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 sai