US Ends Iraq War

After nearly nine years, all American troops are finally leaving Iraq.  The United States formally ended the war today - eight years, seven months and 14 days after the so-called "mission accomplished" speech.  Nearly 4500 Americans lost their lives.  Thankfully there will be no more from this particular war.  Welcome home. 

The costs of this totally unnecessary neocon war have been enormous.  And, the increasingly irrelevant John McCain and increasingly misguided Cheney family to the contrary, the withdrawal is long past due.  In addition, the official number of wounded Americans is more than 33,000.  The toll on Iraqis was much greater - a minimum of 100,000 - 125,000 Iraqi civilians have been killed since the US invaded (Iraq Body Count website).  Some other estimates are much higher (e.g., Lancet/Johns Hopkins study on the "excessive" Iraqi deaths).  The total US price tag for the Iraq War will eventually reach 3 trillion dollars with the cost to other countries about the same order of magnitude (Stiglitz and Bilmes, Washington Post article).  For a good summary of Stiglitz and Bilmes analysis of the total cost of the war, see the 2008 article by Aida Edemariam in The Guardian.

The Iraq War is the greatest US foreign policy debacle since Vietnam.  It has immeasurably damaged the US reputation throughout the world.  It has damaged the world and national economy.  It was based on false intelligence and "sold" to a gullible and scared American public with deception, arrogance and lies.  Senator McCain, you have it completely wrong.  It was the neocons who misled the country into this unnecessary war of aggression and it is they, not the President who finally extracted us from Iraq, who will be judged most harshly by history. 

More dastardly doings

As the year ends, Congressional Republicans are once more demonstrating why they do not deserve to govern in a democracy.  Over the past couple of weeks:

• House Republicans passed the REINS bill.  This bill would allow either house of Congress to veto executive branch rules (e.g., EPA, OSHA) that cost $100 million or greater to implement.  If the rules are not approved by a majority in both houses they would not be implemented.  So if the Party of No decides that its okay to release let's say certain toxins to the atmosphere rather than implement an EPA rule that would control the release, well then if they have a majority in either chamber, they could just go ahead and vote no and the Executive Branch could not implement the rule.  I haven't read anything about financial industry regulations but I assume this law would apply there also.  As a NYT editorial stated this is an undemocratic, terrible piece of legislation that would undermine the executive branch: "The bill is the fullest flowering of the Republicans’ antiregulatory philosophy."  When will the right-wing understand that the problems that led to the financial meltdown was too little, not too much, regulation.  The good news is that the Senate will likely not bother to take up the measure and Obama will veto it if it makes it that far.
• Senate Republicans blocked the nomination of Richard Cordray to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau...just as they had previously done to Elizabeth Warren.  As the Star-Ledger (Newark) put it: "Senate Republicans are suffering collective amnesia about the banking and mortgage loan mess that trashed the American economy."  Republicans have as their stated aim to substantially weaken the agency before they allow someone to head it, rendering it less effective.  I guess Obama will have to appoint a CFPB head when the Congressional clowns go home on recess.  I mean if "W" could appoint someone as unqualified as John Bolton to be the US representative to the UN, why can't a person clearly qualified to protect consumers be appointed head of an agency meant to head off the next financial meltdown? 
• House Republicans passed a payroll tax extension that has several "poison pills" in the legislation that will surely result in a White House veto.  These toxic provisions include:  requiring a fast track review of a controversial tar sands pipeline project, reducing by 40% the maximum time emergency unemployment benefits could be extended (99 weeks to 59 weeks), and delaying EPA regulations on industrial boiler emissions.  For this last one, the EPA has estimated that the new regulations would prevent 8100 premature deaths and 52,000 asthma attacks annually.  I'm of two minds when it comes to the payroll tax extension.  It is necessary now as a means of providing additional stimulus to the economy - it's about the only stimulus Republicans will allow. BUT continually extending the payroll tax cut would eventually undermine the Social Security system.  So  a one-time extension of the tax cut would be useful but additional extensions would be dangerous.   In any case, the vote should be on the merits of the extension and not contaminated with other issues.
• Still to come: will unemployment benefits be extended in time to prevent 5 million people from losing their benefits in 2012.  And who will pay the price?  If Republicans hold true to form - it will be domestic programs and other parts of the social safety net that will suffer.

Channelling TR

President Obama traveled to the small Kansas town of Osawatomie today and channelled Teddy Roosevelt who, a hundred years ago gave a stirring speech in the same community for a "square deal" for the American people. 

Speaking to the audience at the local high school, Obama said “I’m here in Kansas to reaffirm my deep conviction that we are greater together than we are on our own.  I believe that this country succeeds when everyone gets a fair shot, when everyone does their fair share, and when everyone plays by the same rules.”  He received a warm reception and enthusiastic applause in the very red state of Kansas.  The chances of Obama winning Kansas in 2012 are, as we used to say, between slim and none.  It was obviously meant as a national speech and began to define his 2012 campaign.  The speech, described by the Christian Science Monitor as "combative", took Republicans to task for their opposition to the extension of the payroll tax cut, their attempts to dilute or defund the financial industry regulations passed in the last Congress, their opposition to increased taxes on the wealthiest Americans and their opposition to the American Jobs Act. 

A good start...and one which needs to be pounded home every day from now until next November.  Obama may win the election for the Presidency but if Congress is still controlled by Republicans, none of these speeches will matter.  The Republicans in the Do Nothing 112th Congress have had as their main objective denying Obama a second term rather than solving the problems the country faces.  It's time to turn these misguided legislators out of office.  They have stood in the way of nearly every possible solution to the jobs crisis in this country...but somehow they have managed to convince people that the sad state of the economy is all Obama's fault.  According to the right-wing extremists now in control of the Republican Party, all we need are fewer regulations and lower taxes on the rich and let the free market solve our problems.  That formula has never worked and never will. 

OWS Politics

Unless OWS gets seriously involved in dislodging the Republicans from office in 2012 - their majority in the House and their strangle hold on the Senate- none of OWS' complaints or issues will be addressed for the foreseeable future.  At least with the Democrats in power, there is an outside chance that some of the most pressing problems facing the country will be ameliorated if not solved. 

The Republicans' current opposition to the extensions of the payroll tax reduction and to unemployment benefits (without further cuts to the social safety net rather than taxing the wealthiest Americans) should show everyone in the 99% that they are not on our side at all.   The OWS movement says they are non-partisan but a look at the differences between the ideologies of the Republicans and Democrats will show why this should not be so. 

George Lakoff summarizes this beautifully today in the Huffington Post in an appeal to OWS to get involved in the 2012 elections.  For the Left, "American democracy is about citizens caring about one another and acting responsibly on that care."  A strong private sector depends on a strong public sector, on a strong commons.  For the Right, "democracy is about citizens only taking care of themselves, about personal and not social responsibility.  According to right-wing morality, the successful are by definition the moral; the one percent are taken to be the most moral."   

In recent years, the political conversation has been dominated by the heavily financed right wing echo chamber.  Now is the time to shift the conversation away from privilege, greed and fear and to a better understanding of what American democracy really should be all about.  Now is the time to get involved in the electoral process or forever hold your peace.

Profiles in Courage

In 1955, future President John F. Kennedy's memorable biographical work Profiles in Courage was published.  The Pulitzer-prize-winning book related the stories of eight U.S. senators who took difficult and often unpopular stands upholding principles rather than doing the easy thing politically.  Here are three persons today who give us hope that courage to stand up for one's principles is still alive in the world.  Sorry JFK, not one of them is a U.S. senator.

Hagit Ofran is an Israeli peace activist.  In spite of right-wing extremist death threats, she continues to speak out against the illegal Israeli settlements in the Occupied Territories and in favor of a just two-state solution.  November 4th marked the sixteenth anniversary of the assassination by a right wing Israeli extremist of Yitzhak Rabin, the Israeli Prime Minister who had signed the Oslo Peace Accords.  It was an assassination with an impact on the Middle East peace process as great as the assassination of JFK in 1963 had on the US.  Close to the assassination's anniversary this year, Jewish terrorists painted death threats on her home.  Not backing down, Ofran delivered the keynote address at the annual rally to remember Rabin and all that he stood for. 

Lydia Cacho Ribiero is a Mexican journalist, feminist and human rights activist.  Cacho received death threats this summer after exposing a sex-trafficking ring.  The November issue of The Atlantic named her as one of the "21 brave thinkers of 2011".  For years she has written on the exploitation of women and children.  In 1999, she was raped and beaten in the bathroom of a bus station for what she believes was her advocacy for women.  In 2006, she took up the cause of the unsolved murders of women in Ciudad Juarez.  She is the recipient of numerous awards for her her investigative journalism including awards from Amnesty International and UNESCO. 

John Kitzhaber is the governor of Oregon.  On Tuesday November 22, he banned the death penalty in his state for the duration of his term.  In the only Western democracy with a populace whose majority supports the death penalty, Gov. Kitzhaber took the courageous step of banning it - calling the death penalty system "an expensive and unworkable system that fails to meet the basic standards of justice."    An LA Times editorial rightly praised Kitzhaber for "one of the most courageous and conscientious acts we've seen on the national political stage in some time."  This is what leaders do - they lead.  When the majority are wrong, leaders have  the strength to show them the proper path. 

Failure

As probably could have been predicted, the bipartisan deficit reduction committee failed to meet its target.  News reports today have them throwing in the sponge early and trying to spin their failure.  So now the automatic cuts begin.  It's a shame that an automatic tax increase on the wealthy wasn't part of the deal.  As noted previously, we cannot balance the budget solely with cuts to social programs. The only consolation in all this is that the unnecessary and over-bloated military budget will be cut automatically also.

The real problem with the economy is not the deficit - it's jobs.  Congressional Republicans continue to stymie Obama Administration attempts to enact portions of the American Jobs Act.  No surprise there either.  The dysfunctional Congress, made ever more so by the Party of No intent on making Obama a one-term Presidnt, has upcoming votes on extensions of unemployment benefits and of the payroll tax cut.  $1.00 to your 50 cents says they won't be passed.  

In other news today:

• A financial services lobbying firm has proposed a $850,000 campaign to discredit the Occupy Wall Street Movement. (Slate, originally reported on MSNBC's "Up with Chris Hayes")
• A Fairleigh Dickinson University poll found that watching Fox News actually made a person less informed about current events than if he or she avoided watching or reading news altogether.  Gives more meaning than ever to the watch-dog group News Hounds' motto "We watch FOX News so you don't have to."
• The World Meteorological Association reports that greenhouse gases in 2010 reached their highest level ever (CO2 is now at 389 ppm - 39% higher than pre-industrial age levels).  This atmospheric CO2 concentration exceeds some of the worst-case scenarios projected by climate scientists.  The really bad news is that the rate of increase is not declining but still trending upward.
• And finally, how about those classy NASCAR fans that booed Michelle Obama and Jill Biden ?  The first and second ladies were at Homestead Miami Speedway to "promote the White House’s Joining Forces Program, which encourages Americans to pledge community service hours in honor of the troops serving abroad and send messages of support to military families". Kind of reminiscent of the Republican primary debate boos for a gay soldier and cheers for Texas executions.  What a bunch!  

Deficit Solution

Today, it's hard to remember that in 2000 the Congressional Budget Office was estimating a surplus of $1.9 trillion for the coming decade.  That was before Bush was "elected" by the US Supreme Court - which is to say before the Bush tax cuts and the ill-advised neocon wars added trillions to the deficit and before the karma from the conservative deregulation frenzy initated in the 1980's caught up with us in 2007 and we experienced the greatest financial crisis since the Depression.

It would seem that the right way to attack the budget deficit is to focus on what went wrong since 2000, on what is no longer relevant in a post-Cold War era  and on what we need to do to correct these errors. 

To start, no solution to the budget deficit will be possible without deep cuts in military spending.  Fifty three cents out of every Federal tax dollar goes to pay for past, current and potential future wars.  (Softbox Films put together an informative short piece on the breakdown of these expenditures on its YouTube channel.)   A few ideas: The action with the most immediate effect on the budget would be the removal of all US troops from Afghanistan.  Continued stationing of US forces in Europe at the current levels seems totally unnecessary.  Dismantling of the country's nuclear arms is long overdue.  And let's not forget about the other "toys" that the Pentagon continues to demand - serious consideration needs to be given to converting weapons factories to peace-time manufacturing.   Why the world's only remaining superpower needs a military budget more than six times that of China is beyond comprehension.  If we just reduced our military expenditures on a GDP basis to that of China, we could save $345 billion per year!

Secondly, John Boehner and Eric Cantor to the contrary, we cannot "cut" our way out of the deficit.  Revenues must be increased.  In a nation where 40 percent of the wealth is owned by 1% of the population, fairness and concern for the common good demands, at a minimum, an end to the Bush tax cuts for wealthy Americans or, even better, a return to the incremental tax rates in place during the administration of conservative icon Ronald Reagan.  Corporations are currently sitting on significant amounts of cash - the problem is not with business profitability but with a reduced demand from customers.  Fair taxation of corporations is also an important element.  A revised tax code that reduces loopholes and provides selective tax credits only when companies create domestic jobs would be a good start in this arena. Revenues from the "rest of us" will increase as soon as jobs are created and more people find work.  This cannot be done without additional stimulus spending that would be financed by the increased revenues from the wealthy and corporations. 

Finally, sound financial regulations implemented during the Depression kept us from severe recessions for more than a half-century.  These controls were gradually eroded, financial system complexity was increased, enforcement became more difficult, and greed and risk became accepted parts of the game.  Perhaps the action most responsible for the current Great Recession was the repeal of some of the provisions of the 1933 Glass-Steagall Act in 1999.  As the Wikipedia entry on Glass-Steagall succinctly states: "The repeal of provisions of the Glass–Steagall Act by the Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act in 1999 effectively removed the separation that previously existed between investment banking which issued securities and commercial banks which accepted deposits. The deregulation also removed conflict of interest prohibitions between investment bankers serving as officers of commercial banks. This repeal may have contributed to the severity of the Financial crisis of 2007–2011 by allowing banks to become so large, complex, and intertwined that both they and their regulators failed to see the systemic risk that a failure in one part of one bank could lead to cascading failures across the global financial system."

It's too late to reverse the impact of the Recession on the lives of so many millions.  But a little bit of old-fashioned root cause analysis can help us prevent this from happening again.  A reinstatement of Glass-Steagall would be an important step in that direction.