perfidy

The more astute and alert amongst our legions of loyal readers will have noticed that the link to Phil Dennison's blog Catch Me If You Can has moved to the "cronies" category of our blogroll. If you didn't notice, shame on you. Phil and his wife came to the Superbowl Chili Party we threw last weekend, and as soon as we met, became eligible for the "cronies" appellation. Phil's a cool guy, even if he is a vegetarian, and you should go read his blog.

I have some comments on Ross’ last post.

Foreign Policy:

Why, then, has Bush's response been so different to the same intelligence reports? Clinton, viewing, the exact same information, chooses to remain at arm's length from Iraq. Bush sets off to war. Bush has 9/11 looming large...but that's what Afghanistan was about.

Bush’s response has been different because every previous president found it politically expedient to ignore the threat. 9/11 makes that more difficult, though you seem up to the challenge. Afghanistan was about 9/11, but it didn’t end there. We still need to hunt al Qaida everywhere else (including Iraq) and then hunt down those who make terror possible – the state sponsors (including Iraq.) It is a war on terror, not on al Qaida. Hunting for bin Laden isn't enough - he is only one instance of the class of terrorism. We need to do everything in our power to eliminate that threat. We've been hit by terrorism incrementally over the last thirty years. 9/11 was only the worst. Letting the problem grow (as five presidents in a row did) only makes it worse. Terrorism is immoral, unethical, antithetical to everything good about civilization, and frankly evil. Hunting bin Laden is merely expedient. We need to stamp out terrorism, and that's a hard enough road without apologists for terror getting in the way.

A necessary war in Afghanistan, and a stupid, wasteful one in Iraq. The entire world holds Bush (and to an extent America), in very low esteem at the moment. Nobody was fooled by the pre-war WMD crap, and it turns out that there was good reason not to be fooled. His current attempts to run away from the considered opinions of his own administration is embarrassing for the country.

Everyone in the world, including the French, was convinced that Iraq had WMD. It is disingenuous for you to suggest that all those farseeing anti-Americans had it right all along. And I’m sure the people of Iraq thank you for calling their liberation wasteful. WMD was never the only reason we invaded Iraq. Humanitarian reasons, violations of the cease fire agreement, threat to other nations, etc. ad nauseum. That the rest of the world thinks ill of us reflects badly on them, not us. We liberated a nation from a brutal tyrant; they opposed it. Which side do you want to be on? And now we have evidence that the French were opposing the war for oil money. Screw them. Saddam killed on average 12,000 people a year. We saved 9,000 so far by invading, and could have saved 9,000 more if we’d invaded the summer before instead of tap dancing with the UN. And why are you embarrassed? You’re Canadian.

Bush is blaming the CIA for feeding him bad information about Iraq. He's also saying that those intelligence reports have been around for a long time, and they've stayed consistent. Fine -- let's assume that's true. Bush gets his information from an inner circle of advisors. He doesn't read the reports directly; he doesn't know what they say. It's highly probably that there was quite a bit of spin put on the information Bush got. The simplest explanation for the whole situation is that some of his closest advisors _didn't_ see justification in the intelligence reports, but were willing to bet that when we got there, we'd find the evidence. The bet didn't pay off. Bush was betrayed by his advisors; they made a decision that's supposed to be made by a President, in full view of the facts. They made the decision because they screwed around with the facts they presented Bush.

I refer you to the Keegan article I linked earlier for some info on how intelligence works. Kay insists that no one was pressuring anyone to color their reports. Ever since the Church commission back in the seventies, our intelligence capabilities have been gutted. We have had to rely on sigint almost entirely. Now, we are supremely good at signals intelligence, satellite reconnaissance and the like. But good intelligence requires human spies, on the ground where we need to know things. We haven’t had that in over a quarter century. So the fact that the intelligence estimates were off is no surprise. But we were also getting information from France, Britain and other sources that all pointed in the same direction. That was what we based our conclusions on. Further, capability is not the only factor in weighing a threat. The other half is intentions – and we know that the Iraqis had that.

But this is all bullshit, because you’re arguing over why we went to war; or more specifically, was this one reason enough to go to war? There were other reasons, and in the end are you pissed that we got rid of Saddam, just because you weren’t satisfied with the decision making process? It was entirely legal – there was a congressional authorization, and then Bush sent in the troops. What did the war achieve – is that a good thing? If you think that leaving Saddam in power would have been a good thing, then maybe your arguments about WMD would make sense.
Environment:

Disagrees with conclusions on global warming, climate change, and so forth. His response? Cut the funding for research. Chewed up and spit out Christie Todd Whitman, who went into the job as EPA administrator thinking that she'd have some impact on policy. All decisions were made before Bush even took office. Maybe God'll sort us all out in the Rapture.

Is everything that much more polluted since Bush took office? Have you noticed the thicker smog, and Bush’s little minions spraying CFC’s on your lawn? The same environmental laws are still there. We are still far less polluted than we were ten, twenty, or forty years ago. Disagreeing with global warming is a cardinal sin, apparently. Oh, and he’s a fundamentalist so he must be wrong. That’s rank bigotry.

Economy:

Has attempted "stimulation" with tax cuts. Negligible effects on the economy, and massive destruction to the federal budget. The long term prospects for the federal government are so bad, it will inhibit the us economy, particularly by scaring off foreign investors, who prop up the government's borrowing habits.

The economy went south before he took office. The stimulus package has had results – the economy is doing better than when he took office. It takes time for the economy to recover from a recession. It doesn’t happen overnight. Deficits are not as bad as you suggest, though I agree that they should be lower. The best way to lower deficits is to lower spending. And that means that you can’t have all your liberal programs.

Here's the biggest mistake you make. You presume that the tax cuts mean that people have "money in their pockets". That's just plain wrong. The tax cuts didn't go to you and me, my friend. They didn't go to the regular people in this country. The vast majority of those dollars went back into the pockets of people who don't need them. People who are already vigorously trying to get around the tax code, to avoid paying _any_ share, let alone a fair share. People who have armies of lawyers devoted to keeping everything they can.

Well, I got to keep more of my money thanks to the tax cuts. I am regular people. Or at least my wife is. You can send your money in, but I’d like to keep mine. We certainly need fundamental tax reform, and I’ve talked about that before.

Bush's casual destruction of the finances of the federal government is truly the greatest security threat facing this country. It turns out that the $200 Billion is doing this war on the cheap; there are serious problems with supplies. In other words, it's gonna cost more in the future. The American government needs to be in a fiscal position to finance necessary actions around the world. Bush is screwing that up, massively. Of course, we could just print more money, right? That'll fix it.

You are complaining that we won’t have enough money to finance a war you oppose? You should be happy. Deficits in 1943 were a third of GDP. Now they are well under 5%. It’s not that big a problem. The government is not going to have its credit rating reduced. We will have the money we need, if for no other reason than the economy will improve and provide more revenue. Greatest security threat? We’re running up the credit card a little, and you think that’s a bigger problem than someone trying to kill us? Terrorism is a reality we have to deal with.

Political Climate

More partisan and divisive and STUPID than it has ever been. The reason? This white house is not interested in discussions. The "smart guys" have already made the decisions. Having international embarrassments like Tom Delay in power doesn't help, either.

I didn’t notice Bush getting up on a stage and insulting the Democratic candidates. I don’t see young republicans waving signs saying Kerry=Hitler. And btw, you think Tom Delay is worse than Chappaquiddick Ted? And you say that Republicans are making the political climate worse when you say this:

Every action Bush has taken has been rooted in one of the following: Making his rich buddies vastly richer with tax cuts, engaging in experimentation with neoconservative foreign policy, pandering to the (relatively) conservative base with wedge issues, and selling access to the donor class. Virtually every domestic policy initiative he has engaged in has been a failure… Most GOP attacks on the Democrats this fall will center on their "hate" for Bush. Whatever...it's not exactly misplaced, to the extent that it exists. The GOP will tell its base that Democrats therefore hate them, as well. The dirty secret is that there are Republicans out there who are honorable, who are fiscally conservative, and who adhere to principle. The crooks in the white house won't have anything to do with those guys.

Well, as I mentioned in my last post, that kind of thing doesn’t exactly contribute to reasoned discourse. It’s not a dirty secret that there are honorable Republicans, they’re half the fucking population.

Ross, I have no problem with the fact that you disagree with me, or with the administration on any number of policy issues. I will try to convince you (and vice versa) of the proper course to be taken.

What bothers me is the presumption - which you share with a wide swath of the liberal side of the political spectrum - that Republicans and conservatives are acting with malicious intent. Your admission that, "of course there are a couple honorable Republicans" is a cover for your blanket condemnation of the rest of them. Is it too much for you to believe that Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, Powell and the others are acting in what they conceive to be the best interests of the nation? And that your disagreement with them doesn't make them crooks, liars, betrayers, and generally consumed with greed and a desire to blow up the little brown people?

While you talk in your subtext post about issues, you fail to do any kind of convincing when your premise for every policy argument is that Bush and his advisors (and, by extension, everyone who agrees with them) are stupid, venal or malicious. Even when backing off of one Bush insult, you lay on two more. You're not going to convince me of anything when you're calling me a mendacious greedy idiot between the lines. So, no, I wasn't protesting too much.

The Financial Times is reporting on expected American troop withdrawals from Europe. Washington is planning to cut the European presence by one-third, or about 30,000 people, the bulk of them from der Vaterland.

Earlier reportage predicted a redeployment eastward, building huge new facilities in Poland and other Warsaw Pact survivor states. The plan now seems to be to establish a series of small, spartan bases there, but with a tiny permanent presence and designed to expand rapidly if necessary.

The funny thing is that no one at all will be happy with this decision. The obvious casualties of a dramatic troop withdrawal from Germany would be the local economies associated with providing goods and services to soldiers. But it's not just bars and bordellos that would feel the pinch: every restaurant, cab driver and liquor store within 5 kilometers of an American kaserne is going to get hurt. Some businesses never recovered after the drawdowns in the '90s.

So small local merchants will be unhappy at a reduction in the American presence. But the Green/Commie/Left/Pacifists will be overjoyed, right? Wrong. Euro-hippies will exult at first without GIs running about, sweeping away their women or causing the odd fracas. They will soon find, however, that without soldiers to beat up the Poizei will be able to focus their considerable ass-kicking energies back onto the frenzied Left.

What to do with those 30,000 withdrawn soldiers is a question mark for the time being. But ultimately the United States cannot make strategic decisions like where to station an Army division based on the needs of foreign whores and barkeeps. The US need only consider the needs of good ol' American whores and barkeeps.

Tacitus is writing about his trip to Rwanda last year and in the process reenforcing my belief that, if there is a God, he's a real son of a bitch.

The little parenthetical that followed "can't read" was intended to alter the meaning of that, to "doesn't read anything that's given to him". Of course Bush can read; you can't barely graduate from Yale without being able to read something. Unless it's a complicated something.

I get to be much more ridiculous in comment threads, don't I?

Methinks Steve doth protest too much.

Ask yourselves this: Bush is blaming the CIA for feeding him bad information about Iraq. He's also saying that those intelligence reports have been around for a long time, and they've stayed consistent. Fine -- let's assume that's true. Why, then, has Bush's response been so different to the same intelligence reports? Clinton, viewing, the exact same information, chooses to remain at arm's length from Iraq. Bush sets off to war. Bush has 9/11 looming large...but that's what Afghanistan was about.

Bush gets his information from an inner circle of advisors. He doesn't read the reports directly; he doesn't know what they say. It's highly probably that there was quite a bit of spin put on the information Bush got. The simplest explanation for the whole situation is that some of his closest advisors _didn't_ see justification in the intelligence reports, but were willing to bet that when we got there, we'd find the evidence.

The bet didn't pay off. Bush was betrayed by his advisors; they made a decision that's supposed to be made by a President, in full view of the facts. They made the decision because they screwed around with the facts they presented Bush.

Similarly, on the economy, Bush has been screwed by his advisors again. Three budget years in a row they've predicated rosiness, as far as the rosy eye could see. None of it has come to pass.

While economists agree that there is _some_ stimulus provided by tax cuts, the real question is, how much? On that question, there is massive disagreement. The vast majority of economists don't think there's all that much, and judging by the state of the economy, they're right.

The Bushies predicted invading Iraq would cost around $50 Billion, back before it happened. Looks like it's going to be north of $200 Billion at this point, when all is said and done. This leaves you with two choices. Either they are completely freakin' incompetent at estimates, or they were deliberately lowballing their estimate (otherwise known as telling lies to get what you want).

Bush's casual destruction of the finances of the federal government is truly the greatest security threat facing this country. It turns out that the $200 Billion is doing this war on the cheap; there are serious problems with supplies. In other words, it's gonna cost more in the future. The American government needs to be in a fiscal position to finance necessary actions around the world. Bush is screwing that up, massively. Of course, we could just print more money, right? That'll fix it.

Here's the biggest mistake you make. You presume that the tax cuts mean that people have "money in their pockets". That's just plain wrong. The tax cuts didn't go to you and me, my friend. They didn't go to the regular people in this country. The vast majority of those dollars went back into the pockets of people who don't need them. People who are already vigorously trying to get around the tax code, to avoid paying _any_ share, let alone a fair share. People who have armies of lawyers devoted to keeping everything they can.

Let's stop talking about taxpayers as if we're all in the same class, the same boat. We aren't. I won't say much more this point, except the following: When you look at the IRS statistics that show the rise in average constant dollars income over the past twenty years, they are highly deceptive. They're deceptive because they show the average, not the median. Everyone who knows anything about math knows that the very first thing you do when you want to lie with statistics or hide something is use averages instead of means. I won't say the IRS is deliberately doing this; they're not. Bush, on the other hand, has happily pushed "averages" at the American public, who presume that they can rely on it as a guide.

Every action Bush has taken has been rooted in one of the following: Making his rich buddies vastly richer with tax cuts, engaging in experimentation with neoconservative foreign policy, pandering to the (relatively) conservative base with wedge issues, and selling access to the donor class. Virtually every domestic policy initiative he has engaged in has been a failure.

Environment: Terrible. Disagrees with conclusions on global warming, climate change, and so forth. His response? Cut the funding for research. Chewed up and spit out Christie Todd Whitman, who went into the job as EPA administrator thinking that she'd have some impact on policy. All decisions were made before Bush even took office. Maybe God'll sort us all out in the Rapture.

Economy: Terrible. Has attempted "stimulation" with tax cuts. Negligible effects on the economy, and massive destruction to the federal budget. The long term prospects for the federal government are so bad, it will inhibit the us economy, particularly by scaring off foreign investors, who prop up the government's borrowing habits.

Foreign Policy: A necessary war in Afghanistan, and a stupid, wasteful one in Iraq. The entire world holds Bush (and to an extent America), in very low esteem at the moment. Nobody was fooled by the pre-war WMD crap, and it turns out that there was good reason not to be fooled. His current attempts to run away from the considered opinions of his own administration is embarrassing for the country.

Political Climate: More partisan and divisive and STUPID than it has ever been. The reason? This white house is not interested in discussions. The "smart guys" have already made the decisions. Having international embarrassments like Tom Delay in power doesn't help, either.

Most GOP attacks on the Democrats this fall will center on their "hate" for Bush. Whatever...it's not exactly misplaced, to the extent that it exists. The GOP will tell its base that Democrats therefore hate them, as well. The dirty secret is that there are Republicans out there who are honorable, who are fiscally conservative, and who adhere to principle. The crooks in the white house won't have anything to do with those guys.

This morning on the way to work, I saw a funeral procession. It was composed of:

1. The Hearse
2. A Limousine
3. A Ford Taurus

A very good article from a very smart guy. I'm reading his history of the First World War, and it's cracking good history.

Loyal reader #0009 Mapgirl has pointed us at a Guardian article on the horrors contained within the borders of North Korea:

Over the past year harrowing first-hand testimonies from North Korean defectors have detailed execution and torture, and now chilling evidence has emerged that the walls of Camp 22 hide an even more evil secret: gas chambers where horrific chemical experiments are conducted on human beings.

Witnesses have described watching entire families being put in glass chambers and gassed. They are left to an agonizing death while scientists take notes. The allegations offer the most shocking glimpse so far of Kim Jong-il's North Korean regime.

Kwon Hyuk, who has changed his name, was the former military attaché at the North Korean Embassy in Beijing. He was also the chief of management at Camp 22. In the BBC's This World documentary, to be broadcast tonight, Hyuk claims he now wants the world to know what is happening.

'I witnessed a whole family being tested on suffocating gas and dying in the gas chamber,' he said. 'The parents, son and a daughter. The parents were vomiting and dying, but till the very last moment they tried to save kids by doing mouth-to-mouth breathing.'

There can be little argument that the nightmare masquerading as a sovereign government in North Korea is the most hellish, brutal and perverse on Earth. The obscenely surreal rhetoric that issues forth from Pyongyang only gives us the tiniest glimpse into what life is like in that benighted country. This picture is from a composite satellite image of the earth at night: 

You can see where light and prosperity end at the northern border of South Korea. Political, moral and literal darkness. The North Koreans are devoting much of their energy to the acquisition of nuclear weapons and delivery systems for same. They already have missiles capable of hitting Japan, and soon they may have missiles that could deliver a nuclear warhead to the west coast of the United States. (No thanks to Pakistan) The consensus is that North Korea may already have two or more bombs.

That nuclear capability makes the problem of North Korea much more complicated than that we faced in Iraq or Afghanistan, or than we might face in Syria, Iran or Saudi Arabia. As well, even though in a conventional fight the North is no match for the South, let alone the US and the South together - a surprise attack combined with the use of nuclear or chemical weapons could wreak enormous destruction before the eventual defeat of the North. Seoul, the capitol of South Korea, is within artillery range of the North.

Perhaps the best hope we have is that the system will collapse under the weight of its own delusions and there will be a peaceful anschluss with the south. American strategy has been to angle for the isolation of the North, possibly in the hopes of accelerating this process. But there are several complicating factors even with this slim hope. First, the government in the North is by any metric we could use completely insane. Desperation on top of insanity might provoke an attack if the regime and its Dear Leader felt there was nothing to lose. Second, China's strategic considerations make all outcomes doubtful. China's desire to be a regional hegemon and not have a close US ally on their border will be a big factor however it plays out - in the event of a Northern collapse and especially if there is fighting. Third, the completely understandable (meaning four, for those who followed the Winds of Change debate) reluctance of the South Koreans to do anything to provoke the raving lunatics next door.

North Korea is an integral part of the world market in WMD, and American stands to suffer should these weapons get into the hands of some well heeled 'splodeydopes in the Middle East. The brutality of the regime, and the suffering of the North Koreans should put Kim on everyone's better dead list. That doesn't stop Jimmy Carter from hanging out with the Dear Leader, of course. They all have free health care, you know. It's hard to see what anyone can do to solve the problem without massive 'collateral damage' - to the South, to Japan, or even to the US. Yet to leave it alone is unacceptable for both moral and national security reasons. I think the only practical course is to wait - but it is a galling choice.

Over in the comments to my recent post of exit poll results, Ross had this to say:

So we can have more Bush? Give me a break. The man can't add (budgeting), can't spell (never written a damn thing), and can't read (intelligence or treasury reports).

Three straight years of being dead wrong on budgets. Three years of being dead wrong on the economy. Federal revenue is down by 25%, and spending is up by more than 25%. You can bitch about 9/11 all you want to, but that fact is that the GDP hasn't shifted around all that much. What's changed is the massive tax breaks given out, in the name of vote buying.

He's not exactly a "buck stops here" kind of President, either. You can be honestly wrong about something, but you're still wrong. Bush's style is to blame everyone else; the GOP's style is to eat that crap up.

There is no question that John Kerry would make a significantly better President than Bush. So would Edwards, and so would Clark or Dean, for that matter.

Really Ross? No question? I think there are many here who would question that. As I've said before, questioning his policies is one thing - and I do that myself. But making ridiculous accusations of illiteracy is, well, ridiculous. This is the same kind of rhetoric that got you involved in that frank exchange of views over at Winds of Change.

I'll give you wrong on budgets - he has spent far too much on programs that you advocate. He's half wrong on the economy - he increased farm subsidies, steel tariffs and other departures from free trade thinking are all very bad - though not disastrous. Clinton doesn't get the credit for the good economy in the late nineties, and Bush shouldn't get the blame for a cyclical downturn in the economy that started before he entered office. Tax cuts are recognized by nearly all non-Marxist economists as an economic stimulus. They may argue about their efficacy related to other measures, but there is little argument that they are a stimulus. And they are cuts, which help people because their money is in their pockets and isn't feeding the beast in Washington. That revenue is down is not a bad thing, and in any event will go back up with the economy. We do need to control spending.

And I won't stop "bitching" about 9/11 - because it is *the* issue confronting us right now. How do we protect ourselves from ruthless individuals that have declared us their enemy? How do we stop them, and how do we promote peace and freedom in a region that is violent, poor, and halfway to insanity?

9/11 trumps every other issue facing this nation. We can muddle through with our mostly ineffective educational system. The old can get their kids to buy them drugs. We can put off the reckoning with social security. But we can't sit back and do nothing while people with a proven capacity and intention to commit massive violence against American citizens plot their evil. Not being serious about the defense of our nation is unacceptable. Bush will continue to prosecute the war on terror. He will work against terror groups and the states that sponsor them. There is an international network of terror - as the recent revelations that Pakistan's premier bomb designer sold the technology to Iran, Libya and North Korea. The terror groups shared training facilities throughout the Middle East for the last several decades. Al Qaida connected group Ansar al-Islam just hit two of the Kurdish political parties - the groups that are working to make Iraq into a sane and liberal society.

We leave this alone, and go back to launching random cruise missiles and trying to arrest terrorists, and we'll lose a city.

Kerry seems to think that the terror threat is overrated, and that civilian police methods are adequate. Well that kind of thinking led to the death of 3000 of my countrymen. That, and John Kerry, are unacceptable. Clark is a micromanaging general officer who is roundly disliked by everyone he served with. Carter on steroids, and also not good enough. Dean's national security credibility is fractionally better than Kucinich's - he thinks that the Iraqis were better off under Saddam. Personally, I think freedom from arbitrary murder and torture is better. But remember, just like in Cuba, everyone had free health care. Edwards has yet to say anything substantial about national security beyond bland platitudes, and that is hardly encouraging.