Realitytunnel Web Blog

Intelligent Designer Part II Dr.Francis Collins

2007-11-29T09:39:00.000-08:00

Dr.Francis Collins is the famous scientist that headed up "Human Genome Project". He used to be an agnostic and now he is such a true believer that he wrote a book last year: "The Language of God". Just started reading it. He jumps into a tired debate about religion vs. science and concludes that there shouldn't be a clash after all. Oh really?

I revisit this debate every few years to see what else is new. Scientists continue to peel the onion but it gets pretty weird at subatomic level. Nobody has any idea how life happened, what the basic stuff of the universe is, what gravity is, or why the universe is so mathematical. So great thinkers wonder about a creator because they can not entertain a vacuum or imagine creation from nothing and for no reason. Complexity, they say, requires a designer. It's the "god of the gaps" all over again. If there is a mystery or if there is complexity, well then, an intelligent designer did it.

I can be lawyerly here too. I can do thought experiments and even manufacture arguments out of nothing just like theologians do.

For example- let's assume an intelligent designer responsible for the universe and for the rise of mankind and every living thing. Well now, it took this creator about ten Billion years to make earth and then it wasn't fit for anything to live on for two more Billion years. Most of the rest of the universe remains a dark, cold vacuum. It took about 12 Billion years to evolve slime and about 14 Billion years before humans evolved. God is being methodical?

Throughout entire record of living things, the vast majority went extinct because, lets face it, they could not hack it. If god had been a lab. chemist, the entire floor would be covered thick with shards of glass for all the mistakes. The lab would go broke for all the breakage. Intelligent designer indeed! It's not like she was rushed into anything or was trying to beat the clock so corners had to be cut.

So now Dr. Collins jumps in and I am not finding any new revelations- only his conversion from agnostic to a believer. Hey, faith is what humans started with thousands of years ago when man first started to conjure up spirits to fill in the gaps. Lightning strikes nearby and some angry spirit is invoked. Gap-filling drives faith. Faith fills gaps.

Nothing was known about lightning so a spirit is invoked to explain it. A spirit gets invoked with lots of other things like petulance, famine, weather, and anything else that isn't understood. Modern equivalent is 9-11 attack and Pat Robertson announces that god has lifted his protection on America for all those moral transgressions. A little imagination goes a long way and folks are easily spooked.

A few thousand years pass with fertile human imagination and propensity for being spooked and we get the mess we have now with lots of different religions and two thousand denominations just within Protestantism. I cannot think of any of mankind's inventions that has been more divisive throughout history than organized religion. Intelligent designer indeed! Don't get me started.

But why is the universe so mathematical and why are so many physical constants so finely-tuned for life to emerge out of inorganic matter amidst chaos? The science vs. religion debate carries on.

Intelligent Designer PartI

2007-11-29T09:32:00.000-08:00

Science News article about Mega-Extinction 250,000 years ago:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/01/050121101514.htm

I wait to hear attempts by Intelligent Design apostles to explain why 95% of all living things across the globe were exterminated. Defenders of Intelligent Design have their work cut out for them here.

Turf war going on for 4 centuries between science and religious fundamentalism is far from settled. ID is a sophisticated theology. It has some appeal to educated folks because it holds out belief in an Intelligent Designer without all the dark age baggage- such as the earth is the center of the universe and is only 6,000 years old. Many ID members are science literate and even employ science to entertain existence of an intelligent designer out there without trying to attribute characteristics, motives, and moods of this putative designer which religious fundamentalists routinely do as blatantly manipulation.

One of my hobbies is observing manipulative aspects of religion. I note litany of manipulations employed in sermons. Sermons, especially by evangelical preachers, impute characteristics, motives, and moods of God. All this imputing is dreamed up by preachers to whip people into line. it's blatantly manipulative. God thinks this, God thinks that. God likes this, God doesn't like that. God did this, God did that. God will do this, God will do that. God looks like a stern man with a beard and he gets angry so you better get more compliant, he will forgive you if you---------. He will let you into heaven if you----------. And all the time beware of the Devil. It's the good cop- bad cop routine.
ID'ers skip the manipulative form of theology. They skip church ritual. They abandon dark age dogma. No good cop- bad cop routine. Instead, ID'ers look to science for compatibilities for a more enlightened theology. I think they are onto something but have a long ways to go. Several books by credentialed scientists have looked at our biocentric universe. A profound question is why so many physical constants are exquisitely fined-tuned for life to happen at all? Such a question could bridge science and theology but only if theology can rise up out of the dark ages- a long ways to go.

Seattle's "Discovery Institute", an ID stronghold, has hundreds of scientists as members. The ID movement has been challenged as "religion by stealth". The ID movement gets challenged and typically loses in court when cases involving biology curriculum in public schools is fought over.

ID movement has a long way to go. But the same can be said of science.

A new religion

2007-03-05T15:42:00.000-08:00

What religion would have me? I don’t know- maybe Scientology. They believe in intergalactic aliens so I guess anything goes. Scientology has attracted the Hollywood crowd so their retreats must be extravagant. Pinup idol Tom Cruise is their new spokesman. Mission Impossible for Tom is to use his celebrity status to raise tons of cash needed for Scientology promotion and for gala retreats.

Scientology is in joint venture negotiations with Wal-Mart. New Super stores springing up will include Scientology chapel facilities to reach a wider audience. This unusual merger of two corporate heavyweights makes sense with shared parking, one-stop discount shopping, and more efficient use of minimum-wage staff. The new management tool of Job-Rotation will be implemented. This tool mitigates problem of low staff morale due to early career plateau and associated feelings of job stagnation. Past attempts of Wal-Mart to implement Job–Rotation were a failure as it simply meant new hires quitting within six months with replacement by new hires. That wasn’t what business schools had in mind as Job Rotation. Wal-Mart/Scientology Chapel Job-Rotation will mean better deployment of minimum-wage staff during off-peak hours as, for example, a move from tire sales to chapel duty, into groceries, then into fish, then back to chapel duty or tire sales. As the low- cost leader, Wal-Mart’s new Scientology chapels will not push tithing. Instead, discount collections will be featured.

No to the Scientology –Wal-Mart merger.

Catholicism is not a candidate either- even though this religion has the best hats and really spectacular robes as you go up the hierarchy far enough. Bishops have snazzy outfits but the Cardinals are really smashing- especially in a shaft of sunlight or under all those court room lights. But Catholicism gets too much bad press these days. Cash taken in by those endless collection boxes bolted down around Catholic churches is eaten up by the ”Pedophile Priest Litigation Fund” instead of going toward bingo prizes and church picnics .

No to Judaism. They have perfected Jewish humor which is a real plus when compared to all those solemn, brooding, and ascetic religions which aren’t any fun at all. I don’t like the Orthodox sect with thick beards which invites fleas and I couldn’t work in the yard with that long robe. I am not giving up pork chops, barbequed pork ribs, and bacon-- so that settles that.

No to the Hutterites who live in colonies. I would have to give up my beach house and join in with communal living. They all eat in a huge dining hall just like San Quentin. Too much like a giant coffee clutch for every meal year around except Hutterites don’t drink coffee so that settles that---no to the Hutterites.

No to the Amish as I would have to give up my power tools and T.V. Instead of driving my SUV, I would be out there riding a manure spreader- so no to the Amish.

I go down the list of religions and my hope dims.

So I may have to start up a new custom-crafted religion. This new religion should have attractive features. Done right, it could easily siphon off membership from all the competition.

My new religion will place emphasis of good food and drink for starters. The dress will be super casual and no funny hats. No one will have to give up anything--- not movies, not caffeine, not booze, not profanity, not rowdiness. You can eat all the bacon and barbequed ribs you want. The food law is: “Bring it on”.

No stuffy cathedral with stern-faced figures looking down to intimidate. No symbolic cannibalism called Communion. No incantations or liturgy. No ritual sacrifices. No rain dances. No bowing to the East. No tithing. No beads hanging in my car. All that will be swept away in my new religion.

Instead, there will be annual retreats with entertainment, all you can eat smorgasbords, and annual retreats with 5-star accommodations. The ancient ritual of male circumcision is optional and will be done with pinking shears for a “designer clip. Martha Stewart, the designer diva, has moved past living room makeovers, glue guns, and elegant salads to do designer clips at the new “Martha Stewart Designer Surgery Centers” located in the new Super Wal-Marts.

The new religion will have a modest one-time initiation fee of $99 US in three easy installments instead of traditional tithing. That way there is more up-front money coming in. Operating expenses will come from these profit centers:
Lease fees for cryogenic storage of remains--- just in case.
A percentage from 5-star retreat accommodations.
A percentage from Martha Stewart Designer Surgery Centers.

Got 50 trillion dollars I could borrow?

2006-12-18T21:33:00.000-08:00

THE UNITED STATES IS INSOLVENT
by Dr. Chris Martenson
The End of Money
December 17, 2006

The US is insolvent.

There is simply no way for our national bills to be paid under current levels of taxation and promised benefits. Our federal deficits alone now total more than 400% of GDP. That is the conclusion of a recent Treasury/OMB report entitled Financial Report of the United States Government that was quietly slipped out on a Friday (12/15/06), deep in the holiday season, with little fanfare. Sometimes I wonder why the Treasury Department doesn't just pay somebody to come in at 4:30 am Christmas morning to release the report. Additionally, I've yet to read a single account of this report in any of the major news media outlets but that is another matter. But, hey, I understand. A report is this bad requires all the muffling it can get. In his accompanying statement to the report, David Walker, Comptroller of the US, warmed up his audience by stating that the GAO had found so many significant material deficiencies in the government's accounting systems that the GAO was "unable to express an opinion" on the financial statements. Ha ha! He really knows how to play an audience! In accounting parlance, that's the same as telling your spouse "Our checkbook is such an out of control mess I can't tell if we're broke or rich!" The next time you have an unexplained rash of checking withdrawals from that fishing trip with your buddies, just tell her that you are "unable to express an opinion" and see how that flies. Let us know how it goes! Then Walker went on to deliver the really bad news: Despite improvement in both the fiscal year 2006 reported net operating cost and the cash-based budget deficit, the U.S. government's total reported liabilities, net social insurance commitments, and other fiscal exposures continue to grow and now total approximately $50 trillion, representing approximately four times the Nation's total output (GDP) in fiscal year 2006, up from about $20 trillion, or two times GDP in fiscal year 2000. As this long-term fiscal imbalance continues to grow, the retirement of the "baby boom" generation is closer to becoming a reality with the first wave of boomers eligible for early retirement under Social Security in 2008. Given these and other factors, it seems clear that the nation's current fiscal path is unsustainable and that tough choices by the President and the Congress are necessary in order to address the nation's large and growing long-term fiscal imbalance. Wow! I know David Walker's been vocal lately about his concern over our economic future but it seems almost impossible to ignore the implications of his statements above. From $20 trillion in fiscal exposures in 2000 to over $50 trillion in only six years? What shall we do for an encore.shoot for $100 trillion? And how about the fact that boomers begin retiring in 2008.that always seemed to be waaaay out in the future. However, beginning January 1st we can start referring to 2008 as `next year' instead of `some point in the future too distant to get concerned about now'. Our economic problems need to be classified as growing, imminent, and unsustainable. And let me clarify something. The $53 trillion shortfall is expressed as a `net present value'. That means that in order to make the shortfall disappear we'd have to have that amount of cash in the bank - today - earning interest (the GAO uses 5.7% & 5.8% as the assumed long-term rate of return). I'll say it again - $53 trillion, in the bank, today. Heck, I don't even know how much a trillion is let alone fifty-three of `em. And next year we'd have to put even more into this mythical interest bearing account simply because we didn't collect any interest on money we didn't put in the bank account this year. For the record, 5.7% on $53 trillion is a bit more than $3 trillion dollars so you can see how the math is working against us here. This means the deficit will swell by at least another $3 trillion plus whatever other shortfalls the government can rack up in the meantime. So call it another $4 trillion as an early guess for next year. Given how studiously our nation is avoiding this topic both in the major media outlets and during our last election cycle, I sometimes feel as if I live in a small mountain town that has decided to ignore an avalanche that has already let loose above in favor of holding the annual kindergarten ski sale. The Treasury department soft-pedaled the whole unsustainable gigantic deficit thingy in last year's report but they have taken a quite different approach this year. From page 10 of the report: "The net social insurance responsibilities scheduled benefits in excess of estimated revenues indicate that those programs are on an unsustainable fiscal path and difficult choices will be necessary in order to address their large and growing long-term fiscal imbalance. Delay is costly and choices will be more difficult as the retirement of the `baby boom' gets closer to becoming a reality with the first wave of boomers eligible for retirement under Social Security in 2008." I don't know how that could be any clearer. The US Treasury department has issued a public report warning that we are on an unsustainable path and that we face difficult choices that will only become more costly the longer we delay. Perhaps the reason US bonds and the dollar have held up so well is that we are far from alone in our predicament. In a recent article detailing why the UK Pound Sterling may fall, we read this horrifying evidence: Officially, [UK] public sector net debt stands at £486.7bn. That's equal to US$953.9bn and represents a little under 38% of annual GDP. Add the state's "off balance sheet" debt, however - including its pension promises to state-paid employees - and the total shoots nearly three times higher. Research by the Centre for Policy Studies in London says it would put UK government deficits at a staggering 103% of GDP. If we perform the same calculations for the US, however, we find that the official debt stands at $8.507 trillion or 65% of (nominal) GDP but when we add in our "off balance sheet" items the national debt stands at $53 trillion or 403% of GDP. Now that's horrifying. Staggering. Whatever you wish to call it. More than four hundred percent of GDP(!). And that's just at the federal level. We could easily make this story a bit more ominous by including state, municipal and corporate shortfalls. But let's not do that.
Here's what the federal shortfall means in the simplest terms.There is no way to `grow out of this problem'. What really jumps out is that the US financial position has deteriorated by over $22 trillion in only 4 years and $4.5 trillion in the last 12 months (see table below, from page 10 of the report). The problem did not `get better' as a result of the excellent economic growth over the past 3 years but rather got worse and is apparently accelerating to the downside.
Any economic weakness will only exacerbate the problem. You should be aware that the budgetary assumptions of the US government are for greater than 5% nominal GDP growth through at least 2011. In other words, because no economic weakness is included in the deficit projections below, $53 trillion could be on the low side. Further, none of the long-term costs associated with the Iraq and Afghanistan wars are factored in any of the numbers presented (thought to be upwards of $2 trillion more). The future will be defined by lowered standards of living. As Lawrence Kotlikoff pointed out in his paper titled "Is the US Bankrupt?" posted to the St. Louis Federal Reserve website, the insolvency of the US will minimally require some combination of lowered entitlement payouts and higher taxes. Both of those represent less money in the taxpayer's pockets and, last time I checked, less money meant a lower standard of living. Every government facing this position has opted to "print its way out of trouble". That's an historical fact and our country shows no indications, unfortunately, of possessing the unique brand of political courage required to take a different route. In the simplest terms this means you & I will face a future of uncomfortably high inflation, possibly hyperinflation if the US dollar loses its reserve currency status somewhere along the way.Of course, it is impossible to print our way out of this particular pickle because printing money is inflationary and therefore a `hidden tax' on everyone. Consider, what's the difference between having half of your money directly taken (taxed) by the government and having half of its value disappear due to inflation? Nothing. Except that the former is political suicide while the second is conveniently never discussed by the US financial mainstream press (for some reason) and therefore goes undetected by a majority of people as the thoroughly predictable outcome of deficit spending. All printing can realistically accomplish is the preservation of some DC jobs and the decimation of the middle and lower classes. In summary, I am wondering how long we can pretend this problem does not exist. How long can we continue to buy stocks and flip houses, forget to save, pile up debt, import Chinese made goods, and export debt? Are these useful activities to perform while there's an economic avalanche bearing down upon us? Unfortunately, I am not smart enough to know the answer. I only know that hoping a significant and mounting problem will go away is not a winning strategy. I know that we, as a nation, owe it to ourselves to have the hard conversation about our financial future sooner rather than later. And I suspect that conversation will have to begin right here, between you and me because I cannot detect even the faintest glimmer that our current crop of leaders can distinguish between urgent and expedient. What we need is a good, old-fashioned grassroots campaign. In the meantime, I simply do not know of any way to fully protect oneself against the economic ravages resulting from poorly managed monetary and fiscal institutions. For what it's worth, I am heavily invested in gold and silver and will remain that way until the aforementioned institutions choose to confront "what is" rather than "what's expedient". This could be a very long-term investment.

New Site -http://usefullthingsonline.com

2006-11-16T10:12:00.000-08:00

Many individuals who have achieved a degree in the higher echelons of our educational system have noted that certain people in their lives have inspired them by exposing them to concepts or ideas that have put them on the path that has led them to where they are today. Many of these ideas have come from these individuals in the form of books, movies and the arts. I hope some of my recommendations will have the same effect on you as they have had on me.

http://usefullthingsonline.com/

Follow up to "Shiite hits the fan"

2006-11-13T20:52:00.000-08:00

"Shiite hits the fan" was loaded with pessimism about Persian Gulf.
Right. I ran across encouraging opinions from credible
sources. My main point was the unpredictability of that region as Shiite
resurgence is transformational. Don't understand how anyone can predict
impact of such a transformation in such a volatile region.

A professor at Wharton School of Finance jumps in with his predictions:

http://finance.yahoo.com/columnist/article/futureinvest/9175

Nov/Dec issue of "Foreign Affairs" had article on "The New Middle East" by
heavy weight Richard Haass claiming some optimism about Shiite resurgence as
giving new opening for U.S. to negotiate with Iran:

http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20061101faessay85601/richard-n-haass/the-new-middle-east.html

Some more good news for America. Lowe's now sells a toilet with 2 inch extra
width called the "Comfort Width High Performance Toilet". I am not making
this up. Now we Americans, with our added girth, no longer have to suffer
narrow toilets. Lowe's ad also claims a "3" Flapperless Flushing System"-
ostensibly for toilet to handle higher production. Hey, we don't want any
bottlenecks.

When Shiite hits the fan

2006-11-10T22:08:00.000-08:00

Pundants are now having orgasm over Dem sweep and control of Congress.

So what does it mean you wonder? I wonder. The world wonders. No sooner than election results poured in, pundants were lining up 2008 Presidential Election. Hillary against John McCain? Where does freshman Obama fit in? Is Al Gore coming back in a Green suit?

Way too soon to speculate. Here is why. Bush whacked hornets nest at ground zero in Muslim territory. Now, the world trembles with Shia revenge which will not be confined to Iraq. The first battle field is playing out now in Iraq. The second could well be oil-soaked regions of Persian Gulf where Shia majorities live. Under one scenario, ayatollahs of Shiite Iran could secure control in Iraq, Saudi, and Caspian oil and gas fields by placing them under protection of Iranian nuclear arsenal now under development. This scenario will establish the first Islamic state to achieve hegemon status since collapse of Ottoman Empire in 1918.

Who is worried about that scenario? Sunnis such as Jordan's King Abdullah who has been cozy with the U.S. and President of Egypt, Mubarek. Both these men are Sunnis who have history of bloodshed with Shiites. In Iraq, Shiite majority has a score to settle with Sunnis over atrocities against them under Saddam. Also worried are all those oil importing nations whose economy would tailspin with disturbance in Persian Gulf oil supply. Persian Gulf oil becomes a political weapon of Shiite majorities and a tool in dealing with all those who have been cozy with America and with Israel. The Economics 101 rule of "Supply and Demand "setting price of crude oil goes down the toilet when oil market is controlled as a political lever as will happen under Shiite resurgence under Tehran control.

Critics of Bush have attacked him for occupation of Iraq based upon wishful thinking and nothing else. Bush's motives were allegedly about oil and not planting seed of democracy. Now it appears the two have linkage. By keeping Persian Gulf oil out of the control of the wrong people, industrialized nations can keep their economies humming along instead of regressing into dust bowl depression. The West doesn't have to steal Persian Gulf oil, just keep it in the hands of those who continue doing business- even hated repressive dictators and royal families. The goal of eight decades of Western government foreign policy was to keep Persian Gulf pumps going at predictable prices. The first Gulf War was to deny Saddam control of Kuwait oil and reduce Saddam's threat to Saudi oil which was to be Saddam's next acquisition. The second Gulf War had much a grander objective of making Iraq a U.S. proxy in the mold of post war S. Korea and Japan. The " War on Terror" was a cover story for public consumption in aftermath of 9-11. Such a cover story or pretense for invading Iraq worked at the time for Americans who have a child-like understanding of foreign affairs. They and Congress just went along with their president during post 9-11 hysteria.

Finally, the general public has awakened from fairy land and judged that administration screwed up badly.
Now the same public could be faced with vengeful Shiite majorities in several Persian Gulf nations soaked in oil, having gained control of it,. and taking marching orders from Shiite dominated Iran- now on a quest for a nuclear arsenal.

Bush team had the audacity to pre-empt such a scenario with Iraq invasion. The plan was faulty and was based upon wishful thinking and nothing else . Now we see unintended consequences of this invasion. Shiites are on the move in the Persian Gulf- not just in Iraq. Shiites in the whole Persian Gulf have a new enthusiasm to unite on a cause with world-wide implications. Shiites will be emboldened by American voters repudiating their own president and Sec. of Defense last Tuesday. Shiites will be further emboldened by a nuclear arsenal in Shiite Iran.

In the run-up to 2008 Presidential Election, hell can break loose on world stage as a direct result of Shiite revenge, Shiite unification under Tehran, and Shiite acquisistion of a nuclear arsenal. Should we thank Bush for at least trying to pre-empt this scenario or put him in front of Senate impeachment hearings for bungling so badly?? Bush impeachment hearings would be the mother of all recruiting tools for Shiite resurgence throughout the Persian Gulf. So bitter dems had better be careful what they wish for and just give Bush a pass for his historic debacle.

If this scary Shiite resurgence scenario unfolds, the landscape for 2008 presidential election will be such that Americans will likely vote for a very muscular administration out of fear as they did in 2004 when they kept Bush in power in the face of "Axis of Evil" .
A muscular administration will be perceived as necessary in dealing with a world even more hostile than it is right now. At least now, oil pumps are pumping, crude oil price has moderated, and Western economies are humming along. All that can change before 2008 presidential elections.

Reality check time.

2006-04-10T21:31:00.000-07:00

Reality check time.

Pentagon's former top operations officer, Lt.Gen Greg Newbold, goes public with his criticism against Administration for its failure of planning and execution while at the same time opposes precipitous withdrawal of forces now:

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1181629,00.html

Here is internal staff report from U.S. Embassy and U.S. Military Command- "A Somber Portrait of Iraq Discord":

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/09/world/middleeast/09report.html?hp&ex=1144641600&en=2ae9b3b3cb19f9e8&ei=5094&partner=homepage

My commentary about these "insider" reports:

1) Last month, our Administration launched renewed efforts to "sell the war" and attack "the media" for selectively reporting bad news. With sagging support for the war, public criticisms were mounting against the whole operation- especially criticisms of original pretenses for Iraq invasion and the absence of planning for post-war problems such as weapons security. (Historical details in new book: "Cobra II" already referenced in previous mail.) Our Administration has been frantically trying to salvage this Iraq operation but can only continue military presence there by rallying public support which has steadily dissipated with continued bad news. Iraq is at a tipping- point now and massive U.S. pull-out may lead to civil war as: 1) provisional Iraq government lacks national support 2) new Constitution lacks teeth. 3)retribution executions are out of control. 4) Iraq police force likened to "street gangs". My last mail included article which argued for continued U.S. presence in Iraq at this critical tipping-point when street security is so pivotal to Iraq nationalism. http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20060301faessay85201/stephen-biddle/seeing-baghdad-thinking-saigon.html

2) While there was a compelling case for over-throw of Saddam, reckless planning and execution of Iraq invasion has had horrible unintended consequences.

As a retired Army Lt.Col. with Viet Nam memories etched deeply, I have followed this war closely and have concluded that our military was screwed by inept decision-making at the White House. Failed execution resulted in totally unsecured Iraq weapons depots being taken over quickly by opposing forces. Failed execution fueled more jihadists as well as alienated most of the world at a time when U.S. could use some friends. Failed execution paved the way for mounting sectarian violence that put Iraq at the tipping point today. Inept invasion planning contrasts sharply with the Gulf War under Bush senior who is now given tributes for his masterful coalition-building and execution. Administration motto "Support the Troops", is trotted out to neutralize war opponents and is blatantly hypocritical in view of reckless planning and execution that screwed our own troops.

3) The last of Bush's iterations for justifying Iraq invasion has just crumbled; i.e., that "Operation Freedom", the seeding of democracy into heartland of the Middle East, was a major justification for Iraq invasion. That rationale was only trotted out after embarrassment of not finding any WMD, the primary rationale for invasion. Now for a reality check. Exhibit # 1) U.S. invades Afghanistan to get rid of Taliban yet Sharia Law prevails in trial of a Muslim man who converted to Christianity. Conviction means a death sentence. Afghanistan's prime minister cannot overrule historic Sharia Law. Exhibit #2) U.S. promotes Palestinian statehood and free elections there produce Hamas government openly set on destruction of Israel. Exhibit # 3) U.S. invades Iraq and attempts to engineer a pathway to democratic government. Results are a toothless C onstitution, rising sectarian violence bordering on civil war, and no functioning government yet - despite three elections. Exhibit #4) Homeland Security program hastily put together after 9-11 has Grandma forced to stand up from her wheelchair at the airport to seize a finger nail file while huge gaps in homeland security remain wide open. Meanwhile, domestic surveillance program by highly secretive Administration now has our nation fighting itself over what to do about terrorists with a growing number of citizens getting paranoid about their own government. White House stiff- arms attempts of Congressional oversight, blocks release of documents to congressional committees, and undercuts "Freedom of Information Act" by wholesale re-classification of documents formerly unclassified.

4) If there are any doubters that Bush Admin. based Iraq intervention on wishful thinking and nothing else, they should read new book: "Cobra II" by Michael R. Gordon & General Bernard E. Trainer, 2006. Here is a detailed, non-partisan account of Iraq invasion based upon extensive interviews with key players and extensive digging into classified documents. This book made me very angry at this Administration launching a major war based upon wishful thinking, massaged intelligence, rejection of analysis, and absence of post-war planning - against the advise of wiser heads. This past two weeks, Pres. Bush has been on the road to rally support for his reckless venture turned sour. Bush and Sec. Rumsfeld are now routinely attacking the media for bad news coming from Iraq. (Analogy is attacking Newton for gravity and attacking Pasteur for germs). A term used for this protective mind-set is "Group Think" - coined by Irving Janus. Discrepant information that does not conform to the inner group's shared assumptions is kept out which is a recipe for historic fiascos such as : Bay of Pigs, Viet Nam, and now Iraq. Where are you Prof. Janus now that we need you again? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Group_think

5) Unlike the inner circle operating under "Group Think", en-lighted heads outside the inner group can make corrections along the way. Such is the case with Francis Fukuyama, Dean of the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. He was a heavy-weight neocon who is best known for his book: "The End of History" which argued that liberal democracy would prevail over all rival systems. He has recently abandoned his neocon credentials with a self- corrected position that democracy can not simply be injected into a chaotic region. http://blog.washingtonpost.com/worldopinionroundup/2006/03/war_foes_warmed_by_fukuyamas_c.html

6) America is trying to deal with chaotic regions, failed nations, rising world-wide terrorism, failure of U.N., polarized U.S. Congress, and now the ugly aftermath of Iraq invasion based upon wishful thinking. In addition, there is a dangerous phenomenon going on in Washington that we also saw in 1967- the inability to extract from an intractable and unpopular war. Over the course of Viet Nam War, most U.S. casualties occurred after President Johnson and Sec. of Defense McNamara started to have remorse over the decision to commit U.S. military to fight against an insurgency. While many similarities and differences exist between Viet Nam debacle and Iraq debacle, a truly scary similarity is a "mind trap" that Presidents get into while obsessing over their legacy. Presidents cannot bring themselves to admit blunder and feel compelled to push on. The Viet Nam debacle continued to unfold for five more years from the time that both President Johnson and Sec. McNamara felt remorse (acknowledged later). Johnson summed up his dilemma with: "Viet Nam is not going to be lost on my watch". Like Johnson in 1967, Bush Administration is faced with an intractable, unpopular war and cannot just pull out now that Iraq is at a "tipping point" and desperately needs security to have any chance at all . Such a pull-out would be tacit admission of administration blunder - a fate that would define the Bush presidency .

7) Being a Military Superpower is not automatically good for America. For analysis of unintended negative consequences of Superpower status, see: "The New American Militarism- How Americans are Seduced by War"(2005) by Andrew J. Bacevich, Professor of International Relations, Boston U. For reasons why America can not go it alone, see: "The Paradox of American Power- Why the World's only Superpower Can't Go It Alone", 2002, by Joseph S. Nye Jr., Dean of the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, former Chairman of NSC, and former Asst.Sec. of Defense.

Permutations

2006-01-20T19:22:00.000-08:00

Research summary about household insecticides raising risk of childhood Leukemia:
: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/01/060118095034.htm

Also, see side-bar for epidemiology of farm workers at higher risk of neurological illness with increasing exposure times to insecticides.

To read about a particular household product, go to National Institute of Health (NIH) database where there is an alphabetical listing of these products, ingredients, and health hazards:

http://householdproducts.nlm.nih.gov/cgi-bin/household/list?tbl=TblBrands&alpha=A.

What has not yet been researched is possible "interactive effects" or "multiplying effects" of exposures to multiple classes of chemicals. In one lab. study on rats, a multiplying effect was found with exposure to a fungicide (Maneb) and herbicide (Paraquat) at so-called "safe" or "permissible" level when used separately but combination exposure produced Parkinson-like neurological symptoms.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=12911755&dopt=Citation

There are so many thousands of permutations of how various chemicals can give overlapping exposures that there will never be enough government agency funding to test these permutations. A homeowner may use one chemical in the carpet shampoo machine, another for the bathroom, another for the car, another on the dog, and some more for lawn/ trees/vegetables. Nobody is keeping track of all this exposure and even if they did, would not be able to go to CDC, EPA, FDA, or USDA to find out what the risk are for delayed onset illness from permutations.
Limitation of NIH or CDC data base is that immediate effects are easy to document; however, long-term cumulative exposure with delayed- onset and with possible "multiplying effects" are much harder to get at. When epidemiology studies are done, it is hard to separate out the effects of any one compound and impossible to draw conclusions about causation. There is also the problem of multiplying- effects with exposure to more than one hazardous compound with exposure history long forgotten. Nobody is keeping track.

Over the years, there has been a tightening up by EPA on the use of hazardous chemicals with some of them being banned all-together while other chemicals have been restricted to licensed users only. It is no longer a free-for-all where Monsanto and Dow can sell anything to anybody to do what they want to with the product. Yet because of inherent problems in researching subtle and delayed health impacts, we can forget about EPA, USDA, or any agency protecting us.

Nobel acceptance speech

2005-12-08T19:21:00.000-08:00

In his video-taped Nobel acceptance speech, Harold Pinter excoriated a 'brutal, scornful and ruthless' United States. Thursday December 8, 2005 (today)As every single person here knows, the justification for the invasion of Iraq was that Saddam Hussein possessed a highly dangerous body of weapons of mass destruction, some of which could be fired in 45 minutes, bringing about appalling devastation. We were assured that was true. It was not true. We were! told that Iraq had a relationship with Al Quaeda and shared responsibility for the atrocity in New York of September 11th 2001. We were assured that this was true. It was not true. We were told that Iraq threatened the security of the world. We were assured it was true. It was not true. The truth is something entirely different. The truth is to do with how the United States understands its role in the world and how it chooses to embody it. But before I come back to the present I would like to look at the recent past, by which I mean United States foreign policy since the end of the Second World War. I believe it is obligatory upon us to subject this period to at least some kind of even limited scrutiny, which is all that time will allow here. Everyone knows what happened in the Soviet Union and throughout Eastern Europe during the post-war period: the systematic brutality, the widespread atrocities, the ruthless suppression of independent thought. All this h! as been fully documented and verified. But my contention here is that the US crimes in the same period have only been superficially recorded, let alone documented, let alone acknowledged, let alone recognised as crimes at all. I believe this must be addressed and that the truth has considerable bearing on where the world stands now. Although constrained, to a certain extent, by the existence of the Soviet Union, the United States' actions throughout the world made it clear that it had concluded it had carte blanche to do what it liked. Direct invasion of a sovereign state has never in fact been America's favoured method. In the main, it has preferred what it has described as 'low intensity conflict'. Low intensity conflict means that thousands of people die but slower than if you dropped a bomb on them in one fell swoop. It means that you infect the heart of the country, that you establish a malignant growth and watch the gangrene bloom. When the populace has been subdued - or beaten to death - the same thing - and your own friends, the military and the great corporations, sit comfortably in power, you go before the camera and say that democracy has prevailed. This was a commonplace in US foreign policy in the years to which I refer. The tragedy of Nicaragua was a highly significant case. I choose to offer it here as a potent example of America's view of its role in the world, both then and now. I was present at a meeting at the US embassy in London in the late 1980s. The United States Congress was about to decide whether to give more money to the Contras in their campaign against the state of Nicaragua. I was a member of a delegation speaking on behalf of Nicaragua but the most important member of this delegation was a Father John Metcalf. The leader of the US body was Raymond Seitz (then number two to the ambassador, later ambassador himself). Father Metcalf said: 'Sir, I am in charge of a parish in the north of Nicaragua. ! My parishioners built a school, a health centre, a cultural centre. We have lived in peace. A few months ago a Contra force attacked the parish. They destroyed everything: the school, the health centre, the cultural centre. They raped nurses and teachers, slaughtered doctors, in the most brutal manner. They behaved like savages. Please demand that the US government withdraw its support from this shocking terrorist activity.' Raymond Seitz had a very good reputation as a rational, responsible and highly sophisticated man. He was greatly respected in diplomatic circles. He listened, paused and then spoke with some gravity. 'Father,' he said, 'let me tell you something. In war, innocent people always suffer.' There was a frozen silence. We stared at him. He did not flinch. Innocent people, indeed, always suffer. Finally somebody said: 'But in this case "innocent people" were the victims of a gruesome atrocity subsidised by your government, one among many. If Congress allows the Contras more money further atrocities of this kind will take place. Is this not the case? Is your government not therefore guilty of supporting acts of murder and destruction upon the citizens of a sovereign state?' Seitz was imperturbable. 'I don't agree that the facts as presented support your assertions,' he said. As we were leaving the Embassy a US aide told me that he enjoyed my plays. I did not reply. I should remind you that at the time President Reagan made the following statement: 'The Contras are the moral equivalent of our Founding Fathers.' The United States supported the brutal Somoza dictatorship in Nicaragua for over 40 years. The Nicaraguan people, led by the Sandinistas, overthrew this regime in 1979, a breathtaking popular revolution. The Sandinistas weren't perfect. They possessed their fair share of arrogance and their political philosophy contained a number of contradictory elements. But they were intelligent, rational and civilised. They set out to establish a stable, decent, pluralistic society. The death penalty was abolished. Hundreds of thousands of poverty-stricken peasants were brought back from the dead. Over 100,000 families were given title to land. Two thousand schools were built. A quite remarkable literacy campaign reduced illiteracy in the country to less than one seventh. Free education was established and a free health service. Infant mortality was reduced by a third. Polio was eradicated. The United States denounced these achievements as Marxist/Leninist subversion. In the view of the US government, a dangerous example was being set. If Nicaragua was allowed to establish basic norms of social and economic justice, if it was allowed to raise the standards of health care and education and achieve social unity and national self respect, neighbouring countries would ask the same questions and do the same things. There was of course at the time fierce resistanc! e to the status quo in El Salvador. I spoke earlier about 'a tapestry of lies' which surrounds us. President Reagan commonly described Nicaragua as a 'totalitarian dungeon'. This was taken generally by the media, and certainly by the British government, as accurate and fair comment. But there was in fact no record of death squads under the Sandinista government. There was no record of torture. There was no record of systematic or official military brutality. No priests were ever murdered in Nicaragua. There were in fact three priests in the government, two Jesuits and a Maryknoll missionary. The totalitarian dungeons were actually next door, in El Salvador and Guatemala. The United States had brought down the democratically elected government of Guatemala in 1954 and it is estimated that over 200,000 people had been victims of successive military dictatorships. Six of the most distinguished Jesuits in the world were viciously murdered at the Central American University in San Salvador in 1989 by a battalion of the Alcatl regiment trained at Fort Benning, Georgia, USA. That extremely brave man Archbishop Romero was assassinated while saying mass. It is estimated that 75,000 people died. Why were they killed? They were killed because they believed a better life was possible and should be achieved. That belief immediately qualified them as communists. They died because they dared to question the status quo, the endless plateau of poverty, disease, degradation and oppression, which had been their birthright. The United States finally brought down the Sandinista government. It took some years and considerable resistance but relentless economic persecution and 30,000 dead finally undermined the spirit of the Nicaraguan people. They were exhausted and poverty stricken once again. The casinos moved back into the country. Free health and free education were over. Big business returned with a vengeance. 'Democracy' had prevailed. But this 'p olicy' was by no means restricted to Central America. It was conducted throughout the world. It was never-ending. And it is as if it never happened. The United States supported and in many cases engendered every right wing military dictatorship in the world after the end of the Second World War. I refer to Indonesia, Greece, Uruguay, Brazil, Paraguay, Haiti, Turkey, the Philippines, Guatemala, El Salvador, and, of course, Chile. The horror the United States inflicted upon Chile in 1973 can never be purged and can never be forgiven. Hundreds of thousands of deaths took place throughout these countries. Did they take place? And are they in all cases attributable to US foreign policy? The answer is yes they did take place and they are attributable to American foreign policy. But you wouldn't know it. It never happened. Nothing ever happened. Even while it was happening it wasn't happening. It didn't matter. It was of no interest. The crimes of the United States have been systematic, constant, vicious, remorseless, but very few people have actually talked about them. You have to hand it to America. It has exercised a quite clinical manipulation of power worldwide while masquerading as a force for universal good. It's a brilliant, even witty, highly successful act of hypnosis. I put to you that the United States is without doubt the greatest show on the road. Brutal, indifferent, scornful and ruthless it may be but it is also very clever. As a salesman it is out on its own and its most saleable commodity is self love. It's a winner. Listen to all American presidents on television say the words, 'the American people', as in the sentence, 'I say to the American people it is time to pray and to defend the rights of the American people and I ask the American people to trust their president in the action he is about to take on behalf of the American people.' It's a scintillating stratagem. Language is actually employed to keep thought at bay. The words 'the American people' provide a truly voluptuous cushion of reassurance. You don't need to think. Just lie back on the cushion. The cushion may be suffocating your intelligence and your critical faculties but it's very comfortable. This does not apply of course to the 40 million people living below the poverty line and the 2 million men and women imprisoned in the vast gulag of prisons, which extends across the US. The United States no longer bothers about low intensity conflict. It no longer sees any point in being reticent or even devious. It puts its cards on the table without fear or favour. It quite simply doesn't give a damn about the United Nations, international law or critical dissent, which it regards as impotent and irrelevant. It also has its own bleating little lamb tagging behind it on a lead, the pathetic and supine Great Britain. What has happened to our moral sensibility? Did we ever have any? What do these words mean? Do they refer to a term very rarely employed these days - conscience? A conscience to do not only with our own acts but to do with our shared responsibility in the acts of others? Is all this dead? Look at Guantanamo Bay. Hundreds of people detained without charge for over three years, with no legal representation or due process, technically detained forever. This totally illegitimate structure is maintained in defiance of the Geneva Convention. It is not only tolerated but hardly thought about by what's called the 'international community'. This criminal outrage is being committed by a country, which declares itself to be 'the leader of the free world'. Do we think about the inhabitants of Guantanamo Bay? What does the media say about them? They pop up occasionally - a small item on page six. They have been consigned to a no man's land from which indeed they may never return. At present many are on hunger strike, being force-fed, including British residents. No niceties in these force-feeding procedures. No sedative or anaesthetic. Just a tube stuck up your nose and into your throat. You vomit blood. This is torture. What has the British Foreign Secretary said about this? Nothing. What has the British Prime Minister said about this? Nothing. Why not? Because the United States has said: to criticise our conduct in Guantanamo Bay constitutes an unfriendly act. You're either with us or against us. So Blair shuts up. The invasion of Iraq was a bandit act, an act of blatant state terrorism, demonstrating absolute contempt for the concept of international law. The invasion was an arbitrary military action inspired by a series of lies upon lies and gross manipulation of the media and therefore of the public; an act intended to consolidate American military and economic control of the Middle East masquerading - as a last resort - all other justifications having failed to justify themselves - as liberation. A formidable assertion of military force responsible for the death and mutilation of thousands and thousands of innocent people. We have brought torture, cluster bombs, depleted uranium, innumerable acts of random murder, misery, degradation and death to the Iraqi people and call it 'bringing freedom and democracy to the Middle East'. How many people do you have to kill before you qualify to be described as a mass murderer and a war criminal? One hundred thousand? More than enough, I would have thought. Therefore it is just that Bush and Blair be arraigned before the International Criminal Court of Justice. But Bush has been clever. He has not ratified the International Criminal Court of Justice. Therefore if any American soldier or for that matter politician finds himself in the dock Bush has warned that he will send in the marines. But Tony Blair has ratified the Court and is therefore available for prosecution. We can let the Court have his address if they're interested. It is Number 10, Downing Street, London. Death in this context is irrelevant. Both Bush and Blair place death well away on the back burner. At least 100,000 Iraqis were killed by American bombs and missiles before the Iraq insurgency began. These people are of no moment. Their deaths don't exist. They are blank. They are not even recorded as being dead. 'We don't do body counts,' said the American general Tommy Franks. Early in the invasion there was a photograph published on the front page of British newspapers of Tony Blair kissing the cheek of a little Iraqi boy. 'A grateful child,' said the caption. A few days later there was a story and photograph, on an inside page, of another four-year-old boy with no arms. His family had been blown up by a missile. He was the only survivor. 'When do I get my arms back?' he asked. The story was dropped. Well, Tony Blair wasn't holding him in his arms, nor the body of any other mutilated child, nor the body of any bloody corpse. Blood is dirty. It dirties your shirt and tie when you're making a sincere speech on television. The 2,000 American dead are an embarrassment. They are transported to their graves in the dark. Funerals are unobtrusive, out of harm's way. The mutilated rot in their beds, some for the rest of their lives. So the dead and the mutilated both rot, in different kinds of graves. I have said earlier that the United States is now totally frank about putting its cards on the table. That is the case. Its official declared policy is now defined as 'full spectrum dominance'. That is not my term, it is theirs. 'Full spectrum dominance' means control of land, sea, air and space and all attendant resources. The United States now occupies 702 military installations throughout the world in 132 countries, with the honourable exception of Sweden, of course. We don't quite know how they got there but they are there all right. The United States possesses 8,000 active and operational nuclear warheads. Two thousand are on hair trigger alert, ready to be launched with 15 minutes warning. It is developing new systems of nuclear force, known as bunker busters. The British, ever cooperative, are intending to replace their own nuclear missile, Trident. Who, I wonder, are they aiming at? Osama bin Laden? You? Me? Joe Dokes? China? Paris? Who knows? What we do know is that this infantile insanity - the possession and threatened use of nuclear weapons - is at the heart of present American political philosophy. We must remind ourselves that the United States is on a permanent military footing and shows no sign of relaxing it. Many thousands, if not millions, of people in the United States itself are demonstrably sickened, shamed and angered by their government's actions, but as things stand they are not a coherent political force - yet. But the anxiety, uncertainty and fear which we can see growing daily in the United States is unlikely to diminish. I believe that despite the enormous odds which exist, unflinching, unswerving, fierce intellectual determination, as citizens, to define the real truth of our lives and our societies is a crucial obligation which devolves upon us all. It is in fact mandatory. If such a determination is not embodied in our political vision we have no hope of restoring what is so nearly lost to us - the dignity of man. The Nobel Foundation 2005

What went wrong in Iraq?

2005-07-15T20:44:00.000-07:00

In two years, Iraq has gone from being a rogue state to being an ailing, if not failing, one. In January 2003, Saddam Hussein's totalitarian dictatorship ruled over most of the country with an iron fist, a mammoth intelligence system, and a bloated 400,000-strong army. Power and resources were concentrated in the hands of Saddam and his lackeys in Baghdad, supported by the Sunni heartland in the center of the country. With its paranoid nationalist ideology, Iraq was a constant threat to its neighbors.

Since then, at least three fundamental changes have occurred. The first has been the collapse of both the government and its support base. Thanks to the insurgency and the elimination of the Baath Party and Saddam's military, Iraq's center of gravity has shifted away from Baghdad and toward the provinces. Second, Iraq is now experiencing real politics -- a revolutionary development for the region. The newly elected assembly and the cabinet of Prime Minister Ibrahim Jafari are mediating conflicts between political parties and their constituencies through bargaining and tradeoffs rather than intimidation and violence. Third, the country's politics are no longer driven by nationalism and the interests of a middle class of state functionaries, but rather are guided by cultural identities based on ethnic and sectarian blocs. The election of January 30, 2005, confirmed the displacement of the former Sunni ruling class and the emergence of both a dominant Shiite majority and a strong Kurdish minority, with profound consequences for the country's domestic and foreign policies.

These disruptions are unlikely to be settled easily anytime soon. Given the excruciating compromises Iraq's transition to democracy requires, the political process in Baghdad is proceeding about as well as could be expected. But the insurgency, focused mainly on the capital and its environs, is sapping energy, isolating the country's center from the provinces and Iraq from the outside world, and complicating economic revival. Not surprisingly, the hope and optimism that once buoyed believers in the U.S. occupation have given way to disappointment and finger-pointing. Fervent supporters of change, who went into Iraq with the idea of remaking the country, have come up against some hard realities. The whole project now looks costly and uncertain.

Larry Diamond and David Phillips, two disillusioned participants in the reconstruction effort, have written books analyzing what went wrong. As the books' titles indicate, both assign much -- perhaps too much -- of the blame to U.S. policy. Although postmortems on Iraq are numerous by now, these accounts deserve a reading because of their immediacy and depth -- the products of the authors' direct involvement in the process and their personal struggle with the issues.

THE MANGLING WARDENS OF BABYLON

Diamond, a leading U.S. expert on democracy and its exportation, has written a firsthand account of his brief experience with the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) in Baghdad, the U.S.-run body that ruled Iraq from May 2003 through June 2004, as it attempted to bring democracy to the banks of the Tigris and the Euphrates. Although Diamond opposed the war, he believed in achieving the peace and signed on to serve as an adviser to the CPA, spending three months in Baghdad in 2004. He entered the project with considerable skepticism, uncertain whether Iraq was fit for democracy given its deeply divided society, lack of a strong middle class, and hostile postinvasion environment.

Diamond's book is largely a memoir of his short time in Baghdad. His descriptions of working life in the "palace" -- the heart of the U.S. administration -- are more than interesting anecdotes, because his experience captures much of what was wrong with the U.S. occupation. He was seated at a desk with no instructions other than to help draft Iraq's interim constitution, known as the Transitional Administrative Law (TAL). Diamond and his colleagues, including two Iraqi exiles educated in the West, were asked to settle issues fundamental to Iraq's future, including determining the authority of the occupying power; balancing Shiite ambition, Kurdish separatism, and Sunni alienation; creating a system of checks and balances; and enshrining respect for human rights in the law. Yet they had little contact with the population whose future they were designing. When Diamond did make forays outside the Green Zone to attend seminars and give lectures, he found that Iraqis were increasingly critical of the lack of consultation on the TAL and that the process was quickly losing legitimacy.

When and how to conduct elections for a new Iraqi government was a predictably thorny issue. Shiites wanted elections quickly because, as the country's majority population, they stood to gain the most power from them. Others, particularly Sunnis and middle-class liberals and secularists, feared being marginalized and wanted more time to level the playing field. The Kurds wanted independence, but their leadership was willing to settle for a high degree of self-rule.

Washington hoped to maintain the basic administrative structure of Saddam's years, with Iraq divided into 18 provinces and governed by a strong central government. The Kurds insisted on recognition of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), which had run parts of the Iraqi north for 13 years, and on expansion of their territory to include Kirkuk. They turned out to be successful bargainers. Although the contentious issue of Kirkuk was postponed, a form of federalism defined largely in Kurdish terms -- allowing for a highly autonomous KRG -- was written into the TAL. An article in the TAL gives the three Kurdish provinces, as well as others, the right to reject the constitution that is to be drafted by the new assembly and put to a nationwide referendum. The provision is controversial, but Iraq is expected to operate under the TAL until the new constitution is adopted.

In return, the Kurds agreed to the creation of a strong, central post of prime minister to be held by a Shiite. But some Shiites also began to demand the right to form semiautonomous regions in the south, where they dominate, starting with Basra and its neighboring provinces. Because their request raised the possibility that Iraq might fragment into partly independent subnational units based on ethnic and sectarian identity rather than geography, it ran into considerable opposition in some quarters. Iraq had always been unified, and its unity had been the bedrock of the Baathists' nationalist ideology. Defining Iraq's federal structure was, and still is, at the forefront of constitutional discussions.

Diamond also shows how time constraints shaped the electoral law that a special UN electoral team (which Washington had invited to help run the election) proposed. Diamond favored a mixed system of proportional representation based on districts using provincial boundaries, which would have ensured greater representativeness of local constituencies. But any such districting would have required a lengthy and complicated census, especially in Kurdish areas and Kirkuk, so in the interest of time, the UN adopted a single, nationwide district. Diamond feared that such a system would exclude Sunni areas, threatened by the insurgency and an electoral boycott, and contribute to ethnic and sectarian polarization among the electorate. In retrospect, his concerns were prescient.

Meanwhile, according to Diamond, the CPA was mismanaging the militias in the south. Its lack of control became very clear in April 2004, after the outbreak of twin insurgencies, one led by ex-Baathists, the other by Muqtada al-Sadr. By then, the militias had multiplied: Sadr's Mahdi Army, the Badr Brigade of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), and the Kurdish Pesh Merga, to mention a few. The plan was to disband these groups or incorporate them into the newly emerging national army, but in some cases they were merely donning a new uniform. "We are taking Pesh units and slapping an ICDC [Iraqi Civil Defense Corps] label on them," one U.S. Army officer told Diamond. The main challenge came from Sadr. Lacking sufficient military forces, Washington refused to confront him in time to avoid a conflict. Diamond left Iraq just as the country was turning particularly violent.

Diamond is also unsparing in his criticism of Washington's broader Iraq policy. "Mistakes were made at virtually every turn," he charges, ensuring that "a decisive and potentially historic military victory" became a failure. The Iraq project has become "one of the greatest overseas blunders in [U.S.] history." Although the mistakes Diamond points out are familiar by now, they are noteworthy. They include purging the Baath Party, disbanding the army, invading Iraq with too few forces to maintain security, letting the Pentagon set the strategy for postwar Iraq, and failing to plan effectively for peace. Diamond excoriates civilian Pentagon leaders for not listening to outside advice, especially the State Department's "Future of Iraq" project (a main subject of Phillips' book). Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld frowned on nation building, and the White House was eager to downplay the sacrifices it might require of the American public. The Bush administration wanted to believe that the insurgency in Iraq would be limited and that Washington could rapidly turn over the country's management to pro-U.S. Iraqi exiles.

Occupation did bring some benefits -- new political parties, a stronger civil society, and a less dogmatic educational system -- but these benefits did not, in Diamond's view, outweigh the negatives. The collapse of public order in the immediate aftermath of the war devastated Iraq's infrastructure and opened the door to terrorists, feeding the insurgency and the chronic disorder that have stunted progress. The U.S. forces were always short of troops; the civilian team was underresourced, with too few people who knew the local language and culture. The Bush administration displayed too much hubris and engaged in too much wishful thinking. For Diamond, the administration's worst sin was not going to war, but going so unprepared.

BEST PRACTICES

By and large, Phillips agrees. Now a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and the deputy director of the council's Center for Preventive Action, Phillips was a senior adviser to the State Department on the Future of Iraq project from April 2002 to September 2003. His professional interest and the focus of his book are nation building. Having accepted Bush's security rationale for the war in Iraq, he is less critical of the invasion itself than of the administration's handling of the postwar stabilization and democratization program. He wants to derive from Washington's blunders in Iraq more general lessons about the transition from authoritarianism to democracy because, in his view, the U.S. government will use military force to eliminate rogue regimes again.

Phillips takes the reader inside the political disputes in the run-up to the war and its immediate aftermath, detailing the struggles within the Bush administration as well as those within the exiled Iraqi opposition, which Washington was trying to anoint as the new leadership of Iraq. For Phillips, the Bush administration was divided by ideology, not tactics. Whereas the neoconservatives wanted to reshape the Middle East, the more pragmatic officials of the State Department, many of them Arabists steeped in the region, regarded the task as difficult and risky. The neoconservatives eventually won the battle, with the negative consequences that Phillips describes. His disappointment is hardly surprising since the Future of Iraq project was eventually dismissed by the Pentagon. The project may have influenced the drafting of the TAL; Faisal al-Istrabadi and Salem Chalabi, members of a working group Phillips led for the State Department, later played a major role in that effort. But when in February 2003 the Pentagon established the Office for Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance, which took responsibility for stabilizing Iraq in the postwar period, the Future of Iraq project lost much of its relevance.

More interesting than the battles within the Bush administration are those within the Iraqi opposition. Personalities and interests clashed within the movement even before the invasion, foreshadowing the disagreements that followed it. Phillips describes a series of conferences in 2002 in which opposition leaders failed to achieve any consensus over federalism, de-Baathification, or the role of religion in the state. (Phillips documents well Ahmed Chalabi's attempt and failure to dominate the movement.) By November 2002, even Phillips worried that the opposition was "not yet ready for prime time." Having come to the same conclusion, the Bush administration sidelined the opposition. Meanwhile, Phillips reveals, the SCIRI had become a powerful force, with stronger ties to Tehran than to Washington. Overall, Phillips charges, the Bush administration was afflicted by a combination of "naivete, misjudgment and wishful thinking." Dismantling the Baath Party and the army were major mistakes; security problems and rampant looting gutted hopes for progress.

Phillips closes with broad conclusions about the lessons to be learned from the U.S. experience in Iraq. After extensive contact with the Kurds and the Iraqi opposition, Phillips concludes that "religion and ethnicity matter to Iraqis who, as a people, lack a strong sense of national identity." Iraq's governance problems stem from a strong central government that repressed this identity; Phillips is a strong advocate of federalism, especially of the need to build Iraqi democracy from the provinces inward. He also argues that nation building is an appropriate objective of U.S. policy; it is in Washington's interest to intervene abroad to protect U.S. security, whether by removing weapons of mass destruction or preventing genocide. Because failed states are havens for terrorists, Phillips says, conflict resolution is an important investment in U.S. security. In an appendix, he offers guidelines to improve performance next time. Washington should have a clear vision of the purpose of its intervention and of the state it hopes to build. The international community should commit to sharing the burdens of nation building, but the operation should be run under a single command. Neighboring countries should not be allowed to meddle while the United States and its allies work to ensure humanitarian relief, security, economic development, and elections. To help coordinate these and other efforts -- and avoid interagency infighting -- Phillips recommends the creation of a nation-building directorate in the National Security Council.

PRUDENCE IGNORED

Phillips' guidelines are extraordinarily ambitious and ignore the potential for resentment among the population in tutelage. Whose vision of the final state should guide nation building, Washington's or theirs? How likely is burden sharing when a unified command is likely to rest in U.S. hands? And where are the resources to come from?

Phillips, in other words, does not recognize fully enough the inherent difficulties of nation building. He does point out that the Bush administration had not finished with Afghanistan before it took on Iraq, and that if one of its goals was to create a model democracy, Iraq was not the place to start. But the conclusion he draws from the experience is that although nation building in Iraq was bound to be hard, mistakes by the Bush administration made it much harder. Those, he thinks, could be avoided in the future.

Likewise, Diamond concludes that having invaded Iraq and committed to rebuilding it, the Bush administration should have done so differently. Diamond's preferred scenario would have involved many more troops, tighter civilian security after the war to avoid looting, reactivating the Iraqi army and police, protecting the border, allowing the Baath Party to emerge under a new leadership, and transferring authority to the UN. These are laudable objectives, but they would have been even more difficult to accomplish than those of the Bush administration. How would Diamond have accomplished them? Obtaining more troops and more resources would have required support from the American public and a more thorough airing of the costs and risks of nation building, which the Bush administration was anxious to avoid. Diamond admits that all occupying powers face a difficult dilemma: deploy too many troops and risk provoking anti-imperialist opposition; deploy too few and face chaos. But achieving the right balance is a truly delicate operation. In Iraq, Washington did not get it right.

The willingness of Diamond and Phillips to have the United States assume the burden of nation building indicates that even these keen observers have not yet learned the main lesson of the Iraq experience. Rebuilding a foreign nation is an extremely difficult and costly endeavor, likely to generate severe -- and often lethal -- reactions. Formulating a policy for the reconstruction of Iraq was never about choosing a good option over a bad one, but about selecting the least offensive of many unpalatable alternatives. Trying to mend a state as broken -- and as culturally different from the United States -- as Iraq was doomed to be a tricky endeavor for Washington.

Given such daunting difficulties, the best advice to draw from these books may be this: if you cannot garner adequate resources -- and public opinion at home and abroad -- to rebuild a nation, do not start. Rather than ponder the dos and don'ts of nation building, as Diamond and Phillips do, perhaps it would be wiser to weigh the whys and why nots of engaging in it in the first place. If the U.S. experience in Iraq holds any lesson for the future, it may be that Washington should exercise extreme caution before launching another such operation. In the meantime, it should look harder for ways to shore up or bring change to failing states before they warrant intervention at all.

Judicial nominees

2005-05-22T13:10:00.000-07:00

Take a look at the Judicial nominee records of the extremist Bush is trying to inject into the system . These are life time seats.

TAKE ACTION: Urge your senators to stand firm in opposing these controversial nominees.

The American people do not want judges who make, rather than interpret, the law. Rather, they understand the need to have federal judges who will protect the critical rights and protections Americans cherish, including clean air and clean water, privacy in our homes, safety in our workplaces, and equality for all Americans.

However, the records of President Bush's nominees are out of touch with the mainstream:

Texas Supreme Court Justice Priscilla Owen, whose nomination to the Fifth Circuit was rejected by the Senate Judiciary Committee in 2002, took campaign money from Enron and Halliburton and then ruled in their favor.
Alabama Attorney General, William Pryor, whom Bush placed on the Eleventh Circuit through a recess appointment, raised money from corporations doing business in the state that he was supposed to be policing. Pryor has called Roe v. Wade "the worst abomination of constitutional law in our history" and has argued that the Supreme Court should cut back on the protections of the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Americans with Disabilities Act, and the Family and Medical Leave Act.
California Supreme Court Justice Janice Rogers Brown, nominated to the DC Circuit, has suggested that the Social Security system is unconstitutional and accused senior citizens of "blithely cannibaliz[ing] their grandchildren."
Attorney Thomas Griffith, nominated to the DC Circuit, has argued against a key component of Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 (which bars sex discrimination by educational institutions), raising broad concerns about his approach both to that landmark law and to other critical areas of civil rights law.
Idaho lawyer William Myers III, nominated to the Ninth Circuit, has compared federal laws protecting the environment to the "tyranny" of King George III over the colonies.
Department of Defense General Counsel William Haynes, nominated to the Fourth Circuit, played a central role in the decision to hold American citizens as enemy combatants with virtually no access to civilian courts or to counsel, and the decision to hold detainees at Guantánamo Bay without the protections of the Geneva Convention.
Federal district court judge Terrence Boyle, nominated to the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, has a long history of hostility to civil rights precedents, one-sided support for states' rights, as well as an unusually high rate of reverse decisions.
David McKeague, federal district court judge in Michigan nominated to the Sixth Circuit, has shown hostility to civil rights plaintiffs, has narrowed federal protections for the environment, and ignored the separation of church and state.
Attorney Brett Kavanaugh, nominated to the DC Circuit, has less legal experience than virtually any Republican or Democratic DC Circuit judicial nominee in more than 30 years, but a long history of partisan politics that includes defending the conduct of former independent counsel Kenneth Starr.
Richard Griffin, a Michigan state court of appeals judge nominated to the Sixth Circuit, has shown hostility to workers and civil rights, as well as the rights of the accused.
Michigan Court of Appeals judge Henry Saad, nominated to the Sixth Circuit, has displayed a willingness to distort the law and manipulate facts.

A fair and balanced judiciary calls for moderate, not extremist, judges.

New America Same as the Old

2005-05-09T20:20:00.000-07:00

http://www.antiwar.com/engelhardt/?articleid=5625

Book author is Andrew J. Bacevich, who also wrote a terrific article in a think tank journal "Wilson Quarterly", Winter 2005 "World War IV".

Bacevich is a West Point Grad. who served in Viet Nam and is now Professor of International Relations at Boston Univ. He argues that American interventions into the Middle East go back decades and has had many banners. All these American interventions have unfolded because of a fateful decision made decades ago- the American way of life requires unlimited access to foreign oil.

Here is yet another case of "Embedding" in which U.S. military is used to extend economic and other interests of America. Foreign policy is molded to fit what our society collectively values. In this case, society puts value on an oil-dependant economy and life-style. Americans get cars, petro-chemicals, industrial might, higher standard of living, jobs, and more. Any threats to access of foreign oil threatens all of that. So it is automatic that our foreign policy would be joined at the hip with what Americans collectively want for themselves. Americans apparently are incapable of introspection so will not see the connection between life-style choice and the government/military apparatus that secures their lifestyle. Or Americans see such connections but choose to continue on path of unrestrained consumption without regard to implications. Either way, American hedonistic values are embedded into government, foreign policy, military intervention, and commercial interests here and abroad.

Meanwhile, commercial interests are embedded in successive administrations, in American way of life, in our foreign policy, and into the history of U.S. military going to Spanish-American War. "Embedding" has great explanatory power but it requires a detached academic view instead of a partisan view in which corporations are singled out as the villain or the administration is perceived as a rogue. Looking for "the villain" gets in the way of understanding the SYSTEM with all the players, including the general population.

"Embedding" lends itself to a "Systems Analysis". We have to look at the dynamics of all players, including our general population- a huge constituency of consumers and voters. It is inappropriate to single out one administration as a rogue perpetrator. Bacevich reviews the deep history and points to a fateful decision decades ago, upheld by successful administrations, and powerfully validated by Americans through their choices. The dynamics between huge constituency of consumer/voters and their government must be studied to understand how America got into this mess in Iraq. But somehow, when things turn our badly, folks look for a scapegoat and will not look to themselves for why things happen as they do.

Law of Unintended Consequences.

2005-02-25T10:46:00.000-08:00

Law of Unintended Consequences Careful What You Wish for in Iraq
by Robert Scheer

In a heightened display of saber rattling, President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice have been saying nasty things about Iran's "unelected mullahs."
This is apparently so we'll be able to tell the difference between the theocracy in place in Tehran and the one coalescing in Baghdad. Although things are looking slightly brighter for Iraq after its debut election, it is still not clear why the United States has spent incalculable fortunes in human life, taxpayer money and international goodwill to break Iraq and then remake it in the image of our avowed "axis of evil" enemy next door.
In his State of the Union address, Bush denounced Iran as "the world's primary state sponsor of terrorism." At the same time, he celebrated an Iraqi election that handed power to Shiite ayatollahs who were sponsored for decades by their co-religionists in Iran and who share much of Tehran's vision of religion and politics. Does this make sense to anybody outside of the White House?
The final returns from the Iraqi election are not in, but it seems clear that the slate headed by the Iranian-backed Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution is going to have a clear majority in the new constitutional assembly. This is a classic example of how, in the real world, there is a lot more gray than an administration that sees everything in black and white wants to admit.
After all, Rice can call Iran's hyper-conservative religious leaders "loathsome," and Cheney can claim, paternally, that the United States knows many "responsible Iraqis," but the fact is that deeply religious Shiites with strong ties to each other will be in control in both Iraq and Iran.
And if what the mullahs have wrought in Basra and other parts of Iraq is any indication, the cause of human rights is in deep trouble — particularly for women, who enjoyed freedoms in the secular world of Saddam Hussein that are denied under fundamentalist Islamic law. Those photos of Iraqi women dressed in identical shrouds lined up to vote for candidates handpicked by the Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani were, to say the least, an ambiguous advertisement for democracy.
"Public freedom should be regulated based on the country's Islamic character," said a top Sistani aide last week, opening the door to the institution of Islamic law, or sharia, that would lower the legal status of women in all important family matters — from inheritance to their basic rights in a marriage.
What we are witnessing here is a startling application of the law of unintended consequences: A U.S. president who is intent on breaching the wall between church and state in his own country on issues such as birth control and the "sanctity of marriage" has now used the world's most powerful military to pave the way for a new Muslim theocracy in the heart of the Arab world. Furthermore, Bush has unwittingly strengthened the hand of Iran, a nation allegedly developing weapons of mass destruction and supporting global terrorism.
For now, of course, the slate is fresh for Iraq's incoming leaders. But it would be naive for the White House to think that a winning coalition headed by self-defined Islamic revolutionaries long nurtured by Iran would not emulate key aspects of their former Tehran hosts' thinking.
Mind you, there is certainly no harm in the U.S. strongly urging that minority and individual rights and the separation of church and state be written into Iraq's coming constitution. Washington might seem a bit hypocritical on this, however, considering the tight ties the U.S. and the Bush family have with the totalitarian theocracy in Saudi Arabia.
Bottom line, though, is that the Shiite ayatollahs have held the keys to Baghdad since Hussein's predominantly Sunni military regime was dismantled after the invasion. They successfully demanded an election in the midst of a Sunni insurgency and boycott, and they won it.
Washington has crashed against the limits of foreign military power as an instrument for crafting a culture of freedom for another people. It does not help that our motives are corrupted by a rapacious thirst for petroleum, our vision blurred by an insufferable ignorance of the complexity of local cultures and our presumption exaggerated by the effrontery of our own leader's claims to the wisdom of God.
© 2005 LA Times

The truth about Iraqi elections

2005-01-31T20:52:00.000-08:00

A Statement from the International Action Center

The Election in Iraq:
"a tale, told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."
-William Shakespeare

The media and the Bush Administration are in high gear,
trumpeting this weekend's election as a victory for
democracy. However, this election changes nothing on the
ground in Iraq. On Monday, January 31, the day after the
election, the people of Iraq woke up with 150,000 U.S.
troops occupying their country, CIA asset Ayad Allawi the
appointed head of state, and the Pentagon's plans to build
14 permanent military bases still proceeding.
Democracy means, "rule of the people." What happened on
Sunday merely continues rule by military occupation and an
appointed government.

This was a meaningless election.
This piece of political theater can't even be accurately
described as an election. In an election, voters get to
choose candidates who will then hold office and exercise
some measure of power.
In this election, voters didn't get to vote for a
candidate, or even for a political party. Instead, they
were allowed to vote for a list, which may include several
parties or individuals--there was no way to know. These
lists were approved by the Bremer-appointed High
Commission for Elections. The names of the 7,700
candidates were not publicly available, so there was no
way to know who was actually being voted for.
The candidates who are eventually selected by this process
will exercise no executive or legislative authority. They
will form a transitional national assembly, which will
draft a constitution under the supervision of the
occupiers.
The people of Iraq were not given the opportunity to vote
against the occupation--they were allowed to vote for
anonymous lists, representing U.S.-approved candidates
that will not have the power to alter U.S. plans to
colonize Iraq.
Of course, the people of Iraq want to vote in free and
open elections to determine their own future, but the
occupation was not on the ballot, rendering any pretense
at an election meaningless.
The more than 100,000 people who were killed by the U.S.
during this war were not given the opportunity to vote.
Nor were the prisoners in the torture chambers of Abu
Ghraib.

Returning Iraq to 1955.
It is telling that the Bush Administration is claiming
this is the first democratic election to be held in Iraq
in fifty years. The election referred to as the last
democratic election was held under a U.S. & British
appointed monarchy to select an advisory body that had no
executive or legislative power. Its only function was to
provide a façade of legitimacy to the puppet regime; the
election did not change the fact that the people of Iraq
were under the thumb of U.S. and British oil companies.
Less than 3 years later, a massive popular revolutionary
upheaval overthrew the corrupt monarchy and, since that
time, the U.S. and Britain have been trying to return Iraq
to the same semi-colonial status. This election is part
of their plan.
The U.S. government has never demonstrated any interest in
bringing democracy to the Middle East. Former U.S.
Secretary of State Henry Kissinger outlined U.S. policy in
the region when he said, "Middle East oil is too important
to be left to hands of the Arabs." The U.S. has made no
effort to bring democracy in any of the nations in the
region where it has maintained troops-the people of
Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates all
live under feudal monarchies, without free elections,
civil liberties, civil rights, union rights, or rights for
women.

This was an election under occupation.
It is important to emphasize the circumstances under which
this election was held. More than 150,000 U.S. troops
occupy the country, patrolling the streets with guns
trained on the Iraqi people. Throughout Iraq, the U.S.
occupation forces imposed an unprecedented series of
security measures - including shoot-on-sight curfews,
closed borders, and a ban on cars and travel restrictions
within Iraq.
This election was held under the supervision of U.S.
Ambassador John Negroponte. Negroponte served as U.S.
Ambassador to Honduras from 1981-1985 and was involved
with Contra terrorists and death squads. While he was
Ambassador, Honduras was the launching pad from which the
Reagan administration conducted its violent attacks on the
people of Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Guatemala.
Negroponte's predecessor, Paul Bremer, set up the rules
for this election. The organization that ran the
election, the High Commission for Elections, was appointed
by Bremer, and had the authority to disqualify any party
that did not meet with Washington's approval. Before he
left his post, Bremer issued a series of articles which
cannot be reversed by any election. Many of these
articles, which are in violation of international law,
have to do with the plundering of Iraq's resources and
control of the economy by U.S. corporations. No matter
what list the Iraqi people voted for, decisions that
affect their future are being made by the occupation
government under orders from Wall Street.
Assisting Negroponte were two U.S.-funded organizations
with long records of manipulating overseas elections on
behalf of U.S. corporate interests, the National
Democratic Institute for International Affairs (NDI) and
the International Republican Institute (IRI). Both
organizations work closely with the National Endowment for
Democracy and the U.S. Agency for International
Development, long used by the CIA for covert operations
abroad. They were, for example, involved in orchestrating
the failed coup and recall referendum in Venezuela in an
attempt to remove the democratically-elected and popular
President Hugo Chavez. Both were involved in manipulating
the election in the Ukraine to ensure that a pro-U.S. head
of state would be installed.
Similar elections were held during the U.S. war against
the people of Vietnam. They were conducted under military
occupation, administered by the U.S., and in no way
allowed for any real self-government. None of the
U.S.-managed elections in Vietnam succeeded in conferring
legitimacy on the occupation government or in ending the
resistance. Likewise, this election was conducted at
gunpoint, administered by a war criminal, and
stage-managed by CIA front companies. To pretend that this
has anything to do with democracy is outrageous.

This election has no credibility.
This election was almost unique in that it had no
international observers. There was no outside source to
monitor the voting, the integrity of the ballots, or the
counting. The only monitoring was by observers trained by
groups like the National Democratic Institute--in other
words, by the CIA.
With no international observers monitoring the election
process, the elections are only as credible as the people
running it--the Bush Administration, who lied about
weapons of mass destruction, lied about ties between Al
Qaeda and Iraq, lied about everything associated with this
war and occupation.

This election was a public relations campaign.
Opposition to the occupation has been growing in the U.S.
Many people, including members of Congress, have begun to
demand an end to the occupation.
The election was staged to create the illusion of
progress, much like the phony transfer of power held on
June 28 of last year. The idea is to create a new fiction
to legitimize the occupation. The lies about weapons of
mass destruction have been exposed. The lies about the
people of Iraq being involved in the attacks on September
11 have been refuted. So now, the Bush Administration is
taking up the cause of democracy to justify the ongoing
occupation.
The claim that the U.S. needs to bring democracy to Iraq,
that the country would descend into civil war without the
U.S. presence, is pure racism. It is a rehash of the
arguments used by the British Empire and other empires to
justify the colonization of entire nations.
Many of those who did vote, took part in the election
thinking that it would be part of a process that would
lead to ending the occupation of their country. All polls
indicate that an overwhelming number of Iraqis want an
immediate end to the occupation. Once they realize that
the election serves only to justify further occupation and
plundering of their country, this will give rise to a new
level of outrage and resistance.

The myth of high turnout.
Despite the media's claim that turnout was overwhelming,
in many areas, polling centers were closed or deserted.
Only a handful of people voted in Fallujah, Samarra and
Ramadi. Among Iraqis living abroad, 80% of eligible
voters did not vote. This dispels the myth that low
turnout was due to security concerns. Turnout was low
because the people oppose occupation and recognized that
the election was a public relations effort by the occupier
of their country.

The Iraqi people want the occupation to end now.
Any real interest in democracy would lead us to recognize
that the Iraqi people are opposed to the occupation.
Polls have repeatedly shown that the people of Iraq want
the troops to leave now--not after they have stage-managed
an election and installed a puppet regime.
The growing resistance throughout the country demonstrates
how the Iraqi people feel about the occupiers. The
occupiers are not there to bring democracy--they have
instead brought death, destruction, and torture. The
Iraqi people and a growing number of people worldwide want
it to end.

2004-12-22T11:25:00.000-08:00

We are seeing a classic case of unintended consequences. Every day we see unintended consequence. The whole world operates with unintended consequences. Our brains are big enough to endlessly meddle in things. Our brains are big enough to presume prediction and control but not big enough to actually achieve it- except in a test tub.

Take, for example, man's frail attempts to control the sea. Yesterday, I put in the second 1,000 lb. underground anchor to hold a log seawall in place.
( I know the weight from knowing the weight of each bucket of sand, gravel, and cement that goes into each batch). The principle of suction is used in addition to 1000 lb. dead weight to keep underground anchor in place. That is why concrete is placed 3 feet underground. But under extreme storm conditions, this log seawall can still be dislodged with the pounding action of huge driftlogs that come in during storms. It is quite a sight to see this driftwood thrown around in a storm.

I have been studying seawalls and found that a standard flat concrete seawall has the unintended effect of removing beach sand in front. Here we go again with more unintended consequences. Army Corp. of Engineers has been building flat concrete seawalls to stop bank erosion and the unintended effect is beach erosion in front of it. This effect has been studied. What happens is that waves slap against a flat seawall and bounce back out to sea. This agitation picks up beach sand and away it goes. Eventually so much sand is carried away that the seawall footing is undermined and seawall collapses.

Japanese have solved this bank erosion problem. They build seawalls that disperse wave energy instead of deflecting it back onto the beach. Instead of a flat surface seawall, Japanese seawalls are piles of concrete blocks shaped like "Jacks" with 6 legs. When piled up along the beach, these blocks have lots of open cavities between the legs. When a wave hits a pile of these interlocking blocks, wave energy dissipates instead of being reflected back toward the beach. While Japanese used their head to solve bank erosion problems, U.S. Corps of Engineers used a simplistic notion of stopping the sea with a hard flat wall. I suspect that this simplistic notion came from ancient military paradigm involving armor plates, shields, and rigid fortresses. Army Corps of Engineers also made serious blunders in chanalizing rivers with concrete with the intention of controlling bank erosion near development. Unintindended consequence was accelerated river velocity where rivers where chanalized, causing accelerated bank erosion downstream.

Army Corps of Engineers fortress mentality plays out in other settings where simplistic narrow views are employed to drive policy. Iraq is one of those settlings. The Iraq make-over was planned to be a quick military operation. Iraq would be magically transformed into the first democracy in the middle of Arab territory using U.S. military muscle. Insurgant resistance was interpreted as simple acts of "terrorism" which called for more U.S. troops and more hardened perimiters within Iraq as the answer. Such a policy is equivalant to Corps of Engineers pouring more concrete walls as erosion accelerates. Administration does not know how to deal with insurgency war any more than Corps of Engineers knows how to deal with bank erosion. Unintended consequences prevail from simplistic notions and the presumption that brut force can be blocked with brut force. The results are before us with confirmation by senior CIA operative in Iraq. Iraq has now been lost under simplistic meddling of this administration. Administration cannot self-correct as it cannot get beyond simplist notions of using a hammer to repair broken china.

2004-12-05T19:02:00.000-08:00

Here is some deep history of American illusions about its own exceptionalism. Stanley Karnow, "In our Image-America's Empire in the Philippines". John W. Dower, "War Without Mercy- Race and Power in the Pacific". Seymour Martin Lipset, "American Exceptionalism- A Double Edged Sword". Going back further in time, I am finding other examples of exceptionalism and conclude that there is more going on than economic imperialism which was the main driver during heyday of colonialism. There is something more sinister going on in history than blatant greed for raw resources and conquest of new territory. There was an imperative of conquering nations to imprint foreign cultures in their own image. This imperative goes beyond exploitation and capitalist expansion. This imperative is more complex. Unfamiliar cultures are marginalized and demonized. They are to be remade in the image of paternal occupiers. I found a pure case of non-capitalistic imperialism in Ontario, Canada in 1640s when Jesuit Priests attempted to remodel Huron Indians in their own image. The first consequence was decimation of Huron Indians by white man's disease. The second consequence was further decimation of Huron Indians by competing tribes who took advantage of the power vacuum. Here is yet another example of unintended consequences of cultural intrusion. Another example was the great expansion of the Ottoman Empire across one quarter of the globe to remodel decadent people by tutelage and sword of Islam. We continue to see residual affects of ancient ethnic rivalries throughout Africa and the Balkans and continued bloodbath. Going back further was the visionary hubris of Alexander the Great- bringing Hellenic culture to Barbarous East. Cultural imperialism has deep roots and continues to leave a trail of carnage. The notion that American Foreign policy is only about oil is naive in my opinion. Deep history shows something more fundamental and complex going on.

Now mix together capitalistic and cultural imperialism and we get the Iraq mess. Beyond the simplistic explanation of this war, that it is to "steal their oil", there is another dynamic going on which is more complex. The best explanation I found so far is by Professor Michel Mandlebaum in, "The Ideas That Conqueror The World- Peace, Democracy and Free Markets in the Twenty-First Century". He is Professor of American Foreign Policy at the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University. A shorter version is by Sebastion Mallaby in "Foreign Affairs", March/April 2002, "The Reluctant Imperialist:Terrorism, Failed States, and the Case for American Empire". Summary: Failed states are increasingly trapped in a cycle of poverty and violence. The solution is for the U.S. and its allies to love imperialism again instead of turning inward. America has a responsibility to bring troubled regions into the fold using elections and the universal elixir of free-market capitalism.

Recent U.S. foreign policy may well be driven by desperation to preserve oil access as an addict is desperate to keep his drug access. But there is something more complex and sinister going on. This policy is to re-make other countries "in our image". The belief is that failed states should do what America has done- embrace free- market capitalism and that means to free people from tyranny. Mandelbaum develops a strong case that when nations are under the thumb of a dictator or have anarchy people suffer and such a nation threatens neighbors. Conversely, when nations have some kind of representative government they become more peaceful and do better. Typically, whenever folks are freed up, they embrace Western style capitalism, which is all about freedom to manufacture, market, trade, purchase, and invest. The trappings of Western style capitalism are not just about wealth, but also about the political, constitutional, and cultural enablers which undergird Western democracy. If only the "basket case" regions would become like us, "all boats will rise" and we could reduce our military budget. This paternalistic and ethnocentric rationalization for war and occupation is not for public consumption. The question of why powerful nations get paternal is left for academics. It is not a question that enters the mind of someone who is frustrated about not getting salted nuts on the airplane anymore as they jet to a business meeting. Why have Americans had such hubris for three centuries?? Attempts to explain it are found in John S. Gordon's "An Empire of Wealth". Also, Robert Sobel's "The Great Boom- 1950-2000" and Ray Allen Billington's "America's Frontier Heritage".

If there has been one unifying foreign policy driver in the U.S. since 1945, it is to protect and promote free-market capitalism. That was what the Cold War was all about. Communism was demonized and had to be terminated as a Darth Vader threat to civilization (read capitalism). It wasn't enough to simply defend ourselves with missiles. American foreign policy was used to displace communism and attempt to remodel countries in our image. That's what was behind extensive CIA maneuvers in far away places, mega-trillion dollar defense spending, Korean War, Viet Nam War, Space Program, Star Wars, rise of think-tanks like the "American Enterprise Institute", and mobilization of powerful corporate political resources.

Bush team will champion elections in Iraq which produce outcomes "in our image". However, we are likely to see elections in Iraq leading to a Shiite Theocracy. Such an event could catalyze a revolution in unstable Sandi Arabia which U.S. and allies will be powerless to deal with, just as military was unable to deal with Viet Nam insurgency and unable to deal with growing Iraq insurgency. A naive presumption is that Iraq election will produce another U.S. proxy nation like Philippines,.Germany, Japan, and S. Korea. These nations became trading partners and extended U.S. interests in their region while further reducing threat to our national interests. Unlike remodeling in our image that took place in those nations, it is now backfiring in Iraq.

It is likely that Iraq and entire middle east will spin out of control as a direct result of American hubris. Bush got re-elected and is now emboldened to continue his paternalistic foreign policy with attempts to remake other countries "in our image". Bush's new cabinet will solidify his world view and will continue to block out bad news. Notice that just a few days ago Bush tried to use intimidation with Canadians to get more support to resurrect Star Wars. Sorry to say that Bush is but an extension of America's historic tendencies toward hubris. Americans will not look to themselves for why things happen as they do. Introspection is not our strong suite.

2004-10-23T11:02:00.000-07:00

Latest U.S. News and World Report cover story is about ugly polarization in U.S. politics. My brain is working on two levels. One level is the pragmatic level of voting for who will do the least damage and that is clearly John Kerry.

The other level is the detached academic level of trying to understand big picture of what is going on that produces such polarization? Also, what produced the Bush White House and what produces the possibility of another 4 years of Bush White House?

Is this ugly polarization an inevitable product of a democracy coupled with free society devoid of uniform indocrination of the young? Think about this. America was founded by a tiny group of Protestant rebels. Since then, our society has evolved into a free-for-all in which individual and group variability gets represented in political system. There is no unifying force, typically used throughout history, such as a dictator, monarch, emperor, or Pope to knock heads into a uniform compliance. America chose a free-for-all system and it is baked into the cake with our Constitution and Bill of Rights. Bush has had ,and still maintains, a huge constituency hovering at 50% of registered voters dispite viseral hatred by the other side. Somehow, the left can not come to grips with constituency that put Bush in office and possibly can keep him in office. Looks to me that Democrats, with their famous diversity, are having serious trouble in gaining enough of a unifying constituency to challange Bush, dispite litany of grievances they lodge against him. The key is Constituency. Who is served is the big question. For example, who is Bush White House serving?? That question is the key to understanding big picture.

What I am studying now is something fairly new, historically, in how societies organize themselves. That is the rise in corporations as a "Superorganism". America has perfected this "Superorganism" and now we have an administration that nurtures, feeds, and protects this Superorganism. We could even say that America, under a Bush White House, has become a "Corpocracy". All policy coming from this White House has been ideologically-driven to feed and protect "Corpocracy". Bush maintains a 50% constituency to do this. Democrat party has a scattered approach in dealing with this jaggernaut, leaving prospect of 4 more years of it.

Bush is often dismissed as stupid or having no heavy-dutycredentials. I totally disagree with this assessment and have written about why. He knows exactly what he is doing and has picked the kind of insiders to assist him. There is a uniform and consistant ideology throughout all policy initiatives and all executive orders. His tactical mistake is being so blatant about what he is doing that opposition can rally an attack to get him out. The danger of another 4 years is that he will accept, as a mandate, a narrow win for vindication of "Corpocracy" and we will get more of it. The implications for our society are profound and will be difficult for successor to roll it back. Democrat Party will have 4 more years in the desert to reflect on their failure to get more unified but I am not hopeful owing to their mantra of diversity for more free-for-all driven politics.

2004-08-27T23:09:00.000-07:00

REPUBLICANS UNDER A MICROSCOPE

Putting one republican-crafted bill under a microscope offers an inside view of republican agenda, while analyzing democrat response offers inside view of democrat unity of lack thereof.

Take the PDIMA (Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act of 2003) or simply Medicare Prescription Drug Bill.( Never mind the clever title and false image it conveys. Bush Administration is at least consistent in miss-titling bills for what they are not.) PDIMA is a remarkably cynical bill. Remarkable too is the lobbying by ARRP which joined big pharmaceutical lobbyists and health insurance lobbyists in promoting this white elephant bill. Still more remarkable was the gelatinous spine of the democrat party that was SOLELY responsible for Medicare’s success in the first place.

First, a quick summary of republican agenda not at all hidden but fully developed in this bill for all to see. PRIVATIZATION is the heart of republican agenda. That means forcing Medicare beneficiaries into HMOs or other private insurance plans. The push to privatize an entitlement program is also at the heart of republican designs for future Social Security Program. Republicans promote privatization of entitlement programs as a cost saver despite empirical evidence that private plans cost more than old fashioned government administered plan. It is reflexive action of republicans to promote free markets as the universal elixir for all public problems, including health problems- hence privatizing prescription drug benefit.

Less obvious is the republican agenda of converting Medicare over time from a defined benefit to a defined contribution program. Future beneficiaries will receive the equivalent of a fixed price voucher with which they can search the market place of private plans/ HMOs. By controlling the price of the government voucher, future governments will be able to shift health care costs from the government to beneficiary. Without leaving any finger prints, republican agenda is to shift Medicare’s cost burden to beneficiary over time.

Republican assault on Medicare is also directed on it’s universality. Additional benefits for lower income beneficiaries in PDIMA mean that for the first time in Medicare’s long history, there will be differential benefits based upon income, confusing health care costs with progressive taxation. The pathway is now clear for more and more Medicare beneficiaries to simply opt out of the system. Those likely to opt out are affluent and healthy seniors. The long-term result is that the pool of insured persons becomes sicker and poorer over time. Eventually, Medicare morphs into Medicaid. HMOs’ learned long ago that if they cherry-pick members pay-out is reduced and profits go up. Medicaid is cost-shared with states so total health care burden is also shifted over time to the states with growing Medicaid recipients.

PDIMA passed and was signed into law even while the marketplace did not offer a smorgasbord of prescription drug plans. PDIMA passed with a provision that bars drug importing from other countries under the ruse that the public is safeguarded from harmful drugs. Never mind that the dominant drugs sold in Canada are US manufactured and have lower cost in Canada due to government-imposed cost controls. PDIMA passed without any provision whatsoever to do what all other governments have done with their health care system- build in cost containment provisions. PDIMA specifically PROHIBITS the Federal government to act as the single largest purchaser of prescription drugs and use this market power the way Wal-Mart does with its suppliers.

After this white-elephant bill was signed into law, ARRP immediately went on defensive for their strong support and lobbying for the bill with argument that “we have to start somewhere” and refinements can be made later. The low income portion of this bill is fine- it is the rest of the bill that is not fine. We have yet to see the full impact. What is expected is a vast swamp of private drug insurance plans that seniors have to sort through to chose. Price of drugs has already gone up since PDIMA passage, wiping out the small discount the bill provides. Seniors will enter a Byzantine world of confusing contracts, poor coverage plans that appear cheaper then disappoint, and enter into contracts with companies on verge of bankruptcy or riddled with malfeasance. We already know the vigilance level of Bush Administration appointees to regulatory agencies such as the Securities Exchange Commission who have record of failure in protecting public from corporate malfeasance.

Where were Democrat legislators during the debates in defending Medicare from republican assault? Democrats were at the same place republicans were when democrats crafted and enacted Medicare in 1965. Republicans sprung this republican crafted bill on congress, and then closed off debate. Democrat legislators were backed into a corner with PDIMA and many signed on. Richard Gephardt was one of the few voices in protecting and expanding the existing Medicare. Expanding the old Medicare to cover prescription drugs for all seniors would cost a huge amount of money. President Clinton would have covered added costs with set-aside from Social Security surplus which was borrowing from one pocket to pay the other pocket. Democrats have been reluctant to admit that rising costs of entitlements will require increased taxes. Republican attack ads about “Massachusetts liberals getting into your wallet” have kept democrats in a corner. In 1984, Walter Mondale looked America straight in the eye and said “I am going to raise your taxes”. His political career ended that day. Democrats have been timid about big spending programs ever since. Dr. Howard Dean campaigned as a ”new democrat” attacking Medicare as “old democrat”, fee-for-service fiscal black hole that will break the bank. He was both correct and courageous to say such things but he now joins Walter Mondale in political oblivion. Sen. Kerry advances a vague notion of paying for expanded Medicare to all uninsured using roll-back of Bush’s” tax give-away to the rich”. Sen. Kerry assures those with incomes under $100k will not face higher taxes to pay for universal coverage. Some economists who crunch numbers report odor of “voodoo-economics” mixed in with election year pandering.

A demographic time-bomb is nearby. An enormous group of baby boomers is now working its way toward entitlements for Medicare and Soc. Security retirement. Between 2010 and 2030, the number of Medicare beneficiaries will double. Birth rate has fallen, leaving fewer workers to pay into a pay-as-you-go entitlement system. Add to this demographic time-bomb the staggering costs of services not covered under Medicare-
such as long-term care, dental, optical, and psychological services. Add to this time-bomb the dashed hopes about PDIMA in making significant difference to the majority of Medicare beneficiaries. Drug prices continue to climb as seniors opt out of traditional Medicare in order to capture the expected drug benefit. More seniors will place themselves in the arms of an HMO, because the republican PDIMA requires this to participate at all in the drug benefit portion. Here is your “Compassionate Conservatism” translated into Health Care legislation and democrats signed on.

Neither party is capable of dealing head-on with the demographic time-bomb built into pay-as-you-go entitlement programs. It is also clear that bi-partisanship does not work for the big issues that matter for all Americans. The original Medicare legislation crafted and pushed through ONLY by democrats, while republicans tried in vain to sabotage it, now face a demographic crises which Washington is not able to deal with. Republicans now have successfully made an inroad into the heart of Medicare with a “Trojan Horse” Drug Bill. The door has finally been opened into a democrat stronghold social program by privatizing part of Medicare. The stakes are high for republicans beholden to corporate America and high indeed for financial interests of big pharmaceutical and private insurance industry. U.S. pharmaceutical industry produces 40% of the world’s supply of $506 Billion pharmaceutical market. U.S. pharmaceutical industry lobbied heavily to protect their interests. PDIMA accomplishes this very well. Campaign spending has topped $1 Billion (Associated Press) in a close race, the outcome of which is being closely followed by Health services industries having a stake in privatization vs. socialization debate.

As if Washington does not have enough trouble dealing with big issues, the public continues with mass denial on these big issues. The public cannot send a message to their representatives other than an incoherent message. While voters would like government or employer to pay for their health care, they refuse to share in these costs. They accept no restraints on consumption of health services while rejecting pooled costs through premiums or taxes. Voters overwhelmingly repudiate a massive government takeover of the health care industry in order to centrally control costs and to manage access as other industrialized nations have elected to do.. While total costs of health care drift further into the stratosphere and while our legislators wring hands, the public continue to be out of touch with reality. Rising expectations for all things technical, demand for the latest and best, non-acceptance of personal responsibility for health maintenance, and illusions about personal isolation from huge costs of health services are all voter traits causing paralysis in Washington. These traits come together in a fantasy world in which health care services are somehow provided using someone else’s wallet. Americans reject rationing. Americans collectively reject massive federal controls on health care. They demand quick access to quality care. They repudiate the Walter Mondales who level with them about costs. America has a recipe for disaster attributed to immaturity of voters who collectively will not accept limits as ALL other industrialized countries have done with health care.

Entering into this mess is the Bush administration, a blatant advocate of all things private over all things public. Democrats signed on to PDIMA and beneficiaries are now learning what hit them The next axe to fall on unsuspecting beneficiaries is a litany of insurance plans with poor coverage, arcane contract language requiring a lawyer to sort out, phantom loopholes that appear in fine print, and insurance company insolvency/malfeasance. Meanwhile, drug prices climb, foreign imports are outlawed, and Medicare is prevented under PDIMA to negotiate price. PDIMA is a sweet deal for pharmaceuticals that will get more volume sales as more people are “covered”. It is a sweet deal for private insurers and HMOs who also are free of government price controls. It could be a sweet deal for high roller election supporters of Bush except for the two month window remaining for Sen. Kerry to demagogue on big domestic issues. So far, Sen. Kerry is trapped in Iraq war debate and Viet Nam service record debate and has not provided details of a democrat approach to extend Medicare nor to save it from demographic time-bomb.

Next chapter for this administration, should they prevail in November, is to Privatize the rest of Medicare and then add Social Security and National Parks. Bush agenda is to continue roll back of regulatory apparatus crafted over the decades to protect Americans. Bush agenda is also to make permanent the tax roll-back to benefit business and investor class. The underlying Bush agenda is to roll back collective programs of all sorts and advance interests of corporate America. The same underlying Bush agenda is applied to foreign policy which is just another tool to extend free-market capitalism here and around the globe.

Looking back at history of health care insurance debate going back to Theodore Roosevelt, one idiosyncrasy of America is that it has never come close to adopting any kind of Universal Health Care System. Why, in a country with all it’s intellectual resources to develop the latest and best health care technology is it so far behind in delivery to all those who could benefit?. One theory is the national paranoia about socialism creeping into our institutions. Add to this a 3- century old national obsession over rugged individualism with repudiation of big government intrusions. Another theory is advanced by Steinmo and Watts- the” institutional theory”. America’s fragmented constitutional structure kills major reform of any kind. Compared with most parliamentary systems, we sharply divide executive and legislative power. Furthermore, the fragmentation of government power, the relative weakness of political parties, and the organization of American elections promotes an entrepreneurial style of politics- a style further encouraged by the free-wheeling and decentralized committee system in Congress. Add to this federalism, the power of filibuster and regional apportionment of the Senate, and you get a political system in which major legislation gets bogged down unless there is an enormous constituency to be served that is also willing to pay for it. In America, all the stars have to line up to create a Universal Health Care System.

References:
“Brave New World Of Health Care”,.2003, by Richard D. Lamm, former 3-term Gov. of Colorado and currently Co-Director of Institute of Public Policy Studies, Univ. of Denver. I have also drawn heavily from article by Bruce C. Vladeck, PhD, “Democrats And The Struggle Over Medicare”, in ”Dissent Magazine”, Summer, 2004. Dr. Vladeck was Administrator of Health Care Financing Administration under Pres. Clinton and is currently Professor of Health Policy and Geriatrics at Mt. Sinai School of Medicine
For history of Medicare, see: http://www.medicarerights.org/maincontenthistory.html
and book by Jacob S. Hacker, “The Road to Nowhere”, 1997. For theory of why universal health care legislation can not pass in the U.S., see Steinmo and Watts, “It’s The Institutions Stupid-Why Comprehensive National Health care Insurance Always Fails In America”, Journal of Health Politics, Policy, and Law, Summer, 1995.

2004-04-26T20:56:00.000-07:00

There's Not a Problem With The System....

the system is the problem

http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0426-06.htm
What Do We Do Now?
by Howard Zinn

It seems very hard for some people--especially those in high places, but also those striving for high places--to grasp a simple truth: The United States does not belong in Iraq. It is not our country. Our presence is causing death, suffering, destruction, and so large sections of the population are rising against us. Our military is then reacting with indiscriminate force, bombing and shooting and rounding up people simply on "suspicion."

Amnesty International, a year after the invasion, reported: "Scores of unarmed people have been killed due to excessive or unnecessary use of lethal force by coalition forces during public demonstrations, at checkpoints, and in house raids. Thousands of people have been detained [estimates range from 8,500 to 15,000], often under harsh conditions, and subjected to prolonged and often unacknowledged detention. Many have been tortured or ill-treated, and some have died in custody."

The recent battles in Fallujah brought this report from Amnesty
International: "Half of at least 600 people who died in the recent fighting between Coalition forces and insurgents in Fallujah are said to have been civilians, many of them women and children."

In light of this, any discussion of "What do we do now?" must start with the understanding that the present U.S. military occupation is morally unacceptable.

The suggestion that we simply withdraw from Iraq is met with laments: "We mustn't cut and run. . . . We must stay the course. . . . Our reputation will be ruined. . . ." That is exactly what we heard when, at the start of the Vietnam escalation, some of us called for immediate withdrawal. The result of staying the course was 58,000 Americans and several million Vietnamese dead.

"We can't leave a vacuum there." I think it was John Kerry who said that. What arrogance to think that when the United States leaves a place there's nothing there! The same kind of thinking saw the enormous expanse of the American West as "empty territory" waiting for us to occupy it, when hundreds of thousands of Indians lived there already.

The history of military occupations of Third World countries is that they bring neither democracy nor security. The long U.S. occupation of the Philippines, following a bloody war in which American troops finally subdued the Filipino independence movement, did not lead to democracy, but rather to a succession of dictatorships, ending with Fernando Marcos.

The long U.S. occupations of Haiti (1915-1934) and the Dominican Republic
(1916-1926) led only to military rule and corruption in both countries.

The only rational argument for continuing on the present course is that things will be worse if we leave. There will be chaos, there will be civil war, we are told. In Vietnam, supporters of the war promised a bloodbath if U.S. troops withdrew. That did not happen.

There is a history of dire forecasts for what will happen if we desist from deadly force. If we did not drop the bomb on Hiroshima, it was said, we would have to invade Japan and huge casualties would follow. We know now, and knew then, that was not true, but to acknowledge that did not fit the government's political agenda. The U.S. had broken the Japanese code and had intercepted the cables from Tokyo to the emissary in Moscow, which made clear that the Japanese were ready to surrender so long as the position of the Emperor was secure.

Truth is, no one knows what will happen if the United States withdraws. We face a choice between the certainty of mayhem if we stay and the uncertainty of what will follow.

There is a possibility of reducing that uncertainty by replacing a U.S. military presence with an international nonmilitary presence. It is conceivable that the United Nations should arrange, as U.S. forces leave, for a multinational team of peacekeepers and negotiators, including, importantly, people from the Arab countries. Such a group might bring together Shiites, Sunnis, and Kurds, and work out a solution for self-governance, which would give all three groups a share in political power.

Simultaneously, the U.N. should arrange for shipments of food and medicine, from the U.S. and other countries, as well as a corps of engineers to begin the reconstruction of the country.

In a situation that is obviously bad and getting worse, some see the solution in enlarging the military presence. The rightwing columnist David Brooks wrote in mid-April: "I never thought it would be this bad," but he then expressed his joy that President Bush is "acknowledging the need for more troops." This fits the definition of fanaticism: "When you find you're going in the wrong direction, you double your speed."

John Kerry, sadly (for those of us who hoped for a decisive break from the Bush agenda), echoes that fanaticism. If he learned any thing from his experience in Vietnam, he has forgotten it. There, too, repeated failure to win the support of the Vietnamese people led to sending more and more troops into Tennyson's "valley of death."

In a recent piece in The Washington Post, Kerry talks about "success" in military terms. "If our military commanders request more troops we should deploy them." He seems to think that if we "internationalize" our disastrous policy, it becomes less of a disaster. "We also need to renew our effort to attract international support in the form of boots on the ground to create a climate of security in Iraq." Is that what brings security--"boots on the ground"?

Kerry suggests: "We should urge NATO to create a new out-of-area operation for Iraq under the lead of a U.S. commander. This would help us obtain more troops from major powers." More troops, more troops. And the U.S. must be in charge--that old notion that the world can trust our leadership--despite our long record of moral failure.

To those who worry about what will happen in Iraq after our troops leave, they should consider the effect of having foreign troops: continued, escalating bloodshed, continued insecurity, increased hatred for the United States in the entire Muslim world of over a billion people, and increased hostility everywhere.

The effect of that will be the exact opposite of what our political leaders--of both parties--claim they intend to achieve, a "victory" over terrorism. When you inflame the anger of an entire population, you have enlarged the breeding ground for terrorism.

What of the other long-term effects of continued occupation? I'm thinking of the poisoning of the moral fiber of our soldiers--being forced to kill, maim, imprison innocent people, becoming the pawns of an imperial power after they were deceived into believing they were fighting for freedom, democracy, against tyranny.

I'm thinking of the irony that those very things we said our soldiers were dying for--giving their eyes, their limbs for--are being lost at home by this brutal war. Our freedom of speech is diminished, our electoral system corrupted, Congressional and judicial checks on executive power nonexistent.

And the costs of the war--the $400 billion military budget (which Kerry, shockingly, refuses to consider lowering)--make it inevitable that people in this country will suffer from lack of health care, a deteriorating school system, dirtier air and water. Corporate power is unregulated and running wild.

Kerry does not seem to understand that he is giving away his strongest card against Bush--the growing disillusion with the war among the American public. He thinks he is being clever, by saying he will wage the war better than Bush. But by declaring his continued support for the military occupation, he is climbing aboard a sinking ship.

We do not need another war President. We need a peace President. And those of us in this country who feel this way should make our desire known in the strongest of ways to the man who may be our next occupant of the White House.

Howard Zinn, the author of "A People's History of the United States," is a columnist for The Progressive.

2004-04-02T10:53:00.000-08:00

Interesting....

2004-04-01T18:40:00.000-08:00

We are very fortunate to have technology at our disposal that enables us to self publish and create decentralized media that is more difficult for special interests and corporations to co-opt than Television and Newspapers but there are real dangers. The shift to high-speed, always-on service (Broadband) is being accompanied by a change in the way the Net operates. What has been an open and non-discriminatory architecture is moving toward a more closed and controlled environment, as cable and telephone giants fight against an "open access" policy. As TV and the Net are merged into an Interactive TV, a new digital medium is emerging that will allow further erosion to the internet potential for creativity and diversity.

There was a very interesting survey that occurred in 2002 by The Project for Excellence in Journalism. (http://www.journalism.org/resources/research/reports/ownership/deregulation ) They asked 103 local news rooms across the U.S about pressure from sponsors.

93% said sponsors had "threatened to withdrawal advertising from the paper because of the content of stories
89.9% responded that advertisers had "Tried to influence the content of a news storey"
36.7% said the advertisers had "succeeded in influencing news features"
55.1% revealed that they had received "Pressure from within the paper to write or tailor news stories to please advertisers"

We all should really be concerned with a coming Media cartel.

We are down to 6 major media companies
http://www.mediareform.net/ownership/

Here is an example of current FCC deregulation with direct links to Power and the Bush/Cheney group:
http://www.democraticmedia.org/news/FCCNewsCorp.html

On Propaganda. I see it everywhere:

The receptivity of the great masses is very limited, their intelligence small, but their power of forgetting is enormous. In consequence of these facts, all effective propaganda must be limited to a very few points and must harp on these in slogans until the last member of the public understands . . . [Propaganda] must be aimed at the emotions and only to a very limited degree at the so-called intellect . . . The art of propaganda lies in understanding the emotional ideas of the great masses and finding, through a psychologically correct form, the way to the attention and thence to the heart of the broad masses . . . [Propaganda] does not have multiple shadings; it has a positive and a negative; love or hate, right or wrong, truth or lie, never half this way and half that way . . . But the most brilliant propagandist technique will yield no success unless one fundamental principle is borne in mind constantly and with unflagging attention. It must confine itself to a few points and repeat them over and over. . . . The purpose of propaganda is not to provide interesting distraction for blasÃ© young gentlemen, but to convince . . . the masses. But the masses are slow moving, and they always require a certain time before they are ready even to notice a thing, and only after the simplest ideas are repeated thousands of times will the masses finally remember them.ÂAdolf Hitler, Mein Kampf

2004-04-01T18:29:00.000-08:00

I have been increasingly concerned with Media consolidation. I work at one of the last non profit TV stations in the U.S and I know the power that the media plays in forming our opinions. I hope to post some usefully information and tools to aid in critical thinking. I would also like to post some exchanges with my father regarding politics, media, religion and other topics. Hope you find this information interesting!

http://www.brainthink.us