All this chatter about Bush and Syria and poison gas reminded me to order Jeremy Scahill’s new book Dirty Wars: The World Is A Battlefield. You should read it too.
Here’s Scahill talking about the targeted killing of Anwar Awlaki:
On May 2, 2011, the night President Obama informed the world that Osama bin Laden had been killed by a team of Navy SEALs in Pakistan, thousands of Americans poured into the streets in front of the White House and in New York’s Times Square, chanting, “USA, USA, USA!”
The families of people killed on 9/11 spoke of bin Laden’s death bringing closure. But the Al Qaeda leader’s demise breathed new life into Washington’s global “war on terror.” The elite Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), once shrouded in secrecy, became a household name overnight. The Disney Corporation tried to trademark the term “SEAL Team Six,” and Zero Dark Thirty, a high-profile Hollywood film, was hastily rewritten to focus on the operation; the filmmakers were even given access to sensitive material.
While the battle over leaks concerning the operation—as well as the various contradictory stories on how bin Laden was killed—raged in the media, the White House was deeply immersed in planning more lethal operations against so-called “High Value Targets.” Chief among these was Anwar al-Awlaki, an American citizen of Yemeni descent born in Las Cruces, New Mexico.
Three days after Obama’s news conference on bin Laden, the president’s counterterrorism team presented him with an urgent intelligence update on Awlaki. Along with signals intercepts by JSOC and the CIA and “vital details of Awlaki’s whereabouts” from Yemeni intelligence, the White House now had what it believed was its best shot to date at killing the radical cleric, whose fiery speeches denouncing the United States—and praising attacks on Americans—had placed him in the cross-hairs of the US counterterrorism apparatus.
US military aircraft were at the ready. Obama gave the green light. JSOC would run the operation. A Special Ops Dragon Spear aircraft mounted with short-range Griffin missiles blasted into Yemeni airspace, backed by Marine Harrier jets and Predator drones, and headed toward Shabwah Province. A Global Hawk surveillance aircraft would hover above to relay a live feed back to the mission planners…
It’s quite the story. And one to keep in mind over the next few days when you hear lots of people going on about violating norms and taboos and international agreements.
I know #Bush, like his unassuming, blunt honesty, self-deprecating humor. Will history back him on Iraq? No. His vision of freedom? Perhaps.
— Howard Fineman (@howardfineman) April 25, 2013
In the book, State of War, New York Times reporter James Risen wrote that days after Zubaydah was captured, CIA Director George Tenet went to the White House to provide Bush with a daily intelligence briefing as well as details of “the Zubaydah case.”
“Bush asked Tenet what information the CIA was getting out of Zubaydah,” Risen wrote. “Tenet responded that they weren’t getting anything yet, because Abu Zubdaydah had been so badly wounded that he was heavily medicated. He was too groggy from painkillers to talk coherently. Bush turned to Tenet and asked: ‘Who authorized putting him on pain medication?'”
The most common excuse his apologists make for such a sickening sadistic comment is that he was joking. Which they incomprehensibly believe excuses it.
The country is broke and our grandchildren will all be beggars in the streets but there’s always millions to spare for bullshit propaganda isn’t there?
The Peter G. Peterson Foundation has announced a $1 million grant to the newly established Warren B. Rudman Center for Justice, Leadership and Public Policy at the University of New Hampshire School of Law.
The grant will support the establishment of a Fiscal Responsibility Institute at the center as well as an annual conference focused on national budgetary issues. The center, which aims to provide scholarship, training, and opportunities for a new generation of leaders who value public service, was formally launched this week by an inaugural conference on the topic of “The Federal Budget and the Law: Finding a Way Forward.”
“Warren Rudman was the rarest of public servants, not only in office but when he left office,” said foundation chair Pete Peterson. “He did everything he could, and way before it was in fashion, to encourage both parties to become serious about our fiscal reality. The center will serve as a living tribute to Warren’s legacy of bipartisan leadership, efficient government, justice, and fiscal responsibility.”
He’s making sure that his noxious ideas never die.
In what appeared to be a new phase in an intensifying conflict that has raised fears of greater bloodshed and a wider sectarian war, Iraqi soldiers opened fire from helicopters on Sunni gunmen hiding in a northern village on Wednesday, officials said.
The air attack was among clashes throughout the country between forces of the Shiite-dominated Iraqi government and Sunni gunmen that left at least 27 people dead and dozens wounded. The Sunni tribesmen were continuing a fight that began on Tuesday after the Iraqi Army stormed a Sunni protest encampment in the village of Hawija, leaving dozens dead and injured.
Several others were killed on Wednesday in explosions, including the detonation of a car bomb at a public market in the evening in a Shiite neighborhood north of Baghdad, and a roadside bomb attack on an army patrol in Tikrit, also in the north.
The deadliest battles occurred near Hawija and Sulaiman Pek, northern towns near Kirkuk, and battles were still raging in the early evening. In Hawija, the army shut off electricity, and troops shouted through loudspeakers, urging civilians to evacuate, witnesses said. Government helicopters also fired at Sunni gunmen on the ground in Sulaiman Pek.
The Sunni uprising, having now turned violent, represents a significant challenge to Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, whose consolidation of power over the security forces and the judiciary, and his targeting of high-level Sunni leaders for arrest, has raised alarms among world powers. Mr. Maliki has presided over an unwieldy power-sharing government, which nominally gives prominent roles to Sunnis but in reality has resulted in political stasis, and he has signaled in recent months that he would prefer to move to a majority government, dominated almost solely by Shiites. On Tuesday, two Sunni ministers quit to protest the raid in Hawija, and the largest bloc of Sunni lawmakers suspended participation in Parliament.
Mr. Maliki made no public comments on the situation Wednesday, but on Tuesday, after being pressed by American officials and the United Nations, he said he would open an investigation into the events in Hawija, and promised to hold military officers accountable for any mistakes.
I’m going to take a wild leap and suggest that whenever the US decides to “liberate” someone, we really need to take a step back and be very sure that we can actually accomplish that and whether that’s what our leadership is really trying to do. It’s so tempting to see ourselves as heroes marching off to rescue the underdog and yet history often shows that our motives are rarely so pure. And we often leave things no better, and often worse, than before.
If we’ve learned nothing else over this past decade (or centuries of human history, for that matter) we should learn that much.
President Bush was a strong leader willing to risk his personal political standing to pursue important but difficult reforms:
Strengthened K-12 education, which resulted in dramatic improvement of math and reading scores across the board and narrowed the achievement gap between white and minority students.
Injected consumer and competitive forces into the healthcare system, imposing more discipline and lowering cost while improving quality.
Increased the involvement of faith-based and community organizations in the delivery of social services, improving efficiency and effectiveness.
Strengthened the border and fought for rational updates to America’s immigration system, laying the foundation for future reform.
Proposed strengthening Social Security for future retirees by allowing younger workers to put some payroll taxes into personal retirement accounts and by changing the benefit formula so that those who depend on the program the most would see their benefits rise over time more quickly than wealthier Americans.
President Bush made tough decisions that kept Americans safe after 9/11
Combated terror and tyranny by standing for freedom abroad and removing threatening regimes in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Ensured that the next president had every tool and capability available to protect the United States.
Merged more than 20 federal agencies to create the Department of Homeland Security.
Worked with Congress to pass the USA PATRIOT ACT and other measures to update American intelligence capabilities, many of which continue to be used today in the war on terror.
Established a Director of National Intelligence and tore down the wall between law enforcement and intelligence agencies.
Transformed the FBI’s focus from investigating events to preventing and stopping acts of terrorism.
Dismantled al-Qaeda by removing it from its safe haven and decimating its key leadership.
Persuaded Libya to disclose and dismantle WMD program and renounce terrorism.
Broke up A.Q. Khan network, which was selling nuclear enrichment capability to rogue states.
Used speeches, executive orders, public statements, and day-to-day leadership to keep the federal government focused on the threat of terrorism. This focus ensured that the federal government, at all levels, took all the steps it could within the law to keep America safe.
President Bush promoted freedom abroad
As President Bush said, “The survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands.” The idea of freedom is essential to keeping the United States safe and we reduce the risk of terrorism when extreme poverty and hopelessness are confronted head on
Fundamentally changed American foreign policy in the Middle East by refusing to pursue stability at the expense of democracy, and instead agitating for more democracy everywhere.
Doubled foreign assistance worldwide, while holding governments that accept U.S. assistance accountable for making democratic and economic reforms to increase transparency, strengthen their economies, improve the lives of their citizens, and ultimately decrease their dependence on aid.
Fought AIDS, malaria and other globally neglected diseases by providing life saving treatment for 2 million people and care for 10 million people, including more than 4 million orphans and vulnerable children.
Promoted international partnerships with India, Brazil, Mexico and Central America, to enhance global security and increased the number of countries partnering with the United States on Free TradeAgreements (FTAs) from three to 17.
President Bush created the conditions for private sector growth and rescued the financial system from the worst crisis since the Great Depression
President Bush believes that economic growth comes from the private sector, with firms competing to create new innovations and wealth in a free market. Government’s role is to set the rules for workers and firms rather than substitute for private efforts.
In his first year in office, President Bush responded to the recession created by the collapse of the tech bubble with a mix of economic reforms that included tax cuts for all Americans. In 2003, President Bush signed into law another round of tax cuts. What followed was more than four years of strong economic growth and strong employment.
President Bush’s policies rescued the financial system from the worst crisis since the Great Depression, provided tax relief for all Americans, submitted budgets that reduced and reigned in discretionary spending, and advanced the nation’s energy security.
No really. The put this out and have people using it on the TV today. And cable news gasbags are kind of into it. (makes ’em feel young I guess.) They are even spewing this bilge with straight faces.
Oh hey, did I forget the last page?
President Bush presided over both a catastrophic terrorist attack and a catastrophic financial crisis. He bungled the response to both of them.
He also invaded a country that hadn’t attacked us and tried to legalize torture and indefinite detention.
He left office the most unpopular president in history.
Not sidestepping controversy, Condoleezza Rice will defend the Bush administration’s enhanced interrogation and rendition program at the dedication of the George W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum on Thursday.
The remarks will appear in a five-minute video presentation, which was obtained by Foreign Policy in advance of the dedication. In the clip, Rice emphasizes Bush’s deep commitment to civil liberties and national security while making “difficult decisions” following the Sept. 11 terror attacks. She also claims the interrogation program prevented future attacks on the homeland.
“The president asked two very important questions in the decision to use these techniques,” says Rice of her former boss’s interrogation program. “He asked the CIA if it was necessary and he asked the Justice Department if it was legal. Both departments answered yes.”
“Only when he was satisfied that we could protect both our liberties and our security did he signal that we could go ahead,” says the former secretary of state. “The fact that we have not had a successful attack on our territory traces directly to those difficult decisions.” A portion of the clip appears below:
I went to the old Nixon library that was run by a bunch of weirdo loyalists. (It’s changed hands in recent years .) But I don’t think I saw anything in it that compared to the brazen bullshit in that clip.
So, they’ve crunched some real numbers and determined exactly how much money the average Social Security recipient can expect to lose if the Chained-CPI is implemented. I’m going to assume that if someone told you that the government was going to seize $15,000.00 from your 401k you’d think it was a cut:
Cognizant of the harm this benefit cut would do to seniors and people with disabilities over time, the Administration has proposed cushioning the effect by providing a partially compensatory bump in benefits from age 76-85 for retirees (or in the 15th-24th year of benefit receipt for people with disabilities). Yet for the average worker, this “benefit enhancement” never restores one’s annual benefit to what it would have been without the switch to the stingier COLA. And what is more, the bump does not return to the elderly the income they will lose between retirement and their 76th birthday — represented by all the space between the black and red lines above (for more detailed analysis, consult our fact sheet). Benefits decline steadily again from age 86 onward, when the vast majority of seniors have exhausted their savings and ability to work, and may have lost their partner as well.
To rich people, 15 grand amounts to tip money so they cannot see why average Americans shouldn’t be willing to give up such a paltry sum especially if it will “save” Social Security for their grandchildren.
Funny thing about that — it won’t. Save Social Security, that is. The green line is the present course of the trust fund. The dotted blue line is with the Chained-CPI:
As you can see, it adds about two years to the trust fund. If this so-called “shortfall” is the problem they seek to solve by switching to the Chained-CPI, I think we can agree that it’s a pretty pathetic solution. (And certainly, if we continue on the bipartisan path that says the only option is to cut the program, I’m going to guess all you young people will see an age 75 retirement age and a tiny, withered welfare program instead of this universal one when you get old.)
The only rational way to shore up the Social Security trust fund is to raise the cap on how much income is subject to the SS tax. In fact, there’s no good rationale not to at least go back to the Reagan standard in which 90 percent of wages were subject to SS taxes. Today only 83% of wages are subject to it because the the 1% hogs so much more of the nation’s wages. And the rest of their bounty from investments isn’t subject to the payroll tax at all.That would mean that $200,000 of its wages would be subject to the tax this year instead of $110,100. Honestly, I’m hard pressed to see why this is off the table ( especially considering that the Chained-CPI also raises taxes!)
And look at it this way, once the deadbeat baby boomers have finally shuffled off their mortal coils, the whole system will stabilize again and you can even talk about lowering the retirement age and the level of taxation back to where it was before all of us losers agreed to pay for the mistake of being born between 1947 and 1964 by retiring later and paying more all of our adult lives. It’s win-win.
Personally, I’m for Bernie Sanders’ plan to raise the cap on income above 250k. I happen to think that President Obama’s apparent desire to create a Grand Bargain to fix all fiscal and funding problems for all time is tilting at windmills at best (and hubristic nonsense at worst.) But if he really wants to do this, Sanders’ plan solves SS funding for at least 75 years, which would make a hell of a run at it. Barring that, we can at least go back to the Reagan era funding levels before we start chopping away again at benefits.
The sustainability of the current structure of benefits and financing of the OASDI program is not an issue directly addressed in the trustees report. This consideration is more political in nature, in that it depends on the wants and desires of the American people, as reflected by the actions of their elected representatives in the Congress. It is clear that modifications of the program benefit and tax levels can be made within the current program structure to restore sound financial status. But it is up to each generation to come to a consensus on the tax levels it is willing to pay and the benefit levels it wants to receive. Even the form of benefits and mode of financing, historically defined as monthly benefits financed generally on a PAYGO basis, are open to consideration by the American people and future Congresses.
The trustees report does, however, provide insight into the sustainability of currently scheduled benefits by providing a comparison of program cost and scheduled tax revenues, expressed as percentages of the total output of goods and services in the United States—our gross domestic product (GDP).
Projected OASDI cost is expected to rise from about 4.5 percent of GDP since 1990, to about 6 percent of GDP over the next 20 years, and to roughly stabilize at that level thereafter (see Chart 5). Although an increase in the cost of the program from 4.5 to 6 percent of GDP is substantial, the fact that the increase is not projected to continue after this “level shift” is important. Chart 5 focuses on the question of whether the level of benefits scheduled in current law should be maintained for future generations, at the price of higher taxes, or whether scheduled benefits should be reduced to levels affordable with the current taxes in the law.
This is a political choice. It’s not some law of God or nature that demands human sacrifice over which we have no power. We can choose to fund this program if we want to. This is a very wealthy country — a military superpower. We have all the resources and capital we need to take care of our elderly and sick population. If we choose to.
“I think it would be a good idea if perhaps we had the kids work for their lunches: trash to be taken out, hallways to be swept, lawns to be mowed, make them earn it,” Del. Ray Canterbury (R-Greenbrier) said during floor debate. “If they miss a lunch or they miss a meal they might not, in that class that afternoon, learn to add, they may not learn to diagram a sentence, but they’ll learn a more important lesson.”
Canterbury argued that providing students with free lunches would destroy their work ethic and show them “there’s an easy way,” the Charleston Gazette reported.
We can choose that workers not die in horrific mass accidents
by David Atkins
Matt Yglesias caused a lot of justified moral outrage yesterday when he suggested that weak Bangladeshi regulations leading to mass deaths were economically justifiable in the open labor marketplace. The argument goes that Bangladeshis make a calculated choice to take dangerous jobs, similar to those who drive trucks on ice or fish in stormy seas:
The reason is that while having a safe job is good, money is also good. Jobs that are unusually dangerous—in the contemporary United States that’s primarily fishing, logging, and trucking—pay a premium over other working-class occupations precisely because people are reluctant to risk death or maiming at work. And in a free society it’s good that different people are able to make different choices on the risk–reward spectrum…
Bangladesh is a lot poorer than the United States, and there are very good reasons for Bangladeshi people to make different choices in this regard than Americans. That’s true whether you’re talking about an individual calculus or a collective calculus. Safety rules that are appropriate for the United States would be unnecessarily immiserating in much poorer Bangladesh.
The gut instinct here is to deliver a rant full of righteous anger about the nature of global capitalism, the devaluation of life in developing countries, and the injustice of cheap Bangladeshi labor going to create cut denim that sells for $300 in developed countries while investors in garment companies drink champagne off the difference. But the problem with Yglesias’ argument isn’t so much that it’s morally craven or drawn from a position of comfort and first-world privilege. The bigger problem is that it shows the horrific extent to which rational actor theory has corrupted economic thought.
In order for conservative economics to work, it must be assumed that everyone has an abundance of choices as well as the information needed to make the proper choice. In the conservative worldview, businesses will automatically move in to fill every need in the marketplace at the highest price they can extract; consumers will carefully choose from among the products on offer, buying the best products offered for the lowest price; employees will find the companies that deliver them the best payment package and quality of life according to their skills sets; and companies will hire the best workers they can at the lowest wages they can.
All of this is supposed to be a beautiful system of free choice in which every product, service, and employee achieves its perfect value on the market, and in which every employee, consumer and business is free to make the choice that best befits their lifestyle and comfort with risk. If government simply steps out of the way and ceases to create “distortions” in the market, everything will be perfect. There will be no inflation, and any misery or failure will be solely attributable to the poor choices of those who are suffering.
There are, of course, innumerable problems with this worldview: not everyone has access to the information needed to make good choices; the amount of time needed to acquire said information is a time and energy cost that makes it not worth attaining; many people can be compelled or deceived into making poor “choices”; prejudice and other social ills can create inequities that betray market meritocracy; the global supply chain makes it difficult for consumers to know whom to punish when things go wrong; the rational actor system is unable to solve long-term problems like climate change for which consumer punishment is wholly inadequate; systems of taxpayer-funded services such as firefighters, roads and street lights would either cease to function, or only function in wealthy areas; and so on.
But the biggest problem with this worldview is the failure to recognize that human life and dignity are drearily cheap on the open market. Absent laws to prevent such exploitation, the open market looks like Dickensian England: abundant child labor, eighty hour work weeks, mass immiseration, horrific discrimination, and a host of other evils. It turns out that consumers don’t much care how a product was made so long as it works, and businesses are more than happy to institute revolting practices in order to create even more decadent wealth for owners and investors. Contrary to social conservative claims, there is no amount of religious fervor or charitable giving that even makes a dent in the horror of purely market-driven economics.
Which leads to the other great failure of rational actor theory in libertarian economics: the artificial separation of government and the governed in a democratic society. At least in representative democracies, the government exists as a mutual compact of citizens who choose to prevent the ills and excesses of the coldhearted markets by funding a protective system of checks and balances, social programs, guaranteed infrastructure, worker protections, product regulations, and a host of other goods and services that reduce the ability of the powerful to exploit the powerless on the open market. The choice to pay taxes to regulate meat companies so that consumers don’t have to do the research and take on the purchase risk of which companies’ hamburgers might be tainted, is just as equally valid a decision as the choice between going to Burger King or McDonalds.
What does all this have to do with Bangladesh? Everything. No Bangladeshi chooses to work in a dangerous factory at risk of implosion. They do so because they have little other choice, and because profit-driven companies are more than happy to exploit them while charging top dollar for the products they create so cheaply. Certainly, in theory that is a risk that Bangladesh and its citizens may take because if they instituted stronger wages and labor protections, the sociopathic corporations that hire desperate overseas labor would simply move on to the next country. That’s the rational actor theory at work.
But in theory we as citizens of the world can also choose to not allow those corporations to engage in recklessly criminal behavior anywhere in the world. We can choose as human beings living on planet earth to create a networked system of global checks and balances that can tell Nike and Levi’s that they will, in fact, not be taking as much excess profit on their preposterously overpriced products as they have been accustomed to do because we won’t allow them by treaty to pay workers less than a living wage or work them in dangerous conditions. They won’t be able to pass on the extra costs to consumers because there’s only so much the developed world will pay for a pair of jeans or sneakers. If that causes shares of Nike or Levi’s to fall on Wall Street, then so be it. It’s not as if record profits and high stock values were redounding to the benefit of workers or consumers in either the developed or developing world, anyway.
Nor is there any reason to suggest that our choices as activists and world citizens to constrain corporations in this way are any less valid than the choice of corporations to force workers into dangerous conditions, or of workers to accept those conditions. In fact, there is every argument to be made that if any rational choice is to be respected, it should be that of the world’s democratic citizens coming together to institute mutually agreed-upon policies that serve to benefit everyone except those who would profit off the misery and death of others. That, indeed, is the most beautiful rational choice of all.
The stopped clock that’s right twice a day, Rand Paul, “clarified” his comments from yesterday in which he said it would be ok for a drone plane to kill someone coming out of a liquor store with a gun and 50 bucks in his hand:
“My comments last night left the mistaken impression that my position on drones had changed.
“Let me be clear: It has not. Armed drones should not be used in normal crime situations. They may only be considered in extraordinary, lethal situations where there is an ongoing, imminent threat. I described that scenario previously during my Senate filibuster.
“Additionally, surveillance drones should only be used with warrants and specific targets.
“Fighting terrorism and capturing terrorists must be done while preserving our constitutional protections. This was demonstrated last week in Boston. As we all seek to prevent future tragedies, we must continue to bear this in mind.”
I’m not big on making policing policy around exceptions to “normal crime situations” particularly when terrorism has such a loose definition. But I’m glad to see that Paul agrees that shooting hellfire missiles at suspected liquor store robbers might be a bit over the top. (Sheesh, if you can’t count on a libertarian to hold the line on that, what good are they?)
