For a long time, the US contented itself with one enemy, the Soviet Union. Meanwhile, the CIA conducted covert operations such as rigging elections for dictators and assassinating their opponents. But those thus tyrannized had neither the inclination nor the resources to retaliate against the US.

Then, operating under the illusion that the mujahideen in Afghanistan were “freedom fighters,” as Ronald Reagan called them, we armed and supported them to the tune of billions of dollars. After driving the Soviets out, though, they were feeling their oats and looked around for a new target.

Watching us stand by as Israel poured salt in the wounds of Palestine and as, during the Gulf War, we stationed our troops in their holy land, Saudi Arabia, they found one what. Armed with our shoulder-mounted Stinger, among other weapons, the mujahideen turned around and bit the hand that fed them.

In other words, both by arming them and alienating them, we constructed enemies out of whole cloth. Who says the US doesn’t make anything anymore?

Then we retaliated for 9/11 against a sitting (Saddam Hussein) instead of a moving target (bin Laden). Our lack of discrimination sent the message that all of the Middle East was fair game. Voila — instant enemies: all you can fight.

To the right, making enemies is a problem only if you’re a wimpy liberal. To most Americans, it just comes with the territory when you’re in the right. To our corporate-friendly administration, it justifies billions for defense.

In fact, our overwrought foreign policy almost seems like a make-work scheme for defense industries. If indeed it is a New Deal for defense, then the Department of Homeland Security is the largest WPA project ever.

Presumably, the term “homeland” was chosen to make us feel safe. But to those with even a glancing knowledge of the past, it’s a sick joke. Its uses the terminology of our two most formidable foes from last century: the Nazis, who called Germany the fatherland, and Russia — the motherland.

Besides, a homeland is a region from whose loins sprung the ethnic group inhabiting it. The US, a melting pot, is the exact opposite. “Is that guy an Arab?” we wonder as we pass someone on the street. “Or a Hispanic?”

Even sicker is how little bang for the buck we’re getting from the Department of Homeland Security for $30 billion this year. In his recent Mother Jones series on the DHS, veteran journalist James Ridgeway writes that “safeguards against domestic terrorist attacks. . . despite a few marginal improvements, remain terrifyingly lax.”

Even the Government Accountability Office recently criticized it for failing to improve its ability to respond to emergencies. To add insult to injury, each year it routinely flunks its audits. But that’s probably of no concern to the administation, which was never on board with the creation of the DHS and, most likely, would be just as happy to see it implode.

Meanwhile, Ridgeway explains, for those Congess members, whether Democratic or Republican, who are inclined to lend the DHS a helping hand, “expanding federal regulation, increasing federal spending, hiring unionized federal workers, and facing down industries with powerful lobbies” is “politically risky” in today’s climate.

Besides its aversion to federal agencies (except the Defense Department), neither is the administration’s heart in defending our soil. It, of course, subscribes to the get-’em-over-thar theory (if it’s geopolitically convenient, that is — vide bin Laden).

A Defense Department program that embodies Bush & Co.’s policy of thwarting threats before they reach the US was already entrenched before they were elected: It’s called the national missile defense system (it doesn’t deserve initial caps). But as the administration does with bin Laden, the program ducks the obvious threats.

As a recent Rolling Stone article explained: “Even the Missile Defense Agency concedes that the [missile defense shield] — originally envisioned as a defense against a rival superpower — is no longer of any use against China or Russia.”

Let’s see if we’ve got this right. Russian and Chinese nuclear weapons would overpower the shield. Meanwhile, Iran is years away from developing nukes and North Korea negotiates them away. Against whose nukes then are we spending billions to defend ourselves?

“Would you believe,” as America’s most beloved intelligence agent, Maxwell Smart, used to say, “Venezuela?”

Meanwhile, the more prosaic threats remain legion. They include the obvious: flying planes into buildings (9/11) and blowing up trains (Madrid) and buses (as in London). Equally vulnerable are ports, especially, as Ridgeway details, liquified natural gas tankers.

These come under the heading of what John Robb of Global Guerillas fame calls “systems disruption.” Also included are attacks on bridges, tunnels, water supplies, pipelines and refineries. Equally as devastating is a cyber attack on an electrical grid.

Meanwhile, the hard right stokes fear of terrorists storming across the borders as an excuse to bash immigrants. But that doesn’t mean the danger doesn’t exist. If only a thousandth of each year’s three-quarter million illegal immigrants were Islamic terrorists, that still adds up to a battalion of 750. Many believe that sleeper agents, along with nuclear materials such as suitcase bombs, have already infiltrated the US.

The FBI and, especially, local police forces deserve some credit for the six-year sabbatical terrorists have taken from attacking us on our soil. More likely though, thanks to al-Qaeda’s reputation for making a virtue of patience, we’re in the eye of the storm.

An example of how it may be toying with us was described by Ron Suskind in his book The One Percent Doctrine. In 2003, plans to release hydrogen cyanide gas (a staple of Nazi gas chambers) in New York City’s subways was called off by Ayman al-Zawahiri. Apparently the prospect of a body count that might not exceed 9/11’s failed to light his fire.

In other words, the A-man and the Big O dream of a terror extravaganza like a multi-city nuclear attack. Acquiring nuclear know-how and materials requires serious money, though, to which al-Qaeda central may no longer have access.

Bin Laden, for instance, squandered much of his fortune on building projects in Sudan. (Once the heat came down from the US, though, it was: Thanks for the modernization program, Sheikh. Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.)

Author Paul Williams (Osama’s Revenge, The Al Qaeda Connection) maintains al-Qaeda has generated significant cash through drug and blood diamond transactions. However, in 2005, Zawahiri wrote a famous letter to Abu Musab Zarqawi urging him to cool it with the beheadings (bad P.R., you know).

Also, claiming they were short on funds, he hit him up for a donation to the home office. Then, last month, President Bush’s homeland security adviser, Frances Townsend, called bin Laden “virtually impotent.” (One can’t help wonder how she knows.)

Whatever al-Qaeda central’s financial standing, there’s actually no need to raise a king’s ransom to spend on nuclear weapons. After all, attacking the infrastructure is as cheap as it is cost-effective.

In his recent book, Brave New War, Robb wrote that 9/11 was a “$250,000 attack. . . converted into an event that cost the United States over $80 billion.” One of bin Laden’s goals, he reminds us, remains “bleeding America to the point of bankruptcy.”

To expedite that, al-Qaeda has gone viral. As has been well-documented, it grants copyright-free use of its brand to knock-off terrorists like the late Zarqawi.

Along with groups advancing other causes, an “almost endless supply of attackers,” writes Robb, “could generate hundreds of millions, potentially billions, in damage.” In tacit agreement with bin Laden, he maintains that the “cumulative effect of these attacks could grind down even the strongest nation-state.”

The administration looks at threats through a telescope, thus magnifying al-Qaeda to the status of a state. Actual nations like Iraq and Iran, meanwhile, are inflated into near superpowers. But al-Qaeda is just a glorified crime syndicate.

Like all such organizations, as countless security experts have testified, it’s more susceptible to good old-fashioned crime busting than the heavy hand of the military. Ideally, local police forces, in collaboration with federal and international crime and intelligence agencies, should lead the way.

Along with urging the FBI to bring local officials into the loop, think-tanker Daniel Byman, writing on Slate, offers other suggestions for shoring up security stateside. Among them, the federal government needs to work harder to win the unequivocal support of American Muslims. (How that can be accomplished while the US continues to foment disruption in many of their homelands he doesn’t say.)

Byman also urges us to improve “perception management.” For example, in order to minimize societal impact, Israel cleans up immediately after a terrorist attack. Yet, from the executive branch to the DHS, the American government elevated our one substantial attack (9/11) to near-Holocaust status.

Robb too would like to see us adopt a “philosophy of resilience” to help us survive terrorist attacks. Because “strikes of the future will be strategic, pinpointing the systems we rely on,” he continues, “they will leave entire sections of the country without energy and communications for protracted periods.”

In other words, when it comes to security, not to mention other services, communities will be left to their own devices. Suburbs will become armed and patrolled by civilian police auxiliaries; the rich by the likes of Blackwater.

Still, he maintains, we don’t need an “activist foreign policy that seeks to rework the world in our image, police state measures to ensure state security, or spending all of our resources on protecting everything.” (Bear in mind that he’s no liberal.)

Rejecting an “activist foreign policy” obviously implies embracing diplomacy. But success isn’t guaranteed the next administration just because it’s more committed than Bush’s to relying on its statesmen (notice how that word has all but vanished from common usage). Is there any way to ensure a cure for the impotence of soft power without turning it hard?

By way of a preface, read what Arthur Silber, one of the Web’s top bloggers, has to say about Congressional Democrats (edited for conciseness). They “fail to mount serious opposition to our inevitable course toward widening war and an attack on Iran, not because they are afraid of being portrayed as ‘weak’ in the fight against terrorism. They don’t object because — they don’t object.

“That is: they agree that we have the ‘right’ to pursue a policy of aggressive interventionism supported by an empire of military bases.”

In other words, for all of Bush & Co.’s rapaciousness, not just congressional Democrats but, deep-down, most of us concur that, if we’re running out of oil, it’s our right, simply by dint of our might, to take what we need.

If it weren’t for all those pesky jihadis, mujahideen, global guerillas, terrorists — call them what you will — conspiring to topple us with everything from the slings of systems disruption to the arrows of nuclear missiles.

Attempting to secure our shores from them is like trying to defend the indefensible — literally. And metaphorically, as well, when we cling to the myth that we’re manifestly destined to determine the fates of other nations. Our military might, 700 bases around the world and nuclear capability have outlived whatever their usefulness they had.

The US has become like Russia — our once, and (the way things are going) — future enemy. We’re a lumbering mastodon, which the cave people of the world lure into traps, like Iraq, where we thrash around and lash out blindly. It could all have turned out differently if we hadn’t been stomping around their territory ravishing their resources.

In short, the US needs to take the “super” out of “superpower.” We might be surprised to find that a country could get used to life without the pressure of being number one.

Poor is the nation that has no heroes, but beggard that Nation that has and forgets them.

– Anonymous

In America, “support the troops” has been elevated to the status of an eleventh commandment. Whether for or against the Iraq War, we’d never forget our military heroes. Or would we?

Quick –- name the two Congressional Medals of Honor it’s produced. If you picked Pat Tillman, you’re mistaken (though it would have surprised no one if, had he lived, he’d won one). Try Army Sergeant First Class Paul R. Smith and Marine Corporal Jason Dunham, both honored posthumously.

According to his presidential citation, Sergeant Smith, “moved under withering enemy fire to man a .50 caliber machine gun mounted on a damaged armored personnel carrier. In total disregard for his own life, he maintained his exposed position in order to engage the attacking enemy force” before he was mortally wounded.

Corporal Dunham was attacked at a road check by an insurgent who leaped out of a car and unleashed a grenade. He “covered the grenade with his helmet and body, bearing the brunt of the explosion and shielding his Marines from the blast.”

The point is not to shame Americans for their lack of both knowledge and acknowledgment of those who made the supreme sacrifice, whether for God, country or just their unit. In fact, broadly speaking, it’s been since World War II that medal winners haven’t been treated with the acclaim due them. The 50-year trend seems to have reached its apex, however, with Iraq.

Neglecting decorated members of the military who served in Iraq might strike a progressive or pacifist as a sign of opposition to our presence there. But lest we become “beggard,” it might be worth our while to root out the deeper reasons that military heroism fails to register on our radar.

After World War II, America’s most decorated veteran, First Lieutenant Audie Murphy, was treated to a hero’s reception almost everywhere he went. It was tough to be a boy in the fifties and remain immune to Audie awe, a condition which didn’t necessarily fade when we grew up. Such was Murphy’s fame that it enabled him to serve as the star of a string of B-movie westerns even though he had little to recommend him as an actor other than his unnerving man-hunter gaze.

In his book, No Name on the Bullet: A Biography of Audie Murphy, Don Graham described the incident for which Murphy was awarded the Medal of Honor. Here are some excerpts: “hundreds of Germans swarming from the woods. They all had automatic weapons. … all alone out there. … he climbed onto the tank destroyer turret and began firing its .50-caliber machine gun … completely exposed to the enemy fire and there was a blaze under him. …

“Twice the tank destroyer was hit by direct shell fire and Lieutenant Murphy was engulfed in clouds of smoke and spurts of flame. … He swung the machine gun to where 12 Germans were sneaking up. … [and] killed all of them at 50 yards.”

Murphy’s Medal of Honor citation attributed 50 Germans killed or wounded to his actions that day. In less than three years in the European theatre, thanks in part to the hunting skills that became second nature to him during his dirt-poor childhood in Texas, he was credited with killing a total of 240 Germans.

Another Medal of Honor winner who accumulated a high body count was oft-injured Lieutenant Colonel Matt Urban. His exploits didn’t go unnoticed by the Germans, who called him “der Geist” (the ghost) because it seemed like he kept coming back from the dead. Meanwhile, the war’s top fighter “ace,” Major Richard Bong, shot down 40 Japanese aircraft.

It’s hard to believe there was a time when our pantheon of personalities wasn’t too rarefied to accommodate decorated members of the military along with its usual deities from the worlds of entertainment, society and sports. In fact, during World War II, service in the war was a prerequisite to prevent an athlete from becoming a pariah and for a movie star to retain his fan base.

For instance, pitcher Warren Spahn won a Purple Heart and a Bronze Star. Among Hollywood’s most decorated representatives were character actors Neville Brand, who won a Silver Star and Purple Heart, and Charles Durning, the recipient of a Silver Star and three Purple Hearts.

Come Korea and the status of decorated soldiers began to wane. Hitting great Ted Williams was justifiably lauded for flying 37 combat missions, but who remembers any of that conflict’s 132 Congressional Medals of Honor?

With the advent of the Vietnam War, the public paid less attention to decorated soldiers (by which we also mean members of the Navy and Air Force) than ever. It’s hard to imagine that the exploits of those like First Lieutenant Stephen Karopczyc failed to make an impression. According to his citation, he “dashed through the intense enemy fire into the open … exposed himself as he ran from man to man to give encouragement and to direct their efforts.

“A shot from an enemy sniper struck him above the heart but he refused aid … plugging the bleeding wound with his finger … he leaped up to cover the deadly grenade with a steel helmet … weakened by his multiple wounds, he continued to direct the actions of his men until he succumbed 2 hours later.” There were 245 other such stories.

The obvious reason for our distinct lack of enthusiasm for decorated soldiers after World War II is the absence of both clear-cut goals for a war and of victory shorn of ambiguity. First evident in the “Forgotten War” (Korea), the pattern was carved in stone with Vietnam.

Furthermore, we weren’t fully convinced that those we fought were actually our enemies. At least with the Koreans, who resembled the oft-merciless Japanese, lingering racial hatred from World War II could be summoned.

But the Vietnamese were like third-generation Japanese. While still Oriental, most were too slight of build to invoke fear in the hearts of our corn-fed continent. To put a kind face on it, we may have been suffering from a hint of shame over bullying a smaller enemy.

In the same vein, our reluctance to honor decorated veterans is further complicated by a vague uneasiness about civilians killed along with insurgents. We may have condoned or even cheered it on in a “total war” like World War II. But, perhaps because we soon determined they weren’t direct threats to us, going all Rambo on the Vietnamese and Iraqis didn’t seem called for.

The public may not be motivated to lobby en masse for an end to Iraq. If only out of a subliminal guilt over civilian deaths, though, neither do we wish to honor it. Awards aside, we sometimes wonder how any of our enlisted men and women justify fighting such a war to themselves.

By nature, many service persons are not inclined to the kind of interior life that addressing a question like this requires. But Shannon E. French, a philosophy professor at the US Naval Academy, has thought it through for them. In a 2003 article in The Chronicle Review, she wrote, “Individuals can fight for an objectively bad cause or a corrupt regime and still be warriors, as long as they have a warrior’s code that requires them to observe the rules of war.”

Speaking of playing by the rules, it would be much simpler if those Iraqi militants who actually are Al Qaeda would brandish banners or even arm bands announcing their affiliation. Then Americans could keep a body count scrubbed clean of uncertainty over whether those killed weren’t civilians or just Iraqi nationalists. In the interim, we remain uncomfortable honoring our troops.

For additional insight, we approached Paul Woodward, proprietor of WarinContext.org and editor of ConflictForums.org, which assembles the most astute articles on war in the Middle East. He’s also the managing editor of another widely read site, ConflictsForum.org, which aims, in part, to engage proponents of political Islam. Woodward expanded on the theory that muddled goals and the unlikelihood of unadulterated victory fuel public apathy about war heroes.

“Ever since World War II, the United States has fought wars of choice,” he wrote back. “Military action has become an instrument of foreign policy rather than an unavoidable means of national defense.

“Individual acts of military heroism that symbolically represent the defense of the whole nation have gradually lost that symbolic power. War has come to reflect the goals of America’s political leadership rather than the conviction of a national consensus. There is a split between the nation’s civic life and its military endeavors. [Emphasis added.]

“We talk about soldiers dying for their country but instinctively understand that they are really dying for their government. While some Americans still retain unwavering faith in the righteousness of their political leaders, many others increasingly understand that valor is now tarnished by the uncertainty that hangs over what we are fighting for.”

Ironically, whether or not they’re honored by the public may not be as critical for members of the military as for the nation as a whole. It’s often just as well to enlisted men and women to see the bitterness of their us-against-the world, unit-centric worldview confirmed. Also, elite troops, like a member of the Special Forces I know, are likely to hold the public in contempt for its naivete about how dangerous the world is.

Still, with our appetite for television, movie and video game violence, you’d think we’d feast on the feats of decorated veterans. After all, they often border on the fantastic. In fact, while filming his own story, To Hell and Back, Audie Murphy expressed concern the audience wouldn’t buy the scene depicting the firefight for which he won the Medal of Honor unless it were watered down.

Maybe, though, decorated veterans’ stories fail to engage us because they don’t pack that present-day prerequisite for TV viewers’ and film-goers’ pleasure — “24″-style torture porn or slasher-type “gorenography.”

Another reason the public takes a flyer on them might be that it finds the stories too corny. Commandeer an abandoned machine gun and mow down the enemy? Throw yourself on a live grenade? “Done to death,” we think, rolling our eyes.

Also, a Vietnam vet I know, perhaps reflecting the prevailing sentiment of the time, conjectures that the public sees war heroes, like all members of the military, as “suckers” for enlisting or, during Vietnam, failing to find a way out of the draft.

In a nation as divided as ours, a consensual hero of any kind — from Audie Murphy to Martin Luther King — may no longer be possible. But, Don Sterner, the proprietor of HomeofHeroes.com (both a clearinghouse for and data base of medal winners), refuses to accept that.

“First, no matter who YOU are,” he writes, “there is bound to be a Medal of Honor recipient YOU can identify with. You can find your heroes on the sports field, but deep in your heart you know you can never be like them. … Medal of Honor recipients are ordinary people. . . [who] come in all shapes, sizes, ages…”

The deeds of medal winners, as well as their commemoration, seem to run in a universe parallel to ours. Sterner, who has dedicated his life to their merger, and his wife, Pam, authored the Stolen Valor Act, subsequently passed by Congress. It expedites prosecution of those who impersonate decorated soldiers on occasions like Memorial Day with medals they’ve collected.

You can be forgiven for thinking: “Sounds like flag burning. Does anybody actually do that?” But imposters are surprisingly prevalent, which would seem to indicate that decorated veterans are, in fact, heaped with laurels. More likely, it’s just a reflection of the imposters’ complexes.

Now Sterner is working with Senator James Webb (D-Va.) to secure passage of the Preservation of Valor Act. This bill would mandate that records, currently scattered, of decorations from all wars be aggregated into one digital database. Who better to tell us why decorated veterans slip under the public’s radar?

“My answer might surprise you,” Sterner replied. Turns out, in light of how traditionally patriotic this Vietnam vet is, it did. He continued. “Everybody wants to think the media ignores war heroes for celebrities. But it’s the military itself that doesn’t take the steps needed to focus our attention on them. Since Vietnam, it doesn’t publish or publicize their deeds like it did during World War II and Korea.

“Worse, when you approach it for information, it’s like pulling teeth. It uses the pretext of national security to stonewall you. That’s hogwash. You can’t obtain a copy of a citation even if it’s to help the military by creating a national database? How can we expect the public to celebrate our heroes when the military doesn’t even honor its own?”

Finally, we solicited the opinion of John Robb. He’s best known for his “open-source warfare” concept, on which he discourses at his influential Website, Global Guerillas, and in his new book, Brave New War (Wiley, 2007), the sleeper of the season. He cited two reasons for the public’s apathy.

“One is that war is now marginal to the existence of most Americans. We don’t sacrifice, it’s voluntary and it’s remote. Wars appear optional.” Then, in unwitting agreement with Woodward, he wrote, “This is in line with the idea that soldiers fight for the government and not us.”

“Second, recognizing heroics makes people uncomfortable given the lack of attention, effort or sacrifice they have put towards our wars. They would rather not see that deficit in themselves.” [Emphasis added].

“And finally, we live a post-heroic age. Anyone that ascends to that post is immediately put into context (usually aggressively).”

Today, “post-heroic” is a business term that attempts to consign to history the age of star CEOs, fund managers and financiers. Collaboration and corporate politics are supposedly the operative words these days. (To the cynical, the term might sound like a smokescreen behind which anonymous hedge fund managers amass fortunes even larger than the “heroes.”)

It’s hard to fault elevating the team above the individual, whether or not one thinks that’s borrowing a page from Communism. But, at the most practical level, has anyone heard of the Army in recent years using the name of a military hero like Audie Murphy as a recruiting tool? Whether it assumes kids can’t relate to the past or the Army’s legal department prohibits it from dealing in body counts, the lack of role models can only make a recruiter’s difficult job harder.

To once again give the public the benefit of the doubt, there may be another reason lodged deep within our psyches that keeps us from showering decorated soldiers with honors commensurate with their deeds. Could it be that defending our country and rallying the public are not their primary functions? What if their courage under fire is only a trial-run for another role?

In his biography of Murphy, Don Graham writes: “He symbolized the American GI who had endured combat and returned home unscathed by it all. The country needed to believe that our boys could be sent into violent encounters with death, dispatched from the safe haven of American homes. . . into the bloody, war-ravaged, ancient cesspools of human iniquity in Europe, be trained and praised for the act of killing, and return unaffected by it all, remaining psychologically innocent.”

Towards that end, Shannon French advocates transitional techniques to head Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder off at the pass. In an article entitled, “Warrior Transitions: From Combat to Social Contract,” she writes that transitional practices, whether sacred or psychological, “that involve some kind of confession or purification. . . allow warriors to release any guilt or shame with which they may be burdened.”

Obviously we don’t want veterans, decorated or not, bringing the war home with them, pulling the guns from under their pillows during drunken flashbacks and terrorizing their families. Recent wars have transformed many of them into living, breathing improvised explosive devices timed to go off in our midsts. Besides the families, as Graham pounds home in passage after passage, the nation as a whole harbors a deep-seated need for vets to return with their psyches intact.

PTSD often results from guilt over killing non-combatants. Imagine you’re fighting for your country after it’s been invaded, the most justifiable of all possible causes for war. In one of those inevitable rage- or fear-filled moments, you kill a civilian.

You may never forgive yourself. However, the degree of guilt you experience is less likely to reach the self-destructive level than if you killed a civilian during a war in which you’re not defending your country, but, instead, another country is defending itself from an attack by you.

If only soldiers — foremost among them, decorated veterans — would return PTSD-free. Failing that, they could at least have the courtesy to stifle those unsightly mood swings and the pride to bypass a touchy-feely transition process. Maybe then we’d honor our military heroes with six-figure publishing contracts and appearances on top talk shows.

Furthermore, we’d have fewer reservations about allowing a future administration like the current one to fright-wig us into committing soldiers to revivals of the Vietnam and Iraq Wars. Many of us are only too glad to delude ourselves into thinking that every war our government wages is a just war and that war crimes are as rare as murders in small towns.

But there’s no putting the genie we uncorked during Vietnam back in the bottle. The state of mind of our veterans, decorated or not, is a barometer for the justness of a war. The extent to which we ignore them is, to some degree, a sign of how guilty we are that we haven’t done more to prevent or end a war we started of our volition.

But, contrary to the administration’s claims, no hard evidence exists that Iran ships arms to Iraq. Nor does the International Atomic Energy Agency believe it’s capable of developing nuclear weapons in the foreseeable future. While only a fool would put such behavior past Iran, as pretexts for war they’re at lest as threadbare as those the administration used on Iraq.

After all, why attack Iran now when we didn’t in response to more obvious offenses, such as the hostage crisis, the Marine Barracks bombing or Hezbollah’s campaign against Israel in Lebanon?

Recently noted analyst Gareth Porter cited a paper called “Rebuilding America’s Defenses.” Written in 2000, it served as the Neocons’ blueprint for the Bush administration’s military policy.

They actually admitted that Iran was “more the status quo power” –- in other words, no real threat. Then why obsess about Iran? It seems, Porter quotes the paper, that it wasn’t the nukes so much as the “constraining effect” a nuclear Iran would have on the administration’s plans for regional transformation.

They expect to achieve said transformation by means of another Neocon catch phrase. “Regime change” though, as Peter Galbraith writes, is “identified with the most discredited part of the Iranian opposition and unwanted by the reformers who have the most appeal to Iranians.” Of course, neither can anyone come up with an example of bombing driving out a country’s rulers.

In fact, it would require sending in troops on the ground to usher Mahmoud and the ruling mullahs out. Shades of Operation Eagle Claw (the star-crossed attempt to rescue the American hostages in 1980).

Why did Iran impose the Great Embassy Embarrassment on us anyway? What triggered it, if you’ll recall, was our decision to admit the deposed Shah into the US for cancer treatment. But the US and Iran have a longer history.

You remember history. It’s that stuff that those who don’t remember it should and those who remember it too much shouldn’t.

The US and Iran’s mutual history –- all history, in fact –- can be broken down to two basic grievances that even a child can understand. In other words: He hit me first and it’s not fair.

In 1952, the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (now BP) controlled oil in Iran. At 85% British and 15% Iranian ownership, it sounds like a model for the arrangement the US seeks with Iraq. Worse, the British sought to further leverage their advantage by withholding their financial records from the Iranian government.

In response, Iran’s democratically elected Prime Minister, Mohammed Mossadeq, nationalized the company — just Iran’s 15%, though. That didn’t stop the United States, which stood to benefit from Britain’s hand in the Iranian till, from organizing protests to overthrow Mossadeq.

Once reinstated, our designated despot, the Shah, made his country safe for the West again. Today the administration expects Iranians to accept on faith that democracy will break out in the wake of regime change. But we forget that the rest of the world doesn’t have as short a memory as us. It was only 50 years that we nipped Iran’s democracy in the bud.

In other words, it’s obvious who hit who first.

Unjust as that was, another element of Iran-U.S. relations is even more likely to elicit that plaintive cry no parent is spared: “It’s not fair.” In the words of Iran’s President Ahmadinejad, “Justice demands that those who want to hold talks with us shut down their nuclear fuel cycle program too. Then, we can hold dialogue under a fair atmosphere.” [Emphasis added.]

The injustice in question breaks down to four grievances. First and most obvious: We seek to deny Iran the right to develop nuclear weapons while in possession of same. (Of course, since it insists it’s not developing them, Iran can’t press the point.)

Second: We also seek to to deny Iran the right to develop nuclear energy. Yet that right is guaranteed by the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty, which both the US and Iran have signed.

Third: We looked the other way as Israel developed nuclear weapons and we’ve drawn up a plan to provide nuclear energy and technology to India. Unlike Iran, neither are signatories to the NPT. Can you say WTF in Farsi?

Fourth: Not only does the administration fail to draw down our nuclear weapons in blatant noncompliance with the NPT, as well as oppose the Nuclear Test Ban and Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaties, it’s developing new weapons. Americans may console themselves with the thought that nuclear weapons are less dangerous in our hands than in those of other countries supposedly less irrational. But Iranians look on, jaws agape, at how oblivious we are to our hypocrisy.

Like other international treaties, the NPT, thanks to the Bush administration, is on life support. Tearing down the “Do not resusciate” sign is a job for the next administration.

Who better to right these wrongs and restore justice? In other words who will not only save Iran from us, but spare us retaliatory attacks on our troops in Iraq and on our own soil, not to mention the havoc it could wreak on the economy? Every child looks up to heroes — or today’s hi-def version, the superhero.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is in the midst of a four-year makeover from hawk to diplomat. Scarcely the stuff of which legends are made, she’s notorious for capitulating when the going gets rough. To pin one’s hopes for avoiding war with Iran on her is to grasp at straws.

Meanwhile, as Porter wrote in another column, CENTCOM chief Admiral William Fallon may have “privately vowed that there would be no war against Iran on his watch.” But he recently met with Arab leaders to convince them to unite against Iran. In other words, “Don’t look at me when it comes to stopping war with Iran in its tracks.”

Is there no public figure speaking out against an attack on Iran? The lack of anything more than an occasional peep from Congress leaves one with a sinking sensation. Where’s the hero who will not only save Iran from us, but ourselves from us?

Such a person, however unlikely looking and despite his advocacy of nuclear energy, exists: Mohamed ElBaradei, the Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency. He may be a Nobel laureate, but he’s not one to sit on his laurels. A recent New York Times profile termed him “everyone’s best hope.”

But the Washington Post referred to him in a recent editorial as the “Rogue Regulator.” Guess it thinks he takes the “peace” in Nobel Peace Prize too literally. In fact, he’s about all that stands between the administration and its plans to attack Iran.

Here’s a collection of his preemptive strikes against preemptive war:

“I would hope that everybody would have gotten the lesson after the Iraq situation, where 700,000 innocent civilians have lost their lives on the suspicion that a country has nuclear weapons.”

“So, [Iran has] the knowledge [to build a nuclear weapon]. Sure, they have the knowledge. Are you going to bomb the knowledge?”

“Careful! If we turn up the heat too high the pot could explode around our ears.”

And, for those who were wondering why, every chance it gets, the administration smears ElBaradei. . .

“I have no brief other than to make sure we don’t go into another war or that we go crazy into killing each other. You do not want to give additional argument to new crazies who say ‘let’s go and bomb Iran.’”

“If practically all nuclear powers are modernizing instead of reducing their arsenals, how can we argue with the non-nuclear states? I deplore this two-faced approach.”

Finally the coup de grace:

“It’s hard to tell people not to smoke when you have a cigarette dangling from your mouth.”

International affairs really aren’t much different from the schoolyard. It’s all about who hit who first, what’s fair and who will stand up to the bully.

In the corporate world, some things aren’t exactly black and white when it comes to accounting procedures.

– George W. Bush

The reluctance of Congressional Democratic leaders to initiate impeachment proceedings against President Bush may be frustrating. But there’s an upside. For anyone seeking to file charges against Bush in lieu of impeachment, it relieves the urgency and buys time to make their case that much more airtight. Henry Waxman’s House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform alone is conducting 20 investigations.

We’re also afforded the opportunity to arrange his crimes in chronological order, starting with the first. Remember Harken Energy Corporation and the charge that Bush used insider knowledge to make almost $850,000 selling his stock in the company?

Harken, on whose board Bush sat, was a Texas oil company engaging in oil and gas exploration, development and production. It’s still in existence, but on June 6 it changed its name to HKN, Inc. It actually showed a profit at the end of the first quarter this year, as opposed to last. Yet it still felt compelled to announce a reverse stock split, which is considered either a gimmick to make a stock look more attractive to investors or a red flag that it’s about to take a dive.

To refresh your memory, Harken’s difficulties were more pronounced in 1990, when it was hoping for one last strike in Texas before the state was tapped out. As soon as Bush joined the board, another company came to its aid — Harvard Management (”Harvard”). Why Harvard?

Not only had Bush obtained his MBA from Harvard, but a former Harken chairman of the board was also a Harvard alumnus, while two Harvard Management Company officers owned substantial amounts of Harken stock. Besides, as a not-for-profit organization, Harvard had no shareholders to whom the principals need answer for questionable transactions.

As if that weren’t enough, in November 1990, Harken formed an off-the-books partnership with Harvard in order to move debt and poorly performing assets off its books and onto those of Harvard. This helped disguise how much of a risk investing in Harken had become.

But it got a shot in the arm when, perhaps out of allegiance to Bush’s Arab-friendly father and then president, the country of Bahrain awarded Harken an exclusive contract to explore a new oil field in the Persian Gulf despite its lack of international experience. The billionaire Bass brothers of Texas also chipped in, to subsidize the drilling.

As expected, Harken’s stock, of which Bush Jr. owned a sizeable share, took off. Yet, in June 1990, though the ceiling seemed to be nowhere in sight, he decided to unload 212,010 shares ostensibly to buy a new house, though he used it instead to pay off a loan he’d taken out when buying a stake in the Texas Rangers baseball team.

Harken attorneys warned Bush that he was liable to be scrutinized for possession of “material non-public information.” As a board member, he was not only privy to Harken’s problems, he himself put forth the motion for the off-the-books partnership with Harvard. With characteristic defiance, Bush went ahead with the deal anyway. His insistence that the buyer remain anonymous didn’t help allay suspicions.

Though unexplored by the SEC, there was another dimension to the insider trading charge — the imminence of the Gulf War. Had the White House leaked news of its planned attack to Bush? Perhaps more to the point, could the White House not have let him in on it? Sure enough, when Iraq actually invaded Kuwait, Harken’s shares, in part because of concern about the difficulties of drilling for oil during wartime, decreased 25%.

In any event, the Securities and Exchange Commission’s investigation came to a premature end. Though no evidence of impropriety was found, it should be borne in mind that the SEC chairman at the time was a friend of the Bush family who had been nominated by Bush Sr. Still, the SEC said that closing the case “must in no way be construed” as an indication that “the party has been exonerated or that no action may ultimately result.”

In retrospect, the SEC’s statement resembles a cry for help from its rank and file. Will someone out there whose hands aren’t tied please re-open the case? Ironically, it’s in Harvard’s SEC filing of its Harken transactions where evidence of Bush’s wrongdoing can be found hiding in plain sight.

All that’s known of the purchaser of Bush’s stock is that it was institutional. Was it Harvard again? There’s no mention in Harvard’s SEC filing that it took Bush’s Harken stock off his hands. And what if it did?

Since Harvard was already enmeshed with Bush and Harken, it would be difficult for it to claim it was unaware of Bush’s rush to dump his stock before Harken’s inevitable reversal of fortune. Harvard might then have been required to reveal that knowledge, thus not only hanging Bush out to dry, but also implicating itself in insider trading.

Organizations like Harvard Watch and Charles Lewis’s Center for Public Integrity had already established that Harvard had become a dumping ground for Harken’s stiff of a stock. But it took Massachusetts CPA Steve Rose, who once prepared charitable organization returns for one of Harvard’s venture capital arms, Aeneas, to show that Harvard most likely bought Bush’s shares as well.

Rose had discontinued working for Harvard because he was uncomfortable with its questionable business practices. When its Harken investments came to light, he decided to do what accountants call a reconciliation. Approaching it as a puzzle to be solved — kind of like an advanced form of su doku — he zeroed in on the SEC’s website.

Corruption in Action

An SEC filing is a land where investigators and journalists fear to tread. Its sheer bulk and eye-glazing itemizing flag it as a text best steered clear of. But we’re fortunate to have Rose scouting out this desolate terrain for us. He’ll show us the guideposts indicating exactly how Harvard appears to have taken George Bush’s Harken stock off his hands.

Now let’s step into the badlands of Harvard’s Aeneas Venture Corporation SEC Form 13D/A.

In March 1990, as part of its selfless campaign to offload Harken stock, Aeneas bought 868,450 shares. Then it transferred all those shares to another one of Harvard’s affiliates, Phemus Corporation. Yet, despite divesting itself of those shares, Aeneas bought more — exactly 50,000.

Stranger still, the sale of those 50,000 shares went unreported in the filing. Then how do we know it occurred? Because Rose did the math.

Why buy 868,450 shares and shuffle them along, only to buy 50,000 more shares from the same company? One can’t help but wonder if the two sellers were different actors in the same company. Transferring the institutional-sized purchase might have been a sleight of hand by the buyer, Harvard, intended to obscure the personal-sized purchase. Especially if the 50,000 were bought from Bush and bore the stink of insider trading.

But Harvard was just getting warmed up for the shell game to follow.

Next, Rose bushwhacks his way through amendment five of the filing, in which he finds Aeneas increasing its Harken shares by 228,250. Again, there’s no mention of the purchase. The numbers just kind of appear on the table. Bear in mind that when it wants to, Harvard is capable of itemizing that’s as conscientious as it is scrupulous. (For an example, see Phemus’s transactions on pages 87 and 88 of amendment five.)

But one can only gaze in awe at the audacity Harvard displays in slipping 228,250 shares — unannounced — into a SEC filing. Implicit in such an act are two assumptions, both dripping with arrogance: that the press finds SEC filings daunting and that the SEC doesn’t bother to check the filings.

Other transactions also slipped in through the back door. In amendment five, the President and Fellows of Harvard College (the college itself) failed to mention its disposal of an armload of Harken shares, while another of Harvard Management’s entities, Harvard Yenching Institute, added a handful.

Meanwhile, Michael Eisenson, who also owned shares under the umbrella of Harvard Management, must have thought the double life he led as a director for both Harvard and Harken wasn’t enough of a red flag. He too left transactions unexplained, as did Donald Beane.

Now for the scene of the ambush. When Rose totals the unreported shares Aeneas bought between amendments four and five, he arrives at the number 212,750. Recall that Bush sold 212,140 shares during the same period. Only 610 shares separate what Aeneas bought and Bush sold! Your tolerance for coincidence has to be awfully high to ignore the obvious — that Harvard bought Bush’s shares.

As Rose is fond of repeating, “The devil is in the details.”

Harvard Management’s former CEO, Jack Meyer, wasn’t concerned. He told The Boston Globe that, “Our [Harken] position increased 1.4 million shares in 1990.” All, he maintained, were acquired by Harvard Management from Harken. “We didn’t buy any of these shares from any shareholders.” (Such as Bush.)

There’s much more in these and subsequent filings that make Harvard Management look like it’s trying to hide its unlawful acts behind Harvard University’s ivied facade. But at a time when his former supporters are distancing themselves from Bush, there’s nothing to stop Harvard too from hopping on the hawser and abandoning his sinking ship like yet another rat.

Since there’s no expiration date for amending its amendments, Harvard can still come clean. With its endowment rising 16.7 percent in the last fiscal year to an eye-popping $29.2 billion, a settlement with the SEC would be painless.

As for Bush, indictment might give this president an actual legacy. Thanks to him, future presidential hopefuls will be forced to open his or her closet and watch as any financial skeletons hidden inside come clattering out.