Hillary Clinton: Monster

Can you say, "riots in the streets"?



Somebody in the party please stop her. Please. Even in failing, she will irreparable damage to both the party and the nation.

Hillary Clinton, Not So Good on Genocide

Marc Cooper talks about the Clinton record on genocide, and how 38 year-old Samantha Power has more foreign policy cred in her left pinky then 60 year-old Hillary Clinton has in her whole body.

http://www.alternet.org/story/79019

---

Power was rightfully awarded the Pulitzer for her finely written and downright horrifying book A Problem From Hell which, in macabre detail, describes the calculated indifference of the Clinton administration when 800,000 Rwandans were being systematically butchered. The red phone rang and rang and rang again. I don't know where Hillary was then. But her husband and his entire experienced foreign policy team -- from the brass in the Pentagon to the congenitally feckless Secretary of State Warren Christopher -- just let it ring.

And as more than one researcher has amply documented the case, the bloody paralysis of the Clinton administration in the face of the Rwandan genocide owed not at all to a lack of information, but rather to a lack of will. A reviewer of Power's book for The New York Times, perhaps summed it up best, saying that the picture of Clinton that emerges from this reading is that of an "amoral narcissist."

Former Canadian General Romeo Dallaire, who commanded the UN forces in Rwanda at the time of the genocide, tells us a similar story in his own memoir. General Dallaire recounts how, at the height of the Rwandan holocaust, he got a phone call from a Clinton administration staffer who wanted to know how many Rwandans had already died, how many were refugees and how many were internally displaced. Writes Dallaire: "He told me that his estimates indicated that it would take the deaths of 85,000 Rwandans to justify the risking of the life of one American soldier." Eventually, ten times that many would die. And our response? A handful of years later, at a photo-op stopover in Kigali airport, Bill Clinton bit his lip and said he was sorry.

Therein resides the richest and saddest irony of all. Samantha Power has actually lived the sort of life that Hillary Clinton's campaign staff has, for public consumption, invented for its candidate. Though not quite 40 years old, Power has spent no time on any Wal-Mart boards but has rather dedicated her entire adult life rather tirelessly to championing humanitarian causes. She has spoken up when others were silent. She took great personal risks during the Balkan wars to witness and record and denounce the carnage (She reported that Bill Clinton intervened against the Serbs only when he felt he was losing personal credibility as a result of his inaction. "I'm getting creamed," Power quoted the then-President saying as he fretted over global consternation over his own hesitation to act).

---

Samantha Power for National Security Advisor

What, she should be precluded from government service because she was mean to Sen. Clinton? She has one of the best foreign policy minds I've ever seen. Watching the linked BBC clip on YouTube, I have to say that while political gamesmanship is to be expected from the candidates, I would hope that the rest of us, who have a greater stake in the correct policy being implemented than we do in our preferred candidate being elected, could have an honest discussion on these matters rather than trying to simply "one up" our competition. But perhaps that's impossible in the middle of a campaign season? I should hope not; this campaign has been going on for over a year, and it will continue through the rest of this year. Are we to forestall honest discussion for two years out of every four year Presidential term simply because the politicians don't feel like being honest with us about their intentions?

Of course Sen. Obama is presenting best case scenarios in his campaign. It's a political campaign. It's certainly no different from what Sen. Clinton is doing with regards to health care. Does anybody actually think that the plan she's crafted for the purpose of her campaign will be the one she presents to Congress? Don't be naive. It'll be a starting point, just like Sen. Obama's Iraq plan. It'll get chopped up by experts until a plan which bears very little resemblance to the original plan is scrapped.

To my original point: if we're going to kick every talented advisor to the curb because he or she says something politically inconvenient or impolite is the height of absurdity. Advisors should, by their nature, be plain-spoken and occasionally impolite. An advisor who never says anything which offends anybody is a cipher and should have no place in the White House.

I'm upset about Power's resignation from Obama's campaign, because what she has to offer is too important for petty politics to take precedence.

Why a U.S. - Russia alliance makes sense for America

Impressed with all the gee-whiz gadgets the American military has come up with over the years? Check out this Russian fighter, the Su-30MK:



I'm sure even the hawkish sorts in America can see the value behind being on the same side as the people who built this airplane. I imagine the time, resources, and ingenuity used to build it being put toward peaceful purposes, and I feel like there is nothing our two great nations couldn't accomplish together.

Texas, Ohio, and Rhode Island: "No You Can't"

Hillary Clinton won the primaries in Texas, Ohio, and Rhode Island. Obama won Vermont. Texas caucus results are still pending, so we'll see how that pans out.

http://edition.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/

McCain secured the nomination on the Republican side.

Apparently Texas, Ohio, and Rhode Island Democrats decided they liked what they heard from Sen. Clinton and wanted to see four years of this:




And this:



Or maybe they'd rather see four years of this:



Bottom line, though? I've done the math, and Obama had something like a 150 pledged delegate lead coming into tonight's contests. After winning three of the four states, Clinton has now sliced Obama's lead to... 130. Yes, she's cut Obama's delegate lead by 20 delegates (still pending results from the Texas caucuses). Tonight was an opportunity for Obama to finish Clinton off. He didn't, but she hasn't overtaken him, either.

We need to rethink our place in the world.

Something has to give with regards to our military presence overseas. We continue taking on new obligations and we never release ourselves from the old ones. This is largely because we don't stay in a particular place simply because we like the view or because we're trying to protect an ally, but because we're looking to be strategically located so as to strike at an enemy at a moment's notice, or else to protect a precious resource.

Simply put, we spend over $400 billion a year on the current arrangement, and the bank's going to break before too long. At the same time, our economy rests on the positioning of our military might around the world to protect our dominance of world markets. In short, if we stay we risk economic collapse. If we go, we risk economic collapse.

Here's how we can protect our interests while scaling back our imperial policies. I'll throw some ideas out there, undoubtedly of varying quality or feasibility:

1. Revise our status of forces agreements with friendly nations hosting our forces. It will require compromise on our part (namely giving more favorable economic positions to these friendly nations), but it will ultimately be the least costly. I propose giving full control, responsibility, and ownership of the military infrastructure we presently have in these countries to the host nations. In short, don't close down the bases: give them to the host nation. Develop trade and military treaties which give oversight of the region to these nations. If we empower them as partners and not client states, the imperial stench of our current policies will eventually begin to fade.
2. Before turning our bases over to Korea, develop a four-way agreement with the United States, China, and North and South Korea to reunite Korea, guaranteeing economic and military autonomy and a "hands-off" promise from both China and the U.S. with regards to their internal affairs, but allowing agreements to be developed between the newly united Korea and any nation they choose. A united Korea will be a military and economic powerhouse in the region, and an alliance between Korea and the U.S. would be useful.
3. Take the leash off of Japan and let them develop a viable military force. Not an imperial force, but allow them to take responsibility for their own defense. A combined alliance between Japan and Korea would potentially be enough to balance Chinese dominance of the region, especially if backed by an alliance with the U.S. -- as opposed to these nations functioning as neutered client states for the U.S. Balancing China is crucial, because they are showing signs of making the same mistakes we made in the past century.
   
4. Develop a formal economic and military alliance with Russia. Turn the old Cold War paradigm on its head: instead of these two great powers competing and fighting proxy wars on foreign soil, have them work together in their respective halves of the world toward common interests, and ultimately peace in the world. Don't scrap NATO; redevelop it to meet post-Cold War needs. With the end of the Cold War, it makes the most sense for the U.S. and Russia to be partners, not two titans struggling for dominance.
5. Ultimately, it should not simply be protection of U.S. economic interests we should seek. Rather, it should be a goal of world peace. There will always be nations who act out in aggression, but if the world's major powers begin working toward common cause and stop acts of aggression before they get out of hand, we can finally put an end to this process of perpetual war through all time.

What is perpetual war but the slow necrosis of our species? These proxy wars we fight with other world powers over depleting resources only consume ever more of those resources, driving up demand for those resources, and thus increasing the wars we fight. Lather, rinse, repeat. Our innovation goes not into developing alternative means to meeting our needs and wants, but into bigger and better ways to fight the wars over the resources upon which we have become dependent. We have to be better than this.

But peace can only be assured when all parties have a common stake in it. If we continue to build our illusion of "peace and prosperity" on the backs of the poor, then it will never be sustainable. If we continue to deny one another that which we desire for ourselves, then none shall have it at all. There is a better way, but we can only find it by working together rather than at odds with one another. We cannot find it by withdrawing behind our fences and into our communities, by shutting out our neighbors or denying their existence and inherent self worth, regardless of their particular race, religion, lifestyle choices, or political persuasions. In short, we cannot find it simply within ourselves; we have to find it within each other.

And if we cannot end now our differences, at least we can help make the world safe for diversity. For in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children's futures. And we are all mortal. -- President John F. Kennedy, June 10, 1963

Clinton on hope.

Oh... how awkward for you.

Obama leads in Texas, close in Ohio

Reuters has it.

HOUSTON (Reuters) - Barack Obama holds a slight lead on Hillary Clinton in Texas and has almost pulled even in Ohio before contests that could decide their Democratic presidential battle, according to a Reuters/C-SPAN/Houston Chronicle poll released on Friday.

The contests on Tuesday are crucial for Clinton, a New York senator and former first lady fighting to halt Obama's streak of 11 consecutive victories in their battle for the Democratic nomination for the November 4 presidential election.

Obama, an Illinois senator, has a 6-point edge on Clinton in Texas, 48 percent to 42 percent. He trails Clinton 44 percent to 42 percent in Ohio -- well within the poll's margin of error of 3.8 percentage points.

*Cough*

I predict a close race in Ohio (with Wisconsin being a possible harbinger of things to come) with Texas a surprise win for Obama.

Just sayin'....

Dick Gregory clarifies who's black and who isn't.

Clearly, McCain thinks Obama is the nominee.

Here's a fun exchange between the two without any additional comment from me:

Rolling Stone: The Myth of the Surge

Great article from Rolling Stone.  No comment, just snippage and linkage.

 

It's a cold, gray day in December, and I'm walking down Sixtieth Street in the Dora district of Baghdad, one of the most violent and fearsome of the city's no-go zones. Devastated by five years of clashes between American forces, Shiite militias, Sunni resistance groups and Al Qaeda, much of Dora is now a ghost town. This is what "victory" looks like in a once upscale neighborhood of Iraq: Lakes of mud and sewage fill the streets. Mountains of trash stagnate in the pungent liquid. Most of the windows in the sand-colored homes are broken, and the wind blows through them, whistling eerily. House after house is deserted, bullet holes pockmarking their walls, their doors open and unguarded, many emptied of furniture. What few furnishings remain are covered by a thick layer of the fine dust that invades every space in Iraq. Looming over the homes are twelve-foot-high security walls built by the Americans to separate warring factions and confine people to their own neighborhood. Emptied and destroyed by civil war, walled off by President Bush's much-heralded "surge," Dora feels more like a desolate, post-apocalyptic maze of concrete tunnels than a living, inhabited neighborhood. Apart from our footsteps, there is complete silence.

My guide, a thirty-one-year-old named Osama who grew up in Dora, points to shops he used to go to, now abandoned or destroyed: a barbershop, a hardware store. Since the U.S. occupation began, Osama has watched civil war turn the streets where he grew up into an ethnic killing field. After the fall of Saddam, the Americans allowed looters and gangs to take over the streets, and Iraqi security forces were stripped of their jobs. The Mahdi Army, the powerful Shiite paramilitary force led by the anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, took advantage of the power shift to retaliate in areas such as Dora, where Shiites had been driven from their homes. Shiite forces tried to cleanse the district of Sunni families like Osama's, burning or confiscating their homes and torturing or killing those who refused to leave.

"The Mahdi Army was killing people here," Osama says, pointing to a now-destroyed Shiite mosque that in earlier times had been a cafe and before that an office for Saddam's Baath Party. Later, driving in the nearby district of Baya, Osama shows me a gas station. "They killed my uncle here. He didn't accept to leave. Twenty guys came to his house, the women were screaming. He ran to the back, but they caught him, tortured him and killed him." Under siege by Shiite militias and the U.S. military, who viewed Sunnis as Saddam supporters, and largely cut out of the Shiite-dominated government, many Sunnis joined the resistance. Others turned to Al Qaeda and other jihadists for protection.

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/18722376/the_myth_of_the_surge

McCain on Iraq

Sen. McCain talked about Iraq and how his campaign is tied down by it:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/02/25/john-mccain-says-he-could_n_88344.html

"We can fail in Iraq," McCain said Monday in an Associated Press interview. But, he added: "I see a clear path to success in Iraq." He defined that as fewer casualties and Iraqi troops taking over security to allow U.S. forces to return home. "All of us want out of Iraq, the question is how do we want out of Iraq," he added.

See, but that's inaccurate. Not everybody wants out of Iraq. Everybody does want the fighting to stop, but U.S. strategy largely revolves around our long-standing policy of setting up U.S. bases in strategically useful locations so we can exert control over regional politics by flexing our military muscle. "Global attack", as it's referred to in Air Force doctrine. McCain has said as much, citing our bases in Korea, Germany, and Japan as examples. So to say that he wants "out of Iraq" is misleading, at best.

The point he made which I agree with pertains to how we will be able to get out: Iraqi troops taking responsibility for Iraqi security. The problem we've run into in that regard is that militia members have often infiltrated the Iraqi military. But then, we have our own American gangs infiltrating our military; it hasn't stopped us from doing what we do. So while the issue of militia moles in the Iraqi military is a problem, it needn't be a show-stopper.

If I may be so bold, I'd like to posit a few ideas on how to accelerate this process.

Train the Iraqi military out of country. While training in the area they'll be fighting has obvious advantages, it can create distractions. One of the most effective things about U.S. basic military training is that they isolate us from our friends, family, and the rest of society. They create an environment in which we are completely dependent on each other for support and our military training instructor for survival. He or she controls our meals, when we can go to the bathroom, when we can shower, when we brush our teeth, and when we can speak, sit, stand -- everything. That allows Stockholm Syndrome to set in, and before long, we are intensely loyal not only to one another, but to our erstwhile abusive instructor. If these militia members are in any way able to maintain contact with their militia, that can erode the Stockholm effect. Even with the non-militia members, extended contact with family and friends can erode it. And while, once outside of that training environment, that "loyalty" to their instructor will fade, their loyalty to each other does not fade so easily. Train them in Kuwait or Qatar, which are both similar enough to Iraq, isolate them from their friends and family, and then, after how ever many months it takes them to get them sufficiently trained, rotate them in to replace an American unit. Keep this process rolling and soon the future of Iraq will be in the Iraqis' hands. Mission Accomplished! We won't even have to stage a massive withdrawal, because most of our troops will already be out. In fact, don't tell anyone, but that's exactly what a "phased withdrawal" would be.

Many people have unrealistic expectations on how this would go down. On the right, some expect that we should stay until everything is sunshine and rainbows. I never saw any rainbows over in Iraq, but I did see some large plumes of smoke. The violence will not abate while we are still over there because, in large part, we're the reason for it. It will continue as long as we stay; that's just a fact.

On the left, there are calls to simply cut off funding, as though this is a video game where if just unplug the console, all the problems over there will disappear. Again, that's unrealistic at best, and a callous disregard for the people we'll leave behind at worst. Yes, the violence will continue as long as we stay, but we've torn things up so badly and created such a dependency on our presence in that country that we need to at least try to set the Iraqis up for success. Allowing the Iraqis to steadily take increased control of their own fate will mean the difference between giving them a fish and teaching them to fish. The "cut off the funds" approach amounts to kicking them out of the boat and telling them they'd best learn to swim.

Naturally, there's still a chance that Iraq will devolve into a failed state, even after we've done everything we can to set them up for success. But in the end, we cannot stay forever. At some point, we will need to leave, and the longer we stay, the less likely it will be that they will be able or willing to take ownership of their own nation. As it stands, the U.S. has indicated every intention of maintaining a permanent presence in the country, and the Iraqis have noticed. A sharp shift in that regard will likely do a lot to accelerate the end of the violence. When the signal we send is, "the quicker this goes, the sooner we'll leave", that will provide a huge incentive to cooperate with us.

It's not hopeless; we can still succeed, as Sen. McCain points out, but if we are still in Iraq four years from now, that, in of itself, will represent a collossal failure on our part, just as the current situation does now. Success must be defined by allowing the Iraqis to take ownership of their own country. It's the only real measure we have left.

Hillary & Obama's Senate records compared

from azul:

Daily Kos: I Refuse to Buy into the Obama Hype (now a supporter)
by Grassroots Mom
Wed Feb 20, 2008 at 05:13:32 PM PST

The next President is going to have some MAJOR challenges.
I refuse to buy into the hype, on either side, but especially on that of Obama. However the "empty rhetoric" v. "history of accomplishments" arguments have prompted me to check it out on my own, not relying on any candidate's website, book, or worst of all supporters' diaries, like this one.

I went to the Library of Congress Website. The FACTS of what each did in the Senate last year sure surprised me. I'm sure they will surprise you, too. Whether you love or hate Hillary, you will be surprised. Whether you think Obama is the second coming of JFK or an inexperienced lightweight, you will surprised. Go check out the Library of Congress Website. After spending some time there, it will be clear that there is really only one candidate would is ready to be the next president, even better than Gore. If you don't want to spend an hour or two doing research, then I'll tell you what I discovered on the jump.

* Grassroots Mom's diary :: ::
*

I looked up Obama and looked up Clinton. I looked at the bills that they both authored and introduced. Anyone who has been around politics, and is honest, realizes that there are a lot of reasons why a Senator votes one way or another on bills or misses votes. However an examination of the bills that each of these Senators cared enough about to author and introduce revealed much to me: what they care about, what their priorities are, how they tackle problems. And the list of co-sponsors showed something about how they lead, inspire and work with others. Finally, looking at which bills actually passed is pretty indicative of how effective each would be at getting things done.

Before I get into the nitty gritty, let's all be honest here. It is damn hard to get anything through Congress these days. And Obama and Clinton care about the same issues and have obviously worked together on a lot of legislation, whatever Sen. Clinton's campaign may imply. She is a frequent co-sponsor on his bills, and he on hers. They are both completely competent senators.

-snip-

Daily Kos

Just a reminder....

We have more than one author on this page. Please be sure to check who the author is before automatically attributing everything on this page to me. Thanks.

THIS worries me a lot more than Nader does…

It emerged as a creepy feeling and has grown into a full-blown anxiety attack: If Obama wins the Democratic nomination, will the DLC try to defeat him in the general election?

My questions about the 2004 presidential election have come back to haunt me in full force. There were so many indications that the Democratic Party – or some faction of it – threw the election to Bush.

First, there was the theory that Wesley Clark was a stalking horse for Clinton. At the time, I was a strong Clark supporter and I brushed this aside. But when The General endorsed Hillary for 2008, it crept back into my consciousness:

warm spot for Wesley
By Gloria Borger
Posted 9/21/03

The first public hint of the new Bill Clinton-Wesley Clark axis came a couple of weeks ago at cocktails at the Clintons' Chappaqua, N.Y., home. It was what the money guys call a "donor maintenance" event--something to keep wealthy Democratic contributors happy with that warm "in the loop" feeling only a schmoozefest with ex-presidents and senators can provide. After complimenting the Democratic field, Bill Clinton went on to toast two other "stars" in the party--General Clark and Hillary Clinton.
...
"Safe harbor." The most cynical view, shared by the White House--and even some Democrats of competing presidential campaigns--is that Wesley Clark is a stalking horse for Hillary Clinton. "The issue is let's make certain this race stays screwed up," says a White House adviser.

"And guess who that clears the way for?" He says Hillary in 2008; some wary Democrats wonder if the Clintons are arguing about whether it should be in 2004. In any case, sources tell me that while Hillary won't endorse Clark, she's thrilled about the candidacy. Why? "He's a safe harbor," says a Hillary Clinton adviser. "There's no downside for her in being seen with a general."

Of course, there is this small matter of the rest of the Democratic field. They didn't avoid Clinton, like Al Gore--they courted him, even pretended to be close to him. "Now he kicks them all in the ass," says an ex-Clinton ally. "Everyone knows he's winking at people about Clark." So the field is miffed. "I guess I can understand how they would be annoyed," says Howard Wolfson, Hillary Clinton's former spokesman. "But the fact is there are a lot of undecided people out there--both real voters and Democratic insiders. They're concerned about Howard Dean, and that's not Bill Clinton's fault." But he will be happy to fix everything.

A second data point that has gotten little attention outside my state of New Mexico: There is credible evidence that Governor Bill Richardson helped steal NM for Bush in 2004. The theory widely held by progressive Dems here was that he did it so he could run for president in '08. Greg Palast wrote a bit about this:

New Mexico's Secretary of State, Rebecca Vigil-Giron, seemed curiously uncurious about Hispanic and Native precincts where nearly one in ten voters couldn't be bothered to choose a president.

Vigil-Giron, along with Governor Bill Richardson, not only stopped any attempt at a recount directly following the election, but demanded that all the machines be wiped clean. This not only concealed evidence of potential fraud but destroyed it. In 2006, New Mexico's Supreme Court ruled the Secretary of State's machine-cleaning job illegal - too late to change the outcome of the election, of course.

But who are we to second-guess Secretary Vigil-Giron? After all, she is a big shot, at the time president, no less, of the National Association of Secretaries of State, the top banana of all our nation&rsquos elections officials.

Vigil-Giron, after putting a stop to the recount, rather than schlep out to investigate the missing vote among the iguanas and Navajos, left the state to officiate at a dinner meeting in Minneapolis for her national association. It was held on a dinner boat. The tab for the moonlight ride was picked up by touch-screen voting machine maker ES&S Corporation. Breakfast, in case you&rsquore curious, was served by touchscreen maker Diebold Corp.

At the time of this writing, Vigil-Giron is busy planning the next big confab of vendors and state officials -- this time in Santa Fe, "the city different." But aside from Wal-Mart signing on as a sponsor, nothing much is different when it comes to the inner workings of the voting industrial complex.

And then there’s the DLC, which in 2005 appointed Hillary Clinton “to define a party agenda for the upcoming 2006 and 2008 elections.” NPR did a piece on this at the time. If you want to catch my anxiety, listen to this audio clip.

So, Hillary Clinton is without a doubt the DLC’s candidate, and has been since at least 2005. It must be a great shock for them to see Obama come out of nowhere and upset the plan.

Obama is not a DLC member – and even requested that they remove his name from their website, after they used it without his permission or knowledge. The Black Commentator really put Obama through his paces on the DLC issue when he was running for his Illinois Senate seat. Their questions to him and his response make for very interesting reading.

So, we are still involved in an historic battle for the very “soul” of the Democratic Party which can be described by this simple equation:
Clinton vs Obama = DLC vs DNC

Or this one: Clinton vs Obama = Top-Down vs Bottom-Up

Let’s recall Howard Dean’s election as Chairman of the DNC – how bitter it was – as the DLC candidates were overthrown by “The Democratic wing of The Democratic Party” – in a rebellion based on support of Dean’s 50 State Strategy of bottom-up party building.

I just went back and read this excellent Ari Berman piece from 2005 titled Going Nowhere: The DLC Sputters to a Halt and it’s a great history of the DLC v DNC fight and a window on the political battle that was raging at the time and the players. Here’s a bit, but the whole thing is still timely:

After Kerry's defeat, the DLC promised to "avoid the circular firing squad" mentality but then quickly broke the promise, reverting to its favorite target: the Democratic base. Instead of labor unions and feminists, the DLC fixated on MoveOn.org and Michael Moore. "We need to be the party of Harry Truman and John Kennedy, not Michael Moore," the DLC wrote on the Wall Street Journal op-ed page, of all places. "What leftist elites smugly imagine is a sophisticated view of their country's flaws strikes much of America as a false and malicious cartoon," the DLC's Will Marshall wrote in Blueprint, the group's magazine, in a rant worthy of The Weekly Standard. "Democrats should have no truck with the rancid anti-Americanism of the conspiracy-mongering left." The DLC continued this vitriol into March.

Fast forward: Along comes Obama, not merely using Dr. Dean’s bottom-up every-state strategies, but actually making them work!

This is what is keeping me up at night: Is it possible that the DLC actually wanted Kerry to lose in 2004, to enable a Hillary Clinton run in 2008?

Did the DLC and Clinton allies like Wesley Clark and Bill Richardson actually participate in bringing Kerry down - and put the world through four more years of Bush - just so the Clintons could come back as party leaders in 2008?

And here’s the really scary question:

If Obama is the Democratic Party nominee in 2008, will the DLCers – who have written Clinton’s name in stone for 2008 – help McCain win, so Hillary can run again in 2012? The “inevitable” – better late than never?

I am very, very worried about this.

Olbermann Time Line: How Bushco exploited terror threats

From The Huffington Post (video 17 min. long):

In case you missed it, on Thursday night's "Countdown" Keith Olbermann presented an impressively detailed timeline he called "The Nexus of Politics and Terror," in which he chronicled the Bush administration's exploitation of terror threats for political gain. Olbermann's exhaustive account weaves from each revelation of an intelligence failure or a Democratic political victory to an almost immediate orange alert or "new threat" from al Qaeda.

Huff Post

On a lighter note....

...I have to go over that "to do" list tomorrow. Let's see....

B-2 Bomber Crashes at Andersen AFB, Guam

From Bloomberg:

Feb. 23 (Bloomberg) -- A B-2 stealth bomber crashed at Andersen Air Force Base in Guam and both pilots were safe after ejecting, the Pacific Air Forces said today in a statement on its Web site.

The Pacific Air Forces said a board of officers will look into the accident and more information will be made available later. The pilots were from the 509th Bomb Wing and are in ``good condition'' after medical checks were carried out, the statement said. The aircraft was sent to Guam from Whiteman Air Force base in Missouri, its only operational base.

The B-2 stealth bomber, which costs about $1.2 billion, can carry conventional and nuclear bombs, according to a fact sheet on the same Web site. The design, materials and coatings make its detection by defensive radar systems difficult.

The aircraft involved in the crash was destroyed during the accident, the Air Force Times reported, citing an unidentified official at Andersen Air Force Base. Calls made to the two phone numbers listed in the statement by the Pacific Air Forces weren't immediately answered.

The accident happened at around 10:30 a.m. local time when the aircraft was leaving the base in Yigo, Guam, the U.S. territory's local media Kuam News reported. It was the second military plane to crash in a month after a Navy Ea-6b Prowler from the USS Kittyhawk went down 20 miles from the base Feb. 12, Kuam News said.

I got the call from my flight super about five hours later; I didn't want to post anything about it until I saw it in the news. Now that it's out, though, I'm blogging about it here. I don't have any special insight as to what may have caused two planes to crash out here inside of a month, except that Andersen is seriously under-manned right now. I know that when people are overworked and understaffed, it puts a strain on people and their families, and that accidents do increase.

Once is happenstance... twice is coincidence... thrice is enemy action. This is only twice, so far. Let's all hope it stays that way.

Discuss at The Forum.

Clinton or Obama will need to clean house.

I'm concerned about the possibility of long-entrenched partisans in the Executive Branch undermining our next President the way many of them did to Kennedy. Here's a few names:

Allen Dulles: The first civilian director of the CIA and one of the brain-powers behind the Bay of Pigs invasion.

Curtis "Bombs Away" LeMay: Air Force Chief of Staff under Kennedy. Kennedy believed he could assuage his right-wing critics by appointing LeMay, but he only emboldened them. During the Cuban Missile Crisis, LeMay wanted to bomb the missile sites. While he admitted that he could only guarantee that he would get 90% of the missile sites (a guarantee which later turned out to be rather generous), he also opined that the Soviets would probably not retaliate. Kennedy found that remarkably naive, especially coming from a four star general, and did not follow his advice. Personally, I don't think LeMay was naive, just disingenuous. It's not that he didn't think the Soviets would retaliate; he just didn't care. "Bombs away". Afterwards, he said, "We had a chance to throw the Communists out of Cuba. But the administration was scared to death (the Soviet Union) might shoot a missile at us." Yeah, what's one or two nuclear missiles in one or two U.S. cities, right? If the LeMays of the world had had their way, we'd be living (or not) in a post-apocalyptic nightmare. We avoided a nuclear exchange by the skin of our teeth as it was. I guarantee there are many more LeMays waiting in the ranks under this administration. Clinton or Obama will have to root them out and help them find their way into retirement.

Richard Helms: The man behind the curtain at the CIA while John McCone was director. Directed many assassination attempts against Fidel Castro and other foreign leaders, often at the expense of diplomatic efforts on the part of the President.

There are others, but these three are sufficient to demonstrate that the President does not, by himself, run the executive branch. If the next President does not clean house within the first 100 days, he or she will likely be stuck with whatever trolls this administration has left hiding under the bridge.

Both Clinton and Obama have retired four star generals in their corner: Clinton has former NATO Commander Wesley Clark in her corner and Obama has former USCENTCOM commander Anthony Zinni in his. I would suggest that both these men be put to use in the next administration: Zinni as SECDEF and Clark as CIA director. Or vice versa. Hayden has to go, and his trolls will be waiting to undermine Clinton or Obama. It is absolutely vital that we have a strong CIA director to root them out, and either Zinni or Clark would fit that bill.

On edit: I forgot about DHS. This department, created under Bush, will be filled entirely with Bush partisans. One way to tame the CIA beast would be to incorporate it under DHS rather than allowing it to continue as its own nebulous independent agency. In that case, I would favor Clark or Zinni as DHS secretary rather than CIA director. Right now, DHS is still finding its identity, and while it will be stocked with Bush partisans, it hasn't been around long enough for any of them to be "entrenched". Big opportunity to change the face of DHS and the CIA.

I'm actually split on this one with regards to Sen. Obama and Sen. Clinton. I think Sen. Clinton would be better suited to this task, but I think Sen. Obama would be more likely to actually carry it out. I lean toward Sen. Obama if he gets the right people behind him (e.g., Clark and Zinni), but this is one area where he can't try to "reach out". These people will take any attempted outreach as a sign of weakness, and they will absolutely try to exploit it. I hope he's wise to this fact. If he has Zinni as an advisor, I'm sure he is.

Discuss at The Forum.

Why Hillary Will Lose

She has toads like this speaking for her:



“Give me a break! I've got news for all the latte-drinking,
Prius- driving, Birkenstock-wearing, trust fund babies
crowding in to hear him speak! This guy won't last a round
against the Republican attack machine. He's a poet, not a
fighter.”

He sounds just like a Republican there. Does the crowd sound pleased with him to you?