As Mr. Bush spoke, Vice President Dick Cheney and Karl Rove, the president's senior political adviser, listened on the sidelines, as did Dan Bartlett, the counselor to the president and Mr. Bush's overseer of communications strategy. Their presence underscored how seriously the White House is reacting to the political crisis it faces.

Related post
George Bush: Cheerleader-in-Chief of Social Security "reform" (2/14/05)

Robert Burns writes that

By law the inspector general is the principal adviser to the secretary of defense for matters relating to the prevention of fraud, waste and abuse in the Department of Defense.

This man knows where the bodies are buried. The Prince Group should see a princely bump in its earnings from the Pentagon in no time at all.
 

According to the Courier-Mail

The three, believed to be members of Al-Qaeda linked extremist group Ansar al-Sunna, were sentenced in May for killing and kidnapping policemen and raping Iraqi women.

"This is the highest punishment against people who were killers and were executed despite protests from the international community," a spokesman said. "It will help deter criminals from committing crimes."

The U.N. and human rights groups had objected to the punishment.

Interestingly, Iraqi President Talibani also opposes the death penalty and refused to sign the death warrants. Apparently it makes no difference whether he signs or not; they kill 'em anyway.
 

The destruction and death visited upon New Orleans could have been prevented in part if the federal government had years ago responded to the need to repair and replace old levees and other flood-control measures. That fact is bad enough in a city as exposed to natural calamity as New Orleans. But the circumstances pale by comparison with the cavalier, inept and unprofessional response by the Bush administration to the tragedy as it unfolded to destroy a great American city.

If the federal government is this incompetent in dealing with a natural disaster, how can Americans possibly believe that the Department of Homeland Security would do any better in the event of a terrorist attack?

From Arab News (8/31)

In the same way that Americans started to think differently about defense and terrorism after 9/11, there is every possibility that Hurricane Katrina’s destructive rampage will alter views about climate change. Until now there has been no stimulus to rethink ideas. There were no home-based massive natural disasters to bring the American media, the American public and American politicians face to face with the erratic weather patterns that are the consequences of global warming and which have had such disastrous impact elsewhere on the planet.
....

.... If public opinion decides that Katrina was a hurricane too many, if that change of mind batters some fresh thinking into the US administration, then much good will have come out of this tragedy.

From David Aaronovitch in the Times of London—

The truth is that the New Orleans disaster is far worse than 9/11, and dwarfs anything seen in the West in modern times save for the Etna eruption and the San Francisco earthquake. In that sense it only tells us how vulnerable we are.

Well, not all of us equally. When disasters or fires or bombings happen, you discover just who was travelling on your trains, who was crammed into your hostels or who was living in the low-lying areas. It isn’t the failure to act in New Orleans that is the story here, it’s the sheer, uninsured, uncared for, self-disenfranchised scale of the poverty that lies revealed. It looks like a scene from the Third World because that’s the truth. It’s a quiet disaster that’s been going on for years — a pudding-basin-full-of-poverty situation.

Andrew Buncombe and Andrew Gumbel in the Independent—

The prospect of an ugly, elemental battle for survival in New Orleans was made worse by the fact that even before Hurricane Katrina it was the poorest urban area in the United States. The ghastly spectacle of overwhelmingly black residents caged in an unsanitary sports stadium and left almost entirely to their own devices could not but evoke memories of the darkest days of segregation and overtly racist Jim Crow laws in the American South. The potential for racial conflict has been quietly side-stepped in much of the US media coverage to date, but it is also impossible to ignore.
....

The prospect of a major societal breakdown was not restricted to the disaster area. As the first evacuees were welcomed to their new temporary home, the Astrodome in Houston, officials felt obliged to deny that the dispossessed were being held in prison-like conditions. The Astrodome was "not a jail", the chief executive of Harris County, which encompasses Houston, insisted at a news conference.

Chris Floyd is one of the very best writers in print or on the Web. If you read nothing else today, please read "The Perfect Storm."

QUESTIONER: Scott, I know the President obviously is focused on response efforts right now, but can I talk to you about preparedness? Is the President satisfied with the way assets were pre-positioned, specifically in those areas like New Orleans and Mississippi, New Orleans particularly, a place that was identified by the Red Cross as being particularly vulnerable because of its geographical location. Is the President satisfied?

MR. McCLELLAN: One thing that I think is important to keep in mind at this time, this is the immediate aftermath of a major catastrophe. This is a time when the whole country needs to come together to help those in the region. And that's where our focus is. This is not a time to get into any finger pointing or politics or anything of that nature.
....

QUESTIONER: Scott, there's already a line of discussion going on about the funding of projects prior to this, whether projects in New Orleans, in particular, were under funded because of the Iraq war or for other reasons. Is there a -- do you find any of this criticism legitimate? Do you think there is any second-guessing to be done now about priorities, given that the New Orleans situation was sort of obvious to a lot of the experts?

MR. McCLELLAN: As I indicated, this is not a time for politics. This is a time for the nation to come together and help those in the Gulf Coast region. And that's where our focus is. This is not a time for finger-pointing or playing politics.

The White House never likes to see finger-pointing unless it's done by the White House finger. Yet I probably wouldn't be writing this post if I hadn't caught Homeland Security Director Michael Chertoff and FEMA Director Mike Brown1 on TV last night lying like psychopaths as to why they weren't better prepared.

The truth is—If the director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) had been selected by lottery, chances are we could have gotten better management.

Consider FEMA's task. According to the web page recounting their history,2 FEMA is "tasked with responding to, planning for, recovering from and mitigating against disasters." Viewed against the background of Hurricane Katrina, the utter failure of the agency is evident.

Why did FEMA prepare for the unknown risk rather than for the known risk?

A clue to FEMA's problem may be found on the same web page—

Billions of dollars of new funding were directed to FEMA to help communities face the threat of terrorism. Just a few years past its 20th anniversary, FEMA was actively directing its "all-hazards" approach to disasters toward homeland security issues. In March 2003, FEMA joined 22 other federal agencies, programs and offices in becoming the Department of Homeland Security [DHS].... Today, FEMA is one of four major branches of DHS. About 2,500 full-time employees in the Emergency Preparedness and Response Directorate are supplemented by more than 5,000 stand-by disaster reservists.

You may recall from yesterday's post ("Just how stupid are they?") that in 2001 FEMA "issued a report stating that a hurricane striking New Orleans was one of the three most likely disasters in the U.S., including a terrorist attack on New York City." So the threat of a hurricane to New Orleans was very well known. I had heard of it; Louisiana politicians knew of it; and even FEMA had a clue.

So why did FEMA not follow their mandate to plan for, mitigate against, respond to, and recover from such a disaster? I can tell you in one sentence: IT WOULDN'T HAVE HELPED TO PROMOTE GEORGE BUSH.

With FEMA tucked into the Department of Homeland Security under Michael Chertoff, terrorism became sexy. The mandated functions of FEMA—like every other agency of the administration—were co-opted to serve the promotion and re-election of George. And when you think of George Bush, you naturally think of terrorism, not hurricanes. Or to put it another way, it became the function of FEMA to keep you thinking of terrorism rather than hurricanes, because it was well established that public support for George went up every time the threat of terrorism was mentioned.

Protecting us against terrorism?

As for terrorism, the DHS itself—and thus FEMA—has become another hog-waller for the administration's own pork-barrel spending. Vice President Cheney's state of Wyoming has become perhaps the best protected state in the nation against terrorism. But woe unto those who live in a blue-state port city.

Of course, FEMA's preparedness for a terrorist attack is actually unknown, since there hasn't been a terrorist attack against which to measure their response. But you don't need to be a bureaucrat-genius to realize that much of the planning and preparation for hurricane survival is not different from that needed in the event of a terrorist attack.

Without charging you the normal fee of several million dollars to do a "study," let me suggest a few issues common to hurricanes and terrorist attacks that FEMA should have addressed—

• A secure and reliable means of communications must be in place for all emergency responders—political leaders, police, health workers and military.
   
• Stockpiles of water, food and medicines must be kept in readiness.
   
• Emergency-needs centers (and alternates) should be established in advance.
   
• Means of transport of emergency supplies should be determined and provided for in advance.
   
• Plans to transport and house hundreds of thousands of refugees should be in place.
  

I could go on, but it wouldn't be fair to leave FEMA's 2500 employees with nothing to think about in the future. You can readily see that measured by the fulfillment of these minimal requirements, FEMA was not—is not—prepared for a terrorist attack.

What's FEMA's excuse for the poor response?

Here's what Chertoff and Brown are offering—

1. This hurricane disaster was unique because the levees broke.
2. The victims are to blame for not leaving when ordered.
3. FEMA had to hold back to protect the relief workers.
4. They didn't anticipate the breakdown of communications.

But I know you want to hear it from Director Brown himself. He was interviewed last night on PBS by Jim Lehrer:

1. The disaster was unique

Brown: It has been very unusual in my history as an emergency manager and an official of this government that what we see is we've had a disaster, even unlike hurricanes in the past, continued long after the hurricane made landfall.

When Hurricane Katrina made landfall you had what I would call the typical, you know, disaster of the wind damage, and the storm and the rain and power outages. And then it became even worse because the levees began to break, and suddenly we had a major American city, New Orleans, completely inundated by floodwaters.

Only one way will do to describe this performance—This man is a lying sack of shit.

Here he is trying to pretend that the "normal" hurricane disaster results from wind, storm (whatever that means), rain and power outages. But the National Hurricane Center, another federal enterprise, says in bold at the top of its web page,

"The greatest potential for loss of life related to a hurricane is from the storm surge." - Brian Jarvinen, National Hurricane Center

Now this asshole is talking as if the storm surge and broken levees were a surprise that FEMA could not have anticipated. Perhaps they were too busy preparing for martial law in the event of a terrorist attack.

2. The victims are to blame for not leaving when ordered to evacuate.

BROWN: And on top of that, even though there were mandatory evacuations and voluntary evacuations called for, literally hundreds of thousands of people for whatever reasons— I'm not going to second guess - but for whatever reasons —chose or could not evacuate.

And now we're having to evacuate those people after the storm and get relief efforts to them just as rapidly and as efficiently as we can.

Since Mr. Brown doesn't want to second-guess the reasons why so many did not evacuate, as FEMA Director he should have considered it beforehand. Do we need to tell this idiot that poor people in urban areas don't own cars?

If the government is now paying to evacuate "those people" after the disaster, wouldn't it have made more sense to evacuate them beforehand? As usual, for the poor it's every man for himself, and many in New Orleans seem to have responded in kind. While the media are aghast at the looting, they say nothing of the decisions that essentially left these people to die.

3. FEMA had to hold back to protect the relief workers.

LEHRER: Mr. Brown, I'm sure you're aware that there have been enormous complaints today from the people affected, up to the officials in New Orleans, the disaster director of New Orleans in fact called the federal effort that you are in charge of a national disgrace because it's moving so slowly, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. How do you respond to that?

BROWN: Well, I understand his frustration. You know, if I were in his shoes, I'd be very, very frustrated, too. But what the American public needs to know is that we have brought to bear the full resources of the federal government.

What we cannot do, and what we did not do immediately after the storm passed and as the levees were breaking, was to be able to bring in rescue workers and urban search-and-rescue teams and the medical teams because they themselves would have then become disaster victims. So we had to come in very carefully and very methodically. And it frustrated me, too because I would rather just have charged in there and done everything we could have.

FEMA couldn't bring the rescue workers in because they had made no preparation for this catastrophic event. In disaster after disaster rescue workers have taken great risks to themselves to help the victims. Why was this different?

4. They didn't anticipate the breakdown of communications.

JIM LEHRER: Peter Slevin of the Washington Post .... spent all day there, and he said the most striking thing that he has seen is there seems to be nobody in charge. There's no information being disseminated to the victims of this, and people are in a state of panic. What's the problem, Mr. Brown?

MIKE BROWN: Well, we're -- first of all, it's amazing to me how much communications have been broken down. There literally is no communications within the city of New Orleans. The cell towers are down. It's difficult even to use the satellite phones and to make the communications with those like we normally do.

We're working very closely with Mayor Nagin to be able to communicate with him. We've taken Army helicopters and moved into the Baton battleship, a command post that he can use so that he can communicate with his people.

But he's one mayor trying to communicate to all of those people without a telephone, without a way to distribute a newspaper or anything else. So we're trying to give him all the resources we can to communicate to his citizens.

So FEMA couldn't anticipate a communications failure? Didn't plan a secure communications system?

Would the situation have been different in a massive "terrorist" attack? No. Quite likely it would have been worse, since there would have been no forewarning.

If the public had a truly representative body rather than the Congress, it might ask exactly what it was that it purchased with its multibillion dollar investment.

Related posts
Dirty propaganda in a "Dirty War" (updated) (2/24/05)
Just how stupid are they? (9/1/05)

Acting for "partisan political ends" would include kowtowing to the Christo-Republicans. But overall the scientists were too kind in their characterization. Many decisions of the Bushniks are motivated by simple greed, abetted by meanness and stupidity.

Here's a timeline of hurricane-related decisions that I've extracted from Blumenthal's findings—

• 2001. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) issued a report stating that a hurricane striking New Orleans was one of the three most likely disasters in the U.S., including a terrorist attack on New York City. But by 2003 the federal funding for the flood control project essentially dried up as it was drained into the Iraq war.
   
• 2002. "My administration's climate change policy will be science based," President Bush declared in June 2001. But in 2002, when the Environmental Protection Agency submitted a study on global warming to the United Nations reflecting its expert research, Bush derided it as "a report put out by a bureaucracy," and excised the climate change assessment from the agency's annual report.
   
• 2003. When the EPA issued its first comprehensive "Report on the Environment," stating, "Climate change has global consequences for human health and the environment," the White House simply demanded removal of the line and all similar conclusions.
   
• 2003. In 1990, a federal task force began restoring lost wetlands surrounding New Orleans. Every two miles of wetland between the Crescent City and the Gulf reduces a surge by half a foot. Bush had promised "no net loss" of wetlands.... But he reversed his approach in 2003, unleashing the developers. The Army Corps of Engineers and the Environmental Protection Agency then announced they could no longer protect wetlands unless they were somehow related to interstate commerce.
   
• 2004. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers proposed to study how New Orleans could be protected from a catastrophic hurricane, but the Bush administration ordered that the research not be undertaken.
   
• 2004. The Bush administration cut funding requested by the New Orleans district of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for holding back the waters of Lake Pontchartrain by more than 80 percent.
   
• 2005. Additional cuts at the beginning of this year (for a total reduction in funding of 44.2 percent since 2001) forced the New Orleans district of the Corps to impose a hiring freeze.
   
• 2005. At the G-8 meeting in Scotland this year, Bush successfully stymied any common action on global warming. Scientists, meanwhile, have continued to accumulate impressive data on the rising temperature of the oceans, which has produced more severe hurricanes.
   

Blumenthal's point overall is what I call the "neo-medieval" mindset of this administration. He gives a number of fine examples from the past two weeks—

• The Federal Drug Administration (FDA) announced that it was postponing sale of the morning-after contraceptive pill, despite overwhelming scientific evidence of its safety and its approval by the FDA's scientific advisory board.1
   
• The United Nations special envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa accused the Bush administration of responsibility for a condom shortage in Uganda — the result of the administration's evangelical Christian agenda of "abstinence."
   
• When the chief of the Bureau of Justice Statistics in the Justice Department was ordered by the White House to delete its study that African-Americans and other minorities are subject to racial profiling in police traffic stops and he refused to buckle under, he was forced out of his job.
   
• When the Army Corps of Engineers' chief contracting oversight analyst objected to a $7 billion no-bid contract awarded for work in Iraq to Halliburton (the firm at which Vice President Cheney was formerly CEO), she was demoted despite her superior professional ratings.
   
• At the National Park Service, a former Cheney aide, a political appointee lacking professional background, drew up a plan to overturn past environmental practices and prohibit any mention of evolution while allowing sale of religious materials through the Park Service.

If the Cheney administration can accomplish all that in just two weeks, imagine what they can do between now and January 2009.

Follow-up post
FEMA. It's time to point the finger (9/2/05)

Related post
Go Citgo: Join the BUY-cott (5/18/05)
 

Does this mean that Bush has gotta go?
 

As far as I can tell, only Larry Neumeister of the AP reported on yesterday's hearing. This case is important not only because of the seriousness of the materials under contention but also for what it reveals about this administration's response to any judicial order.

What the MSM commentators (and bloggers, for that matter) are missing is the willingness of any department of the Executive Branch simply to ignore a judicial order, aside from showing up for the inevitable next hearing. A completely remarkable state of lawlessness has been growing in the Bush administration, and the media report (if at all) each particular instance without noting the overall trend.

The ACLU's effort to obtain these materials has itself followed such a torturous path that I will try to sort it out.

A brief history

The ACLU filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request on October 7, 2003, that demanded "the release of information about detainees held overseas by the United States." The ACLU requested an expedited release. On October 30 the Pentagon refused

claiming that the subject matter of the request was not "breaking news" and that there was no "compelling need" for the immediate release of information about the mistreatment of detainees. The Defense Department also claimed that expediting the request was unnecessary because failure to expedite would not "endanger the life or safety of any individual."

This should be known as a "Pentagon home-run," since the Defense Dept. lied on all three bases.

In May 2004 the ACLU filed a supplemental FOIA request, the Pentagon again rejecting an expedited release of any materials.

The ACLU went to court in an attempt to compel the Dept. of Defense to comply with the FOIA requests in August 2004. The government argued that the judge did not have jurisdiction. Judge Hellerstein thought otherwise, and the judge so ordered on August 17, 2004.

By the following week the Pentagon was still seen to be stonewalling—

The ACLU has already provided the government with a list of specific records that it knows are in the government’s possession. The court last week ordered the government to either turn over the records requested in that list or review the documents and provide specific reasons for not releasing them. Rather than actually comply with that order, the government has neither released the records nor completed its review. Instead, it has withheld the records, arguing that they may be exempt from release once they are actually reviewed. In many cases, the government has not stated when its review will be completed.

The parties returned to court on September 7, 2004 for a follow-up hearing. By this time Hellerstein was losing his patience. The AP reported—

Suggesting the government was acting as if it had something to hide, a federal judge Wednesday gave Washington one month to release records related to the treatment of prisoners in Iraq."

In this order [pdf] Judge Hellerstein wrote,

As of today, eleven months later, ... no documents have been produced by defendant; no documents have been identified; no exemptions have been claimed; and no objections have been stated.
....

.... Merely raising national security concerns can not justify unlimited delay.

.... If the documents are more of an embarrassment than a secret, the public should know of our government's treatment of individuals captured and held abroad.... We are a nation that strives to value the dignity of all humanity.
....

I order that by October 15, 2004 defendants must produce or identify all responsive documents.

And so it has gone. The Pentagon has reluctantly released documents, some of which implicate higher authorities in the torture of Abu Ghraib detainees. For instance in March the ACLU got hold of a "memo signed by Lieutenant General Ricardo A. Sanchez authorizing 29 interrogation techniques, including 12 which far exceeded limits established by the Army's own Field Manual."

What the Pentagon has consistently refused to release are 4 videos and 87 photographs taken at Abu Ghraib. After it missed another court-ordered deadline, the Pentagon along with the State Department asked that "all current and future photographs and tapes of detainee abuse be permanently sealed and, in addition, the reasons given for the motion be heavily redacted." On Monday August 15, 2005 Judge Hellerstein ruled that the Pentagon's reasons must be made public.

Hearing of August 30

Yesterday's hearing was concerned specifically with the release of the Abu Ghraib videos and photographs. The judge eliminated one video and 13 photos because they "would have required redactions so great as to render them inconsequential."

Gen. Myers himself, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, had earlier submitted a declaration that

releasing the photos would aid al-Qaida recruitment, weaken the Afghan and Iraqi governments and incite riots against U.S. troops.

Now that the Pentagon has brought out the big guns, the judge is showing signs of intimidation—

"How can I ignore the expert opinion of General Myers, who is concerned with the safety of his troops?" the judge asked. "I can't substitute my opinion for the opinion of General Myers."

He said troops in Iraq "face danger every day and don't deserve to have that danger enlarged."
....

The judge said he recognized the pictures might be useful to the public as it answers questions about the prison scandal, including whether those in command knew about the abuse and how extensive it was.

Yet, he said, there was a "high prurient value" in the pictures. "A judge cannot look at these without thinking to himself how quickly they'd be put on the 6 o'clock or 11 o'clock news and how easily they could be subverted to create a false picture of this country," he said.

ACLU lawyer Amrit Singh argued that release of the pictures was necessary for the public to assess the scope of the abuse and whether it could have been carried out without the knowledge of military leaders.

The judge didn't set a date for his decision but indicated that it would be soon.

We can only hope the judge will surprise us all, but I am pessimistic.

According to Will Van Sant of the St. Pete Times,

Averhart says 1,218 known Marine Corps deserters are still on the lam. Of those, about 60 to 70 are cases that have gone unsolved for many years, sometimes decades.

Averhart said he and his team have caught up with 27 of them since last September.

Averhart's latest catch was a 64-year-old living a quiet life under an assumed name. His real name was Jerry Texiero, a Marine Corps corporal at the time he deserted some forty years ago—

.... The collection center had fingerprints from when Texiero joined the Marines in December 1959. Military records indicate he was then in Los Angeles.

The prints were given to the FBI, which ran them through the National Crime Center Information database.

They got a hit.

Texiero's prints matched those of Gerome Conti, who was on probation after a 1998 fraud and grand theft conviction in Pinellas County.

Averhart said the case had likely been investigated several times over the years. He would not speculate on why Texiero had eluded capture, but talked of how things operate on his watch.

"It's just personal pride," Averhart said. "When I have a responsibility for something, I want to do well."

Friends of Jerry's have been scratching their heads over this one. Elaine Smith, his best friend, said,

"I understand him leaving the service," she said Wednesday. "Jerry is not a killer. There is no way that man could kill anybody."

As for Texiero's future,

Military officials say it's too early to tell what will happen to Jerry Texiero. When he arrives at Camp LeJeune, an investigation will begin into his desertion.

He could face a court martial and time in a military prison, or a simple discharge depending on the results of the inquiry.

Smith said she feels Texiero has atoned for any crime he may have committed, and that after 40 years, the military should let the matter go.

"They have got better things to do," she said. "I can't believe they are wasting their time on this thing with Jerry."

Well, Elaine, it's more like a sport really.
 

But when I get around to it, you may be sure of this—I will continue to view evangelical leaders as a threat to human decency, compassion, sanity, safety and survival—and I'm sure I've left out a few other important issues.

Everybody now knows about Pat Robertson's go-ahead for assassinating Venezuelan President Chavez. In response,

Venezuela’s head of the Justice and Interior Ministry’s religious affairs unit, Carlos Gonzalez, announced yesterday that Venezuela would suspend the authorization of permits for foreign preachers while the government reviews and tightens existing regulations on preachers already in Venezuela.

According to Gonzalez, his department had been considering this move for a while, but Pat Robertson’s declarations “have made us speed things up.”

I suppose that's why Ted Haggard, pastor of Colorado Springs' New Life Church and president of the National Association of Evangelicals, wants a meeting with Chavez to apologize.

If I were Chavez I wouldn't let an evangelical within the city limits, since you never know which of them will be hearing voices from God or consider Robertson's remarks to be some sort of Christian fatwa authorizing murder. But Chavez will likely be more gracious.

But it's not the evangelicals vis-à-vis Venezuela that set me off today. It's the Brazilians.

In a piece called "The battle for Rio's soul," the Independent describes another front in the evangelical war on humanity.

... a series of recent bills put forwards to the state legislature - among them a bill to outlaw sex changes - by an influential evangelical politician have underlined a fierce tug-of-war between two dramatically opposed visions of Rio: the tolerant, liberal, beach paradise and the draconian, traditionalist city.

Some now believe that Rio's gay and transgender communities may be merely the first targets of a "cleansing mission" undertaken by ultra-conservative sections of the bancada evangelica (evangelical lobby).

Well, of course. This is just a warm-up.

.... Brazil's evangelical church has exploded in size in the past decade, growing from 13.5 million people (9.1 per cent) to 26.2 million (15.5 per cent), giving it unprecedented political power. Many parts within this church consider homosexuality a demonic act, while one church, the Igreja Universal, promotes televised exorcisms in which demons are expelled from desperate sinners: usually drug addicts, alcoholics and, of course, lesbians and gays.

This is the sort of thing you expect to find in Jonestown. Now they're drinking the Kool-aid in Rio.

Previous posts
Exorcism: "A growth industry for the pastoral care business" (2/18/05)
The Church of Secularism (2/22/05)
Nun tortured to death in convent (6/19/05)

So I thought I'd try something new—simply note certain items and move on.

Cuban cigars and the airport road

On the front page of the Sunday WaPo Opinion section, Lewis Simons, a former foreign correspondent, does a better-than-average job of what may easily become the most hackneyed topic of the Iraq war—a comparison with Vietnam.

In May Simons went to Iraq to do an article for National Geographic and noticed some improvements for the military since his days in Vietnam—

I was bound this time for the relative security of the walled-in Green Zone, just five miles from the airport. For security reasons, we could not leave immediately. I was assigned one of two dozen canvas cots in a large tent. It was air-conditioned. (This -- along with Internet availability, 30-minute-guaranteed to-your-tent-door Pizza Hut delivery, Cuban cigars at the PX, fresh meals and regularly sanitized portable toilets -- is one of the gains the U.S. military has achieved since Vietnam.)

Jeez! Here we are imposing a trade embargo on Cuba, and they're selling Cuban cigars at the PX? Well, the military has to smoke them out of sight of the public. They would be confiscated if brought back to the U.S.—at least in theory.

Aside from that small wonderment, Lewis makes this telling observation—

If, 2½ years in, you don't control the only road linking your military airport to your headquarters, you don't control much of anything.

Abramoff and Roberts committing the same crime?

On Page One of Sunday's Post was some breaking news on Abramoff. Susan Schmidt opens the story with,

Indicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff claimed in e-mails sent in 2002 that the deputy secretary of the interior had pledged to block an Indian casino that would compete with one of the lobbyist's tribal clients. Abramoff later told two associates that he was trying to hire the official.

Not much surprise there. We already know what Abramoff is like, while sections of the Interior Department are devoted exclusively to screwing the Indians. It's a natural partnership.

It was the second paragraph that interested me—

A federal task force investigating Abramoff's activities has conducted interviews and obtained documents from Interior Department officials and Abramoff associates to determine whether conflict-of-interest laws were violated, according to people with knowledge of the probe. It can be a federal crime for government officials to negotiate for a job while being involved in decisions affecting the potential employer.

Could that possibly apply if the potential employer happened to be the federal government? As in John Roberts interviewing for a certain Supreme Court position while George Bush had business before the DC Appellate Court? Just wondering.

How do you prefer your acrylamide?

California Attorney General Bill Lockyer is suing fast-food chains and snack manufacturers. He wants them to label chips and fries to alert consumers that the products may contain acrylamide, a possible carcinogen. Acrylamide is an organic compound formed when starches are cooked at high temperatures.

Frito-Lay is disputing this. They're not disputing that their chips contain the compound; they're disputing whether there is evidence that it causes cancer.

Another once-in-a-lifetime event in my lifetime

As Hurricane Katrina was bearing down on New Orleans, the mayor was calling it a "once-in-a-lifetime event." I'm wondering how many once-in-a-lifetime events it's going to take in people's lifetimes to force the U.S. government to address global warming.

You don't need to read past Article I, first part, to have a good feel for what is to come—

Article (2): 1st _ Islam is the official religion of the state and is a basic source of legislation: (a) No law can be passed that contradicts the undisputed rules of Islam. (b) No law can be passed that contradicts the principles of democracy. (c) No law can be passed that contradicts the rights and basic freedoms outlined in this constitution.

Each of these categories is very broad. So imagine a dartboard with three large circles that overlap in the center. Circle A represents all the laws that contradict the "undisputed rules of Islam." Circle B represents all the laws that contradict "the principles of democracy." Circle C represents all the laws that contradict "the rights and basic freedoms outlined in this constitution." Representatives will now take turns throwing darts. If a representative can hit outside all of the circles, he has just crafted a law (though, of course, it may not be approved for political reasons).

Ah, but it's not actually that simple. The rules of Islam are greatly in dispute. The principles of democracy are nowhere defined in the constitution. And most of the rights and basic freedoms—at least the ones that seem to matter to Iraqis—are themselves to be defined by law. So the edges of our circles are extremely fuzzy. In fact, everytime someone throws a dart there is an immediate fuss as to whether the dart landed inside or outside of one or another of the circles.

So long as the players are willing to play, the game may continue. But scoring a clean hit will be rare indeed. The creation of an Iraqi law will be an event worth celebrating. But more likely one (or more) of the players will lose patience with the game, pick up a cue stick from the nearest billiards table and attempt to settle the dispute once and for all.

Yes, folks. The Iraqi constitution looks like the makings of a barroom brawl.

11:54 am - Edited to change "do not contradict" to "contradict" in the description of the dartboard circles.
 

The Observer has placed an image of the document online, which I've transcribed so that its content may be passed along by the search engines. There was a "strategy document" enclosed with the letter that was also obtained by the paper. The Observer has not put it online, but Martin Bright discusses its contents.

[Note: The boldface, except in the headings, is mine.]

Foreign & Commonwealth Office [letterhead]

Sir Andrew Turnbull KCB CVO
Cabinet Office
70 Whitehall
LONDON
SW1A 2AS

18 May 2004

Dear Andrew,

RELATIONS WITH THE MUSLIM COMMUNITY

Thank you for sight of the letter to John Gieve on relations with the Muslim community. John has already sent you and copy addressees the joint FCO/HO paper on Young Muslims and Extremism. As John has indicated, the paper draws on a range of sources and contains a comprehensive work programme. Both Mike O'Brien and Fiona Mactaggart have been working closely on the paper with officials, which now awaits comments from the respective Secretaries of State.

Other colleagues have flagged up some of the potential underlying causes of extremism that can affect the Muslim community, such as discrimination, disadvantage and exclusion. But another recurring theme is the issue of British foreign policy, especially in the context of the Middle East Peace Process and Iraq.

Experience of both Ministers and officials working in this area suggests that the issue of British foreign policy and the perception of its negative effect on Muslims globally plays a significant role in creating a feeling of anger and impotence amongst especially the younger generation of British Muslims. The concept of the "Ummah", i.e. that the Believers are one "nation", has led to HMG's [Her Majesty's Government] policies towards the Muslim world having a very personal resonance for young British Muslims, many of whom are taking on the burden both of the perceived injustices and of the responsibility of putting them right, but without the legitimate tools to do so.

This seems to be a key driver behind recruitment by extremist organizations (e.g. recruitment drives by groups such as Hizb-ut-Tahrir and al Muhajiroon). The FCO has a relevant and crucial role to play in the wider context of engagement with British Muslims on policy issues, and more broadly, in convincing young Muslims that they have a legitimate and credible voice, including on foreign policy issues, through an active participation in the democratic process.

I attach the FCO's Strategy on 'building bridges with mainstream Islam', which outlines our approach to reaching out to the British Muslim community. Our key messages are that we are focused on Muslim concerns, we are actively working on solutions, we are receptive to new ideas and that we are fully engaged with the Muslim communities.

Our first task has been to get people to talk to us. Many mainstream organisations now feel more comfortable in engaging with us, and any previous stigma in doing so has been lessened. For example, we have managed to build working relationships with organisations that have previously been critical of us or have even declined to attend meetings. These include the Islamic Society of Britain, Q News, Young Muslims UK, Islamic Forum Europe, etc. The Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) have even agreed to a public partnership with the FCO on our 'Muslims in Britain' booklet/CD (also supported by the Home Office).

Other work streams have included:

(a) Specialist advisers
We have established in the FCO a Partnerships and Networks Development Unit to strengthen and build upon the FCO's relationship and dialogue with UK civil society. One of the key priorities of this new unit is strengthening the relationship with, and consultation of, the Muslim community. We have employed a specialist to assist us in this.

(b) British Hajj delegation
Every year, in partnership with the British Muslim community, we send out a British Hajj delegation of eight doctors and consular staff to Saudi Arabia, to provide basic assistance for the approx. 20,000 British Hajjis who make the pilgrimage. We are the only Western government to send out a delegation of this nature.

(c) British Muslim delegations to the Islamic world
We are working to strengthen the links between the British Muslim community and many other countries in the Islamic world, e.g. through visits by British Muslim Parliamentarians and community leaders to Indonesia, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Morocco and Tunisia. In Indonesia, for example, a number of Muslim parliamentarians, visited that country last year to promote interfaith dialogue; a delegation of UK Muslim Councillors also visited Indonesia to share their experience of Islam in the UK. Most recently, the president of a British Muslim student organisation delivered the keynote address in Indonesia, to an audience of high profile figures from across the Islamic world. We have further British Muslim delegations planned to Malaysia, Kenya and possibly Libya.

In return, we have received a number of delegations from countries to discuss the role of British Muslims in society, including from Iran and the director of the Grand Mosque in Lyon, the Mufti of Singapore amongst many others.

(d) Islamic Media Unit √We use both print and broadcast media, aiming to build networks of young people, to engage a wider spread of UK and overseas communities and to challenge stereotypes. As part of this, we have established in the Foreign Office a specialist Islamic Media Unit to work with English language and foreign language media outlets to improve our ability to communicate with Muslim communities at home and overseas.

(e) Ministerial briefings for Muslim representatives
We have regular ministerial briefings for key Muslim representatives, to ensure that we are in tune with the concerns with the communities. These are closed meetings, where Mike O'Brien has had a frank and open discussion with the various representatives.

(f) Ministerial Outreach to regions
This is one of the most important components of our engagement with both the Muslim community, as well as wider BME communities. Ministers visit grassroots organisations in different UK cities, to engage with people who don't normally have access to government Ministers, in community centres, women's organisations, youth groups, etc.

(g) Outreach to Muslim youth
Both Mike O'Briend and Fiona Mactaggart recently met with the leadership of the Union of Muslim Students, and have plans for a series of meetings with young people across the regions.

(h) Recognition of Muslim contribution
We sponsor the 'Muslim News Awards of Excellence', which are awarded every year to British Muslims who have made outstanding contributions to different fields.

(i) Receptions to mark religious festivals
The FCO has been hosting Eid receptions for the Muslim community for a number of years (recently these have been hosted jointly with the Home Office).

(j) Islam Awareness and diversity course for FCO staff
We also run an Islam awareness and diversity course for our diplomatic staff, so they are aware of the basics of the faith when posted to the Islamic world.

(k) Islam & Europe
The concept of 'European Islam' seems to be increasing in importance among the younger generation of British Muslims. As a result it is essential that we are seen to be engaging on this level of Muslim identity from an early stage, especially in the context of possible accession of Turkey. We have agreed to co-host with the Islamic Foundation a seminar on Islam and Europe in the early autumn.

The above actions are in line with wider HMG engagement with the Islamic world. However, much still needs to be done, especially in the area of engaging young Muslims and looking at the causes of disaffection. The FCO/Home Office paper seeks to address this.

I am copying my letter to Mavis MacDonald, David Normington, Robin Young, Richard Mottram, David Omand, John Gieve, Howell James, Nick Macpherson, Helen Edwards, Joe Montgomery, Michael Richardson and Nigel Sheinwald.

Yours ever,

Michael Jay
[Foreign Office permanent under-secretary]

Enc

Related post
Blair contradicted by MI5 (7/29/05)

Since there is actually no theological excuse for this—after all, they're all celibate anyway, aren't they?—the Church has come up with this—

The instruction tries to dampen down the controversy by eschewing a moral line, arguing instead that the presence of homosexuals in seminaries is 'unfair' to both gay and heterosexual priests by subjecting the former to temptation.

'It will be written in a very pastoral mode,' Haldane said. 'It will not be an attack on the gay lifestyle. It will not say "homosexuality is immoral". But it will suggest that admitting gay men into the priesthood places a burden both on those who are homosexual and those they are working alongside who are not.'

Of course not letting gay men enter the priesthood will also place a burden on them. There are only so many positions open in the entertainment field whereas opportunities in the clergy are virtually unlimited.

They say the Pope himself doesn't want to put his Gregorius XVI on the document. 'Twould sully his image.

Meanwhile the British Army can't get enough of a good thing. Jonathan Leake and Philip Cardy of the Sunday Times report,

The army came out in style this weekend when it launched a recruitment drive aimed at tempting more gays, lesbians, transvestites and even transsexuals into the ranks.

It set up a recruitment stall at the Gay Pride festival in Manchester, backing its new-found commitment to homosexual rights by sending 10 gay and lesbian soldiers in combat trousers and tight T-shirts to join thousands of marchers on a five-mile parade through the city.

They strode out behind a float put together by the RAF, which was also recruiting. Themed on a fighter jet, it featured an oversized cockpit and a banner proudly proclaiming, "RAF rise above the rest".

At the stall, the men in uniform, complete with medals, mingled with eager would-be recruits, one dressed in tight leather shorts and a pink cowboy hat.

It was the first time the army had actively tried to recruit from such groups. It says it simply wants to tap into the talents of the gay population.

An oversized cockpit will bring 'em in every time.

Related posts
New Pope explains priestly sex scandal (4/20/05)
In ecclesia Romae nolite quaerere, nolite dicere (4/23/05)