicit press, was that the leader simply chose to up and disappear, with no help from the US. But as Amy Goodman notes,

Why would Aristide have willingly chosen to go to a place he'd never been -- the Central African Republic -- a remote African dictatorship with poor communications and minimal access to the outside world? [Static, page 120]

Indeed, the US also banned the Steele Foundation, in charge of Aristide's security detail, from performing their duty, ordering them to leave the country instead.

For all its harping on the need to spread democracy around the globe, the US has an absolutely miserable record when it comes to supporting it more than simply rhetorically. Haiti is but one more example of the US aversion to democracy when it comes at the expense of multinational corporations of US influence. Democracy is to be supported only when it amplifies US power, never the reverse. The US, in some cases, takes an active role in bringing down democracies, as it did in Haiti.

Upon Aristide's reelection in 2000, the National Endowment for Democracy and the International Republican Institute set about creating his opposition, spending millions to create, arm, and organize the group, which was portrayed as a grassroots movement free of foreign influence. Thus, while promoting democracy in its rhetoric, the US was actively making Haiti ungovernable, paving the way for the return of dictatorial rule. The leaders installed by the Bush administration began a military campaign, rounding up Aristide's supporters with the help of US marines, who had conveniently failed to show up to protect the democratically-elected leader.

The story is well-worn by now. America is rightfully a symbol of democracy and republican government to be a model for the rest of the world. When it comes time to practice what it preaches, however, it invariably fails anywhere that falls out of step with Washington. The NED and IRI, central to the coup in Haiti, also had a hand in the attempted coup of Hugo Chavez in 2002. (Chavez is indeed a demagogue, but in the words of Bush, himself, "the days of overthrowing regimes are over.") If the US backed up its rhetoric with tangible support of democracy, its problems would be diminished many-fold, but it chooses instead to tear democratic leaders down.

Worse still, is that the American public and its press agents absolutely refuse to call the government on their double-talking foreign policy.

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Orwell Alive and Well in Georgia

President Bush spoke in the Rose Garden today, and uttered perhaps the most consecutive laughably-false phrases the world has ever known. As I've said before, one of the overarching themes of American foreign policy is the inability to see that actions carried out by others are in fact mirror images of our own, which leads to our leaders making ridiculous statements condemning common occurrences in American foreign policy without the slightest realization or self-awareness. The Russian response in South Ossetia presented a rare opportunity for the long-dormant Cold Warriors to exhibit Pavlovian responses at the slightest of stimuli, making common sense and rational thought two of the first casualties.

For his part, President Bush assures us that "bullying and intimidation are not acceptable ways to conduct foreign policy in the 21st century," hoping, I assume, that no one will point to the bullying and intimidation employed in Iraq, Afghanistan and currently Iran. Quite the contrary of Bush's statement, his foreign policy rests almost entirely on bullying and intimidation, as every nation can be placed in the "with us or against us" category.

Bush also states, "the Cold War is over. The days of satellite states and spheres of influence are behind us." This said as the US signs a deal with Poland for a missile defense shield, to compliment the deal already signed with the Czech Republic, and works feverishly to accept Georgia into NATO despite the lackadaisical efforts at democratization undertaken by the former Soviet satellite. Far from signaling the Cold War is over, the US has been intent since the withdrawal from the ABM early in Bush's presidency to be the only country allowed to pursue it. The only possible interpretation of Bush's statement is "only the US shall be allowed a sphere of influence, and Russia will like it."

Thus, the same country that spawned the Monroe Doctrine and its Wilson Corollary expects the Russians to sit idly by and accept the build up of American arms along its borders. The Russian leaders would not be fulfilling their obligations to the Russian population if they did so, and the US, of all countries, should realize that.

Georgia is just another in a long line of US allies that are less democratic in practice than they appear in American foreign policy rhetoric. Saakashvili has shut down media organs and political affiliations opposed to his governance, sometimes violently. While the US would be quick to point out such shortcomings in Tehran, Georgia is necessary to built the US's sphere of influence around Russia and they are therefore swept under the proverbial rug. The US has no objective stance on democracy, it is but one more hobby horse used to advance its agenda because the target audience has their own view of the word in their head, precluding the US from having to settle on an objective definition.

There is perhaps no country more ill-suited to deliver a lecture of this kind to Russia in the current state of the world. Bush may speak out against bullying and intimidation, but it would be immensely difficult to find two words that better defined his own foreign policy. Rather than exhibiting good moral standing, Bush's prose is an exercise in Orwellian fantasy and ludicrous hypocrisy.


Related:

Missile Defense: Rehabbing the Cold War, July 13
Reaping What We've Sown, August 12
Georgia vs. Kosovo, August 9

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US Culls Its Gitmo Interrogation Policy From Mao's China

The phrase "do unto others as you would have them do unto you" has taken a new twist, as it has emerged that the interrogators at Guantanamo Bay were trained to use the techniques used against American soldiers by Communist China during the Korean War.

The military trainers who came to Guantánamo Bay in December 2002 based an entire interrogation class on a chart showing the effects of "coercive management techniques" for possible use on prisoners, including "sleep deprivation," "prolonged constraint," and "exposure."

What the trainers did not say, and may not have known, was that their chart had been copied verbatim from a 1957 Air Force study of Chinese Communist techniques used during the Korean War to obtain confessions, many of them false, from American prisoners.

By now, the question of whether the US has violated every torture agreement to which it is a signatory has been answered several times over, but the avalanche of evidence to that point shows no signs of slowing. America's foreign policy is, and always has been, that it has the absolute moral authority to lead the rest of the word. What should be, but isn't, implied by such a position is that the country must then exhibit some moral qualities before forcing them on others.

If engaging in the precise techniques it decried, rightfully, when used against its own soldiers does not contradict the very idea of moral superiority, then I cannot conceive of anything that would convince anyone otherwise.

Nearly all defense of the torturous interrogation techniques used at Guantanamo and elsewhere by the US has centered on the supposed ability of those interrogations to save American lives. The idea being, of course, that no one could in good conscience oppose anything that could produce information that prevents another attack. Mind you, the only proof anyone has of such a relationship is the government's word, which should speak for itself at this point.

But the title of the 1957 article from which the class was copied verbatim should shed some light on that particular fallacy: "Communist Attempts to Elicit False Confessions From Air Force Prisoners of War." From the concerns over the false confessions sprang SERE [Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape], a program designed to help American soldiers avoid falling for the tactics used to elicit propagandistic or false confessions.

The gall boggles the mind. While the propensity of interrogations to bring forth anything of value was already in doubt, the fact that the entire program was modeled on a program designed explicitly to elicit nothing of any use should close the book.

There is no exchange rate on human life. If it's torture when used on American soldiers, it's torture when Americans use it on others.

Related:

Tortured Logic, April 14
Trickle-Down Responsibility, May 9
Down is the New Up, April 25

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Administration Halts Solar Energy to....Wait For It....Study Possible Environmental Harm

In what is possibly the most transparent move in the history of the Executive Branch, the Bush administration has called for a two-year moratorium on new solar projects on federal lands while it studies the environmental impact.

The Bureau of Land Management says an extensive environmental study is needed to determine how large solar plants might affect millions of acres it oversees in six Western states — Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico and Utah.

But the decision to freeze new solar proposals temporarily, reached late last month, has caused widespread concern in the alternative-energy industry, as fledgling solar companies must wait to see if they can realize their hopes of harnessing power from swaths of sun-baked public land, just as the demand for viable alternative energy is accelerating.

After spending the last 7 years obstructing the EPA, the administration would have the public swallow with complete credulity the idea that it is now deeply concerned about the effect of energy plants on the environment.

The move could not be any more transparent, as it coincides precisely with the same administration's call for renewed offshore drilling, declaring that now is not the time to worry about environmental harm which may stem from the drilling. Although solar energy is a microscopic portion of the total domestic energy picture, the elimination of even the possibility of alternative forms of energy is just one more way for the administration to push the nation further toward the cliff of fatal oil dependency.

Bush, in public statements, recognizes the need for alternative energy, but in practice he has done everything in his power, sometimes beyond it, to prevent the EPA from preventing oil exploration. Yet, now his environmental conscience won't allow him to witness solar energy proceeding without two years of study.

Related:

Erroneous Responses to Oil Prices, June 21

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David Vitter and Larry Craig: Adventures in Irony

Proving that truth always trumps fiction, Senators David Vitter, frequenter of prostitutes, and Larry Craig, denizen of men's rooms, are leading the charge to insert regressive clauses into any and all legislation involving reproduction or STDs. Their efforts prove once again that the letter next to the name means more than actions, allowing the poster children of sexual decadence to thrust their sexual mores on the rest of the world without a hint of self-awareness or irony.

Before, both Senators have been at the fore on the attack on PEPFAR, which provides AIDS relief to poor Africans. Not content merely to help others, Vitter and Craig have pushed for the inclusion of several clauses which inhibit the disbursement of aid. Vitter shows his cahones by voting in favor of a "prostitution pledge," which seeks to prohibit aid from reaching sex workers, a trade with which Vitter is intimately familiar.

Both Senators are also champions of the abstinence-only rule which designates a third of the PEPFAR aid for abstinence-only education and aims at treatment rather than prevention. In the hypocritical worldview of Craig and Vitter, it is more desirable that Africans acquire AIDS than admit of the existence of a society in which their regressive Christian values are not the norm.

More recently, Vitter has emerged as the only Senator opposing the removal of the HIV travel ban, which prohibits HIV-positive non-citizens from entering the US. For perspective, the US is now one of only 12 nations with such a ban, placing it in the company of Sudan, Russia, Libya and Saudi Arabia. Common sense would dictate that a law hatch in the 80s under a climate of fear would be erased once the spread of the disease became more clear, but common sense isn't necessary when you have convictions. HIV is the only disease upon which such a restriction exists, but it is not even a airborne disease, making it more than clear that Vitter's opposition to removing the ban is based purely in his contrived morality and has nothing to do with the biological traits of the disease. One should be cautioned, however, against expecting the application of such a morality to Vitter's own actions.

Finally, both Craig and Vitter have signed on to co-sponsor a same-sex marriage ban (SJ Res. 43), again placing the two Senators most destructive to their own marriages in a position to dictate to the rest of the country what does or does not constitute a sacred contracts. The hypocrisy is blinding. Craig, of all people, is in no position to fight against same-sex relations of any kind, having been caught not only soliciting prostitution, but with another man.

All this points once again to the tragedy of the two-party system, which vaults the letter next to the name above that of conscience, honesty, or logical consistency. To prove your worth to the followers of Falwell and Dobson, one need not practice what you preach, as the mere preaching has become enough.

Related:

Vitter Chastises Spitzer, March 18

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Appeasement in North Korea

When President Bush addressed members of the Knesset on May 15, he compared those that seek a diplomatic tact to foreign policy to Neville Chamberlain and Nazi appeasers.

Some seem to believe that we should negotiate with the terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along. We have heard this foolish delusion before. As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: "Lord, if I could only have talked to Hitler, all this might have been avoided." We have an obligation to call this what it is -- the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history.

Yet, a little more than a month later, Bush stood outside the White House to announce his administration's success in appeasing the third member of the 'Axis of Evil' regarding its nuclear ambitions.

First, I'm issuing a proclamation that lifts the provisions of the Trading with the Enemy Act with respect to North Korea.

And secondly, I am notifying Congress of my intent to rescind North Korea's designation as a state sponsor of terror in 45 days. The next 45 days will be an important period for North Korea to show its seriousness of its cooperation. We will work through the six-party talks to develop a comprehensive and rigorous verification protocol. And during this period, the United States will carefully observe North Korea's actions -- and act accordingly.

Only a political system in which party affiliation trumps logical consistency could such an agreement be met with any reaction other than indignation at the glaring hypocrisy. In addition to portraying the Democrats asking for discussions with Iran prior to bombing the Islamic republic as appeasers, Republicans have made a career of mocking the Clinton administration's negotiations with the very same North Korea in the mid-90s. Colin Powell was once forced to apologize for suggesting that the Clinton negotiations were a good start, although unsuccessful. One would be hard-pressed to find many differences between those two negotiations, but Stephen Hadley did his best to dissemble.

This has been a pretty ongoing process. Let me say a little bit about the -- this is the '94 framework agreement under the prior administration. I would say that was a good-faith effort to deal with this problem, and -- but it went awry. And unbeknownst to that administration, while they were moving forward under the framework agreement to deal with North Korea's plutonium program we discovered North Korea was pursuing a uranium enrichment program, which is one of two paths to get the nuclear material you need for a bomb, either through the plutonium path, uranium enrichment.

He continues to detail some of the differences between the negotiations, but in doing so admits that the efforts to negotiate were a good effort despite the fact that "the North Koreans did not want them to succeed." Such a statement, of course, is prefaced on the idea that this time around, the North Koreans have abandoned all attempts to obfuscate the true level of its cooperation, something any trace of cynicism would not allow.

The only safety net the Bush administration has given itself is the 45 days between now and Korea's removal from the state sponsor list, but one assumes that the sham republic could stay straight for a month and a half, regardless of its true intentions.

Even the recent declarations by North Korea, the impetus to the moves, fall well short of 'forthright' and 'open.' Besides coming six months after the December 31 deadline established last October, the declaration still fails to acknowledge Pyongyang's uranium enrichment program. This program was the same program that Hadley pointed to as part of the breakdown of the Clinton-era agreements, which should at least instill some caution regarding the most recent developments.

Regardless of the outcome, the looming question still remains. Namely, how can a President decry diplomacy in no uncertain terms in May and then blissfully detail the outcome of his own diplomacy in June? If his central suggestion in Israel was that agreements are often made disingenuously by one party, then there is nothing about his own concessions which suggest that same criterion does not apply, especially given the same party--North Korea--has shown a propensity for backing out of previous deals, deals which Bush's own administration has decried as failed diplomacy and "the false comfort of appeasement." The only difference I can discern? The 'R' next to the name.

Of course, not all administration officials were pleased with the developments, especially Diplomat-in-Chief Dick Cheney, a point which may have more import than a first glance would indicate. On Thursday's Countdown, former NSC staffer Hillary Mann Leverett floated the idea that apart from the concessions with North Korea, the Bush administration may have to make some within its own ranks.

Internally, inside the U.S. government, my concern is, that the—for lack of a better word, hard-liners epitomized, I think, by Vice President Cheney, they don‘t ever give away nothing, something for nothing.

I think in terms of their agreeing with this deal on North Korea today, we could very well see and my concern is, that we could very well see a more militaristic push on dealing with the Iranians.

In other words, despite pushing the North Korea deal as the successful end to diplomacy over militarism, the Bush administration will still pursue, possibly with even more force, a militaristic angle to Iran in a quid pro quo for its own officials. It can be safely assumed, I think, that this level of logical inconsistency will be met with limp credulity, as most hypocritical elements of American politics are.

There are stark differences, though, the most glaring of which being that North Korea actually possesses nuclear weapons capability while Iran does not. While the IAEA has expressed concern over the forthrightness of the Iranian regime, it has given no indication that it believes the Iranians are pursuing weaponization, despite claims to the contrary by surrogates and spokesman such as Sean Hannity, who apparently is privy to classified information no one else is. The most recent NIE released by the State Department declared that Iran hasn't been pursuing such a program for years, but such troubling realities can never be allowed to stand in the way of a good war.

Related:

Proof President Bush Has a Sense of Irony, June 7
Israel Engages in Appeasement, May 21

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John Boehner: Lawuits for Me, But Not for Thee

In what has to be the clearest case of hypocrisy seen in quite some time, John Boehner has been granted $1 million dollars in an illegal wiretapping case, even as he continues to fight for telecom immunity surrounding the illegal NSA program. Boehner, apparently without irony, justified his case by saying, "no one — including members of Congress — is above the law.” The mind reels.

Surely his statement is correct, but that hasn't prevented him from being on the front lines of preventing other Americans from having their day in court. Illegality clearly is only of importance should it affect him, but for him to extend the same standards to everyone else is too much for him to bear. He made this point clear in an interview with Brit Hume:

HUME: The other issue that has risen in connection with this bill has to do with granting an immunity from legal action, from lawsuits, to companies which, in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, cooperated with very aggressive government surveillance activities undertaken in the fear that another attack might have been right then on the way.

BOEHNER: But after 9/11, our country and our intelligence officials went to telecommunication firms and other third parties and asked them to participate in a program to help secure and bring safety to the American people, and they did.

And because they did voluntarily, I believe that they deserve immunity from lawsuits out there from typical trial lawyers trying to find a way to get into the pockets of the American companies.

This answer, of course, does nothing to address the legality of the actions, but merely says that the phone companies 'participated voluntarily.' Given that, one presumes that the company which voluntarily participated in his own case would be granted a similar assessment. One would be wrong. That voluntarily conducting illegal activity somehow alleviates guilt is preposterous.

And, as Boehner said himself, "no one is above the law."

A constant drumbeat of supporters of immunity against organizations like the ACLU and EFF, who are working for very little, is to paint them as money-hungry, unscrupulous lawyers out only to make a quick buck. But, really, the organizations are after punitive damages meant to deter future transgressions.

Boehner's own lawyer during his case:

“Punitive damages are not imposed to give awards to plaintiffs; they are imposed to punish and deter illegal conduct and to exact retribution on behalf of society for the violation of its laws,” Boehner’s attorneys, seeking damages and legal fees, argued in a court brief.

At every turn, Boehner's own case throws a wrench into his argument in favor of telecom immunity. And his sense of logic deflects all attacks with equal regularity.

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Various Items

Israel Takes President Bush's Message to Heart:

Israel, clearly inspired by President Bush's speech last week, announced today that it is involved in negotiations with Syria in Turkey. Surely this will bring a strong reproach from our principled leader:

The United States said it did "not object" but repeated its criticism of Syria's "support of terrorism"

Maybe not. Well, maybe there's some sort of technicality on the application of the precise term 'appeasement.'

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert...said the process would be long, complex and could end in "difficult concessions" for Israel -- an apparent reference to his willingness to hand back the Golan Heights.

"It's always better to talk than shoot," Olmert said.

Then again, maybe it fits the definition snugly, though I don't expect Bush to publicly call out Olmert. Not that anyone would listen.


In Other Appeasement News:

Hezbollah secured veto power over Lebanon's Western-backed government on Wednesday, leaving the militant group virtually free to build up its weapons, including rockets aimed at Israel. But as the political winner, Hezbollah also faces pressure to seek compromise rather than confront opponents, as it had done violently in recent weeks.

The deal to end Lebanon's long stalemate allows a triumphant Hezbollah and its allies back into the government after street fighting reminiscent of the 1975-1990 civil war. Hezbollah patrons Iran and Syria praised the agreement, which seems certain to strengthen Iran's hand as it vies for influence in Iraq and across the Middle East.

It took all of a week for Hezbollah to achieve the strategic aims of its recent street fighting, gaining veto power and the reinstatement of a deposed Hezbollah-allied official. Here, very clearly, the Lebanese government is conceding on significant issues (veto power nullifies any attempt to disarm Hezbollah) and legitimizing a militant Iranian proxy in return for a "period of accommodation and calm and stability in Lebanon." If the talks in Turkey bordered on Bush bane, then this situation fits it verbatim. Again, we should expect some outcry from the United States:

Washington also put on a positive spin, despite the new power gained by a group that fought Israel in 2006 and is labeled as terrorist by the United States.

"It's a necessary and positive step," said David Welch, the top U.S. diplomat for the Middle East. "It's not for us to decide how Lebanon does this."

Makes you wonder if there's ever an exchange of notes among US officials. The concessions are obviously not a solution, merely a period of relative calm in return for strengthening Hezbollah's--and Iran's--position in the Lebanese government.

Even if Lebanon remains calm for a period, however, the deal only increases the potential for instability in a weak state where religious and clan loyalties often seem to trump national allegiance.

Hezbollah in effect operates a "state within a state" inside key parts of Lebanon - the south, Beirut's southern suburbs and the Bekaa valley near Syria - with its own police, army and social services. That makes Lebanon an ideal incubator for the group's military clout, just as Afghanistan served as a haven and staging ground for al-Qaida.

Another foreign policy loss as far as Bush's stated foreign policy goals go. Republicans are portrayed as strong on national defense, but it's hard to find a single instance where their efforts have kept the Middle East situation from regressing, though I'm open to suggestions.


Terry McAuliffe, Man of Principle:

The Democratic nominating process is over, and has been since Obama's February run. Even so, this excerpt from Terry McAuliffe, who is now carrying Hillary Clinton's water on every talking-head show who'll invite him on, regarding Florida and Michigan. This excerpt is in reference to the 2004 convention:

"I'm going outside the primary window," [Michigan Sen. Carl Levin] told me definitively.

"If I allow you to do that, the whole system collapses," I said. "We will have chaos. I let you make your case to the DNC, and we voted unanimously and you lost."

He kept insisting that they were going to move up Michigan on their own, even though if they did that, they would lose half their delegates. By that point Carl and I were leaning toward each other over a table in the middle of the room, shouting and dropping the occasional expletive.

"You won't deny us seats at the convention," he said.

"Carl, take it to the bank," I said. "They will not get a credential. The closest they'll get to Boston will be watching it on television. I will not let you break this entire nominating process for one state. The rules are the rules. If you want to call my bluff, Carl, you go ahead and do it."

We glared at each other some more, but there was nothing much left to say. I was holding all the cards and Levin knew it.

[Source: McAuliffe, Terry. What A Party!, p. 325.]

Consistency's overrated. Can we stop with the 'principle' argument tour now, Hillary? We know you want the votes to count, but can we stop pretending it's the populist in you.


Move Along, Nothing to See Here:



Hagee: "God sent Hitler to usher the Jews back to Israel." So, in essence, Hitler was doing the work of God. Wow.

No need to look at McCain's associations, journalists. Maybe Obama has another pastor.

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Hillary Competing With McCain to See Who Can Get Caught in Reversals More Often

(Hat tip: Parisgnome)

Democrats, including Hillary Clinton, have been tripping over themselves in using John McCain's '100 years' comment against him. As I said before, to do so requires a very loose relationship with literacy.

McCain's backtracking is well-evidenced, and now it seems Clinton is not simply content to narrow the gap between them by adopting his proposals or threatening to 'obliterate' Iran. (Yes, Hillary, people that aren't Ahmadinejad live there, too. About 66 million of them.) No, she is also striving to pass him in the number of times someone can find contradictions in the public record.

Parisgnome at Daily Kos dug up this gem from a 2005 visit to Face the Nation on CBS:

SCHIEFFER: Well, what do you mean `long time'? Do you mean years?

[...]

Sen. CLINTON: Senator McCain made the point earlier today, which I agree with, and that is, it's not so much a question of time when it comes to American military presence for the average American; I include myself in this.

But it is a question of casualties. We don't want to see our young men and women dying and suffering these grievous injuries that so many of them have.

We've been in South Korea for 50-plus years. We've been in Europe for 50-plus. We're still in Okinawa with respect to protection there coming out of World War II. You know, we have been in places for very long periods of time.

[...]

But so is our understanding that if we were to artificially set a deadline of some sort, that would be like a green light to the terrorists, and we can't afford to do that.

Barack Obama's greatest weapon against Clinton has been her 2002 vote to authorize the Iraq War (easy for him since he wasn't there, of course.) In response, her campaign has held that it was a vote based on faulty intelligence and she shouldn't be held accountable, but as her visit with Bob Schieffer illustrates, she held McCain's outlook on the occupation well past when the intelligence aspect's ship had sailed.

The question, then, is which version is more true to her core beliefs. I tend to side with the 2005 incarnation, as I have always held that on foreign policy--obviously not domestic social issues--Clinton is right-leaning. The conservative outcry against her husband's interventions in Bosnia, Kosovo, Somalia, Haiti and Iraq (and her subsequent adoption of his Presidency as her own) can't be forgotten. I don't know that Clinton could be painted as a dove (relative to center, not Lieberman and McCain), no matter how hard Sean Hannity might try. Her plan for withdrawal now--a duplicate of Obama's 16-month plan--is merely borne of the realization that no Democrat was going to win that party's nomination calling for sustaining the occupation.

Sam Stein asked for a response from the campaign, and Phil Singer responded: "As both Senator Clinton and Senator Obama have noted, the situation in Iraq has dramatically deteriorated since 2005 and now we are in the midst of sectarian violence."

This response is ludicrous in that it suggests that the insurgency began after her appearance, which is outright false. Consider the lead-in to her Face the Nation appearance:

SCHIEFFER: And we start this morning with Kimberly Dozier, who is in Baghdad, where there were some awful bombings yesterday, but today fairly quiet. What's the latest, Kimberly?

KIMBERLY DOZIER reporting: Fairly quiet, but people are still holding funerals from yesterday's attacks and Friday's. Almost 100 people were killed and more than 100 wounded in a series of suicide bombings targeting Shiite worshipers marking the annual holiday of Ashura. That is to mark the prophet Muhammad's grandson's death. Now there were worse attacks last year; almost 200 people died. This year there was greater security, but suicide bombers still managed to mingle in with the crowd and, as the religious leaders have been saying here, tried to make the attacks that would turn Shiites against Sunnis. Religious leaders are trying to keep that from happening. Bob.

SCHIEFFER: So Baghdad is still a very dangerous place.

[...]

Senator Clinton, it seems there's still more violence going on in Iraq. How do you sum up the situation now?

CLINTON: [...] The violence that preceded the election was about 50 to 60 incidents a day. Leading up to the election, it rose all the way to 300, and now it has subsided again to, unfortunately, about 50 or 60 a day.

Clearly, there is no way that her campaign can make the case that violence wasn't an issue at the time of her appearance. Their response can only be based on the presumption that no one would review the historical record, which is consistent with their campaign tactics thus far.

I already thought the '100 years' attacks of McCain were loosely based on what he said, but now it is even more clear that for Hillary to use the attack against him is the height of revisionism and hypocrisy.

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Hillary and the Gas Tax: More Mind-Numbing Hypocrisy on the Campaign Trail

Jon Stewart opens 'Panderer's Box'

If there's one thing consistent about Hillary Clinton's Presidential campaign, it's that nothing about her stances are consistent. Be it on the issue of the war in Iraq (which she voted to approve), or troop withdrawals (where she once agreed with John McCain), or gas taxes, she has proven time and again that she is willing to say nearly anything to get elected.

Political posturing is nothing new, of course, but that the wealthiest and most politically-connected of the trio of remaining candidates is allowed to pose as the least elitist of the bunch is preposterous and a terrible failing of journalistic rigor and public use of reason. Just because someone gives a speech on the back of a pick-up truck doesn't mean she's an average person. When this is all over, she'll go back to one of her houses, take weekends to places you would be barred from, and go back to her day job ensuring that the public gets just enough carrots to keep them at bay.

The central theme to Clinton's faux populism in recent weeks has been the gas-tax holiday, an idea first proposed (this election cycle) by John McCain. Not surprisingly, given the media's typical unquestioning, non-skeptical disposition, she has been able to brush aside nearly every economist and the suggestion--a correct one, I think--that the proposal is a worthless gimmick which doesn't address the root causes.

Apparently, in terms of the economy, 'elite' means 'everyone.' The economy, of course, is one place where she's "not going to put [her] lot in with economists." Economists may know a lot about economic issues, to be sure, but until they've been driven by the Secret Service and had their gas paid for, they don't know what true Americans want.

One supposes, then, that a non-elitist economic opinion might be found by asking Senatorial-candidate Clinton what she thinks of the gas-tax repeal:

[O]ne of my fundamental disagreements during this campaign with my opponent was when he called for the repeal of the gas tax. Now, the gas tax is one of those few taxes that New York actually gets more money from Washington than we send. And we are totally reliant on it to do things like finishing I-86 in the Southern Tier, or the fast- ferry harbor works up in Rochester, as well as the work we need to do here in the city. So you can count on me to support infrastructure.

Oh.

From a contemporaneous article:

Rep. Rick Lazio and Hillary Rodham Clinton continued trading swings on the gas tax as they campaigned for the Senate yesterday, with Clinton accusing Lazio of "siding with the Republican leadership instead of the needs and interests of the people of New York" on the issue.

So, there you have it: Supporting a gas-tax repeal is elitist and in opposition to the will of the people. Unless Clinton subsequently proposes a repeal, in which case the terms are reversed. No logical fallacies here.

Anything else you'd like to add, Senatorial-candidate Clinton?:

Clinton, meanwhile, lashed out at Lazio's plan to repeal 4.3 cents of the gas tax, calling it "a bad deal for New York and a potential bonanza for the oil companies."

Either Hillary forgot her economics or she's pandering in the most recent race for office. I'll settle on the latter.

The problem is, Clinton knows she's full of it. When every economist refutes your idea, it's not out of elitism. Johnathan Alter expands upon a few of the reasons. To paraphrase:

• The oil companies are not inclined--or required--to keep prices level. There's nothing to prevent them from raising prices in response and pocketing the difference


• The plan would save maybe $30 per person. Less than a tank of gas.


• The Department of Transportation says it would cost 300,000 jobs. Assuming they're anywhere near the ballpark, that's a steep price to pay for Mrs. Champion-of-Blue-Collar-America. It's a little hard to go around saying you're going to save working-class jobs if you're actively pursuing a proposal that would eliminate them.


• Most importantly: There's no way the plan is going to happen. Clinton knows it. McCain knows it. Everyone knows it.

When asked to explain the change of heart, Clinton's campaign suggests that they have a way to pay for the lost revenue, unlike Lazio in 2000. First, Lazio did have a plan to use the Federal surplus. That wouldn't have materialized, either, but he did have a plan, workable or not.

Second, Clinton's proposal is to use a windfall profits tax on the oil companies to pay for the budget shortfall, a suggestion that brings even more improbabilities into the fray. She's already used the windfall profits tax once in her campaign rhetoric, so essentially, she's spending that money twice. Again, the oil companies will gladly offset the new tax by raising prices, so the consumer will see none of it. And, finally, there's no possibility of said profits tax being enacted, certainly not by Memorial Day, as Congress already rejected the idea in December.

Clinton has staked her campaign on a plan that she, herself, has rejected outright in the past, utilized economics she knows aren't founded in reality, and proposed a politically-non-viable solution to high gas prices that is an outright pander for votes. I doubt we hear anything more of the gas-tax holiday after the upcoming primaries. In fact, I would be surprised if it doesn't just vanish down the memory hole, like so many of Clinton's campaign tactics and metrics for nomination.

After this proposal dies out, she'll work on her stock alchemist understanding of the electoral process and return to concocting a formula for which states' votes count, don't count, or count twice.

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While You Were Out, April 15

Drug Makers Near Old Goal: A Legal Shield

In keeping with the theme of 'if we say it's okay, it is,' the Bush administration is pushing for a policy known as 'pre-emption' which would declare that pharmaceutical companies could not be sued over drugs that had been approved by the FDA.

The Bush administration has argued strongly in favor of the doctrine, which holds that the F.D.A. is the only agency with enough expertise to regulate drug makers and that its decisions should not be second-guessed by courts. The Supreme Court is to rule on a case next term that could make pre-emption a legal standard for drug cases. The court already ruled in February that many suits against the makers of medical devices like pacemakers are pre-empted.

This theory, or course, works off the assumption that if the FDA has investigated a drug and approved it and its label, the courts are in no position to rule in opposition to the medical experts of the federal agency. But that relies on the FDA being provided with all of the facts and studies of the pill, something that drug companies are demonstrably opposed to complying with.

Consider Ortho Evra, the birth control patch made by Johnson & Johnson, around which this article is centered:

Documents and e-mail messages from Johnson & Johnson, made public as part of the lawsuits against the company, show that even before the drug agency approved the product in 2001, the company’s own researchers found that the patch delivered far more estrogen each day than low-dose pills. When it reported the results publicly, the company reduced the numbers by 40 percent.

Allowing for the FDA to be the final voice on all things pharmaceutical is based on the presumption that there is no pertinent information withheld. Clearly that isn't the case. Johnson & Johnson is not the first drug maker to be outed as having held back information, and they won't be the last. The makers of OxyContin actually marketed their drug (an opiate) as non-addictive, a laughable proposition for a drug of its sort, but approved as such by the FDA nonetheless.

If we expect the FDA to act as the only oversight arm of the entire drug business, we have to be assured that its acting well-informed and as an operative of the public. That isn't happening, and if lawsuits are a vehicle toward achieving an end better suited to the needs and expectations of American citizens then pre-emption is a disastrous precedent to set.

But pharmaceuticals aren't the only area where the protective arm of pre-emption is being extended, as this AP story details.

If you think the prescription drug you took for headaches caused your heart attack, the Food and Drug Administration says you can't sue the maker for injury if it met agency standards.

The Consumer Product Safety Commission says you can't sue a mattress maker if your mattress bursts into flame despite meeting commission standards. Companies making sport utility vehicles would get similar protection from suits brought by people injured or the families of those killed in rollovers under National Highway Traffic Safety Administration proposals for stronger roofs.

Plaintiffs' attorneys call it "silent tort reform."

Tort reform has been a platform for the Republican Party in recent years, and certainly supported by Bush. But for all its clamoring about judicial activism and laws made by fiat instead of legislation, the Party seems to be quietly utilizing that very same method to achieve its own ends. Obviously, its not activist judges they're worried about, its judges who aren't activist in their direction.

Surely frivolous lawsuits abound in the United States, but eliminating them altogether removes just one more bullet in the arsenal of consumer protection in the midst of a continual volley by the Bush administration.


Supplier Under Scrutiny on Arms for Afghans

Sure, fighting terrorism costs a lot of money, but what's the price of freedom, smart guy?

If you're a 22-year old arms dealer with a massuer for VP, about $300 million.

But to arm the Afghan forces that it hopes will lead this fight, the American military has relied since early last year on a fledgling company led by a 22-year-old man whose vice president was a licensed masseur.

With the award last January of a federal contract worth as much as nearly $300 million, the company, AEY Inc., which operates out of an unmarked office in Miami Beach, became the main supplier of munitions to Afghanistan’s army and police forces.

Since then, the company has provided ammunition that is more than 40 years old and in decomposing packaging [sic]. Much of the ammunition comes from the aging stockpiles of the old Communist bloc, including stockpiles that the State Department and NATO have determined to be unreliable and obsolete, and have spent millions of dollars to have destroyed.

The ends of eliminating terrorism (however much a fantasy that may be) has always been held to justify the means of its incredible expense in the eyes of those that would have the United States police the world. Whether or not that is the case, shouldn't that expenditure come attached to a bit of research?

If it's not granting no-bid contracts to former employers of the Vice President, the Defense Department is shelling out money to a man just old enough to have finished college for worn-out arms made in China between 1962 and 1974.

The Soviet Union, which designed the ammunition that AEY bought, developed similar tests, which are still in use. But when the Army wrote its Afghan contract, it did not enforce either NATO or Russian standards. It told bidders only that the munitions must be “serviceable and issuable to all units without qualification.”

What this meant was not defined. An official at the Army Sustainment Command said that because the ammunition was for foreign weapons, and considered “nonstandard,” it only had to fit in weapons it was intended for.

“There is no specific testing request, and there is no age limit,” said Michael Hutchison, the command’s deputy director for acquisition.

In purchasing munitions, the contractor has also worked with middlemen and a shell company on a federal list of entities suspected of illegal arms trafficking.

Bang-up job, fellas. Another case that screams out for the elimination of anyone watching how the government conducts its business.


Judge dismisses challenge to lobbying disclosure law

The National Association of Manufacturers suffered a major blow Friday in its legal battle against the new ethics and lobbying law.

Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly of the U.S. District Court dismissed the group’s challenge to a key provision of the law. The group took issue with the clause that would require disclosure of the member companies of “stealth lobbying” coalitions.

Part of the Honest Leadership and Open Government Act, the measure would require public disclosure of members of such coalitions who gave at least $5,000 every quarter to the group and participated actively in lobbying campaigns.

On what grounds would lobbyists oppose transparency of this sort? Why, free speech protection, of course.

The NAM argued the provision was constitutionally vague, hindering protections for free association and speech, and could lead to harassment of its member companies.

Yet again we are faced with an argument centered on free speech centered not on the ability to express yourself, but rather on the ability of others to respond to that expression. The First Amendment doesn't say anything about no one being able to react to free speech, but that's essentially the position the NAM has taken here.

In regards to free association, the new law--effective April 21--again says nothing about lobbyists not being able to associate or give money. It just says people have the right to know to whom and by whom.

That there is opposition to that premise illustrates the need for it by virtue of its very existence.

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Support the Troops: Make Them More Than a Campaign Prop

In American political discourse, opposition to war--in the general or the particular--must always be counterbalanced with an unquestioning belief that US troops are paradigmatic of all that is good and virtuous about the country. To oppose the war is possible, but comes with marginalization. To be perceived as not supporting the troops is a death sentence.

Support, however, comes in many different forms. While proponents of the war are always willing to lend their rhetorical and moral support in heaping portions, tangible support is often hard for the soldiers to come by. Famously, Donald Rumsfeld lent his support to troops looking through landfills for scrap metal to armor their vehicles thusly: "As you know, you have to go to war with the Army you have, not the Army you want." And thus were the spirits of the troops lifted by the support of their generous patrons in Washington.

That was 2004. Now comes a report released by the Inspector General of the Defense Department revealing that nearly half of Army contracts between 2004 and 2006 were put into rotation "without the gear ever going through an initial test."

Nearly $3 billion worth of body armor did not go through early inspections known as "first article testing," or FAT, that are performed before major production to ensure that a company can meet the contract's requirements and to catch any defects...

"Army contracting officials did not require or perform FAT for 13 of the 28 Army contracts and orders reviewed," the report said. As a result, the Defense Department "has no assurance" that the equipment produced under the 13 contracts "met the required standards," the report said.

'Supporting the troops' has become an empty, vapid mantra recited by those who wish to perpetuate a war fought under false pretenses and marginalize all those who disagree. But when it comes to supporting the soldiers in tangible form, such as testing the body armor their lives depend on, those same people are the first off the train.

The Army's response is a thing of beauty:

The Army manager who oversees the body armor program told Defense Department officials that "the Army has no evidence of deaths that can be attributed to defective body armor."

Oh. Of course not.

"None of this equipment in all of the tests we've done is flawed," said Paul Boyce, the spokesman. "It has not shown any signs of flaws."

None of the equipment you tested is faulty? Fantastic. But perhaps the point has eluded you. It's the armor you didn't test we're worried about.

Disagreements over the war aside, if you're sending the military overseas, it is at least a primary responsibility to properly equip and protect them. To bellow and proselytize about morale and support while wrapping a young man in armor you don't know is flawless rings hollow.

Hawks already have a monopoly on rhetorical support of the troops. Now we just need them to supplement that with a little tangible support.

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1993 John McCain Battles 2008 John McCain

John McCain's faux gravitation to the right during his most recent campaign is readily apparent. What has been lacking, however, is any significantly-deep look into just what that entails. While at times McCain seems to be looking through his notes to see what his positions are supposed to be, it is McCain's own words which may do him the most harm. You Tube never forgets.

On Somalia:



Priceless

Transcripts below the fold

In 2008, he's campaigning as the war candidate, but in 1993 he was making the exact case opponents of the Iraq war are making now. It's uncanny.

Mr. President, there is no reason for the United States of America to remain in Somalia. The American people want them home, I believe that the majority of Congress wants them home, and to set an artificial date of March 31 or even February 1st, in my view, is not acceptable. The criteria should be to bring them home as rapidly and safely as possible.

Check.

What's the criteria and what should be the criteria is our immediate, orderly withdrawal from Somalia. And if we don't do that, and other Americans die, other Americans are wounded, other Americans are captured, because we stayed too long, longer than necessary, then I would say that the responsibilities for that lie with the Congress of the United States who did not excercise their authority under the Constitution of the United States and mandate that they be brought home as quickly and safely as possible.

What is this...Constitution...you speak of?

But the mission which the American people supported and this Congress supported, in an overwhelming resolution, has been accomplished. The American people did not support the goals of nation-building, peacemaking, law and order and certainly not warlord funding. For us to get into nation-building, law and order, etc, I think is a tragic and terrible mistake.

Amen.

But the argument that somehow the United States would suffer a loss to our prestige and our viability, as far as the No. 1 superpower in the world, I think, is baloney. The fact is, what can hurt our prestige, Mr. President, I'll tell you what can hurt our viability, as the world's superpower, and that is, if we inmesh ourselves in a drawn-out situation, which entails the loss of American lives...

Absolutely. Unbelievable.

But that's not all. In 1994, he takes on the US presence in Haiti.

The right course of action is to make preparations as quickly as possible to bring our people home. It does not mean as soon as order is restored to Haiti, it doesn't mean as soon as Democracy is flourishing in Haiti, it doesn't mean as soon as we've established a viable nation in Haiti, as soon as possible means as soon as we can get out of Haiti without losing any American lives. Now there may be different interpretations of this Resolution on the other side but it is my view and I want to make it clear and I think the majority of the American people's view that as soon as possible means as soon as possible.

Wow.

These two videos really speak for themselves, but humor me as we count the arguments McCain goes through on his way to laying out the 2008 case against the Iraq war.

• The American people want the troops home
• The US military is not a police force
• The goals of the resolution authorizing US action had been accomplished
• Immediate withdrawal
• No loss of US prestige
  

He literally walks through the entire catalog of reasons for the Iraq withdrawal twice in two years. This is the exact thinking he thinks presents a danger to America. And. It's. His. Own.

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