The covert war on Iran

In my last post regarding allegations of U.S. support for the anti-Iranian terrorist group, Jundullah, I noted that since the likes of Senate Intelligence Chairman Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) were unable to -- or more likely, unwilling to -- investigate the charges, it would probably be best to rely on The New Yorker's Sy Hersh for information on what's really going on. As it would happen, Hersh has a new article out today that finds:

Late last year, Congress agreed to a request from President Bush to fund a major escalation of covert operations against Iran, according to current and former military, intelligence, and congressional sources. These operations, for which the President sought up to four hundred million dollars, were described in a Presidential Finding signed by Bush, and are designed to destabilize the country’s religious leadership. The covert activities involve support of the minority Ahwazi Arab and Baluchi groups and other dissident organizations.

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The Democratic leadership’s agreement to commit hundreds of millions of dollars for more secret operations in Iran was remarkable, given the general concerns of officials like Gates, Fallon, and many others. “The oversight process has not kept pace—it’s been coöpted” by the Administration, the person familiar with the contents of the Finding said. “The process is broken, and this is dangerous stuff we’re authorizing.”

When I asked Senator Rockefeller about these allegations last year, he responded that, gosh darn it, he just couldn't do anything about it. Of course, if Hersh's reporting is right, then Rockefeller has not only failed to adequately exercise his oversight responsibilities -- you know, basic things like actually issuing a subpoena over credible allegations of U.S.-backed terrorism -- but has been actively complicit in the ongoing covert war on Iran.

But should anyone be surprised? If the United States or Israel attacks Iran, it will be because there is broad, bipartisan support in Washington for such an attack. While Democratic partisans can go ahead and try to convince themselves that an attack on Iran will be the fault of all those dastardly neocons in the White House, it's increasingly obvious that the Democratic Party -- which took control of Congress based on broad antiwar sentiment in 2006 -- fully embraces the same imperial foreign policy objectives of the Bush administration. It was, after all, Democrat Harry Truman who dropped two nukes on Japan, fought a war in Korea without congressional approval, and ushered in the Cold War (and the accompanying military-industrial complex), so it's not as if Republicans have a monopoly on militarism and the willingness to commit war crimes.

A wide number of Democrats are also backing a resolution that calls for a de facto war on Iran -- a complete naval embargo and prohibition on the movement of Iranian officials -- for its "pursuit of nuclear weapons", despite the fact that the IAEA and all 16 U.S. intelligence agencies have come to the conclusion that Iran is, in fact, not pursuing nuclear weapons. But in Washington, people don't let little things like the "facts" get in the way of America's implacable demand for foreign enemies.

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For those interested, Scott Horton of Antiwar Radio fame aired a portion of my exchange with Senator Rockefeller during a recent interview of former CIA intelligence analyst Melvin Goodman. Go here to listen -- the discussion of Rockefeller begins around the 16:30 mark.

Straight talk from Down Under

On Monday, I attended a small briefing for the press held at the Washington office of the United Steelworkers Union to discuss organized labor's view of policies to address climate change. At the briefing was Paul Howes, head of the Australian Worker's Union, who was in the country to lobby for the U.S. government to take the lead on reaching an international agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

When I asked Howes why he felt only the United States had the influence to push for a global climate deal, he responded in a fashion that I'm sure would offend all Good, Respectable critics of the Iraq war (those who initially supported the invasion but now say it was "mismanaged" -- in other words, the war critics you see on television):

When the United States shows leadership the rest of the world will follow . . . I mean, look, half the world got involved in an illegal, immoral war just simply because a request was put out – this is what happens.

Earlier in the briefing, Howes also described the global scope of U.S. power in a way that serves as a useful reminder that Washington, DC, is not merely the capital of the United States, but the capital of a world empire:

The ever-looming presence of the United States is felt throughout every corner of the world, and on other issues the U .S. government is never afraid to use whatever force necessary to get its agenda through on issues that it sees of being importance to it.

I should also note that at 26, Howes is just a few years older than me yet is married, has two children, and heads a 135,000 member union. In contrast, I have a blog read primarily by people mistakenly arriving here after Googling for celebrity upskirt pics (there -- I just doubled my traffic!).

That certainly puts things in perspective...

Kill your television

The New York Times reports:

According to data compiled by Andrew Tyndall, a television consultant who monitors the three network evening newscasts, coverage of Iraq has been “massively scaled back this year.” Almost halfway into 2008, the three newscasts have shown 181 weekday minutes of Iraq coverage, compared with 1,157 minutes for all of 2007. The “CBS Evening News” has devoted the fewest minutes to Iraq, 51, versus 55 minutes on ABC’s “World News” and 74 minutes on “NBC Nightly News.” (The average evening newscast is 22 minutes long.)

CBS News no longer stations a single full-time correspondent in Iraq, where some 150,000 United States troops are deployed.

Paul Friedman, a senior vice president at CBS News, said the news division does not get reports from Iraq on television “with enough frequency to justify keeping a very, very large bureau in Baghdad.” He said CBS correspondents can “get in there very quickly when a story merits it.”

If you haven't already done so, disconnect your cable or satellite feed and save yourself from exposure to the criminally asinine celebrity gossip coverage that passes for television "news". Granted, you may not be as up to date on Britney Spears' most recent meltdown or Jessica Simpson's latest hookup as your friends, but you just might gain back your sanity.

As CBS correspondent Lara Logan is quoted as saying in the NYT article: “If I were to watch the news that you hear here in the United States, I would just blow my brains out because it would drive me nuts.”

Instead of absorbing corporate media disinformation, support actual journalism -- links are conveniently provided to your right.

You have nothing to lose but your chains.

U.S. support for Jundullah in the news

The Washington Post reports (via Scott Horton):

TEHRAN, June 20 -- An armed Sunni group said Friday that it had executed two Iranian policemen, and it threatened to kill 14 others abducted a week ago in an area near the border with Pakistan.

Iranian authorities did not immediately react to a videotape purporting to show the killings, part of which was aired Friday by the al-Arabiya satellite channel, based in Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates. Iran has accused the United States of assisting the group, known as Jundallah, or God's Brigade.

In 2007, ABC News quoted U.S. and Pakistani intelligence officials as saying that Jundallah members have been "encouraged and advised" by American officials since 2005. A CIA spokesman told ABC that the United States provides no funding to Jundallah.

Alleged U.S. support for Jundullah is something that I noted in April 2007, when the story from ABC News supporting charges that the Bush administration was backing anti-Iranian terrorist groups was met with a collective yawn by the rest of the mainstream media. As I wrote at the time:

Outside of ABC News, it’s a struggle to find any discussion of U.S. support for anti-Iranian extremist groups in the major media outlets. While the New York Times was quick to speak about the Imus affair in an April 11th editorial, there has been not so much as a mention of the Jundullah story in their paper, much less a critical look at how the story undermines the White House’s moral authority to criticize Iran for its supposed "meddling" in Iraq. The same goes for the Washington Post, where a search for "Jundullah" reveals only two wire articles on the subject. One finds no editorials questioning the policy, no reaction from lawmakers, no introspective takes on the morality of such a policy – one finds next to nothing.

I was led to write an article on alleged U.S. support for Jundullah after engaging in a revealing interview with Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) that Jonathan Schwarz described as "an amazing statement of congressional impotence". Here's an excerpt of the interview, which took place as Rockefeller was walking out of the Senate chamber (click here to listen to an mp3 of the exchange):

DAVIS: I wonder if you've heard some of these news reports that the Bush administration is backing extremist groups in Pakistan to launch attacks against Iran? Are you familiar with those news reports?

ROCKEFELLER: I've seen no intelligence that would verify that.

DAVIS: Reports quote administration officials as saying this is going on and it's being done in a way to avoid oversight of the Intelligence Committee. Is there any way—

ROCKEFELLER: They'll go to any lengths to do that, as we've seen in the last two days [during hearings on FISA].

DAVIS: Is there anything you could do in your position as Chairman of the Intelligence Committee to find answers about this, if it is in fact going on?

ROCKEFELLER: Don't you understand the way Intelligence works? Do you think that because I'm Chairman of the Intelligence Committee that I just say I want it, and they give it to me? They control it. All of it. All of it. All the time. I only get, and my committee only gets, what they want to give me.

DAVIS: Is there any way someone, maybe not you, they can somehow press the administration to find something—if they're doing something that may be illegal—

ROCKEFELLER: I don't know that. I don't know that. I deal with Intelligence. That's it. They tend to avoid us.

DAVIS: Well, what do you think about these allegations?

ROCKEFELLER: I'm not—I don't comment on allegations. I can't. I can't afford to.

If anyone believes that Democrats in Congress are going to investigate credible allegations that the U.S. is supporting terrorism, think again. If one of the most powerful -- and one of the richest -- senators is too timid to so much as issue a subpoena on the topic, then it's probably best to rely on the likes of Seymour Hersh for evidence of what's really going on.

The week in review

On Friday, the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives capitulated to White House demands and passed a bill that essentially legalizes -- retroactively -- the Bush administration's covert spying program on Americans (see Salon's Glenn Greenwald on the many ways in which the bill violates the rule of law. I wrote about Bush's illegal "warrantless wiretapping" back in 2006.)

Meanwhile, Republican Senator Kit Bond displayed the modern GOP's view of the appropriate relationship between a citizen and the State in explaining why telecommunications companies that colluded with the illegal spying program were in the right:

"I'm not here to say that the government is always right, but when the government tells you to do something, I'm sure you would all agree that I think you all recognize that is something you need to do."

Also this week, the House Democratic leadership brought to the floor a $162 billion bill funding the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that -- surprise! -- contained not even the weakest language regarding a timeline for withdrawal (not even the non-binding "targets" they initially included in 2007's war supplemental).

Here is Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who in a stunning act of political courage voted against the war funding bill she chose to bring to the floor (fully aware that it would pass and continue the Iraq occupation well into the next administration), explaining why opponents of aggressive warfare should not believe their own eyes:

"I don't consider it a failure," Pelosi told reporters Thursday. "We never sent them a bill that did not have deadlines, conditions and the rest." She blamed Republicans in the Senate. "They are complicit with the president to make sure he never has to get a bill on his desk with a timeline, because the American people want a timeline," she said.

Just a small note of clarification: in the bolded section above, Pelosi is talking about Republicans who are complicit in funding an illegal war of aggression -- not Democrats like herself. Hope that helps.

On the campaign trail: Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama released a list of his foreign policy advisors that consists almost entirely of near-dead warmongers and Clinton-era imperialists. Of course, most people won't pay attention to these types of things, but Obama's point is merely to signal to the ruling elites that he has no plans to threaten the status quo in any way.

More and more, Obama's lukewarm opposition to the Iraq war (he has voted to fund it while in the Senate and has no plans to withdraw all U.S. troops before 2013) is looking as if it were a fluke based not on any principled opposition to empire or aggressive warfare, but solely on consideration of U.S. strategic interests; that is, I think it's fair to say Obama would have supported invading Iraq had he been convinced the United States could have done so under the auspices of the United Nations and with more international allies -- murder being more respectable if you bring more friends along, of course.

If one needs any further proof of Obama's establishment-bonafides, consider the fact that one of his chief foreign policy advisers, Bill Clinton's Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, was primarily responsible for perpetuating a low-grade war on Iraq, in the form of economic sanctions and continual aerial bombing, that resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children. and engendered much of the hatred toward the United States that is prevalent in the Middle East today.

Albright, it should be remembered, also dismissed the deaths of Iraqi's as a price that was "worth it", despite the fact that the sanctions neither resulted in Saddam Hussein's overthrow nor prevented a war. And as the Institute for Public Accuracy recounts in an overview of Obama's newly minted group of advisers:

When Lesley Stahl asked "We have heard that a half million children have died [in Iraq from the sanctions]. I mean, that's more children than died in Hiroshima. And -- and you know, is the price worth it?" Albright replied: "I think this is a very hard choice, but the price -- we think the price is worth it." (CBS News, May 12, 1996).

Finally, Obama's audacious list of establishment foreign policy advisers leads the The American Conservative's Kelley Vlahos to write:

'“Anti-war” candidate Barack Obama came out with a list of national security advisors mostly resembling the moldy contents of a closet in Georgetown. At this rate, the potentially painful lessons of Iraq will have been anesthetized by Election Day, moving artfully into another foreign policy chapter and potentially leaving another festering human disaster behind.'

George Orwell on Power

One of the subjects I come back to again and again on this blog is the doctrine of "American exceptionalism"; the idea that the United States -- and only the United States -- can preemptively invade any country on Earth in the name of fighting terrorism, promoting democracy, or securing "national interests". This perverse view, held by the vast majority of lawmakers in both major political parties, can more appropriately be described as the barbaric philosophy of "might makes right", but can more often be found cloaked in the rhetoric of "freedom" and "liberation" by good, respectable men and women at institutions such as the Brookings Institute and the New York Times.

It should come as no surprise that this almost religious belief in the goodness of American military power is merely a rehashing of age-old rationalizations for militarism and empire, but I was nonetheless surprised to find that George Orwell not only nailed down this prevailing imperial mindset in 1939, but that he did so in a review of the book by Bertrand Russell that I just mentioned the other day.

An excerpt:

If there are certain pages of Mr. Bertrand Russell's book, Power, which seem rather empty, that is merely to say that we have now sunk to a depth at which the restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men. It is not merely that at present the rule of naked force obtains almost everywhere. Probably that has always been the case. Where this age differs from those immediately preceding it is that a liberal intelligentsia is lacking. Bully-worship, under various disguises, has become a universal religion, and such truism as that a machine-gun is still a machine-gun even when a "good" man is squeezing the trigger, and that in effect is what Mr. Russell is saying, have turned into heresies which is it actually becoming dangerous to utter.

As a senior in high school in late 2001, I remember wearing a shirt to school that pointed out, without further comment, that more civilians had died from the U.S. bombing of Afghanistan than had died in the 9/11 attacks. My purpose was not to diminish the tragedy of 9/11, but merely to note that the pain and anguish most Americans felt from those terrorist attacks was also being felt by Afghan mothers who may have lost a husband or child (or family) from a U.S. bomb dropped by a "good" American soldier in the name of a "good" cause.

As a result of wearing the shirt, I remember one girl at my school, who I had never talked to before, coming up to me and declaring, "you're not an American for wearing that shirt" -- the idea being that caring for the dead of non-Americans was, well, patently un-American. Now, that wasn't the most popular response by any means ("oh well" was), but I raise it because the incident made me truly aware of the degree to which militarism had become prevalent in the United States, even among typically non-political high schoolers. That became even more evident to me when a friend, who but two years earlier had joined me in denouncing the Clinton administration's aerial bombardment of Serbia (yes, I was one of those outspoken do-gooders, or at least I tried to be), now felt it necessary to heap vitriol on the French for their opposition to the Iraq war. So it goes.

One would hope that outlook has changed in the years since 9/11 , but it seems more likely that those considered "anti-war" now -- especially so-called "anti-war" politicians -- are merely reacting to the results of the Iraq invasion and occupation rather than having come to any epiphany about the nature of the U.S. war machine and the justness of maintaining a world empire. I'll be convinced otherwise when the anti-war movement (I use the term loosely) denounces President Obama for keeping tens of thousands of troops in Iraq for "peacekeeping" and for bombing Sudan to "liberate" Darfur -- but I'm not holding my breath.

(Thanks to Tom Stanley at the Bertrand Russell Society Library for sending me the Orwell review.)

Bertrand Russell on politics and power

A few weeks ago I was browsing the selection at the local library when I picked up a little book called Power by philosopher and noted anti-imperialist, Bertrand Russell. Though written in 1938, much of what Russell wrote remains timely today. Of particular note are his observations on the grandiose illusions of those who rule us, who in a just world would be considered just as insane as a crazy man on a street corner warning of the end of the world:

Men who allow their love of power to give them a distorted view of the world are to be found in every asylum: one main will think he is the Governor of the Bank of England, another will think he is the King, and yet another will think he is God. Highly similar delusions, if expressed by educated men in obscure language, lead to professorships of philosophy; and if expressed by emotional men in eloquent language, lead to dictatorships. Certified lunatics are shut up because of their proneness to violence when their pretensions are questioned; the uncertified variety are given the control of powerful armies, and can inflict death and disaster upon all sane men within their reach. The success of insanity, in literature, in philosophy, and in politics, is one of the peculiarities of our age. And the successful form of insanity proceeds almost entirely from the impulses towards power.

Russell also has some sage advice for those who have been seduced by a certain politician's message of "hope" and "change":

[E]loquence is inversely proportional to solid reason. To acquire immunity to eloquence is of the utmost importance to the citizens of a democracy.

I guess this explains U.S. elections...

H.L. Mencken once remarked that no one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public. That statement might be considered a bit harsh, but a press release I received in my inbox the other day has me thinking that maybe Mencken wasn't harsh enough.

As more people have become concerned about the potential negative impacts of climate change, interest in things such as hybrid cars and energy efficiency has grown accordingly. However, if a set of efficiency tips I received from the Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers is any indication, getting the majority of Americans to use energy more efficiently in their daily lives may be an insurmountable task.

The Association's press release begins by noting that "Replacing an eight year old refrigerator, dishwasher and clothes washer with new appliances of average efficiency will save consumers about $95.00 per year in energy bills." Fair enough. But then, perhaps with Mencken's quote in mind, the release notes:

If you are replacing your refrigerator, do not use the old refrigerator as a second refrigerator. This will not yield energy savings.

Lord. Have. Mercy. If people really need to be told that running two refrigerators will use more energy than running just one, then you might as well say good bye to the polar bear now and stock up on that beach front property in Ohio while prices are still reasonable.

Dogs more valued than Iraqis

The Associated Press reports today:

The Marine Corps said Wednesday it was expelling one Marine and disciplining another for their roles in a video showing a Marine throwing a puppy off a cliff while on patrol in Iraq.

The 17-second video posted on YouTube drew sharp condemnation from animal rights groups when it came to light in March.

The clip shows two Marines joking before one hurls the puppy into a rocky gully. A yelping sound is heard as it flips through the air.

Now, contrast :

LOS ANGELES, June 4 (Reuters) - A U.S. Marine officer was acquitted by a military jury on Wednesday on charges he tried to cover up the shooting deaths of two dozen unarmed Iraqi men, women and children at Haditha in 2005.

In the first court-martial verdict from the high-profile case, Lt. Andrew Grayson was cleared at Camp Pendleton, California, after a five-day trial and less than half a day of deliberations by the jury.

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Iraqi witnesses said angry Marines massacred unarmed civilians after a popular comrade, Lance Cpl. Miguel "TJ" Terrazas, was killed by a roadside bomb.

Defense attorneys said the civilians were killed during a pitched battle with insurgents in and around Haditha that followed the death of Terrazas.

Of the eight Marines originally charged by military authorities in December 2006, five have seen their cases dropped.

Good thing that puppy didn't get labeled a "suspected insurgent", otherwise it could have been slaughtered with impunity -- you know, like Iraqi men, women, and children.

Barack Obama: Change you probably shouldn't believe in...

For months Barack Obama has chastised Hillary Clinton over her support for the so-called Kyl-Lieberman amendment, which blamed Iran for the U.S. military's ongoing problems in Iraq and called on the State Department to list the Iranian Revolutionary Guard as a "terrorist organization." Most critics of the amendment, such as Sen. Jim Webb (D-VA), criticized calling a foreign country's chief military forces "terrorists" as an inflammatory move that could ultimately provide the legal justification for an attack.

Naturally, the Obama campaign was eager to create the impression that the now de facto Democratic nominee agreed with that criticism. Several times Obama attacked Clinton's support for an amendment he claimed could set the United States on a path toward war.

Of course, Obama didn't bother to show up to vote on the measure himself, and as his comments today before the annual gathering of the American-Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) reveal, his objections to Clinton's support for that measure had more to do with scoring political points than any real qualms with declaring the military of another country that has never threatened the United States "terrorists":

[W]e should work with Europe, Japan and the Gulf states to find every avenue outside the U.N. to isolate the Iranian regime — from cutting off loan guarantees and expanding financial sanctions, to banning the export of refined petroleum to Iran, to boycotting firms associated with the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, whose Quds force has rightly been labeled a terrorist organization.

As ABC News noted last October, Obama previously offered legislation declaring Iran's Revolutionary Guard a "terrorist organization," so this isn't exactly a flip-flop. However, it certainly highlights how little Obama in fact deviates from the mainstream, imperial consensus on foreign policy, despite the claims of Democratic partisans that he somehow represents some sort of fundamental "change". It also highlights the dishonesty of his campaign (surprise! politicians lie!) in playing up his (belated) opposition to the Kyl-Lieberman bill while conveniently downplaying the fact that, well, you know, he agreed with the main thrust of it.

Another year, another broken promise

Over at his blog, IPS Washington bureau chief Jim Lobe reports on the hawkish makeup of the speakers at this year's annual meeting of the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC):

Monday morning marks the formal opening of the annual three-day policy conference of the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) which, according to AIPAC’s press announcement of the event, is “consistently ranked as the most influential foreign policy lobbying organization on Capitol Hill.” You can expect a strong focus on Iran and a very hawkish line towards same. The press release makes the point that “ALL three remaining Presidential candidates, ALL four leaders of Congress… AS WELL AS Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert will address the conference. (Emphasis in the original.) So much for the argument that AIPAC really isn’t as powerful as its critics, like Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer, claim.

As Lobe notes, following the conference more than 5,000 AIPAC delegates will head to Capitol Hill to lobby their members of Congress -- and direct negotiations with Iran isn't likely to be one of their goals. That detail brings to mind the last AIPAC conference in March, 2007, which just so happened to coincide with the Democratic Congress' first funding bill for the war in Iraq.

At the time, AIPAC lobbied heavily against one provision initially included in the Democratic war funding bill that would have barred the president from launching an attack on Iran without the explicit consent of Congress. Asked why the measure was removed, Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-TX) told one of my colleagues at the time that "our friends at AIPAC" had bombarded members of Congress with phone calls expressing opposition to measure. That opposition was due to the belief, as Rep. Shelley Berkley (D-NV) told the Associated Press, that the measure "would take away perhaps the most important negotiating tool that the U.S. has when it comes to Iran."

Interestingly, when I interviewed Berkley about the measure a few days later, she downplayed AIPAC's role in getting it removed, claiming to me that the group only instructed its members to lobby against the provision after the Democratic leadership had already removed it. Sensing that the move was generally unpopular with the Democratic base, she repeatedly tried to shift the conversation to the failures of the Bush administration, rather than her support for an aggressive stance toward Iran. Of course, her claim that AIPAC played no role in getting the Iran provision removed was cast in doubt not only by Cuellar's comments (an account others, such as Rep. Jim Moran (D-VA), confirmed to me), but by the fact that Berkley was wearing an Israeli/U.S. flag lapel pin at the time of the interview (she will also be "making the case for Israel" at this week's AIPAC convention).

All of this back history is important not only because AIPAC is back in town, but because, as the Capitol Hill publication CQ noted last year:

On March 13, the same day House Appropriations Chairman David R. Obey, D-Wis., said he had removed the Iran provision from the draft war spending measure, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., quietly promised Appropriations Committee Democrats that she would soon bring the measure up as a stand-alone bill, said James P. Moran, D-Va., who attended the meeting in Pelosi’s suite.

Pelosi's promise to hold a stand-alone vote on the Iran measure was confirmed to me by several members of Congress, all of whom cited it as a reason not to get too upset about its removal from the war funding bill. Of course, like the Democrats' pledge in 2006 to end the war in Iraq once they took over Congress, this promise too has gone down the memory hole. Congress has had ample time to rename post offices and congratulate college sports teams, but apparently not a moment has been free to address this crucial issue of war and piece.

Meanwhile, Pelosi has had plenty of time to travel to Israel, where she recently asserted that "all options", including military action (naturally), need to remain on the table when dealing with Iran. Yet to my knowledge no one has called Pelosi out for this broken promise -- if she weren't a respected, powerful politician, some might even venture to call it a "lie" -- and none of the Democratic lawmakers I spoke to have threatened to withdraw support for her Speakership.

When it comes down to it, party loyalty and winning votes -- which means not upsetting the most hawkish elements of the Israeli lobby, especially ahead of the November presidential election -- is more important than taking concrete steps to prevent what would be a clear violation of international law. It would be naive to think that this isn't -- and always has been -- the case with politicians, but that doesn't make it any more comforting.

Lysander Spooner is looking more prescient every day...

Lysander Spooner on the 2008 election

If, like me, you have had your fill of non-stop election coverage, partisan peans to would-be kings (and queens), heated discussions over whether McCain or Obama's pastor hates America and apple pie more, and the every-four-years talk about the "Most. Important. Election. Ever.", then you may enjoy this letter from 19th century radical Lysander Spooner which shows that things really haven't changed a whole heck of a lot over the years.

Sent to President Glover Cleveland in 1886, Spooner's letter could just as easily be describing modern day America. In the excerpt below he gives the U.S. political system a much needed reality check, and in the process, as Karl Rove might note, he sounds an awful lot like one of those angry left-wing bloggers:

Sir, nothing of all this "din," and "strife," and "animosity," and "bitterness," is caused by any attempt, on the part of the government, to simply "do equal and exact justice to all men," --- to simply protect every man impartially in all his natural rights to life, liberty, and property. It is all caused simply and solely by the government's violation of some men's "rights," to promote other men's "interests." If you do not know this, you are mentally an object of pity.

Sir, men's "rights" are always harmonious. That is to say, each man's "rights" are always consistent and harmonious with each and every other man's "rights." But their "interests," as you estimate them, constantly clash; especially such "interests" as depend on government grants of monopolies, privileges, loans, and bounties. And these "interests," like the interests of other gamblers, clash with a fury proportioned to the amounts at stake. It is these clashing "interests," and not any clashing "rights," that give rise to all the strife you have here depicted, and to all this necessity for "that spirit of amity and mutual concession, "which you hold to be indispensable to the accomplishment of such legislation as you say is necessary to the welfare of the country.

Each and every man's "rights" being consistent and harmonious with each and every other man's "rights"; and all men's rights being immutably fixed, and easily ascertained, by a science that is open to be learned and known by all; a government that does nothing but "equal and exact justice to all men" --- that simply gives to every man his own, and nothing more to any --- has no cause and no occasion for any "political parties." What are these "political parties" but standing armies of robbers, each trying to rob the other, and to prevent being itself robbed by the other? A government that seeks only to "do equal and exact justice to all men," has no cause and no occasion to enlist all the fighting men in the nation in two hostile ranks; to keep them always in battle array, and burning with hatred towards each other. It has no cause and no occasion for any "political warfare," any "political hostility," any "political campaigns," any "political contests," any "political fights," any "political defeats," or any "political triumphs." It has no cause and no occasion for any of those "political leaders," so called, whose whole business is to invent new schemes of robbery, and organize the people into opposing bands of robbers; all for their own aggrandizement alone. It has no cause and no occasion for the toleration, or the existence, of that vile horde of political bullies, and swindlers, and blackguards, who enlist on one side or the other, and fight for pay; who, year in and year out, employ their lungs and their ink in spreading lies among ignorant people, to excite their hopes of gain, or their fears of loss, and thus obtain their votes. In short, it has no cause and no occasion for all this "din of party strife," for all this "purely partisan zeal," for all "the bitterness of partisan defeat," for all "the exultation of partisan triumph," nor, worst of all, for any of "that spirit of amity and mutual concession [by which you evidently mean that readiness, "in the halls of national legislation," to sacrifice some men's "rights" to promote other men's "interests"] in which [you say] the constitution had its birth."

Enjoy the rest.

We're always fighting World War II

Speaking yesterday at the Air Force Academy graduation in Colorado Springs, CO, President Bush yet again compared the U.S. occupation of Iraq to the post-WWII rebuilding period in Germany and Japan. Though the White House has repeatedly compared the war in Iraq to the last "Good War" (and usually avoided the obvious comparison to Vietnam), President Bush did acknowledge at least one key difference in his speech.

From the AP:

The president acknowledged one of the many differences between the global conflict six decades ago and the ones that began under his watch: today's wars are not over.

``In Germany and Japan, the work of rebuilding took place in relative quiet,'' Bush said. ``Today we're helping emerging democracies rebuild under fire from terrorist networks and state sponsors of terror. This is a difficult and unprecedented task, and we're learning as we go.''

Now rewind to the summer of 2003, when the Iraqi insurgency first began taking off. At that time, both then-National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld repeatedly compared the Iraq occupation to the post-WWII rebuilding period. But unlike Bush yesterday, both Rice and Rumsfeld made the comparison to explicitly argue that the Allied occupation of Germany was violent and tumultuous -- just like Iraq.

Consider these quotes compiled in an article from Slate at the time:

"There is an understandable tendency to look back on America's experience in postwar Germany and see only the successes," [Rice] told the Veterans of Foreign Wars in San Antonio, Texas, on Aug. 25. "But as some of you here today surely remember, the road we traveled was very difficult. 1945 through 1947 was an especially challenging period. Germany was not immediately stable or prosperous. SS officers—called 'werewolves'—engaged in sabotage and attacked both coalition forces and those locals cooperating with them—much like today's Baathist and Fedayeen remnants."

Speaking to the same group on the same day, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld noted,

One group of those dead-enders was known as "werewolves." They and other Nazi regime remnants targeted Allied soldiers, and they targeted Germans who cooperated with the Allied forces. Mayors were assassinated including the American-appointed mayor of Aachen, the first major German city to be liberated. Children as young as 10 were used as snipers, radio broadcasts, and leaflets warned Germans not to collaborate with the Allies. They plotted sabotage of factories, power plants, rail lines. They blew up police stations and government buildings, and they destroyed stocks of art and antiques that were stored by the Berlin Museum. Does this sound familiar?

Of course, both Rice and Rumsfeld were basing their comparisons on phony history that suited them at the times.

As the Slate article notes, "the total number of post-conflict American combat casualties in Germany — and Japan, Haiti, and the two Balkan cases — was zero."

The fact that the Bush administration is no longer drawing attention to the supposed violent similarities between the German and Iraq occupations is merely an admission that the argument is untenable and that the comparison was based on fictional history (i.e. lies).

The Merida Initiative

My latest piece for Inter Press Service regarding the Bush administration's so-called "Merida Initiative" -- a three-year plan to further the "war on drugs" in Mexico and several other Central American countries through military training and equipment -- is now available online.

An excerpt:

WASHINGTON, May 19 (IPS) - Funding for U.S. military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan may be temporarily stalled in the U.S. Congress, but last week lawmakers here did approve 400 million dollars in spending for another controversial war, this one aimed primarily at cutting off the transport of illicit drugs from Latin America into the United States.

Read the rest (subscription required).

In which I attempt campaign coverage...

I'm not one for horse race coverage of the Democratic presidential race, but for those keeping track at home, Barack Obama picked up support from another superdelegate today: Jim McDermott, a congressman from Seattle, Washington.

McDermott, a vocal opponent of the Iraq war and a member of the House Progressive Caucus, announced his decision in a press release I just received a few moments ago:

“I am proud to endorse Barack Obama today, because I believe he will bring us together to achieve the kind of change we need in this country moving forward. As Democrats, we are fortunate to have two very talented public servants running to be the nominee of our party, and I have great respect for Senator Clinton. But I believe now is the time to unite behind Barack Obama so we can be in the strongest place possible to win in November. Barack Obama has chosen to spend his career speaking out for those who need a voice and reaching across the aisle to bring change that matters in the lives of working families. I am confident that as president, Barack Obama will end the war in Iraq and bring our sons and daughters home, he will make universal health care a reality and he will restore our moral standing in the world. Barack Obama won the race in my home state by an overwhelming margin and I am thankful that so many new voters have become engaged because of the kind of campaign he has run, and I am happy to support him today.”

I don't think there was ever really any question as to who McDermott preferred in this race. As a strong critic of the attempt to demonize Iran and launch another preemptive war, one would have a hard time imagining him endorsing Hillary Clinton, who not only voted to have Iran's Revolutionary Guard listed as a "terrorist organization", but recently threatened that if Iran attacked Israel (the chances of that happening, it should be pointed out, is exactly "nil") she would "totally obliterate" the former and, presumably, its population of 70 million people. Not that Barack "all options on the table" Obama is a much better choice when it comes to foreign policy, but certainly, considering the options...

That said, as with John Edwards' endorsement of Obama yesterday, the only real question is: what was the wait all about?

Solidarity

The Washington Post reports:

President Bush said yesterday that he gave up golfing in 2003 "in solidarity" with the families of soldiers who were dying in Iraq, concluding that it was "just not worth it anymore" to play the sport in a time of war.

"I don't want some mom whose son may have recently died to see the commander in chief playing golf," Bush said in a White House interview with the Politico. "I feel I owe it to the families to be as -- to be in solidarity as best as I can with them. And I think playing golf during a war just sends the wrong signal."

The state of Intelligence

By now you're probably familiar with the sordid details of the Vito Fossella story; a moralizing (and married) Republican congressman from New York fathers a child with his mistress, former Air Force lieutenant colonel Laura Fay, with whom he leads a secret double life -- a fact revealed after Fossella was arrested for a DWI three miles from her house. But what stood out to me was this aspect of the story:

The two met while she was the Air Force's House liaison - a position she held from July 2001 until her retirement in September 2006.

Fay is an intelligence officer by trade; her last duty assignment was as chief of the intelligence applications division at the Pentagon.

Now, keep that part of the story in mind when you read this:

Fossella repeatedly lied to Fay, telling her he had separated from his wife, Mary Pat, his former high school sweetheart and the mother of his three children in Staten Island, a source said.

Fay only realized the extent of his deception when he confessed to fathering a love child last week, but made no mention of leaving his wife.

Catch that? A top Pentagon intelligence official apparently believed a congressman -- never a wise decision -- when he told her that he was separated from his wife, but made no attempt to research whether that was true. Of course, she very well may have known but doesn't want to admit it, but let's assume for a moment that this account is accurate and that she really was unaware.

Searching that top-secret research tool, Wikipedia, Fay could have learned this:

In 1990, Fossella married Mary Patricia Rowan. They have three children and live in the Great Kills neighborhood on Staten Island.

That information was freely available on Fossella's Wikipedia page earlier this year. And if Fay had been using her intelligence skills even earlier, she could have found out this interesting tidbit from an earlier version of the page:

In 1990, he married Mary Patricia Rowan. Their first son, Dylan Michael, was born on September 30th, 1995, their second son, Griffin Thomas, on November 21st, 1997 and their first daughter, Rowan Frances, on September 12th, 2003.

According to press accounts, Fossella and Fay's relationship really started developing in the summer of 2003 -- when Fossella's wife was pregnant with the couple's first daughter. The fact that Fay didn't know this is evidence of a startling naivety or willful ignorance.

Either way, does that not tell you everything you need to know about the state of the intelligence services in the United States?

Who can we invade next?

Time magazine, that establishment organ of respectable opinion, asks if the United States is "serious" enough to invade another country:

The disaster in Burma presents the world with perhaps its most serious humanitarian crisis since the 2004 Asian tsunami. By most reliable estimates, close to 100,000 people are dead. Delays in delivering relief to the victims, the inaccessibility of the stricken areas and the poor state of Burma's infrastructure and health systems mean that number is sure to rise. With as many as 1 million people still at risk, it is conceivable that the death toll will, within days, approach that of the entire number of civilians killed in the genocide in Darfur.

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That's why it's time to consider a more serious option: invading Burma.

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A coercive humanitarian intervention would be complicated and costly. During the 2004 tsunami, some 24 U.S. ships and 16,000 troops were deployed in countries across the region; the mission cost the U.S. $5 million a day. Ultimately, the U.S. pledged nearly $900 million to tsunami relief. (By contrast, it has offered just $3.25 million to Burma.) But the risks would be greater this time: the Burmese government's xenophobia and insecurity make them prone to view U.S. troops — or worse, foreign relief workers — as hostile forces. (Remember Black Hawk Down?) Even if the U.S. and its allies made clear that their actions were strictly for humanitarian purposes, it's unlikely the junta would believe them. "You have to think it through — do you want to secure an area of the country by military force? What kinds of potential security risks would that create?" says Egelend. "I can't imagine any humanitarian organization wanting to shoot their way in with food."

Notice the juxtaposition of the current situation in Burma with the deaths in Darfur, and not, say, the ongoing humanitarian catastrophe that is Iraq; the latter is directly linked to U.S. "humanitarian" actions ("liberating" Iraq from Saddam Hussein) that have resulted in several hundred thousand civilian deaths, while the United States has no responsibility for the killings in Darfur -- ergo, it is safe for a Time magazine reporter to draw the comparison. 

It's also revealing that the writer, Romesh Rotnesar, writes "Remember Black Hawk Down?", rather than, say, drawing the connection to the actual event in Somalia to which he is referring. The reverence the author has for U.S. military power is nothing if not based on fantasy, and as most of the public gets their view of war through entertainment (whether at the theaters or on CNN), it's understandable that one would want to draw the comparison to a Hollywood movie when advocating for war.

In contrast, connecting U.S. military intervention with its actual disastrous results is uncouth among the political and journalistic elite as it detracts from the neat little moral fable setup not just in the Time article, but in the national discourse over foreign policy in general: that the U.S. military is the world's benevolent guardian acting across the globe to promote human dignity -- and rarely in its base self-interest -- with the only question being whether our boneheaded politicians can react quickly enough (i.e. launch an invasion) to take advantage of the wonderful humanitarian tool of military interventionism.

Another "surge" in Iraq

Pleased with their success in spinning a failed troop escalation in Iraq as a successful "surge", Pentagon officials will be announcing another such "surge" this week. But as this poorly written press release announcing a news conference at the National Press Club makes clear, this time the military's press shop will be heralding Iraq's apparently vibrant economy:

Iraq's Economic Surge
Iraqi Minister of Industry, Fawzi Hariri and U.S. Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Business Transformation and Director of the Task Force for Business and StabilityOperations, Paul Brinkley will announce and discuss a number of new contracts for private industry for business development in Iraq.

They will discuss the economic environment in Iraq and the positive impact that the recent and growing economic surge is having in Iraq and need to economic opportunity as it relates to long term security [sic]. They will outline the ongoing economic surge and business opportunities being developed in Iraq.

Of course, like tales of underreported "progress", this isn't the first time the "surge" in Iraq's economy has cited by the U.S. government. From a State Department press release in March 2007:

Washington -- An “economic surge” is accompanying the ongoing U.S. troop surge in Iraq, and the country could see results from this increased activity within a few months, a senior U.S. diplomat said March 9 in Baghdad.

“My focus is on now, and on what's going to happen in this period of surge, not only military surge, but also economic surge over the next four to six months,” Ambassador Timothy Carney, coordinator for economic transition in Iraq, told Pentagon reporters in a two-way teleconference.

Results from this increased economic activity should become apparent “within a relatively short time – I’m talking about a few months,” Carney said.

So what is there to make of the U.S. government's boast of "increased economic activity" and a rebounding economy? Certainly the war has been good for makers of coffins and body bags, but it would be hard to find any major industries that have benefited from the invasion. When it comes down to it, to what can supporters of the war point when discussing Iraq's surging fortunes? Oh:

BAGHDAD, Iraq: Iraq on Monday signed two deals worth US$5 billion (€3.23 billion) to buy 40 planes from Boeing and 10 planes from Canada's Bombardier to upgrade Iraqi Airways' aging fleet.

The deals were signed by Finance Minister Bayan Jabr in a ceremony attended by Iraq's Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki as well as U.S., British and Canadian diplomats.

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Al-Maliki said the government was working to improve the country and called for investments in Iraq.

"Today, the process of developing economy has started," al-Maliki said in a speech during the ceremony.

Boeing, the Seattle-based defense contractor, saw first quarter profits rise 38% this year. While peaceful, productive enterprises will always be harmed by military conflict, war is certainly good for those with the right political connections.

We destroy, you rebuild... any questions?

Faced with a skyrocketing national debt and a looming recession, a U.S. Senate panel unanimously voted today to withhold funding for the occupation of Iraq.

Or not. From the WashingtonPost:

With energy prices soaring and the federal deficit approaching $400 billion, senators from both parties moved yesterday to force Iraq to shoulder morefinancial responsibility for its reconstruction and self-defense.

That's right. The U.S. Senate -- the same body that rushed through a resolution authorizing the illegal invasion of Iraq more than five years ago -- is now so concerned about the war's escalating costs that they want to cut out the least morally reprehensible aspect of an otherwise criminal war: reconstruction.
Granted, the reconstruction process in Iraq has been ripe with fraud and has been improperly cited by cheerleaders for the war as an example of the United States' bottomless benevolence. That said, the idea of reconstruction can at least be defended, in principle, as merely rebuilding that which the U.S. military destroyed. And after more than a decade of bombing and a crippling economic embargo, building a few schools and water treatment plants to replace the ones demolished by American weapons was the least the U.S. government could do as a gesture of reconciliation toward the Iraq people.

Of course, despite the rhetoric about "liberation" and promoting democracy, helping actual Iraqis was always the least of Congress' concerns. And forcing the Iraqis to foot the bill for the U.S. occupation of their country is something both Republicans and Democrats can wholeheartedly agree on. As Senator Susan Collins (R-ME) pointed out during the Armed Services Committee hearing where the vote to cut Iraq reconstruction funds occurred:

"This is the first significant bipartisan change in our policy toward Iraq."

Think about that anti-war Democrats: since Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid assumed the top leadership positions in the U.S. Congress nearly a year and a half ago, this is what they have to show for it. Remember all those impassioned exhortations in 2006 to elect Democrats in order to end the war? Well, not only has the war continued apace, it has escalated, and there are now more troops in Iraq then when Democrats took power in January 2007 on a pledge to bring them all home.

Yet instead of ending the war -- which Congress could do by simply not passing another Iraq war supplemental (don't hold your breath) -- Democrats in Congress are content on merely blaming Republicans for a policy they continue to support, all in the cynical hope that the American public will elect a President Obama or Clinton on, yet again, a promise to bring the troops home.

Consider Speaker Pelosi's comments in the Post article about cutting funding for Iraq's reconstruction:

"They have a surplus and we have a deficit," she said. "They have a windfall from the price of oil, and that price of oil is hurting our economy. We've spent a fortune on infrastructure in Iraq when we have deficits in infrastructure in our country."

So is Pelosi's answer to end the war in Iraq, which economists have predicted could end up costing more than three trillion dollars? Yeah, right.

Instead, Pelosi and her Democratic colleagues are willing to play into base nationalism -- blaming the U.S.'s failure in Iraq on those shifty, lazy Iraqis -- all to save a pittance. As the Post article notes about the move to cut the reconstruction funds, "In a war that has cost well over half a trillion dollars, the savings to U.S. taxpayers are likely to be relatively modest."

It's hardly a surprise that when it comes to the war on Iraq, spending on bullets and bombs far exceeds spending on paintbrushes and schools. It's also not surprising that when faced with a declining economy and a growing debt, Congress chooses to cut funding for the small number of reconstruction projects in Iraq, rather than for the occupation itself -- all while blaming Iraqis for doing too little to help themselves.

As for the occupation of Iraq, forget Democrats so much as even trying to force President Bush to agree to a timeline for withdrawal. In fact, as Pelosi made clear in comments this week, Democrats are chomping at the bit to give the president even more funds -- at least another $108 billion -- for a war they claim to oppose:

House Democrats, led by Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California and Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey of Wisconsin are pushing to avoid a veto, while Senate Democrats continue to press add-ons.

"We would rather just save time and get it over with right from the start," Pelosi told reporters Thursday.

Got that? The Democratic leadership's priority is not ending the war (silly American public), but rather to get the funding "over with" as fast as possible -- just so long as they can attach a whole lot of unrelated domestic pork to it.

What did P.T. Barnum (supposedly) say about suckers?