In their efforts to paper over a catastrophe, the Bush administration (and Iraq war supporters in general) are beginning to look like Saddam’s old press spokesman, “Comical” Ali, who steadfastly denied the advance of U.S. troops to Baghdad in 2003 when his audience could easily see American tanks in the street behind him. There’s a P.R. hero for you. Bush really needs that guy! All he’s got is his lame cousin Tony Snow, his even lamer “uncle” Dick Cheney, and the ever faithful bride of Frankenstein, Laura, who opined to Larry King recently that things are going not too badly in Iraq except for that one bombing that discourages everyone. I think she may have meant to use another word that begins with “dis”, like “dismembers”. In any case, all this minimizing does have some effect. Some recent polling shows that large numbers of Americans have no even semi-realistic notion of how many Iraqis have been killed since we unilaterally decided to “liberate” their country (by destroying it). People seem to think about 10,000 Iraqis have died since March 2003 — that’s only 1/3 of the ludicrously low-ball estimate Bush himself offered some months back.

Would it make a difference if people were more broadly aware of, say, Les Roberts’ Johns Hopkins study that estimates the death toll at as high as 650,000? I mean, imagine it were explained to the American people that the type of statistical model used in this study is the same that is routinely applied to war zones all around the world. What would we do with that knowledge? Would we force our leaders to end the war now? Or do we really only care about American lives? Hard to say. I like to think that many of us would be appalled to know that Bush had brought us back into Rwanda territory (we’ve certainly been there before). I don’t know if that would be enough to bring a stop to all this. What worries me is the degree to which people tolerate this war. This sort of permissiveness merely encourages bad behavior on the part of our leaders. Let one president get away with mass murder, and you can bet the next one will try the same thing. There are precedents.

Sadly, I don’t think we’ll have to wait for the next president. This one and his team are ready to strike a blow against Iran and, more broadly, what they view as Shi’ite extremism on the rise throughout the region. They appear to think that they can attack the center of regional Shi’ism without pissing off the millions of co-religionists who live in neighboring Iraq. (Check out Sy Hersh’s article in this week’s New Yorker.) And sure, I know the administration has said they will sit around a table with representatives of Iran, but that’s likely just so that they can say they went the extra diplomatic mile before bombing Tehran. It’s hard to imagine any foreign policy team that includes creatures like Elliott Abrams would offer the hand of friendship to a regime in whose vilification they’ve invested so much of their political capital. As Hersh and others have reported, the Bush administration is wittingly or unwittingly setting the stage not just for war with Iran, but for a regional conflict between Shi’as and Sunnis. Think they wouldn’t dare push their luck? Think harder.

As long as we don’t hold people accountable for this disaster, they will cause new disasters. And we will be left with the bill.

We seem to be headed, once again, down that treacherous path that leads to unprovoked war. Would such a course be possible were it not for the willing participation of the major national news media? Indeed, some of the mighty organs of the American press that felt compelled to apologize when the Iraq war rationales they so enthusiastically peddled fell apart are now engaging in the very same sort of behavior that brought on the mea culpas. Like the many politicians who supported this seemingly endless war at the outset, the press is only sorry that Bush/Cheney’s Iraq adventure wasn’t a swift success. The thing they’re decidedly not sorry for is the fact that they helped send thousands to their deaths needlessly. For this, they couldn’t care less. And you can bet politicians, pundits, and Pulitzer-prizewinning scribblers will raise a collective cheer for war with Iran if they see short-term benefit in it.

Still, this time around, the dossier against our potential enemy is pretty weak stuff, even for the New York Times. I mean, background-only briefings on weapons they can only provide photos of? Give me a break. Even the bogus claims about Iraqi WMDs held up for a week or two. This shit didn’t even last a day. Andrew Cockburn had an excellent article about how these “sophisticated” weapons can be built in a machine shop with about $20 – 30 worth of materials, according to Cockburn’s source at the Pentagon. Iraq is flush with the kind of high-explosives that might be used in these improvised devices, versions of which have been employed by the French resistance in WWII, by the IRA, and by Hezbollah during Israel’s 19-year occupation of southern Lebanon. Even NPR pointed out that the claim about Iran supplying these weapons was nothing new and had, in fact, been floated by the administration since early last year.

So… why does this shit make the front page of the Times? Because the prevailing model in mainstream journalism is to take the word of government spokespersons and “senior administration officials” at face value. Often it seems that reporters rely upon these highly placed sources even when it conflicts with the evidence of their own senses. In Iraq, they rely upon official information for just about everything that occurs beyond the boundaries of the Green Zone. So Judy Miller may be gone, but the Miller brigade marches on — next stop, Teheran! And if Cheney is to be believed (as he most assuredly will be in the corporate newsrooms), it will be another cakewalk. Hell, look what a difference the British have made in Basra, eh?

Then again, don’t look. Just take Cheney’s word for it — you’ll find it on the front page.

I guess I’m just supposed to get annoyed at the president — Rove and the boys just love getting a rise out of people like me. Though I hate to encourage them, it is irritating as hell to watch or hear Dubya at one of his press conferences. I mean, there’s something about an obvious idiot talking down to you that is just innately insulting. Then, of course, there’s the scummy substance of what he has to say… like suggesting that he’s only “protecting the troops” when he openly attempts to provoke Iran, thereby pissing off about half of the Shi’a Muslims in Iraq (in other words, 30% of the population). In a country where a majority already supports armed attacks against U.S. troops, how is this a good idea? Then there’s Bush’s speculation about how history will judge us if we “fail” in Iraq — let that happen and future generations will ask, “Where were they?” (Huh?) That’s the boy in the bubble talking… and he’s talking out his ass. We’re the people of the future with respect to his decision to start this disastrous war four years ago. What the hell are we saying right now?

It’s hard to say if Dubya is aware of it or not (there may be no institutional reason why he should be), but there is one narrow sense in which what he says is true. Future “deciders” — those who will inherit the dilapidated machinery of empire that Bush is now driving into the ground — might well deplore the failure of his Iraq project. It has, after all, been a central pillar of U.S. foreign policy planning to exert strong influence over the energy-rich Middle East, going back to at least World War II. So long as the region’s oil remains one of the world’s greatest strategic assets, our commissars will want to exercise control over it if only to maintain the option of denying those resources to our principal economic competitors. Defeat in Iraq — i.e. the U.S. abandoning its plans for a permanent presence and a congenial client state there — would mean a significant loss of influence in that part of the world. High stakes indeed for the imperial mandarin class.

Assuming for a moment that Bush knows this to be true, why would he risk this invasion and how could he have been so blind to the obvious dangers? Well… I think of it as somewhat like the plot of The Producers. I mean, you got Max Bialystock and Leo Bloom just so damn certain that “Springtime for Hitler” was going to be an immediate flop, they essentially bet the store on it. Bush and company had that kind of confidence in the success of their Iraq adventure. Remember, they were coming off of the invasion of Afghanistan (real easy to beat, because it had been blown up numerous times already), and they had the same visions of an easy victory chief executives have dreamed of since Desert Storm… even back to the Six-Day War. A few encouraging words from a drunk named “curve ball” and it’s Fuck, we can’t lose! So now what? Blow up the theater? Starting to look like it.

I know some watery liberals are almost afraid that the “surge” will succeed. They might remind themselves what success looks like. It looks like Fallujah. It looks like Guatemala. It looks like Afghanistan. That kind of success is truly something to fear.

On a week when most of the mass media have been obsessing over love-crazed astronauts and tabloid corpses, it’s almost easy to forget that there are a couple of bloody neo-colonial wars going on, and that one of them is on the verge of a significant escalation in violence. Oh, well, we’re supposed to say… what’s on the other channels? The less we focus on this growing catastrophe, the better off our leaders will be. They’ve already made certain we won’t be called upon to fight if we don’t want to, and that all of the costs will be deferred until long after they leave office to their opulent retirement consultancies (Uncle Carlucci! Keep that chair warm for me!) A little high fructose news-food puts icing on the multi-layer cake of denial they’ve baked up for us — devil’s food, for sure. And yet, at the same time, the Iraq war story keeps growing larger and larger, its lethal tentacles stretching into every corner of American life, destined to touch each one of us, whether we like it or not.

With respect to that, there were some non-tabloid stories in the news this week as well. One was the Pentagon inspector general’s report on the Office of Special Plans — that raw intelligence stovepiping shop run by snot-nosed neocon Doug Feith (now on to bigger and better things, thank you very much). Seems even the Pentagon may be getting around (four years too late) to recognizing that putting ideologically-driven morons in charge of policy is maybe not such a great idea. That won’t stop us from doing it again, mind you. Our new Defense Secretary Robert Gates, whose job it once was to exaggerate Soviet military capabilities, is making much of some fragmentary evidence that Iranian munitions may be making their way into Iraq. Well, there’s a surprise. I have to think that if a provenance were found for each item of explosives in that sorry country, someone other than Iran would top the list. Jesus Christmas — isn’t it just too fucking obvious that this administration (and really any administration) will bend the facts to their own purposes whenever they see fit?

It never ceases to amaze me the extent to which the principal boosters of this war will engage in rhetorical gymnastics in order to prove themselves right in some small measure. Chuck Krauthammer is exemplary of the war planners’ three-strike process to the hell we live in today. Strike one: scare talk about a grave and gathering threat — Saddam’s dreaded nuclear weapons that Krauthammer and others insisted we must “pre-empt”. Strike two: triumphalist blather just following the fall of Baghdad about the glorious “three week war”. Strike three: shifting the blame to the Iraqis and domestic opponents of the war, whom Krauthammer attempts to portray as possessed of a kind of paternalistic, colonial attitude that in effect discriminates against Iraqis by suggesting that America is the author of the current catastrophe, not the Iraqis themselves (who, according to Krauthammer, “chose” civil war). That’s the trajectory of both the administration and the congressional leaders who bought into the 2003 invasion, and if we’re not careful, that is the kind of thinking that will define the debate in the coming election.

This is the time to resist — not just this attempt to blame Iraqis, but also the associated effort to attack Iran. They’ve had their three strikes. It’s our turn to drive this debate.

luv u,

jp

Am I dreaming, or did Joe Biden just blow another presidential bid with that big yap of his? I feel like I’ve been transported back to 1987, when the old media knockout machine first kicked into high gear. First it was Gary Hart, presumptive front-runner, derailed because of what — some kind of heterosexual liaison with an adult woman? God, no! He was out of there, his morals not up to the high standard set by the ersatz Hollywood cowboy then ensconced in the White House — a man who had cavorted with the likes of Errol Flynn back in the day, for chrissake. Then Biden got caught cribbing British Labor party leader Neil Kinnock, and he was out. Would that work today? Not as well as Biden’s clumsily phrased comment that seemed to suggest Obama is cleaner and more palatable to, well, white people. The insufferable NPR Morning Edition team brought up Obama’s comment that he did not take the remark personally, about which one of them commented, well, why should he? It wasn’t about him. Ummm… well, yeah, it was about him, if the comment was a reference to “blackness” in general.

Anyway, that’s Joe Biden. Less newsworthy, apparently, is his contention (which he shares with nearly all of his fellow Democratic presidential contenders) that the Iraqis need to, in essence, get their shit together. This is positioning for our eventual exit from Iraq. It’s the same exit strategy we applied to the Vietnam War — blame the victims, as though what we did to them was something we did for them. That’s the Vilsack line, as well, and of course Hillary is all about “benchmarks” for the Iraqi government, etc. Meanwhile on the other side of the aisle, the “hang tough” Republicans (all safely beyond fighting age, one might notice) have added “benchmarks” to their resolution of support for Bush’s escalation, though the rhetoric is still designed to set their opponents up for blame when (not if) this “strategy” doesn’t work. And when it doesn’t work, you can bet it will be because people just slightly to the left of them doubted it, and not because it is an utterly bankrupt policy.

Yes indeed, you can see the outlines of a “knife in the back” explanation for our failure in Iraq when the war is finally over. Again, this is Vietnam redux. Those antiwar protesters, press critics, and wishy-washy liberals emboldened the enemy, undermined our troops, compromised the mission, stabbed the president in the back, etc. Hey, it worked great for Nixon… and for Hitler, come to think of it. Mark my words — this catastrophe will be blamed upon the very people who counseled most strongly against it in the first place. We will be lumped together with everyone from Osama and the crew to those French “surrender monkeys,” whose Gaullist president Jacques Chirac recently had the temerity to suggest that an Iranian nuclear weapon would not be the disaster the U.S. makes it out to be, since its use would result in Teheran’s utter and immediate annihilation by the enormous Israeli and U.S. nuclear arsenals. (The Morning Edition crew seemed utterly flabbergasted at this remark, as if they’d never heard anything so outlandish as the concept of nuclear deterrence that we’ve lived by since the start of the Cold War.)

So by all means, oppose this stupid war. But don’t for one minute suppose that you’ll be thanked for it later. As my mom always told me, no good deed goes unpunished.

Watch the state of the union address? Nah, neither did I. At this stage, I won’t give Bush the satisfaction of irritating me for the better part of an hour. (I understand the word “strong” was employed more than once. How novel.) This has become such a highly ritualized tradition that I feel as though I watched it anyway. I mean, since Reagan (the cardboard commander-in-chief), the state of our union has always been “strong,” regardless of what horrible hell-disaster the president had propelled us into during the previous year. There is seemingly always some anecdotal tidbit about a soldier or a mother or a small business owner or a virtuous immigrant who just happens to be seated next to the first lady. No real new information is imparted, since the previous week is choked with trial balloons sent off from the White House to preview all new policy proposals. So aside from bad television, there is no meaningful content… though that doesn’t stop the various news organizations from yammering about it for days afterward (when they’re not talking about who is and is not running for president next year).

Not that any of them care what I think, but I think they should be concentrating more on the impending war against Iran, which is seeming more inevitable all the time. I mean, a carrier battle group added to the Gulf fleet, an admiral in charge of middle east operations, attacks against Iranian diplomats and other personnel in Iraq? Sounds like provocation mode to me. Have the major media taken note of the catastrophe in Iraq they report on each day with clinical detachment? I mean, don’t they feel as though they should give us a head’s up when a very similar danger is fast approaching? I presume they would fight to be the first to tell us that another Katrina-scale hurricane was bearing down on us. Well, what the hell — here comes hurricane Iran: another ill-defined, open-ended conflict in the Persian Gulf, only this time it will be against a relatively functional society with a long record of repulsing well-armed invaders. Where is Anderson Cooper on that one?

It’s happening again. Forget all the lofty mea culpas about the press’s failures during the run-up to the Iraq war. They’re once again performing that vital function of amplifying the administration’s bogus claims about the perils we face from a third-rate power — a nation surrounded by hostile armies (and navies!); a nation under existential threat from both the U.S. and Israel (both of which have the capacity to make good on that threat); a nation that shares a long border with the chaotic clusterfuck we’ve created in Iraq. Our major news organizations should put a freaking laugh track under any administration official that accuses Iran of destabilizing Iraq or of having undue influence in a country that invaded them (with our help). Instead, such claims are treated with seriousness and are seldom subjected to the kind of scrutiny that elevates journalism above public relations. One such failure in a single decade is inexcusable; two is simply criminal.

Peace Machine. With a major peace rally in Washington under way this weekend, I wanted to give a call out to Dennis Kyne, veteran, activist, and member of the band Peace Machine, whose song Ain’t Goin’ Back Again has risen to #28 on Neil Young’s Living With War chart. Dennis is a friend and supporter of Lt. Ehren Watada, on trial for refusing to deploy to Iraq. (Learn more about him at www.thankyoult.org ) Incidentally, Big Green’s The President’s Brain is Missing is now up to #154 on that little list.

luv u,

jp

I’m not an enormously cynical person, actually — let’s just say that I have very low expectations when it comes to politics. That stems from my formative years, when my favorite political figures were either murdered by assassins’ bullets or the electorate’s ballots. The first political campaign I ever worked for was George McGovern’s in 1972 — I was 13 — and I didn’t work directly for another candidate until just last fall. Voted for a lot of losers in-between, I might add. So no, I don’t expect miracles when I pull the little levers every November, and I’m seldom disappointed in that expectation. But I will tell you that it gave me tremendous pleasure to watch Condi Rice and Alberto Gonzales sit so uncomfortably before a relatively hostile group of congresspeople, especially after the free ride they’ve gotten over the past six years. You can see reflected in their dour expressions the petulance of their boss, now so obviously irked at the prospect of having to share a portion of the government’s vast power with people who at least mildly disagree with him. There is also that telltale grimace of accountability… something very unfamiliar indeed. Perhaps it’s finally dawning on them that every dog may well have its day.

Is it enough? Not nearly. People are still dying in hideous numbers, and by the noises the administration’s various flaks are making, it’s almost certain to get much worse once they start attacking the Sadrists (probably the largest mass-based organization in Iraq’s majority Shi’a community). We cannot afford a waffling, half-assed, non-binding response to this idiot-based strategy of escalation. Congress needs to exercise its authority over the allocation of public funds to pull the rug out from under this war any way and every way it can. Let’s be clear — the Pentagon has plenty of cash in the pipeline to bring our troops home. I’m sure if the Bush administration something like the McGovern proposal (as if!) Congress would provide the requisite funds to implement not only redeployment but reconstruction and reparations. The danger to our people is in having them stay, not making them leave, and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. Democrats should be saying that clearly and unequivocally… but they’re not, and that’s a shame.

All right — it’s more than a shame. It’s compounding the crime. We’ve got to save our own people, and there’s only one way to do it: Get out now. But we’ve also got to help the Iraqis overcome the clusterfuck catastrophe we’ve brought upon them. First step is to get our troops off their streets. We are not wanted there, and the longer we stay, the worse it will get. We do need, however, to provide the Iraqis with assistance — a portion of the cash we were going to spend on blowing the place up for the fifth time — so that they can piece their country back together. Yes, there will be continued violence, but that will happen no matter what we do. And sure, Bush and Cheney keep telling us that failure is not an option, but frankly, their credibility is about zero right now, maybe less. Besides, it’s not a question of failure. The Iraq mess was fairly predictable from the beginning. What we’re seeing now is the successful outcome of a lunatic policy, not the failure of some noble effort that never was. Bush, Cheney, and the rest need to be told what to do in Iraq because they’ve thoroughly demonstrated that they can’t find their ample asses with both hands.

Of course, they can’t be told until we tell our congress people to do the telling. That’s where we come in.

luv u,

jp

The Bush has spoken and — surprise! — we’re sending more troops into the hell-hole of Iraq. Where have I heard this before? Hmmm… sending more troops… sounds vaguely familiar. Much has been made of Bush’s admission that, yes, there have been mistakes, and to the extent that mistakes have been made, yes, the responsibility falls to him. My hometown newspaper actually put that striking news into its headline. Okay, someone explain to me why it’s news that Bush is acknowledging what the rest of the nation has known for several years now — that his Iraq adventure has been one massive fuck-up after another, and that it’s obviously his fucking fault, thank you very much. And what is it worth for him to backhandedly admit errors at the same time as announcing yet another massive one, the “surge” tactic? I mean, one would assume that if he regretted the errors, he might make at least a feeble attempt not to repeat them. But that’s not the Dubya way. What the hell does he have to lose now?

Actually, the story that didn’t get a lot of play was the one about the U.S. attack on the Iranian consulate in Irbil, deep in the relatively quiet Kurdish area. It apparently took place around when Bush was making his comments about Iran having some kind of undue influence over the chaotic nation just across their long western frontier (the country that invaded them just two decades ago, now occupied by an openly hostile superpower). Anyway, our boys reportedly busted up the place and detained six Iranians without even telling the Kurds. This seems particularly odd since Irbil is a long way away from the principal conflict zones, and the Kurds have been the group most amenable to the U.S. occupation. (There was a standoff in Irbil between U.S. and Kurdish forces that almost came to shots fired). What is the objective here — to piss off the last remaining group of people in Iraq that doesn’t utterly despise us? Or, as Juan Cole suggests, to provoke a reaction from Iran?

One thing is clear — our leaders are totally unscrewed. They have opened a disastrous “third front” in their war on terror by encouraging and supporting the Ethiopian invasion of Somalia, handing that sorry nation (another long-term recipient of U.S., um, assistance) back the same warlords that mis-ran it before. They are actively positioning themselves for an attack on Iran that will make the “catastro-fuck” of Operation Iraqi Freedom seem mild by comparison. And now they are planning to send another 21,000+ American troops to Baghdad and al-Anbar, a fool’s errand heartily endorsed by “straight talk express” conductor and presidential hopeful John McCain, who in fact wants to send even more troops. (My guess is that, if sent to the White House, McCain would want to re-invade South Vietnam in the belief that that war is still winnable.) Buyer beware.

So yes, Bush may be the stupidest man ever to occupy the oval office. But don’t make the mistake of thinking he’s the only one likely to drive us into endless, pointless warfare. Plenty of options for that distinction.

luv u,

jp

Don’t know how they managed it, but the Bush administration appears to have found a way to evoke sympathy for one of the biggest mass murderers in modern Middle East history (in the same league as Bush himself, in fact). The ugly spectacle of Saddam’s hanging was somewhat reminiscent of the Abu Ghraib images — dim, shabby, shameful. As regular readers of this sorry blog know, I am no fan of the death penalty, even when it comes to war criminals like Saddam and, well, George Bush. This goes beyond the question of basic humanity, though. If you’re going to execute someone, that should be punishment enough without making a circus of it. As it was, they (i.e. the American idiots who decided on this policy) made Hussein seem dignified by comparison and, in so doing, further inflamed the Sunni community in Iraq and throughout the Middle East by allowing the deed to be performed on the day Sunnis celebrate Eid. I can’t entirely blame the Shi’a execution squad for behaving as they did — that’s to be expected. But don’t tell me no one in the Green Zone knew that particular detail wouldn’t be shot through with militia people.

There’s an even more critical issue here. The execution of Saddam Hussein closes off a rich source of critical testimony regarding crimes committed during his rule and the accountability of those associated with him during those years. That includes whatever light he could shed on American and European complicity in the war against Iran, the use of chemical weapons against Persians, Shi’a Arabs, and Kurds, and so on. As Richard Falk pointed out on Democracy Now!, Hussein was put to death for an act of collective punishment that had nothing to do with the U.S. If he had been prosecuted for his serial chemical attacks from 1983 forward, we might have learned more about our role in facilitating those attacks, apologizing for them, covering them up, etc. Not that any of those details would make it into the mainstream American press, which has essentially expunged the U.S. role in supporting Hussein from their various retrospectives and timelines.

Such are the fortunes of those who benefit from U.S. covert operations — some retire to Florida (Orlando Bosch); others dangle from the end of a rope. The CIA apparently fostered Saddam’s early career as a torturer and assassin, quietly supporting his participation in 1959 in a notorious attempt on the life of the Iraqi president (who was a communist). After he became Iraq’s leader (something like Lee Harvey Oswald becoming president), he received crucial support from the U.S., particularly during the Reagan / Bush I administrations, who unfailingly portrayed him as a “moderating influence” in Middle Eastern affairs right up until his invasion of Kuwait. While they turned against Saddam at that point, it was in such a way as to allow him to carry out one of the greatest atrocities of his career — putting down the Kurdish and Shi’a uprisings George Bush Sr. had actively encouraged, as the army of “Stormin’ Norman” Schwartzkopf looked on just a few miles away. Aside from resulting in probably half a million deaths, the Clinton era sanctions only strengthened Saddam’s grip on his nation, forcing ordinary Iraqis to rely on the central government for subsistence. Now, of course, we are busily compounding the heinous errors of past administrations with even more heinous errors, including a Bush surge strategy that will focus on targeting the denizens of Baghdad’s poorest neighborhoods and the most vulnerable portions of Iraq’s majority Shi’a community.

If nothing else, we are demonstrating that you can kill hope if you try hard enough… but stupidity is a lot more resilient.

luv u,

jp

It’s always a momentous occasion when an ex-president dies. Invariably, the major news media provide us with a highly instructive look back at our political history — through a fun-house mirror, you might say. It’s a particularly odd phenomenon in the case of Gerald Ford because, as unremarkable a leader as he was, he seems like a freaking prince compared to the current numbskull-in-chief. (Who wouldn’t? Reagan? Polk? William Henry Harrison?) I had to laugh this week when it was announced that Ford had expressed his contempt for the war in Iraq in a recorded interview with Bob Woodward that was embargoed for release until after Ford’s death. So even as Bush tried to glom onto Ford’s relative popularity as an ex (and essentially forgotten) president, the guy was dropping a bomb on him from beyond the grave. Ouch! Dubya’s becoming more than a bit like that Bifflestick guy in Li’l Abner who always had a dark cloud over his head.

What about the Ford presidency? Well, he had a defense secretary named Don Rumsfeld and a chief of staff named Dick Cheney, for one thing. He also had a secretary of state named Henry Kissinger, who was very busy over Ford’s brief tenure. None of the various news timelines thought to make mention of it, but it was during Ford’s presidency that Indonesia invaded East Timor and began a brutal occupation that continued for the next 25 years and resulted in the deaths of 1/3 of that nation’s population. The invasion began practically the moment Kissinger and Ford flew out of Jakarta after meeting with Indonesian dictator Suharto and giving him the green light to proceed. Other highlights of the Ford era include the “dirty war” against South American dissidents pursued by various tin-pot dictators the U.S. had helped to install — a bloody campaign of torture, disappearance, and assassination that stretched from the Chile to Washington’s Embassy Row, where former Chilean Ambassador Orlando Letelier and his American associate Ronni Moffitt were blown up in their car by agents of Pinochet in 1976. Then there was Ford and Kissinger’s backing (in coordination with apartheid South Africa) of madman Jonas Savimbi and his UNITA rebels in Angola, resulting in probably half a million casualties over the following 20 years.

Devil’s in the details. Still, even with all that, Ford’s brief tenure seems statesmanlike in retrospect, at least by U.S. standards. But how much praise can we heap upon a president — or anyone, for that matter — for what he didn’t do? Is absence of a vice a virtue? Is Ford a man of integrity because he didn’t trash the Constitution, the Geneva Conventions, and a raft of international treaties all in a row? Is Ford to be honored because he didn’t order illegal surveillance of Americans or authorize the detention and torture of individuals on the basis of secret evidence (or lack of same)? Is Ford a Lincoln because he didn’t start a major war on patently false pretenses by knowingly deceiving the American public? Perhaps all in politics is relative… or maybe it’s like that old Richard Farina title: we’ve been down so long, it looks like up to us.

Saddamned to hell. Guess they were in kind of a hurry to execute Saddam after all. I’m sure he wasn’t expecting a square dance. Still, they will be burying a lot of crucial history with him… and maybe that’s the idea. Breathe easy, unindicted co-conspirators.

luv u,

j