An interesting article that closely mirrors my view on Iraq being a distraction. I know that it’s something of a heresy in the progressive company that I keep…but I was pro- Afghanistan. In any event, it’s worth a read.

LIEUT. GENERAL GREG NEWBOLD (RET.)

“I’ve been silent long enough… What we are living with now is the consequences of successive policy failures. Some of the missteps include: the distortion of intelligence in the buildup to the war, McNamara-like micromanagement that kept our forces from having enough resources to do the job, the failure to retain and reconstitute the Iraqi military in time to help quell civil disorder, the initial denial that an insurgency was the heart of the opposition to occupation, alienation of allies who could have helped in a more robust way to rebuild Iraq, and the continuing failure of the other agencies of our government to commit assets to the same degree as the Defense Department. My sincere view is that the commitment of our forces to this fight was done with a casualness and swagger that are the special province of those who have never had to execute these missions—or bury the results.”

(http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1181587,00.html)

QUESTION: The President has been very critical of leakers on a number of subjects throughout his time. And if this information is true, that the President authorized the dissemination of this information, does he feel that it’s appropriate for him to unilaterally — and I know he has the legal authority to declassify information — but it, to some people, gives an appearance that he may not have followed all of the procedures — by letting other Cabinet members know, by letting the CIA Director know, things like that.

Scott McClellan: — The President has been critical about the leaking of classified information. And that view has not changed. Leaking classified information that could compromise our nation’s security is a very serious matter. The President would never authorize disclosure of information that could compromise our nation’s security.

…Now the disclosing, the unauthorized disclosure of classified information relating to a program like the terrorist surveillance program is harmful to our nation’s security. It provides the enemy our play book, and the enemy can adapt and adjust when they learn about our tactics. And General Hayden has talked about how that is harmful to our nation’s security. Others in the administration have talked about how that has been harmful to our nation’s security. So there’s a distinction –QUESTION: So you’re specifically saying no harm done –Scott McClellan: — there’s a distinction between declassifying information that is in the public interest and the unauthorized disclosure of classified information that could compromise our nation’s security.”

These are really questions & answers. Here’s what happens when we shoot everyone up with sodium pentothal.

QUESTION: The President has speechified several times about how evil leaking is, calling it things like “despicable”. Doesn’t this latest revelation suggest that the President is a cynical manipulator who is willing to lie and leak information secretly in order to discredit his opposition without having to be accountable to the American people while holding as classified anything that might make the administration look bad?

Scott McClellan: — you seem to be a little mixed up on your definitions. You have to remember…you’re either with us, or you’re against us. If the information is something we don’t want people to know, like the fact that we’re torturing people, or that the NSA is spying on you, or that Karl Rove is having people assassinated…then that that’s a leak. It’s a shameful thing that gives comfort to our enemies at home & abroad. Enemies like the Democrats & the New York Times. When it’s something that we can use to make people look bad, or bolster our case without having to reveal the parts of the intelligence that suggest we’re full of shit, or maybe get a nice spike in the polls, when it’s something we want to be able to cherry pick the presentation of, we release it privately to a journalist so that no one will know it came from us…that’s a declassification in the interests of national security. The President is against leaks, he opposes unauthorized leaks in the strongest possible terms. He’s for declassification when it serves the public interest (like making the administration look good). See?

Christianity seems to be having a tough week. First this whole “fishapod,” missing link, sort of silver bullet for Darwin naysayers (not that they’ve ever let facts get in the way of a good religious delusion) but now we discover that Judas wasn’t quite the bad guy we might have expected. Seems that Judas betrayed Christ to the Roman authorities at Jesus’ request. A sort of conspiracy for crucifixion.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/07/science/07judas.html

“At issue is a hug Savannah said she got on the playground from a friend named Sophie. Savannah hugged Sophie back. The hugs resulted in Savannah having to write a letter, complete with teacher corrections, that read, “I touch Sophie because she touch me and I didn’t like it because she was hugging me. I didn’t like when she hugged me.”

They’re trying to spin it with discussions of “bear hugs” & complaints that the hug “lifted” one girl off the floor. But after reading the article closely I’m pretty sure the whole thing is about nipping that queer shit in the bud. We can have little lesbians in training doing the PDA story on a playground. Amazing really.

http://www.thebostonchannel.com/news/8491575/detail.html

http://www.judaism.com/display.asp?nt=ajao&etn=IIBHH

I swear…I’m not making this shit up. If you’re ready to begin your child’s conditioning on the implications of a wrathful God…look no further than

Plush Plagues Bag
Includes all 10 plagues!

Ages 3 & up Keeps the kids entertained during Passover. This plush yellow plagues bag contains representations for all of the plagues (not necessarily in the correct order):

A spooky eyed drop of blood
A Frog for frogs—of course
A Giant Lice for lice.
Cow for cattle disease
Black Locust for locusts
A white satin lump of hail
A black cube of darkness
An icky boil on a piece of flesh!
A snarling lion’s head for wild beasts
and last of all a very sad head – for death of the first born.

The frog, lice, cow and locust wriggle and roll their eyes, quiver, buzz and move when you pull their string and are apx 4.5″ long.

No sissy red algae in the Nile science explanations here.

People all over the country are expressing their shock & outrage over the rape of an exotic dancer by the Duke Lacrosse team (yes…I left the alleged out of there on purpose). I’ll meet them halfway. I’m outraged, but not even a little shocked. Anyone who hasn’t had their head in the ground knows that college parties are extraordinarily dangerous places for women. The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) has linked heavy drinking to 70,000 cases of sexual assault and acquaintance rape yearly. 55% of gang rapes on college campuses are committed by fraternities, 40% by sports teams, and 5% by others. About 25% of sorority women report having been raped, which is even higher than the general number for women on campus. Could it be that they spend so much time at frats & their parties? There’s also very good reason to believe that these statistics are a dramatic under reporting of the actual number of assaults. Both because victims are often embarrassed, and because colleges proactively attempt to suppress and avoid reporting of rapes on their campuses (can’t be good publicity). So while I’m pissed, I’m really tired of people pretending like this a big shock. Like it’s something rare. Because it’s happening all the time, across the country, people just don’t like to talk about it.

I’m sure everyone will be absolutely astonished to discover that when Libby leaked classified information on a CIA agent, he wasn’t doing as some rouge cowboy. Libby has testified that the leak was “specifically authorized” by George. Can you remember the President’s (fake) outrage over the leak & his (untruthful) promise that the person responsible for the leak would be dealt with?

http://www.thesmokinggun.com//archive/0406061libby1.html

I think the saddest thing is how anti-climactic this is going to be. The whole country knows that the President is a repeated, persistent, & tactical liar. The right has decided that it’s OK to be dishonest as long as it serves their agenda, & left is so weary of shouting & jumping up & down about all the examples of corruption & dishonesty (there are so fucking many) that it’s hard to get excited about yet another example. It’s just so predictable.

Today I want to expand on the discussion I began about America’s counter terrorism approach. I want to spend some time thinking about the effectiveness of our policies, & land on what I consider (despite the billions of dollars we’re hemorrhaging monthly) to be the true cost of our approach.

We are currently engaged in a strategy that is most strongly underpinned by something we might call a “security theater” story. Measures are taken to make people FEEL safer, regardless of the real effectiveness of the approach. Here’s a question. A though experiment if you will. Pretend you have $10,000. Pretend you’re cracked in some fundamental way. Do you honestly believe that the Department of Homeland Security, or the FBI, or the NSA, or who-fucking-ever could actually prevent you from killing twenty or a hundred people if you’re willing to sacrifice your own life?

Here in Seattle we’ve just had a vivid reminder of how stone cold simple it is to assemble assault rifles, semi-automatic pistols, shotguns, & other tools of terrorist mayhem. Play the game in your head for a few minutes. My personal favorite involves the I90 floating bridge.

Shopping List
Semi-automatic rifle – $800 – $2,000
(I’d likely spring for one of the AK-47 knock offs. They’re not as accurate as some rifles, but they’re legendary for reliability. Plus the large capacity banana clips are easy to find).
Assault pistol – $800 – $1,500
(I’d go with a semi-automatic version of the classic 9mm Uzi & then buy all the 32 round magazines I could lay hands on. I’m thinking I could carry at least ten.)
Personal body armor – $500 – $1,000
(There are some excellent performance reviews as a result of troop fatalities in Iraq. The point isn’t to survive…just make it harder, hence longer, before they can take me out.)
Caltrops – $0 – $250
(You can buy car caltrops on ebay, or make them yourself. They’ve been in use for a very long time.)
Binoculars – $50 – $500
(I’d spend extra on flare resistant coated optics.)
Optional DIY napalm

If you’re wondering how easy it would be to dig up the goodies on my list, take a look at http://www.gunsamerica.com/ (I’m thinking mail order is the way to go if you’re brown & ESL).

Now that we have all the tools needed, you’ll need to cauterize your sense of right & wrong (or amp yourself up on a religious zealot trip). Pick an end of the bridge during rush hour (I’d go with the one closer to the city). If you check out the satellite pictures on Google you can see that there are some nice shrubs etc. for you to nestle into. Watch with the binocs until you see two relatively full buses are on the bridge at one time. Throw handfuls of caltrops onto the lanes entering the tunnel. Go to work with the AK-47. Given that the cars are only likely to be doing about 3 miles per hour it’ll be like shooting fish in a barrel. Once the tunnel has been fully blocked by immobilized vehicles throw as many one-gallon glass bottles of homemade napalm as you can onto the cars below (this doesn’t really serve a significant function other than to make it more dramatic for the news. Which is really what terror is all about). You could do something flashy like rappelling down (or you could do something simple like following the little ramp down to the side walk that runs along the side of the bridge). Unlimber the Uzi & start firing into the vehicles that are trapped in the traffic jam you’ve created on the bridge (well, I guess you didn’t create it. You just made it really, really bad). The individual cars aren’t really your targets. You just want to create chaos & make sure everyone keeps their head down. The buses are where you’re going to get the numbers you need to make it a significant attack. Keep trying to kill people until they kill you.

What’s the point of this exercise, other than demonstrating the fact I’ve spend too much time stuck in traffic, on buses, on I90 & I’m more than a little twisted? My point is that America is filled to the brim with soft targets. There isn’t a damn thing we can do about it if we intend to maintain our character as a nation. “Security Theater.” We’re spending great heaping buckets of money on things that make people FEEL more secure when they’re just as (marginally) exposed as they were before. The implications of this approach spin out in a couple of ways. First, it’s a really dumb way to spend limited funds (it’s not like we’re so flush with cash that we couldn’t come up with something constructive to do with a hundred billion dollars). Second, it props up the illusion that we can be secure. Which means that when the (inevitable) attack comes, it has the same risk of mass-stupidity-perhaps-we-should-go-to-war-&-can-I-vote-for-a-right-wing-freak-show response that we witnessed after 9/11.

The real threat to our security is bound up with something I call creeping totalitarianism. Or maybe the insidious sneaky expansion of the security state. We’ve all heard the stories. Homeland security officers trying to monitor internet use at a public library, investigating a Texas man because he paid off his credit card bill, locking down the funds for the San Francisco Bay Area Puppeteers Guild for months, arresting a vegan protester at a HoneyBaked Ham store who had the audacity to write down his license plant number after the officer had been taking video surveillance of the protest (you gotta be careful with those terrorist vegans), photographers all over the country (myself included) are harassed persistently by security personnel (some of them are even arrested) for taking pictures of public buildings, department stores, etc….

If you’re feeling even a little bit conspiracy minded…you should remember that Halliburton just received a very large contract to build “temporary detention centers” inside the US, they’re running “war games” with names like “Cyber Storm” to “test how it would respond” to devastating attacks over the Internet from “anti-globalization activists, underground hackers and bloggers.” How does it feel to be an enemy of the state?

My biggest concern is a mental process that was well documented by Phil Zimbardo in 1971. The Stanford Prison Experiment (http://www.prisonexp.org/) was a classic demonstration of the power of social situations to distort personal identities and long cherished values and morality as the student volunteers internalized situated identities in their roles as prisoners and guards. The planned two-week investigation into the psychology of prison life had to be ended prematurely after only six days because of the results were so nasty. In only a few days, the “guards” became sadistic and the “prisoners” became depressed and showed signs of extreme stress. These are the results when you’re talking about a bunch of Stanford college students. Tell someone they have the authority to do whatever they want to protect national security, & they’ll do whatever they want. Tell a citizen they have to give up their rights to be safe from terrorists, & they give up their rights. Spend too much time in those roles & you become inured to the loss of your liberty.

Take all of this in the context of the fact that the government is already making plans & running simulations for how they can shut down the people who’re independent minded enough to disagree with them & I don’t think you have to be a “black helicopter nut” to be very afraid.

This is my first post & of course I wanted to come out swinging, but I fear I might’ve bitten off a bit more that I can chew, so I’m thinking it’ll end up being a series of rants with a “& what the fuck are we supposed to do about it?” at the end. The WOT thing has been on my mind a good bit lately. In part because of the related madness on immigration & the “secure the borders” marching songs being sung by so many politicos. It makes me crazy.

The story works like this. “Security” from terrorism is an illusion. It’s just not something that’s compatible with an open society. If you want a picture of a society that is secure from terrorism you’ll need to imagine the iron boot of tyranny stomping on the face of humanity. The kind of centralized, spy on your own people, wiretap on every line, snitch on your neighbor, jackbooted secret police, presumption of guilt, indefinite detention without charges, goose stepping, flag waving, jingoistic government that would make China’s authoritarianism seem warm & feel good fuzzy.

The problem revolves around rational risk assessment. It’s the “pigs kill more people than sharks” quandary. Sharks are scary, they have big teeth, they’re gray & mean looking, but that barnyard hog is more likely to gore & trample you to death. Let’s have some fun with statistics. Assume a world where 9/11 happens every year, over & over again. Some time during the year planes will fall out of the sky & buildings will burn & collapse. What kind of threat does that represent? In a world where a 9/11 scale event happens every single year…your risk of choking to death on a hot dog are about the same as dying in the terrorist attack. You’re four times more likely to be assaulted with a gun by a run of the mill everyday thug (as opposed to a beturbaned terrorist madman), you’re about five & a half times more likely to be killed in an accidental fall, six times more likely to perish from accidental poisoning, sixteen times more likely to die in a (non terrorist related) traffic accident. Get this…you’re more than ten times more likely to kill yourself than to be harmed by a terrorist. This in a world where something as deadly as 9/11 happens on a regular basis.

Considering all these risks. A rational person might conclude that we should ban firearms & declare war on internal combustion. Sadly, there aren’t a lot of rational people running around out there. I think Katrina & it’s aftermath have rather conclusively proven that this administration couldn’t find their own asshole with two hands & a flashlight. But just for the sake of argument, let’s assume that the reason building aren’t blowing up is because of the investments made in homeland security ($180 billion since 9/11). Spending for 2006 is expected to top $50 billion. Using 9/11 as our filter, that works out to about $17 million dollars for each life saved from terrorists. If we’re to believe the president in his assertion that the reason we’re fighting in Iraq is to prevent ourselves from having to fight at home, that adds another $9.8 billion monthly, bringing the per life cost of preventing another 9/11 to $55.68 million per life saved from the evil terrorists. (…to be continued)