Christ, What an Asshole - Friday Edition
Published by BG on Friday, May 11, 2007 at 3:27 PM.Glenn Greenwald - Salon
John Yoo at an April 18 Civil Liberties debate (via blogger Roger Ailes):Like what John? That "(w)ar declarations do not play an important role in the domestic process of deciding on war?" That "(t)he declaration of war plays an important role in limiting the power of the federal government as it affects citizens, but it does not perform that function with regard to the executive branch?" That "the optimal level of war for the United States may no longer be zero?"[Since 9/11] we have had outpourings of new political speech through new methods and means, for example, uh, people I wish never existed -- bloggers.
This did not exist before 9/11. Are we really in such a civil liberties crisis if bloggers are able to use this new media to say I think quite incredible things?
Christ, what an asshole.
Powered by ScribeFire.
Must Be A Slow News Day For Islamofascism
Published by BG on at 2:46 PM.Bloggers revolt - Politico.com
[Blogger] Erickson then lists the office numbers of every member of the Republicans’ 27-member Steering Committee, encouraging his readers to call and protest the move.
“We must scalp one member,” Erickson wrote. “That member’s name is [Republican] Ken Calvert.”
Damn far-left dirty hippie liberal bloggers and their vendettas against poor, victimized Republican...
Wait, what now? That's Redstate.com's Erick Erickson? railing against the installation of an allegedly corrupt Congressman to an appropriations committee seat?
Dang. You know if this were happening on the left side of the aisle, the story would be, "Pelosi Flexes Muscle Using Radical Far-Left Sorosian Bloggerati," accompanied by dissections about how the "Democrat Congress" was splintered and breaking into factions. Since it's a righty problem, what's the story?
Members were quietly brooding over the Calvert move on Thursday...
I suppose since Hamas Mouse and The Fort Dix Six have run hot the last few days, and there's no fresh story about Scary Terrists That Wish To Wipe Out Your Mother to fret about, this will have to do.
Powered by ScribeFire.
Barack Obama Wishes You Wore Underpants
Published by BG on at 12:46 PM.Idolator, All About the Music... If Only It Were
Presidential hopeful Barack Obama made a campaign stop at a Virginia art gallery the other night, but before any cameras rolled, he requested that a painting depicting a recent pop-cultural milestone be covered up:The one that was covered was a 6-by-10-foot oil reproduction of a widely circulated pop culture photo showing pop star Britney Spears, sans underpants, getting out of a car, with Paris Hilton in the driver's seat. The Boling piece blurs the nudity. "I wished we could have had a good dialog about freedom of speech," Boling said, but added, "I understand that a politician would want to avoid being photographed in front of Britney Spears' crotch."
Powered by ScribeFire.
Rebuttal: Why do liberals (er... libertarians?) fear the word WAR?
Published by Luckbox on at 10:50 AM.
This quote from BG's last post nearly made me laugh out loud:
Yes, I will agree that if nations continue to support and protect the very terrorists who our trying to kill us that it makes perfect sense to invade that nation and eliminate the very leadership engaging in that activity. You like to call it "alternate means of compliance." The rest of the world calls it "war."
You see, BG doesn't have a problem with using the military to find and kill terrorists, he just doesn't like calling it war. He lives in a pre-9/11 world where war could only be between nations. That's the reason past Administrations didn't take further action against terrorists after the first 4 warnings we received. They were afraid of the word WAR. Instead, they waited. They waited hoping the terrorists would just decide to stop. They waited hoping that arresting a few would discourage further attacks.
They waited until 9/11.
BG believes that all we need to do is have the CIA/FBI find these people, discover what they're planning before they carry it out, convince them to move to an isolated location to avoid collateral damage, and then send in the Navy SEALS. Well, why didn't you just say so?
I especially liked the "Eliminating the ability of these people to continue to organize, recruit or plan for current or future attacks (including ending them, if necessary)." Did you really just replace the word "killing" with the word "ending?"
In an ideal world, that's all we would need. The intelligence would be floating out there and our awesome intelligence gathering organizations would find it. Then they'd covertly send in Jack Bauer to stop the plot before it kills innocent Americans. But how realistic is that, really?
The real way to protect America is to combine intelligence gathering with the military might needed to stop nations from supporting terrorism. These terrorists organizations need protection, they need training grounds, they need funding. These things all come from nations who hate us. Every time we take down a Taliban, the next nation will think twice about giving Osama bin Laden the support he needs to plan the next 9/11. Eventually, they'll have no safe haven. And American will be safer because of it.
*****************
I'm not going to spend much time discussing BG's tangent. BG believes that this president and this administration are more intent on building up unfettered power than they are in protecting America or saving the lives of the American military. He believes they are intent on this despite the fact that this administration will be gone in a year. So what he's arguing is that this president is sacrificing American lives soley to provide power to someone else. Forgive me if I find the argument irrational.
Let's agree that if a state is unwilling to agree to reasonable demands to cease supporting rogue groups like al Qaeda, that it makes perfect sense to ask them to meet our troops on the battlefield to perhaps discuss alternate means of compliance.
Yes, I will agree that if nations continue to support and protect the very terrorists who our trying to kill us that it makes perfect sense to invade that nation and eliminate the very leadership engaging in that activity. You like to call it "alternate means of compliance." The rest of the world calls it "war."
You see, BG doesn't have a problem with using the military to find and kill terrorists, he just doesn't like calling it war. He lives in a pre-9/11 world where war could only be between nations. That's the reason past Administrations didn't take further action against terrorists after the first 4 warnings we received. They were afraid of the word WAR. Instead, they waited. They waited hoping the terrorists would just decide to stop. They waited hoping that arresting a few would discourage further attacks.
They waited until 9/11.
BG believes that all we need to do is have the CIA/FBI find these people, discover what they're planning before they carry it out, convince them to move to an isolated location to avoid collateral damage, and then send in the Navy SEALS. Well, why didn't you just say so?
I especially liked the "Eliminating the ability of these people to continue to organize, recruit or plan for current or future attacks (including ending them, if necessary)." Did you really just replace the word "killing" with the word "ending?"
In an ideal world, that's all we would need. The intelligence would be floating out there and our awesome intelligence gathering organizations would find it. Then they'd covertly send in Jack Bauer to stop the plot before it kills innocent Americans. But how realistic is that, really?
The real way to protect America is to combine intelligence gathering with the military might needed to stop nations from supporting terrorism. These terrorists organizations need protection, they need training grounds, they need funding. These things all come from nations who hate us. Every time we take down a Taliban, the next nation will think twice about giving Osama bin Laden the support he needs to plan the next 9/11. Eventually, they'll have no safe haven. And American will be safer because of it.
*****************
I'm not going to spend much time discussing BG's tangent. BG believes that this president and this administration are more intent on building up unfettered power than they are in protecting America or saving the lives of the American military. He believes they are intent on this despite the fact that this administration will be gone in a year. So what he's arguing is that this president is sacrificing American lives soley to provide power to someone else. Forgive me if I find the argument irrational.
Counterpoint: The Terrorism Problem and Perpetual War as an Undesirable Notion
Published by BG on at 10:14 AM.In the discussion as to whether terrorism is a law enforcement problem or not, I think there's a gap in the arguments being made. Let's start with this one:
However, the idea that the frontline in the War on Terror are the guys from Reno 911 is an idea with a foundation of naivety not seen since some argued Hitler only wanted Poland. It's the kind of naivety that already cost us 3000 American lives on September 11th.
I will concede that there are bad people in the world who are actively plotting to do bad things to Americans. However, these bad people are an amorphous, purposefully disconnected bunch. They live in caves in Afghanistan, palaces in Riyadh, dormitories in Berlin, and probably apartment buildings in Manhattan. As such, there is no discernable "frontline" on which to stake out a battle. While there is certainly a poisonous and irrational ideology these people possess, they do not have the physical might to commit large-scale genocides or geographic occupations as Hitler did. Plus, if you wanted to stop Hitler, you had to get through a uniformed and disciplined army, equipped with tanks and airplanes to do so.
How do you defeat a nation that is willing to use its army to subordinate the freedoms of neighboring nations? War.
How do you defeat an amorphous, disparate and disconnected ideological group who blend in with the average citizenry of any and every location they inhabit, and have as a primary strategy a desire to commit acts of violence - not against your armies, as in traditional warfare - against an innocent and unsuspecting population?
Look, we've seen how effective our military can be in just and righteous warfare, so I understand where the instinct to solve this problem with military solutions comes from. But our knee-jerk reaction to find someone with whom to pick a fight so we can use our cruise missles reminds me of an old saying... If the only tool in your box is a hammer, just about everything's going to start to look like a nail to you. Getting back to Luckbox's argument:
How can I say that, you ask? It's simple. From the day these terrorists first attacked us in 1993, to the day President Bush invaded Afghanistan, the United States treated terrorism as a law enforcement problem. We waited until we were attacked and then sought out the men responsible so they could be punished.
I am entirely in agreement that 9/11 was a turning point for our philosophies on security. I am also in agreement that the overt support of the Taliban regime to, specifically, the organization responsible for 9/11 was worth fighting them for - militarily. Let's agree that if a state is unwilling to agree to reasonable demands to cease supporting rogue groups like al Qaeda, that it makes perfect sense to ask them to meet our troops on the battlefield to perhaps discuss alternate means of compliance.
Luckbox chronicles the terrorist attacks against America from 1993-2001, then writes:
For almost a decade, our government treated terrorism like a law enforcement problem. Plenty of people were indicted. Some were even actually captured and thrown into jail. And yet the attacks continued and continued, growing in magnitude. When 3000 people were killed, our President finally learned that waiting for the next attack and trying to arrest the perpetrators was only asking for more death and destruction.
There is a time and a place for investigations and intelligence. A lucky break helped a video clerk tip off the FBI. Law enforcement worked that time. And every now and then, it will work. But to pretend as though we're not at war... But as long as we track them down later and arrest them, everything's okay, right?
Let me make one thing clear before I jump back into my argument. This is not a war. This is an ideological battle of wills against an enemy who is neither a state nor a state-sponsored group. I do not believe "terrorism" is something against which you can declare war, nor do I believe al Qaeda is a group against which you can declare war.
A declaration of war is a state versus a state.
An authorization to use military force is permission granted by the Congress for the mobilization of our military for an explicit cause.
Do you see the difference?
So to your point, let's draw a distinction between what "law enforcement problem" means and how it's being framed. "Law enforcement" is not a wholly reactionary technique, and can be utilized as a methodology for proactively short-circuiting problems before they happen.
In other words, we don't have to see a plane hit a tower in order to react. Intent to commit a heinous act is as criminally negligent as actually committing said act. A man walks into a gun store, tells the clerk he wants a handgun so he can go shoot his neighbor three times in the head. The act hasn't been committed, but the intent is there and prosecutable.
So if we can establish that we're not talking about "law enforcement" as a wholly post-attack methodology, let me ask you a question... How, exactly, does an act of war (i.e., military force enacting proactive solutions) serve as a superior means to law enforcement (i.e., the gathering of intelligence by CIA/FBI) of accomplishing the following tasks:
1) Figuring out who these people are
2) Figuring out where these people are
3) Figuring out what their intentions are
4) Figuring out who's equipping/supporting/enabling these people
5) Separating them from the general population, so as to minimize or eliminate collateral damage
6) Short-circuiting acts of terror before they happen
7) Eliminating the ability of these people to continue to organize, recruit or plan for current or future attacks (including ending them, if necessary)
Obviously, a scenario where good intelligence tells us a meeting is taking place in a Gaza Strip basement can be handled by sending a team of Navy Seals in to, uh, clear the building. But that's still a law enforcement approach to solving the problem. It's not a war approach.
Here's my problem. War is an evocative framework, one which I might not be arguing against using, if not for two little things.
One, what we are effectively "fighting" is a technique wrapped in an ideology, and neither this ideology nor the technique for its application are going to go away - likely ever. Honestly, is there any scenario short of a very literal and very scary genocidal or nuclear solution that could actually solve the problem of terror for the sake of Islamic extremism?
So, under the supposition that if this is a war, this war is never, ever going to be over, my second argument against accepting war as a solution is this:
"We've always been at war with Eastasia."
Perpetual war versus vigilant use of intelligence and targeted enforcement. To me, it's an easy choice to make, especially as we've seen the groundwork laid by this administration:
Guardian Unlimited | Comment is free | A state of emergency
Well, that's just one guy's opinion, and this isn't a big story, right? Tell that to Charlie Savage, who won a Pulitzer for his work investigating the President's signing statements. Here's a clip from an interview of his:
Glenn Greenwald - Salon
This theory was adopted by the Bush administration, after reading the position papers of John Yoo, who in 2001 was in the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel:
Scholar Stands by Post-9/11 Writings On Torture, Domestic Eavesdropping
Interview with John Yoo, author of The Powers of War and Peace: The Constitution and Foreign Affairs after 9/11
Well, we were always at war with Eurasia. Looks like we always will be too, if that "optimal level of war" is no longer "zero."
I believe that persistent warmongering by this administration has been purposeful, but less for the "noble" causes of nation building and the fostering of democracy than for engaging in a perpetual war to allow the expansion of powers of the executive branch to grow. I think this administration has been purposefully dishonest with America, and the repercussions of this unprecedented assertion of the unitary executive theory are already being felt. We live in a world where the administration can whisk you off the street and throw you in a prison without charges, can torture you if they claim you're an enemy combatant, can open your mail or eavesdrop on your phone calls without legislatively mandated oversight, and can acquire databases full of call logs or web activity from telecom companies just by issuing a non-warrant approved NSL.
They have gotten away with the above, as well as other reckless acts, through war posturing and fear mongering, and I refuse to accept the framework of perpetual war as a means of enabling governmental lawlessness.
I agree that terrorist acts should be pre-empted, but I fail to see how the framework of war is a healthy one - both for securing our elusive ideals of safety, and for the future of democracy in this country.
However, the idea that the frontline in the War on Terror are the guys from Reno 911 is an idea with a foundation of naivety not seen since some argued Hitler only wanted Poland. It's the kind of naivety that already cost us 3000 American lives on September 11th.
I will concede that there are bad people in the world who are actively plotting to do bad things to Americans. However, these bad people are an amorphous, purposefully disconnected bunch. They live in caves in Afghanistan, palaces in Riyadh, dormitories in Berlin, and probably apartment buildings in Manhattan. As such, there is no discernable "frontline" on which to stake out a battle. While there is certainly a poisonous and irrational ideology these people possess, they do not have the physical might to commit large-scale genocides or geographic occupations as Hitler did. Plus, if you wanted to stop Hitler, you had to get through a uniformed and disciplined army, equipped with tanks and airplanes to do so.
How do you defeat a nation that is willing to use its army to subordinate the freedoms of neighboring nations? War.
How do you defeat an amorphous, disparate and disconnected ideological group who blend in with the average citizenry of any and every location they inhabit, and have as a primary strategy a desire to commit acts of violence - not against your armies, as in traditional warfare - against an innocent and unsuspecting population?
Look, we've seen how effective our military can be in just and righteous warfare, so I understand where the instinct to solve this problem with military solutions comes from. But our knee-jerk reaction to find someone with whom to pick a fight so we can use our cruise missles reminds me of an old saying... If the only tool in your box is a hammer, just about everything's going to start to look like a nail to you. Getting back to Luckbox's argument:
How can I say that, you ask? It's simple. From the day these terrorists first attacked us in 1993, to the day President Bush invaded Afghanistan, the United States treated terrorism as a law enforcement problem. We waited until we were attacked and then sought out the men responsible so they could be punished.
I am entirely in agreement that 9/11 was a turning point for our philosophies on security. I am also in agreement that the overt support of the Taliban regime to, specifically, the organization responsible for 9/11 was worth fighting them for - militarily. Let's agree that if a state is unwilling to agree to reasonable demands to cease supporting rogue groups like al Qaeda, that it makes perfect sense to ask them to meet our troops on the battlefield to perhaps discuss alternate means of compliance.
Luckbox chronicles the terrorist attacks against America from 1993-2001, then writes:
For almost a decade, our government treated terrorism like a law enforcement problem. Plenty of people were indicted. Some were even actually captured and thrown into jail. And yet the attacks continued and continued, growing in magnitude. When 3000 people were killed, our President finally learned that waiting for the next attack and trying to arrest the perpetrators was only asking for more death and destruction.
There is a time and a place for investigations and intelligence. A lucky break helped a video clerk tip off the FBI. Law enforcement worked that time. And every now and then, it will work. But to pretend as though we're not at war... But as long as we track them down later and arrest them, everything's okay, right?
Let me make one thing clear before I jump back into my argument. This is not a war. This is an ideological battle of wills against an enemy who is neither a state nor a state-sponsored group. I do not believe "terrorism" is something against which you can declare war, nor do I believe al Qaeda is a group against which you can declare war.
A declaration of war is a state versus a state.
An authorization to use military force is permission granted by the Congress for the mobilization of our military for an explicit cause.
Do you see the difference?
So to your point, let's draw a distinction between what "law enforcement problem" means and how it's being framed. "Law enforcement" is not a wholly reactionary technique, and can be utilized as a methodology for proactively short-circuiting problems before they happen.
In other words, we don't have to see a plane hit a tower in order to react. Intent to commit a heinous act is as criminally negligent as actually committing said act. A man walks into a gun store, tells the clerk he wants a handgun so he can go shoot his neighbor three times in the head. The act hasn't been committed, but the intent is there and prosecutable.
So if we can establish that we're not talking about "law enforcement" as a wholly post-attack methodology, let me ask you a question... How, exactly, does an act of war (i.e., military force enacting proactive solutions) serve as a superior means to law enforcement (i.e., the gathering of intelligence by CIA/FBI) of accomplishing the following tasks:
1) Figuring out who these people are
2) Figuring out where these people are
3) Figuring out what their intentions are
4) Figuring out who's equipping/supporting/enabling these people
5) Separating them from the general population, so as to minimize or eliminate collateral damage
6) Short-circuiting acts of terror before they happen
7) Eliminating the ability of these people to continue to organize, recruit or plan for current or future attacks (including ending them, if necessary)
Obviously, a scenario where good intelligence tells us a meeting is taking place in a Gaza Strip basement can be handled by sending a team of Navy Seals in to, uh, clear the building. But that's still a law enforcement approach to solving the problem. It's not a war approach.
Here's my problem. War is an evocative framework, one which I might not be arguing against using, if not for two little things.
One, what we are effectively "fighting" is a technique wrapped in an ideology, and neither this ideology nor the technique for its application are going to go away - likely ever. Honestly, is there any scenario short of a very literal and very scary genocidal or nuclear solution that could actually solve the problem of terror for the sake of Islamic extremism?
So, under the supposition that if this is a war, this war is never, ever going to be over, my second argument against accepting war as a solution is this:
"We've always been at war with Eastasia."
Perpetual war versus vigilant use of intelligence and targeted enforcement. To me, it's an easy choice to make, especially as we've seen the groundwork laid by this administration:
Guardian Unlimited | Comment is free | A state of emergency
Within the Bush administration something that senior officials call the "war paradigm" is the central organising principle. They do not use the phrase publicly, but they bend policy to serve it. After September 11 the war paradigm was instantly adopted. George Bush, who proclaimed "I'm a war president", assumed the paradigm as his natural state and right. According to its imperatives, the president in his wartime capacity as commander in chief makes and enforces laws as he sees fit, overriding the constitutional system of checks and balances. Some of the paradigm's expressions include Bush's fiats on the treatment of detainees, domestic surveillance and international law, and his more than 750 "signing statements" - interpretations of laws that he claims he can implement as he chooses.
Well, that's just one guy's opinion, and this isn't a big story, right? Tell that to Charlie Savage, who won a Pulitzer for his work investigating the President's signing statements. Here's a clip from an interview of his:
Glenn Greenwald - Salon
(Savage speaking): In his signing statements, Bush was asserting that the president, as commander-in-chief and head of the "unitary" executive branch, has the power to set aside laws in which Congress has sought to restrict his power or to regulate the federal government. This view seemed to have momentous implications for the constitutional system of checks and balances. Moreover, it was coming to light in the wake of then-recent revelations about the warrantless wiretapping program, which circumvented a 1978 statute. The NSA program showed that the Bush administration was willing to act on its aggressive theory of executive power.
This theory was adopted by the Bush administration, after reading the position papers of John Yoo, who in 2001 was in the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel:
Scholar Stands by Post-9/11 Writings On Torture, Domestic Eavesdropping
Yoo argued that the Constitution grants the president virtually unhindered discretion in wartime. He said the fight against terrorism, with no fixed battlefield or uniformed enemy, was a new kind of war.
Interview with John Yoo, author of The Powers of War and Peace: The Constitution and Foreign Affairs after 9/11
The world after September 11, 2001, however, is very different. It is no longer clear that the United States must seek to reduce the amount of warfare, and it certainly is no longer clear that the constitutional system ought to be fixed so as to make it difficult to use force. Rather than war disappearing from the world, the threat of war may well be increasing. Threats now come from at least three primary sources: the easy availability of the knowledge and technology to create weapons of mass destruction (WMD), the emergence of rogue nations, and the rise of international terrorism of the kind represented by the al Qaeda terrorist organization. Because of these developments, the optimal level of war for the United States may no longer be zero, but may actually be dramatically higher than before.
Well, we were always at war with Eurasia. Looks like we always will be too, if that "optimal level of war" is no longer "zero."
I believe that persistent warmongering by this administration has been purposeful, but less for the "noble" causes of nation building and the fostering of democracy than for engaging in a perpetual war to allow the expansion of powers of the executive branch to grow. I think this administration has been purposefully dishonest with America, and the repercussions of this unprecedented assertion of the unitary executive theory are already being felt. We live in a world where the administration can whisk you off the street and throw you in a prison without charges, can torture you if they claim you're an enemy combatant, can open your mail or eavesdrop on your phone calls without legislatively mandated oversight, and can acquire databases full of call logs or web activity from telecom companies just by issuing a non-warrant approved NSL.
They have gotten away with the above, as well as other reckless acts, through war posturing and fear mongering, and I refuse to accept the framework of perpetual war as a means of enabling governmental lawlessness.
I agree that terrorist acts should be pre-empted, but I fail to see how the framework of war is a healthy one - both for securing our elusive ideals of safety, and for the future of democracy in this country.
Powered by ScribeFire.
Terrorists are attacking, call the cops!
Published by Luckbox on Thursday, May 10, 2007 at 11:17 PM.I'm not calling BG naive. Let's start with that. However, the idea that the frontline in the War on Terror are the guys from Reno 911 is an idea with a foudation of naitivity not seen since some argued Hitler only wanted Poland. It's the kind of naitivity that already cost us 3000 American lives on September 11th.
How can I say that, you ask? It's simple. From the day these terrorists first attacked us in 1993, to the day President Bush invaded Afghanistan, the United States treated terrorism as a law enforcement problem. We waited until we were attacked and then sought out the men responsible so they could be punished. Let's review...
On February 26th, 1993, al Qaida carried out its first attack on U.S. soil. Six people were killed and more than 1000 were injured. In the end, 10 Islamic militants were convicted. Some of those indicted remain at large today. The man who financed it, Khaled Shaikh Mohammed, was eventually captured, but it wasn't the police who caught him, it was the U.S. military.
On June 25th, 1996, terrorists, who may have been part of al Qaida, bombed the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia. Nineteen U.S. servicemen were killed. The four primary people responsible remain at large today. You can rest easier in knowing they've been indicted. The 9/11 Commission reports Osama bin Laden received congratulations the day of the attack.
On August 7th, 1998, al Qaida simultaneously attacked two U.S. embassies in Africa. Eleven Americans were among the 225 people killed. More than 4000 people were injured. Twenty-one people were indicted, nine remain at large, including Osama bin Laden, 4 others were killed or captured, but again, not by police. After this attack, there was a military response. A cruise missle destroyed a pharmaceutical factory in Sudan. The President believed there were WMDs there. The intelligence was later proved to be less than reliable. I know what you're thinking... no WMDs... bad intelligence... yeah, same song and dance, different President. Other cruise missles were launched at suspected al Qaida training camps, with questionable results.
On October 12th, 2000, al Qaida attacked the USS Cole at a port in Yemen. Seventeen American sailors were killed. President Clinton promised to find those responsible and hold them accountable. Some of the men being held "accountable" escaped from a Yemeni prison a little more than a year ago. They are still on the loose. One of the planners of attack was killed in 2002 when the vehicle he was in was destroyed by a hellfire missle fired by a U.S. military drone. I don't think law enforcement was involved in that one.
On September 11th, 2001, well, you know what al Qaida did that day.
For almost a decade, our government treated terrorism like a law enforcement problem. Plenty of people were indicted. Some were even actually captured and thrown into jail. And yet the attacks continued and continued, growing in magnitude. When 3000 people were killed, our President finally learned that waiting for the next attack and trying to arrest the perpetrators was only asking for more death and destruction.
There is a time and a place for investigations and intelligence. A lucky break helped a video clerk tip off the FBI. Law enforcement worked that time. And every now and then, it will work. But to pretend as though we're not at war... not at war with people whose sole purpose in life is to kill as many innocent Americans as possible, well, you're living in the same fantasy world our leaders were living in for a decade as terrorists murdered thousands and thousands. But as long as we track them down later and arrest them, everything's okay, right?
A Law Enforcement Problem - A Law Enforcement Solution
Published by BG on at 7:07 PM.Since it came up in conversation today...
Orcinus
If you've got 100 al Qaeda operatives in Beirut, you don't roll Humvees in and engage the Lebanese army as your solution.
Terrorist acts are acts of violence not perpetrated by a state. An act of violence perpetrated by the state is an act of war, not of terrorism. One is an act of lawbreaking, the other an attempt to provoke a state to respond.
Terrorism is a law enforcement problem, not a war problem. You can't throw 10,000 troops with heavy weaponry at a few hundred guys who look like and walk amongst the citizens of Karachi - unless, of course, you're just looking to indiscriminately wipe out as many foreigners as possible, proactively solving your problem of both terrorism and the future spread of terrorism. Ugh.
Obviously, a state that is clearly aiding and abetting - CLEARLY aiding and abetting, like Afghanistan - may need convincing in a heavy-handed sort of way to let us go after al Qaeda, but war with Afghanistan is clearly not the same thing as defeating al Qaeda.
Orcinus
Any kind of serious War on Terror needs to have the flexibility to respond proportionately and nimbly to various terrorist threats as they manifest themselves, and in this respect a military emphasis is simply too musclebound to be effective. A comprehensive approach will emphasize intelligence and law enforcement -- especially global law enforcement, the very concept of which is anathema to the Bush administration -- while reserving its military options, fraught as they are with multiple collateral hazards, solely for the rare circumstances that warrant them.
If you've got 100 al Qaeda operatives in Beirut, you don't roll Humvees in and engage the Lebanese army as your solution.
Terrorist acts are acts of violence not perpetrated by a state. An act of violence perpetrated by the state is an act of war, not of terrorism. One is an act of lawbreaking, the other an attempt to provoke a state to respond.
Terrorism is a law enforcement problem, not a war problem. You can't throw 10,000 troops with heavy weaponry at a few hundred guys who look like and walk amongst the citizens of Karachi - unless, of course, you're just looking to indiscriminately wipe out as many foreigners as possible, proactively solving your problem of both terrorism and the future spread of terrorism. Ugh.
Obviously, a state that is clearly aiding and abetting - CLEARLY aiding and abetting, like Afghanistan - may need convincing in a heavy-handed sort of way to let us go after al Qaeda, but war with Afghanistan is clearly not the same thing as defeating al Qaeda.
Powered by ScribeFire.
Wait, What?
Published by BG on at 3:19 PM.Michelle Malkin: In the wake of choice
Is this the same "un-moderate debate moderator" who asked the following questions at the GOP debate?
· In the NBC-Wall Street Journal poll, just 22 percent believe this country is on the right track. Mayor Giuliani, how do we get back to Ronald Reagan’s "morning in America"?
· We’re going to talk about values. Let’s go down the line on this, just like they did with the Democrats last week on some of these trickier calls, but they do have clear answers. Starting with you, Governor. Would the day that Roe v. Wade is repealed be a good day for Americans?
· Let me go to Senator McCain. We’re in the house of Ronald Reagan. Every cab driver in America knew what Ronald Reagan stood for: defeat communism abroad, reduce big government at home. Can you, Senator McCain, restore that kind of unity of purpose?
· Governor Thompson, same question; actually you could respond to just about anything at this point. (Which he did)
· Okay, let’s start with an enjoyable down-the-line, okay? I want each candidate to mention a tax he’d like to cut, in addition to the Bush tax cuts, keeping them in effect.
And, of course...
· But let me ask you about something else that might be a negative in the upcoming campaign. Seriously, would it be good for America to have Bill Clinton back living in the White House?
Damn stinking liberals and their tough questions.
Transcript of the debate from the New York Times
While we're on life issues, Bobby Schindler has a question for the GOP presidential candidates and un-moderate debate moderator Chris Matthews: "Since When Does Pro-Life Mean Killing The Disabled?"
Is this the same "un-moderate debate moderator" who asked the following questions at the GOP debate?
· In the NBC-Wall Street Journal poll, just 22 percent believe this country is on the right track. Mayor Giuliani, how do we get back to Ronald Reagan’s "morning in America"?
· We’re going to talk about values. Let’s go down the line on this, just like they did with the Democrats last week on some of these trickier calls, but they do have clear answers. Starting with you, Governor. Would the day that Roe v. Wade is repealed be a good day for Americans?
· Let me go to Senator McCain. We’re in the house of Ronald Reagan. Every cab driver in America knew what Ronald Reagan stood for: defeat communism abroad, reduce big government at home. Can you, Senator McCain, restore that kind of unity of purpose?
· Governor Thompson, same question; actually you could respond to just about anything at this point. (Which he did)
· Okay, let’s start with an enjoyable down-the-line, okay? I want each candidate to mention a tax he’d like to cut, in addition to the Bush tax cuts, keeping them in effect.
And, of course...
· But let me ask you about something else that might be a negative in the upcoming campaign. Seriously, would it be good for America to have Bill Clinton back living in the White House?
Damn stinking liberals and their tough questions.
Transcript of the debate from the New York Times
Powered by ScribeFire.
So He's Screwed Someone BESIDES The American People?
Published by BG on at 12:52 PM.Oh Hey, Cheney's Maybe On the DC Madam's List - Wonkette
The “former CEO” supposedly on the DC Madam’s phone list is “former” Halliburton CEO Dick Cheney. He paid money to some poor girl and stuck his thing in her deal. ABC News all but dropped the story when Cheney threatened to jam that prop phone three feet up the ass of Brian Ross. That’s why the formerly explosive scandal story instead got seven minutes at the end of whatever ABC News show Friday night.
There, are you people happy now? Didn’t think so. Do you know why we’re underwhelmed by this rumor? Because even if it’s a fact, which it probably is, there’s no way it would have any impact on Cheney’s “career.” This is a draft-dodging half-human war criminal with a pregnant lesbian daughter who tells senators to fuck themselves and shoots his own friends in the face. Ordering an outcall hooker is positively innocent compared to the well-known things Cheney does every day.
Obviously a rumor, and a poorly sourced one at that. Still fun though.
Powered by ScribeFire.
I LOL'd
Published by BG on at 10:15 AM.Hullabaloo
Bush's Approval Remains Ridiculously High In Viriginia
by tristero
NY Times:
Representative Tom Davis told Mr. Bush that the president's approval rating was at 5 percent in one section of his northern Virginia district.
So... You're driving along the streets in Tom Davis' district, enjoying the scenery of what I'm sure's a lovely place - Tom's district includes Mt. Vernon, after all. There's an all-day Stevie Ray Vaughan festival on the radio and you - why, you're feeling just completely safe. Traffic's moderate, not so bad. Coming your way down the other lane are, I dunno, something like 10 cars a minute. In other words:
Five drivers are hurtling your way every ten minutes that are so batshit crazy they actually approve of George W. Bush. Five drivers every ten minutes who can't (or won't) meet the most basic requirements of consensual reality - such as evaluating the performance of the worst president ever, let alone agreeing to drive on the right side of road! Five drivers every ten minutes whose cognitive and moral judgment is so impaired they might create a head-on collision just for kicks.
Get it? When you actually think about what those stats mean - that people who still think well of Bush are actually behind the wheels of cars, capable of doing godknowswhat for no sane reason at all... well, all of a sudden, that 5% percent approval rate seems dangerously, unacceptably high, doesn't it, now?
Powered by ScribeFire.
The Fall Guy
Published by BG on at 8:44 AM.Maryland Republican Representative Wayne Gilchrest sat down with Reason Magazine (a Libertarian publication to which I subscribe - more Hayek than Hillary in any given issue, that's for sure) for an interview. Well worth reading all the way through, but here's a clip:
Reason Magazine - The Lonely Guy
After hearing of yesterday's meeting between 11 GOP Congressmen and the President, I actually got a little excited. Maybe Congress will come around, maybe they'll force feed him some sensible deadlines, and maybe there can be some success in renegotiating the terms of this war.
The more I thought about it, though, the more staged this whole event likely was.
The talking point that Gilchrest mentions, that we should "listen to the generals," is a designed two-purpose wedge. The first prong is to reinforce the "support the troops" mentality, where the Noble Military should not be denigrated by traitorous citizens. The second, however, is to allow the administration to triangulate themselves away from responsibility if/when accountability for the errors made arrives.
Big "if" by the way.
What do you think that "War Czar" thing was all about? If the President is "the Commander-in-Chief," then why would there need to be a bureaucrat sitting between his office and the military's top brass?
(If you think the answer to that question is "oversight," then I'd like to come to your home and laugh heartily at the wonder of your optimism.)
If I had to connect the dots between the GOP closed-door meeting with the President yesterday, the "War Czar" thing, and all the comments about Petraeus' plan needing a chance to work, it's all specifically designed to allow for the perception that the party is changing direction, when, in fact, it continues to stay the course.
Obviously, there hasn't been a War Czar brought on board as of yet, and who knows if they're still exploring the possibility, but with or without someone in that role, here's what's going to happen: The President takes the very sober and very serious meeting with (largely junior, which is an interesting enough fact standing on its own) the Congressmen and comes to the conclusion that he's willing to allow a GOP-framed supplemental bill with non-binding benchmarks (but no timelines) be submitted with a promise of no veto. In this effort, he effectively triangulates the Democratic leadership farther to the right than they'd like, but their spinelessness and unwillingness to look like they're not "supporting the troops" (whatever the hell that means this week) pushes them into granting what is, effectively, another blank check.
Summer passes, early fall, and whether or not the non-binding benchmarks fall into place, the President continues to talk about the military and our noble troops and keeps tying General Petraeus to the success of the surge (coughFrederickKagancough). If (when) the surge fails, Petraeus is the fall guy, and President Bush can push the blame squarely on his shoulders, as he delivered what the American people wanted, by signing a bill with non-binding benchmarks and appearing to adhere to some portion of the terms. If, by some freak chance, the surge succeeds, then the President doesn't need a fall guy.
Point is, these machinations are designed to allow the Republican Party to distance themselves from the war, trying to create the perception that it's bad planning and execution by the military that caused us to lose. Bush fires Petraeus, he's got his fall guy and a news cycle rife with "unnamed sources within the administration" telling Russert and David Gregory that the President regrets being misled by General Petraeus, and now we're in a situation we just can't pull the troops out of because we can't let the situation deteriorate any further, or al-Qaeda will follow us home and it'll be all Dave Petraeus' fault.
Obviously, if these GOP Congressmen were serious about repudiating Bush's war policies, they'd work with the Democratic leadership instead of the White House. We'll see what happens from here.
Reason Magazine - The Lonely Guy
Reason: Rep. John Murtha (D-Penn.) said that Gen. Petraeus's appearance in Washington was political, meant to pump up support for the war more than inform the Congress. Is he right?
Gilchrest: I appreciate the fact that the general came here. I met Gen. Petraeus in Mosul and in Baghdad. I have a great deal of respect and I'm glad he came and glad he had a dialogue. And he also said here, again, clearly, that there's no military victory in Iraq, that it has to be a political solution. Look, Gen. Petraeus is a general taking orders from his commander-in-chief. He doesn't make policy. It is not his responsibility to say whether or not we're succeeding. The White House has to make that clarification. And for them to say "We're doing what the generals say" is irresponsible; it's just foreclosing their constitutional responsibilities. Gen. Petraeus can carry out the best tactics in the world but unless the overall strategy is well thought out he can never be successful. It always irritates me when they say "We're going to listen to the generals." They haven't listened to the generals from day one.
After hearing of yesterday's meeting between 11 GOP Congressmen and the President, I actually got a little excited. Maybe Congress will come around, maybe they'll force feed him some sensible deadlines, and maybe there can be some success in renegotiating the terms of this war.
The more I thought about it, though, the more staged this whole event likely was.
The talking point that Gilchrest mentions, that we should "listen to the generals," is a designed two-purpose wedge. The first prong is to reinforce the "support the troops" mentality, where the Noble Military should not be denigrated by traitorous citizens. The second, however, is to allow the administration to triangulate themselves away from responsibility if/when accountability for the errors made arrives.
Big "if" by the way.
What do you think that "War Czar" thing was all about? If the President is "the Commander-in-Chief," then why would there need to be a bureaucrat sitting between his office and the military's top brass?
(If you think the answer to that question is "oversight," then I'd like to come to your home and laugh heartily at the wonder of your optimism.)
If I had to connect the dots between the GOP closed-door meeting with the President yesterday, the "War Czar" thing, and all the comments about Petraeus' plan needing a chance to work, it's all specifically designed to allow for the perception that the party is changing direction, when, in fact, it continues to stay the course.
Obviously, there hasn't been a War Czar brought on board as of yet, and who knows if they're still exploring the possibility, but with or without someone in that role, here's what's going to happen: The President takes the very sober and very serious meeting with (largely junior, which is an interesting enough fact standing on its own) the Congressmen and comes to the conclusion that he's willing to allow a GOP-framed supplemental bill with non-binding benchmarks (but no timelines) be submitted with a promise of no veto. In this effort, he effectively triangulates the Democratic leadership farther to the right than they'd like, but their spinelessness and unwillingness to look like they're not "supporting the troops" (whatever the hell that means this week) pushes them into granting what is, effectively, another blank check.
Summer passes, early fall, and whether or not the non-binding benchmarks fall into place, the President continues to talk about the military and our noble troops and keeps tying General Petraeus to the success of the surge (coughFrederickKagancough). If (when) the surge fails, Petraeus is the fall guy, and President Bush can push the blame squarely on his shoulders, as he delivered what the American people wanted, by signing a bill with non-binding benchmarks and appearing to adhere to some portion of the terms. If, by some freak chance, the surge succeeds, then the President doesn't need a fall guy.
Point is, these machinations are designed to allow the Republican Party to distance themselves from the war, trying to create the perception that it's bad planning and execution by the military that caused us to lose. Bush fires Petraeus, he's got his fall guy and a news cycle rife with "unnamed sources within the administration" telling Russert and David Gregory that the President regrets being misled by General Petraeus, and now we're in a situation we just can't pull the troops out of because we can't let the situation deteriorate any further, or al-Qaeda will follow us home and it'll be all Dave Petraeus' fault.
Obviously, if these GOP Congressmen were serious about repudiating Bush's war policies, they'd work with the Democratic leadership instead of the White House. We'll see what happens from here.
Powered by ScribeFire.
Hey! That's My Congressman!
Published by BG on at 6:40 AM.WP: Bush told war is harming GOP - washingtonpost.com Highlights - MSNBC.com
the meeting between 11 House Republicans, Bush, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, White House political adviser Karl Rove and presidential press secretary Tony Snow was perhaps the clearest sign yet that patience in the party is running out. The meeting, organized by Rep. Charlie Dent (Pa.), one of the co-chairs of the moderate "Tuesday Group," included Reps. Thomas M. Davis III (Va.), Michael N. Castle (Del.), Todd R. Platts (Pa.), Jim Ramstad (Minn.) and Jo Ann Emerson (Mo.).
More on this later...
Powered by ScribeFire.
This Time I'm Almost Agreeing With Malkin. Seriously.
Published by BG on Wednesday, May 09, 2007 at 9:43 PM.Alright, so tell me how I'm supposed to feel about this:
Michelle Malkin: Data-mining for me, but not for thee
Following the link in her four-word accusation to the so-very-hated liberal rag brings you to a page which quotes a Village Voice article thusly:
Obviously, the big differences are that companies don't exert direct power over your freedoms, nor are you obligated to participate in their data mining operations. You could simply choose not to purchase the product or service, and they wouldn't have your data to mine. It's an ugly reality of marketing in the 21st century that since companies can collect this data, they will, and most will share and/or sell it in the interest of targeted servicing, and collapsing the purchasing cycle through specifically suggestive sales.
Again, a customer doesn't have to buy these products and/or services. He can choose not to, or choose to spend his money with companies who provide a privacy statement which agrees with their ideals more closely than another.
So let the market decide! If this is a problem, people will recognize, dollars will shift, policies will change! That being said...
That couldn't happen, right? Wrong.
All it takes is for one of thousands of FBI or DOJ employees with the ability to file a non-warrant enabled National Security Letter request, and the government can demand the New York Times, Time Magazine, or Time Warner turn over databases full of information they use for targeted marketing for any reason, or no reason at all.
So the realist in me understands that when the NYT says the government shouldn't collect this information, it's not hypocritical to be datamining their own customers' behavior at the same time. The NYT doesn't exactly have a law enforcement arm, nor do they retain radical theories regarding Habeus Corpus detentions of American citizens. But the libertarian instincts I have run strong. I think that government shouldn't be able to acquire this information, and if it's out there they're going to want to get their hands on it.
I don't for a second believe that this is limited to this administration either. There are always going to be corrupt people in our government, and I'd probably prefer that people in power that are prone to corruption should have the ability to harvest information against their enemies that would normally fall under a casual expectation of privacy.
So no, the Times isn't hypocritical... but they shouldn't be collecting this information anyway. It's a small piece of a bigger puzzle of privacy that should belong to the individual, and not his government.
And so, I guess that's how I give a sideways pass at almost agreeing with Michelle Malkin.
Michelle Malkin: Data-mining for me, but not for thee
NYTimes' hypocrisy exposed again.
Following the link in her four-word accusation to the so-very-hated liberal rag brings you to a page which quotes a Village Voice article thusly:
Barely a year after their reporters won a Pulitzer prize for exposing data mining of ordinary citizens by a government spy agency, New York Times officials had some exciting news for stockholders last week: The Times company plans to do its own data mining of ordinary citizens, in the name of online profits.
Obviously, the big differences are that companies don't exert direct power over your freedoms, nor are you obligated to participate in their data mining operations. You could simply choose not to purchase the product or service, and they wouldn't have your data to mine. It's an ugly reality of marketing in the 21st century that since companies can collect this data, they will, and most will share and/or sell it in the interest of targeted servicing, and collapsing the purchasing cycle through specifically suggestive sales.
Again, a customer doesn't have to buy these products and/or services. He can choose not to, or choose to spend his money with companies who provide a privacy statement which agrees with their ideals more closely than another.
So let the market decide! If this is a problem, people will recognize, dollars will shift, policies will change! That being said...
Do readers really want data-mining behavior from their newspapers—not just the Times but every other big media outlet? Do they want newspaper databases to store reading histories, minute by minute, until one day the government shows up to examine ordinary citizens' shopping and viewing and chatting habits in detail? If you think it can't happen, ask the librarians who've been told to hand over readers' checkout records under the Patriot Act.
That couldn't happen, right? Wrong.
Over a three-year period ending in 2005, the FBI collected intimate information about the lives of a population roughly the size of Bethesda's -- 52,000 -- and stored it in an intelligence database accessible to about 12,000 federal, state and local law enforcement authorities and to certain foreign governments.
The FBI did so without systematically retaining evidence that its data collection was legal, without ensuring that all the data it obtained matched its needs or requests, without correctly tallying and reporting its efforts to Congress, and without ferreting out all of its abuses and reporting them to an intelligence oversight board.
All it takes is for one of thousands of FBI or DOJ employees with the ability to file a non-warrant enabled National Security Letter request, and the government can demand the New York Times, Time Magazine, or Time Warner turn over databases full of information they use for targeted marketing for any reason, or no reason at all.
So the realist in me understands that when the NYT says the government shouldn't collect this information, it's not hypocritical to be datamining their own customers' behavior at the same time. The NYT doesn't exactly have a law enforcement arm, nor do they retain radical theories regarding Habeus Corpus detentions of American citizens. But the libertarian instincts I have run strong. I think that government shouldn't be able to acquire this information, and if it's out there they're going to want to get their hands on it.
I don't for a second believe that this is limited to this administration either. There are always going to be corrupt people in our government, and I'd probably prefer that people in power that are prone to corruption should have the ability to harvest information against their enemies that would normally fall under a casual expectation of privacy.
So no, the Times isn't hypocritical... but they shouldn't be collecting this information anyway. It's a small piece of a bigger puzzle of privacy that should belong to the individual, and not his government.
And so, I guess that's how I give a sideways pass at almost agreeing with Michelle Malkin.
Powered by ScribeFire.
Keep Your Toadies Dumb, Your Cronies Even Dumber
Published by BG on at 6:20 PM.This is why AGonzo gets to be Attorney General - Oh, the malfeasance!
TPMmuckraker May 9, 2007 04:56 PM
By the way, Clinton and Reno didn't see eye-to-eye on a lot of things, and she was never his White House Counsel either. Just to diffuse that argument before it begins.
TPMmuckraker May 9, 2007 04:56 PM
(Former US Attorney John) McKay said he began to have concerns about politics entering the Justice Department in early 2005, when Gonzales addressed all of the country's U.S. attorneys in Scottsdale, Ariz., shortly after he took over as attorney general. "His first speech to us was a 'you work for the White House' speech," McKay recalled. " 'I work for the White House, you work for the White House.' " McKay said he thought at the time, "He couldn't have meant that speech," given the traditional independence of U.S. Attorneys. "It turns out he did." He looked around the meeting room and caught the eyes of his colleagues, who gave him looks of surprise at Gonzales' remarks. "We were stunned at what he was saying."
By the way, Clinton and Reno didn't see eye-to-eye on a lot of things, and she was never his White House Counsel either. Just to diffuse that argument before it begins.
Powered by ScribeFire.
Today... We May Have Dodged A Lot Of Bullets
Published by BG on at 5:53 PM.Whatever you want to think about MediaMatters.org, sometimes the work that they're doing makes a great deal of sense. Take this clip:
Media Matters - ABC's Gibson uncritically reported claim that "we dodged a bullet" by foiling terror plot on Fort Dix
What does "dodged a bullet" mean to you? How do you internalize that message? In my view, it's evocative of a near miss, something that was on the precipice of being truly dangerous, but was pulled back at the very last second.
Obviously, there's no evidence that was a fact. I'm happy that this alleged terror plot has gotten the attention it has, simply because it does provide a template for how these problems can be solved through the cooperation of law enforcement and intelligence efforts.
But who benefits when it is uncritically reported that the FBI says, "we dodged a bullet?" This persistent fearmongering has gone on too long, and when our media is complicit in allowing law enforcement to amplify what was, by all accounts, a bad situation into something that's evocative of a far worse scenario, that's a problem.
No one wanted these guys to strike, but keep in mind that the alleged plot had been under law enforcement surveillance for over a year at this point, and they made the arrests through a weapons-buy sting.
What does that tell you?
Maybe that these guys weren't equipped to strike yet, and that law enforcement knew what they were doing getting close to these guys without just yanking them off the streets and throwing them in Gitmo?
Even the so-called liberal media likes an attention-grabbing headline, and this certainly qualifies. With or without the added hyperbole.
Media Matters - ABC's Gibson uncritically reported claim that "we dodged a bullet" by foiling terror plot on Fort Dix
On the May 8 edition of ABC's World News, anchor Charles Gibson introduced a report about the indictment of six men alleged to have plotted an armed attack on the Fort Dix military base in New Jersey, by reporting as fact FBI Philadelphia special agent in charge J.P. Weis' statement that "[t]oday, we dodged a bullet. In fact, when you look at the type of weapons this group was trying to purchase, we may have dodged a lot of bullets."
What does "dodged a bullet" mean to you? How do you internalize that message? In my view, it's evocative of a near miss, something that was on the precipice of being truly dangerous, but was pulled back at the very last second.
Obviously, there's no evidence that was a fact. I'm happy that this alleged terror plot has gotten the attention it has, simply because it does provide a template for how these problems can be solved through the cooperation of law enforcement and intelligence efforts.
But who benefits when it is uncritically reported that the FBI says, "we dodged a bullet?" This persistent fearmongering has gone on too long, and when our media is complicit in allowing law enforcement to amplify what was, by all accounts, a bad situation into something that's evocative of a far worse scenario, that's a problem.
No one wanted these guys to strike, but keep in mind that the alleged plot had been under law enforcement surveillance for over a year at this point, and they made the arrests through a weapons-buy sting.
What does that tell you?
Maybe that these guys weren't equipped to strike yet, and that law enforcement knew what they were doing getting close to these guys without just yanking them off the streets and throwing them in Gitmo?
Even the so-called liberal media likes an attention-grabbing headline, and this certainly qualifies. With or without the added hyperbole.
Powered by ScribeFire.
Will He Or Won't He?
Published by BG on at 1:36 PM.Duh. Of course he will.F. Thompson sharpens strategy - Politico.com
File this under "obvious," but if I'm a Republican candidate in this pre-election cycle, and I've had a chance to observe how the others in the race are doing, I'm eschewing economics and substantive discussions about Social Security to go pander to the Christian Right too. First off, after James Dobson's assertions a few weeks back, he's got to bend over backwards to get the Christian Right back on board. Dobson may not be a full-fledged kingmaker, but he's got enough pull with the Christian Right to steer a sizeable portion of that bloc to or from anyone he chooses.
So the side benefit to an evening of pandering to the Christian Right? You don't have to talk about anything of substance. Thompson, obviously, will state his opposition to abortion, and will talk about "judicial activism" and "legislating from the bench" and how he'll make sure that our American values are protected and blah blah blah...
Look, it doesn't take a whole heckuva lot to bring the Christian Right around. Promise a few of their powermongers a seat in the Grover Norquist weekly, talk about "people of faith," sympathize with their victimhood of the majority, and use the word "Liberal" as an invective as often as possible.
Ideas like "family values" and "judicial activism" are inherently meaningless, but the Christians like to hear them anyway.
I particularly enjoyed this quote from the article as well, describing the jockeying for position by Republican operatives to get the call from the campaign:
Gee, I really hope Chip asks me to the Prom. He's so dreamy...
Thompson's really enjoying this free ride of his in the press, but I hope he declares soon enough so the substantive vetting of his ideas can occur. There are a lot of people who see him as the Reaganesque figure they crave for the party, but I'm not entirely sure the hawkish tough guy bravado is going to play as well in 2008 as the right would like. I also think he's going to have to work hard to distance himself from his neoconservative connections, including the guys responsible for selling this war, promoting the surge, and developing this administration's radical theories of unchecked executive branch power.
He's going to have to declare soon enough. I just hope the questions about how closely his policies correlate with neocon theory are asked, and that he's forced to either stand on the associations he's developed, or repudiate them publicly to distance himself.
Former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson acknowledges his coming-out speech in California last weekend didn't live up to expectations, advisers say, and he is planning a tighter and sharper message dubbed "Stump Speech 2.0" for a Saturday night event to be attended by key conservative leaders.
Friends working on the speech say it will include more of a call to arms than the entertaining but unfocused after-dinner address Thompson gave to an eagerly expectant audience Friday night at the Balboa Bay Club and Resort in Newport Beach, Calif.
Saturday's event will be a crucial audition in Northern Virginia, where Thompson will be the keynote speaker at a dinner of the Council for National Policy, an organization of conservative leaders. Organizers say he will be introduced by Richard Land of the Southern Baptist Convention, who is among the most important voices of evangelical Christians. Friends helping Thompson with the speech say it will have more of a discussion of values issues than the Orange County outing and will emphasize the importance of confirming conservative judges. "It will be more of an effort to get people excited about the fact that conservatives can win in 2008," said a person close to Thompson. "People found out last weekend that he didn't walk on water, and he was a little rusty."
File this under "obvious," but if I'm a Republican candidate in this pre-election cycle, and I've had a chance to observe how the others in the race are doing, I'm eschewing economics and substantive discussions about Social Security to go pander to the Christian Right too. First off, after James Dobson's assertions a few weeks back, he's got to bend over backwards to get the Christian Right back on board. Dobson may not be a full-fledged kingmaker, but he's got enough pull with the Christian Right to steer a sizeable portion of that bloc to or from anyone he chooses.
So the side benefit to an evening of pandering to the Christian Right? You don't have to talk about anything of substance. Thompson, obviously, will state his opposition to abortion, and will talk about "judicial activism" and "legislating from the bench" and how he'll make sure that our American values are protected and blah blah blah...
Look, it doesn't take a whole heckuva lot to bring the Christian Right around. Promise a few of their powermongers a seat in the Grover Norquist weekly, talk about "people of faith," sympathize with their victimhood of the majority, and use the word "Liberal" as an invective as often as possible.
Ideas like "family values" and "judicial activism" are inherently meaningless, but the Christians like to hear them anyway.
I particularly enjoyed this quote from the article as well, describing the jockeying for position by Republican operatives to get the call from the campaign:
"A lot of people who aren't involved are throwing their name out, hoping they'll get called," said a top Republican consultant who has not been called and didn't want to throw his name out. Other strategists are taking the tack of trying to maintain a low profile, play hard to get and hope the phone rings and they get tapped.
Gee, I really hope Chip asks me to the Prom. He's so dreamy...
Thompson's really enjoying this free ride of his in the press, but I hope he declares soon enough so the substantive vetting of his ideas can occur. There are a lot of people who see him as the Reaganesque figure they crave for the party, but I'm not entirely sure the hawkish tough guy bravado is going to play as well in 2008 as the right would like. I also think he's going to have to work hard to distance himself from his neoconservative connections, including the guys responsible for selling this war, promoting the surge, and developing this administration's radical theories of unchecked executive branch power.
He's going to have to declare soon enough. I just hope the questions about how closely his policies correlate with neocon theory are asked, and that he's forced to either stand on the associations he's developed, or repudiate them publicly to distance himself.
Powered by ScribeFire.
In Which I Facetiously Pretend To Agree With Michelle Malkin
Published by BG on at 12:00 PM.So it turns out that one of the Fort Dix Six (copyright BG, all rights reserved) was an Albanian refugee brought to this country during the war in Kosovo by Bill Clinton's administration in 1999.
Michelle Malkin
So, clearly, what Malkin is saying is that George Bush screwed up the goodwill an international act of charity created, right? I mean, these guys didn't start planning until he took office, so aren't their plots on his watch? Let's ask an expert in minority relations what he thinks.
"George Bush doesn't care about Albanian people."
Michelle Malkin
Eight years ago, at the Clinton administration's behest, this nation welcomed refugees escaping a genocidal regime whose military spread fear and brutalized its people. Eight years later, we have a homegrown jihad plot targeting a base that symbolizes the best, the brightest and the most compassionate our military has to offer.
So, clearly, what Malkin is saying is that George Bush screwed up the goodwill an international act of charity created, right? I mean, these guys didn't start planning until he took office, so aren't their plots on his watch? Let's ask an expert in minority relations what he thinks.
"George Bush doesn't care about Albanian people."
Powered by ScribeFire.
Re: Septembering
Published by BG on at 10:40 AM.Uh, about what I said below? Nevermind.
War Room - Salon.com
War Room - Salon.com
Gen. David Petraeus has promised a "forthright assessment" of progress in Iraq come September, and more and more Republicans seem to be seeking political cover there. We're not giving the president a blank check, their argument goes. We're just giving him until September to see if this "surge" is actually going to work.
September? Did somebody say September?
" The surge needs to go through the beginning of next year for sure," Lt. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, the day-to-day commander for U.S. military operations in Iraq, tells the Washington Post.
The beginning of next year? Like, say, January?
No.
"What I am trying to do is to get until April so we can decide whether to keep it going or not," Odierno says. "Are we making progress? If we're not making any progress, we need to change our strategy. If we're making progress, then we need to make a decision on whether we continue to surge."
Powered by ScribeFire.
Picking on the PJs
Published by BG on at 10:24 AM.Pajamas Media: PhotoSchlocking "The Once and Future Obama"
Twice in one day I'm linking to Pajamas Media, which seems excessive but for the brewing culture of victimhood perpetrated by our monolithic liberal media. God forbid that the Washington Post actually has a decent, high quality picture of Obama to run alongside an article about him - forgetting, for a moment, that the Getty Images stock photo is likely a poorer-quality image from which a subscriber could order the higher-quality shot. No, having a picture that's not pixellated, clean and sharp shouldn't be allowed. It's obvious that Photoshopping isn't playing fair. Total propaganda.
In another way, the hues and glow and the almost the near halo surrounding Obama in this image suggests more than anything else the fine obscuring hand of what is known as socialist realism. Either way, it seems very early to get this level of propaganda out of the MSM, even the Washington Post.
Twice in one day I'm linking to Pajamas Media, which seems excessive but for the brewing culture of victimhood perpetrated by our monolithic liberal media. God forbid that the Washington Post actually has a decent, high quality picture of Obama to run alongside an article about him - forgetting, for a moment, that the Getty Images stock photo is likely a poorer-quality image from which a subscriber could order the higher-quality shot. No, having a picture that's not pixellated, clean and sharp shouldn't be allowed. It's obvious that Photoshopping isn't playing fair. Total propaganda.
Powered by ScribeFire.
Soft-Pedaling Padilla
Published by BG on at 8:52 AM.Concurring Opinions: Five Years On... How Significant is Padilla?
Five years ago today, May 8, 2002, Jose Padilla was arrested at Chicago's O'Hare Airport on a material witness warrant issued by the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. In June 2002, Padilla was transferred to military custody, where he was detained as an "enemy combatant" until January 2006, at which time he was transferred to civilian authorities here in Miami pending trial on criminal charges.
Five years after his initial arrest, Padilla's criminal trial appears finally destined to actually take place, with jury selection concluding today and opening arguments scheduled to begin next Monday, May 14. The beginning of Padilla's criminal trial and the coincident anniversary leave me to wonder just how significant this trial actually will be, the ultimate result notwithstanding...
The system is working the way it's supposed to; it just took the better part of five years to get there, and much will turn on the extent to which this case becomes precedent over the next five years.
IANAL, but even I can see what's wrong with the claims above - which is ironic, because I found this linked from Instapundit, who actually is a lawyer or professor of law.
First, is "(t)he system working the way it's supposed to?" Well, that depends if you believe that the President retains the authority to pull American citizens off the street and throw them in jail without charging them with a crime. I'm going to say, for sake of posterity, that's wrong. Allow me to clip a piece from another Constitutional attorney, Glenn Greenwald in November 2005:
(T)he decision yesterday by the Administration to finally bring charges against U.S. citizen Jose Padilla -- who has been kept incarcerated in a military prison for three years solely on George Bush’s order, in solitary confinement and indefinitely -- was done not in order to signal a retreat by the Administration with regard to its claimed right to imprison U.S. citizens without any judicial processes, but instead, to protect and solidify that power by ensuring that its patent unconstitutionality cannot be ruled upon by the U.S. Supreme Court in the pending Padilla case.
Greenwald is speculating, probably rightfully so, that the only reason Padilla ever got charged with a crime was because the administration didn't want the Habeus Corpus fight landing in the Supreme Court. Rumsfeld v. Padilla had been winding its way through the courts, despite the best efforts of the administration to deny standing based on various technicalities (e.g., they tried to get the case dismissed because Rumsfeld lives in Virginia and the suit was filed in New York, among other technicalities).
So the system did work, I suppose, in spite of the administration's actions. That Padilla was finally charged with criminal acts did not happen until he had spent three years in solitary confinement in a military prison.
But what about the idea of "precedent" here? Is this criminal trial going to decide whether or not Habeus Corpus stays on the books or not? Is this criminal trial going to be a road map for prosecuting future alleged dirty bombers? Hardly. There are laws Padilla's been charged with breaking, and this trial is going to focus on whether the lawbreaking that has been alleged has actually occured. I'd actually bet at this point that the Habeus Corpus issues will be kept out of the courtroom, as they are irrelevant to the question of whether he broke the laws he is alleged to have broken.
I'm just cynical enough to believe that Padilla will be convicted of something bad enough so that he'll be thrown down a hole and forgotten for the next sixty years, whether he is technically guilty of that something or not. But I'm also just cynical enough to see that an endorsement of the ideas the Concurring Opinions blogger by the widely-read conservative Instapundit is setting the table for an implicit approval of Bush's authoritarian ideals in "law enforcement."
Basically, once Padilla is convicted of something, the meme will shift to, "we need to get these guys off the street by any means necessary," even if it means giving up freedoms guaranteed by our Constitution to do so.
Powered by ScribeFire.
Because Nothing Says "Integrity" Like An Internet Poll
Published by BG on at 8:25 AM.Pajamas Media - Presidential Straw Poll 2008 - Survey Results
We regret that Congressman Paul, a good and decent American with loyal motives and deeply held convictions, seems to have garnered among his supporters a small group for whom unethical conduct appears to be permissible if it gets him elected. We are certain he would disapprove of it.
Still, this behavior must stop immediately, as well as the rude and abusive messages we are receiving from these supporters. If they do not, Pajamas Media will have no choice but to remove Mr. Paul permanently from our poll. The choice is now in the hands of Mr. Paul’s supporters.
I don't know what's worse... That a (sadly) marginalized candidate's rabid base thinks gaming an Internet poll is a good campaign strategy, or that the organization posting the poll feels the need to respond to this sort of "behavior" in this fashion.
No comments about the Dem side of things though, where Bill Richardson appears a virtual lock for the nomination. Thanks Pajamas Media!
Powered by ScribeFire.
Screw You Guys
Published by BG on at 8:17 AM.MyDD :: Direct Democracy for People-Powered Politics
I'm told there's an outside shot that House Democrats on the Armed Services Committee will put a restoration of habeas corpus into the Defense Department Authorization Bill being marked up tomorrow and Thursday. Apparently Chairman Skelton has the votes but there are concerns about whether to have this fight now.
Why is this not an easy sell? Why is this not the right side of the right issue at the right time? Christ, we just arrested six guys that allegedly were going to take on Fort Dix, and we didn't have to throw them in secret prisons to do it either. Why isn't the spin on this that we can "fight terror" while still respecting the Constitution?
It is inexcusable that our legislators aren't sure now's the time to have this fight, and it's even more inexcusable that anyone would fight on the other side of this issue. When it comes to our core freedoms, there's no reason at all we need to find a politically advantageous time to pick the fight.
Powered by ScribeFire.
Septembering
Published by BG on at 8:02 AM.Daily Kos: How Late is Too Late?
Forget what you previously heard that timetables undermine the troops, give a terrible advantage to the insurgents, and amount to a craven surrender in the Global War on Terror™. Those are Democratic timetables. What we have here are Republican timetables, which are patriotic, strategic and a wise conservation of U.S. military resources. This isn't "cut and run," no sirree. This is letting the Iraqis work things out for themselves.
So now there's a drum beat from the right that says we need to wait until September to see progress. Sigh... Here's my fearless prediction on this non-deadline deadline: Because the current conversation in the press revolves around timetables and deadlines due to the vetoed supplemental, Republican Senators and Congressmen are realizing now that the war becomes their albatross in the 2008 elections if they don't find a way to triangulate their previously hawkish positions a little closer to the center.
Because, you know, no one ever makes a big deal about a Republican being "for it before he was against it."
Anyway, what will happen in September is that the administration and military will start talking about all the progress being made, whether it's true or not is beyond the point, and will claim that the Iraqi government is well on their way to becoming the organized, temperate and legitimate body that can take control of its own destiny...
...if we can continue to work with them to help keep the peace. Our troops aren't going anywhere, and I don't think even the most optimistic progressive activists believe otherwise.
Bush is dead-assed determined to keep realigning "the mission" until he can hand this thing off and allow his party to attempt to create the perception eight years from '08 that Obama or Clinton or Gore was the one that ruined everything through their cut-and-run surrendering.
Because, you know, Democrats surrender while Republicans
Powered by ScribeFire.
And They Would Have Gotten Away With It...
Published by BG on Tuesday, May 08, 2007 at 6:08 PM.The Carpetbagger Report » Blog Archive » The plot at Fort Dix
Apparently, the plot was disrupted when the would-be killers videotaped a training session, and brought it to a store to have it burned onto to a DVD. The store clerk saw the video, called the FBI, and agents set up a sting operation, posing as arms dealers, to arrest the suspects.
Obviously, this is a great development and encouraging news. The law enforcement officials who were involved with the arrests, not to mention that store clerk, deserve the nation’s gratitude.
That said, there are a few angles to this story to consider.
Specifically, whether or not they should have kept this scene in the training video*:
Why do they always have the monkey bars? Does Fort Dix have a moat over which they were planning to grapple? Actually, kudos to those who handled this situation in the way these situations should be handled:
[T]oday’s success was due to intelligence gathering and law-enforcement efforts — the very techniques the Bush White House has consistently ridiculed as ineffective in counterterrorism. For that matter, as Steve M. noted, “[A]pparently no warrantless wiretapping led to these arrests, no torture of suspects in overseas prisons, nothing liberals have objected to in the Patriot Act. Remember that when you’re told that these arrests prove that we can’t trust liberals and Democrats.”
Like John Kerry said, terrorism is a law enforcement problem. Trying to throw the might of your military against non-state sponsored acts of destruction is a ludicrous notion. Equip law enforcement and intelligence with the abilities to do an effective, non-authoritarian job within the bounds of our civil rights. Another bomber contract awarded to Boeing ain't doing the same thing to help.
*The picture above is not from their training video, although the author is nearly positive there were monkey bars in their movie as well.
Powered by ScribeFire.
TWO Major Social Problems?
Published by BG on at 11:02 AM.The Blog | Steve Clemons: Obama's Interesting Proposal for the Automobile Sector | The Huffington Post
Barack Obama's policy shop is kicking out some good stuff.
I find this proposal of his, reported by Bloomberg, to help American automobile manufacturers offset retiree health care costs for gains in cutting carbon emissions intriguing. Of course, there are flaws, like in most great ideas, but it's an interesting and commendable gesture that gets away from the nasty, destructive battles in the past between automakers and progressive environmentalists.
Obama is linking progress on two major social problems so that one leverages gains in the other.
Look, we know "the environment" is a social concern, and we know "health care" is a social concern, but it's disingenuous to connect the health care costs of automotive retirees with global warming as a two-noble-birds-with-one-progressive-stone solution.
Who exactly are the benefits of this "offset (of) retiree health care costs?" The automotive industry, naturally. While there can be a tenuous connection drawn between keeping people healthy and insured and the public not having to pony up tax dollars for medical welfare, this policy of Obama's isn't addressing a "major social problem" of health care with this solution. He's subsidizing the bail-out of obligations a specific industry has found too onerous to which to adhere, and in return is proposing the industry works a little harder to meet environmental standards which market forces are likely to demand in coming years anyway.
Let's call this what it is - the give-and-take of politics, and Obama building relationships with certain segments of corporate America that could benefit from the types of corporate welfare that appears to have a positive impact on the general public. I've got no problem with this type of pandering, as it's how you develop a donor base and engage people on all sides in constructive cooperation, But let's stop just short of framing this idea as a panacea for both health care and global warming, alright?
Now, if we want to talk about the loss of manufacturing jobs as a "major social problem," I'd be all for it. How about tying these proposed subsidies to the automotive industry to both environmental reform and commitments to build their cars and trucks a little north of Juarez?
Powered by ScribeFire.
Powered by ScribeFire.
Eroding Support for Rudy
Published by BG on at 11:01 AM.The Blog | James Boyce: Time To Stick A Fork In Rudy Giuliani: He's Done. | The Huffington Post
In January and February, when Rudy Giuliani was rising high in the Republican polls, I nominated him to be the candidate mostly likely to fade fast, and fading fast he is. In polls released today, he has lost 50% of the support he had just 90 days ago.
Human Head calls him "Ghouliani," which always makes me giggle. Seeing as he's clearly the most overtly authoritarian candidate in the running (he'd only blow past Habeus Corpus "infrequently"), it upsets me that it's going to be a socially liberal take on Roe v. Wade that does him in, and not a collective repulsion at his attitudes towards civil liberties.
I'll take what I can get, I suppose.
Powered by ScribeFire.
Rahm and the Knucklefucks
Published by BG on at 6:21 AM.The legend of Rahm | Salon Books
I remember sitting on my couch in Chicago and thinking, "If the Democrats want to turn it around, they need to take some lessons from the machine around here. Chicago Democrats have no scruples. They treat political offices as feudal inheritances. They shake down contributors like a corrupt pope selling indulgences. They're sleazy, they're arrogant … and they WIN."
That night, on the northwest side, Rahm Emanuel was elected to Congress...
As they said about Buddy Hackett in Vegas, [Rahm] Emanuel works blue. "Fuck" is one of the most versatile words in English, but he seems to have discovered new grammatical and linguistic uses for it. Washington is "Fucknutsville." A Republican congressman is a "knucklefuck." As with his liberal politics, he seems to have inherited his gift for invective from his mother, who is quoted as playfully calling him a "little shithead." The Emanuels -- who hail from the upper-middle-class suburb of Wilmette -- are an intense, competitive family. Emanuel's father and brother are surgeons, another brother is a Hollywood agent who inspired the Ari Gold character on "Entourage."
I'll trade "sleazy" and "arrogant" for a good solid thumpin' at the polls.
Powered by ScribeFire.
Another Angle On The DOJ US Attorney Scandal
Published by BG on Monday, May 07, 2007 at 3:23 PM.Jesus' General features a guest poster who writes:
Tom was shot a half-dozen times in the neck and head with hollow-point bullets (aka "cop killers”")
People get shot every day. Why is this significant? Well, the victim was Tom Wales, an assistant DA in Seattle, whose assassination investigation was being handled by John McKay - one of the eight fired US Attorneys. Still not enough? Let's try The Washington Post:
A U.S. attorney in Seattle was singled out for dismissal in part because he clashed with senior Justice Department officials over the investigation of a federal prosecutor's murder, and he was recommended for removal 18 months earlier than was previously known, according to newly disclosed documents and interviews.
Sure, but if it's just a clash, how do we know the DOJ wasn't in the right to get McKay off the case?
Several officials familiar with the investigation said McKay and other officials in Seattle believed that senior Justice officials were not paying enough attention to the case.... "The idea that I was pushing too hard to investigate the assassination of a federal prosecutor -- it's mind-numbing" that they would suggest that, McKay said. " . . . If it's true, it's just immoral, and if it's false, then the idea that they would use the death of Tom Wales to cover up what they did is just unconscionable."
Absolutely despicable.
Powered by ScribeFire.
Mixed Feelings - The Crackpot Dome Theory
Published by BG on at 2:27 PM.
(Me, reading the Gettysburg Address at the Lincoln Memorial - Photo courtesy Gracie)
Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate - we can not consecrate - we can not hallow - this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us - that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion - that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain - that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom - and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
I hate feeling like a conspiracy theorist or crackpot crank.
Two Saturdays ago, I climbed the stairs to the Lincoln Memorial, and spent a few quiet moments reading, then re-reading the Gettysburg Address. It starts the way you remember, but quickly becomes complicated while trying to retain its overarching nobility.
We started out under the advice of great men - Enlightened men. They theorized that we should be equal under government, and equal under liberty. We were able to sustain a peace, but decided to fight over preserving the union under these ideals we did once claim to be founded by.
It's easy to that point. The rest of Lincoln's words left me troubled.
I was asked a little while back if I was "so cynical" as to believe that George Bush was throwing good soldiers after the dead in Iraq, essentially to avoid admitting he was wrong. I think I denied that level of cynicism in the moment, but I'm not so sure how much I do or don't believe that notion.
I sit on my couch on Sunday mornings and watch the talk shows now, which is something I didn't do eight or nine months ago. "Can you believe that!?!" I'll yell to no one in particular as Dick Cheney denies he ever said that meeting between Mohammed Atta and Saddam's intelligence guys ever took place. Arlen Specter triangulates himself into a supposed reasonable centrist, and all the while I'm seething because Bob Schieffer hasn't asked him about how he directly enabled this DOJ scandal to take hold through a Specter-fed provision in the Patriot Act that allows the administration to avoid confirmation hearings. I want to walk around and kick holes in my wall every time I see a fabricated Pelosi "scandal" or some pundit on the TV using Obama's middle name or the phrase, "Democrat Congress."
Saturday night I got an email from a friend on the West Coast asking what I was up to for the night. I told her I was getting drunk and watching a PBS documentary on the press' complicity in the selling of the Iraq war to America.
She wasn't surprised.
The only moment of political thought that brought me hope this weekend was when I checked to see if R. James Woolsey was a Fellow with the American Enterprise Institute, and was pleased and relieved to see that he wasn't.
Then again, would it shock you to know he's aligned now with PNAC, and that my hope shifted right back to disgust?
Am I cynical?
A long, long time ago I went through a period where I put all feeling and emotion behind a literal smokescreen in a distinct attempt to not acknowledge what a mess my life had become. I didn't want to think about anything, and managed to do just that for a couple of years. Politics feels at times like that same sort of smokescreen, but I'm feeding a different sort of appetite out of this distraction. My life is still kind of a mess, but while there are certainly truths about myself I don't feel much like handling, I don't think I'm trying to use this distraction to evade something important that needs my attention. Not like last time, at least.
I still feel powerless, and I still feel distracted, but at least now I think the complications are warranted. Am I so cynical to believe that George Bush was throwing good soldiers after the dead in Iraq, essentially to avoid admitting he was wrong?
I got hung up at the Lincoln Memorial reading and re-reading the Gettysburg Address - specifically the following words:
But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate - we can not consecrate - we can not hallow - this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us - that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion - that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain - that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom - and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
We shall preserve the idea of nation and unity that is reborn from the blood spilled by those noble enough to take up arms to wage devotion upon their brother in the pursuit and preservation of ideas.
Is that what Iraq is about?
The American Civil War was a war fought over ideas, and World War II a war fought over the existential preservation of freedom in our world.
Is that what Iraq is about?
Lincoln acknowledged two things in this speech that got to me. First, that it became necessary to redefine and preserve liberty through "the last full measure of devotion." Second, that the soldiers in whose footsteps we follow merely showed us the way, with the true hard work done by those who follow in the purity of the sacrifice that preceded them.
The contrast between Lincoln's words, that the true measure of honor for those that fought and died for liberty is to continue the cause for which they perished, is put in stark contrast to this administration's actions that lied us into a non-essential war, and their attempts to quell dissent by positioning the troops between the questions being asked and the answers those questions merit.
I believe that this administration lied to get us into war. I believe they are using the troops as a prop, as a wedge, and as a means to attempt to install a puppet "democracy" in the Middle East. I don't think Iraq was ever about al-Qaeda or WMDs or Saddam, specifically.
I also do not believe there is a "win" or a "mission accomplished" that satisfies the conditions that we were sold to get into this in the first place. This is why there are no benchmarks, no timetables, and no clear goals for our withdrawal. We don't know what "winning" looks like, nor will we as the Iraqis - Sunni, Shia and Kurd - attempt to shed their own blood to forcibly determine their own destinies.
It goes to follow that if I believe what I've just stated, that I believe the Bush administration is using our soldiers to press through this perceived inertia in an unwinnable conflict. So yes, I am so cynical as to believe that George Bush is sending soldiers to die in a non-existential struggle in which we have no business and no clear idea as to what "mission accomplished" means.
I hate feeling like a crackpot sometimes. I want a lot of things as corollary benefits of my citizenship - most notably the rights guaranteed to me by the Constitution and a government that allows me the ability to make my own choices and determine my own morality. But I want this illusory idea of safety as well. I want to sleep easy and board airplanes without worry. I want a government that retains enough pull in foreign policy to be able to work in our nation's most advantageous interests to broker deals and ensure that peace is more prevalent than conflict.
To me, this isn't about left or right. It's about a lie and the compounding of failure to the deaths of soldiers and the loss of perceived status to those on whom we depend on the world stage. Left or right, we all want safety and we all want liberty. Lincoln's plea to the American people to rally our values and ideals and amplify the noble blood spilled in the interest of the preservation of freedom is not lost on me. The soldiers we lost in the desert theater are not dying in vain, but in my eyes they're not dying specifically to prevent nuclear weapons from being sold to al-Qaeda. The soldiers we lost in the desert theater are dying to help us all see the folly of wars of convenience and the hammerheaded blunders of refusing to acknowledge our mistakes as they continue to compound.
If remembering the nobility of the service of our soldiers through the prism of optimism, through the windows on our past and the refusal to follow warmongering chickenhawks into the fray for fallacious reasons is conspiracy theory and crackpot nuttiness, then I'm willing to wear that label.
Proudly. Taking increased devotion to that cause.
Powered by ScribeFire.
Irving Kristol on "The Neoconservative Persuasion"
Published by BG on at 10:01 AM.Interesting how schizophrenic Irving Kristol can get when he's talking about domestic/economic policy. I read the following excerpts and analysis as some combination of:
a) garden variety disingenuousness
-and-
b) defining a movement that's almost entirely based on foreign policy objectives with a "damn the torpedos" attitude about making that unilateral militarism work when it comes to domestic objectives.
Granted, I'm just scratching the surface of The Neocon Reader, but it's easy to see how disingenuous it is to advocate persistent warmongering as a foreign policy objective, while speaking of domestic tax cuts and the theoretical ascendence of middle and lower class Americans to a position of relative affluence. Then again, Kristol and others advocate carrying a deficit, because it's a necessary evil to enable the behemoth government to accomplish what it needs to. What they don't mention are the economic consequences for this spending behavior. Their theories of domestic economic policy seem to be based on keeping the American populace fat and happy.
Basically, Neocons want "tax cuts to stimulate economic growth" because growth is good for everyone, right? To wit:
"It is a basic assumption of neoconservatism that, as a consequence of the spread of affluence among all classes, a property-owning and tax-paying population will, in time, become less vulnerable to egalitarian illusions and demagogic appeals and more sensible about the fundamentals of economic reckoning."
We're all going to be RICH! Affluence won't be concentrated! It'll be spread out! However, the VERY NEXT SENTENCES read:
"This leads to the issue of the role of the state. Neocons do not like the concentration of services in the welfare state and are happy to study alternative ways of delivering these services."
Which, in a vacuum, is fine. Who doesn't like reform for the sake of efficiency? We just want government to help us when we need it, and leave us alone otherwise. Isn't that a basic principle of conservatism? Kristol seems to agree:
"People have always preferred strong government to weak government, although they certainly have no liking for anything that smacks of overly intrusive government."
Which is all well and good, except that when they say "overly intrusive government" is bad, they really mean that once they get the ill out of society, those among us who are righteous will not be concerned about governmental intrusion:
"[Neocons and religious traditionalists] are united on issues concerning the quality of education, the relations of church and state, the regulation of pornography, and the like, all of which they regard as proper candidates for the government's attention."
Neocons don't like governmental intrusion, unless they agree with the purpose of the intrusion themselves. Irwin Stelzer's introduction to "The Neocon Reader," in which the above linked essay is chapter one, shines a little more light on what they mean about welfare reform, intrusive government, and aligning with the religious traditionalists in this area:
"...[Welfare reform ideas] were quickly made part of the neocon canon, as Irving Kristol advocates, but eliminating incentives to 'bad' behavior such as out-of-wedlock births, and reserving the resources of the State to ease the plight of what the Victorians call 'the deserving poor.'"
Or, in other words, the poor that agrees with us. The poor who behave like civilized members of society, i.e., legislating morality to disincentivize "disagreeable" behavior.
By the way, I posted this quote from that Stelzer introduction a couple days ago:
"These (policy triumphs), attributable in part to the scalding impact of September 11, are also in part due to the formidable intellectual firepower behind neoconservative foreign policy. A group with the intelligence and rigor of Wolfowitz, Kagan, Kristol, Rice, Perle, and Cheney has probably not been seen since George Kennan led a team that formulated America's response to the threat of Soviet expansion."
Chapter two of the same book is an essay by David Brooks that attempts to debunk the idea that there's a neocon cabal. In that essay, Brooks writes:
"[N]eocons have no representatives in the administration's top tier. ...Bush,... Cheney... Powell... Rumsfeld... Rice; not a neocon among them."
Uh, which is it guys? You want to step up and take credit for this stuff or not?
a) garden variety disingenuousness
-and-
b) defining a movement that's almost entirely based on foreign policy objectives with a "damn the torpedos" attitude about making that unilateral militarism work when it comes to domestic objectives.
Granted, I'm just scratching the surface of The Neocon Reader, but it's easy to see how disingenuous it is to advocate persistent warmongering as a foreign policy objective, while speaking of domestic tax cuts and the theoretical ascendence of middle and lower class Americans to a position of relative affluence. Then again, Kristol and others advocate carrying a deficit, because it's a necessary evil to enable the behemoth government to accomplish what it needs to. What they don't mention are the economic consequences for this spending behavior. Their theories of domestic economic policy seem to be based on keeping the American populace fat and happy.
Basically, Neocons want "tax cuts to stimulate economic growth" because growth is good for everyone, right? To wit:
"It is a basic assumption of neoconservatism that, as a consequence of the spread of affluence among all classes, a property-owning and tax-paying population will, in time, become less vulnerable to egalitarian illusions and demagogic appeals and more sensible about the fundamentals of economic reckoning."
We're all going to be RICH! Affluence won't be concentrated! It'll be spread out! However, the VERY NEXT SENTENCES read:
"This leads to the issue of the role of the state. Neocons do not like the concentration of services in the welfare state and are happy to study alternative ways of delivering these services."
Which, in a vacuum, is fine. Who doesn't like reform for the sake of efficiency? We just want government to help us when we need it, and leave us alone otherwise. Isn't that a basic principle of conservatism? Kristol seems to agree:
"People have always preferred strong government to weak government, although they certainly have no liking for anything that smacks of overly intrusive government."
Which is all well and good, except that when they say "overly intrusive government" is bad, they really mean that once they get the ill out of society, those among us who are righteous will not be concerned about governmental intrusion:
"[Neocons and religious traditionalists] are united on issues concerning the quality of education, the relations of church and state, the regulation of pornography, and the like, all of which they regard as proper candidates for the government's attention."
Neocons don't like governmental intrusion, unless they agree with the purpose of the intrusion themselves. Irwin Stelzer's introduction to "The Neocon Reader," in which the above linked essay is chapter one, shines a little more light on what they mean about welfare reform, intrusive government, and aligning with the religious traditionalists in this area:
"...[Welfare reform ideas] were quickly made part of the neocon canon, as Irving Kristol advocates, but eliminating incentives to 'bad' behavior such as out-of-wedlock births, and reserving the resources of the State to ease the plight of what the Victorians call 'the deserving poor.'"
Or, in other words, the poor that agrees with us. The poor who behave like civilized members of society, i.e., legislating morality to disincentivize "disagreeable" behavior.
By the way, I posted this quote from that Stelzer introduction a couple days ago:
"These (policy triumphs), attributable in part to the scalding impact of September 11, are also in part due to the formidable intellectual firepower behind neoconservative foreign policy. A group with the intelligence and rigor of Wolfowitz, Kagan, Kristol, Rice, Perle, and Cheney has probably not been seen since George Kennan led a team that formulated America's response to the threat of Soviet expansion."
Chapter two of the same book is an essay by David Brooks that attempts to debunk the idea that there's a neocon cabal. In that essay, Brooks writes:
"[N]eocons have no representatives in the administration's top tier. ...Bush,... Cheney... Powell... Rumsfeld... Rice; not a neocon among them."
Uh, which is it guys? You want to step up and take credit for this stuff or not?
Powered by ScribeFire.
Accountability
Published by BG on at 9:25 AM.Tristero at Hullaballo writes:
Frank Rich:Until there is accountability for the major architects and perpetrators of the Iraq war, the quagmire will deepen. A tragedy of this scale demands a full accounting, not to mention a catharsis.Well, yes, of course. But also, of course, exactly what's meant by accountability is left unsaid. Well, here's how to hold them accountable:
1. Impeach Cheney and Bush - not necessarily in that order.
2. Hand over Bush, Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld, Feith, Wolfowitz, Perle, Shulsky, etc, etc, to The Hague to stand trial for war crimes.
Think it's gonna happen? Think any of it's gonna happen? If so, I urge you to take a course in American politics 101 - and also get professional help - not necessarily in that order. But that's what accountability means.
Powered by ScribeFire.
Neoconservative Foreign Policy
Published by BG on Sunday, May 06, 2007 at 11:57 AM.(Cross-posted from Random Thoughts and Thoroughbred Selections)
It came up in conversation today, so I thought I'd pull a little clip to hopefully explain a little better what Neoconservative foreign policy entails. Emphasis added:
[Irving Kristol - The Neoconservative Persuasion - AEI, August 2003]
Distilling this down, Irving Kristol is saying that the United States, as a uniquely strong military and ideological power, has the responsibility to find ways to use it to ensure the survival and proliferation of this ideology, mainly through using our military strength as a means of persuasion. Well, that and as of 2003 the president was "doing a heckuva job, Bushie."
"Neocon" isn't a meaningless label. It is a philosophy.
It came up in conversation today, so I thought I'd pull a little clip to hopefully explain a little better what Neoconservative foreign policy entails. Emphasis added:
Finally, for a great power, the "national interest" is not a geographical term, except for fairly prosaic matters like trade and environmental regulation. A smaller nation might appropriately feel that its national interest begins and ends at its borders, so that its foreign policy is almost always in a defensive mode. A larger nation has more extensive interests. And large nations, whose identity is ideological, like the Soviet Union of yesteryear and the United States of today, inevitably have ideological interests in addition to more material concerns...
Behind all this is a fact: the incredible military superiority of the United States vis-a-vis the nations of the rest of the world, in any imaginable combination...
Suddenly, after two decades during which "imperial decline" and "imperial overstretch" were the academic and journalistic watchwords, the United States emerged as uniquely powerful... With power come responsibilities, whether sought or not, whether welcome or not. And it is a fact that if you have the kind of power we now have, either you will find opportunities to use it or the world will discover them for you.
The older, traditional elements in the Republican Party have difficulty coming to terms with this new reality in foreign affairs, just as they cannot reconcile economic conservatism with social and cultural conservatism. But by one of those accidents historians ponder, our current president and his administration turn out to be quite at home in this new political environment, although it is clear they did not anticipate this role any more than their party as a whole did. As a result, neoconservatism began enjoying a second life, at a time when its obituaries were still being published.
[Irving Kristol - The Neoconservative Persuasion - AEI, August 2003]
Distilling this down, Irving Kristol is saying that the United States, as a uniquely strong military and ideological power, has the responsibility to find ways to use it to ensure the survival and proliferation of this ideology, mainly through using our military strength as a means of persuasion. Well, that and as of 2003 the president was "doing a heckuva job, Bushie."
"Neocon" isn't a meaningless label. It is a philosophy.
Powered by ScribeFire.
Oh No He Didn't
Published by BG on at 11:20 AM.(Cross-posted from Random Thoughts and Thoroughbred Selections)
Giuliani warns of 'new 9/11' if Dems win - The Politico
I get so goddamn irritated with disinformation like this. Here's what I believe. I believe that you are not a serious or responsible human being if you believe any of the following things:
1) That "terrorists" are hoping and praying for a Democratic presidential administration, because they are somehow effectively neutered if we have a Republican in office.
2) That, in this day and age, "National Security/Defense" means the same things that it did under Reagan and for decades prior, and that only one party cares enough to protect you.
3) That we're all so goddamn weak and ineffective a people that the mere thought of another skyscraper tumbling or a suicide bomber in a Beverly Hills Starbucks means we're craving a Daddy-State where we should turn over our rights to politicians, law enforcement and the intelligence community in an effort to make sure our neighbor, his neighbor and the guy down the street aren't plotting to do something scary and dangerous.
If you believe any of the above, you are not a serious or responsible citizen of this society. Hell, channelling an old trope here, if you believe #3, you just might be a fascist.
Remember, we had an administration a couple of decades ago whose views on the unitary executive theory were well known:
Look, it's not Bush I'm really worried about here. It's the next guy, and the guy after that, regardless of party affiliation. It is unacceptable for a President to engage in unitary executive theories that include non-FISA reviewed domestic surveillance, even if you want to believe Bush is "only" going after "the bad guys." What happens if his domestic surveillance theories get challenged at the Supreme Court, and what if they're upheld? You're willing to put the future of all our freedom from a power mad executive branch that gets elected 40 years from now on the line because you're scared of brown people with bombs?
Let me say this simply... If somehow it becomes acceptable for domestic surveillance to occur without oversight, that power will be abused.
I even put that in future tense for you conservatives who don't want to believe this abuse could maybe be occurring now. Does that help? If you'repolarized paralyzed by partisan politics due to the rhetorical gamesmanship and sound bite propaganda that keeps you from critically looking at what might become of this society fifty years down the road while on our current path, how 'bout I just remind you that someday a Democrat will be elected President again? And someday we'll have a Democrat President and Democrat Congress (like how I didn't say "Democratic?" I did that just for my conservative friends) governing together, and someday maybe there will be unscrupulous people attempting to secure fifty years of single-party rule by crushing dissenting opinion.
Maybe someday you won't share the politics and values of the people who are abusing the system. Democrats aren't immune from being power-hungry Beltway whores either... except for maybe Henry Waxman.
The Bill of Rights is at risk, and I'm less willing to lose these guaranteed freedoms than I am to lose my own life to a dirty bomb attack. But let's shift focus to the other part of this, and that's the old trope about "National Security/Defense."
Twenty-five years ago, at the height of the Cold War, it made sense for us to ramp up the military-industrial complex. We needed more bombs and better missles and a bigger fighting force that was better equipped than our enemy. Proliferation was how we "won" against the Soviets. We outspent them and drove them to bread lines. Republicans wanted to spend huge sums of money in this effort, Democrats, while still recognizing the need to do so, wanted to apply much of that money elsewhere.
Twenty-five years ago, the framing of Republicans as "strong" on defense, and Democrats as "weak" was a hyperbole rooted in fact.
That's the way it was handled back then. "National Security/Defense" means something different today. There is not a single candidate on either side of the Presidential campaign who would tell you they want to open our borders and let "terrorists" blow up Manhattan. Whether or not we stay mired in a war in the Middle East is beyond the point - "National Security/Defense" to Americans today means being safe at home from attack. While we will never achieve total insularity and safety, it is unreasonable to project a total lack of safety (and terrorist slumber party) on the Democratic platform. It is unfair and unreasonable, and serious, responsible people don't tell lies and know them when they see them being told.
I want so badly for a Democrat running for President to come out and tell the truth on this issue. I want a Dem to step up and say that "National Security/Defense" is his top priority, but these contractors suckling at the teat of the war machine are going to take a backseat to the construction, training and implementation of an agile and effective network of intelligence able to focus our efforts as a worldwide watchdog, not as a brute force global policeman. It's time the rest of the world learned how to stand up and face extremism, and we will do everything we can to provide the intelligence necessary to succeed where this administration has failed - that is in understanding, observing, infiltrating and dismantling global terror groups where they live.
We will protect our homeland through immigration control, port security, and by fighting terror groups by being smart enough to know where all the heads of the hydra are so that we may cut them off at the same time. We are already stronger than our enemy and better equipped. A missle defense shield protects us from no one that's a threat to us now, so it must take a backseat. New bombers, new tanks, new weaponry can and will be developed, but intelligence has been our gap, and we will turn that gap a unique position of irrefutable world dominance. The world will depend on America for what we know and how we can help them strategize to mitigate their exposure to the risks of an uncertain world.
This is how we fight "terror." It's not through no-bid contracts to Boeing and billions to Halliburton. We are going to focus on making the world a safer place by shining the light on everywhere freedom is in danger. It is up to the rest of the world to collaborate on solving these problems, as we are standing up to protect our borders and our cities, and we expect the leaders of the world to do the same.
That's how you frame "national security" in this day and age. No sane, rational, serious or responsible person thinks we can beat al-Qaeda by bulking up the military machine. It's about agility and knowledge, all while respecting the freedoms guaranteed to Americans by the Bill of Rights. We support our troops by making sure they know what they're doing, who they're fighting, and becoming surgical in our precision when planning attacks. We will not commit to leaving tens of thousands in the middle of a civil war, we will make sure you're smart enough to understand your own threats and address them on your own.
This is how I want to see "National Security/Defense" framed. We want to be safe at home, we're technologically savvy, it was bad intelligence (well, um, cherry-picked hyperbolized and inaccurate intelligence - how about that?) that got us into this mess, let's make sure it never happens again.
Regardless, I'm tired of seeing this tired "strong/weak on defense" trope being trotted out again. It's a different world, and we need our leaders to start telling the truth on these issues. Americans deserve better than what we're getting at present, and you deserve better than rhetoric, sound bites and talking points to make up your mind on who it is you're going to vote for.
Think critically, think long-range, and don't let Giuliani spoon feed you this stuff without turning your nose up in disgust.
Giuliani warns of 'new 9/11' if Dems win - The Politico
MANCHESTER, N.H. - Rudy Giuliani said if a Democrat is elected president in 2008, America will be at risk for another terrorist attack on the scale of Sept. 11, 2001.Wow. What balls on this guy.
But if a Republican is elected, he said, especially if it is him, terrorist attacks can be anticipated and stopped.
"If any Republican is elected president - and I think obviously I would be the best at this - we will remain on offense and will anticipate what [the terrorists] will do and try to stop them before they do it," Giuliani said.
I get so goddamn irritated with disinformation like this. Here's what I believe. I believe that you are not a serious or responsible human being if you believe any of the following things:
1) That "terrorists" are hoping and praying for a Democratic presidential administration, because they are somehow effectively neutered if we have a Republican in office.
2) That, in this day and age, "National Security/Defense" means the same things that it did under Reagan and for decades prior, and that only one party cares enough to protect you.
3) That we're all so goddamn weak and ineffective a people that the mere thought of another skyscraper tumbling or a suicide bomber in a Beverly Hills Starbucks means we're craving a Daddy-State where we should turn over our rights to politicians, law enforcement and the intelligence community in an effort to make sure our neighbor, his neighbor and the guy down the street aren't plotting to do something scary and dangerous.
If you believe any of the above, you are not a serious or responsible citizen of this society. Hell, channelling an old trope here, if you believe #3, you just might be a fascist.
"But the question is how long will it take and how many casualties will we have?" Giuliani said. "If we are on defense [with a Democratic president], we will have more losses and it will go on longer."The solution, then, is to not "cut back on the Patriot Act, electronic surveillance, (and) interrogation?" Really? I don't trust our politicians to stand on reasonable principles when it comes to taking money from the drug or tobacco lobby, so why should I trust them to stand on reasonable and noble principles when it comes to domestic surveillance?
"I listen a little to the Democrats and if one of them gets elected, we are going on defense," Giuliani continued. "We will wave the white flag on Iraq. We will cut back on the Patriot Act, electronic surveillance, interrogation and we will be back to our pre-Sept. 11 attitude of defense."
He added: "The Democrats do not understand the full nature and scope of the terrorist war against us."
Remember, we had an administration a couple of decades ago whose views on the unitary executive theory were well known:
Nixon insisted that when "a threat to internal peace and order of significant magnitude" was involved, a President could readily use otherwise illegal acts, including burglaries (he preferred the euphemism "warrantless entries"), wiretaps, mail openings, and IRS and FBI harassment against any "violence-prone" dissenters. But if this was so vital to national security, why not ask Congress to make such acts legal? "In theory," said Nixon, "this would be perfect, but in practice, it won't work." It would alert the targeted dissenters, he said, and raise a public outcry.Our politicians are not purebred noble public servants, except for maybe Henry Waxman. They are not drooling power-hungry savages either, but somewhere on that spectrum lies the truth. Do you really think Nixon was the last "bad" guy we're going to have occupying the office? Do you really think that the Bush administration's unitary executive theory is a great deal different from what Nixon is illustrating above? True, Nixon was apparently going after Vietnam protesters, but Bush wouldn't dream of quelling dissent himself, would he?
Frost kept probing for Nixon's view of the limits on presidential power. If burglary is all right, why not murder? "Ah, there are degrees, ah, there are nuances, ah, ah, which are difficult to explain," replied Nixon. He said that it might have been better to kill Hitler before he could order the murder of millions of Jews. Frost reminded Nixon that domestic dissidents were hardly comparable to the perpetrators of the Holocaust. Nixon finally agreed that only "the President's judgment" determined what was legal under this Nixonian doctrine of presidential supremacy.
Nixon explained that because a President is accountable to both Congress and the voters, he cannot "run amok in this country and get away with it." Nixon paraphrased a Civil War statement by Abraham Lincoln: "Actions which otherwise would be unconstitutional could become lawful if undertaken for the purpose of preserving the Constitution and the nation." Said Nixon: "Now that's the kind of action I'm referring to." Again, Frost refused to equate preserving the Union in the 1860s with deterring dissent in the 1970s.
Tragic Way. Insisted Nixon: "This nation was torn apart in an ideological way by the war in Viet Nam, as much as the Civil War tore apart the nation when Lincoln was President." And he added a personal aside: "Nobody can know what it means for a President to be sitting in that White House working late at night and to have hundreds of thousands of demonstrators charging through the streets." Not even earplugs, he said, could have blocked the noise. ["Not Even Earplugs Could Help" - Time Magazine, May 30, 1977 - Emphasis Added]
Look, it's not Bush I'm really worried about here. It's the next guy, and the guy after that, regardless of party affiliation. It is unacceptable for a President to engage in unitary executive theories that include non-FISA reviewed domestic surveillance, even if you want to believe Bush is "only" going after "the bad guys." What happens if his domestic surveillance theories get challenged at the Supreme Court, and what if they're upheld? You're willing to put the future of all our freedom from a power mad executive branch that gets elected 40 years from now on the line because you're scared of brown people with bombs?
Let me say this simply... If somehow it becomes acceptable for domestic surveillance to occur without oversight, that power will be abused.
I even put that in future tense for you conservatives who don't want to believe this abuse could maybe be occurring now. Does that help? If you're
Maybe someday you won't share the politics and values of the people who are abusing the system. Democrats aren't immune from being power-hungry Beltway whores either... except for maybe Henry Waxman.
The Bill of Rights is at risk, and I'm less willing to lose these guaranteed freedoms than I am to lose my own life to a dirty bomb attack. But let's shift focus to the other part of this, and that's the old trope about "National Security/Defense."
Twenty-five years ago, at the height of the Cold War, it made sense for us to ramp up the military-industrial complex. We needed more bombs and better missles and a bigger fighting force that was better equipped than our enemy. Proliferation was how we "won" against the Soviets. We outspent them and drove them to bread lines. Republicans wanted to spend huge sums of money in this effort, Democrats, while still recognizing the need to do so, wanted to apply much of that money elsewhere.
Twenty-five years ago, the framing of Republicans as "strong" on defense, and Democrats as "weak" was a hyperbole rooted in fact.
That's the way it was handled back then. "National Security/Defense" means something different today. There is not a single candidate on either side of the Presidential campaign who would tell you they want to open our borders and let "terrorists" blow up Manhattan. Whether or not we stay mired in a war in the Middle East is beyond the point - "National Security/Defense" to Americans today means being safe at home from attack. While we will never achieve total insularity and safety, it is unreasonable to project a total lack of safety (and terrorist slumber party) on the Democratic platform. It is unfair and unreasonable, and serious, responsible people don't tell lies and know them when they see them being told.
I want so badly for a Democrat running for President to come out and tell the truth on this issue. I want a Dem to step up and say that "National Security/Defense" is his top priority, but these contractors suckling at the teat of the war machine are going to take a backseat to the construction, training and implementation of an agile and effective network of intelligence able to focus our efforts as a worldwide watchdog, not as a brute force global policeman. It's time the rest of the world learned how to stand up and face extremism, and we will do everything we can to provide the intelligence necessary to succeed where this administration has failed - that is in understanding, observing, infiltrating and dismantling global terror groups where they live.
We will protect our homeland through immigration control, port security, and by fighting terror groups by being smart enough to know where all the heads of the hydra are so that we may cut them off at the same time. We are already stronger than our enemy and better equipped. A missle defense shield protects us from no one that's a threat to us now, so it must take a backseat. New bombers, new tanks, new weaponry can and will be developed, but intelligence has been our gap, and we will turn that gap a unique position of irrefutable world dominance. The world will depend on America for what we know and how we can help them strategize to mitigate their exposure to the risks of an uncertain world.
This is how we fight "terror." It's not through no-bid contracts to Boeing and billions to Halliburton. We are going to focus on making the world a safer place by shining the light on everywhere freedom is in danger. It is up to the rest of the world to collaborate on solving these problems, as we are standing up to protect our borders and our cities, and we expect the leaders of the world to do the same.
That's how you frame "national security" in this day and age. No sane, rational, serious or responsible person thinks we can beat al-Qaeda by bulking up the military machine. It's about agility and knowledge, all while respecting the freedoms guaranteed to Americans by the Bill of Rights. We support our troops by making sure they know what they're doing, who they're fighting, and becoming surgical in our precision when planning attacks. We will not commit to leaving tens of thousands in the middle of a civil war, we will make sure you're smart enough to understand your own threats and address them on your own.
This is how I want to see "National Security/Defense" framed. We want to be safe at home, we're technologically savvy, it was bad intelligence (well, um, cherry-picked hyperbolized and inaccurate intelligence - how about that?) that got us into this mess, let's make sure it never happens again.
Regardless, I'm tired of seeing this tired "strong/weak on defense" trope being trotted out again. It's a different world, and we need our leaders to start telling the truth on these issues. Americans deserve better than what we're getting at present, and you deserve better than rhetoric, sound bites and talking points to make up your mind on who it is you're going to vote for.
Think critically, think long-range, and don't let Giuliani spoon feed you this stuff without turning your nose up in disgust.
Powered by ScribeFire.
