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Posts Tagged ‘THE WASHINGTON POST’

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A NEW APPROACH TO GANGBUSTING: PART TWO (END)

In Bureaucracy, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on April 4, 2013 at 12:01 am

There is a phrase that’s well-known south of the border: “Pan, o palo.”  Or, in English: “Bread or  stick.”

And this, in turn, comes down to: Behave well and you’ll get this nice reward.  Behave badly and you’ll get your head beaten in.

In my last column I discussed the need for brandishing the stick when dealing with powerful street gangs such as the Aryan Brotherhood.

It’s the Brotherhood that’s suspected of being responsible for murdering two Texas prosecutors since February.

In this column I want to discuss creatively using the carrot to at least partially control gang violence.

It’s essential to remember the following:

  • Some 33,000 violent street gangs, motorcycle gangs, and prison gangs with about 1.4 million members are criminally active in the U.S. today.
  • Gangs are responsible for an average of 48 percent of violent crime in most jurisdictions and up to 90%  in several others.
  • Many are sophisticated and well organized; all use violence to control neighborhoods and boost their illegal money-making activities, which include robbery, drug- and gun-trafficking, fraud, extortion, and prostitution rings.

These gangs aren’t going to disappear, no matter how many of their members die or wind up in prison.

For decades, the rhetoric of the Cold War has carried over into the debate over policing.

“Hawks” on the Right have demanded a “hard” approach to law enforcement, emphasizing punishment.  “Doves” on the Left have pursued a “soft” line, stressing social programs and rehabilitation.

But it isn’t enough to be “hard” or “soft” in pursuing the goal of a safe, law-abiding society.  It’s necessary to be “smart” above all.

If you can’t eradicate evil, then you should try to direct at least some of its elements into a safer path.  Thus:

  • Each state should invite its resident gang members to take part in a series of competition for the title of “State Gang Champion.”
  • These would be modeled on competitions now existing within the National Football League–a series of playoffs to determine which two gangs will duke it out in the “Super Rumble.”

vs.

  • These competitions would be completely voluntary, thus eliminating any charges of State coersion.
  • They would be modeled on the country’s current mania for “Ultimate Warrior” contests for kickboxers and bare-kunckled fighters.
  • Contestants–as many as a score or more from at least two opposing gangs–would meet in a football-sized arena.

A modern-day Coliseum

  • No firearms would be allowed.
  • Contestants could otherwise arm themselves with whatever weapons they desired–such as baseball bats, swords, axes, spears or chains.
  • Everyone who agreed to participate would automatically be granted immunity for whatever carnage they inflicted.
  • The object of these contests would be to officially determine which State gang was the “baddest” for the year.
  • Tickets could be purchased by fans looking for an afternoon’s festival of gore.
  • Television networks could–and no doubt would–vie for rights to film the events, just as they now do for “pay-for-view” wrestling or boxing matches.

But would hard-core gangs even consider participating in such a series of contests?

Yes–most gangs would want to do so.  Here’s why:

  1. They would be able to eliminate members of rival gangs without risk of prosecution and imprisonment.
  2. They would be able to gauge–through the heat of combat–the toughness of their own associates.
  3. They would gain at least temporary stardom–just as successful gladiators did under the Roman Empire.
  4. The winning gang would gain official status as “The Baddest” gang in the State.

On the last point: Napoleon Bonaparte created the Order of the Legion of Honor, distributed 15,000 crosses to his soldiers and called his troops the “Grand Army.”  When someone criticized him for giving “toys” to his war-hardened veterans, Napoleon replied: “Men are ruled by toys.”

And for the State there would be gains as well:

  1. These contests would literally eliminate a great many gang members who cannot be removed any other way.
  2. Police and prosecutors could concentrate their limited resources on gangs that refused to participate or were deemed to pose a threat.
  3. Millions of dollars in State revenues would be generated through ticket sales and the buying of pay-per-view rights.

Admittedly, many law-abiding citizens would be repulsed by the carnage that would result from implemting this proposal.   But these are generally the people who disdain boxing or wrestling contests anyway.

But given our increasingly jaded and violence-prone society, most of them would eventually tolerate it as an effective way to simultaneously raise badly-needed tax revenues and reduce the size of criminal gangs.

Republican politicians would find this an especially attractive proposal, since it adheres to the two concepts dear to the hearts of all Right-wingers: Killing people and making money.

In short: With sufficient creativity and ruthlessness, it should be possible to reclaim control of our streets from the evils of gang violence.

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A NEW APPROACH TO GANGBUSTING: PART ONE (OF TWO)

In Bureaucracy, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on April 3, 2013 at 12:00 am

A Federal prosecutor has withdrawn from a large racketeering case involving members of the Aryan Brotherhood, citing “security concerns.”

The Dallas Morning News reported that Houston-based assistant U.S. attorney Jay Hileman announced his withdrawal in an email.

The news comes days after Kaufman County District Attorney Mike McLelland and his wife, Cynthia, were shot and killed during Easter weekend in their home near Dallas.

Mike McLelland

In February, Mark Hasse, an assistant prosecutor in McLelland’s office, was gunned down in a parking lot about a block from his office at the Kaufman County Courthouse.  Hasse was a veteran prosecutor of organized crime cases.

Although no suspects have been positively identified, state and Federal investigators believe that the Aryan Brotherhood might be responsible for these attacks on prosecutors.

Such attacks–and the withdrawal of a federal prosecutor for fear of becoming a target–are unprecedented.  And clearly law enforcement needs to take a new and creative approach to attacking street gangs.

According to the FBI:

  • Some 33,000 violent street gangs, motorcycle gangs, and prison gangs with about 1.4 million members are criminally active in the U.S. today.
  • Many are sophisticated and well organized; all use violence to control neighborhoods and boost their illegal money-making activities, which include robbery, drug- and gun-trafficking, fraud, extortion, and prostitution rings.
  • The FBI is redoubling its efforts to dismantle gangs through intelligence-driven investigations and new initiatives and partnerships.

Obtaining timely and accurate intelligence about gang activities is, of course, an absolute necessity.  But there are two approaches the FBI and other law enforcement agencies should be applying.

These amount to using both the stick and the carrot.

First, the stick: An all-out declaration of war on any criminal foolhardy enough to directly attack law enforcement authorities.

Consider these past two examples:

In April, 1963, FBI agent John Foley was conducting surveillance at the Brooklyn funeral of Carmine “The Doctor” Lombardozzi, a capo in the Gambino Mafia Family.

Suddenly, four mobsters knocked Foley to the ground, then severely beat and kicked him.

For the FBI, this was unprecedented: It had long been known that organized crime was too smart to attack or kill law enforcement officers–especially Federal ones.  The resulting heat would simply be too great.

The FBI retaliated by launching an all-out war against the Gambinos.  Agents leaned heavily on the cartel’s boss, underboss, counselor and lieutenants.

The Bureau also intensified its use of illegal electronic surveillance against the mobsters.   Even law-abiding relatives of the Gambinos—one of these a nun, the other a priest—found themselves interrogated.

Angelo Bruno, the boss of the Philadelphia crime syndicate, unwittingly informed a hidden microphone on how the FBI brutally drove home the message to “boss of all bosses” Carlo Gambino:

BRUNO: They [the FBI] went to Carlo and named all his capos to him….The FBI asked him: “Did you change the laws in your family, that you could hit FBI men, punch and kick them? 

“Well, this is the test—that if you change the laws, and now you are going to hit FBI men, every time we pick up one of your people we are going to break their heads for them.”  

And, really, they picked up our guy, they almost killed him, the FBI.  They don’t do that, you know.  But they picked up one of his fellows and crippled him. 

They said, “This is an example.  Now, the next time anyone lays a hand on an FBI man, that’s just a warning.  There’s nothing else we have got to tell you.”  And they went away.  

Word traveled quickly through the nationwide organized crime network—and its leaders decreed there should be no further assaults on FBI agents.

Still, some mobsters apparently didn’t get the word.

During the 1960s or early 1970s, FBI agents monitoring a wiretap on a mob family in Youngstown, Ohio, heard something truly disturbing.

Several Mafia members were discussing putting out a contract on a local FBI agent they especially disliked.

“How many hit men do we have?” asked one.

“Three,” said another.

They made arrangements to meet and discuss the matter again the next day.

The FBI agents monitoring the wiretap immediately flashed an urgent warning to the Bureau’s headquarters in Washington, D.C.

No less an authority than J. Edgar Hoover, the legendary director of the FBI since 1924, ordered that a “message’ be sent to the mobsters.

That night, about 20 large, heavily-armed FBI agents barged into the penthouse of the local Mafia boss.  Some agents tipped over vases, others dropped lit matches on the luxurious carpeting, and one of them even urinated in a potted plant.

“You may have three hitmen,” one of them told the mob boss, “but Mr. Hoover has thousands.”

The FBI agent thought to be the target for a rubout was never bothered.

In my next column I will discuss the option of the carrot.

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THE KKK COMES TO CPAC

In History, Politics, Social commentary on March 29, 2013 at 12:02 am

The Ku Klux Klan is rightfully despised by the overwhelming majority of Americans.

So it’s illuminating that its ideology found vigorous support at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Washington, D.C. in mid-March, 2013.

Ku Klux Klan

K. Carl Smith, a black discussion leader, was a member of the Frederick Douglas Republicans.  He was speaking about the role of race in the Republican Party when he was suddenly interrupted.

Scott Terry, a 30-year-old attendee from North Carolina, claimed that “young, white Southern males like myself” were being disenfranchised by Republicans.

Terry blamed the growth of diversity in the party and its outreach to black conservatives.

Smith then told how abolitionist leader Frederick Douglas wrote a letter to his former slaveowner forgiving him for having held him in bondage.

“For giving him shelter and food?” asked Terry, a member of the White Students Union at Towson University in Maryland.

Several members of the audience gasped and others laughed.

Terry later told the liberal blog, Think Progress, that he would “be fine” with an America where blacks were subservient to whites.

African-Americans, he said, should vote in Africa. He claimed the Tea Party agrees with him.

And, no doubt, many of its members privately do.

Terry claimed to be a descendent of Jefferson Davis, the president of the Confederacy during the American Civil War (1861-1865).

As a result, he didn’t totally disagree with slavery: “I can’t make one broad statement that categorically it was evil all the time because that’s not true.”

Another attendee, White Student Union “founder and commander” Matthew Heimbach, called civil rights activist Martin Luther King “a Marxist.”

Later, he said of the Southern Poverty Law Center, which investigates extremist, racist groups: “You look at the SPLC, as fake as they are, they talk about how patriot groups are increasing in the Obama era.  With a black face in charge of the White House, of the federal government, we know it’s foreign. We know something isn’t right.”

According to the Atlantic Wire, 23 members of the White Student Union attended CPAC.

Racism is no stranger to high-ranking memers of the Republican party–and its right-wing allies.

In 2012, Inge Marler, a Tea Party leader in northern Arkansas, kicked off a rally with a joke implying that black Americans were all on welfare:

“A black kid asks his mom, ‘Mama, what’s a democracy?’

“‘Well, son, that be when white folks work every day so us po’ folks can get all our benefits.’

“‘But mama, don’t the white folk get mad about that?’

“‘They sho do, son. They sho do. And that’s called racism.’”

 Inge Marler

The joke was followed by laughter and clapping from the Tea Party audience.

Only after Marler’s remarks came to the attention of the media did the Tea Party oust her from her position.

Since November 6, Republicans have been vigorously debating about why their candidate, Mitt Romney, lost the 2012 Presidential election.

Generally, their “findings” have boiled down to: We didn’t get our message out clearly enough.

On the contrary: There was no mistaking the message that Republicans were sending.  Targeting a wide range of groups, this boiled down to: “America is for us–not you”:

  • Republicans enraged and alienated Latinos by their constant anti-immigrant rhetoric–such as their nominee Mitt Romney’s comment that illegal aliens should “self-deport.”
  • Republicans enraged and alienated blacks by their constant hate-filled and often racist attacks on President Barack Obama.  Clint Eastwood’s empty chair “comedy” act at the Republican convention pleased his right-wing audience.  But it outraged a great many others–especially blacks.
  • Republicans enraged and alienated voters generally and minorities in particular by their blatant efforts to suppress the voting rights of their fellow citizens–especially those of non-whites.  Republicans falsely claimed widespread voter fraud in areas where there was no evidence of it.  When voter fraud was found, the culprit was a get-out-the-vote consulting firm hired by Republicans.
  • Republicans allowed their party to be represented by Donald Trump, the infamous oligarch.  When he  repeatedly claimed that Obama wasn’t an American citizen, Romney refused to dump him as the hate-filled racist he was.
  • Republicans refused to distance themselves from their “de facto” leader, right-wing pundit Rush Limbaugh.  Romney refused to condemn Limbaugh for calling Georgetown University law student Sandra Fluke a “slut” and a “prostitute” after she told Congress that insurance companies should cover contraceptives.
  • Republicans angered and alienated women by constantly talking about: Gutting Planned Parenthood; outlawing abortion; “legitimate rape” and banning birth control.
  • Republicans alienated gays by their blatantly anti-gay sentiments and steadfast opposition to same-sex marriage.

Ultimately, Republicans came to depend for their success on a voting group that’s constantly shrinking–-aging white males. Having alienated blacks, gays, women, Latinos and youths, the Republicans found themselves with no other sources of support.

CPAC’s website claimed the event would showcase “America’s Future: The Next Generation of Conservatives.  New Challenges, Timeless Principles.”

For many of the attending delegates, one of those “timeless principles” turned out to be old-fashioned racism.

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MIND OUR OWN BUSINESS

In Bureaucracy, History, Politics on March 27, 2013 at 12:01 am

At a joint press conference for President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on March 20, a reporter asked Obama:

“Morally, how is it possible that for the last two years, tens of thousands of innocent civilians [in Syria] are being massacred and no one–the world, the United States and you–are doing anything to stop it immediately?”

President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at press conference

United Nations officials estimate that more than 70,000 people have died in Syria’s civil war since conflict began on March 15, 2011.  The trigger: Protests demanding political reforms and the ouster of dictator Bashar al-Assad.

But Israelis aren’t the only ones demanding that America “do something” to end the carnage in Syria.  So are members of Congress and the national news media.

TV reporters from ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN and other networks are eagerly training their cameras on the carnage.  As they say in television journalism: “If it bleeds, it leads.”

And this, in turn, causes members of Congress and the Obama administration to fear for their jobs. They dread that voters will blame them for not “doing something” to end the fighting.

Like sending in American armed forces to somehow stop it.

True, most of these officials never spent a day in military service. But it’s always easier to send someone else into combat than to take that risk yourself.

And this is a risk that–emphatically–the United States has absolutely no business taking.

First, the United States just disengaged from Iraq.  On Dec. 15, 2011, the American military formally ended its mission there. The war–begun in 2003–had cost the lives of 4,487 service members, with another 32,226 wounded.

Second, the war in Iraq fell victim to the law of unintended consequences. The Bush administration invaded Iraq to turn it into a base–from which to intimidate its neighboring states: Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Turkey, Syria and Iran.

But this demanded that the United States quickly pacify Iraq. The Iraqi insurgency totally undermined that goal, forcing U.S. troops to focus all their efforts inward.

Another unintended result of the war: Whereas Saddam Hussein’s Iraq had been a counter-weight to the regional ambitions of Iran, the destruction of the Iraqi military created a power-vacumn.  Into this–eagerly–stepped the Iranian mullahs.

Third, the United States is still fighting a brutal war in Afghanistan. By early 2012, the United States had about 90,000 troops in Afghanistan, with 22,000 of them due home by the fall. There has been no schedule set for the pace of the withdrawal of the 68,000 American troops who will remain, only that all are to be out by the end of 2014.

The initial goal of this war was to quickly destroy Al Qaeda–especially its leader, Osama Bin Laden–and its Taliban protectors. But, over time, Washington policy-makers embarked on a “nation-building” effort.  And U.S. forces wound up occupying the country for the next ten years.

This increasingly brought them into conflict with primitive, xenophobic Afghans, whose mindset remains that of the sixth century.

On February 21, protests erupted throughout Afghanistan as reports emerged that NATO personnel at Bagram Air Base had burned copies of the Koran. The books had been confiscated from suspected insurgents and inadvertently marked for incineration.

The incident sparked rabid anti-American demonstrations. At least 30 people, including four American troops, were killed, and many were wounded. Two American military officers were murdered by a trusted member of the Afghan military.

As a result, American forces no longer trust their “brothers” in the Afghan army to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with them against the Taliban. One American officer stated that he would no longer meet with his Afghan counterparts unless there were five armed U.S. troops in the same room.

Fourth, intervening in Syria could produce similar unintended consequences for American forces–and make the United States a target for more Islamic terrorism.

Fifth, since 1979, Syria has been listed by the U.S. State Department as a sponsor of terrorism. Among the terrorist groups it supports are Hezbollah and Hamas. For many years, Syria provided a safe-house in Damascus to Ilich Ramírez Sánchez–the notorious terrorist better known as Carlos the Jackal.

Sixth, according to U.S. defense reports, Syria has weapons of mass destruction–and the ballistic missiles to deliver them. Syria has an active chemical weapons program, including significant reserves of the deadly nerve agent sarin.

Seventh, the United States had no part in instigating revolt against the Assad regime. Thus, Americans have no moral obligation to support those Syrians trying to overthrow it.

Eighth, China and Russia are fully supporting the Assad dictatorship–and the brutalities it commits against its own citizens. This reflects badly on them–not the United States.  America should focus world outrage against these longtime Communist dictatorships for propping up another one.

Ninth, while Islamic nations like Syria and Egypt wage war within their own borders, they will lack the resources–and incentive–to launch attacks against the United States.

When Senator Harry S. Truman learned that Nazi Germany had turned on its ally, the Soviet Union, in June, 1941, he said: “I hope the Russians kill lots of Nazis and vice versa.”  We should welcome these self-slaughters, not become involved in them.

* * * * *

All of this adds up to one, overwhelming conclusion: America should mind its own business–and let the Syrians attend to their own.

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BUSHITLER AND WARS OF SHAME: PART TWO (END)

In History, Politics on March 26, 2013 at 12:01 am

Naturally the common people don’t want war, neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany.  That is understood.

But, after all, it’s the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it’s always a simple matter to drag the people along whether it’s a democracy, a fascist dictatorshp, or a prliament, or a communist dictatorship….

All you have to do is tell them that they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to greater danger.  It works the same way in any country.

—Rcichsmarshall Hermann Goering

March 19, 2013 marked the tenth anniversary of the start of America’s war against Iraq.  And the national news networks have been dutifully noting it.

Yet none of these networks has dared to point out there is a dark historical parallel to the events leading up to the Iraq war.  A parallel that has its roots in Nazi Germany.

ADOLF HITLER

Adolf Hitler knew that Poland’s government could never accept his demands for the Polish city of Danzig.

GEORGE W. BUSH

So, too, did George W. Bush make a demand he knew could never be accepted.  On the eve of launching war on Iraq, Bush issued a humiliating ultimatum to Saddam Hussein:

“Saddam Hussein and his sons must leave Iraq within 48 hours. Their refusal to do so will result in military conflict, commenced at a time of our choosing.”

ADOLF HITLER

Hitler never regretted his decision to invade Poland–-even asserting in his “final political testament” that: “It is untrue that I or anyone else in Germany wanted war in 1939.”

GEORGE W. BUSH

Similarly, Bush never regretted his decision to invade Iraq, which occurred on March 19, 2003.

Adolf Hitler

ADOLF HITLER

When he announced his attack on Poland before Germany’s rubber-stamp parliament, the Reichstag, Hitler–a decorated World War I veteran–said: “I am from now on just first soldier of the German Reich. I have once more put on that coat that was the most sacred and dear to me.”

GEORGE W. BUSH

On May 1, 2003, Bush–who hid out the Vietnam war in the Texas Air National Guard-–donned a flight suit and landed a Navy jet aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln.  A banner titled “Mission Accomplished” was displayed on the aircraft carrier as Bush announced–wrongly–that the war was over.

The effect–and intent–was to portray Bush as the triumphant warrior-chieftan he never was.

George W. Bush

ADOLF HITLER

In 1970, Albert Speer, Hitler’s former architect and Minister of Aramaments, published his bestselling postwar memoirs, Inside the Third Reich.  In a striking passage, he revealed how the Fuehrer really felt about German soldiers who were suffering and dying in a war he had provoked.

One evening during the middle of the war, Speer was traveling with Hitler on the Fuehrer’s private train.  Late at night, they enjoyed a lavish dinner in the elegant rosewood-paneled dining car.

As they ate, Hitler’s train slowed down and passed a freight train halted on a side track.

From their open cattle car, recalled Speer, wounded German soldiers from the Russian Front–starved, their uniforms in rags–stared across the few yards to their Fuehrer’s dining-car window.

Hitler recoiled at seeing these injured men intently watching him–and he sharply ordered an adjutant to lower the window shades.

GEORGE W. BUSH

Similarly, Bush showed his contempt for the soldiers suffering and dying in his own unprovoked war.

On March 24, 2004, at a White House Correspondents dinner, he joked publicly about the absence of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs).

To Bush, the non-existent WMDs were nothing more than the butt of a joke that night.  While an overhead projector displayed photos of a puzzled-looking Bush searching around the Oval Office, Bush recited a comedy routine.

“Those weapons of mass destruction have gotta be somewhere,” Bush laughed, while a photo showed him poking around the corners in the Oval Office.

“Nope-–no weapons over there!  Maybe they’re under here,” he said, as a photo showed him looking under a desk.

In a scene that could have occurred under the Roman emperor Nero, an assembly of wealthy, pampered men and women–-the elite of America’s media and political classes–-laughed heartily during Bush’s performance.

Click here: Bush laughs at no WMD in Iraq – YouTube

In writing about the significance of human character, the ancient historian, Plutarch, said it best:

And the most glorious exploits do not always furnish us with the clearest discoveries of virtue or vice in men.

Sometimes a matter of less moment, an expression or a jest, informs us better of their characters and inclinations, than the most famous sieges, the greatest armaments, or the bloodiest battles whatsoever.

So add it all up:

  • Two all-powerful leaders.
  • Two nations lied into unprovoked wars.
  • Hitler’s war costs the lives of 4.5 million German soldiers.
  • Bush’s war costs the lives of 4,486 Americans.
  • Germany’s war results in the deaths of millions of Europeans and Russians.
  • America’s war results in the deaths of an estimated 655,000 Iraqis, according to a 2006 study in the Lancet medical journal.
  • Hitler is literally driven underground by his enemies and commits suicide to avoid capture, trial and certain execution for war crimes.
  • Bush retires from office with a lavish pension and full Secret Service protection.  He writes his memoirs and is paid $7 million for the first 1.5 million copies.
  • Hitler is branded as a symbol of demonic evil.
  • Bush becomes a target of ridicule for comics.

Who says history is irrelevant?  Or that it doesn’t repeat itself?

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BUSHITLER AND WARS OF SHAME: PART ONE (OF TWO)

In History, Politics on March 25, 2013 at 12:01 am

March 19, 2013 marked the tenth anniversary of the start of America’s war against Iraq.  And the national news networks have been dutifully noting it.

Yet none of these networks has dared to point out there is a dark historical parallel to the events leading up to the Iraq war.  A parallel that has its roots in Nazi Germany.

ADOLF HITLER

When Germany’s Fuehrer, Adolf Hitler, wanted to invade Poland in 1939, he mounted a sustained propaganda campaign to “justify” his ambitions.

Adolf Hitler

German “newspapers”-–produced by Joseph Goebbels, the club-footed Minister of Propaganda–-carried fictitious stories of how brutal Poles were beating and even murdering their helpless German citizens.

In theaters, German audiences saw phony newsreels showing Poles attacking and raping German women living in Poland.

For a time, Hitler not only deceived the Germans but the world.

Just before German tanks and troops invaded Poland on September 1, 1939, members of Hitler’s dreaded SS rounded up a number of prisoners from German concentration camps.

They inmates were dressed in Polish Army uniforms and driven to a German radio station at Gleiwitz, on the German/Polish border. There they were shot by SS men. Then Polish-speaking SS men “seized” the station and broadcast to Germany that a Polish invasion of Germany was now under way.

Hitler, addressing Germany’s rubber-stamp parliament, the Reichstag, dramatically asserted: “This night for the first time Polish regular soldiers fired on our territory. Since 5.45 a.m. we have been returning the fire, and from now on bombs will be met by bombs.”

Leaders of Britain and France were taken in by this ruse. They had pledged to go to war if Hitler attacked Poland.  But they didn’t want to take on Germany if Poland had been the aggressor.

By the time the truth became known, Poland was securely in German hands.

On August 22, Hitler had outlined his strategy to a group of high-ranking military officers:

I shall give a propagandist cause for starting the war.  Never mind whether it is plausible or not. The victor will not be asked, later on, whether he told the truth or not. In starting and waging a war, it is not Right that matters, but Victory.

GEORGE W. BUSH

American President George W. Bush followed a similar strategy while he prepared to invade Iraq: He ordered the topmost members of his administration to convince the American people of the war’s necessity.

Among those members: National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice; Vice President Dick Cheney; Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld; and Secretary of State Colin Powell.

Condaleeza Rice, Dick Cheney, George W. Bush and Donald Rumsfeld

Among their arguments-–all eventually revealed as lies-–were:

  • Iraq’s dictator, Saddam Hussein, had worked hand-in-glove with Osama Bin Laden to plan 9/11.
  • Saddam was harboring and supporting Al Qaeda throughout Iraq.
  • Saddam, with help from Al Qaeda, was scheming to build a nuclear bomb.
  • Iraq possessed huge quantities of chemical/biological weapons, in violation of UN resolutions.
  • Saddam was preparing to use those weapons against the United States.
  • American Intelligence agencies had determined the precise locations where those weapons were stored.
  • The war would be self-financing via the oil revenues that would come from Iraq.
  • Invading American forces would be welcomed as liberators.

ADOLF HITLER

Hitler intended Poland to be only his first conquest on what became known as “the Eastern Front.”  Conquering Poland would place his powerful Wehrmacht on the border of the country that was his ultimate target: The Soviet Union.

GEORGE W. BUSH

Similarly, Vice President Dick Cheney–the “power-behind-the-throne” of the Bush Presidency–had his own ambitions for conquering Iraq.

According to former Bush speechwriter David Frum: Cheney longed for war in Iraq to gain reliable control of that nation’s vital oil resources.

ADOLF HITLER

Despite efforts by the British and French governments to resolve the crisis that Hitler had deliberately created, he refused all offers of compromise.

“I am only afraid,” Hitler told his generals at a military conference on August 22, 1939, “that some Schweinehund [pig dog] will make a proposal for mediation.”

GEORGE W. BUSH

Similarly, Bush made it clear to his closest aides that he sought a pretext for invading Iraq.

On the evening after the September 11 attacks, Bush held a private meeting with Richard Clarke, the counter-terrorism advisor to the National Security Council.

“I want you, as soon as you can, to go back over everything,” said Bush. “See if Saddam did this. See if he’s linked in any way.”

Clarke was stunned: “But, Mr. President, Al Qaeda did this.”

“I know, I know,” said Bush. “But see if Saddam was involved. I want to know.”

On September 12, 2001, Bush attended a meeting of the National Security Council.

“Why shouldn’t we go against Iraq, not just Al Qaeda?” demanded Donald Rumsfeld, the Secretary of Defense.

Vice President Dick Cheney enthusiastically agreed.

Secretary of State Colin Powell then pointed out there was absolutely no evidence that Iraq had had anything to do with 9/11 or Al Qaeda. And he added: “The American people want us to do something about Al-Qaeda”-–not Iraq.

On September 22, 2001, Bush had received a classified President’s Daily Brief intelligence report, which stated that there was no evidence linking Saddam Hussein to 9/11.

The report added that there was scant credible evidence that Iraq had any significant collaborative ties with Al Qaeda.

Yet on November 21, 2001, only 10 weeks after 9/11, Bush told Rumsfeld: It’s time to turn to Iraq.

George W. Bush

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THE AGENCIES WE DESERVE

In Bureaucracy, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on March 22, 2013 at 12:13 am

The quickest way of opening the eyes of the people is to find the means of making them descend to particulars, seeing that to look at things only in a general way deceives them.…

–-Niccolo Machiavelli, The Discourses

One morning at about 8:10, a friend of mine named Robert heard a helicopter repeatedly buzzing the San Francisco Ternderloin area, where he lives.

Thinking that a fire or police action might be in the works, he called the non-emergency number of the San Francisco Police Department (SFPD): (415) 553-0123.

Police dispatcher

And he got a recorded message.

This told him–in English–what he already knew: He had reached the San Francisco Police Department.

Then it told him this again in Spanish.  Then again in Cantonese.  Then came a series of high-pitched squeals–presumably for those who are hard-of-hearing.

Then the line went dead, and another recorded voice told Robert: “If you’d like to make a call, please hang up and try again.”

At that point, Robert decided to waste no more time trying to learn if there was an emergency going on in his area.  Or, to put it more accurately, he decided to waste no more time trying to learn this from the SFPD.

Instead, Robert turned on his TV and checked all the local news channels.  When he didn’t see anyone reporting a raging fire or police sealing off an area, he decided there probably wasn’t anything to worry about.

But later on he decided to call the SFPD once again–to complain at a level he believed would attain results.

That level was the office of its chief, Greg Suhr.

Robert didn’t expect to reach the chief himself.  But he didn’t have to: Reaching Suhr’s secretary should serve the same purpose.

The secretary he reached turned out to be a sworn officer of the agency.  She patiently heard out Robert’s complaint.  And she totally agreed with it.

She also agreed that this was a longstanding problem with the SFPD–citizens not being able to get through for help because of an ineffective communications system.

Finally, she agreed with Robert that the situation counted as a major PR disaster for her agency.  People who become disgusted and/or disallusioned with a police department’s phone system aren’t likely to trust that agency with their cooperation–or their lives.

Then she had a surprise for Robert:  Like him, she had at times been unable to reach a live dispatcher–even when calling 9-1-1.

She added that the police department did not handle its own dispatch work.  This had been farmed out long ago to the San Francisco Department of Emergency Management (SFDEM).

She said that the SFPD didn’t have any control–or even influence–over SFDEM, which operated as an independent agency.

Robert suggested that it was definitely in the best interests of the SFPD for someone at its highest level to contact SFDEM and demand major reforms.  Or to find another agency that would take its dispatcher responsibilities seriously.

The chief’s secretary said she would pass along Robert’s comments to the proper authority.

Will anything change?  Not likely, barring a miracle.

There are few events more frightening and frustrating than having to call the police, fire department or paramedics during an emergency–and get a recorded message.

Whether intended or not, the message this sends the caller can only be: “Your call is simply not important to us–and neither are you.  We’ll get to you when we feel like it.”

When people call the police or fire department, they’re usually frightened–for themselves or others.  They know that, in a fire or crime or medical emergency, literally second counts.

It’s going to take the police or fire or paramedics several minutes to arrive–assuming they don’t get caught up in a traffic snarl.

And it’s going to take them even longer to arrive if it takes the caller several minutes to reach them with a request for help.

This is the sort of bread-and-butter issue that local authorities–who operate police and fire departments–should take most seriously.

Mayors and council members should not expect to be treated with respect when their constituents are treated so disrespectfully in a time of crisis.

And citizens aren’t stupid.  They can easily tell lies from truths.

Lies such as: “We’d like to put in a new communications system, but we can’t afford it due to budget cuts.”

And truths such as: While San Francisco faced a $229 million deficit for the fiscal year, 2012, it nevertheless found untold monies to tap after the San Francisco Giants won the 2011-12 World Series, 4-0.

Monies to decorate various San Francisco buildings (such as the airport) with the orange-and-black colors of the Giants.  Or with the Giants logo.

San Francisco Airport–decked out with San Francisco Giants colors

Monies to throw a day-long party for the victorious Giants on October 31–Halloween.

So, in the end, it all comes down to a matter of priority–for both citizens and their elected leaders.  As Robert F. Kennedy once said: “Every nation gets the kind of government it deserves–and the kind of law enforcement it insists in.”

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GREED? THY NAME IS AYN

In Business, History, Politics, Social commentary on March 13, 2013 at 12:00 am

“Thirty years after her death, Ayn Rand’s ideas have never been more important.

“Unfettered capitalism, unregulated business, bare-bones government providing no social services, glorification of selfishness, disdain for Judeo-Christian morality—these are the tenets of Rand’s harsh philosophy.”

So reads the jacket blurb for Ayn Rand Nation: The Struggle for America’s Soul, by Gary Weiss.

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“The timing of this book couldn’t be better for Americans who are trying to understand where in the hell the far-out right’s anti-worker, anti-egalitarian extremism is coming from,” asserts Jim Hightower, New York Times bestselling author of Thieves in High Places.

“Ayn Rand Nation introduces us to the godmother of such Tea Party craziness as destroying Social Security and eliminating Wall Street regulation. Weiss writes with perception and wit.”

For those who believe that Rand’s philosophy is the remedy for America’s economic and social ills, a 60 Minutes news story sounds a warning.

New England Compounding Center (NECC) pharmacy, based in Framington, Massachusetts, is under criminal investigation.  The reason: Shipping, in the fall of 2012, 17,000 vials of a steroid to be injected into the joints or spines of patients suffering chronic pain.

But instead of relieving pain, this steroid–contaminated with fungal meningitis–brought only agony and death.

The vials went out to thousands of pharmacies scattered across 23 states.

Forty-eight people have died, and 720 are still fighting horrific infections caused by the drug.

Just as Ayn Rand would have wanted, the pharmacy managed to avoid supervision by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

NECC was one of thousands of pharmacies that Congress exempted from FDA oversight. The reason: By law, they are allowed to make custom drugs for just one patient at a time.

But within a few years, NECC went national–and vastly expanded the quantities of drugs produced.

“The underlying factor is that the company got greedy and overextended and we got sloppy, and something happened,” John Connolly, a lab technician for the company, told 60 Minutes, the CBS news magazine.

And, also as Rand would have wanted, the four family members who founded the pharmacy were enriched by it–receiving over $16 million in wages and profits, from December 2011 through November 2012.

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Bankruptcy records show the family members racked up $90,000 on corporate American Express credit cards, including charges made after the company shut down in early October.

A month before the first steroid death, Connolly says he warned his supervisor: “Something’s gonna happen, something’s gonna get missed and we’re gonna get shut down.”

His supervisor just shrugged.

NECC was shut down by the authorities.  Barry Cadden, the president and lead pharmacist of the company, was subpoenaed by Congress to testify.  In true gangster fashion, he pleaded the Fifth.

He claims he doesn’t know how the contamination started.

Which brings us back to Ayn Rand–and, more specifically, Ayn Rand Nation.

Among the themes explored in Weiss’ book:

  • Atlas Shrugged–Rand’s 1957 novel–depicts a United States where many of society’s most productive citizens refuse to be exploited by increasing taxation and government regulations and go on strike. The refusal evokes the imagery of what would happen if the mythological Atlas refused to continue to hold up the world.  The novel continues to influence those who aren’t hard-core Rand followers, who are known as Objectivists.
  • Ayn Rand’s novels dramatically affirm such bedrock American values as independence, creativity, self-reliance, and above all, a permanent distrust of government.
  • In Rand’s 1936 novel, We the Living–set in Soviet Russia–her heroine, Kira Argounova, tells a Communist: “I loathe your ideals; I admire your methods.” Objectivists believe in defending capitalism with the same ruthless methods of Communists.
  • In Rand’s ideal world, government would control only police, armies and law courts.  To her, a   government which performs more than these three functions is not simply impractical or expensive: it is evil.

Many of those who embrace Rand substitute rage for logic: Tea Partiers are furious about the 2008 Wall Street crash, yet they blame the government for it.

(Ironically, in a way, they are right: The government can be blamed–but not for too much regulation of greed-fueled capitalists but too little.)

Weiss asserts that Tea Party members resent the social and economic realities facing the nation, but lack a coherent intellectual framework to help them focus and justify their rage.  But Objectivists have–and offer–such a framework.

Thus, Tea Partiers form the ideological part of the right wing, and the clarity–and fanaticism–of their views gives them a power far out of proportion to their numbers.

Weiss believes that Rand is presenting a moral argument for laissez-faire capitalism, which means eliminating  Social Security, Medicare, public road system, fire departments, parks, building codes–and, above all, any type of financial regulation.

Weiss maintains that Rand’s moral argument must be directly confronted–and defeated–with moral arguments calling for charity and rationality.

Given the fanaticism of Tea Partiers and the right-wing Republicans they support, success in countering Rand’s “I’ve-got-mine-and-the-hell-with-everybody-else” morality is by no means assured.

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TIME TO FIND THE EXIT

In History, Politics, Social commentary on March 11, 2013 at 12:01 am

In April, 2010, Afghan president Hamid Karzai threatened to quit politics and join the Taliban if America kept pressuring him to enact reforms.

He accused the United States of interfering with Afghanistan’s affairs, and warned that the Taliban would become a legitimate resistance movement if America did not stop.

Hamid Karzai

Almost three years later, on March 10, 2013, Karzai accused the Taliban and America of conspiring to persuade Afghans that violence will worsen if most foreign troops leave.

It’s time for the United States to do in Afghanistan what it should have done in Vietnam: Declare victory and get out.

The history of American conflict in Afghanistan began on September 11, 2001.

On that date, Islamic highjackers slammed two jetliners into the World Trade Center in New York and one into the Pentagon in Washington, D.C.

A fourth plane, headed for the White House or Capitol Building, failed to reach its target when its passengers rioted–and the highjackers dove it into a Pennsylvania field.

The mastermind of the attacks was Osama bin Laden, a Saudi millionaire then living in Afghanistan, under protection by its ruling thugocracy, the Taliban.

The administration of President George W. Bush demanded his immediate surrender to American justice.

The Taliban refused.

So, on October 7, 2011–less than one month from the 9/11 attacks–American bombers began pounding Taliban positions.

The whole point of the campaign was to pressure the Taliban to surrender Bin Laden.

But the Taliban held firm.  Bin Laden holed up in the mountains of Tora Bora, and then ultimately escaped into Pakistan.

After December, 2001, American Intelligence completely lost track of Bin Laden.  CIA officials repeatedly said he was likely living in the “no-man’s-land” between Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Osama bin Laden

Thus, there was no longer any point in pressuring the Taliban to surrender Bin Laden.

Still, the United States continued to commit forces to Afghanistan–to turn a primitive, warlord-ruled country into a modern-day democracy.

There was, admittedly, a great deal to detest about the Taliban:

  • When the Taliban ruled Afghanistan, they turned soccer stadiums into execution plazas for mass beheadings or shootings.
  • Taliban “fighters” have proven their “courage” by throwing acid into the faces of women who dared to attend school.

Taliban atrocities

  • On August 8, 1989, the Taliban attacked Mazar-i-Sharif. Talibanists began shooting people in the street, then moved on to mass rapes of women. Thousands of people were locked in containers and left to suffocate.
  • The Taliban forbade women to leave their homes unless accompanied by a male relative and wearing the burqa–a traditional dress covering the entire body. Those who disobeyed were publicly beaten.

Yet, as horrific as such atrocities were, these did not obligate the United States to spend eternity trying to bring civilization to this barbaric country.

And, in pursuing that goal, both the Bush and Obama administrations have repeatedly overlooked the following realities:

  • Hamid Karzai, the “president” of Afghanistan (2001-present) doesn’t belileve in democracy–despite American claims to support his efforts to bring this to Afghanistan.
  • His authority doesn’t extend beyond Kabul, and he is viewed by most Afghans as an illegitimate ruler, imposed by America.
  • American soldiers in Afghanistan feel surrounded by enemies and hamstrung by unrealistic orders to win “hearts and minds” at the risk of their own lives.
  • The Taliban poses no threat to the security of the United States.
  • Afghan “insurgents” are fighting American forces because (1) they are in a civil war; and (b) they believe their country has once again been occupied by foreigners.
  • Counterinsurgency is being preached as the key to defeating the Taliban in Afghanistan–where it hasn’t worked.
  • Americans entered Afghanistan without an exit strategy.

All these truths applied just as firmly to America’s failed misadventure in Vietnam.

Almost 50 years ago, American “grunts” felt about their so-called South Vietnamese allies as American troops now feel about their Afghan “allies.”

Dr. Dennis Greenbaum, a former army medic, summed up how Americans had really felt about their supposed South Vietnamese allies.

American surgical team in Vietnam

“The highest [priority for medical treatment] was any U.S. person. The second highest was a U.S. dog from the canine corps.  The third was NVA [North Vietnamese Army].  The fourth was VC [Viet Cong].

“And the fifth was ARVIN [Army of the Republic of South Vietnam], because they had no particular value,” said Greenbaum.

When you despise the “ally” you’re spending lives and treasure to defend, it’s time to pack up.

American soldiers long ago recognized that “friendly Afghans” were worthless as allies.  But only recently has the Pentagon publicly admitted that ”friendly Afghans” pose as great a threat to American troops as self-declared Talibanists.

Can anyone recall such “ally-on-American” attacks by British or French soldiers during World War II?  Of course not.

It’s past time for the Obama administration to recognize this–and start shipping those troops home.

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THE OSCARS: “LINCOLN’S” LEGACY: PART TWO (END)

In Uncategorized on February 28, 2013 at 12:06 am

Argo was selected as Best Picture at the annual Academy Awards.  But it is Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln that will be cherished far longer.

Among the reasons for this:

  • Daniel Day-Lewis’ brilliant portrayal as Abraham Lincoln; and
  • Its timely depiction of a truth that has long been obscured by past and current Southern lies.

And that truth: From first to last, the cause of the Civil War was slavery.

According to The Destructive War, by Charles Royster, arguments over “states’ rights” or economic conflict between North and South didn’t lead 13 Southern states to withdraw from the Union in 1860-61.

It was their demand for “respect” of their “peculiar institution”–i.e., slavery.

“The respect Southerners demanded did not consist simply of the states’ sovereignty or of the equal rights of Northern and Southern citizens, including slaveholders’ right to take their chattels into Northern territory.

“It entailed, too, respect for their assertion of the moral superiority of slaveholding society over free society,” writes Royster.

It was not enough for Southerners to claim equal standing with Northerners; Northerners must acknowledge it.

But this was something that the North was increasingly unwilling to do.  Finally, its citizens dared to elect Abraham Lincoln as President in 1860.

Lincoln and his new Republican party damned slavery-–and slaveholders-–as morally evil, obsolete and ultimately doomed. And they were determined to prevent slavery from spreading any further throughout the country.

Southerners found all of this intolerable.

The British author, Anthony Trollope, explained to his readers:

“It is no light thing to be told daily, by our fellow citizens…that you are guilty of the one damning sin that cannot be forgiven.

“All this [Southerners] could partly moderate, partly rebuke and partly bear as long as political power remained in their hands.”

It is to Spielberg’s credit that he forces his audience to look directly at the real cause of the bloodiest conflict on the North American continent.

At the heart of Spielberg’s film: Abraham Lincoln (Daniel Day-Lewis) wants to win ratification of what will be the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.  An amendment that will forever ban slavery.

But, almost four years into the war, slavery still has powerful friends–in both the North and South.

Many of those friends belong to the House of Representatives, which must ratify the amendment for it to become law.

Other members–white men all–are hostile to the idea of “equality between the races.”

To them, ending slavery means opening the door to interracial marriage–especially marriage between black men and white women.  Perhaps even worse, it means possibly giving blacks–or women–the right to vote.

After the amendment wins ratification, Lincoln agrees to meet with a “peace delegation” from the Confederate States of America.

At the top of their list of concerns: If they persuade the seceded states to return to the Union, will those states be allowed to nullify the amendment?

No, says Lincoln.  He’s willing to make peace with the South, and on highly generous terms.  But not at the cost of allowing slavery to live on.

Too many men–North and South–have died in a conflict whose root cause is slavery.  Those lives must count for more than simply reuniting the Union.

For the Southern “peace commissioners,” this is totally unacceptable.

The South has lost thousands of men (260,000 is the generally accepted figure for its total casualties) and the war is clearly lost.  But for its die-hard leaders, parting with slavery is simply unthinkable.

Like Nazi Germany 80 years into the future, the high command of the South won’t surrender until their armies are too beaten down to fight any more.

The major difference between the defeated South of 1865 and the defeated Germany of 1945, is this: The South was allowed to build a beautiful myth of a glorious “Lost Cause,” epitomized by the Margaret Mitchell novel, Gone With the Wind.

In that telling, dutiful slaves were well-treated by kindly masters.  Southern aristocrats wore white suits and their slender-waisted ladies wore long dresses, carried parisols and said “fiddle-dee-dee” to young, handsome suitors.

One million people attended the premier of the movie version in Atlanta on December 15, 1939.

The celebration featured stars from the film, receptions, thousands of Confederate flags, false antebellum fronts on stores and homes, and a costume ball.

In keeping with Southern racial tradition, Hattie McDaniel and the other black actors from the film were barred from attending the premiere.  Upon learning this, Clark Gable threatened to boycott the event. McDaniel convinced him to attend.

When today’s Southerners fly Confederate flags and speak of “preserving our traditions,” they are actually celebrating their long-banned peculiar” institution.”

By contrast, post-World War II Germany outlawed symbols from the Nazi-era, such as the swastika and the “Heil Hitler” salute, and made Holocaust denial punishable by imprisonment.

America has refused to confront its own shameful past so directly.  But Americans can be grateful that Steven Spielberg has had the courage to serve up a long-overdue and much needed lesson in past–and still current–history.