Friday, February 27, 2009

Jindal's Response -- Exclusive -- First Draft! (Continued)

THE ABSURD TIMES
Note: This is a follow-up to the last publication. CPAC, a group of "conservative" lunatics is currently meeting in Washington, D.C. and they insist that the following was indeed Jindal's original speech, despite my statement that it was over 400 years old. They said "It sounds like that to you, but your statement sounds like Socialism to us." So, I've continued to transcribe the letter, but reprinted the first part.
Here is an exclusive copy of the first draft of Bobby Jindal's speech delivered as the Republican response to Omama's speech. The Times can not reveal the source of this document:
This draft has been heavily guarded as it is, after all, written by a Republican.
Many right-wingers were disappointed by the speech as delivered and only one, Rush Limbaugh, had the courage to defend it. He must have seen the first draft (above) as it is far better written than the one actually delivered.
Since we at the Times have had training in reading such handwriting, we will take a closer look at it and put it into print:
"Pleaseth it your honourable Lordship toching Marlowes monstrous opinions as I cannot but with an agreved conscience think on him or them so cam I but particularize fewe in the respect of them that kept him greater company."
So far, as you can seen, he got Obama's name wrong, but it is clear that he dislikes his policy.
It continues: "Howbeit in discharg of dutie both towardw God, your Lordships & the world thus much haue I thought good breiflie to discover in all humbleness...."
Wait a minute, this does not seem like Jindal wrote it. I've seen it before. Oh yeah, it was written by Thomas Kyd, author of The Spanish Tragedy. Never mind.
****************
They are working on a new flu vaccine that will stop ALL strains of the flu, but that does not mean you can stop watching out for sneezing birds.
*******
Ffirst, it was his custom when I knewe him first & as I heare saie he contynyewed it, in table talk or otherwise to iest at the devine scriptures gybe and praiers, & stryve in argument to frustrate & confute what hath byn spoke or qrytt be prophets & such holie men.
1 He wold report St. John to be our saviour Christes Alexis I cover it with reverence and trembling that is that Christ did loue him with an extraordinary loue. [He was gay]
2 That for me to wryte a poem of St paules conversion as I was determined he said wold be as if I shold go wryte a book of fast & loose, exteming Paul a Jugler.
3 That the prodigall Childs portion was but fower nobles he held his purse so nere the bottom in all pictures, and that it either was a iest of els fowr nobles then was thought a great patrimony not thinking it a parable.
I am not going to transcribe the fourth one -- well, ok:
4 That things esteemed to be donn be devine power might haue aswell been don by observation of men all which he wold so sodenlie take slight occasion to slyp out as I & many others in regard of his other rashness in attempting soden pryvie iniures to men did ouerslypp through often reprehend him for it & for which god is my witnes aswell by my lords comaundment as in hatred of this Life & thoughts I left & did refraine his companie.
He wold perswade with men of qualitie to goe vnto the k of scotts whether I heare Royden is gon and where if he had liud he told me when I sawe him last he meant to be.
Now, as I understand it, number one is an attack on Obama's tolerance for gays, 2 has to do with his statements on religious freedom. Obama, after all, did include Muslims as deserving respect and, a greater sin, says Jindal, was that he included unbelievers as deserving freedom as well.
******************************************
Anyway, in attendance at the CPAC is Joe the Plumber, Ron Paul, and Rush Limbaugh is to be given a special award. Sarah Palin did not attend, perhaps finding it too right wing? John McCain was not there, but Newt Gingrich, I belief [believe] it was, called McCain a "socialist". Great fun is being had by all.
finis

Thursday, February 26, 2009

Jindal's Response -- Exclusive -- First Draft!

THE ABSURD TIMES
Here is an exclusive copy of the first draft of Bobby Jindal's speech delivered as the Republican response to Omama's speech. The Times can not reveal the source of this document:




This draft has been heavily guarded as it is, after all, written by a Republican.
Many right-wingers were disappointed by the speech as delivered and only one, Rush Limbaugh, had the courage to defend it. He must have seen the first draft (above) as it is far better written than the one actually delivered.
Since we at the Times have had training in reading such handwriting, we will take a closer look at it and put it into print:
"Pleaseth it your honourable Lordship toching Marlowes monstrous opinions as I cannot but with an agreved conscience think on him or them so cam I but particularize fewe in the respect of them that kept him greater company."
So far, as you can seen, he got Obama's name wrong, but it is clear that he dislikes his policy.
It continues: "Howbeit in discharg of dutie both towardw God, your Lordships & the world thus much haue I thought good breiflie to discover in all humbleness...."
Wait a minute, this does not seem like Jindal wrote it. I've seen it before. Oh yeah, it was written by Thomas Kyd, author of The Spanish Tragedy. Never mind.
****************
They are working on a new flu vaccine that will stop ALL strains of the flu, but that does not mean you can stop watching out for sneezing birds.
*******
finis

Saturday, February 21, 2009

Israel: Tables Turned


THE ABSURD TIMES


A reader passed on this interesting "thought-Experiment". I was thinking "Modest Proposal" as I read it, but the next missive already indicated that had been though of. Anyhow, here it is:





January 09, 2009

Slater's thought experiment

Jerry Slater has a unique way of looking at the terrible situation in Israel/Palestine, inspired by Jonathan Swift: What if the Situation Were Reversed? He writes:

There has been growing outrage at Israel’s attack on Gaza. It is hard to understand this entirely unfair and one-sided criticism once you understand the wider context.

Why do so many commentators forget that since 1967 the Palestinians have occupied Israel; colonized it with settlers; invaded it a number of times, killing, wounding, or otherwise destroying the lives of thousands of Israelis, including women and children; assassinated its leaders (including those democratically elected by the Israeli people); repeatedly attacked its political, security, and civic institutions; deliberately attacked its schools and universities; closed its trade and commerce with the outside world; bombed its roads and bridges; destroyed much of its electrical power system; imposed severe restrictions on Israeli drinking and agricultural water; prevented thousands of farmers from reaching their lands and orchards; disrupted its private and public health systems; surrounded Jewish areas with checkpoints and military outposts; built Palestinian-only roads that the Jews are not permitted to use; humiliated the Israelis in a variety of ways on a nearly daily basis--and more?

Even so, it may be argued, the Israelis should never have unleashed their inaccurate rockets against Palestinian town. For such actions are justly labeled as terrorism, even though only a few Palestinians have been killed. And terrorism—deliberate or indiscriminate attacks against civilians—is rightly condemned by everyone, no matter how justified the cause (the end of the Palestinian occupation of the Israelis and the creation of a genuinely independent Jewish state), or how long the history of the failure of every other alternative.

Still, in our heart of hearts, do we really mean that all terrorism is equally to be condemned? Isn’t the thought going to occur: What are the poor Israelis to do, given the vast military power of the Palestinians as compared to their own meager resources, not to mention the enormous economic, military, and diplomatic assistance given to Palestine by its unwavering and entirely uncritical ally, the United States, the world’s only superpower?

Alright: Consider a purely hypothetical counterfactual. Suppose the situation were reversed, and it was Israel that was actually the occupying power, the oppressor, the impoverisher, the assassinator, and so on? In those circumstances, wouldn’t the civilized world be increasingly outraged at Israel’s behavior?

Of course, I understand that this may seem preposterous, since it is impossible to imagine that a Jewish state—a Jewish state!—could ever behave in such a manner. Still, it may be that such a “thought experiment” could be useful.

Posted by Philip Weiss at 11:32 PM in Gaza, Israel/Palestine, Jerome Slater, U.S. Policy in the Mideast | Permalink

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Saturday, February 14, 2009

gaza, israel's elections, and blood sports -- Special Valentine's Day Edition, 2

the absurd tymes
 
Mourners at a funeral in Gaza
 
 
Palestinian Firemen at work where water is in short supply
 
 Blood shed in order to prevent future holocausts in Germany.
Illustrations:  See captions.
 
 
A few good things have already happened. Obama (and Rahm) figured that this bi-partisanship wasn't all the Republicans cracked it up to be and finally got a spending (stimulus) bill passed. Maybe the recession will not tumble into a Depression after all. However, remember the standard way to measure unemployment: Take whatever percentage the government gives you and double it. That gives a conservative estimate.
Another encouraging development: people think those who sanctioned torture should be prosecuted. I'd like to see Eric Holder work on this but if the House and Senate have to do it, ok. But no immunity, ok guys? And start with the Generals and work UP, not down.
We have a few items on the Middle East. First a letter you can send, then an interview with Jimmie Carter. Derschowitz has been taking credit for getting Carter off the stage at the convention and with the last book a bunch of the "semi-concerned" activists quit his center. Now he is freer and has a good book out. finally, a discussion of the mess the last election created.
A FAT man
of the Likud
changed its name.
The Likud
continued
as well.
Labor
led by a war monger
finished fourth.
This is not the way to a two state solution.
 
 
**********************************************
One of our readers sent this to one of his senators. I've changed it a bit to make it more generic,
and to make easier to modify for sending purposes to your Congressman or Senator. Perhaps
It is now possible to make a difference by "writing to your congressman" as our President, by
taking their cause to the people, has already made a difference:
We used to be known throughout the world as a champion of democracy and freedom
for all who wanted it, even against tyrants and military occupations.

Isn't Gaza such a place? Who controls Gaza, is it an independent state?
Obviously not.
Israel controls Gaza and the West Bank and can shut down its borders anytime it likes,
or shut off power, water or food supplies.
The whole world watches with dismay as well over a thousand people are killed
by the IDF (Israeli Defense Force) in retaliation for rocket fire from somewhere in Gaza. Most of these
casualties are civilians, women and children, injured or killed by massive strikes, phosphorous bombs that burn
the flesh worse than napalm. The helicopters, jets, tanks and other weapons are made and supplied
by us, along with billions of dollars in aid each year.
In the same spirit as Ronald Reagan once damatically said, "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall."
I can see our Congress saying to Prime Minister Ehud lmert "Mr. Prime Minister.
let Gaza and the West Bank go". lt Palestine become an independent state, let the land go, stop occupying and
threatening two million Palestinians.
The "Green Line" is an internationally recognized border, why not use
it to delineate the two states?
Does anyone ever ask why rockets are fired at Israel, what motivates such
attacks? Do all occupied people not 'yearn to breathe free',
do we not sympathize with the Palestinians?

I realize huge pro-Israel lobbying force exists in D.C. so great courage is
needed to speak out. Why do we fear to confront Israel and
instead approve all that they do? Did not the Gaza pullout by Israeli forces a
day before the inauguration of President Obama send a clear enough signal? The US and Israel are too close, we need our
independence as well as the Palestinians.

Let the international community help, let UN forces observe the peaceful
transition to the two states and let it be done now.
We give billions of I presume taxpayer dollars to Israel each and every year.
Could not some of that be withheld until Israel finally
agrees to a two state solution? Otherwise, what motivation have they to stop
occupying and yes, 'ghetto-izing' Palestinians? Thank you for reading this.
*********************************************
Carter is Back!
 
AMY GOODMAN: The leaders of Israel's two main parties, Likud and Kadima, have both claimed victory in an early general election. In a few minutes, we'll turn to analysis of the election results, but first we go to former US President Jimmy Carter. His latest book is We Can Have Peace in the Holy Land: A Plan that Will Work. President Carter says he wrote the book because President Obama is "facing a major opportunity and responsibility to lead in ending conflict between Israel and its neighbors." President Carter writes, "The time is now. Peace is possible."
President Carter's previous book, Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, generated a great deal of controversy here in the United States. Last year, he was removed from the speakers list at the Democratic National Convention in Denver, reportedly because of his outspoken criticism of Israel's policies in the West Bank and Gaza. Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz has publicly claimed he pushed Obama not to allow Carter to speak at the convention.
Well, yesterday I interviewed President Carter yesterday about the US role in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process and Israel's invasion of Gaza.
AMY GOODMAN: President Carter, it's good to have you on Democracy Now!

    JIMMY CARTER: Well, thank you, Amy. It's good to be with you and your millions of viewers and listeners.

    AMY GOODMAN: Well, you've written a new book. It's called We Can Have Peace in the Holy Land: A Plan that Will Work. What is that plan?

    JIMMY CARTER: Well, the plan is a diametric opposite from what is the trend now by Israel in the West Bank—and that is to make one state, one nation, all the way from the Mediterranean to the Jordan River—and that is the two-day solution, which is generally adopted by the United States government, the road map for the international community, the United Nations resolutions, and also unanimously by all twenty-two Arab nations. That is a two-state solution based on Israel's withdrawal, basically to the 1967 borders, the sharing of Jerusalem and so forth. And that's been spelled out and accepted for a long time.

    And so, I think that the plan that I outline in my book is one that has practical aspects of modification of the basic two-state solution that both sides can accept overwhelmingly. One of the key issues would be to leave about half of the Israeli settlers in Palestine where they are—that is, those nearest to Jerusalem—and swap them an equivalent amount of land, say, acre for acre, to be used for a corridor, a narrow corridor between the West Bank and Gaza, about thirty-five miles' distance. And that could be used to make a train route or either a highway still to be controlled by Israel's security. I discussed this particular plan with Ariel Sharon in January of 2005, and he agreed with me completely on it.

    AMY GOODMAN: President Carter, the Israeli attack on Gaza, do you think it set back hopes for peace now?

    JIMMY CARTER: In a way. I think it was a completely unnecessary war—and I wrote an editorial for the Washington Post accordingly—because it could have been avoided easily.

    But in the long term, it may actually produce a more enthusiastic move toward a comprehensive settlement, in that for the first time, really, in a long time, maybe forever, the European countries have been directly involved in trying to bring about an accommodation. The President of France, Sarkozy, has been over there. The Prime Minister of Great Britain, Gordon Brown, has been over there. And the European Union leaders have been over there to work with the Egyptians, who have been negotiating for a number of months now between Israel and Hamas, for instance, to bring about a permanent ceasefire.

    What Hamas wants is just to have an open supply, an adequate supply of food and water and fuel and medicine to go in to the one-and-a-half million Palestinians who are imprisoned, basically, within Gaza. And what the Israelis want is an end of Hamas rockets and mortar fire. So, those two things can be worked out. So I think it may be that this horrendous attack on Gaza will precipitate a more enthusiastic move toward a comprehensive peace agreement.

    AMY GOODMAN: You say that it could have been avoided. You actually met with Hamas in December. We interviewed Robert Pastor on our broadcast, who went with you. Can you talk about how you think this attack could have been avoided?

    JIMMY CARTER: Well, I went over there first in April, and I met with the leaders of Israel and Fatah and Egypt and Syria and Hamas. And in the past, Hamas has insisted on a ceasefire only if it included the West Bank. And Israel was adamantly opposed to that. So I induced Hamas to accept a ceasefire just for Gaza, and the Egyptians negotiated that, and it began the 19th of June, and it lasted for six months.

    Toward the end of that period, obviously it was breaking down, so I went back to the area and met with the Hamas leaders. And they said that they would have a complete ceasefire if Israel would just restore an adequate amount of supplies to the people in Gaza. I couldn't go to the West Bank, but Robert Pastor, whom you interviewed, and also Hrair Balian, who's in charge of the peace program for the Carter Center, went to Israel and asked the Israeli defense leaders, Defense Department leaders, if they would agree to that. And the answer came back the next day: they would only supply 15 percent, about one-sixth, of the supplies that the people in Gaza needed. So that meant that the ceasefire could not be renewed, and it precipitated rocket fire from Gaza and the attack on Gaza by the Israelis.

    AMY GOODMAN: The prosecutor, the ICC prosecutor's office, has said that the International Criminal Court at The Hague, the prosecutor for it, has launched a preliminary analysis to establish whether Israel committed war crimes in its offensive against Gaza. Documents also show the Palestinian National Authority has recognized the jurisdiction of the ICC, in a move designed to allow investigations of alleged crimes in the Palestinian territories. What are your thoughts about this?

    JIMMY CARTER: I don't believe that Israel has accepted the authority of the International Criminal Court, so it may be a moot effort. But I think that if the Palestinians can prevail in having an assessment made, then that might clear the air. But I don't think there's any chance of the International Criminal Court imposing any sort of penalties on Israel.

    AMY GOODMAN: Do you think Israeli leaders should be tried?

    JIMMY CARTER: No, I don't. I don't think that would be fruitful. I think it would be a mistake to make a move of this kind. But I do hope that there will be a complete revelation of what has occurred, and that's why I've been involved. That's why I've written an op-ed piece for the Washington Post. And that's why I'm talking to you. I think that out of this whole debacle or horrible catastrophe that's occurred to the one-and-a-half million folks in Gaza, that a new momentum can be generated, particularly with a new president in the White House and a superb new envoy or negotiator, that will lead toward a peace agreement.

    AMY GOODMAN: President Obama has yet to really talk about the Jewish settlements. The Jewish settlements are a major obstacle to a two-state solution. What is your assessment of the Obama administration and where they stand?

    JIMMY CARTER: Well, I think that Obama has made an unprecedented move of an aggressive nature toward a peace agreement in the Middle East that escaped his predecessors in recent years. And that is, he started working on the Mideast peace problem the first day he was in office. And he's appointed an envoy who is most superbly qualified as a mediator and knows the area quite well and also is fairly balanced between Israel and its neighbors, or neutral. And that's what's required. In fact, George Mitchell has already been condemned by some of the Jewish American organizations, because he is neutral or balanced, which has not been the case with the previous envoys. I was neutral or balanced back thirty years ago when I negotiated between Sadat and Begin and brought a peace agreement. And you have to look at both sides in order to have any sort of peace proposals that have a chance to be accepted by both sides.

    AMY GOODMAN: But this issue of not mentioning the settlements, although what he has said has gone further than any president in the past.

    JIMMY CARTER: Well, he's only been in office a few days. And I think what happened was that he made a choice of an envoy. He made clear that this issue would be on the top of his agenda. He made calls to the leaders in the Middle East, I think the day he was inaugurated, as a matter of fact. And then, he's appointed a person that can look at both sides. I think that's a very good step forward.

    He did condemn the suffering of the women and children and civilians in Gaza when the attack was underway. But I think he's been waiting to let George Mitchell come back from the Mideast, prepare a trip report—that is, delineate what he found to be facts and what his recommendations might be—before Obama makes a public statement on those issues. I think that's a wise political move for him to make.

    AMY GOODMAN: What about what should happen in Gaza right now, President Carter, with the continued blockade?

    JIMMY CARTER: Well, I think that the—what Hamas has always wanted, in my dealings with them and in their public statements, is just one thing, basically, and that is to open up supply routes in the closed border going into Gaza, through the enormous wall that surrounds Gaza, so that food and water and medicine and fuel can go in to the one-and-a-half million people. When Israel was in control of Gaza, before July—or before 2005, the average amount of fuel and so forth going in was 750 truckloads a day for one-and-a-half million people. But the Israelis have never been willing to go more than 15 percent or 25 percent of that, which means that, in effect, the Gazans either starve to death or they have to bring in food and so forth in the tunnels that go from Gaza out into Egyptian Sinai Desert region.


AMY GOODMAN: Former President Jimmy Carter has written a new book. It's called We Can Have Peace in the Holy Land. When we come back from break, we'll go back to the interview. Stay with us.
[break]
AMY GOODMAN: We return to our interview with former President Jimmy Carter. His latest book, We Can Have Peace in the Holy Land.

    AMY GOODMAN: President Carter, on the issue of Afghanistan—Barack Obama made his position known early on Iraq, saying he was opposed to the war with Iraq, even before the US invasion. But on the issue of Afghanistan, he is for a surge there.

    On Democracy Now!, we just interviewed the attorney Cherif Bassiouni, who was the UN investigator, human rights investigator, in 2005. After he came out with his report very critical of the US military, saying it committed human rights abuses, he was fired as the investigator, under pressure from the United States. His assessment is that war is not the answer. What is your assessment, President Carter?

    JIMMY CARTER: Well, that's one area that I think I would disagree with Obama, as far as a surge that would lead to more intense bombing of Afghan villages and centers and the heavy dependence on military. I would like to see us reach out more to be accommodating and negotiate with all of the factions in Afghanistan.

    I notice that Obama is also much cooler in his assessment of President Karzai than was George W. Bush and knows that he's not been effective. He's basically just governed right around the capital city, and his brother is well known to be one of the major drug dealers. So I think that to reach out to offer a hand of friendship or accommodation, not only to the warlords, but even to those radicals in the Taliban who are willing to negotiate, would be the best approach, than to rely exclusively on major military force.

    And I don't think there's any doubt that General Petraeus and others that have made the assessment over there are telling Obama that this is a much more serious problem than Bush previously thought and also that a major surge, as was accomplished in Iraq, would only be effective if you could get the ones who are now opposed to US forces to change their position and be more accommodating to our presence, and with a future glimpse of when the United States occupation would expire.

    AMY GOODMAN: So, are you opposed to a surge in Afghanistan, President Carter?

    JIMMY CARTER: Well, if it's a surge of a military nature only, then I would be opposed to it. But I'm not convinced that that's what Obama wants, and I'm not convinced that that's what General Petraeus and others are recommending. I'm not privy to their secret assessments that have been now shared between them and President Obama.

    AMY GOODMAN: Right, but just the fact, on that issue of the military, they're clearly calling for tens of thousands of more soldiers to go into Afghanistan. Do you see a parallel with what happened in Iraq?

    JIMMY CARTER: Some, but I think if the soldiers going in there are mainly to maintain order and to reach out to the people in an accommodating way, that's one thing. If the soldiers are going in there to greatly escalate our military attacks, then I think that would be a mistake.

    AMY GOODMAN: Do you think cutting aid to Israel would be a way to achieve Middle East peace?

    JIMMY CARTER: No, I don't. That has been done in a couple of occasions. I did it once when I was in office, when Israel made an unwarranted invasion of Lebanon, in my opinion. And I notified the prime minister of Israel at the time that this violated US law, in that our sale of weapons to Israel was predicated on Israel using the weapons for defensive purposes only. That's a present US law and was then. And so, they withdrew from Lebanon under that pressure.

    When George H.W. Bush was in office, he witnessed the escalation of Israeli settlement building in a major settlement area between Jerusalem and Bethlehem. That's only a distance of about six miles, by the way. And he actually withheld several hundred millions of US aid money to Israel, and then Prime Minister Shamir backed down and stopped construction on that particular settlement area under pressure from the United States and the withholding of actual funds. I think $400 million was finally withheld. And so—but as soon as George H.W. Bush went out of office, the settlement was recommenced, and it's now been basically completed.

    So, on two occasions, that was done in the past, but I don't see that that's a fruitful way to threaten Israel, with withholding of funds. We give Israel about $10 million dollars in aid each day, and that's a lot of money. But, you know, I think we feel obligated to do it, and I wish that we would give an equivalent amount of aid to the suffering Palestinians.

    AMY GOODMAN: Has President Obama sought out your advice on the Middle East, President Carter? You've met with him several times.

    JIMMY CARTER: Not directly. When he heard that I was going to—I notified him that I was going to the Middle East in December, that I would be meeting with the Lebanese, who are going to have an election on the 7th of June, which the Carter Center will probably monitor. I also told him I was going to Syria, a nation with which we do not have diplomatic relations, and that I was going to meet with Hamas leaders and others.

    He asked me to make a report to him after I came back, which I did. So, the night before the five presidents met in the highly publicized meeting in the Oval Office in the White House, I met with President Obama—President-elect Obama then—quite extensively. My wife was in the room taking notes, and David Axelrod was the only other person in the room taking notes. He never did comment. So just the four of us. And I told him about all the work of the Carter Center, and most of his questions, that took up more than half the time, was about the Middle East. It was at that time that I gave him the only copy of my new book that I had, which I had just read over to make sure it didn't have any mistakes in it.

    AMY GOODMAN: Helen Thomas, who questioned you when you were president, now is questioning the tenth president that she has covered as the dean of the White House press corps, President Obama, asked President Obama, "Do you know of any country in the Middle East that has nuclear weapons?" He evaded that question.

    JIMMY CARTER: That's interesting. Helen Thomas is one of the best reporters that ever served in the White House. She used to give me some tough questions, which I never avoided, by the way, but I noticed that later, in George W. Bush's term, he pretty well excluded Helen Thomas from the approved interrogators of him. But I think she has some very appropriate questions.

    AMY GOODMAN: Well, she was clearly alluding to Israel. Do you think the Middle East should be a nuclear-free zone?

    JIMMY CARTER: I would like to see it nuclear-free. There's no doubt that Israel does have a large nuclear arsenal. This has been known ever since before I became president, and even Israeli leaders have said publicly that this is true.

    AMY GOODMAN: President Carter, thank you very much for joining us.

    JIMMY CARTER: I've enjoyed talking to you. Thanks very much. Bye-bye.


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********************************************
 
And the new news = the old news:
AMY GOODMAN: The leaders of Israel's two main parties have both claimed victory in an early general election. With 99 percent of the votes counted Wednesday morning, Tzipi Livni's centrist Kadima Party was in first place with twenty-eight seats, while Benjamin Netanyahu's right-wing Likud Party was a close second with twenty-seven seats. Both need coalition partners to gather the sixty-one seats needed to form a government in the 120-seat Israeli Knesset.
This puts the ultra-nationalist Yisrael Beiteinu party led by Avigdor Lieberman in a key position, after finishing third with fifteen seats. Meanwhile, the Labor Party, led by Defense Minister Ehud Barak, finished in an unprecedented fourth place.
The election has been dominated by security issues, following Israel's three-week assault on the Gaza Strip. Final results will come within days, when election officials finish counting soldiers' votes and other absentee ballots.
Early Wednesday, Tzipi Livni appealed to BB Netanyahu to join a national unity government that she would lead.
TZIPI LIVNI: [translated] In this evening, I'm turning to Benjamin Netanyahu. Before the election date was scheduled, I offered you to join a unity government under my leadership to handle the same challenges that are facing the state of Israel. You refused then. You refused and said that the people will decide, that the people should determine. The people have decided today: Kadima.

AMY GOODMAN: The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reports Netanyahu has a better chance of forging a coalition because of gains by right-wing parties, who are his natural allies. Netanyahu claimed victory Wednesday morning, saying a Likud-led coalition would lead Israel.

    BENJAMIN NETANYAHU: [translated] I will turn firstly to our natural partners in the nationalist camp to form a coalition government, as I promised. I've spoken with the parties' heads already this evening, and we scheduled to begin discussions tomorrow morning about founding a new government in the state of Israel.


AMY GOODMAN: Once the final results are in, President Shimon Peres will consult with party leaders to determine who among them stands the best chance of forming a coalition government. He does not have to choose the leader of the largest party. The chosen party leader then has up to forty-two days to form a coalition. If the attempt fails, Peres can ask another leader to assume the task.

Elections were called early, after Livni failed to form a new government following Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's decision to step down last year amidst a corruption probe against him. Olmert will stay on as caretaker prime minister until a new government is formed.

For analysis on the election results, we're joined by two guests. Dr. Mustafa Barghouti is an independent Palestinian lawmaker and democracy activist. He happens to be in the United States now. He is joining us from Washington, D.C. We're also joined on the telephone from Beersheba, Israel, Neve Gordon, professor of politics and government at Ben-Gurion University and the author of Israel's Occupation.

We welcome you both to Democracy Now! Let us start in Israel first. Professor Gordon, what is your response to what is happening right now?

NEVE GORDON: I think the Israeli political system has been for several years in a crisis mode, and we've seen that none of the governments in the past, I think, decade or even more, lasted their full term, because there's a crisis of representation and so forth.

And when a country is in a crisis, there can be change in basically two directions. There can be a renewal of politics for a more moral, a more accepting politics. And there can be another way, which is more a xenophobic, neo-fascist tendency, is a turn to the right, a blaming of the other for all your faults.

I think what we see in these elections is that the whole political map has turned even further right than it was. We have to remember that Kadima, which basically won the elections by one point, most of its members were Likud members. And so, we have the Likud, and then we have the Likud II, and then we have Yisrael Beiteinu. Together, they form probably close to 80 percent of the electorate. And so, we have an extremely right-wing Knesset now. Some of the parties are with actually neo-fascist tendencies.

And I think the implications internally will be detrimental and even devastating. And I think the implications with Israel's relations with its neighbors, and particularly the Palestinians, are going to be extremely harsh. And the likelihood that the Israeli government will lead any kind of peace initiative or agree to any kind of peace initiative is slim without external pressure.

AMY GOODMAN: Dr. Mustafa Barghouti, your first response?

DR. MUSTAFA BARGHOUTI: I totally agree with what Neve has just said. This is a very serious shift, but not only to the right; this is a shift to racism. In my opinion, in these elections, Israel has completed the transformation into an apartheid state with an apartheid racist political system.

And this is the outcome of two processes. One is the implantation of fear and hatred in the Israeli society by the Israeli establishment. The army is a big part of that establishment, and the military-industrial complex is a second big part. And the second factor has been the complicity of the international community. The United States administration, previous administration, the European governments, the whole official international community has been complicit with Israeli crimes, war crimes in Gaza and in other places, and silent about forty-one years of occupation. So, basically, people in Israel think they can do what they want. If they violate human rights in such a terrible manner and nobody is objecting, I think they think they can move forward towards racism and an apartheid system, and that is unfortunately the case today.

In addition to what was said about practically the Likud racist approach dominating the whole scene, with Livni and Netanyahu—and here I would agree that there aren't much differences between the two. Maybe you can say that both of them are racist. Only, Netanyahu is a blunt racist, and Livni is a racist with some makeup. But they both represent the same.

Barak, on the other hand, who was supposed to represent what you call left-centrist party, shocked everybody, in my opinion, by being even more extreme and more racist. When he described Lieberman, who's clearly a neo-fascist and a very dangerous element, he said—he accused him not of being a fascist, not of being an extreme, but he criticized him for not being tough enough. He said, "This is a lamb in hawk's clothing. And when did he ever shoot anybody by himself?" So Barak was competing with Lieberman by saying, "I am the man who shot Palestinians. I am the man who executed Palestinians with my own hands."

And that gives you a very, very simple picture of how tragic the situation is in Israel today. And it puts us all, as Palestinians, in front of a very clear task: we have to struggle against this apartheid system, we have to break this apartheid system. But the challenge now is on the side of the whole international community, which has been either silent or complicit or trying to avoid the issue, when it is very clear.

AMY GOODMAN: We're going to go to break and then come back to this discussion. I want to ask you, Dr. Mustafa Barghouti, as you sit not far from the Capitol right now in Washington, D.C., if you are meeting with US government officials. And, Neve Gordon, I want to ask you about the rise of Avigdor Lieberman and exact what he represents, for example, calling for loyalty oaths for Israeli Arabs to take if they want to stay in Israel. This is Democracy Now! We'll be back in a minute.

[break]

AMY GOODMAN: As we talk about the Israeli elections, this is Avigdor Lieberman, leader of the extreme right-wing party Yisrael Beiteinu, which means "Israel, Our Home," speaking last week.

    AVIGDOR LIEBERMAN: [translated] Israel is under combined terror attack from inside and outside the country. Internal terror is more dangerous than the external one, and we should understand that and react accordingly.


AMY GOODMAN: This is an excerpt of a commercial from the Yisrael Beiteinu party.

    YISRAEL BEITEINU AD: [translated] Ahmad Tibi said that Hezbollah captures soldiers because of the Israeli foolishness. His salary is 35,000 shekels. Shame and disgrace. No loyalty, no citizenship.


AMY GOODMAN: And this is Hanin Zoubi, the first Palestinian Israeli woman to stand for election. She spoke out against the politics represented by Avigdor Lieberman on Tuesday. Zoubi is running on the Balad ticket, an Arab party in Israel.

    HANIN ZOUBI: [translated] Indeed, Lieberman is a natural result of the racist policies in this country for sixty years. Lieberman didn't bring anything new. All the parties demand loyalty from the Arabs. The right, what's called the center, what's called by mistake left or center-left, they all demand loyalty from the Arabs. The new thing by Lieberman is only giving the punishment. The punishment for no loyalty is pulling the citizenship.


AMY GOODMAN: I want to go now to Neve Gordon, who's head of the Politics Department at Ben-Gurion University in the Negev. He's author of the book Israel's Occupation. In fact, his home was under fire from the Hamas rockets, his kids in a bomb shelter. Professor Gordon, your response to Avigdor Lieberman? His rise, were you surprised by it? And exactly what are the policies he represents?

NEVE GORDON: Let me begin by noting that this morning I taught my political theory class, and we were teaching John Stuart Mill's On Liberty. And what I think John Stuart Mill would say is that Lieberman is more dangerous to Israel than, say, Hamas, because Lieberman can destroy the Israeli political realm more easily than Hamas, because Lieberman does not want to allow any view that is other than his own, any criticism of the government, to enter the Israeli political realm, and that is an anti-democratic and an anti-political message that he's giving the Israeli citizenship. So I think Lieberman is extremely dangerous. As I mentioned before, I think his party has strong neo-fascist tendencies, and I think that their rise is a manifestation of the direction Israel is going. And I would say it's an anti-Israeli stance.

I do partially agree with the representative from Balad that we cannot understand this as an island, as something totally new, but rather something that has been building up. What we see in—before the elections, that in all the high schools in Israel, Lieberman was the leading party in [inaudible] votes. So we see that the younger generation is supporting these neo-fascist tendencies. And we cannot blame the schools from it, but we have to blame the whole atmosphere in Israel, which is indeed a racist atmosphere, an anti-Arab atmosphere, anti-Palestinian Arab atmosphere. And Lieberman, what he has learned to do well is to feed on the hatred and the fear of the Arabs, to use a xenophobic method. And this is extremely dangerous. And to tell you the truth, I fear for Israel. I fear for the citizenry in Israel. And I think we are in a watershed moment in Israeli politics.

AMY GOODMAN: But this issue of loyalty oaths, explain what that is.

NEVE GORDON: It's unclear exactly what it is. And that's part of its power, is the—it's whoever is not loyal to the state, according to what Lieberman and his friends believe is loyal, their citizenship can be stripped. What people are saying is that he's talking about Arabs that are supporting the Palestinian cause for a state and supporting maybe even Hezbollah. They're not loyal, and therefore their citizenship should be stripped.

Now, history teaches us how these things go. You begin by stripping the loyalty of an Arab that supported the Hezbollah, and then you strip the citizenship of an Arab that supported the Palestinian Authority, and then you start stripping the citizens of certain lefty Jews, and that's how things go.

So—and what is interesting about all of this is that Netanyahu, the leader of Likud, said that he supports the motion of stripping citizenship to those who are unloyal to the state. But he said the only—"My only problem with Lieberman's proposal is that Lieberman doesn't tell us exactly how to enforce it, and it's very difficult to enforce." So, conceptually, ideologically, it's a much broader political spectrum that's supporting this connection between loyalty and citizenship, and that is extremely dangerous, I think.

AMY GOODMAN: Dr. Mustafa Barghouti, you heard the interview with former President Jimmy Carter. Do you think a two-state solution is still possible in the aftermath of the assault on Gaza? And what is the extent of the settlements now in the West Bank?

DR. MUSTAFA BARGHOUTI: First of all, let me please comment a little bit about Lieberman. I think when he speaks about loyalty, he's practically speaking about ethnic cleansing, to repeat some acts of ethnic cleansing that took place in Palestine in 1948. But it's about getting rid of the Arabs who live in Israel and who have Israeli citizenship and who represent 20 percent of the population.

And more than that, when he speaks about loyalty, just to make it clear, it would be anybody who is against war, for instance, that is conducted by Israel, on Gaza or anywhere else, would be considered as an illoyal or unloyal citizen. Anybody who is not supporting occupation would become not loyal to Israel. This is why it's very dangerous and risky. It is putting the oppressed, which are the Palestinians and the Arabs, who are oppressed from racism and discrimination, in a situation where either they approve of their own oppression by the Israeli government or they become disloyal to the Israeli government and then entitled to losing their citizenship. That is the risk, and that's why it looks like a very clear neo-fascist approach.

Now, on the issue of settlements, I want to say that since 1967 there hasn't been any period where there was a real freeze of settlement activities. On the contrary, they have been growing at a much faster rate, especially during the times of the so-called peace process. During Annapolis period, the rate at which settlement continued to expand was forty times more than before Annapolis. And now we are witnessing the creation of even new—whole new settlements. That was under Kadima. That was under the coalition of Labor and Kadima, Livni and Barak, and without Netanyahu. So you can imagine what would be the case.

In my opinion, we have reached a very critical moment, and that's why these elections are of great importance, because the bringing in of racist tendency in Israel and this whole extreme coalition into the Israeli government, which would be the case, is happening exactly at a moment when we are about to lose the last opportunity of two-state solution, because of the growth of settlements, because of the fragmentation of the West Bank, because of the consolidation of a situation where Palestinians practically live now in bantustans and ghettos. And they're in a situation where, after fifteen years of the creation of the Palestinian Authority, the only road open for it by Israel is to become only a security sub-agent for occupation and something like Vichy government in a bantustan entity. That is the risk. And that's why this is dangerous, not only because it is against peace, but also it is like the last hit in the direction of killing the final or the last opportunity of two-day solution.

And this has been a subject that I've been discussing here with many people in the United States administration. At the Senate yesterday, I had a very, very good meeting with John Kerry, the head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. And I hope. I hope. The only thing that can stop this wave of extremism, this wave against peace, is only a strong United States stance. I don't know if it will happen. But I can tell you, this is the time of challenge. If the United States does not immediately take steps to stop settlement expansion and if the United States does not immediately take steps to tell Israel enough is enough, I think the two-states option will be lost forever.

AMY GOODMAN: Do you feel, Dr. Mustafa Barghouti, as you come here to Washington—you've come here many times—that you've come into a new era, a new government? Do you think President Obama represents something different? And what are your thoughts on George Mitchell as his Middle East envoy?

DR. MUSTAFA BARGHOUTI: Absolutely. It is early to say still, because, you know, many appointments have not been filled yet, but so far, from what I have seen from the people I have met with, you can feel the breeze of change in Washington. You can feel it's a totally different Washington from what we had, for instance, three months ago or two months ago.

And I would like to emphasize here that I believe that the last war on Gaza, plus other things that the Israeli government did jointly with the Bush administration, was nothing but an effort to create a preemptive strike against the Barack Obama administration. That was clear in the Resolution 1850, which tried to restrict the peace process only to the failing Annapolis process. And that was clear in the war and intensification of tension in the region, to prevent, in my opinion, peaceful dialogue with Syria and Iran that Barack Obama wants to have and to obstruct a fast and quick withdrawal from Iraq. But finally, that agreement that was concluded between Livni and Rice, in the very last hours before Rice left her position, was also a preemptive strike against this administration. But I tell you, I feel change. We looked forward to—

AMY GOODMAN: Explain what that—explain what that agreement was.

DR. MUSTAFA BARGHOUTI: That agreement was that the United States and NATO will be providing guarantees to Israel and provide protection to the occupying force, being Israel, and to prevent the resistance of the Palestinian people who are under occupation. So this is the first time in human history where, from one side, the people under occupation in West Bank are supposed, through this huge security apparatus, which is consuming 34 percent of our budget, depriving us from healthcare and education—the Palestinian Authority is supposed to provide protection to its occupiers, and the world community has to provide protection to the occupying force of Gaza, in this case the Israeli occupying force. That is the essence of the—

AMY GOODMAN: And George Mitchell?

DR. MUSTAFA BARGHOUTI: About Mitchell, I think that is a positive—I think the appointment of Senator Mitchell was perceived in the Middle East as a very positive step. I consider it very positive. I know Mitchell. We've met before. I know that his stand on settlements was very clear.

And now is the change. I think after coming to the area one or two—two or three times more, it will be clear whether he—that the only recommendation can—he should make immediately is to stop settlement activities. And if that does not happen, then, unfortunately, I think the whole area would go into a complete collapse of the peace process.

I think I feel here in Washington some new trends. First of all, there is more sensitivity to the issue of settlements. I think there is more inclination to accept our view, our point of view, that Palestinians are—should be allowed to have a national unity government, and thirdly, that we should allow Palestinian democracy to be revived. You know that Israel has slaughtered the democratic transformation in Palestine by arresting our members of parliament. And if Israel is entitled to democratic elections, then I think we, as Palestinians, are entitled to that.

I believe this is just a beginning. I hope we will go in the right direction. And maybe these results of elections in Israel will show everybody the time has come for a real change in the American policy. Every value that President Obama spoke about—values of respect of human rights, of democracy, of respect for Geneva Convention, avoiding torture, justice, equality, equal opportunity—every value of those are violated by Israel.

AMY GOODMAN: We're going to have to leave it there. Dr. Mustafa Barghouti, independent Palestinian lawmaker and democracy activist, ran for president of the Palestinian Authority. Neve Gordon teaches politics, head of the Department of Politics and Government at Ben-Gurion University in the Negev. He is author of Israel's Occupation.

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Wednesday, February 04, 2009

Bi-Partisan Scam

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THE ABSURD TIMES
Illustration: Kieth Tucker from www.whatnowtoons.com -- exactly what is happening.
It is about time for Obama to wake up and stop foisting this cumbaya bullshit about bi-partisanship. He met with Republicans, made a big deal about honoring John McCain, and made appointments of Republicans to his cabinet. The result was that every single Republican voted AGAINST the stimulus. In fact, the only sign of bi-partisanship came from about 12 Democrats who voted with the Republicans. The Republicans' priorities are symbolized in the cartoon above.
Then he decided to appoint another Republican from a state with a Democratic governor. The appointment itself is pretty stupid as the guy is a right-winger, but on top of it the stupid governor promised to appoint a Republican to take his place. And Obama is still appointing him! Screw that!
One salient thing about the entire Blagojevich affair is that it sets a standard for future conduct in politics. Anyone who did anything as bad or worse than Blagojevich needs to be punished. After all, all the media, every pundit, every mouth, every politican, said his behavior was intolerable.
Well, so are war crimes. Therefore, our administration needs to prosecute Bush, Cheney (who just announced that Obama's closing of Guantanamo means that we will be attacked by terrorists), Rumsfield, and the rest of the crowd has to be taken down, locked up. And let's not forget Gates, the current Defense Secretary, who was bribed, in part, by the previous administration to take the job with a 6 to 12 million grant to his university in defiance of the peer review policy. (Don't ask me how I know, I do and that's enough.)
And the tax problems of Dashel et. al. What Obama should do is not have Daschel withdraw, but rather prosecute the IRS for failing to catch those errors in the first place.
Also, Obama needs to fire and replace all the Republican-appointed prosecutors and replace them with democrats. This includes Fitzgerald who bungled the investigation of Rove, Cheney, et. al about the Plame affair. Past Attornies General under whose auspices war crimes, especially torture, were pronounced legal need to be prosecuted and stripped of their right to practice.
Forget about Afghanistan -- you are not going do do any good there, Barak, declare war on the Republicans, our real enemy.
Learn from the past. Adlai Stevenson, a former Governor of Illinios, when he was elected governor, decided that everyone who was doing their job, Republican or not, would keep their job. They screwed him royally. The same is happening to Obama.
Forget this bi-partisan shit. It makes as much sense as ignoring the divide between the upper 1% income group and the rest of us. In fact, it amounts to the same thing. Starting with a cap of $500,000 for any CEO of any company getting federal money makes sense. Extend it to all CEOs.
And I'm really getting sick of hearing "Bi-Partisan".
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Here are a couple articles on real priorities:

Health Care Now

The whole world is in recession. But the United States is the only wealthy country in which the economic catastrophe will also be a health care catastrophe - in which millions of people will lose their health insurance along with their jobs, and therefore lose access to essential care.

Which raises a question: Why has the Obama administration been silent, at least so far, about one of President Obama's key promises during last year's campaign - the promise of guaranteed health care for all Americans?

Let's talk about the magnitude of the looming health care disaster.

Just about all economic forecasts, including those of the Obama administration's own economists, say that we're in for a prolonged period of very high unemployment. And high unemployment means a sharp rise in the number of Americans without health insurance.

After the economy slumped at the beginning of this decade, five million people joined the ranks of the uninsured - and that was with the unemployment rate peaking at only 6.3 percent. This time the Obama administration says that even with its stimulus plan, unemployment will reach 8 percent, and that it will stay above 6 percent until 2012. Many independent forecasts are even more pessimistic.

Why, then, aren't we hearing more about ensuring health care access?

Now, it's possible that those of us who care about this issue are reading too much into the administration's silence. But let me address three arguments that I suspect Mr. Obama is hearing against moving on health care, and explain why they're wrong.

First, some people are arguing that a major expansion of health care access would just be too expensive right now, given the vast sums we're about to spend trying to rescue the economy.

But research sponsored by the Commonwealth Fund shows that achieving universal coverage with a plan similar to Mr. Obama's campaign proposals would add "only"

about $104 billion to federal spending in 2010 - not a small sum, of course, but not large compared with, say, the tax cuts in the Obama stimulus plan.

It's true that the cost of universal health care will be a continuing expense, reaching far into the future. But that has always been true, and Mr. Obama has always claimed that his health care plan was affordable. The temporary expenses of his stimulus plan shouldn't change that calculation.

Second, some people in Mr. Obama's circle may be arguing that health care reform isn't a priority right now, in the face of economic crisis.

But helping families purchase health insurance as part of a universal coverage plan would be at least as effective a way of boosting the economy as the tax breaks that make up roughly a third of the stimulus plan - and it would have the added benefit of directly helping families get through the crisis, ending one of the major sources of Americans' current anxiety.

Finally - and this is, I suspect, the real reason for the administration's health care silence - there's the political argument that this is a bad time to be pushing fundamental health care reform, because the nation's attention is focused on the economic crisis. But if history is any guide, this argument is precisely wrong.

Don't take my word for it. Rahm Emanuel, the White House chief of staff, has declared that "you never want a serious crisis to go to waste." Indeed. F.D.R. was able to enact Social Security in part because the Great Depression highlighted the need for a stronger social safety net. And the current crisis presents a real opportunity to fix the gaping holes that remain in that safety net, especially with regard to health care.

And Mr. Obama really, really doesn't want to repeat the mistakes of Bill Clinton, whose health care push failed politically partly because he moved too slowly: by the time his administration was ready to submit legislation, the economy was recovering from recession and the sense of urgency was fading.

One more thing. There's a populist rage building in this country, as Americans see bankers getting huge bailouts while ordinary citizens suffer.

I agree with administration officials who argue that these financial bailouts are necessary (though I have problems with the specifics). But I also agree with Barney Frank, the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, who argues that - as a matter of political necessity as well as social justice - aid to bankers has to be linked to a strengthening of the social safety net, so that Americans can see that the government is ready to help everyone, not just the rich and powerful.

The bottom line, then, is that this is no time to let campaign promises of guaranteed health care be quietly forgotten. It is, instead, a time to put the push for universal care front and center. Health care now!


From: Z Net - The Spirit Of Resistance Lives
URL: http://www.zcommunications.org/znet/viewArticle/20464
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Tom Dispatch

posted 2009-02-02 17:32:32

Tomgram: Chalmers Johnson, Economic Death Spiral at the Pentagon

Recently, reviewing lobbying disclosure reports, the Washington Times discovered "that 18 of the top 20 recipients of federal bailout money spent a combined $12.2 million lobbying the White House, the Treasury Department, Congress, and federal agencies during the last quarter of 2008." Citibank alone, according to the New York Times, fielded "an army of Washington lobbyists," plunking down $1.77 million in lobbying fees just in the fourth quarter of last year.

And it isn't only sinking financial institutions begging for federal dollars that have bolstered their Washington lobbying corps. So have the biggest U.S. armaments companies -- "drastically," according to reporter August Cole of the Wall Street Journal. In 2008, he found, Northrop Grumman almost doubled its lobbying budget to $20.6 million (from $10.9 million the previous year); Boeing upped its budget from $10.6 million to $16.6 million in the same period; and Lockheed-Martin, the company that received the most contracts from the Pentagon last year, hiked its lobbying efforts by a whopping 54% in 2008.

If you want to get a taste of what that means, then click here to view an ad for that company's potentially embattled boondoggle, the F-22, the most expensive jet fighter ever built. What you'll discover is not just that it will "protect" 300 million people -- that's you, if you live in the USA -- but that it will also employ 95,000 of us. In other words, the ad's threatening message implies, if the Obama administration cuts this program in bad times, it will throw another 95,000 Americans out on the street. Now that's effective lobbying for you, especially when you consider, as Chalmers Johnson does below, that for any imaginable war the U.S. might fight in the coming decades, the F-22 will be a thoroughly useless plane.

We don't usually think of the Pentagon as a jobs-and-careers scam operation, a kind of Mega-Madoff Ponzi scheme that goes BOOM!, though it is clearly designed for the well-being of defense contractors, military officers, and congressional representatives; nor do we usually consider the "defense" budget as a giant make-work jobs racket, as arms experts Bill Hartung and Christopher Preble recently suggested, but it's never too late.

Chalmers Johnson, author of the already-classic Blowback Trilogy, including most recently Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic, makes vividly clear just how little the Pentagon is organized to consider the actual defense needs of the United States. In many ways, it remains a deadly organization of boys with toys that now poses a distinct economic danger to the rest of us. (Check out, as well, a TomDispatch audio interview with Johnson on the Pentagon's economic death spiral by clicking here). Tom

The Looming Crisis at the Pentagon

How Taxpayers Finance Fantasy Wars
By Chalmers Johnson

Like much of the rest of the world, Americans know that the U.S. automotive industry is in the grips of what may be a fatal decline. Unless it receives emergency financing and undergoes significant reform, it is undoubtedly headed for the graveyard in which many American industries are already buried, including those that made televisions and other consumer electronics, many types of scientific and medical equipment, machine tools, textiles, and much earth-moving equipment -- and that's to name only the most obvious candidates. They all lost their competitiveness to newly emerging economies that were able to outpace them in innovative design, price, quality, service, and fuel economy, among other things.

A similar, if far less well known, crisis exists when it comes to the military-industrial complex. That crisis has its roots in the corrupt and deceitful practices that have long characterized the high command of the Armed Forces, civilian executives of the armaments industries, and Congressional opportunists and criminals looking for pork-barrel projects, defense installations for their districts, or even bribes for votes.

Given our economic crisis, the estimated trillion dollars we spend each year on the military and its weaponry is simply unsustainable. Even if present fiscal constraints no longer existed, we would still have misspent too much of our tax revenues on too few, overly expensive, overly complex weapons systems that leave us ill-prepared to defend the country in a real military emergency. We face a double crisis at the Pentagon: we can no longer afford the pretense of being the Earth's sole superpower, and we cannot afford to perpetuate a system in which the military-industrial complex makes its fortune off inferior, poorly designed weapons.

Double Crisis at the Pentagon

This self-destructive system of bloated budgets and purchases of the wrong weapons has persisted for so long thanks to the aura of invincibility surrounding the Armed Forces and a mistaken belief that jobs in the arms industry are as valuable to the economy as jobs in the civilian sector.

Recently, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Michael Mullen began to advocate nothing less than protecting the Pentagon budget by pegging defense spending to a fixed percentage of gross domestic product (GDP, the total value of goods and services produced by the economy). This would, of course, mean simply throwing out serious strategic analysis of what is actually needed for national defense. Mullen wants, instead, to raise the annual defense budget in the worst of times to at least 4% of GDP. Such a policy is clearly designed to deceive the public about ludicrously wasteful spending on weapons systems which has gone on for decades.

It is hard to imagine any sector of the American economy more driven by ideology, delusion, and propaganda than the armed services. Many people believe that our military is the largest, best equipped, and most invincible among the world's armed forces. None of these things is true, but our military is, without a doubt, the most expensive to maintain. Each year, we Americans account for nearly half of all global military spending, an amount larger than the next 45 nations together spend on their militaries annually.

Equally striking, the military seems increasingly ill-adapted to the types of wars that Pentagon strategists agree the United States is most likely to fight in the future, and is, in fact, already fighting in Afghanistan -- insurgencies led by non-state actors. While the Department of Defense produces weaponry meant for such wars, it is also squandering staggering levels of defense appropriations on aircraft, ships, and futuristic weapons systems that fascinate generals and admirals, and are beloved by military contractors mainly because their complexity runs up their cost to astronomical levels.

That most of these will actually prove irrelevant to the world in which we live matters not a whit to their makers or purchasers. Thought of another way, the stressed out American taxpayer, already supporting two disastrous wars and the weapons systems that go with them, is also paying good money for weapons that are meant for fantasy wars, for wars that will only be fought in the battlescapes and war-gaming imaginations of Defense Department "planners."

The Air Force and the Army are still planning as if, in the reasonably near future, they were going to fight an old-fashioned war of attrition against the Soviet Union, which disappeared in 1991; while the Navy, with its eleven large aircraft-carrier battle groups, is, as William S. Lind has written, "still structured to fight the Imperial Japanese Navy." Lind, a prominent theorist of so-called fourth-generation warfare (insurgencies carried out by groups such as al-Qaeda), argues that "the Navy's aircraft-carrier battle groups have cruised on mindlessly for more than half a century, waiting for those Japanese carriers to turn up. They are still cruising today, into, if not beyond, irrelevance… Submarines are today's and tomorrow's capital ships; the ships that most directly determine control of blue waters."

In December 2008, Franklin "Chuck" Spinney, a former high-ranking civilian in the Pentagon's Office of Systems Analysis (set up in 1961 to make independent evaluations of Pentagon policy) and a charter member of the "Fighter Mafia" of the 1980s and 1990s, wrote, "As has been documented for at least twenty years, patterns of repetitive habitual behavior in the Pentagon have created a self-destructive decision-making process. This process has produced a death spiral."

As a result, concluded Spinney, inadequate amounts of wildly overpriced equipment are purchased, "new weapons [that] do not replace old ones on a one for one basis." There is also "continual pressure to reduce combat readiness," a "corrupt accounting system" that "makes it impossible to sort out the priorities," and a readiness to believe that old solutions will work for the current crisis.

Failed Reform Efforts

There's no great mystery about the causes of the deep dysfunction that has long characterized the Pentagon's weapons procurement system. In 2006, Thomas Christie, former head of Operational Test and Evaluation, the most senior official at the Department of Defense for testing weapons and a Pentagon veteran of half a century, detailed more than 35 years of efforts to reform the weapons acquisition system. These included the 1971 Fitzhugh (or Blue Ribbon) Commission, the 1977 Steadman Review, the 1981 Carlucci Acquisition Initiatives, the 1986 Packard Commission, the 1986 Goldwater-Nichols Department of Defense Reorganization Act, the 1989 Defense Management Review, the 1990 "Streamlining Review" of the Defense Science Board, the 1993-1994 report of the Acquisition Streamlining Task Force and of the Defense Science Board, the late 1990s Total System Performance Responsibility initiative of the Air Force, and the Capabilities-Based Acquisition approach of the Missile Defense Agency of the first years of this century.

Christie concluded: "After all these years of repeated reform efforts, major defense programs are taking 20 to 30 years to deliver less capability than planned, very often at two to three times the costs and schedules planned." He also added the following observations:

"Launching into major developments without understanding key technical issues is the root cause of major cost and schedule problems… Costs, schedules, and technical risks are often grossly understated at the outset… There are more acquisition programs being pursued than DoD [the Department of Defense] can possibly afford in the long term…

"By the time these problems are acknowledged, the political penalties incurred in enforcing any major restructuring of a program, much less its cancellation, are too painful to bear. Unless someone is willing to stand up and point out that the emperor has no clothes, the U.S. military will continue to hemorrhage taxpayer dollars and critical years while acquiring equipment that falls short of meeting the needs of troops in the field."

The inevitable day of reckoning, long predicted by Pentagon critics, has, I believe, finally arrived. Our problems are those of a very rich country which has become accustomed over the years to defense budgets that are actually jobs programs and also a major source of pork for the use of politicians in their reelection campaigns.

Given the present major recession, whose depths remain unknown, the United States has better things to spend its money on than Nimitz-class aircraft carriers at a price of $6.2 billion each (the cost of the USS George H. W. Bush, launched in January 2009, our tenth such ship) or aircraft that can cruise at a speed of Mach 2 (1,352 miles per hour).

However, don't wait for the Pentagon to sort out such matters. If it has proven one thing over the last decades, it's that it is thoroughly incapable of reforming itself. According to Christie, "Over the past 20 or so years, the DoD and its components have deliberately and systematically decimated their in-house technical capabilities to the point where there is little, if any, competence or initiative left in the various organizations tasked with planning and executing its budget and acquisition programs."

Gunning for the Air Force

President Obama has almost certainly retained Robert M. Gates as Secretary of Defense in part to give himself some bipartisan cover as he tries to come to grips with the bloated defense budget. Gates is also sympathetic to the desire of a few reformers in the Pentagon to dump the Lockheed-Martin F-22 "Raptor" supersonic stealth fighter, a plane designed to meet the Soviet Union's last proposed, but never built, interceptor.

The Air Force's old guard and its allies in Congress are already fighting back aggressively. In June 2008, Gates fired Secretary of the Air Force Michael W. Wynne and Air Force Chief of Staff General T. Michael Moseley. Though he was undoubtedly responding to their fervent support for the F-22, his cover explanation was their visible failure to adequately supervise the accounting and control of nuclear weapons.

In 2006, the Air Force had managed to ship to Taiwan four high-tech nose cone fuses for Minutemen ICBM warheads instead of promised helicopter batteries, an error that went blissfully undetected until March 2008. Then, in August 2007, a B-52 bomber carrying six armed nuclear cruise missiles flew across much of the country from Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota to Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana. This was in direct violation of standing orders against such flights over the United States.

As Julian Barnes and Peter Spiegel of the Los Angeles Times noted in June 2008, "Tensions between the Air Force and Gates have been growing for months," mainly over Gates's frustration about the F-22 and his inability to get the Air Force to deploy more pilotless aircraft to the various war zones. They were certainly not improved when Wynne, a former senior vice president of General Dynamics, went out of his way to cross Gates, arguing publicly that "any president would be damn happy to have more F-22s around if we had to get into a fight with China." It catches something of the power of the military-industrial complex that, despite his clear desire on the subject, Gates has not yet found the nerve -- or the political backing -- to pull the plug on the F-22; nor has he even dared to bring up the subject of canceling its more expensive and technically complicated successor, the F-35 "Joint Strike Fighter."

More than 20 years ago, Chuck Spinney wrote a classic account of the now-routine bureaucratic scams practiced within the Pentagon to ensure that Congress will appropriate funds for dishonestly advertised and promoted weapons systems and then prevent their cancellation when the fraud comes to light. In a paper he entitled "Defense Power Games," of which his superiors deeply disapproved, Spinney outlined two crucial Pentagon gambits meant to lock in such weaponry: "front-loading" and "political engineering."

It should be understood at the outset that all actors involved, including the military officers in charge of projects, the members of Congress who use defense appropriations to buy votes within their districts, and the contractors who live off the ensuing lucrative contracts, utilize these two scams. It is also important to understand that neither front-loading nor political engineering is an innocent or morally neutral maneuver. They both involve criminal intent to turn on the spigot of taxpayer money and then to jam it so that it cannot be turned off. They are de rigueur practices of our military-industrial complex.

Front-loading is the practice of appropriating funds for a new weapons project based solely on assurances by its official sponsors about what it can do. This happens long before a prototype has been built or tested, and invariably involves the quoting of unrealistically low unit costs for a sizeable order. Assurances are always given that the system's technical requirements will be simple or have already been met. Low-balling future costs, an intrinsic aspect of front-loading, is an old Defense Department trick, a governmental version of bait-and-switch. (What is introduced as a great bargain regularly turns out to be a grossly expensive lemon.)

Political engineering is the strategy of awarding contracts in as many different Congressional districts as possible. By making voters and Congressional incumbents dependent on military money, the Pentagon's political engineers put pressure on them to continue supporting front-loaded programs even after their true costs become apparent.

Front-loading and political engineering generate several typical features in the weapons that the Pentagon then buys for its arsenal. These continually prove unnecessarily expensive, are prone to break down easily, and are often unworkably complex. They tend to come with inadequate supplies of spare parts and ammunition, since there is not enough money to buy the numbers that are needed. They also force the services to repair older weapons and keep them in service much longer than is normal or wise. (For example, the B-52 bomber, which went into service in 1955, is still on active duty.)

Even though extended training would seem to be a necessary corollary of the complexity of such weapons systems, the excessive cost actually leads to reductions in training time for pilots and others. In the long run, it is because of such expedients and short-term fixes that American casualties may increase and, sooner or later, battles or wars may be lost.

For example, Northrop-Grumman's much touted B-2 stealth bomber has proven to be almost totally worthless. It is too delicate to deploy to harsh climates without special hangars first being built to protect it at ridiculous expense; it cannot fulfill any combat missions that older designs were not fully adequate to perform; and -- at a total cost of $44.75 billion for only 21 bombers -- it wastes resources needed for real combat situations.

Instead, in military terms, the most unexpectedly successful post-Vietnam aircraft has been the Fairchild A-10, unflatteringly nicknamed the "Warthog." It is the only close-support aircraft ever developed by the U.S. Air Force. Its task is to loiter over battlefields and assist ground forces in disposing of obstinate or formidable targets, which is not something that fits comfortably with the Air Force's hot-shot self-image.

Some 715 A-10s were produced and they served with great effectiveness in the first Persian Gulf War. All 715 cumulatively cost less than three B-2 bombers. The A-10 is now out of production because the Air Force establishment favors extremely fast aircraft that fly in straight lines at high altitudes rather than aircraft that are useful in battle. In the Afghan war, the Air Force has regularly inflicted heavy casualties on innocent civilians at least in part because it tries to attack ground targets from the air with inappropriately high-performance equipment.

Using the F-22 to Fight the F-16

The military-industrial complex is today so confident of its skills in gaming the system that it does not hesitate to publicize how many workers in a particular district will lose their jobs if a particular project is cancelled. Threats are also made -- and put into effect -- to withhold political contributions from uncooperative congressional representatives.

As Spinney recalls, "In July 1989, when some members of Congress began to build a coalition aimed at canceling the B-2, Northrop Corporation, the B-2's prime contractor, retaliated by releasing data which had previously been classified showing that tens of thousands of jobs and hundreds of millions in profits were at risk in 46 states and 383 congressional districts." The B-2 was not cancelled.

Southern California's biggest private employers are Boeing Corporation and Northrop-Grumman. They are said to employ more than 58,000 workers in well-paying jobs, a major political obstacle to rationalizing defense expenditures even as recession is making such steps all but unavoidable.

Both front-loading and political engineering are alive and well in 2009. They are, in fact, now at the center of fierce controversies surrounding the extreme age of the present fleet of Air Force fighter aircraft, most of which date from the 1980s. Meanwhile the costs of the two most likely successors to the workhorse F-16 -- the F-22 Raptor and the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter -- have run up so high that the government cannot afford to purchase significant numbers of either of them.

The F-16 made its first flight in December 1976, and a total of 4,400 have been built. They have been sold, or given away, all over the world. Planning for the F-22 began in 1986, when the Cold War was still alive (even if on life support), and the Air Force was trumpeting its fears that the other superpower, the USSR, was planning a new, ultra-fast, highly maneuverable fighter.

By the time the prototype F-22 had its roll-out on May 11, 1997, the Cold War was nearly a decade in its grave, and it was perfectly apparent that the Soviet aircraft it was intended to match would never be built. Lockheed Martin, the F-22's prime contractor, naturally argued that we needed it anyway and made plans to sell some 438 airplanes for a total tab of $70 billion. By mid-2008, only 183 F-22s were on order, 122 of which had been delivered. The numbers had been reduced due to cost overruns. The Air Force still wants to buy an additional 198 planes, but Secretary Gates and his leading assistants have balked. No wonder. According to arms experts Bill Hartung and Christopher Preble, at more than $350 million each, the F-22 is "the most expensive fighter plane ever built."

The F-22 has several strikingly expensive characteristics which actually limit its usefulness. It is allegedly a stealth fighter -- that is, an airplane with a shape that reduces its visibility on radar -- but there is no such thing as an airplane completely invisible to all radar. In any case, once it turns on its own fire-control radar, which it must do in combat, it becomes fully visible to an enemy.

The F-22 is able to maneuver at very high altitudes, but this is of limited value since there are no other airplanes in service anywhere that can engage in combat at such heights. It can cruise at twice the speed of sound in level flight without the use of its afterburners (which consume fuel at an accelerated rate), but there are no potential adversaries for which these capabilities are relevant. The plane is obviously blindingly irrelevant to "fourth-generation wars" like that with the Taliban in Afghanistan -- the sorts of conflicts for which American strategists inside the Pentagon and out believe the United States should be preparing.

Actually, the U.S. ought not to be engaged in fourth-generation wars at all, whatever planes are in its fleet. Outside powers normally find such wars unwinnable, as the history of Afghanistan, that "graveyard of empires" going back to Alexander the Great, illustrates so well. Unfortunately, President Obama's approach to the Bush administration's Afghan War remains deeply flawed and will only entrap us in another quagmire, whatever planes we put in the skies over that country.

Nonetheless, the F-22 is still being promoted as the plane to buy almost entirely through front-loading and political engineering. Some apologists for the Air Force also claim that we need the F-22 to face the F-16. Their argument goes this way: We have sold so many F-16s to allies and Third World customers that, if we ever had to fight one of them, that country might prevail using our own equipment against us. Some foreign air forces like Israel's are fully equipped with F-16s and their pilots actually receive more training and monthly practice hours than ours do.

This, however, seems a trivial reason for funding more F-22s. We should instead simply not get involved in wars with former allies we have armed, although this is why Congress prohibited Lockheed from selling the F-22 abroad. Some Pentagon critics contend that the Air Force and prime contractors lobby for arms sales abroad because they artificially generate a demand for new weapons at home that are "better" than the ones we've sold elsewhere.

Thanks to political engineering, the F-22 has parts suppliers in 44 states, and some 25,000 people have well-paying jobs building it. Lockheed Martin and some in the Defense Department have therefore proposed that, if the F-22 is cancelled, it should be replaced by the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, also built by Lockheed Martin.

Most serious observers believe that this would only make a bad situation worse. So far the F-35 shows every sign of being, in Chuck Spinney's words, "a far more costly and more troubled turkey" than the F-22, "even though it has a distinction that even the F-22 cannot claim, namely it is tailored to meet the same threat that… ceased to exist at least three years before the F-35 R&D [research and development] program began in 1994."

The F-35 is considerably more complex than the F-22, meaning that it will undoubtedly be even more expensive to repair and will break down even more easily. Its cost per plane is guaranteed to continue to spiral upwards. The design of the F-22 involves 4 million lines of computer code; the F-35, 19 million lines. The Pentagon sold the F-35 to Congress in 1998 with the promise of a unit cost of $184 million per aircraft. By 2008, that had risen to $355 million per aircraft and the plane was already two years behind schedule.

According to Pierre M. Sprey, one of the original sponsors of the F-16, and Winslow T. Wheeler, a 31-year veteran staff official on Senate defense committees, the F-35 is overweight, underpowered, and "less maneuverable than the appallingly vulnerable F-105 'lead sled' that got wiped out over North Vietnam in the Indochina War." Its makers claim that it will be a bomber as well as a fighter, but it will have a payload of only two 2,000-pound bombs, far less than American fighters of the Vietnam era. Although the Air Force praises its stealth features, it will lose these as soon as it mounts bombs under its wings, which will alter its shape most un-stealthily.

It is a non-starter for close-air-support missions because it is too fast for a pilot to be able to spot tactical targets. It is too delicate and potentially flammable to be able to withstand ground fire. If built, it will end up as the most expensive defense contract in history without offering a serious replacement for any of the fighters or fighter-bombers currently in service.

The Fighter Mafia

Every branch of the American armed forces suffers from similar "defense power games." For example, the new Virginia-class fast-attack submarines are expensive and not needed. As the New York Times wrote editorially, "The program is little more than a public works project to keep the Newport News, Va., and Groton, Conn., naval shipyards in business."

I have, however, concentrated on the Air Force because the collapse of internal controls over acquisitions is most obvious, as well as farthest advanced, there -- and because the Air Force has a history of conflict over going along with politically easy decisions that was recently hailed by Secretary of Defense Gates as deserving of emulation by the other services. The pointed attack Gates launched on bureaucratism was, paradoxically, one of the few optimistic developments in Pentagon politics in recent times.

On April 21, 2008, the Secretary of Defense caused a storm of controversy by giving a speech to the officers of the Air War College at Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama. In it, he singled out for praise and emulation an Air Force officer who had inspired many of that service's innovators over the past couple of generations, while being truly despised by an establishment and an old guard who viewed him as an open threat to careerism.

Colonel John Boyd (1927-1997) was a significant military strategist, an exceptionally talented fighter pilot in both the Korean and Vietnamese war eras, and for six years the chief instructor at the Fighter Weapons School at Nellis Air Force Base in Las Vegas. "Forty-Second Boyd" became a legend in the Air Force because of his standing claim that he could defeat any pilot, foreign or domestic, in simulated air-to-air combat within 40 seconds, a bet he never lost even though he was continuously challenged.

Last April, Gates said, in part:

"As this new era continues to unfold before us, the challenge I pose to you today is to become a forward-thinking officer who helps the Air Force adapt to a constantly changing strategic environment characterized by persistent conflict.

"Let me illustrate by using a historical exemplar: the late Air Force Colonel John Boyd. As a 30-year-old captain, he rewrote the manual for air-to-air combat. Boyd and the reformers he inspired would later go on to design and advocate for the F-16 and the A-10. After retiring, he would develop the principals of maneuver warfare that were credited by a former Marine Corps Commandant [General Charles C. Krulak] and a Secretary of Defense [Dick Cheney] for the lightning victory of the first Gulf War….

"In accomplishing all these things, Boyd -- a brilliant, eccentric, and stubborn character -- had to overcome a large measure of bureaucratic resistance and institutional hostility. He had some advice that he used to pass on to his colleagues and subordinates that is worth sharing with you. Boyd would say, and I quote: 'One day you will take a fork in the road, and you're going to have to make a decision about which direction you want to go. If you go one way, you can be somebody. You will have to make compromises and you will have to turn your back on your friends. But you will be a member of the club and you will get promoted and get good assignments. Or you can go the other way and you can do something -- something for your country and for your Air Force and for yourself. If you decide to do something, you may not get promoted and get good assignments and you certainly will not be a favorite of your superiors. But you won't have to compromise yourself. To be somebody or to do something. In life there is often a roll call. That's when you have to make a decision. To be or to do'… We must heed John Boyd's advice by asking if the ways we do business make sense."

Boyd's many accomplishments are documented in Robert Coram's excellent biography, Boyd: The Fighter Pilot Who Changed the Art of War. They need not be retold here. It was, however, the spirit of Boyd and "the reformers he inspired," a group within Air Force headquarters who came to be called the "Fighter Mafia," that launched the defense reform movement of the 1980s and 1990s. Their objectives were to stop the acquisition of unnecessarily complex and expensive weapons, cause the Air Force to take seriously the idea of a fourth generation of warfare, end its reliance on a strategy of attrition, and expose to criticism an officer's corps focused on careerist standards.

Unless Secretary Gates succeeds in reviving it, their lingering influence in the Pentagon is just about exhausted today. We await the leadership of the Obama administration to see which way the Air Force and the rest of the American defense establishment evolves.

Despite Gates's praise of Boyd, one should not underestimate the formidable obstacles to Pentagon reform. Over a quarter-century ago, back in 1982, journalist James Fallows outlined the most serious structural obstacle to any genuine reform in his National Book Award-winning study, National Defense. The book was so influential that at least one commentator includes Fallows as a non-Pentagon member of Boyd's "Fighter Mafia."

As Fallows then observed (pp. 64-65):

"The culture of procurement teaches officers that there are two paths to personal survival. One is to bring home the bacon for the service as the manager of a program that gets its full funding. 'Procurement management is more and more the surest path to advancement' within the military, says John Morse, who retired as a Navy captain after twenty-eight years in the service….

"The other path that procurement opens leads outside the military, toward the contracting firms. To know even a handful of professional soldiers above the age of forty and the rank of major is to keep hearing, in the usual catalogue of life changes, that many have resigned from the service and gone to the contractors: to Martin Marietta, Northrop, Lockheed, to the scores of consulting firms and middlemen, whose offices fill the skyscrapers of Rosslyn, Virginia, across the river from the capital. In 1959, Senator Paul Douglas of Illinois reported that 768 retired senior officers (generals, admirals, colonels, and Navy captains) worked for defense contractors. Ten years later Senator William Proxmire of Wisconsin said that the number had increased to 2,072."

Almost 30 years after those words were written, the situation has grown far worse. Until we decide (or are forced) to dismantle our empire, sell off most of our 761 military bases (according to official statistics for fiscal year 2008) in other people's countries, and bring our military expenditures into line with those of the rest of the world, we are destined to go bankrupt in the name of national defense. As of this moment, we are well on our way, which is why the Obama administration will face such critical -- and difficult -- decisions when it comes to the Pentagon budget.

Chalmers Johnson is the author of three linked books on the crises of American imperialism and militarism. They are Blowback (2000), The Sorrows of Empire (2004), and Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic (2006). All are available in paperback from Metropolitan Books. To listen to a TomDispatch audio interview with Johnson on the Pentagon's potential economic death spiral, click here.

Copyright 2009 Chalmers Johnson