Left I on the News  

This terrorism thing has gone way too far

"Bush Planning August Attack Against Kerry"

On a more serious, media criticism note, is that supposed to be as opposed to the July attack against Kerry, or the June attack against Kerry, etc.? Are we supposed to conclude that the campaign to this point has been a love-fest, where never was heard, a discouraging word? I guess all those negative ads the Bush campaign has been running for the last three months at least (and showing here in the Bay Area, of all places, where Bush doesn't have a prayer; God only knows what's happening in other parts of the country where there's actually a close contest) were all in my imagination.

Political humor of the day

"I think it's time we had a Skipper in charge, instead of a Gilligan."

- Random person in the crowd at a Kerry rally, interviewed on ABC News

On the subject of Bush not doing actual work (but not admitting that publicly, of course), what is wrong with this picture? Right now there are "urgent" warnings about an imminent Al Qaeda strike in New York City. We've been told before that a strike in the next few months is practically inevitable. There are recommendations of the 9/11 Commission which the commission is urging be acted on "urgently" before it's too late. George Bush (and the media, of course) tells us repeatedly that fighting terrorism is the most important thing we can be doing. So, in the midst of all this, how is George Bush spending the month of August? We're told he'll be on the road virtually every day, campaigning. Well, I'm glad to see he's taking this terrorism thing seriously, kind of like the way he took it back in August, 2001. As I said, I know he doesn't actually do any of the real work, but shouldn't he at least be pretending to be on the job? Apparently not.

Electoral success for the antiwar movement

"The Anti-War Respect Coalition was yesterday celebrating an electoral breakthrough in the East End of London after winning its first council seat.

"Respect, founded by the former Labour MP George Galloway six months ago, is now planning a concerted effort to pick up parliamentary seats in the East End in the election.

"It won its first councillor when Oliur Rahman, 23, captured a seat on Tower Hamlets council in a by-election on Thursday night, with Labour falling from first to third place."

Marines go to "extraordinary lengths" to avoid hurting civilians

"Fighting between insurgents and American-led forces in the volatile city of Fallujah has killed 20 militants, the military said Saturday.

"A Fallujah hospital official, Dr. Salim Ibrahim, had said Friday that clashes, which had been reported on earlier, killed 13 Iraqis and wounded 14 others.

"Many of those wounded, including at least one child, appeared to be civilians injured in U.S. airstrikes, he said, adding that he could not give an exact count of the dead, because many bodies had been torn apart in the bombings.

"'Our forces go to extraordinary lengths to minimize the impact of military action upon civilians,' Marines spokesman Lt. Col. T.V. Johnson told The Associated Press."

"Iraqi insurgents started the fighting Thursday by ambushing a patrol with gunfire, mortars and rocket propelled grenades before fleeing into buildings in the city, the military said.

"The Marines responded with tank and artillery fire at the mortar positions, several hundred yards away, the military said. Iraqi insurgents fled into buildings, which the Marines targeted with airstrikes and artillery, the military said."

Open government in California

As further evidence of that "sea change" that is coming, the Los Angeles Times reports about the process which produced these proposals:

"Some of California's most influential business interests — including Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard and EDS — were given easy access to a state commission as it met privately to recommend sweeping government changes, according to disclosure reports and interviews.

"Public interest groups, in contrast, complained Friday that they were largely excluded from the five-month study, ordered by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger."

All Kerry all the time

But who was one of the first people Kerry spoke to after getting the nomination? None other than Ariel Sharon:

"Democratic presidential candidate Senator John Kerry on Friday assured Prime Minister Ariel Sharon of his commitment to Israel's security, aides to Kerry said.

"During their conversation, Kerry informed Sharon that he has no argument with President George W. Bush's support for Sharon's rejection of a Palestinian right of return to Israeli territory."

Well, since this has evolved into an election piece, I might as well add some media criticism. The San Jose Mercury News today has two companion pieces, one about the Bush campaign appearance, the other about the Kerry campaign. Above the two is a joint headline: "Candidates hit the trail, come out swinging." The implication is that both candidates were attacking each other. But the articles say nothing of the sort. The Bush article talks about his attack on Kerry (claims that he has "few signature achievements" and "cannot be trusted"). But the Kerry article is all about his plan to (not) withdraw from Iraq, and has nothing whatsoever to do with Bush. So the impression left by the headline that both candidates were using "negative campaigning" yesterday is simply unsupported by the articles.

Kerry hoist with his own petard

"As a returning Vietnam War veteran who became a prominent peace activist, Kerry posed a rhetorical question before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in 1971: 'How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?'

"Asked Friday if he would face that question about the Iraq war as president, Kerry said: 'I never said it was a mistake now. What I said is the way the president chose to go to war was a mistake.'

"Seated aboard his campaign bus in a captain's chair, Kerry said he didn't consider the war in Iraq a mistake, but that President Bush had misled Americans and the world by waging the war hastily and not 'as a last resort.'"

Hoist with his own petard. Although in this case, while he's the one figuratively being hoist with his own petard ("blown up with his own bomb"), four years from now there will most likely be several thousand more Americans, Iraqis, and others who have been literally hoist, if not with their own petard, by someone else's petard. And while that expression might sound quaint or humorous, I doubt their families will find anything quaint or humorous in their deaths.

Ridiculous headline of the day

"Analysis: Kerry got a bounce, but it's a fleeting one"

But in fact, it's worse than that. Because the actual story doesn't say anything of the kind; indeed, it has no poll results at all! Instead, we have on the one hand "Independent analysts largely predicted some bounce" (that's the support for the first half of the headline, presumably) and on the other hand "Republicans are hoping that any bounce Kerry does receive will evaporate in coming weeks" which is presumably the justification for the second part of the headline. So "analysts' predictions" of a bounce are turned into "a bounce" and "Republican hopes" of a short-lived bounce are turned into "a fleeting bounce." Truly amazing.

Howard Kurtz, inventing history

Of course, since he was supposed to be doing "media analysis," which is his specialty, and not critiquing the convention itself, he might have noted that, other than C-SPAN, no one was showing Sharpton's speech anyway. CNN apparently did show a bit of it, but, as featured on last night's Daily Show, cut away from the speech to feature an all-important interview with...actor Steve Buscemi? (echoing their cutting away from Dennis Kucinich's speech to interview Lewis Black).

Watching television was actually very interesting last night. Within a few minutes I listened to Jay Leno having a substantive conversation with Michael Moore, heard actress Natalie Portman talk about how she's sure George Bush would appreciate a permanent vacation since he takes so many anyway, and then heard Joan Rivers tell Graham Norton that choosing between Bush and Kerry is like trying to decide who is your favorite Menendez brother. 'Tis the season!

Faith

"The desire to replace religious with rational explanations of life was a principal motivation of Dr. Crick's career."

If you read an abbreviated version of this article, as I did in the San Jose Mercury News, be sure to click the link above and read the full story in the Times. The abbreviated version I read was horribly butchered, leaving the reader with the impression that the DNA structure has bases pointing outwards, with the helix held together by metal ions in the middle (an early theory). Well, I guess if any of this made any sense to you anyway, you would already know the right answer. But you should still read the full story if you're interested in the subject at all.

Bush-bashing Quote of the Day

"We have an adversary powerful in technology and armaments, but a total orphan in terms of ideas."

- Fidel Castro, speaking in the Cuban National Assembly

Quote of the Day

"I don't want to claim that God is on our side. As Abraham Lincoln told us, I want to pray humbly that we are on God's side."

- John Kerry, speaking at the Democratic convention

"He told us tonight about some poor bastard in Ohio whose job evaporated when his company unbolted the equipment and sent it south. Hey, Johnnie, didn't you vote for NAFTA?

"We applauded when he said the White House should stop treating teachers and school kids like fugitives from justice and help them out. But, Johnnie, didn't you vote for George Bush's 'No Child's Behind Left' assault on public education?

"Then there was that little story meant to show us all he is a Man for All Seasons, above party politics. 'I broke with many in my own party,' he said, 'to vote for a balanced budget, because I thought it was the right thing to do.' No, John, it wasn't. It was craven political cowardice, going with the anti-government hysteria that put a knife into the heart of the programs you cried over tonight.

"He told us the sad story of the poor homeless guy huddled in front of the White House. Is this the same John Kerry that voted for Clinton's welfare 'reform'? That put a five-year limit on food stamps, making child starvation the law of the USA. At least Ronald Reagan offered ketchup as a vegetable.

"Kerry made good use of the cash he saved on feeding the poor. 'I fought to put a 100,000 cops on the street.' Hey, thanks, John.

"But my absolute favorite of the night was when Kerry told us, 'Saying there are weapons of mass destruction in Iraq doesn't make it so. As President, I will ask hard questions and demand hard evidence.'

"But, as Senator, you didn't. No questions asked: you just closed your eyes and voted for the lie. I know it, and you sure as hell know it."

And, of course, the final irony of all. The last line of Kerry's speech? The obligatory "God bless America."

Followup: BIllmon highlights one of the other moments of double-talk in the Kerry speech:

Kerry: "As president, I will bring back this nation's time-honored tradition: The United States of America never goes to war because we want to; we only go to war because we have to. That is the standard of our nation."

Billmon: If you know anything about American history, you know it's more a made-up tradition than a time-honored one (the War of 1812, the Mexican-American War, the Spanish-American War, World War I and the Vietnam War were all wars of choice, as was Gulf War I, for that matter.)

The Daily Show rocks

But even better was the following segment, in which Stewart absolutely ripped apart various members of the media for their treatment (or mistreatment) of Al Sharpton's speech, featuring offensive comments by Chris Matthews, Howard Fineman, Doris Kearns Goodwin, and many others. Cutting from clips of Brian Williams trivializing Sharpton's speech, to Sharpton remembering Schwerner, Chaney, Goodman, and other martyrs of the civil rights movement, or from Howard Fineman talking about how Sharpton had probably hurt Kerry with the Black community, to Black delegates responding to Sharpton with tremendous enthusiasm, Stewart was able to depict with devastating clarity the media for the fools that they are. Huzzahs and kudos to Stewart.

Freudian slip?

"We will double our special forces, to conduct terrorist operations...anti-terrorist operations."

- John Kerry, speaking to the Democratic Convention

What war is all about

One story from the article:

"Christmas Eve, 1968, finds Kerry leading a patrol up a canal along the Cambodian border. The Christmas ceasefire has just come into effect. So what the boat was doing there is a question in and of itself. They spot two sampans and chase them to a small fishing village. The boat takes some sniper fire, (or at least Kerry says it did). Kerry orders his machine-gunner, James Wasser, to open up a barrage. At last a note of contrition, but not from Kerry. Wasser describes to Brinkley how he saw that he'd killed an old man leading a water buffalo. 'I'm haunted by that old man's face. He was just doing his daily farming, hurting nobody. He got hit in the chest with an M-60 machinegun round. It may have been Christmas Eve, but I was real somber after that... to see the old man blown away sticks with you.' It turned out that Kerry's boat had shot up one of the few 'friendly' villages, with a garrison of South Vietnamese ARV soldiers, two of whom were wounded."

"A few weeks after the incident on the Cambodian border Kerry's boat was heading up the Cua Lon river toward Square bay, when one of the crew yelled 'sampan off port bow'. Kerry ordered the machineguns to fire on the fishing boat. The sampan stopped and Kerry and his crew boarded it. They found a woman holding an infant, and near her the body of her young child riddled with machine gun bullets, lying face down among bags of rice. Kerry tells Brinkley he refused to look at the dead child, saying, 'the face would stay with me for the rest of my life and it was better not to know whether it was a smile or grimace or whether it was a girl or boy'. Kerry's preferred mode is the usual one. 'Our orders', he tells Brinkley a few pages later, 'were to destroy all the hooches and sampans we could find.' "

Good, non-"pack" journalism does exist

"Umm Muhammad's green eyes flashed one day last week as she listened to the imam at a rundown Baghdad mosque preach about how women should be silent and unseen, traveling only 'from the home to the grave.'

"She knew the edict didn't apply to her; the same imam had blessed her before battle when she became one of the first female commanders in rebel cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army militia."

The media joins the Democrats in stifling even mainstream "dissent"

"The convention delegates proceeded through the traditional roll call of states to nominate Kerry. In the end, Kerry won the votes of 4,254 delegates, with 43 dissents."

John Edwards on Palestine

"A new president will bring the world to our side, and with it—a stable Iraq and a real chance for peace and freedom in the Middle East, including a safe and secure Israel."

Through the looking glass headline of the day

"Israel's Sharon Ties Disarming WMDs to Mideast Peace"

"Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said Thursday Israel would only reconsider the need for its 'deterrent capability' when there is peace across the Middle East and its neighbors abandon weapons of mass destruction."

There is no evidence (and no likelihood) that any other Middle Eastern country has a single nuclear weapon (the only real weapon of "mass" destruction), while Israel has more than a hundred by most estimates.

Quote of the Day

"We have found no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. I was mayor of Cleveland, and I tell you I have seen weapons of mass destruction—in our cities. Poverty is a weapon of mass destruction. Joblessness is a weapon of mass destruction, homelessness is a weapon of mass destruction, racism is a weapon of mass destruction, fear is a weapon of mass destruction. We must disarm these weapons—and re-arm ourselves with quality public schools and dedicated teachers, good housing and quality health care, decent jobs and stronger neighborhoods."

- Dennis Kucinich, speaking at the Democratic convention

"So let us blaze a new path with John Kerry and John Edwards. This convention will lead us toward the victory not just of a party, but the victory of the American people over fear, a victory of hope over despair, of faith over cynicism. A victory for health care, for civil liberties, for workers’ rights, for human rights, for the environment, for peace."

Not that it matters what Kucinich had to say. C-SPAN did broadcast his talk, but CNN thought it was more important for us to listen to Anderson Cooper interviewing comedian Lewis Black, a view shared by all the other cable channels, all of whom felt that the viewers would rather listen to their pontificating talking heads instead of to the speaker (not that this was a particular slight on Kucinich - Al Sharpton, Gen. Shalikashvili, and essentially every other speaker other than John Edwards was equally ignored). Actually, it was very reminiscent of the TV coverage of demonstrations, where invariably, instead of letting viewers hear what the speakers have to say (people who were actually chosen both for their knowledge and eloquence), instead they think we are more interested in the views of a random participant in the march or, even worse, in one of their reporter's typically misleading explanations of what the demonstration was all about.

Back to Kucinich's speech, I wonder if he realizes how close he came to a speech that Fidel Castro has been delivering since 1979:

"Enough of the illusion that the problems of the world can be solved by nuclear weapons. Bombs may kill the hungry, the sick, and the ignorant, but they cannot kill hunger, disease, and ignorance. Nor can they kill the righteous rebellion of the peoples.

"Let us say farewell to arms, and let us in a civilized manner dedicate ourselves to the most pressing problems of our times. This is the responsibility and the most sacred duty all the world's statesmen. This, moreover, is the basic premise for human survival."

The Voice of America

Kerry - gullible or culpable?

"During a visit to Washington in April 2000, when I lobbied senators and representatives for a full review of American policy regarding Iraq, I spoke with John Kerry about what I held to be the hyped-up intelligence regarding the threat posed by Iraq's WMD. 'Put it in writing,' Kerry told me, 'and send it to me so I can review what you're saying in detail.'

"I did just that, penning a comprehensive article for Arms Control Today, the journal of the Arms Control Association, on the 'Case for the Qualitative Disarmament of Iraq.' This article, published in June 2000, provided a detailed breakdown of Iraq's WMD capability and made a comprehensive case that Iraq did not pose an imminent threat. I asked the Arms Control Association to send several copies to Sen. Kerry's office but, just to make sure, I sent him one myself. I never heard back from the senator.

"Two years later, in the buildup toward war that took place in the summer of 2002, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, on which Kerry sits, convened a hearing on Iraq. At that hearing a parade of witnesses appeared, testifying to the existence of WMD in Iraq. Featured prominently was Khidir Hamza, the self-proclaimed 'bombmaker to Saddam,' who gave stirring first-hand testimony to the existence of not only nuclear weapons capability, but also chemical and biological weapons as well. Every word of Hamza's testimony has since been proved false. Despite receiving thousands of phone calls, letters and e-mails demanding that dissenting expert opinion, including my own, be aired at the hearing, Sen. Kerry apparently did nothing, allowing a sham hearing to conclude with the finding that there was 'no doubt' Saddam Hussein had WMD."

"Competent but clever"

"'The accused [Former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic ] ... has elected to represent himself, but has done so competently but cleverly, in that he has attempted to 'hijack' the trial to his agenda while stopping just short of obstructionism,' prosecutors said in the submission to judges on Wednesday.

"The prosecutors accused Milosevic, who is defending himself, of making political rather than legal points." (Source)

Fahrenheit fever spreads south

"Michael Moore's controversial documentary Fahrenheit 9/11, in which the US moviemaker delivers a critical image of President George W. Bush, will open in Cuba on Thursday.

"Many Cubans are tingling with anticipation at the screening of the film, having heard much about it since its US release, and the refusal by movie moguls at Disney to distribute it nationwide.

"The film will open simultaneously at Havana's Cuba Cinematheque, to be followed tomorrow by shows in 120 movie theaters throughout the country." (Source)

Free speech at the Democratic convention

"And that is why as president my husband will not fear disagreement or dissent. He believes that our voices -- yours and mine -- must be the voices of freedom. And if we do not speak, neither does she.

"In America the true patriots are those who dare speak truth through power."

To the best of my knowledge, this Teresa Heinz Kerry-related event, just slightly more important than her telling a reporter to "shove it!", has not been covered by a single media outlet other than Pacifica radio (the "shove it!" remark, by contrast, gets 6300+ hits on Google).

Did your pay go up 22% last year?

"The CEO's at the nation's largest companies saw their raises more than doubled in 2003 as the median raise handed out by S&P 500 companies to their top executives was 22.18 percent, according to a study by The Corporate Library."

The right of return

"He was born in the summer of his twenty-seventh year
Coming home to a place he'd never been before."

- John Denver, Rocky Mountain High

"A plane carrying 200 French Jewish immigrants has landed at Tel Aviv airport in Israel, amid diplomatic tensions between Israel and France. There to greet them was Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

"Around 2,000 French Jews make this journey every year."

The New York Times spins for Cheney and the war

"This is an enemy, as the 9/11 commission reported last week, whose purpose 'is to rid the world of religious and political pluralism'. This is not a foe we can reason with, or negotiate with, or appease. This is, to put it simply, an enemy that we must vanquish. And we will vanquish this enemy."

Delusional Democrats

Moore, speaking today, talked about a conversation he had with Ralph Nader before Nader decided to run. He recounted how he had told Nader that there was no reason for him to run because "he [Nader] had done his job in 2000" and pushed the Democrats in the right (meaning left) direction and that "the Democrats of 2004 aren't the Democrats of 2000." As proof he offered the presence in the Democratic race of Howard Dean and Dennis Kucinich. He seems to have failed to note that Howard Dean was crushed early by the party establishment, and Dennis Kucinich made such a difference in the party that he couldn't even get a debate in the platform committee about the war, much less an actual plank in the platform denouncing the war.

I understand the "lesser evil" argument, even though I don't agree with it. But if you take that stance toward the election, please - don't delude yourself into thinking you'll be getting something that exists only in your own imagination.

As a side note, let me say this about Al Franken - what a blowhard. At yesterday's panel discussion, there were 8 or 10 panelists, and there was an hour and a half of time. Responding to the very first question, about how the legacy of Paul Wellstone could be carried forth in the Democratic Party, Franken proceeded to talk for at least five full minutes, if not more, rambling on with anecdotes about Wellstone, etc. While the other panelists gave straightforward answers to the questions that were posed, Franken repeatedly gave long-winded, off-topic answers, as if the world was hanging on his every word. Hey Al! They're not. And they accuse Ralph Nader of being "ego-driven."

Followup: Here is the text of that speech by Michael Moore, in which you can read, among other things, how Moore excuses Kerry's vote on the invasion of Iraq because Kerry "believed" George Bush just like "70-80% of our fellow Americans did." Vote for Kerry! He's as gullible as the next guy! (Unless the next guy is Ted Kennedy, or Dennis Kucinich, or a host of others in Congress, not to mention millions of Americans and people around the world.) The fact that Kerry believed, and still believes, that the United States had the right to invade Iraq even if the allegations against it were true doesn't seem to bother Moore, which presumably means that when Kerry decides to invade Iran, or North Korea, both of whom may well have nuclear weapons (or be on the way to having them), Moore will have no objections.

If a tree falls in the forest...

First of all, to put everyone on the same page, here's the text of the first Amendment to the U.S. Constitution:

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

Don't be thrown off by the phrase "free speech." It's the freedom to be heard we must fight to preserve.

Quote of the day

"We shouldn't apologize because great countries don't have to do that."

- Madeleine Albright, speaking to Al Franken on his radio show, referring (this time) not the death of half a million Iraqi children from the U.S.-enforced sanctions but rather about the "mistakes" that were made in invading Iraq, not treating our "allies" with more respect, etc.

War criminal Albright, by the way, is the lead-off speaker on the final night of the convention, starting the introduction process for Kerry.

Israel? Palestine? Never heard of them.

"In a new study of media coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, a group of American college students was asked, 'Who is occupying the occupied territories, and what nationality are the settlers?' Fairly simple questions, but only 29 percent knew the correct answers. The Israelis are both the occupiers and the settlers.

"The study points out that the Americans questioned were journalism and media students and some had even done projects on the Israeli-Palestinian issue. So their answers clearly overstated the public’s level of knowledge about the Middle East."

"The [study] point[s] to the way Israeli and Palestinian combatants are labelled in television reports. Palestinians are 'activists,' 'militants,' 'extremists,' 'assailants,' 'gunmen,' 'bombers,' 'terrorists,' 'killers,' 'assassins,' 'fundamentalist groups,' 'attackers,' 'self-styled Palestinian martyrs' and 'fanatics.'

"Israelis are 'soldiers' or 'troops,' and even when an Israeli group tried to bomb a Palestinian school, they were not 'terrorists' but 'vigilantes.'

"The report also found that there is significantly more coverage of Israelis casualties than Palestinian, even though Palestinians consistently have two or three times as many casualties.

"Also, in the spiral of Palestinian-Israeli violence, Palestinians are frequently described as 'starting' the trouble, while the Israelis 'retaliate.'

"The researchers say television has largely denied its audience an explanation of the background and origins of the conflict. 'It is clear,' they say, 'that the fact of military occupation and its consequences are crucial to an understanding of the rationale of Palestinian action.' Many in the audience sample did not understand that there is a military occupation and that it is widely seen as illegal."

Tell the truth, go to jail...and stay there

"Is there any doubt that al-Saadi is not a "prisoner of war" but actually a political prisoner, being held for political reasons, specifically the threat his speaking in public would pose for the re-election of George Bush?

Another day, another anti-Cuba slander

"In power, Castro's huge ego and Flintstone-quality economic thought have created a mere survival economy on a rich island."

As additional proof of that claim, I refer readers to the just-released United Nations Human Development Report, which for the first time this year ranks Cuba in the "High human development group" that includes the G-8 nations, etc. The "Human Development Indicators" section of the report ranks Cuba 52nd out of 177 countries (the United States, by the way, ranks 8th). Hardly proof of "a mere survival economy."

This is what "democracy" looks like

Protesters in a cage, well-armed riot police on the outside.

TalkLeft has had some very good coverage of the various goings on, including:

• The FBI paying advance visits on Boston protesters in Denver (!), asking them "Are you planning to be involved in any criminal acts at the national conventions? Do you know anybody who is?"


• The caging of protesters in Boston

"Authorities said they were lowering the maximum number of protesters to 1,000, from a previous 4,000, because of concerns of overcrowding."

This is what "democracy" looks like.

George Bush projecting calm - some questions

The other question, which has also not been explicitly asked, is "what is the value of projecting calm?" If a ship hits an iceberg, should the Captain "project calm" or should he or she do his or her best to get the crew working on a solution before the ship sinks? If Bush had smelled smoke while sitting in the classroom, would it make sense to do nothing so as to "project calm," or would it make sense to try to figure out where the smoke was coming from (or at least make sure someone else was trying to figure it out) before the building burned down?

As usual, just asking.

Scott Ritter on the Iraqi resistance

One interesting aspect of Ritter's analysis is his conclusion:

"The calculus is quite simple: the sooner we bring our forces home, the weaker this movement will be. And, of course, the obverse is true: the longer we stay, the stronger and more enduring this byproduct of Bush's elective war on Iraq will be.

"There is no elegant solution to our Iraqi debacle. It is no longer a question of winning but rather of mitigating defeat."

Another "precision" attack in Fallujah

This is what the U.S. military calls a "precision attack" - dropping a bomb in the courtyard of a house. Here's the story as reported by AP, which, unlike the U.S. military, was actually on the scene as evidenced from the photo above:

"U.S. forces launched a 'precision attack' Friday against a suspected gathering of insurgents outside a house in the volatile city of Fallujah, the U.S. military said.

"The attack did not kill anyone but wounded five civilians, including three children, said Dr. Kamal Al-Ani, a hospital official. The U.S. military did not indicate if there were any casualties. Witnesses denied the house was harboring militants."

"Al-Ani said a U.S. warplane fired a missile that landed in the garden of a house in the Jubail neighborhood in southern Fallujah. Associated Press Television News video showed a huge crater beside the house.

"'We were sleeping in the morning when a U.S. missile hit our house,' Saddam Jassim said as he and his brother cleared debris. 'We have nothing to do with the resistance or Zarqawi. These are pretexts used by the U.S. military to terrorize the people in Fallujah because U.S. soldiers are unable to face the insurgents.'"

"'Based on multiple sources of intelligence, the attack targeted 10 to 12 terrorists with known ties to the Abu Musab al-Zarqawi network of foreign terrorists,' U.S. Air Force Brigadier General Erv Lessel said in a statement."

And meanwhile, the New York Times reports the straight U.S. government line: "The American military conducted a strike in Falluja today on a group of Iraqis it said were known allies of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who has claimed credit for some of the deadliest attacks and kidnappings in Iraq." Not only do they report the government line, they reinforce it by emphasizing the evil nature of the alleged targets of the raid. Only in the fourth paragraph of the article do they get around to the minor caveat: "Residents in the town said at least five people were wounded, two of them children." The telling details of the incident, as reported by AP, are nowhere to be found. TV reports, needless to say, aren't long enough to get to that "fourth paragraph." CNN, for example, simply parrots the U.S. military, even using their absurd euphemism for themselves: "U.S.-led forces in Iraq conducted a strike in Fallujah on about a dozen terrorists with ties to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, according to a statement from the Multi-National Forces (MNF)." "U.S.-led forces" indeed. How many "non-U.S. forces" were involved in this strike? My guess: zero.

Fahrenheit 9/11 continues to astound

The 9-11 Commission report

"In the 1980s, young Muslims from around the world went to Afghanistan to join as volunteers in a jihad (or holy struggle) against the Soviet Union. A wealthy Saudi, Usama Bin Ladin, was one of them. Following the defeat of the Soviets in the late 1980s, Bin Ladin and others formed al Qaeda to mobilize jihads elsewhere."

The report doesn't explicitly ask the forbidden question "Why is the enemy?", but here's what it says on the subject:

"Bin Ladin also stresses grievances against the United States widely shared in the Muslim world. He inveighed against the presence of U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia, which is the home of Islam’s holiest sites, and against other U.S. policies in the Middle East."

When it comes to recommendations, most of those are of the "mechanical" variety, things which will definitely shift terrorist attacks from one target to another, or from one country to another, but which will never stop such attacks because they don't address the root causes, those "U.S. policies in the Middle East." But I was surprised to see that the Commission does have some recommendation on the subject of "policy changes" designed, in their words, to "Prevent the Continued Growth of Islamist Terrorism." Here are the top few:

• "Define the message and stand as an example of moral leadership in the world. To Muslim parents, terrorists like Bin Ladin have nothing to offer their children but visions of violence and death. America and its friends have the advantage—our vision can offer a better future." [Ed. note - I doubt the Palestinian children would agree]


• "Where Muslim governments, even those who are friends, do not offer opportunity, respect the rule of law, or tolerate differences, then the United States needs to stand for a better future." [Ed. note - pretty nebulous recommendation. Does that mean we should propagandize against the Saudi Arabian government? Not sure]


• "Communicate and defend American ideals in the Islamic world, through much stronger public diplomacy to reach more people, including students and leaders outside of government. Our efforts here should be as strong as they were in combating closed societies during the Cold War." [Ed. note - Better PR, that's the ticket!]


• "Offer an agenda of opportunity that includes support for public education and economic openness." [Ed. note - yes, letting American companies dominate the market in the Middle East (a.k.a. "economic openness") is surely the ticket for improving the American image there...not.]

Armed forces recruitment

"The U.S. Army has long lured recruits with the slogan 'Be All You Can Be,' but now soldiers and their families can receive plastic surgery, including breast enlargements, on the taxpayers' dime.

"Between 2000 and 2003, military doctors performed 496 breast enlargements and 1,361 liposuction surgeries on soldiers and their dependents."

"Thin, ambiguous, and incomplete"

Lies of the Times

"In Iraq, the transfer of sovereignty has led to some reduction in American casualties."

It was bad enough when Paul Wolfowitz, the deputy Secretary of Defense, underestimated American deaths in Iraq by 40%. I'm not sure if it's better or worse when a "newspaper of record" does the same thing.

A "reduction in American casualties"? Not on your life. And certainly not on the lives of those who continue to die in Iraq, day after day.

Helicopter down?

"Guerrillas have shot down a U.S. helicopter during fierce clashes in the western Iraqi city of Ramadi and three on board have been killed, says an Iraqi police officer in the city.

"Several witnesses also said a helicopter was shot down.

"The police officer said the aircraft came down near the eastern entrance of the city and burst into flames. He said the area had been sealed off by U.S. troops."

"The U.S. military says a report from Iraqi police that an American helicopter has been shot down near the city of Ramadi is false.

"'We have not had any casualties in the past 24 hours and no downed helicopters,' a spokesman for the U.S. Marine Corps in western Iraq said on Wednesday."

How many dead in Iraq?

As for Iraqis, Iraq Body Count is now reporting a minimum of 11,252 and a maximum of 13,213 Iraqi civilian deaths, which appears to include Iraqi policemen. Even that "maximum" is really a "minimum maximum" however, because Iraq Body Count only tallies deaths which have been reported by multiple news sources, and doesn't include deaths they don't feel they can "confirm," and certainly doesn't include deaths which haven't been reported in the news at all. There still appears to be no even vaguely reliable count of Iraqi military deaths. Once again, neither the U.S. media nor the U.S. government can be bothered to keep track.

The Sandy Berger story - some questions

Something is very strange about both of these claims.

And the third question pertains to the investigation itself. Supposedly this investigation has been going on since October, 2003! What is this, the O.J. Simpson murder trail? For cryin' out loud, we have a guy who supposedly took some papers out of a room, was seen doing it, and doesn't deny it. How much evidence is there to gather in this complicated case, exactly? How many witnesses are there to call? This can't be serious.

Followup: Newsday, in reporting the story, lets us know that there are other materials which have "gone missing" from the National Archives:

"Among significant documents missing from their expected places is the 7th U.S. Cavalry Regiment communications journal for July 1950, during the Korean War. That month, a battalion from the cavalry killed many South Korean refugees at the village of No Gun Ri.

"The journal would have recorded any orders to shoot the civilians, but after a 1999-2001 inquiry, Army investigators said they didn't find the document and didn't know what happened to it."

Sex, lies, and videotape

Back to the substance of the article, here's what the student in question has to say:

"But regardless of the exact wording, [Charles] Trumbull says the president's speech misconstrued the meaning, which he says should have been clear from his paper.

"'It shows that they didn't read much of the article,' Trumbull said in a telephone interview. [Ed. note: I lied about the "videotape" in the title; it was a phone interview]

"According to Trumbull, who conducted field research in Cuba, prostitution boomed in the Caribbean nation after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, providing an important source of currency for the Cuban economy. Castro, who outlawed prostitution when he took power in 1959, initially had few resources to combat it. But beginning around 1996, Cuban authorities began to crack down on the practice.

"Although prostitution still exists, Trumbull said, it is far less visible, and it would be inaccurate to say the government promotes it.

"Even when Castro made the remarks, Trumbull said, he was not boasting about Cuba's prostitutes as sex workers.

"'Castro was merely trying to emphasize some of the successes of the revolution by saying 'even our prostitutes our educated,' ' Trumbull said. 'Castro was trying to defend his revolution against negative publicity. He was in no way bragging about the opportunities for sex tourism on the island.'"

Followup: More insight on the real situation.

Political humor of the day

"President Bush said today he's looking into whether Iran had anything to do with 9/11, but he's not declaring war yet. He said first he wants to know all the facts. So apparently, he's trying a new strategy." - Jay Leno

World to Israel: "Mr. Sharon, tear down that wall!"

"The General Assembly approved a resolution overwhelmingly on Tuesday evening demanding that Israel obey a World Court ruling that it abandon and dismantle its separation barrier on the West Bank and pay compensation to Palestinians affected by its construction.

The vote was 150 in favor and 6 against - including the United States - with 10 abstentions."

The United States is almost completely isolated in the world in its support for Israel. The world is overwhelmingly opposed to what Israel is doing. So there must be significant opposition to Israeli policies in the United States, right? Certainly not in the Congress, where last month the Senate "voted 95-3 in favor of a resolution endorsing US President George W. Bush's April declarations that Israel should not have to fully withdraw from the West Bank as part of a final peace deal, and that Palestinian refugees would return to a future state of Palestine, rather than to Israel," and the House voted 407-9 supporting the same position; essentially giving Sharon carte blanche to continue doing what he's doing, and giving an official (rather than the decades-long unofficial) U.S. seal of approval on Israel's continued violation of international law.

Quote of the Year (1984)

"Sometimes we extend the peace by using war."

- U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell (Source)

Listen to Flashpoints!

For the last two nights there have been exceptionally valuable updates on the situation in Palestine. Last night's show (July 19) featured an interview with Jeff Halper, a Professor of Anthropology at Ben Gurion University in Israel and the Coordinator of the Israeli Committee Against House demolitions (ICAHD). Halper talks about how Israeli soldiers "hunt" Palestinians, the role of the young second-generation Israeli "settlers" in provoking violence, the role of the U.S. government in maintaining the imbalance between Israel and the Palestinians, and much, much more. Well worth listening to. Tonight's show (July 20) featured Amer Abdel Hadi, the director of Radio Tariq el-Mahabbeh in Nablus, talking about the cold-blooded murders being committed by Israeli troops in Balata after deliberately provoking Palestinian youth into throwing stones, again the role of the U.S. government, and more. Again well worth listening to.

Flashpoints! also starts out with a few minutes of news summary from Robert Knight, who has a wonderful way of putting things. The show does suffer from two flaws. One is web-related - the different shows have direct links for the download, but not for the summary, making it hard to easily link to specific broadcasts (and even harder, or impossible, to link to specific sections of the broadcast, since generally there are two or three major sections of the show). The second flaw is more important, and quite unfortunate. Because the show wants to bring its listeners authentic voices from around the world who really know what they're talking about, you frequently find yourself struggling to listen to someone with a thick accent (Haitian, Middle Eastern, etc.) speaking in a deep voice over an imperfect telephone connection, and it can be hard work to follow the conversation. But it's always worth trying, to get information on a daily basis you simply won't hear elsewhere. If you're not a regular listener, start by checking out the July 19 interview with Halper, and move on from there. You won't regret it.

Linda Ronstadt and the media

In this case, though, it's the press coverage of the event I want to spotlight. Here's the most complete coverage of the event I could find online, from the San Diego Union-Tribune pop music critic:

"Like a musical Moses staging a song-fueled parting of the Red Sea, the veteran star instantly split her sold-out audience of 1,360 in two.

"Half the crowd heartily applauded her praise for Moore, the other half booed. In an instant, the intimate outdoor venue on Shelter Island filled with a roar of cheers and jeers that grew to a near-fever pitch.

"As Ronstadt started to perform her encore, an impassioned version of the Eagles' "Desperado," dozens of concertgoers angrily streamed toward the exits, while others gave her an ovation."

"Linda Ronstadt not only got booed, she also got the boot after lauding filmmaker Michael Moore and his new movie, 'Fahrenheit 9/11.'

Ronstadt's comments drew loud boos, and some of the 4,500 people in attendance stormed out of the theater. People also tore down concert posters and tossed cocktails into the air."

"'That dedication angered some Aladdin guests who spilled drinks, tore down posters and demanded their money back', said casino spokeswoman Sara Gorgon. About a quarter of the 4,500 people in the audience got up and left before the performance had finished, Gorgon said." [Ed. note: it just might put that number into context if the article had noted that the dedication preceded the encore, i.e., the last song of the night]

Unlike AP and Reuters, the Los Angeles Times actually thought it might be appropriate to find out what Ronstadt had to say, and their story sheds further light on the subject:

"Ronstadt, a longtime liberal activist, has often shared her political and social views, whether she was singing at the No Nukes concert series or jabbing at Enron executives by giving them a pointed dedication of 'Straighten Up and Fly Right.'

"Through the years, though, Ronstadt has never heard a hall so powerfully divided each night between hisses and hurrahs. She heard it from the first night she offered the comments about Moore's film.

"'At first there's just silence, then there's 'Yeah!' and then there's 'Boo!' and then the audience starts fighting with each other,' she recalled. 'You know how they say we are just polarized down the middle? I've done this all across the country and I'm telling you, it's like my independent poll. I have never seen a reaction like this, in all my years of touring.'"

"Ronstadt said her career zenith in the 1970s is long gone and that in a quasi-retirement mode she has the success and boldness to say what she thinks. 'Clear Channel can't threaten to not play my records because they are not going to play them anyway.'"

"We have to stick together. I just think we can't take this lying down. It's like the Weimar Republic… these [neo-conservative] people are taking over the government. People are sound asleep and I don't think this is the time to back down."

One hidden cost of the Israeli occupation of Palestine

"Suicide has become the leading cause of death in the Israeli armed forces. In 2003, a total of 43 Israeli soldiers took their own lives last year compared to 30 killed in Intifada-related hostilities, said the report.

"The Israeli army denies any connection between army excesses in the occupied territories and the phenomenon of suicides among soldiers. Army sources routinely cite more mundane reasons such as emotional crises, bullying and persecution by superiors, and psychological depression. [Ed. note: how reassuring!]

"It is widely believed, however, that a significant number of suicide cases are connected to the soldiers' traumatic experiences in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Aljazeera.net quoted an Israeli peace activist who spoke on condition of anonymity as saying that she believed many of the soldiers who went on to take their own lives simply couldn"t cope with the moral burden of causing avoidable and unjustified deaths in the occupied Palestinian territories.

"'Israeli soldiers are ordered to do things that go against their moral values...and they are left with this terrible burden which evolves into depression and eventually lead to suicide', she said.

"Last month, a number of former conscripts who had just finished their army service in the southern West Bank town of Hebron, described vividly the manner in which they mistreated and humiliated Palestinian civilians. The group set up a photo exhibition opposite the Defence Ministry complex in Tel Aviv, featuring graphic pictures of ordinary Palestinians being tormented, often in a sadistic manner, by occupation soldiers."

In election news...

And they dare to criticize Nader for accepting money from Republicans, or the signatures of Republicans on his petitions!

The Sandinista legacy

Not a word in the article about the actual accomplishments of the Sandinistas during their eleven years in power nor, other than a picture caption and a brief reference to Calero's activities, is there any indication that the Sandinistas had to spend enormous amounts of financial and emotional capital during their years in power fighting the U.S.-backed Contras, rather than devoting their full energies (and finances) to carrying out their revolution. Nor is there the slightest reference to the nature of the country, or its economy, under Somoza, before the Sandinista revolution, back when Somocistas like Adolfo Calero were fat and happy and the rest of the Nicaraguan people...weren't.

If u cn rd this, vote 4 me

Calling Baghdad Burning

And this, of course, is one of the problems with online communication as a replacement for face-to-face communication. It's easy to feel like you "know someone" online. And the online world greatly expands "our world" - I certainly would not be privy to the thoughts of a young woman in Baghdad without being able to read Riverbend's blog, nor would the vast majority of Left I on the News readers be privileged to my humble thoughts. Yet if I were to die tomorrow in a car crash (not to be morbid or anything), no one else in the world would know how to even post a small notice on this blog announcing that fact, and I would vanish into the ether, leaving only these writings to "live" on (forever?).

Poopy-heads?

Downing St.: "Left I on the News had it right"

"Time after time, as in Kosovo, claims of genocide or hundreds of thousands killed have turned out to be wildly exxagerated. That doesn't mean they aren't necessarily true in this case. It does mean that one should not believe claims like these without serious proof. Remember that many of the allegations come from Iraqi defectors and ex-patriots like Ahmad Chalabi, and you know how (in)accurate their information about WMD turned out to be. Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me."

In November, I returned to the subject again, and noted (in conjunction with yet another flurry of stories in the press about the mass graves):

"Back in May, there were reports in the press about a mass grave in the town of Mahaweel containing approximately 3000 bodies, and another in the village of Muhammad Sakran containing 1000 bodies. Six months have now passed, and during that period I cannot find a single mention in the press of any further significant discoveries...Note that even if the alleged 263 "mass grave sites" contained 100 bodies each (which is doubtful, based on the known facts), that would amount to 26,000 people (plus another 4000 or so already uncovered), an order of magnitude below the claims of 300,000 (or 350,000) dead bodies in mass graves...With the passage of more and more time, just as with the claims of Iraqi WMD it would appear that the claims of 300,000 dead in mass graves are less and less credible."

"Downing Street has admitted to The Observer that repeated claims by Tony Blair that '400,000 bodies had been found in Iraqi mass graves' is untrue, and only about 5,000 corpses have so far been uncovered."

• First, because, as noted last August, "What is well documented, but you'll be hard-pressed indeed to find it mentioned in the media, is the fact that somewhere between 500,000 and one million Iraqis, the majority of them children, died as a direct result of the UN sanctions." So if these people, and another 15,000 or so killed by the latest invasion, had been killed to overthrow a regime which had killed 400,000 people, there might be some moral equivalence. But if they are dead because the Iraqi regime had killed just 5,000 people, the moral equivalence vanishes.


• It seems certain that the Hussein regime did murder a number of its political opponents, something which is sadly hardly uncommon in this world. But those numbers are even smaller. Most of the 5,000 dead come from places like Halabja, which was the result of a battle in the Iran-Iraq war (and, some argue, was the result of Iranian weapons), and southern Iraq, where Iraqis, encouraged but not supported by the U.S., rose in rebellion against the central government after the 1991 Gulf War. The charges from Bush and Blair (and many others in the world community) always talk about "Saddam murdering his people," as if one day out of the blue, for no particular reason other than being evil, he just decided to bomb some town and kill thousands of people. I'm willing to bet that most Americans, well-known for believing things that aren't true, believe that's the kind of regime that existed in Iraq, and that the recent invasion and overthrow of the regime was justified because, at any time in the future, Saddam might just have decided to kill another 100,0000 Iraqis and had to be stopped. In fact, the Iraqis who were killed (justifiably or not), as well as Iraqi use of chemical weapons, had occured a decade or more in the past, and the invasion had nothing whatsoever to do with preventing these things from happening again.


• This is yet another object lesson in the truth of what Left I has written before - you should never believe what the U.S. government (or the British government) says without serious proof, and even then, you should make doubly and triply sure that that proof it actually believable. I encourage readers to remember this the next time you read lurid charges about North Korea, Cuba, Syria, Venezuela, or any other "pariah" regime.

Terrorists are everywhere

• Four American-born laborers who omitted mention of prior drug convictions or other crimes when they were assigned by a contractor to a runway construction project at the Des Moines airport or when they applied for manual-labor jobs there.


• Five Mexican citizens who stole cans of baby formula from store shelves throughout Iowa and sold them to a man of Arab descent for later resale.


• Two Pakistani men who entered into or solicited sham marriages so that they and their friends could continue to live in the Waterloo area and work at convenience stores there.

Euphemism of the day

"John Scarlett, the chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee, had been 'economical with the truth'."

- Sir Paul Lever, one of Scarlett's predecessors, discussing Scarlett's failure to tell the Hutton inquiry that key evidence claiming Iraq had a WMD programme had been withdrawn by MI6. (Source)

U.S. press covers for Allawi

Big story, right? Huge! We don't have to prejudge Allawi's guilt for it to be so - see Scott Peterson, O.J. Simpson, etc., etc. to realize that people accused of murder generate major, round-the-clock news coverage even without knowing whether the accusations are true. And the result? As far as I can tell, as of this writing, even thought Flashpoints! managed to score an interview with the journalist the day the story broke, three full days after the story broke there is now a grand total of one American newspaper, the Philadelphia Daily News, which has carried this story. From the rest? The sound of one hand clapping.

Smile of the day

Kansas
Where evolution has been outlawed
And the monkeys are in charge

Those careful capitalists

" The company's primary safety studies on the M26, which is far more powerful than other stun guns, consist of tests on a single pig in 1996 and on five dogs in 1999. Company-paid researchers, not independent scientists, conducted the studies, which were never published in a peer-reviewed journal. Taser has no full-time medical director and has never created computer models to simulate the effect of its shocks, which are difficult to test in human clinical trials for ethical reasons."

Israel is only half as racist as it was

"The cabinet voted Sunday to extend by six months a law barring Palestinians married to Israelis from obtaining their spouse's citizenship.

"The controversial law, condemned by Amnesty International as racist, was originally intended to be extended by a year, but the extension period was cut by half in line with a proposal Thursday."

War means killing, Part II

"'I want to know if I killed that guy yesterday,' [Sgt. Joseph] Hall says. 'I saw blood spurt from his leg, but I want to be sure I killed him. Kill, kill, kill, kill, kill. It's like it pounds at my brain. I'll figure out how to deal with it when I get home.

"'I'm confused about how I should feel about killing,' says [Spc. Joshua] Dubois, who has a toddler back home. 'The first time I shot someone, it was the most exhilarating thing I'd ever felt. We talk about killing all the time. I never used to talk this way. I'm not proud of it, but it's like I can't stop. I'm worried what I will be like when I get home.'"

Is any of this an "accident"? Not on your life. Here's an interesting historical perspective:

"Much of the military's research on killing and battle stress began after World War II, when studies revealed that only a small number of troops — as few as 15% — fired at their adversaries on the battlefield.

"Military studies suggested that troops were unexpectedly reluctant to kill. Military training methods changed, Grossman and others say, to make killing a more automatic behavior. Bull's-eye targets used in basic training were replaced with human-shaped objects. Battlefield conditions were reproduced more accurately, Burke says. The goal of these and other modifications was to help soldiers react more automatically.

"The changes were effective. In the Vietnam War, 95% of combat troops shot at hostile fighters, according to military studies. Veterans of the Vietnam War also suffered some of the highest levels of psychological damage — possibly as many as 50% of combat forces suffered mental injury."

Kerry vs. Bush - who will withdraw from Iraq sooner?

"In an interview with the Wall Street Journal on Thursday, Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry declared that, if he were elected, US troops would remain in Iraq throughout his first term in office—to the end of 2008. The Democratic candidate also suggested that the Bush administration was more likely to withdraw troops quickly than a Kerry administration.

"Though Kerry said the US presence in Iraq was not “an open-ended commitment,” he refused to give any target end date for an end to the occupation.

"Kerry warned that Bush might attempt a too-precipitate withdrawal from Iraq, which might endanger the new US-backed regime. 'I’ve heard said by many people,' he told the Journal, that the White House might even withdraw some troops before the November elections, in order to appease the growing popular opposition to the war. 'I’m prepared for any political move,' Kerry said. 'I’d put nothing past them.' (Source)

Cold-blooded murder continues unabated in Iraq

Why am I so skeptical that this "intelligence" produced anything more than ten more dead innocent civilians? Because one of the last times this happened, 25 people were killed in an identical manner, people who we were assured by U.S. officials were "foreign insurgents." Only when someone actually went to look and see who was killed, there were 25 dead civilians there.

Once again, I remind my readers that, when you read references to "precision weapons" in stories like the one about today's airstrike, precision and accuracy are not the same thing. Nor, by the way, is killing someone suspected of a crime, or even someone suspected of planning another crime, without a trial or even concrete eyeball identification that the person is even present, is itself a crime, no matter how much the practice has been "legitimized" in the U.S. press by the actions of the Israeli air force.

Followup: The BBC, which actually talked to doctors in Fallujah hospitals rather than to "U.S. officials," is now reporting eleven dead, including women and children.

Help is on the way...from Cuba

"ON July 15, and for the first time in 40 years, a cooperation agreement was signed by Cuban and U.S. companies for the transfer of biotechnological technology directed at developing vaccines against cancer. The agreement was signed between the CancerVax Corporation and the Center for Molecular Immunology at the International Conference Center in Havana."

"We believe that the candidates for products that you have developed in Cuba represent new approaches. A unique, unprecedented discovery that of the development of vaccines against cancer designed to stimulate the immune system."

"Dr. Agustn Lage Davila, director of the Center for Molecular Immunology...recounted the history of how scientific work had begun in Cuba to search for anti-cancer vaccines, with the purpose of halting the growth of malignant tumors.

That project received a boost from Fidel Castro's decision to develop a Center for Molecular Immunology, even in the context of the tremendous economic difficulties that the country was experiencing during the 1990s, he noted."

"CancerVax executives said that it was the first time an American biotechnology company had obtained permission to license a drug from Cuba, a country that some industry executives and scientists say is surprisingly strong in biotechnology for a developing nation.

"A spokesman for the State Department, which helps rule on such licenses, said that the exception had been made because of the life-saving potential of the experimental Cuban drugs and that the license approval did not represent a relaxation of the trade policy.

"As a government condition of allowing the license, payments to Cuba during the developmental phase would be in goods like food or medical supplies, to avoid providing the Cuban government with currency. Any payments after drugs reach the market, Mr. Hale said, could be half in cash."

Change is in the air (and in the ground)

Item: "Fast decline of magnetic field hints at reversal"

"The collapse of the Earth's magnetic field, which both guards the planet and guides many of its creatures, appears to have started in earnest about 150 years ago. The field's strength has waned 10 to 15 percent so far, and this deterioration has accelerated of late, increasing debate over whether it portends a reversal of the lines of magnetic force that normally envelop the Earth.

"During a reversal, the main field weakens, almost vanishes, and then reappears with opposite polarity. Afterward, compass needles that normally point north would point south, and during the thousands of years of transition much in the heavens and Earth would go askew.

"A reversal could knock out power grids, injure astronauts and satellites, widen atmospheric ozone holes, send polar auroras flashing to the equator and confuse birds, fish and migratory animals that rely on the steadiness of the magnetic field as a navigation aid. But experts said the repercussions would fall short of catastrophic, despite a few proclamations of doom and sketchy evidence of past links between field reversals and species extinctions."

"After arguing for almost 30 years that a black hole swallows up everything that falls into it, astrophysicist Stephen Hawking says he got it wrong."

Yet another anti-Cuban slander

George Bush chooses to renew one of the recent slanders against Cuba:

"President Bush accused Cuba's Fidel Castro on Friday of welcoming sex tourism and contributing to a global problem of human trafficking, as he courted Cuban voters in Florida, a pivotal state in the election.

"'The regime of Fidel Castro has turned Cuba into a major destination for sex tourism,' Bush said, adding that the Cuban president 'welcomes sex tourism' as a source of hard currency for his government."

"Cuba's government, born of a revolution against a corrupt U.S.-backed dictatorship that allowed Mafia-run gaming and prostitution to thrive in Havana in the 1950's, strongly denies tolerating sex tourism. Police have cracked down on the trade."

Tier 1: Countries whose governments fully comply with the Act's minimum standards.

Tier 2 : Countries whose governments do not fully comply with the Act’s minimum standards but are making significant efforts to bring themselves into compliance with those standards.

Tier 3: Countries whose governments do not fully comply with the minimum standards and are not making significant efforts to do so.

And what's the evidence against Cuba for these heinous crimes? Go read the report for yourself. As far as I can tell, the answer is, for all intents and purposes, none. There are a handful of allegations, none of them carrying any more weight than allegations of stockpiles of Iraqi WMD. Cuba acknowledges that prostitution does exist in Cuba, and actually "detains suspected prostitutes" and "provide[s them with] legal and medical help," but has been "criticized [Ed. note: by whom?] for violating the rights of the internees [Ed. note: what rights?]." Furthermore, horror of horrors, "The government carries out no public awareness campaigns to warn of the dangers of trafficking [Ed. note - because no such "trafficking" exists], but it does endorse women’s participation in economic decision-making and children staying in school."

To the best of my knowledge, not a single Cuban prostitute has ever been "sold into sex slavery" in another country, nor has any foreign prostitute ever been sold into sex slavery in Cuba. Such is the magnitude of their contribution to the "global problem in human trafficking" described by Bush.

Compare the description of Cuba, with a description of country from, e.g., Tier 2, like Malaysia: "Malaysia is a destination and to a lesser extent a source and transit country for trafficking for sexual exploitation." Or with a country from Tier 1 (the "good" tier, the ones who are "fully compliant"), like Taiwan: "Taiwan is a source, transit and destination region for persons trafficked for sexual exploitation and forced labor." And Cuba, for which none of those things is true, is placed in Tier 3. Puh-lease.

Yet Bush will keep repeating the slanders, not a single Democrat or liberal will rise to denounce them as bullshit for fear of being labelled a Communist sympathizer, and the press (for the most part) will keep reporting Bush's words as if they have any credibility whatsoever. And all the while the American public is nudged one step closer to the acceptance of any action, up to and including invasion, that the U.S. government decides to take against those evil Cuban Communists.

Followup: Elevated from comments - The definitive article on the subject of the sex trade in the U.S. and Cuba. Florida, the state where Bush chose to make his latest charges, turns out to be one of the top three destinations for human trafficking in the U.S., a state where even police officers are involved in sex trafficking.

More followup: An article in the Los Angeles Times traces Bush's charge to a statement made by Fidel Castro in...1992 (!)

Democracy in America

"Members of the U.S. House of Representatives censured [Congresswoman Corrine (D-Jacksonville)] Brown after a shouting match on the House floor Thursday night.

"The argument started during a debate over HR-4818. The bill [covered here two weeks ago] would provide international monitoring of the November presidential election. Congress has been considering an outside monitor due to all the confusion over the last election, and the 'hanging chads' in Florida.

"Representative Brown said, 'I come from Florida, where you and others participated in what I call the United States coup d'etat. We need to make sure that it doesn't happen again. Over and over again after the election when you stole the election, you came back here and said get over it. No we're not going to get over it and we want verification from the world.'

"Those comments drew an immediate objection from Republican members of the House. Leaders moved to strike her comments from the record. The House also censured Brown which kept her from talking on the House floor for the rest of the day." (Source)

Economic refugees

Matt Gonzalez on Ralph Nader

"The stakes are not one presidential race, but rather whether a diversity of ideas will ever reach Congress. Without this reform there will only ever be one congressperson with the courage to oppose the war in Iraq. There will only be one senator to vote against the Patriot Act. This state of affairs is so bleak that pretending there is an opposition party in our two-party system can only charitably be called foolish."

Satire? Or truth?

Credit to Oliver Willis for steering me to this gem.

Washington Post scoops The Onion

"To track commitments, the Bush administration keeps a color-coded chart of coalition members: red for countries withdrawing, yellow for nations considering a pullout and green for countries staying."

Movie review: until when...

"Set during the current Intifada, this documentary follows four Palestinian families living in Dheisheh Refugee Camp near Bethlehem. They talk about their past and discuss the future with humor, sorrow, frustration, and hope. until when... paints an intimate in-depth portrait of Palestinian lives today."

Many Americans, even those sympathetic to the Palestinian cause, are quick to think that the "right of return" is largely a symbolic thing that the Palestinians should be willing to give up in return for whatever minor price Israel is willing to pay (e.g., giving up some of their illegal settlements). until when... shows the viewer that the right of return is more than just the requirement of international law, but lies at the core of the Palestinian psyche.

The film isn't in distribution, but can be ordered from the filmmakers' website. As it did in San Jose, it makes for an excellent educational evening of film and discussion, worthy of any antiwar or solidarity group. Strongly recommended. If only this film was the one taking in $80 million, rather than Fahrenheit 9/11, the education the American people would be receiving would be a lot more significant. Heck, the editing and production values are even better in this film. Cannes Film Festival, are you listening?

Quote of the Day

"I think they hyped the report, evidently. I think it was a spin that was not acceptable. They put exclamation marks where there had been question marks and I think that is hyping, a spin, that leads the public to the wrong conclusions."

- Hans Blix, in an interview with BBC

Slandering Fidel

"George W. Bush loves dressing up in uniform and being called commander-in-chief. You have to look to Saddam or Fidel for another head of state who spends as much media time before military backdrops.

"He won't do town halls or even many press conferences, but something like a third of his statements in the previous 18 months have been delivered on military bases or to veterans' groups."

Rather than inaccurately compare George Bush to Fidel Castro, perhaps the author should have tried a comparison with John Kerry. Here's the headline from today's New York Times: "Democratic Convention to Focus on Kerry's Military Service."

Kerrywatch

"Both John [Edwards] and I believe firmly and absolutely that marriage is between a man and a woman. But we also believe that you don't play with the Constitution of the United States for political purposes and amend the Bill of Rights when you don't need to when states are adequately addressing this issue."

The Iraqi people speak

"We want the Iraqi people to know that many millions here in the U.S. -- including many military family members, soldiers, and veterans -- are outraged and deeply shamed by the immoral and unjust war and occupation of your nation.

"As people living in the United States we will continue to demand that our government end its occupation of Iraq immediately and fully respect the absolute right of self-determination of the Iraqi people, free of foreign intervention and domination."

"In the ad they say that even soldiers' families are opposed to the invasion, yet I can't believe that they could not have at least refused to send their sons to Iraq. They say a lot, they demonstrated a lot, but in the end they couldn't do anything to stop this war. We are tired of talking, we just want the Americans to get out." Ibtissam, 32

"US government misled the people by issuing wrong information about Iraq. This information could do nothing but lead the whole world in the wrong direction." Saalim, 25, courier

"Look, we know that people in the US wouldn't agree with their government to invade Iraq -- yet it is not in the peoples' hands to decide if it is fair or not. It is always up to the governments to decide. The US administration will continue its mission to occupy other countries and no one will be able to stop it, believe me or not. Anyway, we are grateful for this sympathy." Baryhan, 35

"Why are you sending this message to us? If you could do nothing more to oppose your government, then what can we do or say here? We don't want them to stay in Iraq. If you would like to do something for Iraqis ask them to leave." Hani Abass, 40 years, military veteran

"What is this, what are they talking about? Do you believe all this? The US government did what they wanted to do and it is done." Shatha, 28, bank employee

"We thank those people in the United States. We hope they will continue to demand that their government not commit this crime upon other countries. Their government is just making the whole world terrible." Abdulah Raheem, military veteran

"Ah, I have a huge pain in side my chest about what happened in those prisons. They humiliated our holy Quraan. Why did they do that? They know that it is highly considered to even touch the Quraan." (begins crying) "We thank God that there are still some good people everywhere. Thanks to the people in US for their emotions for people in Iraq. I just have one request for them: if they just could pray for us to live the rest of our life peacefully." May Yassin, Ministry of Health spokeswoman

Color-coded threats - a question

So here's today's question. Last week Tom Ridge announced dramatically that Al-Qaida was planning a major attack to disrupt the November election, but declined to raise the "threat level" from "yellow" because "they did not have specific information about the timing, place or manner of such an attack." But isn't that when the threat is the highest? If you knew when and where and/or how an attack was coming, wouldn't you then be the best prepared to deal with it, and hence the actual threat would be its lowest?

Just asking.

Factual inaccuracies in Fahrenheit 9/11 and elsewhere

"The White House decided not to “officially comment” on the film , for fear of fuelling the publicity inferno. Instead, White House staffers Karl Rove and Dan Brasch bombarded network newsrooms with claims that the film was factually inaccurate.

"However, when asked if he had seen the film, Brasch replied: 'This is a film that doesn't require us to actually view it to know that it's filled with factual inaccuracies.' Moore responded: 'At least they're consistent. They never needed to see a single weapon of mass destruction before sending our kids off to die.'"

War as an environmental disaster

"Residents of Hanalei Bay woke up Fourth of July weekend to a distressing sight: As many as 200 melon-headed whales, a small and sociable species that usually stays in deep waters, were swimming in a tight circle as close as 100 feet from the beach, showing clear signs of stress.

"To keep the animals from beaching, the locals kept a vigil all day and through the night, until a flotilla of kayaks and outrigger canoes could be assembled to herd the animals back out to sea, in what was described as a 'reverse-hukilau.' So far, only one young whale has been found dead.

"But among increasingly worried whale advocates and researchers, the event set off immediate alarm bells: Melon-headed whales are not known to beach themselves, and nothing like this mass stranding close call has occurred in Hawai‘i for 150 years.

"Attention quickly focused on the Navy and its use of active sonar — a wall of sound sent out to find underwater objects that can reach the decibel levels of a jet engine. Sonar has been implicated in several recent mass whale-strandings around the world, and the latest research has strengthened the association and suggested that the actual number of incidents may be far greater than anyone realized. The most recent study found that over the past 40 years, mass strandings of the most noise-sensitive whales off Japan occurred repeatedly in the waters near an American naval base, but were unknown in comparable areas elsewhere.

"Several hours after the Hanalei Bay episode began, locals learned that a six-ship Navy fleet 20 miles out to sea had begun a sonar exercise the morning that the melon-headed whales headed toward shore."

I would love to know the environmental cost of the invasion of Iraq, in oil and emissions alone. An M-1 tank gets about a half a mile per gallon. A jet fighter gets about a mile per gallon. And, although I can't find any good data, I think it's safe to say that the emissions (e.g., of NOx) of these vehicles is substantially higher than your average car (to say nothing of my Prius). What is the total environmental cost of the invasion of Iraq? The Institute for Policy Studies has published an excellent study of the myriad costs of the invasion, but the only environmental cost they mention is depleted uranium (a subject we've covered here before) - no mention of oil consumption or emissions. Environmentalists Against War likewise doesn't mention those costs in a study of theirs, nor does MedAct in their study. I guess I'll have to leave this as an exercise for the reader. :-)

Quote of the Day

"You were an insurgent who has now adopted the role of being a detergent for the dirty linen of the Democratic Party."

- Ralph Nader, addressing Howard Dean during their recent debate

World to Israel: "Tear down the wall"

"The International Court of Justice ruled Friday in The Hague that the separation fence being built by Israel in the West Bank was in breach of international law, and called on Israel to tear it down and compensate Palestinians harmed by its construction.

"'Israel is under an obligation to terminate its breaches of international law; it is under an obligation to cease forthwith the works of construction of the wall being built in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including in and around East Jerusalem, to dismantle forthwith the structure therein situated,' said the ruling, read by the court president, Judge Shi Jiuyong of China. (Source)

"'John Kerry supports the construction of Israel's security fence to stop terrorists from entering Israel,' the June statement reads. 'The security fence is a legitimate act of self-defense erected in response to the wave of terror attacks against Israeli citizens. He believes the security fence is not a matter for the International Court of Justice.'

"In a statement released Friday evening after the court's ruling, Kerry reiterated his support for the barrier, and said he was 'deeply disappointed by today's International Court of Justice ruling.'"

Planning to disrupt the November election

"U.S. counterterrorism officials are looking at an emergency proposal on the legal steps needed to postpone the November presidential election in case of an attack by al Qaeda, Newsweek reported on Sunday.

"Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge warned last week that Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network may attack within the United States to try to disrupt the election."

The freedom to protest...somewhere else

Democratic Party platform, part II

"Liberal Democrats dropped several proposed anti-war planks after they were unable to muster even the 14 votes needed on the 186-member platform-writing committee to debate their proposals calling the Iraq war a mistake and urging withdrawal of American troops."

This year, the Bush administration pushed through new rules, which took effect June 30, which eliminated a category of travel to Cuba known as "fully hosted" travel, under which travel to Cuba was perfectly legal as long as the American visitor spent no money there [As an aside, it's worth remembering that travel to Cuba used to be prohibited, period, but when that was struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court as an unconstitutional limitation on American's right to travel, travel to Cuba was quickly banned again, but this time under the "trading with the enemies" act, which made it legal to travel to Cuba but illegal to spend any money there. Given that, it's hard to see what legal basis there could be for prohibiting "fully hosted" travel to Cuba, but that's what the regulations say]. The penalties for violating this law? Jail, thousands of dollars of fines, and potential revocation of citizenship!

Given this threat, all but a handful of the 80 American students studying in Cuba were forced to return to the United States at the end of June, missing their final exams. On June 25, the Treasury Department issued an opinion allowing the students to stay until August 1, but needless to say, most didn't hear about it in time, and had already left Cuba.

Now the State Department, after 28 black and Hipanic members of Congress wrote a letter to Colin Powell complaining about the situation, is reportedly trying to rewrite the regulations by July 15 to add a "special education-travel license" which would permit the students to stay (now that they've had to spend money returning to the United States). How very generous of them. We'll see if that actually comes to pass; as of now, the few students who chose to remain in Cuba are still subject to those onerous penalties.

In the "yeah, sure" department, James Cason, head of the U.S. Special Interest Section in Havana, claims he was unaware of all of this. Well, I suppose it is possible he was too busy playing his role in pushing "regime change" in Cuba to do what he is supposed to be doing, which is looking after the interests of Americans in Cuba, foremost among whom are (or were) 80 underpriveleged Americans whose "crime" was to want to become doctors and serve their communities.

How do you ask a thousand men and women to be the last (or the first) to die for a mistake?

Four of the latest of the now more than 1000 coalition soldiers (881 of them American) who have "died for a mistake." Thousands more have died as well, of course, probably tens of thousands, but they weren't asked to die, they were just killed in the process. Iraqi soldiers and civilians alike, all equally innocent victims of the illegal Anglo-American invasion of their country.

Tony Blair shows the stiff upper lip

" Tony Blair conceded today that Iraqi weapons of mass destruction 'may never be found.'

"Appearing before the Commons liaison committee of senior MPs, the prime minister said: 'I was very, very confident the Iraq Survey Group would find them - I have to accept we haven't found them and we may not find them.'"

"Mr Blair warned against going to the 'other extreme' and believing that Saddam never held WMD; they could have been 'hidden, removed or destroyed', he added."

More beheadings in Iraq

"The U.S military launched a coordinated airstrike Monday on a safehouse in the turbulent city of Fallujah, the military said. At least 10 people were killed, officials and witnesses said.

"Four 500-pound bombs and two 1,000-pound bombs were dropped, the military said.

"Dr. Diaa Jumaili of Fallujah Hospital said 10 bodies had arrived there, most of them dismembered."

Never forget that this is the U.S. government which assured the world that it knew with "absolute certainty" that Iraq had vast stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction. But that won't stop them from brutalizing the people of Fallujah. As with the Israeli massacre at Jenin (just to name one instance), the U.S. government will simply rely on the inability (or lack of desire) of reporters (especially "mainstream" reporters whose words would be transmitted to the majority of the public) to get to the scene and report the truth. Instead, they rely on the media dutifully relaying their words (like "safehouse" in lieu of "alleged safehouse") to keep their crimes out of the light.

Bush-lite: the Democratic platform

"The Democratic Party pledges an unrelenting struggle against terrorism and a commitment to seeing Iraq succeed, according to a statement of election principles shaped heavily by national security crises.

"The document is predictably critical of President Bush and the manner in which he 'rushed to war' in Iraq. But it does not call the war a mistake, saying people of good will can disagree on that.

"The Democratic platform draft does not rule out pre-emptive military action, if necessary, under a Kerry administration.

"The document declares terrorism the imperative.

"'Today, we face three great challenges above all others — first, to win the global war against terror; second, to stop the spread of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons; and third, to promote democracy and freedom around the world, starting with a peaceful and stable Iraq,' the draft says." [Ed. note: no, the "great challenges" we face above all others are to create a world where people, including Americans, have health care, water, food, housing, jobs, and peace.]

"The party takes a cautious approach to the Patriot Act, parts of which Democrats have criticized as infringing on civil liberties. Aspects of the law, not specified in the document, 'must be made smarter.'

"Democrats dropped a reference to endorsing the Kyoto treaty on global warming."

"On Iraq, the platform is as striking for what it does not say as for what it does say: It does not call the war a mistake and does not urge withdrawal of American troops from the troubled country. Instead the platform declares that the U.S. 'cannot allow a failed state in Iraq that inevitably would become a haven for terrorists and a destabilizing force in the Middle East.'

"The document also marks the first time a Democratic platform has explicitly endorsed an independent Palestinian state — though it also embraces the controversial security guarantees Bush recently provided Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

"It explicitly accepts Bush's contention that the U.S. is now in a global war: 'Today, America is waging a war against a global terrorist movement committed to our destruction,' the document states flatly. [Ed. note: this is complete and utter nonsense. Osama bin Laden and others of his ilk may be committed to a lot of things, but "our destruction" is not among them, and even if it were, it wouldn't even be a remote possibility.]

"The blueprint breaks more new ground on the dispute between Israel and the Palestinians — though the overall effect is to bind the Democrats close to the policies Bush has pursued. While endorsing the creation of a Palestinian state, it also embraces the controversial two assurances Bush recently offered the Israeli prime minister: It says that in any final peace settlement, Palestinians should have a 'right of return' to the new state, not to Israel itself, and acknowledges that Israel will retain some territory it has occupied since the 1967 war."

Big smile of the day

"Several members of the House of Representatives have requested the United Nations to send observers to monitor the November 2 US presidential election to avoid a contentious vote like in 2000, when the outcome was decided by Florida. Nine lawmakers, including four blacks and one Hispanic, sent a letter Thursday to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan asking that the international body 'ensure free and fair elections in America.'"

Followup: Just as a reminder to readers, putting the spotlight on problems in America by taking them before the "world" in the body of the U.N. is not a new idea, and it's worth remembering the last time someone talked about it:

"Following the example of Paul Robeson and W. E. B. Du Bois, Malcolm X planned in 1965 to submit to the United Nations a petition that documented human rights violations and acts of genocide against African Americans. His assassination at the Audubon Ballroom in New York--carried out by gunmen affiliated with the NOI--intervened."

Chemical weapons in Iraq

"Multinational forces in Iraq said on Friday that more than a dozen missile warheads said to contain mustard gas or sarin have tested negative for chemical agents.

"Washington had announced the find by Polish troops on Thursday, which was later confirmed by Warsaw."

Underemployment