Recently in War Category

I think I told you about one of my favorite political cartoons from Tom Toles. It's somewhat dated, but only in the sense that the chickens have already come home to roost:

First panel: India, where people are sitting in cubicles designing software
Second panel: China, where people are in a factory manufacturing cars
Third panel: US, where a really fat guy is sitting before a bank loan officer saying, "I want refinance my mortgage so I can buy more stuff."

Now this:

The Iraq war, says economist Joseph Stiglitz, is “the first U.S. war financed entirely on credit.” When the war started, the Bush administration said it would cost no more than $60 billion. But the U.S. budget was already in deficit, so the administration had to borrow money to finance the invasion. About 40 percent of the money was borrowed from China and other international investors—the first time since the Revolutionary War that foreigners financed a U.S. war.

At the same time, the administration and Congress lowered taxes instead of raising them, as is customary in wartime The Federal Reserve kept interest rates low, which encouraged middle-class Americans to go on a consumption binge financed by credit cards and home-equity loans. Today, say Stiglitz and other economists, the bills for the country’s spending spree are starting to come due, in the form of higher prices, a weakened dollar, and lower living standards. “There’s no such thing as a free war,” Stiglitz said. “The U.S.—and the world—will be paying the price for decades to come.”

I've often said that the entire Republican orthodoxy has led us to a point in time where they want to reduce taxes to zero and borrow the entire cost of running the government -- from China. If we can hire private contractors to do it (e.g., Newt's proposal to hand it over to Fedex) so much the better -- then shareholders (the elites of The Ownership Society) will finally call all the shots. Never mind "one person, one vote." In The Ownership Society, it's "ten thousand dollars, ten thouand votes.

That's what I think this election should be about.

I've always felt that the job of government is to keep an eye on business and the job of the independent press is to keep an eye on government. So when I see the traditional media being lazy and self-loathing (handing the cudgel to right-wingers so they can be clubbed mercilessly) it bothers me.

Now, in just the latest episode of a news industry that cares more for ratings (and profits) than they do for truth, we're reading about the Pentagon-orchestrated campaign to use "miltary analysts" with the appearance of objectivity to generate favorable news coverage of the administration’s wartime performance:

The effort, which began with the buildup to the Iraq war and continues to this day, has sought to exploit ideological and military allegiances, and also a powerful financial dynamic: Most of the analysts have ties to military contractors vested in the very war policies they are asked to assess on air.

By co-opting the role of an independent press in this way, we've taken one more large and consequential step toward fascism -- a system where government and business are indistinguishable and the interests of the people are subverted or ignored entirely.

Glenn Greenwald:

One of the most significant political stories of this decade, if not this generation -- the media's full-scale complicity with the Government in the run-up to the Iraq war -- has never been meaningfully discussed or examined on any establishment television network, including cable shows. While piecemeal quibbles of media coverage can be heard (of the type [Washington Post's Howard] Kurtz typically spouts, or the Limbaugh-driven complaint about the "liberal media"), no fundamental critique of the role the media plays, the influence of its corporate ownership, its incestuous relationship with and dependence on government power -- among the most influential factors driving our political life -- are ever heard.

Hopefully, the role, influence, and ratings of the traditional media have lessened as the role of interactive media has grown. Blogs, wikis, social networks, video-sharing -- all of these non-traditional media (and more) have made it possible for an alternative narrative to emerge that highlights how our own government -- and the independent press -- has failed us.

However, and in the meantime, we're awash in bogus "scandals," chief among them whether or not Barack Obama secretly wants to "kill whitey." I presume that these stories are playing out 24/7 because they are (wait for it) good for ratings. High ratings, of course, lead to higher advertising revenues. On the other hand, reporting the truth might lead to real change --- which, at best, may have no impact on the news media's bottom line and may actually hurt it.

So the next time you hear about a politican who might be untrustworthy because he doesn't wear a flag pin, remember how the Pentagon supplied the generals (all of whom wore brass stars on their shoulders) and how they lied about how we're doing in the war -- and how the traditional media put them on the air in the first place.

by shep

I am not a violent man.

Yes, I’ve fought for sport - light contact only (sort of). And I like football (the American kind) as long as no one is seriously hurt.

And I think that strictly measured violence is sometimes justified if necessary to protect the weak or defenseless. For example, I thought that the Clinton Administration’s campaign to stop the Serbs’ genocide was justified even though possible war crimes were committed.

But violence out of any base emotion (greed, pride, anger, envy, etc.), with the possible exception of pure fear, disgusts me and demonstrates a throwback mentality in any post-19th Century human being. So my wife was quite surprised when I told her that I had started having these invading thoughts about accidentally running into Bill Kristol and, without hesitation, punching his lights out.

Now most people haven’t much of a clue the role Kristol has played as an agitator and cheerleader for the most reckless and traitorous policies of the Bush Administration, they just know him as the smug, arrogant and consistently wrong bloviator employed by “news organizations” such as Fox and Time Magazine and now, The New York Times. As smintheus put it:

” You would be hard pressed to find another private citizen who has had a more pernicious influence on American foreign policy than William Kristol.”

So that’s how I justified these uncharacteristic flights of violent fantasy, as a sense of implementing some rough justice. The plot thickened when I read Digby’s suggestion to attend this at just about the time my wife was going to be in DC on business. I was honestly curious to see the-nothing-conservative-about-him Kristol defend the conservative movement he had just helped manage to destroy.

So I signed up, got to town, went down to the Press Club, got my pass, staked out my seat and stepped up to the buffet table. Where, what to my wondering eyes appeared right in front of me on the other side of the ham salad but Mr. Bill Kristol. As he stood there, engaging in obviously uncomfortable small talk with the guy next to me, our eyes met and for one second I thought of reaching for the knot of his necktie and clearing the table with his smarmy, pasty face.

Just as quickly, I felt a wave of disgust and pity wash over me and it was over. I got my lunch, wrote my question (something like” “if the conservative movement was valid enough to win in the marketplace of ideas, why did it have to create conservative-only, billionaire funded think tanks and alternative “news” outlets to sell its case?”) and watched Robert Kuttner make mincemeat out of Bill Kristol. As it turned out, that and the crowd reactions were more than satisfying (and since it was free, a lot less expensive that a battery charge and civil suit).

Postscript: on my way out we held the elevator as (debate moderator) Karen Tumulty jogged in and joked that she was just happy that no one had thrown any food. I pointed out that ham salad makes a lousy projectile and we all chuckled a bit at the imagery.

Here’s to a (more) peaceful New Year.

[Cross-posted at Dispassionate Liberal]

You know, this is going to sound crazy but when I read the story about the escaped tiger at the San Francisco zoo, I had a sense of foreboding. Coming as it did -- on Christmas day -- it seemed a stark reminder that the bottom can fall out at any time.

Now Benazir Bhutto is dead in Rawalpindi in an act of carnage so sudden and brutal that it shocks the conscience.

And no matter what I do, I can't get the foreshadowing image of that rampaging tiger out of my mind. It is simply...too much. If this were something that had been described in a novel, or shown in a movie, you'd walk away thinking, "Nah. Too unbelievable."

And yet here we are.

P.S. All the "Top stories of 2007" articles have already been written. But surely this one would have to be at, or near, the very top. We can only watch in anxious anticipation as to what might happen in the coming year.

Somewhere in one of John Rogers' posts I found a link to John Robb's blog, Global Guerillas, wherein Robb discusses the concept of open-source warfare.

There's way too much there to do it justice in a single (or multiple) short posts, but I think Robb nails it in one specific post when he talks about perpetual war and how it enables and strengthens a regime. That's nothing new. What stopped me and made me think was how that it happening here in the US.

A sample:

The privatization of conflict. This is likely the critical factor that makes perpetual warfare possible. For all intents and purposes, the US isn't at war. The use of a professional military in combination with corporate partners has pushed warfare to the margins of political/social life. A war's initiation and continuation is now merely a function of our willingness/ability to finance it. Further, since privatization mutes moral opposition to war (i.e. "our son isn't forced to go to war to die") the real damage at the ballot box is more likely to impact those that wish to end its financing. To wit: every major presidential candidate in the field today now gives his/her full support to the continuation of these wars.

Remember: the optimist's view of Iraq envisions 80-100 thousand troops there for 30 years.

The guy is very perceptive and he is changing the way I look at war and politics -- and this campaign for president.

[cross posted, with poll, at Daily Kos]

So suggests Newsweek's Fareed Zakaria. Skeptical? Hear him out:

First off, he debunks the observation that everything is on a glide path to a soft landing.

Zakaria:

This is a nation where 4.5 million people have fled their homes, ethnic cleansing has transformed whole cities and religious fanatics have imposed a theocratic rule that is often more extreme than in Iran.

In much of the country, thugs rule the streets. The police chief of Basra told the Iraqi newspaper Al-Sabah last week, "Most of Basra's ports, especially Umm Qasr, are under the control of militia gangs. The police force is incapable of executing its duties because its members report to the militias."

The central government is barely functioning. Half of the cabinet ministries are either vacant or nonfunctional.

Iraq's oil production is down this year. Sectarian divisions are, in some ways, getting worse.

No purple fingers here, folks.

On the ground, far from Bush's rhetoric of transformation, these conditions have moved American policy toward realism.

So if you thought "victory" was going to be a democratic Iraq friendly to US interests, then we lost the war.

That said, it hasn't stopped Petraeus, according to Zakaria, from seizing an opportunity to take credit for himself and his clients:

Petraeus has been willing to do what no American official has until now: accept Iraq for what it is and not what Washington wants it to be. Searching for a stable order, Petraeus has allied himself with whoever, within reason, could produce that order.

If I could, I would have added air-quotes to the words "stable order."

Petraeus has, in effect, given up hopes of Shiite leaders in Baghdad reconciling with Sunnis, and instead he's made up with them himself. The result has been that Al Qaeda in Iraq has been marginalized, Sunni leaders no longer demand an American withdrawal and the Shiites have recognized that America's support is not unconditional.

Hey, if it means fewer dead Americans, good on him. Declare victory, for all I care -- just come home, godammit.

In the Shiite south, U.S. policy has abandoned the goal of an impartial government and has picked a side: Abdul Aziz al-Hakim's Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (ISCI), which holds sway over most local governments in the region.

I have a feeling we'll regret this someday, but ... whatever.

Petraeus has even been somewhat accommodating of the Sadrists. In Baghdad, U.S. forces now primarily target "rogue" Mahdi Army militants. The more maintsream Sadrists have been tacitly allowed to operate in several Shiite areas.

"Let Freedom Reign?" Nuh-uh. This is us pointing a gun at everyone as we slowly back out of the room.

Bottom line: Hundreds of billions flushed down a hole, tens of thousands dead and wounded -- and the same people who got us into it are still in power...ready to do it again in Iran.

As for Iraq being an issue in the fall of '08, Zakaria suggests that you not bet on it:

In the new NEWSWEEK Poll, the economy now tops Iraq as the issue that voters say will most influence their choice for president, 22 percent to 19 percent. For two years, Iraq dominated these kinds of surveys. Only a month ago, in a CBS News poll, 28 percent of respondents wanted Iraq to be the campaign's most-discussed issue, while the economy came in second at 16 percent. One can't make too much of one poll, but other evidence also suggests that the gap seems to be closing.

It's the economy, stupid!

P.S. Of course, he doesn't mention the fallout if the US is at war with Iran 6 months from now. If that happens it is not going to be good for the Dems -- or anyone else for that matter.

You know it's coming. Will we be ready -- whoever we nominate?

by shep

Certain people, who need not be named but who whisper in the ear of the president and the leading Republican candidate to replace him and who are hired by the most prestigious (and not so much) news organizations to share their opinions with the public, think we should attack the country of Iran for providing (completely unproven) support for insurgents fighting against the US occupation of Iraq.

Well, who wouldn’t want to attack the country that arms its enemies, who end up killing their troops? Still, the main moral difference between Iraq/Iran and this seems to be that the Soviets were actually invited into Afghanistan by its government (much like our own venture into Vietnam). (Can you imagine if they simply came up with some phony excuse to invade and occupy the country, hanging its leaders and killing a million innocent Afghanis?)

Yet the IEDs Stinger missiles and other support supplied by our Quds Force CIA and China, Pakistan and Iran (”The Coalition of the Willing”), killed 10,000 or more Soviet troops (good thing the Soviets didn’t have nuclear weapons and strategic bombing capability, huh?).

The (most ironic) poison fruit, poisons us still:

“Some American groups, particularly neoconservatives came to believe that they were responsible for the fall of the Soviet Union. The Islamists that fought also believed that they were responsible for the fall of the union, and this may have indirectly lead to 9/11. Osama bin Laden, for example asserting the credit for ‘the collapse of the Soviet Union ... goes to God and the mujahidin in Afghanistan ... the US had no mentionable role,’ but ‘collapse made the US more haughty and arrogant.’”

But, as we have learned from tragic effect, they are absolutely incapable of learning anything from history:

“Some participants felt leverage was not the main issue; rather, US policymakers knowingly abandoned Afghanistan to the Pakistanis and Saudis to ‘sort out’ Afghanistan’s future. However, the participant said, ‘The Pak-Saudi agenda for Afghanistan was totally ruinous . . . it was [that] agenda which leads to Al Qaeda and all the rest of it. . . . Did you not see this in 1992, as it emerges?’”

The obvious answer is either “no” or they just didn’t think it mattered very much.

Regardless, the Soviets didn’t attack the US over arming its enemies in Afghanistan, we didn’t attack China for arming our enemies in Korea and Vietnam and China didn’t attack us for arming theirs. Pakistan has illegal nuclear weapons, Maddrassas, a Muslim population that is far more radicalized than Iran and it arms Islamic radicals who kill our troops in Afghanistan while it provides safe haven to Osama bin Laden (if he's still alive). We call it an ally.

In any event, the people who have shaped the foreign and military policy of the United States for the past seven years (especially Vice President Cheney) are not the people who should be allowed anywhere near that sort of power ever again. Just as their authoritarianism, bellicosity and aggression has made Osama bin Laden’s fondest wishes come true it has also driven the price of oil to record highs, funneling ever more $billions to countries like Iran and Russia even as it unites Muslim nations against us and weakens us economically and militarily.

If the nation’s political and media leaders had either the slightest bit of level-headed judgement or a functioning moral compass the neoconservatives wouldn't be setting the agenda, they would be driven from the public sphere in shame and eventually tried for their crimes against humanity.

[Cross-posted at Dispassionate Liberal]

Here it is -- we (you and I) are slated to spend $2.4 trillion (with a T) over the next 10 years on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The White House brushed off the estimate as too conditional. "It's just a ton of speculation," said White House press secretary Dana Perino. "We don't know how much the war is going to cost in the future."

Better not to think about the future. Same goes for how we got here -- that's the past and we certainly don't want to dwell on that either. All there is, is today. Live in the moment! That's the ticket.

House Democratic Caucus Chairman Rahm Emanuel, D-Ill., said voters were suffering from "sticker shock...America's future is being held hostage by the cost of the war," he said.

His concern would be most admirable if it wasn't totally covered in crap. Why doesn't he just say "no" to more funding? Why doesn't he, you know, lead the way to ending the war?

It reminds me of something I saw while watching the trailer for that new Robert Redford movie, Lions for Lambs. In it, Reford's character said this:

"They bank on your apathy. They plan strategies around it...The problem is not with the people who started this. The problem is with us -- who do nothing."

Don't just sit there: call your Congressman. NOW.

Call Rahm Emanuel.

Call Nancy Pelosi.

Tell them -- again, as many times as it takes -- "no." Just "no."

"The problem is with us who do nothing."

[Cross posted, with poll, at Daily Kos]

Yaakov Kirschen's cartoon goes like this: "The optimists think that the US Presidential campaign will be about the war in Iraq, while the pessimists think it'll be about the war in Iran." Substitute "Democrats" for "optimists" and "Republicans" for "pessimists" and I think you have a prescription for Democratic electoral disaster.

Hear me out...

Flash forward 6-12 months: tensions are high with Iran; maybe we've had some cross border skirmishes (like the Turks vs. the PKK). Maybe we've concentrated more ships, planes and bombs into the Gulf region. I'm not a betting man but the odds seem pretty strong we'll see that, or worse, in the immediate future. Who's going to stop it? Congress? Riiiiiiight. This is the same bunch that couldn't even compel Harriet Miers to comply with a crappy subpoena.

So now tensions are high. Very high. We're talking 24/7 war mania. Of course, the media is no help. In fact, Murdoch's new WSJ business channel bangs the drums louder than anyone -- whatever is good for the corporation is good for America. Blackwater stock goes stratospheric.

Who do you think this help the most -- Democrats or Republicans? Or more to the point: which candidates does this help most? Don't shoot the messenger, but I'm here to tell you it's short list -- and it has more Republicans on it than Democrats:

• Giuliani -- Death to Islamofascism. No more 9/11's.
  
• McCain -- The son and grandson of Navy admirals, blah blah blah.
  
• Clinton -- Stood (and will stand) shoulder-to-shoulder with the Commander in Chief

The rest of the field are (rightly or wrongly) perceived as lightweights. Not only that: the press will cast the story that way as well. Romney? Edwards? They cancel each other out as pretty boys. Obama bet on Iraq (being the optimist, see above, that he is) but he has no cred on Iran. Thompson? Compared to McCain and Giuliani, he's about exciting as a plate of grits. Dodd & Biden? I'd like to think they could stop Bush/Cheney via the Senate but I'm not counting on it. Richardson? His strength is his weakness -- he's a diplomat.

For those of you who were electoral optimists (see above) this is not good, my friends: McCain and Giuliani already poll relatively well against Clinton. A looming war with Iran helps them more than it helps her. Whichever one of them gets the nomination, all bets are off for an easy Dem takeover in the White House.

One bit of good news: I think Hillary Clinton intuitively sees these pieces on the chess board and is thinking several moves ahead. The others either don't -- or can't -- deal with it as it stands now.

Am I missing something here? I don't think so.

Bottom line: the worse the situation with Iran, the better it is for the Republicans in November 2008.

An excerpt from John Cusack's eye-opening interview with Naomi Klein:

One of the distinguishing features of the Bush administration has been its reliance on outside advisers and freelance envoys to perform key functions: James Baker, Paul Bremer, Henry Kissinger, George Shultz, Richard Perle, Bruce Jackson, and so on...

Their power stems from the fact that they used to perform key roles in government -- they are former secretaries of state, former ambassadors and former undersecretaries of defense. All have been out of government for years and, in the meantime, have set up lucrative careers in the disaster capitalism complex.

And because they are freelance government contractors, they aren't subject to the same conflict-of-interest rules as elected or appointed politicians.

The effect has been to eliminate the so-called revolving door between government and industry and allow the disaster industries to simply set up shop inside the government, using the reputations of these supposedly illustrious ex-politicians as cover.

Read the whole thing.

P.S. Yes, that John Cusack.