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Thoughts on Iraq, terrorism and oil.

Rumors

By Tyler Folsom - Oct 14th, 2008 at 12:42 am EDT

Ever wonder where the lies about Obama get started? The answer is Andy Martin. He invents stories about Obama that get picked up and embellished by the right wing. These become internet urban legends. Read http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/13/us/politics/13martin.html

Mr. Martin graduated from law school, but was blocked from the Illinios bar by a psychiatric finding of "moderately severe character defect manifested by well-documented ideation with a paranoid flavor and a grandiose character".

The standards for the Fox News Channel are so low that a pseudo-documentary had Mr. Martin asserting falsely and without challenge that Obama had once trained to overthrow the government.

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Afghanistan

By Tyler Folsom - Oct 12th, 2008 at 1:58 pm EDT

Thirty-one years ago I bicycled from Islamabad, across Pakistan's Northwest Territories and over the Khyber Pass into Afghanistan. I biked to Jalalabad, Kabul, Bamian and Mazar-i-Sharif. I then took a light vehicle to Herat and biked into Iran. See http://www.tfolsom.com/About/World.html for photos. My impressions may be a bit dated, but not by much. Afghanistan had not changed much in the 3000 years before my visit and I doubt that it has changed much in the last 30.
Several things struck me about the Afghanis:

They can be righteous when demanding several times the normal price.
The culture that you see in an ethnology museum in Tehran is the way of life in Afghanistan.
Afghanis are fiercly independent.

Bush made the right decision to invade Afghanistan, but the wrong decision to try to stay and hold the country. Both Obama and McCain are wrong about occupying Afghanistan. The British couldn't hold it in the 19th century, the Russians couldn't in the 20th, and the Americans won't in the 21st. The people do not tolerate a foreign army. By staying there, we make the Taliban into nationalists and strengthen their weak position. The way to fight the Taliban is to work through local warlords.
The government of Afghanistan is corrupt and has limited influence outside of Kabul. It has always been that way, and it will continue for the forseeable future. The country is feudal.
To travel in the region, you need to understand the tribesmen's code. I never camped, since then I would be fair game for anyone. If I couldn't reach a town with an inn, I would come into a village and ask the school teacher to give me a place to sleep. If you ask for hospitality, you become a guest and he must defend you with his life.
Pakistan's Northwest Territory has no law. The tribesmen permit the national government the fiction of owning the region in exchange for leaving it alone. All the tribesmen are armed. The Pakistani army never sends troops there. The Pakistani government couldn't capture Osama even if they wanted to. Osama is a guest of the tribesmen. Whether they like him or not, the code demands that they defend him. Since he brings great wealth to a desperately poor part of the world, people probably do like him. When Bin Laden was beseiged by Afghani soldiers at Tora Bora, he was able to bribe his way out. Hint to CIA: if you don't know Osama's exact location, find out what region has a sharp increase in buying consumer goods.

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Depression

By Tyler Folsom - Oct 7th, 2008 at 12:18 pm EDT

We are entering a depression. The next few years will be rough. We are seeing the results of the dismantling of the New Deal that started in 1980 and has continued under Reagan, Bush, Clinton and Bush.

Our economy is now based on credit. Once the house of cards starts collapsing, it will take a long time to start over. The surge in housing prices led to equity borrowing which masked the fundamental weaknesses of the economy. As housing prices rose, they took the economy with them. Now as they fall, the economy goes along for the ride. The major problem for the coming years will be deflation. Now as people discover that they have nothing to spend, they cut back and businesses go down. When our foreign creditors discover that they made a bad bet, they will take their money elsewhere.

Roosevelt said "we have nothing to fear but fear itself". Fear has been the Republican mantra since September 2001. It is time to get past it and reassert our greatness. Obama is a centrist Democrat. To adequately confront the depression, he must become a radical. Start by nationalizing the banks and health care.

This is a major collapse, but I am confident that a better America will rise from the ashes. The Detroit truck companies will have to become car companies. People will have to start driving efficient vehicles and live close to where they work. The rest of the world will no longer subsidize our profligate energy habits and we will have to become sustainable. The ethic of borrowing money to lead an unaffordable life-style will give way to prioritizing purchases to what is really important.

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Maverick

By Tyler Folsom - Oct 3rd, 2008 at 12:53 pm EDT

I was surprised to learn that McCain and Palin belong to the Maverick Party, which has nothing to do with the Repupubican Party that has controlled government for the last eight years. The Maverick Party is above the partisanship that became so much more intense in 2000. This is well illustrated by McCain nobly "suspending" his campaign so that he could return to DC in triumph to rescue the economy from the woes produced by those nasty Republican deregulators. Unfortunately, the Maverick Party took credit for a rescue bill that failed because of McCain's lack of influence with the Republicans.

The Maverick health care plan is modeled on the great success of their financial plan. It involves taxing your employer-paid plan to drive healthy young workers into the tender care of the free market. That will drive up the cost of employer-paid health care for the rest of us, which will drive up your taxes. I can get individual health insurance at a reasonable rate, about $1000 / month. The coverage isn't as wide as what my employer provides, but it is acceptable. My wife has a pre-existing condition that does not require expensive treatment and has low probability of getting worse. Washington state has a law requiring that private health insurers provide coverage to everyone. My wife can get insurance in the free market, but it would cost over $4000 / month.

A maverick is an unbranded steer. With the Republican brand not selling well, it is not surprising that McCain and Palin prefer not to wear it.

It is merely coincidence that most of the Maverick Party's proposals are identical to the Republicans. Their greatest difference from the Republicans can be seen in the environmental area, where McCain is in fact more centrist than most of the Republicans. Oops, that is only half of the Maverick Party, since Palin does want to drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

We can be assured that Maverick Supreme Court picks will be every bit as qualified as Ms. Palin.

Just as the Mavericks think that you can fix global warming without understanding its causes, they think that they can fix the Republican mess by not looking back at it. Their tax cuts for millionaires will be partialy funded by taxing workers' health care. They favor "victory" in Iraq without specifying how that looks different from "surrender" in Iraq. We need a Maverick in the White House as much as we need a bull in a china shop.

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Bail-out

By Tyler Folsom - Sep 30th, 2008 at 8:34 pm EDT

The administration's 3 page blank check bail-out bill morphed into a 451 page bill with lots of unrelated stuff. A modification to the tax code should have been included. Neither the Democrats nor Republicans will go for it, but here is a modest proposal:
- The grand total of all deductions, exclusions or any other loop-holes cannot exceed 50% of your gross income.
- All income between $500,000 and $1,000,000 is taxed 70%; all income over $1M is in the 90% bracket.
- Capital gains are taxed at 28% below $500,000, 50% for $500K to $1M, 70% $1M to $2M and 90% over $2M.
- These rates apply to everyone. After all, it is people in these brackets who care most about the financial system. If companies feel the need to pay their CEO's $200M, most of that money goes to the Treasury.

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Economy

By Tyler Folsom - Sep 21st, 2008 at 6:47 pm EDT

Remember how the Japanese economy had appeared unstoppable in the 80's? Then in 1990, the Japanese housing bubble burst. Japan entered a decade of economic stagnation [1]. I am afraid that the same thing is happening in the U.S.

McCain and his fellow Republicans are champions of deregulation, working hard to dismantle the safegards that were put in place after the 1929 collapse. Now they have discovered that an unregulated market acts like an unregulated market. They want to do something about it. We do need to take fast action. It would be a mistake for the Democrats to be stampeded into a quick fix. Bush has shown that he is not above using a crisis to further his own agenda, such as invading Iraq, a country that had no connection to 9/11 or terrorism and which the CIA reported was not an imminent threat to the U.S. [2].

I prefer "tax and spend" Democrats to "borrow and spend" Republicans [3,4]. Unless you are an anarchist, you probably agree that the government should spend money on defense, highways, airports and stabilizing financial markets. Services for the people should be paid by the people. It is immoral to stiff our children with the bill.

So who is going to pay the hundreds of billions to rescue mortage speculations? “The wealthiest 400 families in America saw an increase in their wealth of $670 billion since President Bush has been in office. They have seen extraordinary benefits under Bush’s reckless economic policies. The middle class, whose standard of living has declined, should not be paying for these bailouts. Rather, we need an emergency surtax on those at the very top in order to pay for any losses the federal government suffers as a result of necessary efforts to shore up the economy,”- Senator Bernie Sanders [5].

The ratio of worker to CEO pay is somewhere around 1:300 to 1:500 [6]. In Japan it is 1:20 and most European nations are in that range [7]. We can tame CEO salaries to a reasonable level. Bring back a progressive income tax. For instance, any income over $1,000,000 could be taxed at 95%.

References

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real_estate_bubble
[2] Vincent Bugliosi, The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder, Vanguard, 2008.
[3] http://zfacts.com/p/318.html
[4] http://www.ctj.org/html/debt0603.htm
[5] http://www.sanders.senate.gov/news/record.cfm?id=303270
[6] http://money.cnn.com/2005/08/26/news/economy/ceo_pay/
[7] Thomas I. Palley, Plenty of Nothing: The Downsizing of the American Dream and the Case for Structural Keynesianism, Princeton University Press, 2000.

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Down's syndrome

By Tyler Folsom - Sep 13th, 2008 at 12:22 pm EDT

I admire Palin's decision to raise a child with Down's Syndrome. I wonder if she knows what she is getting into. I have a sibling with the condition. Palin has said that she will be a friend of special needs children in the White House yet slashed funding as governor [http://www.pensitoreview.com/2008/09/05/palin-cut-funding-for-alaskas-special-needs-children-by-60-percent/
].

My sister Judy was born with Down's Syndrome. At the time, the name of the condition was "Mongoloid simple mindedness" and nobody knew the cause. Judy has never learned to read. She can print her name, use the toilet and feed herself. She cannot form complete sentences and speaks in phrases. Judy can be very loving and affectionate. At other times she is stubborn. She has hallucinations. She cannot prepare her own meals, do arithmetic or handle money. She is incapable of holding even the most menial job. She is physically normal, but short.

Judy was the first child. My parents tried to raise her, but when the third child was born it became clear that it would be impossible to raise us all together. Judy was put in an institution and my parents pretended that she had never existed. I don't blame them for that decision; Down's Syndrome has destroyed many marriages. My parents stayed happily married for 56 years, until my mother's death. Judy was not expected to live long, but after 63 years, she is still hanging in.

Part of the joy of motherhood is watching your child grow, develop, and assert her independence. It is heartbreaking when she is forever stuck in early childhood. With today's technology, it is easy to detect that a fetus has Down's Syndrome and terminate the pregnancy. Sarah Palin had the courage to stick to her beliefs and follow the course that was right for her. It is a highly painful and personal decision that many women would make differently. Ms. Palin has no right to make that decision for others.

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Sexism

By Tyler Folsom - Sep 13th, 2008 at 12:19 pm EDT

Sarah, iron my shirt.

NO!

Gender is obsolete. Do not confuse gender and sex. Gender is the notion that there is a distinction between men's work and women's work. The only jobs that only a woman can do are bearing and breast-feeding children. There are no jobs that only a man can do. Impregnating a woman does not count as a job. Get over it, kid. Mommy is too busy running the state government to baby you. Iron your own damn shirt.

Male leadership has brought us a country that only knows about win-lose outcomes and maintains a powerful military to bully the world. We need a female leadership style that focuses on how we can reach a win-win consensus despite our differences. We do not need people like Margaret Thatcher, Indira Ghandhi or Golda Meir who excel at playing the boy's game. We need leaders like Mahatma Ghandi, Nelson Mandela or Martin Luther King.

Governor Palin is every bit as qualified to be president as George W. Bush. She would be every bit as disasterous.

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Oil and terrorism

By Tyler Folsom - Sep 13th, 2008 at 12:16 pm EDT

Rick Davis (McCain campaign manager) has said "This campaign is not about issues" [1]。 Let's prove him wrong. Barack Obama has said "this campaign is not about me, it is about you"[2]. Let's prove him right. Do not let the media give us a campaign based on trivia, personalities, half-truths or cynicism. We can do better.

Let's look at the Republican response to terrorism.

1. 9/11 happened on Bush's watch, partly because he reduced Clinton anti-terrorism efforts. Bad.

2. Bush pushed the Tailban out of Afghanistan. Good.

3. Bush failed to get Osama Bin Ladin dead or alive. Bad.

4. Of the 9/11 hijackers, 15 were from Saudi Arabia, 2 from United Arab Emirates, 1 from Lebanon and 1 from Egypt [3]. How has Bush punished Saudi Arabia? By spending trillions on oil that finances terrorism. The only major disagreement between the Saudi royal family and Al Qaida is over who should be in charge [4]. Bad.

5. Resources have been diverted from the war on terrorism to the occupation of Iraq. These include between $600 billion and $4 trillion [5], over 4000 dead Americans and 30,000 wounded American troops [6]. Bad.

We need a commander-in-chief who can do better than one out of five. The terrorists only suceed when they can terrorize us. Bush has played into their hands by constantly telling us how scared we should be. You are far more likely to die from a car accident than be a victim of terrorism [7].

Bush recognized that we are addicted to oil, but has failed to take a next step. The technology is in place to move from oil-burning cars to electric cars. A first step is plug-in electric hybrid vehicles (PEHV) that can get over 100 mpg. Electric fuel cost would be between $0.70 and $1.50 per mile. These are promoted under a bill introduced by senators Cantwell, Hatch and Obama [8]. This bill died in our "do nothing Senate" because of a Republican filibuster. If McCain is so good with working across the aisle, why can't he work his own side of the aisle? Why can't he put country first and party second? Why can't all our senators work across party lines?

Both McCain and Obama have expressed support for PEHV and eliminating dependence on foreign oil. Palin favors drilling in the Alaska North Slope [9], which McCain, Obama and Biden have opposed [10].

Palin said "Al-Qaida terrorists still plot to inflict catastrophic harm on America; [Obama]'s worried that someone won't read them their rights" [11] Excuse me, who was it who wrote the McCain anti-torture bill in 2005? [12]

References
1.http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/212486.php
2.http://www.democrats.org/page/m/666ba69aa018d730/4aTgBF/VEsE/
3.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organizers_of_the_September_11,_2001_attacks#Hijackers_list_compiled_by_FBI
4.R James Woolsey (former CIA director), "Beyond Oil: The Case for Change", Beyond Oil Conference, Sept 5, 2008, Redmond, WA
5.http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/19/washington/19cost.html?fta=y
6.http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ops/iraq_casualties.htm
7.http://www.drivers.com/article/463/
8.http://www.calcars.org/calcars-news/768.html
9.http://blogs.wsj.com/environmentalcapital/2008/09/04/palins-policy-drill-baby-drill/
10.http://blog.seattlepi.nwsource.com/environment/archives/147709.asp
11.http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=94246226
12.http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/12/15/torture.bill/

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Iraq objectives

By Tyler Folsom - Sep 13th, 2008 at 12:04 pm EDT

Has anyone else noticed that U.S. forces have been in Iraq for 5.5 years and the president still hasn't told us why they are there? What are our objectives? When our troops come home from Iraq, will they have won the war or lost it? Presumably victory has something to do with accomplishing our objectives. How can anyone measure that when no one knows our objectives?

The original reason that the President gave for invading Iraq was to eliminate Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction. We invaded, and found out that Iraq had no WMD. At that point why didn't our troops say "Sorry, our mistake" and come home? Because we are not as polite as the Canadians?

Some people seem to be under the illusion that Iraq or Hussein had something to do with 9/11. "No, we've had no evidence that Saddam Hussein was involved with September the 11th." - George W Bush [FNS, 9/17/03]. The 9/11 Commission could find no "collaborative relationship" between Iraq and Al Qaeda.

Was our objective in Iraq overthrowing Saddam? He is dead. We can come home now.

Did we invade Iraq so that we could restore infrastructure and security to the levels before we invaded? This seems too absurd, yet the main reason given for not withdrawing now is that too much disorder would ensue.

There were no terrorists in Iraq before we invaded. There are terrorists there now. They seem to break into two types. 1) Ethnic violence. 2) Resistance to an occupying army. Bringing our troops home would eliminate the second type. Is our objective to put the lid on ethnic violence?

Did we invade Iraq to bring democracy? If so, are Iran, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, China, Cuba, Venezuela, Sudan, Zimbawee and Congo next on the list?

Did we invade Iraq so that we could control their oil? Does victory in Iraq mean forcing the Iraqis to turn over control of the oil fields to U.S. corporations?

Did we invade Iraq so that we could project military power into the Middle East and be able to control events there? Is this McCain's justification for staying there 50 or 100 years?

Is there some other reason? What would victory in Iraq look like? How do we recognize it when it comes?

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