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On Mr. Bush's Latest Switch in Rationalizations for His Iraq Strategy
Mr. Bush now says that he believes that US troops should remain in Iraq for the long haul and charaterizes that intention with a deeply flawed analogy to this country's long-term presence in South Korea.
I believe that this site has accurately identified the underlying motive for this occupation as a an attempt to maintain the US military in positions from which they can quickly control the region's oil fields. Those forces presence in the region would create, either, a permanent counter to anything that might be perceived as an anti-American move against those petroleum deposits, or a constant threat against the governments that actually control the oil fields. This threatening force would, presumably, provide the US government with significant leverage against that region's governments.
This strategy can easily be seen as a derivative of the one set out in the PNAC. It is, for all intents and purposes, the military response to the oil embargoes of the 1970s.
As an election note, I would like to observe that this is what Sen. Gravel identified as the motive behind the Iraq war and its continuation either at, or in an interview shortly after, the first Democratic candidates' debate.
Posted at May 31, 2007 5:58 PM in response to TPMtv Guide: Thursday, May 31
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The neoclassical position strikes me as internally contradictory: if open markets and competition provide the best possible solutions to economic problems, it would seem that, by analogy, they should also provide the best possible solutions to intellectual problems. To create a "trust" in their discipline should, then, be anathema to them.
Of course, "free markets" also spawned trusts when the most powerful players realized that the elimination of competition was the best way to insure that their market position would continue to offer them the maximum benefit.Posted at May 31, 2007 4:42 PM in response to In Case You're Just Joining Us
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I'd guess that Comey's testimony sealed the issue by putting a human and Republican face on the administration's malfeasance. Prior to Comey's testimony, much of what has gone down in the hearings has been very legalistic and not dreadfully accessible. Sure, obstruction and perjury are crimes and using the DoJ to rig the electoral system is tantamount to treason; but, I doubt most people were able to plug into that viscerally. Having two cabinet level officials drive over to the hospital to try and induce the post-operative, nearly incoherent former AG to override his own department's judgment is extremely palpable. The story is made even more forceful because it was described in testimony given by an administration loyalist and not by an opposition partisan or a former official who could be dismissed as having an axe to grind. I'm sure this allowed many people to get past the administration's spin that the entire investigation was nothing more than a politically motivated witch hunt and more clearly perceive the crimes at the DoJ for what they are.
Posted at May 21, 2007 3:38 PM in response to TPMtv Guide: Monday, May 21
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"...given his message, Edwards house and haircuts are all wrong.
Why? who says a rich man can't care about poor people?"
FDR wasn't a "man of the people" by a long shot and, yet, he did more for working Americans than anyone elected before or since.
The way it works in this country, the rich and connected run for high office. Period. Making an issue out of it is disingenuous.Posted at May 7, 2007 4:14 PM in response to The Post Gets It Wrong: Edwards' Poverty Policy is Just What’s Needed
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I don't care whether or not Gonzales resigns: I care that this investigation continue.
Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) seemed to suggest that Alberto Gonzales' resignation might bring the investigation to an end when he said: "The best way to put this behind us is your resignation." (http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/003061.php)
The implications of this are the same as those for Rumsfeld's resignation from the DoWar. That is, with the resignation of a high profile scape goat, questions about the department's conduct were sidetracked. As best as I can tell, once Rummy was out and Gates in, the DoW went back to business as usual (running an unjustified war in Iraq, inadequately equipping troops on the way to battle, funding high cost weapons systems of doubtful usefulness and shortchanging or shafting wounded service men once they'd survived and come home.) There's every reason to suppose that if scapegoating Gonzales leads Congress to "put this behind us," our highly corrupted DoJ will do the same thing. Thus, if continuing the investigation means keeping AG AG, then I say keep him.
It's easy to see why the Republicans in Congress might wish for an end to this investigation: reports about the firings of the New Mexico and Washington USAs show Republican representatives (Wilson, Watson and Dominici) were, both, participants in, and among the intended beneficiaries, of the DoJs actions. There is also a chance that many of their colleagues in the House and Senate are players in this Republican machine and that they could suffer from its further exposure. It's been suggested (at least in an Op Ed in today's NYT) that Sen. Schumer's role in getting Democratic senate candidates elected should lead him to recuse himself for conflict of interest. By the same token, shouldn't the possibility that all of these Republican representatives are compromised beneficiaries of the corruption they are purportedly investigating lead them to recuse themselves?
I was glad to see that Schumer said the AG's resignation would not effect the investigation: this is a systematic and widespread attempt to undermine this democracy and give a radical right wing Republican political machine control over the electoral process. It needs to be thoroughly uprooted if the system of government I grew up under is going to survive.Posted at April 19, 2007 6:30 PM in response to Reader poll: the end?
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Vis-a-vis the last paragraph, absolutely. It's metaphysics and consequently doesn't belong in a science class.
Posted at August 28, 2005 6:54 PM in response to Kuhn and Intelligent Design
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At the end of the day, the real issue with respect to Roberts is his reading of the commerce clause and what it has to say about the Federal government's right to intervene in state jurisdiction over issues like the minimum wage, the age of work and unemployment compensation. This isn't a very sexy issue, but it's critical for the rights and protections of American workers. Judging from his opinion in the California arroya toad case, he supports a strategically limited, pro-business interpretation of this clause. Since that is contrary to most of the jurisprudence since 1937, it is reason enough to oppose his nomination.
Posted at August 28, 2005 6:37 PM in response to Roberts and the Business Lobby
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"<span class="Apple-style-span">The good news is we can successfully exit Iraq once the roughly 140,000 Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) are adequately trained and skilled enough to defend their fledgling government."</span><span class="Apple-style-span">This is an odd comment, to say the least. Judging from the news that the ISF is being used as a cover for the maintenance of various party militias, its accuracy really depends on what "successfully exit" means. I suppose if a "successful exit" is one in which US troops are withdrawn in a prelude to a civil war in which "friendly" factions in Kurdistan and the Shi'a south divide the country's oil wealth, suppress the Sunni insurgency and form pro-US government(s) in Iraq, it could be accurate enough. If, however, the creation of a pluralistic government is part of the criteria of assessment, I can't see how it's much more than a fantasy.</span>
Posted at August 23, 2005 11:43 AM in response to What Does The Base Want?
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Turning Iraq over to the UN seems a perfectly reasonable solution to this conundrum. Had this truly been a war about any of the principals that this administration has cited to justify its actions, the US government would've done that as soon after victory as possible. The American decision to stay and use the powers it gained as victor to hand out reconstruction contracts on the basis of political criteria and connections, to attempt to change the Iraqi economy into one where free market principals could open the nation's mineral wealth to foreign ownership, to construct permanent military bases, to reconstitute the Iraqi government in a form suited to the visions of the occupying forces' commanders, and so on, all indicate that there were other motives behind the invasion than the noble causes touted by this administration. It shouldn't be surprising that, for various reasons, many establishment Democratic politicians could be sympathetic to one or more of these unstated goals and, so, would willingly adopt any pretext that would allow the administration to prolong this adventure. Implicit evidence for this conclusion includes the fact that none of the major players in contemporary American politics has even suggested that our government initiate a phased withdrawal, gradually turning over all authority in Iraq to a recognized international body like the UN. And this is in spite of the fact that, in all likelihood, the deployment of a larger multi-national force under a UN mandate and control would be cheaper than the cost of keeping the current American forces and mercenaries/security contractors in the field, even if our government picked up the entire tab. Moreover, the framing of the debate as a choice between some form of 'cut and run' and 'stay the course' shows the lack of any serious intention of surrendering control of that country -- who could honestly endorse a course of action that would make the American invasion a precursor to a Bosnia-like war in the Middle East? Finally, it is at least bizarre for Democratic politicians to be concerned about alienating a group of Republican voters whom recent polls show as a pronounced minority of a minority of the electorate.
The upshot of all of this is that there seems to be a conflict of interest between some influential part of the Democratic establishment and many of the candidates who will run for offices held by Republican incumbents in the mid-term elections. Polls put the president's approval rating at historic lows and his administration's handling of its war of choice is clearly one of their party's greatest weaknesses. While keeping these issues off the table may serve sitting Democratic senators and representatives by allowing them to conceal their views of the war and the administration, hobbling all of the other candidates in the party is clearly against their interests, as well as those of the party and the electorate. I'm not advocating having every Democrat sign the anti-war, anti-Bush manifesto that I'd gladly pen. Rather, I'd suggest putting the party's money and resources into countering the Republicans' slime machine and let the candidates enjoy the same freedom Chuck Hagel does, and so speak their minds on Mr. Bush and his war. If the electorate wants anti-Bush, anti-war candidates (as I think they now do), it'll choose them.Posted at August 22, 2005 2:40 PM in response to Democrats Battling Over Iraq? Stop the Presses!
