Book Burning: Churches vs. Government

A tale of two books and of two circumstances.  Both due to fear of books.

A nutjob pastor in Florida wants to burn the Koran.  While I'm not a fan of any religion, I would equate this to burning a flag.  Protected speech?  Definitely.  Stupid?  Absolutely.  This action is not going to make people like us.  Supposedly the pasta doesn't want the Muslim version of a YMCA to be built in NYC.

That's a separate issue, but something I need to discuss there.  This is not a "ground zero Mosque".  It is literally like a YMMA.  It even has Jewish and Christian people on its management board.

One book burning deserves another right?  Enter the Pentagon.  One of our soldiers who fought in Afghanistan has published a book, which supposedly has attracted the ire of the CIA and others.  They are now trying to buy the 10,000 copies of the book already printed and destroy them.  Too bad for them, copies of the book were already distributed for advance reviews, and some of them are even on eBay.  I would also argue that his book is protected speech.

At the end of the day, what we can learn from this lesson is that people who want to burn or destroy books are probably not good people.  I would go so far as to call a book burner an asshole.  And as we can see, there are assholes both in the church and in the government.  Thankfully we have separation of church and state.

The first desert storm casualty

The remains of the first US serviceman to die in operation Desert Storm were identified today, ending an 18 year search. It is good that the family has some closure after what must have been an awful experience.

A world without nukes?

Today President Obama urged the world to abandon nuclear weapons, something that I support.  These are weapons that are never needed, and we have enough to destroy the world several times over.  The first steps would be for us to sign a ban on testing.  We don't test nukes anyway, and we need to lead by example.

No prosecutions for CIA torturers

The appointee to direct the CIA said today that he will not attempt to prosecute the CIA torturers if they believed they were acting on legal orders.

The "I was just following orders" defense has been refuted by the United States in the past, not embraced as it is today.  In the 1940's, many Nazis said that they were following legal orders and should not be responsible for all kinds of atrocities.  You may argue that the magnitude of destruction was much greater back then, and it was, but the argument is the same: should those who break the law while following orders of a commander be held responsible.

While I would like to argue that everyone is given free will and should be judged on his or her actions alone, regardless of the source of direction, that may not be the case.  In the 1960s, Stanley Milgram showed that obedience to authority can reach unprecedented levels, in which someone will torture and even kill another human being simply because they are told to do so, even if they completely disagree with it.

I can't simply say that the "orders" defense is invalid, but the fact remains that most of these CIA agents could have objected at anytime and simply given up their jobs.  

Which is why we should seek prosecutions and let the courts decide.

An impossible task?

Friedman's analysis on how to get all sides to the table in the Middle East boils down to this:

all we need to do is rebuild Fatah, merge it with Hamas, elect an Israeli government that can freeze settlements, court Syria and engage Iran — while preventing it from going nuclear — just so we can get the parties to start talking.

Is this even possible?  Israel is about to put Likud back into power, which would be like the US electing Dick Cheney as president.  Iran has been quiet lately, but it is obvious they are funding Hamas.  And Fatah is too afraid of Hamas to do anything meaningful.  As Friedman suggests, Saudi Arabia and Egypt may be able to help as honest brokers, but only time will tell.

What happens to the detainees?

There's a lot of questions about how to handle the GITMO detainees once they are transferred out.

Put them into our criminal justice system.  If we can prosecute Timothy McVeigh, the Unabomber, and countless other criminals, why not these guys?

There are 245 of them.  We aren't talking about an army.  In the case where there is no evidence of wrongdoing, they will have to be released, but that's something we've already done, even under Bush.

Israel blinks

On the eve of a new US President, Israel has blinked, and is accelerating a pullout from Gaza, with the goal of completely withdrawing before Barack Obama is sworn in at noon tomorrow.

Unlike the past few weeks, where we had a "when the cat is away" scenario, with Bush as the lamest of ducks, we now have a President who is willing to re-engage in the Middle East.

What we can learn from the Israel/Gaza conflict

A ceasefire has been declared in the Israel/Gaza conflict...for now.

A lot has happened over the past 2 weeks and we can learn much.  A few takeaways:

1.  Civilian casualties on any side are unacceptable.  Israeli's were killed and injured by rockets fired from Hamas and Palestinian civilians (including an Israeli trained doctor's children) were killed by poorly(?) aimed Israeli mortars.

2.  Ceasefires with an end-date should not be entered into.  It pre-supposes that at the end of the ceasefire, hostilities can and should resume.

3. In the Middle East conflict, the United States' interest is for their not to be a conflict.  We do not have any good allies in the Middle East.  Period.

4.  There is enough blame to go around, and the only people who get hurt are civilians.  As a friend of mine so rightly said on facebook: "don't you see what your stupid religions cause?  Fuck you Israel and fuck you Hamas" or something along those lines.  So rightly said.

Joe the Plumber is going to Israel

As they say, the truth is stranger than fiction; or at least funnier.  Joe* the plumber** is heading to Israel to report on the Gaza conflict.  His plan is to find the "average Joes" of Israel and talk to them about their problems.

Keep in mind, this is the guy who said that Obama's election would be "death to Israel", which, obviously was not very prescient since Israel is still alive and kicking, post-election.

*his name is sam

**he is not a plumber

The Cost of War

Here, you can read about what's actually going on.  Regardless of what you think of the situation, it is a good idea to donate to relief efforts (and hopefully they won't be rammed by our "allies"), such as the International Red Cross.  Donate here, choose "Israel Occupied Territories."

Israel continues over-react

In what appears to be more than a skirmish at the end of a cease-fire, Israel continues to bomb targets inside the Gaza Strip.  This action threatens us all.

As usual, Israel is facing a mountain of criticism for this over-reaction.  Did Hamas attack them?  Yes.  However, the Hamas rocket attack left 1 person dead, while Israel has killed upwards of 300, including many children.  This does not excuse what Hamas did; they are just as much to blame.  But the United States does not partner with them, and condemns their every action.

It is quite obvious from this fiasco that Israel is not grown up enough to be a true friend of the United States.  They are very similar to Georgia, a country that provoke Russia and demanded our help.  In this case, Israel is going up against a relatively weak force, but they should not expect our support, whether it be money, military training, or backing in the UN Security Council.  I am hopeful the new administration is smart enough to recognize the danger in keeping close association with such a country.

Israel's current policy is doing a lot right now to promote terrorism. Every child that is killed by a bomb within Gaza is another martyr to inspire dozens of suicide bombers.  And our country's ties to Israel make us a target as well.

Criticism inside of Israel is beginning to build, as this article and this article in Haaretz show.

I condemn both sides: Hamas for starting the mess, and Israel for pursuing actions that it knows will disproportionately attack civilians.  If Israel claims to be the most civilized country in the Middle East it should act like it.

Obama's new mess to cleanup

The Israelis and Palestinians are getting feisty again, like two dogs fighting over a piece of steak.  Yet another item to add to Obama's to-do list: stop the kids from fighting.

McCain: Worse than Bush?

Hopefully we will never know the answer to the title of this post, but in order to inform the undecided, we need to visit this issue.  Would a McCain presidency be worse than Bush?  

When George W. Bush was first elected president in 2000, we were at the peak of the internet boom.  The business cycles has since been on a downward spin, most likely because we have not had a positive technological shock since the dot.com boom of the late 90's.  Whether we will have another such shock in the next 8 years is anyone's guess, but it is likely as these cycles run over 15-20 years.  

No matter if Bush or Gore was elected president, we would likely have faced a minor recession sometime over the past 8 years.  What would not have been predicted, however, is the massive cost of the Iraq War, which has been a major factor in the spike in oil prices, the fall of the dollar, and the loss of our rights to privacy, jury, and other freedoms.  

How would John McCain or Barack Obama confront such issues?

When it comes to the Iraq War, currently McCain is more gung-ho about it than even George Bush.  While the White House has recently flirted with the idea of setting a vague timetable for withdrawal, McCain remains steadfast that we should maintain permanent bases in Iraq, against the wishes of the Iraqis and more than 50% of Americans.  McCain's wishes would likely lead to at least a $1,000,000,000 level of spending over his presidency, from this issue alone.  

When it comes to oil prices, McCain favors "offshore drilling" and not much else.  Offshore drilling was already allowed, oil companies did not choose to partake in it.  All Bush just did was open up some more areas.  That point is moot, since we do not have enough refineries to keep up with this, so even if we did strike oil (this would take 5-10 years), we would have to have it made into gasoline by another country and then re-import it.  Even conservative oil-man T Boone Pickens does not see oil as the future.  Instead, he proposes we use a combination of wind power and natural gas.  I also think that geothermal power, nuclear power, and solar power have to be added to the first two to be our new backbone of electricity, which could power a new generation of vehicles.  McCain talks about alternative energies, but seems to be continuing Bush's legacy of paying lip service to alternatives while just drilling for more oil to further fuck up our planet.

McCain worse than Bush?  Maybe, but hopefully we will never know the answer.

The Real War on Terror

According to Bush, McCain, and their ilk, things are going great in Iraq.  Troop deaths are down (but not completely absent) and the "surge" worked.  I hear they will be building a Disneyland in Fallujah next year.  

All those extra troops didn't come out of nowhere, they came out of the land that harbored Osama while he planned his attacks on us: Afghanistan.  And how are we doing there?

We just had the deadliest month ever in that country for US troops and reports are that the Taliban is planning a comeback.  

Mission Accomplished: 5 Years Ago

Five years ago today, George W. Bush landed on an aircraft carrier in a jumpsuit and gave a speech in which he told all of us that major combat operation in Iraq were over.  Behind him was a large banner that read: MISSION ACCOMPLISHED.

Five years later and the guerilla war rages on, with no end in sight.  

We can't win

Today General Petraeus (also called Betray-US) said that the security situation in Iraq is "fragile" so we can't leave.  We were told last year that it was too violent to leave and now it is more peaceful but we still can't leave.  Like Senator Obama said today, we keep moving the goal post back and forth.  If they had world peace there, we would still find and excuse to stay there and continue to antagonize the Muslim world, which makes things bad for us and our allies like Israel.

How would anyone define victory in this war?  This situation is much different from WWII.  When that war ended, we signed a treaty with Germany, a country that had rational people that could be controlled.  The people in Iraq simply don't want us there.  There is no government to sign a peace accord with, since we set up their current, fundamentalist government.  We are fighting a guerilla war and the only way to stop people from attacking us there is to either leave or destroy the whole country.  Obviously the second choice is not something we'd want to do.  

Maybe victory is when all of our troops are safe at home.  

Answers

Why is our economy in the toilet?

www.nationalpriorities.org/costofwar_home

Smoke 'em if you got 'em

The sheriff of Oakland County, MI wants to send seized cigars to troops overseas.  Seems to be a decent thing to do.