Mojo

— Flickr/Hoyasmeg

When you spend a lot of time in Iraq as I have—or, alternatively, when you spend a lot of time in the US hanging around certain war hawks who never spent time in Iraq—you're bound to hear about the concept of wasta. It's an Arabic term, one that roughly translates to "pull" or "clout," and it usually refers to one's standing to deal with the local mover-and-shaker sheikhs. But to hear the neocons tell it, wasta is the reason we went to Iraq, the reason we support Israel's most imprudent iron-fist moves, the reason for George W. Bush's cowboy diplomacy: It's that sandy, desert-heat-tempered combination of "old hatreds, confessional violence, ethnic bigotry and a culture of corruption" that only comprehends strength and only respects violence. Thugs like Saddam Hussein, Hamas, and the Al Aqsa Martyrs had wasta in the Arab world, and the only way to spread American- or Israeli-style democracy in the region was to win the wasta war. Hence the original neocon's cry, "peace through strength." The Arab will respect us as soon as he's been "liberated"—or, if necessary, broken—by us. 

Ignore the racism implicit in that worldview for a minute, and just take the neocon thesis at face value. Because there's good news and bad news. The good news is, in some sense, they were right: It turns out sentiment toward the US on "the Arab street" largely depends on how powerful America appears. The bad news is, Arabs think America's wasta is pretty much at an all-time low. And the reason for US weakness is not a Democratic administration: It's the failure of the neocons' grand game.

How do we know? According to Foreign Policy's Mark Perry, Gen. David Petraeus, the chief of US Central Command, had his staff brief Joint Chiefs Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen in January on Arab-Israeli affairs. The point of the presentation, Perry says, was to stress how bad things had gotten:

The 33-slide, 45-minute PowerPoint briefing stunned Mullen. The briefers reported that there was a growing perception among Arab leaders that the U.S. was incapable of standing up to Israel, that CENTCOM's mostly Arab constituency was losing faith in American promises, that Israeli intransigence on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was jeopardizing U.S. standing in the region, and that [US negotiator and former senator George] Mitchell himself was (as a senior Pentagon officer later bluntly described it) "too old, too slow...and too late."

That the US military is now dipping its feathers in these controversial waters tells you just how far our standing has fallen in the Middle East, and how much of a threat has been posed to our security by neoconservative overreach. The message seems to be that peace can come through strength...but contrary to what Bill Kristol, Charles Krauthammer, and Fox News might have you believe, strength doesn't come from annexing Iraq as a 51st state. Or from rolling over to the anti-Palestinian whims of Israeli Likudniks like Arik Sharon and Bibi Netanyahu. (Our own estimable Kevin Drum the other day expressed his disbelief that Netanyahu could show up Vice President Joe Biden as he did last week in announcing new Israeli settlements in East Jerusalem.) 

Hopefully, Petraeus' concern is also a sign of changes to come in the US-Israel relationship—changes that will truly favor American security. "There are important and powerful lobbies in America: the NRA, the American Medical Association, the lawyers -- and the Israeli lobby," Perry says, "but no lobby is as important, or as powerful, as the U.S. military."  

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— Photo: Wikimedia Commons

When was the last time you saw the headline, "Cost of [Pentagon-weapons-system-of-your-choice] halved"?  Probably never.  Still, the thought came to mind when this recent Associated Press headline caught my eye: "Pentagon: F-35 fighter jet cost doubles." 

Here's the story behind it:  Since 2001, when an F-35 Joint Strike Fighter was expected to cost an already hefty $50 million, the plane's cost has soared into the stratosphere (despite the fact that the aircraft itself has barely left the ground).  The estimated cost today is $113 million per plane.  Yes, that's per plane.  This supposed future workhorse of the US military is now priced like the planet's most precious gem.  It's also 2 ½ years behind schedule.  Keep in mind that the Marines, the Air Force, and the Navy are planning to buy a combined 2,450 of them for what's now an eye-popping $323 billion.  And if you think the costs are likely to stay in the $113 million range, given the history of Pentagon cost overruns, then I have a nice little national security bridge to Brooklyn I think the US public might love.      

In other words, if all goes well from here (an unlikely possibility), a single future weapons system is now estimated to cost the American taxpayer almost one-third of what the Obama administration's health-care plan is expected to cost over a decade.  You could even think of the Pentagon's weapons procurement process as the health-care system of the national security state.  Its costs just never stop rising.  In fact, the Government Accountability Office pegs major weapons systems cost overruns since 2001 at $295 billion, another near third of the cost of the health-care bill supposedly coming to a vote this week.

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As our own reporters have shown many times, the US Chamber of Commerce, a lobbying behemoth that's only gaining power by the day, tends to run fast and loose with statistics, facts, even reality. On the financial reform front, the Chamber's latest assault on a new consumer protection agency—proposed by the House and Senate—fits their M.O.

At a press conference this week, Andy Pincus, counsel for the Chamber, laid out for reporters the core of the Chamber's opposition to a consumer protection agency. Essentially, Pincus said creating an agency like the one proposed by the House and Senate would layer on burdensome new regulation and bureaucracy, and moreover would choke off credit to small businesses. As a result, he said, those businesses won't have the funds to hire new employees, pay existing ones, and will ultimately fail, he said:

"Small businesses rely on credit vehicles that are often consumer credit because the small business is just a person…So the question is: How heavily are those kinds of credit vehicles going to be regulated? Are they going to cost more? Or are some of the regulations going to ban those forms of credit entirely on the grounds that they're abusive, whatever that means?"

In one sense, Pincus is right: Most small businesses are average consumers who get off the ground using the same kind of credit you and I have—namely, their credit cards. The Chamber's logic stops there, however. A consumer protection agency, if anything, would crack down on predatory credit card practices, not unlike the Credit CARD Act already in place. The consumer agency in the House bill would not only rein in on predatory practices sure to be harmful to small business owners, but would exempt retailers and other merchants who extend credit and layaway plans to consumers from oversight. (The Senate bill, while in its early stages, would do much of the same.) In short, these kinds of changes would  help small business owners, not hurt them or cut off their access to credit. 

Pincus also claimed that a new consumer agency might ban forms of credit used by small businesses. Perhaps if a small business owner had taken out a toxic subprime mortgage with a floating interest rate for her business, then yes, that owner might have to look for a new mortgage. One with better terms. Not much of a loss there.

In reality, the Chamber's position that a new consumer agency will choke off credit to small businesses just doesn't make sense. "There's no basis for it," says Tim Duncan, chairman of the organization Business Leaders for Financial Reform. "It's so detached from reality. There's nothing to indicate that that's true." And numerous business organizations actually support the consumer agency, including the US Women's Chamber of Commerce, the US Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, and the American Made Alliance. "For the most part, this is a real positive for business owners because they have to personally finance their own businesses," Duncan says. As for the US Chamber, Duncan adds, "I don’t think people are taking seriously the quality of their argument. The more they say this stuff, the more they dig their hole deeper in the ground."

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It's been a banner few weeks for political hypocrisy on the issue of gay rights. Anti-gay senator Roy Ashburn admitted he's gay, while congressman Eric Massa—opposer of gay marriage—got caught up in a bizarre gay sex scandal.

Satirist Mark Fiore has a few thoughts on this hypocritical oath. Watch his video below:

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