licentious radio

Friday, January 31, 2003
[7:10:57 PM]

Bush-Holocaust link [clamormagazine.org].

Direct link to Auschwitz [clamormagazine.org] section of the article.

John Loftus' website [john-loftus.com]. (A key source for the above article.) Loftus says he was a Justice Department prosecutor investigating Nazi war criminals. Now he is president of the Florida Holocaust Museum.

Loftus filed the private lawsuit that shut down the money flow from Islamic charities in the US to Al Qaeda, and claims to have information about the intelligence failures that allowed the September 11 attacks to be successful.

[6:02:40 PM]
"Shock and Awe" sounds like a war crime to me, or let's say a "crime against humanity". Military officers participating should be sure they're willing to take a thirty-year vacation in a prison cell.

[5:38:02 PM]
Don't forget the peace rally tomorrow at noon at Palo Alto's City Hall Plaza!

[5:35:11 PM]
Today is Day 501 Bush's hunt for Osama Bin Laden -- Dead or Alive.

[5:10:49 PM]
Criteria for war.

First, we reject Bush's first-strike policy unconditionally. Not that we would *never* strike first, but that first-strikes must be the *exception* to policy -- a sign of utter failure. We are not alone in this.

Second, we do not believe that invading or assassinating all our enemies will make us safer. Non-state terrorism has the specific goal of provoking such attacks by the United States. As we kill Arabs and Muslims, support for the terrorists increases. If we want to be safe, we must dramatically reduce support for terrorists, not dramatically *increase* it.

This is not to say that there aren't bad guys whom we should bring to justice. There may even be situations where imminent danger requires military-style action. But we have the opportunity to lead the world toward peace, and even Gulf War I was packaged as preventing any nation from first-strike war-making. In contrast, following George W. Bush's example, every dictator is free to use our example of defining any non-state movement as "terrorists", and defining any rival as "evil" or "terrorist-supporting".

Third, we reject the imperialism so poorly concealed in the Bush plans. We see Bush lying repeatedly about "weapons of mass destruction" and Iraq's connection to terrorist boogymen, and wonder if that isn't just a sales pitch for something Cheney and Rumsfeld wanted to do for other reasons. Then we see the position papers -- the need to have a strong presence in the Middle East to protect our "vital interests". Um. To protect "our" oil, they mean.

These guys want to spend $500 billion per year on the military! More than when we were up against enough H-bombs to destroy life on the planet! The alternative is something they can't comprehend -- reduce our oil consumption. $300 billion per year would go a *long* way to conservation and conversion to renewable energy. Over twenty years, we could make dramatic changes.

Fourth, we point out the conflicts of interest among our militarists. GW Bush is making war now, from which GHW Bush is profiting faster than he can spend it. Thus GW Bush will inherit non-trivial wealth from the decisions he makes. Cheney's Halliburton is profiting by building infrastructure for the war, and will profit by repairing Iraq's oil fields after the war. We've seen how closely connected the administration is with the energy corporations. As soon as the Taliban was out of the way in Afghanistan, the Bush-installed leader there approved the pipeline project, and selected American companies to run it (including Halliburton, naturally). Are we to think that post-war Iraq won't dump its contracts with France and Russia and turn the oil over to American corporations?

If this seems simplistic, remember back to California's energy "crisis", where the energy companies were gaming the system every which way, and Cheney responded immediately to Lay's plea for help. Of course the "crisis" was eliminated by one decision at FERC. FERC could have made that decision months earlier. But *Cheney* claimed the California "crisis" was proof that we should drill for oil in Alaska's wilderness.

If what Cheney and the gang are doing *were* in the interests of world peace, it would behoove them to eliminate the *appearance* of conflicts of interest. If it *isn't* all about oil and profit, and it's truly important to do, GHW Bush should extricate himself from any war profits, Halliburton shouldn't be profiting from the war or post-war, all pre-war oil contracts in Iraq should be honored, and an independent organization should manage the post-war oil with careful attention to using non-US oil companies whenever feasible.

Fifth, war is a horror. Not just killing soldiers. Not just killing civilians directly. The "dogs of war" include the suffering of refugees, the hunger, the lack of medical resources, the lack of clean water, the crime, looting, violent theft, rape, fear, terror, psychological trauma, the ruined housing and infrastructure.

War is so horrible we should not be the ones to unleash it, and we should work to prevent others from making war, also.

Sixth, in cases where terrible wrongs have been done, there is likely to be a broad consensus among nations that corrective action should be taken. Certainly Gulf War I and even Afghanistan (in 2001) demonstrate that it is possible to create broad agreement about the need for war. The global consensus reduces the American financial burden, provides some significant cover against provoking anti-US militancy, and leads to a more cooperative international environment.

Seventh, we want *smarter* diplomacy and action to prevent wars and terrorism. We contend the Yugoslav wars could have been prevented even more easily than the Bosnia war was finally stopped. We suspect that diplomacy could have kept Saddam from invading Kuwait -- there's some indication that Bush set Saddam up, though there's little that a citizen can know for sure -- with all of GHW Bush's papers hidden from view, for example. There is clear indication that Clinton's *focus* on terrorism was successful in preventing violence, and that Bush/Cheney's *lack* of attention to terrorism coincided with the September 11, 2001 attacks. We suspect Clinton's people would have prevented September 11, or minimized the damage.

Finally, war should be used as a truly last resort -- in the face of imminent danger. We should *invade* other countries only with a broad international consensus, or where there is no time to develop consensus. We should avoid failures -- Saddam's invasion of Kuwait and the September 11 attacks, for example -- that force us into wars of retaliation or to roll back someone else's gains.

[2:28:14 PM]
Equal Time with Bob Boudelang [democraticunderground.com]:"Imagine those 19 hijackers with other weapons, and other plans - this time armed by Saddam Hussein," Our Great President said. What could show more clearly why we need to ignore Osama Bin Laden who actually did send those hijackers and focus on the person who did not? I ask you.

[11:37:51 AM]
The case for war.

The pro-war crowd can make hay. Iraq has clearly not accounted for many chemicals, and the UN resolutions warn of "serious consequences" if they don't. Democrats and others have been playing a stupid game -- claiming that Saddam *must* be dis-armed, but that we should delay war for one reason or another.

I say you don't have to make a case for peace, you have to make a case for war. Can you make a case for war? We're handicapped in that question by the consistent record of lies and propaganda by the Bush administration. But I'm open....

We know Saddam is bad. It takes a childish mind to say Saddam can attack the US directly with bad weapons. And, of course, Bush has made that claim. Saddam *could* attack more covertly, which may be what Bush misunderstood. And Saddam *could* give bad stuff to terrorists. Saddam has made war on Iran and Kuwait, and shot some defective missiles at Israel while under attack by the US.

One threat is that Iraq would make mischief to mess up the supply of oil. But this is not an imminent danger, and therefore not a valid reason to go to war *now*. At any rate, Iraq's army is much smaller now than before, and much less of a danger.

The danger of *Saddam* using bad weapons is difficult to understand. He's had bad weapons forever. He has used them repeatedly. We should note that Rumsfeld and Cheney didn't complain about Saddam's actual use of chemical weapons, at the time. Saddam was working for *us* when he used those weapons. When he was fighting *against* us, he knew better. He *didn't* use them during Gulf War I. He hasn't used them since. Deterrence appears to be effective.

We're supposed to believe that Saddam's *possession* of these weapons is dangerous, because he would use them. But we're also supposed to believe that he *won't* use these weapons, if we *invade* Iraq with the explicit intent to remove Saddam from power and (eventually) install a friendly government. We're supposed to believe Saddam wouldn't do that, because we (or the Israelis) would use nukes. But this seems entirely implausible. If Saddam knows he's going down, he may well *relish* the idea of provoking wider turmoil. And, if attacked, his best defense is to kill lots of Americans, hoping that Americans will stop supporting the war. Using chemical weapons would be his own version of "shock and awe".

Another threat is that Saddam could give these bad weapons to terrorists. This is the boogyman argument. It relies first on ignorance of Saddam's relationship with Islamic terrorists. Then we're supposed to not care that our *threat* to depose Saddam is the main thing that might lead to the action we're supposed to be so scared of.

A *benefit* of conquering Iraq is supposed to be democracy. This is *highly* improbable. When central authority breaks down, we're likely to see Iraq go more the way of Afghanistan and Yugoslavia. This already happened in the Kurdish area. When GHW Bush asked for rebellion after the Gulf War I, we saw plenty of potential for long-term violence.

It's clear that making war on Iraq could provoke turmoil in many countries in the region, and lead to a significant increase in support for anti-western terrorists.

There are other apparent motivations for war: grab the oil, grab a power center in the Middle East, show the world we're in command (Novak's claim for the White House's motivation), *promote* endless war (for profit and domestic political control), scare specific other bad guys, etc. None of those motivations meet the "imminent threat" criterion for unleashing the dogs of war.

It appears that the only possibly legitimate reason for invasion is the boogyman of the Al Qaeda connection -- which is only likely if we are intent on deposing/murdering Saddam. The answer to that is that we should rely on deterrrence.

"Deterrence" is not a satisfying answer, because of the nature of *boogyman* arguments. But think about it this way: we *know* that war is a horror. So far, we see no "exit strategy", and the only "victory strategy" appears to be that Iraq doesn't resist. We're supposed to believe that Iraqis will surrender Iraq the way they surrendered Kuwait. It *could* happen, but if it *doesn't* happen, things could get very bad.

The US could "lose" -- how many dead US soldiers are the American voters likely to tolerate? Not enough to fight in the streets of Baghdad, certainly.

Ultimately, the trouble with the boogyman justification is that it is self-defeating. *If* we believe Saddam might *someday* give bad weapons to the boogyman (Bin Forgotten), *why* would anyone believe that Saddam wouldn't give those weapons to the boogyman as soon as we invade? You would have to believe that Saddam isn't that evil *yet*, but that he might become evil enough inthe future. Why should we believe that?

No, there's no case for war here. Rather, there are many cases for continued deterrence.

[9:43:02 AM]
If the military leadership doesn't want to make war on Iraq, it should leak casualty estimates for various scenarios. How many civilians are we going to shock and awe to death in the first 48 hours? How many American soldiers would die in house-to-house fighting in Baghdad? What if Saddam *has* all the bad weapons that are the main pretext for war, and actually *uses* them on American soldiers?

[9:21:23 AM]
HTML's Time is Over. Let's Move On [boxesandarrows.com].

Hmm. I would say html has been a disaster in its implementation and evolution. Multiple organizations making horrible decisions repeatedly have cost us dearly.

But we're actually within reach of usefulness, especially for the browser as front-end to applications. With Cascading Style Sheets and the Document Object Model (for Javascript, etc.) you can make exotic user interfaces that work on a common subset of browsers.

Mozilla-based browsers need to support levels of security (like Internet Explorer, only without the security *holes*), and all browsers should support onBeforeUnload -- Microsoft's Javascript event that lets you warn a user *before* data loss.

The huge flaw in the overall implementation of html and related technologies is that one "page" won't work in all browsers. We handle this by putting some intelligence on the *server*, and delivering the right version of the page to the client.

Then you use Java applets -- new Java runtimes work pretty well, and the court has just ordered Microsoft to stop breaking Java -- for fancier stuff. And for applications that are used repeatedly, but aren't as complex as "desktop" applications, let people install the Java code locally.

*Everyone* has always *hated* html. *Nobody* appreciates cross-platform accessibility. They all want *one* platform -- and *screw* anybody who doesn't have the *right* software. Macromedia even had a whole ad campaign that only *scary* people didn't have Flash. "Scary" people like the poor, the homeless, the Third World, etc. Basically, the message of the ad campaign was to stop supporting anyone who can't afford the latest hardware, software, and bandwidth.

But the difference in the size of the display in handheld computers will require great flexibility in application design, and that flexibility will handle most of the problems that are outstanding.