Lecture Notes: December '04

Lecture Notes: 12-29-04

The Debate

“. . . ‘the time has come for ordinary Iraqis to realize that they - not the Americans - will ultimately decide who prevails in this conflict” . . . . He warned against allowing the Iraqis to become too dependent on the U.S. military. More independence is what's needed, he said. "That's the only way," Rumsfeld said during a meeting with top U.S. commanders in Tikrit,. . .” --- Rumsfeld Says Iraqis Must Stop Insurgents Saturday December 25, 2004 BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) (see also Army Navy Club No. 35)

“These insurgents are determined to have no representative government. They want to go back to a tyranny,” Powell told CBS News. “And so the insurgency will continue and the insurgency will have to be defeated by coalition forces.” --- Agence France-Presse --- 43 dead in attacks on security forces by Dhia Hamid in Samarra December 29, 2004

This is the debate: The Iraqis themselves or coalition forces?   Now consider this: it is the end of 2004. We first entered Iraq in 2003.

Wouldn’t you have thought that this question would have been resolved by now? Wouldn’t you have thought that a reasonably prudent Commander in Chief, exercising due diligence, would have met with his Secretary of State and Secretary of Defense and they would have come to an agreement on this fundamental question of who is responsible for the battle with the terrorists?

Regular visitors here at the College will recollect that we pointed out previously that since this Administration was not willing to do the things that are necessary to win this battle against the terrorists then this administration should turn the command over to the government of Iraq, the then Governing Council.

And after several months of vacillating and deleterious “negotiations” this Administration did finally turn Iraq over to . . . well not the Governing Council . . . this Administration ignominiously abandoned the Governing Council . . . and found a UN diplomat to determine the new leader of Iraq. Why the corrupt UN? Because the gentleman in the oval room thinks that the UN is “legitimate,” unlike the United States and Britain and the allies.

In any event the new government of Iraq was created, after years of delay by this feckless Administration. And one might have thought that this evidenced some strategy; some determination and agreement on the path we were to follow. Now we see that if one had thought so, one would have been wrong.

For proof you have this debate: here you have this pitiful spectacle of the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Defense debating who is responsible for dealing with the terrorists. This nearly two (2) years later.   And our Commander in Chief? Oh, he has “faith.” He has “faith” in “constitutional democracy.” He is on his knees asking God’s guidance for he has no idea what to do. His only idea is to have America send yet more troops. Take on a greater share of the burden. Ask for more sacrifice.

So, who should deal with these terrorists? A foreign Christian state, (see also Army Navy Club No. 29), ten thousand miles away, or the people of Iraq who must in any event live or die with the outcome. A decadent “liberal,” (really Post Liberal), society, (which “does not just round up people’), which is unwilling to take the steps necessary to win the battle against the terrorists, or on the other hand should the Iraqi people begin their birth as a free people, like most births, painfully, bloodily?

We see hear the Yale and Harvard educated Mr. Bush, scion of a wealthy powerful family, shifting the costs of establishing the government of Iraq onto the young men from America's middle and lower classes. Where have we seen this before? The economy!

Our elite found it too painful to make the hard choices about Iraq so they postponed and procrastinated. And now in the event they seek to shift the cost off onto the lower classes. Have them run another 100,000 patrols while the details are worked out, and not by our elite, but worked out by Iraqis on their own schedule. Let them bleed. And doesn’t our national debt climb higher every year also because our elite is unwilling to make the difficult decisions? And don’t the Yales and Harvards also shift their cost off onto the middle and lower classes? And doesn’t this cause inflation to rise, and our interest rates rise, and our Dollar fall?

And see also how foreigners find this scheme agreeable. For example, see how the Iraqi finds this most agreeable. Let the Americans bleed while they debate constitutional niceties and decide how to divide up the oil wealth between them.

American blood is cheap. Blood for oil? Our blood.   Their oil.

And the gentleman in the oval room straightens his tie, tugs on his shirt cuff, and postpones, and procrastinates some more. Waiting. Waiting for the election. Waiting for the new constitution. Waiting for the new elections under that new constitution.

Tic tock.

Four more years.

Lecture Notes: 12-28-04

The War is Over

All the fill in hate radio talk show hosts have been bloviating on how the “liberals” think Iraq is another Vietnam. But these second string loudmouths know better.

The feckless man in the oval room who made bio-weapons the central issue of the war, before the war, now makes “constitutional democracy” in all the Middle East the goal at the end of the war. He has “vision.” He has “faith.”

As was explained at the beginning of the war the invasion of Iraq could not possibly make us safe from bio-weapons. (see Don Imus Says Good Morning, 45 Minutes and the Distortions of History, Who Killed Duane Garrett Part II, and Army Navy Club at the Weber)

Now at the end of the war this inarticulate, un-thoughtful man, keeps adding to our war aims. He has made the writing of the new constitution of Iraq a part of the war. Our troops will just have to go on fighting until the new constitution is written he says.

What if the Iraqis take two years to write a constitution? We go on fighting for two more years? This open ended commitment, in which the goals of our war aims are outside the control of the United States, where we do not have any means of achieving those goals and bringing the war to a conclusion by our own actions alone: This; is what is called Vi-et-nam. (Note: It is typical that Mr. Powell has said that the lesson of Vietnam is that when the United States goes to war it should use “overwhelming force.” See? A bigger hammer. That is the lesson Mr. Powell drew from Vietnam. How typically American.)

This nattily dressed gentleman in the oval office has turned control of the war over to our enemies. He has conflated Iraq’s success in writing a constitution, in holding elections, developing a housing program, establishing a system of national parks, God knows what else, (he has told us God speaks to him but exactly what they have discussed on Iraq has not yet been disclosed), with the national interests of the United States. He is mistaken.

He could have himself written a constitution before the war. Before the war it was important to us to have someone to whom we could hand off the government of Iraq. Someone should explain to the gentleman in the oval room that this is why the constitution was important before the war. To help with this transition. Got it?

And the Pentagon tried to explain this to the gentleman in the oval room, before the war. Both Mr. Rumsfeld and Mr. Wolfowitz, tried to explain the importance of establishing a government so we could have someone in place after the war to whom governance of the country could be entrusted. (And this is why the recent criticism of Mr. Rumsfeld is so misplaced.) But there was conflict in the cabinet and the Chief Executive did not know what to do. And so the feckless Commander in Chief, sitting in his oval room “negotiated” and “negotiated” each time putting off the difficult task of making a decision.

All the “hard work” was put off, and put off, until the end. Well the end has now come. And now the United States is not in a position to exercise control over the constitution of Iraq. So therefore, now the people of Iraq will have to write their own constitution. This project is not part of the Second Gulf War. This project will be part of the history of the new Iraq. Good luck to them.

The United States does have a national interest in promoting democracy in the Middle East. But, and this is not a subtle minor point, this broader regional interest, is not, part of our war aims. The war is over. (In any case war is not a very effective method of building democracy.)

“Fighting the insurgency” is not part of the Second Gulf War. Repeat: The war is over.

We can continue to help Iraq. I would recommend we set up military reservations in the desert, on the Syrian and Iranian borders for example. From these military reservations we can help the people of Iraq as their needs require it.

We wish them the best of luck and God’s blessing on their new enterprise of self government. We wish them well, and we can give them encouragement, and even technical assistance, in fighting the “insurgency.” But this battle is not part of our war aims.

As for the rest of the Middle East we will continue to work with Iraq’s neighbors as they bravely march down the road to greater and greater democracy. The liberation of Iraq has been a huge contribution to this effort.

But as for “fighting the insurgency” or writing a constitution, or any of the other problems the struggling young democracy of Iraq faces, we are available to assist, but to repeat: The war is over.

George . . . George . . . if you do not listen to me, . . . George, I’ll, . . . I’ll leave you.

How else to get him to listen? Stubborn? How about egotist?

Lecture Notes: 12-27-04

Correction II

Stop the presses! The White House says: Not anyone at anytime for any job, no.!

The President’s proposal has a six year limit.

Anyone can come for any job at any time but this President of the United States of America would like it known that he will insist that the workers only stay for three (3) years, (and then they can apply for another three (3) year extension), but then . . . then they absolutely will be forced out. Deportation! This is his promise.

This President who has said even now, despite his oath under current law, he will not enforce the immigration laws as they are, for “””willing workers,”” will, he promises, force workers who have lived hear for six (6) years, who may have married, may have children, he will force them out of the country. (Of course, the perceptive will have noted that Mr. Bush will not be President in six (6) years.)

Soon the President will take a second oath to uphold the laws of the United States. What will this second oath mean? Nothing more than his first oath, which he has publicly repudiated on 12-20-04.

After the “last press conference of the year” I predicted that the media would not make the lead: “President calls for unlimited immigration.” And I was right.

In the coverage of the President’s press conference, ”the last of the year,” I learned about the six (6) year promise. The President had not mentioned his six (6) year promise in his “press conference” how had so many reporters and editors learned of it I wondered?

I only had the benefit of the President’s own words at this public event. This must be why they are professional journalists. They went to school to learn how to get the “facts.”

Or is it just that a White House street sweeper went around to the press and fed them this gross, ridiculous, fiction?

If so the source of this information, identical in every story, is not disclosed.

How could a free press not point out to its readers that this proposal of the President of the United States is an obvious lie?

Editorializing? Is that what you say? I am editorializing? You are told that this man, who has openly repudiated his oath of office, promises that in six (6) years we will deport people, people of whom he has said that he would not deport under current law, . . . You are told that this man made this promise and you do not ask these questions?

The presidential street sweeper tells you this fairytale, this gross lie, and you do not ask him to explain himself? You do not report his answer. You do not even report his name. You do not even reference a “White House source who on condition of anonymity . . .”

You blithely report this absurdity, this gross lie, as fact and you say I am editorializing.!

These papers reported this promise to deport people in six (6) years time whom this White House would not deport under current law; A brief list of shame:

Fort Wayne Journal Gazette, IN ; CNN, GA; San Francisco Chronicle, CA ; Scripps; Howard News Service; East Valley Tribune, AZ ; Ventura County Star, CA; Naples Daily News, FL; Bradenton Herald, FL; Myrtle Beach Sun News, SC; Columbus Ledger-Enquirer, GA; Kansas City Star, MO; Duluth News Tribune, MN; Philadelphia Inquirer, PA

Liars ! All across America.! Not only would this man in the oval office not deport such persons, he said on Monday, 20 December, 2004, that he would not even stop them from entering. Would not even stop them under current law.!

How do you reconcile that?! How do you report “the president’s proposal” without reporting the answers to these questions?

I will tell you how. Because these questions were not asked.! You are not journalists and editors, you are not newsmen, you are copy boys, liars, shills, stooges . . . for the rich and powerful and this President.

This is why the left laughs when conservatives say that the mass media, the corporate “news” merchants are liberal as is so often claimed. Hypocrisy like this is why Ralph Nader ran for office, so he could not be accused of being a part of such hypocrisy. The real issue is not are the mass media news merchants “left,” but are they even in the news business?

They are Post Liberal. They pick up their political ideas the same way they shop for a hand bag, for them being a liberal is only a fashion. It soothes their guilty conscience. They know that they are miserable, mercenary shits, but, hey, they’re liberal.

It is true that they as a class favor “open borders” but they cover up for this Administration, and present the most obvious lies as if they were plausible “policies” not out of loyalty to some adolescent dream of “one world” but because they “have a job,” they want to “move up the “career ladder.”

So they report lies. After all, look how far Dan Rather got.

-30-

A few hours later:

Oh, hear them wail: “Well if both the left and right hate us then we must be doing something right.!”

No it doesn’t. You are being seen with stereoscopic clarity for the self promoting egomaniacs that you are. When I see these toadies, and I think about the great news-broadcasters of the past . . . Murrow . . . and, E. R. Murrow, . . . Edward R. Murrow, . . . and . . . and . . . and all the rest, and then I see how far broadcasting has fallen, . . . well now that I think about it, it really isn’t so surprising.

K5is t89s;K2op 56lj:Lst8 23ld 94nd

Date: December 24, 2004

TO: General Douglas MacArthur

Supreme Commander, Central Asia

From: Plinio Designori

Army Navy Club

New Ruskin College,Castalia

Subject:

Commander in Chief fails to learn lesson Vi-et-nam

Classification:TopSecret UltraEagle

Message Code: 4 character randomized selection

Message Received code department ComCA: 14:15 Dec24 04

Message Decoded and routed to Com: 18:27 Dec 24 04

Decoded text follows: :: “::

1. Situation Washington deteriorating. Commander in Chief fails to learn lesson Vi-et-nam. He has removed control of war effort US from US and given it to our enemies. Now only enemies US can decide when war is over. US now out of loop.

For example, ComCh Bush now says constitution Iraq, must be completed by newly elected government Iraq. No estimated time for completion this project. Prior attempt to write constitution Iraq failed and ended in collapse of prior government Iraq (Governing Council). History Iraq regarding constitutions, law, not good.

No constitution was prepared by Allied Powers prior to entry into country. No explanation from ComChBush why if constitution Iraq so important that war not concluded until completion this project Allied Powers did not prepare for this central issue. Now constitution Iraq out of our control. Stop

2. ComCh Bush now sets “democratically elected constitutional democracy” as victory and rally point for US and Allies. No time limit specified. At least two (2) elections away this point. Two (2) years. (Could be longer. Democracy implies condition not occurrence.) Do we have to wait for peaceful transition too? ComCh Bush does not yet set limit. See open ended commitment with no terminus in control of US and no strategic objective to be taken to bring war end. (Vi-et-nam)

And again see here lesson Vi-et-nam lost on ComChBush. US has lost control theater operations. End point now completely in hands of others. US can only wait and watch and die.

This policy gives enemies US control theater operations. Stop

3. “More troops” heard as solution from all quarters Washington, (Republicans and Democrats alike.(Recall half of troops killed Vietnam under Democrats half killed under Republicans)). And again see how escalation of troops not determined by US requirements to take strategic objectives to bring war’s end. Troops requisitions determined by others in divided command, as Washington once again “administers war” without controlling agenda and keeping objectives, war aims, within its own control to bring end to war by its own actions. (Vietnam) Stop

4. When Paul Bremer, Former Ambassador, (to Norway,(I kid you not), hired by ComChBush March 2003 as troops departing first wave), was asked about the planning in preparation of war: He said he did not know what planning had been done by ComChBush as he, Paul Bremer, had only been hired as tanks departed first wave. Translation diplomat speak, “This Administration had done exactly nothing in preparation new government Iraq.” (Given medal to hush up.) Stop

5. ComChBush accepts “community policing” as standard for US operations in theater. Hired New York City Police Chief early in war effort under old government to train Iraqi police “community policing.” (In a war zone!!??) Then announced same man to be Homeland Chief before discoveries force withdrawal nomination. Chief to serve 6 months Iraq left after 3 months.

50,000 criminals released upon Allied entry. No record of rearrests. No collection of any suspects. One General US says, “We are Americans we do not just round up people,” Not even surrender old Iraqi Army accepted. Not even deserter’s surrenders before war accepted. No explanation except possibly trying to save the cost of feeding and guarding prisoners.

Army US and CIA allow prison guards to photo public humiliation of prisoners then circulate photos widely around world.

Even though 10,000 troops US plus Iraqi support units encircled 3,000 terrorists at Fallujah, prisoners, wounded, left in Mosque for 24 hours, shot on TV. Colonel US claims too hard pressed to evacuate same. Note Iraqi troops not used even as stretcher bearers with US.

After being in country one and a half years (1 1/2 years) US Army unable to find Iraqi soldiers even to act as stretcher bearers to collect enemy wounded. When I think of your work with the Filipino and Koreans, where you are still admired and loved, and I see this. . .

But most fundamental problem prisoners Iraq is that ComChBush accepts standard of degenerate liberal society that says we do not have “right” to arrest suspects as necessity of war to protect troops and new government Iraq. Complete sell out and betrayal. Stop

6. Former CIA Case Officer, Robert Baer, in country under former regime of impeached President Clinton, who gave Presidential Pardon to Marc Rich financier who made millions selling strategic commodities to enemies US then, after Presidential Pardon Marc Rich, helped murderous old regime Iraq bribe UN and Russia and France and others using “Oil for Food Program”. (You are lucky to have died before Clinton.)

This impeached President ordered Robert Baer out of Iraq and when he returned US Clinton ordered criminal investigation Robert Baer. (Charges? Murderous Dictator Saddam Hussein planted story against Baer! (Again, I kid you not.) Cover story? Attempted assassination murderous dictator Saddam Hussein implicated in first WTC attack and attempted assassination ComChBush 41 and 300,000 Iraqi and support terrorists in Somalia, “Black Hawk Down”, and Israel and Sudan.)

But urgent note: Mr. Baer not hired ComChBush to go back to Iraq in preparation war or since! We elect new ComCh but same ineptitude continues. Only effective fighting unit Iraq is Kurds where Mr. Baer served last mission Iraq. Stop

7. Now ComChBush holds press conference says he is disappointed by police Iraq for not laying down their lives. Police Iraq do not know who will win struggle for power.

Struggle for power unresolved as no

Allied preparations for war, no government Iraq established, no chain of command from Iraqi leadership to police. Even in Kurd areas, where Mr. Baer served, failure to connect command structure to front line police and troops.

But instead of blaming himself failure to establish what Mr. Baer calls “rule of law” = a government, ComChBush blames the police! Can this be happening?

All we can do now is bear witness. Faithfully record for survivors, if there are any. But then, Vietnam was well documented and see how hard to learn lessons.

First no preparation. Then a government is set up then it is declared illegitimate. Then the next government Iraq is set up but it has no credibility as it is soon to be replaced by persons unknown. To do what?

To write a constitution.

When will the command structure be set up so the police know who they are answerable to, or rather to know who will protect them when the new new new government is finally installed? No date set. Stop

8. But this is not just about ComCh Bush’s failure to learn the lessons of Vietnam.

There is a pattern to ComCh Bush’s actions.

It is not just that he calls his own Iraqi Government illegitimate. He accepts the leftist idea that only an elected government is legitimate. Even if the Allies’ government is a model of openness and fairness and puts the country on the road to elections Bush still thinks it would be illegitimate.

Why?

Why didn’t he allow prison camps even for prisoners of war? He has not even rearrested the 50,000 criminals. Why?

He said on Monday that he will not enforce US immigration laws. He will uphold anti terror laws and anti drug laws and will stop them from crossing the nation’s borders but he will not stop people who are entering to find “work.”

I believe most terrorists will now say they are entering to find ‘work’ instead of saying they have come to kill the infidel.

Indeed the last time ComCh Bush started his campaign for illegals to enter the US there was a 30% increase.

Mr. Bush supports racial quotas in employment.

He abandoned school vouchers.

He is pumping the national debt.

He could have advocated an increased (forced) savings plan for workers but instead leaves open the possibility that Social Security will be cut off to elderly poor.

Does all this sound like someone who is planning on a future?

Given all of this does anyone suppose that he is preparing the nation to defend itself against biowar? He did not prepare for Iraq, he is not upholding the immigration law, but you think he will do something about biowar? Now who is engaged in magical thinking? Who is the suicide? Stop

9, Cut off. I am encircled. My reserves are all gone. Am organizing suicide squads to cover the final retreat. I will be joining you soon. God Bless.Stop

:: “:: end of text

It is the correct British spelling.

Counselor: But you are not British!

But-

Counselor: You are on . . .

Well, go ahead and change it, I don’t care . . .

Lecture Notes: 12-22-04

British Prime Minister: We are taking advise on this question.

Dan rather has been defended by our friend Bill O’Reilly for the forgery. O’Reilly says Rather should not be held responsible for the forged documents. In O’Reilly’s opinion Rather did not “know that they were forgeries.”

See? Dan Rather, did not “know.” Personal knowledge. Did not personally “know.” That is important in O’Reilly’s opinion. (And O’Reilly’s personal opinion of what Rather knew and did not know is also important to O’Reilly. (Important because O’Reilly is an egotist.))

But why should we care what Mr. Rather knew or did not know? In any case how would we ever know? Know what is going on inside his head? “What’s the frequency?”

Recall that earlier O’Reilly claimed that “I never heard Michael Savage tell a lie.” As if his having personally “heard” Michael Weiner tell a lie was critical. Of course it was not. We hold Mr. O’Reilly to a higher standard. Whether he actually heard the many lies Michael Weiner tells or not is irrelevant. We hold Mr. O’Reilly to the standard of what a reasonable person, similarly placed, exercising reasonable judgment would conclude, know.

In his case, a media personality, Harvard trained, with a large organization, FOX, commenting on the media generally, and about Weiner specifically, such a person as Mr. O’Reilly, will be deemed to know, to have heard, to be aware that Michael Weiner is a raving lunatic whose every word is a lie, including “and” and “the.”

I recall when I first started as an insurance adjuster I came back to the office and was reporting to my supervisor, Mr. George Burke, a USF Law School alumnus, (at that time adjusters had not yet been driven down into poverty), and I began by saying, “Well Mr. Burke, I think ---“

Mr. Burke interrupted me saying, “Peter, let me stop you right there. We do not want to know what you think, we want to know what a reasonably prudent person would think.” My first lesson in reporting on insurance claims: The Reasonably Prudent Person Rule, or Standard.

So for example when Mr. O’Reilly said Mr. Bush got it “wrong” about weapons of mass destruction; He even went so far as to say that he, O’Reilly, also got it “wrong,” and his egotism and vanity knowing no limits, he then even “apologized” for getting it wrong. Wrong? What other conclusion could Mr. Bush have possibly come to and not be marked down a fool?

The standard Mr. Bush is held to is not whether we actually find Smallpox Bombs with “Good bye New York” written in chalk on their casings, but rather he is held to the standard of a reasonably prudent President of the United States confronted with overwhelming evidence from a number of reliable sources, British Intelligence, Russian Intelligence, German Intelligence, oh, and the CIA.

The issue is not what Mr. Rather, or what Mr. O’Reilly, or even what Mr. Bush knows; Not what anyone of them actually knew at any time, (how could we ever know that?), what is of interest to us, what we need to know is, what is a “reasonable standard?” What can we reasonably expect that they should have known? We think O’Reilly is egotistical because he supposes that his reading of the reports on Iraq was in some way crucial to their interpretation. As if his reading brought some fresh light on the subject. It did, could, not. The important point is that all of this evidence was there for anyone to read, and the decisive fact is not how anyone of these frauds and imposters and egotists interpreted this evidence but what was a “reasonable” interpretation?

What do you think a jury would say about an insurance adjuster who had four experts advise him on a claim and the adjuster chose the two who advised him not to pay the claim? What if I said to the two who advised me to pay the claim, “That’s ok, I’m going with these other two who say we do not owe the claim, . . . thanks anyway.”

I would be crucified. Bad Faith. Right? Of course. You would hold me responsible. I could not say “Well, but these other two guys told me I did not have to pay the claim . . .they are experts --- you know experts.” You would say in reply that I am responsible for the people I chose to listen to, from whom I have taken advise. You would apply a standard of reasonableness to me.

When the Vice President of C.B.S. News said that CBS chose to ignore the two experts who advised that the documents were forgeries because they had only seen two (2) of the documents not all four (4) this was an obvious misrepresentation made in bad faith. For when these two (2) experts advised that the documents were forgeries the show’s producer told them that she was going to send them two (2) more of the documents to examine.

But instead those two (2) experts were never sent the additional two (2) documents. CBS decided to go with the other more congenial experts. If it were discovered that an insurance adjuster shopped around for agreeable experts this alone would be enough to launch a bad faith action.

You would reasonably ask why I chose to ignore the experts who advised payment and listened only to those who advised against payment. Yet when CBS itself reported these facts the competitors of CBS did not point out this obvious failure. The media has one standard for insurance adjusters and another for “competitors” in the “news” business.

By now I think it is clear to everyone that O’Reilly’s particular attachment to “personal” knowledge, and in particular his, O’Reilly’s personal opinion about what Dan Rather knew and did not know, results from his egotism. He can not accept the “reasonably prudent person standard” because this standard requires a disinterested analysis, a subordination of the ego to a rule of reason. When O’Reilly denounces an argument as “just theory,” what he really means is, “I’m a rich powerful man, with lots of money in the bank, and you are not,” and therefore what ever is argued is “just theory” because . . . well because it is not money in the bank, and not O’Reilly’s money in the bank.

Among their objections to the war many opponents cited their opinion that Mr. Saddam Hussein did not know about the second attack on the WTC. These opponents did know that Ramsey Yousef came from and fled back to Iraq after the first WTC attack, and that he had started the planning for the second WTC attack with his “operation Bojinka.” They did know that Abdul Rahman Yasin was in Iraq, on the government payroll, having returned to Iraq after the first WTC attack, and they knew he was being protected from our extradition requests. They knew that Iraq sheltered many other terrorists including others who had killed our fellow Americans. Knew that he had killed 300,000 Iraqis. These opponents knew too of Saddam Hussein’s support for the terrorists in Israel, and Somalia, and the Sudan.

Yet, not withstanding this knowledge, they continued to insist that Hussein did not “know” about the second WTC attack. Ordinary criminals, entering into ordinary criminal conspiracies, every day of the week are found guilty of felonies, and held to have “known” about their crimes, based on less evidence than that which we have just outlined in the above paragraph. They have one standard for small time criminals and another standard for world class dictators. (Or is it just that the famous, (Rather, Hussein), are treated in this privileged way?)

But like O’Reilly, these opponents of the war in Iraq have so invested their egos in their arguments that they are unwilling to disentangle themselves, and adopt an impartial standard to evaluate the evidence. The standard here is not what Mr. Hussein knew or did not know, but rather is it reasonable for us to conclude that he was a sponsor of terrorism, including the acts of his agent Ramsey Yousef? He may not have approved of, or “known” of Bojinka, but should we say he is responsible, that a reasonably prudent dictator should be held accountable for the acts of his villainous agents?

If I fault Mr. Bush for anything on this account it is in the third debate when Mr. Kerry, (desperate to cause some controversy that would reverse his fortunes), claimed that Saddam Hussein had “no connection” with Al Qaeda. Mr. Bush let it pass. The next day Mr. Rumsfeld was asked if he agreed, seasoned practitioner that he is, he also shied out of the way and demurred.

Before the election I said nothing of these evasions because I am, obviously, no expert on winning elections. Yet now, I say again, the President owes it to our young people who have sacrificed so much, who are sacrificing so much, to tell them the truth about these matters. They deserve to know what Hussein did and they deserve to hear it from their President.

And again I think everyone now knows that Mr. Bush is famously stubborn; and what is stubbornness but another form of egotism? He will not now go over the facts of Mr. Hussein’s murderous regime, for example starting with the Iraqi Intelligence documents recently leaked, not because he fears that the media will deliberately misrepresent these facts, but simply because now, he does not have to.

He seems to think that he can now hide behind his advisors to avoid facing responsibility. It does not make any difference who it was that advised him not to establish an Iraqi government in exile. It does not matter who advised him to disband the old Iraqi Army. These experts are his experts, their mistakes are his mistakes.

For two generations now, post MacArthur, the American government has selected its officers for their utter blandness, their pitiful inability to express themselves, and think strategically. MacArthur scared the politicians in Washington and we have paid a heavy price ever since. Vietnam was part of that price. During the whole of the Vietnam War the Joint Chiefs of Staff only once considered resigning in protest, to the ever lasting shame of the American Officer Corps not one senior officer ever did resign in protest.

We deserve the officers we have. It is just as well that they did not resign in protest because they probably would have protested the wrong things.

Tet is often cited as the turning point in the war. But really the turning point was years earlier when MacArthur met the young President in New York. The old man’s advise? Stay out of Vi-et-nam. Or possibly the turning point was during the McNamara Air Force debates early on in the very beginning of the war.

McNamara was ridiculing the target list and cutting them back. It is difficult to say if the senior officers were more torqued off about the ridicule or the cut backs. It was not enough for McNamara to veto a target he had to explain that the 210 bicycles that the little factory produced every week would not justify the bombing given that 1,398 people lived within 200 meters, reminding the Generals that the bomb dispersion pattern from an attack run at 6,000 feet given an estimated average wind pattern during this season of the year in South East Asia . . . etc. etc.

And of course McNamara was right, the bicycle factory was not strategically decisive. Oh, and he was probably right about the bomb dispersion pattern too. But this did not mollify the brass, just the opposite, the smart son of a . . . .

However, probably it is better that the Joint Chiefs did not resign in protest, for if all they would have been protesting was the removal of a bicycle factory from the target list; If they were not able to identify the strategic objective, and make that, the strategic objective the point of their protest, then what would have been the point? One bicycle factory more or less. But Southern Laos, that would have been worth a protest by a general. For we ask the young men to lay down their lives, of the old men we ask only that they lay down their commissions in protest of the waste of young men.

The strategic objective in Iraq is that the colonels not take power again. Mr. Bush’s repeated efforts to interest us in painting school rooms, or in yet a new constitution for Iraq, or even elections suggests that he himself has no clear idea of our true objective. And again it will do no good to claim that he is relying on advice.

There is a reason that the cavalry only comes to the rescue in the third reel. If the cavalry came to the rescue in the first reel there would be no picture.

If the Iraqi’s want to write themselves a new constitution God bless them. What has that got to do with us or our young people? If Mr. Bush thought it important for the Iraqis to have a better constitution he had all of 2002 to write them a constitution. What ever constitution he gave them when he handed the keys to Mr. Allawi in June will have to do. It is of no further interest to me.

The real lesson of Tet was that America had mismanaged the expectations of the war. If the mail was not delivered to some hamlet in the delta there was something wrong with what “we” had done or had not done. Cries of agony: We have failed! Why? Ok, so some gorillas had gotten over the wall of the US embassy. The Marines killed them all on the grounds, outside the embassy building. Yet this one fact, ‘they got on the grounds!,’ was reported like it was the surrender of Bataan. Defeat!

So we see this all over again. Because the President did not do his job in setting up a government, in writing a constitution, (I guess), or something so now our young people have to pay the price by doing what, an extra 100,000 patrols down some dusty street in Iraq? You screw up so they have to die?

It is not enough to say, “But our experts say that the patrols are necessary.” I do not know how many ways we can come at this subject. You can not hide behind your experts.

Why is it that your experts can set up thousands of patrols a week, but in two (2) years they have been unable to set up a data base of the people of Iraq? Photos. Names. Addresses. Clan. Etc.? How can you find the terrorists? Hell, how can you run the country if you do not know who lives there? Why? Because patrols, this the Army knows how to do, but of databases it does not know. Why are there no military highways? Why haven’t the borders been fenced and trenched?

We need to scale back the patrols. Tell the colonels that they will be judged not on how many patrols they complete but how few. How few patrols does it take to maintain control?

How many of the 50,000 criminals Hussein let out of prison have been rearrested? Inexperienced policemen are much more able to maintain control when they are in a gun tower looking down on a prison camp than they can in Sadar City. America’s strategic goal is to prevent genocide and dictatorship. If the government of Iraq needs to imprison 250,000 to maintain peace in the land then let them. (250,000 would be 1% of the population of the country. The US has 3 million in prison, jails, on parole and probation. 1%) But instead of doing what is necessary the Washington establishment is more interested in negotiating a “settlement” than victory, and once again our young people are paying the price.

By defining victory as “community policing,” and a “democratically elected constitutional government,” the President is pushing victory further and further away. If he had stood up a government in 2002, we could have already had the elections. But now it is not just the elections, now we have to wait for them to write a constitution. This could take years. Then we have to wait for them to have elections under this new constitution. And so it goes.

Mr. Bush keeps pushing the goal off further and further. And what is worse it is out of our hands. We can not write the constitution he says because that would not be “legitimate.” No only they, the Iraqis, can now decide when we have finished. If this is not mission creep then I do not know what is.

This is why the debate about how many troops we need was dishonest. As if this were purely a technical issue for experts. How many troops? For what purpose? You have to define your terms. If victory is defined as setting up a new, democratic government, then we had all the troops we needed. That government having now finally, after a year and half, having been set up, why not declare victory and tell our troops to stand down to military reservations?

The cavalry can come to the rescue if the settlers need help, to prevent the Indians from taking control of the government again, but otherwise, stand down. We have won. Why won’t Mr. Bush take yes for an answer?

Because his experts say we need to do another 100,000 patrols? Take another 12,000 casualties? Why? We need more troops? For what? They have a government, they have an army and police. It has taken Mr. Bush three (3) years to accomplish this, but finally, (after 2002, 2003, 2004), finally, it has been done.

Can we help? Yes. Strategic raids on strongholds. Develop a database and arrest the suspects. Put 250,000 in prison camps. Put another 500,000 in civil conservation corps projects, such as desert reclamation. (One of our experts, an American General said, “We are Americans we do not just round up people.” This is why you can not rely on experts. More important than expertise is reasonableness. First you must decide if we have a right to arrest suspects in order to protect our troops and the new Iraqi government? Is it reasonable? I say yes it is reasonable.)

What else can we do to help? Prevent the colonels from taking power. Suppress the civil war. Prevent genocide. Sure we can help. Just holding down our military reservations will bring stability to the middle east.

But no more patrols.

And what is the reply? “You are not a general.”

And what is this but the claim that we are relying on our experts? Wasn’t this Dan Rather’s claim?

You have to learn to think for yourselves.

Who selected the officers the experts upon whom you are relying? The Senate. And they have gotten the officers they deserve. Their officers gave us Vietnam. But our young people in Iraq deserve better. They deserve a MacArthur. But this is just what the Senate fears. They have shopped around for their experts; they prefer clerks to real officers. Real officers would force Mr. Bush to clarify his goals. If he insisted on “community policing” then they would resign in protest, as did MacArthur, for even a half million troops could not achieve this.

Rush Limbaugh said he wondered why we were not debating carpet bombing of Iraqi cities. Mind you, he was not advocating carpet bombing himself. Nor was he himself examining the question. He did not do any reading on the subject to share with his audience. Apparently did not even watch a “video” in preparation. No, he was asking why “isn’t anyone” discussing carpet bombing? Why was it not being considered as an option?

And he is so craven, again, he was not himself suggesting it as an option. “I’m no expert he said.” So now where are we: Why isn’t someone else talking about carpet bombing of Iraqi cities? “We would have fewer casualties,” he offered. And here you have the utter dishonesty of the right wing media. He has nothing to offer, not even to examine an issue, he is only far out on the margin of thought: why doesn’t someone else examine this --- carpet bombing? (Michael Weiner, Bernard McGurk, Don Imus, Lee Rodgers have recommended the leveling of Iraqi cities.)

Doesn’t Rush have to first state if carpet bombing is “reasonable?” Would a reasonably prudent person suggest carpet bombing of whole cities? You can not defer all questions to experts. You must decide if this is in the realm of the reasonable.

You can not ask the generals: How many troops do we need? To do what? What is your mission? First you have to decide these basic questions.

For example: Should we go into Iraq? Mr. Bush to this day has declined to carefully go through the evidence that we have collected after nearly two (2) years of occupation.

You can not ask the generals: Should we go into Iraq? They are no better placed to answer this question than you or I.

So the question is: On which experts has our Commander in Chief chosen to rely? Why has he chosen these experts over all the others?

For example, Mr. Bush hired the CEO of State Farm Insurance, Ed Rust, to help with the White House educational policy team. State Farm was recently hit with a $1.2 billion judgment which was upheld on appeal for the use of substandard parts. The parts were after market parts, not manufactured by the original automobile manufacturer.

These parts had been used for years in the industry. They met the manufacturers specifications but because they were made in the open competitive free market they were manufactured for less than what the original manufacturer charged. (The original manufacturer would rather install the parts on a new car and earn a premium than sell them as parts only.) The savings to consumers was 30%.

But the executives at State Farm, it was shown at trial, decided that this was not good enough. Why only a 30% savings? Why not a 70% savings? And so they pushed and pushed and the quality began to fall. And they pushed some more. Why do you have to put an undercoat on these body parts they asked? These parts are going to be painted at the auto body shop anyway? Just wait and paint the undercoat there.

And so the parts were shipped from their factories in Ohio and Indiana and put on flat beds and tied down with tarps and ropes and sent on their way, through spring rains, and winter’s snows, to Texas and Maine. And then a few months later the customers of State Farm started noticing the paint pealing from their fenders.

$1.2 billion. At what point do you say, ‘This isn’t reasonable, we have gone too far?’ (But note that Mr. Bush does not question the aptly named Mr. Rust, or his State Farm executives whose greed cost the consumers $1.2 billion in damages, no, Mr. Bush questions the tort system that allowed those little people to fight back and obtain justice. Also note that the Bush Administration tried to cut overtime pay, after a $122 million judgment against Farmers was sustained in California. (And that was just $122 million for three years worth of overtime pay to adjusters in California.)) Why are Mr. Bush’s experts always from management? Why will he not listen to a worker . . . like me?

What would a reasonably prudent person say? So Mr. Bush, please do not tell me that your generals say . . . let us think, what is reasonable?

Sir, please order your men to stand down from their patrols. Targeted missions to achieve our objectives, ok.

But please, Sir, take command, ask your officers: How few patrols does it take to maintain the new government of Iraq?

Lecture Notes: 12-19-04 Epaulettes

When I drive my car I remind myself that the other drivers, unlike me, are going home to their families, where they are loved. This is how I explain it. The world, life, would not make sense to me otherwise. There must be something that I am missing, that explains what I see: love.

How else to explain it?

This must be how you can go on. What appears to me as horrible cruelty, to you appears as only one small part of life. My devastation is for you, who love and are loved, a minor detail hardly worth notice.

And not just in the small things.

For example, it is now clear that our country went to war in Iraq without any plan for governance. For me this is shocking, scarcely believable. A tragedy is unfolding before me. But for you who go home to wives and children, to loving homes, this is . . . what?

You see I do not know. It is only a hypothesis of mine. I conjecture that you deal with these facts differently, but just how it is for you I can not even guess.

It was reported that the terrorists fled Fallujah and moved to Mosul. Yet there is no way to track them. When they left Fallujah there was no record made, nor was there when they arrived in Mosul. Then there was a report that perhaps three million Iranians have moved into southern Iraq. No one knows. And again, there was no census taken when we arrived, nor now, two years later.

People have been receiving aid, applying for work, exchanging old bank notes for new ones, registering births, marriages, deaths, yet in two years no system has been set up to record who lives in this place that has already claimed so many lives.

And as these reports come in there is a growing sense of alarm. Our men are there in a sea of people, nameless, faceless, strangers. They are traveling around in and among them, surrounded. There is no organization, no system has been put in place; month by month, year by year, lives are lost but there is no direction.

Recently it was announced that in Fallujah iris scans and fingerprints would be taken of the residents when they return. Return! Two years later we are now just starting to find out and make a record of who lives there? My god!

And then I think . . . well it is different for them. If you have a wife and family, a good paying job, a warm loving home to go home to, then, . . . things must be different for you.

There was a mutiny in a supply column. The newspapers reported that a “convoy” of 17 trucks was refused by our soldiers. You see . . . 17 trucks is not a convoy. 170 trucks, with several helicopters overhead, with armored cars, on a “military highway,” shut down to civilian traffic, at night, without lights, that is a convoy.

17 supply trucks is barely a supply column.

So what is going on? The colonels are rated by their unit’s “readiness.” And so they pump up the number of patrols their units have made. So many hundreds of patrols a week, so many thousand a month. It looks good on their service record, for their “service review.”

There is this line on their “service review” : Readiness. There is space there for a number. The bigger the number the better the review. (But you see Mr. McNamara, this is the problem. What if the numbers you are capturing on your matrix are not reflective of a successful operation. What if your abstraction fails to capture those qualities that are needed? Then instead of directing the organization to victory, you simply misdirect it, confound it, turn it around in circles, Vi-et-nam.)

So 17 trucks were going to bump there way from one place to another. A patrol. A service mission. Keep them numbers coming.

Now as for strategy. Well we leave that for the nattily dressed gentleman in the oval office. (Did you notice that he has recently taken to sewing epaulettes on his golf jackets?) He took a three week old victory and turned it into two years of desultory negotiations. He has abandoned those who originally joined the governing council so he could negotiate a new government with some diplomat from the UN. The same corrupt UN that took the blood money from Hussein. The same corrupt UN that hired Hussein’s own security men who promptly helped blow up the UN’s headquarters in Baghdad and then cut an ran and to this day has refused to come back. Some negotiations. But the nattily dressed gentleman likes negotiations, it makes him feel apart of things.

You see there isn’t an Army badge with a wireless server in the center and with lightning bolts on either side and with an eagle on top. There is no Army unit that develops data bases of the civilian populations. You can not enter a name or a face and get a three dimensional map of where the person lives in Mosul, or a chart showing the family and clan relationships. Nor is there an Army badge for operating prisons to rehabilitate illiterate young men raised on hate. Nor is there an Army badge for mass communication and public relations.

And in any case none of these things are on the colonel’s service review.

So nothing gets done. There is no plan. No strategy. We load them on to the trucks and humvees. And off they go out into a see of Iraqis, whose names and faces and homes and clans and tribes are unknown. And the newspaper reporters call it a “convoy.”

There is no network of military highways that are closed to civilian traffic from 1800 to 0600. There are no military reservations. There are no double fenced borders with vehicle stop trenches and robotic sensors. No one thought to conduct a census. No photos have been taken of the young men of Iraq and scanned into the database. The troops do not have hard drives with those young men’s photos so that they will know everyone in their area. (Arrest anyone not on the hard drive.) There is no system of prison camps. No programs of indoctrination and education. No films about the mass murders under Saddam Hussein. No training work programs, for example, digging those double trenches along the borders.

So the terrorist are free to wander around in the “sea” of the people.

And our young people are bumping around down some dusty road.

And the colonels are piling up huge numbers.

And the nattily dressed gentleman is sitting in his oval room checking his shirt sleeve cuffs.

And I am looking at all of you. And I suppose that it must be love. That is the only way I can make sense out of it.

You look like heartless zombies, but maybe it is love . . . that I am missing.

Lecture Notes: 12-17-04 Betrayal

It has been said that the $7.6 trillion national debt has been deliberately created to control the government. US Senator Moynihan used to refer to David Stockman’s book, The Triumph of Politics, as evidence of this thesis. By blocking taxes and piling up, heaping up, this debt, $26,000 per person, the theory goes, the Republic will be so hobbled that government will be unable to offer assistance to the people.

The burden of simply financing this debt is so great, that an ever increasing share of the taxes is needed for interest payments alone, thereby suffocating the government. In the dynamics of the market economy the burden of taxation falls most heavily on those who are least able to raise their prices in response to the ever increasing costs. The interest payments themselves go to the owners of capital which is first lent to the government then the treasury notes themselves become collateral in further transactions, thus creating a vise in which the people are trapped.

Further pressure is applied to those in the bottom of the economy by importing goods and services from abroad where deflation continues in the labor market as long as the planet’s six billion continue to procreate, a phenomenon which is expected to continue in the near term. President Bush’s oft repeated proposal that anyone should be allowed to offer citizenship to anyone to fill any job at any time, with the sole proviso that the “job” must first be “advertised” is only a formal statement of the current immigration practice. (Notice that Mr. Bush’s policy is a continuation of Reagan’s. Reagan sought to undermine government by piling up the national debt to control the people’s ability to direct their activities through government. Now Mr. Bush would smash the labor market with unlimited immigration cutting off the ability of the people to raise their prices in response to the ever increasing rounds of price rises by the elite.)

Currently the legal immigration from Mexico is set at 170,000 a year while the actual immigration number is estimated, (by Time Magazine), to be three million a year. The steady infusion of labor guarantees downward pressure on labor prices and therefore continued concentration of taxes on those least able to pay. (We have previously proposed that the US agree to take half of Mexico’s increase over the next fifty years. Mexico is expected to double in size by 2050. If the US were to take a million Mexicans a year for the next 50 years the burden on Mexico could be made manageable. (However, the Post Liberal elite prefers “illegals” precisely because they are illegal and can be violated at any time. The better to control the subject people.))

Rarely is it remarked that this downward pressure on labor prices is a consequence of the success of the United States Navy. Navies have controlled history because of the preeminence of economics in human affairs. Ultimately economics decides history. What is economics but the interactions of human beings? Human beings determine history. Why navies then? Because the easiest way to move goods, (the least friction), is to move goods by sea. Navies control the trade routes therefore navies control history.

The downward burden on the people is a result of their success in making free trade possible. The success of the US Navy in holding open the world’s trade routes makes globalization possible and means that the people of the United States are increasingly being forced to lower their prices even as the interest payments on the national debt continue to be redistributed by the market price mechanism in the economy and redirected down onto those with the lowest ability to raise their prices, i.e. those most constrained by foreign goods, services, and the three million workers entering the US every year. The people are caught in a vise.

Betrayal.

From the beginning of time, from the beginning of the market, the wealthy have sought to escape the market, (voluntary relations of mutual consent), and force others to pay them using the power of the state, (coercive relations).

Yet the study of economics reveals that voluntary relations of mutual assent are always more productive than coerced relations. Therefore, not only can this vise on the people be broken, when it is broken there will be a huge increase in productivity. The people are being betrayed by their government because their government has been taken over by a powerful elite that seeks to use government to coerce payments rather than having to participate in the market of mutual assent.

The lending of capital to the government is the most obvious example. However, as soon as the government begins drawing down the debt the increasing productivity gains will create huge gains in the economy to the benefit of the people. The capital lent to the government actually disappears. However, when it is repaid it once again reemerges in the economy. “There is no such thing as capital there are only capital goods,” was the dictum Ludwig von Mises used to hammer into his students heads.

His point was that bankers and financiers, stock brokers, had created the false impression that their bookkeeping activities were the heart of the capitalist economy. He wanted to disabuse his students of this error. Real capital exists only in bricks and mortar, in metal stamping machines, in all the apparatus of the productive economy. Capital is not a share of stock but the underlying assets of the firm. Ultimately capital must be invested in something, some piece of equipment, a productive asset. (Which is why the elite prefer Treasury Notes. They do not want to have to make a commitment to any business scheme. They do not want to be subject to the will of the market. They would rather rely on the IRS to collect their money.) This is why I say that the capital lent to the government disappears. It is no longer part of the productive economy.

However, as soon as the government pays down, say $300 billion in debt, (at that rate it would only take 26 years), there is suddenly $300 billion in new capital that has been created. $300 billion is forced back out into the market where it must meet the needs of the consumers or perish, or at least be redistributed by the market. There will be a huge increase in productivity as this capital is injected back into productive activities.

In a world of 6 billion by all accounts North America is under populated. The problem with the 3 million illegals is that they are illegal. But they are illegal because the Post Liberal elite prefers illegals not because of any natural law that requires them to be illegal. But here you can see but one example of how the economy, the society, is twisted by the elites, who are pursuing their own interests and not the people’s interest.

There is no natural law that limits educational opportunities, or the availability of housing, or the providing of medical care; it is only the actions of government, in all three areas which has so restricted the market and has turned these three areas into the three largest centers of inflation. Just as with taxes, the Post Liberal elite is able to raise its own prices and pass the taxes on to others, so too here, in the spiraling cost of education, medicine and health care, and housing, the elite is able to transfer all of its cost onto the rest of society.

If one points out that government has driven up the cost of education, medicine, housing, out of the reach of the people, the elite is indifferent. Notice that recently we heard the claim that the “blue states” pay most of the federal income tax. Once again the Republicans were so uninformed, (or worse), they did not know how to respond. The wealthy elites in the blue states do pay most of the tax, however, they then redistribute the tax in the form of higher prices. These higher prices are paid by the red states and everyone else in the blue states. This is why they are indifferent to higher prices for housing, education, health care and even higher taxes.

They are so positioned in the economy that they can pass these ever increasing costs onto everyone else. For example, Mr. Gates’ father advocated higher taxes, saying that he thought he was under taxed. However, the Republicans did not know what to say in reply. They should have asked the Gates family to agree not to raise the prices of Microsoft’s products. Then Mr. Gates’ taxes would have some bite.

This is not “sour grapes,” or envy; I am not a communist. To the extent they can pass on their costs in the free market place I am in complete accord. I am pointing out here that these Post Liberal elites use their domination of society and government for their own ends not for those ends most felicitous of the interests of the people.

For example, most of you think that “inflation” is some monetary issue that the Federal Reserve deals with in setting the interest rates. We do not have time to go into this here but it is perhaps enough to explain that Ludwig von Mises argued against the Federal Reserve and regarded it as another example of government intrusion into the economy. For proof just consider one point: When the Federal Reserve raises interest rates they raise them for the entire country. But please consider, does every part of the economy suffer from inflation equally?

Of course not. For example, the laborers have not been adding to inflation, they have not been able to raise their prices. Are the red states leading inflation? No. Who is raising their prices? Yes, of course, the elites are the ones who are raising their prices. This is why they are elite. But, owing to the way the government has organized the economy, the currency, there is no other way of setting interest rates. In the blue states the Post Liberal elite has twisted the power of the state to restrict the economy and force up prices, yet everyone, red states and the rest of the people in the blue states alike must pay the higher interest rates.

The elite in the blue states does not care that their own policies in for example, housing, in Boston, New York, San Francisco, Chicago have ratcheted up inflation by restricting supply. The elite can simply raise their prices in response to increasing prices. And when the Federal Reserve raises interest rates to control the overheating economy the elite in these blue states, again, is indifferent.

Why? Because we all have to pay higher interest rates! So the Post Liberal elite uses its control over the state to restrict supply, then they experience appreciation on their capital assets, then when the Federal Reserve raises the interest rate to control the inflation the Post Liberal elite again benefits from the higher interest on its capital. Who suffers? Those at the bottom. Alabama, Mississippi, Okalahoma, Kansas, you know, red states. They have not created the inflation yet they must pay the higher interest. Payments which go to the Post Liberal elite in the blue states.

The blue states may create the inflation with their interference in the economy, but the higher interest rates are paid by red states as well. But we do not all enjoy the same ability to pass on these higher costs. This is the vise they have us in.

However, again, as we say with the national debt, as soon as we wrest control away from the Post Liberal elite there will be huge gains in productivity, and general deflationary pressures across the economy. The elite uses its control of government to force up prices. Take this power away from them and prices will fall. Falling prices with the same or increasing productivity, is called deflation.

So even though world trade may control our ability to raise our prices, we can enjoy an increasing standard of living. How? Efficiency.

Lower the cost of housing, lower the cost of medical care, lower the cost of education. How? Efficiency.

The elite does not care if parts are interchangeable but we do; The elite does not care if our cell phones work with different systems but we do; Or if our auto parts are interchangeable; Or if Microsoft rewrites its proprietary code to crash competitor’s programs; Or if our public schools decline; Or if stem cell research continues apace; Or if buildings are delayed years in litigation; Or if everyone pays the same road tax regardless of whether one lives in San Francisco or Fresno; Or if regulations spiral out of control; Or if the tax code is unintelligible; Or that factory building techniques are banned in housing; This is the vise they have us in.

This is the betrayal.

At one time to be Liberal meant a recognition of the importance of free and open markets. This is why I call our elite Post Liberal. They have given up on free markets, on democracy, the Republic. Their interests are not ours, yet see how they have control of the state and pursue their own aims.

These rich powerful people who have used their power to destroy my life, have, as a class, done the same to the society as a whole. Like some terrible serpent they have intertwined themselves around the state, and they now strangle us.

It does no good to try to reason with them; to explain that total productivity would increase if they would only release their strangle hold; or that they could become even richer in a free market. Ultimately they are not interested even in their own self interest.

Ultimately it is about power.

There was no market reason for Michael Weiner to break into my room and steal my notebook. Interfering with my employment at State Farm and GAB Robins did not put one dollar into Don Imus’ pocket. Mrs. Jack Swanson, Michael Krasney, Ron Owens, all the rest, had no market reason to hector, and vex, and harasse me.

This was none of it, never, was it about the market. Egotism. Power. Viciousness. Yes.

But not the market.

Using the market the people can free themselves from the national debt, then they can free themselves from the Post Liberal elite who use the state to strangle them in this vice of greed and corruption.

Soon I will free myself.

Lecture Notes: 12-12-04 Dishonesty

The Pearle Harbor story is like all the others we have examined: the real issue is your egotistical dishonesty which prevents you from seeing the truth. On the one side are the kooks, the “conspiracy theorists,” (as the main stream press calls them, (if they want to keep their jobs, (and they do,))) and on the other you have your everyman, know nothings, the “Oh, FDR wouldn’t have done that he loved the Navy” crowd.

I really have no sympathy for either side. The evidence is overwhelming that FDR and the top leadership knew of the impending attack. But then you really didn’t have to get a telegram from Western Union to know it was coming. One of the websites has a picture of FDR with “traitor” in red letters over it. This is the right. And the left? Remember before the Second Gulf War the lefties using the word “empire”? Empire? (Like that is a bad thing?)

Coming from the kooks what does “traitor” mean? But like the lefties the kooks are so self unaware they seem to have no inkling that for them to call FDR a traitor is actually humorous. Did the lefties think they were persuading anyone with their “empire” ? It is a joke right? American legions conquering the world? All they want to do is fire up the barbeque in the backyard behind the double wide, next to the above ground pool, eat with the family and then go watch the game. Maybe finish rebuilding the carburetor after. Empire? What are you queer or do you work for the New York Times? You an editor? (For example, Michael Weiner has started claiming that the US is “in Iraq only because of oil.”)

Pearle Harbor “deception”? Well ok, sure, as I say the evidence of foreknowledge is overwhelming, but the criticism depends on when you say the “deception” begins. What makes the kooks kooks is that they tend to focus narrowly on some radio transmission, or the decoded messages, or the documents found on some dead pilot, narrow technical issues, like why did they send a telegram when they had radio, scrambled phones, etc.

God damn it boy! Were you asleep when Japan was crushing Manchuria. You miss that did you? You hear about the NAZI party? You been following what’s been going down? You little cracker.

MacArthur was in the Philippines. Nine hours after Pearle Harbor it was the Philippines’ turn. The US war plan called for a relief fleet to reach the Philippines in six months. So from December 8, 1941 until MacArthur’s return that was? How long? The battle of Leyte Gulf? October, 1942? No. October 1943? No.

America betrayed those men it left out on point on Luzon. There was no rescue fleet in six months, or a year, or two years. Were the Jews of Europe betrayed? How about the Chinese?

Do you think Garrison Keillor holds his simple minded people of Lake Woebegone responsible for the betrayal of our men in the Philippines, the Jews of Europe, the Chinese?

This is why the kooks are kooks, left and right. They focus too narrowly. They detail the radio logs, plot the movement of the attack fleet, note the day and the hour the patrol planes were ordered grounded, the movement of the aircraft carriers from Pearle, describe how the telegram declaring war was decoded hours before it was officially presented to the leadership, hours which could have been used to save the men who were to be trapped below decks when the Japanese bombs came raining down just a few hours later; but as for the rest of history, as for the lives of humanity in their millions, the fate of whole nations, for all of them, for humanity, they appear to have no interest.

Those young men, in their white sailor uniforms, from farms in Minnesota, and towns in Ohio, were sacrificed. And who betrayed them? FDR? How about America? How about Minnesota? Ohio? Not FDR and the know nothing Republicans and the isolationist Democrats, how about this: the entire American people betrayed their sons and left them out there to die?

And so this is the great dishonesty. The “conspiracy theorists” have their limitations, a preoccupation with details, yet the real dishonesty is to be found with the likes of Garrison Keillor, and all the rest of you, all of you. The men at Pearle were sacrificed, the men on Luzon were sacrificed, the Jews of Europe, the Chinese, they all perished, were allowed to die, as your fathers and your grandfathers, and your great grandfathers, slurped their soup and munched their bread, while others starved, or were gassed, or shot, or bayoneted, or buried alive. This is the real betrayal.

Not what FDR did or did not do on December 1, 1941, or in all of 1941, or 1940, but what did America do throughout the 1930’s and 1920’s? Of course, why stop there? What of the criminal arrogance that lead up to WWI? And so on.

“There is nothing new in this. There is nothing new in this . . . It is the long lamentable history of mankind!” --- Winston Churchill

Your dishonesty is in not admitting that this is the sad state of mankind. And by implication your sad state also.

Counselor: So, what? Are we supposed to where black all the time? Mark our faces with ashes?

Get thee to a nunnery.

Counselor: Yes.

Well, I suppose only after you turn 30. After 30 you should wear black, yes.

No, the dishonesty is not because you do not spend your lives in mourning but that you misrepresent the truth. You can not admit to the truth of the overwhelming evidence not because you want to protect the reputation of FDR, but because you do not want to admit that America betrayed the world, and betrayed her sons in the Philippines as surely as we betrayed them in Pearle Harbor. And that is just the word you fear: “we.” You can not bear to say we betrayed them.

You are not protecting FDR or America but your own selfish puny egos. To make these admissions would require you to reassess America’s history and this would require you to reassess yourselves, and you lack the honesty to do this because you fear you would loose your way in the world. You refuse to make these admissions not because your patriotism will not allow it but because you are dishonest, egotistical, selfish, self absorbed. If you started questioning Pearle Harbor, where would it stop?

Your whole lives are built on similar falsities that you dare not examine for fear it will all come crumbling down. It has become a religious faith: an article of faith. You believe with a desperation the most patently ridiculous things, and all the more passionately because some part of your consciousness knows them to be ridiculous, because without them you would not know how to organize your thoughts. Better a ridiculous faith than none at all.

You would rather tell yourselves lies about Pearle Harbor, about the Holocaust, about the death of 30 million Chinese, than admit what selfish egotists your grandfathers were, because if you admitted this about your grandfathers the implication for yourselves would be so glaring that even the dimmest of you could not ignore it: if them then what about you?

Hypocrisy doesn’t begin to cover it. This is a dishonesty that goes to the very core of your beings.

All these years I have been struggling with you, I have thought someday . . . someday . . . what could I have been thinking? To have faith in America? In Americans like you?

I have been a fool, to think you could ever admit to any of it. The San Rafael Police assisted Michael Weiner in the burglary of the Colonial Motel. What is this compared to the felonies you commit or at least cover up every day of your lives?

And so I will kill myself. In doing so I protest your dishonesty about the burglary at the Colonial Motel. But also I protest your dishonesty about Pearle Harbor. Not the dishonesty about any particular decoded message, but this deeper dishonesty, this indifference to the truth, because your first concern is for your own egotistical desire to be thought of, to think about yourselves as, “good people.”

All the evil is done by someone else out there in the world. Never by you and yours. You refuse to accept responsibility even in this slight way: that you are an American, a citizen of a nation that betrayed its young men at Pearle Harbor. You refuse to accept even this remote, tenuous responsibility.

I die, by my own hand, to protest this: your craven vanity, your dishonesty.

Note the smoke columns. Recall that the official reason given for why the aircraft carriers were delayed in their return, due back 12-6-41, was because of the “heavy seas” and high winds.

Lecture Notes: 12-07-2004

The whole world wants to know where is Station H’s message sheet number 95678?

The NSA has released message sheets 95677 and 95679. Why hasn’t the NSA released 95678? By the dates of the other messages we know that Station H’s message sheet number 95678 was taken from its pad on 12-01-1941.

Even though the NSA has not released the American message sheet, the Japanese Imperial Navy’s archives are not classified. Therefore we have been able to see what messages the Japanese Navy sent on 12-01-41.

The message was in the Japanese Navy’s most secret naval code. That is what Station H did. It decoded messages on numbered message sheets. Would you like to see the text of the message sent on 12-01-41 from Japanese headquarters in Tokyo to the Imperial Navy?

Yes?

You want to see that coded message? Oh, ok, I wasn’t sure anyone was still interested:

TI YO WI 00, KE NO 8;DE: Ko Me Ha (Admiral Nagano)

1 December 1941

From: The Chief of Naval General Staff

To:       CinC Combined Fleet

   CinC China Area Fleet

1.   It has been decided to enter into a state of war between the Imperial Government on one side and the United States, Great Britain and the Netherlands on the other during the first part of December.

2. The CinC Combined Fleet will destroy the enemy forces and air strength in the eastern seas at the same time will meet any attack by the enemy fleet and destroy it.

3. The CinC Combined Fleet will, in cooperation with the Commander of the Southern Army, speedily capture and hold important American and British Bases in Eastern Asia and then Dutch Bases. Important strategic points will then be occupied and held.

4. CenC Combined Fleet will in case of necessity cooperate with the operations of China Area Fleet.

5. The time for activating the movements of forces in accordance with preceding articles will be given in a later order.

6. Execution of details will be as directed by Chief of the Naval General Staff.

Later came the message “Climb Mount Niitaka.”

US Senator McCain’s grandfather and my grandfather fought together at Leyte Gulf. Well actually my grandfather fought at Leyte Gulf; US Senator McCain’s grandfather got there late. One of my grandfather’s carriers was the first US warship to be hit by a Kamikaze pilot in WWII. The Japanese attacked when the troop ships were still full of men waiting to go ashore. I often think of all those men who were not killed at Leyte Gulf, who were not trapped below decks as their transports plunged to the bottom of the sea. I think also about all their grandchildren.

We should remember the dead. But we should also reflect on all the living. Think of all the survivors, and their children and grandchildren. How many of you owe your lives to those pilots who fought off, and bluffed, the Japanese Navy at Leyte Gulf? Three generations later there must be millions of people now who owe their existence to those pilots.

The Japanese strategy was to try to lure Admiral Halsey to the north and then attack the unprotected troop ships in Leyte Gulf. It worked. After the attack started an emergency message was sent to Halsey asking him to return. The recall message began, “The whole world wants to know . . .” This phrase, “the whole world wants to know,” was part of a code. It was simply a phrase that was inserted to help conceal the real message. But Admiral Halsey forgot that these phrases were automatically inserted. He thought he was being mocked and was quite angry until someone reminded him that the first line is always inserted by the code clerk.

In the Last Letter to the Senate I mentioned my grandfathers and later I was treated to many admonitions from gas bags in the media, that I shouldn’t think that I could coast on my grandfather’s accomplishments.

(But I didn’t realize that they would be held against me by the “peacenicks” of Northern California.

Of course this was in 1992 when I first published the Last Letter. Nowadays I suppose everyone knows that children in Navy families are raised with this extraordinary sense of entitlement and privilege. “The world owes you a living,” this is drilled into our heads at an early age.

Counselor: How did that work out for you?

Oh, well you can imagine the fall. Here we are brought up to think ourselves superior to the rest of the world in every way, that “they owe us,” you know, the Navy family. I recall when my mom first pointed out the cash register machine that they have near the doors in commercial establishments, and explained the principle of the thing to me, I was, ah, seventeen, I think.

“Pay!” I remember exclaiming to her at the time. “We, have to pay them! They should pay us. All that we have given. They are lucky we shop here . . .” etc. etc. Oh, the difficulties I have had adjusting. You do not know, my dear Yvonne. )

After Leyte Gulf, my maternal grandfather served with Admiral McCain on patrol in the Japanese home waters in the closing months of the war. Yet I have never received any indication that US Senator McCain has even read any of my letters. Senator Hatch has said that he has “heard what you (Imus) have done to some of your listeners,” and Senator Dodd joked about the Stolen Notebook, Senator Hollings, Senator Biden, US Senator Bradley, Senator Kerry, Senator Alexander, Senator Danforth, Senator Gore, Senator Sarbanes, and of course US Senator Moynihan made many comments, but US Senator McCain has never made any comment that I have been able to detect.

But I did think that some might recall my family and look into my claims. For example, when US Senator McCain appeared in Sacramento for Mr. Jones’ Senate campaign, he remarked that he was looking forward to getting a Republican elected to the Senate for California, because he has been working two jobs, helping out representing the people of California as well as Arizona. I took some hope from that. This is why he is a “US” Senator. He knows his true constituency is not just his state, but the entire nation.

The problem with the discussion about Pearl Harbor and the decoded Japanese messages is that there is a failure to see these questions in their full context. Fewer than 3,000 died at Pearl Harbor, (fewer than on 9-11). Yet consider, for example, the battle for Okinawa, when US Senator McCain’s grandfather was closing in on Japan. Okinawa, which cost America 12,000 dead, 36,000 wounded, the Japanese deaths were over 100,000. Yet just think, Hiroshima was to follow in August.

Didn’t America’s leaders know that the atomic bomb was going to be available in just a few months? Those 12,000 Americans who died in April to June, 1945, just two months before the bombing of Hiroshima, did they have to die?

Did Admiral McCain know the futility of Okinawa?

We may have information, the war message sent to the Japanese fleet, or that a super bomb has been developed, but how we use the information depends on a great deal more than just possessing it. This is the difference between information and knowledge, facts and understanding.

Compared to the coming war, in which millions would die, Pearl Harbor may not have seemed as important. There may have been larger considerations. Even though a new “super bomb” had been developed some strategists may have thought Okinawa was necessary, in order to show the Japanese that their home islands could be taken.

So perhaps US Senator McCain has read my letters, knows what was done to me, knows what is still being done, knows, for example, that the IRS asked for my assistance then leaked my name to the very criminals we were investigating, and yet fails to act on the information for reasons of his own. The message may have been received but not acknowledged.

Why? I do not know. There are so many mysteries in this life. We live most of our lives in darkness and ignorance.