Military Tribunals (Morning Edition, 28 Dec 2001)
Commentary 1

There is little question that President Bush had legal authority to issue his controversial order.  A joint resolution of congress to invoke the War Powers Act gave him that.  The question is whether the policy wise. The answer is no.

This is not an easy case to make. It is a popular policy. Two-thirds of Americans support both military trials for accused terrorists and the death penalty for those found guilty.  But it is not effective policy. The use of military tribunals will substantially impede the ability of the US to deal with the threat. So will the suspension of due process and habeas corpus.

 The administration argues that secret proceedings are necessary to protect intelligence sources. But CIA-connected Manuel Noriega, World Trade Center bomber Ramzi Yousef, and Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh were prosecuted under the Classified Information Procedures Act.  Convictions were obtained in all three cases while the rights of the accused, the identity of the jurors, and national security were protected.

The administration insists on maintaining the option of capital punishment.  This has caused Britain, Spain and other signatories to the European Convention on Human Rights to refuse to extradite  Al Qaeda  suspects to the US because the convention bans the death penalty as inhuman.

To win the war on terrorism, we must win the struggle for hearts and minds.  The US cannot afford to be seen as hypocritical. Trials conducted in secret, without the presumption of innocence, the right of appeal, or proof of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt will taint whatever judgment is rendered. No matter how scrupulous the process.

The US State Department has criticized China for conducting secret trials of its dissidents. It protested when a Peruvian terrorism court convicted American Lori Berenson of collaboration with Tupac Amaru Revolutionaries. If we try Osama bin Laden and  Al Qaeda  members in secret, then we cannot object to like treatment of US citizens.

It is not enough for the US to be against terrorism. We must be FOR something—FOR justice and human rights FOR everyone on this planet. If we are not, then we will not have the moral authority necessary to prevail in this new type of conflict.

It is not enough to bomb and apprehend. We must universalize the principles of due process that secure our constitutional rights and freedoms. If we do not, then we have lost the war, no matter what becomes of Osma bin Laden.

“Why do they hate us?” President Bush asked Congress and the nation in the wake of 9/11.  In the press and on news shows, pundits tell us we are caught in a civilizational conflict.  Frequently cited in making this argument are Samuel Huntington’s The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order and Benjamin Barber’s Jihad vs. McWorld: How Globalism and Tribalism Are Reshaping the World.

Because Huntington and Barber’s works appeared simultaneously and because both identify civilizational-cultural causes for global, national, regional, and local conflicts, they tend to be lumped together.  Their analyses, however, are really quite distinct.

Huntington finds conflict between Western Civilization and non-western civilizations (the West and the Rest) is inevitable. He rejects the popular equation of Westernization with modernization. He cautions that Western Civilization is unique, not universal and that its survival in the multipolar 21st century depends upon recognizing that fact. He warns we must not expect other cultures to adopt Western institutions. Rather Western Civilization “must be preserved against challenges from non-western societies.”

 In contrast to Huntington, Barber describes the emergence of McWorld, a universal civilization of multinational corporations.  McDonalds, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Applebees, and Walmart look and function alike in Moscow and in Murray. In Bejing and Boston, McWorld replaces distinct traditional cultures with the bland homogenized culture of desire.  “Where once capitalism supplied the goods demanded by human needs,” writes Barber, “[McWorld’s] post-industrial capitalism manufactures the needs themselves, in the form of commercialized dreams and images that create markets for goods that might otherwise appear unnecessary.”

Thus the Jihad of Barber’s title is not used in its religious Islamic sense. Rather it refers to “the struggle of local peoples to sustain solidarity and tradition against the commercial imperialism of McWorld.” McWorld and Jihad as two sides of a single process. “Jihad is not only McWorld’s adversary,” say Barber, “[but]…its child.”

 In fact, McWorld and Jihad coexist everywhere. The Saudis accept US fighter jets and veil their women. The French export nuclear technology and ban English in advertising. American communities seek to ban Walmarts to preserve the traditional culture associated with downtowns.

 Indeed, Huntington’s warning of the need to preserve Western Civilization against non-western influences is an example of Jihad as defined by Barber. It echoes the concerns of traditional societies of the danger of contamination by Western culture. As Saudi Arabian Ambassador Prince Bandar Ibn-Sultan observed: “Foreign imports are nice as shiny or high-tech “things” but intangible social and political institutions can be deadly.”

Acts of rage committed by the 9/11 terrorists, Palestinian militants, Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh, Eco-terrorists, and the World Trade Organization protestors are acts of desperation. They arise from feelings of impotence and the belief that the direction and shape of McWorld may not be influenced in any other way. The realization that conflict between tradition and modernization is not merely a conflict between the West and the Rest, but universal, is one of the lessons we should take from recent events.  If “man is an animal suspended in webs of cultural significance he himself has spun” as Max Weber said, then conflict between the Muslim world and the West will not be resolved at the superficial diplomatic level, but at the deep structural level of culture, if they may be resolved at all.

In September, Mexican President Vicente Fox met with George Bush to discuss the status of some 4 million Mexicans living and working illegally in the US. In speeches before American Hispanic organizations and Congress and in private talks, Fox proposed amnesty for illegals and a guest worker program to allow Mexicans to take temporary legal employment in the US. Just a few days later 911 swept the issue of Mexican immigration from the national consciousness. Now it is returning, but in the context of the war on terrorism.

In 1970, Mexican immigrants in the US numbered less than 800,000.  In 2002 there are over 8 million, 54% of whom are here illegally. This alarms, Samuel Huntington who declared Mexican immigration to be “a looming challenge to our cultural integrity, our national identity, and potentially to our future as a country.”  Unfortunately the fears of Huntington and other cultural protectionist are validated by some Mexican intellectuals who speak of  "Mexico … recovering the territories ceded to the U.S. with migratory tactics."  Talk like this on both sides of the border makes Fox’s plan to use immigration as a  "strategic advantage” in negotiations with US far more difficult. As befits a former Coca-Cola executive, Fox envisions borders open to people as well as goods, simultaneously Americanizing Mexico and Mexicanizing America.

Labor organizations are also alarmed by uncontrolled Mexican immigration. Their concern, however, is not Huntington’s red-herring challenge to American cultural integrity but the protection jobs and wages. Although Mexican immigrants are but 4.2% of the population, they are 10.2% of those living in poverty. Lack of documentation and legal protection makes Mexicans easy to exploit. Employers balanced the potential risk of hiring them against the obvious benefits of low wages and a docile work force that would keep labor unions weak. They decided the risk was worth it.  Just ask the human resources people at Tyson Chicken.

The root cause of the rapid growth in Mexican immigration was the country’s imperfectly modernized, frequently faltering economy. The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was sold on both sides of the border as a cure for both ills. But the higher-paying jobs promised by NAFTA failed to materialize except in the north.  Even there wages remain low compared to those just across the border. Economically rational, Mexicans cross the border in search of higher-paying jobs.

The truth is neither amnesty nor a guest worker program will solve the problem of economic migration from Mexico.  What is needed are agreements establishing living (not minimum) wages in NAFTA nations. Only when workers earn enough to become consumers will poorer nations cease being poor and cease being dependent on exporting surplus goods and population to wealthy nations.

Post-911, Mexican immigration has returned to the national radar screen. Washington seeks to secure the southern border against those who would threaten homeland security. But border security will be no easier to achieve in this context than when our goal was merely to exclude economic immigrants.

Popular culture sometimes addresses political and economic questions in unexpected ways.  Ron Howard’s film, “A Beautiful Mind” tells the story of Nobel Prize-winning mathematician John Nash’s descent into schizophrenia and his coming to terms with his illness.  Additionally, however, it explains in a graphic understandable way the mathematical theorem for which he won the Nobel prize—the Nash Equilibrium. Nash’s work is well-known as the basis of game theory used by economists, labor leaders, political and social scientists to model outcomes in negotiations. In the movie, the idea comes to Nash when a beautiful blonde enters a bar with several female friends. Nash and his friends all want to date the blonde but, in a flash of insight, he sees that if they all go for her, their competition will produce a stalemate—a Nash equilibrium. But if they cooperate, ignore the blonde, and turn their attention to the other girls, they will all get dates. A non-competitive solution maximizing benefit for all.

Nash immediately saw his theory challenged Adam Smith’s principle that economy and society benefit most when individuals pursue their own self-interest. Or, in the words of Michael Milken, greed is good—the phrase that captures the spirit of the economic booms of the junk-bond 80s and the Enron 90s. While Smith’s principle of self-interest remains gospel in the realm of national economies, in the sphere of global economics, neo-liberal free-marketers invoke Nash and game theory when arguing that tariffs will always produce equilibrium and less favorable terms of trade for all.

But suppose the blonde in the global trade bar is not the protective tariff? Suppose that blonde that is the object of competition is the maximization of corporate profits through cheap labor? That would be a different game with different actors—international corporations, not nation states.

The search for cheap labor has driven economic globalization since WWII.  Wages for non-supervisory employees in the US fell 9.5% from 1979-1995. And even though the US economy boomed from 1995 through 2001 and unemployment fell below 3.5%--a tight labor market by definition—wages were stagnant. The mere threat by corporations to relocate factories undercut the ability of unions to bargain with employers.

The exploitation of cheap labor also had adverse effects in less developed countries. In Mexico, for example, real wages plummeted with the implementation NAFTA.  Millions of migrants entered the US, depressing wages there. In effect, the giant sucking sound Ross Perot heard with NAFTA was not the sound of American jobs going South, but the sound of Mexican labor going North. Thus competition for cheap labor by international corporations produces a Nash equilibrium in global wages.

An obvious solution would be for the US to impose social tariffs – not upon nations—but upon individual international corporations. Corporations that pay their workers too little to be consumers would be given a choice. To gain unrestricted access to the all-important US market, they could either pay their workers more, turning them into consumers whose purchases would drive their national economies, or pay an equivalent tariff on their imports to the US.

The rational choice would be to pay workers more. This cooperative strategy would end the Nash equilibrium of low wages that now restricts global economic growth (which is consumer driven). Paying higher wages would deepen markets in developing nations, making them less dependent upon the export of both goods and people to the US—a win-win situation for all. And that would be beautiful indeed.

Anyone not living in a cave knows of the collapse of ENRON. Everyone knows it is the largest bankruptcy in US history. Everyone knows that Enron Chairman Ken Lay was President Bush’s biggest contributor and that he was the only energy executive to meet alone with Vice President Dick Cheney who was charged with formulating the administration’s national energy policy.  Everyone knows that the Bush administration filled important posts with Enron alumni such as chief economic adviser Larry Lindsey, trade negotiator Robert Zoellick, and Army Secretary Thomas White and that, in this way, Enron influenced administration policies on a number of levels. The question is: what does it mean?

Cheney is fighting tooth and nail to prevent his discussions with Lay and other Enron officials from being turned over to the General Accounting Office. He asserts that, if these private conversations were made public, the institution of the Presidency would be irreparably damaged because, without the assurance of secrecy, individuals would be reluctant to give the executive branch “unvarnished' advice. He further argues that, because the administration did nothing to save Enron, it did nothing wrong. But the Bush administration also did nothing last summer when energy brokers and power companies ripped off West Coast consumers. And that was worng.

But the biggest problem with Cheney’s argument is that Enron ceased being a corporation years ago and became a criminal conspiracy.  Calling Eron what it is—a criminal conspiracy—puts the administration’s position in proper perspective. As Rep. Jim Greenwood said in questioning Andersen’s Enron account executive David Duncan:  "Enron robbed the bank, Arthur Andersen provided the getaway car and they say you were at the wheel."  It’s not surprising that Bush is all: “Ken Who? I hardly knew the man.” And “my mother-in-law lost $8,000.”

In his desperate and inept damage control effort, Cheney is charging that the GAO’s actions constitute a partisan inquiry. This is bold misrepresentation. Prominent Republicans including Sen. Fred D. Thompson (R-Tenn.), Rep. Christopher Shays (R-Conn.) have called on Cheney to make the notes of  his meetings public. Bruce Fein, who served in the Nixon and Reagan Justice Departments, compares the Eron debacle to the Teapot Dome Scandal that rocked the Republican administration of Warren G. Harding in the mid-1920s. Harding’s administration argued then before the Supreme Court what Cheney and Bush argue now in the Enron case. The Court ruled against the Harding administration, defining Congress' right to compel testimony from the Executive Branch.

The Enron scandal is not just a Republican scandal. It reveals a massive failure of a political system dominated by corporate interests that contribute to both parties to free themselves of inconveniences like government regulation and paying taxes. Two decades ago we embraced the market and privatization as a panacea. There was great enthusiasm for deregulation that was supposed to increase efficiency, improve service, and lower costs in every sphere from airlines, to communications to cable TV to health care services to utilities.  Looking back one is hard pressed to find those benefits. Rather the overwhelming influence of business in formulating policy and the resulting lack of government oversight produced a political-business complex and a proliferation of greed and corruption. There was a reason that at the beginning of the last century the public clamored for government regulation of business. The Enron affair reminds us of the need for balance between private enterprise and the public good. And it reminds us that some important values are best articulated not through the marketplace but through intelligent regulation.

Brain Dead: Linking the Wars on Terrorism and Drugs, 14 Feb 2002
Commentary  6

In Steven Soderbergh’s film “Traffic” drug czar Michael Douglas brain storms with his top advisors on how to win the war on drugs. Hearing only the predictable requests for more money and technology, a frustrated Douglas tell them to “Think outside the box." And is greeted with dead silence. Someone at the Bush White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, however, has been thinking way outside the box. Or perhaps it’s more accurate to say that, since 9/11, it’s a different box.

During the Super Bowl the Bush administration launched new $10 million ad campaign to boost the obviously ineffective War on Drugs by linking it to the apparently successful War on Terrorism.

“Where do terrorists get their money?” ask the ads, concluding that: “ If you buy drugs, some of it might come from you.

In one ad entitled “I Helped” somber teenagers say things like:  “I helped murder families in Colombia. It was just innocent fun” closing with a voice-over: “Drug money supports terror.  If you buy drugs, you might too”.   “It's not like I was hurting anybody else,” says a young girl, who could be your daughter or mine.

This is without a doubt the most brain dead public policy initiative of recent memory. It is profoundly stupid and dishonest on many levels. The linking of drugs to terrorism is highly selective.  Although Al-Qaida and Hezbollah make far more from trafficing illegal diamond than drugs, the Bush administration refuses to back regulations requiring the documentation diamonds.  As Arianna Huffington observes, we’re unlikely to see an ad featuring a woman wearing a diamond necklace and saying: I helped murder families in Sierra Leone.

The war on terrorism and the war on drugs are very different conflicts. The terrorists’ target is America, but the war on terrorism is largely a foreign war waged against international organizations and the nations that sponsor them.  And while the drug war sees foreign battles fought on the supply-side, it is primarily a domestic war of domestic origin.

Some facts:
The illegal drug trade is worth 400 billion dollars a year, 60 billion of which is spent by Americans. About 750,000 were arrested for marijuana alone in 2000; 87 percent for simple possession. From 1985 to 2000 the US prison population tripled to 2 million due to drug arrests and mandatory minimum sentences. The total cost to taxpayers of marijuana-related incarceration alone exceeds 1.2 billion dollars a year. This year the Bush administration is asking for 19 billion to fight the drug war while the total monetary cost (federal, state, and local) exceeds $50 billion a year.  The social costs of this misguided war on our own people are incalculable.

While the war on terrorism has no easy solutions, intelligent people on the political right and left know there is a simple solution to the drug wars—to decriminalize and regulate all drugs. According to the conservative Hoover Institution, drug prohibition increases prices by about 17,000 percent.  Thus as Ron Crickenberger of the Libertarian Party observes "The War on Drugs is a price support system for terrorists and drug pushers. It turns ordinary, cheap plants like marijuana and poppies into fantastically lucrative black market products.” The US Surgeon General reports that 550,000 American die each year from the effects of legal drugs – tobacco and alcohol.  The number of deaths from marijuana is zero while about 5,000 die of over-doses from all illegal drugs combined. Clearly the public health risk from decriminalization is minimal.

In “Traffic” the Drug Czar walks away from a press conference and his job with these words:  "If there is a war on drugs, then many of our family members are the enemy. And I don't know how you wage war on your own family."  But the Bush administration does; it labels them terrorists. A real solution to the drug problem requires intelligence and political courage, things in short supply these days when it’s far easier to posture.

Last week in what is said to be the most important education case since Brown v. Board of Education, the Supreme Court heard arguments on the legality of the Cincinnati school voucher program.

Cincinnati grants vouchers worth 2,250 dollars to the children of some 4000 low-income families so they may escape it’s failing inner city schools. But the vouchers are not enough to cover tuition at most private schools, and many private and suburban schools refuse to participate. So most voucher students enroll in parochial schools. This apparent effective violation of 1st Amendment separation of church and state led a US appeals court to strike down the law. The Supreme Court may well reverse that ruling.

This would please the Bush Administration. It has made a Cincinnati-style voucher program part of its No Child Left Behind initiative. Bush offers a 2500-dollar tax credit to families with students in underachieving public schools. To fund this Bush has generously allocated 186 million dollars over five years (the cost of one-half an F-22 stealth fighter). The Bush initiative also imposes sanctions on schools that fail high stakes testing. That this would further weaken already weak schools bothers the Bush administration not at all. It hopes, of course, that weak public schools (if not all public schools) will wither away to be replaced by charter schools—a Chicago School of Economics solution. But those supporting this solution should look long and hard at the debacle following New Zealand’ conversion to a charter school system.

The real reason for the failure of American schools is chronic under-funding. Critics of the public school say that throwing money at the problem has not worked.  But in truth, it’s never been tried.  Nationally 50 percent of school revenues come from property taxes. The wealthiest 10 percent of schools districts spend 10 times more than the poorest 10 percent This results in what author Jonathan Kozol calls savage inequalities in America’s schools. As the Century Foundation reports: “the US educational system is one of the most unequal in the industrial world [where] students routinely receive dramatically different learning opportunities based on their social status.” Sadly even in wealthier school districts teachers are shamefully underpaid and under qualified, classes too large, and student performance relentless mediocre.

The single most important factor in improving student performance is the quality of teaching but qualified teachers are in short supply. Over the next decade retirements and increasing student enrollments will require an additional 2.2 million teachers. Kentucky is now recruiting retired teachers to return to the classroom. Despite high demand and shortages, however, teachers’ wages seem immune to market forces. Teachers earn barely 72 percent of what other college graduates earn. It’s little wonder that teaching fails to attract and hold the best and the brightest.

An effective solution is obvious—make teachers’ salaries competitive with those of other professionals. This would solve the quality problem at the front end by allowing colleges of education to raise the very minimal standards now set for admission. This would also cost at least 30 to 60 billion dollars. Only the federal government can do it but we are told there is no money—not surprising given the Bush administration’s lemming-like race over the tax-cut cliffs. Yet Bush found 37.7 billion for homeland security. Perhaps if he realized that a poorly educated citizenry is as great a threat to national security as terrorism the money would be found. But this is unlikely.

Bush proposes to achieve teacher quality, not by paying for better teachers, but by threatening them with unnamed consequences if they fail to meet “high professional standards” so far unspecified. The cynicism of Bush’s under-funded voucher and charter school proposals are Band-Aids applied to a sucking chest wound that reveal the cynicism underling his warm and fuzzy promise to leave no child behind.

Americans are, in general, profoundly disinterested in the wider world. This changed for a nanosecond after 9/11. But now there is unmistakable evidence that we returning to somnambulistic normality

Executives at ABC’s parent company, Disney, informed no doubt by extensive market research confirming the lack of interest in foreign affairs among the critical youth demographic—the Holy Grail of advertising—are pulling the plug on Ted Koppel and Nightline.

The impending demise of Nightline at this time is cosmic irony.  Nightline originated in ABC’s coverage of America’s first confrontation with muscular Islam, the Iranian crisis of 1980 when followers of the ayatollah Khomeini captured the US embassy and took 40 Americans prisoner. For over a year Koppel reported the story as America Held Hostage Day whatever. When the crisis ended, the program was continued as Nightline

In its 22 years Nightline earned ABC over half a billion dollars while providing top-flight reporting on global issues. You’d think this would be even more important as American global commitments expand with the war on terrorism. But Disney doesn’t. In leaking word of the shake-up, an anonymous executive cited lack of relevance and profitability.  In pursuit of youth, ABC had intended to replace Nightline with David Letterman. But Letterman, not wanting to be responsible for Koppels’s departure, declined. Nonetheless, ABC executives have made it plain that they intend to replace the award winning late-night institution with some other unspecified (but “relevant?”) entertainment program—perhaps a reality game show in which contestants are, say, put in a prison camp on a tropical island and interrogated on pop culture trivia while strapped to a chair that ---well, you fill in the blanks

ABC is convinced that Americans don’t give a flying Donald Duck about worsening conflict in the Middle East, or Hindus and Muslims killing each other in India.  I have taught World Civ for a decade and can say with certainty that my student do not follow the news. They don’t and don’t care that India, a nuclear power, is standing on full military alert along its border with its nuclear neighbor, Pakistan, or that the US has deployed forces to Georgia and the Philippines, or that Washington’s preparation for a war with Iraq that will surely kill any chance of continued cooperation with the Islamic world in the war on terrorism.

 ABC is doing its patriotic bit to help Americans return to normal, to our traditional cocoon of apathy about global issues by eliminating a hard news show that might distract us from ourselves. Hasn’t the Bush administration told Americans that the way to victory in the war on terrorism is to return to normal. Don’t know. Don’t question. Don’t ask. Just go to the mall. Consume. Travel. Don’t be afraid. Visit Disneyland. Visit Disney World. Put on your Mouse Ears and sing it’s a small world after all. Otherwise the terrorists win.

Last Sunday President Bush concluded his Latin American trip with a visit to El Salvador. Bush began his charm offensive at the UN Conference on Financing for Development in Monterrey Mexico by promising an additional 10 billion dollars in US foreign aid by 2006. Even better, the aid would come as grants rather than loans and so require no repayment.  Of course grants are conditional: recipients must eliminate corruption, open markets to free trade, and participate in the wars on terrorism and drugs.

In San Salvador, as President Francisco Flores of the conservative ARENA party emotionally declared that he’d “never had such a high honor as President Bush calling [him] friend,” thousands of peasants, union workers, and students marched in protest

Among the protestors were sweatshop workers who sew 12 hours a day for the legal minimum wage of 60 cents an hour assembling 200-dollar jackets for Liz Claiborne 15-dollar shirts for Wal-Mart, shoes for Nike, Jordan, and Adidas. Salvadorian officials admit that the minimum wage is insufficient for a family to feed itself. But 60 cents an hour is what the sweatshops pay. Protestors are understandably skeptical of Bush’s claim that free trade will lift them out of poverty especially after he characterized US Congressional efforts to add labor and environmental safe guards to trade legislation as “petty politics.”

Protestors also have reason to fear Bush’s linkage of the war on drugs with the war on terrorism. Flores’ ARENA party, founded by death squad leader Roberto D’Aubuisson, is accomplished at turning Washington’s geopolitical bugbears to its own political advantage.  During the civil war, fear of a Communist takeover led the Reagan administration to tolerate the killing of 70,000 civilians by right-wing government death squads. Now, citing statements by Bush: “Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists” and by US trade negotiator Robert Zoellick, equating opposition to free trade with support for international terrorism, ARENA is cracking down pesky labor unions that have the temerity to ask for decent wages and working conditions.

Salvadorian protesters also see Bush’s call for an end to corruption and for open markets as hypocritical given his administration’s entanglement in the ENRON affair and its imposition of protective tariffs on foreign steel. They recall how George Bush Sr. and Oliver North organized the Reagan administration’s diversion of profits from illegal weapons sales to Iran to fund a “secret” CONTRA army in El Salvador to overthrow the Sandinista government of Nicaragua. They recall as well Washington’s cooperation in that effort with cocaine trafficers and their protectors, like Manuel Noriega.

And if it seems unfair to saddle Dubya with the sins of his father, just remember two recent appointments—that of John Negroponte as US Ambassador to the UN and of Elliott Abrams to the NSC office for democracy and human rights. As ambassador to Honduras, Negroponte supervised CIA-backed CONTRA operations and countenanced the death squads there. Abrams plead guilty to lying to Congress about his role in the Iran-CONTRA affair
.
It’s little wonder that Salvadorian workers lack enthusiasm for the Bush program. And perhaps now you understand why.

Ten days into Israel's invasion of Palestinian territories, as Secretary of State Powell left on his peace mission, President Bush phoned Prime Minister Sharon. In a call described as tense, he told Sharon that he wanted an end to the invasion "without delay." Sharon refused saying only that he would accelerate the operation while his top generals complained of having to withdraw before the "job is finished."

Compliantly the White House interpreted "withdrawal without delay" to mean by the time Powell arrived and slowed Powell's progress toward Jerusalem, turning it into a Mediterranean tour with stops along the way to confer with such vital allies as, well, Morocco.

Many have wondered: why doesn't Bush compel Israeli compliance using the leverage supposedly conferred by 3 billion dollars in annual US aid by cutting of part of all of it?  One factor in the Bush administration's policy considerations that no body likes to talk about is the Samson Option- Israel's nuclear option.

For those who don't remember their Bible, Samson was the Jewish hero who killed himself along with his Philistine enemies by pulling down the pillars of the temple to which he was chained. The analogy for Israel's use of nuclear weapons against its immediate neighbors is clear.

As a matter of policy, Israel refuses to admit it has nukes. But as Dr Strangelove observed in How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb: nukes have no deterrent value if no one knows you have them. Thus Israel was not at all upset when American U-2 surveillance discovered it's nuclear facility in 1958. Indeed, Israel acquired nuclear weapons in large part to ensure US support in crises with the Arab world.

Americans have forgotten that our relationship with Israel was not always close. The Eisenhower administration refused to extend the US nuclear umbrella to Israel, refused to sell it arms, and backed Egypt in the Suez Crisis of 1956. Israel then turned to France for nuclear reactor technology. As the plant became operational, a concerned JFK sold the Israelis advanced Hawk missiles in return for permission to inspect its facility. Like Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, the Israelis proved adept at fooling inspectors. In the late 60s, it linked its atomic program to South Africa's trading technology for uranium and in 1979 an American satellite detected what is thought to have been an Israeli-South African atomic test in the Indian Ocean.

Israel went on nuclear alert during the Six-Day War (when it had but two bombs) and during the 1973 Yom Kippur War. CIA reports of this alert convinced Nixon and Henry Kissinger to resupply Israel's depleted military stocks, despite their fear of alienating Arab oil producers. In January 1991 during the Gulf War, Israel again went on nuclear alert threatening Iraq with dire unspecified (presumably nuclear) consequences if it used chemical warheads on its SCUD missiles.

Currently Israel is said to have between 75 and 200 nuclear devices that can be delivered either by US built fighters or its Jericho 2 missile And Israel is not about to let Arab states acquire their own. In June 1981 its fighters attacked and destroyed an Iraqi reactor before it began operation. Much of satellite imaging data for that strike as well as targeting data for its nuclear weapons was supplied Israel by the American spy Jonathan Pollard.

Though no one wants to talk about it, the Samson Option gives Israel considerable leverage with its friends, if not its enemies, and perhaps explains why Powell and the Bush administration are making haste slowly. Without delay.

Two weeks ago Attorney General John Ashcroft announced the indictment of six members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC on murder and related charges in the 1999 slayings of three US citizens who had been working with indigenous peoples in Northeastern Colombia.

"Today's action” said Ashcroft,  “is a step toward ridding our hemisphere of the narco-terrorism that threatens our lives, our freedom and our human dignity."

Only days before President Bush praised Colombian President Andres Pastrana for "standing tall" against narcoterrorism and asked Congress to allow Colombia to use helicopters, weapons, and other materiel provided by the 1.3 billion dollar Plan Colombia to fight the FARC. Currently Congress restricts Plan Colombia resources to fighting the war on drugs. Bush wants to lift those restrictions in addition to adding 700 million specifically to fight the Communist insurgency redefined in this post-Cold War era as Narco-terrorism.

But the administration has a highly selective definition of narco-terrorism.

Despite the very real FARC atrocities, right-wing paramilitary groups known as United Colombian Self-Defense or AUC are responsible for the vast majority of political killings in Colombia. Its militias routinely carry out grisly massacres of entire villages deemed sympathetic to the FARC.  AUC founder Carlos Castano boasted on television that70 percent of his organization’s income derives from the drug trade. That sounds like narco-terrorism to me, but the administration seems to reserve that term for the FARC, even though the State Department has deemed AUC a terrorist organization.

More troubling, however, human rights groups have repeatedly characterized AUC as an informal auxiliary of the Colombian army. Indeed, to pave the way for the release of Plan Colombia resources to fight the FARC Secretary of State Colin Powell was forced to certify that the Colombian military was meeting the human rights criteria set by Congress.  As evidence he cited the posting abroad of a senior officer implicated in several paramilitary massacres.

In fact there is far greater evidence of increased collaboration between the anti-FARC AUC, the Colombian military, the right-wing politicos in Nicaragua and Guatemala.

In April an illegal arms shipment arrived in Colombia – 10,000 AK-47 assault rifles and 15 million rounds of ammunition – sold by Guatemalan-based Israeli arms dealers through another Israeli arms company in Panama.  All 14 containers of weapons were off-loaded and trucked to the AUC now engaged in fierce fighting with FARC forces along the Panama border.  According to investigators the money trail leads directly back to the Plan Colombia Funds controlled by the Colombian Army.

There is a certain déjà vu in this conjunction of right-wing paramilitaries, drug trafficking and Israeli arms dealers.  Some may remember the Iran-Contra scandal and the role played by former high-ranking Israeli intelligence chief Michael Harari.  Harari assisted Panama’s Manuel Noriega to finance and arm the Reagan administration’s illegal Contra army through drug deals with Colombian cocaine cartels with the object of overthrowing Nicaragua’s Sandinista government.  Once that was accomplished, Noriega suddenly became (in the memorable words of Bush the Elder) the “drug related, drug indicted dictator” who was then deposed in a US operation misnamed “Just Cause.”

This bit of recent history, detailed in the 1989 Senate Foreign relations Subcommittee Report on Drugs, Law Enforcement and Foreign Policy, should lead us to ask questions. Is Washington again turning a blind eye to certain drug trafficking in the name of anti-communism (redefined as anti-terrorism)? Is Israel providing clandestine assistance in the dirty war in Colombia as it did in Nicaragua? Is the qui pro quo being seen now in Washington’s apparently directionless policy in the Middle East?  Unfortunately the national media is not asking these questions. And there’s no reason to expect it will.

The Crusader and the Military Industrial Complex
Commentary 12

Years ago, as a young Sgt in the 382nd Public Affair Detachment of the North Carolina National Guard,  I was assigned to write a story on the Bradley Fighting Vehicle that was to replace our old M113 APC (Armored Personal Carriers).  I did my duty as part of the Green Machine and wrote a puff piece headlined: “The Army Gets Its Ferrari.”

I had all heard the horror stories about the Bradley—about the aluminum alloy armor that would barely stop small arms rounds, about its tendency to burst into toxic flames when hit with anything larger, about how it sank like a stone instead of swimming like a duck as advertised.  All of this was exposed by Air Force colonel and whistle blower Jim Burton in his book "The  Pentagon Wars" that chronicled his experiences and later became the basis of an HBO movie starring Kelsey Grammer as the project manager determined to get the Bradley into production no matter what the cost.

The Bradley took 17 years and 17 billon dollars to develop. Eventually, despite its flaws, its contractor, the FMC Corp, sold over 9,000 to the Army at 1.5 million each.  So Why is any of this relevant today?

Last week Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld announced the termination of the Crusader artillery system although the Army had already spent 2 billion developing it.  It’s "not about one weapon system," said Rumsfeld said, but about  “about how best to prepare the nation's total forces for the future.”

It is almost unknown for weapons system to be cancelled – dogs like the 4 billion-dollar Joint Strike Fighter and the 3 billion-dollar V-22 Osprey are still ongoing—the latter despite the falsification of maintenance reports and two crashes that killed 23 marines.  At first blush it seems rationality may be replacing the pretzel logic so long characteristic of military procurement. With its 40-ton gun and the 30-ton ammunition transporter only one Crusader can fit in the C-17, our largest military transport plane. And, as Rumsfeld points out, the military must be able to move quickly to respond to conflict that will break out in unpredictable parts of the world. Clearly the Crusader can not.

Rumsfeld seems to be making a principled decision and he’s taking a lot of heat for it.  The Crusader system is being developed by United Defense Industries owned by the Carlyle Group that also owns very same FMC Corp that developed the infamous Bradley.  The Carlyle Group is headed by former defense secretary Frank Carlucci and former secretary of state James Baker with a board of DC power-brokers that includes General Shalikashvili, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and former president George Bush.

But while this appears to be (and may be) a principled decision there is a good reason for it—as the budget tightens tough choices have to be made and those billions are needed to pay for the development of the national missile defense system—an even bigger boondoggle.   Indeed, the weapons with which Rumsfeld proposes to replace the Crusader will develop technologies directly applicable to the Star Wars Program.

The administration’s 2003 budget proposes 379 billion dollars for defense. This exceeds all other domestic programs combined except social security and Medicare.

In closing let me quote another great military man. In his farewell speech to the nation in 1961, President Eisenhower warned of the “conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry …  new in the American experience. The total influence -- economic, political, even spiritual -- is felt in every city, every State house, every office of the Federal government.
In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist

Eisenhower’s words still hold meaning for us today. Let’s  hope that Rumeseld is doing the right thing for the right reason.

Federal Reserve Chairman Alan “irrational exuberance” Greenspan recently expressed confidence that the economy is in an upswing, but acknowledged the improvement won't be dramatic.  Wall Street cautiously optimistic read the headlines.

And Wall Street has a lot to be cautiously optimistic about.

First the optimistic part

Greenspan seemed to suggest that the Fed would not raise interest rates (though figuring out what he means is always something akin to reading tea leafs).  Although the second worst Bear market since WWII shredded corporate profits, the recession was one of the mildest on record. Retail sales are up, the service sector is coming back, stock markets are beginning to edge up from their low points and Wall Street analysts eagerly wait the bargain hunters.

Now the cautious part. The anticipated recovery doesn’t seem to be materializing. Beyond the concerns about P/E ratios, the weakening dollar and declining foreign investment, there are two reasons for lingering market stagnation.

First, global conditions are increasingly unstable.

The conflict between Israel and the Palestinians continues unabated. This week an Islamic Jihad suicide bomber exploded his car next to a bus killing sixteen.  While the Whitehouse, FBI, CIA and NSA play connect the dots (something most of us learned in grade school—is it a ducky? No, it’s an airplane) the war on terrorism has stalled. Osama bin Laden has not been caught. Al Qaeda remains active around the globe, and efforts to mop up Taliban remnants in Afghanistan and Pakistan have ground to a halt as one million plus Indian and Pakistani troop face off over Kashmir.

Terrorism is the issue here too. India accuses Pakistan of failure to control cross-border terrorist attacks, such as those on the Indian Parliament and on an Indian army base in Kashmir last month, which killed 34, mostly women and children. Tensions in this Central Asian version of the Cuban Missile crisis continue to escalate as India's prime minister and Pakistan's president make accusatory speeches and rattle their nuclear sabers.

The possibility of nuclear war and continued terrorist attacks are strong disincentives for investment. But perhaps even greater disincentive is that investors believe the great Wall Street casino is crooked.   The financial pages are full of scandal. Here are a few headlines at random.

Securities regulators are looking into Salomon Smith Barney whose brokers urged clients to buy stocks they privately called junk. John Rusnak is likely to be indicted for his alleged role in 691 million dollars in currency-trading losses at Allfirst Bank. The former Chairman of Tyco International was indicted for tax evasion.  Who doesn’t know of the Enron affair?   Yesterday closing arguments began in the Arthur Anderson trial. Avista, El Paso Electric, Portland General Electric and other major power traders are also under investigation for market manipulation. These are the same folks who met with Vice President Chaney and other Bush administration official to formulate energy policy.

I only mention this to remind you of another major administration policy initiative. The presidential commission on Social Security Reform, which is (surprise) stacked with pro-privatization interests who have recommended entrusting a goodly portion of your Social Security funds to Wall Street by giving people individual stock market accounts.

You might think that current circumstances would work against this. But I expect that, as stocks continue to languish, someone will suggest that the yearly mandatory infusion of billions of your retirement dollars is just what is needed to revitalize the market and to replace Wall Street’s cautious optimism with good old-fashioned irrational exuberance.
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There has been precious little criticism of the administration’s proposal to bring 22 government agencies together in a Department of Homeland Security, a consolidation involving nearly 170,000 employees and a 37 billion dollar budget. Most concerns have been about which agencies should be included, coordinating the flow of intelligence, congressional oversight, and where the offices should be located.

Bi-partisanship is expected. The administration has already managed to equate any questioning of its conduct of the war on terrorism with aiding and abetting terrorists.  President Bush drove this home in a speech in Kansas City urging American voters to defeat those he called “turf-fighters” who might object to his Homeland Security Depertment.

So it is not surprising that Democratic Minority Leader Richard Gephardt joined Republican House Speaker Dennis Hastert in expressing confidence that they could complete work to create the new department by the anniversary of 9/11. The politics of the date were obviously more important than whether or not the new department is good idea or even necessary. Meanwhile Bush has already announced the creation of a 16 member Homeland Security Advisory Council that held its first meting in the White House this week.

Bush has called the creation of the Dept of Homeland Security the largest reorganization of the federal government in more than 50 years. What, you might well ask, was that long ago reorganization?  It was the National Security Act of 1947 that created the National Security Council to advise the President on integration of domestic, foreign, and military policies relating to national security and to facilitate interagency cooperation. At the President's direction, the NSC would assess and appraise risks to U.S. national security, consider policies, and then report or make recommendations.   The 1947 act also created Secretary of Defense, a National Security Resources Board, and Central Intelligence Agency.

 The National Security Council membership includes the heads of all of the departments that the president is ill advisedly attempting to rollup into a single unwieldy entity whose very size guarantees inefficiency. The NSC already has the structure in place to achieve what the president says he want to achieve in creating the Department of Homeland Security.  In fact Bush signed in February 2001 a Presidential Directive streamlining and reorganizing NSC interagency working groups.

The revamped NSC is a far more practical solution for the coordination of national (excuse me HOMELAND) security than the Bush behemoth. Indeed, Bush’s proposal does not give the head of the new department control over those who gather intelligence for the FBI, CIA and other agencies. Instead, the department will be treated as a "customer" of the various intelligence agencies and use the information it gets to analyze threats and decide how to respond.

In short, there are no advantages to be had by the creation of a Department of Homeland Security. It’s a feel-good exercise to make the American people think something constructive is being done. The tools needed to achieve national security already exist.  What we lack are government officials who know how to use them
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Overlooked in the brouhaha over Amtrak is United Airlines’ request for 1.8 billion dollars in federally guaranteed private loans. The airline it seems is having trouble getting reasonable interest rates from banks. This is hardly surprising since the carrier has lost 1 billion dollars since 9-11 on top of the 2 billion the year before.  The airline’s request is in addition to the general industry bailout Congress rushed through only days after the terrorist attacks. The 15 billion dollars was considerably more than the industry’s losses due to September 11th—but hey, it should expect something for its 65 million dollar in campaign contributions over the past decade or so.

In truth, government subsidizes all public transportation to a greater or lesser extent.  Public bonds build the airports and federal tax dollars in ways too various to list such as the 80 million dollars the Nashville Airport Authority got for noise mitigation. Highways are paid for by tolls, user fees, gasoline taxes and general tax revenues. The Washington DC Board of Trade is pushing a 30 billion dollar road-building plan that would cost every Metro area resident $262 per year. This despite that fact that building more roads has never relived traffic congestion and is an ineffective and inefficient use of resources. “It’s as if we hadn’t learned anything in the last 50 years.” Says Princeton University Civil Engineering Professor David Bernstein.

Critics of Amtrak point out that the troubled rail service was unable to profit even during the fat 90s when travel and travel profits increased for all other carriers. During that period, Amtrak's annual ridership fell from 22.2 million passengers in 1990 to 21.5 million in 2001 while its losses increased from 704 million dollars to 916 million.

There is no doubt that Amtrak is in trouble.  But it is also true that virtually nothing has been done to maintain, much less improve, its rolling stock and infrastructure most of which are over 50 year old. This is the context in which AMTRAK PRESIDENT David Gunn’s call for additional funds must be seen. America’s rail system has a half-century of neglect to repair.

Congress, seeing the catastrophe that would come from stranding 100,000 northeast corridor riders, will probably give Amtrak the 1.2 billion it needs to get through this fiscal year. But there is great disagreement over what to do for the long term—muddle through, rebuild infrastructure, or privatize.

Republican Don Young (R-Alaska), chairman of the House Transportation an Infrastructure Committee wants to spend 71 billion on rail infrastructure to expand passenger and freight service and restructure Amtrak. Speaking for the Administration Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta outlined the administration's five principles for Amtrak restructuring which offers almost nothing in the way of new resources while promoting privatization and shifting more of the cost burden for intercity rail to the states.

The problem with the Bush plan is that rail privatization has failed dramatically where it has been tried—most notably England whose once great rail system has degenerated in private hands to the point that renationalization is likely. One hopes that representative Young is able to persuade the White House that the need to modernize America’s antiquated rail system is just as pressing as the need to modernize its highways and airports. And quite probably a more efficient use of resources in the long run.

Public policy chickens are coming home to roost.  The FBI reports that in 2001 major crimes rose for the first time in ten years—a 2 percent overall.  It’s suggested this is cyclical, linked to the current economic downturn coinciding with a peak in the number of teens and young adults who account for a disproportionate amount of crime.

Another demographic factor is pushing up crime. But, unlike the current bulge in the size of the youth cohort, this was entirely of our own making by the war on drugs.  Criminologists have warned for some time that a surge in crime would accompany the release of these prisoners first swept into the criminal justice system by the war on drugs and mandatory minimum sentences. Last year state and federal prisons released more than 600,000 inmates. This number will rise in the future reflecting the huger rise in prison population in the past 15 years.

From 1985 to 2000, the US prison population tripled to 2 million, mostly first-time, nonviolent drug offenders, victims of a system that imposes sentences of life imprisonment without parole for possessing a few grams of pot but sets free a murderer after ten years. In 2001, 750,000 were imprisoned on marijuana charges; 87 percent for simple possession. The total cost to taxpayers of marijuana-related incarceration exceeds 1.2 billion.

The US incarcerates a greater percentage of its population than any other nation. For white males the rate is 708 per 100,000; for black males its 4,848 per 100,000. For black males between 25 and 29, it’s 13,391 per 100,000 or over 13 percent of that population. From 1980 to 1999, prison funding increased 189 percent compared to a 32 percent increase for education. Prisons are graduate schools for crime.  In Kentucky, 32 percent of those released will return within 2 years. But that is just the tip of the social-cost iceberg. Hundreds-of-thousands of children lost parents to the war on drugs, increasing the chance that they will join the category of youthful offender.

Not to put too fine a point on it, the more people we imprison for non-violent offenses, the more career criminals we create.

The hypocrisy of the war on drugs is unabashed. Presidents and presidential candidates have inhaled. New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg unique only in that he admitted enjoying it. He is completely typical of the political class in his hard-core enforcement of the draconian Rockefeller Drug Lawsenforcement arresting 50,000 annually in the city. National media silence on marijuana reform is deafening. When Politically Incorrect’s Bill Maher called on Harrison Ford and Ted Turner to come out of the cannabis closet, the story should have at least made Entertainment Tonight. But there was nothing.

In an award-winning article for The Atlantic some years ago, Eric Schlosser wrote:
“since its origins early in this century, the attack on marijuana has in reality  been a cultural war -- a moral crusade in defense of  traditional American values. The laws used to fight marijuana are now causing far more harm to those values than the drug itself. In order to eliminate  marijuana use, state and federal legislators have sanctioned an enormous increase in prosecutorial power, the emergence of a class of professional informers, and the widespread confiscation of private property by the government without trial --legal weapons reminiscent of those used in the former Soviet-bloc nations.”

As we look for cures for societal problems, we would do well to remember the physician’s injunction – first do no harm. Or perhaps words of C.S. Lewis:  "Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive."

George W. Bush has decreed it’s toppling time.  Saddam Hussein must go! But how and when will it be done?  There’s the mystery. A dozen scenarios are floating about. The war plan is on his desk. No, it’s off, but near his desk. There is no plan today. But tomorrow? Who knows? Either Bush and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld are running a psyop (psychological operation) on Saddam or the military has real differences with the administration’s rush to war.

Some weeks ago, the President approved covert operations against Saddam. He also authorized US ground forces employed in such operations to shoot Saddam, if in self-defense.  And if he isn’t armed when they shoot him? This is a transparent attempt to get around the Congressional ban on assassination. It conjures up images of US SEALS as rogue cops in a bad shooting with a throw-down piece. This is not the military’s image of itself.

Sensibly the Pentagon opposes an invasion to depose Saddam. The Joint Chiefs don’t think he’s much of a threat and prefer the policy of Containment, proven effective in the Cold War. To open a dialogue with the administration, the Pentagon leaked its invasion scenario calling for a force of 250,000, preceded and accompanied by massive air strikes.  Rumsfeld has declared that air power alone cannot do the job, closing that as alternative to invasion.

The emerging plan (the one that is or is not on Bush’s desk) seems to be the Baghdad-first option.  Mixed elite units would seize the capital and key command and control centers and secure chemical and biological weapons. Using Afghanistan as a model, Washington would depend on Iraqi opposition groups bring down the regime.  By and large the Kurdish and Shi’ite opposition groups are extremely suspicious of Washington and of the CIA who used, then abandoned them to Saddam after the Gulf War. But they are now in Washington meeting with administration officials.

This still leaves a number of questions. Is an invasion the best way to see Saddam go? Would invasion lessen or increase the use of chemical and biological weapons? What are the potential costs? What is the exit strategy? What long-term outcomes can we expect?

Threat assessment, costs, exit strategies, and outcomes are exactly what the Senate Foreign Relations Committee discussed in its Iraq policy hearings yesterday and today. Congressional skepticism of Bush’s call for invasion is bipartisan. Bush must show that his is not a wag-the-dog election strategy, nor an attempt to correct his father’s botched handling of Saddam, first as an ally and then as a defeated enemy. “I think there are a number of difficult questions that need to be asked before Congress would support a resolution of war against Iraq," said Republican committee member Sen. Chuck Hagel.

Bush also must sell his invasion to our skeptical allies in Europe and dubious allies in the Middle East. In Europe only Tony Blair has voiced support hoping a credible threat will force Saddam to allow UN weapons inspectors to return. King Abdullah of Jordan has called an invasion of Iraq "somewhat ludicrous” given the on-going Palestinian—Israeli crisis.  If Bush gets this from a moderate Abdullah, what can he expect from the rest of the Arab world? Meanwhile Russian acquiescence on Iraq, vital to Bush’s strategy in the region, will come at a high price; Washington will have to drop its opposition to Moscow’s selling of nuclear technology to Iran.

Bush needs to build a coalition to overthrow Saddam. But, as we see, the geo-political costs of building such a coalition will be high. Higher still if Bush decides to use it. Let's hope the cooler heads prevail and that we continue a policy of containment toward Iraq, as we do with Cuba and North Korea, as we did with the now defunct Evil Empire of the Soviet Union.

Speaking at the close of an election-year cheer-leading event at Baylor University, thinly disguised as an economic forum, President Bush told 240 participants that Americans were “concerned, but not discouraged” about the economy.

“We see problems,” he admitted to the gathering, dominated by CEOs and large campaign donors with a sprinkling of hourly workers, labor officials, farmers, and professionals hand-picked for the cameras, “but we're confident in the long-term health of this economy."

As expected, Democrats were critical. "By limiting this meeting largely to like-minded participants and special interests,” said John Spratt of the House Budget Committee, “the administration protects its policies from serious scrutiny,"  Conservatives were critical too. "I think it's pretty much a complete waste of time,” said Bruce Bartlett, an economic adviser to the first President Bush.  “The president's time would be better spent just being on vacation."

Meanwhile Dubya promised in his folksy ungrammatical Texas way that "Any specific ideas that bubble up, we'll give it a good look."

One idea bubbled up right away. Discount brokerage tycoon Charles Schwab, whose company manages 8 million individual accounts worth considerably more before the stock market shed 7 trillion dollars in paper value, wants to raise the limit on tax-deductible investment losses from 3,000 to 20,000 dollars. He also wants to cut taxes on dividends and capital gains in anticipation of recovery. Lawrence Lindsey, chairman of Bush's National Economic Council favors this but the White House thinks it’s too risky politically.

Another program is now considered politically risk by the President’s advisors—his proposal to allow Americans to invest a portion of what they now pay in Social Security taxes in the stock market. The Democrats hope to make election hay by saddling the Republicans with the plan saying that it will destroy social security.  But the truth is Bill Clinton proposed partial privatization in 1999 and so the Democrats' fingerprints are all over it too.

 Make no mistake—privatization is something Wall Street financial firms want very much and they’re willing to pay for it. In the 2000 elections, investment giants Schwab, PaineWebber, Fidelity, Goldman Sachs, Salomon Brothers, T. Rowe Price and others split 19 million dollars in campaign contributions almost evenly between the GOP and the Democrats. These same firms fund Washington think tanks whose research fellows from Harvard and Yale produce social security reform studies and write pro-privatization editorials for the national op-ed pages. The reason is clear—such a reform would generate one billion dollars in a year in fees for investment firms.

Another truth—if nothing is done, by 2007 Social Security will be paying out more than it takes in payroll taxes. By 2041, its "trust fund" of bonds will be exhausted, leaving it unable to pay full benefits.  A major overhaul of Social Security is necessary and privatization will have to be some part of it. But can we ever trust the financial institutions and managers that will carry it out? And how can it be done now that Bush has squandered the budget surplus with his ill-considered tax-cut?

The irony is that the economic crisis may end up helping the cause of Social Security privatization. With interest rates at 1.75 percent, the Federal Reserve can do little more to boost the economy. If Bush’s signing of the corporate reform bill and the sight of CEOs malefactors being led away in handcuffs doesn’t restore market performance, then the politics of Social Security may shift. Privatizing 15% of social security taxes would funnel over 100 billion dollars a year into the stock market. That would go a long way toward revitalizing Wall Street and with it the value of Americans’ 401Ks and Bush’s reelection hopes. And that is, after all, the bottom line.

As Vice President Dick Chaney, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld,. National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice and other administration hawks beat the drums for war, former and current government officials across the political spectrum are speaking out against attacking Iraq.

Within the administration Secretary of State Colin Powell continues to argue against it. Republican Chuck Hagel who, as a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee receives top-secret intelligence briefings said he was unaware of “intelligence that would link Saddam Hussein to any action taken directly against the United States.” Former advisers to Dubya’s father: national security adviser, Brent Scowcroft and two former secretaries of state, James A. Baker and Lawrence Eagleburger, warn that unilateral U.S. action against Iraq would throw the Middle East into chaos and (in the words of Scowcroft) "seriously jeopardize, if not destroy, the global counterterrorism campaign."

Cheney responded to this Republican criticism before a gathering of veterans in Nashville. There he compared the threat Saddam poses to the US to that of Japan before its attack on Pearl Harbor.  “Though a military campaign against Iraq may be dangerous and the outcome uncertain,” he said "the risk of inaction is far greater than the risk of action." While Chaney argument at least appeared logical, Rumsfeld inexplicably chose to justify the need for war by presenting an incoherent surrealistic hypothetical of a preemptive US strike against the moon.

Preemption is an inherently dangerous doctrine. Even Henry Kissinger, who favors war to remove Saddam warned that:  "it is not in the American national interest to establish pre-emption as a universal principle available to every nation."  Preemption is okay for the US, opined America’s most over-rated Secretary of State, but not for lesser powers. Suppose the US precedent were invoked by India to justify an attack on Pakistan? Or by Russia upon Chechnya or other of its Central Asian problem children?

Much of the debate over the emerging doctrine of preemption has focused on whether or not it is legal.  Does Bush have the authority to attack Iraq without Congressional approval? The obvious answer is yes. The War Powers Act of 1973 allows the president to commit US forces for 60 days before seeking Congressional approval.  Once troops are committed and casualties suffered, it would be a fait accompli; no Congress would deny the president authorization to continue the war.

The question should not be is preemption legal but is it wise? Will it be effective?  The answer is no

But Bush will press on. He has finally found a doctrine to call his own. Preemption suits the Texas good ol’ cowboy. Shoot first and ask questions later.  Today Iraq! Tomorrow the Moon! Preemption is surely the doctrine of lunatics.

As Dubya, Cheney and Rumsfeld beat the drums for war the Los Angeles Times reports: "The Pentagon has quietly positioned its forces to be ready to move against Saddam Hussein in as little as two months."

Preemption is the new Bush Doctrine—strike your enemy before the strikes you. Old ideas like just war and just cause are just out.  As Condoleezza Rice explained: "I don't think anyone wants to wait for the 100  percent surety that Saddam Hussein has a weapon of mass destruction that can reach the United States.” Better to strike before the threat materializes.

It’s hard to imagine anything more pernicious and harmful to the long-term interests of the US and the world than this cowboy foreign policy of shoot first and ask questions never. In fact the hawks have not produced a single valid reason for a preemptive attack on Iraq.

Hawks say Saddam was linked to the 911 attacks and harbors Al Qaeda.  But US intelligence services have repeatedly said that neither of these claims is true.

Hawks saw Iraq is a state-sponsor of terrorism. True. But Iran is far more active state-sponsor of terrorism but no one is suggesting an invasion of Iran. In addition, Iraq supports terror only in the Middle East not against the United States and Saddam’s goals are political and secular.  Whatever you may say about him, Saddam is a foe of the Islamic fundamentalism promoted by al Qaeda.

Hawks saw Saddam is a threat to the Middle East. If so then why are none of our supposed Arab allies like the Saudi’s worried about him?  Because he is not a regional threat. His military was devastated in the Gulf War he has been contained the international sanctions imposed by the UN through the US and Britain.

Hawks say Saddam has weapons of mass destruction and will use them against the US.  It is true Saddam has chemical and biological weapons but he will not employ them against the US for fear of a nuclear response.  He did not employ them in Gulf War and he will not do so unless he believes there is nothing to lose—as in the case of a US attack aimed at killing him, such as the hawks propose.

According a report by the Cato Institute “threats to the United States and its allies include 12 nations that have nuclear weapons programs, 13 countries that have biological weapons, 16 nations that have chemical weapons, and 28 countries that have ballistic missiles. How is Iraq worse than the rest of those nations with WMD, including the other "rogue states," such as Iran, Libya, Syria, and North Korea?”

Hawks say Saddam will provide weapons of mass destruction to terrorist. Intelligence analysts say this is very unlikely. Saddam would not give weapons to Al Qaeda because its long-term regional goal is to replace corrupt secular regimes (like Saddam’s) with fundamentalist Islamic regimes.

War hawks rightly argue that a preemptive a preemptive strike on Iraq would succeed in overthrowing Saddam Hussein. But it would not make America safer. Quite the contrary.  It would exacerbate the fear and rage that fuel terrorism in the Islamic world and increase the probability of attacks on the US. In the administration, only Colin Powell recognizes this. As a former general, he is well aware of the costs of preemption as are others in the military and intelligence communities past and present.We should all hope and pray that their sanity prevails against insanity of the war hawks.
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If Saddam Hussein personifies evil (which I'm more than willing to admit) then the brothers Bush (George W. and Jeb) personify hypocrisy.  The conjunction of two recent news stories illustrate this with crystal clarity.  Last week Noelle Bush, Governor Jeb's daughter, who is currently enrolled in a drug rehab center, was caught with a rock of crack cocaine hidden in the toe of her shoe. Under our current Darconian drug laws, possession of any amount of crack is a felony. But in this case the staff of the Center for Drug Free Living in Orlando intervened to persuade the police to allow them to handle the affair in house.

Noelle's problem came to light last January when she was arrested for trying to buy Xanax with a fraudulent prescription. The judge assigned her to rehab where in July she was discovered with pills. On that occasion she was sent to jail for a brief three days and then returned to rehab. And now this.

Not surprisingly the Florida governor has refused comment. "This is a private issue as it relates to my daughter and myself and my wife. The road to recovery is a rocky one for a lot of people that have this kind of problem," said Jeb Bush.

Really? Ya Think?

While Noelle has gotten every possible consideration, her father has cut funding for Florida's drug treatment programs, making it harder for most folks to get help. Moreover, he has opposed a ballot initiative that would send nonviolent drug offenders into treatment programs instead of prison. It's a safe bet Noelle won't do hard time. An offender without political connections would go right to freakin' jail. And if she lived in public housing when she was busted, her family would be evicted, even if she were using or holding illegal drugs someplace other than the housing project. A poor offender would be unable to get a college education because the Higher Education Act denies financial aid to students convicted of possessing illegal drugs.

But Noelle is not poor. Her family has position and it's a safe bet that Jeb will not be evicted from his public housing - the Tallahassee governor's mansion-that is until the next election when (if there is justice in this world) we can expect ads showing Noelle taking a hit off a crack pipe and saying as she exhales: I helped assassinate judges in Colombia-I thought it was just innocent fun.

While Noelle's soap opera was playing out in the press, President Bush's Attorney General John Ashcroft dispatched the DEA to raid a medical marijuana club at Santa Cruz California. There agents with guns drawn ordered a paraplegic patient to stand to be handcuffed along with the other terminally ill cancer and AIDS patients and the hospice director Valerie Corral as outside agents cut down the pot garden with chainsaws. Never mind that the operation was run in accordance with state laws allowing the use of medical marijuana and under the supervision of local law enforcement officials who had praised it as a model operation. Twelve other states have also passed medical marijuana laws. But because Bush's commitment to states rights is rather selective, presumably they can expect a similar dose of compassionate conservatism.

As Arianna Huffington observed:  a glaring double standard has been a hallmark of our nation's drug policy for decades. It's why African-Americans make up only 13 percent of the country's drug users but 55 percent of those convicted of drug possession and 74 percent of those sent to jail on possession charges. And why the youthful indiscretions of the rich are routinely treated with a slap on the wrist and a ticket to rehab while poor kids are shipped off to prison.

In matters of substance abuse, the conservative compassion of the Bush brothers apparently extends only to the rich and the politically well-connected who, like they, are insulated from the terrible effects of the misguided war on drugs.

In his speech to the nation Monday, President Bush outlined his reasons for pursuing a regime change in Iraq. His case for immediate action was grounded in his Doctrine of Preemption that states: as a matter of common sense and self-defense, America will act against …emerging threats before they are fully formed. … We cannot let our enemies strike first.

Little attention has been given to the fact that Bush’s doctrine of preemption is part of the administration’s larger National Security Strategy that sets ten foreign policy goals for the United States.

They are to:
champion aspirations for human dignity;
strengthen alliances to defeat global terrorism and prevent attacks against us and our friends;
work with others to defuse regional conflicts;
prevent our enemies from threatening us and our friends with weapons of mass destruction;
ignite a new era of global economic growth through free markets and free trade;
expand the circle of development by opening societies and building the infrastructure of democracy;
 develop agendas for cooperative action with the other main centers of global power; and
transform America's national security institutions to meet 21st century challenges and opportunities.

Who could disagree with these laudable ends?   No one, I imagine.  The problem is that unilateral preemption undercuts the ability of the US to achieve almost all of those goals, particularly those of strengthening alliances and developing agendas for cooperative action with the other main centers of global power.

The United States has never undertaken a preemptive military action in its history and if we intend to start now, as the President urged in his speech, we’d better be damn sure that the threat is imminent and that we don’t do more harm than good. The great flaw in the preemptive use of military force is that it will shake our allies’ confidence in America as an honest broker and inspires more acts of terrorism by those who hate America. The end result is a weakening of national (pardon, HOMELAND) security.

Bruce Jentleson of Duke University’s Terry Sanford Public Policy Institute puts it this way: "as the sole surviving superpower, we have a fundamental leadership role to play. But it's one thing to have power and it's another to be able to use it effectively. How do we convert power to influence? How do we get others to do what we want?"

Amy Smithson who directs the Chemical and Biological Weapons Nonproliferation Project at the Henry L. Stimson Center warns against too heavy a reliance on the military at the expense of  "other tools, like international institutions and the rule of law." But the US has weakened "the very tools that we could be using to address problems" such as the chemical weapons convention. "When the US ratified this accord, she recalls with dismay that we started to create exemptions for ourselves that undercut the very tools we need to find out whether somebody's doing things prohibited by the treaty…. We need the full panoply of tools, not just a few."

General Wesley Clark who commanded NATO operations in Kosovo, agrees. "We have to build other institutions. The military can get you in but it can't get you out.  It can't be the sole arm of national security….. If you look at what we tried to do in Haiti, if you look at Bosnia, if you look at Afghanistan right now, where is the Marshall Plan for Afghanistan? Where is it?" As General Clark points out, nation building is something that Washington, and Bush administration in particular, has been loath to do

If Washington pursues the military option of preemption to change the Iraqi regime, as now seems almost certain, it is absolutely essential that nation building follow if any lasting benefit is to come. If it is not done, if sufficient resources are not committed to rebuilding Afghanistan and Iraq, then the loss of life will have been for nothing.
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Is the Bush administration capable of learning from its mistakes, even if it can’t admit them?  On the talk shows, Colin Powell backed off the demand for regime change in Iraq. Disarmament is now the official goal. Regime change is merely desirable; war merely likely, not inevitable.  The president is a patient man. He has the power invade Iraq; he has congressional authorization (although he doesn’t need it) and he will wait for the UN resolutions (although he doesn’t need them). But not too long. The reasons for this barely perceptible shift in the administration’s position could be seen in Secretary Powell’s efforts to fend off the media’s questions on Kim Jong Il’s nuclear Korea.

Why, asks the press, did the White House hold back information on Korea’s admission that it possessed nuclear weapons as Congress debated granting the President authority to wage war against Iraq? Why is the administration treating Kim Jong Il differently than Saddam Hussein—apart from the fact that Kim never threatened to kill Bush's father?  After all, Kim actually has nuclear weapons while Saddam’s threat is still potential. Kim has abused, murdered, brutalized, and starved his population, and North Korea is, like Saddam’s Iraq, a charter member of the Axis of Evil. The administration’s reason?  Because Korea’s different, that’s why. But how?  It just is.

Despite stonewalling, inconsistency is evidence of intelligent life heretofore lacking in the Bush White House. Korea’s admission forces the administration to rethink the effectiveness of unilateral diplomacy.  It’s beginning to dawn on them that the effective use of power comes by building international support.  Thus the US now seeks consensus with Russia, Japan, South Korea and our other Asian partners before taking action against North Korea.

It’s unfortunate that the administration didn’t come to this conclusion before it threw away the opportunities created by 9/11 to build global partnerships to eliminate terrorism and the root causes that motivate it.   Instead the cowboy president and his warrior wannabe policy advisors chose to pursue unilateralism and preemption. War on Iraq seemed easy and doable. And it had the virtue of diverting the public from the tanking economy and of splitting the Democrats during the election. That it also diverted attention and resources from dealing with the complex challenges presented by international terrorist organizations and like-minded individuals didn’t enter into the administration’s calculations.

Threatening recalcitrant states with war does not forestall terrorist attacks. US action in Afghanistan broke the Taliban government but merely disbursed Al-Qaeda, like a bead of mercury hit with a hammer. Neither a command structure nor significant funding is required for terrorists to carry out attacks here or abroad. Motivation is all that is required, as the Metro sniper has demonstrated.

Although most experts believe that the sniper attacks along the I-95 corridor are not Al-Qaeda related, it cannot be ruled out.  Indeed Al-Qaeda sniper training videos have surfaced and prisoners at Guantanamo have confirmed to the FBI that Al Qaeda has trained sniper teams to operate in the US.

The White House proposes to deal with domestic threats by implementing the Homeland Security Act. But that ill-considered reorganization of government will provide no improvement in national security. The tools for coordinating law enforcement and intelligence services already exist in the National Security Council that was created precisely for this purpose. Like targeting Saddam, Bush’s proposed reorganization of the federal bureaucracy gives the appearance of doing something.  But it will not make America safer. To do that America must work in world to build alliances and understanding and to win hearts and minds.

The overwhelming victory of the Islamic-based Justice and Development Party (known as the AKP) in the recent Turkish elections has put the Bush administration between the proverbial rock and a hard place as it plans military action against Saddam Hussein. Because Washington has consistently held up Turkey as a model for the sort of secular democracy it wants to encourage in the Muslim world, it would seem desirable that the Justice and Development Party (known as the AKP) be allowed to govern to prove that a political party with Islamic roots can function within a democracy. Yet the thought of an Islamic party (even a moderate one) heading the government of a NATO ally, whose airbases and military support are critical to planned war on Iraq, causes consternation in Washington.

Questions abound in Turkey and in Washington. Will the AKP keep its campaign promises to govern in accordance with Turkey’s secular constitution, maintain Turkey’s commitment to NATO, and continue to pursue membership the European Union? Will Turkey’s secular political establishment allow the AKP to govern? Or will the army remove the AKP as it did the Islamic Welfare Party coalition government in the silent coup in 1997?   No doubt, while the Bush administration is hoping for the first, it is expecting the latter. Indeed, the Turkish military and secular political establishment is already applying pressure to the AKP.  Turkey’s supreme court has prohibited the party’s charismatic leader, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, from serving as Prime Minister because he was convicted of engaging in Islamic political speech banned by the constitution.

Turkey’s army has intervened four times since 1960 to preserve Turkey from what its generals viewed as the threat of Islamist sedition. The army considers itself the protector of the nation’s secular pro-western tradition that is the legacy of General Mustafa Kemal, known as Ataturk (Father of the Turks). It was Ataturk who deposed the last Ottoman Sultan in 1923 and created the modern Turkish state.  Acting as a constitution dictator, he replaced Islamic law with secular law; instituted religious tolerance; banned the wearing of the Fez; replaced Arabic script with the Latin alphabet; granted women full civil rights, and encouraged them to abandon the veil and adopt western dress.

Ataturk and his secular legacy are still revered by most Turks. The vote for the AKP was not a vote for Islam but a popular protest against the big-business cronyism of the long-ruling Republican People's Party founded by Ataturk. The Turkish people blame tat corrupt political establishment for the current economic crisis that has produced 30 percent unemployment, shrunk the lira’s value by two-thirds and plunged in country into the worst recession since World War II.  And it is the need to deliver on campaign promises to fix the Turkish economy that may give Washington leverage with the AKP government for its war on Saddam.

Even before the AKP election victory, Turkey’s government was cool toward a war to topple Saddam.  It fears that the price of Iraqi Kurdish support for Washington’s war against Saddam will be the establishment of a Kurdish state, which might stir Turkey’s own long repressed Kurdish minority to seek autonomy. Thus Turkey has set a price on cooperation of 4 to 6 billion dollars in US aid and trade concessions and Washington’s support for their bid to join the European Union, which they feel has been blocked by European prejudice against Muslims.

Crises present opportunity as well as danger. The AKP election victory holds opportunity for America to shape more positive relations with the Islamic world by showing that it can work with democratic Islam. It presents Turkey’s Islamic politicians an opportunity to show they can work within a democratic framework.  Lets hope both Washington and Ankara seize these opportunities and employ them in the context of peace, not war.
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 “Tucked away in the outer reaches of the Defense Department, brandishing an eerie and cryptic logo -- an all-seeing eye atop a pyramid and the slogan "Scientia Est Potentia" ("Knowledge Is Power") – is the Information Awareness Office headed by retired Rear Adm. John M. Poindexter, the Reagan administration official who was convicted in the wake of the Iran-contra scandal of five felony counts of lying to Congress, destroying official documents and obstructing the congressional inquiry into the affair. Not surprisingly, there have already been some fast-breathing reactions to recently published information about the office, including allegations that it is funded by the Homeland Security Bill (it isn't) and that Adm. Poindexter has compiled a computer dossier on every American (he hasn't, or not yet).”

These words in a recent Washington Post editorial led me to ask more questions. What is the project? What is its source? Who runs it?  How is it funded?

The Total Information Awareness System is  “a program to detect, classify, and identify foreign terrorists—and decipher their plans—enabling the US to successfully preempt and defeat terrorist acts.”  Or more succinctly to Detect>Classify>ID>Track>Understand>Preempt.

TIA will use biometric technology, surveillance cameras, and collect individual transactional data,  that is personal records--financial, medical, communications, everything.   TIA will analyze the data using super computers and “cognitive aids that allow humans and machines to think together in real time” along with pattern matching, Baysian inference networks, and biologically inspired algorithms to predict future events allowing the US to meet asymmetrical threats.

 To strip away the jargon, just think of the words of the Police—no, not the Thought Police, the other Police:
Every single day
Every word you say
Every game you play
Everywhere you stay
I'll be watching you

 If this all seem a little farfetched, consider the source.

Total Information Awareness is the spawn of DARPA, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the folks who brought you the internet. Created in 1958 in response to the Russian launch of Sputnik, DARPA has a 2 billion dollar annual budget to bring together world-class scientists and engineers from private industry, universities, and government laboratories to apply state-of-the-art technology to military problems. “The best DARPA Program Managers,” proclaims its website, “have always been freewheeling zealots in pursuit of their goals.” Perhaps that explains how Poindexter came to head this Orwellian project.

So what has Poindexter been up to since his days as Reagan’s National Security Advisor during Iran-Contra scandal (which involved the illegal transfer of weapons to militant Islamic government of Iran and the equally illegal transfer of these profits through cocaine conduits to support the overthrow of the democratically elected Nicaraguan government in defiance of the US Congress)? Poindexter, who has a Ph.D. in Physics, ended up as the senior VP of Syntek Technologies, the high tech company that developed the software now being tested in the TIA project. What a surprise.  A military dot.com-plex.

Before we leap lemming-like into the void of totalitarianism in pursuit of the Holy Grail of Homeland Security, perhaps we should ask if security is worth surrendering our personal freedoms and privacy. With the passage of misnamed Patriot Act, the massive and unnecessary reorganization of the Federal Government to create the Department of Homeland Security, and now Total Information Awareness program, we are well on the way to a police state.   Our leaders tell us that only terrorists need fear. All good Americans may sleep soundly; Big Brother is watching over us.   I feel better already. How about you?
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President Bush's choice of Henry Kissinger to chair the bipartisan national commission charged with investigating the events of 911 was a breathtaking  display of presidential chutzpah. It was also completely in character. From the beginning he and his administration have displayed a disturbing preference for appointees who have demonstrated their willingness to bend or break the law for reasons of state.

Most of these appointments have slipped by with little or no public notice. John Negroponte was confirmed as US ambassador to the UN, although as ambassador to Honduras from 1981-85, he facilitated the illegal Contra War and covered up human rights abuses by CIA-trained military units.

Bush named Elliott Abrams director of the National Security Council office for democracy, human rights and international operations. After all, hadn't  Pappy Bush pardoned the former assistant secretary of state after being convicted of lying to Senate Intelligence Committee about his role in the Iran-Contra affair?

And of course who better than retired Rear Adm. John M. Poindexter, another Iran-Contra alumnus with over-turned convictions, to oversee the Total Information Awareness Office to which Orwellian is the adjective most commonly applied?   No one, apparently.

Bush's s selection of Kissinger surprised Christopher Hitchens not at all.  In his book The Trial of Henry Kissinger, Hitchens charges the former Secretary of State and Nobel Prize winner with being a war criminal for his role in the Indochina War, mass murder in Bangladesh, planned assassinations in Santiago and Nicosia, and genocide in East Timor. Indeed a few months before 911, Kissinger hurriedly left France to avoid a Palace of Justice summons to answer questions about murders and disappearances of French citizens following the CIA-supported coup that brought the Pinochet regime to power in Chile in 1973.

While the US media has largely ignored Hitchens' charges of war crimes by Kissinger, it has given wide exposure to his pithy evaluation of Bush's motive in making the appointment: ''The Bush administration did not want an objective inquiry …. and having an inquiry chaired by Henry Kissinger is the next best thing.''  But this begs the question: why does Bush want a non-investigation?

 The most benign answer is that he doesn't want his mistakes publicized and wants to keep control of the agenda. But there are more troubling allegations arising from Pappy Bush's connection to the Carlyle Group defense contractors whose investors included, until last October, Saudi Arabia's bin Laden family.  Did the Bush administration reverse Bill Clinton's hard line towards Afghanistan, Al Qaeda, and the Taliban to please the Saudis and  protect oil company interests?  Did Clinton have a hard line?

It doesn't matter if allegations like these are true or false.  What matters is that respectable citizens, Republicans, Democrats, and Independents are calling CSPAN fearing a cover-up and likening this commission to the Warren Commission,.

911 was far more than a massive intelligence failure; it was the product of a complex matrix of history, policy and culture. We need to understand the totality of 911, not only to prevent further attacks, but because the administration is using it to justify major shifts in policy with preemption abroad and the curtailment of civil liberties in homeland in the name of security. It the commission is not open and its investigation not thoroughgoing, Americans will perceive it as a cover up; in short, another Warren Commission. By appointing Kissinger, Bush is building his own grassy knoll.
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