Friday, April 09, 2004
Part-time job, especially if you’re not the #1
This is Bush's 33rd visit to his ranch since becoming president. He has spent all or part of 233 days on his Texas ranch since taking office, according to a tally by CBS News. Adding his 78 visits to Camp David and his five visits to Kennebunkport, Maine, Bush has spent all or part of 500 days in office at one of his three retreats, or more than 40 percent of his presidency. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A62524-2004Apr8.html
Condi, Condi, Condi!
Predictably anti-climatic; no drama, old lies remain intact; she asserts that contrary to all evidence, the Bush Administration response was more robust than Clinton’s, that Clinton only sought to “roll back” al-Qaeda while they looked to “eliminate”, that Clark never asked to brief the President, that they had a “structural” problem, etc. The best moment came with her insistence that the August 6 PDB was historical, general re terrorist activity and Ben-Veniste dramatically got her to “remember” the title of the memorandum, “Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the U.S.”. Priceless. Jon Stewart on Comedy Central (10AM, 7PM are the repeat showings) captured it perfectly. http://www.comedycentral.com/tv_shows/ds/
Richard Clark summarized it well, that they differed little on the facts, but had radically different interpretations;
For example, he noted Ms. Rice's account that she held 33 meetings of the so-called principals committee, and that none focused on Al Qaeda, the terrorist organization believed responsible for the attacks.
While Ms. Rice insisted that she had not placed terrorism on the back burner, Mr. Clarke differed. "I say that indicates it was not a priority," he said. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/09/politics/09CLAR.html
While questions remain unanswered and some people may surface to dispute her assertions or memory lapses, keep in mind that this commission was OK’d by the Administration as a substitute for a Watergate-style investigation, and it has no authority to hold Bush et al accountable.
The Center for American Progress analyzes it. Samples and link:
CLAIM: "The threat reporting that we received in the Spring and Summer of 2001 was not specific as to...manner of attack."
FACT: ABC News reported, Bush Administration "officials acknowledged that U.S. intelligence officials informed President Bush weeks before the Sept. 11 attacks that bin Laden's terrorist network might try to hijack American planes." Dateline NBC reported that on August 6, 2001, the President personally "received a one-and-a-half page briefing advising him that Osama bin Laden was capable of a major strike against the US, and that the plot could include the hijacking of an American airplane." Rice herself actually admitted this herself, saying the Aug. 6 briefing the President received said "terrorists might attempt to hijack a U.S. aircraft." [Sources: ABC News, 5/16/02; NBC, 9/10/02]
CLAIM: There was "nothing about the threat of attack in the U.S." in the Presidential Daily Briefing the President received on August 6th. [responding to Ben Veniste]
FACT: Rice herself confirmed that "the title [of the PDB] was, 'Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States.'" [Source: Condoleezza Rice, 4/8/04] http://www.americanprogress.org/site/pp.asp?c=biJRJ8OVF&b=44918
A much more basic summary from another blogger:
A summary of her testimony follows:
Lie, lie, distortion, half-truth, pander, manipulation, pseudo-intellectual bombast. Dodge, dodge, feint, lie, dodge, avoid, subject change, lie, slander, pretentious generalization, character assassination, bald-faced lie.
Oversimplification, undersimplification, condescension, insult, insult, lie, avoidance of responsibility, avoidance of question about avoiding responsibility, cheap political point, utter, malicious lie.
Grimace, slither, dodge, lie, deliberate misinterpretation of history, nonpartisan character disparagement, narrative designed by public-relations experts to create maximum “connection” with American public. Appearance of professionalism, resoluteness, capableness, preparedness. Major omission of lie to create partial truth. Lie for political convenience. Lie for partisan gain. Lie to protect the economic interests of an incredibly small number of people. Reception of flattery. Dispersal of flattery. Abuse of good will a…. Backhanded dismissal of all criticism. Denial of any responsibility in orchestrating what will almost certainly become the most tragic and bloody war of this generation.
Rinse and repeat. http://www.nealpollack.com/cgi-bin/blog/do.cgi/200404080153/permalink
In sum, like the rest of ‘em, she lies and distorts, and befitting the circumstances, did the usual fine job of not remembering.
Despite her assertions, Administration documents/statements make clear that they de-emphasized/prioritized counter-terrorism, opposed creation of the commission, delayed it, refused to provide documents including the text of Condi’s statement she was to deliver on 9/11 which admittedly was going to (again) ignore terrorism
Perspective on Condi:
One recognizes her from this evaluation of her first book, printed in the American Historical Review. Draw your own conclusions from Joseph Kalvoda’s notes as to her methodology in her work The Soviet Union and the Czechoslovak Army, 1948-1983: Uncertain Allegiance.
Rice's selection of sources raises questions, since he frequently does not sift facts from propaganda and valid information from disinformation or misinformation. He passes judgments and expresses opinions without adequate knowledge of facts. It does not add to his credibility when he uses a source written by Josef Hodic; Rice fails to notice that this "former military scientist" (p. 99) was a communist agent who returned to Czechoslovakia several years ago.
....Rice's generalizations reflect his lack of knowledge about history and the nationality problem in Czechoslovakia. For example....Rice's discussion of the "Czechoslovak Legion" that was "born during the chaotic period preceding the fall of the Russian empire" (pp. 44-46) is ridiculous. (It was "born" on September 28, 1914.) He is clearly ignorant of the history of the military unit as well as of the geography of the area on which it fought. http://vulgo.org/index.php?option=news&task=viewarticle&sid=1102
What’s Happening, Iraq:
This morning brought reports of an attack on a convoy with 9 dead, but the U.S. is getting even more murky as to casualty figures. Fighting is widespread, contrary to Administration assertions. The ultimate fear is being realized- the Sunnis and Shia are joining together. Some reports:
The Iraqi uprising against the American-led occupation intensified Wednesday and spread to new parts of the country, with United States forces increasing their efforts to put down Sunni and Shiite combatants.
Pentagon officials in Washington signaled that they would probably delay bringing home as many as 25,000 troops as scheduled and probably move reinforcements to the south… http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/08/international/middleeast/08SHIA.html
When the United States invaded Iraq a year ago, one of its chief concerns was preventing a civil war between Shiite Muslims, who make up a majority in the country, and Sunni Muslims, who held all the power under Saddam Hussein.
Now the fear is that the growing uprising against the occupation is forging a new and previously unheard of level of cooperation between the two groups — and the common cause is killing Americans.
"We have orders from our leader to fight as one and to help the Sunnis," said Nimaa Fakir, a 27-year-old teacher and foot soldier in the Mahdi Army, a Shiite militia. "We want to increase the fighting, increase the killing and drive the Americans out. To do this, we must combine forces."
This new Shiite-Sunni partnership was flourishing in Baghdad on Thursday. Convoys of pickup trucks with signature black Shiite flags flapping from their bumpers hauled sacks of grain, flour, sugar and rice into Sunni mosques. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/09/international/middleeast/09SHIA.html?hp
For example, thousands of Iraqis - from both the Sunni and Shia communities - marched 60km from Baghdad to Falluja to bring food and medical supplies to the besieged citizens there.
The marchers - carrying colourful flags and banners reading, "Sons of the great Falluja, we are with you on the road of jihad and victory" - arrived at the marine roadblock at the western entrance to the city earlier today. http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1188454,00.html
Complications:
(1) Kidnappings.
The three civilians were snatched by a group called the Mujahideen Brigades and Arab al-Jazeera TV showed them being held at knife-point. Also, two Arab Israelis were also kidnapped, but seven abducted South Korean missionaries were released. And, South Korea, the Ukraine, Bulgaria, Spain and Kazakhstan are reconsidering their roles.
(2) Syria
The UPI reported several border clashes between U.S and Syrian soldiers, resulting in a few injuries.
"Beirut's daily As-Safir quoted U.S. political and military sources in Washington as saying Tuesday that Syrian troops fired at a U.S. helicopter in one of the border incidents, causing the casualties. Beirut's daily As-Safir quoted U.S. political and military sources in Washington as saying Tuesday that Syrian troops fired at a U.S. helicopter in one of the border incidents, causing the casualties.
The State Department summoned the Syrian ambassador in Washington, Imad Mustafa, to complain about the incidents.
The U.S. sources also said the Pentagon decided to place Lebanon and Syria under the U.S. Central Command led by Gen. John Abuzaid which is responsible for the Middle East region.
http://interestalert.com/brand/siteia.shtml?Story=st/sn/04070000aaa02b2b.upi&Sys=siteia&Fid=WORLDNEW&Type=News&Filter=World%20News
Shifting Political Climate:
(1) Joan Vennochi, the Globe: What started as rhetoric from the left is becoming more and more the conversation of mainstream America. People want to support the troops, who are after all, the sons and daughters of our neighbors. They do not want American soldiers to die in Iraq on the altar of a president's bankrupt foreign policy.
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2004/04/08/firm_stand_on_the_war_rattles_bush
(2) Voices: Republican Senators-- Richard Lugar frets about civil war and Chuck Hagel seems to feel that the Administration set itself up for failure. Conservative talk show hosts are sounding off, some (Joe Scarborough, George Will) just calling the number of troops insufficient, others like chronic liar (see Al Franken’s book) Bill O’Reilly saying “I’m not buying this ‘Iraqis are on the American side’ right now.”
Catch-Up- Had skipped this gem- the apparently not uncommon practice of “time shaving”. Employers alter the time cards of low-wage employees so they lose some hours…and wages.
Experts on compensation say that the illegal doctoring of hourly employees' time records is far more prevalent than most Americans believe. The practice, commonly called shaving time, is easily done and hard to detect — a simple matter of computer keystrokes — and has spurred a growing number of lawsuits and settlements against a wide range of businesses.
Workers have sued Family Dollar and Pep Boys, the auto parts and repair chain, accusing managers of deleting hours. A jury found that Taco Bell managers in Oregon had routinely erased workers' time. More than a dozen former Wal-Mart employees said in interviews and depositions that managers had altered time records to shortchange employees. The Department of Labor recently reached two back-pay settlements with Kinko's photocopy centers, totaling $56,600, after finding that managers in Ithaca, N.Y., and Hyannis, Mass., had erased time for 13 employees. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/04/national/04WAGE.html
-R
This is Bush's 33rd visit to his ranch since becoming president. He has spent all or part of 233 days on his Texas ranch since taking office, according to a tally by CBS News. Adding his 78 visits to Camp David and his five visits to Kennebunkport, Maine, Bush has spent all or part of 500 days in office at one of his three retreats, or more than 40 percent of his presidency. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A62524-2004Apr8.html
Condi, Condi, Condi!
Predictably anti-climatic; no drama, old lies remain intact; she asserts that contrary to all evidence, the Bush Administration response was more robust than Clinton’s, that Clinton only sought to “roll back” al-Qaeda while they looked to “eliminate”, that Clark never asked to brief the President, that they had a “structural” problem, etc. The best moment came with her insistence that the August 6 PDB was historical, general re terrorist activity and Ben-Veniste dramatically got her to “remember” the title of the memorandum, “Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the U.S.”. Priceless. Jon Stewart on Comedy Central (10AM, 7PM are the repeat showings) captured it perfectly. http://www.comedycentral.com/tv_shows/ds/
Richard Clark summarized it well, that they differed little on the facts, but had radically different interpretations;
For example, he noted Ms. Rice's account that she held 33 meetings of the so-called principals committee, and that none focused on Al Qaeda, the terrorist organization believed responsible for the attacks.
While Ms. Rice insisted that she had not placed terrorism on the back burner, Mr. Clarke differed. "I say that indicates it was not a priority," he said. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/09/politics/09CLAR.html
While questions remain unanswered and some people may surface to dispute her assertions or memory lapses, keep in mind that this commission was OK’d by the Administration as a substitute for a Watergate-style investigation, and it has no authority to hold Bush et al accountable.
The Center for American Progress analyzes it. Samples and link:
CLAIM: "The threat reporting that we received in the Spring and Summer of 2001 was not specific as to...manner of attack."
FACT: ABC News reported, Bush Administration "officials acknowledged that U.S. intelligence officials informed President Bush weeks before the Sept. 11 attacks that bin Laden's terrorist network might try to hijack American planes." Dateline NBC reported that on August 6, 2001, the President personally "received a one-and-a-half page briefing advising him that Osama bin Laden was capable of a major strike against the US, and that the plot could include the hijacking of an American airplane." Rice herself actually admitted this herself, saying the Aug. 6 briefing the President received said "terrorists might attempt to hijack a U.S. aircraft." [Sources: ABC News, 5/16/02; NBC, 9/10/02]
CLAIM: There was "nothing about the threat of attack in the U.S." in the Presidential Daily Briefing the President received on August 6th. [responding to Ben Veniste]
FACT: Rice herself confirmed that "the title [of the PDB] was, 'Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States.'" [Source: Condoleezza Rice, 4/8/04] http://www.americanprogress.org/site/pp.asp?c=biJRJ8OVF&b=44918
A much more basic summary from another blogger:
A summary of her testimony follows:
Lie, lie, distortion, half-truth, pander, manipulation, pseudo-intellectual bombast. Dodge, dodge, feint, lie, dodge, avoid, subject change, lie, slander, pretentious generalization, character assassination, bald-faced lie.
Oversimplification, undersimplification, condescension, insult, insult, lie, avoidance of responsibility, avoidance of question about avoiding responsibility, cheap political point, utter, malicious lie.
Grimace, slither, dodge, lie, deliberate misinterpretation of history, nonpartisan character disparagement, narrative designed by public-relations experts to create maximum “connection” with American public. Appearance of professionalism, resoluteness, capableness, preparedness. Major omission of lie to create partial truth. Lie for political convenience. Lie for partisan gain. Lie to protect the economic interests of an incredibly small number of people. Reception of flattery. Dispersal of flattery. Abuse of good will a…. Backhanded dismissal of all criticism. Denial of any responsibility in orchestrating what will almost certainly become the most tragic and bloody war of this generation.
Rinse and repeat. http://www.nealpollack.com/cgi-bin/blog/do.cgi/200404080153/permalink
In sum, like the rest of ‘em, she lies and distorts, and befitting the circumstances, did the usual fine job of not remembering.
Despite her assertions, Administration documents/statements make clear that they de-emphasized/prioritized counter-terrorism, opposed creation of the commission, delayed it, refused to provide documents including the text of Condi’s statement she was to deliver on 9/11 which admittedly was going to (again) ignore terrorism
Perspective on Condi:
One recognizes her from this evaluation of her first book, printed in the American Historical Review. Draw your own conclusions from Joseph Kalvoda’s notes as to her methodology in her work The Soviet Union and the Czechoslovak Army, 1948-1983: Uncertain Allegiance.
Rice's selection of sources raises questions, since he frequently does not sift facts from propaganda and valid information from disinformation or misinformation. He passes judgments and expresses opinions without adequate knowledge of facts. It does not add to his credibility when he uses a source written by Josef Hodic; Rice fails to notice that this "former military scientist" (p. 99) was a communist agent who returned to Czechoslovakia several years ago.
....Rice's generalizations reflect his lack of knowledge about history and the nationality problem in Czechoslovakia. For example....Rice's discussion of the "Czechoslovak Legion" that was "born during the chaotic period preceding the fall of the Russian empire" (pp. 44-46) is ridiculous. (It was "born" on September 28, 1914.) He is clearly ignorant of the history of the military unit as well as of the geography of the area on which it fought. http://vulgo.org/index.php?option=news&task=viewarticle&sid=1102
What’s Happening, Iraq:
This morning brought reports of an attack on a convoy with 9 dead, but the U.S. is getting even more murky as to casualty figures. Fighting is widespread, contrary to Administration assertions. The ultimate fear is being realized- the Sunnis and Shia are joining together. Some reports:
The Iraqi uprising against the American-led occupation intensified Wednesday and spread to new parts of the country, with United States forces increasing their efforts to put down Sunni and Shiite combatants.
Pentagon officials in Washington signaled that they would probably delay bringing home as many as 25,000 troops as scheduled and probably move reinforcements to the south… http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/08/international/middleeast/08SHIA.html
When the United States invaded Iraq a year ago, one of its chief concerns was preventing a civil war between Shiite Muslims, who make up a majority in the country, and Sunni Muslims, who held all the power under Saddam Hussein.
Now the fear is that the growing uprising against the occupation is forging a new and previously unheard of level of cooperation between the two groups — and the common cause is killing Americans.
"We have orders from our leader to fight as one and to help the Sunnis," said Nimaa Fakir, a 27-year-old teacher and foot soldier in the Mahdi Army, a Shiite militia. "We want to increase the fighting, increase the killing and drive the Americans out. To do this, we must combine forces."
This new Shiite-Sunni partnership was flourishing in Baghdad on Thursday. Convoys of pickup trucks with signature black Shiite flags flapping from their bumpers hauled sacks of grain, flour, sugar and rice into Sunni mosques. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/09/international/middleeast/09SHIA.html?hp
For example, thousands of Iraqis - from both the Sunni and Shia communities - marched 60km from Baghdad to Falluja to bring food and medical supplies to the besieged citizens there.
The marchers - carrying colourful flags and banners reading, "Sons of the great Falluja, we are with you on the road of jihad and victory" - arrived at the marine roadblock at the western entrance to the city earlier today. http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1188454,00.html
Complications:
(1) Kidnappings.
The three civilians were snatched by a group called the Mujahideen Brigades and Arab al-Jazeera TV showed them being held at knife-point. Also, two Arab Israelis were also kidnapped, but seven abducted South Korean missionaries were released. And, South Korea, the Ukraine, Bulgaria, Spain and Kazakhstan are reconsidering their roles.
(2) Syria
The UPI reported several border clashes between U.S and Syrian soldiers, resulting in a few injuries.
"Beirut's daily As-Safir quoted U.S. political and military sources in Washington as saying Tuesday that Syrian troops fired at a U.S. helicopter in one of the border incidents, causing the casualties. Beirut's daily As-Safir quoted U.S. political and military sources in Washington as saying Tuesday that Syrian troops fired at a U.S. helicopter in one of the border incidents, causing the casualties.
The State Department summoned the Syrian ambassador in Washington, Imad Mustafa, to complain about the incidents.
The U.S. sources also said the Pentagon decided to place Lebanon and Syria under the U.S. Central Command led by Gen. John Abuzaid which is responsible for the Middle East region.
http://interestalert.com/brand/siteia.shtml?Story=st/sn/04070000aaa02b2b.upi&Sys=siteia&Fid=WORLDNEW&Type=News&Filter=World%20News
Shifting Political Climate:
(1) Joan Vennochi, the Globe: What started as rhetoric from the left is becoming more and more the conversation of mainstream America. People want to support the troops, who are after all, the sons and daughters of our neighbors. They do not want American soldiers to die in Iraq on the altar of a president's bankrupt foreign policy.
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2004/04/08/firm_stand_on_the_war_rattles_bush
(2) Voices: Republican Senators-- Richard Lugar frets about civil war and Chuck Hagel seems to feel that the Administration set itself up for failure. Conservative talk show hosts are sounding off, some (Joe Scarborough, George Will) just calling the number of troops insufficient, others like chronic liar (see Al Franken’s book) Bill O’Reilly saying “I’m not buying this ‘Iraqis are on the American side’ right now.”
Catch-Up- Had skipped this gem- the apparently not uncommon practice of “time shaving”. Employers alter the time cards of low-wage employees so they lose some hours…and wages.
Experts on compensation say that the illegal doctoring of hourly employees' time records is far more prevalent than most Americans believe. The practice, commonly called shaving time, is easily done and hard to detect — a simple matter of computer keystrokes — and has spurred a growing number of lawsuits and settlements against a wide range of businesses.
Workers have sued Family Dollar and Pep Boys, the auto parts and repair chain, accusing managers of deleting hours. A jury found that Taco Bell managers in Oregon had routinely erased workers' time. More than a dozen former Wal-Mart employees said in interviews and depositions that managers had altered time records to shortchange employees. The Department of Labor recently reached two back-pay settlements with Kinko's photocopy centers, totaling $56,600, after finding that managers in Ithaca, N.Y., and Hyannis, Mass., had erased time for 13 employees. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/04/national/04WAGE.html
-R
Wednesday, April 07, 2004
What’s Happening, Iraq: Bombing of a mosque, Shiite militiamen drove Ukrainian soldiers and coalition officials from the town of Kut. And, heavy casualties…
Though the BBC reports that "it's not getting better, yet," IslamOnline reports that Sadr is trying to cool the situation.
"Shiite leader Moqtada Sadr said Tuesday, April 6, he ended his sit-in at a mosque in Kufa and traveled to the holy city of An-Najaf to prevent `more bloodshed,' while Shiites’ spiritual leader Ayatollah Ali Sistani called for calm and voiced his solidarity with the young firebrand leader. http://www.islamonline.net/English/News/2004-04/06/article03.shtml
A "reassuring" note is that the major Shiite political parties are not (yet) part of the insurgency/uprising. But, fighting Sunnis and at least some Shiites is a two-front war that is a nightmare for the Wolfowitz-Rumsfeld-Cheney operation…and for us. Now there is talk of adding more U.S. troops, despite Rumsfeld’s denials. As in similar situations, all Bush can do is repeat his refrain, variations on ‘We’re resolved to stay; the deadline is still June 30’, etc. http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0407/p01s02-wome.html
Juan Cole: The oft-quoted Cole, a U. of Michigan prof, offers insights from his web log. He’s fearful that the Shiite leader has innumerable followers, that Sadr is more popular than U.S. spokespersons have claimed.
Rather, it is clear that urban crowds are supporting the uprising in some numbers. Even when the Coalition puts the uprising down, it may well incur the wrath of many persons who had earlier viewed it with favor. And if the US cannot control Iraq now, when it has its hands directly on all the levers of power, how will it do so in the coming year, as it loses its grip on those levers?…
(Previously: )
In fact that is the size of his formal militia. Muqtada's movement is like the layers of an onion. You have 10,000 militiamen. But then you have tens of thousands of cadres able to mobilize neighborhoods. Then you have hundreds of thousands of Sadrists, followers of Muqtada and other heirs of Muhammad Sadiq al-Sadr. Then you have maybe 5 million Shiite theocrats who sympathize with Muqtada's goals and rhetoric, about a third of the Shiite community. The Sadrists will now try to shift everything so that the 5 million become followers, the hundreds of thousands become cadres, and the tens of thousands become militiamen.
It said that Muqtada al-Sadr had withdrawn into his mosque in Kufa, south of Baghdad, for a spiritual "retreat," and that it was reported that Coalition military forces had surrounded the mosque. (Mosques are considered sanctuaries in the Muslim world, and there are always protests when they are invaded by security forces or military troops). http://www.juancole.com/2004_04_01_juancole_archive.html#108109946449807198
The thoughtful Naomi Klein opined that the U.S. is purposely provoking Sadr, that it is seeking to demonstrate that chaos reigns so as to enable them to abandon the June 30 date.
Make no mistake: this is not the "civil war" that Washington has been predicting will break out between Sunnis, Shias and Kurds. Rather, it is a war provoked by the US occupation authority and waged by its forces against the growing number of Shia who support Moqtada al-Sadr...
At first, Bremer responded to Sadr's growing strength by ignoring him; now he is attempting to provoke him into all-out battle. The trouble began when he closed down Sadr's newspaper last week, sparking a wave of peaceful demonstrations. On Saturday, Bremer raised the stakes further by sending coalition forces to surround Sadr's house near Najaf and arrest his communications officer.
Predictably, the arrest sparked immediate protests in Baghdad, which the Iraqi army responded to by opening fire and allegedly killing three people. At the end of the day on Sunday, Sadr called on his supporters to stop staging demonstrations and urged them to employ unnamed "other ways" to resist the occupation - a statement many interpreted as a call to arms.
On the surface, this chain of events is mystifying. With the so-called Sunni triangle in flames after the gruesome Falluja attacks, why is Bremer pushing the comparatively calm Shia south into battle?
Here's one possible answer: Washington has given up on its plans to hand over power to an interim Iraqi government on June 30, and is creating the chaos it needs to declare the handover impossible. A continued occupation will be bad news for George Bush on the campaign trail, but not as bad as if the hand-over happens and the country erupts, an increasingly likely scenario given the widespread rejection of the legitimacy of the interim constitution and the US- appointed governing council.
But by sending the new Iraqi army to fire on the people they are supposed to be protecting, Bremer has destroyed what slim hope they had of gaining credibility with an already highly mistrustful population. http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1186566,00.html
Meanwhile David Kay, ye olde WMD fella, has been coming clean, step-by-step. He notes that he was convinced by last summer that Saddam was not accumulating weapons. Then, he wanted to resign in December, but was convinced to stay by CIA Director Tenet, who advised, “If you resign now, it will appear that we don’t know what we’re doing and the wheels are coming off.” http://www.nydailynews.com/news/wn_report/v-pfriendly/story/180602p-156891c.html
Blackwater “Security”: The employer of the slain four-some continues to be examined. The Guardian reported last month as to Blackwater hiring Chilean mercenaries, some of whom had been trained during the Pinochet dictatorship. They do not merely guard individuals; they have their own helicopter fleet and are well-enough equipped to defend themselves unless ambushed. These well-paid ‘professionals’- some are army/marines who quit for the higher pay- have known to be equipped with especially lethal weapons/ammunition. Army Times reported an example where a wound to the buttocks was instantly fatal. I’ll skip the details, which are at http://www.armytimes.com/story.php?f=1-292925-2426405.php http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,1162392,00.html
Depleted Uranium:
The New York Daily News has reported that three U.S. soldiers have come down with radiation poisoning because of exposure to U.S. depleted uranium weapons. The scourge of the Persian Gulf War, has been omnipresent during the invasion/occupation. There are assertions that 4 million pounds have been used, which generates a heck of a lot of uranium dust (which is what it turns into when it’s exploded).
"A special investigation by Democracy Now! co-host Juan Gonzalez of the New York Daily News has found four of nine soldiers of the 442nd Military Police Company of the New York Army National Guard returning from Iraq tested positive for depleted uranium contamination. They are the first confirmed cases of inhaled depleted uranium exposure from the current Iraq conflict. After repeatedly being denied testing for depleted uranium from Army doctors, the soldiers contacted The News who paid to have them tested as part of their investigation. More at http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Mar04/Nichols0327.htm
Polls on Iraq:
Not surprising that Bush’s numbers as to his handling of Iraq have steadily dropped- from 56% in January to 43% now. More intriguing is that the Pew Research folk found that Americans are more focused on gas prices than on developments in Iraq. 58% are “paying close attention” to reports on gas prices, 36% closely following Iraq fighting/developments. http://people-press.org/reports/display.php3?ReportID=210
Spinners in Baghdad!
An AP report captures how Republican ‘operatives’ are busy spinning the war from their new Baghdad headquarters .
Inside the marble-floored palace hall that serves as the press office of the U.S.-led coalition, Republican Party operatives lead a team of Americans who promote mostly good news about Iraq. Dan Senor, a former press secretary for Spencer Abraham, the Michigan Republican who's now Energy Secretary, heads the office packed with former Bush campaign workers, political appointees and ex-Capitol Hill staffers.
One-third of the U.S. civilian workers in the press office have GOP ties, running an enterprise that critics see as an outpost of Bush's re-election effort with Iraq a top concern. Senor and others inside the coalition say they follow strict guidelines that steer clear of politics…." http://start.earthlink.net/newsarticle?cat=9&aid=D81O71000_story
Afghanistan: Comment from Seymour Hersh:
Afghanistan is regaining the Bush Administration’s attention, in part because the worsening situation in Iraq has increased the need for a foreign-policy success. State Department and intelligence officials who have worked in Kabul said that it is widely understood that Afghanistan’s Presidential and parliamentary elections, which had already been rescheduled, must be held before the American Presidential elections, on November 2nd. The upside to the political timetable has been a new commitment of American reconstruction funds—more than two billion dollars, a fourfold increase over the previous year—for schools, clinics, and road construction in Afghanistan. Richard Clarke wrote in his memoir that initially the aid funds were “inadequate and slowly delivered,” and far below the thirteen hundred and ninety dollars per capita that was spent in the first years of the rebuilding effort in Bosnia and the nearly twenty billion dollars now earmarked for Iraq. http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?040412fa_fact
Outsourcing: Globe report (Hiawatha Bray)
The spread of outsourcing, beyond hard-hit technology workers, is a big reason the US economic recovery so far is a jobless one, and has stayed that way much longer than in previous upturns. A study released recently from the University of California at Berkeley says the country lost more than 1 million white-collar jobs in the 1990s and "hundreds of thousands more since the turn of the century."
Precise data are hard to come by and estimates vary widely, but the UC study says that outsourcing is accelerating. "If you simultaneously read Indian newspapers and US newspapers, you're going to get a good correlation between layoffs here and jobs being created there," said Ashok Deo Bardhan, a researcher for the study. He added that as many as 30,000 jobs were lost to India alone in June, and that 14 million US service jobs are vulnerable. http://www.boston.com/business/technology/articles/2003/11/02/as_economy_gains_outsourcing_surges?mode=PF
Corporations Avoiding Taxes Most large firms avoided taxation from 1996-2000.
Using data collected by the Internal Revenue Service, the auditors found that 71 percent of foreign corporations paid no federal income tax. During the same time, 61 percent of American corporations paid no income tax.
Among the largest corporations, American businesses were more likely to avoid taxation than foreign businesses.
The study was done by the General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress.
Investigators also looked at companies that paid less than 5 percent of their total income in tax.
In 2000, the most recent year for which data was available, an estimated 94 percent of American corporations and 89 percent of foreign corporations paid less than 5 percent of their total incomes in taxes.
The two Democratic senators who asked the GAO to study corporate taxation said the results expose gaping loopholes in the tax system.
"They don't pay their fair share, and the net result is that average taxpayers - working families - wind up paying more to make up that difference," said Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D. "That's not fair or right." http://www.marinij.com/cda/article/print/0,1674,234%257E26641%257E2060815,00.html
9/11: Chair Thomas Kean expressed fears that the White House would ultimately revise/edit the report, as it will check it "line by line to find out if there's anything in there which could harm American interests in the area of intelligence." Will it be delayed…beyond the election? Meanwhile, don’t expect much from Condi tomorrow. Without follow-up, this is left as a ‘he said, she said’, or “perspectives”, i.e. irresolvable. Most important is that this process has contributed to the slow, steady erosion of the Administration’s credibility.
Environment: Antony Barnett of The Observer reminds us of the Administration’s record, sharing an email that the Observer obtained.
George W. Bush's campaign workers have hit on an age-old political tactic to deal with the tricky subject of global warming - deny, and deny aggressively.
The Observer has obtained a remarkable email sent to the press secretaries of all Republican congressmen advising them what to say when questioned on the environment in the run-up to November's election. The advice: tell them everything's rosy.
It tells them how global warming has not been proved, air quality is 'getting better', the world's forests are 'spreading, not deadening', oil reserves are 'increasing, not decreasing', and the 'world's water is cleaner and reaching more people'.
The email - sent on 4 February - warns that Democrats will 'hit us hard' on the environment. 'In an effort to help your members fight back, as well as be aggressive on the issue, we have prepared the following set of talking points on where the environment really stands today,' it states.
The memo - headed 'From medi-scare to air-scare' - goes on: 'From the heated debate on global warming to the hot air on forests; from the muddled talk on our nation's waters to the convolution on air pollution, we are fighting a battle of fact against fiction on the environment - Republicans can't stress enough that extremists are screaming "Doomsday!" when the environment is actually seeing a new and better day.'
Among the memo's assertions are 'global warming is not a fact', 'links between air quality and asthma in children remain cloudy', and the US Environment Protection Agency is exaggerating when it says that at least 40 per cent of streams, rivers and lakes are too polluted for drinking, fishing or swimming. http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,1185292,00.html
-R
Though the BBC reports that "it's not getting better, yet," IslamOnline reports that Sadr is trying to cool the situation.
"Shiite leader Moqtada Sadr said Tuesday, April 6, he ended his sit-in at a mosque in Kufa and traveled to the holy city of An-Najaf to prevent `more bloodshed,' while Shiites’ spiritual leader Ayatollah Ali Sistani called for calm and voiced his solidarity with the young firebrand leader. http://www.islamonline.net/English/News/2004-04/06/article03.shtml
A "reassuring" note is that the major Shiite political parties are not (yet) part of the insurgency/uprising. But, fighting Sunnis and at least some Shiites is a two-front war that is a nightmare for the Wolfowitz-Rumsfeld-Cheney operation…and for us. Now there is talk of adding more U.S. troops, despite Rumsfeld’s denials. As in similar situations, all Bush can do is repeat his refrain, variations on ‘We’re resolved to stay; the deadline is still June 30’, etc. http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0407/p01s02-wome.html
Juan Cole: The oft-quoted Cole, a U. of Michigan prof, offers insights from his web log. He’s fearful that the Shiite leader has innumerable followers, that Sadr is more popular than U.S. spokespersons have claimed.
Rather, it is clear that urban crowds are supporting the uprising in some numbers. Even when the Coalition puts the uprising down, it may well incur the wrath of many persons who had earlier viewed it with favor. And if the US cannot control Iraq now, when it has its hands directly on all the levers of power, how will it do so in the coming year, as it loses its grip on those levers?…
(Previously: )
In fact that is the size of his formal militia. Muqtada's movement is like the layers of an onion. You have 10,000 militiamen. But then you have tens of thousands of cadres able to mobilize neighborhoods. Then you have hundreds of thousands of Sadrists, followers of Muqtada and other heirs of Muhammad Sadiq al-Sadr. Then you have maybe 5 million Shiite theocrats who sympathize with Muqtada's goals and rhetoric, about a third of the Shiite community. The Sadrists will now try to shift everything so that the 5 million become followers, the hundreds of thousands become cadres, and the tens of thousands become militiamen.
It said that Muqtada al-Sadr had withdrawn into his mosque in Kufa, south of Baghdad, for a spiritual "retreat," and that it was reported that Coalition military forces had surrounded the mosque. (Mosques are considered sanctuaries in the Muslim world, and there are always protests when they are invaded by security forces or military troops). http://www.juancole.com/2004_04_01_juancole_archive.html#108109946449807198
The thoughtful Naomi Klein opined that the U.S. is purposely provoking Sadr, that it is seeking to demonstrate that chaos reigns so as to enable them to abandon the June 30 date.
Make no mistake: this is not the "civil war" that Washington has been predicting will break out between Sunnis, Shias and Kurds. Rather, it is a war provoked by the US occupation authority and waged by its forces against the growing number of Shia who support Moqtada al-Sadr...
At first, Bremer responded to Sadr's growing strength by ignoring him; now he is attempting to provoke him into all-out battle. The trouble began when he closed down Sadr's newspaper last week, sparking a wave of peaceful demonstrations. On Saturday, Bremer raised the stakes further by sending coalition forces to surround Sadr's house near Najaf and arrest his communications officer.
Predictably, the arrest sparked immediate protests in Baghdad, which the Iraqi army responded to by opening fire and allegedly killing three people. At the end of the day on Sunday, Sadr called on his supporters to stop staging demonstrations and urged them to employ unnamed "other ways" to resist the occupation - a statement many interpreted as a call to arms.
On the surface, this chain of events is mystifying. With the so-called Sunni triangle in flames after the gruesome Falluja attacks, why is Bremer pushing the comparatively calm Shia south into battle?
Here's one possible answer: Washington has given up on its plans to hand over power to an interim Iraqi government on June 30, and is creating the chaos it needs to declare the handover impossible. A continued occupation will be bad news for George Bush on the campaign trail, but not as bad as if the hand-over happens and the country erupts, an increasingly likely scenario given the widespread rejection of the legitimacy of the interim constitution and the US- appointed governing council.
But by sending the new Iraqi army to fire on the people they are supposed to be protecting, Bremer has destroyed what slim hope they had of gaining credibility with an already highly mistrustful population. http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1186566,00.html
Meanwhile David Kay, ye olde WMD fella, has been coming clean, step-by-step. He notes that he was convinced by last summer that Saddam was not accumulating weapons. Then, he wanted to resign in December, but was convinced to stay by CIA Director Tenet, who advised, “If you resign now, it will appear that we don’t know what we’re doing and the wheels are coming off.” http://www.nydailynews.com/news/wn_report/v-pfriendly/story/180602p-156891c.html
Blackwater “Security”: The employer of the slain four-some continues to be examined. The Guardian reported last month as to Blackwater hiring Chilean mercenaries, some of whom had been trained during the Pinochet dictatorship. They do not merely guard individuals; they have their own helicopter fleet and are well-enough equipped to defend themselves unless ambushed. These well-paid ‘professionals’- some are army/marines who quit for the higher pay- have known to be equipped with especially lethal weapons/ammunition. Army Times reported an example where a wound to the buttocks was instantly fatal. I’ll skip the details, which are at http://www.armytimes.com/story.php?f=1-292925-2426405.php http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,1162392,00.html
Depleted Uranium:
The New York Daily News has reported that three U.S. soldiers have come down with radiation poisoning because of exposure to U.S. depleted uranium weapons. The scourge of the Persian Gulf War, has been omnipresent during the invasion/occupation. There are assertions that 4 million pounds have been used, which generates a heck of a lot of uranium dust (which is what it turns into when it’s exploded).
"A special investigation by Democracy Now! co-host Juan Gonzalez of the New York Daily News has found four of nine soldiers of the 442nd Military Police Company of the New York Army National Guard returning from Iraq tested positive for depleted uranium contamination. They are the first confirmed cases of inhaled depleted uranium exposure from the current Iraq conflict. After repeatedly being denied testing for depleted uranium from Army doctors, the soldiers contacted The News who paid to have them tested as part of their investigation. More at http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Mar04/Nichols0327.htm
Polls on Iraq:
Not surprising that Bush’s numbers as to his handling of Iraq have steadily dropped- from 56% in January to 43% now. More intriguing is that the Pew Research folk found that Americans are more focused on gas prices than on developments in Iraq. 58% are “paying close attention” to reports on gas prices, 36% closely following Iraq fighting/developments. http://people-press.org/reports/display.php3?ReportID=210
Spinners in Baghdad!
An AP report captures how Republican ‘operatives’ are busy spinning the war from their new Baghdad headquarters .
Inside the marble-floored palace hall that serves as the press office of the U.S.-led coalition, Republican Party operatives lead a team of Americans who promote mostly good news about Iraq. Dan Senor, a former press secretary for Spencer Abraham, the Michigan Republican who's now Energy Secretary, heads the office packed with former Bush campaign workers, political appointees and ex-Capitol Hill staffers.
One-third of the U.S. civilian workers in the press office have GOP ties, running an enterprise that critics see as an outpost of Bush's re-election effort with Iraq a top concern. Senor and others inside the coalition say they follow strict guidelines that steer clear of politics…." http://start.earthlink.net/newsarticle?cat=9&aid=D81O71000_story
Afghanistan: Comment from Seymour Hersh:
Afghanistan is regaining the Bush Administration’s attention, in part because the worsening situation in Iraq has increased the need for a foreign-policy success. State Department and intelligence officials who have worked in Kabul said that it is widely understood that Afghanistan’s Presidential and parliamentary elections, which had already been rescheduled, must be held before the American Presidential elections, on November 2nd. The upside to the political timetable has been a new commitment of American reconstruction funds—more than two billion dollars, a fourfold increase over the previous year—for schools, clinics, and road construction in Afghanistan. Richard Clarke wrote in his memoir that initially the aid funds were “inadequate and slowly delivered,” and far below the thirteen hundred and ninety dollars per capita that was spent in the first years of the rebuilding effort in Bosnia and the nearly twenty billion dollars now earmarked for Iraq. http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?040412fa_fact
Outsourcing: Globe report (Hiawatha Bray)
The spread of outsourcing, beyond hard-hit technology workers, is a big reason the US economic recovery so far is a jobless one, and has stayed that way much longer than in previous upturns. A study released recently from the University of California at Berkeley says the country lost more than 1 million white-collar jobs in the 1990s and "hundreds of thousands more since the turn of the century."
Precise data are hard to come by and estimates vary widely, but the UC study says that outsourcing is accelerating. "If you simultaneously read Indian newspapers and US newspapers, you're going to get a good correlation between layoffs here and jobs being created there," said Ashok Deo Bardhan, a researcher for the study. He added that as many as 30,000 jobs were lost to India alone in June, and that 14 million US service jobs are vulnerable. http://www.boston.com/business/technology/articles/2003/11/02/as_economy_gains_outsourcing_surges?mode=PF
Corporations Avoiding Taxes Most large firms avoided taxation from 1996-2000.
Using data collected by the Internal Revenue Service, the auditors found that 71 percent of foreign corporations paid no federal income tax. During the same time, 61 percent of American corporations paid no income tax.
Among the largest corporations, American businesses were more likely to avoid taxation than foreign businesses.
The study was done by the General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress.
Investigators also looked at companies that paid less than 5 percent of their total income in tax.
In 2000, the most recent year for which data was available, an estimated 94 percent of American corporations and 89 percent of foreign corporations paid less than 5 percent of their total incomes in taxes.
The two Democratic senators who asked the GAO to study corporate taxation said the results expose gaping loopholes in the tax system.
"They don't pay their fair share, and the net result is that average taxpayers - working families - wind up paying more to make up that difference," said Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D. "That's not fair or right." http://www.marinij.com/cda/article/print/0,1674,234%257E26641%257E2060815,00.html
9/11: Chair Thomas Kean expressed fears that the White House would ultimately revise/edit the report, as it will check it "line by line to find out if there's anything in there which could harm American interests in the area of intelligence." Will it be delayed…beyond the election? Meanwhile, don’t expect much from Condi tomorrow. Without follow-up, this is left as a ‘he said, she said’, or “perspectives”, i.e. irresolvable. Most important is that this process has contributed to the slow, steady erosion of the Administration’s credibility.
Environment: Antony Barnett of The Observer reminds us of the Administration’s record, sharing an email that the Observer obtained.
George W. Bush's campaign workers have hit on an age-old political tactic to deal with the tricky subject of global warming - deny, and deny aggressively.
The Observer has obtained a remarkable email sent to the press secretaries of all Republican congressmen advising them what to say when questioned on the environment in the run-up to November's election. The advice: tell them everything's rosy.
It tells them how global warming has not been proved, air quality is 'getting better', the world's forests are 'spreading, not deadening', oil reserves are 'increasing, not decreasing', and the 'world's water is cleaner and reaching more people'.
The email - sent on 4 February - warns that Democrats will 'hit us hard' on the environment. 'In an effort to help your members fight back, as well as be aggressive on the issue, we have prepared the following set of talking points on where the environment really stands today,' it states.
The memo - headed 'From medi-scare to air-scare' - goes on: 'From the heated debate on global warming to the hot air on forests; from the muddled talk on our nation's waters to the convolution on air pollution, we are fighting a battle of fact against fiction on the environment - Republicans can't stress enough that extremists are screaming "Doomsday!" when the environment is actually seeing a new and better day.'
Among the memo's assertions are 'global warming is not a fact', 'links between air quality and asthma in children remain cloudy', and the US Environment Protection Agency is exaggerating when it says that at least 40 per cent of streams, rivers and lakes are too polluted for drinking, fishing or swimming. http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,1185292,00.html
-R
Ed. note: Whoops! This was written in the early am of 4/5...was lost in the shuffle, so to speak...
"How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a lie?"-- Philip James.in the Guardian, paraphrasing Kerry’s 1971 quote.
What’s Happening, Iraq: Coming Apart?
After all the spin about burgeoning democracy, it’s time to look at the meaningfulness of the clashes between Shiite followers of and U.S. troops. Again, these are not foreign fighters, remnants of Saddam’s regime, but Iraqi Shiites who don’t want us there. Not roadside bombs or other paramilitary violence by Sunnis who have been principally responsible for the violence. Seven (7) soldiers were killed, many wounded while killing scores of followers of Muqtada Al-Sadr who has now decided to launch an uprising, since he’s determined that the ruling coalition intends to permanently exclude his group from power. His followers reportedly control police stations in several cities, much of Sadr City (named for his father) and parts of East Baghdad.
The Washington Post article (Anthony Shadid, Sewell Chan) summarizes how U.S. troops must deal with the Shiite revolt and with Fallujah where the U.S. security guards were killed.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A50349-2004Apr4?language=printer
Bush Scandals:
(1) Plame: Reportedly this investigation continues to broaden. From the NY Times (DAVID JOHNSTON and RICHARD W. STEVENSON)
Prosecutors investigating whether someone in the Bush administration improperly disclosed the identity of a C.I.A. officer have expanded their inquiry to examine whether White House officials lied to investigators or mishandled classified information related to the case, lawyers involved in the case and government officials say…
The suspicion that someone may have lied to investigators is based on contradictions between statements by various witnesses in F.B.I. interviews, the lawyers and officials said. The conflicts are said to be buttressed by documents, including memos, e-mail messages and phone records turned over by the White House. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/02/politics/02LEAK.html?adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1080880497-t6Z8jOY28C04XFYavNO0MQ
(2) 9/11: The blocking of access to documents. This is chapter 724 of the Administration’s opposing, blocking or slowing the work of the Commission. Still another compromise has been reached, as this commission, the press, the Democrats continue to compromise too often in their dealings with this lawless Administration.
The NY Times’ Douglas Jehl and David Sanger report on the task Condi faces on Thursday:
But a review of the record, from testimony and interviews, suggests that Ms. Rice faces a daunting challenge because her own focus until Sept. 11 was usually fixed on matters other than terrorism, for reasons that had to do with her own background, her management style and the unusually close, personal nature of her relationship with Mr. Bush…
In February 2001, George J. Tenet, the director of central intelligence, told Congress that terrorism was the top threat facing the United States.
Even four months later, as intelligence warnings about possible attacks by Al Qaeda began to surge, a June 2001 address that Dr. Rice delivered to Council on Foreign Relations on "Foreign Policy Priorities and Challenges of the Administration" made no mention of terrorism. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/05/politics/05COND.html?hp=&pagewanted=print&position=
(3) Secrecy:
a) John Dean made an appearance on Bill Moyers (www.pbs.org/NOW where he unequivocally termed Bush offenses to be impeachable, noted in his new book Worse than Watergate.
b) Now some pressure (at last!) as to the secret energy task force that determined the giveaways to industry and the roll back of anti-pollution efforts. From the Washington Post (Carol Leonnig)
A federal judge yesterday ordered several federal government agencies to release documents concerning their work on Vice President Cheney's energy task force or provide a legal reason for withholding them.
U.S. District Judge Paul L. Friedman rejected arguments by Bush administration lawyers that employees from the Department of the Interior and Department of Energy can claim special confidentiality privileges for the period when they worked for the task force, which held private meetings with energy industry representatives as it crafted a national energy policy.
Ruling that those employees were not engaged in a deliberative process and were not temporary employees of the White House, Friedman said the agencies must search for and produce records of their employees' task force assignments. http://65.54.186.250/cgi-bin/linkrd?_lang=EN&lah=93b59e6cc9bd8ba10b214160d3efe140&lat=1080917976&hm___action=http%3a%2f%2fletters%2ewashingtonpost%2ecom%2fW3RH0596C64DF4672B7593E150085
(c) Medicare Secrecy Inquiry Is Silenced
House Republicans stopped the Democrats from delving deeper into why the prescription drug bill's true cost estimates were kept from Congress. The LA Times (Vicki Kemper) account:
House Republicans on Thursday shut down an inquiry by Democrats into whether the Bush administration acted illegally or inappropriately last year when it withheld from Congress its estimates of the true cost of the Medicare prescription drug bill.
At issue are allegations that then-Medicare Administrator Thomas A. Scully threatened to fire his top actuary if he gave lawmakers his analyses showing the costs would be much higher than administration officials were saying publicly.
Thursday's conclusion of a Ways and Means Committee hearing all but ensured that two individuals central to the controversy — Scully and White House aide Doug Badger — would not testify before Congress. http://www.latimes.com/news/custom/showcase/la-na-medicare2apr02.story
Pre 9/11: Another Whistleblower Sounds Off
Air America has run this in its news reports. The Independent (Andrew Buncombe) carried this headline:
'I saw papers that show US knew al-Qa'ida would attack cities with aeroplanes'
A former translator for the FBI with top-secret security clearance says she has provided information to the panel investigating the 11 September attacks which proves senior officials knew of al-Qa'ida's plans to attack the US with aircraft months before the strikes happened.
She said the claim by the National Security Adviser, Condoleezza Rice, that there was no such information was "an outrageous lie" http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/story.jsp?story=507514
Bad News for Condi: Philip Shenon in the NY Times summarizes that the 9/11 Commission has reached the preliminary conclusion that the attack was indeed preventable.
The leaders of the independent commission investigating the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks agreed Sunday that evidence gathered by their panel showed the attacks could probably have been prevented.
Their remarks drew sharp disagreement from one of President Bush's closest political advisers, who insisted that the Bush and Clinton administrations had no opportunity to disrupt the Sept. 11 plot. They also offered a preview of the difficult questions likely to confront Condoleezza Rice when she testifies before the panel at a long-awaited public hearing this week. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/05/politics/05PANE.html?pagewanted=print&position
Bad News for Condi, II Maybe the Commission will quiz her about this, the Administration’s playing footsie with the Taliban. I would!
Bush's Faustian Deal With the Taliban
Robert Scheer
(May 22, 2001, Los Angeles Times)
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.
Sadly, the Bush administration is cozying up to the Taliban regime at a time when the United Nations, at U.S. insistence, imposes sanctions on Afghanistan because the Kabul government will not turn over Bin Laden.
The war on drugs has become our own fanatics' obsession and easily trumps all other concerns. How else could we come to reward the Taliban, who has subjected the female half of the Afghan population to a continual reign of terror in a country once considered enlightened in its treatment of women? http://www.robertscheer.com/1_natcolumn/01_columns/052201.htm
Straight Talk Nancy Pelosi used the fitting word- embarrassing- to describe Bush needing to appear with Cheney before the 9/11 Commission. Refreshing.
The Rest of the Agenda: The Washington Post’s Charles Babington notes that there’s little follow-up by the Administration to most of their initiatives…apart from tax cuts.
Proposals to bar gay marriage, rewrite immigration laws, protect Americans from anthrax bacteria and send astronauts to the moon and Mars are progressing slowly -- or not at all -- even though Bush initially endorsed them at high-visibility events. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A50302-2004Apr4.html
Elsewhere: Sudan
(NY Times) Journalist Nicholas Kristof has been pleading for the world to do something to stop the genocide in Sudan. He reports that the government of Sudan is engaging in genocide against three large African tribes, that 1,000 people are being killed a week, tribeswomen are being systematically raped, 700,000 people have been driven from their homes, and Sudan's Army is even bombing the survivors.
Kristof has been on this since 1992 when he questioned the effectiveness of U.S. Christian groups' efforts to buy slaves out of slavery. No other columnist, newspaper or government official seems to be on this.
-R
"How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a lie?"-- Philip James.in the Guardian, paraphrasing Kerry’s 1971 quote.
What’s Happening, Iraq: Coming Apart?
After all the spin about burgeoning democracy, it’s time to look at the meaningfulness of the clashes between Shiite followers of and U.S. troops. Again, these are not foreign fighters, remnants of Saddam’s regime, but Iraqi Shiites who don’t want us there. Not roadside bombs or other paramilitary violence by Sunnis who have been principally responsible for the violence. Seven (7) soldiers were killed, many wounded while killing scores of followers of Muqtada Al-Sadr who has now decided to launch an uprising, since he’s determined that the ruling coalition intends to permanently exclude his group from power. His followers reportedly control police stations in several cities, much of Sadr City (named for his father) and parts of East Baghdad.
The Washington Post article (Anthony Shadid, Sewell Chan) summarizes how U.S. troops must deal with the Shiite revolt and with Fallujah where the U.S. security guards were killed.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A50349-2004Apr4?language=printer
Bush Scandals:
(1) Plame: Reportedly this investigation continues to broaden. From the NY Times (DAVID JOHNSTON and RICHARD W. STEVENSON)
Prosecutors investigating whether someone in the Bush administration improperly disclosed the identity of a C.I.A. officer have expanded their inquiry to examine whether White House officials lied to investigators or mishandled classified information related to the case, lawyers involved in the case and government officials say…
The suspicion that someone may have lied to investigators is based on contradictions between statements by various witnesses in F.B.I. interviews, the lawyers and officials said. The conflicts are said to be buttressed by documents, including memos, e-mail messages and phone records turned over by the White House. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/02/politics/02LEAK.html?adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1080880497-t6Z8jOY28C04XFYavNO0MQ
(2) 9/11: The blocking of access to documents. This is chapter 724 of the Administration’s opposing, blocking or slowing the work of the Commission. Still another compromise has been reached, as this commission, the press, the Democrats continue to compromise too often in their dealings with this lawless Administration.
The NY Times’ Douglas Jehl and David Sanger report on the task Condi faces on Thursday:
But a review of the record, from testimony and interviews, suggests that Ms. Rice faces a daunting challenge because her own focus until Sept. 11 was usually fixed on matters other than terrorism, for reasons that had to do with her own background, her management style and the unusually close, personal nature of her relationship with Mr. Bush…
In February 2001, George J. Tenet, the director of central intelligence, told Congress that terrorism was the top threat facing the United States.
Even four months later, as intelligence warnings about possible attacks by Al Qaeda began to surge, a June 2001 address that Dr. Rice delivered to Council on Foreign Relations on "Foreign Policy Priorities and Challenges of the Administration" made no mention of terrorism. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/05/politics/05COND.html?hp=&pagewanted=print&position=
(3) Secrecy:
a) John Dean made an appearance on Bill Moyers (www.pbs.org/NOW where he unequivocally termed Bush offenses to be impeachable, noted in his new book Worse than Watergate.
b) Now some pressure (at last!) as to the secret energy task force that determined the giveaways to industry and the roll back of anti-pollution efforts. From the Washington Post (Carol Leonnig)
A federal judge yesterday ordered several federal government agencies to release documents concerning their work on Vice President Cheney's energy task force or provide a legal reason for withholding them.
U.S. District Judge Paul L. Friedman rejected arguments by Bush administration lawyers that employees from the Department of the Interior and Department of Energy can claim special confidentiality privileges for the period when they worked for the task force, which held private meetings with energy industry representatives as it crafted a national energy policy.
Ruling that those employees were not engaged in a deliberative process and were not temporary employees of the White House, Friedman said the agencies must search for and produce records of their employees' task force assignments. http://65.54.186.250/cgi-bin/linkrd?_lang=EN&lah=93b59e6cc9bd8ba10b214160d3efe140&lat=1080917976&hm___action=http%3a%2f%2fletters%2ewashingtonpost%2ecom%2fW3RH0596C64DF4672B7593E150085
(c) Medicare Secrecy Inquiry Is Silenced
House Republicans stopped the Democrats from delving deeper into why the prescription drug bill's true cost estimates were kept from Congress. The LA Times (Vicki Kemper) account:
House Republicans on Thursday shut down an inquiry by Democrats into whether the Bush administration acted illegally or inappropriately last year when it withheld from Congress its estimates of the true cost of the Medicare prescription drug bill.
At issue are allegations that then-Medicare Administrator Thomas A. Scully threatened to fire his top actuary if he gave lawmakers his analyses showing the costs would be much higher than administration officials were saying publicly.
Thursday's conclusion of a Ways and Means Committee hearing all but ensured that two individuals central to the controversy — Scully and White House aide Doug Badger — would not testify before Congress. http://www.latimes.com/news/custom/showcase/la-na-medicare2apr02.story
Pre 9/11: Another Whistleblower Sounds Off
Air America has run this in its news reports. The Independent (Andrew Buncombe) carried this headline:
'I saw papers that show US knew al-Qa'ida would attack cities with aeroplanes'
A former translator for the FBI with top-secret security clearance says she has provided information to the panel investigating the 11 September attacks which proves senior officials knew of al-Qa'ida's plans to attack the US with aircraft months before the strikes happened.
She said the claim by the National Security Adviser, Condoleezza Rice, that there was no such information was "an outrageous lie" http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/story.jsp?story=507514
Bad News for Condi: Philip Shenon in the NY Times summarizes that the 9/11 Commission has reached the preliminary conclusion that the attack was indeed preventable.
The leaders of the independent commission investigating the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks agreed Sunday that evidence gathered by their panel showed the attacks could probably have been prevented.
Their remarks drew sharp disagreement from one of President Bush's closest political advisers, who insisted that the Bush and Clinton administrations had no opportunity to disrupt the Sept. 11 plot. They also offered a preview of the difficult questions likely to confront Condoleezza Rice when she testifies before the panel at a long-awaited public hearing this week. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/05/politics/05PANE.html?pagewanted=print&position
Bad News for Condi, II Maybe the Commission will quiz her about this, the Administration’s playing footsie with the Taliban. I would!
Bush's Faustian Deal With the Taliban
Robert Scheer
(May 22, 2001, Los Angeles Times)
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.
Sadly, the Bush administration is cozying up to the Taliban regime at a time when the United Nations, at U.S. insistence, imposes sanctions on Afghanistan because the Kabul government will not turn over Bin Laden.
The war on drugs has become our own fanatics' obsession and easily trumps all other concerns. How else could we come to reward the Taliban, who has subjected the female half of the Afghan population to a continual reign of terror in a country once considered enlightened in its treatment of women? http://www.robertscheer.com/1_natcolumn/01_columns/052201.htm
Straight Talk Nancy Pelosi used the fitting word- embarrassing- to describe Bush needing to appear with Cheney before the 9/11 Commission. Refreshing.
The Rest of the Agenda: The Washington Post’s Charles Babington notes that there’s little follow-up by the Administration to most of their initiatives…apart from tax cuts.
Proposals to bar gay marriage, rewrite immigration laws, protect Americans from anthrax bacteria and send astronauts to the moon and Mars are progressing slowly -- or not at all -- even though Bush initially endorsed them at high-visibility events. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A50302-2004Apr4.html
Elsewhere: Sudan
(NY Times) Journalist Nicholas Kristof has been pleading for the world to do something to stop the genocide in Sudan. He reports that the government of Sudan is engaging in genocide against three large African tribes, that 1,000 people are being killed a week, tribeswomen are being systematically raped, 700,000 people have been driven from their homes, and Sudan's Army is even bombing the survivors.
Kristof has been on this since 1992 when he questioned the effectiveness of U.S. Christian groups' efforts to buy slaves out of slavery. No other columnist, newspaper or government official seems to be on this.
-R
