Archiv der Kategorie: US Politics

Iraq, US Politics

Pride Goeth Before The Fall

Lillimarleen points to a Salon.com article by Arianna Huffington that begins with this quote from the Bible and deals with the increasing smugness of the Beltway neocons –

“From the moment that statue of Saddam hit the ground, the mood around the Rumsfeld campfire has been all high-fives, I-told-you-sos, and endless smug prattling about how the speedy fall of Baghdad is proof positive that those who opposed the invasion of Iraq were dead wrong.”

Ms Huffington, on the other hand, argues along the lines of the French political scientist Emanuel Todd – whose main argument regarding Iraq is that an increasingly weaker superpower (yes, he is thinking about ths US) chose to rethorically prop up a weak target to demonstrate its seeming military might – by saying that –

“[i]n fact, the speedy fall of Baghdad proves the antiwar movement was dead right.”

Well, I am not too sure about this conclusion – in fact there is no way to tell who was right and who was wrong. There’s enough reality for everyone to say “I told you so.”

So having heard why the anti- as well as the pro-war camp believe their world-wiew is right in light of the quick end to hostilities, let’s do a little thought-experiment: Imagine the war had lasted six months and there would have been thousands, if not tens of thousands more victims on either side, possibly killed by WMDs. Those in the anti-war camp would have said “see, we told you so”, war is horrible and there was no immediate need to let the genie out of the bottle, while the pro-war camp would have claimed “see, we told you so”, Saddam’s regime is in fact dangerous and it was the right decision to go in now. The sad truth for everyone looking for ex-post moral clarity is that right or wrong are just the wrong categories here.

But apart from failing to see this impossibility, Ms Huffington’s article makes the important point that, following the surprisingly quick and relatively unbloody fall of Baghdad, the neoconsevervatives’ “it was easy, we can do it again”-discourse should not remain unchallenged.

Right or wrong, the neoconservative conception of preemption was never just about possible Iraqi-WMDs or about liberation of the Iraqi people. The whole adventure is probably really inspired by the desire to jump-start modern institutions of governance in the Middle East. This can probably be called neo-colonialist. But maybe there is just no other way to increase financial support to unprecedented levels without taking hierarchical control of the regions where the money is spent. Maybe this is the right way to reduce the risk of suicide terrorists exporting their societies’ 30-years-jihad to New York, Paris, or Frankfurt. Maybe there is no other way to solve-slash-control the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in light of the Arab nations’ tendency to scapegoat Israel for internal problems, continuing mutual violence destroying any remainder of trust between leaders as well as their peoples, and, of course, the fertility competition Jewish settlers and Palestinians are engaging in. Maybe. But probably not. Probably, there is no short cut to modernity.

I have repeatedly stated that I don’t believe their calculation is correct. But it is clearly one possibility. And the relatively swift conquest-slash-liberation has clearly made things significantly easier. Thus, Ms Huffington is clearly right to remind us that – even though things went a lot smoother than, I suppose, even most of the people who bet their careers on this war expected – the difficult times are still ahead. In her words –

“The unintended consequences have barely begun to unfold.”

Didn’t the Shiite opposition boycot yesterday’s meeting with the future Iraqi “viceroy”, Jay Garner? I’m just saying… Remember – pride goeth before the fall.

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compulsory reading, German Politics, Iraq, oddly enough, US Politics

Reality Construction.

One of the currently more popular theories of US-war-blogosphere regarding the German and French government’s opposition to the war is that they opposed it in order to conceal the extent to which they were involved in the built-up of Iraq’s pool of WMD. This theory has been prominently publicized by Steven DenBeste.

For all those who hold the opinion that no thinking human being could oppose the war for non-selfish reasons, DenBeste’s theory seemed to be a logic explanation of reality. But it has serious flaws. It is certainly not flawed to say that there is a certain possibility that a number of German and French companies (as well as companies from other nations…) sold suspicious stuff to Saddam’s regime pre-, but especially post 1991 in breach of UN sanctions. It is, however, flawed to argue that the French and German government’s opposition to the war must have been informed by this, including the possibility that the governments actually found out about such a breach by companies legally residing in the respective country. In fact, such a conclusion is actually illogical – although chances are, we will never find out, because whatever is or is not reported to be found in Iraq is entirely within the discretion of those in control of the area.

Thus, depending on the US’ government’s intentions of how to involve Europe in the reconstruction of Iraq (that’s what denBeste calls the ‘blackmailing strategy’), the theory could well be a self-fulfilling prophecy. Eamonn Fitzgerald today points to an article in the New York Times that illustrates this rather well – now that the US and the UK are actually in charge of Iraq and will soon be in control of whatever remains of the previous administration, they are unlikely to reveal information that would put blame on themselves for whatever remains of WMDs they may find down there. And I suppose they will find something eventually – they simply have to, after using the Iraqi WMD-threat as a pro-war-discourse element for so long. So it is very likely that the stuff they will acknowledge to have found will be of Old European production – French, I suppose – and, again, the amount of stuff revealed will probably depend on the development of the transatlantic relationship in the coming weeks and months.

Looking at the problem from this perspective, the DenBeste theory does not make much sense. Had Germany’s and France’s governments been involved in the military build-up of Iraq in a way they would have deemed necessary to conceal, the logical policy would have been to be as involved in the invasion as possible in order to retain as much control over what will be found and what will be published now. Being as closely allied to the US as possible is certainly a better way to achieve that than publicly angering the Pentagon’s PR people, don’t you think?

But even though the theory may be wrong, the result may eventually be close to what Steven DenBeste predicted. Some reality will be constructed, even though, in the end, no one will actually know what has been going on.

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Germany, US Politics, USA

Too Big? Too Small!

I contend that the United States of America might be not powerful enough. And Henry Kissinger – whatever your personal take regarding his personal moral responsibility for doubtful US foreign policies, he is clearly someone with a certain grasp of international realities – would probably agree with me.

After all, it was he who once claimed that a lot of the problems of the 20th century resulted from the problem that Germany, as a nation state, was originally too big (in all relevant measures) to be just one state among European equals but too small to dominate the continent on its own. Seen from this perspective of geo-strategic Realpolitik the violence of the last century seems like a historical trap, almost inevitable – in order to overcome this disequilibrium of power the only possibility was an attempt to expand and dominate, which, upon failure, led to the second possibility. Much of the opposition to the German reunification in France and the United Kingdom was driven by the fear that Germany might inadvertently fall into that trap again.

While I am sure that geo-strategic prowess is likely to create an expansionary tendency, I do not believe that human history follows such gravity-like rules, even if they have been proposed by Henry Kissinger. However, assuming for a moment that the model he suggested in that quote were correct, what would his theory tell us about the current global situation? It would tell us that, on a global scale, the USA could be the 21st century’s Germany, however benign or not her intentions of global governance under a Pax Americana may be. It seems self-evident to me that –

The USA is too big not to influence every other state on this planet while she is too small to dominate it entirely.

But no one can wish for another Wilhelmine experience on a global scale. So let’s just hope that Henry was not entirely right.

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compulsory reading, Iraq, oddly enough, Political Theory, US Politics

A Tale of Perle and Pirls

So Baghdad sort of fell today. The Iraqi regime seems to have disappeared overnight. This is clearly a very good thing. I still believe that this war was unnecessary as well as unwise and I still believe that it is going to be far more costly – monetarily as well as in lives and in terms of international security – than the US administration seems to have reckoned in their calculations. And it is not over yet.

But I am ready to admit that I was moved by the Iraqi people welcoming the US troops – and I felt reminded of the tales my parents told me about US soldiers handing out chocolate to starving German toddlers after WW2. Whatever the regime that will follow on the US military government will be like, whether authoritarian, in order to handle the ethnic clashes and distributive conflicts that will in all likelihood arise now, or possibly truly democratic – as Paul Wolfowitz said today, paraphrasing Abraham Lincoln, a government of the Iraqi people, by the Iraqi people, for the Iraqi people – life in Iraq will in all likelihood be better in the future than it was in the past. And not just because of the “tax refunds” some Iraqis claimed today in the form of previously administration-owned furniture.

However, for the time being, I still do not share the US neoconservatives’ assessment that the American Prometheus can indeed bring good governance and enlightenment to the middle east. Certainly not within a few years. And that’s a huge part of the problem. The Saudis welcomed the US in 1990. Four years later, they were already regarded as semi-occupiers of Islamic holy land. Candy for kids is not going to modernize the region by itself. Just as Brad DeLong notes today –

… we could still turn operational victory into strategic defeat, and harm the national security of the United States. The story the world needs to tell itself is that the United States overthrew a cruel dictator and gave Iraqis a much better life, not the out-of-control United States bombed and invaded a small country because President Bush wanted to get his hands on its oil.

I suppose, there is indeed a tiny, tiny chance that social modernisation by tank could work. And it remains tiny, even though the professionalism of the allied troops that made this war a short campaign without too many civilian victims has clearly increased it significantly. But however minuscule it is, the US has – against the will of many – committed itself and the rest of “the west” to embark on this adventure.

I contend I do not believe it will work. But this is a problem where I would love to be proven wrong in the end. If all goes well, I am hereby inviting Richard Perle to publicly lecture me in, say, 15 years about the right attitude in international relations with the following fable. It was, interestingly enough, part of the recently published “The Progress in International Reading Literacy Study” (PIRLS) which assessed a range of reading comprehension strategies of ten year olds in 35 countries. I thought about adapting it to “Weasel heralds the War!” but then decided against it – after all, it is a fable that is very likely to remain just that.

Hare Heralds the Earthquake
by Rosalind Kerven

There was once a hare who was always worrying. “Oh dear,” he muttered all day long, “oh deary, deary me.” His greatest worry was that there might be an earthquake. “For if there was,” he said to himself, “whatever would become of me?”

He was feeling particularly anxious about this one morning, when suddenly an enormous fruit fell down from a nearby tree – CRASH! – making the whole earth shake. The hare leaped up. “Earthquake!” he cried. And with that he raced across the fields to warn his cousins.

“Earthquake! Run for your lives!” All the hares left the fields and madly followed him. They raced across the plains, through forests and rivers and into the hills warning more cousins as they went. “Earthquake! Run for your lives!” All the hares left the rivers and plains, the hills and forests and madly followed. By the time they reached the mountains, ten thousand hares pounded like thunder up the slopes. Soon they reached the highest peak. The first hare gazed back to see if the earthquake was coming any closer, but all he could see was a great swarm of speeding hares. Then he looked in front but all he could see was more mountains and valleys and, far in the distance, the shining blue sea.

As he stood there panting, a lion appeared. “What’s happening?” he asked. “Earthquake, earthquake!” babbled all the hares. “An earthquake?” asked the lion. “Who has seen it? Who has heard it?” “Ask him, ask him!” cried all the hares, pointing to the first one. The lion turned to the hare.

“Please Sir,” said the hare shyly, “I was sitting quietly at home when there was a terrible crash and the ground shook and I knew it must be a quake, Sir, so I ran as fast as I could to warn all the others to save their lives.” The lion looked at the hare from his deep, wise eyes.

“My brother, would you be brave enough to show me where this dreadful disaster happened?”

The hare didn’t really feel brave enough at all, but he felt he could trust the lion. So, rather timidly, he led the lion back down the mountains and the hills, across the rivers, plains, forests and fields, until at last they were back at his home.

“This is where I heard it, Sir.” The lion gazed around – and very soon he spotted the enormous fruit which had fallen so noisily from its tree. He picked it up in his mouth, climbed onto a rock and dropped it back to the ground. CRASH! The hare jumped. “Earthquake! Quickly – run away – it’s just happened again!”

But suddenly he realized that the lion was laughing. And then he saw the fruit rocking gently by his feet. “Oh,” he whispered, “it wasn’t really an earthquake after all, was it?” “No,” said the lion, “it was not and you had no need to be afraid.” “What a silly hare I’ve been!”

The lion smiled kindly. “Never mind, little brother. All of us – even I – sometimes fear things we cannot understand.” And with that he padded back to the ten thousand hares that were still waiting on top of the mountain, to tell them that it was now quite safe to go home.

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Iraq, US Politics

Hoping For The Best. But Expecting The Worst.

Anthony Zinni, President Bush’s former Middle East peace envoy said that he resigned from this posiition a month ago in part because he mentally weaseled out of the party line by believing that

“[t]his is in fact the wrong war at the wrong time.”

His assessment is shared by – if I am counting correctly – most people with expert knowledge of the region. But in the end, no one knows what the consequences of this war will be in the long, medium, and even in the short run. No one even knows what is *really* going on right now down there [except those with a spy-satellite of their own…] Both sides are trying to instrumentalise the media machine for their respective propaganda (did you notice how the Iraqi on screen design changed from white sheets and a flag to a nice blue global map after the US centcom presented its Star-Wars-bridge-like briefing room?) – they report, and we decide which side is to believe less for the moment.

But quite indenpently of the question whether the battle for Bagdad will be as swift as all recent conquests of Paris (thank God for German general Choltitz, who did not carry out Hitler’s order to burn down the city in back in August 1944) or whether coalition forces will be dragged into a bloody street fight like in Berlin or Mogadishu, I think Zinni is right to assume that things could have been a lot worse if it weren’t for the professionalism of the leading coalition forces.

However, I wonder if they will be able to uphold the rather positive record when it comes to institution building and/or simply running Iraq. I am afraid even the most skilled military conquerors are still going to fail to win a lasting peace. I am afraid that their core competence is not public administration. And most of all I am afraid that there is a lot of potential to politically screw it all.

As always, I’m hoping for the best. But I am expecting the worst.

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compulsory reading, oddly enough, Political Theory, US Politics, USA

Desperately Seeking Simplicity

Somehow, I hate to restate something as obvious as this – the world we are living in is an extremely complex system. A system far too complicated for any individual to understand. That’s why we tend to categorize and model the world in order to reduce complexity and gain a little insight into the “underlying causes” of the reality constructed by our sensory system.

But somehow, I guess it is necessary. Fellow German Blogger “Lilimarleen” wonders how people living in a world featuring violent anti-globalisation demonstrations and politicians desperate to cater to the needs of multinational corporations with the ability to go “regime shopping” can actually believe that there is something like a “national” product that can be boycotted without harming anyone but a clearly (nationally) identifiable producer (and oneself, because of the choice not to engange in a otherwise utility enhancing transaction).

The answer is evident, in my opinion – they are looking for simplicity – and ways to regain control of a global system that is seemingly beyond anyone’s control. Knowing that their individual *political*, ie “non-market”, influence on the relevant international players’ actions is not even negligible, they are turning to a different institution of imaginary popular control – consumer “democracy”. As one of Lilimarleen’s reader’s remarked –

“Boycotting is the only way that I can make a difference.”

Well, should the problem of collective action indeed be overcome by a specific momentum like the current wave of “Freedom”-branding, they could indeed have *some* influence. But in an extremely complex system like the world economy, there is no way to predict the indirect ramifications of their actions apart from the fact that everyone will suffer from reduced economic exchange.

In order to uphold this illusion of influence those boycotting “French” products need to adopt a simplistic view of the transactional structure through which the good in question has been created.

I suppose it’s a bit like driving fast in a car – a mechanism of mental self protection. Rationally, I know that there are quite a lot of things that could lead to an accident that are entirely out of my realm of decision making. But I don’t think about that because holding the steering weel emotionally reassures me that I am in control of the machine I am sitting in. I am deluding myself, and I know it.

But otherwise, I would not be able to drive (fast) at all. And there is no way I would renounce to that.

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media, oddly enough, Political Theory, US Politics, USA

Stalinism.

Andrew Northrup is concerned with the distorted reality that mass media is constructing in our heads, specifcally by the notion that the western public is more and more appalled even by small numbers of wartime casualties, citing an article by Greg Easterbrook who seems to hold this opinion –

“[a]s we weep for the Iraqi dead – whoever slew them, they did not deserve their fates–we should reflect that the recent trend both of general war, as in Iraq, and of ‘armed conflict,’ as in other places, is for fewer people to die, while the threshold of what constitutes an atrocity is steadily lowered. Both are good signs for the human prospect.”

Northrup, on the other hand holds that

“… media coverage, and world opinion, has basically nothing to do with actual magnitudes, and basically everything to do with scoring political points. … Is a single Palestinian or Israeli death global news because a precious, precious life was lost, and life is the most precious, precious thing there is? Or because it lets someone say “I told you so”?”

He certainly makes a good point by citing an Economist article about another – far bloodier – war that is being waged these days without global attention – in Africa, Congo, to be precise, a forgotten country on a forgotten continent –

“… if the Economist’s figures are to be believed, the death toll of the past half-decade in Congo is about the same as the entire population of the occupied territories, or Israel, or Baghdad. Put another way, it’s 3 orders of magnitude greater than Intifada 2, probably 4 powers of ten greater than GW2 (so far…), and has received 3 or 4 orders of magnitude less press coverage than either one. The explanation for this is politics, not the greater caring and sensitivity of 21st century man.”

I agree that domestic and international political/ economic salience is clearly an important variable to explain media attention – but I think that casualty numbers do have some importance, albeit not quite in the way that Mr Easterbrook alleges.

I doubt human beings have become any more emphatic in recent years than they have been before. But low casualty numbers allow a stronger expressions of empathy than higher numbers – mostly because of psychological “bandwidth restrictions”. We might be able to grasp the suffering of a few people, but not that of millions. Factor that into the media’s programming decisions and there is an additional explanation for overproportional coverage of “small scale” atrocities.

Maybe Andrew Northrup forgot about a point once made by Joseph Stalin: while the Soviet dictator was undisputably wrong in pretty much everything he ever said or did – after all, depending on whom you ask he will be a close runner up to Hitler or even top the Austro-German monster on the list of the most evil men of the 20st century – he seems to have had a certain grasp of mass media constructed reality and human psychology when he once stated that –

“A single death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic.”

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Iraq, US Politics

Rubber Bands vs. Cannons

Earlier tonight, RTL television broadcast an in-depth 25 minutes interview with Richard Perle, the former chairman of the Pentagon’s defense policy board who stepped down at the end of last week due to alligations of possible conflicts of interest between public and private consulting engagements (see earlier post). I tuned in too late so I don’t know when this interview was taped – but judging from his attitude and words I assume it was not during the last few days.

Asked how he would describe the military disparity between the US and other NATO forces, he said something along the line of –

“…it’s like one shooting with Rubber Bands and the other one with Cannons.”

Now most people know that ‘low tech’ will beat ‘high tech’ whenever the latter’s vulnerable spot is known. I read somewhere that Iraqi soldiers have onw found out that the main US battle tank (Abrams M1A1/M1A2) does seem to have a soft spot – and so they developed a way to exploit it with their anachronistic 1970s Soviet anti-tank weapons. Not that I fear this indicates that the US could actually be forced to pull back – *that* would be a scenario I believe not even the staunchest opponents of this war would hope for once they think about the ramifications for a nanosecond – but it shows that disrespect for the rubber band equipped enemy is never a healthy strategy.

Yet it is precisely this kind of arrogance that is displayed by the Perles of this world [I read Michael Lind’s “Made In Texas” on my way back from Paris and I can’t say the book has increased my sympathy for the neo-conservatives’ worldview…]. It is the “Daddy knows best” – attitude of these apparently overeducated men that gives otherwise simplistic books like Michael Moore’s bestseller “Stupid White Men” the grain of truth needed to be sold.

In the interview mentioned above Perle explained why he believes that force (he did not say ‘war’, probably because of the nasty associations) should not be just a “means of last resort” for a given international problem – because it often seems to be more difficult to solve it by force later on. This is captivating logic – if one is in possession of complete information about the future.

As for arrogance, here’s another example, this time from Paul Wolfowitz, US Deputy Secretary Of Defense. In a recent interview with Newsweek magazine he was (also) asked what he made of the intense opposition to war from the streets all over the world –

Newsweek: But in all these countries it’s a really strong domestic tide.
DepSecDef Wolfowitz: But it’s fed by leadership. Leadership matters. American opinion is different because our leadership is talking about it differently.

Why, exactly, is it, that I fear a lot of those wargamers did watch the war-room sequence in “Patriot Games” a bit too often.

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Iraq, US Politics

The Small Print

When I first heard that Richard Perle were to step down as chairman of the Pentagon’s defence policy board I wondered whether it is an indication that the ongoing war – including reports about understaffed and underequipped US forces – had given the military in the Pentagon enough clout to force Perle, one of the neoconservative civilian bullies, out after it was reported that he was not only advising the Pentagon (for free) but also a bankrupt U.S. telecommunications company, Global Crossings (for a lot of money).

According to the NYTimes, 600,000 US Dollars of Perle’s overall 725,000 Dollar consulting contract depended on the Pentagon’s agreement to the sale of 61,5% of Global Crossing to a joint venture formed by Hutchison Whampoa, controlled by Hong Kong billionaire Li Kashing, and Singapore Technologies Telemedia, a phone company controlled by the government of Singapore. Clearly, the NYTimes was rather modest to ask Perle to

“… choose between the gain and the office…” –

However, let’s not forget that, until now, the Richard Perles of this world did not care too much about possible shifts in public opinion following reports about apparent conflicts of interests – just look at my post from last Friday, written just before the Perle story broke.

So whatever the inside story of Perle’s resignation is – according to Spiegel Online [link in German] Perle himself claims to be a victim of a media campaign – it does indicate that “the boys” weren’t willing to publicly back him up given the current “Oh-My-God-These-Iraqis-Actually-Do-Have-
Some-Guns-Left” public opinion .

But however important this this may seem on the surface, the small print indiactes something else. Perle is not actually giving back his security pass to the Pentagon, according to the NYTimes –

“Rumsfeld accepted the resignation and said Perle would remain a member of the Defense Policy Board, a bipartisan group that advises him on a wide variety of policy issues. Its 30 members are largely former government officials, retired military officers and former members of Congress.”

So the only differences to last week will very likely be a U.S. public reassured that U.S. media does still at least somewhat control the executive, and that Perle will keep a lower public profile than in recent months. But then again, getting out of the limelight might very well be to “The Prince of Darkness’s” liking.

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Iraq, oddly enough, US Politics

Against the rules…

I’m out of town, so I’ll be brief tonight. Via “warblogging.com“, I found this “Corpwatch.com” document regarding a serious involvement in US military activities of a subsidiary of Halliburton, the oil construction company previously managed by current US Vice President Dick Cheney.

Most of the article is concerned with some sort of public-privqte-partnership in the running of certain logistic activities.

In December 2001, Kellogg, Brown and Root, a subsidiary of Halliburton, secured a 10-year deal known as the Logistics Civil Augmentation Program (LOGCAP), from the Pentagon. The contract is a “cost-plus-award-fee, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity service” which basically means that the federal government has an open-ended mandate and budget to send Brown and Root anywhere in the world to run military operations for a profit. … Army officials working with Brown and Root says the collaboration is helping cut costs by hiring local labor at a fraction of regular Army salaries. “We can quickly purchase building materials and hire third-country nationals to perform the work. This means a small number of combat-service-support soldiers are needed to support this logistic aspect of building up an area,” says Lt. Col. Rod Cutright, the senior LOGCAP planner for all of Southwest Asia.”

On an theoretical level, I find this most interesting, as I would have predicted that the nature of transactions conducted by the military on a mission in a crisis area would make it difficult to rely on contractors – even longterm ones – and thus imply the internalisation and hierarchical coordination of all factors necessary. But apparently, a longterm contract seems to be able to handle the organisational problems at hand. Interesting.

On a political level, I am concerned about the impression these contracts will leave, regardless of the fact that

[Dick Cheney’s] spokesperson denies that the White House helped the company win the contract.”

Of course, there are perfectly reasonable explanations for such contracts – maybe Halliburton provided the best offer for a long planned service, maybe other companies are in the same business, in a comparable way, maybe, maybe, maybe – but whatever may or may not be justified in the decision to award them such a contract, the suspicion that the Bush administration does have a private agenda that is at least partly different from its public rethoric is certainly not being refuted by such stories, as the article indicates.

“Critics say that the apparent conflict of interest is deplorable. ‘The Bush-Cheney team have turned the United States into a family business,’ says Harvey Wasserman, author of The Last Energy War (Seven Stories Press, 2000).”

While this is certainly a fringe opinion, I can’t help but wonder why someone like Dick Cheney would not try to avoid stories like by not giving contracts to previous employers at all costs. Including alligations of discrimination against his former employer.

I just don’t get it.

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