Mr. Paul goes to Washington

Mr. Paul goes to Washington

I think Senator Rand Paul was right yesterday and hope you’ll read why.

Lessons from Mumbai

Lessons from Mumbai

 

As I am sure you know, Mumbai was recently attacked and while the number of people killed was smaller than on 9/11 (which was not as many believe the ‘worst terrorist attack ever’) comparisons have been drawn between the two incidents because of the iconic nature of the buildings involved.  Because so many US officials think we are the center of the world, these are probably the same sort who refused to believe we live in a helio-centric vs. geo-centric solar system, many assumed this was really some kind of attack on either America or American values.  It wasn’t. 

 

1.        The US is not the only country on earth.  The Mumbai attacks had nothing to do with us.  Tensions between India and Pakistan have been high since they split. 

2.       When we change our way of life because of terrorists’ actions, they win.  I would rather die in a free society than live in a closed one.  That seems to be the way a lot of people in Mumbai feel.  I saw a quote from one Mumbai resident who said she refused to let the terrorists change the way she lived her life.  We need to pay attention to that.

3.       It’s really all about Allah.  No, really it isn’t.  We blame religion or ethnic conflict when bad things happen for a few reasons.  Different groups use these as cover for their actions but at the end of the day, people don’t blow themselves up for religion or racism.  They do it because they are poor and the targets they hit often are not.  Mumbai provides the perfect example of this; India’s economy is growing rapidly, Pakistan is stuck somewhere in a different century.  Thomas Friedman has talked about this a lot in terms of the Palestinians and Israelis; he has also said that no two countries that both have McDonalds have ever fought each other.  India definitely has the chain.

4.       Terrorism happens.  D’uh, I know.  Obvious right?  The Mumbai attacks did not involve planes or highly advanced weaponry, though Blackberries and GPS were used.  We are never going to end terrorism and we certainly aren’t going to be able to do it with the military or police. 

 

It’s a hard pill to swallow, this world we live in.  I don’t think the world changed on 9/11/01.  I think it just came calling.  If someone wants something badly enough, they will find a way to get it.  That includes drugs, or an abortion, or a gun or if they just want to create chaos.  We need to work on the whys and not the hows if we want to protect ourselves and our allies.  That’s the real lesson from Mumbai.

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Sanity returns or does it?

The results of the presidential election may have indicated a return to sanity for the US government but that news does not seem to have reached to into the White House. As the rest of us are celebrating Barack Obama's win, President Bush sees this time as a dangerous one. One of the great things about this country and our system of government is that we can peacefully manage the transfer of power from one administration/political party to another. Mr. Bush et al never got that memo and are now saying we are vulnerable due to the transition, http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/07/us/politics/07transition.html?hp.

While Dubya's comments were meant to refer to terrorists who could exploit this time, his comments suggested the real problems may be with his staff and political appointees.

“For the next 75 days, all of us must ensure that the next president and his team can hit the ground running,” Mr. Bush said in an emotional speech to hundreds of employees of the executive branch on the South Lawn of the White House. He urged them to “conduct yourselves with the decency and professionalism that you have shown throughout my time in office.”

One has to wonder why such comments are even needed. Perhaps some remember back to when the then-incoming Dubya staffers complained that the outgoing Clinton staffers trashed the place — allegations that were later proven to be false but who ever reads retractions or apologies buried on page 28? Even if one were to believe the worst of the claims from back then, no one ever thought the Clinton admin was going to do anything to threaten our national security. I have become so used to Dubya's fear mongering that I am surprised this statment was made last week. I guess there were no bin Laden tapes to leak at the last minute like in 2004.

Of course, little this man does makes any sense to me. According to the same article:

“As we head into the final stretch, I ask you to remain focused on the goals ahead,” Mr. Bush said, his lips pursed and his face reddening slightly. “I will be honored to stand with you at the finish line.”

Whatever that means.

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More crap to keep me up at night

By now, you probably know that Charlie Black, a McCain campaign staffer, told Fortune magazine that a terrorist attack would help McCain's candidacy.  When people got upset he apologized and McCain had to distance himself from the comment and the person but something does not add up about it.  People say stupid things all the time but this doesn't look or smell like that.  It looks like a calculated move by John McCain to save his campaign.

 

Exhibit A would be all the polling data that shows how much this issue helps the GOP.  The Wall Street Journal reported today that:

 

"The Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks made national security a major issue for Republicans. President Bush enjoyed strong public support in the aftermath, helping lift members of his party in 2002 and 2004 elections. In October 2004, shortly before his re-election, 77% of voters listed terrorism as very important to their vote, according to the Pew Research Center. Three years later, the survey found 69% of Americans saw it as very important"

… and…"A Gallup survey released Tuesday revealed that 70% of Americans think Sen. McCain would do a good job of handling terrorism, compared with 49% for Sen. Obama." (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121435467915401859.html?mod=googlenews_wsj). 

 

Exhibit B:  McCain's response:  When Rev. Hagee made comments about Hitler and the Catholic church and Katrina, among other things — that guy is out of his mind, McCain was unequivocal in renouncing his supporter. 

 

Obviously, I find these remarks and others deeply offensive and indefensible, and I repudiate them. I did not know of them before Rev. Hagee's endorsement, and I feel I must reject his endorsement as well." (http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/05/22/mccain.hagee/ — this has McCain's response and some of Hagee's thoughts on the world.)

 

Senator McCain's response to the Fortune comments was tame in comparison, "I cannot imagine why he would say it. It's not true.  I've worked tirelessly since 9/11 to prevent another attack on the United States of America. My record is very clear."  (multiple sources, Google it if you don't believe me) 

 

Notice that McCain doesn't actually say Black is wrong? Sure, he seems to say that the comments 'aren't true' but then he jumps on to his record on terrorism?  What about his other standard response about war?  He usually says something along the lines of "Winning the war is more important than winning an election."  Why not retool that line here?  Because Barack Obama leads him in the polls by at least 15 percentage points. It was great to see the Wall Street Journal article on this because it is true that Democrats have avoided saying this because we thought it made us look whiny.  I cannot even begin to tell you how many times I know John Kerry would have a major event and the Department of Homeland Security would hold a press conference about the terrorism threat to the country.  Major networks (like CNN, MSNBC) would say they planned to cover the Kerry event but then this other thing came up. .. (no, I am not too bitter).

 

This whole thing just pisses me off because there should be a line between politicking and governing.  You may think this is how it always has been but that's no excuse for us to put up with it.

 

PS.  Another really good piece on this is here:  http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/25/AR2008062500314_2.html

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9/11 let’s have some perspective here

First a word of advice for all the GOP hopefuls who will never read this and could not care less about my thoughts but here goes:

If you are in a debate with Rudy Guiliani, unless you are secretly working for him, DO NOT bring up 9/11!  You can be as right as rain on this one — and I personally believe our presence in Iraq has only created a fertile ground for terrorists to recruit and train, which does NOT mean I think the Iraq war caused 9/11 BUT it saved his career.  As a NYer, I lived under him and HATED him as a Mayor.  He was awful.  Police brutality was up by about 30 percent (and real shoot first and ask questions later kind of brutality, like the two people shot 20 times or more when they were ASKED TO GET THEIR ID).  He was a 'tough on crime' kind of guy, so his police broke down the wrong door several times a week?  You wanna safer city, or what?  Whatchu gonna do about it?  But mention 9/11 and he gets to hit one out of the ballpark so do not give him that chance.

As for my position on that day, it's a little complicated.  Being from NY and having lived in both cities that were attacked (ps.  all you 9/11 conspiracy theorists who think your data is backd up by the WAY the towers fell, how EXACTLY does the Pentagon or PA planes figure into your process?) I consider that say to be the worst of my life (to date, hope nothing worse happens).   When I needed comfort — and I was willing to give Dubya a lot of leeway but when he finally emerged, he looked like a deer in the headlights.  I desperately misses President Clinton and was genuinely comforted by Rudy. I never voted for him, wrote letters to his city hall, hated him as Mayor but that day he was the comforting figure I needed, and I am not alone in that.  But it has been six years.  Truth be told I cannot look at the Manhattan skyline without getting a little sick and get lost when I get out of the subway because I have always used those buildings as sort of my compass — get out, see them and know which was south was.  Downtown is different and nothing would make me happier than putting those buildings back EXACTLY as they were.  I digress because for a long time people said that I was too close to this.  My home city was hit so I was personally invested, and I remain so but New Yorkers (sorry DC, people still consider this a NYC traredy despite the Pentagon deaths and injuries and the PA flight) were not the only ones impacted.  I have met people all over the country who changed their lives — moved, bought guns, built shelters, whatever to be safe.  It made us feel — and no joke two days or so before the attacks I remember thinking It's a good thing we have two giant oceans protecting us from terrorists.  We lost that sense of secuity that day.  The problem is we were living in a post 9/11 world long before 9/11.

Tom Friedman (look it up, he has said this a million times) has said, "If you don't visit the bad neighborhoods, hey will visit you."  That is what happened on that day.  I cannot believe that as bad as Bush Jr. is that he knew about tthat attack and did nothing rather he was so focused on Saddam Hussein (Paul O'Neill, Treasury Secretary number one under him said in his book their first Cabinet meeting started with a discussion of how to 'get rid of Saddam') thhreat the real threats were ignored.  Sandy Berger said that he told Condi Rice her biggest issue would be Al Qaeda but she did not get her marching orders from him.  Moreover, her expertise was in the Soviet Union, which does not exist anymore plus Dubya said he wanted 'to be the 'anti-Clinton' and ended our work in Middle East, a mistake most experts think led to the intense violence there in the first 18 months of his presidency.

Back on point, 9/11 made Dubya a President. On 9/10 he was unpopular with the country and had little political capitol on the Hill.  He was weak and vulnerable.  This attack made us all feel we were those things and made him a war time President and could not come at a better time politically (Any Card, former Chief of Staff there did say "You don't roll out new products in August" — he was talking about  the plans to sell the Iraq war but I think it is applicable.)  This is why so many liberals see a conspiracy theory.

So what do we do?  Hawks will say that the 'terroorists hate us because we are free.'  I have two responses to that:

1.  No they do not.  They hate us because we are the Microsoft of the planet, seriously — doesn't everyone hate Microsoft?  Moreover we have a tendency to see things only from our perspective and can be bullies.  Many parts of the world really belive we plan to colonie them and turn everyoene there Christian (happened in Somalia).  We see ourselves as this benevolent giant who just wants everyone to get along.  Others see us as a behemouth military power out to end their way of life.  (When Dubya dropped Christian pamplets on the troops in Iraq, it did us no favors).

 

2.  Even if they do hate our freedom, is the best way to beat to take it away ourselves?  They want to end our way of life so we're going to beat them to the punch?  WTF?  If we ar a beackon of freedom, democracy and rule of law then we have to stay that way.  We also need to stop treating people like dirt and close Gitmo.

3.  Last point:  Gitmo and torture and Abu Grahib.  So you watch Jack Bauer save America, one hour at a time, and honestly his life must suck because I spent at least several hours a day sleeping and I take it he does not.  TORTURE DOES NOT WORK IN GETTING GOOD INFO.  Recently (this was either in the New Yorker or Nation) high ranking military officials went to FOX and asked them to stop all the torture on the show because military personnel now ask: Jack Bauer did it, why can't I? (How reassuring is that our military is taking its cues from a fictional show, nice).  They were ignored because the head of entertainment at FOX didn't think they were right about torture and we all know highly paid network execs probably know best how to keep our civilians safe.  Bottom line though:  when we do something, we set a precedent.  Because I think this is such an important point I am going to painstakingly spell it out.  The US starts to torture people, any crazy dictator (and Saddam was far from the worst of the lot) can then say, "Hey, the US — that beacon of rule of law and freedom does it, why shouldn't I?  And while I am at it, maybe I can torture some Americans.  That sure would be fun."  WE DO NOT CONDONE ACTS AGAINST OTHERS THAT WE DO NOT WANT PERPETRATED AGAINST OUR PEOPLE AND FOR ALL THE CHRISTIANS OUT THERE I THINK YOU HAVE RULE ON THAT, IT GOES DO UNTO OTHERS AS YOU WOULD HAVE THEM DO UNTO YOU.

Wow.  I feel better now.  I wonder if Jack Bauer wears a 'What would Jesus do?" bracelet.  I bet he does.

For the record, I do not blame Jesus for anything.  I think if he were around today he would be APPAULED by what people do in his name but that's just my opinion. 

Anyway, our world is not different, we are not as ignorant as we were.  We need a government that can deal with this reality.

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