The neo-cons want the US military to do drug busts in Afghanistan in addition to nation building. A graph showing the opportunity cost for the expenditure on Iraq. Jefferson on explicit constitutions. Forty Three retired officials make a statement for truth in government. A David McKnight article on how neo-liberalism has politically alienated the classic conservatives - and the old right is now running with open arms to the Greens.

The neo-con view of the US Military

Jim Hoagland who is a hopeless neo-con, he constantly writes about Iraq and Afghanistan with mindless optimism; is now advocating using the US Military to stop the opium trade in Afghanistan. Hoagland needs to be reminded that the US military is a military force, not a police force. The US military gets trained to destroy other militaries, not hunt down drug runners. These neo-cons will ruin the martial effectiveness of the US Military if this continues. Hoagland writes;

The White House is near the conclusion of a major policy review on Afghanistan that is likely to expand the role of the US Forces - who have focused on hunting down Al Queda and Taliban remnants - and commit them to supporting new efforts by President Hamid Kharzai to uproot drug lords.

Hoagland does notice that the Pentagon does not like doing this and that Soldiers are not trained for this, but in typical neo-con personal deceit, decides that the changing nature of the world and battlefield demands it. This is the everything changed on Sept 11th argument taken to absolute extreme. If you want to drug bust in Afghanistan, russle up those that know. Get the Miami drug enforcement department to send a contingent to Afghanistan, not have the US military to do it.

The US military is undoubtedly dominant in the world at the moment, and it looked likely that only a disruptive technology would remove that dominance. An American Dreadnought that obsoletes the US martial capability. At this rate it looks like the neo-cons and the Bush White House will reduce the US military capability to one that third world dictator militaries become. Indonesia during Sueharto's reign of tyranny had a large army of 400,000 troops. Except 200,000 of them were military police. They weren't for military purposes, but civil oppression. If the US military is forced to do this kind of civil enforcement in Afghanistan their make up will be effected in the same manner as the Indonesian Army went through under Sukarno and Sueharto.

These neo-cons need to be taken down, they have done too much damage already. They need to be punished for their constant errors in policy. Punished in the media and politically as well.

Who Will Take Out Your Trash? We Will

The neo-con view of the US military reminds me of the Homer Simpson episode where he becomes trash minister of Springfield and has the garbage men do everything from scoop out the kitty litter boxes, take out your trash as well as take your dirty clothes to the dry cleaners. To the neo-cons, having a dominant military is an opportunity to enforce - and enforce with little care for the central role of the military or what it was in the first place that made theat military strong.

Douglas Feith wrote on an op-ed in the Washington Post the other day as well. Feith is another of the hard-core neo-cons that wanted Iraq and has designs on Syria as well. His op-ed basically defended himself and his policies through the Pentagon. He claimed that their biggest policy triumph from Sept 11th was the understanding that terrorism was no longer a civil issue, but a military issue. This is the core failure of the neo-con and Bush White House policy on terror.

Terror will always remain a civil issue and bending a military to that purpose will only cause an emergent structure in the military towards that of a dictator. It is tyrants and despots who use the over-riding force of the military for actions other than military engagements. There is an inbuilt entropy in the military when used in this manner, they become political vehicles for civil oppression. Modern liberal democracies separate the political arm and the military arm for good reason. General Pervez Musharraf's constitutionally suspended Pakistan is a modern example of why that separation of the political and military is important to a democracy.

Iraq and Opportunity Cost

The New York Times has a graph showing the opportunity cost for the money spent on Iraq . The authors of the graph have chosen to spend the money on "war on terror" related activities or "Homeland Security" whichever distopian use of the english language is preferred. This does not negate the fact that money was all spent on the US Credit Card anyway. The money being spent is money the US does not have. There is an opportunity cost in the US not going to its creditors to spend money it does not have. As a taxpayer in the US, i like the idea of balanced budgets.

Jefferson on Limits to Federalism

Jefferson in a letter to Wilson Nichols wrote of adhering to explicit limits in the constitution and not constructing new meanings out of explicit languages. In Jefferson's eyes this was opening the floodgates to limitless and ultimately absolute power;

I had rather ask an enlargement of power from the nation, where is is found necessary, than to assume it by a construction which make our powers boundless. Our peculiar security is the possession of a written constitution. Let us not make it a blank paper by construction.

In a previous diary I explored whether the ongoing entropy towards Canberra in Australia was due to the Westminster system. Jefferson is warning here against a weak constitution and a weak interpretation of it. There is no doubt the Australian Constitution is weak. It is notoriously difficult to amend, far more difficult than it is to amend the Constitution in the US. For instance the referendum to add Civil Aviation to Federal powers did not pass with a majority. The Federal government enacted it through legislation anyway, but it is not in the Australian Constitution.

Not Happy With John

A group of forty-three former defence chiefs and senior diplomats co-released a statement demanding truth in government [I couldn't find their statement in its entirety on the web anywhere]. Howard rejected the statement, claiming the intelligence groups weren't politically pressured. Latham also had his dig ;

"Mr Howard has an appalling record," he said. ... "He can barely lie straight in bed. You look at all these scandals from kids overboard to the war in Iraq to the Keelty affair." ... "There has been a lot of deceit from the Howard Government and we have got to restore public confidence in the Australian government by having a truthful, fair dinkum, straight approach."

Maybe Latham should wear around John Howard Lies T-shirts , though I hope a website pops up soon to compare Latham's statements with his actions.

The Battle for Conservatism

David McKnight has an interesting article on the battle over Liberalism and Conservatism in Australia. The recent jumping ship by former Liberal Party President, John Valder is an example of this. McKnight believes the Old Right has gone the way of the Socialists as well. He believes that the revolution of the right in the 1980's has killed the old right, essentially making the old Right, and the old Left no longer politically exist;

This revolution on the Right represented the triumph of the subordinate strand of fundamentalist liberalism over classical conservatism and old style 'social liberalism'. Hence today more people are referring to economic globalisation as the expression of `neo-liberalism'. In parties of the Right both liberal and conservative strands were historically intertwined and mutually supportive. Today we are seeing a disentangling of this whose consequence is that it no longer makes sense to talk monolithically about 'the Right' or about 'the conservatives'. Judith Brett's Australian Liberals and the Moral Middle Class and Marian Sawer's The Ethical State? document this disentanglement.

I haven't got through Judith Brett's book yet, as the subject matter doesn't appeal to me, but I have had it in my queue for quite a while. Maybe I should read it. McKnight sees conservatism as having been transformed to neo-liberalism who see the market economy in all facets of life. By comparison the conservatives see the market economy as eroding traditional values such as family, social values (class hierarchy?) and even nationalism.

The culture of the 24/7 economy, lean and mean, is based on a shrunken moral universe where competitiveness, and self interest rule. It is a society dominated by commercial values and, increasingly, only commercial values. It is in conflict not only with the Left but with the philosophical conservatives, who base themselves on a moral order that increasingly clashes with the New Capitalism.

Conservatism values traditions, institutions from the past, if for no other reason than they are from the past and have been defined by generations past as of value. This attitude leads to retrograde thinking however. The Australian Constitution is a good example of the impossibility of advance under such a value system. Australia is not a Republic with a Bill of Rights courtesy of conservative thinking. Australia still maintains the ever embarrassing Union Jack on its flag due to conservative fear of change and phobia to progress.

McKnight writes that the globalist capitalism, which cares little for national borders, national culture or the demands of family, has cut the old conservatives adrift and they now have no political party representing them;

The significance of all of this is that the values of classical conservatism have been cut adrift from the neo-liberal Right. They are now looking for a home in the world of politics. The vast number of instinctive conservatives know there is something wrong with the New Capitalism. Some of their desires connect with some of the values of the Left and this fact holds great significance for the direction of social change in a globalized, post-socialist world.

Ironically the resurgence of the Greens in Australia may have something to do with this effect, as the Greens appeal to traditional values. Conservation of the landscape and consequently its natural identity. The Greens do not target class for political benefit, they target industrialism and its rampant rape of the environment. These two attitudes are consistent with classical conservative values.

McKnight concludes with the need for a new vision;

We need a new moral vision beyond right and left. ... A values based political movement is then the key ... ... These ideals involve a society meeting human needs which include but go beyond the material wherewithal of life. They include justice, fairness, equality, the valuing of human lives, in both the public rational world and in the private life world of emotion, and of caring and altruism. ... ... At its deepest a renewal of these ideals involves an integration of rational and non-rational values. At a less philosophical level these must be expressed in a political vision that is grounded primarily in ethical and moral values.

Very interesting article.

cam