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.