Iraq

We can't let things fall apart in and for Iraq. We need to energize. The people should not be manipulated through violence into giving up their own destiny, and surrendering to a strongman. America must withdraw by the end of the summer, so that Iraqis can explore the challenges of self-rule.

White Phosphorous

If there was any question whether White Phosphorous is a banned chemical weapon under the Chemical Weapons Convention, "to which the U.S. is a party", this ought to clear it up:

The CWC is monitored by the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, based in The Hague. Its spokesman Peter Kaiser was asked if WP was banned by the CWC and he had this to say:

"No it's not forbidden by the CWC if it is used within the context of a military application which does not require or does not intend to use the toxic properties of white phosphorus. White phosphorus is normally used to produce smoke, to camouflage movement.

"If that is the purpose for which the white phosphorus is used, then that is considered under the Convention legitimate use.

"If on the other hand the toxic properties of white phosphorus, the caustic properties, are specifically intended to be used as a weapon, that of course is prohibited, because the way the Convention is structured or the way it is in fact applied, any chemicals used against humans or animals that cause harm or death through the toxic properties of the chemical are considered chemical weapons."

Before I speak too soon, however, we have this caveat, which, though not noble by any measure, needs to be considered in determining whether the CAC has been violated:

The US can say therefore that this is not a chemical weapon and further, it argues that it is not the toxic properties but the heat from WP which causes the damage. And, this argument goes, since incendiary weapons are not covered by the CWC, therefore the use of WP against combatants is not prohibited...the United States has not signed up to a convention covering incendiary weapons which seeks to restrict their use.

This convention has the cumbersome title "Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons." Agreed in 1980, its Protocol III covers "Prohibitions or Restrictions on use of Incendiary Weapons."

This prohibits WP or other incendiaries (like flamethrowers) against civilians or civilian objects and its use by air strikes against military targets located in a concentration of civilians. It also limits WP use by other means (such as mortars or direct fire from tanks) against military targets in a civilian area. Such targets have to be separated from civilian concentrations and "all feasible precautions" taken to avoid civilian casualties.

One can imagine that the use of White Phosphorous was not random, and instead was strategized and ordered, and thus vetted by our ever-clever military legal advisors, with the understanding that it would be best if the use of WP was not to become generally known, but, if it did, there was a fallback legal position.

My take is that it is wrong (if not evil) to use a chemical weapon that indiscriminately melts the skin off anyone unfortunate enough to be in the ordinance zone. I'm not saying this in light of the history of war, which has employed much more savage efforts (including our own use of nuclear weapons), but in the language of right conduct and morality, whether true to Christian or other ideals.

Daily News & Commentary

For the best grassroots review of the previous day's news and commentary on the blogosphere, none is better than Cursor.

Check 'em out.

Rebuttal To Krauthammer Still To Come

Totally got sidetracked on the Krauthammer piece proclaiming the victory of neoconservatism, so I'll have to go back and review that and put it together, as promised. My recollection is that there really wasn't much to rebut in Krauthammer's piece, due mainly to its near-total triumphalism, full of pronouncements but with little substance to actually criticize. One can always criticize pronouncments as well, by undermining them with rival pronouncements, so that's what I'll probably do. We'll see...

The Bush Pushback

The Bush Administration is now trying to save its reputation. Having realized that the American people have come to their senses, and concluded that our leadership has brought "shame to our nation", Bush is in damage control mode. His ratings are in the basement, a majority of Americans do not trust him or his leadership, the Democrats are making gains at GOP expense in local races, and his assistant and Vice President Cheney's chief of staff, Scooter Libby, has been indicted for lying about his central role in the Plame leak. In a parliamentary system, Bush would have already been forced to step down or call for new elections. As is, we are not a parliamentary system, and don't want to be, so how best to proceed with a lame duck president who nobody trusts?

This is a tricky issue, because obviously one can look favorably at 2006 prospects for the opposition party to bring some balance to Washington, but ultimately we are conducting an occupation in Iraq and pursuing a campaign against terrorism, and the stakes are high. Are we really to pursue and conduct these activities with a stained, corrupt, and incompetent president unable to lead and govern effectively? To be short, that looks to be the case, but by changing Washington in 2006, and keeping the pressure on the Bush Administration, we can likely demand more accountability and hopefully influence a change of course in our pressing global challenges, which includes far more than neutralizing terrorism, especially in the case of urgent action needed in the global commons as regards climate change, dwindling rainforests, and other ecological crises.

I will be focusing on these issues in my latest return, which hopefully lasts longer than a few days.

The Rival Project To PNAC Returns

This blog has always been my platform for criticism of the Project For A New American Century. Thus, I named it Project For A New Century of Freedom. The difference is that it's not reserved for Americans, or for American dominance. Rather, it reflects the very American idea that all human beings are born equal, with inalienable rights. Does that mean I'm going to start a crusade to ensure that for the whole world? No, at least not a military crusade. Not aggression, but persuasion. And, believe me, I'm skeptical, and am perfectly happy with a steady expansion of the circle of liberty and democracy.

The subname of the blog, "raising the twin towers of reason and compassion", is an allusion to constructing a world that is less dominated by instrumental reason and technocracy, and better balanced with emphasis on human compassion, decency, and justice. If that sounds postmodern to you, you're right. I'm well acquainted with all of the philosophical schools, including postmodernism, and though I still greatly value solid logic, reasoning, and rhetoric, that does not mean that the choice of frame through which to use our reason is neutral or equal.

Last, this all started because of the approaching war in Iraq, for otherwise I would have paid little attention to the PNAC'ers, assuming their grandiose ambitions were too radical for anybody to get behind. But, lo and behold, 9-11 happened, and hysteria hit the homeland. It was my patriotic duty to play whatever part I could in breaking the spell of the fearmongers, and getting us to focus on the real threats to civilization and humanity.

And, in perfectly synchronicitous timing, Charles Krauthammer is claiming victory for the neoconservatives (PNAC) today, which is simply absurd (I'd felt less compelled to write everyday comfortable that the neoconservatives were digging their own grave, after having proved unable to listen). All I need is motivation, and world events certainly provide them, not to mention easy targets like Krauthammer, which will be the substance of the next post.

The Pope

He seemed to look out and care for the little guy more than most powerful leaders of powerful organizations, and he was a strong voice in dissent against elective wars. May he rest in peace.

God bless.

IMF Says Get Ready For High Oil Prices...For Good

The world faces “a permanent oil shock” and will have to adjust to sustained high prices in the next two decades, the International Monetary Fund said on Thursday in the starkest official warning yet about the long-term outlook for energy supplies.

Predicting surging demand from emerging countries and limited new supplies from outside the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries after 2010, Raghuram Rajan, IMF chief economist, said: “We should expect to live with high oil prices.”

“Oil prices will continue to present a serious risk to the global economy,” he added.

Here is a classic example of our failure to act, from a combination of largely individual (citizen) inattention and entrenched special interests dominating social decision-making, on available information pointing to a more optimal (or satisficing) path for us in terms of energy policy and investment.

As it is, we are behind the Japanese and Europeans when it comes to relative investment in alternative energy sources and technologies aside from oil, and we further are conditioned (microeconomically at least), in our daily lives, to artificially low oil prices (for use in our cars and heating our homes).

The result could be disastrous for consumer spending and our economy, not to mention ominous for those who already struggle to pay rent and utilities each month. If we fairly suddenly start paying higher prices for oil-based products, like gas and heating, we are going to have less discretionary income for spending. The effects, if not managed effectively, could lead to a downward spiral for spending, investment, jobs, quality of life, and consumer confidence.

With this in mind, ask yourself how we've backed ourselves into this corner. Why have we not followed the eloquent suggestions of people like Paul Hawken or Amory Lovins?

First, we are not doing a good job at raising and educating citizens in our country. Instead, we seem more focused on producing consumers and specialist labor.

Second, special interests and the oil lobby dominate our politics. Oil, military, and other big industries are allowed to influence our political process and social decision-making in pathological ways. It's time we change.

How do we change though? Do enough of us care or are aware of the problem? That's one issue. And, even if we raise a critical mass, how can we make government more responsive to citizens?

We need to come up with some answers, and hopefully they will result in a new energy direction that honors both economics and ecology (not to mention ethics).

Slowly But Surely Coming Back

I'm pretty amused about my last post in February, explaining how fired up I am about my imminent return to the blogosphere. Oh well. Here we are in April, and I'm slowly getting around to posting again. Yes, I've been very busy...

So, here are some notes to break the ice again, and I'll be around each day with a new post or two into the future.

*

punish destruction of documents to impede criminal investigation by 20 years, and offer $1 million award for whistleblowers who can prove document destruction occurred
that would fix the problem

*

"The EPA's own Children's Health Protection Advisory Committee wrote last year that the proposed EPA rule 'does not sufficiently protect our nation's children.'"

Susan West Marmagas (Physicians For Social Responsibility)

"This rule flies in the face of the best science, the best experts and the public."

*

Pentagon audit calls "illogical" Halliburton's billing of $27.5 million for delivery of $82,000 in petroleum - suggests bookkeeping error and recommends Halliburton review matter (Halliburton has already defended such billing by labeling as mission-critical in dangerous environment)

*

ANWAR - government estimates 6-16 million barrels of oil could be potentially tapped - America used 7 million barrels a year - all this controversy over a relatively small and insignifigant amount of oil - and environmentalists contend that far less than the annual oil usage can economically be extracted, not to mention while spoiling undeniable value of the wilderness, and endangering the wildlife therein)

A Healthy Hiatus...Ends

It's been 5 months since I've left this blog on hiatus. Duty called elsewhere. Occasionally, I would still pop around elsewhere in the blogosphere, but for the most part I was idle. Idle in this environment, that is. I've still been following current events, the Bush victory, reading like mad, formulating plans, and synthesizing doctrines, along with just living and working, and it's good. The break has been refreshing, but now is the time to reengage.

This evening I'll start putting up posts again - on social security, on media issues (consolidation/control/propaganda), on the freedom of information, on ecological sanity and economics, on political and economic stewardship [i.e. presidential, congressional, and grassroots leadership] that puts people first - and I hope it will contribute something.

On a parallel track, I'll be rolling out the new format for this blog, which will allow for greater organization and search capability of past posts, and will incorporate a few new sections, like book reviews, that fit better with a topical organization than the linear chronological diary format.

Peace.

Former Republican Head of EPA Thrashes Bush On Environment

We all probably suspect by now that Bush will have the worst environmental record of any modern president. From Day One, he has set out to dismantle and undermine our environmental laws - endangering our children, and their children, and their children, and so on.

As an elite, super rich, out of touch, fortunate son, Bush probably doesn't think his children and their children will be effected. No, they'll build an ivory tower and a moat around Crawford and everything will be just dandy for the Bushies.

For the rest of us, however, the guy is a menace. Environmental consciousness is sanity, not lunacy or irrationality. We live in a complex ecology, built up for millenia. We have every reason to want to tread gently in our world - at least as gently as we can. Bush is like a drunken cowboy stomping through the tulips, when what we need is a persuasive leader who can lead the nation in the right direction, even if we're all not educated in the nuances of the particular policies.

With that in mind, this is a cogent statement, from a former head of the EPA and a Republican, who is shocked and appalled by Bush's (lack of) leadership and performance in regards to our environment.

One of the earliest heads of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and a lifelong Republican joined a group of Minnesota Republicans on Tuesday in a blistering attack against President Bush's environmental policies.

Russell Train, who headed the EPA under Presidents Nixon and Ford, called the Bush administration's environmental record over the past four years appalling and filled with paybacks to special interests.

In an interview and at a news conference at the Minnesota Valley National Wildlife Refuge, Train accused Bush of systematically weakening environmental laws, promoting reckless development on public lands and appointing people with conflicts of interests to key posts.

"He represents a turning back of the clock, environmentally,'' said Train, who, as national chairman of Conservationists for Bush in 1988, supported the environmental policies of Bush's father.

A turning back of the clock indeed. Like we're in a disturbing episode of the Twilight Zone. Kerry is right about Bush - our president lives in a fantasy world based upon John Wayne movies and Big Trouble In Little China, and meanwhile all our delicate ecological china is getting busted up.

We can't tolerate 4 more years of Bush, if only due to the lack of action that will take place on our environmental crises and challenges, not to mention the other global challenges we face, in regards to the global commons, that require urgent and cooperative action amongst individual, civil, state, and global actors.

Noone is less qualified to lead such an effort, or less likely to, than Bush.

"REP Minnesota exists to remind our party that if we are ever to find our way clear of a path toward further environmental degradation, Republicans must return our party to the conservative, conservationist tradition of Teddy Roosevelt and the bipartisan spirit of the 1960s and 1970s, which produced the majority of our modern environmental legislation,'' he said.

As the second EPA administrator, Train witnessed the creation of many of those laws. What he said he never witnessed was the widespread interference in regulatory decision-making that he said is being undertaken by the Bush administration.

"In my time, I do not ever recall ever having an instance of the White House telling me how to make a regulatory decision,'' said Train, who contends the public should be infuriated by the administration's willingness to use political muscle to make those scientific decisions.

The article ends with Train (who plans to vote for Kerry) puzzling over why the environment hasn't been a bigger issue and factor in the election so far, and why Kerry hasn't been highlighting "that to a greater advantage".

I'm wondering the same thing.

***

We don't necessarily need a big environmental agenda, per se, as its own issue. We just need to honor our environmental challenges, and integrate our ecological insights, into the other issues - embedded, interdependent, and synergistic - true to ecological form.

For instance, proposals for greatly stepping up public and private investment in alternative energy and renewables will strengthen the economy, by encouraging greater efficiency and productivity in energy and materials, not to mention being a big job growth engine.

Our security will be enhanced over the long run if we become more independent of energy imports from any particular world region, and better utilize the energy we do import in areas where local production is not feasible or economically viable.

Our health will be improved, and health care costs go down, if we assure ourselves cleaner air and water, protecting ourselves and our children from modern diseases like asthma, not to mention cancers, ADHD, and depression, among other ailments likely caused by the rampant and disregulated dumping of chemicals into our environment.

All of these operating together, in a positive synergy, aren't stifling our economy and vibrance as a society, they're making us fitter and more innovative. This isn't old-school "tree-hugging" we're talking about, but new school economics and natural capitalism. We need to be able to step up and compete in the global economy while at the same time being able to participate and cooperate in the challenges and crises of the global commons.

This is how we go forward and do that. By integrating ecological and scientific insights into our way of life, day to day and over the long term, instead of stifling and distorting science and information for ideological and political purposes, and in favor of special interests, like the Bush Administration.

9/06 - Time To Have A Look At Bush's Leadership And Verifiable Performance

Today is 9/06, and you'll know what I mean shortly. Though 9/11 has often been described as something that ought not be used for political reasons (and ought not to be), Bush has violated this to the point where adhering to this would only be a handicap in determining who ought to be our president in 2005.

Many on the Right, and many Republicans, have over the months since 9/11 cast aspersions that it was Clinton's fault, for this and that reason (neglecting this, overemphasizing that) that 9/11 happened, and that Bush wasn't responsible, even though he was president when 9/11 happened, i.e. it occurred on his watch, and for over 10 months at that point (how long does it take to start doing your job?).

But that's not the point of little essay, just part of the motivation. What is 9/06? It's about who is more fit to be our commander-in-chief, and an examination of Bush claims that he is the heroic and decisive leader we need in this time of historical crisis.

9:06 AM

Bush is in a Booker Elementary School second-grader classroom. His chief of staff, Andrew Card, enters the room and whispers into his ear, "A second plane hit the other tower, and America's under attack."

Intelligence expert James Bamford describes Bush's reaction: "Immediately [after Card speaks to Bush] an expression of befuddlement passe[s] across the President's face. Then, having just been told that the country was under attack, the Commander in Chief appear[s] uninterested in further details. He never ask[s] if there had been any additional threats, where the attacks were coming from, how to best protect the country from further attacks.... Instead, in the middle of a modern-day Pearl Harbor, he simply turn[s] back to the matter at hand: the day's photo op."

At 9:06am, Bush knew we were under attack, that not just any plane crashed into the WTC, but a hijacked plane. Bush did nothing, and sat with children for over 10 minutes, even as another hijacked plane would soon after crash into the Pentagon, and another into the ground in Pennsylvania.

Is this leadership?

Bush and his team didn't need knowledge of the second plane crashing into the WTC to know America was under attack. It was already well known that Flight 11 had been hijacked, as the pilot had secretly turned on communications from the plane to ground control (allowing them to overhear the hijackers), and as two of the flight attendants had been on the phone with authorities describing dead passengers, stabbed flight attendants, bombs, and hijackers in the cockpit.

This all happened well before 9:06am, but something else occurred at 9:06am that leaves no doubt what was going on:

9:06 AM

All air traffic facilities nationwide are notified that the Flight 11 crash into the WTC was probably a hijacking. [House Committee 9/21/01; Newsday 9/23/01]

Indeed, at 8:43am it was known by NORAD that Flight 175 (2nd plane into WTC) was hijacked, and this information must have been transmitted to Bush, or everyone in a leadership position should have been fired.

So, how do we evaluate our commander-in-chief, on the day that "changed everything", on the day that Rudy Guilani thought to himself, "thank God that George W. Bush is president"?

We can only go by the available information. Our commander-in-chief sat in a classroom, continuing a photo op, and reading a children's story, while America was being attacked, while it was known that multiple planes were hijacked, while two of these planes had already crashed into the World Trade Center, and while confusion reigned in our real-time response!

Some leadership.

If anything, the timeline of Flight 77 (which crashed into the Pentagon at 9:38am) will tell us all we need to know about the performance of our commander-in-chief. He was not our commander-in-chief, at that moment, as he was not engaged. If someone ran into the room and told him muggers were assaulting his daughter in the next room, would he just sit there and continue to reading to children, or would he jump up and go help his daughter?

Is he really in charge? How could he not jump into action? If you had told me America was under attack, under my watch, as president, I would have instantly formed a war room. I couldn't imagine being president/commander-in-chief and not engaging with an attack on the country in favor of a photo op with kids reading a story about a goat - just as I couldn't imagine not coming to the defense of a family member being assaulted in the next room.

And the response after that, with the Secret Service flying him all over the country, is even more abominable. What's more important as a first priority: protecting the president, or having the commander-in-chief take action and lead in our defense!

George Washington, the great president, leader, and warrior, must be rolling in his grave, and nodding his head in agreement: George W. Bush must be fired, as he has already shown himself clearly to be unfit to be commander-in-chief!!!

Indeed, he makes one wonder if this is even true, that the president really is our commander-in-chief, and really in charge, or just some symbolic king that needs protection before the protection of our nation that he ought to be leading the defense.

9/06. Today is 9/06. Evaluate accordingly.

More On Max Boot, and His Rhetoric

There is plenty of precedent for guerrillas trying to affect a U.S. election. In 1900, American troops were embroiled in another nasty counterinsurgency halfway around the world that was not going as well as planned. After the Democratic nominee, William Jennings Bryan, promised to pull out of the Phillippines, the insurrectos launched a fall offensive in order to secure his election.

Is there any evidence to back up Max's statements, or is he merely providing testimony riddled with assocation equals causation fallacies? As a reminder, association does not equal causation, so one would expect at least a sliver of evidence here to support the claim, rather than a timeline. As I mentioned in the last post, I went looking for evidence, and at least on Google, there doesn't seem any to be found.

And this seems to bespeak a problem we have with media, and specifically our editorial writers. In the old days, it wasn't really feasible to put all your evidence, or even footnotes, in the op/ed, because you're obviously limited in space, needing to keep your spiel within a certain number of words (not much unlike Fahrenheit 9-11, I might add, which is like a documentary op/ed, and clearly couldn't have balanced every argument and still provided as much information or remained as entertaining for moviegoers).

In these prior days, one would expect that editors would at least vet op/ed submissions for truth claims, and expect documentation to back them up. It's one thing to state an opinion on a matter, quite another to make the categorical statement (a truth claim) that "there is plenty of precedent for guerrillas trying to affect a U.S. election".

And keep in mind that I'm not saying Max is wrong, but only that I would expect the editor of a newspaper to be able to query Max on his truth claims, even if this is not available to the reader, before allowing it to be printed. In addition, now that we are in the Internet age, there is no reason that these footnotes ought not be provided in the web version of op/eds.

These thoughts are not only motivated by Max. I've noticed a disturbing trend of letters to the editor, in various newspapers, that make categorical and clearly false claims about the Berger affair involving the National Archives, directly lying and mischaracterizing the facts of this episode, which are that Berger was always working with copies, and not originals (not to mention noone 'on record' seemingly having yet confirmed the 'pants and sock stuffing' accusations).

The letters to the editors all share in common claims that Berger could have destroyed evidence and hindered the 9-11 investigation, even though the 9-11 Commission itself has issued a public statement that the Berger investigation had no impact on its activities, and that there was no risk that documents were kept from the commission due to this affair.

This seems an easy and obvious enough intervention for an editor to make, in determining whether an op/ed, either from a reader or paid contributor, is worthy of being published. If it's frankly false, based upon the available information, not in the opinion portion but in the truth claims supporting the opinion, then the submission should be rejected, or at least corrected for truth claims in an editor's note following the item.

***

I first noticed the Berger letters to the editor in the Orange County Register, sometime in the past month, which devoted an entire page of Berger-focused letters to the editor that were infested with obviously false truth claims (apparently not bothering the so-called reason loving editors of this rag, notorious for its overt libertarian character).

Max Boot - Pacifying The Phillippines, English Language

Max Boot in today's LA Times:

There is plenty of precedent for guerrillas trying to affect a U.S. election. In 1900, American troops were embroiled in another nasty counterinsurgency halfway around the world that was not going as well as planned. After the Democratic nominee, William Jennings Bryan, promised to pull out of the Phillippines, the insurrectos launched a fall offensive in order to secure his election.

They failed. Republican William McKinley was reelected, and the U.S. went on to pacify the islands.

Before I get on to my criticism of Max Boot, and the abuse of the English language and history by referring to pacifying the Phillippines, an interesting observation arises from this. First, granting (for a moment) the Phillippine insurrection was motivated "to secure...election" of William Jennings Bryan, if Filipinos could have looked into a crystal ball at that time, it would be hard to fault them for resisting and hoping to influence a U.S. election, since they would have seen that over the course of their pacification, from 1899-1903, 200,000 Filipino civilians died, along with another 25,000 rebels (insurgents/resisters/local militia).

American occupation forces identified their objective as the capture of Aguinaldo. They initially perceived conquest and pacification as dependent on the fall of the Aguinaldo government. Because of their superiority in weapons, they also believed that the war would be short and swift in their favor. But the Americans were shocked at the courage and tenacity of the Filipinos who dragged the Americans into several years of battle.

The Filipinos waged a guerrilla warfare which was suitable for the country’s terrain and their limited firearms. Many of them were peasants by day and revolutionaries by night. They were sustained in their struggle by the unrelenting support of entire towns...receiv[ing] food, supplies, and shelter from the people. It was dangerous for an American to stray away from the U.S. garrison lest he be hacked to death by the guerrillas and their sympathizers.

Towards the end of 1900, the Americans declared martial law. To combat guerrilla warfare, they launched a scorched-earth "pacification" campaign. Every Filipino was viewed as an enemy regardless of whether he or she took up arms. Entire towns were held responsible for the actions of guerrillas. Mere objection to the Americans was termed treason. Villages sympathetic to the guerrillas were burned and people indiscriminately killed. Torture was systematically used to elicit information from suspected guerrillas or their sympathizers. One form of torture was the "water cure" treatment where the victim was forced to drink excessive amounts of water after which he was stomped on the stomach. One U.S. soldier bragged in a letter that Americans were shooting Filipinos "like rabbits."

Part of the strategy was the introduction of "reconcentration", a policy of hauling thousands of Filipinos (whom Americans referred to as their "little brown brothers") into concentration camps to flush out the guerrillas among them and to cut their material support to the resistance movement. In the process of reconcentration, whole towns suffered from starvation and disease. Villagers were taken from their sources of livelihood and were not decently fed. Worse, living conditions were less than adequate, with people confined in overcrowded camps without proper sanitation. Camps then became breeding grounds for the spread of deadly diseases such as cholera.

The guerrilla war for independence did not immediately end with Aguinaldo’s capture on March 23, 1901; the insurrection lasted until July 1902. In the end, it took over three years to “pacify” the Philippines. More than 120,000 American soldiers served in the Philippines, 4,200 of whom died. It was estimated that 25,000 Filipino rebels and 200,000 civilians also died.

Let's leave aside the imaginative scenarios, and the torture and murder of hundreds of thousands of Filipinos by a Republican hero and American president, and get to the point of this essay. Does pacification mean concentration camps, torture, murder, burning villages, declaring any dissent as treason, and systematic wiping out of locals and villages to secure an environment for American investment and markets? Methinks pacification is not the right word, or we should change our opinion of the "sense" of this word (i.e. negatively like 'cleansing').

Further, should we be bringing up this adventure in any way other than with profound sorrow and regret? Do we really consider the systematic rape, torture, murder, and repression of Filipinos (our "little brown brothers") as a success to be emulated?

Last, there are some very clear parallels from the passage quoted above, in terms of the assumptions and the consequences of those assumptions by the president and military planners, and the current situation in Iraq. So there is no excuse for President Bush to claim that he could not have been prepared for the events there.

In the Phillippines adventure, we had such superior firepower, we felt the war would be easy. Only after we made our initial advance, did we determine they had no intention of fighting us in a conventional way that would reflect our superiority, and instead melted into towns and the populace and engaged in guerrilla warfare.

When all was said and done, this shameful adventure should have taught us something, just as Vietnam should have taught us something. But, it seemingly hasn't. Not only that, but our leaders seem to want us to believe that they're not even aware of the mistakes made in these adventures, which seem to be largely the same as we've made in Iraq. We never should have invaded Iraq as we did, and when we did, and even having done so there is no excuse for our poor planning.

And, to my knowledge, there is no basis for Max Boot's claim that the Filipinos actively sought to influence the 1900 U.S. presidential campaign. I'm not saying it isn't true, but from a short, cursory search, I find no evidence for this claim, and Boot offers none in its defense.

***

(Postscript)

Today, the Right continues their campaign to rehabilitate military action in the wake of Vietnam, even by attempts to redefine and rewrite the history of Vietnam itself. Max Boot, unwittingly, has even brought up our epic failures and atrocities of the Phillippines, which have been largely ignored to date, as part of this effort. The clear lesson of history, of both of these campaigns, is that military invasions and brutalization of local peoples by foreigners (we being the foreigners in these cases) ought only be justified under the most stringent requirements, where our safety is imminently threatened, with full private and public review, and if we do take action every effort should be made to have every expert voice heard so that we do it right, and always act with an eye towards peace.

The world hasn't changed that much since the last century turned, as we can see. The battles that Mark Twain and William James, among others, were fighting against deviant political, corporate, and military elites, and for human decency, respect, and dignity, are still going on full bore. Don't fool yourself. That's why there is 500,000 people in the streets of New York, and millions more around the world before the Iraq invasion.

For a short synopis of the Anti-Imperialist League, and its initial platform, follow this link. For an update of what you can do today, start here.

Our Brilliant Blog Hubs

It seems every one of the most populous and trafficked blogs on the Left has embraced and adopted Michael Baruba. They must feel this will really influence people, that Beruba comes up with mildly amusing allusions to surrealists.

This is exactly what's wrong with the blogosophere. The ones who have gained the most advantageous position, the most traffic hits, somehow feel a wannabe political surrealist writer is the next guy to plug, and they infect everyone else with his witty but irrelevant analysis, which has nothing to do with the real world.

Why do they all hit him at the same time? Collusion? It doesn't make sense. I've seen Beruba's name instantaneously all over the heavy hitter blogosphere, and his analysis is nothing to brag about. It's a bit witty, but I'm a surrealist zen poet, and I don't pretend to throw around Breton's name like people care, or even that's he is a great poet.

Now, Robert Desnos is a great poet.

The point of all this is that the blog leadership just have no clue at all what people want to hear, and especially everyday American people. I suspect they don't know these people. Do they ever hang out in bars in non-university towns? I doubt it. They're apparently all a bunch of intellectual wonks who don't know the pulse of American voters just living their lives.

On this site, the pulse is reflected, along with a fidelity to the values we learned as children growing up in our schools. Patriotic values. My arguments, and my little pithy essays, are the kind of communication that works across ideological boundaries. Do I feel special? Hell no. I just care about my country, my friends, my neighbors, and our freedom. But the gateways are too easily entranced by some pretender who drops Breton a few too many times for anyone who plans on voting Democrat to take seriously.

A few words of advice. If this election goes bad, the Democrats will have nowhere to hide, and they won't be able to find comfort in thinking that surrealists or situationalists ever cared about their propaganda or platform. That's just plain fact.

I'm a poet. A zen poet. A lover of surrealism. Read Baruba, he's kind of funny, but keep in mind he will have no impact on this election. I hope our lead bloggers get over their infatuation, and start pointing to everyday arguments that will actually mean something to potential voters.

***

I went a little overboard with the use of 'clown' and so on in this post last night. Mark it down as frustration at our continuing national dysfunctionality when it comes to dealing with political issues and challenges. I've edited it a bit, to smooth it out, while not losing the message. Let it be said that Baruba is pretty funny too, and I enjoyed his writing the first time I was steered to it. Later, I got annoyed, but it's no fault of Baruba's for people digging his material. Peace.

Washington Post Bashes Bush Administration Secrecy

So some of you don't take this wrong, in a partisan way, it is quite obvious that the trends between the balance of openness and secrecy have dramatically shifted to secrecy during the Bush Administration. The Clinton Administration was remarkably open, and erred on the side of openness.

The Bush Administration, like its GOP predecessors George Bush (the elder), Ronald Reagan, and Richard Nixon, are about unparalleled levels of secrecy, back-room deals, and off-the-books military operations around the globe. The deals and operations that are going on in the dark wouldn't be going on in the light, and, for the most part, there's little defense for any of the scandals, from Nixon to Reagan's Iran-Contra scandal, to justify allowing these to happen without Congressional oversight and in denial of the balance of powers and the American way.

"It is no secret that government classifies too much information," Mr. Leonard [director of the National Archives' Information Security Oversight Office] said. "What I find most troubling . . . is that some individual agencies have no idea how much information they generate is classified, whether the overall quantity is increasing or decreasing, what the explanations are for such changes . . . and most importantly of all, whether the changes are appropriate."

Mr. Leonard, in response to questioning from Rep. Christopher Shays (R-Conn.), added that the amount of material "that shouldn't be classified in the first place . . . over the past year is disturbingly increasing" and that on discretionary calls he feels the government gets it wrong more than half the time.

Ms. Haave [undersecretary of defense for counterintelligence and security] also candidly acknowledged that "I do believe that we over-classify information" and she described the problem as "extensive," though "not for the purpose of wanting to hide anything." Pushed by Mr. Shays to quantify the over-classifica tion, she said, "How about if I say 50-50?"

Unnecessary secrecy erodes public confidence in government. It makes it impossible to take at face value government assertions that information is genuinely sensitive -- even when it is. And in a post-Sept. 11 world, needless secrecy is downright dangerous insofar as it prevents the open sharing of information that ought to have many different pairs of eyes examining and analyzing it.

There are a lot of problems with secrecy. An emphasis on transparency, and the absence of secrecy, encourages more accountability from our leadership, as they will not be able to hide embarrassing or criminal activities, or facts and results of their operations that are failures.

Transparency also removes the cover from which corruption and cronyism thrive. All over the world, we are infected with an epidemic of elite deviance and malfeasance, as authority figures mix between business and politics and enrich themselves at the expense of the people, their interests, and even in many cases their freedom. We are no different here in America, with cases popping up recurrently, from the BCCI episode to today's Enron and Halliburton, and though we remain open enough in America to uncover some of these things, the trend is disturbing, and, in the case of Enron, we only found out after total failure, with the complicity (absence of action) from the President (a good friend of the leader of Enron), that Enron gamed the energy crisis in California and screwed us in the immediate aftermath of Bush's election (this never would have happened on Gore's watch).

Further, our society is divided in an unprecedented, and unhealthy, way. Conspiracies and myths thrive amongst the people. A commitment to transparency and the freedom of information would go a long way to dispelling conspiracies and beginning to heal the hearts and minds of Americans, and encourage reconciliation and recognition of common beliefs, goals, and challenges again, rather than the wedge demagoguery that holds American politics hostage today, along with our hearts and minds.

From this corner, this site, this man, you will never, ever sense a hint of surrender. I am going to keep banging on the doors, and using my little axe, to free the flow of information so that it goes both ways, from the people to the state and from the state to the people, and to knock down the tall trees of corruption and cynicism that infect not only America, but the globe.

Lao-Tzu Comments On Leadership

A leader is best
when people barely know
that he exists,
not so good
when people obey
and acclaim him,
worst when they despise him.
“Fail to honor people,
they fail to honor you”;
but of a good leader,
who talks little,
when his work is done,
his aim fulfilled,
they will say
“we did this ourselves.”

In other words, when 200,000 people are on the streets of New York wanting your removal, a leader does not dismiss them, or disparage them, or ignore them, but ought wonder how to engage them, why they scorn him, and mourn the failure to bring them together under more favorable circumstances, so they feel their will is being done, and not being trampled.

On Bush's Leadership Style

The Washington Post has done some thorough (and balanced) background work and analysis on Bush's leadership style:

Many of Bush's admirers describe him as a leader who asks tough, probing questions of advisers but also say he is a person who, once he picks a goal, never looks back. Even strong supporters sometimes worry that his curiosity and patience seem limited, while detractors see him as intellectually lazy and dependent on ideology and sloganeering instead of realism and clear thinking. Because he has a relatively small set of advisers, dissenting voices are effectively muffled.

Dissenting voices are muffled? Not the stuff of true leadership. This article has a few little anecdotes from Christine Whitman, for instance, former head of the EPA, complaining of not being heard and essentially shunted aside. With Bush's lack of interest in the environment, and its value to us and our children, this may not be so surprising, but it is not limited to what Bush may perceive as core liberal, anti-business issues.

Fred I. Greenstein, a Princeton University political scientist and authority on presidential leadership styles, said Bush's clarity of purpose reduces the tendency in government to let matters drift, but too often "results in a vision that may be simplistic or insufficiently examined or something that undermines itself."

(snip)

In other cases, though, Bush has allowed crises to fester. Bush has never resolved deep disagreements within his war cabinet about how to deal with North Korea, with the result that the isolated nation, which had appeared close to a missile deal with the Clinton administration, has quadrupled its stockpile of nuclear weapons, from two to eight, during Bush's tenure.

On North Korea, Bush has been torn between the engagement recommended by Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and the no-compromise stance taken by Vice President Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld. Often, insiders say, diplomatic initiatives are decided at the last minute, apparently on the basis of the position of the person who gets in the last word. The shifting script, foreign diplomats involved in the talks say, has often left other countries confused about the administration's approach -- and the crisis over North Korea's nuclear program unresolved.

It's this kind of myopia or narrow-sightedness on particular issues, like Iraq, while allowing other important crises and challenges to fester, like North Korea, Burma, and the environment, that seems to mark Bush's administration. As the leader of this administration, we have to judge him on it, and there seem to be many more failures than successes, and most of these might possibly be explained by his cavalier and ideologically restrained management and stifling of the free flow of information.

One of the most persistent criticisms of Bush is that he operates in a largely closed loop with little input from outside experts, relying on longtime confidants, many of whom came with him from Texas. Just as Bush has claimed to read mostly newspaper stories selected by his staff, he also relies on just a few people for most of his ideas about the world.

Again and again, people who know Bush refer to the filter around him. John M. Bridgeland, who was the first director of Bush's Domestic Policy Council and then ran USA Freedom Corps, the president's national-service initiative, said Bush "wants only the highly relevant information he needs to make an informed judgment."

The only problem with this is that when he is getting his information from known hysterics like Dick Cheney (sorry Dick, any credibility you may have had is now gone, with your Iraq WMD performance), and a packed truth squad of the likes of Douglas Feith, there's little wonder that Bush was not able to see the forest for the trees. Leadership demands that you ask the tough questions, from the pool of all available information, so that you are not blind-sided, and your efforts, which afterall represent the nation and the people you are leading, have the best chance of fitness and success, rather than catastrophic success and/or failure.

But critics say that Iraq illustrates the risks of an approach that narrows the definition of a problem and fails to look at the ramifications of a proposed solution. Accounts of Bush's decision-making about Saddam Hussein describe repeated and detailed briefings on plans for the military assault on Iraq. But no such attention appears to have been directed toward the ethnic and religious differences within that country or on plans for pacification after the hoped-for military victory. In recent interviews, Bush has acknowledged that he misjudged the political and social climate of Iraq and therefore was unprepared for the resistance that has cost so many American lives.

Some administration officials complained that one problem with Bush's reliance on his gut instincts is that often officials who have to sell or implement a policy are unsure how he arrived at it. The president told Woodward in "Bush at War": "I do not need to explain why I say things. That's the interesting thing about being the president. Maybe somebody needs to explain to me why they say something, but I don't feel I owe anybody an explanation."

As for being unsure at how he arrives at his decisions, you can count the American people and world as well. For a while, half of Americans believed that Saddam Hussein was involved in 9-11, among other fanciful and numerous theories of why we went to war in Iraq. As a particular reason has been shot down, like WMD, it is merely replaced with one of other half-dozen reasons chosen. This may be effective for Lincoln-Douglass debate, but it is hardly the measure of a good leader, and flexibility ought to be reserved for action, and not rationalizations and excuses if a stubborn policy that doesn't consider changing course (or it's too late the course is committed) needs new reasons to support it.

A variety of academic researchers have conducted in-depth studies of Bush's decision-making style, and several of them have found that greater curiosity about the nitty-gritty details of policy substance, and less hasty decision-making, could have saved him considerable grief.

Greenstein, for one, said: "People no longer think he's dumb or not capable, but he clearly does not consider downsides and alternatives. Decisiveness is a good thing, unless you're leaping to the gun."

Alexander L. George, a Stanford University professor emeritus of political science and author of a text about presidential decisions, said Bush "does not look for complexity."

"He doesn't appear to have second thoughts about anything, which is worrisome when things aren't going so well," George said.

Senator Leahy Bashes Bush Administration On Secrecy, Defends Freedom of Information

Support just keeps coming in from all corners in the struggle for the freedom of information, transparency, and accountability. U.S. Senator Patrick Leahy lights up the Bush Administration for excessive secrecy and non-cooperation with Congress in a cogent editorial in the Detroit Free Press:

The public's right to know is one of the foundations of our freedoms and our democracy. Knowing what our government is doing promotes accountability and trust and lubricates the checks and balances that make our system work.

That is why Congress' oversight role, reporting by a free press and tools like the Freedom of Information Act are so vital.

But the pendulum has swung so far away from openness in recent years that it is silently and steadily eroding the public's right to know. And when structural protections like FOIA are weakened, the erosion can be rapid, and lasting.

Ironically, at the same time government agencies are quietly...[gathering] more information about each of us, it is becoming harder for Americans to learn what government agencies are up to...rightly becom[ing] a serious concern for Americans, [and] sparking calls for greater openness.

(snip)

[And]...when it comes to congressional oversight, cooperation from the current administration has been sparse and grudging...Oversight letters from Congress to the Justice Department have gone unanswered for months or even years...Attorney General John Ashcroft has been reluctant to appear before congressional oversight committees...and this, during a period when there is much to be accountable for.

(snip)

We can count on government agencies to issue press releases when they do things right. We need the Freedom of Information Act so we also know when they do things wrong.

(snip)

The free flow of information is a cornerstone of our democracy, and each generation of Americans must fiercely protect this right, for our own sake, and for the generations that will follow us.

Please go read the whole editorial. I've given about half of it here, and making edits was difficult to do, because the whole piece is nothing short of brilliantly stated, and deserves our full consideration.

God Bless Americans like Patrick Leahy.

Bush, Catastrophic Success, and John Edwards Making Me Laugh Out Loud

In the middle of the night, checking up on the news, getting ready to go to sleep, the last thing I expect to do, while reading a Washington Post story, is start busting out laughing...

Bush...acknowledged...that the administration did not anticipate the nature of the resistance in Iraq, and he said that was his greatest mistake in office. "Had we had to do it over again," he said, "we would look at the consequences of catastrophic success, being so successful so fast that an enemy that should have surrendered or been done in escaped and lived to fight another day."

Democrats tried Sunday to exploit that acknowledgment. "The president is now describing his Iraq policy as a catastrophic success," Democratic vice presidential nominee John Edwards said in Washington. "I, like most Americans, have no idea what that means, but it is long past time for this president to accept personal responsibility for his failures and for his performance." Edwards said the Iraq war "has clearly been a failure."

As funny as this is, in terms of Edwards' witty response, it also continues our discussion about leadership and accountability. Iraq has been, by and large, a terrible failure, or at least all or most of our main expectations and objectives have gone astray. That Bush finally seems to want to acknowledge this, on the eve of the Republican Convention, when people are really going to start paying attention, is not comforting. One only need look at all the failures and embarassment courtesy of the Defense Department to see where President Bush can put some proof in his leadership pudding and fire or accept the resignation of several top individuals.