Friday, May 14, 2004
Rob Corddry: How does one report the facts in an unbiased way when the facts themselves are biased?
Jon Stewart: I'm sorry, Rob, did you say the facts are biased?
Corddry: That's right Jon. From the names of our fallen soldiers to the gradual withdrawal of our allies to the growing insurgency, it's become all too clear that facts in Iraq have an anti-Bush agenda.
-The Daily Show
The American military--not as bad as al Qaeda!
Many die-hards have been unearthed by the beheading, asserting that ‘war is hell; let’s get it done’. Or, as the Administration put out
The Bush administration said those who beheaded Berg would be hunted down and brought to justice. The White House condemned the killing, which it said reinforced its insistence that US abuses of prisoners paled in comparison with the crimes of its enemies. http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1215103,00.html
Krugman on Oil The columnist returns to our problematic future
…the last time oil prices were this high, on the eve of the 1991 gulf war, there was a lot of spare capacity in the world, so there was room to cope with a major supply disruption if it happened. This time there isn't…
Still, if there is a major supply disruption, the world will have to get by with less oil, and the only way that can happen in the short run is if there is a world economic slowdown. An oil-driven recession does not look at all far-fetched.
It is, all in all, an awkward time to be pursuing a foreign policy that promises a radical transformation of the Middle East — let alone to be botching the job so completely. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/14/opinion/14KRUG.html?hp
Economy: When the election is over matters could become really dicey. Aside from indebtedness and personal bankruptcies being at all-time highs, the deficits- trade, as well as the ballooned domestic budget- ongoing tax cuts, vulnerability of housing market, etc. are very worrisome. Some of the issues:
Corporate Tax Relief: Just what was needed.
Helen Dewar of the Washington Post reports
The Senate yesterday broke a two-month deadlock and approved a major corporate tax bill that would end a trade dispute with Europe and shower U.S. corporations with billions in new tax breaks.
The bill, approved 92 to 5, would provide $170 billion in corporate tax cuts over the next decade to replace export subsidies previously granted to U.S. firms by Congress that prompted $4 billion in retaliatory tariffs by the European Union.
A different House version of the legislation has been stalled for months by disagreements among Republicans. But key senators said they believe Senate passage would help break the House logjam in time for enactment of the legislation later this year, and several House aides said they agreed with this assessment…
The corporate tax measure was prompted when the World Trade Organization outlawed about $5 billion in U.S. export subsidies and the European Union imposed retaliatory tariffs on an array of American-made products. The duties, imposed in March at 5 percent, are now 7 percent and would rise monthly until they reach 17 percent next March.
Passage was important to demonstrate that the United States abides by its trade agreements, to end the punitive European tariffs, to encourage domestic manufacturing and to close some "very abused corporate tax loopholes," said Finance Committee Chairman Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa), chief sponsor of the bill...
A proposal by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) to strip out the energy provisions was defeated, 85 to 13, after senators of both parties argued that the energy tax breaks would help increase domestic production and create jobs.
McCain said the tax breaks amounted to a "shameless scam" that would help profitable industries and protect dubious technologies. The bill "has grown into a $170 billion Christmas tree of goodies for every conceivable special interest," McCain said. http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A18980-2004May11?language=printer
Record US trade deficit, as viewed by the BBC
The US trade gap has surged during December to a record $44.2bn, as Americans choose to buy foreign goods rather than stimulate their own economy.
The figures - called the "grand canyon of trade deficits" by one analyst - came as separate data hinted at the possible return of inflation, which has been hovering close to zero.
The gloomy data - compounded by continuing worries about a possible war in Iraq - depressed hopes of an early economic recovery.
They also weighed heavily on stock prices, with the Dow Jones industrial average dropping 86 points, or 1.1%, to close at 7,915.
Record deficits
Tim Anderson, a senior trader at Salomon Smith Barney in New York said: "People aren't terribly convinced about the economic recovery or the extent to which the Bush economic stimulus plan will be passed, on top of dealing with a lot of uncertainty about Iraq." http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/2785857.stm
Kuttner on Greenspan and Economic Mismanagement:
But like Bush, Greenspan uses the immense deficits as a rationale to keep cutting social outlays.
The deficits are now projected at $400 billion this year and at comparably destructive levels for the indefinite future. The tax cuts are responsible for more than $3 trillion in long-term revenue losses over 10 years. And Greenspan hasn't even spoken out against the president's campaign to make the cuts permanent.
Just imagine the outcry from Greenspan, Wall Street, and the Republican Party if these deficits had been the result of social spending rather than tax cuts for America's wealthiest. For half of the cost of the projected deficits -- $200 billion a year -- we could have universal, high-quality child care and health insurance for all Americans. Think of that…
What gets lost is the fact that taxing and spending involve political choices. One path involves slightly higher tax rates on America's most privileged in order to pay for decent public services. The other path allows the deserving rich, such as the children of the wealthiest 2 percent of families, to forgo taxation at the expense of needed social outlay. This is the real national choice that is cynically obscured by the running up of endless deficits. http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2004/05/12/what_greenspan_wont_admit_about_deficit?mode=PF
What’s Happening, Middle East: Many more deaths in Israel and Gaza. It deserves “our” attention.
What’s Happening, Iraq: Reports are proliferating that the professional class is abandoning the country. In response to a growing number of kidnappings of professionals and their children, many have finally concluded that life is too tenuous in chaotic Iraq.
Meanwhile, some fighting, more deaths. The Bushies push on, ignoring Reality.
Abuse: Under wraps since January
(1) Powell says Bush was 'informed' of Red Cross concerns
Officials advised president 'in general terms' about reports of abuse, he says
BALTIMORE SUN (MARK MATTHEWS)
Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said yesterday that he and other top officials kept President Bush "fully informed ... in general terms" about complaints made by the Red Cross and others over ill-treatment of detainees in U.S. custody.
Powell's statement suggests Bush may have known earlier than the White House has acknowledged about complaints raised by the International Committee of the Red Cross and human rights groups regarding abuse of detainees in Iraq. http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/nationworld/bal-te.powell12may12,0,2804533.story?coll=bal-news-nation
(2) Seymour Hersh:
Secrecy and wishful thinking, the Pentagon official said, are defining characteristics of Rumsfeld’s Pentagon, and shaped its response to the reports from Abu Ghraib. “They always want to delay the release of bad news—in the hope that something good will break,” he said. The habit of procrastination in the face of bad news led to disconnects between Rumsfeld and the Army staff officers who were assigned to planning for troop requirements in Iraq. A year ago, the Pentagon official told me, when it became clear that the Army would have to call up more reserve units to deal with the insurgency, “we had call-up orders that languished for thirty or forty days in the office of the Secretary of Defense.” Rumsfeld’s staff always seemed to be waiting for something to turn up—for the problem to take care of itself, without any additional troops. The official explained, “They were hoping that they wouldn’t have to make a decision.” The delay meant that soldiers in some units about to be deployed had only a few days to prepare wills and deal with other family and financial issues.
The same deliberate indifference to bad news was evident in the past year, the Pentagon official said, when the Army conducted a series of elaborate war games. http://www.newyorker.com/printable/?fact/040517fa_fact2
Interesting Old Post: Still more evidence of the transfer of energy and resources from “terrorism” to Iraq: The Administration yielded their chances to zap terrorists since it would hurt their chances to justify attacking Saddam.
MSNBC’s Jim Miklaszewski (March 2):
…long before the war the Bush administration had several chances to wipe out his terrorist operation and perhaps kill Zarqawi himself — but never pulled the trigger.
In June 2002, U.S. officials say intelligence had revealed that Zarqawi and members of al-Qaida had set up a weapons lab at Kirma, in northern Iraq, producing deadly ricin and cyanide.
The Pentagon quickly drafted plans to attack the camp with cruise missiles and airstrikes and sent it to the White House, where, according to U.S. government sources, the plan was debated to death in the National Security Council…
People were more obsessed with developing the coalition to overthrow Saddam than to execute the president’s policy of preemption against terrorists,” according to terrorism expert and former National Security Council member Roger Cressey.
In January 2003, the threat turned real. Police in London arrested six terror suspects and discovered a ricin lab connected to the camp in Iraq.
The Pentagon drew up still another attack plan, and for the third time, the National Security Council killed it.
Military officials insist their case for attacking Zarqawi’s operation was airtight, but the administration feared destroying the terrorist camp in Iraq could undercut its case for war against Saddam. http://msnbc.msn.com/id/4431601/
Feisty Congress: Now they’re raising more questions, speaking out… A sample from Teddy, who refused to be hushed. Friday’s NY Times:
The hearing veered early toward a major partisan clash when Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts, objected to an effort by the committee chairman, Senator John W. Warner, Republican of Virginia, to limit the scope of questions to the $25 billion reserve fund.
"I've been on this committee for 24 years, I've been in the Senate 42 years, and I have never been denied the opportunity to question any person that's come before a committee, on what I wanted to ask for it," Mr. Kennedy said, his voice booming. "I resent it and reject it on a matter of national importance. And we're talking about prison abuses."
Mr. Warner backed down, noting that Mr. Wolfowitz's opening statement had opened the door to a broader line of questioning. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/14/politics/14MILI.html?hp=&pagewanted=print&position=
Chomsky on Getting Out, and then…
Reconstruction should be in the hands of Iraqis, not delayed as a means of controlling them, as Washington has indicated.
Reparations - not just aid - should be provided by those responsible for devastating Iraqi civilian society by cruel sanctions and military actions, and - together with other criminal states - for supporting Saddam Hussein through his worst atrocities and beyond. That is the minimum that honesty requires. http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1214967,00.html
Tom Friedman Gives It Up
Sign of the Times. Middle-roaders and conservatives are steadily deserting the slowly sinking ship. The NY Times op ed columnist who has cheered the Invasion has surrendered. He notes: "It is time to ask this question: Do we have any chance of succeeding at regime change in Iraq without regime change here at home?" Declaring that the Administration cares much less about Iraq than about its own election, he regretfully announces that the Iraq policy necessitates change at the Top.
I was wrong. There is something even more important to the Bush crowd than getting Iraq right, and that's getting re-elected and staying loyal to the conservative base to do so…
Why, in the face of the Abu Ghraib travesty, wouldn't the administration make some uniquely American gesture? Because these folks have no clue how to export hope. They would never think of saying, "Let's close this prison immediately and reopen it in a month as the Abu Ghraib Technical College for Computer Training — with all the equipment donated by Dell, H.P. and Microsoft." Why didn't the administration ever use 9/11 as a spur to launch a Manhattan project for energy independence and conservation, so we could break out of our addiction to crude oil, slowly disengage from this region and speak truth to fundamentalist regimes, such as Saudi Arabia? (Addicts never tell the truth to their pushers.) Because that might have required a gas tax or a confrontation with the administration's oil moneymen. Why did the administration always — rightly — bash Yasir Arafat, but never lift a finger or utter a word to stop Ariel Sharon's massive building of illegal settlements in the West Bank? Because while that might have earned America credibility in the Middle East, it might have cost the Bush campaign Jewish votes in Florida.
And, of course, why did the president praise Mr. Rumsfeld rather than fire him? Because Karl Rove says to hold the conservative base, you must always appear to be strong, decisive and loyal. It is more important that the president appear to be true to his team than that America appear to be true to its principles. (Here's the new Rummy Defense: "I am accountable. But the little guys were responsible. I was just giving orders.")
Add it all up, and you see how we got so off track in Iraq, why we are dancing alone in the world — and why our president, who has a strong moral vision, has no moral influence. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/13/opinion/13FRIE.html?hp=&pagewanted=print&position=
and CNN conservative Tucker Carlson:
“I think it’s a total nightmare and disaster, and I’m ashamed that I went against my own instincts in supporting it," he said. "It’s something I’ll never do again. Never. I got convinced by a friend of mine who’s smarter than I am, and I shouldn’t have done that. No. I want things to work out, but I’m enraged by it, actually." http://www.observer.com/pages/nytv.asp
VP Rumors:
This is pure speculation, based on several quasi-sources. Despite speculation re Mr. Integrity, John McCain- regardless of his many non-progressive positions- the more likely candidates are Gephardt (sigh), Wesley Clark, John Edwards, (Gov.) John Vilsack (Iowa), and last, apparently, Bill Richardson. If Kerry’s camp is creative, they should select his friend McCain for Defense, especially if announced at the Convention.
-R
Wednesday, May 12, 2004
The Bush administration still seeks to mislead Congress and the public about the policies that contributed to the criminal abuse of prisoners in Iraq. Yesterday's smoke screen was provided by Stephen A. Cambone…But if President Bush and his senior officials would acknowledge their complicity in playing fast and loose with international law and would pledge to change course, they might begin to find a way out of the mess. Instead, they hope to escape from this scandal without altering or even admitting the improper and illegal policies that lie at its core. It is a vain hope, and Congress should insist on a different response. –WaPost Wednesday editorial http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A19207-2004May11.html
Before returning, inevitably, to Iraq…
Shorties:
- Who’s investigating the use of funds approved for use in Afghanistan being spent instead on Iraq in 2002? [At least some questions, as per Tuesday’s WaPost, http://65.54.186.250/cgi-bin/linkrd?_lang=EN&lah=965c16eaf2f3f857fa1e70c77f0ca4c1&lat=1084315190&hm___action=http%3a%2f%2fletters%2ewashingtonpost%2ecom%2fW4RH05819967AEBA439543E2638D1
- When will we hear re the Plame investigation, as to the Administration figures who outed agent Valerie Plame, wife of ex-ambassador Joseph Wilson?
- Who remembers Bush saying the day the Invasion began that the troops were sent to “defend the world from grave danger”. Grave danger?
-Why- oh, I know why, but I’ll go on- is there no call for Rummy to be charged with something like “criminal negligence”, why is no one but Nader calling for the impeachment of Bush, and why haven’t McCain and other conservatives with integrity deserted Bush? (More on the latter, below)
- The Bin Laden Family has a shot at building the world’s tallest building. Very weird, but true. From the Pakistan News Service:
Osama bin Laden's family business is on the short list of contractors bidding to build the world's tallest skyscraper.
It may seem tragically ironic that the name most closely associated with the destruction of New York's World Trade Center may soon be associated with the construction of the world's tallest building.
But, nevertheless, according to officials in Dubai – the site of the Burj Dubai, scheduled for completion in 2008 – that is more than a distinct possibility.
The Saudi Binladen Group, the biggest developer in the kingdom, begun by Osama bin Laden's father, is in the running for the project. http://paktribune.com/news/index.php?id=64445
- Well-connected and respected journalist Josh Marshall learns of ”chatter in Pakistani intelligence circles that the US has let the Pakistanis know that the optimal time for bagging 'high value' al Qaida suspects in the untamed Afghan-Pakistani border lands is the last ten days of July, 2004.” In other words, embarrassing the Democrats as they convene their convention. http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/
Job Creation?
One suspected that the much ballyhooed creation of 500,000+ jobs the last two months meant more part-time or temporary “service” jobs of lessened pay and benefits. Now, from the unlikely source, the once great, now very conservative NY Post, (John Crudele), comes an article that accuses the Labor Department of misleading estimating of job gains. The post is rather long. Give it a shot.
Don’t get too excited about all those new jobs that were supposed to have been created in April.
I'm not going to waste a lot of my precious space on this, but the bottom line is that most of the 288,000 jobs that the Labor Department says were created last month may not really exist.
They could be figments of statisticians' optimism.
Anyone who plodded through my column last Thursday knows I predicted that job growth in April would be better than the 160,000 to 170,000 jobs that the "pros" were anticipating.
But I also said, quite emphatically I hope, that the stronger growth would be an illusion - the result of the Labor Department's computers making happy predictions about seasonal job creation that could neither be verified nor justified.
I'll explain one aspect.
Back in the March employment report, the government added 153,000 positions to its revised total of 337,000 new jobs because it thought (but couldn't prove) loads of new companies were being created in this economy.
That estimate comes from the Labor Department's "birth/death model." You can look up these numbers on the Department's Web site.
As staggering as the assumption about new companies was in March, the Labor Department got even more brazen in April.
Last Friday, it was disclosed that these imaginary jobs had been increased by 117,000 to 270,000 for the latest month - because, I guess, the stat jockeys got a vision from the gods of spring.
Without those extra 117,000 make-believe jobs, the total growth for April would have been just 171,000 - sub-par for an economy that's supposed to be growing at more than 4 percent a year, but right on the pros' targets.
Take away all 270,000 make-believe jobs and, well, you have the sort of pessimism that the political pollsters are seeing.
If I was the suspicious type (and if I thought Washington was smart enough), I'd suspect a nasty motive behind the sudden surge in these mystery jobs. But for now, let's just acknowledge their existence. http://nypost.com/business/23936.htm
More Warnings: Oil is Running Out:
It’s not pleasant. Let’s get busy. From the Wall Street Journal:
As the global economy roars ahead with more factories churning out consumer goods and more cars hitting the streets, demand for oil may outstrip supply. World-wide use is forecast to rise more than 50% to 121 million barrels a day by 2025, from 80 million barrels a day now. In China and India, the world's most populous countries, economic growth is powered by and in turn fueling a thirst for oil.
Experts warn that without alternative fuel sources, the need for oil could pit massive consumers such as the U.S. against China and India. Gal Luft, executive director of the Institute for Analysis of Global Security, an energy-policy think tank, warns, "While the U.S. is absorbed in fighting the war on terror, the seeds of what could be the next world war are quietly germinating. ... By 2030, China is expected to have more cars than the U.S. and import as much oil as the U.S. does today." Although India's economy isn't growing as fast, its oil consumption is skyrocketing.
Both countries are paying little heed to the environmental and medical consequences of development and argue that other countries industrialized without concern for carbon emissions.
http://online.wsj.com/documents/info-aoil04.html?printVersion=true
David Brock:
I mentioned his web site; here’s a tad from an interview on Salon, addressing the development of the Republican attack machine.
In 1986 I was working at a sister publication of the Washington Times, Insight magazine, and I then became an editorial writer at the Washington Times. And I don't think it had happened during that period because the paper had the same circulation it has today, about 100,000 readers, and it was considered to be a suspect, unreliable right-wing publication. It had, from the inside, very little impact in getting its message off the page; its stories didn't really go anywhere. But then a few things happened: Limbaugh went to national syndication in '88, and then you had the proliferation of cable, and then you had the Internet. So today, 16 years later, someone writes something in the Washington Times that may be unreliable, but it resonates because Limbaugh could read it on the air, or [Matt] Drudge could post it, or the author could go on Bill O'Reilly's show. So it's a completely different climate. During the '90s the flow of misinformation was established.
How do you think the press has treated John Kerry over the past few months?
Clearly there's already some evidence of a phenomenon I describe in the book of the ability of the right-wing media to project a caricature. For instance, [Media Matters noted] that Drudge wrote an item about a hairstylist being flown in for Kerry before his appearance on "Meet the Press." There was no sourcing, so one didn't know what to make of it. Then I believe the [next step in the] chain was that Jay Leno mentioned it in a joke, which is fine. Then the AP and Reuters reported the Leno joke. Then Linda Vester on Fox the next day claimed that Fox News had independently confirmed the story, but her story didn't provide any sourcing, so we didn't know what to make of that. And then [Fox anchor] Brit Hume asserted the same thing later in the day.
So this is the kind of problem we are already seeing for Kerry -- that's the climate a candidate has to live in. The right can distort anything it wants. The playing field is so unlevel; there's a systematic disadvantage. http://www.salon.com/books/feature/2004/05/11/right/print.html
More Conservative Angst re Bush
Washington Post’s Dana Milbank and Jonathan Weisman
After three years of sweeping actions in both foreign and domestic affairs, the Bush administration is facing complaints from the conservative intelligentsia that it has lost its ability to produce fresh policies.
The centerpiece of President Bush's foreign policy -- the effort to transform Iraq into a peaceful democracy -- has been undermined by a deadly insurrection and broadcast photos of brutality by U.S. prison guards. On the domestic side, conservatives and former administration officials say the White House policy apparatus is moribund, with policies driven by political expediency or ideological pressure rather than by facts and expertise.
Conservatives have become unusually restive. Last Tuesday, columnist George F. Will sharply criticized the administration's Iraq policy, writing: "This administration cannot be trusted to govern if it cannot be counted on to think and, having thought, to have second thoughts." Two days earlier, Robert Kagan, a neoconservative supporter of the Iraq war, wrote: "All but the most blindly devoted Bush supporters can see that Bush administration officials have no clue about what to do in Iraq tomorrow, much less a month from now."
The complaints about Bush's Iraq policy are relatively new, but they are in some ways similar to long-standing criticism about Bush's domestic policies. In a book released earlier this year, former Bush Treasury secretary Paul H. O'Neill described Bush as "a blind man in a room full of deaf people" and said policymakers put politics before sound policy judgments.
Echoing a criticism leveled by former Bush aide John J. DiIulio Jr., who famously described "Mayberry Machiavellis" running the White House, O'Neill said "the biggest difference" between his time in government in the 1970s and in the Bush administration "is that our group was mostly about evidence and analysis, and Karl [Rove], Dick [Cheney], [Bush communications strategist] Karen [Hughes] and the gang seemed to be mostly about politics." http://65.54.186.250/cgi-bin/linkrd?_lang=EN&lah=723e6d297271eebfc234d237651c0f0b&lat=1084195154&hm___action=http%3a%2f%2fletters%2ewashingtonpost%2ecom%2fW4RH0582713EFEBA439543E281C0C
And, from Army Times:
But while responsibility begins with the six soldiers facing criminal charges, it extends all the way up the chain of command to the highest reaches of the military hierarchy and its civilian leadership.
The entire affair is a failure of leadership from start to finish. From the moment they are captured, prisoners are hooded, shackled and isolated. The message to the troops: Anything goes. http://www.armytimes.com/story.php?f=1-292925-2903288.php et’s
Not to Forget Syria:
President Bush this week will levy economic sanctions against Syria for supporting terrorism and not doing enough to prevent militant fighters from entering neighboring Iraq, congressional and administration sources said Monday.
The sanctions, which the White House will impose as early as Tuesday, are being ordered because the administration believes Syria has aggravated tensions in the Middle East by supporting militant groups. http://www.salon.com/news/wire/2004/05/10/syria_sanctions/index.html
But What About the Poor?
Poor 'are paying for war on terror'
Mark Tran in The Guardian
Some of the world's poorest people are paying for the "war on terror" as governments cut aid budgets or switch their priorities to address security issues, a leading charity said today.
The Christian Aid report, entitled The Politics of Poverty, said that aid was being politicised as it had been during the cold war. It accused the US of leading the trend.
"We seem to be drifting back to the darkest days of the cold war, to a time when aid was just as liable to prop up dictators and their regimes as it was to build hospitals or drill wells," the report said. http://society.guardian.co.uk/aid/story/0,14178,1213525,00.html
Venezuela
Some assert that Venezuela has 348 billion barrels of what’s termed proven oil reserves, substantially more than Iraq, and compared to Saudi Arabia’s 261 billion. We know the Bush administration is discomforted by our importing up to 13% of our oil from the regime of maverick populist Hugo Chavez. They’re tying to get rid of him.
The latest development was the arrest of 56 mercenaries, mostly from Colombia.
Venezuelan opposition groups brought the Colombians, now being held on a military base, to the South American country's capital to help overthrow the government, Chavez said.
``This is the tip of the iceberg of subversive groups in Venezuela,'' Chavez said during a televised speech. ``They were planning to kill me.''
Opponents of Chavez have been trying for about two years to force the former paratrooper from office, following a failed coup in April 2002. Chavez may face a recall vote in August.
The Democratic Coordinator, which organizes several opposition groups, had ``nothing to do'' with any plot to kill Chavez, opposition leader Felipe Mujica said, according to newspaper El Nacional's web site.
Chavez also said the United States was plotting to kill Cuban President Fidel Castro. Calls to the U.S. Embassy in Caracas were not answered.
http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000086&sid=aDA.cL.T6OYs&refer=latin_america#
And, in Colombia
About 1,000 US military personnel plus numerous “contractors” are in Colombia as “trainers” and “advisers” The White House wants to augment their number. But there is an official denial of such.
"The United States has neither plans nor intentions to send US troops to Colombia," the embassy said in a communique released here.
The declaration was made to deny previous statements by Coffer Black, coordinator of the US State Department's anti-terror office, who said Washington would support with military forces in fights against Colombian illegal armed groups.
The US government "will continue to support the programs of the Colombian government with military assistance and training" but would not send troops, said the embassy.
Colombia has been locked in a four-decade civil war, the longest in Latin America, in which government forces, leftist guerrillas and far-right paramilitarists fight one another. The conflicts kill 3,500 people on average every year. http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2004-05/08/content_1456359.htm
Iraq is but one Center for Abuse
Dana Priest and Joe Stephens of the Washington Post have done a three-parter. Here’s #3.
In Afghanistan, the CIA's secret U.S. interrogation center in Kabul is known as "The Pit," named for its despairing conditions. In Iraq, the most important prisoners are kept in a huge hangar near the runway at Baghdad International Airport, say U.S. government officials, counterterrorism experts and others. In Qatar, U.S. forces have been ferrying some Iraqi prisoners to a remote jail on the gigantic U.S. air base in the desert.
The Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, where a unit of U.S. soldiers abused prisoners, is just the largest and suddenly most notorious in a worldwide constellation of detention centers -- many of them secret and all off-limits to public scrutiny -- that the U.S. military and CIA have operated in the name of counterterrorism or counterinsurgency operations since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
These prisons and jails are sometimes as small as shipping containers and as large as the sprawling Guantanamo Bay complex in Cuba. They are part of an elaborate CIA and military infrastructure whose purpose is to hold suspected terrorists or insurgents for interrogation and safekeeping while avoiding U.S. or international court systems, where proceedings and evidence against the accused would be aired in public. Some are even held by foreign governments at the informal request of the United States.
"The number of people who have been detained in the Arab world for the sake of America is much more than in Guantanamo Bay. Really, thousands," said Najeeb Nuaimi, a former justice minister of Qatar who is representing the families of dozens of prisoners.
The largely hidden array includes three systems that only rarely overlap: the Pentagon-run network of prisons, jails and holding facilities in Iraq, Afghanistan, Guantanamo and elsewhere; small and secret CIA-run facilities where top al Qaeda and other figures are kept; and interrogation rooms of foreign intelligence services -- some with documented records of torture -- to which the U.S. government delivers or "renders" mid- or low-level terrorism suspects for questioning.
All told, more than 9,000 people are held by U.S. authorities overseas, according to Pentagon figures and estimates by intelligence experts, the vast majority under military control. http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A15981-2004May10?language=printer
Abuse in Afghanistan:
From Wednesday’s NY Times (Carlotta Gall):
A former Afghan police colonel gave a graphic account in an interview this week of being subjected to beating, kicking, sleep deprivation, taunts and sexual abuse during about 40 days he spent in American custody in Afghanistan last summer. He also said he had been repeatedly photographed, often while naked. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/12/international/asia/12AFGH.html?ex=1399694400&en=a88932b0d553dbe1&ei=5007&partner=USERLAND
Red Cross: Up to 90% of Iraqi detainees arrested by mistake (Alexander G. Higgins)
Up to 90 percent of Iraqi detainees were arrested ''by mistake,'' according to coalition intelligence officers cited in a Red Cross report disclosed Monday.
Abuse of Iraqi prisoners by American soldiers was widespread and routine, the report finds -- contrary to President Bush's contention that the mistreatment ''was the wrongdoing of a few.''
Red Cross delegates saw U.S. military intelligence officers mistreating prisoners under interrogation at Abu Ghraib prison and collected allegations of abuse at more than 10 other detention facilities, according to the report.
The 24-page document cites abuses -- some ''tantamount to torture'' -- including brutality, hooding, humiliation and threats of ''imminent execution.'' http://www.suntimes.com/cgi-bin/print.cgi
Wall Street Journal (David S. Cloud) re Red Cross reports
The Red Cross report indicates that some complaints brought an allied response, while others didn't. More than a year ago, on April 1, 2003, officials from the International Committee of the Red Cross complained at coalition forces headquarters in Qatar about treatment of detainees at a British-run internment camp in the Iraqi port town of Umm Qasr, the report says.
A meeting with the political adviser to the senior British commander in Qatar appears to have brought quick results. It "had the immediate effect [of stopping] the systematic use of hoods and flexi-cuffs in the interrogation section of Umm Qasr," according to the ICRC report, which details the results of its inspections in Iraq.
But during the next year, the ICRC encountered far more resistance when it raised concerns about the mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners, especially those in the custody of military intelligence, the report says. The U.S. military was sometimes slow to respond to Red Cross complaints and ignored them in a few cases.
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB108414473392906282,00.html?mod=home_whats_news_us
Terrorism on the Rise
From Knight Ridder:
A series of recent developments in the war on terrorism, barely noticed in the United States, suggests that global Islamic extremism is spreading.
On Monday, Turkish authorities charged nine people, believed to be part of an al-Qaida-linked group, in connection with planning to bomb next month's NATO summit in Istanbul, which President Bush is scheduled to attend. That followed the April 26 televised confessions of suspects allegedly caught trying to build a chemical bomb, which authorities said could have killed tens of thousands in Jordan's capital, Amman.
In Saudi Arabia, authorities weren't so successful. On May 1, militants shot dead two Americans, two Britons and an Australian at an oil company's offices. On May 3, a car bomb exploded in southwestern Pakistan, killing three Chinese engineers who had been building a multimillion-dollar seaport.
In Syria on April 27, a gym teacher died in a cross fire between extremists and police. In Thailand the next day, police killed 108 Muslim militants who'd allegedly attacked police stations trying to seize guns, though that incident has overtones of longstanding ethnic strife. In Spain, an indictment issued April 29 alleges that one of the Moroccans accused in connection with the Madrid train bombings is also linked to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. In Indonesia on April 30, protesters rioted after a radical cleric was arrested again on charges linking him to the 2002 nightclub bombings in Bali, which killed 202 people.
On Thursday, the FBI took into custody Oregon lawyer Brandon Mayfield, in connection with the Madrid train bombings, which killed 191 people and injured 2,000.
Many of these events, all within the past two weeks, received scant attention in the United States, where the Iraq prisoner abuse scandal dominates news headlines. But they are the most recent indications that the threat of Islamic terrorism - and the transnational battles against it - are intensifying.
The recent episodes show that law enforcement and intelligence agencies across Europe and the Middle East have been able to prevent terrorist attacks and have vigorously pursued those accused of planning them. Yet the military and police actions haven't stopped extremists from hatching chilling new plots. http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/8623725.htm
Republican Campaign:
President Bush is resolved not to repeat what he thinks were the two fundamental blunders of his father's one-term presidency: abandoning Iraq and failing to vanquish the Democrats.
In one of several exclusive interviews with The Washington Times, Mr. Bush said his father had "cut and run early" from Iraq in 1991.
Mr. Bush also said Sen. John Kerry would "regret" disparaging the U.S.-led coalition that liberated Iraq, promising to use the Massachusetts Democrat's words against him in the election campaign. [...]
White House political strategist Karl Rove, in one of the lengthy interviews with The Times granted by senior administration officials, also detailed how the Bush campaign intends to paint Mr. Kerry as a condescending elitist, who is pro-tax, weak on defense and on the wrong side in the culture wars.
White House Chief of Staff Andrew H. Card Jr. described Mr. Kerry as a John F. Kennedy "wannabe," who lacks the mettle to be president. Mr. Card, who also worked for the first President Bush, said when it comes to running for re-election, the son is much more engaged and far less complacent than the father. http://washingtontimes.com/national/20040510-122703-4851r.htm
Loose-lipped O’Reilly: Liberals as Fidelistas
Seems that Bill O’Reilly, the repugnant, lying liar on Fox, has been characterizing various liberal types as “confidants” of Fidel Castro. Molly Ivins, Arianna Huffington, Bill Maher and now journalist Eric Alterman have received the designation, arguably actionable as “malicious intent” to defame character and demonstrating ‘reckless disregard’ for the truth, etc. Alterman asks on his web site, below, whether anyone wants to take on his case, pro bono. http://msnbc.msn.com/id/3449870/ http://mediamatters.org/items/200405040007
-R
Before returning, inevitably, to Iraq…
Shorties:
- Who’s investigating the use of funds approved for use in Afghanistan being spent instead on Iraq in 2002? [At least some questions, as per Tuesday’s WaPost, http://65.54.186.250/cgi-bin/linkrd?_lang=EN&lah=965c16eaf2f3f857fa1e70c77f0ca4c1&lat=1084315190&hm___action=http%3a%2f%2fletters%2ewashingtonpost%2ecom%2fW4RH05819967AEBA439543E2638D1
- When will we hear re the Plame investigation, as to the Administration figures who outed agent Valerie Plame, wife of ex-ambassador Joseph Wilson?
- Who remembers Bush saying the day the Invasion began that the troops were sent to “defend the world from grave danger”. Grave danger?
-Why- oh, I know why, but I’ll go on- is there no call for Rummy to be charged with something like “criminal negligence”, why is no one but Nader calling for the impeachment of Bush, and why haven’t McCain and other conservatives with integrity deserted Bush? (More on the latter, below)
- The Bin Laden Family has a shot at building the world’s tallest building. Very weird, but true. From the Pakistan News Service:
Osama bin Laden's family business is on the short list of contractors bidding to build the world's tallest skyscraper.
It may seem tragically ironic that the name most closely associated with the destruction of New York's World Trade Center may soon be associated with the construction of the world's tallest building.
But, nevertheless, according to officials in Dubai – the site of the Burj Dubai, scheduled for completion in 2008 – that is more than a distinct possibility.
The Saudi Binladen Group, the biggest developer in the kingdom, begun by Osama bin Laden's father, is in the running for the project. http://paktribune.com/news/index.php?id=64445
- Well-connected and respected journalist Josh Marshall learns of ”chatter in Pakistani intelligence circles that the US has let the Pakistanis know that the optimal time for bagging 'high value' al Qaida suspects in the untamed Afghan-Pakistani border lands is the last ten days of July, 2004.” In other words, embarrassing the Democrats as they convene their convention. http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/
Job Creation?
One suspected that the much ballyhooed creation of 500,000+ jobs the last two months meant more part-time or temporary “service” jobs of lessened pay and benefits. Now, from the unlikely source, the once great, now very conservative NY Post, (John Crudele), comes an article that accuses the Labor Department of misleading estimating of job gains. The post is rather long. Give it a shot.
Don’t get too excited about all those new jobs that were supposed to have been created in April.
I'm not going to waste a lot of my precious space on this, but the bottom line is that most of the 288,000 jobs that the Labor Department says were created last month may not really exist.
They could be figments of statisticians' optimism.
Anyone who plodded through my column last Thursday knows I predicted that job growth in April would be better than the 160,000 to 170,000 jobs that the "pros" were anticipating.
But I also said, quite emphatically I hope, that the stronger growth would be an illusion - the result of the Labor Department's computers making happy predictions about seasonal job creation that could neither be verified nor justified.
I'll explain one aspect.
Back in the March employment report, the government added 153,000 positions to its revised total of 337,000 new jobs because it thought (but couldn't prove) loads of new companies were being created in this economy.
That estimate comes from the Labor Department's "birth/death model." You can look up these numbers on the Department's Web site.
As staggering as the assumption about new companies was in March, the Labor Department got even more brazen in April.
Last Friday, it was disclosed that these imaginary jobs had been increased by 117,000 to 270,000 for the latest month - because, I guess, the stat jockeys got a vision from the gods of spring.
Without those extra 117,000 make-believe jobs, the total growth for April would have been just 171,000 - sub-par for an economy that's supposed to be growing at more than 4 percent a year, but right on the pros' targets.
Take away all 270,000 make-believe jobs and, well, you have the sort of pessimism that the political pollsters are seeing.
If I was the suspicious type (and if I thought Washington was smart enough), I'd suspect a nasty motive behind the sudden surge in these mystery jobs. But for now, let's just acknowledge their existence. http://nypost.com/business/23936.htm
More Warnings: Oil is Running Out:
It’s not pleasant. Let’s get busy. From the Wall Street Journal:
As the global economy roars ahead with more factories churning out consumer goods and more cars hitting the streets, demand for oil may outstrip supply. World-wide use is forecast to rise more than 50% to 121 million barrels a day by 2025, from 80 million barrels a day now. In China and India, the world's most populous countries, economic growth is powered by and in turn fueling a thirst for oil.
Experts warn that without alternative fuel sources, the need for oil could pit massive consumers such as the U.S. against China and India. Gal Luft, executive director of the Institute for Analysis of Global Security, an energy-policy think tank, warns, "While the U.S. is absorbed in fighting the war on terror, the seeds of what could be the next world war are quietly germinating. ... By 2030, China is expected to have more cars than the U.S. and import as much oil as the U.S. does today." Although India's economy isn't growing as fast, its oil consumption is skyrocketing.
Both countries are paying little heed to the environmental and medical consequences of development and argue that other countries industrialized without concern for carbon emissions.
http://online.wsj.com/documents/info-aoil04.html?printVersion=true
David Brock:
I mentioned his web site; here’s a tad from an interview on Salon, addressing the development of the Republican attack machine.
In 1986 I was working at a sister publication of the Washington Times, Insight magazine, and I then became an editorial writer at the Washington Times. And I don't think it had happened during that period because the paper had the same circulation it has today, about 100,000 readers, and it was considered to be a suspect, unreliable right-wing publication. It had, from the inside, very little impact in getting its message off the page; its stories didn't really go anywhere. But then a few things happened: Limbaugh went to national syndication in '88, and then you had the proliferation of cable, and then you had the Internet. So today, 16 years later, someone writes something in the Washington Times that may be unreliable, but it resonates because Limbaugh could read it on the air, or [Matt] Drudge could post it, or the author could go on Bill O'Reilly's show. So it's a completely different climate. During the '90s the flow of misinformation was established.
How do you think the press has treated John Kerry over the past few months?
Clearly there's already some evidence of a phenomenon I describe in the book of the ability of the right-wing media to project a caricature. For instance, [Media Matters noted] that Drudge wrote an item about a hairstylist being flown in for Kerry before his appearance on "Meet the Press." There was no sourcing, so one didn't know what to make of it. Then I believe the [next step in the] chain was that Jay Leno mentioned it in a joke, which is fine. Then the AP and Reuters reported the Leno joke. Then Linda Vester on Fox the next day claimed that Fox News had independently confirmed the story, but her story didn't provide any sourcing, so we didn't know what to make of that. And then [Fox anchor] Brit Hume asserted the same thing later in the day.
So this is the kind of problem we are already seeing for Kerry -- that's the climate a candidate has to live in. The right can distort anything it wants. The playing field is so unlevel; there's a systematic disadvantage. http://www.salon.com/books/feature/2004/05/11/right/print.html
More Conservative Angst re Bush
Washington Post’s Dana Milbank and Jonathan Weisman
After three years of sweeping actions in both foreign and domestic affairs, the Bush administration is facing complaints from the conservative intelligentsia that it has lost its ability to produce fresh policies.
The centerpiece of President Bush's foreign policy -- the effort to transform Iraq into a peaceful democracy -- has been undermined by a deadly insurrection and broadcast photos of brutality by U.S. prison guards. On the domestic side, conservatives and former administration officials say the White House policy apparatus is moribund, with policies driven by political expediency or ideological pressure rather than by facts and expertise.
Conservatives have become unusually restive. Last Tuesday, columnist George F. Will sharply criticized the administration's Iraq policy, writing: "This administration cannot be trusted to govern if it cannot be counted on to think and, having thought, to have second thoughts." Two days earlier, Robert Kagan, a neoconservative supporter of the Iraq war, wrote: "All but the most blindly devoted Bush supporters can see that Bush administration officials have no clue about what to do in Iraq tomorrow, much less a month from now."
The complaints about Bush's Iraq policy are relatively new, but they are in some ways similar to long-standing criticism about Bush's domestic policies. In a book released earlier this year, former Bush Treasury secretary Paul H. O'Neill described Bush as "a blind man in a room full of deaf people" and said policymakers put politics before sound policy judgments.
Echoing a criticism leveled by former Bush aide John J. DiIulio Jr., who famously described "Mayberry Machiavellis" running the White House, O'Neill said "the biggest difference" between his time in government in the 1970s and in the Bush administration "is that our group was mostly about evidence and analysis, and Karl [Rove], Dick [Cheney], [Bush communications strategist] Karen [Hughes] and the gang seemed to be mostly about politics." http://65.54.186.250/cgi-bin/linkrd?_lang=EN&lah=723e6d297271eebfc234d237651c0f0b&lat=1084195154&hm___action=http%3a%2f%2fletters%2ewashingtonpost%2ecom%2fW4RH0582713EFEBA439543E281C0C
And, from Army Times:
But while responsibility begins with the six soldiers facing criminal charges, it extends all the way up the chain of command to the highest reaches of the military hierarchy and its civilian leadership.
The entire affair is a failure of leadership from start to finish. From the moment they are captured, prisoners are hooded, shackled and isolated. The message to the troops: Anything goes. http://www.armytimes.com/story.php?f=1-292925-2903288.php et’s
Not to Forget Syria:
President Bush this week will levy economic sanctions against Syria for supporting terrorism and not doing enough to prevent militant fighters from entering neighboring Iraq, congressional and administration sources said Monday.
The sanctions, which the White House will impose as early as Tuesday, are being ordered because the administration believes Syria has aggravated tensions in the Middle East by supporting militant groups. http://www.salon.com/news/wire/2004/05/10/syria_sanctions/index.html
But What About the Poor?
Poor 'are paying for war on terror'
Mark Tran in The Guardian
Some of the world's poorest people are paying for the "war on terror" as governments cut aid budgets or switch their priorities to address security issues, a leading charity said today.
The Christian Aid report, entitled The Politics of Poverty, said that aid was being politicised as it had been during the cold war. It accused the US of leading the trend.
"We seem to be drifting back to the darkest days of the cold war, to a time when aid was just as liable to prop up dictators and their regimes as it was to build hospitals or drill wells," the report said. http://society.guardian.co.uk/aid/story/0,14178,1213525,00.html
Venezuela
Some assert that Venezuela has 348 billion barrels of what’s termed proven oil reserves, substantially more than Iraq, and compared to Saudi Arabia’s 261 billion. We know the Bush administration is discomforted by our importing up to 13% of our oil from the regime of maverick populist Hugo Chavez. They’re tying to get rid of him.
The latest development was the arrest of 56 mercenaries, mostly from Colombia.
Venezuelan opposition groups brought the Colombians, now being held on a military base, to the South American country's capital to help overthrow the government, Chavez said.
``This is the tip of the iceberg of subversive groups in Venezuela,'' Chavez said during a televised speech. ``They were planning to kill me.''
Opponents of Chavez have been trying for about two years to force the former paratrooper from office, following a failed coup in April 2002. Chavez may face a recall vote in August.
The Democratic Coordinator, which organizes several opposition groups, had ``nothing to do'' with any plot to kill Chavez, opposition leader Felipe Mujica said, according to newspaper El Nacional's web site.
Chavez also said the United States was plotting to kill Cuban President Fidel Castro. Calls to the U.S. Embassy in Caracas were not answered.
http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000086&sid=aDA.cL.T6OYs&refer=latin_america#
And, in Colombia
About 1,000 US military personnel plus numerous “contractors” are in Colombia as “trainers” and “advisers” The White House wants to augment their number. But there is an official denial of such.
"The United States has neither plans nor intentions to send US troops to Colombia," the embassy said in a communique released here.
The declaration was made to deny previous statements by Coffer Black, coordinator of the US State Department's anti-terror office, who said Washington would support with military forces in fights against Colombian illegal armed groups.
The US government "will continue to support the programs of the Colombian government with military assistance and training" but would not send troops, said the embassy.
Colombia has been locked in a four-decade civil war, the longest in Latin America, in which government forces, leftist guerrillas and far-right paramilitarists fight one another. The conflicts kill 3,500 people on average every year. http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2004-05/08/content_1456359.htm
Iraq is but one Center for Abuse
Dana Priest and Joe Stephens of the Washington Post have done a three-parter. Here’s #3.
In Afghanistan, the CIA's secret U.S. interrogation center in Kabul is known as "The Pit," named for its despairing conditions. In Iraq, the most important prisoners are kept in a huge hangar near the runway at Baghdad International Airport, say U.S. government officials, counterterrorism experts and others. In Qatar, U.S. forces have been ferrying some Iraqi prisoners to a remote jail on the gigantic U.S. air base in the desert.
The Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, where a unit of U.S. soldiers abused prisoners, is just the largest and suddenly most notorious in a worldwide constellation of detention centers -- many of them secret and all off-limits to public scrutiny -- that the U.S. military and CIA have operated in the name of counterterrorism or counterinsurgency operations since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
These prisons and jails are sometimes as small as shipping containers and as large as the sprawling Guantanamo Bay complex in Cuba. They are part of an elaborate CIA and military infrastructure whose purpose is to hold suspected terrorists or insurgents for interrogation and safekeeping while avoiding U.S. or international court systems, where proceedings and evidence against the accused would be aired in public. Some are even held by foreign governments at the informal request of the United States.
"The number of people who have been detained in the Arab world for the sake of America is much more than in Guantanamo Bay. Really, thousands," said Najeeb Nuaimi, a former justice minister of Qatar who is representing the families of dozens of prisoners.
The largely hidden array includes three systems that only rarely overlap: the Pentagon-run network of prisons, jails and holding facilities in Iraq, Afghanistan, Guantanamo and elsewhere; small and secret CIA-run facilities where top al Qaeda and other figures are kept; and interrogation rooms of foreign intelligence services -- some with documented records of torture -- to which the U.S. government delivers or "renders" mid- or low-level terrorism suspects for questioning.
All told, more than 9,000 people are held by U.S. authorities overseas, according to Pentagon figures and estimates by intelligence experts, the vast majority under military control. http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A15981-2004May10?language=printer
Abuse in Afghanistan:
From Wednesday’s NY Times (Carlotta Gall):
A former Afghan police colonel gave a graphic account in an interview this week of being subjected to beating, kicking, sleep deprivation, taunts and sexual abuse during about 40 days he spent in American custody in Afghanistan last summer. He also said he had been repeatedly photographed, often while naked. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/12/international/asia/12AFGH.html?ex=1399694400&en=a88932b0d553dbe1&ei=5007&partner=USERLAND
Red Cross: Up to 90% of Iraqi detainees arrested by mistake (Alexander G. Higgins)
Up to 90 percent of Iraqi detainees were arrested ''by mistake,'' according to coalition intelligence officers cited in a Red Cross report disclosed Monday.
Abuse of Iraqi prisoners by American soldiers was widespread and routine, the report finds -- contrary to President Bush's contention that the mistreatment ''was the wrongdoing of a few.''
Red Cross delegates saw U.S. military intelligence officers mistreating prisoners under interrogation at Abu Ghraib prison and collected allegations of abuse at more than 10 other detention facilities, according to the report.
The 24-page document cites abuses -- some ''tantamount to torture'' -- including brutality, hooding, humiliation and threats of ''imminent execution.'' http://www.suntimes.com/cgi-bin/print.cgi
Wall Street Journal (David S. Cloud) re Red Cross reports
The Red Cross report indicates that some complaints brought an allied response, while others didn't. More than a year ago, on April 1, 2003, officials from the International Committee of the Red Cross complained at coalition forces headquarters in Qatar about treatment of detainees at a British-run internment camp in the Iraqi port town of Umm Qasr, the report says.
A meeting with the political adviser to the senior British commander in Qatar appears to have brought quick results. It "had the immediate effect [of stopping] the systematic use of hoods and flexi-cuffs in the interrogation section of Umm Qasr," according to the ICRC report, which details the results of its inspections in Iraq.
But during the next year, the ICRC encountered far more resistance when it raised concerns about the mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners, especially those in the custody of military intelligence, the report says. The U.S. military was sometimes slow to respond to Red Cross complaints and ignored them in a few cases.
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB108414473392906282,00.html?mod=home_whats_news_us
Terrorism on the Rise
From Knight Ridder:
A series of recent developments in the war on terrorism, barely noticed in the United States, suggests that global Islamic extremism is spreading.
On Monday, Turkish authorities charged nine people, believed to be part of an al-Qaida-linked group, in connection with planning to bomb next month's NATO summit in Istanbul, which President Bush is scheduled to attend. That followed the April 26 televised confessions of suspects allegedly caught trying to build a chemical bomb, which authorities said could have killed tens of thousands in Jordan's capital, Amman.
In Saudi Arabia, authorities weren't so successful. On May 1, militants shot dead two Americans, two Britons and an Australian at an oil company's offices. On May 3, a car bomb exploded in southwestern Pakistan, killing three Chinese engineers who had been building a multimillion-dollar seaport.
In Syria on April 27, a gym teacher died in a cross fire between extremists and police. In Thailand the next day, police killed 108 Muslim militants who'd allegedly attacked police stations trying to seize guns, though that incident has overtones of longstanding ethnic strife. In Spain, an indictment issued April 29 alleges that one of the Moroccans accused in connection with the Madrid train bombings is also linked to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. In Indonesia on April 30, protesters rioted after a radical cleric was arrested again on charges linking him to the 2002 nightclub bombings in Bali, which killed 202 people.
On Thursday, the FBI took into custody Oregon lawyer Brandon Mayfield, in connection with the Madrid train bombings, which killed 191 people and injured 2,000.
Many of these events, all within the past two weeks, received scant attention in the United States, where the Iraq prisoner abuse scandal dominates news headlines. But they are the most recent indications that the threat of Islamic terrorism - and the transnational battles against it - are intensifying.
The recent episodes show that law enforcement and intelligence agencies across Europe and the Middle East have been able to prevent terrorist attacks and have vigorously pursued those accused of planning them. Yet the military and police actions haven't stopped extremists from hatching chilling new plots. http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/8623725.htm
Republican Campaign:
President Bush is resolved not to repeat what he thinks were the two fundamental blunders of his father's one-term presidency: abandoning Iraq and failing to vanquish the Democrats.
In one of several exclusive interviews with The Washington Times, Mr. Bush said his father had "cut and run early" from Iraq in 1991.
Mr. Bush also said Sen. John Kerry would "regret" disparaging the U.S.-led coalition that liberated Iraq, promising to use the Massachusetts Democrat's words against him in the election campaign. [...]
White House political strategist Karl Rove, in one of the lengthy interviews with The Times granted by senior administration officials, also detailed how the Bush campaign intends to paint Mr. Kerry as a condescending elitist, who is pro-tax, weak on defense and on the wrong side in the culture wars.
White House Chief of Staff Andrew H. Card Jr. described Mr. Kerry as a John F. Kennedy "wannabe," who lacks the mettle to be president. Mr. Card, who also worked for the first President Bush, said when it comes to running for re-election, the son is much more engaged and far less complacent than the father. http://washingtontimes.com/national/20040510-122703-4851r.htm
Loose-lipped O’Reilly: Liberals as Fidelistas
Seems that Bill O’Reilly, the repugnant, lying liar on Fox, has been characterizing various liberal types as “confidants” of Fidel Castro. Molly Ivins, Arianna Huffington, Bill Maher and now journalist Eric Alterman have received the designation, arguably actionable as “malicious intent” to defame character and demonstrating ‘reckless disregard’ for the truth, etc. Alterman asks on his web site, below, whether anyone wants to take on his case, pro bono. http://msnbc.msn.com/id/3449870/ http://mediamatters.org/items/200405040007
-R
Sunday, May 09, 2004
The “Abuse” (oh, yes, and, the (25?) Deaths)
It Was Systemic, not just “a few” bad apples
(1) torture methods taught. David Leigh of The Guardian:
The sexual humiliation of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison was not an invention of maverick guards, but part of a system of ill-treatment and degradation used by special forces soldiers that is now being disseminated among ordinary troops and contractors who do not know what they are doing, according to British military sources.
The techniques devised in the system, called R2I - resistance to interrogation - match the crude exploitation and abuse of prisoners at the Abu Ghraib jail in Baghdad…
The British former officer said the dissemination of R2I techniques inside Iraq was all the more dangerous because of the general mood among American troops.
"The feeling among US soldiers I've spoken to in the last week is also that 'the gloves are off'. Many of them still think they are dealing with people responsible for 9/11." http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1212197,00.html
(2) Can’t just Blame the Military Police. Baltimore Sun (Todd Richissin)
The two military intelligence soldiers, assigned interrogation duties at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, were young, relatively new to the Army and had only one day of training on how to pry information from high-value prisoners.
But almost immediately on their arrival in Iraq, say the two members of the 205th Military Intelligence Brigade, they recognized that what was happening around them was wrong, morally and legally.
They said in interviews Friday and yesterday that the abuses were not caused by a handful of rogue soldiers poorly supervised and lacking morals but resulted from failures that went beyond the low-ranking military police charged with abuse.
The beatings, the two soldiers said, were meted out with the full knowledge of intelligence interrogators, who let military police know which prisoners were cooperating with them and which were not.
Around November, with casualties among U.S. troops rising, Saddam Hussein still in hiding and solid intelligence becoming more urgent, Pappas issued an order that broadened acceptable interrogation methods.
"I think he was referring to any techniques on the A and B lists," the soldier said. "But there was kind of the third list, the unofficial list. Guys called that the 'made-up list.'"
________
The made-up list spawned a couple of other terms, the soldiers said: "going cowboy" and "wild, wild west."
"I don't know where they got this from, but the MPs would say it all the time," one of the soldiers said. "MI would drop off a guy who wasn't talking, and the MP would say, 'So looks like I'll be going cowboy on him' or 'Looks like he needs some wild, wild west.'"
The terms meant beatings, they said, and the military intelligence interrogators and private contractors did nothing to discourage them. http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/nationworld/iraq/bal-te.guard09may09,0,2180279.story?coll=bal-home-headlines
Abuse as Familiar …What’s Practiced by the U.S. in the USA…and Afghanistan
From the NY Times (Fox Butterfield):
Physical and sexual abuse of prisoners, similar to what has been uncovered in Iraq, takes place in American prisons with little public knowledge or concern, according to corrections officials, inmates and human rights advocates.
In Pennsylvania and some other states, inmates are routinely stripped in front of other inmates before being moved to a new prison or a new unit within their prison. In Arizona, male inmates at the Maricopa County jail in Phoenix are made to wear women's pink underwear as a form of humiliation…
The experts also point out that the man who directed the reopening of the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq last year and trained the guards there resigned under pressure as director of the Utah Department of Corrections in 1997 after an inmate died while shackled to a restraining chair for 16 hours. The inmate, who suffered from schizophrenia, was kept naked the whole time. The Utah official, Lane McCotter, later became an executive of a private prison company, one of whose jails was under investigation by the Justice Department when he was sent to Iraq as part of a team of prison officials, judges, prosecutors and police chiefs picked by Attorney General John Ashcroft to rebuild the country's criminal justice system." http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/08/national/08PRIS.html
And, from Seymour Hersh’s latest:
In his report, Taguba strongly suggested that there was a link between the interrogation process in Afghanistan and the abuses at Abu Ghraib … The photographing of prisoners, both in Afghanistan and in Iraq, seems to have been not random but, rather, part of the dehumanizing interrogation process. http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?040517fa_fact2
The Conditions Were Documented and Shared with the Administration LONG AGO.
We know this is one passive Administration; they don’t act when warned of terrorism and they couldn’t act on this, because they lacked the pictures! [And, they’re never “responsible”- not for 9/11, the WMD lies/”intelligence failure", the Occupation; We play the game, and desperately try to limit calls for accountability to no higher than Rumsfeld. Bush? Rare call for such comes from E.J. Dionne who notes,
But dumping Rumsfeld and Myers is not enough. Ultimately the buck stops with President Bush. No, I don't think for an instant that Bush knew anything about this. That's the problem. Reports of prisoner abuse have been around since the war in Afghanistan and the opening of the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The president needs to explain why he wasn't more curious about what was happening, and whether his management style delegates so much authority that the White House could be caught so unprepared for this catastrophe. Are we dealing here with a culture of unaccountability? http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A6990-2004May6.html
The Red Cross complaints, a full year ago: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/07/politics/07RIGH.html
There was a pattern and a system," Pierre Kraehenbuehl, the ICRC's director of operations, said in Geneva. Some of the actions were "tantamount to torture," he said. The ICRC findings were "discussed at different moments between March and November 2003, either in direct face-to-face conversations or in written interventions," Kraehenbuehl said. http://www.salon.com/news/wire/2004/05/07/red_cross_abuse/index.html
Other Groups Tried as well:
Other human rights groups, including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and Human Rights First, said this week that they had complained to the administration about reports of prisoner abuse and humiliation. Officials with the groups said they took personal appeals to L. Paul Bremer III, head of the occupation authority in Iraq, and Condoleezza Rice, the national security adviser, but that their appeals often seemed to fall on deaf ears. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/07/politics/07RIGH.html
Even Bremer was yelling:
Bremer repeatedly raised the issue of prison conditions as early as last fall -- both in one-on-one meetings with Rumsfeld and other administration leaders, and in group meetings with the president's inner circle on national security. Officials described Bremer as "kicking and screaming" about the need to release thousands of uncharged prisoners and improve conditions for those who remained. Bremer expressed these concerns to Rumsfeld. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A6870-2004May6.html
Abu Ghraib- incredibly mismanaged- 'Cooks and drivers were working as interrogators'
Really! An interview of an intelligence officer who served at Guantanamo and than at Abu Ghraib as a contractor explains the “systematic failures.”
Julian Borger for the Guardian:
Many of the prisoners abused at the Abu Ghraib prison were innocent Iraqis picked up at random by US troops, and incarcerated by under-qualified intelligence officers, a former US interrogator from the notorious jail told the Guardian
"A unit goes out on a raid and they have a target and the target is not available; they just grab anybody because that was their job," Mr Nelson said, referring to counter-insurgency operations in Iraq. "The troops are under a lot of stress and they don't know one guy from the next. They're not cultural experts. All they want is to count down the days and hopefully go home.
"I've read reports from capturing units where the capturing unit wrote, 'the target was not at home. The neighbour came out to see what was going on and we grabbed him'," he said.
According to Mr Nelson's account, the victims' very innocence made them more likely to be abused, because the interrogators refused to believe they could have been picked up on such arbitrary grounds. Interrogators "weren't interested in going through the less glamorous work of sifting through the chaff to get to the kernels of truth from the willing detainees; they were interested in 'breaking' tough targets", he said. http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1211374,00.html
As Anthony Lewis pointed out last Friday, (and in the current NY Review of Books), when you set up a prison system and declare it is extralegal, beyond all legal oversight, are abuses/atrocities surprising?
But commitment to law is not a weakness. It has been the great strength of the United States from the beginning. Our leaders depart from that commitment at their peril, and ours, for a reason that Justice Louis D. Brandeis memorably expressed 75 years ago.
"Our government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher," he wrote. "For good or ill, it teaches the whole people by its example. Crime is contagious. If the government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for the law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself." http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/07/opinion/07LEWI.html?ex=1399262400&en=cc74516c7c7b1681&ei=5007&partner=USERLAND
Military Upset: ‘We’re losing the war’ (for the minds...)
Washington Post (Thomas Ricks)
Deep divisions are emerging at the top of the U.S. military over the course of the occupation of Iraq, with some senior officers beginning to say that the United States faces the prospect of casualties for years without achieving its goal of establishing a free and democratic Iraq.
Their major worry is that the United States is prevailing militarily but failing to win the support of the Iraqi people. That view is far from universal, but it is spreading and being voiced publicly for the first time. http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A11227-2004May8?language=printer
Conservative Voices Summarize:
"This is a pure, media-generated story. I'm not saying it didn't happen or that the pictures aren't there, but this is being given more life than the Waco invasion got. It’s almost become an Oklahoma City-type thing.” –Rush Limbaugh
Now, certainly one thing I will say is that I believe, as, as a lot of folks on the, on the political right believe, that our military has been undermanned for many years, and it's very, very difficult to fight a war like this with a, a military that basically is, is Bill Clinton's military and a military that basically was formed during the days when we were all talking about the "war is peace" dividend. -Joel Himmelfarb, an editorial writer for the Washington Times on defense issueshttp://georgemustgo.blogspot.com/2004_05_02_georgemustgo_archive.html#108393822532937983:
Newsweek’s Fareed Zakaria summarizes:
…we have waged pre-emptive war unilaterally, spurned international cooperation, rejected United Nations participation, humiliated allies, discounted the need for local support in Iraq and incurred massive costs in blood and treasure. If the world is not to be trusted in these dangerous times, key agencies of the American government, like the State Department, are to be trusted even less. Congress is barely informed, even on issues on which its "advise and consent" are constitutionally mandated.
Leave process aside: the results are plain. On almost every issue involving postwar Iraq—troop strength, international support, the credibility of exiles, de-Baathification, handling Ayatollah Ali Sistani—Washington's assumptions and policies have been wrong. By now most have been reversed, often too late to have much effect. This strange combination of arrogance and incompetence has not only destroyed the hopes for a new Iraq. It has had the much broader effect of turning the United States into an international outlaw in the eyes of much of the world. http://msnbc.msn.com/id/4933882/
Middle East
The Administration is retreating from its endorsement of Sharon’s unilateral territory seizure/give-back, in what the foreign press terms a “flip-flop”. Now there are sounds of ‘there must be negotiations’. Undoubtedly, they’re responding to the world’s reaction, especially the Middle East furor, as well as reading the meaning of Sharon’s own party rejecting the policy. And, there was the public rebuke of 50 former U.S. diplomats/ambassadors to countries in the Middle East who dispatched a public letter that harshly criticized Bush for supporting Sharon’s plan. . http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/05/07/1083911402222.html http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_5-5-2004_pg4_4 (Pakistan)
Election (Reprise): Kerry in Trouble? No.
Tom Grieve of Salon offers helpful perspective.
The Times painted an equally dour assessment of Clinton's prospects in a front-page piece in April 1992 headlined "Clinton Dogged by Voter Doubt." The Times said then that unnamed "political professionals in the Democratic Party" were troubled that Clinton hadn't made a better impression on the nation's voters. Nagourney's piece Sunday reported that "Democratic Party officials" have similar worries about Kerry.
But there's a key difference here: In April 1992, the New York Times/CBS News poll showed Clinton trailing President George H.W. Bush, 49 percent to 40 percent, among registered voters. The latest New York Times/CBS News poll shows Kerry and President George W. Bush in a statistical dead heat.
Clinton beat Bush 43 percent to 37 percent in November 1992. http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2004/05/05/kerry/print.html
Massachusetts: Economy Improves. More Tax Cuts?
Romney is seeking to resume the tax cuts, making no move to restore any of the murderous cuts of the past years. Residents should bombard their legislators and the media with their insistence that we become a more humane Commonwealth.
One sensible voice- Charles Stein in Sunday’s Globe Business section
Romney's preference for tax cuts should be seen for what it is: a political choice, not an economic one. Like President Bush, whom he resembles more with each passing day (no to gay marriage; yes to the death penalty; yes to tax cuts), Romney apparently feels that a smaller government is a better government.
I'd like to suggest a different political choice. Massachusetts should use its growing tax receipts to restore the cuts it was forced to make during the fiscal crisis. The state's contribution to higher education fell 23 percent over the past three years. Public health spending fell 27 percent; spending on housing dropped 40 percent. State aid to local education declined modestly each of the past two years. Even so, the education cuts Massachusetts made were steeper than those made by any other state, according to a study by Reschovsky. Spending on healthcare has continued to rise, but a variety of medical programs have been squeezed.
If the recovery proves durable, Massachusetts can have the best of both worlds: It can adequately fund its services while keeping its tax rates at competitive levels. Critics warned Mayor Bloomberg that the sky would fall when he decided services were more important than lower taxes. The sky didn't fall in New York. It won't fall in Massachusetts, either. http://www.boston.com/business/globe/articles/2004/05/09/its_time_to_restore_state_program_cuts/
-R
It Was Systemic, not just “a few” bad apples
(1) torture methods taught. David Leigh of The Guardian:
The sexual humiliation of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison was not an invention of maverick guards, but part of a system of ill-treatment and degradation used by special forces soldiers that is now being disseminated among ordinary troops and contractors who do not know what they are doing, according to British military sources.
The techniques devised in the system, called R2I - resistance to interrogation - match the crude exploitation and abuse of prisoners at the Abu Ghraib jail in Baghdad…
The British former officer said the dissemination of R2I techniques inside Iraq was all the more dangerous because of the general mood among American troops.
"The feeling among US soldiers I've spoken to in the last week is also that 'the gloves are off'. Many of them still think they are dealing with people responsible for 9/11." http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1212197,00.html
(2) Can’t just Blame the Military Police. Baltimore Sun (Todd Richissin)
The two military intelligence soldiers, assigned interrogation duties at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, were young, relatively new to the Army and had only one day of training on how to pry information from high-value prisoners.
But almost immediately on their arrival in Iraq, say the two members of the 205th Military Intelligence Brigade, they recognized that what was happening around them was wrong, morally and legally.
They said in interviews Friday and yesterday that the abuses were not caused by a handful of rogue soldiers poorly supervised and lacking morals but resulted from failures that went beyond the low-ranking military police charged with abuse.
The beatings, the two soldiers said, were meted out with the full knowledge of intelligence interrogators, who let military police know which prisoners were cooperating with them and which were not.
Around November, with casualties among U.S. troops rising, Saddam Hussein still in hiding and solid intelligence becoming more urgent, Pappas issued an order that broadened acceptable interrogation methods.
"I think he was referring to any techniques on the A and B lists," the soldier said. "But there was kind of the third list, the unofficial list. Guys called that the 'made-up list.'"
________
The made-up list spawned a couple of other terms, the soldiers said: "going cowboy" and "wild, wild west."
"I don't know where they got this from, but the MPs would say it all the time," one of the soldiers said. "MI would drop off a guy who wasn't talking, and the MP would say, 'So looks like I'll be going cowboy on him' or 'Looks like he needs some wild, wild west.'"
The terms meant beatings, they said, and the military intelligence interrogators and private contractors did nothing to discourage them. http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/nationworld/iraq/bal-te.guard09may09,0,2180279.story?coll=bal-home-headlines
Abuse as Familiar …What’s Practiced by the U.S. in the USA…and Afghanistan
From the NY Times (Fox Butterfield):
Physical and sexual abuse of prisoners, similar to what has been uncovered in Iraq, takes place in American prisons with little public knowledge or concern, according to corrections officials, inmates and human rights advocates.
In Pennsylvania and some other states, inmates are routinely stripped in front of other inmates before being moved to a new prison or a new unit within their prison. In Arizona, male inmates at the Maricopa County jail in Phoenix are made to wear women's pink underwear as a form of humiliation…
The experts also point out that the man who directed the reopening of the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq last year and trained the guards there resigned under pressure as director of the Utah Department of Corrections in 1997 after an inmate died while shackled to a restraining chair for 16 hours. The inmate, who suffered from schizophrenia, was kept naked the whole time. The Utah official, Lane McCotter, later became an executive of a private prison company, one of whose jails was under investigation by the Justice Department when he was sent to Iraq as part of a team of prison officials, judges, prosecutors and police chiefs picked by Attorney General John Ashcroft to rebuild the country's criminal justice system." http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/08/national/08PRIS.html
And, from Seymour Hersh’s latest:
In his report, Taguba strongly suggested that there was a link between the interrogation process in Afghanistan and the abuses at Abu Ghraib … The photographing of prisoners, both in Afghanistan and in Iraq, seems to have been not random but, rather, part of the dehumanizing interrogation process. http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?040517fa_fact2
The Conditions Were Documented and Shared with the Administration LONG AGO.
We know this is one passive Administration; they don’t act when warned of terrorism and they couldn’t act on this, because they lacked the pictures! [And, they’re never “responsible”- not for 9/11, the WMD lies/”intelligence failure", the Occupation; We play the game, and desperately try to limit calls for accountability to no higher than Rumsfeld. Bush? Rare call for such comes from E.J. Dionne who notes,
But dumping Rumsfeld and Myers is not enough. Ultimately the buck stops with President Bush. No, I don't think for an instant that Bush knew anything about this. That's the problem. Reports of prisoner abuse have been around since the war in Afghanistan and the opening of the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The president needs to explain why he wasn't more curious about what was happening, and whether his management style delegates so much authority that the White House could be caught so unprepared for this catastrophe. Are we dealing here with a culture of unaccountability? http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A6990-2004May6.html
The Red Cross complaints, a full year ago: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/07/politics/07RIGH.html
There was a pattern and a system," Pierre Kraehenbuehl, the ICRC's director of operations, said in Geneva. Some of the actions were "tantamount to torture," he said. The ICRC findings were "discussed at different moments between March and November 2003, either in direct face-to-face conversations or in written interventions," Kraehenbuehl said. http://www.salon.com/news/wire/2004/05/07/red_cross_abuse/index.html
Other Groups Tried as well:
Other human rights groups, including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and Human Rights First, said this week that they had complained to the administration about reports of prisoner abuse and humiliation. Officials with the groups said they took personal appeals to L. Paul Bremer III, head of the occupation authority in Iraq, and Condoleezza Rice, the national security adviser, but that their appeals often seemed to fall on deaf ears. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/07/politics/07RIGH.html
Even Bremer was yelling:
Bremer repeatedly raised the issue of prison conditions as early as last fall -- both in one-on-one meetings with Rumsfeld and other administration leaders, and in group meetings with the president's inner circle on national security. Officials described Bremer as "kicking and screaming" about the need to release thousands of uncharged prisoners and improve conditions for those who remained. Bremer expressed these concerns to Rumsfeld. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A6870-2004May6.html
Abu Ghraib- incredibly mismanaged- 'Cooks and drivers were working as interrogators'
Really! An interview of an intelligence officer who served at Guantanamo and than at Abu Ghraib as a contractor explains the “systematic failures.”
Julian Borger for the Guardian:
Many of the prisoners abused at the Abu Ghraib prison were innocent Iraqis picked up at random by US troops, and incarcerated by under-qualified intelligence officers, a former US interrogator from the notorious jail told the Guardian
"A unit goes out on a raid and they have a target and the target is not available; they just grab anybody because that was their job," Mr Nelson said, referring to counter-insurgency operations in Iraq. "The troops are under a lot of stress and they don't know one guy from the next. They're not cultural experts. All they want is to count down the days and hopefully go home.
"I've read reports from capturing units where the capturing unit wrote, 'the target was not at home. The neighbour came out to see what was going on and we grabbed him'," he said.
According to Mr Nelson's account, the victims' very innocence made them more likely to be abused, because the interrogators refused to believe they could have been picked up on such arbitrary grounds. Interrogators "weren't interested in going through the less glamorous work of sifting through the chaff to get to the kernels of truth from the willing detainees; they were interested in 'breaking' tough targets", he said. http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1211374,00.html
As Anthony Lewis pointed out last Friday, (and in the current NY Review of Books), when you set up a prison system and declare it is extralegal, beyond all legal oversight, are abuses/atrocities surprising?
But commitment to law is not a weakness. It has been the great strength of the United States from the beginning. Our leaders depart from that commitment at their peril, and ours, for a reason that Justice Louis D. Brandeis memorably expressed 75 years ago.
"Our government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher," he wrote. "For good or ill, it teaches the whole people by its example. Crime is contagious. If the government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for the law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself." http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/07/opinion/07LEWI.html?ex=1399262400&en=cc74516c7c7b1681&ei=5007&partner=USERLAND
Military Upset: ‘We’re losing the war’ (for the minds...)
Washington Post (Thomas Ricks)
Deep divisions are emerging at the top of the U.S. military over the course of the occupation of Iraq, with some senior officers beginning to say that the United States faces the prospect of casualties for years without achieving its goal of establishing a free and democratic Iraq.
Their major worry is that the United States is prevailing militarily but failing to win the support of the Iraqi people. That view is far from universal, but it is spreading and being voiced publicly for the first time. http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A11227-2004May8?language=printer
Conservative Voices Summarize:
"This is a pure, media-generated story. I'm not saying it didn't happen or that the pictures aren't there, but this is being given more life than the Waco invasion got. It’s almost become an Oklahoma City-type thing.” –Rush Limbaugh
Now, certainly one thing I will say is that I believe, as, as a lot of folks on the, on the political right believe, that our military has been undermanned for many years, and it's very, very difficult to fight a war like this with a, a military that basically is, is Bill Clinton's military and a military that basically was formed during the days when we were all talking about the "war is peace" dividend. -Joel Himmelfarb, an editorial writer for the Washington Times on defense issueshttp://georgemustgo.blogspot.com/2004_05_02_georgemustgo_archive.html#108393822532937983:
Newsweek’s Fareed Zakaria summarizes:
…we have waged pre-emptive war unilaterally, spurned international cooperation, rejected United Nations participation, humiliated allies, discounted the need for local support in Iraq and incurred massive costs in blood and treasure. If the world is not to be trusted in these dangerous times, key agencies of the American government, like the State Department, are to be trusted even less. Congress is barely informed, even on issues on which its "advise and consent" are constitutionally mandated.
Leave process aside: the results are plain. On almost every issue involving postwar Iraq—troop strength, international support, the credibility of exiles, de-Baathification, handling Ayatollah Ali Sistani—Washington's assumptions and policies have been wrong. By now most have been reversed, often too late to have much effect. This strange combination of arrogance and incompetence has not only destroyed the hopes for a new Iraq. It has had the much broader effect of turning the United States into an international outlaw in the eyes of much of the world. http://msnbc.msn.com/id/4933882/
Middle East
The Administration is retreating from its endorsement of Sharon’s unilateral territory seizure/give-back, in what the foreign press terms a “flip-flop”. Now there are sounds of ‘there must be negotiations’. Undoubtedly, they’re responding to the world’s reaction, especially the Middle East furor, as well as reading the meaning of Sharon’s own party rejecting the policy. And, there was the public rebuke of 50 former U.S. diplomats/ambassadors to countries in the Middle East who dispatched a public letter that harshly criticized Bush for supporting Sharon’s plan. . http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/05/07/1083911402222.html http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_5-5-2004_pg4_4 (Pakistan)
Election (Reprise): Kerry in Trouble? No.
Tom Grieve of Salon offers helpful perspective.
The Times painted an equally dour assessment of Clinton's prospects in a front-page piece in April 1992 headlined "Clinton Dogged by Voter Doubt." The Times said then that unnamed "political professionals in the Democratic Party" were troubled that Clinton hadn't made a better impression on the nation's voters. Nagourney's piece Sunday reported that "Democratic Party officials" have similar worries about Kerry.
But there's a key difference here: In April 1992, the New York Times/CBS News poll showed Clinton trailing President George H.W. Bush, 49 percent to 40 percent, among registered voters. The latest New York Times/CBS News poll shows Kerry and President George W. Bush in a statistical dead heat.
Clinton beat Bush 43 percent to 37 percent in November 1992. http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2004/05/05/kerry/print.html
Massachusetts: Economy Improves. More Tax Cuts?
Romney is seeking to resume the tax cuts, making no move to restore any of the murderous cuts of the past years. Residents should bombard their legislators and the media with their insistence that we become a more humane Commonwealth.
One sensible voice- Charles Stein in Sunday’s Globe Business section
Romney's preference for tax cuts should be seen for what it is: a political choice, not an economic one. Like President Bush, whom he resembles more with each passing day (no to gay marriage; yes to the death penalty; yes to tax cuts), Romney apparently feels that a smaller government is a better government.
I'd like to suggest a different political choice. Massachusetts should use its growing tax receipts to restore the cuts it was forced to make during the fiscal crisis. The state's contribution to higher education fell 23 percent over the past three years. Public health spending fell 27 percent; spending on housing dropped 40 percent. State aid to local education declined modestly each of the past two years. Even so, the education cuts Massachusetts made were steeper than those made by any other state, according to a study by Reschovsky. Spending on healthcare has continued to rise, but a variety of medical programs have been squeezed.
If the recovery proves durable, Massachusetts can have the best of both worlds: It can adequately fund its services while keeping its tax rates at competitive levels. Critics warned Mayor Bloomberg that the sky would fall when he decided services were more important than lower taxes. The sky didn't fall in New York. It won't fall in Massachusetts, either. http://www.boston.com/business/globe/articles/2004/05/09/its_time_to_restore_state_program_cuts/
-R
