Half a Trillion Dollars

That's how much we've spent on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as various security operations since 9/11. That's $100 billion dollars a year on average.

That doesn't count the Homeland Security Department budget, which comes in at a measly $29 billion in 2006. It's almost double what the federal government spends on education. It's more than the budgets of the NSF, NASA, EPA, Interior, the VA, Transportation and Labor combined. It's more than we spend on any other single cabinet-level department, with the exception of defense.

And let's face it — most of this money was simply wasted. The war in Iraq, a war of choice, has made us demonstrably less safe than we were before and killed tens of thousands of people in the process. Afghanistan is spinning out of control as the Taliban regroups, suicide attacks increase, and poppy production turns the country into a warlord-ruled narco-state. All the while, companies like Halliburton made billions from no-bid contracts, and billions more as they used those contracts to defraud the government.

It's hard to imagine the good that could have been done with half a trillion dollars if adults had been in charge. It's equally hard to imagine Republicans deciding to spend half a trillion dollars on anything that wasn't a war. But with Bush as President, it's very easy to imagine that we will squander another couple of hundred billion in the next two years. Throwing bad money after bad — what a mess.

9/11 Did Not Change Everything

Thinking back on yesterday's post about the House vote to give the President a host of new police powers that would do any tinhorn dictator proud, I was reminded of this insane statement by our current Speaker of the House:

House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) praised the legislation, saying Americans should not give foreigners suspected of being enemy combatants the rights that U.S. citizens enjoy. "The Global War on Terror is different from any war we have ever known," he said in a statement. "As a country we must understand that adaptation to these new situations is critical in order to achieve victory over those who seek to hurt us as a nation."

Yet again, we are told that 9/11 changed everything, and that all those comfortable freedoms we enjoy and those protections against government power that we used to take for granted are antiquated and obsolete — indeed, to use the Administration's own terminology, "quaint". Desperate times call for desperate measures, our leaders say: this is war, World War III, a clash of civilizations. We must be prepared to sacrifice for the Global War on Terror. Or rather, you must be so prepared.

It's important to note the irony in the fact that we are being asked to sacrifice exactly that which we are told is the reason for terrorism in the first place — the terrorists, Bush said to the nation on the night of the original 9/11, hate us for our freedom. Indeed, I'm tempted to accuse Bush and Co. of trying to appease the terrorists by taking away from us exactly what they want taken. But it's more important to note that just about every premise that's involved in this "ironic" hullabaloo is false.

First, just let me say it: 9/11 didn't change everything. In fact, it changed very little. I would guess that the only important thing it changed was the Bush Administration's appreciation that there is, and has been for quite some time, a terrorist threat. But just because their perceptions changed, or probably more accurately, just because an event gave them the excuse to do some of the things they have always wanted to do, doesn't mean we need to drink their kool-aid and put the Constitution in the shredder.

Second, there is no "Global War on Terror" except in the minds of those who like the way that phrase makes them sound tough-minded and resolute. There is no war because there can be no end — countries can surrender and revolutionaries can put down their weapons, but terrorism is too multivariate and dispersed to ever be "defeated" as such. Instead, there is a threat to be contained, and the first step in doing so is acknowledging it for what it is, and not turning it into something where total victory is the only positive outcome. We can't "win" this war, but if we continue doing what we have been doing, we can surely lose it, and ourselves.

Third, rights are a feature, not a bug. They aren't outmoded or "quaint", and they don't hinder our ability to contain the threat of terrorism. Those who argue that unchecked police power is a good and necessary thing are obviously deluded and should not be listened to; those who want to give this current bunch of jokers that power are seriously deranged. Even if we could be certain that we would only detain without charge and torture "real" terrorists, it would still be a bad idea since our (already much-reduced) moral authority is one of the most powerful tools in our foreign policy shed. But let's face it: history isn't kind to those who have exercised such authority, and since we know for a fact that Cheney is evil and that he runs this show, the outcome is guaranteed to be a complete disaster.

On the Benefits of Citizenship

So yesterday all but seven House Republicans, with the help of 34 Democrats, decided that being a citizen of this great nation should be more special than ever. They said that habeas corpus, that 800-year-old foundation of civil liberty and individual freedom, should just be for 100% American citizens only.

Being a citizen myself, I can sleep soundly knowing that I cannot be picked up by the cops and locked away forever just because the government thinks I might have done something bad. In my case, the government actually has to charge me with a crime and take me to trial; otherwise they have to let me go.

But the guy with the H1B visa that works in the next cubicle? Or the foreign-exchange student getting her masters? Or the immigrant family that just got permanent resident status? Well, they're not 100% American citizens, so all that freedom stuff shouldn't apply to them, the House said.

Now, the words these honorable members of this august body use to denote the real targets of this legislation are "terrorists" and "foreigners." But they're not just talking about Osama bin Laden here. They're talking about your co-workers. They're talking about your friends. They're talking about your family. They might even be talking about you. And they want the power to lock up your co-workers, friends, family, and even yourself, for no reason, forever, with no recourse.

So as we now know, it's good to be a citizen. And we also know that the 253 House members who voted for this bill aren't good citizens at all.

Update: The Senate passed its version of the "Gut the Constitution Act of 2006" Thursday night. Add 65 Senators to the list of bad citizens.

Two Speeches

I watched two speeches tonight about the meaning, 5 years later, of 9/11/01. The first was by Keith Olberman on MSNBC; the second was by President Bush, carried by just about every channel on TV.

Olberman's was an anguished plea for understanding, an attempt to comprehend how such an historic opportunity for national unity could have been lost, and why to this day Ground Zero is still a big hole in the ground. Bush, on the other hand, wanted to remind his dwindling proportion of supporters that the same tired platitudes he has been repeating for the past five years still hold some meaning as hundreds die each day in Iraq and as Afghanistan spins increasingly out of control.

Olberman's was filled with anger about those things left undone, the promises unkept, the pledges left unfulfilled. Why is Osama bin Laden still alive and on the loose? Why is there no memorial at the WTC site? Bush's, in contrast, was all about a pathetic attempt to cover his ass for his own failures, explain away his war in Iraq while terrorism escalates there and around the globe.

Bush's argument boils down to this:

I am often asked why we're in Iraq when Saddam Hussein was not responsible for the 9/11 attacks. The answer is that the regime of Saddam Hussein was a clear threat.

My administration, the Congress and the United Nations saw the threat.

And, after 9/11, Saddam's regime posed a risk that the world could not afford to take.

The world is safer because Saddam Hussein is no longer in power.

Olberman repsonds:

Terrorists did not come and steal our newly-regained sense of being American first, and political, fiftieth. Nor did the Democrats. Nor did the media. Nor did the people.

The President — and those around him — did that.

They promised bi-partisanship, and then showed that to them, "bi-partisanship" meant that their party would rule and the rest would have to follow, or be branded, with ever-escalating hysteria, as morally or intellectually confused, as appeasers, as those who, in the Vice President's words yesterday, "validate the strategy of the terrorists."

They promised protection, and then showed that to them "protection" meant going to war against a despot whose hand they had once shaken, a despot who we now learn from our own Senate Intelligence Committee, hated al-Qaida as much as we did.

The polite phrase for how so many of us were duped into supporting a war, on the false premise that it had 'something to do' with 9/11 is "lying by implication."

The impolite phrase is "impeachable offense."

In the end, decide who you want to believe. But if you didn't watch both speeches live, read them both now start to finish. It's not really much of a contest.

Update: Crooks and Liars has the Olberman video here.

On This Day

While rearranging some books recently, I stumbled upon a slim volume of poetry by Carl Sandburg. I opened it up to a random page and read the poem there. I thought that poem would be worth repeating today, given all the insanity that has been done in this day's name.

A Million Young Workmen, 1915

A million young workmen straight and strong lay stiff on the grass and roads,
And the million are now under soil and their rotting flesh will in the years feed roots of blood-red roses.
Yes, this million of young workmen slaughtered one another and never saw their red hands.
And oh, it would have been a great job of killing and a new and beautiful thing under the sun if the million knew why they hacked and tore each other to death.
The kings are grinning, the kaiser and the czar — they are alive riding in leather-seated motor cars, and they have their women and roses for ease, and they eat fresh-poached eggs for breakfast, new butter on toast, sitting in tall water-tight houses reading the news of war.
I dreamed a million ghosts of the young workmen rose in their shirts all soaked in crimson … and yelled:
God damn the grinning kings, God damn the kaiser and the czar.

The war in Iraq is as senseless as the First World War was. In both cases, a tragic event was used as pretext to start a war that the powers that be already wanted to fight. Both wars were started by men who valued vain demonstrations of their supposed resolve and strength more than they valued the lives of the young men and women they casually sent into battle to die. And as for the deaths of the Iraqi civilians caught in the crossfire today, our leaders don't even care enough to keep count.

And yet despite the horrors — both moral and practical — of this useless war, we must "stay the course", we are told, because to do otherwise would be to admit that our leaders' agressive desire for war at all costs was a mistake. Better, we are told, that young men die than that old men admit they were wrong.

So yes, God damn the grinning kings, God damn the President and the Prime Minister.

Finally

After a year of grousing about my inability to successfully connect a USB printer or hard drive to my linux laptop, I'm happy to report that yesterday I finally got that sucker working. The boring details are here.

No Accident

Why doesn't this surprise me?

Months before the United States invaded Iraq in 2003, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld forbade military strategists from developing plans for securing a post-war Iraq, the retiring commander of the Army Transportation Corps said Thursday.

In fact, said Brig. Gen. Mark Scheid, Rumsfeld said "he would fire the next person" who talked about the need for a post-war plan.

But in a strange way, it does surprise me. I was slightly comforted thinking that the administration was just incompetent and didn't do the most basic kind of planning because they didn't know what they hell they were doing in the first place. But now we know — the ginormous fuck-up that is Iraq wasn't an accident, it was all done on purpose.

And the question now, of course, is "what the hell?" The military has contingency plans to do pretty much anything. It would not surprise me in the least if I were to learn that there are half a dozen scenarios for invading England or nuking South Dakota in the event that some home-growns occupy a missile silo. Planning for events that have ridiculously low probabilities is exactly what the military does. And yet for some reason, Rumsfeld actively prevented his guys from planning for problems that almost everyone else could see coming from a mile away.

Problems resulting from regime change and a land war in Asia? Who would have guessed?

Sorry, Katie, You Lost Me When You Said "Rush Limbaugh"

I've had no strong feelings one way or the other about Katie Couric taking over the anchor desk on the CBS Evening News. I've been brand-loyal to ABC for about 20 years now, and I watch CNN about 5 hours a day, so it's not like I'm looking around for some new news.

But tonight, by accident, the TV ended up on CBS at 6:30pm, so what the hell, I'll give it a shot. For the first 10 minutes, it wasn't bad. But then, in the name of "free speech", CBS handed the camera over to Rush Limbaugh, who went on for over a minute about how people like me who disagree with the president's national security policies are secretly in bed with the terrorists and hate America. We're not just wrong, mind you — we want the terrorists to win.

OK then. If CBS has no better way to exercise it's "free speech" than this, I'm perfectly free not to watch their show. And I won't. Ever again. Desert island ever again. And I will tell anyone who listens not to watch either. When the evening news turns into an exercise in character assassination on behalf of a wingnut who's a serial liar and bigot — that I can do without.

Update: Looks like I'm not alone. Good.

Weak

Apparently having nothing to say about its own record, the Republican National Committee has put up a site called America Weakly, which is, in its totality, a bunch of literally made-up stories from a year in the future about what they think might happen when they lose control of the House this November. Give me a break.

First of all, there is nothing here about gangs of roving Young Democrats terrorizing the exclusive country clubs in suburban Maryland, which anyone will tell you is item #1 on the Democratic agenda.

And second, this story? "D.C. Traffic Cam, 10:45 a.m. Very Congested: Influx of new federal workers continues to jam highways." Yeah, right. Heaven help us, and those who commute up I-395, if the Defeatocrats start hiring more postal workers again. We'll be doomed, I tell you, doomed!

Santorum to Casey: "Your Daddy Hates You"

Via Atrios, I learned that Sen. Rick Santorum (R-ManOnDog) took it upon himself on to speak for his opponent's dead father, opining that Bob Casey's famously pro-life daddy would be "very upset" that his son supports emergency contraception.

If nothing else, Santorum should lose this election because he's now proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that he is a hateful, shameless man who will stop at nothing — not even the grave — to slime his opponent. But if you look at where the conversation went from there, you'll learn something else: Santorum's "pro-life" principles actually serve to encourage more abortions.

Pressed repeatedly as to how he can reconcile his belief that abortion is murder with his support for the "rape, incest, and life of mother" exception, Santorum says:

It is, there’s no question it's the taking of a life. But if it — it is an attempt for me to try to see if we can find common ground to actually make progress in limiting the other abortions. So yes, that’s what I would do.

But, of course, we're not there yet — abortion is still legal, and making claims about how you would still allow the murder you say you oppose to continue out a desire to find common ground is just a bald-faced lie. If you believe that abortion is murder, if you believe that life begins at conception and that that life has the moral status of a person, then you oppose all abortions all the time. And that's just the start — is a woman who falls down the stairs and miscarries guilty of involuntary manslaughter? Stay tuned for this and other exciting episodes of misogyny if we end up in a post-Roe world.

But, if you really want to do something to reduce the number of abortions now, then of course you support emergency contraception. Casey — hardly the NARAL poster boy — is clearly correct when he says:

Tim, I think the science is clear on this. I think it is contraception, and I support it. I think we’ve got to make it widely available, and I think that’s one of the ways, I think, that we reach common ground on the very tough issue of abortion: to reduce the number not just of unwanted pregnancies, but I think emergency contraception can reduce the number of abortions. That’s what we should emphasize.

At this point, Santorum plays the daddy card, proving once and for all that he's not interested in saving his beloved blastocysts, but just scoring some political points by forcing women to make painful personal decisions down the road. For Santorum, "common ground" is a cynical betrayal of his stated principles so as not to completely alienate a large chunk of his voter base that is not as (pardon the pun) dogmatic as he is. For Casey, "common ground" is about doing something that will actually help to solve the real problem of unwanted pregnancies that often end up in abortion. Come election day, the choice here seems quite easy.

Landslide?

Who knows, I might be eating crow on the second Wednesday of November, but right now, all I can say is — in your face, GOP.