While Bush administration policies seemed soured or toxic in Iraq, just across the border in Iran the unrest and violence is working to our benefit. It’s not the weirdly aggressive moanings from Liebermann’s mouth, nor any threat of American military action, that’s got events in Iran moving the right way. It’s not the power of the bullet, but of the buck and the boardroom.

Iran is lurching closer to uprising every day, and its path of late has been lit by the rioter’s fires.

Now many people, borne along by the main media current alone, might wonder where all this upheaval in a supposedly totalitarian, America-loathing country comes from. Isn’t, after all, Iran some apocalyptic threat to our efforts in Iraq, and aren’t those efforts failing? And what does this have to do with Paris Hilton’s newly humbled ways?

The answer is brilliantly described in an article by David Samuels in this month’s Atlantic Monthly. Samuels illuminates the ideals of a State Department only last year unleashed by a Chief Executive increasingly dubious of his neoconservative advisors and the methods Condoleeza Rice is using to bring those ideals into successful action.

This isn’t to lionize her. Not in the slightest. The ‘Quiet Fire’ method of using diplomacy and covert action to foster the power of the common people at the expense of the corrupt and oppression regimes of the region we have issues with is less than clean. It did not work as we expected in the Palestinian Authority when Rice insisted on having elections last year between HAMAS and Fatah. Now we have a wildfire there.

In Iran though, sanctions and threat of sanctions have things looking like 1979 all over again. Iran’s insistence on continuing its nuclear programs and America’s canny methods of forming an international alliance to halt them are mangling the once robust Iranian economy, compounding the fragility already inspired by the hapless, “big-government conservative” President of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Put plainly, in five short years the Iranian people went from positive and prosperous to poor and pissed off.

In a region where violent public demonstration seem like the daily news diet, this may not seem very impressive to most Americans. Outraged Muslims on the march just seem par for the course. But though it’s the case that angry mobs mean little to the countries like Jordan, Saudi Arabia or Oman where power is held by a monarch over an exceedingly destitute people, that is not the case in Iran.

Iran was no scrap of the Ottoman Empire that sloughed off to become a British-approved kingdom some time in the first half of the 19th century. It was once the throne of its own empire and has long been a tough, sovereign state with marked muscle and wealth in the region. Now it is a nominal “republic” run with religious oversight that – up about until the point President Bush demonized it and, by association, its reformist President, Khatami, by calling it part of the Axis of Evil – seemed ever more open, more inclined to the West, and more prosperous.

Fear of the west, fear of the disorder on its border with Iraq, fear of increasing censure of its policies, all drove Iran to the angry right end of the political spectrum. Ahmadinejad came to power as a result. But just as he exploited fear and economic upheaval to come to power, he’s worsened fear and upheaval while tightening his grip on power.

Now, as sanctions over the nuclear program throttle that once-strong economy, Iranians are getting angry. The US State Department is all too happy to stir the pot with silent infusions of money to pro-democracy groups within Iran, perhaps even with more direct means like the supplying of anti-government demonstrators.

This means real progress for America’s interests with Iran. Just this morning, international representatives met in Vienna to talk about the measures Iran could take to avoid further sanctions – a dangling carrot for a regime that’s been spending the last two days under the stick of riots and gas rationing. Britain is putting forth the proposal for softer measures so that the real mighty members of the international coalition – the US, Russia and China – needn’t look like they’re divided or lenient. This is in response to Iran’s mumblings about being willing to admit atomic energy inspectors into the country to make sure they’re not up to anything. Now the international community will gauge how fast and how totally Iran will hop to.

Nothing’s blowing up in Tehran on FOX News. There’s no swelling music, no marching troops. Instead, the contrasting courses of our recent policies in Iran and in Iraq are sobering proof that sometimes the quiet fires burn even better than the loud ones.

When slicing the spin from the meat of the matter, it’s important to bear in mind that sometimes outrage against a group is called for. When seeking the truth, one has to guard against the convenient but false notion that it always lies in the center. And always when we criticize the extreme rhetoric of both sides and their mercenary exploitation of its ferment, we best remember that the cause we champion is not to sustain moderation but to destroy ignorance.

It’s in light of all this that we recognize another elephant in the rooms of the White House and call foul against the extraordinary secrecy of this administration.

Already I can hear the hackles rising. For a long time, defenders of the White House – itself included – have attributed attacks against its procedures as partisan rancor, at best. Some of that’s valid. Most critical of these inaccurate accusations would be the blanket term that the White House “lied” to get us into war – a misperception that actually covers up some very important flaws in how the Executive’s intelligence and policy-making appartus functions. But in the case of the Bush administration being phenomenally and harmfully secret, their accusers, not their defenders, are the champions of truth and tolerance.

The most recent scandal is that the White House and Vice President Dick Cheney have been called on to cough up some documents pertaining to the domestic surveillance program, steadily refused, and then had to be subpoenaed. This time, the White House could not mask their ill behavior under a label of “partisanship”. The Judiciary Committee’s vote was 13-3, hardly down party lines, and included the three senior Republicans. This isn’t a case of Agnew’s “nattering nabobs of negativism” or an opportunistic Democratic Congress looking to throw scraps of their fallen enemy to the jackals. This is a real matter of keeping our democracy healthy.

President Thomas Jefferson allegedly called information “the currency of democracy”. He declared the free exchange of it to be essential to ensuring a healthy democratic body. And in the past, the freedom of information has been a heavy burden for an Executive tasked with balancing not only stewardship of that healthy democratic body but its national security interests as well.

How to keep the whole of the public as informed as possible while still keeping their enemies ignorant of the methods you use to protect them?

Presidents have sometimes claimed “Executive Privilege” in order to circumvent this. That’s the notion – and not a law, not a right, but a notion – that the Executive can and should do some things secretly from other branches in the interests of national security.

Sometimes, the investigation itself is so absurd as to enter the realm of the farcical and truly cruel. Clinton was absurd when he invoked “Executive Privilege” to keep his aides from having to testify about Lewinsky. Then again, it was absurd that they would be testifying for Lewinsky in the first place. Perhaps we should, in the era where spin and slander hold sovereign power over the wisdom and works of a politician, introduce the notion of “calling bullshit on it”.

In the case of today’s subpoena and the scandal surrounding, the White House cannot continue to act on such a notion. Gonzales called the dispute “competing institutional interests”. If he’s talking about a competition between the Constitutionally-ordained institution of the Legislature acting as the people’s representatives in overseeing the President’s activities and the new institution this White House has of covering up its shady dealings, he is right. If he is trying to minimize the importance of this issue, he is sorely wrong.

The matters the people’s representatives find the Bush administration closeted about are far more serious than oral sex and stained dresses. First it was an attempt to determine what Vice President Cheney’s energy task force – which included an understandable but possibly somewhat biased volume of oil and energy industry lobbyists – talked about. The GAO was after the documents surrounding that meeting, Cheney refused, threats of legal action were exchanged and, for the first time in his Presidency, Bush called on executive privilege “in substance”.

Then it was the 9/11 Commission. Again legal action had to be threatened to get the Executive to talk to the committee. And even then, the restrictions on what could be said and the accountability for saying it was strained nearly beyond belief.

Now at last we have the domestic surveillance program. A summary of this controversy – the President claims the ability to listen in on the communications of American citizens not only without a warrant, but without any oversight of the special court, FISA, that was set up to allow him to do so in the case of emergencies. Again, this is not a partisan issue – senior members of Bush’s administration who would proudly count themselves among the far right wing, such as then-Attorney General Ashcroft, vehemently objected to this program’s attitude and implementation.

Ashcroft’s replacement, Alberto Gonzales, was a champion of the program – as he had been on such issues as how torture laws don’t really apply either – and now has done little to nothing to provide forthright testimony to the Judiciary Committee. The Committee now has subpoena and, in this last hour, Bush has flatly refused.

So is this a molehill being made into a mountain? Let’s mine its core components.

The issues at stake: Energy industry talking about setting the energy policy of the country. Reforming the security response of the Executive. Constitutional rights are possibly violated by turning what Nixon did in a spasm of paranoia into a policy.

The question: Does the Judiciary Committee, at least privately, have the power not just in fact – they do – but in ideal democratic function to oversee such matters?

The White House’s consistent answer: No.

Molehill?: No.

This is a big issue. Our government was set up so that at least some elected representatives of the people could oversee these critical matters and now, in defiance of our Constitution, the Executive refuses, time and again, to all them to. It’s impeding government’s ability to function properly when that kind of attitude prevails. That’s the real threat to National Security.

It occludes our ability to see and therefore understand the methods and motives of those in power. Without understanding, we cannot act properly and without acting we make ourselves no better than the subjects of a monarch. No offense, United Kingdom – the whole “subject” thing is kind of debatable in your case anyway, right?

In order to maintain this clear perspective, we have to realize that not all scandals are spin. Some are as outrageous – or more so – than they seem.

…………

Fun postscript. Jefferson was the first President who invoked Executive Privilege in order to hide information on the basis of National Security, and had to be subpoenaed.

Not all scandals are spin, but it seems spin gets us all in the end.

Across the world, crucial political scenes are being smeared by sensationalist pot-stirrings and opportunistic spin. Fun as this sounds, these factious foamings do no one any good except for the media and small, petty parties doing the stirring. They endanger the fate of the entire world just so that someone can sell advertising space or keep their campaign chest stuffed.

In Gaza and the West Bank, the proverbial slings and arrows were recently real bullets. But as damaging as the takeover of Gaza by the militant HAMAS party’s militias was in real terms, it’s the subsequent dialogue that does the worst long-term harm. President Mahmoud Abbas of HAMAS’ rival, the entrenched and corrupt Fatah organization made by Yasser Arafat’s grasping hands, was quick to trumpet all allegations of HAMAS brutality in the takeover. They’ve as much as promised a state of siege against Gaza, doling out enough cash to win what little favor it can from the common Palestinians while standing tough against any real cooperation or talk of reforming a unity government with HAMAS.

Outside observers might wonder why Abbas is stalling, when his nascent country is literally divided. The reason is that no sooner than HAMAS cut the lands run by the Palestinian Authority government – though occupied at leisure by the Israeli military – in half, foreign aid from all the western nations that had been cut off since HAMAS was elected began rolling in. Now Abbas doesn’t have any real control over his own militias; he has shown no capacity for actual improvement of Palestinians’ lives or substantial moves towards statehood through negotiation with Israel; he doesn’t, as the conflict two weeks ago showed, even have the capacity to run or defend his government. But he will be a favorite of the cameras now that he’s free to call his former colleagues in the Palestinian government “murderous terrorists”. He will be championed as the lone rational voice in the wilderness of occupied Palestine. And, most importantly for him, he will be able to indefinitely bilk the West of aid money to keep he and his Fatah pals rolling in dough and clinging to power.

This doesn’t give HAMAS a pass either. They’ve been as hardline as ever, but only if you buy into the spin of Abbas and the West do they sound as unreasonable as HAMAS – who has as a party platform the destruction of Israel – customarily sounds. Take note of some of the above points. First, they were denied foreign aid entirely. For those of you unaware, the Palestinian territories essentially subsist solely on aid and slave wages from Israel. Second, HAMAS was elected. Like it or not, the democratic elections chose HAMAS to lead the country – to staff ministries, lead the parliament, and fill all functions except for the highest executive powers that Abbas is now all too happy to exploit, like dissolving the government, enforcing martial law “state of emergency”, and sopping up aid money.

Which brings us to why HAMAS fought to seize Gaza in the first place. The reason is because Abbas and Fatah, such as they are, refused to let any of HAMAS’ people into the Palestinian law-enforcement and military forces which they had exclusive control over. Take a hard look at that, reader. Both sides of our esteemed aisle got their blood up when allegations of vandalism by the outgoing Clinton Administration officials against the White House hit the air waves. Imagine now if the Democrats had controlled not just the White House, but all of the armed forces and police, and refused to let any Republicans serve.

HAMAS first responded by entreaties. Then by negotiations. Finally, after Fatah militias began trading fire with them in the streets of Gaza, they took over. Again, this is not to say that HAMAS is the very soul of logic, but it entirely dispels the notion that Abbas, as he would like to claim, is playing fair. In fact, the last major incursion against the Israelis in Gaza, detailed in an earlier post on this weblog, was not by HAMAS but by one of Abbas’ own Fatah militias!

The chain’s links are easy to follow – HAMAS wins the popularity contest and the government because of Fatah recklessness, corruption and mismanagement. Fatah and the west shut HAMAS out. HAMAS seethes for the better part of a year and then, responding to provocation, takes over. Now they, and not the equally murderous and far more uncontrollable Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade of Fatah, are the “murderous terrorists”. And now Abbas, safe in his West Bank isolation, can play the satrap of the West with the whole of the Palestinian Authority living on his till and the whole of the West casting him as the great white hope.

Meanwhile, a similar slugfest is spiraling around the American airwaves. Yesterday Elizabeth Edwards called into Hardball with Chris Matthews to rake Ann Coulter over the coals for saying:

“If I’m going to say anything about John Edwards in the future, I’ll just wish he had been killed in a terrorist assassination plot,”

A stiff glance at that quote will detect the inference that it requires a larger context. In fact, Coulter was talking about how her earlier comment about Edwards – the notorious “faggot” remark – was itself taken out of context. When she voiced the nasty jab at Edwards, it was in discussing how certain terms were unallowable under the social standards of political correctness. Well, she certainly proved her own point. It is unallowable. Except if, like Ann Coulter, your livelihood thrives on that kind of scandal and divisiveness. “Commentators” – and I use the term very lightly – like Coulter depend on attacks on her to get the media buzzing, get the blog posts up – yes, like this one – and get the TV appearances rolling in.

Her point about Edwards being killed was, in fact, a criticism of the media finding Bill Maher’s comment allowable whereas her remark employing ‘faggot’ was not. In that criticism, she cited Maher as wishing Cheney had been killed in a terrorist attack. Thus, she reasoned to Good Morning America’s viewership, she would in the future refrain from using the term ‘faggot’ against an adversary, and simply wish they were killed in a terrorist attack.

But Maher did not say that at all. His discussion was, like Coulter’s, about what kind of political speech was allowable. Though pressed into a certain sympathy for the opinion that Cheney’s demise would bring about an end to the military adventurism for which the Vice-President is credited, he was ultimately asking whether or not people posting on the internet – not commentators, nor politicians, nor even bloggers, but respondents to blogs – had the right to say they wished Cheney dead.

All of this is lost in the discourse. And Elizabeth Edwards’ remarks of censure against Coulter, urging her to tone down the rhetoric, were not the end of the pot-stirring either. As is always the case, it cast more attention on Coulter’s inflammatory comments, thus giving her more incentive to voice them. And as for the Edwards side, they immediately posted the comments on their campaign website, got to talking to the press about it, and are profitting vastly as well.

Here we see another chain of spin’s links strangling us: Radical opinions on a website are discussed by Bill Maher. Maher is pressed into stating a position, which is then radicalized by his opponents. Coulter plays off of Maher’s comment, making it sound radical and using it as an excuse to make herself seem more radical. And finally, Elizabeth Edwards and the ailing Edwards campaign raises a loud cry against radicalism that they have exploited to leap to the fore of the election coverage.

Compare us with the Palestinians. Are the stakes as high? Is it, because we have a functioning system of government and they do not, just entertainment? Is it life and death for them, but just good prime time and watercooler talk for us?

It is life and death for everyone.

This kind of twisting of fact, exploitation of distortion and relentless divisiveness is not just throttling the desperate Occupied Territories. Our own government suffers. Budget battles loom, our Iraq legislation is as much a quagmire as that of the Iraqi parliament itself, and domestic initiatives bog down. And this is not only important because it is our country that suffers – it is important because when the world’s superpower languishes, order in the world languishes. Global credibility of America’s leadership is at an all time low. Aid is dysfunctional. Strategic power is diluted and fettered.

Not all this is the problem of George Bush. Remember who voted to give him his war powers and what powers were voted for. In the case of so many of the Executive’s blunders, we now hear his deriders claiming, “We supported him because we did not know”. That is nonsense. The information was out there. The reason we did not hear it then is the same reason as we do not hear now:

The clamor is deafening.

At the core of America’s global woes, we have its ventures in the Middle East. At the core of the Middle East conflict, inspiring and uniting generations of Islamist radicals and anti-American nationalists, we have the Israeli-Palestinian crisis. And at the core of that crisis, the complexities we need to unravel to solve it are being drown by a power elite exploiting the spin. To defeat the disease known as The War On Terror, the cancer of the Palestine crisis must be conquered.

And where is America’s political will – its voting public – in this?

Too busy debating what their favorite soapbox crier – Coulter or Maher – did or did not say.

——————–

Care to see what they did say? See here:

Coulter

Maher

Edwards

But for an even better read, check out how the HAMAS/Fatah feud is already deepening the battle lines of The War On Terror:

Helping Abbas Hurts Real Peace Negotiations

It Also Foments Further Division In The Arab World, Making Them Either Martyrs For Islam Or Traitors

Harry Reid, who I’ve yet to hear a positive remark from since his ascension to Majority Leadership in the House, now expressed dismay with the military leadership of the war in Iraq. Harry and his fellow Democrat, Ellen Tauscher, both made some summary and damning remarks against the leadership, particularly Pace. And while this speaks to the frustrations of the American people it does not, as Congress’ catastrophic approval ratings suggest, do anything to present the reason these people were elected – a solution to those frustrations. Really, all it seems to do is underscore what people increasingly feel – that whether from the White House or the Congress, their stances on the war are a rigged game, their vision a single tunnel.

Reid said that General Peter Pace, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, “had not done a very good job in speaking out for some obvious things that weren’t going right in Iraq.” That may well be true. And surely Republican pundits will soon talk about how this is a venomous assault on our troops, evocative of the careless and soul-scarring criticisms leveled against the military in Vietnam by its detractors – and, of course, they will be wrong. Reid’s opinion comes from the fact that he, unlike any future critics, will have actually heard Peter Pace speak about the conduct in Iraq.

But that doesn’t stop Reid from getting the blood up of any reader. Condemning Pace and, later, expressing “concern” over Petraeus’ possible bias in light of some positive comments Petraeus made about Iraq to USA Today, may not be mud-slinging of the highest order. They sound more like comments on a 5th grader’s report card. Why they aggrivate is something that most Democrats – even the Grand Dame Hilary Clinton – seem either unable to grasp or unwilling to address. They offer nothing better.

Few Americans now trust Bush to handle the war well, and rightly so, but many don’t just assume that the Congress that authorized him or cast ineffectual jabs his way has any more command of the situation. We do not assume, Mr. Reid, that your authority to criticize the military leadership is any wiser because you, like the President, have not shown us anything to support. Congress would do well to look at its ratings and figure why they are lower still than this disaster of an executive. They would come to the conclusion that those that resolutely support our illusory strengths are still more popular who solely support our real fears.

It’s a shame. Reid sets himself up as a strawman for advocates of a blank-check support of the war to hack at. Any who cluster to his banner get it right in the face too.

Ellen Tauscher has been part of the spearhead of efforts to get legislation going that would give troops the means to counter IEDs. Her actual comments in condemnation of the surge specifically mentioned that providing the proper armor to the troops – which we both have and know to be much more effective – should be the pre-requisite for their deployment. But now, standing beside Reid and slinging mud at Pace, she too joins the bandwagon of the discredited and the fatally dreary.

Pace gets it from Tauscher first for his comments against gays. He apologized for those comments, even going so far as to writing a personal letter to her. This does not make Rep. Tauscher look very nice. Subsequent – soon to be headlining – criticism was that Pace was in “dereliction of duty” for supporting the President’s policies.

Seen through the partisan lens, people are going to assume Tauscher is some anti-military softie who’s just taking a swing at someone in uniform. They’ll assume by “policies”, she means all policies, and may not be alluding directly to her complaint that we should prioritize the two-month process of armoring the troops before the surge. They will not know of her support for increasing military pay and survivor benefits to the families of fallen troops – a measure Bush said he would veto – and think she is just another shrill and strident note in the chorus of empty criticism.

Rightly so. These people have themselves to blame. Yes, some, like Tauscher, have spoken for incidental solutions, like the armoring aspect. And yes, surely they are not as knee-jerk as their critics will make them out to be, like Reid. But when they take the podium or pause on the steps of the Capitol Building to speak to reporters, they decide whether to tear into the Pentagon or to talk about a plan.

As I’ve said many times before, there are plans. To an extent it falls to the American people to listen – as the advocates of these plans, such as Joe Biden and Tommy Thompson, put them forward. But if the Democratic leadership truly wants to be our leaders, then it is their responsibility to lead us to these better ways.

Alright – Chick-fil-A is not the Sistine Chapel, but on the list of faith-based contributions to civilization, it does rank pretty high.

Service was friendly and adolescent, and, since it was done via the Drive-Thru, nice and to the point. I considered going in for the proper “Chick-fil-A” immersion experience but then figured that the real /American/ experience would be had at the Drive-Thru. Besides, I had to rush back to work and write this – there’s that American industry for you.

The meal was the keystone of the Chick-fil-A menu. Chick-fil-A Chicken Sandwich. Waffle Fries. Coke. Deluxe size, naturally.

The Coke was the same as any other Coke I’d had at a fast food joint, with the exception of an aging Foster’s Freeze in Santa Monica that once served me a Coke that tasted like Windex chased with Sweet N’ Lo. The Waffle Fries were good and fresh, and not too oily. Just enough to make things interesting. They were pretty flat on the seasoning, too.

Now to the sandwich: the nominal heart of Chick-fil-A. I wanted to get it just how it appeared in the pictures – devoid of all but sauce, pickles, and the sprawling Fil-A. I’m not sure if I got sauce, but it did have the promised pickles and chicken.

And for that basic recipe, it succeeded splendidly. I will tell you how.

The cut of the sandwich was very good. I had bought a second one just to be sure. Sure enough, that too had a really substantial, juicy cut of meat. The breading wasn’t too heavy, nor too light, nor intrusively spiced. It was simple and tasty.

Definitely the promised ‘A’ grade experience.

Recently I discovered that the fast food trend that all my friends back East were buzzing about had rolled into Southern California – Chick-fil-A was here at last.

In order to locate this alleged Mecca of perfectly prepared poultry, I consulted their website. As any web research I conduct tends to do, using their restaurant finder led to looking into the personal webpage of their founder and CEO, S. Truett Cathy.

I find Cathy to be as basic and inspiring as his restaurant. What initially intrigued me was that he closed his restaurant on Sundays. That he would be a devout Christian businessman from the South wasn’t the surprising part. It was that he was a devout Christian businessman who actually practiced what he preached. I had to read on about this seemingly rare specimen.

What I subsequently consumed with an inspired hunger was the story, the work and the beliefs of a person who cared foremost about caring. Truett presents himself as someone to who everyone and everything in his life deeply matters and should be tended as special. When he talks – as he does often and ardently – about “Biblical principles” guiding his actions and making good business sense, I can only imagine it is this love of caring, of meaning and of integrity he refers to (surely he does not mean the provisions on kosher food preparation or forms of loans).

I found myself to be moved and inspired. I took a moment to consider why that was, and the answer was obvious. I appreciate anyone with integrity, especially those who celebrate the essential things in life – people, love, miracles – we so often either take for granted or dismiss as a burden or complication. And this appreciation was only increased by the sad fact that Christian values so beautifully epitomize that celebration while Christian practices have so very often contravened and perverted them.

I am convinced that one of the foremost complications that people struggle with when applying Christianity to their lives is the hypocrisy of its history. Just as acceptance of atrocities such as genocide and pedophilia is difficult for any mind that believes in an all-powerful loving God, so is it difficult for those seeking to place a value on the Christian faith to reconcile the atrocities committed explicitly in its name.

From the genocide of the conquistadors, to the butchery of the Crusades, to the madness of the Inquisition and of Puritan persecutions, to the systematic destruction of the ancient world’s literature and learning, to the oppression of native people by colonial missionaries, to countless pogroms against the Jews, to torture murders of scientists all the way until after the Renaissance, the litany of brutality committed in the name of Christianity, for the cause of Christianity, is immense. It is the single greatest catalogue of bloodshed, ignorance and darkness in the history of the world attributed to one cause. Those that so readily sneer with disbelief at the ‘evildoers’ of extreme Islam would do well to remember this. Christianity, if it did not inspire these monstrosities, at least compelled and justified them.

And the heartbreaking aspect of Christianity and of any objective observation of Christianity is that all of this was done in the name of a person who embodied the greatest form of non-violent resistance. The practices he not only advocated – in fact insisted on – but sacrificed all for were the basis of those that informed the noblest of resistance movements. And the forces he resisted were not, as so many would portray it today, the forces of deviance, of disrespect, of defiance against authority.

The powers Christ always preached against, never defended, and gave his all for were the powers of money without conscience, of condemnation of the wretched, of poverty for some while others had more than enough, of state oppression and of inequality – not the kind of inequality that calls for one victimized group to be protected, but the kind that continues to exploit the victims while claiming all are equal. He was a rabble rouser, an enemy of material wealth, and a champion of those who would challenge tradition and authority for the sake of the human spirit. He was generosity incarnate. Even his ultimate price manifests this message: give all you have, and receive the whole world in return.

Somewhere along the way this message got lost. Likely, as with most revolutionaries, it was as soon as his successors – the apostles – had to divide his authority. That spiritual authority was exploited and politicized. So began the saddest chapter in human history prior to the 20th century.

Still, the beauty of it is in the perpetuity of the spirit, if not the spiritual authority. That even now, after that grim, perverse legacy, the cause of Christianity keeps its essential message intact enough that the glory of it can shine from the lives of people like S. Truett Cathy. Whether one is a true believer, an atheist, agnostic or of another faith, one must recognize that the spirit of Christ lives in those that truly abide by that brave notion – generosity of spirit above all else.

And in that immortal spirit, people can find a spiritual diet that is basic, nourishing and inspiring – just as I hope Chick-fil-A will be.

One of the gravest evils in the world today is the practice of human trafficking, and today the US government took a brave move in bringing binding censure against these modern day sex slavers. They did this by leveling criticism that could be turned into harsh action against not only its traditional enemies but to traditional allies as well.

The scope of the problem is massive. Any and all efforts to raise awareness on the issue and to lay the grounds for action are worthy efforts. According to US State Department figures, “estimated 600,000 to 820,000 men, women, and children [are] trafficked across international borders each year, approximately 80 percent are women and girls and up to 50 percent are minors. The data also illustrate that the majority of transnational victims are trafficked into commercial sexual exploitation.” Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International both state that even those figures are but the tip of the iceberg.

Let me frame this catastrophe in the proper gut-ripping terms. Those child sex farms they are rumored to have in Southeast Asia are real. The rape video sites from Russia on the internet are likely broadcasting real rapes, real torture. The harems of the Middle East are full of women from around the world, kidnapped from their homelands, often as children, maimed and brutalized, for the rest of their lives. This happens in countries across the globe, even in the US and Canada.

And now, setting other matters aside, the US has accused its allies in the Arabic world – Bahrain, Kuwait and Oman – of taking not even the slightest action to prevent this atrocity. Kuwait’s total compliance with our military agenda is critical. Oman and Bahrain consistently help us with intelligence in the War On Terror. But this does not – morally and now officially – prevent them from being taken to task. They have been called out, as good friends should be, to mend their bad behavior.

Now action should follow words. For words to mean anything, they must be followed with consistent and resolute action. In many ways, the US has succeeded at this – with Kennedy’s call for the Peace Corps, with Reagan’s support of the socialist Solidarnost movement that still has us beloved by Poland today, and with Clinton’s actions against the Serb aggression in the Balkans in the 90s. In many ways, the US has failed. From Small Arms, to land mines, to the conditions of women in the chaos that has become Afghanistan, we have spoken strongly for rights that we then failed to secure.

This cannot be one of those exceptions. The means for the censure of governments that neglect or even facilitate the problem of the global slave trade exist. They are the “United Nations Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children” and the “United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime” among others. The provisions in them are brutally fierce and the inspections a solid, necessary first step. Now that we’ve spoken, it’s time for us to act.

Joe Biden spoke to this essential factor in politics – one that, in a political climate that’s increasingly frustrated and increasingly defined by empty rhetoric, is all the more important and endangered. At the CNN debates, the Democratic candidates were debating the convoluted and hypothetical political channels that might or might not bring an end to the daily butchery in Darfur. Biden then spoke up.

He had said, “You could send 2,500 troops and wipe out the janjaweed“, the militias instrumental in the genocide. He is right. Even with the US military ‘bogged down’ in extended conflicts, we do retain those ready men, capable of doing immediate and final harm to clear targets like the janjaweed. And as the other Democrats talked of years and years of diplomacy that had to be done delicately, Biden retorted:

“These people will be dead! They’ll be dead!”

Darfur is an unparalleled butchery and misery in our current age. It is going on right now. If it stopped right now, lives would be saved. If it is not stopped right this minute, more will be raped, mutilated, killed.

Biden called for military force, applied with speed and direction, to stop a crime we know will happen. “There’s your moral authority.” He said.

There is the same imperative and the same principle in the case of the global slave trade. With the declaration today, we have identified who we and the world need to act against to stifle it. Now comes the hard part, the important part, the only part that matters:

We know how to act. We can act. We should.

There’s not much to look at this morning.

Much of it is irrelevant. Some of it is vile. And all of it is a continuation of the same.

Some cases in point:

The Dutch are confusedly liberal:

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) – A Dutch smoking ban will come into force in July next year for all restaurants and cafes — including coffee shops where cannabis is the top attraction, the government decided on Friday. “Coffee shops will be treated in the same manner as other catering businesses. They will be smoke-free,” Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende told NOS television

Christian world leaders are polite to one another:

Bush said his meeting with the pope, in which the president stressed his record in fighting AIDS and supporting other humanitarian causes, was a “moving experience.”

And the al-Aqsa Martyr’s Brigade is still as uncontrollable and senseless as ever:

Saturday’s daytime attack was carried out jointly by Islamic Jihad and a unit of al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, an offshoot of President Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah faction.

This raid was huge, involving action-movie tactics with disguised trucks and mechanized assaults and artillery. It was done in the day time, presumably so that the Israeli troops wouldn’t have the advantage of their night-vision, or so that al-Aqsa could have the proper lighting to record videos for their website. It achieved exactly nothing.

And my favorite part:

“The attack comes as a natural reaction to the Zionist crimes and assassinations against fighters in Gaza and the West Bank,” Abu Ali said.

Those “Zionist crimes” of late being /what/, Abu? Attacking your enemies, HAMAS, so that they didn’t annihilate you in the civil war in Gaza?

Or HAMAS thinking of cutting a ceasefire? Is that what’s got you in high dudgeon? No worries, Abu! That ceasefire won’t hold! Israel will break it whenever it feels like it, or some militant lone-wolf like you will give them an excuse to!

As if to underscore this, more of the same happened in Baghdad as well.

But to be sure to note where these attacks are taking place. They hit the fringes of Baghdad, and into Diyala province. Militarily, the surge is doing what is expected in this first stage – pushing the enemy out of the suburbs and into the exurbs. That is not ‘more of the same’ in the grand scheme of the tactical debacle of Iraq.

Yet all of this means very little if the political debacle doesn’t show change as well. Giving Baghdad’s outlying areas more security will not save the nation if Baghdad’s core is rotten. And with Turkish troops pressuring the government, the Kurds pressuring the government, and the government unwilling or unable to do anything about accomodating the increasingly isolated and radical Sunni, that rot does not stand to regenerate with outside help.

What value is there in a new day for Iraq if every day starts off with its heart poisoned?

Tactical problems have been engaged. Iran has been engaged. Now the USA must engage the real object of our military adventure, the Iraqi government, and show it through direct action that whatever our expressed purpose, we came to Iraq for change, not just more of the same.

Debate Season is like the flu season for the political junkie. It starts, and vectors of controversy start drifting around. You know sooner or later you’re going to catch a case. You’ll turn on the TV or plug into the streaming video and then, for a good day or so, you’re as good as bed-ridden, rotten with a surfeit of ideas and rhetoric. The symptoms are runny opinions, a fevered sense of self-importance, and a headache.

I caught it bad this Tuesday and managed to scribble down thorough notes on my worsening condition. I watched all four major debates – MSNBC’s and CNN’s – and managed to cough out every gory impression. Hopefully the case I share with you won’t make your head spin as badly as most victims of this particularly virulent strain – one that has no less than eighteen, count ‘em, eighteen candidates. Remember to keep well hydrated.

This post will only cover the recent CNN debates. MSN’s sloppy format and 5th-grade level “what kind of tree would you be” kind of questions, while intriguing, will just get a few paragraphs devoted to it in a couple days’ time. If you feel you’re missing out on something by reading this limited review, I assure you to think again. If you still feel that way, best watch the MSN round yourself. You can post any subsequent comments of the “you warned me, but I didn’t listen” variety with the suggestion link below.

First will come the Democratic Party debate summary, then the Republican. And since I know many of you have other things you might need to go off and do, I’ve put summary opinions at the beginning of each section.

Enjoy. Or, as is a more realistic hope, endure. Primary season is only a little less than a year away.

The Democratic Debates – More Crying Over Spilled Milk

Bottom Line: Obama strikes the pose of a young but learned statesman while Biden shows fire, guts and vision. Both men show a ready brilliance – choosing between them is a matter of whether you want a guy who’ll coax the world into shape or go at it with hammer and tongs.

The Democratic Party candidates all did their level best to declare themselves the best candidate to clean up the Bush mess and get back to where we were back in 2000. It was like watching competing cleaning crews rather than architects for the future. I found myself having weird feelings of time disjunction while they talked about issues like gays in the military and health care – it was like watching a time capsule being unearthed. Then a discussion about illegal immigration would snap me back to the present. Any and all foreign or defense policy seemed to be geared towards repairing the shambles we’re in, in order to get back to the not-so-halcyon days of 2000, with Eric Shinseki’s military and bin Ladin our top terrorist priority rather than the al-Qaeda-in-Mesopotamia flavor-of-the-month.

To be entirely fair, Senator Gravel and Representative Kucinich didn’t bother talking about restoring our military, our international alliances and our objectives in the War on Terror. Gravel spent most of his wind ripping into his former Capitol Hill colleagues as sellouts and airing suspicious doomsday scenarios, while Kucinich talked broadly about the Elysium era the USA will bring about as soon as we renounce warfare. How either of these two even contribute to the debate is beyond me. Gravel seemed to be doing nothing but pointing out government is flawed and beholden to special interests, a Gordian knot that only fierce, unilateral action by an American executive can open. That’s about as useful as yelling at the TV. Kucinich failed to convince me how renouncing warfare will do anything but get us sideline seats to the genocide du jour, watching what we could’ve prevented.

Of those still engaged in the political process and not just throwing stones as it passes them by, every candidate could speak with authority, knowledge and poise to at least one issue.

Bill Richardson came off as unrealistic and bizarre most of the time, but he nailed it on the issues of Illegal Immigration – stating we should ardently prosecute the employers of illegal workers as the first step in enforcement – Energy Independence – demanding an ‘Apollo program’ approach to achieving energy independence that would galvanize the nation’s populace and transform its industry to lead in the 21st century – and what to do with Clinton – send him as a treaty-broker to where he’s been more effective than just about any President, the Middle East. But when Bill talked about his global priority being preschools and started to hold forth about balancing the budget using the same techniques as in New Mexico, I tuned out. Having him blow the horn of “give peace a chance” in the War on Terror was not encouraging either.

Christopher Dodd had it down on a few points too, but never looked more than reactionary. When he did seem to get in the gate ahead of everyone to make a cogent point, it was on issues that could and should not sway an election. He spoke eloquently on the usefulness of encouraging education in languages given the global security and economic environment when asked about English as the Official Language. He pointed at subsidies to the oil industry being unnecessary to a group that cuts as many throats as necessary to win record profits. But on the major issues of today, he was a voice from the third row.

Edwards and Clinton were heard, but most of the time you wished they wouldn’t be.

Clinton managed to say a lot to inspire and nothing to direct. She inspired suspicion, frustration, even scorn for the questions, but the closest she came to a plan was declaring Iraq “George Bush’s war”. That she views our strategic commitments as the equivalent of a departing roommate’s socks, to be discarded so that a fresh start can be begun, is not promising. If she talked about any plan beyond “restoring” this or “reaching out” to that, I missed it. Unfortunately, every real criticism missed her. She came off as poised, even above it all. One hopes she drifts away.

Edwards set a tone of being insidiously aggressive against his fellow debaters, and when he tried for sincerity – even bold insight – it came off as just another calculation as a result. I always deplore politics that sound like used car sales, and the reason why they do most of the time is you know that the guy smiling at you and patting that gleaming Pinto could lie through his teeth or bite your hand with the same grin on his face. He had two moments when, if you weren’t so offensively blinded by the gaudy, insincere charm, you could almost make out he had a point. First, he talked of fostering democracy in Iran while using sanctions to drive a wedge between the people and its unpopular right-wing government – basically take the air out of the fear-mongers’ sails in Tehran while making the Iranian people defend their burgeoning-but-delicate economy with some liberal political action. This is the soul of what to do with Iran, a nation in flux – not an empire of evil, but a land on the threshold of light and dark. Secondly, he proposed a universal college system for young Americans, in which they could work to pay their way through subsidized education if they showed the merit. These are fine, bold, clear plans, presented by someone who is serpentine in his false charm.