"E-mails don't get lost. These are just e-mails they don't want to bring forward." --Senate Judiciary Chair Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) today
Washington D.C.--It appears once again that the Bush administration's knowledge of the internet is either lagging, or they're just lying again (or both). You cannot "erase" e-mails readily, and if they went out into the internet, there will be a trail and copies on federal and RNC servers. Well, unless they got an IT guy to come and erase them--a risky gambit, requiring cells and individuals who are already fellow travellers in-crime. It's likely they still exist in-the-possession of the GOP. Incidentally, it's illegal under federal Hatch law that requires preservation of such records.
"They say they have not been preserved. I don't believe that!" Leahy shouted from the Senate floor. "You can't erase e-mails, not today. They've gone through too many servers," said Leahy, D-Vt. "Those e-mails are there, they just don't want to produce them. We'll subpoena them if necessary." White House spokesman Scott Stanzel said there is no effort to keep the e-mails under wraps, and that the counsel's office is doing everything it can to find any that were lost. "The purpose of our review is to make every reasonable effort to recover potentially lost e-mails, and that is why we've been in contact with forensic experts," he said. Leahy scoffed. "I've got a teenage kid in my neighborhood that can go get 'em for them," he told reporters later.
(AP, 04.12.2007)
This is true--any kids out there want to help the White House and the GOP/RNC find them? C'mon, we'll give you a cookie. A date with a girl? OK, we'll have a girl smile at you at an prearranged-location. You want a job in Justice? Yes, we're not safe while the Bush administration's in office. Homeland Security? How about FEMA, I'm sure a teenager could do a better job than all those Bush cronies...
The White House's spokesperson, Scott Stanzel has also admitted that the RNC "sponsored" 22 e-mail accounts for Bush aides. This is a violation of the Hatch Act. It's just one-of-many admissions of criminality by the Bush White House, but the context has changed with no GOP majority in either house of Congress. To their credit, Democrats are illustrating their commitment to oversight and accountability by putting the pressure on:
Leahy has not issued any subpoenas, but permission by his committee Thursday would give him authority to compel testimony from all eight of the fired U.S. attorneys and several White House and Justice Department officials named in e-mails made public as having had roles in the firings. The White House has refused to make officials such as political adviser Karl Rove, available under oath. (AP, 04.12.2007)
It's just a matter of time before Karl Rove and all the others are grabbed by the Sergeant at Arms of the Senate, aided by Federal Marshals if necessary. This threat was levelled at the Nixon White House during the Watergate hearings, and there was immediate compliance. One can expect a similar scenario if the brinkmanship over the firing of the eight US Attorneys is dragged-out further by the Bush administration and her allies in Congress.
Of course, the similarities to Watergate are numerous, and Leahy referred-to the lost 18-minutes of Nixon's Oval Office tapes, or "the dog ate my homework" defense/excuse. It won't wash, and Leahy noted that:
The votes authorize subpoenas to be issued if the administration records are not turned over and if Moschella and Jennings decline to appear before the panel. Subpoenas would compel the White House to comply or face legal sanction. "This is a political confrontation we [the GOP] don't need," Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, a member of the committee, said afterward. Graham also noted "the key person," Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, has voluntarily agreed to appear before the panel next week amid bipartisan calls for his resignation as the chief U.S. law enforcement officer. (Reuters, 04.12.2007)
Yes, we're a nation of laws, or we're not. Insofar as the Executive branch is concerned, they can only be reigned-in by law. The alternative is short-lived monarchial dictatorship (followed by a bloody civil war), with no law at all. Silence, blackmail, and subterfuge have aided in all of this. The silence ended a long-time-ago. Violation of the Hatch Act can cause the perp to be run out of office by Merit Systems Protection Board.
AP Today: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070412/ap_on_go_co/fired_prosecutors
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070412/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/fired_prosecutors;_ylt=AoFqdPDpgVJs3hbsT9DIbSqMwfIE
Reuters Today: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070412/pl_nm/usa_prosecutors_emails_dc_4;_ylt=Aoea3kZjAlC2aq.zpNc3U1eWwvIE
The Hatch Act: http://www.osc.gov/ha_fed.htm
Thursday, April 12, 2007
THE "WAR CZAR" ISSUE
wArSHINtUhN--I'm hardly the first to note this, but isn't being Commander-in-Chief the job of the president? Oh yeah, we don't have a real one, I forgot. This is just another bumbling-tactic of George W. Bush to avoid any responsibility for his actions whatsoever. The three high-ranking generals who were approached for the job said "no," and unequivocally. What is the job? Taking-the-blame when the occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq finally reach meltdown. Bush and Cheney just want another human-parachute, another scapegoat. Watch, nobody will ever take this position, and it will never be created in-the-end. This one just made me laugh, just the raw-irrationality of it all, the delusions of someone who was never qualified to be a washroom attendant. Alright, my apologies to washroom attendents everywhere--he isn't qualified to shovel shit.
KURT VONNEGUT, DEAD AT 84
"He was sort of like nobody else. Kurt was never dull."--Gore Vidal
NEW YORK CITY--Were it not for Kurt Vonnegut, most Americans would have no idea about the Allied-bombing of the non-strategic city of Dresden. There will never be a place like the Dresden before WWII. It was once called the "jewel of Europe," a place of some of the greatest achievements in art, architecture, and a world-renowned craftsmanship in fine porcelains. The people of the city were known for their culture, their happiness, and peacefulness. Like Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Dresden wasn't a genuinely tactical target--it was a revenge bombing for the Nazi-bombing of the city of Coventry.
A gauntlet of revisionists inside and outside of academia have tried to downplay our crimes in-general, but not like the story of Dresden. Even today, the numbers killed is a point of extreme controversy--the Anglo-American powers' crimes don't exist, after all. On the 14th of February, 1945, 450 American B-17s, and 850 RAF bombers levelled Dresden, killing as many as 100,000. The exact-figures are unknown, however, a minimum of 25,000 killed is accepted. Some have said that Stalin requested the raid at Yalta, but this has also been hard to prove. Winston Churchill thought the bombings were distasteful.
The Dresden raid caused a public outcry. Even Winston Churchill, who had urged Bomber Command to attack east German cities, tried to dissociate himself from it. On 28 March 1945, he drafted a memo to the British Chiefs of Staff in which he denounced the bombing of cities as "mere acts of terror and wanton destruction". The attack was authorised by British Air Chief Marshal Sir Arthur Harris, known as "Bomber Harris" for his enthusiastic support of the area bombing strategy. The idea was to target large urban areas to whittle away at German public morale, cut off relief supplies to the eastern front and give support to the approaching Soviet armies. (BBC, 02.14.2005)
It's hard to find a more unimpeachable statement than that. Apologists will say that it was all "necessary," and was "worth it", as former-Sec. of State Madeline Albright said about similar-tactics used in Iraq that killed 500,000 children. Our crimes don't exist, and anyone who voices them has to be countered with misinformation, half-truths, and out-and-out lies. Churchill's statement isn't some peace-loving hippie, or some granola-head: he was a hawk, and was still appalled by the barbarism and criminality of the bombing of Dresden. We will never truly know how many human-beings were annihilated by these bombings, anymore than we'll ever know how many people were killed in the Detroit riots of 1967. Bodies were cremated by the fires, destroyed by the bulldozing and recovery, and frequently little effort was made beyond immediate-survival. The priority was picking-up the pieces at the time, and simply surviving.
This is why anyone who holds the bold assertion that 25,000-100,000 is "too-high" is simply lying, their so-called certainty being the give-away.We will never know, but arguing over a mountain of bodies is, while disregarding the horror of even 25,000 human-beings dying in one night tends to be disregarded. That is a colossal number. Considering the number of bombers, and the fact that 2,600 tons of high explosive and incendiary bombs were dropped (creating a firestorm, just as it had in the Bremen, Hamburg, and Munich). People were literally cremated in their homes and bomb-shelters. Glass melted, bricks exploded. The number of bombs is irrelevant once a firestorm has commenced.
This is the height of terrorism, just as the overflights and bombings of infrastructure in Iraq during the 1990s by the Clinton administration were. They were war-crimes. We are committing others right-now in Iraq, including the use of phosphorous in incendiary-munitions. One facility that manufactured these kinds of munitions was the "South Plants Area" of the Rocky Mountains Arsenal in Colorado.
Munitions Filling
The preparation (by mixing or blending) and filling of incendiary munitions comprised the most extensive Army operations at the RMA South Plants during the WWII era. Five types of incendiary munitions were either filled or produced at RMA throughout WWII:Bombs were filled using a napalm gel which was produced in the 700-Series buildings;Bombs were filled in the 300-Series buildings with an incendiary mixture that was not produced at RMA;Cluster bombs were filled in the 300-Series buildings with an incendiary mixture that was manufactured offpost;Cluster bombs were filled in the 300-Series buildings with an incendiary mixture not manufactured at RMA; andWhite phosphorus, brought to RMA from offsite, was used to fill munitions igniters in the South Plants 500-Series buildings. (pmrma.army.mil/site/s-plants.html)
Were the incendiary-bombs that were dropped on Dresden made at RMA? It could have been the facilities at Huntsville, Alabama, though they could have been manufactured at Edgewood Arsenal in Maryland (where Frank Zappa's father worked--and was paid extra-wages as a human guinea-pig). The fact is this: the allies dropped thousands-of-tons of phosphorus bombs on civilians during WWII. This is a war-crime.
Enter Kurt Vonnegut: during December of 1945, Private Vonnegut was captured by German forces in Belgium--it was the Battle of the Bulge. My own grandfather fought in this battle, and recounted how you never knew who was an American or a German wearing the uniforms of captured or dead G.I.s. It was total-chaos, and Vonnegut was rapidly sent to a German POW-facility in Dresden. "Slaughterhouse Five" comes from the name of the underground shelter he and his fellow prisoners hid in during the bombing of Dresden. His experiences of digging-up the bodies, and seeing the moonscape of what had been a beautiful, non-strategic city haunted him the rest of his life.
I'm gonna miss this man--I've read nearly every Vonnegut novel and essay. My favorites are: Slaughterhouse Five, God Bless You Mr. Rosewater, and Breakfast of Champions. I've even enjoyed most of the movie-adaptations, like Mother Night, Breakfast, and the best, Slaughterhouse Five. But, my viewpoint of Kurt is also one of someone who has lived their entire life in Indiana. Vonnegut always retained that sense of the outsider, the observer, looking-in. Ask most outsiders in Indiana, and they'll tell you their love of Kurt Vonnegut, a man who the state has never truly honored as one of its greats.
It was my late step-father who introduced me to Kurt's novels in the mid-1980s. The book? Breakfast of Champions. Alongside Eugene Debs, he's been a voice for the people who have been thrown-away or abused by America, and he's inspired millions with both his cynicism and (ironically) hope. We have lost our era's Mark Twain, we have lost a giant of a man. Rich, you should have stopped and talked to Kurt that fine summer day on that lakeside road in Indiana...we're all guilty for Dresden, just as we're all guilty of the crimes committed in Iraq. We cannot have peace as culture and a nation until we admit our crimes. This is the testament to the writings of Kurt Vonnegut. A huge-chunk of Indiana's--and America's--soul died yesterday.
BBC on the bombing of Dresden: http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/february/14/newsid_3549000/3549905.stmHuntsville
Redstone/Huntsville Arsenal: http://www.redstone.army.mil/history/airfield/chapter1.html
On the Rocky Mountains Arsenal: http://www.pmrma.army.mil/site/s-plants.html
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
JOHNNY CASH'S HENDERSONVILLE HOME BURNS DOWN
HENDERSONVILLE, TENNESSEE--This is a damned shame, and had me really alarmed at first. "What if there was memorabilia or obscure-tapes of Johnny in there?" I thought. No-dice, it's OK: Barry Gibb bought the place last-year and was restoring it. It seems the preservative they sprayed on everything was flammable. A small-piece of me thought--wished, really--that it was Johnny Cash. Yeah, it sounds weird, impossible, but Johnny had a knack for causing these things. It's almost as if he really did do it. Hey, he burned down a national park forest once, so why not?
I can imagine his spectral-figure floating elegiacally (with a fistful of uppers and downers) galling at a BEE GEE living in HIS HOUSE. Let's face it: when someone's singing sounds like a chipmunk being sodomized, they kind of have-it-coming. It's sad to see this house go, it really is. I saw Johnny 30-years-ago this summer--it was in the football stadium at Notre Dame. Unfortunately, it was with Billy Graham, the guy who pulled-strings with Nixon (hey, he gave a narc badge to Elvis...) to keep John out of prison when he'd been popped at the Mexican-border with a guitar case filled with tens-of-thousands of uppers and downers. There you go.
I can imagine his spectral-figure floating elegiacally (with a fistful of uppers and downers) galling at a BEE GEE living in HIS HOUSE. Let's face it: when someone's singing sounds like a chipmunk being sodomized, they kind of have-it-coming. It's sad to see this house go, it really is. I saw Johnny 30-years-ago this summer--it was in the football stadium at Notre Dame. Unfortunately, it was with Billy Graham, the guy who pulled-strings with Nixon (hey, he gave a narc badge to Elvis...) to keep John out of prison when he'd been popped at the Mexican-border with a guitar case filled with tens-of-thousands of uppers and downers. There you go.
MIKE MCCONNELL : THE GUY WHO DIDN'T GET THE MEMO?
"Congress should certainly be very skeptical about proposals to give this government greater powers to spy on its own citizens." --Caroline Fredrickson, the Washington legislative office director for the American Civil Liberties Union today. (AP)
wArshiNtuHN--Ret. Admiral Mike McConnell is the Director of all of the sundry intelligence agencies that are under the umbrella of the Executive branch. Today, he appears to have heard his master's voice, and is calling-for--don't laugh--an expansion of surveillance powers for the 16 agencies under his command. What exactly didn't he read about in the New York Times, the entire world press, and the hearings that have only begun in Congress? OK, he's just following-orders from George W. Bush, our ostensible president.
After all, he was appointed by him three-months-ago:
The changes McConnell is seeking mostly affect a cloak-and-dagger category of warrants used to investigate suspected spies, terrorists and other national security threats. The surveillance could include planting listening devices and hidden cameras, searching luggage and breaking into homes to make copies of computer hard drives. McConnell, who took over the 16 U.S. spy agencies and their 100,000 employees less than three months ago, is signaling a more aggressive posture for his office and will lay out his broad priorities on Wednesday as part of a 100-day plan. (AP, 04.10.2007)
Oh, OK, just "suspected terrorists" and just some "cloak-and-dagger" stuff--like spying-on antiwar activists, you political enemies, nothing much. AP should really just admit they're a North American Pravda for this paragraph, and the torrent of others like it.
But back to McConnell. He's being told to do this by the Bush administration, just more of the old bait-and-switch. You have to hand it to them though, since they've given-away every stupid trick that politicians use to manipulate public-opinion and perception. They really have given the game away in-spades, which is fine. We can also thank them and the Clinton administration (for neoliberal policies in Latin America) for making most of the Western Hemisphere go Left. Mexico nearly did, even with their stolen-election, but all of this is going to be good for Americans. That's right: corporations won't have so much of that cheap-labor and all the resources they could simply steal under all the banana dictatorships.
In the context of Iraq, Afghanistan, Venezuela, and even the "terrorist-threat," McConnell's "request" is weird and un-American in its tone. The hilarity of all this is that he wants to expand the 1978 FISA statute--the one his boss violated for several-years until the former-GOP majority was washed-out of office in November of 2006 (couldn't steal a landslide). Interestingly, there is a connection with the US Attorney firings:
Rep. Heather Wilson, R-N.M., who unsuccessfully sponsored legislation last year to update FISA, said Congress must act because current court orders bolstering the president's terrorist surveillance program are legally shaky. She wants the law to be rewritten to ensure the NSA can continue the program. Bush has faced months of criticism for his 2001 decision to order the NSA to monitor the international calls and e-mails of U.S. citizens when terrorism is suspected. (ibid)
This is the same Heather Wilson (along with GOP Sen. Pete Dominici) who called and pressured one US Attorney David Iglesias to "step-up" the investigation of a former New Mexico Democrat on a construction-site--before the elections in November, part of a smear-campaign perhaps? You think (Ret.) Admiral McConnell will get what his boss wants in "100-days"? Me either. I know, this administration has been so trustworthy, it hurts to tell them "no" to virtually everything.
Oh sure, the FBI, CIA, the NSA--they've never broken any existing-laws, not ever...well, OK, they have. The FBI has even admitted recently to abuses of oversight in their surveillance, but the FBI is well-known for illegal-surveillance and harassment of American citizens anyway. It's what they were designed to do.See the article a few cranks below this one on Fred Hampton. Hey, but don't trust me, check all of the declassified memos courtesy of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). Mike must have missed this article from the Washington Post just eleven-days-ago:
Angry senators accused FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III yesterday of management failures that resulted in the dispatch of hundreds of national security letters and intelligence surveillance warrants containing erroneous information, and Mueller said he accepted that characterization. Both Republicans and Democrats at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing said the abuses have undermined the FBI's reputation and its authority to continue using such letters and warrants under conditions that Congress eased in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The letters allow the FBI to request information from businesses without a warrant, subpoena or judicial review. (Washingtonpost.com, 03.28.2007)
This is what Mike McConnell can expect in his so-called "100-days" that will end with a whimper. Expect his resignation before the end of the Bush administration's. I feel resigned to it myself... If you thought your job sucked, consider the job of Mr. McConnell who puts-in "16-18 hour days," working for a psychopath. OK, so you already know this drill.
It doesn't appear to be an entirely cozy honeymoon for McConnell and the Bush White House either: in the three-months he's been National Director of Intelligence, he hasn't had one of them approved by the Executive. There are a lot of uninteresting reasons why, but they have to have someone who got them into office in the post, right? The Biddles must be fed:
McConnell also suggested that someone currently in a senior intelligence position was not accepted by the White House, according to an administration official, who noted that at least one former senior official had turned down McConnell's appeal. One deterrent for any outside candidate is the short time left in the Bush administration and the possibility that a new administration, even a Republican one, would want to make its own selection. When McConnell's predecessor approached him last year about taking the deputy post, McConnell declined it, opting to stay in the private sector. McConnell changed his mind only when offered the top job. (Washington Post, 04.07.2007)
It's all good, Mikey worked under George H.W. Bush, so it's safe-to-say that dad sent him in to save his and junior's legacies...what little there ever was of them. He was chosen because he's "part of the club."
Mr. McConnell first came to public attention as the top intelligence officer to Gen. Colin L. Powell , then chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff , during the 1991 war. He conducted daily briefings not only for General Powell but for the defense secretary, Dick Cheney [Ed.- my emphasis.], now the vice president. He had contact with Mr. Gates, Mr. Hayden and Condoleezza Rice , now secretary of state, all of whom worked on the National Security Council in the administration of Mr. Bush’s father. (New York Times, 01.05.2007)
Isn't it nice to have friends? This article is dedicated to phony armchair-soliders like John Byrnes ( a true Spartan soldier in the sense you might think) everywhere.
AP Toadying: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070410/ap_on_go_ot/spy_chief_powers
Washington Post, 03.28.2007: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/27/AR2007032700471.html
Washington Post, 04.07.2007: http://www.bradenton.com/mld/bradenton/news/nation/17040579.htm
wArshiNtuHN--Ret. Admiral Mike McConnell is the Director of all of the sundry intelligence agencies that are under the umbrella of the Executive branch. Today, he appears to have heard his master's voice, and is calling-for--don't laugh--an expansion of surveillance powers for the 16 agencies under his command. What exactly didn't he read about in the New York Times, the entire world press, and the hearings that have only begun in Congress? OK, he's just following-orders from George W. Bush, our ostensible president.
After all, he was appointed by him three-months-ago:
The changes McConnell is seeking mostly affect a cloak-and-dagger category of warrants used to investigate suspected spies, terrorists and other national security threats. The surveillance could include planting listening devices and hidden cameras, searching luggage and breaking into homes to make copies of computer hard drives. McConnell, who took over the 16 U.S. spy agencies and their 100,000 employees less than three months ago, is signaling a more aggressive posture for his office and will lay out his broad priorities on Wednesday as part of a 100-day plan. (AP, 04.10.2007)
Oh, OK, just "suspected terrorists" and just some "cloak-and-dagger" stuff--like spying-on antiwar activists, you political enemies, nothing much. AP should really just admit they're a North American Pravda for this paragraph, and the torrent of others like it.
But back to McConnell. He's being told to do this by the Bush administration, just more of the old bait-and-switch. You have to hand it to them though, since they've given-away every stupid trick that politicians use to manipulate public-opinion and perception. They really have given the game away in-spades, which is fine. We can also thank them and the Clinton administration (for neoliberal policies in Latin America) for making most of the Western Hemisphere go Left. Mexico nearly did, even with their stolen-election, but all of this is going to be good for Americans. That's right: corporations won't have so much of that cheap-labor and all the resources they could simply steal under all the banana dictatorships.
In the context of Iraq, Afghanistan, Venezuela, and even the "terrorist-threat," McConnell's "request" is weird and un-American in its tone. The hilarity of all this is that he wants to expand the 1978 FISA statute--the one his boss violated for several-years until the former-GOP majority was washed-out of office in November of 2006 (couldn't steal a landslide). Interestingly, there is a connection with the US Attorney firings:
Rep. Heather Wilson, R-N.M., who unsuccessfully sponsored legislation last year to update FISA, said Congress must act because current court orders bolstering the president's terrorist surveillance program are legally shaky. She wants the law to be rewritten to ensure the NSA can continue the program. Bush has faced months of criticism for his 2001 decision to order the NSA to monitor the international calls and e-mails of U.S. citizens when terrorism is suspected. (ibid)
This is the same Heather Wilson (along with GOP Sen. Pete Dominici) who called and pressured one US Attorney David Iglesias to "step-up" the investigation of a former New Mexico Democrat on a construction-site--before the elections in November, part of a smear-campaign perhaps? You think (Ret.) Admiral McConnell will get what his boss wants in "100-days"? Me either. I know, this administration has been so trustworthy, it hurts to tell them "no" to virtually everything.
Oh sure, the FBI, CIA, the NSA--they've never broken any existing-laws, not ever...well, OK, they have. The FBI has even admitted recently to abuses of oversight in their surveillance, but the FBI is well-known for illegal-surveillance and harassment of American citizens anyway. It's what they were designed to do.See the article a few cranks below this one on Fred Hampton. Hey, but don't trust me, check all of the declassified memos courtesy of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). Mike must have missed this article from the Washington Post just eleven-days-ago:
Angry senators accused FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III yesterday of management failures that resulted in the dispatch of hundreds of national security letters and intelligence surveillance warrants containing erroneous information, and Mueller said he accepted that characterization. Both Republicans and Democrats at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing said the abuses have undermined the FBI's reputation and its authority to continue using such letters and warrants under conditions that Congress eased in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The letters allow the FBI to request information from businesses without a warrant, subpoena or judicial review. (Washingtonpost.com, 03.28.2007)
This is what Mike McConnell can expect in his so-called "100-days" that will end with a whimper. Expect his resignation before the end of the Bush administration's. I feel resigned to it myself... If you thought your job sucked, consider the job of Mr. McConnell who puts-in "16-18 hour days," working for a psychopath. OK, so you already know this drill.
It doesn't appear to be an entirely cozy honeymoon for McConnell and the Bush White House either: in the three-months he's been National Director of Intelligence, he hasn't had one of them approved by the Executive. There are a lot of uninteresting reasons why, but they have to have someone who got them into office in the post, right? The Biddles must be fed:
McConnell also suggested that someone currently in a senior intelligence position was not accepted by the White House, according to an administration official, who noted that at least one former senior official had turned down McConnell's appeal. One deterrent for any outside candidate is the short time left in the Bush administration and the possibility that a new administration, even a Republican one, would want to make its own selection. When McConnell's predecessor approached him last year about taking the deputy post, McConnell declined it, opting to stay in the private sector. McConnell changed his mind only when offered the top job. (Washington Post, 04.07.2007)
It's all good, Mikey worked under George H.W. Bush, so it's safe-to-say that dad sent him in to save his and junior's legacies...what little there ever was of them. He was chosen because he's "part of the club."
Mr. McConnell first came to public attention as the top intelligence officer to Gen. Colin L. Powell , then chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff , during the 1991 war. He conducted daily briefings not only for General Powell but for the defense secretary, Dick Cheney [Ed.- my emphasis.], now the vice president. He had contact with Mr. Gates, Mr. Hayden and Condoleezza Rice , now secretary of state, all of whom worked on the National Security Council in the administration of Mr. Bush’s father. (New York Times, 01.05.2007)
Isn't it nice to have friends? This article is dedicated to phony armchair-soliders like John Byrnes ( a true Spartan soldier in the sense you might think) everywhere.
AP Toadying: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070410/ap_on_go_ot/spy_chief_powers
Washington Post, 03.28.2007: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/27/AR2007032700471.html
Washington Post, 04.07.2007: http://www.bradenton.com/mld/bradenton/news/nation/17040579.htm
BUSH INVITES DEMOCRATS TO "DISCUSSION" ABOUT SUPPLEMENTAL BUDGET: POINTLESS
"We're at war... ."--President George W. Bush today.
"It's pretty hard for a president to get ratings this low in general, and then to be in the position where you basically don't budge — that's been reserved for some of the least popular presidents during the worst times of the last 60 years." --Jeffrey Jones, Gallup Poll. (USATODAY, 04.10.2007)
wArSHINtuHN--Except we're not really at war. It's a phony-war, with no real sacrifices from every social-stratum, no majority-support, and no legitimate legal-basis. In fact, we're not at war, but our troops are caught in the middle of an Iraqi civil war, and with us as the major-irritant. It's not a war, but an occupation--there's a difference. It's a war like the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939), and will have provided a training-ground for the forces that will likely be arrayed against us after this colossal mistake by a segment of the American public, and the political classes.
OK, it really appears that the generalissimo has lost it. It's official. You invite your political-opposition to "talk-about the Iraq budget," yet you say preemptively that you won't budge on your position at all. What exactly was the logic in the formulation of these pseudo-statements? Correct, there is none with someone who has no real experience in real politics (i.e.: the art of compromise and cooperation). Of course, it was stated in-front of that organization of serial American suckers, the American Legion:
"At this meeting, the leaders in Congress can report on progress on getting an emergency spending bill to my desk," Bush said. "We can discuss the way forward on a bill that is a clean bill, a bill that funds our troops without artificial timetables for withdrawal and without handcuffing our generals on the ground. I'm hopeful we'll see some results soon from the Congress."Democratic leaders said they're ready to sit down and talk with Bush. But Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Tuesday that Bush must agree to "take a seat at the table of negotiation, of compromise, of direction change." (AP, 04.10.2007)
He just doesn't seem to get the fact that nobody agrees with him and Cheney on the "unitary Executive" theory, or that they've lost what little credibility and influence they once had. Over is over. There is no-longer a GOP-majority in both houses of Congress. Over. 2/3rd's of the American public hates this war and wants it done this-year. Over. The Bush administration's crimes are being exposed and investigated. Over.
Like all of the flag-waving morons, Bush and Co. are still living--basking--in the glow of the immediate-aftermath of the events of September 11th, 2001. This makes these parts of the public cowardly and simple--like the president they "elected" in 2000 and 2004. This is the fallout of the authoritarian mind, the people who were beaten (emotionally, physically, or both) by their parents. Go to almost any country in the world right-now, and ordinary people will tell you that they think Americans are violent, crazy, and simple. They have ample-proof from the years flowing-from WWII.
Think I'm crazy? Another story from AP today states-clearly that the approval rating of Congress is UP. The president's is not, and will not rise substantially at any point in the rest of his second term. It will never happen. It's still in the mid-thirties, and is likely to plunge as hearings and investigations continue to uncover his administration's crimes. The inevitable disintegration of the occupation of Iraq will also hurt, as will the rising-cost of gasoline. On approval ratings:
In January 1999, for example, just after his impeachment by the House of Representatives, President Bill Clinton's job approval rating was 65 percent. In January 1987, President Ronald Reagan's was 52 percent. In 1967, President Lyndon Johnson received a 47 percent approval rating, even as debate about the Vietnam War raged. The war in Iraq remains the most important problem facing the country, cited by 33 percent of Americans, far more than mentioned the next top issues, the economy and jobs (8 percent) and health care (7 percent).(cbsnews.com, 01.22.2007)Bush's lowest has been at 28%. This is only four-points away from Nixon's lowest rating of 24% at the end, before his resignation. So, why the insistence that he's still got credibility? Why any insistence on anything? Amazingly, Bush's approval ratings are up by a few-points, though this could easily be explained with the 3-point margin for error (plus or minus).
USA TODAY: http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2007-04-08-bush-approval-rating_N.htm
AP Today: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070410/ap_on_go_pr_wh/us_iraq
CBS on Bush's approval ratings, 01.22.2007: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/01/22/opinion/polls/main2384943.shtml
"Were you ever in combat?!"
In two-words: fuck-no. Does being in combat make an individual somehow "better"? Of course not, my grandfather was in plenty of it in Patton's 3rd Army--he thought this war was worthless and stupid. So, you had/have friends there, or you were in Iraq/Afghanistan/Panama/etc. . Do I care? Nope. You're fighting for nothing but a bunch of monied-criminals and their interests. You are completely childlike and immature to think you're special for being in combat. Point-of-fact: our all-volunteer Army is primarily for those of us either cannot function in ordinary society, or are unable to find honest work where they live.
That's it. There is no honor in being a soldier, and there never was. It's a dirty-job that nobody in their right-mind would enlist to do. Only an idiot would, frankly, especially during the current conflict. I know, I know, it takes ignoring an entire generation of High Command, retired officers, all the deserters (the smart ones), all the smart people who stayed-out or refused to go when called-up--they know an illegal-war when they see one. They also have the brains to know bullshit when they see it. To all the self-appointed super patriots: be a real man and stop acting like apes. Grow-up. Dear John: thanks, I needed a topic today. Bring-back the draft, evolution is being thwarted.
That's it. There is no honor in being a soldier, and there never was. It's a dirty-job that nobody in their right-mind would enlist to do. Only an idiot would, frankly, especially during the current conflict. I know, I know, it takes ignoring an entire generation of High Command, retired officers, all the deserters (the smart ones), all the smart people who stayed-out or refused to go when called-up--they know an illegal-war when they see one. They also have the brains to know bullshit when they see it. To all the self-appointed super patriots: be a real man and stop acting like apes. Grow-up. Dear John: thanks, I needed a topic today. Bring-back the draft, evolution is being thwarted.
Monday, April 09, 2007
THE ITALIAN-AMERICAN WHO KILLED ITALY'S NUMBER-TWO SPY: "IT WAS SELF-DEFENSE."
BIZARoWORLd--Never mind that the US Military Command in Iraq knew that Italy's number-two spy--Major General Nicola Calipari--was ferrying freed-hostage and journalist Giuliana Sgrena to Baghdad's airport--Spc. Mario Lanzo was just engaging in "self-defense." The Anglo-American media has done as much as it possibly can to downplay all of this, especially Calipari's real rank. Imagine if the the second-in-command of the NSA was shot-to-death anywhere, or anyplace.
This was the straw that broke the camel's back for Italian-involvement in Iraq, and has continued to have a chilling-effect on US-Italian relations since it occurred on March 4th, 2005. It wasn't just Iraq that killed the government of former-Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, it was this incident that provided the tipping-point.
"You have a warning line, you have a danger line, and you have a kill line," Lozano told the newspaper from a relative's New York apartment. "Anyone inside 100 meters is already in the danger zone ... and you gotta take them out," Lozano said. "If you hesitate, you come home in a box—and I didn't want to come home in a box. I did what any soldier would do in my position." Lozano is set to be tried in absentia this month on a murder charge in the March 2005 death of Nicola Calipari. The intelligence officer was shot on his way to the Baghdad airport, shortly after securing the release of a kidnapped Italian journalist. Another agent and the journalist, Giuliana Sgrena, were wounded. (AP, 04.09.2007)
Notice how AP only refers to Calipari as "an intelligence officer"? That's common for the coverage of this story, and many others. Never mind the facts, power must be protected from accountability--hence the obfuscation and mangling of language. The problem is, military authorities still have the car that was showered with a hail of bullets. Until then, no real trajectory-evidence is available to anyone...except the Pentagon (who are under the command of the Bush administration). According to Sgrena--a correspondent for the communist "Il Manifesto"--the majority of the bullets were fired "from behind." Now, only the remains of the vehicle will likely prove or disprove this contention (or those of the Pentagon), but they're being held at the Baghdad airport, locked-away from view.
Around early-May of 2005, the Pentagon issued a report absolving the soldiers, and with lots of blacked-out lines and paragraphs ("heavily-redacted"). But that's OK, since a Bolognese college student found that the internet-version had the original-text underneath the censored portions. He found it was possible to copy it to a text-program, showing the under-text in two keystrokes. Today's "new" story adds nothing to the debate, or to the knowledge of the American public. How many of you know that "the Italian Secret Service agent" reported about in our media was Italy's number-two spy chief? The stories diverged from-the-onset:
Another Italian attache, who was at the Baghdad airport, also told U.S. military personnel the car carrying agent Nicola Calipari and journalist Giuliana Sgrena was on its way to the airport March 4 before the shooting occurred, Berlusconi told the Italian senate on Wednesday.
Differing accounts have emerged about Friday's shooting at a checkpoint on the road to the Baghdad airport, in which Calipari was shot and killed and Sgrena was wounded in the shoulder.
(CNN, 04.09.2005)
It's possible that what we have here is gross-incompetence and a miscommunication--or something else. More journalists were killed in Iraq by late-2005 than the entire twenty-year conflict in Vietnam (1955-1975). Having an enlisted man take-the-hit is typical of military "justice" and accountability, and we can assume that Spc. Lanzo is just another human-parachute for the Bush administration, a shield. If nothing untoward happened, release the car that Calipari was killed in, and do a real investigation that's open. It would even be best to bring-in disinterested parties to do the investigating.
This still burns in the hearts of most Italians. What will placate them? Justice, and a real investigation, not one merely by Washington, who has most all of the remaining evidence in their custody. Major General Calipari had been involved in negotiations to release Italian-nationals from Iraqi insurgents before. Why did this have such a different outcome? We don't know, but why wasn't a crime scene established when it was clear there was reason to believe one might have occurred? From the redacted-sections of the 2005 Pentagon report:
A further constraint was the inability to reconstruct the event so as to provide accurate data for forensic analysis of bullet trajectory, speed of the vehicle, and stopping distance due to the inherent danger in the vicinity of the incident location. This was made evident during a site visit by the Joint Investigation Team when a hand grenade was thrown (from the Route Vernon overpass) at the Team’s vehicles as members were boarding, injuring one soldier. These factors limited the forensic team’s ability to conduct an on-site, in-depth analysis, although extensive tests were performed on Camp Victory. As a result, the forensic studies of the car could not be as conclusive as they normally would be. (voltairenet.org, 06.08.2005)
That's true, but why not turn-over the car to the Italians? The American military under the command of George W. Bush cannot be trusted to tell the truth, their careers depend on silencio. Is Mario Lanzo lying? This writer suggest putting him under oath. The Pentagon claims that a GPS recorded the car's speed at around 60mph--they're the only-source this writer can locate.
The Redacted Sections of 2005 Pentagon Report of the Death of Calipari,
and the Wounding of Giulia Sgrena: http://www.voltairenet.org/article30249.html
This was the straw that broke the camel's back for Italian-involvement in Iraq, and has continued to have a chilling-effect on US-Italian relations since it occurred on March 4th, 2005. It wasn't just Iraq that killed the government of former-Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, it was this incident that provided the tipping-point.
"You have a warning line, you have a danger line, and you have a kill line," Lozano told the newspaper from a relative's New York apartment. "Anyone inside 100 meters is already in the danger zone ... and you gotta take them out," Lozano said. "If you hesitate, you come home in a box—and I didn't want to come home in a box. I did what any soldier would do in my position." Lozano is set to be tried in absentia this month on a murder charge in the March 2005 death of Nicola Calipari. The intelligence officer was shot on his way to the Baghdad airport, shortly after securing the release of a kidnapped Italian journalist. Another agent and the journalist, Giuliana Sgrena, were wounded. (AP, 04.09.2007)
Notice how AP only refers to Calipari as "an intelligence officer"? That's common for the coverage of this story, and many others. Never mind the facts, power must be protected from accountability--hence the obfuscation and mangling of language. The problem is, military authorities still have the car that was showered with a hail of bullets. Until then, no real trajectory-evidence is available to anyone...except the Pentagon (who are under the command of the Bush administration). According to Sgrena--a correspondent for the communist "Il Manifesto"--the majority of the bullets were fired "from behind." Now, only the remains of the vehicle will likely prove or disprove this contention (or those of the Pentagon), but they're being held at the Baghdad airport, locked-away from view.
Around early-May of 2005, the Pentagon issued a report absolving the soldiers, and with lots of blacked-out lines and paragraphs ("heavily-redacted"). But that's OK, since a Bolognese college student found that the internet-version had the original-text underneath the censored portions. He found it was possible to copy it to a text-program, showing the under-text in two keystrokes. Today's "new" story adds nothing to the debate, or to the knowledge of the American public. How many of you know that "the Italian Secret Service agent" reported about in our media was Italy's number-two spy chief? The stories diverged from-the-onset:
Another Italian attache, who was at the Baghdad airport, also told U.S. military personnel the car carrying agent Nicola Calipari and journalist Giuliana Sgrena was on its way to the airport March 4 before the shooting occurred, Berlusconi told the Italian senate on Wednesday.
Differing accounts have emerged about Friday's shooting at a checkpoint on the road to the Baghdad airport, in which Calipari was shot and killed and Sgrena was wounded in the shoulder.
(CNN, 04.09.2005)
It's possible that what we have here is gross-incompetence and a miscommunication--or something else. More journalists were killed in Iraq by late-2005 than the entire twenty-year conflict in Vietnam (1955-1975). Having an enlisted man take-the-hit is typical of military "justice" and accountability, and we can assume that Spc. Lanzo is just another human-parachute for the Bush administration, a shield. If nothing untoward happened, release the car that Calipari was killed in, and do a real investigation that's open. It would even be best to bring-in disinterested parties to do the investigating.
This still burns in the hearts of most Italians. What will placate them? Justice, and a real investigation, not one merely by Washington, who has most all of the remaining evidence in their custody. Major General Calipari had been involved in negotiations to release Italian-nationals from Iraqi insurgents before. Why did this have such a different outcome? We don't know, but why wasn't a crime scene established when it was clear there was reason to believe one might have occurred? From the redacted-sections of the 2005 Pentagon report:
A further constraint was the inability to reconstruct the event so as to provide accurate data for forensic analysis of bullet trajectory, speed of the vehicle, and stopping distance due to the inherent danger in the vicinity of the incident location. This was made evident during a site visit by the Joint Investigation Team when a hand grenade was thrown (from the Route Vernon overpass) at the Team’s vehicles as members were boarding, injuring one soldier. These factors limited the forensic team’s ability to conduct an on-site, in-depth analysis, although extensive tests were performed on Camp Victory. As a result, the forensic studies of the car could not be as conclusive as they normally would be. (voltairenet.org, 06.08.2005)
That's true, but why not turn-over the car to the Italians? The American military under the command of George W. Bush cannot be trusted to tell the truth, their careers depend on silencio. Is Mario Lanzo lying? This writer suggest putting him under oath. The Pentagon claims that a GPS recorded the car's speed at around 60mph--they're the only-source this writer can locate.
APing Today: http://www.denverpost.com/nationworld/ci_5626595
CNN 04.09.2005: http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/europe/03/09/italy.sgrena/The Redacted Sections of 2005 Pentagon Report of the Death of Calipari,
and the Wounding of Giulia Sgrena: http://www.voltairenet.org/article30249.html
Saturday, April 07, 2007
BUSH AT THE END: KEEPS TELLING CONGRESS TO SUPPORT TROOPS WHILE HE WILL NOT
"It is time for the president and Republicans in Congress to stop trying to bully their way through this and work with Democrats to end the war. It's time for the president to show respect to the American people, who voted overwhelmingly to leave Iraq." --DNC Chair Howard Dean this week.
CRAWFORD, TEXAS--Well, what great-timing, Cindy Sheehan is down there on the property she bought. Maybe the president can take his former strategist Matthew Dowd's advice and finally go down to see her? Naw, he knows it's too-late. Too-late to leave Iraq with his honor intact. Too-late to avoid all the investigations, and too-late to be demanding anything whatsoever from anyone, anywhere. Not even mercy, not even pity, and certainly not forgiveness. The only fate worthy of scoundrel is physical destruction by their own hand, ignominy and eternal scorn. Interestingly, this about the time it hits a president that this is his fate (because he's president). Nearly all of them look like ghosts when they leave office.
But Bush has taken it to a new level in American history, and will likely be standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Benedict Arnold, Warren G. Harding, Calvin Coolidge, James K. Polk (who gave us the Mexican-American war), James Buchanan (who couldn't prevent the Civil War), Richard Nixon, and Herbert Hoover. The fact is this: President George W. Bush didn't prevent the events of September 11th, 2001 from happening. He and the GOP didn't protect us, but neither did the Democrats who helped engineer past foreign policies that gave us those events. Nonetheless, the response was inadequate, and our fighter jets were told to stand-down by someone--and who exactly would have that power except the Executive branch? Take it as you will, but this writer predicts we haven't remotely seen the fruits of the administration yet.
Today, our goober president was in-hiding again down at his ranch, so I must have spoken too-soon on that one. When the going gets-tough, Bush finally runs home to sit in a fetal-position at his ranch (or runs to mom and dad, as he always has). This is a good sign, it means he's probably cracking. An important question: what time does Ted Nugent come by to give the president his full-body massage? He's having a blast, but he still has to send these half-baked statements out thanks to Karl Rove. I mean honestly, if he just said, "Ooogaaah-boogahh!" it would make more sense. He seems to believe that the laws-of-physics are at his bidding--if you have no money for actions in Iraq into 2008, there will be no "longer tours of duty." Jesus Christ:
"I recognize that Democrats are trying to show their current opposition to the war in Iraq," Bush said in his weekly radio address from Crawford, where he is on a break of his own. "They see the emergency war spending bill as a chance to make that statement," Bush said. "Yet for our men and women in uniform, this emergency war spending bill is not a political statement, it is a source of critical funding that has a direct impact on their daily lives."
(AP, 04.07.2007)
Bush continues:
"That means the soonest the House and Senate could get a bill to my desk will be sometime late this month, after the adverse consequences for our troops and their families have already begun," Bush said. "For our troops, the clock is ticking." (ibid)
Except this--again--is a lie. The president is playing politics with the troops, and in a classic case of projection, accusing the Democrats of doing just that. You could call it a preemptive "I know you are, but what am I?" attack. It's not working, and the White House is just doing what it has all-along--buying time. This is why he says "the clock is ticking." It's running-out on him. That's what this whole budget debate is about: "Will the war end when Bush is president?" That's what he and the GOP fear most, but incumbents could find that it's their best out that would allow them to disown the war and let Bush own it all. In fact, he does, and the world knows it. He appears to be the last one who doesn't. Is he repressing it, or is he really as isolated and inept as most assume? No, not co-president Cheney, I mean President Bush...
Without a trace of irony, he's correct that time is running-out for our troops in Iraq. The longer they stay there, the more endangered they and we are. Our security--and the security of the region and the world--become more-and-more endangered the longer we occupy Iraq and Afghanistan. The analog is that the longer we're powering this civilization on petroleum and other chemicals and minerals, the closer we edge towards our extinction.This is the anarchy of power. The hope is not in political-unity, but in adversarialism. Our current anthropological crisis is due to acquiescence and cowardice, as well as the warm rationalizations behind "the conventional wisdom." This is a mangling of language, the shadow cast by power, and something even the ancients knew well:
When Congress does not fund our troops on the front lines, our military is forced to make cuts in other areas to cover the shortfall. Military leaders have warned Congress about this problem. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Pete Pace, recently testified that if Congress fails to pass a bill I can sign by mid-April, the Army will be forced to consider cutting back on training, equipment repair, and quality of life initiatives for our Guard and Reserve forces. In a letter to Congress, Army Chief of Staff Pete Schoomaker put it this way: "Without approval of the supplemental funds in April, we will be forced to take increasingly draconian measures which will impact Army readiness and impose hardships on our soldiers and their families.
(whitehouse.gov, 04.07.2007)
Problem: we know that--at your urging--no-bid contractors have given our soldiers poor-equipment, provisions, and even tainted-water. To place these hardships onto the shoulders of the troops is your action, not that of Congress. As president, George W. Bush has never had any regard for the safety and well-being of American troops, or anyone. But it doesn't matter, because he's lost his GOP-majority and many allies, the majority isn't with him, and nobody with any credibility listens to him anymore except to counter him.
Reuters Today: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070407/pl_nm/bush_iraq_dc
White House Transcript of the President's Radio Address:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/04/20070407.html
AP Today: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070407/ap_on_go_pr_wh/bush;_ylt=AmHRSmmXM5NSA.4KDNfaOikb.3QA
CRAWFORD, TEXAS--Well, what great-timing, Cindy Sheehan is down there on the property she bought. Maybe the president can take his former strategist Matthew Dowd's advice and finally go down to see her? Naw, he knows it's too-late. Too-late to leave Iraq with his honor intact. Too-late to avoid all the investigations, and too-late to be demanding anything whatsoever from anyone, anywhere. Not even mercy, not even pity, and certainly not forgiveness. The only fate worthy of scoundrel is physical destruction by their own hand, ignominy and eternal scorn. Interestingly, this about the time it hits a president that this is his fate (because he's president). Nearly all of them look like ghosts when they leave office.
But Bush has taken it to a new level in American history, and will likely be standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Benedict Arnold, Warren G. Harding, Calvin Coolidge, James K. Polk (who gave us the Mexican-American war), James Buchanan (who couldn't prevent the Civil War), Richard Nixon, and Herbert Hoover. The fact is this: President George W. Bush didn't prevent the events of September 11th, 2001 from happening. He and the GOP didn't protect us, but neither did the Democrats who helped engineer past foreign policies that gave us those events. Nonetheless, the response was inadequate, and our fighter jets were told to stand-down by someone--and who exactly would have that power except the Executive branch? Take it as you will, but this writer predicts we haven't remotely seen the fruits of the administration yet.
Today, our goober president was in-hiding again down at his ranch, so I must have spoken too-soon on that one. When the going gets-tough, Bush finally runs home to sit in a fetal-position at his ranch (or runs to mom and dad, as he always has). This is a good sign, it means he's probably cracking. An important question: what time does Ted Nugent come by to give the president his full-body massage? He's having a blast, but he still has to send these half-baked statements out thanks to Karl Rove. I mean honestly, if he just said, "Ooogaaah-boogahh!" it would make more sense. He seems to believe that the laws-of-physics are at his bidding--if you have no money for actions in Iraq into 2008, there will be no "longer tours of duty." Jesus Christ:
"I recognize that Democrats are trying to show their current opposition to the war in Iraq," Bush said in his weekly radio address from Crawford, where he is on a break of his own. "They see the emergency war spending bill as a chance to make that statement," Bush said. "Yet for our men and women in uniform, this emergency war spending bill is not a political statement, it is a source of critical funding that has a direct impact on their daily lives."
(AP, 04.07.2007)
Bush continues:
"That means the soonest the House and Senate could get a bill to my desk will be sometime late this month, after the adverse consequences for our troops and their families have already begun," Bush said. "For our troops, the clock is ticking." (ibid)
Except this--again--is a lie. The president is playing politics with the troops, and in a classic case of projection, accusing the Democrats of doing just that. You could call it a preemptive "I know you are, but what am I?" attack. It's not working, and the White House is just doing what it has all-along--buying time. This is why he says "the clock is ticking." It's running-out on him. That's what this whole budget debate is about: "Will the war end when Bush is president?" That's what he and the GOP fear most, but incumbents could find that it's their best out that would allow them to disown the war and let Bush own it all. In fact, he does, and the world knows it. He appears to be the last one who doesn't. Is he repressing it, or is he really as isolated and inept as most assume? No, not co-president Cheney, I mean President Bush...
Without a trace of irony, he's correct that time is running-out for our troops in Iraq. The longer they stay there, the more endangered they and we are. Our security--and the security of the region and the world--become more-and-more endangered the longer we occupy Iraq and Afghanistan. The analog is that the longer we're powering this civilization on petroleum and other chemicals and minerals, the closer we edge towards our extinction.This is the anarchy of power. The hope is not in political-unity, but in adversarialism. Our current anthropological crisis is due to acquiescence and cowardice, as well as the warm rationalizations behind "the conventional wisdom." This is a mangling of language, the shadow cast by power, and something even the ancients knew well:
When Congress does not fund our troops on the front lines, our military is forced to make cuts in other areas to cover the shortfall. Military leaders have warned Congress about this problem. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Pete Pace, recently testified that if Congress fails to pass a bill I can sign by mid-April, the Army will be forced to consider cutting back on training, equipment repair, and quality of life initiatives for our Guard and Reserve forces. In a letter to Congress, Army Chief of Staff Pete Schoomaker put it this way: "Without approval of the supplemental funds in April, we will be forced to take increasingly draconian measures which will impact Army readiness and impose hardships on our soldiers and their families.
(whitehouse.gov, 04.07.2007)
Problem: we know that--at your urging--no-bid contractors have given our soldiers poor-equipment, provisions, and even tainted-water. To place these hardships onto the shoulders of the troops is your action, not that of Congress. As president, George W. Bush has never had any regard for the safety and well-being of American troops, or anyone. But it doesn't matter, because he's lost his GOP-majority and many allies, the majority isn't with him, and nobody with any credibility listens to him anymore except to counter him.
Reuters Today: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070407/pl_nm/bush_iraq_dc
White House Transcript of the President's Radio Address:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/04/20070407.html
AP Today: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070407/ap_on_go_pr_wh/bush;_ylt=AmHRSmmXM5NSA.4KDNfaOikb.3QA
Friday, April 06, 2007
THE US ATTORNEY FIRINGS: GONZALES AIDE MONICA GOODLING RESIGNED TODAY
I am woman, hear me obstruct.
Washington D.C.--It's official, she's gone. The senior counsel and aide to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has been fired as yet another human-parachute for the embattled Bush administration. The question now is: will she continue to "plead the Fifth" with the House and Senate Judiciary Committee's investigations and hearings?
I think she will, initially, until the pressure just gets to be too-much. Also, she's likely to feel the sting and the smear-job from Karl Rove and the rest of the GOP's echo chamber. Eventually, she will talk, though it might not even matter. Now that Gonzales's former-chief of staff D. Kyle Sampson has testified, and revealed that Gonzales has lied in the press on numerous-occasions (specifically on March 13th), it might not. Now, the dance begins.
[Goodling's counsel] Dowd said in letters last month to the House and Senate committees that Goodling faced a risk of being prosecuted for perjury if she testified at congressional hearings. He cited the partisan political atmosphere surrounding the inquiry and noted that lawmakers voiced doubts that top Justice Department officials had given accurate or complete accounts of the firings. "The fact that a few senators and members of the House have expressed publicly their doubts about the credibility of the attorney general and deputy attorney general'' in their statements to Congress "does not in any way excuse your client from answering questions honestly and to the best of her ability,'' Conyers and Sanchez said. (Bloomberg, 04.03.2007)
In other words, Monica Goodling would be forced to lie. Yet, the Senate and House Judiciary Committees are offering her the option of questioning by congressional lawyers in a "private setting." No bites yet, but they're coming with upcoming-revelations. Meanwhile, April 12th Justice Dept. budgetary hearings have been pushed-back because of the loss-of-faith in Gonzales's "credibility" to run the department with any transparency or honesty.
Is it "partisan"? Of course it is, and that's OK. Again, the system of parliamentary politics is driven by adversarialism...when it's working. We can rest-assured that at least 2/3rd's of the American public feel that it wasn't working under the 108th and the 109th "do-nothing" Congress, both dominated by the GOP. That's not healthy for any political system. But the thaw is here, and we're finally seeing a DNC with at least a modicum of backbone.
"I am hereby submitting my resignation to the office of attorney general," Monica M. Goodling said in a three-sentence letter. There was no immediate reason given, but her refusal to face Congress had intensified a controversy that threatens Gonzales' job. Asserting her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, Goodling had rejected demands for a private interview with a House committee investigating the firings. Goodling was senior counsel to Gonzales and was the department's White House liaison before she took a leave amid the uproar over the prosecutors' ousters. (AP, 04.06.2007)
Much of the obstructing appears to be to protect Karl Rove, though it's utterly certain that the president is also being shielded from any responsibility. You notice he hasn't been going to Crawford much anymore? You'd be busy too if you had so many holes to plug-up. The leaks will keep-coming due to all the alienating the Bush administration did after 9/11 within the federal bureaucracy. For those who don't know, that's what "whistle-blowing" constitutes--an underling witnessing illegal-actions within the bureaucracy committed by their superiors, and potentially authorized by the Executive. That is whistle-blowing, and we're seeing more of it in Washington than we ever have.
The cancelled April 12th appropriations hearings for the Justice Department: that's a resounding message from Congress that Gonzales's time is running-out, and that real answers had better be forthcoming immediately...or no monies will be appropriated anytime soon for Justice. It's a direct shot over-the-bow of the Executive, and a refreshing one that is long-overdue.
Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) is demanding the Gonzales turn-over all documents relating to the plan to fire all eight of the US Attorneys-in-question. He's also been criticizing Gonzales this week in the press for not answering 200 written questions that were submitted to him after his January appearance in the senate on domestic spying operations by the FBI, as well as "leaks in FBI corruption cases." By Thursday, the Justice Department had them delivered to the committee. See how well oversight and accountability in government works?
Also pounding Gonzales and the Bush administration are--surprise!--GOP-incumbents. This writer grants that Arlen Specter will keep showing "disappointment," but we know how effectual that's been. The pathos, I tell ya.' Still, he's part of a growing chorus within the GOP that this affair must be investigated thoroughly, and that a new attorney general is probably in-order. Yet, the headlines on the internet and elsewhere paint it as a "setback." To what? There should be no funding while such scandals as illegal-surveillance and abuse of office are being exposed. The Democratic reaction is sound.
But Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md, said the political firestorm should be resolved before Gonzales talks about the Justice Department's spending plan for next year."It would be very difficult in this environment to give the department's budget request the attention it deserves until the Senate has examined the department's leadership failures," said Mikulski, who heads the Senate Appropriations subcommittee that had planned to hear from Gonzales on April 12. The delay means Gonzales won't appear publicly on Capitol Hill until April 17-- which even Republicans are calling a "make or break" performance — to testify at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing into the firings. (AP, 04.06.2007)
It strikes the writer that with the upcoming centenary of the FBI, there should be a reassessment of its role--and that of the Justice Department itself--in our society. It's time to defund any and all political police operations, and any counterintelligence sections that are designed purely to spy-upon domestic political-groups of any persuasion.
That was never part of legitimate policing and law enforcement in any civilized nation, and many developed countries don't even have an analog to the FBI (Germany, for example). Only law enforcement activities with a much-narrower civil scope is appropriate, not within the realm of politics. Investigating and fighting violent-crime and corruption should be the solitary-role of the FBI. Goodling should be compelled to appear before the Judiciary committees. What she does after that is her responsibility. It's her call.
Bloomberg, 04.03.2007 on Goodling: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=aBwtV5mobsWo&refer=us
Washington D.C.--It's official, she's gone. The senior counsel and aide to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has been fired as yet another human-parachute for the embattled Bush administration. The question now is: will she continue to "plead the Fifth" with the House and Senate Judiciary Committee's investigations and hearings?
I think she will, initially, until the pressure just gets to be too-much. Also, she's likely to feel the sting and the smear-job from Karl Rove and the rest of the GOP's echo chamber. Eventually, she will talk, though it might not even matter. Now that Gonzales's former-chief of staff D. Kyle Sampson has testified, and revealed that Gonzales has lied in the press on numerous-occasions (specifically on March 13th), it might not. Now, the dance begins.
[Goodling's counsel] Dowd said in letters last month to the House and Senate committees that Goodling faced a risk of being prosecuted for perjury if she testified at congressional hearings. He cited the partisan political atmosphere surrounding the inquiry and noted that lawmakers voiced doubts that top Justice Department officials had given accurate or complete accounts of the firings. "The fact that a few senators and members of the House have expressed publicly their doubts about the credibility of the attorney general and deputy attorney general'' in their statements to Congress "does not in any way excuse your client from answering questions honestly and to the best of her ability,'' Conyers and Sanchez said. (Bloomberg, 04.03.2007)
In other words, Monica Goodling would be forced to lie. Yet, the Senate and House Judiciary Committees are offering her the option of questioning by congressional lawyers in a "private setting." No bites yet, but they're coming with upcoming-revelations. Meanwhile, April 12th Justice Dept. budgetary hearings have been pushed-back because of the loss-of-faith in Gonzales's "credibility" to run the department with any transparency or honesty.
Is it "partisan"? Of course it is, and that's OK. Again, the system of parliamentary politics is driven by adversarialism...when it's working. We can rest-assured that at least 2/3rd's of the American public feel that it wasn't working under the 108th and the 109th "do-nothing" Congress, both dominated by the GOP. That's not healthy for any political system. But the thaw is here, and we're finally seeing a DNC with at least a modicum of backbone.
"I am hereby submitting my resignation to the office of attorney general," Monica M. Goodling said in a three-sentence letter. There was no immediate reason given, but her refusal to face Congress had intensified a controversy that threatens Gonzales' job. Asserting her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, Goodling had rejected demands for a private interview with a House committee investigating the firings. Goodling was senior counsel to Gonzales and was the department's White House liaison before she took a leave amid the uproar over the prosecutors' ousters. (AP, 04.06.2007)
Much of the obstructing appears to be to protect Karl Rove, though it's utterly certain that the president is also being shielded from any responsibility. You notice he hasn't been going to Crawford much anymore? You'd be busy too if you had so many holes to plug-up. The leaks will keep-coming due to all the alienating the Bush administration did after 9/11 within the federal bureaucracy. For those who don't know, that's what "whistle-blowing" constitutes--an underling witnessing illegal-actions within the bureaucracy committed by their superiors, and potentially authorized by the Executive. That is whistle-blowing, and we're seeing more of it in Washington than we ever have.
The cancelled April 12th appropriations hearings for the Justice Department: that's a resounding message from Congress that Gonzales's time is running-out, and that real answers had better be forthcoming immediately...or no monies will be appropriated anytime soon for Justice. It's a direct shot over-the-bow of the Executive, and a refreshing one that is long-overdue.
Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) is demanding the Gonzales turn-over all documents relating to the plan to fire all eight of the US Attorneys-in-question. He's also been criticizing Gonzales this week in the press for not answering 200 written questions that were submitted to him after his January appearance in the senate on domestic spying operations by the FBI, as well as "leaks in FBI corruption cases." By Thursday, the Justice Department had them delivered to the committee. See how well oversight and accountability in government works?
Also pounding Gonzales and the Bush administration are--surprise!--GOP-incumbents. This writer grants that Arlen Specter will keep showing "disappointment," but we know how effectual that's been. The pathos, I tell ya.' Still, he's part of a growing chorus within the GOP that this affair must be investigated thoroughly, and that a new attorney general is probably in-order. Yet, the headlines on the internet and elsewhere paint it as a "setback." To what? There should be no funding while such scandals as illegal-surveillance and abuse of office are being exposed. The Democratic reaction is sound.
But Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md, said the political firestorm should be resolved before Gonzales talks about the Justice Department's spending plan for next year."It would be very difficult in this environment to give the department's budget request the attention it deserves until the Senate has examined the department's leadership failures," said Mikulski, who heads the Senate Appropriations subcommittee that had planned to hear from Gonzales on April 12. The delay means Gonzales won't appear publicly on Capitol Hill until April 17-- which even Republicans are calling a "make or break" performance — to testify at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing into the firings. (AP, 04.06.2007)
It strikes the writer that with the upcoming centenary of the FBI, there should be a reassessment of its role--and that of the Justice Department itself--in our society. It's time to defund any and all political police operations, and any counterintelligence sections that are designed purely to spy-upon domestic political-groups of any persuasion.
That was never part of legitimate policing and law enforcement in any civilized nation, and many developed countries don't even have an analog to the FBI (Germany, for example). Only law enforcement activities with a much-narrower civil scope is appropriate, not within the realm of politics. Investigating and fighting violent-crime and corruption should be the solitary-role of the FBI. Goodling should be compelled to appear before the Judiciary committees. What she does after that is her responsibility. It's her call.
Bloomberg, 04.03.2007 on Goodling: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=aBwtV5mobsWo&refer=us
AP Today: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070406/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/fired_prosecutors
AP on the cancelled April 12th Hearings: http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1607601,00.html
Pasolini's Teorema (1968) review
I cannot get this man out of my system, our era's ephemeral Socrates. Pier Paolo Pasolini haunts the modern mind, reminding us of the terminal crisis (ironically brought on by the human desire for freedom), in this, our common era of human society. The Italy of his lifetime passed from a preindustrial to a modern state in less than one generation and it was a shock to the WWII generation of Italians who had previously been very provincial, isolated, and basically an agrarian nation of peasants.
This would be like taking American history from 1877-1920, when we became an industrialized nation, and cramming it into roughly 30 years. The effects on the culture could only be devastating and genocidal, as Pasolini astutely described the Americanization of the Italian peninsula. Other nations fared far worse under the effects of modernization: We know the results in Russia under Stalin with the tens-of-millions dead. But the damage to Italy during the "economic miracle" of the 1950s, and passing into the 1970s, was almost unique: traditional Italian culture was slipping-away, and changing into an empty, bourgeois consumerism. This mindless industrialized technological consumerism now spans the globe. Pasolini saw the writing on the wall: the bourgeois revolutions were culminating in the destruction of the natural environment and human civilization.
Like many authors, artists, and intellectuals of (t)his era, he was doing what most artists do, namely questioning the social order around him. Like Philip K. Dick and Werner Herzog, Pasolini was concerned that this reality we are now surrounded by would strip people of their humanity, their symbols, and of any authentic qualities and spirit, and that we cannot continue along such a path, that the end was near if we did. We would lose our myths and we would lose our souls. Today, the damage is pretty obvious with movies that say nothing, music that makes the listener feel nothing, television that only seems to lie to us more than ever, devouring our creativity and our souls...a runaway consumerism that is literally metabolizing nature and a scientific and economic order that continually tells us that there is no meaning to anything, no truth.
Global warming and an impending ecological catastrophe are the realities that these artists and intellectuals warned us all of during the Cold War, and some still are. Pasolini didn't wax-nostalgic for some sentimentalized remote past, but he saw things as getting worse and that an apocalyptic calamity was waiting at the end of it all. In 2007, this doesn't seem so far-fetched, but one should realize that the alarms were already being sounded over 40-years-ago. So little has changed. Into the bloody fray of 1968 politics and culture came Pasolini's "Teorema," or "theorem." There really isn't another film like it in any director's canon, yet he would top it with Salo at the end of his short life. The film begins with what appears to be a newsreel story taking place at the gates of a factory called "Paolo." Is it a strike? Why are all the workers there, milling-about? The journalist (probably Pasolini, off-camera) with the film crew asks them what's going on, and we find that the owner of the factory has given it to the workers, lock-stock-and-barrel. You'll never see a scene like this in any American movie. But most slaves want to remain slaves.
Pasolini goes on by taking a swipe at the Italian Communist Party (PCI), by having a worker dismissing the miracle as "part of a trend." (!) It's the end of the story, and a lesson on how the Left--and most all of modern humanity--had lost contact with the divine and the ability to recognize it in life and within each other. Much to his credit, Pasolini scandalized all. Barth David Schwarz's biography on Pier Paolo Pasolini "Pasolini Requiem" (1992) illuminates the film's premise:People expected Pasolini to deliver a straightforward if scathing attack on the bourgeoisie and its lack of religion. His apparently simple premise, the "theorem" of the film's title, was that when one family was faced with a power that constituted real liberation (by necessity sexual) and their values were revealed as bankrupt, its members would spin into "madness."
(Schwarz, pg. 519. Pantheon, 1992)And so, the story "begins" where it began, the home of the industrialist bourgeois--a Milanese "borghesa"--and his family, in this antiseptic villa that seems almost empty (of belief? of values?). As in life, the bourgeois characters reside in their own social space, alone, living in virtual solitude without meaning. There is the daughter, the wife, the son, and the devout peasant maid who dream of some kind of a release from their life, some transcendence. Be careful what you wish for.
Fortunately, or unfortunately, a kind of salvation announces its coming. A herald in the form of young Italian boy announces his arrival in a note to the maid. In time, the "stranger" (played by a 28-year-old Terence Stamp) appears, and quite abruptly without any explanation. Pasolini had this to say about the stranger in his film:Originally, I had intended this visitor to be a fertility god, the typical god of preindustrial religion, the sun-god, the Biblical-god, God the Father. Naturally, when confronted with things as they were, I had to abandon my original idea and so I made Terence Stamp into a generically ultraterrestrial and metaphysical apparition: he could be the Devil, or a mixture of God and the Devil. The important thing is that he is something authentic and unstoppable. (ibid, pg. 521)Inautheticity withers in the presence of truth. Like all the great tragedies of Greece and Rome, the family passively accepts his presence as a symbol of their fate. The stranger rarely speaks, but he brings every family member love and a direct contact with the divine through sex. He fills the void in their lives of isolation and emptiness. Again: be careful what you wish for, you might get it.
The maid (Laura Betti) is first: he rescues her from a suicide-attempt, and makes tender love to her. Shortly afterward, she leaves the villa and the bourgeois reality itself to return to her village. She begins a fast of contrition and eventually seems headed towards some kind of beatification or sainthood, even levitating at one point towards the latter-half of the film. Her fate is the best one, although that of the son points to the interior life of artists and the authentic everywhere, and he is the next to be seduced by the stranger. Then comes the daughter Odette (played by Godard's wife at the time), who appears in some respects to be the most sexually-fulfilled. The mother and father, finally, end the seduction. For a time, they all seem to have lost that feeling of "loneliness" and incompleteness that comes with modern life...and then the stranger leaves, just as abruptly as he came, a hallmark of the divine. With his absence comes the fall, and a reminder that the void never left, a stunning metaphor for the limits of sexual-release and escapism. No, the void in life never leaves, and is made all-the-more lonely after coitus.
The once sexually repressed mother (the sultry Silvana Mangano) becomes a nymphomaniac, and begins to seduce young men in the nearby city, repeatedly trying to recreate her experience with the stranger, but to no avail. The son becomes totally immersed in creativity and contemplation, showing the dissatisfaction and longings of the artist that can never truly be achieved. Like Plato's "The Allegory of the Cave," he can never touch the true forms (the stranger) ever again. His fate is preferable to the rest of the family since he appears to at least have an outlet for his obsession. The daughter Odette lapses into a comatose state that seems permanent. After an illness that's healed by the stranger, the father becomes a sexual deviant who exposes himself at a train station by film's end. Throughout the movie, we see images of a desolate, gray landscape shot at Mt. Etna. It's meant to reflect the inner-loneliness of the characters and ourselves. This dead landscape is the modern worl, the empty space in all of our lives, and what's waiting at the end of this social order. By the end of the film the father is seen running naked through this volcanic wasteland, finally letting-out an almost inhuman scream of existential despair. From this, you can tell that Pasolini actually felt sorry for most of the bourgeoisie, something that I don't share with him.
Teorema is available through Koch/Lorber video on DVD, and is perhaps one of the greatest films of the entire 1960s. It won a special award from the International Catholic Film Office at the Venice film festival that year, but elements within the Vatican had it withdrawn. The students in the Paris, Rome, and Berlin of 1968 adored the movie, yet Pasolini tended to heap scorn on many of them, calling them "bourgeois," and that the New Left's fight with the establishment in France and Italy was a "battle between the haves and the haves...an internecine struggle." Once again, he was correct. One can see and hear Salo (1975) coming in this film, a work that probably got Pasolin killed before his time in a field at Ostia, a place where human sacrifices were once held. Salo is a dark chocolate, while Teorema is a truffle, the appetizer before the meal.
Revised, 11.27.2009
Wednesday, April 04, 2007
DID KEITH RICHARDS SNORT HIS FATHER'S ASHES WITH SOME COCAINE?
THE UNITED KINGDOM--In a recent interview with the UK music mag, NME, Richards stated: "He was cremated and I couldn't resist grinding him up with a little bit of blow. My dad wouldn't have cared. It went down pretty well, and I'm still alive." Today, on the Stones website, he's denying it. What's the truth? These little stories are fun, because they point-out the artifice of fame and celebrity--but is it true? Considering the stories that Richards once had his blood changed through transfusions to end his addiction to heroin (along-with Clapton, though both claimed it was a method similar to acupuncture and electrolysis), and all the other stories, it wouldn't be very hard to believe.
Here's some skinny from the Stones site:
The complete story is lost in the usual slanting! The truth of the matter is that I planted a sturdy English Oak. I took the lid off the box of ashes and he is now growing oak trees and would love me for it!!! I was trying to say how tight Bert and I were. That tight!!! I wouldn't take cocaine at this point in my life unless I wished to commit suicide. (AP, 04.04.2007)
It does ring-true, as one cannot imagine how someone could survive over forty-years being addicted (or even casually using) to various-drugs, alcohol, and whatnot. Perhaps we can chock it up to the myths surrounding rock n' roll, and it surely has granted NME a spike in their circulation. It's likely that Richards was goaded-into the comments in a way similar to how the Sex Pistols were on the Bill Grundy show in 1977. Everyone made out like bandits after that one. Bert Richards and the myths surrounding rock n' roll: RIP. Social-banditry died with the gangster-era.
Stoned: www.rollingstones.com/home.php
"I is the N-M-E, I is ANARCHY!" : http://www.nme.com/
Here's some skinny from the Stones site:
The complete story is lost in the usual slanting! The truth of the matter is that I planted a sturdy English Oak. I took the lid off the box of ashes and he is now growing oak trees and would love me for it!!! I was trying to say how tight Bert and I were. That tight!!! I wouldn't take cocaine at this point in my life unless I wished to commit suicide. (AP, 04.04.2007)
It does ring-true, as one cannot imagine how someone could survive over forty-years being addicted (or even casually using) to various-drugs, alcohol, and whatnot. Perhaps we can chock it up to the myths surrounding rock n' roll, and it surely has granted NME a spike in their circulation. It's likely that Richards was goaded-into the comments in a way similar to how the Sex Pistols were on the Bill Grundy show in 1977. Everyone made out like bandits after that one. Bert Richards and the myths surrounding rock n' roll: RIP. Social-banditry died with the gangster-era.
Stoned: www.rollingstones.com/home.php
"I is the N-M-E, I is ANARCHY!" : http://www.nme.com/
Tuesday, April 03, 2007
SEN. HARRY REID PROPOSING CUTTING MILITARY-FUNDS TO IRAQ WAR-EFFORT ENTIRELY
"If the president vetoes the supplemental appropriations bill and continues to resist changing course in Iraq, I will work to ensure this legislation receives a vote in the Senate in the next work period."
--Senate Majority leader Harry Reid, yesterday. (AP, 04.02.2007)
Washington D.C.--This is another good gesture, but where's Hillary (or NOW for supporting her nomination for president)? Or Moveon.org? I noticed that John Kerry (D-Mass.) is supporting this bill, so he appears to have learned something from the 2004 and 2006 elections. And where is Chuck Schumer on this one? Certainly, we all expect that Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) will be on board. However, I believe this bill originates with its co-sponsor, Sen. Russell Feingold (D-Wis.). It was already extant, but now the climate is right after the midterms and further disintegration of the American occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan. The public has spoken, and spoken loudly. It will speak much louder if there is an air war or open-incursions into Iran by the United States and her allies in the region.
As any novice could have predicted, the security conditions in Iraq were going to disintegrate after the Iraqi military and the Baathist bureaucracy were decommissioned, and that it would worsen into the civil war we have today. It has a casual analog in the Bosnian conflict, and with similar dynamics involving ethnicity and sectarianism. After botching that initial-period of an occupation, there's no fixing it. Coupled with this is the insurgency who are well-armed since most of the nation's arsenals were never secured in the early-days of the occupation. Granted, saying it was all botched from-the-start would be euphemistic, yet yesterday, we have Kissinger doing his usual Janus-faced commentary--no military-solution, but we have to stay there for "several-years." What's it going to be then, eh?
Mindful that they hold a shaky majority in Congress and that neither chamber has enough votes to override a presidential veto, Democrats are already thinking about the next step after Bush rejects their legislation. Reid said Monday that if that happens, he will join forces with Feingold, one of the party's most liberal members who has long called to end the war by denying funding for it. Reid has previously stopped short of embracing Feingold's position. When asked whether he would ever consider pulling funds for the troops, Reid said Congress would provide troops what they needed to be safe. Reid's latest proposal would give the president one year to get troops out, ending funding for combat operations after March 31, 2008. (AP, 04.02.2007)
In other words, if the president vetoes this bill, it will only prolong the funding and approval-process. The troops will get what they need for provisioning and to defend themselves, but there will be no approval of funding in April, or possibly even May for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan into 2008. Funds will be cut, forget about this supplemental request of $124 billion (depending on who you ask). It's an interesting Mexican stand-off (not Gonzales), where the longer the GOP waits, the more it ensures it political-ruin from 2008-on. Their so-called monopoly on being "strong on security" is now long-dead, but they were they only ones who ever said it.
Nothing will improve in Iraq and Afghanistan, as we all know, and the voices that assure us that it would be "catastrophic" if there was a withdrawal don't know with any certainty that what they are saying is objectively-true. As a matter of fact, I believe they know it's an unknown. The thing is, what we do know is this: so long as we are in Iraq, the country is a magnet and a training-ground for Arab nationalist and Muslim extremism. So long as we occupy Iraq, with each-and-every day, we ensure that the next attacks on America are inevitable.
It was our foreign policy that brought us the events of September 11th, 2001, and what we have is a cycle of senseless violence without any acceptable aims. For Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-Ny.), or her husband's administration, it has all been a part of a long-term plan to subdue and exploit Iraq. Now, they're eyeing Iran and Central Asia. There is a continuity from the Clinton years into the Bush II years, and nobody in Congress who says "I was fooled," can be trusted. We can be thankful that they wish to self-destruct so badly, just as the aristocracy of Europe did almost 100-years-ago. The trick is going to be how to limit the destruction to the political-class (the impeachment and the voting-out of an entire political generation) and their backers (technocrats, defense contractors, banking, industrialists, and so-on). President Bush had this exchange with a journalist earlier-today:
Q: When Congress has linked war funding with a timetable, you have argued micromanagement. When they've linked it to unrelated spending, you've argued pork barrel. But now there's talk from Harry Reid and others that if you veto this bill, they might come back and just simply cut off funding. Wouldn't that be a legitimate exercise of a congressional authority, which is the power of the purse?
BUSH: The—the Congress is exercising its legitimate authority as it sees fit right now. I just disagree with their decisions. I think setting an artificial timetable for withdrawal is a significant mistake. It is—it sends mixed signals and bad signals to the region and to the Iraqi citizens.
Listen, the Iraqis are wondering whether or not we're going to stay to help. People in America wonder whether or not they've got the political will to do the hard work. That's what Plante was asking about. In my conversations with President Maliki, he seems dedicated to doing that.
And we will continue to work with him to achieve those objectives. But they're wondering whether or not, you know, America is going to keep commitments. So when they hear withdrawal and timetables and, you know, it, rightly so, sends different kinds of signals.
The—it's interesting that Harry Reid—Leader Reid spoke out with a different option.
(AP/whitehouse.gov, 04.03.2007)
It doesn't appear that the president was briefed on this statement and proposal by Sens. Reid and Feingold. The president sounds stunned and frightened. He should be, his options are running-out rapidly, and the forces of law and order are converging on him and his administration. Even the time he has left is now being limited. Expect a very cooperative man, one we've never seen in this president, or his flunkies and hacks. It could only play-out like this: a group of ruthless criminals who could seize power, but couldn't wield it in any constructive sense.
Also expect Vice President Cheney to announce his resignation before December of this year (or early-2008), for "health-related reasons." He nearly did when the warrantless-wiretapping scandal broke in late-2005. Those of us on the Left can feel a little better, a big-step for Congress has been made. The antiwar message is becoming mainstream in D.C. .
"The President today asked the American people to trust him as he continues to follow the same failed strategy that has drawn our troops further into an intractable civil war. The President's policies have failed and his escalation endangers our troops and hurts our national security. Neither our troops nor the American people can afford this strategy any longer. "Democrats will send President Bush a bill that gives our troops the resources they need and a strategy in Iraq worthy of their sacrifices. If the President vetoes this bill he will have delayed funding for troops and kept in place his strategy for failure". (reid.senate.gov, 04.03.2007)
For those who ignore it, and try to prolong this war, they will pay the highest political-price--the end of their careers as representatives. The 2006 midterms were only-the-beginning of a wave that has melted voter apathy in America. One that was caused by Watergate, a cautionary lesson to the wise. The assertion that the system is flawed and riddled with corruption is correct. But non-participation makes it inevitable.
Reid's comments today: http://reid.senate.gov/newsroom/record.cfm?id=271764&
AP last-night: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070402/ap_on_go_co/us_iraq
AP's transcript of today's White House press conference:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070403/ap_on_go_pr_wh/bush_text_4;_ylt=AsJnCql_4e4NvPms2QL31lOMwfIE
--Senate Majority leader Harry Reid, yesterday. (AP, 04.02.2007)
Washington D.C.--This is another good gesture, but where's Hillary (or NOW for supporting her nomination for president)? Or Moveon.org? I noticed that John Kerry (D-Mass.) is supporting this bill, so he appears to have learned something from the 2004 and 2006 elections. And where is Chuck Schumer on this one? Certainly, we all expect that Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) will be on board. However, I believe this bill originates with its co-sponsor, Sen. Russell Feingold (D-Wis.). It was already extant, but now the climate is right after the midterms and further disintegration of the American occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan. The public has spoken, and spoken loudly. It will speak much louder if there is an air war or open-incursions into Iran by the United States and her allies in the region.
As any novice could have predicted, the security conditions in Iraq were going to disintegrate after the Iraqi military and the Baathist bureaucracy were decommissioned, and that it would worsen into the civil war we have today. It has a casual analog in the Bosnian conflict, and with similar dynamics involving ethnicity and sectarianism. After botching that initial-period of an occupation, there's no fixing it. Coupled with this is the insurgency who are well-armed since most of the nation's arsenals were never secured in the early-days of the occupation. Granted, saying it was all botched from-the-start would be euphemistic, yet yesterday, we have Kissinger doing his usual Janus-faced commentary--no military-solution, but we have to stay there for "several-years." What's it going to be then, eh?
Mindful that they hold a shaky majority in Congress and that neither chamber has enough votes to override a presidential veto, Democrats are already thinking about the next step after Bush rejects their legislation. Reid said Monday that if that happens, he will join forces with Feingold, one of the party's most liberal members who has long called to end the war by denying funding for it. Reid has previously stopped short of embracing Feingold's position. When asked whether he would ever consider pulling funds for the troops, Reid said Congress would provide troops what they needed to be safe. Reid's latest proposal would give the president one year to get troops out, ending funding for combat operations after March 31, 2008. (AP, 04.02.2007)
In other words, if the president vetoes this bill, it will only prolong the funding and approval-process. The troops will get what they need for provisioning and to defend themselves, but there will be no approval of funding in April, or possibly even May for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan into 2008. Funds will be cut, forget about this supplemental request of $124 billion (depending on who you ask). It's an interesting Mexican stand-off (not Gonzales), where the longer the GOP waits, the more it ensures it political-ruin from 2008-on. Their so-called monopoly on being "strong on security" is now long-dead, but they were they only ones who ever said it.
Nothing will improve in Iraq and Afghanistan, as we all know, and the voices that assure us that it would be "catastrophic" if there was a withdrawal don't know with any certainty that what they are saying is objectively-true. As a matter of fact, I believe they know it's an unknown. The thing is, what we do know is this: so long as we are in Iraq, the country is a magnet and a training-ground for Arab nationalist and Muslim extremism. So long as we occupy Iraq, with each-and-every day, we ensure that the next attacks on America are inevitable.
It was our foreign policy that brought us the events of September 11th, 2001, and what we have is a cycle of senseless violence without any acceptable aims. For Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-Ny.), or her husband's administration, it has all been a part of a long-term plan to subdue and exploit Iraq. Now, they're eyeing Iran and Central Asia. There is a continuity from the Clinton years into the Bush II years, and nobody in Congress who says "I was fooled," can be trusted. We can be thankful that they wish to self-destruct so badly, just as the aristocracy of Europe did almost 100-years-ago. The trick is going to be how to limit the destruction to the political-class (the impeachment and the voting-out of an entire political generation) and their backers (technocrats, defense contractors, banking, industrialists, and so-on). President Bush had this exchange with a journalist earlier-today:
Q: When Congress has linked war funding with a timetable, you have argued micromanagement. When they've linked it to unrelated spending, you've argued pork barrel. But now there's talk from Harry Reid and others that if you veto this bill, they might come back and just simply cut off funding. Wouldn't that be a legitimate exercise of a congressional authority, which is the power of the purse?
BUSH: The—the Congress is exercising its legitimate authority as it sees fit right now. I just disagree with their decisions. I think setting an artificial timetable for withdrawal is a significant mistake. It is—it sends mixed signals and bad signals to the region and to the Iraqi citizens.
Listen, the Iraqis are wondering whether or not we're going to stay to help. People in America wonder whether or not they've got the political will to do the hard work. That's what Plante was asking about. In my conversations with President Maliki, he seems dedicated to doing that.
And we will continue to work with him to achieve those objectives. But they're wondering whether or not, you know, America is going to keep commitments. So when they hear withdrawal and timetables and, you know, it, rightly so, sends different kinds of signals.
The—it's interesting that Harry Reid—Leader Reid spoke out with a different option.
(AP/whitehouse.gov, 04.03.2007)
It doesn't appear that the president was briefed on this statement and proposal by Sens. Reid and Feingold. The president sounds stunned and frightened. He should be, his options are running-out rapidly, and the forces of law and order are converging on him and his administration. Even the time he has left is now being limited. Expect a very cooperative man, one we've never seen in this president, or his flunkies and hacks. It could only play-out like this: a group of ruthless criminals who could seize power, but couldn't wield it in any constructive sense.
Also expect Vice President Cheney to announce his resignation before December of this year (or early-2008), for "health-related reasons." He nearly did when the warrantless-wiretapping scandal broke in late-2005. Those of us on the Left can feel a little better, a big-step for Congress has been made. The antiwar message is becoming mainstream in D.C. .
"The President today asked the American people to trust him as he continues to follow the same failed strategy that has drawn our troops further into an intractable civil war. The President's policies have failed and his escalation endangers our troops and hurts our national security. Neither our troops nor the American people can afford this strategy any longer. "Democrats will send President Bush a bill that gives our troops the resources they need and a strategy in Iraq worthy of their sacrifices. If the President vetoes this bill he will have delayed funding for troops and kept in place his strategy for failure". (reid.senate.gov, 04.03.2007)
For those who ignore it, and try to prolong this war, they will pay the highest political-price--the end of their careers as representatives. The 2006 midterms were only-the-beginning of a wave that has melted voter apathy in America. One that was caused by Watergate, a cautionary lesson to the wise. The assertion that the system is flawed and riddled with corruption is correct. But non-participation makes it inevitable.
Reid's comments today: http://reid.senate.gov/newsroom/record.cfm?id=271764&
AP last-night: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070402/ap_on_go_co/us_iraq
AP's transcript of today's White House press conference:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070403/ap_on_go_pr_wh/bush_text_4;_ylt=AsJnCql_4e4NvPms2QL31lOMwfIE
Sunday, April 01, 2007
MATTHEW DOWD, EX-STRATEGIST FOR GEORGE W. BUSH BREAKS-RANKS
"If the American public says they're done with something, our leaders have to understand what they want. They're saying, 'Get out of Iraq."'
--Matthew Dowd, this-week. (New York Times, 04.01.2007)
Washington D.C.--This is a pretty dramatic and remarkable break we have here, and it originates with a NYT article that's out today. Matthew Dowd worked as a polling expert for the Texas Democratic Party until joining the Bush campaign in 1998 over disillusion "with the Clinton years." From then on, he worked as a high-level strategist, even commanding Bush's 2004 reelection effort, and authoring the "flip-flop" attack on Sen. John Kerry's campaign. Now, it seems, Dowd has done his own flip-flop: he's attacking the Bush administration for dividing the nation to achieve...well, what? He's still pulling his punches here.
[Dowd] also cited the administration's bungled handling of the response to Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and Bush's refusal to meet Cindy Sheehan, who had lost a son in Iraq, while she was leading a protest outside Bush's Texas ranch. "I had finally come to the conclusion that maybe all these things along do add up," Dowd said. "That it's not the same, it's not the person I thought." Although some other administration officials have expressed similar views over the years, the Times said Dowd is the first member of Bush's inner circle to break so publicly with him. (Reuters, 04.01.2007)Since he was once a Democrat from Texas, he uses the same lame-excuse as those in Congress: "I was fooled." But he wasn't. It begs the question: are you stupid? I'm just a little guy writing this, and I told people that George W. Bush was absolutely corrupt when he was governor of Texas. Oh yeah, and then there's his father, the architect of Iran-Contra, illegal lobbyist for Eli-Lily while holding public office, the illegal invasion of Panama, and that other stupid war in the Gulf. Mr. Dowd's incomprehension sounds more like what he mentions in the AP piece: a continued denial of reality. He should have known better, but a statement like that sounds as if he did.
Still, he deserves credit for coming-forward. He isn't entirely alone, as some of the architects of neoconservatism have jumped-ship, but it was well-before Dowd. Why the wait? What took so long? According to him, it wasn't until Spring of 2006 that he finally "saw the light." Perhaps he sees that when everything comes out on how truly corrupt and criminal these years under Bush have been, he's going to have some explaining to do. He decided since there will be so much of it, he'd better start now. That's how big of a mess he knows he helped create and maintain. There is one crucial question he could be answering right-now: were the 2000 and 2004 elections stolen? He should be asked this question under oath. Did the Bush campaigns of both elections orchestrate the disenfranchisement of millions of Americans (mostly Black, Hispanic, and even veterans)? Surely, Mr. Dowd would know this, but perhaps this is the reason why he's pulling-punches with President Bush and refusing to discuss his relationship with Karl Rove--mutual blackmail.
What's so galling about all of this are the presumptions made in the NYT article, and in the heads of Dowd and others. It all hinges on the war's execution to them, when the whole military adventure was illegal from-inception, with questionable aims. Stated-aims, and the real, overarching-goals are exclusive. Stated aims are the sell. Going into Iraq never had anything to do with the also dubious "war on terror" (what's the alert color today?), a power-grab made by an administration that was headed towards oblivion. Thanks to the events of September 11th, 2001, they're now headed towards ignominy.
He said he thought Mr. Bush handled the immediate aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks well but “missed a real opportunity to call the country to a shared sense of sacrifice.” He was dumbfounded when Mr. Bush did not fire Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld after revelations that American soldiers had tortured prisoners at Abu Ghraib. Several associates said Mr. Dowd chafed under Mr. Rove’s leadership. Mr. Dowd said he had not spoken to Mr. Rove in months but would not discuss their relationship in detail. (New York Times, 04.01.2007)
So, one could gather that Mr. Dowd knows quite a bit about all of the illegal activities surrounding the White House, which is probably why he won't go into any details about the professional "relationship." It would implicate him in crimes. He should be offered a deal--by a grand jury, a federal judge, and a US Attorney's office. With all these leaks, and former associates and the GOP breaking-ranks with the neocons, we can expect the Bush White House to close ranks even more.
Will it matter? Not likely. In the case of the US Attorney firings, Cheney, Rove, and Bush have formulated a strategy of public defiance, while they're really being forced to cooperate and turn over documents. They are the American disease writ-large: appearances are everything, nothing-else matters. The problems begin when the laws-of-physics and objective reality come crashing-in, like a bullet smashing-through a brainpan. And that's another reason why Dowd finally broke-ranks. His son has been deployed to Iraq, and the war has come home to him, just as it has for all the Iraqis murdered by our policies and actions, and all the lives wasted of our young men and women overseas. Words become deeds, and deeds become shattered-flesh.
Matthew Dowd is the best argument for a reinstatement of the draft, the topic that finally caused his awakening. "Shared sacrifice" means just that, and it would include making this nation more secure by tending to the needs of all. That's what makes a nation strong and secure. Loyalty has its price. In the immediate-aftermath of 9/11--when congressional offices were being inundated with envelopes of anthrax, and whatnot--the AMA stated the best defense for any biowarfare attack was universal health care.
This was just one lost opportunity that the Bush administration never had any intentions of acting on. How would we think of them today if they had? Would Al Gore have done things any differently? Without what happened to him in 2000, I don't think so. But the common good doesn't matter to a bunch of criminals and crony politicians who covet the power and the perks (preserving power by funneling the public's money to the narrow interests that got them into office) of the White House and Congress. Incredibly, even before the recount was finished in Florida in 2000, Dowd and Rove were already planning for the 2004 elections. Dowd had this to say to Frontline in the Spring of 2005:
I was a very close confidant of Karl's. He'd bounce off whatever ideas he had to see what I thought of them from a strategic standpoint. And then obviously we won the race. The race was over. I was the first one in that process to start thinking about, in sync with Karl, what would we do in a re-elect right after 2000. Right after the 2000 race, I began to sort of put together memos and stuff of how we'd win a re-elect as an incumbent president.
How soon after?
During the process, I was already doing memos about the changing shape of the electorate as reflected in 2000 during the count in Florida. So it was before we actually even got the victory, I was starting to think about how the race would be different in 2004 than it was in 2000. So it was fairly quickly. The president obviously had not made up his mind -- he wasn't president yet, hadn't even been inaugurated yet -- but had not made up his mind about whether he was going to seek re-election until late 2002 or early 2003. And so there was a lot of obviously brainstorming things with Karl. ... (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/architect/interviews/dowd.html)
No mention here of all the irregularities--like when John Bolton announced the counting was done back in 2000. Interestingly, Bolton was one of the reasons that Dowd began to question the integrity of the Bush White House. He knows something, but he's not telling, and it's all about his relationship with Karl Rove. When the Bush campaigns illegally intervened in the elections of 2000 and 2004, it had all been orchestrated by Rove and his associates (and we can be certain that George W. Bush approved them). Dowd was one of Rove's lieutenants. Matthew Dowd could be the smoking gun we've all dreamed of, all along.
Reuters: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070401/pl_nm/bush_dowd_dc
The New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/01/washington/01adviser.html?hp
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