Left I on the News  

Royalty Left I on the News can support

See no evil

"Another soldier pushed away two Western women who were trying to videotape the scene."

Incidentally, the women aren't identified, but there's a good chance they were part of Occupation Watch. This quote from them is a clue:

"'There's a reason why this has happened,' one of the women yelled. 'Go home. People are after the Iraqis because of you.'"

See no leftists

"There are liberals, conservatives, libertarians and near-anarchists."

One amusing quote from the article:

"Their audience tends to be an elite crowd of political junkies who have almost non-stop access to a computer and large amounts of time to surf the Internet for breaking news. In short: political consultants and journalists."

And a not so amusing quote from the same article:

"Blogging comes with new ethical questions. Bloggers do things that would be firing offenses in most newsrooms. 'There's no pretension of being fair or balanced or impartial,' Moulitsas says. 'We all wear our ideology on our sleeve.'"

Class warfare

The column is marred, however, by Krugman's trivialization of a very serious subject - class warfare. Describing how the richest 1 percent of Americans are reaping 49% of the increased corporate profits, Krugman writes "'Class warfare!' the right shouts." But, as it would seem Krugman knows but isn't willing to say for fear of being too far out of the "mainstream," "class warfare" isn't a verbal construct, it's a fact. Saying that the rich are getting richer isn't "class warfare," and the fact the right wants to trivialize the matter by claiming so should simply be ignored as ludicrous. The real class warfare is being conducted not by the mouths of the left, but by the actions of the rich, whose corporations and politicians continue to accelerate the transfer of money to themselves from working people. This is a deadly serious issue, not a laughing matter.

The news from Israel

Israel to suspend Microsoft buys
Government To Seek Open-source Options
"Israel became the latest government to embrace the open-source movement in software, saying this week that it would suspend purchases of Microsoft's productivity software and explore less costly, open-source alternatives."

Israel Plans to Expand Settlements
"Israel approved a plan to spend at least $56 million to expand settlements on the occupied Golan Heights, prompting accusations from Syria today that Israel was wrecking peace efforts."

Israeli soldier admits racism

"An Israeli soldier who three days ago mistakenly shot and seriously wounded a Jewish demonstrator in the northern West Bank has told interrogators that he thought he was shooting a Palestinian, not a Jew.

"'I am sorry, I never thought I was shooting at Jews, I would never shoot a Jew,' the soldier reportedly said." (Source)

Who or what kills Americans?

According to John Stauber, author of Mad Cow, U.S.A., speaking this morning on Democracy Now!, 5000 Americans die every year from eating tainted food. Needless to say, a fraction of the hundreds of billions of dollars being spent to kill people in Iraq and Afghanistan could have saved many of those 5000 lives had it been spent on food safety.

What's preventing elections in Iraq?

"Steve Casteel, the Coalition Provisional Authority's senior adviser to the Interior Ministry, said safeguards were built into the hiring and training process, such as checks of two computer databases to determine whether candidates served in the Iraqi security forces when Saddam Hussein was president or if they were among the thousands of convicts Hussein released from Iraqi prisons shortly before the war."

As an aside, since I've just finished watching season 4 of "The Sopranos" on DVD, I can't help but note that it appears that the Soprano family has opened up operations in Iraq:

"Roughly 2,500 people on the payroll of the Facilities Protection Service, which guards government buildings, either do not exist or have not been showing up to work, investigators say."

The unknown poet laureate

"Roses are red/Violets are blue/Oh my, lump in the bed/How I've missed you.

"Roses are redder/Bluer am I/Seeing you kissed by that charming French guy."

"The first lady also said that the 'Roses are red, violets are blue' poem she read at a National Book Festival gala in October was not actually written by her husband even though it has been attributed to him. She did not say who wrote the poem."

The end is in sight!

US sees tide turn on Iraq insurgents

Washington Post on Venezuela

Who "sacrificed" in Iraq?

"Roaring" economy, part II

"The annual income of middle-class Americans fell by almost $500 last year and the number of people in poverty rose by 1.7 million, the Census Bureau reported Friday [Sept. 26]...There were 3 million more poor people last year than in 2000 shortly before the economy slipped into recession."

"Relative calm" in the Mideast

"In fact, the period since 4 October [the date of the last previous Palestinian suicide bombing] has been one of intense Israeli violence, in which 117 Palestinians were killed, including 23 children. At the same time, Israel destroyed almost five hundred Palestinian homes throughout the Occupied Territories."

"Combat-related" death in Iraq

Knowing the circumstances, however, makes it even more so. According to his father, "It was dark and he didn't see a traffic circle. He hit a berm, and his Humvee flipped and he was ejected [and then crushed by the Humvee]." Why didn't he see the traffic circle? Probably because the street lights weren't on because of the insufficient electricity supply - caused by the invasion. Or perhaps, like so many other soldiers, he was driving at an unsafe, high rate of speed to avoid being killed by a bomb as he drove along. Quite possibly both causes were involved. "Non-combat-related"? I don't think so.

When the statistics are subsequently publicized by the Mercury News and other media outlets, however, the tragic death of Michael Mihalakis won't be counted as a "combat" death, and in some small way, will be forgotten, not "counted" as important enough to be included in the "cost of war."

Quote of the Day

"There are three types of fools in the 21st century: People who smoke, people who don't appreciate music and people who cannot use the computer." -- Kim Jong Il, quoted by AP in an article on North Korean computer usage.

"Illegal" Israeli outposts

In light of Ariel Sharon claiming that he is going to have to act unilaterally because the Palestinians have done "nothing" to advance the peace process, it's enlightening to read about the process for removing these outposts:

"The head of the Israel Defense Force's Central Command, Maj. Gen. Moshe Kaplinski, signed Monday an order for the removal of four unauthorized West Bank outposts. On Sunday, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz both signed the order, paving the way for the four settlements to be removed.

"Those wishing to challenge the orders now have three days to petition the Civil Administration's planning department. Thereafter, they have three days to petition the High Court against the decision."

"Only one of the outposts - Ginot Aryeh - is inhabited, with about 10 families living there as well as a few single people. The outpost, however, is just 50 meters from an area with building permission and a deal to move the outpost may be worked out with the settlers.

"The other outposts are currently empty."

Is there a chance Israel will ever abandon "real" settlements with thousands or tens of thousands of illegal settlers, as envisioned by various peace plans and required by international law? You be the judge.

The real jobless rate

Jobless Count Skips Millions
The rate hits 9.7% when the underemployed
and those who have quit looking are added
"The nation's official jobless rate is 5.9%, a relatively benign level by historical standards. But economists say that figure paints only a partial — and artificially rosy — picture of the labor market.

"To begin with, there are the 8.7 million unemployed, defined as those without a job who are actively looking for work. But lurking behind that group are 4.9 million part-time workers such as Gluskin who say they would rather be working full time — the highest number in a decade.

"There are also the 1.5 million people who want a job but didn't look for one in the last month. Nearly a third of this group say they stopped the search because they were too depressed about the prospect of finding anything. Officially termed 'discouraged,' their number has surged 20% in a year.

"Add these three groups together and the jobless total for the U.S. hits 9.7%, up from 9.4% a year ago."

"Shooting peaceful demonstrators is 'unremarkable'" - New York Times

Why has the story become bigger, and made the U.S. press? Because, unbeknownst to the Israeli soldiers, one of the two people they shot was an Israeli.

"At first glance, the confrontation on Friday along Israel's separation barrier seemed unremarkable.

"About 20 protesters shook the chain-link fence, and some then took out pliers to cut it. After calling out warnings and firing shots into the air, Israeli troops shot at the legs of the protesters with live ammunition, the military admits. One man was hit in both legs and seriously wounded.

"The surprise was that the man, Gil Naamati, is a 22-year-old Israeli who had just completed three years of military service as a combat soldier.

"The soldiers apparently did not realize that Israelis were among the demonstrators. In a statement, the military said soldiers shot at the man 'who led the rioters.' A woman was also lightly wounded, a 26-year-old American, Anne Farina.

"The episode happened on Friday afternoon 25 miles from here, on the edge of a Palestinian village, Masha, in the West Bank. By today, almost everyone in Israel, from President Moshe Katsav on down had joined a national debate on why soldiers had used live ammunition to shoot the unarmed Israeli demonstrator."

Followup: Lawrence of Cyberia summarizes some recent sentences given to Israeli soldiers:

• Sergeant Yosef Bachar, found guilty on three occasions of beating up Palestinian detainees: three months imprisonment.
• Soldier Saguy Harpaz, found guilty of beating up a Palestinian detainee: six weeks confinement.
• A Lieutenant Colonel (name withheld) whose troops, on his illegal orders, shot dead an unarmed Palestinian: one month (suspended), no time served.
• Four soldiers (names withheld) of the elite Givati Brigade, found guilty of repeatedly beating up two handcuffed Palestinian children, one of whom died: up to three months confinement.
• Four soldiers (names withheld) of the elite Duvdevan unit, found guilty of shooting carelessly at a Palestinian car, killing its driver: fined one Agora, i.e. less than one U.S. cent.

Although, to give the Israelis credit, just this small sampling of Israeli soldiers charged and actually sentenced with crimes against Palestinians, probably exceeds the number of American soldiers who have been charged, or sentenced, with similar crimes against Iraqis, Afghanis, or the residents of a host of other countries that have been bombed or invaded by U.S. troops over the years, despite all the "investigations" we're always told are occuring when such incidents are reported.

Cutbacks in the newsroom?

AP, December 28:: "Gunmen and other fighters [in the Iraqi resistance] that were rumored to be paid somewhere around $250 per attack are now said to be demanding as much as $1,000."

AP, August 7:: "Guerrilla organizers have been forced to increase the amount they pay for attacks on coalition forces to $1,000 from $250."

Well, at least they reversed the order of the comparison! Wouldn't want to think those reporters weren't doing something to earn their money!

Whenever you read unsubstantiated claims like this, remember they are just as likely to be black propaganda aimed either at the American public, the Iraqi resistance, or both, as to be true. As Left I has said on more than one occasion, you should believe nothing the government says without actual independent proof. Is Al Qaeda leader Khalid Sheik Muhammed really leaking details about key members in his organization, or their plans for using anthrax or other bioweapons? Or is the U.S. government just saying he is in order to keep the American public in fear? Or to demoralize the remaining members of Al Qaeda, or to make them think Muhammed is a "snitch" so they won't try to free him with some future action? There is virtually no way you can know the truth about things like this; given that, a constant vigilance against simply accepting what the U.S. government says (especially via its mouthpiece Judith Miller in the New York Times!) is absolutely essential. It simply can't be said often enough.

The "roaring" economy

Quote of the Day

"My defense: I was a soldier. I saw the end of a conscientious day's effort. I watched through the portholes. I saw every Jew burned and turned into soap. Do you people think yourselves better because you burned your enemies at long distance with missiles without ever seeing what you had done to them?" -- Norman Solomon, quoting Lenny Bruce quoting Thomas Merton quoting (apocryphally) Adolf Eichmann.

Public service announcement

" In Britain, 143 people died of [Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease] after an outbreak of mad cow in the 1980s."

Political Humor of the Day

"He had the audacity to say, 'It doesn't matter whether it was weapons or not, Saddam Hussein was a bad guy and it was the right thing to do. That's like me coming to the Commonwealth Club and saying that we all must get out of the building, we are in imminent danger; and we all get outside on Market Street and you say, 'Reverend Al, where's the danger?' 'Ahh, it doesn't matter, you all needed some fresh air anyhow.'" -- Rev. Al Sharpton, addressing the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco

"This is an administration where the Vice-President says, 'I'm not going to tell you what I was meeting with Enron about in the executive office of the White House, but I want the right to know what your librarian gives you as a book to go to your home. We want the right to eavesdrop on lawyer-client conversations; we want the right to do anything we want to invade your privacy, in the name of [fighting] terrorism.' We cannot say to the world to join us, we are the land of the free and the home of the brave -- and then say, we are going to suspend freedom and you better not be brave enough to question us."

NAFTA 10 Years Later

"Gary Hufbauer, a senior analyst at the Institute for International Economics, a Washington research group that supports free trade, said the gains for the United States — lower priced consumer goods and increased corporate earnings — are large compared to the losses."

"'However, the gains are so thinly spread across the country that people don't thank NAFTA when they buy a mango or inexpensive auto parts,' he said."

"'We're the losers,' said Bonnie Long, one of at least half a million American manufacturing workers who lost their jobs due to NAFTA, despite the surge in trade. 'We lost our health care, our living wages. The winners are the corporate executives who don't even live here and can locate their factories wherever they find the cheapest labor.'"

• Goshen, Ind. - Social Tensions and Vanishing Jobs
• Ciudad Acuna, Mexico - A Fleeting Boom and Disillusionment
• Durham, Ontario - Industries Forced to Adapt or Die

"But the benefits of stable prices and rising 401(k)'s are largely invisible compared with the blight of a shuttered factory. The consumers of the United States or Mexico or Canada are also each nation's workers, farmers and small town residents, and NAFTA left many with lower consumer costs at the expense of their old way of life. [Emphasis added]

In Canada, where NAFTA helped shape a more competitive economy, those growing pains were cushioned by a strong social safety net. Not so in Mexico and the United States.

The emphasized point, of course, goes to the heart of Marxist analysis. Marx noted the fundamental contradition of capitalism - in order to make a profit, companies must pay their workers less than the value of the goods they produce. But workers are also consumers, and the result of this underpayment is that workers can't afford to buy all the goods that they produce. Capitalists continue to hope that workers won't understand this contradition and, even more, that they won't realize that the solution is socialism.

Concentration Camp X-Ray

Finally the government has joined Left I in this description. OK, it's the Cuban government, but still. At least someone else is willing to call a spade a spade.

Mideast violence, press bias continue unabated

The San Jose Mercury News goes with the story from the Post, with an interesting choice of headlines. The main headline is the neutral "Violence in Mideast shatters relative calm." The online edition features just one sub-head: "Tel Aviv Blast: Palestinian Kills 4 Israelis Near Tel Aviv." The print edition actually has a second, equal subhead reading "Israeli Strike: Gunships Kill Militant Leader in Gaza City." Note two things about that headline. First, no Israeli actually killed a Palestinian, it was an inanimate "gunship" which did the deed (kind of the opposite of the old NRA "Guns don't kill people, people kill people" bumpersticker. "Israelis don't kill people, their gunships do"). Second, the headline suggests just a single Palestinian death, whereas actually six occured.

None of the stories actually explores who the dead Palestian civilians were. Were they men, women, children? Did they have families who mourn them? We'll never know, rest assured there will be no followup of this in the U.S. press. By contrast, the Mercury News article features a full color picture of a wounded Israeli soldier being carried away from the site of the suicide bombing.

Again I pose the question to supporters of Israeli - what moral code, what religion says it is permissable to kill 4 or 5 (number unclear in this case) innocent people and wound 14 more, in order to kill one person who you accuse (without any actual proof or legal charges or trial) of planning an attack sometime in the future? What's next? Killing someone who might decide sometime in the future to plan an attack even further in the future?

Not one of the reports in the American press informs the reader that one of the dead Palestinians was a child, even though the Israeli press is reporting this fact.

Incidentally, there has also been absolutely no reporting in the U.S. press about this incident (again, reported in the Israeli press) where two peace activists, one Israeli and one foreigner, were wounded when Israeli troops fired on a demonstration against the separation wall. The misnamed Israeli "Defense" Forces opened fire on protestors with live ammunition.

Quote of the Day

"I can't think of a better place to reflect on the awesome love of our Lord Jesus than to be here at Lawtey Correctional." -- Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, dedicating a new "faith-based" prison

News coverage of the event tells us that "the Lawtey Correctional Institution will offer religious studies, choir practice, religious counseling and other spiritual activities seven days a week. Participation is voluntary and inmates are free to transfer out." However, not a single article reporting on this development thought to ask the obvious question - which religious studies and spiritual activities exactly will they be allowing in this prison? Are Muslims getting "equal time" with Christians? Are those who think smoking ganja is a "spiritual activity" having their faith respected? Why is it, reinforced by Bush's quote at the ceremony, that I think "faith-based" is a code word for "Christian-based"?

Terrorism? No. Capitalism? Definitely.

There is, however, one certain source of the disease - capitalist greed. Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber, author of the highly recommended (by Left I on the News and many others) new book Weapons of Mass Deception, wrote another book a few years ago entitled Mad Cow USA: Could the Nightmare Happen Here?. The answer, as you might expect, was "yes." As Stauber explained yesterday on Democracy Now! (Listen to the show here), it has been known for years that the practice of feeding dead cows to living ones is the main (only?) source of the disease, and there have been recommendations to ban this practice. This, however, would decrease profits. The practice has been banned in the U.S. since 1997 (well after the outbreak of the disease in Britain), but given the enforcement (or lack thereof) by the USDA, many ranchers still do so anyway. Doing their part to aid the possible spread of the disease, the U.S. government has even refused to test for the disease, presumably to avoid "offending" rich ranchers.

None of this was mentioned by Veneman, needless to say. Terrorism, no. Capitalism? That's the unspoken word in the media. Who would even dare to suggest that it might be responsible? Rampton and Stauber, Democracy Now! and Left I on the News, just to name a few. Although of those, only Left I calls it by its right name.

Followup: An excellent article in the San Jose Mercury News discusses another aspect of the situation - the use of "downer" cows for human consumption. "Downer" cows, who cannot stand, may have a variety of problems, among them mad cow disease. It is illegal to sell the meat from downed cows in school lunch programs, and McDonald's, Arby's, Wendy's, and other restaurants issued statements saying that they do not purchase downed meat, but it is not illegal to sell such meat for human consumption. The Mercury News reports:

"Earlier this year, the Senate passed a ban on downer animals in the food supply as part of the USDA appropriations bill. The amendment was defeated in the House by three votes, 199-202, on July 14 after Texas Democrat Charlie Stenholm and other farm-state leaders argued it would harm farmers economically and was not necessary.

"After the vote, the measure's sponsor, Rep. Gary Ackerman, D-N.Y., said: 'It's not really about cows, its about pigs. It is about greed. Unfortunately many in the cattle industry today put profit over human health considerations and further eroded consumer confidence in our nation's supply of beef.'" [Emphasis added]

Color me shocked

Palestinian children

Barbara Lubin of the Middle East Children's Alliance (MECA) just returned from a trip to Rafah (and elsewhere in the Gaza and West Bank) and reported on that trip tonight on Flashpoints radio (audio download of the show). Children in Rafah are literally starving, and MECA has just begun a project of food distribution there to stave off the consequences. It is 100% certain you won't be hearing about these children, or MECA's efforts, on CNN or in any other "mainstream" American media.

As an aside, Lubin reports that during her trip she talked to dozens of leaders of different Palestinian organizations, as well as ordinary Palestinians, and asked every one what they thought of the Geneva Accord. Of all the people she talked to, only one - Yasser Arafat - thought it was a good thing for Palestinians. The rest thought it was a disaster.

Iraqi children

Just caught CNN showing a piece on "Chief Wiggles" (an American reservist in Iraq) who is distributing toys to Iraqi children for Christmas (never mind that they don't celebrate Christmas, it's the thought that counts, I guess). Aaron Brown, who was narrating the piece, discussed how the children were poor, hungry, in some cases homeless, etc. Not once did the fact that some of them might be orphans, and were orphaned by the actions of the U.S. armed forces, come up. Or that they might be hungry because their parents are among the millions of Iraqis who have become unemployed as a result of the invasion. Or that they might be homeless because their home was destroyed by American bombing.

Nor, amidst all this new-found sympathy for Iraqi children, was there any mention of the half-million or so of them who died because of a decade of U.S./U.N. sanctions. Not to worry, though, Americans, we can ease our consciences (those of us who even know about the children who died because of sanctions) by giving toys to the ones who are left.

Holiday Wishes from a Heathen and a Pagan

All the streets are filled with laughter and light
And the music of the season
And the merchants’ windows are all bright
With the faces of the children
And the families hurrying to their homes
As the sky darkens and freezes
We’ll be gathering around the hearths and tales
Giving thanks for all God’s graces
And the birth of the rebel Jesus

Well they call him by the prince of peace
And they call him by the savior
And they pray to him upon the seas
And in every bold endeavor
As they fill his churches with their pride and gold
And their faith in him increases
But they’ve turned the nature that I worship in
From a temple to a robber’s den
In the words of the rebel Jesus

We guard our world with locks and guns
And we guard our fine possessions
And once a year when Christmas comes
We give to our relations
And perhaps we give a little to the poor
If the generosity should seize us
But if any one of us should interfere
In the business of why they are poor
They get the same as the rebel Jesus

But please forgive me if I seem
To take the tone of judgement
For I’ve no wish to come between
This day and your enjoyment
In this life of hardship and of earthly toil
We have need for anything that frees us
So I bid you pleasure
And I bid you cheer
From a heathen and a pagan
On the side of the rebel Jesus.

(Requoted) Quote of the Day

"If anyone said we were in the radio business, it wouldn't be someone from our company. We're not in the business of providing news and information. We're not in the business of providing well-researched music. We're simply in the business of selling our customers products." -- Clear Channel CEO Lowry Mays, quoted by Norman Solomon in an article on his "P.U.-litzer Prizes," Solomon's awards for the "foulest media performances of 2003."

David Copperfield couldn't do any better

"The Air Force has dropped three counts in an espionage case against a Syrian-born airman who worked as a translator at the prison camp in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

"The lawyer for Senior Airman Ahmad I. al-Halabi, Donald G. Rehkopf Jr., said on Saturday that once those charges were removed, 'simply the gut of the case was gone.'

"A single count in the charge that accused the airman of 'aiding the enemy,' a capital offense, was dropped. Also dropped were counts that dealt with e-mailing information about detainees and committing espionage by transmitting information to unauthorized recipients."

Robbing Peter to kill Paul (or Muhammed)

"The number of Americans without health insurance now equals the population of Pennsylvania, Michigan, Illinois and North Carolina combined. From 2000 through 2002 alone, the number of uninsured Americans jumped by nearly 4 million, to 43.5 million overall. Today almost one in six Americans lacks health insurance.

"And the problem is about to get worse."

"States are facing perhaps the worst fiscal crisis since World War II, with combined deficits last year of nearly $80 billion."

Actually, a lot of that $87 billion has yet to be spent; that was only the supplement to previously authorized (and spent) expenditures. The money already spent to kill thousands of Iraqis and hundreds of Americans and others is estimated at $91 billion.

Headlies

Two US soldiers killed in bomb attack, pushes US death toll over 200

Libyan WMD

"Intelligence officials who were involved in clandestine overtures to Libya over the past nine months said they found no direct evidence of any biological weapons. They also saw no evidence that Libya had tried to produce weapons-grade uranium. Libya's primary chemical stockpile -- 'tens of tons' of material for mustard gas -- was about a decade old."

Of course there was more:

"However, U.S. and British weapons experts who examined Libya's arsenal as part of the disarmament negotiations did find a centrifuge that could be used to produce weapons-grade uranium. They also found dual-use biological agents that could be used legitimately or in weapons, and a program to develop long-range missiles."

Something less than an ominous threat, to say the least.

At the same time, Libya, Egypt, and other countries have called on Israel to give up the only real weapons of mass destruction in the Middle East - Israel's nuclear arsenal. At this time, this aspect of the story has been reported only by Agence France Presse; we'll see if it makes its way into mainstream U.S. coverage. It seems unlikely.

Quote of the Day

"We say to you today, we will no longer give our hands to the oppressive reign in the territories and the denial of human rights to millions of Palestinians, and we will no longer serve as a defensive shield for the settlement enterprise." -- 13 members of the elite Sayeret Matkal unit of the Israel Defense Forces, in a letter to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon declaring their refusal to serve in the occupied territories (Source)

Another shocking headline

Judge: I saw police commit felonies
"A judge presiding over the cases of free trade protesters said in court that he saw 'no less than 20 felonies committed by police officers' during the November demonstrations, adding to a chorus of complaints about police conduct.

"Judge Richard Margolius, 60, made the remarks in open court last week, saying he was taken aback by what he witnessed while attending the protests.

"'Pretty disgraceful what I saw with my own eyes. And I have always supported the police during my entire career,' he said, according to a court transcript. 'This was a real eye-opener. A disgrace for the community.'"

Hypocrisy on parade

Also on the news tonight, the tragic story of a man who had been dipped in acid by the Hussein regime for speaking out against Hussein. Omitted from the report was today's news from Tikrit that "Any demonstration against the government or coalition forces will be fired upon." Murder, of course, being so much more civilized than acid-dipping.

Compassionate capitalism

"The Justice Department filed a civil rights lawsuit Thursday against the state of Mississippi, alleging abuse of juvenile offenders at two state-run facilities.

"Among the abuses uncovered: suicidal girls were stripped naked and placed in solitary confinement in a dark cell with only a drain for a toilet, boys were forced to run with mattresses strapped to their backs, girls who threw up while running in the heat were forced to eat their vomit, and youths were tied to poles or hog-tied."

"[The assistant attorney general] said that both facilities have less than two-thirds of the needed staff and the shortages have prevented state officials from dismissing abusive employees."

"Investigators found the camps...violated the youths' First Amendment rights by 'forcing them to engage in religious activities.'"

Planning for the future the socialist way

"The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimates that the urban population will reach four billion inhabitants by the year 2025, which represents a nearly 90% world demographic growth. Given that tendency, Cuba, with 75%-plus of its population living in cities, has been promoting the development of urban agriculture for more than 15 years.

"During this year, 3.7 million metric tons of fresh vegetables and condiments have been harvested in city farms, intensive orchards and plots located in urban areas throughout Cuba, a significant growth in comparison with that of 1997, when only 140,000 tons were produced."

Senators were told Iraqi weapons could hit U.S. -- Americans still in the dark

"U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson said Monday the Bush administration last year told him and other senators that Iraq not only had weapons of mass destruction, but they had the means to deliver them to East Coast cities.

"Nelson, D-Tallahassee, said about 75 senators got that news during a classified briefing before last October's congressional vote authorizing the use of force to remove Saddam Hussein from power. Nelson voted in favor of using military force.

"Nelson said he couldn't reveal who in the administration gave the briefing.

"The White House directed questions about the matter to the Department of Defense. Defense officials had no comment on Nelson's claim.

"Nelson said the senators were told Iraq had both biological and chemical weapons, notably anthrax, and it could deliver them to cities along the Eastern seaboard via unmanned aerial vehicles, commonly known as drones."

"Nelson delivered the news during a half-hour conference call with reporters Monday afternoon. The senator, who is on a seven-nation trade mission to South America, was calling from an airport in Santiago, Chile."

In any case, I've been holding off posting about this story waiting for more elaboration or some other kind of followup in the media. After all, Sen. Nelson says 75 Senators (!) were given this information; surely one or more of them would come forward to confirm or elaborate on Nelson's statements. Surely some national media outlet would pick up this story and run with it.

Nope. Nothing. The story simply disappeared. And, with George Bush now saying that there is "no difference" between Iraq actually having WMD and just wanting them, and no significant reaction to that bombshell either from the media or even from the Democratic Presidential contenders, who can be surprised?

New poll

• Atrios: 56
• Cursor: 49
• Counterpunch:48
• Left I on the News: 47
• CommonDreams: 33
• Tom Tomorrow:33 (on temporary break)
• Antiwar.com: 22
• Danny Schechter: 6
• News4Change: 3
• Politics in the Zeros: 3

Anyway, the new poll (at right) goes to what seems to be the subject which arouses the most passion on the web, far more than the war on Iraq, Bush's mendacity/moronicity (?), Ashcroft (and Bush)'s war on civil liberties, etc. I refer, of course, to the question of Ralph Nader and the Greens, and whether they should run a Presidential campaign in the upcoming election. Let's see what Left I readers have to say (non-U.S. citizens, feel free to vote as if you were one).

A shocking headline

Veteran Strikebreaker Helps Keep Ralphs Supplied

The supermarket chain is relying on Clifford Nuckols,
who has a history of legal problems.
"To keep its warehouses stocked and its delivery trucks running without the Teamsters union, Ralphs Grocery Co. has turned to a convicted felon with a history of legal woes.

"Clifford L. Nuckols, a veteran of the strikebreaking business, has hired hundreds of people and brought them from around the country to the Los Angeles area, where the supermarket strike and lockout are in their tenth week."

"A coordinator at the [hotel where the strikebreakers are staying], who gave his name as Andrew, said the Personnel Support workforce was volatile and that fights broke out regularly.

"This month police were called to the Burbank Hilton to investigate a rape allegation by one of the few female replacement workers, said Det. Brian Llewellyn of the Burbank Police Department.

"Andrew said he signed up with Personnel Support in St. Louis on his brother's advice but decided to call it quits after a few weeks in Compton. 'My wife wants me to come home,' he said in late October as he waited for a ride to the airport. 'She's worried.'

"Nearby, about a dozen workers gathered at the hotel entrance, grumbling that they hadn't yet been paid for three weeks' work. 'We haven't gotten a check,' said a man from Detroit.'

"Nuckols has been accused before of failing to fulfill his obligations.

"Christopher J. Carney of Cleveland, a former prosecutor for the Labor Department, said it took three years and legal wrangling to get Nuckols to pay $25,000 in back wages and interest in 1990.

"Attorney James M. Brown of Mississippi said he was still trying to collect $1.3 million awarded in 1993 to a former Nuckols security guard who was injured during a strike at Monsanto Co. in West Virginia. Brown said he was stymied at every turn by Nuckols, who had filed for bankruptcy protection for three of his companies.

"Brown said he tried to pursue Nuckols as an individual but couldn't find a bank account, property or other holdings in his name."

(Unintentional) humor of the day

Iraqi history

WMD

"With Saddam in custody all the war criminals seem to feel comfortable about brazenly admitting that the weapons that provided the excuse for the attack didn't exist. Complex diplomacy and the lessons of the Second World War have been laid waste, and the world is a more dangerous place."

Clark vs. Milosevic - who said what?

"And so I simply asked him. I said, 'Mr. President, you say you have so much influence over the Bosnian Serbs, but how is it then, if you have such influence, that you allowed General Mladic to kill all those people in Srebrenica?' And Milosevic looked at me and he paused for a moment. He then said, 'Well, General Clark,' he said, 'I warned Mladic not to do this, but he didn't listen to me.' "

"Mr. Milosevic shot back: 'General Clark, this is a blatant lie. First and foremost because we did not talk about Srebrenica at all and secondly because I, throughout this time, through all those years, never issued a single order to General Mladic or was I in a position to issue him an order.'"

"He hammered away at Clark as a 'war criminal,' and accused him of deceitfulness and of commanding a 'terrorist' army by siding with the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA).

"At one point, Milosevic displayed a picture of a KLA soldier holding up two severed heads of Serbs and asked, 'Are these allies of General Clark's infantry in Kosovo?' Later, Milosevic asked, 'Do you think you are a war criminal, General Clark?'

The U.S. government at work...spying

Police Spying Operation Exposed
The lead editorial in the December 17 Washington Post, commenting on a public D.C. City Council investigation into police spying, brutality and pre-emptive arrests against demonstrators, is evidence that the national campaign to defend the First Amendment is effectively striking back at the war waged today by various law enforcement agencies against dissent in the United States.

Citing the litigation brought by the Washington D.C.-based Partnership for Civil Justice (International Action Center, et al., v. The United States, et al.) the Post Editorial opens with an excerpt from July 10, 2003, ruling by U.S. District Court Judge Gladys Kessler:

"The District of Colombia, through [assistant police chief Alfred Broadbent] seems to be admitting that it maintains widespread, extensive spying operations on the activities and operations of political advocacy organizations, such as Plaintiffs [International Action Center, et al.], on the basis of their political philosophies and conduct protected under the First Amendment. Moreover, Chief Broadbent admitted in his testimony that such operations are carried on even in the absence of allegations of criminal activities by the organizations being spied upon." The Post editorial goes on to cite three other major protest cases being handled by the Partnership for Civil Justice.

The Washington DC Metropolitan Police Department (MPD), along with the FBI, Secret Service and National Park Police, have been the subject of a broad-based legal and political action campaign to win justice for those who have been the victims of police misconduct.

The Partnership for Civil Justice (PCJ) has filed four major lawsuits in Washington DC in the past three years that have uncovered a body of evidence showing that law enforcement agencies have been engaged in systematic and coordinated efforts to spy on and disrupt political organizations engaged in First Amendment protected activities. Evidence obtained in the discovery phase of litigation also includes police undercover operatives engaged in violent assaults against peaceful demonstrators protesting against George W. Bush during the January 20, 2001 Inaugural Parade. (For more information on the lawsuits go to http://www.justiceonline.org)

In the last few weeks more than 20,000 organizations and individuals have signed on to a petition opposing the FBI's illegal spying operation against the U.S. antiwar movement. The FBI operation was revealed in an internal FBI memorandum, written ten days before the October 25 demonstration in Washington DC that demanded Bring the Troops Home Now, End the Occupation of Iraq, that was the subject of a New York Times story on November 23. To see the petition go http://www.votenowar.org or http://www.internationalanswer.org.

As the spotlight on police and law enforcement misconduct gets brighter as a result of the litigation and political action campaigns, elected officials in Washington D.C. have scheduled two days of hearings to scrutinize the police department in the District of Columbia.

The U.S. government at work...lying

" A report released yesterday by the Department of Justice's inspector general concluded that at one federal prison in Brooklyn, some staff members physically abused many illegal immigrants arrested after the Sept. 11 attacks, taunted them and illegally taped their meetings with lawyers.

Hundreds of illegal immigrants in the New York area were detained after the attacks. Almost all were found to have no tangible connection to terrorism."

"None was ever charged with terrorism-related crimes, however."

That isn't the only problem with the Times story, however. The secondary story, perhaps more important because of its wider implications, is the official lying and coverup which accompanied these illegal actions, and is completely absent from the report in the Times. Here's what the Post says:

"Corrections officers who had been interviewed earlier had denied that many of the incidents occurred. MDC Warden Michael Zenk and other officials repeatedly told Fine's investigators that the videotapes had been destroyed as part of a recycling policy, the report said. [Emphasis added]

"The tapes eventually located in August had not been included on inventory sheets provided by the prison and were held in a storage room that also had not been disclosed to investigators, the report said. Many tapes from the period are still missing, and there are unexplained gaps the ones that were found, the report shows.

"Many detainees also told investigators that, in the month before the installation of the camera system in October 2001, jail conditions and abuse had been much worse, the report noted. The cameras were installed in part to protect jail officers from unwarranted allegations, Fine said."

Mass murder in the Middle East continues

While there have been no Palestinian attacks inside Israel for ten weeks, Israeli attacks against Palestinians have not stopped for a single day.

In the last two weeks alone, Israel has killed 21 Palestinians and injured 55 others.

In an attack on Palestinian civilians and property yesterday, the Israeli military completely destroyed 18 homes in the Khan Yunis refugee camp in the Gaza Strip, leaving 25 families (178 Palestinian civilians) homeless. In addition, homes belonging to 6 Palestinian families (approximately 40 civilians) were damaged so heavily that they are now uninhabitable.

Jose Padilla and "enemy combatants"

"The president of the United States does not have the power to detain an American citizen seized on U.S. soil as an enemy combatant, a federal appeals court ruled on Thursday, in a serious setback to the Bush administration's war on terror."

Incidentally, the administration has routinely ignored court rulings, such as in the Cheney energy task force case as well as in the Zacharias Moussawi trial, so jumping to conclusions that this ruling will actually amount to anything is definitely not justified.

Now we'll see what happens to the rights of the thousands of non-U.S. citizens currently being held prisoner by the U.S. in Guantanamo, Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere. Some Americans, no doubt (hopefully no readers of Left I!) don't give a rat's ass about the fate of alleged foreign terrorists. But anyone who claims to "support the troops" should care deeply about this issue. Because if the U.S. can claim some kind of legal basis for seizing someone anywhere in the world and holding them indefinitely without charges or rights, then of course any other government has exactly the same "legal right" to do the same to U.S. citizens, soldiers and civilians alike.

You don't see this mentioned very often, if at all, but how did people seized during the invasion of Afghanistan get to be illegal "enemy combatants" anyway? Left I, and many others, consider the invasion of Afghanistan by the U.S. to have been illegal. But even if it were legal, it was an invasion of a sovereign country designed to overthrow its government. Doesn't any citizen (or even any resident) of that country, whether they are in uniform or not, have the right to resist such an invasion? Wouldn't all U.S. citizens have the right to resist a foreign invading force? How does such resistance turn you into a "terrorist"?

Followup: It turns out there was another court decision today, in which the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that "detainees held at Guantanamo Naval Base in Cuba should have access to lawyers and the American court system." Unlike Reuters in the story above, AP rightly calls this "a rebuke to the Bush Administration," rather than a "setback to the war on terror." Like the story above, however, the fat lady hasn't sung yet (and even if she does, the Bush Administration is likely to turn a deaf ear to her singing).

More followup: Incidentally, lest anyone get too complacent, both of these court decisions were 2-1 decisions. It might seem to any rational person that these rulings were completely obvious, but evidently 33% of the judiciary in this country doesn't agree.

A "hmmmm" moment

"Officials said the C.I.A. might not be able to use the full range of interrogation techniques on Mr. Hussein that have been employed with Qaeda leaders. Unlike Qaeda operatives, Mr. Hussein seems destined to face some sort of public judicial review, either through an international war crimes tribunal or other trial, and so the agency's handling of him may eventually come under scrutiny.

"Pentagon and C.I.A. officials have denied that they use torture against detainees captured in either Iraq or the wider campaign against terror. The agency's officials have declined to comment on the techniques they use with detainees, but a senior Pentagon official said Wednesday that interrogations conducted by the Pentagon followed 'well-established techniques' that do not violate the human rights of the detainees."

In a related story, Professor of Religious Studies Ira Chernus reads between the lines of the news to discuss the ethics of the "torture lite" which led to the capture of Saddam Hussein.

Apparently, the guy who fingered Saddam cooperated involuntarily. CNN explained: "It is unclear whether anyone will receive the $25 million bounty because the information leading to his capture came under duress." A "senior administration official" confirmed to Newsday that the man "didn't provide any information willingly." Col. Hickey told reporters that the informant first gave false information, and "there was three or four hours of questioning before he blurted Saddam's location."

What happened in those three or four (some reports say five or more) hours? Probably not torture, in the technical jargon of U.S. officialdom. No electric shock, no hot irons, no fingernails pulled. At least that's what U.S. officials insist.

They say it was just "interrogation," which is torture lite. Things like bags over the head, tight handcuffs, no light (or constant bright light), no food or bathroom, endless shouting or blaring music or noise, bits of light violence. And, of course, the constant psychological torture of fearing that serious physical pain might start at any moment.

But it wasn't only this one key informant who got torture lite. According to Newsday: "Weeks ago, U.S. forces decided to identify anyone who might have current knowledge of where Hussein was, including former bodyguards, and then to go after them with a vengeance, rounding up their families and friends -- women, children, grandparents, everyone. Many of the key clues came in involuntary interrogations of informants."

Of course, the U.S. also ships some suspects out to third countries that definitely do torture. And the models for the more aggressive U.S. policies in Iraq, the Phoenix Program and the Israeli occupation of Palestine, certainly involve torture. The line between torture lite and torture heavy can be very thin, indeed.

Words of mass deception

"But stated as a hard fact, that there were weapons of mass destruction as opposed to the possibility that he could move to acquire those weapons still --"

"So what's the difference?"

This entire section of the interview is actually remarkable, in that Dianne Sawyer actually interrupts Bush (and is interrupted by him), and speaks twelve different times on this one subject, pressing Bush harder than he has ever been pressed on the subject of the "missing" weapons of mass destruction, with questions like this:

"When you take a look back, Vice President Cheney said there is no doubt, Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction, not programs, not intent. There is no doubt he has weapons of mass destruction. Secretary Powell said 100 to 500 tons of chemical weapons and now the inspectors say that there's no evidence of these weapons existing right now. The yellow cake in Niger, in Niger. George Tenet has said that shouldn't have been in your speech. Secretary Powell talked about mobile labs. Again, the intelligence — the inspectors have said they can't confirm this, they can't corroborate."

Love that passive voice

The article itself does "admit" that they were killed by U.S. forces, but presents only the official U.S. picture that these were "insurgents" killed in "clashes." Other reports, which claim that the dead were simply Iraqis demonstrating against the capture of Saddam Hussein, are not mentioned.

Incidentally, I can't find this in print anywhere, but TV reports tell me that it is now a crime punishable by up to one year in prison and "loss of any civil service job" to demonstrate in favor of Saddam Hussein. Of course the "one year" part is not really true, since we know that the thousands of Iraqis locked up for various offenses, real and imagined, have no sentences (or charges or trials for that matter) at all, just indefinite detention until the U.S. decides otherwise.

The Daily Double

Today's news, part I: "FEC Fines Ashcroft's Senate Bid For Breach" - "The Federal Election Commission has determined that Attorney General John D. Ashcroft's unsuccessful 2000 Senate reelection campaign violated election laws by accepting $110,000 in illegal contributions."

Today's news, part II: "Ashcroft apologizes for ignoring gag order" - "In an extraordinary rebuke, a federal judge Tuesday publicly admonished Attorney General John Ashcroft for violating a gag order covering a high-profile terrorism case in Detroit, prompting the attorney general to issue an unusual apology to the court."

Meanwhile, back in the real Iraq...

"The electricity only returned a couple of hours ago. We've been without electricity for almost 72 hours- other areas have it worse. Today we heard the electricity won't be back to pre-war levels until the middle of next year."

Is Saddam a P.O.W.?

But old wily, weasely Donald Rumsfeld said no such thing, as reported by the New York Times; what he said was "while Mr. Hussein was being afforded full protection matching Geneva convention standards, he had not been classified as a prisoner of war." In other words, once again the U.S. declares that it has no obligation to treat its captives according to international law. They may treat them similar to that, but without subjecting themselves to any actual pesky rules.

As evidenced by the report in USA Today about the interrogation that is taking place, an interrogation which makes one wonder if Hussein has been "Mirandized" or if anything he says under these circumstances could ever be submitted in a legitimate court of law:

"Saddam Hussein is being shown videotapes of anti-Saddam protests in Iraq, the unearthing of mass graves and the torture and execution of prisoners during his reign, two U.S. officials who are receiving reports on his interrogation said Tuesday.

"The goal is to provoke him into making unguarded statements by confronting him with evidence that could be used in a war-crimes trial, according to the two officials, one in the administration and one in an intelligence agency."

What is a "petard" anyway?

"Incensed that foreign countries were playing favorites in doling out billions of dollars to build airports, roads and dams, the U.S. became a prime cheerleader for a global agreement on government procurement.

"Now, the U.S. stands accused of violating the very pact it worked so hard to create.

"The Pentagon said last week that companies from France, Canada and other countries that didn't contribute militarily to the Iraq war would be barred from bidding on $18.6 billion in U.S.-funded reconstruction contracts. That sent officials from excluded countries to their lawbooks, looking for ways to strike back.

"The European Commission, which called the Iraq bid decision 'ill-thought-out,' is considering filing a complaint with the World Trade Organization in Geneva. Under the WTO procurement pact for which the U.S. heavily lobbied, governments in most cases must open their purchasing processes to international competition and treat domestic and foreign firms equally."

Another "another Hitler" back in the news

Two recent articles provide a good insight into what is going on in this trial - this one from Workers World newspaper, and this one, an article by author Michael Parenti entitled "The Demonization of Slobodan Milosevic." One small excerpt from the Workers World article:

"Clark already published his observations in his 2001 book, 'Waging Modern War.' The Kosovo war, he writes, 'was coercive diplomacy, the use of armed forces to impose the political will of the NATO nations on the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, or more specifically, on Serbia. The NATO nations voluntarily undertook this war.'"

"In sum, Sell's book is packed with discombobulated insider details, unsupported charges, unexamined presumptions, and ideologically loaded labeling. As mainstream disinformation goes, it is a job well done."

World's smallest avalanche

Since the invasion of Iraq in March, 458 Americans have died in Iraq, and more than 2500 (probably a lot more) have been seriously wounded, many with life-changing injuries. No weapons of mass destruction which posed an imminent threat (or any threat) to the United States have been found in Iraq, and no evidence of any support that was being provided by Iraq to Al Qaeda. A serious article in a serious paper might call into question the sanity of anyone who claims that this war, or the capture of Saddam Hussein, has done anything to "make America safer." The New York Times prefers to invent non-existing "avalanches" of criticism against those who announce that the emperor has no clothes.

The insanity of health care for profit

The article compares the new British program to the situation in the U.S., with thousands of different health-care providers with different, incompatible IT systems:

"The U.S. government is taking a different approach to networking the health–care system. It doesn't have the power to mandate such a sweeping initiative, but it's encouraging private health–care providers to deploy technologies such as electronic health records and computerized drug order–entry systems. In recent months, the Department of Health and Human Services has embraced technology standards, such as messaging protocols, for the Medicare and Medicaid systems that the feds hope private health–care providers will adopt. The U.S. government also is trying out financial incentives to increase health–care providers' adoption of patient–related technology." [Emphasis added]

Britian isn't a socialist country, although nationalized health care is certainly one of the components of a socialist country, like Cuba. And, not coincidentally, one of the biggest examples of using IT to improve health care is provided by Cuba's Project InfoMed, which links the entire medical community of Cuba, and has been accomplished for a lot less than $17 billion.

The interrogation of Saddam Hussein, Part II

"Officials said the full details of Mr. Hussein's debriefings were being closely held within the government, and several said they were not certain whether he had said anything yet about possible Iraqi involvement in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on New York and Washington."

One search continues

Meanwhile, back in Washington, the search continues (in theory!) for someone else who definitely exists - the person who leaked the name and identity of CIA agent Valerie Plame to columnist Robert Novak. Washington D.C. being much smaller than "the state of California" (which we're frequently reminded is how big Iraq is), and with all the suspects actually working for the President of the United States, you might think the search would be somewhat simpler, and guaranteed success in a shorter period of time. Guess again.

The story, of course, has almost totally disappeared from the press; this article from the Miami Herald, written by Edward Wasserman, professor of journalism ethics at Washington and Lee University, is about the only substantive article to appear in months (the "Vanity Fair" sub-affair of this story was covered in a recent Howard Kurtz "media" article, but not the substance of the story). Wasserman concludes

"The media...have become complicit in the very intrigues that they should be exposing. For the sake of a news morsel, they've been turned from watch dog to lap dog."

Democracy, American-style

"U.S. soldiers Monday used batons to break up a demonstration in Tikrit to protest against the capture of Saddam Hussein near his hometown, witnesses said...Shortly afterwards U.S. soldiers charged the protest, beating and arresting some protesters, the witnesses said."

Today's Donsense

Saddam has not "been cooperative in terms of talking or anything like that." - Donald Rumsfeld (Source)

Selective hearing

Saddam was also asked whether Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction. "No, of course not," he replied, according to the official, "the U.S. dreamed them up itself to have a reason to go to war with us." The interrogator continued along this line, said the official, asking: "if you had no weapons of mass destruction then why not let the U.N. inspectors into your facilities?" Saddam's reply: "We didn't want them to go into the presidential areas and intrude on our privacy."

The official is doubtful that the U.S. will get a significant amount of intelligence from Saddam's interrogations. "I would be surprised if he gave any info," he said. Other high-ranking regime members, he said, have by and large remained mum. "Tariq Aziz [former deputy prime minister] hasn't really spoken," he said, "and Abid Mahmoud [Saddam's former personal secretary] hasn't really given any information."

The truth about the death of Charles Horman - no longer "Missing"?

In the past, it has been revealed that the U.S. government knew more about Horman's fate than they told his family, but they have always denied any actual involvement in his death. The indictment of Verdugo may be the critical break in the story. Although, rest assured, thanks to the U.S. media few if any Americans will ever learn the truth.

The flu

36,000 Americans die every year from the flu. Thanks to the decimation of the public health system in America, and the near total reliance on "private enterprise" (a.k.a. the profit system) to solve our health problems, this year there is a well-publicized shortage of flu vaccine. Needless to say, a fraction of a percent of the money being spent to kill innocent people in Iraq or Afghanistan could have prevented that shortage.

La Cucaracha tells it like it is

Ethics in a Capitalist world

"My 23-year-old nephew is soon to marry, having postponed the event while serving as a marine in Iraq. He plans to wear his uniform at the ceremony. I am bitterly opposed to our involvement in Iraq, and so I am inclined not to attend rather than to be confronted with a symbol of misguided patriotic pride. But am I inappropriately putting personal political convictions ahead of family cohesion and loyalty?"

"Attending your nephew's wedding, no matter his dress or his politics, is not an endorsement of U.S. foreign policy. It's just a way to wish him well and renew family ties at what is a nonpolitical event...However, if his vows include a pledge to 'love, honor and find those weapons of mass destruction' -- or, rather, if he opens a political conversation -- you could respond politely, perhaps by toasting the joys of marriage with the words 'long, hard slog.'"

"Because medical insurance covers prescription drugs but not over-the-counter drugs, patients often ask me to switch them from the latter to the former. If there is no therapeutic difference, should I suggest that the patient use the over-the-counter drug at a lower overall but higher personal cost, or the prescription drug that saves the patient money but costs the insurer a bundle? Whose health care costs should I be primarily trying to keep down?"

"Ideally, you would not have to make cost-cutting a preoccupation. You would simply prescribe the appropriate medication, and it would be available at a reasonable price. No byzantine insurance-company rules. No multimillion-dollar pharmaceutical company P.R. campaigns. No scenic drives to Canada.

"But here on earth, here in the United States, the cost of a medication and insurance-company rules can affect a patient's willingness, indeed ability, to use it. Therefore, a doctor must consider a drug's price and a patient's income and, as a consequence, may sometimes recommend a prescription drug even when there is an over-the-counter alternative. Your primary duty is to your patient, not to the insurer, not even to the worthy goal of lowering health care costs for the entire community."

Reuters talks about "the barrier"

I wonder if this wall qualifies under the Supreme Court's definition of "obscenity"?

Quote of the Day

"Fortunately, in the United States, we enjoy a legal structure which anticipates the need for protecting both national security and adjudicating the innocence or guilt of individuals who are charged." -- Attorney General John Ashcroft, commenting on the freeing of a Moroccan man being tried in Germany for complicity with the 9/11 attacks after exculpatory evidence was released by the police.

Maintaining a perspective on the world's problems

A couple months ago, Left I wrote about maintaining perspective on the world's problems. Compared to a few thousand deaths from terrorism each year (generally far fewer), traffic accidents kill a million people a year. Diarrhea kills a million and a half each year. Hunger kills an estimated nine million a year. And today, a new report from the U.N. claims that:

Global warming is killing about 150,000 people a year, mostly in deprived and tropical areas, and the toll could rise dramatically if efforts are not made to combat climate change.

Quote of the Day

"International law? I better call my lawyer." -- George Bush, responding to comments by German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder that international law applies to awarding of contracts.

On a serious note, that the U.S. will ignore international law in deed is hardly surprising. But they usually have some cover story and explanation about how what they are doing is really perfectly justified and according to law (as with the "Resolution 1441" justification for invading Iraq). For Bush to openly express his disdain for international law in word (and he did so as much in the tone of what he said as in the words) is actually surprising.

Followup: The Washington Post editorializes about this, calling Bush's remark a "puerile taunt."

Your chance to vote...for Left I on the News

Totally predictable change of story

Three soldiers from the Fort Lewis-based Stryker brigade died last night in north-central Iraq when the collapse of a roadside embankment sent two of their vehicles tumbling into an irrigation canal, according to Army officials.

The 25-year-old Army specialist died Dec. 8 in Iraq after the vehicle he was driving was attacked by Iraqis, said his uncle, Santa Rita Mayor Joseph Wesley, citing Army officials who had spoken to the family...

"They met up with (enemies) from the other side and all of a sudden they started firing," said Joseph Wesley, who received the information from military officials. "The vehicle he was driving got shot, and it flipped over."

"Targeted killing" kills...civilians

Today, to add more evidence to the "success" of the policy of targeted killing, Human Rights Watch has issued a report documenting the deaths of hundreds of innocent civilians in Iraq due principally to two practices of the U.S. military - the (illegal) use of cluster munitions in populated areas, and the policy of targeted killing, also known as "decapitation."

Probably everyone, even people who can't find Iraq on a map, know that the invasion started with an attempt to kill (via "precision-guided" missiles) Saddam Hussein. Many probably remember the other attempts to kill Saddam, and the well-publicized attempt on the life of "Chemical Ali." But few people, certainly not including Left I, are aware that there were fifty such long-range attempts on the lives of Iraqi leaders, and that not one succeeded in killing the "target," but many of them killed civilians instead.

On the subject of cluster bombs, Human Rights Watch "estimates that some 13,000 cluster munitions were fired, containing nearly two million sub-munitions, that could well have killed or wounded in excess of 1,000 people." And every single death a war crime (something not noted by HRW).

Incidentally, some of the HRW report, like the estimate of deaths from cluster bombs, are based on estimates. But, as emphasized by HRW's Executive Director Kenneth Roth on BBC World tonight, the data from the "targeted killings" are based on specific followup of individual incidents; the report even lists the names, for example, of the 18 civilians killed in the opening act of the invasion (the attempted "decapitation" of Hussein), and the 17 civilians killed when "Chemical Ali's" house was bombed. That same information has been available all along to the world's media, of course, if they cared enough to ask. They don't.

Unemployment in Iraq

Some excerpts:

Nabil Skaria stood on stage in white shirt sleeves and asked the crowd of hundreds an opening question: "How many people here have heard of Procter & Gamble?"

Three hands went up.

It could be that Iraq, isolated from much of the world for more than a decade, isn't up to date in consumer news. It also could be that the P&G representative asked his question in English, a language few of the attendees seemed to understand.

A few men in back lit up cigarettes. Souad Saleh and her daughter, Lina Ahmed, got up and left.

The awkward moment was indicative that the U.S.-led coalition's first job fair was something less than a rousing success. There were plenty of tips on resumes and interviews, but few of what people came looking for: jobs.

Procter & Gamble said it was too soon to talk about hiring. Bechtel said it might have 40 or 50 jobs, all in engineering. The U.S. Agency for International Development said it would have 70 openings -- in a few months.

The one table that had plenty of work was Titan, a military contractor hiring interpreters for the U.S. Army. Sgt. Karen Gucci of the 82nd Airborne, helping with the paperwork, said her division desperately needed about 250 people.

The job: to serve as an interpreter on patrols and at checkpoints west of Baghdad, in an area where patrols are routinely attacked and insurgents have targeted army "collaborators" with ruthless vengeance.

Maybe they weren't offering jobs, but helpful advice? Sure, got that:

In an auditorium where former Saddam aides used to preside over conferences, human resources managers offered Powerpoint presentations with tips on how to impress with a resume (keep it concise) and in an interview (tell them you're a team player).

"Skills set," Spc. Tom Wirges, wearing desert camouflage, read from a checklist. "Risk taking. Collaboration. Solutions. Leadership. Capacity."

He told the audience: "Finding a job is a job in itself."

The person running the job fair, Cpl. Jacek Orzo, had an interesting, or should that be delusional, take on things:

"With all the money coming into the country, you'd hope that there's enough of it around for people to get at least a taste of it," he said. "The opportunity's here," he added. "I guess it's survival of the fittest."

Afghanistan - spinning the news

"I think this incident happened because of the explosives that were kept in that house and I think there were many other weapons in that house," Faiz Mohammed Zalan, foreign affairs spokesman for Paktia's governor, said in an interview. [Emphasis added]

But wait, there's more:

Zalan said U.S. warplanes attacked the compound in the village of Kosween, in Paktia's Sayed Karam district northwest of Gardez, but not the house where the children died. "This house was not bombed by U.S. planes because the U.S. planes targeted another house where the Taliban were supposed to be. But they had already left that house."

The facts are rather simpler than Mr. Zalan makes them out. The U.S. suspected someone of a crime, thought he was somewhere where in fact he wasn't, decided to "take him out" by bombing his house (rather than ask him to "surrender" as the U.S. assures us they prefer), and killed two innocent adults and six innocent children as a result. How on earth that could result in the U.S. being "blameless" is beyond me.

I ask readers to imagine this situation in their own country. Imagine if the police declared a "war on crime" (as meaningful as a "war on terror," to be sure), thought that a particular murder suspect (not even a convicted criminal) was hiding in a particular house, and decided to bomb that house (not even being certain the suspect was there!), killing eight innocent people in the process. How do you suppose people would react to such an act of barbarism, an act so blatantly illegal it isn't even questionable?

Guantanamo across the sea

The report, "UK: Justice Perverted under the Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001", looked at the laws that have led to 14 people being detained at high security prisons as suspected terrorists. Six of the suspects will have been in detention for two years on 19 December.

Kate Allen, Amnesty International UK director, said: "The Act...allows non-nationals to be treated as if they have been charged with a criminal offence, convicted without a trial and sentenced to an open-ended term of imprisonment. In no respect can this be considered just. This legislation has created a Guantanamo Bay in our own backyard."

Amnesty said that SIAC appeared to have accepted evidence obtained through the torture of suspects detained by the US at Bagram air base in Afghanistan and at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. "The use of evidence obtained under torture undermines the rule of law and makes a mockery of justice," said the document.

Cojones? Arrogance? Or just plain stupidity?

"President Bush found himself in the awkward position on Wednesday of calling the leaders of France, Germany and Russia to ask them to forgive Iraq's debts, just a day after the Pentagon excluded those countries and others from $18 billion in American-financed Iraqi reconstruction projects." (Source)

Today's Donsense

" . . . to use the phrase 'targeted killing' I think is a misunderstanding of the fact that we're in a war where, obviously, the people who don't surrender, who are terrorists trying to kill innocent Iraqis and coalition forces, are people we want to stop. We would be happy to capture them, we'd be happy to have them surrender, and if they don't, we'd be happy to kill them. And that's what's going on. But the implication or the connotation of 'targeted killing' I think is unfortunate because it suggests an appetite to do that, which is not the case. The goal is to stop terrorists from killing innocent men, women, and children, Iraqis, and coalition forces. It seems like a perfectly logical thing to me."

Maher Arar speaks

For most people, of course, the story is completely unknown. Googling "Maher Arar" produces a variety of hits from Canadian sources (CBC, Globe & Mail) as well as left-wing or progressive sources (e.g., Counterpunch, Democracy Now!) but not a single one from a mainstream U.S. news organization. To say that his shocking story has been "underreported" would be putting it mildly.

Meanwhile, the bold Canadian government has denounced the U.S. government (reported by the BBC, not in the U.S.!), not for deporting Arar to Syria, but only for doing so "without any consultation with the Canadian authorities." Way to stick up for the rights of your citizens, Prime Minister Chretien!

This actually reminds me of a point I've been meaning to make regarding the prisoners illegally detained at Guantanamo, with whom Arar obviously has a lot in common. The U.S. has fallen back on the alleged "extra-territorial" status of Guantanamo as a reason why the U.S. courts have no jurisdiction (a dubious claim in any case). But what no one seems to point out is that the U.S. military chose to put these men (I believe they are all men) into Guantanamo. They could just as well have put them into a prison camp in Florida, or Texas, or anywhere else in the U.S. So if they are really "outside the law," it's because the U.S. chose to put them outside the law, just as they chose to deport Arar not to Canada, where he is a citizen, but to Syria.

U.S. soldiers need not apply

"Global Risk International, based in Hampton, Middlesex...is supplying hired Gurkhas, Fijian paramilitaries and, it is believed, ex-SAS veterans, to guard the Baghdad headquarters of Paul Bremer, the US overlord."

See no evil

"Iraq's Health Ministry has ordered a halt to a count of civilians killed during the war and told its statistics department not to release figures compiled so far, the official who oversaw the count told The Associated Press on Wednesday.

"The order was relayed by the ministry's director of planning, Dr. Nazar Shabandar, but the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority, which oversees the ministry, also wanted the counting to stop, said Dr. Nagham Mohsen, the head of the ministry's statistics department.

"'"We have stopped the collection of this information because our minister didn't agree with it,' she said, adding: 'The CPA doesn't want this to be done.' [Emphasis added]

"A major investigation of Iraq's wartime civilian casualties was compiled by The Associated Press, which documented the deaths of 3,240 civilians between March 20 and April 20. That investigation, conducted in May and June, surveyed about half of Iraq's hospitals, and reported that the real number of civilian deaths was sure to be much higher. The Health Ministry's count, based on records of all hospitals, promised to be more complete."

The Nobel Peace Price

Iran's Shirin Ebadi became the first Muslim woman to receive the Nobel Peace Prize Wednesday and sent a bold anti-war message to the West, accusing it of hiding behind the Sept. 11 attacks to violate human rights.

"In the past two years, some states have violated the universal principles and laws of human rights by using the events of Sept. 11 and the war on international terrorism as a pretext," she said in a prepared acceptance speech.

"Regulations restricting human rights and basic freedoms ... have been justified and given legitimacy under the cloak of the war on terrorism."

Ebadi said Guantanamo prisoners had been "without the benefit of the rights stipulated under the international Geneva conventions, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the (U.N.) International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights."

Followup: BBC also gets it right, under the headline: "Nobel winner blasts rights abuses"

More followup: With the passage of a day, more and more coverage of this story in the print media (though still minimal on broadcast media).

That "booming" economy

When San Jose Budget Director Larry Lisenbee checks the city's bank account this morning it will be missing nearly $3 million. In Los Angeles, the accounts will be $13 million short. In tiny Parlier in the Central Valley, $52,000 -- nearly half the city's monthly budget -- won't be there, all from payments never deposited overnight by the state.

The missing money will immediately set in motion emergency measures to make sure government employees get their December paychecks. But within weeks, the losses could cascade into forced fire station closures, police cutbacks, reductions in recreation, garbage pickup and other core city services, officials warn."

Dick Cheney, "pro-life"

Vice President Dick Cheney...shot about 70 stocked pheasants and mallards that were released for a group of hunters. More than 400 of the farm-raised birds were killed in all. (Source)

Iraqis and Afghans with a common fate, crushed to death by arrogant Americans

From Afghanistan:

Iraqi Shia protest US tank killing
Hundreds of angry Muslims protested in the Iraqi capital over the death of a Shia cleric crushed under a US tank.

"Friday evening my brother stopped when he ran out of petrol. He was standing next to the vehicle waiting for someone to bring a can of petrol when an American tank arrived," said his brother Jasim al-Lami.

"The tank crushed the car and him. He died immediately. The US soldiers in the tank did not even stop to see what happened. They just left him on the ground." [Emphasis added]

More Afghan children die in raids
The US military in Afghanistan has revealed that six children died in a raid on suspected militants in the eastern province of Paktia last week.

News of the deaths came shortly after the US apologised for killing nine children in a separate raid in the neighbouring province of Ghazni.

However, the US has warned it will not be deterred by civilian casualties.

A US spokesman, Lieutenant Colonel Bryan Hilferty, told reporters in Kabul on Wednesday that the bodies of six children were found under a collapsed wall. [Emphasis added]

"We try very hard not to kill anyone. We would prefer to capture the terrorists rather than kill them," [Lt. Col. Bryan] Hilferty said.

Quote of the Day

"Ted, you know, we started at the beginning of this evening, talking about an endorsement. Well, I want the American people to see where the media takes politics in this country. We start talking about endorsements, now we're talking about polls, and then we're talking about money. Well, you know, when you do that, you don't have to talk about what's important to the American people." - Dennis Kucinich, ripping into moderator Ted Koppel at the Democratic Presidential debate.

"Fact" checking

Claim: Sen. Joe Lieberman declared it would take a Democratic president to "get this economy going," but the economy has been gaining momentum over the last several months since Bush's second tax cut took effect. Weekly claims for unemployment insurance have fallen since April, and economic growth and productivity in the third-quarter reached 20-year highs.
Truth: There are many aspects to "an economy"; whether it is "gaining momentum" based on one or more of those aspects is a subjective judgement and hardly a "fact." The ones cited by the author are hardly the only "facts," and certainly not the most salient facts to the 20% of the unemployed who have been in that status for six months or more, or to the cities and states who are going bankrupt for lack of sufficient money to fund schools, hospitals, and other basic needs.

Claim: Two of the candidates used a favorite attack line against Bush -- Lieberman said "3.5 million people have lost their jobs" and Howard Dean said "3 million jobs lost are 3 million too many" -- but their statements also ignored the improving economy. It is true that about 3 million jobs were lost during the early months of the Bush presidency. But that trend has been reversing for several months as the jobless rate has dropped from a peak of 6.4 percent in June to 5.9 percent last month.
Truth: The number of people who have "lost their jobs" or the "number of jobs lost" statistics aren't exactly "hard" numbers. Because of the way people who decide to retire early, or give up looking for jobs, or simply exhaust their unemployment benefits are no longer counted as "unemployed" even though they may really be, the "number of people who have lost their jobs" and the unemployment rate itself is a debatable number. The number of "jobs lost" is determined by surveys, and also isn't as hard a number as one might think. Meanwhile the author of the article herself omits salient facts, like the ones discussed here a few days ago, such as the fact that the even when jobs are being created, as they have been in the past four months, they still lag far behind the number needed to simply keep up with population growth, or the fact that the Administration predicted 344,000 per month job growth starting in mid-2003 if the tax cuts were passed.

Claim: Several of the nine Democrats attacked the tax cuts Bush pushed through Congress. But none mentioned that Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, who has served both Republican and Democratic presidents, has cited those cuts as a reason for the recent growth of the economy.
Truth: That Greenspan said this is a fact. However, that does not make what he said a fact; it is simply his opinion. No doubt there are many economists who disagree.

Claim: Both Wesley Clark and Dean accused Bush of "not fighting terrorism." Although al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden remains at large, the administration's war has substantially thinned the ranks of his network, including the arrest earlier this year of Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed. The administration also has thwarted dozens of attacks through increased cooperation with allies.
Truth: I haven't seen the transcript of the debate, but I doubt that Clark and Dean said that Bush was "not fighting terrorism" at all; I suspect they said what they and others like them have been saying for a long time - that the invasion of Iraq diverted resources from the "war on terrorism" and has lessened its intensity. And claims that the ranks of al-Qaida have been "substantially thinned" are just that, claims. There is no way to really know what the "facts" really are.

Claim: On the Iraq front, Dean declared "I think we need to bring in foreign troops," suggesting Americans have been going it alone. While some big Western allies, like Germany and France, have refused to provide troops for Iraq, the campaign has received thousands of troops from the likes of Britain, Poland, Japan, Italy, Hungary, Denmark and Ukraine. NATO countries have sent about 24,000 soldiers, compared to 130,000 U.S. troops.
Truth: Obviously, Dean knows there are some foreign troops in Iraq, and he also knows they comprise just a fraction of the total troops in Iraq. Again, I haven't read the transcipt, but it seems certain that Dean meant that "we" need to bring in more foreign troops. As for the counterclaims of the author, there are in fact no Japanese troops in Iraq at this time; Japan has just announced their intention to send troops. As far as the claim that there are 24,000 troops from NATO countries, it too is incorrect. BBC reports 24,000 total non-U.S. troops, including many non-NATO countries, and even their figures don't add up to 24,000, so personally I'm doubtful that number is correct even if one includes all countries other than the U.S.

Followup: A commentor at Atrios notes the following from AP's Code of Ethics:

"The newspaper should guard against inaccuracies, carelessness, bias or distortion through emphasis, omission or technological manipulation.

"Editorials and expressions of personal opinion by reporters and editors should be clearly labeled."

Hidden messages

"The Pentagon has barred French, German and Russian companies from competing for $18.6 billion in contracts for the reconstruction of Iraq, saying the step 'is necessary for the protection of the essential security interests of the United States.'"

"The directive by Mr. Wolfowitz does not spell out a precise argument for why allowing French, German and Russian companies to join in the competition for the contracts would hurt American security interests. But it suggests that the main motivation is to use the contracts as a reward for countries that participate in the American-led coalition and contribute troops to the American-led security effort."

The "investigation" of the death of nine Afghan children

Left I can help with all these investigations. First, a reminder. Despite the impression one could get from reading the American press, the words "al Qaeda" and "Taliban" are not interchangeable. The Taliban were a fundamentalist religious group which ruled Afghanistan. To what extent they were "aiding" al Qaeda or "shielding" al Qaeda is not really known. What is known is that the United States, instead of indicting Osama bin Laden and demanding his extradition according to international law, simply issued an ultimatum to the Taliban to "turn over" bin Laden, with the assumption that they could even if they would (notice that it hasn't proved possible for the U.S. despite vastly superior firepower, manpower, and mobility to the Taliban government). When the Taliban refused the arrogant, illegal request of the United States, the U.S. invaded and overthrew their government.

Now flash forward to today. The U.S. continues to "hunt Taliban remnants," with absolutely no more legal justification for doing so than they had two years ago. We are told that "the intended target was a man named Mullah Wazir, a Taliban member believed to have been behind several attacks on aid workers in the region and on construction engineers working on a major American project to rebuild the Kabul-Kandahar road." If true, those would be criminal offenses, not attacks on the United States, and the appropriate response would be for the Afghan government (which the U.S. pretends is a government) to arrest the man, try him for his crimes, and punish him if convicted. Instead, the U.S. military flies to a place where they think the man (who they only think is responsible for the crimes) is hiding, where they can't have any way of knowing who else is present since they are attacking from the air, not the ground, and proceed to launch an airstrike which kills ten innocent people.

One day, there will be war crimes trials for the mass murderers who are responsible for actions like these, crimes which have nothing to do with "failures of intelligence" or the "ineffectiveness of air power" or the "circumstances in which the children died," and everything to do with the invasion of Afghanistan itself, along with the arrogant, racist nature of American power which considers the value of an Afghan or an Iraqi life to be, for all intents and purposes, worthless. Or, at most, $3500.

Postscript: In light of all this, should this news out today come as a surprize?

"Israeli advisers are helping train US special forces in aggressive counter-insurgency operations in Iraq, including the use of assassination squads against guerrilla leaders, US intelligence and military sources said yesterday."

Defending the indefensible again

Today's Los Angeles Times reports on a new "Gallup Baghdad Survey" which claims that "Saddam Hussein's government may have executed 61,000 Baghdad residents," based on a survey which asked 1,178 Baghdad residents whether a member of their household had been executed by Saddam's regime and got a 6.6% "yes" response; combined with the population of Baghdad -- 6.39 million -- and average household size -- 6.9 people -- this calculates out to 61,000. Note that this extrapolation is based on finding a grand total of 71 people out of 1178 who answered "yes" to this question.

As usual with surveys, we are told that "had a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points." Several things to note. First, 3% might seem like a small number, but if it were correct, it would still be nearly half of 6.6%, which would produce a nearly 50% error in the final number of 61,000. Strangely enough, however, that 3% isn't the correct statistical number; based on the size of the sample and the result, the margin of error is actually 1.5%, not 3%.

However, we need to remind our readers that "margin of error" is a measure of precision, not accuracy. Even the head of the Gallup team points out two huge potential sources of inaccuracy: "People may have understood 'household' to be broader than just the people living at their address; and some families may have moved to the capital from other areas since the executions occurred." Not to mention that people might simply be lying, or might "know somebody who knows somebody" who was executed so they answered "yes" to make sure that person was counted. Almost all these effects would reduce the number of real "yes" answers, since it's unlikely (although certainly possible) that someone would have been scared to answer "yes" to the Gallup people if they did indeed have a member of their household executed.

So the fact of the matter is that the "real" number, the accurate number, could be not 78 out of 1178, but 39 out of 1178, or maybe even 19 out of 1178, and the total number might be not 61,000, but 30,000, or 15,000. Or less.

An idea of the accuracy, as opposed to the totally irrelevant "precision," of these numbers, is indicated by this paragraph from the article:

"The U.S.-led occupation authority in Iraq has said that at least 300,000 people are buried in mass graves in Iraq. Human rights officials put the number closer to 500,000, and some Iraqi political parties estimate more than 1 million were executed."

The bottom line has been discussed here previously. Despite claims that there are "41 confirmed mass graves on a list of suspected sites that currently includes 270 locations," the actual number of bodies found in mass graves to date, eight months since the capture of Baghdad by American forces, seems to number in the low thousands, two orders of magnitude below the claimed numbers.

"Operation Quick Buck"

Well, it now turns out (hat tip as usual to Atrios) that "Operation Quick Fix" was more like "Operation Quick Buck":

"On its corporate Web site, under a page titled 'A Fresh Start for Iraqi School Children,' Bechtel Group showcases sparkling new classrooms filled with happy, young Iraqi students.


"But the reality is far different, according to Army investigators.

"'In almost every case, the paint jobs were done in a hurry, causing more damage to the appearance of the school than in terms of providing a finish that will protect the structure,' a recent Army investigation into Bechtel's work found. 'In one case, the paint job actually damaged critical lab equipment, making it unusable.'

"What they found: The subcontractors Bechtel hired left paint everywhere - on the floors, on desks, all over windows. The classrooms were filthy, the school's desks and chairs were thrown out into the playground and left, broken. Windows were left damaged, and bathrooms that were reportedly fixed were left in broken, unsanitary condition."

The conviction rate of "terrorists"

The study is rather telling. Out of the 6,400 people "referred by investigators for criminal charges involving terror," only 2,001 were prosecuted. Of those, only 879 were convicted. 506 of those were given no prison sentences whatsoever! These are the kind of people George Bush and John Ashcroft are talking about when they cite statistics about the "success in the war on terror," that is, people whose "terror-related crime" undoubtedly consisted of being an Arab on an expired visa. Even of the 373 who did get prison sentences, 250 were given sentences less than a year; again, given the government's penchant for taking people it doesn't like and locking them up and throwing away the key, a pretty clear indication that these people as well didn't have the slightest thing to do with "terrorism."

How was this story featured in the press? UPI got it right: "Figures show 'hype' of terror war." Other papers suggested that the statistics showed not the bogus nature of the initial arrests themselves, but rather the failure of the prosection. The San Jose Mercury News says: "Terror cases often fizzle - Study raises doubts over conviction rate," which is a strange headline, since the study didn't "raise doubts" about the conviction rate, it uncovered and publicized the conviction rate. The New York Times uses a similar "neutral" headline, without any suggestion that the conviction rate might actually suggest something about the entire "war": "Study: Terror-Related Cases Often Fizzle." The Los Angeles Times went with a very misleading headline: "Terror Sentences Brief, Study Finds," a headline which implies that these cases, including the 506 in which the "terrorists" were given no sentence at all, were in fact "terror sentences," which is ridiculous.

Headline of the Day

"A Centrist, Lieberman Fights for Votes in an Extremist Era" -- headline in the New York Times

A fort by any other name...

The Washington Post profiles the "Green Zone" in Baghdad:

"In Elzain Elzain's Baghdad, they serve peanut butter, lobster and ice cream. The cell phones have a 914 area code. The television sets show Monday Night Football. The people speak English. And the strictly enforced speed limit is 35 mph.

"'It's like I never left America,' said Elzain, an artist from the District who works as an interpreter for the U.S.-led occupation government.

"Elzain and several thousand other government workers, contractors and soldiers live and work in what is called the Green Zone. The four-square-mile area, encircled by 15-foot concrete walls and rings of barbed wire, includes Saddam Hussein's presidential palace compound, which is now the headquarters of the Coalition Provisional Authority that rules Iraq.

"Venturing from the protection of the Green Zone is not just a chore, it's a feat. Forms must be filled out explaining the reason for the outing, requesting transportation and a protective detail.

"The heart of the Green Zone is the Republican Palace, a huge horseshoe-shape building where the interim government officials, the foreign 'advisers' to the Iraqi ministries live and work."

Saddam is not coming back to power

Why do I say this? Because if Hussein returns to power, even if it happens at a time when there are no U.S. forces left in Iraq, in order to exercise power he will actually have to be someplace in Baghdad, like in one of his palaces, and as soon as he is, the United States will bomb or nuke the place to kill him. It doesn't matter if they have signed any "agreement" that they will no longer interfere in Iraqi affairs; such an agreement will be totally worthless. As far as I am concerned, this is as certain as anything can be. You can't rule a country from underground, and the U.S. simply won't tolerate Hussein leading Iraq from aboveground. It's as simple as that. Even surrounding himself 24 hours a day with small children won't stop the U.S. from dropping a bomb on him.

Of course, on the question of the "missing" WMD, Left I wrote back in August (and even before that in other forums) that the claim that the "people with knowledge of where the weapons are hidden just haven't come forward yet because of fear" founders on one not-so-simple fact - people. To summarize the argument which you can read in more detail in the August post, if the WMD program were as extensive as was alleged, then it wouldn't have been just a few key Saddam loyalists who knew about it, but hundreds or thousands of "normal" people who actually did the grunt work, and the likelihood that not one, nevertheless five or ten or a hundred, of these people would not have come forward to claim the rewards for producing real evidence (as opposed to the bogus assertions described here yesterday) is nil.

The moral values of Capitalism

"So far the most prolific purveyor of Jackson porn among our media giants is Viacom -- specifically, that conglomerate's CBS, MTV and VH1. Though CBS made a great show of yanking a Jackson entertainment special -- the official announcement deemed the show 'inappropriate'' -- it's hard to imagine how any rehash of Jackson's greatest hits could be any less appropriate than the rehash of his greatest rumored hits on children in a recent broadcast of '48 Hours Investigates.'

"The hour's anchor, Harry Smith, opened by referring to Jackson as 'a middle-aged man accused of an almost unspeakable crime' -- almost unspeakable but not quite, as it turned out. The first interview subject was a 9-year-old Neverland visitor, now 17, who was asked, 'Who decides who gets to sleep in the same bed with Michael?' and 'How many at a time?'

"'There are certain things that even people who buy everything won't buy ads in, and child abuse has got to be at the top of that list,' Jon Mandel, chief global ad buyer for MediaCom, said to Bill Carter of the New York Times when discussing CBS's cancellation of the Jackson entertainment special.

"But there was no shortage of advertisers when CBS broadcast '48 Hours Investigates' on a Saturday night at 8 -- the best time to reach children parked in front of a TV set by babysitters. J.C. Penney, Pizza Hut and RadioShack, pushing a toy tie-in for the 'Cat in the Hat' movie, were all on tap."

Quote of the Day

"With a heavy dose of fear and violence, and a lot of money for projects, I think we can convince these people that we are here to help them." -- Lt. Col. Nathan Sassaman, the battalion commander whose men oversee the village of Abu Hishma about 50 miles north of Baghdad. The villiage is encased in a razor-wire fence. Iraqi civilians line up to go in and out, filing through an American-guarded checkpoint, each carrying an identification card printed in English only. (Source)

Capitalism perverts science

• Can study participants trust that experimental treatments are chosen on merit and not because of officials' personal financial interests?
• Will scientists shade their interpretations of study results to favor their clients?
• Will officials favor their clients over other companies that seek NIH grants or collaborations?

Is the NIH trying to hide this development from the public? "Relying in part on a 1998 legal opinion, NIH officials allow more than 94 percent of the agency's top-paid employees to keep their consulting income confidential."

Scraping the bottom of the barrel

One interesting aspect of this story is how the MSNBC reporter kept referring to "weapons of mass destruction" (emphasis added). Even if these weapons really existed, how exactly does an RPG cause "mass destruction"? An RPG is designed to take out a humvee or a helicopter, not an entire town.

On a more serious note is the claim itself, which needless to say comes with no proof whatsoever. This man claims that these warheads were delivered to his unit, but by the end of the report he's claiming that he has no idea where they are and asserting that some Saddam loyalists must have taken them and buried them somewhere in the desert, and accompanying that with the convenient claim that he's sure people will come forward to lead us to them just as soon as Saddam Hussein is dead and they're no longer afraid.

As the saying goes, "Now pull the other leg."

Almost needless to say, no skepticism or even questions about the potential accuracy of this testimony were raised by the NBC reporter.

Communists in the news

"Nineteen-year-old Miss Ireland Rosanna Davison was crowned Miss World 2003 on Saturday in Communist China's first international beauty pageant, an event that would have once been branded a heretical display of western decadence."

And on an even lighter note, tomorrow night, the Comedy Central channel (home of Jon Stewart's Daily Show) presents its first award show: The Commies.

Ethnic cleansing in the Middle East

"According to UN figures, cited in Dismantling the Fortresses of Fear by Jeff Halper, former Professor of Anthropology at Ben-Gurion University, less than 600 of the 10,000 houses demolished since the occupation began in 1967 involved security suspects. The rest — 94 percent — were simply houses of ordinary people who were in Israel's way [emphasis mine]. Halper's Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions puts it simply: Israel's policy of house demolitions seeks to confine Palestinians to small enclaves, leaving most of the land free for Israeli settlement.

"In other words, this what we would call ethnic cleansing, if it were being carried out by any nation on earth other than Israel, or inflicted upon any people other than the Palestinians.

"In A prison that keeps getting smaller, Gideon Levy reminded Ha'aretz readers two weeks ago...that living alongside us is a nation in a narrow prison, which is constantly closing in on them, almost to the limits of human endurance. He describes how throughout the Oslo years, which were supposed to see the end of Occupation, Israel systematically shrunk the area in which Palestinian population could live, work and travel.

"On the subject of the Wall, Amira Hass reported last week, in an article...that got no press here in the US, that the IDF had quietly changed the status of the first 12,000 Palestinians trapped on the 'wrong' side of the Wall, i.e. between the Wall and the Green Line. Instead of being Palestinian residents of 'Judea and Samaria', they now belong to a new category of non-citizen, 'long-term residents' of the State of Israel.

"The defining feature of the category 'long-term residents' – apart from the slew of regulations to keep them effectively living in enclosures - is that they may continue their normal lives in their homes and on their land and travel to their daily jobs only if granted a special permit to do so by the Israeli military administration. Without a permit, they may be legally expelled from their own lands."

Worried about fragging, are they?

"For security reasons, only those pre-selected got into the facility during Bush's visit...For six months, Army planners coordinated and prepped for the holiday, and picked the Bob Hope Dining Facility at the Baghdad International Airport because it would allow the maximum number of soldiers to participate, he said. Other locations could accommodate 100 soldiers at most. 'Over 600 soldiers attended the event, who cheered and jumped to their feet when he entered,' Olinger said. The soldiers who dined while the president visited were selected by their chain of command, and were notified a short time before the visit."

Nostradamus Bremer

"'The Iraqi Government and the Governing Council and the transition government will express their desire that the coalition forces continue to help after July next year because the Iraqi security forces will not be ready by then,' Mr Bremer told a coalition run television channel Al-Iraqiya.

"'And I am sure that is what will happen,' he said."

Misclassifying Iraqi casualties as "non-combat"

"An influential Mississippi congressman has raised the possibility that the Pentagon has undercounted combat casualties in Iraq after he learned that five members of the Mississippi National Guard who were injured Sept. 12 by a booby trap in Iraq were denied Purple Heart medals.

"The guardsmen were wounded by an artillery shell that detonated as their convoy passed the tree in which it was hidden, but their injuries were classified as 'noncombat,' according to Rep. Gene Taylor, D-Miss. Taylor, a senior member of the House Armed Services Committee, learned of the classification when he visited the most seriously injured of the guardsmen, Spc. Carl Sampson, 35, at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington."

CNBC Inaccuracies

Then, on a lighter note, the very next item discussed the appointment (by George Bush) of James Baker as the new "Iraqi debt czar," responsible for somehow making Iraq's debt disappear. The background graphic for this piece featured two Iraqi banknotes with Saddam Hussein's picture on it, which, as most people know, is no longer the currency of Iraq.

Keep up that accurate reporting, CNBC! You're batting a thousand!

The Geneva Accord

Left I hasn't even read the accord, so I'm not in a position to say anything meaningful about it. However, the statement below, signed by a number of people whose opinions I respect greatly, like Ali Abunimah from Electronic Intifada, As'ad AbuKhalil from Angry Arab News Service, and Brian Becker from ANSWER and Workers World, among several dozen others, is certainly worth reprinting on this site to give readers their view of this "accord," a view you won't be reading about in the mainstream press. I'm reprinting the entire statement here but, for space reasons, not the list of endorsers, which is online here). The statement follows:

1. It attempts to nullify the Palestinian right of return, both as a collective national right and as an individual right. By doing so, it strengthens existing attempts to relocate and scatter Palestinian refugees throughout the world and gives credence to plans to abrogate international law pertaining to the inalienable nature of the Right of Return. The net result would be to extract the very anchor of the Palestinian struggle for self-determination: the indivisible oneness of the Palestinian people and their right to their homes, properties and homeland.
2. It provides a Palestinian-Arab cover for the exclusive nature of the Israeli polity as a "Jewish State", thus abrogating the national character of the Palestinian people within 1948 borders. It therefore fails to recognize the right of the 1.2 million Palestinian citizens of Israel to live in a democratic state for all its citizens: Jews and Palestinians, and it sets stage for mass transfer and ethnic cleansing in the future to maintain demographic Jewish dominance.
3. It accepts the reconfiguration of Jerusalem based on Israeli annexation plans, and grants Palestinian-Arab legitimacy to the colonial process that altered the Arab character of Jerusalem, making it impossible for the Palestinians to exercise control over "East Jerusalem," not to say anything about "West Jerusalem," which was conquered and ethnically cleansed in 1948.
4. It permanently accepts the presence of the vast majority of Israeli settlement colonies, particularly those that surround Jerusalem from the east, south, north and northwest, where most post-1967 settlers live, and alters the geography of Palestine to accommodate such colonial seizures.
5. It codifies a process that would limit the upper ceiling of a potential Palestinian polity to a truncated and demilitarized entity void of sovereignty, and sets in motion a process of expanding Israeli political oversight and control over any potential Palestinian entity.
6. It paves for an economic/political relationship that subordinates the Palestinian people to an exclusive and dominant Israeli polity, thus strategically de-linking the Palestinians from the Arab people and subjugating the national interests of all Arabs to the singular power of an Israeli-US alliance.
7. It allows for Israeli military and economic penetration and permanent outposts into the presumed Palestinian entity.
8. It leaves open all Israeli claims to the region's water resources, natural wealth, and airspace. The text makes several references to annexes, but these issues have, in effect, been deferred, and may become the "final status" issues of the Geneva understanding.
9. It dilutes the international consensus on the conflict and attempts to transform the basis of the Palestinian struggle from one of national self-determination and return to that of modified civil rights within a prescribed political framework.
10. Most importantly, it weakens the national unity and resolve of the Palestinian people leading to the potential defeat of the current Intifada in the same manner Madrid and Oslo destroyed the first a decade ago.
11. It diminishes European commitment to Palestinian sovereignty, and most importantly, it expands the margin of Palestinian concessions, which have been bottoming out during the past two decades, making it very difficult for future Palestinian negotiators to back away from these concessions, including the renunciation of the Right of Return.
12. It assumes the Palestinian victims of Israel are the criminals, and the new judges allegedly more liberal than previous ones in the sentencing.

Followup: Complete list of signers is now posted here.

Happy days are (not) here again!

"We certainly had a bad day," [Paul] Bremer said in an interview on ABC's This Week October 26. "And as I've stressed all along, we're going to have good days and bad days. Fortunately, the good days do outnumber the bad days."

The top U.S. administrator in Iraq, L. Paul Bremer, warned Friday that attacks against coalition forces will likely escalate over the next few months as the occupation authority prepares for a transfer of sovereignty to a new Iraqi government.

Employment statistics

What the article doesn't point out, as discussed previously by Left I on the News, is that 170,000 new jobs each month are required just to keep up with the expanding population, and, moreover, that "In February the Council of Economic Advisers projected 344,000 per month job growth starting in mid-2003 if the tax cuts were passed." According to my calendar we're well past "mid-2003," and according to my calculator, 57,000 is well short of 344,000 (one-sixth, to be nearly exact). But here in "long-term memory loss" America, we try hard not to remember things that people said as far back as February. You know, like how Iraq had a huge arsenal of weapons of mass destruction threatening the world, minor stuff like that.

Incidentally, it's worth thinking about that 57,000 for a minute. There are 50 states (yes, of course not equal in size), so that's roughly a thousand jobs per state. Take an average of 25 counties per state, that's 40 jobs per county, maybe 5-10 jobs per city. Doesn't amount to much, does it?

As a postscript to other recent posts here about how American manufacturing activity is "booming," today's news reports that manufacturing employment has now declined for 40 months in a row. Meanwhile, over on MSNBC just now, Pat Buchanan is talking about how the economy is "booming" and "soaring." Despite his talk, however, and despite the way today's news was headlined in every paper with the news of the unemployment rate dropping by a whopping 0.1%, "the markets" are taking the latest "labor news" badly. The boosterism of the media may be designed to fool the people into thinking the economy is doing well, but the people with the cash aren't as easily fooled.

The legal status of the Guantanamo prison camp

"The terms of the lease between the Cuban and U.S. governments during the U.S. military occupation at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th state that 'the United States exercises complete jurisdiction over the said areas with the right to acquire ... for the public interest of the United States any land or property through purchase or the exercise of right to possession.'

"According to that powerful country's legislation, the 'lease' grants in deed and in fact, criminal and civil jurisdiction over all people located there to the United States. On its official web site, the U.S. Navy describes Guantanamo as a 'naval reserve, which for all objective practices, is U.S. territory. The United States has exercised the essential elements of sovereignty over this territory for more than 100 years.'

"The British lawyers who presented the habeas corpus at that moment felt frustrated and humiliated. But none of the governments affected uttered a single word about that judicial travesty, not one has felt consternation over the disparaging way in which they have been treated. Freedom, democracy and human rights are an issue when it's convenient for them."

Israel's role in the invasion of Iraq

"Israel was a 'full partner' in U.S. and British intelligence failures that exaggerated former president Saddam Hussein's nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs before the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, a report by an Israeli military research center has charged.

"'The failures of this war indicate weaknesses and inherent flaws within Israeli intelligence and among Israeli decision-makers,'" Brig. Gen. Shlomo Brom wrote in an analysis for Tel Aviv University's Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies.

"Israeli intelligence services and political leaders provided 'an exaggerated assessment of Iraqi capabilities,' raising 'the possibility that the intelligence picture was manipulated,' wrote Brom, former deputy commander of the Israeli military's planning division."

Real "must-see" TV

Iraqi prisoners and American "justice"

"CPT workers have also heard additional testimonies corroborating the existence of a US-perpetrated mass grave at the airport prison camp [which this particular detainee describes in his testimony]"

More economic statistics

Today we get the Labor Department issuing a similar press release featured in numerous papers like the San Jose Mercury News. From my reading of this article, it's more of the same, a mix of innumeracy with boosterism to produce a fundamentally misleading impression.

News reports claim that "productivity surged to a 20-year high," but, curiously enough, any actual data about "productivity" (output per hour), or actual data about actual output, are noticeably lacking from the article. What the data quoted in the article say is that "productivity rose at an annual rate of 9.4 percent" in the third quarter, "the best since the second quarter of 1983." In other words, the rate of increase of productivity was at a 20-year high, not productivity itself (that may be true, but, as I said, there is absolutely no evidence presented that it is). This is like having your car in the shop for a month, taking it out on the highway, and claiming that the "rate of change of speed" of your car compared to last month (which would be infinite in this case) was "the highest it's ever been." Maybe so, but that wouldn't mean that your speed was the highest it's ever been.

The online version doesn't include this statement, but the subhead to the print edition of the Mercury News repeats the error discussed a few days ago, asserting that "output in the third quarter registered a 20-year high." Again, it's possible that that is true, but there is absolutely no data in the article to suggest it is. There are four graphs of actual data accompanying the article. One shows the "percent change in productivity from the previous quarter" (again, not productivity itself). The other three show the jobless rate climbing from 4.2% in March 2001 to 6% today, the number of jobs declining by 2.7 million over the same period, and the number of manufacturing jobs declining by 2.4 million. Not exactly encouraging economic news.

There are some interesting quotes in the article regarding the origin of these "productivity" gains.

"More economists are starting to think businesses have scored large productivity gains the old-fashioned way: Paring down their workforce, sending some jobs overseas and driving the remaining employees to work harder.

"Robert Brenner, UCLA professor and author of 'The Boom and The Bubble' on the 1990s economy, thinks the less-productive workers are laid off and remaining workers required to work extra without pay.

"Some [economists] are also wondering if the productivity gains reflect the amount of work now done overseas rather than in the United States. If jobs sent overseas are less productive than those left in the United States, the average productivity within the United States would appear to rise."

Left I on the Right

At one point, Hannity talked about how "this country was attacked on Sept. 11" and painted the invasion of Iraq as a response to that (never mentioning, of course, the totally discredited official justification of weapons of mass destruction). When Jon Stewart questioned him about that, he asked Stewart what he thinks, and after some hesitation, Stewart replied that he didn't "believe that [the invasion of] Iraq was a bulwark in the war on terrorism, it seems like a distraction." Hannity's reply? "We have now found close to 300 mass graves where thousands of bodies are being pulled out of there." When faced with a question you don't want to answer because it may hurt your case - change the subject! (Incidentally, for Left I's analysis of the "mass grave" question, read this.)

The price of an Iraqi life

Stuff you can't make up

Iraqi census officials devised a detailed plan to count the country's entire population next summer and prepare a voter roll that would open the way to national elections in September. But American officials say they rejected the idea, and the Iraqi Governing Council members say they never saw the plan to consider it.

The practicality of national elections is now the subject of intense debate among Iraqi and American officials, who are trying to move forward on a plan to give Iraqis sovereignty next summer. As the American occupation officials rejected the plan to compile a voter roll rapidly, they also argued to the Governing Council that the lack of a voter roll meant national elections were impractical." [Emphasis added]

And what is this complicated census plan that it even has to wait until next June?

As it had in the past, the bureau would use 400,000 school teachers to visit every household in Iraq on one day, June 30, said Ms. Yousef, the census director. The plan would cost $75 million, Mr. Hagi said, in part to buy 2,500 computers.

Revisiting the wall

Then, Shapiro talked about what is happening in the areas where the wall has already been built separating some Palestinians from their own farmland:

"We have reports that farmers who have produced the documents issued by the Israeli military telling them that if they wish to get to the land on the other side of the wall, they need to apply for a permit to enter 'Israel.' So already, in just naming the area confiscated by this wall, it is no longer considered Palestinian land by the Israeli government, but 'Israel.'"

Tariq Aziz and friends watch

Today on Democracy Now! comes word that Aziz's British lawyer Abdul Haq Al-Ani (Iraqi by birth, but living and practicing law in Britain for years) has just been arrested in Britain for violating the Iraq sanctions! A clue to why he was arrested:

He has been an active opponent of the invasion and occupation of Iraq and was a vigorous campaigner against the more than decade of economic sanctions against Iraq. Shortly after the occupation began, Al-Ani traveled to Iraq to investigate US and British war crimes. Two weeks ago, shortly before his arrest, Al-Ani along with a number of other British lawyers had recently handed a petition to Scotland Yard asking the police to investigate war crimes allegedly committed by Prime Minister Tony Blair and members of the cabinet.

Quote of the Day

" This isn't 'the fog of war' – it's more like the self-protective effusions of a cornered squid."

"8-12 civilians killed seems a lot less nasty if they were scattered among 54 hard nosed, Baathist-remnant type terrorists. Whereas after all that shooting if all the troops did was kill a bunch of civilians, including women and children, then that looks kinda bad, doesn't it?"

Satire and irony

Fox quotes extensively from Marine Maj. Rich Doherty, "who has a Ph.D. from Berkeley, fought in Iraq and worked alongside several embedded journalists." Major Doherty has his own problems with reality, as you can judge from his opinion of the play: "It was spun to make it look like that leadership started this war simply for its own political agenda … and that can't be further from the truth." He complements that fantasy with this one, replete with irony: "That demeans the Marines that were killed in my battalion, (to say they) died because five guys in a room thought it was fun to go create a war," Doherty said. "That is bad, bad theater, bad taste." Really? In worse taste than actually sending 400+ soldiers off to their deaths looking for phantom weapons of mass destruction, and killing thousands of innocent Iraqis in the process? [Hopefully it goes without saying to everyone except Major Doherty, and I'm sure that includes Tim Robbins, that this war wasn't started for "fun," but for deadly serious reasons]

Thanks and a hat tip to Atrios for spotting this story.

Gems from the Daily Show

The show started with an almost serious piece featuring Condoleezza Rice, highlighting a quote from her regarding the trip I hadn't heard anywhere else, explaining the reason for the intense secrecy surrounding the trip:

"Obviously, Iraq is still a dangerous place, and that's no secret to anyone. There are foreign terrorists in the country."

Then she continues:

"The President made very clear that he wanted to know that this could be done safely, both for his own security and that of the travelling party, but also very importantly for people on the ground. He didn't want to bring any unnecessary risk to people on the ground."

Later in the show, Stephen Colbert pretended he had been a reporter accompanying Bush to Iraq, and neatly skewered the press:

"My colleagues and I were incredibly impressed by how well we were misled. And this was for a good cause! Just imagine if they were doing something they were ashamed of. We'd never find out! This just proves that we journalists shouldn't even try...which we don't."

"This visit was an extremely well-coordinated operation, and the Bush team has learned a lot from the success of this mission that they can now apply to the rest of their work in Iraq. For instance, when it comes to planning...do some. And lesson two of the Thanksgiving trip - when it comes to an exit strategy...have one."

The race to the bottom

New poll!

• California - 34
• US, West (except CA) - 20
• US, Mountain - 7
• US, Central - 22
• US, Northeast - 40
• US, Southeast - 14
• Canada - 24
• Europe - 16
• World (other) - 9

In the meantime, a new poll, designed for Left I readers to help steer other Left I readers to their favorite alternative sources of news on the web. Again, I apologize for the limited choices, I really could have used 15 or 20 choices to fully span the range, but 10 was the limit.

The pot and the kettle

Sir Jeremy Greenstock [echoing claims of the U.S. administration and military - Left I], Britain's chief representative in Iraq, warned that insurgents are now turning to softer targets.

In Baghdad, workers on Tuesday began dismantling four giant bronze busts of Saddam Hussein that have long been a landmark in the Iraqi capital.

The workers used a construction crane to take down the busts in the Republican Palace, in yet another move aimed at eradicating the former leader's influence. The U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority announced last month that it would dismantle the 13-foot- high busts. It was not clear how long the operation would last.

In the same article, we learn about the story [widely reported, but since denied by the U.S. military] that Izzat al-Douri had been "killed or captured." Now how reliable would you suppose that your "sources" are who tell you something like this? There's (generally, anyway) a big difference between "killed" and "captured," and anyone with actual knowledge of the situation would almost certainly know which it was. So if someone tells you that al-Douri has been "killed or captured," surely it's obvious this is a mere rumor, not actual news. Well, obvious to me, but evidently not to the media.

Economic statistics

Manufacturing at Highest Level in Two Decades
American manufacturing activity rose to its highest level in nearly 20 years last month as factories raced to keep up with demand and indicated a readiness to expand their work forces for the first time in three years, according to a survey published on Monday.

Don't bet on it. Since the media accounts tell us little beyond the "spin," we have to go to the original source, the "Institute for Supply Management" (whoever they might be; I've certainly never heard of them before this). When you go there, you'll find the ISM talking about something called the "PMI" with a whole bunch of impenetrable gobbledygook. They never even say what "PMI" stands for! (I can guess the "MI" stands for "Manufacturing Index", but the "P" is a mystery) In any case, to back up claims that "manufacturing activity rose to its highest level in nearly 20 year," wouldn't you expect to see actual data describing the production of steel, autos, computers, or something? If so, you'll be sorely disappointed, because if that kind of data is present in the ISM report, I sure couldn't find it. The report does claim that 18 out of 20 manufacturing sectors are "growing," but there isn't any indication that their actual output is larger than it has been in the last 20 years or even the last 2 years. Just how fuzzy this "PMI" index is is indicated by this statement from the report: "A PMI in excess of 42.9 percent, over a period of time, generally indicates an expansion of the overall economy." Could there be a stranger sentence? (OK, I guess there could) How on earth does one define an index where "42.9" is the pivot point? And the statement that, "over a period of time," it "generally" indicates an expansion, certainly doesn't give one any confidence that this index is any kind of reliable indicator of actual activity.

The summary of the report provided by the ISM is telling:

"The manufacturing sector enjoyed its best month since December 1983. The big improvement is in Employment as the index rose above 50 percent, indicating growth, following 37 consecutive months of decline. The momentum is coming from continued strength in New Orders and Production as the indexes are presently at very lofty levels."

I'm no economist, but as far as I can tell, the claim that "American manufacturing activity rose to its highest level in nearly 20 years last month" is complete nonsense. But that doesn't stop the media from touting it as gospel.

Something you didn't know about Michael Jackson

But the fact, which is virtually unknown, is that Michael Jackson suffers from a relatively rare skin disease called "vitiligo," which causes dark skin to lighten:

In the February 10, 1993 interview with Oprah Winfrey, MJ revealed that his skin had turned from brown to white because of a pigment-destroying skin disorder that runs on his father's side of the family. The following Friday, as reported by AP, his dermatologist, Dr. Arnold Klein, confirmed that he had diagnosed MJ with vitiligo in 1986. Joseph, Katherine, and Randy Jackson appeared on the US TV program "Day One" about a month after the Oprah interview to reveal that they had known for many years that Michael had vitiligo but had been sworn to secrecy. Janet Jackson told Ebony, MTV, Q, Bravo, and Star Club that she too had known but had complied with MJ's request to remain silent. She added that it always hurt to listen to claims that Michael was artificially lightening his skin because she knew the truth but could not defend him without violating his privacy.

When the news isn't dramatic enough...make it up

Now comes Part II, this time featuring George Bush and his "daring" trip to Baghdad (Airport). It was widely reported about how, during the flight, "the presidential plane came within eyesight of a British Airways flight," but, when asked by radio contact if this were Air Force One, the captain replied with an obvious lie - "Gulfstream 5" - and the British Airways pilot proceeded on, presumably knowing the secret. Reports in the media tell us that: "The exchange was one of the most suspenseful moments during Bush's secret flight to Baghdad, according to the White House."

Now there are at least two funny things about this story. First, in the same articles, it was also widely reported that George Bush said "I was fully prepared to turn this plane around" [if word of the trip leaked while they were in flight]. Well, OK, but if the British Airways story were true, then word of the trip had leaked, but Bush didn't keep his word and "turn the plane around." Nothing new in Bush not keeping his word, but no one in the media seems to have noticed this obvious contradiction. Well, I guess there's nothing new in that either.

Reuters, however, has now reported that it wasn't a contradiction at all, because the encounter with the British Airways plane never happened:

Honor Verrier, a spokeswoman for British Airways in North America, said two BA aircraft were in the area at the time and neither radioed the president's plane to ask if it was Air Force One.

"We have spoken to the British Airways captains who were in the area at the time and neither made comments to Air Force One nor did they hear any other aircraft make the statement over the radio," Verrier said in response to a question from Reuters.

The White House had no immediate comment on the discrepancy.

Vanishing bodies

Moral: never, ever, believe what the U.S. government has to say. Unless corroborated by an independent source of information, their words are quite literally worthless.

But now, in a feat worthy of David Copperfield - the dead and captured have vanished before our very eyes. We now learn via AFP that "A top US military commander acknowledged...that the Samarra death toll was based entirely on estimates gleaned from troop debriefings and that US forces had not recovered a single body from the scene of Sunday's clashes," and that only one (!) Iraqi had been captured, not 11:

Kimmitt acknowledged that the one insurgent now confirmed in custody was a sharp reduction on the 11 claimed captured by the commanding colonel in Samarra earlier in the day.

"Some of those early reports might have been a bit off," he said.

Of course the military has an explanation for all this:

Challenged about what happened to the bodies of the 54 militants said to have been killed, Kimmitt said: "I would suspect that the enemy would have carried them away and brought them back to where their initial base was."

So far this revised information has not made it into the "rotation" at CNN Headline News or the other news channels. The "success" of killing 54 Iraqis has to be allowed to sink in to Americans' psyches before the briefest "oops" will be uttered.

By their friends ye shall know them

And what relevance does that have to the Spanish government of today? Jose Maria Aznar, the President of Spain, is the leader of the Spanish "People's Party," a party which was "founded by a former Franco minister, Manuel Fraga," who "still bears the title of 'founding president' and currently heads a regional government in Galicia." It is the party which "has blocked several attempts in recent years for parliament to explicitly condemn the 1936 military rebellion, led by Franco and other generals, that ushered in nearly 40 years of totalitarian rule." And, continuing to this very day, it is the party which refuses "to take part in a homage in parliament today to the victims of General Francisco Franco."

Could there be a more appropriate "pillar" to help prop up George Bush?

There's "Left" and then there's left

"While individuals on those networks [CNN, ABC, etc.] may occasionally express views that are left of center, on balance we find those organizations to be pretty centrist. Our task is more than to be left leaning — with the exception of Al [Franken], who wants to call his show 'The Liberal Show.' Our task is to be funny and entertaining, a no-sacred-cows sort of thing."