Semi-Daily Journal

I first heard it from Mark Kleiman.

One thing I see is that decisions are being made and support recruited on occult principles that are not revealed to the general public. At the policy level this means that the actual decision-making process is secret, but at the level of support it means that a lot of people end up strongly and often violently supporting policies (specifically the Iraq war) without really knowing what the policies are. Thus arguments become pointless, as the reasons given for the war slide from al-Qaeda to WMD to liberating the Iraqis to whatever comes next without bothering supporters in the slightest.

It's an understatement to say that this is a rather sick way to carry on public discussion ("enthymemetic politics" -- let people fill in the blanks themselves). Considering that a lot of the support boils down to intense personal loyalty to our god-fearing, studly Maximum Leader, combined with vividly-expressed hatred for liberals, atheists, Europe, and Islam, I'm thinking of going into business selling tinfoil hats.

Natsios's lie may end up being one of the administration's many "technical lies" (viz http://www.calpundit.com/archives/002180.html copyright Drum). that is, it's distantly possible that only about $2 billion of the total, much larger costs of reconstruction will flow through USAID proper.

as USAID administrator, Natsios could plausibly claim his answer to Koppel's question (patently referring to total costs) referred to USAID alone. based on http://www.usaid.gov/iraq/activities.html USAID may indeed not yet have awarded more than $2B in contracts.

as Drum put it, "the technical lie [is] a statement that's very carefully constructed to leave an incorrect impression — but that turns out to be technically true if you parse it closely enough." I suppose it is just slightly cleverer than blankly asserting the chocoration is up again.

Question: Of which living US president was the following said, by a close advisor: 'He kept the promises he intended to keep'?

Andrew Natsios is the same Andrew Natsios who understood southern Africa so little as to decide that medical treatment for AIDS sufferers would not be generally possible because Africans did not wear watches and would not know when to take medicine. The boob knew nothing about Africa and Africans but lo the boob was set to planning development in Iraq.

Fatalities

American soldiers 237
British soldiers 18
Coalition soldiers 5
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260 Since May 2

American 376
British 51
Coalition 5
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432 Since March 20

Wounded

American soldiers ~2152 Since March 20

Note: American forces have fallen to 130,000
British forces have risen to 11,000

What precisely is our objective in remaining in Iraq? Could the Iraqis build a manner of confederated democracy by themselves now, or with a UN peace keeping force?

The cabal running this administration is anti-democratic to their core. Only they have ALL the answers to everything and have contempt for anyone who voices any vision even remotely counter to their "vision." The story in the NYT Sunday Magazine today, if accurate (and there is little doubt even in light of the paper's recent problems with fact checking that it is) exposes the sheer contempt the self-annointed have for democratic principals and opened minded detachment in policy formulation.

$2 billion may have been a number that someone stuck on the civilian rebuilding side early on. They could probably rebuild for $2 billion if they employed Iraqis and Iraqi laborers. Instead they have issued contracts to Halliburton and friends who have to pay big insurance premiums, American scale wages, etc.

A state like Mississippi spends less than $2,000 per person for the entire state budget, Iraq with about 20 million could be funded to the tune of Mississippi for about $40 billion. $2 billion is about $100 per person. What part of the $40 billion was the US originally intending to pay?

We really don't know. I had an opportunity to hear Senator Lugar (Chair Senate Foreign Relations) speak last February and he was very critical of the administration for failing to build political support for the length of occupation that would be required and for funding the operation. Senator Lugar had no clue what the adminstration thought the costs would be.

It reminds me of my time share experience. Win free trip. The catch is having to spend a couple of hours with high pressure salesmen. They NEVER mention the price until the very last or unless you ask. They always extoll the benefits and try to get you to agree to buy the time share, then OBTW it ONLY costs $100,000 (or some outrageous price).

This administration has moved beyond Orwellian. They have turned to time share industry tactics to sell their policies.