Monday, July 05, 2004
Saturday, January 31, 2004
Below is a NY Times editorial on the electronic voting machine issue. This topic keeps coming up, but only in center-left publications. The Right isn't worried about the security and integrity of our voting technology? Hmmm........
How to Hack an Election
January 31, 2004
Concerned citizens have been warning that new electronic voting technology being rolled out nationwide can be used to steal elections. Now there is proof. When the State of Maryland hired a computer security firm to test its new machines, these paid hackers had little trouble casting multiple votes and taking over the machines' vote-recording mechanisms. The Maryland study shows convincingly that more security is needed for electronic voting, starting with voter-verified paper trails.
When Maryland decided to buy 16,000 AccuVote-TS voting machines, there was considerable opposition. Critics charged that the new touch-screen machines, which do not create a paper record of votes cast, were vulnerable to vote theft. The state commissioned a staged attack on the machines, in which computer-security experts would try to foil the safeguards and interfere with an election.
They were disturbingly successful. It was an "easy matter," they reported, to reprogram the access cards used by voters and vote multiple times. They were able to attach a keyboard to a voting terminal and change its vote count. And by exploiting a software flaw and using a modem, they were able to change votes from a remote location.
Critics of new voting technology are often accused of being alarmist, but this state-sponsored study contains vulnerabilities that seem almost too bad to be true. Maryland's 16,000 machines all have identical locks on two sensitive mechanisms, which can be opened by any one of 32,000 keys. The security team had no trouble making duplicates of the keys at local hardware stores, although that proved unnecessary since one team member picked the lock in "approximately 10 seconds."
Diebold, the machines' manufacturer, rushed to issue a self-congratulatory press release with the headline "Maryland Security Study Validates Diebold Election Systems Equipment for March Primary." The study's authors were shocked to see their findings spun so positively. Their report said that if flaws they identified were fixed, the machines could be used in Maryland's March 2 primary. But in the long run, they said, an extensive overhaul of the machines and at least a limited paper trail are necessary.
The Maryland study confirms concerns about electronic voting that are rapidly accumulating from actual elections. In Boone County, Ind., last fall, in a particularly colorful example of unreliability, an electronic system initially recorded more than 144,000 votes in an election with fewer than 19,000 registered voters, County Clerk Lisa Garofolo said. Given the growing body of evidence, it is clear that electronic voting machines cannot be trusted until more safeguards are in place.
How to Hack an Election
January 31, 2004
Concerned citizens have been warning that new electronic voting technology being rolled out nationwide can be used to steal elections. Now there is proof. When the State of Maryland hired a computer security firm to test its new machines, these paid hackers had little trouble casting multiple votes and taking over the machines' vote-recording mechanisms. The Maryland study shows convincingly that more security is needed for electronic voting, starting with voter-verified paper trails.
When Maryland decided to buy 16,000 AccuVote-TS voting machines, there was considerable opposition. Critics charged that the new touch-screen machines, which do not create a paper record of votes cast, were vulnerable to vote theft. The state commissioned a staged attack on the machines, in which computer-security experts would try to foil the safeguards and interfere with an election.
They were disturbingly successful. It was an "easy matter," they reported, to reprogram the access cards used by voters and vote multiple times. They were able to attach a keyboard to a voting terminal and change its vote count. And by exploiting a software flaw and using a modem, they were able to change votes from a remote location.
Critics of new voting technology are often accused of being alarmist, but this state-sponsored study contains vulnerabilities that seem almost too bad to be true. Maryland's 16,000 machines all have identical locks on two sensitive mechanisms, which can be opened by any one of 32,000 keys. The security team had no trouble making duplicates of the keys at local hardware stores, although that proved unnecessary since one team member picked the lock in "approximately 10 seconds."
Diebold, the machines' manufacturer, rushed to issue a self-congratulatory press release with the headline "Maryland Security Study Validates Diebold Election Systems Equipment for March Primary." The study's authors were shocked to see their findings spun so positively. Their report said that if flaws they identified were fixed, the machines could be used in Maryland's March 2 primary. But in the long run, they said, an extensive overhaul of the machines and at least a limited paper trail are necessary.
The Maryland study confirms concerns about electronic voting that are rapidly accumulating from actual elections. In Boone County, Ind., last fall, in a particularly colorful example of unreliability, an electronic system initially recorded more than 144,000 votes in an election with fewer than 19,000 registered voters, County Clerk Lisa Garofolo said. Given the growing body of evidence, it is clear that electronic voting machines cannot be trusted until more safeguards are in place.
Thursday, January 15, 2004
A smart endorsement of Dean by Elaine Kamarck, of the Harvard School of Government--
This Guy Can Rock The White House
January 15, 2004
Last July, I promised I would tell you my choice for Democratic Idol today - four days before this process begins for real when the Democrats in Iowa, the first of many judges, weigh in.
I prepared for this auspicious moment by wading through newspapers, polls and hundreds of pages of press summaries written for the most hard-core political junkies. I have watched at least 50 hours of C-Span and countless other television programs, and actually traveled to see the candidates in person. And finally I bought a copy of "I Don't Mean to Be Rude, But...," the new book by flamboyant "American Idol" judge Simon Cowell.
Months ago when the Democratic field grew to 10 (and then dropped back to nine), I lamented the absence of a Cowell in the party - someone to unabashedly tell a few of these candidates that they couldn't sing worth a dime. And so I started doing it myself. Al Sharpton, Dennis Kucinich and Carol Mosely Braun were never really credible as possible presidents. John Edwards never did convince me he was seasoned enough for the job. And Joe Lieberman, John Kerry and Dick Gephardt - all serious men and presidential material - spent the whole season off-key, a function of the way that Washington can ruin your pitch in spite of the fact that you may be a good musician. And that left me with two outsiders, Howard Dean and Wesley Clark.
And so, in making my final choice, I decided to see what Cowell says about picking pop stars, and almost immediately came across the following: "The funny thing about pop music is that, for all its artificiality, it should reflect something real." Well, same thing for presidential politics. As Americans have become more and more hardened by the commercial culture in which they live, they have tended - in their political choices - to go for the person who seems to be the most real, the least programmed, the one who can speak plain English and give the impression that he (still he) is who he is.
"Clay Aiken," recalls Cowell in talking about one of the American Idol stars, "was an individual, and I remembered Clay way above all of the Britney clones, the Christina clones, the Justin Timberlake clones we had. The public, remember, likes individuality." Neither Dean nor Clark is a Kennedy clone or a Clinton clone - both of whom were Democratic Idols in their time. They are both originals. Howard Dean has spent a long time in public life but in a state so small that nearly everyone would eventually meet him. He had no option but to be who he is - a blunt-talking small-town doctor turned politician - and to his credit he never tried to be anything else. He is not smooth. Praise the Lord.
Wesley Clark spent his whole adult life in the U.S. Army. When he talks to an audience, he projects the straightforward patriotism of the military professional. Clark, like Dean, is unencumbered by the air of tormented compromise that engulfs the other serious candidates. Neither one of them appears to filter their thoughts through a fog of focus-group blather. They've come this far because they both project that most coveted of all attributes - leadership.
But, in the end, I vote for Dean over Clark to be the Democratic Idol because I think Dean has the best chance of any of the candidates in this race to beat George W. Bush. Clark, appealing as he is, is one-dimensional. His campaign is nothing more and nothing less than his biography. His military career is impressive but Kosovo was not exactly the Normandy invasion, and Clark cannot expect the outpouring of American gratitude that took Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower to the White House.
Furthermore, Clark's military service is not without controversy. Fairly or unfairly, a number of his former colleagues are more than happy to say bad things about him. And this is before the Bush team, adept at character assassination, has gotten serious about him. In 2000 the Bush campaign turned Al Gore, a politician known for nothing as much as the fact that he was a straight arrow, into a chronic liar in the minds of many. By the time Bush and company get done with Gen. Clark, his military experience could be a nightmare and the general could wish he'd gone AWOL from West Point.
Once Clark's military career is destroyed, the Bush team would exploit his inconsistencies on the Iraq war and his past admiration for Republicans. That would turn the general into just another political opportunist. Robbed of his biography, Clark has nothing - no record on health care, no experience balancing budgets, no background in creating jobs. It is very difficult to challenge the commander in chief - generals are in the chain of command, not on top of it. In spite of his impressive learning curve and great performances, Clark is just too new at this game to head the ticket. (Which doesn't mean he couldn't be the No. 2 - but that's a subject for another day.)
Howard Dean, on the other hand, is the strongest candidate against Bush that the Democrats have. The complaints against him are overdrawn and easily outweighed by his strengths.
Start with the complaints. The first is that he is too left-wing to win. Dean owes his colleagues in the primary race a big debt of gratitude on that one. When Gephardt attacked him for a Medicare position taken in the mid-1990s, it reinforced the fact that Dean is a fiscal conservative - well within the mainstream of the successful Clinton wing of the Democratic Party. If Dean were a real left-winger, he would have called for a national health insurance plan (like Gephardt and Kucinich). Instead he has a much more realistic plan to take care of the uninsured - and has a Vermont record on it to boot.
If Dean were a real left-winger, he'd call for cutting defense spending and immediately removing our troops from Iraq - as Kucinich has. But Dean understands that the fight against terror requires new, albeit somewhat different, military spending than the current Bush plans and that we can't fight terror by allowing Iraq to turn into another Afghanistan.
The second complaint involves Dean's personality. The argument is that he is too combative. This always struck me as odd. How can Democrats object to a combative person running against an incumbent president who tells the world: "Bring 'em on!" Do they think they can beat Bush with a wimp? With some guy who says, "On the one hand this, and on the other hand that?" I, for one, relish the sight of Howard Dean - his wrestler's neck bulging - taking on the president after Bush tries to tell us that record deficits don't matter, that Saddam Hussein bombed the World Trade Center or that a time of constant terror alerts is a safer world. Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin, in endorsing Dean, called him the Harry Truman of the 21st century. Truman was a feisty little plain-speaking man - and a great president.
But the most compelling reason to support Dean is that only he can change the nature of the political game. No Democrat will win unless he can make the country see through Bush, and Dean has been so good at this that by last fall all the other candidates were mimicking his outrage.
Furthermore, if Democrats play old-fashioned politics, they lose, plain and simple. George W. Bush is the incumbent; he has the Executive Branch, Republicans control Congress, and this White House has shown an uncanny ability to bamboozle and intimidate the national press corps. The Republicans own the "Establishment," and they will use it to raise $170 million or more to destroy the Democratic candidate.
Dean has built a primary campaign that makes the Establishment pretty much irrelevant. The only way a Democrat wins in November is to keep it that way. By the end of last year Dean probably had at least 300,000 individual contributors. If Dean wins some early contests and locks up the nomination by mid-March, each of these people will have a great story to tell to 10 new contributors. How much could Dean raise from these 1.5 to 3 million people (you do the math; the numbers of potential donors are huge) in the months before the Democratic convention?
No other Democratic candidate is poised to do as well. Even operating in Internet time, they all start from donor bases that are too small and mind-sets that are too old-fashioned.
Simon Cowell had this to say about Ruben Studdard, last year's American Idol: "Who would have thought that someone weighing three hundred pounds would be the American Idol? Answer: America." Who would have thought that a Vermont governor would turn the political world upside down to become the Democratic Idol? Answer: America.
Elaine Kamarck is a lecturer at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. She served in the Clinton- Gore administration and can be reached at eckamarck@aol.com.
Copyright © 2004, Newsday, Inc. | Article licensing and reprint options
This Guy Can Rock The White House
January 15, 2004
Last July, I promised I would tell you my choice for Democratic Idol today - four days before this process begins for real when the Democrats in Iowa, the first of many judges, weigh in.
I prepared for this auspicious moment by wading through newspapers, polls and hundreds of pages of press summaries written for the most hard-core political junkies. I have watched at least 50 hours of C-Span and countless other television programs, and actually traveled to see the candidates in person. And finally I bought a copy of "I Don't Mean to Be Rude, But...," the new book by flamboyant "American Idol" judge Simon Cowell.
Months ago when the Democratic field grew to 10 (and then dropped back to nine), I lamented the absence of a Cowell in the party - someone to unabashedly tell a few of these candidates that they couldn't sing worth a dime. And so I started doing it myself. Al Sharpton, Dennis Kucinich and Carol Mosely Braun were never really credible as possible presidents. John Edwards never did convince me he was seasoned enough for the job. And Joe Lieberman, John Kerry and Dick Gephardt - all serious men and presidential material - spent the whole season off-key, a function of the way that Washington can ruin your pitch in spite of the fact that you may be a good musician. And that left me with two outsiders, Howard Dean and Wesley Clark.
And so, in making my final choice, I decided to see what Cowell says about picking pop stars, and almost immediately came across the following: "The funny thing about pop music is that, for all its artificiality, it should reflect something real." Well, same thing for presidential politics. As Americans have become more and more hardened by the commercial culture in which they live, they have tended - in their political choices - to go for the person who seems to be the most real, the least programmed, the one who can speak plain English and give the impression that he (still he) is who he is.
"Clay Aiken," recalls Cowell in talking about one of the American Idol stars, "was an individual, and I remembered Clay way above all of the Britney clones, the Christina clones, the Justin Timberlake clones we had. The public, remember, likes individuality." Neither Dean nor Clark is a Kennedy clone or a Clinton clone - both of whom were Democratic Idols in their time. They are both originals. Howard Dean has spent a long time in public life but in a state so small that nearly everyone would eventually meet him. He had no option but to be who he is - a blunt-talking small-town doctor turned politician - and to his credit he never tried to be anything else. He is not smooth. Praise the Lord.
Wesley Clark spent his whole adult life in the U.S. Army. When he talks to an audience, he projects the straightforward patriotism of the military professional. Clark, like Dean, is unencumbered by the air of tormented compromise that engulfs the other serious candidates. Neither one of them appears to filter their thoughts through a fog of focus-group blather. They've come this far because they both project that most coveted of all attributes - leadership.
But, in the end, I vote for Dean over Clark to be the Democratic Idol because I think Dean has the best chance of any of the candidates in this race to beat George W. Bush. Clark, appealing as he is, is one-dimensional. His campaign is nothing more and nothing less than his biography. His military career is impressive but Kosovo was not exactly the Normandy invasion, and Clark cannot expect the outpouring of American gratitude that took Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower to the White House.
Furthermore, Clark's military service is not without controversy. Fairly or unfairly, a number of his former colleagues are more than happy to say bad things about him. And this is before the Bush team, adept at character assassination, has gotten serious about him. In 2000 the Bush campaign turned Al Gore, a politician known for nothing as much as the fact that he was a straight arrow, into a chronic liar in the minds of many. By the time Bush and company get done with Gen. Clark, his military experience could be a nightmare and the general could wish he'd gone AWOL from West Point.
Once Clark's military career is destroyed, the Bush team would exploit his inconsistencies on the Iraq war and his past admiration for Republicans. That would turn the general into just another political opportunist. Robbed of his biography, Clark has nothing - no record on health care, no experience balancing budgets, no background in creating jobs. It is very difficult to challenge the commander in chief - generals are in the chain of command, not on top of it. In spite of his impressive learning curve and great performances, Clark is just too new at this game to head the ticket. (Which doesn't mean he couldn't be the No. 2 - but that's a subject for another day.)
Howard Dean, on the other hand, is the strongest candidate against Bush that the Democrats have. The complaints against him are overdrawn and easily outweighed by his strengths.
Start with the complaints. The first is that he is too left-wing to win. Dean owes his colleagues in the primary race a big debt of gratitude on that one. When Gephardt attacked him for a Medicare position taken in the mid-1990s, it reinforced the fact that Dean is a fiscal conservative - well within the mainstream of the successful Clinton wing of the Democratic Party. If Dean were a real left-winger, he would have called for a national health insurance plan (like Gephardt and Kucinich). Instead he has a much more realistic plan to take care of the uninsured - and has a Vermont record on it to boot.
If Dean were a real left-winger, he'd call for cutting defense spending and immediately removing our troops from Iraq - as Kucinich has. But Dean understands that the fight against terror requires new, albeit somewhat different, military spending than the current Bush plans and that we can't fight terror by allowing Iraq to turn into another Afghanistan.
The second complaint involves Dean's personality. The argument is that he is too combative. This always struck me as odd. How can Democrats object to a combative person running against an incumbent president who tells the world: "Bring 'em on!" Do they think they can beat Bush with a wimp? With some guy who says, "On the one hand this, and on the other hand that?" I, for one, relish the sight of Howard Dean - his wrestler's neck bulging - taking on the president after Bush tries to tell us that record deficits don't matter, that Saddam Hussein bombed the World Trade Center or that a time of constant terror alerts is a safer world. Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin, in endorsing Dean, called him the Harry Truman of the 21st century. Truman was a feisty little plain-speaking man - and a great president.
But the most compelling reason to support Dean is that only he can change the nature of the political game. No Democrat will win unless he can make the country see through Bush, and Dean has been so good at this that by last fall all the other candidates were mimicking his outrage.
Furthermore, if Democrats play old-fashioned politics, they lose, plain and simple. George W. Bush is the incumbent; he has the Executive Branch, Republicans control Congress, and this White House has shown an uncanny ability to bamboozle and intimidate the national press corps. The Republicans own the "Establishment," and they will use it to raise $170 million or more to destroy the Democratic candidate.
Dean has built a primary campaign that makes the Establishment pretty much irrelevant. The only way a Democrat wins in November is to keep it that way. By the end of last year Dean probably had at least 300,000 individual contributors. If Dean wins some early contests and locks up the nomination by mid-March, each of these people will have a great story to tell to 10 new contributors. How much could Dean raise from these 1.5 to 3 million people (you do the math; the numbers of potential donors are huge) in the months before the Democratic convention?
No other Democratic candidate is poised to do as well. Even operating in Internet time, they all start from donor bases that are too small and mind-sets that are too old-fashioned.
Simon Cowell had this to say about Ruben Studdard, last year's American Idol: "Who would have thought that someone weighing three hundred pounds would be the American Idol? Answer: America." Who would have thought that a Vermont governor would turn the political world upside down to become the Democratic Idol? Answer: America.
Elaine Kamarck is a lecturer at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. She served in the Clinton- Gore administration and can be reached at eckamarck@aol.com.
Copyright © 2004, Newsday, Inc. | Article licensing and reprint options
Wednesday, January 14, 2004
Monday, December 29, 2003
Driving along the Massachusetts Turnpike today, I noticed 2 very large, professionally designed (and presumably expensive) billboards advocating that the state legalize and tax marijuana. The name of the group sponsoring the advertisements is Change the Climate, and they are claiming that the initiative would produce something like $138 million annually for the state treasury. I'd be curious to know how that number was generated, given that the price of grass would likely plummet if it were legalized. In any case, the people behind this seem to be taking their cues from the gaming industry, which has very successfully exploited the fact that most state governments are deeply in debt and desperate for revenue from any source. It'll be interesting to see if the prospect of some fresh revenue motivates the social conservatives to reconsider their position on this issue. Here's a link-
http://www.changetheclimate.org/
http://www.changetheclimate.org/
Saturday, December 20, 2003
I grew up in Minnesota, where snowmobiling is a holy rite in the culture. My father was a small town photographer, and in 1966 he was engaged by the local newspaper to photograph the very first "Blessing of the Snowmobiles," which took place outdoors, on the steps of the nearby Catholic church. (I truly am not making this up.) Apparently the church decided that a blessing might help to prevent the inevitable tragedies, which included decapitation by barbwire fence, and drowning in frozen lakes-- these things occurred regularly each winter. The parish priest stood up on the steps and sprinkled holy water upon the gathered multitudes, but most of it froze in the -20 air before it hit the ground.
Thursday, November 27, 2003
A cheerful thought for Thanksgiving Day-
The GOP scratched and clawed its way to a position of political strength, but they are governing in an immature, desperate fashion, as if they know that their time in office is short, and the strongarm tactics on the Medicare vote are just the latest example. What I see is the bull-in-the-china-shop mentality of a political party that does not actually believe in its own ability to implement its agenda by winning hearts and minds. A party that has a long-term vision and the confidence that it enjoys a legitimate mandate doesn't act the way DeLay and his cronies do. These guys are going down- it's just a matter of time...
The GOP scratched and clawed its way to a position of political strength, but they are governing in an immature, desperate fashion, as if they know that their time in office is short, and the strongarm tactics on the Medicare vote are just the latest example. What I see is the bull-in-the-china-shop mentality of a political party that does not actually believe in its own ability to implement its agenda by winning hearts and minds. A party that has a long-term vision and the confidence that it enjoys a legitimate mandate doesn't act the way DeLay and his cronies do. These guys are going down- it's just a matter of time...
Sunday, November 16, 2003
Enclosed is a fine piece by George Monbiot, writing in the Guardian on the deception that led us into the Iraq war.
Dreamers and idiots
Britain and the US did everything to avoid a peaceful solution in Iraq and Afghanistan
George Monbiot
Tuesday November 11, 2003
The Guardian
Those who would take us to war must first shut down the public imagination. They must convince us that there is no other means of preventing invasion, or conquering terrorism, or even defending human rights. When information is scarce, imagination is easy to control. As intelligence gathering and diplomacy are conducted in secret, we seldom discover - until it is too late - how plausible the alternatives may be.
So those of us who called for peace before the wars with Iraq and Afghanistan were mocked as effeminate dreamers. The intelligence our governments released suggested that Saddam Hussein and the Taliban were immune to diplomacy or negotiation. Faced with such enemies, what would we do, the hawks asked? And our responses felt timid beside the clanking rigours of war. To the columnist David Aaronovitch, we were "indulging... in a cosmic whinge". To the Daily Telegraph, we had become "Osama bin Laden's useful idiots".
Had the options been as limited as the western warlords and their bards suggested, this might have been true. But, as many of us suspected at the time, we were lied to. Most of the lies are now familiar: there appear to have been no weapons of mass destruction and no evidence to suggest that, as President Bush claimed in March, Saddam had "trained and financed... al-Qaida". Bush and Blair, as their courtship of the president of Uzbekistan reveals, appear to possess no genuine concern for the human rights of foreigners.
But a further, and even graver, set of lies is only now beginning to come to light. Even if all the claims Bush and Blair made about their enemies and their motives had been true, and all their objectives had been legal and just, there may still have been no need to go to war. For, as we discovered last week, Saddam proposed to give Bush and Blair almost everything they wanted before a shot had been fired. Our governments appear both to have withheld this information from the public and to have lied to us about the possibilities for diplomacy.
Over the four months before the coalition forces invaded Iraq, Saddam's government made a series of increasingly desperate offers to the United States. In December, the Iraqi intelligence services approached Vincent Cannistraro, the CIA's former head of counter-terrorism, with an offer to prove that Iraq was not linked to the September 11 attacks, and to permit several thousand US troops to enter the country to look for weapons of mass destruction. If the object was regime change, then Saddam, the agents claimed, was prepared to submit himself to internationally monitored elections within two years. According to Mr Cannistraro, these proposals reached the White House, but were "turned down by the president and vice-president".
By February, Saddam's negotiators were offering almost everything the US government could wish for: free access to the FBI to look for weapons of mass destruction wherever it wanted, support for the US position on Israel and Palestine, even rights over Iraq's oil. Among the people they contacted was Richard Perle, the security adviser who for years had been urging a war with Iraq. He passed their offers to the CIA. Last week he told the New York Times that the CIA had replied: "Tell them that we will see them in Baghdad".
Saddam Hussein, in other words, appears to have done everything possible to find a diplomatic alternative to the impending war, and the US government appears to have done everything necessary to prevent one. This is the opposite to what we were told by George Bush and Tony Blair. On March 6, 13 days before the war began, Bush said to journalists: "I want to remind you that it's his choice to make as to whether or not we go to war. It's Saddam's choice. He's the person that can make the choice of war and peace. Thus far, he's made the wrong choice."
Ten days later, Blair told a press conference: "We have provided the right diplomatic way through this, which is to lay down a clear ultimatum to Saddam: cooperate or face disarmament by force... all the way through we have tried to provide a diplomatic solution." On March 17, Bush claimed that "should Saddam Hussein choose confrontation, the American people can know that every measure has been taken to avoid war". All these statements are false.
The same thing happened before the war with Afghanistan. On September 20 2001, the Taliban offered to hand Osama bin Laden to a neutral Islamic country for trial if the US presented them with evidence that he was responsible for the attacks on New York and Washington. The US rejected the offer. On October 1, six days before the bombing began, they repeated it, and their representative in Pakistan told reporters: "We are ready for negotiations. It is up to the other side to agree or not. Only negotiation will solve our problems." Bush was asked about this offer at a press conference the following day. He replied: "There's no negotiations. There's no calendar. We'll act on [sic] our time."
On the same day, Tony Blair, in his speech to the Labour party conference, ridiculed the idea that we could "look for a diplomatic solution". "There is no diplomacy with Bin Laden or the Taliban regime... I say to the Taliban: surrender the terrorists; or surrender power. It's your choice." Well, they had just tried to exercise that choice, but George Bush had rejected it.
Of course, neither Bush nor Blair had any reason to trust the Taliban or Saddam - these people were, after all, negotiating under duress. But neither did they have any need to trust them. In both cases they could have presented their opponents with a deadline for meeting the concessions they had offered. Nor could the allies argue that the offers were not worth considering because they were inadequate: both the Taliban and Saddam were attempting to open negotiations, not to close them - there appeared to be plenty of scope for bargaining. In other words, peaceful resolutions were rejected before they were attempted. What this means is that even if all the other legal tests for these wars had been met (they had not), both would still have been waged in defiance of international law. The charter of the United Nations specifies that "the parties to any dispute...shall, first of all, seek a solution by negotiation".
None of this matters to the enthusiasts for war. That these conflicts were unjust and illegal, that they killed or maimed tens of thousands of civilians, is irrelevant, as long as their aims were met. So the hawks should ponder this. Had a peaceful resolution of these disputes been attempted, Bin Laden might now be in custody, Iraq might be a pliant and largely peaceful nation finding its own way to democracy, and the prevailing sentiment within the Muslim world might be sympathy for the United States, rather than anger and resentment.
Now who are the dreamers and the useful idiots, and who the pragmatists?
· www.monbiot.com
Dreamers and idiots
Britain and the US did everything to avoid a peaceful solution in Iraq and Afghanistan
George Monbiot
Tuesday November 11, 2003
The Guardian
Those who would take us to war must first shut down the public imagination. They must convince us that there is no other means of preventing invasion, or conquering terrorism, or even defending human rights. When information is scarce, imagination is easy to control. As intelligence gathering and diplomacy are conducted in secret, we seldom discover - until it is too late - how plausible the alternatives may be.
So those of us who called for peace before the wars with Iraq and Afghanistan were mocked as effeminate dreamers. The intelligence our governments released suggested that Saddam Hussein and the Taliban were immune to diplomacy or negotiation. Faced with such enemies, what would we do, the hawks asked? And our responses felt timid beside the clanking rigours of war. To the columnist David Aaronovitch, we were "indulging... in a cosmic whinge". To the Daily Telegraph, we had become "Osama bin Laden's useful idiots".
Had the options been as limited as the western warlords and their bards suggested, this might have been true. But, as many of us suspected at the time, we were lied to. Most of the lies are now familiar: there appear to have been no weapons of mass destruction and no evidence to suggest that, as President Bush claimed in March, Saddam had "trained and financed... al-Qaida". Bush and Blair, as their courtship of the president of Uzbekistan reveals, appear to possess no genuine concern for the human rights of foreigners.
But a further, and even graver, set of lies is only now beginning to come to light. Even if all the claims Bush and Blair made about their enemies and their motives had been true, and all their objectives had been legal and just, there may still have been no need to go to war. For, as we discovered last week, Saddam proposed to give Bush and Blair almost everything they wanted before a shot had been fired. Our governments appear both to have withheld this information from the public and to have lied to us about the possibilities for diplomacy.
Over the four months before the coalition forces invaded Iraq, Saddam's government made a series of increasingly desperate offers to the United States. In December, the Iraqi intelligence services approached Vincent Cannistraro, the CIA's former head of counter-terrorism, with an offer to prove that Iraq was not linked to the September 11 attacks, and to permit several thousand US troops to enter the country to look for weapons of mass destruction. If the object was regime change, then Saddam, the agents claimed, was prepared to submit himself to internationally monitored elections within two years. According to Mr Cannistraro, these proposals reached the White House, but were "turned down by the president and vice-president".
By February, Saddam's negotiators were offering almost everything the US government could wish for: free access to the FBI to look for weapons of mass destruction wherever it wanted, support for the US position on Israel and Palestine, even rights over Iraq's oil. Among the people they contacted was Richard Perle, the security adviser who for years had been urging a war with Iraq. He passed their offers to the CIA. Last week he told the New York Times that the CIA had replied: "Tell them that we will see them in Baghdad".
Saddam Hussein, in other words, appears to have done everything possible to find a diplomatic alternative to the impending war, and the US government appears to have done everything necessary to prevent one. This is the opposite to what we were told by George Bush and Tony Blair. On March 6, 13 days before the war began, Bush said to journalists: "I want to remind you that it's his choice to make as to whether or not we go to war. It's Saddam's choice. He's the person that can make the choice of war and peace. Thus far, he's made the wrong choice."
Ten days later, Blair told a press conference: "We have provided the right diplomatic way through this, which is to lay down a clear ultimatum to Saddam: cooperate or face disarmament by force... all the way through we have tried to provide a diplomatic solution." On March 17, Bush claimed that "should Saddam Hussein choose confrontation, the American people can know that every measure has been taken to avoid war". All these statements are false.
The same thing happened before the war with Afghanistan. On September 20 2001, the Taliban offered to hand Osama bin Laden to a neutral Islamic country for trial if the US presented them with evidence that he was responsible for the attacks on New York and Washington. The US rejected the offer. On October 1, six days before the bombing began, they repeated it, and their representative in Pakistan told reporters: "We are ready for negotiations. It is up to the other side to agree or not. Only negotiation will solve our problems." Bush was asked about this offer at a press conference the following day. He replied: "There's no negotiations. There's no calendar. We'll act on [sic] our time."
On the same day, Tony Blair, in his speech to the Labour party conference, ridiculed the idea that we could "look for a diplomatic solution". "There is no diplomacy with Bin Laden or the Taliban regime... I say to the Taliban: surrender the terrorists; or surrender power. It's your choice." Well, they had just tried to exercise that choice, but George Bush had rejected it.
Of course, neither Bush nor Blair had any reason to trust the Taliban or Saddam - these people were, after all, negotiating under duress. But neither did they have any need to trust them. In both cases they could have presented their opponents with a deadline for meeting the concessions they had offered. Nor could the allies argue that the offers were not worth considering because they were inadequate: both the Taliban and Saddam were attempting to open negotiations, not to close them - there appeared to be plenty of scope for bargaining. In other words, peaceful resolutions were rejected before they were attempted. What this means is that even if all the other legal tests for these wars had been met (they had not), both would still have been waged in defiance of international law. The charter of the United Nations specifies that "the parties to any dispute...shall, first of all, seek a solution by negotiation".
None of this matters to the enthusiasts for war. That these conflicts were unjust and illegal, that they killed or maimed tens of thousands of civilians, is irrelevant, as long as their aims were met. So the hawks should ponder this. Had a peaceful resolution of these disputes been attempted, Bin Laden might now be in custody, Iraq might be a pliant and largely peaceful nation finding its own way to democracy, and the prevailing sentiment within the Muslim world might be sympathy for the United States, rather than anger and resentment.
Now who are the dreamers and the useful idiots, and who the pragmatists?
· www.monbiot.com
Tuesday, September 23, 2003
Wednesday, September 03, 2003
Tuesday, September 02, 2003
The Bush administration has done a lot of foolish and irresponsible things, but perhaps none as arrogant and hubristic as assuming that the situation in Iraq would be under control well before it became a liability in the '04 political campaign. We are now faced with the possibility that the crucial decisions the White House makes on Iraq will be made under extreme political pressure. I'm not optimistic...
Friday, August 29, 2003
Sunday, August 24, 2003
Friday, August 22, 2003
A federal judge has just dismissed the FOX News lawsuit against humorist Al Franken. He had used the line "Fair and Balanced" in the subtitle of his new book, and FOX claimed that it had proprietary rights to the phrase. The blogosphere responded immediately with a flurry of bloggers adding 'Fair and Balanced' to the headers on their sites. Now I can remove that "fair and balanced" line from the header on my blog and go back to being a shrill and and biased liberal.
Tuesday, August 19, 2003
Here's my all-time favorite African email scam letter. This one features a humanitarian angle....
Dear Friend,
Though I know that a transaction of this magnitude will make any one apprehensive and worried,but I am assuring you that everything will be well at the end of the day. I have decided to contact you due to the urgency of this transaction.
Let me start by introducing myself properly to you. I am Mr.Jeffrey Mbuzo,External Auditor,NedBank Plc, Johannesburg-South Africa.
THE PROPOSITION:
A Foreigner, a french, Late Engr.Jean claude Pierre (Snr), a staff of Witwaterstrand Gold Mining Coy South Africa,until his death months ago in Kenya Air Bus (A310 - 300)Flight KQ430,banked with us at NedBank Plc Johannesburg- South Africa,and had a closing balance as at the end of September, 2000 worth $33,800.000.00 (Thirty Three Million eight hundred United State Dollars), (this is aside the accrued interest so far from that date) the bank now expects next of kin as beneficiary.Concerted efforts made by the management of NedBank Plc Johannesburg- South Africa to get in touch with any of the Pierre's Family or Relatives proved abortive.
It is because of the perceived possibility of not being able to locate any of Late Engr. Jean Claude Pierre(Snr.)'s next of kin (He had no wife or children that is known to us according to his immigration data available to the bank),that the Management, under the influence of our Chairman and Members of the Board of Directors,concluded arrangement for the fund to be decleared "Unclaimed" and subsequentlly be donated as trust fund for arms/ ammunition to further enhance the course of War in Africa and the World in General.
In order to avert this negative development, some of my trusted colleagues and I now seek your assistance to stand as next of kin to the late Engr. Jean Claude Pierre (Snr.) so that the fund will be released and paid into your Account as the beneficiary/ next of kin.
All validating and authenticating documents to enable you get this fund will be carefully worked out. We have secured from the probate registry, an order of Mandamus to locate any of the deceased beneficiaries, and more so we are assuring you that this business is 100% Risk Free.
Your share will be 30% of the total sum while the rest will be for myself and my colleagues for investment purposes, according to agreement between both parties. For the successful completion of this task, you'll be required to claim the funds after documentation in our offshore clearing centre in Holland or London with the assistance of one of our collegues,who will be willing to talk with you on phone as soon as possible. We shall arrange to change the name of beneficiary in your favour in NedBank Plc, Johannesburg-South Africa.
Kindly indicate your interest to enable us, with your assistance,move the fund to our offshore clearing house in London or Holland without any transfer fee payable by you. Please note that for the purposes of confidentiality, all further correspondences would be through my alternative email address:zojefff1@mail.com
Accept my warm regards as I await your response.
Sincerely,
Mr.Jeffrey Mbuzo
Dear Friend,
Though I know that a transaction of this magnitude will make any one apprehensive and worried,but I am assuring you that everything will be well at the end of the day. I have decided to contact you due to the urgency of this transaction.
Let me start by introducing myself properly to you. I am Mr.Jeffrey Mbuzo,External Auditor,NedBank Plc, Johannesburg-South Africa.
THE PROPOSITION:
A Foreigner, a french, Late Engr.Jean claude Pierre (Snr), a staff of Witwaterstrand Gold Mining Coy South Africa,until his death months ago in Kenya Air Bus (A310 - 300)Flight KQ430,banked with us at NedBank Plc Johannesburg- South Africa,and had a closing balance as at the end of September, 2000 worth $33,800.000.00 (Thirty Three Million eight hundred United State Dollars), (this is aside the accrued interest so far from that date) the bank now expects next of kin as beneficiary.Concerted efforts made by the management of NedBank Plc Johannesburg- South Africa to get in touch with any of the Pierre's Family or Relatives proved abortive.
It is because of the perceived possibility of not being able to locate any of Late Engr. Jean Claude Pierre(Snr.)'s next of kin (He had no wife or children that is known to us according to his immigration data available to the bank),that the Management, under the influence of our Chairman and Members of the Board of Directors,concluded arrangement for the fund to be decleared "Unclaimed" and subsequentlly be donated as trust fund for arms/ ammunition to further enhance the course of War in Africa and the World in General.
In order to avert this negative development, some of my trusted colleagues and I now seek your assistance to stand as next of kin to the late Engr. Jean Claude Pierre (Snr.) so that the fund will be released and paid into your Account as the beneficiary/ next of kin.
All validating and authenticating documents to enable you get this fund will be carefully worked out. We have secured from the probate registry, an order of Mandamus to locate any of the deceased beneficiaries, and more so we are assuring you that this business is 100% Risk Free.
Your share will be 30% of the total sum while the rest will be for myself and my colleagues for investment purposes, according to agreement between both parties. For the successful completion of this task, you'll be required to claim the funds after documentation in our offshore clearing centre in Holland or London with the assistance of one of our collegues,who will be willing to talk with you on phone as soon as possible. We shall arrange to change the name of beneficiary in your favour in NedBank Plc, Johannesburg-South Africa.
Kindly indicate your interest to enable us, with your assistance,move the fund to our offshore clearing house in London or Holland without any transfer fee payable by you. Please note that for the purposes of confidentiality, all further correspondences would be through my alternative email address:zojefff1@mail.com
Accept my warm regards as I await your response.
Sincerely,
Mr.Jeffrey Mbuzo
Saturday, August 16, 2003
Friday, August 15, 2003
From BuzzFlash:
"In June of 2001, Bush opposed and the congressional GOP voted down legislation to provide $350 million worth of loans to modernize the nation's power grid because of known weaknesses in reliability and capacity. Supporters of the amendment pointed to studies by the Energy Department showing that the grid was in desperate need of upgrades as proof that their legislation sponsored by U.S. Rep. Sam Farr (D-CA) should pass."
"In June of 2001, Bush opposed and the congressional GOP voted down legislation to provide $350 million worth of loans to modernize the nation's power grid because of known weaknesses in reliability and capacity. Supporters of the amendment pointed to studies by the Energy Department showing that the grid was in desperate need of upgrades as proof that their legislation sponsored by U.S. Rep. Sam Farr (D-CA) should pass."
Tuesday, August 12, 2003
A very astute observation about conservative death penalty supporters from Tim Dunlop, Australian blogger:
"One thing that always strikes me as weird is that it often seems to be the very people who purport to hate "government" the most, and would't trust it to do anything competently or honestly who are most willing to hand the power of life and death to the very organisation that is the usual object of their ire and contempt."
"One thing that always strikes me as weird is that it often seems to be the very people who purport to hate "government" the most, and would't trust it to do anything competently or honestly who are most willing to hand the power of life and death to the very organisation that is the usual object of their ire and contempt."
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