Damned If You Do ...

(Cartoon by Kevin Siers published in the Charlotte Observer 6/5/14 and featured at McClatchy DC.  Click on image to enlarge and then please return.)

There are times I actually feel sorry for President Obama.  He keeps getting blindsided by controversy.  Usually, the controversy is exacerbated (if not directly caused) by his administration's bungling and/or opacity, but he should have learned by now that presidenting-while-black is all the excuse his detractors need.  He needs to show some sense.

Still, this latest fiasco involving the swap of five Taliban prisoners being held in Gitmo for Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl is a bit over the line, even by this country's low standards.  For an allegedly Christian nation, this place seems to be suffering a severe shortage in compassion. 

From McClatchy DC:

From military forums across the country, a groundswell of anger is rising over the Obama administration’s silence on perhaps the most controversial question surrounding the deal that freed Bergdahl in exchange for five senior Taliban members: Was he a deserter? ...

Military-related blogs, Twitter accounts and Facebook pages were filled with screeds from commenters accusing Bergdahl of being a “traitor” or a Taliban “collaborator.” The online publication The Daily Beast published a nearly 2,000-word first-person account by a former Army infantry officer who said he was privy to details of Bergdahl’s disappearance and who stated flatly that “he was a deserter, and soldiers from his own unit died trying to track him down.” ...
 
Michael Waltz, who as an Army major commanded U.S. Special Forces in eastern Afghanistan at the time Bergdahl disappeared, said the sergeant deserted and shouldn’t have been accorded POW status.

“He just walked off after guard duty and wandered into the nearby village,” Waltz told McClatchy in an interview Monday. “This guy needs to be held accountable when the time is right, of course. Every American deserves to come home. I’m happy for his family. But he needs to be held accountable.”   [Emphasis added]

Ironically, Major Waltz was being more sensible than he realized when he noted that every American deserves to come home.  EVERY American.  If there are claims he deserted or collaborated, then let the military justice system investigate and try him.  Here.

And as for the kvetching about the release of the five Taliban prisoners as part of the deal, I say, "put a cork in it."  I want all the prisoners and "detainees" released from that hell hole and Guantanamo Bay closed . ALL of them.  It's time to return to our obligations under international law and to use diplomacy rather than bomb-carrying drones.

Amen.

Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2014/06/02/229148/anger-explodes-over-treatment.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2014/06/02/229148/anger-explodes-over-treatment.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2014/06/02/229148/anger-explodes-over-treatment.html?sp=/99/200/111/&ihp=0#storylink=cpy

Not So Funny

(Click on image to enlarge and then please return.)

No week is complete without a Horsey cartoon and column.  Unfortunately, this edition is a deadly serious one and has Mr. Horsey very concerned, as we all should be.

Kim Jong Un is an absurdly comical figure. If he were not holding the fate of millions of people in his hands, the North Korean dictator would provide us all with nothing but laughs.

He runs a country that, thanks to the ruinous communist policies of his father and grandfather, is an economic basket case where mass starvation is always as close as tomorrow.

He has almost no friends in the world, except for the similarly outcast nutcases that run Iran. His closest allies, the Chinese, are so disgusted with him that they have signed on to United Nations sanctions against his country.

And yet, Kim acts as if he is master of a mighty nation, not king of a hermit kingdom that survives only by imprisoning its people in an Orwellian alternative reality. ...

It has always been assumed that North Korean leaders rattled sabers now and then simply to solidify their own power by stirring up the patriotic passions of their captive people. As warlike as they may have sounded, the old leaders generally did not seem crazy enough to provoke a war with the United States in which their regime would almost certainly be toppled.

The new Kim, surrounded by a huge army and a horde of sycophants, may not understand the precariousness of his position. Living amid a Stalinist fantasy as he does, Kim might actually think war would be a glorious fulfillment of his own exalted purpose on the planet, instead of a horrific, blood-soaked end to his family’s wicked dynasty.
It would be gratifying to see the pudgy-faced punk of Pyongyang meet an ignominious end. Unfortunately, it is not likely to happen without a cruel war that would be disastrous for Koreans, both North and South.   [Emphasis added]

It is that last sentence quoted that is so devastating.  In the past, the war-like tirades usually issued when North Korea wanted something:  food for its starving citizens, even just a little attention from the rest of the world.  Kim Jong Un seems to be operating under a different agenda, one that could provoke serious devastation to both Koreas and instability in that region.

Some really sophisticated diplomatic maneuvering is going to be required by the rest of the world, particularly by the US.  Secretary of State Kerry and Defense Secretary Hagel will have to make it clear to "the new Kim" that in the real world, there is no way he can prevail.  Member nations of the United Nations will also have to be convinced to bring diplomatic pressure on the current North Korean regime.

And, somehow, we will have to make certain that the wacky base of the Republican Party doesn't take up the war chant I fear will emanate shortly.

Post Platonic Retreat

Ever wonder what the architects of the disastrous administration of George W. Bush administration are doing these days? Well, one of them, John R. Bolton, is currently a Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute (no surprise there). He also penned this op-ed piece for the Los Angeles Times, the contents of which are also not surprising.

Mr. Bolton's subject is President Obama's foolish policy with respect to Iran, foolish in Mr. Bolton's eyes because the president has determined that "negotiation" is inferior to what the neocons found to be so useful in foreign policy -- missiles and bombs.

But it is the president's underlying policies that are wrong, not just his rhetoric. Saying that he does not want the "debate" inside Iran to be about the United States is disingenuous at best. Obama's real objective is to launch negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program, in the belief that he can talk Iran out of its 20-year effort to acquire deliverable nuclear weapons. He said it during the 2008 campaign, during his inaugural address and repeatedly thereafter.

Viewed in the light of this near-religious obsession with negotiation, Obama's reticence is entirely understandable: He does not want to jeopardize the chance to sit with the likes of Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad or the Islamic Revolutionary Guard.

In fact, everything we know about the regime indicates that Iran, and the Revolutionary Guard in particular, will never voluntarily give up its nuclear program, so Obama's policy is doomed to failure. (Inevitably, of course, if negotiations start, Obama would change the definition of success to include accepting a "peaceful" Iranian uranium- enrichment program, which means Tehran would retain its "breakout" capability to quickly produce nuclear weapons -- but exploring this further Obama failure has to wait for another day.)

Accordingly, it is Obama's policy errors, not his rhetorical ones, that should be opposed. Rhetoric itself is not policy but only the adjunct of policy, albeit often an important one. Obama's reticence reflects his larger misjudgment -- the dangerous misconception that there is a negotiated solution to Iran's nuclear threat that can satisfy both Iran and the United States. ...

Obama's policy, and that of the United States, should be the overthrow of the Islamic revolution of 1979. The massive resistance to the June 12 elections is just another fact supporting that conclusion. ...

...Obama wants negotiations with Tehran, not regime change. Given that the Revolutionary Guard and the hard-line mullahs -- and not the people -- are increasingly likely to be the short-term winners of the current Battle for Iran, supporters of regime change must now make longer-term plans. [Emphasis added]

"Overthrow," "regime change": where have we heard that before? Iraq, maybe?

Here's what we got from that approach to the world: thousands of dead and wounded American soldiers and hundreds of thousands of dead and wounded Iraqis later, we're still mired in Iraq. Our economy is in shambles, and we're stuck with an off-budget war paid for on the national credit card that will take a generation to pay off. Our military, stretched beyond its capacity, will take nearly that long to fully recover, even with the recruitment of thirty-somethings to fill the gaps left by a war we're stuck with for at least another couple of years. All because some cowboys in Washington were looking for an excuse to get their war on.

We've seen what "regime change" costs. It's time to see what real diplomacy can accomplish.

[Note: the article has a side bar poll on the issue, one that is crudely phrased. A little "freeping" is still in order.]

The Phone Ringing at 2 A.M.

With the same insouciance it showed in wiping out statues of the Buddha that far predated its sway in Afghanistan, the Taliban is sweeping out local authorities in Pakistan after getting its way. The new and untested government of Pakistan made the effort to survive by giving up territory; does that have a familiar ring? In WWII it was Nevil Chamberlain's policy, and it didn't work.

The sudden action of the Taliban has a chilling resemblance to the Third Reich's moves swiftly and mercilessly into territory in Europe, and the character of the Taliban has much resemblance to that earlier regime.

Taliban fightersspilling out of the Swat Valley have swept across Buner, a district 60 miles from Islamabad, as Hillary Clinton warned the situation in Pakistan now poses a "mortal threat" to the security of the world.

The US secretary of state told Congress yesterday that Pakistan faced an "existential" threat from Islamist militants. "I think the Pakistani government is basically abdicating to the Taliban and the extremists," she said. Any further deterioration in the situation "poses a mortal threat to the security and safety of our country and the world", she said.

In Buner, Taliban fighters occupied government buildings, ransacked the offices of aid agencies and ordered aid employees to leave. Fighters brandishing guns and rocket launchers patrolled villages, forcing beleaguered local police to retreat to their stations. Local courts have stopped functioning and judicial officials have gone on indefinite leave.

When governments fall suddenly before military might, the countries of the world need to act. Of course, the U.S. is totally out of its depth here, because our military has been stripped of its power and wasted in illegitimate and unproductive warfare by the minions of the right wing over eight years just ended by their ouster. We are that pitiful, helpless giant that Nixon liked to refer to when he wanted to frighten the weakminded into ceding him ever more power. Sadly, that is a tactic that is wrongheaded, and leads to selfdestructive behavior. That self destruction has proceded so far that we are in real danger this time.

We are seeing the beginnings of a return to world friendships through the President's diplomatic overtures to that estranged community, but will those beginnings lead to enough support for the dangers the previous maladministration has brought on us?

We are about to find out.

Newpolitiks

One area that exhibits right wing incapacities quite ferociously is the ability to negotiate and cooperate with other nations. There was no feeling of participation in the world of nations in the previous maladministration. A particular onus was put on the non-Christian world, perhaps most cogently expressed by its threats that had no effect on nuclear developments in Iran and N.Korea.

Today a post on the former Veep Cheney in NYT (h/t to Dan Froomkin) recalled his leaden feet on the very important accelerator that he just couldn't operate. The impression remaining of those fumbles showed up in remarks by the UN's atomic energy supervisor on wrongheadedness that left the U.S. helpless to influence Iran in its development of nuclear power.

For Mohamed ElBaradei, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, 'a combination of ignorance and arrogance' under the Bush administration squandered countless diplomatic opportunities with Iran and so allowed it to forge ahead with its nuclear program. Referring twice to Dick Cheney as 'Darth Vader,' ElBaradei told me in an interview that 'U.S. policy consisted of two mantras — Iran should not have the knowledge and should not spin one single centrifuge. They kept saying, wait, Iran is not North Korea, it will buckle. That was absolutely a mistake.

The intractable ignorance displayed by the former oilmen who gained control of the White House for eight years is quickly being remedied by President Obama. He has shown the kind of attitude that could have led to positive relationships - relationships whose loss has occasioned the direct outcome of blind aggression, rabid counter aggression. The resounding success in ending the weekend's piracy episode has been a heartening betokening of newfound ability to handle, rather than exploit, crises.

Problematic situations throughout the world have received only snarling offensiveness for eight years. Beginnings are overdue in developing a diplomatic environment that can foster our own interests for a change.

Countless opportunities have been smashed by the antagonism of the war criminal approach by our thankfully ex-executive branch. Now its time to pick up the pieces. With controlled competence the new standard, we are much more secure.

A Change In Tone

So, what's Vice President Joe Biden been up to? It's not like the voluble Biden to be on the sidelines, quietly biding his time. Unlike his predecessor Dick Cheney, the new Veep likes the limelight, likes to talk in front of crowds, likes to be where the action is. Well, that's where he was this weekend, this time at a security conference in Munich, Germany, and what he had to say at that conference made a whole lot of people breathe just a little easier.

Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. said Saturday that the United States will pursue a missile defense plan that has angered the Kremlin, but he also left open the possibility of compromise on the issue and struck a more conciliatory tone than the Bush administration on relations with Russia.

“It is time to press the reset button and to revisit the many areas where we can and should be working together with Russia,” Mr. Biden said in a speech at a security conference here attended by global leaders and diplomats. ...

Some Western diplomats had expected Mr. Biden to announce a strategic review of the planned missile defense system as a way to defuse tensions between Washington and Moscow. Although Mr. Biden did not go that far, he did leave room in both the speech — and an interview afterward — for unspecified changes in the plan put forward by the Bush administration. [Emphasis added]

In his speech he also reiterated President Obama's campaign promise that this administration would talk to Iran, but he also made it clear that the US will continue to take a hard line stance on the issue of Iran's development of nuclear weapons.

All in all, it was the right kind of signal to send. The past administration wasn't one for consulting with anyone, allies or enemies. It simply made a decision and then put the plan into play, the rest of the world be damned. Real diplomacy was eschewed as a form of weakness, and the PNAC boys weren't having any of that, by golly. The new administration has made it clear, and it comes across plainly in Vice President Biden's speech, that those days are over. The US will consult with its allies and will talk with those with whom we have a disagreement.

Although I am opposed to the foolish missile defense system as nothing more than a bit of wienie wagging and a boon to the military-industrial complex, I do understand the elaborate dance going on with Russia and with Iran. Both countries are testing President Obama, and now is not the time for the new president to look like a cautious wimp. For that reason, the deliberate ambiguities in Vice President Biden's speech are certainly understandable.

It was also nice to have the Vice President out in plain view for all the world to see and hear. That's quite a difference in itself, but then it's hard to imagine Joe Biden being happy locked up in a bunker at an undisclosed location, or holding secret meetings with oil executives. He likes to talk too much.

Promising Beginnings.

The appearance of President-elect Obama on This Week was disappointing only because he didn't declare that in nine days we will be able to prosecute the war criminals in the White House. He also didn't rule it out.

PRESIDENT-ELECT BARACK OBAMA: "We're still evaluating how we're going to approach the whole issue of interrogations, detentions, and so forth. And obviously we're going to look at past practices. And I don't believe that anybody is above the law. On the other hand, I also have a belief that we need to look forward as opposed to looking backwards. And part of my job is to make sure that for example at the CIA, you've got extraordinarily talented people who are working very hard to keep Americans safe. I don't want them to suddenly feel like they've got to spend all their time looking over their shoulders and lawyering up.

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: "So no 9/11 Commission with independent seeking of power?"

OBAMA: "Well we have not made any final decisions but my instinct is for us to focus on how do we make sure that moving forward, we are doing the right thing. That doesn't mean that if somebody has blatantly broken the law, that they are above the law. But my orientation's going to be to move forward," Obama said.

STEPHANOPOULOS: "So let me just press that one more time. You're not ruling out prosecution, but will you tell your Justice Department to investigate these cases and follow the evidence where it leads?"

OBAMA: What I -- I think my general view when it comes to my attorney general is that he's the people's lawyer. Eric Holder's been nominated. His job is to uphold the Constitution and look after the interests of the American people. Not be swayed by my day-to-day politics. So ultimately, he's going to be making some calls. But my general belief is that when it comes to national security, what we have to focus on is getting things right in the future as opposed to looking at what we got wrong in the past."

First,as I have said here before, we have to get a functioning Justice Department. I wish as much as anyone that it was simple. I want probably more than any of you that the law had never been undermined, broken, made meaningless. I have been sick to see things accomplished by the fine and wonderfully dedicated people I worked with, saw defeated politically because they stood on principle, be subverted by the vile thugs in the occupied White House. I am very comfortable that the new administration knows what it has to do, and that it is doing that in the best fashion. It will be obstructed at every turn. They are digging in and doing the first steps, and it isn't easy. After returning our constitution, they can start eliminating the worst crimes, and criminals. What I see is very encouraging.

After we reinstitute Constitutional government, we can prosecute criminals. While it would be nice to come out swinging, that won't work.

In order to get laws passed, you have to get the votes. Diane refers to the process as grinding sausage, and that's sometimes what it looks like. If we were all honest upstanding citizens it would be easy. Sorry, that's just not the case. Or even casings (to use sausage language).

Cheneyism

The papers are full of advice to President-elect Obama, and much of it is downright funny. This morning I started reading the following op-ed from an Iranian expert and soon enough I was finding the advice was to let them starve. Darth Cheney is an Iranian expert? you may be asking.

This appalls me, that the writer assumes we would be delighted at the approach that would develop a problem for a whole population as if our advantage were the only factor involved. May I offer this advice to President-elect Obama. The previous occupied White House had an attitude of Eat The Poor. It would very much behoove this country to show that that is not representative of our country.

A bevy of foreign policy experts are pressing President-elect Barack Obama to move quickly on his promise to "engage in aggressive personal diplomacy" with Iran.

He would be better off first taking a long, deep breath and allowing Iran's economic crisis to take its toll on the mullahs before getting down to serious business.

The political landscape has shifted dramatically in Iran in the past few months, handing the United States policy options that it hasn't had since the 1979 revolution. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's populist expenditure policies, coupled with the unprecedented collapse of the oil market, have driven Iran into an economic tailspin. The result is that Iran is more vulnerable to focused economic sanctions than it has been in 30 years.
(snip)
But it's lower oil prices that are really squeezing Tehran. A decline in prices to the $30-$40 range for a year or two would be catastrophic for the regime: Either the poor would have to go without basic necessities, or cronies would have to be heavily taxed.

Well, whoop-ti-doo. Just the ticket. Bring it on. I do not wish to use those and other inane comments, relating to using catastrophe to work our will, as if that were a good thing. The attitude that our national will is the only consideration in international affairs has made us into the most hated nation. It is definitely time for change we can believe in.

The sort of advice that is offered depends on a whole executive branch of evil war criminals, the kind we can celebrate departs in twenty-eight days. Good riddance.

Terrorism, Administration Aiming Weapon at Itself

I have listened over the course of a few afternoons in Dallas Federal Court to a complete perversion of our court systems to harass Muslim charities. The trial is one of several attempts by our Justice Department to connect longtime charities with terrorism. Previous ones have all failed.

I was not at all surprised, after this experience, to hear about an ongoing bungling operation in the Middle East, the designation of a group as terrorists for totally political reasons. The group is protected by our military, while it is called terrorist by our occupied White House. This country is a laughing stock throughout the world for the ignorance of its foreign policy.

The MEK, Mujahideen-e Khalq, was designated as terrorist in 1997 in the course of an attempt to initiate warmer political relationships with Iran. They have been used against the government of Iran, and protected as an ally, although their designation as terrorists continues. The situation is as full of ludicrous use of our powers internationally as is the prosecution of the Holy Land Foundation. It looks like one more indication that ignorance in the executive branch has prevented this country from formulating a rational, operative foreign policy.

An episode on Frontline, Showdown With Iran, (10/23/2007) included interviews with longtime active Middle Eastern correspondents and U.S. government officials concerning MEK. The following delineates the problem in its present form, an interview with Alireza Jafarzadeh, Former spokesman, National Council of Resistance - the organization of those resisting the present government in Iran.

The Iranians officials told us that in the meetings in Baghdad they laid out what they said was evidence that the MEK was providing intelligence to the U.S. military. Are they?

The Mujahideen-e Khalq have been providing information about the Iranian regime's operations both in terms of their terrorist operation and their nuclear weapons program in open, public press conferences to the whole world. ...

... What I'm asking is more specific. Are they, to your knowledge, having discussions about intelligence of what Iran is doing inside Iraq?

I think the Mujahideen-e Khalq in Camp Ashraf, to the best of my knowledge, are having discussions about the security of Iraq which directly affects their own situation, their own security in Ashraf, as well as the security of Iraqis, as well as the security of the Americans who are present there. ...

... I'm talking about knowledge of what Iran is doing inside Iraq. Are they discussing that directly with U.S. officials?

I'm not aware of all the details of their discussions. But I know in general the Mujahideen-e Khalq in Camp Ashraf have been meeting with the U.S. military officials, the United States officials in that country dealing with the situation of their own security and dealing with the issue of their own protected rights. ...

... [How do you respond to the allegations that the MEK is a terrorist organization and that it killed American citizens in the 1970s?]

This is absolutely false. Not only the Mujahideen have denied this, they have been very up front saying that those six American servicemen who were killed at the time of the shah some 30 years ago were killed in the hands of some elements who had infiltrated and staged a coup d'etat within the organization at the time that the organization was under tremendous pressure by the shah. And those individuals also killed the Mujahideen-e Khalq members as well as those Americans. So this organization is not responsible for the acts of people who went their own way and killed the members of this organization, and they also condemned it at that time. ...

[Why do you think, then, that the MEK is on the State Department's list of terrorist organizaions?]

... The terrorist designation of the Mujahideen-e Khalq back in 1997, only weeks after [former President Mohammad] Khatami took office as the new moderate president of the Iranian regime, was a clear political move on the part of the State Department, as a goodwill gesture to Tehran. In fact, the Clinton administration officials are on the record ... that the designation was meant to open up relations between the United States and the Khatami government at that time. And there was no justification whatsoever for that designation.

Plus the fact that all the members of the military structure of the Mujahideen-e Khalq, which the [U.S.] Army had in Camp Ashraf in Iraq, were subjected to 16 months of detailed investigation, and not even one single person could be charged with terrorism. So the question is, where are the terrorists? And what is this terrorism charge?

And how in the world is it that this organization that has provided the most valuable information to the whole world about the nuclear weapons program of the Iran regime, about the terror network of the ayatollahs, is getting on the terrorist list? Yet the Islamic Revolutionary Guards, which is the backbone of the terror machine of Tehran, they're not even on that terrorist list? ... That's an irony.

Update, Oct. 25, 2007: On Oct. 25, 2007, the Bush administration announced new unilateral sanctions against Iran. Most notably, the administration named Iran's Revolutionary Guard and its Ministry of Defense and Armed Forces Logistics "entitites of proliferation concern" regarding weapons of mass destruction. It also targeted the Revolutionary Guard's Quds Force for "providing material support to the Taliban and other terrorist organizations." Washington Post writer and longtime Iran observer Robin Wright called the sanctions "the broadest set of punitive measures imposed on Tehran since the 1979 takeover of the U.S. Embassy" and "the first time the United States has tried to isolate or punish another country's military."

The unilateralism that distinguishes policies the administration has followed have resulted in breakdowns in all areas of government. Abroad, the end of the regime is regarded with relief, and at home much the same. Rational conduct of foreign affairs is the absolute minimum any country can look for from its government. It has been completely lacking in all its operations by the existing one.

The harassment of legitimate organizations is a disgrace, as is the Department of Justice's politicization. They can't be ended soon enough.

Early Stages - Habitat Build in Casablanca, In Pictures

Some early stages of building, putting together the frame that will make it possible to make a house. Cut and hammer, putting together something that will last and be home.



A bit of communal visiting, putting the frames for the walls to use for a lunch table, not yet together with the roof structure.



Frame is up, the basic house is ready for the siding and roofing, first build site in Casablanca.






The house is being built for these kids, and their families. Two houses are going up on a good-sized lot, that is owned by the father of the two ladies who are getting the houses. As mentioned, sweat and actual equity comes from the agreement with the families we are building for.

Oh, well, we didn't actually build Santiago, below.



This is the city of Santiago, Chile, from the top of the mountain in Santiago City Park.

Pictures from Chile

We were building houses, actually got the walls and roof structure up on six of them. A group will come in shortly, finish the outside shingling that we didn't get up, wall the inside of the house and put on the roofing. We were very productive, and you will see in the pictures of the worksites that some good solid frames were accomplished, some nice durable homes will be there for some families that wouldn't be able to get the materials and do the work without the help.

For those not familiar with Habitat for Humanity, the building group applies for the trip and is screened for ability/compatability with the building project. We pay our way, and by the fees we pay, some recreation is provided along with the work. Some are sponsored, any participant can raise the money at their own website that Habitat will help them put up. The Kid (my son, Jose) and I have always wanted to do something like this, paid our own way and count ourselves well repaid by learning, doing, learning.



Casablanca, Chile, scenery, this is from the hill at Indomita vineyards, a grape plant with the valley spread out below the winery which is on top a small hill. This is the main employment, growing grapes, and distilling the wine.



The family we are building for, there will be five children. To the right a house already houses a family, that is giving land to the homeowners-to-be. They help with the house, building and paying some off.



Putting the braces up on the roof. The house being worked on is pretty far along here, we built the walls and roof forms, nailed them together, and the braces on top will support the roofing.



The hardest to build, we had to tear down a concrete wall portion and then start on the frame. Juan, Master Builder, in green shirt.



Roses in Spring - October, Casablanca, Chile.

Other pics at Flickr site, http://www.flickr.com/photos/24541926@N08/

Building and Needs of A Destroyed Economy

It just occurred to me what great training Habitat for Humanity could have been for the FDR style of rebuilding the economy. When my parents got out of college in the '30's, they found jobs with a CCC (Civilian Conservation Corps) dedicated to providing jobs while giving training and providing help in building communities. Bridges, roads, the Riverwalk in San Antonio, the Providence RI zoo, all owe their existence to that depression ending effort.

I just built my first houses, and it's a handy set of skills I didn't have before. There are improved communities in Casablanca, Chile, and throughout the U.S. as well, because of Habitat builds. Interestingly, I just found out that in early September, John McCain canceled a scheduled appearance at a Habitat event. Bad associations for the 'fundamentals of the economy are sound' candidate, I guess.

How could McCain maintain his sense of press victimization against the backdrop of people building homes for people who look forward to being able to one day say, "I know exactly how many homes I own! One! Just the one!"

But another part of the reason McCain canceled the outing is because last night, his campaign went out of its way to slag community organizers, defaming them for not having any "actual responsibilities." Habitat For Humanity, as it happens, is one of the biggest brand names in community organizing -- they maintain a massive network of individual donors, are capable of mobilizing an equally impressive volunteer base to contribute labor to the cause, and have a global reach. It's not a bad idea at all to associate one's own brand with Habitat's. But after last night, I have to imagine that McCain would have found it difficult to face the community organizers of Habitat For Humanity.

I am a proud member of the DangerousHFH, an institution that builds homes for people. I also can offer skills in growing your own veggies and some rather rusty sewing skills, things my mother taught to city dwellers 'relocated' to the countryside where they could live on a better standard than they had as unemployed cityfolks. This may be a promising situation for this country's future.

Later today I will have some pictures for you, and I am proud of them, too. No one asked after I got back, but all my thumbs survived. Ha.

*************************************************

A note of caution for leaving cats while you go on a trip: happily, I filled the tub with some water and filled a few spare bowls. They had never done this before, but my cats turned over the cooler of water I always leave for them. The backup, which I felt silly about at the time, turned out to have been essential and possibly life-saving. They are happy to have a bowl filled regularly again, but might not have survived if I hadn't left all the extra water sources.

Chilean Wine Tasting - The National Sport

The Casablanca area is full of wineries and is the destination of a lot of wine tours, which provides seasonal employment. For the rest of the year, although the scenery is great, the living isn't easy. The houses we are building are next to others that have a lot of problems, like walls of mud. You can see some of our building anyway, at Chile's Habitat for Humanity website, where some shots taken today at our build will be up soon. Like most of the schedule here, it isn't written in stone exactly when that will happen.

Sunday we were on vacation, and did some visits to the local industry.

Odd that after a few days of really hard work, it was R&R that did me in. Sunday we toured the wine country around Casablanca and tried six varieties of wine, though we had to hear three times about the process of winemaking to get the tasting part. Large scale winemaking is a little different from feralliberal's variety, with big vats and tons of oak barrels and really chilly basements. Also we saw a few good candidates for the prison Casques of Amontillada. It was good though. We saw lots of international awards, most of them for the 'Private Reserve' varieties of the different institutions. That was in the $50 a bottle range, and we were more interested in the $4 a bottle sorts.

The history I had told here from our local North TX wine background is part of the Chilean wine industry history as well. In the late 19th century an epidemic of phyloxera, a rot in the vine, struck the vineyards throughout Europe, threatening to wipe out wine grapes altogether. In Denison, TX, an oenophile named T.V. Munson researched and discovered a resistant strain of wine stock that he shared with the flagging vineyards throughout the world, and saved wine growers all over the world. One variety that couldn't be saved was the Carmenere, and it had become extinct. The Chilean country which is so perfect for grapes had sheltered a few that were re-discovered in the 20th century, and grown for wine. Now Chile has a burgeoning Carmenere wine making trade that has brought it back to the world. Of course, the winemakers we visited Sunday were letting us have a taste of this revivified variety. It was a star. The Kid and I bought a bottle which we shared last night, and it was the best red wine we had from all our tasting.

Sorry, FeralL, they won't let us bring back a planting with us.

Casablanca being much better for white than red wine, there isn't a huge red wine trade here, but some is developing. Happily, I found several nice wines, but the Carmenere from Indomita vineyards was my favorite.

The locals here tell us that most of their tourism comes for the wine but doesn't stay here in Casablanca. It's an hour's drive to Santiago, shorter drive to Valpairaiso and Vina del Mar on the coast, so the tourist trade passes them by. Fortunately, Habitat for Humanity has become active here, and housing is improving for many of the residents.

Building Houses for People

I have to admit I really hadn't given a lot of thought to the way that a bunch of generally decent, public spirited people who chose to spend a bunch of time and money and sweat to build houses for people would be regarded. It's a bit surprising to me, when it's a trip I always wanted to take, and the sort of thing we ought to be doing, to get the occasional applause and warm handshakes and hugs, and find out little kids are watching with wonderment because you're building them a house.

The way it works on this 'build' (that's what the old hands call these trips) is that we arrive on the scene and are greeted by a Master builder, who starts out getting the pattern working that goes from boards, cut in particular lengths, hammered together into vaguely familiar shapes, that go into extraordinarily useful constructions that we lift and join and hammer and nail, and with a bunch of great heaves and small juggles from us amazingly arrange themselves into a house. Really, a house, and there will be pictures. I've been working with a bunch of really great, wildly individualistic, people of many ages Of course, I knew that was what we would be doing, but that these spastic hands would actually manage to do it still is amazing me.

For anyone who isn't familiar with Habitat for Humanity, it's an incredibly useful idea that was brought to fruition by one of the most genuinely good people ever to reach high public office, Jimmy Carter, and on October 6th the U.N. will celebrate a day honoring Habitat, and by coincidence I will be on this build at that time.

I'm not going to go into a lot of detail, because you can read all about Habitat and its mission on its website, but it's something I decided to get into, and don't know why I never did it before. If for no other reason it's a way to travel to Chile without being another obnoxious and odd tourista, who gawks at the scenery and makes no acquaintance whatsoever with the people who live in the country she's visiting. Conversely, that makes us visiting Habitatians a little easier for the locals to know. In a way that's good, and the group I'm with is good natured and awfully likeable. We're also our own kind of American gawky, and that should be expected too. At least, in a group of Habitable sorts, the tenor is entirely inclined toward a receptivity that my experience tells me most tourists don't show. Not all of the effect is good, of course.

We smushed our Master builder's collarbone, for starters; that should be a way of getting really familiar, you would think. Juan has a bandaged back, but wouldn't let the doctors put a cast on now. It would keep him from helping build these houses.

As you can imagine, we intrepid carpenters (actually, I didn't play a direct part in the accident) lost a grip on a big board, and it came crashing down on his back. Now he's still as friendly as he can be, but hurts. I expect our insurance paid his expenses, but this is another tale about the crazy gringoes that is sure to make everyone more convinced than ever we aren't someone to turn your back on. It hasn't made the other Masters cantankerous to us, to tell the truth, but I can imagine why we scare people. My group has several really good carpenters, and all of us are hard workers who do a conscientious job, I'm glad to say

Tomorrow we will go taste wine in country near Casablanca, Chile, and that will be a good break .... oh, excuse me, bad terminology. As far as becoming a career builder, guess that won't happen. While climbing around on a frame of a building and hammering in huge nails from weird angles and watching the boards take on strength, durability, and the character of a house is great, I think I'll be glad to see the finished product and a family housed, and write about it.

The children at the house we've been building get the nice chunks of wood we saw off the boards, and those make building blocks for them. What they make of the materials we're producing may be one of the most important aspects for them. It's the only toys I see that they have. One of the dads made them a tree fort in a little stunted tree that has purple flowers much like the passion flower we had in Virginia. Yes, there will be pictures.

It's hard to blog much, as we have one laptop that will successfully connect to the internet and sixteen people depending on it. I will have a bit more to blog about when I get back. Thanks, Diane, for keeping up with the cats and birds.

Which Way Did They Go?

If you never watched westerns back in the day, maybe you don't recognize that line, but it was once traditional when the outlaws went hightailing it, and the posse followed. Presently, it would seem to apply to the 'coalition forces' in the U.S. wars. Alex Thurston wrote a thoughtprovoking post on it, which I am featuring here.

Following closely on the heels of 10 French casualties in Afghanistan and a visit by Sarkozy to Kabul to reaffirm French commitment to the war, we learn via the New York Times that not all French leaders - or Frenchmen - share that sentiment. In late September, the French parliament will debate France’s involvement in Afghanistan and then vote on whether to continue deployment or not.

The vote would take place under new rules requiring parliamentary approval for any deployment overseas that lasts for more than four months; Mr. Fillon will make the Afghan deployment retroactive, even though it began before the constitutional changes.

On Tuesday, the foreign and defense ministers, Bernard Kouchner and Hervé Morin, will testify before a special joint session of the foreign and defense committees of the lower house on France’s Afghanistan policy.

Mr. Sarkozy has strongly defended the need for France to fight the Taliban in Afghanistan alongside its Western allies as part of the fight against terrorism and for the rights of Afghan women. But his promise last April to commit another 700 French troops, bringing the total to nearly 3,000, was not popular.

After the 10 French killed this week, and another 21 wounded – the worst death toll for French forces in an incident since 1983 – French media has lavished attention on Afghanistan, driving Georgia and Russia off the front pages. The dead, wounded and their families have received much coverage, and Mr. Sarkozy presided over an elegant memorial service for the dead on Thursday at the Invalides.

Now I don’t know much about French internal politics, but this move seems to signal an even lower ebb of enthusiasm for the war on the part of our European allies. The Times paints the vote as largely symbolic, saying the legislature will likely approve continued deployment, but American leaders should pay attention to such symbols. Such a public expression of reluctance and doubt about the mission in Afghanistan confirms what I’ve been saying recently - we will not see increased troop commitments from
European countries, and we may even see reductions.

A friend argues that agreements for a timetable in Iraq might even provide political cover for a complete European withdrawal from Afghanistan. He may be right. In any event, the burden remains with us.

The old Cold War bloc is reminding us that swinging wildly doesn't mean getting the other fella to step back. It can throw us into a round that we can't handle, and don't want. There must be some one up there at the occupied White House who can figure this out.

Simplistic Answers to Nuanced Problems

We have heard a lot lately from candidates trying to speak to a voting public that has only simplistic ideas of the deep error of getting involved in wars in the Middle East. It's the sort of knowledge that can only be gained by intelligent and open-minded study, over a long period of time.

Sadly, in order to get elected, the candidates have to make statements that the public can understand. Those candidates have to express things in those simplistic terms, convey that they are in control of the information, and that they can act intelligently. 'Stay the Course". "Cut and Run". "Victory". For U.S. interests, this simplistic handling of events has created disaster so far.

I have a source I've used several times, Barnett Rubin at InformedComment, where a longtime student of the Middle East gives complicated and nuanced information which usually conflicts with what we hear from the candidates and the press. Today's report about the bombing of the Indian Embassy in Afghanistan is an example of that.

The war in Afghanistan is often depicted as a battle between jihadi groups and the U.S. or the west. But Afghanistan is also a theater for the struggle between India and Pakistan and for the domestic struggles of Pakistan. This is the second major terrorist attack on an Indian target since the election of a civilian government in Pakistan. Nine synchronized bombs killed 63 people in the Indian city of Jaipur on May 13, just before the first high-level diplomatic meeting between India and Pakistan after the elections. Part of the context of this attack is also the Afghan official, public charges that the Pakistani intelligence agency, ISI, organized the attempted assassination of President Karzai in Kabul in April. These attacks seem designed to sabotage any improvement of relations between Pakistan and either of its two neighbors, India and Afghanistan, to assure that Pakistan has no alternative but to continue to support militant organizations as part of its foreign policy.

I might add that there is also a consistent pattern of attacks on Indian road construction teams in southwest Afghanistan.
(snip)
Juan Cole on Informed Comment links the bombing to the attack yesterday in Islamabad and posits:

Since the neo-Taliban want to pull down the Karzai government, trying to scare the Indians into leaving would be a way of removing one foreign pillar of support from the edifice of state.
(snip)
UPDATE: Now I heard on NPR that the "Taliban" have denied responsibility. Let me stick my neck out here: I don't believe that the Kandahari Taliban leadership would mount an attack like this against the Indian embassy. The idea of such an attack came from some combination of all or some of the following: the Haqqani group (as part of a campaign for Pakistani support), Pakistani Taliban, al-Qaida, and the Pakistani security agencies, or private entities under their supervision.

It is past time for voters to accept that in order to act wisely, this government has to depend on reality-based information from proven sources. We can't settle for believing in a poseur who insists his/her own judgment invariably can meet an international standard. We are in scary territory because of that kind of approach.

In order to evaluate what is going on in episodes such as bombings in Kabul, the press needs to rely on real information. Cutbacks in international press presence has left very few sources that can be relied on. Statements from politically or financially interested parties are hardly a good source of information in any event.

Following proven, reliable blogs has become the only way I know to be sure I'm not poorly informed, and don't make wrong-headed decisions. The internets are serving a vital service. We need to keep it up, and make sure our voices always can be counted on for the best information, and best viewpoint, we can provide.

Increasingly, the internets are the only source of actual information.

Old Tricks

As noted earlier in Diane's post, only 199 days left in the occupied White House for alienating our country from the rest of the world. That's much too long, for anyone who wants to see our U.S. interests served by our government as it was constituted to do.

In our insane conduct of policy toward Iran, in particular, the worst administration ever has demonstrated it cannot act rationally when the war criminals in high office get the bit in their teeth and smell an end coming to their freedom to conduct counterproductive militarism. Once again, the uglies in our government are supporting enemies of the very interests we claim we are promoting.

The cretin in chief's speech yesterday claiming that we are offering freedom to Iraqis amounts to just so many lies.

The balancing act has become more difficult for Iraq since George Bush successfully requested $400m (£200m) from Congress last year to fund covert operations aimed at destabilising the Iranian leadership. Some of these operations are likely to be launched from Iraqi territory with the help of Iranian militants opposed to Tehran. The most effective of these opponent groups is the Mujahedin-e-Khalq (MEK), which enraged the Iraqi government by staging a conference last month at Camp Ashraf, north-east of Baghdad. It demanded the closure of the Iranian embassy and the expulsion of all Iranian agents in Iraq. "It was a huge meeting" said Dr Othman. "All the tribes and political leaders who are against Iran, but are also against the Iraqi government, were there." He said the anti-Iranian meeting could not have taken place without US permission.

The Americans disarmed the 3,700 MEK militants, who had long been allied to Saddam Hussein, at Camp Ashraf in 2003, but they remain well-organised and well-financed. The extent of their support within Iran remains unknown, but they are extremely effective as an intelligence and propaganda organisation.

Though the MEK is on the State Department's list of terrorist groups, the Pentagon and other US institutions have been periodically friendly to it. The US task force charged by Mr Bush with destabilising the Iranian government is likely to co-operate with it.

In reaction to the conference, the Iraqi government, the US and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) have started secret talks on the future of the MEK with the Iraqi government pressing for their expulsion from Iraq. Dr Othman, who speaks to the MEK frequently by phone, said: "I pressed them to get out of Iraq voluntarily because they are a card in the hands of the Americans."

An embarrassing aspect of the American pin-prick war against Iran is that many of its instruments were previously on the payroll of Saddam Hussein. The MEK even played a role in 1991 in helping to crush the uprising against the Baathist regime at the end of the Gulf war. The dissidents from Arab districts in southern Iran around Ahwaz were funded by Saddam Hussein's intelligence organisations, which orchestrated the seizure of the Iranian embassy in London in 1980 which was supposedly carried out by Arab nationalists from Iran.

The record for supporting our own enemies has been pushed a little farther, again. The use of quasi military forces begs those temporary allies to arm and enrich themselves at our expense, all the while being ready and willing to turn against us when it suits their interests. An attack on Iran, or on Iran's allies like, say, the Mahdi militia, is reason enough to spur such a turnaround.

Actually working for the American people will mean giving up militarist ambitions, and giving other nations some reason to be friends with us again. The factions we are serving now have no long-term reason to cultivate an association with the munitions addict that dominates the face we show to the world in the present state of our executive branch.

The U.S. has sacrificed a lot, its reputation is in tatters and it will take a lot of restaffing in high offices to regain all we've thrown away in the wars we have waged so poorly and so needlessly.

Ongoing Exercise In Irresponsibility

That same North Korea that has not accepted designation yet as a member of the occupied White House's "axis of evil" continues to make its attempts at world domination an exercise in futility. More and more, the axis looks like the one on a hamster wheel, and the administration runs madly around it not even producing energy.

The evil axian nation was gotten to agree to issue an enumeration of its nuclear facilities by the end of 2007. That didn't happen.

North Korea will hand over a long-delayed report of its nuclear activities on June 26 in a step towards disarmament, Kyodo news agency said in a report from Beijing on Monday, citing sources close to six-party talks on the issue.

In response, the United States will begin the process of removing Pyongyang from a list of nations Washington sees as sponsors of terrorism, the report said, a move that would ease trade sanctions.

I distinctly hear the sound of a hamster wheel going whirling madly around, a wheel the worst administration ever is madly trying to make look like progress. Of course, previous pronouncements of the N.Koreans have been a mockery of the U.S., and showed the disdain in which it is held.

The U.S. previously believed that North Korea had received HEU technology from Pakistan, but found, based on its analysis of the North Korean documents, that North Korea tried to develop the technology on its own.

In this regard, in her speech she delivered at the Heritage Foundation last Wednesday, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said, "As we’ve gotten deeper into the process, we’ve been troubled by additional information about North Korea’s uranium enrichment capability... And this information has reaffirmed skepticism about dealing with North Korea."

Such skepticism was raised before North Korea makes its nuclear declaration. It will likely remain a bone of contention in connection with the North's future HEU development.

Meanwhile, in the daily briefing last Friday, U.S. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said, "We have indications that it (North Korea's nuclear declaration) will be soon... I’ll give you one other hint here, is we do not yet have another head of delegation -- meeting scheduled. And presumably, that would be the venue in which the North Koreans would hand over to the Chinese a declaration."

Until an administration that it respects, that can work within the world community, is at the U.S. helm, there will be no real goals reached, and N. Korea's leaders are among the majority of world leaders who show their recognition of this.

Only the totally blind members of the executive branch of the U.S. fail to recognize and act on this reality.

Hand Her A Dictionary, Please

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has an interesting view of diplomatic solutions. She apparently thinks that diplomatic resolution involves speaking with another nation with whom we have a problem only after that nation has given up their position on the issue. That's essentially what she told her friendly audience yesterday, according to this article in the NY Times.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice escalated the Bush administration’s anti-Iran rhetoric on Tuesday, accusing its government of pursuing nuclear weapons and calling any dialogue with its leaders pointless until they suspend the country’s enrichment of uranium.

While Ms. Rice’s message was familiar, the tone of her speech, before the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, was unusually sharp, taking oblique aim at Senator Barack Obama and other Democratic leaders who have called for the United States to engage Iran diplomatically. [Emphasis added]

Two things about this speech:

First, the primary issue the US has with Iran is their nuclear plans. Demanding the Iranians give up those plans before meeting with them to discuss the issue is the kind of solipsistic reasoning that hardly merits the designation of diplomacy.

Second, Sec. Rice chose AIPAC to deliver her ultimatum, an audience Iran had to take note of. While the White House no doubt wanted to assure Israel that the US intended to keep the pressure on Iran so that Israel need not fear for its security, it is clear that the White House also was using the context of that speech to prepare for the next stage in the bullying of Iran:

...Administration and Israeli officials said that President Bush could soon announce a security package for Israel that could include cruise missiles and a permanent hookup to a worldwide warning system against incoming ballistic missiles.

Ms. Rice alluded to such a package in her Aipac speech. “We will continue to improve the security capability of our friends, including their missile defense,” she said.

Well, that certainly will bring Iran to the "bargaining" table, eh?

It has long been clear that this administration has no intention of diplomatically engaging Iran, that it is preparing for a different kind of engagement, the kind it much prefers, one that involves cruise missiles.

230 days.

We Need To Talk

There is a tendency of the worst administration ever to make a show of manly behavior which as equated with ignorance. What would have been viewed as blundering in more balanced times becomes the prancing behavior of the cretinous Leader of the Free World.

That the behavior itself is repulsive is beside the point. It has made our country the laughingstock of the world, and back to square one as a nation on training wheels. The voters are showing that they can see beyond the propaganda war the recidivists have waged against common sense, by the election results in Mississippi, Louisiana and Illinois.

More than laughable, though, the blunderbus approach is a danger to this country, now and in the future. It demonstrates the incapacity of the administration to deal with international concerns, with functional diplomats.

For much of the 20th century, the United States engaged in the smart, yet difficult diplomacy with adversaries that's as much a key to protecting U.S. interests as military force. Among the notable successes were President Nixon's opening to China and years of high-level negotiations with Soviet leaders that helped prevent a nuclear holocaust during the Cold War.

Given that history, it's disturbing that President Bush, in an overseas salvo amplified at home by GOP presidential nominee John McCain, reduced U.S. diplomacy to a simplistic assertion that talking to "terrorists and radicals" endangers the United States and puts anyone who does so in the sorry tradition of those who appeased Adolf Hitler.

The politics of what's going on here are pretty simple. It's presidential election season, and the person being painted as that weak appeaser is Democratic presidential front-runner Barack Obama, who quickly counterattacked.

Given Obama's promise to pull out of Iraq within 16 months and his willingness to meet personally with leaders of renegade nations such as Iran and North Korea, the subject is solid ground for debate. A new president must be extremely wary of walking into traps, negotiating without leverage or attending summits without groundwork. But to demonize the whole concept of talking to enemies is preposterous.
(snip)
Americans, and national security, are better served by a real debate about the international dilemmas that will confront the next president, not an intelligence-insulting pseudo debate about talking, or not talking, to bad guys.

The cretin in chief, in demonstrating, constantly, how easily he gives up this country's best interests for political ends, gives this country's enemies a very good tool to use against us. He has already done more for the al Qaeda group than it ever could have accomplished without his use of it as a bugaboo. Ascribing supernatural cunning and power to the ragtag bunch has given it stature that it never could have attained without his propaganda, and his unrelated war on Iraq.

Just for the contrast, there is a diplomatic move in the works that should shame anyone who's party to the occupied White House efforts to make political hay out of Middle Eastern conflict.

Fatah and Tanzim leader Marwan Barghouti has been in Israeli prison for more than six years now. Four years have passed since he was convicted of five counts of murder and an attempted murder and sentenced to five prison terms and another 40 years.

Barghouti, who turned the Tanzim, the Fatah’s al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades, into a real terror group responsible for many attacks on Israelis in the second Intifada, is considered by influential security officials in Israel as the only Palestinian leader capable of stopping Hamas’ expansion and take over of the West Bank.

Indeed, as of late senior officials are starting to recognize that there would be no escaping the need to release him in the near future (perhaps in the prisoner swap for Gilad Shalit) despite the harsh verdict and the serious crimes he was convicted of.

The release of a terrorist in order to give the opposition a capacity to deal, a capacity that the nation of Israel needs them to have, is a concept it will be interesting to see this bunch of punks deal with. That the war criminals will sell it to the public in some form of swill is a given. Let's see, can they invent a reform - a miraculous conversion, even - that was accomplished by aggressive interrogation? Will Barghouti be presented as the present-day Paul, turned by an appearance on the part of an Old Testament God from persecuting the west into its prophet?

Oh, to be a fly on the wall in the war room as the Know-Nothings plot their public announcement of the artwork of diplomacy Barghouti's release will be.