David Neiwert is worth reading no matter what he’s writing about. His regular blog, Orcinus, is the best site on the web for keeping in touch with the activities of home-grown American hate groups and various groundswells of racism and terror in the U.S.
He has a piece up this week at The American Street, which addresses a different subject, one I haven’t read about before: various attempts to reclaim land from Indian tribes in the western U.S., land given in treaties long ago and since grabbed away at every chance. These are things I figured were settled long ago, but apparently there are quite a few people in this country who don’t like having theoretically sovereign Indian tribes in this country. His writing on this rings clear, as all his writing does, and it’s a subject that matters. Thanks, David.
National Guard needs more recruits
Since joining the National Guard is now equivalent to enlisting for active duty in a war zone, with no certainty you’ll be allowed to return home once your shift is up, it’s not surprising to find that the Army National Guard is having trouble meeting recruitment goals.
Such is the plight of the Indiana National Guard, struggling to boost its numbers at a time when potential recruits are retreating because of the war in Iraq. Since 2001, the Guard
If Iran goes nuclear…
A story today in the Christian Science Monitor implies that Bush is taking a softer approach to Iran. I’m not sure that’s believeable, but here it is:
Yet Mr. Bush’s recent rhetoric on the topic has been nuanced – gone is the word “intolerable.” The shift may suggest two things: first, a realization that diplomatic options are limited, and second, a realization that Iran has tremendous means of influencing events in Iraq.
The chances for a nuclear arms race in the Middle East grow enormously if Iran gets the bomb.
An “overtly” nuclear Iran could result in a “large nuclear crowd in the Middle East,” Mr. Sokolski says: Israel would go public with the nuclear armament it has been mum about, which in turn would put tremendous pressure on Egypt to stand shoulder to shoulder in the nuclear club. Syria, Algeria, Saudi Arabia – which would feel threatened by Iran’s new status – would also feel pressed to ratchet up what are assumed to be varying existing programs.
Though it’s likely to be a few years yet before Iran could finish a working bomb, that’s a short time frame for any chance of finding a peaceful resolution. Though Iran recently agreed to temporarily halt its uranium enrichment program, that agreement is fairly unstable and may not last.
In any event, the Bush administration remains deeply skeptical of the prospects for the European plan to derail Iran’s nuclear ambitions. One reason is that over recent years Iran’s nuclear program has become tightly bound with national pride, thus making it all the more difficult for a regime – particularly one whose popularity is already on the wane – to give it up.
Personally I think there’s a more immediate threat in Pakistan, which already has a bomb and has close ties with allies of Al Queada, if not with Al Quaeda itself. I’d like to find some good reporting on how strong Musharraf is and how likely his government is to fail. If I can find some, I’ll bring it back here. In the meantime, Iran is going to be a hot spot for some time to come, even if we don’t invade.
Assault on the Baghdad insurgents
Sunni insurgents have taken up residence in the areas south of Baghdad, and from there have been launching attacks on the city. Today a combined force of 5,000 U.S. military, British troops, and Iraqi security forces launched a massive assault on the area, in an attempt to rout out the attackers there. While the Fallujah campaign has mostly wrapped up, violence has been non-stop in other areas of Iraq.
Hawks call for troop reduction
Finally, there’s something the hawks and I agree on.
A growing number of national security specialists who supported the toppling of Saddam Hussein are moving to a position unthinkable even a few months ago: that the large US military presence is impeding stability as much as contributing to it and that the United States should begin major reductions in troops beginning early next year
UPDATE: I only agree if they aren’t recalled in order to invade Iran, of course.
Geek Aid
My friend Mike Knell of uffish.net is starting a new project he calls Geek Aid. He aims to get Geeks (web and IT workers, programmers, etc.) to donate one day’s pay per year to a charity fund, to be used for IT infrastructure, sustainability projects, and other things such as disaster relief for underdeveloped nations. That’s only two minutes worth of pay each day, he points out.
It’s a worthy project, so please go read his description, and if you get a chance, pass the link around.
Bush in a nutshell
Whose library is it, anyway? Junior can’t defer to anyone. His Christian spirit in action, I guess.
Why I worry
Just in time to fuel my concerns about the falling dollar and the deficit, Atrios links to an article in the Boston Herald in which Steven Roach, chief economist at Morgan Stanley, is quoted as saying that at this moment in time, the U.S. has a 90% chance of facing “economic armageddon”. He thinks there is a 30% chance of a slump soon, though we may muddle through a bit longer before the inevitable downturn.
He predicts Greenspan will be forced to raise interest rates even faster, and that U.S. consumers, who are loaded with debt at the moment, will get pounded. Thank heavens for my nice, fixed-rate mortgage. People with adjustable rates on their homes may well face losing everything, if interest rates really begin to rise.
And here I was hoping that the experts were going to allay my fears, not compound them. But it’s pretty clear that we can’t continue to borrow 80% of the world’s net savings, day after day after day. That well has a definite bottom to it, and we’ll hit it sooner or later.
Did Bush lie?
Maybe he was just confused. Word is he wasn’t very lucid back then. From an NBC Nightly news interview with Billy Graham:
That’s something the current president says he did during a now-famous talk with Billy Graham, at a time when drinking and carousing threatened to lead George W. Bush astray. It
55 per cent
That’s Bush’s current approval rating according to CNN/Gallup/USA Today. I thought he hadn’t been above 50% in at least a year.
So what’s up with that? It’s certainly not because he’s solved the deficit problem (he hasn’t) or because the war in Iraq is going well (it’s not). He couldn’t even get intelligence reform passed when his party controls both houses of Congress! Indeed the American people must be a little bit delusional. “We voted him back in, therefore he must be doing a good job.” Definitely not reality-based.