Well Worth The Price

There are times when playing Billy Bad Ass isn't worth it. This is one of those times:

"Newspapers in Kuwait, where negotiators were based, reported that the kidnappers had demanded, and received, $1 million for the release of the two Simonas, volunteers who worked for the charity A Bridge to Baghdad on school and water projects.

Asked if a ransom had been paid, a member of Mr Berlusconi's office skirted the issue but said: 'When you're talking about hostages, there are no two cases alike.

'You can't compare how the Italian government reacts to how the British Government does.'
Mr Berlusconi told parliament that the secret services had located their whereabouts earlier this week, but rather than risk violence, the Italian government had preferred to negotiate.

From a cynical perspective, Berlusconi doesn't have a whole lot of popular support for his decision to align himself with Dubya on this war in Iraq and somehow I feel that two raped, battered and beheaded women wouldn't help his bid come re-election time. Whether he was saving himself or saving the Simonas, paying ransom was the right thing to do.

This Is A "Good Thing"

I think that private contractors who knowingly enter a war zone for jobs with exorbitant salary more or less know the risks and should have carefully calculated them. I've been hit by the economy too and was out of work for over a year and am currently underemployed and underpaid. The prospect of getting a salary comparable to the winner of "The Apprentice" would be tempting. But, family to feed or not, the risk of death is something these folks need to factor in. I'm sorry for the beheaded contractors and their families but, again, the danger and lack of security were a price they were willing to pay in exchange for a king's salary.

The two Italian women, on the other hand, were there as aid workers. That takes a special kind of sacrifice and I find it honorable that they would take the risks in order to help the Iraqi people. I am glad they have been released unharmed.

Italian hostages released in Iraq:

"Two Italian female aid workers kidnapped in Iraq two weeks ago have been released and handed over to Italian officials in Baghdad, the Italian prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, said today.
Mr Berlusconi confirmed the release of Simona Pari and Simona Torretta, both aged 29, and said they were both well. "

It's Only Rain

Again, Bush is peeing on the country and telling its citizens that it is rain.

Bush's dismal policy failures in tax cuts and Iraq are being sold as achievements:

"The Bush administration's two most important policy thrusts -- the three tax cuts and the pre-emptive invasion of Iraq -- were sold with similar tactics, including the withholding of critical information needed by Congress and the public to make informed judgments.

The nation thereby was duped into buying two flawed policies that quickly resulted in devastating failures.

Tax cuts disproportionately benefited the rich, turned a budget surplus into the largest deficits in history, produced weak economic and job growth, and brought the worse income disparities since the '20s.

Invading Iraq was a questionable call from the beginning because that country had become a mere shell after the Gulf War. In contrast, North Korea and Iran, the other two members of the president's 'axis of evil,' posed much greater nuclear threats. Even more incomprehensibly, the administration turned its attention away from Afghanistan before capturing Osama bin Laden, the architect of 9/11.

The shift in policy generated a frightening rise in Muslim hatred of the United States, caused incalculable harm to America's reputation as the world's moral leader and increased the threat of world terrorism."

Impossible To Organize Indisputable Elections

Like everyone else with eyes, ears and a brain, Jordan's King Abdullah has saidit will be impossible to hold fair elections in Iraq in the current state of chaos.

He told the French newspaper Le Figaro that only extremists would gain if the elections went ahead in January without the security situation improving.

Correspondents say these were remarkably frank comments from a man Washington regards as one of its key allies in the Middle East.

US and interim Iraqi leaders both insist that elections will go ahead.

However, last week US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told senators it might not be possible to conduct voting in some places targeted by militants.

King Abdullah was speaking before talks in Paris on Tuesday with French President Jacques Chirac.

He said he was worried that partial elections excluding troubled areas such as Fallujah could isolate Sunni Arab Iraqis and create deeper divisions within the country.

"It seems impossible to me to organise indisputable elections in the chaos we see today," the king said.

This is yet another country who we were at least friendly with who has questioned our "resolve." At what point will Bush listen?

Repeating A Lie Doesn't Make It True

Or does it? News veteran Helen Thomas makes some good points in her column, Saying U.N. backed war doesn't make it so, and I wholeheartedly agree with her. But the fact remains that despite the brazen lies, with nothing to back them up, and the tons of disastrous mistakes Bush has made at every turn during his administration, he has been able to lie and spin it into something that, according to polls, at least half of the nation believes.

"Bush, who has run out of excuses for the war, now wants everyone to believe that the United Nations gave him the go-ahead to invade Iraq when the world body passed a resolution warning there would be 'serious consequences' if Saddam Hussein did not disarm and give weapons inspectors free rein in Iraq.

'The commitments we make must have meaning,' he told the U.N. General Assembly last week. 'When we say serious consequences for the sake of peace, there must be serious consequences.'
But the U.N. resolution gave him no mandate for war.

No matter how many times Bush claims he had U.N. backing to attack the oil-rich nation, it doesn't make it so."

The world is paying attention. They want him gone. They think he is an idiot. They see the grave consequences that have arisen from Bush's policies. The average American is not paying attention, or like Bush and his cronies, are too filled with blind patriotism and arrogance to admit that grave mistakes have been made.

Big Cold Feet

I don't know what Bush is trying to hide. Aside from the fact that he has an acknowledged lack of command with the English language (which seems to have gotten progressively worse over the years), the President's insistence that his campaign stops only be attended by supporters bothers me. As President, why can he not accept that sometimes people will question and disagree with him. Now, it seems, he may be trying to wriggle out of the upcoming debates.

A senior Republican official tells ABC News' Jonathan Karl that the first presidential debate, scheduled for Thursday in Miami, could be canceled unless there is a breakthrough soon in negotiations between the two campaigns and the Commission on Presidential Debates.

The only remaining sticking point, Karl reports, is the reluctance of the Commission on Presidential Debates to sign the agreement negotiated by the Bush and Kerry campaigns.

The commission and the campaigns have been negotiating a side letter the commission (and moderators) would sign instead of the agreement, but the Bush campaign finds the current draft of the letter too weakly worded.

DEBATE OFFICIAL RESPONDS: A senior official with the Commission on Presidential Debates says the debates are in jeopardy and puts the blame squarely on the Bush campaign, Karl reports.

"If they don't want to debate, that's fine. They can tell the world why the don't want to debate," the official told ABC News. "If they decide to pull out, it's on them."

If things were as rosy as Bush has been preaching all of these months, the opportunity to defend and promote his record would be welcomed. He should be ready to "bring it" on Thursday. Instead, it looks as though he is cut and run.

More Trouble To The World

So did he miss the meeting or not? This is a gross contradiction to the what the President and Allawi have been saying all week. Musharraf is supposed to be a key ally:

[...]
ZAHN: Is the world a safer place because of the war in Iraq?

MUSHARRAF: No. It's more dangerous. It's not safer, certainly not.

ZAHN: How so?

MUSHARRAF: Well, because it has aroused actions of the Muslims more. It's aroused certain sentiments of the Muslim world, and then the responses, the latest phenomena of explosives, more frequent for bombs and suicide bombings. This phenomenon is extremely dangerous.

ZAHN: Was it a mistake to have gone to war with Iraq?

MUSHARRAF: Well, I would say that it has ended up bringing more trouble to the world.

ZAHN: Even members of President Bush's party are saying that the United States is in trouble in Iraq and it's possible the United States won't win the war in Iraq. Is that the way you see it?

MUSHARRAF: Well, when you enter operations, you can go wrong in your calculations. That always is a possibility in any operation.

ZAHN: Has that happened in Iraq?

MUSHARRAF: Well, there are difficulties. One can't predict. Maybe the difficulties are surmounted and then it ends up with a victory, with a success. But, at the moment, we are bogged down, yes, yes indeed.

ZAHN: Are you fearful the United States will pull out before it should militarily?

MUSHARRAF: That will be a folly. They must leave a stable, territorially integrated Iraq. We have people of Iraq hard administering themselves, governing themselves, and governing their own natural resources. That must be left intact. They must not leave a disturbed area there. The disturbance can spread to other areas.

ZAHN: Do you think that the war in Iraq has undermined the overall war on terror?

MUSHARRAF: It has complicated it, certainly. I wouldn't say undermined. It has further complicated it. It has made the job more difficult.
[...]

Killing At A Higher Rate

According to Rumsfeld, things will get better in Iraq once they get tired of getting killed. But if we are doing most of the killing, it sounds like we need to take a bit more responsibility for contributing to the instability

Operations by U.S. and multinational forces and Iraqi police are killing twice as many Iraqis — most of them civilians — as attacks by insurgents, according to statistics compiled by the Iraqi Health Ministry and obtained exclusively by Knight Ridder.

According to the ministry, the interim Iraqi government recorded 3,487 Iraqi deaths in 15 of the country's 18 provinces from April 5 — when the ministry began compiling the data — until Sept. 19. Of those, 328 were women and children. Another 13,720 Iraqis were injured, the ministry said.
[...]
Iraqi officials said the statistics proved that U.S. airstrikes intended for insurgents also were killing large numbers of innocent civilians. Some say these casualties are undermining popular acceptance of the American-backed interim government.

That suggests that more aggressive U.S. military operations, which the Bush administration has said are being planned to clear the way for nationwide elections scheduled for January, could backfire and strengthen the insurgency.
[...]

Helping Hitler

Do I think that Prescott Bush was a willing conspirator in the Nazism? Not really. I think that like his son and grandson, he was movtivated by unbridled greed and a thirst for power. He was soley about "the Benjamins."

George Bush's grandfather, the late US senator Prescott Bush, was a director and shareholder of companies that profited from their involvement with the financial backers of Nazi Germany.

The Guardian has obtained confirmation from newly discovered files in the US National Archives that a firm of which Prescott Bush was a director was involved with the financial architects of Nazism.

His business dealings, which continued until his company's assets were seized in 1942 under the Trading with the Enemy Act, has led more than 60 years later to a civil action for damages being brought in Germany against the Bush family by two former slave labourers at Auschwitz and to a hum of pre-election controversy.

The evidence has also prompted one former US Nazi war crimes prosecutor to argue that the late senator's action should have been grounds for prosecution for giving aid and comfort to the enemy.

The debate over Prescott Bush's behaviour has been bubbling under the surface for some time. There has been a steady internet chatter about the "Bush/Nazi" connection, much of it inaccurate and unfair. But the new documents, many of which were only declassified last year, show that even after America had entered the war and when there was already significant information about the Nazis' plans and policies, he worked for and profited from companies closely involved with the very German businesses that financed Hitler's rise to power. It has also been suggested that the money he made from these dealings helped to establish the Bush family fortune and set up its political dynasty.

I Hope This Works

Family Of British Hostage In Iraq Take Plea To Streets Of Baghdad:

"On Thursday night, 50,000 leaflets written in Arabic were handed out in the streets of Mansour, according to a British source in the city.

'This is a personal appeal from a family whose son is missing. A family man called Ken Bigley is being held somewhere in your community,' a translation of the pamphlet read.

'We are Ken's family. Ken's mother, brothers, wife and child love him dearly. We are appealing for your help. We are waiting for Ken to go home ... We appeal to those who have taken him to return Ken to us. Do you know where Ken is? Do you have any information about his whereabouts?'

The pamphlet provides a local number to phone in information.
American contractors Jack Hensley and Eugene 'Jack' Armstrong were beheaded earlier this week by their captors Tawhid wal Jihad (Unity and Holy War), the organisation of Islamic radical Abu Mussab Zarqawi. "

I know that the kidnappers are beyond any type of empathy or compassion as far as the "occupiers" are concerned but I hope that, for whatever reason, they find it advantageous to release this man. Clearly, American arrogance keeps us from rallying support and begging for the release of a hostage but the British public is certainly not above it. I hate to say it again but I think the best move would be to trade this guy for a brave American who can handle being beheaded like a man.

Not Condusive

Well, that's a polite way of saying "hell no we ain't sending no troops to that death trap." So, the cheese stands alone yet again.

"'As far as Pakistan is concerned, our domestic environment is not conducive. It continues to be not conducive. We cannot be seen as an extension of the present forces there,' Musharraf told a news conference at the United Nations.

Iraqi interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi said on Tuesday he had pressed Musharraf to contribute troops to the US-led Multinational Force fighting an insurgency in his country.

The United States and the United Nations also encouraged Pakistan to contribute to a force to protect UN staff in Iraq, diplomats said.

However, Musharraf said Pakistani troops did not want to be considered as occupation forces, 'so our going there now will be totally counterproductive.'

He said that given the new realities on the ground in Iraq, with an interim government preparing for elections, 'security forces should come from Iraq itself.' "

I Guess It's Only Fair

If two of our "heads" have to roll at the hands of terrorists, at least one of our coalition partner's heads ought to roll too. It seems as though there had been plans to release Dr. Germ but when it looked like we might not be remaining "steadfast," we had to nix the plan:

"The brother of British hostage Kenneth Bigley says the US has 'sabotaged' his brother's release by refusing to free a detained woman scientist in Iraq.

Paul Bigley told the BBC there had been 'a shadow of light' when Iraqi ministers said the woman would go free.

But the US ruled out freeing the woman - one of two held in Iraq - saying it would not give in to the kidnappers. "

Can't have Bush looking like he was cooperating. Though at first thought it might seem that the poor Brit's fate might be sealed, the captors may just decide to release him ... just to show how rabid their hate is for the US. Perhaps they'll free him and grab another American in his place. We'll just have to wait and see.

More Fantasy Island Spin

Are the women of Afghanistan really free and empowered? Probably not!:

"Despite the fact that women comprise some 60 percent of Afghanistan's adult population, they make up only 43 percent of the new voting rolls. Recent surveys suggest that many Afghan women's votes will likely be determined by their husbands or by local faction leaders.

Largely deprived of education, particularly during the years that the Taliban ruled the country, the large majority of women are illiterate, according to Malaly Volpi of the Policy Council which has pressed the administration to provide more voter-education programs for women.

'Ninety percent of Afghan women are illiterate,' she said. 'How will they know who to vote for?' "
[...]

As with the less than truthful spin President Bush is casting on Iraq, Afghanistan is in far more trouble than he wants the world to know:

"In making the case for the Afghan war, President Bush promised to make women a centerpiece of U.S. actions in the country after the ouster of the Taliban," she added, noting that he had pledged to get girls into schools and restore rights and dignity to Afghan women.

"Now, three years later, the President is touting the great strides of Afghan women and girls," she noted. "While we have seen some gains, Afghan women are not doing as well as many want to believe."

T. Kumar, Advocacy director for Asia and the Pacific at AIUSA, was even harsher about the administration's performance.

"They have failed, misguided, and betrayed Afghan women by giving them false hope," he said, noting that, as sympathetic as Karzai has been to women's rights, "the entire legal system is (stacked) against women. It's time to take the issue of Afghan women's rights more seriously," he said.

In addition to the prevailing insecurity, Washington's biggest failure, according to the groups, has been the "paltry" aid it has provided to programs and organizations designed specifically to promote the status of women in Afghanistan.
[...]

Doubts Rise Over a Partial Iraqi Election

I was wondering why Rummy was out there lowering expectations over the prospect of full elections in January for Iraq.
The cat was already out of the bag in the rest of the world:

"The government of U.S. appointed prime minister Iyad Allawi has said, with U.S. and British backing, that elections will be held as planned even if people in areas under rebel control do not vote.

That is a growing number. Chairman of the U.S. Central Command Gen. John Abizaid said earlier this month that there are now more areas under the control of unknown armed groups than there were last year.

These areas now spread from the north near Mosul to cities such as Fallujah and Ramada, Sadr City in Baghdad and down to places in the south.

The reaction to proposals that elections may not be held in all of Iraq has been mixed. Some Iraqi and international human rights groups say they are not happy with the decision but can understand it as long as the government does not claim the elections are fair. "

Ironically, this is the same day that Alawi addressed Congress about the progress in Iraq and the upcoming elections.

Unusual Move?

I think Not! This is par for the course:

"In an unusual move, Attorney General John Ashcroft held a conference call with all 93 U.S. attorneys to spread the word that prosecutors and law enforcement officers should take every conceivable step to counter the threat, said two senior law enforcement officials briefed on the call.

Those steps include temporarily reassigning more FBI agents to counterterrorism investigations and having agents make more frequent checks with informers and key sources.

Authorities also are increasing what they call 'overt' surveillance of terrorism suspects - letting the suspects know they are being watched - and they may arrest some on relatively minor charges to get them off the street."

Something Has Broken

... and it ain't morning. First, you have Ashcroft's batting average of 0 for 5,000 in the number of detainees rounded (and roughed) up without a subsequent conviction. Now, you have a hippie peacenik turned Islamic peacenik added to the security watch list and barred from entering the United States.

[...]
"The refusal to allow Singer Yusuf Islam, formerly known as Cat Stevens, into the United States on national security grounds was a 'slap in the face of sanity,' a Muslim group has said.

Islam was stopped from flying into Washington on Tuesday from London after his name appeared on a security watch list.

His plane was diverted 600 miles to a Maine airport, where Islam was questioned and detained before being sent back to Britain Wednesday."
[...]
"It seems that the U.S. officials would rather that the untrue and distorted images of Islam and Muslims persist in the minds of its own citizens," Altikriti said.

Islam, who was born Stephen Georgiou, took Cat Stevens as a stage name and had a string of hits in the 1960s and 1970s, including "Wild World" and "Morning Has Broken."

Now, I suppose they'll ultimately come out and say that the person on the watch list is a different Yusef Islam. Then again, I guess if they can detain Ted Kennedy on the same grounds, they can detain anybody.

Zero For 5,000

That's a pretty sad rate of conviction given all of the time, money and torture we've spent and inflicted under the guise of battling terrorism. In baseball, corporate America or any other entity that matters, the person with that kind of dismal track record would be out of a job. But of course, this is the Bush Administration so John Ashcroft is still being praised.

"Until that reversal, the Detroit case had marked the only terrorist conviction obtained from the Justice Department's detention of more than 5,000 foreign nationals in anti-terrorism sweeps since 9/11. So Ashcroft's record is 0 for 5,000. When the attorney general was locking these men up in the immediate wake of the attacks, he held almost daily press conferences to announce how many 'suspected terrorists' had been detained. No press conference has been forthcoming to announce that exactly none of them have turned out to be actual terrorists.

Meanwhile, despite widespread recognition that Abu Ghraib has done untold damage worldwide to the legitimacy of the fight against terrorism, the military has still not charged any higher-ups in the Pentagon, and the administration has shown no inclination to appoint an independent commission to investigate. It prefers to leave the investigation to the Justice Department and the Pentagon, the two entities that drafted secret legal memos defending torture. "

Gee, This Is Smart ...

Is this part of the derailed roadmap for peace in the Middle East?

The United States will sell Israel nearly 5,000 smart bombs in one of the largest weapons deals between the allies in years, a report says.

"The deal could face political controversy since Israel has used such bombs in fighting with the Palestinians, the Haaretz newspaper said.

In one such instance in July 2002, a one-tonne bomb meant for a senior Palestinian militant also killed 15 civilians in an attack in the Gaza Strip.

The deal is worth $US319 million ($A457 million) and was revealed in a Pentagon report made to the US Congress a few weeks ago, Haaretz said. Funding for the sale will come from the US military aid to Israel."

Classic Guerrilla War Forming

I'm not too sure I agree with the "forming" part. I think "formed" is more like it. I wish I could find a reference but I seem to recall Saddam, in his pre-invasion rhetoric, ranting something like "we will fight you in the streets, block to block, door to door" ...

"To many experts, the conflict in Iraq has entered a new phase that resembles a classic guerrilla war with US forces now involved in counterinsurgency. And despite the lack of ideological cohesion among insurgent groups, history suggests that it could take as long as a decade to defeat them.

'Guerrilla warfare is the most underrated and the most successful form of warfare in human history,' says Ivan Eland, a specialist on national security at the Independent Institute in Oakland, Calif. 'It is a defensive type of war against a foreign invader. If the guerrillas don't lose, they win. The objective is to wait out your opponent until he goes home.'"

We can say a lot about the man as far as his treachery but, on this, he was beyond right.

Bob's Bandwagon

I hate to jump on the humorous bandwagon that is claiming that Bushco is starting to sound like Iraq's former Minister of Information (who was dubbed Baghdad Bob due to his resolute denial that the US had invaded Baghdad while the fall of the city was imminent) but, hearing Bush (or one of his croanies) stand before crowds and recite this lie over and over and over again, is almost comedy. He sounds, eerily, like that loyal and wrong character who only served to make coverage of the invasion a source of entertainment and comic relief.

"President Bush, defending his decision to invade Iraq, urged a vast assembly of world leaders Tuesday to stand united with the country's struggling government and said the proper response to spreading violence 'is not to retreat, it is to prevail.'

The country's prime minister, Ayad Allawi, offered an upbeat assessment after Bush's speech to the General Assembly of the United Nations, saying, 'We are winning, we are making progress in Iraq, we are defeating terrorists,' even as insurgents claimed they had killed a second American hostage in two days."

No Cred, No Clue

It positively slays me that George W. Bush could stand before the world at the UN and rattle off the same tired crap that he's been repeating (like a scratched record) to us for the past two years. The bulk of the world didn't support our invasion. The bulk of the world doesn't support our occupation. The bulk of the world can see that Iraq is a complete disaster and will not lift a finger to give us a hand.

"'The president really has no credibility at this point,' Kerry said in his first news conference since Aug. 9. 'He has no credibility with foreign leaders who hear him come before them and talk as if everything is going well, and they see that we can't even protect the people on the ground for the election.'

Roughly three hours after Bush defended his Iraq invasion decision to the world community, Kerry told reporters, 'The president needs to live in the world of reality.'"

I can only assume that the robotic mantra Bush keeps chanting about being right for invading Iraq and making progress is for American ears only because no one else in the world is buying it.

Re-enlist Or Else!

It's bad enough that we've got this backdoor draft being used as a means of sending soldiers to Iraq, but then to strong arm them into re-enlisting by threatening to send them back to Iraq is just dirty.

"'They said if you refuse to re-enlist with the 3rd Brigade, we'll send you down to the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment, which is going to Iraq for a year, and you can stay with them, or we'll send you to Korea, or to Fort Riley (in Kansas) where they're going to Iraq,' said one of the soldiers, a sergeant.

The second soldier, an enlisted man who was interviewed separately, essentially echoed that view.

'They told us if we don't re-enlist, then we'd have to be reassigned. And where we're most needed is in units that are going back to Iraq in the next couple of months. So if you think you're getting out, you're not,' he said.

The brigade's presentation outraged many soldiers who are close to fulfilling their obligation and are looking forward to civilian life, the sergeant said.

'We have a whole platoon who refuses to sign,' he said. "

Best Recruiting Sergeant Ever

The crazy ramblings of Cheney and other GOP'ers that terrorists would welcome a Kerry victory aren't really accurate. The truth is that al-Qaida has picked up steam under Bush and Osama Bin Laden couldn't have picked a better advocate to champion his movement.

The Foreign Office was thrown into turmoil yesterday after the British ambassador to Rome, Sir Ivor Roberts, described President George Bush as 'the best recruiting sergeant ever for al-Qaida'.

His comment, made at a closed conference of about 100 British and Italian diplomats, politicians and journalists in Tuscany, was leaked to an Italian newspaper, provoking embarrassment in London.

According to one of those present, Sir Ivor had been taking part in a discussion on which candidate Europeans would back if they had a vote in the US election. The ambassador said they would vote for Mr Kerry but some people would want Mr Bush, not least al-Qaida.
'If anyone is ready to celebrate the eventual re-election of Bush, it's al-Qaida. Whereas it is clear that the Palestinians hope that a Kerry victory will unblock the situation,' he said. "

At Least Ten Sheep In Damages

I am not laughing. Really I am not. But, what I see here is not merely a case of castration. I think it is a lesson in what can happen when the ground rules are not clearly established in a relationship.

"'I don't have a penis now ,' he explained, showing the BBC's reporter his wound.

Mr Mewet admitted he did have a girlfriend, but said he was at a loss to understand his wife's actions as she was aware that he had other girlfriends when they got married.

'She knew that I had many girlfriends, and I don't know why she complained when I got another girlfriend,' he said.
According to Mr Mewet, castration is unprecedented in Maasai culture, as there is no traditional punishment.

'If you kill somebody you must pay 49 cows, even if you've removed somebody's tooth - it's one sheep. But this has never happened to a Maasai,' he said. "

It seems to me that not only did the wife not have the same views on extra-marital affairs, she didn't quite grasp the culture of wife-beating as a means to prove that one isn't henpecked. There probably should have been a wee bit more pre-marital discussion on what the norms were in that community.

If she ever comes in from hiding, this will be pursued in the courts. But what is the value of a penis? Murder is 49 cows. A tooth is one sheep. Ten sheep? 20 cows? What do you think?

The Death March Is On

The first inkling when reading the false spin placed on the disastrous direction that Iraq is taking, is to accuse Bush of being blind, oblivious and stupid.

"'In Iraq, there's ongoing acts of violence,' Bush told a rally here. But he added, 'Freedom is on the march,' emphasizing his campaign image as a 'war president' in the election battle against Democratic challenger Sen. John Kerry.
Bush spoke after details of a classified report by the Central Intelligence Agency surfaced which outlined a grim future for the U.S.-occupied country.

The document, which was prepared for Bush in July, cited a worst case scenario of a slide into civil war and said the most optimistic outlook involved continued instability and security concerns, according to officials who have seen the report."

But, though Bush may not be the sharpest tool in the shed, his steadfast remarks aren't an indication of that. Bush thinks we're stupid. He is banking on the intellectual sluggishness of the average American citizen. He thinks the average person is too dumb to read the world news and/or has convinced his supporters that the media being is biased by "liberals." Meanwhile, the death toll marches on, Iraq spins further into the abyss, the hole to hell we are digging for ourselves in the Middle East is getting deeper ... Bush is still lying and smiling!

This is the people's choice and the people's fault!

A Disaster On An Unprecedented Scale

While Bush is still telling the American public that we are "winning in Iraq," the situation is becoming more grave by the minute, hour and day.

"I see no exit," said Record. "We've been down that road before. It's called Vietnamisation. The idea that we're going to have an Iraqi force trained to defeat an enemy we can't defeat stretches the imagination. They will be tainted by their very association with the foreign occupier. In fact, we had more time and money in state building in Vietnam than in Iraq."

General Odom said: "This is far graver than Vietnam. There wasn't as much at stake strategically, though in both cases we mindlessly went ahead with the war that was not constructive for US aims. But now we're in a region far more volatile, and we're in much worse shape with our allies."

Terrill believes that any sustained US military offensive against the no-go areas "could become so controversial that members of the Iraqi government would feel compelled to resign". Thus, an attempted military solution would destroy the slightest remaining political legitimacy. "If we leave and there's no civil war, that's a victory."

General Hoare believes from the information he has received that "a decision has been made" to attack Fallujah "after the first Tuesday in November. That's the cynical part of it - after the election. The signs are all there."

He compares any such planned attack to the late Syrian dictator Hafez al-Asad's razing of the rebel city of Hama. "You could flatten it," said Hoare. "US military forces would prevail, casualties would be high, there would be inconclusive results with respect to the bad guys, their leadership would escape, and civilians would be caught in the middle. I hate that phrase collateral damage. And they talked about dancing in the street, a beacon for democracy."

OMG! He Did Not Say That!

I didn't think this man could sink any further! Honestly! What kind of world leader would say something like this about the deaths of hundreds of children? I don't believe this:

Talking about European nations and the war on terror, Cheney said, and I quote: "I think some have hoped that if they kept their heads down and stayed out of the line of fire, they wouldn't get hit. I think what happened in Russia now demonstrates pretty conclusively that everybody is a target. That Russia, of course, didn't support us in Iraq, they didn't get involved in sending troops there, they've gotten hit anyway."

The first two sentences are not the issue... it's the third sentence -- the idea that if Russia had only supported us in Iraq, had only sent troops there, they wouldn't have gotten hit. That is insane. Russia got hit because of their conflict in Chechnya. It had nothing to do with whether they did or did not send troops to Iraq. Every Republican I've spoken with today has expressed "displeasure" at the vice president's remarks Furthermore, most of them are feeling awfully "queasy" about Mr. Cheney using the murder of hundreds of children in Russia to make an argument about U.S. involvement in Iraq.
(link via oliverwillis.com)

What Is Our Focus?

I was just browsing the headlines on my Yahoo home page and had to look sideways at how odd they seemed stacked three in a row. What exatly are we doing these days? We have an election pending, a war in Iraq, a third Hurricane raging towards our Gulf states and we are sending out edicts to everyone in the world?

Russia Rebuts U.S. Criticism of Putin's Shake-Up

Sudan Rejects U.S.-Sponsored Darfur Resolution

U.S. Rebukes Saudis Over Religious Rights

What is all of this posturing going to accomplish? Could we be trying to divert attention from the more important issues at hand?

Totally Played Out!

At least that is my opinion. Is the entire city of DC on crack? What is the fixation on this man. I am all for second (and third) chances but when do people decide that perhaps it is time to sit down somewhere? Is there no new blood in Chocolate City? Talk about a "mack" from "waaaaay" back ... sheesh!:

"The man once dubbed 'Mayor For Life' appeared Tuesday night to have won the Democratic nomination for the Ward 8 council seat -- the same post he won in 1992 after serving six months in prison for his drug conviction. He used that as a springboard to a fourth term as mayor in 1994."
[...]
Allen conceded defeat to reporters. "There are people out there who only vote when Marion Barry runs. You can't figure them into your projections," she said. "I will always work with whoever the council member is, whoever is the people's choice."

I asked folks on a couple of my discussion lists what the facination was with him and the consensus seems to be that "he produces." I'm just wondering what folks do during the years that he is not in office and what they will do when he's gone. I guess he's the Great "Crack" Hope!

You Go Gurl!

Though I thought the prosecution of Martha Stewart (over her alleged "lying to prosecutors" about a stock transaction that was worth less than $40K of her own dang money), I am glad she is going to suck it up and get that bogus sentence over with. I think the entire case was stupid and a waste of taxpayers', Martha's stockholders' money and definitely her fortune.

Martha Stewart Asks Judge Jail Me Now:

"'I want to put this nightmare behind me,' said Stewart, who built a business empire on her home decorating tips. 'I want to reclaim my good life and good works and allow others to do the same.' "

In a surprise announcement, Stewart -- convicted in March and later sentenced to five months of jail and five months of house arrest -- said through tears she hoped to be a free woman by March of next year so that she can plant her spring garden.

Stewart said she did not want to wait for the appeal process, which could take a year and wanted instead to reclaim her good name and her personal and professional life.

I just hope that the justice system pursues Ken Lay and his Enron cohorts with the same swiftness, zealousness and viciousness for the thousands of lives they impacted by their deceptions and greed!

An A/B Conversation

Once again, Russia is telling the US to mind our own business. Their government is having an A/B conversation and would like us to "C" our way out:

"But Russia's foreign minister, speaking in Kazakhstan on the sidelines of a meeting of ex-Soviet states that Thursday will discuss a joint approach to fighting terrorism, said Washington had no right to impose its model of democracy on others.

'First of all, the processes that are under way in Russia are our internal affair,' Sergei Lavrov said.

'And it is at least strange that, while talking about a certain 'pulling back', as he (Powell) put it, on some of the democratic reforms in the Russian Federation, he tried to assert yet one more time the thought that democracy can only be copied from someone's model,' Lavrov said.

'We, for our part, do not comment on the U.S. system of presidential elections, for instance.' The United States itself had been forced to take tough and controversial security steps after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on U.S. targets, he said.

Powell expressed sympathy for the Kremlin drive against terrorism after this month's Beslan school attack by Chechen rebels in which more than 320 people were killed, half of them children. But he called for 'a proper balance' to keep democratic reforms on course. "

Excuses Are The Tools Of The Incompetent

... they build bridges to nowhere and those who dwell upon them are seldom good for anything else.

Uh, that would be Bush:

"'The president would have us believe that his record is the result of bad luck, not bad decisions, that he's faced the wrong circumstances, not made the wrong choices,' Kerry said in excerpts of remarks prepared for delivery at the Detroit Economic Club, a traditional forum for presidential candidates.

'In fact, this president has created more excuses than jobs. His is the Excuse Presidency -- never wrong, never responsible, never to blame. President Bush's desk isn't where the buck stops -- it's where the blame begins.' "

When Things Fall Apart

Iraq is a mess. Iran and N. Korea are thumbing their noses at us, Russia is on its way back to being a dictatorship and now Israel is trashing the road map to peace.

"The Israeli government does not intend to honour the US-backed road map to peace in the Middle East once it has completed a planned pullout from Gaza, an Israeli newspaper reported today.

Ariel Sharon, the Israeli prime minister, told the Yediot Ahronot daily that there might not be any troop pullbacks after Israel had carried out its so-called unilateral 'disengagement' from the Palestinians - withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and four small West Bank settlements - in 2005.

'It is very possible that, after the evacuation, there will be a long period when nothing else happens,' Mr Sharon said. He told the paper it was impossible to say whether this could signal decades of stalemate.
Mr Sharon said that, as long as there was no significant shift in the Palestinian leadership and policy, Israel would 'continue its war on terrorism, and will stay in the territories [of the West Bank] that will remain after the implementation of disengagement'. "

Stupid People ...

think Bush is doing a good job:

"U.S. news organizations are under constant pressure to report good news from Iraq. In fact, as a Newsweek headline puts it, 'It's worse than you think.' Attacks on coalition forces are intensifying and getting more effective; no-go zones, which the military prefers to call 'insurgent enclaves,' are spreading -- even in Baghdad. We're losing ground.

And the losses aren't only in Iraq. Al-Qaida has regrouped. The invasion of Iraq, intended to demonstrate American power, has done just the opposite: Nasty regimes around the world feel empowered now that our forces are bogged down. When a New York Times reporter asked Bush about North Korea's ongoing nuclear program, 'he opened his palms and shrugged.'"

Yet many voters still believe that Bush is doing a good job protecting America.

I don't know what kind of stupor people are in. It is just unfathomable that people can be this clueless.

Okay, He's Crazy For Real Now

With the escalating violence in Iraq and blood spilling like oil from a bombed pipeline, I know Sharon is not considering throwing a match onto an already ignited situation.

"Ariel Sharon has threatened that Yasser Arafat will meet the same fate as Hamas leaders who were assassinated earlier this year by the Israeli military.

In ambiguous comments to Israeli newspapers to mark the Jewish new year, the prime minister said he intends to force the Palestinian leader into exile. But he also hinted that Mr Arafat might be killed. "

It's Beginning To Look Like And Feel Like Civil War

"It was the deadliest single incident in the Iraqi capital for six months, but there was nothing unique about the explosion; it took place a few hundred metres from Haifa Street, a well-known centre of resistance to the American occupation and the scene of heavy fighting on Sunday. It was embarrassingly close to the green zone and the US embassy.

But it reveals a grim truth about the nature of Iraq's evolving insurgency: Iraqis are killing Iraqis.

In recent months, and especially since the handover of 'power' to the unelected interim government, Iraq's resistance has concentrated its efforts on killing those who collaborate with the Americans - the police officers, would-be police officers, translators, governors and government officials.

It is beginning to look like, and feel like, civil war. "

Mutual Random Acts Of Violence

I wish someone could explain the logic in this kind of attack on civilians. The US has multiple lame explanations but the fact remains that innocents were killed or injured without provocation:

"On Sunday, 13 Iraqis were killed and dozens injured in Baghdad when US helicopters fired on a crowd of unarmed civilians. G2 columnist Ghaith Abdul-Ahad, who was injured in the attack, describes the scene of carnage - and reveals just how lucky he was to walk away "

The picture in this article is graphic so beware!

So Many Hearts And Minds ...

More Bad News About Abuse:

"A British lawyer said Tuesday he had uncovered evidence that U.S. troops mistreated detainees in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, suggesting abuse had spread far beyond the notorious Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad.

Phil Shiner sent Reuters statements by two Iraqis who said they were hooded, stripped naked, beaten and doused with cold water at lengthy torture sessions in a place called 'the disco' because of loud Western music constantly blasted at detainees.

One said he had seen a 14-year-old boy bleeding from his anus. The other said he was threatened with sexual assault." [...]

No Strings Pulled Here

I am not really understanding the legality of this:

Independent presidential candidate Ralph Nader's name can appear on Florida ballots for the election, despite a court order to the contrary, Florida's elections chief told officials yesterday in a move that could help President Bush in the key swing state.

The Florida Democratic Party reacted with outrage, calling the move ''blatant partisan maneuvering' by Governor Jeb Bush, the president's younger brother, and vowed to fight it."

A Managed Democracy ...

Uh, yeah! I buy that. This sounds like Mr. KGB is creating himself a new government where he goes unchecked and unchallenged. Looks like the good ole USSR is making a comeback!

"It's the beginning of a constitutional coup d'etat," said Sergei Mitrokhin, a former parliamentary leader from the liberal Yabloko party. "It's a step toward dictatorship."

Mitrokhin and others decried what they saw as the exploitation of the deaths of 328 children and adults in the southern town of Beslan to justify a power grab. "It's sad that the president has used such a topic as a pretext to do that in order to increase his own power," Mitrokhin said in an interview. "These measures don't have anything to do with the fight against terrorism."

The plan was the latest move in a five-year campaign by Putin to consolidate power and neutralize potential opposition in the new Russia. Since coming into office at the end of 1999, Putin's government has taken over or closed all independent national television channels, established unrivaled dominance of both houses of parliament, reasserted control over the country's huge energy industry and jailed or driven into exile business tycoons who defied him.

Not Trying To Call Folks Stupid

I am not trying to imply that "stupid is as stupid does" or anything but why does it appear that the states with the lowest IQs and incomes voted for Bush in 2000? Funny how people with no money and no sense
think that Bush is a good idea.
.
.
.
Bwaaaaaah!

Operation "water seeks its own level" is now in process!
(link via rachelinthecity.com)

I Reckon You're Fired

Wow! That's all I can say!

A Moulton woman says she lost job for sporting Kerry sticker on car:

"'I asked him if I was fired and he told me he was thinking about it,' she said. 'I said, 'Well, am I fired?' He hollered and said, 'Get out of here and shut the door.'

'She said her manager was standing in another room and she asked him if that meant for her to go back to work or go home. The manager told her to go back to work, but he came back a few minutes later and said, ' 'I reckon you're fired. You could either work for him or John Kerry,'' Gobbell said.

'I took off my gloves and threw them in the garbage and left,' Gobbell said.

Though she is unemployed and uncertain if she will get her job back, Gobbell said, she doesn't regret her decision to keep the sticker on her windshield.

'I would like to find another job, but I would take that job back because I need to work,' she said. 'It upset me and made me mad that he could put a letter in my check expressing his (political) opinion, but I can't put something on my car expressing mine.' "

From Bad To Worse

I saw a campaign bumper sticker that said "If you're not appalled, you haven't been paying attention." Clearly, according to the polls, the majority of Americans are not paying attention and/or not grasping the gravity of what is going on.

It's not only that U.S. casualty figures keep climbing. American counterinsurgency experts are noticing some disturbing trends in those statistics. The Defense Department counted 87 attacks per day on U.S. forces in August—the worst monthly average since Bush's flight-suited visit to the USS Abraham Lincoln in May 2003. Preliminary analysis of the July and August numbers also suggests that U.S. troops are being attacked across a wider area of Iraq than ever before. And the number of gunshot casualties apparently took a huge jump in August. Until then, explosive devices and shrapnel were the primary cause of combat injuries, typical of a "phase two" insurgency, where sudden ambushes are the rule. (Phase one is the recruitment phase, with most actions confined to sabotage. That's how things started in Iraq.) Bullet wounds would mean the insurgents are standing and fighting—a step up to phase three.

Another ominous sign is the growing number of towns that U.S. troops simply avoid. A senior Defense official objects to calling them "no-go areas." "We could go into them any time we wanted," he argues. The preferred term is "insurgent enclaves." They're spreading. Counterinsurgency experts call it the "inkblot strategy": take control of several towns or villages and expand outward until the areas merge. The first city lost to the insurgents was Fallujah, in April. Now the list includes the Sunni Triangle cities of Ar Ramadi, Baqubah and Samarra, where power shifted back and forth between the insurgents and American-backed leaders last week. "There is no security force there [in Fallujah], no local government," says a senior U.S. military official in Baghdad. "We would get attacked constantly. Forget about it."

Though, I am not sure what John Kerry would be able to do in order to dig us out of this ever evolving quagmire, I do know that continuing to drive in the wrong direction, as George Bush is doing, is not the right answer. Even with the global support we might gain if John Kerry were elected, no country in its right mind would send their troops into that violent death trap. The test will be to get us out in a timely fashion while not leaving the entire region in an inferno. Unfortunately, I do not see how that is possible.

His Heart In His Stomach

I realize that the President is probably under a lot of stress and that his heart truly is in the pit of his stomach but, damn, this is ridiculous!

We Don't Want The Smoking Gun To Be A Mushroom Cloud

Isn't that what Condoleeza Rice said in the run up to the invasion in Iraq? Well, our belligerent friends in N. Korea seem to have set off something.

A huge explosion rocked North Korea near the border with China three days ago, producing a mushroom cloud that sparked speculation Pyongyang might have tested an atomic weapon, Yonhap news agency reported on Sunday.

Update:

U.S. and South Korean officials said on Sunday it was unlikely to have been a nuclear weapons test despite a report the blast produced a mushroom cloud.

So is that the spin? The big mushroom cloud was probably a figment of their imagination?

Ditching Fallouja

The sad thing about this report of Fallouja is that the majority of American's have no idea how poorly things are going in Iraq because Bushco is feeding the public a constant stream of false hope and lies about the progress we're making. Meanwhile, they've basically thrown up their hands on Fallouja and unless they plan to carpet bomb the whole city, they are admitting defeat and the city is now under the control of the insurgents.

The Iraqi military force formed by the Marines in a last-ditch effort to pacify the restive city of Fallouja has been disbanded in the face of continuing violence, assaults on government security forces and evidence that some members have been working openly with insurgents.

The dissolution of the Fallouja Brigade, created during the spring to avoid an all-out assault on the insurgent hotbed, marked a significant setback for the U.S. military. The Americans had hoped that the brigade, composed of former members of the Iraqi army and Saddam Hussein's special security forces, would work alongside the new Iraqi government and help restore order.

"The Fallouja Brigade is done, over," said Marine Col. Jerry L. Durrant, who oversees the 1st Marine Expeditionary Unit's involvement with Iraqi security forces. "The whole Fallouja Brigade thing was a fiasco. Initially it worked out OK, but it wasn't a good idea for very long."
[...]
With the demise of the Fallouja Brigade — agreed to by the interim Iraqi government and the Marines — the Marines are left with no attractive options for rooting out Fallouja's entrenched insurgency. The rebel movement has spread to surrounding villages and left the interim Iraqi government without control of one of the nation's largest cities west of Baghdad. Marines remain based as close as two miles from Fallouja, but the insurgents — local and foreign fighters backed by firebrand Sunni Muslim clerics — have had several months to dig in and make it more difficult for American troops or Iraqi government forces to launch a ground attack.

"We don't know where to go now after this dismissal by the American troops and the Iraqi interim government," said Brig. Gen. Tayseer Latief of the brigade. "They leave us no other option but to join the resistance."

What al-Qaeda Wants

The President is doing a live radio broadcast this morning, September 11, the third anniversary of the attack on the WTC and the Pentagon. Once again he mentioned that 3/4 of al-Qaeda had been captured or killed. That cracks me up. We've never had an al-Qaeda headcount and now that it is more of a movement than a terrorist cell, it is absurd to believe that any percentages could be touted. In fact, it is downright idiotic.

Middle East expert Juan Cole posted an excellent essay on al-Qaeda and the aftermath of September 11. It is his view of what al-Qaeda's real agenda is - and it isn't hating our freedom. It is gaining theirs:

[...]
"From al-Qaeda's point of view, the political unity of the Muslim world was deliberately destroyed by a one-two punch. First, Western colonial powers invaded Muslim lands and detached them from the Ottoman Empire or other Muslim states. They ruled them brutally as colonies, reducing the people to little more than slaves serving the economic and political interests of the British, French, Russians, etc. France invaded Algeria in 1830. Great Britain took Egypt in 1882 and Iraq in 1917. Russia took the Emirate of Bukhara and other Central Asian territories in the 1860s and forward. Second, they formed these colonies into Western-style nation-states, often small and weak ones, so that the divisive effects of the colonial conquests have lasted. (Look at the British Empire and its imposition on much of the Muslim world, e.g.:)

The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan was not an unprecedented event from the point of view of Bin Laden and his followers. Far from it. It was only the latest in a long series of Western predations in Muslim lands. The British had conquered Palestine, Jordan and Iraq, and had unilaterally opened Palestine to Jewish immigration, with the colonized Palestinians unable to object. The Russians had taken the Caucasus and Chechnya in the early nineteenth century, and had so brutally repressed the Muslims under their rule that they probably killed hundreds of thousands and expelled even more to the Ottoman Empire (now Turkey).

From al-Qaeda's point of view, the Soviet attempt to absorb Afghanistan was the beginning of the end of the colonial venture. They demonstrated that even a superpower can be forced to withdraw from a Muslim land if sufficient guerrilla pressure is put on it.
[...]

A Bad Movie

The list of things gone wrong just never seems to end.

"A US senate committee has been told that up to 100 'ghost detainees' could have been held at the notorious Abu Ghraib jail in Iraq because the CIA did not register all prisoners, it was reported today.

Two US army generals who oversaw an internal investigation into detention facilities in Iraq originally found eight cases of prisoners being kept off official lists to hide them from the Red Cross. However, they yesterday said the true figure could be much higher.

'The number is in the dozens, to perhaps up to 100,' General Paul Kern told the senate armed services committee. General George Fay put the figure at 'two dozen or so', but both officers said they could not give a precise number because no records were kept on most of the CIA detainees.

Under the Geneva conventions, the temporary failure to disclose the identities of prisoners to the Red Cross is permitted under an exemption for military necessity. However, the generals said they were certain the practice used by the CIA in Iraq went far beyond that.

'The situation with [the] CIA and ghost soldiers is beginning to look like a bad movie,' the Republican Senator John McCain, of Arizona, said."

Coalition Of The Shilling

Once again making my point that the current adminstration does not have the values of traditional Republicans and/or conservatives, I found this article in The American Conservative which breaks down the failures of the current war in Iraq. Its interpretation is much like that of liberals yet people cannot seem to see through partisanship enough to realize that, on some issues, people like Michael Moore and Pat Buchanan basically agree.

[...]
President George W. Bush's crusade against Iraq was just the opposite: it managed to convoke only an embarrassingly skimpy assemblage of vassal states, but the invasion proved a smashing military success, if a subsequent disaster.

Now, over a year later, many of America’s 32 allies, tributaries, supplicants, and camp followers that sent a total of 22,000 troops to Iraq are wishing they had never become involved and are seeking escape or giving thanks they are well out of the growing carnage in Mesopotamia.

For many of them, involvement in Iraq became a political poisoned chalice that enraged voters and threatened to undo governments from Tokyo to Tegucigalpa. What initially seemed like an easy, risk-free way of currying favor with Washington and obtaining more foreign aid, cheap oil, or White House photo ops has become a grave electoral liability, a diplomatic minefield, and a nightmare filled with car bombs and head-chopping fanatics.

Originally trumpeted by the Bush administration as the Coalition of the Willing, the grab-bag of military contingents dispatched at enormous U.S. expense was widely viewed across the world as a fig leaf to cover naked Anglo-American aggression against Iraq.

The incessant repetition of the coalition mantra by the White House, Pentagon, and the U.S. mainstream media was designed to portray the occupation as a humanitarian mission instead of what it really was, an old-fashioned imperial adventure that violated international law and the UN Charter. "Coalition of the shilling" was a more accurate sobriquet. Never has so much bought so little.

Only two nations sent militarily meaningful numbers of troops to Iraq: the U.S., 140,000 and Britain, 9,000. Add to this Anglo total roughly 40,000 U.S. and British-paid mercenaries, known in Orwello-Pentagonese as "civilian contractors."

George W. Bush and Tony Blair are currently reaping a political whirlwind for the unnecessary war they started in Iraq. A majority of Americans and Britons now believe the war was a terrible mistake. Yet in another shameless political whitewash, an official inquiry in Britain just cleared Prime Minister Blair of any culpability, concluding that everyone, and thus no one, was responsible for "intelligence failures." Most Britons greeted this fraud with the scorn and contempt it deserves. Blair’s fortunes are still cloudy as a result of Iraq, but he looks likely to hang on for now. President Bush remains on more solid political ground, to the astonishment of the outside world that cannot understand why Americans have not reacted more angrily to being duped into a bloody, expensive fiasco. (emphasis mine)
[...]

Today, as the American body count rises and entire cities are now, admittedly, under rebel control, one would hope that the average American would begin to see that this act of liberation isn't quite sitting well with those we were sent to free and most certainly not going as planned or as currently presented by our leadership.

Will the Hip Hop Generation Go Green?

The Green Party may not have a chance in the 2004 election but I think that in the coming years, they may be a suitable alternativeto the status quo two party system that seems to make many young voters feel left out.

"Third parties have generally failed to attract large numbers of voters of color, including the emerging hip hop generation political movement. The broad 18-to-35 year-old cohort of hip hop generation voters is looking for real representation. The third party movement is looking for new constituents and fresh ideas. Will these two movements connect?

Yes, say urban third party advocates, who are beginning to reach out to new constituencies like working-class African-Americans. In April 2004, a group of African-Americans hosted a forum called 'Why We Joined the Green Party' in an Oakland church hall. The room was filled not just with African-Americans but local citizens of all races, some of them party members and activists, others distinctly skeptical."

Earth To Planet Cheney

This man is a mega-millionaire, profiting off of this war and he thinks that the pocket change some people make having online rummage sales should be considered income? People who have full-time, online businesses via E-bay are considered self-employed small businessmen - unlike those who are selling off unwanted items or crafts to make ends meet.

The critical swing state of Ohio has hemorrhaged hundreds of thousands of jobs with Bush in office, but Vice President Cheney explained to Bush supporters at a campaign stop in Cincinnati on Thursday that the nation's economic picture may be better than naysayers think. He argued that current national employment statistics overlook many people who are making money, such as those selling items on the auction site eBay.

'That's a source that didn't even exist 10 years ago,' Cheney said, according to the Associated Press. 'Four hundred thousand people make some money trading on eBay.'

Cheney didn't elaborate as to how many of those folks might make a sustainable living doing so.

Democratic vice presidential candidate John Edwards responded that Cheney's comments show how 'out of touch' he and President Bush are with the economy.

'If we only included bake sales and how much money kids make at lemonade stands,' Edwards said in a statement, 'this economy would really be cooking.''
-- Mark Follman @salon.com

That is a positively insensitive and moronic statement and any jobless person who buys this kind of logic NEEDS to stay unemployed. A third party voter friend recently said that America will get the President it deserves. I beg to differ. If George Bush wins, all of us will get the President that only his supporters deserve.

Rebels Begin to Control More Areas in Iraq

Bush and friends consistently make it seem like we are winning the war on terror yet Iraq is spinning more and more out of control andrebels begin to take over more areas in Iraq:

"Armed groups and foreign terrorists have established new camps in central Iraq as government forces attack rebels in the north and south, officials say.

The reports follow an admission by U.S. central command chief Gen. John Abizaid that there are more areas in Iraq under rebel control today than there were last year.

The revelations could be damning for the government of U.S. appointed interim prime minister Iyad Allawi who has promised to uproot armed opposition to the nascent government.

Local residents stand near a huge crater allegedly caused on Wednesday by an U.S. airstrike in Fallujah, Iraq, Thursday Sept. 2, 2004. 17 people, including 3 children were killed according to hospital officials.

New camps have been reported in the 'Sunni triangle' zone that includes Falluja and Ramadi. Iraqi and western sources say the camps have been established recently and fortified in the past couple of months.
Reports are coming in of new armed groups organising themselves in parts of the country earlier thought safe, as fighting escalates in other parts of Iraq. Over the past few days fighting has erupted again in many parts of the country including Falluja and Mosul in the north and Sadr City in Baghdad. "

Why Won't They Stop Lying?!

Cheney Again Links Saddam to Al Qaeda:

"At a town-hall style forum in the swing state of Ohio, Cheney described Saddam as a 'man who provided safe harbor and sanctuary to terrorists for years' and a man who 'provided safe harbor and sanctuary as well for al Qaeda.'

The commission that investigated the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks has said it had not discovered any evidence of a 'collaborative' relationship' between the fallen Iraqi government and al Qaeda. "

... Or Just Plain Wolf!

I won't comment on the routine politicians feel they need to put on when they visit black churches. They all do it (white and black) and some are better at it than others. I find them all rather patronizing and phony so I really don't want to hear Kerry's feigned black minister act either. But, I will comment on the content of his presentation.

[...]
"In a tough speech to the National Baptist Convention laced with Biblical allusions, the Democratic presidential candidate rejected Bush's claim to be a 'compassionate conservative,' likening him instead to the two men in the story of the Good Samaritan who passed by when they came upon a robbed and beaten man.

'They felt compassion but there were no deeds,' Kerry said in remarks prepared for delivery. 'It is clear: for four years George W. Bush may have talked about compassion but he's walked right by. He's seen people in need but he's crossed over to the other side of the street.'

Kerry also heaped scorn Bush's campaign slogans and compared him unfavorably to those who fought for civil rights in the United States. "
[...]
"As scripture reminds us, beware of wolves in sheep's clothing," Kerry said, citing Bush's failure to meet with leaders of major black organizations like the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (news - web sites) and the Congressional Black Caucus (news - web sites).

"The president who scorns economic justice and affirmative action, who traffics in the politics of division and then claims he is a friend of black America cannot conceal his identity no matter what clothes he wears," he said.
[...]

I don't think he's a wolf in sheep's clothing. He's just plain wolf. He has a wagging tail and a poor, lost puppy face but he's a wolf just the same.

Spill The Beans ... PLEASE!

One thing that really irks me are these Vietnam veterans who claim that Kerry (and other veterans who protested against the war) is a traitor for revealing information regarding soldiers' behavior that was morally wrong and reprehensible. I even heard a former Vietnam Veteran say (on NPR news) that if the Abu Ghraib whistle blower had been in his unit, he would not have made it home. I am sure there are more than a few who consider the soldier who told on the Iraqi abusers a traitor. In the press, at least, the 'tattle tales' are being praised for their bravery in reporting their comrades. How is he any different than Kerry when he reported atrocities? I find that honorable and so does Daniel Ellsberg who is urging insiders to leak Iraq information:

In a memo to current government employees, Ellsberg and other former government officials said federal insiders owe a "higher allegiance" to the Constitution, the public and American soldiers in Iraq than to their government bosses.

"A hundred forty-thousand Americans are risking their lives every day in Iraq for dubious purpose," the memo said. "Our country has urgent need of comparable moral courage from its public officials. Truth-telling is a patriotic and effective way to serve the nation. The time for speaking out is now."

The memo acknowledged that whistle-blowers risk personal setbacks, such as losing their jobs, but urged them to act nonetheless. "You may save many Americans from being lied to death," it said.

I agree. I just wish they'd leak it in time for the election.

At It Again

Looks like that trusty old liberal biased media is at it again by preempting the '60 Minutes' expose on Bush's military service:

In other TV news, viewers in multiple markets reported last night their local CBS affiliate opted not to broadcast 60 Minutes which aired a segment raising new questions about President Bush's military record in the National Guard. In Lubbock, Texas the station aired a pre-recorded show for the St. Jude's Children charity and held 60 Minutes until 1:35 in the morning. WTVR in Virginia reportedly aired a special 15-minute weather report at the top of the air that coincided with the portion of 60 Minutes that discussed Bush. WYOU in Pennsylvania claimed the station had transmitter problems during the hour. In Oklahoma, the local CBS affiliate had planned to not air 60 Minutes until 3:15 in the morning but the station caved in following a campaign by the Progressive Alliance Foundation. "

Why does this sound like state run TV to me?

A Liar! A Loser! A Fraud!

Bush "gamed the system" to get out of going to Vietnam (and out of fulfilling his National Guard duty) and he is "gaming" half of the country now!

Even before the much anticipated “60 Minutes” interview with former Texas official Ben “I’m very ashamed” Barnes, CBS News delivered another blow to George W. Bush’s reputation on its Wednesday evening broadcast. CBS’ White House correspondent John Roberts reported that the network has found four documents from the files of Col. Jerry Killian, Bush’s squadron commander in the Texas Air National Guard, that call into serious question the president’s military service record. One memo located by CBS refers to a discussion between Bush and his commander about “how Bush can get out coming to drill from now through November.” Due to other commitments, Bush pleaded, “he may not have time.”

On August 1, 1972, Col. Killian grounded Bush for failure to perform up to military standards and for failure to take his annual physical examination as ordered. A year after grounding Bush, Killian was asked to write another assessment of the young pilot. In this memo, an obviously exasperated Killian observes that he is being pressured by higher-ups to give Bush a positive evaluation, “to in effect, sugarcoat his review,” reported CBS. But Killian refused, writing, “I’m having trouble running interference and doing my job.”

Killian is deceased, but the explosive documents he left behind threw the White House into high-spin mode. Bush spokesman Dan Bartlett tried shrugging them off, saying “it’s impossible to read the mind of a dead man.”

But clearly the wave of new revelations about Bush’s National Guard years are taking their toll. Together, they paint a portrait of a careless young man with a deep sense of entitlement. As Larry Korb, an assistant Secretary of Defense under President Reagan, told CBS on Wednesday: “Essentially, Bush gamed the system to avoid serving his country the way that most of his contemporaries had to.”

... and he has no shame whatsoever! What a disgrace!

If The Whole World Is Watching

... does it matter that in a worldwide poll, 80% would vote for John Kerry?

"If the world could cast a vote in the United States presidential election, John Kerry would beat George W. Bush by a landslide, according to a poll released on Wednesday that is described as the largest sample of global opinion on the race.

'It is absolutely clear that John Kerry would win handily if the people of the world could vote,' said Steve Kull, director of The Program on International Policy Attitudes of the University of Maryland, a co-sponsor of the survey. 'It is rather striking that just one in five people surveyed around the world support the re-election of President Bush.'

[...]

To Zell, From Jimmy: With Deepest Regrets

Commondreams.org published this letter from Jimmy Carter to Zell Miller that expresses his displeasure with his performance at the RNC:

"Great Georgia Democrats who served in the past, including Walter George, Richard Russell, Herman Talmadge and Sam Nunn, disagreed strongly with the policies of Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, John Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson and me, but they remained loyal to the party in which they gained their public office. Other Democrats, because of philosophical differences or the race issue, like Bo Callaway and Strom Thurmond, at least had the decency to become Republicans.

Everyone knows that you were chosen to speak at the Republican National Convention because of your being a 'Democrat,' and it's quite possible that your rabid speech damaged our party and paid the GOP some transient dividends.

Perhaps more troublesome of all is seeing you adopt an established and very effective Republican campaign technique of destroying the character of opponents by wild and false allegations. The Bush campaign's personal attacks on the character of John McCain in South Carolina in 2000 was a vivid example. The claim that war hero Max Cleland was a disloyal American and an ally of Osama bin Laden should have given you pause, but you have joined in this ploy by your bizarre claims that another war hero, John Kerry, would not defend the security of our nation except with spitballs. (This is the same man whom you described previously as 'one of this nation's authentic heroes, one of this party's best-known and greatest leaders --- and a good friend.') "

Zell seems to be MIA since his big night at the Republican Convention. I haven't heard a peep out of him and the GOP seems to have locked him out of the house and turned off the lights.

Sound The Alarms!

Bush is probably going to bow out of one of the debates - the one which will be a "town-hall" format with supposed undecided voters.

"The audience for the second debate, to be at Washington University in St. Louis, was to be picked by the Gallup Organization. The commission said participants should be undecided voters from the St. Louis area.

A presidential adviser said campaign officials were concerned that people could pose as undecided when they actually are partisans." (emphasis mine)

I am having trouble understanding (well, not really) what Bush's aversion is to crowds who aren't skewed in his favor - or at least neutral. The whole "loyalty oath" requirement to get into his current campaign stops (while Kerry addresses any and every crowd and manages to survive pro-Bush hecklers) should sound off bells and fire engine sirens in people's heads. So what if there are partisans in the audience! There could, and probably would be, partisans who are against the Democrats.

I think Ah-nold needs to turn the mirror to his own party when he talks about "girlie men." George Bush is acting like a little bitch. He needs to stop hiding under his mother's skirt and learn how to face people who disagree with him.

In The Midst of Another Mess

Digging a little deeper, one can see why Vladimir Putin was so outraged at the suggestion that he negotiate with Chechen separatists. Decidedly, it is far too complicated to be laid out in black and white but, once again, we see the hands of the same neo-cons who led us into the castastrophe in Iraq, also in the thick of this mess.

On closer inspection, it turns out that this so-called "mounting criticism" is in fact being driven by a specific group in the Russian political spectrum - and by its American supporters. The leading Russian critics of Putin's handling of the Beslan crisis are the pro-US politicians Boris Nemtsov and Vladimir Ryzhkov - men associated with the extreme neoliberal market reforms which so devastated the Russian economy under the west's beloved Boris Yeltsin - and the Carnegie Endowment's Moscow Center. Funded by its New York head office, this influential thinktank - which operates in tandem with the military-political Rand Corporation, for instance in producing policy papers on Russia's role in helping the US restructure the "Greater Middle East" - has been quoted repeatedly in recent days blaming Putin for the Chechen atrocities. The centre has also been assiduous over recent months in arguing against Moscow's claims that there is a link between the Chechens and al-Qaida.
[...]
By the same token, the BBC and other media sources are putting it about that Russian TV played down the Beslan crisis, while only western channels reported live, the implication being that Putin's Russia remains a highly controlled police state. But this view of the Russian media is precisely the opposite of the impression I gained while watching both CNN and Russian TV over the past week: the Russian channels had far better information and images from Beslan than their western competitors. This harshness towards Putin is perhaps explained by the fact that, in the US, the leading group which pleads the Chechen cause is the American Committee for Peace in Chechnya (ACPC). The list of the self-styled "distinguished Americans" who are its members is a rollcall of the most prominent neoconservatives who so enthusastically support the "war on terror".

They include Richard Perle, the notorious Pentagon adviser; Elliott Abrams of Iran-Contra fame; Kenneth Adelman, the former US ambassador to the UN who egged on the invasion of Iraq by predicting it would be "a cakewalk"; Midge Decter, biographer of Donald Rumsfeld and a director of the rightwing Heritage Foundation; Frank Gaffney of the militarist Center for Security Policy; Bruce Jackson, former US military intelligence officer and one-time vice-president of Lockheed Martin, now president of the US Committee on NATO; Michael Ledeen of the American Enterprise Institute, a former admirer of Italian fascism and now a leading proponent of regime change in Iran; and R James Woolsey, the former CIA director who is one of the leading cheerleaders behind George Bush's plans to re-model the Muslim world along pro-US lines.

Pledges Unmet

He fell short then and he is falling short now!

Bush Fell Short on Duty at Guard:

"In February, when the White House made public hundreds of pages of President Bush's military records, White House officials repeatedly insisted that the records prove that Bush fulfilled his military commitment in the Texas Air National Guard during the Vietnam War.

But Bush fell well short of meeting his military obligation, a Globe reexamination of the records shows: Twice during his Guard service -- first when he joined in May 1968, and again before he transferred out of his unit in mid-1973 to attend Harvard Business School -- Bush signed documents pledging to meet training commitments or face a punitive call-up to active duty.

He didn't meet the commitments, or face the punishment, the records show. The 1973 document has been overlooked in news media accounts. The 1968 document has received scant notice."

He broke his contract with the United States government -- without any adverse consequences. And the Texas Air National Guard was complicit in allowing this to happen. He was a pilot. It cost the government a million dollars to train him to fly. So he should have been held to an even higher standard.

Retired Army Colonel Gerald A. Lechliter

A New Wall?

I doubt that a new wall would ever be constructed but it is sad that so many people feel this way:

"BERLIN (Reuters) - Fourteen years and a trillion euros after reunification one in five Germans would like to see the barrier that split the country during the Cold War put back, a survey found Wednesday.

A poll by the Forsa institute found a quarter of western Germans wishing the 15 million east Germans were cut off again by the Berlin Wall, living in a different state, while 12 percent of eastern Germans wanted out of the united Germany.

Many westerners said they were disgruntled because they have had to foot the bill for reunification -- 24 percent said they had suffered financially as a result.

In the formerly communist east, which has twice the unemployment as in the west and where wages are still below western levels, one-third said they were no better off financially because of unification and the end of communism. "

Most Brits Prefer Kerry

This is what a little sense will buy you:

"A majority of Britons want Democrat candidate John Kerry to beat President George W. Bush in the forthcoming November U.S. election, according to a poll published today.

The survey on Wednesday by Populus -- showing 52 percent of Britons back Kerry versus 29 percent for Bush -- confirms the U.S. leader's unpopularity in the nation considered his closest ally."

Hitting Below The Belt ... Again

Good Old Family Values In Action:

"In 1988, the Bush campaign planted a lie in the media that Michael Dukakis had suffered from depression after losing an election for governor. According to Susan Estrich, his campaign manager, it cost Dukakis six points in the polls. A Bush family friend planted another lie that Dukakis' wife, Kitty, had once burned a flag at a demonstration - and Dukakis took another hit in the polls.

The Bush family is at it again, with the now-well-documented lies told from the pulpit - er, podium - of the Republican National Convention, including lies told directly to the American people by George W. Bush himself. While many of these lies, like Bush's assurance that he was looking out for seniors when the next day would see the largest hike in Medicare premiums in history, were of the Bush-praising variety, the most toxic were those that either lied about John Kerry and his record, or implied that Democrats (and, implicitly, Greens and progressive independents) don't value their nation or its defense. "

Just Pitiful!

So I guess decency and truth are just plain out of the picture as far as the Bush/Cheney ticket goes. I find this scare tactic offensive, insulting and thoroughly reprehensible.

Cheney Warns Against Vote for Kerry:
"Vice President Dick Cheney on Tuesday warned Americans about voting for Democratic Sen. John Kerry, saying that if the nation makes the wrong choice on Election Day it faces the threat of another terrorist attack.

The Kerry-Edwards campaign immediately rejected those comments as 'scare tactics' that crossed the line.

'It's absolutely essential that eight weeks from today, on Nov. 2, we make the right choice, because if we make the wrong choice then the danger is that we'll get hit again and we'll be hit in a way that will be devastating from the standpoint of the United States,' Cheney told about 350 supporters at a town-hall meeting in this Iowa city.

If Kerry were elected, Cheney said the nation risks falling back into a 'pre-9/11 mind-set' that terrorist attacks are criminal acts that require a reactive approach. Instead, he said Bush's offensive approach works to root out terrorists where they plan and train, and pressure countries that harbor terrorists."

Truly, if you have to pander to fear and invoke anxiety, you have no real legs to stand on. One would hope (and pray) that real, thinking, rational human beings would see this rhetoric as the act of desperation that it is. However, the fact that the polls show that at least half of America has bought the Bush lies, I am disheartened that I live in a country where so many people can be this blind, deaf and dumb! That is what I am really afraid of. Stupidity may, indeed, reign!

George W. Bush: AWOL in Alabama

"Texans for Truth, established by the 20,000-member Texas online activist group, DriveDemocracy.org, has produced a 0:30 second television advertisement, 'AWOL.' The ad features Robert Mintz, one of many who served in Alabama's 187th Air National Guard -- when Bush claims to have been there -- who have no memory of Bush on the base. In other words, Bush failed to fulfill his military duty while others were dying in Vietnam."

Not Looking Good

Now that's an understatement! This synopsis on the Mother Jones Blog gives you an idea just how bad things really are in Iraq:

Over the weekend, the fighting in Sadr City and the car bombs in Fallujah served as a double reminder that the U.S. has made little progress in Iraq of late, and that a number of nigh-insurmountable problems remain. The 'Sunni problem', of course, is that a number of Sunni cities -- including Fallujah, Ramadi, and Samarra -- are wholly overrun by insurgents. U.S. commanders have talked about re-taking the insurgent strongholds, but unless they plan on burning the cities to the ground, there's not much they can really do. As Spencer Ackerman notes, nearly everyone in Fallujah is a potential insurgent or a supporter. Contrary to what the Bush administration has told us, this simply isn't a case of foreign jihadis taking advantage of a benign population.

The problem only gets worse if and when the U.S. and the Iraqi government decide to stage national elections, which will certainly be seen as illegitimate by many. In all likelihood, a Shiite-dominated government will come to power, sparking a fair bit of fear and loathing among the minority Sunnis (who have few organized political parties, and were steered out of power in the recent Iraqi National Conference). When that happens, we can really expect Salafi jihad groups like al-Qaeda (which tends to loathe Shiites) to start pouring into the Sunni Triangle and fighting the illegitimate Iraqi government. "

Use Power Wisely

Here's a little advice from a "friend":

"Speaking to the International Herald Tribune, the Polish president called for a 'flexible, open and gracious' Washington, saying he did not want to see 'America take the ideas of the neoconservatives of isolationism, to have full dominance in the world and to play a divide and rule policy. It is a mistake.' He added:

'America is not the first superpower we have known. But sometimes, the character of a superpower is a problem, not so much for us but for the Americans to understand they are strong enough, clever enough, have enough influence and are creative enough to be accepted as a superpower.'

Kwasniewski remains a loyal U.S. ally, just one who wants to see Bush use his power wisely."

But He Does Have A Point ...

At least I don't think we have the right to tell him he should be negotiating with the Chechen seperatists.With all of our rhetoric about killing terrorists that would be hypocritical. No?

The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, last night refused to order a public inquiry into how the Beslan school was captured by gunmen and then ended with such a high death toll, and told the Guardian that people who call for talks with Chechen leaders have no conscience.

"'Why don't you meet Osama bin Laden, invite him to Brussels or to the White House and engage in talks, ask him what he wants and give it to him so he leaves you in peace? Why don't you do that?' he said with searing sarcasm.

'You find it possible to set some limitations in your dealings with these bastards, so why should we talk to people who are childkillers?

'No one has a moral right to tell us to talk to childkillers,' he added. "

The Other Side ...

I think that when the deliberate and calculated murder of dozens of children becomes the order of the day, you have a conflict that has deteriorated to a point where there may be no pallatable solution for either side. Clearly, this isn't about "terrorism" in the same sense as our 9/11 or as in random bombings. This act is part of an on going war where neither side will back down.:

Margarita Komoyeva, a physics teacher released the day before the terrible climax in Beslan, said: "One of them told me: 'Russian soldiers are killing our children in Chechnya, so we are here to kill yours'."

"The words were amplified yesterday on a website that is close to Shamil Basayev, the most extreme Chechen commander, whom Russian officials think was the mastermind behind the Beslan atrocity. 'However many children in that school were held hostage, however many of them will die (and have already died) ... it is incomparably less than the 42,000 Chechen children of school age, who have been killed by Russian invaders,' said the statement on www.kavkazcenter.com.

Dead children, dead adults - brutal murder of more than 250,000 Chechen peaceful civilians by the invaders - all of it cries to heaven and demands retribution. And whoever these 'terrorists' in Beslan might be, their actions are the result of Putin's policies in the Caucasus in response to terrorism and crimes committed by the Kremlin's camarilla, which is still continuing to kill children, flood the Caucasus with blood and poison the world with its deadly bacilli of Russism.' "

Putin needs to be accountability for this as, clearly, it has escalated to a fever pitch and rhetoric about terrorism isn't going to resolve it. Ignoring it will not make it go away. Refusing to talk in the midst of what is basically a civil war, probably won't help either.

I Still Don't Understand

What happened here:
"The Russian government admitted Sunday that it lied to its people about the scale of the hostage crisis that ended with more than 300 children, parents and teachers dead in southern Russia, making an extraordinary admission through state television after days of intense criticism from citizens. "

As the bereaved families of Beslan began to lay their loved ones to rest Sunday, the Kremlin-controlled Rossiya network aired gripping, gruesome footage it had withheld from the public for days and said government officials had deliberately deceived the world about the number of hostages inside School No. 1.

Tell Me About It ...

US recovery 'not helping workers':

"While business is improving, average wages have fallen, job satisfaction has declined and the rich-poor gap widened, says a report by the US think tank.

And in terms of recouping jobs since the start of the recession, the US is in a worse position 'than any business cycle since the 1930s', it added."

What the Arabs Watch vs. What Bush Says

Perhaps this is why Iraq has extended the ban on al-Jazeera TV.

"The news coverage on Arab television also often reflects the level of resentment that Arabs still feel about the invasion and on-going occupation of Iraq. There is no doubt that some of the coverage plays to the emotions of Arab viewers, whose sense of crushed pride was further wounded by the rapid fall of Baghdad and the collective weakness of Arab regimes to stop the U.S.-$ led invasion of another Muslim country in the 'war on terrorism.' They are aware that this is only the second phase of what they suspect will be a drawn-out war on a string of Arab states.

Another reality that is not playing in favor of Washington is that people in the region are watching developments in Iraq against the backdrop of another illegal and protracted occupation: the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land. The United States is seen as being directly responsible for this through its unwavering support for every Israeli government regardless of its policies. The deep level of Arab suspicion of U.S. motives in the Middle East explains the wide skepticism that accompanies any U.S. endeavor to bring 'reform and democracy' to the Arab world. The fact that Washington's closest allies in the region are not particularly renowned for their democratic governance further supports the widespread view of American double standards. Those countries primarily targeted in Bush's speech aren't necessarily the ones with the worst record.

A considerable amount of airtime on Arab satellite channels is given to U.S. officials. Their message, however, continues to be met with distrust.. When an under secretary of defense speaks about a clash between the West and "Satan," as Lieutenant General William Boykin did, it only reinforces the predominant view in the Arab and Muslim world that the U.S. "war on terrorism" is essentially a war against Islam.

Strange Bedfellows

I'm still puzzled as to how this al-Sadr dude is still walking around Iraq after leading two violent insurgencies. This article says Iran is the answer:

How is it that al-Sadr could lead two insurrections in five months and still be alive, much less negotiating a new truce through Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani? Who is backing the round-faced young mullah? Who is protecting him? The most common answer—at once the simplest and the most complicated—is "Iran."

"Everyone is telling us that Iran is everywhere," says a senior Western diplomat in Baghdad. "It has become an obsession with Iraqis." And with Washington, too. U.S. intelligence and defense officials tell NEWSWEEK they have ample information pointing to Iranian support for al-Sadr. "He's clearly their guy," says one. But hedging their bets, "the Iranians are putting their chips down on red and black, even and odds," says another official in Washington. "At some point a winner will emerge on the political scene, and they just want to be sure they have leverage."

Pending Notification of Next of Kin

It looks like the number of soldiers killed in Iraq had surpassed the 1000 mark before the RNC began. Apparently, the numbers reported by the press only include 'named dead' not those who are U.S.Reported killed but unidentified pending notification of next of kin.

Under The Radar

I guess they thought they could just slide this one in without anyone noticing.

Medicare Premiums to Rise 17 Percent

Medicare premiums for doctor visits will rise 17 percent next year, the Bush administration said Friday. The $11.60-a-month increase is the largest in the program's 40-year-history.

Monthly payments for Part B of the government health care program for older and disabled Americans — doctor visits and most other non-hospital expenses — will jump to $78.20 from $66.60.

Zell Miller Just Got Punk'd

Less than 24 hours after his scathing keynote speech at the RNC, Zell Miller has been shown the back door.

After gauging the harsh reaction from Democrats and Republicans alike to Sen. Zell Miller’s keynote address at the Republican National Convention, the Bush campaign — led by the first lady — backed away Thursday from Miller’s savage attack on Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry, insisting that the estranged Democrat was speaking only for himself.

Late Thursday, Miller’s name was removed from the list of dignitaries who would be sitting in the first family’s box during the president’s acceptance speech later in the evening. No explanation was immediately offered, but the change was made only a few hours after Laura Bush, asked about Miller’s deeply personal denunciation of his own party’s nominee, said in an interview with NBC News that "I don’t know that we share that point of view."

Aides to President Bush and his campaign said Miller was not speaking for all Republicans.

Looks like he's been used like a two-dollar whore then cast aside like yesterday's trash.

Daddy Bush?

After absolute the lack of breeding, respect and maturity displayed by the Bush twins on Tuesday night, in front of the world, this country truly does need to run for cover if Bush actually sees himself as the patriarch:

White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card said yesterday that President Bush views America as a "10-year-old child" in need of the sort of protection provided by a parent.

Card's remark, criticized later by Democrat John F. Kerry's campaign as "condescending," came in a speech to Republican delegates from Maine and Massachusetts that was threaded with references to Bush's role as protector of the country. Republicans have sounded that theme repeatedly at the GOP convention as they discuss the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and the war in Iraq.

"It struck me as I was speaking to people in Bangor, Maine, that this president sees America as we think about a 10-year-old child," Card said. "I know as a parent I would sacrifice all for my children."

The comment underscored an argument put forth some by political pundits, such as MSNBC talk-show host Chris Matthews, that the Republican Party has cast itself as the "daddy party."

A Kerry spokesman, seizing on Card's characterization of Bush as a parental figure for the nation, contended that the president had failed.

"Any parent that ran a household the way George W. Bush runs the country would find themselves in bankruptcy court on the way to family court," said Phil Singer, a Kerry spokesman. "Just over the last year, 1.3 million people have fallen into poverty, including 700,000 children, and 1.4 million people have lost their health insurance while family incomes have declined three years in a row. America can do better."

When Millers Attack

Georgia Democratic Senator Zell Miller flip flopped party lines by being the fiery keynote speaker last night at the Republican National Convention. Enough has and will be said about his almost maniacal diatribes against John Kerry and his own party. But, how accurate were his accusations? Salon.com has a long article on the veracity of his claims. Here are some key points:

[...]
Democratic Sen. Zell Miller of Georgia delivered the Republicans' keynote address Wednesday night, and he spent a good portion of it railing against Kerry for voting against the "very weapons system that won the Cold War and that is now winning the war on terror." What Miller didn't say: Many Republicans voted against those same weapons systems.

"America needs to know the facts," Miller said, but he failed to mention a few of them. Miller told the delegates that Kerry voted against production of the F-14 and F-15 fighters and the Apache helicopter, but he didn't say that Dick Cheney, as defense secretary, proposed eliminating both of them, too. Miller criticized Kerry for voting against the B-2 bomber, but he didn't say that President George H.W. Bush also proposed an end to the B-2 bomber program. In his 1992 State of the Union Address, Bush said he supported such cuts "with confidence" based on the recommendations of his Secretary of Defense: Dick Cheney. With the Cold War over, Bush said, failing to cut defense spending would be "insensible to progress."

That's not how Miller described the cuts Wednesday night. He said Kerry's record on defense spending suggests that he wants to arm U.S. troops with "spitballs." Miller, who was introduced as the "conscience of the Democratic Party," didn't see fit to mention that he and Kerry both voted in 2002 for the largest military spending increase in two decades -- a defense bill that Republican Senator John Warner said would "help to ensure that our military has the tools it needs to defend our nation."

Miller and the Bush campaign plainly know the truth about what he was saying -- the Annenberg Public Policy Center and any number of others have called the Republicans on their misleading argument about Kerry's votes on weapons systems. But adherence to the truth wasn't Miller's strong suit Wednesday night.

Miller said that Kerry has made it clear that he would never "use military force without U.N. approval," and that he would let "Paris decide when America needs defending." In fact, what Kerry said in his Boston convention speech was this: "I will never give any nation or international institution a veto over our national security."

Miller's anti-Kerry rant wasn't the only convention speech in which Republicans misrepresented Kerry's statements or his Senate record. In his somniferous speech Wednesday night, Cheney mocked Kerry for saying that the United States should fight a "more sensitive war on terror, as though al-Qaida will be impressed by our softer side." But Kerry has not suggested a show of sensitivity toward al-Qaida; he said that America should fight a "more sensitive war on terror that reaches out to other nations and brings them to our side and lives up to American values in history."

With delegates shouting "flip-flop, flip-flop," Cheney blasted Kerry for supporting the "No Child Left Behind" legislation and then opposing it. In fact, Kerry supports No Child Left Behind but argues that the Bush administration has failed to provide promised funding for it. He mocked Kerry for voting for and then against the $87 billion supplemental funding bill for Iraq, but he didn't explain that Kerry voted on two different proposals -- one that would have paid for the $87 billion by rolling back tax cuts for the rich, and one which simply added the $87 billion to the federal deficit.

Sill, Cheney stayed away from most of the whoppers he tells on the campaign trail. He didn't repeat the phony charge he made last month in Minnesota -- that Kerry has the most liberal lifetime voting record of any current Senator. But Cheney didn't have to work hard to misrepresent Kerry's positions and his record; other convention speakers carried that water for him.

Massachusetts Lt. Gov. Kerry Healey told delegates Wednesday evening that John Kerry "can't win by telling us the truth," but then she immediately fudged the facts herself. In a claim that has been refuted so often that even Cheney doesn't make it anymore, Healey told the delegates: "The truth is that John Kerry -- not Ted Kennedy -- is the most liberal Senator in the United States."

But that's not the truth, really. Earlier this year, the National Journal identified Kerry as the senator with the most liberal voting record in 2003 -- a year in which Kerry missed so many votes while campaigning that the National Journal didn't even apply two of its three measures of "liberalness" to him.

When the magazine looked at the more meaningful lifetime voting records of current sitting senators, Kerry wasn't the most liberal one -- and it wasn't even close. Ten other senators have lifetime liberal scores higher than Kerry's -- and, yes, Ted Kennedy is among them.
[...]

I honestly cannot fathom the need for that kind of venomous assault to support the right wing of the Republican Party. While he certainly revved up the base, to swing voters he may have seemed a little unhinged and certainly not exactly someone they'd want to claim had influenced their vote. It's getting scary folks. Truly!

Double Trouble

Here's another critique of the Bush twins' performance last night:

But if the twins were aware that they'd been saddled with a horrific clunker of a speech, they didn't let on. They were too busy basking in the glory of themselves. While the mystified audience obediently clapped after each putative punch line, the girls let out appreciative giggles, smiled, and tilted their heads this way and that. (Barbara, in particular, seems to have been studying the Campaign Head Tilt at her mother's knee; when Jenna was speaking, Barbara often gave a knockout impression of Laura, who frequently appears as though she's had a run-in with a zealous taxidermist.) Despite the lukewarm reception, Jenna and Barbara seemed to feel the speech was going over well.

That's not really surprising, since the twins appear confident that everything they do will go over well. Take, for example, Jenna's line about the twins' more tabloid-worthy escapades: "We kept trying to explain to my dad that when we were young and irresponsible, well, we were young and irresponsible!" Self-deprecating jokes like this one are Politics 101 these days the reference to their father's own account of his misspent youth was a nice touch and I'm not one of those prigs who think the girls' wilder behavior is particularly noteworthy. Plenty of college kids, given the opportunity to party with Ashton Kutcher, would seize it. Candidates' children don't ask for the spotlight, and in general, we should give them room to make mistakes. But when Jenna and Barbara decided to throw their coming out party at the convention, they invited us to draw conclusions about what they're like and about what their parents value. In this case, the sense of entitlement in Jenna's joke was unmistakable: We will do whatever we want. You will love us anyway. This self-confidence may be a tribute to very good parenting: The Bushes have raised cheerful, self-assured daughters. Or it may be an indictment of very bad parenting: Their daughters are bratty and self-involved.

My RNC Summary of Day 2

As I predicted, I wasn't able to sit through the RNC speakers in their entirety. I turned at the opening remarks of Arnold ... The voice ... The macho Hollywood quips ... NOT!

Laura bored me to tears and the Bush twins did a Bevis and Butthead (or was it Paris and Nicole?) routine that sucked.

I wanted to take some of the marbles out of Rod Paige's mouth and throw them at him.

But, I did try to watch someone I hadn't seen before. I guess he was supposed to be the Republicans' answer to Obama. Well, Maryland's Lt. Governor, Michael Steele, was not close so no cigar! I know this is petty, but I was so distracted by how disproportionately small his head seemed compared to his broad frame that I don't know what he talked about. I know there was the typical story about some family matriarch who was a rag-headed washer woman but still managed to send her kids to parochial school ... yada yada ... (John Edwards is the son of a mill worker ... hard work and perserverance are not partisan traits).

Anyhow, I found a summary of Steele's remarks that pretty much says what I would have said ... had I continued to watch:

"The wisest line of the Democratic convention came from Bill Clinton: 'Strength and wisdom are not opposing values.' The wisest line of the Republican convention so far has come from Steele: 'Hope is not a strategy.' Pressing this theme, Steele shredded the piety so many liberals mistake for good policy: 'Hope doesn't protect you from terrorists. Hope doesn't lower your taxes. Hope doesn't help you buy a home. And hope doesn't ensure quality education for your children. ... It's results that matter.'

Great point. Unfortunately, it left Steele in the awkward position of trying to explain why, if results matter more than hope does, we should vote for a president who's running on hope and lousy results. So Steele touted Bush's tax cuts as a benefit in their own right, glossing over their failure as economic policy and their tiny benefit to the folks he was appealing to. I nodded when Steele said government's job was to 'give us the tools we need and then get out of the way and let us put our hopes into action.' But that was Bill Clinton's philosophy, too, and he gave us much better results than Bush has."

Dick Cheney is up tonight! I think we already know that, more than likely, I'll be touching that dial on him! (Okay, TV's don't have dials anymore but I feel like this administration is trying to drag us back to the 50s so ...).

al-Qaeda Ate My Homework

Since 9/11, America has been able to use the threat of al-Qaeda to justify everything from the right infringing Patriot Act to this catastrophe in Iraq. It seems, however, that the US isn't the only country blaming al-Qaeda for all of its ills and woes. Vladimir Putin is apparently using them as a convenient excuse as well:

"Despite President Vladimir Putin's assertions to the contrary, Russia's latest wave of terror attacks has little, if anything, to do with al-Qaeda. But it has everything to do with Mr Putin's disastrous policy in the north Caucasus"

Tuesday's bombing in Moscow and the bombings of the two planes last week were purportedly claimed by the Islambouli Brigades, a group which (under the name Islambouli Brigades of al-Qaeda) also said it was behind the attempted assassination of Pakistan's prime-minister designate, Shaukat Aziz, at the end of July. The group is presumably named after Khalid al-Islambouli, who led the 1981 assassination of Egypt's president, Anwar Sadat, and whose elder brother Muhammad al-Islambouli had ties to an Egyptian extremist group and a base in Afghanistan during the 1980s and 1990s. All this was enough for Vladimir Putin, Russia's president, to call the latest statements attributed to the group a fact confirming the link between certain forces operating in Chechnya and international terrorism.

That is a flimsy claim at best. Though there has been evidence of al-Qaeda links to some Chechen terrorists, the American State Department's annual Patterns of Global Terrorism, considered a standard reference, has never made any reference to the Islambouli Brigades.

In fact, the only signs that the group exists are three internet statements, of unconfirmed provenance, made in its name. Moreover, the attacks in Russia, like several previous ones to which no outside group lays claim, were carried out by young Chechen women. Many of these so-called black widows have lost family members in the conflict. For instance, it has emerged that the suspected suicide bomber on one of the planes had a brother who disappeared after being detained by Russian forces.

Meanwhile, Back in Iraq II

Do we have a clue what is really going on over there. I guarantee it is not as rosy as the RNC speakers are making it out to be.

No way out of no-win situation:

[...]
Last month a Knight Ridder report suggested that U.S. forces effectively were ceding many urban areas to insurgents. Sunday, The New York Times confirmed that while the world's attention was focused on Najaf, western Iraq fell firmly under rebel control. Representatives of the U.S.-installed government have been intimidated, assassinated or executed.

Other towns, such as Samarra, also have fallen to insurgents. Attacks on oil pipelines are proliferating. And we're still playing whack-a-mole with Muqtada al-Sadr: His Mahdi Army has left Najaf, but remains in control of Sadr City, with its 2 million people. The Christian Science Monitor reports that "interviews in Baghdad suggest that Sadr is walking away from the standoff with a widening base and supporters who are more militant than before."
[...]
"Here's another thought. President Bush says the troubles in Iraq are the result of unanticipated 'catastrophic success.' But that catastrophe was predicted by many experts. Cordesman says their warnings were ignored because we have 'the weakest and most ineffective National Security Council in postwar American history,' giving control to 'a small group of neoconservative ideologues' who 'shaped a war without any realistic understanding or plans for shaping a peace.'

Bush, who took a 'winning the war on terror' bus tour just a few months ago, conceded Monday that 'I don't think you can win' the war on terror. But he hasn't changed the national security adviser, nor has he dismissed even one of the ideologues who got us into this no-win situation. Rather than concede that he made mistakes, he's sticking with people who will, if they get the chance, lead us into two, three, many quagmires."