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John McCain’s Serious Foreign PolicyJohn McCain was on a conference call with right-wing bloggers yesterday and boasted:
I think that people should understand that I will be Hamas’s worst nightmare.
What possible reason would a U.S. President have for turning himself and our country into a “nightmare” for Hamas, let alone its “worst nightmare”? Hamas is a single-issue Palestinian group, focused exclusively on its “territorial dispute” with Israel (and, in light of its victory in the U.S.-demanded election, is also now preoccupied with governing the Palestinian Authority). Is there anyone who thinks that Hamas has tried to, will try to, or ever could attack the U.S.? Hamas is an enemy of Israel, not the U.S. Is that a distinction we even recognize any more?
What exactly is the point of feeding Israel billions of dollars every year in military aid if we’re going to deem every one of its fights to be our fight, and every one of its enemies to be our Enemy? Is that actually what Americans want to do: insinuate ourselves even more into other endless, intractable religious and ethnic conflicts in the Middle East?
More disturbingly still, this chest-beating threat from McCain is merely the latest in a long line of adolescent, mindlessly belligerent war cries emanating from the Serious foreign policy candidate. In a GOP debate in May of last year, he bellowed that he would “follow [Osama bin Laden] to the gates of hell” only thereafter, according to ABC News, to then “crack[] a smile which gave the impression to some viewers that perhaps he viewed his own answer as being over the top.” But he’s since repeated that demonic formulation on numerous occasions, followed by the same creepy, self-satisfied smirk:
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And here was McCain’s sober, Serious prescription in 2006 for ending sectarian warfare in Iraq:
One of the things I would do if I were President would be to sit the Shiites and the Sunnis down and say, “Stop the bullshit.”
Add to that his merry singing of the joys of dropping bombs on the Iranian people, and it’s clear that McCain’s foreign policy approach seems even more childishly bellicose than the current occupant of the Oval Office. There’s a reason that Bill Kristol and Joe Lieberman are such ardent supporters.
Is there anyone outside of Lieberman and John Bolton who thinks that what we need are more cartoon-like imperial threats to the world about how we’re going to pummel and smash everyone if they don’t step into line? Is that mentality going to reduce complex religious and geostrategic threats or severely worsen them? McCain’s foreign policy approach actually seems to be a less restrained and less complex rendition of Bush’s “Bring-em-on” swagger that has really worked miracles in Iraq. Whatever adjectives might describe McCain’s barren, cliched tough guy decrees, Serious — or “moderate” — isn’t it.
Neil Cavuto the nice soft spoken lunaticOn the April 23 edition of Fox News' Your World, host Neil Cavuto interviewed Floyd Brown, creator of the infamous Willie Horton ad, who recently released an ad that attacks Sen. Barack Obama over a 2001 vote he cast in the Illinois Senate in opposition to H.B. 1812, which would have, among other things, made defendants eligible for the death penalty for committing a murder in furtherance of the activities of an organized gang. The ad concludes by asking about Obama, "Can a man so weak in the war on gangs be trusted in the war on terror?" During the interview, Cavuto noted the ad's question about Obama and terrorism and asked: "[Y]ou are implying, since he was presumably ineffective at dealing with some of these issues in his own home turf, how could he deal with guys meaning us harm, I guess terrorists. It's a bit of a leap, don't you think?" Brown replied: "I don't think so at all. What you have is a pattern of weakness, a pattern of a man who hasn't been able to stand up against tough situations. I mean, just this past weekend, Neil, in Chicago, we saw six people killed and over 31 injured. People were stabbed. This is, you know, like Baghdad. And he was the state senator there, and he didn't do anything to clean it up, and I think it's a legitimate issue." Cavuto gave no indication that Obama had responded to the ad, much less provide Obama's response.
Obama's campaign issued a statement in response to the ad, which said in part: "Floyd Brown and the garbage he puts on TV represent everything the American people hate about politics, and we look forward to John McCain denouncing this shameful effort to boost his candidacy using Willie Horton ads." The campaign also posted a Fact Check, which, among other things, listed legislation Obama voted for in the state senate targeting gang violence:
* HB4788 (5/13/04): According to its synopsis, the bill "[c]reates the offense of criminal street gang recruitment on school grounds. Provides that a person commits the offense when on school grounds he or she threatens the use of physical force to coerce, solicit, recruit, or induce another person to join or remain a member of a criminal street gang, or conspires to do so. Provides that criminal street gang recruitment on school grounds is a Class 4 felony."
* HB506 (5/7/03): The bill provides "that if the State presents evidence that the offense committed by the defendant was related to or in furtherance of the criminal activities of an organized gang or was motivated by the defendant's membership in or allegiance to an organized gang, and if the court determines that the evidence may be substantiated, the court shall prohibit the defendant from associating with other members of the organized gang as a condition of bail or release."
* HB2529 (5/13/03): "Amends the Illinois Streetgang Terrorism Omnibus Prevention Act," so that it "[i]ncludes in the definition of 'course or pattern of criminal activity', acts of criminal defacement of property if the defacement includes a sign or other symbol intended to identify the streetgang."
* SB400 (3/18/1999): "Permits the court, as a condition of probation, to require that the minor undergo a medical or other procedure to have a tattoo symbolizing allegiance to a street gang removed from his or her body."
* HB2287 (5/9/97): "Makes it unlawful for a peace officer or correctional officer to knowingly commit an act in furtherance of gang-related activities, except when acting in furtherance of an undercover law enforcement investigation."
When Will Young Americans Get Angry About the War?
The last major anti-war demonstration, more than a year ago in Washington, was remarkably tame. There were the obligatory celebrity appearances — Sean Penn, Susan Sarandon — but nothing occurred that might make President Bush toss in his sleep, nothing like during the darkest days of the Vietnam War, when students poured into the streets across the country demanding, “Hey, hey, LBJ, how many kids did you kill today?”
American students have an obligation to be outraged about the war in Iraq — not just disapproving of it. We need to make this administration and the remaining pro-war lawmakers start to worry.
Young people need to get involved — and soon. We must organize protests. We must write letters to the editor. Most important, we must vote for a president who will acknowledge and act upon our anti-war sentiment. We have wavered too long on the fringe of electoral irrelevance, and 2008 is the year to fix this problem.
The grim benchmark of 4,000 U.S. military deaths in Iraq came and went here without notable consternation. I asked another student recently whether he had heard about the new death toll. His reply: “Has it really been that many?”
‘War in abstractions’
I have begun to understand that we deal with this war in abstractions. We see Iraq as a distant problem, and it’s difficult to summon outrage because we have not been asked to sacrifice anything. Is it possible to summon deep-rooted anger for a war for which we were never asked to sacrifice anything? I continue to hope that it is.
It occurred to me last month, on my 18th birthday, that the soldiers dying in Iraq are my age. They are college-aged, anxiety-filled kids. Kids — members of my generation — are dying in Iraq.
Kurt Vonnegut was right, I finally realize. War is a children’s crusade.
There’s Only Toxic Waste at the End of Yucca Mtn. RainbowThe recent op-ed (by Chuck Muth, April 11) calling on Nevadans to embrace nuclear waste was a little like listening to someone talk about living on Mars with no mention of how you get there from planet Earth (Nevada should profit from Yucca gold mine, April 11).
In his piece, Chuck Muth conveniently glosses over the reasons Yucca Mountain is bound to fail both scientifically and because of its $80 billion price tag. He seeks to paint a utopia in which nearly all of Nevada’s most pressing economic needs can be met by turning our home into an epicenter for nuclear waste disposal.
Visions of nuclear power plants dotting the Nevada landscape and pipelines to the Pacific are false promises to two of our most pressing needs - clean energy and a steady water supply. And the author fails to acknowledge the myriad of dangers his plan would create, not only for Nevada and the nation, but for global efforts to limit terrorist access to dirty bombs and nuclear weapon-making materials.
The nuclear industry and others have been selling this same tale of overnight riches for decades. They peddle these claims in an attempt to chip away at intense opposition from Nevadans to the dumping of toxic radioactive waste 90 minutes from Las Vegas - our state’s largest community and most powerful economic engine. We didn’t believe it in the 1980s and ’90s and we still aren’t buying the idea that this is a new radioactive “Comstock Lode” for the 21st century.
Nevadans know a bad bet when we see one and that is the reason we remain overwhelmingly opposed to Yucca Mountain. Remember, there is no pot of gold at the end of the Yucca Mountain rainbow and no magic wand to wave over toxic radioactive waste that will simply make the dangers disappear.
The reason for Nevada’s well- founded opposition to Yucca Mountain is that the proposed repository is designed to fail. Volcanoes and earthquakes have rocked the area around Yucca Mountain in the past and there is every reason to believe these threats will strike again. At the same time, canisters placed inside the mountain will rapidly corrode, allowing radioactive waste to escape and contaminate drinking water supplies for families living near the proposed dump site.
The fact also remains that you cannot reprocess much of the waste the nuclear industry and its allies like President Bush and U.S. Senator John McCain are desperate to ship our way. Defense waste from the U.S. military and the oldest spent nuclear fuel from commercial power plants cannot be reprocessed, leaving Yucca Mountain as the only place on the books slated to store these toxic remnants.
Waste buried in Yucca Mountain will not even hit peak danger levels for 300,000 years, the prime reason a federal court struck down Bush administration radiation standards for failing to protect against deadly releases far into the future.
Appeal readers should also recognize that reprocessing waste does not eliminate the need for a repository under any scenario, leaving Nevada as a prime target today and in the future for efforts to ship waste to Yucca Mountain on a “temporary” basis only to see this fool’s gold stay forever.
Such a reprocessing scheme will, however, create dangerous new materials that could be used to build a nuclear weapon. This very real proliferation threat is why reprocessing regimes, such as the one promised by the author as our new road to riches, remain illegal under U.S. law.
Economist Fears Historic Loss of Assets for Minorities
Editor's Note: The current economic downturn could lead to the greatest loss of assets for communities of color that's ever happened, says Alan Fisher, executive director of the California Reinvestment Coalition since 1992, which advocates for the right of low-income communities and communities of color to have fair and equal access to banking and other financial services. Alan Fisher was interviewed by NAM Editor and host of UpFront, Sandip Roy.
Whether we call it a recession or not, what's the effect of what's happening in the economy on the low-income communities who are part of your coalition?
I think low-income people and people of color have been struggling for many years now. The "recovery" has not helped them. Recent reports say that income levels for families are the same dollar-wise as they were in 2000, which means they are worth much less now. Food prices are going up, gas prices are going up and we have a huge housing crisis.
How many people are impacted by the housing crisis?
The housing crisis doesn't just impact those who are in the homes that are in trouble -- who in California may be half a million households -- but it impacts all of their neighbors and their city. Their neighbors' houses lose value, as their houses lose value. The cities are losing tax base, our whole state has been relying on home sales to keep going. The state says it has an $18 billion deficit in a fiscal year that ends June 30. I think we are in a deep crisis and whatever the economists may call it, regular people are suffering and having great difficulty.
Can you give an example of how regular people are suffering and what are the first signs of recession in these communities?
I think the signs of recession are people having to cut back on the basic things that they buy, on less meat, not being able to buy clothes for their children -- but much of this has been masked because of easy access to credit cards. Many people are in huge debt on their credit cards and have substituted those, or have taken out payday loans, to try to keep going. So, it's a dangerous situation that's been masked by the wealth of the most wealthy -- corporate profits -- while the people who are our neighbors are in tremendous trouble.
But wouldn't something like a recession rip this mask off, with the way people have been relying on credit cards and payday lenders to get by?
I think, whether we call it a recession or not, that it would be something that happens as people are unable to pay their credit card bills, as people are being forced to go into bankruptcy. With the new bankruptcy laws, it's even more punitive. Yet at the same time bankruptcies are going up.
Homelessness is also on the rise. There are many people who are tenants in homes, and if those homes are foreclosed on, then, even though they pay their rent every month, they are forced out. They don't get their security deposit back, and where do they go to look for housing? Rental prices are going up, so it's a tremendous squeeze on families.
There has been so much coverage of homeowners, but we haven't seen much on what has been the impact of the economic downturn on tenants.
I think we are just beginning to hear that. It's sort of hidden because you don't see it in the same aggregated fashion. We know it's happening; we're hearing it more and more. We're hearing from homeless organizations that it's impacting folks that are becoming homeless, but there are no numbers at this point that I know of.
Are you seeing a new profile of homeless people? Are homeless organizations reporting on new kinds of people who are becoming homeless and are coming to them for help?
I think it's just starting, so I haven't heard that yet. I've heard concerns about tenants and we've tried to get state legislature to do something about tenants, but the opposition from the mortgage industry and the bankers pushed it out of the bill.
The Bush Admin's How-to Guide for Using Religious Warfare to Destroy IraqImagine if the greatest minds this country has to offer were assembled in a conference room and tasked with drawing up a post-invasion plan that would lead to sectarian bloodshed in a country like Iraq -- where different groups had long lived side-by-side, intermarried and thought of themselves first and foremost as Iraqis, rather than as Shiites and Sunnis.
Their first recommendation would probably be to create an environment in which conflict would be likely to flourish. It would be a good idea to go into the country with enough heavy weaponry and air power to defeat the national army, but too few troops to provide security on the ground after the fact. When anarchy reigns, people look inward -- to their family, neighborhood and, yes, their religious community -- and develop a distrust of members of other communities.
If some military experts -- say the Army Chief of Staff -- said that the planned force would be insufficient for providing day-to-day security, one would probably want to humiliate and undermine him publicly. Maybe announce his successor 14 months before the end of his term so that he appeared before the world as some batty lame duck without any support from his superiors.
Then, dismantle the entire government, instead of just the senior leadership, and fire all of the country's bureaucrats, police and security personnel -- even if there were a half-million of them. But don't disarm them -- those weapons will come in handy later.
It would be good to destroy the country's infrastructure, too -- people get pissed off when they lack reliable electricity, working sanitation facilities, clean running water and the like. Make sure not to get those things up and running within five years of the invasion, either. That's a challenge, especially if one wants shovel tens of billions of dollars of American tax-payers' cash into the reconstruction effort.
The best way to achieve that trick would be to create enormous umbrella contracts with dozens of projects within their scope -- far too many for any firm to complete without farming out projects to dozens of subcontractors -- and hand those out to well-connected firms -- firms with terrible track records if possible. Make those contracts "cost-plus" - guaranteeing a profit regardless of the quality of the work -- add in minimal oversight and you've created excellent incentives for graft, corruption and incompetence (this solution would likely come from an economist sitting on that prestigious panel).
While you're at it, it would probably be best to rapidly privatize the large state-run companies that guaranteed employment for a large portion of the population. Make sure to ship in tens of thousands of foreign guest workers from places like India and the Philippines, and, if possible, pass a binding law that prevented any new government from giving preference to domestic firms or firms that employ large numbers of locals in its contracting. Otherwise, with a huge influx of foreign investment coming in, it's unlikely that there'd still be an unemployment rate of between 25-50 percent five years after the invasion.
If a working group within the government -- say at the State Department -- recommended that a job program be created for the newly-unemployed -- including those heavily armed members of the former regime's security forces -- ignore it at all costs. Idle hands are, after all, the Devil's tools.
When chaos first breaks out, as it inevitably will, dismiss it with a sound-byte -- maybe just say, "democracy is messy."
Make sure to leave dozens of large weapons caches unguarded for easy looting -- they'll come in handy later.
With the stage set, now comes the tricky part. How would that group of August thinkers replace a strong national identity -- one of the strongest in the region -- with a fractured sectarianism?
It would require some sophistication -- the key task is taking a population that has had all the "ancient blood-hatreds" that one finds among American Lutherans and Methodists, and deepen that sense of sectarian identity to a very large degree.
That group of experts might come up with something like this: encourage the formation of political parties on sectarian rather than ideological lines. Discourage the formation of any nationalist parties that might draw support from all of the country's ethnic and sectarian groups. Then hold an election before establishing any neutral democratic institutions -- no credible electoral commission, no functioning judiciary. Do it while there's still chaos on the ground -- that way, it will be far too dangerous for the candidates to be listed by name and people will only be able to vote for sectarian-based "lists." What will be achieved is not an exercise in democracy, but an ethno-sectarian census. If done right, this will effectively replace the population's concrete political and economic interests with a sense that their futures are explicitly tied to their sectarian or ethnic group.
