Why Biden's Iraq War Vote Still Matter

The architects of both the Vietnam War and the Iraq War - the two greatest disasters in American foreign policy - and members of Congress who supported the fiascoes at the time that it mattered, largely avoided any consequences and accountability for their bad judgment, if not outright deliberate lies in the case of the Bush/Cheney regime and its acolytes. The same can not be said Americans - and Vietnamese and Iraqis - who lost their lives or suffered horrific physical and mental wounds or American taxpayers who had their tax dollars squandered and misspent while America's infrastructure crumbled.   Fast forward to the 2020 presidential race and I know two thing: (i) the Trump/Pence regime is continuing the same sort of lies that lead to the Vietnam and Iraq disasters, and (ii) I will vote for any Democrat running against Donald Trump.  In choosing a Democrat to oppose Trump, a piece in New York Magazine makes the case that Joe Biden's horrifically wrong support for the Iraq War should have consequences in the 2020 Democrat primary process.  Here are article highlights:

By 2011, U.S. forces had occupied Iraq for eight years. But if the press remembered, it didn’t show. The war accounted for a mere 1 percent of all news coverage throughout all of 2010, the Pew Research Center reported. Nearly a decade later, little has changed. The U.S. is still in Iraq, a fact that remains almost entirely absent from the news. When the press does cover the aftermath of the invasion, its attention is fickle, moved only by events like the rise of ISIS or Donald Trump’s assassination of Qasem Soleimani in Baghdad. The architects of the war continue their careers undisrupted by consequence, ensconced in public office and think tanks and the odd university post. But the impunity that shields them doesn’t look quite as impenetrable as it once did. Iraq may be out of the news, but it’s haunting Joe Biden in ways the former vice-president did not appear to anticipate.

Last week, Biden told an Iowa voter he didn’t support the invasion of Iraq at the time of its launch. He opposed it, he said, “from the very moment” George W. Bush announced it, and he told the president as much “right after” it began, CNN reported. But that’s not true, as CNN itself had previously documented. Biden not only voted for the war, in public he supported it with relative enthusiasm, telling an audience at the Brookings Institution in 2003 that “it was the right vote then and would be a correct vote today.”

Biden has since admitted it was a “mistake” to trust the Bush administration to wage war. But as a candidate for president in 2020, he occupies a difficult position. His most threatening competitors for the nomination — Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and Pete Buttigieg, depending on the poll of the day — either voted against the war, or weren’t in a position to do so. On Iraq, Biden stands alone, and the Sanders campaign is determined to make sure that history matters.

In a statement quoted by Politico, senior Sanders campaign advisor Jeff Weaver said Biden, as a senator, “made explicitly clear” that he supported the war. Weaver added, “It is appalling that after 18 years, Joe Biden still refuses to admit he was dead wrong on the Iraq War, the worst foreign-policy blunder in modern American history.”

The Sanders campaign is right on the substance of its accusation. On a moral basis, Biden’s early position on the war is of profound importance. Even the more hawkish pundits usually concede that the invasion of Iraq proved a catastrophe. But the war was doomed to fail; it was flawed, fatally, from its conception. Biden’s mistake and his subsequent failure to reckon with it should cast doubt on his foreign-policy judgment.

Years after the senators cast their fateful votes, it may not even be possible to accurately calculate the total number of Iraqis and Americans whose deaths can be blamed on the decision to invade. At a minimum, the total is in the tens of thousands, and Trump’s destabilizing foreign policy may lead to further bloodshed in the region. Biden’s support for the war wasn’t just a bloodless political miscalculation but a moral failure with fatal consequences.

In the aggregate, Americans appear divided on whether it was even a mistake: 48 percent told the Pew Research Center in 2018 that the invasion was wrong. Military veterans, meanwhile, are more likely to say the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan weren’t worth fighting. By contrast, health care is still a greater priority for most voters. A Quinnipiac University poll released Monday found that 27 percent of voters who are Democratic or lean Democratic rank the issue as their top concern when choosing a candidate to support.

The public may not be calling for a reckoning on Iraq, but one is due nonetheless. The Trump presidency only amplifies a truth that should have been obvious to Democrats a long time ago: America’s foreign policy needs to be dramatically reset. If Biden won’t consistently tell the truth about his record, he undermines his own credibility on one of the most crucial issues a president can directly control.

Biden clearly hopes his role in recent history makes the case for his presidency. His Iraq revisionism suggests his past should disqualify him instead.

Trade War and Oil Industry Waivers Continue to Harm Farmers

Empty grain receiving facility - photo credit: Washington Post.

Ironically, it is Republicans who preach - or at least pretend to preach - the mantra of personal responsibility and that bad decisions and actions should reap consequences on those who make bad life decisions. Thus, for example if suffers the consequences of being gay or poor, somehow one's choices are to blame, not social and economic barriers.  Applying this rule, it is delicious to see Mid-West farmers who helped elect Donald Trump pay an enormous economic and financial price for their bad and - in my view - morally bankrupt decision. I truly worry about the children and youths who are suffering as a result, but as for the adults who chose to vote for a narcissistic demagogue who played to their worse instincts and bigotries, they sadly deserve their fate.  Frighteningly, many continue to refuse to see their own fault in what has now befallen them.  A piece in the Washington Post looks at the continued economic devastation  Trump's self-created trade wars and pandering to the oil industry continues to wreak in the Mid-West in particular.  Here are story highlights (Note the idiocy and insanity: "Many of those grumbling about Trump today concede they are unlikely to vote for a Democratic presidential candidate next year."):

SIOUX CENTER, Iowa — On a typical day, about 80 tractor trailers full of corn line up to dump their loads at Siouxland Energy Cooperative, the ethanol plant just outside of town. The air throbs with the noise and vibration of this industrial moonshine operation, which distills nature’s harvest into a cleaner-burning fuel.

But today, the warm Iowa sun shines on an almost empty parking lot, and the machinery sits idle.

After two decades, Siouxland this month halted operations following the Environmental Protection Agency’s decision to exempt 31 small oil refiners from a federal law requiring them to blend ethanol in their gasoline. The waivers, which the Trump administration has approved almost four times as often as its predecessor, have undercut demand for ethanol and the corn used to make it, farmers said.

“The waivers are what pushed us over the edge,” said Steve Westra, 46, the plant manager. “It absolutely killed the potential for anybody to make any money at this.”

For Iowa farmers already suffering from an extended trade war with China, the ruling has made ethanol the focus of their growing ire over President Trump’s policies.

The trade war has cost farmers potential Chinese orders for the corn-based fuel as well as for a byproduct that is used as animal feed. Now, the refinery exemptions are compounding the financial pain — and threatening political consequences for [Trump] the president, who won this state and its six electoral votes in 2016.

“I supported Trump in the last election. Today, if the election were held, I don’t think I could vote for him,” said Kelly Nieuwenhuis, 60, a corn and soybean farmer in Primghar, about 40 miles east. “It’s definitely growing, the displeasure with the Trump administration.” . . . .Many of those grumbling about Trump today concede they are unlikely to vote for a Democratic presidential candidate next year.

In recent days, amid a rising impeachment furor, the White House has scrambled to midwife a compromise between ethanol advocates and the oil industry. . . . The discontent in deeply conservative northwest Iowa has its roots in [Trump’s] the president’s confrontation with China, which farmers initially backed.

The trade war’s mounting costs are especially evident in this corner of the corn belt. Iowa’s fourth congressional district, which sprawls from the Nebraska and Minnesota borders to the outskirts of Des Moines, has lost more export sales to China than any other district in the country, according to the U.S.-China Business Council.

China’s retaliation for [Trump's] the president’s tariffs on Chinese goods last year cost farmers 78 percent of their $856 million in oilseed and grain shipments to China, the study found.

Those figures may understate the toll. The trade war erupted as farmers were counting on a major increase in Chinese orders for U.S. ethanol and an ethanol byproduct called distillers dried grain (DDG.) Those potential sales for the past two years have now become casualties of the trans-Pacific conflict, Nieuwenhuis said.

China in 2015 had purchased more than 5 million metric tons of DDG, a high-protein animal feed, valued at $1.4 billion, according to the U.S. Grains Council. By the following year, China was the No. 3 export market for American ethanol, purchasing more than 200 million gallons, worth almost $350 million, the industry group said. Since then, DDG sales have plunged by roughly 98 percent; ethanol orders are virtually nonexistent.

China targeted Midwestern farmers for retaliation, calculating that complaints from a key part of Trump’s political base might cause him to buckle. The president so far has instead tried to make farmers whole with a $28 billion bailout and promises of future riches.

Neither seems to be working. Multiple farmers said the Agriculture Department payments that [Trump] the president bills as full compensation for lost Chinese sales, while better than nothing, still leave them in the red.

[The Trump/Pence] administration has exempted more than 38 billion gallons of gasoline and diesel fuel from ethanol blending requirements compared with just 7.4 billion in President Obama’s final three years, according to the Renewable Fuels Association, an industry group.

It is sad that racial animus and clinging to extremist religious beliefs mean more to a majority of these farmers than their own economic survival.  Adding insult to injury is that the rest of America has been forced to pay 28 billion to save these farmers from the consequences of their own idiocy and bigotry.

Trump May Crash the Farm Economy

If there is any silver lining - or perhaps, irony is the better description - to the Trump/Pence regime, it is watching those who voted against their own economic interest to embrace Trump's overt calls to racism see the consequences of their ugly motivations begin to rain down on them.  Rural America - along with the Christofascists - put Trump in the White House.  Now, his policies are poised to wreak huge economic damage on these very same rural areas.  One state likely to be hard hit is Iowa - a state with a history of being progressive that sadly seemingly embraced Trump's racism and bigotry.  A column in the New York Times by an Iowa news director looks at what Trump may well do to that state's economy and the majority of farm families who voted for him.  If there is a god, they deserve to suffer for their betrayal of decency.  Here are column highlights:

Donald Trump won over 60 percent of the 2016 vote in rural Iowa, where I live, and I haven’t heard much concern from Republicans over [Trump's] the president’s alleged infidelities with a porn actress, his ties to Russia or Jared Kushner’s real estate shenanigans.

Or, for that matter, much concern about the administration scandals about wife beaters, Saudi princes, Ben Carson’s table or Scott Pruitt’s soundproof room. Many people don’t even know these scandals exist — they generally don’t lead in Sean Hannity’s or Tucker Carlson’s world. . . . there is a little rumbling about the increased deficit, but not much.

But people here — Republicans and Democrats alike — are paying great attention to what President Trump is doing economically, especially since he started in on tariffs. We have a strong manufacturing base in our county; when tariffs on aluminum and steel were announced, local manufacturing leaders tried to be diplomatic, praising the Trump tax cuts but saying the steel and aluminum tariffs would hurt their businesses by driving costs up.

One smaller manufacturer — a Trump voter — told me that his costs to produce his product nearly doubled overnight, and that his business has already been hurt by the tariffs. Prices didn’t rise only after the tariffs were announced; they started rising when Mr. Trump floated the idea.

But it’s the farm economy that rural Iowans are paying particular attention to. When [Trump] the president first proposed a 20 percent import tax on Mexico to pay for his wall, Iowans objected: Mexico is our second-largest export partner after Canada.

Mr. Trump has waffled on the renewable fuel standard before — ethanol is big around here — and Iowa’s entire congressional delegation and the governor’s office pressured him to renew it. We know he will waffle again, and potentially end it.

Most recently, when Mr. Trump imposed $60 billion in tariffs and sanctions against China, the Iowa Soybean Association said his action “poses an immediate and grave threat to their industry and Iowa agriculture.”

China has already responded with its own tariff on pork, which will have a dire impact on Iowa. Iowa is the nation’s largest pork producer, producing three times as much pork as the next-highest state.

A couple of banker friends who work with farmers every day told me last week that with commodity prices down and the tariffs imposed, approximately 10 percent of our farmers probably won’t make it this year, and 10 percent more will likely fail next year.

Even Representative Steve King, the avid Trump supporter and Iowan every liberal loves to hate, is worried about a new farm crisis.

Dairy farmers are particularly hard hit, suffering through four years of declining prices. It’s gotten so bad, dairy farming organizations are giving out suicide hotline numbers, as farmers are committing suicide in the hope that their insurance will save the family farm.

I’m focusing on the area I know, rural Iowa, but if [Trump] the president stays on course with the tariffs, the impacts will hit many rural areas all over America, what I call Trumplandia.

“It gives Democrats a generational opportunity to do the political work with farmers they haven’t done since the 1980s farm crisis,” said Matt Russell, a rural sociologist and farmer in Iowa. “Democrats do farm policy really well but are terrible at farm politics. Republicans do farm politics really well but have a history of doing terrible farm policy.”

Harvest will be coming in when members of Congress, in recess, return to Iowa to campaign. They will be getting earfuls from rural constituents about the economic impacts of Mr. Trump’s tariffs.

The president’s position is actually quite precarious. He’s already at a historic low approval rating. With the multiple scandals, rampant corruption and the Mueller investigation, the only thing keeping him near 40 percent approval — and most important, approval among most Republicans — is a strong economy. That, and Fox cheerleading. But if he tanks the rural economy, he and his legacy are in deep trouble.

Furthermore, if the rural economy turns sour, much of rural America will abandon Mr. Trump, and Fox may have no choice but to follow. . . . . They’ll believe that they have no choice, and it will be swift and ruthless.

Again, I hope these folks reap what they sowed and that they turn on Trump like a pack of wild dogs. 

Plea Deal For Student Involved In Tyler Clementi Case

I often don't like plea deals - it depends on the circumstances, of course - because the guilty often get away with far less that what they truly deserve even in instances of very serious crimes. In the the Tyler Clementi case, however, if Molly Wei indeed fully cooperates in helping prosecutors nail Clementi's roommate, then the plea deal may be justified. Moreover, while Wei may have been a co-conspirator, it was still Dharun Rhavi who set up the secret video camera and no doubt laughed it up at Clementi's tragic expense. Frankly, I hope prosecutors make an example of Rhavi so that others will perhaps think twice before doing something to cruel to another human being. By all accounts, Tyler Clementi was an amazing talent and it is indeed a crime that he took his own life because a vicious action of his roommate. Here are highlights from Reuters:
*
Part of the deal requires Molly Wei, 19, of West Windsor to testify against Dharun Rhavi, the roommate of Tyler Clementi who leaped off the George Washington Bridge last fall after learning he had been spied upon. Clementi, 18, was a Rutgers freshman and promising violinist.
*
Wei pleaded not guilty in Middlesex County Superior Court on Friday to watching the webcast with Ravi and a judge accepted her application into a pretrial intervention program that could drop the two counts of invasion of privacy against her. In exchange for dismissing the charges, Wei must testify against Ravi, complete 300 hours of community service, undergo counseling on cyberbullying and take classes on dealing with people of alternative lifestyles.
*
Clementi's family accepted her deal in a statement that noted "Wei's actions, although unlawful, were substantially different in their nature" from Ravi's. "Actions have consequences," the Clementi family said in the statement. "We wish Ms. Wei will become a person who will make better decisions, will help people and show kindness to those she comes in contact with."
*
Hate crime charges against Ravi were handed down last month by a grand jury that issued a 15-count indictment which also charged invasion of privacy and evidence tampering.
*
Prosecutors accused Ravi, 19, of Plainsboro, New Jersey of setting up the filming of Clementi's encounter with another man, and advertising the live video stream on Twitter. He was accused of staging a cover-up by deleting the Twitter post and replacing it with another one intended to mislead investigators as well as asking witnesses not to testify against him.

UPDATE: Damning Report Released in Ireland on Catholic Church Sex Abuse Cover Ups.

All too typically I received a comment on a prior post on this topic accusing me of seeking new witch hunts against the Roman Catholic Church in the the USA. Needless to say, the comment was not published. Believe me, I'm not seeking witch hunts - just accountability and consequences for heinous malfeasance by the high clergy. I literally know of no other institution where such widespread callous disregard for the safety of children and youths would not have resulted in mass resignations and/or firings. Yet with the Church, all one gets is mealy mouthed apologies and strenuous efforts to avoid paying victims compensation for what the Church hierarchy allowed to happen and sought to cover up. The Church continues to inflict needless guilt and self-loathing on many and on gays in particular. Any institution that wants to label people as "inherently disordered" and a threat to society's structure in my view had damn well be squeaky clean itself. Copies of the Dublin Diocese report can be found here and here. I urge readers to check them out and then decide if accountability is not demanded.

*

If the Church wants to interfere with CIVIL law matters as it did in California, Maine and elsewhere such as is currently the case in Washington, D.C., then the FULL truth about the Church needs to be aired so that elected officials understand full well the fact that the Church leadership is in no position to lecture anyone about anything so long as its own house is harboring those who enabled and covered up rampant sexual abuse of children and minors. Ditto for the crap that the Church continues to disseminate to LGBT Catholics on celibacy and reparative therapy - on several occasions I have thrown the booklets in the trash when I see them in a Catholic church. The poison needs to be eradicated. Plain and simple.

Proposition 8 -- Boycott Cry Babies

The Los Angeles Times has yet another semi-whining op-ed piece that in places almost asks readers to feel sorry for Mormon extremists who consciously gave money in support of Proposition 8 and who now do not want to take the heat that their contributions have now brought home to roost upon them. Actions have consequences and I hold little sympathy for those who donated money to deprive other citizens of legal civil rights and who are cry babies when they and/or businesses in which they hold management positions end up as targets of boycotts. First, their donations make it clear that they hold the concept of freedom of religion for others in contempt. Second, they are apparently not very bright if they thought that their deeds would never be discovered. That they believe that their excuse of "religious belief" should buy them a free pass is utterly unacceptable. Here are some highlights:

*

For all the complaints (mainly coming from the Yes-on-8 campaign), boycotts against corporations or organizations are a time-honored method of expressing opinions and pushing for social or political change. But in the superheated Proposition 8 debate, this venerable tactic has occasionally been used in ugly ways.

*

[P]ost election boycott efforts by the other side -- defenders of same-sex marriage -- have expanded into a vengeful campaign against individuals who donated to the gay-marriage ban, usually in the form of pressure on their employers. At least two people have resigned from their jobs and a third is considering it, including the artistic director of a stage company in Sacramento and a manager at an L.A. eatery. . . . there's nothing to cheer about when private individuals are afraid to donate to the political campaigns of their choice because it may cost them their livelihood.

*

Owners and officers of companies aren't just private individuals; they must accept that their political actions will reflect on the organizations they head and act accordingly. But a heated debate about a basic right -- in this case, the right to marry whom one chooses -- must also consider the rights of citizens to vote and donate without intimidation.