Winograd Report

Because Israel is faced with real "existential threats," in contrast to the phony ones conjured up by Senator McCain and the other Republican clowns, it tends to take its wars a bit more seriously. For the Republican Party and its many allies, a war is a profit center for It and its clients in the military-industrial complex rather than something serious enough to put aside Party in favor of the Nation.

Consequently, we managed to blunder into a ridiculous and costly war and wage that war utterly fecklessly without anybody bothering to check how and why. None of those who led us into that war, from Bush to Clinton to Edwards, want the truth to come out, but the country needs to hear it.

Israel, with a boost from the same clowns, made a similar mistake in Lebanon, but they ended the disaster quickly and conducted a real inquiry to find our what went wrong. That inquiry was the Winograd commission, and its final report has been produced, and it is scathing in its condemnation of the blunders of the government and military.

Americans, by contrast have done nothing. Even the 9/11 inquiry, it is now alleged, turns out to have been corruptly undermined by its own chief of staff.

If Obama survives next Tuesday, he, as one of few not tainted by agreeing to the war, should call for an independent commission to investigate the war: its origins, its misconduct, and how to prevent future blunders of the same type. If Hillary objects, he should beat the heck out of her on the issue.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Anti-Libertarian: re-post

The most pointed critique of social security and liberalism in general is the libertarian critique. The problem with libertarians, for a liberal, is that we have too much in common. We both believe in individual rights, tolerance of individual differences, and dislike government prescription of religion. The basic difference, it seems to me, is the different answers we give to Cain's (with thanks to the Captain - my original version had the corpse asking the question!) famous question: "Am I my brother's keeper?" That's not really my basic bitch against the libertarians though. My real complaint is the same as my complaint against most religion - its premise is a fraud. For those who can't stand to wait for the punchline, I believe that trying to implement libertarian principles leads to tyranny or social disintegration. Demonstrating that takes some historical (and pre-historical) context. For all but the last 15,000 or so of the 100,000 years the human spec
Read more

Uneasy Lies The Head

Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown ........... Shakespeare Henry IV, Part II. So it is with us and our slightly distant primate cousins , so it seems. A 9-year study of wild baboons in Kenya by Princeton University and the Institute of Primate Research may turn conventional assumptions of alphas males upside down. The study found that alpha males have high testosterone levels, which allows them to dominate other baboons, get access to more food, and attract better mates. This is expected. Surprisingly, though, the alpha males also have high levels of stress hormone glucocorticoid, which scientists measured from their feces samples. In fact, the stress of alpha baboons was on par with low-ranking baboons. The convention wisdom is that access to food and females provides life security and thus less stress for dominant males. Conversely, weak males who are constantly threatened by starvation and physical violence from stronger males are thought to be more stressed. The st
Read more

We Call it Soccer

The US played its best, and maybe only good game of World Cup, but lost thanks to brilliant goalkeeping by the Swedish keeper and the bizarre method soccer uses to settle ties when three US stars could not put the ball on frame from the 12 yard spot.  At the end it came down to a blocked shot that spun in by maybe a couple of centimeters. Well, that's football - too much like life.   Which brings me to a modest proposal.  Replace the thirty minute overtimes with as many 7-player 15 minute periods as needed to settle it.  Scoring should be much easier with fewer players.
Read more