The Alligator

In 1939 Winston Churchill referred to the Soviet Union as a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma. Well- the phrase has been used a few times since (most notably in Oliver Stone’s “JFK”) but it seems incredibly apropos for our current Vice President. Especially since his most recent pronouncement that he doesn’t need to follow an executive order intended to maintain the integrity of classified documents.

The executive order was established by President Clinton and revised by President Bush in 2003.  The 2003 version directed the National Archives’ Information Security Oversight Office to oversee a program of education and supervision of classified document protection and maintenance.

According to a letter from William Leonard, director of the oversight office to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, Mr. Cheney’s office argued it did not meet the definition of an executive branch agency and therefore was exempt. Mr. Leonard also wrote that Cheney’s office suggested his agency be abolished under a revision of the presidential order now under consideration.

Let’s take the first part first. Mr. Cheney is exempt from oversight because it doesn’t meet the definition of the executive branch? Okay – this sort of argument would be knee slapping “Saturday Night Live” satire if it wasn’t real. Mr. Cheney’s contention is that as Vice President he is the President of the Senate and therefore not technically under the authority of orders that are applicable to the Executive Branch. In other words- he is above the law to which even the President of the United States must adhere. Is he joking? Afraid not.

Some of my fellow liberal bloggers have asserted that Mr. Cheney invoked Executive Privilege over meetings with an “Energy Group” in January 2001 and therefore to say now that he is not part of the Executive branch is hypocritical.  This was not the case.  Actually the GAO sued the administration when the vice president’s office refused to comply with GAO requests and did everything but invoke Executive Privledge.   Mr. Cheney affront to both the GAO and the National Archives’ Information Security Oversight Office is actually more disturbing than mere hypocrisy would have been.  Mr. Cheney’s actions over the years  have threatened to tear down the Constitutional balance of power that keeps each branch of government in check and show he will use every means possible to ensure that he is not accountable for anything. 

On January 29, 2001, President Bush established the National Energy Policy Development Group (”Energy Group”), which was chaired by Vice President Dick Cheney. Cheney’s Energy Group consisted of six cabinet officers (Treasury, Interior, Agriculture, Commerce, Transportation and Energy), plus other government officials he was authorized to include. (For example, he could include the Secretary of State, if international issues were involved.) The staff was made up of full time government employees.

Clearly, the Energy Group was constituted to avoid the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA). That 1972 law applies if any group of two or more persons utilized by a president for advice includes a non-government employee or official. If this occurs, FACA requires that the group must make all of its proceedings open to the public, keep records of the proceedings, and accommodate a broad spectrum of views.

Cheney’s Energy Group sought to avoid the FACA requirements by including only government employees, and no outside persons, and it appears they did so successfully. But we don’t really know, because the Vice President refuses to provide the information necessary to make a determination. For all we know, non-government persons, perhaps from industry, may effectively have become part of the Energy Group in that they became involved in the advice given to the President.

Counsel to the Vice President David Addington responded to the Congressional request. He explained that the Energy Group was not subject to the Federal Advisory Committee Act, but as a matter of comity - a more accurate word might be “comedy,” given his response — he would provide some answers about the Energy Group’s members, staff and activities. Unfortunately, these “answers” were extremely vague. According to an article by former Nixon aide John Dean for FindLaw.com Mr. Addington (nicely) told the General Accounting to get lost. The Vice President did everything BUT invoke Executive Privilege.

However it was not because the Vice President did not see himself as a member of the Executive Branch that Executive Privledge was not invoked in the case of the “Energy Group”. According to a July 2003 article for Forbes.com by Dan Ackman, the aversion to asserting an executive-privilege claim might have been that the doctrine, while oft-discussed, is never mentioned in the Constitution and is ill-defined.

It is “an extremely murky area,” said Charles Fried, U.S. solicitor general during the Reagan Administration, in response to the earlier GAO suit. “Every time it’s come up, they’ve resolved it [without a judicial decision].” If the administration presented the issue squarely, it would risk a negative precedent that could haunt it later, Fried said. The idea behind executive privilege is that the president’s conversations with his advisers should be private, allowing all involved to be candid while formulating initiatives. But the task force allegedly included consultations with outsiders, including Enron executives, which may weaken its claim and also increase the suggestion that the governmental process was corrupted by private interests.

Mr. Cheney saw himself as unaccountable to the General Accountability Office and now says that laws that govern the Executive Branch do not apply because – well he is in the legislative branch. Hmmm… I don’t think so. Just simply go to the USA.gov site describing the Executive branch. The Vice President’s office is listed as part of the Executive Branch.

But I guess if Mr. Cheney loses the argument that he is not technically part of the Executive Branch even though all research points to a contrary reality, he can just strong arm the National Archives’ Information Security Oversight Office by threatening to close it.

So the Vice President is above GAO requests, above executive orders applying to the executive branch regarding classified documents and above the law in general. Mr. Cheney and his cloak of mystery has done more to destroy the balance of power in the Constitution than any other American I can think of – with the exception of Richard Milhous Nixon.

I wonder what he will say to Saint Peter when he meets him at the pearly gates? I can hear it now- “God’s rules do not apply to me, I’m Dick Cheney”.

Boy that makes me shudder- but alas I do share something in common with Paul and Ann. We all studied high above Cayuga’s waters- we all did our undergraduate work at Cornell.

Yup Ann Coulter ’84 and Paul Wolfowitz ’65 received their A.B.’s at that egalitarian university where “Any person can find instruction in any study”.

I was aware that Wolfowitz was a Cornellian. But I wasn’t aware that Coulter was an alumna until I read recent letters responding to a cover article about Keith Olbermann ’79 (the same class as me) in the Cornell Alumni Magazine. There were more than a few letters outraged that Cornell Alumni Magazine had profiled Olbermann when it had ignored more illustrious alumni like Coulter. YIKES!

Not surprisingly my politics falls more into line with Olbermann and fellow Cornellian Bill Maher ’78 but I was disheartened to see Coulter touted as some paragon of Cornell virtue. Sharing my alma mater with Wolfowitz was bad enough sharing it with Coulter is almost intolerable. But even worse are my fellow alumni who hold her up as some sort of icon. An icon of hate and intolerance: yes.  I guess I can have some solace in the fact that Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg ’54 is also an alumna which may balance out the Wolfowitz connection but maybe not. Ginsburg does her best to hold her own in the conservative Roberts court but Wolfowitz is responsible for thousands of deaths and a world that has become a disaster and a less safe place for the United States by being the architect of the War in Iraq. He did his fair share of damage during his tenure as President of the World Bank too. With the likes of him as an alumnus- I am almost tempted to follow the lead of a WW II vet who returned a medal to the French. Do I return my A.B. to Cornell in shame? No- I have to believe that in the many thousands of alumni good has outweighed evil.

But I was very disturbed about the waxing poetics about Ann Coulter among my fellow alumni. What’s with that?

Coulter wrote in her 2006 book, “Godless: The Church of Liberalism,” that a group of New Jersey widows whose husbands perished in the World Trade Center act “as if the terrorist attacks happened only to them.” She also wrote, “I’ve never seen people enjoying their husbands’ deaths so much.” On a “Today” show appearance in June 2006 Coulter reiterated her stance, saying the women used their grief “to make a political point.” Her criticism was aimed at four New Jersey women whom she dubbed “The Witches of East Brunswick,” after the town where two of them live.  These women spent the years since the 2001 terror attacks supporting an independent commission to examine government failures before the attack, and in the 2004 presidential campaign they endorsed Democrat John Kerry. The women are Kristen Breitweiser, Lorie Van Auken, Mindy Kleinberg and Patty Casazza of New Jersey.  The women, are still pushing for changes in how the government guards against future attacks. What has Ms. Coulter done other than make slanderous and vicious remarks.

A number of Cornell alumni died in the 9/11 attacks. Ms. Coulter is an affront to their memory just as Mr. Wolfowitz is an affront to those who have died in Iraq. Of course- most of those young men and women who can afford to go to Cornell are not the same kids who are dying in Iraq.

Thinking of Coulter and Wolfowitz as illustrious Cornell alumni reminds me of a scene from the 1953 film “Titanic” with Barbara Stanwyck and Clifton Webb. Just before the ship hits the iceberg a group of college students are having a gay old time singing some college songs. But when the Cornell alma mater is sung- it sounds like a dirge- far away and sad. That’s the Cornell of Coulter and Wolfowitz.

The Cornell I remember was one of progressive values, a school that took pride in its land grant status, its egalitarian ethic between those that were in the private and state schools and the first college to officially recognize a gay student group. In the late 1970’s I was attending university sanctioned gay dances at Willard Straight Hall. Yes- there were the jokes of gay dances at the Straight, but nevertheless they occurred without negative incident. This is the Cornell I like to remember- the one where we truly “hail to thee our alma mater, hail all hail Cornell”.

I was very interested in Soledad O’Brien’s interviews on faith with the three top running Democratic Presidential candidates and while, as in all things “television”, there was not enough time to really dive into the thoughts of Senators Clinton, Obama and Edwards, I was very impressed by the thoughtfulness of these interviews.

There were only a few moments where O’Brien asked a question typical of the inanity of most television interviews of this nature with the most obvious being when she asked Mr. Edwards what the biggest sin he ever committed in his life might be. I think she was hoping for one of those “I lusted in my heart” moments that came from President Jimmy Carter’s interview with “Playboy” magazine.

What impressed me the most was that all three candidates talked about how morality is key and while their moral compass might have been developed by their faith, the issue as it relates to public policy is about making moral choices not about some faith litmus test.

Mrs. Clinton said that she is from a tradition that is wary of those folks who wear their faith on their sleeve reminding the audience of the Pharisees.  I share the same suspicion. Those who wear their faith on their sleeve often use their faith as a bludgeon, a sword, a trump card in the arsenal of divisive politics and a rationale for prejudice and hatred of all things that do not adhere to their brand of faith and their narrow insecure view of the world.

Bear with me as I indulge in a little research on the word “faith” and some of the arguments that have ensued from that one word. I believe that this academic diversion is important in order to proceed with the issue about moral issues being more important than issues of “faith’ in our political debates.

According to the Oxford English Dictionary the etymology of the word faith is as follows: It was first used in English c.1250 to mean ”duty of fulfilling one’s trust,” emenating from the Old French feid, and from the Latin fides “trust, belief,” which has the root fidere “to trust,” arising from the “Proto Indo- European” base bhidh which is “command, persuade, trust” and ultimately comes from the Sanskrit words bodhati meaning “to awaken” and “buddhah” meaning “enlightened” and began to be used as a way to describe religion in the 14th century Christian Europe.

Therefore at its very root the word “faith” comes from a sense of “God”. The definition of the word “faith” in today’s parlance according to Merriam Webster is “2 a(1) [the] belief and trust in and loyalty to God (2): belief in the traditional doctrines of a religion b (1): firm belief in something for which there is no proof (2): complete trust: something that is believed especially with strong conviction; especially : a system of religious beliefs.”

The etymology is intriguing and raises an epistemological argument as to the validity of faith since the word’s origin is so ancient and basic to our collective psyche about our place in the cosmos. On one extreme is logical positivism, which denies the validity of any beliefs held by faith; on the other extreme is fideism, which holds that true belief can only arise from faith, because reason and evidence cannot lead to truth. Some foundationalists, such as St. Augustine of Hippo and Alvin Plantinga, hold that all of our beliefs rest ultimately on beliefs accepted by faith. Others, such as C.S. Lewis, hold that Faith is merely the virtue by which we hold to our reasoned ideas, despite moods to the contrary.

A certain number of religious rationalists, as well as non-religious people, criticize implicit faith as being irrational, and see faith as ignorance of reality: a strong belief in something with no evidence. In this view, belief should be restricted to what is directly supportable by logic or scientific evidence. Some say that belief in scientific evidence is based on faith in positivism. Others claim that faith is perfectly compatible with and does not necessarily contradict reason, “faith” meaning a belief in the existence of a deity.

Many Jews, Christians and Muslims claim that there is adequate historical evidence of their God’s existence and interaction with human beings. As such, they may believe that there is no need for “faith” in God in the sense of belief against or despite evidence; rather, they hold that evidence is sufficient to demonstrate that their God probably exists or certainly exists.

No historical evidence has managed to convince the entirety of the community of historians on earth that any one religion is true. For people in this category, “faith” in a God simply means “belief that one has knowledge of [any particular] God[s]“. It is logically impossible that all these different religions with their mutually contradictory beliefs can simultaneously be objectively true.

Therefore, most historians with religious beliefs hold others to be “false”, or essentially wrong. This is a standard tenet of most religions as well, though there are exceptions. An example of this is some forms of Hinduism, which hold the view that the several different faiths are just aspects of the ultimate truth that the several religions have difficulty describing or understanding. They see the different religions as just different paths to the same goal. This does not explain away all logical contradictions between faiths but these traditions say that all seeming contradictions will be understood once a person has an experience of the Hindu concept of moksha.

With all that backgroud- it seems to me that “faith” means a lot of different things and often times does not mean “trust” or “enlightenment” or even “belief in God” but rather religion and accepting that one religion has the one truth since the Hindu concept of moksha doesn’t seem to have gained a lot of steam in other religion’s of the world.

So- I ask the question: What does faith have to do with politics? Do I care what belief someone has? Do I care that they pray or that they believe in God, a higher power, or work towards self enligthenment?

The Germans in Nazi Germany seemed to care alot about someone’s non-Christian “faith” aka “religion” intensely- not a road I wish to follow.

Others like Reverends the late Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson confuse faith and religion with dogma in order to wrap hatred and prejduice in a blanket of fear that is a highly effective tactic of mass manipulation and power mongering. It’s not so different than the hatred of Islamic fundamentalists is it? Some Christian fundamentalism seems as hate filled as Islamic fundamentalism- just without the overt violence.

Bottom line- faith through history – etymological and epistemological- does not guarantee making good moral choices if you believe that morality means respect and a strong sense of ethics and that ethics means the respect of  and equality of all life.  Faith does not mean that someone will make good moral choices or that they have strong ethical standards. Having faith means is that someone believes in God or “something” and/or follows the dogma of a religion- nothing more.

It is those moral and ethical issues that are important in the decision making of a leader- not their faith or even how they became a person who has good moral or ethical standards.  They may have a strong sense of ethics that comes from their faith, but being a “person of faith” does not implicitly lead to making those good choices.   What matters is that they make good choices.

A sense of human dignity and equality is the ethical standard that has been the hallmark for our political process in the United States since our founding (remember the Declaration of Independence?). While God has been evoked since our founding as well, it is the ethics of human dignity that forged our great nation at the beginning not religion or faith.  Striving for human dignity and equality is an ethical issue not an article of faith.

Talking faith and God is easy- it is uncomplicated and by the very nature of “faith” cuts off discussion and debate. How can you debate something that has no objective proof”? But you can debate policy based on ethics.

Most importantly, you can hold people to account on ethics, but you cannot hold them accountable for their faith; per the arguments of the “faithful”- only God can do that.

Remember the John Ford Noonan Play – “A Coupla White Chicks Sitting Around Talking” in 1980? It launched the careers of Susan Sarandon and JoBeth Williams. Let’s hope that the 10 white guys sitting around pontificating last night will launch no careers as President of the United States.

Quite frankly this is a scary group of men with the exception of Congressman Ron Paul (R-TX) who at least speaks the truth about the idiocy of invading Iraq. But there are a number of issues where I was reminded why I just cannot wrap my head around the GOP. Not only Iraq, Iran and the “war on terror”, but gays in the military, immigration, healthcare and “right to life” are issues that make me feel that the GOP is arrogant, is the arbiter of a frightening brand of moral superiority, is out of touch with real people, is reliant on scaring the American people to grasp power, and plays to the worst forms of bigotry.

1. Let’s take their “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” stance.

One word to describe this is appalling and as far as candidates like Mitt Romney and Rudolph Giuliani – who have both supported gay issues before and openly courted the gay vote in Massachusetts and New York City respectively they are repugnant political hacks with no real moral compass who would probably sell their own mothers into white slavery if it meant that they might ascend to the presidency. Mr. Giuliani should remember that it was a gay couple who took him in after his divorce.

But all of the candidates said that “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” is working. The financial costs to the U.S. military for discharging and replacing gay service members under the nation’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy are nearly twice what the government estimated last year, with taxpayers covering at least $364 million in associated funds over the policy’s first decade, according to a University of California report.

Members of a UC-Santa Barbara group examining the cost of the policy found that a Government Accountability Office study last year underestimated the costs of firing approximately 9,500 service members between 1994 and 2003 for homosexuality. The GAO, which acknowledged difficulties in coming up with its number, estimated a cost of at least $190.5 million for the same time period. The new estimate is 91 percent higher.

In a New York Times editorial on January 2, 2007, John M. Shalikashvili, a retired army general who was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from 1993 to 1997. He stated that he “believe[s] that if gay men and lesbians served openly in the United States military, they would not undermine the efficacy of the armed forces. Our military has been stretched thin by our deployments in the Middle East, and we must welcome the service of any American who is willing and able to do the job.”

General Shalikashvili met with gay soldiers and marines, including some with combat experience in Iraq, and an openly gay senior sailor who was serving effectively as a member of a nuclear submarine crew. These conversations showed him, according to his opnion piece, just how much the military has changed, and that gays and lesbians can be accepted by their peers.

This perception is supported by a Zogby poll of more than 500 service members returning from Afghanistan and Iraq, three quarters of whom said they were comfortable interacting with gay people. And 24 foreign nations, including Israel, Britain and other allies in the fight against terrorism, let gays serve openly, with none reporting morale or recruitment problems.

Recently nine Army linguists, including six trained to speak Arabic, have been dismissed from the military because they are gay. The soldiers’ dismissals come at a time when the military is facing a critical shortage of translators and interpreters for the “war on terrorism”. Seven of the soldiers were discharged after telling superiors they are gay, and the two others got in trouble when they were caught together after curfew, said Steve Ralls, spokesman for the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, a group that defends gays and lesbians in the military. One of the discharged linguists said the military’s policy on gays is hurting its cause. “It’s not a gay-rights issue. I’m arguing military proficiency issues - they’re throwing out good, quality people,” said Alastair Gamble, a former Army specialist. So explain how “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” is working?

2. Let’s move next to their stance on immigration reform.

Thankfully most of the gang of ten distanced themselves from whackado Congressman Tom Tancredo (R-CO) when he called for a ban on all immigration- “illegal” or “legal”. But in all honesty, with the exception of Senator John McCain (R-AZ) the racism behind their stance on this issue was palpable. When asked about English as the official language of the United States with the exception of Mr. McCain they all stated that this was an imperative. When this question arose in the Democratic debate- Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY) explained well that there is a huge difference between a “national” language and an “official” language.

Making English an “official” language would bar translation services from any government sponsored programs including the judicial system. Whatever happened to the right to assist in your own defense and to understand your own trial if you do not have a good command of the English language? This is a problem. Sure in order to succeed in this country speaking English seems to be a vital skill but should folks who do not speak English be punished? What about the waves of immigrants from Germany or Italy- they didn’t speak English right away— would our “English Only” advocates have a problem with services available in these languages- or is it only a problem when folks speak languages of current non-white populations?

Mr. McCain was eloquent about the importance of Hispanic culture to his state of Arizona and reminded all present that they were speaking Spanish in Arizona long before they were speaking English. This is true in my state of California too. He also made points when he reminded folks of the sovereignty of Native American tribes. Let’s take that idea—- if the “English Only” crowd strictly interpreted their own arguments, we should all be speaking Wampanoag- the language of the natives that were present when the undocumented Pilgrims arrived on our shores.

And what about that fence that most of the Republican candidates are talking about? Do they really think that we are going to install turnstiles and fencing along our ENTIRE southern border? The feasibility is absurdly unlikely and the fact that the Republican candidates continue to flaunt this as a goal is misleading and disingenuous at best. The cost of building and maintaining a double set of steel fences along 700 miles of the U.S.-Mexico border could be five to 25 times greater than congressional leaders forecast last year, or as much as $49 billion over the expected 25-year life span of the fence, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service.

A little-noticed study the research service released in December 2006 notes that even the $49 billion does not include the expense of acquiring private land along hundreds of miles of border or the cost of labor if the job is done by private contractors — both of which could drive the price billions of dollars higher. The Congressional Research Service also questioned the effectiveness of a fence in preventing people from crossing the border illegally, especially if it does not span the entire 1,952-mile border. Secure fencing of some kind already exists along 106 miles of border, mostly in short stretches around cities.

Finally there is the issue of the northern border with Canada- an issue no one has talked about on the Republican side. The Democrats wisely brought up the concern about the tuberculosis patient that was waved through the Canadian border by a border security agent because the patient “didn’t look sick”. What about a terrorist who “doesn’t look like a terrorist”? Will they be welcomed with open arms? This just shines a bright light onto the racism that is present in this debate and exacerbated by the Republican rhetoric.

3. Let’s look at the issues of “whole life” –as defined by Senator Brownback and healthcare.

Former Governor Mike Huckabee (R-AR) who is also a Baptist minister and served as president of the Arkansas Baptist State Convention from 1989 to 1991 was poignant when he said that pro-life meant that he cared about the person from conception through death and that it didn’t mean only supporting life in the womb but meant supporting individuals through adversity and poverty during their lives. Senator Brownback (R-KS) continued that vein when he said “I am pushing a pro-life – whole life philosophy. We must stand for the child in the womb and also the child in Darfur, for the person in poverty or the man suffering from AIDS.”

How noble, but how wildly insincere. - The United States is the richest country in the world, but there were 37 million people, or 7.7 million families, living in poverty in 2005, accounting for 12.6 percent of total U.S. population, which means that one out of eight Americans was living in poverty. 34.8 million Americans did not have enough money or other resources to buy food. The number of American people without health insurance coverage rose to 46.6 million in 2005, accounting for 15.9 percent of the total population and up 1.3 million over 2004.

The day after Hurricane Katrina hit in 2005, exposing much of the public to the tragic conditions of poverty in America, the Census Bureau quietly released its annual report entitled, “Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States.” In some respects, it provided a demonstrable backdrop to the pockets of poverty common to New Orleans and other cities. It also explained why, despite President Bush’s assertion last month that, “Americans have more money in their pockets,” many people aren’t faring as well as they once did.

The report indicates that in 2004 there was no increase in average annual household incomes for black, white, or Hispanic families. In fact, this marks the first time since the Census Bureau began keeping records that household incomes failed to increase for five consecutive years. Since President Bush took office, the average annual household family income has declined by $2,572, approximately 4.8 percent.

Interestingly enough, as the Economic Policy Institute notes in their analysis of the Census Bureau’s report, not all families did poorly last in 2004. Although the portion of the total national income going to the bottom 60 percent of families did not increase last year, the portion going to the wealthiest five percent of families rose by 0.4 percent. And while the average inflation-adjusted family income of middle-class Americans declined by 0.7 percent in 2004, the wealthiest five percent of families enjoyed a 1.7 percent increase.

Not surprisingly, the report revealed that poverty increased last year. There were 37 million (12.7 percent) people living in poverty, an increase of 1.1 million people since 2003. This was the fourth consecutive year in which poverty has increased. In fact, since President Bush took office, 5.4 million more people, including 1.4 million children, have found themselves living in poverty.

There were 7.9 million families living below the poverty level in 2004, an increase of 300,000 families since 2003.

Supply side economics is not just a Bush idea it was the hallmark of the President Ronald Reagan and every Republican since.  If the goal is making the rich richer than supply side economics work. If the goal is to ensure every American has a stake in the economy and has the opportunity to lift themselves out of poverty it is a failure – as witnessed by these statistics.

Then of course there is healthcare. The Census Bureau report also demonstrated that health insurance coverage remains elusive for many Americans. Those covered by employer-sponsored health insurance declined from 60.4 percent in 2003 to 59.8 percent in 2004. Approximately 800,000 more workers found themselves without health insurance last year. The percentage of people covered by governmental health programs in 2004 rose to 27.2 percent, in part because as poverty increased, more Americans were forced to seek coverage through Medicaid. The percentage of the public with Medicaid coverage rose by 0.5 percent in 2004.

2005 was the fourth consecutive year in which employer-sponsored health insurance coverage declined. A total of 45.8 million Americans are now without health insurance.

The Republicans have absolutely no plan to deal with the realities of the health coverage crisis. Their solutions are health savings accounts and other policies that are quite frankly out of reach for many of the uninsured especially those that have dropped into poverty. Here only former Secretary of Health and Human Services Tommy Thompson (R-WI) even broached the concept that healthcare in this country was broken but really didn’t address the issue.

Senators Obama, Clinton and former Senator Edwards have some interesting plans to deal with the health coverage crisis. So again- how can Republicans say that they care about life after leaving the womb? Their track record and their plans do not match their rhetoric.

Finally there is Iran, Iraq and the “War on Terror”.

Of course I do not want to see Iran develop a nuclear weapon but am I the only one who was awestruck that the Republicans were talking about the option of using tactical nuclear weapons to ensure that Iran doesn’t develop nuclear weapons? Does this sound like something that Dr. Strangelove might have suggested? Truth is much more disturbing than fiction sometimes.

And of course there is the War on Terror and Iraq. If terrorists have made Iraq a terrorist training ground- it is because we created chaos in the country that allowed for this to occur. I have written so many thousands of words about how Mr. Bush has made the world less safe due to his neo-conservative folly in Iraq that I will refer you to the many pieces on this blog that deal with that subject rather than regurgitating them here.

But I will briefly address the criticism from Republicans last night of John Edwards’ statement that the war on terror is not really a war but instead is a bumper sticker.

The fact that Al Qaeda-type terrorists have rebuilt their haven in Afghanistan and the border region of Pakistan—combined with the fact that a new failed state has emerged in parts of Iraq—is the most powerful evidence to date that the Bush administration may have misconceived the “war on terror.” Al Qaeda was always a transnational movement, one rooted in failed states and in uncontrolled areas like those in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

What’s now become clear is that the real center of gravity in the global war on terror was not “state sponsors” like Saddam (or the Iranians for that matter). Based on the evidence, these states were little more than interested observers, perhaps supplying some help or encouragement or looking the other way, but that’s about it.

There was only one fully committed state sponsor: Afghanistan’s Taliban government, a movement bought and paid for by Osama bin Laden’s money. And we must now conclude that Bush’s critical diversion of attention and resources away from that fight cost us the death blow the United States might have delivered to both Al Qaeda and the Taliban had we stayed focused on Central Asia- just ask Gary Bernsten, the CIA officer in charge of the “Jawbreaker” operation at Tora Bora, who implored Rumsfeld in vain for more U.S. special forces while the trapped bin Laden escaped and the Pentagon began to turn its attention to Iraq.  Just as bad, the invasion of Iraq gave the Al Qaeda chieftain a new lease on life by vindicating his argument about the peril of the “far enemy,” as the United States was known in his group’s rhetoric.

On the eve of 9/11, according to documents obtained from Al Qaeda’s seized computers, bin Laden and his top aide, Ayman al-Zawahiri, had difficulty persuading their fellow jihadis that it was wise to take on the distant superpower. (One of them even compared bin Laden’s grandiose war against America to “tilting at windmills.”) Bush ended that debate in bin Laden’s favor when he turned the U.S. into the “near enemy”—again, Al Qaeda rhetoric—in the Arab world by invading Iraq.

Yes terrorism exists. A 1988 study by the US Army counted 109 definitions of terrorism that covered a total of 22 different definitional elements. Terrorism expert Walter Laqueur in 1999 also has counted over 100 definitions and concludes that the “only general characteristic generally agreed upon is that terrorism involves violence and the threat of violence”.

Common principles amongst legal definitions of terrorism provide an emerging consensus as to meaning and also foster cooperation between law enforcement personnel in different countries. Among these definitions, several do not recognize the possibility of the legitimate use of violence by civilians against an invader in an occupied country, and would thus label all resistance movements as terrorist groups. Others make a distinction between lawful and unlawful use of violence. Russia for example includes in their terrorist list only those organizations which represent the greatest threat to their own security. Ultimately, the distinction is a political judgment
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It has also been argued that the political use of violent force and weapons that deliberately target or involve civilians, and do not focus mainly on military or government targets, is a common militant, terrorist, or guerilla tactic, and a main defining feature of these kinds of people.

As terrorism ultimately involves the use or threat of violence with the aim of creating fear not only to the victims but among a wide audience, it is fear which distinguishes terrorism from both conventional and guerrilla warfare. While both conventional military forces may engage in psychological warfare and guerrilla forces may engage in acts of terror and other forms of propaganda, they both aim at military victory. Terrorism on the other hand aims to achieve political or other goals, when direct military victory is not possible. This has resulted in some social scientists referring to guerrilla warfare as the “weapon of the weak” and terrorism as the “weapon of the weakest”.

Terrorism is hard to define and it seems that we have never been good at looking at the root causes of it today mostly because we do not understand the dynamics in the Middle East. Mr. Bush’s war has increased the capabilities for Al-Qada and other groups to recruit dienfranchised populations who feel that the United States has bullied itself into the Middle East and is raping the areas resources or respecting local traditions.

It seems clear to me that all the Republican candidates would deliver more of the same and thus we would not only be entrenched in Iraq for a generation but we would be less safe given the realites of the havoc we have wrought thus far.

Conclusion

The Republican candidates are a scary group and they don’t seem to learn from history and they seem out of touch with the concerns of average Americans. From protecting the United States, to healthcare, to immigration, to nearly every policy position the Republican candidates take they would indeed take the country in the wrong direction.

President George W. Bush seems committed to battling the AIDS pandemic in developing nations but seems to be blind to the epidemic in his own back yard. The president has called on Congress to spend $30 Billion to combat AIDS globally over the next five years. This is doubles the amount of money Mr. Bush pledged in 2003 when he launched a five-year, $15 billion program to support treatment, prevention and care in developing countries. Simultaneously the Bush administration has kept domestic funding on HIV/AIDS care through Ryan White programs at the same level that existed in 2001 while the number of new infections in this country has continued to increase predominantly among the poor and people of color.

According to the “New York Times” with Congressional add-ons, the total for this global initiative through 2008 will actually exceed $18 billion, by far the largest amount committed by any nation. The program has already provided treatment for some 1.1 million people in 15 countries and prevented millions of new infections, by administration estimates.

Now, with the first five-year program set to expire next year, the president has proposed a five-year extension with almost twice the financing — $30 billion over fiscal years 2009 to 2013. The administration estimates that this, when added to the first five-year effort, would bring the total number of people treated to 2.5 million people, prevent 12 million new infections and provide care for more than 12 million people.

This funding is vital and is an important commitment to fighting the global pandemic. It is clear that Mr. Bush has his own motives for this initiative. AIDS was not a signature issue for Mr. Bush when he ran for office in 2000. But it has become one in part because the Christian conservatives who make up his political base have embraced the cause of AIDS outside of this country (the populations affected by HIV/AIDS in this country are not favorites of the Christian conservatives), and in part because Mr. Bush wants to build a legacy for his presidency and a more compassionate image abroad to counter international criticism of his policies in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. It is not by accident that the announcement of the ramped up funding comes just before Mr. Bush attends the G-8 summit.

Whatever Mr. Bush’s motives are, the initiative is needed and his support is welcome. However even with this wonderful support, the administration has absurd regulations for accessing funds that are based on a sense of “conservative morality” and not science.  The president’s program remains burdened by restrictions requiring that up to 7 percent of the funds be spent on abstinence programs and by Congressional restrictions against providing clean needles to injecting addicts.

While these efforts are vital, Mr. Bush’s record on domestic funding for care and treatment has been shameful. For example - in my city, San Francisco, federal AIDS funds have been slashed by more than $8 million in FY 07 (a 34% reduction). The epidemic has not abated in San Francisco- in fact more people are living with HIV/AIDS in the city than ever before. Thankfully people are living longer but new infections are still occurring so the overall population of people living with HIV/AIDS continues to grow. The needs of people for medical care, drugs and the services needed to ensure that they have the support required so they can remain in care has not decreased but has grown; and this growth has been primarily among people with the most severe needs and with the least income.

HIV/AIDS impacts many areas of the country- many of them relatively new to dealing with the epidemic at a kaeger scale.  This past year alone Indianapolis, Baton Rouge, Charlotte, Memphis, and Nashville have been added to the existing 51 local jurisdictions eligible for Part A (aka Title I) funds. It is clear that the need for care and treatment has not decreased or even remained level- it has increased. Yet the Bush administration has shamefully kept funding flat.

The Bush administration’s actions have pitted city against city, state against state and sometimes cities against their own states. By keeping the pot of funding at an unacceptably low level the Bush administration has put AIDS advocates on a desert island with insufficient food and water- causing friction between jurisdictions for this critical funding to serve those people living with HIV/AIDS with the greatest need. No one wants one part of the country to get less due to the needs of another, but with scarce resources everyone is scrambling for that one tiny morsel. The Bush administration has created this difficult environment by not allowing funding to keep pace with the increase in numbers of people needing services.

Mr. Bush administration has created an untenable situation for many in the AIDS community with his support for a global initiative while ignoring the problem at home. There is not one person that I know who works on domestic HIV/AIDS issues or one person I know that is living with HIV/AIDS that is not horrified by the toll that the pandemic has taken – and continues to take- on the developing world especially sub-Saharan Africa and who doesn’t believe that we should commit huge amounts of resources to that battle. But there is anger among many in the community that there is a hot white light cast on HIV/AIDS outside of this country and a flickering candle barely illuminates the epidemic within our own boarders.

Last night I attended a “Town Hall” meeting in San Francisco that focused on the federal cuts the city (as well as cuts that impact Marin County and San Mateo County) has sustained and what strategies the city can take to ensure that vital services are not closed. The anger was palpable and understandable. People spoke eloquently about how many of the services that could potentially be cut literally saved their lives. It was quite clear through these personal testimonies that food, shelter, substance abuse services, mental health services are all vital components of health care. Health care cannot be viewed as merely seeing a doctor and getting prescription drugs. These “wrap around” services are vital components of the continuum of care for people living with HIV/AIDS and if you disturb one card in this house of cards, they all come down.

Should Americans living with HIV/AIDS begrudge the money being sent abroad? No – we shouldn’t and mostly I don’t think that we do. But the anger of many about these funds being sent abroad when we haven’t “cleaned our own yard” is understandable.

The answer is simple really- more money needs to be spent battling AIDS both domestically and globally. 

It is unfair and immoral for the Bush administration to put us in the situation where people living with HIV/AIDS are fighting over a crumb that will never be enough.