Left I on the News  

So what's wrong with that? Ricardo Alarcon, President of the Cuban Parliament, reminds us of why the American "justice" system is a misnomer:

In May 2001...the prosecution lawyers at the Cubans' trial "actually stated that the available evidence was insufficient to convict Gerardo Hernandez, and thus, the jury would absolve him."

Judge Joan Lenard, however, refused to withdraw the charge.

"She said it was too late, that that was what they had said for seven months, and that was how it should be presented before the jury."

"Incredibly, the 12 jury members were capable of quickly deciding that Gerardo Hernandez was guilty of something for which there was no evidence, he noted.  

Alarcon emphasized that the U.S. Constitution says that a guilty finding must be beyond any reasonable doubt: "More than reasonable doubts, there is enormous doubt when the accuser himself is saying that something is false and asking for it to be revoked."

American "justice." What a joke. Except Gerardo and the other four, and their families, aren't laughing.

A young Iraqi girl has exclusively given ITV News a shocking first hand account of what witnesses claim amounts to mass murder by US troops in the war-torn country.

Ten-year-old Iman Walid tells of screaming soldiers entering her house in the Iraqi town of Haditha spraying bullets in every direction.

Fifteen people in all were killed, including her parents and grandparents. Her account has been corroborated by other eyewitnesses who say it was a revenge attack after a roadside bomb killed a marine.

Initially, the US marines issued a statement saying that a roadside bomb had killed 15 civilians, while eight insurgents had been killed in a later gunbattle.

US military officials have since confirmed the 15 civilians were actually shot dead.

So, do you think Iman Walid might be asked to testify before U.S. Congress, like Nayirah, the 15-year-old Kuwaiti girl who told Congress that 312 premature babies had died after Iraqi soldiers threw them from their incubators, testimony which led directly to the first Gulf War? No, I shouldn't think so.

But forget about Congress. Here's the thing about the testimony of these two young girls. The Haditha massacre did receive fairly extensive coverage in the U.S. press -- for one day. And that coverage, although some of it, like the major TIME article, was pretty damning, all has a certain "he-said, she-said" nature to it. After all, the "military is investigating" (yes, that would be the same military that we know for sure lied about the incident initially). But when Nayirah gave her testimony to Congress, it was repeated over and over again, day after day. None of the coverage hinted at the slightest doubt about the testimony, even in the face of certain non-credible aspects (such as the improbably precise claim about 312 bodies). Much later, it was learned that Nayirah was the daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador to the U.S., a complete fraud, and the simplest investigation (asking real nurses in the maternity ward in question) revealed that the incident had never happened. But none of the American media chose to do such simple followup at the time. And even after those facts were known, HBO ran a docudrama in 2002 (!!) which presented the story as true.

Prayers offered by strangers had no effect on the recovery of people who were undergoing heart surgery, a large and long-awaited study has found.

And patients who knew they were being prayed for had a higher rate of post-operative complications like abnormal heart rhythms, perhaps because of the expectations the prayers created, the researchers suggested.

Skeptics have contended that studying prayer is a waste of money and that it presupposes supernatural intervention, putting it by definition beyond the reach of science.

Just so we're clear, this is a study where people are praying for someone else at a distance, so called "intercessory prayer." No one doubts that the power of a patient's own mind, whether it be expressed as prayer or a "will to live" or whatever, can effect the reaction of a body to at least some physical situations, be they diseases or other problems.

Update: Both The New York Times, which originated the story, and my local paper, the San Jose Mercury News, judged this study of such utmost importance as to warrant front-page treatment. So to "science takes another step backwards" I guess I should add "news media take another step backwards." Not that they have much room left to go in that direction. The Mercury News, which I remind readers is the main paper of Silicon Valley, the supposed center of technological innovation in the country, still publishes a horoscope every day.

The Bush administration said yesterday that the cost of rebuilding New Orleans's levees to federal standards has nearly tripled to $10 billion and that there may not be enough money to fully protect the entire region.

Tim Shaffer for The New York Times

Michael Berg, Green Party candidate for Congress

From the Times article:

As he bicycles across the state giving speeches at schools and churches and holding fund-raising house parties, he says he has found a receptive audience, not just to his call for an immediate withdrawal of all American forces from Iraq but also to the rest of his platform: universal health care, a livable wage and increased spending on education.

"A lot of voters are frustrated by the lack of options beyond the two major parties," Mr. Berg said. "And a lot of these people have not been voting before."

Mr. Berg said that he was originally approached by a representative of the state's Democratic Party to oppose Mr. Castle but that he opted to go with the Greens because "the Democrats have the money to get the message out, but they have the wrong message."

And now there's a new development -- it has been revealed that the government had planted a bug in their bedroom (!), and wiretapped their phones, for years (!). Were they plotting terrorist attacks? Stealing military secrets? Not even close. "The couple...are suspected of reporting on the exile community and its leaders to Cuban leader Fidel Castro's government." Read that again. Even if you didn't know that the "exile community" has been a source of terrorist acts against Cuba for more than 40 years, one thing you know for sure -- they aren't the U.S. government or the U.S. military. On what possible grounds does the U.S. get to bug and wiretap people for years because they are reporting on the activities of the Cuban exile community? And, to ask a not entirely irrelevant question, what would have happened if they had simply started a blog on which they published their observations, rather than allegedly communicating them directly to members of the Cuban government?

You all know I'm no lawyer. Here are the statutes relating to being an "agent of a foreign power." The statutes talk about "violating the criminal statutes of the United States," which there is no indication this couple is accused of doing, they talk about engaging in "clandestine intelligence gathering activities," which again there is no indication this couple was doing, they talk about engaging in sabotage or terrorism (again, not relevant), and on and on. I can't see the slightest indication that these statutes have the slightest bearing on this case. Yet here they are, having been spied on for years by the U.S. government, and now having been jailed for several months.

Free the Miami Two!

Facing growing pressure from the Bush administration to step down, Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari of Iraq vigorously asserted his right to stay in office on Wednesday and warned the Americans against interfering in the country's political process. (Source)

And George Bush's appropriately chastized response?

"It's about time you get a unity government going. In other words, Americans understand newcomers to the political arena, but pretty soon it's time to shut her down and get governing."

Blog traffic (from Sitemeter, excludes RSS feeds, etc.):
Left I on The News: 692 average visits per day
Atrios (Eschaton): 139,789 visits/day
Daily Kos: 507,170 visits/day

Looks pretty dismal for Left I, right? But consider:

Average visit length:
Left I on The News: 1:50
Atrios (Eschaton): 0:09
Daily Kos: 0:04

That makes me feel a lot better!

"War is war, and it has never been the case that when you captured a combatant you have to give them a jury trial in your civil courts. Give me a break. If he [a Guantanamo detainee] was captured by my army on a battlefield, that is where he belongs. I had a son on that battlefield and they were shooting at my son, and I'm not about to give this man who was captured in a war a full jury trial. I mean it's crazy."

MI5 knew that two British residents who were seized and secretly flown to Guantánamo Bay were carrying harmless items when it tipped off the CIA that they were in possession of bomb parts.

The two men were seized in Gambia after a tip-off from MI5. British security officials had earlier detained the men at Gatwick airport before releasing them.

In a statement at Guantanamo, Mr Rawi said he had been dressed in nappies and hooded and shackled for his transfer from Gambia by a CIA rendition team on December 8 2002...The plane arrived in Kabul, the Afghan capital, the next day via Cairo.

In Afghanistan, the pair were taken to what inmates came to know as the "Dark Prison", a CIA jail where prisoners were held in complete darkness and subjected to non-stop loud music.

Shooting at Scalia's son? Pretty good shooting for two guys who were flying from London to Gambia. Can there be any doubt that, with a man like this as one of the nine most important people in the system in the country, what we have in the United States is an injustice system?

Lalo Alcaraz

1979: Homosexual acts were decriminalized.

1988: Law against "flaunting homosexuality" is rescinded. Fidel Castro explains the need to reject rigidity and change negative party and societal attitudes towards gays.

1992: Vilma Espin, a leader of the Revolution and president of the Federation of Cuban Women (FMC), condemns prejudicial views against lesbians and gays. Castro speaks in defense of women's equality and rebukes anti-gay sentiments: "I am absolutely opposed to any form of repression, contempt, scorn or discrimination with regard to homosexuals. [It is] a natural human tendency that must simply be respected."

1997: The last traces of anti-gay references in Cuba laws are removed.

In 2001, Amnesty International reported that Iraq's constitution was amended to make homosexuality a crime punishable by death. Although the constitution reverted back to the original 1969 document when Saddam Hussein's regime was toppled in 2003, the status of gay and lesbian rights remain unclear.

But back to the situation of gays. AP may think that the "status" (presumably they mean the legal status) of gays and lesbians remains unclear, but the situation of gays and lesbians is a lot clearer. That is, if you read sources other than the corporate media, which as far as I can tell have yet to breath a word about the fate of gays in Iraq, who are being systematically persecuted and killed in Iraq thanks to a death-to-gays fatwa issued by Shiite Muslim leader Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani last October. Pacific Views, where I learned about this, has a nice summary of the horrendous situation. Is this situation better or worse than it was before the invasion? It's hard to tell, but it certainly sounds like it has gotten much, much worse.

Update: I really should add that, in addition to the fact that this current turn of events is essentially a direct result of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, it is a reasonable interpretation of history to suggest that the 2001 change of law was an indirect result of U.S. action as well. Wikipedia says, "It is believed that sudden usage of the death penalty was tied to a desire by Saddam Hussein to win the support of Iraqi Islamic conservatives." And this desire was hardly the result of Saddam Hussein "finding religion." No, it was the direct result of more than a decade of economic and increasingly military warfare (think no-fly zones) against Iraq by the U.S. and the U.K., and Hussein's need to shore up internal support of his regime in the face of those external attacks.

Second update: The editor of Uruknet provides some important updates. First, this, from a gay Iraqi exile who was on Democracy Now a few days ago, answering the question of "is the situation better or worse than it was before the invasion":

Iraq, at the time of Saddam, was -- I mean, I'm talking about as a gay Iraqi -- it was not as bad as we can see now. In fact, it was a little bit -- we have a little bit acceptance. We have little bit of -- not too many intimidation. People are really accepting gays, especially in theater, in entertainment and media. We had several actors, singers, which was very popular before. There was no homophobic attitudes toward gay and lesbians. Most of them are welcomed in the community and the society.

Q: What is the judgement on sodomy and lesbianism?

A: "Forbidden. Those involved in the act should be punished. In fact, sodomites should be killed in the worst manner possible."

I don't even like the name of the song. Rachel Corrie was not alone when she died, neither literally nor figuratively. And she is not alone now.

If you aren't already familiar with it, check out David Rovics' The Death of Rachel Corrie, a song addressed to the driver of the bulldozer which killed her.

Watching TV news or reading the papers, you'd think this was a war without human faces.

There are no victims, only numbers. "39 Killed." "50 Dead."

But where are the bodies? That's right, the mangled, gouged, decapitated, amputated, burned bodies?

I'll tell you where: On File. Locked away in the photo and video archives of the major news organizations. The supposedly "negative" media are deliberately holding back from actually showing us the negative human costs of Bush's war, and that puts the lie to any blather about how negative they really are.

It wasn't always this way. In Vietnam, three famous photos spelled things out: The photo of the little girl running down the street drenched with napalm. The photo of the Viet Cong captive having his brains blown out on the street, execution-style. The photo of the bodies piled up at My Lai.

I bet most of you instantly conjured those images just now. For good reason. They're iconic. They won Pulitzer Prizes and major journalism awards because they told, in an instant, everything you needed to know about what was happening.

Three years into Iraq, can you conjure any comparable images? I'll bet the answer's no.

And don't let anybody tell you that it's because the public -- or the media -- are more sensitive today. The media certainly weren't skittish about pictures of the tsunami victims. Or the bloated corpses of Rwanda. Or abandoned bodies floating in the streets of New Orleans.

Editors and producers had no problem with those bodies. Their only problem is with bodies in Iraq.

Why? They don't want to be accused of being negative, of undermining the war effort. Pictures of somebody's dead husband, or baby, or grandma, or brother, tend to do that. You can dismiss a statistic. It's harder to dismiss a lifeless stare, a child's screams.

"If I were grading I would say we probably deserve a 'D' or a 'D-plus' as a country as to how well we're doing in the battle of ideas that's taking place in the world today."

Getting serious, Rumsfeld (and Bush et al's) real problem is that they refuse to acknowledge the "idea" that "extremists" are advancing. It isn't some non-existent "philosophy of terror," or "Islamofacism," or even a philosophy of extreme Islam. No, it's the "philosophy" which says that U.S. attempts to control Iraq (or Iran or Syria or Afghanistan), or U.S. military, political, and economic support for the Israeli oppression of the Palestinians, is unacceptable and must be opposed. And Rumsfeld and Bush will never acknowledge that philosophy, because the solution is quite a simple one, and it rests in their hands. But it isn't one they're going to implement voluntarily.

A UN food agency has appealed to Israeli authorities to allow food consignments to reach tens of thousands of Palestinians in the blockaded Gaza Strip who depend on outside assistance to survive.

The extended closures of the Karni commercial crossing between Israel and Gaza have had a "devastating effect on food availability in the Palestinian enclave", the UN said in a statement released in New York on Monday. Stocks of wheat flour are already critically low and some fear there will soon be no basic commodities in Gaza, it said.

[Lourdes Madriz, Consul General of Venezuela in New Orleans] noted that one of the first doctors from the U.S. to graduate from medical school in Havana was from New Orleans, and did return to help.

Following well behind other news sources, the New York Times is out with the shocking news that George Bush was intent on war in January, 2003. As if anyone with two eyes and two brain cells to rub together didn't recognize that fact well before that January.

What's interesting about this story isn't what the Times is "revealing." What's interesting to me is that more and more government insiders are trying in some way to jump ship (or perhaps to salve their guilty consciences) and get this information out to the public (e.g., slipping copies of memos to Times reporters), and more and more news outlets (like the Times) are willing to run with such stories. Think about this - the Times says they have now seen the memo of this secret meeting. How exactly did they authenticate this memo? Is there any proof it has any more authenticity than the memos which got Dan Rather in so much trouble? I doubt it. But the Times is willing to run with this memo now. Why? Because they know how strongly the world public opposes this war and occupation, and they have to in some way accomodate that fact. They are, after all, a news business, and need to retain some credibility in order to continue selling their product. Being in denial may work for George Bush, but it wouldn't work for the Times. Not to the same degree, anyway.

Update: Reader ralphbon finds something in the article that I missed, and it's no small matter. From the comments:

When I read the article this morning, I gagged on the following passage:

By late January 2003, United Nations inspectors had spent six weeks in Iraq hunting for weapons under the auspices of Security Council Resolution 1441, which authorized "serious consequences" if Iraq voluntarily failed to disarm. Led by Hans Blix, the inspectors had reported little cooperation from Mr. Hussein, and no success finding any unconventional weapons.

The article is basically enabling Bush's lie, repeated most recently last week, that Iraq was not cooperating with the inspectors.

A quick Google search turned up the following, from Blix's January 2003 report to the UN:

Iraq has on the whole co-operated rather well so far with Unmovic in this field.

The most important point to make is that access has been provided to all sites we have wanted to inspect and with one exception it has been prompt. We have further had great help in building up the infrastructure of our office in Baghdad and the field office in Mosul. Arrangements and services for our plane and our helicopters have been good.

In the full report, Blix added qualifications regarding the cooperation, but none amounted to "little cooperation."

Fernando Suarez del Solar was prohibited by security officers at the Federal Building in Fresno today from possessing a 10" x 14" photograph on foamboard of his son, Jesus, a U.S. soldier killed in Iraq. The father had appointments inside the building at the offices of Senators Feinstein and Boxer during the Fresno leg of his 241-mile March for Peace. The officers claimed that no "placards" are allowed, and considered the photograph to be a placard. Suarez del Solar pointed out to the officials that no words were on the front or back of the photo, that it was nothing but a photograph of a soldier killed in the service of his country. He pointed out the irony of the photo being prohibited in the Federal Building. "What kind of country is this?" he asked.

The U.S. military says that U.S. troops never entered the mosque, and that they were just there "supporting" Iraqi forces. That may (or may not) be true. But they use that word "support" to try to leave the impression that, whatever happened, they weren't responsible. Here's their idea of "support":

On Sunday night, American and Iraqi Army forces surrounded a mosque in northeast Baghdad used by Mr. Sadr's troops as a headquarters, Iraqi officials said. Helicopters buzzed overhead as a fleet of heavily armed Humvees sealed off the exits, witnesses said, and when soldiers tried to enter the mosque, shooting erupted, and a heavy-caliber gun battle raged for the next hour.

And readers no doubt remember how the U.S. victimized the people of Cuba by denying them their share of the take from the World Baseball Classic (coverage here, here, and here), and how Cuba volunteered to donate its share of the money to victims of Katrina in order to play.

And now, along comes the U.S., with the U.S. Treasury and State Department and Major League Baseball reneging on the deal, and saying not only doesn't Cuba get any money directly (which is the only thing that would violate U.S. Treasury Department regulations), but also that their share of the money can't go to Katrina victims. Indeed, it's even worse:

U.S. officials say privately that the Bush administration would react angrily if MLB ends up making a donation from the tournament's proceeds to a Katrina charity.

The U.S. government and MLB are now claiming that there was no agreement on this. Here's what the Cubans say; you decide:

On February 15, in a letter addressed to the Cuban Baseball Federation’s president, Mr. Paul Archey, vice president of the Major Leagues, stated: "Responding to the additional points that you have raised with us with respect to the Federation’s concerns around your participation in World Baseball Classic, we have sought the counsel of the United States State Department. After consultations held with the Office of Foreign Assets Control, the State Department has authorized us to make the following commitments in a collateral letter with a mandatory effect:

-- Within a period of 120 days after the tournament’s conclusion, the WBCI will send all the participating federations a balance of account of the disposition of any cash prizes and any non-assigned net income. Said account balance will include documents certifying that the WBCI has donated all of those funds to internationally-known charity organizations such as the American Red Cross and the Katrina Fund."

To whom do the non-assigned funds correspond if not to the Cuban Federation, prevented from having access to them because of the absurd and criminal blockade? What do the State Department and the Classic’s organizers have to say about this agreement approved with the Cuban Federation? Who is lying?

And was the Mercury News unique in this regard? I doubt it. On the online edition of the New York Times today, those million people don't make the "main story headlines" on the top of the page, but are confined to the smaller one-line headlines in the "National" section. And what is that headline, as reflected in the article? "Los Angeles Immigration Rally Draws Thousands." Thousands! A march they estimate as a half-million people in the article gets described as "thousands"! An event which wasn't even important enough for the Times to cover itself; the article is an AP article And, by the way, this was an immigrant rights rally, not an "immigration" rally. The marchers were not advocating "immigration," they were advocting rights for immigrants.

The Washington Post? Even worse. Even though this march, and other massive marches around the country, were aimed at opposing specific legislation currently before Congress, the story does not appear on the Post online front page anywhere, even in the fine print. If you click on "National," when you get to that sub-page, down in the fine print under "More News" you find the story, once again an AP story. Nothing the Post deemed worthy to cover.

A truly disgraceful performance. Democracy? These people wouldn't know "democracy" if they tripped over it. Or if it stared them in the face, as it did on Saturday in Los Angeles and elsewhere.

Belarussian authorities were processing hundreds of demonstrators in a Soviet-era prison here in the capital, and holding what the opposition described as closed trials without legal representation or defense witnesses.

The opposition also said that since their members were arrested in a police sweep early Friday morning, many detainees had been beaten, denied the use of toilets, forced to stand for hours in subfreezing temperatures, and packed nearly by the score into small prison cells.

"It is a horrible violation of human rights and the law," said Aleksandr Milinkevich, the principal challenger to Mr. Lukashenko in last Sunday's presidential election. "They do not consider us to be people."

One late August evening, Alexander Pincus pedaled his bicycle to the Second Avenue Deli to buy matzo ball soup, a pastrami-on-rye and potato latkes for his sweetheart, who was sick with a cold.

He would not return for 28 hours.

Police carted Pincus to a holding cell topped with razor wire and held him for 25 hours without access to a lawyer. The floor was a soup of oil and soot, he said, and the cell had so few portable toilets that some people relieved themselves in the corner. Pincus said a shoulder was dislocated as police pulled back his arms to handcuff him. "Cops kept saying to us, 'This is what you get for protesting,' " said Pincus, whose account of his arrest is supported in part by deli workers and a time-stamped food receipt.

Pincus was one of 1,821 people arrested in police sweeps before and during the Republican convention, the largest number of arrests associated with any American major-party convention.

Most of those arrested were held for more than two days without being arraigned, which a state Supreme Court judge ruled was a violation of legal guidelines.

It's amazing how he keeps coming up when people attack demos. I actually haven't been to a demo in several years where his name was mentioned from the stage (although there was a "Free Mumia" booth right across from mine on Saturday). And the last time his name was mentioned, it was because he was delivering (via tape recorder) a rousing speech against the war, having nothing to do with his case whatsoever. He happens to be one of the best writers and speakers on the left today.

They brought this country and the Middle East to the brink of disaster for their own financial, corporate and imperial ends. The promises of freedom and democracy in Iraq were as empty and as meaningless as the promises to rebuild New Orleans or to bring help to those thousands who suffered in the wake of hurricane Katrina.

That wasn’t incompetence, and neither was Katrina. They both were acts of capitalism’s innate cruelty, where Iraqis can be bombed, invaded and occupied based on lies and where African Americans can be left alone to face the full fury of nature, and then left alone again to starve, to suffer, to drown, for days.

Yes, stop the war in Iraq but how about stopping the war against poor Black folks here at home, ‘cause both arrive from the same source: this system. Let’s build a movement against both wars.

Assistant Secretary of State Anne Patterson "stressed that the U.S. will not take unilateral military action." Yes, just like U.S. troops are in Iraq at the "invitation" of the Iraqi "government." This indictment is a very dangerous escalation of U.S. involvement in this war. And, perhaps coincidentally or perhaps not, we also find this item in today's "celebrity gossip" (!) section of the paper:

Diplomat-in-training Bruce Willis has defused a potential war with Colombia. The "Armageddon" star recently argued that since Colombia's cocaine trafficking is as evil as terrorism, we should invade the country. A surprisingly irked Colombian President Alvaro Uribe Velez called Willis "arrogant" and "ignorant."

The next day, Sabri denied this story, asserting that it was a total fabrication, and describing what he saw, quite plausibly, as the motive for the emergence of this story: "it seems that this new lie is aimed at giving a new fake pretext to justify the crime of the century: the invasion of Iraq." Sabri could now be lying, of course, but whether he is or isn't, I think he hits the nail on the head as to why this story is emerging at this time.

Which brings is to today's story in the Washington Post, emerging after Sabri has already issued his denial (which has received exactly zero press coverage in American media, as far as I can tell). The Post headline, completely unqualified and unambiguous, asserts "Ex-Iraqi Official Unveiled as Spy - Former Envoy Worked With French, CIA." Not "reported" as spy or "alleged" as spy but "unveiled" as spy. The story does attribute the story to unnamed "former intelligence officials," but there isn't the slightest hint in the article, not one word, which indicates either that Sabri has already denied the allegation, or that there could possibly be the slightest question about the veracity of the allegations even if he hadn't.

There's an uproar in the blogosphere because the Post has hired a racist right-wing nut job as its latest online columnist. Why worry about that, considering what's passing for news in the rest of the paper?

And it's not like this is some off-the-wall subject that either has no relevance, or that is just coming up now. Last August, I wrote critically of a "peace proposal" being advanced by Tom Hayden and various self-described progressive Democratic groups. The very first point of that proposal was: "First, as a confidence-building measure, the U.S. government must declare that it has no interest in permanent military bases or the control of Iraqi oil or other resources." Just last week, an amendment authored by Rep. Barbara Lee and a handful of others actually passed the house, purporting to forbid the United States to establish permanent bases in Iraq. The amendment was a fairly mild one as legislation goes (the language making it "the policy of the United States not to enter into any base agreement with the Government of Iraq that would lead to a permanent United States military presence in Iraq" has loopholes wide enough to fly an F-16 through), but it was proposed, and it passed. And the sound it made was like that proverbial tree falling in the forest with no one around. David Swanson reviews the press coverage, which was, for all intents and purposes, non-existent.

Will the AP article open the floodgates of discussion on the subject? I wouldn't count on it.

Photo by Bill Hackwell

The picture was taken at Saturday's antiwar demonstration in San Francisco, and, just in case you don't see the graphic, the quote reads:

"We need to do more than just what is right. We need to join together and right what is wrong."

- Leonard Peltier

• US foreign policy does not "mean well".
• The United States is not concerned with this thing called "democracy."
• Anti-American terrorists are not motivated by hatred or envy of freedom or democracy, or by American wealth, secular government, or culture.
• The United States is not actually against terrorism per se, only those terrorists who are not allies of the empire.
• Iraq was not any kind of a threat to the United States.

And please don't give me the old "the Daily Show is 'fake news,' Jon Stewart is a comedian" line in the comments. While there were a few jolly moments, this was as serious an interview as any that occur anywhere in the media. And, with the exception of shows like Democracy Now!, about as penetrating.

George Bush spoke again (sigh!) yesterday, repeating his recent (and frequent) lie about Iraq (known by its first name, "Saddam") having refused to "disclose" and "disarm" (although he temporarily dropped the one about "denying" the inspectors). But he added another one, one of the traditional American big lies: "He also was firing on our aircraft. They were enforcing a no-fly zone, United Nations no-fly zone, the world had spoken, and he had taken shots at British and U.S. pilots."

Now I know, and you probably know, that the "no-fly zones" were imposed by the United States (and its junior flunkies across the "pond"), not by the United Nations. U.N. Resolution 688, passed in 1991, condemns Iraqi repression of the Kurds (and unnamed others) and demands that it end. But not only is there no language in the resolution authorizing any military action against Iraq whatsoever, including no-fly zones, this statement appears as one of the "whereas" clauses:

"Reaffirming the commitment of all Member States to respect the sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence of Iraq and of all States in the region,"

And, lest we forget, these unauthorized activities were not benign. While British and U.S. aircraft were allegedly shot at (no proof has ever been offered as far as I know; certainly none were ever hit), an estimated 300 Iraqis at a minimum, 200 of them "innocent civilians" (and the others equally innocent members of the Iraqi military) were killed by U.S. and U.K. bombs and missiles during that period. One of them was Omran Harbi Jawair:

Omran Harbi Jawair, 13, was squatting on his haunches at the time, watching the family sheep as they nosed the hard, flat ground in search of grass. He wore a white robe but was bareheaded in spite of an unforgiving sun. Omran, who liked to kick a soccer ball around this dusty village, had just finished fifth grade at the little school a 15-minute walk from his mud-brick home. A shepherd boy's summer vacation lay ahead.

That is when the missile landed.

Without warning, according to several youths standing nearby, the device came crashing down in an open field 200 yards from the dozen houses of Toq al-Ghazalat. A deafening explosion cracked across the silent land. Shrapnel flew in every direction. Four shepherds were wounded. And Omran, the others recalled, lay dead in the dirt, most of his head torn off, the white of his robe stained red.

And, just as with the lies the other day, a check of the media reveals no evidence that any of them mentioned the latest Bush lie. Not one.

All this is a prelude to my real reason for posting - out on a run late this afternoon, I saw my second bobcat in a week! And I'm not talking about something glimpsed in the underbrush, but an animal just 25 yards ahead of me on the trail as I rounded a corner in both cases. The two sightings were in different parks, but both just a few miles from where I live in the heart of Silicon Valley. Very exciting. Sorry, no pictures, but I definitely could have had one or many if I had had my camera with me; the one today just stood there for a while, and then slowly trotted along the trail as I ran in his direction at my pedestrian pace (that's a literal "pedestrian," not a figurative one; I was running uphill at the time). Eventually when I got a little closer he (or she?) ducked off the side of the trail into the underbrush and disappeared.

This isn't the first time I've seen a bobcat, but they're hardly common -- I probably see one every two or three years. Two in a week is exceptional. Mountain lions are much less common -- I only remember seeing one, and at a much greater distance (thankfully!).

Don't stare at a computer screen all day. It's bad for your health. :-)

Update: Doing a little research online, I learn that male bobcats (which, judging by size, is probably what I saw) have a territory of 25-30 square miles. The two locations I saw a bobcat were about six miles apart, so it's actually possible it was the same bobcat. Your science tidbit for the day.

But it wasn't until I heard Dr. Hans von Sponeck, the former United Nations Assistant Secretary-General, and former head of the Iraq “Oil for Food” program (who happens to be speaking tonight in Palo Alto and tomorrow night in Berkeley) speaking on Flashpoints! last night, that I had heard anyone say what should be obvious -- if American soldiers who spend six months (or whatever) in Iraq have PTSD, just imagine what Iraqis are experiencing. Iraqis, who have been subjected to two all-out wars against them by the United States and its partners, a long war against Iran, 13 years of brutal sanctions, and now three years of "occupation" and its associated horrors.

Riverbend, as most readers know, gives us an insight into that reality on a regular basis.

The entire interview with von Sponeck, which is online, is lengthy and extremely interesting. Well worth listening to.

I am ashamed of my fellow Americans. Ashamed that they haven't flooded the streets.

And now georgia10 is "ashamed" that Americans haven't "flooded the streets." Check the mirror, georgia10.

"We realized on September the 11th, 2001, that killers could destroy innocent life."

Jim VandeHei writing in the Washington Post even added his own rewriting of history to Bush's:

Moments later, [Bush] said the reason U.S. forces went to Iraq was to "make sure we didn't allow people to provide safe haven to an enemy." Since the invasion, Bush has emphasized different rationales for the Iraq invasion, such as the need to topple a dangerous dictator and to eliminate weapons of mass destruction, which have yet to be found.

"Disarming" Iraq (in quotes since it was impossible to disarm an already disarmed country) was the reason the U.S. "officially" went to war. U.N. Resolution 1441, on which the U.S. based its completely invalid "legal" claim for the invasion, talks about only one thing - disarming Iraq of WMD. It doesn't talk about safe havens, or "toppling dangerous dictators," or anything of the sort. Only disarmament.

"We demanded that Saddam Hussein let the inspectors in. He did not let them in."

The following day it was followed by a deafening silence in the media. As far as I could tell at the time, only the Washington Post carried the story, and they covered Bush's rear with the almost equally preposterous claim that Bush's statement "appeared to contradict the events leading up to war."

"I also saw a threat in Iraq. I was hoping to solve this problem diplomatically. That's why I went to the Security Council; that's why it was important to pass 1441, which was unanimously passed. And the world said, disarm, disclose, or face serious consequences -- [interruption from Thomas] -- and therefore, we worked with the world, we worked to make sure that Saddam Hussein heard the message of the world. And when he chose to deny inspectors, when he chose not to disclose, then I had the difficult decision to make to remove him.

Sorry, no. The word "inspectors" never came up again. The next questioner asked a question almost as bizarre as Bush's answer to the previous one: "If [Iraqi forces] can't [handle a civil war "if" it breaks out], sir, are you willing to sacrifice American lives to keep Iraqis from killing one another?" As if American lives aren't already being sacrificed, and Iraqis aren't already killing one another. Good job, press corps. Not.

In September 2002, at a meeting of the U.N.’s General Assembly, Sabri came to New York to represent Saddam...He announced that there were no weapons of mass destruction and that the U.S. planned war in Iraq because it wanted the country’s oil.

Sabri indicated [to the CIA] Saddam had no significant, active biological weapons program. OK, that makes that one "just as" accurate as his proclamations to the U.N.

Sabri said Saddam desperately wanted a bomb, but would need much more time than [a year]. The "accuracy" of the claim that Saddam "desperately wanted" a bomb is entirely open to question; we'll have to ask him. As far as the time it would take to make a bomb if they obtained enriched uranium, again, all we do know is that there was nothing actually happening - no centrifuges, no efforts to actually obtain enriched uranium. Which pretty much adds up to nothing.

On the issue of chemical weapons, the CIA said Saddam had stockpiled as much as "500 metric tons of chemical warfare agents" and had "renewed" production of deadly agents. Sabri said Iraq had stockpiled weapons [Ed. note: how many?] and had "poison gas" left over from the first Gulf War [Ed. note: which Scott Ritter has explained would have been utterly useless in 2003]. Both Sabri and the agency were wrong. So...that doesn't sound "more accurate" than what he said at the U.N. either.

"More accurate"? Huh?

Here's what is true about this story. George Tenet knew about this interview with this secret source, which took place in Sept., 2002. In February, 2003, five months later, George Tenet sat behind Colin Powell while Colin Powell lied to the United Nations and to the world, and George Tenet knew he was lying.

Here's what else is true. "After the war, Sabri [the Iraqi Foreign Minister] was not arrested or put on the notorious 'deck of cards.' He lives in the Middle East." Meanwhile, Gen. Amer al-Saadi, who also told the truth to the world but didn't take money from the CIA to tell them a different story in private, remains in jail, just a little less than three years after voluntarily surrendering to U.S. forces under the assumption that he had done nothing wrong and would soon be released.

My favorite bit from the article, which happens to echo something I wrote regarding the criticism of a play about Rachel Corrie as being a "monologue":

Referring to American visitors, an American diplomat in Caracas, who could not speak on the record because of embassy rules, echoed the concerns, saying, "Come down here and get your consciousness raised, absolutely." He added, "My only request of them is that they try to get the other side of the story."

Emily Kurland, a 26-year-old social worker originally from Chicago, said that was exactly what she and the others here were getting.

"They're frustrated with Bush, frustrated with not being listened to, frustrated with Iraq," said Ms. Kurland, speaking in the Caracas house she shares with several foreigners. "They don't trust Fox News. They don't trust the mainstream news. They want to see with their own eyes what's happening here."

This provides us with an excellent opportunity, on a local level which could no doubt be reproduced in every county of the United States, to do some math. The Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors estimates that tax increase will bring in between $154 and $170 million/year. But the Santa Clara County share of the $68 billion that Honda just voted to pay to continue the war and occupation is $667 million (estimated via Cost of War), four times as much. Wouldn't it be nice if Mike Honda and the rest of the Congress would willingly vote money for BART and other human needs, and put the funding for the war on the ballot so the people could vote on that instead?

The truth is, there is more than enough money to pay for transportation, health care, education, and other social needs. The people of Santa Clara County have already spent more than $2.4 billion on this illegal war, more than $4000 per household. There's no need to change the tax rate. Just the priorities.

In May 1954, Ms. Braden and her husband, Carl, both white Kentuckians active in progressive politics, bought a house in a segregated Louisville suburb on behalf of a black associate, Andrew Wade IV, and his family. In June, the house was dynamited. (No one was injured in the explosion, and the bomber was never caught.)

In October, in a case that attracted nationwide attention, the Bradens and five other whites were indicted on charges of sedition in connection with the blast [Ed. note: shades of Judi Bari]. The state said the Bradens, who were believed to be associated with the Communist Party, had intended to incite unrest with their purchase of the house.

Carl Braden was convicted and sentenced to 15 years in prison, but he served just over seven months before the verdict was overturned in 1956. Anne Braden's case never went to trial.
...
The Bradens were repeatedly accused of being Communists, and, in 1958, Carl Braden was called before the House Un-American Activities Committee in Atlanta. Refusing to testify, he was sentenced to a year in prison.
...
In 1967, the Bradens were again indicted on charges of sedition, for helping to organize a protest against strip mining in eastern Kentucky.

But for now let's just talk about civilians. Here's something to realize about the number 30,000. At the time Bush said that, the number listed by Iraq Body Count wasn't 30,000, it was (approximately, it's hard to know what figure appeared on their site on that exact date) a minimum of 32,200, and a maximum of 36,300. Let's be generous to Bush (don't ask me why) and use the 32,200 figure. Well, that's almost 30,000 right? Sure, except it isn't. The difference is 2,200, which just happens to be almost exactly the number of American soldiers who had been killed at the time that George Bush said "30,000", and isn't that far off from the number of people killed in the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

The death of 2,200 American soldiers? "We have to keep killing more people so they won't have died in vain." The death of 2,986 Americans and others on Sept. 11? An excuse for going to war and killing more than 100,000 Iraqis and Afghans and others. The death of 2,200 (or 6,300) Iraqi civilians? Just a rounding error.

And it's a rounding error that keeps getting bigger. Because when Bob Herbert cited the 30,000 figure in the New York Times last week (just to mention one recent use of the figure), he wasn't off by 2,200. He was off by 3,710 (minimum) or 7,832 (maximum), the current conservative figures cited by Iraq Body Count. Well over the number of people killed on 9/11.

On Saturday, during her national radio response to the president, Senator Dianne Feinstein accused the Bush administration of "incompetence" in the Iraq war.

Senator Feinstein went on to say that it's so important, for the war in Iraq, for the United States government to "do it right."

How does one do this war right, when every day it brings more carnage? The only way to do this war right is to not do it at all.

Last Friday, reporting on a new assault by the U.S. military in Iraq, a headline on the front page of the San Francisco Chronicle said: "Biggest air attack since the invasion seen as delivering a message."

Delivering a message.

When people across the United States gather to oppose this war, they are refusing to participate in sending the message of death.

The problem isn't that this war may not be winnable. The problem is the war was and is and always will be wrong, and must be stopped.

At every demonstration for peace and social justice, why are we here? Because those are values we want to live for.

As a reminder, here was Bush on Dec. 14, the day before the elections:

"We may not know for certain who's won the elections until the early part of January -- and that's important for our citizens to understand. It's going to take a while. It's also going to take a while for them to form a government."

To the Post's credit, while leading their article with this absurd view of "reality," their headline reads like this (note the quotation marks):

Bush Still Upbeat on Outcome In Iraq
On Third Anniversary Of Invasion, President Foresees 'Victory'

"Imagine what would happen if it were announced tomorrow in the headlines of the papers of America and throughout the world that Rumsfeld was fired. It would energize, energize the rest of the world, to be willing to help us. It would energize American forces, it would energize the political environment."

American officials announced last week that they had ordered a further investigation into a deadly incident four months ago in the town of Haditha in far western Iraq.

At least 15 civilians were killed in the incident on Nov. 19. The military's original statement on Nov. 20 said that the civilians and a U.S. Marine were killed by a roadside bomb. Time magazine reported Sunday that U.S. officials are now investigating whether Marines killed the 15 civilians, including seven women and three children, after the insurgent bombing that killed their fellow Marine.

The newsweekly said it had given military officials accounts from a doctor and survivors that said the 15 unarmed townspeople were killed as they hid in their houses, or tried to run to safety, as Marines searched the area after the bombing.

Support the troops? Count me out.
Talking to a truckload of troops, sitting in pre-dawn darkness Friday morning, Sgt. Marcio Vargas Estrada made the point to the men of his squad from 3-2's Lima Company.

"If somebody shoots at you, you waste" him, said Estrada, 32, of Kearny, N.J. "When you go back to Camp Lejeune, these will be the good old days, when you brought . . . death and destruction to -- what . . . is this place called?"

A Marine answered in the darkness: "Haqlaniyah."

Estrada continued: "Haqlaniyah, yeah, that. And then we will take death and destruction to Hadithah. Hopefully, we'll stay until December so we can bring death and destruction to half of . . . Iraq."

The flatbed truck erupted in a storm of "Hoo-ahs." (Source)

These are the troops that we are constantly being told we must "support". Count me out.

I don't intend for this blog to be solely the home of radicals/progressives/socialists. I hope (and think) that I have something to say which should interest anyone. But there are times when I just have to vent at liberals, and this is one of those times.

It's common in the aftermath of demonstrations to criticize the corporate media for their lack of coverage of demonstrations, underestimating the size of the demonstrations, giving equal time to counter-demonstrations of three people, and so on. But those failings are understandable, given the fact that corporate media serve corporate masters (or are corporate masters, if you prefer). But bloggers shouldn't have that kind of built-in bias. You wouldn't think, anyway.

According to ANSWER, who keeps track of these things, there were demonstrations in 500 different cities all across the United States yesterday, from large cities to small, "red states" to "blue," totalling hundreds of thousands of people. There actually was decent, if not spectacular, media coverage. So how did the liberal blogs do? For the most part, they completely ignored those hundreds of thousands of people. Not only didn't they do anything to promote or even mention the demonstrations before they happened, which you might have expected if they really were against the war as many profess to be, they didn't mention them after the fact either. Yes, some people have a problem with ANSWER (and if they do, they ought to get over it. Any "problem" they have with ANSWER should pale in comparison to the problem they should have with imperialism and its murderous wars of aggression). But only a tiny fraction of the 500 demonstrations (albeit the three largest, in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Chicago) were organized by ANSWER, so there was plenty to write about even ignoring ANSWER if they wanted to do so.

Daily KOS had not a word to say about them in a regular post, although they did manage to tell readers to "check out some photos of protests against the war in Iraq being held around the world today." as an aside to an Open Thread (not that the demonstrations actually were the focus of the open thread, unlike "March Madness," which was given a thread all its own).

Atrios? Not a word.

Firedoglake? In a long post about Lieberman, a brief mention at the very end about a demonstration to be held today outside his office. Otherwise, not a word.

Suburban Guerrilla? Not a word.

First Draft? Not a word.

Huffington Post? This morning, their lead headline was "London, Sydney, New York, Toronto, Washington, Stockholm, Istanbul, Copenhagen, Seoul, Boston..." leading to an AP story, but by later in the day that's just become a tiny headline, one among dozens. No blog posts about the subject at all, although Sunday is a day of rest for Huffington Post bloggers, so we'll see what tomorrow brings.

I spent yesterday staffing a table at the demo for the Committee to Free the Cuban Five, and had a very interesting conversation with one man which illustrated the point I've made before on the subject of "liberals vs. radicals." This man claimed to love Fidel Castro, and admire everything that Cuba has done (education, health care, sending doctors to Pakistan earthquake victims, and so on). But he claimed he just couldn't stand the "system" (socialism) that Cuba has. It's hard to have too serious a conversation in the hubbub of a crowd, but I just couldn't get him to understand that what Cuba has accomplished flows out of the system. He was convinced it's all because Fidel is just a good man who cares about his people. He certainly is and does. But a Fidel Castro equivalent elected President of the United States in 2008, aside from being completely unthinkable, just would not be remotely the same.

Is this connected to why liberal blogs don't think hundreds of thousands of people in the streets are even worth mentioning, nevertheless encouraging? I think so, which is why I mentioned it.

Update: Just to clarify: am I castigating people for thinking that demonstrations are not the most important thing in the world, or even for thinking they are completely counterproductive? No. There are many aspects to the antiwar movement, and there are certainly various arguable positions on what needs to be done, or what the priorities are. So if someone thinks these demonstrations were a waste of time and accomplished nothing, they should use this opportunity to say so. Say something. Completely ignoring the actions of hundreds of thousands of people makes them even worse than the corporate media. Which is saying something.

Second update: It's now Monday. Huffington Post has exactly one blog mentioning the demonstrations, written by someone who was in a hotel in San Francisco close to the demo site but couldn't even be bothered to rouse himself to go see it (nevertheless participate in it), refers to it as a "parade" rather than a march suggesting he's never been to one in his life, and has to rely on "accounts" to even know what happened. He wastes a lot of words concluding that the war will only be stopped when the antiwar movement goes to conservative, evangelical churches and offers to debate the war. He seems to miss the point that the overwhelming majority of Americans are already opposed to the war, and that the most important task is not to convert the remaining few who support the war, but to mobilize those who don't (and to convince the latter group that withdrawal "sometime in the future" will always remain "sometime in the future," and that only calling for withdrawal now will actually get the troops out). Anyway, it's a silly essay which has almost nothing to say about the demonstrations themselves other than to dismiss them, and it's the only one at Huffington Post.

Incidentally, for those (like this man) who think that demonstrations don't accomplish anything, here's a thought for you. What would have been the reaction of the administration and the media if there had been no demonstrations this weekend? In my opinion, that would have been a crushing blow to the antiwar movement and to the likelihood of ending the war.

The lyrics were already posted in that earlier post, so I'll just repeat my favorite refrain:

Enough blood’s been shed
By the wounded and the dead

Stop the war. Now.
Don't put it off another day.

Just a short note on press coverage. Blogs like this one tend to focus on the print media, and to a lesser extent on national news channels, because those are things that can be linked to. But equally important to helping make an impression on the public are local news channels. Here in the Bay Area, two different channels I watched carried almost their first ten minutes of coverage (at the dinnertime broadcast) on antiwar rallies, including those in San Francisco, Walnut Creek, Vallejo and Oakland (there was also a large rally in Palo Alto which I don't believe had TV coverage). They also featured a roundup of coverage from around the world, places like London and Turkey. The viewer definitely got the impression (which is, of course, the truth, not just an impression) that the entire world is opposed to this war.

Just two days before the demonstration, San Francisco's own Nancy Pelosi, who knows very well that 80+% of her constituents are opposed to the war, voted in favor of $68 billion more for the war (as did five other Bay Area reprentatives, including liberal Mike Honda from San Jose). A smaller number, to their credit, voted no.

And now it's the Washington Post in an editorial yesterday, turning political rhetoric into simple, unquestioned, historical fact:

In Iraq -- where American soldiers are dying from Iranian-supplied roadside bombs and sectarian violence by Iranian-supported militias is steadily mounting -- the Islamic regime has a tacit and sinister offer to make: Back down in New York, and the carnage in Baghdad might just drop off.

And then there's that "Iranian-supported militias" phrase. Now "support" comes in a lot of forms - political, moral, economic...and military. But the end of the sentence ("carnage in Baghdad might just drop off") clearly suggests they are talking about military support, that is, not just the IEDs referred to but other forms of weapons. And once again, while I don't deny the possibility that that is occuring, I know of no proof that it is occuring.

I don't watch the Sunday morning talk shows. I don't have the stomach for it. But my guess is that this is a subject that will come up again and again and again. And my second guess is that not a single guest will present the analysis I've just presented; they will virtually all simply accept the "conventional wisdom [sic]" presented by Bush and the Post.

"Initial reports indicate a number of weapons caches were captured, containing artillery shells, IED-making materials and military uniforms. Iraqi and Coalition troops also detained 41 suspected insurgents."

That sounds exciting! But according to a colleague of mine from TIME who traveled up there today on a U.S. embassy-sponsored trip, there are no insurgents, no fighting and 17 of the 41 prisoners taken have already been released after just one day. The “number of weapons caches” equals six, which isn’t unusual when you travel around Iraq. They’re literally everywhere.

According to my colleague and other reporters who were there, not a single shot has been fired.

“Operation Swarmer” is really a media show. It was designed to show off the new Iraqi Army — although there was no enemy for them to fight.

And while you've got your credit card out, buy yourself a treat and help a good cause at the same time - buy a copy of that CD depicted in the right-hand column. You can get a physical copy or an MP3 download of 17 beautiful Cuban songs. You disappointed me the last time I urged you to buy a copy - don't make me ask again! ;-)

Every newspaper has an article today about the release of a revised U.S. Empire "national security strategy." Here are the AP, New York Times, and Washington Post articles. Every one of them uses the Bush Administration/U.S. government language of "preemptive war." Not one of them uses the word "unprovoked," which of course is just what such a war is. And there's another phrase and subject you won't find mentioned in any of them: "international law."

A phrase like, "Experts in international law almost universally agree that such 'preemptive' attacks violate the Geneva Conventions, and constitute a war crime"? Sorry, you'll need to look somewhere other than the corporate media to find actual reporting like that, rather than U.S. government press release regurgitation.

Update: And then there's Helen Thomas in today's press gaggle:

Does the President know that he's in violation of international law when he advocates preemptive war? The U.N. Charter, Geneva, Nuremberg. We violate international law when we advocate attacking a country that did not attack us.

Then we come to Iran: "Which one of the following do you think is the most likely outcome for the situation with Iran trying to obtain nuclear weapons? 1. Iran will be stopped from getting nuclear weapons through diplomatic solutions 2. Iran will be stopped from getting nuclear weapons through military action 3. Iran will eventually get nuclear weapons 4. (Don’t know)" A choice that says "there's no evidence that Iran either wants nuclear weapons, or has done anything to obtain them?" I must have missed that one.

In the face of all these loaded questions, here's one piece of good news. Given yet another loaded question -- "If diplomacy fails, which of the following U.S. military actions would you support to stop Iran from getting nuclear weapons?", 50% of Americans said they approved of "using whatever military force is necessary." And why is that good news? Because back in January, when the war drums against Iran weren't being beaten nearly as loudly as they are now, 59% answered "Yes" to the same question. The Bush Administration and the media do their best to drum up war fever against Iran, and lose 15% of their support.

No, I really don't think it's "good news" that half the American public would support attacking Iran. Indeed, I think it's truly appalling. Not, unfortunately, surprising. But appalling. Especially considering that, for all the talk of Iran's hypothetical future violation of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, it's the U.S., Britain, and France which are already in blatant violation of the treaty.

Is there any chance at all that the U.S. is not only training Iraqi pilots, but also preparing to leave attack planes, helicopters, and cruise missiles behind for the Iraqi government to use on that mythical day when American forces leave? Are you kidding? And let them fall into the "wrong hands" when that government falls the week after the Americans leave? Not on your life. Which tells you that the entire plan for the U.S. to train Iraqi forces and then leave is a complete sham.

Some day, they may reduce the size of their ground forces voluntarily (although as of today they are increasing them). But will the U.S. ever actually "withdraw" from Iraq? Not unless the Iraqi resistance and the world antiwar movement combine to force them to do so. And the antiwar movement throwing any weight whatsoever behind the phony "withdrawal" of the Murtha amendment would be a step in precisely the wrong direction.

Following a massive outpouring of opposition, H. Con. Res. 328 (the Mack resolution) was withdrawn from the Subcommittee on Western Hemisphere Affairs in the House Committee on International Relations. Due for a vote today, Rep. Mack (R-FL) and his supporters pulled the resolution before a vote could take place. Clearly, they felt that the resolution would now fail.

In recent weeks the A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition, VoteNoWar.org, the Venezuelan Information Office and others have campaigned against this resolution which paves the way for escalating U.S. intervention against Venezuela’s democratic process.

Yesterday more than 10,000 letters were sent to Congress in just a few hours after the last A.N.S.W.E.R./ VoteNoWar.org appeal. Everyone who participated should feel proud. We must intensify our solidarity with the majority of people in Venezuela -- the 80% who live in poverty -- who are mobilizing a many-sided campaign for social, economic and political justice. They face an ever increasing threat from the U.S. government which seeks to maintain the power of the Venezuelan oligarchy and tiny ultra-rich elites who have dominated the country.

"If the Israeli military should break with their racist tendency not to injure white people, please pin the reason squarely on the fact that I am in the midst of a genocide which I am also indirectly supporting, and for which my government is largely responsible."

- Rachel Corrie, Feb. 27, 2003, two-and-a-half weeks before her murder at the hands of an Israeli soldier driving an American bulldozer, three years ago today.

The largest study of U.S. health care quality suggests that all Americans -- rich, poor, black, white -- get roughly equal medical treatment from doctors and nurses and it is mediocre for all: Patients receive proper care only 55 percent of the time.

But we've already seen pictures of all 11 bodies (definitely more than four, in any case) broadcast on American television! What on earth will it take for the American media to stop according the U.S. military the slightest credibility whatsoever, and giving us this absurd "he-said, she-said" kind of reporting (and headlines, in this case)? Do we have to wait until the deaths occur in the lobby of the San Jose Mercury News?

And why do they feel that way? How can they maintain that differentiation? Because of us, the people who will be in the streets on Saturday, demonstrating to the world that the American people do not support the policies of our government, in visible ways that no poll can ever match. So be there, and do your part to help the oppressed people of the world understand that at least some Americans are on their side.

"The Americans have promised us a better life, but we get only death."

- Uncle of the dead children shown above, murdered today in the latest American war crime

But Stephen Colbert's new Colbert Report leaves me absolutely cold (I'm not talking about when he was on The Daily Show where he was great). Yes, there are moments of humor. But his right-wing schtick is, for my money, so far over the top it has come out the bottom again, so far "in" it's "out." At its core, not just unfunny but downright repulsive, barely distinguishable from the neanderthals he's pretending (or is he?) to be.

Your turn in the comments...

U.S. Hands Off...the World!

So, even with AP photographers on the scene documenting the atrocity, as "hard" and non-circumstantial as evidence gets, the AP still gives a "he-said, she-said" credibility to the ludicrous claim of the U.S. military that only four people were killed.

As to the actual story, well, what can be said that hasn't been said hundreds of times before? Why were these 11 people killed? "The U.S. military said it was targeting and captured an individual suspected of supporting foreign fighters for the al-Qaida in Iraq terrorist network." But much higher in the article, we were told that "the U.S. military acknowledged the raid and said it captured one insurgent." So it now appears it wasn't an "insurgent" at all, but a suspected supporter of resistance fighters. And based on that suspicion, the U.S. was willing to use warplanes and armor to flatten a house (a curious way to attempt to "capture" someone, incidentally), inside of which they had no idea who was present, and in the process to kill 11 people.

By the way, the first sentence of this post contains the phrase "war crimes." You knew that phrase didn't come from the AP article, didn't you?

Postscript: CNN reports the story something like this: "U.S. troops report that they were shot at from the house, and they returned fire." Sorry, attacking a house with bombs and tank shells is not just "returning fire." It's a complete and callous indifference to the possibility that any non-combatants might be inside, even if you accept the right of the U.S. troops to be there in the first place (which of course I don't).

[South Korean] President Roh Moo Hyun accepted the resignation of his prime minister Tuesday after the premier set off a scandal by playing golf during a national railway strike.

Here's one of the things Milbank has to say:

At a time when Democrats had Bush on the ropes over Iraq, the budget and port security, Feingold single-handedly turned the debate back to an issue where Bush has the advantage.

Milbank also writes "they also know Feingold's maneuver could cost them seats in GOP states." Again, says who other than Dana Milbank? Notice the wording of that sentence carefully (aside from the unnecessarily pejorative word "maneuver"). Milbank doesn't say that the Democrats "think" this could cost them seats, he says they "know" it could cost them seats. The word "could" is a bit of a weasel word, but basically Milbank is asserting that the "fact" that voting for this resolution could cost Democrats seats is self-evident. It most certainly is not.

Of course the Democrats should be supporting not just this motion but a lot more as well (impeachment, demands for resignation, pulling out of Iraq, and on and on). I'm certainly not defending them. But this hit piece by Milbank has other motives, not just to label the Democrats as cowards, but to spread the bogus idea that the American people are on Bush's side. They most assuredly are not, as every opinion poll shows.

American forces have dramatically increased airstrikes in Iraq during the past five months, a change of tactics that may foreshadow how the United States plans to battle a still-strong insurgency while reducing the number of U.S. ground troops serving here.

"I don't think it will look like the United States' Civil War."

What NAFTA, GATT, Davos and the WTO have always been about is freeing up transnationals to get rid of First World workers, while assuring them they could hold on, at no cost, to their First World customers.

When one considers who finances the Republican Party, funds its candidates, and hires its former congressmen, senators and Cabinet officers at six- and seven-figure retainers to lobby, it is understandable that the GOP went into the tank.

But why did the liberals, who paid the price of mandating all those benefits for American workers and imposing all those regulations on U.S. corporations, go along? That's the mystery. About NAFTA there is no mystery. There never really was.

And why is that significant? Because yesterday, George Bush, beating the war drums against Iran, reused the same lying technique that was repeatedly used in preparing Americans for the invasion of Iraq -- replacing conjecture with certainty: "Some of the most powerful IEDs we're seeing in Iraq today includes components that came from Iran...Coalition forces have seized IEDs and components that were clearly produced in Iran." As I wrote the other day, if that were really true, Donald Rumsfeld would have been holding up those weapons at his news conference and displaying them to the world. CondoLIEzza Rice would have already been dispatched to the U.N. with large blow-up pictures of these IEDs and components, complete with the "proof" that they came from Iran.

Is "Iran," either the government or some forces within Iran (it's a big country!), helping to provide weapons to people in Iraq? It's quite possible. But George Bush does not know that for a fact, of that I'm certain. Which makes me certain that, once again, he's lying.

There's another interesting aspect to this story. Here's the rest of Bush's statement: "Our Director of National Intelligence, John Negroponte, told the Congress, 'Tehran has been responsible for at least some of the increasing lethality of anti-coalition attacks by providing Shia militia with the capability to build improvised explosive devises' in Iraq." Shia militia? So it's not just "foreign fighters," but the supposed "friends" of the U.S., the ones the U.S. "liberated," the Shia, who are setting off IEDs that are killing American troops? Well isn't that an interesting admission.

And what else do we have to really hunt to find out? In the 29th paragraph (!!) we are finally told this rather essential piece of information: "Israel's Channel Two television reported that the Israeli troops began the raid 20 minutes after the foreign monitors left." Those "foreign monitors" were British and Americans, and are of course the reason why British and American targets in the region are now being attacked.

To be fair, the third paragraph of the article does say "The Palestinians blamed the Jericho raid on the British and Americans, who removed their monitors from the jail just before the Israeli raid." But "just before" could be "the day before" or "the week before." The "20 minutes" figure is rather significant, because it demonstrates clearly the collusion between the US and UK (particularly, it appears the UK in this case) and Israel in this attack. For Israeli bulldozers, tanks, and missile-firing planes (or helicopters, whatever) to appear at the gates of Jericho prison within 20 minutes of the evacuation by the monitors means they were clearly told in advance exactly when that would happen.

The greatest irony in this case is that UK Foreign Minister Jack "Straw said Britain and America wrote to Abbas on March 8 telling him the countries would withdraw their monitors unless security improved immediately." Ironic because it wasn't the Palestinians who were the greatest threat to the security of the monitors, but the Israelis. And now the actions of the US and UK have resulted in greatly increased threats to the security not of Palestinians, whose security could hardly be lower, but of Americans and British in the region.

Update: Or, it would have been, were it not a hoax, as asserted in the comments. Nevertheless, great stuff. If only!

A speech by Australian PM John Howard has been posted at After Downing Street. It is so jaw-dropping I'm almost tempted to think it's a hoax, but for the moment I'm going to assume it isn't. It is beyond a "must-read," it's a "must-read immediately." However, just to whet your appetite, a few excerpts. But before that, to set the stage, here's the most repeated phrase in the speech: " I sincerely believed that at the time." Hmmm. Whether that's true or not, I'll never know. As far as the excerpts, I'd bold the things worth emphasizing, but then the entire lot would be in bold:

I said then [May, 2004] that electricity, water, telephone and sanitation were gradually being restored to pre-war levels or above. Sadly, this did not happen.

I said then that six major water treatment plants had been rehabilitated. Perhaps I should have pointed out that these plants had previously been destroyed by British and US bombs during the 12 years of UN sanctions against the Hussein regime. Today, the water situation in Iraq is dire.

I said that all 240 hospitals as well as 1,200 health clinics were fully operational, which was the advice we had received from the then administrator, Mr Paul Bremer. Unfortunately, this turned out to be overly optimistic.

It should be conceded that an impartial examination actions of the Coalition of the Willing during operations in Falluja has raised uncomfortable issues for our Government. On the face of it, the Geneva Conventions and core articles of the UN Declaration on Human Rights have been ignored. During the siege of Falluja, many Iraqi women and children were caught in the line of fire and some civilians were shot as they tried to swim across the Tigris. It has even been reported that weapons of dubious legality were used in Falluja, such as cluster bombs, napalm, incendiary white-phosphorus and thermobaric, or "fuel-air" explosives, which can have the effect of a tactical nuclear weapon without residual radiation.

The International Red Cross estimates that at least 60% of those killed in the assault on the city were women, children and the elderly; a pattern of destruction that has persisted throughout the occupation of Iraq, and, as much as we would like to shut our eyes, this has served to boost the recruitment of insurgents and harden their resolve.

These are the facts. There are many more examples. And they raise serious concerns for the future predicament which our Government and our party may find ourselves facing. We have been lucky up to this point, because the full extent of the mayhem resulting from our U.N sanctioned occupation has not been dwelt upon by the Australian media. You can draw your own conclusions why this is so. However, having been kept well briefed on the conflict by our intelligence agencies, and I can assure you that many unpleasant details are still to emerge.

Under international law, all military forces owe a 'duty of care' to the civilians of an occupied city. And I am starting to ask myself if this is a commitment we have betrayed. In fact, I dare to wonder if we have betrayed the very ideals that I invoked in my support of the invasion.

In my 2004 speech to the Institute of Public Affairs in Melbourne, I said that, 'Iraq now has a growing and robust independent media, which is absolutely essential for the development and maintenance of a healthy democracy'. Well, I am afraid that was a little premature. Our US partners thought it necessary to suppress the more irresponsible organs of opinion. Several editors were arrested. And while I accepted assurances from our allies that the bombing of the Baghdad offices of Al Jazeera in 2003 was an accident, I must say, that in light of the recent unearthing of the Downing Street memo, the contents of which are available to my Government, I now hold grave doubts about the official story.

I also noted in my 2004 speech that 'Australia had helped to re-establish the Iraqi Ministry of Agriculture, [and] set up a payments system for the 2003 harvest and used our experience to help Iraqi farmers bring in the bumper summer grains harvest'. Perhaps I should have been more forthright about that experience. For many years the Australian Wheat Board has been helping the Iraqi Government bring in bumper summer grains from Australia. We have achieved this by channelling millions of dollars of hidden commissions into the coffers of the man previously described as a loathsome and repellent dictator. To be frank, we had been privately funding a regime that we publicly claimed was a threat to the world, and I can see now that this might lead some people to question our probity.

In the matter of our own citizen, David Hicks, who remains to this day Guantanamo Bay, often in solitary isolation, it is becoming increasing difficult to distinguish his predicament from that which would have faced a prisoner of Saddam Hussein. I believe the Department of Foreign Affairs has been remiss in accepting the assurances of some US officials at face value.

One of the most interesting bits occurs at the very end, on the question of where to go from here. At the beginning of the speech, Howard makes the following rather dubious assertion: "I have continued to hold firm to our commitment, despite the ups and downs of the occupation, because our alliance with the US is vital to the security of Australia." But here's where he ends up:

During my recent trip to India, also horribly touched with extremist violence, I was reminded by their soft spoken Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, that the British had seriously erred by clinging too long to their former colony. Despite widespread opposition to their presence, British politicians continued to insist that their departure would lead to chaos. Dr Singh said, 'But it would be our chaos, don¹t you see?' At that moment I understood what he was saying.

There is tremendous pressure from the US for our troops to remain in Iraq, and of course mutual loyalty is a vital component of the alliance. But the longer the Coalition of the Willing remains, the more we are detested, and the more blood is shed. The country is already tearing itself apart, so I am asking you, could our departure really make it any worse?

Perhaps it is time for Iraqis to regain control of their future, and for the coalition of the willing to be willing to leave the stage. When I say this, I speak as a troubled private citizen, and not as the Prime Minister of Australia.

"I think art can speak for itself, but we're trying to create a cultural dialogue around the issues the play raises" [said the theater's artistic director]

A dialogue?

The play is uncritically on Corrie's side. Israel is represented as a big foot crushing innocent Palestinians. The plot features no Hamas-sponsored violence and no suicide bombers bent on earthly havoc followed by spiritual glory.

Not only that, representatives of the Palestine Solidarity Committee are passing out literature in the lobby. There's no table representing Israel.

Isn't ConWorks presenting a monologue instead of a dialogue?

"Well, OK, a monologue then," said Pearlstein. "But all these monologues add up to dialogues during our season."

During the season, will there be plays or artworks of any kind sympathetic to the struggles of the Israeli people?

"I'll have to double-check on that," he said.

"We must be ever-vigilant against those who would strong-arm the judiciary into adopting their preferred policies. It takes a lot of degeneration before a country falls into dictatorship, but we should avoid these ends by avoiding these beginnings."

(Another hat tip to Cursor)

Israeli ministers were secretly warned just after the Six-Day War in 1967 that any policy of building settlements across occupied Palestinian territories violated international law.

A "top secret" memo by the Foreign Ministry's then legal counsel said that would "contravene the explicit provisions of the Fourth Geneva Convention". Growth of Jewish settlements over the next three decades followed.

"In 2003, a lot of us were saying, where is the link between Saddam and bin Laden? What does Iraq have to do with 9/11? We knew it was bullshit. Which is why it drives me crazy to hear all these Democrats saying, 'We were misled.' It makes me want to shout, 'Fuck you, you weren't misled. You were afraid of being called unpatriotic.'"

- George Clooney, explaining why he is proud to be a liberal

The first is that, after months of not being able to extract any useful information from the suspect (almost certainly because he had none), "He was threatened with being sent to a Saudi or Israeli prison, and interrogators tried to scare him with the possibility of sending him to the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba." Not only did the interrogators know what the consequences of rendering a prisoner to Saudi Arabia or Israel was, they even used that fact to threaten the prisoner. Which means any claim that they were really sending prisoners to other countries for some other reason is an out-and-out lie. Likewise, they not only recognized that the torture at Guantanamo was even worse than the torture they were practicing at Abu Ghraib, they assumed that fact was so well known that it would intimidate a prisoner as well. Bush and Rumsfeld may not acknowledge the torture that was going on at Guantanamo, but the people doing their bidding at Abu Ghraib did, for all intents and purposes.

The second interesting fact is the very last sentence of the article: "Military officials in Baghdad said Ahsy was released from custody in October 2004 -- 10 months after his capture -- but declined to elaborate." Now that is one hell of a statement. This is a man who, according to him, was basically a car smuggler, but who was thought to be a "high-value" al Qaeda "target" and as a result was subject to intense interrogation/torture. Perhaps he was thought to be so when arrested, but it should be obvious that, since he was released after less than a year in prison, he was no such thing. So why does the Washington Post headline read "Detainee in Photo With Dog Was 'High-Value' Suspect" rather than "Detainee in Photo With Dog Was Thought to be 'High-Value' Suspect"? And how can they just drop a bombshell sentence like that in at the end of an article without any elaboration?

Update: And, just as a side note to the significance of that rather critical fact being dropped on the reader in the very last paragraph, in the paper I read "in person," the San Jose Mercury News, "space limitations" (i.e., ad space vs. news space) led to that sentence being completely omitted from the article, so that the reader has no idea that this treatment was being meted out to what we can only assume was a completely innocent person (not that it would be justified even if he was an actual "high-value" suspect).

In an article today on Fallujah, the Washington Post writes: "Nearly all of the city's estimated 250,000 residents fled before the fighting started, and about 90,000 have returned to find wide swaths of the town in ruin." Now even accepting that 90,000 figure (assuming that what is meant is that there are 90,000 people who have returned and remained in Fallujah), that still leaves 160,000 missing Fallujans. Where are they? And why doesn't the Washington Post, or anyone else, ever ask the question? We know that there were large refugee camps set up for Fallujans, because Dahr Jamail visited them and wrote about them. But in the corporate media, any reference to those Fallujans is strictly MIA - missing in action.

Fallujah, a city of 300,000 people had 36,000 of its 50,000 homes destroyed by the US military. Half of the city's former population are displaced persons living in tents.

The Troops Out Now Coalition has issued a statement calling for immediate, complete, and unconditional withdrawal of all occupying forces from Iraq. It's hardly a new position, and says little that I haven't said in this blog many times (and many others haven't said as well, obviously). But this is a particularly well-written, comprehensive and comprehensible summary of why this position is essential, and why positions of phased withdrawal or "redeployment" are just wolves in sheep's clothing. Or, in their words, "this is not a plan to end the war; it is an attempt to market the continuation of the occupation to an antiwar crowd." Recommended reading.

Slobodan Milosevic was found dead in his cell today, apparently (or perhaps I should say "allegedly") of natural causes. Here's the front page of the New York Times online as of this moment (highlight arrow added):

Funny, I remember Milosevic being an accused war criminal who is currently on trial. I don't remember him being a convicted war criminal.

Wouldn't it be refreshing if the Times would run this kind of "war criminal" caption under pictures of George Bush, Donald Rumsfeld, et al.? Heck, they're all accused war criminals too, with a lot more blood on their hands than Solobodan Milosevic.

Update: I don't do TV screen captures, but ABC World News tonight went the Times one better, filling one entire side of the TV screen with a picture of Milosevic with a large caption, "War Criminal Dies."

Was the judge right on the law with this ruling? I haven't a clue, but I'd guess the answer is "yes." But it certainly sends an interesting message.

The other interesting message in this case was sent by the Bush Administration. This case was not brought by the U.S. government, who was defrauded (which means, naturally, that it was us taxpayers who were the ones being defrauded), but by two whistleblowers (actually employees of Custer Battles). The Justice Department declined to join the suit, as they have so far declined to join dozens of similar suits.

"Addicts have a way of killing to get what they need."

- Tony Benn, British MP for more than 50 years, discussing George Bush's acknowledgement that the United States is "addicted to oil" while being interviewed by Amy Goodman on Democracy Now! today

Here are a few more excerpts to entice you to listen to or read the whole thing:

The United States and Britain are in total breach of the Non-Proliferation Treaty. The Non-Proliferation Treaty says three things. One, the nuclear powers will agree to disarm collectively. Secondly, that other countries can develop nuclear technology. And thirdly, that nuclear powers will give absolute assurances they will never use nuclear weapons against a non-nuclear state. And both the United States and Britain have now said that if their security was at stake, they would use nuclear weapons.

I was brought up by my mother on the Bible, and she told me something that I've never forgotten. She said the stories in the Bible are stories about the conflict between the kings who have power and the prophets who preach righteousness, and she taught me to support the prophets and not the kings.

I think of you [Amy Goodman] as the Martin Luther of the media, somebody who is able to hammer something, with a hammer on the Church in Rheims, I think, or wherever it was, proclaiming the right to think for ourselves. If we think for ourselves, we're safe, but if we allow religion, if we allow the mullahs or the rabbis or the bishops to control what you think, or if you allow Rupert Murdoch to control what you think, then truthfully, we become slaves in a society, which we ought to control, because it belongs to us.

Thomas Paine said, “God didn't make rich or poor. He made men and women, and he gave the earth to be their inheritance,” and he also said, “My country is the world, and my religion is to do good.” You can't do better than that.

Jimmy Carter, writing on TomPaine.com, lays it out simply:

For more than a quarter century, Israeli policy has been in conflict with that of the United States and the international community. Israel's occupation of Palestine has obstructed a comprehensive peace agreement in the Holy Land, regardless of whether Palestinians had no formalized government, one headed by Yasir Arafat or Mahmoud Abbas, or with Abbas as president and Hamas controlling the parliament and cabinet.

The unwavering U.S. position since Dwight Eisenhower's administration has been that Israel's borders coincide with those established in 1949, and, since 1967, the universally adopted U.N. Resolution 242 has mandated Israel's withdrawal from the occupied territories. This policy was reconfirmed even by Israel in 1978 and 1993, and emphasized by all American presidents, including George W. Bush. As part of the Quartet, including Russia, the U.N. and the European Union, he has endorsed a "Road Map" for peace. But Israel has officially rejected its basic premises with patently unacceptable caveats and prerequisites.

The preeminent obstacle to peace is Israel's colonization of Palestine. There were just a few hundred settlers in the West Bank and Gaza when I became president, but the Likud government expanded settlement activity after I left office. President Ronald Reagan condemned this policy, and reaffirmed that Resolution 242 remained "the foundation stone of America's Middle East peace effort." President George H.W. Bush even threatened to reduce American aid to Israel.

Although President Bill Clinton made strong efforts to promote peace, a massive increase of settlers occurred during his administration, to 225,000, mostly while Ehud Barak was prime minister. Their best official offer to the Palestinians was to withdraw 20 percent of them, leaving 180,000 in 209 settlements, covering about five percent of the occupied land.

The five percent figure is grossly misleading, with surrounding areas taken or earmarked for expansion, roadways joining settlements with each other and to Jerusalem and wide arterial swaths providing water, sewage, electricity and communications. This intricate honeycomb divides the entire West Bank into multiple fragments, often uninhabitable or even unreachable.

Incidentally, Carter does not once mention the history of U.S. financial, military, and political support to Israel, as if it has no bearing on these events. He notes the increase of Israeli settlers on Palestinian territory from "a few hundred" when he was President to 225,000 when Bill Clinton was President, but the possibility that the U.S. might have cut off aid and political support to Israel in order to prevent these actions doesn't seem to have crossed his mind. The idea that a "massive increase of settlers" could have occured during the Presidency of someone who "made strong efforts to promote peace" doesn't seem to be any kind of contradiction to Carter. Be that as it may, his remarks are still welcome. If only anyone would actually hear them.

Update: Just coincidentally, a lesson that it's all about the message, and not the messenger. It's not like the media doesn't know who Jimmy Carter is, or regularly provide him coverage. In today's news, there are many papers carrying the story of Carter's more or less meaningless comments on Iraq:

"It was a completely unnecessary war. It was an unjust war," said Carter, the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize winner. "It was initiated on the basis of false pretenses. All of those are true, but we can't just pre-emptively withdraw."

He urged the Bush administration to bring home as many troops as possible within the next 12 months.

Pyongyang test-fires surface-to-air missiles
North Korea test-fired two short-range missiles Wednesday, an unsettling reminder of the reclusive communist nation's ability to cause instability in the region where a standoff persists over its nuclear program.

Article 22. Everyone, as a member of society, has the right to social security and is entitled to realization, through national effort and international co-operation and in accordance with the organization and resources of each State, of the economic, social and cultural rights indispensable for his dignity and the free development of his personality.

Article 23. (1) Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favourable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment.

Article 25. (1) Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.

Article 26. (1) Everyone has the right to education.

Here is what the introduction has to say:

In Iraq 2005 was a year of major progress for democracy, democratic rights and freedom. There was a steady growth of NGOs and other civil society associations that promote human rights. The January 30th legislative elections marked a tremendous step forward in solidifying governmental institutions to protect human rights and freedom in a country whose history is marred by some of the worst human rights abuses in the recent past.

Throughout the year the prime minister renewed the "state of emergency" originally declared in November 2004 throughout the country, excluding Kurdistan. The state of emergency allows for the temporary imposition of restrictions on certain civil liberties.

The following human rights problems were reported:

• pervasive climate of violence
• misappropriation of official authority by sectarian, criminal, terrorist, and insurgent groups
• arbitrary deprivation of life
• disappearances
• torture and other cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment
• impunity
• poor conditions in pretrial detention facilities
• arbitrary arrest and detention
• denial of fair public trial
• an immature judicial system lacking capacity
• limitations on freedoms of speech, press, assembly, and association due to terrorist and militia violence
• restrictions on religious freedom
• large numbers of internally displaced persons (IDPs)
• lack of transparency and widespread corruption at all levels of government
• constraints on nongovernmental organizations (NGOs)
• discrimination against women, ethnic, and religious minorities
• limited exercise of labor rights

"I think the story of Enron exposes the major flaw in capitalism, which is the crude belief that raw self-interest, left untethered, will always result in the best possible social good. It's not so."

- Alex Gibney, writer/producer of Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room, in one of the DVD "extras"

As domestic markets become global, investors increasingly find workers, customers and business partners almost anywhere. Not surprisingly, they have come to share more economic interests with their peers in other countries than with people who simply have the same nationality. They also share a common interest in escaping the restrictions of their domestic social contracts.

It's impossible to understand why Democratic Party leaders collaborated with Republicans to establish NAFTA unless reference is made to cross-border class interests. There was no compelling economic or political reason for Bill Clinton to make NAFTA a priority in his first year as President. In economic terms, nothing was broken that needed fixing. Politically, NAFTA and the WTO that followed traded away the interests of the Democratic Party's blue-collar electoral base while creating a bonanza for Republican constituencies on Wall Street and in red-state agribusiness.

But Clinton was more Davos than Democrat. Tutored by financier Robert Rubin, a prodigious fundraiser who became his Treasury Secretary, Clinton embraced a reactionary, pre-New Deal vision of a global future in which corporate investors were unregulated and the social contract was history. Indeed, in all three countries it was the leaders of the political parties that had historically claimed to represent ordinary people--the Democrats' Clinton, the Liberal Party's Jean Chrétien and the Institutional Revolutionary Party's Salinas--who delivered NAFTA to their global corporate clients, undercutting their own constituencies.

There are of course important differences between the ways the elites of the different parties promote the Davos agenda. The preferred instruments of Rubin Democrats are the economic levers of the US Treasury, the IMF, the World Bank and other international financial institutions. Rumsfeld/Cheney Republicans prefer the Defense and Energy departments. The Rubin mode is certainly less lethal and probably more effective. Still, Davos relies on the Pentagon to protect its class privileges with a worldwide web of military bases, training schools and the always-present threat to send in the Marines. It's worth remembering that virtually the only section of Saddam Hussein's law still untouched by the US occupation is its oppressive labor code.

Financier Warren Buffett reaches the obvious conclusion: We are headed for "significant political unrest." Democratic Senator Max Baucus, a staunch free-trader, recently told Chinese business executives that unless they cut their country's trade deficit with America "US politics will become unmanageable."

Here in America, the coming unrest could turn right as well as left. The Republican Party is hopelessly tied to the multinational priorities of the US business elite, but its managers are skilled at stoking nationalist resentment among the working-class victims.

On the other side of the coin, an article from Workers World newspaper by Hillel Cohen entitled "Are humans naturally greedy?," which explores recent scientific studies which purport to answer the question in the affirmative. But Cohen explains the difficulty of separating out the role of societal influence in such studies. And he presents the counter evidence in the form of "mirror neurons," which "may be the biological basis of human empathy, of the ability to experience someone else’s emotions, including pain or pleasure, as if the emotions were one’s own." He raises the possibility, based on these studies, that "the truly essential biological part of human nature is the capacity to experience the feelings of others as much as our own feelings. Rather than greed, this capacity for solidarity may be what makes us distinctly human." Some very interesting food for thought.

And from where did the U.N. human rights expert get her information anyway? She learned about these imprisonments from "other sources" [other than the Cuban government]. Well, that certainly is credible.

Naturally, she also brings up the "nearly 80 people were arrested and given long prison sentences in 'the unprecedented wave of repression that was unleashed in March-April 2003 in Cuba' in retaliation for U.S. encouragement of the political opposition." Once again, not the slightest hint that those people were tried and convicted, not simply "arrested and given long prison sentences." And not the slightest hint that this "U.S. encouragement of the political opposition" involved both organizing and funding that "opposition," in violation of Cuban law. I'm not going to rehash that entire case here, but here are two earlier posts with links to extensive articles on the subject, the first an interview with Cuban Vice President Ricardo Alarcon, and the second an article written by Rene Gonzalez the "Cuban Five."

U.S. military and intelligence officials tell ABC News that they have caught shipments of deadly new bombs at the Iran-Iraq border.

What the United States says links them to Iran are tell-tale manufacturing signatures -- certain types of machine-shop welds and material indicating they are built by the same bomb factory.

"I think the evidence is strong that the Iranian government is making these IEDs, and the Iranian government is sending them across the border and they are killing U.S. troops once they get there," says Richard Clarke, former White House counterterrorism chief and an ABC News consultant. "I think it's very hard to escape the conclusion that, in all probability, the Iranian government is knowingly killing U.S. troops."

And that, of course, is the second rat. Who is "they"? If IEDs were really captured at the Iran-Iraq border, surely that is a simple fact, known not only to the Americans and the Iraqis but also to the smugglers and resistance fighters who are getting their weapons in this way. There may be some secret intelligence aspects to how they found out these alleged weapons were coming across the border, but surely there can't be any about the fact that they were intercepted (if indeed, it is a fact). So why the secrecy? Why is this story being told "exclusively" to ABC News by unnamed U.S. military and intelligence officials, rather than being announced from the White House by George Bush or Scott McClellan? Why isn't Donald Rumsfeld on TV, holding up one of these IEDs and denouncing Iran? Something is just not right about this. Not to mention the fact that even the "usual suspects" (other networks, major newspapers) don't seem to have picked up this story.

As with many things, context matters. And what is the context? The U.S. wants an excuse to take military action against Iran, for a variety of reasons. Their "sky is falling, Iran is building nuclear weapons" story has some traction, but not enough, and there's still the possibility that Iran and Russia might reach some agreement which completely cuts the legs out from under the U.S. argument. So what better time than to come up with a second "reason" for war, that being that Iran is already effectively declared war against the U.S.?

Update: Lending credence to my analysis, Donald Rumsfeld held a press conference today. He didn't bring this subject up at all, but was indirectly asked about it (but his partner in crime, Gen. Peter Pace, answered):

Q Are you seeing weapons, Iranian-backed weapons, coming into Iraq, sir? Are U.S. forces engaging these Iranian elements?

GEN. PACE: There have been some IEDs and some weapons that we believe are traceable back to Iran.

Q Well, there was one shipment that was -- (off mike) -- last year that you have talked about. Are you seeing more recent shipments of Iranian -- of weapons you believe manufactured in Iran and shipped across the border?

GEN. PACE: The most recent reports have to do with individuals crossing the border into Iraq.

President Hugo Chavez accused the United States of attempting to foment the secession of an oil-rich region in western Venezuela on Sunday and demanded independence for the Caribbean island of Puerto Rico.

Chavez said U.S. officials were working behind the scenes with the governor of Zulia state, which is home to much of Venezuela's all-important oil industry, to create a secession movement loyal to U.S. interests.

The head of the ruling MVR party, William Lara, has accused the U.S. Ambassador to Venezuela, William Brownfield, of meeting with the group. But the U.S. embassy in Caracas told the Daily Journal newspaper there is no record of such a meeting.

The Venezuelan people are not standing still, as you might expect:

Broad sectors of Venezuelan society began mobilizing today to express their disapproval of secession plans by the wealthy state of Zulia, believed to be part of U.S. interventionist designs.

Apparently, a group called Rumbo Propio is planning to organize a referendum that would propose the establishment of the Republic of Zulia, with its own president and constitution, and a system of "liberal capitalism."

The film is valuable because of the way it interviews all sorts of people, from a Palestinian resistance fighter to a right-wing Israeli settler, and all sorts of people in-between. The viewer definitely learns a lot more about the reality on the ground, just as the filmmakers did. In my previous post I mentioned a couple moments that stood out; in the full film, there are many more. I'll just mention one: a right-wing Israeli settler who offers a "compromise" to Palestinians - they should settle on the East Bank of the Jordan River (also known as Jordan), and the Israelis will leave them in peace, even though, he says, that land also rightfully belongs to the Jews! And no, he is not joking when he uses the word "compromise."

Reading about Palestinians evicted from their homes, or having their farmland destroyed, or waiting and being harassed at checkpoints, is one thing. Seeing it on film is another. If you get a chance, see the film.

Update: Forgot one of the interesting bits, very much connected to the Oscar-nominated (and Golden Globe-winning) film, Paradise Now: an interview with a Palestinian doctor (I think) who talks about a study that, of Palestinian children, 45% express a desire for martyrdom (i.e., to become suicide bombers), and, of those, 35% (both figures from memory) had watched their father or other family members either being killed or simply humiliated by Israelis (e.g., at checkpoints). Actually, come to think of it, 35% of all Palestinian children have probably seen relatives being killed or humiliated, so perhaps the implication of causality was unjustified.

Meanwhile, human rights groups in Venezuela are gathering testimony about Posada's activities as a member of the Venezuelan secret police in the 60's. One wonders what George Bush's right-wing "right-to-life" supporters will have to say about the man he's protecting after hearing the latest testimony:

“They brought me up to the first floor, and that’s when I heard them say ‘Comisario Basilio...she’s pregnant!’ And then an agent, who was not him, asked me ‘How many months pregnant are you?’ I say ‘Eight.’ Then he asked (Posada): ‘What should we do with her, Comisario?’ And (Posada) says to him, ‘Destroy that seed before it grows...!’

“Then the agent turned and kicked me in the stomach...That was when I felt...That kick was what killed my child...”

The woman began to bleed profusely. “All they did was laugh, nothing more. And I was walking, and bleeding, and losing liquid, and they were laughing...

“That order was given by Comisario Basilio. Later on, years later, I knew that that Comisario Basilio was Posada Carriles. As far as I’m concerned, he was the one directing the entire operation.”

Reuters reports:

Two Islamic Jihad militants were killed when a missile struck their car in northern Gaza, from where militants have fired makeshift rockets into Israel in the past.

Witnesses said the eight-year-old child was killed while standing close to the car. A fourth person also died, a hospital official said, although it was unclear whether that person was riding in the car or standing nearby.

Nine people were wounded, including several children.

Then we have the eight-year-old child and the unknown fourth person, killed for the unpardonable sin of being close to some people who were close to a place where other people had done something. And notice also the subtle placing of that third paragraph. Read the first paragraph, and you'll get the idea that the Israelis have carried out a pinpoint "targeted assassination," with their missile striking a car. In the second paragraph, that "pinpoint" starts to expand, as we find out that two others, at least one of whom wasn't in the car, were also killed. And finally we get to the third paragraph, where we can reach the conclusion, carefully avoided by the reporter, that this wasn't just a "car in northern Gaza," but more likely a "car on a crowded street" or "a car in the middle of a busy intersection."

"Business" as usual in Gaza from which, as we just read, the Israelis have "withdrawn." All except for their American-made helicopter gunships and American-made missiles, that is, raining death from the sky.

Update: The death count is up to three innocent bystanders, including two young boys. In what is surely no surprise to any of my readers, the word "innocent" in that last sentence was added by me; you won't find it in the AP article.

Oh, and by the way, about that 10,000? That's only part of the story:

The 10,000 planned cuts are in addition to the 26,000 job cuts AT&T has already announced -- 13,000 due to SBC's acquisition of AT&T Corp., which closed in November, and 13,000 due to "operational initiatives."

A key aide to acting Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert says there are plans for further withdrawals of Jewish settlers from the West Bank.

Jewish settlers will be relocated to major settlement blocs.

Another paper runs a headline reading "More West Bank pullouts promised" and reports:

Israel will abandon more Jewish settlements in the West Bank if Ehud Olmert, the interim prime minister, and his Kadima party win election later this month, one of the party's leaders said Sunday.

Israeli soldiers would remain after civilians were removed from isolated settlements and resettled elsewhere.

Dichter's comments during an interview with Israel Radio reinforced expectations that a Kadima government without Prime Minister Ariel Sharon would accelerate the unilateral withdrawal from the West Bank, which Sharon began last summer.

Residents of the evacuated settlements would be moved into the three main West Bank settlement areas -- Ariel, Maale Adumim and the Gush Etzion bloc -- or be absorbed into four smaller clusters, the newspaper said.

Update: As I'm sure some readers figured out, blogspot.com was down for a few hours this morning. I'd say "you get what you pay for," but that would imply that things you pay for work all the time, which is hardly the case. I am very appreciative for the free service provided by Blogger and blogspot.com (now Google), not to mention Flickr! (free photo-hosting) and the free video-hosting services I'm experimenting with.

"I'm proud to be part of this Academy, proud to be part of this community, proud to be 'out of touch.'"

- George Clooney, accepting an Academy Award, and implicitly responding to host Jon Stewart's recitation of "conventional" (i.e., right-wing) "wisdom" [sic] about how "out of touch" Hollywood is with "American values."

Update: And I hasten to add, I very much appreciated the words of Paul Haggis, winner of the Best Original Screenplay award:

"Tonight, I just want to thank those people who take big risks in their daily lives, when there aren't cameras rolling. When there aren't people there to applaud. And the people out there who stand up for peace, and justice, and against intolerance. So I dedicate this to them. Thank you very much."

Words do matter.

You vote either by adding comments to the comment threads of the various categories (links above), or by sending an email to one or more of the following: wampum@nic-naa.net, brunner@nic-naa.net, and/or dwight-wampum@triad.rr.net. The latter is the simplest way to vote, the former lets you influence other voters with your thoughts. Vote for Left I on the News, vote for your other favorite blogs, but vote (or not). And, if you have nothing better to do, look through the lists of nominees and see what's out there that you're not familiar with.

Incidentally, if you're a relatively new reader to Left I on the News, the 18 "Best Post" nominations were posts that I selected after looking through 2005's output as those that I considered the most worth rereading, so if you want to see some of what you've been missing by not showing up here earlier, that's a good place to start.

I do have one thing to get off my chest. The movie shows the large "bullpen" where the traders worked, and claims that the people who worked there were described as "the best and the brightest," and that the title of the film comes from the fact that Ken Lay and Jeffrey Skilling, whose offices overlooked that bullpen, were described as "the smartest guys in the room." Well, the latter may well be true, but a roomful of people sitting in front of computer screens, dedicating their lives to making money, are definitely not "the best and the brightest." You want "the best and the brightest" in Houston? Go to a place like the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, where you'll find dedicated people devoting their intellectual energies to saving people's lives, both by treating sick people and researching cures for the future. Calling Enron's energy traders "the best and the brightest" is deeply offensive to me.

But the point is this: it isn't really the money that is the problem. After all, imagine the absurd hypothetical that Iran has declared war on the United States, declared its intention to overthrow the U.S. government and take control of the country, and Iranian troops are pouring across our borders. Surely in that case $4 billion, or $4 trillion, or even $40 trillion wouldn't be "too much" to spend waging that war. The spending is only "wrong" if the war is wrong. And if the war is wrong, it's wrong. It doesn't matter if it costs $4 million, or $4 billion, or $4 trillion. The amount of spending isn't what makes the war wrong.

A liberal is someone who thinks the problem is the people controlling the system. A radical is someone who thinks the problem is the system controlling the people.

"Under no circumstances will a Democratic Administration ever allow Iran to become a nuclear power."

We won't know for sure until the cards are turned over. But one thing we do know. Those aren't chips they're playing for. They're human lives. Hundreds, thousands, or perhaps tens of thousands of Iranian lives, and quite possibly the lives of Americans, Israelis, Iraqis, and who knows who else.

Now to the substance. Everyone I know in the "antiwar" movement is unequivocally opposed to U.S. (and Israeli) military action against Iran. The idea that the U.S. has the right to dictate to Iran what it should do, and to back up those words with actions (including, I might add, economic warfare), isn't even debatable. But in the "peace" movement, based on this article, it's a different matter. What follows are excerpts from the article, followed by my comments:

Why We Oppose Military Action Against Iran

We, of course, reflexively oppose both options [invasion or "surgical strikes"]. The costs of war always exceed the benefits. The use of force always causes more problems than it solves. And thousands of innocent souls who have nothing to do with the dispute in question always end up paying the steepest price.

But what if the "costs of war" didn't exceed the benefits? And just what are those "benefits"? And whose benefits are we talking about? "The use of force always causes more problems than it solves." Really? I take it, then, that the authors opposed the American Revolution, and think that it has caused more problems than it solved (ok, come to think of it...)

Although Iran would put up an almost infinitely better fight than Saddam's Iraq, the invincible US military could probably dislodge Iran's theocratic regime if ordered to do so. But what then? Another interminable and bungled occupation? In a country with three times the population, four times the area, and a three thousand year heritage of fierce national pride? After the economists Linda Bilmes and Joseph Stiglitz concluded that the Iraq fiasco will eventually cost the US between $1 trillion and $2 trillion?

So...what? Inexpensive wars against small countries, let's say Grenada or Panama, those are ok then?

The "surgical strike" option would be a disaster for American national security as well. If we attack Iran -- as we did Iraq -- without UN Security Council authorization, we would again flout the UN Charter and further enfeeble the international legal system. If there's anything the peace community stands for, it's that long-tem structures of enduring world peace can only be built through the world rule of law. If one country repeatedly disregards the law of nations, all countries will end up with only the law of the jungle.

The U.S. has already ripped the UN Charter to shreds, not to mention the Geneva Conventions and countless other aspects of international law. The idea that refraining from attacking Iran would somehow strengthen the "world rule of law" is just bizarre.

In immediate retaliation for any kind of attack, Tehran might well launch missile strikes on both Israel and the many American military bases throughout the region. With its extensive ties to the Shiite majority in Iraq, Iran could cause U.S. casualties there to skyrocket. Tehran might also enhance its sponsorship of suicide bombers in Israel (or Palestinian terrorists might react on their own).

So evidently it wasn't just American national security they were really worried about, but Israeli as well. Well, at least they're honest, unlike others who deny Israel has anything to do with U.S. foreign policy in the region.

The other interesting thing about this paragraph is that it ends. If Iran did launch missile strikes on Israel and U.S. military bases in the region, there is simply no doubt that all-out war between the U.S. and Iran would follow. Curious that the authors don't mention that possibility.

Although a great deal of discord exists within Iran about the balance between theocracy and liberty, virtually all Iranians come together in their defiance of American bullying. Most ordinary Iranians would react to any military strike like the one who told a CodePink delegation in 2005, "We may want freedom and democracy, but we can only achieve those by working within our own country. No one from the outside can impose these on us, especially not the U.S. through unwelcome military aggression. If the U.S. was to bomb us it would unite us against them immediately."

This is undoubtedly all true, like so much of this article. But so what? Are the authors suggesting that if, say, there is a country where a majority wants U.S. intervention, then a military strike would be ok in that case? Why, that sounds like a justification for the attack...on Iraq. You know, the majority just couldn't wait to get rid of Saddam, so we were just supporting them by launching an attack on their country and bringing "democracy" to them.

Among the Iranian elite, the hardliners would be vindicated by a military strike -- and their positions in the Iranian power struggle would be immeasurably enhanced. The Iranian government soon thereafter might discard the pretense that it's "only seeking nuclear electricity," formally withdraw from the NPT (as President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad already has hinted, North Korea already has done, and all parties have a right to do under Article X), and proceed directly toward constructing a sizeable atomic arsenal. Unless we plan to bomb them again every couple of years or so, the end result could be a nuclear Iran even sooner.

Note how the authors implicitly accept the U.S. government claim that Iran statements that they are only seeking nuclear electricity is a "pretense," thereby strengthening the U.S. arguments for action of some kind, be it military or economic, against Iran.

If we forcibly prevent Iran from obtaining a single atomic bomb, the vast majority of Muslims around the world -- though they may oppose our action -- will react without violence. But some of those young men now on the fence will decide instead to dedicate their lives to obtaining one of the 30,000 other atomic bombs that already exist elsewhere. And to finding a way to smuggle it into this country. And to committing the greatest act of mass murder in human history.

Once again, the authors accept the "fact" that Iran is intent on obtaining nuclear weapons. But they go further, much further, when they suggest than a Muslim might obtain a nuclear bomb, smuggle it into the United States, and commit "the greatest act of mass murder in human history." Are you kidding me? Greater than dropping atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki? Greater than the firebombing of Tokyo, Dresden, and countless other cities? Greater than the Holocaust, or greater than the effective murder of a million Iraqis during a decade of U.S.-enforced sanctions (perhaps we'll give them those two, since they weren't "single acts" like the others I've mentioned)? Talk about hyperbole! What does talk like this do? It reinforces the image of Muslims as terrorists, reinforces the climate of fear in the United States (and the West in general), and, in its own way, supports all of the spying, torture, and all the other things which we are told are being done to prevent just such a horrendous act. After all, the U.S. has already done a lot worse things to the Muslim world than preventing Iran from obtaining something it says it doesn't want anyway. Surely the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, or decades of support for the brutal Israeli oppression of the Palestinians, are much worse than this hypothetical, so we can only conclude that there is already some "young man," or thousands of them for that matter, bent on committing the act they talk about.

And, at last, we come to what the authors think the U.S. should do (as opposed to what it should not do). And what does that consist of?

To step back from the precipice of war, both sides first must ratchet down their rhetoric. Ahmadinejad's odious comments about Israel and the Holocaust intensified Western antipathy toward Iran. But few Western leaders seem to grasp that when we put "all options on the table," that must have precisely the same effect in Tehran. If each can lay off the language of crude caricature and street ideology, they might begin to have a real conversation.

What an absurd comparison. As the authors themselves note, the U.S. labelled Iran part of a so-called "axis of evil." And what do we know about that axis? That one of them has already been attacked and its government overthrown, and that, as the authors again themselves note, that the U.S. has said that "all options are on the table." And against that? Ahmadinejad talking about the Holocaust, which is strictly a historical issue, and saying that the state of Israel (not "Israelis" or "Jews") should be "wiped off the map", i.e., that there should be a one-state solution. Statements which he has not the slightest ability to enforce or do anything about. Iran has not uttered one word of threat against the United States. And in the face of that reality, the authors talk about "both sides ratcheting down their rhetoric," the same language we often hear from liberals talking about the Cuba-U.S. relationship, as if there is some kind of equivalence or symmetry between the two sides.

How about offering a mutual security agreement with formal non-aggression pledges if Iran reverses its nuclear course? How about disavowing any effort to bring down the Iranian government through non-military means?

Yes, words from the United States are just worth so much.

We believe that the Iranian nuclear crisis could be dramatically defused, in a stroke, if American leaders would simply say to Iranian leaders:

"We don't expect you to endure the nuclear double standard forever until the end of time. The NPT doesn't just impose non-proliferation obligations on you, it also imposes disarmament obligations on us. We understand that you will not forever forego nuclear weapons if we insist on forever retaining nuclear weapons. Nuclear weapons won't protect you, and nuclear weapons don't protect us. We know that eventually we must abolish these abominations, or they will abolish us."

They're kidding, right? Once again, they expect promises about future actions on the part of the United States to cause the Iranians to conclude they don't need to worry about defending themselves. Curiously, for people who call themselves the "peace" movement, including one who is a "Peace and Disarmament Fellow," the authors do not utter one word demanding that the U.S. take action to dismantle its nuclear weapons. Promises of future action are apparently enough for them. Hopefully for the Iranians, they aren't as gullible. And as ignorant of history.

Call me an "antiwar" activist, will you? And say it with me: "Hands off Iran!"

Yesterday:

Pakistan's capital was under a security lockdown as Air Force One swept into a military air base outside Islamabad under the cover of darkness, with its exterior lights off and the cabin shades closed.

The Pakistani government was taking no chances with security during Bush's visit, closing to the public the entire section of the city where Bush and his entourage were staying.

Mr. Bush nevertheless flew directly to Islamabad aboard Air Force One, a symbolic gesture that he considered the country safe enough for a presidential welcome on an open tarmac, and an overnight stay.

Helicopters circled overhead as Bush's motorcade ferried him from the fortified U.S. Embassy compound, where he spent the night, to the presidential palace.

"We're not seeing civil war igniting in Iraq. We're not seeing 77, 80, 100 mosques damaged. We're not seeing death in the streets."

Sheikh Ahmed Abdul Ghafour al-Samaraie, the head of the government's Sunni Endowment, which takes care of Sunni mosques and shrines...told a news conference that 37 Sunni mosques were destroyed and 86 were damaged by grenades, rockets or gunfire.

While waiting to see what happens with that Sunday night, you might want to read this interesting interview with the director by Ynetnews, which claims to be the leading Israeli online news site. Hany Abu-Assad, the Israeli-born Palestinian director, talks about a number of things, including his characterization of suicide bombers ("Suicide bombings are a reaction to your terror, he says, and suggests the most accurate term to describe a suicide bombing would be 'a counter-terrorist act.'"), the racism inherent in thinking that it is something about Palestinian culture, or religion, rather than the occupation and oppression, which makes people become suicide bombers, the psychology of suicide bombing, and the fact that although he might become the first Israeli director to win an Oscar, he doesn't consider himself an Israeli ("Israel calls itself a Jewish state, and I'm not Jewish. If it becomes everybody's state, then I would be able to be called Israeli."). Worth a read.

There's another film out now that will be playing next week at the San Jose film festival, Cinequest. Occupied Minds is a documentary about two U.S.-based journalists, one Palestinian and one Israeli, and their trip back to the Middle East to gain a better understanding of the situation there. You can watch a 20-minute "rough cut" of the movie on the Frontline website here. Two moments stood out in that film for me: one, watching an elderly Palestinian woman struggling to climb through a crack in the wall, and the other, listening to some children at a rally of right-wing Israelis singing this song:

The whole world is against us, but this is not terrible, because we will still triumph, and we just don't give a damn!

Bush administration lawyers, fighting a claim of torture by a Guantanamo Bay detainee, yesterday argued that the new law that bans cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment of detainees in U.S. custody does not apply to people held at the military prison.

In federal court yesterday and in legal filings, Justice Department lawyers contended that a detainee at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, cannot use legislation drafted by Sen. John McCain to challenge treatment that the detainee's lawyers described as "systematic torture."

Government lawyers have argued that another portion of that same law, the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005, removes general access to U.S. courts for all Guantanamo Bay captives. Therefore, they said, Mohammed Bawazir, a Yemeni national held since May 2002, cannot claim protection under the anti-torture provisions.

Then we have the other side of the torture coin:

US military officers, breaking with domestic and international legal precedent, said that "war on terror" military tribunals at the Guantanamo naval base could allow evidence obtained through torture.

A "revolution"? "Real political change"? Che Guevara would be turning over in his grave if he could read Lakshmi Chaudhry's (AlterNet, In These Times) discussion of the blogosphere. Who are the bloggers featured most prominently in the article? 100% Democrats Markos Zuniga from Daily KOS and Matt Stoller and Jerome Armstrong of MyDD. All of them not just bloggers, but active consultants to the Democratic Party.

Stoller says, "We have no interest in being anti-establishment. We're going to be the establishment." Well, that certainly sounds "revolutionary." Here's how Chaudhry actually describes this development:

That kind of flamboyant confidence has become the hallmark of blog evangelists who believe that blogs promise nothing less than a populist revolution in American politics. In 2006, at least some of that rhetoric is becoming reality. Blogs may not have replaced the Democratic Party establishment, but they are certainly becoming an integral part of it.

Chaudry does eventually concede that "technology is only as revolutionary as the people who use it," but misses the entire point of that by following that by asserting that "the progressive blogosphere has thus far remained the realm of the privileged." But it has nothing to do with whether progressive bloggers are "the privileged" (and, based on what we know about the background of Kos himself, and the amount of financial hardship we can read about from people like Susie Madrak at Suburban Guerrilla, even this assertion is questionable). What it does have to do with is the ideas being put forth by these bloggers, whose "revolutionary" content (in the case of bloggers like Atrios, Kos, and MyDD) seems largely confined to "standing up for something you believe in." Not that there's anything wrong with that! Not at all, but it doesn't amount to "revolution."

And just to illustrate how far some progressive bloggers are from revolutionary, the article even gives us some glimpses into their attitude of noblesse oblige:

Stoller does not think that it's important for blogs to reach a less-affluent audience: "Not everybody has to be part of that conversation. If someone wants to have access to those discussions, they should be able to do that. But for the most part, people--like that person working two shifts--will go on with their lives knowing that good people are making good decisions and policies on their behalf." Bloggers like Moulitsas--who is equally unconcerned that his blog will never reach "someone working at the DMV"--are likely betting that the cadre of activists they reach will be able to form connections across those differences within their community.

And as for actual revolutionary blogs, like this one and some of those in the list of links at the right (and others as well)? There isn't a single word of the 4074 in this article which even suggests the existence of bloggers who support the Green Party, nevertheless anything further to the left.

Excuse me while I go burn my Che T-shirt. I don't think I'll ever be able to look at it again, now that he's been associated with "revolution" in the Democratic Party.

*With apologies to Jefferson Airplane

One of the groups I work with is the National Committee to Free the Cuban Five, which is working for the freedom of five courageous men who have spent the last 7 1/2 years in U.S. prisons for the "crime" of fighting terrorism, and one of the things I've done for the group recently is to build the online store for accepting donations and selling books, videos, T-shirts, etc. about the struggle. And among those products, there is one that should really appeal to anyone who has the slightest appreciation of music, which is the CD pictured above. It's a compilation CD produced in Cuba, featuring 17 "easy-listening" Cuban songs, dedicated to the Cuban Five. The Committee obtained permission from the Cuban publisher to reproduce the CD for sale in the United States (and elsewhere), and you can buy it in physical form or as an mp3 download.

The money raised by the CD sales (and other purchases and donations) is going to the "Five Freedom Fund," which is a major ($250,000) effort to break through the media silence on this tragic case, and obtain freedom for these five men, who, along with their families, have already paid a terrible price for resisting the empire.

Buy the CD! You won't regret it. It's filled with beautiful, haunting music. And you'll be helping an important cause.

"The United States has two faces; one side is the despised face of Bush, the other the sweet face of Rachel.

"One is of arrogance; the other is of solidarity. One is scornful of a sovereign people; the other is full of admiration and love for humanity.

"In contrast to all that Bush represents, Rachel is the beautiful face of the United States and the humanly beautiful face is everlasting."

- Imad N. Jada, Palestinian Ambassador to Cuba, May 12, 2003

President Bush was warned about Hurricane Katrina's devastating impact on New Orleans' levees before the storm hit, according to transcripts of emergency briefings that Bush received. The transcripts appear to contradict his assertions that no one anticipated the failure of levees that flooded the city.

If Bizarro Superman showed up, would the media even notice he was different than the real one? Or would they describe him as "appearing to be different" than Superman?

Update: While we're on that K-R article, let's remember the other category of lie - the lie of omission. Try this one from K-R:

The news that Bush was warned in advance about Katrina's destructive power is another blow to an administration whose integrity and competence has come under fire for its response to the hurricane, the ill-fated Harriet Miers Supreme Court nomination, its handling of a transaction that would let a United Arab Emirates company manage cargo terminals at six major U.S. ports, and its conduct of the war in Iraq.

The situation has been stewing since then, since many Mexicans and even members of the U.S.-leaning Mexican government, resented the trampling of Mexican sovereignty represented by the extraterritorial application of U.S. law. This is, of course, the same sentiment which led 182 out of 191 nations in the United Nations to vote this year to denounce the U.S. blockade of Cuba.

And yesterday, the Mexico City government took action, not a frontal assault, but a flanking attack, by ordering the closing of the Sheraton, based not on the expulsion of the Cubans (although we all know that's the underlying reason), but on a variety of code violations. According to Knight-Ridder, by the way, this is no "ordinary" Sheraton but "is one of the city's best-known. Adjacent to the U.S. Embassy, it has long been a symbol of American presence in Mexico City." So the order to close it is no small matter. Stay tuned!

In the end, there's only one acceptable resolution to this situation. End the blockade of Cuba, as demanded by virtually every nation in the world! If you haven't already, add your voice to those calling on the U.S. government to do the right thing and end the blockade.

Update: Today's news is that the hotel will be allowed to remain open, which isn't much of a surprise.

Anyway, here's what came out in the trial today:

An FBI informant repeatedly pushed a terror suspect to attend an Al-Qaida camp while he was in Pakistan, at one point yelling at him in a telephone conversation: "Be a man -- do something!"

His [the informant's] attorney, Wazhma Mojaddidi, has previously said the government paid Khan [the informant] $250,000 since it recruited him shortly after the 2001 terror attacks. He was working at a fast-food restaurant in Bend, Ore., at the time. Khan, 32, emigrated from Pakistan as a teenager and was awarded U.S. citizenship after he became an informant, according to previous testimony.

He struck up a friendship with Hayat shortly after arriving in Lodi in May 2002 as part of an FBI effort to infiltrate the area's Pakistani community.

Back here, if you, like many of my readers, are an activist, beware the agent provacateur, the person who is always egging you on to "attack the cops" or engage in other illegal activities (and I'm not talking here about civil disobedience or the like). Chances are at least reasonable they're a cop themselves, or a least a paid informant, doing their best not only to entrap you personally, but to destroy the organization you're part of. Don't let them succeed in their evil game.

But of all the ironies, the one that hit me most was the news that Hussein was being criticized in the trial today for ordering the destruction of orchards belonging to villagers convicted of attempting to assassinate him. Which again, whether those trials were fair or not, was at least more of a hearing than hundreds of Palestinian villagers have received at the hands of the Israeli government and (separately) Israeli settlers, or that many Iraqi villagers have received at the hands of the U.S. military, before their orchards were destroyed. Orchard destruction is a routine practice in Palestine and Iraq, and I haven't heard a word of criticism of those practices in the Western corporate media. Indeed, the whole situation would be laughable were it not so tragic for those involved.

And don't even ask about the destruction of Vietnamese farms and forests by the U.S. application of Agent Orange. I'm sure that dwarfs Hussein's destruction of farmland in Dujail by many orders of magnitude.

AP discusses Bush's lie, but can't bring itself to name it:

Bush declared four days after the storm, "I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees" that gushed deadly flood waters into New Orleans. But the transcripts and video show there was plenty of talk about that possibility -- and Bush was worried too.

And the desertion under fire which, as Eddie Slovik could tell Bush were he still alive, is treason and punishable by death? What else would you call it? During the final briefing before the killer storm hit, Bush froze like a man reading My Pet Goat, not asking a single question. And after that? His spokesperson, Trent Duffy, says "he was completely engaged at all times." Really? Let's see, shall we?

That day, Monday, following that last warning, Bush jetted off to a country club in Arizona to deliver a political, completely unneccessary "conversation" about Medicare. Just to give you the flavor of how "completely engaged" he was about what was happening on the Gulf Coast, here's what he finally got around to saying in the eighth paragraph of his speech, following three laugh lines (as indicated by "(Laughter)" in the transcript) and 11 "Applause" lines:

"I know my fellow citizens here in Arizona and across the country are saying our prayers for those affected by the -- Hurricane Katrina. Our Gulf Coast is getting hit and hit hard. I want the folks there on the Gulf Coast to know that the federal government is prepared to help you when the storm passes. I want to thank the governors of the affected regions for mobilizing assets prior to the arrival of the storm to help citizens avoid this devastating storm.

"I urge the citizens there in the region to continue to listen to the local authorities. Don't abandon your shelters until you're given clearance by the local authorities. Take precautions because this is a dangerous storm. When the storm passes, the federal government has got assets and resources that we'll be deploying to help you. In the meantime, America will pray -- pray for the health and safety of all our citizens."

The next day, well after levees had actually breeched and thousands were dead and more were drowning and suffering, and 90% of New Orleans was under water, he jetted off to San Diego to deliver yet another political speech on the oh-so-important occasion of the 60th Anniversary of V-J Day, in which he made his preposterous comparison between fighting Japan in World War II and Al Qaeda today. It is true enough that both launched aerial attacks against targets on islands off the mainland of the U.S., and killed about 3000 people. The fact that one of them had millions of men under arms (1.9 million of whom died during the war) and a fully equipped Army, Navy, and Air Force and the other one had handfuls of men with some packing knives seems to have escaped Bush's attention (and definitely didn't get mentioned in the speech). Anyway, here's the sum total of what George had to say on that fateful day about Katrina, this time at least right at the beginning of his speech:

"This morning our hearts and prayers are with our fellow citizens along the Gulf Coast who have suffered so much from Hurricane Katrina. These are trying times for the people of these communities. We know that many are anxious to return to their homes. It's not possible at this moment. Right now our priority is on saving lives, and we are still in the midst of search and rescue operations. I urge everyone in the affected areas to continue to follow instructions from state and local authorities.

"The federal, state and local governments are working side-by-side to do all we can to help people get back on their feet, and we have got a lot of work to do. Our teams and equipment are in place and we're beginning to move in the help that people need. Americans who wish to help can call 1-800-HELPNOW, or log on to RedCross.org, or get in touch with the Salvation Army. The good folks in Louisiana and Mississippi and Alabama and other affected areas are going to need the help and compassion and prayers of our fellow citizens.

"Fully engaged"? From what one can tell from his speeches, he was fully engaged in politics, and encouraging others to pray for his the storm's victims. As for actually doing his job, he was nowhere to be seen. He deserted under fire. Went absent without leave.

And, I should add, none of this (and I'm referring to the basic facts, not the sarcasm) is pointed out in the AP article. AP tells us in detail about the warnings Bush received before the storm hit. But providing a little reminder about Bush's response to those warnings? Nothing. In its place, AP provides its readers with the absurd White House spin about Bush being "completely engaged."

Well, thanks to AP's blockbuster story today, about which I'm going to write even more in another post, we now know that was a complete lie. On that same day, August 30, in a briefing whose attendees are a bit unclear but definitely included White House, FEMA, and DHS personnel, this was one of the subjects:

"We know that there are tens or hundreds of thousands of people in Louisiana that need to be rescued, but we would just ask you, we desperately need to get our share of assets because we'll have people dying -- not because of water coming up, but because we can't get them medical treatment in our affected counties," said a Mississippi state official whose name was not mentioned on the tape.

Brown also wanted to know whether there were enough federal medical teams in place to treat evacuees and the dead in the Superdome.

"Not to be (missing) kind of gross here," Brown interjected, "but I'm concerned" about the medical and mortuary resources "and their ability to respond to a catastrophe within a catastrophe."

Alan Rickman is one of my favorite actors. In recent years, he has literally inhabited the role of Severus Snape in the Harry Potter movies, but before that he's played key roles in two of my favorite off-beat movies -- Dogma, where he plays Metatron, the voice of God, and Galaxy Quest, in the role of Dr. Lazarus (think Mr. Spock). And, although it's been a long time, I also have strong memories of him from Michael Collins, where he played Eamon de Valera.

But what I did not know is that Rickman was the "developer" (editor) and director of a play I mentioned last April entitled "My Name is Rachel Corrie." A play which was tentatively going to be put on by the New York Theatre Workshop, but which was cancelled by the theater's artistic director with this explanation:

"In our pre-production planning and our talking around and listening in our communities in New York, what we heard was that after Ariel Sharon's illness and the election of Hamas, we had a very edgy situation. We found that our plan to present a work of art would be seen as us taking a stand in a political conflict, that we didn't want to take."

"I can only guess at the pressures of funding an independent theatre company in New York, but calling this production 'postponed' does not disguise the fact that it has been cancelled. This is censorship born out of fear, and the New York Theatre Workshop, the Royal Court, New York audiences - all of us are the losers."

Here, from a glowing review of the play's run in London, is a little bit of what American audiences will be missing, and a reminder of that "stand" that the theater's director didn't want to take:

But although the aesthetics [which the reviewer praises] are important, they matter less than the show's content. And what that offers is a jolting reminder of the daily realities of Palestinian life and a portrait of a remarkable woman who tried to alleviate suffering.

Theatre can't change the world. But what it can do, when it's as good as this, is to send us out enriched by other people's passionate concern.

Update: Courtesy of a commenter to my cross-post of this at Daily KOS, I was steered to this New York Times article, in which the artistic director of the theater admits talking not to just some generic "communities," as noted the quote above, but simply to "local Jewish religious and community leaders" (in other words, my assumption that he hadn't talked to the Puerto Rican or Black communities, just to name two, was completely correct), and then makes this astonishing admission:

"The uniform answer we got was that the fantasy that we could present the work of this writer simply as a work of art without appearing to take a position was just that, a fantasy."

Second update: The play's co-editor comments in the Los Angeles Times (hat tip to Cursor).

More than one in three soldiers and Marines who have served in Iraq later sought help for mental health problems, according to a comprehensive snapshot by Army experts of the psyches of men and women returning from the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and other places.

Iraq veterans are far more likely to have witnessed people getting wounded or killed, to have experienced combat, and to have had aggressive or suicidal thoughts.

Some of those veterans will become part of the solution. But others, sadly, will become part of the problem. Part of the ever increasing cycle of violence that characterizes America, domestically and internationally.