Injured Child in Haiti

Man With Crushed Hip

Plea For Help

It has led to a partisan supercharging of election contests as the Democrats and Republicans embrace their own special interest groups. It also undermines the reputation of the courts. Justice O’Connor went on to talk about Caperton v. Massey Coal, the recent 5-4 Supreme Court ruling that a judge had to step aside when presented with a case involving a major campaign donor, in terms that made clear that she embraced that ruling—and not the position of four G.O.P.-appointed justices in the minority. The Caperton decision provides evidence of the deep corruption that campaign cash presents. The reach of that corruption has spread even into the Justice Department, which during the Bush years used the artifice of “policing” campaign contributions to judicial races to attempt to game the system further in favor of the G.O.P.—as amply demonstrated by the bizarre prosecution of Paul Minor and a group of judges in Mississippi, prosecutions carefully keyed to judicial elections in that state.

That was from September but here is The Atlantic with a roundup of judicial and major legal actions taken in this decade.

As evidenced by the earlier article and this one, even the halls of justice are not immune to political finagling and special interests. The latter post is quite explicit on all the extra-judicial powers that the Bush administration tried to push under the guise of protecting American ’security and freedom’. There has been no culpability to the egregious violations of privacy or human rights during that administration. I do not quite understand how Yoo, Addington and others have avoided being put behind bars themselves.

It begins at the low level, the county and state levels, with the political election by parties pushing their own interests of judges that suit their tastes. It works up until it infects all the legal processes where somehow, legally, we allow a lawyer to circumvent international laws on war and torture without any sort of legal retribution after the fact.

Our credibility as a law-abiding nation, both from within and without, will continue to disappear until we take efforts to buoy both.

On Friday, the President of the European Central Bank addressed them:

Mr Trichet said financial institutions should be using higher profits to strengthen their capital bases rather than paying out “unwarranted levels of compensation or bonuses”.

A culture of excessive financial rewards for individuals encouraged “self-referential” and “self-serving” banking, Mr Trichet warned in a speech in London.

His comments amounted to the strongest criticism yet from the ECB of excessive bank remuneration .

Mr Trichet has long urged bankers to take advantage of an improvement in financial markets to increase their resilience in the face of a still-weak global economy.He warned that excessive pay could even threaten the stability of the financial system.

“I will say that the so-called bonus culture is one of the many factors that can drive the financial system in the wrong direction – away from intermediation to self-referential speculation; away from medium-term stability to short-term orientation; and away from being a service sector to being a self-serving sector.”

There was a new development on our side of the ocean today though as the Treasury department said that four bailed-out companies can’t pay some top earners more than $500,000 cash per year with the exception of twelve executives.

Kenneth Feinberg, the Obama administration’s pay czar, said Friday that lobbying by Treasury and Federal Reserve officials helped persuade him to exempt about 12 executives from the salary cap. The pay cap will affect about 300 employees at Citigroup Inc., GMAC, American International Group Inc. and General Motors.

So, as we’ve seen from this administration so far, a mish-mash of policies that are applied arbitrarily. If we’re going to restrict bonuses they should be for across the board. There was no true fight for those that got bonuses last December, nor any sort of regressive tax this April like we have seen the Europeans do.

The argument that they can’t retain top talent is BS. If Citigroup and AIG cannot retain top talent based on their own merits then so be it – they are the ones that helped bring down the economy. They are in cut throat competition with all the other firms and many of them truly believe in ’survival of the fittest’ so let it pan out instead of riding on the backs of the US taxpayers – if you can’t cut it, you are out. If the executives don’t think their few millions are enough to stay with the company, if they are not dedicated to the business and creating a successful company, only the cash incentives, then let them leave. I’m sure are many many eager people below them waiting to take their places.

It would be nice for the papers to stop reporting what the banks think about our policy decisions – they are not in it for the US or the American people so why should we ask how they feel about getting only $500,000 in a bonus this year instead of a few million?

Obama can earn part of his Peace Prize by settling the war between Wall Street and the American people and start dealing with them more harshly. It confounds me how the Republicans and Democrats cannot be united in their efforts to combat the idiocy that brought the nation to its knees. Then again, it’s not so confusing when you look at who contributes most to their campaigns.

GaGa can be a laughfest though.

My favorite points in the GaGa one:
1) the very beginning after she turns off the radio and is suddenly take aback by her voice
2) How she integrates basically every type of dance possible into the video yet can’t really dance herself. I specifically liked the initial combo of the ‘alligator chomp’/Thriller/beetle-on-its-back dance, which I will be using at the clubs come New Year’s.
3) The Man with the Golden Chin
4) “Cause I’m a free bitch, baby!”
5) The Polar Bear Train on the ‘dress’ at the end. No wonder they’re going extinct.

Remarks by the President at the Acceptance of the Nobel Peace Prize

Oslo City Hall
Oslo, Norway

Your Majesties, Your Royal Highnesses, distinguished members of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, citizens of America, and citizens of the world:

I receive this honor with deep gratitude and great humility. It is an award that speaks to our highest aspirations — that for all the cruelty and hardship of our world, we are not mere prisoners of fate. Our actions matter, and can bend history in the direction of justice.

And yet I would be remiss if I did not acknowledge the considerable controversy that your generous decision has generated. (Laughter.) In part, this is because I am at the beginning, and not the end, of my labors on the world stage. Compared to some of the giants of history who’ve received this prize — Schweitzer and King; Marshall and Mandela — my accomplishments are slight. And then there are the men and women around the world who have been jailed and beaten in the pursuit of justice; those who toil in humanitarian organizations to relieve suffering; the unrecognized millions whose quiet acts of courage and compassion inspire even the most hardened cynics. I cannot argue with those who find these men and women — some known, some obscure to all but those they help — to be far more deserving of this honor than I.

But perhaps the most profound issue surrounding my receipt of this prize is the fact that I am the Commander-in-Chief of the military of a nation in the midst of two wars. One of these wars is winding down. The other is a conflict that America did not seek; one in which we are joined by 42 other countries — including Norway — in an effort to defend ourselves and all nations from further attacks.

Still, we are at war, and I’m responsible for the deployment of thousands of young Americans to battle in a distant land. Some will kill, and some will be killed. And so I come here with an acute sense of the costs of armed conflict — filled with difficult questions about the relationship between war and peace, and our effort to replace one with the other.

Now these questions are not new. War, in one form or another, appeared with the first man. At the dawn of history, its morality was not questioned; it was simply a fact, like drought or disease — the manner in which tribes and then civilizations sought power and settled their differences.

And over time, as codes of law sought to control violence within groups, so did philosophers and clerics and statesmen seek to regulate the destructive power of war. The concept of a “just war” emerged, suggesting that war is justified only when certain conditions were met: if it is waged as a last resort or in self-defense; if the force used is proportional; and if, whenever possible, civilians are spared from violence.

Of course, we know that for most of history, this concept of “just war” was rarely observed. The capacity of human beings to think up new ways to kill one another proved inexhaustible, as did our capacity to exempt from mercy those who look different or pray to a different God. Wars between armies gave way to wars between nations — total wars in which the distinction between combatant and civilian became blurred. In the span of 30 years, such carnage would twice engulf this continent. And while it’s hard to conceive of a cause more just than the defeat of the Third Reich and the Axis powers, World War II was a conflict in which the total number of civilians who died exceeded the number of soldiers who perished.

In the wake of such destruction, and with the advent of the nuclear age, it became clear to victor and vanquished alike that the world needed institutions to prevent another world war. And so, a quarter century after the United States Senate rejected the League of Nations — an idea for which Woodrow Wilson received this prize — America led the world in constructing an architecture to keep the peace: a Marshall Plan and a United Nations, mechanisms to govern the waging of war, treaties to protect human rights, prevent genocide, restrict the most dangerous weapons.

In many ways, these efforts succeeded. Yes, terrible wars have been fought, and atrocities committed. But there has been no Third World War. The Cold War ended with jubilant crowds dismantling a wall. Commerce has stitched much of the world together. Billions have been lifted from poverty. The ideals of liberty and self-determination, equality and the rule of law have haltingly advanced. We are the heirs of the fortitude and foresight of generations past, and it is a legacy for which my own country is rightfully proud.

And yet, a decade into a new century, this old architecture is buckling under the weight of new threats. The world may no longer shudder at the prospect of war between two nuclear superpowers, but proliferation may increase the risk of catastrophe. Terrorism has long been a tactic, but modern technology allows a few small men with outsized rage to murder innocents on a horrific scale.

Moreover, wars between nations have increasingly given way to wars within nations. The resurgence of ethnic or sectarian conflicts; the growth of secessionist movements, insurgencies, and failed states — all these things have increasingly trapped civilians in unending chaos. In today’s wars, many more civilians are killed than soldiers; the seeds of future conflict are sown, economies are wrecked, civil societies torn asunder, refugees amassed, children scarred.

I do not bring with me today a definitive solution to the problems of war. What I do know is that meeting these challenges will require the same vision, hard work, and persistence of those men and women who acted so boldly decades ago. And it will require us to think in new ways about the notions of just war and the imperatives of a just peace.

We must begin by acknowledging the hard truth: We will not eradicate violent conflict in our lifetimes. There will be times when nations — acting individually or in concert — will find the use of force not only necessary but morally justified.

I make this statement mindful of what Martin Luther King Jr. said in this same ceremony years ago: “Violence never brings permanent peace. It solves no social problem: it merely creates new and more complicated ones.” As someone who stands here as a direct consequence of Dr. King’s life work, I am living testimony to the moral force of non-violence. I know there’s nothing weak — nothing passive — nothing naïve — in the creed and lives of Gandhi and King.

But as a head of state sworn to protect and defend my nation, I cannot be guided by their examples alone. I face the world as it is, and cannot stand idle in the face of threats to the American people. For make no mistake: Evil does exist in the world. A non-violent movement could not have halted Hitler’s armies. Negotiations cannot convince al Qaeda’s leaders to lay down their arms. To say that force may sometimes be necessary is not a call to cynicism — it is a recognition of history; the imperfections of man and the limits of reason.

I raise this point, I begin with this point because in many countries there is a deep ambivalence about military action today, no matter what the cause. And at times, this is joined by a reflexive suspicion of America, the world’s sole military superpower.

But the world must remember that it was not simply international institutions — not just treaties and declarations — that brought stability to a post-World War II world. Whatever mistakes we have made, the plain fact is this: The United States of America has helped underwrite global security for more than six decades with the blood of our citizens and the strength of our arms. The service and sacrifice of our men and women in uniform has promoted peace and prosperity from Germany to Korea, and enabled democracy to take hold in places like the Balkans. We have borne this burden not because we seek to impose our will. We have done so out of enlightened self-interest — because we seek a better future for our children and grandchildren, and we believe that their lives will be better if others’ children and grandchildren can live in freedom and prosperity.

So yes, the instruments of war do have a role to play in preserving the peace. And yet this truth must coexist with another — that no matter how justified, war promises human tragedy. The soldier’s courage and sacrifice is full of glory, expressing devotion to country, to cause, to comrades in arms. But war itself is never glorious, and we must never trumpet it as such.

So part of our challenge is reconciling these two seemingly inreconcilable truths — that war is sometimes necessary, and war at some level is an expression of human folly. Concretely, we must direct our effort to the task that President Kennedy called for long ago. “Let us focus,” he said, “on a more practical, more attainable peace, based not on a sudden revolution in human nature but on a gradual evolution in human institutions.” A gradual evolution of human institutions.

What might this evolution look like? What might these practical steps be?

To begin with, I believe that all nations — strong and weak alike — must adhere to standards that govern the use of force. I — like any head of state — reserve the right to act unilaterally if necessary to defend my nation. Nevertheless, I am convinced that adhering to standards, international standards, strengthens those who do, and isolates and weakens those who don’t.

The world rallied around America after the 9/11 attacks, and continues to support our efforts in Afghanistan, because of the horror of those senseless attacks and the recognized principle of self-defense. Likewise, the world recognized the need to confront Saddam Hussein when he invaded Kuwait — a consensus that sent a clear message to all about the cost of aggression.

Furthermore, America — in fact, no nation — can insist that others follow the rules of the road if we refuse to follow them ourselves. For when we don’t, our actions appear arbitrary and undercut the legitimacy of future interventions, no matter how justified.

And this becomes particularly important when the purpose of military action extends beyond self-defense or the defense of one nation against an aggressor. More and more, we all confront difficult questions about how to prevent the slaughter of civilians by their own government, or to stop a civil war whose violence and suffering can engulf an entire region.

I believe that force can be justified on humanitarian grounds, as it was in the Balkans, or in other places that have been scarred by war. Inaction tears at our conscience and can lead to more costly intervention later. That’s why all responsible nations must embrace the role that militaries with a clear mandate can play to keep the peace.

America’s commitment to global security will never waver. But in a world in which threats are more diffuse, and missions more complex, America cannot act alone. America alone cannot secure the peace. This is true in Afghanistan. This is true in failed states like Somalia, where terrorism and piracy is joined by famine and human suffering. And sadly, it will continue to be true in unstable regions for years to come.

The leaders and soldiers of NATO countries, and other friends and allies, demonstrate this truth through the capacity and courage they’ve shown in Afghanistan. But in many countries, there is a disconnect between the efforts of those who serve and the ambivalence of the broader public. I understand why war is not popular, but I also know this: The belief that peace is desirable is rarely enough to achieve it. Peace requires responsibility. Peace entails sacrifice. That’s why NATO continues to be indispensable. That’s why we must strengthen U.N. and regional peacekeeping, and not leave the task to a few countries. That’s why we honor those who return home from peacekeeping and training abroad to Oslo and Rome; to Ottawa and Sydney; to Dhaka and Kigali — we honor them not as makers of war, but of wagers — but as wagers of peace.

Let me make one final point about the use of force. Even as we make difficult decisions about going to war, we must also think clearly about how we fight it. The Nobel Committee recognized this truth in awarding its first prize for peace to Henry Dunant — the founder of the Red Cross, and a driving force behind the Geneva Conventions.

Where force is necessary, we have a moral and strategic interest in binding ourselves to certain rules of conduct. And even as we confront a vicious adversary that abides by no rules, I believe the United States of America must remain a standard bearer in the conduct of war. That is what makes us different from those whom we fight. That is a source of our strength. That is why I prohibited torture. That is why I ordered the prison at Guantanamo Bay closed. And that is why I have reaffirmed America’s commitment to abide by the Geneva Conventions. We lose ourselves when we compromise the very ideals that we fight to defend. (Applause.) And we honor — we honor those ideals by upholding them not when it’s easy, but when it is hard.

I have spoken at some length to the question that must weigh on our minds and our hearts as we choose to wage war. But let me now turn to our effort to avoid such tragic choices, and speak of three ways that we can build a just and lasting peace.

First, in dealing with those nations that break rules and laws, I believe that we must develop alternatives to violence that are tough enough to actually change behavior — for if we want a lasting peace, then the words of the international community must mean something. Those regimes that break the rules must be held accountable. Sanctions must exact a real price. Intransigence must be met with increased pressure — and such pressure exists only when the world stands together as one.

One urgent example is the effort to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons, and to seek a world without them. In the middle of the last century, nations agreed to be bound by a treaty whose bargain is clear: All will have access to peaceful nuclear power; those without nuclear weapons will forsake them; and those with nuclear weapons will work towards disarmament. I am committed to upholding this treaty. It is a centerpiece of my foreign policy. And I’m working with President Medvedev to reduce America and Russia’s nuclear stockpiles.

But it is also incumbent upon all of us to insist that nations like Iran and North Korea do not game the system. Those who claim to respect international law cannot avert their eyes when those laws are flouted. Those who care for their own security cannot ignore the danger of an arms race in the Middle East or East Asia. Those who seek peace cannot stand idly by as nations arm themselves for nuclear war.

The same principle applies to those who violate international laws by brutalizing their own people. When there is genocide in Darfur, systematic rape in Congo, repression in Burma — there must be consequences. Yes, there will be engagement; yes, there will be diplomacy — but there must be consequences when those things fail. And the closer we stand together, the less likely we will be faced with the choice between armed intervention and complicity in oppression.

This brings me to a second point — the nature of the peace that we seek. For peace is not merely the absence of visible conflict. Only a just peace based on the inherent rights and dignity of every individual can truly be lasting.

It was this insight that drove drafters of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights after the Second World War. In the wake of devastation, they recognized that if human rights are not protected, peace is a hollow promise.

And yet too often, these words are ignored. For some countries, the failure to uphold human rights is excused by the false suggestion that these are somehow Western principles, foreign to local cultures or stages of a nation’s development. And within America, there has long been a tension between those who describe themselves as realists or idealists — a tension that suggests a stark choice between the narrow pursuit of interests or an endless campaign to impose our values around the world.

I reject these choices. I believe that peace is unstable where citizens are denied the right to speak freely or worship as they please; choose their own leaders or assemble without fear. Pent-up grievances fester, and the suppression of tribal and religious identity can lead to violence. We also know that the opposite is true. Only when Europe became free did it finally find peace. America has never fought a war against a democracy, and our closest friends are governments that protect the rights of their citizens. No matter how callously defined, neither America’s interests — nor the world’s — are served by the denial of human aspirations.

So even as we respect the unique culture and traditions of different countries, America will always be a voice for those aspirations that are universal. We will bear witness to the quiet dignity of reformers like Aung Sang Suu Kyi; to the bravery of Zimbabweans who cast their ballots in the face of beatings; to the hundreds of thousands who have marched silently through the streets of Iran. It is telling that the leaders of these governments fear the aspirations of their own people more than the power of any other nation. And it is the responsibility of all free people and free nations to make clear that these movements — these movements of hope and history — they have us on their side.

Let me also say this: The promotion of human rights cannot be about exhortation alone. At times, it must be coupled with painstaking diplomacy. I know that engagement with repressive regimes lacks the satisfying purity of indignation. But I also know that sanctions without outreach — condemnation without discussion — can carry forward only a crippling status quo. No repressive regime can move down a new path unless it has the choice of an open door.

In light of the Cultural Revolution’s horrors, Nixon’s meeting with Mao appeared inexcusable — and yet it surely helped set China on a path where millions of its citizens have been lifted from poverty and connected to open societies. Pope John Paul’s engagement with Poland created space not just for the Catholic Church, but for labor leaders like Lech Walesa. Ronald Reagan’s efforts on arms control and embrace of perestroika not only improved relations with the Soviet Union, but empowered dissidents throughout Eastern Europe. There’s no simple formula here. But we must try as best we can to balance isolation and engagement, pressure and incentives, so that human rights and dignity are advanced over time.

Third, a just peace includes not only civil and political rights — it must encompass economic security and opportunity. For true peace is not just freedom from fear, but freedom from want.

It is undoubtedly true that development rarely takes root without security; it is also true that security does not exist where human beings do not have access to enough food, or clean water, or the medicine and shelter they need to survive. It does not exist where children can’t aspire to a decent education or a job that supports a family. The absence of hope can rot a society from within.

And that’s why helping farmers feed their own people — or nations educate their children and care for the sick — is not mere charity. It’s also why the world must come together to confront climate change. There is little scientific dispute that if we do nothing, we will face more drought, more famine, more mass displacement — all of which will fuel more conflict for decades. For this reason, it is not merely scientists and environmental activists who call for swift and forceful action — it’s military leaders in my own country and others who understand our common security hangs in the balance.

Agreements among nations. Strong institutions. Support for human rights. Investments in development. All these are vital ingredients in bringing about the evolution that President Kennedy spoke about. And yet, I do not believe that we will have the will, the determination, the staying power, to complete this work without something more — and that’s the continued expansion of our moral imagination; an insistence that there’s something irreducible that we all share.

As the world grows smaller, you might think it would be easier for human beings to recognize how similar we are; to understand that we’re all basically seeking the same things; that we all hope for the chance to live out our lives with some measure of happiness and fulfillment for ourselves and our families.

And yet somehow, given the dizzying pace of globalization, the cultural leveling of modernity, it perhaps comes as no surprise that people fear the loss of what they cherish in their particular identities — their race, their tribe, and perhaps most powerfully their religion. In some places, this fear has led to conflict. At times, it even feels like we’re moving backwards. We see it in the Middle East, as the conflict between Arabs and Jews seems to harden. We see it in nations that are torn asunder by tribal lines.

And most dangerously, we see it in the way that religion is used to justify the murder of innocents by those who have distorted and defiled the great religion of Islam, and who attacked my country from Afghanistan. These extremists are not the first to kill in the name of God; the cruelties of the Crusades are amply recorded. But they remind us that no Holy War can ever be a just war. For if you truly believe that you are carrying out divine will, then there is no need for restraint — no need to spare the pregnant mother, or the medic, or the Red Cross worker, or even a person of one’s own faith. Such a warped view of religion is not just incompatible with the concept of peace, but I believe it’s incompatible with the very purpose of faith — for the one rule that lies at the heart of every major religion is that we do unto others as we would have them do unto us.

Adhering to this law of love has always been the core struggle of human nature. For we are fallible. We make mistakes, and fall victim to the temptations of pride, and power, and sometimes evil. Even those of us with the best of intentions will at times fail to right the wrongs before us.

But we do not have to think that human nature is perfect for us to still believe that the human condition can be perfected. We do not have to live in an idealized world to still reach for those ideals that will make it a better place. The non-violence practiced by men like Gandhi and King may not have been practical or possible in every circumstance, but the love that they preached — their fundamental faith in human progress — that must always be the North Star that guides us on our journey.

For if we lose that faith — if we dismiss it as silly or naïve; if we divorce it from the decisions that we make on issues of war and peace — then we lose what’s best about humanity. We lose our sense of possibility. We lose our moral compass.

Like generations have before us, we must reject that future. As Dr. King said at this occasion so many years ago, “I refuse to accept despair as the final response to the ambiguities of history. I refuse to accept the idea that the ‘isness’ of man’s present condition makes him morally incapable of reaching up for the eternal ‘oughtness’ that forever confronts him.”

Let us reach for the world that ought to be — that spark of the divine that still stirs within each of our souls. (Applause.)

Somewhere today, in the here and now, in the world as it is, a soldier sees he’s outgunned, but stands firm to keep the peace. Somewhere today, in this world, a young protestor awaits the brutality of her government, but has the courage to march on. Somewhere today, a mother facing punishing poverty still takes the time to teach her child, scrapes together what few coins she has to send that child to school — because she believes that a cruel world still has a place for that child’s dreams.

Let us live by their example. We can acknowledge that oppression will always be with us, and still strive for justice. We can admit the intractability of depravation, and still strive for dignity. Clear-eyed, we can understand that there will be war, and still strive for peace. We can do that — for that is the story of human progress; that’s the hope of all the world; and at this moment of challenge, that must be our work here on Earth.

Inquiry Website – http://www.iraqinquiry.org.uk/

The Prime Minister announced on 15 June 2009 that an Inquiry would be conducted to identify lessons that can be learned from the Iraq conflict. The Iraq Inquiry was officially launched on 30 July 2009. At the launch the Chair of the Inquiry, Sir John Chilcot, set out the Inquiry’s Terms of Reference:

“Our terms of reference are very broad, but the essential points, as set out by the Prime Minister and agreed by the House of Commons, are that this is an Inquiry by a committee of Privy Counsellors. It will consider the period from the summer of 2001 to the end of July 2009, embracing the run-up to the conflict in Iraq, the military action and its aftermath. We will therefore be considering the UK’s involvement in Iraq, including the way decisions were made and actions taken, to establish, as accurately as possible, what happened and to identify the lessons that can be learned. Those lessons will help ensure that, if we face similar situations in future, the government of the day is best equipped to respond to those situations in the most effective manner in the best interests of the country.”

The Inquiry committee members are Sir John Chilcot (Chairman), Sir Lawrence Freedman, Sir Martin Gilbert, Sir Roderic Lyne and Baroness Usha Prashar.

What have they already learned?

For one, the information about Iraq being able to target Cyprus with chemical weapons was divulged by a taxi driver after overhearing some military officers speaking in his ride. The information was included in a dossier but marked “verifiably inaccurate” by the agents that had collected it.

Also, that the top lawyer in Blair’s government, Lord Goldsmith, had advised him that deposing Saddam would be against international law. Blair “refused to accept Lord Goldsmith’s advice and instead issued instructions for his long-term friend to be “gagged” and barred from cabinet meetings, the newspaper claimed. Lord Goldsmith apparently lost three stone, and complained he was “more or less pinned to the wall” in a No 10 showdown with two of Mr Blair’s most loyal aides, Lord Falconer and Baroness Morgan. Mr Blair also allegedly failed to inform the Cabinet of the warning, fearing an “anti-war revolt”.”

Further, “among the devastating details presented to the inquiry was the revelation that British spies reported 10 days before the invasion that Iraq had “disassembled” what chemical weapons it had – but Mr Blair went ahead and sent troops into battle. Britain’s former ambassador to Washington, Sir Christopher Meyer, claimed Mr Blair and Mr Bush had signed a secret deal “in blood” to remove Saddam almost a year before the invasion. He said the agreement in effect left officials scrabbling to find “a smoking gun” to justify going to war.”

And after rushing into the war they could not even meet the necessary resources needed to complete the mission:

“We are putting amateurs into really important positions and people are getting killed as a result of some of these decisions. It’s a huge responsibility and I just don’t sense we are living up to it.”

The speed of the military operation that led to the occupation of Iraq in 2003 took planners by surprise, Viggers told Sir John Chilcot’s inquiry into the war, and reconstruction efforts were hampered by a growing insurgency, security issues, economic, governance and power supply problems.

“It was rather like going to the theatre and seeing one sort of play and realising you were watching a tragedy as the curtains came back.

“We suffered from a lack of any real understanding of the state of that country post-invasion.”

Start here: Pulitzer Prize winner Philip Caputo reports from the silent streets of Juarez. Silent due to the fear of people to speak out about the truth of what is happening to the city and the sources of the violence. Many questions are asked but even questioning what is going on is a deadly business.

Corruption Index: Mexico ranks 3.3. Not so bad considering the neighborhood but it is one of the most endemic influences that destroys the state’s ability to exercise control and for people to trust the state. Surprisingly, the US only gets a 7.5 and Spain a 6.1.

In the Caputo article, he argues that the US plays softball with its aid-withdrawal threats against Mexico. Despite it failing to live up to its end of the bargain, Mexico still gets a large percentage of aid from the US to fight not only what is really our drug war but general aid for the government as well. I would agree with his assessment that the reason we don’t put a foot down and enforce the agreement is because using the cheap labor in Mexican factories is perceived as being very important for the US and we would not want to rock the economic boat. Economic development is important in Mexico but one has to wonder if some of our current economic problems don’t stem from shipping off some of our manufacturing jobs to people earning sub-par wages and in bad working conditions just so we can fuel our consumerist society at a discount.

As Julian Cardona is this BBC story says of Juarez:

“We have an unsustainable economy – a globalised economy – which pays very low wages. That allowed an alternative economy to be created which also globalised – drugs. Both economies are playing here. Juarez is a very important place for both.”

Another BBC story about La Familia, a cartel gang that mixes violence and religion.

One curious feature of the organisation is that, according to Mexican intelligence documents, it strongly discourages its members from consuming alcohol or drugs, and has a quasi-religious ideology.

The group’s alleged spiritual leader, Nazario Moreno Gonzalez, also known as “El Mas Loco”, or “the maddest one” is understood to have published and distributed his own bible, based on the macho Christian writing of contemporary American author John Eldredge.

Speculation on the emergence of vigilante groups. This happened in Colombia as well with government backing and the turned into a civil war that continues even now. Not really the best sign.

Stratfor’s subsite on tracking the cartels.

And, probably the most comprehensive and up-to-date resource, the LA Time’s section on the Mexico Drug Wars. With an interactive map and continually updated stories.

An alternative take on what the US-Mexico relationship should be focused on from Foreign Policy in April ‘09:

But I worry that this is merely another head fake in the relationship, because Americans are paying attention for the wrong reasons and will soon move on, while the dashing of expectations that this time Americans might pay attention to the relationship will cause lasting damage. Those Americans paying closest attention to Mexico are simply interested in closing the border, and the rest will be distracted by another crisis once they realize that this one is messy, but containable, and is largely Americans’ doing. It’s not as cathartic to clean up your own mess as it is to altruistically fix problems you didn’t create in the first place.

For all the talk of a porous border in the immigration context, what flows from north to south — vast drug profits and weaponry — is far more destabilizing to the security of both countries. How eager is Washington to police those flows? How eager is Washington to engage Mexican development in a sustained manner, along the lines with which the European Union addressed the development of its poorer members such as Ireland and Greece? How eager is Washington to resolve the paralyzing impasse over immigration reform?

When this country stops fiddling in sandboxes and tribal wars elsewhere in the war will we have the willpower to actually confront the true nature of our relationship with our sister nation Mexico and how we have an adverse influence on its destabilization? Will we finally do something about the flow of arms or address our nation’s addiction to ‘illegal’ drugs? Or we will try and hide behind our walls and put our hands over our ears and ignore the problem until it blows up in our face many more people, Mexican and American, die?

I’ll get to some choice bits of the post in a second but I think it is another example of why we really should not feel so bad about the MSM faltering with the new technologies that have come about as they have obviously been involved in helping create the stories that they are supposed to be reporting, a matter I pointed out in one of my posts about Nidal Malik Hasan. Seriously, read the whole thing. It seems that the political press corps are more akin to high schoolers trying to look cool and get brownie points instead of doing their jobs. Also, it seems the they are pretty touchy as Taibbi points out (but isn’t copied here) that if you don’t treat them nicely then you are likely to get savaged in the media.

Some morsels to digest:

1) The political media has always taken it upon itself to make decisions about who is and who is not qualified to be taken seriously as candidates for higher office. Without even talking about whether they do this more or less to Republicans or Democrats, I can testify that I witnessed this phenomenon over and over again in the primary battles within the Democratic Party. It has always been true that the press corps has drawn upon internalized professional biases, high-school-style groupthink and the urging of insider wonks to separate candidates into “serious” and “unserious” groups before the shots even start to be fired.

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2) When that does happen, when the press corps decides to abandon all restraint and go for the head shot, it usually tells us a lot more about the reporters’ bosses and what they’re thinking than it does about the reporters themselves. Your average political reporter is a spineless dweeb who went to all the best schools and made it to that privileged seat inside the campaign-trail ropeline by being keenly sensitive to the editorial wishes of his social and professional superiors.

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Once the signal comes down that this or that politician doesn’t have the backing of anyone who matters, that’s when the knives really come out. When a politician has powerful allies and powerful friends, you won’t see reporters brazenly kicking him in the crotch the way they did to Dean and they’re doing now to Sarah Palin. The only time they do this is when they know there won’t be consequences, meaning when the politician’s only supporters are non-entities (read: voters), as in the case of Ron Paul or Kucinich. Like America in general, the press corps never attacks any enemy that can fight back. To illustrate the point via haiku:

Journos are pussies

Only attack when it’s safe

Lay off entrenched pols

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The press corps that is bashing her skull in right now is the same one that hyped that WMD horseshit for like four solid years and pom-pommed America to war with Iraq over the screeching objections of the entire planet. It’s the same press corps that rolled out the red carpet for someone very nearly as abjectly stupid as Sarah Palin to win not one but two terms in the White House. If there was any kind of consensus support for Palin inside the beltway, the criticism of her, bet on it, would be almost totally confined to chortling east coast smartasses like me and Glenn Greenwald and Andrew Sullivan.

The massacre at Fort Hood is a reminder that the War on Terror is not fought just in south Afghanistan or Mosul. It is a global war also fought in an office building inside a military base in Texas. Many counter-terror analysts focus on the Pakistan connection and preventing The Big One that could top 9/11. But the real problem may well be the self-motivated “small ball” players like Major Hasan or a future disciple of DC Sniper John Allen Muhammad. “Small ball” terrorism won’t have the economic, political, or strategic impact that 9/11 did. But if there is enough of it, the public will eventually find political leadership that will provide an adequate response to the problem.

I enjoy reading Small Wars Journal to get a different and supposedly more learned aspect about how military functions and is changing and about the wars we are fighting. I found this post by Robert Haddick a bit of a stretch though.

For one, it has not been proven by anyone that Hasan was acting as a terrorist, even a ’small ball’ one. So far, it continues to look like a workplace shooting under the guise of someone’s religion. If a Christian shooter had done the same would people be screaming terrorism? Doubtful.

He does mention John Allen Muhammed which I will give him points for as everyone else in the media, upon his execution the other week, ignored that Muhammed was a terrorist in the true sense of the word. For three weeks, Muhammed and Malvo coldly targeted innocent people to spread fear throughout a region over a broad area. People were scared to go to the gas pumps, to shopping centers, and other open spaces. In contrast, Hasan was seen as a troubled loner having troubles at his workplace, which happened to be a military base, and went into that workplace and committed actions comparable to those of most workplace shootings (such as that of the Florida man the day after).

Haddick goes further to explain that maybe it’s time to revisit a book titled Terror and Consent in which the author, Philip Bobbitt, advocated that “more law authorizing more surveillance and more foreign intervention would be the only way to protect basic liberties.”

Clearly, we reached this point with the Patriot Act in the US and the Terrorism Acts in the UK (in 2000 and updated in 2006). The UK has further reaching security and surveillance appartus already enforced than the US and is not hesitant to use it.

A few more points raised:

Many want to know why the electronic surveillance over Hasan was not used to stop him in advance of his rampage. A fair question.

Probably because in the US we actually have rights. People trolling forums and posting crazy stuff on the web is rather common place. Our surveillance and tracking didn’t stop the Virginia Tech shooter, despite a classroom and online history that might point to things. This isn’t Minority Report – you can’t prosecute crimes that have not been committed yet.

Further, whose shoulders should it be on? The data crunchers at the NSA, DIA, or FBI or the military that trained and advanced him to major while pointing out performance problems. What about all those other highly trained psychiatrists around him? Didn’t they get a free ride at university to be able to diagnose such personality problems? It makes me wonder how bad the evaluations are troops are getting.

Are there other Major Hasans who have similarly self-radicalized and are preparing to strike? Or about to self-radicalize even if they don’t know it yet?

This gets a ‘WTF’. Because really, WTF? How does one self-radicalize? By sitting in a room and driving yourself crazy with religious texts? In what sense is he a radical vs a disturbed, yet unfortunately commonplace, spree killer?

In the US, there are myriad elements that are driving people to assault the state or other persons or institutions. Why did Bruce Ivins, a noted scientist, send anthrax letters after September 11th? Why haven’t there been as large an investigation into the firebombing of houses in California by the Animal Liberation Front? This country has a history of violence that goes above and beyond the current ‘war on terror’.

When doing some basic research online, most of those arrested for plotting terror attacks since September 11th have been inspired to do so by our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. If you look at actual attacks, that have been committed, they are by extremists of all sorts, many of which are conservative elements, such as white supremacists and abortion clinic shooters and bombers. Why are do these people not receive the immediate accusations of terrorism as well? They are targeted specific groups of people in hopes of instilling fear in the population at large to change a policy or the peoples’ actions.

Our media feeds these fears as best they can because that seems to be their job now – not news reporting but rampant speculation and fearmongering, as was evidenced the day of and right after the Ft. Hood shooting. It’s not wholly their fault though. It’s out current culture and populace which, as reflected in the media and reported lawsuits, seems to be full of, well, scaredy cats.

We should learn something from our brothers-in-arms across the pond, Britain. Not the panopticon surveillance society they have going on now but the ideas from WWII and after about keeping calm and carrying on through whatever the Germans could drop on them (43,000 civilians killed in less than a year of the Blitz) or the low-level terrorism of the IRA in the years after the war.

For a country that likes to see itself as resilient (the new meme since 9/11) we tend to be rather fragile and hysterical. The day after the bombings in Madrid in 2004, 11.4 million people (30% of the population) marched in cities throughout the country, 1.5 million in the wounded city itself. What did we do after September 11th?

We were encouraged to go shopping.