Benedict@Large

Charley Reese: Rachel Corrie Deserves Justice, 4/21/2003

You can follow in much detail the slaughter of the Palestinian people by the IDF at Electronic Intifada. Bookmark it!

And there is a damned good reason that the International Court has a warrant out on Ariel Sharon, by the way. It's for the murder of 1,700 people in three days. But don't expect the American press to tell you about this.

From David Corn at The Nation: Where Have All the WMD-Hunters Gone?

This article allows me to bring up somthing that has been bothering me for several days. Regardless of "regime change" or any of the other numerous excuses George peddled in his march to war, the one he "sold" it on to the American people was WMDs. Saddam had so many of them and so instantly deployable, our troops were required to wear special suits for when (not if) they were used. That the war even had to start when it did was because these same troops would be overwhelmed by wearing such suits in the Iraqi summer. So where are they?

It sickens me to even listen to the administration's rhetoric on answering this simple question. If Saddam had so many of these and they were so instantly-deployable, something would have been found by now. But it hasn't.

George's case is DEAD as of today. Even if something is found and verified, it is not George's masses, and it is hardly instantly-deployable. George Bush is a liar, and he has proven himself to be such before the world.

Now if some of these flag-draped rednecks could figure this out, we'd be all set.

Photographic celebrations of our young warriors, glorifications of released American prisoners, heroic rituals of the war dead all take on the character of crass exploitation of the men and women in uniform. First they were forced into a dubious circumstance, and now they are themselves being mythologized as its main post-facto justification -- as if the United States went to Iraq not to seize Saddam (disappeared), or to dispose of weapons of mass destruction (missing), or to save the Iraqi people (chaos), but ''to support the troops.'' War thus becomes its own justification. Such confusion on this grave point, as on the others, signifies a nation lost.

James Carroll, A nation lost, The Boston Globe, 4/22/2003

The Ever-Growing Police State: Per Sheryl McCarthy at Newsday, peace demonstrators who get arrested are increasingly being interogated regarding their political views. In New York City for example, these questions are coming from the White House under the guise of a drug investigation, although those being interogated are not informed of this. Any who wish to "remain silent" however are being told that it will take longer to process their release. Seige Hiel!

A few more Raspberry Awards to hand out:

~ To David Shaw at the Los Angeles Times for his article "A skeptical journalist isn't an unpatriotic one". It seems that David and his fellow journalists are fretting about the high volume of complaints from readers about "unpatriotic" and downright "treasonous" news coverage, and he goes on to offer some rather weak reasons for this. Come on, David. The reason for this is that you folks have been asleep at the wheel for too long. You stopped telling them the real story quite a while back, and now you are worried about your mail when you start to try once again? One raspberry for you, Dave.

~ To Jim Kelly, managing editor of Time Magazine, who David quotes in his article. Jim says this hostility is large the fault of cable TV news coverage and its tendency "to stick a waving flag on virtually everything that moves". This from a magazine that just deleted a 1998 article by Bush, Sr. listing a host of quite credible reasons not to invade Baghdad? You get a quick three raspberries for this comment, Jim. [ P.S. If you ever need that article, Jim, you can read it here. ]

Philip Weiss offers a "good" review of columnist Thomas Friedman in the New York Observer. To my taste, Weiss only missed one important point: Friedman thinks that he speaks the intellectual case for the neocons. While he may arrive at a lot of the same conclusions as that group does, he does not speak at all for them. Friedman still retains a shred of a heart, and the neocons probably never had a single one to share between themselves.

William Rivers Pitt writes "The Silence about September 11":

I have been giving a lot of talks lately at colleges and for organizations about the Iraq war. Always in my remarks I ask the same question. "It has been almost 20 months since the attacks of September 11. It has been over 570 days since the Towers fell. The 9/11 attacks are the principle reason, according to the Bush administration, which justifies the war. Can anyone tell me why those attacks happened? Has anyone in the Bush administration or the media come forth with a reasonable explanation besides 'Evildoers who hate our freedom?'"

Every time I get blank stares, and always a few sets of widened eyes, as if my question caused them to suddenly realize that no such explanation has ever been put forward.

No, this is not another conspiracy theory on 9/11. It's a history on U.S. involvement over the last 25 years in Afghanistan, always seeking to "further the peace" by stirring war. This will take some of the mystery right out of 9/11 for you.

Bruce Ackerman offers an important essay at The American Prospect on how Congress subverted the Constitution and made meaningless "the will of the people" when it enacted a war powers resolution before the president went to the UN Security Council. Lessons to be learned, for sure.

Good for the goose? Good for the gander: What the heck. It worked for George Bush, so Pakistan has accused India of hiding weapons of mass destruction. India predictably has denied Pakistan's allegation ... Hey, wait a minute! Isn't that exactly what Saddam said?

"We'll only stay until we go." ~ It started with maybe three months for us to get a new Iraqi government started, but probably more like six. Then there was talk of a year and then two; that's all it would take. Then the troops could come home. Sure.

It never was any of that of course, as PNAC had said from the beginning. It was always about long-term military access to bases there and perhaps five years for the new Iraqi government to be functioning. Of course, perhaps the main reason for why it will take fives years is that it will take that long force the new government to accept a long-term U.S. military presence there.

There is a much quicker way to go about this however, as Peter Lee points out in "The Last Laugh".

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Syria, the Unfortunate: One of the primary reasons we'll be needing a permanent military presence in Iraq, of course, is so that we can attack Syria, a long-term goal of some of those same folks over at PNAC. [See Daniel Pipes, "Ending Syria's Occupation of Lebanon: The U.S. Role", May, 2000] Yeah, I know, Powell is going over to talk with them and even Bush is toning down the rhetoric a bit (and keeing Rummy's mouth shut), but none other than "Mr. War-Profiteer" Richard Perle is screeming loudly (Great Photo!) for this and James Woolsey (slated for a senior role in Iraq's interim administration) is calling Syria a fascist state that "needs a regime change." That'll endear the hearts and minds of the Iraqis for sure.

And remember, this is the same administration that danced for six months before before pulling the plug on Saddam. Chances are that Perle and Woolsey are just "keeping the iron hot" in case Bush needs a little boost to his re-election campaign.

Celebrity Targets: Anti-War Stances Have Stars Facing Backlash ~ Nothing new here, but note the implicit endorsement of this "backlash" in this article from ABC News:

• "Most Americans who've opposed the war are anonymous faces in the crowd, and their protests haven't cost them all that much." ~ Cost them? Why should it cost them anything? Isn't political speech exactly what was meant to be protected by the First Amendment?

• "The Dixie Chicks ... criticism of President Bush still has radio listeners calling for stations to quit playing their music, and many stations have. " ~ This is nonsense. Clear Channel clearly orchestrated this "call-in" to its own stations, and in fact, we have only their word as to how successful it was. Apparently, not much: the Dixie Clicks currently top the country charts.

Yes, ABC goes on to use the word "McCarthyism", but even then, they do not condemn it. Instead, they just pass this off as some sort of "grass roots" response, totally ingoring what they know quite well to be the real case. Give ABC three raspberries on this one.

Why does the White House consistently propose lousy candidates to to head and staff departments he doesn't like? Take the environment as a classic example: Lawsuits Help Bush Get Way on Environment. Want logging access to protected woodlands? Just sue, and these "watchdogs" simply roll over and play dead.

To faithfully execute the laws of the United States? Give me a break, George. You never intended to do any such thing.

If their is any doubt in your mind as to how important it is to block the appointment of ideologues to the federal bench, Michael J. Fellows' "Off with their heads! The Constitution according to Scalia" should clear it up. Fellows' target is of course Antonin Scalia, current Supreme Court Associate Justice and a possible future nominee for Chief Justice.

This article covers in some detail how Scalia used the currently-fashionable Republican "avoidance tactic" during his 1986 Senate confirmation hearing, and suggests ways to avoid that. But it is best in its exposition on the magnitude of difference between Scalia's "originalist" (strict construction) views and the views of mainstream Americans. (Scalia believes the Constitution to be silent on prohibiting the execution of innocent persons, extremely-retarded persons, and children as young as 7 years old.)

In reading this article, you will certainly get to know Scalia as the dangerous man he is as a sitting judge. Even more than that however, you will come away with a better understanding of just how critical an issue this is to the future of the country.

Dick Gephardt is trying to jumpstart his stalled Presidential bid with a proposal to provide health insurance to "almost all the 41.2 million Americans without it". His proposal combines a generous increase in government subsidies for all employers who currently provide health insurance with provisions to require and additionally assist all employers who do not to do so.

Even as a currently-uninsured person, I have rather luke-warm feelings about this proposal. On the plus-side (especially for Dick), it would certainly be a turn-on for corporate America, especially the health insurance industry, and would certainly garner some serious political support (and money) from that quarter. It would also be a positive step towards a solution to this problem, and it does have an aire of "doablitiy" to it.

Still, my objection to proposals like this lies in the fact that so long as we aim at anything less than a complete solution, we will never end up with anything approaching a complete solution. This proposal is simply one more patchwork step that neither provides coverage for all nor addresses any of the underlining problems in the industry. Specifically, even though the proposal will contain additional provisions allowing temporarily unemployed and part-time workers to purchase coverage at reduced rates, these groups along with those workers employed at or near minimum wage are highly likely to forego opt-in insurance in favor of more immediate and basic expenses. As such, it would simply not even come close to its stated goal of "almost all" people being covered. And in failing to address the problems in the pricing fundamentals health care and health insurance, it virtually guarentees further upward pressures on health care prices across the board.

From the Christian Science Monitor comes this: A crusade after all? You already know me as an Atheist, but this quite esteemed publication quite well makes the case against an early entry of Christian fundamentalist ministries into Iraq. Expect this administration to ignore these warnings, and expect Iraqis to become further inflamed by their presence.

I will have more on this in a while.

The Iraqis are not a happy people these days, as evidenced by their tens of thousands protesting in the streets of Baghdad. It wasn't supposed to happen this way, or at least not according to the lines we were sold by the neocons. The Iraqis would welcome us, and then something strange and magical would happen: They would invite us to stay and help them through the stupidity with which they are obviously stricken.

Not quite so. The Iraqis do not view themselves as stupid, and this is where the neocons get lost: Since obviously they are so smart, how could anyone not think themselves as stupid by comparison?

And this entire attitude is creating a dangerous groundswell of opposition to our presence there. We are now viewed not as an army of "liberation", but rather as a colonial power, seeking to "liberate them" solely from their own natural resources.

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But back to the neocons, who obviously have Syria on their hit list. Aside from Rummy's inflamatory statements, military commanders in Iraq have indicted that they will use quite dubious (not in international law) doctine of "hot pursuit" to justify a violation of Syria's borders. Once in, and the fuse is lit for a complete breakdown of whatever is left in that region that resembles peace.

The neocons want exactly this as a justification for region-wide war. Syria understands this however, and has introduced to the UN Security Council a resolution for a WMD-free zone covering the greater Mid-East region of which they are a part. Expect us to create a problem with that resolution.

... or what is left of it, perhaps.

"There's a strict duty here - the Pentagon had a responsibility to
do something about the looting of Baghdad, and it didn't.. Basically, we're now responsible for the entire country of Iraq and all of its 25 million residents. Somebody should have given the order to stop the looting and protect those buildings."

~ Francis A. Boyle

You may recognize Dr. Boyle's name. He authored the first of two well-known articles of impeachment drafts against the president. This quote from him comes from a Baltimore Sun editorial subtitled "International Law Places Demands on Occupier". Indeed it does, as this summary of an Amnesty International statement points out.

The full statement by Amnesty International is quite lengthy and full of specific legal references to international law and how they should be applied in this case. If you want to wade through this (it is quite excellent), ask yourself as you do: Just how long would "gut instinct" George spend on it before he threw it aside?

Of course, why should the president worry about international law when his henchmen so freely obiterate ours?

Media Watch:

American media consumers have caught only glimpses of the carnage. National networks sanitized their war coverage.

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But our country is largely numb. Media depictions of human tragedies may have momentary impact, but the nation's anesthetic flood of nonstop media leads us to sense that we're somehow above or beyond the human fray ...

Continuing on from my "media as watchdog" theme from yesterday, Norman Solomon takes on the American media for its empathy with administration policies in "Media and the Politics of Empathy".

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Of course, there are some large pressures on the media to conform to the administration's hard line. In Iraq this week, reporters were ordered away by the military from viewing an Iraqi protest of the American occupation that they were holding in front of the hotel where most reporters are staying. Why? "(T)hey are only performing because the media are here." Well, DUH? Since when do protesters hold a protest in places away from the media?

But it got worse that day as U.S. troops aggressively searched reporters' rooms, citing "reliable intelligence reports" that a cache of arms were somewhere within. But how many times do we have to hear that phrase before it simply becomes the bullshit cover for whatever harassment needs to take place? Did the military spokesperson say they had found these weapons? No. So just how "reliable" are these reliable reports? Not at all, apparently.

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Of course, these reporters must be faulted for not falling in line as well as their corporate counterparts back home. Take Time Magazine, for example. Seems that Poppy Bush wrote an article for them back in 1998, explaining why he didn't follow Saddam to Baghdad back in 1991. Seems much of his rationale still applies today.

Now of course, with Junior running roughshod over Iraq, something like this could be quite embarassing, so the "patriotic" editors over at Time deleted the article and were even kind enough to delete it from the table of contents page of the issue in which it appeared. Fortunately however, you can still read it here.

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And of course, the administration is planning to use this media compliancy as it launches it's new ad campaign blitz for filthy-rich welfare. Expect them to get everything they want.

After days with no finds of Saddam's alledged "massive stores" of WMDs, pressure to find something is increasing among both supporters and detractors of the claim. On Friday, British MPs told Tony Blair in no uncertain terms that if no such evidence is produced, then "the basis on which this was executed was illegal." In the U.S., a group of ex-intelligence officials echoed this increasing doubt in the existance of these WMDs: "Some of my colleagues are virtually certain that there will be some weapons of mass destruction found, even though they might have to be planted." Suggestions that UN inspectors be allowed back into Iraq to deflect such claims are being rebuffed by the U.S. even as it is asking for the UN to lift its sanctions against Iraq, an action that Russia is threatening to veto.

This last sentence perhaps needs a little explanation because this is all diplomatic double-speak. First, no one is about to stop any needed but previously-denied supplies from entering Iraq. That would be rediculous at this point. So why would the U.S. be seeking a lifting of these sanctions, and why would Russia be saying no?

In a word: Money. You see, billions of dollars are currently being held by the UN in trust for Iraq under the sanctions provisions. The U.S. wants that money. Russia's position? Not until the U.S. allows the UN back into Iraq. Now who's trying to play who for a fool?

More links from "the continent":

Another take on "Saving Private Lynch" from the Times of London. And what is she going to think when she gets home and learns that they used her for a publicity stunt?

But what ticks me of the most is that they could have had their best news story of the war if they had just let her ambulance through.

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The BBC tackles the issue of the quality of reports coming out from official military briefings during the war. In ten different comparisons, the initial reports did not square with later reports, and the differences were always in favor of making the military look better than it was.

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As reported earlier, the U.S. does not plan any clean-up of any depleted uranium (DU) from their weapons' fire. To do so would be an obvious admission of the possibility that these weapons can cause damages far beyond their initial impact. That would of course expose the Pentagon to large lawsuits for not addressing the potential problem in regard to the veterans of Iraq I. With Rummy asking for a special military examptiom from environmental conpliance, this would hardly serve his case. (It must be noted here that if these weapons leave a significant lingering environmental toxicity, it is (according to international war) the responsibility of the conquering military to clean this up.)

With all of this in mind, The Britisn Royal Society (of Science) has issued a statement requesting that such clean-up be done. Expect a "no comment" rebuff by BushCo. If they can request a budget cut to our own veterans' benefits during a war, it is silly to expect them to give a crap the possible future radiation poisoning of Iraqi's.

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The Guardian And Observer Descend To New Depths

"This is the role of the establishment media - to vindicate
 the crimes of the powerful, to whitewash the bloodbath."

So writes David Edwards of Media Lens (Znet) in a blistering attack on Guardian and Observer (London) pro-war columnists who blew in whatever the direction of the wind was in the run-up to the war. While he attacks specificly all pundits guilty of this from these publications, he focuses much of his ire in a direct attack against Andrew Rawnsley, decimating his opinions in the process, often on a point by point basis ("Saddam had killed 3 million people" ... Amnesty Interhational suggests well less than 5% of that). Mr. Edwards also offers first person insight into the dynamics of why these people write the way they do.

And if the fun of watching a pompous warmonger get beat up is not enough for you, there are also gems like this:

It might be difficult to accept, but the truth is that every person who died in the war was killed for Western corporate and strategic interests. Does anyone seriously believe that the US would send a quarter of a million troops to Iraq only to have the Iraqi people freely vote to have nothing to do with the United States government?

Don't let the fact that Mr. Edwards is writing about British columnists put you off to reading this article, by the way. This is the way to go on the offensive against our own journalist shapeshifters so involved the pandering of the hollow ideologies of the right-wing. Show them as fools by their own words.

Now if someone would just go after George Will like this.

The Iraq Peace Team (Voices in the Wilderness) has been in Baghdad since well before the war began mostly to serve as independent observers and to provide any general type of help that they can. On Wednesday, they issued this press release from there describing conditions: Heavy-handed and hopeless, the U.S. military doesn't know what it's doing in Iraq. It concluded with this advisory:

The U.S. military has demonstrated that it is neither prepared, nor interested in becoming prepared, to deal with the humanitarian crisis caused by their war. The international community must exert itself, and return UN control to dealing with this crisis, until Iraqis can form a government of their own to deal with the problems created by 12 years of sanctions and war.

Apparently motivated by this press release, less than 24 hours later Voices in the Wilderness was banned (see photo) from meeting with the U.S. Civil Military Operations Center (CMOC), or with international journalists working out of the Palestine Hotel in Baghdad. Apparently, problems with military-run humanitarian operations do not exist if they are not reported. [See also: "Why, why, why?" for additional information on conditions in Baghdad.]

The Cheney lawsuit on his energy taskforce seems to be going forward after all. Time for a little more judge-fixing, Dick.

Fresh off the A.M. wires: Administration suggests that Saddam's top scientists have fled to Libya. Remeber them? They're on the "slaughter list" too. And there I was wondering how they were planning to put Libya into play.

I'm still confused about one thing however. If I was was fleeing Iraq under U.S. occupation, I'd hardly be picking up travel brochures to other countries on BushCo's list. Do you think that they're all that stupid?

This is starting to get sickening. From The Watch comes this report that the rescue of Pfc. Jessica Lynch may also fall into the catagory of a media event. Not for the soldiers who went in for her, for sure; they were operating in unsecured territory and clearly had to execute flawlessly all the way.

Now, I haven't been able to second-source any of this, but the media tales surrounding her may be quite exagerated, and it seems likely that the Special Forces who rescued her encountered no resistance. While I do not generally offer things that I am not reasonably sure of, the finding of the reasonably-healthy seven POWs a few days back seems to suggest that our POWs were pretty much treated according to Geneva conventions. This story from The Watch certainly does not indicate otherwise.

This story certainly bears watching, though not on FAUX-Americana. And as the "Statue Fiasco" clearly indicates, other national news sources will be quite unlikely to admit that they once again had the wool pulled over their eyes. Watch the international press if you want to see more on this.

[Update:] Brooke at SHARE the CAKE has more on this.

There is pow'r, pow'r, wonder-working pow'r, in the blood, [men echo] in the blood, of the Lamb, [men echo again] of the Lamb. There is pow'r, pow'r, wonder-working pow'r in the precious blood of the Lamb.

No, I haven't been "re-born", and James Heflin doesn't need to be. He's a Southern Baptist by birth who knows that well before the fundamentalists highjacked the White House, they highjacked the Southern Baptist religion, changing it from a tollerant, decentralized faith into a rigid autocracy, where even the slightest dissent meets swift rebuke. In this article, Mr. Heflin recalls his many personal experiences during that first highjacking, but goes on quite extensively on how all of that is being played out in this second highjacking with a newer and far more powerful cast of characters.

Loaded with fascinating details (Jerry Falwell recently joined as Jimmy Carter was publicly renouncing his 65-year membership), this article provides an essential background for anyone wishing to understand this administration's mindset.

The Muslim fundamentalist bin Laden wants a holy war with Jewish and Christian fundamentalists. With George Bush in charge, he's got it.

The issue is not, in the end, religious. It's not racial. It's philosophical: No matter what religion or political view provides a starting point, the end destination of the march toward absolutism is the willingness to cease caring about unbelievers as human beings. That is a danger greater than any weapon of mass destruction.

Take it from Mr. Heflin. He's been there.     Read it!  

The Boston Globe indicates that the pressure to find WMDs in Iraq is mounting. Current efforts are restricted to U.S. military personnel only, and the administration claims that adding outside help is "inappropriate", but outside analysts are begining to suggest that international help should be added both to increase the effectiveness of these efforts and to give the process a greater level of credibility. Increasingly however, both groups are suggesting that whatever may be found will be far less tham originally claimed by the administration. But the best is saved for last:

Pentagon spokeswoman Victoria Clarke has sought repeatedly to ''manage expectations,'' in her words, saying that the search process could take up to a year to complete.

A year indeed. That should be long enough to make everybody forget.

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Also, via AlterNet.org: "The Elusive Weapons Of Mass Destruction": Hans Blix has a few things to say about his dealings with the U.S. (and they're not very pretty, either). When asked if he believed that WMDs exist in Iraq: "I originally thought that the Americans began the war believing that they existed. Now, I believe less in that possibility ... one does have many questions."

The May issue of The American Prospect headlines "The Most Dangerous President Ever" by Harold Meyerson:

George W. Bush has been pursuing a reckless, even ridiculous, but always right-wing agenda -- shredding a global-security structure at a time requiring unprecedented international integration, shredding a domestic safety net at a time when the private sector provides radically less security than it did a generation ago. No American president has ever played quite so fast and loose with the well-being of the American people.

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As with his foreign policy, no level of factual refutation seems to make a dent in Bush's economic policies. His programs not only shift the burden of Americans' economic security to an increasingly deregulated private economy, they do so at a time when the deregulated private economy is singularly unable to provide economic security.

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The American president -- though not of the United States -- whom George W. Bush most nearly resembles is the Confederacy's Jefferson Davis.

Also worthwhile from this issue is "All the President's Lies" by Drake Bennett and Heidi Pauken:

The pattern is now well established. Soothing rhetoric -- about compassionate conservatism, about how much money the "average" American worker will get through the White House tax program, about prescription-drug benefits -- is simply at odds with what Bush's policies actually do. Last month Bush promised to enhance Medicaid; his actual policy would effectively end it as a federal entitlement program.

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Hypocrisy has been defined as the tribute that vice pays to virtue. George W. Bush lied about all these policies because the programs he pretends to favor are far more popular than the ones he puts into effect. But unless the voters and the press start paying attention, all the president's lies will have little political consequence -- except to certify that we have become something less than a democracy.

You'd almost think these folks didn't like the guy.

Arianna Huffington disputes the neocon gloat that the speedy fall of Baghdad is proof that those who opposed the invasion of Iraq were dead wrong. Quite the opposite, she says. It proves that Saddam never was the threat the neocons said he was.

'A Chill Wind is Blowing in This Nation...'
Transcript of the speech given by actor Tim Robbins to the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., on April 15, 2003.

Villified anti-war activist and actor Tim Robbins talks about hope and fear, about baseball and scaring children, and about how bullies are stopped in a challenge to the media to stand up and do their job. Most impressive.

Also, an excerpt from Robbins' response to Baseball Hall of Fame president Dale Petroskey:

To suggest that my criticism of the President put the troops in danger is absurd. I had been unaware, that baseball is a Republican sport....You invoke patriotism and use words like freedom in an attempt to intimidate and bully. In doing so, you dishonor the words patriotism and freedom and dishonor the men and women who have fought wars to keep this nation a place where one can freely express their opinion without fear of reprisal or punishment.

Take that! all you naysayers. Didn't President Bush tell you that we would all be safer after we kicked Saddam's butt? But no, you wouldn't bekieve him. You thought you knew everything.

Well, it's time for all of you to eat crow! The terror threat was just lowered to yellow. I know I feel a lot safer now.

That stuff? Heck, that's ancient history!

Or at least it was ancient history. But with the looting of museums in Baghdad and elsewhere, most of it is gone.

It wasn't supposed to happen this way. The probability of wide-spread looting was well understood before the war, and scholars of Middle Eastern history were consulted extensively in order to identify the locations of critical components of Iraq's cultural and religious heritages. The intent of these consultations was to allow U.S. troops to quickly secure these important locations and prevent them from being damaged. Instead, these locations were all but ignored by U.S. troops, who instead focused solely on protecting the Ministry of Interior (intelligence information) and the Ministry of Oil.

The significance of these losses to the Iraqi people cannot be overstated. As much as the Iraqis wanted their oil protected as their future sourch of revenue, these treasures spoke equally as loud of their pride and sense of identity. Indeed, not only is there outrage among world scholars, but Iraqi citizens in what are now daily protests are calling upon the U.S. to restore order and even suggesting that Bush and Saddam are one and the same. These are not happy people, and their discontent will make the already difficult task of convincing the Iraqis of our good intentions far harder, especially with the daily reminder of their loss in the form of the pilaged remains of their museums.

And so what is the administration's response to this? Same as it always is: Send in Colon to clean up Rummy's messes. [Does the irony of this escape you: black janitor good only to clean white master's mess?] While Rummy brushed of critcism on this ("Bad things happen in life, and people do loot" ), it falls to Colon to try to figure out some way to retrieve some of the stolen items. But Colon is likely to have little success, for there is a well-establish world-wide black market hungrey for just such items. Most of these items are probably lost forever, and the Iraqis are very angry about this. Said one Iraqi woman, "Go back to your country. Get out of here. You are not wanted here. We hated Saddam and now we are hating Bush because he is destroying our city."

But of course, why should we have expected any less from George? Such details hardly fit into the plans of a man driven only by "gut instinct". And he does, after all, have a long history of destroying national treasures when they get in his way. His first one, in fact, was our Constitution. Don't expect for the Iraqis to be treated any better.

Kirwan is out with another of his graphical essays, "Speak Now or Forever Hold Your Peace", over at AmericaHeldHostile. It kind of a fairy tale type of satire, except that it's the same fairy tail we've been reading in our newspapers for the last six months.

Rummy seeks to consolidate (his own) power: Leave it to this administration to use a quick military victory to seek addition power. And so it is that the official U.S. military newspaper, Stars and Stripes, reports of Rummy's latest grab for power. In a 204-page document submitted to Congress on Monday, Rummy is seeking (among other things) the following:

• To eliminate many reports to Congress from the Pentagon, including over 100 pages of exemptions from reporting for Rummy himself (congressional oversite),
• To allow direct Defense Department payments without oversite to "supportive" foreign entities (Bye-bye, Colin), and
• To end provisions that require that high-level military official not make a career of their curent positions.

This is total crap, but will likely pass a Republican Congress that is now as useless as its Democratic members have been for a long time.

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This proposed law flys in the face of my previously expressed concerns regarding the professionalization of the military, and the risks therein. Our Constitution specifies quite clearly that our military is subordinate through oversite to its civilian commanders, and the clear intention of much of this proposed legislation is to remove that exact oversite. If enacted as written, this document will almost literally establish our military as a fourth and independent branch of our government, quite obviously a status that Rummy seeks for himself. But aside from this dimunition of Congressional oversite, Rummy seeks to establish himself as Supreme Commander in several other ways:

• By allowing himself carte blanche to support foreign militias without review, he seeks to overthrow any coherent foreign policy coming from the State Department (dumb nigger).
• By eliminating a rotational system of top brass (and upping their salaries, to boot), he seeks to surround himself with a continually-loyal elite of military brass.

Now it is quite obvious to a casual oberver that the State Department is to handle our "foreign entangements"; that is why it has it's own seat on the President's cabinet. But Rummy kicked Colin's ass on the Iraq run-up, and this suggestion of his to have his own "foreign policy" budget clearly is an attempt to put the State Department out of business. From now on, according to Rummy, the business of state will be handled at the end of his many rifles.

I wrote extensively earlier (sorry, link missing) about the dangers to the public of an increasing professionalization of the military, and this last proposal is exactly what I was referring to. Rummy wants to "extend the tours" of his selected brass into a form of elite corps of senior advisors that has never yet existed in the history of our country. Loyal only to him because of his unique and (per his proposal) unaccountable status, Rummy could potentially order a strike on the White House himself! Theatric? Hardly. I have been told by hard core insiders that they would like to see Donald Rumsfeld follow or perhaps even replace Bush in the White House. Theatric, my ass. There are those in the core that are already dreaming of this.

And yet, there is another side to this distancing of the military mind from that of the public, and this is that it is bad for veterans who do not opt for career service. This is quite obvious as the "Support Our Troops" Republicans chop $14 billion from the veterans' sevices budget while they are away and unable to complain. Support them, apparently, when they are killing people, but screw them when they come back injured. And this was another point that I made in my earlier article: The number of Senators today who are also veterans has dropped dramatically of late. Not having to "walk the walk", they are clearly finding it so very much easier to cast our vets aside.

Now, I will admit that $14 billion is not that much of a cut for a federal program of this size. Certainly, a fully-funded federal program this large could make up for this merely with "belt-tightening" and efficiency measures. Except for the fact that the veterans program today is not fully-funded. Except for the fact that it already sucks. Why don't you read about it as it exists today if you don't believe me.

But on a most personal level: I ended up on the streets and homeless one day. I spent a lot of time there in fact, mostly with guys my age. Noticing this, I one day asked them about where they were during Vietnam. Total silence for a while until one of them said, "We were all there, stupid." But I pressed: "Then why do you live here? Why don't you go to the VA?" They broke out immediately into a laughter. "That's were we all came from, stupid."

A very interesting graphic display of perhaps 600-700 "Bush Approval Polls" going back to before 9/11. You can bet that the significance of this is not lost on Karl Rove. War makes George Bush; peace breaks him.

This from BBC News: US rejects Iraq DU clean-up

While this is diturbing, it is entirely predictable. The U.S. military won't clean up their depleted uranium (DU) because, if they did, it would be viewed as an admission by them that DU is harmful. (If you are not aware of the DU issue, your best bet is this Google search.)

But I offer this one question: If DU is not harmful as our military suggests, why did the Kuwaiti's spend so much money to clean it up in their country after the 1991 war?

Matthew Rothschild of The Progressive interviews Roger Ebert:

There's an interesting pattern going on. When I write a political column for the Chicago Sun-Times, when liberals disagree with me, they send in long, logical e-mails explaining all my errors. I hardly ever get well-reasoned articles from the right. People just tell me to shut up. That's the message: "Shut up. Don't write anymore about this. Who do you think you are?"

No shit!

But this is a good interview. Roger talks about the "Michael Moore incident" (Mike screwed up, but not because of his message) and frames a lot of stuff from the prespective of how movies do and do not influence public opinion.

By the way, Roger mentions a "traitor list" during the interview, and dilegent Benedict has tracked that down for you:

Now, I was going to ask to be included on their list, but frankly I was quite scared off by their admonition that "All emails sent to ProBush.com are monitored by the U.S. Government". Whoa! Besides, I couldn't figure out what qualifications I needed. John Kerry and Hillary Clinton made the list, but Robert Byrd did not. Jimmy Carter and Ramsey Clark made the list, but Bill Clinton did not. Of course, Peter Arnett is there, but where the hell is Geraldo? Much too confusing for me.

In the Mailbag:

No doubt, my Fundamentalist-bashing post from yesterday would elicit a response from long-time Fundamentalist friend, MsFedup. Yes, I had to wade through the inevitable sermon from her, but if she didn't include that, I'd be worried that she was on her deathbed, and I would not like that thought.

Two points that she brought up however, warrant a response:

As with the 7 days of creation? God putting it into a matter of time man's tiny mind can grasp.... what's wrong with that? Just look at the organization of that one particular story of creation? Look at the order of how creation took place? Hmmmm. Right in line with the theories surrounding evolution.

I don't have a lot of problems with her take on this. There are indeed many similarities between Genesis and the more modern evolution and big bang theories, though not quite so many as MsFedup suggests.

And if I am a fundamentalist because I believe all this first and foremost -- what does one call the person that totally believes in science whereby so much is reliant on theory?

In many ways, this statement perhaps best characterizes the "Great Divide" between us. MsFedup believes (as do all Fundamentalists) that "science" is simply a great collection of theories that one can pick and choose among, choosing only those that happen to fit into one's other "more dominent" faith. As such, she proposes that my greater trust in science is also a matter of faith, and that I choose science as my faith over God. Science to her is simply just one more false religion. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Science, in fact, has nothing to with it's current and former sets of theories. Science is a method of answering questions. It is a method that involves presenting theories along with supporting evidence. Should the evidence be sufficient and also withstand scrutiny, the theory is accepted. But it is only accepted for so long as future research does not show that evidence as either insufficient or false. In this fashion, science is "self-correcting". What was "true" yesterday may quite well be false tomorrow. And scientists accept this. In fact, the philosopher Karl Popper went much further than this in his falsifiabily statements on science: Science proves absolutely nothing. It is merely the best method we have for the on-going refinement of truth.

And this is exactly where MsFedup and I most disagree. She views science as some quite intact and stagnent "collection of theories", while I view it much more in the sense of Popper: an ever-evolving search for truth, but a search in a fashion that allows previous "truth" to be discarded when it is demonstrated to be false. Fundamentalist have no similar method of self-correction.

Oddly enough, it seems that we have a little slice of liberalism springing up in the great state of Utah. Yesterday, I linked to their local Salt Lake Tribune about complaints there against their "favorite son", Orrin Hatch. Now today comes this:

Above all, there is the fact that the United States, abetted by Britain and Australia, has launched an unprovoked attack on a sovereign state. That is why most other governments are deeply worried: The American attack on Iraq could be used as a precedent, using exactly the same arguments as President Bush, to justify an Indian attack on Pakistan or a North Korean attack on South Korea. The U.S. action in Iraq has fundamentally challenged the rule of law in the world, which is a problem no matter how happy most Iraqis are at the moment -- and Washington clearly meant to do just that.

Perhaps a newspaper to keep an eye on. A little dissent in the heartland for sure.

Mary at the watch has an interesting post out regarding psychopatic personalities and of course George Bush. While it is a bit lengthy, it dovetails nicely with my earlier post on Fundamentalism.

Harley Sorensen is a riot today with his "Occupational Hazard" article. So is Rich Procter in "You have questions? I have answers!". Toss in Bernard Weiner's "Confidential Memo", and we'll just call this "Comic Monday".

[Note to Bernard Weiner: What's with all of this concern about Iraqis possibly electing someone we don't like? Certainly in "rebuilding" Iraq, we're planning to sell them a bunch of ES&S voting machines. Heck, they're so crooked, even Jimmy Carter wouldn't notice!]

Dear President Bush, So what's the scoop, Georgie? Are we going after Syria next because Saddam hid his WMDs there or because Saddam hid himself there? (Actually, I kind of liked the Hezbollah angle that Rummy was floating on the Sunday circuit. Has he been talking to Ariel "the bulldozer" lately?)

Of course, that's only three excuses, and you do know that you'll be needing a few more than that to flip-flop between, at least if you want to do the run up like you did last time. With that in mind, here's a few suggestions I've thought up:

• The "aluminum tubes" routine - I know, re-using aluminum tubes would be kind of obvious, but don't throw the idea away too fast. Just hit them with Syria's "increasing purchases of dual-use technology". Nice, huh? Just "scary" enough to it to make it fly. (But don't let on that this is just the same high-tech medical stuff we wouldn't let Iraq buy for the last twelve years.)

• You simply must keep up with that "represses his own people" routine aslo. No, I don't think folks will get tired of it. (Don't all those rugheads do that?) Besides, without it, how could you use the "we're just freeing the people there" routine that was such a hit last time?

• And you'll simply love this one: "Reliable intelligence sources" have seen Osama (remember him?) in Syria lately. Talk about getting the home team whooped up!

Just one more thought: What if Saddam didn't move his WMDs into Syria? What if he moved them into Iran instead? What? Oh, you already thought of that. That's what I like about you, Georgie. You're always one step ahead of me.

I like to touch base with all of the "Sunday Morning Pundits" on TV whenever there is a dramatic hint of a "policy redirection ruse" going on in the White House. This morning, I caught both CBS and ABC. Amazing stuff, if you just allow your mind to see it. On ABC, it was as mild as mentioning Syria as a potential next target for us.Sort of a "conditioning" for the American public to get ready to raise their flags in support of a second (perhaps third?) unjustified war. Put it on their lips thi soon, and surely they will follow, raising their flags all the way against the American "traitors" who object. Quite more interesting however was Tim Russert, who devoted his half hour to a Donald Rumsfeld interview. I offer you this article, Jerusalem Urges Bush: Next Target Hezbollah, as to why this interview was so interesting and indicative of the future unrestrained use of our military power. This was the first time anyone mentioned the Hezbollah/Syria link within the context of our war against Iraq. Rummy made the link explicitly in this interview. This cannot be a mere slip of the tongue. Sharon has asked us to wipe out Hezbollah for him while we are at this, and conveniently, Rumsfeld's Syria is right on the road to that target. Syria is dead for that alone. Sharon wants? The neocons are almost totally Jewish radicals? Sharon gets. Time to pack your bags if you are a Syrian.

A point that must be beat upon over and over until the media takes it up a their very own theme: At a time of war, how dare we reduce veterans' benefits?

In the Mailbag:

Testify! reminds me of a comment I had made elsewhere. It is perhaps the best statement that I have made regarding my complete distrust of all fundamentalist ideas:

Here is the question you must first answer if you want to "do battle" with fundamentalists: What is a fundamentalist? What makes a person this? If you do not know this, then you do not know your enemy, and he will beat you every time. I'm not referring to the elements of their theology, dogma, and ritualism either. Everyone chooses a religion based on its compatability with something that it inside of themselves. What is that something?

It's certainly not a belief in the Western concept of God, because Christians, Jews, and Muslims all adhere to that same concept. It is not a depth of belief in that concept, for certainly none are more devout than the Catholic Pope, and he is not a fundamentalist. So once again, what is that something?

To understand this, one must understand what it is that distinguishes the fundamentalist view from others, and that is a literalistic belief in whatever is the guiding holy text; indeed that the text itself is "The Word Of God". What this belief provides for the fundamentalist a sense of absolute certainty in everything. Not only does every moral question disappear before this certainty, so too are all the whens, wheres, whys, and hows of paying reverence to that God.

On the surface, this is a very attractive concept, if for no other reason than that it greatly simplifies how one conducts one's life. Yet, as attractive as this prospect is, fewer than 10% of the practicioners of Western faiths subscribe to fundamentalist beliefs. Clearly, something is wrong with this picture. But what? For that, we must look to the texts themselves. (Remember, we are only trying to figure out what motivates a person to fundamentalism here. We are not at all trying to question the value of these texts.)

The first question that arises is one of timing. According to Jewish fundamentalists, God spoke to them for about three and a half millenia. For some reason, the Jewish God ran out of things to say after that, and has been silent since. To the Christian fundamentalists, He spoke for perhaps an additional millenium, and for Muslim fundamentalist (whose God was apparently the most talkative), He spoke perhaps only 700 years more.

Yet when we look at these three texts, we find that a majority of each is devoted to historical record. This is the first contradiction: Granting that God said all He needed to say as these fundamentalists claim, what was the purpose of the historical record for the many millenia that He did speak, and why was it of no value afterwards? And why did He stop speaking in the first place?

Which leads to the second question: If God had said all He had to, why did He leave so many contradictions in each of these texts? This certainly cannot be seen as assigning to Him a desire to create absolute certainty. And indeed, most pratitioners of these three main branches of Western religion do not view it in that fashion. But the fundamentalists from each of those religions obviously believe exactly that.

Both of these in turn lead to the third question, and that is: What about science? Clearly, the greatest intellectual attack in history against literalist interpretations comes from this thing called science, and yet God chose to stop speaking at least a millenium beforehand? The two conflicting views of genesis are both refuted by science, and God has no guidance to offer (that He wants written down, at least) in these sacred texts? The contradictions go on and on, and God doesn't think He needs to provide a little more guidance? Yet this is what the fundamentalist claims; that in spite of the fact that God no longer wants His texts to be altered, and in spite of the fact that they are suffer from contradictions, and in spite of the fact that they face the challenges of a scientifific method that did not exist when the were written, ... somehow God has told us enough. Heaven is indeed a very small place for fundamentalists.

So what is a fundamentalist? A fundamentalist is a person who requires absolute certainty. A fundamentalist is further a person who is willing to suspend rational (i.e., logical) thought in order to obtain that very certainty. But what does this mean for a person wishing to "do battle" with fundamentalists? For that, we need to move into psychology?

A person who repeatedly insists upon suspending rational thought on a particular subject in order to maintain an irrational belief in that subject is clearly not a mentally healthy person. When that person repeatedly suspends rationality in order to achieve a false sense of absolute certainty, psychologists refer to that person as pathologically paranoid, and this is indeed that "inner element" we have been looking for as to why a person becomes a fundamentalist. Fundamentalists are essentially "control freaks" who "got religion". Not every person who suffers from this mental illness resolves it in religion, but all who do become fundamentalists. All of which means that when we do battle with fundamentalist, we must be first aware that we are fighting a form of insanity.

[Benedict@Large is an Atheist of over 30 years. For that entire time, I have been fascinated by the topic of religion, and have studied it intensively. Three years ago, I realized that I still had no concept of fundamentalism and began my study of of it then. The conclusion presented here is the result of my first two years of study on that topic. I have seen nothing to refute my conclusion since then.]

Thanks again to Testify! for retrieving this for me.

Hatch Leading Charge to '1984,' Critics Warn: This interesting article is made all the more interesting for having been published in a Salt Lake City newspaper. Apparently the locals there are none too pleased with Orrin's introduction of an amendment calling for a repeal of the sunset provisions of USA Patriot Act:

In Washington, prominent conservatives are publicly questioning why Hatch, whose political rise was based on a philosophy of getting government off peoples' backs, now is seen by many as the congressional front-man for helping government look over peoples' shoulders.

Orrin Hatch clearly has a problem in Utah, and his problem is symptomatic of what happens when one party gains too much power: It's voters will start asking why, if their party has so much power, aren't they getting their own little piece of benefits from that. Watch for this as a growing trend among Republican voters.

Around the Blogs:

The Peace Movement: What Went Wrong?    It was inevitable that the wingnuts would be back on the offensive, saying that the peace movement, having been "proven wrong", was now "eating crow", that their every fear has now been proven stupid (as the right had said all along), and (in one article) that the peace nuts should now "shut up for a few years". Among many others comes this article by Kathleen Parker of The Orlando Sentinel, where among her "fence mending" suggestions are that liberals are "whimpering near-death", "irrelevant to today's reality", and are "just the 'Yes, but' crowd formerly known as the 'antiwar pundits.'" While Kathleen is writing this however, Liberal Oasis is offering a different perspective:

Well, what is it exactly that we all have been proven wrong about?

-- That this war was not about disarmament, but about establishing Pax Americana on the backs of dead Arabs, Muslims and US troops?

-- That this war wouldn’t end with Iraq, and could soon lead to more misguided wars with neighboring countries?

-- That invasion and occupation will keep our troops in harm’s way for an indefinite period of time, while fostering more terrorism against America?

-- That the Bush Administration has no interest in real democracy, and will ensure a government is created that will serve Bush Inc.’s interests?

-- That the policy of pre-emptive war may destabilize the world as other nations adopt it?

-- That there was a way to disarm Saddam Hussein of WMDs and work towards his removal without killing civilians, including children?

How does this happen? Why the different views of the peace movement? Why do these two seem to not even be talking about the same set of people? All of this of course begs the question: What went wrong?

Nate Newmann thinks he knows. He says this:

... there was little or no message by the antiwar movement on how they were acting in solidarity with the oppressed folks within Iraq.

And that was the fatal flaw of antiwar organizing.

And the left cannot plead lack of time, since they had all the time necessary between the first and second Gulf Wars ...

"little or no message"? "fatal flaw of antiwar organizing"? "cannot plead lack of time"? This is utter nonsense. The claim of little or no message simply is not valid; every counterclaim by the left started at least with "war is not the way to do this".

But "antiwar organizing"? Get a grip, Nate. The far right began reorganizing when Barry Goldwater was trounched. The neocons began 12 years ago when Bush, Sr. told them the march on to Baghdad was unacceptable. Both of these were quite well-funded marches to the right with every organizational consultant available to them for a price they could pay.

In contrast, the anti-war movement is a movement scratched up almost overnight in the best traditions of democracy? How can he possibly compare the two?

The Left was indeed disorganized, but when tens of millions of people across the globe unite in six months, they can only do so with a quite highly decentralized organization. A group of this size cannot even come into existance in such a short time without such. And this to him is a fault? The union could never have even existed without it.

But his last claim is the most atrocious: That we had 12 years to get all of this done. Get what done? Assume a 9/11 type of incident would occur and impose itself on an intellectually lazy president? Prepare our arguments just in case this happened? Just in case a quite marginal view of American foreign policy would catch this man's ear? This is stupid. This would require a clarvoiance claimed only by side-show hucksters.

But Nate goes on still:

The antiwar movement lost the argument on timing and on the efficacy of alternative means of addressing peoples broad concerns on Iraq. And I attribute that partly to their simplistic focus on "no war" unity over developing a more sophisticated positive message that also would have required more outreach to non-rallygoers (and probably less focus on rallies).

But just what were these "broad concerns"? Were they of a nuclear nature or of a boichemical nature? Were they over terrorist ties or Saddam's repression of his people? Who knows? Everytime the left countered an argument, the administration merely change the argument. Over and over they "shapeshifted" themselves simply to avoid dialogue with the left, knowing quite well that their stated agruments would be exposed as insufficient in any open and honest public debate.

It was however this very "shapeshifting" of rationale that then became Nate's "broad concerns" of the public. But, unlike he suggests, the left did indeed have answers to these; they just simply never got anything even close to proportional access to the public forums to discuss them.

And it was not simply that the left lacked responable access to these forums. It went further in that the right had so much access to them that they often used this access not to advance their own points, but rather to merely misrepresent the views of the left and even parody them as people. Digsby at hullabaloo offers a perfect example of this:

Every political party has its fringe. In a two party system, the coalition in each is huge and represents a wide range of opinion. There are also always those who will use dramatic and over the top actions in the name of politics. However, they rarely signify with the public unless a concerted propaganda campaign makes it appear that these people represent a mainstream view and then closely ties them to elected politicians.

White supremecists, Christian Reconstructionists, militias, neo-confederates and anti-immigrant bigots represent the extremist fringe of the Republican party and I would suggest that their activities would be far more repulsive to most middle of the road Americans than some theatrical kids at a protest rally --- if they heard about them constantly. If there were a non-stop barrage of criticism coming from talk radio and cable television against (them), many ... Americans would begin to see these people for the rude, immature bigots they are.

But, the fact is that the only "extremists" who are pointed out and regularly lambasted in the media are from the left. And, it is part of a long standing, organized effort to portray the entire democratic party as being out of the mainstream. ... If the "extremists" of the left didn't exist, Rush would just make some up.

And this all gets back to why Kathleen Parker and Liberal Oasis above seem to be referring to different groups: Because this is exactly what they are doing. The right has been allowed to parody the left into something that does not even exist with the full and complete complicity of the American news media, and it is this parody that Ms. Parker is addressing. Is she even aware of this? It hardly matters so long as her reading public is not.

And this is exactly "what went wrong" with the peace movement. Deliberately or otherwise, the movement simply was denied fair access to the public forum while simultaneously being parodied in it. Anyone who thinks that this was not the single critical blow to this movement in the U.S. need only look to Europe, where media access was far more balanced. Approval rates there generally ran in the 25-30% range, and in Spain, whose government backed the effort, they ran as low as 5%. No other single factor besides press coverage can begin to account for this difference. The American public was not only underinformed, but also frequently misinformed throughout the entire build-up to the war. And that made all the difference.

President's brother says "yes" to whore: Oh, I'm sorry. I was just having a "Republican moment" there. It just seems Neil is tapping some bimbo, and his wife is threatening to defame the family name over it. Watch for George himself to kick a few bucks over to keep her quiet as they split. After all, we aren't supposed to know that a Bush also doesn't know what "is" is. (MSNBC)

This is simply bullshit. While the U.S. targets news reporters, Sharon acts with impunity as he slaughters unarmed and conspicuously-marked international aid workers:

According to Laura, the activists were being shot at while protecting some children from Israeli gunfire. Tom was in plain view of the sniper towers and was wearing a bright orange fluorescent jacket with reflective stripes. The nine ISM activists and many children were in the process of leaving the area. Sniper fire from the tower was hitting the wall close beside the children, who were afraid to move. Tom was attempting to bring them to safety when he was shot. There was no shooting or resistance coming from the Palestinian side at all.

Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting has just released their statement regarding the targeting of journalists in Iraq by U.S. forces. Their suggestions of murder and war crimes are included.

Hans Blix says that he knew his search for WMDs in Iraq was simply a U.S. ploy.

If you live in Alabama, you'd better buy your dildos now.

John Dean offers a good overview of the plans for the occupation phase coming up in Iraq over at FindLaw.com. While he does take some (well known) swipes at these plans at the end of this article, the fact that he does not clutter his presentation of these plans with them makes this article a quite good review of them.

This is disturbing: The BBC reports that the 10 chief suspects in the bombing of the USS Cole have escaped from custody in Aden. According to this article, this escape was accomplished by merely breaking a window. This simply does not make sense for too many reasons. First of all, we clearly knew the conditions at the jail in which they were being held. There is simply no way we would have allowed them to be held in a cell with a breakable window with direct access to freedom once it was broken. And more importantly, suspects in a single crime are almost never gathered into a single cell where they can colaberate on their common defense.

And why just now after so much time? My take? Expect to find several of these folks dead near some bombing of American troops stationed near the Syrian border.

I remember back when the Chimpster's name first came up for a White House run. With all that money flowing in so quickly, I just had to do some background on him. I came away quite unsettled, but could not put my finger on exactly why. It was not long afterwards when some writer (whose name I have long forgotten) used the term "intellectually lazy", and I knew instantly that this was the exact source of my discomfort. Making decisions without sufficient research, taking the glory as they are enacted, and then turning away, never looking back at how things actually turned out. Indeed, Bush himself admits this, except that when he does, he says it with his typical manly facade: He makes his decisions from his "gut".

Anyways, Paul Krugman takes a look at this today:

I won't pretend to have any insights into what is going on in the minds of the Iraqi people. But there is a pattern to the Bush administration's way of doing business that does not bode well for the future — a pattern of conquest followed by malign neglect.

You mean they actually said that? BuzzFlash provides an absolutely wonderful list of GOP hoof-in-mouth moments.

Neocon Watch:

Newshouse News Service offers this excellent introduction to "think tanks" and the roles they play. To it, I have one addition: Many of the most powerful ones today serve as more than simply "idea factories". They also serve as ad agencies on how to sell their ideas to a less-than-informed public.

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Laurie Manis in "Lest We Forget" provides chilling historical parallels between the past and today.

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This solves that one. I don't have to write an intro to watching Richard Perle. Harold Meyerson came out with a quite adequate one today.

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Game 1 of the Wolfowitz Doctrine is now in the ninth inning, and the home team is nowhere to be found. So far, so good. Too bad this isn't a one-game series. Game 2 promises the be quite a bit tougher.

Game 2 of course is the democratiztion of Iraq. According to the Wolfowitz Doctrine, a tribal people who have never in their history experienced anything akin to neither democracy nor our cultural values will suddenly see how wonderful all of this is, and quickly jump on board. Forget for the moment that the Iraqis are up shit's creek and that U.S. propaganda attempts are not working outside of the U.S. but are impressing the Chinese in their sophistication. Forget for the moment that the Iraqis may get a little testy about Corporate America already fighting over how the "spoils of war" are to be divided, Robert Kuttner of The American Prospect offers a good outline of the problems we face in Game 2 in his Boston Globe editorial.

Of course, since victory in Game 1 came so "easily", there are those in the administration confident of victory in Game 2 who already looking forward to Game 3, a game that might properly be titled "You're next." Which begs the question, "Who's next?" And there is a surplus of candidates.

Certainly the most threatening candidate is "Axis of Evil" toss-in North Korea with their newly-restarted nuclear weapons program and somewhat more advanced missile program. While a lot has been made about how we won't attack them because of these capabilities, I think people are over-estimating the impact of that on our policy towards them. The reason we won't attack them is because the is no business support for it. In a nutshell, we'd rather negotiate with them because they don't have anything we need.

A far better candidate is the other "Axis of Evil" honoree, Iran, and indeed preliminary marketing efforts for that war are already underway. But while they do indeed have something we want, war with Iran presents several obsticles beyond those associated with marketing another war in that region so quickly. First, Iran has not suffered the crushing burden of sanctions for 12 years, so we would expect their military to offer a much more formidable defense. Second, while not everyone in Iran is totally pleased with their government, there is no wellspring of hatred of it in that country as there was in Iraq. Finally, we shot an aweful lot of weapons at Iraq, and it will take a while for us to replenish those. Prognosis? Don't look for an Iran war for at least a year. In the meantime, the administration will simply hope that the "Iraq Example" plays well in Iran and causes them to "tow the line".

Now Syria is another bird entirely. They are a thorn in Israel's side, they are small, and we are right there. And so marketing for this is well under way. First there was the night-vision goggles claim. More important, however is the claim that Saddam may have stored his WMDs there. Toss in a terrorist strike against U.S. forces in Iraq which we will no doubt claim came from Syria, and you have a Syrian war that is easily sold as both "provoked" and "purely defensive". Besides, how else is Wolfowitz supposed to have any fun?

"All the world's a stage." ~ William Shakespere

This is pretty pathetic. "You are watching history!" the voice from the TV proclaimed. "This is like when the Berlin Wall fell," another chimed in. Well, not exactly.

I had been hearing stories suggesting the entire event had been staged for the TV cameras, but really wasn't sure if I might just be hearing some "sour grapes". I wasn't. What's that other saying? A picture is worth a thousand words? Try this picture of that "moment in history". Shot from a "slightly" different angle, it is indeed worth a thousand words.

In 1991, only 10% of our missiles deployed against Iraq employed "smart" technology. Today, over 90% of our missiles fly into their targets with GPS and lasar-guided precision. In 1991, it took a half million troops and several months just to drive Saddam out of Kuwait. Today, with a force only half that size, we are inside Baghdad itself within just a few weeks.

To hear the Republicans tell it, this is the kind of military might you get by voting Republican. Of course, in order to believe this self-delusion of theirs, you would also have to believe that all of this fancy new technology was conceived, funded, designed, developed, and put into mass production in less than two short years. All of that with time still left over in which to train our troops in how to use them.

Sorry, wingnuts, but the mighty military machine you are seeing over in Iraq today is none other than Bill Clinton's Military.

From Atrious: Well, isn't this just ducky? William H. Pryor, Jr., another passifier for the southern slave staters, has been nominated to the Eleventh Circuit. Shove racism in our faces a bit harder, will you George?

Off subject, perhaps, but not very far off. GoogleWatch has an interesting page out regarding the potential for Google to be abused by federal government snoops in both a retroactive and proactive form. Interesting.

BBC tossed from Israeli cable TV, CNN also targeted. All this since FOX was added. Need more be said?

Where are they Now? Talk about the "revolving doors" of influence in Washington! In a first-of-its-kind survey of former White House staffers, The Center for Public Integrity has followed the employment of "Top 100" Clinton staffers after their one-year prohibition on lobbying had expired. More than half of the top one hundred Clinton White House officials went on to represent, work for or advise businesses and entities in areas they regulated while they were in office. Per presidential scholar G. Calvin Mackenzie, the Distinguished Presidential Professor of American Government at Colby College:

It is a normal number, or maybe smaller than normal number.

The images of huge bronze statues of Saddam being toppled by American soldiers working together with Iraqis certainly do make for inspiring TV news coverage. The citizens (those left) of Iraq are now a free. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, there is another fight for freedom going on.

As I had mentioned a while back, I suspected that the outrageous Patriot Act II was perhaps not meant as an actual bill to be considered, but was rather an Ashcroft wish list of provisions to be slipped unseen one-by-one into other bills being passed by the GOP-controlled Congress. Indeed, this seems to be coming to pass.

The bill in question, known as the Kyl-Schumer measure, simply refines Patriot I provisions regarding warrantless searches so that Justice is better able to go after "lone wolfs" such as the recent Capitol-area sniper. While the bill has broad bipartisan support, Democrats, long frustrated by Ashcroft's refusal to provide any information on how current warrantless search provisions are being used, wish to add a provision requiring Justice to do just this. Ashcroft gets his new provision, but gives something back for it.

Not to happen that way however. If the Dems insist on Justice's accountability to Congress, the GOP wants the sunset provisions of Patriot I rescinded. And this comes straight out of that Ashcroft wish list called Patriot II.

There goes the neighborhood:

Seems a day can't go by when some Bush appointee (or nominee like Daniel Pipes) doesn't stick his foot in his mouth, revealing himself as being against some core American value, and as often than not, that value is religious tollerance. So it was this time with Rod Paige, Secretary of Education and a Baptist deacon.

In an interview with Baptist Press (a mouthpiece for the Southern Baptist Convention) entitled Rod Paige: America's education evangelist, Dr. Paige stated that he "would prefer to have a child in a school that has a strong appreciation for the values of the Christian community ..." This quite naturally has created quite a furor among civil liberties and education groups, in particular Americans United for Separation of Church and State and the American Federation of Teachers, the latter group saying that he "should quickly clarify or recant his comments." Per his press secretary, Dr. Paige intends to do neither.

Now as an American citizen, I should not have to care what faith my Secretary of Education practices, and if, for example, my Secretary of State or Defense made a similar statement, I would not care in the slightest. But in making such a statement in this particular venue and then failing to accept quite reasonable requests for clarification, Dr. Paige portrays himself as confused as to just which school system he heads. Here's a hint, Dr. Paige: It's called the public education system. You remember, don't you? It's the one where you don't have to take Bible classes.

If you were wondering about my less than active posting over the last couple of days, I've been working on several longer articles. The first of them is below:

Neocon Watch:

Meet Daniel Pipes, an active little fellow who "writes" Op-Ed for (among others) the Rupert Murdoch-owned New York Post, and is a member in good standing in the neoconservative inner circle. His acceptance into this circle of elites was fully acknowelegded by them with his co-signing of an endorsement letter to President Bush from the Project for the New Amercan Century (PNAC) just over a year ago, congratulating him on pissing North Korea off in his now infamous "Axis of Evil" speech.

Mr. Pipes has indeed worked hard for his acceptance into this group. In his own biographical sketch, he cites a Harvard education, claims fluency in many languages, implies professorships at major universities, and can't help but pat himself on the back for how many people ask him to talk. But most of all, Mr. Pipes likes to congratulate himself on "anticipating" in 1995 the two thousand year old Arab tradition of protecting their own homes.

But there is another resume that Mr. Pipes fails to mention: that of his deep-seated hatred of everything Islamic. In his personal writings and public speeches, he is fond of presenting his "facts" that Muslims are paracites, rapists, and the like, and even claims without a shred of evidence that Mohammed never existed and that the Koran in a forgery. Mr. Pipes claims that this demonstrates himself to be a centrist on Mid-East issues. The KKK would have loved this man.

In perhaps one of his most outstanding moments however, Mr. Pipes, in ideas remenicient of the massive WWII incarcerations of U.S. citizens for merely being of Japanese ancestry, also wants all American Muslims to be tracked without cause by the U.S. government:

The rise in attacks on mosques is a related symptom, one frighteningly reminiscent of the swastika scribblers of another era. Those jacking up the hate are elevated to the status of seers. To wit, one of America's chief vitriol-slingers is Daniel Pipes, a shill for Israel's ultra-right Likud party. He is demanding that all of the 6 million Muslims in America be monitored and their activities regulated. He wants campuses purged of attitudes sympathetic to Islam and Arabs. Pipes also claims that his "research" shows 15 percent of Muslims are proto-terrorists. At an Emory University forum earlier this year, his claim was exposed as a fraud and he admitted under fire that he has no evidence. Yet, he remains a frequent network chattering head denouncing Islam.

Mr. Pipes clearly has lost focus on the fact that this was the exact strategy employed by Nazi Germany that resulted in the eventual deaths of so many own his own ancestors during the Holocaust.

Such efforts of course deserve recognition and reward, and so Mr. Pipes has been nominated by the president to a directorship post on the U.S. Institute of Peace. With many American Muslims regard Pipes as "the nation's leading Islamophobe", the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a D.C.-based civil rights group, has called on the White House to rescind the nomination or the Senate to reject it.

Recent Articles:

Why the Left Loves Osama [and Saddam] ~ This article made quite a stir a few weeks ago when it was released, but it really is quite silly. Starting from a false spin-byte ("none of the millions of antiwar demonstrators have a bad word to say about Saddam") then claiming as "fact" something for which no data exists (all of the protesters are Marxists), Mr. Pipes proceeds to introduce the apparent bible of the left, "dependencia theory", a doctrine so purvasive that it produces a full 127 hits on a Google search. (It says that industrialized nations exploit third world labor for resources. In their countries.) From this, Mr. Pipes concludes that all peace marchers adore Saddam as a hero of the lower classes.

That people even give such nonsense a second glance is a sure indictment of our educational system. That a major newspaper would even think to publish it is astonishing.

Columbia VS. America ~ Mr. Pipes is also not immune to the practice of taking personal credit for the work of others, as this more recent article (in which he takes the lead credit) demonstrates. His co-author, Jonathan Calt Harris, is actually the head of Campus Watch (a student organization Mr. Pipes founded to track college professors of Middle East ancestry and sympathies), and indeed, he merely quotes (but does not attribute to) that group's research in paragraph after paragraph. In fact, even a casual comparison of this article's content against that group's research suggests that Mr. Pipes merely placed his name as the lead in a cheap attempt to draw attention to its quite marginal content.

This article starts with its two big punches: statements that Campus Watch (a student organization he founded to track college professors of Middle East ancestry) claims were made by two professors of Middle East Studies at Columbia Universtiy, both of which are highly inflamatory and "anti-Western". Now I am not at all an expert on who Columbia selects professors for their Middle East Studies program, but it is clear that Campus Watch feels that this program would provide a better education for its students if anti-Israeli sentiments were never mentioned. That might be nice for Israel, but it could hardly produce a graduate qualified to work in that area.

From there, the list of "outrageous statements" by a half dozen other professors in that program that consist of little more than references to American policy such as "imperialistic", "beligerent", "fraud", and "abuse". Now, that such references are well open for debate, I will not attempt to deny. But sentiments such as these are hardly unique to the Muslim community, and to somehow use them as an indictment of this entire program at Columbia is nonsense. Mr. Pipes is simply suggesting that any college program on the Middle East is invalid if it is not totally slanted to pro-Zionist sentiments.

And it is important to put this into context: Students in this program at Columbia hardly confine themselves to just courses from this department. In all likelihood, while they focus their studies on Middle Eastern history and current issues, the majority of their courses are elsewhere in subjects such as philosophy, literature, sociology, anthropology and the like. Mr Pipes would likely not want you to know this. He would prefer his readers to believe that the best and brightest of our students are somehow being brainwashed by some massive conspiracy. (This is a common fantasy of all fundamentalists.) It is not Columbia University that is attempting brainwashing, Mr. Pipes. It is you.

[Grade: F ... Danny: Your writing is slim on any real content and and filled with unsupportable fabricatoin. You also go out of your way trying to draw associations that simply do not withstand even casual scrutiny. Your habit of taking personal credit for the research of others is repulsive. For this reason, I feel compelled to file a federal lawsuit against Harvard University in which I will claim that legacy admissions were prejudicial in that they unfairly denied access to that fine universty by better-qualified students.]