Have you no shame, sir!

Christopher Hitchens has a scathing review of george
tenet's book, the kind of review that if Tenet had any shame
he wouldn't show his face in public again after this.

Tenet is one of the dickheads that is coming out now saying
Iraq was none of his fault. Hitchens skewers him with his own
words and his smiling face behind Colin Powell while Powell
presented the evidence at the UN.

I'd go even further with something that I've said before and I'll
say again, if you are in government service or the military
and someone is on a course of action that will hurt the country
the proper response is to RESIGN AND SAY SOMETHING.
Not wait 4 years then write a book that twists history and
what was thought and said back in 2003.
(here's the best hitch:)

In the post-Kuwait-war period, there was little political risk in doing what Tenet had always done and making the worst assumption about anything that Saddam Hussein might even be thinking about. (Who but an abject idiot would ever make a different assumption or grant the Baathists the smallest benefit of the least doubt?) But we forget so soon and so easily. The problem used to be the diametrically opposite one. The whole of our vaunted "intelligence" system completely refused to believe any of the warnings that Saddam Hussein was about to invade and occupy Kuwait in 1990. By the time the menace was taken seriously, the invasion itself was under way. This is why the work of Kenneth Pollack (this time titled The Threatening Storm: The Case for Invading Iraq) was received with such gravity when it was published in 2002. Pollack had interpreted the signals correctly in 1990—and been ignored—and was arguing that another final round with Saddam was inevitable. His book did more to persuade policy-makers in Washington than anything ever said by Ahmad Chalabi. To revisit these arguments is to be reminded that no thinking person ever felt that the danger posed by a totalitarian and aggressive Iraq was a negligible one. And now comes Tenet, the man who got everything wrong and who ran the agency that couldn't think straight, to ask us to sympathize with his moanings about "Iraq—who, me?"

A highly irritating expression in Washington has it that "hindsight is always 20-20." Would that it were so. History is not a matter of hindsight and is not, in fact, always written by the victors. In this case, a bogus history is being offered by a real loser whose hindsight is cockeyed and who had no foresight at all.

We need a new code of conduct for the military and government
service. "I swear, on my honor, that if I don't agree with government
policy I'll resign and go public, not sitting on my GS-25 paycheck
while working on a book deal. If I don't say something when it
could do some good, I agree to keep my stupid puckered face
shut for all time."

Blackout

The power is out here in colombia around the country. In our
building we're on a generator, so I didn't notice. It went
down while I was giving a presentation, and the audience included
the client's CEO. Maybe the power outage was an attempt by god
to give me an escape route..."sorry, no powerpoint without
power, hehehe."

Unfortunately the almighty's help was stopped by a good UPS
and the building generator, the lights didn't even blip and I
swallowed the biley taste and gave a half-hearted presentation.
Nice try god, but next time smite the projector.

I hope the power comes on soon, there's no reason for it to come
on. Maybe the guerillas blew up a pylon, or 200. Who knows.
Here we're dependant on the government and the only thing we have to drink
in the house is wine, rum and whiskey. No bottled water to speak
of.

In the states it's stupid to depend on the government. Here
I'm criminally negligent. In New orleans people complained about
no help after 3 days, here in colombia the rats will be playing
peanuckle with my finger bones long before government help would
arrive after a katrina sized disaster.

Globalization, not so good for the home team

There's a great article in The Nation that discusses free trade
as a losing game for the USA, and how the government needs to do
something about it. (here's an exerpt that summarizes what I
think, but go read the whole thing)

Americans can choose to blame China or disloyal multinationals, but the problem is grounded in US politics. The solution can be found only in Washington. China and other developing nations are pursuing national self-interest and doing what the system allows. In a way, so are the US multinationals. "I want to stress it's a system problem," Gomory says. "The directors are doing the job they're sworn to do. It's a system that says the companies have to have a sole focus on maximizing profit."

Gomory's proposed solution would change two big things (and many lesser ones). First, the US government must intervene unilaterally to cap the nation's swollen trade deficit and force it to shrink until balanced trade is achieved with our trading partners. The mechanics for doing this are allowed under WTO rules, though the emergency action has never been invoked by a wealthy nation, much less the global system's putative leader. Capping US trade deficits would have wrenching consequences at home and abroad but could force other nations to consider reforms in how the trading system now functions. That could include international rights for workers, which Gomory favors.

Whenever you find yourself in an argument with a liberal or
a canadian about globalization, they'll usually start calling senior
managers at global companies evil, and senior managers are just
out to oppress poor people to become richer. As if all the people
we know are 'good', but once a manager rises to a certain level in
an organization a chip is inserted (or a modification of the
management chip that makes new managers spout the party
line and limit vacation days) that suddenly makes them evil
and take on a ratbert zombie stare.

Some people are assholes and only want become rich, but
99.9999% of the people in the world are only trying to get
ahead using the rules that are already setup in the world.
So a ceo who gets paid based on maxmizing shareholder
value or boosting profits generally can't come out and say he's
going to do something that reduces profits, unless there is a
compelling story that will show his company will come out better
in the end. In fact, if a CEO does something that hurts his company
or shareholders, he runs the risk of doing the enron shuffle into jail.

Since we are nothing but moist robots, much like the
Game of Life simulation, if you setup the rules of the simulation
and press play,
(the rules are)
- maximize profits
- workers are cheaper outside the USA
- there is no penalty for making something outside the USA, bringing it
in and keeping the profits.

the simulaiton will churn and you'll add jobs to poor countries and we'll
lose jobs in the usa. Which might be morally ok, but eventually we'll
have no more good jobs to lose and all that we'll have are debts and
bunch of lawyers. We should rethink free trade, there are countries
who deserve to be able to suckle at the nipples of the USA gravy
train (India, Colombia) and there are counties that should be sucking
high priced store bought formula until they change the way the
operate some more (China, Venezuela). We need some solutions
that protect some jobs without leading to our companies producing
1977 caprice classics.

Ralph Gomery's ideas from the article are:

Gomory's proposed solution would change two big things (and many lesser ones). First, the US government must intervene unilaterally to cap the nation's swollen trade deficit and force it to shrink until balanced trade is achieved with our trading partners. The mechanics for doing this are allowed under WTO rules, though the emergency action has never been invoked by a wealthy nation, much less the global system's putative leader. Capping US trade deficits would have wrenching consequences at home and abroad but could force other nations to consider reforms in how the trading system now functions. That could include international rights for workers, which Gomory favors.

Second, government must impose national policy direction on the behavior of US multinationals, directly influencing their investment decisions. Gomory thinks this can be done most effectively through the tax code. A reformed corporate income tax would penalize those firms that keep moving high-wage jobs and value-added production offshore while rewarding those that are investing in redeveloping the home country's economy.

sounds reasonable to me.