It’s the unvarnished portrait of war pushed in front of our eyes thanks to the publication by the New York Times, Der Spiegel, The Guardian, and the WikiLeaks website of approximately 92,000 pages of sensitive U.S. intelligence documents. The dramatically named “War Logs” no doubt posing questions about the direction and strategy of the Afghan war, our tense yet active relationship with Pakistan, our overall security, and the U.S. Military‘s attitude toward collateral damage and perhaps even war crimes. Similarly this release will force us to probe the competency and truthfulness of both the Obama and Bush administration, and the actions and motives of the documents publishers who seemingly abandoned the questions of should for the embrace of can.

But through all that confusion, all those questions outwardly posed shouldn’t we ask ourselves why this feels like such a revelation? Shouldn’t we have been suspicious of Pakistan, a potential rogue nuclear power, an aggressor that makes no secret of their alliances? Shouldn’t we be weary of Government proclamations of progress and success in an almost decade long war that has delivered on none of its promises? How can we not know, down deep in our guts that war is blood, messy and raw with no break, no pause? Not a video game, not a slick movie. War is simply a necessary yet faulty construct guaranteed to spring blood from innocent wells. That reality should spare no ones false utopia, piercing the historical and heroic descriptions of war that leave out the mountains of subtext, the gray that gives us a more full idea of wars true cost.

These whispers have been heard before, in Vietnam, in the Persian Gulf during Desert Storm. Former Attorney General Ramsey Clark even went so far as to accuse the first Bush administration of war crimes, presenting a report to the International War Crimes Tribunal. Included below is an excerpt from that report and a gruesome image that accompanied it.

“The “Highway of Death,” a name the press has given to the    road from Mutlaa, Kuwait, to Basra, Iraq. U.S. planes immobilized the convoy by disabling vehicles at its front and rear, then bombing and strafing the resulting traffic jam for hours. More than 2,000 vehicles and tens of thousands of charred and dismembered bodies littered the sixty miles of highway. The clear rapid incineration of the human being [pictured above] suggests the use of napalm, phosphorus, or other incendiary bombs. These are anti-personnel weapons outlawed under the 1977 Geneva Protocols. This massive attack occurred after Saddam Hussein announced a complete troop withdrawal from Kuwait in compliance with UN Resolution 660. Such a massacre of withdrawing Iraqi soldiers violates the Geneva Convention of 1949, common article 3, which outlaws the killing of soldiers who “are out of combat.” There are, in addition, strong indications that many of those killed were Palestinian and Kuwaiti civilians trying to escape the impending siege of Kuwait City and the return of Kuwaiti armed forces. No attempt was made by U.S. military command to distinguish between military personnel and civilians on the “highway of death.” The whole intent of international law with regard to war is to prevent just this sort of indiscriminate and excessive use of force. -Ramsey Clark

Now while some have for nearly two decades sought to invalidate Mr. Clark’s report painting it as the rants and raves of an extreme leftist anti-war activist and his gang of like-minded pacifists the fact remains that the “Highway of Death” did not exist solely in the pages of Ramsey Clark’s report. This clip by Canada’s CBC network clearly demonstrates that, displaying the aftermath of the attack with torched civilian vehicles surrounding the myriad of children’s toys spilled onto the street among the military transports for looters to pick through. And of course the “Highway of Death” incident is not the sole indiscretion by the U.S Military in the Gulf conflict or any other conflict past or present.

Our military failings are numerous, documented, known by some but ignored by many. The reaction to this leak proves as much. That we persist, that we continue to wage war despite such sins is a mark against a world that has shown no capacity for peace, no head for tolerance, freedom, or a steady calm sea of existence. Our failings do not render war obsolete, and they should not make us less willing to fight, to sacrifice in the name of justice, in the name of peace. No, those failings simply demand that we continue to try to step gently into the theater of war, mindful of the innocence that dances all around a combat zone. They demand an unyielding effort to protect and respect that innocence for the sake of morality, and for the sake of the ideals we are fighting for, they ask for repentance when we fail, and they beg that we prosper and that we are somehow better than we have been. Maybe this leak helps advance that directive, maybe the rewards out measure the risks. More questions whose answers will unravel over time. But on this day, hours after the release of the “War Logs” one thing is a crystalline truth, a war that always felt real to so many just became shockingly true to all of us.

Jason Tabrys is the Editor and Chief Contributor for Painespeak.com. A national columnist for Examiner.com Jason can be followed on twitter by clicking @JasonTabrys

Whose knee jerked first? A GMA tape shows Obama explaining to Elisabeth Leamy in an exclusive interview that  Secretary Tom Vilsack’s  hasty dismissal of  Shirley Sherrod from  her position at the  Department of Agriculture  was a  knee-jerk  reaction to the media culture of blogging and YouTube. There is no denying that the media culture is one that can drive public opinion, however some of the President’s explanation leaves questions.

“He jumped the gun, partly because we now live in this media culture where something goes up on You Tube or a blog and everybody scrambles. And I’ve told my team and I told my agencies that we have to make sure that we’re focusing on doing the right thing instead of what looks to be politically necessary at that very moment.  We have to take our time and, and think these issues through.”-President Obama, ABC news

All of this is an interesting parsing of a volatile over-reaction that Obama himself, has taken great pains to soothe. However, the idea of  Vilsack alone, “jumping the gun” as Obama chose to call the pressure placed on Sherrod to pull over, while driving, to resign immediately -  speaks to the urgency of someone, somewhere to get rid of Sherrod fast.

The question is, why so fast? Was it  in order to contain and diffuse a story so strong that it even dwarfed Obama’s triumphant signing of the much-touted financial reform bill? The signing of that bill and the recent extension of unemployment benefits the kind of successes Obama desperately needs to highlight in the face of both his and both the House an Senate’s dismal poll numbers. Was the goal to get the spotlight off Sherrod and back on Obama’s successes?

Sherrod herself has repeatedly stressed, and continues to stress, that the pressure came directly from the White House. Meanwhile Vilsack took full responsibility for the hasty firing of Sherrod, claiming  “no one  from the White House had anything to do with this at all.” However, earlier, even after Vilsack had learned that the tape was edited, Vilsack defended the decision to accept Sherrod’s resignation saying, “The controversy surrounding her comments would create situations where her decisions, rightly or wrongly, would be called into question making it difficult for her to bring jobs to Georgia.” Remember, Vilsack had heard the speech in full context when he said that. Then, as described by Politico’s Mike Allen, something changed.

“Yielding to a late-night phone call from the White House, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack reversed himself early today and said he will reconsider the abrupt firing of Shirley Sherrod, a Georgia-based Agriculture Department official who was the victim of a media frenzy over comments that turned out to have been distorted by video editing.” Mike Allen, Politico.com

Bottom Line: If the White House can admit to intervening in the end, why can’t they admit thier role in the very begining? The question is, whose knee jerked first? Whose really to blame?

Devonia Smith is the Dallas Political Buzz columnist for Examiner.com and a contributor to Painespeak.com. She can be followed on twitter by clicking @DevoniaSmith

In this, the supposed era of post-partisanship we see an everyday display of the growing chasm that exists between Republicans and Democrats. The GOP sprinting toward the outer fringes of the right while Democrats move desperately toward the middle, fruitlessly pursuing displaced moderates. Every speech a broken promise in waiting, crafted to value party over people. Our American way of politics hopelessly broken.

Or is it? After-all our politics mirror our perception of humanity. Republicans and Democrats alike drawing from their own beliefs to form an agenda that serves (among other things) their core values. The Republican Party, historically an advocate of the wealthy have nevertheless been able to create and maintain a broad support base among ordinary Americans. They do this by effectively co-opting the social and religious values of traditional fundamentalist Christianity. A linch pin of capitalism buoyed by Puritan and Calvinist theories and a view that individuals alone can and should determine their own destiny through hard work and perseverance. A belief that abhors Government safety nets advocating consequence and for the truly afflicted Christian charity.

The history of America, as interpreted by Republicans portrays an idyllic past where this arrangement works seamlessly, a simpler and more virtuous time, and a complete fallacy. And yet this substantial and sustained lie remains, deeply imbued within the mental fabric of so many Americans, defining their psyche and ultimately determining their politics.

This remains true even as time has washed away some of Christianities cover, undermining its long held philosophies and changing, for the objective mind what it means to be human. We now know that humans are social animals and of the earth like all other animals. We humans have an incontrovertible relation with photosynthetic life which feeds us- and with the heterotrophic bacteria that remove and convert our waste. The spirit of man is not some ephemeral breath which flees the body ascending to heaven or falling to hell upon his last breath. Man’s soul is his body and his social relations. The beginning of politics is biology. If that part of it is not right we cannot legitimately wonder why the rest goes wrong.

In contrast to the Right the politics of the radical Left are based on this scientific view of humanity. A world where human beings belong to a living system in which all beings are connected with all others- and all alive today are connected with all that have lived in the past. We are neither the pinnacle nor the culmination of evolution- we are the humans, from the humus, soil- earth. The far left have the correct definition of man, the politics should follow naturally.

Daniel Collins is a contributor to Painespeak.com, he can be followed on twitter by clicking @DanielKalinz

British Petroleum can be accurately called many things: greedy, reckless, an environmental tyrant, aloof, and astonishingly bad at damn near everything they attempt. They are a success despite their numerous failings, a product of an industry propped up by the addictive properties of its merchandise. But “flattery” aside BP is also the employer of almost 100,000 people worldwide, and its likely most of them are not evil.

And that’s the point, BP is a company comprised of people, some with fancy suits and hidden agendas in desperate need of an indictment, and some with a mop and a broom or a cubicle and a ceaselessly ringing phone. These people have families, attend soccer games, and do all the things you or I enjoy in our thoroughly non-villainous lives. It’s these people though that are suffering a different kind of torture then the thousands and thousands of displaced fisherman and Gulf residents, the keepers of the Gulf Coasts disappearing majesty. A different torture, but torture all the same.

So why are we seeking to attack them? Our concern over collateral damage practically non-existent. It’s they who will be most affected if BP folds. They and us. You see BP has for better or worse been accountable. They have thus far spent the money, willfully supplying a $20 billion dollar escrow for the recovery effort, and they are handling the repair effort and the cleanup effort concurrently. Are they doing it well? No, but that’s another matter altogether. The point is they are signing the checks and if they suddenly disappeared then who would that responsibility fall too? The answer: you, me, and those fisherman, with our tax dollars that are already spread too thin.

Calls to ban BP from off shore drilling (but not Transocean?), from oil exploration of any sort within the US and its territories, and the cancellation of productive Government contracts are little more than efforts to aggressively punish a company that has angered and wounded us. No due process, no investigation, but rather a public flogging with no regard for what happens to BP, a company that could find itself morally and fiscally viable once more with the aid of a few well placed executive indictments. No concern for those people working the refineries, those people on the rigs, or working one of tens of thousands of jobs within BP that had nothing to do with this spill or the poor effort to contain it. No worry over the thousands of independent small business owners and near minimum wage workers that operate or work for BP brand gas stations across the US that are being hit hard by boycotts.

Still, some would argue that BP has operated consistently with little to no consideration for the potential or true damage done to the Gulf Coast, its innocent residents, and the other areas throughout the world where BP maintains a drilling presence. They would argue that the destruction of this company is what karma demands, it is just, and it is righteous, and they would not be wrong in light of the decimation, environmental and economic to the Gulf Coast. But in following that line of logic we forsake our system of laws, the means for which we attain actual justice. Something a mob mentality cannot achieve.

Indeed we can rip this company to shreds, we have that ability without question. We can disregard the damage that would bring in the name of blood-lust and smile broadly at the decimation. But applying our passion to those pursuits does nothing to improve the situation in the Gulf. It does nothing to ensure that something like this never happens again.

And so rather then embrace our base instincts, giving in to our anger we can In this fleeting moment of increased awareness and zeal, work to reform high consumption behavior, and push for true investment in alternative fuels and environmental protections. In this moment we can demand that our Government craft a new energy plan without the corrupting influence of industry. An energy plan that strictly and without fail regulates the energy industry while simultaneously investigating BP and lowering the full force of the law onto the heads of those guilty of corruption and negligence. It’s up to us to determine the course of our fire, up to us to move toward the productive or blindly tear apart a company, our misspent rage, and hollow activism leaving us with a bigger mess and a Gulf Coast still in tatters.

So we know the GOP argument. Our debt is a slick chasm that we cannot hope to ascend without a literal “brake slam” on all governmental spending. No additional stimulus, no extensions of unemployment that add to our most “pressing“ danger, the national debt. Those left unaided in these times of woeful deficit find themselves an unfortunate casualty in the name of our future solvency.

Yet while Republicans have seemingly engineered a campaign of “fiscal responsibility” for the 2010 midterm and beyond on the broken backs of America’s displaced workers Democrats have done little to counteract the GOP’s charges or actions. Refusing to dip into excess or unspent stimulus funds (but oh how quickly Democrats will gush about the stimulative effect of unemployment benefits) while also trying their damnedest to avoid pay/go.

Both sides have merit. The GOP is not wrong when they say we are in a deficit danger zone. But this is not novel, not a creation of the “left” as they vocally declare. And while Democrats are without question the party most in line with continued extensions, the party most willing to reach a hand of aid to those imperiled by our times they are also just as dedicated to the view that “emergency” expenditures like the unemployment re-authorization add to the deficit load.

Neither side seeming particularly guided by principles, neither side likely consumed by anything more than political parlor games. It’s like a house on fire with one hydrant and two rival fire houses holding a staring contest with each other to see who gets to put out the fire while it ravages and burns to smoke and ash.

But what are the true costs of inaction beyond the human travesties that are well documented and already understood by most anyone not seeking elected office in November? The American economy is not in a stable way, 125,000 more jobs lost in June thanks to the departure of nearly 225,000 temporary census jobs with a modest nationwide increase of 83,000 private jobs, far shy of the 125,000 new jobs needed each month to stabilize unemployment (without taking into account those that have simply fallen out of the labor market entirely). We are, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 7.9 million private sector jobs down from our mark in December 2007.

The aforementioned stimulative effect of unemployment benefits has been well represented but allow me to pile on.

“It is also important that policymakers provide emergency benefits to those who will lose their jobs this year. No form of the fiscal stimulus has proved more effective during the past two years than emergency UI benefits, providing a bang for the buck of 1.61—that is, for every $1 in UI benefits, GDP one year later is increased by an estimated $1.61. This economic boost is large because financially stressed unemployed workers spend benefits quickly, as opposed to saving them. This was particularly important during the depths of the recession when consumers had aggressively cut spending. While consumer spending has since notably improved, it remains fragile and would likely weaken again if emergency UI benefits are not extended. The recovery would struggle to evolve into an expansion as anticipated.”-Prepared Congressional testimony April 14, 2010 Mark Zandi, Chief Economist Moody’s Analytics

In addition to his remarks on the stimulative effect of unemployment benefits Mr. Zandi (a former adviser for Sen. John McCain) also sheds a light on the prospect of growth within the private sector.

“The preconditions for even stronger underlying job growth in the months ahead are falling into place. Most important is the rebound in corporate profits, which has occurred as businesses have successfully lowered their costs. Unit labor costs are falling at their fastest pace on record, fueled by surging productivity and tepid compensation growth. Interest expenses are declining, given corporate de-leveraging and low borrowing rates. And rents are down as commercial real estate markets find themselves awash in vacant space. Although firms are constrained in their ability to raise prices, margins have widened; combined with better sales, this has juiced up profits—a necessary precursor to private sector job growth. Historically, the trend in corporate profits has led the trend in U.S. employment by six to 12 months.”

Two and a half months past those remarks and one can see that “history” is not on pace to repeat itself. The June jobs report indicates a profound hesitancy among private sector employers to risk the safety of reborn profits for the sake of expansion in these still unstable times, with tax credits and low-interest rates failing to adequately light the spark.

Now I won’t dispute the wisdom of the GOP’s “tax cut” clarion call. The administration and the Democratically controlled Congress has been slow to offer the kind of incentive that truly drives job creation. But while the GOP maintains an “either/or” attitude toward stimulus and the Democrats almost regard business as an afterthought we still find ourselves mired deeply in a slow crawl toward a recovery that many will never fully enjoy.

The facts are indisputable: nearly 15 million people are still unemployed in this country, with hundreds of thousands completely maxed out of their benefits and more than one million more watching and waiting for action absent any income, without any relief as the Senate scuffles and postures momentarily delaying their pissing contest for yet another vacation. The number grows week by week, likely sitting at around 2 million without benefits or a lifeline, their hunt for employment hampered by at least 5 to 1 odds for every open job.

Those lucky enough to receive benefits also find themselves painfully aware of the present systems inadequacy with the average unemployment period lasting 35 weeks and the current maximum benefit period for someone newly unemployed within the last 6 months sitting at 26 weeks. A 9 week deficit that can, under the right circumstances, forever destroy a life.  Homes, groceries, and utilities all thrown into question, the notion of someone willfully engaging in this kind of whole life “Russian Roulette” comical when weighing the inherent difficulty in finding work and the unstable and insufficient status of unemployment funds.

These facts are undeniable, frightening, and at the moment seemingly of little concern to Congress as demonstrated by the bodies inaction and ignorance. But beyond the black and white exists the speculative damage of a stagnant economy and continued under and unfunded unemployment. Retirement and education funds necessarily raided for survival affecting the future stability of the young and old. More mortgage defaults, more personal bankruptcies, and a smaller pool of qualified lendees spurring a “credit crunch” aftershock. A flurry of potential negative effects and yet a mountain of objection to the methods that seek to wash them all away.

But what about the deficit?

The deficit is of course at the core of that “mountain” standing in the way of any extension or stimulus. Yes, debt is bad. But not all bad. In fact our national debt with its rabid complexities offers itself as a risk free asset that enhances investment, staves off deflation, and provides a truly marketable platform for partisan obstructionists who have nothing else to run on.

Is it large and unyielding? Certainly, the national debt is bulbous but it’s not “out of control” with a side of “oh my gosh the sky is falling!”. Indeed while servicing the debt is in a word, “prohibitive” according to economist Zachary Karabell it is “not much different in inflation-adjusted terms from what servicing cost 20 years ago, especially relative to GDP”.

Still while the debt has its benefits it does beg for a more responsible course that respects not merely our fiscal future but our present struggle, in short we can’t get to that “shining city upon a hill” without a bridge to somewhere. We can’t get to that promised future without continued investment, painful, debt widening investment in our present.

Noted Economist, Berkeley Professor,  and former Clinton Administration Labor Secretary Robert Reich had this to say when I reached him for comment:

“The issue is not the debt per se but the ratio of debt to the total economy (GDP). In the short-term (next one to three years), it would be folly to try to pay down the national debt, because government spending is needed to get the economy growing nicely again. If we reduced the debt, we’d slow economic growth and risk another recession, ending up with a worse ratio of debt to GDP than we have now. But in the longer term (five to ten years from now), it would be folly not to address the widening ratio of debt to GDP. Mainly, we’ll need to raise taxes on the wealthy, cut military spending, and slow the growth of Medicare.”

Fellow Economist Paul Krugman seems to agree warning of the consequences of rabid fiscal conservatism. Indicating that we are not merely on the cusp of a relapse but perhaps in the midst of a global depression:

“ We are now, I fear, in the early stages of a third depression. It will probably look more like the Long Depression than the much more severe Great Depression. But the cost — to the world economy and, above all, to the millions of lives blighted by the absence of jobs — will nonetheless be immense.
And this third depression will be primarily a failure of policy. Around the world — most recently at last weekend’s deeply discouraging G-20 meeting — governments are obsessing about inflation when the real threat is deflation, preaching the need for belt-tightening when the real problem is inadequate spending.

In 2008 and 2009, it seemed as if we might have learned from history. Unlike their predecessors, who raised interest rates in the face of financial crisis, the current leaders of the Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank slashed rates and moved to support credit markets. Unlike governments of the past, which tried to balance budgets in the face of a plunging economy, today’s governments allowed deficits to rise. And better policies helped the world avoid complete collapse: The recession brought on by the financial crisis arguably ended last summer.

But future historians will tell us that this wasn’t the end of the third depression, just as the business upturn that began in 1933 wasn’t the end of the Great Depression. After all, unemployment — especially long-term unemployment — remains at levels that would have been considered catastrophic not long ago, and shows no sign of coming down rapidly. And both the United States and Europe are well on their way toward Japan-style deflationary traps.

In the face of this grim picture, you might have expected policymakers to realize that they haven’t yet done enough to promote recovery. But no: Over the last few months there has been a stunning resurgence of hard-money and balanced-budget orthodoxy.”-Paul Krugman, New York Times, June 28,1010.

While I believe Mr. Krugman is mistaken in his characterization that a “Depression” is already upon us his words do have validity and should be taken as a warning of a reality not far off. A reality that should be familiar to any student of history capable of recognizing our hazardous walk through the footprints of our past mistakes and our seeming inability to learn from those mistakes.

Alvin Toffler said it best, “the illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn”. As we sit and watch, as we ignore the words of people like Mr. Zandi, Secretary Reich, and Mr. Krugman denying the legitimacy of numbers and facts as some of us are prone to do in an effort to smooth out uneven rhetoric we must recognize the danger of our actions.

So many factions predict doom but so few are accurate in the quality and cause of that doom and as truth is strangled in the web of “facts” (to paraphrase Paul Eldridge) we must heed the text of our past transgressions always aware of our previous sins and unwilling to follow back down that path. History repeats itself unless we stand up and forcibly shake it from its axis, and if we continue to seed the fields of financial destruction with cinched belts and unyielding cruelty toward those that have fallen hardest we are destined to fail in that effort, a nation too concerned with the far off lightning to notice the hurricane beating down it’s door.