I’m not sure who Harold Meyerson more offends in his Washington Post hate-screed
against a “Christianized GOP,” Republicans or Christians. He clearly slanders both.

It is no surprise or new development that liberals and others devoted to the Secular faith take every opportunity to demean, degrade and demonize religious faith among their inferiors. Those who hold a pretense of Intellectualism likewise hold as a logical truism that the very tenets of faith automatically make those who adhere to such tenets intellectually and morally inferior. It’s a high minded prejudice, but prejudice just the same.

Meyerson begins his diatribe by tracing a pair of disparate and entirely unrelated public political utterances and calling it a Himalaya-like ascendancy of “Christianization”:

There's nothing new, of course, about the Christianization of the GOP. Seven years ago, when debating Al Gore, then-candidate George W. Bush was asked to identify his favorite philosopher and answered "Jesus." This year, however, the Christianization of the party reached new heights with Mitt Romney's declaration that he believed in Jesus as his savior, in an effort to stanch the flow of "values voters" to Mike Huckabee.

How foolish is this. Was the GOP in any way, shape, form, or manner influenced by then candidate Bush’s invocation of Jesus? I remember well the chorus of catcalls and insults from pundits, politicos and other partisans, most along the lines of, “he’s so stupid he can’t think of any,” or “he’s never read philosophy,” so he had to jump at Jesus as a lame alternative.

Evangelicals, mainline Protestants, Christians in name only, those of other faiths, and even agnostics and atheists do in fact often regard Jesus as a philosopher whatever else they think He is or was. But when Bush made that statement, you’d think he’d suggested his favorite philosopher was Popeye.

Note to the religiously ignorant: born again Christians would by definition consider Jesus the most important philosopher to whom to attend. George Bush was perhaps one of the few politicians reckless (or confident enough) to say so.

As to today’s candidate Mitt Romney, one attendant result of his declaration might be a lessening of support for Huckabee and greater support for Romney, but as one of the evangelicals to whom Romney’s speech was specifically targeted, I can tell you that first and foremost the speech was intended to assuage evangelical and other “religious right” voters that a Mormon can be trusted with the Presidency. Romney made the speech for the same reason Kennedy made his. He needed to reassure voters skeptical of the independent-mindedness of a Mormon President, and perhaps as well to confront what some might describe as prejudicial notions of what Mormons claim to believe. (Note that in Kennedy’s case, making the same argument in relation to his Catholicism, that Nixon was hardly some “Christianist” alternative as a Quaker.

Meyerson then confuses Biblical instruction for the individual believer with some kind of Christianity for Government:

But if Bush can conform his advocacy of preemptive war with Jesus's Sermon on the Mount admonition to turn the other cheek, he's a more creative theologian than we have given him credit for.

Ah, that pre-emptive war. A third of Meyerson’s basis for calling the “Christianized” GOP hypocritical. Wasn’t our declaration of war against Germany preemptive? They hadn’t attacked us. Not to dredge up all the arguments along the “road to war,” but there will never be a war that somebody on the Left can call preemptive if they decide there’s no “reason” for it. That’s the point, isn’t it? We should evolve “beyond war.” Just forget about all that Just War nonsense, or any thoughts that WMD make waiting for the “-emptive” alternative to preemption rather costly in human lives and catastrophy.

This stands as one of the more juvenile and uninformed premises for a school of leftist and anti-war dogma dressed up as Theology. Interestingly, you will find few actual believing Christians making this argument. That’s because people who actually study the Bible and believe what it says about God and our duty to God, man, and civil authorities knows there’s a difference between the different audiences. God speaks to individual man, He can influence leaders and Governments and the fate of Nations, but the Bible is for individual people. Turning the other cheek is what a person who is wrongfully treated is to do. It’s not Jesus’s Leadership for Dummies.

Not that Meyerson really would want to know, but Paul in Romans 13 (New International Version) explains:

Submission to the Authorities

1Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. 2Consequently, he who rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves. 3For rulers hold no terror for those who do right, but for those who do wrong. Do you want to be free from fear of the one in authority? Then do what is right and he will commend you. 4For he is God's servant to do you good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword for nothing. He is God's servant, an agent of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer. 5Therefore, it is necessary to submit to the authorities, not only because of possible punishment but also because of conscience. 6This is also why you pay taxes, for the authorities are God's servants, who give their full time to governing. 7Give everyone what you owe him: If you owe taxes, pay taxes; if revenue, then revenue; if respect, then respect; if honor, then honor. (Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society, via Bible Gateway)

No turning of the cheek there. And talk about the need for separation of Church and State, does Meyerson seriously want us to believe that he desires a President to make decisions based on Bible teaching?

I would never argue that non-Christians, or non-practicing Christians, ought not read the Bible, but I do think that they might refrain from quoting authoritatively from the Good Book if they don’t and haven’t studied it. You know, in context, as it applies to life and the world around them.

Meyerson’s second indictment of the GOP relates to Meyerson’s preferred (but hardly universal) definition of torture:

Likewise his support of torture, which he highlighted again this month when he threatened to veto House-passed legislation that would explicitly ban waterboarding.

It's not just Bush whose catechism is a merry mix of torture and piety. Virtually the entire Republican House delegation opposed the ban on waterboarding.

One issue is whether water boarding actually constitutes torture, the other whether such interrogation methods are ever justified. I intend no argument here, as I myself am uncertain on both counts. But I will suggest that taking a position contrary to Meyerson’s on either don’t leave me in jeopardy of eternal damnation. Jesus levels no such indictment in the Bible over the rulers extant in his day, who were surely guilty of gross orders of magnitude worse.

The leader of the free world, quaint notion as it may be now to some, must confront both state and non-state actors who see nothing wrong with beheading journalists and filming it for worldwide consumption, using handicapped children as bomb-carriers, and blowing thousands and someday millions of innocents to dust to advance their aims. They torture their own citizens in ways far more horrible as any even contemplated by military interrogators consider in the face of imminent “ticking time bomb scenarios,” to use the all too realistic expression.

Again, not that Meyerson really cares about whether what he considers torture is biblically supported. He’s like that host of Cheaters, who follows the aggrieved victim of the Cheater around constantly highlighting how terrible the victim has been treated, how awful it is, meanwhile using his faux sympathy to create as much shock television sensation as he can create.

Meyerson reserves his crassest slander for the third part of his indictment, suggesting GOP positions against illegal immigration, for tighter enforcement, or limiting public expenditures as equivalent to slavery or Ku Klux Klan violence.

First, there’s Meyerson’s inexplicable comparison of illegal immigrants in America to the Hebrews in bondage under Pharoah. Right, except for the fact that these immigrants are here by choice, not by force under slavery. Meyerson compares a biblical injunction not to “vex a stranger nor oppress him,” conveniently ignoring companion instructions to force those same strangers to conform to Jewish laws, customs and regulations or be shunned, rejected, ejected, or worse.

Meyerson saves his most venal insults for those who would object to open borders, non-existent immigration law enforcement, amnesty, or unlimited benefits for illegal immigrants. All of course, because to object in any of these ways is to betray racism and bigotry:

The demand for a more regulated immigration policy comes from virtually all points on our political spectrum, but the push to persecute the immigrants already among us comes distinctly, though by no means entirely, from the same Republican right that protests its Christian faith at every turn.

We've seen this kind of Christianity before in America. It's more tribal than religious, and it surges at those times when our country is growing more diverse and economic opportunity is not abounding. At its height in the 1920s, the Ku Klux Klan was chiefly the political expression of nativist Protestants upset by the growing ranks of Catholics in their midst.

It's difficult today to imagine KKKers thinking of their mission as Christian, but millions of them did.

Today's Republican values voters don't really conflate their rage with their faith. Lou Dobbs is a purely secular figure. But nativist bigotry is strongest in the Old Time Religion precincts of the Republican Party, and woe betide the Republican candidate who doesn't embrace it, as John McCain, to his credit and his political misfortune, can attest.

Meyerson is as bigoted as any KKK klansman, and he betrays his hostility towards both Republicans and Christians in refusing to acknowledge any basis for other principled objection to the status quo or efforts to eliminate what few constraints weigh lightly on the flood of illegal immigrants.

One of the darkest ironies exhibited by critics of religious expression or thought of any kind, is that they claim religion immoral because religiosity breeds intolerance. Surely it can and does, quite often among its fiercest foes.

(Via Memeorandum)

Labels: government, media, politics, religion

Labels: debate space, government, intelligence, Iran, Iraq, New York, UN, war on terror

Steve Schippert, posting at The Tank, took note this past week of both the NYPD's study on “homegrown” terror, as well as fellow ThreatsWatch contributor Michael Tanji, describing The Domestic Intelligence Imperative.

The Associated Press (AP) introduces the NYPD report as a comprehensive analysis of the threats and causes of homegrown terror:

The New York Police Department report released Wednesday describes a process in which young men - often legal immigrants from the Middle East who are frustrated with their lives in their adopted country - adopt a philosophy that puts them on a path to violence.

The report was intended to explain how people become radicalized rather than to lay out specific strategies for thwarting terror plots. It calls for more intelligence gathering, and argues that local law enforcement agencies are in the best position to monitor potential terrorists.

NYPD’s Intelligence Division (ID) invested considerable time, effort, and expense in the detailed data gathering and analysis upon which the report is based:

The study is based on an analysis of a series of domestic plots thwarted since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, including those in Lackawanna, N.Y.; Portland, Ore.; and Virginia. It was prepared by senior analysts with the NYPD Intelligence Division who traveled to Hamburg, Madrid and other overseas spots to confer with authorities about similar cases.

The AP also notes growing alarm over the phenomenon of radicalization going on among US prison populations:

Recently, authorities have taken a closer look at radicalization happening in U.S. prisons, where a study last year by George Washington University and the University of Virginia found that Islamic extremists were turning jail cells into terrorist breeding grounds by preaching violent interpretations of the Quran to their fellow inmates.

However disturbing these trends, guests of US prisons are already known threats, and tracked by multiple layers of law enforcement and criminal justice organizations. More ominous still are those potential “sleeper” threats:

The NYPD report warns that more intelligence gathering is needed since most potential homegrown terrorists "have never been arrested or involved in any kind of legal trouble," the study says.

They "look, act, talk and walk like everyone around them," the study adds. "In the early stages of their radicalization, these individuals rarely travel, are not participating in any kind of militant activity, yet they are slowly building the mind-set, intention and commitment to conduct jihad."

Described in several press reports as “dense,” the NYPD report runs 90 pages, and reflects the impressive intelligence analysis capability of New York’s finest. In terms of dedicated resources, senior management support, sophistication, and breadth of analysis, NYPD’s Intelligence Division surpasses all but the most professional Government intelligence services in the world. Surely, they are among America’s finest within the Intelligence Community (IC).

All that praise by way of anticipation of how thorough and comprehensive I expect this report to be. (Also by way of acknowledgement, I haven’t read it in its entirety.) Tanji’s piece at ThreatsWatch proved more digestible.

At a conference sponsored by Intelligence Educators, Larry Sanchez of the NYPD Intelligence Division (ID) briefed about NYPD’s counterterrorism approach. Based on that introduction to the NYPD ID, I will not be at all surprised if the report proves a critical resource within the IC. Likewise, based on what I’ve learned about NYPD’s efforts, those privacy purists who insist on remaining blind to obvious national security interests at a time of war will no doubt read this NYPD report as an ominous indicator of how far we’ve become a Police State in America. These purists will be wrong, as Tanji argues (convincingly, in my view and experience):

The fact of the matter is that the intelligence community is already drowning in a sea of perfectly legitimate and potentially dangerous material associated with foreigners. America’s spies are really not interested in data that is of no use, and that is what the vast majority of personal communications in this country is: useless. Ever listened in (inadvertently of course) to the average conversation of the average 20-something strolling through the mall or airport, on a commuter train or in a coffee shop?

It will of course be argued that no self-respecting Big Brother is going to use his power for that sort of work; it’s the dissidents and opposition that will be targeted. COINTELPRO and CHAOS are offered up as proof as to how far an administration will go to advance its agenda, but for every MLK Jr. that was snooped on, there were dozens or more that belonged to groups like the Weathermen, the Klan, and many other groups hell bent on damaging if not destroying the country. Abuse on a personal level is the exception, not the rule.

The problem we face today with regards to domestic intelligence is in many ways the same problem we have always faced: how do we deal with the enemies that are among us? The solutions to date have proven to be both unimaginative and uninspiring.

Turning our national intelligence apparatus on domestic targets is not difficult from a practical perspective, but the addition of a domestic mission would merely degrade our ability to deal with the foreign missions we already have. Absent legislation that would greatly expand the size of the IC, the community is faced with hiring more contractors and exposing itself to more of the problems that such a strategy brings.

In short, the IC has no desire to read your mail, and the more we do inadvertently, the less time we have to detect, analyze, and target those foreign agents and homegrown terrorists who actually seek to wage war against us and our interests.

But the fight against homegrown and home-based terror is vital. As Schippert reflects:

Michael notes what is often dismissed or unnoted by critics and observers of all stripes: Information overload and its impact on the IC writ large. Even beyond the debate of domestic intelligence, this requires redress and attention. We cannot forget that this conflict is, above all, a war of intelligence — both at home and abroad. The ununiformed and civilian-enmeshed nature of the enemy dictates this reality.

Often forgotten in these debates about terrorism and our military and intelligence efforts against terrorists and their state sponsors, is the fact that our enemies do not abide by the laws of war nor the Geneva Conventions. In any prior era, the proper and fully acceptable method of dealing with out of uniform saboteurs and spies was summary execution by duly activated and directed military authorities.

Nobody’s advocating, nor does NYPD’s Intelligence efforts equate to, anything extrajudicial or martial law. Reasonable, prudent, measured, and specifically targeted counter-terrorism efforts are not only justified, but have long been employed in prior and current efforts against drug dealers, organized crime, and other historical law enforcement challenges.

Labels: government, intelligence, New York, war on terror

Senator Barack Obama says that we are "one signature away from ending this war," making the remarkable statement in the first debate of democrats for the 2008 Presidential Election.

Not to be outdone in the visualize peace exercise, Senator Hillary Clinton repeated her promise, that "if George Bush doesn't end the war, as President, I will."

A central assumption of both of these naive positions is that the US fights "George Bush's war" in isolation. If we weren't there, nobody in Iraq would be blowing people up. If we weren't there, Iraqis would work out there differences. If we weren't there, terrorists would stop being terrorists, or at least, go on to unidentified other targets elsewhere in the world, but in places that we just don't need to worry about either.

You almost get the feeling this is all some made-up war, dreamed up on some ranch in Texas. Heck, the only reason Iraq has erupted in "civil war," to hear Surrender Democrats tell it, was out of spontaneous anger and hostility towards the US presence.

Readers of analysis that is actually informed by facts and reality, of course, know that both Iran and Al Qaeda have gone to extreme lengths to try to ignite a civil war between Sunnis and Shia in Iraq, but they have failed, in places, spectacularly, as we are seeing evidence of now. Sunni tribes and major leaders are turning against Al Qaeda. Shia have exercised amazing restraint in recent months, holding back from serious reprisals against Sunnis, not falling for the bait when terrorists attack Shia sites and neighborhoods. Al Qaeda has even taken to attacking former allies who now line up with the Iraqi Government, further alienating themselves from the Sunnis in Iraq.

People who really want to know what's happening in Iraq, read MILBLOGS, and consult experts like those at Strategy Page, or listen closely to what GEN Petraeus tells us. Not so Congressional Democrats, who skip out on briefings, grossly distort what he says, and declare that if the GEN shares any good news, he's lying.

So we watch Speaker Pelosi make all kinds of self-justifications, asking rhetorically whether this or that is ethical. What I found most interesting, as I do with most hypocrites, is the 180 degree departure from reality in most of her assertions of questionable ethics. Just two easy examples. Every major abuse or instance of wrong-doing in Iraq were identified by military members, investigated and punished by military officials. On the issue of personal and vehcile armor, the military had significant problems at the war's start with OIF I, but reacted quickly and subsequent rotations were adequately armored. So for Pelosi and Clinton to keep harping on armor is dishonest in the extreme -- unless they just want to manufacture scandals or revive old ones for political gain.

Likewise, their colleagues in Congress rehash 3-4 year old scandals, such as the 1 month delay in admitting that Pat Tillman was killed by friendly fire, or blaming the Pentagon for wildly inaccurate reports about PFC Lynch, rather than the media who hyped a story no one admits to creating.

Democrats have written a pathetic chapter in US history, refusing to confront terror with any seriousness, obstructing the President and military, facilitating advancement of the propaganda and strategic objectives of our enemies. And thereby, giving aid and comfort to these same enemies.

I know Democrats go crazy when pro-victory commentators say things like that, but if they could ever view the situation dispassionately, objectively, or consider as foremost the interests of the US, such obstructionist efforts would be viewed differently.

But sadly, George Bush and his Administration officials are more the Enemy to these people than the people who blow up children, slaughter innocents, and terrorize populations.

And that's always what this has been all about.

Labels: government, Iraq, politics, war on terror

Potential Presidential Candidate Fred Thompson steps into the spotlight with radio commentary on the firings of Federal Prosecutors, text up at National Review Online.

Thompson notes the media frenzy, and concludes this:

There was nothing wrong with firing eight U.S. attorneys. Of course the Department of Justice was inept in the way they did it, trying to conceal things that didn’t need to be concealed but the U.S. attorneys, like innumerable other public officials serve at the pleasure of the president. He fired eight of his own appointees apparently because they we not aggressive enough in pursuing voting fraud cases. In 1993 Attorney General Janet Reno rode into town and fired every U.S. attorney in the country but one-all Republican appointees.

Pretty straightforward, from a straightforward man.

Thompson, eh? Worth consideration. Presumably he'd be more likely to be the strong variety of President he seems to think we need.

Labels: government, politics

Labels: government, media, politics

I was just thinking yesterday that the media uproar over the shortcomings of Walter Reed and more broadly within the Veterans Administration (VA) might be a sober lesson on socialized medicine. Then I come across the very same point, made by Mike Pechar at My Pet Jawa.

Mike observes the following:

Even as the alleged deficiencies at Walter Reed hospital are being investigated, politicians and pundits are weighing in with their opinions and, from what I've heard, the primary complaints are mismanagement and lack of funds. Multiply everything being said and the investigative findings a thousand-fold and the result is -- the chaos of a national health care system.

Anybody who’s ever served in the military knows that, of all Government institutions, the military remains the most socialist (as least as Socialism appears in practice versus theory). Highly centralized management, criticism averse, a directive leadership style, and a hide-bound commitment to the status quo and a high resistance to change. Commanders at all levels tend to want to tell you what to think instead of the other way around, and they can tend to want to shoot the messenger who shares “bad news.” I admire those who serve, and I value the many strengths of the institutions involved, but these other characteristics are nonetheless true.

It may well do most things several orders of magnitude better than other Government agencies and institutions, but the military has never done health care as well as its soldiers, marines, sailors, and airmen have deserved.

That isn’t because the people involved don’t care – not the Doctors, or nurses, not the Administrators nor the clerical staff, not the Commanders nor leaders at all levels trying to get the job done. No government organization, constrained by funding on one side, and by excessive regulation on the other – will ever do as good a job as the ideal sum of its parts. Maybe it’s in the nature of any human endeavor, but when you put so many moving parts together, and try to juggle a multitude of purposes and objectives, indulge certain failings but attempt an unrealistic “zero tolerance” in others, these ingredients will inevitably add up to one great big mess.

Mike hits the target squarely on the head. If the military, with only a few million to care for, can’t do the job well, “how can Clinton, Obama, Pelosi, et al., claim that a national health care system for 300,000,000 will do any better?”

And the answer is, of course, that it won’t. But that won’t stop the political Pied Pipers from dancing the universal healthcare jig, and using the opportunity of veteran misfortune to further their aims for a more socialized medicine.

No doubt, as with their private jets, gargantuan mansions, and carbon offsets, these same legislators will no doubt ensure themselves a private form of healthcare for themselves. Separate, but you may wonder if it’s equal.

(Via Mudville Gazette's Dawn Patrol)

Labels: government

Rich Lowry draws the same conclusion from Congressman Murtha’s “slow bleed” anti-war strategy as I did, not that I can claim any great insight, as it’s the only conclusion possible. Lowry describes Murtha’s deceits in National Review Online.

Rep. Murtha, who cannot seem to help himself any more in matters of subtle politics, than he can keep himself or his friends from slurping loudly at the public till, let slip his ulterior motives in a webcast for MoveCongress.org. His Grand Plan involves making a phony show of support for the troops, pretending to continue to let the military fight, but by every means possible to strip away any capability for the military to actually conduct the fight.

As Lowry describes:

Murtha repeatedly says in the webcast that his proposals are meant to “protect” the troops. But he is frank about the not-so-ulterior motive of keeping more troops from heading to Iraq, explaining that “they won’t be able to do the work.” Because his provisions can be sold as guaranteeing the readiness and quality-of-life of the troops, Murtha believes that they “will be very hard to find fault with.”

Here’s why Murtha and his cohorts have crafted their war strategy this particular way:

Just as disturbing is Murtha’s cynical reliance on failure in Iraq as a political strategy. The plan aptly has been described by Politico.com as a “slow-bleed” antiwar strategy. The surge is the best chance of turning the war around. By hampering it, Democrats will ensure that the war continues to fail, and thus that domestic political support for it plummets to the point where Democrats feel safe in defunding it. The subconscious logic of their position on the war has thus taken a subtle turn. It used to be that the war had to end because it was a failure; now it must fail so that it can end.

Democrats don’t see this distinction, since they simply believe the war is irretrievably lost.

Murtha believes – or wants us to believe – that there’s “no military solution in Iraq,” because there’s no real terrorist threat in Iraq. If we leave, Al Qaeda disappears. This would sound pretty astonishing, coming from a government representative, but from the same man who thought we could base a Middle East “quick reaction force” in Okinawa, it’s all of a stripe. He defines “beclowning.”

“It must fail so that it can end.” So the Democrats believe. So that they can “win,” though America must lose. It’s a sacrifice they’re prepared to have us all make on their behalf.

National Review pointed out some other Congressional anti-war idiocy, Senator Carl Levin’s attempts to reauthorize force with so many constraints and obstacles as to make the authorization a de-authorization in disguise:

From last night’s Special Report with Brit Hume:
—On the Democrats and the War—

KRAUTHAMMER: [Sen. Carl Levin] wants to reauthorize the use of force with a new resolution, but it would exclude combat missions. Think about that. Use of force, but it doesn't allow combat. It's an oxymoron; it's intended to make it impossible to conduct the war. Imagine, you'd have to have lawyers around General Petraeus in Baghdad every time he sends out a troop on patrol to decide if it's in a legal support function or if it's an illegal combat mission.

Look, some Democrats think the war is lost. If you think that, the honorable answer is to end the war and Congress has the power to cut off the funds tomorrow. What the Democrats are doing instead is to make the war unwinnable.

Levin would do it with a ridiculous amendment which would authorize force but not combat, and Murtha, in the House, would do it by, as he said, making it impossible for Petraeus to have the troop reinforcements and the command authority to win. So, if you want to end the war, end it, but don't make it unwinnable, which is what various Democratic amendments and propositions are all about.

Making the war unwinnable. That’s the Democrat intent.

Support the troops. Let them win.

Labels: government, Iraq

Jonah Goldberg, posting at The Corner (here and here), highlights the factual basis behind what a lot of military people know intuitively, and goes virtually unrecognized by the media and the public whose trust they so willfully neglect.

We lose no more soldiers in Iraq than we would lose, on average, through training accidents, other accidents, and other causes. In other words, soldiers are no less safe (or no more in danger) in Iraq than they are anywhere else.

Sound incredible? It shouldn’t.

Because our soldiers are in Iraq, they are a target for terrorist attack, just as they are virtually anywhere in the world, and have been for two to three decades. Just as are diplomats, business people, and journalists.

The original impetus for Jonah’s post is what he describes as “a powerful op-ed,” written by Alicia Colon in the NY Sun. More on that article later. Jonah updates his original post, passing on feedback from a reader, providing detail to back up the assertion that more soldiers died from 1993-1996 than have died during the equivalent period from 2003 to present.

Here’s the reader’s contribution:

You asked for more information on military deaths. Here is a table of all military deaths, broken down by cause, over the 25 year period 1980-2004. This includes all active duty and reservists.The gist is that soldiers are more likely to die from accidents than hostile action (combat and terrorist actions combined). The death count from accidents has been lower than the death count from hostile action. The fall in accidental deaths is greater than the increase in deaths by hostile action.Note that there were far more military deaths in 1980, the last year of Carter's presidency, than any year of the current administration. The death rate was, also, higher. This was because of lower standards and less care in training.The bottom line is that we're fighting this war with lower casualties than that expected from normal training accidents in a peacetime army. You should be embarassed that you didn't know this. It's a testiment to the near universal innumeracy and incompetence of the journalism profession that most journalists haven't even seriously considered looking at basic statistics and putting things in context 5 1/2 years after 9/11.

And here's a DOD pdf on death rates.

I can’t say that I’ve seen this data previously, or any such like it, but I have often remarked that I didn’t think we were losing soldiers at much more than the background rate we would, had those same soldiers been training or in a garrison environment.

Partly, this may be due to my prejudice towards always assuming the American Media will always pay attention to the wrong thing, and encourage the public to draw conclusions to those wrong things exactly 180 degrees from what should really be concluded. (Airbags and the scare involving the handfuls of deaths versus the many thousands they prevent is the usual subject for my rantings along these lines.)

But it is helpful to have data to backup what many of us know without seeing the data. We are accomplishing much at very little expense, comparatively, however much we grieve at the loss of many fine Americans who have volunteered to serve and paid the ultimate price.

Which brings me back to Alicia Colon’s fine essay in the NY Sun, Heroes and Cowards.
Here’s how she starts, which ought to shake some political timbers in Washington:

Corporal Thomas Saba was buried in the Moravian Cemetery on Staten Island last Friday. One of seven Marines killed when their helicopter was shot down in Iraq on February 7, Saba, 30, enlisted in the spring of 2002 in response to the attacks of September 11, 2001. He extended his five-year tour by five months so that he could go with his squadron to Iraq.

It is absolutely amazing how America can continue to produce heroes such as Saba while electing cowardly politicians who mock their sacrifices.

Cowardly politicians. Ones on both sides of the aisle, who calculate first the political opportunity or risk to their personal ambitions, before any (if any) consideration of more moral equations.

But in the interest of factual clarity, and in rebuke of the lies Democrats and their craven Republican cohorts in Congress are spreading about Iraq, here’s some data from Colon’s essay (backed up by the data referenced by The Corner and mentioned previously):

The total military dead in the Iraq war between 2003 and this month stands at about 3,133. This is tragic, as are all deaths due to war, and we are facing a cowardly enemy unlike any other in our past that hides behind innocent citizens. Each death is blazoned in the headlines of newspapers and Internet sites. What is never compared is the number of military deaths during the Clinton administration: 1,245 in 1993; 1,109 in 1994; 1,055 in 1995; 1,008 in 1996. That's 4,417 deaths in peacetime but, of course, who's counting?

I am outraged at the blatant lies, misrepresentations, and misreporting that leaves such perspective conspicuously absent in any major reporting about our efforts in Iraq. That all this media malfeasance is prompted by obvious intent to support narrow political agenda and objectives, is beyond outrage. It is as near to treasonous as we will likely ever see in our lifetimes. That Congressmen and women aid, abet, sponsor, and direct these fifth-column-acting-like-fourth-column elements is beyond belief, and completely indescribable.

They will have their Vietnam, Senators Kennedy and Schumer, Speaker Pelosi and her stooge Congressman Murtha, no matter what it takes in betrayal, disloyalty, breaks of faith, dishonor, discredit, or infamy. They are that remnant from the Vietnam era, selfish and self-centered while pretending a giant lie of altruism, who are trying to relive their glory days in a different, 12 September world. As Colon observes:

It is so pathetic now (while we have this valiant volunteer military) to watch these hoary relics of the 1960s trying to recapture the relevance of that period.

Pathetic, and a disgrace to those who serve with honor.

Support the troops. Let them win.

(Cross posted at MILBLOGS)

Linked by Mudville Gazette's Dawn Patrol, and Jules Crittenden also comments on the NY Sun article.

UPDATE: Welcome, Instapundit Readers! Check out the links on the upper left hand side for some Dadmanly background. And if you don't know about MILBLOGS, check us out for lots more discussion and insightly analysis.

Labels: government, Iraq, media

Glenn Reynolds tips us off to PostWatch, who notes that in the history of Washington Post corrections, the one the Post felt compelled to run on their dishonest story on the Pentagon IG Report, , is one-of-a-kind. I reported on this yesterday, it's nice that somebody's made to backtrack today.

As Glenn says, it’s the Mother of All Corrections:

Correction to This Article
A Feb. 9 front-page article about the Pentagon inspector general's report regarding the office of former undersecretary of defense Douglas J. Feith incorrectly attributed quotations to that report. References to Feith's office producing "reporting of dubious quality or reliability" and that the office "was predisposed to finding a significant relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda" were from a report issued by Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) in Oct. 2004. Similarly, the quotes stating that Feith's office drew on "both reliable and unreliable reporting" to produce a link between al-Qaeda and Iraq "that was much stronger than that assessed by the IC [Intelligence Community] and more in accord with the policy views of senior officials in the Administration" were also from Levin's report. The article also stated that the intelligence provided by Feith's office supported the political views of senior administration officials, a conclusion that the inspector general's report did not draw. The two reports employ similar language to characterize the activities of Feith's office: Levin's report refers to an "alternative intelligence assessment process" developed in that office, while the inspector general's report states that the office "developed, produced, and then disseminated alternative intelligence assessments on the Iraq and al Qaida relationship, which included some conclusions that were inconsistent with the consensus of the Intelligence Community, to senior decision-makers." The inspector general's report further states that Feith's briefing to the White House in 2002 "undercuts the Intelligence Community" and "did draw conclusions that were not fully supported by the available intelligence." (Emphasis dadmanly]

The essence of the correction is that Walter Pincus and R. Jeffrey Smith falsely attributed quotes and conclusions to the IG Report, which were actually made by Sen Levin some two and a half years ago. But note in bold italics the extent of “false, but accurate” justification offered by the Post in annotating their correction. (Take out the portions the Post misreported in their original piece and I’m not sure there’s even a story, there.)

An innocent mistake? That strains credibility. How about the alternate and more realistic explanation that Sen. Levin seeded this story to Pincus and Smith, in planned concert with his Senate Hearings?

That’s how the leak and plant game is played, in the Nation’s Capital. Letf wing bias on the part of the media? Hardly. Much more accurate to call it intentional collusion.

Labels: government, Iraq, media

Andrew McCarthy, writing at National Review Online, discusses the hyping of the Pentagon Inspector General (IG) Report, and its retributive value for the Senate majority. Yes, observers in the know have been expecting the Intelligence Games McCarthy describes since Democrat ascendancy. At least they didn’t keep us in suspense for very long.

McCarthy notes reports in the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the International Herald Tribune. At least one version of an Associated Press (AP) version, the one showing up on Yahoo, carries the inflammatory and exaggerated headline “Report says Pentagon manipulated intel.”

I’ve long grown accustomed to AP, Yahoo, and other news service headlines that hype only one side (guess which one) of controversies, but the AP story, as the others mentioned by McCarthy, all carry some amount of DoD or participant rebuttal to either the IG Report, or the extremely slanted characterization of the Report’s conclusions by Senator Carl Levin. No surprise the headlines match the left (Levin) side of the controversy.

And always, the media’s preferred take on controversy leads, with rebuttals or contrasting positions way down in the report. With frequent references to how “long awaited” this report has been, not having been expedited by the previous Congress. As McCarthy remarks, “Long awaited by Democratic Senators Carl Levin and Jay Rockefeller, anyway.”

Sens. Levin and Rockefeller must indeed be salivating over reviving all the Intelligence, National Security, and other Defense related debates they lost when out of power. It’s like one big do-over. Vengeance is mine, sayeth the Majority.

Of course, even the Times can’t hide a hint to a more balanced assessment in it’s lead paragraph:

A Pentagon investigation into the handling of prewar intelligence has criticized civilian Pentagon officials for conducting their own intelligence analysis to find links between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda, but said the officials did not violate any laws or mislead Congress, according to Congressional officials who have read the report. [Emphasis mine.]

Contrary to the distorted reporting in media, and the over the top caricature by Sens. Levin and Rockefeller, the IG Report makes the tepid claim that the more detailed reassessment of Intelligence, undertaken by the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy in the wake of serious Intelligence failings prior to 9/11, was “inappropriate.” And that’s about all it claims. The bureaucratic equivalent of a hissy fit.

Further on, the Times notes a specific criticism in the IG Report:

The inspector general’s report criticizes a July 25, 2002, memo, written by an intelligence analyst detailed to Mr. Feith’s office, titled, “Iraq and al-Qaida: Making the Case.”

The memo said that, while “some analysts have argued” that Osama bin Laden would not cooperate with secular Arab entities like Iraq, “reporting indicates otherwise.”

How inappropriate for Under Secretary Feith to highlight reported ties between bin Laden and Iraq, back when those ties were murky and not well understood, in contrast to what was discovered post invasion! You’d think being right might hold some weight for the IG – and for the Democrats in Congress – but then that would require them to surrender their “Bush Lied!” mythology.

Here’s how McCarthy characterizes the Report’s findings:

The IG’s report concludes that a Pentagon unit which scrubbed existing intelligence about Iraq’s terror ties under the leadership of Doug Feith, then-Undersecretary for Policy, did not mislead Congress. It further finds that neither Feith nor any other Defense officials engaged in wrong-doing. Nevertheless, acting Inspector General Thomas F. Gimble huffs and puffs and contends that Feith’s unit still behaved “inappropriately.”

Why? Because it dared to question that which we now know for a fact was wrong: the Intelligence Community’s assessments about Iraq, and, in particular, the conventional wisdom that secular Saddam and his Baathists would never collude with Islamic fundamentalists.

Let’s leave aside the innumerable known connections between Saddam and Islamic terror—the harbored jihadists; the meetings between top al Qaeda and Iraqi intelligence officials; the $300,000 cash pay-off to Ayman Zawahiri in 1998; the Iraqi intelligence operative who accompanied a jihadist to Pakistan in 1998 to explore the possibility of bombing American and British targets; the Clinton administration’s 1998 bombing of a Sudanese pharmaceutical factory believed to be a WMD venture involving Iraq and al Qaeda; the Clinton administration’s conviction that Iraq offered bin Laden safe-harbor; the presence of an Iraqi intelligence operative at a 2000 Kuala Lampur meeting of terrorists later involved in the U.S.S. Cole and 9/11 attacks, etc., etc., etc.

Let’s say, for argument’s sake, that some or all of these things, and more, never really happened. How many more years does the Sunni resistance in Iraq—Baathists in confederation with jihadists—have to go on before Senator Levin & Co. give up that tired no-connection ghost?

McCarthy likewise derides the Report characterizing Intelligence assessment as “inappropriate,” without much justification other than it went against the consensus of the Intelligence Community at the time. The same consensus which was proved stunningly oblivious to terrorist capabilities prior to 9/11, ignorant of North Korea’s nuclear accomplishments, or getting down to specifics, refuted by finds in Iraq after our invasion that document that Iraq did in fact cooperate with terrorists and directly support and sponsor acts of terror.

It seems to me, that the most glaringly wrong assessment about Pre-War Intelligence lingers in the minds of Congressional Democrats. And oh how much we will be subjected to their continued ignorance!

McCarthy laments that we haven’t really fixed what’s broken in the Intelligence Community, which resists adopting a more “adversarial ethic,” which would allow alternate interpretations and viewpoints to compete with an institutional consensus that has been so stunningly wrong, and often:

The Intelligence Community has never assimilated this healthy adversarial ethic. Thus, we are constantly burned by the unpredicted. Yet the IC’s apologists want it immunized from criticism (especially when it is thoroughly politicized and reliably leaks to undermine a Republican administration) no matter how poorly it performs and no matter how much it gets wrong.

Other commentators weigh in: Powerline, Macsmind, Flopping Aces, Dean's World.
Captain Ed draws a conclusion similar to mine, that this is all “political payback” now that the Dems are in charge.

UPDATE: Looks like I will cross over the 100,000 visits with this post today. I'm flattered that so many have visited. Thanks to all of my readers for their time and attention.

UPDATED UPDATE: Jules Crittenden links and posts on the Pentagon IG Report. He concentrates on the hyperbole of Sen. Levin, focusing on his exaggerated claim that the Report was a "devastating commentary." Thanks for the link, Jules!

Labels: government, Iraq, war on terror

At first I thought this might be a post exclusively targeted to New Yorkers. Then I realized that of all people, New Yorkers know everything I’m about to say quite well. Consider this a primer on New York politics for those fortunate enough to live elsewhere.

The Citizens of New York live under Dictatorship, and have for quite some time.

Oh, it’s quite benevolent, as Dictatorships go, with an organizational structure which conceals the tyranny. But it’s a Dictatorship, all the same.

New York is ruled by a triumvirate of Potentates, with varying powers, but with every power of the State divvied up between the three. Only the most naïve of New Yorkers believes that when they go through the charade of electing State Senators and Assemblypersons, they are actually gaining representation.

Sure, they do get to vote for the Governor and several Statewide positions. But as we’ve witnessed with the outrageous appointment by Assembly Leader Sheldon Silver of a wholly unqualified candidate for State Comptroller, that doesn’t translate into power. As the former Governor quite ably demonstrated, the position of Governor of New York is a lesser Power than his fellow Dictators of the Triumvirate. Besides, the Governor will likely spend his days in office filling his troth, luxuriating his political benefactors, and most seriously of all, grandstanding every opportunity to position himself for a shot at National Recognition and position.

And really, do New York citizens really get to choose their Governor, or do the State Democrats and GOP work the deals out in advance, after some kingmaker like Alphonse D’Amato decides who the candidates should be? I mean, who really wanted George Pataki for 12 years? But was there any other serious alternative, other than self-funded independents? One should note that Governor Spitzer waited until Pataki stepped down to run, and his election race was likewise a cake walk against no serious opposition. It seems the two Parties like their Dictatorship just fine the way it is, only now, it’s the Democrats who get to pretend they run the State through elected officials, rather than lifetime incumbency appointment.

Senate Leader Senator Joseph Bruno is currently under investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), details not disclosed, but even nominally clued in columnists can catalog a fair list of conflicts of interest, patronage and nepotism abuses.

Between the Governor, Bruno, and Silver, all State matters are decided. Bruno and Silver brook no contest or defiance to their absolute authority, and any rebellions, such as was attempted in 2000, are severely punished. To get anything accomplished, the Governor must kowtow to the all powerful Leaders of the State Houses. That doesn’t mean we the people, in any way, shape, form or manner. We might as well elect dogs and cats to sit in chambers, since only Bruno and Silver get to decide on anything. They’d make less of a mess, no doubt, and we wouldn’t have to worry about them getting arrested or driving drunk.

I suppose if you are a resident of the County of Rensselaer, or reside within the 64th Assembly District in lower Manhattan, the effects of living under tyranny don’t seem harmful or unpleasant. Live anywhere else in the aptly named Empire State, and you don’t have any representation in State Government.

For those who would accuse me of regional bias, it’s true, I live upstate, some miles west of the Hudson, which means I don’t benefit from the largesse of The Royal Joe, who stands out as premier among the latest trend for self-serving politicos to create giant Monuments to themselves while still serving in office. Used to be, you had to at least be retired, if not dead, but how can you bask in the self-adulating glow of that?

Newly elected Governor Eliot Spitzer is widely praised for his honesty and ethics, and all commentators loudly utter sighs of relief or plaintiff calls for salvation from this anticipated White Knight, who will clean up corruption and abuse of power. So the fable goes.

Silly people. Look no further than the selection of the new Comptroller by Emperor Silver, or the status quo budget proposed by the Governor, to see how likely any meaningful change will be.

If you say, “If you hate it so much, why don’t you move?” The answer is, if I didn’t have a child firmly established within the best Public School system in the State, I would. I should note that everything great about this school system, would be great without any state assistance whatsoever. Parents and community make this system what it is. So don’t tell me I’m benefiting from what I deplore, or biting the Royal Hand that feeds me, because it just isn’t so.

We have the highest taxes in the Nation, a continually growing state budget and Mommy State bureaucracy, and a population fully lulled into oblivious slumber. My fellow citizens are far more enraged about phantom, mythical usurpations of terrorist civil liberties, than the highly visible, very real abrogation of citizen rights within their own communities. They are taxed without representation, and every new power vested in Government adds ever more to the balance due. But it’s all about Iraq and that evil George Bush.

I’m with local radio host Paul Vandenberg, who may get a little unhinged sometimes. But not today, when he stated, that for the costs we’ve invested in Iraq, if we succeed, we will gain tremendously more benefit than what the Democrats propose. Years of living with the unintended consequences of the Welfare State should have fully demonstrated to New Yorkers, that in the end, we will never gain by yielding to all those pent up Democrat demands for ever more control, ever more services, ever more protection from any possible vicissitude of life.

And, I suppose, part of me thinks the State might be worth saving from Tyranny. But it would be nice to see somebody other than Tories, speaking up.

I direct your attention to an outstanding essay, covering much the same ground I have here, but with more facts and less emotion. (What can I say, I blog.)

The essay pleads, Help Us, Governor Spitzer!, and was written by Nicole Gelinas in the latest City Journal. I’ll try to follow up with another post on it, it’s an excellent survey of the sorrowful state of the State. Though I don’t retain any hope that the new Governor will be any more helpful than the last.

Labels: government, New York

(A continuation from Part One: Oversight, forming a two-part manifesto on misplaced attention and misguided action.)

Government bureaucracy waddles resplendently, with numerous examples of oversight for the sake of little more than demonstration of “public concern” or “protection of public safety.”

For better or worse, I have consulted most regularly in recent years within State Government. I have seen the many historical layers of multiple bureaucracies, and have grown adept at seeing the layers much as an archaeologist sees the demarcations between stratum deposits.

At the most ancient layers, one sees the remnants and artifacts of FDR’s New Deal, such as Social Security and Central Bank, financial institution, and stock market-related regulatory constructs. World War Two and the hotter portions of the Cold War generated many national security, Intelligence, and military related government components.

Within more recent layers, one can find the origins of the Great Society: primarily evidenced by great expansion of social services and public welfare, health and other human service organizations, but likewise adding significant apparatus for the protection, enhancement, and preservation of Civil Rights. A subsequent generation of Government Activism against Activism pared some of these accretions, but far less than intended or supposed. Even the widely admired Welfare Reform generated as much government process and procedure as it purported to eliminate, and added its own legislation or regulatory debris within government organizations.

Do you think I exaggerate? Talk to any knowledgeable IT department manager with decades of experience in Federal and State Government. If they’re honest and forthright, they could regale you for hours with stories of adding yet one more PC to a bureaucrat’s desktop, the result of an initiative that wanted a new system but refused to integrate with or adapt the already existing ones. That’s just a PC-based symptom of what happens with entire agencies, where “task forces” become Executive Branch working groups, become Authorities or Offices, or if they’re really well endowed, Agencies.

With no explicit or implicit obligation to work with, fix, or adapt what already exists, each new initiative creates its own structure, tools, and processes. Earlier versions most often remain intact, and a certain amount of redundancy and overlap is built in by design. Constituencies develop around the bureaucracies, both if terms of the special interests served, but also by civil service legions, and the political opportunists who view each new initiative as their ticket up and onward.

The Military itself can be at times a paragon of bureaucratic bloat and accretion, when not challenged and confronted by grenade throwers like recently departed Secretary Rumsfeld. I often noted how each new field grade command needed to completely reverse or fundamentally change some process or command structure. If decentralized, the push was to centralize. If centralized, then one could expect decentralization. Some elder leader way back when told me, such reorganizations were undertaken to justify the Legion of Merit as an End of Tour Award for certain field grades. I couldn’t say, as I never saw such citations, but I saw the repetitive cycles enough to see them coming, with each iteration entirely predicted by whatever would reverse or undo whatever had been before.

Civilian Governmental bureaucracies are somewhat different, if for no other reason than their finances are so much less constrained by the reality of war, which from time to time brings sanity to the military. Blowing stuff up and killing people tends to bring reality into sharp focus, for losses must be replaced, and often explained. Hindsight is 20/20 as they say, and even though lives are often at stake, the very process by which combat is waged is an excellent means of generating feedback, revealing strengths, and exposing vulnerabilities. Civilian Government bureaucracies rarely experience such revelation.

That Government might at times be chastened by the requirements of war, is perhaps the best justification for insisting on a Government-wide wartime posture in times of, well, war. I think that helped us immeasurably in WWII, in constraining the activist impulse, or over-husbanding the bacon.

But for some time now, the Politician must show action and accomplishment, achievement and influence. It doesn’t matter that the last really necessary change in law happened in the 1960’s with Civil Rights legislation, and even that merely echoed laws that were on the books, but ignored. (An aside: One could even make the argument that the Constitution and original Bill of Rights ought to have set sufficient precedent for everything that was to follow, but over-interpretation of those documents suggests we may never see an end to new “rights” and privileges from an activist government.)

Politicians by temperament and political necessity seek brand new “opportunities” for Government attention and operation. If these same opportunities carry companion indulgences for political cronies, contributors, fellow travelers, rogues and thieves, well all the better!

Eventually, even the most bloat-happy of pork-meisters run out of ideas for new departments and mechanisms of public service. This happens particularly and peculiarly when the two political parties, in effect, pretty much share the same views on substantive public policy issues -- if not publicly, privately. In this instance, the adept Politician must find the issue for which he or she may become the Champion.

Politicians strenuously avoid irrelevancy by latching on to current events, and thereby generate government process out of whole cloth.

Entire Agencies and Departments of Federal and State governments created in response to perceived emergencies and issues, with no real purpose, no ability to fundamentally affect the issue or its component causes, or are otherwise completely redundant to already in place processes, that would deal adequately with the issue under scrutiny.

There exist no sunset provisions on bureaucracy, though they should. No law should be allowed to take effect without an automatic retirement provision (with or without review).

In the example of hate crime legislation: declaring certain crimes “extra bad,” making “extra punishments,” or creating the potential for what could otherwise be construed as double jeopardy, for things that are already criminalized behavior.

Senator Chuck Schumer smells an issue with sensational media reports about E Coli at Taco Bell, and immediately he wants to call for special tracking of all wholesale produce. No matter that the FDA already handles food inspection, let’s have another Agency! More patronage jobs for our Party Friends! More regulations, as if businesses weren’t already being slowly strangled. This, despite a starkly aggressive tort litigation industry that must already be shilling for volunteers for the “Got Sick, Now Get Paid” gravy train of litigation against Taco Bell’s owners.

Notice that these same politicos calling for more oversight, extra layers of “Defense” against “corporate wrongdoing” don’t have the same stomach for regulating trial lawyers or class action extortionists. No doubt, that couldn’t have anything to do with big contributions from Trial Lawyers, Class Action Law Firms, etc.

Funny how Big Government can never be so big or intrusive enough in squatting on top of the people who really create wealth and economic prosperity – corporations – while never seeing a legal abuse they’re willing to curtail. Businesses create jobs. Lawsuits do create a small number of jobs, for attorneys, surely, a multitude more paralegals. But Businesses create many orders of magnitude more.

That surely must explain why one Party in America is preferred by Business, while the other Party is preferred by Lawyers. If we came down on both with equal rigor, I might not find it so unfair. But as it stands, I’d vote with Shakespeare, “First, kill all the lawyers.”

However true may or may not be that characterization, I do not mean this to be an indictment of one Party and deference to the other, as I would echo Shakespeare also in this: “A pox on both your houses.” Both stand convicted of misplaced attention and misguided action.

“Petition to the King” ‘twas ever thus, and we’ve merely traded the elaborate ornamentation of the Regent’s palace for the K Street tramplings of the modern political lobbyist. That does not mean we are necessarily condemned to suffer these fools in perpetuity.

Are they inevitable? Certainly with the current two party system, absence of meaningful term limitation, and no structural requirement to eliminate or replace more bureaucracy for every newly proposed construct. Voters are lazy, their elected representatives lazier still. They vote what they perceive as their pocketbook, but the money never makes its way back to the vast majority of them, but rather only to those who pose in their place and pocket their benefits.

My experience as a soldier in Iraq taught me many things of lasting value. In fact, my deployment for OIF III was the mechanism by which God taught me how to define value itself: for me, my soldiers, my family, my community, my nation, and the world we all inhabit.

Life is precious, but short, and we none of us know the day or time that our fleeting time here on earth will be at an end. There is much, much more that could be done, than ever we attempt. We all too often pay most attention to the wrong things; and when we take action, we do so too frequently in error, confounding our expectations. It should surprise us not at all if our Government acts the same way, although we wish they had more foresight, and took a more principled responsibility for policy outcomes.

Rather than despair, I think this gives us reason to pause and consider. We need to revisit the objects of our attention, focus or refocus as required, and consider what end results we really wish to see. Only then, can we properly evaluate potential courses of action and their effectiveness, anticipate likely outcomes and unintended consequences, and then, discuss amongst ourselves.

Sounds like a lot of work. We better get busy.

Labels: government, pork

Labels: government, pork