In a 5-4 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled against the government in the case of Boumediene v. Bush, finding that the detainees at Guantanamo Bay have the right to file habeas corpus petitions in federal court. This decision strikes down a key section of the Military Commissions Act, the horrible piece of legislation passed by Congress in October 2006 that sought to condemn detainees to indefinite imprisonment with no real right to challenge their detention.

The MCA provided only for “Combatant Status Review Tribunals”, a farce trial that makes a mockery of the protections given by the Constitution to an accused person. Detainees are tried before military officers, rather than neutral judges. In these tribunals, they have no right to a lawyer, they can be barred from seeing the evidence against them, and they cannot call witnesses in their defense. In a number of cases, when the first CSRT concluded an inmate was not an enemy combatant, the government simply ignored the ruling and convened a second one to reach the decision it preferred.

These inquisitorial, rigged “trials” give further evidence of why the writ of habeas corpus is so vitally important. For over 700 years, it’s protected people against arbitrary and capricious imprisonment by their government. By forcing the government to publicly show the reasons why it has detained someone before a neutral magistrate, habeas corpus turns imprisonment into a tool of justice, rather than a tool of tyranny.

The U.S. Constitution provides that Congress may suspend habeas corpus, but only in cases of “rebellion or invasion”, when it is vital to protect public safety. Clearly, neither of these conditions is in effect at the moment. Thus, the MCA’s suspension of habeas corpus for detainees was unconstitutional, and the Court was absolutely in the right to strike it down.

The prisoners at Guantanamo Bay have been in detention, in some cases, for over six years without ever being given the chance to prove their innocence. The Bush administration’s attempt to put them into a legal black hole, beyond the reach of all law, is anathema to everything the American justice system stands for. It’s long overdue that this injustice was corrected. If any of these detainees are terrorists or have committed war crimes against the United States, then let the government prove that in a court of law. Our justice system has served us well against those who would harm us for over two hundred years, and it will continue to do so. On the other hand, if any of these detainees are innocent - a very likely circumstance, given the dragnet-like way in which they were swept up - then their detention is an outrageous evil, and they should immediately be released.

Justice Anthony Kennedy, who wrote the majority opinion, concluded that neither the President nor Congress may “switch the Constitution on or off at will“. The Court rejected the legal fiction that, because Guantanamo Bay is technically part of Cuba, the detainees have no recourse under the U.S. Constitution.

This is a great victory for due process and for the American legal system, and a bright day for friends of liberty everywhere. The only dark spot on this decision is that it was by a narrow, 5-to-4 majority. (Scalia’s dissent begins “America is at war with radical Islamists” and goes on to cry about how the terrorists will kill us if we don’t lock people up indefinitely with no trial. I am not joking.) If John McCain is elected president and has the chance to make the next few appointments to the Supreme Court, the fragile constitutional bulwarks which still stand against arbitrary government power will be in extremely serious jeopardy.

In 2006, Norman Solomon wrote War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death. His book detailed the information tactics the American government uses to launch wars.

War Made Easy has been such an influential book that it has now been made into a movie of the same name. You can view it here or you can order a copy of the DVD here.

I was able to attend a viewing of “War Made Easy” last Saturday night at the National Conference for Media Reform in Minneapolis (NCMR2008). This crisply edited movie was narrated by Sean Penn. Much of what keeps this movie engaging are the dozens of carefully chosen news media clips generated during various American wars for the past 50 years, including large numbers of videos clips from the Vietnam war and the Iraq occupation. The magic of “War Made Easy” is that the directors carefully edited and arranged these clips to show us that nothing much has really changed: If an American president has decided that he wants to go to war, the watchdog American media is likely to become a lapdog and we will inevitably go to war.

Following the screening of “War Made Easy,” I attended a discussion of the movie led by media critic Norman Solomon and the co-director and producer of the movie, Loretta Alper. The following morning, Ms. Alper granted me the opportunity to interview her further regarding the making of “War Made Easy.”

Whenever we Americans go to war, we get there through a well-documented series of stages. As I watched “War Made Easy,” I saw better than ever that these stages are entirely predictable in the context of America’s warmongering ways.

Perhaps this characterization of America sounds too shrill, but just look around. The evidence is everywhere that war is a sport in America just as sports are warlike. Our TV shows and movies overflow with violence as a first-rate method of dealing with conflict. The toys we foist on our boys extol violence as the most obvious way of settling disputes. We challenge each other with statements like “support the troops,” no matter what those troops are doing (and see here ). We are all too ready to invoke the word “war,” because that word triggers a ready-made conceptual frame for freely and guiltlessly expressing ourselves with bullets, bombs and blood. In America, this frame of war is such an incredibly effective filter that we proceed to consider only the “benefits” of war and we ignore the massive damages inflicted on both war-zone civilians and upon millions of Americans (and see here).

For most Americans, it is difficult to see that we are truly a nation of warmongers. After all, we are so absolutely used to being the way we are that even the most obvious things have become difficult to see. As George Orwell once noted, “To see what is in front of one’s nose needs a constant struggle.”

Before seeing “War Made Easy,” I was already familiar with the FAIR study documenting the manner in which our media rolled over rather than risk being accused of being unpatriotic. How much does the media roll over? So much so, that Americans see only an extremely filtered set of images representing the war. We see pictures of happy soldiers shipping out to “do their duty.” Pictures of dismembered civilian children are much too inconvenient for American patriotism, however.

Yes, Americans have become warriors looking for wars. America is a place where the thinnest of excuses will get the whole war machine revved. It is one of the points made by “War Made Easy” that America is gasoline needing only a small spark of an excuse to get us exploding off to war. Almost any excuse will do, it seems, and it doesn’t matter whether that excuse entirely false. In the 1960s, all it would took was the Gulf of Tonkin incident, an incident which never actually happened at all (based upon a recently declassified NSA document and other evidence). Nonetheless, the claim of the Gulf of Tonkin incident opened the floodgates to the American military buildup in Vietnam.

In 1993, all it took was a few well-placed public officials to stir up worries about “weapons of mass destruction” that didn’t exist. At that point, the confirmation bias and the herd instinct take over. How warped has our national perspective become? Whatever any perceived outsider does, we will see in the worst possible light and we will make damned sure that every other American becomes equally xenophobic. When this level of dysfunction occurs in an individual, we call that individual mentally ill. When it occurs nationwide, we call it “patriotism.”

The above observations are necessary prelude to my understanding of “War Made Easy.” I needed to consider these issues because of a question I had trouble getting past: Why isn’t going to war easy for most countries other than the United States? One obvious answer is that most other countries have not invested in a massive military infrastructure. The U.S. is physically able go to war at the push of a button, while most other would first require a long-term military buildup. The next obvious question, though, is why most other countries have not invested in their military might to the same extent as the United States. My unfortunate conclusion is that the U.S. has a warmonger mentality. When the President of the U.S. says we need to go to war, the citizens are already half-primed to agree. This would not be the case with, for example, the Prime Minister of Norway.

“War Made Easy” is an illustration of the predictable steps that will occur as soon as the spark of a false threat hits the gasoline of American militaristic exceptionalism. We see this same pattern over and over. Here are some of the predictable steps that occur when an American president presses for war. All of these are well substantiated by “War Made Easy.”

I. Public dialogue becomes simplistic. Consider Pat Buchanan’s warning that “When the war begins, the debate ends.” The media clips offered by “War Made Easy” substantiate the claim that once war is under way, there is no more media coverage for the rationale for the war, but only for the progress of the war. Once war is under way, it is produced like a TV show. The information from the war zone is tightly controlled by the government. The media does not protest this tight control, because it desperately craves the access and the market share. Therefore, whatever labels the government gives to a battle or a war (e.g., “Shock and Awe”), the media readily embraces it.

II. The President’s case for war is always built upon deception; the official story is false or it omits numerous key facts. Instead, the case is made primarily upon spin.

III. Americans are portrayed as “reluctant fighters.” We’d rather not go to war, but circumstances are allegedly forcing our hand. (more…)

Tonight, I had the privilege to attend a private screening of Phil Donahue’s new movie, “Body of War.” The film was shown to several hundred people attending the 2008 National Conference for Media Reform in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

In his introduction to the film, Donahue indicated that “We have the most sanitized war in our history.” His point was that the American people cannot deal appropriately about this war if they can’t see the images related to the war. He implored, “Show the people the sacrifices the men and women of this country are making.” The American people cannot feel the pain caused by this war, because the full story of the war is not available to them, thanks to the continuing media blackout of all inconvenient images and stories. Instead of learning about what’s really happening in Iraq, the American people keep getting distracted with things like entertainment parading as news or tax cuts.

Donahue stated that the US involvement in Iraq has caused more than 20,000 “grievous injuries,” a fact which he finds “beyond horrible.”

What are the kinds of images that the American people are denied? Everyone knows about the government’s attempt to keep Americans from seeing pictures of coffins of soldiers returning from Iraq. There are equally dramatic pictures available, however. One of those was briefly shown in the film, and it was run only in the Rocky Mountain News. It is a photo of a woman who wanted to sleep next to the coffin of her husband (James Cathey, an Iraq soldier) while military guards stood by. This was to be her last night with him. She slept on a little mattress almost underneath the coffin.

Donahue’s point is straightforward. “Show us the war. We are adults. We can then decide if you want to end this damn war now.”

Donahue learned of the subject of the movie, Thomas Young, while visiting with Ralph Nader. It was Nader who tipped off Donnie that there was a young man, recently returned from Iraq, who might serve as a good subject for the kind of film Donahue was interested in making. Donahue traveled to the military hospital where he met Thomas, though Thomas did not meet Donahue until later because he was then in a coma. When Donahue finally met a conscious Thomas Young (in Kansas City), he noticed antiwar bumper stickers on the family kitchen table. Until then, Donahue had no idea that the subject of his film, Thomas Young, had antiwar feelings. After he saw those bumper stickers, Donahue thought to himself, “Maybe we really have something here.”

It was at the same time that Donahue learned about Thomas Young that he also happened to meet Eddie Vedder of the band Pearl Jam (also through Ralph Nader). Vedder offered to compose music for the film, which he did in five days, free of charge.

I don’t want to ruin the film by discussing too many of the specifics, but I will reveal that it is an emotional journey for the subject of the film as well as the audience. Only five days after traveling to Iraq, Thomas Young was shot in the shoulder, which caused him to become a paraplegic. Much of the movie uses the way Young deals with his injuries as a backdrop for the fact that so many members of Congress were obtuse to the human cost of this Iraqi invasion. The film is made ever more emotionally poignant due to the intense involvement in Thomas’s life by his new wife and his mother. The film also features a two intense moments with Thomas’s stepfather, a ditto head.

Thomas Young turns out to be a hero both in the way he deals with his injuries and in the way he speaks out as an activist following his return home. All is not well for Thomas, however, and these challenges are a emotionally wrenching journey for filmgoers.

Another hero of the film is Senator Robert Byrd, who eloquently did everything in his power to turn back the tide of war-mongering in Congress. As it turns out, Byrd was one of only 23 senators who voted to deny George Bush powers to invade Iraq. The film cleverly intersperses the Congressional debate with the struggles of Thomas Young.

The superb editing of this film is apparent throughout. Donahue commented that he wanted to be very careful to not make the film “preachy,” and he succeeded in this.

“Body of War” is being released soon, though there is no distributor for the film. It will not be a financial success. Nonetheless, it has played to rave reviews. In fact, one of the members of Congress who voted “yes” to the Iraq invasion, privately viewed the film and told Donahue “This film should be shown in every college and every university in the country.”

At the conclusion of the showing at the NCMR2008, it received an extended standing ovation.

Donahue admits that there is no mass market for a film of this type, a fact that is utterly depressing given the need for films like this. As Donahue commented, “If you’re not going to use free speech, stop spilling their blood.”Luckily, the film does have an financial afterlife. It will apparently be picked up by Netflix, and there will be other availability in scattered markets. You’ll need to look closely to see if it’s playing in your town. You could even make some phone calls to try to get the independent theaters in your area to play this film.

Donahue explained that in the big media, “you are rewarded solely by the size of the crowd you can draw.” Therefore, we’ll never hear about stories like that of Thomas Young in the big media. In order to get this story out, we’ll need to build media from the grassroots up.

When the country is beating the drums for war, all movement is seen as progress, and anybody getting in the way of the military action is branded a coward. This is not a new theory. It was made plain many decades ago in a speech by Herman Goring. It is also a point made by another new movie, “War Made Easy,” which will be screened at this same media reform convention tomorrow night. The conclusion of that film is that if the President wants to go to war in this country, it will happen. That’s the nature of our politics, our media and our citizenry. It’s a very sad story, indeed.

After the film and Q&A, Donahue graciously stayed around to meet some of the people who attended the screening and to chat with them.

I shook Donahue’s hand and told him that I write for a blog that draws 4,000 visitors every day. I told him that when I sat down to watch his movie, I doubted that I would learn anything new because I’ve long been a serious student of the Iraq conflict and the political backdrop. I admitted to Donahue that was wrong, however, because this film got “under my radar and it was emotionally stunning.” Donahue looked at my badge and said “Dangerous Intersection . . . it would be good if you could talk about the film on your blog.” I told him that “That’s why I’m here.”

As many people know, Phil Donahue was host to a highly-ranked show on MSNBC in October 2002. In fact, it was a leading show on MSNBC. (more…)

We all know that the media networks helped beat the drums to invade Iraq. It’s clear from these stats: out of the 343 interviews conducted by network news prior to the Iraq invasion, only three involved an antiwar spokesperson.

Glenn Greenwald has now shown the incredible extent to which the corporate media executives snuffed out stories critical of President George W. Bush or critical of the Iraq invasion. Greenwald’s post is a must-read for anyone who has the stomach to try to understand how bad things got and how bad things still are regarding the corporate media.

Perhaps these should also be heady times for media reformers. We’ve waited a long time for the knowledgeable media insiders to have the guts to speak up, but they have finally started singing. Scott McClellan has dropped his bomb yesterday and other high profile media personalities are now starting to come out of the woodwork. Greenwald focuses on these recent statements by CNN’s Jessica Yellin:

I think the press corps dropped the ball at the beginning. When the lead-up to the war began, the press corps was under enormous pressure from corporate executives, frankly, to make sure that this was a war that was presented in a way that was consistent with the patriotic fever in the nation and the president’s high approval ratings.

And my own experience at the White House was that, the higher the president’s approval ratings, the more pressure I had from news executives — and I was not at this network at the time — but the more pressure I had from news executives to put on positive stories about the president.

Here’s Greenwald’s take on Yellin’s accusations:

Jessica Yellin’s admission is but the latest in a growing mountain of evidence demonstrating that corporate executives forced their news reporters to propagandize in favor of the Bush administration and the war, and censored stories that were critical of the Government.

In my daily scan of Creationism related news, I found this historical analysis of presidential faux pas. Author Wm. C. Shelton explains in detail how Dubya’s lowest presidential approval rating in history is not his reason for rating our present leader the “Worst Ever”:

The measure of a bad presidency, for me, is neither popularity nor lack of accomplishment. It is lasting damage to the Republic and the wellbeing of its citizens. Such a judgment requires assessment of past failed presidencies and their impact on our shared history. By that measure, I judge the younger Bush to be the worst U.S. president ever.

The article proceeds to compare and contrast various “bad” policies and decisions of various presidents in light of their eventual historical significance.

So refresh your knowledge of G.W.B’s less luminary predecessors and read this article to get an idea of how history may regard leadership in our current era.

I spotted this video on one of Eddie Roth’s posts at The Platform.

When “Iranian” weapons in Iraq turn out not to be Iranian, the White House is silent.  That’s what recently happened, based on this post at Crooks and Liars.

This computer animation was dramatic. I’d never seen anything like it. It is a lively model demonstrating how DNA is copied and how DNA is transcribed into RNA, among other things. These critical activities certainly need to zip along, given the total unraveled length of the DNA in each human cell: six feet.

This animation was created by The Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medicine at Melbourne, Australia.

That’s right, McCain’s got at least two preach problems.   This video is about Rod Parsley, who has an interesting spin on “turn the other cheek.”

Are you bored by those endless replays of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright? If so, Frank Rich of the NYT recommends that we visit YouTube to search for “John Hagee Roman Church Hitler,” whereupon we will be “recharged by a fresh jolt of clerical jive.”

What you’ll find is a white televangelist, the Rev. John Hagee, lecturing in front of an enormous diorama. Wielding a pointer, he pokes at the image of a woman with Pamela Anderson-sized breasts, her hand raising a golden chalice. The woman is “the Great Whore,” Mr. Hagee explains, and she is drinking “the blood of the Jewish people.” That’s because the Great Whore represents “the Roman Church,” which, in his view, has thirsted for Jewish blood throughout history, from the Crusades to the Holocaust.

Mr. Hagee is perhaps best known for trying to drum up a pre-emptive “holy war” with Iran. and see Max Blumenthal’s behind the scenes video where you’ll get the real flavor for what drives Rev. John Hagee’s followers.

Rich argues that Barack Obama is being picked on unfairly.

Mr. McCain instead told George Stephanopoulos two Sundays ago that while he condemns any “anti-anything” remarks by Mr. Hagee, he is still “glad to have his endorsement.” I wonder if Mr. McCain would have given the same answer had Mr. Stephanopoulos confronted him with the graphic video of the pastor in full “Great Whore” glory. But Mr. McCain didn’t have to fear so rude a transgression. Mr. Hagee’s videos have never had the same circulation on television as Mr. Wright’s. A sonorous white preacher spouting venom just doesn’t have the telegenic zing of a theatrical black man.

Arianna Huffington has just released her new book, Right Is Wrong: How the Lunatic Fringe Hijacked America, Shredded the Constitution, and Made Us All Less Safe. Huffington has reviewed the main themes of her book at Huffpo.

In the book, Huffington concludes that there are three main areas to consider in order to understand “how we got in the mess we’re in”:

A) the media;
B)  the role of fear in our politics; and
C) the failure of political leadership.

Huffington is a passionate and eloquent spokesperson for these critically important themes:

These three factors have combined to allow the lunatic fringe that has taken over the Right to hijack our country, our democracy, and our Constitution. So that 28 percent of the population that continues to support George W. Bush no matter how many bodies pile up in Iraq, how many jobs disappear overseas, how many For Sale signs go up on their block, or how high gas prices get, continues to dominate our politics.

I’m tired of hearing Neocons cavalierly talking about “nuking” one or more Middle Eastern countries. These days, Neocons often talk about this “need” to use nuclear weapons to show people in the Middle East that “we” mean business. I have personally heard this sort of talk several times (when you mostly listen instead of talk, you’d be amazed at what Neocons tell you). Former U.S. presidential candidate Tom Tancredo talks like this, for example.  [If you want to get a flavor for the scariest segment of the crowd that takes lightly the idea of using nuclear weapons, Google the phrase "nuke Mecca Medina."]

Here’s what I propose. The next time someone somberly (or cheerfully) suggests that the United States “nuke” a country in the Middle East, tell them to take a look at what it really means to use nuclear weapons on human beings. A site called Atomic Tragedy recently released these graphic photos of Hiroshima that had been donated to the Hoover Archives by a U.S. serviceman in 1998, with the provision that the photos shouldn’t be released until 2008. These horrific photos were taken by an unknown Japanese photographer.

Anyone inclined to use nuclear weapons should first be made to take a close look at what it means to use nuclear weapons by studying these photos and meditating carefully on the phrase “Love your enemy.” Yes, “Love your enemy,” that superb meditation on empathy. I don’t believe in the divinity of Jesus, but I do think that it’s time for Neocons to stop cherry-picking the Bible and to take their own Holy Book seriously.

The Onion News Network is right on top of this trendy story:

In The Know: How Can We Make The War In Iraq More Eco-Friendly?

This site thinks so. 

If you hunt through the categories, you’ll see many ideas better than occupying Iraq while incurring tens of thousands of U.S. troop casualties.

In this Truthout interview (by Geoffry Millard), Phil Donahue exhorts: “Don’t sanitize the war.”  Who are the perpetrators of this effort to sanitize the war?  Politicians and the media, for starters.  That effort to sanitize the bloody U.S. occupation of Iraq is the main message of the newly-released movie that Donahue co-directed: “Body of War.”

The film’s subject is paralyzed Iraq war veteran Tomas Young, who was shot through the spine in Iraq on April 4, 2004. Young’s transformation from war veteran to antiwar hero (as the movie poster boasts) is mixed well with the speech of Senator Byrd (D-West Virginia) against the resolution giving President Bush the power to invade Iraq.

In this interview, Donahue stresses that Senator Byrd was one of only 23 senators who voted no (133 members of the House voted no).  

The purpose of the film:  “We would like to put wind to the back of the anti-war movement.” 

Glenn Greenwald has just written a new book, Great American Hypocrites: Toppling the Myths of Republican Politics.  He has released a long excerpt on Huffpo.  Here is a sampling.  Great American Hypocrites

examines the deceitful, personality-based election tactics the Right uses to build absurd cults of personality around their leaders while demonizing liberal and Democratic candidates. Accompanying that, as always, is the vital role the establishment press plays in disseminating those vapid though powerful themes. This excerpt is from the chapter concerning John McCain’s candidacy and how those themes will be deployed by the right-wing/media monster to transform him into a principled, honor-bound American icon . . .

If one examines America’s presidential elections beginning in 1980 to the present, what one finds is a consistent and unchanging pattern. The Republican Party dresses up its leaders in all sorts of virtuous personality costumes. The establishment press, driven by the vapid dynamics of high school personality complexes, digests and then promotes that iconography. National elections are dominated by personality imagery and smears and are almost completely bereft of consideration of substantive issues. Worst of all, the personality images that dictate our election outcomes are not just petty, but entirely false, grounded in pure myth.

What is a meaningful way of understanding the immense amount of money the United States spends in Iraq each day? This simple video by American Friends Service Committee compellingly gets this point across.

How does one most fairly frame this issue of what the United States is spending in Iraq? It’s not only a matter of whether we should be in Iraq for strategic reasons (every reason presented by the Bush Administration has proven to be untrue). It’s also a matter of whether there are vastly superior ways of spending that immense amount of money (there are, as illustrated by the video below).

I’ve previously tried to illustrate the immense expense we are incurring in Iraq here , here , here and here.

Charlie Rose is having such a difficult time listening to his guests, because he has so obviously bought into the standard mainstream media view on the Iraq conflict (which is essentially the view developed by the Bush Administration).   He appears simultaneously ignorant yet preachy as two men with genuine familiarity with the people of Iraq repeatedly burst his bubble. 

This segment is well worth watching to hear the guests (Ali Fadhil and Sinan Antoon) uttering such an impressive stream of simple truths about Iraq.  Lesson number one:  what we call “Iraq” has little resemblance to the country the U.S. purportedly attempted to ”liberate.”  We’ve made a shambles of Iraq.

I refuse to use the term “war” when referring to the U.S. occupation of Iraq for these reasons.

Do you remember the many politicians and news media personalities who assured us that we needed to go to “war” with Iraq and that it would be easy, fast and relatively painless for American soldiers?   Well, Huffpo has put many of those quotes in one convenient place, breaking them into basic categories, such as:

CAKEWALK!

HOW MANY TROOPS WILL BE NEEDED?

WHAT ABOUT CASUALTIES?

HOW MUCH WILL IT COST?  and HOW LONG WILL IT LAST?

Here are some key quotes from “How long will it last?”:

“Now, it isn’t gong to be over in 24 hours, but it isn’t going to be months either.”
- Richard Perle, Chairman of the Pentagon’s Defense Policy Board, 7/11/02

“The idea that it’s going to be a long, long, long battle of some kind I think is belied by the fact of what happened in 1990. Five days or five weeks or five months, but it certainly isn’t going to last any longer than that.”
- Donald H. Rumsfeld, U.S. Secretary of Defense, 11/15/02

“It is unknowable how long that conflict will last. It could be six days, six weeks. I doubt six months.”
- Donald H. Rumsfeld, U.S. Secretary of Defense, 2/7/03

“It won’t take weeks… Our military machine will crush Iraq in a matter of days and there’s no question that it will.”
- Bill O’Reilly, 2/10/03

“There is zero question that this military campaign…will be reasonably short. … Like World War II for about five days.”
- General Barry R. McCaffrey, national security and terrorism analyst for NBC News, 2/18/03

“Our military superiority is so great — it’s far greater than it was in the Gulf War, and the Gulf War was over in 100 hours after we bombed for 43 days… Now they can bomb for a couple of days and then just roll into Baghdad… The odds are there’s going to be a war and it’s going to be not for very long.”
- Former President Bill Clinton, 3/6/03

“I think it will go relatively quickly…weeks rather than months.”
- Vice President Dick Cheney, 3/16/03

We must remember that these aren’t mere words.  Saying these sorts of words had consequences that many people still don’t seem to appreciate (given that many of the people who pushed a “war” with Iraq now want to start a “war” with Iran).   Glenn Greenwald wrote about this moral obtuseness of many of those people who led the charge to invade Iraq:

The most unadorned admissions of error amount to little more than a concession that they simply assessed the costs and benefits inaccurately. And even with that extremely narrow concession, none of them — either in Slate or elsewhere — even reference in passing the fact that the war they cheered on ended the lives of hundreds of thousands (at least) of innocent Iraqi citizens and caused the internal and external displacement of millions more. That just doesn’t exist in the calculus.

More strikingly, not a single one of them appears to have learned the real lesson worth learning from the whole disaster: The U.S. should not — and has no right to — invade, bomb and occupy other nations that haven’t attacked or even threatened to attack us. None of them say: “Wars that aren’t directly in response to an actual or imminent attack shouldn’t be commenced because doing so leads to the deaths of hundreds of thousands or millions of human beings for no justifiable reason.” Not even the most regretful war advocate seems to have reached that conclusion.

Perhaps Elliot Spitzer was really sorry for having sex with a prostitute from the Emperor’s Club, but he failed the I’m sorry Test.  Why?  For two reasons.  Because it wasn’t Spitzer’s turn to apologize and his apology was mis-directed. 

It was George W. Bush’s turn to apologize, I’m fairly certain.   Why do I write this?  Because Bush has done each of the following:

• Plunged the U.S. into armed combat and an extended occupation of Iraq based on numerous lies.
• Mismanaged the medical treatment of veterans at Walter Reed.
• Mishandled Plamegate (Chief of Staff to the Vice President was convicted of perjury).
• Mishandled Iraq (assuming that we should have been there at all), due to lack of preparation for occupation, looting, including the National Museum, too few troops, lack of training, lack of equipment, lack of securing loose Iraqi munitions, disbanding the Iraqi army . . .
• Invited no bid contracts in Iraq, including to Halliburton and companies that provide mercenaries with little or no accountability.
• Encouraged torture, indefinite detention, the end of habeas corpus, and kangaroo courts.
• Mishandled the political firing of US attorneys.
• “Heck of a job, Brownie,”
• Authorized warrantless NSA wiretapping in October 2001.
• Allowed extraordinary rendition to facilitate interrogation by torture
• Maintained cozy corrupt relationships with K Street Lobbyists.
• Allowed Cheney’s Energy Policy and refused to divulge the oil industry participation.
• Encouraged financially irresponsible cuts for the wealthiest, big corporations.
• Denied of Global warming and its human causes.
• Attempted to disband the 911 Commission.
• Damaged to the US reputation internationally.
• Led the White House War on Science, against stem cell research, global warming, evolution, research funding, energy, abstinence programs and AIDS prevention.
• Abu Ghraib & Guantanamo.
• Attacked Plan B contraception, staffing Women’s Health positions with religious conservatives.
• Fought for the right to spy on U.S. citizens, including opening US mail.
• Failed to be accountable for “lost” White House emails.

Bush should also apologize for providing numerous false reasons for the Iraq invasion and occupation: 

1. WMD
2. Saddam Hussein behind 9/11
3. Saddam Hussein connected with al Qaeda
4. Fighting terrorists there so we don’t have to fight them here
5. Spread democracy
6. Saddam Hussein was a bad man
7. Iraqi violations of UN Resolutions
8. The 1993 assassination attempt against GHW Bush
9. Oil
10. Bases
11. Defend Israel
12. Bad intel
 
[Thanks to Hugh’s Comprehensive Bush Scandal List for it’s comprehensive list of these problems and many others.]

Most of Bush’s wrongful acts and omissions occurred years ago.  Spitzer’s use of a prostitute was rather recent (February of this year).  Therefore, it was Bush’s turn to apologize.  I’m been waiting for a Bush apology for at least five years . . . I’m still waiting.

The second problem is that Elliot Spitzer’s apology was misdirected.  I can understand an apology to his wife, but why apologize to everyone in NY for soliciting a prostitute?   We all know that this was not really an apology but an act of public submission.  It was but a little dance that all politicians do when they have offended the People.  That Spitzer has to get up and do this sort of mea culpa is palpable evidence of the America’s unhealthy obsession with sex.

It’s plainly evident that a person can no longer do the work of a politician in the U.S. unless he or she has the right kind of private sex with the right kind of person.   God help a politician who has an orgasm in private with a person to whom the People of New York haven’t given their stamp of approval.  

Elliot Spitzer had sex, in private, with a woman who wasn’t his wife?  “Gad, how could he possibly be qualified to be governor?” chant all of the holy and moral politicians on the sidelines.  Those protesting “holy” politicians are the ones who feign lots of anger in public while, in the privacy of their homes they lap up the salacious accounts of Elliot’s young and beautiful consensual sex partner; they virtually lick the words off their newspapers as part of the process of working up more faux rage for tomorrow’s press conference.  They practice their horrified expressions in their mirrors, so that they can make it clear to the People how awful it is for two people to have consensual sex where money is exchanged instead of a diamond ring. (more…)

Obama’s full speech is here.    What follows is a long excerpt from this October 2, 2002 speech:

Saddam poses no imminent and direct threat to the United States, or to his neighbors, that the Iraqi economy is in shambles, that the Iraqi military a fraction of its former strength, and that in concert with the international community he can be contained until, in the way of all petty dictators, he falls away into the dustbin of history. I know that even a successful war against Iraq will require a US occupation of undetermined length, at undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences. I know that an invasion of Iraq without a clear rationale and without strong international support will only fan the flames of the Middle East, and encourage the worst, rather than best, impulses of the Arab world, and strengthen the recruitment arm of Al Qaeda. I am not opposed to all wars. I’m opposed to dumb wars.

So for those of us who seek a more just and secure world for our children, let us send a clear message to the President today. You want a fight, President Bush? Let’s finish the fight with Bin Laden and Al Qaeda, through effective, coordinated intelligence, and a shutting down of the financial networks that support terrorism, and a homeland security program that involves more than color-coded warnings. You want a fight, President Bush?

Let’s fight to make sure that the UN inspectors can do their work, and that we vigorously enforce a non-proliferation treaty, and that former enemies and current allies like Russia safeguard and ultimately eliminate their stores of nuclear material, and that nations like Pakistan and India never use the terrible weapons already in their possession, and that the arms merchants in our own country stop feeding the countless wars that rage across the globe. You want a fight, President Bush?

Let’s fight to make sure our so-called allies in the Middle East, the Saudis and the Egyptians, stop oppressing their own people, and suppressing dissent, and tolerating corruption and inequality, and mismanaging their economies so that their youth grow up without education, without prospects, without hope, the ready recruits of terrorist cells. You want a fight, President Bush? Let’s fight to wean ourselves off Middle East oil, through an energy policy that doesn’t simply serve the interests of Exxon and Mobil. Those are the battles that we need to fight. Those are the battles that we willingly join. The battles against ignorance and intolerance. Corruption and greed. Poverty and despair.

A new Salon.com book review gives us the depressing and infuriating answers to how much the Iraq adventure is costing the citizens of the United States.   The book, written by Joseph Stiglitz and Linda J. Bilmes, is titled “The Three Trillion Dollar War:  The True Cost of the Iraq Conflict.”   In typical dyfunctional White House style, White House spokesman Tony Fratto has argued that the book is misguided because “One can’t even begin to put a price tag on the cost to this nation of the attacks of 9/11.”  As though the occupation of Iraq has anything to do with 9/11 . . .

The numbers presented by Stiglitz and Bilmes are truly staggering:

“The Three Trillion Dollar War” talks about two types of war-related expenses: budgetary and social. Budgetary costs include operational spending on Iraq and Afghanistan, which they estimate will total from $1.7 trillion to $2.7 trillion. (Throughout the book, the authors put forward two sets of figures: one based on a “best-case scenario” and one on a far more likely “realistic-moderate” scenario.) This figure includes the expense of keeping armies in the field, paying veteran-related costs, replacing equipment ($400 billion for this alone), and paying interest on the vast debt we have incurred to fight the war. So far, Congress has actually appropriated $645 billion for Iraq and Afghanistan since 2001, plus the $200 billion Bush asked for in 2008. As the authors point out, this is more than the U.S. spends annually on Medicare and Medicaid combined. And the monthly “burn rate” to pay for the wars has gone steadily up, from $4.4 billion in 2003 to $16 billion today. This means that every American household is spending $138 a month on the current operating expenses of the wars.

The additional “social” costs that are not borne by the government are harder to calculate — and more controversial.

As an aside, I find the neocon sleight of hand interesting.  The usual neocon line when it comes to taxes is that money paid as taxes really belongs to the people.   Fair enough.   Why then, don’t neocons emphasize that these wild, irresponsible, inefficient and often corrupt expenditures on the Iraq occupation (I don’t call it a “war”) are being paid with my money and your money, not “government” money?  If any of you American families out there have a better use for $138 each month than blowing up buildings and people in Iraq, raise your hand!

In an interview published by McClatchy Newspapers Feb 27, 2008, Stiglitz warns that the worst is yet to come regarding our military expenses in Iraq and Afghanistan:

In an interview, Stiglitz said that too much of the public debate had been over the wars’ operational costs while the real budget strains would show up only years from now.

“The peak expenditures are way out,” he said, noting that the peak expenditures for World War II vets came in 1993.

The McClatchy article reminds us of the rosy 2003 predictions of the Bush Administration:

When U.S. troops invaded Iraq in March 2003, the Bush administration predicted that the war would be self-financing and that rebuilding the nation would cost less than $2 billion.

Being off by a few decimal points in grade school gets a student a well-deserved “F.”  

I’ve spent a lot of time studying Republican political anatomy.   You see, I’m not only an armchair anthropologist, but I’m a social neuro-surgeon (a brand-new expertise, created today).   After careful review of all available relevant data, I have developed a precise chart (click on the thumbnail below) detailing each of the major features of the modern Republican brain.  

No, you won’t find “Iraq” on this anatomical diagram, even though it reveals each of the major neural substructures found in the modern Republican brain.  That’s because the modern Repubublican has developed relatively recently.  No specialized “Iraq” module has thus had time to evolve. You will nonetheless find each of the brain structures that, working together, compel the instigation of multiple fear-induced, needless, destructive, ineptly planned, corrupt and potentially non-ending military conflicts in the Middle East. 

Whenever sufficient numbers of these malignant features are found in the brains of those who hold substantial political power, one can expect the atrophy of an entire country, absent immediate and dramatic political resuscitation. 

Without further ado, here it is.  Just click on the thumbnail for all the gory details:

If you’d like to review some fascinating and rigorous psychological data of what it means to be a conservative, check out this post regarding a study by Frank Sulloway or this post considering the work of psychologist Jonathan Haidt.

I received this email from a regular reader in response to one of my responses to my Creationism in Florida Schools post:

“The real question that comes to my mind after reading this St. Petersburg Times poll is, should we allow popular demand to decide what is taught in science classes?”

How about for deciding what is taught in science, deciding tax policy, setting social programs, setting foreign policy, etc., etc., etc.? Should we allow popular demand to decide for these as well? I think we currently do, and I think it is with the same disastrous results. The next logical question is how should we pick the deciders? The problem is, we will never move to the next logical question.

What was considered ancient political wisdom at the time of the Caesars was: If the people can vote themselves bread and circuses, they will. Concentration of capital is the primary benefit of a taxation system. It allows big things to be done by a people of whom no individual member can afford. Government social programs (a form of insurance that used to be the province of churches, thus the tradition of tithing) are an example of dilution of capital. As is the Economic Stimulus Package that raced through our government checks and balances without much of either.

The examples of Ancient Greece, the Medici families (practically an empire unto themselves), the California legislature, and the Summerhill project (as described in the book by A.S. Neill) show that, once people get used to controlling their own disbursments as a group, they eventually regularly (but not always) behave in a responsible manner toward the group, and therefore unselfishly benefit themselves. Good things can, and usually do, come of it.

But a key word is “eventually”. They must vote themselves “pork” for long enough to see the damage done by not providing for the greater good. Our system would prevent sufficient damage to let people see how bad these decisions can be. So we are perpetually in the broad borderlands between doing something good, and fiscal collapse.

The Federal Government was set up as a coordinator between the States of the union, and to limit the power of States where it may interfere with rights of the people. Phrases like “Provide for the Common Defense” and “Insure domestic tranquility” come to mind. Early in the 20th century, legislators went hog wild amending the constitution.

Then we had a rash of arguably unconstitutional federal programs established, such as Income Tax and Social Security (technically, these are voluntary). But the federal income tax was set up to pay for the common defense (war debts). And with over 20 workers per retiree, who would mind 5% for retirement insurance, half paid by the employer? Rather than deal with charging the states that then pass the charges on to the residents as state taxes, it was more expedient to charge people directly, originally based on the ability to pay. The personal deduction was originally above the median family income. Now the deductible is well below the poverty level. Also there are now only 7 workers per retiree, and falling (14% to FICA).

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I watched a few minutes of a Sunday morning Fox political program, and noticed that their fair and balanced coverage of presidential politics had several distinct spins.</