The Center for American Progress, Obama's Neoliberals: Selling his Afghan War One Report at a Time, is to Jeremy Scahill
a very powerful reminder of how much neoliberals and neocons are alike . . .
This diary shows more of Scahill's look at Obama's U.S. war on Afghanistan, and then looks at blogger extraordinaire Joe Romm, who works CAPS climate change desk, a great example of a douchebag, as defined by David Sirota In These Times,
In Washington, douchebaggery has become synonymous with milquetoast political platforms.
Regarding Afghanistan and American priorities, CAP is
clearly not listening to "progressive" or anti-war lawmakers. In fact, CAP says that Bush did the war against Afghanistan "on the cheap and committed too few troops and resources." Therefore, CAP is calling for a stunning expansion of the scope of the military occupation of Afghanistan, a "nearly 300 percent increase over the average force level for the period from 2002 to 2007," according to the report. CAP goes beyond what Obama has already committed to and calls for 70,000 US troops and an additional 30,000 allied troops—a total of 100,000 troops, plus an expanded Afghan Army and police force. CAP calls for "a prolonged U.S. engagement using all elements of U.S. national power—diplomatic, economic, and military—in a sustained effort that could last as long as another 10 years."
To pay for this, CAP in part suggests taking what it claims will be a $330 billion savings from "reduced combat missions in Iraq" and applying $25 billion of it every year for five years to the "increased U.S. troop presence in Afghanistan" with another $5 billion per year "to increase U.S. foreign aid and diplomatic operations." While there is a much bigger argument to be had here about spending priorities while millions of Americans are suffering from the economic meltdown, there is serious reason to question the idea that somehow we are going to be seeing any substantial "savings" in Iraq spending (except, of course, through the kind of creative accounting that masks actual US military expenditures, particularly relating to Iraq).
Speaking of bad priorities and masking costs, Romm at his June 24 blog New EPA Analysis of Waxman-Markey:
What happens to coal under Waxman-Markey?
"The EPA projects (page 27) that W-M will stop pretty much all of the few remaining new dirty coal plants that EIA had been projecting would be built through 2025 (roughly 20 GW), whereas the overwhelming major of new capacity will be renewable energy.
And the EPA projects (p. 28) W-M will lead to 22 GW of extra coal retirements by 2015 beyond "what EIA had been projecting.
He goes on about his own analysis, and how it is really bad for coal. But look at those pages 27-28 of the EPA Analysis of the American Clean energy and Security Act of 2009 pdf and what Romm says and does not say about it.
He fails to mention the note on page 27 about new 14GW of coal capacity made possible with subsidies for "clean coal," or the chart on page 28 showing U.S. coal production for U.S. electricity generation decreasing from 2006 to 2025 a grand total of 10.5% (it notes in fine print that coal imports are not included, and are expected to increase during that period).
What happens under Waxman-Markey to coal in the electric grid, the biggest source of greenhouse gas in the world, is it keeps on feeding the dirty power paradigm for whom CAP and Romm do their thinking.
To wrap up, the fine print on page 27 refers to the greater heat content of bituminous (Eastern) coal than sub-bituminous (Western) coal. Eastern coal also has a higher sulfur content. The cap and trade acid rain program decreasing sulfur emissions caused a shift to Western coal. Used as a shining light by Washington-based environmentalists for the cap and trade of greenhouse gasses resulted in increasing greenhouse gasses for the last decade and more (because more Western coal must be burned for a given energy output). To know further what to expect from Washington-based environmentalists, the Clean Air Act's compromise with King Coal, beside ignoring greenhouse gasses, was grandfathering in existing plants because they were expected to be put out of commission by the new regulations in a decade or so. That was 1970 and the grandfathers are still spewing filth into our hearts and lungs. Now, the scientific consensus is there is no more wiggle room to compromise with dirty power. What does Romm and CAP offer but more war and global warming, and throwing smoke in the eyes of progressives.
Update: Today, July 2, Joe Romm calls Mark Kirk (R-IL), who DK invested valuable resources trying to defeat, a hero, as I predicted in my lastdiary.
For CP readers, these folks are heroes:
The eight Republicans are Mark Kirk of Illinois . . .