The Blatant Truth - Archive - August/September 2003

Monday, September 29, 2003

The treasonous outing of a CIA operative by one or more White House staffers does seem to be getting more and more press attention; one of the top stories and a good summary of various aspects of the case was in yesterday’s Washington Post. For the best virtually hour-by-hour commentary on the growing scandal and cry for investigation and prosecution: Josh Marshall’s Talking Points Memo. Marshall calls attention to an Esquire article from January 2003 that shows a cozy relationship between Karl Rove and Bob Novak, the reporter to whom the CIA operative’s name was leaked—and the fact that Rove was fired in 1992 from Bush Sr’s staff “after he planted a negative story with columnist Robert Novak about dissatisfaction with campaign fundraising chief and Bush loyalist Robert Mosbacher Jr. It was smoked out, and he was summarily ousted.” This story is not going to go away quietly. Karl Rove—BushCo’s cunning and duplicitous spin-meister—in an orange jumpsuit, doing the “frog march,” the “perp walk,” for treason--?? too heavenly to even dream of . . .

By The Worried Shrimp

Sunday, September 28, 2003

Looks like nobody was very impressed with Bush’s speech to the UN last week–one good example:

Divided They Stand
The Guardian, September 24, 2003

. . . Olive branches were in short supply as Mr Bush, eschewing any genuine effort at consensus-building, resurrected his old black and white view of a planet devoid of neutral ground and divided between civilised and uncivilised. He spoke anew of rogue states and the fear of terror weapons falling into terrorist hands. Eyeballing the assembly, he warned that the terrorists, whom as usual he did not name or number or define, “should have no friend in this chamber.” And again he made clear that other considerations, political, diplomatic or otherwise, would be subordinated to this overriding obsession. . . .

Mr Bush’s performance provided a glimpse not of an improving world order, but of the probable central theme of his coming re-election campaign. For despite the venue, the president was speaking primarily to a domestic audience, increasingly sceptical of his leadership. The problems of Iraq were glossed over. Instead, he presented a long, over-rosy list of achievements. The pressing US need for foreign funds and troops was not mentioned. Instead, Mr Bush spoke of Iraq’s potential to inspire a democratic Middle East. He offered an expanded but still secondary role for the UN; but nothing in terms of an accelerated return of sovereignty to the Iraqi people.

Perhaps Mr Bush truly believes this mixture of self-congratulation and hectoring menace will induce “nations of goodwill” to back him, as he demanded. But few will share that verdict; and refusing to admit one’s mistakes is never a good way to get other people to do what one wants. In this and other respects, what a contrast was presented by Kofi Annan, the UN’s secretary-general.

His sparse, careful words were marinated in wisdom, his thoughts elucidated by years of hard-won experience, setbacks, undiminished hope and true, not feigned compassion. Mr Annan was calm, balanced, rational, sharp—and utterly convincing. . . .

Here was a real, not a pretend leader; an international statesman, not a comic strip character reading from a script. Mr Annan lacks the sheer, brute power of an American president. But he showed how truth can spike a million guns.

Also in the same issue of The Guardian, What the papers say: world press reaction to George Bush’s speech to the United Nations. Included are quips from The New York Times, Slate, Le Figaro, The Daily Star (Lebanon), Daily Nation (Kenya), and more.

You might remember allegations that the White House treasonously revealed the identity of a CIA operative, the wife of Joseph Wilson, former ambassador who investigated and debunked the claim that Hussein was trying to buy uranium from Niger, in retaliation for Wilson’s wrecking of BushCo’s credibility. Now, incredibly, the CIA has asked the Justice Department to investigate the White House. But will John Ashcroft send one of his own neocon buddies to “Camp X-Ray”? Watch to see if this story gets the media attention it so richly deserves. If not—time for some serious letters to editors as well as Congress people.

For a definitely creepy feeling, see Sam Smith’s The Revision Thing: A history of the Iraq war, told entirely in lies, in the October 2003 Harper’s, all text “verbatim from senior Bush Administration officials and advisers.”

. . . We faced perils we had never thought about, perils we had never seen before. For decades, terrorists had waged war against this country. Now, under the leadership of President Bush, America would wage war against them. It was a struggle between good and it was a struggle between evil. . . .

Facing clear evidence of peril, we could not wait for the final proof that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud. The Iraqi dictator could not be permitted to threaten America and the world with horrible poisons and diseases and gases and atomic weapons. Inspections would not work. We gave him a chance to allow the inspectors in, and he wouldn’t let them in. The burden was on those people who thought he didn’t have weapons of mass destruction to tell the world where they were.

We waged a war to save civilization itself. We did not seek it, but we fought it, and we prevailed. We fought them and imposed our will on them and we captured or, if necessary, killed them until we had imposed law and order. The Iraqi people were well on their way to freedom. . . .

Speaking of lies, must recommend the newest online issue of The Nation, specifically David Corn’s The Other Lies of George Bush, adapted from his new book The Lies of George W. Bush: Mastering the Politics of Deception, and also Matt Bivens’ well-documented Vice President Halliburton.

I’m feeling more and more confident that, almost without exception, no matter which of our worthy Democratic candidates won the nomination and ultimately the election, the country would once again be in good hands. Read this complete transcript of the September 23rd debate that included all 10 candidates and see if you don’t agree. My only real dislikes: Kerry and Lieberman (though, to his credit, Kerry has called for Rumsfeld’s resignation as has Dean, who also started a petition calling for the resignations of both Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz). Though I was enthusiastic about Clark last week, I have to admit a continuing low-level uncomfortableness with his recent “conversion” to the Democratic Party (see Nathan Newman, Lieberman Right on Clark) as well as mounting evidence of connections to some nefarious corporate interests (see this Democratic Underground discussion. Scroll down to “A few things about clark” by Pastiche423).

Sunday, September 21, 2003

An eloquent, outraged, and valuable piece of research that appeared on Democratic Underground:

what is the war in iraq about?—KingOfLostSouls, Sept. 18, 2003

it’s not about WMD. the report from david kay has been indefinitely shelved [link]

it’s not about 9/11 and al quaida, since bush just told you it’s not about it [link]

it’s not about saddam sponsoring terror, he gave 25k to families of suicide bombers, meanwhile bush’s own business partners actively finance hamas and al quaida [link]

we know it’s not about the taliban and al quaida, bush has had no problems supporting them in the past:

“Enslave your girls and women, harbor anti-U.S. terrorists, destroy every vestige of civilization in your homeland, and the Bush administration will embrace you. All that matters is that you line up as an ally in the drug war, the only international cause that this nation still takes seriously. That’s the message sent with the recent gift of $43 million to the Taliban rulers of Afghanistan, the most virulent anti-American violators of human rights in the world today. The gift, announced last Thursday by Secretary of State Colin Powell, in addition to other recent aid, makes the U.S. the main sponsor of the Taliban and rewards that “rogue regime” for declaring that opium growing is against the will of God. So, too, by the Taliban’s estimation, are most human activities, but it’s the ban on drugs that catches this administration’s attention. Never mind that Osama bin Laden still operates the leading anti-American terror operation from his base in Afghanistan, from which, among other crimes, he launched two bloody attacks on American embassies in Africa in 1998.”—Robert Scheer, LA Times, May 22, 2001

we know it’s not because saddam had mass graves from 1988, when reagan and the GOP actively armed and supported him (picture worth a thousand words):

we know it’s not because saddam was a threat to his region, since even turkey scoffed at the war, the saudis could care less, the only people who were really worried was the fundamentalist theocracy of kuwait. [link]

we know it’s not because saddam was an imminent threat, he would need WMD to do that, not balsa drones that fell apart. “But the fact remains that Iraq has not attacked the United States, nor has Bush presented the American people with any specific, credible evidence that Hussein is linked to the September 11 terrorist attacks. So launching a war against Iraq is unnecessary for self-defense, and therefore totally unjustifiable.” Geoffrey Neale, Libertarian Party national chair, January 29, 2003

we know it’s not because of UN resolutions, which are the decision of the security council to enforce . . . by THEIR guidelines and the UN Charter [link, link]

so what was it about again?

And for what is truly the awful reality of Iraq, see this:

The Roving Eye: (Just) alive and kicking in Baghdad
Pepe Escobar
Asia Times online, September 19, 2003

. . . The convergence of views between Baghdad students and the Jordanian intelligence official is remarkable—and is widely shared by the popular voice of the bazaars. The perception is that "the Americans" engineered both the UN bombing that killed special envoy Sergio Vieira de Mello, and the Najaf bombing that killed Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Baqr al-Hakim (the Jordanian insists the Israeli Mossad was responsible for the Hakim bombing, which benefits the Americans by splitting the Shi’ites and pitting Sunnis against Shi’ites). All agree on what the US agenda is: to maintain a perpetual state of chaos, enforce the control of the fabulous Iraqi sources of energy, and use this new, sprawling military base in the heart of the Middle East to harass Syria, Lebanon, Iran and Saudi Arabia.

Moreover, few in Baghdad appear able to understand how US high-tech marvel is not capable of finding Elvis-Saddam. All kinds of theories float on why the Americans killed his sons Uday and Qusay in a firefight instead of arresting them and bringing them to justice. All are convinced that Nawaf Alzaidan, the owner of the house in Mosul in which the brothers were killed, was the one who tipped the Americans and bagged the $30 million reward (not yet: the State Department has not paid him in full, citing “security problems”). The family of Salah Alzaidan, Nawaf’s brother, was killed by Iraqis in revenge. But Nawaf and his family escaped and are now in the United States.

The resistance will get much stronger—and this has nothing to do with Saddam’s flurry of cassettes. There seems to be an overall consensus in Baghdad that most Sunnis are on “wait and see” mode for two more months before they switch overwhelmingly to guerrilla struggle. And the Shi’ites will also be waiting for another two months. This seems to be the final window of opportunity for the CPA and the Governing Council to alleviate the daily hell faced by the Iraqi population.

Young American officers paying for their spaghetti at the brasserie of the Palestine Hotel with crispy $20 bills at least get a glimpse of paradise, post-Saddam style. In a city reduced to Fourth World status, the Palestine-Sheraton complex remains a fortress, protected by tanks, barbed wire, checkpoints and body searches—totally remote from real life, which barely tends to intrude via a procession of protesters. Like a ragged group from the village of al-Kafel, near Babylon. They have come a long way to ask for US help in getting rid of their local government—which they say comprises Saddam’s people, terrorizing and stealing from their families. But most of all they want jobs. . . .

For a nice look at Democratic responses to BushCo’s innumerable outrages, keep abreast with the new Democratic National Committee weblog. September 19th entry includes a summary of an AP interview with Ted Kennedy: “The case for going to war against Iraq was a fraud ‘made up in Texas’ to give Republicans a political boost.”

And Bush’s response? Classic Nixon: attack the character of the critic, question his motives, and “forget” to actually deny the charges:

. . . In an exclusive Oval Office interview with Fox News’ Brit Hume, Bush said that while he respected Kennedy, the senator “should not have said we were trying to bribe foreign nations.”

“I don’t mind people trying to pick apart my policies, and that’s fine and that’s fair game,” Bush said in the interview that will air Monday night. “But, you know, I don’t think we’re serving our nation well by allowing the discourse to become so uncivil that people say – use words that they shouldn’t be using.” . . .

Uncivil??!! Let me get this straight: he lied, but it’s “uncivil” to call him a liar??

I still strongly support Howard Dean among the Democratic presidential candidates, mainly for the genius and revolutionary way he is involving the everyday people in his campaign and in the political process, for his outspoken criticisms of BushCo’s blatant outrageousnesses, and for the fact that he appears absolutely pure of corporate puppeteers in the background. But keep your eye on retired General Wesley Clark, who announced his candidacy on September 17th. I’ve been skeptical; after all, he is career military, and this is no banana republic. Yet I was very very favorably impressed by a speech he gave at the University of Iowa on the 18th—for which unfortunately there is not yet a link—and streamed live via NPR on the internet. Admittedly he did not address domestic issues (yet), but he would make a superb statesman. He is exceedingly visionary, speaking of the need for responsibility, leadership, cooperation, and generosity in our dealings with the rest of the world. He seemed less like a Democrat or politician than a very humane and principled human being who is sincerely concerned about the state of the world, and the role of the U.S. in that world. See Clark’s 100-Year Vision. Rumor is that Dean and Clark have made some sort of pact to pair up if one or the other gets the nomination (which I feel more and more sure with each passing day is going to happen)—everybody would win in that scenario.

Tuesday, September 16, 2003

Some comments from an entertaining Democratic Underground discussion of the news from the White House yesterday that Americans must sacrifice for Iraq:

—No we don’t. The Bushitters don’t seem to be sacrificing their jobs, families or salaries, or our countries’ resources in lives and money to put their own agenda in place. In fact, they are benefiting by this mess. We aren’t falling for this sacrifice bullshit. You’ll have to come up with a better line to push this injustice—realFedUp

—Horse Pucky! Let’s have an accounting of the money already spent in Iraq FIRST! How about letting everyone know what was in those missing 28 pages? How about if the bu$h administration came clean about 9/11/2001?—RC

—What gall these thieves have. They rob the treasury blind and ask us to repay what they have taken. Simply rolling back the portion of the cuts that go to the top one percent of wage earners would provide, in 2004, 85 of the 87 billion dollars Junior has begged for (link). So the burden of any sacrifice for this travesty should fall on them.—benfranklin1776

—Everyone must sacrifice ...except Halliburton and Carlyle—alonso_quijano

—Notice the Psyops used here “The Battle of Iraq” (like it’s OVER now)—Joining the FIGHT FOR Afghanistan in the OVERALL “war on terror”—like that was the whole case for attacking Iraq in the first place.. all revisionism..—symbolman

—What’s left to give? We’ve generously “sacrificed” our jobs, health insurance, retirement savings, various constitutional rights and personal freedoms, fair elections and a balanced news media. And with each day, more and more are sacrificing a family member due to illegal and immoral military occupations. Sigh... another greedy, arrogant Bush administration completely out of step with the American people. The fact that the American people even allowed this debacle of an administration to cultivate so much power is a badge of shame we will all don for many years to come.—DemsUnite

—see more here

And Congress also appears rebellious—finally:

Assertive Hill Tests Bush Veto
Klaus Marre, U.S. Newswire, September 15, 2003

Congress has taken steps to pass several measures the White House strongly opposes, charting a collision course that could lead President Bush to use his veto powers for the first time. . . .

Last Wednesday, both chambers defied White House veto warnings. A solid majority in the Senate adopted a measure to prevent the administration changing overtime pay regulations. And hours later, the House passed an amendment to the transportation appropriations bill that would lift travel restrictions to Cuba.

Today, the Senate plans to attempt for only the second time in its history to repeal a regulation using the Congressional Review Act. Despite another White House veto threat, it is expected enact a resolution to repeal new Federal Communications Commission (FCC) regulations that loosen media ownership rules.

. . .

Several bills are making their way through Congress that could serve as vehicles for amendments opposed to White House policy. They include the eight appropriations bills the Senate still has to complete and the supplemental Iraq spending measure. Most of any upcoming confrontations between the administration and Congress will likely take place in the Senate. . . .

Bush may see himself as forced to [use his veto pen for the first time] because he can no longer at all times be sure of being able to prevent some congressional Republicans from joining most Democrats in advancing their own legislative priorities . . .

Commentary on NYT columnist Paul Krugman and his new book The Great Unraveling:
NY Times columnist sees gloom in America’s future
Mark Egan
Reuters, September 16, 2003

President George W. Bush is an incessant liar bent on destroying America’s social safety net, central bank guru Alan Greenspan should shut his mouth on issues unrelated to monetary policy and the U.S. media have done a terrible job of keeping the public informed.

If those opinions seem stark, they are meant to be. The New York Times pays op-ed columnist Paul Krugman to ruffle feathers. The Princeton University economist has been writing for the Times since 1999—work now compiled in his latest book The Great Unraveling.

In it, Krugman says Bush lied during his 2000 presidential campaign, lied once he took office, turned a record budget surplus into the biggest deficit to line the pockets of the rich and abused the public’s patriotism after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

“Bush is a leader of a movement that wants to smash the system as we know it, the social contract, the safety net that was built up since Franklin Roosevelt,” Krugman said in an interview late on Monday before a party to launch his book. . . .

While some critics dismiss Krugman’s views as inflammatory, his book shows many of his predictions have come true, especially those about the nation’s budget. And that makes his ultimate prognosis of the nation’s fiscal outlook chilling.

“I think the United States is setting itself up for a Latin American-style financial crisis,” he wrote in the book.

If Bush loses his job in the 2004 election, Krugman said, the day may yet be saved. But if he wins reelection to the White House, an economic meltdown will become “inevitable.”

Is it the beginning of the end for Rumsfeld?:

Iraq Takes a Toll on Rumsfeld
Thomas E. Ricks and Vernon Loeb
Washington Post, September 14, 2003

Rumsfeld Sees No Link between Iraq, 9/11
Robert Burns
AP, September 16, 2003

Monday, September 15, 2003

See this: Joshua Micah Marshall at Talking Points Memo, a dissection of Dick Cheney’s comment on Sunday’s Meet the Press that “we just don’t know” if Mohammed Atta really did meet with a senior Iraqi intelligence official 5 months before the WTC attack:

In two years the US intelligence and law enforcement communities have not been able to unearth a single piece of evidence tying the Iraqi regime to the 9/11 attacks.

In Cheney’s answer he reels off a series of allegations, most of which have either been positively discredited or remain wholly unsubstantiated. Even if each point were true—which, for the most part, they aren’t—they are clearly intended to muddy the issue by tossing out a variety of points not directly related to the question of Iraqi government involvement in the 9/11 attacks. . . .

Even applying so low a standard as that by which we judge incidents with four-year-olds and cookie jars, Cheney’s statement that “we just don’t know” whether Saddam was involved in the 9/11 attacks is a lie.

Why do 69% of Americans continue to believe that Iraq may have been involved in 9/11? Many reasons. But one of the most important is that their leaders keep lying to them.

New York, You’ve Been Used
William Rivers Pitt
Speech at a symposium on 9-11 at Riverside Church, New York City, September 12, 2003
“Mr. Pitt was asked to speak about the Project for a New American Century, their pre-9/11 plans, and how those plans have been translated into policy by the Bush administration.”

For an inside look into “how corporate executives and billionaires convert six-figure contributions into meetings with members of Congress” and have a hand in writing legislation, see Buying a High-Priced Upgrade on the Political Back-Scratching Circuit by Adam Cohen in The New York Times, September 15, 2003:

The letter from the Republican Party to Bristol-Myers Squibb is as subtle as a sledgehammer. The Republicans expect a $250,000 contribution. The payoff? Jim Nicholson, then the Republican National Committee chairman, encloses the Republican health care package and asks for suggested changes. “We must keep the lines of communications open,” he tells the drug giant ominously, “if we want to continue passing legislation that will benefit your industry.”

The Bristol-Myers shakedown is part of the record in McConnell v. Federal Election Commission, the challenge to the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law now before the Supreme Court. It is one of a stack of documents detailing just how corporate executives and billionaires convert six-figure contributions into meetings with members of Congress, and a role in writing legislation. It is, by now, no great surprise that this goes on. But these documents still shock, by how blatant the deals are, and how willing the participants are to write it all down.

Much of the record in the case remains secret—the parties agreed to this to expedite a Supreme Court ruling—but under pressure from McCain-Feingold’s defenders, parts have been made public. Every American should read what are known as the “Internal Political Party Documents” (they can be found at The Campaign Legal Center, under the header BCRA/McCain-Feingold) and be prepared to be outraged if the court strikes down McCain-Feingold’s modest attempts to fix our broken democracy. . . .

And is anybody surprised by this?:

$1 billion international image campaign isn’t enough to buy U.S. love
Carl Weiser
USA Today, September 14, 2003

WASHINGTON—The Bush administration spends $1 billion a year trying to polish the United States’ image around the world, yet polls show anti-Americanism rising to record levels, especially in Muslim and Arab nations where the government is concentrating its efforts.

Now, a new report from Congress’ General Accounting Office . . . concluded that the State Department’s efforts have been scattershot and uncoordinated, foreign service officers charged with promoting the nation’s image too often get stuck filling out paperwork, and one in five foreign service officers who are supposed to be helping America’s image aren’t fluent enough in the language of the country in which they’re stationed.

Most damning, the report said the government isn’t even trying to scientifically measure whether its public relations efforts are having any effect on foreign hearts and minds. Instead, it gauges success through anecdotes or even by how many speeches a local ambassador gives. . . .

Private and business groups aren’t waiting for the government to solve its public diplomacy problems. . . .

Earlier this summer, Keith Reinhard, chairman of advertising giant DDB Worldwide, organized business leaders—their names have not been released—to launch their own public diplomacy campaign.

Without government’s bureaucracy, stifling mandates or money problems, business has more freedom to influence public opinion abroad.

“Anti-Americanism is indeed a business problem,” Reinhard said. “And one that U.S. business is uniquely positioned to solve.” . . .

Yes, those unconquered markets for the global plunderers’ cheap-labor wares: that is the other resource, besides oil, that makes the Arab region so enticing.

Saturday, September 13, 2003

A better use for our $87b
Jeffrey D. Sachs
Boston Globe, September 13, 2003

THE WORLD IS out of kilter when President Bush asks for $87 billion for Iraq and only $200 million for the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria. The administration displays profound confusion regarding national security as well as moral purpose. It is ready to pump tens of billions of dollars into a middle-income oil-rich country of 24 million people, while utterly neglecting 500 million impoverished Africans, 10 million of whom will actually die this year of extreme poverty, too poor to buys the drugs, bed nets, fertilizers, tube wells, and other basic contrivances that could keep them alive.

The juxtaposition of Iraq and Africa may seem irrelevant, but it is not. We are told that the Iraq War was an act of compassion and liberation, when it fact the Bush administration is without compassion for those who most need it, whether in the United States or abroad. Liberation is in fact military occupation, which in turn is a lightning rod for attacks on US troops. The United States is less secure than before the Iraq War.

Why would a US government that overlooks suffering around the world and poverty at home be ready to invest $150 billion in Iraq over the course of two years? The argument that the war was about an imminent risk from Iraq has been thoroughly trashed. The war had nothing to do with any immediate threats from Saddam Hussein, and the intelligence agencies knew that last fall. Containment was already working. The war was about oil, specifically about a long-standing and simplistic US vision about the need to militarize the Persian Gulf in order to ensure the steady flow of petroleum.

Since the 1950s the United States, often with the partnership of the United Kingdom, has put the highest national priority on securing alliances and military bases in the Persian Gulf, changing partners as one situation after another has soured. . . .

The cruelest twist, though, is that the all of the talk about US and UK compassion is accompanied by indifference where compassion is truly needed. Nine months ago, Bush spoke movingly about the tragedy of millions of people with AIDS turned away from African hospitals, because they were too poor to afford the drugs. During those nine months another two million or so Africans died, and the United States accomplished absolutely nothing to change the situation. The president’s much vaunted $15 billion five-year program for AIDS is on paper only.

This year Bush asked for only $200 million for the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB, and Malaria, a sum equal to 1.5 days of spending on the US occupying forces in Iraq. The US annual contributions to fight malaria are less than the costs of one day’s occupation, and as a result, 3 million Africans will die needlessly from that preventable and treatable disease.

But who is talking about $87 billion for the 30 million Africans dying from the effects of HIV/AIDS, or the children dying of malaria, or the 15 million AIDS orphans, or the dispossessed of Liberia and Sierra Leone, or the impoverished children of America without medical insurance?

True security in the world will not be bought by US hegemony. . . .

Filling September 11th
David Potorti
Common Dreams, September 11, 2003

The “pit” which constitutes the site of the World Trade Center remains many things to many people. For some, a crime scene; for others, a battlefield of war. For some, the sacred space of a burial ground; for others, real estate. For some, a rallying point for the president’s re-election; for others, a tourist destination. Since nature abhors a vacuum, I can understand the gravitational pull this empty space exerts on everything from the Hudson River to political figures.

Yet at the same time, there is an odd value to empty spaces. Two years after the September 11th attacks that took my brother’s life, it is astounding to consider the extent to which those attacks remain unexamined: not just the circumstances of that morning, when terrorists ruled our skies, unchallenged, for two hours, but the facts that surround those attacks and those who planned and financed them. These spaces remain empty of information, just like the empty spaces in this summer’s “Joint Inquiry into Intelligence Community Activities Before and After the Terrorist Attacks of September 11, 2001.”

While these unparalleled attacks on US soil might have provided a lifetime diet of red meat to investigative journalists, we are told that the media this year will be cutting back its September 11th coverage. Instead, the focus will be on family members who have "moved on"--reminding me of a newspaper headline a few days after the fall of Baghdad (and the dropping of 14,000 bombs) which announced that Iraq was “returning to normal.”

Why the rush to move on, absent adequate time for thought, healing and investigation? . . .

Thursday, September 11, 2003

A Deadbeat President Hawks His Dead-End War
Jason Vest
AlterNet, September 8, 2003

In his first speech to the nation from the White House since he announced the bombing of Baghdad, President Bush rattled his begging bowl with vigor and conviction on television screens across America. “Yet we will do what is necessary, we will spend what is necessary, to achieve this essential victory in the war on terror, to promote freedom and to make our own nation more secure,” he declared, as he hit Congress up for a whopping $87 billion dollar handout.

Indeed, it was hard to decide what was more appalling about Bush’s address: The shamelessness with which he appealed for more deficit spending or the divorced-from-reality conviction with which he parroted his speechwriter’s spin. The Pentagon source who called me moments after the speech, however, was unimpressed. “The gall,” he seethed. “I’d like to give that son-of-a-bitch an $87 billion dollar enema.” . . .

Yet for all the flinty resolve that accompanied phrases like “coalition of the willing,” the Bush administration finds itself back at the despised UN. But in characteristic fashion, it is defaulting to its arrogance-as-usual mode despite its ever-mounting problems. While this wrong-headed chutzpah would be cause enough for the UN to turn its back on the administration, there are two more important reasons not to accede to its ill-conceived terms.

The first is fairly obvious. Granting a patina of respectability and an infusion of deferential assistance to an occupier that doesn’t know what it is doing in Iraq is only likely to make matters worse. Indeed, if the Pentagon’s track record thus far is used as a barometer, the U.S. has done little to merit the primacy it so arrogantly insists upon. Paul Wolfowitz’s Mar. 27 assertion that Iraq “can finance its own reconstruction, and relatively soon” has proven to be a gem of absolute stupidity, idealistic dementia and/or brazen disingenuity. . . .

The second reason to turn down the United States terms is arguably more esoteric, but just as compelling. In a heady moment earlier this year at a Brown University forum, the influential Pentagon adviser, Richard Perle, was all but dancing on the grave of the United Nations. Labeling the United Nation’s reluctance to rubberstamp the Iraq invasion a “failure of courage,” Perle held that such cowardice should be punished with nothing less than the dissolution of the Security Council.

Accepting the US draft proposal essentially rewards the temerity of neoconservatives whose ambition is to re-fashion the United Nations to suit their imperial needs. . . .

However graceless the Bush administration’s return to the United Nations may be, its mere presence before the body is an admission of failure. Indeed, Perle was so confident of what post-Saddam Iraq would reveal that he confidently proclaimed, “(W)hen the war is over ... there will be chance to judge what we did and why we did it and how it came out.”

Failure, however, should not be rewarded. Not when the President of the United States declines to explain to his own people why no weapons of mass destruction have been found, and takes no responsibility for a monumental failure of planning that continues to drain the blood, spirit and treasure of both the American and Iraqi people.

Al-Qaeda ‘stronger than ever’
news24.com [South Africa], September 9, 2003

London—The al-Qaeda terrorist network is stronger than before the September 11, 2001 attacks, and the US-led “war on terror” has so far been a failure, a British academic concludes in a study published on Tuesday.

Paul Rogers, a professor of peace studies at the University of Bradford in England, said the US campaign’s military successes in Afghanistan and Iraq had failed to crush al-Qaeda’s structure or stem its recruitment.

“(Al-Qaeda) and its associates have managed to plan and often undertake a remarkable range of activities, with these collectively showing a capability that exceeds that existing before the September 11 attacks,” Rogers wrote.

“On this basis alone, it is difficult to accept any claim that the war on terror is being won.” . . .

Yet more sleazy inflence peddling by BushCo whores:

Greenpeace obtains smoking-gun memo: White House/Exxon link
Conservative front group may have thanked White House for help in suing EPA
Greenpeace International, September 9, 2003

Did conservative elements in the White House provoke an Exxon front group to sue EPA to suppress a report on climate change? That’s the question that two State Attorney Generals have asked US Attorney General John Ashcroft to investigate, after Greenpeace uncovered a routine email in a Freedom of Information Act request. . . .

Ouch—a British psychologist “analyses the behaviour of the American president” and attempts to explain his “authoritarian fundamentalism”:

So George, how do you feel about your mom and dad?
Oliver James
The Guardian, September 2, 2003

. . . On the wall of his school house at Andover, there was a large black-and-white photograph of his father in full sporting regalia. He had been one of the most successful student athletes in the school’s 100-year history and was similarly remembered at Yale, where his grandfather was a trustee. His younger brother, Jeb, summed the problem up when he said, “A lot of people who have fathers like this feel a sense that they have failed.” Such a titanic figure created mixed feelings. On the one hand, Bush worshipped and aspired to emulate him. Peter Neumann, an Andover roommate, recalls that, “He idolised his father, he was going to be just like his dad.” At Yale, a friend remembered a “deep respect” for his father and when he later set up in the oil business, another friend said, “He was focused to prove himself to his dad.”

On the other hand, deep down, Bush had a profound loathing for this perfect model of American citizenship whose very success made the son feel a failure. Rebelliousness was an unconscious attack on him and a desperate attempt to carve out something of his own. Far from paternal emulation, Bush described his goal at school as “to instil a sense of frivolity”. Contemporaries at Yale say he was like the John Belushi character in the film Animal House, a drink-fuelled funseeker.

He was aggressively anti-intellectual and hostile to east-coast preppy types like his father, sometimes cruelly so. On one occasion he walked up to a matronly woman at a smart cocktail party and asked, “So, what’s sex like after 50, anyway?” . . .

As he grew older, the fury towards his father was increasingly directed against himself in depressive drinking. But it was not all his father’s fault. There was also his insensitive and domineering mother. . . .

Sunday, September 7, 2003

BushCo is going down!

Bush seeks an exit strategy as war threatens his career
Paul Harris, Jason Burke, Gaby Hinsliff
The Observer, September 7, 2003

George Bush will attempt tonight to convince the American people that he has a workable ‘exit strategy’ to free his forces from the rapidly souring conflict in Iraq, as Britain prepares to send in thousands more troops to reinforce the faltering coalition effort.

Frantic negotiations continued this weekend in New York to secure a United Nations resolution that would open the way for other countries to deploy peacekeeping troops to help after Bush—with one eye on next year’s presidential election—signalled a change of heart on America’s refusal to allow any but coalition forces into Iraq.

The President has been left with little practical choice. Concern among the American public has reached such a pitch that, with his approval ratings plummeting, he will deliver a televised address to the nation tonight to reassure them that they do not face another Vietnam. With their sons and daughters dying daily in guerrilla attacks, Americans may now be becoming more frightened of being bogged down in a hostile country than of the terrorist threat against which Bush has pledged to defend them. . . .

More on the brief speech Bush will be giving tonight:

In Speech, Bush to Ask Americans and Allies for Teamwork on Iraq
Mike Allen
Washington Post, September 7, 2003

And now the U.S. media makes it official: al Qaeda was never particularly strong in secular Iraq—but “The occupation of Iraq—once the home of the caliph, or universal leader, of Muslims—is a galvanizing symbol for radical Islamic groups. On Internet sites and in mosques across the Islamic world, thousands of potential fighters are hearing—and heeding—calls to go to Iraq to fight the infidel.” Article includes detailed info on al Qaeda’s movements and strategy:

Al Qaeda Plans A Front in Iraq
Peter Finn and Susan Schmidt
Washington Post, September 7, 2003

Bush job approval falls in polls
Reuters, September 7, 2003
Down to 45%!

[City of] Santa Cruz calls on Congress to impeach Bush
AP, September 7, 2003

Saturday, September 6, 2003

Summary of important articles from the past month (with apologies for an extended absence):

This war on terrorism is bogus
Michael Meacher (former British environmental minister, 5/97—6/03)
[UK] Guardian Unlimited, Sept. 6, 2003

The foreign press once again lets out all the stops, unlike our own cowed and paid-for media, tying the Iraq war to PNAC’s long-standing plans and, in a lengthy analysis, making it clear that “the US authorities did little or nothing to pre-empt the events of 9/11”:

The conclusion of all this analysis must surely be that the “global war on terrorism” has the hallmarks of a political myth propagated to pave the way for a wholly different agenda—the US goal of world hegemony, built around securing by force command over the oil supplies required to drive the whole project.

Also see the related Meacher sparks fury over claims on September 11 and Iraq war in the same issue of The Guardian, by Ewen MacAskill, summarizing Meacher’s points and noting the predictable reaction of a U.S. government spokesman.

White House Approved Departure of Saudis after Sept. 11, Ex-Aide Says
Eric Lichtblau
New York Times, September 4, 2003
The suspicious favoritism shown toward the Saudis is probed anew.

Living in a Kleptocrat Nation
Jim Hightower
Texas Observer, August 21, 2003
What the problem is and what to do about it, as only Jim Hightower can tell it. Excerpted from his new book Thieves in High Places: They’ve Stolen Our Country--And It’s Time to Take It Back.

Bush On Edge As Lawsuit Targets WMD Businesses
Heather Wokusch
Bush Watch, August 18, 2003

. . . The class action suit [on behalf of more than 100,000 Gulf War veterans] names 11 companies and 33 banks alleged to have helped Iraq with its chemical weapons program in the 1980s, despite knowledge Saddam Hussein was actively using WMD against both Iranians and his own people.

At the time, Reagan’s Middle East envoy was one Donald Rumsfeld, hard at work opening doors for Hussein’s regime to purchase millions in aircraft, hardware and other potential weaponry.

But after the invasion of Kuwait bumped Hussein from Pentagon friend to the “Most Wanted” list, coalition forces got stuck with the nasty task of dealing with the same chemical weapons that businesses had profited by helping Iraq amass. . . .

Bush blamed for chaos which led to blackouts
Andrew Gumbel
Independent.co.uk, August 18, 2003

Four Myths, 30 Million Potential Votes
Beth Shulman
Washington Post, August 17, 2003
Why the realities of low-wage workers have been ignored and why Democrats should rally around them, despite prevailing myths about low-wage jobs.

I still have not gotten around to creating my intended page on corporate sleaze, with the slave-driving, union-busting, sweatshop-meistering, local-business-ruining, impossibly greedy Wal-Mart at the center, but do want to include this article here—a worthy addition to a body of anti-WalMart writings that exemplify nasty trends in corporate America: In Wal-Mart’s America, by Harold Meyerson, Washington Post, August 27, 2003.

Watch for updated links on the other pages on this site.

Friday, August 8, 2003

Al Gore has surfaced again, amid a growing clamor for him to once again seek the Democratic nomination for President. I’m not wildly enthusiastic about the idea, but feel that his latest commentary, a speech sponsored by MoveOn.org, is important. He blasted six “false impressions” that Bush created to justify the war (also summarized in this article in the UK Mirror) and domestic/economic policies that are dead wrong. He was very cogent in explaining exactly why BushCo has it all wrong and how we are being manipulated:

. . . powerful and wealthy groups and individuals who work their way into the inner circle—with political support or large campaign contributions—are able to add their own narrow special interests to the list of favored goals without having them weighed against the public interest or subjected to the rule of reason. And the greater the conflict between what they want and what’s good for the rest of us, the greater incentive they have to bypass the normal procedures and keep it secret.

That’s what happened, for example, when Vice President Cheney invited all of those oil and gas industry executives to meet in secret sessions with him and his staff to put their wish lists into the administration’s legislative package in early 2001.

That group wanted to get rid of the Kyoto Treaty on Global Warming, of course, and the Administration pulled out of it first thing. The list of people who helped write our nation’s new environmental and energy policies is still secret, and the Vice President won’t say whether or not his former company, Halliburton, was included. But of course, as practically everybody in the world knows, Halliburton was given a huge open-ended contract to take over and run the Iraqi oil fields—without having to bid against any other companies.

Secondly, when leaders make up their minds on a policy without ever having to answer hard questions about whether or not it’s good or bad for the American people as a whole, they can pretty quickly get into situations where it’s really uncomfortable for them to defend what they’ve done with simple and truthful explanations. That’s when they’re tempted to fuzz up the facts and create false impressions. And when other facts start to come out that undermine the impression they’re trying to maintain, they have a big incentive to try to keep the truth bottled up if—they can—or distort it. . . .

The administration has developed a highly effective propaganda machine to imbed in the public mind mythologies that grow out of the one central doctrine that all of the special interests agree on, which —in its purest form—is that government is very bad and should be done away with as much as possible—except the parts of it that redirect money through big contracts to industries that have won their way into the inner circle.

For the same reasons they push the impression that government is bad, they also promote the myth that there really is no such thing as the public interest. What’s important to them is private interests. And what they really mean is that those who have a lot of wealth should be left alone, rather than be called upon to reinvest in society through taxes. . . .

Please read this speech in its entirety here.

Tuesday, August 5, 2004

The economy is in the tank, jobs, particularly those in the IT sphere, are rapidly leaving the country with the blessings of the cheap-labor Republicans, the Christian right is once again irrelevantly grabbing the spotlight with its crap about “the sanctity of marriage” (why not, then, make divorce illegal? If marriage warrants a Constitutional amendment defining its sacred nature, shouldn’t the vows at its heart be made inviolable? With divorce at about 50%, the institution doesn’t look all that successful). But take heart; Mark Morford reminds us that

George W. Bush Means Nothing
Note to self: The demons of sour conservatism cannot touch anything that truly matters
Mark Morford
SF Gate, August 1, 2003

You cannot reach me, Dubya.

Go ahead, ya smirkin’ Texas lug, stumble around all scrunched and blank eyed and pseudo-manly, shove this country into a bloody unwinnable war and lie about all the reasons why, gouge the economy and ruin the schools and embarrass the nation every single day as you mangle grammar and meaning and truth. It doesn’t really matter.

Go ahead, toss those useless $400 rebate checks to the depressed and jobless populace as some sort of bogus humanitarian gesture as you quietly force an increase in their property taxes to pay for your record-breaking deficit brought on by the tax cut no one wants. Ha. You are so cute.

There is so much more going on than you know. There is so much deeper understanding and wider knowledge and higher winking and you can’t touch any of it. Do you know this? You need to know this. . . .

I know you want to shut us down. I know you would love nothing more than if all resistance was mowed under and all perversions were bleached dead and all nuanced questioning of your malicious antihumanitarian agenda was numbed to the point of blind flag-waving psychopatriotism, one born of fear and misinformation and photos of the bloody mutilated bodies of Saddam’s demon sons. Damn, you try so hard.

I have news. I have a revelation. It is timeless and ageless and nothing new and I hold no claims to it, but it needs to be repeated and shouted and deeply felt again and again and again, because sometimes you get a little out of control.

Here it is: You are immaterial. You are of zero nutritional value and are indigestible like corn and just pass right through. Do you understand?

There is so much more going on down here than is dreamt of in your bitter and small-minded philosophy. I, and millions like me, sense a more luminous undercurrent, a wider spiritual lens, a richer sensual mother lode.

We know that no matter how much you pule and spit and hiss and spank and crack down, no matter how many laws and how many restrictions and how many wars and murders and stabs at the heart of meaning and sex and divinity, you cannot touch what really matters, you cannot really have any lasting effect. . . .

Keep ripping away at the rich dense frantic fabric of this gorgeous inexplicable life. You represent all the dark threads, the ugliness and the tension and the low vibration and you are necessary to remind anyone who’s paying attention of what to watch out for, what to methodically purge, what to use as easy leverage to vault forward.

Look. You cannot reach me. You are nowhere near. You have no true power and no true connection and have yet to make any sort of splash in the calm lake of open-thighed soul. But it’s OK. We understand. After all, as the saying goes, the graveyards are full of indispensable men. And the divine only smiles, licks its lips, and shimmies on.

Saudi Government Provided Aid to 9/11 Hijackers, Sources Say
Josh Meyer
Los Angeles Times, August 2, 2003

WASHINGTON - The 27 classified pages of a congressional report about Sept. 11 depict a Saudi government that not only provided significant money and aid to the suicide hijackers but also allowed potentially hundreds of millions of dollars to flow to Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups through suspect charities and other fronts, according to sources familiar with the document.

One U.S. official who has read the classified section said it describes “very direct, very specific links" between Saudi officials, two of the San Diego-based hijackers and other potential co-conspirators "that cannot be passed off as rogue, isolated or coincidental.”

Said another official: “It’s really damning. What it says is that not only Saudi entities or nationals are implicated in 9/11, but the [Saudi] government” as well. . . .

Several U.S. officials confirmed that the classified report detailed what the FBI has long since concluded: that there were far more financial links than have previously been disclosed between Riyadh and American-based Saudis who associated with the hijackers, and to a larger network of terrorists worldwide.

Those officials refused to discuss the classified sections of the report but confirmed that they detailed additional allegations about Omar al-Bayoumi and Osama Bassnan, two Saudi men, and their suspicious activities in the United States.

Al Bayoumi was an employee of the Saudi civil aviation authority who FBI agents said received "seemingly unlimited funding" from Saudi Arabia. Bassnan and his family received significant charitable support from Princess Haifa al-Faisal, wife of the Saudi ambassador to the U.S., Prince Bandar bin Sultan. Al Bayoumi and Bassnan are believed to be in Saudi Arabia. . . .

Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), chairwoman of the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, said in an interview that ample evidence remained "that high-ranking Saudi officials and members of the Saudi royal family are involved in supporting Saudi organizations that have a dual purpose—legitimate charitable work, but which also appear to be conduits to terrorist organizations."

“There has been no indication to me that they have seriously cracked down on or audited these charities that are under suspicion,” said Collins, whose committee is investigating Saudi financing of terrorism. “I’m thinking of the phrase ‘deliberate ignorance’,” Collins said of the Saudi leaders. “They don’t want to know, they’re not probing, they’re not taking action that would uncover where the financing goes. I think they have knowledge at some level, that they intentionally are not seeking that information.”

For a penetrating analysis, see The 9/11 Report Raises More Serious Questions About The White House Statements On Intelligence by former Nixon counsel John Dean, in FindLaw’s Legal Commentary, July 29, 2003: “. . . Bluntly stated, either the Bush White House knew about the potential of terrorists flying airplanes into skyscrapers (notwithstanding their claims to the contrary), or the CIA failed to give the White House this essential information, which it possessed and provided to others.

“Bush is withholding the document that answers this question. Accordingly, it seems more likely that the former possibility is the truth. That is, it seems very probable that those in the White House knew much more than they have admitted, and they are covering up their failure to take action. . . .”

So I wonder what Bush and Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal could possibly have talked about last week at the White House?? Greg Palast "gets it":

Bush and the Saudis Sittin’ in a Tree—Kay Eye Ess Ess Eye En Gee
Greg Palast
The Observer, August 1, 2003

Well, well, well. President George was in one hell of bind this week when it turned out that Saudi Arabia funded Al Qaeda, not Iraq. Realizing we’d invaded the wrong country, Bush did the honorable thing: he’s come out against gay marriages. . . .

But here’s the real kick in the head. Turns out that unlike the 18 minutes missing from the Nixon tape, the 28 pages missing from Congress’ publicly released report on the September 11 attack has been found. And it turns out to be a summary of Saudi Arabia’s financing of terrorist fronts including the ‘charities’ supporting Al Qaeda.

And now, the New York Times tells us, the US Senate has been embarrassed into holding hearings on those Saudi charity fronts including one named WAMY. . . .

And here’s the ugly little punchline to the story you WON’T read in the Times. Why has the Bush Administration covered up for WAMY and the Saudis’ other blood-soaked ‘charity’ operations?

For the answer, let me take you back to Midland, Texas, 1986. A young old man, George W. Bush, seems to have trouble finding oil. But he strikes it rich when his flailing drilling partnership is bought out by Harken Oil. Despite the addition of the business acumen of Bush Jr., Harken faces collapse; but is pulled from the brink by a cash infusion from a Saudi, Sheik Bakhsh. . . .

The Bakhsh booty continued a pattern of the young Bush being saved from his dire business decisions by a line of Sheik angels. His first oil company, Arbusto, going bust-o, was aided by the American financial representative of the bin Ladin family. . . .

. . . in the summer of 2001, Mr. Bush disbanded the US intelligence unit tracking funding of Al Qaeda. What is it our G-men were uncovering? According to two separate sources speaking to BBC, the funders of Al Qaeda fronts include those who have previously funded Bush family business and political ventures. . . .

Even I, who have so little interest in online games, found this entertaining: MetroTimes’ interactive Homeland Insecurity Board Game. There’s a “die” to roll and each square, besides instructing you to move ahead or behind some number of squares, links to a news source detailing the particular scenario depicted (“John Ashcroft’s Justice Department secretly begins work on draft PATRIOT Act II . . . move back 5”)

Compilation of records, statements, and articles concerning “illegal, unethical, or embarassing activities” of BushCo that have “mysteriously disappeared” from government office and newspaper web sites: Bush’s Scrubbers

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