Author: Natasha Chart

This Nedra Pickler story about the CNN YouTube debate is classically snotty, cliche and unserious, totally unsurprising coming from Pickler. It would probably annoy me even more if I wasn’t having to read the news reports today to find out what happened. (There have been … technical difficulties.) But this, this was even more irritating than the tone of the article, because diplomacy should not be equated with propaganda:

… More seriously, Illinois Sen. Barack Obama would be willing to meet individually with the leaders of Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba and North Korea during the first year of his presidency, while Clinton would not.

“I don’t want to be used for propaganda purposes,” she said. Her campaign quickly posted video of her answer online, trying to show she has a different understanding of foreign policy than her chief rival. …

At least, it was irritating until I read the transcript. Because Clinton didn’t say that she ‘wouldn’t be willing’ to meet with those leaders, she said that she “will not promise” to meet with them, though she would actively pursue high level diplomacy. A little different, you think?

She’s not my pick, but they shouldn’t get to lie about her without getting called on it. We all deserve a better conversation than that.

Rep. John Dingell (MI-15), chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, is known far and wide as a reliable representative of the auto industry. But does he represent his district? Polling data released at a press conference today indicates that, at least on raising CAFE standards, his resistance to higher fuel efficiency standards is out of step with both his constituents and the country as a whole.

The poll, conducted on behalf of the Pew Campaign for
Fuel Efficiency by Democratic Pollster Mark Mellman and Republican pollster Bill McInturff, showed across the board majority support for higher, binding standards and more rapid implementation. Over 3900 likely voters were sampled in 34 congressional districts in Tennessee, Ohio, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Florida and Michigan, where House members are wavering on whether or not to support higher CAFE standards.

Upwards of two-thirds of respondents said that they’d have a more favorable opinion of Congress if such a bill were passed. Agreement was in the 60-70 percent range that respondents would have a more favorable opinion of their individual member of Congress for passing such a bill.

The poll found 59 percent of Dingell’s own constituents saying they’d have a better opinion of him for voting in favor of a bill with tough CAFE standards, and only 17 percent saying they’d have a less favorable opinion of him, while 84 percent of them support higher standards. In answer to a particularly telling question, 63 percent of union households in Dingell’s district supported higher, mandatory CAFE standards as opposed to the 85 percent who supported at least some increase in CAFE standards. After hearing arguments that CAFE increases would threaten union jobs and benefits, 68 percent of the union households in Dingell’s district supported them.

But which bill? Follow below the fold for more …
Diarist Navy Vet Terp summed up the competing CAFE legislation nicely just yesterday:

The Senate has already passed an Energy Bill that mandates 35 mpg in autombiles by 2020. This week the House of Representatives will be voting on two bills on mandatory fuel standards.

One bill, H.R. 2927, Hill-Terry, will raise mandatory fuel economy by the year 2022 to a minimum of 32 miles per gallon. The Secretary of Transportation may by regulation provide for a greater fuel standard, but cannot go above 35 miles per gallon. This is the bill supported by John Dingell and the auto industry, including the UAW.

The second bill, a far better bill, is H.R. 1506, the Markey-Platts Bill, which will provide for a mandatory fuel standard of 27.5 miles per gallon by 2012, and 35 miles per gallon by 2018. …

In the polling questions, both bills were compared for respondents. In every district, they supported the Markey-Platts bill, with its higher, mandatory standards and earlier start date by 50 point margins. It’s this bill, that insists on 35 mpg fuel efficiency standards by 2018, that had this group of likely voters saying that it would improve their opinion of Congress as a whole and their representative in particular. Roughly 90 percent of voters in all states surveyed thought the House should pass standards at or above the levels passed by the Senate.

Greater than 60 percent of voters opposed putting a cap on CAFE standard increases, while 84 percent
preferred achieving a 35 mpg increase by 2018, as opposed to 2022.

Mellman said that they’d also taken the additional step of exposing respondents to the other side of the debate, the points put forward by the auto industry. He said they “tried to be very fair” and “recited most of their arguments,” but that “voters just don’t believe or aren’t persuaded.” MacInturff said that they’d taken the arguments they presented from auto companies’ own advertising strategies. Still, three quarters or more of the voters polled still supported the tougher standards after hearing the opposing arguments. Voters continued to believe, 71 percent of them, that higher CAFE standards were preferable after hearing auto companies’ reasons for opposing them.

Arguments laid out to voters included concerns that vehicles would get lighter and therefore less safe, that they would cost more, that it would hurt US auto companies, that it would take SUVs and pickup trucks off the market, and that auto workers would lose their jobs or have their retirement plans and benefits jeopardized. Between 69 and 81 percent of respondents believed that higher standards would instead force US companies to innovate, which would protect American jobs. Other benefits 60 or more percent of voters believed higher CAFE standards would bring included saving money at the gas pump, less dependence on Middle Eastern oil, and less air pollution.

The argument that cars, trucks and SUVs would be less powerful found more traction, particularly in Kentucky. However, respondents continued to support higher standards, even so.

McInturff said that Republicans were “always going to be softer when it comes to any type of federal mandate or requirement” than Democrats. Still, he said their support was real for higher, binding standards enacted more quickly. He also said that while global warming arguments weren’t as persuasive with Republicans, there were a wealth of other reasons to bring out in support of higher CAFE standards that cut across party lines and that climate change didn’t even have to come into the picture.

McInturff also said that “both the price and the foreign policy consequences are capturing people’s attention” in ways they weren’t two years ago.

Michael Specter of the Wall Street Journal said that industry studies indicated that consumers talked a good game about CAFE standards, but that when they went to buy a car, fuel efficiency ranked somewhere around 20th in their list of priorities. Kevin Curtis of Pew said that, “The point is that the consumers want both, and there’s absolutely no reason they can’t get both.” Curtis went on to say that several studies, one by the National Academy of Sciences, indicated that consumers shouldn’t have to choose between the types of vehicles they have now and higher fuel efficiency.

Mellman said he found it hard to believe that the auto industry would spend millions of dollars on advertising the fuel efficiency of their vehicles if they really thought consumers didn’t care.

The poll’s margin of error was +/- 5 percent.

If you support the Markey-Platts bill, please find your representative and call their office, or call the United States Capitol switchboard at (202) 224-3121, and ask to be put through to them to register your support this week.

Cindy Sheehan of Gold Star Families for Peace spoke in Seattle this past weekend and was the guest of honor at a fundraiser for Rep. Jim McDermott’s legal fund Sunday, naming the congressman as one of her heroes and a man who was right on all the progressive issues. After the pleasantries, she sat down with everyone for a Q&A session with the congressman and the other guests.

In person, Cindy Sheehan hardly seems like someone who would have started a national media firestorm. Her presence is soothing, her voice is gentle no matter the topic and while she isn’t shy, she doesn’t act like someone who’s trying to draw attention to herself. When she mentions that she was a Catholic youth minister for 8 years, no one is surprised.

She talks about what started her determination to speak out about the war, saying that one of the last straws was the president’s declaration that the U.S. had to stay in Iraq to honor the sacrifice of the fallen, like her son Casey. “I don’t know any mother who lost her child who would want another mother’s child to die. Casey died saving his buddies, he wouldn’t want anyone else to die,” she said.
So she went down to Crawford, TX and decided to ask for a better answer about why the U.S. was in Iraq. She said that Bush’s staff who came out to speak to her couldn’t give any better answer than the president had in public, telling not to “make the mistake of thinking that because I’m a grieving mom that I’m a stupid mom.” She left Crawford without an answer that satisfied her and has been speaking out in favor of pulling out the troops ever since.

As she travels the country, she says most of her support comes from veterans and current active duty, people who know how bad war can be. By now, even members of the military who don’t agree with her tell her that they support her right to do what she’s doing, that she rarely gets called a traitor anymore like back in the beginning. Even the shopkeepers in Crawford, TX have described her and her fellow demonstrators as ‘not so bad,’ which she says is quite a change from back when she started. What else is she hearing when she meets with people? Apparently, lots of talk about pulling out of Iraq now and impeaching the president.

Speaking of presidents, someone asks her who she supports in 2008 and she doesn’t hesitate to name Al Gore as her favorite. She says she likes him now even more than she did in 2000, saying that she believes that if Gore had been in office these last few years, her son would still be alive. Is he electable? She seems certain that the answer is yes. “He was already elected once, why can’t he be elected again?”

Back to Iraq, she talks about the terrible conditions for troops on the ground, including those who have resorted to asking the Iraqis for food because they’re only being given two meals a day. She talks about the conditions the Iraqis live in, contrasted to the sprawling U.S. embassy that doesn’t lack for the water and electricity they now go without.

Regarding the politics of getting Congress to move on this issue, Rep. McDermott said that there are now about 150 members of congress who would like to get out but are trying to figure out how to explain their original votes for the war. He said it was hard to admit they were wrong, but they’re trying to come to terms with it, especially since their districts are increasingly unhappy. Of that original vote, he said “Most of these people wanted to believe what they were told.”

When it comes to talking about getting out, McDermott noted that everyone wanted to say redeploy instead of retreat or withdrawal. He recalled though, that before the war, he’d appeared on a news show with a senior military officer for a segment on the merits of going into Iraq. Off camera, he asked the officer what would happen if, just for the sake of argument, he turned out to be right and everything went to hell. The officer said that in that case, the senior generals would go to the president and say they wanted out. McDermott said that Rep. Jack Murtha was the canary, while the retired generals who’ve been speaking out represent a 2nd wave in the attempt to talk the White House out of Iraq.

Sheehan noted that even redeployment might not be what people expect. Of the phrase strategic redeployment, she said that what it meant was withdrawing ground troops while increasing aerial bombardment and using death squads. The comment was a reminder that Iraq’s recent ambassador, John Negroponte is intimately familiar with supporting and organizing death squads, that Pentagon discussions on using death squads in Iraq are public knowledge and that U.S. trained Iraqi police forces are known to be among the groups in Iraq using terror tactics that would have been familiar to any Central America watcher during the Reagan administration of which Negroponte is a veteran.

Sheehan said that just about everyone who could be convinced that the Iraq war was wrong had been convinced. Now, she said, “we have to convince everybody that they have a stake in this war.” She pointed to the recent immigration marches as an example of what people can do when motivated, saying that if the deficits weren’t enough, there were always the war crimes. “If we don’t repudiate these crimes against humanity, then we are complicit,” she said.

Concerning the recent drumbeat of alarmism over Iran, she said that she thought “they have an intern in the White House just changing all the Q’s to N’s.” She noted that Iran was at least three times the size and population of Iraq and had far better defenses. Soldiers have told her that during the initial invasion of Iraq, some of them were met with Iraqi soldiers surrendering to them in flip-flops and carrying rusty rifles, that they’d had very few defenses left. “Iran won’t be like that,” she said, they “won’t roll over.” Iraqi blogger Riverbend might have agreed if she’d been there, recently having described American troops in Iraq as 150,000 Iranian hostages, in the event of an invasion.

Sheehan said that people ask her sometimes how she would fight the war on terror and she said that she’s no great expert, but she “wouldn’t fight it with a war of terror.”

After the event, I rode with Ms. Sheehan and her host for the ten minute trip to catch their ferry and was able to ask her a few more questions.

She spoke some more about Iran, saying that she couldn’t believe that anyone in Congress or the Senate was going along with the administration’s rhetoric on Iran after his lies about Iraq, now that Bush was claiming that it was a new front for the war on terror. She described the effort as another war to “enrich the military industrial war complex.” I asked her about the Iran Freedom Support act, about which she wrote a recent oppositional editorial for Buzzflash. I asked her why, in spite of the fact that use of force is not explicitly authorized in the bill, she thought it was a step towards war. “It’s the first step towards bombing, it’s the first step they took for Iraq, yes. It says if they don’t follow the rules they’ll become a pariah state.”

What else is she hearing about conditions in Iraq from the active duty forces she speaks with? “They’re telling me it’s a nightmare. They don’t get enough food. They don’t get enough clean water. They’re doing things that they never signed up to do and they’re saying that they were lied to. They know it’s all about oil and about making the war machine rich.” About her message and activities, “They’re saying ‘keep on doing it,’ because the peace movement is the only way that they’re getting out of Iraq.”

Sheehan says the Bush administration not only hasn’t attempted to engage any of the questions of servicemembers’ families who’ve joined Sheehan’s search for real answers, “they only meet with families now who are pro-war. … They screen their audiences, you know, they screen everybody. George Bush never meets with anybody who disapproves of him.” Not even the families of fallen soldiers from the war he sent them off to.

Currently, Sheehan’s political activities include working with John Kerry’s office to support his resolution to start bringing the troops home on May 22, and all of them home by the end of the year. She’s been working with Rep. Jim McGovern and has been asking all the elected officiels she meets to stop voting for war funding. She’s on the national board of Progressive Democrats, working to get not only Democrats elected but as the group’s name would indicate, progressive Democrats. She said that “should be an oxymoron, they should all be progressive.”

And in response to the standard question about whether or not we can pull out of Iraq given its current state: “I think we need to pull our military presence out of there, they never needed our military presence there. And like I said in the talk, to say that to be able to rebuild their country they need a U.S. military presence there is arrogant and racist. We need to withdraw all our troops, close the permanent bases. We need to bring the general contractors out of there, give Iraqi people back their jobs and let them rebuild their country because it’s their country. It’s not the 51st state of America. And right now, what’s happening is our presence there is degenerating, the country is degenerating into civil war, chaos and confusion, and it’s because of the occupation. Occupations, … the goal is to create chaos and confusion in a country so they can’t resist the occupiers.”

This is what Sheehan said she tells people they can do to raise support for getting out of Iraq: “They can urge their congresspeople to support such resolutions as McGovern’s 4232 and John Kerry’s S.R. 33. They can get out on the streets, they can write to their congresspeople. They can do counter-recruitment, dry up the cannon fodder, … if they don’t have soldiers, they can’t fight wars. … You know, just stand up and reclaim our country.”

– x-posted at Pacific Views

I’m happy because my post yesterday got at least one friend of mine to call Sen. Cantwell’s office and express their disapproval over the egregiously named Iran Freedom Support Act, or as I’ve come to think of it, the ‘Death to Iran’ bill. But there the happy stops. I’m told that one of the first things out of the mouth of the Cantwell staffer, ready and waiting with a response after what it’s safe to assume were earlier calls, was the defense that Sen. Boxer co-sponsored the bill, too. And dang if I haven’t used that excuse with a straight face since I was a teen.

Tell me, Sen. Cantwell, if Sen. Boxer jumped off a bridge would you do it too?
Oh wait, that’s right, you wouldn’t. Because Sen. Boxer voted for the Alito filibuster, and you didn’t. Sen. Boxer voted against the confirmation of Condoleezza Rice as Secretary of State, and you didn’t. Sen. Boxer voted against the Iraq war, like your colleague and my other Senator, Patty Murray. You didn’t. Even though it would have been a lot less painful or dangerous than a long fall with a sudden stop.

Does any of that make me any less ticked that Sen. Boxer is, in my opinion, on the wrong side in this? No. But she doesn’t represent me in the Senate. You do.

Juan Cole outlined the wrongness and hysteria of the Death to Iran crowd the other day, noting that Ahmedinejad, this new Hitler, isn’t even in command of the armed forces. He doesn’t have the power to declare war and he has never even called for military action to be taken against Israel, as Cole details, merely quoted a speech of Khomeini’s suggesting that the Israeli government wouldn’t last forever, like every other government on the planet. Ahmedinejad’s opponent in the last election, Rafsanjani, is head of the Expediency Council (see diagram). That’s a group that mediates between the Majlis and the Council of Guardians, holding the power to overrule the decision of any elected body or official, though elected officials there do shape policy. But let me say that again:

President Ahmedinejad’s opponent in the last election holds a position from which he could overrule any decision Ahmedinejad makes.

Being president in Iran isn’t like being president in America, definitely unlike the imperial Bush presidency. The Death to Iran lobby are trying to get this country quaking in their boots over a man who couldn’t unilaterally order a military parade. And every single motion by public figures in the U.S., well-meaning or not, that lends even the tiniest shred of credence to these warmongers demonstrates that a) they’re not paying attention and b) learned very little from the experiences of the last four years. This does not endear people to me. I don’t care if they’re in the Progressive Caucus, card-carrying members of the ACLU, Greenpeace sustainers, members of the Human Rights Coalition or human shields for cute, little baby seals. Because this is a serious matter and a lot of people could die over it.

As Oui pointed out in a MLW diary about the latest outbreak of new Hitlers, 48% of the American public would currently support strikes against Iran. Can there be any doubt that it’s because our politicians and media have been doing their best to scare the hell out of them? Could there either be any doubt that if the rhetoric ramps up without a counterbalance, there aren’t a lot of percentage points between this and majority public approval?

We are seeing now the early stages of another bum’s rush to war. This country can ill-afford it and has no moral or credible excuse for such. Whether the efforts succeed or not, I consider it the duty of everyone who doesn’t want another war to protest as loudly and shrilly as possible everytime they hear the propaganda machine heat up. When you don’t have power, when you are in the opposition, the only moral statement you may be able to make is to oppose bad decisions and evil deeds, no matter the beauty of the words in which they are wrapped.

Because as sure as I’m sitting here typing this, this administration doesn’t give a hoot about the freedom of the Iranian people. They don’t care if Iran were to sever all their questionable ties tomorrow, or swear to give up nuclear enrichment forever. I can even prove it.

In 2003, the Bush administration, pushed by Dick Cheney rejected an Iranian offer to negotiate regarding their nuclear program, long before this current, manufactured crisis. Iran offered to sever ties with the Palestinian groups that have been such a point of contention. Those were their starting offers, approved at all levels of government, in return for discussions about easing trade restrictions.

If what our government really wanted was for Iran to address its security concerns, the chance to explore that peacefully was volunteered to them.

Going back to 2002, a man named Hashem Aghajari gave a speech suggesting that perhaps it would be a good idea to reconsider the idea of a religious state. An Iranian court sentenced him to death. Two members of parliament resigned in protest. Students protested. And then they protested some more. Pretty soon, the streets were flooded with peacefully protesting Iranians of every description. Observers were talking about a possible revolt against the government, which was so nervous that they started hemming and hawing about Aghajari’s sentence. And then, within a space of days in December of 2002, the sustained and massive protests dried up and vanished.

But it wasn’t magic, just as the protests themselves weren’t the result of thousands of people suddenly waking up one morning and saying, ‘hey, the weather is lovely, looks like a fine day to take to the streets.’ As I wrote in 2003:

…[A]nyone who attended the recent peace marches is aware that a lot of organizing is involved in getting even one protest off the ground, letting people know when, where, what, etc. How were they pulling it off? Courtesy of a US sponsored radio station called Radio Freedom, which had a live DJ who suspended regular programming for the occasion. Students ard organizers would call in on their cellphones from the demonstrations, have live reporting and discussion, and feeling so generally bold that people were giving their full names over the radio.

But three weeks into the protests, Radio Freedom was shut down. Two weeks later, it was replaced with 24/7 American pop music and a few minutes of canned news every hour. The White House hailed it as a triumph of information access for the Iranian people. The demonstrations continued gamely for a while, but as the numbers thinned out, the hardline Basij marchers were finally able to intimidate everyone into staying away. …

If this administration cared at all about the self-determination of the Iranian people, they would have let Radio Freedom stand, because all those people needed at the time was a means to freely communicate with each other during a time of national unity. Such a simple thing, already in place, already paid for. So bloody easy to just let things develop their own way. Bush gave them Britney Spears, silenced their own calls for justice and has continued to turn a deaf ear to their internal human rights community

Prominent activists inside Iran say President Bush’s plan to spend tens of millions of dollars to promote democracy here is the kind of help they don’t need, warning that mere announcement of the U.S. program endangers human rights advocates by tainting them as American agents.

In a case that advocates fear is directly linked to Bush’s announcement, the government has jailed two Iranians who traveled outside the country to attend what was billed as a series of workshops on human rights. Two others who attended were interrogated for three days.

The workshops, conducted by groups based in the United States, were held last April, but Iranian investigators did not summon the participants until last month, about the time the Bush administration announced plans to spend $85 million “to support the cause of freedom in Iran this year.”

“We are under pressure here both from hard-liners in the judiciary and that stupid George Bush,” human rights activist Emad Baghi said as he waited anxiously for his wife and daughter to emerge from interrogation last week. “When he says he wants to promote democracy in Iran, he gives money to these outside groups and we’re in here suffering.”

… “It seems to me the United States is not studying the history of Iran very carefully,” Pourostad said. “Whenever they came and supported an idea publicly, the public has done the opposite.” …

If members of the Congress of this country could fail to be aware of these facts, of even this recent history in our relations with Iran, they have no business voting yes to any legislation regarding that country. And they certainly have no business voting yes at a time when the drums are starting up again and Bush is aching to get people’s attention away from his tanking popularity, his legislative failures and the potential crimes of members of his administration. And anyone who had knowingly supported this measure in spite of being well aware of all these things, though I’m not a mind reader to divine such, would be as guilty of reckless warmongering as the murder-minded lunatics who drafted it.

And yes, I spoke intemperately the other day. But if you can’t get angry over watching good people sign up to be accomplices in the possible death of thousands, what can you get angry about?

BTW – Cantwell’s opponent, the McGavick idiot, thinks that the solution to all our problems with Iran is to deny them soccer. If the threat posed was serious, that response would lack … how can I put this delicately … mettle. Because it isn’t, it serves the double function of exposing him as another willing participant in the propaganda machine and also, how Dear Deity did this man maintain so many years of gainful employment, dumb as a bag of hammers. I think we can all tell who was the dead wood in his office.

I can barely steady my hands enough to type right now, I am indescribably furious and can only request leniency for the inevitable rhetorical excess to follow. I checked the Daily Kos this morning to see what new petty crime was brewing, only to discover that 58 senators have something worse in the waiting than scandal and corruption. Worse than bribery. Worse than deficits my grandchildren will be lucky to see the back of. Worse than standing by while that odious gang of thugs in the White House (and btw, Rep. Hoyer, you are a cowering toad) takes unto themselves the powers of a monarchy.

This morning, when I saw that Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-WA) was one of the cosponsors of a crapulous pile of hypocritical legislative ooze pathetically wrapped in a nice, chocolate-covered title of the Iran Freedom Support Act, let me just say that I saw red. Red like the blood of men, women and children spilled in Iraq. Red like the fresh wounds of soldiers rushed to Walter Reed. Red like the eyes of family members who will ask themselves every day between this breath and their last why they outlived people they loved as much as their own lives.
The bill includes a section advocating regime change, under the guise of supporting democracy. While it’s true that the US government has had a moderate budget for coup-plotting in Iran from what I’m aware is every year since the revolution, at this time, with this president, under these terms, passage of this bill would be tantamount to authorizing war with Iran. As the linked diarist notes, Condoleezza Rice has already been caught out sniffing for local countries from which to base an attack, which we only know because Bulgaria, Greece and Turkey have already declined to be part of the latest planned Bush regime killing spree.

I don’t think I need to document the propaganda we’ve all heard in painful detail: Preposterous allegations that Iran might be within months of a nuclear weapon, when in reality they’re years away from even being able to refine enough nuclear material for a single bomb. The notion that the ruling clerics would allow the mouthy, populist Ahmedinejad to destroy their relative peace and economic progress by becoming the first Iranian regime to start a war of aggression over a span of time that exceeds living memory. The ridiculous hyperbole suggesting that the former mayor of Tehran is a more wily and ideologically dangerous opponent than the Ayatollah Khomenei, who once personally set off a briefcase bomb in a chamber full of the moderate parliamentarian types who looked set to take over the government after the Americans were pushed out, literally beheading the most effective opposition to clerical rule. The screamers comparing Ahmedinejad to Hitler, a man who murdered millions and laid waste to what were in his day the cream of the world’s military, coming undone largely due to overreach on his part in Russia and Africa and supported by some of the finest military minds ever to have walked the earth. The useless sods incapable of learning the tiniest lesson from Iraq, insisting that really, the Iranian people will greet regime change from the nation that laid waste to two neighboring countries as a liberation.

Have I got a bridge for these credulous mothercopulators. How many people have to die before these overblown, fearmongering, petulant wastrels figure out that you can’t bomb your way to paradise? Isn’t that supposed to be our central ideological complaint about a certain cave-dwelling, virgin-in-the-afterlife-dangling Saudi maniac?

Don’t try to keep feeding me this bull about spreading democracy and freeing the oppressed. You want to free some oppressed people, get off your sanctimonious buttocks and do something about Darfur. Go try to keep some peace in the Central African nations where rebel armies of brainwashed children run around murdering and mutilating without pity. You want democracy brought to a people who are crying out for it, put some pressure on the king of Nepal to stop using insurgency as an excuse for autocracy and help those people put an end to the bombings that have rocked Kathmandu for heedless years. You want to save somebody, fix Afghanistan. That country we already invaded, where the Taliban are swarming back, no foreign aid worker is safe and where we already have a military presence. If you want to flip the bird to a tyrant, free Uzbekistan from Karimov and his torturers.

Or are there just not enough good targets in any of those countries? Because God knows, even in those cases that probably could be resolved at a negotiating table, the Bush administration’s diplomacy skills couldn’t fix a tiff between identical twins over who wound up with a better set of birthmarks.

And maybe, HELLOOOOO, we could spend some time and money fixing this country. Pay the deficit down. Get some more healthcare. Support education. Start acting like you care about the public good, instead of trying to sell the internet and the parks and everything that isn’t nailed down to your favorite contributors. Try to get back to the Clinton era prosperity that saw people being lifted out of poverty every year, instead of casting people down below the bright line in ever greater numbers, as we have now. Use your time to educate the public to be informed citizens with a sense of perspective about the issues facing us instead of playing on the fears of a debt and work-weary public. Restore support to the victims of Katrina, really victims of criminal negligence on the part of the government they relied on to prevent cities from drowning or at the least bring in emergency services on the double afterwards, and attend to the needs of every former resident of the devastated Gulf Coast instead of only the ones who can afford lobbyists. Deliver on the healthcare, pension and disability support promises made to the veterans that have served this country honorably, in spite of the fact that the 100 (at least) most powerful people in their government aren’t fit to lick their boots.

If we as American citizens can’t get these basic government services out of our democracy, it should be prima facie evidence that we have no business trying to export government to other people. People all over the world governed themselves for absolutely ages before patronizing white people came along to tell them how to fix everything for the low, low price of all their natural resource profits. And if you’re still just crying to spend billions of American dollars to bring change overseas, pay off the national debt of a couple countries too poor to bring their citizens water, fund tropical disease research or support the rebuilding of educational and professional infrastructure in countries where AIDS has decimated the population of 18-49 year olds.

We have devastating problems in our world, including a shifting climate that already poses a serious threat to the global food supply. We have, here in the most prosperous country in history, cases of poverty and injustice that bring tears to every eye that sees them. We have loads of countries whose citizens are in such dire straits that they would beg to live in the conditions now present in Iran, short as they may fall of our own ideals and preferences. There are people trying all over this planet to solve these problems seriously and patiently, without resorting to violence, who would love a helping hand.

If the supposedly educated Senators of the United States of America can’t find a better use of their time than laying the groundwork for another war of choice courtesy of the Worst President Ever, then I have a hard time seeing where hope lies. If a Democrat running for office in a very blue state, can’t think of a better solution to this international micturation contest than to join Rick Santorum in supporting a bill that any country on earth would rightly regard as an act of war in and of itself, then there had better be miracles. Because this planet is in direst need of them.

And Senator Cantwell, pull my finger.

 And here we begin yet another entry whose title was so very nearly something like, “How F*cking Stupid Are These CheeseF*cking, P*ssDrinking, GoatBl*wing Cretins!?” And I thought to myself, “Self, while it’s true that the Bush administration’s apparent plans to nuke Isfahan might even exceed in stupidity a target selection guided by a game of drunken pin-the-turban-on-the-mullah in the Oval Office played with a map of the Middle East, such a title might not properly clue readers in to the topic of the post. Further, I’m offended by the implied abuse of innocent goats and it’s too long and unwieldy even to be (peace be upon Dave Barry) a good band name. While you’re at it, don’t forget to throw in some nice pictures.” It was a fair point, so here we are.

 Though borders and rulers changed, many pockets of continuous Persian culture have persisted in what was once the Persian Empire, such as Isfahan, the former capital of the Safavid dynasty and “[t]he Persians called it Nisf-e-Jahan, half the world; meaning that to see it was to see half the world.” (Ethnic map of Iran.)
 Persian expatriates have described Isfahan as a place where you can almost forget that you’re in a country run by ayatollahs. It’s a place that travel-jaded British tourists have to drag themselves away from, whilst thinking sternly about their mortgage payments and the fact that there are no pubs, like in Utah. It’s the home of some of the most recognizable and beautiful examples of Islamic architecture in the world outside the holy cities in Saudi Arabia and Iraq.

 Oh yes, and unlike the site of the Bahmiyan Buddhas destroyed by the Taliban, over a million people live in Isfahan. But not just any people. It’s one of the cities in Iran whose residents are most likely to hold a 3 week open air dance party with drinks on the house and Googoosh‘s greatest hits blaring from every stereo the day the regime changes. You remember the scene from the end of the re-release version of Star Wars: Return of the Jedi, where the camera pans across whole cities given over to spontaneous celebration? It will probably be like that.

 Unless American bombers place Isfahan in the center of a fallout zone while trying to hit the uranium conversion facility located there, or the nearby manufacturing plant needed to make alloys used in nuclear plants.

 I’m not an expert like Juan Cole, but I think I know enough to say that for Persians, such an act would be like bombing Mecca or Medina in the minds of Arab Muslims. Which is to say that with cold, calculating determination, devoid of the passions of a two-way war between our countries or the excuse of imminent threat, America will have struck at the heart of their civilization.

 Wingnuts might note that you don’t usually find Persians in the ranks of suicide bombers, and the ones in the US are more likely to be sitting around at parties reminiscing about what their families lost in the revolution than talking faith at the local mosque. When the Shah was in power, they were among the most likely to have gotten college educations on the government, started their own business, or traveled around just for the heck of it. Expatriate Iranians of Persian origin have fit in comfortably with western society from Los Angeles to Wiesbaden and are happily esconced in American media, business and academia, with the notable examples of the couple who first sponsored the Ansari X Prize to establish a cash reward for the first private space flight. They often have relatives back in Iran with whom they exchange news and stories and may even sometimes visit. Some would even go back if the country’s laws were more secular.

 It may seem like I’ve lost the plot here, or perhaps like I’m about to wander even farther off point, but this is in no way a digression. During the red-baiting heydays of the Cold War, leftists and human rights activists were targets of brutal assaults in every American client state under the banner of fighting communism. This held throughout Latin America, Africa, Asia and the Middle East. In some of these countries, like Saudi Arabia for example, these campaigns were so successful that to this day it’s difficult to find an opinion in the Kingdom of Saud that wouldn’t be at home on the 700 Club or at a John Birch Society meeting, given a few minor tweaks. That is not the case in Iran.

 In Iran there is the anchor of the Persian social influence, which has remained distinct even after centuries of Islamic rule, as well as smaller groups of Armenian Christians and various other peoples who prefer the greater freedom they are allowed in a pluralistic society. A reservoir of political moderation remains, not only because there are many groups with distinct cultures but because they’ve been allowed to go about their business in relative peace. There is a desire for democracy that doesn’t need to come from ‘lessons’ taught by the west, a sentiment that lives in the minds of people who walk the streets of Iran every day. It’s fed by their history, by contact with expatriates, and has survived the reign of the ayatollahs through an unofficial political ceasefire.

 Left well enough alone, Iran would likely eventually return to the style of secular, open government that its citizens chose for themselves when the British left. The style of government that the United States took from them in a coup.

 Does it take a foreign policy expert to piece all this together, look at the state of the region right now, and suggest that dropping a nuke on a city that’s iconic of Iranian national pride and one of the more secular segments of their society is just a bad idea every which way? Not that it would be any less immoral if a nuclear first strike was dropped on a largely Arabic or Armenian population; indeed, it would be just as reprehensible. What I’m saying is that it would be hard for a person to come up with a strategy that would better alienate the segment of Iranian society that westerners have the most in common with.

 If the goal is in any far future time an Iran that the United States can negotiate with, this is a path that will push that date at least 80 years down the road. It is gross immorality, mass murder, with a heaping helping of stupidity to top it off. It would be the answer to the prayers of the ayatollahs, who would finally get to turn around to all the secularization activists and say, “See, we were right all along. They hate all of us and we will never be able to please them unless our entire nation serves at their command. They will not rest until they can steal our oil as they are stealing Iraqi oil.”

 Yet not knowing the meaning of ‘enough,’ the Bush administration could have been planning its war with Iran perhaps as early as 2003 and has been violating their airspace since at least 2004 using spy drones and manned fighters. Upon entry into Iraq, US forces gave gave Geneva Convention protection to the Marxist-Islamist Mujahideen-e Khalq, a group on the State Department’s terrorist watch list, in their camp in Iraq and may have set them loose to start a bombing campaign inside Iran in 2005. This is the same MEK group that has made big news around these parts lately as new evidence has come out that they are currently gathering intelligence for the US inside Iran. Bush must think that if he’s got a bunch of cultish terrorists that turned against their country to fight for Saddam and the wishy-washy son of the late Shah on his side, that practically constitutes a referendum on the will of the Iranian people. After all, hasn’t Dubya proven that a dynasty and a handful of fanatics are all it takes to govern even America?

 I’m sure they’ll welcome us with tulips and baklava.

Fortunately, even Sen. Richard Lugar (R-IN), chair of the Senate foreign relations committee, doesn’t seem so sure about that and is trying to tell the administration to cool it. Perhaps he’s been talking with the same generals who spoke to Seymour Hersh, the ones who are considering resigning, or perhaps sending a strongly worded policy statement, in opposition to a bombing campaign against Iran. They seem to know that in spite of all the hype, in spite of the petty tyrant at the helm, the Iranian government is still offering to negotiate and they can be reasoned with.

 The Bush administration, on the other hand …

The current plan for the Bush budget includes cutting, nay, obliterating the Environmental Protection Agency’s library system. Not even the central catalog, the only record of the extensive collection of research and unique documents, would remain. The EPA would no longer know what information it had and that information would no longer be readily available to either the public or its own researchers.

A press release from the Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility outlines the scope of the cuts and includes links to fuller information about the services provided by the EPA library system. Excerpts and key legislative contacts on the flip.

Washington, DC — Under President Bush’s proposed budget, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is slated to shut down its network of libraries that serve its own scientists as well as the public, according to internal agency documents released today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). In addition to the libraries, the agency will pull the plug on its electronic catalog which tracks tens of thousands of unique documents and research studies that are available nowhere else.

Under Bush’s plan, $2 million of a total agency library budget of $2.5 million will be lost, including the entire $500,000 budget for the EPA Headquarters library and its electronic catalog that makes it possible to search for documents through the entire EPA library network. These reductions are just a small portion of the $300 million in cuts the administration has proposed for EPA operations.

… EPA currently operates a network of 27 libraries operating out of its Washington, D.C. Headquarters and ten regional offices across the country. The size of the cuts will force the Headquarters library and most of the regional libraries to shut their doors and cease operations. Each year, the EPA libraries –

• Handle more than 134,000 research requests from its own scientific and enforcement staff;
• House and catalog an estimated 50,000 “unique” documents that are available nowhere else; and
• Operate public reading rooms and provide the public with access to EPA databases. …

The announcement, which includes links to more extensive information on the services provided by the EPA libraries, goes on to note that though Bush has laid out a simultaneous plan to invest in certain avenues of EPA research, scientists carrying out that research at the EPA would have no centrally accessible record allowing them to search past work or stay up to date with distant colleagues or current research.

The following members of Congress are on the relevant committees, but feel free to write your direct representatives if they aren’t on this list. Their offices may not be aware of this issue and if they’re concerned about environmental issues, they might appreciate an informative letter on the topic.

SENATE SUBCOMMITTEE on Interior and Related Agencies:

Senator Conrad Burns (Chairman) (MT)

Senator Ted Stevens (AK)

Senator Thad Cochran (MS)

Senator Pete Domenici (NM)

Senator Robert Bennett (UT)

Senator Judd Gregg (NH)

Senator Larry Craig (ID)

Senator Wayne Allard (CO)

Senator Byron Dorgan (Ranking Member) (ND)

Senator Robert C. Byrd (WV)

Senator Patrick Leahy (VT)

Senator Harry Reid (NV)

Senator Dianne Feinstein (CA)

Senator Barbara Mikulski (MD)

Senator Herb Kohl (WI)

HOUSE SUBCOMMITTEE on Interior and Related Agencies:

Charles H. Taylor, NC (R – Chairman)                    

Zach Wamp, TN (R)

John E. Peterson, PA (R)                

Don Sherwood, PA (R)    

Ernest J. Istook, Jr., OK (R)          

Robert Aderholt, AL (R)                          

ohn Doolittle, CA (R)                    

Michael K. Simpson, ID (R – Vice Chair)

Norman D. Dicks, WA (D – Ranking Member)

James P. Moran, VA (D)

Maurice D. Hinchey, NY (D)

John W. Olver, MA (D)

Alan B. Mollohan, WV (D)

Via the coalition casualty count, 14 American soldiers have so far been reported killed in action during the week starting August 14, 2005.

According to figures pulled from Reuters’ Iraq report, at least 123 Iraqi deaths have been reported over the same week.
Ehsan Ahrari writes about the three way pull over the drafting of an Iraqi constitution:

The new Iraqi constitution risks beginning an era of the virtual carving up of Iraq. The Kurds and the Shi’ites are operating on the basis of a zero-sum game, whereby any one group’s gains would approximately equal another group’s losses. The Kurds are  determined to get the autonomous oil-rich northern section. Not to be outmaneuvered by the Kurds, the Shi’ites want an autonomous southern portion. That would leave the Sunnis with the impoverished central section. They are watching, in horror, a process that might be the beginning of the end of a unified Iraq that was created between 1921 and 1932. With all its intentions of democratizing and stabilizing the “new Iraq”, the Bush administration may be presiding over the process of the disintegration of Iraq. …

Juan Cole points out that the Shi’a are divided among themselves over the question of federalism and greater provincial autonomy, noting that while federalism may provoke a civil war, forgoing federalism may start one just as well. Apparently, a lot will hang on whether an agreement can be reached whereby the Kurds would put up with an Islamic state in return for the Shi’a letting them have greater autonomy and more control of Kirkuk’s oil wealth. Cole also links to a research paper on the Shi’a separatist movement.

Billmon talks about where the rights of Iraq’s women are headed and the gangland style tactics of the Shi’a and Kurdish militia and paramilitary groups.

During the week of Sunday, July 24 to Saturday, July 30, 21 U.S. soldiers and two kidnapped Algerian diplomats were killed in Iraq. News agencies reported the deaths of at least 196 Iraqis in conflict related incidents over the same week.

The Iraqi death count is largely based on daily Reuters security incident reports as well as updates from other media outlets when death tolls are later revised upwards for certain incidents.

In the extended entry I’ve included the entirety of Gen. Frank Scoggins’ prepared testimony before the Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) commission. Gen. Scoggins is the Assistant Adjutant General for the Washington Air National Guard. As dry as that sounds, the content is nothing short of alarming if you happen to live in the northwest, or really, any of the western states.

The bombings today in London threw into sharp relief the fact that Al Qaida hasn’t just packed up their toys and gone home. Kim Jong Il still has nuclear warheads and long-range missiles. And at any time, some portion of the seismically active west coast could be subject to a major natural disaster.

Yet if the BRAC sticks with the Pentagon recommendations, the governor of Washington State, along with governors of Idaho, Montana and Oregon will have no airlift capacity at their immediate disposal in case of emergency. At least 18 other states will be in a similar situation, but the entire continous northwest is out in the cold. And because Nevada and both of the Dakotas will also have no permanent airlift capacity, the airlift units in Wyoming, Utah and California will be the closest available to cover the whole region. And that’s just the beginning of several moves that will leave the northwest less protected.

Is it any wonder that WA State’s entire congressional delegation has signed a letter objecting to these changes? Head down to look at the maps for the full impact, and note that the page may load more slowly than usual as I’ve included all eight images that came with the testimony.
WASHINGTON STATE BRAC TESTIMONY

June 17, 2005
Portland, OR

Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today in order to offer inputs regarding the impact of the BRAC plan for the State of Washington.  My name is Frank Scoggins and I am appearing in front of you today in my state capacity as the Assistant Adjutant General/Washington Air National Guard.  In my prepared remarks, I am representing the assessments and concerns of Governor Gregoire and The Adjutant General, MGen Timothy Lowenberg, as well as my own.  The Governor is on a Trade Mission in Europe or she would be here in person.  I am submitting a letter to your Commission on her behalf.   MGen Lowenberg was also unable to attend today, but he sends his appreciation for your time.

Let me begin by stating that the Governor fully embraces the majority of the recommendations of the BRAC proposal as it relates to Washington State.  The Army and Navy processes approaching the release of BRAC were as collaborative as allowable and there were no significant surprises.  The results of their recommendations will allow the citizens, industries, and governments of Washington to continue to strongly support the nation’s defense requirements.  Even more importantly, there are no implications in the Army or Navy recommendations that would negatively affect the state in regard to the Governor’s responsibilities for Homeland Security.  

All of the concerns that I will address today revolve around the USAF recommendations and the negative impacts that we believe those recommendations will have if they are implemented.  We have no doubt that their intentions were good, but the process was extremely closed.  It is our belief that there are serious unintended long term consequences if the USAF recommendations are fully adopted.

I have four issues to discuss today.  First, I will address consequences of the proposed BRAC recommendation that we feel will negatively impact the connectivity of America with her United States Air Force.  Then I will address the Governor’s concern about a lack of emergency airlift that will remain in the Northwest under the current plan.  I will follow-on with a request that you look at the shortfalls caused by an apparent imbalance of the distribution of KC-135 aircraft under BRAC.  A closing point will be made regarding potential Air Sovereignty Homeland Security deficiencies.

The first issue is one that affects the entire nation.  Slide 1 is illustrated with stars that depict the location of the eighty-eight unit equipped flying wings that exist in the Air National Guard today.  The definition of a unit equipped flying wing is one that has the responsibility for the management, maintenance, and operation of an assigned number of aircraft.

Slide 1

The basing recommendations made by the USAF for the BRAC would result in the removal of over one third of these unit equipped wings.  As shown on Slide 2, the proposed basing of the remaining Air National Guard Wings would leave seven states and Puerto Rico without a unit equipped flying wing as depicted in this illustration.  Two of those states, Montana and Washington, are present at today’s forum.

Slide 2

The Adjutants General of the United States have gone on record that they understand that the recapitalization of the Air Force will require a reduction in both USAF and Air National Guard flying force structure.  They are not resistant to a proportional reduction that will provide for America’s future Airpower needs.  They believe, however, changes of this magnitude should be done in consultation with the Adjutants General, and failure of the Air Force to do so has produced a BRAC basing methodology, if adopted, will have the unintended consequence of disconnecting the citizens of America from a key part of their military.

The Adjutants General, with a common voice, have stated they support maintaining a minimum of one unit equipped flying wing in each state.  This is not for political maneuvering.  It goes to the ideology of the militia nation concept of defense that has its foundation in the United States Constitution.  As you know the organized militias created by the Constitution were not intended or designed to be the most efficient and accessible military organization possible.  They were, in fact, created as a political construct designed to keep checks and balances in place for the use of the United States military.  Our forefathers envisioned a standing military that would be at the immediate call of the President, but they carefully placed much of the military force in each of the states.  The design was crafted specifically to avoid creating a presidency that could conduct foreign policy with the powers of a King backed by a King’s Military.  The organized militias set forth in the Constitution, today’s Army and Air National Guard, were to be organized, trained, and equipped by the federal military.  They were to be available to be called to duty as the nation needed.  However, there were put in place congressional checks and balances for the call up and use of that force.  For centuries, this has served to ensure that the citizens of the nation remain connected to, and remain responsible for their own defense.  The use of the United States military for large scale operations, by design, requires the consent of the Congress.  This concept also ensures that the military is only used for long term conflict when supported by the people.  The one significant time that this process was avoided was during the Vietnam War when the large standing force in place for the Cold War made it possible to fight in Vietnam without calling up the Guard and Reserves.  As we know, immediately after the end of that war, the Total Force Policy was developed to ensure that the Guard and Reserve would have to be a part of any future sustained conflict.  In the opinion of some in the DoD, the result of that policy is creating complications in today’s environment.  Others would state that the system is working in that Americans are fully connected to foreign operations because of required mobilization of the National Guard.  The fact that this is causing informed questions to be asked throughout America is a good, and not a bad result of Total Force dependencies.  The Adjutants General believe that it is a mistake to dismantle the militia nation concept as it relates to the USAF in order to address a short term anomaly in America’s history.  

One of the goals of the Air Force in this BRAC recommendation is to make the aircraft and aircrews currently serving in the Air National Guard more accessible for federal use.  BRAC would accomplish this by closing many unit equipped Air National Guard Wings and redefining the militia concept by integrating Air National Guard units with and occasionally into active duty wings.  From a DoD perspective, this would reduce the requirement to mobilize the Air National Guard and minimize the need to go to Congress to ask for permission to use more of the force.  Unfortunately, it would also dismantle many of the safeguards created by the Total Force policy.   This restructuring would help solve short term problems, but it is the concern of the Adjutants General that it would have grave long term negative impacts.

When the USAF made the BRAC military value determination it weighted large centrally managed installations with high scores.  This arrangement provides the most efficient way to bed down large concentration of forces, but by default, it offers very little scoring to the small and efficient Air National Guard wings.  The USAF was looking at the issue through the eyes of leaders responsible to the President for the instant projection of air power.  There was no allowance made in their calculations for the value of Air National Guard community basing.  It is our contention that keeping Air National Guard unit equipped flying wings distributed in every state will ensure that Americans throughout the nation stay in tune with their Air Force.  They will learn about their Air Force and the missions it is performing from citizen airmen who serve on school boards with them and who work and live alongside them as permanent members of their communities.  Those informed citizens will lend their voices of support to the military because they will understand the issues as their neighbors, the citizen Airmen, deploy around the world and fight in America’s wars.  

If those same citizens begin to hear things that cause them to lose support for the overseas mission, our elected members of Congress will begin to receive feedback and will hear the collective voices of America.  It will result in democracy in action at a much earlier point in a conflict, and a repeat of Vietnam will be avoided.  This was the intent of the militia nation construct… to keep citizens involved in their own defense rather than to develop a large standing professional military.  BRAC should not be allowed to fundamentally change the way America defends herself because of USAF basing decisions.  

With today’s lethal weapons and with the speed that Airpower can be projected very quickly around the world, it might be time to consider a change to the militia nation concept of defense for the USAF.  On the other hand, it might also be a time to make sure that America is behind the use of that incredible power before the country commits to wielding it.  In either case, any fundamental change in how the country defends herself should be debated in Congress by the elected representatives of the people and not accomplished as a byproduct of BRAC basing decisions.   We request that you look at the military value calculations and recommend that you place a high value on the positives of keeping at least one unit equipped flying wing in each state.  For the purpose of today’s hearings, that would affect both Montana and Washington, but we believe this to be a nationwide issue and the most important one that I am addressing today.

The second point I would like to address with you is the impact of the Air Force recommendations in BRAC on the Governor’s ability to respond to Homeland Security requirements and natural disasters.  Since September 11, 2001, many National Guard capabilities have been developed in order to support civil authorities in time of crisis. Those assets require air transportation in many instances.  The impact of removing unit equipped KC-135s from the Washington Air National Guard and of C-130 aircraft from the Idaho Air National Guard will totally delete the Northwest Governors’ emergency capability to respond to Homeland Security events within the region.  They will also lose a capability to rapidly support other governors throughout the United States through the Emergency Management Assistance Compact (EMAC).  Slide 3 shows the proposed post BRAC distribution of Air National Guard unit assigned airlift aircraft around the nation.  

 

Slide 3

By design, unit assigned National Guard federal equipment; to include airlift aircraft is available to a governor for emergency use.  Of course federal need always tops any state use, and the state must pay for any use it makes of the equipment.  Thus, the system is designed so that there is no degradation of federal utilization, but the states benefit from the inherent capability of using the aircraft during times of emergency.  During disasters, natural or human caused, this provides a tremendous emergency capability for the governors to use in their roles as the Chief Executive of the various states.  Although it is not a reason for the USAF to base their aircraft in a specific state, the impact of moves involving airlift capability should be considered when arbitrary basing decisions are being made.  As you can see, in Slide 3, the proposed BRAC moves will leave the governors of the entire Northwest Region without any emergency airlift capability.  If the unit equipped KC-135s in the Washington Air National Guard were to be left in place, and if the C-130s were to remain in Idaho, the picture would look completely different.  We request this be considered in your deliberations.  

My third point for you today is to request a reconsideration of the KC-135 basing recommendations as it applies to Fairchild Air Force Base and the entire Northwest.  As you know, the air refueling capability of the USAF sets this country apart with a Global Reach capability not approached by any other nation.  This capability is what allows all other aircraft to be so effective.  It allows C-17s to fly non stop to anywhere in the world.  It allows us to deploy fighters, bombers, and surveillance aircraft to locations not reachable in any other fashion, and it allows the United States Navy and Marines to operate their aircraft from extended distances.  Slides 4 and 5 illustrate the migration of air refueling capability away from the west coast if this BRAC proposal is adopted.  As you can see the number of KC-135 unit equipped wings in the western third of the US decreases markedly.

Slide 4

Slide 5

From a military value perspective it is our concern that it is not in the best interest of the United States of America to move these KC-135 force multiplying aircraft away from the west coast.  The next illustration demonstrates the impact of flying air refueling missions from McConnell AFB, KS, the other large tanker base, instead of from Fairchild AFB, WA, when going into the Pacific Area of Responsibility.  

Slide 6

Since much of the Strategic Airlift deploys from McChord AFB, WA and Travis AFB, CA, it would seem prudent to keep more Air Refueling capability in the Northwest.  Another factor is the concentration of receivers that utilize the KC-135 aircraft for training on a regular basis.  McConnell AFB, KS and Fairchild AFB, WA are slated to be the two large air refueling bases remaining after BRAC.  Slide 7 shows the number of receivers and tankers based within the 600 mile overlapping rings of the two bases.  Again, it appears the distribution proposed under the current plan does not adequately address training needs, Pacific deployments, and Air Expeditionary Force (AEF) responsibilities.  Adding to this problem is the alert air refueling requirements in the Northwest.  Currently, between the KC-135s based at Portland and Fairchild, there are four airplanes required to be on alert at all times.  If this BRAC proposal is implemented, over thirteen percent of the aircraft assigned to Fairchild will be tied to an alert line on any given day.  In fact, crews of the Washington Air National Guard are providing two of the unit assigned alert aircraft and three of the crews for the alert lines at the current time.  Loss of these aircraft would place an even larger burden on the already overstressed active duty fleet at Fairchild AFB.   It is apparent that this information was not taken into consideration when the BRAC recommendations were made.  With a force of only thirty aircraft, it would be very difficult to provide four airplanes for alert while covering the Pacific deployment and receiver training responsibilities, and still providing aircraft for the Air Expeditionary Force.  It is requested that the Commission examine data from the USAF as to how the requirements can be met.  Three of these alert aircraft are tied to Homeland Defense.  All of these missions are being done with ANG and Air Force Reserve crews and planes.  With those assets scheduled to leave, it is essential to ensure  this mission will not suffer under the USAF recommendation.  

Slide 7

The USAF BRAC proposal indicates Fairchild will be the first base to accept the KC-X follow-on air refueling tanker.  The BRAC proposal indicates a basing plan that would place ten of the new aircraft at Fairchild by 2011.  This aircraft will undoubtedly provide new capabilities, however, a design has not even been submitted yet, and it is very much an unknown as to when the aircraft will actually be available for basing.  It is our contention it would be unwise to remove aircraft from Fairchild AFB, WA in the beginning stages of BRAC prior to the actual fielding of a new aircraft.  If the aircraft is fielded at a later date and it offers new flexibility the reassignment could then be made. In our opinion, it would be detrimental for both cost and efficiency reasons to diminish the Fairchild AFB, WA capacity at this time.

Such a move would serve only to further skew the imbalance.  It is our recommendation that the commission direct the eight unit equipped KC-135s assigned to the Washington Air National Guard be left in place until there is a production delivery and fielding plan for the follow-on aircraft is in place.  Fairchild AFB has a capability to accommodate up to eighty-seven KC-135s, and the eight suggested to be left in place aircraft are currently stationed there and fully operational.  The unit is fully combat capable and is contributing at full rate to the nation’s defense.  There would be no cost to this proposal. As this Slide 8 shows, the trend at Fairchild is going in the opposite way than is prudent.

Slide 8

We recommend the Commission overturn the USAF BRAC recommendation and direct the eight WA ANG unit-equipped KC-135s be left at the 141 Air Refueling Wing, Fairchild AFB, WA.  This course of action would solve all three of the issues discussed to this point.  Directing this action would keep the citizen Airman connection with the American people.

This positive course of action would provide an emergency airlift capability to the governors of the Northwest Region for use in Homeland Security events.  While not detracting from their federal use, this would make aircraft available for Emergency Management Assistance Compact (EMAC) missions.  

Finally, this solution reduces the basing imbalance of KC-135s by leaving eight additional aircraft in the Pacific region.   This provides a much better capability to accomplish real world Pacific missions, receiver and tanker training needs, and projected alert requirements.

My final input to you today concerns the proposed BRAC change that would remove the F-15 air defense fighter aircraft based at from Portland IAP.  It is our understanding that the BRAC plan to provide for the Air Defense for the Northwest duel tasks the F-15 training unit at Kingsley Field, OR.  As a career fighter pilot who has also been the commander of an Air National Guard Fighter Training unit, I have concerns regarding the viability of this plan.  

Numerous currency issues are involved with professionally performing the Air Sovereignty Alert Mission, and it is imperative that all certification issues for crews and aircraft be studied prior to making the assessment that this mission could be done as an additional tasking.  The aircraft and the pilots of a training squadron are certainly capable of performing the mission, but I would suggest that the required aircraft checks and the pilot currencies required for the Air Sovereignty mission will detract from the ability to still provide the training mission.

From the standpoint of the Governor of Washington and our other elected officials, the question we ask the BRAC Commission to consider is whether or not the removal of the Portland F-15s would have a negative impact on response times for the many critical infrastructure sites in Washington.  When this question is asked of the Northern Command, we would suggest that the answer should specifically address the ability of the system to rapidly ramp up to the highest response posture level that would be required when an unexpected crisis such as September 11th occurs.

This concludes my remarks.  I would like to answer any questions that you may have.