Fool me once...

...shame on you. Fool me twice, uh, you can't get fooled again. And fool me over and over again and I suspect the one you're fooling is yourself.

Greg Sargent at TPMCafe has gotten some excerpts from the House Dummycrat misleadership's bill related to Iraq.

[T]hough the bill mandates withdrawal by Fall 2008 at the latest, it's going to be at least partly a disappointment to some House liberals. That's because language that was in earlier drafts that would have clipped funding after the deadline - as opposed to merely declaring the war illegal - has been taken out.

House leaders will argue that the bill does do its job, because it declares the war illegal beyond a certain date. But liberal House sources say this removed language was critical in ending the war in practice, because it would enforce the war's end with the power of the purse rather than requiring a trip to court to force an end to the war should Bush insist on keeping it going in defiance of the legislation.

Exactly. What have the requirements of law meant to this administration so far? What requirements of the Constitution have they not felt free to ignore or subvert? What oath? What treaty? What solemn promise?

What the hell makes the Pelosi gang imagine for one second that come the end of August 2008 that Shrub will be unwilling to say that Congress can't override or limit his "authority as Commander-in-Chief to protect the lives and safety of American troops in the field" and "protect the nation from threats?" Dammit, I wish I had thought to save the link but I clearly recall reading not long ago of one member of the administration claiming that the original Iraq war resolution was actually unnecessary, that Bush could have gone ahead without one and that it was actually a political ploy to get Democrats to sign on to the war. We can certainly call bullshit on the argument but it still means that the White House is prepared to argue - in effect, already has argued - that Bush's CiC authority overrides any Congressional restriction.

They're not only gutless wonders, they're stupid gutless wonders. We are so screwed.

Footnote: Just to be clear, I have argued against the contention that the power of the purse is the only power Congress has, while agreeing it is the most effective and efficient. I maintain that Congress does indeed have the power to directly order the end to a conflict. What infuriates me here is the fanciful contention that Bush and the other acolytes of an imperial presidency would willingly acquiesce to such an order.

Take a guess

According to an AP story today,

[t]op House Democrats retreated Monday from an attempt to limit President Bush's authority for taking military action against Iran as the leadership concentrated on a looming confrontation with the White House over the Iraq war.

Officials said Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other members of the leadership had decided to strip from a major military spending bill a requirement for Bush to gain approval from Congress before moving against Iran.

Okay, take a guess as to why they did that. Go on, take a guess. I'll wait.

Nope. not that it was a distraction. Nope, not that it was divisive. Nope, not that it would be better dealt with in separate legislation. And nope, not - as some have urged - because Congress should present the idea of Bush needing authority to attack Iran as something to be taken for granted, thus requiring no legislation. Ready for the answer? Here it is:

Conservative Democrats as well as lawmakers concerned about the possible impact on Israel had argued for the change in strategy. ...

Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., said in an interview there is widespread fear in Israel about Iran, which is believed to be seeking nuclear weapons and has expressed unremitting hostility about the Jewish state.

"It would take away perhaps the most important negotiating tool that the U.S. has when it comes to Iran," she said of the now-abandoned provision.

"I didn't think it was a very wise idea to take things off the table if you're trying to get people to modify their behavior and normalize it in a civilized way," said Rep. Gary Ackerman of New York. [emphasis added]

But apparently, Ms. Berkley, Mr. Ackerman, it is "normal" and "civilized" practice to "modify" other nations' "behavior" through the threat of a massive military attack - even if that threat is exercised not for the benefit of the public, which is, at most, ambivalent about the supposed threat from Iran, and not even for the benefit of some supposed national security, but for the benefit of a third party whose interests many already argue are a controlling factor in our Middle East policy - an assertion I suspect the rest of us are finding increasingly difficult to doubt.

One last footnote

This from Juan Cole, quoting Iran-based Press TV for March 7.

Ma'ariv Daily has reported that an Israeli retired officer sells weapons to terrorist groups in Iraq.

Shmoel Avivi, an Israeli retired officer, had established a firm in Iraq 2 years ago, which secretly sold arms to terrorist groups in Iraq, Ma'ariv reported.

Amnesty International reported that Avivi was one of the biggest weapon dealers in the Middle East.

I don't care what anyone else says. He sold arms to "terrorists" in Iraq? He must be Iranian! He must be!

Another footnote: another way to become your enemy

Possibly few phrases in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict have been thrown against Palestinian politicians more often and with more force than "rejectionist front." That charge is not without truth when directed at some - but anyone who doubts that there is also a pro-Israel rejectionist front needs to check out the website of the reactionary gang at Think-Israel.org. (I don't normally provide links to right-wing sites; let them get their own hits. But in this case, the site is the topic and so the link is necessary.)

Just on the home page, it argues that "extremist Islam is the norm and normal Islam is extremely rare," cries "free Jonathan Pollard" (the convicted spy for Israel), and openly calls for rejection of peace agreements and for expulsion of Arabs: "To date the theme has been: give up the land and keep the Arabs. More Jews now see it would be better to keep the land - it is after all legally and by conquest Israel's - and give up the Arabs."

Articles in the current issue include ones
- accusing the US government and media of "covering up" for Palestinian terrorists.
- labeling Israeli advocates of negotiations for peace as "intellectually dishonest."
- calling for "America, acting alone and with overwhelming force, [to] destroy the Iranian Islamic State now."
- arguing that Israel must be bigger - maybe 5 times bigger - than the 1967 borders.
- claiming Gaza is a Palestinian state and, of course, a terrible one, thus proving the evil nature of Palestinians - assuming, that is, that there is such a thing as a Palestinian, which another article questions.
- advocating "blowing up the 'Al-Aksa mosque and then without hesitation rebuilding the Temple."

No, these people are not in places of power in the Israeli government. But as Professor Wahrman notes, such people have their friends and defenders in high places. And maybe the better statement is that they don't have places of power - yet.

Footnote to the preceding: the price of vengeance

It has been said by sager folks than me that those who deal in vengeance tend to become that which they say they oppose. Again, Israel has provided an object lesson. Last week, the BBC reported that

[a]n Israeli human rights group has accused Israel's army of using two young Palestinians as human shields during a recent raid in the West Bank.

The B'Tselem group said it had testimony from a 15-year-old boy, his 24-year-old cousin and also an 11-year-old boy.

They said soldiers had forced them at gunpoint to enter houses ahead of the troops during the raid in Nablus.

There is one error in the story: the 11-year old, whose name is Jihan Dadush, is a girl. The boy is named 'Amid 'Amirah.

The use of human shields is illegal under both Israeli and international law, not to mention deeply offensive to any civilized concept of morality. And it is something of which the Israelis have long accused Palestinians.

B'Tselem is The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories. In its report, the group says that during the Nablus operation, which took place in late February, the 'Amirah family was forced from its house to another where other Palestinians were being held. Soldiers then forced 'Amid to accompany them in a search of three more houses.

According to 'Amid's testimony, the soldiers pushed him with the barrels of their rifles and forced him to enter rooms of the house in front of them, open cabinets and empty out the contents, and open windows. In one instance, according to the testimony, a soldier shot several shots into the room.

Three days later, soldiers seized the Dadush family house and locked the six members of the family in one room, where they were interrogated about the location of armed Palestinians who fired at soldiers in the area. That evening, soldiers forced Jihan Dadush

to lead them twice to one of the adjacent houses that she had mentioned to the soldiers in response to their questions. The second time, when they arrived at the house, the soldiers forced her to open the door and enter in front of them.

The Israeli Defense Force says it's investigating the allegations, but as Professor Wahrman pointed out in the previous post, many reports of illegalities over the years have merely collected dust. Even so, there is the third case, that of 'Amid's cousin Samah, who was forced to enter every room in his house while soldiers followed him and fired a burst of shots into each room after he entered.

Part of this incident was recorded on by AP television cameras and broadcast both on Israeli television and abroad,

which at least should make this may be hard to bury easily, especially since, B'Tselem says, the behavior of the soldiers, including the firing into rooms, indicates they were knowingly and deliberately exposing all three to danger.

However, the fact that this, as B'Tselem also points out, is not the first time this has happened and, it now appears, it continues despite rulings by Israel's High Court of Justice that the practice is illegal, does not engender a great deal of confidence. One thing that the investigation has not deterred is the continuing string of provocative Israeli raids in the West Bank. At this point, it is safe - and fair - to say that with regard to its actions and practices on the West Bank and in Gaza, Israel has something it needs to prove to the world. But again, the question is if the Israeli government cares.

The price of victory

Headnote: I was tipped to the article linked to here by a post on one of the blogs I read regularly - but I'm not sure which one and now I can't find that post. If you happen to be the poster or know who is, please drop me a line: I'd like to give credit where it's due.

There is a nation in the Middle East today whose government is suffused with corruption.

In just the past few weeks, it's chief of police has been forced to resign over the fact that several of its highest police officers were found guilty of corruption and negligence.

This came[, writes Indiana University history professor Dror Wahrman at the History News Network on March 5], within a week of the forced resignation of [its] Chief of Staff from the military.... It was also some ten days after [its] minister of justice was convicted of sexual assault while on duty, and a couple of weeks after [its] president – who holds a largely symbolic position – resigned temporarily following charges of rape and sexual misconduct. It was also the same day that the head of [its] tax authority resigned because of possible corruption charges. In the meantime, several other investigations are still pending, not least two or three directed at the Prime Minister himself ... concerning corruption and favoritism.

Corruption charges have also emerged in a dispute over the minister of police's choice for a new police chief. It is all bad enough that some voices within the nation, including official ones, have raised the possibility that it's heading toward internal collapse.

That nation is Israel.

Suddenly the Palestinians and the Hizbullah, and even Iranian nukes, have taken a back seat: Israel does indeed seem in danger of imploding from within, at least as a viable democracy.

I hasten to say that I pass this on with no sense of joy or pleasure, but rather as an object lesson in where a preference for domination over dialogue and for the "security" of war over the "risks" of peace can, does, will lead.

Wahrman refers to

[t]he infinite variety of devices through which Israel has condoned and often actively encouraged the breaking of the rules in its drive to expropriate Palestinian occupied land against both Israeli and international law....

He cites one particularly galling example from the previous week's news:

[I]t was revealed that the Israeli government is withholding its formal recognition of the new leader of the Greek-Orthodox Church in the Holy Land, Patriarch Theophilus, because it wants him to sell prime real estate near Jaffa Gate to settlers as a condition for recognizing his official status.

That act and others, he writes, "brazenly ignore Israeli law," but based on past experience, "are likely to succeed." And it's not even that such incidents have gone undocumented; indeed, they even were

the subject of a thick government judicial document, known as the “Sasson Report,” which created something of a furore when it was handed to prime minister Ariel Sharon in March 2005. Within months, however, the Sasson Report joined the mounting pile of legal and normative documents that have been effortlessly side-stepped by the settlers and their supporters in multiple branches of the government. It was only a matter of time, inevitably, before the lawlessness of the occupied territories – and their support networks throughout the Israeli state apparatus – began infecting Israel proper. [emphasis added]

The ultimate question the professor wants to raise is, is Israeli democracy, which he describes as "young, evolving, and certainly not indestructible," in danger? He believes the threat is very real.

From my perspective, I believe that the outward form of democracy as practiced in Israel is under no threat - but the spirit of democracy, at least the grander aspects of that spirit, has long since been damaged by years of occupation, militarism, and oppression. During the time I have been blogging (and for a good number of years before) I have expressed hope for every bit of movement toward an Israeli-Palestinian peace - but have become increasingly doubtful that the Israelis, trapped by their own assumptions and frustrated by their inability to impose their will on the Palestinians, actually desire a settlement or even can conceive any longer of what peace would look like.

Wahrman concludes by saying

the friends of the Jewish state should be mobilizing post-haste to help Israeli citizens, jaded, disappointed and angry as they might be,

to make sure the injuries to Israeli democracy are not fatal. I'll conclude by saying that those of us who would like to consider ourselves friends of the Israelis and friends of the Palestinians and friends of the elusive peace should be mobilizing to help Israelis, jaded, disappointed and angry as they might be, understand that a dramatic change in policy is the only thing that will ultimately protect their democracy from the encroaching scourge of militarism.

Footnote, Sometimes Ya Just Gotta Laugh Div.: Israeli ambassador to El Salvador Tsuriel Raphael has been recalled two weeks after he was found in the yard of his official residence, naked, tied up, and drunk, with sex toys lying nearby. When found, he was unable to identify himself until the ball gag was removed from his mouth.

Wouldn't it be nice

This is refreshing: The BBC reports today that

Deputy leader of the Commons Nigel Griffiths has quit the government [of Tony Blair] in protest at plans to renew the UK's Trident nuclear weapons system. ...

Jim Devine, a parliamentary private secretary, has also indicated he will resign over the issue.

The UK relies on Trident submarines as its nuclear weapons platform. As the subs age, the question is if the fleet is to be replaced (at an estimated cost of £20 billion, or $36.8 billion) or simply to be gradually decommissioned in a course of nuclear disarmament. And two of Tony Blair's officials are prepared to quit in protest over the failure to disarm.

Wouldn't it be nice if we could actually imagine two US government officials resigning over such a matter? But oh, consider the problems.

A survey for BBC Radio 4's The World This Weekend programme found that out of the 101 Labour MPs who responded, 22 said they supported the renewal of Trident.

A total of 64 said they opposed it, and a further 15 remained undecided.

Despite the opposition, Blair has the support of the Tories on this and the plan to re-nuke is likely to pass when it comes up in the House of Commons on Wednesday. Which means, if you listen to the advice of some House Democrats speaking on Iraq, opponents shouldn't even try to stop the program for fear of being labeled soft on defense.

Footnote to the preceding, Now That You Know You Can Trust Us Div.

Updated In 2005 the "Real ID Act" was included in a bill covering military spending. In the name of security, efficiency, safety, protection from terrorists, a cure for the common cold, pudding for all, blah blah you know the routine, the law - passed with no review, no hearings, no debate - took us, the ACLU said at the time,

one step closer to a national ID, and a "show us your papers" society, by forcing states to link their databases - containing every licensed driver's personal information - with other states, with no guidelines as to who will have access to that information.

Such a claim may have seemed overly dramatic to some, but considering that when the law went fully into effect, that standardized ID would be required in order for a driver's license to be used for identification for any federal purpose, including obtaining federal benefits, getting on an airplane, and entering a federal courthouse, even then it should have been hard to consider that analysis anything less than reasonable. When the draft regulations were finally issued the beginning of this month, it should have become impossible. Wired magazine notes that among the regulations are these:

* Applicants must present a valid passport, certified birth certificate, green card or other valid visa documents to get a license and states must check all other states' databases to ensure the person doesn't have a license from another state.
* States must use a card stock that glows under ultraviolet light, and check digits, hologramlike images and secret markers.
* Identity documents must expire before eight years and must include legal name, date of birth, gender, digital photo, home address and a signature. ... There are no religious exemptions for veils or scarves for photos.
* States must keep copies of all documents, such as birth certificates, Social Security cards and utility bills, for seven to 10 years.

Wired, which accurately labeled the new cards "de facto internal passports," also mentioned that "many difficult questions," including how databases are to be linked and how homeless people can prove a home address, were unanswered.

But there's even more. Adding stupidity to this combination of aggrandizing bureaucracy and power-hunger, the New York Times noted that the newly mandated driver's licenses will contain a machine-readable strip with the holder's biographic data - and there is no requirement the information be encrypted! (Link for reference only; the article is now in a pay archive.) Which, as the ACLU pointed out, leaves people and the country less secure and serves only to multiply the risk of identity theft.

In fact, staff attorney Sophia Cope of the centrist Center for Democracy and Technology, says the rules mention privacy exactly once.

"[T]here are no privacy regulations related to exchange of personal information between the states, none about skimming of the data on the magnetic stripe, and no limits on use of information by the feds," Cope said.

And then, of course, there's the cost of this invasive inanity.

[U]ntil now, the Department of Homeland Security had not ... estimated the costs - about $14.6 billion to states and about $7.8 billion to individuals - of setting up the system ... over the next decade.

One reason for the high cost also promises to create a bureaucratic nightmare: Yet another requirement of Real ID is that beginning in May 2008 anyone wanting to obtain or renew a driver's license would have to show up at their state's registry office in person with the required documents. Stateline.org says that

[b]y curbing renewals by mail and online, Real ID will force DMVs to handle 686 million customer transactions face-to-face over five years, instead of the 295 million they would handle anyway, a study by the National Governors Association, the National Conference of State Legislatures and the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators concluded.

"When lines at the DMV are snaking around the block and the cost of a driver's license has doubled or tripled, the politicians holding the bag won't stay in office very long," predicts Lee Tien, an attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a San Francisco consumer advocacy group that opposes national ID standards.

Apparently so, because states had already been clamoring for more time and more money to deal with the problems the law causes. Grandly, Michael Chertoff, Herr Direktor of der Department for the Protection of the Fatherland, said the May 2008 start date could be pushed back to the end of 2009 (while maintaining the requirement that the new IDs all be issued by 2013) and offered $100 million in federal grants to help with costs. That was not only no more than 10% of the first-year costs with no guarantee of future assistance, but would be paid for by an equal reduction in other "antiterrorism" funds already promised to states.

That was not only too little, it may well have been too late, as the combination of concerns over privacy and cost have many states in open rebellion against the law. In fact, even before the release of the regs, on January 25, in fact, Maine rejected the plan outright.

In so doing, it became the first state to refuse to take part in the program but it's already not the only. This past Thursday, Idaho became the second. Taking note of that, the ACLU added that this could be the start of something big*.

"Idaho and Maine are just the beginnings of the pending tidal wave of rebellion against Real ID," said Charlie Mitchell, Director of the ACLU State Legislative Department. "Across the nation, local lawmakers from both parties are rejecting the federal government’s demand to undermine their constituents’ privacy and civil liberties with a massive unfunded mandate. Congress must revisit the Real ID Act and fix this real mess." ...

[L]egislation [opposing Real ID] has been passed by one chamber in the legislatures of Arizona, Georgia, Montana, New Mexico, Utah, Vermont, Washington and Wyoming. Bills rejecting Real ID have also been introduced in Hawaii, Kentucky, Maryland, Massachusetts, Missouri, Nebraska, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina and West Virginia, with more expected in the coming weeks.

It's worth noting that this opposition, as you can likely tell from the list of states, does not come from just the left and often includes calls for Congress to repeal Real ID altogether. Personal privacy is an area where the left and the right often overlap, and the libertarian Cato Institute is also opposed to Real ID.

But give the last word to the ACLU in the person of attorney Tim Sparapani:

"Real ID creates the largest single database about U.S. people that has ever been created," Sparapani said. "This is the people who brought you long lines at the DMV marrying the people at DHS who brought us Katrina. It's a marriage we need to break up."

To coin a phrase, indeed.

*Footnote: I was going to include a link to the lyrics of "The Start of Something Big" by Steve Allen - but it appears they exist nowhere on the Web. Is my age showing that much?

Updated: My best friend found a link for me. :-) Here it is.

My how times have changed

A recent story has an unspoken sidebar that shows how the political fortunes of the once-soaring Shrub gang have come crashing back to Earth.

It's one you're surely aware of: the "damning" report by DOJ Inspector General Glenn Fine that FBI agents

sometimes demanded personal data on people without official authorization, and in other cases improperly obtained telephone records in non-emergency circumstances.

The audit also concluded that the FBI for three years underreported to Congress how often it used national security letters to ask businesses to turn over customer data.

In short, FBI agents repeatedly broke the law, illegally obtained personal information, and failed to keep Congress informed as required. Okay, that probably didn't surprise you. But the follow-up might have:

First, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and FBI Director Robert Mueller "apologized and vowed to prevent further illegal intrusions." They said such behavior would "not be tolerated" and is "unacceptable." And the next day, the Shrub-in-Chief himself "pledged to put an end" to the abuses.

And how long ago would it have been when this kind of thing would have been shrugged off? "Hey, we're fighting a War on Terror^{(c)(reg.)(pat.pend.)} here! Why are you taking the terrorists' side?" How long ago would it have been greeted with a few grumbles from the usual quarters like the ACLU, while such as Rep. Pete Hoekstra, senior Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, who said the audit shows "a major failure by Justice to uphold the law," maintained a discrete silence?

How long ago would it have seemed absurd to think of the New York Times editorially calling for Gonzales to be fired - and then being echoed by Sen. Chuck Schumer calling for his resignation? How long ago would it have been laughable for Josh Marshall to wonder who will be the first GOPper to say Mouthpiece Al should go?

Times have indeed changed. Maybe not a lot, but they have changed. Okay, yeah, the hope meter - possibly the irrational hope meter - is up couple of notches. Sue me.

Footnote Number Ein: Getting back to the report, despite the fact that the report concluded that

"[w]e believe the improper or illegal uses we found involve serious misuses of national security letter authorities,"

Fine still provided the usual cover in placing most of the blame on "shoddy record-keeping and human error." However, the report also said that an amazing, not to say disturbing,

22% of the cases it investigated contained one or more possible unreported or unidentified violations,

which seems to me to be a hell of a lot of "human error." For a comparison, what do you think the wingers would be saying if some survey found a 22% error rate in some program to provide aid to the poor? Despite that, the auditors

were careful to note they found no indication of criminal misconduct.

But just how was "criminal misconduct" defined here? How strictly (or broadly) was "lack of criminal intent" defined? What about an agent who kept themselves ignorant of the law's limitations? What about one who just didn't care, who had no intent to break the law but just didn't think about it one way or the other? What about an agent who knowingly broke the law but insists it was done because otherwise the "bad guys get away?" Would any of those constitute criminal misconduct in the auditors' collective mind?

Consider that the agency used so-called "exigent letters" which were only to be used in emergency situations and have little, if any justification in law.

In at least 700 cases, these letters were sent to three telephone companies to get billing records and subscriber information, the audit found.

Those letters claimed they were issued in connection with a subpoena request already submitted to the US Attorney, which would "process and serve them formally." But that, apparently, was a lie: In its survey, the auditors could not confirm

one instance in which a subpoena had been submitted to any United States Attorney’s Office before the exigent letter was sent to the telephone companies.

It's pretty damn hard to maintain there was nothing "intentional" here in light of information like that.

So yeah, some things have changed. Others have not.

If you want to read it, the unclassified Inspector General's report can be found at this link in .pdf format.

Footnote Number Zwei: Something else that hasn't changed is the "Me but Not Me" gambit.

"But the question should and must be asked: How could this happen? Who is accountable?" Mueller said. "And the answer to that is, I am to be held accountable."

Mueller said he had not been asked to resign, nor had he discussed doing so with other officials. He said employees would probably face disciplinary actions, not criminal charges, following an internal investigation of how the violations occurred.

So just like all the officials before him who bravely have taken the "responsibility" (but never the "blame"), he bravely says he is "accountable." But nothing is going to happen to him and it is others who will be punished. Such is "accountability" among the powerful.

Bang!

In a mind-boggling and dangerous decision that positively defines the dreaded "judicial activism" and "mind-reading," a federal court has ignored seven decades of law and precedent to strike down a local ban on handguns as

a violation of the Second Amendment's right to keep and bear arms.

In its 2-to-1 decision, the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia held that the amendment's guarantee belongs to individuals and was not a collective right limited to members of militias....

"The amendment does not protect the right of militiamen to keep and bear arms, but rather the right of the people," the majority opinion said. "If the competent drafters of the Second Amendment had meant the right to be limited to the protection of state militias, it is hard to imagine that they would have chosen the language they did."

The ruling, which overturns Washington, DC's 30-year old ban on keeping handguns in a home, was

the first time in American history that a Federal appeals court has struck down a gun law on Second Amendment grounds,

according to the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence.

The Court's logic was truly, well, I was initially thinking "odd" or "bizarre," but I think "ideologically-driven" is more accurate. The Second Amendment reads, in full, "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." The last time the Supreme Court directly addressed its meaning was in US v. Miller, in 1939. The Court said then that

[w]ith obvious purpose to assure the continuation and render possible the effectiveness of such forces the declaration and guarantee of the Second Amendment were made. It must be interpreted with that end in view. [emphasis added]

Thus, the purpose of the amendment was to insure the ability of states to maintain militias. It is, that is, a collective right, not an individual one, which is what Washington argued in this case. But it must have been "opposite day" in DC, because the majority held that

the first clause was an explanation of the major purpose of the second clause, not a limitation on it.

"We ... take it as an expression of the drafters' view that the people possessed a natural right to keep and bear arms, and that the preservation of the militia was the right's most salient political benefit - and thus the most appropriate to express in a political document," the ruling said.

This reaches so far beyond logic as to become self-parody. The purpose of the reference to a militia was to point out the benefit of the amendment? Excuse me? Can the - ahem - justices of the majority cite one other place in the Constitution where a provision was in essence footnoted to declare the benefit arising from it? (And don't "Preamble" me; that referred to the entire document, not some provision of it.) Even in those cases where there was a specific benefit consciously intended - for example, putting a civilian, the president, in charge of the military - no such reference is made. So why here? Why in this one case?

There is no reason, no reason to expect it, no reason to conclude it - no reason other than ideological claptrap masquerading as judicial sobriety.

Stay tuned for the next case, where the DC Court finds that Uzis, AK-47s, hand grenades, and cyanide bombs are "arms" under the meaning of the Second Amendment.

It was nice while it lasted

Okay, the hope level has dropped several notches.

The Christian Science Monitor for Friday published an article discussing House Democrats' attempts to "outline an endgame" for the Iraq war. While most of it was just a routine overview, it contained two very serious clangers.

The first was the note that

[t]he 44-member Blue Dog Coalition, which opposes any move that threatens to deprive US troops of funding, and other center-right Democrats have been urging leaders to give the president a waiver in any plan that tried to impose conditions on the spending of war funds. Pelosi confirmed that such waivers would be part of the plan but did not specify how they would affect the timetable for withdrawal. [emphasis of course added]

What the hell? I guess I should have - no, forget "guess," I should have - expected this but dammit, I got snookered again, again let myself get sucked in by the absurd hope, and yes it is absurd, that Pelosi and company were actually out to challenge Shrub. But instead it seems we're going to get a plan that will say to Bush "You must do this - unless, that is, you don't want to."

Such waivers, more properly called "Get Out of Jail Free" cards and which work if and only if the one handed them can be trusted to use them honestly, serve here the single, sole purpose of giving the White House a way to avoid any impact from the bill - that is, the Democratic leadership has agreed to eviscerate its own bill even before it is introduced.

Let's be real here. This plan isn't about opposing Bush. It's not about stopping the war. It's about saying you oppose the war while at the same time running away from any actual responsibility for doing anything about it. It's about, bottom line, positioning for the 2008 campaign and who gives a damn about the lives, American (and allied) and even more Iraqi, ruined in the meantime.

Which provides the logic behind the second clanger: Pelosi

said that she didn't know what purpose it would serve to allow a vote on the Lee amendment,

that being the one the Progressive Caucus wants to introduce which would require a withdrawal of all US troops by December 31. (The text of the amendment can be found at this link.)

Well, of course there isn't a purpose, not if your goal is to avoid making any actually enforceable move to ending the war. If you wanted to take a stand, a clear stand, you would at least embrace voting on the amendment, even if you thought it was impractical, even if you thought it was too fast, even if for what you honestly deemed good and proper reasons you were going to vote against it, you could have the debate and the vote as a measure of how strong current sentiment in the House is for such a move. You could recognize it as the course desired by a significant portion* of the American public and say it deserves expression.

But no, it's quite possible none of that will happen. Not because there's "no purpose" to it, but because some people are afraid of it. Not the GOPpers, they would vote against it, possibly unanimously. Not the Democrats of the Blue Dog Coalition, who also would vote against it. And obviously not the members of the Progressive Caucus, who would vote for it. So who?

Go for the obvious: the Pelosi gang, who are terrified of the amendment because they figure they can't vote for it (thus appearing to oppose their own plan as inadequate) but also figure they can't vote against it (thus appearing to needlessly extend the war). Better, then, to try to keep the amendment from coming up at all.

Will they succeed in that? I don't know. I do know attempts will be made to tell the Progressive Caucus to shut up and get in line. I'm fully aware that the Lee amendment would not pass, but it would, I say as I've said before, stake out the territory. And, I note, I'm also aware of the stench of putting party politics above human life.

Just yesterday, I said it was "music" to hear Nancy Pelosi tell her colleagues not to confine their works to what George Bush will sign. Sadly, she seems unaware that those who confine their works to what will immediately pass the House are no more than a half-step better.

*Footnote: The only recent poll I found that specifically asked about withdrawal timetable options was a USA Today/Gallup Poll conducted March 2-4. It found that 20% favored "immediate" withdrawal and another 38% wanted out by March 2008, i.e., within one year. No intermediate option (i.e., "in six months" or "by the end of 2007") was offered. (Full results here; you might have to scroll down if newer polls have been posted.)

Why we are where we're at

In a major journalistic coup, the Boston Globe reported on Thursday that

Barack Obama is no longer a scofflaw, at least in Cambridge and Somerville.

Two weeks before the US senator from Illinois launched his presidential campaign, he paid parking tickets he received while attending Harvard Law School, officials said yesterday.

Apparently, he had some 15 outstanding tickets dating back to the period 1988-1990. It came to light because

[i]n January, about when the Globe began asking local officials about Obama's time at Harvard, including any violations of local laws, someone representing the senator called the parking office to inquire about the decades-old tickets.

It turns out that he owed, and paid, some $375 in fines and fees. Far from being upset, one city official said it was "fabulous he finally paid them" and called his record of unpaid tickets "actually pretty run of the mill." That's something anyone who is experienced with the area, where residents often regard the cost of parking tickets as a routine budget expense, could confirm.

So a nothing, pointless story, right? Not exactly. However, it's importance lay not in anything it revealed about Obama but in what it accidentally revealed about the present-day news business: By its own admission, even before Obama formally announced his candidacy the Boston Globe was actively looking for some "violation of local law" he may have committed nearly 20 years earlier. Note well: This is not a matter of pursuing something brought to their attention, as piddly at it would have been even in that case. No, this was, again, an active search for something embarrassing, something sneaky, in his background; an active search, that is, for some dirty laundry.

It's thus a prime example of the kind of cheap, uninformative, issue-suppressing, personality-pushing, gotcha journalism that has turned the political and social issues of a nation into just another giggling game of "I gotta scoop" being played by the entertainment editor wannabes populating what passes for far too many newsrooms. Which makes it also a prime example of a good part of the reason why we are where we're at.

It is not a good place.

Speaking of Iraq

You've undoubtedly heard about how

[a]n elite team of officers advising the US commander, General David Petraeus, in Baghdad has concluded that they have six months to win the war in Iraq - or face a Vietnam-style collapse in political and public support that could force the military into a hasty retreat.

The Guardian (UK) reported that a week ago and it's been running around the blogs, so I don't expect I have to repeat the story.

But I was just having a little fun with it, since the source was "a former senior administration official familiar with [the teams's] deliberations." Just who might that be, I wondered?

Well, let's see what evidence the article provides.

"The scene is very tense," the former official said. "They are working round the clock. Endless cups of tea with the Iraqis. But they're still trying to figure out what's the plan. The president is expecting progress. But they're thinking, what does he mean? The plan is changing every minute, as all plans do." ...

"It's amazing how well morale has held up so far," the former official said. "But the guys know what's being said back home. There is no question morale is gradually being sapped by political debates."

The article goes on to say that the team's biggest fear is that "political will in Washington may collapse just as the military is on the point of making a counter-insurgency breakthrough."

So let's see. Who could be a "former senior administration official" who could have been around the administration recently enough to be familiar with this deal, frets that troops' "morale is being sapped" by opposition to the war, and uses phrases like "endless cups of tea with Iraqis?"

My bets are on former Defense Secretary Donald Rumpelstiltskin.

Okay, as long as I'm feeling hopeful...

...why the heck not throw this in.

There are signs, preliminary and vague, but still signs, of some spine-starch appearing among Congressional Democrats, as no fewer than three plans setting a timetable for withdrawal of most troops from Iraq were presented at press conferences on Thursday.

The toughest of the three, not surprisingly, was that of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, which, as I noted a few posts down it was expected to,

proposed legislation that would require Congress fully to fund the safe and secure withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq by December 31, 2007.

"Four and half years ago the president asked to give war a chance, and despite our objections he got that chance and he blew it," said Rep. Janice Schakowsky, D-Illinois.

"No more chances. No more waivers. No phony certifications. No more spending billions of dollars to send our children into the meat grinder that is Iraq. It is time to spend the money to keep them safe and bring them home."

The deadline is three or more months longer than I would have allowed, but it is, as the Caucus said, a clear, simple, measure with as few ifs, ands, and buts as possible. A firm deadline. On the other hand, soon after, the House leadership came out with its plan, with a longer timetable and more loopholes - but still, at least, with an outside limit. It

would have U.S. combat troops out of Iraq by August 2008 - or sooner if certain benchmarks of progress aren't met. ...

If Congress finds those conditions have not been met, a 180-day withdrawal of U.S. troops would begin, possibly as early as July. [House Speaker Nancy] Pelosi said the barometer of progress would be "a subjective call."

"No matter what, by March 2008, the redeployment begins," she said.

Note the important word, though: "begins." At its maximum effect, the plan would have combat troops out by roughly year's end - a time when the Progressive Caucus plan would have all troops out. More likely, lacking a positive Congressional finding that the "benchmarks" haven't been met, withdrawal doesn't even begin for a year and then takes, if I understand the news reports correctly not having read the actual measure, six more months to complete, bringing it to August 2008. And even at that, as again I noted a few posts down, it allows for the continued presence of perhaps tens of thousands of troops for an unknown length of time.

That hardly endeared the effort to the Progressive Caucus.

"[The leadership's] plan would require us to believe whatever the president would tell us about progress that was being made," said Rep. Maxine Waters, D-California.

"This is same president that led us into a war with false information, [said there were] weapons of mass destruction, said we would be [welcome] with open arms, said that the mission had been accomplished. Now we expect him to give us a progress report in their plan by July?"

But I will take my hope in that, as flawed as it is, it does set some kind of limit; it breaks the stranglehold the word "timetable" has had on the Democratic leadership.

Meanwhile, over in the Senate, the leadership - joined, significantly, by Russ Feingold (significant because he opposed the earlier nonbinding resolution on the esca- er, wait, "surg-," no, dammit, "augmentation," I keep getting that wrong) - announced its own plan, saying that

the current conflict in Iraq requires a political solution, Iraq must take responsibility for its own future, and our troops should not be policing a civil war.

The resolution would require the "phased redeployment" of combat troops to begin within 120 days of passage and to be completed by March 31, 2008. Like the House leaders' plan, it would allow for a "limited number" of troops to remain for training and "counter-terror options."

Unhappily, that also means, like the House leaders' plan and yet again as I said the other day, it endorses the war, endorses the original invasion and occupation, urging withdrawal only because of the fact that it's become a civil war "and that's not what we bargained for." And it accepts the idea that Iraq is a "front" in the War on Terror^{copyright/reg./pat.pend.}. It embraces many of the White House's concepts.

But I'm feeling good tonight, feeling a little hopeful from the fact that all three of these bills actually do set outside limits, with one having all troops out by the end of the year and the others having at least all combat troops out by the end of March 2008 in one case and the end of August 2008 in the other. A psychological wall has been breached. That opening can only get wider - provided, that is, we keep poking at it.

Footnote: Actually, you know what really put a bit of hope in my head today? It was the news that was not expected.

According to Raw Story, after the White House stunned absolutely no one by issuing a veto threat against the plan proposed by the House Democratic leadership, Nancy Pelosi's office responded to questions about it by referring to what she had said at that morning's press conference:

"I say to my colleagues never confine your best work, your hopes, your dreams, the aspiration of the American people to what will be signed by George W. Bush because that is too limiting a factor," the Speaker said....

In simpler terms, the Shrub gang threatened a veto and Pelosi said "So what?"

I've been waiting six years to hear a Congressional Democrat say that. Music.

Grudging admiration

Yeah, it's grudging. But it is admiration.

On March 7, 1965, in the event that became known as "Bloody Sunday," a group of black nonviolent marchers heading out of Selma, Alabama, on their way to Montgomery in support of voting rights was attacked by heavily armed state troopers. Reporting of the event galvanized the nation, which helped move the adoption of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

That was the event being commemorated amid the media coverage of Barak Obama and Hillary Clinton at competing church rallies in Selma this weekend.

And I have to admit it struck me: Just 42 years - and no, that is not a long time in the run of history - just 42 years after blacks were viciously beaten simply for wanting to vote by police who assumed they still could get away with it - just 42 years later, the leading candidates for the Democratic Party nomination for president are a black man and a woman.

Yes, he speaks in platitudes and yes, they're both more conservative than people think. That's not the point right now.

I'm having a burst of hope. Don't ruin it; it'll fade fast enough on its own.

Footnote to the preceding

Who said this:

Iraq is a nasty place to fight. But there are no neat and tidy battlefields in the struggle for freedom; there is no "good" place to die. And it is far better to fight in Iraq - over there - than fight some years hence within our own frontiers.

Nope, you're wrong. I guarantee it. Because as much as it sounds like some things we hear now justifying the Iraq war, it actually was an adaptation of this real quote:

Vietnam is a nasty place to fight. But there are no neat and tidy battlefields in the struggle for freedom; there is no "good" place to die. And it is far better to fight in Vietnam - on China's doorstep - than fight some years hence in Hawaii, on our own frontiers.

That was H. W. Baldwin, writing in the New York Times Magazine, February 21, 1965, discovered while looking for a link on the domino theory.

Even the bullshit is a retread.

Ohh Noooo!

Doing my best Mr. Bill imitation.

I wanted to do some kind of sarcasm with this but it's just beyond that. Or satire. It's from the Washington Post and it's just - well, I really don't know how to describe it so I won't except to say the domino theory ain't got nothin' on this.

Vice President Dick Cheney said Thursday night that a too-soon withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq could send victorious militants spreading out, with some flocking to Afghanistan to fight alongside a regrouping Taliban. ...

"If our coalition withdrew before Iraqis could defend themselves, radical factions would battle for dominance. The violence would likely spread throughout the country and be very difficult to contain. Having tasted victory in Iraq, the (militants) would look for new missions. Many would head for Afghanistan to fight alongside the Taliban," Cheney said.

He said others would head for capitals across the Middle East and work to undermine moderate governments. "Still others would find their targets and victims in other countries on other continents..," Cheney said.

Yes, "tasting victory" in an insurrection against a foreign occupation or a bloody civil war is like eating a potato chip: You just crave more and more.

Damn, if this whole thing doesn't sound like a promo clip for some grade B horror flick.

(Pounding background music builds.)
(Deep, ominous voice speaks) "Militants - spreading, multiplying, breeding. Nowhere is safe! No one is safe! Look out! They're coming for YOU!"
(Cheap musical score hits resounding crescendo.)

Footnote to the preceding, Some Hope Div.

Raw Story reports that the soggy waffle imitation being enacted by the House Democratic leadership has sufficiently angered members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus that they plan to push for an amendment to Iraq war funding to require withdrawal on a timetable.

A month ago, the Caucus made clear what such an amendment would say:

We believe all appropriations for U.S. military involvement in Iraq must be for the protection of our troops until and during their withdrawal within six months of the date of enactment of this limitation and accelerating the training and equipping of additional Iraqi security forces during that six-month time frame. ...

Finally, we are opposed to establishing any permanent U.S. military bases in Iraq, support rescinding the President’s Iraq war authority, and support greater diplomatic and political engagement in the region, while ensuring that the Iraqi people have control over their own petroleum resources.

If Raw Story is right, what has changed in the last month is that the members of the Caucus have gotten so fed up with the leadership that they intend to offer the amendment from the floor whether Pelosi, et. al., like it or not. That would be a good thing. No, it wouldn't pass but it would establish the legitimacy of making the call.

Important historical note: The first proposed amendments to get out of Vietnam were handily defeated, as well.

That was the week that will be

So this is it, yes? This is the week that the brave, bold, energized Democrats in Congress are going to stand up and be counted! They are going to bare their legislative teeth and show Shrub who's boss on Iraq! So let's see how things are shaping up.

First, House Democrats are proposing to

more than fully fund President George W. Bush's request for money to fight wars in Iraq and Afghanistan this year....

"There will be $98 billion for the military part," about $5 billion above the Bush administration's request, said Rep. John Murtha, chairman of a defense spending panel overseeing war funds.

Okay, we're not off to a good start. By the way, this was before the White House said it might want another two billion to cover support troops for the esca - I mean, "surge."

But don't worry! Murtha says the Democrats are still talking about restrictions based on requirements

that U.S. troops have proper training, adequate equipment and enough rest before being deployed into combat. "We don't have it yet. We keep going back and refining it," Murtha said.

So why do they have to keep going back, keep refining, keep fussing and negotiating and detailing and not doing? Because they're a bunch of crawling weasels, that's why.

When Murtha first unveiled his ideas two weeks ago he said he viewed his conditions, which also include an end to extending soldiers' enlistments to make up for manpower shortages, as a way of forcing Bush to wind down the war.

But in the face of Republican attacks, Pelosi and other Democratic leaders now speak of showing their support for the troops by ensuring levels of training and equipment. They also say they will never cut funds for troops in the field.

Ultimately, what they are trying to do is

find a compromise that allows them to say they are working to phase out the war while also fully funding troops already in Iraq.

The key word being "say."

In fact, the Democratic Congressional leadership, along with party "moderates" (who, cowering in fear of campaigns that haven't even begun, are whining that Murtha's proposals "go too far" and could "backfire" in 2008) are such whimpering losers that even a proposal by Sen. Kent Conrad to cut just $20 billion from the $142 billion request for the Iraq war for the next fiscal year, the one that doesn't even start until October 1, was shot down by that brave leader, Harry Reid.

Meanwhile, the Republicans, who - give the Devil his due - know how to play political hardball, are pressing the advantage such weak-kneed opposition presents.

House minority leader [John Boehner] threatened Thursday to get his members to vote against a $96.3 billion spending bill for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan if Democrats persist in plans to attach conditions to the money that would tell President Bush how to conduct the wars.

As Greg Sargent pointed out at TPMCafe with notable understatement, this is "interesting" since this is the same GOPper leadership which was just recently demanding that the House vote on a GOP resolution that would express opposition to any cuts in funding. But neither hypocrisy nor internal contradiction trouble them because they know that despite being in the minority, on this issue they still have the other side bamboozled and befuddled, begging for favors, cringing and wincing at any breath of "you don't support the troops."

Sargent also says, and AP echoes, that

House Democratic leaders have coalesced around legislation that would require troops to come home from Iraq within six months if that country's leaders fail to meet promises to help reduce violence there....

The plan would retain a Democratic proposal prohibiting the deployment to Iraq of troops with insufficient rest or training or who already have served there for more than a year. Under the plan, such troops could only be sent to Iraq if President Bush waives those standards and reports to Congress each time. ...

Bush said the Iraqis had promised to meet certain goals when he offered to send 21,500 more troops to Iraq. For example, the Iraqis pledged to spend more money on reconstruction and reach a political agreement to share the nation's oil resources.

That looks, initially, like a good "put up or shut up" strategy. But, like "say" earlier, "looks" is the key word. Add the modifying phrase "some closer" to "looks" and the idea of "good" gets all wobbly.

For one thing, which should be obvious, it makes the whole training/rest business meaningless, just pointless gum-flapping, since those "standards" can be waived at Bush's will. Is there anybody who doesn't think he not only would do so but would do so with a "Yeah? Whadda ya gonna do about it?" air?

And "promises?" "Meet goals?" What does that mean? Who decides if the Iraqi government is living up to such promises? We've had four years of "It's going great! It's going great! Well, actually, it's fucked up - but it's getting better! It's going great! It's going great! Well, actually it's fucked up - but it's getting better! It's going...." What makes anyone think that's going to stop? What makes anyone think that in six month's time, no matter how badly those promises are broken, the quivering invertebrates populating the Dimcrat leadership are not going to swoon when faced with "We can't abandon our allies now just when they're starting to make progress?"

Especially because even if it was somehow determined that the Iraqis failed to keep their end of the bargain,

some troops could be left behind under the Democrats' plan to train Iraqi troops or conduct counterterrorism missions....

This, I'm prepared to assume, was an embrace of another of the Iraq Study Group proposals; the figure for "some" troops there was estimated at 20,000 or more. Which means that under the strictest, the best if you will, reading of this bill, the Democrats' plan proposes to keeps tens of thousands of American troops in Iraq for an indefinite time. Which brings up the other problem:

This bill endorses the goddamn war!

In talking about going-on-for-who-knows-for-how-long "counterterrorism missions," it embraces the administration's bull that Iraq is the "central front in the War on Terror"^{copyright/reg./pat.pend.}. In adopting benchmarks and baseline "promises," it swallows whole the heinous notion that the only thing wrong with the war, the invasion, the occupation, is that it didn't go as well as we were told it would, that the problem was only in the execution, not in the fact - such swallowing, I strongly suspect, being not too difficult an act for many of our "leaders."

But the war was wrong from the start, wrong through the middle, and will remain wrong at the end. Not mistaken, wrong. Not just wrong, corrupt. Not just politically corrupt, not just logically corrupt, morally corrupt. Ethically corrupt. An affront to decency and a crime against humanity, one conceived in greed and power lust, midwifed in lies, weaned on blood, and which has matured to torture, civil war, and carnage on a scale of which we are ignorant or we choose to ignore because it's too uncomfortable, to shameful, to think of all the victims beyond our own sufficiently painful damaged, destroyed, and dead.

And through this, one thing remains as true now as it has been all along, even as too many "serious" thinkers among the left part of the blogging world remain among the "none so blind." That is the simple hard fact that we cannot depend on the Democrats to get us out of this mess. They will not get us out of this mess. Even now, when the public wants out, when they know the public wants out, they still run like scared rabbits from any hint of actual (as opposed to purely symbolic) confrontation and still opt for saying and looking over doing, stopping a full three steps short of what the public desires.

We want out? We're going to have to make them do it. I have said this before and I say it again: What will stop this war is tens of thousands of pissed-off Americans in the streets, over and over again, in the streets of DC, of New York, of Indianapolis, of Albuquerque, of Minot and Montpelier, Walla Walla and Wheeling, screaming "Out NOW!" Screaming it until the walls of Congress rock. Screaming it until Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid have headaches. Screaming it until a withdrawal in 90 days or 120 days is the safe, "compromise" position.

Short of that, the best we can hope for - the best we can hope for - is a war like Afghanistan has become: one that grinds slowly on, month after month, year after year, and death after death. Until, finally, it can said of us, if it cannot already, that "they have made a wasteland and call it peace."

So I guess we can all sit back now

You know all that fretting and worrying we did about the Shrub gang's wiretapping and tracking and how we were all "oh that's illegal, oh that violates civil liberties" and stuff? A waste of time! Totally unnecessary! Boy, we were lefties silly. Or so we learn from AP today:

A White House privacy board is giving its stamp of approval to two of the Bush administration's controversial surveillance programs — electronic eavesdropping and financial tracking — and says they do not violate citizens' civil liberties. ...

The report finds that both the National Security Agency's warrantless eavesdropping program and the Treasury Department's monitoring of international banking transactions have sufficient privacy protections, three board members told The Associated Press in telephone interviews. ...

"We looked at the program, we visited NSA and met with the top people all the way down to those doing the hands-on work," said Carol Dinkins, a Houston lawyer and former Reagan administration assistant attorney general who chairs the board.

"The program is structured and implemented in a way that is properly protective and attentive to civil liberties," she said.

I feel so much better. In fact, I feel so much better that I'm not even disturbed by the facts that

- the board, which operated in secret, is part of the executive office - not just the executive branch, the executive office.
- one member said most of the work consisted of being briefed on the surveillance programs - that is, being briefed by the very people being investigated.
- the board does not have subpoena power.
- the White House can change its annual reports before they go to Congress.
- the recommendations are just that; Gonzales decides if they will be followed.
- the members serve at the pleasure of Bush and fear they could "alienate" him if they took an adversarial role.
- Dinkins, a longtime friend of the Bush family, was treasurer of Bush's first campaign for governor of Texas and is a longtime partner in the law firm of Vinson & Elkins, where Gonzales was once a partner.

But I'm just so relieved that I'll ignore all that. After all, raising any questions about the power or impartiality or independence of the board would be nothing more than the kind of paranoid, Bush-hating, nit-picking in which the loony left always engages.

Just another casualty, ...

...just another footnote.

I've said it before, sometimes it's the little things - or at least the by comparison little things - that get me. From the BBC for March 4:

The Sabian Mandaeans - one of the oldest religious groups in the world - are facing extinction, according to its leaders.

They claim that Islamic extremists in Iraq are trying to wipe them out through forced conversions, rape and murder.

The Mandaeans are pacifists, followers of Adam, Noah and John the Baptist.

They have lived in what is now Iraq since before Islam and Christianity.

More than 80% have been forced to flee the country and now live as refugees in Syria and Jordan. ...

Mandaean elders use words like annihilation and genocide - they believe Islamic militants, both Sunni and Shia, offer them two choices - convert or die.

"Some will not consider us people of the book... they see us as unbelievers, as a result our killing is allowed," says Kanzfra Sattar, one of only five Mandaean bishops left worldwide.

The article says that there are fewer than 70,000 Sabian Mandaeans worldwide and only 5,000 left in Iraq. They fear for their safety in Muslim countries but the West won't take them in. In that, however, they are not alone: Of the total of roughly 2 million Iraqi refugees living in Syria and Jordan, the US has offered places to just 7,000 and the UK says it will decide "case by case."

I am no expert on religion and I admit I had never heard of the Sabian Mandaeans until I read this article. In trying to learn about them online I learned mostly that there are a number of sects and there is even dispute about the source of the name, making it hard to find a source that could be trusted to give a reasonably unbiased overview. So beyond certain basics - they practice baptism by immersion, they do predate Christianity, and they for the most part reject Jesus as having distorted John's teachings - I can't tell you much about them.

But what does it matter if they face extinction as a religion, as a group? They are, after all, just another casualty, just another footnote.

Excuse me?

TPMMuckraker got this tidbit from Bob Novak's colums for Saturday:

Rep. Rahm Emanuel, House Democratic Caucus chairman, had written [Attorney General Alberto "Call me Al unless I want to be able to accuse liberals of anti-Hispanic bias"] Gonzales two letters suggesting that he name Carol Lam, fired as U.S. attorney in San Diego, as an outside counsel to continue her pursuit of the Duke Cunningham case. Asked by Melissa Charbonneau of the Christian Broadcasting Network about this column’s report that Gonzales did not respond, Gonzales said: “I think that the American people lose if I spend all my time worrying about congressional requests for information, if I spend all my time responding to subpoenas.”

Uh, did the Attorney General of the US just say he won't bother responding to Congressional subpoenas because he's just too busy? "I'm the Attorney General! I'm a busy man! I can't be bothered with trifles like, uh, the law."

Nuclear weapons? Are they still around?

Yeah, they are. The arguments for them shift with the sands of political convenience and conditions - the argument now is against "rogue" states instead of the "evil empire" - but they're still around.

We were reminded of that late last month when the Pentagon announced it had cancelled plans for "Divine Strake," a test to have involved detonating 700 tons of ammonium nitrate and fuel oil over an existing tunnel at the Nevada test site for the purpose of simulating ground shock effects of either "conventional" or nuclear weapons (such as the now-defunct "Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator") intended as bunker-busters. One reason for opposition to the test was that it was expected to toss up a mushroom cloud of soil contaminated by radiation from previous nuclear tests which might carry beyond the bounds of the site.

(Interestingly, in announcing the change of plans, the Defense Threat Reduction Agency denied that the decision was based on concerns that the test would be harmful to workers, the general public, or the environment. They just had an Emily Litella moment, that's all.)

More importantly, the US remains committed to

a plan to build a new nuclear weapons facility[, reports the Friends Committee on National Legislation]. This facility would have the capacity to build 125 to 200 plutonium “triggers” or pits for nuclear weapons annually. Plutonium pits are an essential component of modern nuclear warheads. The new plutonium pit production facility is a key element of what the administration is calling Complex 2030, a comprehensive plan to update, reorganize, and rebuild the nuclear weapons complex.

And two pointed reminders emerged in the past few days. The first of those was the complaint on Friday by German Defense Minister Franz Josef Jung that the US is negotiating with Poland and the Czech Republic for the placement there of "forward deployable radar" systems and missile interceptors as part of a US missile defense system - without consulting with NATO allies. "We should discuss developing such a defense measure within a NATO framework," he said.

The second, a day later, was the announcement by the Shrub team that it had selected the design for America's first new nuclear warhead in nearly two decades. The purpose, we were assured, was "simply" to replace existing Trident nuclear warheads with "safer" ones.

"This is not about starting a new nuclear arms race," said Thomas P D'Agostino, acting head of the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA).

Of course it's not. It never is. Even though that's been the history of nuclear weapons since the 1960s - gradually fewer numbers of gradually more destructive and technically-advanced warheads - every time there's a new weapon, a new design, a new advance, a new test, it's never about a "new nuclear arms race." It's about "security," about "defense," about (the now-popular excuse) the "safety" and "reliability" of our "deterrent," and if "they" respond in some way, well, then "they" are the bad ones, the aggressive ones, the threatening ones, which only "proves" the need for our "security" measures.

But that's self-serving nonsense, as at least some in Congress managed to realize.

Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein was among the critics in Congress.

"The minute you begin to put more sophisticated nuclear warheads on the existing fleet, you are essentially creating a new nuclear weapon. And it's just a matter of time before other nations do the same," the Associated Press quotes her as saying.

"This could serve to encourage the very proliferation we are trying to prevent."

There's no could about it, others will react insofar as they are able. They are already. For example,

Russia has condemned the US plan [for missile defense sites in Eastern Europe] and says it is developing new missiles. ...

"Let them deploy it. It is their problem. We have everything we need to respond to all these deployments in a commensurate way," Russian air force commander Vladimir Mikhaylov told Rossiya TV.

Moscow has warned Poland and the Czech Republic that they risk being targeted by Russian missiles if they agree to host the US defence system.

What's more, as others have noted, it seems quite stupid for the US to be pushing new nuclear weapons and facilities and new missile defense systems at a time when it's trying to get North Korea and Iran to give up on their (real or suspected) nuclear ambitions.

(North Korea is definitely pursuing nuclear weapons and might even have some, although that test last October was such a bust that it raises questions as to whether or not they've actually successfully assembled a bomb. Iran, on the other hand, is more likely than not after nukes, despite its denials, but the question isn't closed - and in any event, it is years away from getting them.)

It's especially stupid coming as it does in the immediate wake of the admission by US intelligence agencies that, contrary to five years of claims by the White House, they actually aren't sure if North Korea has been pursuing a secret uranium enrichment program. It was those claims that the Shrub gang had used to justify pulling out of the agreement the Clinton administration had cut with Pyongyang to halt its plutonium development. As the New York Times noted on Thursday,

[t]he United States cut off oil supplies, and the North Koreans responded by throwing out international inspectors, building up their plutonium arsenal and, ultimately, producing that first plutonium bomb.

Last month, North Korea agreed at the so-called six-party talks to take some steps toward shutting down its nuclear program in return for economic and energy aid. Personally, I suspect the supposedly revised intelligence thinking - and the leaking of it - are just covers to allow the Bushites to agree to such a deal, which would amount to returning to what the Clinton White House had obtained, without having to admit both that they completely botched yet another situation and that the Clinton deal, which they vociferously denounced for years, was actually the best that could be gotten.

Even so, any glimpse of sanity remains to be confirmed. Because stupidity by the White House in matters of nuclear weapons and nuclear weapons proliferation is not limited to North Korea. In the middle of all this, on Saturday, Muammar Qaddaffi griped that Libya

has not been given adequate compensation for its decision to renounce nuclear weapons in 2003.

Speaking to the BBC, Colonel Gaddafi said the failure by the West to reward Libya meant Iran and North Korea were reluctant to follow Tripoli's lead.

Libya did get some limited benefit in the lifting of sanctions the resumption of diplomatic ties with the US and the UK, and its removal from the US's list of "state sponsors of terror." (We'll leave for another time the obvious question of why giving up a nuclear weapons program means you can't be a "state sponsor of terror" and the equally-obvious related question of if that means such a listing is more a weapon of coercion than a factual description.)

However, Col Gaddafi says the West has not properly compensated his country because it has failed to transform its nuclear weapons programme into nuclear power. ...

"This should be a model to be followed, but Libya is disappointed because the promises given by America and Britain were not fulfilled," he said. ...

"They said if you abolish your war programme we will help you to develop your nuclear abilities into peaceful ones. This has not happened."

Why then, he wondered, should Iran or North Korea put any stock in such assurances? It's a good question. And if we as a nation really are serious about containing nuclear weapons proliferation, if we really are serious about a nuclear weapons-free world, we also should be asking questions about our own new nuclear weapons facilities, our own new nuclear weapons designs, and our own repeated failure to keep our word. And once we do that, we need to ask questions about our own continued possession of the weapons themselves.

Footnote: The "Doomsday Clock" of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists now stands at 11:55 PM, having been moved two minutes closer to the midnight of nuclear war in January after standing at seven minutes to midnight since 2002. The news of North Korea and Iran were not the only forces driving the change: The potential for environmental collapse from climate change and the mass conflicts that would engender also figured in the decision.

The clock has appeared on the cover of the magazine since 1947. The time displayed has ranged from as little as two minutes to midnight (in 1953) to 17 minutes to midnight (in 1991).

We are not alone

Another occasional mention of a few items to remind us as Americans that our concerns are not the only ones and the issues that concern us are not the only ones people of the world have to deal with. Except as noted, the items in this edition come courtesy of BBC News.

- March 2: Nigeria looking for debt relief

Nigeria has agreed a deal for US investment bank Merrill Lynch to take on most of its $500m (£257m) debt. ...

The government hopes the deal will make Nigeria more attractive for foreign investors and clear debt before it leaves office in May.

"The only debts that will remain would be those owed to multilateral institutions and a few bilateral loans," said the government.

The deal comes after the Paris Club - another group of creditors - gave Nigeria a debt relief package worth $18bn.

As part of the deal, Nigeria used money from oil revenues to pay back $12.4bn.

Debt relief has been part of the agenda for the developing world for some time, in the conviction that getting poor nations out of the cycle of taking on debt to pay past debt in a downward spiral - that is, creating a clean slate - is more important and more effective than direct aid.

Unfortunately, many of the "restructuring" conditions put on nations in order for them to get relief threaten to simply switch them from being vassals of world financial institutions to being vassals of world corporate institutions. Nigeria's hope that clearing a hunk of its debt will make it "more attactive for foreign investors" rather than, say, "more able to provide services to its people" illustrates the problem.

This is despite the fact that programs aimed at such investors and often revolving around production for export rather than domestic consumption (because that provides more return for the investors) not only run contrary to the needs of the populace but the benefit of the environment, as an emerging movement known as "food sovereignty" argues:

Food sovereignty is all about ensuring that farmers, rather than transnational corporations, are in control of what they farm and how they farm it; ensuring too that communities have the right to define their own agricultural, pastoral, labour, fishing, food and land policies to suit their own ecological, social, economic and cultural circumstances. ...

Combinations of indigenous and modern methods lead to more environmentally sustainable agriculture, as well as reducing dependence on expensive external inputs, reducing the cost-price squeeze and debt trap in which the world's farmers are increasingly caught.

Ecological agriculture has been shown to be productive, economic and sustainable for farmers, whether their external inputs are low or high. ...

Food sovereignty is not against trade and science. But it does argue for a fundamental shift away from "business as usual", emphasising the need to support domestic markets and small-scale agricultural production based on resilient farming systems rich in biological and cultural diversity.

Footnote: Because, I expect, of its oil wealth, Nigeria was not among the 38 "Heavily Indebted Poor Countries," or HIPC, eligible for restricted relief under an IMF/World Bank program.

- March 2: Blasts in Mogadishu

Six explosions have hit the Somali capital, Mogadishu, seriously injuring six civilians - a day after Ugandan peacekeepers left for Somalia.

Two children were among those injured in a market where some of the mortars exploded during Friday prayers.

Dozens have been killed by insurgents since the Ethiopian-backed government forces defeated Islamists last year.

The African Union is planning to send 8,000 peacekeepers to Somalia, but has only raised half the number required.

So far, Uganda has pledged 1,700 soldiers; Burundi, another 1,700; and Nigeria, some 850.

Somalia enjoyed a six-month lull in the insecurity that has dogged the country for the last 16 years when the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC) was in power.

But violence has escalated in the past two months. ...

More than 10,000 civilians have fled Mogadishu in the past two weeks, the United Nations estimates.

- March 4: Possible peace deal in the Ivory Coast (or, if you prefer, the more formally correct Côte d'Ivoire).

The Ivory Coast government and the rebel movement have signed an accord in a fresh attempt to revive the country's stalled peace process.

The two sides agreed to form a new power-sharing government within five weeks and to set a joint army command. ...

Its aim is to unite Ivory Coast, which has been split since rebels seized the northern half of the country in 2002. ...

The buffer zone between the two sides - known as the confidence zone - is to be removed. It is currently patrolled by 10,000 French and UN troops. ...

The deal sets a timetable for disarmament and for a mass identification programme to give identity cards to the millions of Ivorians who do not have them.

It is estimated that elections, which have been postponed twice already, could be held in 10 months.

On the other hand, previous such deals have been ignored and so fallen apart, but

this deal is a result of direct dialogue between President Gbagbo and [rebel leader Guillaume] Soro and this will incite cautious optimism....

- March 4: Iranian women arrested

Iran's authorities have arrested more than 32 women activists protesting outside a courthouse in Tehran.

The protesters were showing solidarity with five women on trial for organising a protest last June against laws they say discriminate against women.

The five have been charged with endangering national security, propaganda against the state and taking part in an illegal gathering. ...

The BBC's Frances Harrison, reporting from the demonstration, says almost all the leaders of Iran's women's movement were arrested. ...

The women believe the authorities are trying to intimidate them to prevent any kind of protest during International Women's Day on 8 March.

- March 4: Riots in Copenhagen over housing

Unrest has continued in the Danish capital, Copenhagen, for a third night but a heavy police presence has prevented any serious violence.

Fires were lit at a number of locations but protests in the Noerrebro and Christiania districts were dispersed.

About 50 arrests were made overnight, bringing to more than 600 those held since the unrest began on Thursday.

The riots started after an anti-terror squad raid to evict squatters from the Youth House (Ungdomshuset) building.

Left-wing activists seized the then-abandoned building as part of a squatters movement nearly 25 years ago and it has been occupied since. In 2000, the city sold it to a Christian fundamentalist group which last year got a court order to evict the occupants. However,

the activists vowed not to leave, saying the council had no right to sell the building while it was still in use.

This is the second time disturbances have broken out over eviction attempts; in December, more than 300 were arrested in the wake of protests.

- March 4: UK to establish huge fingerprint database

This item was through The Times (UK).

Children aged 11 to 16 are to have their fingerprints taken and stored on a secret database, internal Whitehall documents reveal.

The leaked Home Office plans show that the mass fingerprinting will start in 2010, with a batch of 295,000 youngsters who apply for passports. ...

The plans are outlined in a series of “restricted” documents circulating among officials in the Identity and Passport Service. They form part of the programme for the introduction of new biometric passports and ID cards. ...

Under the new passport and ID scheme, everyone over 16 who applies for a passport will have their details — including fingerprints and eye or facial scans — added to the National Identity Register from next year. ...

Children under 16 will not be part of the ID card scheme. But the documents show that from 2010 they will still have to be fingerprinted for a new passport.

The prints will initially be stored on the directorate’s database. Once children reach 16 their fingerprints and other personal information will be passed for storage on the register, along with those of nearly 50m adults. ...

The prime minister has hailed the ID cards scheme as the centrepiece of efforts to combat terrorism and illegal immigration, as well as identity theft and benefit fraud. But opponents dismiss it as a “Big Brother” scheme that is too expensive, poorly planned and unlikely to function efficiently.

The Tories have pledged to scrap the scheme if they win the next election.

- March 4: Elections in Abkhazia

People in Abkhazia, a Black Sea region trying to break away from Georgia since a 1990s war, are voting in parliamentary elections.

Georgia's government has vowed to re-assert control over the region.

Abkhazia is a key factor in the long-running political conflict between Georgia and Russia, which has expressed support for the separatists' ambitions. ...

More than a decade after the war, negotiations to end this conflict have stalled.

The results of this election are unlikely to bring a peace settlement any closer.

The article says that the international community agrees the elections are not legitimate because the region is still part of Georgia. I'll accept for lack of contrary evidence that such is the world's general opinion, but that does raise an interesting question: Short of a treaty with the former parent government, how does a "breakaway" region establish its "legitimacy?" What are the standards, even informal ones, for becoming recognized by the "international community" as an independent region? Are there any?

Note well that I'm not passing judgment on Abkhazia's claims, as I simply do not know enough to do so. But I still find it interesting to compare the reluctance of that international community to look with kindness on Abkhazian claims - even though the Abkhazians defeated the Georgian army in that 1990s war (such military victories often being a source of conferred legitimacy) - with the almost unseemly rush to embrace the roughly-contemporaneous breakup of Yugoslavia. Is it a matter of national self-interest? Or does it really, at the end of the day, just come down to "ah, who cares about them?"

Howcum?

Jeez, gone all this time - five days longer than I said I'd be gone - and no plaintive wails? No heart-rending expressions of concern for my well-being?

Damn. I really gotta get more publicity for this thing.