Author: Marty Aussenberg

Gadfly is Marty Aussenberg, a columnist for the alternative weekly Memphis Flyer. Marty is an attorney in private law practice in Memphis, Tennessee.

The debate over the Iraq war has devolved into a struggle over whether the political enemy combatants in that fight “support the troops.” The Republic party (the equivalent of what the president cynically—or maybe just ignorantly—likes to call the “Democrat” party), which continues to support the President’s “stay the course” strategy in Iraq, continues to assert that any attempt to end the war and bring our troops home constitutes a failure to support those troops. That’s a little like saying that any attempt to cure cancer is a failure to support the livelihoods of the employees of the industry that diagnoses and treats it. And, many of the so-called anti-war politicians in Washington counter that assertion with the equally sophistic phrase that it is possible to oppose the war, but support the troops.

All of this made me want to examine, closely, the whole “support the troops” meme the right wing likes to trot out (and many chickens**it Democrats buy into) as the ultimate justification for the continuation of the war, and the conclusion I came to is that supporting the troops is both a false mantra, and worse, is not justified by the facts.

Continued below:

Let’s start with the premise that the purpose of a standing military is to defend the U.S. from attack. Indeed, since funding for the military is part of the “defense” budget, there’s no arguing that point. Since we all know, after the fall of the Soviet Union and the end of the cold war, that few, if any, countries have the power, much less the ability (or even desire), to attack the U.S. (at least not conventionally, as by launching an amphibious force or parachuting onto our shores), one has to wonder, has the military’s intended purpose outlived its usefulness. Even if one were to posit as a given the “threat” represented by the “axis of evil” (i.e., Iran, North Korea, China), the inescapable fact is that the threat from those countries (if one truly exists, rather than being ginned up by an administration that uses the fear of attack as its ultimate political weapon) is that they will launch a nuclear attack on the U.S.

Why else are the neocons beating the war drums against the prospect of Iran’s development of a nuclear capability, and why else is this president spending billions of dollars on a “missile defense shield” which has, in testing, failed more than it has succeeded and threatens to bring back the Cold War.

Now, of course, a standing army will not have any ability to defend the U.S from nuclear attack. It’s a little like the scene from one of the “Indiana Jones” movies where the colorfully-attired tribesman brandishes a long and lethal-looking scimitar in threatening gestures aimed towards our hero, only to have an amused, but obviously not intimidated, Jones pull his gun and shoots the flamboyant warrior dead on the spot. In other words, don’t bring a sword (even if it’s a big one) to a gun fight. Similarly, don’t bring a rifle, pistol or even a canon to a fight with someone who has a nuclear weapon and the means to deliver it to its intended target.

No matter how sophisticated a standing army is, it is no match against ICBM’s. But, we also know that there are no countries who currently have a delivery mechanism for any nuclear weapons (the laughable “test” conducted by North Korea several months ago proved that), though the joke that’s told about the Chinese lack of a delivery system is that with a population of a billion people, they can just pass the weapon, hand to hand, across the ocean.

We also know, because our president and his minions have been telling us so since at least September 11, 2001, that terrorism (and the terrorists who employ it) is an unconventional form of warfare. They use the word “asymetric” to describe the “enemy” in the “war on terror,” and tell us that, among other things, this kind of war is different because it isn’t state sponsored, the combatants don’t wear uniforms, etc. That, of course, is one of the rationales this administration has used for denying “enemy combatants” the essential rights granted under the Geneva Conventions and other international treaties (e.g., not being tortured), thereby exposing American troops to similar mistreatment in the event they are captured.

So, a conventional military force isn’t the right vehicle to fight an unconventional (i.e., “war on terror”) war , if we’re to credit what we’ve been told, a lesson we’re learning the hard way from the debacle Iraq has become, and should have learned from the earlier misadventures of, for example, France in Algeria, and Russia in Afghanistan, not to mention our own experience in Vietnam.

So, what other purpose does a standing army serve? The answer is all too simple: to fight conventional wars (and, not incidentally, to line the coffers of what Dwight Eisenhower so presciently called the “military industrial complex,” a purpose that has been overwhelmingly successfully accomplished by this war). That means to land troops by air or sea on “enemy” territory, conduct military operations, the purpose of which is to kill as many of the enemy (whoever we declare them to be) as they possibly can. That’s what our military did in the days immediately following our initial invasion of Iraq. It’s also what our miltary has done in wars going back to the War of 1812, including, but not limited to, World Wars I and II, the Korean War and the Vietnam War. In other words, a standing army is an excuse to fight conventional wars in an era where conventional wars have become all but useless, with the notable exception of wars (i.e., of choice) whose purpose (or at least effect) isn’t to defend our country from attack.

In order to accomplish the purpose of its conventional military operations of late, the U.S. has been relying on the services of a so-called “all-volunteer” corps of fighters. Of course, these fighters aren’t volunteers, in the conventional sense, since we all know that the dictionary definition of a volunteer is “a person who performs a service willingly and without pay.” Hence the nickname for my state, Tennessee, as the “Volunteer State,” a term that originates from the outpouring of volunteers (in the truest sense) from that state to fight in the War of 1812. No, the current “all volunteer” military is anything but volunteers (except, and only, to the extent they are to be distinguished from the “involunteers” in prior wars, who were drafted, usually against their will, to serve). They are, in fact, job applicants who have a variety of motivations for wanting the job.

For some, it’s the signing bonuses (as much as $25,000, depending on the speed of deployment and the duration of the commitment) the military is dangling to entice applicants, especially given the difficulty it’s been having meeting its recruitment goals. For others, it’s the benefits that come from military service, including educational benefits and medical benefits (illusory as it appears those benefits have become) following their service. For some slackers and dead-enders, it’s the fact that the military is the employer of last resort including felons, high school dropouts and even skinheads, neo-Nazis and gang members .

It is no accident that the majority of volunteers for the military come from the lower economic rungs of our society, for whom the choices of vocation are few and the benefits of military service include such otherwise unattainable perquisites as a college education and top-notch health care coverage. For many, however, it’s a combination of jingoistic patriotism and a desire to engage in legitimized, permissible, sanctioned violence. How else can we explain the fact that the military has now begun accepting volunteers who have a history of committing violent crimes?

The members of the military, whether they be ground or air forces are trained, to put it simply, to kill. If they did stateside what they’re paid to do “in theater,” they would be considered criminals, but put a gun in the hand of a 19 year old, wet-behind-the-ears soldier, tell him he’s fighting for a great and glorious cause, and let him loose on the enemy du jour, and just about anything he does with that weapon is OK, even if includes killing innocent civilians . And, if he can’t find enough enemies to shoot at through normal tactics, he can always (as we‛ve just discovered is a tactic used by U.S. snipers) bait the field of battle with enticements to potential insurgents and terrorists to up his kill rate. In other words, our military thinks it can do something to facilitate the killing of human beings that the laws in most states prohibit a hunter from doing to kill wildlife. Is this a great military, or what?

A good friend of mine, who was a fighter pilot in Vietnam (and, among other things, dropped napalm and agent orange on civilians in that country), told me that among the patches some pilots had sewn onto their flight suits was the motto “We Control Violence.” When you have the ability to fire canons or drop bombs (the kind that kill people instantly by blowing them up, or that take longer to kill them by giving them cancer or other life-ending diseases) from the air, or fire 50 millimeter rounds from a sniper rifle on the ground, there’s no doubt that, as far as the victims of your firepower (especially when those victims are what the military calls “collateral damage”) are concerned, you certainly do control violence. It might have been more accurate if that patch had said “We Control Life.” Let’s not forget, though, that the military is the spearhead for the effectuation of our foreign policy. If that policy includes “regime change,” or the imposition of our form of government, and if that policy dictates that tens of thousands of innocent civilians be killed in that effort, then the military is the vehicle by which that policy is accomplished.

So, the question is, is the military (especially in its activities in support of Bush’s policy in Iraq) worthy of our support. Are the men and women who “volunteer” to accomplish Bush’s objectives praiseworthy? Remember, Bush never served in combat (thanks to his daddy’s connections with the Texas Air National Guard), nor did most of the chickenhawk neocons who engineered the war in Iraq. None of them, nor any of their family members, was ever going to fight the war either. Without obedient, compliant, and credulous men and women to fight Bush’s war, there would/could be no war.

So, is the military entitled to a pass, or better yet, our gratitude, for wittingly doing the president’s bidding because they’re “just following orders?” You may remember this as part of the infamous “Nuremberg defense,” a rationalization that was debunked at the war crimes trial following World War II, and has been made obsolete in, among other places, the Uniform Code of Military Justice which empowers soldiers to disobey unlawful orders. Is the military entitled to a pass, much less our admiration, because they dutifully (some might say blindly) follow the orders given by their commander-in-chief, or are they complicit in the atrocities that accompany the combat in which they engage? Why, one might ask, aren’t more members of the military speaking out against the policy in Iraq, and why aren’t more members of the military taking other action (e.g., refusing to serve or even deserting) as they see the effects of that policy on the ground? Could it be because they agree with the policy, and if so, aren’t the policy and their service in its support inseparable?

Let’s admit something: anyone who has volunteered for military service since the war in Iraq started knew they might be sent to fight that war, and many, suffused with an overwhelming sense of “duty, honor, country” volunteered precisely for that reason. Pat Tilman, the NFL player who was killed by his own troops, only to have that fact covered up by the military and the Bush administration, was used as the marketing tool for that motivation. So we have to assume that they not only agreed with the policy effectuated by that war, but that they were eager to serve as the tools (or, if you like it better, vehicles) of the apparatus that has given us that war for the last five years. They are not unwitting victims, innocent bystanders or accidental tourists in this war; they are the means for its accomplishment.

The people who are fighting the current war may be cannon fodder to the cynical politicians who want to keep them there, but they are the personification of those politicians’ policies. Therefore, it is impossible to oppose the war, but support the people who, by volunteering to fight it, implicitly (if not explicitly) support and enable it. Of course, this rationale may not be as applicable to the members of the National Guard and Reserve, who have been, essentially, conscripted to fight, and who may or may not support the policy they are being forced to fight for, but even they realize, when they sign up for duty stateside, that they can be drawn into a foreign war, and we’re not seeing any mass rebellion or revolt by these troops either against the administration’s war policy.

In terms of admirability, I suggest there are many categories of people (and the jobs they perform) that are far more worthy of the public’s support than the members of the American military who are being used, with their knowledge and accession, as a means of foisting an unjustified, and unjustifiable, war on the American (not to mention the Iraqi) public. Police officers, firefighters, teachers, nurses, and even garbage collectors are, in my opinion, worthy of far more admiration, respect, and yes, support, than the people who kill in pursuit of George Bush’s insane policies. The U.S. military in Iraq isn’t defending this country. Even General Petraeus (speaking of tools) couldn’t make that argument in his recent “show and tell” before the Congress. It isn’t making this country any safer; it isn’t lessening the threat of worldwide terrorism (in fact, just the opposite) and it isn’t defending the American way of life (unless you think the American way of life is unbridled violence, either of the domestic variety—as the recent upswing in national crime statistics suggests—or of the kind we export in an effort to democratize the world).

Of course, the same political machinations which cause Democrats to drink the “support the troops” Kool Aid being served up by our president and his party’s members are what prevent those same political calculators from coming anywhere near saying that the military is far less than the admirable, self-sacrificing, infallible institution it is portrayed as being. That’s why the well-deserved (albeit less-than-politely worded) criticism of Petraeus contained in the recent MoveOn.org ad in the New York Times mustered the indignant outrage it did, even from enough Democrats in the Senate to pass an embarrasingly irrelevant resolution condemning the ad. Apparently, criticizing a general who manipulates the facts to fit the policy and acts as the military shill for his civilian master is akin to treason, or at least to blasphemy, to our elected officials, including many lily-livered Democrats. Can you imagine Patton, McArthur or Eisenhower allowing themselves to be used in this manner? Never mind that when Bush hasn‛t liked what generals have told him, he’s flat out fired them . Now that’s what I call supporting the troops.

Finally, let me just highlight the utter hypocricy of the “support the troops” mantra. It’s already a matter of public record that the military hasn’t gotten the support it’s needed to perform its mission in Iraq, whether it’s inadequate body armor, a shortage of up-armored vehicles or even rejecting a tiny increase in soldiers’ pay , this administration has utterly failed to support its own troops. And, let’s not forget that, unlike in virtually every prior war fought by this country during which its citizens were asked to make sacrifices, precisely in support of the military, no such sacrifice is being asked for in this war. Whether it was “Rosie the Riveters,” or rationing, or war bonds, or an increase in taxes to pay for the war, Americans were expected to make a tangible showing of their support. So, if this administration doesn’t think personal efforts to “support the troops” are worth making, why should anyone believe any other form of support is required?

I realize my analysis and conclusions about the “support the military” cliché make it seem like I probably don’t believe in the sanctity of such American institutions as baseball, hot dogs, apple pie or Chevrolet either, and truth be told, I don’t. Baseball has become a money-grubbing, sleazy, industry; hot dogs are laced with harmful chemicals, apple pie contributes to an epidemic of obesity (besides, I prefer peach) and Chevrolet/GM builds more gas guzzling vehicles than any other manufacturer, thus contributing to our dependence on foreign oil and, indirectly, to the terrorism that has been spawned by our petro-centric foreign policy.

However, nothing I’ve said should be interpreted as a desire to see American soldiers harmed in any way. Quite the contrary. Just because American soldiers volunteer for service knowing they may be grievously injured, or even killed, doesn’t mean they deserve either of those fates. And just because they have volunteered to serve a corrupt, indefensible policy also doesn’t mean they deserve to be punished by being injured or losing their lives. They are entitled to every safeguard and protection from harm this country can give them (rather than the lip service they are frequently paid), and to the fulfillment of promises that get made to induce them to serve, whether that is effective body armor (rather than the garbage they’ve been getting as a result of a corrupt procurement process), vehicles that will protect them from explosions or adequate medical care following their service. Which is also why what they deserve is to be removed, immediately (if not sooner) from a situation that exposes them to such risks for all the wrong reasons. If there is to be any punishment meted out as a result of what has turned into (and probably always was) a criminal war, that will be for an appropriate tribunal to decide.

Nor would it be valid to draw the inference that I’m some kind of pacifist. I would be the first to call for military action were any foreign power to attempt to come ashore in amphibious vehicles on Long Island, Miami or San Diego, or invade the U.S. by any other conventional means. And far be it from me to suggest any kind of reallocation of resources, either financial or human, away from fighting a bogus “war on terror” to defending our country against real threats, like dread diseases, crime, crumbling infrastructure and a pathetic health care system that cause (or do little to prevent) the deaths of more people in this country every single day than were killed on that infamous day in September.

My point about the military is only that it is manipulative at best, and dishonest at worst to justify a continuation of the war based on the need to “support the troops,” and the rush to glorify the military or act like that institution is somehow sacrosanct ignores reality, especially when that reality dictates that institution deserves no more honor, or support, than the misbegotten, dishonorable mission it is fighting.

Gadfly is Marty Aussenberg, a columnist for the alternative weekly Memphis Flyer (where this story is cross-posted). Marty is a former SEC enforcement official, currently in private law practice in Memphis, Tennessee.

Isn’t it amazing how principle collapses in the face of personal experience. Let me give you some examples.

The other night, during the debate between the Republican presidential candidates, two of the participants, Giuliani and Romney, advocated using torture if it might avoid a terrorist attack. John McCain, who is a hard-boiled conservative on most of the bellwether issues, and as (if not more) gung-ho on the war in Iraq as any living human being (remember, he’s going to follow Osama “to the gates of hell” ), spoke forcefully against the use of torture . Why? Because he himself had been the victim of torture some 40 years ago when he was a prisoner of war in Vietnam.

So, for him, invading and occupying a country, killing its people and going against the will of the majority of the American people who want to end the war, is OK, right up until it involves something he’s had personal experience with that he didn’t like. Then his ideology melts in the face of his personal experience.

This follows a familiar pattern, particularly for conservative ideologues. Here’s another example: abortion.

Hard-core right wingers (read: Christian conservatives) oppose abortion, for any reason, for any person. Many of them oppose abortion even if carrying the fetus to term threatens the life of the mother. And yet, studies show that many of these same conservative ideologues are apparently willing to look the other way when the crisis of an unwanted pregnancy strikes home. Many so-called born-agains and other abortion opponents (e.g., Catholics) won’t hesitate to abort a fetus when it affects their own lifestyle .

Ditto for stem cell research. Ronald Reagan was nothing if not a staunch conservative. He hued to the party line on all the bellwether conservative issues, including those revolving around the “sanctity of life.” And yet, who is now the biggest proponent of stem cell research, one of the religious right’s (read: Republican) bêtes noires? Why, Nancy Reagan , of course. As she watched her husband suffer the ravages of Alzheimer’s, it became clear to her that stem cell research presented the best chance of finding a cure for the disease. She suddenly recognized that the sanctity of her husband’s life was more important than a few un-implanted embryos.

Gay marriage provides yet another example. Same sex unions, and, indeed, gayness itself, are big bugaboos for the Republican party. But when your own daughter comes out and announces she’s a lesbian, is living with her lesbian lover, and is going to have a baby that will be raised by (horrors!) the happy lesbian couple, that’s another matter. Just ask Dick Cheney about that .

The same goes for the whole Terri Schiavo episode. Conservatives were up in arms that she would be allowed to die. Bill Frist, you may recall, famously diagnosed her as non-vegetative, based on his review of a video tape. Yet, it surfaced that, of all people, Tom Delay, one of the most vocal of the “save Terry” politicians in Washington, had, some years earlier
decided to withdraw life support from his own father who was injured in a freak back yard accident. Just another example of the old “do as I say, not as I do” mentality, I suppose.

And finally, you may remember when House Speaker Pelosi went to the Middle East and made the unpardonable, and, according to some right-wing ideologues, treasonous mistake of meeting with a representative of one of the “Axis of Evil.” Then, of course, when our much- vaunted Secretary of State went to the same area, guess what: she herself met with the “evildoers” .

Ethical/moral relativism? Hypocrisy? Maybe, but it just proves the old saying, particularly attractive, it would appear, to conservatives: it all depends on whose ox is being gored.

Going back to McCain’s stand on torture: don’t get me wrong; I’m delighted that McCain can stand up for something he knows is wrong because he’s experienced it. I just wonder whether he would be as vigorous a proponent of our policy in Iraq if, instead of having been a U.S. fighter pilot in Viet Nam, he had been a villager in My Lai.

Gadfly is Marty Aussenberg, a columnist for the alternative weekly Memphis Flyer. Marty is a former SEC enforcement official, currently in private law practice in Memphis, Tennessee.

The carnage at the Virginia Tech campus this week has, inevitably, revived the arguments about gun ownership in this country. We are, without doubt, the most gun-crazy country in the world, and the statistics bear that out. 30,000 people die in this country every year at the business end of a firearm, intentionally or otherwise. Gun ownership advocates say guns prevent violence, but that’s like saying that alcohol is an antidote for a hangover. Only in mathematics does multiplying a negative by another negative create a positive.

There was a time, not too long ago, when I was the proud owner of several guns. I had lived my whole life in fear of guns, and in the belief that their use and ownership should be severely controlled. So, to confront my fears and prejudices, I embarked on an episode of my life that saw me accumulate, and familiarize myself with the use of, a variety of firearms. I was the proud owner of several exotic shotguns (for sport shooting purposes), and managed to acquire more than a few Glock, Beretta, Smith and Wesson, and lesser-known handguns. I even had the big daddy of handguns, a .357 Magnum (the kind Clint Eastwood made famous in his “go ahead, make my day” movie scene). I joined a local gun club where I could hone my skills as a “gun man.”

I was living the fantasy every boy of my generation envisioned when he got his first toy gun. I even went to the trouble of being trained in the use of the handguns and getting a carry permit issued by the state. I carried a concealed weapon in the belief that, in this Wild West town, I needed protection from crazed criminals.

Then, I was robbed at gunpoint in front of a place of business, not 500 yards from a police station (a fact I throw in only to show no place is totally safe from a determined criminal). The robber surprised me as I was entering a store late at night, and already had his gun drawn and pointing at me from no more than five feet away, much the same way the assailant in Virginia was already brandishing one (or more) of his weapons when he confronted his victims.

As it happens, I was “carrying,” and I gave a fleeting thought, during what seemed the longest few seconds of my life, to seeing whether I could, OK-corral-style, out-draw him. But I realized, thankfully, I probably couldn’t shoot him before he shot me (or worse, that we would both die in a hail of bullets), and I abandoned that thought as I threw him my wallet. Since I’m writing about the incident, I obviously did the right thing, not to mention that I’m not sure I could have shot another human being, even at the risk of my own life, and I’m not sure whether, in the heat of the moment, I could have hit my target in any event. I must admit, though, I still have moments, years later, when I regret not having at least tried to defend myself, but then I realize: I’m not Charles Bronson.

The advocates of arming the population as a means of preventing gun violence take the rather simplistic view that a gun in the hand of an untrained user (and most gun owners don’t go to the trouble of being properly trained in their use) will always be effective in neutralizing the threat posed by an armed assailant, when nothing could be further from the truth. Even law enforcement personnel, who are thoroughly trained in the use of firearms, will tell you that in the heat of the moment, the likelihood of hitting your target diminishes substantially. That’s why we see so many incidents in which law enforcement personnel shoot many rounds, few, if any of which, hit their intended target. Trained weapon carriers can’t even avoid accidental discharges, as the incident involving the Secret Service the other day demonstrates. Fear and adrenaline are powerful influences in the misdirection of lethal force. Senses and reflexes, even those that are highly trained in the use of a firearm, change dramatically in the midst of a situation where life and death enter into the equation. So, even assuming any of the students at Virginia State had been armed, it is highly unlikely they could have ended the reign of terror brought about by a determined assailant who had obviously planned far enough in advance to have purchased (and used) two weapons, ammunition to reload them, was (by some accounts) wearing a bullet-proof vest, and even had the presence of mind to file the serial numbers off the weapons he used.

The more likely scenario is that anyone who had tried to neutralize the threat represented by the shooter would have just compounded the situation, by enraging the shooter or worse, shooting someone else in the process, and might well have caused the death of more victims than were ultimately lost in the incident. The proponents of a ubiquitously-armed citizenry assume that merely carrying a gun equips the person carrying it to use it, effectively and rationally, when the fact is, increasing the number of guns being carried in the population will only make those guns available to be stolen or used for some unintended purpose (i.e., suicide, crimes of passion, accidental firing, bystander injury, etc.).

My gun-toting days are now behind me, primarily because of my recognition of the uselessness of being armed, borne of my experience with an armed assailant. I don’t regret familiarizing myself with the world of firearms, but my experience has taught me guns aren’t the solution to gun violence, they’re the problem.

My contracts professor in law school, a man I will always remember for introducing me to the concept that, as he put it, “all professions are an organized conspiracy against the layman,” also had an explanation for why some outcomes are foregone conclusions. He said, “it‛s no big deal for the magician to pull the rabbit out of the hat after he‛s put it there.” I‛m sure magicians will bridle at the simplicity of this explanation, but it has much broader application to the world at large.

So, it came as no surprise to me that Iran, a state whose leaders’ two avowed geopolitical purposes are wiping the state of Israel off the map (along, presumably, with its inhabitants)and the development of nuclear weapons (the latter being instrumental in the accomplishment of the former), is holding a “conference” on whether or not the Holocaust ever happened. No kidding: they’re really holding a conference to investigate the existence of this inarguably indisputable, historic event.

A clue to the agenda of this gathering (other than who’s sponsoring it) is that a keynote address is going to be given by none other than the noted American authority on the proper place of Jews in society, David Duke, the former Grand Whacko of the Ku Klux Klan. Who better, don’t you agree? One of the seminars at the conference is reportedly called “Gas Chambers: Denial or Confirmation”

Iran’s president, Ahmadinejad , has publicly and loudly announced, at every opportunity, that the Holocaust never happened. In other words, he’s stuffed that bunny in the hat. And now he’s going to hold a “conference,” the central premise of which will be that—guess what—the Holocaust never happened (ta-da: behold—the rabbit). Amazing, isn’t it? This is the equivalent of the religious right in the U.S. sponsoring a “conference” entitled: “Gay Marriage: Is It A Good Thing?” or PETA holding a conference called “Killing Animals: Is It Really Humane?”

For me, the verifiability of the Holocaust was as tangible as the tattooed number my father bore on his forearm for most of his life, a vestige of his captivity in Auschwitz, and the absence from my life of both sets of grandparents, and many uncles, cousins and aunts, all thanks to the ethnic cleansing practiced on my family by the Nazis. Needless to say, I don’t take kindly to Holocaust deniers. Sadly, though, we live in a society where denial of verifiable fact remains the option of the lunatic fringe. Evolution? Can’t prove it to the creationists. Global warming? A hoax, according to a United States senator and the oil industry. An embryo isn’t a human being? Blasphemy, according to “pro-lifers.”

How does one deal with people who insist on believing that it is pitch black outside at high noon, or worse, who manipulate (or ignore) facts to fit their agenda? The answer is, one doesn’t. Intelligent discourse relies on the existence of intelligence, and belief, whether it’s religiously or otherwise irrationally (as opposed to logically) based, is immune to intelligence. This also, by the way, is why it is a fool’s errand to argue with the likes of Rush Limbaugh or Anne Coulter, and why George Bush will never be able to be convinced that the U.S. should pull its troops out of Iraq.

The Iranians are taunting the West (read: America) by holding this conference. They claim they’re testing our tolerance for freedom of speech, especially in light of what they perceive to be the abuse of that freedom symbolized by the Muhammad cartoon imbroglio . They started their taunt with a “contest” seeking the best Holocaust cartoons . One of the entries depicts Hitler in bed with Anne Frank, suggesting to her that she “put this one in your diary.”

The irony of a totalitarian regime flaunting a freedom that doesn’t exist under its rule obviously escapes them. And, of course, it represents a fundamental misunderstanding of the uniquely American constitutional guarantee, which, as everyone familiar with the “yelling fire” exception knows, is not absolute. Nor, one can only hope Mr. Ahmadinejad will learn, sooner or later, does it protect a madman who attempts to rationalize genocide by revising its history.

“Gadfly” is Marty Aussenberg, an attorney practicing law in his own firm in Memphis, Tennessee.

Gadfly is Marty Aussenberg, a columnist for the weekly Memphis Flyer. Marty is a former Securities and Exchange Commission enforcement attorney, currently in private law practice in Memphis, Tennessee. .

Let me begin by saying that I’m neither a Republican nor a Democrat. In fact, I’ve managed to alienate my friends of both persuasions, Republicans by my vocal criticism of the current administration, and Democrats by my active support for Ralph Nader in 2000 (the perennial whipping boy for their candidate’s loss). That said, I don’t hide the fact that I want to see the Republicans in Washington lose the monopoly they’ve enjoyed (and abused) for at least the last six years. It’s time for them to go.

I have my principles, though, and one of them is I cannot vote for, or support, a candidate who wears his/her religion on his/her sleeve, or worse, who panders to religiosity to get elected. And that, unfortunately, is what the Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate in Tennessee is doing.

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I know I live in the belt buckle of the bible belt. I’m reminded of that every time I attend a secular event here that begins with a denominational prayer. But I don’t want my elected representatives to have any calling in their official capacity other than representing me (and my fellow constituents) in whatever body we elect them to do so. So, when the Democratic senate candidate talks, as he has, about how he serves a higher master (and looks upward when he says that—in a manner reminiscent of the famous Hebrew National commercial), quotes biblical scripture when he’s on the stump, or makes campaign commercials using his church as the set, that makes me very nervous. He hands out a business card that has his information on one side and the Ten Commandments (the public display of which he favors) on the other, heaven help us. Then, to make matters worse, I see where his father, a former congressman himself, remarked during a recent campaign stop for his son that “Memphis is a “Christian city,” and made great pretense of the fact that Sunday is “our religious holiday.” This myopic view of the world is not surprising, coming from the man who once famously referred to East (i.e., white) Memphians as “devils.”

There is no issue of public policy that can’t be adulterated by the injection of religion. Whether it’s terrorism, abortion, capital punishment, gay rights or the content of what we read or see on TV, once religion rears its ugly head, all rationality goes out the window. It’s impossible to argue the merits of anything with someone who believes what they do because their religion tells them to. If you don’t believe me, just try to have a rational discussion about evolution with a religious zealot. Nothing is truer than that which is true because your belief system tells you it is, and if someone disagrees with you, that same system can make you believe your adversary is destined to eternal damnation for his perfidy.

We recognize the excesses of religion when it suits our purposes. Witness the marginalization of an entire religion by the Bush administration in its calculated use of the term “Islamic fascism”, or the Pope’s invocation of a 14th Byzantine emperor for the proposition that Islam is spread at the point of a sword. And yet, this same administration (much less the Catholic church) would chafe if you were to point out that throughout history, “Christian fascism” has been responsible for the deaths of many more millions than any misguided followers of Islam have been. But I digress.

I’ve watched, with some glee, as the engineer of the debacle in Florida during the 2000 election, Katherine Harris, has imploded during her run for the Senate. Her most recent statement, namely that electing non-Christians will result in legislating sin, and that the separation of church and state is a lie intended to keep religious people out of politics, was scary, even for someone who’s known for her scariness. Well, she does’t need to worry about the Tennessee Senate race; we’ve got at least one die-hard Christian in contention. It’s the other candidate who should be worrisome to the likes of Ms. Harris. He’s been so low key about his religious beliefs—at least by comparison—it’s obvious he’s in favor of legislating sin.

The amazing thing about the use of religion (and a particular one at that) by our Democratic candidate is that you would think, of all people, he would recognize the evils associated with pandering to a majority. Yes, the majority of Tennesseans are probably Christian (which may also be why Tennessee is a “red state”), but there is a significant percentage who are not. And there are many Christians who are just as tired as non-Christians of the misuse of religion in politics, and the holier-than-thou hypocrisy that usually accompanies that misuse. How, I wonder, would our Democratic candidate feel if his opponent announced that Tennessee is a white state (not unlike the way the mayor of New Orleans intoned his “chocolate city” paradigm)?

Now don’t get me wrong: I have nothing against Christians in general, or even against Christians running for or holding public office. Hey, some of my best friends are Christians (no, seriously: my best friend used to be a nun). I just don’t want religion to dictate, or even be involved with, public policy. That whole “faith-based initiative” program is, as far as I’m concerned, an end run around the separation between church and state (a well-established jurisprudential principle, notwithstandinging Ms. Harris’ ignorance about it). It didn’t surprise me to discover, according to the recent book about that program, that it was a way this administration played the religious right for political advantage. Lesson: manipulate not, lest you be manipulated.

Religion, and the religious right’s issues, have been successfully used by Republicans to create so-called “wedge” issues. It’s surprising to see a Democrat take a page from that book. Does he really think he’s going to attract die-hard religious (and also predominantly white) Republican voters by his tactics? Does he not realize that, along with his many “centrist” (and not exactly “Christian”) votes (e.g., bankruptcy “reform,” tax cuts for the wealthy, legalizing torture), he is going to alienate far more of his traditional support than he can possibly attract from religioholics? If I were him, I wouldn’t take much comfort in polls that show him ahead of his Republican opponent. Polls involving black candidates are notoriously inaccurate (just ask Dinkins, Wilder and Bradley), apparently because more respondents say they’re going to vote for those candidates than actually do.

Now, given that the Democrat’s victory in Tennessee is pivotal to changing the balance of power in the Senate, and that I’ve announced my desire to throw the Republican bums out, you may wonder why I would put my principles ahead of my politics, and the answer is very simple: I don’t want to see either party, ever, have a total monopoly on government. The past six years have shown just how bad that can be, and I see no reason to believe the Democrats would be any more benevolent as despots than the Republicans have been. Just as the legislative branch is supposed to be a balance on executive power, I believe the two branches of the legislature must be a balance on each other. So, I will be pleased if the House changes hands, but I won’t be disappointed if the Senate doesn’t, especially if that is the result of voters rejecting religiosity as a qualification for election.

Cross-posted at The Memphis Flyer.

Gadfly is Marty Aussenberg, a columnist for the weekly Memphis Flyer. Marty is a former Securities and Exchange Commission enforcement attorney, currently in private law practice in Memphis, Tennessee. .

John Ashcroft, our former attorney general, not to mention accomplished patriotic baritone, appeared at the University of North Carolina the other day. He received, needless to say, a mixed reception on this campus, including protesters who shouted “how many innocent Iraqi civilians have died?”

I thought his response was instructive, and reveals everything we really need to know about this administration’s attitude towards the people we’ve spent hundreds of billions of dollars “liberating:” civilian deaths in Iraq, Ashcroft is reported as saying, are the result of “Muslim-on-Muslim violence.”

Continued below:
Two things jump out from this astonishing assertion: first is its patent falsity. As documented, among other places, in the landmark study published in the highly accredited scientific journal The Lancet in 2004, civilian casualties in Iraq are overwhelmingly attributable to the actions of “coalition forces,” including air and artillery strikes. Similar results were reported by the Christian Science Monitor in the first year of the war. And the web site Iraq Body Count has continually, and credibly (based on published media sources), reported massive numbers of civilian deaths (over 40,000) attributable to the military intervention in Iraq.

But even more astonishingly, with regard to Ashcroft’s dismissive explanation, we now have proof that reports of civilian deaths in Iraq have been, at best, manipulated, and at worst, falsified. What better way could there be to deflect responsibility for the killing of innocent civilians than lying about both the cause of that killing, and its effect?

But even if the former AG’s offhanded comment about “Muslim on Muslim” violence being the cause of Iraqi casualties were accurate, it would still show a remarkable (even considering its source) insensitivity to the situation in Iraq, and the U.S.’s responsibility for that situation. Assuming, for the sake of discussion, that the recent sectarian violence is partially to blame for deaths in Iraq, wasn’t part of the reason we invaded Iraq to prevent that kind of violence? Isn’t that what our President told us Saddam himself was was doing, or at least facilitating, before we toppled him? The question (rhetorical though it may be) is, if our invasion was part of the solution, why has the problem not only continued, but gotten arguably worse? It isn’t an answer to the question of what’s causing innocent Iraqi civilian deaths to say it’s something we supposedly went there to curtail.

The “Moslem-on-Moslem” explanation should be a familiar refrain to Americans. It’s what apologists for crime in this country intone to absolve the criminal justice system. Crime isn’t so bad (and certainly isn’t an endemic threat to most Americans) if you reduce it to a “black on black” phenomenon. The explanation goes something like this: white folks needn’t fear (at least not statistically) that they will be the victims of violent crime since black folks are overwhelmingly the victims of violent crime; the institutions of our society aren’t to blame for black crime, since none of them has contributed to the conditions that cause black crime, and, finally, we’re doing everything we can to deal with black crime by incarcerating a disproportionate number of blacks.

Of course, none of that is any more comfort to the African American community in this country than is Ashcroft’s dismissive analysis of deaths in Iraq a comfort to the average Sunni, Shiite or Kurd. But at least it explains why our country’s former chief law enforcement officer would use a convenient (if facile) explanation for American criminal violence to deflect blame for military violence in Iraq.

Gadfly is Marty Aussenberg, a columnist for the weekly Memphis Flyer. Marty is a former Securities and Exchange Commission enforcement attorney, currently in private law practice in Memphis, Tennessee. .

Many, including me have been predicting an “October Surprise” in advance of the upcoming mid-term elections. Bin Laden suddenly turning up, dead or alive, a terrorist attack somewhere in the U.S. (or the announcement of yet another bogus “cell” of terrorist wannabes, like the hapless group in Miami who couldn’t even afford to buy their own combat boots, much less blow anything up), or some other dramatic development that will help the Republicans, now apparently doomed to losing control of the House, turn that seemingly inexorable tide.

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But while we’ve all been waiting for something earth-shattering in the way of poll-influencing, Republican-engineered news developments (other than the inevitable Rove slime attacks ), the GOP’s biggest booster (a/k/a, the oil industry), has been quietly coming to the aid of their most munificent benefactors. Unless you panicked when gas prices topped $3 per gallon, and traded your car in for one of these, you’ve probably noticed that gasoline prices have dropped dramatically, 42 cents in just the last three weeks, 11 cents of that in just the last week.

Sure, gasoline prices normally decline after Labor Day, but not this fast, and not this precipitously following the rather dramatic spike we saw post-Hurricane Katrina, when oil prices reached an all-time high, along with oil company profits (and oil company executives’ compensation). In fact, this is the steepest decline in gasoline prices in 10 years. And, wonder of wonders, isn’t it propitious that this is happening just in time for the mid-terms?

Now call me a cynic, but everything I’ve read and seen (that wasn’t propaganda bought and paid for by the oil companies) indicates that the oil industry has been manipulating the price of gasoline for years. I’m not alone in that belief. If they can manipulate them up, there’s no reason why they can’t manipulate them down as well, especially to avoid the threat that a Democrat-controlled House may be less receptive to their influence.

It should come as no surprise that polls show that a large majority of the American electorate blames the Republicans for the prices they’ve been paying at the pump, and consider this issue important in deciding how to vote in the upcoming elections. So, what better defense against that perception (and outcome at the ballot box) than a vigorous offense, orchestrated by the oil companies operating hand in glove with the GOP.

What makes the recent price fall all the more suspicious is that it comes on the heels of the announcement that BP, one of the top three oil giants, had “discovered” that its oil pipeline in Alaska’s Prudhoe Bay had sprung a leak due to the company’s failure to adequately maintain that pipeline. The predictions were that the shutdown, which provided a significant percentage of the US’s consumption, would seriously affect the price of oil, which it did, but only, as it turned out, in the short run. BP, obviously concerned about the outrage its “discovery” caused, apparently figured out a way to mitigate the loss of all that oil, though it hasn’t yet figured out a way to mitigate the interrogations or
investigations which have ensued as a result.

Don’t get me wrong: I’m as glad to be paying less at the pump as anyone, but what really chaps me is the ease with which the oil industry twists our gonads when it wants to, and then, when it suits them, releases the pressure with the same ease. All for the favor of an administration/political party that has been nothing if not the handmaiden of the oil industry. Just as annoying is how the oil companies successfully recruit the credulous media to persuade the public that the price of oil is strictly market driven, when we all know otherwise.

Just remember, when it comes to gasoline (and unlike gravity), what comes down inevitably goes up, so don’t be surprised if shortly after the November elections we see “market forces” at play again when the price at the pump goes soaring again, only this time it will either be because the Republicans have been safely re-ensconced in Congress, or because the Democrats have taken the House, and the oil companies want them to take the blame for the inevitable next episode of price gouging.

Cross-posted at The Memphis Flyer

I will occasionally tune in to C-Span to see what tragi-comedy is being played out on the floor of (and it’s usually) the House of Representatives. So it shouldn’t have surprised me to see one of Tennessee’s own, Zach Wamp (R-Chattanooga), make an appearance on the floor of the House during the recent “debates” about whether the U.S. should “cut and run” or “stay the course,”to utter two amazing statements. The first was an echo of what, by the time Wamp uttered it, had already been a thoroughly discredited statement by Senator Santorum, namely that WMD’s had suddenly been discovered in Iraq.

The ridiculousness of Santorum’s eureka moment was established by, of all sources, Fox News, which was told by the Defense Department that Santorum’s “WMD’s” were “not the WMD’s for which this country went to war.” Not willing to let facts interfere with fantasy, Santorum stuck to his story, and found a witting shill in his House counterpart, Mr. Wamp, who reported on the re-discovery of Sarin gas in his floor statement.

Never mind that the gas they referred to was so old and so degraded the only thing it would do to anyone who came in contact with it was give them the equivalent of a sunburn, or that David Kay, the man in charge of finding WMD’s in Iraq characterized the Santorum “cache” as being “less toxic than most things people have under their kitchen sink.”
Ideologues like Santorum and Wamp never let facts get in the way of their agendas.

As another example of that fact blindness, Wamp also made the following statement:

You cannot convince me that there were not connections with al Qaeda operatives and Saddam Hussein.

Well, at least he‛s honest. Don‛t bother him with facts. Don‛t bother him with admissions by the Bush administration that there was no such connection, or with the determination by the 9/11 Commission that there was no such connection. Zach Wamp knows better. People like Wamp never let reality intrude on their fantasies. I‛ll bet Wamp still believes there is actually a tooth fairy and an Easter bunny.

But the even more bizarre statement came from Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa), who weighed in right after Wamp (after paying tribute to Wamp‛s statement, which he called a “gem”). What he said was:

…they [the U.S. military in Iraq]
are an all-volunteer service. And not
only that, they are people that have all
volunteered for this conflict, because
this conflict has gone on long enough
that everyone had a chance to re up.
So everybody that is in uniform got to
consider the current state of conflict
globally, and they signed back up again
in numbers far larger than ever anticipated.
They said, I am going back for a second
tour, I will go back for a third
tour, I will put my life on the line, and
I will certainly put it on hold for a
year or more to give the Iraqi people a
chance at freedom.

Hello! Earth to Congressman King. What rock were you hiding under when something called “stop loss” was loudly trumpeted? Are you really oblivious to the fact that, far from “re-upping,” tens of thousands of our troops who were, if you‛ll excuse the expression, dying to come home, were instead reduced to indentured servitude because the military (surprise, surprise), contrary to your glowing paean to successful recruitment couldn‛t meet its recruitment goals? Have you heard of the thousands of National Guard and Reserve troops who found themselves in Iraq when what they thought they‛d be doing (and what they were desperately needed for) was helping out in floods and other disasters stateside.

Sadly, these kinds of irresponsible statements are made on the floor of the House (and yes, the Senate too) every day those august bodies are in session (which should make us thankful they‛re in session so infrequently), with little immediate consequence for the cretins who utter them. With any luck, though, Messrs. Wamp‛s and King‛s (among others‛) accountability moment will come on November 7, 2006.

BIOGRAPHY:

“Gadfly” is Marty Aussenberg, an attorney practicing law in his own firm in Memphis, Tennessee, who intends to keep practicing until he gets it right. He began his career in the private practice of law in Memphis after relocating from Washington, D.C., where he spent five years at the Securities and Exchange Commission as a Special Counsel and Trial Attorney in its Enforcement Division, during which time he handled or supervised the investigation and litigation of several significant cases involving insider trading, market manipulation, and management fraud. Prior to his stint at the S.E.C., he was an Assistant Attorney General with the Pennsylvania Department of Banking in Philadelphia and was the Attorney-In-Charge of Litigation for the Pennsylvania Securities Commission, where, in addition to representing that agency in numerous state trial and appellate courts, he successfully prosecuted the first case of criminal securities fraud in the state’s history.

Mr. Aussenberg’s private practice has focused primarily on investment, financial, corporate and business counseling, litigation and arbitration and regulatory proceedings. He has represented individual, institutional and governmental investors, as well as brokerage firms and individual brokers, in securities and commodities-related matters, S.E.C., NASD and state securities regulatory proceedings, and has represented parties in shareholder derivative, class action and multi-district litigation, as well as defending parties in securities, commodities, and other “white-collar” criminal cases.

Mr. Aussenberg received his J.D. degree from the University of Pittsburgh School of Law, and his B.A. degree in Honors Political Science from the University of Pittsburgh. Immediately following law school, he served as a Reginald Heber Smith Community Lawyer Fellow with the Delaware County Legal Assistance Association in Chester, Pennsylvania.

He is admitted to practice in Tennessee, Pennsylvania and the District of Columbia, before the United States Supreme Court, the Third and Sixth Circuit Courts of Appeals, and the United States Tax Court, as well as federal district courts in Tennessee, Arkansas, Mississippi and Louisiana. He has served as an arbitrator for the NASD, New York Stock Exchange and American Arbitration Association, has published several articles on stockbroker fraud, and has been a featured speaker at seminars in the United States and Canada.

Mr. Aussenberg is an avid golfer whose only handicap is his game, an occasional trap shooter whose best competitive score was a 92, and an even less frequent jazz drummer.

Does this sound familiar: “as Iraqi troops stand up, U.S. troops will stand down.?” It’s what we’ve been told for some time will be the “metric” of when American troops can withdraw from Iraq. The real question is, does the administration really intend to effectuate this policy, and even if it does, is it even possible, and new information indicates that the answer to both questions seems to be no.

The fact is, the Iraqi troops aren’t “standing up,” and the best proof of that is that theb> Pentagon, which was fond of floating figures on how many Iraqi troops were trained, has suddenly decided it won’t reveal that number anymore. You’d think that, if for no other reasons than political ones, the administration and its minions would want to keep feeding us the good news about how much progress is being made in Iraq (something they complain bitterly is under-reported by the traditional media).

So what’s their reason for not reporting the number of trained Iraqis anymore? Why, according to the Pentagon, it’s because the number is CLASSIFIED. Which, of course, begs the question, if that number is classified, why was the Pentagon regularly issuing reports stating the number of trained Iraqis? Was someone violating the law by revealing classified information when these reports were released, or were they the result of on-the-fly declassification. And, why is it the administration, has routinely sent out its flacks to tout the number of trained Iraqis, as recently as GOP head Ken Mehlman’s remarkable appearance on the Daily Show if the number is classified? The answer is obvious: the Iraqis aren’t being trained in anything either like the numbers we’ve been told or, even worse, in the numbers it’s going to take for them to take over the laboring oar of providing security in Iraq, and the more apparent that becomes, the more the “we’ll stand down when they stand up” is revealed as the sham it really is, and the more “classified” that failure becomes.

The administration and, more importantly, its commanders on the ground, know the Iraqi army and police will likely never be capable, on their own, of restoring security in a country made insecure by our invasion and occupation. In his testimony before congress, General Casey, our commander in Iraq, had to admit how few Iraqi battalions were battle ready, a scenario which has gotten even worse since his testimony. Administration assertions about Iraqi training and readiness have been frequently, and credibly, debunked.

It’s not like we don’t have graphic evidence of the Iraqis’ inability or unwillingness to fight, either. Who can forget the pictures of the mass refusal of recent “trainees” to serve, evidenced by their stripping off their uniforms, en masse, following their “graduation” ceremony in Fallujah? A recent “pod” on the interactive television network Current TV also highlights this problem, as seen from the perspective of soldiers “on the ground” who have been assigned the duty of training Iraqis. In the video, entitled “Inside Iraq: Training Iraqis,” the film maker, an army lieutenant stationed in Iraq, depicts vignettes of the exasperating nature of his task, at one point telling the camera it’s going to take, in his opinion, at least five years, and possibly ten, to adequately train the Iraqi military.

All of this lends credence to the belief that there is, in fact, absolutely no interest by this administration in “standing down,” or at least not any time soon. This war has been the greatest gravy train in history for what President Eisenhower called the “military industrial complex” (read: Haliburton, et al). If there were any interest in bugging out of Iraq, would the government be building massive, permanent military bases in Iraq , or resisting any efforts to limit funding for such bases? And how about using the war as an excuse to conflate it with the threat of terrorism (i.e., “fighting them over there so we don’t have to fight them over here”), as the House most recently, and dramatically, did in its election-driven resolution. Withdrawing from Iraq might also impede the revolving door that so many high level homeland security operatives have gone through to trade in their government positions for more lucrative jobs in private security consulting.

If you believe the administration has any intention of “standing down” in Iraq, then you’ll believe it intends to abide by any of the hundreds of laws the President has signified his intention of disobeying.

UPDATE:The military contractor abuse is even worse than we thought.

BIOGRAPHY:

“Gadfly” is Marty Aussenberg, an attorney practicing law in his own firm in Memphis, Tennessee, who intends to keep practicing until he gets it right. He began his career in the private practice of law in Memphis after relocating from Washington, D.C., where he spent five years at the Securities and Exchange Commission as a Special Counsel and Trial Attorney in its Enforcement Division, during which time he handled or supervised the investigation and litigation of several significant cases involving insider trading, market manipulation, and management fraud. Prior to his stint at the S.E.C., he was an Assistant Attorney General with the Pennsylvania Department of Banking in Philadelphia and was the Attorney-In-Charge of Litigation for the Pennsylvania Securities Commission, where, in addition to representing that agency in numerous state trial and appellate courts, he successfully prosecuted the first case of criminal securities fraud in the state’s history.

Mr. Aussenberg’s private practice has focused primarily on investment, financial, corporate and business counseling, litigation and arbitration and regulatory proceedings. He has represented individual, institutional and governmental investors, as well as brokerage firms and individual brokers, in securities and commodities-related matters, S.E.C., NASD and state securities regulatory proceedings, and has represented parties in shareholder derivative, class action and multi-district litigation, as well as defending parties in securities, commodities, and other “white-collar” criminal cases.

Mr. Aussenberg received his J.D. degree from the University of Pittsburgh School of Law, and his B.A. degree in Honors Political Science from the University of Pittsburgh. Immediately following law school, he served as a Reginald Heber Smith Community Lawyer Fellow with the Delaware County Legal Assistance Association in Chester, Pennsylvania.

He is admitted to practice in Tennessee, Pennsylvania and the District of Columbia, before the United States Supreme Court, the Third and Sixth Circuit Courts of Appeals, and the United States Tax Court, as well as federal district courts in Tennessee, Arkansas, Mississippi and Louisiana. He has served as an arbitrator for the NASD, New York Stock Exchange and American Arbitration Association, has published several articles on stockbroker fraud, and has been a featured speaker at seminars in the United States and Canada.

Mr. Aussenberg is an avid golfer whose only handicap is his game, an occasional trap shooter whose best competitive score was a 92, and an even less frequent jazz drummer.

Cross-posted at The Memphis Flyer.

According to published reports, the President has invited the families of the victims of the crash of Flight 93 on September 11th to view the movie of the same name at the White House. Bush has said he views the passengers of Flight 93 as “heroes.” Just what we need—another opportunity for Bush to exploit 9/11 for political purposes.

But what makes this latest bit of political marketing particularly offensive is that it comes at the same time as another movie has been released that I’m going to bet Bush won’t be inviting anyone to the White House to see (much less watch himself), “Baghdad ER,” the HBO documentary about a medical trauma unit in Baghdad which depicts, in gruesome detail, the daily bloodbath of this war. If anyone should see this movie, it’s George Bush.

It’s easy for Bush to bang the 9/11 drum since most people still don’t hold him personally responsible for what happened that day (even though less than half of the public believes the official version, or the investigations, of those events). But no one, whether they approve of Bush or not, can have any question about this president’s responsibility for the policies that have resulted in the carnage our troops (not to mention innocent Iraqi civilians) are suffering. So, it’s an ultimate act of denial, not to mention hypocrisy and cowardice, for Bush to avoid watching this heart-wrenching film about a hospital unit in Iraq, and the death and injuries its staff has to deal with virtually every minute of every day.

But Bush’s avoidance of death and dying in Iraq isn’t either unusual or unique. Even the Army’s top brass, including the Secretary of the Army and the Surgeon General, who were invited to a screening of the HBO film ended up being no-shows. And the Army even issued a warning that watching the film could exacerbate the post traumatic stress many soldiers are already suffering, a sentiment that is heartwarming considering what a lousy job the Army is doing dealing with the mental effects of this war , and that it is sending troops with diagnosed mental problems back into combat.

We know that Bush has done everything in his power to prevent the real toll of this war from being broadcast, whether it’s by blaming the media for his unpopularity because it shows pictures of the violence, or prohibiting pictures of the coffins that return from Iraq bearing the war dead . This administration does’t like pictures (moving or otherwise) that show the results of its own incompetence. It did the same thing during the Katrina debacle when FEMA attempted to ban the media from taking pictures of dead victims. And Bush himself refuses to attend the funerals of soldiers killed in Iraq.

No, I don’t think there will be a White House showing of “Baghdad ER.” The president is too busy blowing his 9/11 horn to pay any real attention to the heroes of his miserable war.

BIOGRAPHY:

“Gadfly” is Marty Aussenberg, an attorney practicing law in his own firm in Memphis, Tennessee, who intends to keep practicing until he gets it right. He began his career in the private practice of law in Memphis after relocating from Washington, D.C., where he spent five years at the Securities and Exchange Commission as a Special Counsel and Trial Attorney in its Enforcement Division, during which time he handled or supervised the investigation and litigation of several significant cases involving insider trading, market manipulation, and management fraud. Prior to his stint at the S.E.C., he was an Assistant Attorney General with the Pennsylvania Department of Banking in Philadelphia and was the Attorney-In-Charge of Litigation for the Pennsylvania Securities Commission, where, in addition to representing that agency in numerous state trial and appellate courts, he successfully prosecuted the first case of criminal securities fraud in the state’s history.

Mr. Aussenberg’s private practice has focused primarily on investment, financial, corporate and business counseling, litigation and arbitration and regulatory proceedings. He has represented individual, institutional and governmental investors, as well as brokerage firms and individual brokers, in securities and commodities-related matters, S.E.C., NASD and state securities regulatory proceedings, and has represented parties in shareholder derivative, class action and multi-district litigation, as well as defending parties in securities, commodities, and other “white-collar” criminal cases.

Mr. Aussenberg received his J.D. degree from the University of Pittsburgh School of Law, and his B.A. degree in Honors Political Science from the University of Pittsburgh. Immediately following law school, he served as a Reginald Heber Smith Community Lawyer Fellow with the Delaware County Legal Assistance Association in Chester, Pennsylvania.

He is admitted to practice in Tennessee, Pennsylvania and the District of Columbia, before the United States Supreme Court, the Third and Sixth Circuit Courts of Appeals, and the United States Tax Court, as well as federal district courts in Tennessee, Arkansas, Mississippi and Louisiana. He has served as an arbitrator for the NASD, New York Stock Exchange and American Arbitration Association, has published several articles on stockbroker fraud, and has been a featured speaker at seminars in the United States and Canada.

Mr. Aussenberg is an avid golfer whose only handicap is his game, an occasional trap shooter whose best competitive score was a 92, and an even less frequent jazz drummer.

cross-posted at Memphis Flyer.