Tuesday, September 11, 2007
Iraq's Army & the Nazis
He also says he coordinated it with Jay Garner, his predecessor, who in interviews in Woodward's State of Denial claims that he did not like the de-Baathification proposal, but I suspect that at least some of Garner's comments are self-serving, made after the strategy had begun to fail. Garner was himself very close to the Israelis, which is why I thought he was chosen for the job before he lost it to Bremer.
I don't know why Bremer got the job. At the State Department, I remember him mainly as being the ultimate staff assistant, the head of S/S, the Secretary of State's secretariat, who made sure all the briefings, decision memos, etc., were properly prepared on time. He went on to be an ambassador, a reward for his staff work, but I don't think that's how he made his mark. Ironically, maybe he was chosen because he was known to be a staffer who would not go off on his own, but would do a good job of implementing the policies of his bosses.
Petraeus Political Spokesman for Bush
Monday, September 10, 2007
Can Abe Survive Bush?
Petraeus Can't Speak to Congress
It is more than coincidence that Petraeus and Crocker will be testifying to Congress on 9/11. The Bush administration has clearly scheduled the testimony to link the Iraq war to the 9/11 attacks, although there is no connection, except in Bush's mind. The Republicans, in their pre-testimony remarks, criticized Move-On.org for the Petraeus/Betray-us ad in the NYT, with some justification, but the Republicans started the dispute by turning to the military to give a political justification for the war. The Republicans have politicized the military, while they send thousands to die in Iraq. The Republicans, under the leadership of Sen. John Warner among others, are destroying the military establishment, both in terms of fighting capability and intellectually.
Rep. Duncan Hunter's comments before the testimony were particularly interesting because he praised Gen. MacArthur, who was fired by Pres. Truman because MacArthur failed to obey civilian direction during the Korean War. It's odd that a civilian Congressman would hint to a general that the general should not obey civilian orders.
Saturday, September 08, 2007
Improper Use of Military
Ackerman says "nobody is noticing the threat to civilian control" of the military. "Despite the president's grandiose pretentions as commander-in-chief, the future of the Iraq war is up to Gen. Patraeus." As a contrast, Ackerman cites Harry Truman, who fired Gen. MacArthur, rather than have McArthur decide how the Korean War would be fought. He says that as Bush sends Petraeus up to Congress on the 9/11 anniversary, "it is now up to a military man to defend the principle of civilian control."
If you are cynical, you think:
1) Bush is too cowardly to face Congress himself and call for continuing the war; so, he sends Patraeus, dressed in his uniform, like Reagan sent up Ollie North to defend Iran-Contra; and
2) Bush has chosen Patraeus because he can manipulate Patraeus like he and Rumsfeld did Chairmen of the Joint Chiefs Myers and Pace.
It's a real problem as Maher may have unintentionally illustrated by one of his questions to Col. Wilkerson: "Why is the military so loyal to Bush?" Think of the alternative! What if the military were not loyal to Bush? Would we have a coup? We had better hope the military is loyal, but that is one reason why they should be insulated from the politics of declaring war.
Wednesday, September 05, 2007
Incompetence Run Amok
Interestingly, the NYT just ran an long article on Condi Rice's failure as Secretary of State. Josh Bolten, Card's replacement, was just on the PBS News Hour tonight saying that Condi would stay through the end of Bush's administration.
You can be pretty sure that nothing major is going to happen in the Middle East, or anywhere else. Condi's supposed to be a Russian expert, but relations with Russia are going down the tubes. North Korea is somewhat of a success, but mainly because she got rid of John Bolton and let Chris Hill do his thing.
The military has been pretty much tarred by the Iraq campaign. Bush keeps talking about how great they are, but they're losing. Part of the problem is that Rumsfeld put cowardly yes-men like Richard Myers and Peter Pace in senior positions. In general, peacetime conditions breed a military that's not much good for fighting. When a war comes, somebody like General George Marshall has to put some fighting generals in charge. In Iraq, nobody ever did this.
There Was No Civil War Under Saddam
In any case, before the US invasion, there was no civil war in Iraq. After we defeated Saddam for his invasion of Kuwait, things were relatively quiet. The no fly zone and other limitations kept Saddam in his box. It was a successful containment (a la the cold war) on a small scale. So if Saddam could prevent civil war among the Iraqi populace, the US should also be able to, but it would require many more resources that we are willing to put in.
We should go back to square one: re-occupy the country with something like 1,000,000 men, and mete out something close to Western justice (not Abu Ghraib justice) to Iraqis who do anything wrong, from stealing hubcaps to insurrection. The US occupation failed when looting broke out after we entered Baghdad, and we did nothing to stop it.
Saddam kept order by terror; we could keep order by establishing a real occupation with real justice, but we won't do it.
Tuesday, September 04, 2007
Kurds & Ethnic Cleansing
Tom Friedman talks about how well things are going in Iraqi Kurdistan. It sounds as if the Kurds have long been one of the motivations for the Iraq war. Bush 1 basically abandoned them to Saddam's treachery after the first Iraq war. Then according to one of the Iraq war books --
Fiasco, Cobra II, State of Denial -- a lot of the people who pushed for the war liked, visited, and helped the Kurds, including Wolfowitz, some of the military men, and Jay Garner, who was originally designated for the job to head the Iraq occupation that Jerry Bremer ended up getting. I don't know exactly what the connection is, but Jews seem to like the Kurds, perhaps they see the Kurds as less threatening Muslims than the Arabs. In any case, I think the Jews that wanted the Iraq war -- Wolfowitz, Perle, Adelman, Feith, Kristol, et. al -- were motivated in part by their impressions of Kurds and Kurdistan. This may also include Jay Garner, who as a general before he retired had close connections with Israel, which may have been carried over to his retirement as some kind of armaments dealer. So, it's not surprising that Tom Friedman would find Kurdistan is wonderful. Maybe it is, but Jews love of Kurds helped get us into a horrible war in the rest of Iraq.
David Brooks' column on how the tribes are going to bring democracy to Baghdad probably has some merit. But there is also the possibility that success at the tribal level is as much about ethnic cleansing as about democracy. The test will be whether tribes from other regions, sects, etc., Kurds and Sunnis, or Sunnis and Shiites will be willing to work together. I'm not so sure. They want security for their tribes. They don't care that much about Iraq as a country.
Fed Rate Cut & Fiscal Policy
My question is, "What happened to FISCAL policy?" Basically, with the Bush tax cuts and deficit spending, fiscal policy is based on a perception of the economic climate as, "Oh my God, we're all going to die!" The government has to spend and encourage businessmen with tax breaks as if we were in a deep depression and there was no tomorrow. Of course, that is not the case. It's just that businessmen like you better if you give them money; so, Bush and his cronies have given them tons of money. And he has a 27% approval rating to show for it.
But that puts Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Paulson is a tough spot, because half of their tools -- the fiscal policies -- are gone. Dick Cheney has already shot his friend in the face and doesn't have any ammunition left. So, it's all on Bernanke, who so far seems to be taking his job seriously, much more seriously than Congress, Tony Snow, or George Bush. Bernanke may actually care about this country. If so, hooray for him! But he should not have to fight this battle alone. (Somehow, he, unlike Tony Snow, can live on a government salary.)
Tony Snow & Average Americans
And what does Tony Snow's resignation say about government service. For Snow, working for $168,000 a year was a tremendous sacrifice that he wouldn't continue. What about an enlisted man serving in Iraq? I don't know what he makes, but it's a lot less than $168,000 per year. Of course the deep pockets Republican sector is hiring the best special forces soldiers away from the military at something like Tony Snow's government salary to serve in the private security services in Iraq, such as Blackwater, Triple Canopy and their ilk.
It's pretty clear that Republicans and maybe most Americans of any political persuasion, love money more than they love their country.
Friday, August 24, 2007
Warner Less than Courageous
Now Warner has called for pulling out 5,000 troops of the 160,000 currently there, if the President wants to. It's almost nothing. It's too few to be noticeable, and probably too few to make a difference one way or another. It's symbolic, and that's something, but it's not much. What George Marshall did was more than symbolic. He took a small, peacetime military, much like America's today, and transformed it into a huge fighting machine that made the difference in World War II. He made hard choices; he replaced peacetime generals with generals who could fight. He drafted millions of men; he turned America's industrial base on its heels toward the production of military equipment. Bush and Warner kept their yes-man generals and gave huge tax breaks to the rich. They said, "Keep us in power and we'll give you lots of money and send some worthless farm boys and ghetto kids to die in Iraq. And we'll do it with generals who won't rock the boat." Their contempt for average Americans is boundless.
Warner may not be the worst politician in the Senate, but he certainly does not deserve to be mentioned in the same breath with General George Marshall.
Bush Criticizes Cowards on Vietnam, Injures Foot
Tuesday, August 21, 2007
Tax Cuts and Moral Hazards
In discussing what to do about this situation, the concept of "moral hazard" gets mentioned occasionally, as it does in this Financial Times editorial. The moral hazard concept is that you should not bail out people who got themselves in financial difficulty. It certainly applies to the hedge fund and private equity types; it is less clear that it applies to the average homeowner who might lose his house because he got a disadvantageous mortgage. There should be a level playing field. The hedge fund types certainly knew what they were doing; most have MBAs. Homeowners may or may not have known; they may have been cheated by mortgage brokers who didn't explain exactly what they were getting into. But the homeowners should have been smart enough to understand that if it sounds too good to be true, it's probably not true.
In any case, the moral hazard argument is that we should not bail out those who profited from taking risks that have now come home to roost. Therefore, in general, the Fed should not bail them out by cutting interest rates. But the economy does have a problem if the market turmoil threatens to bring on recession. It's the old story, "If you own the bank $100,000 and can't pay, you're in trouble. If you owe the bank $100,000,000 and can't pay, the bank is in trouble." So, it's possible the hedge fund types have the Fed over a barrel. But certainly the Fed should resist the temptation to bail out the market losers, like Jim Cramer of CNBC, according to Barrons. Bush has already given them a ton of help by cutting their taxes to almost nothing. Bush works for them; maybe Bernanke doesn't. Maybe he works for America. We'll see.
Little Genuine Support for the Troops in Iraq
For most Americans, supporting the troops means putting a bumper sticker on their car, or watching a program about the Army on TV. The real way to support the troops is to enlist in the Army or the Marines to go fight. Because nobody does that, those in the service go back to Iraq again and again. Bush and Cheney don't care. They were both draft dodgers during Vietnam who have contempt for the military; to them, serving in the military is something that poor, stupid people do who can't get a real job working for Halliburton or the Texas Rangers.One thing General Hertling pointedly did not suggest was for the families of the soldiers to return to the United States. The Army’s goal is to create a support network strong enough that the spouses will decide to wait out the deployment on the base in Germany, a country that many of them scarcely know and that pointedly declined to take part in the Iraq war. “We tell them, ‘You will not get the support you think you will, if you go back home,’ ” he said in an interview.
But it also demonstrates, General Hertling said, how the gap between American society and its volunteer military has widened as the Iraq war has dragged on. “Many people there have just moved on,” he said.
The extension of the last deployment — which came at the last minute after some troops had already reunited with their families in Germany — strained relations between the families and the Army. “There have been so many changes in what we’ve asked soldiers to do, that we may have put spouses in a position where they question what comes next,” said General Hertling, who has had two sons and a daughter-in-law serving in Iraq.
To me an example of contempt for the military is that the last two Democratic candidates for President, Al Gore and John Kerry, were both Vietnam veterans. The public said, "Naw, we don't like veterans. We didn't serve, and we don't trust those do-gooders who did serve. Give us a draft dodger." And the public got what it deserved: cowards who were afraid to fight in Iraq, who got us into a horrible war that will destabilize the Middle East because they were afraid to fight hard enough to win. Why? Because they would have to raise taxes and re-institute the draft to get enough soldiers to fight and win the war they started. Cowards! Republicans, draft dodger Rudy Giuliani included, are cowards, except for John McCain, Chuck Hagel, and a few other veterans.
I'm not happy with Sen. John Warner, who was Republican chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee during the invasion of Iraq and during the first years of the war, although he is a veteran. He did not support the military, and has let Bush and Cheney virtually destroy the military by not providing the necessary manpower and equipment to fight the war in Iraq. Warner just got an award from the George Marshall Foundation, but instead of an award he should have gotten a censure for doing the exact opposite of what Marshall did to build up the Army to win World War II. It's time for Warner to go. He has failed his country.
Monday, August 20, 2007
Congress' Disdain for National Security
The bad thing is that the Congress cared so little about what the law said that it passed it without debating it, without even reading it closely, if at all. The lesson: August vacation is more important to Congress than America's national security. Congress is a national disgrace!
China's Economic Nuclear Option
In short, this seems like something that it would be very unlikely for China to do. It would hurt the US, but at a great price for China. The only scenario might be if there was a huge financial crash in China, so that adding to it would be relatively unnoticeable; then China might say, "If I'm going down, I'll take America with me."
Saturday, August 11, 2007
Iraq War Czar Considers a Draft
I think we need a draft. Too much is being asked of our all volunteer Army. Bush and Cheney, two draft dodgers, would never propose to restore the draft, although their war is the reason we need to do so. They are perfectly happy to destroy the Army, for which they have no respect, and let their successor figure out how to defend the US. We need to start planning for the future now, and the all volunteer Army won't meet the needs of the future unless we get out of Iraq now and let it start recuperating.
Thursday, August 09, 2007
Insider Trading Common on Wall Street
In any case, the Financial Times study tends to reinforce the negative impression of Wall Street. The violent fluctuations currently going on in the market no doubt allow savvy traders, maybe not doing anything illegal, but just using their intimate knowledge of how trades are made these days by computer programs, to make money when the market goes up or down. Add to this the fact that many staffers, high and low, in banks and brokerages are aware of merger and acquisition (M&A) activity, and can probably do some small trades using their inside knowledge that will not show up on the SEC's radar screen, but may show up on the overall statistical study done by the Financial Times.
Wednesday, August 08, 2007
Cowardly Democrats
Bush is worthless, but the Democrats are also worthless. I guess politicians are worthless. I'm particularly surprised that Diane Feinstein, Jim Webb, and my Democratic Senator Ken Salazar voted for the bill.
The bill may be okay, but it may not be. The quick vote was unseemly and showed that the Congress wanted to go on vacation more than it wanted to protect the US. Yesterday, two people debated the law on PBS and they had diametrically different ideas of what the bill actually said, much less what it meant.
Tuesday, August 07, 2007
Unoptimistic about Middle East
While her subordinates have been out doing things, Condi has been giving interviews and making appearances around the world. But she is not going to make any tough decisions. Any progress in the Middle East will require getting Israel to make some sacrifices, and she won't do that because she and Bush won't, or don't want to, stand up to the Israel lobby, AIPAC and company. Thus, her initiative is doomed from the start.
The idea of shoring up Abbas and Fatah is unlikely to lead anywhere. Fatah meant something when Arafat headed it. The Israelis assassinated Arafat, and I think they will live to regret it. The Israelis may not have assassinated Arafat by actually killing him, although they may have. The reasons for his death given by the French hospital where he was treated were never very clear; he could have died from some virus or poison wafted into his ramshackle headquarters by Israel. Or he may have died simply because of the squalid conditions that Israel forced him to live in. In any case, he was a leader of the Palestinians who could actually follow through on promises he made. Abbas does not have they power. He is a puppet of Israel and the US and is perceived as such by the Palestinians and other Arab and Muslim states. The US money and weapons given to Fatah may help him stay in power, but it won't help him bring peace to the region. It would take a leader with more power than Abbas to do that.