Musing's musings

Madness

Just before the United States invaded Iraq in 2003, Dick Cheney went on Press the Meat and pooh-poohed Tim Russert's estimates of how much the war would cost:

MR. RUSSERT: Every analysis said this war itself would cost about $80 billion, recovery of Baghdad, perhaps of Iraq, about $10 billion per year. We should expect as American citizens that this would cost at least $100 billion for a two-year involvement.

VICE PRES. CHENEY: I can’t say that, Tim. There are estimates out there. It’s important, though, to recognize that we’ve got a different set of circumstances than we’ve had in Afghanistan. In Afghanistan you’ve got a nation without significant resources. In Iraq you’ve got a nation that’s got the second-largest oil reserves in the world, second only to Saudi Arabia. It will generate billions of dollars a year in cash flow if they get back to their production of roughly three million barrels of oil a day, in the relatively near future. And that flow of resources, obviously, belongs to the Iraqi people, needs to be put to use by the Iraqi people for the Iraqi people and that will be one of our major objectives.

As it turns out, Russert's estimate was pretty egregiously lowball. As of the time of this posting, the Iraq war has cost us more than $720 billion (at a rough estimate). The Afghanistan war that President Obama is ratcheting up in the latest of a long line of futile attempts by western colonial powers to control that particular neck of the woods, has cost us on the order of $270 billion. Total spending on those two wars since 2001 (including enforcement, logistics, etc.) is already more than $1 trillion.

According to the National Priorities Project, if we hadn't flushed that $1.05 trillion down the toilet, here are some of the things we could have gotten for the same amount of money:

• health care for 308,396,946 people for one year
• 22,599,968 public safety officers for one year
• 17,944,326 music and arts teachers for one year
• 132,716,897 one-year scholarships for university students
• Pell Grants ($5,550 each) for 188,536,667 university students
• 8,139,680 affordable housing units
• health care for one year for 461,193,337 children
• Head Start placements for 143,595,239 children for one year
• 17,188,969 elementary school teachers for one year
• 1,083,271,391 homes with renewable electricity for one year

(Note that each of those items costs around $1.05 trillion; unfortunately, we couldn't get all of them for that same amount.)

A few other things we could have gotten for $1.05 trillion, off the top of my head:

• a balanced budget;
• 105 years' worth of funding for basic research at the National Science Foundation at $10 billion per year, the level NSF's budget is projected to reach at the end of the current doubling process--in 2017;
• 33 years' worth of funding for health research at the National Institutes of Health, at current funding levels;
• 52.5 years' worth of NASA funding at its projected FY2011 level of $20 billion;
• 6 months' worth of free health care for everyone in the United States, assuming no economies of scale or other savings would be realized from a single-payer system, based on total costs in 2008;
• a year's worth of HIV medication for two-thirds of the approximately 30 million people infected with HIV worldwide, assuming $50,000 per person per year

It's long past time to end these senseless wastes of our national time, talent, and treasure. If for no other reason than that we can no longer afford them.

Stories from the Frontlines: Former Army First Lieutenant, Laura Slattery

I'm going to be participating in SLDN's "Stories from the Frontlines" campaign to encourage (I'd prefer to say "force") President Obama to live up to his promise, in the 2010 State of the Union address, that he would end "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" this year. I won't go into the whole sordid history of that promise and the backpedaling the Obama administration has since done on it. Suffice it to say that he made the promise, and he told us himself on the night he was elected that it was up to us to hold his feet to the fire and make him do what he promised. Consider this ongoing effort part of that process.

"Stories from the Frontlines: Letters to President Barack Obama" is a new media campaign launched to underscore the urgent need for congressional action and presidential leadership at this critical point in the fight to repeal "Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell" (DADT). Every weekday morning as we approach the markup of the Defense Authorization bill in the Senate and House Armed Services Committees, SLDN and a coalition of voices supporting repeal, will share an open letter to the President from a person impacted by this discriminatory law. We are urging the President to include repeal in the Administration’s defense budget recommendations, but also to voice his support as we work to muster the 15 critical votes needed on the Senate Armed Services Committee to include repeal. The Defense Authorization bill represents the best legislative vehicle to bring repeal to the president’s desk. It also was the same vehicle used to pass DADT in 1993. By working together, we can help build momentum to get the votes! We ask that you forward and post these personal stories.

May 5, 2010

President Barack H. Obama
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue Northwest
Washington, DC 20500

Dear Mr. President,

I may be stating perhaps an obvious truism: Love is confusing. As a friend and, later in life, a chaplain, I have counseled many as they tried to navigate the toughest of love‘s questions: Is this the person I should marry? Is this infatuation or love, and how can I know the difference? Should I take the relationship to the next level?

The first time I fell in love, it was just as confusing. I knew I was in love, but with a woman. It was a severe test for me. I had never been in a same-sex relationship and didn't see myself as gay. Yet the fact remained — I was in love.

Adding to the confusion, and the fear of the whole experience (love can be scary enough on its own!), was the fact that I had just graduated from West Point and was serving as a Second Lieutenant (2LT) at Schofield Barracks.

I had gone to West Point, to a large degree, because of the code of honor. Integrity has always been, of all the values, the one I hold most dear. My mother had graduated from UCLA and I remember clearly the day she told me how disappointed she was when she saw some of her students buying and selling papers they had written.

At that moment I thought: Nope, that is not going to happen to me. I am going to a school that matches my desire and need for honesty and integrity.

So there I was – in love with a woman – and a brand new 2LT on a small island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

The easiest thing for me to do -- and the course of action I tried -- was to encourage myself to run from love. I also considered confiding in others, but given the horror stories of investigations and removals from duty, I decided against it. The thought of the shame of being interrogated and kicked out of the Service for something I wasn't even sure I was (a lesbian!), was too much to bear.

In the short three years that I was on active duty, I was Airborne and Air Assault (first female Distinguished Honor Graduate). During the First Gulf War, I volunteered to go to Iraq. Due to the needs of the Army, however, I remained in the Pacific – working in the 25th Infantry Division.

The values of physical work, integrity, service and team building made the Army an almost ideal place for me. I may have continued serving if I had felt more a part of the team.

I was well-liked and had friends, but not being able to share the biggest struggle in my life (and the biggest joy) with my peers and military friends prevented me from really forming the kind of friendships that one needs to feel as an integral part of a team.

It’s the warmth and support of a team that is truly needed for real "unit cohesion" among the officer corps and with the troops. It is necessary to continue to risk life and limb for each other.

In the end we risked everything not only for our country, but for our country personified in and by our buddies, members of that integral team. Not feeling that, I resigned my commission in September of 1991.

If I can be so bold, Mr. President: we need to help soldiers, and all people really, develop healthy understandings of what it is to be human, divorced from antiquated stereotypes about gender and gender roles.

"Macho" has no place in the modern professional Army; put downs and negative comparisons to the feminine are also hurtful to the Esprit de Corps of the Forces.

I know that you have based your Administration on creating a culture of respect for difference, of developing your version of "unit cohesion" based on the values of inclusion and diversity, not in spite of them.

This is the direction that the military needs to go, and it can start by repealing DADT now.

Sincerely,

Former First Lieutenant Laura Slattery
United States Army

Stories from the Frontlines: Former Air Force SSGt Anthony Loverde

I'm going to be participating in SLDN's "Stories from the Frontlines" campaign to encourage (I'd prefer to say "force") President Obama to live up to his promise, in the 2010 State of the Union address, that he would end "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" this year. I won't go into the whole sordid history of that promise and the backpedaling the Obama administration has since done on it. Suffice it to say that he made the promise, and he told us himself on the night he was elected that it was up to us to hold his feet to the fire and make him do what he promised. Consider this ongoing effort part of that process.

"Stories from the Frontlines: Letters to President Barack Obama" is a new media campaign launched to underscore the urgent need for congressional action and presidential leadership at this critical point in the fight to repeal "Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell" (DADT). Every weekday morning as we approach the markup of the Defense Authorization bill in the Senate and House Armed Services Committees, SLDN and a coalition of voices supporting repeal, will share an open letter to the President from a person impacted by this discriminatory law. We are urging the President to include repeal in the Administration’s defense budget recommendations, but also to voice his support as we work to muster the 15 critical votes needed on the Senate Armed Services Committee to include repeal. The Defense Authorization bill represents the best legislative vehicle to bring repeal to the president’s desk. It also was the same vehicle used to pass DADT in 1993. By working together, we can help build momentum to get the votes! We ask that you forward and post these personal stories.

May 4, 2010

President Barack H. Obama
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue Northwest
Washington, DC 20500

Dear Mr. President,

They called me "vapor" --

As a little boy, I always had an interest in serving in the U.S. military. Both my grandfathers served in the Korean conflict, an uncle in Vietnam and I soon became the first of my generation to serve, followed by my brother and a few of my cousins.

After entering the Air Force in February of 2001, I eventually was promoted to Staff Sergeant. Although successful in my job as a Precision Measurement Equipment Laboratory (PMEL) technician, I was still coming to terms of being a gay man.

I struggled with my faith that told me it was a sin. I couldn't talk to the Chaplain Corps because I had read about gays being discharged after coming out to a chaplain. And so, I continued to internalize my struggle with accepting myself, my faith and how I must live under "don't ask, don’t tell."

As my separation date approached, many of my supervisors offered career-counseling. They all said the same thing: "Tony, you need to consider re-enlisting. You are the kind of Airman that the USAF needs to retain. You have a bright future in the Air Force and it would be a great loss to see you leave."

They often times would ask why I wanted to leave, and I always replied: "I don't like wearing hats."

Eventually, I changed my mind and was able to better manage living under DADT. I applied for cross training into C-130 Loadmaster and was accepted. I figured the high ops-tempo; frequent deployments and lack of down time would make for a great environment to keep me so busy that I just wouldn't have time to be gay.

I thought it was a brilliant plan.

As a distinguished graduate from Loadmaster training, I quickly established myself as a top-notch troop with the 37th Airlift Squadron at Ramstein Air Force Base in Germany. Within four months of my arrival, I had completed my upgrade training and was mission ready. I deployed to Ali Al Salem, Kuwait, in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom.

But deployment can take its toll. I couldn’t lie to my fellow troops -- my friends -- anymore. I delayed coming out as to not compromise our mission and waited until we returned to Germany. At first, I ended up avoiding them as much as possible.

They nicknamed me "vapor" -- as soon as we hit the ground, I would disappear.

I didn't avoid them because I didn't like them, I avoided them because I respected them enough to not have to lie and burden them with my secret.

When I arrived in Germany, I sent an email to my First Sergeant to tell him I wanted to speak with my commander about being gay and not wanting to abide by DADT any longer. My commander said I served honorably and they would be there to support me in my transition back to civilian life.

Each one of my past supervisors from the ranks of E7 to E9 wrote character reference letters that requested my retention. My commander and First Sergeant said my character, performance and honorable service was not at question ...it was merely a legal matter.

Upon my discharge, I was hired by global contractor KBR to fill a technical position in Iraq and later in Bagram, Afghanistan. I was once again working with the same Airmen I had worked for on active duty, but this time openly gay. No one had a problem.

I continue to work side by side with members of our military -- each of them knowing me as a gay man -- and it has caused no impact on the mission. My contracting job for the Department of Defense now is the same job I performed when I was in uniform.

Mr. President, we need you to help repeal this law -- this year -- so that my comrades continue to work in a force that retains the best and brightest based on performance rather than sexual orientation. Our men and women in the military deserve better. Listen to them, and, please, sir, do not turn your back on us.

Very Respectfully,

Former SSgt. Anthony Loverde
United States Air Force

Stories from the Frontlines: Former Petty Officer 3C Joseph Rocha

I'm going to be participating in SLDN's "Stories from the Frontlines" campaign to encourage (I'd prefer to say "force") President Obama to live up to his promise, in the 2010 State of the Union address, that he would end "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" this year. I won't go into the whole sordid history of that promise and the backpedaling the Obama administration has since done on it. Suffice it to say that he made the promise, and he told us himself on the night he was elected that it was up to us to hold his feet to the fire and make him do what he promised. Consider this ongoing effort part of that process.

"Stories from the Frontlines: Letters to President Barack Obama" is a new media campaign launched to underscore the urgent need for congressional action and presidential leadership at this critical point in the fight to repeal "Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell" (DADT). Every weekday morning as we approach the markup of the Defense Authorization bill in the Senate and House Armed Services Committees, SLDN and a coalition of voices supporting repeal, will share an open letter to the President from a person impacted by this discriminatory law. We are urging the President to include repeal in the Administration’s defense budget recommendations, but also to voice his support as we work to muster the 15 critical votes needed on the Senate Armed Services Committee to include repeal. The Defense Authorization bill represents the best legislative vehicle to bring repeal to the president’s desk. It also was the same vehicle used to pass DADT in 1993. By working together, we can help build momentum to get the votes! We ask that you forward and post these personal stories.

May 3, 2010

President Barack H. Obama
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue Northwest
Washington, DC 20500

Dear Mr. President,

After the recent letter by Secretary of Defense Robert Gates recommended the repeal of "Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell" be delayed, this is my plea to you on the behalf of the soldiers serving in silence to end this law now:

I never wanted anything more in my life than to be a career officer. My entire childhood I was exposed to abuse, violence, and crime. I came out of it all with a simple, yet overwhelming desire to serve. When my first attempt at getting into the Naval Academy failed, I waited restlessly until I turned eighteen. I enlisted on my birthday and set off to prove myself to the Academy. I was eager to leave the cruelty of my past and join a true family.

I knew I was gay, but it was irrelevant to me then. I was determined to join an elite team of handlers working with dogs trained to detect explosives. As I studied hard to pass exams and complete training, I was convinced that the current law would protect me. I knew that based on merit and achievement I would excel in the military.

I never told anyone I was gay. But a year and a half later while serving in the Middle East, I was tormented by my chief and fellow sailors, physically and emotionally, as they had their suspicions. The irony of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" is that it protects bigots and punishes gays who comply.

Shop talk in the unit revolved around sex, either the prostitute-filled parties of days past or the escapades my comrades looked forward to. They interpreted my silence and total lack of interest as an admission of homosexuality. My higher-ups seemed to think that gave them the right to bind me to chairs, ridicule me, hose me down and lock me in a feces-filled dog kennel.

On one day in the Middle East, I was ordered by a superior to get down on my hands and knees and simulate oral sex on a person working in the kennel. We were supposed to pretend that we were in our bedroom and that the dogs were catching us in the act. Over and over, with each of the dogs in our unit, I was forced to endure this scenario.

I told no one about what I was living through. I feared that reporting the abuse would lead to an investigation into my sexuality. Frankly, as we continue to delay the repeal of this horrible law, I can’t help but wonder how many people find themselves in similar, despicable situations and remain silent. My anger today doesn’t come from the abuse, but rather from the inhumanity of a standing law that allowed for it.

Three and a half years later when the Navy started investigating claims of hazing, I had finally earned my place at the Naval Academy Preparatory School. But instead of celebration, I began to question the life of persecution, degradation, and dishonor DADT had forced on me. I questioned the institution -- our great military -- that would condone and endorse this kind of treatment of its own members. The only thing I had ever done wrong was to want the same thing my straight counterparts wanted: a brotherhood and something to stand for.

At NAPS I realized that a career of service under DADT would be a forfeiture of my basic human rights. It would be a forfeiture of basic job security, peace of mind, and meaningful relationships, particularly with my fellow straight service members whom I was forced to deceive and betray.

After completing a six-week officer candidate boot camp, my commanders said they wanted to offer me a leadership role. But after what happened in the Middle East and even the suicide of my close friend, I was mentally and emotionally depleted. And so -- with my knees buckling -- I offered my statement of resignation in writing:

"I am a homosexual. I deeply regret that my personal feelings are not compatible with Naval regulations or policy. I am proud of my service and had hoped I would be able to serve the Navy and the country for my entire career. However, the principles of honor, courage and commitment mean I must be honest with myself, courageous in my beliefs, and committed in my action. I understand that this statement will be used to end my Naval career."

They say some people are just born designed for military service. It‘s the way we are wired, and the only thing that makes us happy. For too many of us, it‘s the only family we ever had. I am sure now, more than ever, after all the loss and hardship under DADT, that all I want to do is serve as a career military officer.

Mr. President, any delay in repeal is a clear signal to our troops that their gay brothers and sisters in arms are not equal to them. I plead that you take the lead -- fight for repeal -- and allow qualified men and women to serve their country.

Very respectfully,

Joseph Christopher Rocha
Former Petty Officer Third Class, U.S. Navy

Stories from the Frontlines: Former Army Capt. Rebecca H. Elliott

I'm going to be participating in SLDN's "Stories from the Frontlines" campaign to encourage (I'd prefer to say "force") President Obama to live up to his promise, in the 2010 State of the Union address, that he would end "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" this year. I won't go into the whole sordid history of that promise and the backpedaling the Obama administration has since done on it. Suffice it to say that he made the promise, and he told us himself on the night he was elected that it was up to us to hold his feet to the fire and make him do what he promised. Consider this ongoing effort part of that process.

"Stories from the Frontlines: Letters to President Barack Obama" is a new media campaign launched to underscore the urgent need for congressional action and presidential leadership at this critical point in the fight to repeal "Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell" (DADT). Every weekday morning as we approach the markup of the Defense Authorization bill in the Senate and House Armed Services Committees, SLDN and a coalition of voices supporting repeal, will share an open letter to the President from a person impacted by this discriminatory law. We are urging the President to include repeal in the Administration’s defense budget recommendations, but also to voice his support as we work to muster the 15 critical votes needed on the Senate Armed Services Committee to include repeal. The Defense Authorization bill represents the best legislative vehicle to bring repeal to the president’s desk. It also was the same vehicle used to pass DADT in 1993. By working together, we can help build momentum to get the votes! We ask that you forward and post these personal stories.

April 30, 2010

President Barack H. Obama
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue Northwest
Washington, DC 20500

Dear Mr. President,

I am the mother of two young children, and an Iraq war veteran. I joined up just like my dad – a retired Army officer – and my sister, who currently serves in the Guard. My brother is a reservist and has been deployed to both Iraq and Afghanistan. Two weeks ago, our family gathered together as he is leaving again for Afghanistan -- his 4th deployment. Even my husband, Jay, served as an officer in the Air Force until 2008.

Like my dad, I chose the Army. I reached the rank of Captain and was a platoon leader in the military police. I was there during the invasion of Iraq in 2003.

I had some of the best NCO's (non-commissioned officers) in the Army who could accomplish any mission. Several members of my platoon received decorations for valor during the combat phase of Operation Iraqi Freedom.

On my last day of active duty, some of my old squad leaders revealed to me that one of my former team leaders was gay. They figured it was safe to tell me, as I was leaving the Army. My first feelings on the matter were, frankly, a little surprised, followed by complete indifference.

I was surprised because I had never suspected the soldier of being gay. But then, I never really had any thoughts about her sexual orientation whatsoever.

When I reflected on it, it didn't make one bit of difference in how she performed her job or how she related to the other soldiers in the platoon. She had the respect of her squad leaders (fairly conservative men, mind you), who kept her secret and continued working with her side-by-side for years.

As an officer, I would have been bound by my position to report such "credible information" that would have led to the discharge of a great NCO. I am glad that I was never placed in the position of having to choose between one of my soldiers and enforcing this terrible law, which I feel is unfair and wrong.

Please, Mr. President – at this critical time – do not allow those serving their country to be forced to choose between good, honorable soldiers, and upholding an unfair law.

Please, do not continue to allow gays and lesbians in the service to have to choose between hiding a part of their identity and continuing to serve their country.

Please, help Congress repeal "Don't Ask Don't Tell" now.

Respectfully,

Former Capt. Rebecca H. Elliott
United States Army

"Don't ask, don't tell": Don't keep it

According to Agence-France Presse, a federal appeals court in Boston has thrown out Major Margaret Witt's lawsuit challenging the Pentagon's (in)famous "don't ask, don't tell, don't pursue" policy. The court, striking down a previous ruling by a San Francisco appeals court (and I'm dying to know how an appellate court in Boston has jurisdiction over an appellate court in San Francisco--but this one is headed to the U.S. Supreme Court as sure as the sun rises in the east, unless there's some awfully quick fixin' done on Capitol Hill, about which I am, shall we say, less than entirely sanguine), argued that the courts owe "special deference" to Congress on matters regarding military policy.

That deference is quite traditional. It is, I would argue, equally wrong-headed, at least in some circumstances. I would not expect a court to get involved in a dispute, say, between a battalion commander and his or her superior officer about which was the correct strategy to employ to achieve a given tactical objective. But when it comes to something as fundamental as the right of any citizen to serve in this nation's armed forces without being discriminated against on the basis of any invidious characterization, that's another kettle of fish entirely. And that, ultimately, is exactly what Major Witt's lawsuit is about.

The Pentagon itself admitted, not long after the policy was implemented in the early 1990s, that it was fundamentally wrong-headed. That fact has been amply and repeatedly reiterated in the nearly two decades since then, each and every time we hear about another qualified officer or linguist or servicemember being kicked out--in what the Hedgemony is forever proclaiming to be a time of war--for the simple and irrelevant fact that s/he is sexually attracted to members of the same gender.

Big fat hairy fuckin' deal. Most of our major defense partners allow openly gay or lesbian individuals who are otherwise qualified to serve in their armed forces. They don't report discovering mass orgies in the gang showers, or massive desertions (or even requests for transfer) when "the unit" discovers "one of them" in its ranks. The world has not, to the best of my knowledge and belief, come to an end--and I think we are on safe ground in concluding that it will not do so should the United States decide to stop wasting valuable personnel whom it desperately needs in uniform, just because those individuals happen to be gay or lesbian or bisexual.

It's time for TSA to put up or shut up

Just ahead of the busiest travel week of the year, the Transportation Security Terrorist Supply Administration has major egg on its face, in the wake of a report showing that screeners routinely missed potential bomb components in covert tests across the country:

In one set of tests, however, investigators were stopped for having items in a bag larger than quart-size but were allowed to proceed through a checkpoint without being forced to transfer the items to a smaller bag. At another airport, a screener stopped a tester carrying a small, unlabeled bottle of medicated shampoo, saying "it could contain acid," but did not recognize an actual liquid explosive carried separately by the tester.

In other examples, an investigator carried coins in his pockets to trigger a hand-wand and pat-down search but brought bomb components through without notice.

This is not a surprise to anyone who travels frequently. I can't count the number of times I've been standing there, shoeless, in a security line, and heard a passenger ahead of me or in an adjacent line being warned about personal care products that are in containers too large to be carried on under current regulations, or not in the stupid bags that we're supposed to use, even as I walk through the scanner with a forgotten pocketknife in my jeans, or unbagged containers of liquids (hand sanitizer, saline nasal spray, or decongestant--obviously, I'm a terrorist) in my carryon bag. Our airport security is a classic case of swallowing camels and straining at gnats.

Predictably, the GAO report that announced the findings of the tests calls for even more stringent measures. I would argue that we really ought to drop the premise that the TSA is contributing anything worthwhile to airline security and completely revamp the way we handle security screenings. The answer is not to make passengers show up naked and banning carry-on luggage altogether, though I'm sure there's a bureaucrat who's proposed something along those lines. The answer is to get serious about what we're looking for, what we need to worry about, and who is likely to carry it.

We can throw out the assumption that it is only scarybrownpeople or Muslims Islamojihadifascists that we need to worry about: not only are those assumptions racist at base, they're fundamentally stupid. Sure, al Qaeda is significantly pissed at us right now--but they're hardly the only ones. And unlike the TSA which is living proof of Newton's First Law of Motion (specifically the part about inertia), al Qaeda and other serious terrorist groups are smart enough to think ahead and recruit ordinary-looking, innocuous white people to carry their water (or whatever) onto our planes.

We don't need to worry about shoe bombs. Not only was the only person who ever attempted such a thing caught, have you ever tried bending down to do anything with your shoes in the average economy-class airline seat lately? It would be significantly easier to hold a 10-person orgy in an airplane lavatory. U.S. airports are, to the best of my knowledge and in my experience, the only ones in the world where passengers are required to take their shoes off to go through security. (And I can't believe the number of people I see going through without socks on, standing barefoot on floors that God knows who has tracked up with God knows what kind of nasty gunk.) Yet, strangely in the TSA's view, I feel safer flying out of Charles de Gaulle in Paris, or Ben Gurion in Tel Aviv. I may not have to take off my shoes in either of those latter airports, but I'll damn sure get more than a cursory look from the security personnel, and they will actually look at (and sometimes into) my luggage. Repeatedly. It may not be as geek-cool as some of the high-tech scanners TSA is apparently wanting to deploy, which would allow them to virtually strip passengers passing through security checkpoints, but unlike the high-tech toys, the security measures in Paris and Tel Aviv actually appear to work.

Neither, unless I'm flying back to the United States, do I have to limit the size of the liquid containers I bring on board with me, or put them in a plastic bag. (Really, what the hell does that do to facilitate the screening process?) In my more cynical moments, I'm inclined to suspect that TSA uses such measures more as a public-relations campaign to lull travelers into a false sense of security.

And that, I suspect, is the crux of the matter right there. TSA seems to be far more interested in appearing to be effective than in actually being effective. And that's not acceptable. I'm willing to put up with a few inconveniences in return for a reasonable expectation that I will not be injured or killed in a terrorist action when I board a plane to go on a vacation or business trip. But there are limits to what I'm willing to put up with without griping--and I have absolutely no patience for purely cosmetic measures. Given that, on a good day, TSA screenings appear to be good for little more than providing the illusion of security, I'm growing less and less willing to continue putting up with them.

No wonder they can't catch terrorists

Apparently they're too busy looking for reading tips:

The U.S. government is collecting electronic records on the travel habits of millions of Americans who fly, drive or take cruises abroad, retaining data on the persons with whom they travel or plan to stay, the personal items they carry during their journeys, and even the books that travelers have carried, according to documents obtained by a group of civil liberties advocates and statements by government officials.

The personal travel records are meant to be stored for as long as 15 years, as part of the Department of Homeland Security's effort to assess the security threat posed by all travelers entering the country. Officials say the records, which are analyzed by the department's Automated Targeting System, help border officials distinguish potential terrorists from innocent people entering the country.

The book thing is what seems to have been getting the most attention around the blogosphere, but I think the rest of the article is far more important. For one thing, having been through quite a few airports (and a couple of customs barriers) in the past year, I frankly doubt that federal agents have either the time or the resources to paw through people's luggage on any kind of a regular basis. Unless they're actually riffling through checked baggage before they allow it to be loaded, they'd have no way of knowing what books most travelers are carrying, as books are transparent to X-rays. (I know: I've carried quite a few of them through quite a few TSA checkpoints.)

Plus, air travel reached record levels this summer, rebounding after several years of decreased volume in the aftermath of the Day That Changed Everything^TM. Airlines, airports, and the TSA itself, on the other hand, either seem not to have noticed the ever-growing flood of people pouring in to avail themselves of their services, or really don't care anymore--because staffing levels have either declined or, at best, remained steady. It already takes a good 25-30 minutes, in my experience, to make it through the security lines at most airports. Taking the time to riffle through everyone's carry-on luggage to look at what sorts of "subversive" materials they might be carrying would effectively double or triple that wait time--and probably quintuple the number of complaints received about the holdups.

It's no skin off my nose if TSA want to see what I'm reading. Chances are good that they wouldn't even understand the titles of a lot of what I carry through airports, since it tends to be academic tomes--and often in foreign languages. I draw the line, however, at suggesting that what someone reads is any real indication of his or her inclination toward terrorism or the overthrow of the U.S. government.

For example, I know a member of our faculty who researches the effects of psychotropic drugs. In his hands, a "book on marijuana," such as the one referenced in the WaPo story linked to above, might mean nothing more than the routine conduct of his academic research. In the same way, I regularly buy, check out of libraries, and carry around with me, books on ethnic cleansing, genocide, fascism, Nazism, and authoritarianism: because I'm an historian, and these are some of the things I study in depth. Doesn't mean I'm planning to emulate anything that I read about.

In fact, when you get right down to it, nobody in her right mind would ever expect such a data-collection enterprise to turn up a real terrorist, unless the terrorist in question were truly stupid--and those are the ones we don't have to worry about. The ones we want the TSA and Homeland Security to catch are the smart ones, the ones that actually have a chance of carrying out their plans. But they are too smart to be caught walking through an airport security check, or crossing an international border, with anything that might potentially reveal their intentions. It would be wonderful if all terrorists were required by some obscure bylaw to carry with them at all times a copy of Terrorism for Dummies (conveniently in English, of course, the better to catch the attention of our sniveling servants who can barely manage to be coherent in one language, let alone two or three)--but that will never happen.

Meanwhile, as they attempt to keep track of People Who Might Cause Them Trouble, our government is quite likely to be missing the people they really ought to be watching. And of course, in order to piece together just who might be likely to give them trouble, the government has to collect far more data than it would like for us to know about, to keep it for far longer than they've promised they would, and to look at it and manipulate it in ways they promised they wouldn't. This should surprise no one--and outrage everyone.

Sound and fury, signifying nothing

Regrettably, that's what I think Democrats' weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth on the Iraq mess is likely to come to for the next 490 days. Not because we're in the wrong, not because we're weak, not because we can't mobilize the people behind us, and not for lack of trying to extricate ourselves from this ginormous clusterfuck that the Boy Who Would Be King seems bound and determined to do his utmost to strap on the back of whoever manages to supplant him 491 days from now.

No, I think our basic problem goes far beyond the superficialities I just mentioned. (Not, regrettably, that my saying so is likely to put an early or a permanent end to the sort of circular firing-squad that seems to break out with great regularity in Left Blogistan these days.) The problem, as I see it, with our arguments is that we are assuming our opponents are behaving rationally. They're not, and they never have been. They're behaving tactically and largely as they have been conditioned to do for decades, from a place of primal fear.

There are, indeed, all manner of perfectly reasonable, rational arguments for why we should never have gone into Iraq in the first place. There are even more perfectly rational, reasonable arguments for why, having gone there, we should now get the hell out with even more speed than we went in. (One of the biggest among them being the survey results in Anbar, the province that the Pretzelnit has now decided is going to be his benchmark du jour of success in Iraq, showing that every single respondent wants our troops the fuck out of their front yards, and three-fourths of them think we should leave right now.)

All of that means bupkes to the Republicans, who have somehow morphed Iraq into a national test of machismo such that if we leave, we'll show the world we're a bunch of cheese-eating surrender monkeys wimps, and so pretty soon the terrrrrists we aren't fighting over there will be showing up on our lawns. A slightly different but related spin is the one the ludicrously named "Freedom's Watch" is trying to put out in its not-exactly-accurate slew of ads demanding that Congress accede to the president's intent to ram his war down the throat of the next president because otherwise the sacrifices we have already made will have been in vain.

I hate to be the one to break the news, sweeties, but there is literally nothing that your man in the White House, anybody in Congress, the entire Orcosphere, or even Superman could do that would prevent those sacrifices from being in vain. They were in vain, they will always have been in vain, and that should have been obvious to any reasonably sentient being with three or more functioning brain cells as long ago as March 2003. That it was not is a sad commentary on the way in which the media, the punditocracy, and, yes, the political parties have managed to debase our national discourse to the point that people are no longer capable of recognizing logical fallacies when they are flung nightly at their heads.

Six years on

We are six years on from the latest date in American history that will live in infamy, to borrow a phrase from a much better orator and a galactically better president than the Boy Who Would Be King could ever hope to be. And what do we have to show for it?

For the most part, bugger all, that's what.

We have not, to any significant degree, done anything to make this nation or its citizens more secure against further attacks by those who perpetrated those of six years ago. Neither have we done much of anything to detain or dispatch the chief architect of those attacks--a fact of which he took great pains to remind us recently in his latest video.

Instead, we have seen six long years of the politics of fear being exploited in the most blatant and bizarre ways, to advance a cynical agenda that benefits the rich and powerful of one political party--and pretty much screws everybody else. There is virtually nothing the Bush régime has done since 11 September 2001 that has in any way made us safer. Quite the opposite, in fact.

They have lied us into, and bullied other nations to join, an ill-advised war that served no useful purpose and responded to no credible threat to our national security or anyone else's. That war, which we were repeatedly told as this administration was lying its way into it, would be quick and cheap and easy, has turned out to be anything but--as any reasonably intelligent primate could have told any of the flacks pushing the president to get it on in the first place.

We broke off our efforts to track down and punish those who were responsible for 11 September 2001 in order to pursue this never-ending freakish sideshow in Iraq. That sideshow is now draining our treasury, wasting the lives and potential of most of a generation of young men and women, and besmirching our good name--and in consequence, our ability to achieve many far more important goals in world politics that might actually make us safer and more secure, and do far more to combat the forces of global terror.