(Still) Alive

... and Kicking

I know it's been a while (two months!) since I last put a post up here on Blogger. Where has the time gone? Lots has happened -- and a lot of it has just downright ticked me off.

In any case, some of you might have seen me commenting around the blogosphere - especially on those blogs listed on the left side of the page. Lately it seems that this is about the best I can do given the constraints of time, family, energy and outrage. Needless to say, given the arrival of spring and my headlong rush into a new phase of life, I've not found the time to put down onto this blog the ruminations that crossed the threshold of my mind.

In the meantime, let me simply comment on General Stan's Spectacular Flame-out. I'm glad General Stan had his head (and job) handed to him. For Obama to do anything less than firing would simply taken away "the babymakers" (thanks FDChief!) and completely given the military dominance over even the office of the President. Frankly, they already dominate nearly all aspects of what are nation does, just as President Eisenhower warned us of. And I remain quite pessimisstic that until a complete and total economic collapse visits our lands, the military and its industrial-congressional-think tank enablers will continue to dominate the development of our national strategy - foreign and domestic. The ability of our current system to think critically, recognize its bias and develop a full range of honest options - much less reform itself - simply does not exist right now. Perhaps in the future it will but I doubt it.

And its not just the military suffering through terminal cranial-rectal inversion. Across the spectrum of our government we see example after example after example of the same malady. Sadly, and in spite of the clear interest in our citizens left and right to put fixes in place, our leaders simply cannot get it together. Each side of the spectrum only wants to win for its side -- and even if they were to win they would probably still try to perpetuate the fight if only to keep themselves employed!

So, for this Patriot, I try to keep my sense of humor and watch a whole lot of John Stewart's show. And I work on moving on to what's next. Perhaps more about that topic in a later post.

Until then friends, don't let the bastards get you down!

All of this happened before....

... Will it happen again?

More than twenty years ago, Bill Moyers broadcast this truly amazing, thoughtful and angry critique of the Iran-Contra Affair, and the policy of official government secrecy that was instrumental in allowing that treason to occur.

It is as salient today as it was in 1987.

A theme that ran through the re-imagined TV series Battlestar Galactica was the phrase, "All of this has happened before. And all of will happen again." Indeed, when you see the same activities of the government, the same beliefs in untrammeled executive power, the inability of Congress to participate in controlling the course of our national destiny, you have to wonder if we are seeing is all happen again.

Today, our Congress has even less courage to try to find out what happened, despite knowing what we already know of the secret, unconstitutional and illegal covert activities undertaken by the Bush-Cheney Administration.

Take some time to watch this whole (90 minutes!!!) presentation. And consider. If we are ever able to right our ship of state, how will we prevent traitors to our Constitution like Ollie North from making it happen again?

The Secret Government: The Constitution in Crisis, by Bill Moyers

(h/t The Exiled)

A Saner Foreign Policy

... Just Leave People Alone

This morning, Howie (Down With Tyranny) blogs about the "green on blue" deaths of two US soldiers earlier this week in Wardak Province, Afghanistan. Sadly, this event has passed with hardly any notice in the broader stream of traditional media blasted at the American people. Howie places this event in a better context, noting the great likelihood that disrespect of and failure to understand your allies (and enemies) culture are the root cause for these deaths.

Howie also highlights comments made by Rep. Alan Grayson several months ago. As with understanding national financial scandal, anti-citizen politics, and blatant unconstitutional governance taken up by Congress, Grayson has been a stalwart proponent of bringing our forces back home and simplifying our foreign policy.

I think that the aid program is a fig leaf trying to make Congress and the American people feel better about the war and about killing. I think that diplomacy in the areas of fig leaf to try to make the American people think that there is some constructive alternative to the war when the war itself is destructive and not constructive.

I think that the basic premise that we can alter Afghan society is greatly flawed. Afghanistan is simply the part of Asia that was never occupied by the Russians or the English in the Great Game. It’s not a country; it’s not even a place. It’s just an empty place on the map. It’s terra incognita. People who live there are a welter of different tribes, different language groups, different religious beliefs.

All over the country you find different people who have nothing to do with each other except for the fact that we call them Afghans, who don’t even call themselves Afghans. They’re Tajiks, or they’re Pashtuns, or they’re Hazzaras or someone else. The things that hold them together are simply the things that we try to create artificially.

The idea that we could transform that society or any other society through aid, I think, is entirely questionable. I’ve never seen it happen; probably never will happen. If you go to the Stan countries north of Afghanistan, and I’ve been to all of them, what you find is that the way that the Russians altered that society was by crushing it. Stalin killed half a million Muslims in Kazakhstan, in Turkmenistan, in Kyrgyzstan, in Uzbekistan.

He simply sliced off the head of that society in order to remake it in the image that he wanted. And I think that we would have to do no less if we wanted to remake Afghanistan in our image. We’d have to destroy it in order to save it, and I don’t think the American people are ever going to do that to anybody. So I think that the underlying premise is simply wrong.

I’ve been to 175 countries all around the world, including Afghanistan and every country in that region, and what I’ve seen everywhere I went is that there are some commonalities. Everywhere you go, people want to fall in love. Everywhere you go, people love children. Everywhere, they love children. Everywhere you go, there’s a taboo against violence. Every single place you go. And everywhere you go, people want to be left alone. And that’s the best foreign policy of all. Just to leave people alone. (Alan Grayson, 10/9/2009)

Think about that for a moment. Just Leave People Alone. A thoroughly American sentiment, one that can be traced all the way back to the wisdom of Washington:

My policy has been, and will continue to be, while I have the honor to remain in the administration of the government, to be upon friendly terms with, but independent of, all the nations of the earth. To share in the broils of none. To fulfil our own engagements. To supply the wants, and be carriers for them all: Being thoroughly convinced that it is our policy and interest to do so.

Mercenaries....

... an affront to us all.

Jeremy Scahill delivers yet another report of American-paid mercenary crime...

Two former Blackwater operatives were arrested by US federal agents on murder charges, stemming from their alleged involvement in the shooting deaths of two Afghan civilians in Kabul in May. They have been identified as Justin Cannon, 27, of Corpus Christi, Texas, and Christopher Drotleff, 29, of Virginia Beach, Va. They have been charged with “crimes including second-degree murder, attempted murder and firearms offenses while working as contractors for the U.S. Department of Defense in Afghanistan,” according to the Justice Department. The 13-count indictment was returned by a federal grand jury in the Eastern District of Virginia on Jan. 6 and unsealed today.
RebelReports - Two Blackwater Guards Arrested by FBI on Murder Charges

Mercenaries were suppressed after Europe's devastating Thirty Years War... for good reason. Mercenaries are not bound to states or their citizens; they are only bound to their next paycheck, and when that paycheck stops or the wars end, then what? Britain's use of mercenaries in North America during the 1770s was a significant part of why the colonists formed their own army and fought to free themselves. And the return of these unlawful combatants to our modern scene is yet another indication that the world of states that monopolize the use of lethal force within their established borders is in decline (perhaps terminal decline).

But who will control them? I once thought the plot lines underlying such popular series as "24" (Starkwood) and "Jericho" (Jennings & Rall) was far-out Hollywood writing that was impossible in my country today. But with the tentacles of private corporations spread across the entire national security establishment, one has to wonder exactly who these companies, and their mercenaries, are loyal too?

Once again, wisdom can be found in the actions of our republic's founders. Or, in the case of the wingnuts, from one of their historic stars, Machiavelli:

...if one holds his state on the basis of mercenary arms, he will never be firm or secure; because they are disunited, ambitious, without discipline, unfaithful; gallant among friends, vile among enemies; no fear of God, no faith with men; and one defers ruin insofar as one defers the attack; and in peace you are despoiled by them, in war by the enemy.

A New Post for a New Year

... or is it a new post for a new decade?

Whatever.

So those few of you who do stop by to read my ruminations know that I've been an infrequent commenter on the scene, a ghost who comments on what others write but rarely stands up and makes statements in their own blog. It's true; I've been pretty delinquent in posting my various thoughts about where we are today in our country, where we seem to be headed, and why we are on the course we are on.

The very interested wonder "why"?? Every now and then, I wonder the same thing. Is it too much work? Too many other commitments?? The burning out of the fires of "hope and (or for) change"??? Or simply boredom with commentary on the contretemps of the times????

Others simply shrug their shoulders and move on to the next blog.

The lack of activity here at this blog is probably due to all of the above and more. No doubt I am very unhappy, as are many, many other patriots, with where we find ourselves theses days. Heck, we can't even keep the few, mildly progressive and wholly patriotic appointments made by the new Administration. But yet, "Ben the Beard" Bernanke keeps his job and Wall Street tycoons fleece the rest of us (and each other every now and then). And we have to wonder what the heck this guy has been telling his boss in the wake of this abject failure.

Sadly, we've watched our new president stumble down the path of his predecessors, wading further into the big muddy of Afghanistan and failing to uphold his pledge to shutdown that embarrassing on us all, Guantanamo. To hear how unbelievable (or inevitable) these actions are, simply listen to how Bill Moyers brought to life LBJ's Path to War in a November broadcast. Sigh.

And don't even get me going on the debacle that is health care reform! It's even worse than it was when I last wrote. Apparently we have the best Congress that money and inherent conflicts of interest can buy.

I guess it is not surprising then that I've been silent. What victory is there to speak of these days? Heck, it is so bad that one has to take pleasure in the "morans" climbing to ever higher heights of astroturfed recognition -- so high indeed that they might complete the GOP's ideological purity firing squads in the fallout of the party's failure last year.

At least we've seen a couple of truly upstanding new Congressmen take the principled stands their constituents expect them to take.

And, I even hear Karl Rove is joining the rest of his right wing, family-values buddies in the ranks of the divorced! Maybe the next time he shows up on TV to extol family values, one of the punditry could ask him how long it will be before he marries again? Even that ever pompous windbag Rusty had some sort of medical problem while vacationing in exotic Hawaii that he doesn't want to talk about (too bad it wasn't fatal, but it would be karmic if it were Parkinson's; jus' sayin'). So, maybe things are looking up?

Anyhow, for those who do take the time to read this --- Happy New Year!!! Let's make 2010 a better one than last year --- whether we act individually, with our small circles of family and friends, or collectively. For, as I noted almost a year ago, we have a lot to do in our country and we are the ones who are going to get it done if its going to get done.

And you can bet I'm going to see this if it ever makes it to where I am at!


(PS - you'll note some admin changes to the look of the blog -- and several additions to my blogroll. I hope you'll visit those fine folks too.)

"Diplomacy and Empire"

Earlier today, I was privileged to stumble upon a recent speech given by the former U.S. Ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Chas Freeman to the group Diplomats and Consular Officers, Retired (DACOR). Titled "Diplomacy and Empire," Freeman delivers more, with eloquence and style, on what has happened to the United States since 1989 than I have ever read before. What a speech it must have been in person!


Some may have heard of Freeman's recent appointment by President Obama to the National Intelligence Council (NIC). The NIC is part of the U.S. Intelligence Community and serves to provide the best guess as to current and future issues to senior policy makers in our government. Often, the NIC only ends up in the news when they deliver National Intelligence Estimates (NIEs) - and only then when those NIEs turn out to be quite controversial. As it turns out, Freeman's history of even-handedness - based on U.S. national security interests first - in a region dominated by Israel has raised the hackles of the pro-Israel community. Despite the concerned howls and ludicrous protests, the choice of Freeman is inspired - and inspiring - and you can get a sense of why from his own words.

I highlight this speech because what Freeman says matches so closely to what I think about the innate strength and inner wealth the U.S. has had, possesses today and must use to guide our shared future. In case you have not already clicked through to Freeman's speech, here are some highlights:

On our current "unhappiness"

Since 9/11 Americans have chosen to stake our domestic tranquility and the preservation of our liberties on our ability – under our commander-in-chief – to rule the world by force of arms rather than to lead, as we had in the past, by the force of our example or our arguments. And we appear to have decided that it is necessary to destroy our constitutional practices and civil liberties in order to save them. This is a trade-off we had resolutely refused to make during our far more perilous half-century confrontation with Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan, and the Soviet Union.

On the failure of Grand Strategy (or any strategy) since 2001 (or even 1989):

With the numbers of our enemies mounting, it is fortunate that our military power remains without match. The United States' armed forces are the most competent and lethal in history. And so they are likely to remain for decades to come. Our humbling on the battlegrounds of the Middle East does not reflect military inadequacy; it is rather the result of the absence of strategy and its political handmaiden – diplomacy. We are learning the hard way that old allies will not aid us and new allies will not stick with us if we ignore their interests, deride their advice, impugn their motives, and denigrate their capabilities. Friends will not walk with us into either danger or opportunity if we injure their interests and brush aside their objections to our doing so. Those with whom we have professed friendship in the past cannot sustain their receptivity to our counsel if we demand that they adopt secular norms of the European Enlightenment that we no longer exemplify, while loudly disparaging their religious beliefs and traditions. Diplomacy-free foreign policy does not work any better than strategy-free warfare.

And the futility of our current war:

When war is not the extension of policy but the entrenchment of policy failure by other means, it easily degenerates into mindless belligerence and death without meaning.

On what has been the result:

As distaste has succeeded esteem for us in the international community, we have become ever more isolated. Our ability to rally others behind our causes has withered. We have responded by abandoning the effort to lead. We are now known internationally more for our recalcitrance than our vision. We have sought to exempt ourselves from the jurisdiction of international law. We have suspended our efforts to lead the world to further liberalization of trade and investment through the Doha Round. We no longer participate in the UN body charged with the global promotion of human rights. We decline to discuss global climate change, nuclear disarmament, or the avoidance of arms races in outer space. If we have proposals for a world more congenial to the values we espouse, we no longer articulate them. The world is a much less promising place for our silence and absence.

The increasing restriction of American intercourse with foreigners encourages the outsourcing not just of jobs but of innovation in science and technology, research and development, engineering and design services, and industrial production. Xenophobic policies and practices have begun to erode the long-standing American scientific and technological superiority they were intended to protect. Like economic protectionism, intellectual protectionism, it turns out, weakens, not strengthens one, and makes one less rather than more competitive in the global marketplace.

And who has "won":

The contrast with the situation here underscores the extent to which al-Qaïda has achieved its central objectives. It has unhinged America and alienated us from the world. We are apparently willing to sacrifice everything, including the blessings of liberty for ourselves and our posterity, to achieve absolute security from risks that others rightly consider nasty but manageable. Quite aside from the fact that absolute security is absolutely impossible, this is not who we were. It is not who most of us want to be.

Freeman offers his thoughts on what next steps the United States must take to climb out of the hole in which we find ourselves.

First, an America driven by dread and delusion into the construction of a garrison state, ruled by a presidency claiming inherent powers rather than by our constitution and our laws, is an America that can be counted upon to respect neither the freedoms of its own people nor those of others. The key to the defense of both the United States and the freedom that defines us as a great nation is to retain our rights and cultivate our liberties, not to yield them to our government, and to honor and defend, not to invade, the sovereignty of other nations and individuals. Second, it is time to recognize that freedom spreads by example and a helping hand to those who seek it. It cannot be imposed on others by coercive means, no matter how much shock and awe these elicit. Neither can it be installed by diatribe and denunciation nor proclaimed from the false security of fortified buildings. We must come home to our traditions, restore the openness of our society, and resume our role as "the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all ... [but] the champion and vindicator only of our own." Third, credibility is not enhanced by persistence in counterproductive policies, no matter how much one has already invested in them. The reinforcement of failure is a poor substitute for its correction. Doing more of the same does not make bad strategy sound or snatch successful outcomes from wars of attrition. All it does is convince onlookers that one is so stubbornly foolish that one is not afraid to die. Admitting that mistakes have been made and taking remedial action generally does more for credibility than soldiering blindly on. The United States needs big course corrections on quite a range of foreign and domestic policies at present. Fourth, we must recover the habit of listening and curb our propensity to harangue. We might, in fact, consider a war on arrogance to complement our war on terror.

There's no doubt that many will think Freeman insufficiently supportinve of pre-Israel policies and way to sympathetic to the thoughts, feelings and interests of the other several hundred million Arab and Persian peoples who live in the Middle East. I, however, believe that our nation is well served by this appointment and applaud the Obama Administration for its courage in making it.

(Original h/t to Moon Over Alabama's host, b)

(Image from Nieman Watch website)