February 1, 2010 archive

The Deep State, Part 2, PD Scott

SCOTT: Well, it certainly informs the vision of people around him. It was the neocon vision for the world. Brzezinski was certainly not a neocon, but on this point he sounds very much like them. You know, when [Paul] Wolfowitz and [Lewis “Scooter”] Libby were working for Cheney, when Cheney was secretary of defense back in 1992, they came up with this defense planning guidance draft which was later disowned, but it was the same thing, that we must maintain the mechanisms for deterring potential competitors from even aspiring to a larger regional or global role. And then there was a JCS [Joint Chiefs of Staff] strategic document, Joint Vision 2020, which for all I know is still in force, calling for “full spectrum dominance.” And this is a quote from the document: full spectrum dominance means the ability of US forces operating alone or with our allies to defeat any adversary and control any situation across the range of military operations. I mean, this talk is just insane, but it is the language of geopolitics, and I think it’s the language that people learn in military schools. And that’s why it’s wrong to think it was just neocons. I’ve written something very recently and I’d like to quote it: all thought is socially conditioned, and at the center of large, highly developed societies, all bureaucratic thought is bureaucratically conditioned. But at the heart of dominant societies, this bureaucratic thinking slowly acquires the features of a dominance mindset, and those conditioned by this mindset come to participate in what I call the war machine. We saw it in Britain. And ironically, you know, when Britain started talking about global dominance, it was Sir Halford Mackinder, and the year was 1919, when Britain was already, after World War I, destined to no longer play the role that it played before. It’s a way, I think, of trying to keep the morale up. And I think that Brzezinski, when he wrote that book in 1997, he was worried that America would not be interested in playing the dominance role. And he, of course, is by background a Pole, for whom the great enemy in the world was Russia. And so he was trying to cheer America on to do things which it’s not capable of doing. His metaphor is The Grand Chessboard, which is, of course, a zero-sum model for world politics. The good sense of geopolitics is the way it’s been talked about by, say, Kissinger, when he says it’s seeking a mode of equilibrium in the world. And that, I think, is [inaudible] I think a better model than a chessboard for the world would be a canoe, an overloaded canoe with some very heavy players and it, and the art of geopolitics is to learn not to capsize the canoe.

JAY: And when you look at President Obama’s own statements during the election campaign when asked about foreign policy, he always rooted himself very clearly in what he said was the tradition of American pragmatic foreign policy, starting with Truman. He even included George Bush senior, Reagan. He never differentiated himself fundamentally, other than with George Bush junior. But the idea, even his opposition to the war in Iraq, had to do with that it was a stupid war that would weaken America’s ability to project power. So if you look at, in terms of Latin America, Afghanistan, his relationship with Russia, in terms of this either change of mindset or traditional, dominant theory of dominance, where do you put him after one year?

SCOTT: Well, as long as he’s trying to look forward to a second term, he’s going to fit into Washington. And I watched Brzezinski’s interview with you-a very good interview, I thought-and I can see how Brzezinski repeatedly said that he’s now no longer inside the system; he’s an outside adviser and remote from the way power decisions are made. I think that’s true. That allows him to be much wiser than he was when he wrote his book or when he had his famous interview with Le Nouvel Observateur in 1998. He is a wise man now, and almost by definition that means he doesn’t have as much influence. The wise are not the people who prevail in Washington. So that Obama, now that he’s at the heart of things, he’s got to live with his joint chiefs, he’s got to live with his Democratic Party. I mean, a lot of us like to think that democracy is the answer, but if we mean by democracy the two-party system that we have, the two-party system is very definitely part of the problem, because he is going to get attacked. If he does anything to pull back from Afghanistan, if he does anything that looks like he’s knuckling under to those outside forces there, he will be jumped on by members of both parties, who are, of course, all elected with the same money from the same big donors. We used to emphasize how the big donors came from the military-industrial complex, but we have to add to that now, having seen what’s happened in the last couple of years, they’ve come also from Wall Street and the big banks. They’re all part of the same -.



Real News Network – February 1, 2010

Full Transcript here


New mindset for US foreign policy? Part 2

Peter Dale Scott: If you unleash the dogs of war it’s not easy to pull them back.

Part 1 of this interview is here.

Muse in the Morning

Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket
Muse in the Morning


Above and Below

(Click on image for larger view)

Stories We Tell Ourselves

This is a crosspost from naranja

We tell ourselves a lot of stories. There’s nothing wrong with that; in fact we need them. But we should always be looking at what the story we’re telling is, and what the underlying stories are.

Late Night Karaoke

Open Thread

Monday Morning Meta Madness

hitchhikingYou see, my goal for DocuDharma is to make it a cool place to hang out.  A no pressure zone where you can let it slip on occasion that you’re part of the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party without having people get all in your face like you’re a Yankee fan.  A virtual Cheers where everyone knows your name Norm! and you can ignore blowhards like Cliff.

Liveblogging is hard, but no harder than on many other platforms.  You just have to remember to hit the ‘Refresh’ button on your browser instead of admiring your last bon mot for an hour or two.

On the other hand (appointment blogging) it sucks when you get no feedback from your audience.

Now I don’t seem to have a problem with that so much in part because I don’t care what people think, and also I’m perfectly comfortable expressing my interior dialog (and they called me mad at the institute).  I talk to myself all day every day and twice as much on Sundays.

And I watch TV.  All the time.  I can’t remember the last time I turned it off.

Coming up in GroundHog Month are some major sports events that I think we can enjoy together-

Puppy Bowl, Curling, America’s Cup.

While I’m content to try and provide content myself, I think the Olympics is a little more than I can handle even on steroids and I’d like some volunteers.

Oh you betcha.

President Palin renews and expands enhanced interrogation program

Crossposted at Daily Kos

Jan 30th, 2017

    Just days after being inaugaurated as America’s 45th President, Sarah Palin has announced that her administration will renew the enhanced interrogation programs that began after 9/11.

    “We take very, very seriously the threat that potential terrorists expose upon our freedoms, so I decided that we shouldn’t take any options off the table. Now every police station in the country will be equipped to interrogate the thousands and thousands of terrorists that are hiding in our country. Until we know how many terrorists there really are in America my baby Trig and the rest of America can never be really safe, doncha know. And we can never really know until we start interrogating random Americans, who should have nothing to fear if they aren’t involved with the terrorists. Also, just think of all the new jobs this will create, since we are gonna need a lot of new police officers to deal with all the new terrorists we have to find. Today is a great day for freedom.” President Palin said with a wink towards the cameras.

This just may be our BEST chance to turn this country around!



International Criminal Court – The Hague

As they say, “just one individual CAN make a difference.”

Prof. Francis A. Boyle, Professor of International Law, University of Illinois College of Law, of Champaign, Illinois, U.S.A., has filed a Complaint with the Prosecutor for the International Criminal Court (I.C.C.), in The Hague, against U.S. citizens George W. Bush, Richard Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, George Tenet, Condoleeza Rice, and Alberto Gonzales (the Accused).”  The Complaint is based on the “criminal policy and practice of ‘extraordinary renditions’ perpetrated upon about 100 human beings,” which practice represents “Crimes against Humanity” and are “in violation of the Rome Statute establishing the I.C.C.” * (emphasis mine)

The Honorable Luis Moreno-Ocampo

Office of the Prosecutor

International Criminal Court

Post Office Box 19519

2500 CM, The Hague

The Netherlands

Fax No.: 31-70-515-8555

Email: [email protected]

January 19, 2010

Dear Sir:

Please accept my personal compliments. I have the honor hereby to file with you and the International Criminal Court this Complaint against U.S. citizens George W. Bush, Richard Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, George Tenet, Condoleezza Rice , and Alberto Gonzales (hereinafter referred to as the “Accused”) for their criminal policy and practice of “extraordinary rendition.”  This term is really a euphemism for the enforced disappearances of persons, their torture, severe deprivation of their liberty, their violent sexual abuse, and other inhumane acts perpetrated upon these Victims. The Accused have inflicted this criminal policy and practice of “extraordinary rendition” upon about one hundred (100) human beings, almost all of whom are Muslims/Arabs/Asians and People of Color. I doubt very seriously that the Accused would have inflicted these criminal practices upon 100 White Judeo-Christian men.  .  .  .  .

[Note:  A reading of the entirety of the Complaint can be found here.

Accountability?

Andrew Sullivan has a funny sense of accountability.  Essentially, because the Chilcot Inquiry forced Tony Blair to be “answerable,” in words only, and defiant words at that, for his role in a war of aggression, the most heinous criminal acts imaginable, the “most serious crimes of concern to the international community,” crimes against peace, including

(i) Planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war of aggression or a war in violation of international treaties, agreements or assurances;

(ii) Participation in a common plan or conspiracy for the accomplishment of any of the acts mentioned under (i).

Sullivan thinks a score has been settled?  An account has been balanced?  A debt has been paid?  Tony Blair is no longer in arrears?

Closer to War with Iran (Update: A Strange Threat from Ahmadinejad)

From IPS…

In a surprisingly swift move on Thursday night that could have wide-ranging implications, the U.S. Senate passed a bill containing broad unilateral sanctions to punish foreign companies that export gasoline to Iran or help expand its domestic refinery capabilities.

“This means that no president can lift the embargo without certifying to Congress that Iran has met a laundry list of demands that no president in his right mind will certify,” (Patrick Disney, the assistant policy director of the National Iranian American Council) told IPS.

Furthermore, “crippling sanctions,” as broad-based gas sanctions are often called, is a potential checklist item on a path to military confrontation with Iran. But some think imposing and enforcing the sanctions themselves could be tantamount to war.

“Even half of the people that proposed (gas sanctions) say the only way to really impose that is a naval blockade,” said (Richard Sawaya, the president of USA*Engage, a group that opposes unilateral sanctions).

“Well, that’s an act of war!”

When this article appeared Friday, January 29, I thought it was premature to start talking about a naval blockade, but within 24 hours the other shoe dropped.

Too Big to Fail: Bigger, Failer.

Neil Barofsky says gub’mint bail-out is not only a big fat fail, but has exacerbated the risks:

from the SIGTARP Executive Summary, pdf

The substantial costs of TARP – in money, moral hazard effects on the market, and Government credibility – will have been for naught if we do nothing to correct the fundamental problems in our financial system and end up in a similar or even greater crisis in two, or five, or ten years’ time.  It is hard to see how any of the fundamental problems in the system have been addressed to date.

• To the extent that huge, interconnected, “too big to fail” institutions contributed to the crisis, those institutions are now even larger, in part because of the substantial subsidies provided by TARP and other bailout programs.

• To the extent that institutions were previously incentivized to take reckless risks through a “heads, I win; tails, the Government will bail me out” mentality, the market is more convinced than ever that the Government will step in as necessary to save systemically significant institutions. This perception was reinforced when TARP was extended until October 3, 2010, thus permitting Treasury to maintain a war chest of potential rescue funding at the same time that banks that have shown questionable ability to return to profitability (and in some cases are posting multi-billion-dollar losses) are exiting TARP programs.

• To the extent that large institutions’ risky behavior resulted from the desire to justify ever-greater bonuses – and indeed, the race appears to be on for TARP recipients to exit the program in order to avoid its pay restrictions – the current bonus season demonstrates that although there have been some improvements in the form that bonus compensation takes for some executives, there has been little fundamental change in the excessive compensation culture on Wall Street.

To the extent that the crisis was fueled by a “bubble” in the housing market, the Federal Government’s concerted efforts to support home prices – as discussed more fully in Section 3 of this report – risk re-inflating that bubble in light of the Government’s effective takeover of the housing market through purchases and guarantees, either direct or implicit, of nearly all of the residential mortgage market.

Stated another way, even if TARP saved our financial system from driving off a cliff back in 2008, absent meaningful reform, we are still driving on the same winding mountain road, but this time in a faster car.

Congrats, Bush, Obama & The Rubinites!  This one is going platinum.  What was once just “Bigger and Deffer!” is now “Biggerer and Defferer!”

Saving the trees…and maybe the bats

Back in the middle of October I posted a piece entitled Save the Trees which you were all kind enough to elevate to the Rec List.  It concerned the efforts of a local group to fight the powers that be in West Orange, NJ to prevent the destruction of the Governor George Brinton McClellan Estate Old-Growth Forest and Arboretum in order that Seton Hall Prep could build additional sports field and parking lots.  This land is the only old-growth forest within the northern New Jersey metropolitan area which is unprotected and endangered.

You can read more of the background at the link above.  Tonight, however, I wanted to provide an update on the situation.

The trees have won a temporary reprieve…as well as an endangered species of bat which may or may not be using some of them.

Overnight Caption Contest

Load more