Perry and other Republican lawmakers have recently argued that federal disaster relief — such as aid for states hit by tornadoes and hurricanes — must be offset by federal spending cuts, but they have yet to make that argument in fire-ravaged Texas. The state recently cut funding for volunteer fire departments by 75% as a cost-saving measure.

FEMA’s budget got chopped by budget negotiations, and by debt ceiling wrangling. And then along came tornadoes, and Irene, and more rain and flooding and natural disasters, and some fires in Texas that budget-reduced firefighters couldn’t control. And now Perry is trying to turn the Texas fires into a Katrina moment for Obama.

Good luck with that, Rick.

In fact, good luck to everyone. Because since state and local governments across the country are on the precipice thanks to the recession and aided by a decade of fighting wars while cutting taxes, the whole country is running the risk of looking like the South Bronx circa 1982. No wonder fundamentalists keep talking about the Rapture– they’re ready to get the hell out of here before what was sowed by right-wing ideology is reaped.

He says that Jesus taught us to
be obedient to two masters
and to serve the heads of state
wherever they are leading

Serving under arms when called
to kill foreigners on foreign soil
who worship God a different way
A cross all Christians carry

But to speak up respectfully
when the church says God’s law is higher
like when babies are aborted
or homosexuals marry

For an interesting civil rights/racism analog to ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ see ‘The Space Traders,’ a story by Derrick Bell (visiting law professor at NYU) about what would happen if aliens came to earth offering to trade oil (ed: actually, energy and gold and all the answers to the country’s woes) for black people. It’s available on-line within an article length commentary by Bell himself at:
http://tarlton.law.utexas.edu/lpop/etext/lsf/bell23.htm

(Via carlofbaltimore.)

Note when the story was originally pubished.

I’d like to think that we as a society wouldn’t let that happen. But we’ve let New Orleans happen. We’ve let poverty happen. We’ve let all manners of intolerance and hate happen, and we mask it over with patriotic bullshit. When 60% of African-Americans (or more) agree that George Bush doesn’t care about their fate — and 30% (me included) of white America agrees with them based on the evidence– there’s no hiding the fact that there is an almost unbridgeable divide in America. On one site is, disturbingly, what now appears to be the majority of American culture: not just Red state, but redneck America, which waves the Bible and the flag in the face of anyone who disagrees with it. On the other is the disenfranchised of all creeds, but especially minorities and especially the urban poor.

And it looks like even Bill Clinton agrees:

The Ex-President: Clinton Levels Sharp Criticism at the President’s Relief Effort: “Former President Bill Clinton said the storm highlighted class divisions in the country that often played out along racial lines.”(Via NYT > Most E-mailed Articles.)

How do we change this? How do we bring America’s pieces back together? If you buy what Professor Bell has to say, we can’t–it’s a permanent condition, and the patient cannot be cured , only be made more comfortable.

I suspect that it can be cured, but only through radical means. John Brown knew what that meant.

Today, we look at New Orleans post-Katrina, at the arguments over funding, at the ongoing war in Iraq, and we say:”What the hell? Government can’t do anything right. They just let the status quo roll while people are dying and the crap gets deeper, and they keep giving the money to allegedly fix everything to their friends. But if you want to get anything really done, the government is irrelevant at best, and a hindrance at worst. People have to get together and fix things on their own, because we aren’t getting any help from those idiots.”

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Army Recruiters court Katrina victims: “Who didn’t see this coming?..”

(Via Epistolary.)

Generally speaking, if you want to succeed in the world–gain power, wealth, fame, etc.–you need to be a total asshat. The rules of civil society are there to make sure sheep don’t wander off and forget to pay taxes. If you want more, you should lie, defraud, steal, and betray on a regular basis.

That’s not to say that there’s no risk involved with that course of action. A significantly larger percentage of asshats end up as tenants of our nation’s growing housing market known as the prison system than end up as, say, President.

But the risk is directly proportional to your starting social position and race–not too many rich, white asshats end up in prison. Rich, white nice people generally end up less rich, or have enough money to allow themselves the luxury of separating their behavior from their tax bracket. Noblesse oblige is a sport for only those with the oldest of money.

Take, for example, the rich white men who currently run this country. Dubya is a profligate liar, and he lies with such boldness that it has left the press stunned. He and his underlings repeat the lies so often that people end up believing them (or at least parroting them). And he’s used his bogus piety and flag waving to ensure that anyone who publicly disagrees with him will be Mao-maoed into submission.

Take, for example, the Newsweek Koran-Flushing Story. After the White house went ballistic over the story, and the right went nuts over “irresponsible journalism”, the whole thing turned out to be, well, largely true. And there hasn’t been a peep about that from the White House, really–other than the aptly named Dick Cheney saying that the detention center at Gitmo will remain open.

It’s not an ideological thing, either. Clinton was a major league asshat himself, which he covered for (like Bush does) with his aw-shucks charm. Carter was a Nice Guy elected in response to the ultimate presidential asshat (Nixon), and he got absolutely nothing done.

Then there’s the business world. Generally speaking, those who reside at the top of the corporate food chain generally get there by constantly, agressively pressing on other’s sense of propriety and discomfort with conflict. They make shit up as they go along, and then find ways to sidestep the consequences. They change plans and contend that they always had actually been aiming for their new target. They are insufferable bastards.

So, if you want to get ahead in the world, remember–it will have to be at the expense of your moral, ethical, and social comfort zones. Because only total pricks ever get to the top. But make sure you pick the right rules to break (and make sure you’re white, or rich enough that no one cares), or you’ll just end up as a cautionary tale used to keep us sheep in the pen.

But the city schools apparently have a solution to that problem. Yesterday, I was glancing at the Baltimore Sun and spotted a dual-byline story about how the city is using a recruiter to import as many as 45 teachers from the Philippines. Amused, I alerted Paula to it when she got home from student teaching. She looked at it online, and did a quick Google on the recruiter’s name–something they still can’t do, apparently, in the Sun’s bullpen, because the results were interesting.

Last November, KGO-TV in California reported on how the same recruiter was charging Filippino teachers $3,000 each for placement–and then Oakland was firing them, and going back to her for more teachers, after only a few months. Some of the recruited teachers were left stranded, without enough money to return home to the Philippines, because they had paid their way to the US on assurances that the jobs were long-term.

This article from a Georgia paper from last June suggests that the recruiter was under investigation by the FBI, and a school district in Georgia had severed its ties to her as a result.

Then there’s this article from SF Weekly, published four years ago. While still an employee of the the San Francisco Unified School District, Ligaya Avenida had apparently violated a number of Filipino laws and US labor regulations.

But, no matter. Just think about how those highly-qualified Filipino teachers will feel when they show up for their first day of school in an uncontrollable classroom in West Baltimore somewhere…that alone will be enough for them to file a human rights abuse.

The only difference in this regard between me and John Kerry is that my first marriage was annulled by the Catholic church (because it was officiated by a Methodist Navy chaplain, and not a priest) and my ex never got around to the details required to get our marriage blessed before she fell in love with the assoicate pastor and… well, there's a novel in that story. So, even though I have two children from that marriage, I get a Catholic “do-over.”

Kerry apparently doesn't rate one, and in the eyes of some he therefore is not in a “state of grace”–and should therefore be refused communion, or have the common sense to stay seated while the queue forms. Others tut-tut, but say that it's up to the individual to determine whether he or she is in a “state of grace.”

Forget if a politician could *ever* be in a state of grace, by definition. What ever happened to, “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone?” Oh, I forgot, this is the juncture of politics and religion, where the first stone is cast in order to appear to be without sin.

And you'd better be casting a stone if it's a Sunday, because the Pope just told Australian bishops that all secular activities should be avoided on the sabbath–so throwing a baseball on the sabbath is a sure path to Purgatory. Get your indulgence payments ready.

I spent Easter morning in church with my wife, children, and (erk) ex. She came in cursing her father and sister over how he had given her the furniture out of his condo that he had just sold, fuming over how he had never asked HER if she wanted any of it, and how her sister had slighted her in so many ways over the weekend. She then took communion. Was she in a state of grace when she did so, still muttering words of hate under her breath?

When so-called Christians shower hate upon people who are different from them, are they in a state of grace? When we sit by as a country and let our leaders send our brothers, sisters, and children off to kill on a whim, can any of us be in a state of grace?

“I know there are people who do not love their fellow man, and I HATE people like that!” – Tom Lehrer

A
couple of weeks ago, I was at a toddler birthday teaparty (actually, I
was in the next room at the time, drinking a beer and watching college
basketball with the other parents). One of the moms who was there was
telling me, for one reason or another, how her outgoing and blunt
demeanor didn't usually yield a favorable first impression. “People
either love me or they hate me,” she said.

“I can't hate anybody,” I replied.  “It takes too much energy.”

It's
true. Generally speaking, I can't even stay angry at people for very
long, if I know them.  And I tend to give those I don't know the
benefit of the doubt when they run afoul of me; never mistake
incompetence for malice, I always say.  Odds are that, if I had a
non-alchoholic beer or two and some pretzels with George Bush, I'd
probably find something to like about him.

And there's the
rub.  America is full of people who hate other people right
now.    And for the most part, we can thank so-called
religious leaders for that; the lack of tolerance preached in Jesus'
name is such that, had he not risen from his tomb on Easter, he'd
certainly be spinning in it now.

There's the hate that comes
from dissonance–people learn one set of Truths for their whole lives,
and naturally they respond negatively when told those Truths are, in
fact, Lies.  There's no room for debate over fundamental
assumptions about the Underlying Truths of the Universe, especially
when one of those Truths is that all who believe otherwise are Evil.

Then
there's the backlash hate.  There's the hatred that comes from the
righteous anger that the gay community feels because of the intolerance
directed against them in the interest of political gain (thanks to
those Klansmen posing as prophets at CBN and elsewhere); there's the
hatred spawned by anger at the boldfaced lies told by political leaders
daily, which are taken by their followers as gospel.

The whole
tenor of political and religious hate-speech as discourse has spread
into so many other aspects of our lives, too. It seems that our default
response to anything that vaguely threatens our sense of infallibility
is the middle finger.

What ever happened to “Live and let live”?
To “Love thy neighbor”? Why is so much of our lives defined by who we
can't stand? Maybe it's because it's easier to hate people we don't
understand or agree with than it is to actually learn about them as
people and understand their point of view.

It's time for the
whole country to just step back for a moment, take a deep breath, and
get over itself. Get your nose out of Leviticus, and start looking
around at the human condition; judge not lest ye be judged. Agree to
disagree, but find common ground.  And if you can't be nice, as
Bill O'Reilly would say, “SHUT UP!”

I've taken the Greenspan testimony and run it through the Washingtonese Translation Engine. Here's what he meant to say:

“Mr. Chairman, members of Congress, good afternoon.

Thanks to the tax cuts you've approved, and the war that the White House ordered up, the books are a mess. If you continue to spend money without having any, I'm not going to have enough to lend.

But, given this is an election year, nobody wants to raise taxes. Besides, given that most corporations are now hiding most of their income in tax havens overseas, we'd have to focus tax increases on wealthy individuals. And that means you, your wealthy contributors, and me. That would be “bad for the recovery.”

No, instead I suggest we just dispense with this stupid Social Security con you keep running on the American people. You know it's just part of the general fund, I know it, and everybody who reads the Wall Street Journal knows it. Besides, who can afford to retire these days anyway?

Instead, I suggest we cut benefits to those whining Boomers who will overwhelm the system in a few years and collapse the whole Ponzi scheme we've based Social Security on. Let's face it–they'd only waste the money anyway on crap made for WalMart by Chinese manufacturers, and all the money would go whooshing out of our tax base anyway.

I do have an alternative, however. In the long term, it would be cheaper to outsource the upkeep of the retired to countries with a better competitive advantage. So, I suggest we ship retirees to Mexico. There, they could be used to staff up the growing number of maquilladoras that our companies have been outsourcing work to, and subsist on the lower benefits comfortably without having to worry about expenses like high heating bills and prescription co-pays.

It's a win-win. The resulting drop in the burden on our medical insurance systems would mean dramatically lower costs to business for health benefits, and the sudden availability of large numbers of homes in urban areas would stabilize housing costs in our current bubble real estate market, offering better housing opportunities for guest workers and other immigrants.

Of course, you may decide to use my comments as a distraction to cover your own hedging on Social Security until after the elections. If so, fine. But I'll still be here after November.

Hell, I can't afford to retire.

Enough time to create some evidence, perhaps?

Kay says the evidence suggests the following scenario: Saddam had basically eliminated any power those underneath him had to vett new programs, and was personally handing out the money to scientists that came to him with cockamamie schemes. They took the money (in Iraq's crumbling economy) and ran with it. While documents and official notices, on the surface, indicated massive biological, chemical and nuclear weapons development programs, none of them was actually doing anything.

The CIA and other intelligence agencies failed to detect the fraud, just as Saddam did. They placed the most dire meaning on any evidence they found. Bush, looking for an excuse to go to war, found it in the evidence he was handed, and like Saddam took the information at face value.

But, in fact, there was no threat. The Saddam government was falling apart at the seams because of internal corruption and the growing delusions of Saddam. He was a nut with what he thought was a gun, but was in fact a bar of soap. There's room for blame all around on this one.

So now, can we finish up with the finger-pointing and figure out how to get out of this mess?

My guess: that the war has not yet touched anybody's wallet noticeably enough (or at least more than the general recession has) to get them upset about it. This has been, for most Americans, a sacrifice-free war; only those in the military or called up for active duty by the National Guard or the Reserve (and their families) have been directly affected thus far (and the Guardsmen and reservists' families have been the ones who've had to deal with the worst financial impact, as breadwinners have taken big pay cuts for mandatory active service).

This is the “Guns Plus Butter” plan of the Bush administration: minimize the financial impact of the war now, by borrowing to the hilt while interest rates are low and inflation is dead; finance the war while cutting taxes on those who complain the loudest; leave the financial rubble for some other administration to clean up.

Celebratory
small arms fire around Baghdad
Saddam has no heirs.

Iraqis don't care
about forged nuke buy papers;
they've other concerns

Like where to find food
and whether an Ahbrams tank
will level their house.

So much has happened that I've let pass without comment. The blogosphere is full of comment on these things; I have nothing to add to the parallel monologues of the past few weeks. I read the Wall Street Journal for the first time in 15 days this morning, and I think I feel a tiny bit of what Ken Bowersox will feel when he returns from the International Space Station today–a sudden return to a world that is familiar, yet changed.

No matter how the US government spins this, Ayyoub is a martyr. And trying to spin it just makes it look worse. Sure, it's possible that the Al-Jazeera and Abu Dhabi TV offices were mistaken for Iraqi communications centers. Sure, it's possible that the M1 crew thought snipers were firing from the Palestine Hotel. But when you kill a bunch of foriegn, “non-embedded” journalists, even by accident, in such a short period of time, it looks suspicious.

Forget the “truth”–the perception is what counts, just as in the perception of the US flag being put on the statue of Saddam in Baghdad (which, based on BBC reports, was the flag that flew over the Pentagon on 9/11) counts rather than the motive. Journalists are just as symbolic as the flag–they are the eyes of the world, and the death of Ayyoub was a gouge at the eyes of the Arab world.

Stand by for a bumpy decade, folks

The US forces bombed Al Jazeera and then claimed it was a horrible mistake. Yeah, right. A cameraman was killed.

An M-1 tank shelled the Palestine Hotel, where nearly all the press in Baghdad were staying, Two journalists were killed. Others were wounded. Centcom claims the tank came under sniper fire from the hotel, which journalists on the scene contest.

He added: “We dropped a few civilians, but what do you do?” He said there were women standing near an Iraqi soldier, and one of them fell when he and other Marines opened fire. “I'm sorry,” said Sgt Schrumpf, “but the chick was in the way”.

Pilger recounts how he was told almost the same thing by a Marine sergeant in Vietnam after the shooting of a pregnant woman 30 years ago.

I dunno if I buy this completely. But Alterman's vision of permanent war is pretty close to being on target; either intentionally or unintentionally, we're being placed into a situation where long-term ongoing military operations will place Americans permanently in danger, and any hope of a peaceful settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict with the US as a “fair cop” will go out the window.

And yet, it will be years before the masses get angry enough to do anything about this, because the media is keeping a lid on dissent. Alterman is a marginalized voice, and the last one anybody in the Bush administration is concerned about. They clearly leave no room for debate internally, so why should they listen to left-wingnut dissidents?

Nobody belongs there. Nobody should be cast into this chaos.

Bloom's death was worn like a medal at NBC. Despite the obvious sorrow of some members of the “Today” show cast, Katie Couric's insistence that Bloom's death made the staff feel the way the families of those servicemen who have been killed thus far must feel rang hollow with me; the interviews she has done with the families of fallen soldiers were ambulance-chasing journalism at its most pandering level.

Anne Coulter's comparison of Couric to Goebbels in regard to her “liberal bias” may have been off-base, but the emotional manipulation game being played by her (and NBC, and the rest of the media) in regards to this war is utterly transparent.

I liked David Bloom. He was a likeable guy, an experienced reporter about my age who had clearly climbed the ladder quickly based on his relentlessness as a journalist as well as his camera-friendly looks. He obviously volunteered to be “embedded”; he had rushed down to the site of the Twin Towers soon after the attacks on 9/11/01, and was clearly willing to take risks to get a story (he once chased down a looter after Hurricane Andrew for an on-camera interview/confrontation).

But for NBC to use his death in the field as a badge of honor is disgusting. It is a disservice to his wife and children, and an insult to the families of the others who have died in Iraq.

The civilian casualties are only going to get worse. The graphic pictures Al Jazeera has broadcast will only become more numerous and more graphic. And we will never have a real sense of the actual horror there (particularly with Salam Pax offline for the forseeable future).

I was never a ground-pounder, though I did some training for that unlikely eventuality once, and spent some time working as a REMF for a special ops unit. Most of my training was focused on a much more clean fighting environment–the ship-to-ship naval engagements of missile and submarine warfare, and supportive arms combat like shore bombardment and river patrol. Aside from my brief encounter with the PDF in Panama once, and the pursuit of an Omani smuggler's dhow that got too close to our resupply point in the Gulf of Oman, I never got close enough to anybody I might have to kill to see them that well, and never really had to think about it.

But after Panama, I certainly did think about it. And it wasn't anything pretty to think about. I had studied major modern land battles like Stalingrad, and knew that urban combat was a meat grinder; but having walked the streets of Panama City and knowing the people and terrain that were in harm's way, I understood why hundreds of civilians were killed in the raid on the PDF's commendancia. And that was in a relative footnote in the annals of urban combat.

I thought back to the brief ground combat training I had as a midshipman visiting Camp Pendleton, and the mock “raid” we staged on a built-up area called “Combat Town” there. I had five blanks in my magazine, and there were Marines scattered about the “village” playing the role of “militiamen”. I spent all of my ammo keeping one “militiaman's” head down on a roof while the rest of my squad advanced. I ended up having to yell “bang” as instructed by the referee. Climbing through windows with an M-16 and full gear was…educational.

The description I heard one Marine officer give his “embedded” journalist of urban warfare was accurate– “a knife fight in a phone booth.” Even in its most abstract form (on a practice battlefield with no civilians, no live bullets, no boobytraps), it was evident to me how totally screwed I would have been in a real combat setting.

Another thing I learned in my military schooling was, that when given the choice in a wargame, to choose to be the “bad guy.” Even in the relatively clean, pure world of naval combat, it was obvious to me that “asymmetrical” forces could extract an extremely high toll from the “good guys”, even if they were eventually destroyed. A pair of missile patrol boats, lying in ambush at a choke point, could knock out a frigate, or a destroyer, or a cruiser if they were lucky. Using coastline, cover of night, deception and tactics not in the “rules of engagement” playbook, you could always succeed in your mission; and a pair of patrol boats for a cruiser was always a trade worth making in defense of the motherland.

The Iraqis have read the same books I have. They know their history. The US expected a replay of the first Gulf War, but this time we're fighting a different war, and instead of playing by the rules of the last game, the Iraqis are taking pages out of the playbooks of both the Soviets at Stalingrad and Ho Chi Minh. “This isn't the enemy we wargamed against,” said one general.

Because Afghanistan welcomed the overthrow of the Taliban, somebody in Washington thought that Iraqis would toss Saddam just as quickly. But the administration forgets–despite his brutality, the Russians fought for Stalin; they didn't cave and surrender to the Germans, but died by the millions in defense of their homeland against foriegners until their blood and the Russian winter sapped the German's strength. Iraq isn't Russia, but Iraqis won't roll over–and if they can hold off American troops until the arrival of the hot Iraqi summer that we wanted to avoid (the whole reason for Bush blowing off the UN's will was because waiting would have meant fighting in the summer), then all of the strategic advantage the US and UK had going in might be lost. Hello, quagmire.

This is why I opposed the war: not because I thought Saddam should stay in power, or out of abstract pacifism (though I abhor war and consider myself a semi-pacifist, I would not hesitate to take up arms in self-defense).but because I felt that the Bush administration was lying about the stakes–either to us or to themselves–and that the war was only the opening round in what will no doubt be a long and bloody occupation. The US now has its own Gaza Strip, West Bank, and Golan Heights all wrapped into one California-sized package, and I have little doubt that the US will have to adopt Israeli tactics before too long just for “force protection” reasons. I am convinced that they knew it would be so, and that this is the first step in a greater war. We are being walked in increasingly larger steps toward force being the first resort of foreign policy rather than the last, and a remilitarized state that serves as the enforcer for global corporate capital.

The “weeks, not months” statement from Dick Cheney (when Tim Russert asked him about how long the war would last) was a pipe dream of epic proportions. Our troops will do their job, as they were trained to do it. Our leaders will keep sending them to do it until they are satisfied that the job is done, or they are deposed by election or impeachment. But Pandora's Box has been opened, the worms are out of the can, and there's no neat and clean way to put everything away.

There are only two ways to end this war now; a total victory over Iraq, or a change in the policy of the US and UK resulting in some brokered, compromised peace. I see neither on the horizon. Our troops will do their job, as they were trained to do. More will die, more will be sent, and more will be called to service. We must do our jobs as citizens as well–we must defend the Constitution, defend our nation, and find some way of changing the character of our misguided leadership. If not, our children will have to live with the consequences of the sins of our government, and their children after them; we will never really be a free people again as long as those above us rule others with impunity.

“If European GSM technology is deployed in Iraq,” Issa wrote in a letter to the DoD and to the US Agency for International Development, “much of the equipment used to build the cell phone system would be manufactured in France, Germany, and elsewhere in western and northern Europe. Furthermore, royalties paid on the technology would flow to French and European sources, not U.S. patent holders.”

Well, at least the money wouldn't flow back to his district, as it would if CDMA was chosen.

Congressman Issa is from the San Diego area, home of Qualcomm–the patent-holder for CDMA. He founded a company called Directed Electronics, which until last year was working with Qualcomm joint-venture Wingcast to develop hardware for “automotive telematics” based on CDMA technology. According to OpenSecrets.org, he recieved over $160,000 in compensation in 2001 from Directed (deferred from his wages in 2000, while he was still serving on the company's board). Qualcomm was his sixth largest campaign contributor.

GSM is an open international standard. CDMA isn't used by any of Iraq's neighbors. But, dammit, if anybody is going to profit from this war, it should be Darrell Issa, right?

This is what the rest of the world is seeing. This is what's influencing the rabid anti-US demonstrations around the world. This is why, even if a fraction of these images are manufactured, or the result of Iraq's own anti-aircraft fire, the war against Iraq cannot be called a war of liberation with a straight face. Sure, it's propaganda–just like what we're seeing on CNN. But it's rooted in truth, and that truth is going to haunt us for years to come.

Al Jazeera claims that a delegation is on the way to Baghdad to negotiate a cease fire, as of last Wednesday. The report is based on an article from the United Arab Emirates' “leading semi-official daily newspaper, Alittihad”. Allegedly along for the ride with the delegation is “Elizabeth Cheney, the daughter of the US Vice President Dick Cheney, representing the US Department of State, where she works as an Assistant to the Deputy of the Secretary of State for Middle Eastern Affairs.”

There had been reports in other foriegn press and alternative media that Liz Cheney was on her way to become a “human shield”. Those reports appear to have been denied by the administration, saying that the VP is not headed to Amman to stop his daughters as had been reported elsewhere. “Everyone, including Dad, is stateside,” reported the right-wing rag The Washington Times.

When it come to “space control,” for space situation awareness, Air Force Maj. Gen. Franklin “Judd” Blaisdell, the Air Force's director of space operations and integration, said, “We need to know what's happening in our space environment, not only for what we have, but what other countries may have.” He said the United States has a ground system that can read the lettering on a basketball out about 25,000 miles. But it's weather dependent.

Declan McCullagh's Politech list has hosted a pretty good trashing of this claim based just on the physics.  So is it the truth, or is “Judd”, who “pities” the enemy who goes up against the US's space capabilities, throwing reporters “bull”?

It's against the law for the military to lie to the US press, isn't it?

And this is a surprise to…who? I mean, support for the US after 9/11 was based on sympathy for the people, not support of the US leadership. So we're surprised when our fearless leader takes us to war against international consensus (er, I mean, in spite international consensus), that we're unpopular again? Two words: “freedom fries.”

Looks like some of the “Predictions I'd rather not have to make,” are starting to come true.

I do not count myself, however, among the traditional liberal left (My politics are a bit more complex than that). And ever since I was in college, as a Navy ROTC midshipman on a campus dominated by left-wing politically correct hit squads (remember the mid-80's?) I have had little tolerance for protest as performance art.

There was a group at the University of Wisconsin that called itself the Nu Parable Dance Troupe (that's Nu, as in Nuclear). They liked to gather in a public space and do “die-ins”, like they were the victim of a nuclear attack because of the unwise policies of the Reagan administration. Once, during the National Anthem of a nationally-televised football game, they ran out onto the field toward the Navy ROTC color guard and “died” (not knowing that the TV coverage had cut away for a commercial). One of them tried to grab the flag as he “died” and pull it down with him.

It wasn't pretty. I believe a classmate of mine on the color guard gave him a quick butt-strike with his parade M-1. The football crowd was not impressed with their performance; none of them even knew what they were supposed to be doing, or protesting for that matter. It was a classic Spartacus Youth moment.

Now, there are idjits “dying” on the streets of New York. Okay, it's direct action. Big whoop. But it just trivializes the whole anti-war effort, because it creates an opportunity for ridicule.

Want to get their attention? Go douse yourself with gasoline on the steps of the Pentagon and light a match–it's more effective and makes better television.

After seeing everything happening in Iraq right now, why would you still insist we should not be using force to take that regime out?

And why would you say that George Bush is the greatest threat to the world after seeing what Saddam is capable of?

And, like a half-starved striped bass,I rose to the bait.

The result, folks was what is so far a 63-entry long discussion on the comment page for the posting, in which a number of other anti-war “trolls” also chimed in, to be rebuffed and ridiculed by some of the dittoheads that frequent the site. There were a few willing to engage in civil discussion, and I managed to keep it civil (I didn't expect to change any minds, but at least I could change some perceptions about antiwar dissidents as whining, bleeding-heart cowards, I hoped).

Of course, I spent a little too much time posting there in response to follow-up flame bait. I couldn't help myself. There were so many dittoheads, so few real ideas, so little time.

So, go check out the fun and steal a little more of Michele's bandwidth.

Challenging President James Polk's dubious response to alleged Mexican aggression against the United States, Congressman Lincoln voted to censure the president in 1848–while the war against Mexico still raged. He contended that the president's justification for war was “from beginning to end the sheerest deception.” Polk would have “gone further with his proof if it had not been for the small matter that the truth would not permit him.” Lincoln threw down the gauntlet: “Let him answer fully, fairly and candidly. Let him answer with facts and not with arguments. … Let him attempt no evasion, no equivocation.” Lincoln more than suspected that the president was “deeply conscious of being in the wrong.”

• ruled by an unelected leader, supported by religious extremists.
• where human rights are being pushed back daily.
• that is a threat to peace around the world.
• that secretly manufactures weapons of mass destruction in violation of treaties.
• that has armed and trained terrorists around the world.
• where dissent is tolerated less and less daily, and enemies of the state are dissapeared by the military.
• that has violated international law in its treatment of prisoners of war.
• that has ignored the will of the United Nations.
• that has unilaterally withdrawn from arms control treaties.
• that inspires fear in its neighbors and attacks countries on the other side of the planet.
• run by war criminals, who have killed hundreds of civilians.

I live in a rogue nation. I am an American.

Sure, this is meant to get your blood up. Sure, it's out to provoke a response. But this is the way that many outside the US see America; it's what makes people lie down in traffic in New York and do “die ins” (a tactic that was very popular back in the 80's with anti-nuclear protesters–it's theatrical, and does nothing but annoy, making it a preferred technique of whining liberals everywhere). This is how the Russians, the French, the Germans, and much of Europe now sees us, and how Central America, South America, Southeast Asia, and much of the world have seen us since the end of WW II. Get used to it. Be informed by it. If you don't like it, do something about it.

Considering that the “Scuds” fired at the US really weren't Scuds, and no WMD have been used thus far against US/UK forces, Saddam is either a)holding them in reserve in order to play the victim for as long as possible, or b) he doesn't have them in a form that he can effectively use them because they were scattered to avoid detection, or c) he got rid of most of them and the remainder are not currently in the hands of battlefield units, or d) all of the above. Facilities may never be found. The US will have to show something (other than a few mustard gas shells) to prove its case. George will have somebody gundeck it.

#2: Baghdad will not fall before May. Eventually, water and electrical services will be cut, and the US/UK will be forced to lay siege or face house-to-house fighting to prevent harassment by irregulars–just as they're now doing in Basra. Baghdad is considerably larger than Basra, and more heavily garrisoned.

#3: $74 billion will become $740 before the war is over. Occupational forces, an increased requirement for enlistment and activation of reserves, and possibly the return of compulsory military service will partially escalate the bill, as will the requirement for more infantry equipment, more Tomahawks (at a million a piece), and replacement aircraft and armor. Plus, there's the relief package and continued ops in Afghanistan.

#4: Additional reservists will be called up to fill the roles of active duty units reallocated to the Iraq war by the end of April. (See prediction #3).

We seem to have forgotten the real lessons of Vietnam, among them:

1) When you need to distinguish between friendly civilians and hostile militia mingled with civilians to accomplish your mission, you're already hosed.

2) When you have secured an area, don't forget to tell the enemy.

It would be a historic twist appropriate for this stupid little war; that it turns into World War I redux. After my visit to Turkey in 1987, I often wondered if it would ever come to that; the military wields a great deal of political power in Turkey, a democracy by most counts. The military has been a secularizing force, but also an anti-liberal force; debtor's prisons existed in the 80's, and I saw a man grovel at another's feet in fear when he learned the person with me was a Turkish army officer and not an American sailor.

The Turkish govt. feel threatened by the Kurd minority in their own country, even though most Turks have forgotten the Kurdish guerilla (or terrorist–depends on who you are) attacks of years ago. But Kurds with money and resources…that could be bad for Turkey's efforts to keep its Kurds down. So they prepare to send in troops.

Intramural hostility isn't unheard of; think Cyprus. Think what would happen when an army we equipped and trained aces an army we're equipping and training. Hmmm.

Let's all jump into Mr. Peabody's Way-back machine and go back to 1991, when the UN first passed the sanctions against Iraq regarding weapons of mass destruction and oil-for-food. The sanctions were a political solution after the coalition held up short of militarily deposing Saddam, an attempt to bring him to heel by forcing inspections and the destruction of stockpiles of chem, bio and nascent nuclear weapons equipment. Right?

This was 1991.

The problem–we rationed oil sales by Iraq in a way that was supposed to allow the country to only make money to buy food and medical supplies, and then failed to put anything in place within the country to enforce this. In other words, we only violated Iraq's sovriegnty enough to make sure that it had a limited income, but not enough to make sure that income was spent on the people.

That was really, really bad policy, as created by a committee. Everyone hoped that it would make Saddam comply, or get overthrown. Neither happened.

Instead, what happened is that thousands of children died because of deteriorating publlic health and nutritional standards. We can debate the number, but child mortality did increase.

Another piece of bad policy: We institute “no fly zones” to prevent Saddam from using air power to oppress his own people in the north and south. This works to some degree in the north–the Kurds create a somewhat autonomous zone, which develops its own economy. But in the south, Saddam just shuts off the water supply to the Shatt al Arab, draining the marshes and turning it into an easily rolled-over dustbowl. The encouraged uprising among Shiites in the south is rolled over brutally by Saddam.

Really bad policy. Again, the coalition infringed just enough on the sovriegnty of Iraq to justify the occasional bombing run, but not enough to actually have an impact on the political economy of the country.

So, Saddam sees eventually that nobody is really going to screw with him. He kicks out inspectors. No big deal–they never conclusively showed anything anyway. He consolidates control even tighter than before. He builds a few more palaces while children get rickets.

Really bad policy.

So George Dubya has a solution: let's bomb the bastards again, and finish the military solution that we held up on after Operation Desert Shield/Storm/Sunrise/Delight. Finish Dad's war, be more of a man than Dad. After all, we had 9/11, we deserve the right to kick anybody's ass we want.

Really bad policy.

So, to the people saying, “give the sanctions and inspections more time.” I say, “Hey, meatheads! We've only been screwing the people that way for 12 years. We have to stop pussyfooting around with the sovriegnty thing here and send in more than inspectors.”

To the people saying “See, inspections failed for 12 years, let's go in with troops and force them to disarm,” I say,”Hey, morons! Since when did dropping bombs on someone encourage disarmamant? You've been waiting for 12 years, what's the freaking rush all of a sudden–a rush of testosterone to the head after Afghanistan?”

The last time I checked, two wrongs didn't make a right. I keep checking the math, and it still ends up as two wrongs. But it doesn't look like math is a family value right now.