Sic Semper Tyrannis

Dowd on the Need for Penance

 "It doesn’t seem right that the Catholic Church is spending Holy Week practicing the unholy art of spin.

Complete with crown-of-thorns imagery, the church has started an Easter public relations blitz defending a pope who went along with the perverse culture of protecting molesters and the church’s reputation rather than abused — and sometimes disabled and disadvantaged — children.

The church gave up its credibility for Lent. Holy Thursday and Good Friday are now becoming Cover-Up Thursday and Blame-Others Friday.

This week of special confessions and penance services is unfolding as the pope resists pressure from Catholics around the globe for his own confession and penance about the cascade of child sexual abuse cases that were ignored, even by a German diocese and Vatican office he ran."  Dowd

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Tough times in the Church business.    A lot of people in the Catholic Church are fed up with the monarchical, medieval style in religion that present practice in the Church embodies.  2000 years of  liturgical, structural and legal encrustations are not amusing any longer in the context of the knowledge of widespread sexual molestation of children (mostly boys) by Religious (brothers) and Clergy (priests).  

Catholics were brought up to trust clergy and religious.  Sure, there were always a few that seemed dubious, but in the main the priestly image among the laity was a composite of the little guy in "The Bells of St. Mary's," the whiskey priest in Graham Greene's "The Power and the Glory," and Bishop Fulton Sheen.  In other words, other worldly people who were not self oriented.

That's gone now.  The archbishop of New York is wrong if he thinks we believe his claim that only "a few" priests have been involved in widespread immorality.  This is obviously a widespread phenomenon, one in which men trusted by parents with their children conspired to ravage these children, and the most guilty of the conspirators were the bishops who served as enablers and who continue to protect their caste of  unmarried and largely unaccountable managers of tax exempt institutions.

The Europeans thought it was vaguely amusing when this scandal was revealed in the US a dozen years ago.  They implied in their comments that this was somehow a peculiarly American problem.  Who laughs last, etc...

Pope Benedict and the bishops should start listening to the people of God.  Massive reform, not in teaching, but in practice is clearly needed.  pl 

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/31/opinion/31dowd.html?src=me

Israel lobby presses Congress to soften Obama's tough stance on Netanyahu - Guardian

 "Signatories to Aipac's letter include Steny Hoyer, the Democrat majority leader, and Eric Cantor, the Republican whip. The wording is similar to an email Aipac sent out during Netanyahu's visit, describing Obama's criticisms of the Israeli government as "a matter of serious concern" and calling on the US administration "to take immediate steps to defuse the tension with the Jewish state".

But while Aipac has for years influenced US policy on Israel, by targeting members of Congress who criticise the Jewish state, it may no longer have the same impact."  Guardian

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I thought Hoyer had more sense.  Cantor is easier to understand, a man whose loyalties are undivided.  3/4s of the members of the House?  Money talks and BS walks...  No. That's not fair.  There are many members of Congress who simply place Israel's interests above those of their own country.  Some are Jewish Zionists who do not trust their gentile brothers and sisters.  Some are Protestant (or Catholic) Zionists who either hope for the "Rapture" soon or admire the brutality of Israeli "force majeure."

Do I think that the Palestinians, Arabs or Muslims are innocent in all this?  Hell No!  But that does not mean that we should continue to allow a tiny client state to dominate us.  pl 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/mar/30/us-israel-lobby-pressure-obama

Maliki wants a "do-over" on the election. CS Monitor

 "Six winning candidates in Iraq elections will be stripped of their votes and lose their seats – which would cost secular politician Iyad Allawi's bloc its narrow victory – if a federal court upholds a broad purge of candidates who are suspected of past involvement with the late dictator Saddam Hussein's outlawed Baath Party, Iraqi officials said Monday."  CS Monitor

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The high court in Iraq will rule on the "qualifications" of six winning candidates in the recent parliamentary elections.  These are candidates about whom there had been some "doubts" but whom the election commission had allowed to run anyway.  I suppose that it was expected that the outcome in the election would elect Maliki handily, and now, "extraordinary measures" must be taken to ensure his retention of office.

There are four Allawi secularists, one from Maliki's religious Shia party and a Kurd.

Well...  There will be a renewal of civil war if this happens.  pl 

http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Middle-East/2010/0329/Iraq-election-Victorious-candidates-may-be-purged-boosting-Maliki

"Defense investigates information-operations contractors" Walter Pincus

 "Between 2006 and 2008, Central Command alone had 172 contracts worth $270 million just for information operations in Iraq, according to a Defense Department inspector general report released in September.

Purchases of products and services made through major contracts included "military analysts, development of television commercials and documentaries, focus group and polling services, television air time, posters, banners, and billboards," the inspector general reported. Smaller individual purchases under information-operations programs included "magazine publishing and printing services, newspaper dissemination, television and radio airtime, text messaging services, internet services and novelty items," the report said."  Pincus

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The US armed forces generally don't like to make staff specialists into senior officers with broad command authority.  They prefer to take officers of "the line,"  infantry. fighter pilots, ship drivers, etc. and give them that broad authority.  There are pockets of activity where that does not apply, the whole medical field for example.  Nevertheless, the tendency to appoint senior commanders from among the ranks of generalists leads to an inability on the part of many senior officers to deal directly with the many, many specialized and often very esoteric aspects of modern military activity.  The same thing happens in the senior civil service where generalist managers are preferred for promotion and "command."  To make up for the resulting incapacity, there is a tendency to hire support contractors from among the retired specialists.  Such contractors have no intention of providing their services gratis and so this is expensive.

Asa result there are some very large support contractor companies.  These are the fabled "beltway bandits," (I won't name them) but there are also a myriad of small to medium companies, often formed by the retired specialists.   Obviously the money is a lot better for the partners in a small company that gains a contract or sub-contract.  Sometimes a retired general or SES member is installed as the titular or actual head of the company.

There are "fads" in government activity, often spawned by a book, or a charismatic young personality.  The appeal of such books and people often leads to the creation of new "think tanks"into which pour endowment money.  Such "think tanks" are always popular in the beltway world because they are a wonderful source of well funded fellowships.  These foundations  attract the attention of politicians and the subject matter of the "foundation" easily becomes a new "fad" for which someone on high opens the money faucet.

Counterterrorism, counterinsurgency, information operations, cyberwar, irregular warfare, climate change, these are some of the current crop of emergent "industries" in the government-academic-think tank-consultant- contractor companies world.  pl 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/28/AR2010032802743.html?wpisrc=nl_headline

"Afghan corruption: How to follow the money?" de Young

 "Wardak sits atop a murky pyramid of Afghan subcontractors who provide the vehicles and safeguard their passage. U.S. military officials say they are satisfied with the results, but they concede that they have little knowledge or control over where the money ends up.

According to senior Obama administration officials, some of it may be going to the Taliban, as part of a protection racket in which insurgents and local warlords are paid to allow the trucks unimpeded passage, often sending their own vehicles to accompany the convoys through their areas of control.

The essential question, said an American executive whose company does significant work in Afghanistan, is "whether you'd rather pay $1,000" for Afghans to safely deliver a truck, even if part of the money goes to the insurgents, or pay 10 times that much for security provided by the U.S. military or contractors.

President Obama made a surprise trip to the country Sunday to press President Hamid Karzai to do more to clean up corruption in Afghanistan. Congress has warned repeatedly that U.S. assistance depends on progress in this area.

The likelihood that U.S. money is finding its way to the enemy as well as lining officials' pockets -- charges that Wardak says could be true for other transport contractors but not for his company -- is "one of the many very important things that came to light" during last fall's White House strategy review, an administration official said."  de Young

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Wardak's father is the Afghan Minister of Defense.  This may all be innocent, but how likely is that?  A $360 million contract for doing what, exactly?  Hiring sub-contractors? This is a "pass through" on a truly grand scale.

1- Do we know that this is the only DoD contract in which the younger Wardak has his fingers?

2- How was this contract awarded?  Were normal contracting procedures followed?

3- What happens to our supply chain if Wardak loses the contract?  pl  

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/28/AR2010032802971.html?wpisrc=nl_headline

Open Thread - 28 March 2010

 

"Obama mistreated Natanyahu?" CNN

1-  Recommendations on a good blog hosting company that I can switch to?  Any volunteers?

2-  I just read in the "crawl" on CNN the question cited above.  This is a question that makes sense only if you see the world through Israel centric eyes.  Let's review the "bidding," the US/Israel relationship is of existential importance to Israel.  Without us dumb goy types Israel is a "dead duck" in the long run.  Yes, I know, we are not all goyim.  The Israel/US relationship is of minimal importance to the US.  Iran?  We can crush them and we do not need Israeli help.  In fact, that would just be a nuisance factor.  For President Obama to seek to discipline Israel (a minor client of the US) is merely to honor his oath of office.

3- This blog wins prizes every quarter.  Congratulations to you all.  

4- Alla yubarik fiik Ayad Allawi.

pl  

Typepad and Bibi, etc.

Typepad has tried but so far have failed to fix it.

Cliff

I do not think it is a question of "getting new faces" in Israel It is a question of demonstrating to the lot of them that WE are in charge and not them.

Will

What is the difference between your version of events and mine or are you just being argumentative?  pl

"Obama 'humiliated' Netanyahu at meeting" - JASON KOUTSOUKIS

 "Writing in the Israeli Maariv, columnist Ben Caspit said there was no humiliation exercise the Americans did not try on Mr Netanyahu. ''Bibi received in the White House the treatment reserved for the president of Equatorial Guinea,'' Caspit wrote.

Yedioth Ahronoth said the White House ambushed Mr Netanyahu. ''Everything was scrupulously planned, most likely, and the Israeli Premier, perhaps the most sought-after personage in the Oval Office in the past two decades, was received like the last of the wazirs from Lower Senegal.''

The consensus among Israeli commentators is that the US will continue to exert more pressure on Israel to move swiftly towards the creation of a Palestinian state.

''The US is abandoning us and effectively turning into Europe,'' Caspit wrote. ''From now on, we are completely alone. The entire world, from one end to another, talks about a Palestinian state inside territory similar to 1967.''

''Obama wants to know whether Netanyahu is there. In explicit words, in writing, not with hints, not with a 'maybe,' not with a 'yes, but'. A simple question that requires a simple answer.''"  SMH

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I had resolved not to write about this for a while, but this is SO interesting...  Evidently BHO gave Bibi his letter of response back and told him to go work on it for a while.  Then, as it says here, he announced that he was going upstairs to have dinner with his family and left Natanyahu to figuratively "find the door."

Caspit writes that the whole world expects a settlement based on the 1967 borders...  Imagine that!!

"Now we are completely alone"  Sigh, well, they are alone except for several billion dollars of US money every year.

Sounds like a display of collective neurotic narcissism to me, but "alnval" or Natalie can explain it to us.  pl 

http://www.smh.com.au/world/obama-humiliated-netanyahu-at-meeting-20100325-r000.html?autostart=1

Continued inability to comment

I am unable to comment because the typepad program is demanding a URL with the comment.  i have sent two requests to typepad for help.  pl