Left I on the News  

The lie that will not die

Undisputable, but not undisputed. As noted by FAIR, on ABC's This Week (9/27/03), "Colin Powell explained that the Clinton administration 'conducted a four-day bombing campaign in late 1998 based on the intelligence that he had. That resulted in the weapons inspectors being thrown out.' Neither George Stephanopoulos nor George Will, who conducted ABC's interview, corrected Powell's false assertion. " Compounding the problem, on 9/29 the New York Times "merely repeated Powell's charge: 'Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, in a television appearance today, noted that the Iraqi leader threw weapons inspectors out in 1998'." Even more amazingly, FAIR notes that the Times had been forced to run a correction on exactly this subject more than three years ago! As hard as it may be to believe, it appears that the accuracy level of the Times has actually gone down since the firing of Jayson Blair. :-)

Compassionate Conservatism

States Putting Inmates on Diets to Trim Budgets
Desperate to cut budget deficits, officials in several states have begun reducing the amount or quality of food served to prison inmates, an issue that has long been a sensitive one for inmates and has often provoked protests.

These new food plans involve either reducing the number of calories provided each day or eliminating a meal on weekends and holidays by serving two meals instead of three.

Wilson...Plame...Rove...Cheney?

On another front, Amy Goodman and Jeremy Scahill of Democracy Now! focus on Dick Cheney, who said recently on "Meet the Press": "I don't know Joe Wilson. I've never met Joe Wilson." Goodman and Scahill note this:

While Cheney may not know Wilson, there is little doubt he knows of him. When Cheney was helping run the Persian Gulf War, as secretary of defense, Wilson was one of the key players. As the acting US ambassador on the ground in Baghdad in the weeks leading up to the war, the White House consulted Wilson daily. In those weeks, he was the only open line of communication between Washington and Saddam Hussein. Cheney was the Secretary of Defense at the time and a key player in the day-to-day operations and intelligence gathering.

When I hear statements like this from Cheney, I harken back to before the war, when George Bush said at one point "I don't have any plans for war against Iraq on my desk." I turned to the person I was with at the time and said "No, he's got them on his credenza." So perhaps I should start referring to statements like Cheney's, or countless similar statements from Bush, Rice, Rumsfeld, and the rest, as the "credenza defense."

In something that doesn't even qualify as a credenza defense, John Gibson, speaking earlier today on Fox News, claimed that "speaking hypothetically" it may well have been Joseph Wilson who made his wife's identity public, by introducing her at diplomatic parties as "my wife, the CIA agent." I am not making this up, as Dave Barry would say.

Language

The MSNBC report also included the following interesting choice of words describing the attack: "the terrorists, as the U.S. military calls them..." The U.S. military can call these people whatever they like; that doesn't require the reporter to use the same grossly inaccurate word. People who are fighting against the occupation of their country by a foreign army, and aiming their weapons at those occupiers, actually have legal status under the Geneva conventions (the "additional protocol of 1977," which, like so many other international treaties, was not signed by the United States), and they are most definitely not terrorists.

Of course, MSNBC is still using very prominently the "Operation Iraqi Freedom" logo, so expecting any kind of "fair and balanced" coverage from them is wishful thinking indeed.

The Good News Bears and Bulls---

Scarborough, and the letter-writer (not to mention Rumsfeld et al.), tout such things as schools rebuilt, policemen hired, town councils functioning, etc. Just one little thing goes unmentioned. Iraq had all those things before the invasion; it was the war (and the years of sanctions that preceded it) which destroyed the things that are now being rebuilt, and the Americans who fired all the policemen who now need to be rehired, and disbanded all the town councils which now need to be reformed. Kind of like sticking a knife in someone's back, and then claiming it's "good news" when you remove the knife, even part way.

Health care for profit

[Hernandez] doesn't have insurance and won't qualify for Medicare until next year. While over-the-counter inhalers and prescription brands like Albuterol cost about $18 at local pharmacies, the broncodialators from home cost her a little more than 3 Cuban pesos -- the equivalent of about 12 cents.

When Nunez, 56, was diagnosed with high blood pressure about five years ago, a doctor suggested he take Norvasc, which drugstore.com sells at $60 for a month's supply. But his mother gets enough of a similar medicine, Nifedipino, at her neighborhood clinic in Cuba for both of them. "'They give it to her in abundance. It doesn't cost her anything," Nunez said.

BBC pushes the envelope

"Tell him [the soldier is speaking to his interpreter] that if he cooperates with us, we might be able to save his life. Tell him if he doesn't cooperate with us, it's bad for him. Bad for his health. [Tell him] if you don't help us, you can forget it."

"He's got to decide if he wants to live or die, and die here," Dave told Spann during a lull in the questioning, "We're just going to leave him, and he's going to fucking sit in prison the rest of his fucking short life. It's his decision, man. We can only help the guys who want to talk to us."

"This job for me is very personal. On Sept. 11, 2002 I was the Police Commissioner of New York City. They [his 23 dead colleagues] were responding to defend the freedom of the United States [ed. note - what nonsense. I hope they were responding to try to save the lives of innocent people]. This country [Iraq] was a threat to that freedom."

Followup: It's common to hear people say that the problem now in Iraq is that "soldiers aren't trained to be policemen." Tonight, Oakland's KTVU aired a news item on the latest incident of police brutality there. A home video (it wouldn't be news if it weren't for those ever-present neighbors with their video cameras) shows the police viciously beating a man who had left his car running while he ran back into a friend's house to retrieve his cell phone, only to return and find police searching his car. This beating was every bit as brutal as the one in Baghdad shown on the BBC tape. Iraq doesn't need American soldiers with "sensitivity training." It needs the American soldiers to get out.

Liberating women with bullets

David Kay - Pariah. Condoleezza Rice - Liar.

What Rice meant, no doubt, is that someone told her all about it, but she hasn't actually seen a piece of paper labelled "David Kay's report" with her own two eyes (if it comes out later that she did actually see the report, she'll claim she doesn't remember doing so, just as she now claims she didn't remember that George Tenet had told her to remove the Niger/uranium reference from a speech long before the State of the Union speech).

Most of Rice's lies are so obvious as to border on the humorous, and Russert did a fairly decent job of exposing them. I really liked this one, though, from Brit Hume's interview with Rice on Fox News:

HUME: There are now suggestions that the name and identity [of Valerie Plame] and her CIA work had been revealed by the White House. What do you know about that?

RICE: My understanding is that, in matters like this, as a matter of routine, a question like this is referred to the Justice Department for appropriate action, and that's what's going to be done.

Soft lies

Of course, this is no accident. If it were merely a misestimation on the part of a reporter, then undercounts and overcounts would be equally likely. They are not, not be a long shot. The establishment, as represented by the mainstream media like the Chronicle, doesn't want people to realize their own power; they prefer that people think the solutions to problems lie in going to the polls every four years (or more often, in California!) and voting for the latest "solution" to our problems.

To add a little eyewitness reporting, let me just add two wonderful chants I heard today for the first time. Nothing like a good chant to keep the spirits up:

War and occupation
Can not bring liberation
That's bullshit
Get off it
This war was for profit

Rise up! [Accompanied by raising signs or fists]
Get down! [Lower aforesaid signs or fists]
There's an antiwar movement in this town!

Followup: The Chronicle now has a very good new story online (and presumably in print as well) which describes the march as "estimated by organizers at 5,000 people" which seems reasonable to me. Obviously they caved in to pressure from Left I ;-) It looks like I should be thankful for even their first story, since the San Jose Mercury News and the Oakland Tribune have exactly zero coverage of the march. Nothing in the LA Times either about the Los Angeles march. Both the SF and LA marches received cursory coverage on TV news, although on one channel I watched, this was followed immediately by a much longer piece interviewing a soldier just back from Iraq who would "go back in a heartbeat" because of all the great work he was doing there (to hear him talk you would think he had been serving in the Peace Corps, and that Iraq was the only country in the world needing that kind of help).

More followup: In order to "balance" their story this morning on yesterday's SF march, KTVU (Fox network's Oakland channel) followed it with a story of a half-dozen (that's six) prowar demonstrators on a street corner in Santa Clara (even the "half-dozen" was probably an exxageration; there were three different camera shots in the piece; each one of them showed a single demonstrator standing on a corner with no one else in sight).

Still more followup: The Mercury News does have an article of moderate length online which never made it into the print edition, and which talks about "hundreds" in San Francisco. Scouring the paper I did finally find a minuscule article (two paragraphs) which upped the count to "more than 1,000." Still far from reality. Imagine if they described George Bush's approval rating as "more than 10%."

Even more followup: The LA Times now has a reasonably good article on the demo there. I only found this from someone else's link, however; it isn't discoverable either on their home page or by searching using the word "Demonstration."

Quote of the (Thurs)Day

"Greed and selfishness can kill this great democracy and ruin capitalism." -- Dick Gephardt

Undiplomatic diplomats

"Weapons of mass destruction do not threaten only the western or northern world. Ask the people of Iran, or of Halabja in Iraq." How about we ask the people of Japan, upon whom the only real weapons of mass destruction were ever deployed, or the people of the dozens of countries since then (up to and including the present day) who have been threatened by nuclear attacks from the United States?

"Rather than wait for that [a WMD attack] to happen, they argue, States have the right and obligation to use force pre-emptively, even on the territory of other States, and even while weapons systems that might be used to attack them are still being developed." Who is this they? And why doesn't Kofi Annan have the guts to name names and speak the truth?

"The United Nations has just weathered one of the gravest trials in its history. The debate turned on respect for the Charter and the use of force. The war, embarked on without Security Council approval, has undermined the multilateral system."

But then there's Cuba. One of the few countries in the world which can't be blackmailed by the U.S. by the threat of aid cutoffs or trade sanctions (they can hardly get any worse than the existing blockade), and one of the few countries which can't be intimidated by the still very real threat of physical attack, Cuba is able to speak its mind, and speak the truth. And speak it does.

Felipe Perez Roque, Cuban Minister of Foreign Affairs, to the UN:

Does the war in Iraq contribute to that objective [of creating a peaceful world]? No, it does not. Its outcome runs exactly counter to the ideal of preserving peace, strengthening the role of the United Nations and enhancing multilateralism and international cooperation. Unfortunately, the truth is that those with the most ability to prevent and remove the threats to peace are the ones causing the war today.

Should the Government of the United States recognize such truth that almost everyone in this hall shares? Yes, they should.

What humiliation or harm would there be to the prestige of this great nation? None. The world would recognize that a beneficial rectification to all would come about, after the unleashing of a war supported by just a few - either by shortsightedness or by meanness of interests - after it was verified that the pretexts brandished were not true and after observing the reaction of a people that, as will always be done by every invaded and occupied people, begins to fight and will fight over the respect for its right to self-determination.
...
The situation [the state of the UN] is already untenable. Proof of it is the Security Council's inability to prevent the war in Iraq first and then to even demand that the Government of Israel refrain from expelling or murdering the leader of the Palestinian people - that, in conformity with a decision of the Council itself over five decades ago, should have long had an independent State.

That the Government of the United States has used the right to veto on 26 occasions to protect the crimes of Israel is evidence that such unjust privilege must be abolished. Therefore, must the occupation in Iraq cease? Yes, it must. And the sooner the better. It is a source of new and more serious problems, not of its solution.

Must the Iraqis be left alone to freely establish their own government and institutions and make decisions on their natural resources? Yes. They are entitled to it - and they will not relinquish the fight to that end.

Must the Security Council be pressured into adopting decisions that would further undermine it both ethically and morally? No. That would eliminate the last possibility to profoundly reform, expand and democratize it.

Followup: I forget to note that Perez Roque also took up in his talk precisely the subject that was discussed here just a few days ago under the title "Comparing the world's problems":

Finally, we need to return to the discussion of the serious economic and social problems currently affecting the world. We have to turn into a priority the battle for the right to development for nearly 5 billion people.

The Millennium Assembly committed us to working for very modest and insufficient goals. But everything is already forgotten and we did not even discuss that. This year, 17 million children under the age of 5 will die, not as victims of terrorism but as victims of undernourishment and preventable diseases.

Will there ever be any discussion in this hall, Excellencies, with realism and a spirit of solidarity, about how to halve by 2015 – according to the Millennium Declaration – the number of people suffering from abject poverty – currently over 1.2 billion – and those starving, who are more than 800 million?

Will there be any discussion about the nearly 900 million illiterate adults?

Or will the Millennium Declaration also become dead letter, as have been the Kyoto Protocol and the decisions of ten Summits of Heads of State?

More non-news: Bush, Ashcroft, Powell vs. "family values"

That being the case, what is their excuse for the fact that Olga Salanueva and Adriana Perez, wives of two of the scandalously imprisoned "Cuban Five," have now been denied visas for the third time in their attempt to visit their husbands in prison? This outrageous violation of human rights, needless to say, has received exactly zero mention in the U.S. mainstream press.

The National Committee to Free the Cuban Five is asking for people to take various actions to demand an end to this outrage. Left I urges you to do so.

Israeli settlements - a perspective

The Iraqi Consitution

For those who are confused about this, especially since most references in the press just mention "writing a Consitution" and omit the word "new", Iraq already has a Constitution. By contrast, Britain and Israel do not have Constitutions (yet we are constantly told that Israel is the "only democracy" in the Middle East - not that "Constitution" and "democracy" are synonomous).

Could it be that it is sections like these that the U.S. objects to? -

Article 16 [Ownership, Private Property]

(a) Ownership is a social function, to be exercised within the objectives of the Society and the plans of the State, according to stipulations of the law.
(b) Private ownership and economic individual liberty are guaranteed according to the law, and on the basis of not exercising them in a manner incompatible with the economic and general planning.

Not the news

Followup: Of course, when I said this wouldn't be news, I meant in the United States, of course, that bastion of the "free press." Across the ocean, the Guardian has not one but two stories on the weekend's upcoming marches.

The ruling class circles the wagons

Now that even CIA agent David Kay couldn't find (or plant) any evidence whatsoever of weapons of mass destruction (or even WMD programs) in Iraq, it's time for some serious wagon-circling, and here's what the Times has to say editorially today:

This page did not support the war in Iraq, but it never quarreled with one of its basic premises. Like President Bush, we believed that Saddam Hussein was hiding potentially large quantities of chemical and biological weapons and aggressively pursuing nuclear arms. Like the president, we thought those weapons posed a grave danger to the United States and the rest of the world. Now it appears that premise was wrong. We cannot in hindsight blame the administration for its original conclusions. They were based on the best intelligence available.

The claim that Bush's conclusions were based on the "best intelligence" available is also patent nonsense. They were based on easily exposed forgeries, unprovable allegations of WMD coming from sources like Chalabi, discredited claims of Iraq-al Queda ties, and on and on. And none of this is said in hindsight; the day after such events as Powell's speech to the U.N., progressive news sources were filled with analyses exposing the lies in complete detail.

If the invasion was based on the "best evidence available," would Colin Powell have had to go over his speech with a fine-tooth comb and then refuse to read portions of it, while saying "I'm not reading this. This is bullshit."?

It's also interesting to note this from the Times:

Before the war, we objected not to the stated goal of disarming Iraq but to the fact that the United States was waging war essentially alone, in defiance of many important allies.

The stakes are high, and the wagons are circling, not to protect Bush himself, who may well soon be tossed aside as damaged goods, but rather the position of the United States astride the world. And here, the NY Times finds itself on very much the same side as George Bush.

*Yes, I'm aware that this phrase comes from David Halberstam and referred to the Kennedy team that brought us Vietnam, not to the NY Times. Still, I think it applies.

Followup: Kevin Moore understands the situation even if the Times doesn't.

Bush, Saddam, and 9/11

Quiet news

So today's cut from 100 to 86 is minor indeed, compared to the earlier, underreported cut from 650 to 100.

Now if only George Bush would take the hint.

Comparing the world's problems

Here are some random facts I scrounged from the web. This is a table I would love to see someone with more time and expertise expand on, in order to paint a fuller picture, but here's my start:

• Hunger-related deaths - 9,000,000/year
• Diarrhea - 1,500,000/year
• Traffic accidents - 1,000,000/year
• Terrorism - <5,000/year (much less)

Satchel Paige lives!

"Don't look back," Judith. The truth might be gaining on you.

Political debates

Followup: Without question this was the worst debate format in the history of 2003 debates (recall and Democratic Presidential), not helped out by a totally inept moderator (and what was with giving the first two questions to Schwarzenegger to answer first - haven't they heard about randomization?). To top it all off, they closed the debate by telling viewers to go to their website to give them feedback on the debate format. When you do that, there is no place to give feedback! And this is the debate that Schwarzenegger described as the "Super Bowl" of debates? Strictly bush league. Not to be confused with Bush league, which is even worse.

Comments are back!

The Famous "Fence"

If completed as planned -- at an anticipated cost of $1.3 billion -- the 60- to 100-yard-wide combination of fences, ditches, roads, 25-foot-high concrete walls, barbed wire, watchtowers, cameras and electronic sensors would extend about 400 miles around the heart of the West Bank, swinging miles into Palestinian territory at some places to surround Jewish settlements and keep them on the Israeli side.

It has been completely surrounded by 8.7 miles of fences and high walls with guard towers, with one main entrance for people and goods and two agricultural gates.

War is Peace

"I reminded them and their families that the war in Iraq is -- it's really about peace." - George Bush, speaking to reporters after his visit to wounded soldiers, April 11, 2003.

"A coalition of nations acted to defend the peace" - George Bush, explaining to the U.N. on Sept. 22, 2003 why the U.S. and Britain launched a war against Iraq.

Journalistic choices

Boorish Bush

Just before Chirac addressed the assembly, Bush and his top aides -- Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice and U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John D. Negroponte -- left the hall.

For the record, there was a grand total of one speaker (the President of Peru) between Bush and Chirac.

Infant Mortality in Iraq

Saddam Hussein's government spent virtually nothing on health care. The under-5 mortality rate has more than doubled in the last decade, with 1 in 8 children now dying before their 5th birthday. Of those deaths, 70% are due to preventable illnesses such as diarrhea or respiratory infections...What's happened to these kids is just absolutely atrocious in a country that should have been able to provide for their children.

And there really is no debate about at all about what effect sanctions had on health care in Iraq. Back in 1996, this famous exchange occured on 60 Minutes, as cited by FAIR:

Lesley Stahl: We have heard that a half million children have died [as a result of the sanctions]. I mean, that's more children than died in Hiroshima. And, you know, is the price worth it?

Secretary of State Madeleine Albright: I think this is a very hard choice, but the price--we think the price is worth it.

There is, of course, a lot of material to read explaining the effect of sanctions on Iraq. From example, here's a first-hand report from Gloria La Riva, visiting Baghdad with Ramsey Clark and a delegation from the International Action Center in 1997. Just one fact out of many from that article: "Before sanctions, Iraq imported $500 million worth of medicines from Jordan. Last year it could only afford $7 million worth." More first-hand observations from 1998 can be found in this report by Sharon Eolis, RN, visiting Iraq with the Iraq Sanctions Challenge. She writes "Before the United States/United Nations sanctions and the Gulf war, Iraq had a developed, nationalized health-care system that provided care to everyone. The level of technological development in health care was on a par with industrialized Western nations." Some more from this very informative article:

Safe drinking water is a basic human need. Chlorine is used to disinfect water. UNSCOM, the UN Sanctions Committee, limits the amount of chlorine imported to Iraq because it is considered a dual substance that can be used to make poison gas.

Iraqis at a Baghdad water treatment center told delegate Dave Sole--a water specialist from Detroit--that there is not enough chlorine available to make the water safe to drink.

According to one of the Iraqi doctors we spoke with, 80 percent of the cases of amebic dysentery could be eradicated if there were clean water. In 1989, there were 19,615 cases; in 1997 the number rose to 543,295 cases.

In 1980, there were no cases of cholera in Iraq. In 1997, there were 10,000 cases caused by contaminated water and food.

I haven't mentioned Bremer's responses to DeWine's questioning. Bremer told DeWine that, besides for (or as a result of) the lack of spending by Iraq on health care, "the infrastructure is appallingly run down," and when asked by DeWine "How do you begin to improve the infant mortality rate?", his answer was to spend "$400 million on hospital refurbishment." Not a word about restoring the water purification and electricity generating systems, nor about importing medicines. Bremer clearly understands (or was willing to acknowledge) nothing about the causes of the problems nor their solutions.

Instead of spending $400 million on hospital refurbishment (no doubt designated for some Bechtel subsidiary), Bremer should let the Cubans take over. Cuba has the lowest infant mortality rate in the Americas (yes, lower than the United States), and they didn't accomplish that by concentrating on "hospital refurbishment" (though I'm sure they did that too), but by understanding public health (water, sewage, nutrition) and providing free health care (as Iraq did, of course) with clinics in every neighborhood.

Are things going badly in Iraq? No, they're much, much worse, and with folks like Bremer in charge, the future's so dark they've gotta wear night-vision goggles.

Followup: Stephen Zunes, analyzing Bush's speech to the UN, has this observation:

Bush: By the end of 2004, more than 90 percent of Iraqi children under age five will have been immunized against preventable diseases such as polio, tuberculosis, and measles thanks to the hard work and high ideals of UNICEF.

Zunes: This figure would be comparable to childhood immunization rates in Iraq prior to the U.S.-led Gulf War in 1991 and subsequent sanctions that largely destroyed the country’s public health system.

Guantanamo

Flying pig alert - actual debate in the U.S. media!

Political Joke of the Day

"Thousands of people are getting ready to flee Hurricane Isabel. Fortunately, thanks to Bush's economic plan, a lot of the businesses were already boarded up." - Jay Leno

The Boss speaks the truth

"It's time to impeach the president." - Bruce Springsteen, speaking at a concert last week in Washington, D.C., as quoted by conservative website Newsmax.

Second Quote of the Day

It would be wrong to suggest that the president always lies. For instance, there is no reason to doubt that Bush was telling the truth when he admitted that there was "no evidence that Saddam Hussein was involved with September the 11th."

More on the Israeli wall

Take Jerusalem, for example. The wall that is being erected there does not coincide with the dividing line that runs between the city's Palestinian and Jewish neighborhoods. It cuts all of the former into two. In doing so it will annex well over 100,000 Palestinians. Moreover, hundreds of thousands Palestinians will be left outside the fence, the majority of whom are residents of Jerusalem, in the possession of a valid Israeli ID card, whose life is wholly involved with and dependent upon the city. These people will not only be prevented from entering the city and, thus, reaching the source of their livelihood, their centers of education and hospitals--they will also be unable to turn eastward instead.

Bush and Left I agree - the media aren't "objective"

Bush said he insulates himself from the "opinions" that seep into news coverage by getting his news from his own aides. He said he scans headlines, but rarely reads news stories.

"I appreciate people's opinions, but I'm more interested in news," the president said. "And the best way to get the news is from objective sources, and the most objective sources I have are people on my staff who tell me what's happening in the world."

Bush at the UN

Over on CNN, the first analyst given a chance to discuss Bush's speech is former Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger, who describes himself as a "fan" of Bush. Well, that certainly makes for "fair and balanced" analysis.

Just a reminder to George Bush on the subject of prisons and torture - the U.S. is now holding thousands of people "extraterritorially" in at least three different countries (Iraq, Afghanistan, and Cuba) that we know of, in some cases torturing them, and in all cases outside any legal jurisdiction and subject to no laws other than the law of the jungle. Also just a simple observation on terrorism which Bush wants us to view as the #1 scourge of humanity: just in the latest invasion of Iraq, the U.S. killed more innocent civilians than terrorists have in the entire history of the world (of course some might argue that the invasion of Iraq was a terrorist act).

*Leaving aside the totally obvious lies, like weapons of mass destruction, Iraq-al Qaeda ties, etc.

O'Really?

For the scoop on O'Reilly, Tom Tomorrow has a preview of a new book from FAIR entitled "The Oh Really Factor." From the excerpts posted on Tom's site, it's a winner.

"Working class" politicians

"I started up with a friend of mine a bricklaying business here, and we were successful in no time. Franco did the bricklaying, and I was the guy who went out nicely dressed, took the measurements and came up with the estimates." - Arnold Schwarzenegger, speaking to Interview magazine in 1985

"Like so many of us, he came to this country with a dream in his eye. He started as a bricklayer, and through sheer determination and hard work, he achieved the goals he set for himself.'' - Schwarzenegger for Governor radio commercial, 2003

Beggars in high places

Wouldn't it also be nice if cities and states had enough money to decide on their spending priorities in a democratic manner, rather than having to spend money on whatever some generous individual like Gates feels is a priority (or, indeed, having to rely on the existence of such individuals at all)? And is it worth pointing out that most people with significant wealth are opposed to higher taxes on the rich and on corporations (or, indeed, are proponents of lower taxes) which would allow such a thing to occur?

Quotes of the (yester)day

"He (Saddam Hussein) has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project conventional power against his neighbours." - Colin Powell, speaking in Cairo on February 24, 2001

Saddam Hussein had not been able to "build his military back up or to develop weapons of mass destruction" for "the last 10 years." - Colin Powell, on May 15, 2001

"We are able to keep his arms from him. His military forces have not been rebuilt." - Condoleezza Rice, in July, 2001

In April last year, Condoleezza Rice described September 11 2001 as an "enormous opportunity" and said America "must move to take advantage of these new opportunities."

At 2.40pm on September 11, according to confidential notes taken by his aides, Donald Rumsfeld, the Defense Secretary, said he wanted to "hit" Iraq - even though not a shred of evidence existed that Saddam Hussein had anything to do with the attacks on New York and Washington. "Go massive," the notes quote Rumsfeld as saying. "Sweep it all up. Things related and not." -- A story that broke on Sept. 5, 2002

Quote of the Day

To the U.S. paratroopers from the 82nd Airborne Division, it was a textbook operation. To the Iraqi parents who lost their teenage daughter, it was a tragic and inexcusable overreaction. Like many things about the U.S. occupation of Iraq, a lot depends on who's telling the story.

This much is clear: Two unarmed civilians were killed in the incident Sept. 1 in the dusty town of Mahmudiya, 20 miles south of Baghdad, including a 19-year-old woman who had hoped to attend medical school. They died when U.S. soldiers raked a small apartment with machine-gun fire and tossed a grenade into the kitchen.

The soldiers did that -- as they are trained to do, their commander said -- after they banged on the door and were shot at from inside. The shooter was a 16-year-old boy, who said he thought he was defending his home from thieves. Military investigators questioned him for several days and released him.
...
Asked why the soldiers attacked instead of retreating when shots were fired from the apartment, White said it would not have been appropriate to back down. "We're just not going to do that," he said. "We're here to help the Iraqi people."

Syria - building the "case" for war

Bremer on "Bring the troops home now!"

But de-facto Iraqi dictator Paul Bremer has a different view of the problems which might face Iraq should U.S. troops withdraw:

"We can not simply pat the Iraqis on the back, tell them are lucky to be rid of Saddam and ask them to go find their place in a global market to compete without the tools of competition. To do so would invite economic collapse, followed by political extremism and a return to terrorism."

Bremer has his priorities clear. Do you?

Is it or isn't it?

Congratulations Jon Stewart!

Bush - "No evidence that Hussein was involved with 9/11"

Of America's twelve highest-circulation daily papers, only the L.A. Times, Chicago Tribune, and Dallas Morning News ran anything about it on the front page. In The New York Times, the story was relegated to page 22. USA Today: page 16. The Houston Chronicle: page 3. The San Francisco Chronicle: page 14. The Washington Post: page 18. Newsday: page 41. The New York Daily News: page 14.

The New York Post and The Wall Street Journal didn't mention it at all.

The liberation of Iraq is a crucial advance in the campaign against terror. We've removed an ally of al Qaeda, and cut off a source of terrorist funding. And this much is certain: No terrorist network will gain weapons of mass destruction from the Iraqi regime, because the regime is no more.

In these 19 months that changed the world, our actions have been focused and deliberate and proportionate to the offense. We have not forgotten the victims of September the 11th -- the last phone calls, the cold murder of children, the searches in the rubble. With those attacks, the terrorists and their supporters declared war on the United States. And war is what they got.

". ..I determine that:... [Declaring war on Iraq and] acting pursuant to the Constitution and Public Law 107-243 is consistent with the United States and other countries continuing to take the necessary actions against international terrorists and terrorist organizations, including those nations, organizations, or persons who planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001 ."

Mostly, the editorial pages of the mainstream press, along with the most prominent columnists and talking heads, have been silent about this revelation. The New York Times did underscore Bush's previous lies with this quote taken from his May 1 speech: "The battle of Iraq is one victory in a war on terror that began on Sept. 11, 2001, and still goes on," but from there it was downhill. Instead of indicting Bush, they argue that, because "Hussein was a bloody despot who deserved to be ousted for the sake of his beleaguered people," that therefore "the temptation to hint at a connection with Sept. 11 that did not exist must have been tremendous," thus providing an excuse for Bush's lies. And their conclusion? Bush should resign? Fire his advisors? No, he should "learn from history" and employ "stark honesty" from now on! Of course, if he doesn't, the Times and the rest of the media establishment will be there to help him first to hide, and then to excuse his future lies.

The Business of Government

Fore, of course, wants to continue the course, and justifies her work thusly: "If we can save money here, then Americans can use it elsewhere." Even if it were true the money she is "saving" would be divided among all Americans to "use elsewhere," it's unlikely the additional dollar or two would appreciably change anyone's lifestyle. By contrast, there are now nearly 600 Americans who have a lot less to spend.

If America had a full-employment economy and there were jobs going undone because of the lack of workers, Fore's efforts might be admirable. In the absence of that idyllic situation for the foreseeable future, USA Today's glowing portrait of Fore and her job-cutting efforts seems misplaced indeed.

More on Wesley Clark, the "antiwar" candidate, in his own words

"President Bush and Tony Blair should be proud of their resolve in the face of so much doubt."

Headline of the Day

"Iraqis can't believe everything they read"

The article from which the headline is taken talks about the 170 newspapers now publishing in Iraq. At the very end, we are reminded that "Coalition Order 14...makes it a crime to incite violence against any person...including coalition personnel or troops," as well as "advocating the return to power of the Baath Party." In a statement as replete with irony as the headline, a member of the "Governing Council" says "This is not about muzzling the media. This is about ethical standards. There are lines people should not cross. People should not incite others to violence."

I wonder if inciting your country to create a "regime change" in another country through "shock and awe" (and killing tens of thousands of its citizens) would qualify?

Quote of the Day - F. Scott Fitzgerald (!)

"They were careless people, Tom and Daisy. They smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back to their money or their vast carelessness or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they made."

Minimal Blogging until 9/22

Quote of the Day

"I hope God will forgive him, because I never will."

Wesley Clark - antiwar candidate?

Women in Iraq

Get Tomorrow Today!

1. Tom Tomorrow is the most insightful political commentator working today.
2. Tom Tomorrow is the funniest cartoonist working today.
3. Tom Tomorrow has been cutting to the quick of the political and economic establishment since 1990.
4. Tom Tomorrow has helped keep Left I sane through seemingly endless years of Bush, Clinton, and Bush
5. Tom Tomorrow's blog is one of the best on the web, and the direct inspiration for Left I on the News
6. A compendium of Tom Tomorrow's work from 1983 through 2002 has just been released, which just may be the best book published this year.
7. Tom Tomorrow's could stop working today and just republish an old cartoon a week, since things he wrote years ago are just as valid today (they would be "prescient" if it weren't for the fact that they were also true then).
8. Tom Tomorrow is really Dan Perkins in disguise.
9. All of the above.

For those not familiar with Tom Tomorrow's work, I've picked out a handful of samples of his work on Bush I, Clinton, government regulations, Clinton again, and Bush II. Believe me, this tiny sample doesn't come close to doing justice to the book.

If you're not lucky enough to live in a town where the local weekly paper carries Tom Tomorrow (or even if you are), you can always read his latest work here. But trust me, it's no substitute for the book. The book is a must-read.

Personal rant - I encourage you to buy the book at an actual bookstore. If you must, Tom's site has links to online bookstores. Do you really want to live in a world which consists of a bunch of minimum wage workers in a warehouse in Nevada, connected to the rest of the world by a lifeline of UPS drivers? Or would you rather live in a community where the storefronts near you aren't empty, people have jobs, and you can drive (or, preferably, cycle or walk) to a local bookstore, browse the shelves, poke around, and get inspired? Your choice. I prefer the latter, and I'm willing to pay sales taxes in exchange for that benefit. Not that I have anything against warehouse workers in Nevada or UPS drivers, mind you. :-)

Dick Cheney, meet the truth

One claim dealt with by Goodman, though, was far less well known, yet far more shocking. Here's what Cheney had to say:

We know, for example, in connection with the original World Trade Center bombing in '93 that one of the bombers was Iraqi, returned to Iraq after the attack of '93. And we've learned subsequent to that, since we went into Baghdad and got into the intelligence files, that this individual probably also received financing from the Iraqi government as well as safe haven.

Now, is there a connection between the Iraqi government and the original World Trade Center bombing in ’93? We know, as I say, that one of the perpetrators of that act did, in fact, receive support from the Iraqi government after the fact.

But the truth? Well, let's just say that it and Cheney are barely on speaking terms. Here's Amy Goodman:

Vice President Cheney is talking about Abdul Rahman Yasin. He is listed among the F.B.I.'s top 25 most wanted. He's accused [Left I note: "accused", not convicted] of participating in the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, has $25 million bounty on his head.

But there is a lot Cheney did not say about Yasin, first he's an American citizen [Left I note: An American! But...but...Cheney said he was an "Iraqi"!] born in Bloomington, Indiana. Second, the F.B.I. questioned him shortly after the 1993 bombing and characterized him as cooperative and let him go.

But what is perhaps most interesting is that when Yasin left the United States he went to Iraq where he lived for a year before being arrested by Iraqi intelligence agents in 1994. Last summer 60 minutes interviewed him in Baghdad in an Iraqi intelligence facility. It was first time he was seen since the 1993 attacks.

Former Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz told "60 Minutes" that twice Iraq attempt to hand Yasin over to the United States once in 1994 under Clinton and again after the attacks on September 11th. Aziz said in October of 2001 the Iraqi government sent word to the C.I.A. through an Egyptian government emissary...that Yasin was in custody in Iraq and that Baghdad wanted to hand him over. Aziz says the only condition was that the U.S. sign receipt saying that Iraq had handed him over. The U.S. again rejected the offer with officials later saying the Iraqis were placing too many demands on Washington in return for Yasin.

Quote of the Day - Silvan Shalom

"We didn't say that we have the policy of killing others. No way."

The cycle begins again

Public: Iran Developing WMD, Aiding Terrorists

Halabja (re)visited

From Reuters, this:

The United States has often cited the killings in the northern town of Halabja as proof of their accusation that Saddam was developing weapons of mass destruction.

The New York Times has this to say:

Mr. Powell acknowledged that the world was indifferent to the atrocity of Halabja and to other chemical attacks that occurred mainly in the 1980's and that killed tens of thousands.

The Washington Post had the most extensive review of what happened in 1988:

Secretary of State Colin L. Powell...assert[ed] that a 1988 poison-gas attack that killed an estimated 5,000 Kurdish villagers in the area provided ample evidence that Saddam Hussein's government possessed weapons of mass destruction.

Powell said after walking through the museum. "What happened over the intervening 15 years? Did he [Hussein] suddenly lose the motivation? Did he suddenly decide that such weapons would not be useful? The international community did not believe so."

Although the United States condemned the Iraqi government's use of chemical weapons as a "grave violation" of international law, the Reagan administration did not sanction Hussein, who was regarded as an American ally because of his war against Iran's Islamic revolutionary government. At the time, the State Department even said there were "indications" that Iran had used chemical artillery shells against Iraqi positions in the area.

Followup: Billmon reminds us that Colin Powell has more than a passing acquaintance with war crimes, having been personally responsible (or should that be irresponsible) for covering up the war crimes at My Lai.

The wall

Does this, from today's New York Times, look like a "fence" to anyone? How about the pictures here?

The reason this was in the news today is because Bush had threatened to withhold "loan guarantees" to Israel on a dollar-for-dollar basis for every dollar spent on building the wall. Today it was announced that Bush had "postponed" that decision indefinitely, but was instituting a reduction in loan guarantees for any money spent by Israel for further expansion of the settlements. Wow. That's quite a harsh response to Israel's threat to kill Yasser Arafat. Not. I haven't seen the details of this new U.S. policy, but here's betting that it only applies to totally new settlements, and not to the expansion of existing ones. The "roadmap," not surprisingly, leads precisely nowhere.

Quote of the Day - Dick Cheney

Sept. 11 is "over with now, it's done, it's history and we can put it behind us."

Cheney also admitted to Tim Russert that he had "misspoke" when he claimed in March that Iraq had "reconstituted nuclear weapons." Perhaps he did. People misspeak all the time by confusing two things in their mind, or jumbling the words they say. Nothing wrong with that. But this particular claim has been the subject of countless mentions in the media in the six months since it was made. If Cheney really "misspoke" when he said it, wouldn't it have been appropriate for him to issue a press release or other statement as soon as he realized it, and not wait for six months and then only to acknowledge this "misspeaking" in response to a direct question from Tim Russert?

Followup: More on Cheney's lies, and other recent lies of the Bush administration, from David Corn (thanks to Tom Tomorrow for the link).

The September Surprise

A scheduled update on any Iraqi weapons of mass destruction is being delayed and the entire report may not be published, The Sunday Times of London reported.

The $87 billion - what's missing?

The great majority of the money is going to pay for what is essentially Pentagon operating costs (wages, fuel, etc.). These costs have been extremely inflated by the Pentagon's new propensity to contract out practically anything it can get away with. The money is not covering any appreciable amount of the capital costs to the Pentagon's equipment, which is literally being sanded down in the deserts of Iraq. When the operation in Iraq is over, the American taxpayer will have to completely repurchase most of the main military equipment for the U. S. Army, at a cost of untold additional billions.

69% again

Followup: This stuff comes fast and furious. Quoted in USA Today, CNN reporter Christiane Amanpour had this to say about coverage of the war against Iraq: "I think the press was muzzled, and I think the press self-muzzled. I'm sorry to say, but certainly television and, perhaps, to a certain extent, my station was intimidated by the administration and its foot soldiers at Fox News. And it did, in fact, put a climate of fear and self-censorship, in my view, in terms of the kind of broadcast work we did." To this, Fox News spokesperson Irena Briganti responded: "Given the choice, it's better to be viewed as a foot soldier for Bush than a spokeswoman for al-Qaeda." USA Today did not note the contradiction between the fact the Amanpour was talking about Iraq, while the Fox News spokesperson was talking about the entirely unrelated subject of al-Qaeda, but Left I will.

Combat casualties in Iraq revisited

Not that we can rely on CBS News. The same report also mentioned the "8 Iraqi policemen killed" by U.S. forces. In fact, there were 10 policemen (2 died the next day from their wounds) and one more person, a Jordanian hospital guard. And no, they didn't call it a "massacre." Only Left I on the News has done that, so far at least.

Followup: There was someone else using the word "massacre," but it wasn't reported in the U.S. as far as I can tell. The Sunni clerics in Fallujah issued this declaration: "The people of Fallujah condemn the massacre which was committed on Friday against people dedicated to the protection of Fallujah." I doubt they even had to debate the meaning of the word.

"Thou shalt not kill"

The Jerusalem Post, however, was quite a bit more explicit in its editorial pages:

We must kill as many of the Hamas and Islamic Jihad leaders as possible, as quickly as possible, while minimizing collateral damage, but not letting that damage stop us. And we must kill Yasser Arafat, because the world leaves us no alternative.

Today things became a bit more open, since the threat to kill Arafat moved from the pages of a right-wing newspaper to the mouth of the Deputy Prime Minister of Israel, Ehud Olmert: "His expulsion is an option, his liquidation is another option." This mafia-like statement finally brought an open acknowledgement in the U.S. media of this possibility, along with a response from Colin Powell: "the U.S. doesn't support [killing Arafat], that's not our position." Well, with that kind of ringing condemnation, we can be sure Israel will be inhibited from acting.

I have yet to see any serious analysis of this issue in the U.S. media, but the following private communication from a friend sounds pretty much on target in my opinion; I wonder if any "real" analysts will have anything as incisive to say? This was written before the statement from Olmert, so whereever he writes "Jerusalem Post" (or "JP"), you really can now substitute the phrase "Israeli government":

The staggering arrogance of the Jerusalem Post is mind-boggling -- as is its disingenuousness. Do the JP and similar extreme Zionists really expect anyone to see Arafat -- a broken reed, a powerless symbol, a relic from the past, who was only elected because he is an echo of his past reputation -- as someone who can influence Hamas and other Islamicists or keep them in check? He is in an impossible position: if he attempts to curb Hamas, he will be seen by many Palestinians as a quisling; if he does nothing but complain about them, he'll be branded by Sharon & Co as an accomplice.

The false portrayal of Arafat as an accomplice of Hamas has, I think, a sinister rationale. The JP editorial implies that if Arafat is bumped off, then Hamas & Co will decline or even die away, and that there will be little response. No, his assassination will lead to massive unrest, big demonstrations, mass resistance and (unfortunately) more suicide attacks. The last will give Sharon and his fans in the JP editorial office the excuse to go in even harder against the Palestinians, mass repression, ghettoisation, perhaps even expulsion. The JP won't say -- at the moment, that is -- that Sharon wants to increase the pressure, and that he welcomes suicide bombings, as they play into his plan to present the Palestinians as a 'terrorist people' and therefore liable to and deserving of all manner of repression. A few months down the line, if the assassination option goes to plan, the JP will be calling for full ghettoisation and expulsion of the Palestinians.

The Sharon government clearly intended that the assassination of [Hebron leader of the Islamic Jihad organization, Mohammed] Seder in Hebron would end the "road map" process altogether. At the same time, it would be sure to unleash a response, allowing Israel to put the onus for the collapse on the Palestinians.

More followup: From Uri Avnery, Israeli peace activist and ex-Knesset member, a similar and equally worthwhile analysis of the situation. Avnery has also just announced that he and other Israeli peace activists will be serving as a "human shield" for Arafat.

Two must-read articles

"Massacre in Fallujah"

The dictionary says it's "The act or an instance of killing a large number of humans indiscriminately and cruelly," but it also defines it as "a severe defeat, as in a sports event." Despite the sports reference, the latter definition is quite important, because I think that for most people, the essence of a "massacre" isn't the number of people killed, but the one-sided nature of the killing. After all, the most famous "massacre" in U.S. history, the St. Valentine's Day Massacre, involved the killing of only seven people. But what made it a "massacre," instead of just a normal gangland battle, is that it was entirely one-sided - the seven men killed were simply mowed down by their assailants.

And what happened in Fallujah yesterday? Something very similar. American soldiers, with vastly superior firepower, killed 10 Iraqi policemen and one Jordanian hospital guard, without taking a single casualty of their own. Clearly this was an entirely one-sided battle. Reports have it, in fact, that the dead Iraqis never fired a shot. Was it "indiscriminate"? Clearly yes. "Cruel"? According to an Iraqi doctor on the scene, he "tried to persuade the soldiers to allow him to evacuate the wounded," and was forbidden from doing so, and both he and a surviving Iraqi policeman said that the Iraqis were killed by "large-caliber weapons fired at close range," even while they were identifying themselves as police. "Close range" was 20 feet according to the Iraqi doctor, and a maximum of 50 feet according to the reporter on the scene.

Sure sounds like a massacre to me. But you won't be seeing that word in the U.S. media, that's for sure. They're too busy telling you it was "friendly fire." As the saying goes, "with friends like that, who needs enemies?"

Everything is clear

Big Powers Divided on Iraq's Political Future

Big Five Said Moving to Consensus on Iraq Future

Disappearing Iraqis - actual investigative reporting in the U.S. media

The American soldiers smashed through 68-year-old Ali Ahmed’s door at 2:30 in the morning.

According to Ali, the Americans roughed up one of his four sons who had gone downstairs to see what all the commotion was about. Then they handcuffed everyone except his wife and 12-year-old boy.

The soldiers ransacked their tiny apartment, took what little money they had, and finally hauled Ali and three of his sons off to what was formerly known as Saddam Hussein’s presidential palace, a sprawling compound not far from Ali’s home.

For the next month, Ali essentially disappeared from the face of the earth. His wife and young son, Hassan, tried desperately to find him, but without success. There were no phone calls, no letters, no hints of whether he was alive or dead or would ever be returning home.

Corporations - you can always trust them to "do the right thing"

Hewlett-Packard, the world's biggest computer printer maker, won a lawsuit that charged it had duped consumers by selling them new printers with cartridges that were only half-full of ink.

A jury at a state court in Hillsborough, N.C., found that consumers typically didn't expect the cartridge in new printers to be the same as replacement cartridges they bought, said Richard McCune, a lawyer for the consumers. The company began putting in half-filled cartridges in 1998 and told consumers only in 2001 after it was sued, he said.

Political joke of the day

"While the President's decision to seek a resolution giving the UN a greater role in Iraq seems like a 180, administration officials say this has been the plan all along. Donald Rumsfeld put it this way: 'This isn't anything new, there's no big news story here.' Colin Powell says 'The President has said this from the very beginning.'

"They've been saying these things the whole time? I can't believe I didn't realize that. I must have been reading the wrong papers, watching the wrong TV news shows, listening to the wrong radio stations, living on the wrong planet." -- Jon Stewart (The Daily Show)

Quote of the Day - Jennifer Stone

"After 9/11, people were asking 'Why do they hate us?'. One of the reasons is that we have to ask that question." -- Jennifer Stone

The Newsweek cover headline referred to below is one example, asserting as it does that the "losses" in the "war on terror" since 9/11 have been 433 American lives. Actually, there's a certain irony, since the first American soldier killed in combat in Iraq wasn't "American" at all, but Guatemalan (he was awarded U.S. citizenship posthumously). Even our British "coalition partners" aren't important enough to count in the totals.

But the tens of thousands of Afghan and Iraqi civilians and soldiers killed as a result of Bush's "War on Terror"? They simply don't count (quite literally - they are not counted). The 3000 (or more - estimates range to more than ten thousand) dead in Chile thanks to the Sept. 11 coup referred to below? Most Americans have never even heard of them. The estimated half million Iraqis, mostly children, dead as a result of a decade of UN sanctions? Rarely if ever mentioned; when they are, Americans are usually comforted by being told it wasn't their fault, but the fault of Saddam, who stole all the oil-for-food money to build palaces.

aMErica - the land where it's all about "ME". Thousands killed, our memories and consciences clear. Why do they hate us?

Followup: An interesting article, saying much the same thing as what I've said here, but about George Bush specifically rather than Americans in general, entitled "Does George Bush Cry?"

Triumph of the Media Mill

Historian Claudia Koonz was aptly pointing out that Riefenstahl "saw herself as a documentary maker, not as a propagandist. But what she understood so much before anyone else is that the best propaganda is invisible. It looks like a documentary. Then you realize all you're seeing is glory, beauty and triumph, and you don't see the darker side."

The millions of people who have mourned the victims of the U.S. war in Southeast Asia [and, he might have added, the victims of the coup in Chile] might feel that such words describe the standard U.S. media coverage of Henry Kissinger.

69% revisited

As an aside, notice that, when the purpose of the article is served by the largest possible number, they have no problem including those who died "before May 1" and those who didn't die "in combat" in Iraq.

The indefinite "War on Terror"

All of this is preface to yet another ominous pronouncement from Secretary of War Donald Rumsfeld as reported by AP:

The United States wants to hold most of the suspected terrorists at a prison camp in Cuba for the duration of the war on terrorism instead of trying them before military tribunals, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said Wednesday.

Rumsfeld said the 660 or so men held at the Guantanamo Bay naval base are imprisoned not as punishment but "to keep them from going back and fighting again and killing people." He said most would be held until the global war on terrorism is over - a fight that Rumsfeld has said could last years, if not decades.

The defense secretary said he expects some suspects to be tried before military tribunals but prefers that most continue to be imprisoned indefinitely.

"Our interest is in not trying them and letting them out," he said in a question-and-answer session after a speech to the National Press Club. "Our interest is in - during this global war on terror - keeping them off the streets, and so that's what's taking place."

Some, maybe most, of the people in Guantanamo are not "nice" people. But when they lose their rights, everyone in the world loses theirs as well.

Government at work

Amazingly, the same issue of the Mercury News carries another article with a bit more of the truth about the relationship between business and government. Arnold Schwarzenegger has been vocal in his campaign about his opposition to taking money from "special interests," which he defines as groups he would have to "negotiate" with as Governor, singling out public employee unions and Indian "gaming interests." However, as the Mercury News quite rightly points out, "Schwarzenegger is getting money from agricultural groups, car dealers, health care executives, land developers and other corporate interests, all of whom are actively engaged in lobbying on legislation and regulations that affect their businesses," and notes that "there's little doubt that a governor, both through the administrative departments he oversees and through his decisions on whether to sign or reject legislation, will deal, bargain and negotiate with corporate interests virtually every day he's in office."

Kudos to the Mercury News for these rare glimpses of the truth.

Quote of the Day - Rumsfeld (again!)

"I believe in the right of everybody to say what they want to say, and it ought not to be inhibited at all."

"There are reminders to all Americans that they need to watch what they say, watch what they do, and this is not a time for remarks like that; there never is." -- Ari Fleischer

"None of us that wear this uniform are free to say anything disparaging about the secretary of defense or the president of the United States." -- Gen. John Abizaid

Criticism of the U.S.-led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, both overseas and from Democrats in the United States, makes fighting the war on terrorism more difficult -- Donald Rumsfeld [No newspaper carried an exact quotation, the remark having been made to reporters on a plane and not in a formal speech, so this is evidently a paraphrase, but was widely reported in this manner.]

Here in "free America," there are thousands of newspapers, but only a handful of actual news sources. Pick a major story some day, and browse the web reading that story on as many online newspapers as you like. You'll be lucky if you find more than three versions of the story; usually it's two and often just one (AP). As for this particular story, I could not find any evidence that the Agence-France Presse story describing the protesters or Rumsfeld's "free press" remarks appeared in a single U.S. newspaper. Accounts in the New York Times, Washington Post, and other mainstream sources described Rumsfeld's speech at length, but couldn't spare even one sentence to mention the protesters. Freedom of speech? Priceless. The right to be heard when you speak? That costs money.

Followup: I missed this phrase in the Times article: "his speech...was briefly interrupted by two hecklers protesting the Iraq war."

Remembering the death of 3000 people

Though the music of Chile’s Victor Jara for decades has been an international symbol of the repression suffered under the Augusto Pinochet dictatorship, and though Chile has been a democracy for 13 years, the government is only now paying homage to the man.

Three decades after the musician with a social conscience was tortured and murdered by Pinochet’s military government, the covered concert stadium in downtown Santiago where he was slain will finally be named after Jara. Chile’s left-leaning President Ricardo Lagos will officially rename the stadium on September 12, a day after the 30th anniversary of the military coup that overthrew socialist President Salvador Allende.

According to an official report, Victor Jara was held, tortured and killed in the Estadio Chile along with other political prisoners rounded up right after the coup. Others were held in another notorious detention centre, the open-air sports facility called the National Stadium.

The broken body of the guitarist was found a few days after the coup near a Santiago cemetery with 44 bullet wounds, signs of beating, fractures and injuries to his wrists. He was among some 3,000 people who died or disappeared during the dictatorship.

Followup: The New York Times actually has a lengthy story on the anniversary of the coup, which not only doesn't mention Victor Jara, but also doesn't mention the massacres which followed the coup. Indeed, previously uneducated readers will leave this article thinking the only person who died in the coup was Salvador Allende, and he by his own hand; in other words, Pinochet did not kill a single person. Was this better than no article at all? It's doubtful.

Political joke of the day

The President wrapped up [his speech] with a touch of the personal [Clip of Bush reading a glowing letter from a soldier in Iraq]. That letter, of course, had to be sifted out from the 129,999 other letters saying "Get me the f*** out of here." -- Jon Stewart

Quote of the Day - Rumsfeld

I have so many things to do at the Department of Defense.

Whatever happened to the "honest broker"?

Howard Dean came under fire yesterday from two rivals for the Democratic nomination [Lieberman & Kerry] for saying the United States should not "take sides" in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The NY Times slams Bush, and simultaneously covers up for him

To many Americans, the economic recovery is anything but — 2.7 million private-sector jobs have been lost in the last three years. The number of people living below the poverty line is rising, the trade imbalance has reached unnerving proportions, and the federal budget deficits have grown so huge that even the International Monetary Fund has begun expressing concern. Most of the Bush domestic agenda is a sad deflated version of its earlier incarnation.

Then we come to the war:

His judgment about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq appears to have been wrong — and, worse, hyped. But over all, it was a bad guess that was shared by intelligence experts from the Clinton administration and many allies.

Then the Times has the nerve to write:

For all the trauma the United States has gone through during his administration, Mr. Bush has never asked the American people to respond to new challenges by making genuine sacrifices.

Even in an editorial which stops just short of asking Bush to resign, the Times can't bring itself to tell the whole truth about what is happening in this country.

A news anchor with a conscience - in Britain, of course

News at Ten anchorman Sir Trevor McDonald has revealed he defied his editors by refusing to report the government's key defence of war in Iraq - the infamous 45-minute claim.

But Sir Trevor insisted he would prefer to be sacked rather than sacrifice his principles of fair and honest coverage.

Are 69% of Americans stupid?

Really? The main reason isn't the countless speeches given by members of the Bush administration from the President on down, linking 9/11 and Iraq? Or could it be the media has some responsibility? Just last night, for example, CNN presented a long piece on the current situation in Iraq, showing soldiers patrolling the streets, hunting for "arms dealers," doing humanitarian work rebuilding schools, etc. The entire time this piece aired (many minutes), the bottom 20% of the screen was filled with the headline "The war on terror," although nothing in this piece even mentioned the bombing of the UN headquarters, the Jordanian embassy, or the Najaf mosque, events which can at least plausibly be called "terrorism."

People used to talk about subliminal advertising. Now it's not even subliminal. Or even "subliminable."

Followup: I just looked again at the Post article described above. Here's the headline: "Hussein Link to 9/11 Lingers in Many Minds." Not "alleged" link, or "unproven" link, or "bogus" link, just "link." So could it be the reason this "lingers in many minds" is that even articles which admit there is "no evidence" for such a link run under headlines featuring the words "Hussein Link to 9/11"?

More followup: Politics in the Zeros has some additional points to make about this poll and this article.

What should happen in Iraq

As belligerent powers who initiated the war, and as occupying powers, the U.S. and the UK are required to provide for the humanitarian needs of the Iraqi people. While their military occupation should be ended immediately, Washington and London remain obligated to pay the continuing costs of Iraq's reconstruction, including the bulk of the cost of UN humanitarian and peacekeeping deployments. The U.S. should immediately make public a realistic estimate for the cost of reconstruction in Iraq. Washington should turn over funds to UN authority, beginning with a direct grant of at least $75 billion (the initial amount spent on waging the war) for reconstruction work. These funds should be raised from an excess profits tax on corporations benefiting from the war and post-war privatization Iraq, as well as from Pentagon budget lines initially aimed at carrying out war in Iraq.

A kind word for Fox News; "Protest Zones"

Those of us who believe in the right of free speech, and the necessity of voicing our opinion publicly and visibly to counteract the power of people like Rupert Murdoch, have a vital stake in this battle. The government, and the Bush administration more than any previous government, want us "out of sight and out of mind." The fight to prevent that transcends individual issues, like the invasion of Iraq, or tax cuts for the rich, or freeing the Cuban Five or Mumia Abu-Jamal, because if this fight is lost, winning all those other struggles becomes that much harder. It's one we must not forget about, and for just this once we have Fox News to remind us (as well as others, e.g., this post we mentioned several days ago).

Among the things Bush left unsaid...

$87 billion could, according to UNICEF, meet the basic human needs of every impoverished person on Earth.

Kudos to the Madison Capital Times for these observations.

Stop the presses! Actual news on the Larry King Show! And from Judith Miller no less!

If you recall, Larry, before the war, General Shinseki and Secretary Rumsfeld had an argument about how many soldiers were needed. Now, I was embedded for over four months with weapons of mass destruction hunters, and as we went through Iraq, we found ammunition facility after ammo facility, where there were mortars and shells and RPGs and everything stored, and we would leave those facilities unguarded simply because the unit soldiers told me, they didn't have the manpower to guard them.

And I said, "What's going to happen to all of this ammunition?" Well, now we know what's happening to it. Some of it's being used to kill American soldiers and others in Iraq.

One more interesting exchange from the same show:

Larry King: Matt McAllester [Newsday], at the end of World War II, did Germans kill Americans? Did Japanese kill allies after the war ended? Did these things occur at the end of other wars?

McAllester: Well, Iraq is a completely unique situation. It's a country that really has no friendly relations with anyone. We saw that with the United Nations bombing. That was the greatest example.

Historical revisionism

The BS spin from the press begins [this from MSNBC]:

Now the 2004 election — little more than a year away — is shaping up as a referendum on Bush’s doctrine of pre-emptive war, the argument that he made in the year leading up to the invasion of Iraq that it would be too dangerous for the United States to wait until Saddam Hussein’s regime had developed weapons of mass destruction.

Al Franken, we hardly knew ye

But imagine my surprise when I got to the end of the book and discovered the chapter entitled "My Personal Search for Weapons of Mass Destruction," in which I learn that Franken not only supported the invasion of Iraq, but even spoke at one of the Clear Channel pro-war rallies, making jokes at the expense of the French and Hans Blix. Franken says he was "terrified by the imminent threat to me and my family posed by Iraq's arsenal of weapons of mass destruction."

Now this is truly incredible. Here is a man capable of writing an entire book about the lies of the Bush administration and their friends on the right, and he claims to have been taken in by the most transparent lies this side of Jon Lovitz's pathological liar Tommy Flanagan? He even claims to be "not a believer in the Bush Doctrine of preemption," and he still supported the war? How can this be explained?

Personally, I can only think of a single explanation - Al Franken, like most Jews in the United States, is a supporter of Israel ("Neo-cons support the Jewish state for the same reasons I do: because it is the only democracy in the region, and because they're Jewish"), and anything that is perceived as being good for Israel, or bad for Arabs, any Arabs, is something that such people will support, no matter no irrational or evil it may be. Those who criticize Israel are invariably accused of being anti-Semitic. Shall we accuse Franken of being an anti-Arab racist because of his otherwise totally inexplicable support for the war against Iraq? No, I won't, but it's certainly a distinct possibility.

If Franken has a better explanation for his support for the invasion of Iraq, I'll be glad to publish it here. Email me, Al, the address is at the upper right.

Now they tell us

No weapons of mass destruction have turned up in Iraq, nor has any solid new evidence for them turned up in Washington or London. But what about Baghdad's patchy bookkeeping -- the gaps that led U.N. inspectors to list Iraqi nerve agents and bioweapons material as unaccounted for?

Ex-inspectors now say, five months after the U.S. invasion, that the "unaccountables" may have been no more than paperwork glitches left behind when Iraq destroyed banned chemical and biological weapons years ago.

Chief U.N. inspector Hans Blix, as he left his post this summer, became more open in discussing discrepancies.

After the mid-1990s, "hardly ever did (inspectors) find hidden weapons," Blix reminded one audience. "What they found was bad accounting. "It could be true they (Iraq) did destroy unilaterally in 1991 what they hid."

It was always a "fragile assumption" to expect Iraq to provide a highly detailed, fully consistent and well documented account of all its weapons work, said U.S. defense analyst Carl Conetta. No military can do that, he wrote in a report recapping the Iraq inspections.

A U.S. audit last year, for example, found the Pentagon had lost track of more than 1 million chemical-biological protective suits, said Conetta, of the Project on Defense Alternatives, a private think tank.

In perhaps the most striking example, U.S. government auditors found in 1994 that almost three tons of plutonium, enough for hundreds of nuclear bombs, had "vanished" from U.S. stocks, because of discrepancies between "book inventory" and "physical inventory."

What else are they hiding from the American public?

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers recently did a helicopter survey of Iraq's high-voltage distribution wires: Over about 700 miles, they found 623 destroyed towers, up from fewer than 20 just after the war.

Things to watch for tomorrow in the media

Some brief analysis follows - see if you can find any of these observations, none of them requiring any special knowledge, in tomorrow's commentary. Listening tonight to CNN and Hardball, I didn't hear any of them:

Bush: Iraq...sponsored terror, possessed and used weapons of mass destruction. No evidence has been presented that Iraq sponsored terror. They definitely did possess biological and chemical weapons (dubiously called weapons of mass destruction - see below); in many cases the components of these were supplied by U.S. companies, and at the time they were used, Iraq was backed by the U.S.

Bush: For 12 years [Iraq] defied the clear demands of the United Nations Security Council. It now appears to be incontrovertible that Iraq has been completely disarmed since 1998, in compliance with the Security Council resolution.

Bush: Our coalition enforced these international demands in one of the swiftest and most humane military campaigns in history. Swift, yes. Humane? 6-8000 Iraqi civilians and tens of thousands of equally innocent Iraqi soldiers killed, and untold numbers wounded. Iraqis still being "blown away" on a daily basis by American troops (see item below). And a complete and total disregard for even counting these people, as if they are less than human. Humane? We report, you decide.

Bush: For a generation leading up to September the 11th, 2001, terrorists and their radical allies attacked innocent people in the Middle East and beyond, without facing a sustained and serious response. And this is related to the invasion of Iraq how exactly?

Bush: Last week they murdered a respected cleric and over a hundred Muslims at prayer. A minor lie, but representative of the fact that Bush can't tell the truth if he tries. The hundred Muslims were not "at prayer," they were in the street having left the mosque after the service was finished. A minor lie, but certainly an intentional one.

Bush: We are staying on the offensive, with a series of precise strikes against enemy targets increasingly guided by intelligence given to us by Iraqi citizens. I wonder if Farah Fadhil (see item below) is one of those?

Bush: So far, of the 55 most wanted former Iraqi leaders, 42 are dead or in custody. We are sending a clear message: anyone who seeks to harm our soldiers can know that our soldiers are hunting for them. Actually, there is no evidence that any of those 42 people had anything to do with "harming our soldiers." We are still holding in custody, totally incommunicado and essentially dead to the world, people like Gen. Amir al-Saadi and Tariq Aziz. When is the U.S. going to let these people go?

Bush: Our military commanders in Iraq advise me that the current number of American troops -- nearly 130,000 -- is appropriate to their mission...our commanders have requested a third multinational division to serve in Iraq. Surely the question is how many "troops" the military commanders want, not how many "American troops." If they have requested another division, then they need another division. Whether that division is an American division or a multinational division is a political question, not a military one (of course, Left I believes that all divisions should be removed, not reinforced).

Bush: This budget request [$19 billion] will...support our commitment to helping the Iraqi and Afghan people rebuild their own nations, after decades of oppression and mismanagement...We will help them to restore basic services, such as electricity and water, and to build new schools, roads, and medical clinics. "Oppression and mismanagement"? Is that what destroyed the electricity, water, schools, roads, and medical clinics in Iraq? Or could two brutal wars and a decade of harsh economic sanctions have something to do with it?

Bush: We mourn every American who has died so bravely, so far from home. Perhaps, but when we count them, we do our best to exclude those who didn't die in "combat." So evidently we don't mourn those Americans quite as much.

Followup: Damn. I forgot my own oft-repeated admonition. Don't just look at what someone says, look at what they don't say. And of course, the #1 thing not said in this Bush speech - the "search" for weapons of mass destruction. Not only aren't there any actual weapons in Iraq, there isn't even any evidence of ongoing programs to make such weapons. The new line is that key scientists were "retained" (as opposed to what? execution?). Bush's comment on this, the key public justification for the invasion, and the sole basis on which the British government, at least, joined in the invasion? Not a word.

More followup: A nice response from ANSWER here.

Still more followup: True to form, the Washington Post has this to say in an analysis piece today: "Not only Democrats but many Republicans returned with a warning to the White House: Tell Americans the truth about what is happening in Iraq and show there is a policy to deal with it." No hint in this "analysis" that what listeners heard bore little or no relation to the "truth."

Farah Fadhil - Presente!

Farah Fadhil was only 18 when she was killed. An American soldier threw a grenade through the window of her apartment. Her death, early last Monday, was slow and agonising. Her legs had been shredded, her hands burnt and punctured by splinters of metal, suggesting that the bright high-school student had covered her face to shield it from the explosion.

She had been walking to the window to try to calm an escalating situation; to use her smattering of English to plead with the soldiers who were spraying her apartment building with bullets.

But then a grenade was thrown and Farah died. So did Marwan Hassan who, according to neighbours, was caught in the crossfire as he went looking for his brother when the shooting began.

What is perhaps most shocking about their deaths is that the coalition troops who killed them did not even bother to record details of the raid with the coalition military press office. The killings were that unremarkable. What happened in Mahmudiya last week should not be forgotten, for the story of this raid is also the story of the dark side of the US-led occupation of Iraq, of the violent and sometimes lethal raids carried out apparently beyond any accountability.

Followup: Was this one of the "series of precise strikes against enemy targets" George Bush talked about tonight in his speech?

"9/11 changed everything" - NOT

The New York Times: "Violence in Mideast, Despite Plans to Talk." The Washington Post: "GOP Seeks to Ease Fears on Economy." A Los Angeles Times heading told of a "scramble to fix economy." While one of The Chronicle's headlines focused on a "milestone domestic partners bill," in Sacramento, another referred matter-of-factly to the "bad economy."

Preview of George Bush's address to the nation

Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose.

Hope springs eternal in WMD-hunters minds

Another gem from the report: "Searchers have found quantities of chemicals and substances that can be used to make both weapons and legitimate civilian items, the officials said. Castor beans, for example, can be used to make brake fluid for cars and the poison ricin." Or maybe even castor oil! You know, just yesterday the FBI tried to put the latest scare into Americans by telling us that terrorists were planning to poison us with nicotine. You know, I thought those fiendish Iraqis had more cigarettes than they could possibly smoke! That explains it - they've got weapons of mass destruction hidden in every pack.

Sycophancy = Patriotism?

Some excerpts from the Voice article:

DC 9/11: Time of Crisis is a signal advance in the instant, ongoing fictionalization of American history, complete with the president fulminating most presidentially against "tinhorn terrorists," decisively employing the word problematic in a complete sentence, selling a rationale for preemptive war, and presciently laying out American foreign policy for the next 18 months.

DC 9/11...marks a new stage in the American cult of personality: the actual president as fictional protagonist.

There are, of course, precedents...It was one of the unique characteristics of Stalin-era Soviet movies that their infallible leader was regularly portrayed, by professional impersonators, as an all-wise demiurge in suitably grandiose historical dramas.

Followup: For another review of the movie, there's this from the San Francisco Chronicle. This choice quote: "The ridiculous re-creation of Bush...is so oafishly stylized that the president himself should dismiss the film as a ploy by the Democrats to make him look stupid." And this: "In trying to spin furiously and make Bush out to be not only confident and nurturing but also unquestionably in command, the film pulls a muscle addressing "the Cheney myth," as one character calls it. In scene after scene we're shown Cheney meekly doing the president's bidding or nodding with awe at the commander-in-chief's macho posturing."

Still crazy after all these years

For Jimmy's benefit, let me just remind him of the definition of paranoia:

1. A psychotic disorder characterized by delusions of persecution with or without grandeur, often strenuously defended with apparent logic and reason.
2. Extreme, irrational distrust of others.

Quote of the Day - Rumsfeld

There isn't any way in a country this size [Iraq] to go out and find items [alleged WMD] that small.

On a more serious note, perhaps Secretary Rumsfeld should have a little chat with Scott Ritter. He and his cohorts were certainly able to find and destroy thousands of tons of chemical agents and entire factories devoted to making banned weapons. Images of Colin Powell holding up a vial of anthrax in the U.N. notwithstanding, weapons of mass destruction are not something you hide in your shirt pocket.

Need I also remind my readers that this is the same Donald Rumsfeld who on March 30 of this year said (regarding WMD): "We know where they are. They're in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat."

Feedback welcomed!

Followup: Comment capabililty has been added! (as of 9/8)

Flying pig watch! A positive story about Cuba!

No one rolled out a green carpet. Most people arrived by bus rather than limousine. No one dressed in tuxedos or sparkly gowns. In fact, one fan sitting in the front row wore military fatigues. But Havana music lovers were just as charmed with their Latin music concert Thursday night as Miami fans the night before. Havana's Karl Marx Theater hosted the star-studded celebration after more than 100 Cuban artists and industry producers missed the 4th Latin Grammy awards show.

For the second year running, the State Department failed to issue visas for the Cuban nominees, citing heightened security screening of all Cubans seeking entry into the United States. State Department spokesman Richard Boucher defended his agency's actions on the grounds that the Cubans applied late, giving too little time to conduct thorough background checks on musicians who could represent possible terrorist threats to the United States.

A number of the three-dozen Cuban musicians nominated this year and who have toured U.S. cities in the past ridiculed that charge. "The only weapons that the Muequitos posses are our four tumbas to start a rumba," said group leader Diosdado Ramos.

American wounded in Iraq - a followup

Why does the US Commander-in-Chief refuse to visit his wounded soldiers in their hospital beds? I'll tell you why. It wouldn't play well on camera. Bush, the great commander-in-chief, he of the aircraft carrier-landing in macho Top Gun kit, is facing election next year, and it wouldn't look good for him to be photographed alongside American kids who had their legs blown off after he declared the end of major combat operations.

Iraqi dead and wounded - a followup

The blood of Iraqis--whom we were so desperate to liberate six months ago--has disappeared from the narrative. Up to 20 innocent Iraqi civilians a day are now believed to be dying--in murders, revenge killings, at US checkpoints--and yet they no longer count. No wonder journalists now have to seek permission from the occupation authorities to visit Baghdad hospitals. Who knows how many corpses they would find in the morgue?

The wayback machine

On May 3, the New York Times reported that the Bush administration was planning "to reduce the number of American troops in Iraq from over 130,000 soldiers and marines at present to 30,000 troops or fewer by the fall."

The status of women in Iraq

"having already tasted some freedom under a secular government in the 1970s." The clear implication of this phrase is that women had no freedom under the government of Saddam Hussein, which is complete nonsense (see the quote below from Riverbend for elaboration).

In the months since President Saddam Hussein was driven out of Baghdad, Iraqi women say their struggle has become more urgent, as security decreases and as hard-line clerics have filled the power vacuum, decreeing in the name of Islam that women cloak themselves head to toe or that they not leave the house without a male relative. Here we have an actual admission that the status of women in Iraq has gone backwards as a result of the invasion, not forwards.

For the past 15 years, since the end of devastating war with Iran, women have borne the brunt of economic sanctions and been concerned only with looking after their families, and have not had a chance to think about the outside world. Although this statement isn't true (just as one example, the person allegedly making this claim is a nursing-school administrator, who clearly has been concerned with something other than "looking after her family"), it's also interesting to note the implicit acknowledgement that it was the US/UN sanctions which drove women backwards.

Unlike women in Afghanistan, Iraqi women are fighting for freedoms they once had and lost. While these women vied for university seats and suffered from drastically lower literacy rates, they were allowed to vote, work, drive and hold political office, even under Saddam's Baathist government. The word "even" here is the kicker. The Baathist government promoted women's rights, it was not an obstacle to them as the word "even" would imply.

But in the early 1990s, in order to appease the majority Shiite population that he so brutally put down during the gulf war, Saddam began building enormous mosques, required children to attend Islamic studies, banned women from traveling without male relatives and allowed husbands to have up to four wives, one of the tenets of Shariah law not previously permitted in Iraq. Again, an implicit admission that the ultimate source of the problems of women in Iraq was the U.S., not Saddam Hussein. Who was it that launched the Gulf War, and who was it that following that war (not "during" the war) encouraged the Shiites to revolt, but then failed to support that revolt leading to their crushing defeat? Hopefully the reader knows that the answer to these questions is the U.S., since they won't be found in this article. Why did the Baathists have to back off on the secular nature of their government? Was it because that was part of their philosophy (answer: no), or because it they felt it was a necessary compromise to pull their country together in the face of the physical and economic assault by the U.S.?

What Saddam did was destroy our society and our manners,'' said Suhair Mehdi... Women also are being hampered and threatened by increasing reports of sexual violence and abduction of women and girls in Baghdad. I'm juxtaposing two sentences here. In one paragraph, someone tries to blame Saddam for destroying "our manners," yet in the very next paragraph, we find that the increase in sexual violence and abduction of women and girls has occured after the fall of the Hussein government, and as a direct result of the American invasion and occupation. Somehow, I doubt the women who are being raped and abducted are cursing that "breakdown of manners" caused by Saddam for their plight.

Two pieces by female Iraqi blogger Riverbend, this one and this one, written by someone who has been there for most of her life and not just for a few days, paint a rather different picture of life for women before (and, now after) the invasion than the Fan article. Here's one excerpt:

No matter *what* anyone heard, females in Iraq were a lot better off than females in other parts of the Arab world (and some parts of the Western world- we had equal salaries!). We made up over 50% of the working force. We were doctors, lawyers, nurses, teachers, professors, deans, architects, programmers, and more. We came and went as we pleased. We wore what we wanted (within the boundaries of the social restrictions of a conservative society).

The rich and the poor are both forbidden from sleeping under bridges

Bush was preaching to the converted: members of the Kansas City Chamber of Commerce, who jammed a downtown art deco theater and showered him with applause. He was also speaking to the hurting: Kansas City has lost 44,000 jobs since the economy peaked in 2000.

Followup: Tom Toles analyzes Bush's "jobs plan."

More followup: Other accounts peg the number of protestors at 300 and 150. From personal experience, I know two things: 1) It is very hard to estimate these numbers; among other things, not everyone is gathered in exactly the same place at exactly the same time; and 2) Media estimates are almost always underestimates.

Still more followup: The article referred to here claims "the economy clearly is strengthening" but notes the "jobless" recovery. Considering that today it was reported that another 93,000 jobs were lost in August (and remember, that's jobs; the increased number of unemployed people is undoubtedly much higher, thanks to the "discouraged worker" category), perhaps this "recovery" should be called the "job-loss" recovery and not the "jobless" recovery.

Political jokes of the day from Jay Leno

We're in a race against the clock to find Saddam Hussein...before he dies of old age.

The President has asked for $65 billion to improve the Iraqi economy. Why doesn't he just give them a tax cut?

Quote of the Day - Anthony Zinni

My contemporaries, our feelings and sensitivities were forged on the battlefields of Vietnam, where we heard the garbage and the lies, and we saw the sacrifice. I ask you, is it happening again?

How the media spends its money

Wounded in Iraq, deserted at home
U.S. wounded are airlifted to overcrowded and understaffed hospitals and left out of media's war coverage
More than thirty satellite trucks and nearly a hundred reporters hunkered down outside the Eagle County (Colorado) courthouse on Wednesday August 6th waiting to get a glimpse of Los Angeles Laker basketball star Kobe Bryant entering the courtroom for a scheduled ten-minute appearance. Most of the major television networks and cable news and sports networks had reporters and camera crews at the scene. Across the country, where plane loads of wounded soldiers are airlifted back to the states, unloaded at Andrews Air Force Base, and sent off to area hospitals, there are no hordes of television cameras recording these tragic trips off the tarmac.

In a summer marked by the media's focus on the Bryant sex case, the entrance of Conan (Arnold Schwarzenegger) into California's recall election, the killing of Saddam Hussein's sons and the hunt for their father, little attention has been paid to U.S. soldiers wounded in Iraq and stuffed into wards at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center, the nation's biggest military hospital, and other facilities.

There are no pictures of wounded soldiers undergoing painful and protracted physical rehabilitation. There are no visuals of worried families waiting for news of their sons or daughters.

"Dossier was crooked from the title down"

Dr. Brian Jones, the Ministry of Defence's former assistant director of intelligence with responsibility for nuclear, chemical and biological weapons, gave perhaps the most significant evidence yet on the dossier.
...
The title of the dossier, "Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction", was for the first time called into question. Jones said although the phrase applied to nuclear bombs, many biological and chemical weapons would "struggle to fit into that category".

He said many biological weapons were designed to incapacitate rather than kill; they were lethal mainly in enclosed spaces such as the Sarin attack on Tokyo's underground.

Chemical weapons were even more difficult because they would need to be produced in large quantities to have any effect on the battlefield, Jones said.

Blair, with his Director of Communications Alastair Campbell and most ministers, frequently used the term and its WMD initials as a shorthand for what they saw as an unwieldy alternative - "nuclear, chemical and biological weapons."

Conveniently for a Government desperate to convince a sceptical public, it also served to conjure up the spectre of horrifying attacks launched by Saddam Hussein.

When asked whether he felt there was a difference between missiles and artillery shells carrying chemical warheads, Jones replied: "I think I would struggle to describe either as a true weapon of mass destruction."

The media vs. the public on Iraq

In early 1968, the Boston Globe conducted a survey of 39 major U.S. daily newspapers and found that not a single one had editorialized in favor of U.S. withdrawal from Vietnam. While millions of Americans were demanding an immediate pullout, such a concept was still viewed as extremely unrealistic by the editorial boards of big daily papers -- including the liberal New York Times and Washington Post.

"The Bush administration has to commit sufficient additional resources, and, if necessary, additional troops," the Times editorialized. The newspaper went on to describe efforts in Iraq as "now the most important American foreign policy endeavor." In other words, the occupation that resulted from an entirely illegitimate war should be seen as entirely legitimate.

Quote of the Day

Chancellor Gerhard Schröder has said a call from his Green Party coalition allies for German troops to join any United Nations force in Iraq made him "want to puke".

Free speech update

EPA in the News

Today, two more interesting stories. First, the smaller one, which really needs no comment:

A new generation of snowmobiles, approved for use in Yellowstone National Park after being promoted as cleaner and quieter, emit more pollution than models produced two years ago, according to testing data from the Environmental Protection Agency.

The controversial decision to allow snowmobiles in Yellowstone and neighboring Grand Teton National Park was based on industry promises that models with new engines would do less to foul the air and water in the nation's oldest national park.

But recent tests conducted on the 2004 models show that the machines produce from 40 percent to 213 percent more emissions than 2002 models.

The major story is this:

Two top Environmental Protection Agency officials who were deeply involved in easing an air-pollution rule for old power plants recently accepted private-sector jobs with companies that benefit from the changes.

Days after the changes in the power-plant pollution rule were announced last week, John Pemberton, the chief of staff in the EPA's air and radiation office, told colleagues he would be joining Southern Co., an Atlanta-based utility that is the nation's No. 2 power-plant polluter and was a driving force in lobbying for the rule changes. Southern, which gave more than $3.4 million in political contributions over the past four years while it sought the changes, hired Pemberton as director of federal affairs.

Ed Krenik, who had been the EPA's associate administrator for congressional affairs, started work Tuesday at Bracewell & Patterson, a top Houston-based law firm that coordinated lobbying for several utilities on easing the power-plant pollution rule. The firm's Washington office also served as home base and shares staff with the Electric Reliability Coordinating Council, which was created by several utilities, including Southern, to be the public voice favoring the rule changes the EPA just enacted.

Remembering the dead

How forgotten is that incident? A Google search on "Amriyah iraq 1991" turns up exactly one reference from a mainstream source, this report from CNN reporter Rym Brahimi from January of this year when some families of Sept. 11 attack victims visited the Al-Amriyah shelter. The report on the CNN web site notes in its introduction that "Iraq says...hundreds" were killed, but Brahimi's report minimizes the event even more - "many Iraqis seeking shelter were killed, including many women and children." Hopefully I don't need to remind readers that this event was not the result of some bomb going astray, but a deliberate attack on this shelter, with the usual accompanying specious claim about how it was thought to be a "command and control center" or some similar nonsense.

Iraqi dead and wounded - MIA

Yesterday's Washington Post broke the story that the U.S. military doesn't issue news releases when U.S. soldiers are only wounded in action; the wounded only get mentioned when they occur at the same time as deaths ("1 killed, 3 wounded..."). But, that being the case, how much less publicity is given in the media to Iraqi dead and wounded? Not the Iraqis killed in major events, like the Najaf mosque bombing, obviously, but the Iraqis killed and wounded by the nightly (and daily) patrols of American soldiers? How many of those are there? Certainly the U.S. government doesn't care to remind us, and neither does the U.S. media.

Left I continues to contend that even the U.S. casualty figures are being distorted. The Post article mentioned above notes that "Since the war began, more than 6,000 service members have been flown back to the United States. The number includes the 1,124 wounded in action, 301 who received non-hostile injuries in vehicle accidents and other mishaps, and thousands who became physically or mentally ill." So just for starters, the numbers are being distorted by the same bogus "combat vs. non-combat" distinction that applies to deaths - for example, soldiers who are injured or die in a car crash because they are driving at high speed to escape an ambush are deemed to have died or been injured from "non-hostile" injuries. And is becoming "mentally ill" not as serious as being "wounded in action"? There are thousands of Vietnam veterans, many of them homeless, still suffering the effects of the mental illness that was brought on by the Vietnam War. Are their problems any less permanent, or any less serious, than a piece of shrapnel in the torso?

If truth were told, thousands of Americans are already casualties of the invasion of Iraq, and tens of thousands of Iraqis. And, quoting Bruce Springsteen (scroll down), "The truth will out."

Followup: Robert Byrd gets it right: "As of Friday, August 29, we have lost 282 Americans during the invasion and occupation of Iraq, and nearly 1,400 have been wounded during that time." No phony distinctions between "before or after May 1", or "hostile vs non-hostile," for Sen. Byrd.

More followup: It seems that Russell Mokhiber has the same thought on his mind. In yesterday's White House press briefing, Mokhiber grilled White House spokesperson Scott McClellan, trying to find out if "the President know[s]...how many people have been killed in Iraq since the beginning of the war - not just Americans, [but] total people killed and wounded in Iraq since the beginning of the war." Not surprisingly, McClellan evaded the question.

"War-torn" Iraq

As per the practice of this show, there were three or four constantly rotating "subheads" on screen to give the viewer some sort of background to the issues being discussed. On last night's show, one read "Since May 1, 68 American troops have been killed in action in Iraq." As this blog has repeatedly emphasized, the deliberate purpose of this is to minimize in people's minds the human cost of this war in the only terms they understand, American lives (sadly, the fact that tens of thousands of Iraqis died in this war, and continue to die, has little impact on most Americans, at least partially because they are never reminded of that fact). Iraq isn't Vietnam, and the death toll hasn't reached the level where a large number of Americans know someone, or know someone who knows someone, who has died in Iraq. Thus the number itself is the only thing which affects them and, clearly, the number 286 (the number of American troops who have died as a result of the invasion of Iraq) is more than four times bigger than the number 68 and would have a correspondingly larger affect. Hence the effort by the government and the media to downplay that number.

Justice is a "setback" for the U.S.?

In Setback for U.S., Indonesian Cleric Cleared of Terror Charges
JAKARTA, Indonesia, Sept. 2 — An Indonesian court this evening acquitted the radical Islamic cleric Abu Bakar Bashir, widely identified as the spiritual leader of Al Qaeda's Southeast Asia affiliate, of charges that he ordered a series of terrorist attacks in Indonesia, and of plotting to assassinate the Indonesian president.
...
The verdict represents a serious setback for the Bush administration, as well as Australia and regional governments, which has had a hard time persuading the Indonesian government that Mr. Bashir and Jemaah Islamiyah were serious terrorist threats.

The difference between Democrats and Republicans

Broward’s top Republican official to switch parties
Broward County Property Appraiser William "Bill" Markham, who was elected in 1968 at the high-water mark of Republican power in Broward and today is the lone GOP countywide officeholder, intends to become a Democrat this week, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel has learned.

Markham's conversion is a major coup for the Democratic Party. "He'll be a wonderful addition to our party," said Mitch Ceasar, the Broward County Democratic leader.

It was his razor-thin win in his 2000 re-election that convinced Markham he needed to change parties to remain in office. The political veteran squeaked by the little-known Democratic political novice Arthur Hurley by 1,323 votes of more than 500,000 cast.

"He almost lost the last time. He's looking at self-preservation," Tynan said.

In interviews with the Sun-Sentinel this year about the possibility of a switch, Markham said his platform would not change if he becomes a Democrat.

Intentional innumeracy

"We've lost thousands of jobs in manufacturing." -- George Bush, speaking yesterday in Ohio

Again on the death toll in Iraq

Bremer cited Richard Nixon's volume of sympathy notes to families of U.S. troops killed in Vietnam to suggest that the current rate of U.S. soldiers' deaths in Iraq -- one every two days since May 1 -- pales against the Vietnam death toll, isn't a strategic problem for U.S. forces and won't fuel sentiment to get out of Iraq.

The column doesn't say if George Bush (or some machine pretending to be George Bush) signs letters to the families of the dead soldiers like Nixon did. But, at least according to several other bloggers including Sick of Bush (see the Aug. 28 entry entitled "Support Our Troops"), one thing he hasn't done is to attend a single funeral of any of the 285 dead American soldiers (Left I cannot confirm this independently). All the more remarkable given something that Bush said to Barbara Walters last December:

"There's only one person who is responsible for making that decision [to go to war], and that's me. And there's only one person who hugs the mothers and the widows, the wives and the kids on the death of their loved ones. Others hug, but having committed the troops, I've got an additional responsibility to hug, and that's me, and I know what it's like."

More historical revisionism

According to America's Role in Nation-Building: From Germany to Iraq...the total number of post-conflict American combat casualties in Germany—and Japan, Haiti, and the two Balkan cases—was zero.

Short memories in the media

Unemployment down, nonemployment up
Unemployment went down yesterday (6.4% to 6.2%). Good news? Hardly. This "achievement" occured because 470,000 people "gave up looking for work" in July.

The nation's unemployment rate hit a nine-year high of 6.4 percent in June but then edged down to 6.2 percent in July, a possible signal that the economy may be on a comeback.

In the same article, a very interesting revelation (to me, anyway) on the subject of productivity. The article informs us, as have many articles I've read over the years, that "U.S. workers are the world's most productive." But then it goes on to elaborate on that claim, in a way that I don't remember ever reading before this - "but they put in more hours than Europeans to score higher. Workers in France, Belgium, and Norway beat the Americans in productivity per hour" (Norwegians, in fact, produce nearly 20% dollars of output per hour than Americans). So it turns out that the vaunted claim that "U.S. workers are the world's most productive" is a curious one indeed, and certainly not what the average person would think when reading the word "productivity." Roget's Thesaurus says "productivity" is "the quality of being efficient," which is what I would guess most people think of when they hear this word. "Efficiency" and "working for long hours" sound more like antonyms than synonyms.