So I was watching the Daily Show the other day and caught an interesting interview with Fareed Zakaria, who writes for Newsweek. He'll also soon have a show on CNN. He's an interesting character politically. Some might say that he comes from a neoconservative background. He's a big supporter of free trade and globalization. Well, anyways, you can wikipedia him. Whether or not you disagree with some of the underlying ideological assumptions, he is incredibly learned and has a fascinating perspective.
Here, he discusses the decline of the United States as the world's sole economic superpower. Generally, Zakaria tends to paint a rosier picture of our overall outlook than that which seems to be depicted on the television but his characterization of our power sent chills down my spine.
We have the biggest military in the world, by far. One of the things I think has happened . . . is that we look at every problem now really through the prism of the military because we're so damn good at it. So you look at what's going on in Africa and you say 'there's Islamic extremism there.' So we say 'well, let's set up Africom. You know, a command center, US military, four-star general.'
Wait a minute, is the answer to the spread, the rise of Islamic fanaticism to set up a kind of US neocolonial military presence in these countries and start having American troops go around there beating people up? I'm not so sure.
*Note, Jon sort of gives the rub to Tulane University at the end of the interview
The biggest military in the world. Every problem through the prism of the military. A neocolonial military presence.
Another person who should know is former Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez, who since leaving his post as commander of the coalition troops in Iraq, has roasted the Bush administration's reckless consideration of American and civilian lives and their constant nods to political considerations over military objectives:
Army Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez joined the White House videoconference on the second day of house-to-house fighting between 2,000 Marines and entrenched guerrillas in Fallujah.
Crafted in Washington as a brass-knuckles response to the gruesome deaths of four Blackwater security guards killed the week before and strung up on a bridge, the battle had the full support of President Bush.
Sanchez, in a memoir to be released Tuesday, said Bush “launched into what I considered a kind of confused pep talk” about the battle for Fallujah and an upcoming campaign to kill or capture radical anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and cripple his militia.
“Kick ass!” Bush said. “If somebody tries to stop the march to democracy, we will seek them out and kill them! We must be tougher than hell!”
Fueled by images beamed by the Al-Jazeera television network, the administration quickly reversed course, stopping Operation Vigilant Resolve. Soon after, Coalition Provisional Authority administrator L. Paul Bremer dropped plans to capture or kill al-Sadr, even though the president had said during the April 7, 2003, meeting, “It is essential he be wiped out,” according to the memoir.
Kick ass. If someone tries to stop the march to democracy we will seek them out and kill them. That's the mindset. Real classy. Never mind the fact that the President withdrew the orders because he thought it might hurt his reelection campaign.
Meanwhile, let us travel to the present, to Red Square in Moscow, where new Russian President Dmitri Medvedev and new Russian President Vladmir Putin put on a display of military might not seen since the days of the USSR.
The Kremlin’s decision to parade its military hardware has been a subject of competing interpretations, viewed variously as symbolic confirmation of Russia’s pride, or aggressiveness, as a marketing show of Russian arms, and as a nationalistic festival ordered by Mr. Putin, for Mr. Putin.
Mr. Putin insisted earlier in the week that the parade should not be viewed as “saber rattling.” “It is not a warlike gesture,” he said. “Russia is not threatening anyone.”
But it followed a year during which the Kremlin asserted its case against what it regarded as reckless American foreign policies. Mr. Putin has strongly protested an American-led plan to install a missile-defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic. As tensions rose, Russia’s aging strategic bombers conducted international patrols, entered British airspace and approached American carrier groups on the high seas.
The United States' response?
Let's just speculate for a moment before I share it with you.
Remember, President Bush was very close with President Putin, he explained that he trusted Mr. Putin not to entrench himself as an autocrat because he "looked the man in the eyes" and was able "to get a sense of the man's soul." So, though Bush likely doesn't appreciate Russia's opposition to the missile defense project or Russia's incursions into former Soviet republic elections, President Bush probably doesn't want to aggravate Russia further. The administration will probably want to through a wet blanket on media attempts to fan flames. The President's policy toward Mr. Putin already looks abominable, might as well minimize damage, play off the significance of the military demonstration by talking up US-Russian friendship.
Well, here is the US reaction:
“If they wish to take out their old equipment and take it for a spin and check it out,” said the spokesman, Geoff Morrell, “they’re more than welcome to do so.”
WOW!
So the official United States reaction to Soviet-style military escalation by the Russians is to backhand them in the face, insult their might, and challenge them to spend more money on their military.
You know, the Bush administration, for years, has insisted that we all have to adopt "a post-9/11 mindset." Reliance on diplomacy and the United Nations was naive in the face of the dangerous new world landscape. The United States needed to act more unilaterally to protect its interests, the argument was.
But, you know what, you know who never adopted a post-9/11 mindset?
The Bush administration.
Because they're still very clearly living in the midst of the Cold War.
We've dictated a foreign policy marinated in the same juices as the Domino Theory. If we can just use our guns and our planes to carve out spheres of influence in the Middle East, the terrorists and the unfriendly states will topple over in turn.
On the count of three, arms race: one.... two.....
The fight against a new curfew for teenagers at Clearview Mall has gone viral with more than 1,000 young people organizing themselves online and calling for a boycott of the Metairie shopping center this weekend.
Rise Against the Clearview Age Ban, or RACAB, was founded on Saturday, a day after officials at Clearview began strictly enforcing its Parental Escort Policy. Under the rule, patrons 16 and under must be accompanied by an adult who is at least 21-years-old when arriving at the mall on Fridays and Saturdays from 4 p.m. until closing.
"It's being too strict, too quick," said Matt Shaver, 17 of Jefferson, who set up RACAB's online group forum via the social Web site MySpace. "I want to be able to hang out with my friends that are under 16 on the weekends."
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Shaver said he created the organization to express his opposition to the escort policy, which he refers to as a ban. Within hours of its formation, the group had 500 members. On Wednesday evening, some 1,093 people had signed on as members of the group. Most of the support is local, but Shaver said he's received e-mails from around the country.
On the Web site, Shaver makes it clear that the forum was not created to complain about ill-treatment by mall security nor a place to advocate anarchy against the mall. The site is intended to help organize like-minded teens and speak out against the escort policy.
Shaver said he's upset because the mall is putting an age-limit on maturity.
"How are you going to say 16 and under are less mature than 18-year-olds that are committing murders and stuff and selling dope outside of Clearview?" he asked.
Shaver said there's very little for teens 14 and under to do in Metairie on weekend evenings. Effectively banning them from the mall would send them to other shopping centers. He wondered whether the mall could have taken any other action.
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I had a couple of false starts writing about this.
I just wanted to unload some of my hatred for suburban America, Jefferson Parish, and consumerism amongst young people.
Of course there's nothing else for a kid to do in Jefferson Parish than go to the mall...
yadayadayada...
But, you know what? I'm into this kid. He's awesome. Way to go, Matt Shaver.
Fight this policy. It's profiling, it's unfair.
Young people are a critical consumer demographic, a boycott is an interesting idea.
And isn't it cool how we can use myspace and facebook to get these things together quickly and quietly?
I already boycott Clearview Mall for a laundry list of reasons but I'm reiterating that boycott and calling for solidarity and vigilance with the teen-aged protesters of Jefferson Parish.
- Maybe Matt Shaver could use his expertise to help organize a boycott of all malls... forever.
I hope he's aware that even if he defeats this curfew/escort policy, Clearview Mall will still be a pathetic place to hang out. Clearview Mall will still fail to provide meaningful public space. Clearview Mall will still disgust me and epitomize everything I hate about my country.
But by all means, fight the policy. If you live in Jefferson Parish, you're kind of stuck with malls.
I'm lucky to have only lived in places where the mall does not represent an important social space.
UPDATE!!!!!!!!!!! Jeffrey reports that the protesters of Clearview Mall are actually terrorists! Some jerk kid apparently said he was going to shoot up the mall, according to the T-P.
Yesterday, the T-P ran a picture and a story in its metro section that has created quite a stir.
This is the article. It describes the press conference that Mayor Ray Nagin and Police Chief Warren Riley held to tout the delivery of new equipment for the NOPD.
Here is the photograph that accompanied the story:
That's the Mayor pointing a gun at the Police Chief. They're having a helluva laugh.
This picture inherently presents any number of punchlines at the expense of an incompetent Mayor and an incompetent Police Superintendent.
The Times Picayune itself, determined that the picture was so ridiculous that it could impartially run a caption contest on its website so that people could get in on the fun.
People sure did. The photo, according to that link above, which has since been updated, received "national notoriety." The talk radio phone lines went off the hook. Bloggers had plenty to say as well.
Some people just went for the one-liners. Others extended further to describe Nagin and Riley's playful attitude as glorifying guns and gun culture in a city gripped by violence.
Jeffrey went to town with the jokes, check out the caption contest try-outs at adrastos.
Maitri took the latter approach. She posted a picture of a young child posing defiantly with a gun and a wad of cash just beneath that of Nagin and Riley.
"Both of these pictures show boys with their toys, bad-ass gangsters in their own minds. This is not the kind of example Nagin and Riley ought to set for the youth of New Orleans."
"Mayor Ray Nagin demonstrated exceptionally poor judgment — in a city with an entrenched culture of violence — and a grave lack of gun safety education, by pointing a very real assault rifle at New Orleans police chief Warren Riley. Oh, but playing cops and gangstas is so much fun! Nagin is such a child! That sort of childish behavior might be tolerated around the water cooler when you’re just a middling Cox monopoly bureaucrat, but not when you command attention as mayor."
Alan was also pissed and condemns our Mayor as a castrated leader who is such a joke the only thing he's good at is making jokes:
"A childish man in a position of power. A childish man who’s inabilities are nationally renown. A childish man who can no longer gain audiences with true leaders and people of means. A childish man who has nothing left to say to the press or the public.
When put before us now, all he can do is cut up.
He is entirely incapable of representing the City of New Orleans, the citizens of New Orleans, and their plight. The consistent mismanagement of state and federal funds means that we are unable to put the funding provided us to work. It languishes in the pipeline plugged at our end by the incompetence of the Nagin administration."
The uproar forced the Nagin press team to respond.
They lodged a protest against the Times-Picayune alleging that the photograph is snapshot being evaluating completely out of the context of the situation. Video of that press conference apparently show that Nagin had only momentarily lifted the gun up and was not pointing it at Riley.
The Times-Picayune printed a clarification, essentially agreeing that they had selected a misleading photograph, and one that did not necessarily reflect the realities of the press conference.
Blogger Pistolette's comments made me think the most:
"Except for the occasional joke, he gets away with it all. Apathy. Why? What protects Mayor Ray Nagin from getting the social guillotine? Where is the anger? There is simply not enough criticism, not enough noise. Why is it that people can drone on for hours about the "serious repercussions" of David Vitter getting some illicit nookie, but turn the other way with a "c'est la vie" smirk while Ray Nagin destroys us?"
I thought about Pistollete's lament in the question she poses:
"Where is the anger?"
There seems to me to be a lot of anger. People HATE this mayor. People realize how he is in danger of stalling this city into the gulf. Council seems to be fairly united against him. Our representatives there are constantly expressing ire at the Mayor's secrecy, the Mayor's incompetence, the Mayor's policies.
But I see what Pistollete is saying. There does seem to be an attitude that the Mayor's ridiculousness is an unchangeable reality. There does seem to be a "we're stuck with him, oh well" attitude. "Oh, what a jackass, there he goes again!"
I sense that attitude because I see it in myself. He's a lame duck, what can we do about him besides laugh and smirk and shake our heads?
The problem, I think, is that the anger has become so associated with this man's personality that we lose sight of this man's power. (And he does have personality, sometimes he's pretty funny, I have to admit he can come up with a zinger from time to time.)
I think we do sometimes forget that this is the most powerful man in the city. This is the most powerful office in the city. I think we've given up trying to lobby him to make changes. Saddest of all, I think sometimes that we've gone easy on him. We don't watch him like we should because we've already assumed the worst. ---
When I saw the caption in the newspaper I got real embarrassed. Of course I was embarrassed for the city over the mayor and I was embarrassed at the way the T-P made a joke out of things instead of addressing some legitimate concerns related to police spending and police practices.
I was also a little embarrassed for myself. You see, I had been working on a long piece that addressed the NOPD way back in December. I was investigating the 2008 public safety budget as approved by City Council. It would have been extremely relevant yesterday had I taken the initiative to finish it. Instead, I got disillusioned trying to find the information I needed. I moved onto other projects. I kind of let it go.
But it's not all lost. I still have the incomplete draft I was working on exactly two months ago.
I read this article in the T-P way back in November. Here is my response to it. The article is long and comprehensive. I don't feel comfortable annotating the thing here because I think everybody needs to read all of it. (Or at least my response which does include large excerpts)
Essentially, the T-P piece reveals the details of an internal audit of the NOPD that had been conducted throughout the first six months of 2007. The NOPD, when the report was completed over the summer, released a rose-tinted version of the report to the public. Finally, in November, the Times Picayune learned of the comprehensive findings of the full audit. Those findings paint a harrowing picture of the NOPD, one that reflects incredibly poorly on the NOPD leadership and on a Mayor too lame to ask the right questions of his top lieutenants. You have to read the whole thing. Please go here and read the whole thing. If you care about the issue of crime in this city, it is imperative that you have the information reported in this article, it forms the basis of what we, as citizens need to be looking for from the NOPD over the next year.
Essentially, the article and the audit on which it was based outline the several critical fronts on which the NOPD has failed to institute the community policing practices it purportedly believes in. "Community policing," unfortunately, has taken on a lot of different interpretations as an overarching term for new police strategies. In essence, community policing is a set of general principles that stress tactics designed to repair police department relations with the public, increase police contact with the public, and create an environment in which the police and the public work together. I talk a little bit more about defining "community policing" in New Orleans toward the end of my response to the TP article about the audit. Certainly, it is a discussion we citizens need to have. Community policing is a term has been sometimes hijacked by business interests that then turn the tactics and practices into ones that castrate the original mission to better integrate the police and residential communities. We must be careful of that here too.
Anyway, what does that have to do with the picture of the Mayor and the Superintendent and the guns?
Well, one of the criticisms lodged by many NOPD officers in the big audit involved the continued use of catch-and-release policy that leads to lots of minor arrests and damages police relationships in residential neighborhoods.
Not long after that big audit article, there was another couple of pieces relevant to the NOPD and New Orleans crime:
The Orleans Parish criminal justice system imprisons drug offenders at a rate higher than all but two counties nationwide, and Jefferson Parish isn't far behind, according to a report released this week... "In Louisiana, you lock up a lot of people for drugs," said Lawanda Johnson, spokeswoman for the think tank. "It's obvious they are spending a lot of time, a lot of money imprisoning people in these (parishes). Those dollars could be better spent in communities, in drug treatment and prevention, and in policing..."
Orleans imprisoned four black people for every white person, according to the report. Jefferson Parish imprisoned nine African-Americans for each white person.
Orleans Parish's criminal justice system came under the microscope recently in a review by the Vera Institute, another think tank, which recommended the legal system focus more on violent offenders and look at alternative sentencing options for low-level crimes and drug offenders.
Hmm. So that kind of corroborates the ongoing adherence to a "zero tolerance" approach that directly contradicts the NOPD's stated desire to update its tactics to reflect a community policing approach.
Then that next weekend there was a big drug policy conference in ye olde French Quarter. What'd the T-P get from that?
Attendees at the International Drug Policy Reform Conference in the French Quarter this past week represented the whole spectrum of opinions: crime fighters and former inmates, legalization advocates and opponents, casual users and part-time abusers.
As the conference, which ended Saturday, dissected the country's drug culture, no topic or approach was taboo.
But as a succession of speakers discussed their roles in the nation's war on drugs, the consensus was clear: The war is being lost....
Nowhere are failed government policies more clearly on display than in Louisiana, where drug offenders are jailed at among the highest rates in the nation, speakers said. Treatment and rehabilitation options are limited, zero-tolerance tactics are fruitless and poverty is high, they said.
"The criminal justice system in New Orleans was always in a sad state of affairs, yet very good at making a high number of arrests," said Bruce Johnson of the National Development Research Institute...... It was unclear whether any members of the New Orleans Police Department were on hand. The department's Public Information Office did not return requests for comment.
But it's not just that the NOPD has been slow to institute changes, it's that they seem to be going backward...
Before the public got wind of the details of the audit, the Mayor proposed his 2008 budget. In it, he outlined funding for a new cache of machine guns and two "Harry Lee-type" tanks.
Dangerblond remarked that Mr. Nagin must believe that he's the Mayor of Baghdad.
"We have a cultural and a people problem in New Orleans," he said. "Unfortunately, New Orleans has a culture of violence in some segments of our community, and it's going to be a longtime process to try to change that."
Ya know, I'm going to go ahead and agree with Police Superintendent The Warren Riley and my own added emphasis to the above quote. Making New Orleans a safe city will be a long-term endeavor that requires an approach that goes beyond the reach of a police department's responsibilities. More from the Times-Pic on Riley:
He characterized the local crime picture as deeply entrenched in poverty and poor education.
Does anyone know how many teachers the police department employs? How do tanks and machine guns help people rise from poverty?
It's not as though Riley is advocating for the disolution of the police department in favor of an approach that only attacks root causes, he knows the police department has a specific job to do:
As the city's population continues to build, the NOPD is trying to replenish its depleted ranks, but it remains understaffed, Riley said.
The NOPD staffing level has dropped to 1,352 officers, with an additional 60 recruits in training. Riley said he hopes to boost staffing to 1,600 next year.
"As we gain personnel . . . we'll be able to cover the city better," he said.
The police superintendent seems to indicate here that New Orleans needs more cops on the streets to combat the crime emergency. Yet for the long-term, Mr. Riley believes that measures outside the reach of a traditional police department are required.
Sounds logical to me. Can't think of any reason the city can't adopt a two-pronged approach.
The proposal calls for... what Nagin called a pair of "Harry Lee-type tanks" and the "latest and greatest" machine guns. "We're going to have some 'shock and awe' stuff to take care of some of the criminal element out there," he said.
Hey, I'm just pointin' out: WE DON'T NEED TO SPEND TAXPAYER MONEY ON MACHINE GUNS AND TANKS - TOYS FOR A CHILDISH MAYOR. COUNCIL: REARRANGE PUBLIC SAFETY SPENDING TO STRIKE DOWN THESE REQUESTS AND SPEND THE MONEY ON MORE POLICE, EDUCATION, CULTURAL PROGRAMS, OR SOMETHING ELSE CONSTRUCTIVE.
I was mad then, wasn't I? "Toys for a childish Mayor," I said. Exactly the reaction everyone's been having to Mayor Nagin in the photographs that surfaced yesterday, huh?
The 2008 budget with the tank proposal came out in early November, over the next two weeks were the stories related to the audit, the drug conference and our drug arrest rate.
I became very involved with the public housing debate but I didn't forget about all these articles.
I started making phone calls to City Councilpeople, the NOPD communications office, and to T-P writers that might know more details about the tank proposal and other things in the 2008 public safety budget.
I got the run around. But I admit it was around Christmas time and I didn't do enough hounding. I was able to track down a copy of the 2008 budget that Mr. Nagin proposed to Council but I was unable to get a copy of the budget that Council actually approved, though it was made very clear that Council pretty much approved everything in there, including the guns and the tanks.
One person I asked described Mr. Nagin's "tanks" as nothing more than new mobile command centers, the type of vehicles used to monitor Mardi Gras crowds. This seemed like a less egregiously stupid expenditure, especially given the parade shootings we've experienced over the years. I took that description as accurate.
I had wanted to get a line-item 2008 budget from the NOPD so that I could examine the spending proposals to see if they reflected a shift toward community policing practices.
I admit I stopped looking after awhile. I was working a lot to pay the bills. Mardi Gras hit.
I wish that I'd hounded Council offices BEFORE they'd even had the chance to rubber stamp the 2008 budget.
Because clearly, we just bought a couple of tanks and some machine guns. They're not Dukakis tanks but they certainly aren't the mobile command units used during Mardi Gras. They're designed to break up riots.
It reflects the bunker mentality of the whole administration.
Better to protect our castle in the sky from the citizens on the ground just in case they get mad that we're not protecting the citizens on the ground.
How do those tanks help repair relationships with the community? How do those tanks get witnesses to come forward in murder cases? How do those tanks restore trust?
They don't!
Do the machine guns help?
No!
But those types of questions are not being asked. We need a controversy over the NOPD's lack of effort in implementing the tactical changes their own audits recommend. We need a controversy involving the lack of spending in ways that aid the institution of those practices.
Instead, the controversy is over the photograph. The controversy is whether or not the photograph helps or hurts our fight against violent crime. The controversy is whether or not the photograph was taken out of context.
That is unfortunate.
Warren Riley and Ray Nagin are incompetent not because they were foolish enough to arrogantly play around with the guns but because they were foolish enough to buy the guns.
Warren Riley should be removed as NOPD Superintendent because of his leadership decisions flatly contradict the strategies that he himself believes would work to reduce violent crime in this city. He shouldn't be removed because he sucks at photo ops and sucks at public relations. He should be removed because he sucks at running a police department.
Pistolette was right to raise questions about citizen anger. But I believe it is there. I just think it is misdirected. We must force Mr. Riley to change his attitudes and to change his practices. One thing that I like about NOPD officers below Mr. Riley is that they can take tough questions. Here is a link to a listing of community meetings that the NOPD holds.
Will you go to the meetings to ask pointed questions about police practices, tactics, leadership, and spending? Or will you "turn the other way with a 'c'est la vie' smirk?" I believe that if we can become more coordinated in our questioning, if we can become more coordinated in our anger, we can force concessions from the police department leadership. The released NOPD audit explains that NOPD officers want to see changes too, that NOPD officers are concerned about their own safety, that NOPD officers don't believe in Mr. Riley's policing principles. We should help them!
It is imperative. Mr. Riley's stubborn inability to implement his own recommendations are magnified by TODAY'S Times-Picayune. Crime is up in 2008. We feel it in the Irish Channel and the LGD. There have been something like 7 or 8 shootings here since Mardi Gras. No arrests, no witnesses. Retaliatory violence perpetuates when people have no faith in the criminal justice system.
A judge suspicious of more corruption pressed two former election board workers to tell what they know and then sentenced them today to the maximum 18 months in prison for rigging the 2004 presidential election recount to make their job easier. “I can’t help but feel there’s more to this story,” said Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court Judge Peter Corrigan, who allowed the women to remain free on bond pending appeal. Some of their friends and relatives sobbed as the judge imposed the sentence.
The judge repeatedly asked Jacqueline Maiden, 60, an election coordinator who was the Cuyahoga County board’s third-highest ranking employee, and ballot manager Kathleen Dreamer, 40, if higher-ups in the board had directed the recount rigging.
“It seems unlikely your supervisors wouldn’t know,” the judge prodded.
The women, standing side by side, said they had cooperated with a state investigation of the elections board in Ohio’s most populous county. The board has been a lightning rod for critics wary since Ohio gave the 2004 election to President Bush.
“This big conspiracy, it’s not there,” Dreamer said. She said she wasn’t protecting anyone at the board and had been truthful in the investigation.
Maiden said she wouldn’t lie, even to protect someone. “I’ve never tried to do anything underhanded,” she said.
But the judge sounded skeptical. “Telling the whole truth, that’s what’s important,” Corrigan said. “I’m not convinced you’ve done that.”
Erie County Prosecutor Kevin Baxter, appointed as an outside investigator to look into the election board in Cleveland, told that judge that the women had been uncooperative in the investigation and appealed for prison time for both.
“The defendants have never come clean,” he said.
Prosecutors said the employees broke the law when they worked behind closed doors three days before the Dec. 16, 2004, recount to pick ballots they knew would not cause discrepancies when checked by hand so they could avoid a lengthier, more expensive hand recount of all votes.
Baxter criticized the outspoken support for the women from Robert Bennett, the election board chairman and head of the Republican Party in Ohio. Endorsing such criminal behavior is “amazing, it’s astounding,” according to Baxter, who didn’t indicate if the investigation might lead to more charges.
Oh dear oh dear. Eighteen months for rigging an election.
Is there a three-strikes-means-life sentencing law in regards to election theft?
I know that this particular case doesn't involve very many Ohio votes, but what with all the other allegations, suspicions over electronic voting, etc....
*How worried should we be about an improper election in 2008?
Then check out the survey at the Boston Globe put together by Charlie Savage. (Click the Charlie Savage link and listen to that interview if you're not familiar with his work)
Romney's answers would have been scariest but Giuliani didn't even respond to the inquiry.
From the New York Times: I'll be selecting which terrorists to embolden
At least four top White House lawyers took part in discussions with the Central Intelligence Agency between 2003 and 2005 about whether to destroy videotapesshowing the secret interrogations of two operatives from Al Qaeda, according to current and former administration and intelligence officials.
The accounts indicate that the involvement of White House officials in the discussions before the destruction of the tapes in November 2005 was more extensive than Bush administration officials have acknowledged.
It was previously reported that some administration officials had advised against destroying the tapes, but the emerging picture of White House involvement is more complex. In interviews, several administration and intelligence officials provided conflicting accounts as to whether anyone at the White House expressed support for the idea that the tapes should be destroyed.
One former senior intelligence official with direct knowledge of the matter said there had been “vigorous sentiment” among some top White House officials to destroy the tapes. The former official did not specify which White House officials took this position, but he said that some believed in 2005 that any disclosure of the tapes could have been particularly damaging after revelations a year earlier of abuses at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.
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Some of these.... these folks...... names such as Alberto Gonzales, Harriet Miers, David Addington....... we've seen 'em before haven't we?
They sound familiar, that is.
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How might we see this play out?
Republican Pete Hoekstra (the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee) absolutely ripped the intelligence community last Sunday, December 16th:
"We want to hold the (intelligence) community accountable for what's happened to these tapes," Republican U.S. Rep. Pete Hoekstra of Michigan said on "Fox News Sunday." "We will issue subpoenas ... Our investigation should move forward.
He said he had no confidence in U.S. intelligence leadership. "You've got a community that's incompetent. They are arrogant. And they are political. And they don't believe that they are accountable to anybody....
Strong words. Strong strong words. But I want everyone to take notice of what comes after that series I left y'all hangin with.
...They don't believe that they're accountable to the president."
His point right there was that the President was not abreast of what was going on and that these incompetent, arrogant schmucks were essentially being insubordinate. Never mind he says nothing chastising President Bush (as if a President ought to be held accountable for his or her own government)... You wouldn't expect to see a Republican berating President Bush on Fox News, even if President Bush were to commit gay polygamous incest.
But of course, again, Congressman Hoekstra said that on December 16th. That was before the New York Times revealed the involvement of at least four lawyers extremely close the the President and the Vice President.
Here's what Congressman Hoekstra should say tomorrow morning:
"You've got a community that's incompetent. They are arrogant. And they are political. And they don't believe that they are accountable to anybody. The President, the Vice President, and their friends and advisers do not believe they're accountable to the People."
I've been holding back on on this post because I freaked myself out for awhile and didn't know that I wanted to tell anyone about it. Also, it might reveal an embarrassing detail about myself. But, you know, I've just got to put this out there because it's still stuck in my mind and it feels right... I apologize if this runs a little long but I encourage you to read the whole thing because that will do more to stoke my ego. It's a true story.
First I'll start by disclosing that I'm a nerd and a loser because one of my favorite things about living here in New Orleans is the Tulane Green Wave men's basketball team. I'm not just a fan, I think I might be obsessed. I can name every player on the roster and tell you all about their games. I can tell you that Dave Dickerson and his boys will be making a surprisingly big splash in Conference USA this year.
I'm such a nerd and loser, as a matter of fact, that I went to last Thursday's exhibition game against Loyola, without my usual nerd krewe, and I sat by myself.
I just HAD to see how much time redshirt freshman Johnny Mayhanne would get. What about transfer guard Eric Vianney? Would freshman recruit Kris Richard get any playing time? Are the seniors pumped up about the season?
All of these thoughts kept running through my head. I couldn't wait to call up the friends that usually come to the games with me and give them my scouting report... How do the Shockwave Dancers look this year? New moves? Is Fogelman Arena in midseason form? I took mental notes... I was so excited for college basketball season...
But then the arena PA guy interrupted my thoughts -
"will everyone please rise for the national anthem"
Ugh, I was just getting comfortable. But I got up, as did everyone else, albeit more reluctantly than in better times... Others grumbled as well."
My thoughts changed. I stopped thinking about whether Kevin Sims could cut down on this turnovers as a sophomore. And my emotions turned too. I wasn't excited anymore. I was angry.
Different sorts of things started popping into my head:
Only a few lines of the anthem had been sung. But I turned around and as people started to look, I said aloud, "fuck this, not today," and I sat down. People laughed but I was red hot. I've always stood for the anthem but I wasn't going to this time. "Screw this. I read the paper every day. I see what's going on. I'm not doing this shit."
Someone asked, "so you're not American?" I said, "I guess I'm about not to be."
Another person said "I feel like doin' what he's doin'." But nobody else did as I sat there until the anthem finished and everyone joined me in their seats.
For me, this was big. For a while now, I've been talking with lots of different people, from friends to strangers about our collective dissatisfaction with the direction of this country. It's really bad right now. What happened to peace and prosperity? How long will I stand to fund these types of policies with my tax dollars? We talk about what might happen if there's a President Thompson, a President Giuliani, a President McCain, or a President Romney. Will the downward direction of the United States continue? Is this really a place I want to be raising children?
Over one century ago, my ancestors came to this land on a dirty boat from different parts of Eastern and Central Europe. They came carrying the clothes on their backs and maybe a beat up suitcase. They scrapped and clawed to get on their feet. They lived in rat-infested tenements in Manhattan. They walked eight miles to and from school uphill both ways in the snow. They were poor. They struggled. But they believed that the United States would provide a better future for their children and grandchildren. They were immigrants.
They left their homes and their families - a difficult decision, but one that was definitely in their best self interests because this place has been so so good for us. We've given back so much love in thanks; my grandfathers served in WWII and my mother and father are community activists in Philadelphia. We love our communities and our neighbors!
But I don't forget what my ancestors did when they felt they had to.
My ancestors - my great grandparents - and I are not so different. I too own a suitcase and have clothes on my back.
They keep telling me and people like me that we're not patriotic, that we don't support the troops, that we must want the Islamofacists to win - and I'm tired of it. Maybe they're right, I don't love America as much as they do. It's because, instead, I love my family and value the ethics we share.
So if my country's government continues to be one that evokes my anger and fear rather than one that inspires my pride and service, I must do what is right for my family and do as my ancestors once did.
I've been to other countries before.
In other countries, they don't lock people up for years for nonviolent activities, they provide free health care, all qualified students go to college for free, all workers get vacations and pensions, their governments don't go to war for corporate dividends, they don't have murders on the streets all the time, and so on and so forth.
...and I'm aware of all of these things...
I want so badly to stay for ever and ever. I want to retire to Philadelphia and go to every single Phillies game every summer with my totally hot wife until I die. But I'll do what is best for me and my family.
I still feel weird about my outburst at the basketball game. It's not something I expected to do. It just happened.
What will happen this Friday at Fogelman Arena when YOUR Tulane Green Wave take on the Auburn Tigers to officially kick off the season? Will I stay seated this time? Will I recover to swallow hard and stand? Can the Green Wave make the NIT this year?
November 2008 and the first 120 or so days of 2009 will determine a lot about the future of this country and the future of e. I suspect there are a lot of people out who are considering the same difficult choice, not including my group of freedom-hating friends, acquaintances, and strangers already fretting over this sad reality.
This was the stop story on their website at 12:00 AM Central Time.
Do YOU want municipal police being armed with assault rifles?
Is it just because the Brady Bill expired and criminals have more and better guns?
Is this want we want in our urban landscape? Is this what we want in our communities?
John Timoney, Miami's police chief and recent military assault rifle acquire-er, used to be head of Philly police in the late '90s. Crime stats went down and he was pretty popular. He worked with then-Mayor Ed Rendell who was fairly popular and went on to chair the DNC and become our two-term Gov. (He does annoying stuff now, like put casinos in my old neighborhood.) They "got tough" on crime - I own a copyright on that - and put more cops on the streets.
News and commentary on New Orleans and the nation with an unapologetic progressive bias.
This body of work represents part of my journey through New Orleans rebuilding politics starting in 2007. For later work see savecharityhospital.com or thelensnola.org.
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