If America Were Like Iraq

In an inspired piece of writing, Professor Juan Cole, winner of this year's blogger's Koufax award for Best Post, imagines what life would be like for us in America if we were experiencing what is happening in Iraq:

If America were Iraq, What would it be Like?

President Bush said Tuesday that the Iraqis are refuting the pessimists and implied that things are improving in that country.

What would America look like if it were in Iraq's current situation? The population of the US is over 11 times that of Iraq, so a lot of statistics would have to be multiplied by that number.

Thus, violence killed 300 Iraqis last week, the equivalent proportionately of 3,300 Americans. What if 3,300 Americans had died in car bombings, grenade and rocket attacks, machine gun spray, and aerial bombardment in the last week? That is a number greater than the deaths on September 11, and if America were Iraq, it would be an ongoing, weekly or monthly toll.

And what if those deaths occurred all over the country, including in the capital of Washington, DC, but mainly above the Mason Dixon line, in Boston, Minneapolis, Salt Lake City, and San Francisco?

What if the grounds of the White House and the government buildings near the Mall were constantly taking mortar fire? What if almost nobody in the State Department at Foggy Bottom, the White House, or the Pentagon dared venture out of their buildings, and considered it dangerous to go over to Crystal City or Alexandria?

What if all the reporters for all the major television and print media were trapped in five-star hotels in Washington, DC and New York, unable to move more than a few blocks safely, and dependent on stringers to know what was happening in Oklahoma City and St. Louis? What if the only time they ventured into the Midwest was if they could be embedded in Army or National Guard units?

There are estimated to be some 25,000 guerrillas in Iraq engaged in concerted acts of violence. What if there were private armies totalling 275,000 men, armed with machine guns, assault rifles (legal again!), rocket-propelled grenades, and mortar launchers, hiding out in dangerous urban areas of cities all over the country? What if they completely controlled Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, Salt Lake City, Las Vegas, Denver and Omaha, such that local police and Federal troops could not go into those cities?

What if, during the past year, the Secretary of State (Aqilah Hashemi), the President (Izzedine Salim), and the Attorney General (Muhammad Baqir al-Hakim) had all been assassinated?

What if all the cities in the US were wracked by a crime wave, with thousands of murders, kidnappings, burglaries, and carjackings in every major city every year?

What if the Air Force routinely (I mean daily or weekly) bombed Billings, Montana, Flint, Michigan, Watts in Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Anacostia in Washington, DC, and other urban areas, attempting to target "safe houses" of "criminal gangs", but inevitably killing a lot of children and little old ladies?

What if, from time to time, the US Army besieged Virginia Beach, killing hundreds of armed members of the Christian Soldiers? What if entire platoons of the Christian Soldiers militia holed up in Arlington National Cemetery, and were bombarded by US Air Force warplanes daily, destroying thousands of graves and even pulverizing the Vietnam Memorial over on the Mall? What if the National Council of Churches had to call for a popular march of thousands of believers to converge on the National Cathedral to stop the US Army from demolishing it to get at a rogue band of the Timothy McVeigh Memorial Brigades?

What if there were virtually no commercial air traffic in the country? What if many roads were highly dangerous, especially Interstate 95 from Richmond to Washington, DC, and I-95 and I-91 up to Boston? If you got on I-95 anywhere along that over 500-mile stretch, you would risk being carjacked, kidnapped, or having your car sprayed with machine gun fire.

What if no one had electricity for much more than 10 hours a day, and often less? What if it went off at unpredictable times, causing factories to grind to a halt and air conditioning to fail in the middle of the summer in Houston and Miami? What if the Alaska pipeline were bombed and disabled at least monthly? What if unemployment hovered around 40%?

What if veterans of militia actions at Ruby Ridge and the Oklahoma City bombing were brought in to run the government on the theory that you need a tough guy in these times of crisis?

What if municipal elections were cancelled and cliques close to the new "president" quietly installed in the statehouses as "governors?" What if several of these governors (especially of Montana and Wyoming) were assassinated soon after taking office or resigned when their children were taken hostage by guerrillas?

What if the leader of the European Union maintained that the citizens of the United States are, under these conditions, refuting pessimism and that freedom and democracy are just around the corner?

If you don't regularly read this man's work, you should. He, unlike most of our "experts" on Iraq and the Middle East, has lived in the area, speaks the langauge, and has some sense of what on the ground reality is. Those of us who are paying taxes that fund this ugliness need to know.

Bush is a Coward

In Europe, just as in the U. S., Bush shows how fearful he is of actually confronting real people:

With a Hush and a Whisper, Bush Drops Town Hall Meeting with Germans

During his trip to Germany on Wednesday, the main highlight of George W. Bush's trip was meant to be a "town hall"-style meeting with average Germans. But with the German government unwilling to permit a scripted event with questions approved in advance, the White House has quietly put the event on ice.

Have we ever before had a president so timid about confroting reality?

Bush vs the World

George Bush is in Europe - and "Old" Europe at that - on what is being called a fence-mending tour. His idea of reaching out, however, is to insult Europeans and lecture them about what they must do. Among other silly, hypocritical statements made in his first speech there he says:

"Our greatest opportunity, and our immediate goal, is peace in the Middle East, . . . Lasting successful reform in the Middle East will not be imposed from the outside. It must be chosen from within."

That, of course, is why we have 150,000 troops in Iraq, bomb its cities daily, shoot civilians at checkpoints, torture detainees, impose our own pre-determined laws and decrees on them, sell off their assets, and impose a host of restrictions on their "soverign" government. If this is freedom, shoot me and get it over with. Does he really think that anyone in Europe is going to be taken in with this silly talk about "peace" and "freedom" when we deny both to the Iraqis over whom we have absolute control?

Bush Friendly 'Reporter' Not What He Seemed

A 'reporter' for Talon News (a website that specialized in featuring exerpts from official GOP sources) who gained recent prominence by asking leading Bush-friendly questions at White House news conferences, has been revealed as something other than what he seemed. First of all, his name - Jef Gannon - seems to be a pseudonym, so his actual identity remains obscure. His credentials - a weekend seminar in journalism offered by a right wing organization - hardly seems to justify a White House press pass. But on top of all the other strange stuff there is the revelation that Gannon (or whatever his real name is) has a questionable online presence represented by gay prostitution sites in which he figures rather strongly.

The mainstream media has largely ignored this story - not quite knowing how to get a handle on it that won't prove presonally embarassing, but many bloggers have had a field day - and the fun is just beginning.

Stay tuned.

Bush Believes in Fantasy

The day that peace broke out?

According to "The Economist": Ariel Sharon and Mahmoud Abbas have declared an end to all hostilities after their first summit, in Sharm el-Sheikh. So, after four years of bloodshed, is the Palestinian uprising over?

Well, talk - as they say - is cheap. Let's wait for tomorrow - and tomorrow - and tomorrow. I've lived a long time, and I've seen this more than a few times before.

In Bushworld Peace Is Subversive and Ike is Un-American

In a story that would be funny if it were not so sad, the Memphis Commercial Appeal reports that a Quaker peace group has been bared from a Putnam County High School for distributing materials that were judged to be "anti-American" and "anti-military." It is a testiment to how far down the rabbit hole we have fallen to realize that the offending quote:

"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed. Those who are cold and are not clothed ..."

is from a speech by Dwight David Eisenhower, former two term Republican President of the United States and Supreme Allied Commander during World War II. Anti-American? Anti-military? Of course, the John Birch Society did claim that Ike was a commie, but that level of craziness was one reason no sane person took them seriously. Now we live in an age when public school administrators are equally crazy - and there is no outcry from the public to indcate any outrage - so I guess there is none.

Bush Social Security Witchcraft

Once again, Paul Krugman delivers the goods. Today's column in the New York Times makes a clear case for rejecting the Bush con job on social security:

few weeks ago I tried to explain the logic of Bush-style Social Security privatization: it is, in effect, as if your financial adviser told you that you wouldn't have enough money when you retire - but you shouldn't save more. Instead, you should borrow a lot of money, buy stocks and hope for capital gains.

Before President Bush's big speech, a background briefing by a "senior administration official" made it clear that the plan calls for exactly the "borrow, speculate and hope" strategy I described - not just for the system as a whole, but for each individual.

Here's the money quote: "In return for the opportunity to get the benefits from the personal account, the person forgoes a certain amount of benefits from the traditional system. Now, the way that election is structured, the person comes out ahead if their personal account exceeds a 3 percent rate of return" - after inflation - "which is the rate of return that the trust fund bonds receive. So, basically, the net effect on an individual's benefits would be zero if his personal account earned a 3 percent rate of return."

So all the fuss and expense will have no real effect on benefits - unless one's investments go south, in which case the investor is screwed. And, the only way this 'plan' will actually make a difference in the longterm viability of the system is if benefits are cut, since the main privatization portion of the plan isn't expected to add new funds to the system, merely alter how those funds are handled. Does any of this make sense?

Bush vs Most of Us

To put the real state of the union in perspective, see this from The Campaign for America's Future:

STATE OF THE UNION 2005 BY THE NUMBERS

ON UNEMPLOYMENT:
--5,630,000: American workers unemployed in December 2000
--8,050,000: American workers unemployed in December 2004

ON PERSONAL DEBT:
--1,226,037: number of personal bankruptcies filed in 2000
--1,584,170: number of personal bankruptcies filed in 2004

ON HEALTH CARE:
--39,800,000: number of Americans without health insurance in 2000
--45,000,000: number of Americans without health insurance as of January
2004

ON RISING GAS PRICES:
--$1.51: average price of a gallon of gasoline in 2000
--$1.88: average price of a gallon of gasoline through November 2004

COLLEGE COST
--$7,750: average cost of tuition and fees at 4-year public university
in 2000 when Bush promised to increase Pell grants to $5,100
--$11,354 :average cost of tuition and fees at 4-year public university
in 2004 when Pell grants remain at $4,050 for 3rd straight year

FUNDING FOR PUBLIC SCHOOLS
--$121.97 billion: promised since 2001 to make No Child Left Behind act
work
--$95.01 billion: actually provided since 2001 for NCLB due to Bush
administration cuts

FALLING WAGES
--$13.00: hourly wage of the bulk of jobs eliminated since Nov 2001
--$9.00: hourly wage of the bulk of jobs created since Nov 2001

Are you better off?

Bush Inspiration in Texas

In a situation that proves, once again, that satire can't keep up with real life, Kinky Friedman - bestselling author and front man for the country group "The Texas Jewboys" - is running for governor of Texas under the motto "How hard can it be?"

Friedman said the main priorities in his campaign will be reforming the
Texas education system, adding safeguards in the judicial process where
Texas ranks as the nation's leader in capital punishment and
establishing a peace corps for the state.

Plus, he wants "to fight the wussification of Texas."

"I am determined to get back to a time when the cowboys all sang and
their horses were smart," Friedman said. . .

"We hope the people of Texas are going to reject the choice of paper or
plastic," he said.

And just in case you think that he isn't really serious and that a country singer and mystery writer has no business in the public arena, he offers these words of wisdom, "The professionals gave us the Titanic, amateurs gave us the Ark." Enough said. And after all, Bush was Governor of Texas, so - how hard can it be?

For Bush Freedom's Just Another Word for Nothing Left to Lose

In his State of the Union speech last night George W. Bush honored "freedom" by demonstrating that words can be totally free of any connection to reality while still pleasing an audience of true believers. According to CNN, "U.S. President George W. Bush vows to spread freedom around the world." Well, "freedom" isn't like manure - you can't just spread it around. Freedom isn't a physical thing that can be manipulated; it is a relationship between an "actor" and whatever forces restrain the possibility for action. And like the phony election in Iraq, what Bush normally chooses to call "freedom" is a kind of counterfit that looks good from a cursory glance but has no real value. Are Iraqis "free"? They got to vote (if they were willing to risk being shot) for a list of candidates put together by the U.S. and its hand picked interim government - so they had a "choice" of pre-selected and pre-approved candidates that, for the most part, were unknown to the public and couldn't afford to campaign - even if campaigning were possible in current day Iraq, which it clearly isn't.

Or consider even more Orwellian uses of "freedom" by this administration. Just a couple of days ago, retiring Attorney General John Ashcroft claimed that the misnamed Patriot Act's expansion of police powers of search and seizure were an expansion of "freedom". Well, for the cops, sure - but for us? This is an issue that always needs to be highlighted - when we talk about freedom we are talking about freedom for some at the expense of others. And this is the part that the Bushies are never willing to face.

So right on cue we have this piece on CNN in which Nelson Mandela demonstrates the real meaning of "freedom" in the world of ordinary people:

South African democracy icon Nelson Mandela challenged rich nations on Thursday to help end the misery of the world's poorest millions.

Speaking on the eve of a meeting of G7 finance ministers, the political prisoner cum world diplomat told a crowd of about 2,000 in Trafalgar Square that now was the time for decisive action.

"Massive poverty and obscene inequality are such terrible scourges of our times ... that they have to rank alongside slavery and apartheid as social evils," he said.

"In this new century, millions of people in the world's poorest countries remain imprisoned, enslaved and in chains. They are trapped in the prison of poverty. It is time to set them free."

But this can't be mentioned in the same context as Bush's use of "freedom" because that would be playing "class warfare". Keeping the poor down is OK because that is how things are supposed to be - but talking about it is both impolite and impolitic. As Orwell pointed out half a century ago, the most obvious truths don't require any real censorship to hide; we self-censor those concepts that are generally known to be unacceptable - such as "the president is a liar." Sorry - we all know that is true - especially the press that spent last night talking about everything BUT that central fact.

Iraq Elections Called "Fake" by Gorbachev

Former Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev called the Iraqi
parliamentary elections a profanation. In an interview with the Interfax
news agency, he said the elections are "very far from what true
elections are. And even though I am a supporter of elections and of the
transfer of power to the people of Iraq, these elections were fake."

"I don’t think these elections will be of any use. They may even have a
negative impact on the country. Democracy cannot be imposed or
strengthened with guns and tanks," the agency quoted Gorbachev as
saying.