Leadership By Firedrill

Like most of us, I learned about and participated in fire drills at a very early age, starting in primary grades, then continuing all through middle and high school, in the military, and in the work environment. Fire drills are important, they prepare us to react to a dangerous situation, to remove ourselves from harm's way as safely and quickly quickly as possible. But fire drills do not prevent fires, nor do they guarantee to always protect us from sustaining casualties, nor do they extinguish fires. Fire drills are in essence an ad hoc response to an unplanned event, with temporary effect, minimizing but not always preventing casualties.

Common sense helps us to realize that in addition to fire drills, good management of fire protection involves fire prevention efforts, and effective fire suppression tools and tactics. Effective prevention includes knowledge of cause and effect coupled with appropriate proactive planning actions, effective suppression includes developing appropriate tactics to respond to individual and diverse situations, acquisition and training of effective manpower, acquisition and mastery of appropriate tools; taken together, this all adds up to effective strategic thinking by those charged with the responsibility to protect us from fires.

Over the course of the past seven plus years both the Bush administration and Congress (whether a Republican or democratic majority) have led our country through a series of fire drills, at varying degrees of success, but arguably, lacking in strategic thinking and action. Or have they? Has the strategy all along been to back the American people in to a corner through fear and intimidation garnered from natural events and human actions in order to consolidate power in to the office of the president, and perhaps more significantly consolidate the power and reach of corporate interests, who pull the strings of the Oval Office and both houses of Congress? All in service to the fulfillment of ever greater corporate greed.

The 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center should have been a wake-up call, and the intelligence about Al- Qaeda available to our government prior to the 9/11 attacks should have led to appropriate, proactive, strategic planning and action, instead government and civilian resources were left scrambling, in a catch-up effort at protecting the security of our nation in the intervening years. Then based upon fear and misinformation the Bush administration hoodwinked the country in to an invasion and start of a five year war in Iraq in which our military assets have been exhausted, been disabled from protecting us in other parts of the world, lead to needless casualties of Americans and Iraqis, and put future generations of American tax payers on the hook to the foreign nations that have loaned the money to the United States to conduct the folly that is the Iraq war. All the while enriching war profiteering corporations (Haliburton, Blackwater, KBR, et al).

In the midst of all of the damage done to our economy, to human life, to our reputation and influence in the world because of the Iraq war, our government has taken us through more fire drills:

The natural disaster that was hurricane Katrina and the bungled fire drill that followed, including the complete mismanagement of the situation by the local, state and federal government entities and in particular FEMA.

The fire drill that has followed 9/11 and the pursuit of the "war on terrorism" has resulted in the suspension of our constitutional protections, when prisoners of the United States have been denied the right of habeus corpus, and where, playing upon fear and claiming urgency the FISA rules were overridden and the government allowed to listen and read virtually all of our telecommunications at will. The Constitution has been discarded in this fire drill.

Now capping an era of uncontrolled corporate greed, an era in which many demanded less government oversight in to various facets of life in the United States (in the financial sector, in protection of the environment, in mine safety, in health care, etc.), an era in which government intervention in the form of sound regulation has been ridiculed and avoided, an era in which the government, corporations and individual American citizens pursuing short sighted, greedy financial gains, have resulted in the latest fire drill, with a claimed immediate need to inject as much as or more than $700 billion of our hard earned cash in to the financial system. In essence saying to those who put the country in to this situation, "OK, you screwed up, but we will bail your asses out, and let you go back to playing your games all over again". The bailout bill as it seems to be presently constituted does little, if anything to address the root cause of the current financial disaster facing our country, it just, at best, restarts the economic cycle. It does not mandate any true change in behavior in the financial markets or in the conduct of business in the United States, it is simply just another fire drill, going through the motions of evacuating the financial industry principals, who through their playing with matches have started this conflagration, and evacuating them so they can play another day.

Is this really how we, as intelligent American people, as fathers and mothers responsible for providing a safe, nurturing environment compatible with a thriving life for our children want our society to operate, as one fire drill after another. With never an effort to embrace long term, strategic thinking, planning and actions. Never giving sufficient time, thought and effort towards building a better infrastructure, whether financial, medical, energy, transportation or telecommunications, to live safely and thrive in this county, but just constantly responding in a reactive, fire drill mode to the next crisis?

It is time that we, as American citizens, active in our role as owners of this society demand an end to governance by fire drill, time that we impose our will upon those who serve us in all governmental offices, whether elected or appointed, time that we say to the greedy, profit driven corporations and their lobbying agents that we have had enough of the fire drills, and that we demand more and smarter fire protection, that we demand fire suppression that serves not greedy corporation interests, but the greater good of all of the people.

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Katrina Commemoration March: Providence RI-- 8/29

Three years after Hurricane Katrina hits the Gulf Coast, Join the Commemoration March in Providence. Featuring words, action, music, and art, we will make our way second-line style along the Hurricane Evacuation route, making stops that will highlight the issues of Criminalization, Gentrification, Foreclosures, Immigrant Rights, and Education that connect the struggles of residents from Providence to New Orleans. Special guest speaker- Katrina Survivor and leader from Safe Streets Strong Communities NOLA! Don't miss it!


Does anyone doubt that the War in Iraq has played a role in the government response (and lack of responses) to Katrina?

One of my neighbors who is a full-time national guardsman, and originally from Louisiana, told me how his troops returned from Iraq and were immediately stationed in New Orleans. It was a devastating experience for them as they were not prepared or able to assist...

There is a facebook page for this event.
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=44629347048&ref=mf

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Who Should Pay for the Iraq Occupation

If I made a major decision that I later came to regret because it is costing me much more than I can manage while still living my life of 'luxury,' what options do I have. Should I ask strangers to make up the difference so I can continue my comfortable lifestyle? Or should I take a look at my situation, my rationale for the bad decision, my way of life, my other resources, and then take responsibility and make some adjustments?


Most of us would probably take responsibility and work to figure out our own solution. More than that, most of us would probably not have made such a bad decision in the first place. Most of us would have considered the long term risks and decided not to jeopardized the future of our family.

On the other hand, we have an Administration that hasn't done as we would have done. Instead, they have made multiple bad decisions (invading Iraq, ignoring New Orleans after Katrina, tax cuts for the rich, unregulated subprime loans, etc.) and are asking other countries (China and Japan) and future generations to pay for their mistakes. Not only have they performed poorly as our leaders, they have actually made themselves, and their rich supporters, richer and more powerful (unitary president, over compensated CEOs, unchecked Blackwater Inc., suspension of habeas corpus, etc.) in the process.

The administration, their small group of avid followers and friendly media moguls actually don't mind having China and others pay for their expensive mistakes as long as they are getting richer in the process. These rich and powerful know as long as China is willing to loan the US much of what it needs, they can continue to enjoy their 2006 tax cuts. Isn't it time to take away their tax cuts and make them pay for their mistakes?

If you're not quite convinced, maybe a little historical perspective on income taxes would help. Take a look at US individual federal income taxes in effect during WWII in the tables below. The rich of the time were taxed at up to 94% of their income over $200,000 in 1945. After inflation, these 1945 dollars become $2,090,800 in 2005 dollars.

(Click on image to see income tax rates during WWII)

If The Greatest Generation supported WWII with higher taxes, shouldn't those who support the Iraq occupation pay with higher taxes?

(This posting was originally published on The WAWG Blog.)

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Lest We Forget

"Impeachment is off the table," said Pelosi, D-Calif. "Democrats are not about getting even. Democrats are about helping people get ahead."
...
She used the word "bipartisan" at least eight times in her few minutes before the media, and said that she had promised the president that she would cooperate with him as much as possible.

-- Two days after the 2006 midterms, by Bill Myers, National Examiner, November 09, 2006

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Bring The Troops Home NOW!

Well. Isn't that just ducky? Raw Story tells us that, after reviewing hundreds of thousands of captured Iraqi documents, the Pentagon has found no evidence that Saddam Hussein had any connection at al with al-Qaeda.

Apparently, the only links between Saddam and any terrorist groups were just like ours. Just as we funded and armed Osama bin Laden to wage Islamic Jihad against the Russians when they invaded Afghanistan in support of Babrak Kamal's government, Saddam Hussein funded and armed groups to attack "Iraqi exiles, Shiite Muslims, Kurds and others he considered enemies of his regime."

The study is due to Congress and for general release by midweek.



The article, penned by Warren Strobel of McClatchy's Washington Bureau, states, in part:

[...] the upcoming Pentagon report promises to be a particularly stark and thorough refutation of one of the primary Bush administration arguments for the invasion of Iraq [i.e., that Saddam Hussein was linked to al-Qaeda. Another Bush Misadministration argument, that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction, has already been thoroughly refuted.] The subsequent war has come at the cost of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi lives, nearly 4,000 US troop deaths, and some half a trillion US dollars and counting.

Mr. Strobel's math skills are poor &mdash or perhaps McClatchy prefers to err on the cautious side of the balance ledger. Current wisdom has it that the total cost of Shrubya's Little Misadventure will run to over three trillion dollars. These costs do not address the Iraqis we've maimed and wounded, or the bills that other countries foolish enough to join in the "coalition of the willing" face. Britain, for example, announced today that their estimated cost will total approximately ten billion pounds sterling.

The article adds that the Bush Misadministration continues to lie about Saddam's Iraq and al-Qaeda, despite previously released documents and reports indicating the same findings as the forthcoming extensive review. As recently as last April, Vice President Dick Cheney again asserted a link between the Iraqi dictator and the terror network. So, if you know anyone stupid enough to listen to them and believe, please buy a copy of the review when it is released and use it to beat some sense into them.

The study is entitled "Saddam and Terrorism: Emerging Insights from Captured Iraqi Documents." Although it has been essentially complete since last year, it has been undergoing what one U.S. intelligence official described as a "painful" declassification review.

The article notes, in a painful aside, that "In fact, al Qaida in Iraq didn't emerge until 2004, a year after the invasion." Was that before or after Commander Codpiece was strutting around on the deck of an aircraft carrier in a uniform before a banner that screamed "Mission Accomplished," to the collective spooging of the shameless press corps?

Photo montage from grupo-utopia.com with the request that you spread it around

Meanwhile, we note that almost exactly a month ago, Auntie Beeb published a piece about the "reverse surge" that appears to be grimly prophetic. That article was pointing out the increase in violent incidents, many of which seemed to be targeting the Sunnis that the U.S. has been wooing with large sums of money:

US commanders on the ground [...] have pumped money into local economies by employing tens of thousands of young Sunni men as local auxiliaries - now re-named "Sons of Iraq" after several unhappier titles such as "Concerned Local Citizens" - to act as the eyes and ears of the US and Iraqi troops in the struggle against the militants.

They are also trying to encourage the Baghdad government to be more proactive in providing services and job-creation schemes in areas where the insurgents have been driven out.

But as we, and many others, have pointed out, the war has been going on for five years at this point. It's a bit late to start trying to win "hearts and minds." What's more, as the U.S. military strategy in Vietnam might suggest, the buying over of the "Sons of Iraq" sounds suspiciously like Tricky Dick's "changing the color of the corpses."

Al-Qaeda, and those Iraqis who are fighting the U.S. military will treat as traitors any Iraqis who side with the U.S. military. The U.S. is not going to stay in Iraq forever, John McCain or no John McCain. We simply cannot afford to. Sooner or later, our internal economic straits will be so dire, as a result of siphoning money out of the country to fund a prolonged war, that our economy will collapse. The U.S. is not willing to accept Iraqi refugees in any significant number. Despite the fact that more than 4 million Iraqis are now refugees, either in their own country or in Syria, Jordan, and other neighbouring nations, only approximately 7,000 have been accepted into the U.S. to date, and the original target of 25,000 has been lowered to 7,000.

Besides, the "hearts and minds" that the U.S. military is trying to win are deeply split even among themselves. We've said this repeatedly: Iraq has always been a fractured, heterogenous nation, with many different ethnic and religious groups, divided loyalties, in many ways still adhering to family, clan, tribe and feudal notions of society.

Thus, it should come as no surprise that Auntie Beeb once again informed us just yesterday that a woman had detonated her explosive vest when she came calling on another "leader" of the Sons of Iraq. Chances are that, just like the Issawi celebrants mentioned in the previous link, the woman was either a member of the tribe of the slain "Son of Iraq," Thaer Ghadban al-Karkhi.

According to Auntie Beeb, al Karkhi was the head of one of the majority-Sunni Arab Awakening Councils, allied with the US military against al-Qaeda in Iraq. How true that is, we have to wonder, since the same piece identified "Sheikh" Abdul Sattar Abu Risha as the head of the Awakening Council in Anbar, a key US ally who was widely credited with having defeated al-Qaeda in much of western Iraq. Greg Palast can give you the lowdown on the "Sheikh."

We ourselves have blogged about the "Sheikh's" mysterious trips with U.S. money. $75 million worth, fellow-taxpayers.

Meanwhile, to add further credence to Auntie Beeb's prognostications, Raw Story is telling us that forty-two people died in Iraq today as the result of violence. Forty-two. Do you know forty-two people? Add up your family members. You might have to include a few neighbours or colleagues.

Now imagine that these people who you, maybe, love, or like, or just know, were blown to smithereens. An assemblage of body parts, bloody meat, barely recognizable as human. Now imagine that happens to you every day. You probably don't know enough people to sustain that kind of loss every day for a year, probably not even a month. Well, for the Iraqis, this has been going on for five long years. And some days, it's a lot more than forty-two people.

In other news, eight U.S. servicemen were also killed. When are we going to bring our troops home? Because this has gone on too damned long. The troops did the job they were sent there to do. An army's job is to fight. They fought. The other stuff has to be done by non-military qualified and experienced civilian personnel. But Boy George wanted to send his friends and cronies out there to bilk the taxpayer, and because they're the friends and cronies of an incompetent boob, to no one's surprise they too are incompetent boobs. So now we have a failed state, in which people are being killed every day in large numbers. And it's too dangerous to send qualified experienced civilian personnel out there to help to fix the mess we made.

Every day that the soldiers stay there is one more day that they present a target to a people furious that their country has been invaded, their jobs are gone, their economy is faltering, they don't have power or light or working telephones, their streets are unsafe, and their wives, sisters, mothers, and daughters are being raped and beaten and killed, while their sons, brothers, fathers, and husbands are kidnapped, tortured, and killed.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, articles like this are just beginning to show up on the radar. The article states that railcars due to ease congestion in Philadelphia will be delayed. See if you can guess why.

New SEPTA Regional Rail cars will be at least four months late, delaying relief for riders on the increasingly crowded rail lines, SEPTA officials said yesterday.

[...] delivery of the rest of the 120-car order will also be pushed back at least four months, Nowakowski said. Final delivery of all the railcars is now scheduled for October 2010.

Rotem [the company building the cars, Ed.] was unable to procure enough of the type of steel specified in the SEPTA contract because the U.S. government has cornered the market; it is using the steel for armoring vehicles bound for Iraq, Nowakowski said.

For the sake of the dying, dead, maimed and wounded, in Iraq and at home; for the sake of the faltering economy, the people losing their homes, the people without health care, or with inadequate care; for the sake of the families that are being fractured by the stresses of this war; for the sake of the nation that is tottering under the accumulation of debt and the loss of its sons and daughters &mdash bring them home. End the war now.

Cross-posted over at La Casa de Los Gatos.

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War in Iraq: A Bigger Rip-Off Than Cable

According to Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz, the Iraq War will cost the USA $3 trillion. That's three trillion -- three thousand stacks of dollar bills stacked a billion high each. A dollar sign, a three, twelve zeros, and a whole mess of commas.

$3,000,000,000,000

This should add some perspective as we head deeper into the 2008 presidential and congressional campaigns and start hearing more and more from pro-endless-war "fiscal conservatives" about what we can't afford.

In a phrase, yes we can. We can afford what we prioritize.

The article cited above puts the $3 trillion in some perspective:

even one of these trillions could have paid for: 8 million housing units, or 15 million public school teachers, or healthcare for 530 million children for a year, or scholarships to university for 43 million students. Three trillion could have fixed America's social security problem for half a century.

Understand that these amazing amounts of money are in addition to regular defense spending. Also:

$138: The amount paid by every US household every month towards the current operating costs of the war

$19.3bn: The amount Halliburton has received in single-source contracts for work in Iraq

$5bn: Cost of 10 days' fighting in Iraq

$1 trillion: The interest America will have paid by 2017 on the money borrowed to finance the war

Do these incredible expenditures reflect our values and priorities? No.

(via)

this is cross-posted on my personal blog here

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Lying liars- and now it's official!

Cross posted from Gold Star Mom Speaks Out
Hundreds of lies led to war is the headline in my local paper, the SF Chronicle. That headline is kind of a DUH for those of us who have been keeping track of the lies.

I'm glad that the Center for Public Integrity, which worked with the Fund for Independence in Journalism finally made it official.

It's no surprise that the White House's response to the report was that the world community viewed Iraq's leader, Saddam Hussein, as a threat. "The actions taken in 2003 were based on the collective judgment of intelligence agencies around the world," Stanzel said. Liar! Even presented with 935 examples of empirical evidence, this White House still lies.

I was surprised to read that the methodology used to come up with the 935 lies covered public statements made by eight top Bush administration officials from September 11, 2001, to September 11, 2003, regarding only 2 subjects, (1) Iraq's possession of weapons of mass destruction and (2) Iraq's links to Al Qaeda.

Let's name them and shame them, the worst offenders in spreading this pack of lies. George W. Bush, Richard "Dick" Cheney, Ari Fleischer, Scott McClellan, Colin Powell, Condoleeza Rice, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz. If only there was a shred of decency in any of these men and woman. If there was, there might be a hope that they would be ashamed of their lies and ashamed of themselves, but not one of them is familiar with that emotion. They are too self righteous, too arrogant, and too damned powerful. We have suffered from their mere presence in our lives and our country has suffered.

The report said

Bush and the top officials of his administration have so far largely avoided the harsh, sustained glare of formal scrutiny about their personal responsibility for the litany of repeated, false statements in the run-up to the war in Iraq. There has been no congressional investigation, for example, into what exactly was going on inside the Bush White House in that period.

Congressional oversight has focused almost entirely on the quality of the U.S. government's pre-war intelligence — not the judgment, public statements, or public accountability of its highest officials. And, of course, only four of the officials — Powell, Rice, Rumsfeld, and Wolfowitz — have testified before Congress about Iraq.

Short of such review, this project provides a heretofore unavailable framework for examining how the U.S. war in Iraq came to pass. Clearly, it calls into question the repeated assertions of Bush administration officials that they were the unwitting victims of bad intelligence.

As much as we can blame this administration for lying about the war, the media did not escape the spotlight in the report.

The cumulative effect of these false statements — amplified by thousands of news stories and broadcasts — was massive, with the media coverage creating an almost impenetrable din for several critical months in the run-up to war. Some journalists — indeed, even some entire news organizations — have since acknowledged that their coverage during those prewar months was far too deferential and uncritical. These mea culpas notwithstanding, much of the wall-to-wall media coverage provided additional, "independent" validation of the Bush administration's false statements about Iraq.

3931 US casualties divided by 935 lies works out to just more than 4 lies per dead US troop. That's really quite disturbing especially for those of us who have lost a loved one in this boondoggle of lies.

I weep for the loss of my only child, Lt Ken Ballard. I weep for all Gold Star families whose lives have been irreparably changed by the death of their loved one. I weep for our nation. There are no tears, however, for this gang of 8, who knew better. I cannot pray for their souls, because they have none.

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Iraq War vs the Economy

(Cross posted from Gold Star Mom Speaks Out)

Time online recently posted an article called Will Iraq Return as a Campaign Issue? The article talks about how the state of the economy has replaced the war in Iraq as *the* issue in the presidential campaign. At the one year anniversary of the surge, the announced "success" of the surge has many people thinking the war is over. Speaking to troops in Kuwait, the president reminded his audience that last year's strategy shift was initially scorned in the U.S. but has turned out to be remarkably effective. I'm sure the families of the 900 soldiers who were killed since the surge was announced might not agree with the president or with those that believe the war is over.

Of course the state of the US economy is worrisome. As unprecedented numbers of homeowners are facing foreclosure, the unemployment rate is creeping up, the weakness of the US dollar and the need for a dose of Dramamine to try to keep up with Wall Street these days; it's no wonder the economy hasn't taken a place in the front seat sooner. Many people believed the president when he told the country the the economy is fine, don't worry, go shopping, he said. What's not to like about that?

We can be naive, but let's not be stupid. There is enough evidence now that the cost of the war and the state of the US economy are directly connected. Not to be simplistic, but if the administration wasn't spending as much money as it is in Iraq, perhaps there might be a chance for at least some of our economic issues to be addressed.

Let's remember the ### Iraq War Cost as they grow astonishingly by the second. How can we not connect the dots between the economy and the ongoing occupation in Iraq? The weekly cost of the war in Iraq is $275 million per day. That adds up to $4100 per household. Is that working for you and your community? Can you think of other ways that your tax dollars could be better spent?

If you want to know exactly how much money your community, your county or your state is spending and what the trade-off might be, please check the National Priorities Project. You can see what could have been purchased instead of a 5 year war, including how many people could have been provided with Health Care, how many elementary School Teachers could have been hired, how many affordable housing units or homes with Renewable Electricity, and many others.

You cannot have a conversation about the costs of war without talking about the loss of our blood and treasure; the human cost of war. Our country has lost 3923 members of the military who were serving our country in Iraq with at least 30,000 wounded. The population of Iraq has suffered immeasurably, too. 2007 was the worst year for casualties and while the recent drop in deaths is some good news, there is no guarantee that that trend will continue. Remind the candidates that 70% of Americans want war to end.

Do not let the media or the candidates distract you. The economy and the war in Iraq are important issues that must be addressed by anyone who sees themselves as the 44th president of the United States. These issues are explicably and forever connected and we must not let anyone tell us otherwise.

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