Thursday, August 31, 2006
The President and His Attack Dogs
On the offensive in a last ditch effort to prevent a debacle in November or are they circling the wagons to save themselves ? One thing is clear. They are desperate. A day after Donald Rumsfeld spoke before the American Foreign Legion about critics of Iraq war as "extremists waging 'a new type of fascism'", President Bush begins the first of a series of talks over the next 20 days. The American public heard this before and were not convinced. Nothing has changed. Can they be persuaded to fall in line? "
President Bush and his surrogates are launching a new campaign intended to rebuild support for the war in Iraq by accusing the opposition of aiming to appease terrorists and cut off funding for troops on the battlefield, charges that many Democrats say distort their stated positions."
With an appearance before the American Legion in Salt Lake City today, Bush will begin a series of speeches over 20 days centered on the fifth anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. But he and his top lieutenants have foreshadowed in recent days the thrust of the effort to put Democrats on the defensive with rhetoric that has further inflamed an already emotional debate.
Bush suggested last week that Democrats are promising voters to block additional money for continuing the war. Vice President Cheney this week said critics "claim retreat from Iraq would satisfy the appetite of the terrorists and get them to leave us alone." And Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, citing passivity toward Nazi Germany before World War II, said that "many have still not learned history's lessons" and "believe that somehow vicious extremists can be appeased."
Pressed to support these allegations, the White House yesterday could cite no major Democrat who has proposed cutting off funds or suggested that withdrawing from Iraq would persuade terrorists to leave Americans alone. But White House and Republican officials said those are logical interpretations of the most common Democratic position favoring a timetable for withdrawing troops from Iraq.
Wednesday, August 30, 2006
A Year After Katrina: The Poor Gets Poorer
The President went and did his thing. Photo opportunities galore. Platitudes aplenty. As details emerge of what has actually been accomplished for reconstruction of New Orleans the consensus is clear -- very little. FEMA is not a scapegoat. Its ineptitude to cope and mismanagement of funds are glaring. "Bush again accepted responsibility for the botched federal response to Katrina. "The hurricane . . . brought terrible scenes that we never thought we would see in America," Bush told a friendly audience gathered at Warren Easton Senior High School. "Citizens drowned in their attics, desperate mothers crying out on national TV for food and water, a breakdown of law and order, and a government at all levels that fell short of its responsibilities."
The White House carefully chose the scenes it wanted to highlight on this, the anniversary of one of Bush's biggest political embarrassments. Warren Easton is the city's oldest public high school and, like others, shut down after the city flooded. It has reformulated itself as a charter school, with greater leeway to set its own rules and have its own board.
In anticipation of the president's visit, school employees scrambled to complete work on plumbing and electricity, according to the principal, Alexina Medley, and the entire first floor remained gutted. Still, Warren Easton will reopen next week a year ahead of schedule, with about 800 students expected to attend, about a third fewer than before.
Disaster Capitalism: how to make money out of misery - Naomi Klein, The Guardian. "The privatisation of aid after Katrina offers a glimpse of a terrifying future in which only the wealthy are saved"
The first step was the government's abdication of its core responsibility to protect the population from disasters. Under the Bush administration, whole sectors of the government, most notably the Department of Homeland Security, have been turned into glorified temp agencies, with essential functions contracted out to private companies. The theory is that entrepreneurs, driven by the profit motive, are always more efficient (please suspend hysterical laughter).
Tuesday, August 29, 2006
Between The President's Mouth and His Acts
A Wide Gap * Brits Bend Over Backward to Appease Muslims * GOP Candidates Deserting The President's War
Nazarbayev's upcoming visit, according to analysts and officials, offers a case study in the competing priorities of the Bush administration at a time when the president has vowed to fight for democracy and against corruption around the globe. Nazarbayev has banned opposition parties, intimidated the press and profited from his post, according to the U.S. government. But he also sits atop massive oil reserves that have helped open doors in Washington.
Nazarbayev is hardly the only controversial figure received at the top levels of the Bush administration. In April, the president welcomed to the Oval Office the president of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev, who has been accused of rigging elections. And Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice hosted Teodoro Obiang Nguema, the president of Equatorial Guinea, who has been found to have millions of dollars stashed in overseas bank accounts.
Political Correctness or Fear of Terrorism ?
The Guardian reported that a Bangladeshi/British photographer has been the victim of censorship, apparently in an effort to stop offending Muslim audience. Syra Miah's exhibition included "image of a semi-naked woman"! Astounding.
Charlotte Higgins, Arts Correspondent
A Bangladeshi-British photographer is complaining that her work has been censored by the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery. A documentary work made in Bangladesh by Syra Miah and shown as part of the museum's Art and Islam exhibitions was removed because it contained an image of a semi-naked woman.
The museum said it had been advised some days after the show opened to the public on July 8 that the image could offend a Muslim audience. However, Ms Miah, 29, rejected the suggestion. The image had not been mentioned by visitors in the museum's comments book, on its website, or indeed by her own family, "who are very conservative", she said.
"I felt that the whole message behind my show had been undermined by this censorship," she said. "During the editing process the curators seemed to want images in the exhibition that portrayed Bangladesh as another colourful Asian country. Sadly, the removal of this image, the only image in the show that could be interpreted as gritty, confirmed my growing cynical view that the museum wanted to perpetuate a myth about Muslim societies: that nudity isn't tolerated. In Bangladeshi society - at least the one I witnessed - it clearly is.
"The partially dressed figure in the image was actually a mentally ill woman who had made a home of a bus shelter. She was looked after by locals who made sure she was out of danger and fed. I think this shows a compassionate view of Islamic society."
August 2006 will be remembered as a watershed in the politics of Iraq. It is the month in which a majority of Americans told pollsters that the struggle for Iraq was not connected to the larger war on terrorism. They thus renounced a proposition the administration has pushed relentlessly since it began making the case four years ago to invade Iraq.
That poll finding, from a New York Times-CBS News survey, came to life on the campaign trail when Rep. Chris Shays (R-Conn.), one of the most articulate supporters of the war, announced last Thursday that he favored a time frame for withdrawing troops.
Monday, August 28, 2006
Battleground South Dakota - HB1215
Women's Right to Choose
Partisans across the nation are delivering money and tactical advice on an issue that has divided residents of the state. South Dakota's fight could be a harbinger of political battles across the country should the Supreme Court strike down Roe v. Wade , the 1973 decision that legalized abortion nationwide.
"This has become the focal point in the country for the choice debate," said Nancy Keenan, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, which is channeling cash into the campaign. "The stakes are very high, especially for us to win in November and again say America is pro-choice, America doesn't think politicians should be involved in these private decisions, and enough is enough."
A fresh poll suggests voters are inclined to oppose the law as too severe. In a late-July sounding, opponents of the ban held an eight-point lead, with 14 percent undecided.
Thought that it would be appropriate to reproduce what I wrote then.
What a chaste group of people with high moral values! Are they, really? Are we to believe that they grew up without indulging in pre-marital sex? That they waited for holy matrimony before their first sexual experience? May be they didn't even masturbate. Just prayed or took a cold shower when they got the urge. Possible? Give them the benefit of the doubt...some might. The more likely explanation is that all of them indulged in youthful indiscretions--- the terminology made famous by G.W. Bush during his 2000 presidential campaign. That could cover a gamut of what the holy rollers consider sinful, immoral activities. Then one day they saw the light and decided not to allow anyone else to engage in them. Just say "No" to sex. Power is an aphrodisiac. The modern day Torquemadas in South Dakota are charged up. Praise the Lord and do it in the missionary position...any other is taboo.
The issue is bound to head for the Supreme Court on a fast track. It would be interesting to see how the justices, especially Roberts and Alito, who spoke about respect for "precedence" during their confirmation hearings, vote.
Here is an item to lighten up a little. After reading about the hypocrites in South Dakota one needs something that is more earthly.
"Dennis: Look, even if you did get pregnant, I'd marry you.
Odette: Do you believe in centralized government or states' rights ?
Odette: I just want to know the kind of guy I'm marrying.
Dennis: I'm starting to get the distinct impression you don't want to do this anymore."
From Sarah Kernochan's 1998 film "Strike"(also released as "All I Wanna Do")
Plan B (Emergency Contraceptive)
See Washington Post Editorial Aug.25, 2006
Wolters Kluwer - Facts & Comparisons
Sunday, August 27, 2006
The Bush Presidency - Days left: 876
Same old, same old
Elenaor Clift - Newsweek
Bush’s original sin was to politicize U.S. intervention in Iraq. He used the war to transform an aimless presidency into one of Churchillian dimensions, and now that it’s all turned sour, he has nothing to fall back on. Bush is as beleaguered now as Lyndon Johnson was during Vietnam—with one key difference. The worse the news is from Iraq, the more positive Bush is that he’s right. As Vietnam raged on, Johnson became less certain he was doing the right thing.
Victory no longer appears possible in Iraq, yet Bush’s rhetoric is more bullish than ever about the correctness of his course. U.S. forces are not leaving Iraq as long as he’s president. His model is Prime Minister Winston Churchill, defeated by an ungrateful British public after leading the country through war, a lonely figure vindicated by history. To achieve stability in Iraq, Thomas Ricks, Pentagon correspondent for The Washington Post and author of “Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq” (Penguin 2006), says U.S. forces can expect to stay for 10 to 15 years, on top of the three they’ve already been there. “And that’s the optimistic scenario,” he says.
A Republican Bigot Speaks Out in Florida
"If you're not electing Christians, then in essence you are going to legislate sin," Harris told interviewers from the Florida Baptist Witness, the weekly journal of the Florida Baptist State Convention. She cited abortion and same-sex marriage as examples of that sin.
Harris, a candidate in the Sept. 5 Republican primary for U.S. Senate, said her religious beliefs "animate" everything she does, including her votes in Congress.
Saturday, August 26, 2006
Hawks (Chickenhawks) and Deserters
And the Fallout from Katrina
During the Vietnam war President Bush joined the Texas Air National Guard but the records of his service are somewhat murky. Our hawkish Vice-president Cheney never served in the army; he took deferments during the Vietnam war. In 1989 he said to Joseph Wilson of the Washington Post "I had other priorities in the '60s than military service".
Current and former officials of the Bush Administration who never served:
- Paul Wolfowitz, former Deputy Secretary of Defense
- George Tenet, former CIA Director
- Condoleezza Rice, Secretary of State
- Elliott Abrams, Deputy National Security Adviser
- Karl Rove, Head,Office of Political Affairs
- John Ashcroft, former U.S. Attorney General.
- Dennis Hastert, Speaker of the House
- Tom Delay, former House Majority Leader
- Bill Frist, Senate Majority Leader
- Roy Blunt, House Whip
- Saxby Chambliss, (attacked Max Cleland)
- Jon Kyl, Senator (R-AZ)
- Phil Gramm
- Rick Santorum, Senator (R-PA)
- Trent Lott, US Senator
- Newt Gingrich, Former Speaker
- Rudy Giuliani, Former NYC Mayor
- Michael Bloomberg, Mayor New York City
- George Pataki, NY Governer
- Jeb Bush, Florida Governor
(updated by the writer)
For Camilo Mejia there was no epiphany. In fact, his refusal to rejoin his regiment in Iraq barely represented a decision at all. It was more a weary submission to months of anxiety that had gnawed at his sense of duty until there was nothing left but his conscience. "I didn't wake up thinking I wouldn't go," he says. "I just went to bed and didn't get up in time to catch the plane. But I kept thinking maybe I would go back sometime."
Mejia, 30, never did go back. He went on the run for five months, staying with friends and relatives, using only cash, travelling by bus and not calling his mother or daughter, before he turned himself in as a conscientious objector. A military tribunal sentenced him to one year in prison.
Like Mejia, 24-year-old Darrell Anderson went on the run just a few days before he was due to redeploy. "I was supposed to leave for Iraq on January 8th. On the 3rd I started to talk to people about the war. By the 6th I woke up and had hit a brick wall. I just knew I wasn't going to be able to live a normal life if I went back."
He told his mother, Anita, who said she "had been hoping for that". "I packed up the car and took him to Canada. It was the first time I slept through the night in two years," she says. Anderson is now essentially a fugitive seeking asylum in Canada.
And then there was Joshua Casteel, an interrogator at the notorious Abu Ghraib prison. His turning point came when a 22-year-old Saudi who came to Iraq for jihad was brought before him for questioning. "He admitted it," says Casteel, 26, a deeply religious Catholic convert from Cedar Rapids, Iowa. "I asked him why he had come to Iraq to kill. Then he asked me why I had come to Iraq to kill. He said I wasn't following the teachings of Jesus, which was pretty ironic. But I thought he sounded just like me. He was not a maniacal kind of killer. He had never fired a weapon in his life ... I know what it's like to proselytise. At one time I had been a pretty nationalistic kid. I understood where he was coming from but in order to do my job I couldn't look at him as a human being. I had to look at him as an object of exploitation."
Two days later Casteel went to Qatar on leave. When he came back he told his commander that he would be applying for conscientious objector status. "I said I wouldn't turn in my weapon while I was there or talk to the media but would carry on doing my job and when I got back home I would ask to leave the military." He filed his application on February 16 and was granted an honourable discharge on May 31.
Whether you call them deserters, conscientious objectors or resisters, every story of American soldiers who left the army prematurely because of the Iraq war shares the same emotional trajectory. They begin with doubt and end with determination. And somewhere along the way comes that ill-defined but crucial moment when the psychological struggle and moral angst overwhelm their military commitment.
The number applying for conscientious objector status has quadrupled since 2000 but remains small, though many more simply go awol. In 2004, 110 soldiers filed, of whom around half were successful. The rest went back to war, refused to serve, were jailed or are still in hiding. Yet there has been a huge increase in enquiries, according to JE McNeil, director of the Centre on Conscience and War. Before 9/11, she says, its GI hotline received roughly one phone call a month from those seeking information about how to get out of the military. In the year after, it went up to one or two a week. Currently it stands at more than one a day.
As of August 25th, U.S. military fatalities total 2,621 including 43 who died this month. Source: Iraq Coalition Casualties
Friday, August 25, 2006
Summer of Discontent in Israel
Ehud Olmert On Shaky Grounds
The poll reflects growing disillusionment within Israeli society about the 34-day conflict with Hizbullah and the fact that the country emerged without any clear victory over the Lebanese militia. The two Israeli soldiers whose capture triggered the conflict are still not free. The war claimed the lives of more than 1,100 people in Lebanon, and 157 Israelis, mostly soldiers.
Hundreds of protesters, many of them waving Israeli flags, gathered at the Mount Herzl military cemetery in Jerusalem to call for Mr Olmert's resignation. Among them were military reservists who have led criticism of the war as well as Moshe and Riva Moskal, whose son Rafael, a 21-year-old staff sergeant, was killed in the fighting.
"We think this country deserves better leadership," said Mrs Moskal. "The north was bombed and they didn't do anything. They failed there, they failed here," she said. "We feel lost. We feel there is no leadership and we feel as parents that we lost the most precious thing we had.
"We believe it was our duty to raise a voice of protest. This beautiful Israeli nation is strong but has values which seem to have been lost in the last few years."
His comments offered a rare acknowledgment of the role of the Mahdi Army in the sectarian bloodletting that has killed more than 10,400 Iraqis in recent months. The Mahdi Army is the militia of Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, now one of the most powerful figures in the country.
Thursday, August 24, 2006
The Failed Policy - No Wonder They Hate Us
Death of the Neocons' Scenario * Albert Camus and G.W. Bush
They being the people of the predominantly Muslim regions -- Middle East, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Indonesia, Malaysia. Then there are countries where the presence of Muslims is strong (Britain, India). Some among them participate in acts of terrorism. President Bush described them as "Islamo-Fascists".
- What is happening in the broader Middle East and North Africa can be seen as a boomerang effect that has been playing out slowly since the horrific events of Sept. 11, 2001. In the immediate aftermath of those attacks, there was worldwide sympathy for the United States and support for its declared "war on terrorism," including the invasion of Afghanistan. Then the cynical exploitation of this universal goodwill by so-called neoconservatives to advance hegemonic designs was confirmed by the war in Iraq. The Bush administration's dishonest statements about "weapons of mass destruction" diminished whatever credibility the United States might have had as liberator, while disastrous mismanagement of Iraqi affairs after the invasion led to the squandering of a conventional military victory. The country slid into bloody sectarian violence, while official Washington stonewalled and refused to admit mistakes. No wonder the world has progressively turned against America.
- And all this brings us no further than book one on the President’s stack, with Oppenheimer and Lincoln still to be chewed on. Bush may have emerged from his syllabus as little altered as most undergraduates emerge from theirs. Still, it is encouraging to think that he has spent the summer reflecting on the inscrutable origins of human violence and on the unimaginable destructive powers now available through American science, while contemplating the achievements of a great man who hated wars, made a necessary one, and wandered the halls of the White House agonized by the consequences. It sounds almost like the beginnings of wisdom, or, at least, a compulsory fall reading list for us all.
Wednesday, August 23, 2006
Iraq, Lebanon, Iran, Gaza, and Our Warrior President
:Q What did Iraq have to do with that?
THE PRESIDENT: What did Iraq have to do with what?
Q The attack on the World Trade Center?
THE PRESIDENT: Nothing, except for it's part of -- and nobody has ever suggested in this administration that Saddam Hussein ordered the attack. Iraq was a -- the lesson of September the 11th is, take threats before they fully materialize, Ken. Nobody has ever suggested that the attacks of September the 11th were ordered by Iraq. I have suggested, however, that resentment and the lack of hope create the breeding grounds for terrorists who are willing to use suiciders to kill to achieve an objective. I have made that case.
THE PRESIDENT: Frustrated? Sometimes I'm frustrated. Rarely surprised. Sometimes I'm happy. This is -- but war is not a time of joy. These aren't joyous times. These are challenging times, and they're difficult times, and they're straining the psyche of our country. I understand that. You know, nobody likes to see innocent people die. Nobody wants to turn on their TV on a daily basis and see havoc wrought by terrorists. And our question is, do we have the capacity and the desire to spread peace by confronting these terrorists, and supporting those who want to live in liberty? That's the question. And my answer to that question is, we must. We owe it to future generations to do so.
Eugene Robinson's column in the Post "President on Another Planet" describes the disconnect that exists between the president's view and the real world.
Even those who continue to support Israel’s war against Hezbollah agree that it is failing to achieve one of its main goals—to rally the Lebanese against Hezbollah. “Strategic bombing has been a failed military concept for ninety years, and yet air forces all over the world keep on doing it,” John Arquilla, a defense analyst at the Naval Postgraduate School, told me. Arquilla has been campaigning for more than a decade, with growing success, to change the way America fights terrorism. “The warfare of today is not mass on mass,” he said. “You have to hunt like a network to defeat a network. Israel focussed on bombing against Hezbollah, and, when that did not work, it became more aggressive on the ground. The definition of insanity is continuing to do the same thing and expecting a different result.”
Tuesday, August 15, 2006
The Presidential Coattail
Good news. A large number of Republican voters have had it with President Bush and their anger is affecting the incumbents running for reelection. Jim Vanderhei in the Post: "PHOENIXVILLE, Pa. -- When it comes to President Bush and the Republican Congress, Rep. Jim Gerlach says voters in his suburban Philadelphia district are in a "sour mood."
That's why when it comes to his reelection, the two-term incumbent says "the name of the game" is to convince those same voters that he can be independent of his own party. He has turned his standard line about Bush -- "When I think he's wrong, I let him know" -- into a virtual campaign slogan, repeated in interviews and TV ads.
"It is a combination of things, from the war in Iraq to gas prices to what they are experiencing in their local areas," Gerlach said of the surly electorate whose decision he will know on Nov. 7.
The Iraq war and Bush's low approval ratings have created trouble for Republicans in all regions. But nowhere is the GOP brand more scuffed than in the Northeast, where this year's circumstances are combining with long-term trends to endanger numerous incumbents.
Robbing the Poor
The report by Larry Margasak of Associated Press is not a surprise to most of us -- that our elected representatives are by and large unethical is a generally accepted fact. Nevertheless, the details about their blatant waste of taxpayers' money are sickening. Scandal after scandal and yet they shamelessly carry on feeding their egos. The term "corrupt politician" has become an oxymoron.
WASHINGTON -- The federal program that provides legal help to poor Americans turns away half of its applicants for lack of resources. But that hasn't stopped its executives from lavishing expensive meals, chauffeur-driven cars and foreign trips on themselves.
Agency documents obtained by The Associated Press detail the luxuries that executives of the Legal Services Corp. have given themselves with federal money -- from $14 "Death by Chocolate" desserts to $400 chauffeured rides to locations within taxi distance of their offices.
The government-funded corporation also has a spacious headquarters in Washington's tony Georgetown district -- with views of the Potomac River and a rent significantly higher than other tenants in the same building.
And board members wrote themselves a policy that doubled the amount they could claim for meals compared with their staff.
Monday, August 14, 2006
From the Same People Who Gave Us the War in Iraq
After Israel launched a full scale military offensive on July 12,2006, it became apparent that the United States did not want a quick stop to the war. Secretary of State Rice (who,in her appearances before the media,looked like the cat who had swallowed the canary) and President Bush issued statements about "a lasting peace" and "an enduring peace" while expediting supply of weapons and technology to assist the Israelis. It was part of a strategy to hit back at Syria and Iran through the Hezbollah.....the human toll be damned. It was part of an agenda. Now Seymour Hersh has exposed the damning facts. There are doubts about the effectiveness of the UN peace agreement as there are doubts about gains made by the United States and Israel from this episode and consequent deaths and destruction. Molly Moore and Edward Cody in the Washington Post: "JERUSALEM, Aug. 14 -- The Israeli military halted its combat operations against Hezbollah guerrillas in southern Lebanon and Hezbollah rockets stopped raining on Israel early Monday morning as a tenuous U.N.-imposed cease-fire took effect after more than a month of fighting that devastated parts of Lebanon and sent hundreds of thousands of Israelis into bomb shelters."
Bush 'helped Israeli attack on Lebanon'
- The US government was closely involved in planning the Israeli campaign in Lebanon, even before Hizbullah seized two Israeli soldiers in a cross border raids in July. American and Israeli officials met in the spring, discussing plans on how to tackle Hizbullah, according to a report published yesterday.
- The veteran investigative journalist Seymour Hersh writes in the current issue of the New Yorker magazine that Israeli government officials travelled to the US in May to share plans for attacking Hizbullah.
- Quoting a US government consultant, Hersh said: "Earlier this summer ... several Israeli officials visited Washington, separately, 'to get a green light for the bombing operation and to find out how much the United States would bear'."
- The Israeli action, current and former government officials told Hersh, chimed with the Bush administration's desire to reduce the threat of possible Hizbullah retaliation against Israel should the US launch a military strike against Iran.
- "A successful Israeli Air Force bombing campaign ... could ease Israel's security concerns and also serve as a prelude to a potential American pre-emptive attack to destroy Iran's nuclear installations," sources told Hersh.
- Yesterday Mr Hersh told CNN: "July was a pretext for a major offensive that had been in the works for a long time. Israel's attack was going to be a model for the attack they really want to do. They really want to go after Iran."
- An unnamed Pentagon consultant told Hersh: "It was our intention to have Hizbullah diminished and now we have someone else doing it."
- Officials from the state department and the Pentagon denied the report. A spokesman for the National Security Council told Hersh that "The Israeli government gave no official in Washington any reason to believe that Israel was planning to attack."
- Hersh has a track record in breaking major stories. He was the first to write about the abuses at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and has written extensively about the build-up to the war in Iraq. He made his name when he uncovered the massacre at My Lai during the Vietnam war. Most recently he has written about US plans for Iran, alleging that US special forces had already been active inside the country.
Sunday, August 13, 2006
Israel, Lebanon and the Peace Agreement
Olmert In A Shaky Position
How quickly the tides turn. The Guardian:
- The future of Israel's Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, was last night hanging on how successfully he could sell his citizens the idea that the country had been 'victorious' in the 'war in the north' as criticism of his shaky performance began to escalate amid the first calls for his resignation.
- While Olmert's allies and government officials lined up to express satisfaction about the outcome of the UN ceasefire resolution passed while the fighting continued, attempts to present a 'victory' to the Israeli public could not disguise the deep sense of disquiet over the operation's failures and fears that Hizbollah might manage to emerge 'victorious' in the coming days.
Saturday, August 12, 2006
The Fall of Humpty Dumpty
Smoke & Mirrors * Flag Waving * Fluff Factor Enters French Politics
No matter what he does the president seems unable to garner support for his actions. The swagger of the war president no longer cuts it. Smoke and mirrors fail to hide the ugly truth. The voters in their wisdom have seen through the facade. Results of the latest Associated Press-Ipsos poll are revealing.
- "An Associated Press-Ipsos poll conducted this week found the president's approval rating has dropped to 33 percent, matching his low in May. His handling of nearly every issue, from the Iraq war to foreign policy, contributed to the president's decline around the nation, even in the Republican-friendly South.
- More sobering for the GOP are the number of voters who backed Bush in 2004 who are ready to vote Democratic in the fall's congressional elections — 19 percent. These one-time Bush voters are more likely to be female, self-described moderates, low- to middle-income and from the Northeast and Midwest.
- Two years after giving the Republican president another term, more than half of these voters — 57 percent — disapprove of the job Bush is doing.
"Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
All the king's horses,
And all the king's men,
Couldn't put Humpty together again."
-- Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass
The total number of American soldiers who died in Iraq is now 2599 including 21 in August. Against the war in Iraq ? Then you are unpatriotic. Same old refrain. Nothing else seems to be working for the Republicans, so they wrap themselves in the Flag. It is the same gang that came up with Freedom Fries.
E.J. Dionne in the Post:
- Oh my goodness, as Don Rumsfeld might say. Support for the Iraq war hits a record low, and all the president's hit men decide that it's time to smear their opponents as defeatists who give aid and comfort to the enemy.
- Of course they didn't mention the poll on Iraq released by CNN on Wednesday. As a basis for their guilt-by-association campaign, they used the fact that Democratic voters in Tuesday's Connecticut primary favored antiwar businessman Ned Lamont over Sen. Joe Lieberman.
- The gentlemen who have gotten us into a mess in Iraq prefer not to explain how they'll fix things. They would rather use national security for partisan purposes, and they were all out there on Wednesday, spewing incendiary talking points. Hey, they may not have sent enough troops to win a war, but they sure know how to win midterm elections.
Friday, August 11, 2006
The Lebanon War - Human Rights Abuse
Suffering Inflicted on Both Sides of the Border
From the BBC:
The UN Human Rights Council has voted to launch an inquiry into alleged abuses committed by Israel during its month-long offensive in Lebanon.
Human rights commissioner Louise Arbour backed the probe, but earlier called for Hezbollah to also face an inquiry.
She condemned both Israel and Hezbollah for the suffering inflicted on civilians in Lebanon and north Israel.
Ms Arbour said there was evidence to strongly suggest that indiscriminate force was being used by both sides.
War crimes could be committed even by those who believed their cause was worthy, she warned.
She was speaking at an emergency session of the UN Human Rights Council.
"If terrorism doesn't scare you, maybe Bush will"
Jimmy Greenfield in The Chicago Tribune:
Published August 11, 2006
Scared yet? Well, you may be soon.
What we almost certainly will see in aftermath of the alleged plot to blow up several planes en route to the U.S. is a thunderous response from President Bush and other Republican leaders.
With the midterm elections less than three months away, they will attempt to scare Americans into re-electing Republicans or risk facing instant annihilation at the hands of an evil and murderous enemy.
Choose us and live. Choose them and die. Your call.
Nice way to end the summer, isn't it?
Believe it or not, Thursday was actually a good day. Everybody in his or her right mind knows there are always terrorists plotting to attack the U.S., so it didn't bother me that some people were discovered to be doing just that.
What made it a good day was that at least one government, even if it was the British government, knew how to foil a massive terrorist plot.
The President In His Element
Terrorism - Hatred Among the Ruins
- In what was an apparent reference to this year's controversies over the administration's surveillance programs, Bush told reporters: "It is a mistake to believe there is no threat to the United States of America. And that is why we have given our officials the tools they need to protect our people."
The Other War
- The largest demonstration -- billed as a protest of the "U.S.-Israeli war" -- is expected to draw "tens of thousands" of people who plan to surround the White House tomorrow, said Tony Kutayli, communications coordinator for the Washington-based American-Arab Anti Discrimination Committee, one of the groups helping coordinate participants arriving from across the country.
On July 22nd, the Pakistani journalist Ahmed Rashid wrote in the Washington Post about reaction among muslims to the attacks against Lebanon.
- Mounting Muslim Anger Endangers Security
- Lahore, Pakistan - The Israeli attack on Lebanon is fuelling unprecedented anger amongst ordinary Muslims, despite the support that many moderate Muslim regimes are demonstrating for the action.
- Muslim anger on the street is being directed at Israel, America and Britain and also at their own leaders who are doing nothing to help bring about a cessation of hostilities or a ceasefire. The U.S. -- by publicizing its success in isolating Syria and Iran for their support for Hezbollah -- falls further in public opinion in the Muslim world, endangering its own security, making it more of a target for terrorist attacks and undermining any future role the U.S. may have in brokering a peace between Israel and the Palestinians.
- Israel's air and land invasion is unlikely to wipe out Hezbollah. Instead the group will go further underground and become more dependent on terrorist tactics to continue the fight. Also there will now be a much greater justification for Sunni terrorist groups such as al' Qaeda to link up with Shia extremist groups such as Hezbollah to work and plan together. This would encourage and strengthen terrorist groups in Afghanistan, Somalia, Pakistan and the Middle East. The world is certainly becoming a more unsafe place.
Wednesday, August 09, 2006
A Sane Voice in the Babel
Rabbi David J. Goldberg * The Proxy War Rages On* Shame of the 502nd Infantry Regiment
France wants to incorporate ideas from Lebanon's new proposals, particularly on two issues: deploying Lebanese troops alongside a more robust version of the U.N. force now in Lebanon as a means to expedite an Israeli withdrawal, and settling the status of Shebaa Farms, the officials said.
But the United States, which has accepted Israel's concerns on both issues, thinks that a strong international force still needs to be in place before an Israeli withdrawal to ensure that the Shiite militia is not able to resume control of southern Lebanon or shoot at Israeli forces as they pull out, U.S. and European officials say.
Whether Hizbullah is indeed the fanatical spearhead of a Shia arc of extremism bent on the liquidation of Israel followed by world domination, or whether the prospect of Muslim unity among its opposed factions is a chimera, is something for strategic analysts to argue over. What is certain is that governments must respond to events in the present, even while getting their foreign-policy thinktanks to anticipate the shape of future alliances. In replying as forcefully and misguidedly as it has done to provocation from Lebanon, Israel might not even achieve a rocket-free zone in the north.
But given that the Palestinian problem is no nearer solution and that by creating a wilderness in Lebanon and calling it peace Israel has recruited thousands of new martyrs to the Hizbullah cause, military and diplomatic planners are going to have to ask themselves how long the respite will last. Was Israel's disproportionate response worth the cost of strengthening Arab hatred, alienating world opinion yet again and, last but not least, inviting criticism from a growing number of diaspora Jews who wish for Israel to live in security but find it increasingly difficult to condone what is being done by the Jewish state in their name? As the late Richard Crossman said, a policy of pragmatism is never justified - especially if it is unsuccessful.
· Rabbi Dr David J Goldberg is emeritus rabbi of the Liberal Jewish Synagogue, London, and author of The Divided Self: Israel and the Jewish Psyche Today.
The 502nd Infantry Regiment and Abeer Hamza
Tuesday, August 08, 2006
The Guns of August 2006
Blather, blather * Incumbents Beware * AOL
The UN security council will almost certainly adopt a ceasefire resolution this week, in spite of objections from Lebanon and others in the Arab world. But diplomats and analysts were united in despair yesterday, expressing doubts that the resolution could stop the fighting.
"It does not look good," one European diplomat said. "There is nobody interested in stopping now. Hizbullah has no reason to stop. The discrepancy between what is being discussed at the diplomatic table and what is happening on the ground is terrible."
The foreign ministers from member states of the Arab League gathered in Beirut despite the hostilities for a day-long show of solidarity. They decided to send representatives to the United Nations to press the case for an immediate cease-fire and other changes in a proposed Security Council resolution. Their deliberations were overshadowed, however, by knowledge that a cease-fire decision resided not with Arab governments, but with Israel, Hezbollah and the big powers on the Security Council.
Most Americans describe themselves as being in an anti-incumbent mood heading into this fall's midterm congressional elections, and the percentage of people who approve of their own representative's performance is at the lowest level since 1994, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.
As attention turns to Connecticut for Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman's Democratic primary showdown today, the poll found some of the same political currents that have buffeted his campaign flowing through the national electorate. The public has soured on politicians backing the Iraq war, which Democrats consider the most important issue of the election.
AOL - Was it a "Screw Up"
Ellen Nakashima in the Post:
AOL issued an apology yesterday for posting on a public Web site 20 million keyword searches conducted by hundreds of thousands of its subscribers from March to May. But the company's admission that it made a mistake did little to quell a barrage of criticism from bloggers and privacy advocates who questioned the company's security practices and said the data breach raised the risk of identity theft.
"This was a screw-up and we're angry and upset about it," the company said in a statement. "Although there was no personally-identifiable data linked to these accounts, we're absolutely not defending this. It was a mistake, and we apologize."
Monday, August 07, 2006
Bush and Israel Extracting More than their Pound of Flesh
Slaughter of Civilians Continues
It is clear that before the UN plan (now being hammered out) is implemented the relentless attacks by Israelis will continue as will retaliation by the Hezbollah. The civilians on both sides of the border are like sacrificial goats in this "proxy war". President Bush, vacationing in Crawford, and his Secretary of State are engaged in taking advantage of the crisis to gain ground against Syria and Iran. In their world, the mounting casualties mean nothing. Michael Fletcher in the Post: CRAWFORD, Tex., Aug. 6 -- Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice pressed Sunday for approval of a draft U.N. resolution calling for a "cessation of hostilities" between Israel and Hezbollah, saying it is a crucial "first step" toward resolving the conflict.
- Acknowledging that passage of the resolution would not immediately end the fighting that has raged for most of the past month, Rice said that it nonetheless offers a framework that would not only eventually end the hostilities but also stabilize the area going forward.
- Condoleezza Rice, the US secretary of state, piled pressure on Hizbullah to comply with the proposed UN call for a truce yesterday, reiterating Washington's insistence that a cessation of hostilities would be the first step towards a longer-term settlement. "We're trying to deal with a problem that has been festering and brewing in Lebanon now for years and years and years," she said.
- But Nabih Berri, the speaker of the Lebanese parliament, rejected the 6,500-word text thrashed out by Washington and Paris. Mr Berri, who has been negotiating on behalf of Hizbullah, said the draft resolution legitimised Israel's occupation, adding that it would "open the door to never-ending war". Philippe Douste-Blazy, France's foreign minister, said obtaining Lebanese and Arab support for the plan was his government's priority.
State Terrorism ?
- "An hour ago, there was a horrific massacre in the village of Houla," Siniora said, calling the bombing "deliberate" and the people who died "martyrs." He interrupted his remarks several times to choke back tears and wipe his eyes, wire services reported. The ministers broke into applause.
- "If these horrific actions are not state terrorism," Siniora asked rhetorically, "then what is state terrorism?"
Sunday, August 06, 2006
For The Warmongers, A Poem by Yehuda Amichai
They talk about peace....a lasting peace, but only at their terms. Do they think of the victims? "KFAR GILADI, Israel, Aug. 6 -- Ten people, most of whom appeared to be Israeli reserve soldiers, were killed Sunday afternoon when a barrage of Katusha rockets fired by Hezbollah militants landed in a parking lot where the troops were gathered near this kibbutz on Israel's northernmost tip, according to witnesses at the scene."
"A POEM THAT I WROTE IN A HIGH FEVER"
You who are lengthening your lives
with the best doctors and best medicines
remember those who are shortening their lives
with the war
that you in your long lives are not
You who are again screwing
the younger generations
and winking at each other
the winking of your eyelids
is like chill of the swinging shutters
in an empty house.
---Yehuda Amichai (translated from Hebrew by Leon Wieseltier)
Listening to Johann Sebastian Bach, Cantata No.131 ""Aus der Tiefen rufe ich, Herr, zu dir,"
Conductor: Philippe Herreweghe
Performer: Peter Kooy, Barbara Schlick, et al.
Orchestra: Collegium Vocale Ghent (Orchestre)
Label: EMI Records [All429]
Saturday, August 05, 2006
Our World On A Saturday Morning
No Cuckoos in Lebanon
"Sumer is ycomen in,
Loude sing cuckou!
Groweth seed and bloweth meed,
And springth the wode now.
---Anonymous (13th Century English Poem)
- Biblical prophesy sites have been quick to jump on the Israel/Lebanon crisis as a realisation of Thessalonians 5:3 ("While people are saying, 'Peace and safety,' destruction will come on them suddenly, as labour pains on a pregnant woman, and they will not escape ...") and the Old Testament Book of Ezekiel, chapters 38 and 39. They must be the only people actively enjoying the situation. "Got that dancing feeling on the inside of me," posts one contributor to the Rapture Ready website, an outfit dedicated to scouring world events for signs of the second coming. Its talkboards are in a state of high excitement at the moment. "This is the busiest I've ever seen this website in a few years!" posts one contributor. "I have been having rapture dreams and I can't believe that this is really it! We are on the edge of eternity!!!!!!!"
- "Whoa! I can sure feel the glory bumps after reading this thread!" replies another contributor and another points out that there are exactly 40 days between the date on which the first Israeli soldier was kidnapped and that day's date, which, he writes, "I find to be a HUGE coincidence."
I must confess that the thought of a world without the holy rollers -- assuming that they would soon ascend to heaven -- makes me happy. I shall take my chances of being left behind.
And there is news about agreement being reached between the U.S. and France on a mid-east truce. It was time. Let us hope that peace, a lasting peace prevails in Lebanon.
The case against soldiers accused of rape and murder of a 14-year old Iraqi girl in Mahmudiya is making progress. The NY Times reported: "On March 13, a group of American soldiers sitting at a checkpoint south of Baghdad were asked to look into a horrible crime: a 14-year-old Iraqi girl had been raped, then killed along with her family in their house nearby in Mahmudiya."
- Those soldiers, along with others from their checkpoint, walked over and took detailed forensic photographs of the charred and bullet-riddled bodies, as if it were a routine investigation of an insurgent attack, according to a defense official who spoke on condition of anonymity.
- Now, those photographs are likely to serve as evidence in the military’s prosecution of the case, which opens a new chapter tomorrow when an Article 32 hearing, the rough equivalent of a grand jury proceeding, begins in Baghdad for five soldiers accused in the crime.
Dog Days For Bush and Blair
- This year, both are running for Senate seats, but their television ads have made no mention of Bush -- and have been conspicuous in distancing the candidates from their partisan affiliation. "Most people don't care if you're red or blue, Republican or Democrat," Talent's ad states. A recent ad from Kennedy says, "He doesn't do what the party says to."
Friday, August 04, 2006
Children In The War Zone * War Crimes * Conservatives' Last Gasp?
Think of them. Are they going to forget their experience? Will they grow up forgiving those responsible for the deaths and devastation ? Are they going to love those who were responsible?
Traumatised and afraid - 300,000 children who want to go home
By Anne Penketh and Kim Sengupta
Published: 04 August 2006
Democrats Smelling Blood In The Water
Yes, there are signs that the conservatives have problems. Their past is catching up with them. Hubris vanquished is always cause to rejoice. E.J. Dionne writes in the Post: "Is conservatism finished?"