Blog entry

Collapsing Bridges, Sinking Levees. It’s (Past) Time to Invest

Eric Lotke — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 10:47:02 -0400

Last year on August 1, the I-35W bridge in Minneapolis collapsed during rush hour. Thirteen people died and more than 100 were wounded. A school bus carrying 52 children teetered on the brink but did not fall.

This bridge is not alone. Our nation’s infrastructure is deteriorating, dying of old age and neglect.

Making Sense Alert:
Invest in America Now
How to talk about the need
for investment in our
common assets in tough
economic times.

Bridges and roads. The U.S. Department of Transportation reports that nearly 25 percent of bridges in the U.S.—over 152,000 bridges—are “structurally deficient or functionally obsolete.” Heavier vehicles, like school buses and delivery trucks, are forced to take lengthy detours for safer bridges. Nearly one in four miles of urban interstate is in “poor” or “mediocre” condition.

Levees and waterways. Earlier this year, thousands of homes and millions of acres of crops were destroyed after heavy rains overwhelmed obsolete levees along the Mississippi River. In 2007, the American Society of Civil Engineers found more than 150 levees to be at high risk of failing due to poor maintenance. Over a quarter of the dams overseen by the Corps of Engineers have exceeded the lifespan for which they were designed and need major repairs to ensure their safety.

Water and steam. A steam pipe explosion in Manhattan last year launched a tow truck 12 feet in the air, killing one person and injuring dozens more. The blast opened a 40-foot-diameter crater and spread toxic asbestos, closing off 40 square blocks for five days. Almost every state—from California, Hawaii, and New York to Alaska and North Carolina—has reported record breakdowns in water infrastructure. In the words of one expert, “an epidemic of breaking pipes is causing unprecedented havoc.”

These are just illustrations of the deadly danger of letting our infrastructure go unmaintained. America’s electric power grid, dams, water treatment plants, airports, and railways are all in dire need of repairs and improvements.

The solution is obvious. Repair and rebuild. Rebuilding our infrastructure provides jobs—good jobs that can never be outsourced—and an economic shot in the arm that we desperately need. The U.S. Department of Transportation estimates that every $1 billion in federal highway investment creates 47,500 new jobs and generates more than $2 billion in economic activity.

The “greatest generation” built the Interstate Highway System and laid the groundwork for decades of economic expansion. Now it’s our turn to rebuild the highways and add high-speed rail to boot. We’ll be faster, safer and more efficient. Yes, it will cost money, and yes, we’re running deficits. But this is no time to run scared. These are long-term investments and they will pay off over time.

Don’t fall for the “pay as you go” trap or fear the “tax and spend” label. Real people are smarter than that. A new poll by Time Magazine and the Rockefeller Foundation finds 83 percent of the public supports “increasing government spending on things like public works projects to help create jobs.” Support is at 83 percent among the baby-boom generation who built the interstates, and a surprising 90 percent among the young generation Y who are watching them fall apart.

Let’s invest now to turn the economy around.

Netroots Priorities: Iraq, Energy, Health Care, Poverty

Isaiah J. Poole — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 12:08:26 -0400

Netroots Nations participants have four clear priorities for the next president: ending the war in Iraq, addressing the global warming crisis, obtaining health care for all and clsing the growing gap between the rich and poor, according to a straw poll done by Democracy Corps and the Campaign for America's Future.

The straw poll was conducted over two days of the Netroots Nations conference and was designed to get a sense of what the political activists at the conference thought were the most important issues for the country and for the next administration.

Some of the key results:

Of the list of concerns below, which one of these is your top concern at this time?

Energy and global warming	19%
The growing gap between the rich and the poor	17%
Loss of constitutional rights	15%
The war in Iraq	11%
Corruption and special interests running Washington	10%

Which of the concerns listed below is your next top concern?

The war in Iraq	17%
The growing gap between the rich and the poor	12%
Loss of constitutional rights	12%
Lack of affordable health care	10%
Energy and global warming	9%

Which one of these should be the top priority for the next administration?

The war in Iraq	23%
Energy and global warming	20%
Lack of affordable health care	15%
The growing gap between the rich and the poor	12%
Loss of constitutional rights	7%

Which should be the next highest priority for the administration?

Lack of affordable health care	17%
Energy and global warming	17%
The war in Iraq	16%
The growing gap between the rich and the poor	12%
Loss of constitutional rights	10%

Sixty-eight percent of those who participated in the poll said that "not too much" has been accomplished by Congress this year, and when asked whether the blame was with Democrats or with Republicans, 43 percent said that Republicans were to some degree more to blame, and 29 percent said both parties were equally responsible.

Also, 72 percent of the poll participants said that Sen. Barack Obama should select a vice-presidential candidate "politically similar to himself, reinforcing the dynamic nature of his candidacy and the urgent need for change, and keeping true to his liberal roots."

For some MSM interpretation of the straw poll results, check out the latest from the Washington Post: What Do the Netroots Want? Straw Poll Offers Answers.

Are We Not Allowed to Talk About McCain's Iraq Position?

David Sirota — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 19:06:24 -0400

MINNEAPOLIS - During this whirlwind book tour, I've had trouble keeping up with the minute-to-minute trajectory of television's political debate. However, I didn't know that it is now considered out of bounds to talk about John McCain's support for staying in Iraq for 100 years. Watch this clip of me debating GOP hack Terry Holt on Fox News late last week to see what I'm talking about.

You'll notice that Fox News anchor Megan Kelly interrupts me when I mention that McCain has said he is OK with having America stay in Iraq for 100 years. She says that's taken "out of context" and that I'm spinning, while Holt chuckles. Have I missed something here? Are we now no long allowed to talk about McCain's statements on Iraq?

Here's the video of McCain saying he doesn't mind if American troops are in Iraq for 100 years. Here's CNN's report of McCain defending that statement. Here's the video of McCain doubling down, saying that in fact he's OK with America being in Iraq for 10,000 years.

Yet, somehow, mentioning this is billed as unfair by the media, and laughed at by Republican strategists.

Admittedly, this is an interchange on Fox News, which leans Right in its coverage. But still - it seems absurd for any media to bat down a relevant discussion about McCain's incredibly extreme position on the most important national security issue we face.

Let me be clear: I appreciate Fox asking me on to discuss politics and my book - I really do. For all of us trying to get out a progressive message, we need to take the media opportunities as they come - especially when much of the traditional "liberal" media blatantly ignores progressive voices in favor of promoting the same old Serious Voices from Washington.

And I think an interchange like this is a good one to have - even if I'm being berated as "spinning" by mentioning the undebatable facts of what John McCain has repeatedly said.

As THE UPRISING shows, there is a very powerful uprising on in this country - it is about a backlash to things like the war, and about a backlash to an media/political Establishment that tries to crush debate on major issues. The more that backlash gets a hearing through media interchanges like this, the more that backlash will intensify - and the closer our uprising will be to achieving real change.

This is an ongoing series from the national tour for THE UPRISING. You can order The Uprising at Amazon.com or through your local independent bookstore.

More Details on How Bush Aids the Terrorists

Isaiah J. Poole — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 12:17:19 -0400

McClatchy Newspapers is scheduled on Sunday to release a major investigation of the facts behind the detention of some 66 people in Guantanamo Bay and in Afghanistan by the U.S. government. It will bolster one inescapable conclusion: President Bush, by sanctioning a policy that not only denies due process to people it deems terrorist suspects but has also led to the torture of many of these suspects, has aided the terrorists.

The investigation also underscores the importance of this week's U.S. Supreme Court decision granting constitutional rights and access to U.S. courts to the detainees.

A video preview of the series demonstrates the point. Some of the detainees, McClatchy found, were actually trying to help the U.S. and Afghanistan governments pacify radical elements in Afghanistan. They were roughed up in Afghan detainee camps and then dispatched to Guantanamo, where, McClatchy reports, "they were placed in cells next to some of the most radical imams and jihadist fighters from across the world. Those racial Islamists seized the chance and tried to indoctrinate as many of their fellow detainees as possible ... turning Guantanamo, which was set up to make America safer, into a school for Jihad."

President Bush has made it clear that he dislikes the narrow Supreme Court ruling that will add an element of justice to this system. Dissenting Justice Antonin Scalia has laid out the conservative talking point, that the ruling "will almost certainly cause more Americans to be killed."

What seems more likely to get more Americans killed is the Bush administration's disregard for the rule of law, which has done more to make us hated around the world than any pronouncements from Osama bin Laden.

Read the story Sunday at McClatchy's news site or in your local McClatchy paper.

Havana Hypocrisy

Isaiah J. Poole — Wed, 28 May 2008 11:06:40 -0400

Pledging to not liberalize trade with Cuba remains for most candidates one of the de facto requirements for getting elected, and even though any thinking person can easily grasp the utter silliness of arguments for the status quo. (Remind me again: How did more than four decades of a trade embargo succeed in democratizing Cuba?)

In the coming months, we will witness the political debate over Cuba being held hostage once again by a fervid group of conservative, anti-Castro activists in south Florida whose minds were closed long ago to political reality and the inconsistencies of their right-wing sycophants. It is past time for a national candidate to speak the truth with boldness: Our policy toward Cuba is a failure and if we really cared for the welfare and self-determination of the Cuban people, we'd stop reflexively pandering to the dwindling horde of Cuban exiles and stand up for a policy that combines openness with tough-minded negotiation.

Our co-director Robert Borosage makes the case for such a stance in The Huffington Post:

Castro has now outlasted nine U.S. presidents. We've sponsored a failed invasion of the island, hired failed assassinations to take him out, tried to poison him so his beard would fall out (really), poisoned crops, fouled up bearings, and much else. And through thick and thin, missile crises and détente, Cold War and Soviet collapse, administration after administration has sustained an embargo against this little island 90 miles off our shores.

The embargo has helped, no doubt, to impoverish the Cuban people. It has also helped to make Castro a nationalist hero throughout Latin America and much of the world. It has done nothing for nearly five decades to advance democracy, civil liberties or capitalism in Cuba. Even its economic effects have diminished over time. It once cribbed tourism, and, once the Soviet Union went belly up, put a squeeze on oil. Now the Europeans and Canadians populate the Cuban beaches. And Hugo Chavez of Venezuela is happy to provide Cuba with the oil it needs.

Cuba is a small island, 90 miles off our shores. Its people are proud and nationalistic. They also get island fever. Their relatives across the straits let them know what they've been missing economically. There is little doubt that had the U.S. normalized relations with Cuba, opened up trade, encouraged travel and exchanges, Cuba would have been transformed long ago. The détente that worked its magic on the Warsaw Pact countries in Eastern Europe would have been much more powerful in Cuba.

Borosage goes on to point out that we still carry an all-too-robust trade with China —$321.5 billion in imports in 2007, for a trade deficit of $256 billion — in spite of China's lack of democracy and human rights violations. We denounce Hugo Chavez as a dictator, but we still import Venezuelan oil, 858,000 barrels of it a day in March.

Our trade deficit with China is debilitating to our economy as well as a moral embarrassment, but we live with it, in part, the argument goes, because our financial relationship with that country has made that Communist nation less of a hostile adversary and made its people more open to Western influence. The only reason to continue the opposite stance with Cuba, as Borosage says, is "a kind of purblind inertia. We do it because we can; who cares if it doesn't work."

The War Inside

Terrance Heath — Fri, 23 May 2008 13:08:44 -0400

Picture by jcolman

If my dad were alive, I know he'd be hanging the flag in front of our house, where it would stay for the remainder of the weekend. A veteran of two wars, Korea and Vietnam, my father was fiercely patriotic. Yet, displaying the flag on Memorial Day and Veterans' Day was as much a show of loyalty and respect for those he served with, and — I think — an acknowledgment of that they each carried home a part of those wars inside of them. I learned early on that my father carried his experiences in Vietnam and Korea with home him.

One of the earliest rules I remember learning as a child was how to wake dad up from a nap. Don't touch him or shake him, I was told. He might be dreaming about being back in Vietnam, or the defensive reflex required to survive there might kick in and the reaction might be violent. So, when it was time to wake him up, we would stand at the door and call to him until he responded, even well into my high school years. Looking back, in think it was a way of not releasing the war inside — the war he carried with him — into our home.

I never knew what my father experienced in Vietnam, or what he re-experienced sometimes when he closed his eyes to sleep. We never talked about it. Even when I wrote a one act play about Vietnam for a high school literary competition. Two of my classmates and I interviewed Vietnam veterans we knew, and placed classified ads to reach more veterans willing to share their experiences. I was surprised by how many were willing, even eager, to talk to three high school boys about what they'd experienced.

But I never interviewed my dad. I was in charge of distilling the interviews into an initial script of monologues that my classmates and I would perform, after they offered their input and edits. But I don't remember my dad ever reading the script. We performed the play at our county literary competition, and won the chance to perform it at the state competition. But I don't remember my dad ever seeing the play, or even talking to him about it.

Years later, when my parents came to visit me in Washington, D.C., I took my dad to the Korean and Vietnam war memorials. I watched him walk the length of the Vietnam memorial, stopping at the names of the men he'd known. I witness his silent tears at each stop. Yet, we never talked about his experience. To this day I don't know what he saw, or what he brought home from those wars.

I think that's because, though he'd brought home his experiences from the war, he wanted to keep the war — the war inside — out of his home.

Though he passed away just over two years ago, I thought of my dad, and all he kept inside of him when I read about two of the most recent Iraqi veterans to commit suicide. Recruiter Nils Aaron Andersson, who suffered PTSD, shot himself at two o'clock in the morning, on the top floor of a Houston parking garage. Staff Sgt. Travis Twiggs, who wrote about his PTSD experience, fatally shot his brother and then himself after a cross-state car chase.

News stories about their suicides were published the same week news broke that of a Veterans Administration employee's email suggesting that veterans with PTSD be diagnosed with disorders that carry a lower disability payment.

An internal e-mail message written by a Veterans Affairs Department employee suggested that the agency avoid giving a diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder for veterans and instead consider a diagnosis that might result in a lower disability payment.

The message, dated March 20 and titled “Suggestion,” said: “Given that we are having more and more compensation seeking veterans, I’d like to suggest that we refrain from giving a diagnosis of PTSD straight out. Consider a diagnosis of Adjustment Disorder, R/O PTSD.” R/O stands for “rule out.”

“Additionally,” it said, “we really don’t or have time to do the extensive testing that should be done to determine PTSD.”

News of their suicides — Andersson was one of 16 recruiters to take their own lives since 2000 — came one week before documents released by the VA gave further evidence of the agency's failure to address veterans' mental health needs.

New VA documents obtained exclusively by VCS using the Freedom of Information Act indicate the VA is only paying disability benefits for PTSD to 33,247 Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans, although 67,717 have been diagnosed with PTSD. According to Sullivan, VCS is calling for an investigation into this apparent discrepancy.

A Government Accountability Office (GAO) report in September 2007 stated that the VA's "lack of early identification techniques" led to "inconsistent diagnosis and treatment" of PTSD and Traumatic Brain Injury. According to the GAO, early diagnosis is essential in preventing PTSD's consequences - which could be deadly.

It's bad enough that we sent men and women overseas to fight a war founded disinformation, in insufficient numbers, and with inadequate equipment. But, when they come home with deep psychological wounds from that war, and we give them less than the treatment they need, Memorial Day celebrations and speeches ring hollow.

Let's all pay lip service to Support Our Troops. But if we want to be honest, we should edit those yellow-ribbon bumper stickers to say Support Our Troops — As Long As It Doesn't Cost Anything.

Let's acknowledge that this new generation of soldiers and Marines is amazingly motivated and talented. They're expected to be good killers, good diplomats and ambassadors of American goodwill who operate under impossibly complex rules of engagement in impossibly dangerous and deadly environments.

But if they come home wounded, their brains rattled by the huge IEDs of the new way of war, and if they suffer the horrors of PTSD nightmares and flashbacks, let's dump them on the streets with the least amount of help and benefits possible, as cheaply as possible.

For sure we don't want to improve their chances, better their future prospects, by offering them the same college benefits we gave their grandfathers six decades ago. God help us if they all get college degrees and figure out what we've done to them.

If my father were alive this Memorial Day, he would still display the flag. But not without anger, if he knew how today's veterans are abandoned to fight the war inside — the same one he fought when he came home — on their own.

Bush's Global Failure Tour

Bill Scher — Fri, 16 May 2008 10:40:54 -0400

Yesterday, President Bush was in Israel, and equated speaking with Iran with "the false comfort of appeasement." Today in Saudi Arabia, Bush will likely fail (UPDATE: has failed) to persuade the kingdom to pump more oil and help lower gas prices.

The events are related.

Bush's saber-rattling with Iran raises concerns of war and more disruption of oil supplies, which prompts speculators to raise prices.

And while Bush ran for president in 2000 with the promise to lower gas prices by "Us[ing] the capital that my administration will earn, with the Kuwaitis or the Saudis, and convince them to open up the spigot." That was when crude oil was at $30 a barrel. Today it's at $128.

That's in part because Bush's failed foreign policy has depleted our political capital with the Saudis. Energy Wire's Steve Mufson reports:

President Bush pays another visit to Saudi Arabia this week, but the visit isn’t likely to produce new flows of oil from the world’s biggest exporting nation. That's not just a matter of Bush's own diplomatic shortcomings - it's also linked to changes in the U.S.-Saudi relationship and changes in the kingdom’s view of its self-interest.

Former U.S. Ambassador to Saudi Arabia Chas Freeman told me before I visited Riyadh last fall that years ago, the U.S.-Saudi relationship was based on a perceived exchange of U.S.-provided security for Saudi-exported oil. Nowadays, Saudi Arabia questions whether the U.S. invasion of Iraq enhanced the kingdom’s security and the region’s stability. And the Saudi royals also wonder whether the giant U.S. military can really protect the kingdom’s oil infrastructure from terrorist attacks. On the U.S. side, many analysts believe that Saudi Arabia, by cutting its oil output on several occasions over the past nine years, helped drive prices up to their current peak.

Of course, Bush's failure in foreign policy wouldn't hurt us at the pump as badly if he implemented an energy policy that made renewable fuels and energy-efficient cars widely accessible and affordable. But instead, he and his fellow conservatives protected subsidies to Big Oil, blocked investment in renewable energy and perpetuated the oil addiction.

We were already painfully aware of Bush's twin failures in foreign policy and energy policy. Apparently, Bush wanted to take the failure show on the road and give it the spotlight of the world stage.

Guess They Didn't Get To Our Questions

Bill Scher — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 10:41:36 -0400

Hey ABC. Next time, instead getting your debate questions spoon-fed from Sean Hannity, maybe listen to those of us here at Campaign for America's Future.

Then you won't get your reputation mocked by your peers in journalism, and more importantly for their bottom line, their consumers.

The delusion that ABC appears to be under is persistent throughout the traditional media: that conservatives, and the radio hosts that rant for them, are the sole representatives of "the heartland." So if they want a question asked, even when it's transparently for political reasons, it must be what's "on the mind of regular Americans."

ABC does not seem to have learned the lesson from the past few weeks: voters are generally not interested in the these manufactured outrages. For example, 58% of likely Pennsylvania voters said the Rev. Wright story had "no effect" on their view of Sen. Obama (and an additional 24% liked Obama more afterwards.) We also haven't seen significant poll movement following the trumped-up "Bittergate."

I suspect this has less to do with the candidate than with what's actually on the minds of voters: how we fix the economy, and how we get out of Iraq.

These issues only got touched upon last night, and with factually flawed questioning from ABC's Charlie Gibson.

In questioning Sen. Clinton, Gibson asserted, "General Petraeus was in Washington. You both were there when he testified. Saying that the gains in Iraq are fragile and are reversible. Are you essentially saying: I know better than the military commanders here?"

But Petraeus did not unequivocally say the basic plans for withdrawal, as outlined by Clinton and Obama, would reverse the fragile (in other words, not very significant) gains. Asked by surge cheerleader Sen. Lindsey Graham what would happen if we withdrew a brigade a month, Petraeus said, "If conditions were good it would be doable."

Later Gibson also repeatedly asserted to Sen. Obama that "history shows that when you drop the capital gains tax, the revenues go up," making the classic, nonsensical conservative argument. But economist Jason Furman told The New Republic:

The [congressional committee] score of the capital gains cut in 1997 was a few billion dollars annually. The 2003 cut was something like $5 billion annually. But capital gains revenues can go up or down by tens of billions annually. So it is hard to look at the noisy data and infer ex post the revenue impact of these changes.

Comments from Left Field also note that some people timed the selling of assets, when the capital gains tax is levied, right after the cut. That merely causes a short-term spike in taxes being collected. not a wave of economic growth magically turning a tax cut into increased revenue over the long-term.

So even when the debate got around to substance, there was no substance.

There's one way to counter the conservative influence on the traditional media. Engage the media.

Let them know what their consumers really want. Don't leave the questioning to Hannity. Submit your own substantive questions to the media ahead of time for events such as this, so they know that the superficial gotcha questions is not what voters want to hear.

They need to hear us in large numbers so they realize that the Hannities of the world are not the sole representatives of the heartland, and that they better ask real questions that matter to voters if they want more voters to actually watch their shows.

At this blog, we do this every Friday for the Weekend Watchdog -- letting the Sunday shows know what questions should be asked. And we always need your help to get those questions in front of hosts.

So come back here tomorrow, and let's get to work.

Paying the Bush War Bill, Defaulting on Our Future

Terrance Heath — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 11:02:40 -0400

It's almost a shame that the subprime mortgage bonanza burned out before the sun finally sets on the George W. Bush administration. After all, they managed to lure Americans into a war we didn't need and couldn't afford, then stuck us with a ballooning bill and never ending payments. Reborn as a brokerage firm dealing in subprime mortgages, this administration could have made a killing.

Don't take my word for it. Just have a look at your bill.

What could your family do right now with $100 a month? How about a little more then $100 a month? Got an answer? Good. You won't be doing anything with that $100, because that's you're share of the monthly bill for George W. Bush's war in Iraq.

It started out as a statement Sen. Barack Obama made at a campaign stop. Then the St. Petersburg Times picked up on it, decided to do the math, and discovered that the price was right.

“When Iraq is costing each household about $100 a month, you’re paying a price for this war,” he said in the speech in Charleston, W.Va.

The figure came from The Trillion Dollar War: The True Cost of the Iraq Conflict, a new book by Joseph Stiglitz and Linda J. Blimes. The number checked out, but lacked a footnote. So the Times called up one of the authors.

There was no footnote for the $100 estimate, so we called Bilmes to ask how she had calculated it. She said they took the Bush administration’s 2008 request for war funding – $196-billion – and divided it by 12 to get a monthly cost. That works out to $16-billion for both wars and about $12-billion just for the Iraq portion.

Then, she and Stiglitz divided those figures by the number of U.S. households and came up with $138 for both wars and slightly more than $100 for Iraq alone, she said.

We double-checked the authors' sources and math, and found they were right.

Indeed, the Bush administration request for 2008 was $196-billion for both wars, with $159-billion going to Iraq, according to a summary by the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service. A recent Census Bureau report said there were 116-million households. So that works out to about $140 per month for both wars and about $114 for Iraq alone. (Our numbers are slightly higher than Bilmes and Stiglitz because we used the latest estimates from CRS and a newer and slighter higher count for households.)

To understand how the selling of the Iraq war would make any broker of subprime mortgages proud, you have to remember how the Bush administration lowballed the costs of the war at $50 billion. You have to keep in mind that the Pentagon has overspent by $295 billion on weapons systems that are over budget and behind schedule, and the Army made a $300 million deal with a 22-year-old contractor to send 40-year-old ammunition to Afghanistan. You might also consider that, with these headlines still fresh, the State department just renewed Blackwater's contract, despite investigations into tax violations and the murders of Iraqi civilians.

The Bush administration's crackdown on contractor fraud, by forcing companies to report abuse of taxpayer money, has a major loophole: it doesn't apply in Iraq and Afghanistan, or anywhere else overseas. House Democrats are demanding documents related to loophole, in order to figure out just how it slipped into a plan to protect taxpayer money. In turn, the Bush administration is delaying the delivery of the documents. (The White House says it is "working with the committee" and plans to provide a response to its request "in the near term.") There's enough deception and disinformation — from the still-missing WMDs to the imaginary Saddam/al Qaida link — in the above to warm impress even the most crooked subprime mortgage broker.

Meanwhile, we continue to pay and the price keeps going up.

So, what could your family do with $114 per month? Better question, what could your family do with $1,368 in extra cash this year? That's pretty much your household's share of the Iraq war bill. It's slightly more than the $1,200 a married couple will get when the "stimulus" checks are finally mailed out. (The rest of us will get some where between $300 and $600.)

And if you're one of the 67% of Americans who think the Iraq war contributed to the economic mess we're in, President Bush says "just 'til those stimulus checks kick in."

Of course the "stimulus" will only "kick in" once. The cost of the Iraq war will kick in over and over again. Even as Gen. Petraeus goes to Washington to meet with the "shareholders" of this venture we're all paying for, somebody left their copy of the business plan lying around, and news has leaked out that we're in Iraq indefinitely.

A confidential draft agreement covering the future of US forces in Iraq, passed to the Guardian, shows that provision is being made for an open-ended military presence in the country.

The draft strategic framework agreement between the US and Iraqi governments, dated March 7 and marked "secret" and "sensitive", is intended to replace the existing UN mandate and authorizes the US to "conduct military operations in Iraq and to detain individuals when necessary for imperative reasons of security" without time limit.

The authorization is described as "temporary" and the agreement says the US "does not desire permanent bases or a permanent military presence in Iraq". But the absence of a time limit or restrictions on the US and other coalition forces - including the British - in the country means it is likely to be strongly opposed in Iraq and the US.

Given the limited options the next president — whomever he or she is — will face limited options in Iraq, we're probably not going to start withdrawal on January 20, 2009. Probably not even January 21. So, what can your family do with, say, $4,104 in the next three years, long after the "stimulus" check has run out?

Well, take your pick:

If you're a part of the middle class — where income has increased just just 1.3 percent in eight years, compared to the 9.1% increase for the top 1/5 of the population — you'd probably use it to pay some bills, as with your one-shot stimulus check.
If you're one of hundreds of thousands of Americans taking second jobs to make ends meet, you might work fewer hours and get more sleep.
If you're one of the growing number of Americans who are putting off retirement, because their home equity has plummeted, you might use it to pad your retirement when/if you get to enjoy it.
You might also use it to pay some past due bills, if you've fallen behind 30-days or more, as Americans have done in record numbers recently.
If you're one of many Americans cutting back on driving these days, chances are some of it will go into your tank as gas prices hit a record high. (Meanwhile Iraq is swimming in a huge oil revenue surplus, and even the insurgents are getting a cut.)
If you have health insurance, you still might need it to pay for your increasingly expensive health care and the rising price of your prescriptions.
If you're one of the 232,000 who lost jobs in the firs three months of 2008, you'll need it just to cover the rising cost of food, to supplement what food stamps and food banks don't cover.
If you're a student, or have kids you'd like to send to college, that money might come in handy as student loan guarantors go belly up, and the credit crunch makes student loans harder to get from the lenders that are left.

Of course, none of us will get a bill in the mail this month, and send in a check to pay for the Iraq war. Nor will we receive some kind of collective bill for this month's $12 billion payment. But that doesn't mean that we won't pay. It certainly doesn't mean that we aren't paying.

If more and more of us believe that the Iraq war caused the economic slowdown and that leaving Iraq will help the economy, it's because we pay — not with checks, but with what the monetary cost of this war (there are other costs, paid by our soldiers and by Iraqi civilians) prevents us from doing for our communities and our country.

What we spend on Iraq in one month could buy more than a year's health care for 4 million children.
What we spend on Iraq in one month could repair our most critical levees and dams.
Just over half of the $3 trillion Iraq has cost us so far could pay for the $1.6 trillion in infrastructure repairs we'll need in the next five years.
What we spend on Iraq in one day could pay for 6,883 high school graduates to attend college at public universities, for four fully-funded years. (So one month of what we spend in Iraq could do the same for one month, or 30 days, could send more than 206,000 high school graduates to college.)
With what we spend on Iraq in one day we could hire 7,030 new public school teachers.
We could have rebuilt New Orleans 4.4 times.

Whether we're in Iraq for three more years or 100 years (in which case the theoretical cost to your household — perhaps to be inherited by your children, my children, and their children — would be something like $136,800) these are things we will not do, and can not do, as long as we pay the bill for George W. Bush's war.

Being unable to do what's needed for our families, our communities, and our country is the price. And like so many our our debts, it will only continue to rise. Until, and unless, we decide that we — and our children, and their children — will not pay that bill anymore.

Occupying Iraq Is Just Like Occupying ... Alabama?

Bill Scher — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 13:47:52 -0400

Earlier this week, I mentioned that the conservative blog RedState is trying to pressure the traditional media to treat critiques of John McCain's embrace of a 100-year occupation of Iraq as lies and distortion.

Today, RedState sent an email alert to readers to further push the point ... making a, shall we say, novel argument (emphasis added):

Clearly McCain was talking about a peace time standing presence ... Someone should ask the Democrats if they think we're still at war with the confederacy, the Germans, and the Japanese given all the standing American armies in the South, Germany, and Japan.

As I said in my previous post, "Claiming a 100-year occupation in Iraq would be like Germany or Korea reveals an immense lack of foreign policy knowledge, judgment and vision. The situations and political dynamics have absolutely no similarity." (For more on that point, check out Agence France Presse, Coalition for a Realistic Foreign Policy, Talking Points Memo, Booman Tribune, The Newshoggers and Juan Cole.)

But hey, at least Germany and Japan are like Iraq in that they are other countries.

I can't believe I am wasting 15 seconds of my life to type this, but having military bases in Alabama, Georgia and South Carolina does not constitute a permanent occupation. Does RedState really believe that 140 years after the Civil War, American troops have a "peace time standing presence" in the American south?

Conservatives are still flogging the notion that they hold an innate superiority on national security and foreign policy.

The disaster of Iraq has already stripped the veneer off of that fallacy.

Trying to claim that having military bases in Iraq for 100 years -- when our own intelligence community says "fear of Western domination" is what fuels the "jihadist movement" -- is just like having military bases in our own country, is probably not the best way to regain the public's trust on national security.

Hey Rick, help a brother out. What explains this conservative inanity?