Wednesday, June 27, 2007
Sunday, June 10, 2007
Why we can't leave Iraq 2 (or should we?)
I wrote a post a year ago that explained why the lessons of Afghanistan teach us we can't leave Iraq to fend for herself. My point was that since we left Afghanistan in 1989 after fighting the Soviets, we left them alone; in that chaos grew Osama Bin Laden. I'm none to keen to see that happen twelve years from now.
Since then, my post been read by many people (I got a litte site tracker dealie) but what really shocks me is that lately, it's been read by a lot more people. People do Google searches on leaving Iraq, find my old piece, and read it. I thought it was time to update.
It's June of 2007 now and the death toll, just of our guys, is over 3500. I am not sure any more. I still believe in the ideas put forth here, but... You can talk about your various options for putting out a fire on the stove, but once the whole house is on fire, perhaps it's time to just shut up and get out.
What I really hate is that these are our two choices. The intractability of the President's "stay the course" plan has pre-determined its opposite: leave. He so stubbornly clung to his position that it caused everyone (now up to 75% I hear) to line up on the other side. (I don't know how that happens, some function of human nature, I suppose.) And once again, anyone who says anything between "stay" and "leave" comes off wishy-washy and unsure. Just because "stay" is wrong doesn't mean "leave" is the answer. We are so glad to have the 75% who don't want to be in Iraq on our side, that we forget that we needed them back in 2003 to keep us from going in. Their blind obedience to the point of view du jour isn't any more helpful now than it was then.
First, I have asked our candidates to stop telling me what they would do in Iraq if they are president in 2009.
Second, I have been reading about Richard I of England, known as the Lion-Hearted, who was a horrible king who started the Crusades after massacring Jews in England. I'm starting to understand why they might get sick of Western "help". It's the same thing as building the Bin Sultan air base in Saudi Arabia to "help" the Saudis defend their country; and that was on the top of the list for OBL's wrath. Building our base was insulting to the Saudis, who are capable of taking care of themselves (but we were gearing up for coming in and gettin' us some oil).
Third, I still believe the Iraqis will need some kind of help. Help by being left alone, or help from their neighbors, help in the form of money from us, or help from the Christmas Ghosts, I don't know. But I still believe that if the Iraqis don't get some kind of help, it will leave a gaping hole of instability that will surely spew forth demons as the Afghanistan did with Osama Bin Laden. And I believe in cleaning up messes you make. The Girl Scout motto is "Leave things better than you found them," and I take that very seriously.
Forth, I believe that the most important thing for the world is stability. I don't mean to imply that stability in the form of an iron-fisted dictator is preferable to the stability of small town America, but rather that worldwide stability is preferable to worldwide warmongering. Even the stability of the Cold War was better than the instability of erupting conflict we are now seeing in the Middle East. Worldwide stability gives us the platform to address pressing issues such as poverty, women's rights, child labor, dictators, free press, personal liberty, etc. When we are living in conflict, all we can address is ending conflict.
This is actually why many of us feel that we should not have opened instability in Iraq, even though she was being ruled by a terrible dictator. While we can use conflict to depose that dictator, we can't do anything else. While Saddam was still in power, we could have UN resolutions, weapons inspectors, negotiations. We had a framework within which to move closer to success. Oh, I'm glad he's gone too, but we can't get this new government to accomplish anything because of the instability in the country.
I have an ulterior motive, I don't want worldwide instability to have exploded in the next 16 years so that there is a draft when my son is of age.
Speaking of Little Mr. Patriot, he needs his lunch, so I must finish this later.
PS I found another post I'd done on this, found here, so this is actually the third one.
Wednesday, June 06, 2007
Tim Griffin and the Caging List Scandal, or How I Learned To Start Worrying And Fear The GOP
Tim Griffin, aide to Karl Rove, had caging lists developed for swing states of voters who were thought to vote Democrat so that, in removing them, the GOP change the outcome of the election.
He emailed the actual caging lists to Karl on the RNC email server. ["missing email scandal"]
The caging lists were apparently brought to the Civil Rights Division, which had been packed with GOPbots who would not question them, and thousands of names were removed from voter rolls in swing states. What happened in this stage of the game will surely be uncovered as the investigation continues. ["political hiring scandal"]
To avoid being caught, the Attorney General removed 8 to 10 US Attorneys (in the swing states where caging lists were being used) who had demonstrated an unwillingness to "play ball" politcally and might get wind of these caging lists and prosecute. ["US Attorney Firings Scandal"]
One of their replacements was Tim Griffin. He did not have to go through Senate confirmation, and so could not be questioned under oath and have his caging list crime uncovered. He was then a US Attorney, the prosecution, and the only one who could prosecute him would be the Attorney General, who was certainly part of this conspiracy at the level of firing the USAs, if not in other areas as well. ["change to the Patriot Act Scandal"]
Greg Palast wrote about this in his book. Senator John Conyers has caught wind of the story and is openly investigating. When that news broke, Tim Griffin resigned and is in the wind.
This is a crime committed to change the outcome of an election and establish a permanent GOP majority, and a conspiracy to cover up that crime. It is also the best example of how all these disparate stories (which smelled bad on their own but didn't seem to go anywhere) added up to a system in which this conspiracy, and possibly others, were permitted to occur.
Caging Lists
First of all, the term "caging" comes from direct mail and has only recently made its way into the political lexicon. As pertains to direct mail, the definition is quite different: it is a whole range of activities that add up to processing information in databases. While in politics it still pertains to databases, this time of voters, the use of the term is very different. If my definitions are not exact, it is because I am describing the practical application of vote caging, which is the most important to the Citizen Reader.
What is "vote caging"?
To cage votes is to separate out names of voters, based on their likelihood of voting for your opponent, and attempt to keep those votes from being counted. This is done with caging lists.
What is a "caging list"?
It is a list of voters whose voting status is challenged, with the hope of getting these voters off the rolls.
How does it work?
First, a political party wants to tip the election by removing thousands of voters off the rolls who are likely to vote for the opposition. These people will be unlikely to have a fixed address, will move a lot, or will be away from home for long periods (such as college students, deployed military, and homeless people). A mailer is prepared and sent to their voter registration address. It is marked on the outside "Do Not Forward", and the letter will request that you return some portion to confirm your address. Many of these voters will not be at their address (for example, it is sent to the stateside home of a deployed soldier) and the letters are returned. The party then takes the letters to the voting authorities and claims that none of these people are living at their voting address, and their registrations are likely fraudulent. In the interest of stopping voter fraud, the names are removed.
So, this happened?
Tim Griffin, Karl Rove's deputy, attached prepared caging lists to an email he attempted to send to Rove-- but sent it to a friend of a reporter instead. I've heard various reports on how many thousands of voters were caged, but it's 35,000 here and 70,000 there... It seems to be just enough to tip the election but not enough in any one spot to be obvious.
