Peace Rant

Keep on truckin' but where are we going?

About 100 big rig drivers -- along with their trucks -- held a protest at the Capitol building in DC today.  You can probably guess what it was about.  High gasoline prices.  Another protest is planned to take place on Wall Street on Thursday.

The soaring price of gas is one of those things that can rile up a citizenry precisely because it is sudden, drastic, and deeply affects them personally.  Today's trucker protest may be just the beginning of some serious agitation. 

Warning:  If you're already agitated, what follows is something that definitely won't help your mood.

The truckers who circumnavigated Congress today were demanding, among other things, that the federal government release supplies from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve in a bid to drive down prices.  More supply, lower prices, right?  Many DC pols (Clinton, Pelosi, McCain) are calling for a pause in adding to the reserve, which is aimed at the same effect.

The Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) was established in 1975 in the wake of the OPEC oil embargo.  The intent, of course, is to keep in storage enough oil to see the country through another embargo or other sudden restriction in our imported oil supply.  Probably not a bad idea, generally speaking.

The SPR -- four petroleum-filled salt caverns on the Gulf Coast in Texas and Louisiana, with a fifth to open soon in Mississippi -- currently holds over 700 million barrels of oil, enough to get through a two-month cutoff of imports.  It's well over 95% full.

And yet, with the price at the pump jumping higher and faster than a startled cat, Bush is continuing to add oil to the reserve. 

(The price jump, by the way, also affects the price we taxpayers are paying for the oil currently going into the reserve.  Previous administrations' strategies have been to add to the reserve when prices were low.)

Not only is Bush paying a premium to keep adding to the SPR, according to a chart at the Dept of Energy's SPR website, over the coming months the plan is to increase the rate at which oil is being pumped into the SPR.

In all the articles I've read on this, the inevitable "experts" seem to agree that pausing additions to the SPR, or even releasing some of the reserves onto the market, would have but a modest effect on the price we pay at the corner station.  So?

I'd think that Bush wouldn't mind a little positive PR in light of his historically low popularity ratings.  Save us a dime a gallon, George, and you'd be a hero again in no time.  (OK, not a hero, exactly.  But 10% fewer people despising him is surely a worthwhile goal, isn't it?)

The SPR was established, remember, for two reasons.  To get us through another oil embargo.  Or some other sudden restriction in our imports.

Saudi Arabia and Iraq are not about to start an embargo against the US.  Not with one enjoying the windfall profits they're making, and the other currently under military occupation by the US.

That leaves a sudden restriction in imported supplies as a possible explanation for why Bush continues to pump oil into salt caverns when the price is going crazy.

Who could suddenly constrict our imports?  How about a retaliatory Iran, after Bush bombs the crap out of that country?  All they'd have to do is sink one or two ships in the narrow Strait of Hormuz and there goes the entire Middle East oil supply.  For a month or two. 

Bush is getting ready.

Now it's Hillary who can't find the WMD

During an interview yesterday with Keith Olbermann, Hillary Clinton provided this analysis of why it would be dangerous for Iran to develop a nuclear weapons capability:

. . . if Iran were to become a nuclear power it could set off an arms race that would be incredibly dangerous and destabilizing because the countries in the region are not going to want Iran to be the only nuclear power so I could imagine that they would be rushing to obtain nuclear weapons themselves.  [Transcript at MSNBC]

This is not only wrong, it's a deliberate lie.

Iran would not, of course, be the only nuclear power in the region.  Although Israel has never acknowledged possessing nuclear weapons and maintains a policy of strategic ambiguity, there is no doubt within the US government nor other nations that Israel does indeed have a substantial nuclear arsenal -- perhaps 200 to 300 warheads.

Now, Israel's strategy of strategic ambiguity may make some kind of sense, who knows?  If you're going to muck about in the geopolitics of nuclear deterrence, certain things might make sense.  It's a strange world.

For the most part, US political leaders have echoed Israel's ambiguous position.  They shouldn't.

We're in the middle of a presidential election, potentially the most powerful expression of one of our basic rights -- voting. 

A possible attack on Iran keeps popping up as a policy issue.  The candidates, Congress, and we the people need to discuss this possibility of another war.  For that conversation to happen honestly, a candidate for president should be utterly honest with the American people about the true nature of the situation in the region.

Pretending that Israel does not have nuclear weapons is not strategic ambiguity. It's a lie.

"Housing" bill? Let them sleep on airplanes.

This was predictable.  All too predictable.

Emergency Congressional legislation originally proposed to help people who may lose their homes as a result of predatory lending practices and the housing downturn, will now help . . . Are you ready for this?

Airlines, home builders [!], Ford, General Motors, American Airlines, Northwest Airlines, Goodyear Tire and Rubber, realtors, banks, manufacturers ...

The Senate and House are in overdrive to pass "housing" legislation before they adjourn so the individual members may campaign for re-election.  The rush to adopt a "must-pass" bill (for election purposes only, not to really help people) opens the floodgates to corporate lobbyists.

Keeping people in their homes has become an afterthought.  After all, folks on the verge of losing their homes can't exactly afford K Street lobbyists.  But all manner of corporate interests can afford the tab.  And the payoff is enormous.

Car manufacturers are looking at the possibility of rebate checks up to $40 million a pop.  How's that look next to your $600 economic stimulus check?  Home builders are due for millions more -- each! -- in rebates.  (A refund of taxes previously paid on outlandish profits in the past few years.)  Airlines and miscellaneous manufacturers are also in line for rebate checks.

All told, these latest corporate tax rebates currently stand at $6 billion.  That's in addition to some $40 billion in business rebates that came with the initial economic stimulus package (the one where you and I get $600 each).  No doubt there will be much more in the coming months for the pigs feeding at the Federal trough.

[NY Times, Big Tax Breaks for Businesses in Housing Bill, 4/15/08] The tax provisions of the Foreclosure Prevention Act, which consumer groups and labor leaders say amount to government handouts to big business, show how the credit crisis, while rattling the housing and financial markets, has created beneficiaries in the power corridors of Washington.

It also shows how legislation with a populist imperative offers a chance for lobbyists to press their clients’ interests.

And who, exactly, is looking out for our interests?  Our elected representatives?  Not so far. But that can change. 

All you have to do is demand it.  Don't ask, don't plead, don't request.

Demand.

Happy Tax Day

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What's more important? Slimy campaign consultants or another war?

The blogosphere and the corporate media are all agog over the news that Hillary Clinton's chief campaign strategist, Mark Penn, has variously resigned, stepped aside, been demoted, sent to his room without dinner . . . The semantics don't really matter.  He caused problems for the boss, big problems, and the Clinton campaign's reaction is the news.

I disagree.  Of course.  That's my job.

The background:  Mark Penn, creep-in-chief and prime slime for Clinton's campaign, has held on to his day job throughout the campaign -- CEO of Burson Marsteller Worldwide, a "lobbying" firm.  In this capacity, Penn recently met with the ambassador of Colombia, one of BM's clients.  Colombia has hired Penn and company to lobby Washington on behalf of a proposed free trade agreement between Colombia and the US.  Problem is, Clinton officially opposes the agreement, especially while she's campaigning in the free-trade-devastated state of Pennsylvania, site of the next major Demo primary.

Not very delicate timing by Penn, to be sure.  Of course, Clinton's hiring of and heretofore steadfast reliance on this political thug has not evinced much delicacy on her part.

But there's another aspect to this story, also reported just today, that should be commanding the headlines.

Ecuador says CIA controls part of its intelligence

QUITO (Reuters) - Ecuador's president accused the CIA on Saturday of controlling many of his country's spy agencies, in comments that could fray ties with Washington and drag it into Ecuador's feud with neighboring Colombia.

President Rafael Correa has fired a top intelligence officer and plans to overhaul spy agencies for belatedly informing him about links between Colombian rebels and an Ecuadorian who died in Colombia's raid inside Ecuador last month that sparked a regional crisis.

"Many of our intelligence agencies have been taken over by the CIA," the leftist leader said during his weekly radio show. "Through the CIA, information found here was passed to Colombia to improve their position" in the dispute.

Correa also charged the United States with financing some officers in the Ecuadorian spy agencies.

Colombia very recently crossed its borders -- militarily and illegally --invading Ecuador to assassinate a leader of the FARC revolutionary group.  The attack also killed some twenty other people.  Oh, and it very nearly sparked a regional war, as Ecuador and Venezuela rapidly moved troops to their common borders with Colombia in response to the deadly trespass.

Now we learn that Washington has been aiding Colombia -- more likely leading and commanding Colombia -- in its aggressive, destabilizing tactics against its neighbor Ecuador.  Not very surprising, really.  But there's a reason why we are constantly reminded in the Mark Penn-related stories that Colombia is a close US ally.  One of the few remaining allies the US has in Latin America, actually.

Trade agreements are important, critically important, I agree wholeheartedly.  But US instigation of a possible regional war in Latin America should trump that issue.

Perhaps the candidates -- and the bloggers and the mainstream punditry -- would care to comment on this aspect of US-Latin American relations?  Or must this too be subordinated to the all-important political feint of the moment? 

Oh, I know the answer.  It's campaign season.  Issues of war and peace  -- and global warming and healthcare and poverty and economic collapse -- will just have to wait.

Derailed.

No wonder George Bush is traveling in Europe in hopes of “securing his legacy” as recent articles have put it.  His legacy here at home is pretty much a foregone conclusion:  Worst President Ever.

A new New York Times/CBS opinion poll found that 81% of Americans believe “things have pretty seriously gotten off on the wrong track.”  It’s the worst result since this question was first asked in the early 1990s.

A majority of nearly every demographic and political group — Democrats and Republicans, men and women, residents of cities and rural areas, college graduates and those who finished only high school — say the United States is headed in the wrong direction. Seventy-eight percent of respondents said the country was worse off than five years ago; just 4 percent said it was better off.  [New York Times article]

That’s a national consensus of opinion almost unheard of in this country.  Are the Democrats in Congress listening?  They’ve been running scared from the threat of a presidential veto on any number of issues—Iraq war funding, wiretapping and other assaults on civil liberties, torture.

I think Congress needs to confront the veto pen with this national consensus.  Let Bush bluster and bluff and engage in his fear-mongering.  Backed with such bi-partisan consensus, Congress could roll over Bush as easily as a skateboarder skims over fresh new asphalt.

While they’re at it, Congress might want to actually listen to the national conversation.  Again, from today’s NY Times article:

In assessing possible responses to the mortgage crisis, Americans displayed a populist streak, favoring help for individuals but not for financial institutions. A clear majority said they did not want the government to lend a hand to banks, even if the measures would help limit the depth of a recession.  [Emphasis added.]

Americans almost always display a populist streak.  We’re no dummies, when you get down to it.  Clear majorities have long favored national health insurance, for example, but Congress has always allowed the monstrous medical industry to call the shots.

There may never be a better time to aggressively push a progressive agenda than now.  The villagers aren’t quite storming the gates of the citadel with pitchforks and flaming torches, but the mood of the country is an angry one.

And that’s something Bush can’t veto.

Last lap for Statesman Guy

Bush is off to his last NATO summit as President and his presumably final summit meeting with Vladimir Putin.  Perhaps Bush can peer into Putin's eyes one last time, not to see his soul again, but to perceive the seething resentments his foreign policy has created.

The standard story line in the corporate press has to do with Bush trying to "salvage" his legacy.  As Reuters put it, Bush will be "seeking to reassert himself on the world stage in the twilight of his term..."  Hasn't this man asserted himself enough already?  No matter.  The consensus seems to be that other world leaders are looking past Bush and will just bide their time on major policy matters until there's someone new in the White House.  They don't much care who it will be.

What's not mentioned so much by the corporate media is the huge blow to the chin that Bush just took with the recent Maliki - Sadr clash in Iraq.  Our man Maliki's "surge" against Sadr's Mahdi Army was a miserable military failure.  Even worse for Bush, the negotiated settlement to the round of violence was brokered by Iran.  And to top it all off, the negotiations took place in Iran.

Iraqi political leaders from both sides of the recent strife met in secret in Iran:

There the Iraqi lawmakers held talks with Brig. Gen. Qassem Suleimani, commander of the Qods (Jerusalem) brigades of Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps and signed an agreement with Sadr, which formed the basis of his statement Sunday, members of parliament said.  [Iranian general played key role in Iraq cease-fire, McClatchy News]

You wouldn't know this from James Glanz's latest New York Times story about the negotiations.  Not a word about Iran.  To me, however, Iran's role is the story.  Iran's role in Iraq, and the region, just took a huge step forward.

Which may very well mean that the likelihood of a US attack on Iran -- before Bush runs out his legacy -- has just increased.

P.S. - The Iranian general who brokered the ceasefire is on the US terrorist watch list.

Update:  Juan Cole has a fresh-out-of-the-oven article about Maliki's surge over at Salon.  Why al-Maliki attacked Basra 

4,000 US dead. Page 9.

Tonight's post has been evolving all day.  And the evolution has gone from bad to worse.

Earlier today while reading the New York Times -- the print edition, whilst basking in the sun in my backyard -- I noticed that the report of the deaths of four more US soldiers in Iraq was exiled to page 9.  And so I thought I would blog about how Iraq has fallen out of the news.

When I sat down at my computer this evening to put blog to electrons, I first checked out tomorrow's New York Times -- digital edition and the sun has long since set -- to find a bit of bitter irony.  The business section has an article titled, "The War Endures, but Where’s the Media?"

Since the start of last year, the Project for Excellence in Journalism, a part of the nonprofit Pew Research Center, has tracked reporting by several dozen major newspapers, cable stations, broadcast television networks, Web sites and radio programs. Iraq accounted for 18 percent of their prominent news coverage in the first nine months of 2007, but only 9 percent in the following three months, and 3 percent so far this year.  [Link]

A perfect fit for what I already wanted to write about.  And so the post evolved.

I decided to make a quick check of my email before writing.  There I found two messages announcing the fact that US deaths in Iraq had just reached a new milestone number:  4,000.  Another grim evolutionary turn for my once-modest blog entry. 

[NYT does have an early AP wire story about this on their home page now.]

The business section article speculates about possible reasons for the declining media coverage.  Here's the first explanation, Excuse A:

The drop in [media] coverage parallels — and may be explained by — a decline in public interest. Surveys by the Pew Research Center show that more than 50 percent of Americans said they followed events in Iraq “very closely” in the months just before and after the war began, but that slid to an average of 40 percent in 2006, and has been running below 30 percent since last fall.

Hold on.  The paragraph begins with a conclusion, then cites statistics that may just as well support an exactly opposite conclusion.  Let's rework that first sentence:

The drop in coverage parallels — and may be explained by — a decline in public interest.

The decline in public interest parallels — and may be explained by — a drop in coverage.

I think the second iteration is the right one.  Perhaps the Times would like to test the theory by putting Iraq back on page 1?

Today's US deaths were accompanied by day-long mortar attacks on the Green Zone and more than sixty Iraqi deaths.  Meanwhile, continuing to explain away the dearth of media coverage, the Times goes on . . .

He [Michael E. O’Hanlon, a senior fellow on national security at the Brookings Institution] argued that Americans who support the war might not have wanted to follow the news when it was bad, and that Americans against the war are less interested now that the news is better.

You bet.  The news just keeps getting better and better.  At this rate it won't be long before the news about Iraq is so good that it disappears entirely.  And then there'll be no need to even mention the 5,000th death.

Five years. The crime remains the same. Out now.

This above all else:  The US invasion of Iraq was a war of aggression.  It was and remains an unforgiveable offense against international law and basic human rights.  It is an offense against common sense and common decency.

Unforgiveable.

Iraq posed no threat to the security of America.  None.  Iraq was physically, geographically, economically, and militarily incapable of posing a threat to this country.

At the Nuremberg war crime trials -- the prosecution of Nazis for the aggression that led to World War II, and the horrific war crimes that followed -- the chief American prosecutor, Robert H. Jackson, said . . .

To initiate a war of aggression, therefore, is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime, differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole.

Our country crossed the line.  We launched a war of aggression.  Worse, it was a war of choice and political opportunity.  We destroyed a country because we could.

The supreme international crime.

With bonus points.

There no can be excuse, no reason, no logic, no humanity, no morality, that can argue for the perpetuation of the supreme international crime.

The crime is done.  It can never be made right again.  But it can be brought to an end.

Out now.

Terrorist odometer or . . . Cast of thousands, cont'd

Following up on today's earlier post about the enormous -- staggering -- number of people who have been interrogated or otherwise intruded upon by the US government, the ACLU has a counter on their website reflecting the number of people listed on the Feds' terrorist watch list.

ACLU Watch List Counter

Why are there so many names on the U.S. government's terrorist list?

In September 2007, the Inspector General of the Justice Department reported that the Terrorist Screening Center (the FBI-administered organization that consolidates terrorist watch list information in the United States) had over 700,000 names in its database as of April 2007 - and that the list was growing by an average of over 20,000 records per month.

At that rate, our list will have a million names on it by July. If there were really that many terrorists running around, we'd all be dead.  [Check it out.]

At this moment, the counter stands at 927,539.