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 

Typebad screwup

They are so FUBAR that their program is demanding "Correct" URLs from commenters, including me.  I have bitched.  pl 

"Netanyahu leaves U.S. disgraced, isolated and weaker." By Aluf Benn

 "... then calamity struck. At their White House meeting, Obama made clear to his guest that the letter Netanyahu had sent was insufficient and returned it for further corrections. Instead of a reception as a guest of honor, Netanyahu was treated as a problem child, an army private ordered to do laps around the base for slipping up at roll call. 

The revolution in the Americans' behavior is clear to all. On Sunday morning Obama was still anxiously looking ahead to the House of Representatives vote on health care - the last thing he wanted was a last-minute disagreement with congressmen over ties with Israel. 

The moment the bill was passed, however, a victorious Obama was free to deal with his unruly guest. 

The Americans made every effort to downplay the visit. As during his last visit in November, Netanyahu was invited to the White House at a late hour, without media coverage or a press conference. If that were not enough, the White House spokesman challenged Netanyahu's observation at AIPAC that "Jerusalem is not a settlement." 

The Americans didn't even wait for him to leave Washington to make their disagreement known. It was not the behavior Washington shows an ally, but the kind it shows an annoyance."  Ha'aretz

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Bibi was "dissed."  Good, he needed the lesson.  I think there will be more such lessons.  Obama is a patient man.  I now see that he favors the "ambush" style.   Israeli hubris and arrogance favors an "adversary" who employs such method.  They will not learn the lesson implied in this Ha'aretz editorial because to do so would require a basic change in the way they think pf themselves in relationship to the outer world and gentiles.  They carry this burden in trying to deal with difficult situations.  In the same way they will continue down the road of trying to deal with the Palestinians by treating them as sub-humans. That road leads to a dead end.  

It leads to a future in which emigration and unending Arab and Muslim hostility end the experiment.  pl 

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1158992.html

PS  People keep referring to Bibi as an invited guest of the US in this visit.  So far as I know this was a"self invited visit."  The only thing we did was give him a visa.  pl  

Israeli intelligence, our constant companion - Jeff Klein

 "...another of Mossad’s reason for being, as with all the world's spy services, is to make sure friends are really friends.

And judging by once sensitive FBI documents making the rounds in recent days, the Israelis have been at this task in Washington for a very long time.

The 21 documents, obtained by Grant F. Smith, a Washington, D.C. author who has made a career out of writing critical books on Israeli spying and lobbying, detail the FBI’s investigation into the theft of a confidential U.S. document on the Reagan administration’s position going into the 1984 U.S.-Israel Free Trade Area Negotiations.

Acting on a complaint that the document was circulating on Capitol Hill, the FBI discovered that an Israeli diplomat had acquired the paper and given it to officials at AIPAC, the lobbying group whose annual convention drew both Netanyahu and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton this week.

Although the document was classified only “confidential” (as opposed to Secret, Top Secret and higher), the FBI concluded that President Reagan’s “negotiating position concerning a trade agreement between the United States and the State of Israel is compromised because this report divulges those products and industries that have been identified by the International Trade Commission as being the most sensitive to imports from Israel.""  Washpost

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I suppose that this is news outside Washington and New York.  pl 

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/spy-talk/2010/03/israeli_spies_our_constant_com.html

Electoral news from Iraq

 "Preliminary results of the March 7 balloting are due Friday, but the Independent High Electoral Commission has already made it clear it does not intend to conduct a ballot-by-ballot recount. The U.S. Embassy and the United Nations have said that the elections appeared to have been carried out in a credible fashion, with no evidence of widespread fraud.

An analysis of the latest figures by the U.S. military has projected that Maliki's slate will lose the popular vote but win 90 parliamentary seats, compared with 87 seats for the Iraqiya list of his rival Iyad Allawi, a secular Shiite and previous prime minister. Such a narrow outcome would make it difficult for Maliki to cobble together a ruling coalition in parliament, observers say, explaining the unease among Maliki supporters."  LA Times

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So, no recount.  That means that there will be several Shia religious blocs in parliament with Maliki's the largest, then Allawi's Sunni and Shia secularists with a large bloc, then the two major Kurdish factions.

It sounds to me that the resulting coalition in parliament will have two or more Shia religious groups at the core with one of the Kurdish "parties" adhering to some degree.  

If this arrangement leaves Allawi's people out in the cold with some of the Kurds, then you can expect that unrest will continue indefinitely in Iraq, probably backed by the Sunni Arab states with money and sanctuary.

Will the level of violence rise to a paralyzing level?  I doubt it.  Will the US withdrawal stop.  No.  pl 

http://articles.latimes.com/2010/mar/23/world/la-fg-iraq24-2010mar24

"... a shifting alliance" Kessler

 "U.S. pressure can work, but it needs to be at the right time, on the right issue and in the right political context," said Robert Malley, a peace negotiator in the Clinton White House. "The latest episode was an apt illustration. The administration is ready for a fight, but it realized the issue, timing and context were wrong. The crisis has been deferred, not resolved."   Kessler

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People who think the Israelis and their agents of influence  succeeded in dominating the Obama Administration in this matter are wrong.  What they succeeded in doing is to make a lot of people look like their loyalties are anything but undivided.  This is a very dangerous thing to do.  The spectacle of the AIPAC delegates wildly applauding Bibi's defiance the the president of the United States was enlightening for many.

Before his visit I said that Natanyahu was not concerned because he thinks he run the US. His behavior here as well as that of his allies, confirmed that view.  pl 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/23/AR2010032304312.html

Israel won't back down in dispute with U.S., PM says - CNN

 "Our policy regarding Jerusalem is the same as it was over the past 42 years. We have made it clear to the Americans that for us, building there is just like building in Tel Aviv," Netanyahu said. Israel captured the land in question in the spring of 1967, nearly 43 years ago."  CNN

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Israel unilaterally annexed Jerusalem after the 1967 war in defiance of various UN resolutions.The IDF captured East Jerusalem from the Jordanian Army in that war.  That annexation is not recognized by most countries.  If memory serves, the US is numbered among those that do not.  Israeli allies in the US Congress keep trying to move the US Embassy to Jerusalem. They do that every few years and the executive branch resists because to do so would be a de facto recognition of Israel's claim to own Jerusalem in something other than a display of force majeure.  

So, for Bibi, it is a major thing when the US insists that territory within the boundaries of Jerusalem is subject to negotiation as to status in a "final settlement."

The closed door meeting at the WH today should be an interesting event.  If Obama persists in this Jerusalem business a line will be drawn in the sand.  pl 

http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/meast/03/21/israel.us.relations/

Clinton Defends U.S. Criticism of Israeli Plans - NY Times

 "In a speech to a pro-Israeli group that mixed reassuring notes about helping Israel face the Iranian nuclear threat with a blunt warning that the status quo in the Middle East was “unsustainable,” Mrs. Clinton said, “There must be no gap between the United States and Israel on security.”

She defended the administration’s decision to criticize the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over its announcement of housing units for Jews in East Jerusalem during a visit to Israel by Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. The move, she said, undermined indirect talks that the administration is trying to broker between Israelis and Palestinians.

“Our credibility in this process depends in part on our willingness to praise both sides when they are courageous, and when we don’t agree, to say so, and say so unequivocally,” she said."  NY Times

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Someone here asked what I thought of HC's speech.  I think it was pretty good, a nice balance of realism on the US internal political front and a continued warning that mischievous hubris on the part of our little friend in the Middle East will not be acceptable.

We all know that the US is not going to walk away from Israel.  The real question is whether or not a more reasonable relationship can be worked out.

Now let us see what the government is going to do in the Nozette attempted espionage case.  As Sid says the documents make for a good read.pl 

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/23/world/middleeast/23diplo.html

The Misinformed Tea Party Movement - Bruce Bartlett

"Tuesday's Tea Party crowd, however, thought that federal taxes were almost three times as high as they actually are. The average response was 42% of GDP and the median 40%. The highest figure recorded in all of American history was half those figures: 20.9% at the peak of World War II in 1944.

To follow up, Tea Partyers were asked how much they think a typical family making $50,000 per year pays in federal income taxes. The average response was $12,710, the median $10,000. In percentage terms this means a tax burden of between 20% and 25% of income."  Bartlett

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The Republican Party should consider what it is doing in inciting the hostility of the ignorant.  Not only are many of the "tea party" people uninformed but they are also all too often bigoted against people unlike themselves.

Representative Frank of Massachusetts who is openly homosexual was jeered over the weekend with cries of f----t and c--------r on the grounds of the US capitol.  John Lewis, Democrat of Georgia had n----r yelled at him.

Is this really what the Republicans want to encourage?  pl

http://www.forbes.com/2010/03/18/tea-party-ignorant-taxes-opinions-columnists-bruce-bartlett.html

More Nozette Documents

 21 March 2010 

Some new papers were filed in the attempted espionage case against Stewart Nozette on

17 March 2010. 

1.  A superseding indictment was filed that takes the place of the original indictment.  This new one has three counts. 

2.  A memorandum by the government explaining the new indictment.  It adds a new count out of the facts underlying the old count one, and the new count three is the old count two. 

3.  The government's Rule 404(b) motion, which it was supposed to file in 30 days after the last status conference.  The Federal Rules of Evidence govern what evidence can be introduced into a trial in federal court.  Rule 404(b) of those rules concerns evidence of other bad acts or wrongs done by the defendant, or evidence of a "bad character".

Since one of the principles of the criminal justice system in the U.S. is that a person is to go on trial only for the specific charge on evidence related to it, and not for being a rotten son of a b***h and a person of bad character, there is often a lot of argument before and during a trial over what evidence of other misconduct and extraneous transactions can be presented at a trial.  The prosecution is to reveal in advance what other alleged bad acts of the defendant it plans to try to put in as evidence.

This motion lists them. 

Also, on March 1, the court appointed an attorney from the Federal Public Defender's office (paid by the

taxpayers) to assist Nozette's hired attorney, probably for purposes of issues regarding classified information and the Classified Information Procedures Act. 

The next status conference in court is to be Wednesday,

24 March 2010, in the federal courthouse in Washington, D.C. 

Robert Willmann, Jr.

Download Nozette_superseding_indictment.pdf

Download Nozette_memo_indictment_changes

Download Nozette_govt_404b

Israel's Netanyahu: No Concession on East Jerusalem

 "Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says his government will make no concessions about construction in East Jerusalem.

Mr. Netanyahu made the comment to his Cabinet Sunday as the U.S. envoy on Middle East peace arrived in Israel to try to start indirect talks between Israel and the Palestinians.

The Palestinians are demanding Israel stop settlement construction in East Jerusalem, on land captured during the 1967 Arab-Israeli war. The issue has disrupted the peace process and turned into a public dispute between Israeli and U.S. officials.

Mitchell is to meet with Mr. Netanyahu Sunday before the Israeli prime minister leaves for Washington to address a major pro-Israel lobbying group and meet with congressional leaders. "  VOA

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Why is George Mitchell humiliating himself in this way?  I always found him to be stuffy but courteous,something like a New England pharmacist with ill fitting dentures, but nonetheless, a man of substance and dignity.  He is quite old now.  Not even special mission aircraft from USAF can make the stress of travel easy for him.

Natanyahu is mocking him, mocking Clinton, mocking Obama, mocking the United States.  Bibi is coming to Washington to lead a pep rally of Americans who belong to an organization (AIPAC) that openly sided with Israel against the US in the recent mini-flap.  Then he will stroke and be stroked by major donors and the servile media.  Then he will go to Congress where his agents of influence, some of them ideological, some merely  grasping for support for re-election, will sit at his feet adoringly.  Why should Natanyahu pay any attention to our government?  He thinks, with some justice, that he runs America.

George, go back to Lewiston or wherever it was and lick your wounds.  pl

http://www1.voanews.com/english/news/middle-east/Israels-Netanyahu-No-Concession-on-East-Jerusalem-88759697.html

Israel’s Lawyer Returns - Phil Giraldi

Fred Hiatt, editor of the Washington Post's editorial page, is particularly shameless about promoting both an imperial foreign policy and the Israeli connection.  In today's edition on page A6, billed as analysis, appears a Glenn Kessler piece called “Experts question whether US has a real Israel strategy."  The article is illustrated by a color photo of Palestinian youths throwing stones.  Glenn’s Kessler’s assembled experts turn out to be Daniel Kurtzer, Aaron David Miller, Elliot Abrams, and Martin Indyk.  That the Post believes that only Jews can rightfully comment on the US relationship with Israel should be disturbing to the 98% of the population that is not Jewish but which is nevertheless called on to financially support Tel Aviv, but what really caught my attention was a small bit towards the beginning of the piece.  Kessler reports that “…Yitzhak  Molcho, a low key private lawyer in Israel who negotiated the settlement freeze with Mitchell,  worked closely behind the scenes on the Israeli response with Dennis Ross, a senior official on the National Security Council.”

First of all, the “settlement freeze” should rightly be called the “unsuccessful settlement freeze” as the Israelis never complied with the US demands.  And second, there is the disturbing reemergence of Ross.  At Camp David in 2000 when Bill Clinton brought together Yassir Arafat and Ehud Barak, Ross was a chief negotiator.  He reportedly briefed the Israelis in advance on all US negotiating positions to obtain their approval, giving Israel a de facto veto over anything it objected to.  For that yeoman’s work Ross was dubbed “Israel’s lawyer” by his colleagues.  Now it would appear that Ross is doing the same thing for Obama.  If Kessler is correct, the description of Ross’s role suggests that he is concerned with an acceptable Israeli response, not in convincing Israel that it must change its behavior to support US interests in the region.   Which raises the question “Who is he working for and to what end?” 

A few days ago I predicted that the crisis with Netanyahu would quickly be patched over with Obama conceding on every point and we would be back to business as usual with Israel controlling the lopsided bilateral relationship.  While it is possible that the tone of the narrative has somewhat shifted, the return to the status quo ante has largely come to pass and just in time for the annual AIPAC Conference where Hillary Clinton will no doubt speak soothingly, followed by a long conga line of congressmen who will deliver their own obeisances.  I would like to think that international frustration with Israeli intransigence will finally reach a boiling point, possibly dragging Washington along kicking and screaming to actually pressure Israel in some real way to change course.  We shall see, but I wouldn’t be optimistic.  And before that happens American soldiers might well be drawn willy-nilly into a war with Iran, a war not of our choosing and one that can only have bad consequences.

Phil Giraldi

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/19/AR2010031905591.html

 

DOJ asked to register AIPAC as Foreign Agent

News release: 

http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/us-department-of-justice-asked-to-regulate-aipac-as-a-foreign-agent-of-the-israeli-government-88190712.html

 

***************************Release************************************

 

US Department of Justice Asked to Regulate AIPAC as a Foreign Agent of the Israeli Government

 

Washington, DC - The US Department of Justice has been formally asked to begin regulating the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) as the foreign agent of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs.  A 392 page legal filing presented by a four person IRmep delegation in a two hour meeting with top officials of the Internal Security Section substantiated the following case for AIPAC's immediate registration:

 

1.    AIPAC is a spinoff of an organization already ordered by the DOJ to register as an Israeli foreign agent.  In November of 1962 the American Zionist Council was ordered by the Attorney General to begin filing disclosures as an Israeli foreign agent under the 1938 Foreign Agents Registration Act.  http://www.IRmep.org/1962Order.pdf  Six weeks later, former AZC  employees incorporated the American Israel Public Affairs Committee in Washington, DC, taking over the AZC's lobbying activities.  http://www.IRmep.org/AIPAC.pdf  AIPAC did not register as a foreign agent. 

National Journal blog - 18 March 2010

 

http://security.nationaljournal.com/2010/03/the-controversy-of-the-al-qaed.php#1572004

pl

The US and Israel: A Codependent, Dysfunctional Relationship - Adam Silverman

The US and Israel: A Codependent, Dysfunctional Relationship

Adam L. Silverman PhD[1][1]

Mr. Habakkuk finished his contribution to the SST debate over the US/Israeli relationship by asking “In my view, the 'liberal Zionist' position -- very common among British Jews -- depended upon belief that the two-state solution was possible. As I suspect Lerman's remarks indicate, people of intelligence and good faith are still clinging to what like you I believe to be illusion. But what I also believe is that in the U.K. at least, when they finally face the choice very many will chose liberalism over Zionism. Whether the situation is fundamentally different in the U.S. I cannot judge?"  What is interesting in his question is that there both is and is not a fundamental difference in the US.  What is even more interesting is that Mr. Habakkuk’s question frames the issue on the day that it is reported that the head of the Anti-Defamation League, an organization that exists to track, document, and oppose discrimination against both Jews and non-Jews, has picked a fight that he cannot win.  Rabbi Foxman, the ADL Director, has indirectly challenged GEN Petraeus over the assertion that Israeli actions are putting US soldiers at greater risk in the CENTCOM AOR, as well as the direct remarks made by VP Biden last week in Israel.

Habakkuk on the end of the "Two State Solution"

We have the following from David Habakkuk as part of the ongoing discussion on the crisis of Zionism among various members of this committee of correspondence.  pl

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 "Clifford Kiracofe,Serious analysts do not believe a so-called "two-state" solution is possible any more. Simply put, the Israeli Zionists by now have stolen too much Palestinian land.There are only two possible options it would seem:1. a one-state solution2. the Israelis expelling Palestinians from Israel and the occupied West Bank. That is to say ethnic cleansing which hardliners call "transfer."I agree. The two-state solution is no longer like a patient in a hospital ward in critical condition -- rather it resembles a brain-dead victim of assault on a life support machine, which the doctors would like to turn off, but is kept going because various reasons -- some honourable, some dishonourable -- the family and friends do not want to recognise the true state of affairs.As you note, this leaves Israel with no good options. And this is all the more so, as the course the country is going down must open up deep underlying divisions within t he Zionist movement -- divisions which I suspect will destroy it.Remarks by Norman Finkelstein in an article entitled 'Israel Crackdown Puts Liberal Jews on the Spot' by Chris Hedges make the point better than I could:“The impact of the Goldstone report is tremendous,” the Middle East scholar Norman Finkelstein said when I reached him in New York. “It marks and catalyzes the breakup of the Diaspora Jewish support for Israel because Goldstone is the classical Diaspora Jew. He is a lawyer and upholder of human rights and a liberal. He has distinguished himself in the field of law and he is also a lover of Zion. He calls himself a Zionist. His mother was an activist in the Zionist movement. His daughter did aliyah. He sits on the board of governors of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. He has an honorary degree from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. He has said over and over again that he is a Zionist. He believes Jews have a right to a state in Palestine. His is a mostly emblematic profile of the classically liberal Jew.”“Liberal has a distinct connotation,” Finkelstein went on. “It means to believe in the rule of law. It means to believe in international institutions. It means to believe in human rights. Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch are liberal organizations. What the Goldstone phenomenon registers and catalyzes is the fact that it is impossible to reconcile liberal convictions with Israel’s conduct; too much is now known about the history of the conflict and the human rights record and the so-called peace process. It is impossible to be both liberal and defend Israeli policy. That was the conflict that confronted Goldstone. I very much doubt he wanted to condemn Israel.”  See

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/israel_crackdown_puts_liberal_jews_on_the_spot_20100315/

In a recent thread, N.M. Salamon noted the appearance of a new Jewish organisation, JNews, in Britain. Its chairman, Antony Lerman, explains the background as follows:But we are living at a time when the situation in Israel-Palestine is becoming increasingly desperate, and when the fallout from the conflict for Jews has never been more intense. In consequence, opinion among Jews has become increasingly polarised.On one side, we see the hardening of the view that Israel is singled out for grossly unfair treatment, expressed most starkly in the trashing of the Goldstone report and the character

St. Patrick's Day

 THE MINSTREL BOY

by Thomas Moore

Hear the Melody

The Minstrel Boy to the war is gone

In the ranks of death you will find him;

His father's sword he hath girded on,

And his wild harp slung behind him;"

Land of Song!" said the warrior bard,

"Tho' all the world betrays thee,

One sword, at least, thy rights shall guard,

One faithful harp shall praise thee!"

The Minstrel fell! But the foeman's chain

Could not bring that proud soul under;

The harp he lov'd ne'er spoke again,

For he tore its chords asunder;

And said "No chains shall sully thee,

Thou soul of love and brav'ry!

Thy songs were made for the pure and free,

They shall never sound in slavery!"

 

Obama has bad numbers in Israel - Hiatt

Fred Hiatt the editorial page editor of the Washington Post warns in today's Post that if President Obama does not "back down' from his aggressive stance towards Israel, his polling  numbers there may fall even lower.  pl 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/15/AR2010031502667.html

Neil Richardson on the Army/Marine Discussion

  "As for General McChrystal’s “new authority” that was evidently only obtained after “extensive negotiations among military lawyers,” I suspect the author was trying to address the tension that exists whenever higher headquarters seeks to employ for other uses some integral part of a subordinate tactical force." Assuming your guess is correct on aviation assets of MAGTF, well I don't think it is a strong reason to fight tooth and nail over it. A lot of my relations have served and are still serving in the Corps and I hear this all the time regarding MAGTF doctrine. Well to be honest, I think it's baloney. Every Marine (including my son) cites Guadalcanal as the reason for the sanctity of organic CAS component, but does the Corps think it's the only service that's ever been stranded by the Navy? There were over 80,000 Army personnel who were in much worse circumstances in the Philippines back in 1942. This is an institutional problem of the Corps. My experience is limited compared to Col.Lang and some others here, but I've seen similar arrangements in ROK in the 1970s and 1980s. Essentially the EUSA left the eastern sector to the Marines because they didn't want to have anything to do with helping to cauterize what likely would've been massive armored thrusts along the Uijonbu corridor if the KPA had decided to come down. This was repeated in 1990-91 during Desert Shield, when Checkmate and the JFACC were putting together air tasking orders. The Marines consistently ran obstruction against any efforts of coordination by CENTAF. Horner essentially told Glosson to let the Marines do what they want, because he didn't want the headache of going over to Schwarzkopf over and over again to nitpick what the Marines were doing. Dave

The US/Zionist Crisis of 2010

 "The Administration should make a conscious effort to move away from public demands and unilateral deadlines directed at Israel, with whom the United States shares basic, fundamental, and strategic interests," continued the statement.

"The escalated rhetoric of recent days only serves as a distraction from the substantive work that needs to be done with regard to the urgent issue of Iran's rapid pursuit of nuclear weapons, and the pursuit of peace between Israel and all her Arab neighbors."  Jewish Telegraphic Agency

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What are those listed interests?

I have finally become convinced that this is a major crisis in US/Zionist relations.  I describe the crisis in that way because AIPAC's preference for Israel in this matter makes this a controversy not just between the Jewish state and the US, but also a conflict between Israel's international supporters and the US.  The warning contained in this AIPAC statement is largely directed to its agents in the Congress and the media.  

The AIPAC annual conference is impending.  Natanyahu is coming.  If he wanted to resolve this problem on any basis other than humiliation of the United States he would stay home, but he will not because that is what he wants.  He wants to demonstrate the subordination of the US to Israel.

What sort of reception will he get from AIPAC?  AIPAC is an instrument of the Jewish Agency is Jerusalem.  The differences between the Jewish Agency and the Israeli government are obscure and ambiguous.

What will be the reaction of the Obama Administration to Natanyahu triumphally striding the halls of Congress? pl

http://www.jta.org/news/article/2010/03/15/1011095/aipac-to-obama-defuse-tension-with-israel

"Marines support Marines" Washington Post

 "Until earlier this month, McChrystal lacked operational control over the Marines, which would have allowed him to move them to other parts of the country. That power rested with a three-star Marine general at the U.S. Central Command. He and other senior Marine commanders insisted that Marines in Afghanistan have a contiguous area of operations -- effectively precluding them from being split up and sent to Kandahar -- because they think it is essential the Marines are supported by Marine helicopters and logistics units, which are based in Helmand, instead of relying on the Army.

After concern about the arrangement reached the White House, Gen. David H. Petraeus, who heads the Central Command, issued an order in early March giving McChrystal operational control of Marine forces in Afghanistan, according to senior defense officials. But the new authority vested in McChrystal -- the product of extensive negotiations among military lawyers -- still requires Marine approval for any plan to disaggregate infantry units from air and logistics support, which will limit his ability to move them, the defense officials said.

"Countries have interests, not friends." (roughly)

 "Israel and the U.S. have mutual interests," Netanyahu told the Cabinet, then pointedly added, "but we will act according to the vital interests of the state of Israel."  Yahoo News

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Excellent principle.  We should follow it in crafting American policy.  pl 

Open Thread for a Rainy Saturday.

Who do you suppose that this is?  pl 

Who can you trust these days?

 "In a tense, 43-minute phone call on Friday morning, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton told Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that Israel’s plans for new housing units for Jews in East Jerusalem sent a “deeply negative signal” about Israel-American relations, and not just because it spoiled a visit by Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr."  NY Times

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(irony alert)  How dare we!  What effrontery!  Not sure I have seen this level of disloyalty to our greatest friends before.  Hmmm... Secretary Clinton is scheduled to be the keynote speaker at the AIPAC conference?  Hmmm...  Is that the same conference that Natanyahu is attending in lieu of a meeting with the president?

How about this?  "Call us when you get serious."  pl

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/13/world/middleeast/13diplo.html

The Allawi Factor

They are busy counting in Iraq.  Maliki's coalition seems to be doing well but the big story there is that Ayad Allawi's grouping, "Al-'Iraqiya" is also doing surprisingly well. Allawi represents in some sense the old Iraq that emerged in the '50s under Hashemite rule, an Iraq that had been brewing under the influence of western style school curricula ever since Ottoman days.  This was an Iraq that increasingly saw itself in terms of a non-sectarian, nationalist identity.  The Baath Party became a vehicle for expression of that self image for the Baath was a relentlessly secular, nationalist and non-Marxist socialist entity.  There were many secular Shia Iraqi Baathists and Allawi was one of them until he had a major falling out with Saddam Hussein.

In the present circumstance Allawi's coalition represents a yearning for that other Iraq. That Iraq was a "work in progress," in 2003.  It had been twisted and diverted into strange paths by Saddam, but it still existed and it was reflected in the many "mixed marriages" and mixed neighborhoods around the country.

Allawi represents the possibility of an Iraq not dominated by sectarian religion and government inclined toward an Iranian alliance.  The secular Sunni and Shia Arabs, tribals, and Kurds (some) who support him are waiting to see if there is reality in that hope.  pl

Hagee and Natanyahu

 "Hagee also slammed the UN-sponsored Goldstone Report on Israel’s Gaza offensive last winter, calling the document a “fallacious report,” and putting the onus for war crimes on Hamas members, whom Hagee said, “hid behind the skirts of women to increase civilian casualties.”

But Hagee also spoke of the “debt of gratitude” Christianity owes to Judaism, telling the crowd that “without Judaism there would be no Christianity.” 

To demonstrate that gratitude, Hagee presented Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, who was in attendance, with a 73-meter-long scroll containing upwards of 200,000 names of Christian supporters of Israel who had pledged their support with a signature.

“What that says,” Hagee said of the scroll, “is that we believe the Jewish people have the right to live in their modern homeland, and that Israel has the same right as any other nation to defend herself from attacks.” 

As Netanyahu took the stage to a standing ovation, he returned the pastor’s warm words, telling him and the crowd, “I salute you, the people of Israel salute you, the Jewish people salute you."  JP

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Adam Silverman sent us this material.   The Christian Zionists may well be distorting Israeli imaginings with regard to the level of unquestioning support for them in the US..  Nevertheless, I think that skilled agitprop work on the part of of AIPAC and its galaxy of auxiliary groups is a lot more important.  pl 

http://www.jpost.com/IranianThreat/News/Article.aspx?id=170528

http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/10052007/profile.html

In Memoriam - Colonel Robert K. Sawyer, US Army

Bob Sawyer (the father) was a close friend.  I was lucky enough to have several mentors and "fathers" in life, our dad, uncle John, Doctor Les Upton and Colonel Robert K. Sawyer.  I learned belatedly today that he is buried in Arlington beside his son, Captain Kenneth R. Sawyer killed in Vietnam in 1969.

Colonel Sawyer was of old Yankee stock, as was his beloved wife Eleanor.  He enlisted in the 26th Division (Massachusetts Army National Guard) after high school. He was called up for WW2 and received a battlefield commission in Normandy.  In acknowledgement of the quality of his leadership, he retained command of the rifle platoon in which he had been platoon sergeant.  In Korea he became a legend as a leader of reconnaissance troops.  I knew him and Ellie in Turkey where I learned much of what I know of soldiering from him.  Eventually he was chief of defense HUMINT, a job I held after him.

In retirement, he played the cello beautifully, painted splendidly in oils and earned successively a BA, MA and Ph.D in literature from the University of New Hampshire. He and Ellie lived happily at Bow Lake for a long time..

He was "a perfect, gentle knight."  pl

http://www.arlingtoncemetery.net/rksawyer.htm

Joe Biden is a flunky for Natanyahu & Co.

 "So what is Israel actually trying to achieve? Basically, nothing. There is a superficial peace process which is going nowhere but eases international pressure on Israel to reach a deal with the Palestinians. 

Netanyahu prides himself on his decades-long relationship with Biden, but managed to destroy it Tuesday night when Israel spat in the vice president's face. Barak and Netanyahu's grave explanations, that they "didn't know," "didn't hear," didn't see" each time a new plan is approved for construction, (or on the flip side, demolition) in East Jerusalem - see Sheikh Jarrah, Silwan and more - are dwarfed by the current embarrassment caused to the American administration."  Ha'aretz

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Biden has been a faithful friend to Israel for a long time.  Perhaps  "mindless" friend would be a more accurate description.

I mentioned once here that I was in Biden's senate office on one occasion when Biden's Zionism boiled over in a truly repulsive display of temper.  I was there with my Arab employer to visit the senator.  the Arab didn't want anything except  to meet Biden.  He was foolish enough to think that an acquaintance with such people is a kind of talisman.  It is not.  The Arab made some pro forma positive reference to the "peace process."  Biden flew into a rage, grew red in the face and shouted that this was an insincere lie and that his guest knew that it was only Arab stubbornness that prevented "little Israel' from living in peace.  His "guest" sat through this with what dignity he could manage.  I would have walked out on him if I had been alone.

Perhaps "Joe the Gardener" has learned something from this latest experience...  I doubt it.  I don't think he is smart enough for that sort of epiphany.  He will continue to "carry water" for Israel and for the group of political donors who actually control him.  Delaware is a small state.  Such a project is quite manageable.  Someone among you will inform us.

What should have happened yesterday?  Cancellation of the visit would have been the right response.  pl

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1155498.html

Joe the gardener.

 "Israel blindsided Vice President Joe Biden''s fence-mending mission Tuesday by announcing a settler building boom in East Jerusalem.

The move to expand an Orthodox Jewish settlement by 1,600 units embarrassed Biden, who was trying to jump-start "indirect" talks with the Palestinians.

Biden showed his anger by arriving 90 minutes late for dinner at the residence of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

"I condemn the decision" by Israeli Interior Minister Eli Yishai to build in the area of the West Bank annexed to Jerusalem by Israel, Biden said in an unusually undiplomatic statement.

He called the announcement "precisely the kind of step that undermines the trust we need right now and runs counter to the constructive discussions that I've had here in Israel.""  NY Daily News

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Joe! Joe!  If you kiss their butts and say that they are we and we are they, then you have to expect to be treated like the servant that you are.   Just today you snuggled up to them and told the world that there is no "space between Israel and the US."  They took you at your word, that's all.  You got what you asked for.  pl

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/2010/03/09/2010-03-09_blindsided_biden_lashes_out_at_israel_on_settlement_boom.html

Dover Beach - M. Arnold

The sea is calm to-night.
The tide is full, the moon lies fair
Upon the straits; on the French coast the light
Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand;
Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.
Come to the window, sweet is the night-air!
Only, from the long line of spray
Where the sea meets the moon-blanched land,
Listen! you hear the grating roar
Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,
At their return, up the high strand,
Begin, and cease, and then again begin,
With tremulous cadence slow, and bring
The eternal note of sadness in.

Sophocles long ago
Heard it on the A gaean, and it brought
Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow
Of human misery; we
Find also in the sound a thought,
Hearing it by this distant northern sea.

The Sea of Faith
Was once, too, at the full, and round earth's shore
Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled.
But now I only hear
Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,
Retreating, to the breath
Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear
And naked shingles of the world.

Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.

Beck against Christianity

 "On his daily radio and television shows last week, Fox News personality Glenn Beck set out to convince his audience that "social justice," the term many Christian churches use to describe their efforts to address poverty and human rights, is a "code word" for communism and Nazism. Beck urged Christians to discuss the term with their priests and to leave their churches if leaders would not reconsider their emphasis on social justice.

"I'm begging you, your right to religion and freedom to exercise religion and read all of the passages of the Bible as you want to read them and as your church wants to preach them . . . are going to come under the ropes in the next year. If it lasts that long it will be the next year. I beg you, look for the words 'social justice' or 'economic justice' on your church Web site. If you find it, run as fast as you can. Social justice and economic justice, they are code words. Now, am I advising people to leave their church? Yes!" "    Politics Daily

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The Catholic Church has many problems, but its teaching with regard to "social justice" is not one of them.  Glenn Beck has now drawn a line in the sand between the emerging proto-fascist political  forces that he seems to want to lead and a 2,000 year old religion with 1.2 billion adherents.  He urges Catholics and other Christians to leave their churches?  What does he offer in exchange?  He likes to talk about the Nazis and the Communists.  What will his movement be called?  pl 

http://www.politicsdaily.com/2010/03/08/glenn-beck-urges-listeners-to-leave-churches-that-preach-social/

The Debt Crisis

 
Dana Milbank

"Greece's national debt last year reached 113 percent of gross domestic product. The United States will hit that in about 2020, according to the Government Accountability Office, assuming policy continues as it has. And last year's U.S. budget deficit amounted to 9.9 percent of GDP, nearly rivaling Greece's 12.7 percent.

To pull Greece back from the edge, Papandreou has promised to cut the deficit to 3 percent of GDP by 2012. For the U.S. government to make an equivalent cut, it would have to shut down the Pentagon and a few other agencies: the departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Education, Health and Human Services, Energy, Homeland Security, Housing and Urban Development, the Interior, Justice, Labor, State, Transportation, the Treasury, and Veterans Affairs, plus the Environmental Protection Agency and NASA -- and even then we'd come up a few dollars short. "  Milbank

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That is my favorite picture of the columnist.  I do believe I have another of him as a jester.  I appreciate people who do not take themselves too seriously.

Well, there is nothing funny about his economic prophecy.  We have lived far too high on the hog.  We are in the process of going broke and the great majority seem oblivious.  The debt crisis is THE crisis.  Unless we relieve the financial burden of public debt, the United States is going to become a miserable place to live in about ten years.

All those people who are fretting over the erosion of constitutional rights in this country are going to have a lot more pressing things to obsess over.  Americans continue to live in a dreamworld in which they are entitled to the best of everything, security from violence, enough junk food to make them the fattest people in history and a Toyota in every driveway.   I suppose they would rather have a Ford now.

Let's sober up folks.  pl

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/08/AR2010030803491.html?hpid=opinionsbox1

Run Sarah! All the way to Amalfi!

 "I asked one woman whether she'd been part of "9/12," as tea partiers call the great taxpayer march on Washington, D.C., last September. No, she'd missed it, she said, and "felt really guilty" about doing so, but she and her husband had been on vacation.

"Where did you go?"

"We spent a week in Amalfi, then we toured Tuscany, then we spent a week in Rome."

Another woman, hearing my accent, told me about her and her partner's second home in Torquay, England, which they visited three times a year from their base in Atlanta, and about their thirty-five-foot powerboat, in which they'd crossed the Channel to Le Havre and cruised down the French canals to Marseilles.

Most of us were political novices. When we were asked how many attendees had never been involved in politics before joining the Tea Party movement, roughly four out of every five people raised their hands. On the outside balcony where the smokers gathered, I was joined at a table by an intense, wiry, close-cropped, redheaded woman from southern Virginia who dated her conversion to hearing Sarah Palin for the first time.

"She was me! She's so down-to-earth! If Sarah was sitting here with us now, she'd be just a normal person like you and me. You could say anything to her. She's not like a politician—she's real. And Sarah always keeps her word. If Sarah promises something, you know she'll do it. She's just am azing."  NYRB

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I believe I know that woman from southern Virginia.  pl

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/23723

Nothing is better than:

 Coconut ice cream, bone in fillets at the Capital Grille, country ham cooked with my recipe, ambrosia, good raw oysters (preferably  Blue Points or Kumamotos), Pat's Philly Cheese Steaks, carbonara at "Abruzzi" behind the Franciscan conventual convent in Rome and next to the final resting place of so many Stuarts, Ben Benson's swordfish in New York, anything at the "Hitching Post" in Casmalia, California, chicken fried steak at "Bob and Edith's" on Columbia Boulevard in Arlington, Virginia.  (Leave your circulatory system at the door.) Do you want to live forever?  pl

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Coconut-Ice-Cream/Detail.aspx

Iraq - Electoral prelude to continued withdrawal

 "Mortar rounds also were lobbed toward the Green Zone, the heavily fortified area that is home to the U.S. Embassy and the prime minister's office. The attacks in Baghdad, which hit both Sunni and Shiite neighborhoods, seemed to have impacted voter turnout in the first few hours, as only small groups ventured to the polls. But soon, a steady flow of people drifted to voting centers.

"I voted despite this. I voted for democracy," said Abu Mustapha, 35, in Ur, waving his blue-ink dipped.

Polling numbers seemed to fall far short of Iraq's first election in January 2005, when the capital's voting centers were clogged with people. About 6,200 candidates are competing for 325 parliament seats.

Iraqis leaders hailed the vote as a milestone for Iraq. "This day means for us the completion of building the democracy, building the political process [and] using our citizens as a foundation for building the state process," said Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki."  LA Times

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Well. Well.  Here we are again.  Purple this time or something else, maybe green?   There are bombs.  There will be more bombs, but the electoral process will go on and it will produce something like an honest result.  

Will that be an end to political violence in Iraq?  No.  The underlying divisions in civil society along the cleavage lines of sect, ethnicity and secularization are still too great for Iraq to subside in grumpy quiet without the emergence of a "strong man."  

There will be violence, but it will be "moderate" violence in Iraqi terms.  Why?  By and large the locals want us gone and they know that the best way to get our combat forces out of the country is to hold the level of violence down to a "reasonable" level.

Will this background level of violence be enough to halt the withdrawal of US forces?  It will not.   We have become a debtor country in a massive way.  That debt is growing rapidly and it threatens to crush us.  We can not afford these wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and so they will end.   Does that mean that we must give up the pursuit of our Islamic zealot enemies?  No, but it does mean that we must stop trying to transform the Islamic world into something vaguely western and more comprehensible to most of us.  pl

http://www.latimes.com/news/nation-and-world/la-fgw-iraq-elections8-2010mar08,0,6821690.story

"Traumatic Brain Injury and the Military"

"Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is becoming a common wound of modern warfare. It has even been coined the “signature wound” of the War on Terror. While TBI is becoming more prevalent in wartime activity, many service men and women continue to go undiagnosed. Institutions, like the US Department of Veterans Affairs, are working to make quick and accurate diagnoses in order to prescribe appropriate and effective treatment.

TBI is caused by forced trauma to the head, either by being shaken or hit. The severity of a TBI varies from case to case, but symptoms range from mild concussions to a debilitating state. The majority of TBI’s acquired by military personnel are classified as mild traumatic brain injuries (MTBI). Initial symptoms of MTBI consist of loss of consciousness, disorientation, loss of memory, headache, and temporary loss of hearing and vision. They are often partnered with anxiety, irritability, difficulties processing information, limited concentration amongst other problems experienced down the road. While MTBI is most common amongst the men and women of the armed forces, more severe cases of TBI are happening much more frequently and often require the victim to attended specialty rehabilitative nursing centers, like CareMeridian.

The most common cause of a TBI in the military is due to blasts. There are three degrees of blast injuries where a TBI is common; Primary (due to blast itself), Secondary (due to objects being propelled by a blast) and Tertiary (due to a collision with a third party object). According to the Veterans Health Initiative, active male members of the military from the ages 18-24 are hospitalized with a TBI at a rate of 231 per 100,000 and females 150 per 100,000. Based on military force projections this would mean that 4,141 military personnel are hospitalized on average each year with a TBI, and these numbers often rise during wartimes. "

Download TBI and Veterans

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traumatic_brain_injury

 

Bligh, Queeg and Graf

Capt. Holly Graf, commander of the USS Cowpens, a guided-missile cruiser, was relieved of duty Jan. 13 after an investigation found she cursed so much at her 400-member crew that even the sailors -- no strangers to four-letter words -- were intimidated. According to the Navy inspector general's report released this week, officers complained that their captain humiliated them in front of the rest of the crew by calling them "idiots" and "stupid" as she spat a stream of obscenities. One noncommissioned officer said Graf treated him like a toddler, forcing him to take a "time out" by standing alone in an empty watch room.

Although verbal abuse would hardly put Graf among the worst tyrants ever to command a ship at sea, her former crew members have been exacting mutinous revenge in recent weeks by posting hundreds of anonymous comments on the Internet that describe her as "Horrible Holly," as well as a modern-day Captain Bligh.

Graf's has been highlighted in much of the criticism. One Web site, www.militarycorruption.com, called her "an incompetent and unstable 'politically correct' poster girl for all the super feminists at the Pentagon and the U.S. Naval Academy."  Washpost

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DanM and I had an exchange of views the other day on the subject of military leadership and/or the lack of it.  Here you have a perfect example of a total lack of it.  You can be sure that the US Navy, having selected this woman captain (O-6) for a deep draft command (big ship) did not want to have to fire her.  That would be about the last thing they would want to do.  But, as with Rumsfeld and the digital cameras at Abu Ghraib, she seems to have forgotten that the internet is everywhere.  I suppose that she thought that gender would protect her from relief for cause.  She is, of course, finished in the navy and ought to retire as soon as possible.  She should reflect on this and that she might have gone for a swim at midnight if the ship's company had not been better people than she.  pl

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/05/AR2010030504326.html

http://militarycorruption.com/hollygraf2.htm

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1969602,00.html

On "Black Swans," "fat-tailed sheep" and future history.

"Any large-scale political unit is a complex system. Most great empires have a nominal central authority -- either a hereditary emperor or an elected president -- but in practice the power of any individual ruler is a function of the network of economic, social and political relations over which he or she presides. As such, empires exhibit many of the characteristics of other complex adaptive systems -- including the tendency to move from stability to instability quite suddenly.

The most recent and familiar example of precipitous decline is the collapse of the Soviet Union. With the benefit of hindsight, historians have traced all kinds of rot within the Soviet system back to the Brezhnev era and beyond. Perhaps, as the historian and political scientist Stephen Kotkin has argued, it was only the high oil prices of the 1970s that "averted Armageddon." But this did not seem to be the case at the time. The Soviet nuclear arsenal was larger than the U.S. stockpile. And governments in what was then called the Third World, from Vietnam to Nicaragua, had been tilting in the Soviets' favor for most of the previous 20 years.

Yet, less than five years after Mikhail Gorbachev took power, the Soviet imperium in central and Eastern Europe had fallen apart, followed by the Soviet Union itself in 1991. If ever an empire fell off a cliff, rather than gently declining, it was the one founded by Lenin."  Niall Ferguson

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The parallel is obvious and Feguson makes it specific later in the essay.  We are over-extended in many fields and the possibility of a sudden and catastrophic reversal looms.   People in the US do not realize that they are much poorer than they have been led to believe.  We will probably not see again the artificially high standard of living that we enjoyed so much.

Does anyone remember a little book by a Russian named Andrei Amalrik?  It was published in the 80s I believe.  It foretold the collapse of the USSR's planned economy.  In 1980 I was en route to Yemen for duty and went to a series of briefings at CIA as part of my preparation.  One of the lecturers was a retired CIA analyst who told us that the Soviet Union was a wildly distorted state that had one foot in the heavy industry needed to sustain their rivalry with NATO and the other foot in the 19th Century peasant economy of Tsarist Russia.  He, too, predicted collapse.  I didn't believe it at the time, but after years of associating with Soviets in Yemen I knew he had been correct.  The level of poverty at which Soviet personnel stationed in Yemen existed was pathetic.  They thought poor little Yemen was a land of milk and honey.  Soviet officers' wives would stand in tiny street stalls and bargain with Qat chewing shopkeepers over the price of a few eggs.  Meat, they never bought.  It was just too expensive.  The Soviet military mission was full of fairly senior officers with mouths full of rotten teeth.

The USSR fell with a crash that was astonishing.  pl

 

War Dogs

"Like their human comrades, some war dogs can handle combat, and some can't. One Marine Corps explosives dog, a black Lab named Daisy, has found 13 hidden bombs since arriving in Afghanistan in October. Zoom, another Lab, refused to associate with the Marines after seeing one serviceman shoot a feral Afghan dog. Only after weeks of retraining, hours of playing with a reindeer squeaky toy and a gusher of good-boy praise was Zoom willing to go back to work.

"With some Marines, PTSD can be from one terrible event, or a cumulative effect," says Maj. Rob McLellan, 33-year-old operations officer of the 2nd Combat Engineer Battalion, who trains duck-hunting dogs back home in Green Bay, Wis. Likewise, he says, the stress sometimes "weighs a dog down to the point where the dog just snaps.""  LA Times

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I am a dog man.  I have had dogs all my life starting with a cocker spaniel named "Taffy" when I was three.  We are all dog people in my family.  I wish there were no animals involved in war.  Thank God there are no more horses and mules in all this...  Look at the dead horses in the Brady pictures of the Civil War. 

The US military now treats these dogs with the kindness due to old comrades.  It was not always thus.  Bringing the dogs home requires effort, but now they make that effort.

"Gunner" should come back to the US, to a good home where slamming doors will eventually not frighten him anymore.  pl

The Iraqi election

 "Kamran Bokhari, chief Middle East analyst for the private intelligence firm Stratfor, says ethnic and sectarian identity is still a key determinant in Iraqi political calculations.

"This is a situation in flux.  Sure, people want better governance and we see every party sort of moving towards that.  But at the end of the day there are concerns among the Shiites and the Sunnis and the Kurds regarding ethnicity," said Bokhari.  "For the Sunnis, they have not seen themselves getting a fair share of the political pie in Baghdad.  That means that they cannot just drop the sectarian card and say, 'Well, we are just going to look for good governance.  Who is going to provide us good governance?'  And, 'We are not going to look at the sectarian thing."

Sectarian and ethnic tensions were reinforced when a Shiite-dominated parliamentary committee disqualified 511 Sunni candidates for alleged connections to Sadaam Hussein's outlawed Baath party"  VOA News

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I have come to the conclusion that with the exception of foreign agents, Americans are just too   unsophisticated to deal with Middle Eastern affairs. We are easily bamboozled and the Canadians naifs would be even more so.   It is appalling that so many are willing to accept the nonsense of the mindless and scheming, concerning the Iraqi "threat" to the US before 2003.   I, and many other colleagues, disassembled Iraq's nuclear program after the first Gulf War. There was no WMD threat in 2003.  Now, the mindless await a return to power and a return to a boundless aggression in pursuit of the goals of foreigners.

What will happen after this election is a continuation of Shia rule under a government that seeks Iranian approval and that continues to oppress the Sunni Kurds and Arabs.  That will result in a rising tide of resistance with foreign assistance, including ours once useful idiots like Odierno leave.

His appointment to another four star post awaits him.  pl 

http://www1.voanews.com/english/news/middle-east/Elections-Put-Postwar-Iraq-at-Pivotal-Political-Moment-86389917.html

SCOTUS and the 2nd Amendment

"The Supreme Court appears willing to say that the Constitution's right to possess guns limits state and local regulation of firearms. But the justices also suggested that some gun control measures might not be affected.

The court heard arguments Tuesday in a case that challenges handgun bans in the Chicago area. The suit also asks the high court to extend to state and local jurisdictions the sweep of its 2008 decision striking down a gun ban in the federal enclave of Washington, D.C."  AP News

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Well, here we go again on the guns.  SCOTUS will, IMO, rule that the 2nd Amendment severely restricts the ability of state governments to limit gun rights and that the 2nd Amendment applies to all governments within the US.  This is a major constitutional skirmish in the centuries old struggle over whether or not the union of the states makes them administrative territories or if they remain sovereign to some extent.  The Civil War's outcome did not settle this issue.  It did not because the victorious states did not wish the implication of Northern victory to be manifest in their own territories.  In that context, re-admission of the seceded states ensured that the contest over centralized "national" government would continue indefinitely, and, it has.

The conservatives on the court are of mixed feelings about this gun control case.  On the one hand they would like to affirm the individual's 2nd Amendment rights across the country but on the other hand they are also inclined towards the restriction of federal government power, a problem.

The outcome will probably be an extension of this particular amendment into state government while at the same time the court finds some way to enable the states to restrict gun ownership by lunatics, felons, etc.  It will be interesting to see how that is done.

This post will be the occasion for more expressions of incredulity on the part of anti-gun people in the US (mostly urban) and foreigners at the desire and insistence of many Americans to keep their weapons.  Ho hum.

I am reminded of the three days I once spent in Ottawa on business in the company of a Canadian senator (very much a political "hack") who lectured me incessantly on this issue in spite of my disinterest in his opinion.  He finally got to the point of telling me that it was incredible that "a man of my intelligence couldn't see" that he was right about this.  He was mistaken.  I am not intelligent enough to see his point or agree with it.  pl