I watched the first half of Secretary Geithner’s testimony to the Senate Banking Committee and my overall impression is that both sides of the committee are working well together. The media spouts that by-partisanship in 2009 died an early death but it was alive in these hearings.

The senators were respectful of the witness, each other, their time limits and the subject matter. It was one of the more informative and substantive committee hearings that I have watched. After 8 years of wimpy Senate questions and non-existent answers from the Administration, this made me feel better our Senate and my government.

Geithner’s plan does lack specificity and seems to be buying the Administration some time to make hammer out the details but I was pleased by some of the principles the Secretary outlined.

• Try to work with existing money
• Conduct a thorough analysis of the existing assets
• Work with a public / private fund (s) to create a market around these them.
• Tell the country what is happening with all the money we are spending
• Banks will have to prove that any new loans will actually help them loan money

The Treasury Department is also starting to report on the first $700 million and lettings us know who has it, how it was spent and the returns we are getting. New loans will have more reporting requirements with banks making regular, public reports on how funds are being used. This was some of the most welcome news coming out of Washington in a long time.

Read the rest of this entry »

In a Wall Street Journal opinion piece last week Bret Stephens unabashedly repeated Benjamin Netanyahu’s war-mongering view of Iran without any pretense of analysis or perspective.

He did not question the veracity of the statement or Netanyahu’s purpose for claiming that Iran is the “mother regime” of Hezzbollah and Hamas.   Never mind that Hezbollah has long targeted Israeli military installations and not the public. Never mind that Iranian ‘control’ of Hamas is a ridiculous.  If Netanyahu says it, Stephen will accept it – and even amplify it to cover all ‘terrorism’, slyly intimating that Iran might “somehow” be responsible for al Qeada and the Taliban.

Does WSJ normally publish such work thin work or are they just happy to have another chance to antagonize Iran?

Netanyahu may see Iran as the major threat in the region, but that does not mean the US has to.  Netanyahu may well be concerned about Iran having the bomb but we don’t have to follow in lock step. Not until we at least answer a few questions.

What would Iran gain from a nuclear attack against Israel? Does Netanyahu really think Iran is suicidal and will stop at nothing to destroy Israel?  If so, why didn’t they sneak into Iraq during Gulf War I or II and lob a few missiles at Israel?  It would have been easy and the resulting conflagration could easily have consumed Israel.  But Iran stood down and even helped the US by letting us use their air space. Why?

The fact is Iran is already so powerful that nukes may be more trouble than they are worth.  They are expensive to maintain and difficult to guard.  Plus, the resulting regional nervousness will roll back their recent political gains. If Iran is smart (6,000 years of history suggests that they are), the nuclear issue is just a tool to tie the West up in knots and ultimately get whatever they want in trade for the program.

Read the rest of this entry »

Developing nations continue to be the locus of most conflicts around the global and, as the 2007 numbers recently published by the Center for Defense Information make clear, the United States continues to arm the world.

Global arms sales totaled nearly $60 billion in 2007, an increase of 9.2 percent from 2006 values. The United States was again the world’s most dominant arms exporter, making $24.8 billion (41.5 percent) of all global arms agreements.

The developing world accounted for 70.5 percent of new arms transfer agreements in 2007. The United States was the largest arms trading partner with the developing world with new arms agreements in 2007 (28.8 percent of all agreements with the developing world).

And the countries buying the most arms?

• Saudi Arabia – the largest exporter and funder of Sunni Extremists
• India and Pakistan – nuclear armed enemies with numerous disputed regions
• Venezuela  – President Chavez continues to antagonize the US and agitate the region

Other interesting 2007 developments in the arms industry?  Russia continues to push into new markets across Africa, the Middle East and South East Asia.  Not to be outdone, the US is expanding sales to countries traditionally left off the distribution list.

Is there any wonder why resource wars continue to flare up and civil wars drag on for so long? Shouldn’t the simple connection between those selling the weapons and those fighting the wars draw more attention?  Who is the last media professional you heard question how the US can be both a human rights leader and the world’s largest arms dealer?

The arms industry continues to grow with hardly a comment from our free and independent media.  We need to admit that arming the world will make it impossible to stop terrorism.  Our best hope for peace and real prosperity is to invest in the systems that give information to people, instead of firearms to governments.

John Bolton and John Yoo are at it back – but this time they are on the side of the constitution. For the last eight years, these  two said the Executive Branch could do anything it wanted – but no more. Their man is almost out, and now they say the Senate must exert its power.  Of course, they are right that  the Senate should uphold is power – no matter who is President – but these two speak with forked tongues and should not be taken a face value.

Like the wackiest of religious zealots who pick and choose select parts of religious texts, Yoo and Bolton select the parts of constitutional law that fit their momentary needs. They are not concerned with the long term health of the nation or our government but rather the temporal ends of the greedy fools who pay them.

The snake oil can be seen in their argument – the president should not be able to make or join an international treaty without 2/3 of vote in the senate (a president evidently is completely free to break treaties without even consulting the senate) but a simple majority vote would pose a serious challenge to American law and order.

This seems like a strong, clear statements until they admit that this has already been done for our numerous economic treaties. But they don’t have a problem with those, only treaties that will have impact on:

Significant national-security commitments, or that purport to delegate lawmaking and enforcement functions to international organizations

Not only does this picking and choosing muddy their clear principles, but economic treaties such as NAFTA delegate a great deal of law making and enforcement functions to international agencies. So why aren’t Yoo and Bolton upset about them? Perhaps because they don’t mind treaties that put more power in the hands of their corporate pay masters?

This makes me suspect that this entire argument is meant to keep the people of the US from expressing our desire to address climate change, poverty and war. Yoo and Bolton are fine with corporations have more international authority but want to ensure that no international organization has a say in how much we pollute or who we bomb.

I would have more respect for them if they have the guts to come out in favor the oil and weapons companies that they work for. It is shame that these two people, who have done so much harm to our nation, continue to enjoy such high profile access to our nation’s media. They might have changed tactics but not paymasters or perspectives.  They can not be trusted.

John Bolton told Fox News yesterday that,

“I don’t think there’s anything at this point standing between Iran and nuclear weapons other than the possibility of the use of military force possibly by the United States, possibly by Israel,”

Today, he wrote an op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal about stopping the proliferation of WMD.  He said that good first steps for Iran consist of “meaningful efforts at regime change and assisting Israel should it decide to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities.”

John Bolton continues to advocate force as the only solution to WMD.  He seems to have learned nothing from our experience in Iraq and has a simplistic view of how effective we can be in Iran. I remain convinced that the best way forward it convince Iran to act responsibly, whether or not they have the bomb.

But we may be able to get them to act responsibly. Iran seeks power and has a learned to act pragmatically, but it currently sees confrontation as its best path to power. Yet it remains a state with clear borders, hard targets and it is as dependent on the world economy as any other country.

They need to the oil to keep floating over the Persian Gulf and the gas to keep flowing through its pipelines. Peace benefits them as much as it does any other nation. (Reducing our oil consumption will also reduce their influence). If we can help make progress in the Middle East – not through force of arms but through participation and even-handed applications of influence, we can create political movement and alliances that Iran will have to join.

Read the rest of this entry »

The Right continues to push an idea of a liberal bias in the American media and to some extent they have demonstrated that many media has a thin, insignificant bias on a few social issues. We are starting a multi-part series to discuss a much larger and more consequential bias – a pro-corporate bias.  The US media routinely takes so many pro-corporate stances that what should be obvious becomes impossible to see.

For instance, let’s take a quick look at Columbia.  The country is in the middle of a long civil war in which both the government and the rebels support by growing and selling cocaine.  But once President Clinton picked sides and began supplying money, weapons and advisors to the government, the US media only talks about the rebels as drug dealers.

The rebels are stuck in the mountainous jungles and the government owns hundreds of ships and planes, yet some how only the rebels get all the coke into the US.  Should fishy to you? Does anyone in the US media investigate? If the government is still dealing, where is that money going?

If the illicit drug trade really generates over $300 billion a year, where is all that money? It can’t be stuffed under mattresses.  Since President Bush took office, we are supposed to believe that there has been over $2 trillion in drug profits yet the money isn’t in our banks?  The US auto industry is $380 billion dollar market.  It makes no sense that there is that much money in drugs and that we are actually trying to stop it.

There are a whole host of questions to ask about the role of the government and our banks yet our media continues to feed us the same drug-banker friendly story.

Mark Krispin Miller calls attention to an issue that should alarm all Americans – the continued massive voter fraud being conducted by the Republicans.  Yes, the Republicans – not ACORN – are ones stealing elections.

The major media have paid lip service to this theft of our democracy but this hard hitting admission from a respected Republican computer expert should focus a universe of attention on our voting system.  Instead the media simply plays fool to the diversionary tactics of the McCain campaign.

A few phony regisrations pose a few minor threat to our political system, but this “Man in the Middle” scheme but control of election into the hands of one political party.

The poor performance of the US media in the built up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq is well known. Well, they are up to it again. The Administration is pumping out distortions and exaggerations about Iran and the US media publish them without reflection. For example, Administration often state the Iran continues to support the insurgents in Iraq and the media repeats it with little to no context or any relevant questions.

The result is the people of the United States hear time and again that Iran is attacking our soldiers and nothing else. Simple story – good guys, bad guys – done. And the conclusion for must of us is clear – we have to do something about it. But the situation is much more complex than that and we cannot decide a what our real interests are and will end being lead in to a dangerous and ineffective war.

Every time a government official says that Iran supports the insurgents (and they are supporting the Shiite insurgents), the media should provide the simple context that we all know but conveniently forget. Iran is also supporting the government, police, army and prominent businesses in Iraq.

They are working both sides creating a simple question; Why is Iran supporting and subverting the stability of Iraq. Imagine where the debate might go with a rigorous pursuit of that simple question? We would need to know who is doing what in Iraq and why. And finding answers will lead us to imagine new ways to improve stability and lower tensions between the US and Iran.

The Wall Street Journal ran a story on the front page of Wednesday’s Journal saying that the sanctions are “rewriting” how business in carried out in the region but not hurting Iran. The country is growing closer to its neighbors, not further apart and the cash is flowing underground.

“It’s now back to a suitcase economy for many transactions and the danger is that you have no idea where the money is going,” WSJ quotes London-based Balli Group PLC commodity trader Hassan Alaghband.

Hawala brokers, the informal money transfer system, and small Pakistani banks are two of the largest benefactors of Iran’s growing underground financial system. The WSJ does not claim that the sanctions have no affect but rather their intended hindrance to Iranian investments in not occurring and more importantly, we are losing all visibility into the countries actions.

Instead of pulling Iran into the community of nations where we have a better chance of knowing what they are up to and monitoring suspicious activities we are forcing them to improve ways to hide from governing eyes.

Sanctions on equipment and technology worked in Iraq but financial sanctions fared much less well. We should take of that recent history as we charge forward with economic measures that are likely to bring us more harm than good.

John Bolton, ex-US Ambassador to the UN, dismissed the forthcoming UN sanctions against Iran as ineffective. Mr. Bolton claims that Israel will have to act against Iran’s nuclear facilities saying, “the pressure to act is intensive and the window of time available is narrow.”

No one wants another country to get nuclear weapons, but war advocates expect us to believe that Iran will nuke Israel the moment they get one. Bolton employs scare tactics to make it seem as if nuclear war is immanent. “Israel is in danger — it is a very small country and two or three nuclear weapons (and) there is no more country.”

Yet Israel has dozens if not hundreds of nuclear warheads. It has missiles and submarines able to deploy even after they are attached. Israel has publicly stated that they will destroy Iran if anyone hits them with a nuclear weapon. Yet we are to believe that Iran is willing to sacrifice itself in order to hurt Israel? Iran would have to be suicidal to launch such an attack.

Suicidal is precisely how war advocates describe Iran yet Mr. Bolton’s own words refute that. He says we bomb Iran now and not worry about counter-attacks for “their response will be a lot more measured than people think.”

A measured response from a “suicidal country” run by “mad mullahs”? We are going to blow up millions of dollars of equipment (some of which we sold to them), kill untold numbers of people, embolden their extremist right and expect a measured response? This partner in the axis of evil, the “world’s largest exporter of terror” won’t fight back? Is this really the same country putting Isreal in so much danger?

War advocates can’t have it both ways. Either Iran is a country of wild maniac’s hell bent on war or they are calculating pragmatists planning the next move in a regional struggle. Mr. Bolton is playing with us, building up the threat and then telling us we have an easy solution. But we don’t even know where all the nuclear facilities are and many of them are underground.

Bombing Iran will not stop their nuclear program, but Iran probably won’t overreact right away either because they have no intention of invading or otherwise attacking Israel or the United States. But any attack by the US or Israel will cause them to invest in more asymetric attacks and war advocates on both sides will get what they want – more war.

Iranian war advocates will “more proof” that the US and Israel seek the destruction of Iran. US and Israeli war advocates will have “more proof” that Iran is a terrorists state that can not be reasoned with. And the march to full scale war will be speed up.

The time to stop this war is now. The time to shout down the liars selling this war is now. We can and must stand up to war advocates in all three countries is now. Iran does not need nuclear weapons but we don’t need a war to stop them from getting it. They need to sell oil and they need access to the water we control. We need to find a peaceful solution before our angry men start another, bigger and more difficult war.