Wednesday, March 28, 2007

When Force Fails

The use of military force reflects a failure of diplomacy.

What happens when military force fails?


In Baghdad, the Green Zone, that special barricaded enclave where the occupiers of Iraq and their protege government survive, has started receiving rocket fire. According to Juan Cole,

The US embassy in Baghdad circulated a memo to all Americans working for the US government in the Green Zone. It ordered them to wear protective gear whenever they were outside in the Green Zone, including just moving from one building to another. Guerrillas have managed to lob a number of rockets into the area in recent days, and killed one US GI on Tuesday.

The Green Zone is therefore actually the Red Zone. I.e., it is no longer an area of good security contrasting to what is around it. Senator McCain was more wrong than can easily be imagined. Not only can American officials not just stroll through Baghdad districts unarmed and unprotected by armor, but they can't even move that way from one building to the next inside the Green Zone!

If the road to the airport gets cut off, the Green Zone could become a killing zone.


Presidential candidate McCain, on the other hand, says that there are parts of Baghdad where an unguarded Westerner can walk down the street without suffering harm.

He has yet to volunteer a demonstration.


Has military force failed?

Tuesday, March 27, 2007

Armageddon Is Not A Foreign Policy

Well, so said Madeleine Albright, Secretary of State under Clinton, on the Colbert show the other evening.

All the non-Christian people of the world, people whose religion does not require them to go through an End Times experience, must cast a sigh as they watch us trying to fulfill our religion's predictions.

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Are Three Scandals Too Much For Gonzales?

Three scandals and a Monica.

The career of Attorney General Gonzales is sinking fast. The White House is not jawboning Congress to gain their support. Republicans in Congress hesitate to support him because they fear more scandals could surface. There are questions about why former US Attorney Carol Lam's investigation into CIA corruption was stopped, for example. Hate to be on the wrong side of that one. And Mr. Gonzales chief assistant Kyle Sampson is about to testify before Congress.

So Mr. Gonzales is on his own.

There are now three major scandals dogging the man. The man who is in charge of enforcing the rule of law in the United States.

First there was the firing of the eight US Attorneys for not being "good Bushies". Most of them were rated above average in their accomplishments for the Department and one - Carol Lam - was getting close to exposing corruption in the CIA.

Since the CIA's budget is off the books, one would think that that agency would become a corruption magnet. Now that Carol Lam's firing is in the history books, maybe we will find out whether or not it is. Carol Lam, the new Valerie Plame.

In a second scandal, Gonzales had Bush squelch a Department of Justice Inspector General's investigation into whether Patriot Act powers had been misused within the department. It is suspected that he feared that the investigation would have pointed to him as a prime misuser. This scandal has fallen by the wayside, lately, but the question of who was being served by this misuse will remain in the queue.

In a third scandal, Gonzales lied to Congress when he said he'd had no part in the firings. He had attended a meeting where they were the agenda. The staffer who organized the meeting, Kyle Sampson, will testify before Congress under oath on Thursday.

And now a Monica, Monica Goodling, Justice Department liason to the White House has entered the spotlight. Liason to the White House at whose pleasure the eight fired US Attorneys General served. She wants to plead the fifth before Congress.

Gosh, how that echoes down the corridors of time.

Apparently Monica told Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty things to tell Congress which weren't true. That's a crime.

Given her position, it also is likely that she participated in discussions with the White House about the firing of the insufficiently "Bushie" attorneys. She may also know things about squelching the DOJ inspector general's investigation.

Monica has hired a criminal lawyer to defend herself.

The White House has not yet contributed e-mails, claiming executive privilege, but someone noticed that a majority of its e-mail traffic was being sent over accounts on the Republican National Committee server, an open target. Congress has asked the RNC to keep close track of their e-mail archives.

As communities around the nation examine their own US Attorney's record to see if there have been spurious attacks on Democrats or shielding of Republicans, more and more of these attorneys may be expected to reveal pressure that was placed on them and how they dealt with it. They are now free to enforce the law equally, with justice for all. They are in the spotlight and must do so.

In the meantime, Congress has passed a bill by a veto-proof majority that rescinds the little Patriot Act codicil that let Bush bypass Congressional approval when he replaced the attorneys. Any new replacements will need the approval of a Democratic Senate.

The patterns of fracture are like rings on a tree. Subordinates are covering their butts so that they don't get turned into scapegoats.

Only one person is not a subordinate.

Three scandals and a Monica.

Friday, March 23, 2007

Real Governments Use Real Science

For some reason, whether something is scientifically true or not no longer seems terribly important to the U.S. Government.

New York Times - scientists' work edited to play down warnings about global warming

Pulpit truth has replaced laboratory truth. Our government can lie.

And they wanted so much to be trusted.

Wednesday, March 21, 2007

Bush Says Rove Must Be Allowed To Lie

Uhhh... This must be terribly embarrassing for Mr. Bush, who presently occupies the office of the President.

He is on the short plank above the sharks. His chief advisor, Karl Rove, has been described in uncontroverted sworn statements, statements accepted in a court case gone to judgment, as having leaked covert CIA agent Valerie Plame's identity.

Bush is unwilling to let Rove make sworn statements to the contrary. The implication is that Rove would either lie and get nailed like Scooter Libby or tell the truth and implicate the White House in the scandal. So the testimony that Rove leaked Plame's name stands.

Bush did say, long ago, that he would fire whoever leaked Plame's identity. He never investigated the leak. Now, Congress and the courts have confirmed that the leaker is his right-hand man.

For those in opposition to the administration, Rove's presence in the White House is the gift that keeps on giving.

And Rove is caught in a second scandal, where eight US Attorneys were fired who weren't sufficiently targeting Democrats or who were - heaven forbid, biting the hand that feeds them! - investigating Republicans. And then after they were fired, they were dumped on for being incompetent so they could not continue their careers elsewhere. It may have justified their firing for the moment, but it created a cadre of revolutionary former US Attorneys who now seek to overthrow the politicization of their system.

There is only one way this ball can roll.

The gift that keeps on giving.

Tuesday, March 20, 2007

A New Oath Of Office

At the Waxman hearing, as they were swearing in the witnesses, "Do you promise to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help you, God," the thought occurred to me that, gee, this would make a nice oath of office.

"I promise to tell the truth and nothing but the truth for the next four years, so help me, God."

Athough politicians might argue that officeholders should not be held to such narrow constraints, the Info Age is increasingly embarrassing them all into telling the truth.

Is their world view based on fact or presumption?

John McCain, a GOP candidate for president who has just restarted his "Straight Talk Express" bus, was recently asked whether condoms prevent sexually transmitted diseases. He said he'd first have to read an article on the subject written by an ultra-conservative that he had been given but hadn't read yet. The innocent!

Hope he is able to reconcile the presumptions with the facts. Perhaps he will be able to reconcile the presumers with reality as well.

Hoping to hide their liability on the attorney-firing case in a blizzard of messages, the Justice Department last night sent copies of 3000 emails to the House Committee On The Judiciary, emails which you can now read here.

Suddenly every government administrator has been put on notice that an email sent today - even a Blackberry message - may tomorrow be on public view. The whole world is watching their every move.

The judgment of the world is inescapable.

Tell the truth, George.

Sunday, March 18, 2007

Gravity Attracts

Bodies are falling.

Not just the bodies of those poor soldiers who, unable to find a job then join the army and get blown up by poor little sisters who were sold into explosive self-immolation by families too poor to feed them. Not just those bodies.

The bodies falling now include the bodies of those who sent them.

Rumsfeld. Wearing sunglasses like World War II's General McArthur, Rumsfeld never understood that you can't run a system at peak performance levels forever. By sending soldiers who had served their term back into duty again and again, he made a military career unattractive for years to come. Equipment is shot. He burned out the war machine.

Cheney. Soon to come. Vice President Cheney was generally authorized by the President to declassify anything. He used that power to selectively declassify an intelligence estimate, hoping to discredit a whistle-blower by destroying the CIA career of his wife. Unfortunately, the CIA took this misuse of power rather seriously, their agent Valerie Plame, whose career was ruined is suing, and Mr. Cheney's use of executive power to maintain the lies that led us into war will continue to be in the news. Mr. Cheney is dead weight.

Gonzales. Feline, but not a tiger. Rolls over so you can pet his tummy. Our Attorney General works, as he repeats endlessly, "at the pleasure of the President". Absolutely refuses to consider resigning. That's for the President to decide. He's the decider. Gonzales is the kitten.

Unfortunately the kitten and his assistant, Kyle Sampson, a button-nosed, youthful Karl Rove replica, tried to turn the U.S. Attorneys General into Republican Guards and failed. Midway in the term, as USA Carol Lam began to explore the possible corruption of representative Jerry Lewis, she was fired with a small group of other US Attorneys who had failed to demonstrate that they were "loyal Bushies".

Unfortunately for those at the top, the firings were so unusual as to attract attention, and the more people saw of it, the more thrilling it got. And it's just started.

From an article by Kenneth Anderson on Op-Ed News:

"Lam's investigation also pointed towards the CIA, where, just two days before her forced resignation, her Grand Jury brought indictments against the CIA's former Executive Director, Kyle Foggo, and another GOP "donor," graft and corruption specialist Brett Wilkes, a partner of the already convicted Wade. "Hookergate" swirled around these four shady GOP horsemen and is likely what led to the abrupt departure of Porter Goss after less than two years as CIA Director. Though no one really notice at the time, unaware of its potential significance, Goss had inexplicably bumped Foggo to the number three spot at the agency, Executive Director, but Bush's own Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board had grown concerned about
a widening FBI sex and cronyism investigation that's targeted Kyle (Dusty) Foggo, the No. 3 official at the CIA, and also touched on Goss himself.
Clearly, things were getting entirely out of hand and the only real way to bring this to an end was to can the prosecutors. Both Lam and Debra Wong Yang, a US Attorney in LA who began the investigation of GOP Rep. Jerry Lewis, are now gone; Lam having been fired and Yang suddenly retiring just after the election. It is now expected that none of these investigations will proceed any further."


There's an iceberg under there.

As of Saint Patrick's Day, 2007, Gonzales' assistant Sampson has left his job, although he remains on the payroll. Since interfering with a federal prosecutor in the performance of his duties would seem to violate the law, he may be singing to a U.S. Attorney. His boss, Gonzales, may similarly be in the line of fire for guiding these endeavors.

Gonzales is at the heart of another scandal, though, and this may lead him to resign. A review of how the Justice Department used the ability to spy on Americans given to them under the Patriot act was squelched, a review that it is said would have pointed to Gonzales as egregiously misusing that power.

Will the review now be held? Will the President choose to ask Gonzales to resign before or after the review?

Another heavy anchor weighs on the President.

Finally, a third weight - his own man Rove, his chief advisor, may be losing his security clearance. He has been identified as a conspirator in both the Valerie Plame exposure and the U.S. Attorney firings. Bush has said that he would fire whoever leaked Plame's name to the press. But the Director of the Office of Security at the White House said in a committee hearing that no investigation of the leak was ever made. The committee chair, Henry Waxman, has just sent a letter to the White House Chief of Staff asking for any details of any investigation into the leak, or for reasons none was carried out.

Here is the Brad Blog's quote from the letter:

"Taken as a whole, the testimony at today's hearing described breach after breach of national security requirements at the White House," the letter reads. "The first breach was the disclosure of Ms. Wilson's identity. Other breaches included the failure of Mr. Rove and other officials to report their disclosures as required by law, the failure of the White House to initiate the prompt investigation required by the executive order, and the failure of the White House to suspend the security clearances of the implicated officials."

Will Bush fire Rove? Will Rove bow his head and scurry away? And himself turn State's Evidence in an attempt to avoid the encircling doom? Lead Thou me on!

As each head falls, it drags those with whom it has been connected ever closer to the brink. Job opportunities could be opening up soon for U.S. Attorneys who are willing to indict Republicans.

Mr. Bush is boxed. If he supports his wayward associates, he becomes one with them. If he lets them go to the dogs, they will tell all. The news remains focused on the decline and fall of Mr. Bush's Roman Empire.

The box shrinks. Movement becomes restricted. Options disappear ad infinitum.

Round is the world, and its memory is long.

For those of us who pray, there is much thanks to be given. Yet we must remember that each of these men has a soul, for which we can pray that it forgo its attachment to illusion and unite once again with that which is all.

Tuesday, March 13, 2007

US Attorneys Freed To Indict Republicans

US Attorneys, whose energies have strangely been spent investigating five times as many Democrats as Republicans in the last few years, have now been freed to go after Republicans.

It may be that the fear of job loss held them back. Eight USA's did recently lose their jobs for reasons ranging from not going after Democrats strongly enough to going after Republicans too strongly. But the fellow who organized their firing just resigned. Since the firings reflected an attempt to influence ongoing investigations, there is a good chance that he's talking to a US Attorney. More firings are unlikely.

Will the USAs now play catch-up?

Thursday, March 08, 2007

Targeter Targeted

Vice President Cheney, targeter of so many cage-raised quail, has become a target.

First a bomb on the doorstep during his visit to Afghanistan, courtesy of Al Queda. Then his
senior assistant, Mr. Libby makes a court record of how Cheney fragged a CIA department to punish the uncovering of a lie that led us into war.

It's hard to start a war on false premises and not attract attention.

Sunday, March 04, 2007

Look At You

Look at you. There you sit, eyes on the screen.

Inside, you can feel your feet touch the floor, your rump and your back touch whatever supports them. Your body breathes in and out. Now that you think of it, you notice it.

Makes you wonder what else you might notice. If you could put your attention to it.

Is the refrigerator on? Has the world been silent all this time? What is the flavor in your mouth? Is your tongue happy?

See how you are.

As you notice how you touch the floor, remember how the ceiling of the room has four corners. As you think of those corners, one by one, look down at the person on the floor.

Can you look down from all four corners at once at the person sitting there, reading away?

See the person sitting there. Eyes on the screen. Reading away. Such a small speck he is, in such a vast cosmos.

Look at you from above as you walk down the street. See the walker in his world.


The more you do it, the easier it gets.

Whatever you do with your brain, there the new brain cells grow. New discovery.

We were taught wrongly in high school Biology years ago, when they said that nervous tissue cannot regenerate. It can. The process is called neurogenesis. It happens where the brain is busiest. That's how barstool sports stats freaks become better and better at their chosen profession. That's how you grew the whole structure of what you think you are.

What would you like to become? Can you become something you cannot yet conceive? How can you reach beyond this limit?


"Seeing how you are" is a first step toward becoming pro-active. At first you just watch yourself from a higher place. But you can't help but feel responsible for what you see. Sooner or later, you act, and not in the usual way, but doing what is right for the larger cosmos in which you see yourself.

Such a small speck we are.

Thursday, March 01, 2007

Common Mind Grows Common Brain

Some time after my mother died I was walking by a peaceful spot of green, and just as a thought of her came and how she would have liked to have been there, a little gust of wind riffled some grasses, all by itself, and the words "I am not far away" arose in my mind. She is where she would ever want to be.

Those who are no longer in life surround me. They surround us all. Not that most people care. We have learned to ignore them. Sometimes for good reason.

There comes a time when one has to forgive them and to ask their forgiveness for things one has done or failed to do. With the past left behind, they become present in spirit, present to one's own spirit. But not to the brain, not as an external object.

One can pray for their closeness to God and hope they may return the blessing.

Following this awareness, birds flew into my life.

The first one through the door was a monk parrot found flopping in the gutter, disoriented and unable to fly. Old and dying. He was able to hop around the house, though, and looked wistfully out the window toward his tree and the rest of his flock. He so wanted to fly to them, but he could no longer fly.

Food was ignored. The evening of the third day, after watching the sun set, he fell out of a perch in a ficus he had crawled to and I gently put him in his nest box. At ten PM he said the three words he knew - geek, grawk, and shrike - in a weak, gentle tone. By morning he was gone.

Since then I have watched flocks. One mind flying. I cleaned house and adopted a chick. She's one of the world's smallest parrots, a lovebird. A happy little camper. She's teaching me as best she can.

Man prides himself on logical thought and on discovering what causes what. Bird brains appear to be simpler and look to see associations between things. A small plastic hook once fell off a toy in birdie's playspace. She picked it up in her beak and carried it up a ladder to lay it against a similar hook at the top of the ladder. She wanted to see how they would connect if they were introduced. They had so much in common!

Scientists study the mechanisms for connectedness. Little lovebird has a patch of blue in her tail that would be seen by a bird following close behind. When she spreads her tail feathers, as one might to land, an orange eye appears in the feathers on each side. Baby has stop-and-go lights.

So the perception of connectedness may be all in the mind. But then, so is the sense of self.

While our individual lives may connect in a collective subconscious, they connect also over the internet these days, and that connection is becoming ever more profound. When the time arrives that I can play my flute in America in duet with your shakuhachi, a new harmony may infect us all.

Common mind is not yet cosmic mind. It is earthbound, focused on what happens here. While one is in the body, feet upon the earth, there is the possibility of reaching upwards, pushing beyond the mere focus on the earth to come to what is universal.

In silence we meet.