freaky friday

9-27-07—“Childrens do learn”—GWB --NYT A16—Presidents doesn’t’

--…a scene in a 1996 novel by I. Lewis Libby Jr, the former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, in which a 10-year-old girl is placed in a cage with a bear who forces himself upon her sexually to habituate her to sexual submission—NYT A18--the family values crowd—at least the bear wasn’t gay

--…the Bush administration has tried to privatize every aspect of the US government it can, using taxpayers’ money to give lucrative contracts to its friends—people like Erik Prince, the owner of Blackwater, who has strong Republican connections. You might think that national security would take precedence over the fetish for privatization—but remember, President Bush tried to keep airport security in private hands, even after 9/11.—NYT A27--private enterprise works, and they doesn’t have to hire gay bears

busy day

9-26-07—The Interior Dept’s program to collect billions of dollars annually from oil and gas companies that drill on federal lands is plagued with mismanagement, ethical lapses and fears of retaliation against whistle-blowers, the dept. chief’s independent investigator concluded. NYTA1—so THIS is why here’s no money for health for kids—thank God GWB is there to hold the line on wasting our tax dollars!!

--[In his UN speech] Mr. Bush referred repeatedly to the [UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights], citing its first article, “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights,” as well as the 23d, 25^th, and 26^th articles, which call for access to employment, health care and education.—NYT A12—and the libo-nazis think GWB doesn’t know or care about these things!!

--…[because US bishops won’t roll back the church’s liberal stance on homosexuality] up to five American dioceses led by theologically conservative bishops may try to break with the Episcopal Church and place themselves under the oversight of a foreign primate—NYTA18—presumably that monkey lives in Iran…

--Judge is said to consider withdrawal of Craig’s Plea—NYT A21—appeal options in Iran…

--al-Maliki told the Council on Foreign Relations .. that Iranian intervention has “ceased to exist.” Gen. David Petraeus just said that Iran was providing “lethal” support to militias.

send fundamentalists (& Lary Craig) to Heaven

There are no homosexuals in Iran.--Mahmoud Ahmadinejad --9-24-07, NYC

ivy league weasel wimp

Sept. 24, 2007—After all, if a country [like the USSR] with relatively few public opinion concerns or moral compunctions about its tactics cannot beat a bunch of ill-equipped Afghan tribesmen, what does that say about the ability of the United States—with its domestic constraints, statutory limitations, moral inhibitions, and zealous investigative reporters—to carry about a successful action against a geurilla war?—1987 Princeton PhD thesis, David Petraeus, NEW YORKER, p. 84.

perspectives from historegy

Of all the unintended consequences of the Iraq war, Iran's strategic victory is the most far-reaching. In establishing the border between the Ottoman Empire and the Persian Empire in 1639, the Treaty of Qasr-i-Shirin demarcated the boundary between Sunni-ruled lands and Shiite-ruled lands. For eight years of brutal warfare in the 1980s, Iran tried to breach that line but could not. (At the time, the Reagan administration supported Saddam Hussein precisely because it feared the strategic consequences of an Iraq dominated by Iran's allies.) The 2003 US invasion of Iraq accomplished what Khomeini's army could not. Today, the Shiite-controlled lands extend to the borders of Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. Bahrain, a Persian Gulf kingdom with a Shiite majority and a Sunni monarch, is most affected by these developments; but so is Saudi Arabia's Eastern Province, which is home to most of the kingdom's Shiites….

…In May 2003, the Iranian authorities sent a proposal through the Swiss ambassador in Tehran, Tim Guldimann, for negotiations on a package deal in which Iran would freeze its nuclear program in exchange for an end to US hostility. …Basking in the glory of "Mission Accomplished" in Iraq, the Bush administration dismissed the Iranian offer and criticized Guldimann for even presenting it. Several years later, the Bush administration's abrupt rejection of the Iranian offer began to look blatantly foolish and the administration moved to suppress the story. –Peter Galbraith, NYRB, Oct. 11, 2007, pp. 6,8

March 11, 1966--The military have the bit between their teeth and are confident that they can "win" the war—i.e., that they can force a retreat of the regular Hanoi forces back over the 17th parallel and a dissolution of the Viet Cong. If they are right, LBJ may still pull himself out of this. But if they are wrong —and the Joint Chiefs of Staff are almost always wrong in their military predictions—then we are committed to a steady enlargement of the war…
July 28, 1966—[Walt Rostow] exuded self-satisfaction with his resurrection and set forth a tedious and misconceived analogy between LBJ and Lincoln, casting the opposition to the war in the role of the Copperheads and saying that, if LBJ only kept up the military momentum, he would be in the clear in another few months.
April 27, 1967--the administration is apparently determined to advance the proposition that dissent is unpatriotic, and has brought General Westmoreland back for this purpose. The irony is that all of us for years have been defending the presidential prerogative and regarding the Congress as a drag on policy. It is evident now that this delight in a strong presidency was based on the fact that, up to now, all strong presidents in American history have pursued policies of which one has approved. We are now confronted by the anomaly of a strong president using these arguments to pursue a course which, so far as I can see, can lead only to disaster. It is not hard to assert a congressional role; but, given the structure of the American system, it is very hard to see how the Congress can restrain the presidential drive toward the enlargement of the war. Voting against military appropriations is both humanly and politically self-defeating. Arthur Schlesinger’s Journals, NYRB, Oct. 11, 2007 pp10,11,12

weekend update

Sept. 22, 2007—"Regarding external risks, God has helped us a lot because our enemy Bush is stupid.” Hossein Shariatmadrai, Iran ayatollah mouthpiece--NYT A4

--American and Iraqi forces control a little more than half of Baghdad’s neighborhoods but 8 percent are “free of enemy influence” and being secured primarily by Iraqi units, according to a senior American commander. NYT A7—hey the glass is 8% full…

--For Finntroll, as for many Scandanavian metal bands, Norse mythology is no joke. Evocations of old pagan societies fit well with the genre’s longstanding anti-Christian rhetoric. (“Ur Jordens Djup” ends with a short sing along abut an irate troll who burns down a church.) and you wondered how blondes celebrate Yom Kippur

the dismal science

Sept. 21, 2007—Military officials told Congress yesterday that contracts worth $6 billion were being reviewed by criminal investigators, double what they had said in the past. Also $88 billion in contacts and programs are being audited for irregularities, they said. … After thousands were sickened [by cholera] in northern Iraq, health officials have confirmed two cases in the capital, and another has been reported in Basra. NYT A1 The US 2d in command in Iraq acknowledged mixed results for security operations in Baghdad, saying violence is down but too many civilians are still dying. The Congressional Budget office said a long-term troop presence in Iraq in a peace-keeping role would cost between $10 billion and $25 billion a year. Bush refused to criticize Blackwater for a shootout that left 11 civilians dead, saying investigators need to determine if guards violated rules. WSJ A1 [Blackwater] guards’ shots not provoked, Iraq concludes. NYT A1

--The lesson of the story might appear to be that self-interested and ambitious people in power are often the cause of wastefulness in developing countries. The truth is a little sadder than that. Self-interested and ambitious people are in position of power, great and small, all over the world. In many places, they are restrained by the law, the press, and democratic opposition. Cameroon’s [sic] tragedy is that there is nothing to hold self-interest in check.—Tim Harford, THE UNDERCOVER ECONOMIST (Oxford, 2006) 193.

--Vice President Cheney as last as June 2005 predicted on Larry King Live that the major US involvement in Iraq would end before the Bush administration left office. “The level of activity that we see today from a military standpoint, I think, will decline,” he said, with confidence. “I think they’re in the last throes, if you will, of the insurgency.” … In 2002, Glenn Hubbard, chairman of the president’s Council of Economic Advisers, predicted that the “costs of any such intervention would be very small.” In April 2003, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld dismissed the idea that reconstruction would be costly” “I don’t know,” he said, “that there is much reconstruction to do.” … “There a lot of money to pay for this that doesn’t have to be US taxpayer money,” Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz predicted. “And it starts with the assets of the Iraqi people .. We’re dealing with a country that can really finance its own reconstruction.” Ian Ayres, SUPERCRUNCHERS (Bantam, 2007) 114-115

Sept. 20 pm

Sept. 20, 2007 (pm) reuters--The dollar tumbled to a record low against the euro on Thursday and reached parity with the Canadian currency for the first time in 31 years on expectations of more cuts in U.S. interest rates after this week's sharp reduction. … Against the euro, the dollar breached the key $1.40 level and almost touched $1.41 at around noon in New York. The euro zone single currency also rose above 70 pence against sterling for the first time in one and a half years. ... the Canadian dollar briefly reached parity with the U.S. dollar for the first time since 1976, supported by lofty commodity prices, a strong domestic economy and concerns about the U.S. economic slowdown.

Sept. 20, 2007

Sept. 20, 2007—For years, economists have warned that the US can’t run up endless charges on the national credit card to cover its huge appetite for imported cars, oil, electronics and other goods. Someday, they said, the bill will come due. It looks like someday may have finally arrived. --WSJ A1

--“I plan now to sell my house and upgrade to a $4 million or $5 million home… Or, is that kind of American socialism reserved for hedge-fund managers, investment bankers, and private-equity moguls?”—WSJ A2—a Texas girl is being quoted here…

--Publicly, the Bush Administration has not said how it would respond if the Maliki government tries to carry out its threat to evict Blackwater, but administration officials and executives in the security contracting industry both said Wednesday that they believed that the White House and the State Department would seek to block any move by Iraq to fore the company out. … For years, government officials and members of Congress have debated what has become in Iraq the most extensive use of private contractors on the battlefield since Renaissance princes hired private armies to fight their battles. NYT A6—GWB as free enterprise dude AND Renaissance man…

-- all the principal Republican presidential candidates have decided to skip a major televised debate next week on minority issues .. In another group no-show, only Senator John McCain accepted an invitation to a TV debate on Univision, the major Hispanic network. NYT A22—why go if there’s nothing to debate?

Sept. 19

Sept. 19, 2007--I think we've lost our way. I think Bill Clinton was the best Republican president we've had in a while. --Alan Greenspan, WSJ A8

imagine...

If someone were to suggest, for example, that we begin a general strike on Election Day, November 6, 2007, for the sole purpose of removing this regime from power....You will recall that a major theme of the Bush Administration's response to September 11 was that life should go on as usual ... we cold best express our patriotism by hitting the malls, by booking a flight to Disney world... HARPERS Oct. 2007, pp 9-10--so i'll settle for a moratorium day of boycott...?...

this guymust be really really smart

"Every Army of liberation has a half-life beyond which it turns into an Army of occupation."

David Petraeus, Jan.Feb 2006 issue of Military Review, citied in LEGACY OF ASHES, p 493, 668

partition, war w/ Iran, or all of the above?

Three developments are particularly troubling—the administration's insistence that the surge is working but that Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is failing; the growing tendency to blame Iranian "meddling" for military failures in both Iraq and Afghanistan; and what appears to be a changing of horses—back to the Sunnis—in midstream.

Consider the evidence of a policy reversal: immediately after the fall of Baghdad the US insisted on aggressive de-Baathification, in effect barring Sunnis from top jobs in the government and military. Now the administration is insisting that al-Maliki relax de-Baathification rules to bring Sunnis back into the government. At the same time the US military is creating battlefield alliances with Sunni insurgents, is encouraging the admission of Sunnis into the security and military services, and has remained silent while two separate groups of Sunni cabinet ministers have withdrawn from the al-Maliki government. It is likely that the US even encouraged the second group of defections by ministers loyal to Iyad Alawi, who has had close ties to the CIA for decades. Americans may not notice what is going on but the Shiites do. The obvious danger when the surge began in February was that we would bring the Shiites into the war against us. This now appears to have happened. The New York Times on August 25 reported the conviction of the military "that 78 percent of attacks against the United States are now carried out by Shiites." More remarkable still is the fact that a Democratic leader, Senator Carl Levin, has called for removal of the Shiite prime minister of Iraq, al-Maliki. Does no Democrat worry that a widened war with the Shiites of Iraq will bring a danger of war with the Shiites of Iran?

--NYRB, 9-27-2007 p 36

timetable for Iraqi withdrawal and partition

--Second, Nixon sought to undercut domestic unrest over the war. He reduced the number of American troops in Vietnam … From a peak of 540,000 in 1969, American combat troops were withdrawn at a gradual and steady pace that matched almost precisely the pace of the American buildup from 1965 to 1969. By 1973 only 50,000 American troops remained in Vietnam. … Nixon was more successful in achieving he goal of reducing antiwar activity than at forcing concessions from the North Vietnamese in Paris. –Tindall, AMERICA (1984) p. 1302. –so do the math, boys and girls, 4-5 years to get in….

-Hunt Oil Co. has struck a deal to explore for oil in Iraq's semiautonomous Kurdish region, signaling a new willingness by some large Western companies to bypass the fractious government in Baghdad and deal directly with regional authorities in the war-torn country. WSJ 9-10-07 A1—on the other hand, it appears the bourgeoisie has already decided to partition the country, so who cares?

--PS. Yesterday’s citation re: Maddox and USA provoking N.Vietnamese attacks was from Tim Weiner’s LEGACY OF ASHES (2007) 240-243 Of course the facts have been floating around for years, but since it’s in a mainstream book now (Doubleday, publisher) it’s true.

from the archives (ii)

May 1, 2003—Emperor George II prances about the USS Abraham Lincoln declaring MISSION ACCOMPLISHED

Jan. 2004—The people of Iraq are free. Kaiser George II, State of the Union

March 27, 2005: “assuming the political process continues to go positively . . . and the Iraqi army continues to progress . . . we should be able to take some fairly substantial [troop] reductions.—Gen. George Casey, top Iraq commander [USAToday, A1, 10-25-06]

July 27, 2005: A possibility of “fairly substantial [troop] reductions after these elections in the spring and summer.”—Gen. George Casey, top Iraq commander [: USAToday, A1, 10-25-06]

Jan. 2006—As we make progress and Iraqi forces increasingly take the load, we should be able to

further decrease troop levels. Kaiser George II, State of the Union

June 14, 2006—“I’ve just returned from Baghdad, and I was inspired to be able to visit the capital of a free and democratic Iraq . . . Operation Together Forward started this morning. This operation is a joint effort to restore security and rule of law to high-risk areas in the capital city.”—Emperor George II

Aug. 30, 2006: Iraqi forces may be able to take over security in “12 to 18 months”—Gen. George Casey, top Iraq commander [: USAToday, A1, 10-25-06]

Oct. 19, 2006.—“Campaigning in Montana, Sen. Burns said he believes the president has a plan to win in Iraq but is keeping it quiet.” --WSJ, 10-19-06, p A1

--Top US military spokesman in Iraq Maj. Gen. Wm. B. Caldwell acknowledges that Operation Together Forward “had failed to reduce violence in the Iraqi capital and called the results ‘disheartening.’”

Sept. 9, 2007—Iraq’s armed forces and police are at least 12 to 18 months away from taking charge of security, said a commission created by Congress. NYT,+WK 2

from the archives (i)

August 1964: The war in Vietnam began with political lies based on fake intelligence. … The Joint Chiefs of Staff sent the USS Maddox … with order to “stimulate and record” North Vietnam’s reactions to t[Us sponsored] commando raids [of July and before]. … [A NSA 2005 report stated that intelligence] “was deliberately skewed to support the notion that there had been an attack by [North Vietnamese ships on US ships].’ … LBJ had been ready to bomb North Vietnam for two months. …

Oct. 2006--“Iran has superseded [the US] as the most influential power in Iraq.” London Royal Institute of International Affairs –NYRB, 11-2-06, p. 59

Sept. 10, 2007—an official Iranian delegation at a diplomatic conference … warned Sunday that if the Iraqi government could not stop militants from crossing into Iran and carrying out attacks, the Iranian authorities would respond militarily. NYT A11

happy 9/11

Sept. 11, 2007-China Security and Surveillance Technology, a fast-growing company that installs and sometimes operates surveillance systems for Chinese police agencies, jails and banks, among other customers. The company has just been approved for a listing on the New York Stock Exchange. The company’s listing and Mr. Li’s membership on its board are just the latest signs of ever-closer ties among Wall Street, surveillance companies and the Chinese government’s security apparatus. NYT A1 capitalist roaders

— House leaders are beginning an investigation this week of the prosecution of Don Siegelman, the former Democratic governor of Alabama who was imprisoned in June on federal corruption charges. The case could become the centerpiece of a Democratic effort to show that the Justice Department engaged in political prosecutions. NYT A1 In Oct. 2004, a neo nazi USAG convened a grand jury against ACORN for filing 3 bad voter registration cards (in a pack of 3000)

--[US Iraq ambassador Crocker’s] tone [on Monday] contrasted with the tone of his remarks at a recent round table for reporters in Baghdad at which he described his dismay at the city’s disintegration. “What’s happened over the last couple of years is stunning,” he said, describing his visits to neighborhoods that he last saw in 2003. “What has happened to middle-class, upper-class neighborhoods — the violence, the population shifts, the displacement, the tens of thousands of Iraqis that have been killed. You’re just not going to overcome that in a few weeks or indeed in a few months.” NYT A11 we make our own reality

--In October 2003 Jack Goldsmith, a legal scholar with sterling conservative credentials, was hired to head the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, which advises the president and the attorney general about the legality of presidential actions. As he was briefed on counterterrorism measures the Bush administration had adopted in the wake of 9/11, Mr. Goldsmith says he was alarmed to discover that many of those policies “rested on severely damaged legal foundations,” that the legal opinions that supported these counterterrorism operations were, in his view, “sloppily reasoned, overbroad, and incautious in asserting extraordinary constitutional authorities on behalf of the president.” Mr. Goldsmith eventually withdrew several key department opinions — including two highly controversial “torture memos” dealing with the authority of the executive branch to conduct coercive interrogation — but only after contentious battles with administration hardliners led by David Addington, then Vice President Cheney’s legal adviser and now chief of staff. As Mr. Goldsmith recounts in his chilling new book, “The Terror Presidency,” he and his Justice Department colleagues (in consultation with lawyers from the State Department, the Defense Department, the C.I.A. and the National Security Council) reached a consensus in 2003 that the Fourth Geneva Convention (which governs the duties of an occupying power and the treatment of civilians) affords protection to all Iraqis, including those who are terrorists. When he delivered this decision to the White House, he recalls, Mr. Addington exploded: “ ‘The president has already decided that terrorists do not receive Geneva Convention protections,’ he barked. ‘You cannot question his decision.’ ” NYT B1 fascist roaders

evolution at work

As we watch the circus of Iraq war discussion this week, I found interesting the following excerpts from a paper entitled “Self-Deception in Service of Deceit,” by Prof. Robert Trivers, in his book NATURAL SELECTION AND SOCIAL THEORY. (Oxford, 2002) Prof. Trivers has written on the evolutionary bases for altruism, why parents and their teenagers do and do not want to kill each other, why female lizards tend to fuck male lizards who are bigger, and things like that. Anyway, the following can be found on pages 271f. in his book:

A theory of self-deception based on evolutionary biology requires that we explain how forces of natural selection working on individuals—and the genes within them—may have favored individual (and group) self-deception, where natural selection is understood to favor high inclusive fitness, roughly speaking, an individual’s (or gene’s) reproductive success (RS = number of surviving offspring) plus effects on the RS of relatives, devalued by the degrees of relatedness between actor and relatives…

For a solitary organism, the prospects seem difficult, if not hopeless. In trying to deal effectively with a complex, changing world, where is the benefit in misrepresenting reality? Only in interactions with other organisms, especially con-specifics, would several benefits seem to arise. Because deception is easily selected between individuals, it may also generate self-deception, the better to hide ongoing deception from detection by others. … [272]

When two groups of men are exposed to four-minute sexual videos (heterosexual, lesbian and male homosexual), the plethysmograph [hard-on detector] shows that both sets of men respond with similar levels of arousal to the heterosexual and lesbian videos but that only the homophobic men show a significant response to the male homosexual video. Interviews afterwards show that both categories of men give accurate estimates of their degree of tumescence and arousal to all stimuli with one exception: the homophobic men deny their response to the homosexual video! [280]..

There is a close analogy between self-deception within an individual and self-deception within an organization, both serving to deceive others. … [288]

Self-deception is especially likely in warfare. Richard Wrangham has recently extended the analysis of self-deception to human warfare in a most revealing way. Evolutionary logic suggests that self-deception is apt to be especially costly in interactions with outsiders, members of another group. … In interactions between groups, every day processes of self-enhancement are uninhibited by negative feedback from others, nor by concern with their welfare, while derogation of the outsiders’ moral worth, physical strength, and bravery is likewise unchecked by feedback and shared self-interest. These result in faulty mechanisms of assessment, and aggression will be more likely where each partner is biased in an unrealistic direction in self- and other-assessment, making conflict more likely to occur and contests more costly, on average, without any average gain in benefits. Derogation of the moral status of your enemies only makes you underestimate their motivation…

Wrangham makes an important distinction between raids and battles. Lethal raids are attacks on a few neighbors, with numerical superiority being a key stimulus to attack. Raids have a long evolutionary history (chimpanzee males practice lethal raids) and opportunities for self-deception are minimized by the ease of rational assessment (e.g., evidence of numerical superiority). Battles are set pieces between large opposing armies. They are a recent invention (within historical time, more or less), rational assessment is much more difficult, and a long evolutionary history of derogating others makes misassessments especially likely. In short, we should be especially vigilant in guarding against self-deception when contemplating warfare. [289-290]

In other words, since Bush and Petraeus deny their desires to have a happy fuck with each other, they are even more likely to argue for more disaster…which is perhaps why Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar will have better records when they are retired

even safer

WASHINGTON, Sept. 6 — The government’s principal terrorist watch list is rife with errors and fails to include significant information about known terrorists, the Justice Department’s internal watchdog said Thursday in an audit report. NYT

feel safer yet?

Sept. 6, 2007—A B-52 bomber was mistakenly armed with six nuclear warheads and flown for more than 3 hours across several states last week… The incident was so serious that President Bush and Defense Secretary Robert Gates were quickly informed…AP—and immediately Brownie was put on the job…

reality is a crutch for wimps

Sept. 5, 2007—A report says Iraq has failed to meet most goals set by Congress. The GAO study said Baghdad hasn’t met 11 of 18 benchmarks … The GAO revised some parts after White House resistance, determining Iraq partially met four goals, two more than an earlier draft. WSJ A1—so the glass is 7/18 percent full….

--Sen. Larry Craig is reconsidering his decision to resign. AP—because he’s not REALLY gay…

--[New Orleans] Mayor Ray Nagin could be days away from announcing he will run for governor of Louisiana.—AP—NOLA water has always been suspect

--“I’ve got God’s shoulder to cry on. And I cry a lot.”—GWB—AP—so do we, Dubya, so do we….

back to work

Sept. 4, 2007--President Bush, in Iraq on Monday, emphasized security gains, sectarian reconciliation and the possibility of a troop withdrawal—NYT A1 prize for who can name the date Nixon began promising troop withdrawals, and when he started “lowering” troops

— A previously undisclosed exchange of letters shows that President Bush was told in advance by his top Iraq envoy in May 2003 of a plan to “dissolve Saddam’s military and intelligence structures,” a plan that the envoy, L. Paul Bremer, said referred to dismantling the Iraqi Army. Mr. Bremer provided the letters to The New York Times on Monday after reading that Mr. Bush was quoted in a new book as saying that American policy had been “to keep the army intact” but that it “didn’t happen.” NYT A1

---One prominent critic of competitive pricing — Marilyn Showalter, a former Washington state utility regulator who has become an advocate of publicly owned power systems — has calculated that, in the year ending May 31, customers in competitive states paid an extra $48 billion for their power, compared with what they would have paid under rates in regulated states. NYT C1 the market is always right