Rumsfeld's Surrender

In hindsight, SecDef Rumsfeld surrendered to the Iraq insurrection way back, when just after the US reached Baghdad and the looting started, he said "Stuff happens." That was the beginning of the end. The US should have cracked down right then, hard. Our failure to do so was a sign of weakness that led us to the morass we are in today.

When we heard about what was going on then -- looting antiquities, burning files in ministries, stealing office equipment -- it didn't sound right. The invasion should have been accompanied by law and order. Instead, law and order broke down right away. And it's only been getting worse since then. What was anybody in power thinking when that happened? We were supposed to be introducing democracy. Democracy doesn't look like anarchy. The generals, Rumsfeld, Bush, Cheney, they all should have known that something was wrong. The mission had not been accomplished.

Are US Troops Top Notch? Send the Bush Girls!

Kerry is trying to back away from his remarks about the educational level of US troops, according to the Washington Post. Kerry claims he was talking about Bush's poor education, not the troops, but Bush had a good education -- boarding school, Yale, Harvard MBA. Either he is stupid and graduated because of his family connections, or he's not stupid, but acts like he is. On the other hand, because of difficulty filling the ranks, the Pentagon continually reduces the standards for accepting new recruits.

The poor educational and cultural level of the troops is no doubt linked to the atrocities at Abu Ghraib and the various murders and rapes that are being investigated. We have the best troops that our trailer parks and Wal Mart customers can supply.

If Bush thinks the war in Iraq is so crucial to US survival, why haven't his own daughters joined one of the services and gone to Iraq? If that's the highest calling there is, as he claims, why shouldn't they go? He can't even convince them that the war is important.

Jews Suppress Debate of Jewish Lobby Pressure on US

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL), under ADL president Abe Foxman, has blocked debate of the extent to which the Jewish Lobby (AIPAC) influences US foreign policy, according to the New York Review of Books. The ADL pressured the Polish Consulate in New York to withdraw its permission to hold the debate on the Consulate's premises.

The letter of protest in the NY Review is signed by many people, a number of whom appear to be Jews. So, many Jews are on the correct side of this issue, and might be accused of anti-Semitism for permitting criticism of Israel. Jews are individuals just like everyone else. But the question remains: Are we engaged in a horrible war in Iraq because of the Jewish Lobby?

MIT Worries about War in Space

MIT's Technology Review worries about America's proclivity for war in space. The idea has been around a while, as I noted earlier.

Jews Behind War in Iraq

According to the LA Times, the Karen DeYoung biography of Colin Powell says that he was upset at the role of Jews in starting the Iraq war. The LA Times review says:

There is one bit of malice at work in the Powell-DeYoung version of these now familiar events that should not pass unremarked upon. According to the author, the then-secretary went out of his way to identify the pro-war neoconservatives as affiliates of the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs, a think-tank with decidedly hard-line views on Israel's security. "Powell referred to Rumsfeld's team as the 'JINSA crowd.' " Later in "Soldier," readers are told that the neoconservatives in the Defense Department --— nearly all of them Jews -- supported war against Iraq as the first step to replacing Arab despots with democratic governments that would sever their ties to the Palestinians, thereby enhancing Israel's security. In explaining why he did not resign over his profound differences with the White House, Powell cited the example of Gen. George C. Marshall, who refused to quit as secretary of State even though he opposed President Truman's recognition of Israel as a quest for "Jewish votes."

The problem for Jews is Israel. Jews would be loyal to America if they didn't feel like they owned a firsallegiancece to Israel. Not all Jews do put Israel first, but many do, which makes them all suspect. This book reviewer is naive in believing that it is somehow racist to identify Jews as being the main force behind the Iraq war. It's like saying (as many people do) that criticism of Israel is anti-Semitism. He should read the paper on the influence of the Jewish Lobby in America.

Of course, the main people behind the war were Bush and Cheney, but Cheney is a madman, and Bush is an idiot. The Jews took advantage of this vacuum in the remnants of the Anglo power structure to start their own war.

War in Space

When I went as an ACDA officer under Reagan and Ken Adelman to a UN meeting on space law about 25 years ago, our delegation's marching orders were to avoid anything that would restrict or prevent the US from any type of military use of space. According to this article in the Washington Post, nothing much has changed. That was the same job in which I had to write an arms control impact statement on space for the year in which Reagan announced the Star Wars initiative. From what I was allowed to write -- censored drastically by Richard Perle and his minions at the Pentagon -- you would have thought that Star Wars had almost no effect on space arms control.

All Holocaust All the Time 6

I've never understood why it is a good idea to criminalize denial of the Holocaust, although there have been several high visibility trials in Germany. Anyway, France's decision to criminalize denial of Armenian genocide emphasizes the problems with such limitations on speech. This NYT editorial recognizes the free speech problem, but makes an exception for the Holocaust.

North Korean Framework Agreement Was Not Worthless

This op-ed in the NYT explains that the nuclear framework agreement negotiated by the Clinton administration worked to put a cap on North Korea's plutonium production. It was not worthless as the Bush administration claimed. It was less than perfect, but Bush replaced something with nothing.

North Korea Nuclear Test

This article from the New Scientist explains the difficulties in evaluating an underground nuclear test like North Korea's. So far, it seems as if the test was less than completely successful, but if there was any nuclear component to the explosion, it is confirmation that the North Koreans have achieved one of the most difficult elements of the process of building an atomic bomb, separating out the plutonium.

A bomb made of enriched plutonium is easier to build and explode, but the uranium is harder to produce. Plutonium is not easy, because it is made from the highly radioactive waste products of a nuclear reactor. But the reactor and the separation facilities are easier to build than the temperamental centrifuges or very energy intensive processes needed to produce highly enriched uranium.

So, if the North Koreans have produced enough plutonium to use some to test a nuclear explosive device, then they are well along in the process, even if they don't have a deliverable bomb. It is possible that some of the Pakistani nuclear tests were also less than 100% successful.

The fact that North Korea has reached this level, whatever it turns out to be exactly, is a grave indictment of Bush's nuclear non-proliferation policy. The Clinton administration had an agreement in place the capped North Korea's plutonium production capability. When some evidence turned up that North Korea was working on uranium enrichment, we (the US) threw as hissy fit, and abandoned the cap on plutonium. So, now North Korea is close to having a plutonium bomb, although there is no indication that they are making much, if any, progress on a uranium bomb. We threw out the baby with the bathwater, and now we will reap the whirlwind, to mix some metaphors. The incompetent architect of this policy is UN Amb. John Bolton, who was Under Secretary of State for non-proliferation for years before he went to the UN.

This is a failure for which the administration should be pilloried. It was unnecessary and shows gross incompetence. It was brought to you by the same incompetents who brought you the Iraq war. We are less safe, but we didn't need to be. Abandoning the Clinton initiatives has brought us closer to nuclear war in Asia, which could spread to the US. Or, North Korea, which tends to sell anything it has on the black market, may sell nuclear weapons, or perhaps just components to terrorists or to other rogue regimes.

All Holocaust All the Time 5

The NYT Book Review had the Holocaust on the cover for The Lost, but it also figured prominently in the review of Supermob. Rich Cohen, who wrote the Supermob review, has my number. He wrote:

The Holocaust bought the Jews 60 years of protection, six decades in which it was taboo to suggest that a Jewish conspiracy, with its dirty tentacles everywhere, had the system in its grip. After news of the camps spread across America, the Ivy League colleges relaxed quotas, the white-shoe firms started hiring, the country clubs let Jews on the greens. People suddenly realized that if, in less than a decade, the Jewish members of the most sophisticated society in the world could be isolated, stripped of property and killed en masse, perhaps they had not been so powerful after all.
Well, 60 years are up.
So here we go!

Hey, this is what George Allen was banking on when he became Jewish to avoid being called a racist.

On the continuing omnipresence of the Holocaust itself, the review of The Lost has an interesting comment:

Consider, for example, his commentary on the commentaries on the story of Lot’s wife, who was warned not to look back on the fiery destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. Of course she does turn around and is turned into a pillar of salt. Mendelsohn believes sages like Rashi and other commentators miss the emotional appeal and peril of the backward glance. But Mendelsohn sees the episode as a warning that “regret for what we have lost, for the pasts we have to abandon, often poisons any attempt to make a new life.” For those compelled to look “back at what has been, rather than forward into the future,” he writes, “the great danger is tears, the unstoppable weeping that the Greeks ... knew was not only a pain but a narcotic pleasure, too: a mournful contemplation so flawless so crystalline, that it can, in the end, immobilize you.”
It’s a sentiment that can seem like a challenge to his entire enterprise. But Mendelsohn also seems to suggest that we can’t look forward until we look back, until we know how we came to be who we are — until we know what we have lost. He tries to look back — to see the horror of annihilation — through the eyes of the single family he has brought back to life.

But maybe Genesis had it right. Maybe you should look forward instead of back. If so, then today's Jews risk being turned into a giant pillar of salt. The thrust of both of these comments is that some Jews are getting the message that it's time to move on from the Holocaust, but they are having a hard time doing it.

All Holocaust All the Time 4

When Senator George Allen got in trouble for calling an Asian Indian "macaca," his response was, "Holocaust! You can't accuse me of being racist because I'm a Jew!" According to the Washington Post, it turns out that Allen's mother is Jewish, making his half Jewish, or perhaps according to Jewish law fully Jewish. But he says he is still going to eat ham sandwiches. However, he is trying to insulate himself from charges of racism by instantly becoming a minority, and a persecuted one at that.

Dostoevsky on Bush

In Crime and Punishment, Dostoevsky's lead character, Raskolnikov explains his theory of how some people are above the law. Apparently Bush and Cheney believe they are examples of Raskolnikov's "extraordinary" men to whom ordinary laws do not apply. Dostoevsky says:

There are certain persons who ... have a perfect right to commit breaches of morality and crimes, and ... the law is not for them....

Extraordinary men have a right to commit any crime and to transgress the law in any way, just because they are extraordinary....

I maintain in my [Raskolnikov's] article that all ... well legislators and leaders of men, such as Lycurgus, Solon, Mahomet, Napoleon, and so on, were all without exception criminals, from the very fact that, making a new law, they transgressed the ancient one, handed down from their ancestors and held sacred by the people, and they did not stop short at bloodshed either, if that bloodshed -- often of innocent persons fighting bravely in defense of ancient law -- were of use to their cause. It's remarkable, in fact, that the majority, indeed, of these benefactors and leaders of humanity were guilty of terrible carnage. (Barnes & Noble Collector's Library, p. 350)

George Bush certainly seems to claim membership in this league of extraordinary individuals who can shed blood with legal impunity.

The Pope would probably agree with Raskolnikov's comments about Mahomet, but if Dostoevsky were to write this today, he might set off riots throughout the Muslim world.

Incompetent Military

Asia Times has a good article about the decline in standards of the US military. This country is led by men who refused to fight and avoided the draft during Vietnam -- Bush, Cheney, and many Congressmen and Senators, excluding of course, McCain, Hegel, Warner, and a minority of others who did serve.

Without a draft and with a bunch of cowardly bullies leading the nation, enlistments in the military by high quality individuals has dropped to almost nothing. As a result, the new soldier is likely to be poorly educated, out of shape, prone to crime, etc. And although this article does not dwell on it, except to note a white supremacist tendency, largely white and Christian. The only counter to this tendency is the attempt to recruit aliens. Basically, it's the best military our trailer parks and slums can produce.

We need a draft quickly and one big enough to add significant manpower to the military, enabling it to increase the US presence in Iraq significantly.

Wolfowitz in Trouble at World Bank

The NYT reports that Paul Wolfowitz is coming under criticism for his leadership at the World Bank. The main gripe, according to the article, is his crusade against corruption, but underlying that gripe is also dislike of the fact that he was the leader of the Iraq war hawks and brought many of his Pentagon cronies with him to the World Bank.

I think Wolfowitz ought to get the boot from the World Bank, even if he appears to be following in the footsteps of his Vietnam war predecessor, Robert McNamara. If they can get rid of him because of this corruption campaign, great, as long as they get him. But they probably won't.

Herbert on "The Stranger in the Mirror"

Bob Herbert's NYT column on "The Stranger in the Mirror" captures well the moral black hole at the center of Bush's policies, which was picked up by Colin Powell in his letter to the Senate regarding treatment of prisoners. Among other things, Herbert says:

There was a time, I thought, when there was general agreement among Americans that torture was beyond the pale....

The character of the U.S. has changed. We’re in danger of being completely ruled by fear. Most Americans have not shared the burden of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Very few Americans are aware, as the Center for Constitutional Rights tells us, that of the hundreds of men held by the U.S. in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, many “have never been charged and will never be charged because there is no evidence justifying their detention.”

Even fewer care.

Brooks On Bush Failures

David Brooks' column on "Ends without Means" cuts both ways on Bush's administration. He seems to say that W has the "vision thing" that his father, 41, lacked, but W doesn't have the means to carry out the vision, in Iraq in particular, but in other areas as well. On the PBS Newshour, Brooks seemed to be less supportive of Bush than he normally is. For example, he said:

DAVID BROOKS: Well, I would say it's something about the political situation here, mostly on the Republican side. You have a lot of Republicans who believed in the war at the start and who have hung with Bush and with the war while growing increasingly depressed over these three years. And now you're beginning to see a lot of them say it's irreparably lost.

All Holocaust All the Time 3

Just another reminder of the omnipresence of the Holocaust. The Washington Post (and many others) report the ordination of the first rabbis in Germany since World War II. You'd think this would no longer be news, 60 years after the war. The war is no longer news, but the Holocaust is.

NYT on Income Inequality

The NYT editorializes that the latest 4.9% blip in labor costs was caused by increases in executives' fat bonuses and stock options, not increases in workers' wages and salaries. Meanwhile, letters to the editor comment on David Brooks' "Populist Myths on Income Inequality," one saying, " listen to Mr. Brooks and his 'let's get skills' message. Mr. Krugman's message of 'let's get 'em' will lead only to further social polarization."

The problem is that if income inequality is not related to education, more education won't help. Some good paying jobs do require education -- engineer, pilot, journalist, professor. But the jobs that pay the really big bucks -- corporate CEO, entrepreneur -- don't require that much education. Bill Gates never finished college. The big bucks jobs that are producing the income inequality require greed, not education. Better education, especially for high school dropouts, might keep some people from sinking below the poverty level, but it's not going to cure income inequality caused by corporate chieftans who keep the bulk of the profits for themselves and don't share with their employees. For that you need government policies like progressive taxation of income and estate taxes, forcing them to share the wealth.

When progressive tax rates were really high -- 75 to 90% -- people complained that there was no incentive to earn more money. Then I thought that was bad, but now I'm not so sure. Maybe we should encourage the fat cats to go spend their ill gotten gains and let someone else start to earn the big bucks.

FT Right on Torture & Globalization

The Financial Times for last Friday was right on the evils of Bush's torture and of globalization. The editorial condemning Bush's use of torture says:

Five years after launching a war on terror that has undermined America's moral authority abroad -- and proved spectacularly counter-productive in the battle for hearts and minds in the Muslim world -- Mr. Bush seems to have learnt few lessons about why torture and martial law will not win this war for him. For the benefits of intelligence gleaned, if any, are ultimately outweighed by the damage to America's standing at home and abroad

And the op-ed by Nobel Prize winner Joseph Stiglitz, entitled "We have become rich countries of poor people," says:

Unfettered globalization actually has the potential to make many people in advanced industrial countries worse off, even if economic growth increases....

In the US, tax policies have become less progressive; the bulk of recent tax cuts went to the winners, those who had already benefited both from globalization and changes in technology....

The Scandinavian countries have shown there is another way. Investment in education and research and a strong safety net can lead to a more productive and competitive economy.

I hope David Brooks reads this Stiglitz op-ed. Brooks is for education, but not for a strong safety net. Stiglitz also says:

While economic theory predicted there would be losers from globalization, it also said that the winners could compensate the losers. Well-managed globalization can make everyone, or at least most, better off. This has not happened.

This implies that for globalization to work humanely, business leaders, CEOs and others, should take some responsibility for their workers. In my earlier comment on Brooks' column, I said that after the depression and World War II, business leaders who had been through those trials tended to feel a responsibility toward their "troops." They had a shared experience that we no longer have. One downside of our diverse culture is that there is little that we share. While there are charitable impulses to help the downtrodden, there is not the shared feeling that we are all in this together, rich and poor. In business today, it's every man (or woman) for himself (or herself).

Get Wolfowitz Out of World Bank

The Financial Times has it right in criticizing Paul Wolfowitz' performance at the World Bank. It does not call for his removal, but I think that is the best way to improve the bank. Why should the US put a war criminal in to head it up? The FT says:

The Financial Times hoped that Mr Wolfowitz might pleasantly surprise his critics, but his first year at the World Bank was not a success. Surrounding himself with a coterie of advisers from his Pentagon days, he has failed to set a new direction for the bank. His obsessive anti-corruption drive is not a development strategy. The World Bank's complexity - and the complexity of its mission - demand that he now shows some leadership.

I think it is time for him to go. He should never have been there in the first place.