Does the Pentagon Intend to Betray the Iraq SOFA?

Posted on December 20, 2008 by RagBlog

U.S. Army soldiers search an abandoned house for weapons and illegal materials during a patrol in Haidraq, Iraq, April 6, 2008. Photo courtesy of U.S. Army, by Spc. C.W. Gill.

U.S. Military Defiant on Key Terms of Iraqi Pact
By Gareth Porter / December 18, 2008

WASHINGTON – U.S. military leaders and Pentagon officials have made it clear through public statements and deliberately leaked stories in recent weeks that they plan to violate a central provision of the U.S.-Iraq withdrawal agreement requiring the complete withdrawal of all U.S. combat troops from Iraqi cities by mid-2009 by reclassifying combat troops as support troops.

The scheme to engage in chicanery in labeling U.S. troops represents both open defiance of an agreement which the U.S. military has never accepted and a way of blocking President-elect Barack Obama’s proposed plan for withdrawal of all U.S. combat troops from Iraq within 16 months of his taking office.

By redesignating tens of thousands of combat troops as support troops, those officials apparently hope to make it difficult, if not impossible, for Obama to insist on getting all combat troops of the country by mid-2010.

Gen. David Petraeus, now commander of CENTCOM, and Gen. Ray Odierno, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, who opposed Obama’s 16-month withdrawal plan during the election campaign, have drawn up their own alternative withdrawal plan rejecting that timeline, as the New York Times reported Thursday. That plan was communicated to Obama in general terms by Secretary of Defence Robert M. Gates and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen when he met with his national security team in Chicago on Dec. 15, according to the Times.

The determination of the military leadership to ignore the U.S.-Iraq agreement and to pressure Obama on his withdrawal policy was clear from remarks made by Mullen in a news conference on Nov. 17 — after U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker had signed the agreement in Baghdad.

Mullen declared that he considered it “important” that withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq “be conditions-based”. That position directly contradicted the terms of the agreement, and Mullen was asked whether the agreement required all U.S. troops to leave Iraq by the end of 2011, regardless of the security conditions. He answered “Yes,” but then added, “Three years is a long time. Conditions could change in that period of time…”

Mullen said U.S. officials would “continue to have discussions with them over time, as conditions continue to evolve”, and said that reversing the outcome of the negotiations was “theoretically possible”.

Obama’s decision to keep Gates, who was known to be opposed to Obama’s withdrawal timetable, as defence secretary confirmed the belief of the Pentagon leadership that Obama would not resist the military effort to push back against his Iraq withdrawal plan. A source close to the Obama transition team has told IPS that Obama had made the decision for a frankly political reason. Obama and his advisers believed the administration would be politically vulnerable on national security and viewed the Gates nomination as a way of blunting political criticism of its policies.

The Gates decision was followed immediately by the leak of a major element in the military plan to push back against a 16-month withdrawal plan — a scheme to keep U.S. combat troops in Iraqi cities after mid-2009, in defiance of the terms of the withdrawal agreement.

The New York Times first revealed that “Pentagon planners” were proposing the “relabeling” of U.S. combat units as “training and support” units in a Dec. 4 story. The Times story also revealed that Pentagon planners were projecting that as many as 70,000 U.S. troops would be maintained in Iraq “for a substantial time even beyond 2011”, despite the agreement’s explicit requirement that all U.S. troops would have to be withdrawn by then.

Odierno provided a further hint Dec. 13 that the U.S. military intends to ignore the provision of the agreement requiring withdrawal of all U.S. combat troops from cities and towns by the end of May 2009. Odierno told reporters flatly that U.S. troops would not move from numerous security posts in cities beyond next summer’s deadline for their removal, saying “We believe that’s part of our transition teams.”

His spokesman, Lt. Col. James Hutton, explained that these “transition teams” would consist of “enablers” rather than “combat forces”, and that this would be consistent with the withdrawal agreement.

But both Odierno’s and Hutton’s remarks were clearly based on the Pentagon plan for the “relabeling” of U.S. combat forces as support forces in order to evade a key constraint in the pact that the Times had reported earlier. In an article in The New Republic dated Dec. 24, Eli Lake writes that three military sources told him that the U.S. “Military Transition Teams”, which who have been fighting alongside Iraqi units, as well as force-protection units and “quick-reaction forces”, are all being redesignated as “support units”, despite their obvious combat functions, “in order to skirt the language of the SOFA [status of forces agreement]”.

U.S. commanders have not bothered to claim that this is anything but a semantic trick, since the redesignated units would continue to participate in combat patrols, as confirmed by New York Times reporters Elisabeth Bumiller and Thom Shanker Thursday.

The question of whether Iraqis would permit such “relabeled” combat forces to remain after next June was discussed with Obama on Monday, according to the Times report. One participant reportedly said Gates and Mullen “did not rule out the idea that Iraqis might permit such troops…”

Despite Odierno’s assertion of the U.S. military’s prerogative to unilaterally determine what U.S. troops may remain Iraqi cities, the Iraqi government has already made it clear that the U.S. military has no such right. Defence Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Mohammed al Askari, responded to Odierno’s and Hutton’s statements by saying that U.S. commanders would have to get permission from the Iraqi government to station any non-combat troops in cities beyond the deadline.

The signals from Odierno of U.S. military defiance of the withdrawal agreement suggest that the Pentagon and military leadership still do not take seriously the views of the Iraqi public as having any role in determining the matter of foreign troops in their country. Nevertheless, the withdrawal agreement is still subject to a popular referendum next July, and Iraqi politicians have already warned that evidence of U.S. refusal to abide by its terms will affect the outcome of that vote.

Washington Post reporters quoted Sunni legislator Shata al-Obusi as saying that Iraqis “will see this procrastination and they will vote no against the agreement, and after that the government should cancel it according to its provision”.

Beyond the aim of getting Obama to abandon his 16-month plan, the military and Pentagon group still hopes to pressure Obama to agree to a long-term U.S. military presence in Iraq.

Further evidence emerged last week that Gates is a central figure in that effort. In a Washington Post column Dec. 11, George Will quoted Gates as saying that there is bipartisan congressional support for “a long-term residual presence” of as many as 40,000 U.S. troops in Iraq, and such a presence for “decades” has been the standard practice following “major U.S. military operations” since the beginning of the Cold War.

Those statements evidently represent part of the case Gates, Mullen and the military commanders are already making behind the scenes to get Obama to acquiesce in the subversion of the intent of the U.S.-Iraq agreement.

[Gareth Porter is an investigative historian and journalist specialising in U.S. national security policy. The paperback edition of his latest book, “Perils of Dominance: Imbalance of Power and the Road to War in Vietnam”, was published in 2006.]

Source / IPS News

H/t Juan Cole / The Rag Blog

* SOFA = Status of Forces Agreement

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Jeff Jones : The Bay Area Reacts to the Rick Warren Saga

Posted on December 20, 2008 by Thorne Dreyer

San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom has always been a vocal supporter of diversity and the GLBT community.

‘As an enthusiastic gay Obama supporter, I can see that his choice of a homophobe preacher is a gratuitous political gaffe that he didn’t have to make.’
By Jeff Jones / The Rag Blog / December 19, 2008

See ‘Gay leaders angered by Obama’s prayer pick,’ Below.

SAN FRANCISCO — Although conventional wisdom holds there are two sides to every story, there are some issues that really do not have two sides. What is the other side of racial equality? What is the other side of anti-Semitism? Surely, Obama would not have anyone be part of his inauguration who was an overt racist or an anti-semite. But apparently, whether the nation’s LGBT residents deserve to be treated equally is still up for debate.

As an enthusiastic gay Obama supporter, I can see that his choice of a homophobe preacher is a gratuitous political gaffe that he didn’t have to make. Clinton made a big mistake by getting involved in the “Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell” controversy at the very outset of his administration; I am very surprised that Obama has now made the same mistake.

Unfortunately, I don’t think Obama knows how bitter Queer Californians feel about the religious right’s passage of Proposition 8: it means discrimination against the LGBT community is now legal in California. Obama has put himself in the unenviable position of having to defend homophobia, since Warren was a militant advocate of Prop. 8. Although this situation will probably get nastier — there will inevitably be Queer protestors on Jan 20– after he’s sworn in Obama might feel compelled to repeal Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell, pass federal legislation to end LGBT discrimination, and maybe end the discriminatory exclusion of LGBT artists from federal arts funding. In the interim, here’s a sample of how San Francisco’s elected officials are reacting to this situation:

Gay leaders angered by Obama’s prayer pick

[….]Newsom disappointed

The mayor said the decision is painful for the gay and lesbian community, especially in California, where people are still reeling from the passage of Prop. 8.

“The gay community has every right to be upset,” Newsom said. “I hope people appreciate that Rick Warren was not just indirectly involved but very involved in taking people’s rights away. I’m disappointed, but I understand the decision.

“Rick Warren is not someone who has been a champion of gay rights, and the president-elect could not be naive to that, yet he felt that the other attributes outweighed that,” Newsom said.

Warren’s other attributes are not enough for state Sen. Mark Leno, D-San Francisco.

“His work on HIV/AIDS is laudable, but that doesn’t change the fact that he thinks I am a second-class citizen and should be denied fundamental rights guaranteed to me in a constitutional democracy,” Leno said.

“My concern is the selection of Rick Warren goes far beyond Proposition 8. He has spent a lifetime disparaging and disregarding the LGBT community,” Leno said.

Obama’s choice appears to fulfill his campaign promise of bringing opposing groups together to heal, said Sue Kuipers, the youth pastor at Christ’s Community Church in Hayward, whose Christian parishioners spent 40 days studying Warren’s book, “The Purpose Driven Life.”

“It’s sad that it’s become political,” Kuipers said. “We can agree to disagree, but that shouldn’t interfere with our ability to pray for each other as a nation.”

San Francisco Supervisor Bevan Dufty first heard of Warren’s selection in a text message from a friend in South Africa.

Dufty said he is perplexed but is giving Obama the benefit of the doubt.

“It’s difficult to understand, but I would like to look back on this in a year or two and see it was a longer-term effort to heal division in this country,” he said. “Maybe strategically we’ll see something positive in this in the future, but right now, it doesn’t make much sense.”

Signal of anti-gay policies?

Andrea Shorter, campaign director for And Marriage 4 All, a Northern California gay marriage advocacy organization, is worried that Obama’s choice could signal four more years of anti-gay presidential policy.

“Rick Warren is clearly divisive and anti-gay. He is a kinder, gentler dose of Jerry Falwell and Oral Roberts. He presents himself as a warm and fuzzy new-age version of the same old stuff,” she said.

“I think Obama did this because he has been under such scrutiny throughout the campaign about his legitimacy as a person of Christian faith. Maybe he sees this also as a way to give a nod of thanks and gratitude to voters who come from the evangelical right.”

The Rev. Amos Brown, head of the San Francisco NAACP, campaigned heavily against Prop. 8.

“I’m very upset. I can understand that Obama wants to be inclusive but not at this moment in his life and the life of this nation. We should be pulling people together. It is most unfortunate. Rick Warren belongs to a conservative evangelical group that is divisive and in some regards mean-spirited.”

Source / SF Gate

[Rag Blog contributor Jeff Jones, a San Francisco-based advocate for social justice and GLBT rights, is a former Austin activist who worked with the sixties underground paper The Rag and was president of the student body at the University of Texas-Austin.]

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The Rick Warren Debacle : Views From the Left and the Right

Posted on December 19, 2008 by Thorne Dreyer

Barack Obama’s choice of pastor Rick Warren to give the invocation at his inauguration has stirred up a storm.

Dancing with Rick Warren is more than making nice with a sector of our society that Obama probably views as an important component in his perceived grand consensus. This is a move that carries with it great symbolism, and it seems quite clear that it reflects a serious tactical miscalculation on the part of the Obama transition.

By Thorne Dreyer / The Rag Blog / December 19, 2008

See ‘Censuring and Moving On’ by Todd Gitlin, and ‘Why Obama Chose Rick Warren’ by Jon Henke, Below.

Below are two interesting takes on President-elect Barack Obama’s astonishing choice of Rick Warren to deliver the invocation at his inauguration – and the ensuing storm that decision has created.

The first is from sociologist and former SDS leader Todd Gitlin; the second is from a right wing blogger. Carl Davidson of Progressives for Obama sent them our way with these words:

“The right has its own troubles here, and senses it is being divided, as in ‘unite the progressive forces, win over the middle and divide the right.’ Todd Gitlin’s piece is a call to unite the progressives once again, post-venting. Somehow, though, I suspect there’s too many wild cards here to render a final verdict yet.”

Bottom line, most of us remain appalled and at the moment have trouble seeing explanations as anything more than rationalizations. And I am one inclined to give Obama the benefit of the doubt, at least until the man takes office!

I believe Obama to be his own man to a unique degree, am not all that concerned about his appointments, and still think that, in the end , he will be one of our most progressive presidents – if only because the times and the economy will demand such a president. And because I believe the left will work hard to hold him accountable.

But dancing with Rick Warren is more than making nice with a sector of our society that Obama probably views as an important component in his perceived grand consensus. This is a move that carries with it great symbolism, and it seems quite clear that it reflects a serious tactical miscalculation on the part of the Obama transition. Personally, I strongly believe that it reveals nothing about the man’s character, but it may give even reluctant supporters pause about his eccentric strategic approach as has been revealed so far.

Rick Warren, though he stands out in the religious right for his positions on AIDS and the environment, has not simply opposed abortion and Proposition 8. This man has compared efforts to make abortion more accessible to the Holocaust and has informed us that homosexuality is akin to incest and pedophilia.

Censuring and Moving On
By Todd Gitlin / December 19, 2008

My initial reaction to Obama’s Rick Warren announcement was horror.

After what seems like weeks of intense back-and-forth, but in fact is only a day’s worth, I’m still appalled. It’s one thing to invite the adversary into the tent the better to defeat him with a smile–neutralize him, in colder terms–but it’s quite another to give him a throne, even if a purely symbolic throne. Warren’s political interventions are mostly terrible (AIDS and environment are the exceptions). The argument that this was crass political calculation–triangulation, as another president once said–comparable to FDR making nice to segregationists and Stalin, falls afoul of the fact that this overture to Warren was unnecessary. To get the New Deal, FDR really did have to make deals with the racist devil. To defeat Hitler, FDR really had to ally with Stalin. It’s history: get used to it. But I’ve yet to see a single argument to the effect that Obama’s invitation to Warren accomplishes a single practical thing, let along that it was necessary. So I take it as an ugly brush-back: a gratuitous slap at feminists and LGBT’s. I hope it’s ill-considered, impromptu, but suspect it’s actually one of a series–bridge-building to the right on principle.

But meanwhile, some proportion here, people. Other appointments are arguable but some are clearly superb. Harold Meyerson, than whom no one knows L. A. and labor better, says bluntly: “Hilda Solis is great.” (So does every union person I’ve seen quoted.) E. J. Dionne, Jr., makes a firm case for Arne Duncan at Education. John Judis calls Obama’s incoming science adviser John Holdren “the Mick Jagger of climate change,” meaning that “by the end of Holdren’s speech, I was ready to join the world environmentalist crusade.” When I was teaching at Berkeley, I heard Holdren, who taught physics there, give a fabulous talk about nuclear dangers.

Meantime, Obama still hasn’t taken up residence in the White House.

Wes Boyd and Joan Blades had the right idea, back in the fading days of the 20th century, when they started what became the excellent Move On with a simple petition.

Vis-a-vis Clinton-Lewinsky, recall that their petition read: “Congress must Immediately Censure President Clinton and Move On to pressing issues facing the country.”

Censure Obama over Warren–directly, sincerely, viscerally–and move on.

Source / Talking Points Memo

And, an extremely interesting view from the right:

Why Obama Chose Rick Warren
by Jon Henke / December 17, 2008

Barack Obama’s selection of Rick Warren to give the invocation at his inaugural ceremony may seem like a nice overture – a reassuring gesture – to the middle and the Right, but it is stirring up a great deal of grief on the Left.

This is exactly what Obama intends.

Let’s back up for a moment: President Clinton went into office in 1993 and quickly alienated the public, resulting in an opposition Congress for the next 6 years.

Clinton’s later triangulation conceptually legitimated the policies of Republicans, but it put public approval (and some political capitabl) back behind Clinton.

But Barack Obama faces a much different situation. He will walk into office with a very solid majority Democratic Senate and House, and with overwhelming public favor. Obama does not have to seek the best deal he can get out of a Republican agenda; he does not have to moderate his policy agenda for a Republican Congress.

Obama can set his own agenda….as long as he has the public on his side.

Clinton faced an opposition Congress, so he had to moderate on policy. Obama faces a friendly Congress, so he has to moderate on rhetoric.

I’m not sure why this rhetorical moderation is still a surprise to anybody. Obama has been doing this for awhile: he praised Reagan, recognized legitimate grievances of opponents of affirmative action, affirmed the excesses of New Deal/Great Society liberalism. But while each of those set aflutter the hearts of independents, moderates and the Right, none of them involved actual policy changes.

Most people have only a very superficial intersection with politics, so trivial gestures – like inviting an evangelical preacher to deliver the invocation for a Democratic President – are powerful. They send the signal to a low-information public that Obama is one of them, sympathetic to them, respectful of them…without actually requiring substantive political concessions of the Obama administration.

And if the noisy Left cries foul at Obama’s un-progressive rhetoric…well, so much the better for the substantive progressive agenda.

Rhetorically moderate, politically Left. Expect to see that over and over again from President Obama.

Source / The NextRight

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Galveston Lawsuit : Police Beat 12-Year Old ‘Prostitute’ Outside Home

Posted on December 19, 2008 by Thorne Dreyer

A Galveston vice officer talks to Hurricane Ike evacuees in September 2008. It would appear that they’re not always so helpful.

‘As Dymond headed toward the breaker, a blue van drove up and three men jumped out rushing toward her. One of them grabbed her saying, “You’re a prostitute. You’re coming with me.”‘
By Chris Vogel / December 18, 2008

It was a little before eight at night when the breaker went out at Emily Milburn’s home in Galveston. She was busy preparing her children for school the next day, so she asked her 12-year-old daughter, Dymond, to pop outside and turn the switch back on.

As Dymond headed toward the breaker, a blue van drove up and three men jumped out rushing toward her. One of them grabbed her saying, “You’re a prostitute. You’re coming with me.”

Dymond grabbed onto a tree and started screaming, “Daddy, Daddy, Daddy.” One of the men covered her mouth. Two of the men beat her about the face and throat.

As it turned out, the three men were plain-clothed Galveston police officers who had been called to the area regarding three white prostitutes soliciting a white man and a black drug dealer.

All this is according to a lawsuit filed in Galveston federal court by Milburn against the officers. The lawsuit alleges that the officers thought Dymond, an African-American, was a hooker due to the “tight shorts” she was wearing, despite not fitting the racial description of any of the female suspects. The police went to the wrong house, two blocks away from the area of the reported illegal activity, Milburn’s attorney, Anthony Griffin, tells the Houston Press’ Hair Balls.

After the incident, Dymond was hospitalized and suffered black eyes as well as throat and ear drum injuries.

Three weeks later, according to the lawsuit, police went to Dymond’s school, where she was an honor student, and arrested her for assaulting a public servant. Griffin says the allegations stem from when Dymond fought back against the three men who were trying to take her from her home. The case went to trial, but the judge declared it a mistrial on the first day, says Griffin. The new trial is set for February.

“I think we’ll be okay,” says Griffin. “I don’t think a jury will find a 12-year-old girl guilty who’s just sitting outside her house. Any 12-year-old attacked by three men and told that she’s a prostitute is going to scream and yell for Daddy and hit back and do whatever she can. She’s scared to death.”

Since the incident more than two years ago, Dymond regularly suffers nightmares in which police officers are raping and beating her and cutting off her fingers, according to the lawsuit.

Griffin says he expects to enter mediation with the officers in early 2009 to resolve the lawsuit.

The following comes from William Helfand, lawyer for the officers:

Both the daughter and the father were arrested for assaulting a peace officer. “The father basically attacked police officers as they were trying to take the daughter into custody after she ran off.”

Also, “The city has investigated the matter and found that the conduct of the police officers was appropriate under the circumstances,” Helfand says. “It’s unfortunate that sometimes police officers have to use force against people who are using force against them. And the evidence will show that both these folks violated the law and forcefully resisted arrest.”

Source / Hair Balls / Houston Press

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Post-Katrina Vigilante Rampage : The Untold Story

Posted on December 19, 2008 by Thorne Dreyer

Edna Glover holds a portrait of her son, whose remains were found behind a police station in New Orleans after Katrina. Photo by Chandra McCormick and Keith Calhoun / The Nation.

‘After the storm, White vigilantes roamed Algiers Point shooting and, according to their own accounts, killing Black men at will– with no threat of a police response.’

By James Rucker / December 19, 2008

See revealing video Below.

A new report in The Nation documents what many have claimed for years — for some Black New Orleanians the threat of being killed by White vigilantes in Katrina’s aftermath became a bigger threat than the storm itself.

After the storm, White vigilantes roamed Algiers Point shooting and, according to their own accounts, killing Black men at will– with no threat of a police response. For the last three years, the shootings and the police force’s role in them have been an open secret to many New Orleanians. To date, no one has been charged with a crime and law enforcement officials have refused to investigate.

The facts are finally seeing the light of day. Now we must demand action. Given Louisiana’s horrible record when it comes to criminal justice and Black folks, it’s the only path to justice.

In the two weeks after Hurricane Katrina made landfall, the media created a climate of fear with trumped-up stories of Black lawlessness. Meanwhile, an armed group of White vigilantes took over the Algiers Point neighborhood in New Orleans and mercilessly hunted down Black people. “It was great!” said one vigilante. “It was like pheasant season in South Dakota. If it moved, you shot it.”

The Nation’s article tells the story of Donnell Herrington, Marcel Alexander, and Chris Collins — a group of friends who were attacked by shotgun-wielding White men as they entered Algiers Point on September 1, 2005. As they tried to escape, Herrington recalls, their attackers shouted, “Get him! Get that nigger!” He managed to get away. Alexander and Collins were told that they would be allowed to live on the condition that they told other Black folks not to come to Algiers Point. Herrington, shot in the neck, barely survived.

And there’s the story of Henry Glover, who didn’t survive after being shot by an unknown assailant. 2 Glover’s brother flagged down a stranger for help, and the two men brought Glover to a police station. But instead of receiving aid, they were beaten by officers while Henry Glover bled to death in the back seat of the stranger’s car. A police officer drove off in the car soon afterward. Both Glover’s body and the car were found burnt to cinders a week later. It took DNA analysis to identify the body.

Then there’s the story of White militiamen who tried to drive their Black neighbors from their homes. Reggie Bell, who lived just two blocks down the street from the vigilantes’ ringleader, was told at gunpoint, “We don’t want you around here. You loot, we shoot.” Later, another group of armed White men confronted him at his home, asking, “Whatcha still doing around here? We don’t want you around here. You gotta go.”

These are only a few of the stories of Black folks who were accosted in Algiers Point, and you can read more in The Nation. But unless you speak out, we may never learn the full extent of the violence. Journalists have encountered a wall of silence on the part of the authorities. The coroner had to be sued to turn over autopsy records. When he finally complied, the records were incomplete, with files on several suspicious deaths suddenly empty. The New Orleans police and the District Attorney repeatedly refused to talk to journalists about Algiers Point. And according to journalist A.C. Thompson, “the city has in nearly every case refused to investigate or prosecute people for assaults and murders committed in the wake of the storm.”

The Nation’s article is important, but it’s just a start. For more than three years now, these racist criminals have by their own admission gotten away with murder, while officials in New Orleans have systematically evaded any kind of accountability. We have to demand it.

Color of Change asks you to join them in calling on Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, Louisiana’s Attorney General Buddy Caldwell, and the U.S. Department of Justice to conduct a full investigation of these crimes and any police cover-up.

[James Rucker served as Director of Grassroots Mobilization for MoveOn.org Political Action and Moveon.org Civic Action from the fall of 2003 through the summer of 2005, and was instrumental in developing and executing on fundraising, technology, and campaign strategies. ColorOfChange.org exists to strengthen Black America’s political voice. Our goal is to empower our members—Black Americans and our allies—to make government more responsive to the concerns of Black Americans and to bring about positive political and social change for everyone.]

In this Nation Institute exclusive video, reporter A.C. Thompson talks with innocent victims and ruthless vigilantes about his expose on shootings of black New Orleans residents fleeing the city in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, and police misconduct after the storm. Video by Hidden Driver, supported by the Nation Institute.

Pleae see Katrina’s Hidden Race War by A.C. Thompson / The Nation / Dec. 18, 2008

And Body of Evidence by A.C. Thompson / The Nation / Dec. 18, 2008

Thanks to Mariann Wizard / The Rag Blog

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Hilda Soliz : A Progressive Choice for Labor

Posted on December 19, 2008 by Thorne Dreyer

Hilda Soliz: Obama’s pick a good one.

‘The daughter of Mexican and Nicaraguan immigrant laborers, Hilda Solis brings the most solid progressive credentials of any member of the Obama cabinet — including Obama himself.’
By Roberto Lovato / December 19, 2008

In what will be the first progressive appointment of his administration, President-elect Barack Obama invited Southern California Congresswoman, Hilda Solis, to join his cabinet as the Secretary of Labor. This is especially welcome news to labor and immigrant rights groups who have constituted Solis’ primary base in her rise to national prominence.

The daughter of Mexican and Nicaraguan immigrant laborers, Solis brings the most solid progressive credentials of any member of the Obama cabinet — including Obama himself. She has won abundant praise and wide support because of her positions on labor rights, immigration issues, environmental protection and women’s rights, to name a few. Her appointment reflects the growing power and influence of the labor and immigrant struggles of Southern California and across the country as her trajectory, like that of L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, took rapid upward turn thanks to the political energy and power unleashed after the struggles against Proposition 187 in California. For those looking for hope in the great labor and immigration struggles we’re still engaged in, look no further at what your work has wrought: Hilda Solis, Secretary of Labor.

Full disclosure: I know and have worked on a number of issues with Hilda since we fought Proposition 187 in California in the early 90’s and have, since then, found her to be nothing, if not a smart and capable fighter and an upright person. In addition to celebrating Hilda’s political capabilities, I am also likely being moved by the fact that I’ve never seen someone whose extraction so closely resembled my own (Central American immigrant unionist household) enter the Star Chamber of global power, except maybe to clean it. May she enlighten it with the warmth and brilliance of Southern California and the Américas. In sum, I can say without reservation, that this really is one to celebrate as I am about to go do as soon as the this period in my sentence drops…

Source / Of America

Also see Obama to Announce Final Cabinet Picks by Anne E. Kornblut / Washington Post / Dec. 19, 2008

And Cabinet: Middle-of-the-roaders’ dream by Carrie Budoff Brown and Nia-Malika Henderson / Politico / Dec. 19, 2008

Thanks to Dorinda Moreno / The Rag Blog

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Bush’s EPA : Another Green Light to Carbon Emissions

Posted on December 19, 2008 by Thorne Dreyer

New power plants will not be required to install technology to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, the Environmental Protection Agency has ruled. Photo by Charlie Riedel / AP.

The case at issue yesterday began in 2007 when the EPA issued a permit to a new coal-fired power plant in Bonanza, Utah. The Sierra Club, an environmental group, filed a legal challenge, saying that the permit should have required the plant to control its output of carbon dioxide.

By David A. Fahrenthold and Steven Mufson / December 19, 2008

The Environmental Protection Agency ruled yesterday that new power plants are not required to install technology to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, rejecting an argument from environmental groups.

The ruling, in a memorandum signed by EPA Administrator Stephen L. Johnson, turns on a seemingly arcane regulatory question that could govern the future of new fossil fuel-burning buildings and power plants under the Clean Air Act.

During the Bush administration, the EPA has rejected the idea that greenhouse gases should be regulated like soot, smog precursors and other kinds of air pollution, despite an April 2007 Supreme Court ruling that said carbon dioxide fit the definition of a pollutant that could be regulated under the Clean Air Act.

The case at issue yesterday began in 2007 when the EPA issued a permit to a new coal-fired power plant in Bonanza, Utah. The Sierra Club, an environmental group, filed a legal challenge, saying that the permit should have required the plant to control its output of carbon dioxide.

In a case before the EPA’s Environmental Appeals Board, the Sierra Club cited a rule that required plants to use the best available technology to control all “regulated” pollutants, as well as the April 2007 Supreme Court ruling.

The case revolved around the question of whether carbon dioxide was required to be controlled or simply monitored.

The appeals board, a kind of appeals court for EPA rules, found on Nov. 13 that the rule was unclear. Johnson’s memo yesterday sought to make it plain. Major industrial corporations have been pressing the Bush administration to issue a ruling in the case.

“That is our established interpretation,” Robert Meyers, the head of the EPA office of air and radiation, said in an interview. “We’ve been applying it that way for 30 years.”

It was unclear yesterday what the ruling’s real-world impact will be. The EPA says that about 50 plants — either new or significantly remodeled — must obtain a permit under this provision every year. But Meyers said he does not know if any are positioned to receive final approval before President-elect Barack Obama takes office on Jan. 20.

The Obama administration is likely to review the case, and Democratic officials close to the president-elect’s team say that the Supreme Court ruling and the EPA’s power to regulate carbon dioxide can serve as powerful levers to bring corporations and other parties to a bargaining table about broad framework for controlling greenhouse gases.

Source / Washington Post

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Obama’s Consensus Building : Rick Warren and, Say, Bull Conner?

Posted on December 19, 2008 by Thorne Dreyer

Birmingham Police Commissioner Eugene (Bull) Conner called out the dogs on civil rights demonstrators in 1963. Surely he wouldn’t have been included under President-elect Barack Obama’s umbrella.

‘Using an evangelical mega-church fence-straddling homophobe and anti-abortion champion to offer an inaugurating prayer as he takes the reins of leadership of America is a political cop-out.’
By Larry Ray / The Rag Blog / December 19, 2008

OK, a real short line or two here from the gut. Barack Obama proposes to, “. . . build relationships with people of opposing views, and wants his inaugural to reflect that goal.” So, I have to ask, if he had been running for president in the 60’s would he have presented such a seemingly equalizing forum to Bull Conner, Bubba and Billy Bob in Jackson, Mississippi and the followers of George Wallace so we could all somehow get along better?

If this is a preview of Obama’s idea of consensus building and healing, I must wonder if his ideas for improving other things are going to be this delusional and divisive. Using an evangelical mega-church fence-straddling homophobe and anti-abortion champion to offer an inaugurating prayer as he takes the reins of leadership of America is a political cop-out. Is he is trying to build a bridge from reason and acceptance to homophobes and haters with some two-moves-ahead chess ploy to the Right? I fear he has just run off the road big time before his motorcade even gets started. After all the A+ moves the Obama campaign has made from its beginnings to just a day or so ago, this has to be the most mistaken, confusing and contradictory. Why? Where does the politically expedient pandering stop? What am I missing here? Short change we can believe in?

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Inaugural Program : Sneak Preview

Posted on December 19, 2008 by Thorne Dreyer

Thanks to Harry Edwards / The Rag Blog

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Do The Shoes Impact Daily Life in Baghdad?

Posted on December 19, 2008 by RagBlog

Tamuz Bridge, Baghdad, leading to July 14 Monument.

Did the shoe cause rebellion at Baghdad’s July 14 Bridge?
By Mohammed al Dulaimy / December 17, 2008

BAGHDAD — The square in front of the July 14 Bridge in Baghdad is closed by troops several times a day. The bridge leads into the American-controlled Green Zone. On the square, not far from the Green Zone, lie the offices of the president and the head of the biggest parliamentary bloc. Official convoys come and go all day long.

In the many times that I have been at that square, no one has ever objected to soldiers closing off the road while some official’s convoy passes by. We all turn off our cars and sit there and wait.

Wednesday, however, was different. I couldn’t believe my eyes.

Around 12:30 p.m. several vehicles loaded with Iraqi soldiers accompanying two or three buses stopped in mid square and tried to close it (like every day) but drivers refused to obey. We are tired of closed roads.

The horns of tens of cars were loud. Angry drivers yelled at soldiers. Not even when the soldiers brandished their rifles at the cars would the drivers stop. There were shots in the air, but the vehicles continued on. The military saw, for the first time I think, mass anger for blocking roads.

I have been in this square almost every day for the last four years, on the way to one official function or another, and nothing like this has ever happened. This time, the soldiers were forced to park their vehicles in a way that allowed civilian cars to pass.

There was news Wednesday from Fallujah of students demonstrating, demanding the release of Muntathar al Zaidi, the journalist who threw the shoe at President Bush. The students waved their shoes and threw stones at American soldiers. Things escalated and soldiers started to shoot, witnesses said. One student was injured.

People have been talking about Muntathar everywhere and at all times for the last two days. For many, he’s become an idol and a star to follow.

My question: Did Muntathar’s shoe-throwing cause this?

[Dulaimy is a McClatchy special correspondent.]

Source / McClatchy

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Don’t Escalate Afghan War; Send in the Peace Corps

Posted on December 19, 2008 by Thorne Dreyer

Taliban troops in Afghanistan. Photo from AFP.

‘The basic ingredients of further Afghan disasters are in place,’ warns Norman Solomon, executive director of the Washington-based Institute For Public Accuracy, ‘including, pivotally, a dire lack of wide-ranging debate over Washington’s options.’

By Sherwood Ross / December 17, 2008

President-elect Obama should drop his plans to escalate the war in Afghanistan, a country that never attacked America, out of pity for a helpless civilian population that will only suffer increasing misery from an expanded fight against the Taliban and its allies.

Recall military intervention was used to capture Panamanian military dictator Manuel Noriega for a drug charge in December 20, 1989. That illegal assault, ordered by President George H.W. Bush, killed 500 Panamanian civilians, wounded 3,000 more, and pushed 15,000 people out of their homes, an incredible price innocent people were made to pay to enable the U.S. to nail one drug-runner.

In Afghanistan, the civilian population has already paid a much higher price.
“We will kill bin Laden. We will crush al Qaeda. That has to be our biggest national security priority,” Senator Barack Obama pledged during the televised presidential debate of last October 7.

Yes, and in so doing, thousands of additional Afghan civilians are liable to perish, likely far more of them then the 3,000 Americans massacred on 9/11 in New York and Washington.

In just the first two years after 9/11, the U.S. had already killed between 3,000 and 5,000 Afghan civilians, David Krieger noted in Counterpunch. And Jay Shaft, of the Coalition For Free Thought in Media, points to a United Nations estimate that up to 500 Afghan civilians are dying monthly from U.S. cluster bombs, most of them children and teenage boys.

“The president (Obama) is going to inherit the problem the Soviets had roughly 15 years ago during the Soviet jihad. You cannot tame the people in the North-West Frontier Province and on the border in Pakistan and Afghanistan,” Dalton Fury, the commander of special operations at Tora Bora, recently told Cable News Network.

By its illegal invasion of Iraq, the Bush regime allowed the Taliban in Afghanistan and its allies to regain control of the nation. Anand Gopal, of the Christian Science Monitor, writes that just a 20-minute drive outside the capital Kabul, “the American-backed government of Afghanistan no longer exits.” He states, “Violence has reached record levels this year and Afghanistan is now considered a deadlier battlefield than Iraq.”

This is not to say bin Laden should not be brought to trial or that Americans are not entitled to closure on the 9/11 attacks.

But a leading U.S. international law authority says (1) there is no sufficient proof that bin Laden even masterminded the 9/11 attacks and (2) diplomacy to secure justice would be the more rational and humane approach than armed force.

Francis Boyle, a University of Illinois professor, writes in “Destroying World Order”(Clarity Press): “There is not and may never be conclusive proof as to who was behind the terrible bombings..on Sept. 11… Suffice it to say that the accounts provided by the United States government simply do not add up.”

There is no evidence bin Laden ordered the attack or even that Al Qaeda or the Taliban was involved, Boyle said. Recall that former Secretary of State Colin Powell pledged the U.S. would produce a “White Paper” to document the case against bin Laden, but that he never produced one. Instead, then British Prime Minister Tony Blair, hardly an American official, issued a report the British press ridiculed for its lack of proof.

Boyle also points out the so-called bin Laden video that the Central Intelligence Agency “miraculously discovered” in a bombed out house in Jalalabad, Afghanistan, was “disjointed” and “non-sequential.”

The videotape is suspect because the Pentagon’s translated version was not word for word but an “information flow” paraphrase created at The Johns Hopkins School for Advanced International Studies where Paul Wolfowitz, the war hawk and deputy defense secretary, had just been dean. In case you didn’t know, Johns Hopkins is no impartial academic institution but one of the very biggest Pentagon contractors in terms of the boodle it siphons off from the military-industrial complex.

“The bin Laden video provided no evidence that implicated the Taliban government of Afghanistan in the 11 September 2001 attacks (and)…no justification for the United States to wage war against Afghanistan, a U.N. Member State, in gross violation of the United Nations Charter,” Boyle writes.

Little known to most Americans is that Afghanistan likely was invaded because its Taliban government refused to okay pipelines sought by Union Oil Co. of California(UNOCAL).

“Since Central Asia is landlocked, the United States government wanted to find a way to get the oil and natural gas out, while avoiding Iran, Russia, and China,” Boyle said. “The easiest way to do that was to construct a pipeline south through Afghanistan, into Pakistan and right out to the Arabian Sea. UNOCAL had been negotiating with the Taliban government of Afghanistan for quite some time, still with the full support of the U.S. government into the summer of 2001, but their negotiations had failed. The U.S….then rendered a proverbial offer that could not be refused to the Taliban government.”

A “major consideration” for the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 was to put in office a regime favoring the oil and gas pipelines the U.S. sought running from Turkmenistan south through Afghanistan to the Arabian Sea coast of Pakistan, writes Chalmers Johnson in “The Sorrows of Empire”(Owl Books).

Oil “has been a constant motive” driving “the vast expansion of (U.S.) bases in the Persian Gulf” in Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and UAR, Johnson says. Because Afghanistan’s Taliban regime opposed the U.S.-backed venture, its overthrow became the secret reason behind “the war on terrorism,” Johnson claims.

To build the proposed $2-billion, 918-mile natural gas pipeline and a $4-billion 1,005-mile oil pipeline UNOCAL “needed a government in Kabul it could deal with in obtaining transit rights.”

Thus, Johnson writes, “A remarkable group of Washington insiders came together to promote the Unocal project”:

* UNOCAL hired former President Nixon’s national security adviser Henry Kissinger to negotiate with Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.

* Kissinger worked with Turkmenistan’s top consultant, none other than his own former White House aide Gen. Alexander Haig, later President Regan’s Secretary of State.

* UNOCAL also employed two well-connected Afghans to influence the Taliban in its favor, naturalized U.S. citizen Zalmay Khalilzad, and Hamid Karzai, both linked to former Afghan king Zahir Shah, then living in Pakistan. The pair later became U.S. Ambassador to Iraq and U.S.-backed President of Afghanistan, respectively.

* President Bush first appointed Khalilzad to his National Security Council(NSC) staff, under Condoleezza Rice, and on December 31, 2001, named him “special envoy” to Afghanistan, only nine days after the Karzai government took office in Kabul.

“It should be recalled,” Johnson writes, Khalilzad joined NSC on May 23, 2001, “just in time to work on an operational order for an attack on Afghanistan.”

Johnson writes “it would appear that the attacks of September 11 provided an opportunity for the United States to act unilaterally to remove the Taliban, without assistance from Russia, India, or any other country.”

According to Boyle, even before 9/11 the Taliban rulers of Afghanistan had made “repeated offers to negotiate a solution” over “the disposition of bin Laden—as well as over the UNOCAL oil pipeline.”

Boyle said the Taliban offered to have bin Laden tried in a neutral Islamic court by Muslim judges applying the laws of Sharia; then they modified this to have him tried before some type of neutral court, which would exclude handing him over to the U.S; and finally, “even offered to try bin Laden themselves provided the United States gave them some credible evidence of his involvement in the ll September attacks, which was never done.”

Bush responded in his September 20, 2001, address “by ruling out any type of negotiations and instead issuing the Taliban government an impossible ultimatum,” Boyle said.

As President Bush put it, “tonight, the United States of America makes the following demands on the Taliban: Deliver to United States authorities all the leaders of al Qaeda who hide in your land. (Applause.) Release all foreign nationals, including American citizens, you have unjustly imprisoned… Close immediately and permanently every terrorist training camp in Afghanistan, and hand over every terrorist, and every person in their support structure, to appropriate authorities. (Applause.) Give the United States full access to terrorist training camps, so we can make sure they are no longer operating.” Bush emphasized: “These demands are not open to negotiation or discussion. (Applause.) The Taliban must act, and act immediately. They will hand over the terrorists, or they will share in their fate.”

Boyle said that by giving an impossible ultimatum to Afghanistan that ruled out negotiations and chose the military path, Bush ignored “12 or so multilateral conventions already on the books that deal with…international terrorism,” “many of which could have been used…to handle this matter in a lawful, effective, and peaceful manner.”

“So a decision was made remarkably early in the process to ignore and abandon the entire framework of international treaties that had been established under the auspices of the UN Organization for the past 25 years,” Boyle summarized, “in order to deal with acts of international terrorism and instead go to war against Afghanistan, a U.N. member state.”

Surely, the hour has come for the U.S. to reverse the failed Bush military approach and negotiate an equitable solution to stop the killing and bring bin Laden to justice. If you think the U.S. cannot negotiate with the Taliban, recall during the 1980s it was the CIA that funneled literally billions of dollars directly into Taliban pockets to overthrow Afghanistan’s Soviet-backed government, increasing the prospect of an invasion by the Red Army, which is exactly what happened.

Hasn’t Afghanistan suffered enough? The U.S. would be far better off if instead of pouring tens of thousands of troops into Afghanistan it sent in a like number of unarmed Peace Corps volunteers with a comparable budget. Time to give non-violence a chance. C’mon, guys, show a little imagination, huh?

[Sherwood Ross is a veteran reporter and public relations consultant. He formerly worked for the City News Bureau of Chicago, the Chicago Daily News, and as a columnist for wire services.]

Source / LA Progressive

Thanks to Dorinda Moreno / The Rag Blog

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Our Economic Trainwreck : Retooling the Engine

Posted on December 19, 2008 by Thorne Dreyer


The Wrecked Economy: What Could Be Tried?
By Sherman DeBrosse / The Rag Blog / December 18, 2008

[This is the final installment in a three-part series on the economy by The Rag Blog’s Sherman DeBrosse.]

A new approach to the financial crisis might be built on the idea of being more careful with what is done for the financial sector and focusing upon resolving the mortgage crisis, which affects millions of Americans. If the mortgage crisis were to be remedied, it could have the effect of shoring up banks and financial institutions by giving mortgage based securities greater value. Americans can learn from the Japanese who spent nearly a decade bailing out financial institutions without addressing every day problems. Their economy is still stagnant.

We would be much better off going after the mortgage problem and remembering, in building the Obama stimulus plan, that FDR’s PWA and WPA approach did some good, but it invested far too little. Will half a billion, invested months late, do the trick? Its very doubtful. Ignore the conservative pundits who are writing that the Roosevelt approach will not work and that some sort of new supply side scheme, benefitting the top of the economy, will do the trick. Economists are now suggesting that if the recession ends sometime in 2009 that employment will continue to decline for some time — a somewhat odd and troubling situation. The stimulus package must be big enough to do the job.

The stimulus package that Obama is fashioning must address improving energy policy and repairing the nation’s failing infrastructure. It should also look to improving and modernizing the nation’s industrial facilities. Coupled with that must be a national health care plan that makes it possible to remove health care costs from industrial labor costs. If a new health care scheme can be put in place early on, it will be much easier to resuscitate industry.

Shella Blair, head of the FDIC, offered a $24 billion plan to help homeowners go through the refinancing process and to partially guarantee their loans. The plan has received very little support on Capitol Hill. Some version of her plan should be tried. It could involve much longer payment periods and lower interest, but without trimming mortgage size unless banks share the write offs. It should be combined with subsidized 4.5% mortgages on new construction. That should begin to slow the deterioration of housing values.

A second step is probably necessary to stop the slide in values and create some jobs; it might be necessary to allow all mortgage holders to refinance their homes at 4.8%. In the long run, the federal government would not only recover its investment. Government can now borrow money at a little over 2%, so this should be profitable from the beginning. We would be looking at a huge amount to subsidize those mortgages, but it would all be invested in people rather than being poured down holes dug by speculators.

A three month moratorium on all foreclosures of any kind would give the new policies time to take hold. The Obama administration should be prepared for the possibility that there also may be a need for some sort of short term bank holiday to identify broken banks and place them under conservators. Provision would be made for every-day checking and ATM transactions to go on with some restrictions.

The S & L and banking crises of the late 1980s grew out of deregulation. We know how Charles Keating defrauded his investors, but in 2008 it was considered bad taste to point out that John McCain did his bidding for a time. There is still much we do not know about those banking crises. In 1997, Brooksley Born, chair of the Commodity Futures Commission, was driven out of government because he tried to reign in excessive speculation. In 1999, Congress repealed many safeguards affecting banks with the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act. Then it passed in 2000 the Commodity Futures Modernization Act, which hade it very difficult to regulate swaps and other derivatives.

It is imperative that the new Congress examine how deregulation contributed to the earlier banking crisis and the current financial melt-down. The deregulation of financial markets was a key element in Republican economics, and we are now facing the grim consequences. The assumption was that freed of regulations the markets would endlessly generate wealth. As Alan Greenspan said, it was unthinkable that the heads of banks and investment firms would do anything to place their shareholders in danger. With time, a minority of Democrats joined the Republicans in embracing what was called “market fundamentalism.” One was Bill Clinton, who signed both of the destructive acts. However, Clinton did resist successful efforts to sharply reduce the powers of the Securities and Exchange Commission. His veto was overridden with the help of John McCain.

We would not be in this fix had Americans looked carefully into the S&L and commercial debacles or the severe problems that accompanied the collapse of Enron and some others. They grew out of excessive deregulation, dishonest accounting, and lack enforcement. An honest and thorough discussion would have laid the blame at the door of Republican market fundamentalism. Some of the New Democrats bought much of this and would come in for some blame, as well. But a full investigation and discussion could have help avert all this pain.

It is time now for Congress to study how deregulation brought us to these dire times. It may well be that in specific instances some deregulation was necessary. This is not a call for restoring all New Deal era regulation. Given how quickly traders, working under recently loosened rules create toxic securities, some speed is needed. Several members of President-elect Obama’s economic team are too closely tied to the old and failed policies of deregulation. This writer would be more comfortable if the new Congress and new administration brought in Joseph Stiglitz or some of his protégés to identify the deregulatory mistakes that first must be fixed.

There is a deep systemic problem in the financial system that must be addressed by careful reregulation and judicious use of public funds. There is probably not enough public borrowing capacity to cover all the problems. Washington has lent much money on the premise that some financial institutions are too big to let fail. AIG has received over $150 billion because it played the role of insuring transactions. Because the rating agencies did not play their role, AIG was stuck with a plethora of bad insurance contracts.

One lesson from these bailouts is that government should carve up into smaller pieces the firms and banks it bails out, and it should avoid creating, through loans, institutions that are too large to fail.

Another lesson is that the few bond rating firms we have cannot be trusted. Their financial well-being is too closely tied to the short-term profits generated by the firms they rate. We must either create an agency that carefully monitors the rating firms, or the government must take over the firms, and then make sure the executive branch cannot force them to pull in their horns. There should have been a mechanism for puncturing the high tech and mortgage bubbles. The Fed blinked on both occasions, assuming the economy is rational and its actors would not make irrational decisions. Maybe reconstituted rating firms can wield mighty needles.

Why Lehman Brothers was allowed to go under and Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley were rescued is not clear to this writer. There will be other cases when government must bail out financial institutions. The Bear Stearns bailout might be a model. It was saved because it performed vital functions in international markets. Stockholders lost almost all their equity and chairman James Cayne lost about a billion dollars. Across the board, people who bought bonds or preferred stock will loose huge amounts. Tax law should be revised to permit them to use their losses over a two or three year period. It is likely that these investors would reward Democrats for compassion, but these folks might invest in bonds and preferred stocks again.

It is doubtful that buying bad derivatives will do anything in the long run for the economy. They should not be purchased by government unless it is absolutely necessary to some systematic repair of the financial system.

Something must be done to dampen tendencies toward a Financial Wild West atmosphere, which results in so much long term harm. Congress might consider excess profits taxes in the financial and energy industries.

This recession makes it clear that the time has come to work out a national industrial policy. For too long Americans have maintained the fiction that to do anything along these lines is “socialistic.” The fact is we have long had an ad-hoc policy written into tax policies and corporate welfare. Lacking serious discussion of this matter, we have come to socialism for Wall Street and a wholesale neglect of blue collar workers. There can be no industrial policy without a healthy American-owned auto industry. Like it or not; that is the heart of American industry. Without this, we will even be unable to build here the weapons of war we so love.

The domestic auto industry has made many mistakes, partly because of customer tastes. It has also suffered due to short-sighted, dysfunctional trade deals, and wrong-headed energy policies. At the least, Americans should be willing to invest an equivalent to what the Europeans have invested in their auto industry. To do otherwise, is to do permanent damage to the economies of the Great Lakes states. Much of the resistance to assisting the auto industry is rooted in animosity toward organized labor and the belief that American workers should only come hat in hand when discussing wages and benefits. This is the kind of class consciousness and class prejudice that Americans do not discuss anymore.

[Sherman DeBrosse, the pseudonym for a retired history professor, is a contributor to The Rag Blog and also blogs at Sherm Says and on DailyKos.]

Please see the previous installments in this series by The Rag Blog’s Sherman DeBross:

Sherman DeBrosse : Our Economic Trainwreck , and

Our Economic Trainwreck : Trying to Get Back on Track .

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