Anywhere from a substantial minority to a small majority of Americans are sympathetic to Matt's suggestion, Declare Victory In The “War On Terror.

  Similar or greater numbers of Americans are hopefully also sympathetic to this suggestion from a James Fallows article that Matt quotes:

This is heartening news in its own right, and even more so if it might mark the beginning of the end of a period in which America felt that it had to change its essential nature and values in order to be safe. We're never going to be completely safe, but perhaps this will be the occasion for talking again about the long-term balance between our values as a free people and our ability to defend ourselves.

It would also be nice if the tooth fairy started leaving $100 bills under our pillow instead of nickles and dimes.  Is there even a remote possibility of rescuing our national dialogue from the Fox News/Koch Bros./Tea Party/Neo-Con alliance from hell?

(I'm going to give it the ol' college try after the jump)

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This is one of the weirdest clips I've seen in a long time.  Weird for its honesty and for how close it comes to finally admitting that the Global War On Terror (TM) is really about hoping for another attack while spending hundreds of billions of dollars on excess military capacity.

After eight years of George Bush, I got very used to the whole "up-is-down" thing.  But the metaphysical truism in this exchange between Glenn Beck and Michael Sheuer is more like "up-is-purple".

Just watch.

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A few years ago, somebody handed me a pen at a community event that had a little handle on the side that you could pull out, revealing two charts that unfurled to around 5 x 7, large enough to make their points. (current versions below)

US FEDERAL SPENDING PIE CHART 2009

Total Outlays (Federal Funds): $2,650 billion
MILITARY: 54% and $1,449 billion
NON-MILITARY: 46% and $1,210 billion



Thinking about the current debate over the utility of bank bailouts  vs. universal healthcare I was reminded of them. - I keep wondering, IF 60-70% of Americans want universal healthcare, WHY are our (bad?) political actors saying that its off the table?
What is tying their hands? Perhaps the charts help explain one of the many reasons why. We are spendng more money on our military than the whole rest of the world, combined, is spending on theirs!

US DEFENSE SPENDING COMPARED WITH REST OF WORLDS DEFENSE SPENDING
(US on left, rest of world on right)

Source for 2009 pie chart figures:"The pie chart figures are from an analysis of detailed tables in the "Analytical Perspectives" book of the Budget of the United States Government, Fiscal Year 2009. The figures are federal funds, which do not include trust funds -- such as Social Security -- that are raised and spent separately from income taxes. What you pay (or don't pay) by April 15, 2008, goes to the federal funds portion of the budget. The government practice of combining trust and federal funds began during the Vietnam War, thus making the human needs portion of the budget seem larger and the military portion smaller. "
Thats it.  The above quoted text and images come from this site.

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I would like to highlight the curious case of Dr. Aafia Siddiqui.  She is a Pakistan born, MIT/Brandeis trained neuroscientist who went missing in 2003, and showed up in 2008 in a US court, accused of fighting for Al Quaeda.

For a background, I would like to quote from Wikipedia

Aafia Siddiqui was born in Pakistan in March 1972. She came to the United States, and attended colleges in the Boston, Massachusetts area. As a sophomore at MIT in 1992, Siddiqui received a Carroll L. Wilson Award for her research proposal, "Islamization in Pakistan and its Effects on Women."[1] As a junior, Siddiqui received a $1,200 fellowship through MIT's LINKS program to help clean up Cambridge elementary school playgrounds. During her undergraduate career, she lived in McCormick Hall and worked at the MIT libraries. She graduated from MIT in 1995.

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence asserts that Siddiqui has ties to Guantanamo captive Ammar al-Baluchi.

       In 2002, 'Ammar directed Aafia Siddiqui--a US-educated neuroscientist and al-Qa'ida facilitator--to travel to the United States to prepare paperwork to ease Majid Khan's deployment to the United Staes. 'Ammar married Siddiqui shortly before his detention.

Al-Baluchi is now held in extrajudicial detention in the Guantanamo Bay detention camps, in Cuba.

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Just a heads-up on Pakistan, Musharraf has declared a state of emergency and surrounded the Supreme Court.  The eight judges ordered the prime minister and the military to defy his orders.  Bhutto has been safely back in Dubai for a couple of days.  This is bad news.  My RSS feeds from Pakistan are dead at the moment, Musharraf has cut off all communication from Pakistani news outlets to the outside world.

From AP:

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) -- President Gen. Pervez Musharraf declared a state of emergency in Pakistan on Saturday ahead of a crucial Supreme Court decision on whether to overturn his recent election win and amid rising Islamic militant violence.

Eight Supreme Court judges immediately rejected the emergency, which suspended the current constitution. The government blocked transmissions of private news channels in several cities and telephone services in the capital, Islamabad, were cut.

"The chief of army staff has proclaimed a state of emergency and issued a provisional constitutional order," a newscaster on state Pakistan TV said, adding that Musharraf, who took power in 1999 coup, would address the nation later Saturday.

Matthew Pennington - AP 3 Nov 07

Also the BBC report.  This is not a terrific omen for the 'war on terror' in Waziristan and neighbouring Afghanistan.  We have been urging Musharraf not to do this but he must have compelling reasons of his own.  Looks like the Bhutto power-sharing deal is off for the time being too.  Musharraf is desperate to get the court to validate his presidency and apparently anticipated they would rule against him.  Islamic militants in Swat have been handing the Pakistani Army some embarrassing reverses lately and such fighting against Islamic militants has traditionally also brought up tensions within the military establishment.  Hope this all blows over in few days of dictatorial martial law, there are many unpleasant scenarios which could lead from this kind of national unrest in Pakistan.

Remember Bin Laden's recent tape which called for jihad in Pakistan?  He may have been on to something.

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