|
 Sunday, September 28, 2003
|
Sorry if I am wordier today than normal. I have been upset by many of the things that this administration has done. It is harming way too many things simply for its own aggrandizement. It is a total embodiment of the attitudes that have permeated the last decade. Winning is more important than playing the game. No need to be fair, as long as I win. Winning is measured by how much money and power I have. Laws are for losers.
Even monkeys recognize unfairness and respond to it with very human responses. People do not like to see others get ahead because of unfair means. At least some of us do. Apparently, many in this administration lack this very basic trait. It may well be their undoing.
Because I know that I do have that trait. And that is one reason this administration has pissed me off so many time. Fair may not be realistic but it is one of the basic stories we tell ourselves as Americans. Fight fair. This country will not long allow leaders who do not fight fair. It brought Nixon down. It may yet bring down Bush. 5:18:08 PM 
|
|
|
Some excellent points. Rumsfeld has a dream that high tech and air power will change the way that wars are fought. Maybe so, but the peace will never be won by those methods. It will always require men on the ground. We do not have enough men, well trained for what they are required to now do. We have part-time citizen soldiers, sold on using their National Guard duty as a way to college, now finding out that they can have no choice in their lives, that they will serve for as long as needed in Iraq. The only way that the Armed Forces have been able to meet recruitment and retention goals has been to prevent anyone from leaving the military until the current 'war' is over. As discussed in the present article, it took 20 years for the Armed Forces to overcome the destruction Vietnam had on them. Rumsfeld and the other civilians in this Administration are well on their way to destroying it again. Their rush to Iraq is hardly different from Johnson's Gulf of Tonkin resolution. It destroyed Johnson and could well destroy this Administration. Americans do not treat kindly politicians whose decisions kill their sons in battles, especially those that had to lie about it in the first place. I mean, we still have conspiracy theories about Roosevelt knowing that Pearl Harbor was going to be attacked. If you are going to send our sons to be killed, you had better have a lot more evidence than this Administration has provided.
Back in October I talked about the possible problems that would occur by having so many Americans in the Middle East. Unfortunately, I accurately described the targets that our soldiers would present, how it did not take many brains to blow up some soldiers.
I then asked how we would deal with this danger.
So, what to do? Hey, I'm just a middle-aged scientist. I would hope that the finest military minds in the world are trying to figure this out. But, as 9/11 showed, you can get hit really hard in your blind spots. I just hope that we have people who have really thought this out. Because it seems that at the moment some in the military has not really figured out just how they want to fight this thing. They have huge blind spots. Because in the real war, you can not cheat.
I described the rigged war games that occurred a year ago. The one that 'proved' that Rumsfeld's approach to war would be successful. In order to prove this, they had to rig the war games, because the leader of the Red team, retired general Paul Van Riper, leading the 'Iraqi' factions (really an unnamed country in the Middle East), sank the US fleet as it entered the Persian Gulf. Yep, sunk our entire fleet, including an aircraft carrier, using low tech approaches such as messengers on bikes and suicide bombers on boats. In order to restart and move on, the officials had to tell the other soldiers on the Red team to disobey any orders from Van Riper. That was after they had to refloat the fleet. So he quit in disgust. Read the Guardian article or, better yet, the Army Times. They cheated to win the war games that would be used to fight the war. Fortunately for them, Van Ripper was not the leader of Iraq. Saddam was a sham and now they have to deal with a peace for which they appear to have made no realistic plans. I guess they expected to be able to just restart the 'game'.
These are they guys who are putting are citizens in harm's way. They misstate, mislead and use whatever is at hand to prove that they have the winning viewpoint, no matter how divergent that viewpoint is from reality. People are dying every day in Iraq because of the arrogant nature of these people. We may eventually get out of this but I firmly believe that it will not be due to any of the guys in there now but come from someone who really wants to solve the problems. That is what has always saved the US. As long as we still allow people to come forward to solve our problems, we will do fine. But if our government goes to the mattresses every time someone dissents, it could be a long time before we get things right. 3:58:07 PM
|
|
|
[rant on]What ticks me off most about the whole Wilson fiasco is that it was so obviously an attempt to intimidate people who had information embarrassing to the White House. 'We don't want people speaking the truth. And if they do, cut them off at the knees to serve as an example.' It is typical of the short term thinking that permeates this Administration, the win at all costs that is such a holdover of the last 10 years. All that matters is that we win, EVERY single time. It is all tactics (and thuggish ones at that) and little strategy (other than if we win everytime we will have to win in the end). If someone tells the truth about something that we don't like, let's smear him. This is the same arrogant thinking that brought down Nixon. It is why Hoover is reviled by so many. Do we have another 'Enimies List'? They have the power now to arrest and incarcerate ANY American, holding themwith no time limit, no judicial oversight and no lawyer. This violates so much of the Bill of Rights but no matter. I am sure that this is something that they have used against their enemies, which may very well include anyone who disagrees with them.
We have a Bill of Rights to protect us from the arrogance of power. Why do we again and again have to be taught the same lessons? For most of the last 10 years, conservatives did not trust government, but as soon as they were in, trust was restored. Now they can all get theirs. And liberals are no better. Their arrogance can be just as bad.
Capitalism is the best manner to run an economy that humans have devised. It is the only one that provides useful negative feedback loops that depend on the ways humans really act. Removing the incentive aspects of capitalism removes the feedback loops, negating almost all of the positive aspects of capitalism. But many of the neoconservatives in power now want to distort the free marketplace themselves. They get rich and powerful, as do their cronies. Not because they actually do anything constructive. They just grease wheels so that the guys at top keep getting richer.
We need an effective balance between these two views. This Administration has pushed them so out of balance (although Clinton was not innocent. Conservative southern democrats know all about crinyism and taking care of your own) that it may take years to get back to any semblance of balance. But what do these guys care? They will NEVER be punished commensurate with their crimes. They will retire with their ill-gotten gains, waiting to be rehabilitated while they write books and give lectures. Sometimes I long for the days where you could banish the the dictators. Let's send them to Antarctica or someplace where how much money they have squirreled away does not matter?[/rant]
[ramble]I firmly believe that a new political power will develop in this country. I think that a Third Way will come about. There are many ethical people of every political stripe that will not stand for this abuse of power from either liberals or conservatives. I belive that it will use bottom-up approaches simply because we are rapidly getting to the point where a top-down approach simply will not be trusted. In a truer sense of democracy than we surrently operate under, the PEOPLE will decide. I am not saying that they will necessarily be smarter or that we will have a utopia. But, it will be difficult for anyone individual to drive public policy unless they ahve a much more direct mandate from their constituents. eMail, the web and other networking technologies will make it much easier for everyone to know more.
Open source works because it leverages the multitude of viewpoints available to solve difficult problems. And it is not as much concerned with the BEST process as it is finding one that works. Adaptive networks describe not only the Internet, or biological systems, but the emerging properties presented by high tech. Building consensus, listening to constituents, empowering the discussions are all processes that all great leaders have had. The groups that utilize these tools better, that empower its constituencies the best, that are nimble and react with a multiplicity of approaches to difficult problems, will prevail. Those that follow a top-down, authoritarian process, which devaules dissent, which is slow to change, that sees the world as black and white, and permits only one viewpoint will fail. Just a monocultures do not succeed in nature, monoCULTURES will not succeed in an environment of rapid change and difficult decisions.[/ramble] 2:51:01 PM
|
|
Good Morning. Calpundit has some nice coverage of the fun.
But, just to recap here. We have a senior administration official who has pointed the finger at two top White House officials. This person has named names to the WaPo, but not on record. These White House officials had tried to shop the story to a half dozen journalists before Novak bit. Top administration officials means cabinet rank or higher, plus a few assorted other people and perhaps some important deputy secretaries. Top White House officials is a really really small list of people.
Billmon has more. As does Steve "Dude, Where's my Permalinks?" Gilliard and Kos. And corrente. And Mark Kleiman.
UPDATE: 56K makes the following point:
Just want to say that this whole incident illustrates why the practice of anonymous sources is evil.
This story was shopped around, which means there are 6 journalists along with their editors who know who leaked the original story. They already know who broke the law.
And now the WPost knows who within the administration has turned.
Given the level of gossip I am guessing the whole celebrity press corps the names of the prinicpals, but they will now go on the air and make a big deal of talking about who could be involved.
[Eschaton]
What is amazing is that this story has been out there since July yet it is only now becoming a story because one adminstration official is trying to get some other ones. It is never fun to watch an organization implode but there could be some real raminfications about this. From the details, a whole bunch of media personnel know EXACTLY who was shopping this story. The names of the officials will become known. Then it does not matter what the Justice Department does. The smell of blood, along the lines of Watergate, will cause every reporter to try and get their own piece of the story. Of course, maybe this is the reason Ari Fleischer left, since he would be the best fall guy for this attempt at dirty tricks. 12:40:39 PM
|
|
|
|
|
