Before the coup: US media self-destructs again

Nearly three years after the controversial February 29, 2004 US-backed coup that ousted Haiti's democratically elected president Jean-Bertrand Aristide in the interests of ending what outside powers claimed was uncontrolled violence and corruption, the US State Department has this to say about travel to Haiti:

U.S. citizens traveling to and residing in Haiti are reminded that there is a chronic and growing danger of kidnappings. Most kidnappings are criminal in nature, and the kidnappers make no distinctions of nationality, race, gender or age; all are vulnerable. Over 60 Americans were kidnapped in 2006, most in Port-au-Prince. Many abductions are the result of carjacking or home invasions. Past kidnappings have been marked by deaths, sexual assault, shooting and physical assault of Americans. The lack of civil protections in Haiti, as well as the limited capability of local law enforcement to resolve kidnapping cases, further compounds the element of danger surrounding this trend.

U.S. citizens are also reminded of the potential for spontaneous protests and public demonstrations that can occur at any time, day or night, and may result in violence. While the nation-wide elections for municipal and other local positions on December 3rd, 2006, were conducted peacefully, political violence can occur at any time.
 -- emphasis added

If the ongoing violence in Haiti sounds distressingly like the ongoing meltdowns in the Middle-East, just be thankful that Haiti's resistance to occupation hasn't discovered the attention-getting power of roadside IEDs. At least, not yet.

Haiti, occupied by a force of over 8,000 under the United Nations (see MINUSTAH) since the coup, remains virtually ungovernable, most Haitians still bitter about the forced departure of Aristide, the widespread killing and official corruption that followed, as well as forced foreign takeovers of many Haitian industries.

For US media, Haiti traditionally occupies an extremely low level of interest, despite pervasive and intrusive official US involvement in its affairs since it became the world's first independent black republic in 1804.

What coverage of Haiti there has been in the US has normally consisted of reporters and editors carefully shaping "news" stories to conform to stated and unstated US policies.

On a par with William Randolph Hearst's tub-thumping that lied us into the Spanish-American war, the propaganda blitz conducted by three reporters for the Tribune-owned outlet Newsday in the runnup to the Haiti coup is illustrative.

According to the exceptionally well-documented and devastating analysis of the coverage by investigative reporter Diana Barahona at HaitiAnalysis.com, for example:

The easiest way for any journalist to express his own bias is through the use of sources. By using some sources and not others, selecting quotes that support a bias and presenting those quotes first, the journalist speaks through his sources. In the articles examined, Aristide’s opponents are always quoted first, allowing them to make outrageous charges such as this one: “He burns children in their homes; he destroys human rights; he must go!” Through the uncritical repetition of charges, the authors accuse Aristide of corruption no less than 14 times, and political assassination twice. They quote unnamed “critics” accusing Aristide of drug trafficking a total of four times: “Human rights groups accused him of ordering killings of political opponents and of involvement in drug trafficking, charges that Aristide denied” (Mar. 1, Newsday). Deibert’s preferred source is millionaire sweatshop owner Andy Apaid, followed by sweatshop owner Charles Baker, never identified as such in the press. Deibert uncritically quotes U.S.-trained paramilitary leader Guy Philippe (see photo), who claimed that “Aristide supporters were conducting alleged massacres in towns they hold.” (Notice Philippe’s use of transference—Aristide supporters and the Haitian police “hold” towns, as if they are the invaders and not Philippe’s men.)

All of these allegations are libelous; they would never have been published if they had been about a U.S. citizen. A journalist who quotes a person making an unsubstantiated charge is just as responsible for the libel as the person quoted—you don’t get out of it by saying that the object of the allegation denies it, or by using the word, “alleged.” Only in foreign reporting do reporters get away with these journalistic crimes.

Beyond the insult and injury to Haitians, the parallels in coverage of the runnup to the Iraq War, as well as in current press coverage of our potential dustup with Iran, are striking.

What makes this pattern of seemingly purposeful deception on the part of the theoretically free and independent press in the United States especially disturbing are the questions it raises about just how credible US news media and their reporters are on any subject of national importance.

Based on recent performance, not very.

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For continuing coverage of the Haiti disaster:

• http://www.haitianalysis.com
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• http://www.freehaiti.net
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Do pols love polls?

Most of us find polling information interesting, sometimes startling, sometimes frustrating.

I'd guess that most of Washington's beltway politicians pay at least as much attention, and perhaps more, to national polls than they do to their constituent communications.

National polling organizations take remarkable measures to ensure their polls are as accurate as possible, while a typical Senator or Representative is bombarded by email and letter campaigns which may or may not reflect actual voter sentiment.

Of course, if the national polls aren't asking the right questions, who's to say what voters really think about a particular thorny issue.

A recent example of not asking a pertinent question is the degree to which national polling organizations have avoided direct questions on the radioactive issue of Presidential impeachment.

While there is some evidence that there is a growing desire for a quick end to the Bush/Cheney control of the White House based in large part on a spreading perception that the pair seem to be engaged in grossly unconstitutional activities, the new Congress has flatly ruled out even a hint of starting the impeachment process that would resolve this issue.

Maybe the pollsters aren't asking the right questions.

If you have a spare 30 minutes, below is a list of contacts for the major news outlets and polling organizations. They will be grateful for your input as to what questions you'd like to see appear in their polls. After all, you are the ultimate consumer of the information.

Birthday boy

Today is my birthday, no. 65. Now officially an Old Fart (no longer just in name), additional duties are involved. Here goes.

Today, many who oppose the war in Iraq march in protest. Old Fart Prediction #1: Won't make much difference unless they carry torches and a rope.

That was easier than I thought. Meanwhile, more birthday stuff.

On this day in history, the Auschwitz Death Camp was liberated by the Red Army after evidence of its existence was systematically ignored for years by the Allies. Guess the Commies were good for something in WWII besides breaking the back of the German Army. Today is also the second "International Holocaust Remembrance Day". Note this is not a Federal holiday.

Among others, I share the same birthday with Lewis Carroll of "Alice In Wonderland" fame, and Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, whom Carroll, as well as Alice, would probably have been able to figure out pretty quickly. Too bad they weren't Senators.

Other notable events on this date:

• 1951 - Atomic testing begins at Frenchman Flats, Nevada
• 1973 - Paris Peace Accords signed, ending Vietnam War
• 1984 - Michael Jackson's hair catches fire in Pepsi ad
• 1990 to 1999 - Nothing happened in the 1990's
  
• 2006 - 7.6 Richter Scale quake in Banda Sea does not produce tsunami; and more recently...
  

My sign is Aquarius. According to the WikiPedia entry, people born under this sign are:

...associated with future ideas and the unusual. Individuals born under this sign are thought to have a creative, challenging, entertaining, progressive, stimulating, and independent character, but one which is also prone to rebelliousness, coldness, erraticism, cowardice, and impracticality.

Astrologically speaking, the Age of Aquarius will not start until the 27th century. For me and other Aquarians, this explains a lot.

I once researched and wrote a computer program that produced a detailed, lifetime horoscope based on answers to a few simple questions. It was completely bogus. Ditto for an I Ching program. I chuckle whenever I think of it.

Purely for the good of mankind, I'm now working on a program that predicts winning PowerBall numbers.

I hate it when people remember my birthday, but when they don't, I usually manage to slip it into the conversation someplace. I think I plagarized this from Andy Rooney.

Saddam still dead

White House spokesman Tony Snow today announced that, based on reliable reports, former Iraqi strongman Saddam Hussein is still dead.

"This is absolute proof of the wisdom of the President's 'New Way Forward' strategy," Snow advised astonished reporters.

Asked how the Administration came by the extraordinary information, Snow demurred. "We can't simply divulge our sources and methods to the public," Snow said. "If that happens, then the terrorists win."

"Just shows to go you what a piece of rope and a little imagination can do," Snow quipped, later commenting that the approach might well be tried in this country, depending on how the left-wing media spun this latest piece of good news.

The Enemy at Home

Is this country great, or what?

Not only are we a nation where you don't have to be smart to be President, honest to handle other people's money, or have high moral standards to be a preacher, you can actually be paid handsomely for being a raving lunatic.

Case in point for the latter assertion: Dinesh D'Souza, the Conservative darling who's moved so far to the right he's fallen over the edge into the camp of Those Who Would Destroy This Nation (TWWDTN™).

In his recent diatribe, "The Enemy at Home", Random House, $26.95, D'Souza makes Osama bin Laden's case that America has become corrupt due to the machinations of their common enemy, the "Left".

I am saying that the cultural left and its allies in Congress, the media, Hollywood, the nonprofit sector, and the universities are the primary cause of the volcano of anger toward America that is erupting from the Islamic world. -- Dinesh D'Souza

If only we could somehow rid ourselves of these troublesome imps, Dinesh seems to beg, then all would be well and Osama would become our buddy again, just like he was when he was busy thumping the Soviet Union during their own truly awsome Afghani adventure.

These are the kind of "Great Thots™" D'Souza has been generating while nesting gainfully at that great bastion of festering intellectualism, The Hoover Institute, named not as one might imagine for the vacuum cleaner, but for that great American President who helped destroy America's economy so thoroughly in the 1920's.

I can see the sequal to this D'Souza opus now: "Osama and Me: Why Nuking San Francisco is a Good Thing".

How to handle your monkey

ALERT TO TRAVELERS: HANDLE YOUR MONKEY LIKE WE SAY, OR ELSE

The Transportation Security Administration (TSA), the same folks who make your life a living hell when you attempt to board a flight to grandmother's house, have now thoughtfully supplied regulations detailing how TSA storm troopers should weed out your terrorist monkeys from your friendlies:

• When a monkey is being transported in a carrier, the monkey must be removed from the carrier by the handler prior to screening,
• The monkey must be controlled by the handler throughout the screening process.
• The monkey handler should carry the monkey through the WTMD while the monkey remains on a leash.
• When the handler and monkey go through the WTMD and the WTMD alarms, both the handler and the monkey must undergo additional screening.
• Since monkeys may likely draw attention, the handler will be escorted to the physical inspection area where a table is available for the monkey to sit on. Only the handler will touch or interact with the monkey.
• TSOs have been trained to not touch the monkey during the screening process.
• TSOs will conduct a visual inspection on the monkey and will coach the handler on how to hold the monkey during the visual inspection.
• The inspection process may require that the handler take off the monkey’s diaper as part of the visual inspection.

Presumably, violation of any of these regulations will be punished immediately by tasering. Of your monkey or your monkey's handler, not the TSO.

One remaining question: Which hand should you use to handle your monkey?

Scientists puzzle over date

When the first astronauts land on mars, what if they report finding a parking ticket on Sojourner, the 1997 Pathfinder probe's dead mobile sidekick?

In part, the ticket might read:

You must report to the Imperial Mars Traffic Court at noon on the Firbust of Qualdon or your vehicle will be impounded and we will be at bartlebutt!

Now what?

At White House urging, scientists at JPL and Houston's Mission Control frantically try to decipher the cryptic date and figure out what "bartlebutt" means.

Meanwhile, the American Enterprise Institute weighs in with its ominous prediction of alien terrorist attacks and screeches for a preemptive "new way forward," a surge of heavily armed astrowarriors followed up by thousands of pencil-necked, out-of-work astrogeeks with impeccable conservative credentials to man a Martian Occupation Authority. Could there not be oil on Mars, they ask?

Stay tuned.

Once and future queen

Remember legendary game show host Jack Bailey's historic cry, "You - could - be - QUEEN FOR A DAY!!!"

Turns out, it - could - ACTUALLY HAPPEN!!!

English Heritage, the UK's "...statutory adviser to the British government on the historic environment", has launched an international quest for claimants to the English throne.

They're looking for those who can trace their heritage to Anglo Saxon or Danish nobles before 1066. On their website they're politely requesting you to...

Please send a summary of your claim with copies of any supporting documents and stating your most likely gateway ancestor to:

Claimants to the English Throne
English Heritage
1 Waterhouse Square
138-142 Holborn
London EC1N 2ST

They neglect to say what first prize will be, but anything's possible. Use your imagination. Think PowerBall.

Iraqi Joke of the Day

From the Iraq Slogger, this wickedly morbid joke is making the rounds in Baghdad:

A driver is stuck in a traffic jam on the highway. Suddenly a man knocks on his window. The driver rolls down his window and asks, "What's going on?"

"Terrorists down the road have kidnapped George W. Bush and Dick Cheney," the man says, "They're asking $100 million ransom. Otherwise they're going to douse them with gasoline and set them on fire. We're going from car to car taking up a collection."

The driver asks, "How much is everyone giving on average?"

The man responds: "Most people are giving about a gallon."

Fair and balanced and insane

I knew Al-Jazeera TV must be good for something. Check out this transcript of a January 2, 2007 debate between Saddam Loyalist Mish'an Al-Jabouri and Shiite Iraqi Journalist Sadeq Al-Musawi, courtesy of the MEMRI TV Monitor Project.

Quick excerpts:

Sadeq Al-Musawi: You are a thief... You are a thief. You've been convicted for theft..

Mish'an Al-Jabouri : Get out. Saddam Hussein is your master and the master of your parents...

Borat needs to hire these guys for his sequel. Click here for the video with English subtitles.

Instant blowback

In the intelligence business, "blowback" is what happens when you secretly publish misinformation in an enemy's media or to their intelligence service, then that same misinformation accidently "blows back" into your own media or intelligence service and you wind up confusing your own people.

In years past, blowback was usually considered a bad thing. There were rules against letting it happen, because when it happened it usually created more problems on your side than the original propaganda against the enemy solved. There were actually laws against it. Actual laws. Of course, these days, who knows what the laws are. Most of them are secret and most of us don't have the "need to know".

Anyway, looks like blowback is now the law of the land and we've cut out the middle man. Newsweek has published a copy of a document they received titled, "Strategic Communications Plan - US Mission Iraq - December 2006", which details how the US Embassy in Iraq is planning to propagandize us here in the US, as well as the rest of the world, with diabolically crafted "news stories" designed to convince us that war is peace, freedom is slavery, etc. The usual things.

The Newsweek copy of the document is available on the internet, however, it's fairly huge and cumbersome to display. I downloaded it, pulled all the images out, and present it here for your viewing pleasure.

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Updated 2/23/2008: The Newsweek copy of the original PDF document is no longer available on the Newsweek website. However, here's a copy of the saved PDF file.

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To view any image full size in a new window, click on it. To toggle between image and text versions, use links below.

Images

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Heads up, incoming

Good news from Israel, they've discovered that good, old "let's you and them fight" strategy.

Offered Dec. 30, 2006 by Brigadier General Oded Tira of the Israeli Self Defense force writing on the y-net news website (emphasis added).

President Bush lacks the political power to attack Iran. As an American strike in Iran is essential for our existence, we must help him pave the way by lobbying the Democratic Party (which is conducting itself foolishly) and US newspaper editors. We need to do this in order to turn the Iranian issue to a bipartisan one and unrelated to the Iraq failure.
...
We must clandestinely cooperate with Saudi Arabia so that it also persuades the US to strike Iran. For our part, we must prepare an independent military strike by coordinating flights in Iraqi airspace with the US. We should also coordinate with Azerbaijan the use of airbases in its territory and also enlist the support of the Azeri minority in Iran. In addition, we must immediately start preparing for an Iranian response to an attack.
...
The Americans must act. Yet if they don't, we'll do it ourselves, because there are no free rides and our existence isn't guaranteed. Addressing Iran would have positive implications for us in terms of the strategic balance in our region and when it comes to Hizbullah, stability in Lebanon, and Syria's power.

Well, shucks, pilgrim. Guess y'all just have to do it by your own damn selves, then.

Goldwinger

All of us have heard of the dread Neoconservative boogeymen, but where do they actually want to go and how to they propose getting us there?

Personally, I have problems with their direction, logic, and funding (mostly mad millionaires), but what do I know? I'm not an expert and they claim to be.

Many of the Neoconservatives have the academic credentials and work experience to back up their claims to special expertise. I almost feel too unworthy to disagree with them, since I possess neither, but I usually just sort of buzz over that and focus on their logic and goals, or lack thereof.

Also, I also don't like the term, "Neoconservative". Too fuzzy, doesn't tell you anything. I prefer the term, "Goldwinger," as in "Goldfinger" and "Winger", hence the title of this post.

Perhaps the most concise and detailed statement of Goldwinger foreign policy objectives has been produced in the 96 page, September 7, 2006 final report of The Princeton Project on National Security (requires free PDF viewer) sponsored by the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs (WWS) at Princeton University.

Of great interest in the final report of The Princeton Project on National Security is its Executive Summary which starts on page 10 of the PDF file (page 5 of the document) laying out Goldwinger objectives, which include:

• Preemptive wars to advance US interests (think Haliburton)
• A "Concert of Democracies" led by the US (basically, a buddy club -- we decide who gets in)
  
• Exclusionary foreign policy -- active alienation and marginalization of "non-democratic" nations (we decide who they are and which ones we're going to war with)
  
• Solving the energy crisis with high tax rates

The list goes on. I encourage you to read the whole thing and form your own opinion, if you're so inclined.

Some background on WWS and Princeton.

Princeton and the family of the couple who provided a 1961 endowment for WWS, the Robertson Trust, have been in litigation for several years over the issue of how Princeton is using the Robertson Trust funds.

The family contends the money was donated and is only available on condition that WWS train and place scholars in the federal diplomatic and national security establishment and that's not been happening. Princeton and WWS contend they can do what they want with the money, so there. Current value of the Robertson Trust, over half a billion dollars.

Despite the relatively huge size of the WWS endowment, for some reason WWS also finds it necessary to solicit and accept sizable grants from a laundry list of extreme right wing, Goldwinger-type foundations. I'll leave you to Google it out. Sample Google links: The Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, the Scaife Foundation, the Henry Luce Foundation, and the John M. Olin Foundation.

I know this is a little boring, but just ask yourself what James Bond would do with a Goldwinger.

Presidential psychopath? Here's a test

Many in the blogosphere and a few in the mainstream media have noted that, based on his public statements and actions, there seems to be something slightly peculiar about President Bush's behavior.

Some have even speculated that President Bush may have psychopathic tendencies.

One way to judge for yourself is to use the below standard evaluation form used by psychiatrists and see how your insight into the President's public behavior squares with the "psychopath" hypothesis. (You might have to wait a couple of seconds for the form to load.)

Note that you must check off all items before the evaluation can be made.

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Added comment: Poll now closed and final results posted below.

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In contemporary research and clinical practice, Robert Hare's Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R), below, is the psycho-diagnostic tool most commonly used to assess Psychopathy.

This version of PCL-R excludes items that cannot be determined from what is in the public record regarding President Bush. Those items are preselected as "Doesn't Apply" and their omission is factored into the final score. (Please note that the interactive poll functions are disabled.)

POLL CLOSED 1/3/2007, 6:30 P.M., CST - FINAL RESULTS BELOW

Behavioral Trait	Doesn't Apply	Applies Somewhat	Fully Applies
Glibness/superficial charm
Grandiose sense of self-worth
Need for stimulation/proneness to boredom
Pathological lying
Conning/manipulative
Lack of remorse or guilt
Shallow affect
Callous/lack of empathy
Parasitic lifestyle
Poor behavioral controls
Promiscuous sexual behavior (N/A)
Early behavioral problems
Lack of realistic, long-term goals
Impulsivity
Irresponsibility
Failure to accept responsibility for own actions
Many short-term marital relationships (N/A)
Juvenile delinquency (N/A)
Revocation of conditional release (N/A)
Criminal versatility

FINAL RESULTS: Out of 6,595 evaluations submitted, the average score is 32.3850. Discarding both high (40) and low (1) scores produces 5,540 submissions with an average of 31.0404.

4,499 respondents out of 6,595 (68 percent) rated President Bush's public behavior as consistent with that of a psychopath by submitting evaluations with scores over 30.

A score higher than 30 supports a diagnosis of psychopathy (25 in some studies -- 5,566 [84 percent] placed Bush in this category).

US by state breakdown - all scores - (4,460 scores by identifiable state):

State Count Avg. Score AK 17 31 AL 29 32 AR 15 35 AZ 68 32 CA 827 32 CO 141 31 CT 53 33 DC 41 30 DE 8 36 FL 140 32 GA 138 30 HI 25 34 IA 45 31 ID 13 32 IL 204 32 IN 44 31 KS 29 31 KY 18 29 LA 26 32 MA 230 31 MD 97 31 ME 17 35 MI 114 32 MN 81 30 MO 74 33

State Count Avg. Score MS 9 35 MT 10 28 NC 100 31 ND 6 26 NE 20 35 NH 15 36 NJ 126 32 NM 18 29 NV 18 31 NY 336 32 OH 115 31 OK 25 28 OR 142 33 PA 124 32 RI 16 36 SC 27 30 SD 3 29 TN 39 34 TX 274 31 UT 26 32 VA 129 31 VT 12 33 WA 264 32 WI 95 32 WV 5 28 WY 12 27

Outside US by country breakdown - all countries with >3 submissions - (1,313 scores by identifiable country):

Country Count Avg. Score Argentina 4 34 Australia 161 31 Austria 10 34 Belgium 17 33 Brazil 7 33 Canada 330 32 Chile 5 33 China 4 34 Czech Republic 6 28 Denmark 26 28 Finland 22 27 France 30 33 Germany 74 30 India 9 32 Ireland 22 33 Israel 5 27

Country Count Avg. Score Italy 20 34 Japan 27 30 Luxembourg 4 34 Malaysia 4 35 Netherlands 41 34 New Zealand 36 31 Norway 19 33 Portugal 10 30 Singapore 9 29 South Africa 10 34 Spain 17 29 Sweden 17 31 Switzerland 20 31 Taiwan 6 29 Thailand 5 27 United Kingdom 330 31 Uruguay 6 32

Forensic studies of prison populations have reported average scores of around 22 on PCL-R; "normal" control populations show an average score of around 5.

Scores were adjusted for uncounted items.

Note this reflects only submitted evaluations and doesn't represent a truly random sample.

Kidnapping 101

Watched the Sunday talk shows today, not all of them and not from start to finish. Who could stand that?

The consensus among the mixed bag of retired generals, the usual POV pundits, and partisan political hacks is that, "we're just going to have to surge our troops and embed more of them in the Iraqi Army and police so we can train 'em up," and "surrender is not an option."

Is anyone else's BS detector flashing Code Red?

At the same time our nation's bestest and brightest were nattering away, yet another group of Iraqis "dressed in Iraqi Army commando battle dress" kidnapped an undetermined number of Red Crescent workers from their offices in Baghdad.

The Red Crescent is the arm of the International Red Cross that operates in the Middle East. Currently, it is the only international non-governmental aid agency with the courage to stick it out in Iraq. That may not last much longer.

Stupid Question 1: What is the evidence that people dressed in Iraqi Army battle gear aren't actually Iraqi Army troops?

Stupid Question 2: If we accelerate the training of Iraqi Army and police and do a good job of it, what are the odds one of the important lessons they'll learn is how to be better kidnappers?

I leave it to the gentle readers to answer these questions for themselves.

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Gamed

An exact match Google search for the name "Paul Van Riper" produces about 18,600 hits.

Van Riper is a retired Marine Corps general officer who became famous for demonstrating to the Department of Defense in July 2002 exactly what would happen, and how it would happen, when and if the U.S. invaded Iraq. See Tom Engelhardt's blog for one account, or do the Google thing.

Briefly, Lt. Gen. Van Riper was cast in the role of enemy commander (read "Iraqi insurgent commander" here) in the most costly Pentagon war game in its history, the $250,000,000 "Millennium Challenge 02" exercise.

Lt. Gen. Van Riper won. He won bigtime. He won using exactly the strategies and tactics used by the Iraqi resistance from the beginning of our Iraqi adventure through today. At least he won until the Pentagon stopped the exercise, turned the clock back, and decreed that he could no longer use those devilish tactics.

To his credit, General Van Riper stepped down in protest as "enemy commander".

So, to sum it up, not only did the Bush Administration suppress, distort and fake intelligence, ignore advice from foreign policy and military experts, they also refused to believe their own quarter-billion dollar demonstration of exactly how and why Operation Iraqi Freedom would fail.

Go figure.

The name is Rosbaud, Paul Rosbaud

World War II's greatest allied spy died in 1963, yet nearly 62 years after the end of the war, while acknowledging we may have lost that war without Paul Rosbaud, British and American intelligence services still refuse to release details of his contributions, citing interests of national security.

Rosbaud's family is currently suing Britain's MI6 for release of files chronicling his wartime exploits.

A brief summary about what is publicly known of his career is available here. Ever faithful to his sense of honor, he destroyed his personal papers shortly before his death.

In the US the upper limit on classification of secret information is 25 years. Release of information regarding intelligence sources and methods may be delayed longer, but that is discretionary, and by no means prohibited.

Makes one curious about what could possibly still be sensitive about events that occurred more than half a century ago involving those long dead. Rosbaud was also deeply involved in spiriting Jewish refugees out of the Third Reich throughout the war.

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Checkmate

Former NSA director William Odom debunks what he calls 6 myths that underly the current debate about the Bush administration's "new way forward", as well as the ISG report, past and present policy on Iraq.

For an online copy of his commentary, “Six Brutal Truths about Iraq”, click here.

I don't mean to blow my own horn, but Gen. Odom's objections, originally published on December 11, pretty much parallel the objections I outlined on November 20th, except I pointed out 7 assumptions instead of 6 and was vastly more snarky. This may be a result of the inherent advantage in being a former NCO rather than a former General. [Snark]

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Lieutenant General William E. Odom, U.S. Army (Ret.), is a Senior Fellow with Hudson Institute and a professor at Yale University. He was Director of the National Security Agency from 1985 to 1988. From 1981 to 1985, he served as Assistant Chief of Staff for Intelligence, the Army's senior intelligence officer. From 1977 to 1981, he was Military Assistant to the President's Assistant for National Security Affairs, Zbigniew Brzezinski.

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Darned old technicalities

National Public Radio's Scott Horsley reported on Thursday, December 14, 2006 that a firm awarded a contract to build part of the border fence between San Diego and Mexico has agreed to pay nearly $5 million in fines because up to a third of their work force were illegal immigrants from Mexico.

Read the full story here.

Wonder if we need to reframe this problem so we can start getting a handle on it. The people we're referring to as "illegal immigrants", "illegal aliens", or "law breakers" aren't the evil types those terms conjure up. Look at their record of hard work and sacrifice after they arrive. If we need a more accurate description, how about "economic refugee".

For a variety of reasons, including a tradition of official corruption in Mexico introduced by Spain when Mexico was its colony, and our own one-sided exploitation of the NAFTA agreement with Mexico, the Mexican economy stinks. It's not able to provide jobs for its people at any wage, let alone a living wage. Mexico is perilously close to being a failed state.

Normally, most countries don't accord refugee status to those fleeing economic hardship. But the situation in Mexico is so severe that it may be time to reevaluate that policy. The severity should be obvious to anyone who can count.

I'm guessing ignoring it won't make it go away.

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Win-win, win-win

According to a March 11, 1998 online chat with Vermont Senator Patrick Leahy it cost, at that time, "about $2 billion" a year to run both houses of congress.

That sum had grown to about $3.5 billion by 2004, or an average of about $673,000 per Senator and Representative, according to a July 21, 2004 Heritage Foundation report.

You see where the trend is going.

The question is, could this activity be accomplished more economically and more efficiently? I would submit, absolutely!

$673K per body sounds a little high to me and, in keeping with the Congress's admirable drive to make each of us more COMPETITIVE by putting ALL of us into the GLOBAL ECONOMY without fear or favor, this seems the ideal candidate for outsourcing. Leading by example, all that.

Preferably, outsourcing will be to multiple call centers overseas where, in order to avoid any appearance of impropriety, the "Senators" and "Representatives" will speak only obscure languages entirely unknown to people who live in this country.

Since the only people who talk to Senators and Representatives are lobbyists who are forcing totally legal bribes on them so they will provide huge, totally legal Federal payouts to the lobbyists' clients, this could generate even greater savings over the course of a year.

Assuming a cost of $2.25 per hour for each "Senator" and "Representative", and given that their services will be required for about 100 days per year at 6 hours per day, this yields an annual cost of $702,000. Savings per year: $3,499,298,000 or 99.99 percent, nearly the entire current cost! Dare we call this "chump change"?

Note to self: have call center employees continuously crunch potato chips and pralines while on line and don't hire anyone who can count above 10, thereby letting even huger budget cuts ensue. (Charge employees for all snacks)

It is with sensible economies like this that we will very, very shortly be able to pay off the national debt, save Social Security, provide universal health care, and gift everyone with 2 Cadillac Escalades per year plus a trip to Las Vegas.

And, if we are smart enough to hire young Arab speakers and rotate them through the call centers on a weekly basis, we will automatically soak up the al-Queda labor pool, thus winning the war on terror .

Win-win, win-win.