It’s only June and we’re deep into presidential debate season. Did I get my years wrong? I thought this was 2007, not 2008. Fuck a duck, we’ve already got close to 20 presidential contenders hurling platitudes at us and competing over who can be the biggest caveman on camera. I think this week’s prize might have to go to G.O.P. longshot congressman Duncan Hunter, who advocated using “tactical nuclear missiles” to destroy Iranian centrifuges. (There’s a man of conviction!) That’ll teach those Iranians to threaten … people with… nuclear … weapons…. (irony). Christ, they’ll probably kick up their uranium enrichment just on the basis of his little demagogic tirade. Then there’s the god-stakes, which was a bit more of a laugh than usual since the very same day I heard a political commentator on NPR opining that the Republican candidates were shying away from openly religious rhetoric to distance themselves from Dubya. Right on the money once again, NPR! What’s the weather going to be like tomorrow? (How about today?) For chrissake, that Huckabee jerk started one of his answers quoting from Genesis (and I don’t mean The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway).

Where do we find these losers? Well… as a grizzly bearded android fabricator from Lost In Space once remarked, “They are non-personalities. We make them.” It’s not hard to figure out why our politicians, for the most part, act like dicks….I mean… act in ways that seem antithetical to our interests. For them, politics is the art of getting elected. They tell us what they think most of us want to hear. The fact is, most of us don’t want bad news… so we vote for politicians that don’t give us any. Most of us don’t want to think of our nation as having been responsible for death and despair overseas… so we vote for politicians who tell us pleasing lies about our history. When Wolf Blitzer asks presidential candidates – Democrats – what they would do about Iran, they’ll all imply that Iran poses some kind of substantial threat to the U.S. No one will provide any background to our relationship with Iran that goes beyond the 1979-81 hostage crisis – no mention of our long history of establishing and supporting dictatorship within their country and, later, our support for a neighboring dictator (initials S.H.) who attacked their country… with WMD’s.

It’s the same phenomenon that keeps international and national news off the front page of my hometown newspaper. The publishers – like the politicians – assume that we don’t really care that much about what’s happening in, say, Iraq, because 1) we don’t have to go and fight there, 2) we don’t pay for the war via added taxation, and 3) we re-elected George W. Bush, who can’t tell the ceiling from the floor, as our commander-in-chief. We’re insulated from the effects from our own wars, so why should anyone assume we want to know about them? That insulation is the product of our own gullibility. While a good many of us wanted the Iraq war, no one wants higher taxes… so our “leaders” came up with this “invade now, pay later” imperial strategy. Similarly, no one wants the draft, so our politicians lean more and more heavily on the volunteer force, making them go back again and again, perpetually raising the bar like Colonel Cathcart in Catch-22. Bush and our congressional leaders told us we could have a world war without having to fight or pay, and we, for the most part, bought it.

What’s the solution to this conundrum? We need to grow up as a nation. We need to face the bad stuff that we’ve done over the decades, and try to do better. There’s no leader who can do that for us… It’s entirely up to us. Till then, we’ll get the jerks we deserve.

luv u,

jp

Clinging to their precious terror war, the Bush administration now cannot stop talking about al Qaeda, as if Bin Laden were running a kind of Wal*Mart of terror as opposed to serving as inspiration to hundreds and perhaps thousands of self-directed extremist organizations. It’s the last rhetorical refuge for a president who has lost the support of the vast majority of his countrymen and is now hunkering down to ride out the last 18 months of a particularly septic tenure. If we leave Iraq, Bush cautions us, we will be hit again. What he doesn’t tell us is, if we stay, we are just as likely to be hit again, if not more so, thanks to his war in Iraq, which has spawned a new generation of terrorists and significantly destabilized a region already boiling with hatred and injustice. Alas, there is no “undo” button on this war, which is why so many of us opposed it most strenuously before its start. We have set into motion a catastrophe the repercussions of which will be with us for decades to come. If Bush is in search of a legacy, there it is.

Consider the realities of the situation. Prior to the invasion of Iraq, the U.S. had been directly responsible for the deaths of many, many thousands of Iraqis, indirectly responsible for many more deaths, and a primary bankroller and military guarantor of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem (now celebrating 40 years). America also funded (as it does now) some of the region’s most repressive and unpopular regimes, including that of Saddam Hussein for a good few years. After the Gulf War, its bloody aftermath, a dozen years of deadly sanctions, and nearly constant bombardment by U.S. and British aircraft from 1998 forward, Dubya smashed the country open and set up this seemingly endless war – the first long-term U.S. military occupation of an Arab country. Aside from the death and displacement this has caused, it has made us the subject of ever deepening resentment as foreign occupiers – never the best way to make friends, particularly in countries that have a colonial history.

Now, the Iraq war has generated at least 2 million external refugees, with probably 700,000 in Jordan and more than 1 million in Syria, plus another 2 million internally displaced within Iraq. These are enormous populations of desperate people who will probably not be returning home anytime soon, and I have to think that the vast majority of them blame us for their plight (assuming some level of rationality). Meanwhile, the U.S. is all but ignoring this growing catastrophe, even though it threatens to metastasize the horror of an imploding Iraq throughout the entire region, putting added pressure on societies already under stress. (The U.S. quota for accepting Iraqi refugees this year is about 7,000 – so far, we’ve taken less than 100.) If I were to guess, I’d say the next major attack on the U.S. will include some of these folks in Jordan and Syria – people who have lost everything – family, home, future, hope. What’s your guess?

Seems to me, the best way to prevent terrorism is to 1) pull our troops out of this stupid war, and 2) help Iraqis rebuild their society (from a discreet distance). No matter what the punk tells us.

luv u,

jp

Question: how long does it take for the Democratic Party leadership to cave in on issues of life and death? Answer: less time than it takes to ask the question. Yep, old “Give ’em hell” Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, and kin have signed away the farm to mister 28% himself, Dubya Bush, who is now bound by no restrictions – fiscal or legal – in his prosecution of the disastrous war he started more than four years ago. This in the wake of yet another 9 U.S. service members killed and god knows how many Iraqis – scores over the past few days. I know I’m not the only one saying W.T.F., though it’s not so much out of surprise as it is just pure exasperation. I mean, a watery timeline for withdrawal with a plethora of caveats – that hardly constituted a radical departure from Rumsfeldian warmaking (precisely what we need). And yet that has morphed into a no-strings-attached allocation of billions for the continued occupation of Iraq. Is that what people voted for last November? Was that the theme called out from the podium as party leaders implored us to turn the G.O.P. out? Not hardly.

There are many who will argue that this is the only avenue open to opponents of the war; that this supplemental spending plan is a strategic move and a prelude to a more meaningful confrontation down the road. Perhaps we can be forgiven for a certain amount of skepticism in this regard. Many of those supporting this bill also voted with the Republicans to start this war in the first place. Their strategy now as well as then is to make their re-election battles a bit easier – that is to say, they want to pre-empt those 30-second RNC-sponsored attack ads slamming them for cutting funding for “our troops” in the middle of a war. They counsel patience, like the G.O.P. leadership, which is becoming a bit nervous about the war themselves… but which now can point to their opponents as partly responsible for the mess. Of course, patience only means more deaths, more amputees, more head cases, and more Fallujah-like mass killings. Waiting until September to re-evaluate the “surge” strategy could cost hundreds more American deaths, followed by some equally bone-headed tactic.

This is criminal behavior, pure and simple. Bush wants to keep this sucker going so that it won’t be “lost” on his watch (or “watch”, as many might put it). The Democratic leadership, for its part, refuses to draw a firm line in front of the president even when his popularity is at a historic low, largely due to the war in Iraq (even in my moderate-to-conservative district, Bush polled about 28% in a recent Web survey by the local daily paper – that’s almost unprecedented for a Republican). It’s obvious that neither of the major political power centers in this country is going to put a stop to this slaughter. And judging by the news coming out of Iraq – Parliament supporting a timetable for withdrawal, Muqtada al-Sadr re-emerging, Iraqi youth in Basra (!) cheering over a burning security contractor vehicle – it may in fact take the Iraqis to send our military home. Until we can get ourselves politically beyond the idea that “supporting the troops” means extending their service in a hell hole, I see no other way out.

Unless, of course, we all just stand in the street until they end it. There’s that, too.

luv u,

jp

I expect some of you saw the Republican debate this past week – ten-strong G.O.P. hopefuls in a fiddling contest as Rome burns around them, sparked by an ember first coddled by the sainted Ronald Reagan, whose administration launched the resurgent America now being destroyed by his veep’s mutant spawn. Yes, it was a proud moment indeed when applause could be heard at the mere mention of torture (or “enhanced interrogation techniques”, as some put it). McCain, of course, gave his standard speech about torture – inspiring, until you recall that the “anti-torture” legislation he ultimately signed onto last year has holes big enough to pass a dozen waterboards through. To be certain, he was the only one there who’d ever experienced torture, and I imagine he and his fellow P.O.W.’s may have believed during their captivity, as McCain suggested, that America would never abuse prisoners in such a way. Just a ways south of the “Hanoi Hilton”, however, the C.I.A. and local allies were applying grisly and often lethal techniques on their captives with sickening regularity, particularly in connection with the Phoenix program, which left probably 20,000 dead (many of whom, like so many current detainees, may as well have been picked at random). Of course, how that is any worse than just dropping cluster bombs or jellied gasoline on people kind of escapes me.

So, yes… the FoxNews-sponsored event (hosted by correspondent Shit Fume… I mean, Brit Hume) turned into a pissing match over who was the bigger troglodyte on prisoner abuse. In all, I think Mitt Romney deserves a special prize for saying that Guantanamo should be “doubled.” Reasoning? We don’t want those terrorists to have access to our laws and equitable (ahem) justice system – to do so would only contribute to the collapse of western civilization and the universal values it represents. So… we can’t allow our western standard of human rights to apply to them because that would undermine our western standard of human rights. Well done, Mitt. Beautiful circularity. And that sort of sotto voce delivery (a la Reagan) is getting better every time I hear it. (Of course, Tom Tancredo gets a special prize for exclaiming, “We need Jack Bauer!” to deal with Shit Fume’s 24-esque straw man torture scenario.)

We were also treated this week to some of the actual real-world reasoning behind keeping terror suspects out of the courtroom. As with the Phoenix program, I’m certain many of these detainees were captured on the basis of an informant accusation – perhaps a disgruntled neighbor or the like – or some other questionable evidence that might not stand up in open court. At Jose Padilla’s trial, for instance, the prosecution presented a kind of Al Qaeda recruitment document that purportedly had Padilla’s fingerprints on it. Of course, the guy was held in an extra judicial hole for years and had his wits tortured out of him to the point where he cannot even aid in his own defense, so it’s just possible that during that long process he may have been presented with this document during “enhanced” interrogation. Fact is, it seems the real reason they don’t want to try terror suspects in open court is that they often don’t have much of a case against them.

Note to Mitt and colleagues (both Republican and Democrat): if you don’t have a case, you shouldn’t be holding people. That’s supposed to be one of our founding principles. Why are you all so afraid of that?

luv u,

jp

Looks as though the FBI has snagged some would-be terrorists – a group of Muslims originally from Bosnia, Jordan, and elsewhere allegedly crazy enough to want to attack a military installation in the U.S. Strange choice – kind of like planning to rob a police station, but never mind. A triumphal week in the never-ending, absolute total war against terrorism, right? Well… not entirely. This was also the week that Luis Posada Carriles was allowed to walk, his immigration-related charges having been thrown out by a federal judge. But this septuagenarian is not just somebody’s elderly uncle who entered the country illegally to visit a sick relative. A former C.I.A. operative, Posada is one of the alleged masterminds of the 1976 bombing of a civilian airliner that resulted in the deaths of all 73 people on board. He was jailed in connection with this charge by the Venezuelan government – not the current one, mind you, but a very pro-U.S. administration – based on an international investigation carried out by several Caribbean nations, including Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados, and Cuba. (Check out this story on DemocracyNow! as well as related documents on the National Security Archive web site.)

Trivia question: Who was head of the C.I.A. back in the mid-seventies? George Bush the elder. Funny story – while president, the elder Bush pardoned Posada’s co-conspirator in the airliner bombing, anti-Castro fanatic Orlando Bosch, who now lives like a war hero in Miami. But this is not just another Bush story; this policy runs deep. Despite all the high-octane rhetoric, the United States has long been a fairly congenial retirement destination for aging terrorists. Posada is hardly the first, or even the most heinous, bad though he is. Aside from him and Bosch, there’ve been people like Emmanuel “Toto” Constant, leader of the Haitian paramilitary group FRAPH and another C.I.A. asset, who was living a fairly comfortable existence until being picked up in connection with a mortgage fraud scheme, to which he has pled guilty. (Kill and rape hundreds, perhaps thousands, in cold blood and you walk. But don’t defraud the consumer!) Plenty of Latin American and Southeast Asian killers have been welcomed into our neighborhoods and universities, stopping just briefly to rinse the blood off their hands as they enter. And what the hell do you call Oliver North if not a terror leader, organizing and supplying the Contra army of murderous thugs during the 1980s (an enterprise to which Posada also contributed his grisly talents) as they attacked co-op farms, clinics, and anything else they were certain was undefended.

So… some terrorists get thrown into dark cells in client states; others go to a hero’s welcome in Miami or get their own T.V. show on Fox. It’s all about targeting. If they kill people who don’t count, there are no consequences… and there are often rewards, in fact. If they threaten our friends or ourselves, it’s a whole different story. Buy letting Posada walk, we’re saying it’s okay to blow up planes if the civilians on board happen to live in a country we have some dispute with. What the hell kind of “War on Terror” is that? I mean, doesn’t our government’s very definition of terrorism incorporate violence against innocents to achieve some political end? If Posada, Bosch, and their like are deemed not worthy of prosecution, doesn’t that serve to legitimize Bin Laden’s attack on the World Trade Center? I don’t know about you, but that disgusts the living hell out of me. Those of you who’ve been reading this column for a long time know that I am no fan of U.S. policy towards Cuba, but even if I supported the embargo, I’m sure I could distinguish between those committed to peaceful democratization of the island and those willing to blow ordinary people to bits to express their opposition to Castro.

Let Posada walk? To borrow a Steven Colbert phrase, that’s the craziest fucking thing I’ve ever heard.

luv u,

jp