links for 2008-08-14

• The Obama Tax Plan - WSJ.com
• Greenspan Sees Bottom In Housing, Criticizes Bailout - David Wessel
• Quantum weirdness wins again - Scientific American
• Sovereign wealth funds: Debunking four popular myths - Vox EU
• Reagan's Trickle-Down Economics Doesn't Work - ataxingmatter
• Development aid duplication, rivalry, and mission creep - Vox EU
• The State of Working America - EPI
• GAO Report on Corporate Tax Liabilities - Tom Bozzo
• Owl habitat to be cut by 23 percent - The Register-Guard
• Greenspan: Housing Stabilization Key to Crisis End - Real Time Economics
• Social Origins of the American Corporate Predator State - Thomas Palley
• Margin of Error (Obama's Lead) - Kevin Drum

Comments

[Sufficient]

AG..."In the days before we sliced and diced mortgages into securities, when the borrower got into trouble, he’d come to the assistant vice president of the local S&L and get agreement to stretch out the payments or restructure the loans in a deal that worked for both parties… Until the recent surge in foreclosures, more than half of all loans that went into foreclosure were ‘cured’ without the sale of the property.”

Covered mortgages may return some of this bargaining, as the loans remain on the banks books. There is no real way to completely restore the old system without sufficient domestic savings to meet domestic demand though. Without sufficient domestic savings deposits in banks, loans necessarily must be sold overseas.

Citizen trust in the long term purchasing power of bank deposits must be restored before citizens will deposit again. This means playing fair with depositors for a few decades, until trust is gradually earned.

[anne]

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/14/opinion/14thu1.html?ref=opinion&pagewanted=print

November 14, 2004

United States Takes Fallujah

Europe and Russia must make clear that the United States will pay a price, in diplomatic standing and economic relations, if it does not immediately withdraw its troops from Iraq.

[anne]

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/14/opinion/14thu1.html?ref=opinion&pagewanted=print

August 14, 2008

Russia Takes Gori

Europe and the United States must make clear that Russia will pay a price, in diplomatic standing and economic relations, if it does not immediately withdraw its troops from Georgia.

[Oops....]

[anne]

http://angryarab.blogspot.com/2008/08/asked-about-motivation-to-initially.html

August 13, 2008

"Asked about the motivation to initially engage in the sale of weaponry to Georgia despite concerns it might anger Russia, Yaron replied: 'We did see that there was potential for a conflagration in the region but Georgia is a friendly state, it's supported by the US, and so it was difficult to refuse.' " *

* http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/JH14Ak02.html

-- As'ad AbuKhalil

[anne]

http://www.juancole.com/2008/08/cole-in-salon-bushcheney-kettle-call.html

August 14, 2008

Putin's War Enablers: Bush and Cheney (Russia's escalating war on Georgia reveals the consequences of the Bush administration's long assault on the international rule of law.)

Excerpt: *

'The run-up to the current chaos in the Caucasus should look quite familiar: Russia acted unilaterally rather than going through the U.N. Security Council. It used massive force against a small, weak adversary. It called for regime change in a country that had defied Moscow. It championed a separatist movement as a way of asserting dominance in a region it coveted.

Indeed, despite George W. Bush and Dick Cheney's howls of outrage at Russian aggression in Georgia and the disputed province of South Ossetia, the Bush administration set a deep precedent for Moscow's actions -- with its own systematic assault on international law over the past seven years. Now, the administration's condemnations of Russia ring hollow.'

* http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2008/08/14/bush_putin/index.html

-- Juan Cole

[anne]

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/14/opinion/14bull.html?ref=opinion&pagewanted=print

August 14, 2008

The Wrong Force for the ‘Right War’
By BARTLE BREESE BULL

London

BARACK OBAMA and John McCain have plenty of disagreements, but one thing they are united on is promising a troop surge in Afghanistan. Senator McCain wants to move troops to Afghanistan from the Middle East, conditional on continued progress in Iraq. Senator Obama goes much further, arguing that we should have sent last year’s surge to Afghanistan, not Iraq, that Afghanistan is the “central front” and that we must rebuild Afghanistan from the bottom up along the lines of the Marshall Plan.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates is on board, too. He has endorsed a $20 billion plan to increase substantially the size of Afghanistan’s army, as well as the role and numbers of Western troops there to aid it. Polls show that nearly 60 percent of Americans agree with the idea of an Afghan surge. A recent Time magazine cover anointed the fighting there as “The Right War.” ...

[Yes, we can. Yes, we can. Yes, we can.]

[anne]

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/14/opinion/14thu1.html?ref=opinion&pagewanted=print

January 14, 2007

Ethiopia Takes Mogadishu

Europe and the United States must make clear that Ethiopia will pay a price, in diplomatic standing and economic relations, if it does not immediately withdraw its troops from Somalia.

[anne]

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/14/world/europe/14saaka.html?ref=world&pagewanted=print

August 14, 2008

Rejuvenated Georgian President Cites U.S. Ties as ‘Turning Point’ in Conflict
By C.J. CHIVERS and NICHOLAS KULISH

President Mikheil Saakashvili’s confidence, along with his swing of mood, belied a complicated political situation for him at home.

[I'm like all, "hooray."]

[anne]

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/14/world/europe/14oil.html?ref=world&pagewanted=print

August 14, 2008

Conflict Narrows Oil Options for West
By JAD MOUAWAD

Energy experts say that the hostilities between Russia and Georgia could threaten American plans to gain access to more of Central Asia's energy resources.

[Oops....]

[Alex Tolley]

Quantum weirdness wins again - Scientific American

The universe is indeed stranger than we can [currently] imagine. Quantum entanglement is one of those phenomena that may lead to new understanding of how the universe works atthe quantum level. One nice effect of this is that communication at FTL speeds may be possible - opening up who new vistas for communication and travel in teh universe.

[Alex Tolley]

Owl habitat to be cut by 23 percent

MT - I'm sure this affects you more than some of us city dwellers. Just as re-opening offshore drilling is being raised now that there is an energy "crisis", I'm sure we will continue to see further environmental protection erosion as other crises develop. If certain industries had their way, we would be in danger of our environment ending up like eastern Europe under communist rule.

[Barkley Rosser]

anne,

That the US is not in a moral position to criticize Russian conduct in Georgia does not therefore mean that Russian conduct in Georgia is defensible, any more than US conduct in Iraq has been defensible. I see no reason to whitewash Russia for taking Gori. They declared a cease fire. They have violated it big time. Of course, as I have been saying all along, a lot of this is about internal Russian politics, Putin showing that he is the boss, rather than Medvedev who declared the cease fire. Ooops!

[anne]

Me, I watched Georgia spend hours shelling Ossetia before sending troops across the border to and occupying Ossetia. I watched Georgia begin a war, and am not the least interested in the whines of those who would revive the Cold War for America's sake because Russia took exception to Russians being attacked and killed along the Russian border.

Pay close attention Cold Warriors, America foreign policy is not having the sort of intimidating effect that might have been anticipated let alone hoped for. No worry though, Obama is bent on securing us from the ravages of Venezuela. I feel all comfy.

[anne]

Here we have America supporting an Ethiopian invasion and occupation of Somalia, bombing Somalia for practice now and then, similarly bombing Pakistan while directly warring in Iraq and Afghanistan with plans to be ever so much fiercer in Afghanistan after only 6 years of warring fierceness, but the problem is the town of Gori or the Georgian Goris.

Where is Frank Sinatra when we need a song?

"I left my heart in Gori?"
"Sweet home, Gori."
"Gori, my gal?"

Oh, Frankie....

[hari]

BR - I replied your late inquiry on yesterdays links. My bed time is earlier than yours....Take a look at it. May be there is something more to discuss.

[hari]

@ Anne - Rosser -

Why is Rice not visiting Moscow after Sarkosy and Tbilisi?
This is turning into a chess game or what?

[hari]

Sarkosi never really indentified himself with Saak's belligerent politics in Caucuses - led by Rice & Co.
There is not much she is going get out of Sarkosy (in south of France holiday white house).

EU is trying to find a common platform to deal with not only Georgia - but strategically with Russia - for the long term security of Central Europe.

US Gov seems to have forgotten Bush looked into the *soul* of Putin - and liked what he saw - Or was it just jutpah?

[Ben Stein the Hack]

Greenspan sees the bottom of the housing market, eh? I see the bottom of Greenspan's reputation. Oh wait, no I don't.

[Julio]

"Asked about the motivation to initially engage in the sale of weaponry to Georgia despite concerns it might anger Russia, Yaron replied: 'We did see that there was potential for a conflagration in the region but Georgia is a friendly state, it's supported by the US, and so it was difficult to refuse.' "

I'm jist a girl who cain't say no,
I'm in a turrible fix

BARACK OBAMA and John McCain have plenty of disagreements, but one thing they are united on is promising a troop surge in Afghanistan.
...
Defense Secretary Robert Gates is on board, too.

although i can feel the undertone
i never make a complaint
till its to late for restraint
then when i wanno i caint
i caint say no

[anne]

Actually, beyond the sadness and for all the perverse comedy this sort of war has presented, I am beyond being able to understand the diplomatic mistakes we have obviously been making with Georgia for months but critically making for weeks. Beyond that, has there been such a thing as diplomatic intelligence in for the European Union or has this been given over to the Americans?

Notice that Britain appears to have no diplomats, and just what was the Conservative leader babbling about with Obama? The Spanish are ridiculing the Chinese, the French are beaching, the Germans figuring out what will be the cost of staying warm this winter.

[Julio]

The universe is indeed stranger than we can [currently] imagine. Quantum entanglement is one of those phenomena that may lead to new understanding of how the universe works...

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/07/07/080707fa_fact_hersh?currentPage=all

Annals of National Security
Preparing the Battlefield
The Bush Administration steps up its secret moves against Iran.
by Seymour M. Hersh
July 7, 2008

Late last year, Congress agreed to a request from President Bush to fund a major escalation of covert operations against Iran, according to current and former military, intelligence, and congressional sources. These operations, for which the President sought up to four hundred million dollars, were described in a Presidential Finding signed by Bush,...

Spooky action at a distance. Explains the otherwise bizarre foreign entanglements. I get it.

[anne]

Julio, brilliant.

http://www.stlyrics.com/lyrics/oklahoma/icantsayno.htm

1943

I Cain't Say No
By Richard Rogers and Oscar Hammerstein

Whut you goin' to do when a feller gits flirty, and starts to talk purty?
Whut you goin' to do?
S'posin' 'at he says 'at yer lips're like cherries, er roses, er berries?
Whut you goin' to do?
S'posin' 'at he says 'at you're sweeter 'n cream,
And he's gotta have cream er die?
Whut you goin' to do when he talks that way,
Spit in his eye?

[kthomas]

anne, you know I admire the dickens out of you, but I'm starting to think you are staying at home this election....I hope I am wrong about that.

[anne]

Vladimir, now look here. There's this place called Iran. You know, Iran. And Iran's got like lots of scary centrifuges, all spinning, all the time, and you can imagine what their spinning. Now Vladimir, about this Iran centrifuge stuff.

"The Cheney line that Russia needs to be punished, and Rice's warning that Russia will be isolated, may make them feel good. But the US is much weaker after the increase in power of the oil and gas states like Russia and Iran this year, and isn't in a position to "isolate" Russia without at the same time giving a lot of indirect aid to Iran."

* http://www.juancole.com/2008/08/us-deters-israel-from-attacking-iran.html

[anne]

Policy discussion and definition now is of critical importance, since there will be astonishing pressure to insure that policy momentum that is now experienced be extended through the coming Administration. The idea that accepting Republican policy from a Democrat will mean a sudden reversal should the Democrat become President is nonsense, so when I find the Democratic candidate for President running as a Republican I have a problem and intend to let the problem be known.

I will not be pleased voting for a Democratic-Republican in the hope of actually winding up with an actual Democrat. Present us me an alternative to the astonishingly inept foreign policy we have now, and present the alternative now.

[anne]

When Democrats preach Cold War rubbish, just after ignoring the ravings about war in Afghanistan of the Democratic presidential candidate, as though further warring in a country far larger in territory than Iraq, with millions more people, far poorer, bordering on a country of millions of border people decidedly unfriendly to our warring, I am going to complain.

The absence of foreign policy understanding or decency we are experiencing is being echoed by the supposed political opposition and I am displeased. Now, tell me just what problem does Obama have with Chavez?

[Alex Tolley]

anne: the Germans figuring out what will be the cost of staying warm this winter.

And isn't that what this is all about, after the posturing? Russia sees oil as a strategic weapon for the C21st. They want control and is willing to use some force to get it. The myopic western media saw the previous moves as simple kleptocracy, but these moves show that the game was always far bigger than that.

[hari]

@ Anne -

What Bush & Co are doing is *taking prisoners* into their strategic thinkpad...and enforcing their realpolitik on them to toe-the-line.

BO is foolish to allow so much political vaccum in times of global crisis, if he's (really!) serious about winning in Nov. The guys nonchalance and lingo-paradigm needs to be crudely and rudely shocked into action, if he reaaly wants to be a leader of the Western world.

Does he know what he is getting into or not?

Over here, in Europe, there is a tremendous political dislike of yesterday's Bush announcement at WH flanged by Rice/Gate. Recall Gate is former CIA Chief and (former) cold war warrier + *desk officer* on Soviet Union. SO it was not by chance he was standing next to Bush. Either Bush is blind to Russian national interest in Caucusus or he's pretending and, as usual, bluffing his way into socalled *Victory* declaration.

[anne]

Russia has oil and Russia has gas and Russia has energy transmission systems. Russia controls lots and lots of energy, already, now controls what is possible to control. Ossetia and Abkhazia had nothing at all to do with energy for Russia.

Georgia shelled Ossetia for hours, then occupied the territory. Georgia attacked Russians along Russia's very border, attacked even Russian peace-keepers. Russia replied in turn, and we responded with distortions of the events and comically empty threats to Russia.

America's foreign policy blindness is beyond understanding, for being so self-destructive let alone so defeatingly vindictive.

[anne]

What is wrong with an America that cannot understand that maybe Vladimir Putin was all to right to worry about an America continually buying Polish and Czech support to ring Russia with anti-Iranian missiles missiles aimed at threatening Iranian missile missiles aimed at Czech and Polish women though French women are far more fashionable.

Ossetia, last I looked, was not in Pennsylvania though I noticed moving trucks. Ossetia was not in Pennsylvania.

[anne]

Hari:

"Over here, in Europe, there is a tremendous political dislike of yesterday's Bush announcement at the White House, flanked by Rice/Gates. Recall Gates is the former CIA Chief and (former) cold war warrior and *desk officer* on the Soviet Union. So it was not by chance he was standing next to Bush."

[Barkley Rosser]

anne,

You would have more credibility if you had ever issued a single peep of criticism of Hillary when she outhawked everybody on Iran, and I mean everybody.

The latest reports have it that Russian cyberwarfare against Georgia started two months ago. Saakashvili is a clownish aggressor, but it is also beginning to look more like the claims of the more paranoiacally hawkish about this and Putin are probably true. The broader agenda is maintaining Russia's monopoly on transporting all the oil and gas out of Central Asia and keeping Europe dangling. You are right on that one; there is not much that can be done. Keeping Russia out of the WTO and moving the G-8 back to a G-7, or even trying to boycott the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics, do not look particularly threatening.

[anne]

Hillary likes worms, I do not know why she likes worms but she likes worms, Hillary does; now liking worms is a real problem for someone wanting to be President, and I recognized that immediately and chose to have no toleration for a worm liker, and I have not had such toleration and will not have from here on since worms are icky but Hillary likes them.

I have thoroughly repudiated the worm liker, so there. (I need a slogan).

[hari]

BR - I replied your q's on Holbrooke/Lake on yesterdays link. Did you find it?

[Julio]

anne says...
Hari:

"Over here, in Europe, there is a tremendous political dislike of yesterday's Bush announcement at the White House, flanked by Rice/Gates. Recall Gates is the former CIA Chief and (former) cold war warrior and *desk officer* on the Soviet Union. So it was not by chance he was standing next to Bush."

What struck me most about this is that Gates is the "Defense" Secretary (that's the "Secretary of War" for those of you pre-Orwell types). What was he doing there?

[anne]

http://www.poetryloverspage.com/poets/pushkin/pushkin_ind.html

The Hills of Georgia

The hills of Georgia are covered by the night;
Ahead Aragva runs through stone,
My feeling's sad and light; my sorrow is bright;
My sorrow is full of you alone,

Of you, of only you... My everlasting gloom
Meets neither troubles nor resistance.
Again inflames and loves my poor heart, for whom
Without love, 'tis no existence.

-- Aleksandr Pushkin

[anne]

Remember when an American spy plane knocked a Chinese jet from the sky along the coast of China? A Chinese pilot was killed, the American plane was damaged enough to be forced to land on Chinese territory. Immediately Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld demanded the American plane, and crew, be returned. The Chinese chose to complain about a lost pilot and even about being spied on by a plane that suddenly happened to be, well, in China.

Rumsfeld demanded, the Chinese ignored Rumsfeld, then Rumsfeld disappeared from view and Secretary of State Colin Powell began offering, well, apologies to China, eventually as offering a number of apologies getting President Bush to apologize as well.

The Chinese returned the crew, then cut the plane apart and returned the sections.

[hari]

If you could only read that Pushkin stanza in the original it is fabulous....

BTW during my regular visits to Moscow and Leningrad, during 1960s, the wine Russians offered in their restaurants was all from Georgia including the bubbly! It's a land of great white wines.

[anne]

http://www.poetryloverspage.com/poets/pushkin/pushkin_ind.html

A Little Bird

In alien lands I keep the body
Of ancient native rites and things:
I gladly free a little birdie
At celebration of the spring.

I'm now free for consolation,
And thankful to almighty Lord:
At least, to one of his creations
I've given freedom in this world!

-- Aleksandr Pushkin

[Alex Tolley]

anne: Russia controls lots and lots of energy, already, now controls what is possible to control. Ossetia and Abkhazia had nothing at all to do with energy for Russia.

See the map of the 2 southern Caspian oil pipelines that run through Georgia to Turkey and the Black Sea.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan_pipeline

If Russia can control Georgia, she has a hand on the spigot. I think Georgia was maneuvered into trying to invade South Ossetia and Russia is going to walk away from this with control of the pipeline and a Georgia that will not now (ever?) be part of Nato. Putin has played his hand well.

[anne]

A curiously neglected report of the Russian response to the Georgian attack is not only that there was a Georgian attack of many hours resulting in occupation of Ossetia but that the Russians went to the United Nations Security Council. America could easily have immediately asked the Council to condemn the Georgian attack, but chose not to.

Russia went to the Council, and explained that Ossetia was attacked and occupied. I continue to be furious that Barack Obama's advisers and Obama have failed to simply describe what happened. In such description there is protection against the slanted sort of Wall Street Journal response aimed at Russia.

[anne]

Alex Tolley:

"If Russia can control Georgia, she has a hand on the spigot. I think Georgia was maneuvered into trying to invade South Ossetia and Russia is going to walk away from this with control of the pipeline and a Georgia that will not now (ever?) be part of Nato. Putin has played his hand well."

I understand, but the sequence of events is so improbable I prefer to find no convincing reasons for now at least. For instance, the question comes to mind, are there any analysts in the Georgian military? Were the generals "tripping?"

[anne]

Suppose we were all sitting around the house wondering who was going to do the laundry, the pizza party having gotten messy, when the call comes to attack Ossetia. Like, let's go and attack Ossetia. Evening, the Russians are like busy boning herring wanting to finish the catch and get soused. So, we just get up and leave the laundry for Boris and go do up Ossetia. Simple?

[hari]

I understand there were trial runs early in July from both sides - Russian side being OS troops. You're right either Rice & Co knew all about it; or they're left in the cold.
The casualties are in thousands killed and wounded mostly OS and some troops of Gorgian military that invaded OS.

[anne]

http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/print/174964/Tomgram%253A%2520%2520Andrew%2520Bacevich%252C%2520The%2520American%2520Military%2520Crisis

August 11, 2008

Illusions of Victory: How the United States Did Not Reinvent War… But Thought It Did
By Andrew Bacevich

"War is the great auditor of institutions," the historian Corelli Barnett once observed. Since 9/11, the United States has undergone such an audit and been found wanting. That adverse judgment applies in full to America's armed forces.

Valor does not offer the measure of an army's greatness, nor does fortitude, nor durability, nor technological sophistication. A great army is one that accomplishes its assigned mission. Since George W. Bush inaugurated his global war on terror, the armed forces of the United States have failed to meet that standard.

In the aftermath of September 11, 2001, Bush conceived of a bold, offensive strategy, vowing to "take the battle to the enemy, disrupt his plans, and confront the worst threats before they emerge." The military offered the principal means for undertaking this offensive, and U.S. forces soon found themselves engaged on several fronts.

Two of those fronts --- Afghanistan and Iraq -- commanded priority attention. In each case, the assigned task was to deliver a knockout blow, leading to a quick, decisive, economical, politically meaningful victory. In each case, despite impressive displays of valor, fortitude, durability, and technological sophistication, America's military came up short. The problem lay not with the level of exertion but with the results achieved.

In Afghanistan, U.S. forces failed to eliminate the leadership of Al Qaeda. Although they toppled the Taliban regime that had ruled most of that country, they failed to eliminate the Taliban movement, which soon began to claw its way back. Intended as a brief campaign, the Afghan War became a protracted one. Nearly seven years after it began, there is no end in sight. If anything, America's adversaries are gaining strength. The outcome remains much in doubt.

In Iraq, events followed a similar pattern, with the appearance of easy success belied by subsequent developments. The U.S. invasion began on March 19, 2003. Six weeks later, against the backdrop of a White House-produced banner proclaiming "Mission Accomplished," President Bush declared that "major combat operations in Iraq have ended." This claim proved illusory.

Writing shortly after the fall of Baghdad, the influential neoconservatives David Frum and Richard Perle declared Operation Iraqi Freedom "a vivid and compelling demonstration of America's ability to win swift and total victory." General Tommy Franks, commanding the force that invaded Iraq, modestly characterized the results of his handiwork as "unequalled in its excellence by anything in the annals of war." In retrospect, such judgments -- and they were legion -- can only be considered risible. A war thought to have ended on April 9, 2003, in Baghdad's al-Firdos Square was only just beginning. Fighting dragged on for years, exacting a cruel toll. Iraq became a reprise of Vietnam, although in some respects at least on a blessedly smaller scale.

A New American Way of War?

It wasn't supposed to be this way. Just a few short years ago, observers were proclaiming that the United States possessed military power such as the world had never seen. Here was the nation's strong suit. "The troops" appeared unbeatable. Writing in 2002, for example, Max Boot, a well-known commentator on military matters, attributed to the United States a level of martial excellence "that far surpasses the capabilities of such previous would-be hegemons as Rome, Britain, and Napoleonic France." With U.S. forces enjoying "unparalleled strength in every facet of warfare," allies, he wrote, had become an encumbrance: "We just don't need anyone else's help very much."

Boot dubbed this the Doctrine of the Big Enchilada. Within a year, after U.S. troops had occupied Baghdad, he went further: America's army even outclassed Germany's Wehrmacht. The mastery displayed in knocking off Saddam, Boot gushed, made "fabled generals such as Erwin Rommel and Heinz Guderian seem positively incompetent by comparison."

All of this turned out to be hot air. If the global war on terror has produced one undeniable conclusion, it is this: Estimates of U.S. military capabilities have turned out to be wildly overstated. The Bush administration's misplaced confidence in the efficacy of American arms represents a strategic misjudgment that has cost the country dearly. Even in an age of stealth, precision weapons, and instant communications, armed force is not a panacea. Even in a supposedly unipolar era, American military power turns out to be quite limited.

How did it happen that Americans so utterly overappraised the utility of military power? The answer to that question lies at the intersection of three great illusions....

Andrew Bacevich is professor of history and international relations at Boston University.

[anne]

While there was no sign of Russian troops movements or massing anywhere about Ossetia, there were war games in Georgia proper a month before the Georgian attack on Ossetia with participation by 1,200 American troops. What this means is beyond me.

Andrew Bacevich in the article goes on to argue, as I argue, for a smaller American military, not a larger Obama sized military.

[hari]

Remember I sued for Peace - not long ago!

Prudence demands not only global stability but disarmament with a view to eliminating WMD and whatnot. Bush/Cheney have seemingly introduced the concept of strategic hegemony by a single power - Unipolar or whatnot. Inside EU, no one believes in that B.S....and never accepted Bush as a credible leader of such a great nation. He's of course proven that, in fact, he ain't more than a *sheriff* from W Texas. Basta!

[Julio]

anne says...
Suppose we were all sitting around the house wondering who was going to do the laundry, the pizza party having gotten messy, when the call comes to attack Ossetia. Like, let's go and attack Ossetia. Evening, the Russians are like busy boning herring wanting to finish the catch and get soused. So, we just get up and leave the laundry for Boris and go do up Ossetia. Simple?

(Not sure if I understand your point fully, but that never stops me from commenting does it?)

It's simple, unfortunately, if you add "Let's go, they are killing Russians".

And of course it helps if you're led by a wannabe Mussolini complete with skinheads to bash the opposition, "patriotic" youth movements, and the like.

While this time they may have had good reasons, for a change, let's not forget who we're dealing with.

[anne]

Somalia alone, desperately poor Somalia, is ridden with conflict 20 months after being invaded and occupied, the government being deposed in a few days. Iraq, Afghanistan, even Pakistan. Enough, look around in strategic terms and understand what we have done to others and ourselves. What did arming and training the forces of Georgia accomplish?

We need to completely think through this self-destructive military assertiveness or simply destructiveness we have chosen to resort to. Who besides passing turtles have we shocked and awed lately?

Am I supposed to welcome a movement to American finding the right war to fight? Finding a way to fight right in sad Afghanistan after 6 years? We have become so diplomatically inept as to have called the efficacy of NATO to question in a metter of hours.

[anne]

This was supposed to depict the thinking of the Georgian officer fraternity (men) called to attack Ossetia....

"Suppose we were all sitting around the house wondering who was going to do the laundry, the pizza party having gotten messy, when the call comes to attack Ossetia. Like, let's go and attack Ossetia. Evening, the Russians are like busy boning herring wanting to finish the catch and get soused. So, we just get up and leave the laundry for Boris and go do up Ossetia. Simple?"

[Julio]

Anne,

Ah, thanks, missed the point. The "Boris" doing the laundry sounded Russian.

never mind...
Emily Littella

[anne]

http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/print/174964/Tomgram%253A%2520%2520Andrew%2520Bacevich%252C%2520The%2520American%2520Military%2520Crisis

August 11, 2008

Illusions of Victory: How the United States Did Not Reinvent War… But Thought It Did
By Andrew Bacevich

While they persisted, however, these three illusions fostered gaudy expectations about the efficacy of American military might. Every president since Ronald Reagan has endorsed these expectations. Every president since Reagan has exploited his role as commander in chief to expand on the imperial prerogatives of his office. Each has also relied on military power to conceal or manage problems that stemmed from the nation's habits of profligacy.

In the wake of 9/11, these puerile expectations -- that armed force wielded by a strong-willed chief executive could do just about anything -- reached an apotheosis of sorts. Having manifestly failed to anticipate or prevent a devastating attack on American soil, President Bush proceeded to use his ensuing global war on terror as a pretext for advancing grandiose new military ambitions married to claims of unbounded executive authority -- all under the guise of keeping Americans "safe."

With the president denying any connection between the events of September 11th and past U.S. policies, his declaration of a global war nipped in the bud whatever inclination the public might have entertained to reconsider those policies. In essence, Bush counted on war both to concentrate greater power in his own hands and to divert attention from the political, economic, and cultural bind in which the United States found itself as a result of its own past behavior.

As long as U.S. forces sustained their reputation for invincibility, it remained possible to pretend that the constitutional order and the American way of life were in good health. The concept of waging an open-ended global campaign to eliminate terrorism retained a modicum of plausibility. After all, how could anyone or anything stop the unstoppable American soldier?

Call that reputation into question, however, and everything else unravels. This is what occurred when the Iraq War went sour. The ills afflicting our political system, including a deeply irresponsible Congress, broken national security institutions, and above all an imperial commander in chief not up to the job, became all but impossible to ignore. So, too, did the self-destructive elements inherent in the American way of life -- especially an increasingly costly addiction to foreign oil, universally deplored and almost as universally indulged. More noteworthy still, the prospect of waging war on a global scale for decades, if not generations, became preposterous.

To anyone with eyes to see, the events of the past seven years have demolished the Doctrine of the Big Enchilada. A gung-ho journalist like Robert Kaplan might still believe that, with the dawn of the twenty-first century, the Pentagon had "appropriated the entire earth, and was ready to flood the most obscure areas of it with troops at a moment's notice," that planet Earth in its entirety had become "battle space for the American military." Yet any buck sergeant of even middling intelligence knew better than to buy such claptrap.

With the Afghanistan War well into its seventh year and the Iraq War marking its fifth anniversary, a commentator like Michael Barone might express absolute certainty that "just about no mission is impossible for the United States military." But Barone was not facing the prospect of being ordered back to the war zone for his second or third combat tour.

Between what President Bush called upon America's soldiers to do and what they were capable of doing loomed a huge gap that defines the military crisis besetting the United States today. For a nation accustomed to seeing military power as its trump card, the implications of that gap are monumental.

[hari]

Kagan looks also like a big enchalata...with his surge doctrine. Imagine just what the word surge means in proper english...like water surging down the fjords of Norway.

[Barkley Rosser]

hari,

I have now responded to you there.

anne,

"Worm killer" does not exactly address the problem. And you continue to misrepresent Obama's statements. He did cricize Georgia's actions when they first went in. Are you denying this? Or have you simply forgotten it?

Regarding Pushkin on Georgia, Stalin's favorite restaurant in Moscow was a Georgian one called the Aragvy, long a fave of the KGB after he was gone, and probably the best restaraunt in the city well into the 1980s. An old joke has some Georgians going there to eat and walking outside to say "what city is this surrounding the Aragvy restaurant"? It also happens to be right across the street from the Mossoviet, the Moscow City Hall.

[Julio]

Bacevich:
"As long as U.S. forces sustained their reputation for invincibility, it remained possible to pretend that the constitutional order and the American way of life were in good health."

He's right of course. I'm sure a lot of the neocon thinkers believed (and still believe) this. And a lot of the public, not spending the time to get informed, study history, and think it through, probably feels this way.

But think for a moment what monstrosity, what degradation of our values, underlies such thinking. All's well if we have a gigantic enough killing machine.

If I fault the article at all, it's for not making a sufficiently crisp distinction between the military power and prowess, which the US armed forces DO possess, and the grandiose political and occupation tasks they're being asked to accomplish, which have always been impossible for anyone, even an army as good as the Roman legions, let alone the Wehrmacht.

Any hint that the military failed, but that its task was at all possible, leaves the door open for the argument that all we need is one more surge.

Which is, BTW, what's so bothersome to me about Obama's desire to increase the size of the military.

To what purpose?

[anne]

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Poland-US-Missile-Defense.html?hp=&pagewanted=print

August 14, 2008

U.S. and Poland Agree to Missile Defense Deal
By ASSOCIATED PRESS

The Polish prime minister says that Poland and the United States have reached an agreement that will see a battery of American missiles established inside Poland.

[Imagine my surprise....]

[Patricia Shannon]

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/08/080813144405.htm

Mass Extinctions And 'Rise Of Slime' Predicted For Oceans
ScienceDaily (Aug. 13, 2008) — Human activities are cumulatively driving the health of the world's oceans down a rapid spiral, and only prompt and wholesale changes will slow or perhaps ultimately reverse the catastrophic problems they are facing.

Such is the prognosis of Jeremy Jackson, a professor of oceanography at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego, in a bold new assessment of the oceans and their ecological health. Jackson believes that human impacts are laying the groundwork for mass extinctions in the oceans on par with vast ecological upheavals of the past.

He cites the synergistic effects of habitat destruction, overfishing, ocean warming, increased acidification and massive nutrient runoff as culprits in a grand transformation of once complex ocean ecosystems. Areas that had featured intricate marine food webs with large animals are being converted into simplistic ecosystems dominated by microbes, toxic algal blooms, jellyfish and disease.

Jackson, director of the Scripps Center for Marine Biodiversity and Conservation, has tagged the ongoing transformation as "the rise of slime." The new paper, "Ecological extinction and evolution in the brave new ocean," is a result of Jackson's presentation last December at a biodiversity and extinction colloquium convened by the National Academy of Sciences.

"The purpose of the talk and the paper is to make clear just how dire the situation is and how rapidly things are getting worse," said Jackson. "It's a lot like the issue of climate change that we had ignored for so long. If anything, the situation in the oceans could be worse because we are so close to the precipice in many ways."
...
To stop the degradation of the oceans, Jackson identifies overexploitation, pollution and climate change as the three main "drivers" that must be addressed.

[hari]

Interesting news from Reuters just now -

Sarkosy ceasefire has not been signed by Tbilisi or Moscow.
Which explains why Russian forces are still in Georgia.
Sarkosy has asked Rice to get Saak's signature. Why didn't he do it himself when he was with Shaak? Myterious developments Ukariane has also given Russia notice NOT to move its vessels in Black Sea port - under Ukraine sovereignty - without official permission.

[anne]

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/14/world/europe/14document.html?ref=world&pagewanted=print

August 14, 2008

Peace Plan Offers Russia a Rationale to Advance
By ANDREW E. KRAMER

TBILISI, Georgia — It was nearly 2 a.m. on Wednesday when President Nicolas Sarkozy of France announced he had accomplished what seemed virtually impossible: Persuading the leaders of Georgia and Russia to agree to a set of principles that would stop the war.

Handshakes and congratulations were offered all around. But by the time the sun was up, Russian tanks were advancing again, this time taking positions around the strategically important city of Gori, in central Georgia.

It soon became clear that the six-point deal not only failed to slow the Russian advance, but it also allowed Russia to claim that it could push deeper into Georgia as part of so-called additional security measures it was granted in the agreement. Mr. Sarkozy, according to a senior Georgian official who witnessed the negotiations, also failed to persuade the Russians to agree to any time limit on their military action.

By mid-morning, European officials were warning of the risks of appeasing Russian aggression, while Georgian officials lamented the West's weak leverage.

"I'm talking about the impotence and inability of both Europe and the United States to be unified and to exert leverage, and to comprehend the level of the threat," said the senior Georgian official, who had sat in on the talks between Mr. Sarkozy and Georgia's president, Mikheil Saakashvili.

The senior Georgian official later made a copy of the deal available to The New York Times with what he said were notes marking changes the Georgians had asked for but failed to attain.

Of gripping importance to the Georgian government now, Western diplomats and Georgian officials said, is whether the agreement gave the Russians room to interpret the occupation of Gori and a zone around the city as agreed upon in the cease-fire, thus allowing them to control the main east-west road through the country, isolating the capital, Tbilisi, from the Black Sea coast and cutting off important supply routes.

In response, the United States began sending troops to Georgia to oversee aid to the capital on Wednesday.

France brokered the deal as the country holding the rotating presidency of the European Union. Bernard Kouchner, the foreign minister of France, visited Tbilisi and left with a four-point cease-fire plan.

The conditions were: no use of force; cease hostilities; open humanitarian corridors in the conflict areas; and Georgian and Russian troops withdraw to their pre-war positions.

In meetings in Moscow, the Russians insisted on two additional points, the Georgian official said, and Mr. Sarkozy carried these demands to Georgia, landing shortly after 10 p.m. Tuesday and driving straight to the Parliament building to meet Mr. Saakashvili.

Negotiating from a position of strength, the Russians demanded the fifth point, allowing their troops to act in what was termed a peacekeeping role, even outside the boundaries of the separatist enclaves where the war began, with an understanding that later an international agreement might obviate this need.

The vague language of the fifth point allows Russian peacekeepers to "implement additional security measures" while awaiting an international monitoring mechanism.

The Georgians asked that a timeline be included in the language for these loosely defined Russian peacekeeping operations, but the Georgian official said Mr. Sarkozy's response was that without an agreement, a Russian tank assault on the capital could ensue: "He was saying it's a difficult situation. He said, 'Their tanks are 40 kilometers from Tbilisi. This is where we are.' "

Mr. Sarkozy then tried to call Dmitri A. Medvedev, the Russian president, to amend the point with a timeline. The adviser, who was present, said the Russians did not take the call for two hours. When the French president got through, the proposal was rejected.

In the sixth point, both sides agreed that the status of the contested separatist regions would be pursued the future....

[Patricia Shannon]

I don't believe that quantum entanglement will turn out to be accurate. I haven't seen a description of an experiment that convinces me that it shows it. Being a liberal, I'm open to the idea that I could be wrong.

If they want to convince me, they could do something like bounce one of the photons off an object, changing it's polarization or transforming it into heat or something, and prove that it affects the other photon that is supposedly entangled. If a big change in one photon doesn't affect the other one, why would I believe a tiny change would?

[anne]

Georgia brutally shelled and invaded and occupied Ossetia, with no warning for no possible humane reason. Georgia was not immediately condemned by America or NATO or the European Union. Russians were attacked, and Russia responded and routed the Georgians. The rest has been a continual threatening of Russia, with language calling forth echoes of the Cold War.

Russia has been condemned and threatened, not Georgia, though Georgia was responsible for the sorry episode.

[Barkley Rosser]

What a mess.

BTW, anne, you are indeed right that it is not at all surprising that Poland has now agreed to this missile deal after Russia has engaged in such massive overreaching and overreacting. If they keep this up, there will be a boycott of the Sochi Olympics, only a few miles from where all this crap is going on.

[anne]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/politico/20080810/pl_politico/12419

August 9, 2008

"I just spoke separately with Secretary Rice and President Saakashvili about the grave crisis in Georgia. I told President Saakashvili that I was deeply concerned about the wellbeing of the people of Georgia.

"Over the last two days, Russia has escalated the crisis in Georgia through its clear and continued violation of Georgia's sovereignty and territorial integrity. On Friday, Aug. 8, Russian military forces invaded Georgia. I condemn Russia's aggressive actions and reiterate my call for an immediate ceasefire. Russia must stop its bombing campaign, cease flights of Russian aircraft in Georgian airspace, and withdraw its ground forces from Georgia...."

-- Barack Obama

[There is Obama....]

[anne]

"Poland has now agreed to this missile deal after Russia has engaged in such massive overreaching and overreacting."

"He was thinking, but she could tell he wasn't good at it."

[Patricia Shannon]

The Choice
copyright 1993 Patricia M. Shannon
(can be sung to the tune of "Holy, Holy, Holy"

As I go out a-walking in the forest peaceful,
climbing up the mountain trail until I reach the top,
looking o'er the valley I feel a sense of wonder
rising within me, filling all my soul.

How wonderful is nature, tiny lifeless atoms
bring forth the multitude forms of all life.
We are one of many, sharing genes with one-celled beings,
dependent upon the interwoven web of life.

We have developed powers of terrible destruction,
wiping out whole species that used to roam the earth,
Threatenning the whole earth with utter devastation,
blithely ignoring what we don't want to know.

It is our own choice which path we choose to follow;
do we love our children enough to change our ways?
Will we change our pattern of long-term self-destruction?
History says "No", but we can prove it wrong.

[anne]

Remember, now, the need in foreign policy is to make sure to prepare America for an interminable war in Afghanistan since the possibility of finishing a war in Iraq may be nearing. Preparing Afghanistan is another matter entirely. Oh, and remember to prepare Pakistan.

Still wondering why we are told we need another 100,000 soldiers? I'm not wondering.

Yes, we can.
Yes, we can.
Yes, we can.

[anne]

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/15/world/europe/15georgia.html?hp=&pagewanted=print

August 15, 2008

Russia Vows to Support Two Enclaves, in Retort to Bush
By CLIFFORD J. LEVY

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said Russia’s actions required a reassessment of efforts to create “an ongoing and long-term strategic dialogue with Russia.”

[We are nothing if not threatening.]

[anne]

What I understand, really understand, is just how wildly fierce we have become, and wish to be considered, and therein rests the appeal Democrats are making on foreign policy to conservatives.

[gordon]

Condoleezza Rice: "This is not 1968 and the invasion of Czechoslovakia, where Russia can threaten a neighbour, occupy a capital, overthrow a government and get away with it. Things have changed."

No, it's 2001. Or 2003. This woman has no shame. Maybe she has a highly developed sense of black humour, but for some reason I doubt it.

[Barkley Rosser]

anne,

You continue to cherry pick quotes from Obama. And, while Georgia blasted Tskhanvali and then invaded its own legal territory of South Ossetia (which was not a wise thing to do), it is also correct that Russia invaded Georgia and has escalated its activities since then, including after the Georgians retreated and what was supposedly a cease fire. Do you really wish to applaud the taking of Gori?

gordon,

Were you trying to be ironic about your reference to Rice using "black humour," or were you competing to be a candidate for anne's sneared-at-line that she continues to trot out about people thinking, but... ? (Which, of course, she will not use on you, as you are agreeing with you, although in this case, I happen to agree that Rice's remarks were pretty hypocritical)

[anne]

Gordon:

"This is not 1968 and the invasion of Czechoslovakia, where Russia can threaten a neighbour, occupy a capital, overthrow a government and get away with it. Things have changed."

-- Condoleezza Rice

This woman has no shame....

[Right.]

[hari]

If Lieberman & Israeli cabal succeeded in getting Saak to intervene in OS with full military combat forces - just as Chinese Olympics was getting its foreworks started - to give McCain a chance to become C-C - while BO surfs on Waikiki Beach - someone will have to investigate and report on how Isreali/IDF military training programme in Georgia - along with US Army trainers - influenced Saak's adventure in OS.

This story will surely get legs of its own if it can be proven that Georgian *aggression against OS* was well planned and executed with full knowledge of the Cabal behind McCain. Disingenious as it may sound, at first instance, it may be more to the point of blemishing BO for his lack of C-C experience and more.... The Israeli are not happy shld BO win the next election.

[Patricia Shannon]

Barkley Rosser says...

gordon,

Were you trying to be ironic about your reference to Rice using "black humour,"

I didn't even think of this comment in regards to Rice's race until you made an issue of it.