The Moral Cases For and Against Military Intervention in Syria

Let me start by saying I'm not sure where I am on Syria and I'm going to try to work this out on paper, so to speak. First off, President Obama is absolutely correct -- if we stand by after watching a nation use chemical weapons, the idea that this is actually a crime is mostly theoretical. Assad will pay for his crime if he loses his little civil war, which is by no means a given at this point. But if he wins, it all gets swept under the rug and Assad rewrites history to make himself his own nation's Lincoln. Gas attacks -- if they're mentioned at all in Syria's history books -- will be remembered as eminently justified and totally within reason.

Then there's the "both sides are just as bad" argument. It may be true that Syrian rebels are not good people. But the definition of war crime doesn't include the phrase "good people." A murderer killing another murderer is still murder and we put people who kill other criminals on trial for murder all the time. Not necessarily because the victims deserve justice (although I think everyone does), but because punishing crime is designed to keep good order. Besides, gassing civilian populations takes out people who'd rather not have anything to do with the war and are just sitting in their houses waiting for someone to win and end all the violence. I think we can dismiss the "both sides are just as bad" argument right there. If we look the other way when countries commit war crimes against people we don't trust, it's basically condoning it. "It's OK when you use it against bad guys" is legalizing this crime, since everyone thinks they're the good guys and the people they're killing are the bad guys. Whether you agree or disagree with some form of intervention in Syria, we should all agree to put this argument to a very painful and public death. It's extremely dangerous and verges on the genocidal.

But, as so many have rightly pointed out, we are not the world's police. It's not our job to go running off to answer every crime committed by any nation -- and we sure do let enough of them slide. We should only act in unison with the UN. Military action should always be a last resort and to take unilateral action is to travel down the road taken by George W. Bush. This did not work out well the last time. The problem here is the anachronistic and not at all democratic UN Security Council. The five permanent members of the Security Council hold all the power, being the only members who have veto power, and the make-up of the permanent council members -- China, France, Russia, the UK, and the United States -- guarantees that someone's interests will always conflict with the rest. In this case, China and Russia are allies with Syria -- and they're two countries who could not care less about human rights and war crimes.

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Looking for the 'Horses and Bayonets' Bounce

That Google graphic is really all you need if you want to learn who won the debate last night. Snap polling is unreliable, but the consensus seems to be that Obama won. CNN's poll gives it to Obama, 48%-40%. Public Policy Polling's results [pdf] were more stark, with a 53%-42% Obama win. And CBS News reports an absolute blowout: 53% Obama to 23% Romney. Yeah, that's a two -- as in twenty-three.

But it's the fact that everyone's searching the "horses and bayonets" line that confirms these findings. That wasn't exactly a Romney gaffe, but it's sort of a gaffe that Obama forced on him. One of the few foreign policy positions that Romney didn't completely reverse himself on last night was his promise to throw $2 trillion at our already bloated military and build ships the Navy hasn't requested. And Obama whacked him for it:

But I think Governor Romney maybe hasn't spent enough time looking at how our military works.

You mentioned the Navy, for example, and that we have fewer ships than we did in 1916. Well, Governor, we also have fewer horses and bayonets, because the nature of our military's changed. We have these things called aircraft carriers, where planes land on them. We have these ships that go underwater, nuclear submarines.

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Military Equality Achieved. Now on to Marriage Equality

After yesterday's victory in the Senate, a bill repealing the discriminatory "don't ask, don't tell" military policy is being sent to the president's desk. It's a step in the right direction toward the equality of gays and lesbians, but of course it's not the final one. Most states don't enjoy marriage equality and many states are arguing whether gays and lesbians should even be allowed to adopt. It's a long road, but we just passed a mile marker.

One thing that's striking here is the lack of influence the religious right now has in Washington. Predictably, the lunatic God Squad is going into a full-blown Holy rage right now, but no one seems to care. With the rise of the Tea Party -- who mostly agree with the religious right, strangely enough -- an archaic religious fundamentalism has been pushed to the background. On the other hand, a monument to an archaic economic fundamentalism has been erected in its place, so no real win there. And reliably pro-'bagger voices have been reliably insane -- while others have been quietly sanguine -- on this issue as well. Fighting the advance of the Homosexual Menace is still an issue with the right, but it's been prioritized down a notch or two. Priority number one is an economic policy designed to help only the wealthy, while destroying the middle class, because that's LIBERTY! At least, that's what middle class chumps in the Tea Party have been conned into believing, anyway.

In other words, despite being on the verge of having a bigot-controlled House of Representatives, gays and lesbians see a window of opportunity here. And they're taking advantage of it.

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Let the GOP Infighting Begin

The internal battle over earmarks in the GOP seems to be all but over. Republicans have decided to unilaterally disarm. There are still a few holdouts, but with Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell caving on the issue, things are swinging the anti-earmark way. As a purple state resident, I see (a selfish) reason to cheer here. See, the bluer the state, the more money it pays to the feds in tax money. And the redder the state, the more money it takes out. I've written about it before; "In terms of federal taxes spent in their states, Mississippi gets 202% of every dollar they pay, West Virginia get 176%, Arkansas gets 141%, South Carolina gets 135%, and Kentucky gets 151%. The only state in the five wealthiest that receives more than they pay out is Maryland, at 130%." If you ban earmarks, then red states are going to see a lot less money heading their way and they're going to have to start living in the real world, where their screwy economic flateartherism is no longer subsidized by states with wiser policies. Have fun with that, guys. Enjoy funding your own projects with happy thoughts and good intentions.

Meanwhile, earmarks don't mean crap to the deficit. Earmarks make up less that 2% of federal spending, so eliminating them solves almost nothing. I hate to say it, but Mitch McConnell was right; banning earmarks is dumb -- especially for Republicans. Sure, projects like the "bridge to nowhere" are wasteful, but don't blame the process, blame the corrupt congress members gaming the process. Like a balanced budget amendment, this is a "stop us before we spend again!" measure. It's like putting the blame for running a red light on the lack of one of those railroad crossing gates at the intersection.

But hey, it's a free country. If they want to exercise their Second Amendment rights by shooting themselves in the foot, I'm not very interested in stopping them. As I said, it works out great for me. I should be seeing more Wisconsin tax money coming back to Wisconsin, for a change. States like Mississippi or Kentucky, you're on your own. The free ride is apparently over. Make sure to thank your various elected officials for that.

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Private Contractors Failing Just as Spectacularly in Afghanistan

Let's talk about how superior the private sector is to the public sector for a bit. We're going to hear a lot from Republicans about how government is evil and corrupt and incompetent, and how the private sector is the only entity that can really get things done -- and does it cheaper. The first problem here is that the math doesn't work at all. Let's say a project will cost X when all is said and done. You look at materials, labor, equipment you may need, gas, etc. and that's what you wind up with. A private contractor would need X + profit to get the job done. Government can do it for X, because it doesn't have to turn a profit. Last time I checked, X + anything is more than just X, so the idea that a private company can do the same thing for less doesn't really pan out, arithmetically. The only way you can pull this off is to subtract from X -- and that means skimping on something somewhere and winding up with a cheap piece of crap. Doubt it? Then explain why military personnel were being electrocuted in showers in Iraq or why they were served rotten meat.

In 2006, Business Week reported, "The losses to fraud and waste in Iraq are almost certainly in the billions, current and former government officials agree. The Special IG for Iraq Reconstruction says it has more than 80 open investigations and has referred 20 more cases to the Justice Dept. for prosecution. A spokesman for the criminal investigative arm of the Defense Dept. says that office expects a 'rise in referrals of potential fraud or corruption cases' because of the recent deployment to Iraq of additional Pentagon investigators and FBI agents."

Billions in waste and fraud, often covered by unfinished and unusable projects, doesn't really strike me as big savings. It strikes me as waste and fraud. The military used to do a lot of this stuff themselves -- do we really need to outsource mess halls and laundry duty, for example? -- but now it has, for reasons nobody seems to be very good at explaining, become completely impossible. The military can fire a long range missile straight down the chimney of some terrorist hide out with pin-point accuracy, but they couldn't possibly cook a damned hamburger.

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Getting Serious About the Deficit

If there is a rogue missile aimed at our country, we have 33 minutes to figure out what we're going to do. We are sitting with the only technology in the world that works and it's laser technology. We need 1,000 laser systems put in the sky and we need it right now. That is [of] paramount importance.
-John Raese, West Virginia Republican candidate for the US Senate

So much for fiscal sanity from the Republican Party. Raese's -- oh, let's be generous and call it a "plan" -- would cost the taxpayers $20 billion. At least, that's what he says it would cost; it's clearly a figure from the Republican Ministry of Made-Up Numbers. Who knows what it would really cost?

Would it work? Well, no. See, if it worked we'd be doing it now. Our last president was a big fan of crazy stuff like this, after all. But, according to even missile defense advocates, it "could take two decades to develop." What Raese calls "the only technology that works" doesn't actually work -- not in the real world, anyway. So we're talking about spending a made-up amount of money on nonexistent technology, to counter a threat that doesn't actually exist -- Iran doesn't actually have nukes and North Korea struggles to even get a missile off the pad. And why 1,000 of these orbital deathrays? There's another made-up number for you.

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The Right Thing To Do is Nothing

It's a situation where the most consequential move may be doing nothing. Yesterday, U.S. District Judge Virginia Phillips issued an injunction barring the enforcement of the military's policy of "don't ask, don't tell." As a result, that policy is -- for all intents and purposes -- dead. It can't be enforced here, it can't be enforced overseas, and -- one would assume -- it can't be applied to astronauts in space. We now live in a universe where the US policy of DADT cannot be applied. Not surprisingly, some are having trouble accepting this new reality.

Associated Press:

Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Wednesday that abruptly ending the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy as a federal judge has ordered would have enormous consequences.

A day after a judge in California ordered the Pentagon to cease enforcement of its policy barring gays from openly serving in the military, Gates told reporters that the question of whether to repeal the law should be decided by Congress, and done only after the Pentagon completes its study on the issue.

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Honor or Hatred for Heroes?

Yesterday, a user going by the nick "moifaux" posted the following photo to Reddit, under the title, "Which is the gay one?":



My point in reposting it here, along with the contextual question, is that some people responded to the failure to repeal the military's "Don't ask, don't tell" policy by recognizing that duty and sacrifice don't have a lot to do with sexual orientation. Gays, lesbians, and bisexuals have fought and died for this country. This is a fact.

But others have responded to the continued existence of DADT with triumphalism and hate. While that Reddit user was making a thoughtful point, someone was making a thoughtless ass of themselves elsewhere.

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You Can't be a Military Hawk and a Budget Hawk at the Same Time

According to Republicans, we absolutely must reduce the deficit. "Americans are left to wonder: Could we one day find ourselves at the epicenter of [a debt crisis like Greece's]?" asks Rep. Paul Ryan. "Could a European-style debt crisis one day happen right here in the U.S.? The answer is undoubtedly 'yes.' And the sad truth is that inaction by policymakers to change our fiscal course is hastening this day of reckoning."

Of course, in order for the US to suffer a debt crisis like they have in Greece, the rest of the world would have to go insane and begin to hate their money. Everyone would have to cash in all their bonds at once, regardless of maturity. For bondholders as a whole, this would result in taking a loss of billions of dollars. So those holding the most bonds would have to have a damned good reason to do it. This would only happen if everyone had some reason to believe that the bonds were worthless -- which, of course, no one does. Ryan's "day of reckoning" is fearmongering. There is no imminent run on America's bank. In fact, if there were, it would be irresponsible of Ryan to talk like this, since it would only serve to weaken confidence in the solvency of his own government. The fact that he feels comfortable issuing the warning so publicly is proof enough that he doesn't believe it. Then again, I suppose it's possible that he does think it's true and he's just an unhelpful idiot. Go ahead and pick whichever explanation suits you best; whether he believes his own nightmare scenario isn't relevant to this discussion.

What is relevant is a simple question; "If the deficit is the problem, what are you going to do about it?" Up until now, Republicans have felt safe offering sham alternatives to Democratic solutions. The GOP hasn't had to come up with anything that would actually work, since their opposition to most legislation has been a matter of political strategy; oppose everything, make Washington completely dysfunctional, then run against a dysfunctional congress by blaming everything on Democrats. It hasn't been especially good for the country, but it's good for the Republican Party and that's what really counts.





In the ideas department, Republicans have only have one product -- tax cuts. How this is supposed to reduce the deficit is a bit of a mystery, although House minority leader John Boehner has given a good try at explaining it.

"You equate the idea of lowering marginal tax rates with less revenue for the federal government," Boehner told reporters who questioned the "less money equals more money" math. "We've seen over the last 30 years that lower marginal tax rates have led to a growing economy, more employment, and more people paying taxes. And if you look at the revenue growth over those 30 years, you've got a prime example of what we've been talking about."

"This is practically the reverse of the truth," counters Talking Points Memo's Brian Beutler. "In the years after the Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush tax cuts, economic growth and employment were significantly lower than they were after Bill Clinton's 1993 tax increases."

In fact, the most recent round of Republican tax cuts make up a lion's share of the projected deficit.


Click to view at full size

"Lower taxes=more revenue" makes for a nice theory, but no one has ever actually gotten it to work. So, if the deficit really is the problem, you've got to cut something. Something big. Something bloated.

Reuters:

U.S. lawmakers and watchdog groups on Friday called for a dramatic revamp of the defense budget to reverse widening U.S. deficits, including termination of the $382 billion Lockheed Martin Corp (LMT.N) F-35 fighter.

Representative Barney Frank, one of the chief negotiators working on financial regulation reforms, convened a bipartisan task force that identified nearly $1 trillion in budget savings that could be culled from the Pentagon budget through 2020.

"We are looking down the barrel of record deficits that threaten our national security," Laura Peterson, policy analyst with Taxpayers for Common Sense and a task force member, told a news conference. "There's plenty of fat to cut from the military budget without compromising our safety."

The United States currently spends more money on our military than any nation in the world. A lot more. In fact, a crazy lot more. In 2008, our military spending made up nearly half -- 48% -- of all military spending in the world. If Republicans really were the deficit hawks they like to pretend to be, they'd jump right on board here. But, of course, Republicans aren't serious about the deficit. They'd rather have you believe that the relative pittances we spend on social programs, foreign aid, and the commons make up most of the deficit. They'll trim around the edges, cutting back on education, unemployment benefits, and by privatizing whatever they can, but they'll never be able to cut that $1 trillion that way. Especially not if they stick to their tax-cutting fantasy economics. Deficit reduction is just an excuse to attack programs they oppose on ideological grounds.

"[Republicans are] quite happy to borrow hundreds of billions to spend on defense, because they just happen to like spending money on defense," writes American Prospect's Paul Waldman. "They don't find unemployment benefits, or health care, or any of a hundred other things we could spend money on to be particularly worthy, but instead of just saying so, they say, 'Well, we'd love to, but we just can't afford it.' You can't call yourself a 'deficit hawk' if the only programs you want to cut are the ones you don't like anyway."

Whether Ryan or Boehner join in on cutting military spending will determine whether or not they're serious about the deficit. You may be able to argue that the US needs a much larger military budget than other nations (I don't think it'd be a good argument, but that's not the point), but there's absolutely no way you can argue that we need to make up half the world's market. That is just insane.

So those are the choices; trim around the edges and puff yourself up into a phony deficit hawk or take a meat axe to the military budget and become an actual deficit hawk.

For myself, I don't think it's much of a mystery which way Boehner and Ryan will go.

-Wisco


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The Grand Old Panderers

Last night, Republican warnings of voting as a block turned out to be bluster. They'd promised a "vigorous defense" of the policy of Don't Ask, Don't Tell, but five Republicans wound up voting for repeal. Rising GOP star Paul Ryan actually sat out the vote, perhaps a signal that Republican house leadership had given up on the idea. And shame on the twenty-six Democrats who voted against it. Still, the repeal -- conditional though it is -- passed the house 229-168. Sanity prevailed.

That's not to say that insanity didn't give it one helluva good shot. Republicans still being Republicans, there was plenty of stupidity, hatred, and outright lies on the floor of the house.

You wonder what Gohmert thinks "overt" means. Of course, that's just Louie Gohmert being Louie Gohmert, who Steve Benen once called "one of Congress' most embarrassing buffoons." If it's stupid and crazy and Sarah Palin's not around, Gohmert probably said it.





But what about the plain lie Mike Pence, who serves as Chairman of the House Republican Conference, told about what "Americans want?" He has to know that's not true. I know that Republicans operate in a completely fact-free zone when they need to, but you don't walk into a debate like that without at least taking a glance at some data. He absolutely has to know he's lying. Americans want DADT gone. If Pence doubts that, he can literally choose any poll he likes. They all have the same findings: the public, by an extremely wide margin, doesn't like the policy very much. Pence, in pretending to rise to the defense of the American people, actually rises to oppose us.

I've come to think of that video as a sort of walk of shame. It won't be long before those arguments will be almost universally seen as stupid and embarrassing. And that's because they'll be proven wrong. There's no credible data anywhere backing these arguments up, they're pure supposition -- and that supposition is based in bias. Think about the "slippery slope" arguments against gay marriage; five states and DC now recognize same sex marriage, but there's still no one demanding to marry their dog. Turns out all the Chicken Little freaking out was as baseless and idiotic and hyperbolic as it seemed.

Are US military personnel the finest fighting force in the world or are they emotionally fragile homophobes who'll turn into a quivering, non-functioning mass in the mere presence of someone they know is gay? That depends on what Republicans need them to be at the moment. And since when do we measure good policy by how bigots would react to it? We know for a fact that there are white supremacists in the military. Should we ban anyone who isn't white, just to keep those morons happy? I think the saner thing would be to reverse Don't Ask, Don't Tell and apply it to homophobes. If you've got a problem serving with gays, you get to shut up about it or you're out. It's not gays who would harm "unit cohesion," it's bigots.

But these are Republicans we're talking about here. Their party is home to bigots and bigots never recognize that they're the problem. So the GOP welcomes them with open arms and encourages them to be bigoted. If it's a wedge-issue, they'll dive right in. Want to hate Muslims or Atheists or gays or the poor or Hispanics? These are your guys.

Welcome home.

-Wisco


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DADT Disrespects All Soldiers -- As Does the GOP

One of the things that always strikes me when talking about Republicans is their tremendous disrespect for Americans' intelligence. The lies are transparent -- at times, idiotic. The spin never quite fits the situation very well. The solutions, such as they are, are always either a call to do something that's already failed or merely a gimmick to get reelected. But what really gets me is when their arguments hinge on that belief in your stupidity; i.e., the Democrats' idea will never work because you're too dumb to understand it/too lazy to do it/too committed to being a jerk. Not only does the GOP believe you're stupid, they really don't think you're a very good person. That is, assuming their arguments are presented honestly.

We see this in the now fast-moving repeal of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell." Removing DADT won't work, the argument goes, because people in the military are terrible bigots and pigheaded jerks.

Right Wing Watch:

[Sen. James Inhofe and American Family Association's Bryan Fischer] discussed Elena Kagan's nomination to the Supreme Court, with Fischer praising Inhofe's immediate opposition on the grounds that Kagan is hostile to our military while Inhofe explained that it was vital to try and keep Kagan off the court because she would most likely vote to strike down Don't Ask, Don't Tell.

The military is organized into men and women and doesn't need this "third group to deal with," Inhofe said, explaining that, as a military man, he knows that soldiers fight not for nation or flag, but for the guy in the next foxhole... but if the guy in the next foxhole is gay, well, that would dramatically change everything:

Got that? Repealing DADT won't work, because people in the military are all bigoted A-holes who'd rather let a gay die than fight for their country. Granted, there's probably a bit of projection going on here. After all, Sen. Inhofe is a bigoted A-hole, so he's seeing the world through his own distorted lens. But even so, what a poor, poor opinion Inhofe has of our armed forces. I'm often struck by the lack of shame among Republicans and this doesn't do much to dispel that impression.

How rampant is this belief that military personnel are all crazy homophobes, incapable of even tolerance, let alone acceptance? Pretty rampant. In fact, in one chamber of Congress, universal among Republicans. I came across this yesterday in The Hill:

House Republicans are preparing to mount a vigorous defense of the "Don't ask, don't tell" policy President Bill Clinton implemented in 1993.

GOP lawmakers in the lower chamber are poised to vote en masse against the defense authorization bill if it includes an amendment to repeal the law barring gays and lesbians from serving openly in the U.S. military.

Over the objections of some Republicans, Clinton issued his "Don't ask, don't tell" directive nearly 17 years ago. Since then, many Republicans have warmed to it -- especially now that liberals want to eradicate it.

Never mind the hypocrisy of defending something that they once argued was the worst thing ever. I can find an example of GOP hypocrisy any day of the week. It's hardly worth commenting on anymore. The issue here is that, by Republican argument, American soldiers are uniquely narrowminded and stupid -- and that we should cater to that narrowmindedness and stupidity.

The pentagon will release a study later this year on the effects of a repeal of DADT and the actual repeal won't go into effect until that report is filed. The findings of the report shouldn't be hard to guess. Other countries have allowed gays and lesbians to serve openly in their militaries, without negative consequences.

But Republicans argue that America is unique. We're different. And, apparently, they believe that difference lies in our intolerance and our idiocy. No other military has had any problems with gays in the military, but the United States will, because we're all a bunch of backwards dicks. In Republican arguments -- and in some Republican minds -- the American soldier is an idiotic homophobe with no chance of ever becoming more tolerant. We have the only soldier in the developed world so backwards and bigoted that the mere presence of a gay in their unit will render them incapable of fighting.

Republicans like to pretend they love the military more than anyone else, but the facts, their actions, and their arguments show that Republicans have a very low opinion of the American soldier. Keep that in mind the next time one of them wraps themselves up in the flag.

-Wisco


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If You Really Want to Destroy Yourself, Crack is Faster

He's a big-time American patriot. You know that, because he appears in a video for the American Patriot Foundation. Of course, since Timothy McVeigh and the "Super Patriot" movement, the word has lost a lot of its value. As a general rule of thumb, people who take the label "patriot" and slap it on themselves tend to be the least patriotic of Americans. They owe their fealty to an America that doesn't exist and want to "return it" to values it never had. This America, the one we live in and the one that reflects historical accuracy, they don't have a lot of use for. They don't love this country, they love a country that exists only in their imaginations.

So Army doctor Lt. Col. Terry Lakin is a patriot in his own mind and the minds of those fellow wingnuts who only worry about the Constitution when a Democrat's in the White House. And for standing by what, for lack of a better word, we're going to have to call "principles," Lakin has been accused of a crime against the nation he claims to love just so damned much.

MSNBC's First Read:

U.S. military officials tell NBC News that the U.S. Army will court martial a lieutenant colonel who refuses to deploy to Afghanistan because he considers orders from President Obama to be "illegal."

Army doctor Lt. Col. Terry Lakin believes Obama does not meet the constitutional requirements to be president and commander-in-chief, because he believes (incorrectly) that Obama wasn't born in the United States.

Lakin refused this week to report to Fort Campbell, KY for deployment to Afghanistan, but instead showed up at the Pentagon, where he was confronted by his brigade Commander Col. Gordon Roberts, a Vietnam Medal of Honor recipient.

"A website called SafeguardOurConstitution.com has set up a legal defense fund for Lakin," WorldNetDaily reports, "and has posted a long list of the doctor's awards, including the Army Flight Surgeon's Badge, Combat Medical Badge, the Bronze Star Medal, the Meritorious Service Medal, the Army Commendation Medal with three Oak Leaf Clusters, the Army Achievement Medal with two Oak Leaf Clusters, the National Defense Service Medal with Bronze Service Star, the Armed Forced Expedition Medal, the Army Reserve Component Achievement Medal, the Army Service Ribbon, the Overseas Service Ribbon and the NATO service medal."

Good for him. Unfortunately, a fine record of military service doesn't change the facts that he's both a lunatic and provably wrong.

And it's here that Lakin's big plan is likely to backfire on him. See, all the evidence suggests that Lakin wanted to be court martialed. All the lawsuits challenging Obama's eligibility have been thrown out, mostly because they all share one trait -- a total lack of any evidence. Since no court will hear these ridiculous nuisance lawsuits, Lakin and his birther compadres believe they've discovered a backdoor to the legal system. Lakin will present evidence in his defense that Barack Obama is really a secret Kenyan Muslim terr'ist, he'll get off, and "President" Obama will be led out of the White House in handcuffs (he's an illegal alien, you see).

TheBirthers.org:

...Once Lt. Col. Lakin is charged, he will be afforded a defense, which under the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) Article 46, Lt. Col. Lakin will have the opportunity to obtain witnesses and other evidence. This is why we called Lt. Col. Lakin's action a game changer.


What witnesses can he obtain and evidence can he call into the record? Everyone from Grandma Sarah to the custodian of records for any hospital Obama chooses to name, he can demand a full release of Hawaii's vital records from the time in question (to prove there are not forgeries,) to every application Obama made. In short his witness list and evidence inventory can include every thing that could possibly prove BHOJr is a fraud and an imposter acting as CIC.

In other words, he'll try to rehash all the "evidence" that's been shot down time and time again. That ought to work out well for him.

As anyone who reads this blog with any regularity knows, I'm fascinated by people who believe whatever it is they want to believe, despite all evidence to the contrary. Creationists fall into this camp, as do global warming deniers, holocaust deniers, flatearthers who believe the lunar landings were faked, most of Glenn Beck's audience, and of course the birthers. Here's a guy who's so sure that President Obama isn't really the president that he's willing to stake his career, his military record, and his freedom on it. Further, he's taking all that risk in spite of the fact that he literally has all the evidence that exists in the world that he's wrong.

And so, of course, his defense will fail. I don't think there's any question of that. It's one thing when believing what you want to believe just makes you eccentric, it's another when this belief starts destroying people's lives. Lakin is being destroyed by a lunatic belief system, just as surely as he would be if he were taking crystal meth. He's willing to throw everything away for a fevered, paranoid fantasy while other, more cowardly, delusionals are cheering him on in this hopeless kamikaze run at the Obama presidency.

And they all call themselves "patriots." Apparently, that word has come to mean a pigheaded fantasist who's mistaken beliefs cannot be corrected -- ever. When Lakin's defense is laughed out of the court martial, they won't take "you're insane and here's why" for an answer. They'll go on with their closedminded certainty that the United States is under the thumb of a foreign usurper and that Lt. Col. Terry Lakin is a righteous political prisoner on the par of Nelson Mandela.

Lt. Col. Lakin is on the path to self-destruction. My only complaint about it is that his fellow birther nutjobs don't have the courage to destroy themselves in a similar fashion.

-Wisco


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Keep DADT -- But Apply it to Homophobes

Earlier this week, I wrote that about 75% of the American public oppose the military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy toward gays, lesbians, bisexuals, transgendereds, and transsexuals. And why not? The LGBT community has gone pretty much mainstream. In retrospect, the strategy of gays coming out of the closet worked. Normal people who were secretly gay became openly gay -- but still normal. I'd think that coming out would take a tremendous amount of personal courage, so I can only imagine how satisfying it must be to see that strategy paying off.

But what about the military; what do people serving or who have served think of repealing DADT? The pentagon is preparing to study the issue with a poll of their own, but we don't have to wait. A poll [PDF] commissioned by the Vet Voice Foundation asked that question and the answer is, frankly, complicated.

Polling exclusively Iraq and Afghanistan veterans, VVF put the question to former and current military personnel. Only 34% favor allowing gays to serve openly. Only 36% are opposed. 30% are on the fence. But the numbers are different when asked how they feel personally about gays; 73% said they're personally comfortable with gays and lesbians and 60% believe sexual orientation has no bearing on a person's ability to serve.





So why the disparity? If most are OK with gays and most think sexual orientation isn't a factor in being able to serve, why do so many oppose repealing DADT? Unfortunately, the poll doesn't answer this question. I think it's pretty clear that they're concerned -- incorrectly, it turns out -- about how their comrades would react to gays serving openly. That's just a guess, but it seems pretty obvious to me.

Part of the problem here is that, while 58% believe they've served alongside gays, there's no way for most of them to know. It's literally a crime to say it out loud. So the gains made by gays in the civilian world by coming out can't be reflected in the military. You can't come out of the closet -- it's illegal. Add to this that the respondent pool is 45% Republican, 25% Independent, and 20% Democrat, and you can imagine that many of these people see their doubts reinforced by their media of choice. If you watch FOX News, you start to think that's reality. If you listen to Rush Limbaugh, you start to think that's reality. When right wing blowhards start talking BS about gays "destroying unit cohesion," you think they're right -- even though it's not true for you personally. All those other people are homophobes and, despite how you feel, you believe that keeping DADT would just be avoiding a whole lot of trouble. In other words, if you live in right wing world, you may not be closed-minded, but you believe everyone else is.

Repealing DADT would remove this. The only way this perception can perpetuate itself is if being gay is a secret. You may suspect someone's gay, you may even know it, but -- assuming, as the poll shows, you have no problem with it -- you can't find out how other people feel about it. You can't out them. They can't out themselves. So the distorted perception that everyone else hates the gays can be sustained. If gays and lesbians served openly, then actual reality would take hold.

And what about that 30% who say they're uncomfortable in the presence of gays? Screw 'em. This is, after all, the military. No one joined up to be comfortable. When you're in the service, you obey. If you have a problem with gays and lesbians, then shut up about it. And that's an order.

And people who believe the "unit cohesion" argument have it bass-ackward; gays aren't the problem here, the bigoted minority is the problem. You don't blame women for sexism, you don't blame Jews for antisemitism, and you don't blame minorities for racism. So why are we blaming gays for homophobia? Even if homophobia destroyed unit cohesion, it wouldn't be gays dissolving that cohesion -- it'd be the homophobes. Impose DADT on them -- say one word against anyone in the LGBT community and you're out of this man's army.

Now stop flaunting your homophobic lifestyle choice, mister.

-Wisco


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Reinventing the Wheel with Healthcare Reform and DADT

Healthcare reform is unpopular. At least, that's what Republicans have been saying. It's the worst thing ever and Americans know it. To listen to the GOP, we're all in agreement here -- everyone hates this thing. But the truth is that Pollster.com's average of polls finds that Americans are split on the issue, 48% anti- to 44% pro-. Not only isn't there a consensus on reform, but there isn't even a majority opinion. Given the Republican campaign of anti-reform propaganda and disinformation, this shouldn't come as much of a surprise -- we have no idea what to think. Further, White House pollster Joel Benenson has pointed out that as much as a third of the antis are supportive of reform, but believe this bill doesn't go far enough. Once the bill is law, he argues, a lot of this contingent will come around to defend it, hoping to use it as a foothold for further reform -- this is a category I already fall into. This shift would likely put the pros in the majority.

No, if you want to find an unpopular program, you'd have to look elsewhere. Like, say, the Republican defended policy of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell." Polling shows that 75% of Americans oppose that policy. And why not? It's an absurdity created by compromise. Then-President Bill Clinton wanted to remove the ban on gays and lesbians in the military entirely -- which he could do as Commander and Chief. But the fear was that Congress would legislate the issue and write the ban into law with a veto-proof majority. So a deal was cut, a compromise was made, and a weaker law was passed. DADT was basically something along the lines of "we'll let gays in the military, but we'll pretend they aren't gay. As long as they don't break the illusion, gays are now allowed to serve."

And this Frankenstein monster of a compromise has now brought us this:

Associated Press:

Jene Newsome played by the rules as an Air Force sergeant: She never told anyone in the military she was a lesbian. The 28-year-old's honorable discharge under the "don't ask, don't tell" policy came only after police officers in Rapid City, S.D., saw an Iowa marriage certificate in her home and told the nearby Ellsworth Air Force Base.

Newsome and the American Civil Liberties Union filed a complaint against the western South Dakota police department, claiming the officers violated her privacy when they informed the military about her sexual orientation. The case also highlights concerns over the ability of third parties to "out" service members, especially as the Pentagon has started reviewing the 1993 "don't ask, don't tell" law.

"I played by 'don't ask, don't tell,'" Newsome told The Associated Press by telephone.

It looks like the police outed her to punish her for not cooperating with an investigation. They found the document while investigating a theft charge against her spouse. Never mind that no one is required to help police with an investigation and, as the suspect's spouse, Newsome can even refuse to testify in court. For their part. Rapid City police say they had to inform the Air Force.

"It’s an emotional issue and it’s unfortunate that Newsome lost her job," said Police Chief Steve Allender, "but I disagree with the notion that our department might be expected to ignore the license, or not document the license, or withhold it from the Air Force once we did know about it. It was a part of the case, part of the report and the Air Force was privileged to the information." Legal experts disagree.

"This is not a federal crime," writes Constitutional law professor Jonathan Turley. "Since when are officers compelled to report matters of potential internal discipline to an employer? If the officers hoped for greater cooperation from the gay community, this is hardly the way to secure it."

And, in the end, no one asked and Newsome certainly didn't tell, but she's out anyway. Why? Because of a flawed compromise with crazy people, that's why. This is America and we can never just go ahead and do something. Other nations have lifted similar bans without any problem, but the US has to reinvent the wheel every time we want to change something, because some people think this country is a different planet. We can't look at other countries, see what policies or programs work best, and adopt them. No, Americans are entirely different from every other population on Earth. We can't do things the way everyone else does. We have to build everything from the ground up and, as a result, everything's a hodgepodge of good and bad ideas -- with the good ideas compromised into bad ideas.

I always say that a compromise is an arrangement in which all parties agree to be equally unhappy. I also always say that meeting someone crazy halfway is halfway crazy. And DADT backs both arguments up -- almost no one likes it, it's absurd, and it doesn't work. Sergeant Jene Newsome can get married in Iowa, but she can't even exist in the military.

And this is the problem facing healthcare reform as well. It's compromised into a monstrosity. Good ideas are out, bad ideas are in, because the United States can't just look at other countries, see what works, and do that. No, we've got to come up with something totally different from every other country and ignore what's been tested and proven, because that's just what Americans do.

The good news here is that DADT is on its way out and full acceptance -- what we should've done in the first place -- is coming. It's another thing Americans do. We look at the bad compromise, say, "Well, that didn't work either," then go ahead with something saner. Our uniquely American solutions have to fail before we go ahead and do what other nations have done.

That should give that percentage White House pollster Joel Benenson talked about cause for optimism. If this compromise is as bad as they -- and I -- think it is, it won't last. And we won't go back, either. That's another thing we don't do. What we'll do is change it again.

It's a pity that people like Newsome have to get screwed in the meantime.

-Wisco


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Good Enough for War

In 2002, the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network issued a report finding that discharges under the military's policy of "don't ask, don't tell" were "the fewest discharges since 1996." The numbers were down 1,273 since the year before. Progress? Hardly.

The Iraq war was raging and the armed forces needed every person they could get. "When they need lesbian, gay and bisexual Americans most, military leaders keep us close at hand," said SLDN Executive Director C. Dixon Osburn. "The time has come to do away with the Pentagon’s charade and make sure no one loses his or her career at the hands of anti-gay discrimination." So gays, lesbians, and transsexuals are good enough for war -- just not fit to serve in peacetime. Or even relative peacetime.

The plain idiocy of DADT aside, the policy is theoretically one of enforced ignorance. "Don't ask, don't tell" could just as easily be expressed as "don't know, don't wanna know." And this gives DADT supporters a rhetorical advantage; they can claim that ending the policy would be allowing gays and lesbians into the military, when the truth is the the policy is designed to allow them into the military. And the advantage comes in the fact that no one in the military is in a position to contradict them. Gays can't come out and say that they're serving without risking their careers and supportive comrades can't come forward in their defense for the same reason. As a result, bigots can pretend there are no gays in the military -- or, at least, very few -- and cast repealing DADT as a drastic change.





Case in point; rightwing crazy Oliver North. Speaking to the equally insane Sean Hannity, North argued that allowing gays into the military would pretty much destroy the universe.

"[It's a] stunning assault on the all-volunteer military, the very best in the world," North fumed. "Barack Obama now intends to treat them like lab rats in a radical social experiment, and it can be very, very detrimental... In other words, this isn’t about rights. This isn’t about fairness. It’s all about national security. And apparently, Mr. Obama has forgotten it... Now, here’s what’s next. NAMBLA [North American Man/Boy Love Association] members, same-sex marriages. Are chaplains in the U.S. military going to be required to perform those kinds of rituals? Do they get government housing?"

OK, so that's a big pile of stupid, but that's what you get from Hannity's show. No one tunes in for reasoned discussion, they tune in for fearmongering and demagoguery. But you see what he did there? There are no gays in the serving now. Obama wants to try a "radical social experiment" that'll surely kill us all.

Less rabid and incoherent was Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty this weekend on Meet the Press. He followed Gen. David Patreus, who explained that he supported the efforts to repeal the policy.

"I support 'don't ask, don't tell,'" Pawlenty said. "And, you know anecdotally -- I saw the general's comments in response to that. Anecdotally, I know there's still a great number, a great portion of the military community that is concerned about that. They believe 'don't ask, don't tell' worked. If it's not broke, don't fix it -- or if it's not, it's not in need of fixing, you don't need to repair it. So I'd leave it alone."

But isn't it broken? If the military ignores the presence of gays and lesbians during wartime, doesn't that prove that the ban serves no constructive purpose? Worse, it risks losing personnel at the exact moment they're most needed.

Since the institution of DADT, 60-some Arabic language translators have been dismissed from the armed services. Isn't that risking national security? And aren't arguments that repealing DADT would be harmful entirely theoretical?

They cite no studies, bring no facts to the table; all they bring is wild speculation, baseless fearmongering, and hatred. That's not the best argument.

Meanwhile, opponents of the policy are able to cite polling that shows that an overwhelming majority -- in the latest poll I could find, a 2-1 majority -- supports repealing DADT. Even rightwing loon Dick Cheney supports ending the ban.

And a new study finds that there would be no risk at all in ending the policy. The study, by the Palm Center, a research group at the University of California, Santa Barbara, looked at other nations that have changed the military policy toward gays and found no effect on morale and recruitment, as well as no evidence of "increased harassment."

So one argument exists in a fact-free atmosphere of baseless speculation and attempts at reading the minds of servicemembers, while the other is backed up by facts collected from all over the world, the existence of gays and lesbians in the military now, and the opinions of an overwhelming majority of Americans.

Doesn't seem like much of a contest to me.

-Wisco


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A Man of Few Principles

Repealing "don't ask, don't tell" (DADT) is a big problem, because it's hugely controversial and Americans are completely divided on the issue... Right?

Wrong. In June, a Gallup poll on the issue showed that majorities in every demographic thought that gays serving openly in the military was a good idea. Among Democrats it was 86% in favor, Independents scored 67%, and Republicans went 58%. 64% of men over all were in favor, along with 73% of women. People in the east; 77%. The midwest; 76%. The west; 71%. The south; 57%. By age group, by church attendance -- all the same. Majorities in every, single demographic. In all, 69% support allowing gays to serve openly in the military. That's a rise of 6 points since 2004, with the largest gain -- 12 points -- being among self-described conservatives. The second largest leap for a demographic during that period was 11 points, among weekly churchgoers.

In other words, if this were put up for a vote, repealing DADT would win in a landslide. Among voters, this isn't a huge raging controversy.





However, it's not voters who'll decide. It's Washington. And if there's one thing that people in all demographics can agree on -- other than repealing DADT --  it's that institutional Washington is mostly populated by people who are either stupid, incompetent, or insane.

Which of course brings us to the 2008 Republican presidential nominee John McCain. Elected as a member of the House of Representatives in 1981, he went on to win his Senate seat in 1986. With 29 years under his belt, John Sidney McCain III is pretty damned institutional. And it shows.

Christopher Beam, Slate:

In late 2006, John McCain told a live audience that he supported "don't ask, don't tell," the policy that allows gays and lesbians to serve in the military as long as they keep their sexuality a secret. "But the day that the leadership of the military comes to me and says, 'Senator, we ought to change the policy,' then I think we ought to consider seriously changing it, because those leaders in the military are the ones we give the responsibility to."

That day came on Tuesday, and McCain did not budge -- just one reason a full repeal of the DADT policy may be further off than you think.

Beam argues that repealing DADT is years away -- an argument I'm not sure I agree with. But he captures McCain's foolishness completely. After Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Michael Mullen testified before the Senate that the policy was something he was "troubled by" and that it was his personal belief that it should be changed, McCain took the low road.

"I'm deeply disappointed in your statement," McCain told Mullen. He said that congress had dealt with the issue in 1993. They reached a compromise between "the desires of a minority and the interests of a volunteer force."

"I'm eager to hear from our distinguished witnesses what has changed," he said. You mean other than public opinion, the calendar, the expulsion from the military of Arab-language translators at a time when we're supposed to be fighting Islamic extremism, the opinions of top military brass, and going on ten years of experience showing your little "compromise" wasn't a very good idea? Other than all that, John?

Nothing.

Nothing has changed. It just turns out you were wrong back then. It happens. In fact, it happens a lot in DC. You've been around long enough to know this John, so why does this come as a big revelation to you?

Oddly, McCain's defense of this idiotic policy has always been that he's just listening to military leadership -- that is, until now that this leadership disagrees with him. In the same June that Gallup's study came out, McCain cited Colin Powell as his reason for standing by DADT:

My opinion is shaped by the view of the leaders of the military. The reason why I supported the policy to start with is because General Colin Powell, who was then the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is the one that strongly recommended we adopt this policy in the Clinton administration. I have not heard General Powell or any of the other military leaders reverse their position, just like when on other issues, that people are expert and knowledgeable of, I rely on their opinion. But this is unique. These military leaders are responsible for the very lives of the men and women under their command, and that’s why I am especially guided, to a large degree, by their views.

Yeah, turns out that Colin Powell has reversed his position. Will McCain, recognizing that the people he's so disappointed in "are responsible for the very lives of the men and women under their command," change his tune and be "guided, to a large degree, by their views?"

What do you think?

The truth is that McCain stopped being the "maverick" he and Sarah Palin claimed he was a long time ago. At this moment in time -- and for a long time prior -- McCain has become the typical "finger in the wind" type, carefully choosing his positions to line up with the positions of those who can help him most. The man whose motto was "Country first" puts John McCain first at every opportunity, canceling out any arguments he'd made previously and selling out positions he's held in the past.

"I thought that after 2008 we wouldn't get more chances to see McCain betraying all the principles and positions he claims to stand for," writes Talking Points Memo's Josh Marshall. "But the primary challenge in Arizona seems to be providing many more opportunities."

And Marshall's right -- this is what it's all about. McCain is in a tough primary race against a teabagger nutjob named J.D. Hayworth. Hayworth is a one-time congress critter who's gone on to become a talk radio fool. So McCain is trying match him, crazy for crazy.

Since he's the incumbent, McCain has the backing of his party. But these days, that doesn't count for much. This means that McCain has to win over the people who'd vote for Hayworth. So, when he told us that he'd let the policy be "shaped by the view of the leaders of the military," it was because he didn't see this coming. Now he'll let the policy be shaped by the crackpots who'd vote for his opponent. He's willing to sell out his earlier position, so long as it's he himself who casts the vote against it.

Country first? Not on your life. It's McCain first all the way.

-Wisco


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'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' on its Way Out

The next big fight in Washington is looking to be the 2011 budget. Liberals aren't happy with the spending freeze idea and Republicans are against everything, because they believe obstructionism for the sake of obstructionism is good politics.

But other fights also loom and those will pit crazy people against sane ones. These are the cultural issues, where right wing lunatics believe they get their marching orders from Jesus. Of course, their Jesus is the Republican Jesus, who is a nutjob. And we're rushing toward a fight between the religious crazies and everyone else.

New York Times:

President Obama and top Pentagon officials met repeatedly over the past year about repealing “don’t ask, don’t tell,” the law that bans openly gay members of the military.

But it was in Oval Office strategy sessions to review court cases challenging the ban — ones that could reach the Supreme Court — that Mr. Obama faced the fact that if he did not change the policy, his administration would be forced to defend publicly the constitutionality of a law he had long opposed.

Already, the right is breaking out the stupid. "In the middle of two wars and in the middle of this giant security threat," House minority leader John Boehner said this weekend on Meet the Press, "why would we want to get into this debate?"

Golly John, maybe it's because we're in those two wars you mentioned -- maybe we can't afford to let homophobic squeamishness keep potential soldiers out of the field. This seems to me to be the prime example of a stupid question. The question that would be better asked would be, "Why would you even have a debate over this?" It's idiotic. Other nations allow gays to serve openly; go find the military where this has become a huge problem. You won't have any luck.

But the US is home to Christian religious fanaticism. Afghanistan has their Taliban and we have ours. Reality doesn't have anything to do with opposition to repealing Don't Ask, Don't Tell. Most of you know I'm an atheist by now, so it shouldn't surprise you to learn that I'm convinced that Christianity is just a bunch of stuff somebody made up. But even if you do believe, you have to admit that the God the religious right worships has nothing to do with the biblical Jesus. They've made up their own Jesus, then pasted it over the one in the Bible.

Republican Jesus is a bigot. Republican Jesus loves the wealthy and hates the poor. Republican Jesus wouldn't have chased the moneychangers from the temple, he would've set up shop himself. And, apparently, Republican Jesus would round up gays, put them in prison, and try to brainwash them using a technique that's been completely debunked by the medical profession.

Bryan Fischer, American Family Association:

It might be worth noting that what I actually suggested is that we impose the same sanctions on those who engage in homosexual behavior as we do on those who engage in intravenous drug abuse, since both pose the same kind of risk of contracting HIV/AIDS. I'd be curious to know what you think should be done with IV drug abusers, because whatever it is, I think the same response should be made to those who engage in homosexual behavior.

If you believe that what drug abusers need is to go into an effective detox program, then we should likewise put active homosexuals through an effective reparative therapy program.

For the record, "reparative therapy" is a bunch of snake oil BS. In fact, it's just harmful. And we won't even go into all the ways this would be illegal. Let's just leave it at "Bryan Fischer is 100% wrong." There isn't a single argument he makes that's right or even possible. Put bluntly, Fischer is a lunatic, a bigot, and a religious fanatic.

Of course, Fischer, like everyone else in his movement, is completely sure that he's right. Remember, this is the same crowd who believe that magic is a better explanation than evolution. All of their reasoning power goes toward rationalizing reality to agree with their beliefs. They don't care about truth, they don't care about anyone's health, they just have to prove that every belief held by bronze age nomads is 100% true. And even those beliefs they manage to misunderstand.

"Remember folks, the Christianist right is not about hatred and bigotry," writes Joe Jervis of the blog Joe. My. God. "It's about the gentle redemptive love of Jesus, forced upon you at the barrel of a gun in prison as they beat the gay out of you."

Polling shows that the majority of Americans are not on the side of the anti-gay crazies. In all, 55% of Americans favor repeal, as opposed to 35% against it. As is usually the case, Republicans are outside the mainstream on the issue -- 53% oppose repealing DADT. 73% of Democrats and 58% of independents support repeal. In total, only 11% of respondents believed that the policy made the military stronger.

But, of course, those are facts -- which means the religious right has no use for them. If they're willing to put people at risk of suicide, then they're certainly willing to ignore numbers that show them as the cranks.

The big question for the GOP is how far they're willing to push this going into an election year. If we've learned one thing from recent elections, it's that relying on the religious crackpots to win doesn't work anymore. Can Republicans, who think they're riding high now, really afford to revert back to their culture warrior stance and risk it turning off voters? Alternately, can they afford to ignore the issue and risk turning off the fanatics who still make up a good chunk of their base?

Or will the media bother to report on any of it? There are a lot of big headlines out there and it just might be that this fight gets buried under other stories.

If I were a Republican, that's what I'd hope for.

-Wisco


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New Rule for Iraq Practically Guarantees Abortions

If you're in Iraq and you get pregnant, you've got trouble.

CNN:

A new order from the general in charge of U.S. troops in northern Iraq makes getting pregnant or impregnating a fellow soldier an offense punishable by court-martial.

The directive, part of a larger order restricting the behavior of the 22,000 soldiers under Maj. Gen. Anthony Cucolo's command, is meant to prevent losing soldiers at a time when troop strength is stretched thin, Cucolo explained in a statement sent to the troops under his command and provided to CNN.

"I need every soldier I've got, especially since we are facing a drawdown of forces during our mission," Cucolo wrote. "Anyone who leaves this fight earlier than the expected 12-month deployment creates a burden on their teammates. Anyone who leaves this fight early because they made a personal choice that changed their medical status -- or contributes to doing that to another -- is not in keeping with a key element of our ethos."

"I've got a 22,000-man task force and I need every soldier I've got," Cucolo explained. "We are facing a drawdown and anyone that leaves earlier than the expected 12 months creates a burden on their teammates. My female soldiers are invaluable -- many of them hold high impact jobs. In general, my troops are few in number and I need them all."

The problems here are many, but the one that came immediately to my mind is that this new rule practically guarantees abortion. I decided to take a tour through some top "pro-life" sites and see what they had to say about this. Turns out, their response to this new rule is... Well, they don't have one.





In every case, the big stories on these site were how healthcare reform is going to pay for abortions -- something that's entirely untrue.

But hey, they don't have time to worry about real world abortion, they have BS to launch against healthcare reform. You have one issue that's guaranteed to encourage abortions and another issue that's not going to do anything to encourage abortions. But the Republican Party isn't launching an attack on Cucolo's new rule, so neither are the anti-abortion types. If you ever needed proof that the entire "pro-life" movement is just a sockpuppet for the GOP, there ya go.

Of course, there's also another explanation; it may be that the anti-abortion types think they already have their bases covered here. If you're in the military, it's not so easy to get an abortion.

Author Kathryn Joyce explains:

"You hear these legends of coat-hanger abortions," a 26-year-old former Marine sergeant told me recently, "but there are no coat hangers in Iraq. I looked." Amy (who prefers not to use her real name) was stationed in Fallujah as a military journalist two years ago when she discovered she was pregnant. As a female Marine, a distinct minority in the branch, Amy was fearful of going to her chain of command to explain her situation.

For military women, who lack all rights to medical privacy, facing an unplanned pregnancy is a daunting obstacle. Thanks to anti-abortion forces in Congress, military hospitals are banned from providing abortion services, except in cases of life endangerment, rape, or incest (and for the latter two, only if the patient pays for the service herself). Amy says her options were "like being given a choice between swimming in a pond full of crocodiles or piranhas."

Amy tried twice to self-abort with the cleaning rod from a rifle. When the second attempt hospitalized her, she was charged with a crime. "The first sergeant came to her hospital room to announce that Amy would be punished under Article 92 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice," Joyce writes, "which addresses violations of general regulations, for having had sex in a war zone." Amy's pregnancy was the result of rape, an ongoing problem in the military. A Pentagon report released in May discovered 2,923 reported cases of rape in 2008.

Of course, the anti-abortion movement has good reason to ignore cases like Amy's, which in turn gives them good reason to ignore Cucolo's rule. When women can't get clinical abortions, they still abort. Women don't abort because of "convenience," as the common lie would have it, women abort because they believe they have no choice. As a result, when you make abortion illegal, women die. The inability to legislate abortion out of existence isn't something that these groups want to highlight -- especially when you consider that their entire strategy toward abortion is to legislate it out of existence. It's not working in the military and it won't work anywhere else. So they don't bring up Cucolo's rule, because they don't want to bring attention to their failures.

At least, that's the only explanation that occurs to me. If you've got a better explanation for why the "pro-life" movement is silent on a rule that is guaranteed to encourage abortion, I'd like to hear it.

Wisco


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Shooting Down Missile Defense

Long, long ago, shrouded in the mists of ancient history (i.e., December 2006), I wrote a post I titled "The Only Purpose of Missile Defense is to Waste Money." At that point in time, we had blown $95 billion on missile defense systems since Ronald Reagan jotted his "Star Wars" notion on the back of a matchbook. What we got out of all this spending and research was nothing. We still have no working missile defense system. Worse, after the fall of the Soviet Union, missile defense became a solution in search of a problem -- its reason for being is to counter a threat that no longer exists.

In that post, I wrote:

So why is the Bush administration pushing this? Did I mention that we've spent $95 billion on it? Throwing pots of cash at defense contractors is what Bush does. It doesn't make any difference whether or not it works -- a failed test is exactly as expensive as a successful one -- the only thing that matters is that it allows people who are already unbelievably rich to reach into your wallet and grab your tax dollars. Who cares if it works?

Oddly, with all the Republican complaining about wasteful spending, missile defense hasn't really made an appearance. Obama has signaled that he might be open to placing a missile defense system in Poland, so it's not like the subject hasn't come up. For the GOP, wasteful spending means monitoring volcanoes so we're prepared for eruptions, not throwing money at stupid-expensive missile systems that may not actually work and have never been adequately tested. Bailing you out because you got suckered into a crap mortgage is "pork," while throwing billions at defense contractors for what amounts to a lucky charm is sound fiscal policy.

Starting to see how we got into this economic mess in the first place?





Since Obama's election, Bush loyalists have been quietly freaking out that he may not really be willing to waste money hand over fist on missile defense anymore. The military has never been very excited about missile defense (Pentagon officials refer to civilian MD advocates as "missile defense moonies"), so it's not like they see any worth to the systems. But those Bush loyalists sure do. And they've made repeated attempts to get you to panic at the thought of abandoning it.

Wall Street Journal, "Obama and Missile Defense," former Ambassador to the UN John Bolton, Nov. 2008:

Freeing America from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty's antiquated constraints is rightly regarded as one of President Bush's most significant achievements. In 2001, we believed that the Russian strategic threat had eased. But the emerging threats from rogue states possessing a few nuclear-capable ballistic missiles required that we develop adequate defenses -- especially because many emerging nuclear-weapons states do not accept the same calculus of deterrence that maintained the Cold War's uneasy nuclear standoff. The demise of the ABM Treaty allows America to defend itself from these threats.

For a new Obama administration to retreat from this achievement, as many in the arms-control "community" have advocated, would be a significant step backward. His campaign position about deployment after the technology is "proved" is an excuse never to deploy missile defenses -- because nothing in the military field is ever conclusively proven for all time. Rebuffing [Polish President] Kaczynski is also precisely the wrong response to [Russian President] Medvedev's provocation. It will surely be read as weakness, and not only in Moscow. In fact, Moscow announced yesterday there would be no more missile-defense negotiations before Jan. 20.

Missile defense is only unproven because it can't be proven. It seems that firing a missile and knocking it down isn't proof -- mostly because our missile defense system can't do it. If it won't work in controlled situations, why assume it'll work in the field? The word for that is "faith." I'm not convinced we should be spending billions on faith-based weapons systems. And many in the know think Obama isn't either.

"I think it's on the back burner," James F. Collins, director of Russia studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and a former ambassador to Moscow, told FOX News earlier this month. "I read the Obama and other statements more or less as tentative about this system in the sense that they aren't going to put huge investment in it unless they can figure out it's going to work."

More recently, Obama himself gave missile defense moonies reason to worry. "In this budget, we will end education programs that don’t work and end direct payments to large agribusinesses that don’t need them," the president said in his address to a joint session of congress this week. "We’ll eliminate the no-bid contracts that have wasted billions in Iraq, and reform our defense budget so that we’re not paying for Cold War-era weapons systems we don’t use." That budget comes out today. Whether or not MD takes a hit remains to be seen.

But you'd hope that sanity will finally prevail. Missile defense is an idea that should be allowed to die. It's never worked, no one can explain how it's ever going to work, and it answers a threat that doesn't actually exist. What I said in 2006 is just as true today -- the only purpose of missile defense is to waste money.

-Wisco