http://homepage.mac.com/dmhart/iblog dmhart@mac.com © David M. Hart Mon, 23 Apr 2007 22:15:27 -0400 Mon, 23 Apr 2007 22:15:30 -0400 iBlog 1.4.0 In the Indy Star :



"The “In God We Trust” license plates that have quickly become a fixture on Indiana roads came under a legal attack today claiming the law authorizing them is unconstitutional for favoring that message over those on other plates.

The lawsuit (by the ACLU) filed in Marion Superior Court claims the state Bureau of Motor Vehicles gives preferential treatment to motorists wanting the plates, which also feature the American flag, because they don’t have to pay the $15 administrative fee that the agency collects on sales of most other Indiana specialty plates."

There is, of course, no plate for skeptics either at the full price or the subsidised price. Nor is there an "end the war" plate for much the same reasons. But you can buy Notre Dame, Purdue, and IU plates which says a lot about American interests and priorities. I wonder how they would charge for a plate like "Whom would Jesus bomb?" or "Whom would Jesus torture?" I'd pay a premium for the privilege. ]]> Mon, 23 Apr 2007 22:08:37 -0400 The film "Saving Private Ryan" taught me what the great WW2 acronym FUBAR meant for the GIs. I stuck in on my office door at the University of Adelaide for much the same reason. Phillip Carter in Slate resurrects the term in reference to the ever failing "plans" which the US have invented to fight the guerrilla war in Iraq. To counter those who now see the immanent failure and urge that there be a "Plan B", Carter argues that there have already been 6 plans in Iraq (A-F) all of which have failed miserably and that there should be instead a Plan G (for "get of of Iraq"). According to Cater the failed plans have been:

A. Rumsfeld's deeply flawed theory of "shock and awe"
B. the transition of security tasks to a new and smaller headquarters led by Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, and the transition of reconstruction to the nascent Coalition Provisional Authority, led by American proconsul L. Paul Bremer
C. in summer 2003—a combination of heavy-handed combat operations and token reconstruction efforts
D. a phased withdrawal and drawdown plan, which was contingent upon the successful transfer of security responsibility to Iraqi forces and the achievement of political milestones like the ratification of Iraq's Constitution
E. Operation Together Forward I and II. These joint pushes to secure Baghdad followed a "clear, hold, and build" strategy lifted straight from the counterinsurgency playbook
F. the current Petraeus plan —the surge—grew out of the recognition that Plans C, D, and E had created today's overlapping conflicts in Iraq, and that our best hope for Iraq was to establish some sense of security, which would enable the Maliki government to stabilize itself

I would add that the current plan seems to be to hold out until the change over to a Democratic regime in early 2009, dump the mess in their laps, and then blame them for the fiasco. A great Rovian scheme. ]]> Mon, 23 Apr 2007 21:49:09 -0400 The Asia Time Online from Hong Kong has some excellent articles about the war in Iraq and world politics. The radical journalist Pepe Escobar is one of my favourites. He even looks like a radical journalist should look like.

Part Che, part Peter Fonda. Or how about the film "If.." by Lindsay Anderson.

In the latest issue you can read Pepe on how the US is borrowing from the Israeli playbook by building walls of Apartheid in Baghdad; Chan Akya compares the killings at Virginia Tech and the sex scandal at the world bank in a way the mainstream US press would not; and Leo Hadar from the Cato Institute looks at the long-standing rivalry between the "political man" and the "economic man". A key passage is:
"Nationalism and imperialism, two political forces that are so inimical to the values of classical liberalism, the preferred ideology of the Economic Man, seemed now to be the driving forces propelling American foreign policy, helping centralize more power in the hands of the imperial presidency and the national security state - following a path set by the American Civil War, the two World Wars and the Cold War in the last century, and producing countervailing anti-American forces around the world, that have served as a self-fulfilling prophecy. "Hey, they all out there hate us anyhow; so we need to isolate, punish and bomb these guys, and show them who the real boss here is." "

]]> Mon, 23 Apr 2007 21:30:27 -0400 Pierre Tristam discusses a recent Pew poll which suggests that Americans in the internet era are less well informed than they were 18 years ago. Here is a section from the poll:

"In 1989, for example, 74% could come up with Dan Quayle’s name when asked who the vice president is. Today, somewhat fewer (69%) are able to recall Dick Cheney. However, more Americans now know that the chief justice of the Supreme Court is generally considered a conservative and that Democrats control Congress than knew these things in 1989. Some of the largest knowledge differences between the two time periods may reflect differences in the amount of press coverage of a particular issue or public figure at the time the surveys were taken. But taken as a whole the findings suggest little change in overall levels of public knowledge. The survey provides further evidence that changing news formats are not having a great deal of impact on how much the public knows about national and international affairs."

Tristram then goes on to comment: "Yes, but just 37 percent of those surveyed could say that the Chief Justice is a conservative. In 1989, 30 percent could. Both figures are pitiful. The most knowledgeable audiences? Those who watch the Daily Show. That doesn’t mean the Daily Show is their source of substantial news. It means they have the most critical minds that happen to include the Daily Show in their news diet."

The Australian state governments have responded to a similar crisis of ignorance by scrapping a trendy curriculum in Aussie high schools called "Study of Society and the Environment" with the disciplines it replaced, namely history, geography, and economics. One American wit, I think Ambrose Bierce, said the "war is God's way of teaching American geography." Maybe a sound grounding in history, geography,and economics will teach young Australians something about the need for peace.

]]> Mon, 23 Apr 2007 21:11:15 -0400 Ivan Eland of the Independent Institute is somewhat optimistic about the possibility that the disasters in Afghanistan and Iraq will ween Americans off the habit of seeing war and violence as the way to improve the world. I don't share that view. If past history is anything to go by (1945 to present) I would give a post-war "peace policy" 10 years at the most before the average American voter "forgets" any past negative experience and falls for the wiles of the next "patriotic", god-fearing president who comes along urging them to fight some over-inflated enemy from whatever "axis of evil" is current. I further predict that the same people who got the US into one failed war will, some 20 years later (given the electoral cycles), be back running the war after the next war (see Rumsfeld, Cheney, et al.), ad infinitum. ]]> Mon, 23 Apr 2007 21:00:21 -0400 One of my favourite books was entitled How Europe Imaged and America Realised the Enlightenment. It was only a bit of an exaggeration but contained a very large kernal of truth. This article show how some ueber patriotic Americans like Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) have lost sight of this historical tradition. He now lectures Europeans about the need for state kidnapping, torture, unchecked monarchical power, empire, and war. I would ask the question, who are the new Read Coats? ]]> Mon, 23 Apr 2007 20:39:22 -0400 The libertarian legal theorist Randy Barnett has written about the "unenumerated rights" retained by the citizen in the 9th Amendment of the US constitution. Now it seems that some lawyers on the left are starting to take notice. Here is an extract from a new book by Daniel A. Farber, "Retained by the People: The 'Silent' Ninth Amendment and the Constitutional Rights Americans Don't Know They Have" (Perseus Books, 2007). Whilst a libertarian wouldn't agree with all his retained rights he is on the right track. Here is a passage:

"Libertarians, who dislike government regulation of all kinds, agree with part of my argument, and I have found much of their historical research useful. They, too, would find the Amendment to be a source of real legal guidance. But they swing too far in the opposite direction from conservatives like Scalia. While Scalia wants the Ninth Amendment to protect nothing, the libertarians want it to protect virtually everything. They see in it the basis of a revolutionary return to the small government ideas of the early nineteenth century. But this is a gross overreading of the Amendment. It was meant to protect fundamental human rights, not just the right to do whatever you want whenever you want."

He is correct to say that Justice Scalia "strictly" interprets the constitution by recognizing only the rights enumerated, whereas a true interpretation of "original intent' would have to offer some explanation for the presence of the 9th amendment in the Bill of Rights and to what it refers. Silence by Scalia...

]]> Mon, 23 Apr 2007 20:27:47 -0400 Here are two articles which show how many people can be easily fooled. The first is about James Randi, the magician and debunker of the paranormal, who shows how well meaning but distracted journalists can be fooled through clever improvisation. The second is by Chris Hedges who shows some of the techniques used by fundamentalist Christians to get converts. Both are instances of false magic and willing gullibility. ]]> Mon, 23 Apr 2007 20:17:39 -0400 Noam Chomsky plays a useful mental exercise to test how equally we exercise our moral sandards. He asks, what if Iran had invaded Mexico (and Canada too)? I think a better example would be, how would America react if China had invaded and occupied Mexico and Canada the way the US has invaded and occupied Afghanistan and Iraq. Would the American government as well as citizens go to the aid of fellow ethnic or religious groups in those countries the way the Iranians may have done in Iraq? Of course. QED. ]]> Wed, 18 Apr 2007 17:14:49 -0400 Another author is warning us about the dangers of fascism in America. Chris Hedges is worried that fundamentalist Christians are preparing for a theocratic state. He has a short book on the subject, American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America. In this article he focusses on the crazies who believe in Armageddon, which they believe is on its way in Iraq/Iran following biblical prophecy. A passage:

"The global nightmare that leads to the end of history is a visceral and disturbing expression of what believers feel about themselves and our world.  The horror of apocalyptic violence—the final aesthetic of the movement—at once terrifies and thrills followers.  It feeds dark fantasies of revenge and empowerment.  This theology of despair is empowered by widespread poverty, violent crime, incurable diseases, global warming, war in the Middle East and the threat of nuclear calamity.  All these events presage the longed-for obliteration of the Earth and the glorious moment of Christ’s return.  But until then believers are told they must battle Satan.  And Satan comes in many guises.  In churches across the United States believers are being girded for a holy war, one as self-destructive as that preached by radical Islam."

]]> Wed, 18 Apr 2007 17:08:09 -0400 Eric Margolis reflects on some lessons from history in Afghanistan. Here is the guts of the article:

"The death last Sunday of six Canadian soldiers in southern Afghanistan reminds us of Santayana’s famous maxim that those who fail to study history are doomed to repeat it.

The soldiers were killed near Maiwand, a name meaning nothing to most Westerners. But there, on July 27, 1880, during the bloody Second Anglo-Afghan War, the British Empire suffered one of the worst defeats in its colonial history.

Two years earlier the Raj (Britain’s Indian Empire) had invaded Afghanistan for a second time. The British put Afghan puppet rulers into power in Kabul and Kandahar.

Ayub Khan, son of Afghanistan’s former emir, rallied 12,000 Pashtun (or Pathan) tribal warriors to fight an advancing British force whose mission was, in London’s words, to “liberate” Afghan tribes and bring them “the light of Christian civilization.” Today, the slogan is “promoting democracy.” The fierce Afghan tribal warriors routed the imperial force, composed of British regulars, including the vaunted Grenadier Guards, and Indian Sepoy troops, after a ferocious battle. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle used a British army doctor who fought at Maiwand as his model for Sherlock Holmes’ companion, Dr. Watson.

I recall this epic Afghan victory against British colonialism because understanding today’s war in Afghanistan requires proper historical context. A century and a quarter after Maiwand, Pashtun warriors of southern Afghanistan continue to resist another mighty world power and its allies, who have been faithfully following the imperial strategy of the old British Raj.

What we are really seeing is a war by Western powers seeking to dominate the strategic oil corridor of Afghanistan, directed against the Pashtun people who comprise half that nation’s population. Another 15 million live just across the border in Pakistan. What we call the “Taliban” is actually a loose alliance of Pashtun tribes and clans, joined by nationalist forces and former mujahedin from the 1980s anti-Soviet struggle.

The U.S. and NATO are not fighting “terrorists” in Afghanistan and they are certainly not winning hearts and minds. They are fighting the world’s largest tribal people. The longer the Westerners stay and bomb villages, the more resistance will grow. Such is the inevitable pattern of every guerrilla war I have ever covered.

If 160,000 Soviet troops and 240,000 Afghan Communist soldiers could not defeat the Pashtuns in ten years, how can 50,000 U.S. and NATO troops do better?"

]]> Wed, 18 Apr 2007 16:56:15 -0400 Rupert Cornwell of the Independent revels in some lovely ironies revealed by the behaviour of von Wolfowitz at the Weltbank:

"In contemplating the near-certain downfall of Paul Wolfowitz, it's hard to know whether to laugh or cry. Does one weep at the outrageous hypocrisy of it all: the president of the World Bank, self-appointed apostle of "good governance" and scourge of corruption, caught in a blatant act of nepotism and cronyism - exactly the vices he wants to stamp out in the Third World countries his organisation lends money to?

Or does one roar with laughter at the incongruity of it all: sex at the World Bank, as Wolfowitz the cerebral ideas man (even if his ideas about Iraq were as misbegotten as they get) is brought down by matters of the flesh, as he arranged promotions and lavish pay rises for his girlfriend Shaha Riza?"

]]> Wed, 18 Apr 2007 16:52:08 -0400 William Lind reminds us that back in the good old days the Brits sometimes shot a commanding officer who had badly screwed up a battle:

"In 1756, at the beginning of the Seven Year's War, the French took the island of Minorca in the Mediterranean from the British. Admiral Byng was sent out from London to relieve the island's garrison, then under siege. He arrived, fought a mismanaged battle with the attending French squadron, then retired to Gibraltar. Deprived of naval support, the garrison surrendered. Byng was court-martialed for his failure, found guilty, and shot."

The 20thC modern practice is shoot the lowest ranks and promote the commanding officers to safety. Abu Ghraib anybody?

]]> Wed, 18 Apr 2007 16:48:28 -0400 A Statement Against the Continuation of the War

By SIEGRFRIED L. SASSOON

I am making this statement as an act of wilful defiance of military authority, because I believe that the war is being deliberately prolonged by those who have the power to end it.

I am a soldier, convinced that I am acting on behalf of soldiers. I believe that this war, upon which I entered as a war of defence and liberation, has now become a war of aggression and conquest. I believe that the purposes for which I and my fellow-soldiers entered upon this war should have been so clearly stated as to have made it impossible to change them, and that, had this been done, the objects which actuated us would now be attainable by negotiation.

I have seen and endured the sufferings of the troops, and I can no longer be a party to prolong these sufferings for ends which I believe to be evil and unjust.

I am not protesting against the conduct of the war, but against the political errors and insincerities for which the fighting men are being sacrificed.

On behalf of those who are suffering now I make this protest against the deception which is being practiced on them; also I believe that I may help to destroy the callous complacence with which the majority of those at home regard the continuance of agonies which they do not share, and which they have not sufficient imagination to realize.

Siegfried L. Sassoon. July 1917

]]> Wed, 18 Apr 2007 16:42:35 -0400 David Swanson reports the following:

"Bill Moyers has put together an amazing 90-minute video documenting the lies that the Bush administration told to sell the Iraq war to the American public, with a special focus on how the media led the charge. I've watched an advance copy and read a transcript, and the most important thing I can say about it is: Watch PBS from 9:00 to 10:30 PM on Wednesday, April 25. Spending that 90 minutes will actually save you time because you'll never watch television news again - not even on PBS, which comes in for its own share of criticism."

Quite appropriate that it should air on ANZAC Day...

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