The US says it faced uniformed pro-Saddam militants
The US military has reported killing 46 militants and wounding 18 in clashes in the central Iraqi city of Samarra.
Five US soldiers and a civilian were wounded in the fighting which raged as militants made a series of attacks on convoys in the city on Sunday.
But witnesses said a US tank had fired indiscriminately during the fighting, killing at least two factory-workers.
News of the fighting comes after a weekend of bloody ambushes across Iraq, largely targeting American allies.
US spokesman Lieutenant Colonel William MacDonald said that the US forces had fought back with tank fire when they were attacked three times by militants wearing uniforms of the pro-Saddam Fedayeen fighters.
Bradley fighting vehicles responded with 120mm tank rounds and 25mm cannon fire, destroying three buildings in the city, he said.
"We're sending a clear message that anyone who attempts to attack our convoys will pay the price," the spokesman said.
Samarra is within the so-called "Sunni triangle" north of Baghdad - the heartland of Saddam Hussein loyalists
Ok, to a sane person, this is what we call a major escalation. A daylight attack by a force of at least 100 men, which gathered, formed up and sprung an ambush. It was obvious that it would end in failure, but to see uniformed Fedayeen pop up in a large unit seven months after Saddam's demise is not good news. Not in the slightest.
You won't see any more fiascos like this in the near future, but it was a definite message to the Americans, at the end of a bloody week of a bloody month. The Iraqis will stand, fight and die when they choose to. Which is something which should scare the American commanders. They're proving willing to take heavy losses to make a point. Months after major combat was supposed to be over.
Though U.S. officials have released some inmates deemed harmless, new ones are still arriving, with about 20 coming and going last week. Amid a global argument about their rights, the Supreme Court recently agreed to decide whether the captives at Guantanamo can at least challenge their detention in federal court. But in the meantime, however great the outcry from allies and human-rights groups, the U.S. military, along with the White House and the Justice Department, has not retreated from an unprecedented approach to prisoners captured in an unprecedented war.
If you are a government hungry for clues about the enemies' plans, one problem with the Geneva Convention governing treatment of traditional prisoners of war is that it includes strict rules limiting interrogation. So these detainees are called "enemy combatants," and there is no field manual outlining the rules for handling them. Inmates arrive with no knowledge of how long they will stay, facing the possibility of trial by a military tribunal whose procedures have yet to be tested, on charges that have yet to be revealed and that carry sentences that may depend on not just what crimes they committed but what country they are from. The U.S. last week cut a deal with Australia that if its detainee David Hicks is found guilty, he will not be executed and will be allowed to have his family in the courtroom and talk to his lawyers without Americans listening in. But the Brits are pushing for more, and what about the inmates from Yemen or Pakistan or Afghanistan? Seeing the risks of multiple standards of justice, Pentagon officials said last week that they are conducting a wholesale review of the tribunal rules.
Washington attorney Thomas Wilner represents the families of 12 Kuwaiti detainees whose case is among those the Supreme Court will hear early next year. He rejects the Bush Administration's insistence that detainees have no legal rights. "The arrogance of saying 'Well, we're feeding them well' is just absolutely absurd," he argues. Two of his clients' fathers have died while they were incarcerated. "They have had children born and parents die.*spaceThey don't get to see their families, and they have no hope of getting out, even if they are innocent. That is what the Geneva Convention is about." Wilner has no problem with the U.S. imprisoning proven terrorists. He just wants a way to establish who the bad guys are. "Can you imagine being an innocent person being swept up into this thing and having no opportunity to say to somebody 'Hey, you've got the wrong guy?'"
So far, the processing of detainees, whether for trial or release, has been slow; the Supreme Court's intervention, however, may have delivered a jolt. A U.S. military official tells Time that at least 140 detainees—"the easiest 20%"—are scheduled for release. The processing of these men has sped up since the Supreme Court announced it would take the case, said the source, who believes the military is "waiting for a politically propitious time to release them." U.S. officials concluded that some detainees were there because they had been kidnapped by Afghan warlords and sold for the bounty the U.S. was offering for al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters. "Many would not have been detained under the normal rules of engagement," the source concedes. "We're dealing with some very, very dangerous people, but the pendulum is swinging too far in the wrong direction."
The real question is not if Gitmo is right, any sane person knows it isn't. But if Gitmo is a failure. That's the question which should be on everyone's mind. Is Gitmo really contributing enough intelligence to make it worthwhile.
My feeling is that in terms of intel, Gitmo stopped being useful long ago. But we cannot just ship these people back, for political reasons, if nothing else. Any trial held there would be a farce. Maybe 20 percent are guilty of anything resembling a crime by traditional courts. Yet, their home governments don't want them.
Their ability to conduct a defense is obviously compromised by their indefinite detention alone. What are they going to be charged with? When? Why?
This detention, done arbitrarily and in clear contravention of the Geneva Accords, has no basis in logic. It leaves everything to the discretion of the president and that will backfire if there are ever trials. Like most things done by the Bush Administration, it is a short-sighted policy with a long term detriment.
OK, So this isn't by Paul Krugman. I swear to God I saw his name linked on the Times web page. Obviously, this is more of the same idiocy from Tom Friedman. I would have commented on this, differently, of course, but hey, it was a mistake. I was going to catch some football at a friend's bar and I haven't done that in a few years. Long story. Let's just say, watching football, drinking beer and eating causes you to gain weight. In my case, 10lbs in one month.
The Chant Not Heard
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
Published: November 30, 2003
..................
But here's why the left needs to get beyond its opposition to the war and start pitching in with its own ideas and moral support to try to make lemons into lemonade in Baghdad:
First, even though the Bush team came to this theme late in the day, this war is the most important liberal, revolutionary U.S. democracy-building project since the Marshall Plan. The primary focus of U.S. forces in Iraq today is erecting a decent, legitimate, tolerant, pluralistic representative government from the ground up. I don't know if we can pull this off. We got off to an unnecessarily bad start. But it is one of the noblest things this country has ever attempted abroad and it is a moral and strategic imperative that we give it our best shot.
Unless we begin the long process of partnering with the Arab world to dig it out of the developmental hole it's in, this angry, frustrated region is going to spew out threats to world peace forever. The next six months in Iraq — which will determine the prospects for democracy-building there — are the most important six months in U.S. foreign policy in a long, long time. And it is way too important to leave it to the Bush team alone.
On Iraq, there has to be more to the left than anti-Bushism. The senior Democrat who understands that best is the one not running for president — Senator Joe Biden. He understands that the liberal opposition to the Bush team should be from the right — to demand that we send more troops to Iraq, and more committed democracy builders, to do the job better and smarter than the Bush team has.
Krugman has fallen, sadly, into the trap of believing democracy can work by impositon. Which it, of course, cannot.
The focus of US forces in Iraq is basically humiliating men in front of their families and killing children in a desperate bid to stay alive. It's not building anything like democracy. It's not building stability or security. It wasn't noble or decent or good. It was a mistake based on a series of conscious lies and distortions. Desperate teenagers are trying to stay alive by any means, and if that means dead seven year olds, policemen and IGC members, that's their problem.
We cannot partner with the Arab world. We have alienated them to a degree which is beyond frightening. From our racist slurs to our open disrespect of Arab culture and Islam, as varied as letting dogs search bags with Korans to treating the IGC as American puppets, the Arab world has no reason to help us in Iraq.
The reality is simple: Ayatollah Sistani and his Sunni peers will decide who runs Iraq. Not any amount of nation building, not trying harder, not making nice. We have thousands of Iraqis in jail, we fired the Iraqi Army and sent them into penury. We treat Iraqis with racist contempt and disrespect. The President's brother plots to carve his share from Iraq. We imposed a little known and detested exile as the next dictator of Iraq, without even considering that those who survived Saddam might disagree.
The Bush team embarked on this project cloaked in lies. They never told the truth to the American public. It is beyond redemption. The only thing is left is our escape from Iraq.
We have no allies in Iraq. No support, no friends. Only collaborators and lackies. The shia watch and wait for us to fail. The Iraqi resistance garners more support daily. The embittered ex-soldiers having thrown their lot in the resistance, based not in religion or love of Saddam, but a deep nationalism which crosses ethnic and religious borders.
There is nothing for us to build. We build what the resistance allows us to build. So schools go up, but the pipeline stays broken. CPA headquarters gets shelled every night, while it is the middle of a city. The resistance can mortar a division headquarters without fear of discovery. Spanish intelligence officers are murdered and dismembered before a cheering crowd. Democracy is not the issue, survival is.
There is no nobility in our misguided attempt to remake Iraq. Only hubris and folly. We have precluded success and leave only degrees of failure. Our last hope is that Sistani allows us a peaceful transition and does not openly join the resistance. Because if that happens, escape from Iraq, like escape from Vietnam in 1975, will be the only available option.
Kevin Phillips, writing in the LA Times makes two points, one silly, one scary.
When Democratic delegates head to Boston for their late July convention, they might not have an obvious nominee. This possibility flies in the face of the party's record of the last three decades. Each time, the leading contender who won the bulk of the primaries won the nomination — on the first ballot.
In 2004, if no candidate breaks away from the pack early and clearly, Balkanization could set in, because too many convention delegates might be selected too quickly. By mid-March, with two-thirds of the delegates already chosen, you could have an incipient stalemate, with Howard Dean holding 28% of them, Dick Gephardt 22%, John Kerry 16%, Wesley Clark 12%, John Edwards 8%, Joe Lieberman 7% and Al Sharpton 5%.
Historically, this would augur ill for the Democrats. Since World War I, they have lost all four elections in which they chose a dark-horse compromise candidate after embarrassingly long bickering (more than 40 ballots in 1920, more than 100 in 1924) or later picked a nominee who had not run in the early primaries (Adlai Stevenson in 1952 and Hubert Humphrey in 1968). At first blush, doing so again in 2004 would look dumb.
However, should Dean or someone else lead with a delegate count below or around 30% through March, that probably wouldn't be enough to command the nomination. To win, the early leader would have to politick heavily enough and persuasively enough in the spring to gather 38% to 40% of the delegates by May or June.
Hence, the wisdom of Dean and Kerry to forgo the public financing system for the primary period. Either would need more money than the system would allow to stay in high gear during April and May. Reaching 40% of the delegate count without that extra money might be impossible.
This kind of talk happens every year and is the wet dream of reporters. In reality, Dean or Clark should come into the convention with enough delegates to win, because of two things: one, the supporters switch horses. People who were supporting Edwards or Gephardt, will back away from them as they lose more and more. Because they want to be on the winning team, they will come to back the winner. The idea of a split convention is unlikely. Then the super delegates also make this impossible. Unless an accident happens, it should be clear by the end of March who is going to win. I'd say the momentum is with Dean, but Clark could overcome that, especially in the South. And the super delegates would be pressured by their state delegates to follow their lead. So while possible, it's unlikely that it will happen.
I don't see Gephardt having the money or support to win the states he needs to. Dean's money offensive makes it really hard, as did getting both the AFSCME and SEIU support. SEIU, having minority members, is a very good get for Dean, and those two unions denied the AFL-CIO endorsement for Gephardt in all practical terms. It's more than likely that Dean will get the full endorsement if he has a good Super Tuesday.
The Republican primary race, by contrast, will not be a race but a coronation. There will be no excitement, no drama. Yet, drama aplenty will start to swell in late August as GOP delegates arrive in Manhattan — accompanied, perhaps, by thousands from the FBI and military intelligence, as well as conceivably more Army Rangers and National Guard soldiers taking up stations to protect the president.
In 2002, the idea of again draping the mantle of 9/11 around Bush at a 2004 nomination convention just a few miles from "ground zero" must have seemed highly opportune to GOP strategists. But many months and embarrassments later, the United States is heading toward 2004 with Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein apparently alive and uncaptured, perhaps watching eagerly as the U.S. positions in Iraq and Afghanistan deteriorate and terrorism rebounds on a wave of Islamic hostility toward Bush and the U.S. presence on Iraqi soil. Almost unbelievably, the White House has dissipated the wave of global sympathy for the United States after 9/11 and replaced it with a sullen hostility that reaches beyond Islam into much of Europe, East Asia and Latin America.
But there are other reasons why this could make New York City an anxious place next September. The city has a Muslim population estimated at more than half a million and, according to the Arab American Institute, some 200,000 Arabs, the vast majority of them citizens. Another 150,000 Arabs live in adjacent northeastern New Jersey.
Brooklyn, less than a mile from Manhattan, has the biggest concentrations of Muslims in the city. Many of its Islamic neighborhoods became familiar to FBI agents after 9/11. Given the general animosity worldwide toward Bush's policies, it seems quite possible that the authorities, looking to head off acts of terrorism, could antagonize a huge swath of Islamic New York.
One can easily imagine that the FBI and the military will feel they must take extraordinary precautions for the GOP convention. New York City has 130 mosques and dozens of Arab neighborhoods in Brooklyn and Lower Manhattan. The Imam Al-Khoei Islamic Center in Queens houses North America's largest Shiite Muslim congregation. In the face of the inevitable crackdown, it's quite conceivable the GOP convention could serve as a magnet for terrorists itching to prove the U.S. president's ineffectiveness.
The problem with this is that much of this would involve litigation. Any massive security operation would face fairly strong political opposition from the city's politicians. The problem is that Bloomberg is not a fighter. He's basically tried to backroom deal everything with New York's enemies and quietly resolve conflict. Which can work in some circumstances, but with the massive protests guaranteed for the convention, it will make London a walk in the park.
Phillips concern for the Muslim community is overwrought, many of them having escaped the tyranny of their countries and have zero ties to Al Qaeda.
He also forgets that the Muslim population of New York is not only not monolithic but mostly West African. People who have little interest in Osama Bin Laden. Such an overwheming military presence is not going to be accepted lightly. And God forbid one of those Rangers or Guardsmen caps some kid, all hell would break loose. Bloomberg is coming to realize that doing a good job isn't enough to be reelected. Mayors who don't fight, lose. If Bloomberg sits by and lets martial law happen without objecting strongly, his political career will be over. If he trusts Bush to do the right thing, well, he's going to be disappointed.
MIDDLE EAST & THE AMERICAS: Consultant on Iraq contracts employed president's brother
By Stephen Fidler and Thomas Catýn in London
Financial Times; Nov 28, 2003
Neil Bush, a younger brother of US President George W. Bush, has had a $60,000-a-year employment contract with a top adviser to a Washington-based consulting firm set up this year to help companies secure contracts in Iraq.
Neil Bush disclosed the payments during divorce proceedings in March from his now ex-wife, Sharon. The divorce was finalised in April and the court papers were disclosed by the Houston Chronicle this week.
Mr Bush said he was co-chairman of Crest Investment Corporation, a company based in Houston, Texas, that invests in energy and other ventures. For this he received $15,000 every three months for working an average three or four hours a week.
The other co-chairman and principal of Crest is Jamal Daniel, a Syrian-American who is an advisory board member of New Bridge Strategies, a company set up this year by a group of businessmen with close links to the Bush family or administrations. Its chairman is Joe Allbaugh, George W. Bush's campaign director in the 2000 presidential elections
Oink, oink, oink, come down to the grand Iraqi buffet, where you can get all the slops and mud you can handle. Rutting and manure production extra...
I posted this on Calpundit and I wanted to republish it here.
Kevin,
You read me, you've read Kos. Where were we wrong? We said in February and March what would happen and to our utter astonishment, that is exactly what happened.
Well, we haven't had the civil war yet, but what we have had is total disorder and a widespread resistance.
Was there anything beyond your personal belief in the power of democracy that indicated that Bush could or would be able to pull this off? Did you think the French, Canadians, Germans and Russians were acting out of personal pique? Or were their objections substanially and fundamentally correct and sound. That there would be consequences to the removal of Saddam.
Unfortunately, it is completely ridiculous to think Bush could have any success in rebuilding Iraq, at least in the half-assed way we did it. With no support from the UN, an unreasonable reliance on exiles, many of whom had not been in Iraq for decades, and a refusal to understand that internal leadership always has primacy in the change of government, we are embarking on a massive policy of inevitable failure.
Even if that wasn't obvious, the cool reception given to us by Sistani should have been the hint things were not all gravy and rice.
From the day the INC and Marines pulled down Saddam's statue, the whole rotten policy should have been exposed. There has not been a day, not one, since March, where US troops have not engaged in a combat action.
Then, disbanding the Iraqi Army, for some vague political goal of deBaathistation, has helped fuel the Iraqi resitance to the point they're firing Strelas at anything that flies.
Anyone who supported this war, should, in my opinion, be ashamed to have done so. The evidence of Bush's lies and false assumptions weren't there in March, they were there in December. Tony Cordesman pointed them out in a CSIS paper. He said, clearly, with no stutter or mistep, that the most important part of the war would come after the Iraqi Army disappeared.
And that is where the failure came. As far as I know Cordesman is no liberal, and a former Army officer. Not one to pander to the NPR crowd. Yet, so many people fell for the Bush lie, a lie we all knew was a lie (drone bombers, handing nukes to Al Qaeda) that they feel the need to justify this by claiming we were deceived.
Although I thought Saddam had retained some rump chemical capability, the fact it wasn't found in the forward depots pretty much ended that idea. But it was clear then that much of what he had was destroyed in 1998. Ritter said so, Blix said so, El Baradai said so, Ikeus said so. This wasn't a secret.
Only Bush and the PNAC crowd felt that he was a threat and much of that was hoked up intel from Chalabi and their own biases and cherry picking.
So exactly what reason was there to support this war? None which I can see that bore out. And before you whip out the bloody dead Shia, we're the ones who encouraged them to revolt in 1991 and then watched them get slaughtered by the Iraqi Army, all in the name of realpolitik stability.
Bush lied. He was not misled or confused. He lied and thousands of people died behind those lies.
NEW DELHI (AP) - India's prime minister today said Western workers' opposition to the outsourcing of jobs to India will hurt their companies and their countries' economies.
Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee attributed the recent surge in outsourcing to visa restrictions blocking the movement of skilled workers to rich countries.
Companies in the United States and Europe are cutting costs by tapping cheap labor in India and other developing countries, particularly in software development and in so-called ``back office'' work such as the handling of customer calls and payroll processing.
Tens of thousands of technology jobs in Europe, mostly Britain, are moving overseas. In the United States the numbers are even bigger.
But Vajpayee said outsourcing means savings and profits for Western economies.
So let's see, the choice is greater immigration or we'll steal your jobs anyway. Well, let's see, how best to describe my reaction to this: oh yes-fuck you.
No, things aren't getting better, unless you're a member of the Iraqi resistance. If you are, this is a kick ass month. With nothing more than small arms and home made bombs, you've killed more Americans and Coalition troops than Saddam's ineffective army. It's time for a smoke and a lamb pita for your work.
If you're an American, you're in hell until the freedom bird ships your ass home, to the increasingly likely fate of unemployment, a broken home and massive debts.
Let me put it this way, this has been the bloodiest Ramadan in the Middle East since Lebanon's Civil War. Over 100 American and Coalition troops killed in combat, not counting the two Japanese envoys.
November Deadliest Month in Iraq
By Bradley Graham
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, November 29, 2003; Page A14
More U.S. troops have died in Iraq in November than in any month since the war began in March, according to Defense Department figures.
With November nearly over, the official death count yesterday stood at 79, surpassing March (65) and April (73), when the invasion was underway and fighting was most intense and widespread.
The surge has reflected an increase in the effectiveness and the frequency of guerrilla attacks.
About half of the deaths resulted from the downing of four military helicopters, in which 39 soldiers were killed. U.S. aircraft in Iraq have been targeted in the past, but these incidents, involving either a surface-to-air missile or rocket-propelled grenade, marked the first major hits.
Most of the other U.S. combat fatalities occurred in ground attacks by enemy fighters using weapons that have become characteristic of their resistance: guns, rocket-propelled grenades and remote-controlled explosives.
At one point during the month, military officials reported that the number of guerrilla attacks was averaging more than 40 a day. In response to the heightened activity, U.S. troops intensified their tactics, engaging in a stronger show of force that included greater use of artillery, tanks, attack helicopters, F-16 fighters and AC-130 gunships to pound targets throughout central Iraq. The move was followed by a drop in the rate of assaults on U.S. forces to fewer than 30 a day.
In contrast to the higher combat deaths in November, the number of accidental deaths -- 11 -- stayed comparatively low.
In all, 437 troops have died in Iraq since the war began, 2,094 have been listed as wounded in action and 2,464 have suffered noncombat-related injuries, ranging from accidental gunshots to broken bones and injuries in vehicle accidents. Since May 1, when President Bush declared the end of major combat operations in Iraq, 298 troops have died.
Now, the exiles are looking to cover their asses after this mess has exploded into an ongoing war against the occupation.
BAGHDAD, Iraq, Nov. 29 — In the months before the Iraq invasion, Iraqi exile leaders trooped through the White House, the Pentagon and the State Department carrying a message about the future of their homeland: without a strong plan for managing Iraq after toppling Saddam Hussein, widespread looting and violence would erupt.
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"On many occasions, I told the Americans that from the very moment the regime fell, if an alternative government was not ready there would be a power vacuum and there would be chaos and looting," said Massoud Barzani, leader of the Kurdistan Democratic Party and a longtime ally of the United States. "Given our history, it is very obvious this would occur."
Similar warnings came from international relief experts and from within the United States government. In 1999 the same military command that was preparing to attack Iraq conducted a detailed war game that found that toppling Mr. Hussein risked creating a major security void, said Gen. Anthony C. Zinni, who headed the command.
But as Pentagon officials hurriedly prepared for war last winter, they envisioned Iraq after the fall of Mr. Hussein's government as far more manageable.
That miscalculation and the low priority given to planning for the aftermath of Mr. Hussein's fall have taken on new significance with the recent wave of deadly attacks and the Bush administration's abrupt decision this month to accelerate its timetable for transferring control to the kind of Iraqi authority that leading exiles were calling for a year ago.
The exiles were among the most energetic cheerleaders for the war, and critics of the Bush administration have accused some of them of skewing the facts in the process. But more than a dozen of the leaders who have returned to Iraq said in interviews here that they had also warned about the chaos that could follow.
The fact that the administration embraced their encouragement to go to war but apparently discounted their warnings is an insight into the Pentagon's prewar planning.
"I told them, `Let there not be a political vacuum,' " said Kanan Makiya, an Iraqi author and college professor who said he had consulted with several senior administration officials and met twice with President Bush.
In many ways the war plan drove the postwar plan, senior military officials said. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld demanded that the invasion force be kept as small as possible, prompting his commanders to build an attack plan based on speed and surprise. Any recommendations for sending more troops to maintain order afterward would probably have collided with the war plan, the officials said.
Besides, the plan for after the Iraqi government fell assumed that Iraqi troops and police officers would stay on the job — an assumption that proved wrong. "The political leadership bought its own spin," said one senior Defense Department official involved in the planning, in part because it "made selling the war easier."
Senior administration officials acknowledged that they had considered these warnings before the war, but defended their judgments.
Does this get better next month? I doubt it highly.
Americans have to consider, seriously, that Iraqis are lying to them as a matter of course, not on occasion. 30 years under the rule of a sociopathic killer doesn't make the virtues of honesty and independence highly valued. You can see the schizophrenia which developed in the New Yorker article on the war:
There was a commotion outside the office—loud, accusatory voices. Prior put on his helmet and flak vest, grabbed his rifle, and went out to the pumps. Customers had left their vehicles, a crowd had formed, and it was getting ugly enough that the soldiers who had been waiting by the Humvees were trying to intervene. Amid the shouting, Prior established that an employee of the Oil Ministry had come to collect diesel samples from each of the pumps for routine testing. One of the council members was accusing him of stealing benzene.
“No accusations!” Prior said. “Let’s go see.”
The crowd followed him under the blinding sun to the ministry employee’s truck. Five metal jerricans stood in back. Prior opened the first can with the air of making a point and sniffed: “Diesel.” He opened the second: “Diesel.” As he unscrewed the cap on the third jerrican and bent over to smell it, hot diesel fuel sprayed in his face.
Everyone fell silent. Prior stood motionless with the effort to control himself. He squeezed his eyes shut and pressed them with his fingers. The fuel was on his helmet, his flak vest. A sergeant rushed over with bottled water. Then the chorus of shouts rose again.
“Everybody shut up!” Prior yelled. “I’m going to solve this. What is the problem? No accusations.” His face wet, he began to interrogate the accusing council member, who now looked sheepish.
“How do you know someone gave him benzene? This is a great object lesson, everybody!” Prior was speaking to the crowd now, as his translator frantically rendered the lesson in Arabic. “You came out here and said this guy’s a thief, and everybody’s angry and he’s going to get fired—and now you’re backing down.”
“It wasn’t just an accusation,” the council member said. “The guy drove up on the wrong side—”
“But what proof do you have that he did it? Wait! Hold on! I’m trying to make a point here. How would you like it if my soldiers broke into your house because your neighbors said you have rocket-propelled grenades, and I didn’t see them but I broke into your house—how would you feel? Stop accusing people, for the love of God!”
“I caught him red-handed,” the council member insisted.
“No, you didn’t.”
“O.K., no problem.”
Prior wasn’t letting it go. “There is a problem: the problem is that you people accuse each other without proof! That’s the problem.”
............................
Shouket is a pale, pretty twenty-eight-year-old computer programmer who works for the university administration. Her cream-colored veil seemed incongruous, given her vitality, and in fact it was just a prop: she wore it to keep from being killed by fundamentalists.
There were many fears in Shouket’s life. She was afraid of kidnappers: a group of them had snatched her friend as she got off the bus; Shouket had barely managed to run away. She was afraid of her neighbors, who said that they would harm her if she took another picture of American soldiers. She was afraid of the woman who ran her office, a former Baathist who used to wear a uniform and sidearm to work, and whose three framed photographs of Saddam were still propped up on the floor, facing the wall.
“Do you feel danger here? I feel danger,” Shouket said as we spoke in her office. “I feel a life in prison—after liberation! I want to see the world, I want to learn more, I want to feel I’m getting something important for my life.” She paused. “Danger is still in the streets. In this room. Especially in this room.”
The office manager walked in and glared. She told Shouket that I would have to leave.
“I have no freedom,” Shouket whispered.
I offered to drive Shouket home. She lived with her parents and an uncle who had become mentally ill after imprisonment and torture. Their modest house, in an underbuilt new neighborhood of eastern Baghdad, stood baking in the relentless yellow light of midday. They served me a dish of rice and beans.
During the war, Shouket’s mother had written a Koranic verse in chalk on the living-room wall; it was a prayer for safety that the family recited together. On another wall hung a photograph of her mother’s parents, from 1948—a man with a small mustache, a woman with bright lipstick.
“During royal times, the people were more modern than now,” Shouket’s father said. He was an architect in the Ministry of Information. In 1965, he had studied in Manchester, England, but the family now belonged to Iraq’s beaten-down middle class.
Before the war, Shouket’s pay had been six dollars a month; the Americans raised it to a hundred and twenty dollars. The family passionately supported the Americans. If this was colonialism, Shouket was ready to be colonized. She had wept watching the war on TV, urging the 3rd Infantry Division on to Baghdad; the bombs exploding outside had given her heart. Now, every Saturday, the family sat down together and listened to Bremer’s weekly address. “I feel him very close,” Shouket said. “Even his way, I like it—he’s a simple man.”
“The Americans should change the region,” Shouket’s father said. He predicted that Iranians would be inspired to revolt “if they saw what happened in Iraq, and we progress by liberation and wealthy life.”
Her veil off, Shouket wore her hennaed hair in a long braid. She brought out her large collection of American movies—she had learned English from watching Nicole Kidman in “Moulin Rouge” and Sharon Stone in “The Quick and the Dead.” She said, “It needs time, I think, a very long time, to make connection between the two civilizations. To make us civilized, I mean.”
Shouket sat on the couch between her sad-faced parents and talked excitedly about her future. “I’m always saying to my mother, ‘I lost my life.’ And she says, ‘No, you’re young, there’s still time.’ And I say, ‘Maybe.’ Maybe now I’ll catch the rest of my life to see the world.” She went on, “I want to leave Baghdad, I want to be free. Just improving myself—my mind, my way of life.”
Her mother was on the verge of tears; her parents were afraid for her to leave Iraq. Shouket put her arm around her mother and touched her father’s hand. “He believes in me,” she said.
When I rose to leave, they offered me their family heirlooms. I declined by saying that the gifts would be confiscated at the Jordanian border. Outside, Shouket’s mad uncle was pacing, holding a glass in his hand. I was thinking how isolated the family seemed. They had no political party or religious militia, no ayatollah or tribal sheikh; they had only the Americans, who didn’t know of their existence. Shouket had never spoken to a foreigner before the morning we met. She wanted to travel, but she was too frightened to go into town and set up an e-mail account at an Internet café. The pressure of her yearning filled the small room.
This is what we are dealing with and we are unequiped to do so in any meaningful way. We understand less about these people than they understand about us. And that is not just a tragedy, it has cost 437 lives.
Attackers ambushed a convoy of Spanish military intelligence officers on a highway south of Baghdad on Saturday, killing at least six agents and wounding one, a Spanish defense ministry official said.
The official, reached by telephone in Madrid, said a coalition helicopter that reached the scene of the attack, 30 miles south of Baghdad, evacuated six bodies and one wounded person to a medical center. The official spoke on customary condition of anonymity.
Spanish officials earlier had said eight agents were in the convoy. The ministry official said he had no information about the whereabouts of the possible eighth person.
The convoy of two civilian four-wheel-drive vehicles was traveling south from Baghdad to the city of Hillah, according to Capt. Ivan Morgan, a spokesman for a multinational division in southern Iraq. He described the men as Spanish soldiers attached to an intelligence unit.
A television cameraman who drove by the scene at 5:15 p.m., shortly after the attack, said he saw two destroyed vehicles -- one still burning -- and four bodies on the road.
The cameraman for Sky News, Adam Murch, described a jubilant crowd kicking the bodies. He said some in the crowd said the bodies belonged to CIA agents. He said the crowd appeared hostile and the journalists were forced to leave.
Kicking the bodies.
You know, I'm coming to the conclusion that the Iraqis tell us one thing, and say something completely different between each other. And it isn't pro-Coalition.
Atrios points out a post by Matt Yglesias about how the Bush Administration deluded themselves and the American public into going to war in Iraq.
I'm sorry, but that's a bunch of horseshit. They lied. They lied like teenagers caught with a bottle of Jack and a half dressed girl between their thighs. They lied about Saddam's intentions, his capabilities and his agressive posture and we knew it at the time. Saddam didn't want war and didn't do anything, or much of anything to provoke it. He'd buried his air force and didn't trust his commanders to have chemical weapons.
What drives me nuts about Matt's bland statement about how because us liberals hated Bush, we ignored their arguments about how removing Saddam was a good thing. Which is even more horseshit. There was no good argument for war. None. Iraq was a distraction when we had real enemies in Afghanistan. Saddam couldn't trust more than 12,000 of his 600,000 man police force and Army. Even the Republican Guard had turned on him in the mid-90's.
Now, certainly, Chalabi spun a tale which would have Scherazade green with envy, but Bush and his cronies not only lied by comission, but omission as well. They suggested tales of frightening drones coming to bomb London like it was 1944 and handoffs of nukes to Al Qaeda. Fantasies so lurid, Larry Flynt wouldn't have touched them. And none, in the end, true.
What we said in the run up to the war was simple: once you invade, you open Pandora's Box. It wasn't about hating Bush. I didn't like Reagan, but going into Lebanon was based on good, if naive, motives. Iraq was the absolute opposite. Chalabi was the Iraqi version of Jorge Mas Canosa, the exile who thought he'd replace Castro because the CIA liked him. Anything from his mouth was a lie.
But what Matt, and Josh Marshall and the rest of the pro-war crew didn't get, and it was as evident as googling Iraqi history, was that any occupation would run smack into Iraqi nationalism. That unless there was a parallel, internal resistance movement, our invasion would be seen as an occupation. Also, many of Saddam's decisions were not based on mental illness, but the reality of Iraq's strategic situation. The Kurds had acted against Iraq's territorial integrity, as had the Shia. This wasn't some random threat, but a real, strategic concern. A concern which had been a problem since the 1960's, before Saddam came on the scene.
Not liking Bush is one thing. Questioning his policies is quite another. Iraq just didn't make sense. The French, who were going to participate as late as January, even sent the Clemenceau towards the Gulf, realized what a mistake this policy was going to be. They didn't trust the follow-on planning. And said so. Resulting in drawing all the heat when in fact, the Germans had the far more dogmatic position.
Now, we have too few troops, declining morale, and a growing resistance movement and the best we get from Bush is his standard "we gonna get them terraist sum uh bitches" speech, one belied by his sneaking into Iraq in the dark, turning out the lights in Baghdad and running away two hours later. Which says everything you need to know about security in Iraq.
The war was always wrong, always destined to fail. Those who thought we could impose democracy or even a non-Saddam Iraq were wrong and it's nice to see them say so. Even if they had to wait months to see the folly of their ways.
Normally, when a president visits troops overseas for the holidays, it's rarely criticized. But since the boy genius Karl Rove has such a heavy touch, his boss catches hell the day after a stunt.
Reuters is running this charming item, which screams coward:
CRAWFORD, Texas (Reuters) - For a president fond of a tough-guy image, George W. Bush was uneasy when an aide casually asked him, "You want to go to Baghdad?"
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It was White House chief of staff Andrew Card who first proposed the surprise trip -- not the president.
"Andy (Card), as he often does, said (to Bush) almost in passing: 'Thanksgiving's coming up. Where do you want to go? You want to go to Baghdad?"' Rice recalled, and the planning got under way.
Seven months after his dramatic landing in a flight suit on the USS Abraham Lincoln with its "Mission Accomplished" banner, Bush conceded about the Iraq visit, "I was the biggest skeptic of all."
Instead of a flight suit, Bush wore a standard Army jacket to meet with the troops, and acknowledged he thought "all along" it might be too risky and that he "had a lot of questions" about security.
Bush aides considered scrapping the visit less than a week ago after a DHL cargo plane, landing at the same airport, was hit by a surface-to-air missile.
"The president had made clear that he was prepared to call this off at any time," Rice said, adding the DHL incident "made people go back and take a look at whether we thought the plane would be safe going in."
Can't you smell the cowardice from here?
Meanwhile Hillary Clinton and Jack Reed spent 10 hours on the ground, after a day in Afghanistan, where troops greeted her and asked them to sign autographs for their daughters.
Of course, Iraqis who cares, were either contemptuous or insulted by Bush's booty call of a visit.
Ahmed Kheiri, 24, saw the visit as a campaign tactic.
"He came for the sake of the elections," Kheiri said. "He never thought of the Iraqi people. He doesn't care about us. It was a personal visit for his own sake."
Iraqi politicians had mixed reactions to the visit. Mouwafik al-Rubei'e, a member of the U.S.-appointed Governing Council who met Bush on Thursday night, said the president "reaffirmed his country's commitment to building a new, democratic and prosperous Iraq."
Another member of the Governing Council, Mahmoud Othman, said the trip meant little.
"We cannot consider Bush's arrival at Baghdad International Airport yesterday a visit to Iraq," he said. "He did not meet with ordinary Iraqis. Bush was only trying to boost the morale of his troops."
Indeed, many Iraqis questioned how the trip could possibly help improve their dire situation. Eight months after the U.S. invasion, Iraqis complain they still have few jobs, little security and no political representation.
During Friday prayers on the Muslim holy day, imams at Shiite and Sunni mosques alike criticized the visit, saying Bush should expend his energy helping Iraq recover from war instead of flying across the world to pose for the cameras.
"Instead of coming here to celebrate Thanksgiving with his troops, Bush should release the innocent people in his prisons and arrest the real terrorists conducting attacks," Skeikh Abdul Hadi al-Daraji said at the Muhsen Mosque in the poor, Shiite Muslim neighborhood of Sadr City.
"First Bush said he would liberate Iraq. Now he is occupying it. How long will he stay?" asked the imam at Baghdad's largest Sunni mosque, Abu Hanifa.
Bush's visit was spent entirely on the grounds of Baghdad International Airport, a 15-square-mile complex heavily guarded by U.S. troops. He flew in under complete secrecy, keeping his plans even from his own parents, whom he had invited to his Texas ranch for Thanksgiving dinner.
News of his visit didn't emerge until he had left Iraq, and given the power outages in some Baghdad neighborhoods Thursday night, that meant many Iraqis didn't hear about it until Friday.
While U.S. troops called the trip courageous, some Iraqis saw it as cowardly.
"The way he made the trip shows he's afraid of Iraqis," said Mohammed Kamel, 40, a former soldier who now drives a taxi. "He should be; we're a fierce people."
And of course, the trip became fodder for Bush's critics at home, which included many of the organizations which had been left behind.
CRAWFORD, United States (AFP) - President George W. Bush (news - web sites)'s national security adviser defended his lightning trip to Baghdad, denying it was a political stunt that inadvertently highlighted the chaos still blighting Iraq (news - web sites).
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Some critics, including the presidential campaign of retired general Wesley Clark (news - web sites), said the brevity and cloak-and-dagger nature of the visit -- which the White House sold as a morale-booster -- actually showed how little Washington has accomplished in Iraq since taking control in April.
"The trip highlights how insecure Iraq is and shows how we need to get our allies in to get the American face off the occupation," Clark spokesman Jamal Simmons told AFP.
"Hopefully, President Bush realized, when he looked into the faces of those soldiers, that he owes them a success strategy in Iraq so that we can get back to the business of fighting the war on terrorism," said Simmons.
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Bush's visit overshadowed a similar one a day later by Senator Hillary Clinton (news - web sites). A source familiar with the planning of her visit said the administration was informed in late September that she would go.
Uh, she's not running for president. And she still made Bush look bad because of the way he snuck in and out.
Rove has some solid short term ideas, but ever since Mission Accomplished, they have blown up like an IED. Steel tariffs, the judicial 30 hour marathon, now this. Bush got one day of good press and about a week of abuse coming up. Even when you want to give him some credit, you can't. And then not going to Walter Reed or Ft. Stewart just makes this look even more like a stunt. If he had visited the wounded, it would have muted much of the criticism. This didn't.
How this, a sure-fire hit, could get so screwed up, is beyond me. How the president is on the defensive for this, and being quoted as both craven and cowardly, after all, the 19 year old 11B's only have their wits and rifles to protect them, is beyond me.
Of course, Clark's and Clinton's call for a now almost completely impossible international occupying force isn't much better, but at least it sounds sane. as opposed to Bush's tough talk and sneak thief actions.
''The American nation should know that Iraq is America's quagmire and America is sinking deeper into it by staying longer in Iraq,'' Khamenei said in a sermon broadcast live on state media to mark the official end of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan in Iran.
'The Americans are so desperate that they are bombing an occupied country...this (Middle East) region does not tolerate occupation,'' the conservative cleric told tens of thousands of worshippers who gathered at a large mosque in Tehran.
Iran has repeatedly called for the acceleration of a power transfer in Iraq and the formation of an independent Iraqi government.
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''In free elections the majority of the Iraqi people will choose those who will not allow the Americans to stay one more day in Iraq,'' he said.
Khamenei said instead of providing democracy for Iraq, Washington was oppressing the Iraqi people.
'The Americans, who entered Iraq in the name of human rights, have oppressed the Iraqis so much that they punched the Americans in the face,'' Khamenei said.
''The Americans' claim about bringing democracy to the region is a disgraceful lie,'' he added
Nzanga Mobutu stared out over the chocolate-brown sweep of the Congo river, and remembered his father. Mobutu Sese Seko was one of Africa's most reviled dictators. For 32 years he ruled the Democratic Republic of Congo, then called Zaire, with an iron rod and stolen wealth. Then rebels toppled him, sending him to exile and death.
Six years later, the "Leopard" is back. Standing outside the family's recently reclaimed villa in Kinshasa, 33-year-old Nzanga wore a green shirt with his father's beaming portrait. The legend read: "We will never forget you." Mobutu's family and friends are returning home as Congo's war, one of Africa's most terrible conflicts, grinds to a halt. The Mobutists are not fondly remembered. Their leader bankrupted the country, using its legendary wealth to buy political loyalties and build palaces where pink champagne flowed like water. Enemies were ruthlessly suppressed, often with the connivance of Western Cold War sponsors.
When rebels toppled Mobutu in 1997, the ailing autocrat fled to Morocco, where he died four months later. His cronies followed, clutching suitcases stuffed with designer clothes and offshore bank details. Many relieved Congolese thought they were gone for good.
But as five years of war an orgy of rape, murder and plunder that left more than three million dead draws to an end, the Mobutists are coming home. A transitional government uniting rebels and government has been cobbled together in Kinshasa. Since the door of national reconciliation was wedged open, the monied exiles have flooding in.
"It is good to be home," said Nzanga at the riverside villa returned to his family this week. The urbane son, who, until recently, ran a media company in Morocco, apologised for the lack of furniture. The previous tenant, an army general, left reluctantly, he explained, taking everything with him. All that remained was the echoing marble floors.
In the past two weeks, Nzanga has been joined by his older brother, Manda, who flew in from Paris, and Leon Kengo wa Dondo, a former prime minister. Lesser Mobutists, some of whom fought in the rebellion, have also returned, some with ministerial positions.
The mood of change has filtered down to the tattered streets of Kinshasa. Mobutu shirts and leopard-print hats are worn openly, a practically treasonable offence only six months ago. But the return of the Mobutists has also sparked recriminations. Angry residents rained stones on Mr Wa Dondo's motorcade as it entered the city two weeks ago.
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Nzanga said: "I'm not saying it was the best of regimes but to say my father was the worst dictator is just wrong. At least then there was peace, and people could eat. Those are the facts." But the Mobutu flame quietly burned on during the Kabila years under Catherine Nzuzi wa Mbombo, one of the few who refused to run.
A former vice-president of Mobutu's Popular Movement of the Revolution (MPR) party, Mrs Nzuzi was charged with high treason and jailed for 20 months under Laurent Kabila. "Why should I have left?" she said in explanation.
"I stole nothing. Everything you see here comes from the sweat of my brow." Draped in gold jewellery and sporting thick-framed, Christian Dior glasses, Mrs Nzuzi is, in appearance at least, the heir of Mobutism. Like the Leopard, she walks with a cane, but hers came from injuries sustained during her time in prison.
Now she has been appointed Minister for Solidarity and Humanitarian Affairs, and Congo's poor are her charges. But as there are no offices yet, Mrs Nzuzi works from home, the opulent penthouse of a four-storey apartment building she had built in the 1970s, at the height of Mobutu's powers
In the bad news department....
In theory, Congo should be rich. It has an abundance of natural wealth. But the kleptocracy of Mobutu and his family left them billionaires and Congo a disease-ridden, war ravaged wasteland. Africa has suffered from many of these parasites, but none more devestating than the Mobutus.
Juan Cole points this article out about how Americans misperceive Iraq and their ideas of nationalism:
Iraq's Shi'ites have consistently demonstrated their loyalty to the Iraqi nation. Shi'ites constituted the overwhelming majority of foot soldiers in the Iraqi army, even during the eight year war with Iran, a Shi'ite state to whom both Saddam Hussein and a Shi'ite-phobic American establishment assumed Iraqi Shi'ites were actually loyal. The Saudis recognized this in the Shi'ite uprising that followed Operation Desert Storm in 1991, and according to former American ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Chas Freeman, the Saudi government asked for US support of the Shi'ite rebels, seeing them as they saw themselves, Iraqis first, Shi'ites second, and not pawns of Iran.
Iraq is unique in the Muslim world as a country where Sunnis and Shi'ites, both secular and religious leaders, have often collaborated against internal oppression and external aggression, and have not engaged in the vicious sectarian bloodshed seen in Pakistan, or the Wahhabi view of Shi'ites as heretics and polytheists. Shi'ite ayatollahs supported Sunni opposition movements, and a radical Shi'ite movement like the Da'wa party had a Sunni membership of 10 percent.
Immediately following the fall of Saddam's regime a remarkable movement of Sunni-Shi'ite unity emerged with the participation of Iraq's alleged extreme religious leaders, including the Shi'ite Muqtada Sadr and the Sunni Sheikh Ahmed Kubaisi. When asked about differences between them, Iraqis from Tikrit to Najaf invariably say "there is no difference, we are all Iraqis", or "we are all Muslims". Often they would add that Americans are attempting to divide them by stressing their differences.
Evidence of this is seen in the American appointed Iraqi Governing Council (IGC), whose members were all selected because of their ethnic or religious identity. For the first time in Iraqi history, the ethnic and religious divisions were institutionalized. This was in fact the same error the international community made in Bosnia, where it enshrined the ethnic principle as the basis for the new government.
It is wrong to speak of an artificial "Sunni triangle". Iraqis do not divide their country into religious regions like this. It is also wrong to say that Sunnis dominated Iraq under Saddam. More accurate would be to say that members of Saddam's extended tribe, or of his hometown, dominated Iraq, to the exclusion of everyone else. Many Sunnis in the so called Sunni triangle resent the undue importance Saddam gave to Tikritis, for example. Iraq's Sunnis and Shi'ites are related by common history and often common tribal relations, since Iraq only became a majority Shi'ite state after Sunni tribes converted to Shi'itism in the 18th century. Even the most extreme Iraqi Shi'ites are Iraqi nationalists and view Iran with suspicion. Iraqi Shi'ites believe their country is the rightful leader of the Shi'ite world, since Shi'itism began in Iraq, most sacred Shi'ite sites are in Iraq and the Hawza, or the Shi'ite clerical academy of Najaf, thought dominated by Shi'ites until recently. Iran is a rival for them. Iraqi nationalism and unity were proven when all members of the IGC unanimously rejected the American proposal to introduce Turkish peacekeepers into the country.
An Iraqi population already skeptical of American motives would view any suggestion of further division as proof of a nefarious scheme to divide and plunder their country. Sunnis and Shi'ites would all take up arms and the resistance would be universal. There is no Sunni or Shi'ite Iraqi who wants to divide his country. The Kurds of Iraq are of course a separate ethnic group. However, they have participated in united opposition movements before the war, the reconstruction efforts after the war and are represented in the IGC by both major Kurdish parties. Even the Iraqi foreign minister is Kurdish. During Saddam's reign and before, many Kurds actually cooperated with the regime, serving as ministers and officers and even fighting the rebel brethren.
A point which has to be understood is that Iraqi nationalism trumps Iraqi national identity. Many of the "conflicts" are closer to American ethnic bitching between blacks and puerto ricans than the Balkans. There are no strong nationalist or ethnic movements in Iraq as there were in Yugoslavia. Iraqis have been taught, at least since 1920, that their sense of Iraqi nationhood is more important than their own ethnic identity. Even the conflicts with the Kurds have never been as neat as people would like to define them, with Kurds making and breaking deals with Saddam and other Iraqis over the years.
Americans see Iraq in the prism of the Balkans and that is the wrong prism to look through. Iraqis have never had a history of extended ethnic conflict and even Sunnis hated Saddam and his cronies, with Fallouja being the home of a ferverent anti-Saddam resistance.
We have listened to the self-interested exiles for far too long and not seen Iraq as a real state with real people. The Iraqis are a single people with ethnic differences, not three nations jammed together.
The stunt of landing in Iraq at the dead of night to not eat with our troops says two things about Iraq, neither of them good. Yes, he only served food, he didn't eat any.
One, Iraq is still so scary dangerous that Air Force One (and the not mentioned strike package/fighter escort) had to land in blackout conditions. Oddly enough, the power was down across most of Baghdad as well, making for a fun final night of Eid, which is more or less the Muslim Christmas (although that's a cheap analogy). Bush was so afraid he might be attacked, his trip was granted the secrecy usually given the movement of commanders planning major operations. The flak teams were probably having lamb and relaxing and missing the kill which would have won the war for them. While they're probably kicking themselves, they have to chuckle at the fear Bush has of them.
Two, Bush still has no answers on how to deal with Iraq other than "we're gonna get them terrarist sums uh bitches". The one game plan which isn't working. So he sneaks in, pats a few soldiers on the back, happy to see anyone from home, and sneaks back out. Does he stop at Walter Reed? Invite some local Waco-area families who lost kids in Iraq over to the ranch for pecan pie? Nope. See, only the healthy soldiers were needed for this photo op. Any reminder of sacrifice was a bad thing. And it kind of hard to get the right visuals when you have soldiers struggling to eat with a hook where their hand used to be.
And like all Bush trips, there was the inevitable screwup
Soldiers said they were impressed to see the commander in chief in Baghdad days after a cargo plane was struck by a shoulder-fired missile.
"It was a display of confidence in our ability to protect not just us, but him," said Pfc. Telo Monahan, 20, of Woodinville.
But other soldiers grew angry that their departure from the airport was delayed for an hour, while they waited for Air Force One to leave. Finding the door barred, about 50 troops got into a shouting match with the soldier blocking their exit. The streets of Baghdad were too dangerous to delay their departure any longer, they shouted.
"Do you have any idea how many IEDs are on this road?" one soldier who didn't give his name shouted, referring to improvised explosive devices or roadside bombs. "I have to get back to my base. I don't want to lose a soldier because the president wants us to sit here."
Remember when Clinton was excoriated for tying up traffic while he got a haircut on Air Force One at LAX, a story later proven to be untrue? Well, in this case, soldiers could have died waiting for Air Force One to leave. But you won't hear anyone protesting that. Apparently, a drive from Baghdad to the airport isn't safe. Six months after our occupation began. And that one little fact cannot be negated by a drive by visit from the commander in chief.
A Manchester City fan received a life-saving transplant from his brother - but only after he promised to support rivals United instead.
EXTRACTS FROM THE CONTRACT
To ensure all blue blood will be replaced with RED
All outer clothing to be RED - with hints of white
Interior and exterior decoration of home to be changed to RED
All blue coloured materials to be used as rags to clean up dirt
Contract to be signed and witnessed under RED seal
Martin Warburton, 50, made brother Paul sign a contract - under a red seal, naturally - to the effect that he would change allegiance.
Paul, 59, who is fighting leukaemia, had the stem-cell transplant in Belfast - but admits he has mixed feelings after agreeing to the unusual conditions.
"I was really lucky that Martin's cells matched, as some people can have seven or eight siblings and find that none of them matches up," he told the Daily Telegraph.
If your SO ever complains about your watching sports on the weekend, whip this story out, basically under the catagory of " you think I'm bad...". It's not that he wouldn't have given his brother the stem cells, but it was a perfect way to tweak your older brother.
There was explosive, euphoric reaction here. These soldiers, men and women, are extraordinarily homesick, so any familiar face from home would have been welcome. And, of course, the president's their commander in chief. So all the more so.
I spoke with more than a few soldiers about all of this, and they said they were especially touched because he came to show how he really felt about us.
Another soldier said that it was very important for the president to come and share the hazards of the war zone with these soldiers.
Still, off the record -- that is, not for attribution -- other soldiers with whom I spoke still had their doubts about being here. One soldier, even after the president was here, and he spoke highly of the president's visit, went on to say, "All I care about now is getting out of here alive."
Another soldier, praising the president, also said he thinks the troops have been here too long. He thinks they should go home.
And another soldier, again praising the president's courage and his commitment to being here, said the danger now is worse than it was several months ago when he came.
Again, very important statement made by the president about his commitment. It was a bold and intrepid visit by the president. Having said that, very doubtful it's going to change a very bad situation on the ground here.
O'BRIEN: And even as the president was flying in, that bad situation continued. More mortars flying and more explosions to report?
RODGERS: That's true. I was here in this very same camera position when you were rolling tape of the president's visit. Now, he had been airborne for several minutes after that, but having said that, I could hear explosions behind me. Down here, in central Baghdad, it's not been a particularly loud night. There are many nights when there are many more explosions, shellings, mortars and so forth. But again, tonight, I can hear the AK-47, you know, automatic rifle fire in the background. That's a daily event here.
I think Walter Rodgers is on crack when he calls this bold and intrepid. But the soldiers were happy to see a familiar face on a holiday they would much rather be at home for. The Washington Post questions the secrecy and political nature of the trip.
Although journalists routinely keep secret details of military operations, as they did during the war in Iraq, it is highly unusual for them not to reveal a major presidential trip overseas.
Former White House spokesman Joe Lockhart, who worked for President Bill Clinton, said: "There's no way to do this kind of trip if it's broadcast in advance, for security reasons. My problem with this is not that he misled the press. This is a president who has been unwilling to provide his presence to the families who have suffered but thinks nothing of flying to Baghdad to use the troops there as a prop."
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Kathryn Kross, CNN's Washington bureau chief, said a two-person crew from her network was dismissed from the White House pool Wednesday, with the understanding that no further news would be made. "We're all for the president boosting the troops however the White House feels is appropriate," she said. "But apparently the White House put together its own group of people to accompany the president on this trip, and we're real interested to learn their reasons for doing that."
The surprise visit produced upbeat, sometimes gushing coverage on the cable networks, which kept rerunning video of Bush with a turkey platter and his pep talk to the troops. "This is a show of power. . . . This has significance in terms of showing the power of the presidency," Fox anchor David Asman said.
While some families were less than happy about the whole thing.
Bush's visit also surprised Tami Kruzel of Sartell, whose husband, Randy, is with the 142nd Engineer Combat Battalion north of Baghdad. "I think it's wonderful that he did that," she said. "I think the troops needed to know that he's supporting them."
But her feelings toward the president are mixed: "At times I believe in what he's doing, at times I don't. I'm just disappointed that the soldiers are there" so long.
Kruzel said she is not happy with the recent news that her husband's return home has been pushed back from April to June. She and her three children have not seen him since March, and his phone calls are too short and frequently marred by poor connections.
There is, however, good news. Her husband called Wednesday and confirmed that he will be home for a 15-day leave in January. "I needed that," she said.
David Swing watched Bush's visit from his home in Watertown. His son, Nathan, a Marine, was in the Persian Gulf but returned to the United States in June. "I watched it for about 30 seconds and turned the football game back on," he said. "I guess I'm surprised by it."
Swing said, though, that "my blood is starting to boil a little more every day" over the continuing deaths of American troops in Iraq. "Every day my opinion of him gets a little lower," he said. "I don't see an end to this."
The fact that people are already debating whether this is a stunt or not and cheery pictures of Iraqis looting an ambushed convoy undercuts his message. With the intense security and crying family members, this may not turn out to be the political home run Rove imagined it would be.
MOSUL, Iraq, Nov. 26 — Since the Americans came to town seven months ago, the firefighters in this northern Iraqi city have gotten new trucks and new uniforms, American training and salaries 10 times larger than they used to be.
But when word came Sunday afternoon that two American soldiers had been shot in the head and killed a block away, the men of Ras al Jada fire station ran to the site and looked on with glee as a crowd of locals dragged the Americans from their car and tore off their watches and jackets and boots.
"I was happy, everyone was happy," Waadallah Muhammad, one of the firefighters, said as he stood in front of the firehouse. "The Americans, yes, they do good things, but only to enhance their reputation. They are occupiers. We want them to leave."
It was not supposed to be this way in Mosul, an ethnically diverse city of two million people and the economic and cultural center of northern Iraq.
As places like Ramadi and Falluja and Tikrit burned and their residents rebelled against the American occupation this summer, Mosul stayed calm, the one city with a Sunni Arab majority where most people still seemed to regard the Americans as their friends. A vigorous and far-reaching effort by the 101st Airborne Division to rebuild the city's roads, schools and public buildings seemed to cement an unusually warm bond.
That appears to be changing very fast. The money the American occupiers once doled out freely has dried up, and other reconstruction aid has yet to arrive. Attacks on Americans, which have killed more than 25 in the Mosul area this month, have highlighted what local Iraqis say is a rapidly deteriorating relationship.
While Iraqi leaders once saluted American soldiers as their partners in building a new country, many now say their complaints go unheard. Moderate Iraqis cooperating with the Americans say the young men of Mosul are increasingly heeding the calls of militant clerics. With three prominent Iraqi civil servants killed in recent weeks, the Iraqis say, they are paying a steadily higher price for their cooperation.
Yeah, well, you can't keep bursting into people's homes and not have them get pissed.
As you relax, watch the Cowboys (God two teams I despise playing each other, the Boys and the Fish, goddamnit. At least Detroit won), I want to make a special plea for tomorrow, America's biggest shopping day of the year. It's a simple one, really, and one I've noticed over the years: don't buy toys which kids get to watch.
All those remote control toys bought for tweeners (8-12 yo) which get played with for an hour or two and then get sunk into the miasma of a child's bedroom.
"Seen that Jimmy Neutron wheel?"
"No mom."
Kids like to be involved with their toys. They like to control them. Batteries make them spectators. Now, I know junior thinks he wants that fire truck and Missy swears that she wanted the shitting, talking, puking baby, but in reality, they are the one night stands of the toy world. Sure, they look pretty for a night or two, but then, like that guy you met on vacation, you lose their number and forget about that torrid weekend and that flexible tongue. When you bump into them on the street, you have to wonder if they made a sales call at your job.
Older kids like RC toys, but to a 12-13 year old, they're playing speed racer or whatever kids play these day, maybe crash Jeff Gordon's car. And over 13, there are only two words for, at least male children, which matters, Xbox or Playstation 2. All their hopes and desires can be encapscled by those two items. So, maybe blowing away tangos or taking over Miami's drug trade on a sea of dead Haitians aren't your taste, but it will keep them occupied, maybe with stint of Madden football, NBA basketball or WWE Wrestling.
Make no mistake, they will take your money, any stray money and if they are old enough to work, their money, to feed the monster which is console gaming. If they're a little more advanced, they're not smoking dope in the basement, they're setting up the Battlefield 1942 frag party. Any women along are more interested in shooting them on the screen than smoking their pole. Trust me on that. The only thing you have to worry about is running out of Mountain Dew and Doritios. Don't worry about the Cat5 cable and stray computers, if all you is watch TV in the dark, your electric bill will only be 20 perecent above average. Shutting things down at 8 PM Sunday is a good way to prevent the filing of missing person reports.
But for boys, the need for interactivity is met in two ways, either by building or racing things, when not hitting their siblings, or by console gaming. As I found out last Christmas. And while you can whine about violence and negative stereotypes, remember what High School was like and I think console gaming is a pleasing alternative.
What parents may forget is that the need to console game starts early, by the end of first grade. So while they may still want Legos and Hot Wheels, it just isn't Christmas without a couple of video games. And don't get those kid safe games, they suck. Get the games the kids want to play, as long as it meets your moral standards. There's no reason for a 9 year old to play Grand Theft Auto Vice City. His friends parents may have bought it, but that doesn't mean you need it in your home. When he's old enough to work, he's old enough to sneak it into your house.
Of course, the newest games are $50 each, something which makes my head spin. When I was a kid 30 years ago, that was a bike. Now, that's a game. My eight year old nephew not only gets two or three of them, he buys a couple. Now, when I was eight, $50 was as unreal as naked women. But for him, it's what he gets. Oh, and it's not just the Playstation habit. Oh no. There's the Gane Boy Advance habit. The newest version costs $99 and the games $30 each. Between the two systems, my sisters and my nephews spend maybe $1000 a year. And that's not including the "free" PC software they get from their schoolmates.
Now, as they say, it's different for girls. You can buy stuffed animals for women well into their 20's and they "collect" Barbie for longer than one would think. They morph from toy into hobby. Girls may occasionally dabble in console gaming, some may even cross over, but the market, for the most part is for boys and men. I have learned the hard way that women do not always appreciate the purchase of said games. They think it disconcerting that a man would be fascinated with console and PC gaming into his 30's and beyond. Which means you need to do a good job hiding it.
But someone will argue that those old fashioned toys are cute. And they are, but for most kids, they aren't relevant. They want to play their own movies and be their own heroes.
And that's my real point. While people sneer at console gaming, for most kids, it's a liberating experience. I mean, they can abuse it and avoid contact with real humans, but for most kids, it fuels, not limits their imagination. Having my nephew play as Michael Jordan was a liberating experience for him, an empowering one. Because he wasn't just a kid, he was playing with the best players on the planet on their level. Or living out some other adventure he's only seen in movies. In the end, these games help, not hinder imagination. Substituting your judgement on what you liked for what they like is a waste of time and money.
Get them toys they'll use and not only will they be happy, you'll save money. After all, Santa only exists as a drunken, sodomizing, theiveing bum, at least in this year's movies.
GOP pulled no punches in struggle for Medicare bill
November 27, 2003
BY ROBERT NOVAK SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST Advertisement
During 14 years in the Michigan Legislature and 11 years in Congress, Rep. Nick Smith had never experienced anything like it. House Speaker Dennis Hastert and Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson, in the wee hours last Saturday morning, pressed him to vote for the Medicare bill. But Smith refused. Then things got personal.
Smith, self term-limited, is leaving Congress. His lawyer son Brad is one of five Republicans seeking to replace him from a GOP district in Michigan's southern tier. On the House floor, Nick Smith was told business interests would give his son $100,000 in return for his father's vote. When he still declined, fellow Republican House members told him they would make sure Brad Smith never came to Congress. After Nick Smith voted no and the bill passed, Duke Cunningham of California and other Republicans taunted him that his son was dead meat.
The bill providing prescription drug benefits under Medicare would have been easily defeated by Republicans save for the most efficient party whip operation in congressional history. Although President Bush had to be awakened to collect the last two votes, Majority Leader Tom DeLay and Majority Whip Roy Blunt made it that close. ''DeLay the Hammer'' on Saturday morning was hammering fellow conservatives.
Last Friday night, Rep. Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania hosted a dinner at the Hunan restaurant on Capitol Hill for 30 Republicans opposed to the bill. They agreed on a scaled-down plan devised by Toomey and Rep. Mike Pence of Indiana. It would cover only seniors without private prescription drug insurance, while retaining the bill's authorization of private health savings accounts. First, they had to defeat their president and their congressional leadership.
They almost did. There were only 210 yes votes after an hour (long past the usual time for House roll calls), against 224 no's. A weary George W. Bush, just returned from Europe, was awakened at 4 a.m. to make personal calls to House members.
Republicans voting against the bill were told they were endangering their political futures. Major contributors warned Rep. Jim DeMint they would cut off funding for his Senate race in South Carolina. A Missouri state legislator called Rep. Todd Akin to threaten a primary challenge against him
Jesus. And of course, you know the punchline is that so many seniors are so pissed about this bill, they may well lose their seats anyway. Bushco wanted to say they delivered something for seniors, but as they look at the details of this bill, many are growing angrier by the day. I know my mother and uncle are not happy with this bill and don't think it will do much for them. You have thousands of AARP members cancelling their memberships, and that anger is only going to grow as people realize they got huckstered by this bill.
Nov. 27 — President Bush gets a loud welcome at Baghdad International Airport.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
BAGHDAD, Iraq, Nov. 27 — President Bush made a surprise visit Thursday to U.S. troops in Baghdad, flying secretly to violence-scarred Iraq on a trip tense with concerns about his safety.
THE VISIT, timed to coincide with Thanksgiving, was the first trip ever by a U.S. president to Iraq.
Air Force One landed in darkness at Baghdad International Airport. Security fears were heightened by an attack Saturday in which a missile struck a DHL cargo plane, forcing it to make an emergency landing at the airport with its wing aflame.
Bush spend only about two hours on the ground, limiting his visit to a dinner at the airport with U.S. forces. The troops had been told that the VIP guests would be Paul Bremer, the U.S. administrator in Iraq, and Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, commander of coalition forces in Iraq.
"You are defending the American people from danger, and we are grateful,� Bush told 600 soldiers who were stunned and delighted by his appearance.
Bush spoke with soldiers from the 1st Armored Division and the 82nd Airborne Division at an airport mess hall. “You are defeating the terrorists here in Iraq,� he said, “so we don’t have to face them in our own country.�
Terrorists are testing America’s resolve, Bush said, and “they hope we will run.�
“We did not charge hundreds of miles into the heart of Iraq, pay a bitter cost of casualties, defeat a ruthless dictator and liberate 25 million people only to retreat before a band of thugs and assassins,� the president said, prompting a standing ovation and cheers.
Wearing an exercise jacket with a 1st Armored Division patch, Bush stood in a line for food, dished out sweet potatoes and corn for Thanksgiving dinner and posed with a platter of a fresh-baked turkey.
So we're all supposed to be impressed he snuck into Baghdad at the dead of night, took a few feel good pictures, and then went home two hours later?
Hey, it's a nice thing to do, and of course, it trumps Hillary's trip to our forgotten war in Afghanistan. But I would be more impressed if he had gone to Walter Reed's Ward 57 instead. I think they need a presidential visit more than the rear area troops eating dinner in one of Saddam's palaces.
I asked my six year old niece about what thanksgiving was. It's the kind of thing they usually teach first graders and I wanted to know what her answer would be. She said, "It was a day for giving thanks". And then "the Indians and the Pilgrims had a feast". Now, that's acceptable for a six year old growing up in New England, but we can handle a more accurate version of history.
Now, we all know that the Pilgrims were Calvinist pains in the ass and drove both the British and Dutch crazy. They were only too glad to boot them out into the wilderness. And when they arrived, they didn't see the Indians as friendly hosts, but rivals. If you go to Connecticut today, you'll see the legacy of mistrust between whites and natives. We call them Mohegan Sun and Foxwoods. They can build casinos because of the treaties the whites were forced to sign and which are still in force. In reality, the first thanksgiving was more like the wartime truce between the Germans and Brits on the Western Front than some coming together in harmony.
3. The Pilgrims were not just innocent refugees from religious persecution. They were victims of bigotry in England, but some of them were themselves religious bigots by our modern standards. The Puritans and the Pilgrims saw themselves as the "Chosen Elect" mentioned in the book of Revelation. They strove to "purify" first themselves and then everyone else of everything they did not accept in their own interpretation of scripture. Later New England Puritans used any means, including deceptions, treachery, torture, war, and genocide to achieve that end.(4) They saw themselves as fighting a holy war against Satan, and everyone who disagreed with them was the enemy. This rigid fundamentalism was transmitted to America by the Plymouth colonists, and it sheds a very different light on the "Pilgrim" image we have of them. This is best illustrated in the written text of the Thanksgiving sermon delivered at Plymouth in 1623 by "Mather the Elder." In it, Mather the Elder gave special thanks to God for the devastating plague of smallpox which wiped out the majority of the Wampanoag Indians who had been their benefactors. He praised God for destroying "chiefly young men and children, the very seeds of increase, thus clearing the forests to make way for a better growth", i.e., the Pilgrims.(5) In as much as these Indians were the Pilgrim's benefactors, and Squanto, in particular, was the instrument of their salvation that first year, how are we to interpret this apparent callousness towards their misfortune?
4. The Wampanoag Indians were not the "friendly savages" some of us were told about when we were in the primary grades. Nor were they invited out of the goodness of the Pilgrims' hearts to share the fruits of the Pilgrims' harvest in a demonstration of Christian charity and interracial brotherhood. The Wampanoag were members of a widespread confederacy of Algonkian-speaking peoples known as the League of the Delaware. For six hundred years they had been defending themselves from my other ancestors, the Iroquois, and for the last hundred years they had also had encounters with European fishermen and explorers but especially with European slavers, who had been raiding their coastal villages.(6) They knew something of the power of the white people, and they did not fully trust them. But their religion taught that they were to give charity to the helpless and hospitality to anyone who came to them with empty hands.(7) Also, Squanto, the Indian hero of the Thanksgiving story, had a very real love for a British explorer named John Weymouth, who had become a second father to him several years before the Pilgrims arrived at Plymouth. Clearly, Squanto saw these Pilgrims as Weymouth's people.(8) To the Pilgrims the Indians were heathens and, therefore, the natural instruments of the Devil. Squanto, as the only educated and baptized Christian among the Wampanoag, was seen as merely an instrument of God, set in the wilderness to provide for the survival of His chosen people, the Pilgrims. The Indians were comparatively powerful and, therefore, dangerous; and they were to be courted until the next ships arrived with more Pilgrim colonists and the balance of power shifted. The Wampanoag were actually invited to that Thanksgiving feast for the purpose of negotiating a treaty that would secure the lands of the Plymouth Plantation for the Pilgrims. It should also be noted that the INDIANS, possibly out of a sense of charity toward their hosts, ended up bringing the majority of the food for the feast.(9)
5. A generation later, after the balance of power had indeed shifted, the Indian and White children of that Thanksgiving were striving to kill each other in the genocidal conflict known as King Philip's War. At the end of that conflict most of the New England Indians were either exterminated or refugees among the French in Canada, or they were sold into slavery in the Carolinas by the Puritans. So successful was this early trade in Indian slaves that several Puritan ship owners in Boston began the practice of raiding the Ivory Coast of Africa for black slaves to sell to the proprietary colonies of the South, thus founding the American-based slave trade.(10)
So it wasn't just a happy gathering of neighbors. And it was an exceptional moment, not a harbinger of peace.
But the tradition of Thanksgiving, not the actual day, has a very different meaning. The legend of Thanksgiving is probably far more important than the actual event, because, despite the realities, it does set a prescident of interethnic harmony and unity. The myth defines America in a way that the reality never could. While the Pilgrims and Indians routinely savaged each other in bitter skirmishes, the myth of Thanksgiving reappeared in 1863, during the Civil War. Lincoln used it to call for two days of thanks, one ion August 6th for the victory at Gettysburg and on the last Thursday of November.
In the years after the Civil War, Thanksgiving became the way to create a unified national identity without creating a stultifying myth. In most countries with imnmigrants, France, the UK, Australia, national holidays are about assimiliation and identification. But since there is no one way to be an American, our holidays don't have such a pull. The 4th of July is a very different thing than Bastille day, more picnics and cookouts than military parades.
But Thanksgiving is a unique holiday. It is a national holiday without overt patriotism or religious meaning. It is about food and family. And it embraces the difference within American life. We all agree on the turkey, 95 percent of Americans will eat the bird today, but from there, we all go our different ways, rice and potatoes, green bean casserole and baked ziti. That's not just a dietary choice, but a statement of national unity which goes way, way beyond anything seen on the 4th. If you walk into most American homes today, you will see a turkey, some badly cooked, some moist and juicy, sitting there. It defines us as a single people, with at least one single, shared value, which goes way beyond a bird.
The turkey is about a specific kind of assimilation. All Americans believe, in some degree, in the constitution. It is the bedrock of our civic identity. To be an American, despite the beliefs of some, your skin color, race, religion doesn't matter. But your fundamental belief in the rights of your fellow citizens does. Well, that turkey, as the centerpiece of the thanksgiving dinner does the same thing in terms of food. No matter what you serve it with, thanksgiving turkey is far more a symbol of national untiy than any flag.
Oddly enough, not until 1941 was Thanksgiving was a fixed holiday. Until then, it was up to the President to proclaim the holiday. Well. as with many things, Franklin Roosevelt had a better idea, or so he thought.
On Thanksgiving Day, November 23, 1939, Franklin Roosevelt carved the turkey at the annual Thanksgiving Dinner at Warm Springs, Georgia, and wished all Americans across the country a Happy Thanksgiving. Unfortunately, his greeting went unanswered in some states; many Americans were not observing Thanksgiving on the same day as the President. Instead, they were waiting to carve their turkeys on the following Thursday because November 30th in many states was the official Thanksgiving Day. Two Thanksgivings? Why were Americans celebrating a national holiday on two different days?
At the beginning of Franklin Roosevelt's presidency, Thanksgiving was not a fixed holiday; it was up to the President to issue a Thanksgiving Proclamation to announce what date the holiday would fall on. However, Thanksgiving was always the last Thursday in November because that was the day President Abraham Lincoln observed the holiday when he declared Thanksgiving a national holiday in 1863. Franklin Roosevelt continued that tradition, but he soon found that tradition was difficult to keep in extreme circumstances such as the Great Depression. His first Thanksgiving in office, 1933, fell on November 30th, the last day of the month, because November had five Thursdays that year. Since statistics showed that most people did not do their Christmas shopping until after Thanksgiving, business leaders feared they would lose money, especially during the Depression, because there were only 24 shopping days between Thanksgiving and Christmas. They asked Franklin Roosevelt to make Thanksgiving one week earlier. President Roosevelt ignored those concerns in 1933, but when Thanksgiving once again threatened to fall on the last day of November in 1939, FDR reconsidered the request and moved the date of Thanksgiving up one week. Thanksgiving 1939 would be held, President Roosevelt proclaimed, on November 23rd and not November 30th.
Changing the date of Thanksgiving seemed harmless enough, but in actuality proved quite controversial. It was so upsetting that thousands of letters poured into the White House once President Roosevelt announced the date change. Some retailers were pleased because they hoped the extra week of Christmas shopping would increase profits, but smaller businesses complained they would lose business to larger stores. Other companies that depended on Thanksgiving as the last Thursday of November lost money; calendar makers were the worst hit because they printed calendars years in advance and FDR made their calendars out of date for the next two years. Schools were also disrupted by Roosevelt's decision; most schools had already scheduled vacations and annual Thanksgiving Day football games by the time they learned of Thanksgiving's new date and had to decide whether or not to reschedule everything. Moreover, many Americans were angry that Roosevelt tried to alter such a long-standing tradition and American values just to help businesses make more money.*
As opposition grew, some states took matters into their own hands and defied the Presidential Proclamation. Some governors declared November 30th as Thanksgiving. And so, depending upon where one lived, Thanksgiving was celebrated on the 23rd and the 30th. This was worse than changing the date in the first place because families that lived in states such as New York did not have the same day off as family members in states such as Connecticut! Family and friends were unable to celebrate the holiday together.
Franklin Roosevelt observed Thanksgiving on the second to last Thursday of November for two more years, but the amount of public outrage prompted Congress to pass a law on December 26, 1941, ensuring that all Americans would celebrate a unified Thanksgiving on the fourth Thursday of November every year.
It is surprising to realize that this most national of holidays was dependent on a president's whim until 60 years ago. Which makes it a unique holiday in many ways.
There are many styles of Asian martial arts. But we're not really interested in breaking them down. What I'm referring to is another kind of warfare, inside the Beltway warfare.
There is, apparently no greater practioner of the Beltway martial arts than Ahmed Chalabi and his cronies from the INC. In two years, they have managed to help murder, and that is what it is, 8,000 Iraqis and 421 Americans. This took an amazing amount of skill and backroom dealing. Is Chalabi a liar? Most Iraqis and Jordanians think so. But until I watched Nightline tonight, I never knew how potent his skills were.
On Nightline, parents were reading letters and e-mails from their children killed in Iraq. A 19 year old girl, a 33 year old Marine reservist. All dead because the drunken monkey Kung Fu master Ahmed Chalabi wanted to replace the Hashemite king of his teenage years. These people's thanksgiving would be tainted by loss and regret and all I could think is that we are going to lose this war and their sacrifice and the years of suffering their families will live with will be in vain. That is a horrible feeling, one which causes me to tear up even thinking about it. There is something horrible in hearing a husband explain that his parents need to help his wife get burial benefits and GI insurance. There is even less to say when a parent has to deal with the combat death of her 19 year old daughter.
Chalabi set the stage for this horror. The bland little man, bland in the way Himmler was bland, set about this chain of death and destruction and people still think he can run Iraq. He may not have Saddam's taste for personal murder, but he is such an effective bureaucrat that he can manipulate others with only the skill that a Kung Fu master could exhibit. In a decent country, he would be sitting in a jail, awaiting trial for any number of crimes. But under Bush, we are not a decent country. We are a confused and angry country, both enraged and scared that our oceans could not protect us. Tommy Franks isn't talking about Seven Days in May when he says the country might fall to a military government after a WMD attack. Nor is he advocating it. I think he is warning us. About our embrace of fear, our indifference to the Patriot Act and it's abuses. How we have sought simple solutions to terrorism.
Chalabi is only effective in his Kung Fu because he tells us the lies we want to believe. We wanted to believe that Saddam would disappear and we could create a pro-Israeli state in Iraq, that Iraq was the lynchpin to rebuilding the middle east. Anyone who was interested would know Iraq had a very different reality. It became the home of the most diehard opposition to colonialism in the Arab world. From Saladin and the crusades to the 1920 rebellion, it was the home of a fierce nationalism which resented foriegn occupation for any reason. Iraq is now a graveyard. To Iraqis, at the rate of 500 murders a month in Baghdad alone, to Americans, who are injured at the rate of 10 a day, to any hopes of a democracy in the country. Chalabi wanted to be appointed king, but he is a master without wisdom. The reason he fled Iraq was that his family backed the last king, who was killed in a nationalist uprising.
It seems that he seeks the same fate for himself, despite his plan to be protected by a pretorian guard of American soldiers.
The problem being, of course, that Chalabi does not have and never had the power to do anything outside the beltway. In Iraq, Sistani, Hairi, Hakim. Barzani and Tablani and the Sunnis make the rules. Not the exiles, and certainly not him, no matter his delusions or the lies he tells his friends in Washington.
The once-mighty Comdex show has fallen a long way in only a few years. Jack Schofield reports from this year's event in Las Vegas
Thursday November 27, 2003
The Guardian
It used to be the greatest high-tech show on earth. If you didn't turn up to Comdex, people might think you were either broke or dead. Now it's not even the biggest high-tech show in Las Vegas, it's fighting for its life. Even in a city built on gambling, not too many people would bet on its survival.
At its peak, Comdex was a monster that spawned satellite shows round the globe: there were even a couple of Comdex/UK events. It started in Las Vegas in 1979 as a small Computer Dealers Exposition - 150 exhibitors, 4,000 attendees - but grew with the IT industry until it dominated the city. In the 1990s, it often attracted more than 200,000 visitors, squeezing out the gamblers and holiday-makers, and almost taking over half a dozen giant hotels.
The madness peaked in 1997 when 211,886 turned up to see 2,480 exhibitors occupying 1.4m square feet of floor space. Last week, there were about 550 exhibitors in 150,000 square feet. The miles of aisles that used to take five days to tread could now be done in a morning.
Comdex used to be the place to see the industry giants roll out their latest and greatest products. Sony and Sharp, Olympus and Canon, Hewlett-Packard, Toshiba, Samsung, Philips and other electronics giants would show not just computers and personal organisers but cameras, printers, copiers, DVD players, mobile phones and other gadgets. This year, the big company displays were shadows of their former selves or, more likely, had vanished altogether.
As for the visitor numbers, the official figures won't be available until January, and it's "no comment" until then. However, last year, attendance was down to about 100,000, and this year, organisers MediaLive International were only hoping for 50,000. Estimates from authoritative sources - cab drivers - put the numbers much lower than that. Dave Charak, for example, said the taxi authority had allowed hundreds of extra cabs, but he'd only made five trips from hotels to the convention centre. "Five rides in three days? It used to be 30 or 40 rides each day."
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The organisers messed up. In the early days, Comdex was run by its charismatic founder, Sheldon Adelson. He was a larger-than-life character who went on to build a replica of Venice - including a Grand Canal, with gondolas - inside his new hotel, the Venetian. But in 1995, Adelson sold out to Softbank, a comparatively faceless Japanese corporation, for almost $900m. Softbank also bought Ziff-Davis Publishing of PC Magazine fame, and Comdex became part of its stable of computer magazines, a cable TV channel, a market research company and other shows such as NetWorld+Interop and the Seybold Seminars. Comdex was eventually spun off as Key3Media Group Inc, but it was not a financial success: it ended up seeking protection from creditors under America's Chapter 11 bankruptcy law. Although the company reappeared as MediaLive International to run this year's show, the changes of name, ownership, management and financial situation hardly inspired confidence.
· CES took off. The Consumer Electronics Show used to be held in Chicago at the beginning of January - not a prospect that filled many people with pleasure. However, its fortunes changed after it moved to sunny Las Vegas, and digital gadgetry became both fashionable and affordable. Digital cameras, MP3 players and similar products were peripheral to Comdex but the core of CES, and this encouraged exhibitors to shift their interest from one show to the other. Insofar as the audiences overlapped, that was to Comdex's disadvantage. How many people want to make two trips to Las Vegas in two months, even if they can afford it?
The Guardian article is long, but these are the two main reasons that I would list. Softbank doesn't have a feel for trade shows and more importantly, there was a grotesque level of overlap. CES is now dealing with mature technologies in digital cameras, PDA's and the other things which drove past Comdex shows. What the article didn't mention was a couple of other factors which shifted CES into the primary position. It's held in the dead of winter in January, which means a free few days in Vegas away from the gloomy east and midwest, and the Adult Video expo is held currently. That's no accident. Porn has driven technology purchasing from the days of the VCR. Add in the largely male nature of tech companies and you have a successful marriage.
There has to be trade for trade shows and there has been a definite lack of corporate purchasing and new technologies to drive sales. That hasn't existed in three years. So there just isn't the business to drive trade shows anyway. CES stays alive because of the TV's and home appliance markets, not technology alone. Comdex now wants to move into business to business deals, which makes sense, but it isn't the same thing. Focus helps, but there needs to be clear lines. CES doesn't help government and educational buyers and it doesn't serve the corporate market. There needs to be more division and clearer marketing to distinct segments of the community. No show can be everything to every possible consumer, especially in down times.
Alan Travis, home affairs editor
Thursday November 27, 2003
The Guardian
The home secretary, David Blunkett, insists today he does not deserve to be branded the "King Herod of the Labour party" for his controversial plan to take into care the children of failed asylum seekers who refuse to leave the country.
Writing in the Guardian Mr Blunkett confirms that his new asylum legislation being published today will implement Tony Blair's promise to "derail the legal aid gravy train" by introducing new limits on the access of asylum seekers to legal aid.
The new asylum figures being published today are expected to show that Mr Blair's target of halving the number of asylum applications has been met. Mr Blunkett says that the fact that more failed asylum seekers have been removed from the country than ever before is "good news for the left".
But he warns that unless the "necessary medicine" is swallowed and the backlogs and delays in asylum appeals and deportations are sorted out by the next general election then the BNP and the anti-immigration groups will "rub their hands with glee".
Defending for the first time his plan to force failed asylum seekers to leave the country by threatening to take their children into care, Mr Blunkett, says that the step will only be taken in a small number of cases but that it is justified by the "unreasonable behaviour" of their parents.
He should look for work in California after Blair is chased from office. I hear the governor is into such foward thinking proposals.
Rory McCarthy in Baghdad and Julian Borger in Washington
Thursday November 27, 2003
The Guardian
The wife and daughter of Izzat Ibrahim, one of the most wanted deputies of Saddam Hussein, were detained for questioning last night in a move that reflects the anxiety of US forces faced with growing insurgency in Iraq.
Commanders have accused Ibrahim, the former vice-chairman of the regime's revolutionary command council, of orchestrating guerrilla attacks on the US military, but have been unable to track him down.
One of his wives and a daughter were arrested yesterday in a raid in the town of Samarra, 70 miles north of Baghdad. The son of Ibrahim's doctor was also arrested there.
Lieutenant-Colonel William MacDonald, from the 4th Infantry Division which led the operation, said there was no indication that Ibrahim was in Samarra. It is unlikely that his wife and daughter took part in attacks against American troops but commanders may believe they hold information that could lead them to the senior Ba'athist figure.
Widney Brown, a Human Rights Watch official, said: "Anybody who is taken into detention must either after questioning be released or know of the charges against them and have access to counsel."
Yes, these women are the key to the resistance.
It seems the Pentagon was afraid of the International Criminal Court, because some of them might wind up in the dock there. This is taking hostages and is, basically, a war crime.
Sacramento -- Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's proposals to cut nearly $2 billion from this year's budget met with stiff opposition Tuesday from Democratic lawmakers and health care providers, who declared the reductions cruel to children and a threat to the public safety net.
Schwarzenegger, in the first detailed list of how he wants to trim the state budget, has suggested capping enrollment in a program that provides drugs to AIDS patients, reducing fees to doctors who treat state-insured poor families and ending state money for music and art programs for the developmentally disabled.
"Who decides who gets life-saving drugs and who doesn't?'' asked Assemblyman John Laird, D-Santa Cruz, regarding the proposal to create a waiting list for the AIDS Drug Assistance Program. Schwarzenegger proposes freezing enrollment in the program after Jan. 1 and allowing enrollees only with attrition in the program.
Schwarzenegger aides conceded the proposals included some difficult decisions but said the state's woeful budget picture required drastic action.
"There are no two ways about it -- it is not easy," said Donna Arduin, finance director for Schwarzenegger. "But we have to face reality. This is part of a responsible, comprehensive plan by the governor to begin to fix our budget problems."
In addition to this year's savings, the proposal would save $2 billion in the 2004-05 budget, which is estimated to have a cash shortfall of at least $14 billion.
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Many Democrats, however, still believe tax hikes would be preferable to slashing state spending. Schwarzenegger's cuts include everything from giving less money to universities to reducing payments to families on welfare by 5 percent. The proposals will be a main topic at budget hearings next week, but Democrats began Tuesday to pick apart the reductions.
"These are not bipartisan, move-to-the-center, get-everybody-all-together kind of cuts," said Assemblywoman Jackie Goldberg, D-Los Angeles. "These are the kind of cuts that come from a very right-wing agenda."
Particular ire was focused on several health care proposals. Schwarzenegger wants lawmakers to approve a halt to enrolling children in the Healthy Families insurance program beginning Jan. 1. Children's advocates blasted that idea, noting that 1 in 7 children in California was already uninsured. The state of Florida, where Arduin last worked, froze enrollment in a similar insurance program in July and how has a waiting list of 42,000 kids, according to the advocacy group Children Now
So, now the work begins. He wants to take money from the poor and retarded, but he dumped the car tax.
Well, Californians thought it would be cool to have the Terminator as governor. He'd cut the car tax and prevent sacrifice. Well, that isn't going to be the case. You get the government you vote for. Luckily for the state, the legislature is still Democratically held.
Where is all the waste, fraud and abuse he was going to find? It's a myth, right? WFA is a small part of the budget. Education and prisons are not. Well, who needs schools and jails anyway?
Iraq is no Vietnam, but there are eerie parallels
By JOSEPH L. GALLOWAY
WASHINGTON - There are a hundred reasons why Iraq isn't Vietnam, but a few where the similarities are chilling.
First, let's examine the big differences.
The Iraqi guerrillas aren't the Viet Cong. They don't swim like fish among the 24 million citizens of Iraq. They're overwhelmingly Sunni Muslims and they're largely confined to the Iron Triangle defined by the Baghdad suburbs in the south, Tikrit in the north, and Ramadi and Fallujah to the west.
They don't fight to unify their homeland, but to regain a brutal minority's power over an enslaved majority. They were the privileged class under Saddam Hussein and they don't want to let go of the BMWs, the mansions and the other perks.
If they tried to swim among the peoples they oppressed for 40 years, the Kurds and Turkomens in the north and the Shiites in the south, they wouldn't last a New York minute.
Unfortunately, Joe is dead wrong here. The resistance isn't restricted to Sunnis, nor this mythical Sunni Triangle. The reality is that while the Shia are not openly opposing the US, they are at best neutral, leaning towards the resistance. Many Iraqi families are not a neat split of Shia, Sunni and Kurd. They have intermarried over the centuries and there are Sunnis in towns like Najaf and Basra and Shia in Tikrit and Fallouja.
The fact is that the resistance could not strike in Nasyriah, Najaf and Mosul without the tacit approval of Kurds and Shia. Iraqi nationalism is a major force in Iraqi life and while Saddam played the divide and counquer game as well as he could, Shias only turned on Saddam after two bloody wars and the Sunni tribal leaders were far less happy with him than people think. The support for the resistance, hell, Saddam's survival, comes from an innate dislike of occupation and distrust of Americans. How else could the Green Zone get shelled every night? What? No Shia in Baghdad see the donkey carts of death? If the Shia were cooperating with the US, the Sunnis would be fighting for dear life. Instead, the resistance operates in anonymity after six months. Six months. No Iraqi has bothered to rat out his resistance collegues to the point that we know who the leaders are. They could be and probably sitting in on every IGC meeting.
But as wrong as he is about the Iraqi resistance, and that's because he's not there and listening to his friends, his conclusions about the leadership which dragged us to this war is dead on.
The failures of American political leadership that plagued this country in Vietnam are being repeated in Iraq. Lyndon Johnson used a dubious excuse, the Tonkin Gulf incident, to march his countrymen into Vietnam. George W. Bush, under the tutelage of Dick Cheney, waved the threat of weapons of mass destruction and links to al-Qaeda to march America into Iraq.
Johnson and his secretary of defense, Robert Strange McNamara, were contemptuous of their senior military advisers and spurned their counsel at every turn. Although President Bush keeps a comfortable distance from such matters, his vice president and his secretary of defense, Donald H. Rumsfeld, seem equally contemptuous of their military subordinates.
If you want one more similarity, consider the incredible egos of McNamara and Rumsfeld. McNamara listened only to his small staff of Whiz Kids; Rumsfeld listens to a similar coterie including Paul Wolfowitz, Douglas Feith and the dark prince himself, Richard Perle.
They share a breathtaking arrogance. They brook no word of opposition. They persist in believing that somehow they can graft Jeffersonian democracy onto ancient Mesopotamia, a land bathed in blood and ruled by terror for millennia. When they're wrong, they never admit it. Never.
A large part of the trouble unfolding in Iraq can be laid directly at the feet of Cheney, Rumsfeld and their people. They made no plans for postwar Iraq. No plans to secure the buildings and symbols of government in Iraq. No plans to rebuild a shattered economy, infrastructure and nation. No plans to secure law and order in a fractious, violent place.
They listened instead to their own counsel and to the whisperings of exiles who hadn't lived in Iraq in 40 years. They ignored the warnings of the Central Intelligence Agency and the Defense Intelligence Agency. They ignored nearly a year of detailed studies and plans for postwar Iraq because the study was done by the despised State Department.
It took Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon nearly a decade to fail in Vietnam. Cheney and Rumsfeld could do it in Iraq in a year.
BAQOUBA, Iraq - Iraqi police say they are underpaid, poorly armed and lack equipment to protect themselves from increasing attacks by insurgents. Frequently branded as collaborators with the U.S. occupation, many police resent the Americans and some even express sympathy for the guerrillas.
The recent surge in attacks on Iraqi police followed a decision by the U.S. command to aggressively pursue insurgents before they can strike. Nine police were among the 12 Iraqis killed in car bombings last weekend at police stations in Baqouba and nearby Khan Bani Saad. Two senior police commanders were killed last weekend in Mosul and a town south of Baghdad.
American officials expect attacks to increase against Iraqis working with the coalition as the U.S.-led administration begins handing power to local leaders. Culture clashes between Iraqi and American forces only exacerbate a climate of bitterness and distrust.
About a dozen Iraqi policemen who spoke to The Associated Press on Wednesday said they were not deterred by the bombings and would continue working for the police force.
Still, they expressed resentment toward the Americans, who are better armed and less vulnerable to attack. Several policemen referred to the resistance against the Americans as a jihad, or holy war, and said Iraqis had a legitimate right to fight occupation.
"Take a look at the American bases," said Lt. Miqdad Thamer, 25, in Baqouba. "They are hiding behind barricades while we are here in the streets with not even guns to protect ourselves.
"We are getting attacked because they think we cooperate with the Americans. This is not true. We are trying to bring security to the city."
Traffic officer Salman Khaizaran said attacks will continue - against Americans as well as Iraqis - so long as U.S. troops remain. "If they want the attacks to stop, they must leave the cities and hand over security responsibilities to us."
And this is the police. I wonder what the Army we're training thinks.
"Very few of the people that I see will actually be back to what they used to be," said Capt. Justin Barratt, a native of Phoenix who got his medical degree at Temple University in 2000.
"Imagine a kid who has lost both arms, asking how he is going to provide for his family," Shaw-Fievez said. "It's gut-wrenching."
Yet staff members say they're continually impressed by patients' fortitude.
"I'm always amazed at how up they really are, and how positive they are," said Col. Ben Todd, a chaplain. "I don't know that I would be, but they are."
You won't find much self-pity at Landstuhl. You certainly won't find it talking with Spc. Matthew Van Buren, 21, of Kansas City, Kan., who's in a wheelchair and awaiting surgery to close a huge cavity in his leg caused by a chunk from a roadside bomb. Clutching a fatigues-clad stuffed turtle that his brother gave him when he completed basic training, Van Buren chuckled as he explained how pieces of shrapnel are working their way out of his body, sometimes popping out as he sleeps.
Van Buren, also of the 1st Armored Division, was hit Nov. 8 in an attack that killed another soldier. "It just riddled my truck with shrapnel," he said.
Like Gunn, Van Buren said he believed in U.S. troops' mission in Iraq and was glad to have been a part of it.
"There's a group of real good people over there, and they want just what Americans want: a job, security for their family, a nice life," he said. "The Army is trying to help them get that."
Neither Van Buren nor Gunn will be going back to Iraq, but both said they'd remain in the military. Gunn's next stop probably will be a rehab facility in Germany, where his unit is based and he has a steady girlfriend.
"I'm glad I don't have to go back, but in a way I'm kind of disappointed, because I won't know what's going on with the rest of the guys I was over there with," said Gunn, who enlisted in 1997.
Ayatollah's Call for Vote Forced Occupation Leader to Rewrite Transition Strategy
By Rajiv Chandrasekaran
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, November 26, 2003; Page A01
BAGHDAD, Nov. 25 -- The unraveling of the Bush administration's script for political transition in Iraq began with a fatwa.
The religious edict, handed down in June by Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, Iraq's most influential Shiite Muslim cleric, called for general elections to select the drafters of a new constitution. He dismissed U.S. plans to appoint the authors as "fundamentally unacceptable."
His pronouncement, underestimated at first by the Bush administration, doomed an elaborate transition plan crafted by U.S. administrator L. Paul Bremer that would have kept Iraq under occupation until a constitution was written, according to American and Iraqi officials involved in the process. While Bremer feared that electing a constitutional assembly would take too long and be too disruptive, there was a strong desire on his own handpicked Governing Council to obey Sistani's order.
With no way to get around the fatwa, and with escalating American casualties creating pressure on President Bush for an earlier end to the occupation, Bremer recently dumped his original plan in favor of an arrangement that would bestow sovereignty on a provisional government before a constitution is drafted.
Bremer's unwillingness to heed the fatwa until just a few weeks ago may have delayed the country's political transition and exacerbated popular anger at the occupation, Iraqi political leaders said.
"We waited four months, thanks to Bremer," said one council member, speaking on condition of anonymity. "We could have organized this [transition] by now had we started when Sistani issued his fatwa. But the Americans were in denial."
People familiar with the discussions among U.S. officials about the fatwa said American political officers were too isolated to grasp the power of the edict right away, assuming that secular former exiles backed by the U.S. government would push Bremer's plan. Even when Sistani's clout became clear, they said Bremer remained reluctant to rework his transition plan right away. "He didn't want a Shiite cleric dictating the terms of Iraq's political future," one U.S. official with knowledge of the process said.
U.S. officials said it took months even for Iraqis to grasp the influence of Sistani's fatwa. Bremer's deputies also hoped the edict could be countered by statements from other Shiite clerics supporting approaches other than general elections, but few of those materialized.
They wanted him to tell Shia to not fight for Saddam, but then now expect him to keep his mouth shut while they pick the next government? They're lucky that Sistani and not Hairi, the other leading Object of Emulation, has the heart and respect of the majority of Iraqi Shia. Sistani is the only reason we're still in Iraq. If he issues a fatwa asking us to leave, we'll have to leave or fight the Shia. Do people think that he doesn't know this? That he can jerk Bremer around at will? He doesn't because he's not that kind of person, but he know exactly how much power he has.
Sistani, like Sadr, has one thing the exlies don't, last man standing status. They survived Saddam. Even Hairi can't claim that. His power comes from having the backing of the late Ayatollah Sadr, who was the leading Object of Emulation until his murder. Which is why Sadr is his man in Baghdad while he waits in Qom. The lower clerics collaborating with the Americans, as Juan Cole points out,
listen to Sistani, not the other way around. Any move to negate or ignore Sistani simply will not work. And when the issue is the American occupation, they have even less credibility with Sistani and the men around him.
Guantanamo Bay detainees facing trial by 'kangaroo court'
Clare Dyer, legal correspondent
Wednesday November 26, 2003
The Guardian
A senior law lord last night delivered a scathing attack on the US government's and the American courts' treatment of the detainees at Guantanamo Bay, branding it "a monstrous failure of justice".
Lord Steyn, one of the most senior judges in Britain's highest court, described the military tribunal for trying the detainees as a "kangaroo court".
The term, he said, implied "a pre-ordained arbitrary rush to judgment by an irregular tribunal which makes a mockery of justice". He asked whether the British government should not "make plain, publicly and unambiguously, our condemnation of the utter lawlessness" at Guantanamo Bay.
Delivering the FA Mann lecture at Lincoln's Inn in central London, Lord Steyn added: "Trials of the type contemplated by the United States government would be a stain on United States justice. The only thing that could be worse is simply to leave the prisoners in their black hole indefinitely."
Lord Steyn said it was a recurring theme in history "that in times of war, armed conflict, or perceived national danger, even liberal democracies adopt measures infringing human rights in ways that are wholly disproportionate to the crisis. Often the loss of liberty is permanent".
Judges were often too deferential to the executive even in peacetime. He regarded it as "a monstrous failure of justice" that so far the US courts had decided they could not even consider credible medical evidence that a detainee had been or was being tortured.
The US? Set up a gulag in Cuba? Never. Gitmo was a bad idea and we can't do anything with those prisoners. The first trials will cause riots in Pakistan and demands for repatriation in the West. So they'll just sit there until we ship them home.
Pentagon looks to families in push for fresh recruits
By Robert Schlesinger, Globe Staff, 11/23/2003
WASHINGTON -- Hoping to attract new recruits, the Pentagon is running an ad campaign aimed not at would-be soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines, but rather at their parents and other key adults, trying to make the military as appealing as college.
The $8 million campaign, styled "Today's Military," marks a departure from the direct, traditional recruiting advertising that stresses pride, patriotism, and adventure, typified by such slogans as "An Army of One" and "The Few, the Proud, the Marines."
The new ads portray military service as an ideal way for young people to build character and develop talents needed for professional success. One 60-second television ad focuses on pop violinist Valerie Vigoda. While video clips show her touring the country -- rising early, driving from state to state, setting up for shows with her band, GrooveLily -- her voice-over discusses the trials of life on the road. It is not until 45 seconds into the ad that the military is mentioned, when Vigoda ascribes her personal drive to her time in the Army National Guard.
The print ads also focus on the successful civilian careers of individual veterans, including former professional football player Chad Hennings and Mark Jones, CEO of Tuft-Jones Security, who attribute their success to the skills and values they learned in the military.
"When Johnny comes home with a [military] brochure, if he hands it off or asks input from parents, we would like them to listen to him or even advocate service," said Air Force Major Joe Allegretti, chief of the Defense Department's $18 million Joint Recruiting Advertising Program.
Sure, that will happen. Especially after Cousin Dwyane has to get cases of bottled water and gun cleaning oil from home sent to Iraq. And that kid from down the block who's still going to the VA every day to learn to walk again on that prosthetic leg.
Come on, this campaign is a sign of desperation. Most families who would consider the miliatry have a close relative who's served. And no one wants their little brother or sister on patrol in Iraq. Hell, they don't want to be there themselves.
Here's the difference between college and the Army: in college, no one sets landmines up to kill you and fires mortars at your CP every night. Oh yeah, traumatic amputation is reltively uncommon as well.
Gossip is usually looked down upon as a lesser version of news, but it isn't. There is no libel law excemption for gossip columinsts and all their subjects can afford lawyers.
But in this case, our friend Atrios has alerted us to the deposition of one Neil Bush in his extremely nastydivorce.
"You have absolutely no educational background in semiconductors do you?" asked Brown in the March 4 deposition, which was seen by Reuters.
"That's correct," Bush, 48, responded.
"And you have absolutely over the last 10, 15, 20 years not a lot of demonstrable business experience that would bring about a company investing $2 million in you?"
"I personally would object to the assumption that they're investing $2 million in me," said Bush, who went on to explain that he knew a lot about business and had been working in Asia for years.
Well, Neil and his friends did lose $2 billion running Silverado S&L into the ground in the 1980's. Hey, that wouldn't disuade a PLA officer from a little influence peddling. His brothers made millions peddling their asses to rich furriners.
The Bush divorce, completed in April, was prompted in part by Bush's relationship with another woman. He admitted in the deposition that he previously had sex with several other women while on trips to Thailand and Hong Kong at least five years ago.
The women, he said, simply knocked on the door of his hotel room, entered and engaged in sex with him. He said he did not know if they were prostitutes because they never asked for money and he did not pay them.
"Mr Bush, you have to admit it's a pretty remarkable thing for a man just to go to a hotel room door and open it and have a woman standing there and have sex with her," Brown said.
"It was very unusual," Bush said.
Really? When I travel, I normally have whores waiting for me. I mean, they just assaulted him, right? He couldn't kick the whore out of his room, right. Or did he slip and he fell on his penis and only a strange woman's vagina saved him from grevious injury?
Well, that seems to be one habit he picked up from daddy, who Spy magazine said used to hire hookers and have parties in Houston hotels.
Too bad Sharon wasn't more like Babs, who didn't mind that her husband's mistress worked in the White House.
The Sharon Bush divorce has been basically ignored on the blogs despite a wealth of nasty details about the way the family operates. Neil runs off with his younger mistress, ruining a marriage in the process besides his own, and forces Sharon from her home. When she went to Babs for help, she got the cold shoulder, despite the fact that there were two teenage girls in the marriage. Finally, after Sharon cooperated with Kitty Kelley and her book about the Bushes and wrote up a proposal for her own, suddenly, Babs bought the house, which Sharon can stay in for five years. Once the kids are gone, she's gone. And to get that deal, she had to resort to blackmail.
Make no mistake, Babs is never, ever going to turn on her kids, no matter how badly they screwup.
If someone really dug into the Bushes, the stories would be pretty nasty. But a lot of people just don't have the stomach to get that nasty. But Sharon Bush could be very useful in breaking down the image of the Bushes if she talked to Kelley in detail. People in the Beltway blew off her book on Nancy Reagan as junk,but outside DC, it killed Nancy Reagan's image. The rumors of screwing Frank Sinatra, her legendary skills at blowjobs in Hollywood. It all surfaced.
Legends have power. People believe that J. Edgar Hoover was a gay drag queen blackmailed by the CIA and Mafia, based on one book. If the Kelley book has that kind of detail, Bush could be in a lot of trouble from an unexpected source, and Jeb shouldn't be sleeping either. If I were Sharon Bush, I wouldn't fly in any small planes over wooded or mountanous areas for the next year or so.
A large explosion and sirens were heard tonight near the US administrative headquarters in central Baghdad.
Following the blast, which occurred just after 8pm local time (1700 GMT), sirens could be heard briefly from the west bank of the Tigris river, where the US compound - known as the "green zone" - is located. Sporadic small arms fire was also heard in the same area.
Along with the sirens, loudspeaker announcements were heard saying: "Attack. Take cover. This is not a test."
A US military spokesman said he had heard the explosion but had no further comment to make.
Iraqis living near the compound said at least two rockets had landed nearby. A large crater had been blown in the middle of one road, but there were no signs anybody had been wounded, the Reuters news agency reported.
Happy Eid.
Boy, Ramadan sure has been a busy month for your average Iraqi guerrilla. Shooting down helos, mobs killing American soldiers, blowing up trains, rocketing the Green Zone with donkeys. Sheesh, you would think not eating 12 hours a day would make someone tired. What will they do when they have full stomachs, hours of darkness and cool weather.
And for good measure, after the US says attacks are slowing down, they begin Eid with a freaking Green Zone rocket attack.
Every Thanksgiving our family eats the same menu. more or less. After all, it is only the foolish or lucky who can risk experimentation on the one holiday centered on food. It's turkey,sweet potatoes, rice, gravy, greens or string beans, stuffing and baked macaroni, with Ocean Spray Cranberry Sauce. For desert, the family specialities are sweet potato pie or bread pudding. The links are all recipies which are pretty close to how we prepare our meal, if case anyone is curious. We usually drink Apple Cider. In fact, I insist on it. No thanksgiving is complete without it. Not beer, not bourbon, apple cider, soft or hard.
Most of us don't think about what we eat for the holiday any more than we think about how and why we wear clothes. It is something we do.
I remember watch TV and seeing this woman fix food which was achingly familiar. Potato salad, red rice, chicken. Now, I had eaten that food all my life without question. I never thought much about it. It was just the stuff we had. We ate red rice because that's what we ate. Why it was red never occured to me, much less that there was a recipe behind it. My family wasn't big on written recipies. Some families may hand down treasured index cards, but we just cooked and hoped for the best.
Then, one day, I'm watching the Food Network and Nathlie Dupree is hosting this show. She has a bunch of cookbooks out, but I never paid much attention to her. But this day, she was cooking stuff which was really, really familiar. Red rice, greens, potato salad and fried chicken. Now, I had eaten this all my life, without thinking, but I had never seen it on TV. Then she called it low-country cusine. I had never, ever heard that phrase and I was well into my 30's at this point. I never thought much about the origins of my diet, much less that it ever had a name. And as a New Yorker, I had so many different influences, German, Jewish, Italian, Chinese, Puerto Rican, that I never gave it much thought. It was, at best, defined as black people food. We never really liked Soul Food as a name for it.
But one thing I had always questioned was why we never ate ribs. Most southern cooking centers around barbecue something, chicken, pork, beef. But our food never really included them. We ate ham, pot roast and lamb as kids, but never the traditional southern food stuffs like hush puppies and catfish and ribs. In fact, they were regarded as foreign items to our palate. Yet, they were regarded as staples of Southern cooking. Instead of barbecue, our special meals centered around fish and seafood. Our big treat was boiled crabs and shrimp, not slabs of slowly cooked pork. The one tradition we knew was from Charleston was hoppin' john, which was rice and black eyed peas cooked together and eaten on New Years Day, in our family, with either potato or macaroni salad and chicken, either baked or fried. Everyone knows that's a Charleston tradition. But the rest of the menu remained a mystery.
In college, I met a guy who'd grown up in New Orleans. They ate much of what we ate, but it was spicier. But the reliance on rice and seafood in Creole and Cajun, he ate Creole, was pretty pronounced. As I read more about Charleston, where both sides of my family are from, I found that French Hugenots had moved there at the end of the 17th Century, hence my last name. So I was curious as to how and why we ate the same basic foods they did in New Orleans, but with much less heat and flash. The only heat in low country cusine comes from a bottle of hot sauce.
So, as I explored Barnes and Noble that day, I found cookbooks with all these recipies, recipies from childhood, recipies my grandmothers had prepared for us and taught my mother and father to cook. i never imagined that they a) had a name, b) were written down in cookbooks. It was a true revelation. What I came to realize is that Southern food has a bunch of regional variations. Charleston folks eat differently than Atlanta folks, who eat differently than Little Rock folks. I was shocked to read that they fry everything in Arkansas. Now, we liked our fried food. but not everything. You don't fry crabs. And we tend to like our shrimp boiled. Southern cooking has a bunch of regional variations using the same ingredients. I explained this to my sister last night and she had never heard the term low country cusine, and she's a 14 months younger than me.
Every family has a special dish. My friend, who is half-Jewish and half Lutheran, has an special devotion to ham. Every time this comes up, she says HAM!!!!. Her voice raises, and she usually smiles. It's cute, in that way you tolerate in people you really like and would find insanely annoying in anyone else over the age of 10. I always chuckle when she says it. Me, I don't like ham that much, even though we still have it at larger family gatherings. personally, I prefer roast beef, medium.
But in our family. no holiday meal is complete without baked macaroni. Now, I eat it, but it's not my favorite, I love stuffing. But my sisters crave the stuff. They make it for every holiday.
Now, this is not macaroni and cheese, which is noodles in a wet, gloppy sauce. Now, mac and cheese is OK, but there is a big difference, baked macaroni is cheesy, but more like a cassarole, browned and crispy. My older sister has started to substitute velveeta in her baked macaroni, which upset my little sister to no end. Her variation was to used preshredded cheese. My mother still grates hers from a brick.
We always use sharp cheddar. When I was in Fairway two years ago, I was looking for cheddar and the guy behind the counter said he had white cheddar. I looked at him, since he was black, and said "man, this is for baked macaroni. I bring home white cheese and my mother will kill me." He laughed and pointed me to the display case with chunks of yellow cheddar. Now, this puts an edge to the baked macaroni that mild cheese doesn't. Some people mix cheeses, but we don't. Always sharp.
The other thing we eat is rice. I was surprised that people had mashed potatoes on Thanksgiving. We always had rice. I was talking to my nephew yesterday, and was asking him what he liked for the holiday. He said turkey and baked macaroni. His sister, who is a cheese fanatic, doesn't like it. She said, amazingly enough for a six year old "sometimes I eat stuff and stop liking them. I don't really know why, but that's the way I am." Although she does like cake, except for coconut. She doesn't like apple pie or "orange" pie, which is to say sweet potato.
But I explained to my nephew that Thanksgiving isn't just a random food, but we eat what we eat because it comes from the way his great grandmothers, both now long dead, ate. We inhereted their recipes and eat them and that his neighbors may eat something very different. In my building, most of my neighbors are Puerto Rican. They fix turkey, but there is always pernil. Pernil is roast pork, cooked for hours in the oven. You can smell it cooking early in the day.
The other thing I never got is people eating Thanksgiving dinner at 2 PM. When relatives came over, they never fully arrived until 4-5 anyway. Dinner was always dinner. We just snacked until then.
But the thing about Thanksgiving, which I consider the true American holiday, far more important than the 4th of July, is that it has a turkey as a centerpiece, but everyone's traditions and heritage is on display in the way of food. All of our regional variations and familial quirks are on display and reaffirm our Americanism, without the forced displays of patriotism the Fourth brings out.
We created this place, weaned the grotesque dictators. And we expect the Arabs to trust Bush’s promise?
It gets weirder and weirder. As his helicopters are falling out of the sky over Iraq, President Bush tells us things are getting even better. The more we succeed, he says, the deadlier the attacks will become. Thank God the Americans now have a few - a very few - brave journalists, like Maureen Dowd, to explain what is happening.
The worse things are, the better they get. Iraq’s wartime information minister, "Comical Ali", had nothing on this; he claimed the Americans weren’t in Baghdad when we could see their tanks. Bush claims he’s going to introduce democracy in the Middle East when his soldiers are facing more than resistance in Iraq. They are facing an insurrection. So let’s take a look at the latest lies. "Sixty years of Western nations excusing and accommodating the lack of freedom in the Middle East did nothing to make us safe," he told us on Thursday. "Because in the long run, stability cannot be purchased at the expense of liberty." Well said, Sir. George Bush Jr sounds almost as convincing as, well, Tony Blair. It’s all a lie. "We" - the West, Europe, America - never "excused and accommodated" lack of freedom. We endorsed lack of freedom. We created it in the Middle East and supported it.
When Colonel Ghaddafi took over Libya, the Foreign Office thought him a much sprightlier figure than King Idriss. We supported the Egyptian generals (aka Gamal Abdul Nasser) when they originally kicked out King Farouk. We - the Brits - created the Hashemite Kingdom in Jordan. We - the Brits - put a Hashemite King on the throne of Iraq. And when the Baath party took over from the monarchy in Baghdad, the CIA obligingly handed Saddam’s mates the names of all senior communist party members so they could be liquidated
Muqtader Sadr has said repeatedly the coalition must leave immediately. U.S. fears his rhetoric will spread violence among his following.
By John Daniszewski, Times Staff Writer
KUFA, Iraq — He is angry and unapologetic when it comes to criticizing the occupation of Iraq. But unlike other sworn opponents of the American presence, he has a famous name and family history that give him credibility with millions of poor urban Shiite Muslims who make up the majority in this country.
And that is what makes Muqtader Sadr so potentially dangerous to U.S. hopes for an orderly transition to a stable, democratic government — hopes that are already being sorely tested by an expanding insurgency centered mostly in Sunni Muslim areas of the country.
If Iraq's Shiite slums — such as Baghdad's teeming Sadr City, named for the young cleric's assassinated father — erupt like the Sunni heartland, the already problematic U.S. occupation will become even more difficult. Unlike other Shiite religious figures who counsel giving the Americans a chance to prove they are liberators and not occupiers, Sadr has stoked anti-American feelings with weekly denunciations during Friday prayers.
The dark-eyed, slightly pudgy 30-year-old lived up to his firebrand image last week in an interview with The Times.
In his first comments since plans were unveiled to speed up the naming of a provisional government for the country, Sadr dismissed the proposed hand-over of power by July 1 as inadequate, and rejected any role for what he called the "vicious trinity" of the United States, Britain and Israel in Iraq's future.
"Whatever is related to occupation must be considered as 'occupation,' and must be refused by any rational and peace-loving person," he said, sitting cross-legged on cushions in a reception room near a residence he uses in this central Iraq city. The only real solution, he said, was for U.S. forces to withdraw immediately.
What remained to be seen was whether he would wield his fiery rhetoric, his popularity among youths and his skills at provoking demonstrations to try to waylay the agreement reached between civilian administrator L. Paul Bremer III and the Iraqi Governing Council. Hints from him and his supporters have been ambiguous, suggesting that Sadr was hesitating and keeping his options open in the face of U.S. warnings that incitement and insurrection would not be tolerated.
Despite Sadr's apparent rejection of the accord, a statement issued last week by the Sadr Bureau, a sort of shadow government that has wide influence in many Shiite neighborhoods, said the proposed new provisional government could be supported — if certain conditions were met, including that the occupying powers not interfere with the new government and that it be representative of all of society.
Sadr has walked a fine line. He wants the US gone, but he doesn't want to start the rebellion to make that happen.
Najaf, Iraq - Leading Shi'ite Muslim politician Abdel Aziz al-Hakim urged the US-led military forces in the country to accept limitations to its presence in Iraq in a holiday message for the end of Ramadan.
"The presence of any foreign force in Iraq is an exceptional state of affairs, there is a diminution of the sovereignty and dignity of the people of Iraq," said Hakim, as his Shi'ite community prepared to celebrate Eid al-Fitr on Tuesday or Wednesday.
"The presence of these forces should be under UN resolution and with the agreement of the Iraqi side and they should take into account the opinions of the Iraqi people about the presence of these forces and the duration of their deployment," said Hakim, who heads the formerly Iran-based Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq.
A vote? We all know how that would turn out.
Here's the problem, and Cole points this out: these two guys are not strong enough on their own to force changes which would be accepted by the Shia masses. But if they can get Sistani to issue a fatwa on this, the US is in deep trouble. There is no question he is the single most powerful figure in Iraq today, mainly by withholding his power. If he opposes the US, it's all over and there has to be people pressuring him to do so. If he should die, or be killed, and he's not a young man, his successor may not be so accomodating to the US. Or he may decide the US occupation is ultimate;ly harmful to Iraq.
People call the Shia US allies, even Cole does this, and they are no such thing. They are waiting like a cheetah to pounce. They aren't fighting us, yet, but they are not our friends. If they were, they would be helping the occupation and they are decidedly not. Guerrilla cells work freely in Shia towns and neighborhoods. If they didn't, there would be a greal deal of tension when they did their missions. Or they would be exposed. And that isn't happening.
As a study he sites, the resistance is cross-ethnic, including everyone from Kurds to Christians. So to depict it as a Sunni-only problem is wrong.
It also amuses me that the news is now shocked that Mosul is a hotbed of Iraqi resistance. They've never accepted the occupation there, considering that it's the home of Arab culture in Northern Iraq. There have been steady attacks on Americans since the early days of the occupation. They were just ignored. Now, they can't be. Even the Peshmerga avoided fighting the Iraqi Army to any large degree. So this myth that reistance was localized to the Sunni area near Baghdad was just that.
In fact, the two most deadly attacks, the bombing of the Italians in Nasyriah and the al-Hakim assassination in Najaf, happened in the Shia-controlled south. Neither one could have occured without Shia cooperation on some level.
Imaigining that Chalabi could be appointed strongman in this environment is insane on it's face, but hardly surprising.
President Bush's new strategy of transferring power quickly to Iraqis, and his critics' alternatives, share a fundamental flaw: all commit the United States to a unified Iraq, artificially and fatefully made whole from three distinct ethnic and sectarian communities. That has been possible in the past only by the application of overwhelming and brutal force.
President Bush wants to hold Iraq together by conducting democratic elections countrywide. But by his daily reassurances to the contrary, he only fans devastating rumors of an American pullout. Meanwhile, influential senators have called for more and better American troops to defeat the insurgency. Yet neither the White House nor Congress is likely to approve sending more troops.
And then there is the plea, mostly from outside the United States government, to internationalize the occupation of Iraq. The moment for multilateralism, however, may already have passed. Even the United Nations shudders at such a nightmarish responsibility.
The only viable strategy, then, may be to correct the historical defect and move in stages toward a three-state solution: Kurds in the north, Sunnis in the center and Shiites in the south.
Almost immediately, this would allow America to put most of its money and troops where they would do the most good quickly — with the Kurds and Shiites. The United States could extricate most of its forces from the so-called Sunni Triangle, north and west of Baghdad, largely freeing American forces from fighting a costly war they might not win. American officials could then wait for the troublesome and domineering Sunnis, without oil or oil revenues, to moderate their ambitions or suffer the consequences
Juan Cole points out that this is a bad idea and I agree. Iraqis are not so neatly divided into ethnic groups. Shia live in Mosul and Sunnis in Basra. There may be regions where one predominates, but Iraqis intermarry and have relations across the country. And 80 years of nationalist teaching have made Iraqi ethnic tension more like Catalonians in Spain than Walloons in Belgium, and nothing like the Yugoslavs. A divided Iraq is not a solution. It, as Cole pointed out, will lead to war. There is no quicker route to civil war than to have the Sunnis with no oil and plenty of guns. Besides, Iraqis see their country as a whole and make that point constantly.
Gelb's assumption is also flawed in his depiction of the resistance. It's not just Sunnis. It's everyone. It's just that the Shia clerics have not called for a war, leaving most Shia neutral. They certainly aren't helping the occupation. The issue seems to be who has the largest voice, not that there are specific irridentist claims.
Doctors and experts are baffled by an Indian hermit who claims not to have eaten or drunk anything for several decades - but is still in perfect health.
Jani be good: Mr Prahlad Jani has been under surveillance in hospital
Prahlad Jani, a holy man, or fakir, who is over 70 years old, has just spent 10 days under constant observation in Sterling Hospital, in the western Indian city of Ahmedabad.
During that time, he did not consume anything and "neither did he pass urine or stool", according to the hospital's deputy superintendent, Dr Dinesh Desai.
Yet he is in fine mental and physical fettle, say doctors.
Mouthwash
"A series of tests conducted on him show his body mechanism is that of a normal person," said Dr Desai.
Mr Jani spends most of his time in a cave near the Ambaji temple in Gujarat state
I was surprised to see this on the BBC. National Enquirer, Globe, sure, BBC, well, maybe he hasn't eaten in decades.
As I predicted, over the weekend, black radio leaped to the defense of Michael Jackson.
The reason is simple, prominent blacks have faced all kinds of legal troubles, unfair investigations, and unjust imprisonments in the last few years. It's how John Street remained Philly's mayor.
But people are forgetting that we're talking about a 45 year old man and a 12 year old boy depicted holding Jackson's hand on TV. A scene which should have had any ration person freaking the hell out, like Martin Bashir did.
I was a 12 year old boy, and I wouldn't hold my non-molesting father's hand. I have nephews and they would have laughed at the idea. Or called me a faggot, given the lingusitic abilities of most boys that age. Hell, we were 8-9 and called a teacher that. We weren't idiots. A 12 year old boy may be a little shaky on the girl thing, but cuddling up to Michael Jackson ain't on the agenda. Try Britney Spears or Christina Aguliera. My friend's girlfriend was about that age when her brother replaced pictures of him and their mom on their door with one of Ms.Spears.
A 12 year old boy idolizes Allen Iverson or David Beckham or Kerry Wood, not Michael Jackson. Even P. Diddy is more likely to appeal to a 12 year old boy than Jackson. This is important because the case came to light after the documentary aired on US TV. It seems his classmates got on him for his longing looks and handholding with the king of pop.
When his mom saw this, she took him to a lawyer and he recommended counselling. I mean, how many days can you be asked if you sucked Michael Jackson's dick before you break? And that is what 12 year old boys will do, every day. After all, 12 year olds are beastly, ignorant homophobic thugs when they get the chance.
But what is so sad is that adults will leap to defend a man who is all but screaming pedophile and attack the family for being greedy. This was a sick child, not some actor looking to get ahead. Michael Jackson has done everything to reject and deny his blackness, except when he is in trouble. He only comes home when he needs us. ÃZˇ have to wonder if people know what they are defending.
The star is said to have referred to ----- and other boys as "Rubba" because he aroused himself by rubbing against them.
A source said: "One of the games they used to play was called rubba-rubba. The boy said 'Jackson was my rubba-rubba friend'." Jacko was said yesterday to have tried to buy off the ------ family in February by flying them to a new life in South America.
The move came after ------ told Martin Bashir in his controversial TV documentary that he had slept in Jackson's bedroom.
Last week's searches at Jackson's 3,000-acre Neverland ranch in California and other properties were carried out to find evidence which would back ------ claims of assault.
Investigators found videos containing non-sexual images of young boys who visited Jackson's home over the years.
They have already allegedly unearthed love letters and poems written by the star to -----.
I wish that people would take these charges more seriously than they do. The man is constanly surrounded by children and no women, and has a first wife who swears their marriage wasn't consumated. Just because he's black doesn't mean we have to leap to his defense or condemn him. He's accused of harming children for the second time in a decade. At some point critical faculties need to be engaged. If you wouldn't trust him with your children, and few of his defenders would despite what they're saying, there's something deeply wrong here.
Oddly enough, US laws and journalism custom means the most details will be found in UK and Australian papers, like the name of the victim and other details. Some may be wrong, but it is our circus and they have the best trapeeze acts.
The Boston Herald called the killers savages, the New York Daily News called them bastards. They both missed the point. Only a very angry mob kills people by yanking people out of cars and setting the cars on fire. That harks back to the days of South Africa's insurrections in the township.
Some people are calling it another Black Hawk Down, but those men were dead. They just disrespected the bodies. These men were alive and killed by the mob. Which is of an order of magnitude worse.
This is the result of bursting into homes, stealing people's money and humilating them. These were not guerrillas, or a rioting mob,but a bunch of what we would call homies on the street corner. These guys are on the corner because they don't have a job.They have nothing better to do, and they took out their frustrastions on these two, very unlucky soldiers.
But what should be of concern is the following: these guys, the tail-end charlies, were picked off or crashed and no one noticed. Then, after these guys are lying in the street for an hour, the troopers come storming back, ready to kill, 55 minutes too late.
The commander of that convoy failed in his duty to protect his men. Which is obvious beyond saying. The only question is whether they hush it up with an "investigation" or actually courtmartial someone for more than needing Paxil or speaking about about being a flying target.
It's a failure of command as obvious as the 507th debacle.
By Sally Quinn
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, November 24, 2003; Page C01
Chalabi's ultimate goal, almost everyone agrees, is to be president of Iraq. But as a politician, he has some grave liabilities. He is an extremely polarizing personality: people tend to love him or hate him. A recent poll of Iraqis showed a 35 percent unfavorable rating and a 26 percent favorable rating. Many Iraqis regard him as an outsider, someone who stayed away too long. When he returned with U.S. troops at the start of the war, he had not been to Baghdad since 1958. That's when his family fled Iraq. He received his BS at MIT and his PhD at the University of Chicago, then moved to Lebanon, where he taught math at American University in Beirut. After a disastrous banking experience in Jordan, he moved to London and became a British subject. Even though he lived in Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq for four years trying to overthrow the government, and lobbied for two years in the United States, his critics accuse him of living the good life while they were suffering under a brutal government. He knows that he is viewed as either a god or a devil, depending on whom you ask. Which is he? "Neither," he will say with a wry smile. But there is a more nuanced version of the question: Can he lead Iraq to democracy or will he be a destructive force that will send the country into further chaos? That is the question that's dividing the administration.
Which is why he demurs when he is asked whether he wants to be president.
"No," he replies quickly, but his eyelids flutter when he says it. You can almost hear the whir inside his head as he formulates the right answer.
"I'd look ridiculous if I said yes," he says finally. "I'm not going to comment. It would be so pompous." He warms up. "People say I want to be anointed. That is the kiss of death. The U.S. ends up killing people they install."
Why so much animosity toward him? Why do so many people call him arrogant? "I stick to what I believe," he says. "Some say I'm not a team player. . . . I don't compromise very much. . . . I have ideas about how to go about things. That makes people angry."
Many of his detractors say he's just a stooge of the United States. "I have, through my family name, sufficient credibility not to be a stooge of the United States," he says. "Why would I need to?" He shrugs. "I stand up for Iraqi interests even if it doesn't coincide with what Americans think. The fact is that I'm constantly attacked by the press. That's not bad for me in Iraq. It shows I'm taking the position of an Iraqi patriot."
Chalabi, though, doesn't want to be impolitic. It's one thing not to look like a tool of the United States; it's another to turn on his benefactors. Asked about his recent meeting with Secretary of State Colin Powell, who is reputed to oppose him, he chooses his words carefully. "I feel good about the meeting. He's a smart man, very personable. He thought initially that we were taking an opportunistic stand, that we were taking the French position. But it's our position. We're not going to let the French get in the way of us and the U.S.
"We have allies and friends, and their agendas and constituencies are different from ours. Naturally there are differences.
"We don't want a hasty pullout. Iraq and the U.S. are the best possible allies." Then he adds, more in sorrow than in anger: "People against us tried to make a rift. They tried to take advantage of us on the U.N. statement."
Having skirted the minefield, he grins.
Dead man talking. Iraqis hate him. They will kil him if they can. Any other conclusion is foolish.
Moments after Iraqi guerrillas killed two American troops yesterday, a crowd swarmed to the car and began pummelling the soldier's bodies with concrete blocks.
Witnesses to the assault in the northern city of Mosul said the mob mutilated the blood-drenched bodies, rifled through their pockets, looted their four-wheel-drive civilian car, smashed the windows and tried to set it on fire.
One man was seen brandishing a wad of blood-soaked Iraqi dinars, apparently stolen from the men. Bahaa Jassim, one of those who saw the attack, said the soldiers' vehicle smashed into a wall after they were shot and that the crowd stole their weapons and backpacks.
The attack was unusually ferocious, even by the ruthless standards of this seven-month conflict. It dealt a blow to the US strategy of promoting the view that the majority of Iraqi civilians are on the side of the "coalition", and that its only enemy is a small number involved in armed resistance.
"They hate Americans round here," said one Iraqi on-looker. "They've been doing many raids around here, so it's not surprising they were attacked."
Really? They hate Americans? Who would have guessed that? And this was in Mosul? Where things are supposedly going OK. The single most vicious killing in the war takes place there? Ooops.
Pro-democracy campaigners in Hong Kong have been celebrating significant gains in Sunday's local elections.
The Democratic Party said it had won 93 of the 120 wards it contested.
The pro-Beijing Democratic Alliance for the Betterment of Hong Kong (DAB) said it had suffered a serious defeat in the poll that saw a massive turnout.
Voters turned out in droves to cast their ballot - the first major test of public opinion since massive anti-government protests last July.
Those protests were against new security laws which were then shelved.
The BBC's Chris Hogg says Hong Kong's district councils have few powers.
But he says the pro-democracy movement had called for a big turnout urging people to use the election as a means of expressing their discontent with the government of Tung Chee-hwa.
Pesky HK rights expecting citizens. How dare they reject Beijing's puppets.
This post came to me via e-mail and I'm reprinting it in full.
Pacifica redux
Heading out on vacation, but decided to throw up one last post before going south.
If you're a dyed in the wool lefty, you undoubtedly remember thePacifica flap that dragged on endlessly a few years back following
KPFA's decision to lock out much of their talent over organizational issues. A similar story may be replaying in Yellow Springs, Ohio. This morning's Dayton Daily News plays it this way:
WYSO host reportedly taken off air
Mickunas accused of insubordination
Dayton Daily News
YELLOW SPRINGS | Vick Mickunas, who for 10 years has hosted an eclectic music program and the popular Book Nook author-interview program at WYSO-FM, was reportedly taken off the air this week by station manager
In what could prove to be the latest controversy at the public radio station owned by Antioch University, Mickunas was placed on
administrative leave after an accusation of insubordination
Word of the action was circulated in an e-mail sent to critics of the station's management, some of whom have banded together under th name "Keep WYSO Local." They have protested changes in personnel and programming that have been made over the last two years by station General Manager Steve Spencer.
The e-mail was written by Andy Valeri, a Dayton media activist and observer. Valeri said he is not officially a member of Keep WYSO Local, but is critical of Spencer's management.
Tim Tattan, WYSO's program director, declined to discuss the matter, but noted that Mickunas' show Excursions will continue to air
next week, as will Best of Book Nook, a rebroadcast of previous programs. Mickunas and Spencer were not available for comment on
Friday.
"I'm stunned," said Sharon Kelly Roth, director of public relations for Books & Co., who works with many of the same authors Mickunas interviews. "He is regarded as the best interviewer in the country by the authors who come to town. He's so wonderful at what he does."
The reports about Mickunas came shortly after WYSO concluded an on-air membership campaign that raised about $193,000 for station operations, falling short of a $250,000 goal. Spencer has said WYSO will continue fund-raising in the weeks ahead.
[From the Dayton Daily News: 11.22.2003]
Translation: Steve Spencer, the station's general manager, is a gung-ho NPR type who gutted local programming and inserted expensive syndicated programming into the station line up. Vick Mickunas is the locally respected long-time Music Director who has a national reputation for breaking new acts, and whose three-hour daily show is a unique blend of non-Top 40 music and author interviews (here's a list of who he's had on lately).
A friend in Yellow Springs has filled me in on some of the behind the scene details, and it all seems to boil down to this: overworked but dedicated talent stifled by narcissistic manager who hates everything about Antioch University and local public radio. The skinny is that Spencer's boss was out of the country on vacation, and Spencer decided to move against Mickunas.
What the Dayton Daily News article doesn't mention is that there was supposed to be a day of protest at the station today, but that it was called off after the ever-loyal Mickunas heard of it, and made some calls to quash the demonstration.
Mickunas wasn't the first talent forced out at WYSO by Spencer. Award-winning NPR reporter Aileen Leblanc left the station last year
after countless shouting matches with Spencer, who has allegedly graduated from anger management counseling. The Operations Manager then left the station in protest, and last week the All Things Considered host left, apparently fed up with management strong arm tactics. This left Mickunas surrounded by management toadies.
Spencer has few allies in the community, and the suspension of Mickunas may have been triggered by this Diane Chiddister article in the Yellow Springs News that was published the same day Mickunas was forced to hand in his keys. One of the things Chiddister has previously reported on is the fact that WYSO's budget has doubled under Spencer, due in large part to fees for syndicated programming and Spencer's habit of taking first-class junkets to public radio conferences around the country. Of course the station's deficit was complicated a couple of years ago when the highly effective Development Director left after disagreements with
Spencer, and was replaced by an inexperienced and ineffective replacement who, according to reports, knows how to properly brown nose station management.
Local activists have long had a WYSO protest website up, but as of this morning, it hadn't been updated to reflect the latest station turmoil.
Station management is fighting back, and there are vicious rumors flying around the community that Mickunas was agitated and "acting violent' when he left the station. The only problem with that is the well established fact that Mickunas and his wife are long-time peace and animal rights activists. Mickunas is a local institution, bicycling into town to do his show five days a week. Recently he had had on numerous political guests, interviewing Sam Green about his movie on the Weather Underground, Rita Mae Brown, Joe Conason, David Cole, John Stauber, Tom Tomorrow, Scott Ritter, Greg Palast, etc. The day Mickunas was escorted off campus he had been scheduled to interview Dan Kennedy, the media critic for the Boston Phoenix, and this Monday Nigel Hamilton was going to be on his show to talk about his new book, "Bill Clinton: An American Journey."
If there's anything that gripes me about life in our radically corporatized nation, it's the fact that radio really sucks just about
everywhere. Yellow Springs used to be an exception, but it looks like the suits are about to win another one. I'll update this when I get back from vacation, but in the meantime I'm asking other bloggers to take note of this situation. Antioch University is traditionally a hotbed of radicalism, and with any luck, enraged alumni may get the station to back off on Mickunas' impending dismissal, and might possibly get the station back to its roots as a wellspring of local programming and community news.
Public Radio in Western Europe is a valued resource. In the US, it ranges between easy listening for the Ph.D set and fodder for internecine battles between old lefties, which is why WBAI i n New York is facing layoffs after a year-long fight over control of the station. This is just one more reason public radio has stagnated.
In the winter of 1970, a 21-year-old student from Yale walked into his armed services physical in New York carrying X-rays and a letter from his orthopedist, eager to know whether a back condition might keep him out of the military draft.
This was not an uncommon scene in 1970, when medical deferments were a frequently used avenue for those reluctant to take part in the unpopular war in Vietnam. And this story would have little interest save that Howard Dean was the name of the young man. Now, 33 years later, he finds himself a leading Democrat in the quest for the party's nomination to be president of the United States.
Dr. Dean got the medical deferment, but in a recent interview he said he probably could have served had he not mentioned the condition.
"I guess that's probably true," he said. "I mean, I was in no hurry to get into the military."
But now that he is running for president, in a race when many Democrats believe they need a candidate with strong national security credentials to challenge President Bush, the choices Dr. Dean, a former Vermont governor, made 33 years ago are providing ammunition for critics.
.........................
The back condition that apparently led to Dr. Dean's deferment had been discovered years before his armed services physical.
"When he was in high school, Howard developed these back pains and we decided we had to find out what it was," his mother said.
Dr. Dean went to an orthopedist, who diagnosed spondylolysis.
Many have the condition without feeling any symptoms, the Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons site says. Others develop a sense of muscle strain in the lower back, usually after periods of extreme physical exertion. Treatment usually involves little more than taking a break from the physical activity that caused the condition, after which it fades away, although it can recur. In some cases, surgery is warranted.
Even if he hadn't mentioned it, the military doctors would have probably caught it, or he would have developed back problems in basic training. You really can't hump 50 lb rucksacks with a back problem, can you? Pouring conrete, skiing or washing dishes is not the same as carrying 50 lbs of weapons. food and clothes up Asian hillsides, is it? Dean would have been in pain every day in the Army if he was either in the infantry, artillery (lifting 50 lb shells) or armor. He didn't mysteriously develop this problem, did he?
So exactly how did George Bush become a pilot again? And then find not only a way not to serve in Vietnam, but not attend his Guard training for a year and then flunk his flight physical?
Dean got out of the draft legally, Bush went AWOL. You tell me what's worse.
There remains something unsettling about those Soros checks. Mr. Soros, who spent $5 billion to promote democracy around the world and $18 million to spur campaign finance reform in this country, told The Post's Laura Blumenfeld that defeating Mr. Bush is "the central focus of my life." True, there is a difference between a check motivated by an ideological worldview and one prompted by economic self-interest. But such outsize voices, on the left or right, pose dangers to a democratic system: No one wants one deep-pocketed person picking the next president. For Democrats thrilled with the Soros millions, imagine conservative financier Richard Mellon Scaife opening his bank account on behalf of Mr. Bush.
"I do not represent any special interest," Mr. Soros says. "My contributions are made in the public interest." Mr. Soros may not be seeking a rider on an appropriations bill, but who is he to determine the public interest?
The Soros donations point up another problem: Disclosure is critical to an effective campaign finance system, yet no information about Mr. Soros's recent generosity will be on the public record until February, when the next reports are due. Mr. Soros has been commendably open about his gifts, but if a wealthy donor wanted to make a big and stealthy splash during the primaries, the information wouldn't be public until after Iowa and New Hampshire.
Yes, let's imagine the money Scaife and his foundations have used to prop up the GOP and their minions. It's in the hundreds of millions of dollars over the last decade. Remember the Arkansas Project? Well, work from there and you'll see Scaife money all over the place. And that doesn't begin to include the Olin Foundation and the Murdoch companies.
Now that the Dems want to play by the same rules the GOP does, people have a problem?
Fuck 'em if they can't take a joke. This time, we come with a gun to the gun fight. They could have nominated John McCain, but they didn't . They picked the Dauphin and he's going to lose and take them with him. They have foundations and money, we'll have foundations and money.
By Michael Georgy
Reuters
Saturday, November 22, 2003; 7:49 AM
BAQUBA, Iraq (Reuters) - Suicide bombers blew up cars packed with explosives outside two police stations north of Baghdad Saturday, killing at least 18 people in the latest deadly strikes on Iraq's U.S.-backed police force.
In Baghdad, a civilian plane operated by global cargo company DHL made an emergency landing after one of its engines caught fire. Airport officials said the plane may have been hit by a missile and the U.S. Army said it was investigating.
In the town of Khan Bani Saad, a car sped toward a police station and detonated as Iraqi police opened fire on it, U.S. soldiers at the scene said. Captain Ryan McCormack said six police and three civilians were killed.
Another suicide bomber targeted the main police headquarters in the nearby town of Baquba, 65 km (40 miles) north of Baghdad.
Lieutenant Colonel William MacDonald, spokesman for the U.S. 4th Infantry Division, said seven policemen and two civilians were killed in Baquba.
The death tolls excluded the car bombers and some witnesses said the Baquba attacker was wearing a police uniform as he drove toward the building.
"I was standing on the balcony of the police station as the car was coming toward the building," said policeman Nazaar Hamzan. "He was wearing a uniform like mine
Investigate? What they going to investigate. Planes take off and land and people fire rockets. Nothing to investigate.
The penguin is mightier than the sword
"Bloom County" cartoonist Berkeley Breathed talks about bringing Opus back to the nation's comics page to rip Garfield (and maybe George Bush) a new one.
- - - - - - - - - - - -
By Jesse Jarnow
Nov. 20, 2003 | Hard facts about Berkeley Breathed are scarce. At signings for his children's books, his only public appearances besides engagements at animal rights rallies, he seems genial. But, then, so did Samuel Langhorne Clemens, and he was a notorious son of a bitch. Their faces arrange themselves in similar ways, too, mustaches hovering over instantly familiar smiles, and you can easily imagine either one stooping to speak warmly with a young admirer. It is clear, at any rate, that no matter what he might think of anything else, Breathed loves animals and children.
They have populated his work almost exclusively since the early days of "Bloom County," his wildly successful daily comic strip that ran from 1980 through 1989, earning him a 1987 Pulitzer Prize. They roamed the fantastically florid hills of "Outland," a Sunday-only "Bloom County" spinoff that ran from 1989 to 1995. And they are the main protagonists of the six lushly illustrated children's books he has published since then.
They will almost certainly also inhabit "Opus," Breathed's latest venture, a Sunday strip set to launch Nov. 23 in 160 newspapers nationwide. In an indication of the reader appeal Breathed is still believed to command, he has demanded (and received) guarantees that each newspaper running the strip will give him half a page in the comics section, something no cartoonist has received since Bill Watterson retired "Calvin and Hobbes."
Opus first appears on Page 30 of the "Bloom County Babylon" anthology, as the neurosis-addled Michael Binkley announces to his father that he has adopted a "manly dog."
"Great Scott," his father exclaims. "That's a penguin."
"Is it?" Binkley responds, whirling to examine the bow-tied blob that has waddled into the frame. "Oh dear."
Michael Jackson has met his nemesis, and it's not the 13-year-old boy who claims he molested him.
The so-called King of Pop is being pursued by Tom Sneddon, the Santa Barbara district attorney whose colleagues call him Mad Dog. The feud has been long-running and bitter, and will ultimately destroy one of their careers.
Sneddon has denied there is anything personal in the prosecution of Jackson. But he could barely disguise his glee at the press conference to announce the arrest warrant for the singer this week.
Sneddon has been criticised by legal commentators for the jokey, grandstanding way in which he conducted the event, telling journalists to "stay long and spend lots of money because we need your sales tax to support our office".
The two men could hardly be more different. Sneddon is a pugnacious 61-year-old, a former college boxer who earned his Mad Dog nickname because of his aggressive courtroom manner.
Born into a family who had a bakery in the Compton area of Los Angeles, he became the first member of the family to attend college, going to Notre Dame, where he studied history, and then UCLA, where he studied law.
A Vietnam veteran, he has risen to become what one local paper calls "arguably the most powerful man in Santa Barbara county".
In 1993, he was the DA given the job of investigating claims made by another 13-year-old boy against Jackson. Sneddon clearly believed that he had enough to bring Jackson to trial and was angered when the singer settled with the boy and his parents for sums estimated at between $10m and $25m (£5.9 to £14.7 m).
The fact that Jackson escaped prosecution rankles. The refusal to testify by the boy in that case led to a change in California state law, which now requires alleged victims to give evidence. This time, said Sneddon, it is different because the alleged victim is cooperative and does not have a civil action running in tandem.
.....................
He will prosecute the Jackson case himself, ensuring that his profile will rise beyond the hills and the white Spanish Revival architecture of Santa Barbara.
Jackson's lawyers say that there will be a fierce fight in court. Yesterday his supporters were suggesting that the mother of the boy at the centre of the case had a motive for encouraging the allegations and Jackson's brother Jermaine calling the events a "modern-day lynching".
It is likely to be a bitter trial, at the end of which the reputation of one of the two main players will be badly damaged
Why shouldn't he be happy to nail a serial pedophile who openly flaunts his desire for children?
If the allegations are true, Jackson seduced a child with cancer, introduced to him by a make a wish group. I can't imagine anything more loathesome.
But the Guardian misses the point. If Sneddon loses, more kids will be molested, but can anyone see Jackson surviving in jail for long? If he loses, he's dead. Not as good as dead, or has a ruined career, but he will probably either kill himself or be killed in jail.
All of the cries of "we love you Michael" nausieate me. This man has constructed the Playboy mansion for tots. But instead of Fred Durst and George Clooney hitting on the women, the only person who gets to play at Neverland is Michael and his chosen few. Few non-syncophantic adults are ever allowed in the place. It is simply unnatural for an adult male to have so many children around him without a woman or male lover.
Pedophiles like to collect children and lure them into their world. He's been the most flagrant pedophile in American history. Someone one said, if they had Michael Jackson's money, they would build Pussyworld. And he has, except the target of his affections are 8-12 year old boys, another big-assed red flag for pedophiles. The kids are always of a certain age.
Then, of course, there is the compulsive element. His association with a young boy has cost him millions and his US music career, yet he still associates with children.
Today, they showed his secret "child's" bedroom, hidden in a closet. Why in God's name does he need a secret bedroom for kids?
All his actions, as documented by Martin Bashir's documentary, show an unnatural obsession with children. His "children" don't have a mother. He still associates with pre-teen kids, he sleeps in beds with 12 year old boys. He's 45 years old. Everything about him reeks of a deep pedophilia with little other explaination. No women, no known male lovers, no women to help supervise the children. It's not mere eccentricity either.
He carries on what can be termed “a special relationship” with a wife. Often pedophiles have failed marriages due to their sexual interests but remain in the marriage to mask their true intentions. Sadly, the wife sometimes knows about her husband’s preference, but prefers to keep quiet to avoid social stigma and disgrace.
He displays a fascination or unusual interest in children. If an adult has an inordinate amount of interest in pre-pubescent children, it doesn’t confirm he is a pedophile, but it should at least arouse suspicion.
He makes frequent references to children in exalted or exaggerated terms such as “pure,” “innocent,” ”God sent,” “blissful” and other descriptive labels that seem inappropriate and excessive. Remember that a pedophile cannot help the way he behaves and therefore will inadvertently reveal aspects about himself during speech.
He has hobbies or interests that commonly belong in the realm of a child’s world such as toy collecting, building models of cars or planes. His home or room is decorated in a child’s theme. And often, that theme will reflect the age bracket of his preferred victim.
He is over 30 years of age, single and has few or no friends his own age. He may also have frequent and unexplained changes of residence. He may be unable or unwilling to discuss why he lost his last job. He may have a military discharge that he cannot explain and a past that he can not easily talk about.
He has systematic and prolonged access to children. Pedophiles, because of the wide age disparity between themselves and their victims, cannot just hang around children. The pedophile has to find a way to legitimize his contact with kids. He usually accomplishes this by obtaining employment in a field where he is forced to deal with children on a daily basis. Jobs like schoolteachers, bus drivers, camp counselors, photographers and sports coaching(14) serve their needs perfectly. They will always volunteer for activities in which they are left alone with children with no parental supervision (Lanning, p. 19).
Pedophiles are also very adept at locating troubled or withdrawn children. This is a skill they have acquired through years of trial and error. They have come to identify what usually works and what usually doesn’t. The most common technique used by pedophiles to obtain sex from children is the seduction method. This process is very similar to the classic boy/girl courtship. Though the child might be under 10-years-old, the pedophile will lavish gifts upon the target, take him or her to amusement parks, museums, restaurants and other places of interest. This author recalls a case in which a pedophile attempted to seduce a child who had an interest in music. The suspect escorted the boy to expensive Broadway plays like Phantom of the Opera and Miss Saigon. Afterwards, they ate in fashionable Manhattan cafes and went sightseeing. The child was just 8- years-old. In another recent case, reported by the New York Times (February 2, 2000), a Bronx man lured neighborhood children to his apartment with Pokemon cards and Chinese food. He then abused a number of children after giving them marijuana and screening pornographic videos. The abused children later got together and attempted to set fire to the suspect’s apartment
A High Price for Speaking Up
Pilots in Iraq Face Court-Martial for Voicing Concerns About Aircraft
By Martha Raddatz
Nov. 21— Two U.S. Army pilots charged with ferrying American military brass around Iraq decided to speak out about the vulnerability of their aircraft. Their reward: criminal charges.
Chief Warrant Officers William Lovett and Robert Jones have 53 years of service between them in the active duty and Army Reserves. Jones has flown in Vietnam, the Persian Gulf and Bosnia.
But their current mission in central Iraq may be their last. Long before U.S. helicopters were being shot down, the reserve pilots told National Defense Magazine their planes were not properly equipped to fly in a war zone. That interview, which appeared in the September 2003 issue of the magazine, has now led to the charges of dereliction of duty against the pilots for disclosing "vulnerabilities" of the "mission, procedures, and aircraft."
"These are planes that fly around generals, they fly around VIPs," said attorney Eugene Fidell, who is representing Lovett. "He and the other people involved should not be facing a court-martial; they should be getting decorations for this."
The reserve pilots fly the VIPs around in C-12 and UC -35 aircraft — the military equivalent of a Beechcraft King Air and a Cessna Citation.
But there aren't many differences between the military and the civilian aircraft. Both are defenseless.
They're not supposed to complain. They're just supposed to shut up and die.
This is all about fear. Commanders fear, political fear. It's a disgrace these men are being courtmartialed for telling the truth and trying to save their and their passengers lives.
WASHINGTON, Nov. 20 — After months of sustained attacks against President Bush in Democratic primary debates and commercials, the Republican Party is responding this week with its first advertisement of the presidential race, portraying Mr. Bush as fighting terrorism while his potential challengers try to undermine him with their sniping.
The new commercial gives the first hint of the themes Mr. Bush's campaign is likely to press in its early days. It shows Mr. Bush, during the last State of the Union address, warning of continued threats to the nation: "Our war against terror is a contest of will, in which perseverance is power," he says after the screen flashes the words, "Some are now attacking the president for attacking the terrorists."
By indirectly invoking the Sept. 11 attacks, the commercial plays to what White House officials have long contended is Mr. Bush's biggest political advantage: his initial handling of the aftermath of the attacks.
Where's Osama?
Where's Saddam?
400+ dead Americans
8,000 dead Iraqis
No Saddam. No Osama.
If this is the best the GOP can do, Howard Dean should plan on living at 1600 Pennslyvania Ave in January, 2005.
I'm not much of a religious person. I believe in God and Jesus and all that, but when Sunday morning comes around, I usually watch the pre-game shows or Siskel and Ebert. But I love church food.
If you aren't really familiar with churches, or more specifically black churches, then you probably don't realize the best soul food comes not from any restaurant, but from church kitchens.
The local UPN station had a review of soul food restaurants in the New York area and they chose ribs, greens and baked macaroni. Baked macaroni is mac and cheese baked in the oven until firm and is a staple of black cooking. I'll go into this when I discuss Thanksgiving next week.
Anyway, I'm watching this and I'm getting pissed. Why? Ribs in a New York restaurant is cooked in an oven with sauce. Now, they're not bad, but they ain't barbecue. Not even close. If you want to judge soul food in New York, the keys are fried chicken, greens and potato salad. See, those are the hardest things to get right. Ribs not cooked on a grill until they are pink inside and crispy are not barbecue. Even as a New Yorker, I know that's wrong. In fact, I had them for my birthday last week and I know ribs are not supposed to be the smothered kind they serve here.
Any subjective study of black food in New York has to include those items because they're so hard to make. It's easy to make bad fried chicken and tasteless potato salad. Getting the seasonings right is tricky. The flavor, the right mix of sweet and salty. With chicken, you want a certain level of crispness and doneness without hardness or burned spots. Not the crap they serve in KFC or Churches or Popeyes. Good, fresh fried chicken is not easy to get in a lot of places.
Which is why I like church food. Most churches tend to have an industrial kitchen. A nice big stove, maybe a fryer and some storage space. Partly for soup kitchens, partly for fund raisers and after service meals. If you walk or drive through Harlem, Central Brooklyn or South Queens on any Saturday, you'll find a few churches selling dinners. I've had the Catholic version of this, but real black food comes from the church.
Basically, a few of the sisters will start cooking by noon and by five or six, they will start selling plates of food. We're not talking small portions either. Everyone cooks the dish they're good at. Some people make great rice, and that's what they do. Versitality is not a virtue here. The exact perfomance of acquired skill matters more.
Ok, for $5-6, you get meat, rice and a vegetable with salad. A typical meal would be fried chicken, potato salad, collard greens and red rice. It depends on the church. In a Carribean based church, you might get peas and rice. In other parts of the country, it might be a fish fry or a crab or oyster boil. But in New York, fried chicken is the main dish. It's cheap, easy to fix and cooks quickly. Sometimes you might get fried whiting. Some places like to fix chitterlings as either a side or a main dish. Sometimes pig feet crops up. Pork is rare. A lot of black people no longer eat any pork, some for dietary reasons, some for religious reasons.
Greens are the easiest to cook, but take the longest, hours. You put some fatback, smoked turkey or neckbones in a pot and toss greens in. Season liberally with salt and pepper and diced and cooked down onions. But it's hard to mangle a dish that you boil for a few hours.
Chicken just has to be cooked. It's hard to mess up if you have some skill and cook it in enough oil. It should come out golden brown and dry to the touch.
But the judgement of the church is not based on the chicken or the greens. They usually come out OK. The test is the potato salad. Every family cooks it their own way, but the white, potato and mayonaise thing people call potato salad would never pass muster in a black church. First of all, it has to be yellow, with eggs. Eggs are the critical element. Then you want a nice mayo, white vinegar, relish base, with liberal amounts of pepper, some salt and paprika. A good church has someone who can make potato salad.
The thing is one must use Hellmans. Miracle whip is too sweet, some people like to balance it out with mayo, but no, use a little sugar instead or more relish. Some people add onions and peppers, but there has to be a balance of sweetness and tartness in the end product. It also has to be chunky. The potatoes need to be cubed., not sliced in rounds. Some people like to add a little mustard. I do on occassion. Brown mustard, not yellow, which is best for...something, maybe the odd hot dog. No yogurt or anything like that. Nothing remotely healthy or new fangled.
Potato salad never seems to taste like the stuff your family makes, but they can come close and close is good. Baked macaroni tastes the same, but each potato salad is different. There's usually macaroni salad, but you toss tuna in that and everyone is happy. That's the safe alternative. Use Hellmans and you can't go wrong.
One special treat is red rice, a Carolina low country speciality. You cook down bacon, onions and peppers, then add the rice, tomato sauce and a couple of olives, a few, not a salad's worth. When it cooks down, it is simply amazing. I had it weekly as a kid. We'd have it over white rice all the time. Red rice is one of the best things to have with potato salad and greens and chicken or fried pork chops. But it's not a common dish in restaurants, so if you want it, you either have to look for it or hope they have it at the church dinner.
Then we get to dessert. There is always dessert. Mostly butter cake and pies. Yellow butter cake, like my aunt used to make, was amazing. There's a bakery called Wimps on 125th St, which makes the best cake around. One slice is enough for two people. I always go for the yellow cake with chocolate frosting. Man, is that good. Moist, rich, man, if someone wanted a cake for an event, I'd go to them and pay them the $40 or so. Each slice is like $3 and it kicks ass. Other cakes you might find at a church is german chocolate, coconut, lemon and red velvet. If there are pies, there is always sweet potato. Not apple, not cherry, sweet potato, maybe lemon merengue, but always, always sweet potato. It's a simple pie. just eggs, cinnamon, milk or cream and sweet potatoes in a crust. Some people add in cream cheese or marscapone, but that's unneccesary.
Why is church food so good? Because it's fixed in small batches by people who can cook. They aren't trying to serve 300 people to make a profit, there's no need to cook for eight hours of serving and when they're out, the sale is over. It's made, believe it or not, with love. Love of the church, love of cooking, love of impressing their neighbors. No restaurant meal has ever beat the honestness of a good church dinner, they don't even come close.
Cheering Bush down In contrast to the icy-cold pomp of the president's royal "state visit," an exuberant protest march draws 150,000, who march through London and bring a gold-painted Bush puppet to its knees.
- - - - - - - - - - - -
By Graham Joyce
Nov. 21, 2003 | LONDON -- A 20-foot effigy of George W. Bush was toppled in London's Trafalgar Square last night. Around 150,000 people jammed the square to cheer, whistle and blow foghorns as the statue crashed to the ground under the imperious gaze of Lord Nelson. It was the climax of an exuberant and largely good-natured seven-hour protest against George Bush's state visit to Britain.
Drums and dancing, whistles and songs, foghorns and chanting were the character of the day in this massive anti-Bush rally, with most of the demonstrators completely unaware of the appalling events in Istanbul. Meanwhile, organizers claimed the biggest workday demonstration in the history of the country, as many thousands of people quit work, school or college to flood the capital. And the numbers jamming London's streets for the symbolic march past Parliament and along Whitehall were swollen by over 5,000 police officers marshaling the demonstration. Add twice that number of officers deployed in security measures around the city, while an estimated 400 U.S. Secret Service agents patrolled the shadows and the rooftops. Police helicopters buzzed overhead in constant motion.
The police in their luminous yellow jackets stood guard at the interface of two cultures. On the one hand, the pessimistic culture of Security: paranoid, sullen and suspicious. And on the other, the optimistic culture of those who feel merely Insecure, but who believe they can change things by crowding the streets with their bodies in a carnival-atmosphere affiliation of the people.
Ironically it was supposed to be George Bush, Tony Blair and the queen who were throwing the party. This was the first "state" visit of an American president since the end of the First World War. And what is this "state visit" thing? After all, Bill Clinton used to drop in on an almost casual basis and without all the pomp, never mind the protest. The difference is the "head of state" has invited the president this time. And the head of state in Britain is not the prime minister. It's the queen.
..................
Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, a man who has the misfortune of looking like Heinrich Himmler with hair, dismissed the protest in advance as "fashionable anti-Americanism." He would know, since he was present at a lot of marches in the days when a young careerist politician desperately needed to be seen at such fashionable events. But in Trafalgar Square, speaker after speaker goes out of his or her way to deny this. One of the most popular speakers is Vietnam veteran Ron Kovic. There are plenty of American flags at the demo, too. And one hand-painted sign reads: "Warm-hearted, Generous American People, WHAT IS YOUR COUNTRY DOING?"
Many Americans are marching. One group marches under the slogan "Proud of My Country, Ashamed of My President." Numerous individuals have made it here. Faith McDonald, 20, is from Cape Cod, Mass., and she's over here studying English. Faith also traveled overnight to take part. "We don't live in a democracy. No one's listening. Blair and Bush operate without the checks and balances that should come with a democracy. But by being here today this is democracy. This is a place to start."
There's a greater awareness among Brits that there is resistance in the United States. It's just that to a lot of British people George Bush represents the worst of all things American. He's the right-wing Christian crusader, the toxic Texan who refused Kyoto, the poll-cheat eel who undermined democracy on the back of something called chads, a notion we've never entirely grasped. He's the plutocrats' puppet. He's the fundamentalist cowboy.
So Move On is taking foreign money? I wonder who will give more, the Brits or the Germans. Bush wouldnt dare go to Germany or France. The French protest on the drop of a 1 Euro coin. But nowhere is he hated more than in Italy, where they protested him for all those executions in Texas. If he went there, they would have 2m people in the streets.
People should realize that Bush is dangerously unpopular around the world. He can't even travel and stay.
By Dana Milbank
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, November 20, 2003; Page C01
LONDON, Nov. 19 -- On a day when some vulgar Britons stomped on a cutout likeness of him and burned its dismembered head, President Bush compared his experience here to that of stuntman David Blaine, who suspended himself above the River Thames for six weeks without food.
"It was pointed out to me that the last noted American to visit London stayed in a glass box dangling over the Thames," Bush said Wednesday in the hall where another head of state, Charles I, was beheaded in 1649. "A few might have been happy to provide similar arrangements for me." When the laughter ended, he added: "I thank Her Majesty the Queen for interceding."
Queen Elizabeth did indeed provide the president and his entourage with superior accommodations at Buckingham Palace. But although the royal hospitality gave Bush a comfortable distance from the madding crowd, it introduced a new problem: Bush, a man with little patience for ceremony, had to endure the very pinnacle of pomp and pageantry -- a state visit to the United Kingdom.
Wednesday night's state dinner alone presented numerous quandaries for Bush. As did the 168 other guests, Bush had seven different 50-year-old crystal wine glasses before him -- and he doesn't even drink. Then there were his three forks, three knives and two spoons, not counting the two itty-bitty spoons for the mustard and the salt (or is it sugar?). How was a man whose own official menus feature comfort food such as brisket and cornbread to know that a menu of "Delice de Fletan Roti aux Herbes" is nothing more dangerous than halibut?
In two interviews with British journalists before the trip, Bush joked that he rented his tails for the white-tie dinner. In one interview, he recalled with fondness his pub-crawling days in London before he gave up the drink.
But here he was, seated next to the Queen of England, amid Corinthian columns and gold-enriched pilasters, before a red velvet throne used for the coronation of King Edward VII. The Yeomen of the Guard, with their red robes and long spears, stood at attention. The Puligny-Montrachet '96 was flowing. And the president was having trouble with the toasts.
The queen gave her toast, noting that, unlike presidents, she was not term-limited. The president smiled, Prince Charles did not. When the queen finished, the president raised his glass, but Her Majesty did not return the gesture, instead waiting for the American national anthem to begin. Hearing the music, Bush put down his glass and placed his hand on his heart, then took it off, then put it on again. "The Star-Spangled Banner" over, he clinked glasses with the queen, then turned to clink glasses with Princess Anne, who was already sipping from hers.
The awkwardness continued after Bush's toast, when he again picked up his glass to clink with the queen, who stood motionless, waiting for her own national anthem. Bush put his glass back down and, as the orchestra played "God Save the Queen," winked at somebody in the audience. Finally, the anthem finished, president and queen consummated their clinks.
Cletus on the Thames.
It's all an act, this whole Texan thing. A Texan with his education should be ashamed to express such total ignorance of protocol. While most Americans have no use for this crap, it is a necessary part of the President business. He has to conduct himself with dignity and instead he acts like a spoiled child.
He wanted a state visit, had 18 months to prepare for it, and acted like a boorish clown during most of his trip. he even brought five of his own chefs, as if the Queen was going to poison him. Hell, Charles is still alive, isn't he?
Bush's family comes from a line of Connecticut WASP's and we're supposed to believe all this formality is beyond the Andover, Yale and Harvard educated president.
Bush is such a fake Texan that he served fried chicken to the reporters at his ranch at the end of his vacation and their stint in Hill Country hell. Now, I'm sure Texans like fried chicken just fine, but I thought real Texans had a barbecue for important events. No ribs, no brisket, no kidding. He doesn't even like horses.
So now he plays country bumpkin for the Queen and our English friends. No wonder they loathe him so much.
I can now ban users from the comments. I hope to use this power sparingly.
Needless to say, DavidByron is permanently banned from this site.
Why would I do that?
Because I have learned the hard way, if you think someone is disruptive, reasoning with them is pointless, debating the issue is pointless. It's like a bar, you can refuse to serve anyone. In this case, I choose to toss his ass out without further discussion. Why? Because I feel like it. It's my site, I work on it seven days a week and I can choose who posts on it.
I don't want to toss people out, because that's no fun. But when you see someone who constantly takes offensively dogmatic stands on issues, out they go. It may not be fair, but as JFK said, life is unfair. I am under no obligation to be fair. I try to be, but I don't have to be. When you visit a site, here, Atrios, Kos, you're guests. There is no right to post. It's about mutual consent. You remain civil, you get to stay. When you are no longer civil, you will be banned.
I'm not going to pull comments. I'm not going to cherry pick. That's pointless. Everyone can say stupid things. But if you write a bunch of stupid shit, I will remove your comments and ban you from the site.
You guys can kick this around a bit, but that's the policy. If I feel you're disruptive, you're gone.
Tired of hearing your local blowhard spout about how we HAD to fight this war?
Tired of listening to people talk about school reconstruction in Iraq?
Well, I say it's time to educate a chickenhawk.
Let the brave keyboard warriors take a trip to the local military hospital and see the maimed, limbless teenagers. Watch their faces as they see a previously limbed teenager learn to use his prostethic arm. Let them watch as a young woman wince in pain as she gets used to her new carbon-fiberglass leg. See the father of two hold his kids with a new rubber hand. All this and more awaits your tour of a local military hospital or VA. Don't worry about upsetting the patients. Since few of their family can afford the months long stay in Washington DC or wherever they're stationed, visitors are welcomed. Try not to gawk, since they have to live this way for the next 60 years or so.
The hospital not enough for you? Well, there's always funerals. See mothers faint at the sight of their teenage sons coming home in coffins. Watch the priest (minister, rabbi) fumble for words to describe the 19 year old's life. Watch his relatives collapse in grief. See his former comrades sit in their dress uniforms, some carefully folded over to hide their missing limbs. Watch their peers not fully understand what has happened to their lives. See the presentation of the folded flag to the 20 year old widow.
Every day in America, a servicemember killed in Iraq is buried by his family. The lucky ones have open casket funerals. There are a lot of unlucky families.
See, every time a chickenhawk talks about flypaper or "we have to stay", there's a cost. Not some theoretical, abstract cost, but a real cost. One of family, friends, lives.
So while people talk about the need to make Iraq democratic, well, someone is going to pay for it and it isn't the chickenhawks in the Wall Street Journal or Weekly Standard.
Retired Gen. Merrill "Tony" McPeak of Lake Oswego helps bolster the presidential hopeful's military credentials
11/18/03
JEFF MAPES
Retired Gen. Merrill "Tony" McPeak, the former Air Force chief of staff who endorsed George W. Bush in 2000, has left the Republican fold and is backing Democrat Howard Dean in the 2004 race for president.
McPeak, who lives in Lake Oswego, joins a small but growing list of top military veterans who have parted ways with the president at least partly because of the war in Iraq. McPeak's decision could be an important boost for Dean because critics have accused the former Vermont governor of lacking the experience and knowledge needed to be the nation's commander-in-chief.
On Monday, Dean also picked up the endorsement of U.S. Rep. David Wu, D-Ore., during an event sponsored by the Asian American Action Fund, a Democratic political action committee.
McPeak, who headed the Air Force during the Persian Gulf War in 1991, criticized the Bush administration's policy toward Iraq before the invasion in March. He also said he has become disenchanted with the president's economic policies.
"I don't think the younger Bush has put a foot right since he entered the White House," said McPeak, who changed his registration from Republican to independent in April
There should be a flood of these guys sooner or later. See, they all thought Clinton was out to get them, didn't understand them. Now, they have Bush and he's a nightmare. He's got all thse chickenhawks around him and they could care less about the lives of teenage soldiers.
People accuse Americans of seeing war as a giant Nintendo game, but these are people who think of war as a game. After all, they get to move the pieces. They aren't going to the funerals.
Insurgents Used Donkey Carts as Firing Platforms
By Rajiv Chandrasekaran, Anthony Shadid and Fred Barbash
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, November 21, 2003; 8:50 AM
BAGHDAD, Nov. 21 -- Insurgents deploying rocket-launcher-equipped donkey carts attacked symbolically important and well-fortified buildings in Baghdad Friday, just hours after a top U.S. commander proclaimed progress in the military's newly aggressive high-tech counter-insurgency operation.
The donkey-cart offensive hit the Sheraton and Palestine hotels here, which house reporters and American contractors, including employees of a subsidiary of Halliburton, Inc., as well as the Iraqi oil ministry, where bureaucrats displaced from a number of government departments do their work.
The damage to buildings and the injuries to people were relatively contained. Few people were at work early Friday, a holy day here.
The damage to the military's reputation here could not be measured.
The rockets came "one after another," complained Abu Mustaffa Abbas, whose home faces the oil ministry, one of the rocketed facilities. "There is no security. They cannot even protect themselves. So why are they here?" '
.............
Similar lethal donkey carts were later discovered today in neighborhoods close to a number of diplomatic offices, including the Italian and Turkish embassies.
"They would certainly have an element of surprise by having a donkey cart," said Col. Brad May, commander of the 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment. "Most people would not think of a donkey cart being used to fire rockets from. . . . They try and continue to get one step ahead of us. They're going to use varying techniques."
Donkey carts are a common early morning sight on the streets of Baghdad as people lacking swifter transport bring in produce and goods from the fringes of the city for sale in the stores and stalls at the center. They also carry metal containers of kerosene and diesel fuel. Thus, they appear commonplace and innocuous.
...................
Troops returned fire, apparently injuring a donkey at the Sheraton. At least one human perpetrator may have been captured.
.............
The commander of U.S. troops in Baghdad, Brig, Gen. Martin Dempsey told a briefing Thursday that since the launch of the American crackdown in the capital this month there had been a 70 percent fall in attacks on U.S. forces in the city. He called the rocket attacks unsophisticated. "When they shoot these rockets," he said, "they have very little idea where they're going."
I swear to God I thought this was a joke when I saw this article on Google News. But it isn't and Gen. Dempsey seems not to really get the point. They have a factory where they can make multiple rocket launchers, arm them and the have the crews to place them at critical points around Baghdad. If the FLN had been able to do this in Algeria, the war would have ended in 1957.
And the resistance is reacting to the news. They target the Turks and Italians as well as the hotels, assuring massive news coverage. It didn't have to be succesful. It only had to make the news while Bush was in the UK.
It will be a miracle if the British escape a tragedy in Basra today.
When you were in the Senate you were known as a moderate Democrat; you voted in favor of the Bush tax cuts. It's clear your perception of the White House has changed dramatically.
Yeah, they lied to me. I know they lied flat-out about any connection to al-Qaida. Now al-Qaida is teaming up with Saddam loyalists and are doing what? Targeting Americans. They do have a target in common now and that's the 130,000 U.S. soldiers out there. And we lost two more yesterday.
What was your reaction when you saw President Bush landing on the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln in May to give a victory speech of sorts?
I'll tell you the truth. I thought, "Oh my God." A man who deliberately got out of going to Vietnam by hiding out in the National Guard and who did not even complete his National Guard tour of duty, now walks onto an aircraft carrier in a flight suit with helmet under his arm, as if he's Tom Cruise in "Top Gun," and "Mission Accomplished."
What do you think now?
The president ought to be ashamed because real soldiers are out there fighting and dying for a disastrous policy that he created. I'm telling you this is serious business. And that has now all been acknowledged as a sham. We're in a helluva mess. And the worst part is the kids are getting killed every damn day, that's what gets me.
Please remember that. Bush and his minions lied. That doesn't make Gephardt or Kerry right in voting for the war, but always, always remember Bush lied to get what he wanted in a way not even Nixon did. Bush should be ashamed, but if shame worked for drunks, there would be no need for AA.
The carefully planned and debated state visit of George Bush to the UK was replaced by images of bloody Turks and two ruined buildings on Istambul streets. Whatever message he wanted to deliver was pushed off the screen by dead bodies and lots of them. If that wasn't enough, anywhere from 100 to 200,000 Britions interrupted their Thursday to call Bush a murdering war criminal and to topple his likeness in Trafalgar Square, where about 60 years ago, they celebrated the end of WW II.
The thing that Bush and his handlers didn't get and still don't get is that Al Qaeda is not some bunch of hippies smoking dope, screwing each others girlfriends and planting an odd bomb or two or playing identity terrorist politics. They had their own plans for the Bush visit and instead of trying to make a strike in the UK, they hit the UK's commercial interests in Istambul, sending a dual message: we can reach Britain anywhere, and if the Turks get any bright ideas about Iraq, we can blow plenty of things up, not just Jews and foreigners. They can use the internet and make their own plans.
So while the protesters protested, they planned.
And of course, Bush is unable to formulate any serious response, except "we'll get them". You mean like we got Osama and Saddam?
Every time he vows to get some new terrorist, everyone is reminded he didn't get the guys he promised to. A man we think is hiding out in an allied country. The other one, supposedly running around right under our noses in Iraq.
The fact that this is the bloodiest Ramadan in decades seems to have escaped people. The commander of the 1st Armored is saying attacks are down 70 percent. Sure they are. If you were hungry all day for the better part of a month, your ardor for killing Americans might dampen. Why should they stand up and fight when we're blowing things up. Why not lay low for a while?
With one day to go in Bush's trip, you can't say it's a disaster, but it isn't working out so well. Protests where people are calling you a war criminal, where they ask you why so many people hate you and then Al Qaeda reminds you they're still alive and well it isn't the pre-election trip Bushco had in mind. Between balls to the wall coverage of Michael Jackson, bombs and protests, Bush's trip to the UK only makes news when something bad happens. Yes, there are some nice images, but plenty of not nice ones as well.
OK, since I don't have the ability to ban people, a glitch in the software, I want to make this clear: David Bryon is unwelcome on this site. I don't like the way he argues, nor do I find him a constructive presence.
Therefore, I would truly, truly appreciate it if you ignored any comment he made here until he decides that he should take his warped opinions elsewhere. I have told him several times that he is unwelcome here. But he seems to ignore my repeated requests to stop positing. Therefore I have to ask for help from the community. Maybe if no one responded to his comments, then he might feel free to post elsewhere.
Comments are here at my discretion. I can remove them at any time I choose or move commenting to an e-mail list. If he persists, I may have to exercise these options. While drastic, I think I have a right to determine who posts here or not. And David Bryon, you are distinctly unwelcome here. Please go elsewhere.
John Kennedy was a decent president who died too young. That we can all agree on. But for 40 years, we've been trying to search out why. That some unseen black hand had him removed from the scene. Johnson and the oil men, the mob, the FBI and CIA, the Cubans. Anyone but Lee Harvey Oswald, a twisted little drifter gunned down before he could talk. Oliver Stone even made a movie of Jim Garrison's snipe hunt over the assassination.
Kennedy was a deeply flawed man, one facing a scandal over his romance with an East German, at the time of his death. But time has blurred reality. It was easier to believe that some unseen force pushed Oswald to kill Kennedy, despite the fact that every other assassin in this century, and going back to Lincoln, worked either as a loner or in a small group. No vast conspiracies drove Sirhan Sirhan, Sara Jane Moore or John Hinckley. Just being disturbed people with access to guns.
We create these conspriacies because it is too bewildering to think that one man could change things so decisively. There had to be darker forces, some mysterious hand driving Oswald to do this, to make him a patsy, then to silence him in public. Which makes a great novel, but bears zero resemblence to any historical event anyone can recall. The Confederacy didn't have Lincoln assassinated, a group of loners did. As much as people hated Martin Luther King, it took over a decade for someone to kill him. Most assassinations are the result of personal grievences like Allard Lowenstein and Harvey Milk. They aren't the product of planning.
The reality is that Kennedy's sex life, well known to Hoover and Johnson, was more than ample fodder to blackmail him. Killing him was unecessary, especially with the looming questions about his relationship with that East German.
Oswald is not someone any sane conspiracy would hire to do anything. An erratic defector from the Marines who lived in Russia for a few years, and who's presence scared the KGB senseless, and a known crank, wasn't the ideal killer. He was as likely to admit his role before shot one was fired than not.
People have projected eyewitness mistakes, theories and mistrust into a brew of conspiracy, a conspiracy which has never been performed before or after in human history.
The greatest conspiracy in human history was the Holocaust. The murder of the Jews was a state secret and everyone knew something was happening. It is unlikely that a key conspirator, in 40 years, would have kept his mouth shut.
But why do we embrace conspiracy? Because it is easier to accept than the idea that a lone killer got it in his head to blow the President away for whatever reasons he had. No group of people are going to commission murder unless they know they can keep that fact hidden. Not even the Mafia would risk it, despite having their hooks into Hoover. The cost of discovery was too high, even for Castro. They had no way to know Oswald, if he had been hired, would keep his mouth shut.
And to send Jack Ruby to finish him off? Come on. A fat club owner with a handgun? Why not hang him in his cell, or break his neck on a staircase. Ruby is not someone anyone would send to finish off a troublesome witness.
What is most likely is the simpliest explaination. Oswald killed Kennedy because he could, and Ruby killed Oswald for revenge. No consipracy, no unseen hand. Sure, a lot of people wanted Kennedy dead, but who would risk the result of failure? Cuba would have been invaded, oil men, if not killed outright, facing lives in jail, same for the mob. Everyone had too much to lose and not enough to gain. What policies did Johnson enact which helped any of these groups? The secret war against Cuba continued. The mob prosecutions continued. What really changed?
Sometimes, I think we believe in conspiracies because they provide comfort. It's easier to believe an event is not random, but planned, no matter how ghastly or wrong. It is easier to believe that someone had Kennedy killed because he was going to do something radical than to believe that some nut shot the President. It makes us feel better, more ordered, that logic rules the world.
But as history proves, if Kennedy was killed by a conspiracy, it was a unique event in our history.
Wrong Turn at a Postwar Crossroads? Decision to Disband Iraqi Army Cost U.S. Time and Credibility
By Peter Slevin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, November 20, 2003; Page A01
Seven months after the fall of Baghdad, a single Iraqi army battalion exists to reinforce overstretched U.S.-led occupation troops. As casualties climb and large foreign armies remain on the sidelines, U.S. authorities are racing to recruit a credible Iraqi force to bolster the authority of a future Baghdad government.
Before the war, President Bush approved a plan that would have put several hundred thousand Iraqi soldiers on the U.S. payroll and kept them available to provide security, repair roads and prepare for unforeseen postwar tasks. But that project was stopped abruptly in late May by L. Paul Bremer, the U.S. administrator in Iraq, who ordered the demobilization of Iraq's entire army, including largely apolitical conscripts.
Bremer reversed himself a month later, but by then the occupation had lost not merely time and momentum but also credibility among former soldiers and their families, an important segment of Iraq's population.
Now, the Americans are trying to recover -- including rehiring some of the same soldiers they demobilized -- at what one top Defense Department official called "warp speed." And while the administration's handling of the Iraqi army has been widely viewed as a fundamental decision of the occupation, a number of U.S. officials and analysts are saying it was fundamentally wrong.
"This was a mistake, to dissolve the army and the police," said Ayad Alawi, head of the security committee of the Iraqi Governing Council. "We absolutely not only lost time. The vacuum allowed our enemies to regroup and to infiltrate the country."
Retired Marine Gen. Anthony C. Zinni, a vocal opponent of the war, calls the move the Bush administration's "worst mistake" in postwar Iraq.
Supporters of the decision counter that the army posed a potential threat to a fledgling Iraqi governing authority and U.S. forces -- and that it was so second-rate and so infiltrated with Baath Party figures that it could not be salvaged
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The demobilization decision appears to have originated largely with Walter B. Slocombe, a former undersecretary of defense appointed to oversee Iraqi security forces. He believed strongly in the need to disband the army and felt that vanquished soldiers should not expect to be paid a continuing salary. He said he developed the policy in discussions with Bremer, Feith and Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz.
"This is not something that was dreamed up by somebody at the last minute and done at the insistence of the people in Baghdad. It was discussed," Slocombe said. "The critical point was that nobody argued that we shouldn't do this."
Slocombe recalled discussing the issue with Wolfowitz on May 8 and with Feith several times, including on May 22, the night before Bremer issued the formal order. Trying to put the army back together at that point, he said, "would've been a practical disaster."
Beyond the practical difficulties of outfitting destroyed military bases, Slocombe said, an announcement that Hussein's Sunni Muslim-dominated army would retain considerable power would have produced "huge problems immediately" among the country's Shiite majority. Some at the Pentagon feared that the army could become an organized opposition to the U.S. military.
Senior U.S. military officers in the Persian Gulf region said they had advised Slocombe that the dissolution of the army -- recognized as an institution more loyal to Iraq than to Hussein -- would harm U.S. strategy. Demobilization was "a very basic mistake," said W. Patrick Lang, a retired chief analyst for Middle Eastern affairs for the Defense Intelligence Agency.
"In fact, most of the Iraqi army officers were nationalists, and they don't want to see the country break up," Lang said. He said carefully screened Iraqi units under U.S. control "would do much better against this enemy than we can."
What isn't widely said, and should be, is that this was not accidental.
Chalabi knew he would have no chance to run Iraq, if a bunch of Iran-Iraq and Gulf War vets were dogging his heels. They weren't going to take his orders and he knew it. They weren't loyal to Saddam and they wouldn't be loyal to him. So he gets the Americans to disband them, knowing the social upheaval it would create.
Lang is delusional to think Iraqi soldiers would fire on Iraqi guerrillas on any consistant basis. Even Saddam wasn't stupid enough to set the Army against the people. Only when the Shia picked up arms did the Army fend them off and that was to prevent civil war.
But what is so amazing and infuriating is this: the Iraqi Army was not loyal to Saddam. At least the regular Army. Some were willing to deal with the US on some level. Disbanding them was not because of any Baathist elements, but so Chalabi and his friends could have a clear run at controlling Iraq. No army, no potential opposition.
And even if we did have to disband the army, not paying them was a tragic mistake. One which has cost American lives. The building of IED's was not taught in Iraqi High Schools. Those ambushes and attacks on helicopters are done by soldiers. People who have no jobs and no prospect for jobs. The increasing proficiency of the Iraqi military isn't because of a few foreign loons. It's the Iraqi Army striking back.
Walter Slocombe has helped to kill and maim hundreds of soldiers with this foolish, politically motivated decision.
Ewen MacAskill, diplomatic editor
Thursday November 20, 2003
The Guardian
The US president, George Bush, yesterday took up the challenge of anti-war protesters by mounting a defence of the use of force in Iraq, saying it was necessary to prevent the United Nations suffering the same fate as the ineffectual League of Nations.
Mr Bush, in a 40-minute speech on foreign affairs at the Banqueting House in London, said that UN resolutions had to be backed by force.
He signalled no policy shift in his speech, though he renewed his warnings to Israel not to prejudice negotiations on the Palestinian West Bank with its "security" wall. Instead, he devoted most of the speech to a justification of the war in Iraq.
Mr Bush praised Tony Blair for his support since the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington, comparing him to Churchill as a leader who did not waver, and the US-British relationship as "an alliance of conviction and might".
Speaking to an audience of mainly foreign affairs and defence specialists, who gave him a short standing ovation, Mr Bush issued his own challenge to the protesters: that those on the receiving end of dictatorship had few qualms about the use of force.
"And who will say that Iraq was better off when Saddam Hussein was strutting and killing, or that the world was safer when he held power? Who doubts that Afghanistan is a more just society and less dangerous without Mullah Omar playing host to terrorists from around the world? And Europe, too, is plainly better off with Milosevic answering for his crimes, instead of committing more."
He said that "the tradition of free speech - exercised with enthusiasm - is alive and well here in London", but added tartly: "They now have that right in Baghdad
Huh? We're the ones who subverted the will of the UN with preemeptive war. More Orwellian speech from Bush.
A Dose of Reality for Schwarzenegger
Governor's aggressive agenda runs into opposition on both sides of the political aisle.
By Gregg Jones and Evan Halper, Times Staff Writers
SACRAMENTO — Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's ambitious legislative agenda bumped into political reality on Wednesday as Senate Democrats thwarted a quick repeal of a law that would give driver's licenses to illegal immigrants and Republicans raised concerns over his proposal to borrow up to $15 billion to address a projected budget gap.
In the Assembly, meanwhile, Schwarzenegger's finance director, Donna Arduin, abruptly walked out of a Budget Committee hearing as Democratic lawmakers began asking tough questions.
In a Tuesday news conference, Schwarzenegger had demanded quick action on his legislative agenda. But lawmakers in both parties on Wednesday flexed their muscles in ways that suggested Schwarzenegger would need patience in the pursuit of his legislative goals.
During the day's brief Senate special session, President Pro Tem John Burton (D-San Francisco) delayed action on the controversial driver's license law by assigning a bill written by Republicans to repeal the measure to the Transportation Committee for debate.
When it passed in September, the legislation received no Republican votes.
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Meanwhile, activists introduced Schwarzenegger to the sort of pressure tactics he will face on a number of fronts as he attempts to make good on his promise to "clean house" in Sacramento.
About 100 protesters, including about 50 who had driven all night from Los Angeles, gathered outside the governor's office and demanded a meeting to express their concerns over throwing out the driver's license law. After tense negotiations between the demonstrators and the governor's security detail, a small group was granted a meeting with two Schwarzenegger representatives.
"They listened, but they made no commitments at all," said Father Richard Estrada of Los Angeles, one of the protesters in the meeting.
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In her debut before a key Assembly committee Wednesday, Arduin gave only general testimony about California's budget problems. She walked out abruptly with one member still in the midst of asking her a question.
Arduin said her deputy was taking over the presentation. A spokesman later explained that she had an appointment with Schwarzenegger, and the Assembly Budget Committee had already kept her waiting for more than an hour as other witnesses testified.
"On the third day of a new administration, this is one governor I would not want to keep waiting," said Department of Finance spokesman H.D. Palmer.
While most Democrats gave Arduin a pass on the breach of protocol, chalking it up to nervousness, fatigue or her cold, the departure was an inauspicious start to a day in which Assembly lawmakers had hoped to gather more details on Schwarzenegger's proposals.
"It made me think she didn't want to be there," Goldberg said of Arduin's exit, which the legislator described as "no big deal...."
"The big deal," Goldberg said, "was her presentation."
"They want us to act quickly, but they aren't giving us any information about what they want us to do," Goldberg said. "I don't mind if they say, 'This is a complicated mess. It's going to take us a while to figure it out. We'll come back to you in January.' ... But don't come in and jam me that it's 'action, action, action, action' and not have anything in writing what you're suggesting to us."
Democrats also pointed out that, if Schwarzenegger made good on his promise not to reduce education spending, closing the budget gap would require cutting every other state program by more than 25%.
Arnie will soon realize that he cannot strongarm his way around Sacremento. Once he does, he's going to wonder why the hell he wanted this job.
Study Links UC Entry, Social Class
November 19, 2003
By Stuart Silverstein and Rebecca Trounson, Times Staff Writers
Brianna Dollinger was admitted to some top-flight colleges last year, including Vanderbilt University, Vassar College and Cornell University.
Not UC Berkeley, though. The state university campus, which she had considered a "backup" choice, sent her a rejection letter.
"I was surprised," said Dollinger, 18, who figured her SAT score of 1490, A- average and rigorous course load at Harvard-Westlake in Studio City made her a worthy candidate.
Also surprised are many other high school seniors who, despite strong grades and SAT scores above 1400, are rejected by Berkeley or UCLA, the University of California's top two campuses.
These schools have grown both more selective and more unpredictable in recent years, as applications have surged and factors besides grades and test scores have been given more weight in admissions than before.
The debate over admissions has flared in the past two months, with disclosure of a report by UC Board of Regents Chairman John J. Moores showing that even as thousands were rejected at the high end of the SAT scale at UC Berkeley last year, hundreds with scores of 1000 or below were accepted.
Data subsequently released by the University of California show that UC Berkeley and UCLA in the past two years collectively have rejected more than 10,000 applicants who scored above 1400 (out of a possible 1600) on the SAT. That's nearly half the applicants in that category who applied to Berkeley, and nearly a third of those who applied to UCLA.
Moores and other critics worry that UC is rejecting top students in favor of those far less qualified — a charge that UC officials strongly deny.
Some counselors, parents and students say that academic achievement apparently has been eclipsed by more subjective factors.
"You think if they work so hard and do so well, they deserve something better," said Kofen Wang of San Marino, whose daughter Melissa was rejected last year by UCLA and UC Berkeley, despite an SAT score of 1450 and an A- average throughout high school.
"What criteria are they basing it on?"
Don't blame the UC system, blame Ward Connerly.
California wanted a color blind admissions system and they got a color blind admissions system. But in order to get and keep funding, you can't take from Beverly Hills and not from East LA and Long Beach. So things like family income now play a much larger role in who goes to the state's big schools. They can't say "look, we're taking a bunch of kids from Compton so their reps will vote for us", but they have to. And someone has to pay.
When you end affirmative action by race, you begin it by income and residence. If some more poor white kids get a break, fine, but the reality is that they have to create a diverse student pool for survival. And if you get a 1440 on your SAT's, you have your pick of colleges across the US.
They're in a tough spot. If they only take high scoring kids, the campus will be Asian and white and when vote time comes in Sacramento, you'll have a big block of legislators who have no stake in the UC system. If their kids can't get in, why should they vote to improve the system? You have to have everyone invested in the system to keep it running.
Last night, the Victoria Secret's fashion show was on CBS. Which means for an hour, fraternity houses, break rooms at police stations, and millions of homes sat entranced as some of the world's most beautiful women parade around in skimpy lingere for 44 minutes. For some reason, the show's producer's thought we'd care if we could see behind the scenes. Why they thought this is beyond me. Men want to see the models in lingerie. They could care less how the show was put together.
Now, there's nothing memorable about the show, but the story around it is pretty interesting.
First, it's the last show of the Spring fashion season. Spring clothes are shown in fall, fall clothes shown in spring so the buyers can get their orders in. Time Warner Cable airs Full Frontal Fashion on one of its channels all year long and from all of the major regions, New York, Paris, Milan. Most men never see this channel except while surfing towards the digital channels. But by being about a week after the regular shows, the Victoria Secret's show draws a massive audience, Puffy, Denzel Washington, Tommy Lee among others. It's the one show where the celebs and their friends outnumber the buyers and fashion professionals.
This is also the most expensively produced runway show, mainly because they can recoup their losses by commercial time sales to the network. You have some of the world's most beautiful women in some very skimpy clothing, an audience of celebs and the closest thing you have to a strip show on national TV.
Second, it's pretty pointless. Unlike most of the large houses, Victoria's Secret is not selling to buyers. Instead, they're mostly announcing their new line to sell in their own stores. It's hardly an upmarket brand. All of the heat comes from who does their show and ads. In reality, they aren't wearing VS lingerie. Sure, the professionals show up, but since they have their own distribution network, it's really an afterthought to the deals made during the fashion shows.
Third, the TV show is designed to appeal to men. Not women. When I saw a makeup ad, I was laughing. Because women, as I understand, have a very mixed relationship to lingerie. Since most women do not look like Naomi Campbell, it brings up a raft of body insecurity issues. If a man is stupid enough to watch this show and not know how his woman feels about lingerie, then he's asking for a major, room clearing fight. Saying, "honey, you'd look great in that" could be on a par with saying she's gained a few pounds. The last thing you want to do is compare the woman in your life to some 18 year old brazilian model if you like not fighting.
Even if she's 18 years old and brazilian, unless she's on the stage, any comparison will not help you.
This was a clever marketing gambit by the company, which had been in financial trouble. By using the most expensive faces around to promote their midmarket underwear, they gained attention and market share they would have never gotten otherwise. And by providing a steady paycheck to models, they gained their loyalty. For most companies, runway shows are seperate and distinct from their business. Who cares who wears Channel or Hugo Boss? It's a footnote. But VS turned that formula on that head and made the models more important than the clothes. Which was a good thing.
Fourth, despite the hype, Victoria's Secret's clothes have had to shed a reputation for being shoddy. You know, when you can't sell the steak, sell the sizzle. Well, in the real world, women have told me the clothes had an issue of durability. Which means while they might buy A piece, they weren't going to drop big cash on them. Upgrading the quality and bringing in the models gave the brand a new life. Now, you can't avoid them in any mall you go in. Of course, when it comes to real lingerie items, most women like La Perla, despite the ridiculous cost. Two bras and panties cost Jessica Simpson $750. Most people don't buy more than the bras.
Also, a lot of the designs for Victoria's Secret have less to do with functionality than appearance. If you look at them closely, they're designed to look good in bed, not to be worn to work. And despite most men's romantic notions about the subject, if the clothes, and they are clothes, not just aides to male masturbation, aren't comfortable, most women won't wear them. In fact, both comfort and their revealing nature leave most women uncomfortable. This I learned while shopping one day. I was with a friend of the female gender, and she showed me the kind of underwear she bought, white sports panties. See. she admitted that she had the other kind, which to be honest, I don't care about, but for every day use, praticality was the rule. Men have strange ideas about women's clothing and imagine that women wear these expensive, frilly things every day. And despite our fantasies from the first Sunday we notice the underwear ads in the paper. reality is more mundane.
Which is why you can sell CBS on a show selling women's underwear to men. You're not selling the reality of Hanes, but the fantasy of Sunday morning.
The US-led security mission in Iraq today suffered a setback when assassins killed a pro-US politician in Basra.
In a further incident in Kirkuk, four people died in an explosion at the offices of a Kurdish political party.
The Assyrian Democratic Movement said that Sargoun Nanou Murado, its representative on the municipal council, was killed after being abducted on his way to work on Tuesday.
His body was found yesterday, it said in a statement. The group, which represents Iraq's Assyrian minority, is represented on the country's 25-seat governing council.
He is the second person to have worked with coalition authorities in southern Iraq to be assassinated this week.
In the town of Diwaniyah on Tuesday, gunmen killed the education ministry's director-general for that province.
The blast in Kirkuk was caused by a bomb, according to Jalal Johar, an official of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK).
In addition to the four civilians killed, several other people were injured, Mr Johar said. The PUK is a pro-US group whose head, Jalal Talabani, is leader of the US-appointed governing council.
ISTANBUL, Nov 20 (Reuters) - Two blasts rocked Istanbul on Thursday, killing at least five people and devastating both the HSBC Bank headquarters and British consulate in an apparent suicide attack Britain linked to Islamist militants.
More than 100 people were injured, Turkish television said.
The blasts, coinciding with a British visit by President George W. Bush, were the second such strike in Muslim Turkey in five days. Turkey's interior minister said he saw a connection with weekend attacks on two Istanbul synagogues that killed 25.
Men and women wept, nursing their wounds, and bodies lay amid a chaos of wreckage outside the towering Istanbul headquarters of HSBC, the London-based global bank. Witness accounts suggested the blasts could be suicide bombings.
Firefighters were working to put out a fire inside the 12-storey building, which was charred and black from the explosion. Twisted pieces of cars and broken glass lay across the street outside the building.
"The windows just exploded, everything exploded. I think there must be dead but I don't know the number," said one banker who worked in the HSBC building
WASHINGTON, Nov. 19 — The Bush administration, which was wary earlier this year of installing a government dominated by Shiites in Iraq, has concluded that such a development is virtually inevitable and not necessarily harmful to American interests, administration officials said Wednesday.
The officials said that fears of an Iranian-style — and Iranian-influenced — theocracy in Baghdad have faded because it has become clear that Iraq's Shiite population is not a monolithic bloc and not necessarily dominated by Tehran.
"Our basic position is that as we get to know more of Iraqi society, we're more comfortable with a democratic process, and if that emerges with a predominant Shiite role, so be it," said an administration official. "There's been a steady education process here."
Still, American officials are taking steps to ensure that when a Shiite-dominated government is installed next year, as most expect, religious freedom and minority rights are respected and Iraq's neighbors are reassured that the first Shiite-governed Arab country does not pose a threat to them.
The shift in the administration's thinking laid the groundwork for the decision announced last week to accelerate the timetable for self-government in Iraq, administration officials say.
Administration officials acknowledge that elections or local meetings held to choose an interim government next year are likely to be dominated by Shiites, who represent a majority of Iraq's population and who are better organized to win
.....................
Another possibility, some in the administration say, is that Iraq could evolve toward a political compromise forged by the exile Ahmad Chalabi — a secular Shiite. Mr. Chalabi might manage to stitch together pro-Iranian groups, Kurds and others into a government.
A top administration official predicted recently that in that event, Mr. Chalabi — who set up an office for his opposition group in Tehran before the American invasion of Iraq — could become the first Iraqi prime minister
So, is Delta Force ready to play Otto Skorzeny when the Shia of Sadr City go for Chalabi's head. There is no way to overestimate how unpopular Chalabi is. Resistance members have said they will blow up his house and every one in it the week they put him in charge. Average Iraqis call him a crook. But the PNAC crowd is determined to shove this guy in Iraqis faces even when the consequences could be a full-blown uprising. What Iraqi is going to fight to keep him in power? They don't trust the IGC now. Place Chalabi in charge and Americans will have to keep him there by force.
Sistani has said, over and over, that the next person in charge of Iraq has to have survived Saddam. Not be some English-speaking exile.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. military's code name for a crackdown on resistance in Iraq was also used by the Nazis for an aborted operation to damage the Soviet power grid during World War II.
"Operation Iron Hammer" this week launched the 1st Armored Division's 3rd Brigade into the roughest parts of Baghdad to ferret out the attackers who have killed scores of U.S. troops since Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein was ousted in April.
A Pentagon official said the name was chosen because of the "Old Ironsides" nickname of the 1st Armored Division. He was unaware of any connection to any Nazi operation.
"Eisenhammer," the German for "iron hammer," was a Luftwaffe code name for a plan to destroy Soviet generating plants in the Moscow and Gorky areas in 1943, according to Universal Lexikon on the www.infobitte.de Web site
Ooops.
What are they going to call the next anti-partisan sweep, Operation Barbarossa?
Republicans worry that President Bush may not be able to fill his re-election fund with anything close to what Democrats are raising to defeat him next year, thanks to a loophole in the campaign finance law.
"The Sierra Club, the AFL-CIO, the Association of Trial Lawyers of America, MoveOn.org and America Coming Together are raising up to $421 million to spend on the presidential election next year," Republican National Committee Chairman Ed Gillespie wrote last week to former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, in a letter urging the leading Democratic candidate to take a stand against the flood of unregulated "soft money" contributions.
The campaign finance regulations enacted last year limit soft-money contributions to political parties but not to outside interest groups
Ooops. Well, this time, we're bringing guns to a gunfight. Bush has to go. And this time, we won't sit on our hands and play nice.
Ed Gillespie should sit down and shut the fuck up. Because this is an even battle this time.
Atrios argues that the Jackson story is a distraction from the "important" news of the day.
I've argued differently, because you need to look at it differently than just the tawdry details.
Jackson has spent at least the last 10-15 years manipulating the media into avoiding any real investigation into his sex life and personal habits. As a celebrity, that's part of the game, but there have been real suspicions that he is a pedophile and has used his fantastic wealth and influence to avoid scrutiny.
He is one of the richest people on earth, yet, with little supervision, scrutiny or objection, has built a literal pedophile's palace. We've called it Neverland, after Peter Pan, where all manner of childish amusements are on display. It's even been displayed on TV specials. He's literally hidden in plain sight. In February, Jackson was seen cultivating the friendship of a seriously ill 12 year old boy. During that special, the boy exhibited the same glances towards Jackson I've received from grown women who were attracted to me.
What people don't understand, at least those who don't follow entertainment, is that there was a tremendous political effort within the black community to garner support for Jackson. He's waged a low-key, but important campaign to get and keep support among his black fan base. His monetary gifts, his appearances, all gauged to protect his image with black fans. Every time he gets on an award show, he's treated with a nearly royal deference.
However, what stands out as a red flag is Jackson's choice of kids. They are always boys between 12-14, white, hispanic or Asian, and usually vunerable in some way. A textbook case of pedophilia. If he liked kids, as let's say Rosie O'Donnell or Oprah, there would be a variety of types and races. They wouldn't be so age specific. And he wouldn't be sleeping with them.
He is a 45 year old man without a steady female influence in his life. No known female sexual partners, despite two marriages, both shortlived and of questionable motive. His first wife will not talk about their marriage, his second wife does not see their children on a regular basis. Any time you have a man seeking to be around prebpubecent and pubecent children, and only fixates on a certain kind of child, you have every reason to wonder if there is a sexual interest there.
The thing any politically aware person should understand about this case is the way he has managed to use celebrity and politics to protect his personal life. Just as Arnie brushed off the claims of women during the campaign, Jackson has used a combination of money, intimidation and charisma to fend off any serious investigation of his conduct. He even sued Martin Bashir after the doucmentary he made with him was released. He's conducted a quiet campaign to garner support and fend off what appears to be a longstanding criminal investigation. Remember, the Santa Barbara DA's office has never dropped their 1993 investigation. Jackson has been in their sights for nearly a decade.
We're talking a massive abuse of power here. Stunning really.
Many of you have to be wondering how Jackson, 10 years after the first molestation charges were brought, was still able to attract children into his home.
First, people are attracted to money. Mike Tyson, despite a history of spousal abuse and rape, never sleeps alone if doesn't choose to. Some people will always be attracted to money and fame, no matter how brutal the person is behind it.
Second, pedophiles are charming. Every parent thinks their child is special. When someone, a priest, a relative, another adult, shares that interest, parents assume that it's natural. Even when it isn't. Jackson spends lavish amounts on his victims and their parents. He lures them into his world and places anything they'd want at their disposal. When Jackson pulls the boy off to his room, the parent is either amusing themselves, or assumes that Jackson shares their interest in their child. If there are siblings, they're being amused as well. Everyone is having a good time and the victim is being lured into a private area with Jackson.
Third, he provides physical intimacy. He lavishes attention and time on the victim. More than a parent possibly could. If the kid is ill or neglected, they suck it up like a sponge. What goes from joking and clowning around eventually becomes sexual, kissing, hugging, all kept secret from the parents. A 12-13 year old boy is going to be attracted by any sexual attention from an older person, of either sex. It's only when an actual sex act takes place is when the victim realizes that this is not what they wanted or expected. Most, afraid of being labeled homosexual, say nothing. Some react positively. Others either immediately or soon after, feel uncomfortable and then tell someone. Most pedophiles pick their victims with great care. Not every child they seduce they attempt to be sexual with. There has to be something special about them.
If you think about how adults attract and seduce their sexual partners, it works much the same way, except the adults are cogniscent of what is going on.
Only a few victims will ever confront their accusers. There is no way to know how many victims may have been molested by Jackson, but in this case, this child confided in an adult and they went to the police. Which is the rarest of circumnstances and even rarer when the pedophile is incredibly wealthy.
Billmon is arguing that the US Army is engaged in a deliberate campaign of punishment, while Juan Cole is arguing the Army sees itself in a feud against Tikrit.
Either way, the Iraqis are starting to compare their fate to that of the Palestinians and that is the one comparison you don't want Arabs making, he argues.
I would argue something different.
Riverbend describes how she, and I would extrapolate, millions of Iraqis, feel about our new search and destroy tactics.
They've been bombing houses in Tikrit and other areas! Unbelievable… I'm so angry it makes me want to break something!!!! What the hell is going on?! What do the Americans think Tikrit is?! Some sort of city of monsters or beasts? The people there are simple people. Most of them make a living off of their land and their livestock- the rest are teachers, professors and merchants- they have lives and families… Tikrit is nothing more than a bunch of low buildings and a palace that was as inaccessible to the Tikritis as it was to everyone else!
People in Al Awja suffered as much as anyone, if not more- they weren't all related to Saddam and even those who were, suffered under his direct relatives. Granted, his bodyguards and others close to him were from Tikrit, but they aren't currently in Tikrit- the majority have struck up deals with the CPA and are bargaining for their safety and the safety of their families with information. The people currently in Tikrit are just ordinary people whose homes and children are as precious to them as American homes and children are precious to Americans! This is contemptible and everyone thinks so- Sunnis and Shi'a alike are shaking their heads incredulously.
And NO- I'm not Tikriti- I'm not even from the 'triangle'- but I know simple, decent people who ARE from there and just the thought that this is being done is so outrageous it makes me want to scream. How can that ass of a president say things are getting better in Iraq when his troops have stooped to destroying homes?! Is that a sign that things are getting better? When you destroy someone's home and detain their family, why would they want to go on with life? Why wouldn't they want to lob a bomb at some 19-year-old soldier from Missouri?!
The troops were pushing women and children shivering with fear out the door in the middle of the night. What do you think these children think to themselves- being dragged out of their homes, having their possessions and houses damaged and burned?! Who do you think is creating the 'terrorists'?!! Do you think these kids think to themselves, "Oh well- we learned our lesson. That's that. Yay troops!" It's like a vicious, moronic circle and people are outraged…
The troops are claiming that the attacks originate from these areas- the people in the areas claim the attacks are coming from somewhere else… I really am frightened of what this is going to turn into. People seem to think that Iraq is broken into zones and areas- ethnically and religiously divided. That's just not true- the majority of people have relatives all over Iraq. My relatives extend from Mosul, all the way down to Basrah- we all feel for each other and it makes decent people crazy to see this happen.
The problem is not that these tactics come from CENTCOM, I would agrue that each division commander is left up to his own discretion on how to handle these problems. Clearly, the 4ID, which already one commander facing courtsmartial for firing at the head of a prisoner, has a problem in its leadership. It's had this problem from day one and no one seems to care or notice.
But this comes from two other things: training and manpower. American troops are not trained for this kind of fighting, They're in contact with Iraqis every day and they're growing to hate them. They don't get straight answers and they don't understand the culture. They expect family members to turn on each other. That's never going to happen in that society, where family ties are everything.
The other fact is that we're losing a thousand men a month. I can't imagine that the infantry batalions are at full strength. Add in the leave rotation, and these units are short men. So they use firepower. Of course, in such an urbanized society, we are one mistake away from a massacre of women and children. If the AC 130 misses the target, by the time they're finished, they could blow away an apartment building. There's no room for error when you use F-16's and gunships.
The commanders would probably tell you that if they would cooperate, all this would end. I believe they believe that. However, the Iraqis are not going to do any such thing. They didn't do it for Saddam, they aren't going to do it for foreigners. So the pace of both repression and combat will grow. The Americans don't seem to understand what they are asking, and when they do, even if people wanted to inform, they can't protect them. The resistance knows this and is not unhappy when the US does something stupid like manhandle women and blow away buildings. They get their case made for them daily.
The US is not working from a playbook, any playbook. Every commander is making his own decisions with little guidance. In the 101, there's a lot more control from the top down. In the 3ID, they're hanging on. The Ist Armored is stuck in Baghdad learning urban warfare on the fly. But the 82nd and 4ID have decided to play hardball and it's not working. The lack of discipline and the relative independence of each commander in those units leads to very bloody consequences for the Iraqis they patrol.
While commanders admit they've had to restore services with no guidance, they don't admit they have been waging war the same way.
This is not a planned policy, if there was planning, there would be coordination, but there is none. The US places Iraqis in a position where they have to, at a minimum, turn a blind eye to the resistance. At any moment, a bad tip, provided by said resistance, could land a squad of bone ignorant and trigger happy troopers in your living room looking for weapons, Saddam or just to steal your gold and cash. So it pays to stay silent. How many people would refuse a squad of bedraggled AK toting men, if you knew they were resistance and not criminals? The Americans can't protect you. They may even kill you if they get nervous. But if you feed them, hide some Semtex, they will love you and protect you. And when the head guy is your cousin, well......
The Americans don't get it. They think it's only a few isolated diehards, like the Al Qaeda folks. Rootless people on a mission. Which is insane. These people are Iraqis, They're the vendors, translators, policemen the store owners and the unemployed former soldiers. The people facing them are Iraqis.
If Saddam could never trust his army and faced constant rebellions, what in God's name makes people think Iraqis would treat foreigners who call them Hajis any better.
US jets pounding Iraqi positions. City-wide power cuts. And long, long petrol queues.
Yesterday was flashback time for Iraq's disgruntled, unstable and unsafe capital. As night fell the city was repeatedly rattled by the sounds of heavy explosions, part of what the US military said was its largest air bombardment in central Iraq since President George Bush declared an end to major combat in May.
The latest instalment of America's military offensive against the resistance, launched in the hope of stemming the rising body count among their soldiers, was not confined to Baghdad.
There were assaults in several other cities, including Baqubah, 30 miles to the north-east, where American jets and Apache helicopter gunships blasted abandoned buildings, walls and trees along a road where attacks have been so common that troops nicknamed it "RPG Alley" after the rocket-propelled grenades used by insurgents. Fighter planes dropped 500lb bombs and tanks fired their 120mm guns at suspected ambush sites, the US military said.
Once again there were huge queues of cars at Baghdad's petrol stations, some more than half a mile long. "This is just another part of our country's tragedy," said Ahmed, a grizzled former Iraqi army officer who is trying to make a living as a taxi driver. He had been waiting for an hour and was only half way along the line.
The shortages were caused by large-scale electricity black-outs in the capital, which have been going on for two days. The electricity issue matters. Iraqis blame the Americans for failing to provide them with security, particularly during the wild weeks of looting after the Americans and British arrived. But the power cuts were second on their list and are still a source of anger. "We cannot cook, there is no water and it is very cold without heating at night," said Leyla Najim, a librarian in central Baghdad. "The children cannot do their homework in the dark."
While Bush is dining with the Queen, this is what is going on in Iraq, day in, day out.
Money Matters Authorities Eye Whether Rush Limbaugh Laundered Money Used to Pay for Drugs
By Brian Ross
Nov. 18 — Radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh may have violated state money-laundering laws in the way he handled the money he used to buy the prescription drugs to which he was addicted, law enforcement officials in Florida and New York told ABCNEWS.
A conviction on such charges in Florida would be a first-degree felony, punishable by up to 30 years in prison.
Limbaugh returned to the airwaves this week after five weeks of rehabilitation for his admitted addiction to prescription painkillers.
His lawyer denied today there was any foundation for a money-laundering prosecution.
"There's no basis for these charges. He has not committed any acts of money laundering and he absolutely denies it," lawyer Roy Black told ABCNEWS. "I can assure you — and Rush assures the listeners to his radio station — when we can, we will tell the story, and he will tell it himself. Everybody will see what has really gone on here."
Limbaugh makes an estimated $35 million a year and had no shortage of legally earned money to the buy the painkillers to which he became addicted.
Authorities say they became aware two years ago, during an investigation of New York bank US Trust, that Limbaugh had taken between 30 and 40 cash withdrawals from his account in amounts just under $10,000.
Banks must file a report to the government if someone withdraws more than $10,000 at once.
Limbaugh's lawyers confirm that as part of US Trust's service, a bank employee personally delivered cash to Limbaugh at his New York studio in amounts of $9,900 or so.
"That in itself is a suspicious activity: They are structuring their transaction to avoid reporting to the government, and the bank is required to file with the federal government something called a suspicious activity report," said Jack Blum, an expert on financial crimes.
Hey, the racist pill-popping junkie might be in deep trouble. They can ignore the dope using, but the money laundering is a straight up crime. I'm sorry, there is no explaination of 30 $9,900 withdrawals. The feds have to look at $10K withdrawals, but if you skirt the law, the bank sure is going to wonder. Cash deliveries alone reeks of dope use. A normal business transaction for someone with his wealth should be paper and electronic, not cash. Except for walking around money, he shouldn't be handling any cash. Lunch should be covered by a standing account at the station. Dinner on credit, when he does dinner, and he's usually a hermit. Breakfast at home. So why is he spending that kind of cash. He's not 50 Cent, he doesn't wear pimp clothes or Gucci? He doesn't have kids or to the best of anyone's knowlege, a free-spending mistress.
Roy Black better dig up an explaination for these withdrawals and explain where the cash went. Because, as it stands, it looks like a junkie covering for his dealer. If he had been smart, he should have set the guy up in a small service business, allow him to take credit cards and set up a revolving charge. Any time you handle cash, you're asking for trouble. It should have all been done on paper and electronically. The movies make it seem that you can hide things with cash, but in reality, cash is heavy, bulky and hard to hide.
The rest of the tabloids are pissed that Bush only talked to the Sun and the BBC. This is how the Mirror handled it.
The first question I asked was the one that scores of our decent, hard-working readers asked me at the Beachcomber bar in Torbay Sands caravan site last summer: Is the world a safer place after the Iraq War?
GEORGE W BUSH: You joking buddy? Twenty-three dead in Istanbul, five Black Hawks down in four weeks, 30 attacks a day on coalition forces in Iraq, Israel mired deeper in bloodshed, London brought to a standstill for fear of an al-Qaeda attack, Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden still at large. A safer place? You kidding. Why do you think ah'm asking the Queen to gimme iron curtains in my bedroom?
BRIAN READE: Iraq is turning into your new Vietnam, just as we predicted, isn't it?
GWB: You betcha. You were bang on the money. Listen up, more US troops have been killed during this war than in the first three years of Nam.
And that's from our own Defence Department. So far we've had 417 killed in the past seven months, which is more than died in Nam between 1962 and 1964. Ah'm in deep doo-doo.
BR: If, as expected, you pull out of Iraq to win re-election, does that mean that the 52 Britons killed over there died in vain?
GWB: That's one way of looking at it, ah s'pose. They died to give Iraq a secure future but a far more important future is at stake. Mine. And Donnie Rumsfeld's and Condoleezza's.
Us Republicans can't have body bags flying home in the run-up to next year's election. So we're outta there. But they didn't die totally in vain. They made a lot of Party donors very rich.
BR: Are you referring to the fact that you have made Iraq a wholly-owned subsidiary of corporate America, causing massive unemployment as you sold off the public sector?
GWB: Sure. On September 19, we enacted the now infamous Order 39. It announced that 200 Iraqi state companies would be privatised; decreed that foreign firms (mainly ours) can retain 100 per cent ownership of Iraqi banks, mines and factories; and allowed these firms to move 100 per cent of profits out of Iraq.
BR: Is it true the beneficiaries of the $8billion rebuilding contracts so far awarded are virtually all American firms and overwhelmingly donors to your re-election campaign?
GWB: You've got it buddy. Washington's Center for Public Integrity said 70 firms who were handed contracts gave more than half a million dollars to my 2000 campaign. Most of the 10 largest contracts went to companies that employed former high-ranking government officials, or executives with close ties to members of Congress.
A $2billion contract went to oil firm Halliburton, which used to be run by my big pal and Vice President Dick Cheney.
BR: Amazingly, the contracts to rebuild Iraq and Afghanistan were awarded by the White House without any competitive bids. Is that usual?
GWB: Since 9/11 we live in unusual times mah friend. I will never forget the smell at Ground Zero in the days that followed...
BR: Meaning?
GWB: Hell, I dunno but it's what I always say when I get a tricky question. What was it again? Oh yeah, giving all the contracts to my backers? It's called rewarding friendship.
That's why I'm coming to Britain, because Tony Blair has been a great friend to me over this war thing.
BR: When exactly did Blair commit himself to your war? After all diplomatic channels had been exhausted?
GWB: Diplo-what? I don't understand. I won Tony over by making Congress give him a standing ovation after 9/11. I could see in his eyes he got drunk on the same power as me.
Then in April 2002, when he stayed in my Texan ranch, he told me the Brits would follow us to war whatever happened. All that UN resolution stuff was just bulls**t.
BR: Do you and Tony pray together?
GWB: Yep. Whenever we see our opinion poll ratings.
BR: Did you know there was no hard evidence of weapons of mass destruction?
GWB: Like I give a s***.
BR: Or that Saddam Hussein had no link to Osama bin Laden?
GWB: Whatever.
BR: Your family has links though, hasn't it? You've done business with them for 25 years, haven't you?
GWB: As my good friend Michael Moore says, the bin Ladens have extensive dealings with our friends. Friends such as Citigroup, General Electric, Merrill Lynch, Goldman Sachs and the Fremont Group.
The bin Ladens have donated $2million to my alma mater, Harvard. They own property in Texas, Florida and Massachusetts. In short, they have their hands deep in our pants.
BR: You knew Iraq would descend into chaos but went ahead regardless, didn't you?
GWB: Sure. Yonks ago, the US State Department issued a report called The Future Of Iraq after consulting with 200 experts which forecast everything from the looting to the overt hostility against us. But we ignored it 'cos, hey, whadda they know?
BR: You famously said when you gave the order to go to war: "I feel good." Do you still today?
GWB: Six months after the war the country is still without a regular power supply. Sabotage has destroyed about 700 transmission centres. The whole reconstruction effort is foundering under allegations of favouritism and corruption.
Congress has gone ape over my demand for another $87billion and more than half of Americans say they can't rely on me in a crisis.
Now I have to come to Britain to send back pictures of me looking like a world statesman when most of you Limeys hate mah guts and thousands are gonna tell me so. Would you feel good?
BR: What will you be giving Britain as a reward for our help in the war? Will you drop steel tariffs, release our citizens in Guantanamo Bay, adhere to the Kyoto Treaty?
GWB: Erm, kinda nope.
BR: You don't really give a monkeys about the rest of the world, do you?
GWB: The rest of the world just outside Texas, yep. Because I need it to vote for me. The world outside America? Uh-un.
BR: Do you have plans to liberate any other country run by a despotic regime?
GWB: Let me tell you this. If people are getting slaughtered and tortured by fanatics running nations where only cabbages or rice grow, they've got nothing to worry about.
But if there's oil there, we will unleash all of our awesome might to liberate it. And that's a promise folks.
Clearly, whatever those who protest about the protesters say in editorials tomorrow, Bush is a force for evil, not good.
U.S. military investigators have recovered remains from a site in Laos where the younger brother of Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean reportedly was killed nearly 30 years ago while traveling with a friend.
The remains were found during an excavation in Bolikhamxai Province in central Laos, said a Pentagon spokesman, Larry Greer. But he cautioned that investigators have not yet positively identified the remains as those of Charles Dean and that the forensic process necessary to make such a determination could take months or years.
However, the Dean family was given a preliminary notification of the discovery that included information on some of Charles Dean's personal items that were found with the remains, a spokesman for Howard Dean's campaign said.
"The personal effects found at the site make us confident that we finally have located Charlie's remains," Dean told reporters in Bedford, N.H., where he appeared at a candidates' forum
Eric Alterman got a nice letter on why those heathen Jews should convert. As it is my policy to share such wackiness and winguttery with you folks, here it is (via atrios)
Name: Anne Thompson
Mr. Alterman,
As an American citizen and consumer of both print and television media, I have become increasingly concerned over what I perceive to be a completely liberal-biased slant as well as unquestioning support for both the brutal policies of Israel as well as the Jewish faith. Judaism is an incomplete religion and our country is NOT a “Judeo-Christian� nation. America was founded on the principles of Christianity and Christianity ALONE.
To give any credence to the Jewish faith is to say that it is a true faith, which it is NOT. To give unquestioning support to the state of Israel, despite its horrid brutality, is criminal. Ariel Sharon has spent the last 40 years deceiving the Lebanese Christian community, committing mass genocide, lying to the American and European public and, in general, behaving worse than any tyrant currently recorded in history.
To support Judaism and the state of Israel, in its current form, is disgraceful. Allow me to explain why the Jewish religion is an incomplete religion and why Jews MUST convert to Christianity AT ALL COSTS.
The incompleteness of Judaism
1. Judaism believes in an eye for an eye, there is no such thing as forgiveness.
2. Judaism consistently promotes mass genocide, while Christianity promotes isolating hostile elements within an opposition group and removing those elements, but leaving the group intact and converting them to Christianity.
3. Judaism is an inclusive group, meaning that the religion does not proselytize nor does it accept outside membership. This essentially sets Jews up for inbreeding, which causes all sorts of neurological and degenerative diseases.
4. Judaism is suspicious and hostile of outsiders.
5. Judaism creates a group of people who are paranoid, isolated, inbred, and unforgiving.
What kind of life is this for anyone? Christianity is an open, loving, forgiving religion. Christianity does not submit to genocide of a group in which there exist bad members, but rather advocates the elimination of those bad members, specifically, while leaving the group intact and converting them to Christianity.
Christianity is superior to Judaism in many ways and Jews must and should convert to Christianity as soon as possible. To state that Judaism, in any form, is an acceptable type of worship to our Lord is deplorable. JUDAISM IS FALLACY!
The media’s ongoing support of this incomplete faith and its false tenets is an injustice to the world. America cannot and WILL NOT TOLERATE the ongoing atrocities committed by the Israelis, the Mossad, and the Jewish people. The Jews MUST CONVERT to Christianity IMMEDIATELY. The violence in the Middle East will go on for a thousand years if they are not converted. The ongoing tensions in American society will continue if the Jews do not convert. It is CRITICAL that Jews convert.
I thank you for your time and consideration and may God bless you and yours.
You know, if you asked this woman if she was an admirer of Hitler, she'd probably be shocked by the question. No, poor Anne thinks she's doing the Lord's work here. I don't think I have the heart to tell her that to most Muslims, when they think of Chrisitanity, they think Crusades, which were a bloody fiasco. So conversion wouldn't help.
Police are conducting a search of pop star Michael Jackson's Neverland ranch in California.
Officers used a warrant to enter the 45-year-old singer's home in the Santa Ynez Valley, near Santa Barbara.
No reason has been given for the search at the self-styled King of Pop's ranch, which houses a collection of theme-park style rides, a zoo and a mini railway.
It came on the same day that a greatest hits collection featuring Jackson's new single, One More Chance, was released.
'Criminal matter'
"At 8.30 am (1630GMT) Santa Barbara sheriff's department and district attorney's office investigators executed a search warrant at the Neverland Ranch in connection with a criminal matter," said sheriff's commander Jeff Meyer.
Hmmm, could this have anything to do with small kids and his ranch, which looks like the dream castle any pedophile would construct? Maybe it was one unsupervised visit too many.
Salon has an amazing article about the right's real feeling for Iraq. Michelle Goldberg went to David Horowitz's Restoration Weekend, the counterpart to the liberal Rennaisance Weekends the Clintons made famous. It seems the right is more than ready to stick a dictator in Iraq and call it a day. A perfectly Stalinist betrayal.
In a column this week, conservative writer and talk-show host Armstrong Williams wrote: "The administration's decision to depose Saddam Hussein represents the first meaningful step in 50 years of attacking the basic problem of hopelessness, tyranny and poverty in that region. This historic step will make democratic reform possible."
Williams chose his words carefully, because while he may believe in democratic reform, he's dismissive of the idea that democracy itself can work in Iraq. Sitting on a panel called "The Media and the War," Williams spoke of Muslims' knack for being wrong about everything. "I can't think of one time when we've had a Muslim on the air, when we asked deep, penetrating questions, where they're on the right side," he said. "You find me a Muslim who, if you ask the right question, they'll come out on the right side of the issue. You can't find them."
After the panel I asked Williams how this Muslim failing bodes for democracy in Iraq. He snorted. "That's a pipe dream," he said, laughing. "Democracy in Iraq?" he repeated, as if he'd never heard anything so preposterous. Noting that the country had never been democratic before, he asked, "What makes you think it's going to work now?"
When we had made this point before the war, the word racist was freely tossed about by people no lower than Condi Rice.
Before the war, Pipes was a proponent of the democracy domino theory. In February, he published a column titled "Why Stop in Iraq: Here's a Chance to Reform the Entire Arab World." In it, he argued with those who suggested that democracy wouldn't work in Iraq, saying, "Japan had about as much affinity for democracy in 1945 as the Arabs do today, yet democracy took hold there ... A US victory in Iraq and the successful rehabilitation of that country will bring liberals out of the woodwork and generally move the region towards democracy."
Now, though, he's contemptuous of the idealistic case for war, the case that wooed some liberals to Bush's side in the first place. "We have no, no moral responsibility to the Iraqi people," he said. "Our moral responsibility is to ourselves. I very much disagree with the name 'Operation Iraqi Freedom.' It should have been 'Operation American Security.'" This met with applause.
"Our goal is not a free Iraq," Pipes continued. "Our goal is an Iraq that does not endanger us." What we need, he says, is a "democratic-minded strongman."
When these people get among themselves, their real opinions come out like roaches in the dark. They could care less about Iraq and the Iraqis.
They won't get either, of course. They won't get a US ally and they won't get democracy. In fact, our Iraqi debacle will end in a state which has a reason to hate America.
But I am amazed at their cynicism. They tell the public democracy matters in Iraq, and when they get behind closed doors, they sneer at the prospect, not expecting that it would be reported. Over 400 Americans have died for this cause, and the people who pushed it don't even believe in their pipedream.
No American court has ordered the issuance of a marriage license to gay partners, effectively legalizing gay marriage.
THE RULING closely matches the 1999 Vermont Supreme Court decision, which led to its Legislature’s approval in 2000 of civil unions that give couples many of the same benefits of marriage.
The Massachusetts high court ruled that the state may not “deny the protections, benefits and obligations conferred by civil marriage to two individuals of the same sex who wish to marry.�
The decision is the latest in a series of victories for gay rights advocates, but fell short of what the seven couples who sued the state had hoped to receive: the right to marry their longtime companion.
The Massachusetts question will now return to the Legislature, which already is considering a constitutional amendment that would legally define a marriage as a union between one man and one woman. The state’s powerful Speaker of the House, Tom Finneran of Boston, has endorsed this proposal.
A similar initiative, launched by citizens, was defeated by the Legislature last year on a procedural vote.
BACKGROUND TO LAWSUIT
The lawsuit was filed by seven gay couples who sued the state Department of Public Health in 2001 after their requests for marriage licenses were denied. A Superior Court judge dismissed their suit in May 2002, ruling that state law does not convey the right of marriage to gay couples, and the couples appealed.
The high court heard arguments in March, and hundreds of organizations and individuals across the country filed briefs on both sides of the argument.
The court had three options: instructing the state to give marriage licenses to the seven couples; upholding the state’s authority to deny same-sex couples the right to wed; or referring the matter to the Legislature. The Legislature already considering various competing proposals to outlaw or to legalize gay marriages or civil unions.
Gov. Mitt Romney has repeatedly said that marriage should be preserved as a union between a man and a woman, but has declined to comment on what he would do if gay marriages are legalized. On the campaign trail last fall, Romney said he would veto gay-marriage legislation. He supports giving domestic benefits such as inheritance and hospital visitation rights to gay couples
Oh boy, this lands right in the middle of the presidential election campaign as well. And they have to find a way to extend rights to gays to abide by the court's order. Hahahahahahaha.
The debate should be interesting.
The Dean campaign should be estatic. It's no longer a Vermont-only issue. Unka Karl has to be quite unhappy today. But that's nothing new this month. He can't hammer Dean on this, since its not only his problem any more. Sure, he could try to run on it, or the need for preemption, but both seem like losers to me.
Qom, Iran -- In the shadow of the Bush administration's decision to accelerate the shift of political power to an Iraqi government stand two reclusive Shiite clerics who could have a profound effect on the success or failure of America's plans.
Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, a relative moderate based in the Iraqi city of Najaf, and his chief rival, Grand Ayatollah Kadim Haeri, a hard-liner in the Iranian city of Qom, almost never speak to the media, have avoided almost all contact with U.S. officials and rarely leave the hushed confines of the religious seminaries where they teach.
Sistani has quietly urged patience among his followers, but it was his insistence -- in addition to the upsurge in anti-U.S. violence and American dissatisfaction with the hand-picked Iraqi Governing Council -- that contributed to the administration's decision to abandon its plans to rule Iraq until a new constitution and democratic system were in place and instead to set up a quasi-elected provisional government by June.
And it is Haeri's uncompromising stance that has inspired Shiite radicals in Baghdad's slums to overtly challenge the Americans while threatening to join the Sunni Muslim fighters who are waging a guerrilla campaign against U.S. troops.
In the first interview he has given in recent years to a Western reporter,
Haeri said Sunday that the latest U.S. plan is unacceptable and only a strict Islamic government would do.
"The Iraqi constitution should be drafted only under supervision of the just mushtahids," he said, using a term for the holiest religious scholars. "It must be an Islamic government. Other forms of government are not Islamic. They may be elected by people or anything, but they are not accepted."
Speaking to a Chronicle reporter through a translator by telephone from his seminary in Qom, Haeri called the current Iraqi authority, the Governing Council, "puppets of the Americans. ... The American administration in Iraq is not legitimate. So we are not obliged to obey the Americans."
Haeri's religious lineage makes him a highly influential authority for millions of Iraqi Shiites. In 1999, when then-leader Grand Ayatollah Muhammed Sadr died, he designated Haeri to take over his mantle. Haeri, in turn, has designated Sadr's son, Muqtada, as his representative in Iraq
.....................
"If he returns to Iraq, he will strengthen Sadr and will open a real battle with Sistani for the soul of Iraqi Shiites," said a Western diplomat in Tehran. "It will be very dangerous for the Americans. It will be like throwing a match onto gasoline."
14,000 officers on the streets in Britain's biggest security operation
Scotland Yard's most expensive operation failed to stop Lindis Percy scaling the gates of Buckingham Palace last night
THE centre of London will be flooded with 14,000 police officers for President Bush’s three-day visit which begins tonight, in the biggest and most expensive security operation seen in Britain.
Security chiefs are even considering shutting down all mobile phone signals near the President every time he leaves Buckingham Palace in case terrorists try to use a mobile to detonate a bomb.
Britain was put on the highest terror alert since the September 11 attacks last week after a terrorist suspect told police that Algerian supporters of al-Qaeda were planning an attack soon.
The suspect, who is in a top-security prison, says that there are between 15 and 20 people ready to launch a deadly attack, although it would not be directly linked to the President’s visit.
Special Branch officers have also warned the American Secret Service that a “mentally deranged lone fanatic with a fixation for George Bush” may be at large in the capital.
Bwaak, bwaaak, bwaak. Chickenhawk goes to England. This is pathetic. He's in an armored limo. Even if they slap semtex on the side of the car, it's not going to blow. Do they think a Spetnaz squad is going to fire Kornet rockets at the limo?
A lone psycho is SOP for the Secret Service. If they need this kind of protection for that, Bush shoud be riding in an M-2 Bradley with a squad of Rangers to protect him.
Arnold Schwarzenegger came to power pledged to challenge the "special interests" that he claimed, with some justification, had too much influence in the state. His particular targets were the unions and the Indian gaming casinos. His defeated Democrat predecessor, Gray Davis, who could just be spotted on the platform silently gritting his teeth, was a particular beneficiary of the prison guards' union and the casinos.
The billboard was the baby of a group called the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights (FTCR) which has launched its own web site, ArnoldWatch.org, to monitor how the governor behaves politically. The group even has a tip line for reporting special interest sightings.
"Schwarzenegger has claimed that special interests include only labour unions and Native American tribes, not large corporations and other business interests that have been his biggest boosters," said Carmen Balber, of FTCR. "This governor must recognise that big business is the ultimate special interest group and Californians elected him to protect the public interest, not large corporations."
At the start of his campaign this summer, Schwarzenegger announced that he would be free from reliance on special interests as "I don't have to take money from anybody. I have plenty of money myself."
As it transpired, he ended up accepting donations for a war chest that eventually reached $18 million (£11m). His biggest donors were financial companies, real estate businesses and developers, agricultural interests, the car industry and construction companies. What ArnoldWatch.org aspires to do is see what sorts of breaks those businesses now get.
This should be fun. Government as train wreck.
I can't wait for the day Arnie wakes up and realizes he's traded a life of leisure to get shouted at in dusty farming towns and in Sacramento.
After reading that stupid Kim DuToit essay on masculinity and recoiling from it's rampant stupidity, I realized what I found so wrong with it, besides its embrace of fantasy violence, was that there was no respect for women. It was like his entire self-esteem was based on beating down and subjugating women. Someone sent me an e-mail and said the guy was a South African expat and it all made sense. South Africa is an incredibly violent place where rape is epidemic and it crosses all racial and class lines. Things are so bad, people have burned accused rapists alive with gasoline and tires, like they used to do to government spies.
I was watching the usual spate of bachelor shows tonight and it amused me. You have greedy women chasing a man they think is rich and average looking guys chasing a beautiful woman. These shows always stress the unattainable as a goal, whether it's a rich man, or a beautiful woman.
If you're actually stuck watching The Bachelor, you'd be stunned by the reality that the women they cast are amazingly attractive. Women, who by normal standards, shouldn't have any problem dating.
But I think they suffer from an expectation's gap. They think they deserve to marry a millionaire and they go on this show to convince themselves they should. It stuns me to see women say they're in love with a guy they simply do not know. And as the game intensifies, they all start fucking this one guy. Now, maybe it's me, but I thought most women were opposed to such open sharing.
As far as Average Joe goes, last night, they imported some model-looking types to play and you could see the disappointment on their faces.
But what I find humorous is this: this isn't anything like reality.
People don't marry solely on looks, sure, you're not going to marry someone you find physically unattractive, but if looks were the only criteria, a lot of us would have never been born. What these shows ignore is that there is a positive impulse when someone picks a partner. How many times have you seen a woman date a man you would think they wouldn't touch in a million years? I have a friend from college, who does TV sports, well, I have more than one, but this guy is pretty handsome. All, I repeat, all of his girlfriends and his first wife were, in my opinion, not particularly attractive. He had no taste in women, we used to say. But what I realized is that he wasn't picking pretty girls, but women who met his emotional needs.
Looks are fine for one night stands, but it emotional compatibility which drives us to our partners. People seek the comfort of others more than their physical appearance. People who appreciate their intelligence and better qualities. I saw this couple on the bus once. The woman was kinda chunky and not all that pretty. But you could see how she related to her boyfriend, and she just seemed like the nicest woman he could have ever met. She laughed, she listened to what he said, she just seemed so attractive to be with.
What DuToit's mysoginistic essay missed and what some feminists miss is this: people are people. They aren't playing roles in their head all day long. They aren't patriarchial oppressors and they aren't wimps. They have the people in their lives they think they need.
Those guys on Average Joe have as much chance to beat the pretty boys as anyone. Why? Because it's about empathy as much as looks. If you really, truly get someone and the way they see the world, that's going to be 100 times sexier than a six-pack. People used to laugh when you say someone has a good personality, because it was code for ugly, but in reality, looks are looks, but personality is what matters in the long term.
What these shows do is deny the positive impulse of human relations and force people to pick on the least reliable of indicators. You cannot be with someone, seriously, if all they're trying to do is impress you. Sure, you can set traps which reveals their personalities, but it's not the same as knowing them.
These shows have been a frequent topic here because I consider them a modern day freakshow. They play on this myth of true love, but rely on what could only be casual sex. Sure, you could meet someone, fall in love and marry in the span of a few weeks, but the odds are against it. But I find it impossible when you're fighting in a crowd of 30 people or even 10 people to suddenly fall in love. I mean, on both Joe Millionaire and the Bachelor, they're having sex with the women at the same time. One right after the other. But then, as most guys know, it's not all that hard to be romantic with more than one woman at a time. A little confusing, but not hard.
We've created such high expectations about romance that these shows are a mirror on our view of romance and relationships, and for many people, they remain in some kind of ideal fantasy land where some prince will rescue them. Which is why there are so many shows on weddings and why Newlyweds made Jessica Simpson interesting, in an odd, comic, kind of way. We teach people that romance is a search for perfection, when it isn't anything close to that. It's a search for the person you can stand to be with the most.
No matter how many times I see it, when I see a young, attractive woman say "I think I'm falling in love" with a guy she's sharing with other women on a TV show, it freaks me out. Either she's a lying mercenary or delusional and needs medical care. Either way, I'm am both fascinated and repelled.
Hollywood star Arnold Schwarzenegger has been sworn in as the 38th governor of California.
The Austrian immigrant took the oath of office before an audience of 7,500 dignitaries and supporters on the steps of the state Capitol in Sacramento.
"I am humbled, I am honoured and I am moved beyond words to be your governor," the former bodybuilder said.
Mr Schwarzenegger has said he will tackle California's massive budget deficit without raising taxes.
Car tax
Despite having no prior experience as an elected official, Republican candidate Mr Schwarzenegger, 56, was elected last month in a poll that unseated Democratic Governor Gray Davis.
I enter this office beholden to no one except you, my fellow citizens... I pledge my governorship to your interests, not to special interests
California, the richest and most populated state in the United States, has a budget deficit of up to $25bn.
In his speech, Mr Schwarzenegger said his first act would be to sign an executive order abolishing the unpopular car tax introduced by Governor Davis.
Critics say that such a step will only worsen the state's finances.
This will be fun. Wait until he has to tell people they won't be getting that car tax cut. Because there is no money. Ooops.
LONDON (Reuters) - A lone anti-war protester has dodged tight security and scaled the gates of Buckingham Palace on the eve of U.S. President George W. Bush's state visit to Britain.
The woman, wearing a fluorescent jacket, climbed the six-metre-high wrought-iron gates in front of the palace and unfurled an upside-down U.S. flag with the inscription "Elizabeth Windsor and Co. He's not welcome".
Police said the woman began her protest just before 4 p.m. on Monday and they were trying to talk her down.
A police spokesman declined to comment on whether the woman's protest had breached security.
So she climbed a 20 foot fence in a place which is protected by a couple of platoons of infantry, and they're asking if she "breached security"? That's like asking your wife if she's cheating on you as she's performing a sex act on another man in your bed. There is this concept of self-evident behavior, you know.
I can't wait to see how Bush and company are greeted tomorrow. I'd suggest the Secret Service's union have a few barristers on hand for the criminal charges of assault and attempted murder, myself.
A prank website set up to mock the trend for nonsense brand names has spectacularly backfired on its creators, after several of the spoof names have been registered for real.
Aviva, Diageo, Corus... the trend for rebranding companies with "nonsense" names has led to some notable additions to the corporate lexicon.
But a stunt designed to ridicule the tendency has come back to haunt its creators after several spoof names were registered for real.
The website What Brand Are You? was created by an advertising company to satirise the mania for rebranding that has given us such gems as Consignia and Accenture.
Users of the site are asked to enter their name and select from a menu of core values, such as "dynamic" or "passionate", and a main goal, such as "global leadership" or "client focus".
Click the button and the site returns a suitably trite brand name. Examples include Aliquis, Vulgo and Accumulo.
Jesus, businessmen are as trend addicted as teenage girls.
Vulgo? Why not Penii or Cunti.
I can see the ad now: Cunti-America's leading accounting services firm. When you hire Cunti, you get the best. Of course, the ad will feature a pretty young woman bending over a desk and no one will find it ironic.
Rush Limbaugh Returns to Radio Talk Show
2 hours, 12 minutes ago
NEW YORK - Conservative commentator Rush Limbaugh headed back to the microphone for his long-running radio talk show Monday, more than a month after announcing he was addicted to prescription painkillers.
WABC Radio said Limbaugh would air from noon to 3 p.m. EST from an undisclosed location. His show reaches some 600 markets and about 20 million listeners a week, but WABC said Monday it expected to attract a larger than usual audience on Limbaugh's first day back.
Limbaugh's last show was on Oct. 10, when he announced he was starting a five-week rehabilitation program.
"Over the past several years I have tried to break my dependence on pain pills," he said that day. He said he had checked himself into treatment programs twice before in an effort to beat his habit.
Since Limbaugh left the show, his spot has been filled by several guest hosts, including Tony Snow, Walter Williams and Matt Drudge.
His brother, David Limbaugh, announced on the show last week that the commentator was returning to the show.
"He's obviously champing at the bit to get back to doing what he does best," David Limbaugh said.
First of all, 30 days in rehab isn't nearly enough to break his addiction. My bet is that he'll be outside the Target scoring dope within a month. A relapse is pretty likely given his refusal to admit that he'd done anything wrong and is still blaming the Enquirer for lying on his racist, pill-popping junkie ass.
Second, there is still the matter of the criminal investigation into dope habit. How did he get so much freaking dope for so long? If he doesn't roll over on his suppliers, he should still be facing years in jail. So this is far from over for America's favorite junkie.
FALLOUJA, Iraq — He called in airstrikes with a pair of 1,000-pound, laser-guided bombs on a home identified as a guerrilla sanctuary.
He ordered the detention of a popular religious leader and a well-known tribal chief when evidence surfaced linking them to the armed opposition.
To the many former high-ranking Iraqi officers lying low in this caldron of anti-U.S. sentiment, he has issued a stern warning: "We're going to take 'em down one at a time."
The Pentagon is proclaiming a get-tough approach — dubbed Operation Iron Hammer — in the Sunni Muslim heartland of central and western Iraq, where a stubborn insurgency has cost the lives of growing numbers of U.S.-led troops, stalled the national reconstruction effort and contributed to an intense political debate in Washington.
Perhaps no one better exemplifies this resolve than Col. Jefforey Smith, commander of the 5,000 or so paratroopers of the 3rd Brigade of the Army's 82nd Airborne Division.
And perhaps no place better illustrates the challenge facing U.S.-led forces in Iraq than Fallouja, a once-obscure provincial town now infamous as the symbolic hub of the opposition. Just south of here, enemy fire brought down a Chinook helicopter this month and killed 16 soldiers.
Images of the gleeful youngsters of Fallouja celebrating alongside a smoldering U.S. Humvee set ablaze in a roadside bombing have been broadcast across the globe. It is not a picture that pleases this no-nonsense Ohio State graduate, 42, who is charged with the task of taming Fallouja and its hostile environs in the heart of the so-called Sunni Triangle.
"There's nothing easy about Fallouja," Smith acknowledged the other day at the sprawling 3rd Brigade compound here. "But I will tell you that Fallouja does have potential.... I'll be patient with the people willing to work with us. But if the Iraqi former regime loyalists want to continue to attack us, they're going to die in the process or be captured."
....................
Many U.S. commanders have come to the belated realization that many ex-officers of Hussein's army — vetted to ensure they are not hard-line Baathists or implicated in atrocities — could be the U.S.' best allies in seeking out and destroying guerrilla cells. They speak the language, know the country and culture and probably even know some of the people who are orchestrating the attacks.
The U.S. Army, as part of the ongoing process of turning security matters over to Iraqis, is looking for former officers to assist in organizing the Iraqi Civil Defense Corps, which is expected to work under U.S. command until the new Iraqi army is ready for deployment.
Smith is combing the ranks of former officers for future battalion and company commanders in the civil defense units and would also like to hire a former general "to kind of help me understand the culture."
"I still believe that the great majority of [Iraqis] want peace and want to work," said Smith, who also oversees a $4-million plan to rebuild schools, factories and other facilities here. "We know that some of them are doing attacks just for economic benefit.... We're not asking them to like us, either. Just so they stop shooting at us."
Yeah, this has really seemed to work well. More American gullability. We're just training our new enemy here. These guys form up, kill the Islamic fundamentalists, then turn on the Americans like the police have been doing. Sounds like a plan to me.
I was watching Punch-Drunk Love last night. If you haven't seen it, its the movie where Adam Sandler plays a novelties salesman who is henpecked by his sisters. He's so frustrated that he snaps out and breaks the glass windows in his sister's house. He's an intensely angry man, far angrier than most people ever get. Not the kind who gets mad and starts yelling, but the kind of boiling rage which explodes in amazing fits of violence.
All of Sandler's movies deal with very angry, physically angry, men. A reversal of the comic cowardice popular since the Marx Brothers. Sandler, at points in his movies, will beat the crap out of people.
Now, I'm thinking about this because people, like David Brooks, keep talking about how anger is a bad thing.
But what do you say to a parent when their 19 year old kid comes home in a box? It hurts me to see these parents collapsing, trying to find some meaning in their child's death, and the absolutely callous way Bush and his minions act.
There are no acceptable casualities. None. You can't make someone feel better about the loss of their child or husband in Iraq. And for what? To install our dictator?
It's no longer one or two coming home dead, but 10-15 coming home dead. Every day. You can see the Bushies sweating, but the pundits wonder why people are angry.
Well here's a hint-THEY'RE KILLING AMERICANS.
You know, the funny kid from high school, the quiet one who dreamed of flying helicopters, the one who escaped the foster home without too many bruises, the guy trying to make his marriage to his high school girlfriend work, those people. The ones so many people talk about as disposable and "acceptable losses". There are 400 families who will never see their loved ones again. There are about 9,000 a month that has someone come home from Iraq sicker than when they went. Some had heart attacks, some broken limbs, some had their legs splattered over an Iraqi highway. But all had something happen to them in Iraq.
I think these are the people who saw Saving Private Ryan and missed the point. Ryan's family, Ryan's life was taken from him. His brothers were all dead. That story was based on a true incident where two brothers were killed, one on D-Day, one in the Pacific, and one was missing over Burma. Do you think that family ever got over that? It altered the course of their lives.
The only thing worse than the way we entered Iraq, will be the way we leave. The sound of desperation is already creeping into the daily discussions. They're looking for some way to dump this burden and claim a political victory. Which should engrage people. They said this war was critical to our security as a nation and yet, they can't find a way to run Iraq.
I never got the anger over Clinton for his personal failings. I always thought it was because he didn't join the racist/greed party after Yale. He was one of them and he walked away. I always thought there was an element of payback for that with him.
But Bush, this is different. All this talk of hate Bush and anger at Bush isn't based on his dick, his daughters or his laziness. It's based in the fact that one has no escape from a daily toll of death and destruction he unleashed for no reason. We were going to remake the middle east so Likud can rule side by side with a compliant, oil supplying Iraq. A vision of pure madness. One Iraqis will never let happen. Hell, they never stopped fighting.
The thing about Sandler's movies is that he doesn't bully people, but when he's bullied, he doesn't take it, he kicks ass.
Well, we don't have to accept dead Americans in our newspapers daily. We don't have to accept it from the madmen of Al Qaeda or the miscalculations of the White House. One, we hunt, but the other, we protest in any way we can. There is absolutely nothing wrong in being angry when you see a mother passing out from grief when she buries her teenage son. One kid they just buried joined the Army in February. He didn't even live out the year.
The United States accepts that to avoid humiliating failure in Iraq it needs to bring its forces quickly under international control and speed the handover of power, Javier Solana, the European Union foreign policy chief, has said. Decisions along these lines will be made in the "coming days", Mr Solana told The Independent.
The comments, signalling a major policy shift by the US, precede President George Bush's state visit this week to London, during which he and Tony Blair will discuss an exit strategy for forces in Iraq.
Mr Solana underlined the change of mood in Washington, saying: "Everybody has moved, including the United States, because the United States has a real problem and when you have a real problem you need help." There is a "growing consensus" that the transfer of power has to be accelerated, he said. "How fast can it be done? I would say the faster the better."
He added: "The more the international community is incorporated under the international organisations [the better]. That is the lesson I think everyone is learning. Our American friends are learning that. We will see in the coming days decisions along these lines."
The Bush administration spelt out over the weekend its new plans for the faster transfer of power from Americans to the Iraqis, with a transitional government now scheduled to take over from the end of June. Before, US officials had said that Iraqi leaders should write a constitution first, then hold elections.
Does this mean French and German troops will join us in Iraq?
Not hardly.
I don't think it really means much, since it doesn't matter who runs the occupation. It will be vigorously resisted until we go home. We meaning everyone not Iraqi.
Nicholas Watt and Duncan Campbell
Monday November 17, 2003
The Guardian
George Bush will be served notice today that the deep hostility towards him in Britain has reached the Blair inner circle, when the former minister Stephen Byers launches a bid to destabilise the president's re-election campaign next year.
On the eve of Mr Bush's state visit to Britain, Mr Byers, an arch-Blairite, will set out proposals to help Democrats in key swing states if the White House refuses to abandon punitive trade sanctions against the UK.
Acting with the tacit approval of Blair supporters, who were enraged when Mr Bush imposed tariffs on imports of British steel to shore up his vote, the former trade and industry secretary will call for sanctions to be imposed on four key marginal states which the president will need to win.
The states - and the exports to be targeted - are:
· Florida and its citrus products. The state was the scene of the "hanging chad" saga in the 2000 presidential election, after Mr Bush and Al Gore virtually tied there;
· Wisconsin and its apples and paper. Mr Gore won this state by a tiny margin;
· Tennessee and its chemicals. Mr Bush scored a narrow victory in Mr Gore's home state;
· Iowa and its agricultural equipment. This state will play a key role when the nominations battle starts in January.
Mr Byers also calls for tariffs to be imposed on exports of textiles, which would hit states across the American south.
In a letter to Pascal Lamy, Europe's top trade negotiator, Mr Byers calls for the EU to im pose the tariffs if Mr Bush fails to lift his sanctions by a December deadline imposed by the World Trade Organisation.
By Darryl Fears
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, November 16, 2003; Page A05
In the partisan debate over candidates for the federal judiciary, even the rhetoric is becoming a source of division.
Supporters of President Bush's conservative nominees have used the word "lynching" to describe the treatment of judicial candidates by liberal opponents. African American political and civic leaders say that equating a challenge to a judge's nomination with the kidnappings, atrocities and murders that black Americans faced during more than a half-century of lynchings is inappropriate.
When Sen. Zell Miller (D-Ga.) invoked the term last week during his defense of judicial nominee Janice Rogers Brown, civil rights activist Wade Henderson called on Miller to apologize.
On the Senate floor Friday, Miller said that liberals who oppose Brown, a nominee to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, are upset because she is black, conservative and a woman. Liberals are essentially telling Brown, "Gal, you will be lynched" if she pursues her nomination, Miller said.
In a statement, Miller, a former governor of a state that was the scene of more lynchings than any other except Mississippi, said, "I think it sums up the situation accurately. The tragedy here does not lie in my floor speech. . . . The tragedy lies in what is happening in the United States Senate to this highly qualified conservative, African American jurist."
Miller, who is white, said he sees nothing wrong with using the metaphor to make a point. "I would put my civil rights record up against anyone's," he said. "As Georgia's governor . . . I named more African Americans to judgeships than all previous governors combined. I named an African American female as the first to serve on the Georgia Supreme Court."
By making the analogy, said Henderson, who is black, conservatives were trying to manipulate history for political gain.
"Senator Miller and others who defend the use of the lynching analogy miss the point," said Henderson, executive director of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights. "Lynching was a painful and shameful practice in American history."
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Lynching historically refers to a 50-year span of racial violence starting in 1882, during which 2,500 black men, women and children were kidnapped, beaten, burned, hanged and otherwise killed, according to E.M. Beck, a University of Georgia professor who co-wrote a book on the period titled, "A Festival of Violence: An Analysis of Southern Lynchings, 1882-1930."
Although African Americans were the main target of mob violence, Latinos, Native Americans, Jews, Italians and some white people were also lynched. In some documents from the period, local officials said the executions were justified not only for assault, stealing and murder but also if a person "voted for the wrong party," "argued with a white man," "demanded respect," "lived with a white woman," "tried to vote" and "sued a white man."
I don't think not getting a job is the same as being castrated, burned alive and hung from a tree in front of an audience of hundreds. Each one of the candidates who were filibustered were unsuited for the job they sought. That bears little resemblence to an extrajudicial killing. Or maybe it is the same as being hung for "demanding respect". I may be confused.
By David Von Drehle
Sunday, November 16, 2003; Page A04
If you can't beat 'em, copy 'em.
With hopes of winning back Congress someday, a new liberal political action committee has been studying the war plans of legendary conservative field marshal Newt Gingrich. PROPAC, as the group is called, aims to pour $2.6 million over the next year into recruiting and training left-leaning candidates at the grass-roots level -- the first step in a long-range project to fill the pipeline with a fresh supply of future winners.
According to executive director Gloria A. Totten, the name and the idea are conscious echoes of Gingrich's GOPAC, the vehicle by which the Georgia Republican rose from congressional backbencher to speaker of the U.S. House in 14 carefully plotted years leading up to 1994.
"We didn't take their entire playbook," Totten said at a briefing for reporters last week. "But we did look at a myriad of things they did."
Totten, a former abortion rights activist, allowed that most liberals -- including her -- prefer to champion issues than to hatch campaign strategy. And rounding up candidates is often a last-minute chore performed one-handed, with the other hand daintily holding one's nose. Liberals have a distrust of politics and a fear that they might be pressured into unseemly compromises.
Laying the groundwork for PROPAC, "I spent the first six months giving my 'get over it' speech," Totten said.
The effort will start this year in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Washington, Arizona and either Michigan or Florida. "Presidential battleground states," Totten explained. The group will target five additional states in the 2006 cycle and five more in 2008. Ultimately, it aims to elect enough local and statewide candidates to have a leftward impact on the redistricting battles of 2011.
"That's the long-range view we're trying to take," Totten said.
For the most part, it is the present, not the past, that engages Iraqis' passions. The Iraqis can be incandescent about the perceived failings of the occupation administration led by L. Paul Bremer III, so far short of the American efficiencies that were an Iraqi gospel before. They mock most of the hand-picked Iraqi leaders who form the transitional governing council, saying they spend most of their time abroad on expense-paid trips or maneuvering against one another in the time they are at home.
And Iraqis want an end to the "Ali Babas," the bandits who terrorize neighborhoods and the roads outside Baghdad. After a narrow escape of my own from six masked, Kalashnikov-brandishing Ali Babas who leapt on the highway about an hour north of Nasiriya on Tuesday night, I could see their point.
Only the swift reflexes of Abu Karar, the Iraqi driver who had helped me deal with Mr. Hussein's enforcers before the invasion, saw us through. He switched off our vehicle's lights and drove straight at the Ali Babas at 100 miles an hour, causing them to jump back from the road.
But then there is the bottom line, and it is accessible to anybody who stands on a street corner, as I did in the hours after that near-miss, covering the bombing of the Italian military police compound in Nasiriya.
Gesturing toward the smoking hulk of the headquarters where at least 19 Italians and 13 Iraqis died, I asked the crowds if they thought America and its allies should pack up and go home. In the clamor that followed, I asked for quiet so that each man and boy could speak his mind. Unscientific as the poll was, the sentences that flowed expressed a common belief.
"No, no!" one man said. "If the Americans go, it will be chaos everywhere." Another shouted, "There would be a civil war."
"If the Americans, the British or the Italians leave Iraq, we will be handed back to the flunkies of Saddam, the Baathists and Al Qaeda will take over our cities," another man said.
Nobody offered a dissenting view, though many said it would be best if the Americans achieved peace and left as soon as possible. These people, at least, seemed concerned that America should know that the bombers, whoever they were, did not speak for the ordinary citizens of Iraq.
Then why don't they act like it? Why aren't Shias flooding the police and Army recruiting stations? Why do the Shia generally watch us flounder around and refuse to help the occupation.
Why are American reporters so fucking gullible?
They come from a society where telling people what they needed to hear was a key to personal survival. Yet, stupid Americans ask them if they oppose the opposition. So an informer can make some money by pointing them out?
A resistance movement cannot flourish if the locals cooperate with the ruling power. We don't even know who these people are. I would take that as a hint that the Iraqis tell us what we want to hear. They say they want peace, but they do nothing to promote it. the guerrillas have nearly unlimited movement of freedom and excellent intelligence. How did that happen? Osmosis?
There is something deeply troubling about the level of security needed for the Bush trip to the UK. The request to abrogate UK sovregnity to protect the president by having US helicopters and fighters patrol over London, something which didn't happen in either World War, btw, because of a short visit, should be seen as offensive. And not just to the Brits. The Secret Service wanted to shut down tube service because someone might try to kill Bush. The London Underground is 100 feet under the city, below the sewage pipes. It was used as mass bomb shelters in both World Wars. The one thing you can assume is that Al Qaeda would need a nuke to get to Bush from 100 feet underground. If our president had traveled more, he might have known that.
Immunity from shooting protesters? That's a new power they don't have in the US. Ask the FBI agents who were at Ruby Ridge. When do police in a free society get a pass on killing civilians? Certainly not in a democracy. Especially in a society where police usually do their work without guns.
What is becoming evident is that Bush has embraced a security regime which calls his personal courage into question. He doesn't meet with crowds, he's sheltered from protestors, in some countries, he's unable to do more than touch down and leave. At some level, the President, as commander in chief, has to place his life at risk. Not unreasonable risk, but some risk. The idea is not to hide from threats, but assess them and react to them. There is no threat to the President which requires a minigun outside Iraq or Afghanistan. What message does it send to the terrorist that our president is frightened of a bunch of London protesters? What are they going to do? Throw beer cans at him? He's suppose to represent the US, not cower in fear. Reagan didn't get this kind of security after he was shot.
The point being that even if AQ killed the president, the strength of this country is that a new one would be appointed within an hour. Now, no one wants the president assassinated, but the reality is no security is foolproof.
But you do send messages and with this open display of what seems to be naked fear, it is that Al Qaeda can and will restrict the president's movements on their agenda. Osama Bin Laden is still footloose and fancy free while Bush cowers behind a wall of security.
And it's not just Bush, Cheney hides in a bunker half the time. Viceroy Jerry can't take a fart without a Delta Force team covering his every move. Such lavish security may protect, but it also breeds contempt from our enemies. Leaders in a democracy shouldn't need such lavish security, no matter what the threat. It sends a message of fear and cowardice to our enemies.
Kathleen Blanco Wins Louisiana Gov. Race
White Male Monopoly on Governor's Office Will End
By Lee Hockstader
Washington Post Staff Writer
NEW ORLEANS, Nov. 15 -- Lt. Gov. Kathleen Blanco, a Cajun grandmother and veteran Democrat, won a tightly contested election for Louisiana's governor Saturday, breaking a 130-year lock by white males on the job and snapping a string of Republican gubernatorial victories this fall.
She defeated Republican Bobby Jindal, a brown-skinned 32-year-old son of immigrants from India whose energetic campaign and credentials as a wunderkind technocrat and committed conservative lifted him from obscurity to the cusp of victory in his first race for public office.
With nearly all precincts reporting, Blanco had about 52 percent of about 1.4 million votes cast.
Blanco, 60, has held public office here for 20 years -- but her victory in the governor's race broke from the path of tradition. She is the first woman to be elected governor of a Deep South state, and only the third female governor elected in the old Confederacy (Texas has had two).
Jindal led narrowly in most polls until about 48 hours before Election Day. Then, with little to separate the two conservative candidates ideologically, Blanco closed out the campaign by launching a blistering attack on Jindal's record as Louisiana's deficit-cutting secretary of health and hospitals in the mid-1990s. The attacks helped eliminate what had been Jindal's edge, and analysts said lingering racism might also have undercut him on Election Day.
While people are denying that the race factor played a role here, come on. The turnout was lower than normal and the reason for that was simple: the white swing voters who could have delivered Jindal victory stayed home. When you get a loss of four points after getting most of the endorsements and 15 percent of the black vote, you have to know something is not right. Jindal should have won by two or three points.
They didn't like Blanco, but they weren't voting for no A-rab, either.
Of course there are other factors, like his age, inexperience and unpopularity of Bush in Louisiana, but at the end of the day, a lot of people who would have supported Jindal if he were white, simply decided not to vote. It didn't matter what people said to pollsters or reporters. Few people will openly admit their racism in public. They just forgot to vote for Jindal when it counted.
This is the Gantt factor. In races in the South, black candidates have done well, but the polling rarely reflects the voting. In the 1990's Gantt ran against Jesse Helms twice and was close to beating him twice, but the votes never came through.
When the press was saying that Jindal would win in Louisiana, I would have bet my house he was going to lose. Why? He's not white and this turned into a racist vs not-racist party vote. No matter how right Jindal was on the issues, Blanco gave people a reason to not vote for him, his budget cuts. In some races, that wouldn't have worked, but it was enough of a hook to drive white voters away from him. He was in weird position. Black pols knew if he could get elected, they would stand a much better chance of making that run. He got support no black candidate would have gotten from the party, a black republican said to the NY Times last week. But it wasn't enough.
People ask how did he win the primary? Simple, to the primary voters, he was good on the issues. But a primary vote is not the same as a general election. And there are enough general election voters to make the difference.
Race in politics is insidious. You never know where it pops up. While you can never say it was the only factor in this race, you can't say it wasn't a factor, either.
You only need a few percentage points difference to swing an election. Especially when people deny it's an issue.
Early one morning last July, my rifle company boarded a convoy of trucks leaving Nasiriyah, an Iraqi city 180 miles south of Baghdad, bound for Kuwait. After tossing my pack onto a truck, I looked back at members of the Carabinieri, Italy's military police force, who were staying. They were made groggy and disgruntled by the early hour, and about to assume watch over the building we had shared for the past month.
Last Wednesday, I turned on the morning news and saw that that same building had become a charred skeleton. It was all chaos and smoke after a car or truck bomb exploded directly beneath the window where I had once slept. I listened to the grisly numbers: the dead, the missing, the wounded, Iraqis and Italians. But there were no faces, no names. I had no way of knowing who among them I may have known. I could only imagine that everyone I had known there had become a casualty. I was at a remove, trying to resume my life in New York
The August night I returned to the city from Iraq, I found myself drunk in the bathroom of an East Village bar. As I steadied the wall, I wondered how this skin of mine, tanned brown from the Iraqi sun, could now soak up the atmosphere of a good, seedy city bar. Wondered how the people in line behind me could enjoy the night while their peers still slept with rifles, halfway around the world, where I had been just the week before.
I wandered back to my friends, and drifted out of the conversation as soon as I sat down. It was easy to leave the city once more, relive the past four months in the time it took for the next round to arrive. No one spoke to me. Perhaps my silence betrayed my thoughts; I was glad to be left alone. But at that moment I was not having flashbacks, or letting alcohol numb grief and pain. There was no nervous tick or trembling hands. My thoughts, my reverie, lay with the people I had known in Iraq, the soldiers and citizens still dealing with the violent reality.
As the fighting unexpectedly intensifies in Iraq, as the American body count rises, each headline strikes deeper, and I can still see it, still feel it: walking through a foreign city, looking to the rooftops, the windows, in alleys, behind me, in front, to the sides. One person thanks you for freedom, and the next stares through you as if you are already a ghost.
It is a forceful process, ingesting the news and carrying it with me through the day. There are moments when I want the rifle back in my hand, so I can return to Iraq and remain there, until the war ends in a solid conclusion. There is still a reluctance to forget my initial, unwavering idealism that leaving Iraq meant that things were improving, and that others would soon be following me home.
But sometimes, it's New York that feels like a foreign city. One night, in another bar, I read a note posted by the staff above the urinal that ridiculed the city's smoking ban and urged patrons to send Mayor Bloomberg hate mail in an attempt to change the law.
This was the city I had returned to: outspoken and opinionated, the center of freethinking. I want the inspiration and nurturing that New York can give young writers. I am not ashamed of my service, but am conscious that my past might overshadow what I want to accomplish. As my friends and I headed home from that Village bar last August, I allowed myself respite from the guilt of being safe and happy. I watched the blocks pass with the hopeful feeling that soon the city would cease to feel new again.
Such attacks are a daily event: not far away another American convoy was not so fortunate yesterday. A roadside bomb exploded next to a patrol in Baghdad's northern Azamiyah neighbourhood, killing a soldier and injuring two others. He was the 400th US soldier to die since the invasion and occupation; 12 more Americans died later when two Black Hawk helicopters collided and crashed into a residential area of Mosul, possibly causing further casualties on the ground.
We had been warned. Half an hour earlier, we had been sitting with a former colonel from Saddam Hussein's army, a man who - at the very least - sympathises with the guerrillas fighting the the US, but speaks like one who has ties with the Americans too. As in all wars, there are people who insist on anonymity when they pitch their views to the media. So we shall call him Mustafa.
Meeting us in Fallujah - the Sunni trucking town west of Baghdad that has become an epicentre of Iraqi attacks on US forces for the past six months - Mustafa had been in jovial mood. He guffawed when asked whether the number of insurgents resembled the estimates of US General John Abizaid, the overall commander of the Iraq operation. The general declared them to be around 5,000, and announced contemptuously that there was no force in Iraq that could beat the Americans.
"How does he know the number?" demanded Mustafa. "Has he counted them?" The figure, Mustafa claimed, was much higher, and embraced a spectrum of Iraqi people from secular nationalists, to Shias and Sunni Muslims and even Christians. And they would continue to fight until the occupation ended.
He again laughed derisively when asked about the American counter-attack, the so-called "Operation Iron Hammer" launched last week. "What difference does it make? If they arrest two [from the resistance], another 100 will take their place." And he laughed again when the discussion turned to the Iraqi Governing Council, which the US's chief administrator, Paul Bremer, met yesterday to discuss Washington's suddenly urgent desire to distance itself from the occupation by accelerating the handover of power to Iraqis by next June.
These were not Iraqis who were entitled to determine the nation's fate, but "collaborators", said the colonel. Its members were "outsiders" who were merely looking after their own interests and those of their foreign backers. Asking whether any one of the council could lead the country, perhaps as an interim president while a constitution is drawn up, was a risible idea. "Impossible, impossible, impossible," he said.
He's already got the meathook waiting.
This sleight of handover will not work. Replacing Viceroy Jerry with a collaborator is not going to end the war.
As Riverbend predicted months ago, Chalabi will be smuggled out of Iraq in the back of a car trunk. If the partisans don't kill him first.
It's pretty obvious this will end badly. How it ends badly is still up in the air. Invade the most nationalistic country in the middle east and sit astounded that they're resisting you.
Martin Bright, home affairs editor
Sunday November 16, 2003
The Observer
Home Secretary David Blunkett has refused to grant diplomatic immunity to armed American special agents and snipers travelling to Britain as part of President Bush's entourage this week.
In the case of the accidental shooting of a protester, the Americans in Bush's protection squad will face justice in a British court as would any other visitor, the Home Office has confirmed.
The issue of immunity is one of a series of extraordinary US demands turned down by Ministers and Downing Street during preparations for the Bush visit.
These included the closure of the Tube network, the use of US air force planes and helicopters and the shipping in of battlefield weaponry to use against rioters.
In return, the British authorities agreed numerous concessions, including the creation of a 'sterile zone' around the President with a series of road closures in central London and a security cordon keeping the public away from his cavalcade.
The White House initially demanded the closure of all Tube lines under parts of London to be visited during the trip. But British officials dismissed the idea that a suicide bomber could kill the President by blowing up a Tube train. Ministers are also believed to have dismissed suggestions that a 'sterile zone' around the President should be policed entirely by American special agents and military.
Demands for the US air force to patrol above London with fighter aircraft and Black Hawk helicopters have also been turned down.
The President's protection force will be armed - as Tony Blair's is when he travels abroad - and around 250 secret service agents will fly in with Bush, but operational control will remain with the Metropolitan Police.
The Americans had also wanted to travel with a piece of military hardware called a 'mini-gun', which usually forms part of the mobile armoury in the presidential cavalcade. It is fired from a tank and can kill dozens of people. One manufacturer's description reads: 'Due to the small calibre of the round, the mini-gun can be used practically anywhere. This is especially helpful during peacekeeping deployments.'
Jesus, they wanted diplomatic immunity to shoot Britons at home? Does he think he's freaking Caesar? A minigun fired in Central London could kill hundreds of people. It would slice through most buildings like a knife through butter. It would set cars on fire. You would think Godzilla has landed when the damage was done.
No way to make friends and win people over. But then, his plan to meet with the families might be the crowning disaster:
President George Bush will be accused this week of lying about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction in a face-to-face meeting with the families of British soldiers killed in the war, The Independent on Sunday can reveal.
Mr Bush announced last week he was prepared to meet a small group of families of the British war dead. The names have not been officially revealed but two of the invited families have come forward to talk exclusively to the IoS, saying they will challenge the US President to explain why he went to war without a United Nations mandate and why no chemical and biological weapons have been found.
Lianne Seymour, whose husband, Commando Ian Seymour, was killed in a helicopter crash at the outbreak of the war, welcomed the chance to meet Mr Bush. But she dismissed his claim that the 53 Britons killed so far in Iraq had died in a good cause. She said: "Bush has been suggesting that he's going to put our minds at rest. He suggests our husbands' lives weren't lost in vain. However, I'm going to challenge him on it.
"They misled the guys going out there. You can't just do something wrong and hope you find a good reason for it later. That's why we have all the UN guidelines in the first place."
Another relative, Tony Maddison, whose stepson Marine Christopher Maddison was killed, allegedly by friendly fire, during a battle near Basra, said: "I'm beginning to feel Mr Blair has been a puppet, so I'm looking forward to meeting Bush, to ask: 'What are you doing to our Prime Minister? Look what he's doing to our country.
Josh Marshall mentions the DVD release of the Sorrow and the Pity and how most French did anything to remain safe from the occupation.
Well, it's not as simple as that.
The French Resistance grew slowly and carefully, since the Germans killed people who opposed them. But the break point was in 1943, with the introduction of the STO, or the Service du Travail Organatision. The STO took young French workers and shipped them to Germany. Some were willing, but many were not. So they suddenly decided that it was time to join the resistance. Once they had a stake in German policy, they suddenly decided killing Germans beat working for them.
The Resistance, at best, made up 5 percent of the population. Collaborators, as in people who actively helped and supported the Nazis, were maybe 10 percent. The other 85 percent leaned one way or the other, but with the selective use of terror and general hatred of the Germans led many to break with Vichy or turn a blind eye to the resistance. One of the great supporters of the movement were prostitutes. Whorehouses were used to hide escaped POW's, resistants and spies.
At the same time, there were many French rightists who joined the Nazis with a smile. Some joined the Milice, the local fascist police force, others joined the Legion Volunteer Francaise (LVF) or the Charlemagne Division of the Waffen SS. They marched off to fight the partisans or the Russians "to protect Europe". The French Communists, sat on their hands for a year, and then decided to conduct assasinations, which drew German reprisals, and husband their weapons so they could seize power after the war.
There are two kinds of resistance movements, one is resistance, which only requires a few dedicated people to conduct espionage, sabotage and aid the allied power, and the other is partisan. They are in essence a field army fighting the occupier in open warfare.
What we are facing in Iraq is partisan warfare, an open opposition to an occupying power. They fight in guerrilla bands widely protected by the local population. There is nothing like the 10 percent of wartime France. There may not be one percent supporting the US in Iraq.
Which means that the resistance can operate with near impunity. With the society either remaining silent or condoning the murder of traitors, the resistance can grow stronger with little fear of effective US action against them.
Every so often, you'll see some rant about how Karl Rove will cheat Bush back into the White House. How Diebold machines are going to hand the election to him, no matter what we do.
Which is insane.
We're not children, this isn't Stalinist Russia. Karl Rove is a short term strategist. He's never looking beyond the next poll. If anyone cares to remember, they lost the last election, but they decided to work the refs. They didn't quit. And they won. Gore and Lieberman wanted to play by the rules and Bush wanted to win.
Look, if you think Diebold is rigged, sue the company. Demand a paper trail. We have a year to the election. You can sit on your hands and whine or you can do something. Pester people with e-mails, become a poll watcher or challenger. You have a range of actions you can take to prevent this.
Then you hear that Howard Dean isn't electable. Every four years, the press and the Democratic establishment looks at the candidates and finds them wanting. The last lot they liked was in 1988 and that was a disaster. In 1992, they were all waiting for Mario Cuomo to save the party. In 1998, they were waiting for Clinton to resign. How long and how wrong will they have to be before people tell them to piss off and die.
George Bush doesn't cross 50 percent in any poll. Dean is at 45 percent, the others in range. In my book, 49-45 is a disaster for a sitting president. All these idiots say "the economy is turning around", "Iraq will get better". Huh? In bizarro America? Because in this America, there are still no jobs and the Iraqi resistance is knocking down a helicopter every four days. And that number ain't getting any better. Today, they got a 2-for-1. With a $20 RPG grenade.
You do not win by quitting before the game starts.
I coach football every Saturday in the fall. The difference between winning teams and losing teams are simple: they play every down. They go out like every down is the most important in the game. They play to win and they keep their heads about them.
They don't argue, whine or bitch about the refs. You play your position, you follow the gameplan, you do your best.
What I don't get is that Dean is grabbing independent voters and their money like no Dem has ever before. He got a joint endorsement announcement from AFSCME and SEIU, two unions at each other's throats, and has taken the other non-industrial unions out of play. Yet, he's taking the party back to 1972? How is that possible? Then, he's leading in most states they poll. And this is going to lead to defeat.
Sometimes, you can think too much about a game and lose it by overpreparing. Bush is making mistake after mistake. What is Karl Rove going to do, whip out gay marriage? Is that really going to trump this central question: are you better off today than you were four years ago? I doubt that highly. If you haven't remembered, Dick Cheney's eldest daughter is an out lesbian. So let Rove bring up the civil unions thing. Then we can ask why he hates Dick Cheney's daughter so much.
I don't care what the GOP does or how they cheat. After 30 years, they just don't have any new ideas left and the ones they're enacting just don't fucking work. 400 dead in Iraq. The country on the brink of civil war, the highest unemployment rate in decades. More jobs lost than any time since 1932. Both Osama Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein living footloose and fancy free. The GOP can use all the codewords they want, but the fact is that what they are doing isn't working. We're getting two, three dead a day, and this is before the oil for food program ends, which could lead to both starvation and real unrest.
Bush has failed as president. The Beltway clowns don't see it because their kids are not the ones coming home in "transfer tubes" and they aren't the ones getting Master Card calls every day.
There is no reason for anyone to be sitting in fear of the great Karl Rove as some kind of genius. Presidential elections are won on two issues, war and the economy. We're losing one, and the other sucks.
The US-led coalition in Iraq will hand over power to a transitional government by June 2004, the Iraqi Governing Council has said.
The announcement came after Iraqi leaders met the US chief administrator, Paul Bremer, in Baghdad.
Mr Bremer had earlier returned from the US, where plans for a faster handover were agreed at the White House.
The transitional body will prepare for a full sovereign Iraqi government by 2005, following a general election.
A BBC correspondent in Baghdad says the plan is a much faster route to Iraqi sovereignty than the one previously laid out.
...................
This is good for everyone," said council member Ahmed Chalabi, according t
