More True Than Ever

Recently I've been reading random editorials from 2000-2005 that relate to the Iraq war and President Bush. It's really amazing to me how they sound in the context of 2007. It's especially interesting to see people complaining about losing 1000 soldiers as the article below does. Now we're well over 3000, and there's no question in my mind that if we're still there through 2008, we'll have lost 5000. What a waste of life and resources.

It's strange for me. I was in the minority of people who opposed the war from the beginning. At the time, people who felt as I did were hard to come by. Even then, I didn't imagine things would go as badly as they have, it just didn't seem like a good idea. And I felt like the population was being manipulated, which always sets off warning bells in my mind. Think back...something just didn't feel right...did it?

The funny thing is, there are still plenty of people who attack those who share my opinions as unpatrotic or for failing to "support the troops." Nevermind the fact that the People's disapproval of the war, may, in the end, be the ONLY reason the soldiers get to come home. And don't think that they don't want to. A Zogby poll in March 2006 found that 72% of US soldiers in Iraq say the war should be ended within a year, and a quarter say that all troops should be withdrawn immediately. I'll bet you a fifty-spot that number is over 80% today.

. . .

Anyway, enough of my own writing...let's get to the article that sparked this thing in the first place. One of my favorite subjects from 2004, Flip-Flops.


SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/connelly/192828_joel29.html
Reprinted without permission

In the Northwest: Bush-Cheney flip-flops cost America in blood

Wednesday, September 29, 2004

By JOEL CONNELLY
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER COLUMNIST

As George W. Bush has lately shown, the tactic of successfully defining your opponent is to political conflict what occupying the high ground is to waging war.

The Bush-Cheney campaign has gleefully labeled John Kerry a flip-flopper. But what of Bush-Cheney flip-flops? They're getting a lot less ink, but America is paying a price in blood.

Little noticed, and worthy of lengthy consideration, is a speech delivered by then-Defense Secretary Dick Cheney in 1992 to the Discovery Institute in Seattle.

The words of our future vice president -- defending the decision to end Gulf War I without occupying Iraq -- eerily foretell today's morass. Here is what Cheney said in '92:

"I would guess if we had gone in there, I would still have forces in Baghdad today. We'd be running the country. We would not have been able to get everybody out and bring everybody home.

"And the final point that I think needs to be made is this question of casualties. I don't think you could have done all of that without significant additional U.S. casualties. And while everybody was tremendously impressed with the low cost of the (1991) conflict, for the 146 Americans who were killed in action and for their families, it wasn't a cheap war.

"And the question in my mind is how many additional American casualties is Saddam (Hussein) worth? And the answer is not that damned many. So, I think we got it right, both when we decided to expel him from Kuwait, but also when the president made the decision that we'd achieved our objectives and we were not going to go get bogged down in the problems of trying to take over and govern Iraq."

How -- given what he said then -- does Cheney get off challenging the judgment and strength of those who argue that we are bogged down and shedding blood today?

Is Saddam worth the lives of 1,046 (at last count) dead Americans, and 7,000 injured Americans?

Dick Cheney posed the hard-nosed questions that should be asked by a president in time of war. George Bush is out on the campaign trail boasting he's hard-nosed because he didn't ask how a "Mission Accomplished!" could unravel.

Kerry is taking a pounding from the relentless Republican message machine. A GOP TV ad shows Kerry windsurfing, with Strauss' "Blue Danube" waltz playing in the background, as the voice-over claims the nominee has shifted positions "whichever way the wind blows."

In case the "mainstream" media are interested, or Fox News wants to balance its reporting to furnish a few moments of fairness, here are a few Bush flip-flops that might be put before the voters:

Nation-Building: As a candidate, Dubya traveled the land in 2000 denouncing the Clinton administration for using U.S. troops in what he called "nation-building."

"I'm worried about an opponent who uses nation-building and the military in the same sentence," he told a rally. "My view of the military is for our military to be properly prepared to fight and win wars -- therefore, (to) prevent war from happening in the first place."

What are we doing in Iraq if not "nation-building?" Enmeshed in Iraq, are we properly prepared to fight such crazies as the nuclear weapon-equipped "Great Leader" of North Korea, Kim Jong Il?

Our Real Enemy: Two days after 9/11, President Bush declared: "The most important thing is for us to find Osama bin Laden. It is our No. 1 priority, and we will not rest until we find him."

Six months later, laying political groundwork for the Iraq war, the president said: "I don't know where he is. I have no idea and I really don't care. It's not that important. It's not our priority."

The 9/11 Commission: The White House initially opposed creation of an independent commission to investigate causes of the 9/11 atrocities. A July 2002 statement read: "The administration would oppose an amendment that would create a new commission to conduct a similar review (to Congress' investigation)."

The administration reversed course five months later. The bipartisan commission, including former Sen. Slade Gorton, R-Wash., distinguished itself at hearings and in its findings and recommendations.

Homeland Security: In the fall of 2001, Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., proposed creating a Cabinet-level Department of Homeland Security.

White House press secretary Ari Fleischer outlined the administration's opposition in October 2001, saying Congress did not need to make the director's job "a statutory post" and that "every agency of the government has security concerns."

A year later, the Bush administration was flaying Sen. Max Cleland, D-Ga. -- a Vietnam triple amputee -- for allegedly being an obstacle to creation of the department. Anti-Cleland ads showing Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein flashed across the TV screens of Georgia.

Such are this administration's major national security flip-flops. But other flips bear on our safety.

During the 2000 campaign, candidate Bush pledged to limit carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere. It didn't happen. The president promised to support -- or at least sign -- renewal of Congress' 1994 ban on military-style assault weapons. The Bush administration didn't lift a finger to extend the ban, which recently expired.

Out here on America's "Left Coast," candidate George Bush proclaimed himself a steadfast free trader. Even today, Republican State Chairman Chris Vance hammers Kerry as a flip-flopper on trade.

How, then, to explain the president's 2002 decision to slap tariffs of 8 to 30 percent on steel imports to the United States? (The tariffs were lifted after 21 months.)

Answer: The steel-producing states of Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia have 46 fought-over electoral votes in this year's election.

Pete

What time is it in Rotterdam?

West meets East

I've decided to take a break from not posting anything original. So here's whats up. The Memo Writer is headed to NY....

Oh, and by the way, Depeche Mode rocks.

Continuing with my rather lazy but personally enjoyable string of posts by others, I present you with a
2006 LA Times article by none other than Madeleine Albright, secretary of State from 1997 to 2001.

. . .

Good versus evil isn't a strategy

Bush's worldview fails to see that in the Middle East, power politics is the key.

By Madeleine Albright
March 24, 2006

The Bush administration's newly unveiled National Security Strategy might well be subtitled "The Irony of Iran." Three years after the invasion of Iraq and the invention of the phrase "axis of evil," the administration now highlights the threat posed by Iran — whose radical government has been vastly strengthened by the invasion of Iraq. This is more tragedy than strategy, and it reflects the Manichean approach this administration has taken to the world.

It is sometimes convenient, for purposes of rhetorical effect, for national leaders to talk of a globe neatly divided into good and bad. It is quite another, however, to base the policies of the world's most powerful nation upon that fiction. The administration's penchant for painting its perceived adversaries with the same sweeping brush has led to a series of unintended consequences.

For years, the president has acted as if Al Qaeda, Saddam Hussein's followers and Iran's mullahs were parts of the same problem. Yet, in the 1980s, Hussein's Iraq and Iran fought a brutal war. In the 1990s, Al Qaeda's allies murdered a group of Iranian diplomats. For years, Osama bin Laden ridiculed Hussein, who persecuted Sunni and Shiite religious leaders alike. When Al Qaeda struck the U.S. on 9/11, Iran condemned the attacks and later participated constructively in talks on Afghanistan. The top leaders in the new Iraq — chosen in elections that George W. Bush called "a magic moment in the history of liberty" — are friends of Iran. When the U.S. invaded Iraq, Bush may have thought he was striking a blow for good over evil, but the forces unleashed were considerably more complex.

The administration is now divided between those who understand this complexity and those who do not. On one side, there are ideologues, such as the vice president, who apparently see Iraq as a useful precedent for Iran. Meanwhile, officials on the front lines in Iraq know they cannot succeed in assembling a workable government in that country without the tacit blessing of Iran; hence, last week's long-overdue announcement of plans for a U.S.-Iranian dialogue on Iraq — a dialogue that if properly executed might also lead to progress on other issues.

Although this is not an administration known for taking advice, I offer three suggestions. The first is to understand that although we all want to "end tyranny in this world," that is a fantasy unless we begin to solve hard problems. Iraq is increasingly a gang war that can be solved in one of two ways: by one side imposing its will or by all the legitimate players having a piece of the power. The U.S. is no longer able to control events in Iraq, but it can be useful as a referee.

Second, the Bush administration should disavow any plan for regime change in Iran — not because the regime should not be changed but because U.S. endorsement of that goal only makes it less likely. In today's warped political environment, nothing strengthens a radical government more than Washington's overt antagonism. It also is common sense to presume that Iran will be less willing to cooperate in Iraq and to compromise on nuclear issues if it is being threatened with destruction. As for Iran's choleric and anti-Semitic new president, he will be swallowed up by internal rivals if he is not unwittingly propped up by external foes.

Third, the administration must stop playing solitaire while Middle East and Persian Gulf leaders play poker. Bush's "march of freedom" is not the big story in the Muslim world, where Shiite Muslims suddenly have more power than they have had in 1,000 years; it is not the big story in Lebanon, where Iran is filling the vacuum left by Syria; it is not the story among Palestinians, who voted — in Western eyes — freely, and wrongly; it is not even the big story in Iraq, where the top three factions in the recent elections were all supported by decidedly undemocratic militias.

In the long term, the future of the Middle East may well be determined by those in the region dedicated to the hard work of building democracy. I certainly hope so. But hope is not a policy. In the short term, we must recognize that the region will be shaped primarily by fairly ruthless power politics in which the clash between good and evil will be swamped by differences between Sunni and Shiite, Arab and Persian, Arab and Kurd, Kurd and Turk, Hashemite and Saudi, secular and religious and, of course, Arab and Jew. This is the world, the president pledges in his National Security Strategy, that "America must continue to lead." Actually, it is the world he must begin to address — before it is too late.

Injustice--taken to a frightening level

As a member of the legal profession, I was shocked to see the facts of this case. That's all I will say, because I want you guys to read it for yourselves.

Outrageous Injustice
by Wright Thompson

?

PALOS HEIGHTS, Ill. -- Nine months pregnant and married to a fervent Bears fan with tickets to Sunday's NFC Championship Game, Colleen Pavelka didn't want to risk going into labor during the game against the New Orleans Saints.

Due to give birth on Monday, Pavelka's doctor told her Friday she could induce labor early. She opted for the Friday delivery.

"I thought, how could [Mark] miss this one opportunity that he might never have again in his life?" said Pavelka, 28, from the southwestern Chicago suburb of Homer Glen.

At 10:45 p.m. Friday, Mark Patrick Pavelka was born at Palos Community Hospital after close to six hours of labor.

While her husband watched the Bears play the New Orleans Saints at Soldier Field Sunday, Colleen planned to watch in the hospital with the baby wrapped in a Bears blanket -- a Christmas gift from his grandmother.

The couple named Mark after his father, who wore a "Monsters of the Midway" shirt during the delivery.

"If he wasn't born by Sunday and the Bears won, I would have named him Rex," after Bears quarterback Rex Grossman, joked Mark Pavelka, 28.

Mark is the couple's second son.

Copyright 2007 by The Associated Press

For You, Smithley

Have corn for dinner, not driving

by H. Sterling Burnett

---

Congress should give American motorists a break at the pump in the pending energy bill, but special interests and legislators beholden to them are once again loading the bill down with pork barrel projects.

Ethanol is a prime case in point. Ethanol's advocates have long argued that increasing the amount of ethanol used in gasoline would be a boon to the economy, reduce our dependence on foreign oil and improve the air.

Yet, more than two decades and tens of billions of dollars in subsidies, tax credits and fuel mandates have done little other than to further enrich Archer-Daniels Midland (ADM), the multibillion dollar agri-giant that produces more than 70 percent of the ethanol used in America. In return, ADM has been a major campaign contributor to key farm state legislators in both political parties.

The economic impact of ethanol subsidies is negative. One report by the U.S. Agriculture department determined that every $1 spent subsidizing ethanol costs consumers more than $4.

There are several reasons for this. First, every bushel of corn devoted to ethanol production leaves less for human consumption and animal feed -- thus people pay more for corn, beef, poultry and pork than they would absent the subsidies. And prices for other goods are also higher since farmers, in pursuit of lucrative subsidies, devote more acreage to corn rather than other, unsubsidized, produce.

Second, the costs of growing, distilling and blending ethanol into gasoline makes it 51 cents more per gallon to produce that regular gasoline.

The clamor for increased use of ethanol also raises the specter of the current problems surrounding the use of MTBE, the EPA-sanctioned fuel additive that oil producers began blending with gasoline in the mid-1990s to meet stricter clean-air standards in high-smog areas like New York City, New England and Southern California.

Although not carcinogenic in humans, MTBE has caused huge problems recently because it oozes from leaky storage tanks and leeches rapidly into ground water contaminating local water supplies.

The EPA recently found that only 16 of 3,776 U.S. water systems suffered contamination and most of the spills are in the final stages of clean-up. Despite that, the issue has attracted a swarm of personal injury lawyers who are salivating about the prospect of asbestos-type multimillion dollar payoffs from MTBE cases.

Ethanol has similar drawbacks -- ones that also could spark costly litigation. Because it absorbs water, ethanol cannot be shipped through existing pipelines used to transport unblended gasoline -- the water it absorbs could separate causing pipelines and fuel lines to freeze, and perhaps burst, during cold weather. The same problem will make engines run less efficiently in cold-climate areas.

Worse, most studies show that it takes more energy to produce and deliver a gallon of ethanol than the energy it produces -- a net loss of energy. Imported fossil fuels are used to produce, distill and transport ethanol.

Thus requiring that the United States use five to eight billion gallons of ethanol -- a mandate that Congress is currently considering -- means burning more, not less, imported oil and natural gas.

Ethanol would likely disappear from the marketplace absent federal subsidies and mandates. Like so much of the pork Congress bestows upon special interests, ethanol is bad for the economy, bad for consumers and bad for the environment.

Corn deserves a place on the nation's dinner table for its nutritional value, but it doesn't belong in the gas tanks of millions of U.S. motor vehicles.

H. Sterling Burnett is a Senior Fellow at the National Center for Policy Analysis

Higher and higher,
We're gonna take it,
Down to the wire,
We're gonna make it,
Out of the fire,
Higher and higher.