Getting Our Priorities Straight

I should have seen this coming. A small political movement with strong anti-tax, anti-establishment sentiments, and many angry, heartless, selfish supporters is running out of money. Yeah, I'm talking about the teabaggers again:

Some leading tea party activists are concerned that their efforts to reshape American politics, starting with the 2010 elections, are being undermined by a shortage of cash that’s partly the result of a deep ambivalence within the movement’s grass roots over the very idea of fundraising and partly attributable to an inability to win over the wealthy donors who fund the conservative establishment.

Apparently their fiscal myopia combined with the blatant opportunism of their leaders is draining their coffers. Do we need any more proof that they're really neocons?

And do we need any more proof that their ideas about taxation are the bane of this country? Paul Krugman recently wrote about how all this anti-government rhetoric is harming us:

The anti-government campaign has always been phrased in terms of opposition to waste and fraud — to checks sent to welfare queens driving Cadillacs, to vast armies of bureaucrats uselessly pushing paper around. But those were myths, of course; there was never remotely as much waste and fraud as the right claimed. And now that the campaign has reached fruition, we’re seeing what was actually in the firing line: services that everyone except the very rich need, services that government must provide or nobody will, like lighted streets, drivable roads and decent schooling for the public as a whole.

He calls is an "unlit, unpaved road to nowhere," but while Republicans stand strong against the tiniest of aid to state governments, Americans in Afghanistan get paved roads and more for their Humvees.

Keeping Secrets

Over the weekend, WikiLeaks released over 75,000 secret US military reports covering the war in Afghanistan. Go read them now. I'll wait.

Good. I actually only read a handful of them myself. I'm mostly relying on the MSM exegesis to tell me that insurgents are using heat-seeking missiles, our coalition forces are killing a lot of civilians, Pakistan has some dirty ties to the Afghan Taliban, the Taliban is resurgent, and war is a terrible thing.

Apparently it is debatable whether these facts are top secret or nothing new.

However, on the topic of government leaks in general, I think I learned plenty from Secrets: a memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon papers by Daniel Ellsberg:

It is a commonplace that "you can't keep secrets in Washington" or "in a democracy," that "no matter how sensitive the secret, you're likely to read it the next day in the New York Times." These truisms are flatly false. They are in fact cover stories, ways of flattering and misleading journalists and their readers, part of the process of keeping secrets well. Of course eventually many secrets do get out that wouldn't in a fully totalitarian society. Bureaucratic rivalries, especially over budget shares, lead to leaks. Moreover, to a certain extent the ability to keep a secret for a given amount of time diminishes the number of people who know it. As secret keepers like to say, "Three people can keep a secret if two of them are dead." But the fact is that the overwhelming majority of secrets do not leak to the American public. This is true even when the information withheld is well known to an enemy and when it is clearly essential to the functioning of the congressional war power and to any democratic control of foreign policy. The reality unknown to the public and to most members of Congress and the press is that secrets that would be of the greatest import to many of them can be kept from them reliably for decades by the executive branch, even though they are known to thousands of insiders.

Maybe this is why it's good that these documents were leaked -- somebody was trying to keep them hidden from us. And the more the "experts" keep saying that these documents are too complicated for civilians to comprehend, the more determined I am to keep on reading them.

By the way, if anybody comes across the memo explaining what the hell we're doing in Afghanistan in the first place, please send me a tweet.

Make a Bomb in the Kitchen of Your Mom

Who said print media is dead?

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I'm as skeptical as Maddow about this al-Qaeda magazine. 4chan couldn't have done it better -- "in the kitchen of your mom" could be the internet meme of the year. But think about what that little phrase undoubtedly implies: real al-Qaeda members still live with their moms. Yes, I think there are some psy-ops going on here.

But just in case this is all real, here is my free advice for Inspire. Be really careful who you get your polling data from.

Againistan

Today I finished reading How Rome Fell: Death of a Superpower by Adrian Goldsworthy, and although the author wisely warns against predicting the death of the United States based on an ancient empire which dominated Europe and the Mediterranean 1700 years ago, one thing I can say is: wars. Lots and lots of wars. Wars from inside and wars from outside. And with the wars came plunder, debt, and political instability.

(Political Graffiti)

Last night President Barack Obama spoke at the United States Military Academy in West Point, New York, about the future of the U.S. military engagement in Afghanistan:

Afghanistan is not lost, but for several years it has moved backwards. There is no imminent threat of the government being overthrown, but the Taliban has gained momentum. Al Qaeda has not reemerged in Afghanistan in the same numbers as before 9/11, but they retain their safe havens along the border. And our forces lack the full support they need to effectively train and partner with Afghan security forces and better secure the population. Our new commander in Afghanistan -- Gen. McChrystal -- has reported that the security situation is more serious than he anticipated. In short: the status quo is not sustainable.

And with that he announced that an additional 30,000 U.S. troops would be sent to Afghanistan. I can't feign shock or awe. The political left has always maintained that the war in Iraq was unnecessary and foolish, but the war in Afghanistan was justified. NATO even said so.

But at this point, eight years on, what are we doing there? U.S. and British forces completed major operations in the first few months. We let Osama bin Laden get away, and he probably isn't even in Afghanistan now. In fact, al-Qaida is scarcely there either. According to the president's national security adviser, former Marine Gen. James Jones, "The al-Qaida presence is very diminished. The maximum estimate is less than 100 operating in the country, no bases, no ability to launch attacks on either us or our allies."

Terrorism doesn't live in Afghanistan. Terrorists can plot anywhere. An al-Qaida cell that plotted the 9/11 attacks resided in Hamburg, Germany.

What we're doing in Afghanistan is exacerbating problems in a Muslim country, propping up a lousy and corrupt Afghan president (who wants us out anyway), and ultimately looking to build some kind of pipeline. It always comes down to wanting another country's natural resources, doesn't it?

If we're serious about fighting terrorism and making ourselves safer, we could do much more police work right here. In the last five years, suspected terrorists in the U.S., those on our actual watch lists, successfully purchased guns or explosives 865 times! I think the most crucial line of defense needs to be at home.

So I'm not going to predict the end of an empire, but sometimes I look at what we're doing and question whether Rome ever really died.

Purity Pledge

When I first heard that the GOP was considering a purity pledge for candidates, I assumed they were reacting to recent sex scandals. But no, the list of ten resolutions is just the same old laundry list we've been hearing for years:

1. We support smaller government, smaller national debt, lower deficits and lower taxes by opposing bills like Obama’s “stimulus” bill;
2. We support market-based health care reform and oppose Obama-style government run health care;
3. We support market-based energy reforms by opposing cap and trade legislation;
4. We support workers’ right to secret ballot by opposing card check;
5. We support legal immigration and assimilation into American society by opposing amnesty for illegal immigrants;
6. We support victory in Iraq and Afghanistan by supporting military-recommended troop surges;
7. We support containment of Iran and North Korea, particularly effective action to eliminate their nuclear weapons threat;
8. We support retention of the Defense of Marriage Act;
9. We support protecting the lives of vulnerable persons by opposing health care rationing and denial of health care and government funding of abortion; and
10. We support the right to keep and bear arms by opposing government restrictions on gun ownership.

The first item on the list was enough to make me roll my eyes and clutch my suddenly throbbing skull. Republicans keep telling us they're all about the smaller national debt, and yet, in reality, they are notorious for throwing debt on top of debt.

Number two and number nine on the list kind of go together. The government won't be running health care and our current system already rations in a truly American way. Number three on the list? I thought cap and trade was a market-based approach.

But let me skip to number six. We can't define victory in either war, and anyway we've been told the withdrawal from Iraq is already underway. Our only existing cause in that occupation is to support Iraq's mythical democracy. But the real foolishness is that part about the President -- the commander-in-chief -- abdicating his role and obeying military commanders who want more troops. This is a frightening recipe for permanent war, and it's officially part of the Republican plan. It's totally ineffectual for fighting terrorism, and oh yeah... see pledge number one up there? Can't fight a war without money, honey.

Number eight on the pledge list is another non-surprise. Republicans are really determined to reinforce that whole "party of no" image! It's all about what they oppose. There are no new ideas. In fact, the GOP's biggest innovation might be this whole pledge thing.

It's pure politics, and it's insane. Why elect somebody whose loyalty is to a party and not their country or constituents? We hear a lot of controversy over the pledge of allegiance lately, but I believe there should only be one mandatory pledge. Every day, every elected official should put their hand over their heart and pledge allegiance to the people.

From Vietnam to Afghanistan

Not to be a real downer or anything, but it's about time our country started talking about Afghanistan again. But who to listen to?

I'm not going to listen to that totally discredited war criminal Dick Cheney. He says President Obama is "dithering," but Bush and Cheney dithered around for years before asking the tough questions seven years after invading Afghanistan! And then, of course, they invaded Iraq, and the entire world wished the Bush administration had dithered before entering two simultaneous quagmires.

But there are more credible people than Cheney. We could listen to the former Marine Corps captain who recently resigned over the Afghan war saying, "I have doubts and reservations about our current strategy and planned future strategy, but my resignation is based not upon how we are pursuing this war, but why and to what end."

But I have the most respect for the man once called The Most Dangerous Man in America, Daniel Ellsberg. He has seen all of this -- just different names and places -- forty years ago when he was working as a military analyst and leaked a top-secret Pentagon study of US government decision-making about the Vietnam War. Now he has a lot to say about Afghanistan:


(YouTube video)

At about 14:45 into the video, Ellsberg says about the Afghan army, "no doubt you could put more money into them, but where would it go? Switzerland?" I suppose that's where a lot of drug money ends up, and with the latest news that the brother of the Afghan president and a suspected player in the country’s booming illegal opium trade is also on the CIA payroll, Ellsberg's comment is forthright.

And his conclusion is sobering. If Obama does send more troops, if he does prolong this bloody stalemate, he will do so only to appease his political opponents who will accuse him of being weak, unmanly, and abandoning a "winnable war." We've seen it all before.

Remembering September 11, 2001

Seven years ago today, the United States of America was attacked by al-Qaeda. The series of coordinated hijackings killed 2,974 people. Another 24 are missing and presumed dead. The overwhelming majority of these victims were civilians. The world mourned with us.

A revealing videotape showed Osama bin Laden as the mastermind behind the attacks.

The Bush administration claimed they never could have predicted the attacks. We now know this is false. The August 6, 2001 Presidential Daily Brief made it clear that a terrorist attack inside the United States was imminent. But while the terrorist warnings were "blinking red," Bush was on a very long vacation at his ranch.

We know these facts now. No doubt, the public knows a lot now that Bush wouldn't tell us back then. He wouldn't tell us. He didn't want us to know. He stonewalled an investigation into the incompetence leading up to that fateful day. But eventually we got the 9/11 Commission Report... which held nobody accountable.

In the days and months after September 11, 2001, it seemed we had slipped into some kind of alternate universe where down was up, left was right, false was true, and wrong was the way we were headed.

Our government responded to the attacks by declaring a War on Terrorism, enacting the USA Patriot Act, drafting torture memos, and invading Afghanistan which was harboring al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden. Bush vowed to get bin Laden "dead or alive." But soon it seemed he forgot his mission:

"So I don't know where he is. You know, I just don't spend that much time on him... to be honest with you." -- George W. Bush, March 13, 2002.

He soon closed the unit responsible for capturing Osama Bin Laden. The American public didn't blink. Neither did the mainstream media. It seemed we were willing to accept anything without question.

And that's how we were led into the unrelated, unnecessary, distracting, and idiotic invasion of Iraq. The Bush administration fabricated the imminent threat of Saddam Hussein and weapons of mass destruction. They forged a document claiming terrorists trained in Iraq and Iraq bought yellowcake uranium from Niger with the help of al Qaeda.

Indeed, the entire Iraq war was plotted before 9/11 with the main goal of controlling Iraq's natural resources.

But we went along because we were told lies, we were scared of terrorism, and we were blinded by patriotism.

There have been 4,155 U.S. Military deaths, and possibly 150,000 Iraqi civilian deaths. It's a travesty that the lives lost on September 11, 2001, have been exploited to launch this destruction.

Sadly, there are still people living in that alternate universe where the disaster of 9/11 is somehow seen as a the shining moment of the Bush administration. They cling to the notion that we were saved by George W. Bush when in reality he failed us. Yet the Republican party continues to use the tragedy for blatant propaganda and political gain. (Warning: the following video was shown at the RNC and is very offensive.)



After seven years of the War on Terrorism, we are no safer. Osama bin Laden lives on, we turned Iraq into a terrorist nation, and al-Qaeda is plotting new attacks from sanctuaries in nuclear-armed Pakistan.

And George W. Bush has never even apologized.

A Bargain War

Last weekend I watched Charlie Wilson's War -- a political movie based on the true story of the backroom negotiations of playboy Congressman Wilson's efforts to obtain Stinger missiles for Afghanistan to shoot down Soviet helicopters in the 1980s. With sex, drugs, and politics, the movie is anything but dull.

Of course, I don't think I need to declare a "spoiler alert" before reminding everybody how the situation in Afghanistan played out after we left. The first Bush administration failed to calm the warring Afghan factions, and the resulting chaos contributed to the rise of the Taliban. The Taliban offered protection to Osama bin Laden and his extremist al-Qaeda organization.

The Hollywood film made this failure painfully clear. However, the film ignored or obscured other key facts. On ConsortiumNews.com, a former CIA analyst comments on the film:

But surely the most glaring omission in the film is the fateful trade-off accepted by President Ronald Reagan when he agreed not to complain about Pakistan’s efforts to acquire a nuclear weapons capability in exchange for Pakistani cooperation in helping the Afghan rebels.

On page 463 of his book, Crile characterizes this deal or understanding as “the dirty little secret of the Afghan war” –- General Zia al-Haq’s ability to extract not only “massive aid” from Washington but also to secure Reagan’s acquiescence in Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program via a congressional waiver of U.S. nonproliferation laws in December 1981.

This bargain may have been dirty but it certainly was no secret. Indeed, Washington’s acquiescence via the congressional waiver was the subject of continuing press coverage throughout the 1980s.

As usual, the book reveals more than the movie, but here is the danger facing the world today: Pakistan faces a new wave of political uncertainty. This instability could enable terrorist groups to gain access to Pakistan's nuclear weapons.

And so that is one long-term consequence of our bargain war.