Making the World Safe for Business

Two unrelated stories that may nevertheless be linked on a deeper, karmic level (or, since this blog is run from the heartlands of the Occident: on the level of what Boethius might have recognized as a fati series) have recently failed to make the headlines.

First of all, The Washington Post tells us that:

The Air Force's top leadership sought for three years to spend counterterrorism funds on "comfort capsules" to be installed on military planes that ferry senior officers and civilian leaders around the world, with at least four top generals involved in design details such as the color of the capsules' carpet and leather chairs, according to internal e-mails and budget documents.

In order to be able to fight evildoers in style, the US Air Force generals decided to take taxpayers' money that was earmarked for counterterrorism and spend it to ensure that

each of the capsules is to be "aesthetically pleasing and furnished to reflect the rank of the senior leaders using the capsule," with beds, a couch, a table, a 37-inch flat-screen monitor with stereo speakers, and a full-length mirror.

Over the past three years, the Air Force has demanded that over US$16 million be taken from funding from the "war on terrorism" and spent instead on more comfortable "capsules" for air travel in the style that its commanders deserve.

Changing the seat color and pockets alone was estimated in a March 12 internal document to cost at least $68,240.

Never mind that Congress has told the USAF - not once, but twice - that the funds reserved for counterterrorism should be spent on "higher priority" needs, meaning something more useful than cushy seats and in-flight entertainment systems, such as, oh, let's say, counterterrorism. Despite the hysteria we have been subjected to in the past seven years of madness and cretinism, and despite the billions of dollars that have been taken away from essential state services, and despite the fact that bin Laden and al-Zawahri have not yet been found, the main funding priority at this point in time seems to be that some top Air Force brass are provided with

what one (lower-ranking officer) described as "world class" accommodations exceeding the standards of a regular business-class flight.

Oh, sorry, did I say "despite"? Seems I may have gotten the causality inversed here, which happens to me occasionally after a long day. What I meant to say was that in order to justify the splooging-out of unfathomably huge quantities of cash for the benefit of their buddies in the oil and arms industries, while "starving the beast" of the welfare state, the Bush administration has turned the US into a nation of bedwetters, transfixed by the specter of an undefined and ominous threat to All that is Good and Right. Those generals must be having a grand old chuckle as they hook up the X-Box 360 to their 37" flatscreen for another few hours of "Call of Duty 4", killing time in non-stop transit from Andrews AFB to Diego Garcia for another round of waterboarding some poor Afghan goatherd.

The second and prima facie unrelated story makes the above "comfort pod" look like a tame joke by comparison. The New York Times' Eric Schmitt reports that:

The Bush administration plans to shift nearly $230 million in aid to Pakistan from counterterrorism programs to upgrading that country’s aging F-16 attack planes, which Pakistan prizes more for their contribution to its military rivalry with India than for fighting insurgents along its Afghan border.

So again, we see the diversion of funding reserved for counter-terrorism (and let's save the discussion on how effectively that money has been used so far for another time), but this time, the money isn't being spent on hi-tech travel capsules. The US$16 million of de-facto embezzled funds wasted by the Air Force are peanuts compared to the almost quarter of a billion dollars that will not be available for combating al-Qaida. Instead, the money will go to Lockheed Martin, the makers of the F-16 (who, in another of those strange coincidences, are among the top donors to the Republican Party this year).

There has been an ongoing debate over whether air power is useful or even sufficient for subduing insurgencies, but the experiences made by the Israeli Air Force in Lebanon in 2006 and since the withdrawal from Gaza seem to have more or less settled the matter: While tactical air superiority may be useful, an insurgency cannot be defeated without boots on the ground. Why, then, would the US want to use its counterterrorism budget for Pakistan to upgrade fighter jets that have so far not been used against militant in the North-West Frontier Province? After all, as the NY Times notes,

The financing for the F-16s would represent more than two-thirds of the $300 million that Pakistan will receive this year in American military financing for equipment and training. Last year, Congress specified that those funds be used for law enforcement or counterterrorism. Pakistan’s military has rarely used its current fleet of F-16s, which were built in the 1980s, for close-air support of counterterrorism missions, largely because the risks of civilian casualties would inflame anti-government sentiments in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas.

Even by the obscene standards of the US military, that's quite a lot of money that will not be spent on securing the Pakistani-Afghan border region. However, the upgrades will go some way towards restoring parity between the Pakistani and Indian air forces.

The US sold Pakistan F-16s in the 1980s, but then cut off Islamabad from further arms deliveries due to its nuclear weapons program. In the meantime, India had acquired Russian MiG-29s and Sukhoi-30s, as well as French Mirage fighters, which had given it an edge over the Pakistani Air Force's F-16s in the 1999 Kargil crisis.

A new deal was struck after the Sept. 11 attacks to allow Pakistan to buy newer models, in part to reward Pakistan’s cooperation in fighting terrorism. In 2006, Pakistan was a major recipient of American arms sales, including the $1.4 billion purchase of up to 36 new F-16C/D fighter aircraft and $640 million in missiles and bombs. The deal included a package for $891 million in upgrades for Pakistan’s older F-16s.

The current delivery and upgrade of F-16s is not a recent decision, but the financing of the deal using funds earmarked for counterterrorism and law enforcement contravenes assurances made by the White House to Congress. The Bush administration, in addition to ensuring that its financial aid to Pakistan flows back to the US arms industry, is also calculating that the deal will help stabilize the political leadership of Pakistan vis-à-vis the army, and will prevent India from acquiring a strategic edge - especially with non-US weapons systems - in a possible future conflict over disputed territory with Pakistan.

All of these considerations are, of course, not part of polite conversation in American public discourse, where expenditures on security and especially "counterterrorism" go largely unquestioned.

Does that make you sad, depressed, or even fill you with despair when you consider the prospects for the survival of democracy, not to mention human existence as we know it?

If so, you may now view the following short video clip, which will make you feel much better. It has been approved by the Security Hippo for all audiences.

Neighborhood Patrol II

Hmmmmm. Where to begin. Maybe by saying "so much for New Year's resolutions". I had promised in January to write more, but somehow that didn't work out. It is now the end of May, the smell of summer is in the air, and even at 11pm, it is still comfortably warm out on the balcony. And the last blog entry was in mid-January. Sometime in the past two weeks, the page registered 1,000 hits. Nice! Know that the Security Hippo loves and cherishes every single visitor to the old mudflat.

Maybe the best thing to do is simply to act as if nothing had happened, and to carry on as before. The first item will therefore be a traditional "what I did on my holidays" effort, a short pictorial review of some impressions gained during the past weeks and months.

When we moved to this flat, I decided to throw out some old T-shirts that had only nostalgic value, but weren't being worn any more. I decided this one had to be documented for posterity, fondly picturing the chap (for some reason I am sure it was a man) who came up with this extremely hip statement of near-haiku quality: "Acting Up/Who Make The/First Move/The Dramatic/American/What Guys Think".

What guys think, indeed. You have to wonder sometimes. No less amusing was this shirt seen last year while visiting the Locarno Film Festival, on sale at a market in Luino across the border in Italy:

"Die Liebe/Sommer ist/Nur Geschlecht" ("Love/Summer Is/Only Gender"). Note the elegant layout and typesetting. No doubt somebody found this to be a profound statement on the nature of human attraction and the passing of the seasons.

Anyway, here are some more bits and pieces seen while walking in my neighborhood - graffiti, art, stickers, and other stuff that caught my eye.

The offer still stands, by the way, for the next person to leave a comment (see last post) - you can win original art featuring the above observation, plus the chance to set a topic for the next blog entry.

This poster, calling for a strike in the construction business, states that your boss can never be your partner. Somebody left comments indicating their agreement.


EIMER's panda asks the cassette tape: "Soll ich in den Wald gehen, um als Räuber zu leben?" - "Should I go and live as an outlaw in the forest?" - No, you should publish a book of awesome cartoons and get really rich.

More graffiti can be seen on this short stretch of fence along a construction site:

Kreis 4 in Zurich is kosher city, baby. Just across from this Jewish supermarket was more nice graffiti:

The lovely lady accompanying me thought this mural was spooky - it reminded her of the little girls in "The Shining", which is admittedly one of the most crap-your-pants terrifying scenes in the history of cinema. Still, the effect for me was different. These ladies exude a self-assured serenity that I find enviable and reassuring at the same time. Then again, a very similar atmosphere may also be part of what makes the scene in "The Shining" so scary.

The Art of Security

Anyway... more bric-a-brac on this blog's theme of "Security in Everyday Life", or "Why You Should be Very Very Afraid" follows here, no comment necessary.

Actually, the last two are worth commenting on. The lock, on sale at the Swiss Post Office near Zurich main train station, is advertised as follows: "Lock for travel to the USA. Allows American security personnel to examine luggage without damage to lock or bag". The lock can apparently be opened with a skeleton key held by US airport security, so that they can graciously refrain from completely destroying your luggage while they rifle through it. Oh, great, that makes me feel much safer. The second picture was taken outside a meeting room of the Taliban Grand Shura in Kandahar. As you may know, many Taliban commanders are (multiple) amputees, in some cases dating back to the mujahideen struggle against the Soviets. No doubt the "international community" has now added to their number. Oh, and just in case it wasn't clear: That was a joke. The picture was actually taken in the second-hand store around the corner from our house. If you need cheap crutches, this would be the place to go.

When in Rome...

I saw lots more interesting graffiti when we went to Rome over the Pentecost weekend. A lot of political stuff, obviously, since there had just been an election a few weeks earlier, which the utterly corrupt Silvio Berlusconi won with support from self-styled "post-Fascists" and Lega Nord separatists.

Amusingly, the transparent attempt to establish a sense of continuity between the Roman empire and Mussolini's Italy through the use of Latin (in the bottom picture) fails completely. "Semper Dux Mea Lux" would translate roughly as "The Duce is forever my light". However, "sempre" is not Latin. Proximus, sed abest banana - close, but no cigar.

The origins of the term "fascist" are nicely illustrated by this part of a frieze we saw near the tomb of the noblewoman Caecilia Metella Cretica alongside the old Appian Way (Via Appia Antica) south of Rome's ancient city walls: It shows the insignia of Roman state power, the fasces, which were bundles of birch rods tied around an axe, symbolizing the authority to mete out corporal and capital punishment. They were carried by Roman civil servants known as lictores.

It seems that old-school polical propaganda is generally held in high esteem in Italy, however; I could not tell whether these posters were Communist or (post-?) Fascist or something completely different. Which is also interesting in a way, maybe:



































Other messages included the following lovely sign at the entrance to St Peter's Basilica in the Vatican,

and a sign indicating the next bunker, presumably intended for blasphemers to take cover from bolts of lightning -


why is it that in Catholic countries, profanities are mainly based on blasphemy, while Protestant regions of the world swear using words related to sex and bowel movements? Does anybody know what swearing in Muslim countries is based on? Of course there was also anti-US graffiti:


Why oh why do they hate us? I am reminded of this picture recently found on the web, advertising an old arcade game from the late 1960s or early 1970s; unrelated to any of the above, of course. Res ipsa loquitur:

"Rifle gallery featuring Realistic Running Indians - Continuous Action! 17 Different Moving, Spinning, Vanishing Targets"! Looking at this vintage training equipment, one would think that the US should have been well prepared to make Iraq safe for profits ("Double Mirrors" - how prophetic). But I digress... getting back to the wonders of Rome, here are some assorted pictures of the fantastic art that can be found just about everywhere in the Eternal City.












































The last two of these pictures are quite interesting as the sculptures of Moses depict him with horns, due to Jerome's mistranslation of Exodus 34: 29-35 in the Vulgate version. The Hebrew root letters kof, resh, and nun can be vocalized in different ways to spell the Hebrew words for "ray of light" or for "horn".

I had been to the Vatican several times before, but there is always more left to discover. For example, who knew that there is a sculpture of Attila the Hun in St Peter's?


This frieze shows Attila being told, in no uncertain terms, to get lost by a pope whose name I failed to note, and by the Apostles Paul and Peter, who are swooping down from on high, as they were apparently wont to do - Peter of course always having been handy with the sword (John 18: 10-11), and to judge by this statue of St Paul outside San Paolo Fuori le Mura, he was no slouch either when the chips were down:


The inscription reads "To the Preacher of Truth and the Teacher of the Gentiles". Certainly he seems to have taught Attila a thing or two, as the Huns took his message to heart and never came back ("Verily, I say unto you, speak softly and carry a huge sword; and now, scram!"; Paul's Epistle to the Huns, 12:23-24). Of course, Caesar - a certified nutcase and degenerate sex maniac (Suetonius tells us he was "every woman's man and every man's woman") -


had a few things to say on that matter too in his account of his dealings with the Helvetii tribe in De Bello Gallico. They were made up of four sub-tribes, who spoke Latin, Gaulish, Germanic, and an unintellegible dialect that nobody else understood, which didn't matter afterwards, because Caesar slaughtered every last one of them. No relation to my present-day neighbors the Swiss, who are very nice people, and adherents of the words of the Apostle Paul to the Huns - every Swiss male has a sword, pike, or halberd stored at home, yet they enjoy a fully deserved reputation as peaceful folk.





























Which kind of brings me full circle; much as we enjoyed Rome, there were certain moments when, like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, I had a sudden feeling of "Toto, I don't think we're in Switzerland any more":


It's nice to be back in Zurich, a town that is always beautiful, but at its best in summertime. I am looking forward to BBQ on the balcony, nighttime bars on the lake, and of course I will continue to promote the cause of Bara Bröst; in conclusion, I offer the following evidence that theirs is an ancient and time-honored prerogative (statue of Diana of Ephesus, originally from the mind-blowing Villa d'Este in Tivoli, now in the Vatican Museum).


That's it for now; watch this space, and feel free to leave your comments - the Hippo wants to hear from you.

Manboobs for The Filipino Monkey

The year 2008 is only two weeks old and already it looks like it's going to be comedy gold. But first, let us welcome the new year with this bit of good news from the civil liberties/topless Swedish women department:

A swimming pool in northern Sweden has said it will allow women to bathe topless, following a campaign by feminists.

Since I am very much in favor of civil rights in general, and of womens' lib in particular, I would like to state that I support the stance taken by the Sundsvall municipal leisure center wholeheartedly.

A spokesman for the pool (...) said that employees there had decided they would not act if women tried to bathe semi-naked.

The Bara Bröst (Bare Breasts) Blog offers the following manifesto:

Bara Bröst is not committed to any political or religious views.

We demand:

• That women should be allowed to be topless in situations where it is accepted for men to be topless.
• That the breast should not be considered to be a part of the female genitalia.
• That the gender discriminating rules at the swimming pools are removed.
• That the norms that discriminats against women are worked with in schools and at workplaces and so on.
• That the politicians take their responsibility and act in this question.

Our goals:

A gender equal society where

• it is socially accepted for women to be topless in situations when it is accepted for men to do so.
• male and female bodies get an equal amount of space and on the same conditions.
• female bodies are not sexualized.
• no one has to feel like an object.
• women are not being discriminated against.

Seriously, it's hard to argue with any of the above points. Women should be allowed to go topless in all situations where it's OK to do so for men, without being gawked at. Since most men are now able to handle the sight of bare female ankle without spontaneously blowing their wad, there is no reason why we shouldn't come to terms with the sight of female breasts too. OK, it may take a while, but experience shows that if we stop making a big deal about bare skin, our libido learns to handle itself. It will be a good day for all of us (including men) when "no one has to feel like an object". Amen.

The alternative course, in the interests of fairness, would be to consider the male breast part of the masculine genitalia and ban the public display of manboobs.


A proposal that also has its merits. Anyway, more power to the ladies of Bara Bröst... oh, and I almost forgot: stick that in your pipe and smoke it, fundies. European values at their best.

Having thus inaugurated the new year in a way that will hopefully endow this blog with an agreeable level of karma, let us now turn again to the usual survey of human idiocy... as so often, displayed in admirable fashion by the US armed forces. The latest call for tenders by the Freedom Fighters of America is for a celebrity rock band to entertain US forces in the Afghan and Iraqi theaters of "war". Nothing wrong with that, after all, a hard-working occupation force needs to unwind after a long day of getting its ass whupped by the locals (see the USO scene in "Apocalypse Now"), but is this really what the troops want to see? A "Celebrity Rock Music Tour - QUANTITY 1" whose show will be subject to the following restrictions:

Any criminal conduct, unexcused tardiness or absence which prevents timely starting of the performance(s) required hereunder, indecency or obscenity, drunkenness, damage to Government property, failure to discharge indebtedness to the Government, influence of narcotics or hallucinatory drugs, threatening breach of national security, violation of the rules and regulations of the Host Nation, Government or TFF MWR are grounds for termination of this contract.

Boooo-oring! Also,

The Offeror shall submit details, such as a biography or other promotional or media articles relating to the proposed Professional Celebrity Rock Group, identifying the “professional celebrity” status of at least one member of the group.

So if you were hoping to make a quick buck with your buddies in the garage band, forget about it, unless you believe you can get Paris Hilton to sing (the chihuaha would qualify as a promotional article identifying the "professional celebrity" status under the above guidelines). No, I think the setup they are thinking of is more along the lines of The Halliburtons, Inc., or maybe Capitol Offense feat. Mike "End Times" Huckabee on bass.


However, The Huckster's proposal is likely to be rejected due to violations of Clause 2.4.4.1 of the solicitation:

An acknowledged deity will not be referred to in a manner that would offend a follower of any faith.

So maybe HQ USAREUR should try out a local band that has had many years of experience playing both large and small venues all up and down the Fertile Crescent, has a strong fanbase both in Iraq and in Afghanistan as well as that one country in between... what was it called again... ah, never mind. You know, of course, who I am referring to: That blockbuster boy group The Rolling Imams that has recently landed another top ten hit with "You Will Explode In A Few Minutes" (apparently a coded reference to premature ejaculation in the presence of uncovered Swedish ankles). They are reportedly bidding to appear at USOs in the region with their new frontman, The Filipino Monkey, who is filling in the professional celebrity slot due to the unavailability of singer and guitarist The Imam, currently in occultation due to previous engagements.


To round off the latest news in security-related lunacy, here are a few small choice bits that may make you look afresh with wonder and amazement at your fellow human beings. The first story comes to us from China, where Wang Zhendong has been sentenced to death for bilking more than 10,000 investors to the tune of US$390 million with a giant ant farm scam. It was both a giant scam involving ants, and a scam involving giant ants (used in traditional Chinese medicine). That's really all I can say about this sad story.

The next report lacks a dateline, but is almost certainly from the US.


Bullet Proof Baby Stroller Product Test

While I am not certain that this is not a bogus video, the depressing thing is that you can never know. It might be real. This even as the American obsession with guns is reportedly "fading":

The number of households with guns dropped from a high of 54 percent in 1977 to 34.5 percent in 2006, according to NORC, and the percentage of Americans who reported personally owning a gun has shrunk to just under 22 percent. (...) President George W. Bush this week signed into law a bill meant to prevent people with a record of mental disease from buying weapons.

I will refrain from making the obvious joke at this point and simply point out that you don't need a firearm to settle your differences, as one unfortunate young man in Vienna found out the hard way over the weekend:

The body of a young man was found in an elegant Vienna square with a rake embedded in his head, Austrian police said Saturday.

So please, my fellow Europeans, stop pointing fingers at the cousins over in the US of A for just a very brief moment of silence while we consider the fate of this poor soul, at least until the next submachine-gun killing spree at an American primary school/ university/ McDonald's/ post office reminds us that the advantage of rakes is it's hard to run amuck with one.

I'm still waiting for your feedback. Remember that the first person to comment on this or another story in the next few days gets a free piece of artwork plus the right to choose the topic for the next post. Come on, you can do it. My hit counter went over 400 (!!) for the first time this week, so I know you are out there.

Update: Check out Steve Bell's cartoon on Bush's Middle East visit and The Filipino Monkey.

Happy 2008

Well, it's been nearly two months since my last post; does that mean that I have now gotten a life? Sadly, that is not really the case, although there have been some interesting developments in my life.

First of all, though, I would like to wish all of my visitors a happy new year for 2008. This site has now been viewed more than 300 times. While that doesn't exactly make me a big-time player on the innertubes, it does give me a certain satisfaction to know that I have contributed a bit of my own to the information pollution that we all enjoy so much.

If I could make a wish for the coming year, it would be for more comments on my posts. There have been ony two comments so far, both uncritical statements of adulation (or so they were perceived) from good friends of mine. So they don't really count. Sorry, Tom and Sergio.

In order to stimulate intellectual debate on this page, I would therefore like to announce the following incentive. The next person to submit a comment (on this or any past or future post) will (a) receive an original hand drawing done by myself, on the theme of a graffiti I noticed today on my way to a friend's house here in Zurich: "There is too much caffeine in my bloodstream and not enough spice in my life". My sentiment exactly. The next submitter of a comment will furthermore (b) get to suggest a topic for the next post. This may, but need not, be related to my areas of interests, which are language, security/defense, international relations, and religion (or any combination of these).

I do promise I will attempt to blog again more regularly in the coming year - how is that for a new year's resolution. One reason for my long absence was that I have moved to a new flat that features a nice big balcony, which the old one didn't have. This should allow me to catch more fresh air and take in a broader perspective... Furthermore, I will be working from a proper study room. Finally, I am happy to count myself as a newly converted Mac user, so you should be able to discern a new sense of stylishness and panache in this blog that could not be achieved courtesy of Bill Gates.

Although I must say that for some reason my new wireless keyboard has trouble with the letter "L".

What can we expect in 2008? It will be the last year in office for the Chimp-in-Chief, and then, hallelujah, we shall be released, unless Cheney decides to go for broke and install a military dictatorship. We also most likely won't see war between the US and Iran, now that the US intelligence community has rediscovered its cojones. China's invasion of Taiwan will also be postponed for another year so as not to disrupt the 2008 Beijing Olympics, which will no doubt be lovely and of course completely free of doping scandals.

Let me reiterate that: This lady does not take performance-enhancing drugs and, together with her co-athletes, will ensure that the Taiwan Strait will remain invasion-free for another year or so. Thank you, Mu Shuangshuang.

Now if only we could bring the Olympics to Belgrade, the Serbs might feel a little less sore about the imminent declaration of independence by Kosovo. Then again, probably that wouldn't make much difference. Chinese irredentism towards "Formosa" is as nothing compared to Serbia's sentiment towards the good old Blackbird Field. Not even Olympic gold medals for Serbian athletes will suffice to bring them out of their sulk (and the prospect is unlikely, since Serbia's national sport of Muslim-Slaughtering is no longer an Olympic discipline). The good news is that invasion is out of the question for the foreseeable future. Now Serbia has announced it will refuse to join the EU if Kosovo's independence is recognized. While I do have a certain amount of sympathy for the Serbian point of view, this is a classic case of cutting off your nose to spite your face. Sorry, Serbs. Not that you would have been ready for EU accession for a long time yet.

Well, that's it for now. If the above is not controversial enough to get some comments going, remember the irresistible offer I made for the next commenter (free original artwork plus right to pick the topic for the next post - within reason; requests such as "Why Kosovars/Serbs/Taiwanese/Chinese weightlifters are subhuman scum" will not be considered). Have a great new year's party, and a terrific 2008... and remember:

WAR IS OVER (IF YOU WANT IT)

Whistle blown on whistleblowers

The Judiciary Committee of the US House of Representatives has begun, in the aftermath of the scandal surrounding the dismissal of US attorneys, to collect tips from whistleblowers inside the Justice Dept. Tipsters were promised that the Committee would deal with their information in "strictest confidence", though it would not take into account information submitted anonymously.

Unfortunately, as TPM Muckraker reported last weekend, that anonymity has been blown for many informers. The Judiciary Committee sent an e-mail to all contributers with their e-mail addresses revealed in the "to:" field, instead of using the "bcc:" function.

As if that wasn't bad enough, TPM reports,

[c]ompounding the mistake, the committee later sent out a second email attempting to recall the original email; it, too, included all recipients in the "to:" field, according to a recipient of the emails.

The only thing that could have been worse would have been to send this correpondence, with the full e-mail addresses of all internal critics of the Justice Dept, directly to Dick Cheney himself. Well, not even such spineless and brain-dead idiots as the Judiciary Committee members would have made such a terrible... oh oh:

Some of the email addresses appear to be transparently fake, but there's also, much more troubling, a vice_president@whitehouse.gov carbon copied on the email, which is the public email address for Vice President Dick Cheney. In other words, an email containing the email addresses of all the whistleblowers who had written in to the committee tipline was sent to public email address of Vice President Cheney.

N.b., these are the representatives of the people, whom we rely on to function as a corrective to the abuses of executive power by the Bush administration. Unfortunately, the American people seems to be represented by the bastard offspring of the Keystone Kops and the Three Stooges:

The purpose of today's mis-sent email was, ironically enough, to announce careful new procedures about to be put in place by the committee for reviewing the tips received through the committee's website.

The headline for the above article by Paul Kiel says it all: D'Oh. The entire e-mail from the Judiciary Committee can be read on the Talking Points Memo (TPM) website, though minus the incriminating e-mail addresses (not that that makes any difference, as Evil Dick has been cc'd).

Stasi archives staffed by ex-agents

Wikileaks has published an internal confidential memorandum by the German Federal Government Delegate for Culture and Media, reporting on the permeation of Stasi Archives (BStU) staff by former members of the East German secret service. The authors are concerned about how many former members of the Ministerium für Staatssicherheit are employed by the BStU. They question the constitutionality of the BStU's position within the structure of the German public administration. They also criticize the lack of accountability and of truthful testimony by the heads of the BStU in their information to the parliament, the external authors of this expertise, and to the public.

Among the highlights of this report are the fact that former high-ranking Stasi officers were charged with analyzing the potential Stasi involvement of leading East German politicians such as Lothar de Maizière, Manfred Stolpe, and Gregor Gysi; and the fact that former high-ranking Stasi officers were charged after 11 September 2001 with analyzing the extent of information and training provided by the Stasi to international terrorist groups including the RAF, the Carlos Group, and the Abu Nidal Group in the 1980s. Their conclusion, in classical Socialist dialectical style, was that East Germany only ever supported "freedom fighters" in their "armed struggle", but never terrorists...

Read the entire 114-page report (in German; PDF format) here. A detailed English-language summary/ analysis is available at this page.

Merciful Mongols

John W. Dean, former White House legal counsel to Richard Nixon, was on Countdown with Keith Olberman yesterday to talk about the latest revelations about US government-sanctioned torture. Now, it stands to reason that he didn't do such a great job counselling Nixon on legal matters, or at least his counsel wasn't heard. He was one of the Nixon minions referred to in this quote by the good Doctor Gonzo:

Nixon was so crooked that he needed servants to help him screw his pants on every morning. Even his funeral was illegal. He was queer in the deepest way. His body should have been burned in a trash bin.

(Read Hunter S. Thompson's entire obituary for Nixon, if you haven't yet, and bear in mind that the legacy of George W. Bush will be such that he will make Nixon look saintly by comparison.) Dean did jail time, but with a greatly reduced sentence, for his many crimes in connection with Watergate; his sentence was cut back because he turned witness for the prosecution and spilled the beans on Nixon and the Plumbers, and revealed the existence of the White House tapes.

Anyway, Dean has since declared himself an "independent" and has become a darling of the progressive camp in the US, especially since his book "Conservatives Without Conscience" was published. In this work, he charges that the Republican Party has been shanghaied by right-wingers with authoritarian personalities.

In the interview with Olberman on Countdown yesterday, Dean made some interesting points (check out the video at Crooks and Liars). After discussing the recently revealed existence of a new, shameful torture memo from the Bush/Gonzales Justice Department, Olberman and Dean talk about the Republican/conservative tendency to believe that reality can be adapted to their own requirements merely by choosing the right words to describe it: "We're not doing it cause we say we're not doing it"; or even "this is not torture because [the Bush administration] are not the kind of people who torture".

Dean points out that this is not just a matter of deficient perceptions, but that the White House is trying to change the laws that ban torture and other violations of the Geneva Conventions. He calls on Congress not only not to approve these changes, but to extend the Statute of Limitations on such crimes from five to ten years, in order to highlight the fact that "indeed, these are real laws". Of course, that would be very bad news indeed for Gonzales, Rumsfeld and other war criminals who are now or have been involved in policymaking and ordering prisoners to be beaten, waterboarded, and otherwise tortured.

But Dean goes on to make another critical point that is often missed and rarely, if ever, mentioned in the traditional media outlets:

Well, let me tell you, one of the thoughts in conservative thinking and circles today is that they felt very bad when Ronald Reagan left office with a 60 per cent approval rating. They thought: "That's just a waste!" They want their president to not be loved, to not be particularly respected. They want him to drive their agenda. And so Bush, as he heads on down with these kinds of policies that are being revealed, is doing exactly what the core of his party wants him to do. So, I don't... it may get down to single digits, and then he won't "die rich", so to speak.

So much for bipartisanship; what the Democratic Party needs in order to emerge from its present doldrums (and historically low approcal rates for its members of Congress) is the balls to push for flat-out partisanship in progressive issues.

Another example of this kind of Republican thinking can be found in the reasoning underlying Bush's veto against the State Children' Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) on Wednesday. Bush has argued that state support for children's health insurance would put the US budget on a slippery slope towards Communism. This program would be financed through higher taxes on tobacco. So, while SCHIP would be very efficient in providing healthcare for poor children, it would violate at least three mainstays of Republican ideology: No state-funded healthcare; no new taxes; and avoidance of anything that could hurt the tobacco industry, wherever possible.

Again: so much for bipartisanship. Bush's posturing as a fiscal conservative is all the more ridiculous considering he has blown the biggest budget surplus in the nation's history on an illegal war. Note: the US defense budget for FY2007 was increased by 7 per cent to US$439.3 billion, about 13 times the amount that the SCHIP bill would have cost. Look up "Starve the Beast" on Wikipedia for more on the thinking behind this strategy.

What does all of this have to do with the latest torture memo? The overall picture makes a mockery of the concept of "Compassionate Conservatism". It is just a shell of a phrase, a propaganda label used to sell policies that are not conservative in the Goldwater tradition and certainly not compassionate. What "Compassionate Conservatism" does is alliterate; no more and no less. As a catchphrase, it may serve its purpose among lazy thinkers. As a label for current White House policies, it is about as thoughtful, and appropriate, as if Ghengis Khan had promoted his conquest of the West as "Merciful Mongolism" - merely adding insult to injury.