Category: Terrorism

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The Iraq Dollar Auction

Wow. I missed the shocking news — Saddam Hussein hated the United States and tried to think of ways to hurt it. ABC news with exclusive audio tape!

I saw that ABC News item. It wasn’t “news”. It was a tape they had acquired which did not provide any new information that was not already out there and widely known. In fact, the story largely substantiated the position that Saddam was not a real threat, and had no connection with Al Qaeda.

If you are watching the news, I presume you are also aware of the fact that Iraq is now near full civil war, and that the occupation is generating more new terrorists every day than Osama could have wished for in his wildest dreams, and that large Republican-connected corporations have been gleefully lining their own pockets while mismanaging the rebuilding of that pathetic little country, and that whenever a competent official emerges from the U.S. occupation administration, he says something truthful and is sacked.

I always find it strange that nobody seems to be demanding the simplest and most obvious measure of accountability from the Bush administration: tell us how long it will take and how much it will cost and how many people will die before you have what you promised us: a peaceful democratic Arab state in the Mid-east. So far, it is estimated to be over $20,000 per American household. How much would you say is too much, and how long, and how many lives, would you say is too many? $50,000? $100,000? And how long should the bulk of the U.S. military be tied up in Iraq? 10 years? 20 years? 50 years? Any reasonable person would want to know those things before committing to a course of action that will be almost impossible to extricate ourselves from, with decency and integrity.

Well, we know why nobody from the Bush administration will give us any kind of plan. If they did, it would immediately be apparent that the plan has failed. By saying “nobody can say how long it would take” and “it undermines the troops to insist that we have a clue about what we are doing and how much progress we are making” Bush can hope that some miracle will come along and save his ass from the embarrassment of having to admit, “we had no real idea, when we went in, of how difficult it was going to be to get out”. It’s a win-win proposition. If things go badly, it’s because we haven’t waited long enough. If things eventually go well, we knew it would.

Will anyone admit that Bush doesn’t know what he got into and has no clue how to get out? We are now into what John Nash (“Beautiful Mind”) called a “dollar auction”. You are bidding on a dollar under rules that require you to pay out even if you lose the auction. So, when you reach and pass the full “value” of the dollar, you have to keep bidding, because otherwise you still pay but get nothing. Yes, Viet Nam exactly.

Doesn’t matter to him, does it? He’ll be out cashing out in a couple years. He doesn’t actually receive suitcases full of cash from all those corporations and billionaires he has served so diligently the last six years… until he gets out of office. And then watch the payback– it should be absolutely glorious! No individual in the history of the U.S. has transferred so much wealth to so many investors, shareholders, and corporate leaders. The oil industry alone should be falling over themselves to reward him– look at the deal they got in the Gulf of Mexico!– but the pharmaceutical companies, insurance companies, credit institutions,– they’ll all be rushing forward to thank the man who did so incredibly much for their profit margins (while doing virtually nothing for the economy as a whole or people who actually work for a living).

Meanwhile, an adult will have to take over the presidency and sit there and think: how long do we let this shit go on before we admit it was a huge mistake? And stop bidding? And the same adult will have to do something adult about paying bills around here. I don’t think anything Bush has done is quite as remarkably, shamelessly, outrageously childish as the handing over of billions and billions of dollars in national debt to the next generation. Some of his most fanatical devotees compare him to Jesus Christ, and they have something there: I’m watching this man walk on water right now. It’s amazing.

It’s hard to call an administration “corrupt” when it does, openly and shamelessly, what other administrations would do only in secret. The lobbyists now enter through the front door, proudly and glibly, and meetings that used to be hidden are now simply “secret”. The Bush administration actually invites corporations to write legislation for themselves. The same people who defend this government would be horrified at the idea of a labour union writing it’s own contract or a teenager making his own house rules or an actor directing his own movie– and perhaps should be. But that’s the way the Bush administration operates.

There are ideological differences, which can be argued endlessly, but then there’s simple competency issues, of which a clear vision eventually emerges.

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Tony Blair Bans Military Parades, Medals, and War Movies

According to the CBC, Tony Blair is finally going to do something I can agree with. He is going to ban the glorification of terrorism. From now on, it will be illegal to “glorify”– that’s the word they use: “glorification”– acts of terrorism.

First of all, let’s describe terrorism. Acts of violence with the aim of achieving a political or social objective? Violence directed at civilians? Violence used to further a religious cause? Let’s get the definition straight, because we don’t want the British occupation of the Middle East at the close of World War II to be classified as terrorism, because then, I suppose, we would have to ban “Lawrence of Arabia”, or “Cast a Giant Shadow”. And we don’t want the first American gulf war to be classified as terrorism, just because

What about violence for the purpose of obtaining material benefits or economic power? Like the U.S. inspired coup in Guatemala in 1956? And does this mean that General Pinochet of Chile will really be arrested and held the next time he visits Britain? Is it unsafe for Mr. Henry Kissinger to spend a weekend frolicking in London? “In Flanders Fields” glorifies acts of violence by British and Canadian conscripts in World War I. What was so different about those acts of violence, to further the aims of the British government of the day? That they were deceived by an elected government into believing that killing Germans had some kind of divine purpose?

Military parades essentially glorify the capacity of the government to inflict violence upon various enemies of the realm. Good. Let’s ban them, along with “Top Gun”, “Ballad of the Green Berets”, and “The Dirty Dozen”. Can we arrest Oliver North now, since he supported and “glorified” the activities of the Contras in Nicaragua when they were trying to overthrow the Sandinista government?

How about anyone involved in the Reagan administration’s support of — holy cow!– Osama Bin Laden, and the insurgency against the Soviet-backed regime in Afghanistan in the 1980’s?

Bust Margaret Thatcher for her passionate romance with British military might in the Falklands?

It’s a magic bus. Let’s all get on board.

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The Cost of the Iraq War

According to Harper’s Magazine, the projected cost of the Iraqi adventure will come out to about $20,000 per U.S. household.

That’s just the financial cost, of course. The cost in lives and limbs is far, far greater.

As with many large human enterprises that end in disaster, the actual costs are never known or described at the time the enterprise is embarked upon, because if they were, no sane person would approve of the plan. If George Bush were running for president this year and he promised to start a war that would cost every household $20,000, I don’t think most people would vote for him.

I’ve heard it argued that most people felt, at the time, that attacking Iraq was the right thing to do. That is why the Democrats– especially Hillary Clinton– sound so anemic right now. They can’t really take Bush to task about this– they voted for it too.

Were there reasonable people around who knew that attacking and occupying Iraq was going to cost so much at the time George Bush set out to do it. The answer is clearly yes. Not George Bush, no. Not anyone on his staff– except, dimly, Colin Powell– no. Not anyone in the Republican party, no. And, it is clear, almost nobody in the Democratic Party, which is why so few Democrats are now able to make hay of the horrible consequences of the stupid decision to invade and occupy Iraq.

But a lot of other people, including Canadians and Europeans knew that it was a bad idea. Prime Minister Jean Chrétien– probably not sure if he was doing the right thing at the time– declined to participate because a large majority of Canadians didn’t think it was a good idea. They were right.

The Americans are in a massive, unholy mess right now in Iraq. Bush keeps on insisting that there is light at the end of the tunnel, but I think that light is coming from a directorship at a large oil company after 2008, or the reflection off Karl Rove’s fleshy forehead.

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There is No War on Terrorism

Today, Oral Hatch, defending the right of the Bush administration to decide for itself when it is or isn’t in compliance with the law, stated this: “We are faced with a war unlike any we have ever been in.”

These words are spoken every day by Republicans and Democrats alike. I think they believe it. It sounds so solemn and important. We are nearly gods, defending innocent Americans in Peoria and Terre Haute from the hordes of invading fanatics. We will spend billions. We will sacrifice thousands of soldiers. We will spy on our own citizens. Because of this war.

There is no war.

There was one spectacular attack, on the World Trade Center, and there is the on-going hatred of fanatics in the Arab world for all things western, but the idea that we are in some kind of “war”, by even the most broad-minded definition of the word, is absurd.

Congress has authorized President Bush to “use force” to punish the people responsible for 9/11. Instead, he invaded Iraq. The U.S. has never declared war on either Afghanistan or Iraq. It simply announced it was coming. There are good reasons why it never did– most of them having to do with accountability and international obligations. It “justified” the “war” to the UN with lies.

A war is a battle between two or more nations. Who is the other nation? Al Qaeda? “Al Qaeda” sounds pretty cool but it doesn’t really exist, and even the U.S. government, while assuming it’s existence in almost every significant foreign policy statement, has never been able to show that a real international “network” exists. There are terrorists that know each other and sometimes work together. There is money flowing from some Arabs and possibly some Arab governments to some terrorists, but there is no coordinated structure on the scale of the IRA, for example. The U.S. and British governments have knowingly presented an image of this organization to the public that it must know is not true.

If this is a war, the United States has never not been at war. If you go through the history of U.S. involvement overseas from 1945 to the present, you will find that there was never a period when the U.S. was not involved in a bitter conflict of some kind with fanatical followers of this or that ideology (usually Marxism). Hell, if you include the Cold War, there was never a time in which unfettered dictatorial power was more necessary to keep all our Walmarts safe. If the relatively impotent Arab states are such a dire threat that the government is justified in making extraordinary violations of civil rights, then what would the threat of nuclear annihilation by the Soviets have called for? Joseph McCarthy?

The truth is that the U.S. has never been less at war than it is now. America’s fanatical Arab enemies can certainly mount a terrorist attack here and there, and a bombing here and there, but none of this is new or more intense than it was in the 1960’s or 1970’s or 1980’s. No threat to the United States today is more dire and consequential than the threat of the Soviet Union at he height of the cold war. Yet even Ronald Reagan never proposed the abridgement of civil liberties and freedoms that this government enthusiastically and energetically pursues.

The idea that this is “war” is bullshit. It’s a power grab by people with a real and fervent belief in authoritarianism, which they also fervently and bizarrely believe will save “democracy”, which is the election of us.

Copyright © 2006 Bill Van Dyk All rights reserved. January 20, 2006

Liar
There was a truly awesome moment at the Senate hearings on the issue. Senator Russ Feingold, one year ago, asked Attorney-General nominee Alberto Gonzales if the president could authorize wire-taps without a warrant. Gonzales solemnly declared that the question was hypothetical even though he knew full well that Bush was, in fact, already doing it. He lied.

From an administration that supposedly prides itself on honesty and integrity, Gonzales provided a mealy-mouthed response that essentially amounted to this: I wasn’t lying because you asked if he could do it in violation of the law. Since whatever Mr. Bush wants to do is legal because he says it is, it wasn’t in violation of the law.

That, of course, is not what Senator Feingold asked. He asked if the President could do it without a warrant, not if he could do it “illegally”.

The Republican majority on the committee prevented Gonzales from being “sworn in”.

Why, if they didn’t think he was going to lie, would they do that?

What exactly is a war?

The Administration keeps insisting that it is only spying on people who mean American harm. Logically, that’s like arguing that it should have the right to conduct summary executions of criminal suspects because they might be murderers.

It’s all beside the point: justice is about proving, in open court, that you have the right guy. The Bush administration has this tone about it— who needs proof? We know who they are. And if they weren’t guilty of what it was we thought they did, they surely thought of doing other things equally deserving of punishment.

Do you think they will ever put Khalid Shaikh Mohammed on trial? Do you think he will ever testify at any trial of any of the many “suspects” he is handing over to the FBI? That would mean he would be subject to cross examination. That would mean defense lawyers could introduce evidence and testimony about Khalid’s background, including his involvement in the Pakistani Military. That might not be very congenial to the Bush administration. Nor would it be useful, to Bush, to have Khalid discuss his torture sessions at the hands of the CIA in court.

The important thing is that you, dear American average citizen in Palos Park, Illinois, are feeling safe tonight.

 

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Yousef Cat

I just watched a documentary on the man formerly known as Cat Stevens, also formerly known as Steven Demetre Georgiou, now known as Yousef Islam, the man who renounced his gift.

Well, he does have musical talent. But at a very raw level, all of his music stopped being interesting the moment he embraced religion in 1977. Quick, name one song Stevens wrote after his “crisis”. Okay– not totally fair. For most of the religious portion of his life, Yousef did not write music, because his God did not care for it very much.

The documentary itself is one of those disagreeable, fawning tributes that almost always is the result of some kind of deal between the subject and the “journalist”. No reporter is identified. No one asks Yousef any questions or follow-up questions. There is no independent critical appraisal of the information presented on the screen. It’s a puff peace. I doubt the makers of it care much if it ultimately damages their cause. It’s possible most people don’t care.

On the most contentious issue, Stevens alleged endorsement of the fatwa imposed on Salmon Rushdie by Ayatollah Khomeini, Stevens claims he was misquoted and that his views were distorted. But then he asserts that the punishment for blaspheme is, indeed, death. “My only crime was, I suppose, in being honest. I stood up and expressed my belief and I am in no way apologizing for it.”

Okay. So you’re sorry you’re right.

Surely his recent pronouncement, in song, that he never wanted to be a star must also be taken as some kind of joke and reflects another attempt to have it both ways. Like St. Augustine in his “Confessions”, Stevens enjoys the luxury of the well-rested virtue that awakes refreshed.

Cat has kittens: 4 girls and 1 boy.

Having it both ways: Cat has renounced his music many times, and even proclaimed that many of his early songs– “Lady D’Arbinville”?– were immoral. But he sells boxed sets out of his own offices in London and helps his record company promote sales of his entire catalog. But… he also has stated that profits from the “immoral” songs go to charities, as if this somehow preserves his personal purity and absolves him of any responsibility for how his songs might affect someone.

Stevens donates considerable time and money to charities that benefit Islamic children and families. He supports four Islamic schools in London. He’s obviously a generous man, to the needy in his community. More recently, it is reported that he donated half the royalties from a boxed set of his music to the families of the victims of 9/11. The U.S. still denied him entry in September 2005 over rather spurious allegations that he had terrorist links. Holy Soviet Union!

The Flaming Lips had to pay Cat some cash, and co-credit, for a song “Fight Test” that appeared to be unduly similar to “Father and Son”. In fact, give it a listen– it’s not just a phrase that’s been “borrowed”.

How peace-loving is Cat today? Some suspect that this Peace Train might be off the rails. But the best comment on his sudden deportation might be this one: “… the theatricality with which the incident was handled should inform us as to the motivation behind it.”

Beard vs Beard: in the latest round of earnest bearded singer-songwriters from the 1960’s and 70’s, current standings:

1. Cat Stevens – best musician.
2. Kris Kristofferson – best imitation of “just folks” by a very shrewd, very market-savvy Rhodes Scholar (yes he is).
3. Donovan – performer most likely to drive you into swallowing an entire furby.

Okay, okay– I know Donovan didn’t have a beard, but he wrote “Catch the Wind”, which is almost as bad and still feels like a hairy face to me.

Cat Stevens actually had a string of some very good albums back there in the early 1970’s, from Mona Bone Jakon to Catch Bull at Four. He could be a tad precious at times, but there more than a few great songs in there, including “18th Avenue” and “Sitting”. Then all of his good taste evaporated and he released several utterly dismal, programmed albums like “Foreigner” and “Buddha and the Chocolate Box”.

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Senator Russ Feingold

When you’re as cranky as I am, you don’t have many heroes. But here’s one. Senator Feingold is the only Senator who did not vote for the stupid, unconstitutional, and toxic “Patriot Act”.

I hereby nominate Feingold for the Presidential Medal of Freedom. If we start a grassroots movement now, maybe we can actually force President Bush to award him the medal. It would be the public telling the President that it will not put up with any abridgement of our sacred rights and freedoms.

It’s scary what you dream about at night in distant motel rooms. Never mind. Back to sleep.

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Ahmed Omar Abu Ali

And again, a conviction for terrorist activities, without any terror or activities.

Ahmed Omar Abu Ali was arrested for thought crimes in Saudi Arabia. We know what he was thinking– they tortured him to find out. Then they sent him to the U.S. where a federal court jury failed to stand up and shout, “screw you, George Bush, we still have some respect for freedom and the constitution here!”.

[added May 2008]

Nah, they didn’t. They said, by golly, only a guilty man would confess to terrorist activities while being tortured by the Saudis! Lock him up!

The FBI participated in the inquisition in Saudi Arabia– which is strange, because the FBI is responsible for domestic law enforcement. But what the hell– nowadays any government official seems entitled to go around the world and torture people, with the help of the Loyal Bush Clan, the Saudis.

Who you gonna call?  The FBI?

The Wiki Entry

 

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The Real War

Number of Americans who died in 9/11: 3,000

Number of Americans who have died of AIDS: 500,000

[added 2011-07]

Amount we will spend trying to prevent another 9/11: hard to say how much when you add in all the new weapons systems, all the health care costs for veterans, replacement costs for weapons used, etc., etc., etc., etc.: — certainly over $2 trillion. Afghanistan alone is approaching $1 trillion dollars, for which we will have the gratifying experience of seeing it swirl down a sinkhole a few short years after we inevitably leave.

Amount spent to stop people dying of AIDS: $150 billion

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Who Wants to Torture? Me! Me! Who’s Next?

“in a 45-minute meeting last Thursday, Vice President Dick Cheney and the C.I.A. director, Porter J. Goss, urged Senator John McCain, the Arizona Republican who wrote the amendment, to support an exemption for the agency, arguing that the president needed maximum flexibility in dealing with the global war on terrorism”

The amendment they are talking about was attached to a $400 billion military spending bill by the Senate. The Senate– hey, hey!– voted 90-9 in favor of this amendment. The amendment bars the U.S. from the use of “cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment” of any detainee.

That’s all. The least you would expect, you would think, from a Christian nation. But we are not a Christian nation. We countenance a president and vice-president who beg Congress to please, oh please, please, please, please, don’t stop us from using “cruel, inhuman, or degrading” treatment in the war against terror…

Because, how else will we know if we’re better than them?

NY Times Story.

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Guilty With an Explanation

Saddam – “guilty, with an explanation.” Why is he on trial in a country that has no government, in the hands of a country that has no legal authorization to hold him, before a judge who was never appointed by any legitimate, democratically elected authority?

Why is Saddam not being tried by the International Court of Justice in The Hague? Because the Americans cannot manipulate the outcome of that court, and because the World Court will not sentence anybody to death. But that is where he should be tried.

And the Americans don’t support the World Court because there are few Americans who could actually be put on trail for war crimes.

If there was ever a particular action by the Americans for which one could say they will probably be sorry for it later, this is it. The court in Baghdad has no legitimacy in the eyes of anyone but the Americans. Saddam is a confirmed psychopath and mass-murderer. The U.S. does not need to manipulate the outcome of this trial, but by pulling strings it will forever raise questions in the minds of people everywhere– especially Moslems– about whether he was ever really quite as bad as the Americans claim he is. Someone will say, the evidence was planted by the Americans. And a reasonable Arab might just nod and say, “could be.”

[2011-05: I was wrong about that. Nobody, even in the Arab or Moslem world, gives a damn about Saddam Hussein. I should have realized that.]