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.
Thursday, January 20, 2005
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.
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!
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!
Wednesday, January 19, 2005
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.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)