War Handwavium

dday over at digby’s Hullabaloo pointed this out.

Why is it that Healthcare reform has to tie itself in knots to meet a 10-year budget when the Iraq invasion was approved based on being out in 6 weeks?

Why are we not doing a 10-year cost projection about Afghanistan to determine how much the war in Afghanistan will cost us and whether or not we should increase troops or pull out?

Why do conservatives get to lobby for pointless wars without contemplating their real long term costs but healthcare reform has to budget itself for the next 10 years before even thinking of getting approval?

If we’re going to do 10-year budgets for things, then I’m fine with that so long as it isn’t used selectively to obstruct some programs but not applied to others.

We could very well be in Afghanistan for at least another 5 or 10 years. If we’re going to consider sendign more troops, then it should be based on what that approach would cost over 10 years.

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2009/10/costs-by-dday-heres-something-you-dont.html

Representative Grayson is on a roll. Apparently, he’s been to Afghanistan and all the nations that surround Afghanistan and had some interesting things to say about America’s intention to “win” Afghanistan by sending more troops.

Best bit:

Afghanistan is simply the part of Asia that was never occupied by the Russians or the English in the Great Game. It’s not a country; it’s not even a place. It’s just an empty place on the map. It’s terra incognita. People who live there are a welter of different tribes, different language groups, different religious beliefs.

“Afghanistan” is an artificial creation, lines on a map. The people within those lines don’t speak the same language, don’t share the same culture, and don’t have anything in common other than being humans inside this artificial line on a map.

Good stuff. Watch the whole thing. A transcript (and more) is available here:

http://downwithtyranny.blogspot.com/2009/10/alan-grayson-explains-best-policy-for.html

On 1 October 2009, I posted that the Palestinian Authority, under heavy pressure from the United States, had withdrawn its support for a U.N. Human Rights Council resolution on alleged war crimes in Gaza that suggested Israel had committed war crimes in its three-week war against Gaza. The report wouldn’t get much traction if the Palestinians didn’t support it. The Palestinian government withdrew support after the US pressured them to drop support. And the US likely pressued the Palestinians to drop support because the US is such a unilateral supporter of Israel that the US would turn its back on war crimes committed by Israel.

On 8 October 2009, I posted that the UN Security Council had declined to discuss the Goldstone report in an emergency session.

Well, today, 9 October 2009, I can post that the Palestinian representative to the United Nations in Geneva is again pushing to discuss the report, reversing the Palestinian Authority’s decision from 1 October to allow the report to sink into obscurity. Apparently, the Palestinian president, Abbas, realized that he represented the Palestinians rather than being a mere puppet of American interests. And given that the Security Council wouldn’t take it up, a lot of outraged Palestinians probably let their government know that they weren’t too happy about it.

Maybe if the report gets back on the table, then Israel will be held accountable for its deeds.

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2009/10/2009108222821260976.html

Less than a year into his presidency, Obama has won the Nobel peace prize.

This same day, Glenn Greenwald notes the accomplishments that Obama has achieved in those few months:

In February, the Obama DOJ went to court to block victims of rendition and torture from having a day in court, adopting in full the Bush argument that whatever was done to the victims is a “state secret” and national security would be harmed if the case proceeded. The following week, the Obama DOJ invoked the same “secrecy” argument to insist that victims of illegal warrantless eavesdropping must be barred from a day in court, and when the Obama administration lost that argument, they engaged in a series of extraordinary manuevers to avoid complying with the court’s order that the case proceed, to the point where the GOP-appointed federal judge threatened the Government with sanctions for noncompliance. Two weeks later, “the Obama administration, siding with former President George W. Bush, [tried] to kill a lawsuit that seeks to recover what could be millions of missing White House e-mails.”

In April, the Obama DOJ, in order to demand dismissal of a lawsuit brought against Bush officials for illegal spying on Americans, not only invoked the Bush/Cheney “state secrets” theory, but also invented a brand new “sovereign immunity” claim to insist Bush officials are immune from consequences for illegal domestic spying. The same month — in the case brought by torture victims — an appeals court ruled against the Obama DOJ on its “secrecy” claims, yet the administration vowed to keep appealing to prevent any judicial review of the interrogation program. In responses to these abuses, a handful of Democratic legislators re-introduced Bush-era legislation to restrict the President from asserting “state secrets” claims to dismiss lawsuits, but it stalled in Congress all year. At the end of April and then again in August, the administration did respond to a FOIA lawsuit seeking the release of torture documents by releasing some of those documents, emphasizing that they had no choice in light of clear legal requirements.

In May, after the British High Court ruled that a torture victim had the right to obtain evidence in the possession of British intelligence agencies documeting the CIA’s abuse of him, the Obama administration threatened that it would cut off intelligence-sharing with Britain if the court revealed those facts, causing the court to conceal them. Also in May, Obama announced he had changed his mind and would fight– rather than comply with — two separate, unanimous court orders compelling the disclosure of Bush-era torture photos, and weeks later, vowed he would do anything (including issue an Executive Order or support a new FISA exemption) to prevent disclosure of those photos in the event he lost yet again, this time in the Supreme Court. In June, the administration “objected to the release of certain Bush-era documents that detail the videotaped interrogations of CIA detainees at secret prisons, arguing to a federal judge that doing so would endanger national security.” In August, Obama Attorney General Eric Holder announced that while some rogue torturers may be subject to prosecution, any Bush officials who relied on Bush DOJ torture memos in “good faith” will “be protected from legal jeopardy.” And all year long, the Obama DOJ fought (unsuccessfully) to keep encaged at Guantanamo a man whom Bush officials had tortured while knowing he was innocent.

It’s kind of difficult to reconcile that Obama won the peace prize after doing all of THAT. Then I read a FAQ that reveals some of the myths about the Nobel peace prize:

Myth: The Nobel peace prize is awarded to recognize efforts for peace, human rights and democracy only after they have proven successful.

Fact: More often, the prize is awarded to encourage those who receive it to see the effort through, sometimes at critical moments.

So, maybe the Nobel commission is hoping Obama will stop continuing Bush’s torture doctrines. But the headliner reason given is because of Obama’s initives to reduce nuclear weapon stockpiles. Maybe the torture stuff might be a nice bonus.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/eu_nobel_peace

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/10/08/photos/index.html

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091009/ap_on_re_eu/eu_nobel_peace_myths

The UN Security Council turned down the idea of having an emergency meeting to look at the Goldstone report about war crimes by Israel and Hamas militants in December 2008.

Palestinian leader Abbas, who went along with the idea of burying the report, has made the US happy in keeping it’s ally Israel safe from war crime charges, but has lost the support of his own Palestinian people back home.

The US pressured Abbas to drop the report. Abbas went along. But if the US doesn’t give Abbas something to show his people he got in exchange for dropping that report, then Abbas will be out of office very soon now. If Abbas ends up dropping the report and has nothing to show for it by the next election, the US will have guaranteed Abbas loses the palestinian leadership and will push many Palestinians towards embracing Hamas even more than they are now.

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2009/10/200910854824709578.html

The main argument for continuing to keep troops in Afghanistan (or increase them) is that if we let the Taliban take over Afghanistan, then Al Queda will return and use Afghanistan as a safe haven to plan attacks against America.

Except, the Taliban already controls about 80% of Afghanistan. Al Queda has left and moved to Pakistan.

When Al Queda was operating in Afghanistan planning the 9/11 attacks, the Taliban controlled southern Afghanistan and the north was controlled by the “Northern Alliance”.

This should highlight two things: (1) since US troops have been in Afganistan, the Taliban have become more powerful and control more of the country. Part of that may be because the Central Government that we’re propping up is as crooked as they come. (2) the justification for being there fails to match reality. There is no hard and fast connection between the Taliban and Al Queda.

This justification that Al Queda follows the Taliban is about as realistic as the “Domino Theory” in Vietnam. We lost Vietnam and yet Southeast Asia didn’t fall like Dominos to the Communists.

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2009/10/as-sure-as-god-made-little-green-apples.html

The UN recently published a report on Israeli war crimes in its war against Gaza in late 2008. The report recommended that if Israel did not launch a real independent investigation of Israel’s military, then the report recommended that Israel be brought before the international court to be prosecuted for war crimes.

This could have been leverage on Israel to come around to a peace deal with the Palestinians. This could have been used as a stick to get Israel to stop it’s defiant continuation expanding illegal Israeli settlements on Palestinian land. This could ahve been used as leverage to get the Israelis to play ball with a real peace deal.

Now this just hit the news:

The Palestinian Authority, under heavy pressure from the United States, has withdrawn its support for a U.N. Human Rights Council resolution on alleged war crimes in Gaza,

Thank you, United States diplomats, for putting pressure on the Palestinians to play ball when the Israelis have zero intention of agreeing to any peace deal. It’s not the Palestinians who are slowly invading Israel’s land. It’s Israel slowly invading Palestinian land.

All I can say is I hope to hell that these diplomats got some kind of concession from the Israelis for this bit of back-room dealing. If not, then the US is really not interested in peace in the middle east, the US is acting as a blind supporter of Israel and throwing its weight around internationally to protect Israel.

If anyone knows which US diplomat put pressure on the Palestinians, or what the US got in exchange for this, I’d sure like to know.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/un_un_gaza_probe