“This isn’t 1968.”

That was Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice just before embarking on her diplomatic mission to Georgia (the Republic of), to carry a cease fire agreement and presumably get a first-hand look at the smoldering ruins of yet another brilliant foreign policy initiative, this time played out in the region of her supposed expertise. If she was at all aware of the irony in her statement, she certainly gave no hint of it. She was, of course, referring to the USSR’s invasion of Czechoslovakia (a country still very much in John McCain’s world atlas) as a means of calling out Russia on its brutal violation of a neighboring nation’s sovereignty. In her eagerness to link present-day Russia with the Soviet invasion of four decades ago, she appears to have forgotten somewhat more recent history… like her own administration’s invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan and subsequent occupation of both countries; like the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and the displacement of millions as a result of said invasion. If her point is, as she put it, that it is no longer acceptable for nations to behave in this way, this new order must be a very recent development. News of it has yet to reach Washington.

Because she is not technically “stupid,” I assume what she’s saying is that nowadays only the United States can act as though we own the world and can invade any country we want without provocation. This comports with the “what we say goes” principle articulated by her husb… I mean, her boss’s father some 17 years ago or so. Of course, there are many ways in which this is quite a bit like 1968. If you cast your mind back to that awful year, you might ask yourself if the Soviets were the only ones rampaging through a sovereign country. The answer would be, well, not as such. Our military was in the fourth year of a far more brutal invasion of Vietnam, reducing that nation and its immediate neighbors to “a land of ruin and wreck”, as Arthur Schlesinger put it, with an expeditionary force of more than half a million and the most devastating campaign of sustained aerial bombing in history. We now appear to be just as stuck in Iraq as we were in Southeast Asia in 1968, for reasons every bit as illegitimate.

It’s not surprising to hear our leaders speaking arrogantly or ignorantly – or with a presumption of ignorance on our parts. Nor is it surprising to hear a hallelujah chorus of pundits, journalists, and pols deploring this notion of invading another country while never once referring to the Iraq exemption. (Aggravating, but not surprising.) What did sort of astound me over the past few days was the impossibly ham-fisted timing of our pact with the Polish government to base “missile defense” (a.k.a. “defense contractor defense”) within their national territory, something the Russians (and many Poles) deplore. I truly believe the administration hopes for war to break out – that seems to work for them. No one could be that incompetent. (Or… could they… ?) I think back to Israel’s attack on Lebanon two years ago, when Condi Rice and company were actually blocking a cease fire. The bombing and abortive invasion were the “birth pangs” of a new Middle East, we were told then. Perhaps Russia will argue with similar conviction that their overreaction in Georgia amounts to the birth pangs of a new Southeastern Europe.

Hey – Russia was invaded twice in the last century, and they’re still a little sensitive to adversarial military alliances on their borders. Maybe we should be trying to ratchet this down a little… before somebody else gets hurt, eh?

luv u,

jp

Looking for something to take your mind off the media marathon they call the Olympic Games? I know I am. Never been big on sports, frankly – I just can’t get interested enough, particularly in the win/lose part of it all. Anyway, if you’re like me and constitutionally disinclined to sit in front of the television hour after hour watching athletes run, hop, swim, or do something with a ball, join me in thinking about a few other things this weekend and beyond. Stuff like:

The Cheney War Plan – Sy Hersh said last week that one of his sources related a story to him about some high-level planning meeting regarding how to get up a war with Iran. According to this source, Cheney was fond of a scheme to assemble a small fleet of bogus Iranian PT boats, man them with disguised Navy Seals, and have them fire on U.S. vessels in the Straits of Hormuz, thereby provoking a kind of Gulf of Tonkin incident (except even more contrived than the original). This brought two things to mind. First was the administration’s empty rhetoric about “supporting the troops.” Second, that close encounter some months back between Iranian PT’s and a Navy ship, wherein a mysterious radio voice (not from the Iranians) called in a cartoon-like threat, apparently with the intent of provoking a confrontation.

Cheney’s fratricidal plan was shot down, according to Hersh’s source. Was the mystery taunt Plan B?

Candid Camera. Video cameras are playing an increasingly important role in activism and the protection of human rights around the world. I’m thinking not only of the footage of a NYC police officer “checking” a rider in the critical mass ride last week, but of the very productive deployment of cameras by B’Tselem in the form of the “Shooting Back” project in the occupied territories. Not only do these efforts document abuses beyond the power of official denial, but the mere presence of cameras (and outside observers) can serve to shield the vulnerable from harm. In a place like the West Bank, the more Web videos the better. Same goes for Iraq. Great work, B’Tselem!

Shocked, Shocked. The Bush administration tried to coax an exiled Iraqi security chief into claiming Saddam helped train the 9/11 hijackers? They also tried, in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, that Iraq was behind the anthrax attacks of late 2001? The sun rose yesterday? All part of a pattern.

That’s what’s on my mind, folks. And yours?

luv u,

jp

In case the power’s been off in your neighborhood this week, I should mention that the first American war crimes tribunal since the end of World War II has been in session. Who’s the first accused war criminal to take the stand, the Herman Goering of the global war on terror? Well, it’s some dude who drove Bin Laden’s car. Or so they say. Actually, the evidence about that is a little thin, and some of that is testimony extracted under torture (or “enhanced interrogation techniques” as the dark comedians of the Bush administration term it). Another problem: a lot of the folks at Gitmo (Hamdan included) were handed over by surrogates in exchange for a bounty, so you tend to get a high error rate on your collars (e.g. a lot of people who owed a neighbor money or just got on the wrong side of somebody). Happily, the tribunal doesn’t rely on the same standard of evidence as one might expect in, say, a mainland American court of law. I suspect many of these cases, like that of Hamdan the “driver”, would simply fall apart in domestic courtrooms. Not on Fantasy Island, however.

Okay, so you’ve got one of Bin Laden’s alleged schleppers. He’s standing trial in a military courtroom. He is a Yemeni man accused of working with el primo terroristo, and the jury is made up of uniformed American military officers. (Wonder how that is going to come out?) And if that isn’t sure-fire enough for you, the jury need only render a majority vote to convict. Now, these proceedings have a history of questionable policies and practices, including credible accusations (some by senior military officers) against the commanders in charge of stacking the legal deck against the defendants (like insisting there be no acquittals). Still not comfortable with the potential outcome? How about the fact that, if acquitted, the defendant will stay at Gitmo until the end of the global war on terror (i.e. forever)? Same deal if he is convicted and sentenced to time served. (These Bush critters sure are risk-averse, aren’t they?)

With this monstrous individual on trial and Radovan Karadzic at the Hague, we should be feeling pretty safe, right? Well…. there are a few bad characters still on the loose, my friends. In fact, there’s one group of people currently at large that are responsible for what’s probably the most serious war crime of recent years. These criminal leaders:

• invaded a sovereign nation that posed no threat to their country;

• brought about the deaths of as many as one million civilians, both directly and as a result of their actions;

• allowed the total dissolution of order, massive looting, destruction of public property, and collapse of public services while acting as an occupying power;

• created a situation that produced 4 million refugees, more than 2 million of whom have fled the country;

• violated their own laws of land warfare as well as international law by fundamentally altering the economy of the invaded nation;

…and actually quite a bit more than that. Pretty heinous, eh? Makes Karadzic look like a piker, frankly. And yet they hide in plain sight… even dancing on national television, with no worries about being carted away.

Schleppers beware: this war is on you.

luv u,

jp