The Anomaly of George H.W. Bush

The recently deceased former president George H.W. Bush will not go down in history as one of America's greatest presidents, but he will probably be remembered as a good president, and certainly the least controversial president of the post-war era.

If you go through a list of all the presidents after Roosevelt, every single one has a serious black mark against his name, deserved or undeserved. All except GHW Bush.

It's not as though GHW Bush was perfect. He wasn't. He could've done a whole lot better than he did, and he did some bad stuff too.

Here's a list of the postwar presidents, and the controversies associated with them. And remember that these controversies are not necessarily deserved.

Truman - The use of Atomic Bombs against Japan.

Eisenhower - CIA coups in various parts of the world that propped up authoritarian regimes.

Kennedy - Bay of Pigs, Cuban Missile Crisis, Vietnam War

Johnson - Vietnam War

Nixon - Vietnam War, Watergate

Ford - Pardoned Nixon

Carter - Malaise, Iran hostage crisis

Reagan - Reaganomics, Iran-Contra

George H.W. Bush - Gulf War

Clinton - Lewinski Scandal

George W. Bush - 9/11, Invasion of Iraq, Hurricane Katrina, Global Financial Crisis

Obama - Global Financial Crisis, Birth certificate conspiracy

Trump - Collusion with Russia

GHW Bush was president in a transitional period of history. Communism and the Iron Curtain collapsed under his watch, an event that America did not expect and did not adequately exploit. It was also a transitional time for US politics too, with the growing demise of Rockefeller Republicans, of which Bush was one. Bush helped set up NAFTA, a trade agreement that upset a number of economic nationalists and which created a spoiler candidate for him in 1992 in the form of Ross Perot. Had Perot not run as an independent, Bush probably would've got enough votes to beat Clinton. Economically, Bush was against the Supply-Side "Voodoo Economics" that became policy under Reagan, forcing him to raise taxes to address the out of control budget deficit that had been bequeathed to him by Reagan. The decision to raise taxes rather than cut spending was an indicator of his centrist position, but he had made the mistake of initially promising "no new taxes", a policy reversal which further alienated the growing minarchist base of the Republican party.

The greatest event during his presidency was the Gulf War. With the Cold War barely over, Saddam Hussein's decision to invade Kuwait created a potential economic and humanitarian crisis. With the United Nations as a global institution still respected by Washington, Bush and other world leaders skillfully navigated diplomatic channels in an attempt to end the crisis while simultaneously preparing for war. With Saddam unmoved, the Western powers engaged in the largest military conflict since the Vietnam War. The overwhelming victory not only solidified America's place as sole military superpower, but also justified the idea of an all-volunteer military, a process which had begun in Western militaries soon after the Vietnam War finished.

In hindsight, would it have been better if the US had gone on to invade Iraq? The Iraqi military was in chaos and Saddam's grip on power loosened. Yet the post-2003 years showed just how difficult such a process would be. Nevertheless, a 1993 occupation of Iraq with the backing of the United Nations and the keen involvement of all western powers could have arguably produced a better outcome than the 2003 occupation, not least because by 2003 a combination of arrogance and incompetence had begun to typify high-level government leaders under GW Bush, a process which came to a head in 2005 with Hurricane Katrina, and which was also seen by the increasing civil war in Iraq. At least in 1993, such a combination of arrogance and incompetence was not yet noticeable (perhaps due to GHW Bush's many years in public service, including being head of the CIA).

George HW Bush's pardoning of those involved in the Iran-Contra scandal is obviously an issue. The scandal, hatched under Reagan, should have been exposed and the top people involved punished. Bush probably knew about the plan - being the Vice President under Reagan and a former head of the CIA. It's a scandal that didn't reverberate as much as it should have, and modern day American conservatism has been too quick to forget and ignore the near-treason involved in it, with feel-good nostalgia and victory over communism (a modern myth) being their memories of Reagan.

So of course GHW Bush was not a perfect president. No president is. And yet when we look through the turmoil of postwar history we see in GHW Bush as someone who managed to avoid controversies. And just as we wonder what would've happened had Gore or Hilary Clinton had become president had not circumstances intervened, so too can we wonder what would've happened had Perot not spoiled the 1992 election. Would there have been a 1994 Republican revolution with Bush in power? Who would've contested the 1996 election? Who would've been in power on 9/11? GW Bush's run for the presidency could've been delayed had his father served a second term.

So in the grand scheme of things, GHW did a few things that were good, a few things that were bad, and escaped the levels of controversy of virtually every other US leader in the postwar era. This is a great achievement.

Which Celebrity has let me down the most? Bono.

(This is a copy and paste of what I wrote on Reddit:)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:U2_21081983_01_800b.jpg

 I'm 49. I was a U2 fan before Joshua Tree came out. U2's music in the 80s was very different from the mainstream pop. They sang about important things. Bono used his position to fight issues like racism, hunger and war. Then, when the 90s came around, they effectively re-invented their musical style. They also poked fun at themselves.

 I have the U2 Time magazine in a box somewhere, along with newspaper articles and vinyl records and singles from the time. They were my favourite band.

But there were three things which made me lose my respect from Bono and U2. This has resulted in me no longer listening to them and feeling very let down.

The first was the Iraq War.

U2 wrote a song called "Bullet the Blue Sky" in which they criticised US involvement in Nicaragua in the 1980s. The song even got banned from US radio. But by the time of the Iraq War, U2 were reaping considerable rewards from being a mainstream musical act. They could have used their power and influence to oppose the war. It would have lost them fans and money, and the right wing media would have excoriated them, but it would have meant that they were consistent to their principles. But what happened? They remained silent. Bono even went to the White House and shook hands with Bush. Meanwhile The Dixie Chicks stood up for what was right and were the musicians that took the brunt of right wing anger. And then when it came out that the US was torturing people in CIA secret prisons and in Abu Ghraib prison, did U2, supporter of Amnesty International and writer of "Mothers of the Disappeared" do anything? No. For me, this was the loss of U2's moral authority.

The second thing that happened was the U2 Tower.

Yeah, you read that right. Property developers in Dublin approached U2 with plans to create the tallest skyscraper in Ireland. At the top of the building would be a "pod" where U2 would live and record music. Of course the building was never built - the global financial crisis killed off those plans. But U2 acquiesced to the original plans and provided some investment.

The third thing was their failure to pay taxes.

After the GFC Ireland was in a mess. Unemployment was massive and the government had a huge budget deficit. The government decided to cut spending on welfare and thus the people who were hit the worst were the poor. U2 had stashed a lot of its earnings in overseas accounts and investments - completely legal but it was the sort of thing that a lot of rich people had done. As a result, U2 were not paying in tax what they should've been paying. Of course Ireland's fiscal nightmare wouldn't have been solved by U2 paying more tax, but it was the ethics of the situation that mattered. By keeping their earnings away from the taxman, U2 were part of the problem rather than being a solution - and the people who suffered from this problem were the poor, the very people that U2 had spent its life publicly championing. U2's manager, Paul McGuinness, defended the actions of the band, first arguing that it was legal (which it was, but that's not the point), before then launching into what I call the "CEO defence", namely that he spent time saying how wonderful U2 was to the economy and how many people were employed by them over the years, which was just another way of saying "you peasants should be grateful".

Most Irish people think U2 are a bunch of prats. I agree. They, especially Bono, are hypocrites, the worst sort of self-serving celebrity social champions.

My current understanding of the root of modern day Islamic Terrorism

This is my current understanding of the root of modern day Islamic Terrorism:

Hundreds of years ago on the Arabian Peninsula, the new ruling family, the House of Saud, made an arrangement with the leading religious family, the Wahhabs: The Sauds would rule, while the Wahhabs were given power and influence to propagate their version of Islam, which is called Wahhabism today. This ultra-conservative version of Islam was derided and condemned over many years by mainstream Islamic teachers and scholars.

Fast-forward to 1948 and the Sauds still rule the Arabian Peninsula (a country known as Saudi Arabia) while the Wahhabis still have a huge influence over Islam in that country. While the world is shocked and awed by the formation of modern Israel, geologists discover the Ghawar Field in Eastern Saudi Arabia - the largest underground crude oil reservoir ever discovered. Subsequent discoveries around the Persian Gulf in neighbouring countries creates the Middle Eastern oil boom.

Now fast forward to 1973. The world's economy has depended upon cheap oil for decades but the Arabic nations have remained opposed to Israel in that time. After the Yom Kippur war ended in Israel's favour, oil producing Arab nations (as OPEC) embargoed oil deliveries to nations they believed were helping Israel, including the US and many other western countries. The high price of oil resulting from the embargo and its aftermath led to these countries becoming very rich - especially the ruling classes and especially the house of Saud.

Because of the close relationship between the house of Saud and the house of Wahab, many prominent government positions were handed out to members of these families. The Wahabs were still very conservative and very extremist in their religious beliefs and were still being criticised by more mainstream Islamic leaders.

One of the more prominent families in the Saudi world was, and remains, the Bin Laden family. The Bin Laden family received all sorts of juicy government contracts to construct buildings throughout Saudi Arabia. One of the members of this family was named Osama. Osama was influenced greatly by the extremist Wahhabism and began planning his terrorism program in the 1980s.

Other extremist Wahhabis began using their power and influence within the Saudi government to fund the building of Wahhabi mosques around the world, including in Western countries. This is still going on.

The 9/11 attacks were perpetrated by Saudi Wahhabists. They were funded by rich members of the Saudi government at its lower levels. The attacks were planned by the well-connected Osama Bin Laden - a man with both extremist religious views and practical business training and experience.

The years following 9/11 have seen an upswing in Islamic terrorism. Most of these terrorists have been influenced by Wahhabi teaching, found either online or in their mosque. The presence of the internet has allowed the Wahhabist message to spread to disaffected Muslims around the world, creating an environment where formal structures (ie a terrorist network) are not needed to create terrorists.

A summary of my conclusions - Modern Islamic terrorism:

* is mostly Sunni (as opposed to Shi'a)
* is sourced from Wahhabism, a powerful but not dominant religious ideology within Sunni Islam.
* is mainly Arabic in nationality, with exceptions due to Wahhabi influence (eg Jemaah Islamiyah in Indonesia)
* is funded by well-connected families in Saudi Arabia and members of the Saudi government.
* has been funded for decades from the profits of the Saudi oil industry being distributed to powerful Saudi families.
* is angry at "the west" for a) the creation of modern Israel, and b) past aggressions against Arabic nations from colonial times up until today (including British and American oil companies taking their oil, but also aggressions like invading Iraq).
* can influence individual Muslims through the internet.
* is NOT a natural outworking of the Islamic faith.
* does NOT have any historical precedent prior to 9/11.
* needs to be addressed by Western countries through directly challenging and influencing Saudi Arabia.
* is unlikely to be propagated in mosques that are not Wahhabist.
* is opposed by the majority of Muslims and the mosques they worship in.

Collateral Stupidity

I'm one of the millions of people on the internet who downloaded and watched the "Collateral Murder" video, showing an airstrike on a group of Iraqi men in Baghdad on July 12th 2007. From the point of view of the pilots, we see a group of suspicious men seemingly armed with assaults rifles and at least one rocket propelled grenade (RPG) take up position on a corner from which they could ambush a potential American convoy. The group, is watched by a number of AH-64 Apache Gunship helicopters, and the video was taken through the gun camera of these helicopters. Not only do you hear (and also read, thanks to the subtitles) the alarmed chatter between the pilots, but communications with ground forces and the sound of the 30mm cannons firing at the group.

Unfortunately it appears as though the group were not insurgents at all. Two members of the group were Reuters news reporters, one of whom was using a telephoto lens which made it look like he was carrying an RPG. As the video continues and the group is killed by the cannon fire, one of the Reuters reporters manages to escape up the road before collapsing on the sidewalk. A van then pulls up and moves the injured man inside it. Fearful that the insurgents were rescuing their own, the helicopters fire also upon the van, destroying it and killing the reporter and the two men who placed him into the van. Unfortunately it appears as though the men in the van were trying to help the injured man and were not insurgents at all. Moreover, the video shows images of two children inside the van who were seriously injured by the attack - the children were rushed to hospital by the US troops who eventually arrived at the scene.

Naturally anti-war proponents have used this video as an example of the heartless killers in the US armed forces who supposedly enjoy mowing down civilians and children (when informed that a child was injured one of the pilots openly placed the blame on the van drivers for taking children into a war zone). So how do I, as an opponent of America's invasion and conquest and occupation of Iraq, think?

The first thing I want to say is that the pilots are not to blame in any way. Given the stresses involved in making snap decisions inside a cockpit thousands of metres away from targets, the pilots acted in the only way they knew how. That the men were not insurgents could not be determined, and that two men were reporters could not be determined either. In hindsight it was easy to spot the telephoto lens of one of the reporters but you could quite easily mistake it for an RPG in the heat of the moment. The children were not clearly visible in the van either. In short, the pilots believed that they were engaging the enemy. This was a terrible mistake, of course, but there was no way of them knowing that it was a mistake. Moreover, the comment by one of the pilots criticising the men in the van for taking children into a warzone should be taken at face value only and not as an example of American callousness - after all, if the men in the van were the enemy, then why would they bring children along? No, the pilots did nothing wrong that I could see. Their deed was terrible but they only did what they were trained and ordered to do. Without any clear indication that the people involved were civilians (which the video does not show) the pilots needed to treat the people as insurgents.

The second thing I want to say is that this incident shows the limits of using military force in an urban environment. The war machines of the US military are designed for conventional warfare. The AH-64 Apache gunship helicopter is designed to knock out armoured vehicles on a battlefield - its 30mm cannon can reduce tanks to wrecks so you can imagine what effect this cannon would have upon the human targets shown in the video (which is thankfully black and white). The US military is NOT designed, however, to effectively police a foreign city full of insurgents engaging in a guerilla war against the Americans and the American backed Iraqi forces. While there is no doubt that the sheer volume of firepower directed by American forces can completely destroy any group of enemy (as proven by this video), there will always be the danger of collateral damage - namely the deaths of civilians (as proven, again, by this video). What we see in this tragic video is an example of the sheer stupidity of American battlefield doctrine when applied to an urban environment full of civilians. In such an environment the margin for error is just non-existent. The pilots had to weigh up the chance that they were firing on civilians against the chance that they were firing on insurgents - had they chosen not to act then there would be the real possibility of American troops being killed by these people. Faced with the prospect of either possibly killing civilians or taking a course of action that would result in the deaths of American troops, the pilots made the only choice that made sense. So while I do not blame the pilots in any way for their action, I do blame the system and the generals who placed them into this intolerable situation.

The last thing I want to say is that this incident proves beyond doubt that a different strategy is required. It is fortunate that levels of violence have dissipated considerably since the 2003 invasion (and 2007, when this incident occurred), but there are lessons to be learned. The amount of Iraqis who have died since "Mission Accomplished" is criminal, and reflects very poorly upon the morality and upon the competence of those responsible for planning the war and its aftermath. Rebuilding Iraq and improving the social conditions of Iraqis should be far more important than setting up a puppet democracy or simply maintaining the status quo. I have never had faith in America's ability for nation building and I think that the only real solution is for US forces to withdraw and be replaced by the forces of neutral nations under the aegis of the United Nations. The UN has successfully created peace in the Balkans to the point where most Balkan nations are now seriously contemplating joining the European Union (Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Albania and Kosovo). I say let the UN take over Iraq - and Afghanistan as well - and move US troops back to America.

Iraq was invaded because of 9/11

While Bush and Cheney may have prevaricated in saying outright that Iraq should be invaded because they were involved in 9/11, the text of the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002 makes it very, very clear:

*Whereas members of al Qaida, an organization bearing responsibility for attacks on the United States, its citizens, and interests, including the attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, are known to be in Iraq;

*Whereas Iraq continues to aid and harbor other international terrorist organizations, including organizations that threaten the lives and safety of United States citizens;

*Whereas the attacks on the United States of September 11, 2001, underscored the gravity of the threat posed by the acquisition of weapons of mass destruction by international terrorist organizations;

*Whereas Congress has taken steps to pursue vigorously the war on terrorism through the provision of authorities and funding requested by the President to take the necessary actions against international terrorists and terrorist organizations, including those nations, organizations, or persons who planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such persons or organizations;

*(2) acting pursuant to this joint resolution is consistent with the United States and other countries continuing to take the necessary actions against international terrorists and terrorist organizations, including those nations, organizations, or persons who planned, authorized, committed or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001.

Of course, this resolution was passed by a Republican congress and signed off by George Bush. Could it be any clearer?

Justice

Judgment at Nuremberg:

But this trial has shown that under the stress of a national crisis, men - even able and extraordinary men - can delude themselves into the commission of crimes and atrocities so vast and heinous as to stagger the imagination. No one who has sat through this trial can ever forget. The sterilization of men because of their political beliefs... The murder of children... How *easily* that can happen! There are those in our country today, too, who speak of the "protection" of the country. Of "survival". The answer to that is: *survival as what*? A country isn't a rock. And it isn't an extension of one's self. *It's what it stands for, when standing for something is the most difficult!* Before the people of the world - let it now be noted in our decision here that this is what *we* stand for: *justice, truth... and the value of a single human being!*

I love it when the words of the past - even words uttered by fictional characters - can so utterly convict and expose the present.

This film should have been essential viewing for anyone in US military charged with making tough decisions after 9/11.

Why did America invade Iraq?

I've been thinking about this lately - not just in terms of the reasons America felt at the time but in terms of the reasons many Americans now believe they felt.

1. Saddam was one of those responsible for 9/11.

Well, that one went out ages ago. Most Americans believed it even though George W. Bush didn't literally say it (although it was obvious that he believed it too).

2. Iraq had weapons of Mass Destruction and were a threat to America.

Well that one went out ages ago too. Five years later and still nothing... unless you bought into all the bull about them being shipped to Syria.

3. Saddam was a bad man and deserved to be overthrown.

That Saddam was a bad man is unquestionable - but the guy was no Hitler. He was a tinpot dictator in charge of a small country who gassed his own people. But did he deserve to be overthrown? If invading Iraq because Saddam was bad is a good enough reason then surely the case could be made for invading any number of nations around the world being run by tinpot dictators. Why Iraq?

I mean, think back to the 1980s when War-Hawk Ronald Reagan DIDN'T INVADE Libya and DIDN'T EXECUTE Colonel Gaddafi. Operation El Dorado Canyon was as bad as it ever got, and Gaddafi is still alive today, continuing to not be a threat to anyone any more.

In any case, life after "Mission Accomplished" was terrible for Iraq. Violence on a daily basis in the form of car bombs, suicide bombers and religious extremism did not exist while Saddam was in power. America replaced a cruel tinpot dictator with chaos, and the result was worse. Living under Saddam was certainly better than living under American rule. One possible reason why violence has tapered off recently may simply be that millions have either left the country or are internally displaced.

4. Our Intelligence was mistaken.

Forged, more like. I've already addressed this issue in an article I wrote 3 years ago. If the intelligence was so good, why was Colin Powell producing satellite pictures of water trucks and telling the U.N. that they were really mobile Chemical weapons labs?

...

So. Those are the stated reasons. Here are some of my own.

1. We really, really thought that WMDs were there.

This is one of those "faith based community" verses "reality based community" issues. I'm not talking here about American Evangelicals (although they fit into it) but rather the idea that our thoughts/beliefs shape reality, rather than the other way around. In this case, it didn't matter how many UN inspectors were running around Iraq in 2002 and finding nothing or how many times Hans Blix said "Iraq is co-operating... we still haven't found anything" - the fact was that Saddam was a bad man who said he had WMDs and we believe him! Nothing here about due process, nothing here about innocent until proven guilty. Instead we get Condoleeza Rice warning us that the smoking gun could be a mushroom cloud or Donald Rumsfeld reminding us that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

Having faith in something doesn't mean you stop thinking altogether. Was it right to be concerned about potential Iraqi WMDs? Absolutely. Was it right to invade based upon the available evidence? Not at all - especially in hindsight.

2. We really, really thought that Iraq would be happy after we got rid of Saddam.

There's something Liberation of Paris that makes pro-war Americans lose their ability to think cogently. The thinking goes that if country A is ruled by dictator B, then sending troops to remove B will result in the liberation of A and make everyone love America. Sadly this rule doesn't always work, and when it doesn't the temptation is to either a) criticise the liberators for being ungrateful or b) repeat the mantra that everything is going fine and the media hates America and is reporting lies because they are in league with the terrorists.

The reality was that once Saddam's political and governmental regime collapsed, it was replaced not with a new order but with chaos. Rosy thinking - again the result more of "faith based" thinking that hard reality - being the cause.

3. We were still angry after 9/11 and had to attack someone.

I think this is the main reason. After Afghanistan was rightly invaded by America and its allies, the ease of the victory and the absence of Osama Bin Laden was too much. There was still too much anger at the horror of 9/11, but there was no way to direct or control that anger. Instead, Bush used the opportunity to invade Iraq for no other reason than misplaced revenge.

...


I want your comments.

Many of you who read my blog are American. I would really like your comments as to what you felt and thought at the time of the invasion of Iraq. Did you really think that Iraq was linked to 9/11? Did you really think Iraq had WMDs? If you changed your mind, what prompted it? I would like to find out.

AAAAAAAAA

A blog post with every single category marked (I'm doing this for scribefire)

The ALP today - it stinks

As the years have passed by, I have become more firmly entrenched in a centre-left political stance. This means, of course, that I am more likely to vote for parties that subscribe to my politics. This is why I am more likely to support the Australian Labor Party and the Greens when it comes to elections.

I am not a partisan, however. I am not a member of any political party and I see principle and ideas to be far more important than supporting a particular political party. This is why I can, for example, praise the Howard government for its fiscal intelligence while also criticising them for their immoral stance on immigration and the Iraq War.

Yet despite Howard's success, and the success of the Liberal/National coalition in Federal politics, Australia is now governed entirely by the Australian Labor Party. Not only is Kevin Rudd the new PM in charge of an ALP government, but every single state government in Australia is Labor as well. Despite the apparent ascendency of the Liberal/National Coalition since 1996, the hard fact is that Australia is dominated by the ALP. More than that, the chances of a revival in the coalition's electoral success is increasingly slim. The Liberal Party, for example, took around 37% of votes in the last Federal Election. The National Party is in even worse shape, getting only 5.5% of votes.

Of course part of the reason why these figures are so low for the coalition is because of the rise of the Greens to being Australia's third largest political party. Yet the party which has been affected least by the Greens is the ALP.

The ALP has been enormously successful in surviving the Howard years at state level by positioning themselves as a centrist party. The dominant right faction of the ALP has ensured that the more progressive/leftist members of the ALP have not had any real power since the days of Gough Whitlam.

Yet I would have to say that the price of this success has been corruption and inaction. The NSW Labor Party, for example, is enduring all sorts of political fallout - all of it the result of their own stupidity and greed. NSW Labor politicians have been threatening restaurant staff, sexually abusing teenagers, taking money from property developers and mismanaging state funds for quite some time now.

I can't remember the last time I voted for the ALP. I think it was in the 1980s. Ever since then I have voted Liberal, Democrat or Green. The survival of the ALP and its reputation does not concern me in the slightest. I abhor any form of politics that results in inefficiency and corruption. Even though I was deeply angry with Howard's treatment of immigrants and his position on the Iraq War, I cannot think of any major scandal rocking his government during his 11 years in power.

One of the most frightening things I can think of is the potential for Kevin Rudd to turn into a federal version of Morris Iemma, leading a federal version of NSW Labor. That would be complete disaster. Unfortunately I can't see anything positive yet about Kevin Rudd's (albeit short) time as PM. So far Rudd has been strong on words but low on actual, measurable outcomes. Unless Rudd actually starts doing something, I can't see anything beyond a descent into a long term NSW-type Labor activity. And that will do nobody any good.

Iraq: Conservative Shame

From the department of Wartime Propaganda:

To the public, these men are members of a familiar fraternity, presented tens of thousands of times on television and radio as “military analysts” whose long service has equipped them to give authoritative and unfettered judgments about the most pressing issues of the post-Sept. 11 world.

Hidden behind that appearance of objectivity, though, is a Pentagon information apparatus that has used those analysts in a campaign to generate favorable news coverage of the administration’s wartime performance, an examination by The New York Times has found.

The effort, which began with the buildup to the Iraq war and continues to this day, has sought to exploit ideological and military allegiances, and also a powerful financial dynamic: Most of the analysts have ties to military contractors vested in the very war policies they are asked to assess on air.

I can't explain how vindicated I feel about this report from the New York Times, yet I fear that this will again be ignored by those who should know better.

Essentially it goes like this - the Pentagon, under orders from the Bush administration, got together retired military experts, briefed them regularly, and then watched as they turned up as talking heads on every major news network defending what was going on in Iraq. Moreover, many of these "experts" are also board members of, and/or lobbyists for, defense contracting companies who profit from war. This is shameful, and it confirms a number of different things:

1) The Bush administration lied about the war.
2) The Bush administration let Americans and Iraqis die in order to serve their political ends.
3) The upper echelons of high ranking American servicemen are riddled with political corruption.
4) The military-industrial complex - in which industries that profit from war encourage its escalation - is real.
4) The media is not biased towards the left wing, but the right wing.
5) Conservatives swallowed this bull because they're not objective, can't think properly and suffer from cognitive dissonance.
6) Anti-war lefties who opposed the war from the very beginning and who argued that the Bush administration was orchestrating a sophisticated propaganda campaign to promote the war and lie to the American people were not crazy moonbats but actually well informed thinkers who merely reacted to the facts as they saw presented to them.
7) Pro-war conservatives will read this New York Times report and dismiss it as lies propagated by the left-wing media.

To my mind, people who still support the Iraq War are not only morally vacant, but intellectually vapid as well. They do not deserve respect or the time of day. They have descended into the valley of flat-earthers, and UFOlogists, but are more of a danger to society than these goons ever will be. In a sense, Iraq war supporters give flat-earthers and UFO goons a bad name.

America - where evil deeds protect good people?

The only thing necessary for the triumph [of evil] is for good men to do nothing.

Unless, of course, the good man resorts to evil deeds in response to evil:

In dozens of top-secret talks and meetings in the White House, the most senior Bush administration officials discussed and approved specific details of how high-value al Qaeda suspects would be interrogated by the Central Intelligence Agency, sources tell ABC News.

The so-called Principals who participated in the meetings also approved the use of "combined" interrogation techniques -- using different techniques during interrogations, instead of using one method at a time -- on terrorist suspects who proved difficult to break, sources said.

Highly placed sources said a handful of top advisers signed off on how the CIA would interrogate top al Qaeda suspects -- whether they would be slapped, pushed, deprived of sleep or subjected to simulated drowning, called waterboarding.

The high-level discussions about these "enhanced interrogation techniques" were so detailed, these sources said, some of the interrogation sessions were almost choreographed -- down to the number of times CIA agents could use a specific tactic.

The advisers were members of the National Security Council's Principals Committee, a select group of senior officials who met frequently to advise President Bush on issues of national security policy.

At the time, the Principals Committee included Vice President Cheney, former National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Colin Powell, as well as CIA Director George Tenet and Attorney General John Ashcroft.

In the past 12 months my stance against the Bush administration has not so much softened as it has not been discussed. Most of my anti-Bush, anti-Iraq War statements at this blog occurred in 2005 and 2006. Since the middle of 2007, I have focused mainly upon economic issues, probably because it was a developing area (and still is) and is more interesting.

But this recent revelation - quoted above - reminds me of the anger I still hold against the Bush administration for destroying America's reputation around the world. The fact is that the Bush administration - and Bush himself - approved the use of torture of terrorist suspects. Abu Ghraib was not some anomoly, it was the natural result of things. Stories we have heard of torture at other places, like Bagram, Guantanamo Bay and the roving CIA torture cells that walk into other countries and violate their sovereign laws by kidnapping people and taking them to places where they can be tortured for information - they are true. These stories have moved from rumours to substantiated rumours and have now gone onto documentable fact signed and sealed by those at the top of the US Administration.

Add to this the flimsy basis upon which the Iraq war was founded upon - with the deaths of over 4000 US Servicemen and probably over one million Iraqis since 2003 - and the situation seems very clear.

I'm exceptionally annoyed that impeachment of Bush and Cheney was never seriously considered. It speaks volumes of America's seriously skewed priorities that one President's lies to protect adultery was grounds for the first and only impeachment trial of the 20th century while the invasion and conquest of another nation (which was unconstitutional in the first place) that results in the deaths of over one million people, the economic and social ruin of tens of millions of others did not so much as get looked at in Congress.

Bush, Cheney and his gang may not escape impeachment, but it is in the interests of American and the entire world for these people to be tried as war criminals, with immunity granted to those in the lower echelons so that they may testify about what they saw and heard - these lower echelons being those who actually created the procedures and participated in them.

But, then again, I wouldn't hold any hopes high for such a process to happen. If only Bush, post-president, were kidnapped and extraordinarily rendered to Europe to face the International Criminal Court - that would be justice.

In order for evil to triumph, it is not just necessary for good people to do nothing... it is also for evil people to get into positions of power and abuse them in the name of good.

And to think that Bush - and Ashcroft - publicly declare faith in Christ. Abomination.

PS - Thanks to Tom Hinkle for setting me off on this.

China, Tibet and the Olympics

Ah yes. Tibet. Scourge of China and the interests of Richard Gere alike. What to do?

What should NOT happen is a boycott of the Olympics. It's not that I somehow think that China needs to be appeased or that the Tibetans don't somehow need justice. Sometimes boycotts are necessary, although the last two - 1980 and 1984 - were hardly effective and were conducted more out of spite than anything.

The problem I suppose is, firstly, the belief that the "side" I am on, namely the English speaking industrialised world, is hardly occupying any moral high ground. And this not just in terms of older history (ie Australia's treatment of Aborigines, America's treatment of their indigenous people, Britain's treatment of pretty much everyone) but also in recent history. If I'm going to argue for a boycott of the Beijing Olympics then I should also argue for a boycott against the countries that have invaded Iraq as well, including my own country.

In short, there a multitude of reasons for boycotting the Olympics or getting angry that certain nations are going to be there. That being the case, in theory no one should go.

The second problem, though, is more along the practical side of things. Boycotting the Olympics will not somehow soften China's resolve in Tibet. The Chinese government is not going to suddenly make Tibet free, recognise Taiwan as a sovereign country and turn into a western style democracy because a bunch of westerners decided not to attend a glorified sporting event.

What might hurt, though, is economic sanctions, though I would point out that any trade embargo against China would hurt America more than China, so that's out as well. Moreover it is inflammatory, and that is not what is needed.

We need to remember that the best sort of change is achieved slowly and carefully. Change is not wrong - in fact change is an essential part of how societies work. What hurts the most, though, is when change comes suddenly.

Take Iraq under Saddam. Saddam was a brutal dictator, but invading the country and destroying the nation's power structure has created anarchy and done far more harm to it than anything Saddam would have done.

Dealing with rogue states - and even states like China that have roguish elements - requires patience and time. Look at nations like Egypt, Syria and Libya - these nations are hardly examples of world's best practice, but they have moved over the years from being potentially bad states to being potentially good states. This should have been the goal with Iraq, and it should have been the goal in Afghanistan from the late 1980s onwards. It's also the goal we should have towards Iran, though I would argue that Iran is less a rogue state than it was in the 1980s.

Look at the problem with Cyprus. Both Greece and Turkey have been arguing over this Mediterranean island for decades and have occasionally come to blows. Yet the moderating effect of the European Union has forced both sides to make concessions and to approach this issue - which is hardly solved yet - slowly, carefully and effectively. As time passes, issues like Cyprus will lose its ability to stir up base emotions and a solution will eventually be found.

The same can be said about China and its problems with Tibet and Taiwan. Slowly, slowly is the best way. It is the most effective way. Oftentimes the best solution is not to be found in the flag of victory waving over a bloody battlefield, but in the bored looks of those examining the "small print" of agreements.

Today's xkcd

I'm a Christian, which means that I believe in the supernatural. Nevetheless I have to agree with the message of this comic strip. So many mistakes of human behaviour - including ones by politicians that can result in the deaths of millions - can be traced to an inability to challenge assumptions.

Examples would be: The Common Cold (belief that a chilly environment can cause a cold), the Iraq War (in which clear absence of WMD evidence eventually proved to be evidence of WMD absence) and various other urban myths.

Iraq war breeding secularism amongst young Muslims

From the department of I-honestly-didn't-see-this-coming:

After almost five years of war, many young Iraqis, exhausted by constant firsthand exposure to the violence of religious extremism, say they have grown disillusioned with religious leaders and skeptical of the faith that they preach.

In two months of interviews with 40 young people in five Iraqi cities, a pattern of disenchantment emerged, in which young Iraqis, both poor and middle class, blamed clerics for the violence and the restrictions that have narrowed their lives.

"I hate Islam and all the clerics because they limit our freedom every day and their instruction became heavy over us," said Sara Sami, a high school student in Basra. "Most of the girls in my high school hate that Islamic people control the authority because they don't deserve to be rulers."

Atheer, a 19-year-old from a poor, heavily Shiite neighborhood in southern Baghdad, said: "The religion men are liars. Young people don't believe them. Guys my age are not interested in religion anymore."

The shift in Iraq runs counter to trends of rising religiousness among young people across much of the Middle East, where religion has replaced nationalism as a unifying ideology. While religious extremists are admired by a number of young people in other parts of the Arab world, Iraq offers a test case of what could happen when extremist theories are applied.

Well this goes counter to what alarmists have been saying about the spread of Islam.

Says it all

Quote

(George Bush) is arguably the worst president in the history of the United States. He is unfit for the office of president of the United States. He has trouble speaking the English language and articulating a point of view. Second, he has led us into a war—in which my son, by the way, fought—on false pretenses. That is a terrible thing. Bush is personally responsible for the displacement of the Christian minority in Iraq. It was the last large Christian minority anywhere in the Middle East, and it has been destroyed. It is ironic that someone who proclaims he is a Christian president has single-handedly started a war that has undone the last Christian minority in the Middle East. Now it is wall-to-wall Islam from Tehran all the way to the Mediterranean with the exception of Israel. There is not one place outside of Syria that still has that intact Christian minority now.

Who said this?

Market forces and war

From the department of everybody seems to win:

Some 70,000 former insurgents are now being paid $10 a day by the U.S. military. It costs about a quarter billion dollars a year.

It's a controversial strategy, and Macgregor warns that it's creating a parallel military force in Iraq that is made up almost entirely of Sunni Muslims.

"We need to understand that buying off your enemy is a good short-term solution to gain a respite from violence," he says, "but it's not a long-term solution to creating a legitimate political order inside a country that, quite frankly, is recovering from the worst sort of civil war."

Pay the enemy money to not fight. I have to admit, that is actually a very good strategy.

It's a pity they didn't simply pay Saddam a billion dollars to live in a pacific paradise for the rest of his life and hand Iraq over to US control. It would have been cheaper and it would have resulted in less deaths.

Of course, the idea might spread so that dictators in other countries around the world clamour to get paid off in permanent exile while their beleaguered homeland goes through social and economic reforms to improve their standard of living. Of course we wouldn't want that to happen now would we?

Cults, the Iraq War, Global Warming and Evaporative Cooling

Why is it that when cults fail in their prophecies, they can still retain a strong community?

One example of this is the failed 1975 prophecy by the Jehovah's Witnesses. Despite the complete failure of Jesus to return on that date, and despite a large amount of people leaving the movement as a result, quite a lot of people remained in the faith. Why?

Traditionally the explanation has been "cognitive dissonance", the ability of the group to keep a strong influence upon individuals within the group who are beginning to doubt. This no doubt provides some explanation.

However, in an interesting article entitled Evaporative Cooling of Group Beliefs, blogger Eliezer Yudkowsky has come up with an alternative explanation - or at least one that can fit neatly alongside cognitive dissonance.

It's a really strange idea since it takes into account the scientific process of examining how evaporative cooling works - yet it applies very well to the group situation.

Let me start off by quickly explaining how evaporative cooling works.

Basically, when a surface is covered with water (like human skin with sweat), the evaporation of this water from the surface causes it to cool down. In other words, the heating process of evaporation of something small results in the cooling of something big.

Now let's apply this to a group - say a religious cult with prophecies. Members of this group are not all equal in their adherence to the faith. Some are complete wackos, while some have the semblence of objective thinking. Altogether they represent the cult group. Now let's say that the prophecy passes without being fulfilled. What happens then? Well, all the objective, thinking group members leave, while all the wackos remain. Because the percentage of wackos in the group increases, the effect of the unfulfilled prophecy results in stronger belief amongst those who remain faithful, or at least giving the group a chance to exhibit cognitive dissonance, thus making it difficult for others to leave the group.

In other words, "heat" is applied to the group, and those who "heat up" end up leaving, while the ones left behind get "cooler".

It's a fascinating idea, and one which can also be applied to the Iraq War.

Back in 2003, the majority of Americans wanted to invade Iraq. A noisy minority protested, but the majority essentially gave Bush the impetus to invade. Years later, however, and the "heat" has been applied. The WMDs have not been found, statistical studies are now estimating the death toll at over 1 million Iraqis, and US troops are in harm's way without any real military objective except to shoot those who shoot at them.

You'd think that things like facts would change people's minds. Of course, facts have changed people's minds - just not all of them. As the majority of Americans slowly realised that the Iraq War was the wrong thing to do, they began to no longer support the war - "heat" was applied. With dwindling numbers, the pro-war side becomes even more committed to their cause - they begin to "cool" as they become smaller.

And, of course, "wackos" are less likely to use things like reasonable arguments to back up their cause. Instead they begin to use "ad hom" attacks upon their opponents, and even lie about them in order to keep their side "strong".

Interestingly, the same sort of thing is happening in the world of environmental science - specifically regarding global warming. Strangely enough it is not the global warming "believers" who are ending up being the wackos but the global warming deniers. Again, this is because of the evaporative effect. As more and more people begin to believe in the science of global warming, those who remain behind become more "wacko" in their denials and begin to "cherry pick" evidence, while at the same time accusing their opponents as being "wackos" who "cherry pick" evidence, thus exhibiting Psychological projection - seeing in other people their own faults and behaviour.

Depending upon the "faith" that these people have put their trust in, it is quite reasonable to expect that a minority of people will continually remain true to the "faith". Just as Southerners in the Civil War have been able to transfer their misguided feelings of injustice upon their descendants (who make up the Neo-Nazis and Ku Klux Klan of today), so will there be people in decades to come who will still think that the Iraq war was justified and Bush was the greatest president ever. Global warming deniers will probably change their minds in the future, but only when evidence goes against them and only if it suits them. They may say "Yes it is undeniable that the world is heating up and that millions of people have now lost their lives, and I also agree that previous attempts at explaining global warming were incorrect (that is, theories which said that is merely cyclical or based upon sunspots), but I would still argue that it is not due to CO2 based human activity but to something else yet to be determined by science."

FBI investigates Blackwater

From the department of unprofessional-professionals:

Federal agents investigating the Sept. 16 episode in which Blackwater security personnel shot and killed 17 Iraqi civilians have found that at least 14 of the shootings were unjustified and violated deadly-force rules in effect for security contractors in Iraq, according to civilian and military officials briefed on the case.

The F.B.I. investigation into the shootings in Baghdad is still under way, but the findings, which indicate that the company’s employees recklessly used lethal force, are already under review by the Justice Department.

Prosecutors have yet to decide whether to seek indictments, and some officials have expressed pessimism that adequate criminal laws exist to enable them to charge any Blackwater employee with criminal wrongdoing. Spokesmen for the Justice Department and the F.B.I. declined to discuss the matter.

On one level, this does not surprise me in the least. The entire Iraq venture has been a complete shambles from beginning to (eventual) end.

Blackwater is a mercenary organisation, to put it bluntly. It is doing what it does not for patriotic reasons but for money. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but this investigation by the FBI shows that they are anything but professional. In this situation Blackwater is under obligation to perform according to strict guidelines of engagement. But if Blackwater personnel are given more "lax" guidelines than US soldiers, you have to wonder what the point is.

What is interesting to me is that this incident has meant an investigation not by the military, but by the FBI. The FBI has neither any interest in whether Blackwater is found guilty or not - their interest is (in theory) only doing their job and investigating the incident dispassionately. By contrast, a military investigation into alleged crimes committed by members of the military has an interest in making sure their men are looked after, rather than investigating properly. That was the reason why Colin Powell helped cover up the My Lai Massacre, and why it took such a long time to investigate the atrocities at Abu Ghraib. I wonder if the FBI, or some other independent investigative agency, should investigate all alleged claims of abuse against US Soldiers.

Nah. Wouldn't work. US soldiers guilty of war crimes? Not possible...

Fox News is Propaganda

From the department of lies-will-set-you-free:

For the second straight day, Fox News stood virtually alone in advancing thinly supported speculation to raise fears that the wildfires ravaging California are not the result of a confluence of arid heat and high winds but were set deliberately by al Qaeda terrorists bent on destroying America.

Fox & Friends, the conservative cable channel, was panned Wednesday for breathlessly reporting a sketchy, four-year-old FBI memo as if it offered new information linking America's enemies in the "Global War on Terror" with a plot to burn down southern California.

The morning team was back at it Thursday, as anchor Alisyn Camerota introduced a segment on the fires that again mischaracterized and over-inflated warnings from a 2003 interview with an al Qaeda detainee.

I'm sick of this whole "war on terror" and the communists fictional "islamofascists" who threaten world peace by spreading communism a caliphate around the world.

Organisations like Fox reinforce the lie that Al Qaeda and Osama have almost mythical powers to attack and damage America freely. The reality is that they don't even control a single nation, let alone have amazing power to hurt America.

It's obvious now, six years later, that 9/11 was a complete fluke, a mixture of good planning and good luck by Osama and sleepy incompetence by America. Since then the US has not had a single terrorist attack within its border. Why? Because Osama and Al Qaeda cannot rely upon good luck and American incompetence any more.

There have been, of course, terrorist attacks elsewhere - Bali, Barcelona, London - but when you look at the history of terrorism since 1970 there has been nothing "special" going on. The IRA killed more people in Britain than unhappy Muslims ever did, and ETA killed more people in Spain over the years than the Islamic terrorists in Barcelona.

Fox, and other unworthy media channels, are promoting fear. Fear, of course, sells. If it wasn't for fear, people wouldn't have stopped immunising their kids and some kids would still be alive today. Irrational fear, based not upon factual information but upon impressions and falsehoods, is what leads to many wrongheaded actions. The Iraq war, for example, was waged because Americans feared that Iraq would give chemical, biological or nuclear weapons to terrorists who would then use them against America. Fear led America to invade Iraq, even though there was no real evidence WMDs existed, which is what has subsequently been found out.

The fact that fear sells is one of the problems with modern media. Since media is owned by profit-making corporations, the reporting of objective, truthful news is hardly going to be a priority. Fear is profit for the media.

This is yet another example of market failure. Steps need to be taken to punish news organisations for peddling lies and half-truths, and rewards need to be given to such organisations for objective, dispassionate and accurate reporting. The marketplace is not going to do this, so the government must step in.