Oh I know, I haven’t written in a while. All I can say is that it’s been a long year. But here I am back, just like the proverbial bad penny.

See the kid in the photo? Yes, that’s Anon back in the fall of 1952. I look smug, don’t I? ‘All the way with Adlai.’ There have been times in my life when I’ve felt as if I were the herald of lost causes.

Not long ago, I asked a friend who he was going to vote for president. He said that he wasn’t going to vote for Hillary Clinton, “I just don’t like her.” I replied that you don’t have to ‘like’ the candidate you’re voting for – you just have to know that he or she can do the job and do it well.

Since then, I’ve been thinking about why I’m so sanguine about politics and politicians. I suppose it goes back to the evening of the 14th of July 1960. Well, let me set this up for you.

It’s the afternoon of the 10th of July and we’re headed down to the Los Angeles airport. Governor Stevenson is due to arrive any minute. He is going to fight the upstart Senator from Massachusetts. The ‘we’ is my aunt, my mother and I. We join a group of people waiting on the tarmac of the far runway off of Imperial Boulevard. We park and join a small group of people. Teresa Wright is cheerleading the group and we try to decide to sing “Happy Days are Here Again,” or “The Gang’s All Here,” when the Governor arrives. Someone complains about the “what the hell do we care,” in the latter so it’s decided that we’ll go with “Happy Days are Here Again.”

Finally, the private plane lands not far away (propeller, not jet) and we all rush over and break out in many choruses of the FDR theme song. The skies, indeed, seemed blue again.

We would go on to picket the L.A. Sports Arena for the next 3 days. The ‘we’ was the Stevenson supporters within the California Democratic Delegation. We made our signs and marched and marched. At lulls in the floor fight over delegates, various members of the California delegation would come out and try to boost our morale. Various reporters would visit our little group. More often we’d find them at a local bar when we took a break. I quickly found out which reporters were the heavy drinkers (most of them).

Wednesday, the night of the 14th, finally arrived and late in the evening one of our delegates came out and said, “it’s over. Kennedy’s wrapped it up. The governor has conceded to Kennedy. You might as well come in.” It was over. There was a rumor that the deal struck between Stevenson and Kennedy would be that the governor would be the Secretary of State. We put our signs down and walked dejectedly in the hall.

We couldn’t sit downstairs, as that was reserved for delegates, so we climbed the stairs to an upper level. When we got up there, we sat down next to some Johnson supporters. If anyone were any lower than we were, it was the Johnson supporters. I remember them sitting there with all of their LBJ regalia. ‘Lower than a snake’s belly,’ would probably be how they would have put it.
They felt that JFK was ‘slicker than deer guts on a gate post.’ Of course, LBJ hadn’t yet been selected as V.P., so they might have cheered up the next day.

We turned our attention to the main floor. The roll call was reaching its climax. Finally, as I remember, Wisconsin put JFK over the top. All of a sudden the balloons and the confetti fell from the ceiling. Then, everything turned red and white and blue. There was music and noise. I had never seen anything like it. As miserable as I was, I couldn’t help but be excited by the spectacle in front of me. I hung over the balcony and just soaked it in. Was there anything as amazing as what I was seeing? I was gobsmacked.

Finally, the color drained away. The music died down. Even the noise dampened as the delegates shuffled out of the arena, all their energy spent. We trudged out to our car. As my mother started the engine, she said, “Let’s go see the Governor! He’s staying at the Townhouse, it’s not that far.” So, off we went.

When we arrived at the Townhouse on Wilshire Boulevard, there was no one around. We sat down on a ledge by the front door and waited for the governor. A woman arrived and as she was about to go into the hotel turned around and looking at our Stevenson buttons said, “Are you waiting for the governor?” We nodded. “Well then, come on upstairs.” She assured us it would be more comfortable in the governor’s suite. She was Mrs. Monroney, the wife of Mike Monroney, the Democratic senator for Oklahoma.

We thanked her and followed her up to the suite. There were many movers and shakers of the Democratic Party there. And there we were a couple of nobodies who didn’t really belong. There were hors d’oeuvres and drinks. The atmosphere wasn’t quite funereal, but it was like a wake. No one seemed to know what mood to assume. They were all waiting to take their cue from Stevenson.

Then, the door opened and Governor Stevenson walked in. I can only describe the smile on his face as beatific. Here was a man who had everything he wanted in the world. It was at that moment that the penny dropped for me. He had cut a deal with Kennedy and was promised Secretary of State. He had used us to put pressure on JFK. Stevenson knew that he could never get the nomination again. LBJ had more of a chance than Stevenson had and Johnson had lost out fairly early.

So, here was my hero. He had been my hero for the past 8 years and he had sold us out. He never had any intention of standing for the nomination. All he wanted was to be Secretary of State. Of course, as we all know now, Dean Rusk ended up as Kennedy’s Secretary of State. Stevenson was shunted off to the U.N. where he was to have his last big moment during the Cuban missile crisis. When he dropped dead in London a few years later, I didn’t shed a tear for him. I never had a political hero again.

Lessons learned: 1. don’t ever make a politician or any living person your hero. They’re merely human. It’s not fair to them to assume that they’re somehow more. 2. Don’t try to meet those whom you admire. It’ll only break your heart. Finally, 3. You don’t have to like them to vote for them. You only have to feel that they will be able to enact the policies that will be good for the nation. I still have that poster and the button. Here’s a trivia question: Who was Stevenson’s running mate in ‘52? (answer: John Sparkman).

By the way

Please give what you can to Médecins sans Frontières (Doctors without Borders) and support Kiva.

And, of course

You see, there is absolutely nothing glamorous about war. Somehow, after the honesty of the photographs of the Civil War, the new medium became the vehicle of obfuscation. From the Spanish-American War, through both World Wars, the powers that were decided that war must be romantic. Soldiers were all good-looking and brave. (We did have Willie and Joe by Bill Maudlin during WW II, but those were drawings and meant to be humorous). Photography, the ultimate truth-teller, was used to lie, to pervert, and to propagandise.

Then, along came the Vietnam War. One day a photographer caught the instant when a South Vietnamese officer blew the brains out of a suspected Viet Cong. The suspect’s hands are tied behind his back. He’s wearing a plaid shirt. It’s not the black pyjamas we were told the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong wore. It’s a very western shirt. To the left of the officer, there’s a South Vietnamese soldier in camies and a helmet. He’s looking at the head of the prisoner and smiling as the bullet finds its target. The officer looks scruffy. His uniform is dishevelled as is his hair. His right arm, the one holding the gun, is strong and his muscles are flexing as he pulls the trigger. We can’t see the bullet, but we know that it’s found its target. The prisoner’s face is twisted in a grimace and the hair on the right side of his head, the side were the bullet has entered, is blown sideways. We are witnessing a man at the instant of his death.

This is war. No niceties here. No civil rights. No attorney. No judge. No jury. Rough justice means a bullet to the brain and you’re dead. This was not John Wayne in the “The Green Berets,” a movie that came out that same year of 1968. Wayne was, of course, playing a caricature of himself by then. But real war and its photographs bore no resemble to Wayne in any of his World War II movies, either. This is the war that ‘they’ talk about when they say is that it’s hell.

This photograph started our 1968. That would be the year that the whole world went mad. Rough justice would be played out on the streets of every country in the industrialised west. There was another photograph, however, that also became emblematic of the war in Viet Nam: it was the image of a naked Vietnamese girl, burning from napalm, running down a country road screaming with other children from her village. Soldiers stand in the background. No one is attempting to help her, to cover her up. She is innocence laid bare to the world, stripped of all dignity in the name of war.

So, the truth could be told with photographs. Since then, no matter how hard the military and various administrations try to suppress it; the truth would manage to get out. At the end of the first Gulf War, we saw a photograph of a highway of death where fleeing Iraqis had been killed in their vehicles. One could almost smell the stench as we looked at the burnt corpses caught in mid-action trying to get out of their burning vehicles. Yes, there were some military vehicles, but there were many more Toyotas, Hondas, etc. These may have been commandeered by the Iraqi military. We’ll never know. Because this is war. This is what war is about. No niceties, no civil rights, no attorney, no judge, no jury.

On this Memorial Day, the 5th since George W. Bush declared “Mission Accomplished” on the deck of the aircraft carrier, Abraham Lincoln: let’s keep our volunteer soldiers in our thoughts and in our hearts. Let’s work to bring them home. Safe. Let’s also keep the Iraqi and Afghan civilians in our hearts and let’s work to be sure that they came get home. Safe.

Please give what you can to Médecins sans Frontières (Doctors without Borders) and support Kiva.

And, of course

Some days there’s nothing more to say.
Could it get any worse? Oh, yes.
Will it get any worse? Probably.
Will we survive the Bush administration? Hope so.
Is this the end of life as we know it? Who knows?

But, we do need to take our collective heads out of the sand and face up to what is going on.

Please give what you can to Médecins sans Frontières (Doctors without Borders) and support Kiva.

And, of course

Nicolas Sarkozy, on the other hand, presented himself as the very essence of a very a very modern American of the western variety. He even posed for photos riding his white horse on a ranch in southern France. He promised to forge closer relations with Washington. Ah Madame France, où est vous?

Meanwhile, across the Channel, Tony “the poodle” Blair is on his way out. The closer Blair got to Bush, the more he was reviled by the British. Now, what will Blair do for the rest of his days? What can he possibly do to change history? The short of it is he can’t and he’s too intelligent to deny that history will write his epitaph.

And yet, intelligence seems to fall by the wayside when hubris corrupts the soul. Hubris has the power to turn intelligent human beings into idiots who have lost the ability to be self-critical. It’s the only thing that can explain how normally reasoning people get caught up in the most egregious kinds of scandals we’ve seen during the Bush administration.

So, now we can only wait to see if M. Sarkozy loses his way. Will he fall prey to the beast called hubris? He appears to have already taken on the role of the new French poodle. However, not even Nicolas Sarkozy will follow the “loyal Bushies” to the chasm, I suspect. Only time will tell. In the meantime, we can hope that he will refrain from calling the French of foreign descent, “scum.”

Please give what you can to Médecins sans Frontières (Doctors without Borders) and support Kiva.

And, of course

*Mais c’est dur à supporter,
Un salaud préfabriqué
Qu’on habille de votre peau
Et qui porte vos chapeaux.

But it is hard to support,
a prefabricated bastard
Whom one equips with your skin
And which wears your hats.

Let’s take this nice and slow. Say we’re both in charge of something, like a nation. We hold co-equal status according to our Constitution. I’m the President and you’re the Congress. Now, say I want to do something that you don’t want me to do. For argument’s sake, let’s say I want to continue a war that you don’t want me to continue.

It might seem easy, if I also hold the title ‘Commander-in-Chief.’ Aha! Well, when it comes to war, I would seem to have the trump card. But, also for the sake of argument, let’s say that I am just about the only person who wants to continue this war. Even my supporters aren’t all that thrilled about my war these days. Counter-balancing my power, you have control of the public purse. hmmmm . . . This is starting to get interesting.

Let’s go even farther: let’s say that all the reasons I gave you for going to war in the first place were wrong. We’re not going to get into whether I lied to you or was given bad intelligence. We’ll just leave it at all the reasons I gave have evaporated into the fog of war. There supposed to be weapons of mass destruction (read: atomic). There were none. There were supposed to be biological weapons. There were none. There supposed to be Al Qaeda training camps run by Saddam Hussein. There were none. There was supposed to be contact between the Iraqis and Mohammed Atta. There was none. There was supposed to be an Al Qaeda presence in Saddam’s Iraq. There was none then, there is one now. The only place where foreign insurgents were known to be before the war was in the north of Iraq, an area controlled by our good friends, the Kurds.

Further, when my original reasons for going to war evaporated; I decided to promote democracy in the Middle East. Never mind that the area has been at war with itself for millennia. Never mind that the Sunnis and Shiias have committing fratricide for the past 1,300 years. No one in the area asked us to bring democracy to them. It might be that democracy is not a cookie-cutter one-size-fits-all proposition. It just might be that we didn’t understand what the people of the Middle East want and that we oughtn’t to impose our belief systems on them.

Let’s expand this little discussion. Say that in addition to going to war on false premises, and then trying to change the reason when the first didn’t work out; I didn’t fund the enterprise properly because I didn’t want the American public to know just how much this war of choice was going to cost them. Instead of including the costs in the regular budget, let’s say that I kept submitting supplemental budgets and the cost keeps going up and up. In the meantime, I haven’t made sure that the troops have adequate armour: personal and on their humvees. Also, I haven’t made sure that the troops are honoured when they return home injured. I’ve also not honoured the dead by making sure that their coffins return in secret. It goes without saying that I haven’t honoured the dead by attending any of their funerals.

Now, taking all these factors: let’s run this through the logic machine. It buzzes and whirrs. It grunts and groans. It spits out an answer. On the thin strip of paper is a logic alert: “you are Wyle E. Coyote and you have just stepped off a cliff. DO NOT LOOK DOWN! Whoops, too late!” That’s right. I’m in freefall.

So, we’ve reached a point where I’m holding a gun to my own head and saying, “Don’t make me pull this trigger!” (Yes, shades of Cleavon Little in “Blazing Saddles,” “Nobody moves, or I shoot the nigger!”) No matter how many ways I threaten, I’m still lacking any logic to carry on this war. Now it’s up to you to deny me the funds. Honour our troops by bringing them home! For God’s sake, stop me before I bomb Iran!

Please give what you can to Médecins sans Frontières (Doctors without Borders) and support Kiva.

And, of course

Little did I dream you could be so reckless and so cruel . . . . If it were in my power to forgive you for your reckless cruelty, I would do so . . . but your forgiveness will have to come from someone other than me. Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?*
-Joseph Welch 9 June 1954
Army-McCarthy Hearings
Washington D.C.

There is something to be said for consistency, especially when it comes to the law. You’ll remember that Lady Justice is blindfolded: symbolising everyone’s equality under the law. Yes, she has those scales to complete the image of equality; but in her other hand she has that awesome sword. Lest we forget that not only is justice is blind, she’s also swift with that sword for miscreants who tread on her hem.

So, Americans live under the ‘rule of law.’ This was considered superior to the ‘rule of man’ by the framers of the Constitution. They were looking not so much at the chaos of a Hobbesian universe, as they were looking at the monarchical option. They wanted a way away from a mercurial monarch and toward the regularity and constancy of the Law.

All right, enough ancient history, let’s examine the recent past. When Bill Clinton was impeached (read: indicted). The conservatives said that it was for his perjury in front of a grand jury. They assured anyone who inquired that it was not, repeat not, for that salacious affair he had with the young woman with the thong. Of course, they did dwell on all of the gory details from the dress to the taped phone calls. Ah, those were the days.

Lap/dissolve to a few days ago: Lewis “Scooter” Libby, aide de camp to Vice President Dick Cheney, was convicted of perjury to a grand jury. True, he was found ‘not guilty’ of one charge of lying to the FBI, but he was convicted on 3 counts of perjury and 1 count of obstruction of justice.

Now if I were a lawyer, at this point I would point out that Mr. Libby was indicted and convicted. Mr. Clinton was indicted and not convicted. But, I’m not a lawyer; so let’s move on.

Simultaneously with the announcement of the Libby conviction, the legions of right-wing flacks came out of the woodwork to demand that George Bush pardon Scooter Libby. A pardon, of course, requires the offender to admit guilt before he/she can be pardoned. Innocent people are not pardoned, they don’t need to be. It really is that simple. Gerald Ford, God bless him, knew that. He was a Yale Law School grad after all. Until the day he died he insisted that his pardon of Richard Nixon was premised on Nixon accepting his guilt. Those of us with long memories will also remember that when Nixon’s V.P., Spiro Agnew, pled ‘nolo contendre,’ he insisted that he hadn’t pled ‘guilty,’ he had only pled ‘nolo.’ Pleading ‘nolo’ means “I’m not contesting the charges against me (i.e. yes, I’m guilty).

From watching these right-wingers and reading their bleatings, I get the feeling that they don’t understand this point of the law. Mr. Libby would have to admit his guilt in order to be pardoned. I suspect that Mr. Libby will not want to do this. It will be interesting to see how it all unfolds. But, the protestations from the Right did bring to mind the retort of Joseph Welch to Senator Joe McCarthy during the Army-McCarthy Hearings, “Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?” The right-wing has abandoned any consistency, and belief in the rule of law, any decency in order to support a man who has been convicted of perjury and obstruction of justice (Dems, you’ll remember said of Bill that what he did was reprehensible; but it didn’t rise to level of a ‘high crime.’ Most Dems didn’t try to whitewash what Bubba did. And, when you look at what this Administration has done to the Constitution and Bill of Rights; they make even Nixon look like a piker).

But, put on your safety belts, it looks as if 2007 is going to be a bumpy ride. In addition to finding out how the Veep manipulated the smear machine against Joe Wilson (his wife was just collateral damage), we’ll have more on the mismanagement of both the war and the re-building of Iraq, and then we’ll have the treatment of veterans by the DOD and the VA. Then, there’s the politicising of the Justice department. We mustn’t forget the corruption and kick-backs. It goes on and on. Yes, it’s going to be a very busy year; and to top it all off there’s our quadrennial follies: the Presidential election.

Does it get any better than this? We can only hope so.

Please give what you can to Médecins sans Frontières (Doctors without Borders).

And, of course

*Here is more of the quote with a video:
Little did I dream you could be so reckless and so cruel as to do an injury to that lad. It is, I regret to say, equally true that I fear he shall always bear a scar needlessly inflicted by you. If it were in my power to forgive you for your reckless cruelty, I would do so. I like to think I’m a gentle man, but your forgiveness will have to come from someone other than me.

You’ve done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?

Since late January I’ve withdrawn to my little cave in the side of the mountain. I can’t explain it. Maybe I was just recharging. Maybe I couldn’t look beyond the rim of the chasm anymore without wanting to jump. As is so often said, “It’s nothing personal,” I just had the feeling that everything on this 3rd rate little planet, circling a 5th rate star, was swirling down a huge black hole.

It’s not as if anything has changed, but I’ve upped my Prozac and I’m looking at things a little different now. Now, different should not be read as rosy. Different is different, not better. It appears that approximately 24,000 more soldiers will be sent to Iraq in the next few months. Democrats are so afraid of being labeled as defeatists (or “cut and runners”) that they’ve packed their balls away for the time being. Frankly, I thing that they should take their Conservative critics up on their challenge to do more than pass non-binding resolutions. Finger-wagging doesn’t stop an administration bent on accruing more power for themselves than Croesus had gold.

Try to wrap your head around this question: what are the long-term goals of this administration? I’m not talking about tomorrow or the next day. I’m thinking through the end of the century. What do you think that they’re trying to achieve in the world? Let’s use a little logic here: what can be achieved by continuing a war in Iraq? What would happen if the U.S. (and don’t talk about a so-called coalition. They turned tail a long ago) were to pull out tomorrow? Who is fighting whom there?

The first question: what can we achieve by staying? We would inevitably end up fighting with one side against another. We would have to either support Shia’a or Sunni. If we support the Shia’a, we would be empowering Iran and Hezbollah. If we support the Sunnis, we would be allowing the hegemons of the area to probably feel empowered to cleanse the region of Shia’as. Either way, it’s a blood bath with a 1,300 year history.

The reality on the ground is that the attacks on American troops at the moment are largely coming from Sunni insurgents. These Sunnis are being supported and supplied by our very good friends, Saudi Arabia. At the end of that long day, by supporting the Sunnis, we’re supporting Al Qaeda and a whole lot off others who don’t have our best interests in mind. This is not saying that the Shia’as have clean hands, but they are rather busy getting even with Sunnis. There are no ‘good guys’ in this scenario.

Well, there are some good ‘guys’: the volunteers who have now been ‘gang-pressed’ into service to the U.S. government. It’s these soldiers who’ve come up with the wonderful term FUBAR. It rivals the WW II term SNAFU. Why do all the good sardonic comments come from the grunts? There’s always going to be a “Willie” and “Joe,” tersely commenting on all they see. Today’s soldiers were promised certain things about being in a peacetime army, which they probably shouldn’t have believed. But, they were also promised a lifetime of care by the Veterans’ Administration. Now we have found out what they found out right after the invasion of Iraq: the covenant with our veterans was broken on 20 January 2001. All of the progress in bringing up the VA facilities up to world-class standards during the previous 8 years was negated on that day. Veterans who had been promised a lifetime of care now had prove that their medical problems were service-related. A veteran could no longer count on his/her willingness to sacrifice his/her body for flag and country to be reciprocated by lifelong care by a grateful nation.

Well, I’ve gone off on a rant and haven’t even tackled the second question. Shall we save that for another day? I think so, but let me leave you with this little headline, “Hualapai Indians hope a new glass skywalk over the Grand Canyon will provide the impoverished tribe with a desperately needed economic boost.”

Yes, it’s completely off-subject. But just think about it for a second. The tribe have invested quite a bit of filthy lucre to build a glass walkway that juts out over a ledge on their reservation in their wee corner of the Grand Canyon. Conservationists and preservationist have their knickers in knots over this. The tribe is hoping to get more tourism at their particular little desolate spot. Note that they aren’t opening a casino. Nor are they just sitting around complaining about their off-season 80% unemployment. They have taken their little ‘lemon’ of a spot and tried to make it into lemonade. Sometimes you can’t win for trying. For myself, I can’t wait to try out that glass walkway; even if my knees go all wobbly beneath me. Hoorah for the Hualapai!

Please give what you can to Médecins sans Frontières (Doctors without Borders).

And, of course

*F#&!ked Up Beyond All Recognition

Mr. Bush gave his State of the Union (SOTU) speech on Tuesday night. He got very high ratings. Some 45 million people were watching to see what he was going to say and propose for our republic. I don’t know what they were expecting or hoping for; but I do know what they got.

It was one of his shorter speeches, lasting only 49 minutes: It just seemed longer. Unlike his last speech to the nation, he didn’t admit that any mistakes had been made in Iraq. Of course when he did say the “mistakes had been made,” in his previous speech; he said it in the passive voice so that the blame couldn’t be placed at the clay feet of this administration.

He couldn’t avoid the subject of Iraq: it took up half of his 49 minutes. But, this time he was asking the newly-emboldened Democratic Congress to give war a chance (An aside here: he referred to Congress as Democrat, leaving off the “ic.” This is Republican tactic designed to annoy Democrats. Somehow it’s supposed to deny Democrats the ability to be democratic. What it is, in reality, is petty. It shows Republicans for what they are. Shall we now call Republicans, “Republics”?).

Returning to the SOTU: there were some subjects that came up more than in the past. These subjects were health insurance, oil, Iraq, Al Qaeda, terrorism, and deficits. What was even more interesting were those things that came up less or not at all in Tuesday night’s speech: surpluses, Social Security, taxes, and the economy. Finally, Osama bin Laden was mentioned just once. Yes, he is Osama bin Forgotten as far as George W. Bush is concerned.

The speech was filled with half-truths, false dichotomies, and obfuscations. Health insurance was an interesting topic. Mr. Bush stopped short of saying the health insurance should be universal. George Bush doesn’t see a healthy life as a human right. He proposed a plan designed to fail that involved tax credits and a heavier burden on the middle class than on the people who can afford to help life the burden the most: the wealthy. Nowhere was the suggestion that we share the burden as a country.

As to oil, he proposed that we use less oil without putting forward a concrete plan to move American energy consumption to something other than fossil fuel. He gave it lip service, but this oil man hasn’t given up on fossil fuel consumption yet.

He certainly didn’t address the corruption that has run rampant for the last 6 years of his administration. He didn’t discuss the no-bid contracts in Iraq. He didn’t bring up Mssr. DeLay, Cunningham, Ney, Libby, or any of the other sordid bit players in this corrupt administration.

In the end, it was his sad defence of his war on the Iraqi people that was stomach turning. The question left unanswered was, why? Why should we allow him to spend more blood and treasure on what the overwhelming majority of Americans (and the world) consider a mistake and a lost cause?

He summed up his argument saying, “We went into this largely united, in our assumptions and in our convictions . . . and whatever you voted for, you did not vote for failure.” No one voted for what he has given us either. Why should we give more of our children, Iraqi children, our treasure, Iraqi treasure to prolong an unmitigated disaster?

Thucydides wrote more than 2,500 years ago about a mis-adventure that led the Greeks to ruin in Sicily. The neo-cons of the time assured the Greek populace and leaders that the Sicilians would greet them with flowers and come over to the Greek side. Is any of this sounding familiar? In the end, the war of choice that the Greeks pursued against Sicily ended up destroying the Greek democracy and saw the rise of Sparta as a force in the ancient world.

In those days, the Greek soldiers who weren’t killed out right were sold into slavery. At least our brave soldiers won’t be sold into slavery. They aren’t dying on the battlefield in the numbers of previous wars; but they are coming home irretrievably broken. No amount of bionic legs can make someone whole again. The numbers of brain injuries are staggering. This is by-product of IEDs, the weapon of choice in Iraq.

We are fighting an asymmetrical war. It’s war that a conventional army cannot win. Ask the French and the Russians. We should have learned from the French catastrophes in Dien Bien Phu and Algeria. Baring that, we should have learned from the Russians’ experience in Afghanistan.
This is not a ‘war’ that can be won by a military. This ‘war’ needs good intelligence, good police work, and patience. Mr. Bush has not availed himself of the first two and he doesn’t seem to have any of the third.

In the film, “The Wizard of Oz,” the Cowardly Lion was a tremendous bully before Dorothy gave his nose a whack. Someone needs to give George W. Bush a whack across the nose. The resolutions that Congress is going to pass will come close, but only if a large number of Republicans join in will the resolutions have the sting that’s needed to stop the madness at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. God help us one and all.

Please give what you can to Médecins sans Frontières (Doctors without Borders).

And, of course

*Bert Lahr (Cowardly Lion): Courage! What makes a king out of a slave?
Courage!
What makes the flag on the mast to wave?
Courage!
What makes the elephant charge his tusk in the misty mist, or the dusky dusk?
What makes the muskrat guard his musk?
Courage! What makes the sphinx the seventh wonder?
Courage!
What makes the dawn come up like thunder?
Courage!
What makes the Hottentot so hot?
What puts the “ape” in apricot?
What have they got that I ain’t got?
All: Courage!
Bert Lahr (Cowardly Lion): You can say that again! Huh?

This graphic was with an article in the New York Times on 17 January (click on the link for a better view). I hardly know what to say after studying it. We were warned almost ½ a century ago by President Eisenhower about the pitfalls and folly of letting the military-industrial complex grow larger. We now work to feed the beast. What is criminal is what we could do to improve life in our country (and the world) if we didn’t feed this beast.

True, this graph is about the cost of the war in Iraq, but Iraq is merely a manifestation of the iron grip that the military-industrial has on our economy, our lives, and our very souls. It isn’t that we could have funded universal health care, or universal preschool, or ensure our security by enacting all of the 9/11 Commission’s recommendations, or conquering cancer, or immunize all of the children of the world against childhood diseases: we could have done it all and have a chunk of change left over.

Instead, we have more Americans lacking medical insurance than before 2000. We have children not getting the early head start on education that would make them better educated and more employable in the 21st century. We are less secure and have ports and borders that are not better protected than before 9/11. We’ve been lucky so far, but we can’t be lucky forever. Yes, cancer deaths have gone down, but wouldn’t it be wonderful to be rid of that scourge forever? And, children are dying around the world for lack of the most rudimentary of immunizations.

Let’s stop feeding the beast. Let’s stop allowing excuses to be made that only serve to prioritize our resources into areas that don’t benefit us. Let’s stop spending blood and treasure on a mis-adventure that has no good end.

We do need to go after terrorists around the world. What we don’t need to do is go to war. War only encourages the growth of terrorism, and don’t let the administration fool you: this war has made terrorism a growth industry. Good police work and intelligence are what is needed to fight terrorism. In “old” Europe, that is what has been breaking up terrorist cells. Diplomacy is what needed to pressure countries to support the fight against terrorists.

War is always the last and worst resort. We sentient beings can do better.

Please give what you can to Médecins sans Frontières (Doctors without Borders).

And, of course

Have you ever written a paper in a word processing program and had the damn thing tell you that you were writing in the passive voice? Well, Mr. Bush’s speech the other night would have brought the ‘passive voice’ flag up often. “Where mistakes have been made the responsibility rests with me.” That is the cleverest use of the passive voice that I may have ever heard. He appears to take responsibility; while, in fact, pointing the finger at unknown others. What is he saying? That others have made mistakes; and he is magnanimously stepping up and accepting responsibility even though, mind you, he didn’t make the mistakes. Of course, if he had said, “I have made mistakes,” he would have been taking the blame, but only grown ups do that.

In this administration, no one takes responsibility. Advancement is based on who one knows, not what one knows. Diligence is punished, and incompetence is rewarded. Americans going to Iraq to work in the interim government were vetted by their allegiance to the Republican Party and the agenda of the religious right. People were questioned on who they voted for and whether or not they supported Roe V. Wade. This is the same administration, remember, that has been trying to disembowel the civil service in the U.S. in order to return to a spoils system in bureaucratic appointments. But, I stray from the point of Mr. Bush’s speech.

In his speech Mr. Bush made many claims. Let’s look at just a couple:

First of all, if Iraq is a part of the ‘War on Terror’ it’s because we started a war of choice there. Before we arrived to topple Saddam, Al Qaeda was present only in the Kurdish-controlled north. Al Qaeda would not truck with Saddam as Bin Laden considered Saddam as apostate. Saddam was not an observant Muslim, he was a convenient Muslim. Basically, Saddam believed in strong central government. That is, all power emanating from him. If he were anything, Socialist would come the closest to describing him. His religious convictions were opportunistic, at best.

Further, Iraq is only one theatre in the so-called ‘War on Terror.’ Afghanistan, Pakistan, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, the whole Horn of Africa, and the Philippines (not to mention the rest of the ‘Stans) are all playing important roles. As to our safety ‘here at home,’ we’re nowhere near being safe. So far, we’ve been lucky. Also, we’ve created more Jihadists in Iraq and around the world by our bungling aggression in the Middle East.

What Mr. Bush is asking of us is another chance for him to win at this crap shoot. It’s typical of any addict-enabler situation. He has lost at every throw of the dice, but he wants one more chance because he just ‘knows’ that this time he can win. We are the enablers if we are willing to go along with his folly. Blood and treasure have been spent on this mirage in the desert. Reasons for continuing have changed more often than we can count: WMD morphed into Democracy morphed into fighting Al Qaeda morphed into ‘stay the course’ morphed into:

Actually, in the main, the fight in Iraq is between Sunnis and Shi’ahs. Recruits for ‘radical Islamic extremists’ are fighting American troops. If Americans weren’t there the Sunnis and Shi’ahs could go back to their schism of 1300 some odd years. As to the ‘moderate’ governments in the region, could you point one out? Even the most advanced enlightened governments in the region cannot be considered moderate by American standards. Creating chaos in the region? Sorry, we’ve done that already. Finally, oil revenues will always fund someone’s ambitions. What we’ve assured with our adventurism is that the ’someone’ who ends up with those revenues will probably not have our best interests in mind. And you know what? There’s not a damn thing we can do about it.

Let’s get some historical perspective here. In the 1950s the U.S. had an incredible brother team running the State Department and the CIA. John Foster and Allen Dulles convinced Americans that their ‘Domino Theory’ was real and that the Soviets were a direct and equal threat to the West. The Domino Theory was used to pursue the war in Vietnam. We were told that the consequences of South Vietnam falling were a Communist takeover of all Southeast Asia. Did you hear that the other day, as Mr. Bush was giving his speech, Vietnam was joining the WTO? No, dominos fell. As to the power of the Soviet Union it was always a sham built on a pretense. But, the bigger you build up your opponents, the more you can commit to fighting them. It was during the Dulles brothers’ reign that President Eisenhower gave his speech warning us of the growing strength of the Military Industrial Complex. We’ve been feeding this beast ever since. Those who don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

There were more false dichotomies and outright lies and obfuscation in the speech that Mr. Bush gave on Wednesday night. There was an excellent parsing of the speech in the op-ed section of the New York Times on Friday. It’s worth your time to read it. So, here’s the bottom line: will Georgie “make his bones” roll him a win or will he roll ’snake eyes’ yet again? Either way, we lose. You pays your money, you takes your chances.

Please give what you can to Médecins sans Frontières (Doctors without Borders).

And, of course