War

The most dangerous “state” belief–I’m sure it is sincere

~ Steve Wilkerson ~ Leave a comment

Convincing oneself that one is following a valid process, to do something one’s own lawyers believe to be legal, to achieve something  appropriate that others in the future will confirm by following this example must surely be one of the most common and self-deceptive journeys upon which the human mind can embark.

“For an administration that is the first to embrace targeted killing on a wide scale, officials seem confident that they have devised an approach that is so bureaucratically, legally and morally sound that future administrations will follow suit.”

via Plan for hunting terrorists signals U.S. intends to keep adding names to kill lists – The Washington Post.

 

US Agencies see no move by Iran to build a bomb. Echoes of WMD findings before we invaded Iraq?

~ Steve Wilkerson ~ Leave a comment

“American intelligence analysts continue to believe that there is no hard evidence that Iran has decided to build a nuclear bomb,” reports the New York Times. “Recent assessments by American spy agencies are broadly consistent with a 2007 intelligence finding that concluded that Iran had abandoned its nuclear weapons program years earlier, according to current and former American officials. The officials said that assessment was largely reaffirmed in a 2010 National Intelligence Estimate, and that it remains the consensus view of America’s 16 intelligence agencies.”

See item #2 on the following link:

http://law.fordham.edu/national-security/25410.htm

In many instances, didn’t Obama set the expectations he is failing to meet?

~ Steve Wilkerson ~ 1 Comment

I really don’t want to be unsympathetic to Barack Obama, or any president, yes, including his predecessor, for having a strong ego and lots of self-confidence.  Deciding to run for a major party’s nomination, securing it and then running for election against the nominee of the opposing party are not for the short-winded, weak-willed or those racked with self-doubt.  In fact, I don’t want a president who lacks self-confidence.  But some explanation of things done or left undone at odds with campaign commitments, whether they be apologies for personal failings in key areas or simply thoughtful expositions of why one has chosen a path other than that proposed  need not undermine a healthy ego or a self-confident character.

A cynic might think Obama would rather run in 2012 against the background of a Republican Congress than with a Democratic one that had failed to meet public expectations and thus isn’t going to do more than the minimum to rally Democratic voters in a year when he is not on the ballot.  But that’s like deliberately choosing to enter the second half of the game behind rather than ahead of the other team.  It may be the modern political calculus but it takes some getting used to to accept that being in the lead the whole game isn’t better.

Glenn Greenwald (I know, him again) makes a list of items in which Obama has not only failed to live up fully to his campaign pledges but has either failed completely or has adopted the very policies he criticized when practiced by his predecessor.  Sometimes he’s gone farther than Bush did to make these latter policies unacceptable.

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/09/17/obama/index.html