Purpose of the Iraq War

1. Re-elect Bush so he could continue to enrich the rich and impoverish the American Middle Class.


2. Put war profits in the hands of Bush supporters.
• Purchasing defective equipment meant that replacements would be needed.
• Abolishing testing meant more defective equipment could be purchased.
• 
  

(Note that the overall effect of these and other developments was to further enrich the rich and impoverish the American Middle Class.

3. Continue to train Americans as torturers.
4. Seize Iraq oil supplies and privatize them.
5. Privatize Iraq and destroy Iraqi middle-class in the process.

· As in Chile after 9/11/73,weaken will of people to resist changes by overwhelming display of military might, torture, and destruction of basic services. (Note Iraq was chosen as focus of attack rather than Iran or Syria as it was known to have no significant weapons. FN)

· Privatize water system, electricity, telephones, airline, (some 200 firms in all) and all state assets.

· Replace Iraqi-owned businesses with multi-nationals.

a. Foreign companies could now own 100% of Iraqi assets

b. Investors could take 100% of Iraq profits out of country without paying tax.

· Introduce flat-tax of 15% to replace corporate tax of 45 percent.

· Eliminate tariffs on foreign imports (and put domestic industries at risk).

· Introduce a new currency (printed in Britain)

· Privatize Iraq education system.

a. Pay foreign think tanks to develop

b. Print new text books abroad

Never mind that under Saddam, 89% of Iraqi’s were literate, while under New Mexico Governor Richardson only 46% are.

For still more on the privatization of Iraq and the use of torture by the U.S. see, The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein.

The Road to Guantãnomo

“If you wish to rule a people, you must first convince them that they are only fit to be ruled. On the first day, they will laugh. On the second, they will protest. On the third, they will be convinced.”

19^th Century Philippine proverb

For six years now, Marines have been passing through Guantãnomo Bay learning the art of torture. What can our government be preparing for?

Perhaps, I lack empathy as well as understanding of my government’s motives. For my immediate reaction on watching the film, The Road to Guantãnomo, was to rail at the waste of tax payer money Guantãnomo Bay is.

The film traces the actions of three young Britons of Pakistani descent who travel to Pakistan in October 2001 ostensibly to attend a friend’s wedding, only to spend the next three years as detainees in Guantãnomo, where they are both tortured and witnesses to torture. The film won an award for its director in 2006 at the Berlin Film Festival and is available today on DVD.

While in Pakistan, waiting for the wedding day, the threesome, bored, decide to bus to Afghanistan just to see what’s happening. An analogy would be the Pump House gang heading up from La Jolla to the outskirts of Watts in the mid 1990's to view the burning buildings. An alternate and less charitable point of view is the three went to Afghanistan specifically to join up with the Taliban in a Moslem jihad. Either way, they fail to make contact with the Taliban and never hold a weapon. Regardless, they are captured by the Northern Alliance and turned over to the Americans who then send them to US-occupied Cuba for extended detention.

Why were they held in Guantãnomo for three years? What could be learned from them that could not be learned in three months or three days?

The objectives of torture (barred by the Geneva convention) are short term, immediate. “Where is the bomb? When is it set to go off?” Yet the torture of the three Britons continued for a three-year period without yielding any tangible results, not that there have been tangible results from the interrogations of any of the other prisoners held at Guantãnomo.

When torture was used by the Nazi’s as well as by the Chilean Military after the U.S. backed coup which toppled the Chilean government in September 1970, its objective was to find out the names of other opponents to the regime, as well as to bring pleasure to the torturers, of course. Used by the Americans at Guantãnomo Bay, its sole function appears to be training torturers for future employment.

In the film, the “torture” practiced at Guantãnomo is not all that different from the harassment integral to Marine bootcamp and in some ways resembles the practices used in retraining a “boot” who deliberately shoots himself in the foot. No slivers of bamboo are applied under the fingernails, no “waterboarding” is shown. But other Guantãnomo prisoners have described having an electric shock device applied to their genitals (Jumah al-Dossari) and abroad US Soldiers have used beatings, waterboading, and electroshocks.

The face-to-face interrogation methods depicted in this film are laughable. It is one thing to make the American public believe there are weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, it is quite another to convince an individual that he’s the one standing next to Bin Laden in a photograph.

Which leaves the question: Just what are the Bush Administration and the American Military up to in Guantãnomo? Are they preparing for mass arrests here at home? Sometime in the coming year, can I look forward to being plucked off the street, hauled to the nearest football stadium and held there until I reveal the names of all my neighbors who are Democrats or Greens?

Torture is nothing new as far as the U.S. is concerned. When 9/11 witnessed the U.S.- sponsored assassination of Chilean President Allende, representatives of the U.S. military were immediately on hand to advise the Pinachot dictatorship as it tortured and disappeared some 3,200 Chileans, imprisoned 80,000 others, and drove 200,000 more from their native land. Subsequently, U.S. military personnel were to train the torturers of Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay.

What is unique about the torturers of Guantãnomo Bay is that for the first time large number of Americans, not Chileans or Argentineans or Brazilians or Nicaraguans, are being trained in the art of torture. Feel free to protest or laugh according to your nature. Either way, after the Democrats fail to rescue the American economy from the bottomless pit into which it is descending, January 1 2009 will mark the fascist takeover.

Priorities

Pollution, forest fires, and combustion engines

Saw on abc.com that the smoke from the current California fires is equivalent to the emissions from 440,000 vehicles for one year. Or to put it another way, the emissions in one year from the vehicles in California is equivalent to the smoke from 40 times the present set of fires.

Good Morning, Vietnam!

From the Washington Post

By Eugene Robinson
Tuesday, September 4, 2007; Page A17

The most fascinating aspect of George W. Bush's no-holds-barred campaign to keep Congress from meddling in his foolish and tragic war is the way he has begun invoking the Vietnam War -- not as a cautionary lesson about hubris and futility but as a reason to push ahead (whatever "ahead" might mean) in Iraq.

Say what you want about the man, but he's full of surprises -- and I'm not talking about the unannounced visit he made yesterday to Anbar province. With the pivotal report from Gen. David H. Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker due to land next week, and with the Iraqi government having made zero progress on political reconciliation, it's no surprise that the Decider would decide to be photographed touring the one part of Iraq where he can claim any measure of success.

But seeking support for the war in Iraq by reminding the nation about Vietnam? I'd feel better if I thought this was just some exquisitely subtle, deeply cynical gambit, yet I have the sinking feeling that Bush actually believes the nonsensical version of history he's peddling. I fear the man is on a mission to rewrite the past.

Last month, Bush told the Veterans of Foreign Wars at its Kansas City convention that "one unmistakable legacy of Vietnam is that the price of America's withdrawal was paid by millions of innocent citizens whose agonies would add to our vocabulary new terms such as 'boat people,' 'reeducation camps' and 'killing fields.' "

He added: "Here at home, some can argue our withdrawal from Vietnam carried no price to American credibility -- but the terrorists see it differently."

Lest anyone think this was merely a random rhetorical spasm, outgoing White House political czar Karl Rove wrote an article in the conservative National Review last week that included this passage: "If the outcome [in Iraq] is like what happened in Vietnam after America abandoned our allies and the region descended into chaos, violence and danger, history's judgment will be harsh. History will see President Bush as right, and the opponents of his policy as mistaken -- as George McGovern was in his time."

What?

For the record, the illegal U.S. bombing of Cambodia destabilized that country and boosted the Khmer Rouge, who eventually took power and exterminated those "millions" in the "killing fields." The monstrous Khmer Rouge regime was finally ousted by . . . none other than the communists who took power in Vietnam after the American withdrawal. Oh, and it was Richard Nixon who negotiated and began the U.S. pullout. Gerald Ford presided over the fall of Saigon. Both of them were Republicans, as I recall.

And George McGovern, who never got to be president, was right.

Bush, Rove, Dick Cheney and the other principal architects of the Iraq war never served in Vietnam -- in fact, they went to great lengths to put distance between themselves and the military adventure they now describe as both necessary and noble. At the moment, though, I'm less concerned about their hypocrisy than their distortion of history.

To say the United States should not have withdrawn its forces from Vietnam is to say that there was something those forces could have done -- something beyond napalm, carpet-bombing, destroying villages in order to save them -- that would have led to some kind of "victory." Of course, Bush and the others don't say what that special something might have been, because they don't know. They're seeing nothing but a historical mirage.

Bush seems to want to return to a golden age when America confidently threw its weight around wherever, whenever and however it pleased. The problem is that no such golden age existed. American power has always had its limits, and there have always been some wars that simply couldn't be won.

Bush and his enablers seem to forget that it was Dwight D. Eisenhower -- a man with a bit more experience in running a war than the tinhorn generalissimos now occupying the White House -- who realized that the most we could achieve in Korea was a stalemate.

George W. Bush wants us to remember Vietnam? Fine, then let's remember those iconic images -- the Viet Cong prisoner being executed in cold blood with a pistol shot to the temple, the little girl running naked and screaming from a napalm attack. Let's remember how little we really understood about Vietnamese society. Let's remember how wrong the domino theory proved to be. Let's remember how much damage prolonging an unpopular war did to our armed forces and our nation, and how long it took us to recover.

Thanks for the reminder, Mr. President. When you talk about "victory" in Iraq and the Petraeus report discerns a light at the end of the tunnel, we'll think of Vietnam.

Bush not getting the praise he deserves.

Bush is not getting the praise he deserves. While he may not have put an end to illegal immigration (in fact, by failing to enforce the existing laws he seems to have encouraged it) by doing away with many of the constitutional protections and economic opportunities that once attracted the tempest-tossed to our shores, he has put a considerable damper on legal immigration.

She lifts her lamp, tempest tossed

Back in 1900 when there was a rush from all areas of Europe to come to the United States, people had to get off a ship and stand in a long line in New York and be documented. Some would even get down on their hands and knees and kiss the ground. They made a pledge to uphold the laws and support their new country in good and bad times. They made learning English a primary rule in their new American households and some even changed their names to blend in with their new home.

They had waved good bye to their birth place to give their children a new life and did everything in their power to help their children assimilate into one culture.
Nothing was handed to them. No free lunches, no welfare, no labor laws to protect them. All they had were the skills and craftsmanship they had brought with them to trade for a future of prosperity.

Most of their children came of age when World War II broke out. Our fathers fought alongside men whose parents had come straight over from Germany, Italy, France and Japan. None of these 1st generation Americans ever gave any thought about what country their parents had come from. They were Americans fighting Hitler, Mussolini and the Emperor of Japan They were defending the United States of America as one people.

When we liberated France, no one in those villages were looking for the French-American or the German American or the Irish American. The people of France saw only Americans. And we carried one flag that represented one country. Not one of those immigrant sons would have thought about picking up another country's flag and waving it to represent who they were. It would have been a disgrace to their parents who had sacrificed so much to be here. These immigrants truly knew what it meant to be an American. They stirred the melting pot into one red, white and blue bowl.

Here we are in 2006 with a new kind of immigrant who wants the same rights and privileges. Only they want to achieve it by playing with a different set of rules, one that includes the entitlement card and a guarantee of being faithful to their mother country. I'm sorry, that's not what being an American is all about. I believe that the immigrants who landed on Ellis Island in the early 1900's deserve better than that for all the toil, hard work and sacrifice in raising future generations to create a land that has become a beacon for those legally searching for a better life. I think they would be appalled that they are being used as an example by those waving foreign country flags

(signed) Rosemary LaBonte

The BOG problem

The BOG problem (bands of disaffected guys) reported in Thursday’s LA Times will only get worse. As the veterans return from Iraq to find themselves without jobs, they’ll form their own BOG’s or join existing ones. And these veterans have not only been trained to kill but have had more than sufficient opportunity to develop on-the-job skills.
As the country sinks into depression, with roving bands of jobless terrorizing the population everywhere—a condition endemic for years in Mexico, will the retired George W. Bush finally remove his mask to reveal a Red Chinese? Twelve years from now, this once powerful nation, broken and depressed, will be ripe for invasion.
Can anything be done to prevent this? Yes, but strangely not a single one of the Presidential candidates has yet to offer a solution. And our free press seems more concerned with the candidates’ gender and the color of their skins than with their proposals.
The solution to our problems lies in a phrase our grandparents often used, “Idle hands make the devil’s handiwork.” We need to create jobs and this means that we, the government, need to raise money to pay our employees.
The least painful solution as it affects only the want-to-be-idle rich is to reinstate the inheritance tax: 50% on all estates valued over $5 million, 90% on all estates valued over $10 million. Electronic transfers of funds by individuals to banks outside the country in excess of $10 thousand per day will be confiscated. And that graduated income tax of ours will go back up to 75% at the top-most levels.
(Yes, we can raise the top levels of the State Income tax, too. Ain’t nobody enjoying California’s balmy climate going to move anywhere.)
The first jobs we’ll create are the obvious ones: Bring back the meat inspectors, the food inspectors, the port inspectors, the IRS agents, and the border patrolmen whom Bush let go. Next, let’s get rid of all the illegal immigrants. We need the jobs they’re now filling.
Finally, we need to rebuild the bridges, levees, water towers, water pipes and sewer lines that are on the verge of the collapse. No loss as all the money we spend on repairs over here, rather than on the repair of oil pipes in Iraq, will go directly into the pockets of hard-working Americans.
How will all these changes affect the middle class? We won’t pay a cent more in taxes. But the cost of labor will rise and you’ll pay more to have your garden mowed, to buy a big Mac, or to purchase made-by-slave-labor-in-China goods. Of course, store profits will increase as more disposable income will be in our population hands. And you won’t need to buy that Uzi to protect your home just yet.

It’s the Economy, Stupid

When President Bush asks for 65,000 more troops, he really is confessing that the civilian economy has lost 65,000 more jobs.

Prior to the start of Bush-Lite’s first term, even the least savvy neo-conservative was aware that while neo-conservative economic policies would bring great benefits to the select, the mass of Americans would need undergo great privations. The question (for them) became how best to hide the forthcoming shifts until it was too late for the electorate to protest.

But it took only a few months for Bush-Lite’s approval rating to slip to unprecedented low levels. What to do? With the cooperation of members of the Saudi Royal family, Saudi Arabian dissidents were provided with the necessary funding to launch an attack within the United States. Though the plot and plotters were soon detected by branch offices of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the word from Washington Headquarters soon came down to the branches: follow but do not intervene.

9/11 arrived and with it the remarkable (as much for being unchallenged as for its sheer chutzpah) decision to launch an attack upon Afghanistan. Afghanistan when the plotters had been financed by Saudi Arabia and the U.A.E? Nonetheless, Afghanistan was selected and the war machine revved up as defective munitions and unarmored vehicles were churned out by U.S. industries. Domestic job losses were camouflaged by an increase in enrollment in the military and the conversion of national guardsmen from weekend warrior to full-time government employees. Indeed, so successful was the shift from civilian to military employment, that the manufacture of defective military goods could be outsourced abroad. Screw greedy American labor—let business keep all the profits.

As the domestic job market dried up—never mind that food products went un-inspected, water towers fell, defective sewer pipes were ignored, EPA clean-up sites remained uncleaned, and the rail lines essential to domestic defense were allowed to fall into disrepair—the need for a protective cover in the form of a second war and greater military enrollment arose. On to Iraq with its weapons of mass destruction.

Soon more than a million troops were involved in support of the fighting. The good news: A million plus barrels of oil were consumed in transporting the troops across the sea. And billions were siphoned from the American taxpayer to pay for it all.

Did civilian jobs continue to vanish abroad or were doled out at starvation wags to illegal immigrations. Of course. But again, there was a solution. In the Spring of 2007, Bush-Lite prescribed the Iraq surge and 350,000 more troops. In July 2007, to replace 65,000 lost jobs, he requested 65,000 be put into uniform.

As the US dollar slips ever downward and Americans pay more and more for basic foodstuffs, one might ask what does the future hold? Here’s my prediction:

2008, a President is elected from the Democratic party. The troops are called home and within months, the United States is in a major depression with armies of the homeless and unemployed. Reforms are called for and Congress votes to give the next President dictatorial powers.

Isn't it about time the oil companies paid their share?

Rise in Profits of major oil companies from start of US Invasion of Iraq through 2005: 2.5 Trillion dollars.

Cost to American tax payer from start of US Invasion of Iraq through 2005:
25 trillion dollars

Isn't it about time the oil companies paid their share?

Bush critics proved wrong

Once again, those who claim George Bush is a captive of the oil companies have been proved wrong. Bush's plan for an Eastern European missile defense system (presumably to scare off terrorists) has led to Russia's President Putin increasing troop levels. Everywhere, weapons manufacturers are rejoicing, pleased that the monies they put into Bush's campaigns are paying off once again. (see Lords of War).

So Bush critics, hear this, it's not just oil companies, but weapon's manufacturers (three wars and a missile system), heroin importers (after Bush drove the Taliban out of Afghanistan), and tainted meat manufacturers (after Bush eliminated meat inspectors) who have profited from Bush's support.

Rich and Poor Still Equal in Eyes of the Law

"The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread." (from The Red Lily, Anatole France, 1894)

Multiple Choice Quiz

Who said, "It is well that war should be so terrible,
If it were not
We might become too fond of it."

a. George W. Bush
b. Dwight D. Eisenhower.
c. Robert E. Lee
d. George Fox

Traveling in the 3rd World March 2007

Yesterday while traveling by railroad through a 3rd world country, I learned to my horror that a fellow passenger had been forced to detour thousands of miles and 24 hours out of his way, because a major east-west rail artery severed in a hurricane two years before had yet to be repaired. As is always the case in such banana republics, a thoroughly corrupt central government, rather than make repairs to the rail line through New Orleans, had chosen to spend billions on sweetheart contracts abroad (thus allowing that government’s close friends to avoid all taxes on their excess profits which surely they would have had to pay had the work been done at home).

Truth in 911 Conference, February 2007

Little truth was to be heard at the Truth in 911 conference held at Chandler AZ, the 23rd through 25th of February 2007, the latest in a series of such conferences that began in San Francisco in the summer of 2004. Relevant facts were omitted; factoids provided to replace them.

The basic facts concerning 9/11 are widely known and were made known within the first 30 days afterward: Nineteen of the 20 terrorists involved in the attack (including the one who didn’t make it to the planes) were from Saudi Arabia or the United Arab Emirates. Financing for the attacks came from these same countries. Yet not one of the speakers at the Truth in 911 conference alluded to the terrorists’ origins nor to George W. Bush’s failure both to retaliate against these countries and to confiscate the funds of those who financed the attacks, something he had promised to do on 9/12/2001. (Come to think of it, the mainstream media including the Times never commented on his failures either.)

Instead, the speakers appeared to be groping for answers: Were the twin towers destroyed by beams from space, nuclear devices, or thermite charges? None seemed to feel that planes alone could have accomplished the task. (The Journalof911studies.com is devoted to academic research on the topic.) And as for the remaining two planes, including the one that allegedly hit the Pentagon destroying financial records and facilitating the theft of trillions of dollars, most said they never existed.

Meria Heller, the opening speaker at the conference, a webcaster of some renown (at least among this particular audience), took as her theme the Bush family's denial of the many holocausts they had caused. It seemed that George W.'s grandfather had been convicted following World War II for war profiteering and selling to the Nazi's. She provided the audience with a list of restrictions government had foisted over the years on the American citizen (or consumers, as they were now known) including the Patriot Act. The audience clapped and cheered with varying volume for each item on her list, with the loudest round of applause going to the Federal Reserve Act of 1913. Go figure! But then we’ve never understood the humor in the Millard Fillmore cartoon either.

Two beliefs that all participants at the conference appeared to hold in common were that 1) The federal government has withheld information about the attacks, 2) The administration allowed the attacks to occur as part of a larger “false flag operation” aimed at scaring the public into supporting tighter government controls (goodbye Constitution) and the profit-making (for Cheney and his cronies) invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. The fear of terrorism has replaced our old fear of communism.

But as always, there are as many beliefs as there members of a movement. A full 40% of the participants, alas, feel that the same global financiers who introduced the Federal Reserve Act of 1913 were behind the 9/11 attacks. In their minds, the Federal Reserve Act, the Protocols of Zion, the World Wildlife Fund, the IRS, and the U.N. are part and parcel of the same global conspiracy. One even confided to me that it was these same Jewish bankers who had financed Hitler.

On Sunday, the final day of the conference, it split in two. The group who feared a global conspiracy met in a tent outside the hotel, while the remaining 60% of the participants gathered inside to plan the formation of a Citizens Grand Jury. This Grand Jury would further investigate the events of 9/11, including the foreknowledge of the Bush Administration and its failure to take subsequent action. It would recommend the prosecution of those responsible and, should the Congress and Courts fail to act, would undertake the prosecution itself.

But an event that occurred much earlier that Sunday, at 5:30 a.m. to be precise, best illustrates how the greater American Public stands with regards to the events of 9/11. Some one or something had triggered the fire alarm in the hotel where the conference was housed. A third of those we spoke with complained of being awoken at that early hour. (As one confided, ”I’d only gone to bed a half hour before.”) Another third said they’d heard the alarm, but hadn’t bothered to get up. And the final third asked, “What alarm?” and admitted they must have slept right through it.

Summing Up The War

Ave, Caesar, ave, 0 congressmen,
Ave, 0 Iliad gods who forced the fight!
You bring your carriages and your picnic-lunch
To cheer us in our need.
You come with speeches,
Your togas smell of heroism and bay-rum.
You are the people and the voice of the people
And, when the fight is done, your carriages
Will bear you safely, through the streaming rout
Of broken troops, throwing their guns away.
You come to see the gladiator's show,
But from a high place, as befits the wise:
You will not see the long windrows of men
Strewn like dead pears before the Henry House
Or the stone-wall of Jackson breathe its parched
Devouring breath upon the failing charge,
Ave, Caesar, ave, 0 congressmen,
Cigar-smoke wraps you in a godlike cloud,
And if you are not to depart from us
As easily and divinely as you came,
It hardly matters.

Steven Vincent Benet

Can we leave Iraq?

The wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Colombia represent the largest make-work program in our nation's history, on a par with FDR's much maligned WPA. If we were to bring our troops home today, there would not be jobs for them. Still, as this make-work program is co$ting our nation trillions, wouldn't it make more sense to bring the troops home and put them to work rebuilding decayed water lines, pot-holed roads, and essential mass transit?

The Haunting of George W. Bush

One night George W. Bush is tossing restlessly in his bed. He awakens to see George Washington standing beside him. Bush looks up and asks, "George, what's the best thing I can do to help the country?" "Set an honest and honorable example, just as I did," Washington advises, then fades away.

The next night, "W" is astir again when he sees the ghost of Thomas Jefferson moving silently around the bedroom. He calls out: "Tom, please! What is the best thing I could do to help the country?" "Respect the Constitution, as I did," Jefferson advises, and then dims from sight.

The third night! sleep still evades Bush He sees the ghost of FDR hovering over his bed. Bush lowers his voice and asks, "Franklin, what is the best thing I could do to help the country?" In that golden voice of his, FDR replies, "Help the less fortunate, just as I did," and then he disappears.

George Bush still isn't sleeping well the fourth night. He tosses and turns, and suddenly another figure moves out of the shadows. It's the ghost of Abraham Lincoln. "Abe," Bush pleads, "what's the best thing I can do right now to help the country?" Lincoln pauses, then replies, "Go see a play."

Bush's Parrot

Bush's parrot is asleep on his perch; Bush is at his desk staring vacantly into space. Suddenly, the parrot wakes up and cries, 'Here comes Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense.’
Bush stops working. What goes on? Then the door opens and it's Rumsfeld. So Bush and Rumsfeld start to talk, but the bird interrupts. 'Here come Condoleezza Rice, minister of propaganda.' And, lo and behold, a minute later, it's true.
Bush tells what's going on, but Rumsfeld and Rice think he's kidding. 'Ah, go on, George, it's a trick, you're giving the bird a signal.'
'No, no,' Bush says. 'This bird somehow knows who's coming, and I'll prove it to you. We'll hide in the closet, where the bird can't see me, and wait for the next visitor.' So there they are, in the closet, and the bird starts up again. But this time it just trembles and hides its head under its wing and squawks.
After a minute, the door opens, and it's the Vice-President. He looks around, thinks the office is empty, and goes away. 'All right, people,' the parrot says, 'it's safe to come out now. Cheney is gone.'

Airport Insecurity

while I too worry about liquid explosives, I know you can't drink them without a) immediately throwing up, b) choking to death. I also know that in the abscense of water I can't swallow a decongestant just before takeoff (and I mean just before, not prior to boarding, not while we sit at the gate with the plane's doors closed, and not while we are number 19 in line for the runway) without a) immediately throwing up, b) choking to death. So here's my plan:

When I show up at the airport with my Camelbak--ask me to drink from it, a good long swig. If I keel over, it's a fair cop gov. Of course, I'm too old and too non-Arab to fit the profile of a terrorist, but that carries no weight with our security force anyway.

Nothing in Common

What do Republican and Democrats have in common?



Nothing.
Democrats propose nothing and Republicans will stop at nothing.

Republicans are the party of slavery

Two obvious solutions to immigration present themselves. Both require that the U.S. enforce its immigration laws, expelling illegal immigrants and imposing heavy fines on those who hire them.

Solution 1: Leave the Immigration Law unchanged.

Solution 2: Modify the Immigration Law to provide for unlimited admission of immigrants from Mexico.

Both methods would ensure respect for law and payment of a decent wage to labor. Both methods would allow the border patrol to concentrate on excluding terrorists.

How the present slavery system works is best illustrated by my current relationship with Seniso the proprietor of All-Star Concrete. Sensio speaks English--better then he lets on, and is, I believe a legal immigrant whom I pay almost $50 an hour for the services of him and his firm. The latter consists of an illegal immigrant whom Sensio pays $5 an hour and to whom he relays almost all my instructions. (Occasionally, I've seen Sensio, a tool in his hand, demonstrating an operation.)

With either solution in place, the gap between what I pay Sensio and what he pays his employees would diminish. No wonder so many Hispanics, like so many freed slaves in the 1800's, embrace slavery, the present corrupt Republican-sponsored illegal-immigrant system today, the Confederate/Dixicrat system in the latter century.

Let's tax gasoline

The experts say the price curve for gasoline is inelastic and will stay so for the immediate future. That is, people aren’t going to stop buying gas regardless of the price. They may look for jobs closer to home, may even quit working for a while as many have already done, but they’re not going to stop refilling their gas tank when their tank is empty.

So here’s my plan. Place a $1.00 State Tax on every gallon of gasoline. Unfair, outrageous? Not at all, either that dollar goes to us the taxpayer or it goes to the oil companies as soon as they realize they can raise the price of gasoline and get away with it.

Now, I know your favorite talk show host says that taxes are bad, that all they pay for is welfare, people who couldn’t otherwise afford medical care, supplements to education, inspection of scales, highways, and the environment, and crooked politicians. But then your talk show host probably owns stock in those oil companies. I don’t. My surplus cash gets eaten up at the pump. And some of those State services sound pretty good to me like more employees at the DMV, more teachers per pupil, and more law enforcement directed at putting away crooked politicians and welfare cheats.

Fac ist Bullshit and Airport Security

In line with its well established policy of rewarding the rich and our Saudi Arabian occupiers while methodically destroiying the rights, privileges, and income of the middle class, airport security--a government, not an airline function--actively discriminates between first class and economy class passengers. First class passengers are provided with a special security line--thus increasing the over-all cost of the inspecection system, while middle class passengers are herded like cattle. Once aboard the airline, first class passengers have access to any toilet, economy-class passengers are barred access to the facilities in first class. Does our shit stink or what?

Sign this Pledge

I'm not a Nazi. I will vote for only for those candidates for federal office who pledge to have my country sign the Geneva Convention on the treatment of prisoners of war.

war on terrorism ia a colossal failure

The Republican war on terrorism has been a colossal failure.

In September 2001, Bush promised to confiscate the assets of those who'd financed the terrorists. A month later, when the financing was traced to Saudi Arabia and the UAE, he reneged on his promise.

While Australia and many other countries track all visitors from abroad via computer, the U.S. has yet to install such a system. Indeed, the INS or its equivalent division in Homeland Security has yet to install a central computer. Want a copy of your citizenship papers (a prerequisite for a passport)--it will take more than eighteen months.

Though the only terrorist rings detected so far in the U.S., Canada, England, and Germany have involved young Arab males, we continue to harass our own citizenry with unnecessary inspections at the airport (preparing, them, no doubt for internal passports as in the former Soviet Union).

Let's elect a party with a plan.

Were there any good Germans?

Were there any good Germans? Ones who objected to the War, the violations of the Geneva Convention, and the persecution of the Jews? Are there any good Americans? Ones who object to the War, and to the violations of the Geneva Convention? Please let me know if any are running for Congress. If not, Democrat or Republican, they all look like Nazis to me.

What's Your Favorite Bumpersticker.

We invite you faithful reader to post your favorite bumpersticker as a comment on this post.

Washington's abuser in chief

MOVE OVER, battered women! There's a new syndrome in town. It's called "battered Congress syndrome," and it was first identified by Norman J. Ornstein of the American Enterprise Institute. It's strikingly like those of "battered women's syndrome," only the abusive partner is the Bush administration.

I know. You're thinking, "Come on. Aren't we talking about consenting Republicans here? Sure, there's an occasional spat between Congress and the White House, but it's just a minor domestic dispute. We shouldn't interfere." But that trivializes both the abuse and its broader societal ramifications.

Think back to 2000, when George W. Bush swore he was a "uniter, not a divider." He seemed so sincere. So he was a little inarticulate? Nothing the love of a good Congress couldn't fix. But honeymoons never last.

The abuse started small, with some minor infidelities to conservative principles, such as Bush's insistence on federal micromanagement of education. Then there were the empty promises, such as the endless emergency "I swear I'll never do this again" requests for supplemental funding. At times, Congress even got publicly slapped, like when administration officials simply walked out of a Senate hearing on mine safety.

Still, Congress made excuses. What with 9/11 and Iraq, the White House was under so much stress. And our troops — what would happen to them if Congress tightened the purse strings?

Anyway, it wasn't as if the Republicans in Congress never got any flowers. What do you call those tax cuts?

But weakness and appeasement only escalate the abuse. Consider the White House's practice of attaching "signing statements" to legislation when the president doesn't feel like obeying a law. For instance, in 2005, Congress passed legislation requiring that "scientific information … prepared by government researchers … shall be transmitted [to Congress] uncensored and without delay." The president said, "Sure, Honey!" and promised to sign the bill. But later, when no one was looking, he added a statement insisting that he could order researchers to withhold any information that might "impair … the deliberative processes of the executive."

The Constitution requires the president to "take care that the laws be faithfully executed." If a president can't live with a bill, he's supposed to veto it, so everyone knows where he stands. But when a president quietly eviscerates legislation through signing statements — something Bush has done to an eye-popping 750 statutes — he evades accountability. It's the political equivalent of the abusive spouse who takes care never to leave bruises that show.

But the harm to democracy is just as real as the bruises left by a batterer's fist. Through signing statements, the president has repeatedly signaled his contempt for Congress and his intention to flout the law on matters ranging from torture to the protection of executive-branch whistle-blowers.

And let's not blame the victim. Victims stay in abusive relationships because their abusers isolate and manipulate them, cutting them off from those who might offer perspective and assistance. "Battered Congress syndrome" is no exception. Through its bullying foreign policy and its domestic incompetence, the administration has driven away practically everyone, at home and abroad, who might have been able to lend the Republican-controlled Congress a helping hand. And with the administration's penchant for Orwellian "doublespeak" (it's not "torture," it's "enhanced interrogation"), how can Congress keep any perspective on reality?

On Tuesday, Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) finally made a courageous breakthrough: He acknowledged that Congress is caught in a potentially lethal cycle of abuse. Calling for hearings on the administration's pattern of evading the law through signing statements, Specter acknowledged that if the White House's "blatant encroachment" on congressional authority can't be stopped, "there may as well soon not be a Congress."

Admitting the problem is a crucial first step. Hearings are a start, but heck, why not a select committee to investigate possible basis for impeachment? Imagine it: Congress, co-dependent no more!

But the rest of us need to take a little responsibility too. I mean, we're the ones who voted for these doormats. Let's face it: We've become enablers.

That's got to change. If the Republicans in Congress can't escape from this tragic cycle of abuse by, say, Nov. 7, we need to give them a little bit of help.

Vote 'em all out

Rosa Brooks

How to Tell a Neoconservative

He wants to have sex with the man next to him but, unable to get it up,punches him instead.

Steps to reduce oil prices

1. Get out of Iraq and cut the defense department's consumption of oil by 75%.
2. Increase taxes on gasoline until consumers reduce consumption--note that profits from the increase will go back to the taxpayer and not to the oil companies.
3. Levy a 50% tax on all excess profits from the war.
4. Invade Saudi Arabia (who attacked us on 9/11) and take over their oil fields.

And the small fool says to push on

It was back in two thousand two,
I was a member of a good platoon.
We were on maneuvers in-a Loozianna,
One night by the light of the moon.
The captain told us to ford a river,
That's how it all begun.
We were -- knee deep in the Big Muddy,
But the big fool said to push on.


The Sergeant said, "Sir, are you sure,
This is the best way back to the base?"
"Sergeant, go on! I forded this river
'Bout a mile above this place.
It'll be a little soggy but just keep slogging.
We'll soon be on dry ground."
We were -- waist deep in the Big Muddy
And the big fool said to push on.


The Sergeant said, "Sir, with all this equipment
No man will be able to swim."
"Sergeant, don't be a Nervous Nellie,"
The Captain said to him.
"All we need is a little determination;
Men, follow me, I'll lead on."
We were -- neck deep in the Big Muddy
And the big fool said to push on.


All at once, the moon clouded over,
We heard a gurgling cry.
A few seconds later, the captain's helmet
Was all that floated by.
The Sergeant said, "Turn around men!
I'm in charge from now on."
And we just made it out of the Big Muddy
With the captain dead and gone.


We stripped and dived and found his body
Stuck in the old quicksand.
I guess he didn't know that the water was deeper
Than the place he'd once before been.
Another stream had joined the Big Muddy
'Bout a half mile from where we'd gone.
We were lucky to escape from the Big Muddy
When the big fool said to push on.


Well, I'm not going to point any moral;
I'll leave that for yourself
Maybe you're still walking, you're still talking
You'd like to keep your health.
But every time I read the papers
That old feeling comes on;
We're -- waist deep in the Big Muddy
And the big fool says to push on.


Waist deep in the Big Muddy
And the big fool says to push on.
Waist deep in the Big Muddy
And the big fool says to push on.
Waist deep! Neck deep! Soon even a
Tall man'll be over his head, we're
Waist deep in the Big Muddy!
And the big fool says to push on!


Words and music by Pete Seeger (1967)
TRO (c) 1967 Melody Trails, Inc. New York, NY
Stupidity renewed by George Bush 2002

Wouldn't it be great!

WOULDN'T IT BE GREAT TO HEAR the U.S. PRESIDENT tell the truth?

This morning I gave the order for a complete removal of all American forces from Iraq, Afghanistan, and Columbia. Let the oil companies, the poppy growers, and the cocaine cartel pay for their own security forces.

All war profiteers will be tried before military tribunals. Their corporate assets will be confiscated. The corporate officers and presidents of all companies who provided defective military equipment will be tried, then shot. Their corporate assets will be confiscated.

The corporate officers and presidents of all companies who used substandard materials on government contracts will be tried, then shot. Their corporate assets will be confiscated.

All deposits of Americans and American corporations found in offshore accounts will be confiscated.

The Vice-President and I take full responsibility for the hundreds of thousands dead and disabled. We have given away all our assets and have already taken a slow-acting poison.

Thank you; without your tacit cooperation, none of this would have been possible.

Bush in a Bubble

A BELEAGUERED president stubbornly insists on staying the course even as his staunchest allies abandon him. I'm not talking about Iraq, but global warming.

Here's a case where virtually everybody is acknowledging a weapon of mass destruction — the threat of climate chaos — but still President Bush refuses to take action. When the evangelical community, Bush's stalwart base, called for climate action last month, the news grabbed headlines. But the more important Bush defectors on this issue are some of the world's largest corporations, including British Petroleum, General Electric, DuPont and Cinergy. So, the question arises: Why does Bush persist in his increasingly lonely stance?

The answer may lie in the difference between realpolitik and ideology. Many corporations initially opposed climate action as a practical matter, because of its perceived costs. The Bush administration's opposition seems to derive from its ideological hostility to international treaties and the United Nations on the one hand and environmentalists on the other.

One story from 2002 illustrates the different approaches. A former staffer from an anti-climate-action lobbying group, the Global Climate Coalition, had dinner with oil and chemical company bigwigs at the Palm Too restaurant in New York not long after the U.S. negotiating team walked out of the talks on the Kyoto treaty to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

"You'd think that this group would have been jumping for joy," he told me, "but instead, they were sputtering mad because they felt that the move could not have been done in a more politically incompetent way." The last thing these savvy businessmen wanted was a grand gesture that would galvanize the the world against the U.S. Instead, business groups had hoped for the U.S. to stay inside the negotiations, where they could quietly kill action by a thousand cuts.

That approach had already proved successful. For 17 years, industry-sponsored lobbying groups forestalled action on climate change even as scientific alarm mounted. One prong of the attack was to infiltrate treaty negotiations. The lobbyists not only influenced policy, in some cases they wrote it. In one incident in the 1990s, Don Pearlman, an attorney who represented the Climate Council (another vociferous anti-climate-action group), was escorted from the floor of a Kyoto negotiating session after he was spotted writing positions for the Saudi Arabian delegation.

When they were not writing policy for emerging nations, industry groups were insisting that there was no scientific consensus that climate change was an urgent threat. It was a brilliant tactic. The naysayers didn't have to disprove global warming; they just had to create the impression that it was still subject to debate. This left the public feeling that there was no need to get excited until the scientists sorted things out.

Two things happened to change corporate attitudes. The destructive power of extreme weather events has become impossible to ignore (for instance, Hurricane Katrina and the 2003 heat wave in Europe that killed nearly 35,000 people). Even to the casual observer, the climate system seems to be popping rivets. And multinational corporations couldn't afford to be too out of step with their customers and stakeholders, particularly in the many countries where global warming is viewed as a clear and present danger.

Businesses began defecting from the Global Climate Coalition, which closed up shop in 2002 (noting that the Bush administration had adopted its agenda). And some companies changed positions to attempt green branding or because of the threat of sanctions.

In other cases, however, change came about simply because there was a new boss. That seems to have been the case with General Electric, the ninth-largest corporation in the world. Chief Executive Jack Welch was vocal in his opposition to taking action on climate change, and according to those close to the situation, in 1997 he forced the head of Employers Re, a GE insurance subsidiary, to abandon a plan to join a public/private environmental and climate initiative put together by the U.N. Environment Program. Now, however, under Jeffrey Immelt, GE trumpets the very type of initiatives that Welch squashed.

The changed corporate landscape gives hope until we remember that the climate seems to be changing the landscape that we live on even more rapidly. With carbon dioxide levels already higher than they've been since homo sapiens emerged as a species, we are conducting a science lab experiment on a planetary scale.

India, China and other big greenhouse gas emitters will not do their part unless the United States, the biggest emitter, joins the effort. And that won't happen without presidential leadership. So, President Bush, if the scientific, evangelical and business communities can't sway you, what will it take to persuade you to help halt our lunatic meddling with Earth's atmosphere?


Eugene Linden

Shots at Canadian envoys first of new war

Now that the war is winding down in Iraq [ROFL], Bush will need another invasion to maintain his popularity (and to keep our troops overseas so they will not be wandering with the hundreds of thousands of other unemployed across our own countryside). The shots at Candian envoys yesterday are the first of many to come.
Here are the top ten reasons for Bush to invade Canada:
10. Won't use much oil--can be done on bicycles.
9. Give U.S. secure borders.
8. Eliminate potential refuge for draft dodgers, runaway slaves, and other dissidents to-be-named later.
7. Invasion of Mexico impractical as we would then have to pay wetbacks minimum wage.
6. Creates more jobs (at least, while war lasts).
5. Keep media focus from our own decaying domestic economy and infrastructure.
4. Provide natural launching pad for land invasion of Europe.
3. Provide hundreds of thousands of acres of trees, minerals, and unspoiled wilderness Bush can share with his cronies.
2. Stop Canadians bellyaching about acid rain, over fishing by USians, ozone-layer depletion, landmines, and arm sales that are really none of their business.
1. Fewer Canadians killed by friendly fire.

New Orleans Ideal for Tourists Declares Bush

Bush visits Katrina victims

Abu Ali ruling provides solution to Bush Administration' problems

Do the rantings of Harry Reid, Barbara Boxer, and, indeed, anyone but your favorite talk show host, bother you? Judge Gerald Lee's ruling in the United States v. Abu Ali provides a solution Simply send anyone who speaks out against the President to Saudi Arabia. There they can be tortured until ready to come to terms with their own mortality, provide a videotaped confession (to anything you like) and agree to love Big Brother.

This isn't the real America

IN RECENT YEARS, I have become increasingly concerned by a host of radical government policies that now threaten many basic principles espoused by all previous administrations, Democratic and Republican.

These include the rudimentary American commitment to peace, economic and social justice, civil liberties, our environment and human rights.

Also endangered are our historic commitments to providing citizens with truthful information, treating dissenting voices and beliefs with respect, state and local autonomy and fiscal responsibility.

At the same time, our political leaders have declared independence from the restraints of international organizations and have disavowed long-standing global agreements — including agreements on nuclear arms, control of biological weapons and the international system of justice.

Instead of our tradition of espousing peace as a national priority unless our security is directly threatened, we have proclaimed a policy of "preemptive war," an unabridged right to attack other nations unilaterally to change an unsavory regime or for other purposes. When there are serious differences with other nations, we brand them as international pariahs and refuse to permit direct discussions to resolve disputes.

Regardless of the costs, there are determined efforts by top U.S. leaders to exert American imperial dominance throughout the world.

These revolutionary policies have been orchestrated by those who believe that our nation's tremendous power and influence should not be internationally constrained. Even with our troops involved in combat and America facing the threat of additional terrorist attacks, our declaration of "You are either with us or against us!" has replaced the forming of alliances based on a clear comprehension of mutual interests, including the threat of terrorism.

Another disturbing realization is that, unlike during other times of national crisis, the burden of conflict is now concentrated exclusively on the few heroic men and women sent back repeatedly to fight in the quagmire of Iraq. The rest of our nation has not been asked to make any sacrifice, and every effort has been made to conceal or minimize public awareness of casualties.

Instead of cherishing our role as the great champion of human rights, we now find civil liberties and personal privacy grossly violated under some extreme provisions of the Patriot Act.

Of even greater concern is that the U.S. has repudiated the Geneva accords and espoused the use of torture in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay, and secretly through proxy regimes elsewhere with the so-called extraordinary rendition program. It is embarrassing to see the president and vice president insisting that the CIA should be free to perpetrate "cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment or punishment" on people in U.S. custody.

Instead of reducing America's reliance on nuclear weapons and their further proliferation, we have insisted on our right (and that of others) to retain our arsenals, expand them, and therefore abrogate or derogate almost all nuclear arms control agreements negotiated during the last 50 years. We have now become a prime culprit in global nuclear proliferation. America also has abandoned the prohibition of "first use" of nuclear weapons against nonnuclear nations, and is contemplating the previously condemned deployment of weapons in space.

Protection of the environment has fallen by the wayside because of government subservience to political pressure from the oil industry and other powerful lobbying groups. The last five years have brought continued lowering of pollution standards at home and almost universal condemnation of our nation's global environmental policies.

Our government has abandoned fiscal responsibility by unprecedented favors to the rich, while neglecting America's working families. Members of Congress have increased their own pay by $30,000 per year since freezing the minimum wage at $5.15 per hour (the lowest among industrialized nations).

I am extremely concerned by a fundamentalist shift in many houses of worship and in government, as church and state have become increasingly intertwined in ways previously thought unimaginable.

As the world's only superpower, America should be seen as the unswerving champion of peace, freedom and human rights. Our country should be the focal point around which other nations can gather to combat threats to international security and to enhance the quality of our common environment. We should be in the forefront of providing human assistance to people in need.

It is time for the deep and disturbing political divisions within our country to be substantially healed, with Americans united in a common commitment to revive and nourish the historic political and moral values that we have espoused during the last 230 years.

Jimmy Carter

Compulsory pregnancy and the 14th amendment

To compel a woman to bear a child to term is nothing less than involuntary servitude, heretofore prohibited by the 14th amendment. Are we to believe that Supreme Court nominee Alito will work to defang that amendment? This will certainly fit in with the Bush administration's intent to turn more government functions over to the private sector. With the 14th amendment no longer enforceable, the costs of providing assistance to the victims of Hurricane Katrina can be taken over by the willing rich willing to adopt a victim or victims as slaves. Indeed as costs rise, salaries drop, and more and more Americans are forced into bankruptcy, we can return to the halcyon days of indentured servants that graced the first days of our 13 colonies.

Why Nations Go To War--America Too.

Why do nations go to war? I don't mean the top guys. Their reasons are straightforward enough: kickbacks from weapons manufacturers and contractors. Even the most conservative Republican can justify government spending when it’s for a righteous cause like war.
I mean why does the rank and file, the average American, so avidly embrace war? The answer is boredom; war relieves the tedium of our everyday lives.
Absent war, "all the news just repeats itself like some forgotten dream." Which, of course, explains why Bush has recently lost the nation's confidence. This many years after the war's start, we no longer find Iraq amusing.
It's easy to see why 18-20 year olds long for war. Just look at their fathers, stooped and graying, tied to the same lathe, the same computer, the same dumb sales meeting for thirty years and what did it get them. War offers an opportunity, perhaps a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for a little excitement, a chance to travel, to be part of a winning team.
But why would parents risk their 18-20 year investments? Ever sat in the stands at a football game? Or stood embarassed on the sidelines while the kids played soccer and their parents screamed. War is our chance to scream and yell, to unleash the hatreds we store up each day. (No choice but to store up frustrations when so much of our lives is under the control of others.)
War relieves our tensions and provides us with our one chance to excel, if only vicariously. (So what if there were no weapons of mass destruction. We wanted war and no sacrifice was too great.)
The theory that boredom results in war can survive several independent tests. Take the the born agains, self-righteous, smug, (forced to drink and fornicate under the table, to conceal their shame even from themselves), America's Mid-East crusades provide an acceptable outlet for all that ordinarily would be repugnant to a cheek turning, peace-loving Christ.
War offers the opportunity to do so much that cannot be otherwise justified. High school bullies can keep on bullying, even after graduation. And those that were bullied can now torture others.
As for the intellectuals, the peacenicks, always opposed to righteous causes, so out of step with the rest of us, this theory explains them, too. Intellectuals are like new arrivals at a party, two drinks behind. They find their avocations, if not their jobs, completely fulfilling. They solve equations, find cures, build bridges. They even get off on crosswords and sudoku. They're just not bored enough.

American Debacle By Zbigniew Brzezinski

Some 60 years ago Arnold Toynbee concluded, in his monumental "Study of History," that the ultimate cause of imperial collapse was "suicidal statecraft." Sadly for George W. Bush's place in history and — much more important — ominously for America's future, that adroit phrase increasingly seems applicable to the policies pursued by the United States since the cataclysm of 9/11.

Though there have been some hints that the Bush administration may be beginning to reassess the goals, so far defined largely by slogans, of its unsuccessful military intervention in Iraq, President Bush's speech Thursday was a throwback to the demagogic formulations he employed during the 2004 presidential campaign to justify a war that he himself started.

That war, advocated by a narrow circle of decision-makers for motives still not fully exposed, propagated publicly by rhetoric reliant on false assertions, has turned out to be much more costly in blood and money than anticipated. It has precipitated worldwide criticism. In the Middle East it has stamped the United States as the imperialistic successor to Britain and as a partner of Israel in the military repression of the Arabs. Fair or not, that perception has become widespread throughout the world of Islam.

Now, however, more than a reformulation of U.S. goals in Iraq is needed. The persistent reluctance of the administration to confront the political background of the terrorist menace has reinforced sympathy among Muslims for the terrorists. It is a self-delusion for Americans to be told that the terrorists are motivated mainly by an abstract "hatred of freedom" and that their acts are a reflection of a profound cultural hostility. If that were so, Stockholm or Rio de Janeiro would be as much at risk as New York City. Yet, in addition to New Yorkers, the principal victims of serious terrorist attacks have been Australians in Bali, Spaniards in Madrid, Israelis in Tel Aviv, Egyptians in the Sinai and Britons in London.

There is an obvious political thread connecting these events: The targets are America's allies and client states in its deepening military intervention in the Middle East. Terrorists are not born but shaped by events, experiences, impressions, hatreds, ethnic myths, historical memories, religious fanaticism and deliberate brainwashing. They are also shaped by images of what they see on television, and especially by feelings of outrage at what they perceive to be the brutal denigration of their religious kin's dignity by heavily armed foreigners. An intense political hatred for America, Britain and Israel is drawing recruits for terrorism not only from the Middle East but as far away as Ethiopia, Morocco, Pakistan, Indonesia and even the Caribbean.

America's ability to cope with nuclear nonproliferation has also suffered. The contrast between the attack on the militarily weak Iraq and America's forbearance of a nuclear-armed North Korea has strengthened the conviction of the Iranians that their security can only be enhanced by nuclear weapons. Moreover, the recent U.S. decision to assist India's nuclear program, driven largely by the desire for India's support for the war in Iraq and as a hedge against China, has made the U.S. look like a selective promoter of nuclear weapons proliferation. This double standard will complicate the quest for a constructive resolution of the Iranian nuclear problem.

Compounding such political dilemmas is the degradation of America's moral standing in the world. The country that has for decades stood tall in opposition to political repression, torture and other violations of human rights has been exposed as sanctioning practices that hardly qualify as respect for human dignity. Even more reprehensible is the fact that the shameful abuse and/or torture in Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib was exposed not by an outraged administration but by the U.S. media. In response, the administration confined itself to punishing a few low-level perpetrators; none of the top civilian and military decision-makers in the Department of Defense and on the National Security Council who sanctioned "stress interrogations" (a.k.a. torture) were publicly disgraced, prosecuted or forced to resign. The administration's opposition to the International Criminal Court now seems quite self-serving.

Finally, complicating this sorry foreign policy record are war-related economic trends. The budgets for the departments of Defense and Homeland Security are now larger than the total budget of any nation, and they are likely to continue escalating as budget and trade deficits transform America into the world's No. 1 debtor nation. At the same time, the direct and indirect costs of the war in Iraq are mounting, even beyond the pessimistic prognoses of its early opponents, making a mockery of the administration's initial predictions. Every dollar so committed is a dollar not spent on investment, on scientific innovation or on education, all fundamentally relevant to America's long-term economic primacy in a highly competitive world.

It should be a source of special concern for thoughtful Americans that even nations known for their traditional affection for America have become openly critical of U.S. policy. As a result, large swathes of the world — including nations in East Asia, Europe and Latin America — have been quietly exploring ways of shaping regional associations tied less to the notions of transpacific, or transatlantic, or hemispheric cooperation with the United States. Geopolitical alienation from America could become a lasting and menacing reality.

That trend would especially benefit America's historic ill-wishers and future rivals. Sitting on the sidelines and sneering at America's ineptitude are Russia and China — Russia, because it is delighted to see Muslim hostility diverted from itself toward America, despite its own crimes in Afghanistan and Chechnya, and is eager to entice America into an anti-Islamic alliance; China, because it patiently follows the advice of its ancient strategic guru, Sun Tzu, who taught that the best way to win is to let your rival defeat himself.

In a very real sense, during the last four years the Bush team has dangerously undercut America's seemingly secure perch on top of the global totem pole by transforming a manageable, though serious, challenge largely of regional origin into an international debacle. Because America is extraordinarily powerful and rich, it can afford, for a while longer, a policy articulated with rhetorical excess and pursued with historical blindness. But in the process, America is likely to become isolated in a hostile world, increasingly vulnerable to terrorist acts and less and less able to exercise constructive global influence. Flailing away with a stick at a hornets' nest while loudly proclaiming "I will stay the course" is an exercise in catastrophic leadership.

But it need not be so. A real course correction is still possible, and it could start soon with a modest and common-sense initiative by the president to engage the Democratic congressional leadership in a serious effort to shape a bipartisan foreign policy for an increasingly divided and troubled nation. In a bipartisan setting, it would be easier not only to scale down the definition of success in Iraq but actually to get out — perhaps even as early as next year. And the sooner the U.S. leaves, the sooner the Shiites, Kurds and Sunnis will either reach a political arrangement on their own or some combination of them will forcibly prevail.

With a foreign policy based on bipartisanship and with Iraq behind us, it would also be easier to shape a wider Middle East policy that constructively focuses on Iran and on the Israeli-Palestinian peace process while restoring the legitimacy of America's global role.

Get Out of Iraq

Is there anybody here who'd like to change his clothes into a uniform?
Is there anybody here that thinks they're only serving on a raging storm?
Is there anybody here, glory in his eye, loyal to the end, whose duty is to die?

I want to see him
I want to wish him luck
I want to shake his hand
I want to call his name
Pin a medal on a man

Is there anybody here who'd like to wrap a flag around an early grave?
Is there anybody here who thinks they stand taller on a battle wave?
Is there anybody here who'd like to do his part, soldier to the world, and a bullet to the heart?

I want to see him
I want to wish him luck
I want to shake his hand
I want to call his name
Pin a medal on a man

Is there anybody here so proud of the parade,
Who'd like to give a cheer to show they're not afraid?
I'd like to ask him what he's trying to defend;
I'd like to ask him what he think's he's going to win.

I want to see him
I want to wish him luck
I want to shake his hand
I want to call his name
Pin a medal on the man

Is there anybody here who thinks that following the orders takes away the blame?
Is there anybody here who wouldn't mind a murder by another name?
Is there anybody whose pride is on the line, with the honor of the brave and the courage of the blind?

I want to see him
I want to wish him luck
I want to shake his hand
I want to call his name
Pin a medal on the man

Phil Ochs

Calling the Democrats on their courage

Some would cast the Democrats as cowards at the poker table of politics. This is the conventional analysis, but I am afraid it does not accord with the facts. As an example, in the case of the war on Iraq, fully 60% of the American people want the U.S. to pull out some or all of the troops. That is one heck of a base on which to build a movement and a party. And yet the Dems, in the person of John Kerry, Howard Dean, Hillary Clinton and others, are calling for "staying the course" and even sending more troops.

This cannot be accounted for by "cowardice" but rather by the fact that the Dems are beholden to the same special interests as the Republicans: the oil tycoons, the barons of the military-industrial complex and those that thrive on empire, from the major banks to Bechtel and Halliburton. Take, for example, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who is for "staying the course." Antiwar sentiment is solid in California, yet she refuses to embrace it even though it would strengthen, not weaken, her. No, the Democrats are simply the other war party. And in defying their constituencies that are overwhelmingly antiwar, they are in fact quite courageous.

JOHN V. WALSH

Help for Rehnquist's daughter

Can someone please be on the lookout for a job for Rehnquist's daughter? She was appointed by Bush to a managerial post in government for which she was supremely unqualified following Rehnquist's favorable vote in State of Florida vs. Bush. Word on the street has it that Bush is going to dump her now that her dad can't do anything more for him.

Little Hitlers

Lifeboats left the Titanic half-empty, as little Hitlers in the form of ship's personnel actively prevented passengers from access to lifeboats. The same scene of horror is being repeated today as Federal officials actively bar rescue to New Orleans flood victims. You can listen to reports from the scene (see Horror Show at http://www.crooksandliars.com/2005/09/02.html#a4763) . Here is a statement fromJefferson Parish President, On Timmeh (Jeffersonis ajacent to Orleans Parish):

Sir, they were told like me. Every single day. The cavalry is coming. On the federal level. The cavalry is coming. The cavalry is coming. The cavalry is coming. I have just begun to hear the hooves of the cavalry. The cavalry is still not here yet, but I have begun to hear the hooves and we're almost a week out.

Three quick examples. We had Wal-mart deliver three trucks of water. Trailer trucks of water. FEMA turned them back, said we didn't need them. This was a week go. We had 1,000 gallons of diesel fuel on a coast guard vessel docked in my parish. The coast guard said come get the fuel right way. When we got there with our trucks, they got a word, FEMA says don't give you the fuel. Yesterday, yesterday, FEMA comes in and cuts all our emergency communications lines. They cut them without notice. Our sheriff, Harry Lee, goes back in. he reconnects the line. He posts armed guards said no one is getting near these lines.

...

The guy who runs this building I'm in. Emergency management. He's responsible for everything. His mother was trapped in a St. Bernard nursing home and every day she called him and said, "Are you coming. Son? Is somebody coming? "And he said yeah. Mama. Somebody's coming to get you.. Somebody's coming to get you on Tuesday. Somebody's coming to get you on Wednesday. Somebody's coming to get you on Thursday. Somebody's coming to get you on Friday. And she drowned Friday night. And she drowned Friday night. Nobody's coming to get us. Nobody's coming to get us. The Secretary has promised. Everybody's promised. They've had press conferences. I'm sick of the press conferences. For god's sakes, just shut up and send us somebody.

Eyewitness in New Orleans

Walking among exhausted, shocked and worried refugees, many of whom have lost everything, I got my first close-up look at the devastating impact of Katrina. In this grim and teeming way station, the nation's incomprehensibly slow-footed rescue effort struck me as all the more staggering.

In a major city in the United States of America, it took days for food and medical supplies to be delivered, for guard troops to be brought in and for sick and elderly people to be rescued from rooftops.

Bodies lay in streets, floated in rivers, piled up at morgues in the Gulf states, and nobody seemed to know who was in charge of rescue efforts.

As lives hung in the balance, House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert all but suggested that New Orleans should be bulldozed because of its precarious geography.

The head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency said Thursday on national radio that he was unaware of the chaos and suffering at the sweltering convention center, where thousands lived in unspeakable filth.

All of this is somewhat less surprising when you consider that it was the president who set the tone for so casual a response to death, a president more intent on saving face in Iraq than saving lives in the United States.

President Bush, who last year slashed an Army Corps of Engineers request for flood protection in New Orleans, waited four days to visit one of the deadliest disasters in American history.

When Bush finally arrived in the city where levees could have been bolstered with a few weeks' worth of the cost of the war in Iraq, he told the nation he'd had lots of fun in New Orleans in his day. He said he was satisfied with the hurricane response but not the results — decipher if you can — and then he boarded Air Force One and flew home without visiting the sick and suffering at an airport triage center.

Why the quick exit? There is work to be done back in Washington, where the agenda includes another round of tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans and gigantic cuts in benefits to the poor, many of whom we saw in the black neighborhoods of New Orleans for several days running, clinging to life and waiting for someone to throw them a line.

Steve Lopez

Don’t Blame Bush

Don’t blame Bush for the tardy and inadequate response of Federal authorities to Hurricane Katrina. In contrast to the 9/11 terrorist attack for which Bush had several months of advance warning, Katrina came as a total surprise, more so, as in contrast to most Texas ranchers, Bush has little or no interest in the weather.

While Bush's response is often unfavorably compared with his actions following 9/11, he was as inadequate then as now. A promise to confiscate the funds of those who’d financed the terrorists was abandoned once Bush learned the monies came from his campaign backers in Saudi Arabia. Similarly, though the lack of a central computer kept authorities from tracking the activities of the terrorists as they moved freely about the country, the INS (now a minor branch of Homeland Security) still lacks that computer today.

Let’s Tax (wisely) and Spend (wisely)

Our nation, already on the brink of bankruptcy as a result of our engagement in unnecesary foreign wars has been pushed over the edge by foreseeable, but unplanned for natural disasters. New Orleans was built below water level, over-built California is perched atop large-scale faults in the earth, and much of the Midwest lies along tornado alleys created by the Interstate Highway System.

We need to tax wisely and spend wisely. The first source of tax revenue for the States should be gasoline taxes. Every freshman economics student knows the theory of supply and demand. Raise the price and demand drops. Alas, the supply and demand curve for gasoline is relatively inelastic. The price of gasoline can be raised again and again without demand being affected. But there is a limiting price at which consumers will, finally, begin to balk. Oil companies have raised their prices again and again searching for that limit. To date, all the profits have gone to the oil companies. By adding a dollar or more in tax to each gallon of gasoline, we will arrive at that limit sooner than expected, with the happy result that all the profits along the way will go back to us the taxpayers.

The second major source of revenue will be estate taxes. This country was founded two hundred plus years ago on the theory that inherited wealth didn’t mean diddlysquat, that the right to the pursuit of happiness would be open to all regardless of birth. Acting within our democratic principles, the States should impose a tax of 50% on all estates in excess of $2 million and of 90% on all estates in excess of $5 million. Bill Gates is entitled to all the results of his hard work and good judgment; his kid isn’t.

The Soviet Union fell apart when it became evident that the sons and daughters of its dedicated if ruthless leaders had no taste for work (though plenty for cocaine and fast cars). Don’t let this happen here.

The third source of revenue is based on a proposal by Abraham Lincoln when he found himself engaged in a war he did not want. Let those who profit most from a country be the ones to pay to preserve it. And the President asked Congress to impose a graduated income tax. Let him do so once again.

The rich will flee the country will they? Right. Just as earth quakes and mudslides have forced so many executives to move from California.

Which reminds me. Let a dollar-for-dollar assessment be levied against any and all attempts by American residents to make deposits in offshore accounts. Let a two-dollar per dollar assessment be made against any American business that raises prices during a natural catastrophe. Let a 90% tax be levied on all profits from sales to the Department of Defense or its contractors.

Now, how do we spend this revenue?

1. Rescue efforts.

2. Housing for the homeless and those without funds.

3. Rebuilding water supplies and sewage lines nationwide. The allocation of monies thereof to be determined on the basis of population, made locally by individual Congressmen, and audited by the General Accounting Office.

4. To local police departments for training and additional personnel.

5. For education to replace the monies slashed by “The No-Child Left Behind” Act.

6. To hire meat and agricultural product inspectors.

7. On computer equipment for the immigration and naturalization service so they may track visitors, temporary residents, and potential terrorists.

8. On increased personnel for the border patrol so they may prevent illegal immigration.

9. On increased personnel for the immigration and naturalization service so they may track down and deport illegal immigrants who’ve made it past the border patrol. (This could include the payment of bounties to local police departments for turning over illegals to the INS.)

Bring home troops to repair flood damage

Let's bring our troops home from Iraq and put them to work on Domestic Oil production. To get Republicans behind this, all cost to be borne as before by American tax payers, and all profits to go to Oil Companies.

Congratulations George W

Under former Governor Bush, the proportion of Americans living in poverty has risen almost to the level reached under the previous Bush administration, while the proportion without medical insurance has acheived an all-time high of 45.8% By cutting the funds available for education, George has made certain that any reduction in these levels will be extremely unlikely. Also, on the plus side, record profits have been made from Bush's war as witnessed by dramatic increases in bank deposits in Switzerland and the Cayman Islands.

What would you say if you met face to face with President Bush?

4 out of 10 would ask the President to get out of Iraq, 3 out of 10 would ask him to bring the war to an end by sending more troups, and 30% would ask for a federal ban on pre-empting soaps during prime time.

Theory of Intelligent Design

Actually, like Telliard de Chardin, I've always found evolution to be one of the proofs of the existence of God. Imagine, across the galaxies, billions of life forms are evolving as their environments come into being.

Electronic Voting Machines Manipulate Election

Truth or urban myth? Your comments are invited. See

http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0813-29.htm and http://www.ilcaonline.org/freeman.pdf

A grieving mother waits for an answer

Margaret Carlson writes:

I didn't think Cindy Sheehan, the mother waiting on that dusty Texas road for a chance to ask President Bush why her son died in Iraq, was having much effect.

Then I saw her being "Swift-boated" like John Kerry, whose medals and Purple Hearts were all a mistake.

Sheehan, word went out, is a flip-flopper. She'd once accepted the condolences of the president and there was an article in her local paper, which quickly found its way to reporters, to prove it. In it, Sheehan was quoted as saying that Bush wanted "freedom for the Iraqis," felt "some pain for our loss" and that he was "a man of faith." All true, and not at all at odds with what she's saying now, which is that the war is not a "noble" cause, as Bush would have it, and that no one else's child should die in it.

What that excerpt from her Vacaville paper, provided to the Drudge Report, conveniently left out was the part about the family's decision to behave in a decorous way on a solemn occasion, despite their feelings about the war.

As she waited for Bush near his ranch in Crawford this week, Sheehan recalled that first encounter with her president, two months after strangers knocked at the door to say her son, Casey, a 24-year-old Army specialist, had been killed in an ambush in Sadr City. She was still in shock at the time of the meeting and didn't know how to act, she said. Afterward, she didn't want to tell the local reporter how let down she felt by a president who behaved like he was at a social event, who called her "Mom" and didn't seem to know the name or gender of her child, referring to him only as her "loved one."

Even hardened reporters can be flummoxed by Bush. It's not hard to picture Sheehan dazed by him as he mixed up his styles — guy next door, president, the "mission accomplished" commander in chief — with that of a somber undertaker invoking the "loved one" a few too many times. You can picture Sheehan, a small-town mom with good manners, not wanting to disappoint the folks back home with too much candor.

That time is gone, as Sheehan taps into a growing majority of Americans who wonder if the president gets it. That majority now has its own song (the Rolling Stones' "Sweet Neo Con"), its own candidate (Iraq war veteran and Democrat Paul Hackett, who nearly upset the favorite in a Republican stronghold in a special House election in Ohio) and a concession by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld (the "war on terror" has become "the global struggle against violent extremism").

Sheehan and others trying to get to Bush's ranch were forced by county police to walk in a three-foot-deep ditch along the side of road and stop five miles short. She ended up pitching a small tent in a tiny patch of shade.

Sheehan has two great advantages: It's the August dog days of news, and she didn't set up in front of the White House. There she would be competing with anti-nuclear, anti-fluoride and anti-globalism protesters. All around her sit satellite uplinks and reporters, finally with something worthier of their attention than Rafael Palmeiro's steroids and Katherine Harris' makeup.

Sheehan is part of a small group of parents who have lost children in Iraq and hate the war. There is a much larger group of parents who believe that Bush is doing everything he can and that he couldn't have anticipated an insurgency whose bombs and members would grow more sophisticated and deadly by the day. For them, their children's deaths were not in vain and most have disdain for all who hold the other view.

Members of Sheehan's tiny Gold Star Families for Peace believe that the president was wrong and is now clueless about what to do. They have stepped into the abyss of regret and senselessness that comes with knowing a child died for a mistake.

Sheehan reminds me of Lila Lipscomb, the Flint, Mich., mother who lost a son and got lost amid less compelling material in Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11." Lipscomb was an ardent supporter of the military who was devastated because she had encouraged her son to join up to get the education she couldn't afford to give him.

After a "9/11" screening for press and politicians in Washington, Lipscomb said a few words. When the lights came up, the audience spent a long time picking up its things. No one wanted to be seen crying, especially when our privileged positions protect us from ever having to endure what Lipscomb had.

On Friday, Bush will have to pass by Sheehan in his climate-controlled car with its tinted windows, or forgo a fundraiser nearby. He lives in a bubble — his prescreened audiences applaud him for platitudes and for his resolve. He goes nowhere alone. He took Dick Cheney to his interview with the 9/11 commission.

He isn't refusing to see Sheehan because he's callous but because he's like those of us listening to Lipscomb. Alone with Sheehan, he might find himself crying over something his privileged position means he will never have to endure.

through the looking glass

When President Clinton was committing U.S. troops to Bosnia, Rep Tom Delay (R-TX) wrote

"I cannot support a failed foreign policy. History teaches us that it is often easier to make war than peace. This administration is just learning that lesson right now. The President began this mission with very vague objectives and lots of unanswered questions. A month later, these questions are still unanswered. There are no clarified rules of engagement. There is no timetable. There is no legitimate definition of victory. There is no contingency plan for mission creep. There is no clear funding program. There is no agenda to bolster our over-extended military. There is no explanation defining what vital national interests are at stake. There was no strategic plan for war when the President started this thing, and there still is no plan today"

"Victory means exit strategy, and it's important for the President to explain to us what the exit strategy is." Governor George W. Bush (R-TX)

"Well, I just think it's a bad idea. What's going to happen is they're going to be over there for 10, 15, maybe 20 years." -- Joe Scarborough (R-FL)

"Explain to the mothers and fathers of American servicemen that may come home in body bags why their son or daughter have to give up their life?" -- Sean Hannity, Fox News, 4/6/99

"[The] President . . . is once again releasing American military might on a foreign country with an ill-defined objective and no exit strategy. He has yet to tell the Congress how much this operation will cost. And he has not informed our nation's armed forces about how long they will be away from home." -- Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA)

"I had doubts about the bombing campaign from the beginning . . I didn't think we had done enough in the diplomatic area." -- Senator Trent Lott (R-MS)

The Bush's Regret

The Bush's regret the passing of their chief financial backer King Fahad who asked in return only that the armies of the United States be placed at his disposal when and where he wanted to use them.