Friday, April 23, 2004
Putting aside Iraq, 9/11 and the Election…Important other stuff to consider
(1) Competitiveness:
Tom Friedman used to write admirable columns about the Middle East. It’s been a while since I’ve credited him with raising an issue.
The bottom line: we are actually in the middle of two struggles right now. One is against the Islamist terrorists in Iraq and elsewhere, and the other is a competitiveness-and-innovation struggle against India, China, Japan and their neighbors. And while we are all fixated on the former (I've been no exception), we are completely ignoring the latter. We have got to get our focus back in balance, not to mention our budget. We can't wage war on income taxes and terrorism and a war for innovation at the same time.
Craig Barrett, the C.E.O. of Intel, noted that Intel sponsors an international science competition every year. This year it attracted some 50,000 American high school kids. "I was in China 10 days ago," Mr. Barrett said, "and I asked them how many kids in China participated in the local science fairs that feed into the national fair [and ultimately the Intel finals]. They told me six million kids."
For now, the U.S. still excels at teaching science and engineering at the graduate level, and also in university research. But as the Chinese get more feeder stock coming up through their high schools and colleges, "they will get to the same level as us after a decade," Mr. Barrett said. "We are not graduating the volume, we do not have a lock on the infrastructure, we do not have a lock on the new ideas, and we are either flat-lining, or in real dollars cutting back, our investments in physical science."
And what is the Bush strategy? Let's go to Mars. Hello? http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/22/opinion/22FRIE.html
(2) North Korea- Nick Kristof:
Resolving this crisis is in the interests of virtually everybody on the planet, with two exceptions: President Bush and Mr. Kim. They may have nothing else in common, except that their fathers also ran their countries, but they do share an interest in delay.
Mr. Bush has his hands full with Iraq and doesn't want attention paid to the North Korean nuclear threat, which is substantially worsening on his watch. Mr. Kim figures that he may as well wait to see whether John Kerry is elected, and he'd also like to finish reprocessing the plutonium and enriching the uranium.
While the administration has steadily become more reasonable on North Korea, it still hasn't fully accepted the unpalatable truth: the only possible route out of this crisis is a grand bargain. Mr. Bush, who listened way too much to Mr. Cheney on the topic of Iraq, should reflect on something Mr. Cheney said on his China trip about negotiations over North Korea's nuclear programs: "Time is not necessarily on our side."http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/21/opinion/21KRIS.html?n=Top%2fOpinion%2fEditorials%20and%20Op%2dEd%2fOp%2dEd%2fColumnists
(3) Employers Given Free Reign re Medicare coverage
Robert Pear’s report in today’s NY Times notes the import of this ruling by the Republican majority on the EEOC.
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission voted Thursday to allow employers to reduce or eliminate health benefits for retirees when they become eligible for Medicare at age 65.
The agency approved a final rule saying that such cuts do not violate the civil rights law banning age discrimination. The vote was 3 to 1, with Republicans lining up in favor of the rule and a Democrat opposing it.
Employers and some labor unions supported the change, saying it would help preserve coverage for early retirees. But AARP, which represents millions of Americans age 50 and older, strenuously objected. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/23/politics/23RETI.html?hp=&pagewanted=print&position=
Middle East
Little is in our papers on a daily basis, but there is steady resolve and rage in other reports from the region. Al Jazeera was as kind as I could find, asserting that Bush is “oblivious of the outrage his support for Sharon has stoked, Bush urged world leaders to seize the moment to bridge their differences.” http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/8F1E6440-6048-4E8D-A4E0-3A0E9F5C962C.htm
Bandar: We hear he’s very tight with Bush, Sr. and now is calling some shots with Junior. The New Yorker fleshes out the portrait.
He is a man of exuberant charm; he is also flashy, cunning, secretive, and, at times, ruthless (“a.k.a. ‘Mr. Smoothie’” is how the Times columnist William Safire has referred to him). Unlike most ambassadors, Bandar has unprecedented access to the President and to most senior American officials. On the night that we met in McLean, George Tenet, the director of the C.I.A., stopped by for a quick meeting, and when I visited Bandar last month he received a telephone call from Condoleezza Rice, Bush’s national-security adviser…. http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?030324fa_fact2
What’s Happening, Iraq:
The Mercenaries… I mean, the “Contractors”, security guys. Nicholas Von Hoffman leaves out the euphemisms.
Evidently, thousands of mercenaries have been put to work in Iraq, and this raises some troublesome questions. Is all this stuff we are fed on TV and in the newspapers about the new and democratic Iraqi Army and constabulary just lies? Why aren’t Iraqis guarding "bureaucrats, soldiers and intelligence officers"? Why aren’t soldiers guarding themselves?
Sooner or later, the American troops are going to find out about this. Is it going to occur to the young gung-ho guys, who volunteered right out of high school, that they are risking life and limb for chump change while other men (and probably a few women) with the same skill sets are getting rich? What will be the reaction of the middle-aged reservists and National Guard people serving for a few hundred dollars a month, at the risk of job and mortgage, when they find out about the thousands of mercenaries being paid a king’s ransom to do for money what they do for country? If there is a morale problem now, as these stories about suicides among our service people suggest, what, pray tell, will be the state of morale then?…
Not only does privatization not save money waging war, it creates problem after problem, only some of which are visible at this juncture. If captured, are these mercenaries prisoners of war and subject to the Geneva Convention, or can they licitly be shot as spies and saboteurs?
We know that there are thousands of mercenaries now loose in Iraq. Only some of them work for Blackwater. Apparently, there are a number of companies who hire these people, so the question arises about how much control the American authorities have over the irregulars running about the country. Dyncorp mercenaries in the former Yugoslavia were accused of rape and robbery. The point is that they are not subject to military discipline, and even if they commit no acts universally regarded as criminal, they may still do things that offend the Iraqis: They might drink alcohol, use insulting gestures, whistle at women or find a dozen ways to get into trouble doing things which are innocent enough if done in Indiana, but which are incendiary acts if done in Basra. http://www.newyorkobserver.com/pages/story.asp?ID=8944
Running Out of Money
It’s not been included in the budget, and they’ll want this off the books as well, I suppose. Jonathan Weisman of the Washington Post has the facts.
Intense combat in Iraq is chewing up military hardware and consuming money at an unexpectedly rapid rate -- depleting military coffers, straining defense contractors and putting pressure on Bush administration officials to seek a major boost in war funding long before they had hoped.
Since Congress approved an $87 billion defense request last year, the administration has steadfastly maintained that military forces in Iraq will be sufficiently funded until early next year. President Bush's budget request for the fiscal year that begins Oct. 1 included no money for Iraqi operations, and his budget director, Joshua B. Bolten, said no request would come until January at the earliest.
But military officials, defense contractors and members of Congress say that worsening U.S. fortunes in Iraq have dramatically changed the equation and more money will be needed soon. This comes as lawmakers, returning from their spring break, voice unease about the mounting violence and what they say is the lack of a clearly enunciated strategy for victory.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A28903-2004Apr20?language=printer
Afghanistan Funds Used in Iraq. Another No-No
The question: Did the alleged transfer, noted in Woodward’s book violate not only Article 1, Section 9, Clause 7 of the U.S. Constitution which vests the power of the purse with Congress, but also specific federal statutes? Blogger David Sirota, who makes appearances on Al Franken’s show, comments
Since Bob Woodward disclosed that President Bush in July of 2002 diverted $700 million into Iraq invasion planning without informing Congress, the Bush Administration has failed to provide one shred of evidence to rebuff the charge. According to Woodward, Bush kept Congress "totally in the dark on this” leaving lawmakers with "no real knowledge or involvement." Not only does the Constitution vest the power of the purse with Congress, but whichever of the two supplemental bills the President drew the money from had explicit language obligating him to inform key congressional leaders. Instead of opening an investigation, White House allies on Capitol Hill actually told USA Today that the move was acceptable because "the $700 million was small compared" with the overall spending bills. Here is a look at the provisions in the only two supplemental bills that Congress passed between 9/11 and July 2002, and thus which Bush could have gotten the money from:
- BUSH REQUIRED TO TELL CONGRESS, IF DREW FUNDS FROM THE 9/11 SUPPLEMENTAL: While the President was given discretion to direct $10 billion of the post-9/11 Emergency Supplemental bill, the legislation specifically obligated the President to "consult with the chairmen and ranking minority members of the Committees on Appropriations prior to the transfer" of any funds. In other words, the President was obligated to tell key congressional leaders of both parties anytime he moved money. [Source: Text of HR 2888, Post-9/11 Emergency Appropriations, 9/14/01]
- BUSH DELIBERATELY USED VAGUE LANGUAGE IN DOCUMENTS TO HIDE SECRET MOVE: The White House issued two legally mandated updates to Congress about where the 9/14/01 supplemental funds were being spent. Both covered portions of the time Bush made his $700 million order. But in these documents, instead of telling Congress money was going to Iraq, the White House deliberately used vague and evasive language. For instance, in both of its updates to the Appropriations Committee, the Administration only said it had used monies for "increased situational awareness" and "increased worldwide posture" – and did not mention Iraq at all. [Source: OMB Notification, 8/9/02 & 10/17/02]
http://www.davidsirota.com/blogarchive/2004_04_18_davidsirota_archive.html#108250001704787023
Public Pessimism on Terror:
Half of those surveyed in the AP-Ipsos poll said they have concerns that terrorists may be winning, and a fifth of those polled felt strongly that is the case.
“Terrorists are winning the war for the hearts and minds of the people in the Mideast,” said Christine Wyatt, a 52-year-old church deacon in Clarkston, Mich. http://msnbc.msn.com/id/4805575/
Why is Bush Doing So Well? (continued)
Last blog noted the maddening reality of Bush going up in polls despite all the bad news. Richard Cohen adds his take:
Why? Well, in the first place, it's hard to envisage things getting even worse for Bush. The past month should have been ruinous, and yet the president not only survived, he thrived. Explanations abound for this state of affairs. Some credit the Democrats on the Sept. 11 commission for being too partisan and thus eliciting support for Bush, much as Republican zealots once proved so helpful to Bill Clinton.
Maybe. More likely though, and certainly more important, is the $41 million the Bush campaign spent on television ads in March alone. They defined Kerry as a man who gives wishy-washy a bad name -- or who has been an unceasing advocate of tax increases, such as the one on gasoline he once suggested, although he never introduced a bill to that effect. Never mind. It still made Kerry look like a jerk. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A32840-2004Apr21.html
The view of Josh Marshall, noted blogger, again in today’s Times
In wars abroad, Americans don't want their presidents to fail.
In part that's because a failure for the president is a failure for the nation. Indeed, the logic may apply with more force in cases like Iraq, in which the president has cast the nation on what is essentially a war of choice. To admit that the president blew it is to say the same of the public that followed him into the conflict. And like its leaders, the public not only doesn't like admitting it was wrong, but it will go to great lengths to avoid doing so.
The danger for President Bush is clear: the public's patience is not unlimited, and eventual failure in Iraq will almost certainly sink his candidacy. (Sometimes the conventional wisdom is actually right.)
For John Kerry, the risks are less obvious but no less real: running a campaign that focuses the voters' gaze solely on the president's manifest failures will probably run into resistance, especially with the voters he most needs to win over, those from the ambivalent middle. Mr. Kerry is far more likely to win if he has a plan to show how he — and thus the American people — can succeed rather than simply showing how President Bush — and thus they — have failed. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/23/opinion/23MARS.html
Dumbed Down America:
Always a factor to consider. A Harris Poll reinforces the sense that way too much of this country is profoundly ignorant and unthinking, i.e. ready and willing to absorb the Big Lie from the Administration.
-- A 51% to 38% majority continues to believe that "Iraq actually had weapons of mass destruction," virtually unchanged since February.
-- A 49% to 36% plurality of all adults continues to believe that "clear evidence that Iraq was supporting Al Qaeda has been found." These numbers have scarcely changed since June 2003.
-- A 51% to 43% plurality continues to believe that "intelligence given before the war to President Bush by the CIA and others about Iraqi's weapons of mass destruction" was "completely" or "somewhat" accurate. In February a 50% to 45% plurality believed this.
-- While a 43% plurality believes that the "U.S. government deliberately exaggerated the reports of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq to increase support for war," a 50% plurality (also virtually unchanged over the last eight months) continues to believe that the government "tried to present the information accurately." http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/04-21-2004/0002156598&EDATE=
Election Formula: EJ Dionne boils it down:
The Bush campaign wants to recreate the dynamic of 2002 and render criticism of Bush's anti-terror policies illegitimate and unpatriotic. Kerry wants Bush held accountable for the decisions he made. The side that wins this definitional war is likely to win the election. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A25791-2004Apr19.html http://www.workingforchange.com/printitem.cfm?itemid=16797
Compassion from the Republicans.
They’re trying to trap the Dems, pushing legislation that will purportedly aid soldiers on unexpectedly long tours of duty--by dipping into their retirement savings without tax penalties. How touching!! Inadequate body armor, Humvees without armor, lengthened tours in a war of choice, inadequate pay, but at least they won’t be penalized by the IRS!! And if the Dems oppose this bill, they’re clearly not supportive of the troops.
``That is a really pathetic gesture,'' said John Tanner, D-Tenn. ``Active duty guard and reservists and their families are the only people in this country who have been asked to sacrifice anything, anything whatsoever.''
Employers are not required to pay workers activated to duty, nor do they have to continue providing health insurance and other benefits. Employers are required to give the same or equal job to the soldier when active duty ends. http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Taxes-Military.html
Touch Screen Voting: A Note of Progress
AP report (Jim Wasserman) that is promising, but just a drop…
California should ban the use of 15,000 touch-screen voting machines made by Diebold Election Systems from the Nov. 2 general election, an advisory panel to Secretary of State Kevin Shelley recommended Thursday.
By an 8-0 vote, the state's Voting Systems and Procedures Panel recommended that Shelley cease the use of the machines, saying that Texas-based Diebold has performed poorly in California and its machines malfunctioned in the state's March 2 primary election, turning away many voters in San Diego County.
The recommendation affects 15,000 Diebold touch-screen machines in San Diego, Solano, Kern and San Joaquin counties. http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/politics/20040422-1251-ca-electronicvoting.html
-R
(1) Competitiveness:
Tom Friedman used to write admirable columns about the Middle East. It’s been a while since I’ve credited him with raising an issue.
The bottom line: we are actually in the middle of two struggles right now. One is against the Islamist terrorists in Iraq and elsewhere, and the other is a competitiveness-and-innovation struggle against India, China, Japan and their neighbors. And while we are all fixated on the former (I've been no exception), we are completely ignoring the latter. We have got to get our focus back in balance, not to mention our budget. We can't wage war on income taxes and terrorism and a war for innovation at the same time.
Craig Barrett, the C.E.O. of Intel, noted that Intel sponsors an international science competition every year. This year it attracted some 50,000 American high school kids. "I was in China 10 days ago," Mr. Barrett said, "and I asked them how many kids in China participated in the local science fairs that feed into the national fair [and ultimately the Intel finals]. They told me six million kids."
For now, the U.S. still excels at teaching science and engineering at the graduate level, and also in university research. But as the Chinese get more feeder stock coming up through their high schools and colleges, "they will get to the same level as us after a decade," Mr. Barrett said. "We are not graduating the volume, we do not have a lock on the infrastructure, we do not have a lock on the new ideas, and we are either flat-lining, or in real dollars cutting back, our investments in physical science."
And what is the Bush strategy? Let's go to Mars. Hello? http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/22/opinion/22FRIE.html
(2) North Korea- Nick Kristof:
Resolving this crisis is in the interests of virtually everybody on the planet, with two exceptions: President Bush and Mr. Kim. They may have nothing else in common, except that their fathers also ran their countries, but they do share an interest in delay.
Mr. Bush has his hands full with Iraq and doesn't want attention paid to the North Korean nuclear threat, which is substantially worsening on his watch. Mr. Kim figures that he may as well wait to see whether John Kerry is elected, and he'd also like to finish reprocessing the plutonium and enriching the uranium.
While the administration has steadily become more reasonable on North Korea, it still hasn't fully accepted the unpalatable truth: the only possible route out of this crisis is a grand bargain. Mr. Bush, who listened way too much to Mr. Cheney on the topic of Iraq, should reflect on something Mr. Cheney said on his China trip about negotiations over North Korea's nuclear programs: "Time is not necessarily on our side."http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/21/opinion/21KRIS.html?n=Top%2fOpinion%2fEditorials%20and%20Op%2dEd%2fOp%2dEd%2fColumnists
(3) Employers Given Free Reign re Medicare coverage
Robert Pear’s report in today’s NY Times notes the import of this ruling by the Republican majority on the EEOC.
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission voted Thursday to allow employers to reduce or eliminate health benefits for retirees when they become eligible for Medicare at age 65.
The agency approved a final rule saying that such cuts do not violate the civil rights law banning age discrimination. The vote was 3 to 1, with Republicans lining up in favor of the rule and a Democrat opposing it.
Employers and some labor unions supported the change, saying it would help preserve coverage for early retirees. But AARP, which represents millions of Americans age 50 and older, strenuously objected. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/23/politics/23RETI.html?hp=&pagewanted=print&position=
Middle East
Little is in our papers on a daily basis, but there is steady resolve and rage in other reports from the region. Al Jazeera was as kind as I could find, asserting that Bush is “oblivious of the outrage his support for Sharon has stoked, Bush urged world leaders to seize the moment to bridge their differences.” http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/8F1E6440-6048-4E8D-A4E0-3A0E9F5C962C.htm
Bandar: We hear he’s very tight with Bush, Sr. and now is calling some shots with Junior. The New Yorker fleshes out the portrait.
He is a man of exuberant charm; he is also flashy, cunning, secretive, and, at times, ruthless (“a.k.a. ‘Mr. Smoothie’” is how the Times columnist William Safire has referred to him). Unlike most ambassadors, Bandar has unprecedented access to the President and to most senior American officials. On the night that we met in McLean, George Tenet, the director of the C.I.A., stopped by for a quick meeting, and when I visited Bandar last month he received a telephone call from Condoleezza Rice, Bush’s national-security adviser…. http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?030324fa_fact2
What’s Happening, Iraq:
The Mercenaries… I mean, the “Contractors”, security guys. Nicholas Von Hoffman leaves out the euphemisms.
Evidently, thousands of mercenaries have been put to work in Iraq, and this raises some troublesome questions. Is all this stuff we are fed on TV and in the newspapers about the new and democratic Iraqi Army and constabulary just lies? Why aren’t Iraqis guarding "bureaucrats, soldiers and intelligence officers"? Why aren’t soldiers guarding themselves?
Sooner or later, the American troops are going to find out about this. Is it going to occur to the young gung-ho guys, who volunteered right out of high school, that they are risking life and limb for chump change while other men (and probably a few women) with the same skill sets are getting rich? What will be the reaction of the middle-aged reservists and National Guard people serving for a few hundred dollars a month, at the risk of job and mortgage, when they find out about the thousands of mercenaries being paid a king’s ransom to do for money what they do for country? If there is a morale problem now, as these stories about suicides among our service people suggest, what, pray tell, will be the state of morale then?…
Not only does privatization not save money waging war, it creates problem after problem, only some of which are visible at this juncture. If captured, are these mercenaries prisoners of war and subject to the Geneva Convention, or can they licitly be shot as spies and saboteurs?
We know that there are thousands of mercenaries now loose in Iraq. Only some of them work for Blackwater. Apparently, there are a number of companies who hire these people, so the question arises about how much control the American authorities have over the irregulars running about the country. Dyncorp mercenaries in the former Yugoslavia were accused of rape and robbery. The point is that they are not subject to military discipline, and even if they commit no acts universally regarded as criminal, they may still do things that offend the Iraqis: They might drink alcohol, use insulting gestures, whistle at women or find a dozen ways to get into trouble doing things which are innocent enough if done in Indiana, but which are incendiary acts if done in Basra. http://www.newyorkobserver.com/pages/story.asp?ID=8944
Running Out of Money
It’s not been included in the budget, and they’ll want this off the books as well, I suppose. Jonathan Weisman of the Washington Post has the facts.
Intense combat in Iraq is chewing up military hardware and consuming money at an unexpectedly rapid rate -- depleting military coffers, straining defense contractors and putting pressure on Bush administration officials to seek a major boost in war funding long before they had hoped.
Since Congress approved an $87 billion defense request last year, the administration has steadfastly maintained that military forces in Iraq will be sufficiently funded until early next year. President Bush's budget request for the fiscal year that begins Oct. 1 included no money for Iraqi operations, and his budget director, Joshua B. Bolten, said no request would come until January at the earliest.
But military officials, defense contractors and members of Congress say that worsening U.S. fortunes in Iraq have dramatically changed the equation and more money will be needed soon. This comes as lawmakers, returning from their spring break, voice unease about the mounting violence and what they say is the lack of a clearly enunciated strategy for victory.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A28903-2004Apr20?language=printer
Afghanistan Funds Used in Iraq. Another No-No
The question: Did the alleged transfer, noted in Woodward’s book violate not only Article 1, Section 9, Clause 7 of the U.S. Constitution which vests the power of the purse with Congress, but also specific federal statutes? Blogger David Sirota, who makes appearances on Al Franken’s show, comments
Since Bob Woodward disclosed that President Bush in July of 2002 diverted $700 million into Iraq invasion planning without informing Congress, the Bush Administration has failed to provide one shred of evidence to rebuff the charge. According to Woodward, Bush kept Congress "totally in the dark on this” leaving lawmakers with "no real knowledge or involvement." Not only does the Constitution vest the power of the purse with Congress, but whichever of the two supplemental bills the President drew the money from had explicit language obligating him to inform key congressional leaders. Instead of opening an investigation, White House allies on Capitol Hill actually told USA Today that the move was acceptable because "the $700 million was small compared" with the overall spending bills. Here is a look at the provisions in the only two supplemental bills that Congress passed between 9/11 and July 2002, and thus which Bush could have gotten the money from:
- BUSH REQUIRED TO TELL CONGRESS, IF DREW FUNDS FROM THE 9/11 SUPPLEMENTAL: While the President was given discretion to direct $10 billion of the post-9/11 Emergency Supplemental bill, the legislation specifically obligated the President to "consult with the chairmen and ranking minority members of the Committees on Appropriations prior to the transfer" of any funds. In other words, the President was obligated to tell key congressional leaders of both parties anytime he moved money. [Source: Text of HR 2888, Post-9/11 Emergency Appropriations, 9/14/01]
- BUSH DELIBERATELY USED VAGUE LANGUAGE IN DOCUMENTS TO HIDE SECRET MOVE: The White House issued two legally mandated updates to Congress about where the 9/14/01 supplemental funds were being spent. Both covered portions of the time Bush made his $700 million order. But in these documents, instead of telling Congress money was going to Iraq, the White House deliberately used vague and evasive language. For instance, in both of its updates to the Appropriations Committee, the Administration only said it had used monies for "increased situational awareness" and "increased worldwide posture" – and did not mention Iraq at all. [Source: OMB Notification, 8/9/02 & 10/17/02]
http://www.davidsirota.com/blogarchive/2004_04_18_davidsirota_archive.html#108250001704787023
Public Pessimism on Terror:
Half of those surveyed in the AP-Ipsos poll said they have concerns that terrorists may be winning, and a fifth of those polled felt strongly that is the case.
“Terrorists are winning the war for the hearts and minds of the people in the Mideast,” said Christine Wyatt, a 52-year-old church deacon in Clarkston, Mich. http://msnbc.msn.com/id/4805575/
Why is Bush Doing So Well? (continued)
Last blog noted the maddening reality of Bush going up in polls despite all the bad news. Richard Cohen adds his take:
Why? Well, in the first place, it's hard to envisage things getting even worse for Bush. The past month should have been ruinous, and yet the president not only survived, he thrived. Explanations abound for this state of affairs. Some credit the Democrats on the Sept. 11 commission for being too partisan and thus eliciting support for Bush, much as Republican zealots once proved so helpful to Bill Clinton.
Maybe. More likely though, and certainly more important, is the $41 million the Bush campaign spent on television ads in March alone. They defined Kerry as a man who gives wishy-washy a bad name -- or who has been an unceasing advocate of tax increases, such as the one on gasoline he once suggested, although he never introduced a bill to that effect. Never mind. It still made Kerry look like a jerk. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A32840-2004Apr21.html
The view of Josh Marshall, noted blogger, again in today’s Times
In wars abroad, Americans don't want their presidents to fail.
In part that's because a failure for the president is a failure for the nation. Indeed, the logic may apply with more force in cases like Iraq, in which the president has cast the nation on what is essentially a war of choice. To admit that the president blew it is to say the same of the public that followed him into the conflict. And like its leaders, the public not only doesn't like admitting it was wrong, but it will go to great lengths to avoid doing so.
The danger for President Bush is clear: the public's patience is not unlimited, and eventual failure in Iraq will almost certainly sink his candidacy. (Sometimes the conventional wisdom is actually right.)
For John Kerry, the risks are less obvious but no less real: running a campaign that focuses the voters' gaze solely on the president's manifest failures will probably run into resistance, especially with the voters he most needs to win over, those from the ambivalent middle. Mr. Kerry is far more likely to win if he has a plan to show how he — and thus the American people — can succeed rather than simply showing how President Bush — and thus they — have failed. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/23/opinion/23MARS.html
Dumbed Down America:
Always a factor to consider. A Harris Poll reinforces the sense that way too much of this country is profoundly ignorant and unthinking, i.e. ready and willing to absorb the Big Lie from the Administration.
-- A 51% to 38% majority continues to believe that "Iraq actually had weapons of mass destruction," virtually unchanged since February.
-- A 49% to 36% plurality of all adults continues to believe that "clear evidence that Iraq was supporting Al Qaeda has been found." These numbers have scarcely changed since June 2003.
-- A 51% to 43% plurality continues to believe that "intelligence given before the war to President Bush by the CIA and others about Iraqi's weapons of mass destruction" was "completely" or "somewhat" accurate. In February a 50% to 45% plurality believed this.
-- While a 43% plurality believes that the "U.S. government deliberately exaggerated the reports of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq to increase support for war," a 50% plurality (also virtually unchanged over the last eight months) continues to believe that the government "tried to present the information accurately." http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/04-21-2004/0002156598&EDATE=
Election Formula: EJ Dionne boils it down:
The Bush campaign wants to recreate the dynamic of 2002 and render criticism of Bush's anti-terror policies illegitimate and unpatriotic. Kerry wants Bush held accountable for the decisions he made. The side that wins this definitional war is likely to win the election. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A25791-2004Apr19.html http://www.workingforchange.com/printitem.cfm?itemid=16797
Compassion from the Republicans.
They’re trying to trap the Dems, pushing legislation that will purportedly aid soldiers on unexpectedly long tours of duty--by dipping into their retirement savings without tax penalties. How touching!! Inadequate body armor, Humvees without armor, lengthened tours in a war of choice, inadequate pay, but at least they won’t be penalized by the IRS!! And if the Dems oppose this bill, they’re clearly not supportive of the troops.
``That is a really pathetic gesture,'' said John Tanner, D-Tenn. ``Active duty guard and reservists and their families are the only people in this country who have been asked to sacrifice anything, anything whatsoever.''
Employers are not required to pay workers activated to duty, nor do they have to continue providing health insurance and other benefits. Employers are required to give the same or equal job to the soldier when active duty ends. http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Taxes-Military.html
Touch Screen Voting: A Note of Progress
AP report (Jim Wasserman) that is promising, but just a drop…
California should ban the use of 15,000 touch-screen voting machines made by Diebold Election Systems from the Nov. 2 general election, an advisory panel to Secretary of State Kevin Shelley recommended Thursday.
By an 8-0 vote, the state's Voting Systems and Procedures Panel recommended that Shelley cease the use of the machines, saying that Texas-based Diebold has performed poorly in California and its machines malfunctioned in the state's March 2 primary election, turning away many voters in San Diego County.
The recommendation affects 15,000 Diebold touch-screen machines in San Diego, Solano, Kern and San Joaquin counties. http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/politics/20040422-1251-ca-electronicvoting.html
-R
Wednesday, April 21, 2004
Bush on the Ropes?
A stolen election, a fictitious mandate, tax cuts for the very rich that have generated a half a trillion dollars of debt, crony capitalism, obsessive secrecy, an unnecessary war based on lies that kills hundreds of Americans and thousands of Iraqis, alienating allies and much of the rest of the world, destruction of the environment…
And yet, he could win…
After 2 weeks of ‘bad news’ he’s gained a tad in the polls. It makes one wonder whether all the war news HELPS Bush, as he’s been SO identified by the media- even the liberal few- as being the 'war on terror' pres. and, perhaps, simply because the developments have kept him in the news. But, it’s only April.
Speaking of the Environment, here’s a bit of a dialogue- Dateline NBC’s Stone Phillips talking with former EPA official Bruce Buckheit [re "new source review”].
Phillips: “What's the biggest enforcement challenge right now when it comes to air pollution?”
Buckheit: “The Bush Administration. An opportunity to reduce pollution just as we saw in Tampa is being foregone.”
Phillips: “Are you saying this administration just doesn't care about air pollution?”
Buckheit: “Yes. I'm saying this administration has decided to put the economic interests of the coal fired power plants ahead of the public interests in reducing air pollution.”
Phillips: “That's a pretty serious allegation.”
Buckheit: “Well, I was the head of the air enforcement division up until a couple weeks ago and I watched it happen.”
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/4759864/
Bush endorsement of Sharon: Follow-up:
A NY Times report (JAMES BENNET)
Israel will invest tens of millions of dollars in West Bank settlements as it withdraws from the Gaza Strip, the Israeli finance minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said Monday…
Such a move would appear to run counter to Mr. Bush's own peace initiative, the road map, which calls for a halt to "all settlement activity." But last week, Mr. Bush said Israel should be able to retain part of the West Bank in any eventual peace agreement with the Palestinians.
In addition to pulling settlers out of Gaza, Mr. Sharon says he plans to withdraw from four isolated West Bank settlements, a step he said the Americans had demanded.
Mr. Netanyahu said Sunday that Israel could now "fortify our hold" on blocs of West Bank settlements
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/20/international/middleeast/20MIDE.html?adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1082480941-V68Ln9Ul1ph02mrI3TV1jw
Mubarak on the U.S.’s popularity in the Middle East:
Arabs in the Middle East hate the United States more than ever following the invasion of Iraq and Israel's assassination of two Hamas leaders, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak said in comments published Tuesday. http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20040420/wl_nm/mideast_egypt_usa_dc
What’s Happening, Iraq: The relative quiet has ended. Attacks on police stations killed 55 or more, fighting resuming in Falluja…
Troops and Lack of Troops: From today’s NY Times (Thom Shanker, David Sanger)
The chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, Gen. Richard B. Myers, and Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz told a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on Tuesday that the Pentagon might need to ask Congress for more money to pay for the recent increase in combat operations, and for the additional troops kept in Iraq. That, too, could heighten debate over the war.
Until recently, the White House and the Pentagon said American forces would be reduced this summer when peacekeepers from a broad alliance of foreign powers combined with large numbers of newly trained Iraqi security forces took up their posts in Iraq.
But on Tuesday, General Myers estimated that it might take until the end of the year to have "the majority of these forces properly equipped and trained and in the field." http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/21/politics/21MILI.html?adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1082546694-6AqphySgRuFtfAfs1P4NWw
Special Report from the Inside. From Editor and Publisher:
The 3,000-word story…, is based on a "closely held" memo purportedly written by a U.S. government official detailed to the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA). It was provided to writer Jason Vest by "a Western intelligence official." The memo offers a candid assessment of Iraq's bleak future -- as a country trapped in corruption and dysfunction -- and portrays a CPA cut off from the Iraqi people after a "year's worth of serious errors."
The article is titled, "Fables of Reconstruction," with a subhead, "A Coalition memo reveals that even true believers see the seeds of civil war in the occupation of Iraq."
Karpel commented, "We have no question that the memo is authentic.
But according to a closely held Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) memo written in early March, the reality isn't so rosy. Iraq's chances of seeing democracy succeed, according to the memo's author--a U.S. government official detailed to the CPA, who wrote this summation of observations he'd made in the field for a senior CPA director--have been severely imperiled by a year's worth of serious errors on the part of the Pentagon and the CPA, the U.S.-led multinational agency administering Iraq. Far from facilitating democracy and security, the memo's author fears, U.S. efforts have created an environment rife with corruption and sectarianism likely to result in civil war.
Provided to this reporter by a Western intelligence official, the memo was partially redacted to protect the writer's identity and to "avoid inflaming an already volatile situation" by revealing the names of certain Iraqi figures. A wide-ranging and often acerbic critique of the CPA, covering topics ranging from policy, personalities, and press operations to on-the-ground realities such as electricity, the document is not only notable for its candidly troubled assessment of Iraq's future. It is also significant, according to the intelligence official, because its author has been a steadfast advocate of "transforming" the Middle East, beginning with "regime change" in Iraq.
http://villagevoice.com/issues/0416/vest.php
Media Parroting the Bush Administration line:
Beware how the media so often repeat the Big Lie- the administration’s oft-repeated line. In this case, the Denver Post (Lee Keath) follows the Condi line that the Spanish troop withdrawal meant that they were giving in to the terrorists. Rather the Spanish people threw out an Administration caught in its lies.
The portion below begins with a false premise, as Zapatero had always campaigned to pull the troops out. And he won largely because of the LIES that Aznar told as to who was responsible for the bombing, not because Aznar had provoked the bombing.
Also Sunday, Spain's prime minister ordered the withdrawal of Spanish troops from Iraq as soon as possible, fulfilling a campaign promise made after terrorist bombings that al-Qaeda militants said were reprisal for Spain's support of the war. Spain has about 1,300 troops there.
Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero's Socialist party won the March 14 general election amid allegations that outgoing Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar, by backing the war in Iraq, had provoked commuter-train terrorist bombings that killed 191 people three days before the vote. http://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,1413,36%257E11676%257E2093466,00.html?search=filter
John Pilger on the Insurgency: The passionate Englishman’s latest:
That a nationalist uprising has been under way in Iraq for more than a year, uniting at least 15 major groups, most of them opposed to the old regime, has been suppressed in a mendacious lexicon invented in Washington and London and reported incessantly, CNN-style. ‘Remnants’ and ‘tribalists’ and ‘fundamentalists’ dominate, while Iraq is denied the legacy of a history in which much of the modern world is rooted. The ‘first-anniversary story’ about a laughable poll claiming that half of all Iraqis felt better off now under the occupation is a case in point. The BBC and the rest swallowed it whole. For the truth, I recommend the courageous daily reporting of Jo Wilding, a British human rights observer in Baghdad. (www.wildfirejo.blogspot.com)
Even now, as the uprising spreads, there is only cryptic gesturing at the obvious: that this is a war of national liberation and that the enemy is ‘us.’.... What we do routinely in the imperial west, wrote Richard Falk, professor of international relations at Princeton, is propagate ‘through a self-righteous, one-way moral/legal screen positive images of western values and innocence that are threatened, validating a campaign of unrestricted violence.’ Thus, western state terrorism is erased, and a tenet of western journalism is to excuse or minimize ‘our’ culpability, however atrocious. Our dead are counted; theirs are not. Our victims are worthy; theirs are not. http://www.newstatesman.co.uk/nscoverstory.htm
A Newspaper Defies the Administration:
Hats off to the Seattle Times for printing photos of soldiers’ coffins.
Last week, photos of flag-draped coffins in Kuwait containing the bodies of Americans killed in Iraq surfaced on scattered Internet sites, such as the Drudge Report. The photos were not credited and no major news organization would touch them. But Sunday, a similar image appeared on the front page of The Seattle Times. The picture arrived amid rising debate over the Bush administration's strict ban on media outlets taking photos of soldiers' coffins offloaded at U.S. military bases.
"The administration cannot tell us what we can and cannot publish," David Boardman, managing editor at The Seattle Times, told E&P Monday afternoon. "The photo may have been seen as an unnecessarily provocative anti-war sentiment," Boardman said, but he explained, "We weren't attempting to convey any sort of political message." He added that so far, phone calls and e-mails from readers have been "overwhelmingly positive." http://www.mediainfo.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000491273
Marketplace Report on Corruption
The public radio program (6:30PM in Greater Boston) has a four-part report on the money being badly spent. It runs through Friday.
The spoils of war add up to more than capturing expansive palaces and luxury cars. As Marketplace reporters have discovered, not all of the $22 billion being spent to rebuild Iraq is going where it should. Who's watching the money as it streams through Baghdad? Just about no one, and bribes and black marketeering are rampant, witnesses say. A leading anti-corruption group claims as much as 90 percent of U.S. money spent in Iraq is being lost to corruption. From Halliburton subsidiaries charging double for gas, Iraqi officials and Arabic translators unrestrained from pocketing millions of dollars, or even members of the interim governing Council accusing each other of taking tens of millions in bribes. Trouble is, the root of the problem can't be found anywhere near the Green Zone. Try the White House, and Capitol Hill, where oversight of Iraqi construction crews and U.S. contractors like Halliburton has only just begun to be assigned… more than a year after the war began. http://marketplace.publicradio.org/features/iraq/index.html
-R
A stolen election, a fictitious mandate, tax cuts for the very rich that have generated a half a trillion dollars of debt, crony capitalism, obsessive secrecy, an unnecessary war based on lies that kills hundreds of Americans and thousands of Iraqis, alienating allies and much of the rest of the world, destruction of the environment…
And yet, he could win…
After 2 weeks of ‘bad news’ he’s gained a tad in the polls. It makes one wonder whether all the war news HELPS Bush, as he’s been SO identified by the media- even the liberal few- as being the 'war on terror' pres. and, perhaps, simply because the developments have kept him in the news. But, it’s only April.
Speaking of the Environment, here’s a bit of a dialogue- Dateline NBC’s Stone Phillips talking with former EPA official Bruce Buckheit [re "new source review”].
Phillips: “What's the biggest enforcement challenge right now when it comes to air pollution?”
Buckheit: “The Bush Administration. An opportunity to reduce pollution just as we saw in Tampa is being foregone.”
Phillips: “Are you saying this administration just doesn't care about air pollution?”
Buckheit: “Yes. I'm saying this administration has decided to put the economic interests of the coal fired power plants ahead of the public interests in reducing air pollution.”
Phillips: “That's a pretty serious allegation.”
Buckheit: “Well, I was the head of the air enforcement division up until a couple weeks ago and I watched it happen.”
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/4759864/
Bush endorsement of Sharon: Follow-up:
A NY Times report (JAMES BENNET)
Israel will invest tens of millions of dollars in West Bank settlements as it withdraws from the Gaza Strip, the Israeli finance minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said Monday…
Such a move would appear to run counter to Mr. Bush's own peace initiative, the road map, which calls for a halt to "all settlement activity." But last week, Mr. Bush said Israel should be able to retain part of the West Bank in any eventual peace agreement with the Palestinians.
In addition to pulling settlers out of Gaza, Mr. Sharon says he plans to withdraw from four isolated West Bank settlements, a step he said the Americans had demanded.
Mr. Netanyahu said Sunday that Israel could now "fortify our hold" on blocs of West Bank settlements
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/20/international/middleeast/20MIDE.html?adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1082480941-V68Ln9Ul1ph02mrI3TV1jw
Mubarak on the U.S.’s popularity in the Middle East:
Arabs in the Middle East hate the United States more than ever following the invasion of Iraq and Israel's assassination of two Hamas leaders, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak said in comments published Tuesday. http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20040420/wl_nm/mideast_egypt_usa_dc
What’s Happening, Iraq: The relative quiet has ended. Attacks on police stations killed 55 or more, fighting resuming in Falluja…
Troops and Lack of Troops: From today’s NY Times (Thom Shanker, David Sanger)
The chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, Gen. Richard B. Myers, and Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz told a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on Tuesday that the Pentagon might need to ask Congress for more money to pay for the recent increase in combat operations, and for the additional troops kept in Iraq. That, too, could heighten debate over the war.
Until recently, the White House and the Pentagon said American forces would be reduced this summer when peacekeepers from a broad alliance of foreign powers combined with large numbers of newly trained Iraqi security forces took up their posts in Iraq.
But on Tuesday, General Myers estimated that it might take until the end of the year to have "the majority of these forces properly equipped and trained and in the field." http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/21/politics/21MILI.html?adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1082546694-6AqphySgRuFtfAfs1P4NWw
Special Report from the Inside. From Editor and Publisher:
The 3,000-word story…, is based on a "closely held" memo purportedly written by a U.S. government official detailed to the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA). It was provided to writer Jason Vest by "a Western intelligence official." The memo offers a candid assessment of Iraq's bleak future -- as a country trapped in corruption and dysfunction -- and portrays a CPA cut off from the Iraqi people after a "year's worth of serious errors."
The article is titled, "Fables of Reconstruction," with a subhead, "A Coalition memo reveals that even true believers see the seeds of civil war in the occupation of Iraq."
Karpel commented, "We have no question that the memo is authentic.
But according to a closely held Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) memo written in early March, the reality isn't so rosy. Iraq's chances of seeing democracy succeed, according to the memo's author--a U.S. government official detailed to the CPA, who wrote this summation of observations he'd made in the field for a senior CPA director--have been severely imperiled by a year's worth of serious errors on the part of the Pentagon and the CPA, the U.S.-led multinational agency administering Iraq. Far from facilitating democracy and security, the memo's author fears, U.S. efforts have created an environment rife with corruption and sectarianism likely to result in civil war.
Provided to this reporter by a Western intelligence official, the memo was partially redacted to protect the writer's identity and to "avoid inflaming an already volatile situation" by revealing the names of certain Iraqi figures. A wide-ranging and often acerbic critique of the CPA, covering topics ranging from policy, personalities, and press operations to on-the-ground realities such as electricity, the document is not only notable for its candidly troubled assessment of Iraq's future. It is also significant, according to the intelligence official, because its author has been a steadfast advocate of "transforming" the Middle East, beginning with "regime change" in Iraq.
http://villagevoice.com/issues/0416/vest.php
Media Parroting the Bush Administration line:
Beware how the media so often repeat the Big Lie- the administration’s oft-repeated line. In this case, the Denver Post (Lee Keath) follows the Condi line that the Spanish troop withdrawal meant that they were giving in to the terrorists. Rather the Spanish people threw out an Administration caught in its lies.
The portion below begins with a false premise, as Zapatero had always campaigned to pull the troops out. And he won largely because of the LIES that Aznar told as to who was responsible for the bombing, not because Aznar had provoked the bombing.
Also Sunday, Spain's prime minister ordered the withdrawal of Spanish troops from Iraq as soon as possible, fulfilling a campaign promise made after terrorist bombings that al-Qaeda militants said were reprisal for Spain's support of the war. Spain has about 1,300 troops there.
Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero's Socialist party won the March 14 general election amid allegations that outgoing Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar, by backing the war in Iraq, had provoked commuter-train terrorist bombings that killed 191 people three days before the vote. http://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,1413,36%257E11676%257E2093466,00.html?search=filter
John Pilger on the Insurgency: The passionate Englishman’s latest:
That a nationalist uprising has been under way in Iraq for more than a year, uniting at least 15 major groups, most of them opposed to the old regime, has been suppressed in a mendacious lexicon invented in Washington and London and reported incessantly, CNN-style. ‘Remnants’ and ‘tribalists’ and ‘fundamentalists’ dominate, while Iraq is denied the legacy of a history in which much of the modern world is rooted. The ‘first-anniversary story’ about a laughable poll claiming that half of all Iraqis felt better off now under the occupation is a case in point. The BBC and the rest swallowed it whole. For the truth, I recommend the courageous daily reporting of Jo Wilding, a British human rights observer in Baghdad. (www.wildfirejo.blogspot.com)
Even now, as the uprising spreads, there is only cryptic gesturing at the obvious: that this is a war of national liberation and that the enemy is ‘us.’.... What we do routinely in the imperial west, wrote Richard Falk, professor of international relations at Princeton, is propagate ‘through a self-righteous, one-way moral/legal screen positive images of western values and innocence that are threatened, validating a campaign of unrestricted violence.’ Thus, western state terrorism is erased, and a tenet of western journalism is to excuse or minimize ‘our’ culpability, however atrocious. Our dead are counted; theirs are not. Our victims are worthy; theirs are not. http://www.newstatesman.co.uk/nscoverstory.htm
A Newspaper Defies the Administration:
Hats off to the Seattle Times for printing photos of soldiers’ coffins.
Last week, photos of flag-draped coffins in Kuwait containing the bodies of Americans killed in Iraq surfaced on scattered Internet sites, such as the Drudge Report. The photos were not credited and no major news organization would touch them. But Sunday, a similar image appeared on the front page of The Seattle Times. The picture arrived amid rising debate over the Bush administration's strict ban on media outlets taking photos of soldiers' coffins offloaded at U.S. military bases.
"The administration cannot tell us what we can and cannot publish," David Boardman, managing editor at The Seattle Times, told E&P Monday afternoon. "The photo may have been seen as an unnecessarily provocative anti-war sentiment," Boardman said, but he explained, "We weren't attempting to convey any sort of political message." He added that so far, phone calls and e-mails from readers have been "overwhelmingly positive." http://www.mediainfo.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000491273
Marketplace Report on Corruption
The public radio program (6:30PM in Greater Boston) has a four-part report on the money being badly spent. It runs through Friday.
The spoils of war add up to more than capturing expansive palaces and luxury cars. As Marketplace reporters have discovered, not all of the $22 billion being spent to rebuild Iraq is going where it should. Who's watching the money as it streams through Baghdad? Just about no one, and bribes and black marketeering are rampant, witnesses say. A leading anti-corruption group claims as much as 90 percent of U.S. money spent in Iraq is being lost to corruption. From Halliburton subsidiaries charging double for gas, Iraqi officials and Arabic translators unrestrained from pocketing millions of dollars, or even members of the interim governing Council accusing each other of taking tens of millions in bribes. Trouble is, the root of the problem can't be found anywhere near the Green Zone. Try the White House, and Capitol Hill, where oversight of Iraqi construction crews and U.S. contractors like Halliburton has only just begun to be assigned… more than a year after the war began. http://marketplace.publicradio.org/features/iraq/index.html
-R
Monday, April 19, 2004
Radical Right, Sharon, Middle East, American Jews
I’m aware that I’ve largely stayed away from the Palestinian-Israeli tragedy, but now the Administration’s embrace of the Sharon plan is just too unsettling to ignore; we have to address the emerging overt alliance of the Right in Israel and the U.S. and the courting of more, ongoing “terror.”
Despite some (Tom Friedman) welcoming the break from the status quo, we have to recognize how Others view this. The Arab world and Europe condemn it; even Tony Blair demurs from the shift.
American Jews are now tested as to whether they can rally to the side of justice- and Israel’s future- by not reflexively defending Bush (and Kerry) as being “pro-Israel.” We also have to accept the fact that this Administration is “pro-terror”, as this move invites permanent war with a growing number of increasingly aligned enemies. We’ve heard plenty from Bush (sample, below) as to his welcoming of a mission/crusade against all evil.
Again, it’s terribly unsettling.
Juan Cole, Middle East/Iraq expert, terms the administration’s action as “Turning into Israel?”
Outraged by President Bush's embrace of Ariel Sharon and the bloody U.S. assault on Fallujah, the Arab world is linking America's occupation with Israel's. That's ominous. http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2004/04/16/israel/index_np.html
Dana Milbank of the Washington Post spells out a portion:
Some evidence shows that the recent Israeli assassination of Sheik Ahmed Yassin has caused Hamas to fight among themselves and other such internal problems, but this recent assassination may finally cause Hamas and their sympathizers to strike the United States directly. For years, we've heard the anti-American rhetoric from the Palestinians after an Israeli strike, but mostly it's b/c of the Israeli use of U.S. helicopters and other weapons. This time, the timing of the assassination makes the anti-American threats a bit more realistic.
Israeli PM Ariel Sharon and President Bush just had a meeting, where Bush basically conceded to Sharon everything that was asked of him. Now, with this assassination merely a few days later, it gives the appearance that Bush may have ok'd it. I think Sharon acts for himself and what he thinks is good for Israel first, but this attack does nothing but make America look ba.d
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A11483-2004Apr14.html
The blogger “billmon”’s has the feeling he’s in a slow car crash. He has advice for bin Laden: I mean, why bother with suicide bombers when you've got both major political parties on your side? http://billmon.org/archives/001402.html
Bush’s “thinking” (mixed with Cheney’s militancy…)
"Our war with terror begins with al Qaeda, but it does not end...until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped and defeated." And what if America ends up alienating the entire world in the process? "At some point, we may be the only ones left," Bush told his closest advisers, according to an administration member who leaked the story to Bob Woodward. "That's OK with me. We are America." http://www.americanprogress.org/site/pp.asp?c=biJRJ8OVF&b=45897
What’s Happening, Iraq:
The Pentagon belatedly admits to 10 American troops being killed on Saturday, a few others since. The Spanish are packing up. [And, Honduras and Nicaragua are quitting, and Bulgaria, El Salvador, Thailand, Portugal and the Philippines are considering withdrawal. Australia will decide its future in this November’s elections.]
Let’s remember that the Spanish are not leaving because of the train attack; they’re leaving because the previous [Aznar] Administration was rejected because of its lies. The Bushies have not been subtle in their insinuations that unlike Spain, U.S. voters can’t let the terrorists win by voting for Kerry- i.e. ‘we must stand firm’ and not let them interpret…
Yet, as we’ve heard over the past 5 days, the Administration is frantically trying to get cover from the U.N.
Warren Hoge in the NY Times:
The United Nations, once snubbed and excluded from the task of shaping Iraq's future, suddenly finds itself pressed to play the major role in that effort, but it is taking up the task with some foreboding.
"There is a mixture of vindication on the one hand and great apprehension on the other," said Edward Mortimer, a senior aide to Secretary General Kofi Annan.
Mr. Mortimer contrasted the recent calls for assistance from President Bush with the disparagement he said the United Nations had become used to from the administration. "It's quite nice when you've been generally dissed about your irrelevancy and then suddenly have people coming on bended knee and saying, `We need you to come back,' " he said. "On the other hand, it's quite unnerving to feel you're being projected into a very violent and volatile situation where you might be regarded as an agent or faithful servant of a power that has incurred great hostility."
With time running out on the June 30 deadline for transfer of power, the United Nations is being looked to as the only institution that can confer immediate global legitimacy on the American goal of bringing representative government to Iraq. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/18/international/middleeast/18NATI.html
Rajiv Chandrasekaran and Karl Vick in the Washington Post provide a capsule:
In the space of two weeks, a fierce insurgency in Iraq has isolated the U.S.-appointed civilian government and stopped the American-financed reconstruction effort, as contractors hunker down against waves of ambushes and kidnappings, according to U.S. and Iraqi officials.
The events have also pressured U.S. forces to vastly expand their area of operations within Iraq, while triggering a partial collapse of the new Iraqi security services designed to gradually replace them.
The crisis, which has stirred support for the insurgents across both Sunni and Shiite communities, has also inflamed tensions between Arabs and Kurds.http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A20690-2004Apr17?language=printer
It worked with Noreiga, so…
American troops are back to their ‘culture wars’, seeking to irritate /alienate the locals with music.
In Fallujah's darkened, empty streets, U.S. troops blast AC/DC's Hell's Bells and other rock music full volume from a huge speaker, hoping to grate on the nerves of this Sunni Muslim city's gunmen and give a laugh to marines along the front line. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20040416.wpsyop0416/BNStory/International/
But, it’s no game. A comment:
The conflict in Iraq is "much more serious" than the war in Vietnam and any comparison between the two is misplaced, the European Union's external relations commissioner said on Saturday.
"The comparison... that Iraq could become as difficult an issue as Vietnam is misplaced, because I think it is arguably much more serious," Chris Patten told a news conference after an informal meeting of EU foreign ministers in Ireland.
"If things go wrong in Iraq we will be living with the consequences for a very, very long time," he added. http://wireservice.wired.com/wired/story.asp?section=Breaking&storyId=852591
Brits in Basra face facts: ‘It’s conceivable that we’d leave; it’s up to them’
…the commander of British troops in southern Iraq, Brig Nick Carter, admitted that he would be powerless to prevent the overthrow of Coalition forces if the Shia majority in Basra rose up in rebellion. Brig Carter, of the 20 Armoured Brigade, who has been in Iraq for four months, said British forces would stay in Basra with the consent of local Shia leaders, or not at all…
"A crowd of 150,000 people at the gates of this barracks would be the end of this, as far as I'm concerned," Brig Carter said. "There would be absolutely nothing I could do about that." http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/04/18/wirq18.xml&sSheet=/portal/2004/04/18/ixportaltop.html
Sidney Blumenthal writes of the disquiet within the military:
The president may see his mission to Iraq as a holy war, but frustrated Pentagon strategists say they're being ignored and ill-treated by the administration. http://www.salon.com/opinion/blumenthal/2004/04/15/bush/index_np.html
Woodward on 60 Minutes: Most important to publicize is the relationship of the Bushes and Prince Bandar et al. Some Americans might blanche at the notion that the Saudis are ‘interfering’ with a presidential election.
Prince Bandar enjoys easy access to the Oval Office. His family and the Bush family are close. And Woodward told 60 Minutes that Bandar has promised the president that Saudi Arabia will lower oil prices in the months before the election -- to ensure the U.S. economy is strong on election day.
Woodward says that Bandar understood that economic conditions were key before a presidential election: "They're [oil prices] high. And they could go down very quickly. That's the Saudi pledge. Certainly over the summer, or as we get closer to the election, they could increase production several million barrels a day and the price would drop significantly."
Shorter than the video or transcript was this summary by William Hamilton:
Beginning in late December 2001, President Bush met repeatedly with Army Gen. Tommy R. Franks and his war cabinet to plan the U.S. attack on Iraq even as he and administration spokesmen insisted they were pursuing a diplomatic solution, according to a new book on the origins of the war.
Powell felt Cheney and his allies -- his chief aide, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby; Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz; and Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas J. Feith and what Powell called Feith's "Gestapo" office -- had established what amounted to a separate government. The vice president, for his part, believed Powell was mainly concerned with his own popularity and told friends at a dinner he hosted a year ago celebrating the outcome of the war that Powell was a problem and "always had major reservations about what we were trying to do."
Wolfowitz proposed sending in the military to seize Iraq's southern oil fields and establish the area as a foothold from which opposition groups could overthrow Hussein.
Powell dismissed the plan as "lunacy," according to Woodward, and told Bush what he thought. "You don't have to be bullied into this," Powell said.
Asked by Woodward how history would judge the war, Bush replied: "History. We don't know. We'll all be dead." http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A17347-2004Apr16?language=printer
Today’s NY Times has more. (Steven Weisman)
For more than a year, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and his aides have tacitly acknowledged that he was concerned before the war about what could go wrong once American forces captured Iraq.
But Mr. Powell's apparent decision to lay out his misgivings even more explicitly to the journalist Bob Woodward for a book has jolted the White House and aggravated long-festering tensions in the Bush cabinet. Moreover, some officials said, the book has created problems for the secretary inside the administration just as the situation in Iraq is deteriorating and President Bush is plunging into his re-election drive. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/19/politics/19POWE.html
So if they’re not all chummy inside the Administration, what can it mean? Juan Cole has some thoughts:
Likewise, in the Bush administration, the Pentagon has its own foreign policy, which competes with and often trumps the foreign policy of the State Department and the National Security Council. Thus, Gen. Myers is pointing fingers at Iran and Syria and making all sorts of wild accusations at them, darkly hinting they will be overthrown if they don't shape up. And Colin Powell is writing them polite letters about bilateral relations and could they please use their good offices to help the Americans in Iraq. It is bizarre, and the urbane, canny leaders in Damascus and Tehran (who have long experience of residence in the UK and Germany respectively), must be scratching their heads in wonder at this Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde American hyperpower that rages about an axis of evil and goes about preemptively invading countries on the one hand and then comes politely, hat in hand, to request selfless assistance on the other.
www.juancole.com
Condi Warns, Predicts?, Welcomes?
The smile that slipped in as she uttered this was not reassuring.
The United States is bracing for possible terrorist attacks before the November presidential election, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice said Sunday.
The opportunity for terrorists to try to influence the election, as was the case last month in Spain, appears to be an opportunity that would "be too good to pass up for them," Rice said.. http://apnews1.iwon.com//article/20040418/D821A60G0.html
9/11 Commission: Summary Statement
…now, after three weeks of extraordinary public hearings and a dozen detailed reports, the lengthy documentary record makes clear that predictions of an attack by Al Qaeda had been communicated directly to the highest levels of the government.
The threat reports were more clear, urgent and persistent than was previously known. Some focused on Al Qaeda's plans to use commercial aircraft as weapons. Others stated that Osama bin Laden was intent on striking on United States soil. Many were passed to the Federal Aviation Administration.
While some of the intelligence went back years, other warnings — including one that Al Qaeda seemed interested in hijacking a plane inside this country — had been delivered to the president on Aug. 6, 2001, just a month before the attacks.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/18/politics/18SEPT.html?hp
There were others who were preparing for planes as missiles. From USA Today (Steven Komarow, Tom Squitieri)
NORAD had drills of jets as weapons
In the two years before the Sept. 11 attacks, the North American Aerospace Defense Command conducted exercises simulating what the White House says was unimaginable at the time: hijacked airliners used as weapons to crash into targets and cause mass casualties.
In a third scenario, the target was the Pentagon — but that drill was not run after Defense officials said it was unrealistic, NORAD and Defense officials say.
NORAD, in a written statement, confirmed that such hijacking exercises occurred. It said the scenarios outlined were regional drills, not regularly scheduled continent-wide exercises.
http://usatoday.printthis.clickability.com/pt/cpt?action=cpt&title=USATODAY.com+-+NORAD+had+drills+of+jets+as+weapons&expire=&urlID=9961878&fb=Y&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.usatoday.com%2Fnews%2Fwashington%2F2004-04-18-norad_x.htm&partnerID=1660
Our Politicized Government: You work for them, or you’re out. I’ve previously noted the politicization of the Treasury, as employees had to assess Kerry's economic proposal.
The following 2 non-consecutive paragraphs are part of a posting on the Treasury’s site:
While nobody likes paying taxes, the Treasury Department and the Internal Revenue Service have been working to make the burden of paying taxes a little easier. E-filing and electronic services offered on IRS.gov are seeing big increases this year. Taxpayers can use these services and follow other simple steps to help make tax time easier.
And,
America has a choice: It can continue to grow the economy and create new jobs as the President's policies are doing; or it can raise taxes on American families and small businesses, hurting economic recovery and future job creation. http://www.ustreas.gov/press/releases/js1313.htm
Compare that with a Republican National Committee fact sheet that reads:
America has a choice: It can continue to grow the economy and create new jobs as the President's polices are doing; or it can raise taxes on American families and small businesses, hurting economic recovery and future job creation. http://www.rnc.org/News/Read.aspx?ID=4069
At the NRA Convention:
Bush "has shown you respect, earned your vote and appreciates your support," Cheney said. [...]
Earlier in the day, Tom Mauser, whose son, Daniel, was killed with an assault weapon in the Columbine High School killings five years ago, tried to enter the convention hall where the NRA was meeting, seeking to urge Cheney to support extending the assault weapons ban.
Mauser was turned away by a security guard as several conventioneers applauded. A couple of conventioneers yelled "Get a life" and "Vote for Bush." http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=519&e=4&u=/ap/20040418/ap_on_re_us/nra_convention_cheney
Good News: Senate Races, Conservative Split
(1) Many races are looking more promising than only 2 months ago. The Bush drop in polls has undoubtedly raised the prospects of several senatorial candidates, raising the possibility of the Democrats having a short of taking back the Senate.
(2) Many conservatives have their qualms with the Administration. Those of us who favored a more muscular approach to American foreign policy and a more Wilsonian view of our efforts in Iraq find ourselves pitted against more traditional conservatives, who have more isolationist instincts to begin with, and they are more willing to say, `Bring the boys home,' " Mr. Weinstein said.
Richard A. Viguerie, a conservative stalwart and the dean of conservative direct mail, said the Iraq war had created an unusual schism. "I can't think of any other issue that has divided conservatives as much as this issue in my political lifetime," Mr. Viguerie said. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/19/politics/19CONS.html
Kerry as Blunt Centrist
He’s making clear that he’ll be outspoken, but that he’s no liberal. While most will overlook much (“anyone but Bush”!), we should keep his centrism in mind.
Also, a friend sent me the following.
Just came across a bit of information regarding Kerry and his claim of the Bush administration sending jobs abroad. Well, it seems that the Heinz Corporation, owned by Kerry's wife, has 79 plants where it manufactures products and 57 of the 79 are located in countries outside of the U.S. How many U.S. jobs are lost here???
Factories located at: Taipei, Taiwan (makes Heinz baby foods) Dublin, Ireland; Paris, France; Dovarmenez, France; Lisbon, Portugal; Madrid, Spain; Milan, Italy; Monguzzo, Italy; Athens, Greece; Warsaw,Poland; Pudliszki, Poland; Wodzislaw, Poland; Miedzychod, Poland; Moscow, Russia; Georgievisk, Russia; Cairo, Egypt; Tel Aviv, Israel, etc.
-R
I’m aware that I’ve largely stayed away from the Palestinian-Israeli tragedy, but now the Administration’s embrace of the Sharon plan is just too unsettling to ignore; we have to address the emerging overt alliance of the Right in Israel and the U.S. and the courting of more, ongoing “terror.”
Despite some (Tom Friedman) welcoming the break from the status quo, we have to recognize how Others view this. The Arab world and Europe condemn it; even Tony Blair demurs from the shift.
American Jews are now tested as to whether they can rally to the side of justice- and Israel’s future- by not reflexively defending Bush (and Kerry) as being “pro-Israel.” We also have to accept the fact that this Administration is “pro-terror”, as this move invites permanent war with a growing number of increasingly aligned enemies. We’ve heard plenty from Bush (sample, below) as to his welcoming of a mission/crusade against all evil.
Again, it’s terribly unsettling.
Juan Cole, Middle East/Iraq expert, terms the administration’s action as “Turning into Israel?”
Outraged by President Bush's embrace of Ariel Sharon and the bloody U.S. assault on Fallujah, the Arab world is linking America's occupation with Israel's. That's ominous. http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2004/04/16/israel/index_np.html
Dana Milbank of the Washington Post spells out a portion:
Some evidence shows that the recent Israeli assassination of Sheik Ahmed Yassin has caused Hamas to fight among themselves and other such internal problems, but this recent assassination may finally cause Hamas and their sympathizers to strike the United States directly. For years, we've heard the anti-American rhetoric from the Palestinians after an Israeli strike, but mostly it's b/c of the Israeli use of U.S. helicopters and other weapons. This time, the timing of the assassination makes the anti-American threats a bit more realistic.
Israeli PM Ariel Sharon and President Bush just had a meeting, where Bush basically conceded to Sharon everything that was asked of him. Now, with this assassination merely a few days later, it gives the appearance that Bush may have ok'd it. I think Sharon acts for himself and what he thinks is good for Israel first, but this attack does nothing but make America look ba.d
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A11483-2004Apr14.html
The blogger “billmon”’s has the feeling he’s in a slow car crash. He has advice for bin Laden: I mean, why bother with suicide bombers when you've got both major political parties on your side? http://billmon.org/archives/001402.html
Bush’s “thinking” (mixed with Cheney’s militancy…)
"Our war with terror begins with al Qaeda, but it does not end...until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped and defeated." And what if America ends up alienating the entire world in the process? "At some point, we may be the only ones left," Bush told his closest advisers, according to an administration member who leaked the story to Bob Woodward. "That's OK with me. We are America." http://www.americanprogress.org/site/pp.asp?c=biJRJ8OVF&b=45897
What’s Happening, Iraq:
The Pentagon belatedly admits to 10 American troops being killed on Saturday, a few others since. The Spanish are packing up. [And, Honduras and Nicaragua are quitting, and Bulgaria, El Salvador, Thailand, Portugal and the Philippines are considering withdrawal. Australia will decide its future in this November’s elections.]
Let’s remember that the Spanish are not leaving because of the train attack; they’re leaving because the previous [Aznar] Administration was rejected because of its lies. The Bushies have not been subtle in their insinuations that unlike Spain, U.S. voters can’t let the terrorists win by voting for Kerry- i.e. ‘we must stand firm’ and not let them interpret…
Yet, as we’ve heard over the past 5 days, the Administration is frantically trying to get cover from the U.N.
Warren Hoge in the NY Times:
The United Nations, once snubbed and excluded from the task of shaping Iraq's future, suddenly finds itself pressed to play the major role in that effort, but it is taking up the task with some foreboding.
"There is a mixture of vindication on the one hand and great apprehension on the other," said Edward Mortimer, a senior aide to Secretary General Kofi Annan.
Mr. Mortimer contrasted the recent calls for assistance from President Bush with the disparagement he said the United Nations had become used to from the administration. "It's quite nice when you've been generally dissed about your irrelevancy and then suddenly have people coming on bended knee and saying, `We need you to come back,' " he said. "On the other hand, it's quite unnerving to feel you're being projected into a very violent and volatile situation where you might be regarded as an agent or faithful servant of a power that has incurred great hostility."
With time running out on the June 30 deadline for transfer of power, the United Nations is being looked to as the only institution that can confer immediate global legitimacy on the American goal of bringing representative government to Iraq. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/18/international/middleeast/18NATI.html
Rajiv Chandrasekaran and Karl Vick in the Washington Post provide a capsule:
In the space of two weeks, a fierce insurgency in Iraq has isolated the U.S.-appointed civilian government and stopped the American-financed reconstruction effort, as contractors hunker down against waves of ambushes and kidnappings, according to U.S. and Iraqi officials.
The events have also pressured U.S. forces to vastly expand their area of operations within Iraq, while triggering a partial collapse of the new Iraqi security services designed to gradually replace them.
The crisis, which has stirred support for the insurgents across both Sunni and Shiite communities, has also inflamed tensions between Arabs and Kurds.http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A20690-2004Apr17?language=printer
It worked with Noreiga, so…
American troops are back to their ‘culture wars’, seeking to irritate /alienate the locals with music.
In Fallujah's darkened, empty streets, U.S. troops blast AC/DC's Hell's Bells and other rock music full volume from a huge speaker, hoping to grate on the nerves of this Sunni Muslim city's gunmen and give a laugh to marines along the front line. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20040416.wpsyop0416/BNStory/International/
But, it’s no game. A comment:
The conflict in Iraq is "much more serious" than the war in Vietnam and any comparison between the two is misplaced, the European Union's external relations commissioner said on Saturday.
"The comparison... that Iraq could become as difficult an issue as Vietnam is misplaced, because I think it is arguably much more serious," Chris Patten told a news conference after an informal meeting of EU foreign ministers in Ireland.
"If things go wrong in Iraq we will be living with the consequences for a very, very long time," he added. http://wireservice.wired.com/wired/story.asp?section=Breaking&storyId=852591
Brits in Basra face facts: ‘It’s conceivable that we’d leave; it’s up to them’
…the commander of British troops in southern Iraq, Brig Nick Carter, admitted that he would be powerless to prevent the overthrow of Coalition forces if the Shia majority in Basra rose up in rebellion. Brig Carter, of the 20 Armoured Brigade, who has been in Iraq for four months, said British forces would stay in Basra with the consent of local Shia leaders, or not at all…
"A crowd of 150,000 people at the gates of this barracks would be the end of this, as far as I'm concerned," Brig Carter said. "There would be absolutely nothing I could do about that." http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/04/18/wirq18.xml&sSheet=/portal/2004/04/18/ixportaltop.html
Sidney Blumenthal writes of the disquiet within the military:
The president may see his mission to Iraq as a holy war, but frustrated Pentagon strategists say they're being ignored and ill-treated by the administration. http://www.salon.com/opinion/blumenthal/2004/04/15/bush/index_np.html
Woodward on 60 Minutes: Most important to publicize is the relationship of the Bushes and Prince Bandar et al. Some Americans might blanche at the notion that the Saudis are ‘interfering’ with a presidential election.
Prince Bandar enjoys easy access to the Oval Office. His family and the Bush family are close. And Woodward told 60 Minutes that Bandar has promised the president that Saudi Arabia will lower oil prices in the months before the election -- to ensure the U.S. economy is strong on election day.
Woodward says that Bandar understood that economic conditions were key before a presidential election: "They're [oil prices] high. And they could go down very quickly. That's the Saudi pledge. Certainly over the summer, or as we get closer to the election, they could increase production several million barrels a day and the price would drop significantly."
Shorter than the video or transcript was this summary by William Hamilton:
Beginning in late December 2001, President Bush met repeatedly with Army Gen. Tommy R. Franks and his war cabinet to plan the U.S. attack on Iraq even as he and administration spokesmen insisted they were pursuing a diplomatic solution, according to a new book on the origins of the war.
Powell felt Cheney and his allies -- his chief aide, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby; Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz; and Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas J. Feith and what Powell called Feith's "Gestapo" office -- had established what amounted to a separate government. The vice president, for his part, believed Powell was mainly concerned with his own popularity and told friends at a dinner he hosted a year ago celebrating the outcome of the war that Powell was a problem and "always had major reservations about what we were trying to do."
Wolfowitz proposed sending in the military to seize Iraq's southern oil fields and establish the area as a foothold from which opposition groups could overthrow Hussein.
Powell dismissed the plan as "lunacy," according to Woodward, and told Bush what he thought. "You don't have to be bullied into this," Powell said.
Asked by Woodward how history would judge the war, Bush replied: "History. We don't know. We'll all be dead." http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A17347-2004Apr16?language=printer
Today’s NY Times has more. (Steven Weisman)
For more than a year, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and his aides have tacitly acknowledged that he was concerned before the war about what could go wrong once American forces captured Iraq.
But Mr. Powell's apparent decision to lay out his misgivings even more explicitly to the journalist Bob Woodward for a book has jolted the White House and aggravated long-festering tensions in the Bush cabinet. Moreover, some officials said, the book has created problems for the secretary inside the administration just as the situation in Iraq is deteriorating and President Bush is plunging into his re-election drive. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/19/politics/19POWE.html
So if they’re not all chummy inside the Administration, what can it mean? Juan Cole has some thoughts:
Likewise, in the Bush administration, the Pentagon has its own foreign policy, which competes with and often trumps the foreign policy of the State Department and the National Security Council. Thus, Gen. Myers is pointing fingers at Iran and Syria and making all sorts of wild accusations at them, darkly hinting they will be overthrown if they don't shape up. And Colin Powell is writing them polite letters about bilateral relations and could they please use their good offices to help the Americans in Iraq. It is bizarre, and the urbane, canny leaders in Damascus and Tehran (who have long experience of residence in the UK and Germany respectively), must be scratching their heads in wonder at this Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde American hyperpower that rages about an axis of evil and goes about preemptively invading countries on the one hand and then comes politely, hat in hand, to request selfless assistance on the other.
www.juancole.com
Condi Warns, Predicts?, Welcomes?
The smile that slipped in as she uttered this was not reassuring.
The United States is bracing for possible terrorist attacks before the November presidential election, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice said Sunday.
The opportunity for terrorists to try to influence the election, as was the case last month in Spain, appears to be an opportunity that would "be too good to pass up for them," Rice said.. http://apnews1.iwon.com//article/20040418/D821A60G0.html
9/11 Commission: Summary Statement
…now, after three weeks of extraordinary public hearings and a dozen detailed reports, the lengthy documentary record makes clear that predictions of an attack by Al Qaeda had been communicated directly to the highest levels of the government.
The threat reports were more clear, urgent and persistent than was previously known. Some focused on Al Qaeda's plans to use commercial aircraft as weapons. Others stated that Osama bin Laden was intent on striking on United States soil. Many were passed to the Federal Aviation Administration.
While some of the intelligence went back years, other warnings — including one that Al Qaeda seemed interested in hijacking a plane inside this country — had been delivered to the president on Aug. 6, 2001, just a month before the attacks.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/18/politics/18SEPT.html?hp
There were others who were preparing for planes as missiles. From USA Today (Steven Komarow, Tom Squitieri)
NORAD had drills of jets as weapons
In the two years before the Sept. 11 attacks, the North American Aerospace Defense Command conducted exercises simulating what the White House says was unimaginable at the time: hijacked airliners used as weapons to crash into targets and cause mass casualties.
In a third scenario, the target was the Pentagon — but that drill was not run after Defense officials said it was unrealistic, NORAD and Defense officials say.
NORAD, in a written statement, confirmed that such hijacking exercises occurred. It said the scenarios outlined were regional drills, not regularly scheduled continent-wide exercises.
http://usatoday.printthis.clickability.com/pt/cpt?action=cpt&title=USATODAY.com+-+NORAD+had+drills+of+jets+as+weapons&expire=&urlID=9961878&fb=Y&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.usatoday.com%2Fnews%2Fwashington%2F2004-04-18-norad_x.htm&partnerID=1660
Our Politicized Government: You work for them, or you’re out. I’ve previously noted the politicization of the Treasury, as employees had to assess Kerry's economic proposal.
The following 2 non-consecutive paragraphs are part of a posting on the Treasury’s site:
While nobody likes paying taxes, the Treasury Department and the Internal Revenue Service have been working to make the burden of paying taxes a little easier. E-filing and electronic services offered on IRS.gov are seeing big increases this year. Taxpayers can use these services and follow other simple steps to help make tax time easier.
And,
America has a choice: It can continue to grow the economy and create new jobs as the President's policies are doing; or it can raise taxes on American families and small businesses, hurting economic recovery and future job creation. http://www.ustreas.gov/press/releases/js1313.htm
Compare that with a Republican National Committee fact sheet that reads:
America has a choice: It can continue to grow the economy and create new jobs as the President's polices are doing; or it can raise taxes on American families and small businesses, hurting economic recovery and future job creation. http://www.rnc.org/News/Read.aspx?ID=4069
At the NRA Convention:
Bush "has shown you respect, earned your vote and appreciates your support," Cheney said. [...]
Earlier in the day, Tom Mauser, whose son, Daniel, was killed with an assault weapon in the Columbine High School killings five years ago, tried to enter the convention hall where the NRA was meeting, seeking to urge Cheney to support extending the assault weapons ban.
Mauser was turned away by a security guard as several conventioneers applauded. A couple of conventioneers yelled "Get a life" and "Vote for Bush." http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=519&e=4&u=/ap/20040418/ap_on_re_us/nra_convention_cheney
Good News: Senate Races, Conservative Split
(1) Many races are looking more promising than only 2 months ago. The Bush drop in polls has undoubtedly raised the prospects of several senatorial candidates, raising the possibility of the Democrats having a short of taking back the Senate.
(2) Many conservatives have their qualms with the Administration. Those of us who favored a more muscular approach to American foreign policy and a more Wilsonian view of our efforts in Iraq find ourselves pitted against more traditional conservatives, who have more isolationist instincts to begin with, and they are more willing to say, `Bring the boys home,' " Mr. Weinstein said.
Richard A. Viguerie, a conservative stalwart and the dean of conservative direct mail, said the Iraq war had created an unusual schism. "I can't think of any other issue that has divided conservatives as much as this issue in my political lifetime," Mr. Viguerie said. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/19/politics/19CONS.html
Kerry as Blunt Centrist
He’s making clear that he’ll be outspoken, but that he’s no liberal. While most will overlook much (“anyone but Bush”!), we should keep his centrism in mind.
Also, a friend sent me the following.
Just came across a bit of information regarding Kerry and his claim of the Bush administration sending jobs abroad. Well, it seems that the Heinz Corporation, owned by Kerry's wife, has 79 plants where it manufactures products and 57 of the 79 are located in countries outside of the U.S. How many U.S. jobs are lost here???
Factories located at: Taipei, Taiwan (makes Heinz baby foods) Dublin, Ireland; Paris, France; Dovarmenez, France; Lisbon, Portugal; Madrid, Spain; Milan, Italy; Monguzzo, Italy; Athens, Greece; Warsaw,Poland; Pudliszki, Poland; Wodzislaw, Poland; Miedzychod, Poland; Moscow, Russia; Georgievisk, Russia; Cairo, Egypt; Tel Aviv, Israel, etc.
-R
