In the Name of the Father

Not surprisingly, Bill Moyers manages to distill the essence of the latest war in the Middle East. See Bill Moyers Journal.

In Moyers' latest essay on the violence in Gaza between the Israelis and Palestinians, he opines:

They are the casualties and victims of Israel's decision to silence the rockets from Hamas terrorists by waging war on an entire population. Yes, every nation has the right to defend its people. Israel is no exception, all the more so because Hamas would like to see every Jew in Israel dead.

But brute force can turn self-defense into state terrorism. It's what the U.S. did in Vietnam, with B-52s and napalm, and again in Iraq, with shock and awe. By killing indiscriminately - the elderly, kids, entire families by destroying schools and hospitals — Israel did exactly what terrorists do and exactly what Hamas wanted. It spilled the blood that turns the wheel of retribution.

Hardly had Israeli tank fire killed and injured scores at a UN school in Gaza than a senior Hamas leader went on television to announce, "The Zionists have legitimized the killing of their children by killing our children." Already attacks on Jews in Europe are escalating — a burning car crashes into a synagogue in Southern France, a fiery object is hurled through a window in Sweden, venomous anti-Semitic graffiti appears across the continent, and arsonists strike in London.

What we are seeing in Gaza is the latest battle in the oldest family quarrel on record. Open your Bible: the sons of the patriarch Abraham become Arab and Jew. Go to the Book of Deuteronomy. When the ancient Israelites entered Canaan their leaders urged violence against its inhabitants. The very Moses who had brought down the commandment "Thou shalt not kill" now proclaimed, "You must destroy completely all the places where the nations have served their gods. You must tear down their altars, smash their pillars, cut down their sacred poles, set fire to the carved images of their gods, and wipe out their name from that place."

So God-soaked violence became genetically coded. A radical stream of Islam now seeks to eliminate Israel from the face of the earth. Israel misses no opportunity to humiliate the Palestinians with checkpoints, concrete walls, routine insults, and the onslaught in Gaza. As if boasting of their might, Israel defense forces even put up video of the explosions on YouTube for all the world to see. A Norwegian doctor there tells CBS, "It's like Dante's Inferno. They are bombing one and a half million people in a cage."

Religion -- the basis for most of the wars that have confronted man through the ages. Sometimes, it almost seems as though it is the root of all evil. Although the truth of the matter is that while religion may be the justification for many of the everlasting wars that man has waged through the centuries, in reality it is religious belief along with a healthy dose of tribal supremacy and vengeance. See Norm Jenson of OneGoodMove for a good discussion of Is Religion The Root of All Evil?.

I have written recently about my issues with Israel and Hamas. Never Again or Yet Again?. Ultimately, my objection to Israel's aggressive tactics is premised upon my basic belief in non-violence as the means to peace. In effect, I believe that "war is not the answer," as the Quakers are fond of saying.

Yet, what is the answer? As Moyers observes:

We are in a terrible bind — Israel, the Palestinians, the United States. Each greases the cycle of violence, as one man's terrorism becomes another's resistance to oppression. Is it possible to turn this mindless tragedy toward peace?

Never Again or Yet Again?

I hate to say it, but I really believe that Israel's attacks in Gaza is taking the War on Christmas meme a bit too literally.

Sarcasm aside, the latest offensive by Israel in the Gaza strip is yet another reminder that, notwithstanding its avowed constitutional tenet of Separation of Church & State, the United States seems to be forever linked to two extremist religious groups. Although neither is a religion per se, both politico-religious zealots -- the evangelicals and Israel -- manage to exert a controlling influence over the politics of this country.

The fealty accorded to the evangelicals by the GOP is bestowed by both parties with respect to Israel. As Glen Greenwald notes, in George Washington's warnings and U.S. policy towards Israel, an accepted truism (along the lines of the Bush Administration's if the President does it it must be legal), that if Israel does it, it must be OK:

The degree of mandated orthodoxy on the Israel question among America's political elites is so great that if one took the statements on Gaza from George Bush, Pelosi, Hoyer, Berman, Ros-Lehtinen, and randomly chosen Bill Kristol-acolytes and redacted their names, it would be impossible to know which statements came from whom. They're all identical: what Israel does is absolutely right. The U.S. must fully and unconditionally support Israel. Israel does not merit an iota of criticism for what it is doing. It bears none of the blame for this conflict. No questioning even of the wisdom of its decisions -- let alone the justifiability -- is uttered. No deviation from that script takes place.

By itself, the degree of full-fledged, absolute agreement -- down to the syllable -- among America's political leaders is striking, even when one acknowledges the constant convergence between the leadership of both parties. But it becomes even more striking in light of the bizarre fact that the consensus view -- that America must unquestioningly stand on Israel's side and support it, not just in this conflict but in all of Israel's various wars -- is a view which 7 out of 10 Americans reject. Conversely, the view which 70% of Americans embrace -- that the U.S. should be neutral and even-handed in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict generally -- is one that no mainstream politician would dare express.

For the Israel apologists, whether the justification is, as Steve Gimbel notes, that we must teach them a lesson or more along the lines of Marty Peretz' "don't fuck with the Jews" message, the result is the same for the victims of the violence.

Moreover, there comes a point when the stark facts call out for comment, if not condemnation. The recent attacks may warrant this, as Greenwald explains, in Marty Peretz and the American political consensus on Israel:

Opinions about the Israeli-Palestinian dispute are so entrenched that any single outbreak of violence is automatically evaluated through a pre-existing lens, shaped by one's typically immovable beliefs about which side bears most of the blame for the conflict generally or "who started it." Still, any minimally decent human being -- even those who view the world through the most blindingly pro-Israeli lens possible, the ones who justify anything and everything Israel does, and who discuss these events with a bottomless emphasis on the primitive (though dangerous) rockets lobbed by Hamas into Southern Israel but without even mentioning the ongoing four-decades brutal occupation or the recent, grotesquely inhumane blockade of Gaza -- would find the slaughter of scores of innocent Palestinians to be a horrible and deeply lamentable event.

Along with many on the left, I myself have been guilty of mostly maintaining silence on the subject of Israel, despite my overall belief that the Israeli-Palestinian situation is defined by the disheartening maxim that the Oppressed become the Oppressors. The parties merely trade sides as to which is which at any given time, in a never-ending dance of death and destruction.

However, there does appear to be a small crack in the unquestioning, lockstep support of Israel, which has permitted a few words of criticism to creep in, as noted by Jane Hamsher of Firedoglake, The Third Rail of “Israel” Cools in the Blogosphere. See also, Today I end my support of Israel and Peace Is Possible.

With a change in Administration, perhaps this is the time to continue that discussion. As Shaun Mullen of Kiko's House notes, in The Only Thing Israel Is Good For Anymore Is Chest Thumping. That Has To Change:

The U.S.-Israel relationship desperately needs a drastic overhaul. And while I hope that the new administration has the cojones to shake things up, I'm not optimistic that it will because the Israel lobby is so adept at pushing buttons in Washington, or when that fails screaming anti-Semitism.

The first thing that Obama and Clinton need to do is to make it clear to Netanyahu -- the likely successor to Ehud Olmert in the February elections -- that Israel has to begin rolling back to its 1967 borders.

This will entail removing most of the settlers from the occupied territories, including the West Bank, where the settler population has doubled to over 270,000 since 1995.

* * * *

The next several days will follow an all-too-familiar pattern of pointless finger pointing and messages sent but not received: Arab states will pile on Israel. Washington and a few other Western governments (certainly many fewer than in the past) will rush to Israel's defense. The price of oil will spike. The radical Palestinian leadership will bury their dead but determinedly not learn from the errors of their ways while their people sink deeper into hopelessness.

And the Israelis, who long ago squandered their moral superiority by building settlements while oppressing the Palestinian people, will revel over their big dicked but small-minded chest thumping.

Otherwise, we will continue to play our bit part in the saga of Israel, which was expressed by Jon Stewart during the election as only he could:

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Indecision 5768

"Oh, I forgot. You can't say anything remotely critical of Israel and still get elected President."

And we already know where that has gotten us -- no peace in the Middle-East.

And Peace Be To You

Every Friday, my blogger buddy Dave at The Quaker Agitator posts a series of pictures in honor of Friday peace blogging.

This is my contribution, in solidarity with him. After all, he needs a shout-out from the blogger with Peace in her name.

The Found

The Supreme Court's finding that even detainees in Guantanamo have the right to challenge their detention under the protections afforded by habeas corpus, show that even the Supreme Court has its limits. As the NYTimes reported, in Justices, 5-4, Back Detainee Appeals for Guantanamo:

Writing for the majority, Justice Anthony M. Kennedy said the truncated review procedure provided by a previous law, the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005, “falls short of being a constitutionally adequate substitute” because it failed to offer “the fundamental procedural protections of habeas corpus.”

Justice Kennedy declared: “The laws and Constitution are designed to survive, and remain in force, in extraordinary times.”

Jack Balkin of Balkinization describes the scope of the constitutional revolution proposed by the Bush Administration, in This is what a failed revolution looks like:

Following the 9/11 attacks, George W. Bush and his supporters proposed a significant chance in constitutional norms, centered around increased presidential power to fight the war on terror. This vision included (1) a doctrine of preemptive war, (2) new surveillance techniques, including domestic surveillance, (3) a new system of preventive detention, including detention of american citizens without access to courts, (4) the creation of legal black holes like Guantanamo Bay and CIA black sites, (5) use of torture and torture-lite to obtain information, (6) enhanced secrecy and classification policies, and (7) a version of unitary executive theory that claimed that Congress could not constitutionally limit the President when he claimed to act under his powers as Commander-in-Chief. The last idea was also articulated in (8) the expansion of the use of constitutional signing statements, in which the President would state that he would disregard certain features of laws passed by Congress without telling the public any details about the scope or extent of his non-enforcement.

Our treatment of detainees in Gitmo and elsewhere is reminiscent of "The Disappeared," the dissidents who were abducted by the military junta in Argentina. As there, the campaign by the junta to combat terrorism ended up being worse than the original left wing terrorism it was intended to eliminate.

To give voice to the necessity for protections such as habeas, McClatchy is running a series on the abuses engendered by a system allowed to operate without controls or oversight, as has occurred in Gitmo. As reported in America's prison for terrorists often held the wrong men:

An eight-month McClatchy investigation in 11 countries on three continents has found that Akhtiar was one of dozens of men — and, according to several officials, perhaps hundreds — whom the U.S. has wrongfully imprisoned in Afghanistan, Cuba and elsewhere on the basis of flimsy or fabricated evidence, old personal scores or bounty payments.

McClatchy interviewed 66 released detainees, more than a dozen local officials — primarily in Afghanistan — and U.S. officials with intimate knowledge of the detention program. The investigation also reviewed thousands of pages of U.S. military tribunal documents and other records.

This unprecedented compilation shows that most of the 66 were low-level Taliban grunts, innocent Afghan villagers or ordinary criminals. At least seven had been working for the U.S.-backed Afghan government and had no ties to militants, according to Afghan local officials. In effect, many of the detainees posed no danger to the United States or its allies.

The investigation also found that despite the uncertainty about whom they were holding, U.S. soldiers beat and abused many prisoners.

Prisoner mistreatment became a regular feature in cellblocks and interrogation rooms at Bagram and Kandahar air bases, the two main way stations in Afghanistan en route to Guantanamo.

Details of abuse and torture of detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, Bagram, north of Kabul, and elsewhere reveal the pervasive nature of an out of control system, with little or no repercussions. U.S. abuse of detainees was routine at Afghanistan bases. Not surprisingly, rather than preventing terrorism by holding the detainees, we created an environment that created a new breed of terrorists. As detailed in Wrongly jailed detainees found militancy at Guantanamo:

A McClatchy investigation found that instead of confining terrorists, Guantanamo often produced more of them by rounding up common criminals, conscripts, low-level foot soldiers and men with no allegiance to radical Islam — thus inspiring a deep hatred of the United States in them — and then housing them in cells next to radical Islamists.

The radicals were quick to exploit the flaws in the U.S. detention system.

Soldiers, guards or interrogators at the U.S. bases at Bagram or Kandahar in Afghanistan had abused many of the detainees, and they arrived at Guantanamo enraged at America.

The Taliban and al Qaida leaders in the cells around them were ready to preach their firebrand interpretation of Islam and the need to wage jihad, Islamic holy war, against the West. Guantanamo became a school for jihad, complete with a council of elders who issued fatwas, binding religious instructions, to the other detainees.

The fact that our efforts to prevent terrorism has backfired by creating new terrorists due to our mistreatment and mishandling of the detainees is akin to the Administration's destruction of our core constitutional principles as a country having been perverted and destroyed under the auspices of protecting our democracy.

In both cases, it just doesn't work.

The War Memorial

Mark Twain's The War Prayer is a fitting tribute for Memorial Day. The history of his anti-war poem can be found at The Washington Monthly.



See also Twain's word on the American conquest of the Phillipines, Immorality & Idiocy.

(Video also available at The War Prayer)

A Time to Mourn

I suppose that it was only fitting that, on Easter -- the day that the Christian faith celebrates the resurrection of Jesus -- would also be the date that the 4,000 death of American forces would occur. Roadside bomb kills 4, brings U.S. deaths in Iraq to 4,000. A milestone reached within a week of another grim anniversary, the 5th year of the Iraq War. War No More.

The American Friends Service Committee has a list of places where vigils of peace supporters are holding events, to commemorate the lives of U.S. Soldiers and Iraqis, see Wage Peace. For information on the vigil in Philly, see Philadelphia Regional Anti-War Network.

Whether you march or not, it's a time to mourn.

War No More

To some extent, I live a life that is very far removed from the Iraq War. I don't know anyone who has served and it has not directly affected me or my family personally. But the reality is that is not correct, because this War Without End has impacted us all. We are fast approaching the 4,000th death (with the current count at 3982 deaths) of US Service members serving in Iraq, and 30,000 injuries, with untold (and uncounted) deaths and injuries of Iraq citizens. In truth, the price (human, financial and otherwise) is enormous, as was recently detailed by the American Friends Service Committee, Cost of War: Priceless.

This blog, moreover, is an outgrowth of my anti-War views as the Bush Administration began its campaign to war with Iraq. Because of my skepticism of the media portrayal of the facts supporting the Administration's claims surrounding Iraq, I began to look elsewhere for information in an attempt to discover the truth. I began to read the international press and alternative media sources and then discovered blogs, which analyzed the Administrations claims about Iraq. Eventually, I began to record my own views on the War and politics in general.

In reflecting on this 5th Anniversary, I look back at other times in our history to find guidance. I realize that what we have wroth in Iraq is devastating to the country and its people, however, we cannot undo what is done. Nor can we fix it. We are still there today because we don't know how to go. But go we must.

As Walter Cronkite and David Krieger wrote at the close of 2007, Our Troops Must Leave Iraq:

The American people no longer support the war in Iraq. The war is being carried on by a stubborn president who, like Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon during the Vietnam War, does not want to lose. But from the beginning this has been an ill-considered and poorly prosecuted war that, like the Vietnam War, has diminished respect for America. We believe Mr. Bush would like to drag the war on long enough to hand it off to another president.

The war in Iraq reminds us of the tragedy of the Vietnam War. Both wars began with false assertions by the president to the American people and the Congress. Like Vietnam, the Iraq War has introduced a new vocabulary: “shock and awe,” “mission accomplished,” “the surge.” Like Vietnam, we have destroyed cities in order to save them. It is not a strategy for success.

The Bush administration has attempted to forestall ending the war by putting in more troops, but more troops will not solve the problem. We have lost the hearts and minds of most of the Iraqi people, and victory no longer seems to be even a remote possibility. It is time to end our occupation of Iraq, and bring our troops home.

Those words echo Cronkite's earlier words on the Vietnam War in 1968:

To say that we are closer to victory today is to believe, in the face of the evidence, the optimists who have been wrong in the past. To suggest we are on the edge of defeat is to yield to unreasonable pessimism. To say that we are mired in stalemate seems the only realistic, yet unsatisfactory, conclusion. On the off chance that military and political analysts are right, in the next few months we must test the enemy's intentions, in case this is indeed his last big gasp before negotiations. But it is increasingly clear to this reporter that the only rational way out then will be to negotiate, not as victors, but as an honorable people who lived up to their pledge to defend democracy, and did the best they could.

See Firedoglake.

Barack Obama's speech on race yesterday here in Philly has been compared to the words of Martin Luther King. But it is King's address before the Riverside Church in Harlem that should be heeded today. King understood the difficulties in leaving when confronted with a war like Iraq when he preached, A Time to Break Silence (Declaration Against the Vietnam War):

'A time comes when silence is betrayal.' And that time has come for us in relation to Vietnam.

The truth of these words is beyond doubt, but the mission to which they call us is a most difficult one. Even when pressed by the demands of inner truth, men do not easily assume the task of opposing their government's policy, especially in time of war. Nor does the human spirit move without great difficulty against all the apathy of conformist thought within one's own bosom and in the surrounding world. Moreover, when the issues at hand seem as perplexed as they often do in the case of this dreadful conflict, we are always on the verge of being mesmerized by uncertainty; but we must move on.

And finally, consider the words of Mark Twain, as he addressed the American conquest of the Philippines at the turn of the last century, Immorality & Idiocy, which ring just as true today:

I pray you to pause and consider. Against our traditions we are now entering upon an unjust and trivial war, a war against a helpless people, and for a base object--robbery. At first our citizens spoke out against this thing, by an impulse natural to their training. Today they have turned, and their voice is the other way. What caused the change? Merely a politician's trick--a high-sounding phrase, a blood-stirring phrase which turned their uncritical heads: "Our Country, right or wrong!" An empty phrase, a silly phrase. It was shouted by every newspaper, it was thundered from the pulpit, the Superintendent of Public Instruction placarded it in every schoolhouse in the land, the War Department inscribed it upon the flag. And every man who failed to shout it or who was silent, was proclaimed a traitor--none but those others were patriots. To be a patriot, one had to say, and keep on saying, "Our Country, right or wrong," and urge on the little war. Have you not perceived that that phrase is an insult to the nation?

For in a republic, who is "the Country"? Is it the Government which is for the moment in the saddle? Why, the Government is merely a servant--merely a temporary servant; it cannot be its prerogative to determine what is right and what is wrong, and decide who is a patriot and who isn't. Its function is to obey orders, not originate them. Who, then, is "the Country"? Is it the newspaper? Is it the pulpit? Is it the school superintendent? Why, these are mere parts of the country, not the whole of it; they have not command, they have only their little share in the command. They are but one in the thousand; it is in the thousand that command is lodged; they must determine what is right and what is wrong; they must decide who is a patriot and who isn't.

The nation has sold its honor for a phrase. It has swung itself loose from its safe anchorage and is drifting, its helm is in pirate hands. The stupid phrase needed help, and it got another one: "Even if the war be wrong we are in it and must fight it out: we cannot retire from it without dishonor." Why, not even a burglar could have said it better. We cannot withdraw from this sordid raid because to grant peace to those little people on their terms--independence--would dishonor us. You have flung away Adam's phrase--you should take it up and examine it again. He said, "An inglorious peace is better than a dishonorable war."

And so another anniversary is marked. Four (No More) Years.

I looked back at our past, but Tom Engelhardt has imagined what the year ahead holds, looking ahead to next year's anniversary, The First Sixth-Anniversary-of-the-Iraq-War Article.

For thoughts and reflections of others, visit March 19 Iraq War Blogswarm.

War: What is it Good For?

As we approach the 5th Anniversary of the Iraq War, Dick Polman of the Inquirer reminds us of the ignoble day, Jaded by lies, public suffers war fatigue:

Hey, remember Iraq? Little dustup in the Middle East, launched by President Bush based on false premises, that's now costing this country $3 billion a week? A conflict now on the cusp of its fifth anniversary, which makes it the third-longest in our history, after Vietnam and the Revolutionary War?

We have reached the point where Iraq seems both omnipotent and under the radar. It has wreaked all kinds of havoc on our economy, roiled our relations with allies, and profoundly deepened the ideological divide in our politics - yet polls indicate that most Americans view Iraq as a second-tier issue in the '08 presidential campaign. This would appear to be a contradiction, but I think it is easily explainable.

There is a great temptation to simply tune out the war. That's what happens when people are jaded, exhausted and confused.

Polman pinpoints the issues, such as the fact that the mendacities supporting the start of the War -- and continue today -- have made us jaded, the breadth of the effort has exhausted us and the way out has confused us. Nor is this limited to the current occupant of the White House, as he notes:

Nor are the presidential candidates promising light at the end of the tunnel. McCain basically talks about "victory" and a long, indeterminate occupation, yet, in the tradition of the current president, he is vague about what constitutes victory. Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton basically talk about withdrawal (Obama has a 16-month pullout timetable; Clinton vows to start pullouts within 60 days), yet both suggest that unforeseen events on the ground could seriously slow our exit. Indeed, Samantha Power, Obama's now-departed foreign-policy adviser, got in trouble for telling the BBC last week that the candidate's antiwar stump rhetoric might be trumped by events in 2009 - further proof that the biggest sin in politics is the uttering of an unscripted truth.

With no answers -- or end -- in sight, we would rather not hear about it. And we haven't had to, as Polman says:

No wonder so many Americans have been tempted to tune out. It's easy to do. Relatively few of us have been directly touched by tragedy, thanks to the absence of a military draft. Nobody has been called on to directly finance the war, because, in a radical departure from tradition, taxes have not been raised for that purpose. Nobody need worry about seeing the coffins of slain soldiers on TV, because the White House barred camera coverage long ago. Few bother to see the movies that Hollywood has made about Iraq - four tanked at the box office last autumn - because downers don't sell tickets.

* * * *

It has been said that, in war, truth is often the first casualty. But, with respect to this war without end, it is worse than that. After five years of wasteful bloodshed and diminishing options, we can no longer distinguish the false from the true.

A Day for Peace

Peace Sign Turns 50

[T]he peace sign turns fifty years old today. Over the past five decades the peace sign has become one of the world’s enduring icons. The original peace sign was developed in 1958 by a British textile designer and conscientious objector named Gerald Holtom. He created the symbol by combining the semaphore letters N and D, for nuclear disarmament. On Feb. 21, 1958 the symbol was accepted by the Direct Action Committee Against Nuclear War. The symbol soon began to be used in anti-nuclear protests across Britain and then spread across the globe.

Democracy Now!

Worth noting in these times. Also interesting to see its origin. I always assumed that it came out of the 60's peace movement.

(Via Crooks and Liars)

Cost of War: Priceless

This video, from the American Friends Service Committee, describes the Cost of War:

The estimated cost of the first four years of the Iraq War is $1 trillion.

For what we have spent for just ONE DAY of the Iraq War, we could have funded:

• 95,364 Head Start Places for Children or
• 12,478 Elementary School Teachers or
• 163,525 People with Health Care or
• 34,904 Four Year College Scholarships or
• 6,482 Families with Homes

As AFSC asks: The Iraq war costs $720 million per day. How would you spend it?

Of course, beyond the financial aspect, the cost is incalculable. The lost lives and untold injuries. Over 3,900 American deaths and 28,900 wounded. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have died since the U.S. invasion and 4 million have fled their homes.

All for a lie.

The cost? Priceless.

As the AFSC puts it: Not one more death, not one more dollar.

Sign the DEFUND/REFUND Petition and spread the word.

(Via Fact-esque)

It's Not Just a Day

Support the Troops, be sue to wear the American Flag Pin, and above all, shop till you drop at the Mall -- all the slogans to go with the celebration of Veterans Day. But for the real vets, it's not just a day.

I may be a pacifist, and would prefer to avoid war at all costs, but I do believe that we need to honor and respect those who have served on behalf of our country, at our request. Despite the slogans, we are not doing that. There was the scandal regarding Walter Reed Hospital last February, see (Don't Worry) If There's Hell Below . . ., which has not really been fixed. As the Boston globe reported:

EVEN AS our government puts members of our armed services in harm's way, it is failing to care for them once they return home. Soldiers get excellent acute care when injured on active duty, but as revelations of poor conditions for soldiers receiving ongoing outpatient care at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center highlighted, service members often have trouble getting the care they need once active duty ends.

According to a study by some of my colleagues at Harvard Medical School, to be published in next month's American Journal of Public Health, nearly 1.8 million veterans had no health insurance in 2004, up 290,000 since 2000. An additional 3.8 million members of their households were also uninsured and ineligible for care at hospitals and clinics run by the Veterans Health Administration of the Department of Veterans Affairs. The 2006 data released this year show little change in these numbers.

See Healthcare for vets - and all others. A NYTimes editorial echoed this situation, Veterans Without Health Care:

Although many Americans believe that the nation’s veterans have ready access to health care, that is far from the case. A new study by researchers at the Harvard Medical School has found that millions of veterans and their dependents have no access to care in veterans’ hospitals and clinics and no health insurance to pay for care elsewhere. Their plight represents yet another failure of our disjointed health care system to provide coverage for all Americans.

* * * *

Most of the uninsured veterans were working-class people who were too poor to afford private insurance but not poor enough to qualify for care under a priority system administered by the Veterans Affairs Department. Some were unable to get care because there was no V.A. facility nearby, or the nearest facility had a long waiting list, or they could not afford the co-payments required of some veterans.

There is little doubt that lack of coverage was deleterious to their health. Like other uninsured Americans, the uninsured veterans report that they have delayed or forgone care because of costs. Half had not seen a doctor in the past year, and two-thirds got no preventive care.

And the situation has been getting worse. Despite a shrinking population of working-age veterans, the number of uninsured veterans increased by 290,000 between 2000 and 2004, propelled by a steady erosion of health care coverage in the workplace and a tightening of enrollment criteria for veterans’ care.

The V.A. has long focused on caring for recent combat veterans, those with service-connected disabilities or special needs and the poorest veterans. Other veterans were served to the extent that resources were available. Unfortunately, in recent years enrollment of higher-income, nondisabled veterans shot up so fast that long waiting lists developed and budgets failed to keep pace, forcing a freeze on enrollments in this category.

And, of course, to add insult to injury, there is the problem of homelessness that is afflicting our returning vets. As Carol Hoenig at Huffington Post said, Revered but Homeless -- Our Veterans:

On this Veteran's Day, let's be sure to wear our American flag pins in honor of our war heroes. In addition, let's drive our gas-guzzling vehicles to the mall, pull out our over-extended credit card, and spend money we don't have on a new mattress or an upgraded DVD player, thanks to those ubiquitous Veteran's Day sales! After all, this is how we are asked to support our troops, right? Never mind that the National Alliance to End Homelessness reports that veterans make up one-quarter of the homeless population.

Knowing this, can we really celebrate Veteran's Day? Maybe we should instead focus on fixing these problems for those who gave of themselves in the service of our country, which would be the better way to offer our thanks.

(Cartoon by Nick Anderson, Houston Chronicle)

Tags: Veteran's Day

Saturday Silliness

After all my gloom and doom about the country being on the road to ruin, What Goes Up, Must Come Down, now it's time for another look at Blackwater, via Jon Stewart.

And, if you are unfamiliar with Blackwater, The Daily Show offers this historical film for your edification:




And don't forget Blackwater's Motto:
Guns don't kill people, We kill people -- For Money.

(For the original Chris Matthews interview referred to by Jon Stewart in the intro to his Blackwater skit, which was a classic, see The Largest Minority.)

Tags: Daily Show, Humor, Jon Stewart, Video, Blackwater

What Goes Up, Must Come Down

The perpetual War on Terror, the Iraq War (based upon trumped up charges), the use of torture, the erosion of habeas corpus, inhibiting dissent, spying on citizens and others, excessive secrecy, along with the expansion of executive power, have all created the tapestry of our current culture as a country. I see it as not only speaking to who we are as a people, but where we are headed in the future.

Added to the milieu is the mercenary force of Blackwater. See Making a Killing. Despite all the obfuscation related to the latest massacre by Blackwater in Iraq, the initial reports are that Blackwater used excessive force in the shooting incident in Nisoor Square, killing and wounding a number of civilians. Blackwater Faulted In Military Reports From Shooting Scene.

But is it murder when there can be no charges brought, criminal or otherwise? After all, Blackwater, a private contractor, is sui generis -- apparently no laws apply to it.

To me, these are all signs that we witnessing which portend the decline of the US empire. I am not a historian, but one doesn't need to be to see the parallels. Last year, in Law of Unintended Consequences, I cited a discussion of the fall of the Roman Empire and the parallels of the situation in the United States today. And I am not alone in this vision.

Recently, in a piece on Blackwater, Mercenary territory, The Quaker Agitator remarked:

One of the sure signs of the decline of any powerful civilization or empire throughout history is its increased dependence on mercenary troops to carry out the dirty work of war. You can look it up. Once the king has to outsource killing and mayhem, collapse is almost sure to follow. It means that the people themselves can’t or won’t do the fighting for him anymore. He has to pay his hired killers to wage war for him.

Len Hart of The Existentialist Cowboy has written a chilling piece on Bush's Fascist, Private Army of Paid Cutthroats, Murderers and Mercenaries:

The Military/Industrial complex makes its "living" killing! This is true of "empire" in general. It was true of Rome. It's true of the US now. Outsourced enforcement thugs of Blackwater USA are symptomatic of the GOP quest to turn the US into a fascist dictatorship. Blackwater --like Rome's Praetorian Guard, like Hitler's Storm troopers --are but the inevitable result of fascism.

How Hitler came to power is the story of how the German people, shocked by back to back debacles, the loss of WWI, hyper-inflation, and depression, simply "lost their senses" and allowed a mad man to seize dictatorial powers.

* * * *

Empires are typically enforced through Blackwater-type brutality, murder, lawlessness and oppression.

* * * *

As will prove to be the case in America, the seeds of Rome's fall and destruction are found at the very birth of empire. Reasons cited for Rome's fall often sound very modern; there is simply no way to avoid making the analogy to the US militarism since WWII. Like the Bush regime today, the Roman system lacked budgetary controls and restraint; resources were wasted; near absolute power accrued to emperors. Bush actively seeks it out. He has failed to conceal or disguise his lust for power and overt trappings of empire.

I also think that as part of our culture where our lifestyle has speeded-up in so many ways, the decline of the empire will also occur at warp speed. And we've started the roller coaster ride.

And as you contemplate Blackwater's modus operandi, don't forget that they may coming to guard our streets as well, see Black & Muddy Waters.

For the best in the on-going news on Blackwater , see Kiko's House and Talking Points Memo.

Tags: News, Law, Blackwater, Iraq

Black & Muddy Waters

I mentioned before that there were a number of items that I wanted to write about, but haven't had the time to get to. One of the things that I wanted to post about was Blackwater USA, after reading a post a few weeks ago by Shaun Mullen at Kiko's House, Blackwater USA: Armed & Dangerous. As he described them, Blackwater is a private group of mercenaries operating in Iraq, owned by a messianic Born Again type, Erik Prince, who is expanding operations in the US (also known as the "Homeland"). A terrifying prospect, for sure.

I was reminded of that post when I read today that the Iraqi government is trying to evict Blackwater following a shootout in Bagdad. Mullen, of course, has the story, Blackwater USA Ordered Out of Iraq:

Iraq's Interior Ministry has canceled the license of Blackwater USA, the controversial American security firm that supplies many of the American mercenaries in the war zone, after company bodyguards allegedly shot dead eight civilians and wounded 13 others in west Baghdad.

Said Brigadier General Abdul Kareem Khalaf, a spokesman for the ministry: "It has been revoked. They committed a crime. The judicial system will take action."

Blackwater has become the symbol of foreign gunmen whom Iraqis accuse of speeding through Baghdad's streets and shooting wildly at anyone seen as a threat.

However, as the Washington Post noted, Iraqi Government Revokes Blackwater License, it may not be so easy to do so:

The Iraqi government's position toward Blackwater set up a confrontation with the U.S. government over what legal authority governs the behavior of private security contractors here. Blackwater, which has an estimated 1,000 employees in Iraq, plays a high-profile role because it guards U.S. Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker and other diplomats. The company has faced criticism in the past for violent incidents in Iraq.

* * * *

It was not immediately clear whether Iraq or the United States holds the authority to regulate Blackwater's operations. A regulation known as Order 17 established under the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority headed by L. Paul Bremer effectively granted immunity to American private security contractors from being prosecuted in Iraqi courts.

Another CPA memorandum requires private security companies to register with the Interior Ministry, but some of the companies in Iraq operate without doing so.

See also, TPM's Iraqis Order Blackwater out of Iraq -- But Will It Leave?. It seems that this is yet another gift from the Bush Administration -- a powerful private Army, with full immunity, operating outside the control of the government. Those Republicans sure don't like checks and balances.

Former CIA official and counter-terrorism expert Larry Johnson of No Quarter says, in The Iraq Blackwater Test, that Blackwater is staying put, reasoning:

Depending on whether the Blackwater security firm stays in Iraq will inform us whether Prime Minister Maliki has any power or is just a U.S. puppet. My money is on the puppet.

* * * *

First problem. Blackwater does not have a license to operate in Iraq and does not need one. They have a U.S. State Department contract through Diplomatic Security. Instead of using Diplomatic Security officers or hiring new Security officers or relying on U.S. military personnel, the Bush Administration has contracted with firms like Blackwater, Triple Canopy, and others for people capable of conducting personnel security details. State Department is not about to curtail the contract with Blackwater, who is tightly wired into Washington. Plus, State Department simply does not have the bodies available to carry out the security mission.

Second problem. The Iraqi government has zero power to enforce a decision to oust a firm like Blackwater. For starters, Blackwater has a bigger air force and more armored vehicles then the Iraqi Army and police put together. As Spencer Ackerman reported, Blackwater’s little bird helicopter (an aircraft normally used by U.S. special operations forces) that was firing mini guns at Iraqi targets on the ground this past weekend.

Jeremy Scahill, author of a book on Blackwater, was interviewed on CNN about the private mercenary army, which he refers to as the "Shadow War" since their deaths aren't counted, their crimes aren't counted despite their aggressive tactics. See Crooks and Liars for transcript and video of interview.

I guess when they were talking about fighting them over there so we don't have to fight them here, they were talking about Blackwater. All things being equal, I have to admit I'm glad they're occupied elsewhere, so they stay out of the "Homeland."

Finally, Robert Greenwald's Brave New Films has a video on Blackwater in Iraq:

Tags: News, Iraq, Blackwater, Video

A Day to Remember

In The "Arab World", Ezra Klein points to an article by Gary Kamiya, who writes about the 9/11 anniversary in Salon. As Klein sums up, the piece is a must read, as it discusses "the 'real lessons of 9/11' makes some powerful points about the barely subsumed anti-Arab (and, for that matter, Persian) sentiment that the war exposed. It also includes an analysis of the last six years, and our post-9/11 comportment."

It is interesting because the article touches on the same issues that my husband and I discussed today, in reflecting on this day. It is certainly a sad day because of the events that transpired six years ago, but it is also sad to see where we are today, these six long years later. In The real lessons of 9/11, Kamiya observes those thoughts best:

On the anniversary of 9/11, we need to ask more basic questions -- not just about why we can't bring ourselves to pull out of Iraq, but why we invaded it in the first place. Those questions lead directly to 9/11, and the ideas and assumptions behind our response to it.

The real reason that Congress cannot bring itself to end the war in Iraq, and incredibly, may be prepared to start another one in Iran, has little to do with benchmarks or body counts. The real reason is that even after the Iraq debacle, the American establishment -- meaning the government and the mainstream media -- has not questioned the emotions and ideology that drove Bush's crusade.

* * * *

The failure of the American establishment to question such ideas, and its willingness to sign off on a war based on them, amounts to a kind of de facto bigotry: Kill one Arab, send a message to the rest of 'em. Attacking Iraq because of 9/11 made about as much sense as attacking Mozambique after the Watts riots. If we had done something that insane, we would be accused of being racists. We wouldn't be able to shake the accusation, no matter how much gobbledygook apologists came up with about bursting a "terrorism bubble" or the "pathologies of black culture." But when America did something equally insane and attacked Iraq in response to 9/11, no one accused it of racism. Instead, we got a lot of sophistry about "Islamofascism" and other Aquinas-like attempts to make 99 virgins dance on the head of a Baathist.

Sept. 11 was a hinge in history, a fork in the road. It presented us with a choice. We could find out who attacked us, surgically defeat them, address the underlying problems in the Middle East, and make use of the outpouring of global sympathy to pull the rest of the world closer to us. Or we could lash out blindly and self-righteously, insist that the only problems in the Middle East were created by "extremists," demonize an entire culture and make millions of new enemies.

Like a vibration that causes a bridge to collapse, the 9/11 attacks exposed grave weaknesses in our nation's defenses, our national institutions and ultimately our national character. Many more Americans have now died in a needless war in Iraq than were killed in the terror attacks, and tens of thousands more grievously wounded. Billions of dollars have been wasted. America's moral authority, more precious than gold, has been tarnished by torture and lies and the erosion of our liberties. The world despises us to an unprecedented degree. An entire country has been wrecked. The Middle East is ready to explode. And the threat of terrorism, which the war was intended to remove, is much greater than it was.

All of this flowed from our response to 9/11. And so, six years later, we need to do more than mourn the dead. We need to acknowledge the blindness and bigotry that drove our response. Until we do, not only will the stalemate over Iraq persist, but our entire Middle Eastern policy will continue down the road to ruin.

We are well down the road.

Tags: 9/11, Iraq

Who Knew?

“When the surge was announced, the White House said, ‘wait til the summer.’ And as the summer approached, the White House said, ‘wait til September.’ Well, now that this much overrated September is here, they cry, ‘wait til next year.’ The only real mystery about President Bush’s September decision has been what new excuse he would offer to justify staying the same old deadly course. And as the American people have seen through the duplicity of each and other excuse, the President has returned to his original ploy: 9/11. Coincidentally, just as we receive this report on the anniversary of 9/11. He claims that, quote, ‘the same folks that are bombing in Iraq are the ones who attacked us in America on September the 11th.’ That is false and he knows it’s false.”

Rep. Lloyd Doggett, The Gavel

Of course, at this point, the public is well aware of the duplicity. The only ones who are fooled by all this nonsense are the Press and Congress.

(Via Eschaton)

Tags: Quote of the Day, Iraq

Love Story

Those of us of a certain age recall the quote from Love Story: "Love means never having to say you're sorry."

I think the guiding principle of the Bush Administration is the quote : "I don't remember means never having to say I was wrong."

The latest evidence of that principle relates to Bush's recent the discussion about the disastrous decision to dismantle the Iraqi Army after the invasion;

Mr. Bush acknowledged one major failing of the early occupation of Iraq when he said of disbanding the Saddam Hussein-era military, “The policy was to keep the army intact; didn’t happen.”

But when Mr. Draper pointed out that Mr. Bush’s former Iraq administrator, L. Paul Bremer III, had gone ahead and forced the army’s dissolution and then asked Mr. Bush how he reacted to that, Mr. Bush said, “Yeah, I can’t remember, I’m sure I said, ‘This is the policy, what happened?’ ” But, he added, “Again, Hadley’s got notes on all of this stuff,” referring to Stephen J. Hadley, his national security adviser.

This via Mike Kuykendall, in Bremer Disputes Bush Comments on Dismantling Iraqi Army,
who also points out that Bush's remarks were refuted by Bremer:

Now Mr. Bremer has provided the NY Times with hard evidence disputing the President's account:

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.”

For the NYTimes piece, see Envoy’s Letter Counters Bush on Dismantling of Iraq Army.

Just remember what it means the next time a Bushie utters the words "I don't remember."

Tags: Bush, News, Quote of the Day, Iraq

Bookends

These two articles on Iraq are bookends of the same story. A story of the fundamental corruption of a county. The corruption of Iraq has corrupted US.

A Rolling Stone piece, The Great Iraq Swindle, is required reading to fully understand the details of our Iraqi adventure:

Operation Iraqi Freedom, it turns out, was never a war against Saddam ­Hussein's Iraq. It was an invasion of the federal budget, and no occupying force in history has ever been this efficient. George W. Bush's war in the Mesopotamian desert was an experiment of sorts, a crude first take at his vision of a fully privatized American government. In Iraq the lines between essential government services and for-profit enterprises have been blurred to the point of absurdity -- to the point where wounded soldiers have to pay retail prices for fresh underwear, where modern-day chattel are imported from the Third World at slave wages to peel the potatoes we once assigned to grunts in KP, where private companies are guaranteed huge profits no matter how badly they fuck things up.

And just maybe, reviewing this appalling history of invoicing orgies and million-dollar boondoggles, it's not so far-fetched to think that this is the way someone up there would like things run all over -- not just in Iraq but in Iowa, too, with the state police working for Corrections Corporation of America, and DHL with the contract to deliver every Christmas card. And why not? What the Bush administration has created in Iraq is a sort of paradise of perverted capitalism, where revenues are forcibly extracted from the customer by the state, and obscene profits are handed out not by the market but by an unaccountable government bureauc­racy. This is the triumphant culmination of two centuries of flawed white-people thinking, a preposterous mix of authoritarian socialism and laissez-faire profit­eering, with all the worst aspects of both ideologies rolled up into one pointless, supremely idiotic military adventure -- American men and women dying by the thousands, so that Karl Marx and Adam Smith can blow each other in a Middle Eastern glory hole.

It was an awful idea, perhaps the worst America has ever tried on foreign soil. But if you were in on it, it was great work while it lasted.

Since time immemorial, the distribution of government largesse had followed a staid, paper-laden procedure in which the federal government would post the details of a contract in periodicals like Commerce Business Daily or, more ­recently, on the FedBizOpps Web site. Competitive bids were solicited and contracts were awarded in accordance with the labyrinthine print of the U.S. Code, a straightforward system that worked well enough before the Bush years that, as one lawyer puts it, you could "count the number of cases of criminal fraud on the fingers of one hand."

There were exceptions to the rule, of course -- emergencies that required immediate awards, contracts where there was only one available source of materials or labor, classified deals that involved national security. What no one knew at the beginning of the war was that the Bush administration had essentially decided to treat the entire Iraqi theater as an exception to the rules. All you had to do was get to Iraq and the game was on.

From the 24 year old "evangelical u" graduate who was put in charge of the $13 billion Iraq budget to the GOP operative put in charge of the health care system who instituted an anti-smoking campaign to the myriad cost-plus contracts that ensured that more money spent meant more in profits (without oversight), to the lack of insurance for injured employees of contractors, it is in essence an indictment of the Administration:

According to the most reliable ­estimates, we have doled out more than $500 billion for the war, as well as $44 billion for the Iraqi reconstruction effort. And what did America's contractors give us for that money? They built big steaming shit piles, set brand-new trucks on fire, drove back and forth across the desert for no reason at all and dumped bags of nails in ditches. For the most part, nobody at home cared, because war on some level is always a waste. But what happened in Iraq went beyond inefficiency, beyond fraud even. This was about the business of government being corrupted by the profit motive to such an extraordinary degree that now we all have to wonder how we will ever be able to depend on the state to do its job in the future. If catastrophic failure is worth billions, where's the incentive to deliver success? There's no profit in patriotism, no cost-plus angle on common decency. Sixty years after America liberated Europe, those are just words, and words don't pay the bills.

As criminal as this tale is, it is not even the worst of the Iraq War reconstruction debacle. Instead, the true sin is the tragedy described in the Forbes article, Whistleblowers on Fraud Facing Penalties:

One after another, the men and women who have stepped forward to report corruption in the massive effort to rebuild Iraq have been vilified, fired and demoted.

Or worse.

For daring to report illegal arms sales, Navy veteran Donald Vance says he was imprisoned by the American military in a security compound outside Baghdad and subjected to harsh interrogation methods.

There were times, huddled on the floor in solitary confinement with that head-banging music blaring dawn to dusk and interrogators yelling the same questions over and over, that Vance began to wish he had just kept his mouth shut.

He had thought he was doing a good and noble thing when he started telling the FBI about the guns and the land mines and the rocket-launchers - all of them being sold for cash, no receipts necessary, he said. He told a federal agent the buyers were Iraqi insurgents, American soldiers, State Department workers, and Iraqi embassy and ministry employees.

* * * *

Despite this staggering mess, there are no noble outcomes for those who have blown the whistle, according to a review of such cases by The Associated Press.

"If you do it, you will be destroyed," said William Weaver, professor of political science at the University of Texas-El Paso and senior advisor to the National Security Whistleblowers Coalition.

"Reconstruction is so rife with corruption. Sometimes people ask me, `Should I do this?' And my answer is no. If they're married, they'll lose their family. They will lose their jobs. They will lose everything," Weaver said.

They have been fired or demoted, shunned by colleagues, and denied government support in whistleblower lawsuits filed against contracting firms.

No wonder the war cannot end. Iraq is the great American dream come true for crony capitalism.

Tags: Iraq

Rescue Me

It's Saturday morning and time for a short history lesson.

Jon Stewart provides an overview of the U.S.'s intervention in the Middle East over time, which puts where we are today in perspective.

(Video also available at Crooks and Liars)

Tags: Daily Show, Humor, Jon Stewart, Video

Et tu, Democracy?

With a heavy heart, Director of National Intelligence Michael McConnell told a Texas newspaper last week that due to the public debate over revising the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, Americans will die.

This, according to Spencer Ackerman of TPM, McConnell: FISA Debate Will Kill Americans:

McConnell, who before the late July-early August FISA legislation enjoyed broad bipartisan respect, placed the predicted deaths of Americans at the doorstep of an open society. Thanks to widespread efforts to understand what the NSA's highly classified warrantless surveillance program is -- from journalists, from legal scholars, from national security experts, from elected officials -- the Bush administration was forced last month to reveal too much about how the program operates, in order to correct misunderstandings. And that means, McConnell said, "Americans are going to die."

See also, Chasing the Boogeyman.

I guess it's a variation on that old theme, "Give me Liberty or Give me Death."

Tags: Civil Liberties, Law, News