Death of George Kennan

George Kennan, who passed on last night, was the proof that a Foreign Service officer can be more than just a bureaucrat. The New York Times obituary brings out, though, how at odds he was with the government and its policies after the initial success of his "long telegram" from Moscow and the Foreign Affairs X article. Interestingly, his initial success continued upon his return to Washington after World War II as the head of State Department policy planning under General George Marshall, where Kennan was one of the originators of the Marshall Plan for the reconstruction of Europe. General Marshall is another of my heroes. He and Kennan represent some of the best of America, men of high moral character who excelled in serving their country. Their policies were truly "Christian" in the sense that they embodied the ideal of loving your neighbor that is missing in current policies. I don't think either of them would necessarily like being called "Christian" today, with all the baggage that word carries. Earlier, Christian virtues of love and caring were instilled in people and became part of their world outlook without being tested by how often they went to church or whether they had "accepted Jesus as their personal savior."

The world learned that the retribution extracted from Germany after World War I did not work, and under Kennan's and Marshall's guidance a much more Christian policy of forgiveness after World War II was probably one of the most successful foreign policy strategies ever pursued.

Now, under Bush, we again have an un-Christian, World War I policy of revenge. I don't think it's going to work. Colin Powell was the leader closest to following the Kennan-Marshall policies, but he was canned by Bush because of that. Tough policies work for a while. There were about 30 years between World War I and World War II. Hitler had great success for the first decade or so of his leadership in Germany. But the post World War II regime lasted over 60 years, before it was cast aside by narrow minds and greedy leaders.

Bush Names Wolfowitz to World Bank

It will be interesting to see what happens with the Wolfowitz nomination to the World Bank. The Yahoo article reporting Bush's decision said:

"European sources said Wolfowitz's name was circulated informally among board directors several weeks ago and was rejected. 'Mr. Wolfowitz's nomination today tells us the U.S. couldn't care less what the rest of the world thinks,' one source said."

The predominantly Jewish neo-cons believe that the only thing that counts is power, that the US is the only superpower in the world today, and thus that it can do anything it wants. Bush is apparently testing that theory. Some events in the Middle East, Iraqi elections and Lebanese demonstrations, for example, indicate that he may be right, but time will tell. There's no new government in either Iraq or Lebanon, yet.

As you can probably guess from my previous postings, I'm not too happy with Wolfowitz' nomination. He does have diplomatic experience as Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia, Ambassador to Indonesia, and dean of the John's Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) , but his role as chief villain in the Iraq war overshadows any good he may have done before.

It's interesting that one Jew whose surname starts with Wolf, is named to replace another Jew whose surname starts with Wolf. It's a small club. But as far as I know, Wolfowitz is American, while current World Bank President Wolfensohn was born in Australia. Interestingly, Clinton's choice to be US Ambassador to Israel, Martin Indyk, is also Australian, a Jew who was born in England, but raised in Australia. Indyk also taught at SAIS. Small world!

Joyce's Ulysses 2

Page 33 of the Borders edition of Ulysses that is a facsimile of the 1922 edition:

"Mark my words, Mr. Dedalus, he said. England is in the hands of the jews. In all the highest places: her finance, her press. And they are the signs of a nation's decay. Wherever they gather they eat up the nation's vital strength. I have seen it coming these years. As sure as we are standing here the jew merchants are already at their work of destruction. Old England is dying."

And later, p. 36:

"-- I just wanted to say, he said. Ireland, they say, has the honour of being the only country which never persecuted the jews. Do you know that? No. And do you know why?

"He frowned sternly on the bright air.

"-- Why, sir, Stephen asked, beginning to smile.

"-- Because she never let them in, Mr Deasy said solemnly.

"A coughball of laughter leaped from his throat dragging after it a rattling chain of phlegm. He turned back quickly, coughing, laughing, his lifted arms waving to the air."

US Withdrawal from ICJ Review of Vienna Convention Cases

The US has withdrawn from the agreement allowing the International Court of Justice to review cases involving the Vienna Convention. The court ruled last year that the US had failed to comply with the provisions of the Vienna Convention granting access by consuls of the home country to Mexicans arrested in the United States.

The decision to withdraw is a sad one for the US, since we should be leading the way in respecting law, not acting as a scofflaw. In addition, the Vienna Convention will do more to protect American citizens who are arrested overseas than it will interfere punishing with foreigners arrested in the US. Despite all the press about our treatment of some people arrested on terrorist charges (see my previous post), Americans do not routinely torture suspects arrested by the police, while other countries do, which is why I so strongly oppose the policy of rendition of US prisoners to other countries.

This is another example of the neo-cons' contempt for international law, regardless of the justifications made below by the State Department briefer. Contempt for international law is probably a self-fulfilling strategy. Law depends on tradition and precedent, and to the extent that the US asserts its sovereignty and refuses to acknowledge international law, international law ceases to function. Traditionally good, moral countries have benefited from international law, and bad countries have been hindered by it, which is not to say that international law will prevent a bad country determined to go to war with its neighbors from doing so, but it is a hindrance, and tends to show who is right and who is wrong. By snubbing its nose at international law, the US is lining up on the wrong side of the law with the bad guys.

Another neo-con objection is that opponents of the death penalty are using this international law provision to try to block executions, which is true. But, on the other hand, if the states involved, particularly Texas, had complied with the provisions of the Vienna Convention by granting Mexican consuls access to the prisoners, then this channel would not be open to the death penalty opponents. The states left themselves vulnerable by failing to abide by the Vienna Convention. Plus, the death penalty issue cuts another way: these are not cases of petty theft or shoplifting; these are cases in which the state is going to kill the accused. Therefore, it seems proper that the state should make a concerted effort to fulfill every legal requirement before it does so, including complying with the Vienna Convention.

The following is the statement made at the Department of State press briefing on March 10, 2005:

QUESTION: Adam, can you discuss a bit about the rational behind the Administration's decision to withdraw from the optional protocol through the Geneva Conventions which give the International Court of Justice and measure of jurisdiction in U.S. capital cases? There's already criticism that this is part of a continuing trend of unilateralism --

MR. ERELI: Right. Well, let me address that latter criticism first. I don't think anybody should conclude by our decision to withdraw from the optional protocol that we are any less committed to the international system or that we are in any way walking back from international commitments. To the contrary, we remain a party to the Vienna Convention, we remain committed to fulfilling its provisions and we stand by it.

Second of all, the International Court of Justice, pursuant to a dispute referred to it under the optional protocol, rendered a judgment in the Avena a case dealing with how state courts in the United States handles certain capital cases of foreign nationals' claim to consular access. That is a decision that -- the decision the ICJ handed down is a decision, frankly, that we don't agree with.

Yet, in recognition of the optional protocol and our international commitments, the President has determined that the United States will comply with the judgment of the International Court of Justice and that we will review -- our state courts will review -- the cases that ICJ responded to.

However, we would also note that when we signed up to the optional protocol, it is not anticipated that this -- that when you refer a case -- cases that would be referred to the ICJ and the ICJ would use the -- and the optional protocol would be used to review cases of domestic criminal law.

This is a development, frankly, that we had not anticipated in signing up to the optional protocol and that we, frankly -- we -- and I would note, you know, 70 percent of the countries that are signatories to the Vienna Convention also decided not to sign up to the optional protocol so it's not just the United States going against everybody else. I mean, we are in a sense joining an existing majority in not participating in the optional protocol and the reason is because we see the optional protocol being used by people or developing in -- going in directions that was not our intent in getting involved.

I mean, so the bottom line is we believe in the international system, we are a committed participants in the international system, as reflected by our continued commitment to the Vienna Convention and its provisions, as well as our decision to comply with the judgment. But at the same time, we see that in this specific case, and in the use of optional protocol, frankly, the way it's being interpreted, the way it's being used, go against the ideas -- the original ideas -- that we signed up for.

QUESTION: But protocol came in handy for the United States during the Iran hostage crisis. Then there's criticism that we're now cherry-picking the provisions that we like and don't like, that this might be short-sighted in the long-run.

MR. ERELI: Well, again, I don't think we're cherry-picking. I think that this is a really unexpected and unwelcome precedent where people who don't like decisions of our state courts can use an international court as a court of appeal. And that doesn't make any sense at all. And so what we're talking about is, we've got a system of justice that works in the United States and I don't think you should compare it to other countries, like Iran in 1979. We have a system of justice that works. We have a system of justice that provides people with due process and review of their cases. And it's not appropriate that there be some international court that comes in and can reverse decisions of our national courts.

QUESTION: A follow-up?

MR. ERELI: Yeah.

QUESTION: But why does the United States on the one hand decide to, you know, go along with this ruling to review these cases and then just days later decide to pull back?

MR. ERELI: Because, precisely because, we respect the international system, because we respect the authorities and the jurisdictions of international institutions when we sign up to those international -- when we sign up and submit ourselves to those jurisdictions. So it shows that, look, even though we don't like something, even though we think it's wrong, if we submitted ourselves to that jurisdiction freely and according to international obligations, then we will honor those international obligations. And that's why we are complying with the case.

But we're also saying in the future we're going to find other ways to resolve disputes that come under the Vienna Convention other than submitting them to the ICJ. We'll do something else. So we're still committed to the Vienna Convention. We're still committed to upholding its principles and fulfilling our obligations under that convention. What we are saying is when there are questions about that, we'll seek to resolve them in a venue other than the ICJ. Given that the ICJ is in this case, as well as the Lagrand case, establish a precedent of using this mechanism to affect our domestic legal system.

US Treatment of Prisoners Accused of Terrorism Is Becoming a Scandal

The various reports of mistreatment of Muslims accused by the Administration of being terrorists are becoming so widespread that it is reaching scandalous proportions. In Iraq, Abu Ghraib is the most widely known, but there are allegations of mistreatment at other Iraqi facilities. Several prisoners are reported to have died in US custody in Afghanistan. There are numerous reports of mistreatment of prisoners at Guantanamo. Finally, there are prisoners who are unaccounted for although they were arrested or captured by US police or military; most of these are thought to be in countries that will torture them on behalf of the US under a process called rendition.

Today there are reports that a judge has blocked the transfer of 13 Yemenis from Guantanamo to some unknown site. Apparently the Administration wished to transfer them somewhere, because it is afraid that the US court system, in accordance with recent decisions by the US Supreme Count, will assert its authority over them and make the government prove that it has some legal basis for holding them. Attorneys got wind of this plan and got a judge to block their transfer while the courts still had authority over the prisoners. Much to the government's dismay, the Supreme Court held that keeping prisoners at Guantanamo did not prevent the courts from having jurisdiction over them. So, the administration apparently wanted to move them farther away to a foreign country where the Supreme Court would have less basis for exercising its authority.

It remains to be seen, but some justices on the Supreme Court may not like the government's attempt to undermine the Court's ruling and avoid its jurisdiction by moving the prisoners. That, plus the disturbing stories of how the prisoners that were captured by US authorities have been treated in foreign countries under the extraordinary rendition process, may cause the Supreme Court to extend its reach farther than it has in the rulings to date.

The whole matter of treatment of prisoners taken in the "war on terrorism" disgusts me. I am deeply disappointed that the US has stooped to terrorist methods in fighting terrorism. When the government abandons our system of laws under the Constitution, the terrorists have won a battle, if not the war. I was disappointed that Kissinger and Holbrooke today on CNN's Late Edition failed to roundly condemn the process of rendition, although they certainly did not say that it is a good thing.

America has ceased to be a shining city on a hill, which it has been at some times in the past, if not at all times. Lights of freedom, honor and dignity are going out all over the America. Part of the reason for this is that many in government are cowards. They avoided service in Vietnam. Even if they are too young to have served in Vietnam, they are not interested in serving the country, but they came into power interested in milking the country for every red cent they could get. Then when they were laying the foundation for paying off all the powerful interests that put them in power -- passing tax cuts, etc. -- terrorists attacked us. The attacks succeeded because the administration was asleep, and now is terrified that there will be other attacks. Partly they are afraid that they will die, and partly they are afraid that if they fail to stop another attack the American people will wake up and turn against them for their failures. Therefore, they have panicked and resorted to torture and other illegal or immoral means to try to stop another attack, when the proper response would be to look the terrorists in the eye, and say, "You can't make me stoop to your level. I can beat you by fighting you legally and morally." But this group of cowards can't face up to that.

Some time ago, Pat Buchanan said on the McLaughlin Group television show that midway through his second term, George Bush II would be mired in a huge scandal. He didn't say what it would be, and probably was just extrapolating from the experience of previous two-term presidents: Clinton's Monica scandal and impeachment, Reagan's Iran-Contra, Nixon's Watergate, etc. However, the high-handed, illegal, immoral treatment of those captured by US authorities in the war on terrorism may be it.

Joyce's Ulysses

I am concerned that so much of this blog has recently been about Jews. This was never an issue for me until I was assigned to the American Embassy in Warsaw, Poland, during the 50th anniversary of the end of World War II. It was all-Holocaust all the time. It was totally in your face. It appeared that the Holocaust was the most important thing that happened in World War II.

Of course, actually the most important thing was that the Allies defeated Hitler. If they hadn't, where would the Jews be? It was particularly grating because my father fought in Europe during World War II. Shouldn't he get some recognition for that? Now with the Jewish spin, there is mostly criticism that the Allies were too slow liberating the Nazi death camps. But they did liberate them. Couldn't the Jews at least say "Thanks"?

I just started reading James Joyce's Ulysses, which probably means I have too much time on my hands, but I found the following in the opening pages:

"Of course I'm a Britisher, Haine's voice said, and I feel as one. I don't want to see my country fall into the hands of German jews either. That's our national problem, I'm afraid, just now."

This comes after considerable discussion running down the Roman Catholic church.

I don't know much about Ulysses, except that it's supposed to be a classic. I suppose even classics might contain anti-Semitism. But it might be that Jews are not entirely guiltless in this matter. Israel is a small country, but it is responsible for an enormous amount of the animosity in the world.

In general, Anglos are somewhat reserved and perhaps cold. Jews are not. I remember a description in the Wall Street Journal years ago of the different personalities of former Citibank chief John Reed, an Anglo, and his successor, Sandy Weill, a Jew who forced Reed out, albeit with a huge golden parachute. The Journal talked about how cold Reed was and how in-your-face Weill was.

I just stumbled on another similar description in Business Week on the Internet of Weill and then-American Express CEO James Robinson III.

"The merger discussions between Weill and Robinson were marked by their contrasting personalities and backgrounds. Weill was a striver who had fired thousands and alienated some of his former partners and, doubtless, many others on his way to the top. Robinson had glided into power, it seemed, stepping on few, if any, toes. Weill was as emotional as Robinson was cool. Shearson was as loud and noisy as AmEx was buttoned-down and corporate. They knew there would be a culture clash, but they hoped the new firm would gain the best of both cultures.

"Not only were Robinson's and Weill's personalities and backgrounds different, so were their management styles. At the time of his merger negotiations with Robinson, Weill still ran Shearson as he had run CBWL-Hayden Stone, smoking cigars, getting in subordinates' faces, making snap decisions, and continuing to combine personal and professional lives. For example, he and Joan would go on vacations with key executives and their wives after weeks of all-nighters working on a deal.

"Robinson, known as 'Jimmy Three Sticks,' ran American Express like the Fortune 500 company it was. Son of a banker from a prominent Atlanta family, he spoke with polish. Thoughtful and considerate, Robinson embodied the image of a courtly Southern gentleman. In his frequent speeches and public appearances around the world, he came across as a strong, hard-charging CEO, yet inside the firm, his leadership style could be described as conservative. He eschewed risk, preferring a bureaucratic, committee approach to decision making. A formal process was in place to vet new ideas. Things moved slowly and inefficiently to avoid mistakes.

"Importantly for Weill's later showdowns with John Reed (the CEO of Citibank, who became co-CEOs of Citigroup with Weill in 1998), Robinson shared some similarities with the deep-thinking Citicorp banker. Both took the reins of power in their early 40s. Both were firm believers in the transforming power of technology. Both were happy to delegate authority, preferring to conceive of grand plans and let others perform the at-times mundane efforts to carry them out. Weill, of course, shared none of these characteristics with the two biggest adversaries of his career. Luckily for him, he had to face only one at a time.

Another recent example, from the New York Times, is a description of Dr. Zvi Y. Fuks (presumably Jewish with the name Zvi), one of the doctors recently accused of insider trading in Imclone stock by Sam Waksal, the Jewish man who sent Martha Stewart to jail. The Times article said:

"Dr. Louis A. Pena, who worked with Dr. Fuks in the late 1990's, said: 'He can get aggressive; if he disagrees with you he gets two inches away from your nose and tells you so.' But Dr. Pena, now a scientist at the Brookhaven National Laboratory, also said that Dr. Fuks was smart, capable and highly respected."

There may well be some personality differences here having to do with race, religion, upbringing, or something. You have to wonder what's going on in the Pentagon between Rumsfeld (Anglo), and Wolfowitz and Feith (Jews). Looking at these other examples above, it seems likely that the Jews in the Pentagon and their Jewish neo-con allies outside the Pentagon, at the American Enterprise Institute and various other think tanks and publications, are running the show. Iraq may well be a race war in which Jews send Christian soldiers to kill Muslims. I can only say with Joseph Conrad as his boat plowed into the Heart of Darkness, or with Marlon Brando's version in Apocalypse Now, "The horror! The horror!"

Can't Let Bolton Go By

I can't let John Bolton's nomination as Ambassador to the UN go by unnoticed. Liberal Democrats were so happy when Bob Zoellick was named Deputy Secretary of State instead of Bolton. The Republicans played the public affairs angle well. Condi Rice got some credit for not being a dyed in the wool neo-con while she went to Europe to make goo-goo eyes at Chirac and company. But it was all a farce. The Bush administration showed its true colors by naming Bolton to an even more visible foreign policy job than Deputy Secretary.

I don't think it bodes well for the US. I don't think Bolton is very smart despite his two degrees from Yale. Yale has turned out some pretty poor scholars, starting with "W." However, I think the main trouble with W may be that he is lazy; he doesn't like to do his homework. Thousands died on 9/11 because he was not minding the store. Similarly, Bolton's problem is not so much that he is stupid -- he may not be -- but that he is an unquestioning ideologue. He knows what he thinks; don't confuse him with the facts.

The upshot is that Bolton has done a poor job of controlling the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction during the first four years of the Bush administration. Iraq didn't have any, but crying "Wolf!" on Iraq has undermined our credibility on dealing with more serious non-proliferation countries, such as North Korea and Iran.

Will he do any better at the UN than he did handling arms control? I doubt it, especially since he will be dealing with people and institutions that he has already insulted. He started his crusade against the UN while he was Assistant Secretary for International Organizations (the UN) during the Bush I administration. He has a long history of working against the UN as one of the main US policy makers on UN issues.

It's interesting that one of Bolton's main accomplishments cited by Condi Rice during his previous stint working on UN issues was blocking the Arab "Zionism is racism" resolution at the UN. I think there is at least a racist component to Zionism. If not, why do Israelis discriminate between Arabs and Jews? It's a commonly accepted thesis, most recently by the mayor of London. So, Bolton gets no points from me for defeating that resolution.

Not Exactly A Reconciliation

I have found it strange that the main papers have not discussed the odd meeting arrangements for Bush's trip to Europe. An NSC briefing by Hadley describes the schedule. Granted NATO was apparently having some sort of high level meeting, but why should Bush go to this one, except as an excuse for some other meetings? He met Chirac on neutral ground in Belgium, and refused to invite Chirac to the US when offered the opportunity. The day after dinner with Chirac in Belgium, he apparently had breakfast at the US ambassador's in Brussels with the UK's Tony Blair. He is also meeting Putin on neutral ground in Slovakia, although he plans to visit Schroeder in Germany. Germany is part of the EU; why didn't Schroeder visit Bush in Brussels, as Chirac did? Furthermore, Bush is meeting Schroeder in Frankfurt/Mainz, not in the capital of Berlin; so, again, although Bush will be on German soil, he's still staying on somewhat neutral territory by staying out of Berlin.

It's too bad that Bush could not go to Paris, either because Chirac would not invite him, or because Bush would not accept the invitation. It's too bad that Bush could not go to Moscow for whatever reason.

I believe I saw Mrs. Bush today, Tuesday, in Germany addressing American troops without her husband. She's great. She probably wanted to get away from his oppressing entourage.

He's still a man in a cocoon, protected by his handlers from too much exposure to the outside world. I think that's very sad for an American president. Why does he have to be isolated by his handlers? I think it's because he is either stupid or lazy to learn his brief for high level meeting. Although people say he is friendly in private, publicly he comes across as boorish and impolite. Why can't he drop his arms to his sides? He has to swagger around like a little boy playing Napoleon in high heeled cowboy boots.

The President's schedule as described by Hadley at the NSC follows:

The President and Mrs. Bush will depart for Brussels, Belgium on Sunday, February 20th, arriving that evening. The President will start his meetings the next day, Monday, February 21st, paying a courtesy call to his hosts, Their Majesties King Albert II and Queen Paola of Belgium. The President will then meet with Prime Minister [Guy] Verhofstadt of Belgium, followed by a meeting with NATO Secretary General [Jaap] de Hoop Scheffer.

On Monday afternoon, the President will deliver a speech at the Concert Noble. The speech will focus on his vision of a united transatlantic community, working together to promote freedom and democracy, particularly in the broader Middle East. The speech will build upon the President's inaugural address and State of the Union remarks. It will be an opportunity for him to communicate directly with the people of Europe, and will show America's desire to work in partnership with Europe, based on common values, to advance the cause of freedom.

On Monday evening, President Bush and President [Jacques] Chirac, of France, will meet for a working dinner [at the residence of the US ambassador to Belgium].

On Tuesday, February 22nd, the President will begin his day with a breakfast with Prime Minister Tony Blair of the United Kingdom [at the residence of the US ambassador to Belgium], and then he will proceed to NATO Headquarters. Upon arriving at NATO, the President will meet with Ukrainian President [Viktor] Yuschenko. President Bush will then participate in a NATO-Ukraine Commission meeting, followed by a bilateral meeting with Prime Minister [Silvio] Berlusconi, of Italy.

Also on Tuesday morning, the President will participate in a meeting and luncheon with the NATO heads of state and government, and will participate in a press availability with the NATO Secretary General.

On Tuesday afternoon, the President will meet for the first time since the EU's historic enlargement with the now 25 member states of the European Council. He will hold a joint press availability with European Council President Prime Minister [Luxembourg Prime Minister Jean-Claude] Juncker, European Commission President [Jose Manuel] Barroso, and High Representative [for the Common Foreign and Security Policy] of the European Union Javier Solana.

That evening, President Bush will participate in a working dinner with the three representatives of the EU just named, namely Mssrs. Juncker, Barroso and Solana.

On Wednesday, February 23rd, the President and Mrs. Bush will depart Brussels, Belgium for Frankfurt, Germany. Upon arriving in Frankfurt and proceeding to Mainz, Germany, the President and Chancellor [Gerhard] Schröder will greet American and German soldiers that served in Afghanistan. The two leaders will then meet, followed by a joint press availability. The Chancellor and Mrs. Schröder will then host a lunch for the President and Mrs. Bush.
On Wednesday afternoon, the President will participate in a roundtable conversation with German citizens, followed by a visit to the Gutenberg Museum with Mrs. Bush. After the visit to the museum, the President and Mrs. Bush will depart Mainz for Wiesbaden, Germany, where they will have the privilege of meeting with members of the U.S. Army's 1st Armored Division.
After meeting with and addressing the troops, the President and Mrs. Bush will depart for the Slovak Republic.

On Thursday, February 24th, the President will meet with President [Ivan] Gasparovic, and later with Prime Minister [Mikulas] Dzurinda of the Slovak Republic. On Thursday morning, the President and Prime Minister Dzurinda will have the unique opportunity to meet with the Champions of Freedom, individuals from Central and Eastern Europe who are on the forefront of advancing the cause of freedom in that region. The President will pay his respects to those veterans of the struggle for freedom, as well as encourage those who continue to struggle for freedom and democracy today. The President then will deliver remarks to Slovak citizens in Bratislava's town square.

On Thursday afternoon, the President will meet with Russian President [Vladimir] Putin, followed by a joint press availability.

On Thursday evening, the President and Mrs. Bush will depart the Slovak Republic and return to Washington, D.C.

Low Opinion of Bush and Rice

I have just finished reading Plan of Attack by Bob Woodward. It took a while, but better late than never. I was struck by several things in the Epilogue.

In what appears to be Deputy Secretary of State Armitage's comments to Woodward, Woodward says that Armitage "believed that the foreign-policy-making system that was supposed to be coordinated by Rice was essentially dysfunctional. That dysfunction had served well as long as Powell and he could delay war. But that effort had ultimately failed. Later in 2003, whenever there was a presidential speech or an issue with the White House, particularly on the Middle East, he would say to Powell, 'Tell these people to fuck themselves.'"

Woodward continues, "Months after the war, Rice asked Armitage about his all-too-apparent distress. The NSC system is dysfunctional, he told her bluntly, and the deputies committee was not carrying its load. Policy was not sufficiently coordinated, debated and then settled. She needed to be a good, knock-down-drag-out fighter to be a strong security adviser and enforce discipline."

"On October 12, 2003, the Washington Post published a long front page story headlined, 'Rice Fails to Repair Rifts, Officials Say; Cabinet Rivalries Complicate Her Role.'"

"Rice expressed her concern to Powell, who defended his deputy. 'You can blame Rich if you want,' Powell said, 'Rich had the guts to go talk to you directly about this, so I don't think he is the source.' What Armitage had said reflected a general feeling around Washington and in the foreign policy establishment, Powell said.... Powell thought Rice was more interested in finding someone to blame for the public airing of the problem than in fixing it."

So, this is our new Secretary of State. She had better clean house thoroughly, or there will be a lot of bad feelings in Foggy Bottom towards her.

Also in the Epilogue, Woodward quotes Bush's expression of warm feelings toward Japanese Prime Minister Koizumi in October 2003: "If we hadn't gotten it right in 1945 and helped build a democratically prosperous Japan , our conversation -- between a Japanese prime minister and a president of the United States -- could never take place. One day a president of Iraq and a president of the United States are going to be sitting there trying to solve some problem and they're going to say they're glad we created a democratic and prosperous Iraq."

Woodward says that Rice "found some comfort" in the above exchange because the "president was holding firm and thinking about the long term." Amazingly, neither Bush nor Rice noticed that Japan had invaded the U.S., but that the U.S. had invaded Iraq. Did Bush never learn about Pearl Harbor from his father or at Yale, or somewhere? How could Rice forget it? It's the blind leading the blind. Bush likes Rice because she can play the piano and ice skate, but as Armitage pointed out, she can't play with the big boys, like Cheney and Rumsfeld. Appointing Rice to State is like saying to Cheney and Rumsfeld, "Do whatever you like, boys. If you want to invade Iran, you go right ahead."

The final passage is not from the Epilogue, but is near the end of the book. It says that Bush met with New York Mayor Bloomberg on March 19, 2002. Bush warned Bloomberg, "Keep your eye on tunnels, bridges and the Jewish community." So, Bush recognized that Iraq was a race war or a religious war, in which the U.S. went to war with the Muslims on behalf of Israel and Zionist American Jews, such as Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz, Douglas Feith, Dov Zakheim, William Kristol, Ken Adelman, and maybe Scooter Libby (I'm not sure Libby is Jewish, but he's from Miami Beach, and he was listed with Perle, Wolfowitz, and Feith in the Jewish Journal in a context that indicates that he is Jewish). This comes up because Woodward says that on April 13, 2002, Cheney gave a small dinner where the only guests were Libby, Wolfowitz and Adelman.

Of course, Perle was chairman of the Defense Policy Board until he was forced to resign. Wolfowitz is Deputy Secretary of Defense. Feith is an Under Secretary of Defense. Zakheim was comptroller of the Pentagon. Kristol is editor of the Weekly Standard. Adelman is a columnist, who was my boss as the Director of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency during the Reagan Administration. Libby is Cheney's foreign policy adviser; his bios say he is Wolfowitz' close friend.

Finally, Woodward chronicles how Saudi Ambassador Bandar pressed Bush to tell him first when the war was going to start. Bush assured Bandar that he would; however, Woodward says that Rice told Israeli finance minister Benjamin Netanyahu by telephone about the start of the war at 7:30 pm on the day the first planes were striking Baghdad, although Netanyahu "said he already knew about the war." Then Rice told Bandar later at a meeting at the White House at 7:45. Bandar asked Rice, "Have you told anybody else foreign other than me?" Woodward relates, not quoting Rice, "No, Rice said, though the Israelis already knew." So, the Israelis were the first to know, despite Bush's promise to Bandar. It shows who's really important to the Bush Administration.

North Korean-Libyan Uranium Connection

The New York Times reported that uranium appeared to be from North Korea that was captured in Libya when Libya went state's evidence on its nuclear program and turned over everything to the US, Britain, and the IAEA. However, the article says that the uranium is attributed to North Korea by process of elimination, not by a firm identification of its nuclear fingerprint. This makes the attribution less reliable and raises the question whether the Administration or its opponents have anything to gain by linking the uranium to North Korea.

At first blush, it would appear that this news is unfavorable to the Administration, because it indicates that the US policy toward North Korea is failing; North Korea has been more active in the nuclear bazaar than at first believed. On the other hand, the Administration's ally Pakistan is no doubt deeply involved in Libya's nuclear program on the basis of other evidence uncovered earlier in Libya. The Administration would rather blame North Korea than Pakistan for helping Libya build a bomb.

I don't know who to blame, but the leak to the Times strikes me as planted by somebody. Granted uranium mined in different locations may have a U-234 fingerprint as the article states, but can we say this uranium is North Korean, because its fingerprint doesn't match any we have on file? Do we know the U-234 content of all uranium mines in China? In the Soviet Union? Former Soviet Union states such as Kazakhstan? All African sources? Even Pakistan itself? After the CIA botched evaluating the nuclear program of Iraq, I would not trust it on this issue either, although the real expert agency is probably the Energy Department.

Elliott Abrams Gets Promoted

The Washington Post reports that convicted felon (and subsequently pardoned by Bush I) Elliott Abrams will be promoted to Deputy National Security Adviser and given responsibility for the promotion of democracy in the NSC. It's appropriate that Bush should appoint a felon to be in charge of promoting democracy! Abrams will remain responsible for Israeli-Palestinian and other middle eastern affairs. He was convicted in the Iran-Contra scandal. It's ironic that Iran will again be one of the main countries in his portfolio. He will reportedly be working under the new, overall number two at the NSC, J. D. Crouch, currently US Ambassador to Romania and previously a conservative Pentagon hack.

There has got to be a better, more honorable person to fill the democracy position. How cynical we look putting Abrams in it! But Abrams, as an elite Jew who has worked on foreign policy matters for years, has strong support from the Jewish politically active Zionists (AIPAC,. etc.) to remain in charge of anything that might affect Israel, like overthrowing the Iranian government.

Jew Says Holocaust Over Used

An Op-Ed in the New York Times by Ami Eden, the national editor of The Forward, a Jewish publication, strikes the correct tone regarding the Holocaust. He recognizes that the Holocaust has been over marketed, and is therefore losing its moral value. He says:

"Jewish organizations and advocates of Israel fail to grasp that they are no longer viewed as the voice of the disenfranchised. Rather, they are seen as a global Goliath, close to the seats of power and capable of influencing policies and damaging reputations. As such, their efforts to raise the alarm increasingly appear as bullying."

He says later:

"One protester, Rabbi Marvin Hier of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles, called on the [British] prince [Harry] to make amends by traveling to Poland for the Auschwitz ceremony.

"This is exactly the wrong approach. By playing the Holocaust card against Harry, Jewish critics deflected attention from how Harry had insulted the memory of the millions of Britons who suffered during World War II; they also risked squandering a diminishing supply of hard-won moral capital better spent in the fight against terrorism and the rise in Holocaust denial and anti-Semitism."

Well said! I think he strikes the right chord. I hope other Jews, who are so quick to condemn Gentiles as anti-Semites for comments that are political or moral, or simply thoughtless, but that are not about Jews as a religion or a race, will take his advice to heart.

His comment about Jews as bullies is particularly important to me because I am concerned that many people within, or close to, the Bush administration pushing for war in Iraq were Jewish: Wolfowitz, Perle, Feith, and many other neo-cons. It's arguable that Iraq is a Jewish war, not an American war. Bush gave in to Jewish pressure; ordinary Americans supported it once it started, but Jews were responsible for starting it.

More Jewish Influence on US Iraq Policy

The New York Times today has an article on parallels between Iraq and Vietnam. It says that shortly after the US invasion of Iraq, talk of comparing Iraq and Vietnam was forbidden. Now, however, the article says, "Nearly two years after the American invasion of Iraq, such comparisons are no longer dismissed in mainstream political discourse as facile and flawed, but are instead bubbling to the top."

Then the article goes on to quote Tony Lake, giving the liberal, Democratic view, and Michael Rubin, giving the conservative view. The article says, "Michael Rubin, a conservative scholar at the American Enterprise Institute who recently returned from Iraq, published an op-ed piece in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz on Friday in which he noted that Arab television in Baghdad routinely showed archival footage of American diplomats fleeing Saigon, as if to suggest that whatever Mr. Bush may say about America's staying power, 'it is weak.'"

Why is the AEI writing about American policy in an Israeli newspaper? Israel is not America's 51st state. It's another country, which has a very strong interest in the US killing Muslims in Iraq and elsewhere. I think that America must do what is best for its own self-interest, not what is best for Israel. We should not confuse the two. And policy advisers should not confuse the two, or if they want to do so, they should declare themselves agents of a foreign government.

Jews Complain Allies Allowed Holocaust

According to the report in the New York Times about the Holocaust memorial service in Poland on Thursday, Israeli President Katsav said that the allies "did not do enough" to prevent the killing of Jews in World War II.

Unfortunately, this strikes me as ungrateful. I saw the criticism of FDR at the Holocaust Museum in Washington. I support FDR's and Churchill's decision to go slowly on the invasion of Europe to preserve the lives of Allied troops. I can understand Jewish frustration that Jews died while the Allies were organizing D-Day, but the alternative would have been many more deaths of Allied soldiers in the invasion. Jews must take some responsibility for their own fate. One of the Holocaust vignettes I saw on TV was of a Jew who was a barber at Auschwitz, shaving German officers. He said he could have killed one of them, but then he would certainly have been killed himself. He decided it was more important for him to live; why shouldn't allied troops be allowed to live as well?

The allies also abandoned Eastern Europe to live behind the Iron Curtain for fifty years after World War II. This was mainly because the Allies really needed the Soviet Union in the alliance. The Soviets lost millions of people in the war, but the war in the East sapped German strength, making victory in the West possible, or at least easier. It was another trade off to save the lives of Allied troops. The Jews were not the only ones who suffered; many millions of East Europeans were sentenced to live most of their lives under Communism.

Civil Service on Its Way Out

The Washington Post reports that the civil service system is on its way out at the Department of Homeland Security. Civil service was introduced a hundred or so years ago because the old patronage system resulted in so many abuses. But Bush wants patronage. No more independent thinking! If you don't support the Bush political view, you're fired, or certainly not promoted.

Bush at first fought the law creating the Homeland Security Department because it included civil service protections for its employees. Now it's clear why he opposed it so strongly. It was his chance to get political patronage re-introduced widely into the federal government. Already there are thousands of "Schedule C," senior, policy-related jobs that are exempt from the civil service. That's not enough for Bush. If there were more Democrats in the House and Senate, there might be some chance of resisting his onslaught, but probably not now.

The article says the system at Homeland Security will become the model for all government agencies. One question: Why would one of the worst managed bureaucracies in the government become the model for the other, better functioning bureaucracies?

Presumably, the important thing to Bush is loyalty, not results. Just look at Iraq. Is that a successful war? But to the Bushies, it's the most successful, wonderful war ever. Forget the fact that Iraqis are leaving in droves because of the lack of security, electricity, water, gasoline, etc. It took George Bush to make Saddam Hussein look like a good government leader.

Doug Feith to Leave Pentagon

Douglas Feith, Defense Under Secretary for Policy, announced that he plans to resign this summer, according to the Washington Post. Hooray!

He certainly bears a heavy responsibility for the failure of the war in Iraq. He and Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz worked together closely on the war. Now if Wolfowitz would just leave, along with Rumsfeld. I particularly want Feith and Wolfowitz to leave because they are Jewish and, given the way they ran the war, I believe they ran it more for Israel's interest than for America's. They are part of the mostly Jewish "neo-conservatives," including Richard Perle, who favored war with Iraq. It's not surprising that there have been indications of disloyalty within the Pentagon, where some officials were sharing classified data with the Israelis without authorization. General Tommy Franks called Feith, "the stupidest guy on the face of the Earth."

The Op-Ed page in today's New York Times illustrates the influence of Jews in the world today. One column, by Aharon Appelfeld, deals with the Holocaust; it was originally written in Jerusalem in Hebrew, and quotes "a doctor ... who sailed to Israel with us." It was an evocative peace that brings out that Jews believe God abandoned them; according to Appelfeld's doctor friend, "We didn't see God when we expected him, so we have no choice but to do what he was supposed to do: we will protect the weak, we will love, we will comfort. From now on, the responsibility is all ours."

The other column, "Read My Ears" datelined Berlin, is by Tom Friedman, also a Jew, who writes about the deep disdain Europeans feel for President Bush. Friedman says, "Mr. Bush is more widely and deeply disliked in Europe than any U.S. president in history. Some people here must have a good thing to say about him, but I haven't met them yet. In such an environment, the only thing that Mr. Bush could do to change people's minds about him would be to travel across Europe and not say a single word - but just listen."

On the one hand, America's stature was destroyed in Europe by Jews, including Doug Feith, and sympathetic evangelical Christians who see Israel as some sort of sign of Armageddon. On the other we have a Jew, Tom Friedman, telling us that we need to listen to Europe's complaints. I wish Friedman had more influence with this administration than his neo-conservative Jewish colleagues.

Not Everyone Suffered Equally in Holocaust

The New York Times reports on a meeting in London of former residents of the Lodz (pronounced wooj), Poland, Jewish ghetto to look at several thousand photos of ghetto life. The article says the photos are disconcerting because they show "scenes of the seemingly contented ghetto 'elite,' Jews who worked as ghetto supervisors and police officers or held coveted jobs." The existence of this elite, Jews who ruled other Jews under German supervision, was no secret and is depicted in the movie The Pianist, for example. According to something I found on the Internet, they were called "kapos," although that sounds to me more like a Mafia term.

For me, this goes along with my previous posting pointing out that there is a lot of "marketing" of the Holocaust, and that therefore this advertising does not give a totally accurate picture of what happened. There is no doubt that it was terrible, but there are questions about whether some of the much vaunted survivors survived because they cooperated with the Germans in oppressing (or worse) their Jewish compatriots.

The article continues:

"The photographs of the elite or the 'protected class,' as the survivors here called it, were the most striking in their departure from the stark pictures typically associated with the Holocaust. They featured smiling children in neatly pressed clothes, sitting around a table laden with food and drink for a party. A plump boy in a mini-policeman's uniform, marching with his young friends around the street. Revelers gathered on top of a horse-drawn carriage."

"For Mrs. Aronson, the photographs touch a more personal chord. She was indirectly a part of the elite, she said. Her father, who she said died after trying to save the children of her small town, knew Mr. Rumkowski and, because of that, Mrs. Aronson, her mother and brother were given good jobs. Hers was at an orphanage and later at a confectionary factory. She was in Lodz until the war ended.

"'To say that we were privileged and that we knew we were going to survive is a load of rubbish,' she said, adding that she, too, went hungry and feared for her life. 'We had the same rations as everyone else. My brother got from the Germans a bit of food now and again. Food was the most important thing to survive.'"

Bush Needs Better Manners

The current issue of Foreign Affairs complains about one of Bush's failings that is seldom mentioned, but is very serious. The article by John Lewis Gaddis discusses US military interventions over the last decade or so and the problems that have made the Iraq intervention so much worse than the others. He states:

"Iraq has been the exception, not the rule, and there are lessons to be learned from the anomaly.

"One is the need for better manners."

How could Bush I be such a gentleman, and Bush II be so unpolished and uncouth? I don't know, but he is an embarrassment to the US, even if a majority of the voters don't realize it.

Israeli Banks Stiff Holocaust Heirs

What should be a shameful scandal involving Israel's poor treatment of Holocaust survivors and heirs of victims was at least reported on the front page of the New York Times, although the article concludes by saying, "This is only a committee report, a revelation of the scope of the problem. This is not the Knesset passing a law forcing the banks and the custodian to return the money. For that, there has to be political will."

According to the article, after Jews have demanded that European banks, especially in Switzerland and Austria, pay out assets held on behalf of Jews who were victims of the Holocaust, Jewish banks and even the Government of Israel, have failed to make equivalent payments for the moneys they hold. The article says there are about 9,000 names on the list of people owed, and 6,000 of them are listed as victims of the Holocaust. By one accounting, the Israeli Government owes $133 million, and the banks owe $73 million.

I am concerned that all the Jewish furor about the Holocaust is a marketing ploy. It's partly about the money. People like former Secretary of State Larry Eagleburger and lawyers representing the victims have been paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for their role in pressuring banks and governments in Europe to pay up, while the average Holocaust survivor or heir has gotten only a few thousand dollars. But more than the money, it has been a campaign to make people feel sorry for Jews, to give them and the State of Israel a break by not criticizing them too strongly for things like killing Palestinian children, or making millions on Wall Street through shady deals involving Enron, WorldCom, etc. I think that once again those poor Jews who actually were sent to Auschwitz and other death camps are the victims of the "marketing" of the Holocaust. They won't get much, but powerful Israeli politicians and rich Wall Street and Hollywood Jews, most of whom escaped the Holocaust, will get plenty of benefit.

Prince Harry Should Visit British World War II Graves

Wearing a Nazi arm band won Britain's Prince Harry criticism from Jewish groups the world over, but why should he put Jewish deaths in Germany and Poland ahead of British ones closer to home? I agree with this letter to the editor in the Toronto Star that if he is going to do some kind of penace, he should visit British cemeteries first.

Secondly, he should consider what the proper response is in a Christian nation. Jews reject the New Testament with Jesus' teachings about forgiveness and loving your enemies. George Bush has been talking lately about how much he has learned from the closeness between Japan and the US, despite World War II. In fact, had George been paying closer attention, he would have seen that the US and its allies, after punishing war criminals, almost immediately embarked on a path of forgiveness in Germany and Japan. Christian principles aside, the West saw that it's lack of forgiveness after World War I led inexorably to World War II.

Along this line, it was interesting that one commentator after Bush's inaugural speech today said that he had tried to evoke Woodrow Wilson (as well as Truman, Reagan, and others). Wilson virtually killed himself campaigning unsuccessfully for the League of Nations after World War I. The failure of the League of Nations, due in large part to the failure of the US to participate, was an important contributing factor toward World War II. Bush and his Administration seem to hate the League of Nations' successor, the United Nations, just as Wilson's opponents hated the League. It appears to me that Bush has rejected the lessons learned from both World War I (when we got it wrong) and World War II (when we got it right).

Hopefully Prince Harry will be a better student of world affairs than George W. Bush.

The National Guard in War

One of the reasons that I dislike George W. Bush is that he escaped service in Vietnam by joining the National Guard in Texas. Sure, lots of other people did this, but I don't approve of anybody escaping military service while others are being sent off to die. That's why I went when my draft number came up (although not before it did).

Now, George says that nobody can escape service as he did back then. The National Guard is bearing a heavy burden of the fighting in Iraq. How hypocritical of him to send the National Guard to fight because he is afraid to increase the numbers of troops in the regular Army and other services! The National Guard was his hiding place, but he has made sure that it is no longer a hiding place for anyone else.

Another gripe is that Bush was trained as a fighter pilot. I have read that today it costs about a million dollars to train someone as a fighter pilot; presumably it cost the equivalent back when he trained. After the US invested all this money in him, he said, "I'm going to Harvard Business School. I'm outta here. A million taxpayer dollars? I spit on them. The government is here to serve me!" And so it is. It's here to serve George and all his rich friends, who just love spending on themselves all the tax money from those stupid, hard-working regular folks who ignorantly pay their fair share of taxes, and who are now about to lose their Social Security.

Do We Need a War on Terrorism?

The fact that today's inaugural ceremonies were carried off without any terrorist incident raises the question whether a "war on terrorism" is justified. The original airplane highjackings and the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon could probably have been avoided if there had been regulations that were strictly enforced barring the carrying of box cutters on to planes. It is very possible that our reaction to those attacks was overkill. In any case, our response in Afghanistan was certainly more appropriate than our response in Iraq.

Bush's inaugural address today tried to evoke the same response that our long rivalry with the Soviet Union evoked during the Cold War, especially as described by President Reagan. Bush said, "We have seen our vulnerability - and we have seen its deepest source. For as long as whole regions of the world simmer in resentment and tyranny - prone to ideologies that feed hatred and excuse murder - violence will gather, and multiply in destructive power, and cross the most defended borders, and raise a mortal threat." Scary words, but is there a "mortal threat"? During the Cold War the Soviet Union had millions of armed soldiers stationed across the border from Western Europe and many nuclear armed ICBMs targeted on the US. The terrorists have nothing like this. They can disrupt life in Iraq, where much of the population sympathizes with them, but they have been unable to do so in the US since 9/11. It's possible that Bush's national security team was just asleep at the switch on 9/11 and let a fairly amateurish attempt succeed because our guard was down.

If that's the case, then Bush's speech was much sound and fury, signifying nothing. We do need protection, but not at the cost that Bush demands. America wants the perfect safety that used to be guaranteed by our oceans' borders and the homogeneity of our population. Today, that guarantee is more difficult because we can rely on neither of those two old defenses. The war on terrorism and the Department of Homeland Security do little or nothing to make up that gap and add to our security. That's why it turns out to be relatively unimportant that the Department of Homeland Security is hopelessly incompetent.

Foreign Policy of Exporting Democracy is Focus of Bush's Inaugural

President Bush, who avoided foreign policy like the plague four years ago, made foreign policy the keynote of his inaugural speech today. He said, "It is the policy of the United States to seek and support the growth of democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture, with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world." Later he added, "When you stand for your liberty, we will stand with you." It's somewhat ironic that Bush focused so strongly on human rights, which was first made a priority foreign policy issue by Democratic President Jimmy Carter.

At whom is this attack on undemocratic regimes directed? Iran? China? Russia? Zimbabwe? Burma? Belarus? He didn't say. But given the current state of the world, it would appear to be directed mainly at Arab and Muslim governments. What will we do to help democratic movements? Forcibly overthrow dictatorial governments, as we did in the second Iraq war? Simply say encouraging things to democratic activists, as we did to the Kurds and Shiites after the first Iraq war, before they were brutally put down by Saddam? On one hand, Bush said this is "the quiet work of intelligence and diplomacy." On the other hand, he said, "This is not primarily the task of arms, though we will defend ourselves and our friends by force of arms when necessary." When are arms necessary? We don't know. Maybe Bush, Rice and Rumsfeld know, although they are not saying. Cheney said just before the inaugural, "You look around the world at potential trouble spots, Iran is right at the top of the list."

Tyrants of the world, be afraid, be very afraid!

New Yorker on War with Iran

An article by Seymour Hersh in the New Yorker reports that the Bush Administration is planning for a war with Iran, or at least attacks on some things within Iran. In preparation for that attack, the Pentagon has taken over clandestine intelligence activities that used to belong to the CIA. In return for Pakistan's help in infiltrating Iran, the US has agreed to let A.Q. Khan off the hook for his years of nuclear proliferation activities with Iran, North Korea, Libya, and perhaps other bad guys that we don't know about.

Kevin Drum Of Political Animal doesn't think most of these are worth worrying about, except for the lack of Congressional oversight, but I think he is too sanguine. The bargain struck with Pakistan raises the question whether the US is really serious about nuclear non-proliferation. As Hersh says:

"It's a deal -- a trade-off," the former high-level intelligence official explained. "'Tell us what you know about Iran and we will let your A. Q. Khan guys go.' It's the neoconservatives' version of short-term gain at long-term cost. They want to prove that Bush is the anti-terrorism guy who can handle Iran and the nuclear threat, against the long-term goal of eliminating the black market for nuclear proliferation."

The agreement comes at a time when Musharraf, according to a former high-level Pakistani diplomat, has authorized the expansion of Pakistan's nuclear-weapons arsenal. "Pakistan still needs parts and supplies, and needs to buy them in the clandestine market," the former diplomat said. "The U.S. has done nothing to stop it."

If the US has agreed to look the other way while Pakistan improves its nuclear arsenal, it's a bad signal to the rest of the world (Brazil, India, North Korea) and to the IAEA, which is charged with enforcing the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), about our seriousness in fighting proliferation. While we accuse the IAEA of being soft on proliferation, perhaps the US is the real softy.

An interesting note by Hersh is that "many Western intelligence agencies, including those of the United States, believe that Iran is at least three to five years away from a capability to independently produce nuclear warheads -- although its work on a missile-delivery system is far more advanced." The mention of missile delivery systems links to the sanctions on China, which may have been based on intelligence gleaned by US special ops infiltration into Iran.

I am particularly unhappy with Hersh's claim that "there has also been close, and largely unacknowledged, coöperation with Israel. The government consultant with ties to the Pentagon said that the Defense Department civilians, under the leadership of Douglas Feith, have been working with Israeli planners and consultants to develop and refine potential nuclear, chemical-weapons, and missile targets inside Iran." I have long believed that America's invasion of Iraq, which had nothing to do with 9/11, was more a favor to Israel and American Jews than something required by America's national security. So, Israel was wrong about Iraq, but now it wants us to attack Iran, because Iran poses a potential nuclear threat to Israel, as it incorrectly thought Iraq did.

The claim that the US plans to overthrow the current leadership of Iran ("regime change") helps explain to me why we are not more concerned about Iran's role in Iraq in favoring the Shiites in the upcoming Iraqi election. We're not worried about what Iranian clerics might do in the future to control Iraq, because we plan to depose the Muslim leaders of Iran. I don't think that will work, but if we did succeed in Iran (unlike Iraq), we might face a situation where Iran would move to secular leadership, but Iraq would have democratically installed a religious leadership.

The above are serious national security issues, but Kevin Drum is right that replacing the CIA with the Defense Department for covert operations in order to avoid Congressional oversight is a disturbing and important development.

US Imposes Missile Sanctions on China

The New York Times noted that the Administration has quietly imposed sanctions on China for missile related dealings with Iran. The article contains no information about the technology or the missiles involved, but the transfers appear to deal with larger missiles that would be controlled under the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR) that I worked on while at the State Department.

The article surmises that the penalties may have been kept quiet to avoid embarrassing China, whose help we need to rein in the North Korean nuclear program. It also raises the question whether the intelligence about the transfers was uncovered by the clandestine raids into Iran conducted by Pentagon and reported by Seymour Hersh in the New Yorker.

Rice Is New Secretary of State

Just for the record, Rice was confirmed, as expected as Secretary of State. It's interesting that Reuters issued a report about the time of her confirmation saying that the rest of the world, with a few exceptions, is worried about what four more years of Bush will mean. It says the world fears that "the most powerful man on the planet may do more harm than good." Rice's confirmation as Secretary will not do anything to ease those fears. Keeping Colin Powell around would have.

I don't think Bush understands much about foreign affairs, but was forced into the arena by 9/11. Osama bin Laden probably didn't realize what a terrible thing he was inflicting on the whole world, not just the US, by drawing Bush into world affairs. Unfortunately the attack brought out Bush's nasty side, which otherwise might have been used only against his domestic opponents. It's surprising that "Christians" embrace such hatred.

Prince Harry and the Holocaust

There is no doubt that Prince Harry's wearing a Nazi uniform to a costume party was in bad taste, but it was also not the end of the world. What I find offensive is that mainly the Jews are objecting to it because of the Holocaust. Granted, six million Jews died in the Holocaust, but what about World War II? Almost 400,000 Brits died in World War II; what are they, chopped liver? Eleven million Soviets died in World War II, but I haven't seen anything reporting that Putin called Blair to object to Prince Harry's costume.

There were many decent German soldiers who wore the swastika, ranging from Army privates who had no choice, to decent generals like Rommel, some of whom plotted to kill Hitler. I find it offensive that the Jews who were victims of race hatred in Germany 6o years ago, have raised race hatred to a new level today.

I was never very interested in the Holocaust until I was assigned to Warsaw, Poland, during the 50th anniversary of the end of World War II. It was all Holocaust, all the time. The Jews weren't the only ones who suffered during World War II, even in Auschwitz. Many Christian Poles died in Auschwitz, too.

You can even see the change in attitude here in America. I think one reason that we belatedly built a World War II memorial on the national mall in Washington, is that WW II veterans felt until recently that their work in winning the war would be all the memorial they would ever need. But I got a hint of the problem when I visited the Holocaust Memorial before I went to Poland, before it was even open to the public. Going through, I noticed several criticisms of President Roosevelt for being to slow or reluctant to act against the Holocaust. Roosevelt properly, was more concerned about the American troops fighting against the Nazis than about foreigners who were imprisoned in a foreign land. An earlier assault on the European continent might have cost many more thousands of American lives. But Jews make Roosevelt's concerns about American lives a bad thing. Sacrifices by American Christians in World War II count for nothing to Jews, who are only concerned about Jewish lives. So, Americans had to build a monument to help offset the Jewish attacks on WW II veterans. It's hard to find statistics, but I doubt that a very high percentage of Jews fought in World War II, compared the number of eligible Christians.

It's about the same today, with the war in Iraq. It turns out that Iraq had no WMD and was not a threat to the US, but it was a threat to Israel. So, who is the main beneficiary of the war in Iraq? Israel. Who is doing most of the fighting there? Anglo Christians. This is partly because some fundamentalist Christians believe that Israel is crucial to the Rapture or endtime, and therefore, they are willing to die for Israel. But I think this is a minority of those who have actually given their lives in Iraq.

The most offensive way to put this is: Bush and company are sending Christian soldiers to die in Iraq for Jew money. Just as in World War II, when many Jews managed to stay behind, or at least out of the front lines, and get rich from the War.

It also irks me that most surviving Jews who were in the Holocaust will get some kind of payment from Germany, from insurance companies, or from some other source. So, all this Jewish consciousness raising publicity about the Holocaust does have a financial payoff for Jews. Meanwhile, the Americans, mostly Christians, who were in the Bataan death march and who worked in Japanese labor camps, under conditions similar to the German labor camps, get nothing.

The US Should Get Out of the Torture Business

Alberto Gonzales' hearing on his confirmation as Attorney General, along with several new reports of the use of torture in Iraq, Guantanamo and Afghanistan, resurrect some of the most despicable episodes in recent US history. Gonzales couldn't remember exactly what he did in the White House on the torture issue, but it's pretty clear from news reports that he said a little torture is okay, especially if the people tortured are Arabs or Muslims.

I don't buy it. I would not confirm Gonzales to be dog catcher. I don't think we should be drawing fine lines of distinction between what kind of torture is okay and what crosses some hazy line of morality.

We should shut down Guantanamo, which in retrospect was created to avoid applying both US and international law protecting prisoners. The prisoners there should be released, returned to their home countries, returned to the country where they were captured, or brought to the US and given treatment in accordance with the Constitution.

We should improve the supervision of prisons in Iraq and Afghanistan and invite international observers to monitor conditions there continually, not just make periodic visits as the Red Cross does now. I want to be proud of America, not ashamed of her, as I am now.

While the conditions at these various prison facilities are clearly the result of decisions made at the very top of our government, those senior officials, such as Bush and Gonzales, have allowed the low level soldiers to take the rap for abuse. They claim to honor our servicemen, when in fact they are defaming them.

End of Search for WMD in Iraq

Just for the record, everybody notes that Washington has given up the search for WMD in Iraq. So, the original reason we invaded Iraq turns out to be invalid. But Bush and his henchmen say that's okay: Saddam was a bad man and needed to be deposed. Aren't there other bad men around the world, probably even worse? What about North Korea's Kim Jong Il? What about the military regime in Burma? What about Zimbabwe? What about the non-stop killing in Africa -- Congo, Liberia, Rwanda, Uganda, Sudan, Somalia, etc.?

If Bush had not come up with his idea of pre-emptive war and snubbed his nose at the rest of the world, it wouldn't be so bad. Before the war, many of the responsible governments of the world thought as we did that Saddam had some kind of WMD. But officially, the UN said let us confirm that he does. If we had waited for them, we would have a lot more friends now. However, Bush replied that the UN inspectors were worthless incompetents and that the US would not wait for them. He was wrong.

Now, what do we do about Iran, which appears actually to be doing what we thought Saddam was doing. And what about North Korea, which may have surpassed Saddam and actually built a nuclear bomb or two?

Where are the men of character in this government? Diogenes would have to look for a long time in Washington to find an honest man.

Zoellick As State Deputy Is Pretty Good News

The good news about the appointment of USTR Bob Zoellick as Deputy Secretary of the State Department is that he is not John Bolton, currently a State undersecretary for arms control. Bolton is a rabid neo-conservative. Zoellick is a good Republican, but not a madman. Pundits were saying that if Bolton moved up to Deputy Secretary, it would be a sign of increasing neo-con influence in Rice's State Department. By that standard, this is good news.

This is probably encouraging in looking toward Condi Rice's tenure at State. Zoellick will be able to work with career foreign service officers, many of whom will have worked with him under Secretary Jim Baker during Bush I's administration.

Even better news is the rumor in this Washington Post report that Undersecretary Bolton may be on his way out. I don't know anything about his rumored replacement, Robert G. Joseph, but I don't think he could be worse than Bolton. Bolton is an ideologue, but even worse, it's arguable that he has badly botched non-proliferation efforts aimed at Iran and North Korea, not to mention Iraq, which turned out not to be a non-proliferation threat.

Libyan Nuclear Prize Smaller Than Initially Reported

The New York Times reported Sunday that the nuclear components turned over to the US by Libya were missing a key item, the centrifuge rotors for enriching uranium. This is like a car company saying we got a model of our competitor's car, and then finding out that the model they got has no motor. They got some worthwhile stuff, but they missed some of the most important stuff.

According to the article, we don't know what happened to some stuff. Thus, somebody in some Arab country could be sitting on the most valuable parts of the centrifuges.

Another disquieting fact in the article is the rivalry between the US and the IAEA, who should be cooperating.

Where Is Burma (Myanmar)?

Reports of damage wrought by the tsunami have not mentioned Burma (Myanmar), but if the tsunami hit Bangladesh (to the west) and Thailand (to the east), it must have hit Burma. Why has there been so much attention to the damage in Thailand, which was much less than in Sri Lanka and Indonesia? Because there were reporters there. You can almost hear the editors or producers saying, get that reporter who is Phuket for vacation!

There are almost no reporters in Burma, because it is an almost closed society. If a tsunami hits and there is no one to report it, does it actually happen? Similarly, there has been little reporting from Ache, because Ache is in rebellion against the central Indonesia government, and access to reporters there has been limited. It's interesting that two of the hardest hit areas, Sri Lanka and Ache are engaged in civil wars. That certainly makes relief efforts more difficult.

The Australian press has mentioned Burma, with deaths there now estimated at 90. I'm guessing that this number would be much higher if the government of Burma were more cooperative.

US Invites Iran into Iraq

The New York Times weighs in with an article pointing out a danger that has concerned me for some time: Our policy on elections in Iraq is likely to strengthen the Shiites there and their ties to Iran.

According to a National Geographic Desk Reference, the majority of Muslims are Sunnis. It says that 84 percent of Muslims are Sunni, but 90 percent of Iranians are Shiite, and 60 to 65 percent of Iraqis are Shiite. Since the bulk of the Shiites live in Iran and Iraq, it would seem only natural that if the Shiites do well in the Iraq elections, they will form a alliance of some kind with the Shiites in Iran. But because the Sunnis ruled Iraq under Saddam, and because they seem to form a major part of the current insurgency, we are throwing our lot in with the Shiites in Iraq, while we roundly condemn the Shiites who rule Iran. Our elections may have the perverse result of creating an Iraq that is even more opposed to US interests than it was under Saddam, and perhaps will be a greater danger. Don't forget that Iran may actually be developing nuclear weapons, whereas Iraq under Saddam was only pretending to be developing them in recent years.

Brazil Accused of Nuclear Weapons Ambitions

InfoBrazil has published an article raising questions about whether Brazil might be developing some sort of nuclear weapon, based on its refusal to let the IAEA look at the centrifuges used to enrich uranium in Brazil. This is a touchy issue, because it is Iran's centrifuge program that has created the most controversial problems for its nuclear program.

One important difference is that Brazil probably does not pose a nuclear threat to anyone, even if it develops nuclear weapons, unlike Iran, which poses a threat to Israel, Iraq, and perhaps a few other neighbors. In the old days, when I served in Brazil dealing with the nuclear issue in the American embassy there, Argentina was a nuclear rival with Brazil. Argentina took the lead in defusing this rivalry. Nevertheless, if Brazil developed a bomb, Argentina might feel pressed to develop one, too.

Another important difference is the way safeguards imposed by the IAEA are handled in Brazil and Iran. It appears that Brazil has been much more forthcoming with the IAEA, only imposing the restriction that IAEA inspectors cannot look at the centrifuges. The IAEA can monitor what goes into and comes out of the centrifuges, thus assuring that no uranium is being "highly" enriched. Iran, on the other hand, has been much less cooperative, and the IAEA has had to be much more insistent to find out where the centrifuges are, and then to find out what they are doing.

Letter to Editor in Denver Post

The Denver Post published a letter to the editor about the India non-proliferation issue.

DU Prof Downplays Indian Proliferation

University of Denver Professor Ved Nanda said in the Denver Post that India was pleased with George Bush's re-election, in part because Bush "is not seen as ideologically stuck on a non-proliferation agenda and, hence, India's nuclear status is likely to gain acceptance without its formally signing the Non-Proliferation Treaty." Later he said, "India has found U.S. cooperation in high technology, nuclear energy, space exploration and missile defense to be very positive steps."

Although our ignoring the fact that India became a nuclear power, despite the U.S. best efforts to prevent the spread of nuclear proliferation, is good for bilateral U.S.-India relations, it is not good for the worldwide non-proliferation regime. Other countries, Iran and North Korea in particular, will see India's flouting of the non-proliferation regime as evidence that they can do it, too. Already people are saying that the lesson of Iraq (which failed) and India (which succeeded) is that you have to build your atomic bomb before you challenge the U.S., and that this is what North Korea and Iran may be doing.

There are efforts to strengthen and reform the NPT and the IAEA, in particular to get rid of IAEA chief Mohammed ElBaradei. But these efforts ignore the fact that the NPT and similar treaties require the offending country to join voluntarily. If these countries perceive that the NPT or its successor is entirely one-sided, that it only requires sacrifices by non-nuclear countries and none by nuclear countries, like the U.S., then they will not join. The NPT requires the nuclear countries to negotiate disarmament, but there have been no serious, binding disarmament talks among the nuclear powers for years.

By removing any international opprobrium for going nuclear, and by making nuclear weapons a sign of great power status, the Bush Administration, Ved Nanda and other pro-Indian writers may be clearing the way for Iran, North Korea, and some other countries (Brazil or South Korea, for starters) to become nuclear powers in the near or mid-term future.

A recent interview, reported by AFP, given in South Korea by Indian Foreign Minister Natwar Singh, in which he urged North and South Korea not to follow India's example by becoming nuclear powers, illustrates how confusing this situation has become. "Natwar's N-speak baffles New Delhi," said a front page headline in Thursday's Indian Express. The Express said Singh "virtually expressed regret over India's current nuclear status" and contradicted the stand taken by former Congress premier Rajiv Gandhi who sanctioned in 1989 pursuit of a nuclear weapons program. The newspaper quoted a senior unnamed Indian foreign ministry official as saying Singh's remarks reflected "his personal view."

A clarification issued about a day later, and reported in NewKerala.com said that the Foreign Minister had said (or meant to say) that the two Koreas should not go nuclear because they had signed the NPT, unlike India. India has refused to sign the NPT because it considers it unfairly discriminatory between countries that had nuclear weapons when the NPT was negotiated, like the U.S., and those that did not, like India, which went nuclear too late to be exempted by the treaty.

FBI Steps Up Investigation of AIPAC

The Christian Science Monitor and the Middle East Times are both reporting that the FBI has stepped up its investigation of AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee), mentioned earlier here.

According to these reports, the FBI got mad when Pentagon analyst Larry Franklin, who had been caught giving sensitive documents to AIPAC, stopped cooperating with the FBI, which has now initiated a grand jury investigation. On December 1, it raided AIPAC offices to search for incriminating information in the offices of several senior AIPAC officials: the FBI seized the hard drives and files of Steven Rosen, director of research, and Keith Weissman, deputy director of foreign policy issues; the FBI also served subpoenas on AIPAC executive director Howard Kohr, managing director Richard Fishman, communications director Renee Rothstein and research director Raphael Danziger.

Did Pakistan Test a North Korean Bomb?

The Asia Times says that Pakistan may have tested a North Korean bomb in 1998, rather than a Pakistani bomb.

This would raise questions about both programs. It the bomb was North Korean, does Pakistan have a bomb that works? A Muslim bomb?

If it was North Korean, does that mean that North Korea has actually put its plutonium from reprocessing into bombs?

According to the Carnegie Endowment's book Deadly Arsenals, Pakistan claims to have conducted five tests on May 28, 1998; however, they produced only one seismic signal, which tends to indicate only one explosion, with an indicated yield of 6-13 kilotons. Another test on May 30, 1998, produced a seismic indication of a bomb with a yield of 2-8 kilotons.

The Asia Times article says that the "only" bomb A.Q. Khan exploded in Pakistan was a North Korean bomb, which tends to undercut its theory, since the Carnegie Endowment (and other sources) say Pakistan tested at least two bombs, if not more.

In any case, the allegation strengthens the article's claim that Pakistan's refusal to allow the US (or the IAEA, or some neutral organization) to interrogate A.Q. Khan leaves this issue murky, and the US acceptance of Pakistani stonewalling is a major failure of US non-proliferation policy.

Unfriendly Takeover

When Bush was elected President in 2000, we had a federal budget surplus of around $200 billion. Now, after the first four years of the Bush Administration we have an annual deficit estimated at about $445 billion. If Clinton had not left Bush a huge surplus, Bush would not have been able to run up the huge deficits that he has with his tax cuts and Iraq War. Interestingly, the "War on Terrorism" has cost almost nothing compared to the War on Iraq, which has been enormously expensive, since we haven't done things like protecting our seaports, chemical plants or food supply, which would have been much more important to protecting America from a future terrorist attack than invading Iraq.

We have, however, used the Clinton surplus to make a large transfer of wealth to the most wealthy Americans through the Bush tax cuts, and we have given millions to defense contractors, such as Halliburton, for the Iraq War. Unfortunately, the lesson is, don't do the right thing. If you don't spend the Federal Government's money on your constituency, e.g., Clinton on Democratic welfare programs, then the Republicans will take that saved money and spend it on their constituency, i.e., the obscenely wealthy.

It's not unlike a corporate raider taking over a company and then destroying it by selling off its assets for more than he paid for the company. Watch the movie "Pretty Woman" for an elementary lesson in how this works. In the movie, Richard Gere develops a conscience and does the right thing. There is no sign that George Bush has a conscience to develop. He stands only for greed all the way to the bank. Laura Bush, who seems like a decent woman, appears to have less influence over George Bush than Julia Roberts, who plays a whore, has over Richard Gere in the movie.

The fact that evil trumps good in American politics is a bad sign for our future, sort of a Gresham's law of politics. (Note the reference to Aristophanes' "The Frogs" in the Wikipedia link: "So with men we know for upright, blameless lives and noble names. These we spurn for men of brass...." It is exactly the political reference intended here. Unfortunately, if Aristophanes saw it thousands of years ago, it's nothing new; just a bad aspect of human nature.)

A Cabinet of Midgets: Cheney and Rumsfeld Clean House

Naming high school dropout Bernard Kerik as Secretary of Homeland Security confirms that Bush is creating a cabinet of midgets, people with no personal political base and little management experience. Gov. Tom Ridge was a failure as Homeland Security Secretary, but that was partly because he didn't have the background to be a mini-Defense secretary; that wasn't his strong point. Kerik has even fewer credentials for the job.

HHS Secretary Tommy Thompson was less of a failure than Ridge. As a man with some ideas who did not like being jerked around, he probably felt frustrated in his job because he couldn't get any political support for things he thought were important. A hint of that tension with the White House came out in his resignation remarks about the possibility of an attack on the American food supply. It was a strange remark, but it probably was something he had tried unsuccessfully to get the White House to focus on. It may have been a place-holder for Social Security reform, an HHS issue on which Thompson, as an intelligent man, probably disagreed with the White House, but was told not to mention it in public.

Keeping Rumsfeld, who is not a political midget, in the cabinet indicates that he will rule the roost, with no competition from people with stature, like Colin Powell. It may be a portent of the future that Treasury Secretary Snow is on the way out. Snow came in as a midget to replace the outspoken Paul O'Neill, who had served in previous administrations as well as being CEO of Alcoa. Snow was not up to the job. It's doubtful that the new midgets, including Condi Rice, who is afraid to stand up to Rumsfeld, will do much better than Snow.

Bush Copies Hitler

The following is a quotation from The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, which unfortunately has a bearing on the current debate in the United States about the UN. Currently Senator Norm Coleman is making vitriolic attacks on Kofi Annan in a Republican attempt to destroy the UN.

In his speech to the German Reichstag on April 28, 1939, Hitler said:

Mr. Roosevelt declares that it is clear to him that all international problems can be solved at the council table.

I would be very happy if these problems could really find their solution at the council table. My skepticism, however, is based on the fact that it was America herself who gave sharpest expression to her mistrust in the effectiveness of conferences. For the greatest conference of all time was League of Nations . . . representing all the peoples of the world, created in accordance with the will of an American President. The first State, however, that shrank from the endeavor was the United States . . . It was not until after years of purposeless participation that I resovled to follow the example of America. (Shirer, Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, pp. 472-473.)

As Hitler noted, attacks by powerful countries on the weakness of international institutions, such as the League of Nations and the United Nations, are self-fulfilling prophecies.

Later in the book, Shirer quotes Hitler as saying:

I shall give a propagandist reason for starting the war -- never mind whether it is plausible or not. The victor will not be asked afterward whether he told the truth or not. In starting and waging a war it is not right that matters, but victory. (Ibid, p. 32.)

Does that remind you of the Iraq War?

Trailer Park Trash and the Elite

Bill Clinton was trailer park trash from Arkansas who worked his way into the elite of the Democratic Party, and eventually into the elite of the world. Politically he appealed the better side of human nature. He was an accepted player on the world stage, despite his personal low standards involving relations with a number of women who lived (or should have lived) in or near trailer parks.

George Bush II was born with a silver spoon in his mouth, the child of an elite New England family, but he chose to align himself politically with trailer park trash. He is a pariah on the world stage because he appeals to the worst in his supporters. Certainly one of the worst things is his use of torture and other inhumane methods employed by Osama bin Laden and his terrorist colleagues. You can't fight terrorism with terrorism and maintain high standards.

I think the nadir may have been the blood-bath slaughter of Uday and Qusay Hussein. Why should anyone cry over the death of such terrible people? Because someone has stand up for the morals and decency. When you compare what happened in Iraq to how the US handled the capture and trial of the Nazis who committed atrocities in World War II, there is no comparison. Eisenhower was a decent man, who respected human beings; the Germans struggled to surrender to the Western powers rather than to the Soviets. In Iraq it's questionable whether the Iraqis prefer the US to the Iranians, whom they have fought for generations. How did we sink so low? Mr. Bush, you're no Eisenhower.

US Claims It Can Use Evidence Gained by Torture

According to an AP story, "Evidence gained by torture can be used by the U.S. military in deciding whether to imprison a foreigner indefinitely at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, as an enemy combatant, the government concedes.

"Statements produced under torture have been inadmissible in U.S. courts for about 70 years. But the U.S. military panels reviewing the detention of 550 foreigners as enemy combatants at the U.S. naval base in Cuba are allowed to use such evidence, Principal Deputy Associate Attorney General Brian Boyle acknowledged at a U.S. District Court hearing Thursday."

America's embrace of torture is so disappointing, so horrendous, that it's difficult for me to deal with. As the bumper stickers say, "Shit happens," but we don't have to embrace it and approve it. Principal Deputy Associate Attorney General Brian Boyle has earned a black place in history along side Hitler and the Third Reich. "The horror! The horror!" We are in the heart of darkness.

White House States It Is at War with Russia

If we thought that Bush was still getting along with Putin -- despite the claim of a new strategic missile, despite cracking down on the Yukos oil company and other oligarchs, despite centralizing Russian power after terrorist attacks, and despite interfering in the Ukrainian elections -- it's now clear that the Bush-Putin love affair is over. When Venezuela said it might buy MiG jets, a White House official traveling with Bush in Canada said, "Let me put it this way: We shoot down MiGs." So, Russia is the enemy again. America is out to destroy Russian military aircraft, whenever and wherever found.

However, the White House later backed away from its bellicose remarks. According to reports, "A White House National Security Council spokesman later sought to clarify the official's remarks. 'It's clearly an issue that we would monitor,' Sean McCormack said. 'He didn't mean to imply anything more or less.'"

I wonder who "he" is.