March ides, 2008

March 20, 2008. The first number is the state’s report re: percentage of high school students who graduate, the second is the DOE calculation for the state: MS, 87, 63; NM, 86, 65; AL, 81, 66; SC, 74, 60; MI, 86, 73; TN, 80, 69; NV, 68, 56; NY 77, 65; CT, 92, 81; KS, 90, 79.—NYT A20

--June 2005: Cheney declares insurgency to be in its “last throes” NYT A11

--CNN poll puts GWB approval rate at 31%, a new low...

WASHINGTON — At the outset of the Iraq war, the Bush administration predicted that it would cost $50 billion to $60 billion to oust Saddam Hussein, restore order and install a new government. Five years in, the Pentagon tags the cost of the Iraq war at roughly $600 billion and counting. Joseph E. Stiglitz, a Nobel Prize-winning economist and critic of the war, pegs the long-term cost at more than $4 trillion. The Congressional Budget Office and other analysts say that $1 trillion to $2 trillion is more realistic, depending on troop levels and on how long the American occupation continues. March 19, 2008 NYT

--there is scant evidence to tie Saddam to terrorist organizations, and even less to the Sept. 11 attacks. Indeed Saddam's goals have little in common with the terrorists who threaten us, and there is little incentive for him to make common cause with them. … Our pre-eminent security priority -- underscored repeatedly by the president -- is the war on terrorism. An attack on Iraq at this time would seriously jeopardize, if not destroy, the global counterterrorist campaign we have undertaken. The United States could certainly defeat the Iraqi military and destroy Saddam's regime. But it would not be a cakewalk. On the contrary, it undoubtedly would be very expensive -- with serious consequences for the U.S. and global economy -- and could as well be bloody. -- Brent Scowcroft, 8-15-2002, WSJ

--A rich enemy excites their cupidity, a poor one, their lust for power. East and West alike have failed to satisfy them. To robbery, butchery, and rapine, they give the lying name of “government”; they create a desolation and call it peace.—speech attributed to Caledonian rebel Calgacus [by Tacitus, around 100 AD]. NYRB 28, 4-3-08

--Orwell’s insight was that the italicized phrases are colorless by design and not by accident. He saw a deliberative method in the imprecision of texture. The inventors of this kind of idiom meant to suppress one kind of imagination, the kind that yields an image of things actually done or suffered; and they wanted to put in its place an imagination that trusts to the influence of the larger powers behind the scenes. Totalitarianism depends on the creation of people who take satisfaction in such trust; and totalitarian minds are in part created (orwell believed) by the ease and invisibility of euphemism. … Slight uptick in violence is a coinage new to the war in Iraq, and useful for obvious reasons. It suggests a remote perspective in which 50 or 100 deaths, from 3 or 4 suicide bombings in a day, hardly cause a jump in the needle that measures such things. The phrase has a laconic sound, in a manner properly associated with men who are used to violence and keep a cool head. Indeed, it wsa generals at briefings—Kimmitt, Hertling, and Petraeus—who gave currency to a phrase that implies realism and the possession of strong personal shock absorbers. NYRB 28-9, 4-3-08

--Indeed, the single greatest victory of the Bush administration may be the belief shared by most Americans that the rise of radical Islam—so-called Islamofascism—has nothing to do with any previous actions by the United States… The protective silence regarding the 725 American bases worldwide, and the emotions with which these are regarded by the people who live in their shadow, cover up a clue in the fact that 15 of the 19 hijackers on 9/1 were Saudis. The presence of thousands of US troops on Arabian soil was hotly resented… NYRB 30, 4-3-08
--..in these books, the idea of joining the military to defend America or uphold its values is largely absent. Rather, these soldiers signed up to escape dead-end jobs, failed relationships, broken families, bills, toothaches, and boredom. The armed forces offered a haven from the struggles of life in modern-day America, a place to gain security and skills, discipline and self- esteem… [the military] consists mainly of young men and women who, raised in working- and lower-middle-income families, yearn to make it into the middle class….In Canada and much of Europe, higher education is heavily subsidized by the state, and the tuition is nominal if not free. …In America, we’ve elected to put our money elsewhere. In the 1990s … New York State faced a choice between spending on prisons and spending on higher education. It chose the former. As a result, New York tody has state-of-the-art prisons and run-down campuses. …In today’s America, the hunger for a college degree is so great that many young men and women are willing to kill—and risk being killed—to get one. NYRB 34-36, 4-3-08

--The night can sweat with terror as before / We pierced our thoughts into philosophy,/ And planned to bring the world under a rule / Who are but weasels fighting in a hole.—WB Yeats “1919” NYRB 38, 4-3-08

March 17, 2008—In the credit market panic that began in August, we have now reached the point of maximum danger: A global run on the dollar that could become a rout…. The Fed’s main achievement o far has been to stir a global lack of confidence in the greenback … The Bush Administration is also not helping confidence in the dollar… The Fed needs to restore its monetary credibility, or today’s panic could become tomorrow’s crash.—WSJ A16 [it’s an editorial, folks!]

March 13, 2008—only 28% of Americans know that nearly 4000 US troops have died since the Ira war began, a survey found. WSJ A1