Prisoners of War
The worst financial crisis since the Great Depression has sparked a great reckoning. Barack Obama now argues that it represents a "failed philosophy," "the idea that if we give more and more to those with the most, prosperity will trickle down to everyone else." His broadscale indictment of the "era of greed and irresponsibility on Wall Street and in Washington" plasters John McCain, a self described "foot soldier in the Reagan revolution, to his record, and exposes his recent cross dressing as a populist tribune.
Yet, the Iraq War, surely the worst foreign policy debacle at least since Vietnam, has had little effect in challenging the "failed philosophy" that an imperial America is the "indispensable nation" needed to police the globe. Even as Congress balked at the $700 billion bail out of Wall Street and Republicans filibustered against even a token $50 billion stimulus plan for Main Street, next year's $700 billion military budget was passed without a murmur.
Today in the New York Times, the Institute for America's Future which I co-direct published an "op ad" entitled Prisoners of War. It makes the simple point that we will be unable to put our nation back on track at home if we remain prisoners of war abroad.
For the ad and back materials, go here.
We are spending about $12 billion a month on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. The latter will end costing $3 trillion. More troops are being dispatched to the former. We maintain an empire of over 700 bases across the world. Our navy polices the seven seas. We spend as much on our military as the rest of the world combined -- and that is apparently not enough. Both major party political candidates are committed to increasing the size of the military and the amount we will spend on it.
Yet the military has no answer to the major challenges we face to our security -- a globalized economy of increasing instability, the rise of India and China, increasing global indebtedness that can't be sustained, a growing dependence on foreign oil, catastrophic climate change and the accompanying resource struggles.
Even, as a study from the Rand Corporation, the Pentagon's own think thank notes, the declaration of a Global War on Terror has detracted from a sensible strategy to deal with al Qaeda and its allies. We've turned fanatics into warriors, inflating their importance and adding to their attraction. We've squandered lives and money in Iraq, alienating our allies, exhausting our military, and emboldening our adversaries. We've slighted the global intelligence sharing, financial pressure, and aggressive policing which are the core of a realistic strategy, and weakened the necessary public campaign to appeal to moderate Islam and isolate the suicidal zealots. When you carry only a hammer, as any carpenter would tell you, more and more things start looking like nails.
Just as the financial crisis calls into question the market fundamentalism of the last years, one would think the Iraq debacle would trigger a debate about our imperial policies and our distorted priorities. Sadly, the absence of a serious peace movement has left the cloistered world of our national security managers undisturbed. As we head into what surely will be an election that brings a sea change to our politics, we remain prisoners of war.
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How did the Fannie Mae fiascos get us to the current crisis, below is a very good start of the culprits so greatly appreciated by Dodd, Frank, Obama, Pelosi and crowd wishing to get this whitewashed with the bailout.
Where are they now, followed by how they got there:
FRANKLIN RAINES? Raines works for the Obama Campaign as Chief Economic Advisor
TIM HOWARD? ?Howard is also a Chief Economic Advisor to Obama
JIM JOHNSON? ?Johnson hired as a Senior Obama Finance Advisor and was selected to run Obama's Vice Presidential Search Committee
Would you trust the men who tore Wall Street down to build the New Wall Street ?
Here is a quick look into 3 former Fannie Mae executives who have brought down Wall Street.
Raines was forced to retire from his position with Fannie Mae when auditing discovered severe irregularities in Fannie Mae's accounting activities.
Raines left with a "golden parachute valued at $240 Million in benefits. The Government filed suit against Raines when the depth of the accounting scandal became clear.
Net windfall . . . $190 million!
Tim Howard - Rep. Richard Baker, R-La., asked the Justice Department to investigate. Raines and Howard resigned under pressure in late 2004.
Howard's Golden Parachute was estimated at $20 Million!
Jim Johnson - Johnson is currently under investigation for taking illegal loans from Countrywide while serving as CEO of Fannie Mae. ?
Johnson's Golden Parachute was estimated at $28 Million.
According to CRP, Obama’s total contributions from the FMs work out to $126,349. Of that sum, $6,000 comes from the FMs’ political action committees, and the rest from individuals who work for one of the two companies. Obama’s FM contributions account for about 0.03 percent of his total contributions to date. McCain’s FM haul is a smaller $21,550, all from individuals. That’s about 0.01 percent of his total contributions. We stand by our doubts that either candidate will be much swayed by numbers of this size.
Posted under FactCheck.
Great post.
I personally would like to see Britain and Canada take this opportunity to pull its troops out of Afghanistan in protest of the mishandling of well, everything in general, the U.N. included, never mind just war.
Send them to Africa and try and reverse some sin.
But it will never happen.
Do you think with the threat of twenty trillion dollars of foreign capital in Britain and its power or ots flight away-- do you think decisions can be thought through alone-- Like Churchill in part might have done
Nationalize Warren Buffett and Bill Gates, they are only two people. We sacrifice them, use their money, and buy up all the bad paper, problem solved. Hey! Maybe they can sell it later for a profit. We can sacrifice just two guys to save the rest of us. RIGHT! They should be proud to give their all, like so many others have to defend their right to get rich. After all, we are only asking for their money not his lives like Bush has done over and over. Over 4,000 dead in Iraq!
There are two effective arguments used by death penalty opponents to substantially reduce support for the death penalty and people involved in the peace movement should adopt them in their efforts to withdraw our troops from the middle east.
The first argument is based on the hundreds of innocent people, many of whom were on death row, whose wrongful convictions have been set aside by post-conviction DNA tests. The frightening realization that we must have executed innocent people in the past causes us to realize that we cannot eliminate that possibility in the future. Therefore, we should abolish the death penalty. To reduce support for the wars in the middle east, we should publicize the stories of its innocent victims.
The second argument is based on a comparison of the cost of executing someone versus incarcerating them for life without parole. It's three to five times more expensive to kill. The cost of these unnecessary and illegal wars is killing us, the American taxpayers.
Both arguments are effective because they are evidence based rather than values based. Given the deplorable state of our flat-lining economy, there is no better time than the present to make the cost argument because, regardless of one's views about the merit or probability of success fighting these wars, we cannot afford them.
Yet as Arendt and John Q Adams say-- the elite and their mob will roam and kill
One may make a case that the Iraq war was simply another in a long list of "terror and fear' invocations that successive Republican administrations have propounded to distract from their failures in managing the economy and to counter their eroding popular support. The war also had the "desirable" side benefit of increasing the deficit and thereby putting considerable pressure on "socialist" spending for such trivial items as education and health. In looking for an answer as to why our media has failed to properly address such issues (including our eroding financial structure) one only has to consult a member of the journalism fraternity and assistant secretary of state under President Carter, Hodding Carter III, who wrote, "It's a lead pipe cinch that the mass media in America have an overwhelming tendency to jump up and down and bark in concert whenever the White House - any White House- snaps its fingers". This was particularly true during the past eight years.
The debate is coming Bob, just not until after the elections.
A running cliché of the political left and the press corps these days is that our current financial problems all flow from Congress's 1999 decision to repeal the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933 that separated commercial and investment banking. Barack Obama has been selling this line every day. Bill Clinton signed that "deregulation" bill into law, and he knows better.
The former President last week was asked if he regretted signing that legislation. Mr. Clinton's reply: "No, because it wasn't a complete deregulation at all. We still have heavy regulations and insurance on bank deposits, requirements on banks for capital and for disclosure. I thought at the time that it might lead to more stable investments and a reduced pressure on Wall Street to produce quarterly profits that were always bigger than the previous quarter.
"But I have really thought about this a lot. I don't see that signing that bill had anything to do with the current crisis. Indeed, one of the things that has helped stabilize the current situation as much as it has is the purchase of Merrill Lynch by Bank of America, which was much smoother than it would have been if I hadn't signed that bill."
The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act passed the Senate on a 90-8 vote, ...[with such] notable Obama supporters as Schumer, John Kerry, Dodd, Edwards, Durbin, Daschle -- oh, and Joe Biden.
The excerps are lifted from WSJ 10/1/08. Hope this clarifies this issue.
It clarifies my opinion that Clinton isn't willing to admit that he was wrong about repealing Glass-Steagall. That's not the problem, however. The problem is deregulation was a terrible mistake and we are reaping its reward today. Since Phil Gramm sponsored the repeal and he's going to be McCain's Secretary of the Treasury if McCain is elected, we must elect Obama.
I agree. Bill Clinton signed off on it - and should take some of the blame. So, did you think it was a good bill? What about the Phil Gramm Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000, which paved the way for credit default swaps, and with the deregulation bill, helped put us in the mess we are in now? Do you agree with that one?
Right now, the House Republicans, who seem to have a collective IQ of 100, are at work on a Back to the Future Bailout Bill. It includes, but is not limited to: a) "Allow companies to carry back losses arising in tax years ending in 2007, 2008, or 2009 back five years, generating a tax refund and immediate capital." b) "Allow a "repatriation window" for profits earned by U.S. firms overseas. Such repatriation amounts would not be taxed if invested in distressed debt (as defined by Treasury) for at least one year." c) Suspend the capital gains tax rate for two years. The bill also sets to back accounting regulations to pre-Enron days - Corporations will be allowed to inflate the value of their holdings, based on future worth. If I am not mistaken, this was the cause of the Enron meltdown. Do you believe that this is what Wall Street and global corporations need and what Americans need? Less regulation and handouts to corporations?
The Bush administration has failed in every way: a wasteful squanderous war in Iraq and the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. Now Republicans want four more years after the last disastrous eight. I guess they want to finish their work in the decline of the nation.
You forgot to mention the determined assault on the Constitution, championed by the Republicans, which has made the presidency a de-facto dictatorship, in which the president and his close associates are above the law. All these things together are highly reminiscent of monarchy, which the tory Republicans hold as their secret ideal.
Yes, Querent you are very right. It was not an inclusive list that I posted, rather sort of a greatest hits. You are so right about the assault on the constitution, including listening to the phone calls of Americans without warrants, politicizing the Justice Department (which incredibly a Special Prosecutor was just appointed for), torture, Guantanamo, no response to Hurricane Katrina, fudging the evidence to get us into Iraq, etc. It is amazing that the country has come out of the Bush years without losing several states through secession. I would have voted for it!!!
Yes, Querent you are very right. It was not an inclusive list that I posted, rather sort of a greatest hits. You are so right about the assault on the constitution, including listening to the phone calls of Americans without warrants, politicizing the Justice Department (which incredibly a Special Prosecutor was just appointed for), torture, Guantanamo, no response to Hurricane Katrina, fudging the evidence to get us into Iraq, etc. It is amazing that the country has come out of the Bush years without losing several states through secession. I would have voted for it!!!
Even if we could reduce the size of armed forces the military brass would never agree to having their budgets slashed. The bigger the budget the higher the pay grade of the officer in charge. And the civilians who work for the military would scream about losing their jobs as well. The same as they do every time a base is closed.
Let them scream. The gravy train is over. We the People have suffered enough. Now it's their turn.
The brass work for the people. Whether or not they agree is irrelevant.
So who has been more destructive to the US - Osama or George? Next up, McBush.
Federal expenditures on wars of foreign intervention has increased the deficit and with the latest move to extort $700 billion will destablize the American economy. Whether the war is in Iraq OR Afghanistan the expenditures will continue to funnel funds to a very narrow group of Americans in the defense industry. McCain has already indicated that he would freeze all expenditures except defense and vets' benefits as a result of the bailout's impact. Obama has NOT spoken to the issue of what the bailout will mean for his proposals for healthcare and other issues.
There is a peace movement. But it is hard to get it really going, beyond localized grassroots movements. People in such movements have to deal with official harassment, being spied upon, infiltrated and tracked as threats to national security by police agencies at all levels of government. And then when it is time for a protest or a demonstration, there is the risk of cops inserting agents provocateur into their midst to ensure a that there will be a violent crackdown on them by the cops. People see what happened in St. Paul and Denver and I wonder if they might be thinking that protesting, raising their voices is to risky to life and limb. And, of course, trying to hold an apathetic Congress accountable is useless. They don't listen, and don't care because we aren't able to give thousands and thousands of dollars to their campaign funds. Yet for some strange reason, we keep sending the same scoundrels back, over and over and over.
David,
it's easy to keep sending the same old rodents back to Congress when enough of us still persist in *not* voting. It is easy to send the same old rodents back to infest the White House when so many of us who can, choose not to vote.
As for the peace movement in this country, must a mere moderate such as I remind you that our Founding Fathers risked their very lives for freedom? It was a very real possibility that the Founders and their supporters were not going to win when they declared their independence from the British Empire. The hangman's noose was the more likely outcome, but the cause of liberty demanded no less than the Founder's give their all.
If a politician doesn't listen, vote the rascal out. Elect someone whom you know will. Get out the vote, and don't let up until you do.
Leland R. Erickson
Citizen
seconded!
NATO uses peace movement[ Swedish orientated-- not quite Ghandian] structures as does United nations use Michael Trues writings in times of crisis which might lead to eg terminal nuclear war. The Quakers are an important part of the idea of peace studies and peace studies [ succesful or not -- or skewed or not is was an impt part in USA policy in South America .
I wonder whether the economic crisis will have a bearing on this. I recall that the peace movement that built against the Vietnam war was a long time a'comin and didn't really become a mass movement until people were feeling betrayed by the recession of the early 70s. Maybe that revelation that "they are lying about the war" and "they are lying about our own well-being at home" is the moment when the largest public begins to shift.
The fact is that polls show most Americans are far more willing to kill another human being for almost no reason, than to suffer a potential financial loss.
Put more plainly, we care more about our pocketbooks, than about human life. Sad, but true.
Now, if only we could really show people just how much war COSTS us, maybe they'd be a little less eager to "bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran..." Sick that we'd have to worry about the dollar figure rather than the life loss figure, but hey... you go with what you can.
"The fact is that polls show most Americans are far more willing to kill another human being for almost no reason, than to suffer a potential financial loss."
Yeah right! Give me a link to one such poll. You appear to have a problem with telling the truth.
Can't, don't have time to do the research (take your points there). I'll retract my "polls show" line (sorry, can't edit posts) because I don't have the numbers to back it up, and so shouldn't have said it (I said it based on a vague memory of reading such a poll, but since I can't back it up, I'll retract it).
But I stand by my sentiment. As a case in point, consider the time it took for public support of the Iraq war (where we were clearly killing at least some innocents, and which was pretty obviously not related to 9/11 or self-defense in any way) to erode: about 4 years.
The time it took for McCain support to erode after our savings accounts were threatened? About two weeks.
The fact is that public support for the war in Iraq didn't wane until (a) it became clear that we *weren't going to "win"* and (b) it became clear just how amazingly much money it was costing us. Oh, there were always a few conscientious objectors who took the very un-American view that killing another human being is a BIG DEAL and should not be done capriciously, but they have always been in the minority.
Just look at those few facts and decide which thing Americans care more about: someone, somewhere dying "in my name," or "that's my money, dammit!"
Not such a bad problem as legalclubs has in recognizing the truth. The truth that the Republican "conservative" philosophy as refuted itself and is destroying the nation is something only honest people can confront.
fight fight fight. America is all about the Wars. Just watched a little American morning TV that mentioned the War on Cancer. There's a War on Drugs and a War on Poverty and these here Wars for Peace which have the ring of a "Raping for Virginity" campaign about them. Why is everything a fight, a war, a life-or-death, no-holds-barred, never-back-down, never-admi
700 billion bailout
700 billion for the military
700 billion for foreign oil
and a mere 500 billion for interest on the national debt
,hardly a sum worth talking about
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