Paul Krugman: Sacrifice Is for Suckers

Paul Krugman looks at who has sacrificed for the Iraq war:

Sacrifice Is for Suckers, by Paul Krugman, Commentary, NY Times: On this Fourth of July, President Bush ... called for “more patience, more courage and more sacrifice.” Unfortunately, ... nobody asked the obvious question: “What sacrifices have you and your friends made, Mr. President?”...

You see, the Iraq war, although Mr. Bush insists that it’s part of a Global War on Terror™, a fight to the death between good and evil, isn’t like America’s other great wars — wars in which the wealthy shared the financial burden through higher taxes and many members of the elite fought for their country.

This time around, Mr. Bush celebrated Mission Accomplished by cutting tax rates on dividends and capital gains, while handing out huge no-bid contracts to politically connected corporations. And in the four years since, as the insurgency Mr. Bush initially taunted with the cry of “Bring them on” has claimed the lives of thousands of Americans and left thousands more grievously wounded, the children of the elite — especially the Republican elite — have been conspicuously absent from the battlefield.

The Bushies, it seems, like starting fights, but they don’t believe in paying any of the cost ... Above all, they don’t believe that they or their friends should face any ... penalties for trivial sins like distorting intelligence to get America into an unnecessary war, or totally botching that war’s execution...

Think Progress has a summary of what happened to the men behind the war... To read that summary is to be awed by the ... generosity of the neocon welfare system. Even Paul Wolfowitz, who ... mess[ed] up ... two high-level jobs, has found refuge at the American Enterprise Institute.

Which brings us to ... I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby Jr. ... In an opinion piece in The Wall Street Journal titled “Fallen Soldier,” Fouad Ajami of Johns Hopkins University cited the soldier’s creed: “I will never leave a fallen comrade.” He went on to declare that “Scooter Libby was a soldier in your — our — war in Iraq.”

Ah, yes. Shuffling papers in an air-conditioned Washington office is exactly like putting your life on the line in Anbar or Baghdad. Spending 30 months in a minimum-security prison, with a comfortable think-tank job waiting at the other end, is exactly like having half your face or both your legs blown off by an I.E.D.

What lay behind the hysteria, of course, was the prospect that ... one of the people who tricked America into war, then endangered national security yet again in the effort to cover their tracks, might pay some price...

Back when the investigation into the leak of Valerie Plame Wilson’s identity began, Mr. Bush insisted that if anyone in his administration had violated the law, “that person will be taken care of.” Now we know what he meant. ...

Mr. Bush says that Mr. Libby’s punishment remains “harsh” because his reputation is “forever damaged.” Meanwhile, Mr. Bush employs, as a deputy national security adviser, none other than Elliott Abrams, who pleaded guilty to unlawfully withholding information from Congress in the Iran-contra affair. Mr. Abrams was one of six Iran-contra defendants pardoned by Mr. Bush’s father, who was himself a subject of the special prosecutor’s investigation of the scandal.

In other words, obstruction of justice when it gets too close to home is a family tradition. And being a loyal Bushie means never having to say you’re sorry.

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Previous (7/2) column: Paul Krugman: Just Say AAA
Next (7/9) column: Paul Krugman: Health Care Terror

Comments

[anne]

Notice the little people theme:

http://select.nytimes.com/2007/07/06/opinion/06krugman.html

July 6, 2007

Sacrifice Is for Suckers
By PAUL KRUGMAN

On this Fourth of July, President Bush compared the Iraq war to the Revolutionary War, and called for “more patience, more courage and more sacrifice.” Unfortunately, it seems that nobody asked the obvious question: “What sacrifices have you and your friends made, Mr. President?”

On second thought, there would be no point in asking that question. In Mr. Bush’s world, only the little people make sacrifices....

[anne]

Notice again the little people theme:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/05/opinion/05thu1.html

July 5, 2007

Justice Denied

In the 1960s, Chief Justice Earl Warren presided over a Supreme Court that interpreted the Constitution in ways that protected the powerless — racial and religious minorities, consumers, students and criminal defendants. At the end of its first full term, Chief Justice John Roberts's court is emerging as the Warren court's mirror image. Time and again the court has ruled, almost always 5-4, in favor of corporations and powerful interests while slamming the courthouse door on individuals and ideals that truly need the court's shelter.

President Bush created this radical new court with two appointments in quick succession: Mr. Roberts to replace Chief Justice William Rehnquist and Samuel Alito to replace the far less conservative Sandra Day O'Connor.

The Roberts court's resulting sharp shift to the right began to be strongly felt in this term. It was on display, most prominently, in the school desegregation ruling last week. The Warren court, and even the Rehnquist court of two years ago, would have upheld the integration plans that Seattle and Louisville, Ky., voluntarily adopted. But the Roberts court, on a 5-4 vote, struck them down, choosing to see the 14th Amendment's equal-protection clause — which was adopted for the express purpose of integrating blacks more fully into society — as a tool for protecting white students from integration.

On campaign finance, the court handed a major victory to corporations and wealthy individuals — again by a 5-4 vote — striking down portions of the law that reined in the use of phony issue ads. The ruling will make it easier for corporations and lobbyists to buy the policies they want from Congress.

Corporations also won repeatedly over consumers and small stockholders. The court overturned a jury's award of $79.5 million in punitive damages against Philip Morris. The Oregon Supreme Court had upheld the award, calling Philip Morris's 40 years of denying the connection between smoking and cancer "extraordinarily reprehensible."

In a ruling that will enrich companies at the expense of consumers, the court overturned — again by a 5-4 vote — a 96-year-old rule that manufacturers cannot impose minimum prices on retailers.

The flip side of the court's boundless solicitude for the powerful was its often contemptuous attitude toward common folks looking for justice....

[anne]

The little people, big people has been a theme through the last 6 1/2 years, always from the Administration, from the Republican Congress and from the conservative Supreme Court. There is a reason we had to wait for a Democratic Congress to finally force through a rise in the minimum from $5.15 an hour but capital gains tax cuts allow private equity fund managers to pay a maximum 15% on hundreds of millions of dollars of income even delaying that payment for years.

http://maxspeak.org/mt/archives/003166.html

As was noted by Max Sawicky, "Tax Cuts For Others are Actually Good For You."

[save_the_rustbelt]

I believe it was Ben Stein, hardly a liberal, who said something like....

"cutting taxes in a time of war is immoral."

Makes sense to me.

[robertdfeinman]

Krugman has a pretty big soapbox at the Times so it seems that how he choses to use it is worth considering.

There are many voices saying what he does when he makes political remarks, but few of them have as wide an audience. Read the blogosphere over the past several days and you will find all his points discussed. However the total audience for these discussions together may not equal his. Similarly there are no people on TV who have a platform like this. The closest is Olbermann on cable and Moyers on PBS.

On the other hand Krugman's political remarks are not uniquely insightful or original and they don't make use of his professional expertise. So perhaps he should be using his platform as a way to focus on economic issues, or at least the economic implications of political events.

Perhaps the Libby affair is the hot topic of the day, but the recent Supreme Court rulings favoring big business will have a much bigger impact on our society. Just the reinstatement of minimum resale prices may cost consumers millions.

[kharris]

Robert,

Libby is a particular instance of a bigger problem. That is the problem of a lack of accountability, corruption, dishonesty and self-dealing at high levels of government. It may be that a single Supreme Court decision can have a greater impact that a single instance of obstruction of justice, but the bigger problem represented by that obstruction of justice seems very likely to be more damaging to our traditions and our way of life than a Supreme Court ruling on wholesale pricing.

True enough that Krugman under-uses his economic expertise in his column, but he has so obviously filled a yawning void among our so-called public intellectuals over the past 6 1/2 years, that I doubt he could have been more valuable writing about economics.

There has been too much cowardice, too little independent thought, and too much concern with corporate masters among our press and pundits. We need Krugman doing what he does if for no other reason than to show how naked all our little press emperors and all the wannabe big-government emperors are.

[anne]

The theme of Paul Krugman's fine article is supremely economic. Mark Thoma is a brilliant editor, but left out the passage on little people sacrifice that I included and expanded on. The same turning to Lewis Libby is the more saddening turning away from those who can thrive with and need school integration.

[Firozali A.Mulla MBA PhD]

Mr. Bush what is the difference in Iraq now after Sadam when there is no offensive or defensive debate?
The reign is in your very capable hands. Why wait till September, the season gets cooler in Iraq in September.
You see enough is enough. We had had lies lies lies lies too many. Now September or December. I would reckon you do it then tell us. That would put back a little shine on the name that is losing the popularity.
Firozali A.Mulla MBA PhD
P.O.Box 6044
Dar-Es-Salaam
Tanzania
East Africa

[Jim Harrison]

It's not surprising that Krugman's columns have become repetitious. He repeats himself because, like many others, he only has words to throw at an administration that needs to be taken down by actions. What is missing now is not insight on the part of commentators but courage on the part of politicians.

[STS]

Sacrifice is for suckers, but the well-connected always get off "Scooter" free.

[STS]

Sacrifice is for suckers, but the well-connected always get off "Scooter" free.

[Lord]

Another reason no other 'path to citizenship' is necessary. All they have to do is join the army.

[Noni Mausa]

Jim Harrison said...He repeats himself because, like many others, he only has words to throw at an administration that needs to be taken down by actions. What is missing now is not insight on the part of commentators but courage on the part of politicians.

That's the real, infuriating problem: in the end, submission to the rule of law by the powerful must be voluntary. Who exactly would go and arrest Cheney, or Bush, or Gonzales (not much in the news lately, BTW, wonder what he's up to?)?

Any of the institutions which are intended to control the administration have been sufficiently cowed, or have had functional members replaced, such that they also cannot exert appropriate control. This is what I call the "sand castle dilemma", in that the "castle" has no inherent structure except the idea of "castle".

If the idea of our societal castle no longer includes a dungeon for misbehaving presidents, nor even a procedure for disciplining such presidents or their administrations, then what can we do?

We are still far away from the possibility of extreme actions such as the actions that were undertaken during the French Revolution, but as the administration moves farther away from the realm of accountability, there are sure to be people who are not lunatics seriously considering such actions. Unfortunately, bringing such actions onto the menu begins a process of positive feedback leading to further governmental paranoia, as seen in full-blown dictatorships.

Positive feedback, of course, is always destructive. Paradoxically, acceptance of the rule of law prevents the destruction of positive feedback, by substituting immediate and lesser penalties for eventual and catastrophic penalties.

Refusal to submit to the rule of law is a form of short sighted cowardice, which leads inevitably to destruction -- although usually in dictatorships that destruction is visited upon the country and the people, not the highly paranoid and tightly insulated dictator himself.

Noni

[James Killus]

Ah, I have this marvelous fantasy of the Sergeant-at-Arms of the House of Representatives deputizing a number of officers of the Washington D.C. Police who then go knocking on the doors of Cheney, Rove, et al., saying "I gotcher Constitutional crisis right here, pal!"

[Jim Harrison]

The horrible fact, which hasn't dawned on very many people yet, is that the problem is not Bush. Bush is playing John the Baptist in this particular gospel. Though we don't know his name, we can prophesy that a greater than he is waiting in the wings taking note of how little the American system is capable of resisting a determined authoritarian.

[richard]

Jim has hit the nail on the head: the damage is the precedent set, the weakening of institutions as well as a wrong-headed policy.

What I fear most for the future is someone more charasmatic, more cycnical and more cavelier than this administration.

[Lafayette]

I don't see the fuss, here, fellas.

These people (Cheney, Rove, Lead-head) ... they are the walking dead. They couldn't get elected dog catcher in Kazakhstan.

Sixteen more months. Stay cool, they're history. Bad history.

US News & World Report's list of the ten worst PotUSs in history:
1. James Buchanan
2. Warren G. Harding
3. Andrew Johnson
4. Franklin Pierce
5. Millard Fillmore
6. John Tyler
7. Ulysses S. Grant
8. William Harrison
9. Herbert Hoover | Richard Nixon (tie)
10. Zachary Taylor

With lead-head that makes 12, out of 43 since Washington. So, the probability of a nerd-president is fairly high, one out of four.

With lead-head behind us, we can look forward to 12 years of, at least, mediocre presidency if not better - before the sh*t starts to flow again ...

NB: In a democracy, people elect generally the leadership they deserve.

[ilsm]

Scooter was convicted of false official statements, a special form of perjury to an official in a federal matter.

Has its own paragraph in US Code.

If he went to jail he would be the first in several hundred thousand who have talked that talk.

False official statements happen all the time in the US government.

The statements concerning the SS Trust Fund each year are nearly false statements.

What do you think comprises all the rosey estimates of "this new tactic will finally beat the insurgents" actaully is. It is a false statement.

There are false statements all over the federal contracting business. Do you think the MV-22 really meets a military need? Not needed in the war on terror. And the specs are all pencilwhipped and the cost to operate and down time were all false estimates.

Those are false statements. All over the military industrial complex.

If Scooter went to jail a few hundred thousand more should too.

So, if you look the other way for corporate mendacity why send the Scooter off to jail.

Most of the other mendacities were little guys doing good for themselves.

Scooter was doing good with his mendacity for the big guys.

[Lafayette]

Impeach Cheney

[anne]

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/06/books/06book.html

July 6, 2007

Unchecked and Unbalanced
By MICHIKO KAKUTANI

Days after 9/11, Bush administration lawyers began laying out a vision of sweeping executive power, designed to give the president authority, in the words of John C. Yoo, then deputy assistant attorney general, "to take whatever actions he deems appropriate to pre-empt or respond to terrorist threats from new quarters," whether or not they can be linked to the specific terrorist incidents of Sept. 11. A Sept. 25, 2001, Justice Department memo declared that under the Constitution decisions regarding the "amount of military force to be used" in response to the terrorist threat, as well as "the method, timing and nature of the response," are "for the President alone to make." And a January 2002 Justice Department memo argued that "customary international law has no binding legal effect on either the President or the military."

In fact, as this important book, "Unchecked and Unbalanced," points out, the Bush White House has repeatedly sought to expand its powers, often doing so in secret, while sidelining both Congress and the judiciary. President Bush secretly authorized the National Security Agency to eavesdrop without obtaining a court order on calls and e-mail messages sent from the United States to other countries. He has issued a steady stream of signing statements, signaling his intent not to comply with more than 750 provisions of laws concerning national security and disclosure, most notably one that questioned Congress's authority to limit coercive interrogation tactics. And the administration has claimed that the president's war powers give him the authority to detain people indefinitely and deny them access to lawyers and the courts, a policy that it would later be forced to modify in response to legal challenges.

In their chilling and timely book Frederick A. O. Schwarz Jr., senior counsel at the Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University School of Law, and Aziz Z. Huq, who directs the Liberty and National Security Project at the Brennan Center, argue that the Bush administration's "monarchist claims of executive power" are "unprecedented on this side of the North Atlantic," and that its "executive unilateralism not only undermines the delicate balance of our Constitution, but also lessens our human liberties and hurts vital counterterrorism campaigns" by undermining America's moral authority and standing in the world....

[elvis]

NB: In a democracy, people elect generally the leadership they deserve.
Lafayette, I agree with this. However, this administration was brought in on a road made straight and true by Kathleen Harris at the end of which stood the Supreme Court to anoint his Imperial Majesty.

Question: I thought denying a person their vote was a federal crime. Or is it ok to allow a vote, but just not count it?

[Barry]

Lafayette says...
"I don't see the fuss, here, fellas.

These people (Cheney, Rove, Lead-head) ... they are the walking dead. They couldn't get elected dog catcher in Kazakhstan.

Sixteen more months. Stay cool, they're history. Bad history."

Just to help you with math, sixteen months would be from December, 2000 to April 2002.

Any changes there?

And now, one thing that neither Bush nor Cheney have to worry about is long-term consequences, where 'long-term' means two years or more. Actually, given their screw-ups in Iraq (and every where else), they haven't woried too much to start with. We have a distinct probability of them doing some really, really bad sh*t on the way out.

[me]

ilsm what are you talking about?

Libby gives up a covert CIA operation, Brewster Jennings & Associates and we don't know how many assets lost their lives, but we do know we have lost our eyes and ears on the Middle East oil situation, and all you have to say is hundreds of thousands do it? There are not hundreds of thousands of traitors in this country although I admit many CEOs come close.

[terri]

well, unfortunately for me, I have certainly sacrificed for this bogus war /a/k/a/ the invasion/occupation.
my 55 yr old army national guard officer husband was deployed for 15 mos. half way thru his yr in iraq he became very angry and changed completely. he is now divorcing me. I am a housewife who hasn't worked in 11 yrs.
he wants me to get no alimony or health benefits, nothing. he won't even speak to me, is cruel, bitter and I don't know where he is other than the fact I do know he is living with a woman. I was diagnosed with breast cancer and other medical issues while he was in iraq. so, my scarifice in the iraq war is I have lost my husband, income, security, health insurance, retirement, etc. I probably will have to sell my house and try to find a entry level retail job with some health benefits. this is an aspect of what a long deployment can do to someone who is too old for the 16 hr long days and no time off ever required of the officers.
I live in one of the most expensive states in the usa and may have to move in with my elderly mother to live. thanks bush, cheney, rice, rumsfeld, etc., for my life is over and there is nothing but stress and struggle ahead.
funny that the media doesn't cover the divorce side of deployment. how this war is wrecking lives! bush said he wants to bring peace and prosperity to the iraq people-well, he caused the total opposite for me. sacrifice? you bet I have, completely against my will.
I am painted into a corner that I'll never get out of.
I didn't need to cope with an acrimonious divorce while battling cancer or have to worry about losing my medical benefits now. I didn't vote for bush either time and I cannot believe how he has been allowed to ruin this country.