Freaking priceless.

Isn't it comforting to know that these dolts cancel out your well-informed vote?

God help us all.

Dr. Nake Kamrany gave a thought-provoking presentation about what he believes to be the four most compelling problems that Afghanistan is facing today:

• Security--US/NATO casualties have increased while security has decreased
• Poppy production--poppy interdiction tactics have alienated the population
• Economic development--per capita income growth must be 20% per year over the next 5 years and 10% thereafter for Afghanistan to reach level of its neighbors
• Social and legal issues--weak governance and policy implementation failures must be addressed

During the Summit, a few key points came to my attention. First, the Bay Area organizations founded by Afghan-Americans and non Afghan-Americans are absolutely essential in building a link between the United States and the Afghan population. At a time when policy in Washington has been haphazard at best, it is these groups that are making the grassroots effort to better the lives of Afghans. Second, not enough pressure has been put on policymakers to truly put Afghanistan back on the policy agenda. As an Afghan-American, I wholeheartedly place part of that blame on myself. And third, the issue of human rights does not hold as prominent a place in the rhetoric of Afghanistan as it should. Yes, food and clothing and shelter are essential human needs, but that does not preclude a child's right to an education, or a woman's right to health care. It is the responsibility of the Afghan government, the United States, and the international donor community to ensure that government has the capacity to provide these services to its citizens.

- Farhat

For our purposes, what is relevant is Krugman's views on war. As an advocate of government spending to stimulate the economy, Krugman believes that wars are good for the economy, even stating "The fact is that war is, in general, expansionary for the economy, at least in the short run. World War II, remember, ended the Great Depression". This is a myth. I recommend reading Robert Higgs' Depression, War and Cold War to understand why. One reason why wars aren't good for the economy is that they have opportunity costs: when scarce resources are diverted to killing people, and the private sector devotes increasing time and money to supplying war machinery and materials, that detracts from more productive endeavours. Let's face it, war isn't very productive and doesn't usually bring about human progress - for example, bridges are blown up, and then re-built again.

There are two distinct areas in which foreign policy is applied which proposes an inverse relationship between force and tolerance.  The first area is force aggression(FA).  The second is force detachment(FD).  Specifically, the first domain encompasses all policy implementations that include the use of military force, where as the second precludes the use of military force and profits from the implementation of such techniques as diplomacy, economic sanctions, ect.

The relationship between force and tolerance reciprocates symetrically between FA and FD.  Under FA, the amount of force applied by the target nation must exceed the tolerance of the target nation in order to be successful.  Conversely, with FD foreign policy the level of force dedicated must not exceed the tolerance threshold of the target nation to succeed.  To illustrate clearly the application of both FA and FD foreign policy it would be prudent to utilize real world examples.

The Iraq War would a clear and current example of FA foreign policy in action.  It is appropriate to distinguish that the Iraq War contains both FA and FD policy apparatus'.  Do not confuse the two areas.  For the moment, only the military side of the equation is of interest.  It is also of note that the Iraq War can be divided into two discrete FA forms.

At the outset, the United States was faced with the defeat of the Iraq Army.  The level of force necessary in order to succeed was relatively tangible.  When engaged against a foreign government, it is a calculable solution.  The foreign policy maker can account for the opposing army, infrastructure, and government machine of the target nation.  These can be assigned a relatively accurate numerical value, and can then be evaluated to determine the required force application for success.  Military planners can diagnos how many troops will be needed, what primary infrastructure points are most vital, and target regional government installations.

It is the nature of conventional warfare that both sides possess a rigorous assessment of their enemy.  The transparent nature of governments allow for this luxury.  With this lucid vision, the United States applied an  amount of force against the Iraq government and military that far exceeded their threshold for tolerance, and scored a decisive defeat of the Iraq military alongside the toppling of the Iraq government.

Following the success of the initial FA foreign policy, it shifted towards fighting a guerrilla enemy.  An enemy hidden from concrete intelligence by the opaque cloud provided by disorganization.  The United States government was unable to decode precise numbers, locations, and identities of the enemy they faced.  Subsequently, it made it difficult to assess the needed amount of force to exceed the tolerance level the enemy.  The war evolved into a best guess scenario for the US military and, ultimately, the pending result of the US foreign policy.

Troop levels fluctuated against the varying estimations of the enemy being engaged.  A larger problem was the point of application in force levels.  Determining where to strike with the available force posed a constant and permanent problem.  Within the overall success of a foreign policy, lies these two elements of force application - quantity and location.  How much force and where to apply said force become the two questions.

In light of fragmented intelligence and mounting frustration, the US military focused their efforts on increasing the quantity of force applied.  This resulted in the infamous surge.  If one force is unable to preempt the enemy tolerance level, then in order to succeed a disproportionate level of applied force is necessary.  The underlying premise is quite simple - if you are unable to know which points to apply force levels in a given area, the solution is to raise your force levels to allow more points in the area to apply said force to.

An example of the inverse relationship between force and tolerance in FD foreign policy can be found in the approach the United States utilized against North Korea.  In respect to force, the US has employed a combination of diplomatic cessation and economic sanctions.  The foreign policy goal being the reduction and dismantling of the North Korean nuclear armament.  At first, it would seem that the goal is to eventually break North Korea to submit to US demands, ergo the force of diplomacy and sanctions to exceed the North Koreans tolerance to those consequences.

However, the true purpose of the US policy, and any FD foreign policy, is to employ the target nation to assess the implications of the expected consequences, and to then grade the qualitative effects against their tolerance level.  In other words, the US wants to put the North Koreans into a decision - are the losses predicted by the end to diplomatic relations and economic sanctions more or less then what the North Koreans are willing to tolerate?

An important correlative element in FD foreign policy demonstrates the intent to not exceed tolerance levels is the practice of incentive allusion.  In the case of the North Koreans, the US offered up increased oil exports and the construction of nuclear power plants.  In conjunction with the applied force, these foreign policy carrots act as self imposed force cap on the foreign policy maker.  The US cannot afford to send North Korea spiralling into an economic blackhole i.e. to willing exceed their tolerance level.  Rehibilitation is the end goal, and a policy nation does not willing choose to destroy another in FD foreign policy.  As such, these incentives provide the target nation reasons to not exceed their tolerance levels and devolve into chaos.

There is a curious caveat to both FA and FD foreign policy, more so towards FA.  That is that in order to be successful, both must not exceed the tolerance levels of the policy nations domestic populace.  This is evident in wars.  A populace that contains widespread dissent towards a war proportionally decreases the likehood that foreign policy will succeed.  This is because with the growth in domestic disapproval, the ability for the policy nation to apply adequate force levels diminishes.

As an addedum, it can be said that in evaluating a foreign policy the employing nation must consider equally the tolerance level of its populace and the target nation in order to determine the proper amount of force to be applied.  Force and tolerance are the two key integral components in any foreign policy, and will conclude as to it's success or failure.

Killing people in large numbers presents formidable logistical problems, as any mass murderer can testify. Richard J Evans remarks of Hitler's slaughter of the Jews that no other genocide in history has been conducted by mechanical means - gassing - in purpose-built facilities. More recent amateurs in Bosnia and Zimbabwe have had to make up their massacres as they went along.

Nazis who found themselves obliged to dispose of some people without the aid of German industry's gas experts were distressed by the difficulties. “I always shuddered at the prospect of carrying out exterminations by shooting, when I thought of the vast numbers concerned,” said SS officer Rudolf Höss. “Many [of the killers], unable to endure wading through blood any longer, had committed suicide. Some had even gone mad. Most ... had to rely on alcohol.”

Even Germany's civil prisons faced challenges, as executions for criminal offences soared during the war years. It proved necessary to abandon refinements such as the guillotine in favour of simple hangings. Death rows became overcrowded. New executioners were hired, most recruited from the butchery and slaughterhouse trade. One veteran later claimed that between 1924 and 1945 he had dispatched more than 2,800 alleged offenders.

via The Third Reich at War: How the Nazis Led Germany from Conquest to Disaster by Richard J Evans review | Non-fiction book reviews - Times Online

Lord, how terrible it seems that some people work sooo much only to produce pain.

I seem to be outraged quite often by the state of politics, and political discussions as the Bush regime readies for change.

I read this article by David Frum in Foreign Policy last night - and yes, that familiar outrage started raising its ugly head again.

The article "Think Again: Bush's Legacy" examines some highly criticized Bush policies that David Frum says are not entirely grounded, using data to support that the Bush Legacy is not as terrible as the liberals make it out to be. I don't like to be on on either end of the spectrum, but I thoroughly disagree with Frum.

Unfortunately, I don't have the experience or the time right now, to examine the selectiveness of his data, which I highly suspect it is. It is not uncommon to select suitable statistics to support an argument, which is why peer reviewed journals play such an important role in scientific arguments.

"It’s now likely that the war will stagger to an inconclusive ending. The insurgency will shrink but not disappear. The government will function but will be divided. The U.S. military presence will be reduced but not entirely withdrawn. And Iraq’s neighbors will be bruised but their geopolitical policies will stay intact. Yet, by overthrowing Saddam Hussein and replacing him with a non-aggressive, albeit weak, elected regime, the United States will have achieved a real improvement in the region. It will have come at a high cost in money and lives. But it will also falsify the worst predictions of the war’s opponents."

I can't help but thoroughly disagree with this statement:

First of all, given that the world is plagued by plenty of unnatural deaths - chockful of natural disasters, abominably high rates of hunger, disease and infant/maternal mortality in many poor nations - even one more death - Afghan, American, or Iraqi (and God forbid Iranian) in the guise of "Deliverance", is a death too many.

Second, let me first clarify that I am not an unwavering anti-war "peacenik" - there are plenty of "Just" reasons to go to war, where we, the more affluent nations, need to respond, under various well meaning, but poorly executed UN doctrines - the latest being our "Responsibility to Protect".

So how about we actually do justice to the time and resources and reasons for going to war. How about we take a more pro-active role in stopping the atrocities in Darfur, but that would undoubtedly irk the emerging power and the key manufacturer of our daily goods, and sustainer of our economy, China? How about stopping the use of child soldiers and bush wives, but what do we care about nations that are not rich in resources we wholly rely on, or those that have close ties with our allies? How about human rights violations in China, North Korea, but do we dare to mess around with those whose military and political might far exceed those of Iraq and Afghanistan combined? In the English language this is called "Bullying".

bul·ly /ˈbʊli/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[bool-ee] plural -lies, verb, -lied, -ly·ing, adjective, interjection –noun

1. a blustering, quarrelsome, overbearing person who habitually badgers and intimidates smaller or weaker people.

2. Archaic. a man hired to do violence.

May be the next UN doctrine should be titled "The Responsibility to not Bully"

Third, for purely selfish reasons, did we need to divert triillions of US dollars, to a war, that was based on un unfounded reason, - the hunt for Osama Bin Laden, and weapons of mass destruction, when the economy at home has been steadily tanking since 2001, leading up to what some call a depression?

There are many more reasons on why I disagree with David Frum's article in the FP - but this is enough, unless my readers have access to the full article.

Prediction: McCain Will Use 'Targeting of Christians' in Iraq

This will be short and sweet:

I predict Senator John McCain will be reporting very soon that Christians are being targeted in Iraq by the enemy.

McCain will remind folks why we went there and why we must stay till we have victory.

I predict he try his best to anger his base and others (and therefore rally them toward voting for him) -- by sighting the brutal killings of Christians in Iraq.

]]> http://theblockfm.wordpress.com/?p=1017 Mon, 13 Oct 2008 17:41:12 +0000 Cassie http://theblockfm.wordpress.com/2008/10/13/1017/ This may be the best illustration of the cynicism of the Palin pick I've yet seen. In the primary, John McCain claimed Rudy Giuliani didn't have the foreign policy credentials to be president because he was "a mayor for a short period of time," and Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney didn't because each of them was "a governor for a short period of time."

If John McCain ever did interviews or press conferences, he might be asked about this apparent discrepancy.

Thanks Shrimani.

The order from a federal judge in Washington began eerily -- unlike any other announcement of the conclusion in a civil liability case.

"It was a sunny day somewhere in Iraq and a light wind blew the long curtains into the room through the open door. A group of men clad in total black, faces covered, stood on a Persian rug facing a camera. Before them, a single man knelt."

The man was blindfolded, bound and gagged.

From that literary beginning, U.S. District Judge Rosemary M. Collyer on Sept. 26 embarked on a grim, painfully detailed recitation of the beheadings of two American civilians -- which were videotaped for worldwide distribution on the Internet -- by al-Qaida in Iraq in September 2004.

Behind the brutal facts, the judge found that the Syrian government, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian intelligence agency and Syria's director of military intelligence provided material support and resources to the al-Qaida group and its leader, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

(...) According to Collyer's order, Hensley took the job in Iraq after the family fell on difficult economic times. His acceptance of the yearlong job in Iraq kept his family from bankruptcy.

Armstrong and Hensley lived in Iraqi residential housing guarded by the Iraqi militia. But according to Collyer's order, they and a third man, English national Kenneth Bigley, were kidnapped, reportedly because "these guards abandoned their posts upon a small payment." On Sept. 18, 2004, a video prominently displaying the logo of al-Qaida in Iraq was released on the Internet showing all three hostages blindfolded and held captive by armed men.

Within days, videos depicting the beheadings were posted on the Internet. Bigley met the same fate as Armstrong and Hensley, according to Collyer's order. Their bodies were recovered where they had been dumped in Baghdad.

Collyer's order describes in gruesome detail the beheadings, which were carried out with a short knife. "The horrific sights and sounds of the videos have but one clear purpose," she continued. "To glorify acts of terrorism, mayhem and murder to frighten the viewer."

(...) Evidence presented during the trial demonstrated that, "Syria's support for insurgents in Iraq was evident from the location of the bus transit point to take fighters to Baghdad," the judge wrote. The transit site was at one time located across the street from the U.S. Embassy in Damascus. The street is heavily guarded and regulated by the Syrian military, "one of the most closely guarded and observed spots in Syria."

According to Collyer, "Foreign fighters were lining up and down the street ... actually across the street from the embassy to go to this office and sign up to get on a bus and be transported to Baghdad to take part in the insurgency."

Collyer concluded that Syrian officials had to have had knowledge of Zarqawi's activities. "Syria is a 'world-class' police state with a dozen intelligence networks spying on its own people, as well as each other," she wrote. "The effectiveness of Syria's intelligence networks resembles the Stasi spy system that operated in East Germany. Nothing that happens within Syria of any political significance is unknown to the government."

via Law.com - Two Al-Qaida Victims' Families Win $400 Million in Syria Terror Suit

This is the real reason why the terrorism exists. Syria knows very well it doesn't have capability to attack US or Israel militarily speaking. But it can very well practice this kind of terrorism, going unnoticed and without any kind of international sanctions. The considerations in this trial should be given as much publicity as it's possible, because it's the only way to make citizens aware that terrorism would never have existed if politically and strategically didn't meet some kind of people's goals.

As new and growing economies emerge like China and India, we will all be fighting for the same energy supplies. To ensure we have all the energy we need, the U.S. must become energy self sufficient. This means we must produce all the energy we need without importing energy from other countries.

Over the last five years it has become increasingly clear this objective is attainable, but it will require a new way of thinking about the fuel we use for automobiles, power plants and other energy needs.

Currently our largest source of energy is fossil fuels, oil, gas and coal. Once you use them, they are gone. The second problem is these fuels create most of our pollution from fossil fuel burning electric plants and cars and trucks.

We now have the technology to begin replacing current electric plants with sustainable (replaceable) fuels that are clean like geothermal, wind, solar and biomass, non polluting fuels.

We now have the technology to begin replacing auto fuels with Hybrid and electric motors.

What we need is a government policy that says we are going to do this and here is the way we are going to do it.

For example, if we identify the demand for electricity over the next 5, 10, 20 years and we prioritize the sources of energy we want to use to fulfill that demand and we know the capacity constraints for each desired alternative energy sources, we can identify a plan for the increases in electricity needed from:
Solar
Wind
Geothermal
Bio Mass
Hydro
Natural Gas
Oil
Coal
Nuclear

These are ordered in terms of desirability of energy sources. For example, Natural Gas is much cleaner burning than Oil or Coal. If we find a way to make Coal burn cleaner, then it would move up the chain. But Coal will never be better than self sustaining sources like Solar, Wind, Geo Thermal or Bio Mass.

This analysis would tell us how much new Natural Gas, Oil, Coal or Nuclear we would need if any.

It not only gives us the plan for becoming energy independent, but also cleans up our environment.

Much of the funding needed to make this transition could come from Social Security and Medicare fund investments which would mean using our current excess in these areas to fund private projects at private rates of return to achieve a better outcome for all of us.

Ten years ago the U.S. was generally viewed as a commercial power willing to help even those who disagreed with them on political issues. Today we are viewed as selfish, concerned with only ourselves and a danger to those who disagree with us. This does not help us create a global economy.

What happened? Well 9/11 showed how vulnerable we were to foreign terrorism. While it was certainly a tragedy that will live with us forever, it was really no different than domestic terrorism – the Oklahoma City bombing, or terrorism faced in Europe by the IRA or the Basque Separatists … Terrorism has been with us since the beginning of time and will be with us long after we are gone.

The problem was our response to this terrorism. Instead of recognizing it for what is was, the politicians decided to exploit it for their advantage. Suddenly all airlines were unsafe. Why? We didn’t have enough screeners or the right screeners so we spent billions to create a whole new government work force. The problem is weapons still get through the screeners.

The more intelligent solution is not to screen everyone, only those who are likely to be a threat. Senior security officers for Israel and other countries who have faced these challenges have said the same thing. Fighting terrorism does not mean examining everyone. It means examining the right people. The money and time should be spent finding the people who are terrorists not terrorizing everyone who is not.
Terrorists are not countries. They are small groups of extremists. The best solutions are behind the scenes activities with well trained anti-terrorism resources.

But the politicians wanted a big splash to show how in control they were. So we invaded Iraq under the guise of fighting terrorism.

Again we didn’t understand what we were getting into or the costs. The experts told the politicians that eliminating Saddam Hussein would leave a power vacuum that if not filled immediately would result in civil war. This problem was recognized the first time we tangled with Saddam which is why we left him in power.

Worse we decided we didn’t need the agreement of the rest of the world to invade Iraq. We didn’t need to abide by the Geneva Convention in treating prisoners of war. And we were told it would cost $50 billion. It is now likely it will cost $1 trillion before we get out of Iraq. Is this the way we want to spend our money?

We took 200+ years of American Culture, History and Morality and abandoned it. Is it any wonder we are now viewed as a rogue nation out of control? All of this because of 12 extremists. Where is the perspective?

We need a foreign policy that is tied to Globalization not political ideology.

If Canada wants to be warmer during the winter, they should switch to the Fahrenheit scale thermometer. 50° Farhenheit is only 10° Canadian.  10° is cold.  By switching to the Fahrenheit scale, Canadians will stay warmer longer and can have a real Thanksgiving in November.

I do not believe that we are going to head for a 1930-type depression. However, I cannot fail to recognize a parallel with what happened with the demise of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s and the United States today. Certainly both are two different cases but they share something in common: their fall from grace as the strongest economic (USA) and military power (USA/USSR) in the world.

You do not have to be an economist to understand that a debt of $10 trillion is untenable to keep financing costly war efforts abroad. Iraq alone is costing the US taxpayers close to $1 trillion.

So what does this all mean? It means that the economic power of the US will shift to Asia (China) and to Europe at the cost of the former. So, President George W. Bush is not only responsible for plundering the country into a war in Iraq, but causing the demise of the Untied States as the strongest economic power on Earth.

The November 4 presidential elections will be a watershed for the future of the United States. It can chose the same path (McCain) or a new one (Obama). Probably one of the scariest things about the new path is that we do not know what it is.

...Barack Obama appears to sit on a nexus between Marxist revolutionary activists, unrepentant former terrorists, Black Power racists, Chicago mobsters – oh, and a Saudi who is trying to buy up America. If you were to turn up at US immigration control with a background of such associates, it’s a fair bet they wouldn’t let you off the air-bridge. Yet this man may well become President of the US!...

...And yet despite all of this, virtually no-one in the mainstream media is asking any questions. Has there ever been a more staggering, surreal and scary race to the White House?

Ms Phillips writes much the same in today's Mail. Interestingly, another great political mind (my mother) raised the issue the other day in a transatlantic phone call (that, of course, may or may not have been tapped) about a fundamental question regarding the Senator. Doesn't anyone realize that Sen Obama, owing to his Weatherman association and others, probably could not clear a few security hurdles even to have gotten a job at U.S. immigration control checking passports, and yet he could well be President?

Yours truly had to admit he hadn't as of yet thought of that one, but gently reminded her that the Senator is already a U.S. Senator, and that, regardless, the wind is changing. She is still in the ancien régime mindset. The liberating, "progressive" one we will soon be enjoying is this: it is not Sen Obama's fault he might have raised "red flag" security clearance questions under that ancien régime, for his popular candidacy is itself proof that AmeriKKKa had previously merely been contriving to create jackbooted and biased security guidelines in the first place.

_____________________________

Then again, if one Noam Chomsky is underwhelmed by the prospect of a President Obama, maybe we can't really lose this election entirely after all?

_____________________________

UPDATE: Cracked reminds us that this election is actually pretty routine --- like all save for the first two, when George Washington won ALL of the electoral votes.

The Obama people haven't figured out how to make that happen for their guy just yet. But, assuredly, someone's gotta be working on it.

the OIC resolution must fail because it is patently hypocritical. While professing great sensitivity toward religion, OIC members ironically regularly fail to show any respect for other faiths:

1. Saudi Arabia continues to use bigoted textbooks, and export them to American Islamic schools despite promises to change.

2. Iran sponsored a Holocaust cartoon contest in retaliation for the Danish cartoons of Muhammad in 2005. Yet, Jews had nothing to do with the Jyllands-Posten newspaper.

3. Pakistan's blasphemy laws attack Christians as a pretext for personal disputes.

via Muslims Against Sharia Blog.

Read it all. It's a must read.

Related posts:

• Report of Arrakis: Defamation of Religion Document Rejected by UN.
• Nasser Khader calls on Denmark to condemn Islamism at Durban II.
• More on the UN resolutions on the “defamation of religions”.
• Durban II: anti-Western and anti-Semitic feelings á la carte.
• UNHRC advises Britain.
• Petition against the UN resolutions about the “defamations of religions”.

Nuri al-Maliki, Iraq's prime minister, has said that British troops are no longer needed to maintain security in the south of the country. "We thank them for the role they have played, but I think that their stay is not necessary for maintaining security and control," he told The Times, a London-based newspaper, in an interview published on Monday.

"There might be a need for their experience in training and some technological issues, but as a fighting force, I don't think that is necessary," al-Maliki said. British forces were based in the southern city of Basra after the US-led invasion in 2003, but they handed over responsibility for the region's security to Iraqi forces last December.

About 4,100 British troops are still based at the airport outside Basra. Gordon Brown, the British prime minister, was already expected to significantly cut the number of troops in the contingent over the next year.

If Brown has any sense, he'll send them home immediately, in case a greater level of violence breaks out in Iraq while they are still there, which would make it harder to remove them.

***

Fear McCain

Oct 12, 2008 By Paul Street
Paul Street's ZSpace Page / ZSpace

The thought of [John McCain] being president sends a cold chill down my spine.

---United States Senator Thad Cochran (R-Mississippi)
According to a recent article in the Chicago Tribune, some voters in the critical political battleground state of Pennsylvania are leaning towards Barack Obama because economic matters are trumping candidate "character" in determining their choices in the presidential election.

If "the economy" hadn't become the overwhelming issue, the Tribune reports, these voters would be going with John McCain because of his supposed superior personal qualities.

The voters are worried about Obama's moral fiber because of his past connections to such supposed moral monsters as the black pastor Jeremiah Wright and the former SDS Weatherman-turned education professor and charter school advocate Bill Ayers.

The Tribune story is titled "Character Counts; Economy Counts More" (J. Tankersley and C. Parsons, Chicago Tribune, October 9, 2008, sec.1, p. 13).

While I am no particular fan of Obama's personality and neoliberal politics, I find the Tribune article's angle and title distressing.  I do not expect mainstream voters or reporters to follow me (a left Marxist since age 18) in feeling little shock at the crimes of Ayers (decades ago) and in having little problem with the rhetoric of Wright. I get it that most Americans are in no position --- morally, ideologically, or in terms of information received --- to share my understandings of why Ayers briefly became a (rather hapless) ultra-left "terrorist" and why Rev. Wright is angry at U.S. policies (and crimes) past and present.

What is more difficult for me to swallow is that anybody could identify John McCain with anything remotely connected to positive moral character.  The candidate atop the current malicious Republican presidential campaign --- increasingly reduced to the preposterous claim that Obama is some sort of "far left" enemy of "American" values and institutions (my recently released book "Barack Obama and the Future of American Politics" is an antidote to that charge) --- is a characterological catastrophe.

As Tim Dickinson notes in a recent Rolling Stone profile of McCain, the Republican presidential contender has demonstrated a shocking lack of principle with his recent policy contortions.  McCain's campaign positions have shifted drastically to the hard right on the Bush tax cuts (for the rich), court appointments, oil drilling, the religious right, and torture.  Having once found it politically useful to oppose all of these things, McCain now embraces them.

The supposed centrist "maverick's" swing to the far right has found grotesque expression in his running-mate selection --- a viciously stupid evangelical hit lady whose only qualification for office is her ability to energize the GOP's white-nationalist messianic-militarist and  pseudo-Christian base.

"Straight Talk" McCain has recently undertaken politically calculated rightward leaps on immigration/border policy, gay marriage, lobbyist power, and "talking to our enemies."  He has shifted positions on financial regulation and the AIG nationalization in response to financial capitalism's deepening crisis.

In detailing McCain's recent wild and rightward policy swings, Dickinson quotes numerous Republicans who told him that the candidate's only real concern is personal advancement.  Former Republican U.S. Senator Lincoln Chaffee and McCain were once the only two Republicans to vote against Bush's tax cuts.  He joined with a differently calculating McCain in opposition to oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and to George W. Bush's most reactionary court appointments. Now Chaffee says that "John has made a pact with the devil."

Besides being monumentally inconsistent and unprincipled, McCain is a loose cannon who would pose grave risks on the global stage if he were to reach the White House.  By Dickinson's account:

"At least three of McCain's GOP colleagues have gone on record to say that they consider him temperamentally unsuited to be commander in chief.  Bob Smith, the former senator from New Hampshire, has said that McCain's 'temperament would place this country at risk in international affairs, and the world perhaps in danger.  In my mind, it should disqualify him.' Sen. Domenici of New Mexico has said he doesn't 'want this guy anywhere near a trigger.' And Sen. Thad Cochran of Mississippi weighed in that 'the thought of his being president sends a cold chill down my spine.  He is erratic.  He is hotheaded'" (T. Dickinson, "Make-Believe Maverick," Rolling Stone, October 16, 2008, p. 70).

Along with being perceived as dangerously selfish and reckless by a number of leading Republicans, McCain appears to be something of a vicious bastard.  He cussed his wife out in the vilest terms imaginable in front of three reporters in 1992.

He joked at a 1998 GOP fundraiser about the "ugliness" of Chelsea Clinton, attributing her physical appearance to the fact that the lesbian Attorney General Janet Reno was "her father."

In April of 2007, McCain responded to a voter's foreign policy question by singing "Bomb, Bomb, Bomb, Bomb, Bomb Iran" to the tune of the old Beach Boy's tune "Barbara Anne."

It's all very consistent, Dickinson shows, with McCain's pampered youth as the legendarily irresponsible, boorish, and stupid son and grandson of four star admirals in the U.S. Navy. After graduating 894th in a class of 899 at the Naval Academy, McCain became a notorious party-boy who repeatedly crashed Navy planes.  Any flier without McCain's would have lost his wings.

McCain was able to achieve notoriety and build a political career around the claim to be a "war hero" because he managed to get shot down while bombing the civilian infrastructure of North Vietnam.  Contrary to his carefully cultivated myth of special and holy "sacrifice for country," McCain received favorable treatment by informing his Vietnamese captors the he was the son of a top U.S. military official (Admiral McCain head of the U.S. assault on Vietnam by the early 1970s). He divulged military information (the name of his ship of origin and the target of his assault) other American POW's refused to release under torture.

McCain's subsequent career and highlights include:

* The vicious abandonment and divorce of his first wife after she suffered a crippling car accident and the 42-year-old McCain became smitten with his future wife - the 24-year-old former USC cheerleader Cindy Hensley, a wealthy Budweiser heiress.

* Using his position as the Navy's liaison to the U.S. Senate to secretly negotiate (against the wishes of the Secretary of the Navy) an egregious pork project - the replacement of the aging aircraft carrier "The Midway."

* Voting in the U.S. Senate against the Martin Luther King holiday.

* Voting to confirm the arch-rightist Robert Bork for the U.S. Supreme Court.

* Calling for the abolition of the U.S. Departments of Energy and Education.

* Championing a bill that eliminated catastrophic health insurance for senior citizens.

* Intervening along with four other senators in 1987 to prevent federal regulators from investigating Lincoln Savings and Loan, a corrupt institution owned by McCain's leading contributor and friend Charlie Keating.  The S&L collapsed two years later under the weight of Keating's corrupt real estate dealings, costing U.S. taxpayers $3.4 billion and defrauding 20,000 holders of Keating's junk bonds.

In the late 1990s, Dickinson shows, McCain dropped his initial post-Vietnam reluctance to support aggressive U.S. wars and underwent a dramatic "neocon makeover."  McCain's arch-militaristic conversion was consistent with his initial claims that "the liberal media" had undermined the "national will" and therefore cost noble America a "war it should have won" in Vietnam.

McCain turned into such a "bellicose hawk" that he went beyond Dick Cheney in "spreading bogus intelligence" in advance support of George W. Bush's criminal invasion of Iraq.

McCain's hyper-militarism combines with the sense that he is a loose cannon to prevent top Republican generals like Brent Scowcroft and Colin Powell from endorsing his candidacy.

For whatever reason, Dickinson does not mention McCain's likely strong connection to recent reckless U.S.-imperial provocations of resurgent and nuclear-armed Russia.  Dickinson might also have mentioned the Arizona senator's inflammatory call for the formation of a U.S-led "League of Democracies" to (presumably) replace the United Nations - a body from which McCain would ban Russia and China.

It is common among left commentators - the present writer included - to criticize dominant U.S. political culture's tendency to privilege candidate character and "qualities" over substantive matters of policy and ideology. America's quadrennial candidate-centered corporate-crafted  "electoral extravaganzas" (Noam Chomsky's term) tend to cloak the fundamental corporate and imperial consensus between reigning parties and politicians, focusing voters on superficial differences of candidate style instead of the fact that both of the nation's dominant political parties are well to the right of the populace on numerous key issues.  The current election year is no exception.

Still, "character counts" when it comes to who is going to hold what is still the most powerful single office on Earth - the U.S. presidency.  The vicious, stupid, unprincipled, and reckless John McCain is morally, mentally, and physically ill-suited for that job in ways that must be made abundantly clear to as many voters as possible over the next three weeks.  It should be emphasized that the 72-year-old cancer (Melanoma)-patient McCain - the infamously "hotheaded" son of a father and grandfather who both died from sudden heart attacks (at ages 62 and 71 respectively) - could very well keel over dead the day of his possible inauguration, bringing us to the unthinkable brink of a Palin administration.

If you live in a contested state, I suggest that you smell with supreme fear what McCain and Palin are cooking and vote accordingly. This ain't just Democratic Coke versus Republican Pepsi, comrade: it's Coke versus Crack.
Paul Street (paulstreet99@yahoo.com), a writer and speaker based in Iowa City, IA, His latest book is Barack Obama and the Future of American Politics, order at www.paradigmpublishers.com/Books/BookDetail.aspx?productID=186987

By:  J. D. Longstreet

********************************

There is a lot of dejection in the ranks of the Republican Party these days.  As the rank and file of the GOP looks at the disparaging poll numbers the fear is growing that McCain will not be able to close the gap on Obama before Election Day. 

Conservatives, never happy with, nor ever quite sure of McCain’s chances in the first place, yet willing to hold their noses and cast a ballot for him in a desperate attempt to thwart the leftist agenda Obama will carry with him into the Oval Office, are the MOST discouraged, it seems to me.

Since the 2000 election campaign, we here at IoF have declared that John McCain will never be President of the United States. We still believe that.

Conservative voters have been loath to support the McCain ticket.  Without the support of conservatives a GOP candidate can forget victory in a Presidential campaign.  Without that conservative support there is no “fire” in the campaign. The fighting spirit, which rests almost entirely with conservatives on the right, simply is not there. You cannot have missed the lack of zest and zeal in the McCain Campaign.  You don’t see it because… it isn’t there.

Even those conservatives who have vowed to support McCain after he brought Palin on board have withheld total commitment. Their heart is just not in it.

Since day one of the campaign for the oval office 2008 conservatives have scratched their collective heads in wonderment at the candidates the GOP wheeled out for our inspection.  At first, we thought it was a bad joke.  Then, it was rumored that the upper echelons in the party were saying they didn’t need conservative support to win the White House. We KNEW the party was in serious trouble at that moment.

There has been a tug of war within the GOP since the conservative take-over in the mid 1990’s. The resentment of the bluebloods and the country club Republicans toward the K-Mart Republicans has been palpable. You see… we conservatives are something of an embarrassment to them.  For the most part they are the moderate to liberal branch of the GOP.  (Oh, yes.  Just as there are conservative democrats there are liberal republicans.)  Unfortunately, the liberal republicans carry with them that “liberal guilt” just the same as their democrat counterparts.  I am of the opinion there is nothing so dangerous to the country as liberal guilt no matter if the liberal is republican or democrat.

On the other side of the political spectrum the democrat party is not really a “party”.  It is more an amalgamation of victim’s groups, bound together in their perceived victimhood, seeking redress from the government. They have been thus for a very long time and, in that time, have forged a bond between them in order to attain their goals. It is quite different in the GOP.

In the Republican Party, the differences between the two main groups, the liberals and the conservatives, is much wider… and… that gap can never be closed… even temporarily in order to secure victory.  Conservatives can never compromise their core beliefs.  Even an attempt is doomed to failure.  The instant conservatives make an attempt to compromise; they are no longer conservative. You can see the problem.

And that, dear reader, is why I continue to call for a solely conservative political party.  The infighting within the GOP is not going to cease until conservatives leave. Of course, the moment conservatives DO leave; the GOP will be relegated to the backbenches in Congress for a hundred years, or more.

The McCain Campaign has been a lost cause from the beginning. Apparently McCain thought he could replace conservative support with the support of Independent voters. That was never very likely because such a large percentage of independent voters are conservative voters who, for one reason or the other, left the two dominant political parties.  No matter who chose that course, McCain or his advisors, in my opinion, it was unwise and it may well cost him this election. In the long run, however, conservatives may benefit from the GOP loss in November.

Why?

There is a major firestorm coming, nationally and internationally. There will be epiphanies by the bundles landing on the doorsteps of naïve American voters in the next few years.  The cost of living in the US is going to skyrocket upwards along with taxes and new laws and regulations the likes of which we have never seen before.  Add to that the spread of Islamofacism and the accompanying wars and rumors of wars and the ever-increasing drain on our treasury to fight those wars, here at home as well as in foreign lands, and you begin to get the picture.

Conservatives have been warning of the multitude of festering boils about to erupt but… nobody wanted to listen.  In a few months reality will set in and with it a slow awakening.  By then, of course, the US Ship of State will have sailed and like any ship it will take an interminably long time to turn it around and set it’s course aright.  If, and it is a big “IF”, we are able to overcome what is headed our way, and begin a successful program of reconstruction, the country may find it necessary to turn to conservative leadership in order to rebuild the country and rehabilitate what will surely be a decimated military and a dispirited citizenry.

For a number of years now, decades even, there has been a growing sense, in the human psyche, that something dark and foreboding is on the threshold. I have felt it and now I sense its growing strength and it’s growing inevitability.  In my opinion, there are extremely dark times ahead for America… just months ahead, in fact.  We will be sorely tried, perhaps, as never before. What is even more troubling, to me, is my concern that we cannot turn back, nor can we influence what is about to happen. It is far too late. The dye is cast. Now we can only watch and wait and do whatever is necessary to survive as a nation. 

J. D. Longstreet

The agreement admits India into one of the world's most exclusive clubs: states that openly hold nuclear weapons. Proponents say it will boost cooperation between two of the world's largest democracies, allow U.S. business to cash in on the lucrative Indian nuclear-energy market and bring New Delhi into the fight against proliferation. But there's a hitch. India has spurned the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), under which states promise never to build bombs in exchange for access to civilian technology. "By recognizing India's nuclear status anyway, Washington has undermined the treaty at a moment when it is confronting nuclear crises in North Korea and Iran," says Peter Scoblic, author of "U.S. vs. Them," a history of American nuclear strategy. "And for what? To curry favor with a country that is already a friend of the United States."

There are signs an arms race has already started. In 2007, Pakistan's president declared his state would increase its deterrent capacity to match India's offensive capacity. It also opened a new reactor to manufacture weapons-grade plutonium and threatened to penetrate any Indian missile-defense shield.

What part of this agreement is gonna make the world a safer place to live?

A car bomb exploded in a market in southern Baghdad late Friday afternoon, killing at least 14 people and prompting an outburst of sectarian rioting, according to police and witnesses. The attack was one of numerous bombings and shootings around the country in which 24 people were killed and 45 injured.

The New York Times reports:

Hundreds of Christians are fleeing Mosul in the wake of a string of killings that appear to be singling out Christians in the northern Iraqi city, where many had taken refuge from persecution in other parts of the country. At least 11 and perhaps as many as 14 Christians have been killed in Mosul since the end of August, according to government officials and humanitarian groups. The victims have included a doctor, an engineer, two builders, two businessmen and a 15-year-old boy, who was shot dead in front of his house. In the last week alone, seven Christians were killed. On Friday, a pharmacist was shot to death by a man who pretended to be an undercover police officer and asked for the man’s identification card, said Khisroo Koran, deputy governor of Nineveh Province, which is in northern Iraq. Mosul is the province’s capital. Louis Sako, the archbishop of the Chaldean Catholic Church in Kirkuk, said Friday that the killings were an example of “a campaign of cleansing, killing and threatening” that Christians faced in Iraq.

The National reports:

Thirty-seven people have been infected by anthrax in northern Iraq in the country’s first outbreak of the disease since the 1980s, the health minister in the Kurdish autonomous region said today. The Iraqi health minister, Ziryan Othman, said the disease appeared to have been passed on from livestock. The first human case of the outbreak was discovered in remote Dahuk province last month.

Reuters reports:

Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki was quoted on Monday as saying it was time for British combat forces to leave the south of the country because they were no longer needed to maintain security and control.

a transcript of the interview here.

We have made clear advances in many demands ... We reached agreements, that are considered important and crucial in Iraq, for the final withdrawal (of all US forces) by the end of 2011, and the withdrawal from (Iraqi) cities by June 30, 2009. Laying down rules for the movement of the forces and their activities and not to carry out military operations or arrests unless they have permission from the Iraqi Government ...

*disclamer: I am not speaking out against Saudi Arabians as a people.  They're just as good as Americans. What I'm about to discuss regards dealings between governments.  A government and its people are usually not the same thing, which any American who has travelled overseas surely appreciates...

Saudi Arabia is counted as a close ally of the United States, which is odd.  Its odd for many reasons.  Here are two:

1)  The United States says it has an agenda for promoting democracy in the Middle East (and everywhere).  Read this speech of President Bush, for example.  He says, "are the peoples of the Middle East somehow beyond the reach of liberty? Are millions of men and women and children condemned by history or culture to live in despotism? Are they alone never to know freedom, and never even to have a choice in the matter? I, for one, do not believe it. I believe every person has the ability and the right to be free."  Afterall, America defends its Iraq war critics by saying it is bringing democracy there.  How then can America retain Saudi Arabia as its ally?  Saudi Arabia is, across the board, one the worst violators of human rights and freedoms of any country in the world.  The US declares democracy to be an inaliable human right, fights a war in Iraq over it (supposedly), and still remains staunch allies of the country who, according to America's own values, should be fought the most.

2) Saudi Arabia sponsors terrorism.  That being said, America does too.  However for America to be constantly declaring "a war on terror" while doing little or nothing to confront Saudi Arabia, tempts one to think that the altrustic "war on terror" bit is really just a thin veil covering more imperialist motives.  I hope that isn't the case. However, 15 of the 19 September 11 hijackers were Saudi nationals.  Zero were from Iraq.  Osama bin Laden is Saudi Arabian.  Saudi Arabia billions of dollars of equipment and support to the Taliban in Afghanistan.  Then again, the US was a mostly covert supporter of the Taliban as well, at least till they found out that developing the region's oil reserves was not economically viable.  If the United States follows its own logic of attacking countries that harbor terrorists, then Saudi Arabia should probably be on the list.  Bush said, "if you harbor terrorists, you are just as guilty as the terrorists; you're an enemy of the United States, and you will be held to account." We should follow up on that...then again, Montana and New York had better look out too, because the Unabomber and Tim McVeigh hung out there alot...

So its weird that we're such close allies with a country that for all the reasons thrown around in press releases should be one of our biggest enemies.  But we're not only allies.  We're a high-tech arms dealer to the Saudis. The USA is currently fulfilling a contract for $20 billion in advanced weaponry to Saudi Arabia.  That's quite a bit of firepower.  We're selling it to them in order to "counter the regional threat posed by Iran".  The logic is, if we have a common enemy, we must be friends.  This, however, is faulty logic, and also a blatant ignorance of history.  Even recent history shows this to be patently unwise.  In the 1980's America (through the CIA, via Pakistan) funded the Afghan Mujahadeen with billions of dollars of weaponry and training to counter the regional threat from our then common enemy - the USSR.  It worked and the Soviets lost.  In their place, however, came a large group of warlords fueled by ethnic strife, greedy for power, and armed to the teeth.  Which leads to what we have now: an Afghanistan ruled by Pashtun Taliban warlords who are bristling with foreign weaponry and hell-bent on destroying their once benefactor the USA, who they now realize was only using them as a pawn.

So why are we in the place we are?  The same reason America is in most of the binds its in - Oil.  Here are the US Department of State's own words: "Saudi Arabia's unique role in the Arab and Islamic worlds, its possession of the world's largest reserves of oil, and its strategic location make its friendship important to the United States...Saudi Arabia is one of the leading sources of imported oil for the United States, providing more than one million barrels/day of oil to the U.S. The U.S. is Saudi Arabia's largest trading partner, and Saudi Arabia is the largest U.S. export market in the Middle East."

How then can you work to solve this problem?  The same way you can work to solve most of America's problems - Ride Your Bike.

Also, read Taliban by Ahmed Rashid.  Its quite an informative book on this and many issues.

WASHINGTON - The World Bank agreed Sunday to help developing countries strengthen their economies, bolster their financial systems and protect the poor against the financial turmoil in international markets.

Robert Zoellick, the bank's president, said the contagion affecting the global economy "has been a manmade catastrophe and responses to overcome it lie in all our hands."

He spoke as the U.S. moved to shore up Wall Street and financial institutions and the 15 countries that use the euro agreed in Paris to temporarily guarantee bank refinancing to ease the credit squeeze.

Speaking at a joint news conference with Zoellick, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the head of the International Monetary Fund, endorsed the European move and said he expected markets to react favorably, "although you never can be sure what will happen."

Strauss-Kahn also called for quick implementation of the $700 billion U.S. rescue plan, which includes the government buying part-ownership in an array of banks.

Although the World Bank should denounce the Socialistic aspect of the bailout bill, I think they've been marginalized by the Democrats, who think that poverty relief can only occur by the government; specifically, localized governments. These anti-free trade loons have been harming America about as long as they've been hating America; in fact, if they had supported measures to extend the deregulation aspects of CAFTA, this recession would only be a distant dream in the stony heads of the Commies that want to undermine capitalists. Our free trade relationships with China and Europe are constantly being assaulted by these partisan hacks; for these reasons, countries in the Eastern Hemisphere that lack free trade are suffering even worse than we are, and if they suffer, our economy is hurt, too.

Yet, with the current actions being partaken of by the Democrats, I wonder if Wolfowitz should remain the man for the job:

U.S. lawmakers, meanwhile, called for fast action — by the administration on a plan for the government to take direct stakes in certain banks, and by Congress on a new economic aid plan.

Sen. Chuck Schumer, chairman of the Joint Economic Committee, said an administration proposal to inject federal money directly into certain banks, in effect partially nationalizing the banking system, "is gaining steam."

"I am hopeful that tomorrow, the Treasury will announce that they're doing it. And they have to do it quickly ... markets are waiting," Schumer said.

Schumer and other Democratic leaders also backed plans by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., for a session after the Nov. 4 election to consider a $150 billion proposal to boost the economy.

The measure would extend jobless benefits, provide more money for food stamps and finance public works projects, such as rebuilding bridges and roads.

"Yes, we are going to do a stimulus" after the election, said Rep. Barney Frank, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee. The idea is "give the middle class and the average citizen the same kind of relief that we try to give the financial sector," said Frank, D-Mass., who, like Schumer, appeared on the Sunday talk shows.

President Bush says his administration is doing everything possible to halt the biggest market disruption since the Great Depression of the 1930s.

This is idiotic. Trusting a media whore like Schumer and a homosexual prostitute like Frank can only increase the rate of the implosion of our economy. Relief should not go to the middle class; instead, they should go to private enterprises, which can provide jobs and services for them. As the market recovers, its prosperity shall surely trickle down to the rest of the nation, no matter how undeserving they are. Private enterprises should be contracted to build roads, provide food, and create jobs. The federal government wants us to increase our reliance on them; based on their incompetent handling of this economy thus far, how can you expect them to be a source you can put your faith in?

Supply side economics work. The federal government ought to go bankrupt in a matter of time, thanks to President Bush's excellent economic policies; I was originally worried that our military wouldn't be financed enough to win the War on Terror, but thanks to the success of organizations such as Blackwater, I am thoroughly convinced that the federal government is of little use to provide. Let it protect, and have it quietly retreat into the corner. Men like Zoellick and Wolfowitz know what's best for our nation, and those who think otherwise are traitors.

But this time the conditions are very different. The world has stopped waiting for the US - and its next president -- to declare its roadmap for the future. Instead, the other 96% of the planet has decided to move on with its business. And business is booming. The major emerging powers, production centres and financial capitals -- Russia, China, India, Brazil, Saudi Arabia, Kazakhstan, the United Arab Emirates and others -- are creating connections among themselves. While some Americans gloat that the global economic slowdown is evidence the world has not "decoupled" from it yet, the situation would have been much worse if emerging markets were not robust centres of growth.

This parallels the observation in the Times that US economic hegemony is ending, as well.

“One thing seems probable to me,” Peer Steinbrück, the German finance minister, said recently. “The U.S. will lose its status as the superpower of the global financial system.” At another time, that remark might have sounded like mere nationalist bluster. Right now, it doesn’t seem so ridiculous to ask whether 2008 will come to be seen as the first year of a distinctly non-American century.