Jimmy Carter:
Still Seeking a Fair Florida Vote
.. some basic international requirements for a fair election are missing in Florida.
The most significant of these requirements are:
• A nonpartisan electoral commission or a trusted and nonpartisan official who will be responsible for organizing and conducting the electoral process…
• Uniformity in voting procedures, so that all citizens, regardless of their social or financial status, have equal assurance that their votes are cast in the same way and will be tabulated with equal accuracy…
…
It is unconscionable to perpetuate fraudulent or biased electoral practices in any nation. It is especially objectionable among us Americans, who have prided ourselves on setting a global example for pure democracy. With reforms unlikely at this late stage of the election, perhaps the only recourse will be to focus maximum public scrutiny on the suspicious process in Florida.
This elections, like the last one, will be decided in a court room.
Posted by: b | Sep 27 2004 17:12 utc | 1
Good call from Carter.
Though I have to smile at “will be tabulated with equal accuracy”, since there can’t be any true egality and equality as long as there’s an Electoral College acting as intermediate, which is chosen based on “winner-takes-all” majority rule (which imho is even worse a travesty of democracy than the College itself).
Posted by: Clueless Joe | Sep 27 2004 17:24 utc | 2
In his LATimes piece, the Barkeep deplores the advertising on blogs as a thing contributing to their loss of edge. But subtract those ads and what’s left? An enterprise too expensive for the blogger to maintain–not, perhaps, in the actual laying out of funds for the site, but in the opportunity costs associated with a growing enterprise (an exploding blog eats up time otherwise spent on gaining one’s daily bread, and advertising frees that time up). The Whiskey Bar, of course, was growing like a stand of bamboo trees, exacting costs too great for the Barkeep to sustain. And so I draw this moral: let no one, least of all Bernard or Jerome, be caught in a similar bind. Let’s skip the nostalgia for days of greater magnitude, and help out as best we can. We don’t need to convert the world, we just need to tell each other the truth. That’s of value beyond all price.
Posted by: alabama | Sep 27 2004 17:53 utc | 3
In the Chicato Sun-Times Bob Novak asks, “Is the CIA at War Against Bush?”
Well, after Bush’s extraordinarily dumb remark that the CIA, in its latest, insufficiently optimistic Iraq NIE, was merely “guessing” at outcomes, one could answer, “I sure as hell hope so.”
But if there’s a war on between the two, the CIA’s not exactly an easy outfit to root for. Like the Bush/Rumsfeld Pentagon, sending the armor back to Iraq this fall, the CIA recovered its senses a little too late.
But hey, maybe it will be successful in repositioning itself to take advantage of the Iraq fall-out, and to keep Rumsfeld from staking out any more of the valuable territory of intel reorganization for the DoD.
Maybe, but I doubt it.
Posted by: Pat | Sep 27 2004 19:43 utc | 6
How weird is this:
US buys town for terror training
Sounds like an episode of the X-Files
Posted by: kat | Sep 27 2004 20:16 utc | 7
My fine column for those who don’t want to Google it.
Is CIA at war with Bush?
Posted by: Bobbie Novak | Sep 27 2004 20:35 utc | 8
Interesting picture of Tony Blair – look at the pattern the lines are creating on his forehead. Amazing, isn’t it?
picture
Posted by: Fran | Sep 27 2004 21:06 utc | 9
That Playas sale sounds like it could lead to a real interesting story about how Phelps Dodge interacts w/ the fed govt to stay afloat and turn a profit. A quick google search shows a controversy over questionable land grabs (like purchasing 155 acres of federal land near the resort town Crested Butte for $875), buying other lands on similar questionable terms from govt agencies and then selling it back for profit, and using influence/lobbying to get out of environmental cleanup after closing mines or buying out old claims, etc. Also of interest is the financial turnaround the company has experienced, from back in a net losses in 2001 of $275 million and $341.6 million in 2002, to a second quarter net income of $227 million this year. Now they’re considering putting other towns up on the block.
Posted by: b real | Sep 27 2004 21:17 utc | 10
What I’d like to write about is that I live in a village just off the Bush presidential route today – was offered opportunities to go protest but declined. However, two of my fellow villagers were somewhat unnerved to see the gunships flying overhead so close you could distinguish the gun mounts. Sort of puts things in perspective when Bush talks about Kerry “debating himself” – Bush intends a government where there will be no debate – you’ll just be shot for dissenting. And his military will enforce it (whatever happened to the Right’s perpetual screaming about posse comitatus when Clinton was in office?)
Posted by: francoise | Sep 27 2004 22:12 utc | 12
U.S. Oil Hits $50 on Nigeria Supply Fears
My target now is $52/barrel before a backtrack to $48 and a surge to $58/b. Then after a short pull back, $70/b will be a decent target for October.
Remember this one?
Saudi Envoy Promised Bush a Drop in Oil Prices Ahead of Election
No way – Iraq has changed the picture and Prince Bandar now puts his bet on Kerry.
But who cares, the Saudis lost control of the game. It is played elsewhere – or, the worst scenario, not played at all – it´s reality.
Posted by: b | Sep 27 2004 22:26 utc | 13
FRAN! That picture of Blair is creeeeeepy.
He’s branded. His face is revealing who owns him, like a cattle on the BushCo ranch.
Posted by: fauxreal | Sep 27 2004 22:44 utc | 14
@fauxreal:
It sure looks like an OMEN to me.
A former U.S. Ambassador to Great Britain
Posted by: Gregory Peck | Sep 27 2004 22:52 utc | 15
(whatever happened to the Right’s perpetual screaming about posse comitatus when Clinton was in office?)
Posted by: francoise | September 27, 2004 06:12 PM
Excellent question, francoise.
Posted by: Pat | Sep 27 2004 22:53 utc | 16
@fran – had a laugh and a flash of the madonna sightings in the water stains on the side of a building in, what was it, New Port Richey or some run-on city on florida’s west coast. would that Carl Hiaasen would write global.
Posted by: esme | Sep 27 2004 22:58 utc | 17
So Israeli agents are admittedly using car bombs as their weapon of choice in the latest assassination attack in Syria.
While it’s refreshing to see them remove all pretense of a difference in tactics between themselves and their sworn enemies, I am boggled when trying to imagine how they’re going to spin this as somehow not “state-sponsored terrorism”.
At least lobbing missiles into neighborhoods gave them some tissue-paper thin rationale to use with the press.
Hamas, meanwhile, vows to shift to “overseas targets” in retaliation… gosh I feel safer already.
Posted by: melior | Sep 27 2004 23:14 utc | 18
Melior: worse than that, they did it in a foreign country, not even in “occupied territories” they claim as their own. Or if they do, I’m eager to wait how Bush can legitimise their claims on annexing a big chunk of Syria up to Damascus.
At least, if Hamas decides to target overseas, it may be safer to visit Israel (ok, I know I’m very cynical on that one)
Posted by: Clueless Joe | Sep 27 2004 23:21 utc | 19
i know it’s CNN (Creative News Network), but…
U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said this month there could not be “credible elections if the security conditions continue as they are now.”
The United States will not use covert aid in an attempt to influence the election, a White House spokesman said Sunday.
“There have been and will continue to be concerns about efforts by outsiders to influence the outcome of the Iraqi elections, including money flowing from Iran,” spokesman Allen Abney said. “This raises concerns about whether there will be a level playing field for the Iraqi election.
“We have adopted a policy that we will not try to influence the outcome of the upcoming Iraqi election by covertly helping individual candidates for office.”
1,) do you think the U.N. would consider sending observers – not just to FLA, but everywhere
2.) have we transferred Iraq our constitution yet (electoral college and all, cause we’re not using it)…
by the way, what is Negroponte up to these days?? and where are all those air craft carriers??
Posted by: esme | Sep 27 2004 23:38 utc | 20
clearly billmons rage at his darkness not so far from our own
tears of steel
qtill steel
Posted by: remembereringgiap | Sep 28 2004 0:05 utc | 21
clearly billmons rage at this darkness not so far from our own
tears of steel
have been receibing michael moores twice weekly missives – wished i felt his optimism
i do not
know that it will get a great deal darker than it is – being battered by what the tougher call life
in my dreams i’m being eneveloped by huey longs ass as it spreads across the coats of jeb bush’s florida
still steel
Posted by: remembereringgiap | Sep 28 2004 0:10 utc | 22
If Billmon wrote a book I’d boycott it! He tries to beg for money on his web site, doesn’t get enough, so spitefully writes a nasty article for the LA Times for cash, trashing the best bloggers who have found a way to make a living at it. What an embittered piece of work.
Posted by: Anonymous | Sep 28 2004 0:35 utc | 23
no 8:35
as alabama has pointed out the exchanges here & at whisky annex are the some of the fruits of billmons intervention
his darkness at this point in time is not strange to me or to the other posters here – the pure weight of the events we are living through is exceptionally painful
for alabama – in these days & nights – the work of toni negri – kairos, alma venus multitudes (calman-levy, paris 2001) & du retour (aussi calman-levy) & work on the internet here has been getting me through these darkest of nights
there is sometimes a little too much beauty in his suffering & a virtuosity in his thinking that i tread prudently – but i find something there which has not been sd – & that needs to be sd & that represents the real multiplicity we are living which is our strength & not our weakness
i hold on to it as jackson pollock did to his ‘blue poles’
no i do not blame billmon – i look along the front – & as any soldier – i care if one of us has fallen because it makes our task so much the harder – but we will be falling before we stand up & walk through the line of terror created by bush
still steel
Posted by: remembereringgiap | Sep 28 2004 0:49 utc | 24
& might i say as i have sd again – the franker the thought the greater the obligation not to hide behind anonymity
still steel
Posted by: remembereringgiap | Sep 28 2004 0:51 utc | 25
@RGiap:
Why all the negativity.(Think Kelly’s Heroes).
My brother Huey would not have deigned to wipe his ass on one of J. Bush’s monogrammed hankerchiefs.
Think of Blaze, instead, when you dream of envelopment. Much more pleasant dreams, I assure you.
@Blank:
I don’t think anybody still here really gives a flying fuck about that subject, one way or the other.
Posted by: Earl Long | Sep 28 2004 0:57 utc | 26
yr quite right flashharry/earl
even in huey there was more humanity & a little more decency & if the truth be known – he had for all his faults a deeper connection to the ‘people’
i stand/lie down/collapse reproached
still steel
Posted by: remembereringgiap | Sep 28 2004 1:08 utc | 27
@RGiap::
Hell, I was just trying to cheer you up a bit.
No offense meant. I’ve not read about Huey much.
Read some about Earl. He was an interesting Southern governor circa 1960. Crazy as a shithouse rat–but funny as hell. And La Affaire Blaze was the icing on the cake.
In these times we all need as much humor as we can find. Wherever we can find it.
Posted by: FlashHarry | Sep 28 2004 1:53 utc | 28
Something is amiss with Billmon. His essay is not characteristic and placing it in the LA Times is odd. He has a blog where he could place it. His usual gracefulness is absent. The quality of the graphic currently posted on Whiskey Bar is also not the Billmon I read for two years. Billmon, I wish you good health and peace. You are the best, I hope you come back.
Posted by: emereton | Sep 28 2004 2:19 utc | 29
Why this leftwinger might vote for Bu**sh**!
Not because I agree with a single thing IdiotBoy has ever done.
But he’s made such an utter debacle of both Iraq and the domestic economy you can almost smell that brown stuff hitting the fan!
And it’s best for the left that the fecal material get blown back exclusively into the faces of Bush and his fellow fratboys… rather than have it be, like Vietnam, a ‘bipartisan’ f***up, so that Joe and Jane Sixpack can say, “Yup, them politicians all the same.”
Hell, after another four more years of wingnuttery, American voters probably won’t elect a Republican as county dogcatcher for the next twenty years.
The only thing that interrupts my pleasant little fantasy is the thought of all those corpses, American and Iraqi, staring at me…
Posted by: glenstonecottage | Sep 28 2004 2:35 utc | 30
@ glenstonecottage:
I think most rational people feel the same way about “the pleasant little fantasy”.
Posted by: FlashHarry | Sep 28 2004 2:50 utc | 31
It takes a lot of strength and a lot of community to stay sane in this Bizarro world. Clever insights, turns of phrases and positive feedback can only support one for so long. Taking a step back to better observe the abyss incurs the risk that we will fall backwards into another another abyss, that of disassociation and alienation. I sense that Billmon is having an extended episode of vertigo, his hope for a united front has been diluted by bloggers who have bought the DNC’s line complete with hook and sinker.
I used to be frustrated by Billmon’s refusal to take the extra step back in his perspective, but I respected his ability to connect more dots, and in a more eloquent manner, than almost everyone else. I hope he returns.
Posted by: biklett | Sep 28 2004 3:16 utc | 32
This blog seems to be really hopping now. At the very least, it’s a lot more active than a few weeks ago. I guess Bernhard’s guilt trip must have had some effect (it worked on me). I hope the community keeps it up.
Posted by: Harrow | Sep 28 2004 3:20 utc | 33
So,this is weird, I just stopped by kos and there was an article in the diaries w/comments that linked to the NYT (New York Times)the topic was “The FBI intercepted on sept 10th the transmission that 911 was to happen the next day, but didn’t get to it for lack of time and translators” so I go the link use Bug me not to access it, it doesn’t let me in I go back to the diary and the link and diary is gone! Anybody know anything about this matter?
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Sep 28 2004 3:42 utc | 34
Uncle $cam:
This seems to be the problem.
Mon Sep 27th, 2004 at 19:36:44 GMT
The site is getting pummeled today with traffic, so I’ve turned off recommended diaries, the hotlist box, and the RSS reader. I may have to turn off other things if problems persist.
Try this link for the article.
Posted by: Harrow | Sep 28 2004 4:23 utc | 36
re Billmon-
I found both his article and that graphic somewhat uncharacteristic- so whatever, I guess he’s done, and I’ll miss him. But in as much as what he started was bigger than he could handle, it does seem to handle itself pretty well without him, n’est pas?
So I’ll still be checking in here with you all- cheers, then! I guess we’re self-serve now- anybody want anything from the fridge? or the cabinet above the fridge, perhaps…
Posted by: æ | Sep 28 2004 5:26 utc | 38
Yesterday I thought Billmon was overly pessimistic about the decline of blogs. But today I began to reflect about how the talking we do online can end up seeming so much like chatter.
Prophets of authentic being, whether they be Freepers or fundies or greens, so easily end up simply hating others for being different. So what use to blog? I can see the despair.
But we don’t have to act as if all we can be is ourselves, as if what we read here can only mean something if we already know what slot to file it under. And every encouragement to make something in our own lives is another little encouragement to not settle for simply being what we are. To simply be myself (though it sounds plausibly modest) is precisely a logic of meaninglessness and death, a monstrous denial of creativity and potential for actual change, growth, and especially enlightenment. No wonder people get tired of writing or talking to such an empty view of life and what we can do in it.
Rgiap’s poems say more to us than he ever could have meant. Billmon’s writings keep meaning anew to people even after he tires of his own words. And I come here to remind myself of other ways of seeing problems, to find inspiration and new directions.
Thanks to all its grandfathers for this place.
Posted by: Citizen | Sep 28 2004 5:32 utc | 39
oops. my post about Blair should have included head.
…as in “head of cattle,” not the good kind. although saying good kind of head and Blair in the same post is also creepy.
not that I’m saying head is good, John Ashcroft, and you other Talibornagains, n’kay?
Posted by: fauxreal | Sep 28 2004 5:45 utc | 40
Wondering if this conference will ever fly?
France seeking to put pullout on agenda – Paris also wants ‘all forces in Iraq’ at proposed talks
Posted by: Fran | Sep 28 2004 5:46 utc | 41
@ Harrow and Uncle $cam:
You don’t suppose Sibel Edmonds was translating any of those transmissions?
I just got home, about an hour ago, from a lecture by Daniel Ellsberg and Norman Solomon. Ellsberg’s Pentagon Paper story resonates strongly here in Oregon, because it was OR senator Wayne Morse who told him had the information been leaked in ’64 when it happened, the Tonkin Resolution wouldn’t have gotten out of committee, much less passed on the floor.
I was sitting close to the front, and was first to the mic when they opened the floor, so I asked Ellsberg if he could tell us anything about Sibel Edmonds (for you and MoA, Uncle $). Ellsberg flashed a huge smile, and told what he could of Sibel’s story to a roomful of some 1100 people, many of whom had never heard of her.
Ellsberg’s latest is in today’s NY Times. He was glancing at his watch while speaking, and at 9:00 PST let us know his editorial was on the web.
Posted by: catlady | Sep 28 2004 5:59 utc | 42
On a lighter note, a friend sent me this yesterday:
Quote of the Day: James Carville:
“Back in 2000 a Republican friend warned me that if I voted for Al Gore and he won, the stock market would tank, we’d lose millions of jobs, and our military would be totally overstretched. You know what? I did vote for Gore, he did win, and I’ll be damned if all those things didn’t come true!”
Posted by: catlady | Sep 28 2004 6:04 utc | 43
Hi everybody!
I wondered where everyone wound up after Last Call. I’ve been cold turkey since that last post months ago.
After peeking at the Whiskey, I found this site.
It’s good to see the likes of Uncle $cam, fauxreal, remembereringgiap, glenstonecottage, Bernhard, Pat, Fran, RossK and a bunch of others still get together.
Does four legs come around? How semper Ubi or Outraged?
Anywho, I guess I’ll be swinging by to do some catching up…
Posted by: PRob | Sep 28 2004 7:26 utc | 44
Well, sure, Bush deserves the blame for all this crap. But frankly, I’ve heard many people, including all the Naderites, saying 4 years ago that if Bush won in 2000, his catastrophic administration would doom the GOP for a decade.
So, serously, I’d like to hear any real and solid argument as to why this time it may happen in a different way. Particularly since it would mean 4 more years of GOP bullshit.
And if you want a comparison, after 8 years of Hitler rule in early 1941, Germany had conquered Poland, France, bits of Norway, tried to trash UK, and was busily planning to take over the Balkans and USSR. The guy had barely ever been so popular before then.
Posted by: CluelessJoe | Sep 28 2004 8:31 utc | 45
OK, sorry to spam:
N Korea says they have nukes, and they’re serious about it. So, that makes for something like 10 nukes to toss around. If all Hell breaks loose there, Seoul won’t be the only casualty.
Meanwhile, W is having a nap at the White House.
Posted by: CluelessJoe | Sep 28 2004 10:39 utc | 46
@ CluelessJoe
It’s true that another 4 years of Bush would almost certainly be catastrophic, perhaps “catastrophically successful” as
was Hitler at his apogee, but certainly disastrous for whatever shreds of American democracy remain in place. Kerry would be better on every issue EXCEPT Iraq and the war
on terrorism. On both these issues he has refused to really put space between himself and Bush, probably because his close ties to AIPAC (a short tether indeed) preclude making a “clean break” (to use a neo-con phrase). The overall cost of continuing this policy, or even exacerbating it (Does Kerry still think the U.S. should be sending more troops to Iraq? Does he still identify American and Israeli aspirations?) will strangle the hopes for funding a progressive domestic policy, just as the war in Vietnam aborted LBJ’s Great Society. As long as a vote for Kerry portends only a more rational continuation of present Middle East policies, a vote for Nader doesn’t seem at all unreasonable.
Posted by: Hannah K. O’Luthon | Sep 28 2004 10:43 utc | 47
Wildly off-topic and utterly bizarre, the following nevertheless offers a splendid example of George W. Bush’s likely interpretation of “Christianity”. [Read full article to grasp the sheer lunacy inherent.]
Punch-up at tomb of Jesus
Fistfights broke out yesterday between Christians gathered on the site of the crucifixion and burial of Jesus Christ. …
Posted by: JMFeeney (USA) | Sep 28 2004 11:26 utc | 48
Wildly off-topic and utterly bizarre, the following nevertheless offers a splendid example of George W. Bush’s likely interpretation of “Christianity”. [Read full article to grasp the sheer lunacy inherent.]
Punch-up at tomb of Jesus
Fistfights broke out yesterday between Christians gathered on the site of the crucifixion and burial of Jesus Christ. …
Posted by: JMFeeney (USA) | Sep 28 2004 11:26 utc | 49
@JMFeeney (USA):
Wild strange times indeed(Re:Blogosphere):
parturiunt montes, nascetur ridiculus mus
Posted by: Juvenal | Sep 28 2004 12:19 utc | 50
Well, I can say only Oophs!!!!
Three years after the Sept. 11 attacks, more than 120,000 hours of potentially valuable terrorism-related recordings have not yet been translated by linguists at the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and computer problems may have led the bureau to systematically erase some Qaeda recordings, according to a declassified summary of a Justice Department investigation that was released on Monday.
F.B.I. Said to Lag on Translations of Terror Tapes
Posted by: Fran | Sep 28 2004 15:01 utc | 51
Paul Campos at the Rocky Mountain News (rockymountainnews.com or, if you prefer, realclearpolitics.com):
If it were somehow possible to extract an honest answer from either George Bush or John Kerry to just one question, here’s the one I would choose: Are you going to fight this war, or not?
Both men have spent the last few weeks dodging this question. Bush keeps repeating that his plan to transform the Middle East into a region friendly to the United States is proceeding on schedule, and that, while he is willing to send more troops to Iraq, he doesn’t believe this will be necessary.
Kerry keeps pointing out that the situation in Iraq is bad and getting worse, but to this point he hasn’t offered much in the way of an alternative to the status quo, other than vague promises about internationalizing the war, and pledging to get U.S. troops out within four years.
Both Bush and Kerry are talking nonsense. Each candidate should be asked point blank: Are you willing to sacrifice the lives of thousands of American troops, and kill tens or hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, to crush resistance to the U.S. occupation?
And if not, are you willing to allow Iraq to descend into even more chaos, including perhaps a full-scale civil war, that could fracture the country into perpetually warring factions?
This is the grim choice that will face the man who wins the upcoming election. The pleasant fantasy presented to the American people by the Bush administration – that our troops would be greeted as liberators rather than occupiers – has been destroyed.
This doesn’t necessarily mean the war was a mistake. It only means that the war was sold to the American people on a false premise: that the invasion of Iraq wouldn’t really be an invasion, and that the occupation of the country wouldn’t really be an occupation – in short, that the war wouldn’t really be a war.
It is a war. It isn’t a humanitarian relief effort, or a civics lesson with guns. Whoever wins on Nov. 2 will either have to kill a lot more people a lot more quickly, or get the hell out.
Posted by: Pat | Sep 28 2004 16:42 utc | 53
“While I don’t agree with the president on any single domestic issue, ranging from taxes to social security and everything in between, I do agree with him on the single issue of fighting international terrorism,” he said in an interview with Haaretz last week. “I simply don’t believe that the Democratic Party or [John] Kerry have the stomach to fight – as long as it takes – international terrorism.”
In a single sentence, Ed Koch sums up the entire principle behind President George W. Bush’s re-election campaign: the idea that only Bush is strong enough to fight terror, and therefore all the rest is unimportant, at least this time around, when America is recovering from an attack and is in the midst of a war.
…
“I’d say give Falluja 48 hours notice,” Koch declares. “Every civilian must leave because we are turning Falluja into a free-fire zone to eliminate the people that are engaged in terror. After that I would use the 500-pound bombs.”
…
“You owe President Bush. If Bush hadn’t stood up in the [United Nations] Security Council, in the [General] Assembly, Israel would have been destroyed.
What pills did he take? According to last sentence, that must have been strong medication.
Posted by: b | Sep 28 2004 17:20 utc | 54
rememberinggiap:
& might i say as i have sd again – the franker the thought the greater the obligation not to hide behind anonymity
authenticity is bourgeois.
Posted by: slothrop | Sep 28 2004 17:27 utc | 55
i too have been wondering where is our comrade outraged
we need his expertise
i need his expertise
still steel
Posted by: remembereringgiap | Sep 28 2004 17:28 utc | 56
comrade slothrop
i have just had a small chat with the central commitee & also a phone conversation with the politburo & they have sd to me without condition – if we read j v stalin’s ‘foundation of leninism’ & his epochral work ‘ the short history of the russian communist party(bolshevik)’ that in this circumstance & given the peculiar conditions & acknowledging both antagonistic & non antagonistic contradiction in th both the long & shoprt term with reference to the hegelian dialectique – with particular emphasis on phenomenologie of the spirit – that on the contrary – authenticity is hyperproletarian
fraternal greetings
still steel
Posted by: remembereringgiap | Sep 28 2004 17:34 utc | 57
Fran…is it just me (or this puter), but has the mark of the beast on Blair’s forehead been replaced with a US dollar sign?
Posted by: koreyel | Sep 28 2004 17:56 utc | 58
Military intelligence: Improved security in 2005
Nina Gilbert, THE JERUSALEM POST Sep. 28, 2004
The security situation in Israel and the region may improve as a result of developments in 2005, including the implementation of the disengagement plan, the conclusion of the US elections and Turkey’s bid to join the EU, according to the IDF’s annual intelligence assessment presented to the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on Tuesday.
MKs indicated following the session with IDF Intelligence Branch chief Maj.-Gen. Aharon Ze’evi Farkash that terror may build up in advance of the pullout from Gaza Strip, but then ease in the long term. The US may also make a move against Iran’s nuclearization efforts and Damascus after the elections.
Posted by: Pat | Sep 28 2004 18:15 utc | 59
@RGiap and Slothrop:
Glad to see that all the comrades are in good spirits tonight.
Posted by: FlashHarry | Sep 28 2004 18:42 utc | 60
Pat, the column from Campos @ 12:42 PM seems absolutely right to me. I can’t begin to say how utterly “Vietnamized” this war now feels. It’s becoming a question of when, if ever, the neo-cons and their friends might start to taste defeat. And this time around, it won’t be American draftees who get to protest and defect–rather, the fully enfranchised citizens of Israel. If ever they trended towards a peaceful solution, the neo-cons might trim their sails accordingly. In the meantime, of course, our fighting men and women get to meet the down-payment, and the rest of us go into deep, deep hock.
Posted by: alabama | Sep 28 2004 18:45 utc | 61
Ah, hell rememberinggiap, you the man. I’m honored to be your comrade.
Posted by: slothrop | Sep 28 2004 18:53 utc | 62
From a remarkable article by the Canadian historian Gwynne Dyer The Poisend Calice
Democrats in the United States can take solace in two facts. If their man is not in the White House for the next four years, then they will not end up carrying the blame for the almost inevitable US defeat in Iraq — and they will not have to preside over the biggest financial crisis to hit the United States since the Great Depression.
…
“The US dollar is going the way that [the British pound] went as it lost its place as the world’s reserve currency,” said Jim Rogers, the Wall Street wizard who in 1973 co-founded the Quantum Fund, one of the first and most successful hedge funds, in a recent interview.
…
A far-sighted Democratic strategist might therefore conclude that this is the wrong year to win the presidency. Democrats don’t want the blame for an impending economic crisis that is mostly due to the Bush tax cuts — and since their chosen candidate has no strategy for pulling out of Iraq, why not let the Republicans collect the blame for that debacle, too?
There is going to be a smash; it’s too late to avoid it; let the other lot stay in the driver’s seat for now. We’ll win next time, and stay in power for a generation. But there is no sign that anybody in the Democratic Party is making such a calculation: they are genuinely committed to fighting Bush.
…
Though Mr Kerry now vows to “stay the course” in Iraq, he is likelier than the crew around Mr Bush to accept reality and pull American troops out before too much damage is done. And if economic disaster strikes the United States in the next four years, as it well may, he is less likely than Mr Bush to devote all his energy to shifting the blame for it onto foreigners.
Posted by: b | Sep 28 2004 19:15 utc | 63
I imagine this is not the first high Iraqi officer arrested for being a double agent, and we can all be certain he will not be the last. And what claim do we or Allawi et al have to this man’s loyalty?
Brig. Gen. Talib al-Lahibi, who previously served as an infantry officer in Saddam Hussein (news – web sites)’s army, was detained Thursday in the province of Diyala, northeast of Baghdad, the U.S. military said in a statement.
Al-Lahibi was the acting head of the Iraqi National Guard for the Diyala province, said Maj. Neal O’Brien, spokesman for the Army’s 1st Infantry Division.
The military declined to provide details on the general’s suspected ties to militants waging a 17-month campaign to topple the interim Iraqi authorities and oust coalition forces from the country.
Vietnamisation
Posted by: Citizen | Sep 28 2004 19:23 utc | 64
From Stratfor:
…Kerry’s core position has been that the United States has fought the war in Iraq and elsewhere without proper coordination with allies. Many countries would agree that there wasn’t proper coordination, but only in the sense that their arms are still in agony from being twisted. The problem that Kerry describes — that the U.S. is fighting unilaterally — doesn’t gibe even slightly with their experience, because dozens of governments have been persuaded or bludgeoned into collaboration, even at the risk of estranging some leaders from their constituencies. It seems to many countries that Kerry is looking at the estrangement of the United States from France and Germany as emblematic for what has happened around the world. The Italians and Pakistanis wonder what in the world Kerry is talking about.
Kerry is talking to an American audience. What he is saying is this: The alliance system that won the Cold War has been abandoned by Bush in fighting this war. It is essential to retain that alliance in this war. Now, since Britain is working with the United States, as are the majority of other European states, it is clear that he is speaking of the French and Germans, the two major allies from the Cold War that are missing. Kerry is certainly held in higher regard around the world than Bush, but he is confusing other countries by what he is saying. Other countries do not see unilateralism — they would be delighted if the United States went ahead and did what it wanted without involving them. What they are seeing is intense and effective pressure on key countries for multilateral action. The last thing they see is unilateralism…
Posted by: Pat | Sep 28 2004 19:25 utc | 65
Hasan Abu Nimah in the Jordan Times (15 Sept.):
Unlearned Lessons From September 11
…The vast majority of people in this region will do nothing to aid
Ben Laden, but neither will they do anything to stand in his way
or to help the US against him as long as they see the US as unjust
and self-serving. If there were a UN or an Arab League, or even
their own governments, that could forcefully defend international
law and prevent the kinds of abuses that have victimised people in
the region for decades, no Ben Laden could ever gain any appeal.
But rather than wait for these institutions, the US could have
done a lot on its own to improve its lot.
Military force should have been America’s last resort. US Defence
Secretary Donald Rumsfeld admitted that we have no way of knowing
whether the “war on terror” as America has conceived it is being
won, and President George W. Bush recently admitted that this
“war” is in fact unwinnable. But these tentative admissions are
buried in a barrage of American nationalism and militarism which
overwhelms all other considerations. America seems tragically
incapable of absorbing a simple message: only by revising many of
the traditional policies, particularly blind support for Israel
and its illegal policies and repression, can the US win the
respect and cooperation it ought to enjoy among Arabs and Muslims.
But as the vicious backlash after the recent AIPAC spy scandal
taught us yet again, the Zionist lobby will never tolerate any
hint that American interests are being exposed to so much harm and
danger because of unreserved support for Israel’s unlawful
practices. And Americans need to break these taboos and recognise
that what suits Israel is not what is best for America.
The US has exacerbated an already charged situation by allowing
Israel to define its conflict with the Palestinians as part of the
“war on terror” and to paint any Palestinian resistance to Israeli
aggression as “terrorism”. None of this helps the US in its battle
against those who would harm it, but it does help the Israeli
government to maintain a bloody status quo. Much has been written,
too, about the role of pro-Israel hawks in shaping the US war on
Iraq. It is clear that their broader goals were to rearrange the
Middle East in a manner that serves the long-term expansionist
ambitions of Israel. These characters conceived the war in Iraq as
only the first stage, before moving on to Syria, Lebanon and Iran.
But whatever influence they have, it was the Bush administration
that misled many other nations to join an illegal war in Iraq that
cannot even be justified by its results.
Probably the greatest lesson the US should have learned is that
its doctrine of preventive war is no more than a licence for
aggression at will and a call for the return to the rule of the
jungle. It is like execution before trial. It is a dangerous form
of arbitrary justice which will plunge the world into certain
chaos and enable the strong to destroy the defenceless weak…
Posted by: Pat | Sep 28 2004 19:39 utc | 66
b- Gwynne Dyer’s prediction of financial disaster makes it all the more important to get rid of Bush, because of the theo-fascist faction that makes his prez possible.
Why? Full-blown fascism in any western nation has always been precipitated by a financial crisis, according to what I’ve been reading.
If we think things are bad now, just imagine what they’d be like with Bush “fixing” the economy. Rush, no doubt, would find a way to blame liberals, no matter what, and everyone who follows him would be looking for a scapegoat.
btw, everyone here is familiar with the Orwellian “Constitution Restoration Act of 2004” that is now in committee, I hope? It was intro’d by a Christian Reconstructist who is the lawyer for Judge Roy Moore. The language of the Act states that Federal judges may not rule against the idea that “god is the source of Constitutional law” or some such rot.
If a judge did attempt this, he or she would be subject to impeachment.
The talibornagains have another amendment coming up very soon to ban gay marriage. The language in that bill makes it impossible for one state judge to rule for gay marriage. although presented as a “gay marriage ban” the amendment would have further-reaching consequences.
Rather than see these two as at odds, the reality seems to be that the Talibornagains want to castrate the court as an equal branch of the three branches of govt. in order to make it possible to pass draconian laws in, say, southern states, without interference by judges who think the Constitution is not a dead document.
If the Constitution “restoration” act were in effect during the civil rights era, Brown v. Board of education would have been null and void.
Posted by: fauxreal | Sep 28 2004 20:10 utc | 67
“The people of England have been led in Mesopotamia into a trap from which it will be hard to escape with dignity and honor. They have been tricked into it by a steady withholding of information. The Baghdad communiqués are belated, insincere, incomplete. Things have been far worse than we have been told, our administration more bloody and inefficient than the public knows. It is a disgrace to our imperial record, and may soon be too inflamed for any ordinary cure. We are today not far from a disaster.”
–T.E. Lawrence (a.k.a Lawrence of Arabia), British soldier and author, in a Sunday Times article from 8/2/1920
A cemetary in Baghdad is the final resting place of 33,000 British soldiers.
Posted by: Pat | Sep 28 2004 20:17 utc | 68
For the sake of provocation, I share with you the following, from Michael Totten at Tech Central Station:
Electing John Kerry won’t put radical left activists into power. It will put them in a box. Their knee-jerk anti-American jackassery won’t get a hearing if mainstream liberals are the “establishment.” Soccer moms who voted for John Kerry are not going to put up with punks who say he is the “real” terrorist. Mainstream liberals won’t want to march in the streets against the president they elected alongside ranting neo-Stalinist goons from International ANSWER. Radical leftists will be first isolated then ridiculed by the overwhelming majority when they and the Democratic Party have no common “enemy” to unite them.
Some conservatives will say I’m urging appeasement by rewarding obnoxious behavior on the activist left with votes. I’m not. For one thing, John Kerry is not a radical leftist. He is in the Democratic mainstream. Besides, appeasement is giving in to an enemy’s demands. John Kerry is not the enemy of any American. He is a political opponent of Republicans.
Compromise is fatal in war, but it’s required in politics.
Posted by: Pat | Sep 28 2004 20:54 utc | 69
Fauxreal: Juan Cole would probably tell you these guys are clones of Khomeini. Their true goal is that at the end, fundie televangelists will be the judges and will make laws, not the lawmakers and secular justices that do it now.
Posted by: Clueless Joe | Sep 28 2004 20:54 utc | 70
koreyel, interesting picture. Maybe Blair changes the mark according to the topic he is talking about.
Is it only my impression or is he falling apart. He used to be relatively good looking, but now he seems to look more and more like his own ghost.
Posted by: Fran | Sep 28 2004 21:17 utc | 71
comrades flashharry & slothrop
am feeling a little better – the doctors say that at 30 units(?) of insulin – it is beginning to level off – i don’t know but think that is a high dosage. most days feeling on the verge of vertigo – when working/thinking a little surreal but taking a cafe sans sucre on the terrace it is not altogether unpleasant
just seems lot of ‘things’ happening to this poor body of mine but flash that will explain the hallucinations of huey long(sans blaze) && the convergence with the darker imagining of billmon
& comrade slothrop in our hyperproletarian search for authenticity i suggest a little recipe for the darkness – two books by toni negrie that i mentioned to alabama(kairos, almavenus, multitude & ma retour) followed by two films of theo angelopolous – ‘eternite et un jour’ (eternity & a day & voyage to cythere
followed by a craven a or two & the music of mikis theodorakis especially eptafios
brecht often asked what to do in the dark times – well we are starting to find out
yr comrade
still steel
Posted by: remembereringgiap | Sep 28 2004 21:28 utc | 72
After Bush’s unequivocal statement to Bill O’Reilly yesterday on the subject of Iran – to wit: he will NOT allow Iran to have nuclear weapons – I think it’s time to start seriously asking how he’s going to go about preventing it, determined as he seems to be. (I’m talking to myself, here. I know many of you started seriously asking that some time ago.) There is a 6-24 month window of opportunity for the administration to act. Window varies depending upon whose nuclear program estimate you accept. One thing seems clear: The only thing stupider than air strikes on Iranian nuclear sites, is air strikes on Iranian nuclear sites unaccompanied by regime change. This is so because of extremely unpleasant short-, medium-, and long-term retaliatory capabilities of the current regime. In fact, regime change means you don’t HAVE to directly attack Iranian nuclear facilites – only negotiate uranium enrichment with a new and friendlier government. (I’m thinking like a neocon, not like someone deeply concerned that said new and friendlier government might fail to materialize.) But regime change in Iran, no matter what M. Ledeen says, isn’t going to come about through a popular overthrow energized by vocal support from the Oval Office and a little money and expertise from shadow warriors. No, it will come about with bombers and tanks. Our bombers and tanks.
But is this in any way feasible? I’ve yet to come across anyone with any experience who thinks it is.
Is telling oneself that “they can’t really mean it because there’s just no good way to do it” akin to whistling in the dark?
Nevertheless, I continue to search for reasons why “they can’t really mean it.”
A July 19 post at Iraq Now, weblog of Jason Van Steenwyk, a US soldier formerly stationed in Iraq:
As I’ve written before: loads of doodoo-flinging monkey wannabes study tactics. And even more of them study strategy.
The professional, in contrast, studies logistics.
How would [we support an assault on Iran]? From where? The Afghanistan model is too light, and there are no existing conventional formations to leverage, as we did with the Northern Alliance. All the heavy lifting would have to be done by us. Which means we would have to send mechanized formations lumbering into Iran.
From where?
Such an operation would have been logistically impossible–even absurd, without first having invaded Iraq. There is no way the governments of Saudi Arabia and Kuwait would have allowed us to support an attack on Iran from their bases. We had a hard enough time getting the Saudis to acquiesce to Iraq!
Second, Even basing a mechanized operation in Iran would be a dice roll. Why? Because as soon as you picked a fight with Iran, Iran would immediately cut your logistics base off from shipping by shutting down the Straits of Hormuz with Exocet missiles.
Do you have enough prestock in Iraq to make it to the Straits of Hormuz to protect your own supply line?
Are you sure?
Well, then everything you devote to securing the Straits of Hormuz sure isn’t going to be knocking the regime out of power in Tehran is it?
So we’d be forced to split our effort between the two, just as Hitler did by trying to attack Moscow and the Caucasus simultaneously.
And even if we didn’t do a conventional invasion–if we limited ourselves to airstrikes, what’s the risk/reward analysis.
Well, here are the potential downsides:
Well, we broaden the conflict and make support for our efforts in Iran AND Iraq alike very difficult for moderate Arab leaders to provide, thanks to political pressures at home.
We make things more difficult for ourselves in the UN than they already are.
Iran will shut down the Straits of Hormuz anyway, cutting off Kuwait from all shipping, undermining our logistical support in Iraq, making it impossible for us to deploy or redeploy heavy equipment without Iran’s ok, and cutting off middle eastern oil supplies to the entire world, sending oil prices to the stratosphere and the world into a recession.
Jihadist insurgents will be emboldened in Iraq and elsewhere, as they score rhetorical points about how the attack on Iran proves that the US is really at war against Islam.
The air assault on Tehran will likely have little effect, and may even serve to consolidate the Mullah’s hold on power. But it will play very poorly on CNN International Edition, and possibly go on for weeks without effect, just as our attacks on Yugoslavia did in 1999.
And the upside:
Well, none that I can think of.
Even if you did knock the mullahs from power, how would you secure the country? With what troops?
Posted by: Pat | Sep 29 2004 2:30 utc | 73
Pat, no mention here of Feld-Marschal Herr Rumsfeld’s lean, mean logistico-luftwaffe-shockinawe-panzer machine….Perhaps it doesn’t exist?
Posted by: alabama | Sep 29 2004 3:11 utc | 74
no mention here of Feld-Marschal Herr Rumsfeld’s lean, mean logistico-luftwaffe-shockinawe-panzer machine….Perhaps it doesn’t exist?
@Alabama:
It exists, but I think it is already fully committed on the Western Front.
No drive to the East this year, I’m afraid.
Posted by: Heinz Guderian | Sep 29 2004 4:39 utc | 75
Pat, no mention here of Feld-Marschal Herr Rumsfeld’s lean, mean logistico-luftwaffe-shockinawe-panzer machine….Perhaps it doesn’t exist?
Posted by: alabama | September 28, 2004 11:11 PM
Not under his leadership it doesn’t.
***********************************************
In its own analysis, GlobalSecurity.org believes that airstrikes against the most important Iranian nuclear sites can probably be undertaken, success depending upon the accuracy of intelligence, natch, with Iranian retaliatory capability limited to missile attacks against Persian Gulf targets. Likely targets of retaliation would have to be secured against this threat ahead of time. (Any likely attempt at closing the Straits of Hormuz would have to be preempted.) They point out that whether undertaken by the US or Israel (and Iran couldn’t be certain which had carried out the deed) it will be understood as a joint endeavor by much of the world. Not without reason.
Posted by: Pat | Sep 29 2004 5:05 utc | 76
Growing Pessimism on Iraq
Doubts Increase Within U.S. Security Agencies
By Dana Priest and Thomas E. Ricks
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, September 29, 2004; Page A01
A growing number of career professionals within national security agencies believe that the situation in Iraq is much worse, and the path to success much more tenuous, than is being expressed in public by top Bush administration officials, according to former and current government officials and assessments over the past year by intelligence officials at the CIA and the departments of State and Defense.
While President Bush, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and others have delivered optimistic public appraisals, officials who fight the Iraqi insurgency and study it at the CIA and the State Department and within the Army officer corps believe the rebellion is deeper and more widespread than is being publicly acknowledged, officials say.
People at the CIA “are mad at the policy in Iraq because it’s a disaster, and they’re digging the hole deeper and deeper and deeper,” said one former intelligence officer who maintains contact with CIA officials. “There’s no obvious way to fix it. The best we can hope for is a semi-failed state hobbling along with terrorists and a succession of weak governments.”
“Things are definitely not improving,” said one U.S. government official who reads the intelligence analyses on Iraq.
“It is getting worse,” agreed an Army staff officer who served in Iraq and stays in touch with comrades in Baghdad through e-mail. “It just seems there is a lot of pessimism flowing out of theater now. There are things going on that are unbelievable to me. They have infiltrators conducting attacks in the Green Zone. That was not the case a year ago.”[…]
Posted by: Pat | Sep 29 2004 5:26 utc | 77
I can’t keep from hearing the refrain:
“We fucked up here, let’s move on to the next place”. Mad-juggernautitus. Some one give them an “injection”, like the one’s Georgie liked to sign for in Texass a few years ago. Caramba!
Posted by: Kate_Storm | Sep 29 2004 5:43 utc | 78
For your convenience Kevin Drum at WashingtonMonthly provides a bulleted version of Wednesday’s Hell in a Handbasket Washington Post article:
CLUELESS….Here’s the PowerPoint version of Dana Priest and Thomas Ricks’ survey of opinion in the intelligence community regarding Iraq:
*A former intelligence officer who maintains contact with CIA officials: “There’s no obvious way to fix it. The best we can hope for is a semi-failed state hobbling along with terrorists and a succession of weak governments.”
*A U.S. government official who reads the intelligence analyses on Iraq: “Things are definitely not improving.”
*An Army staff officer who served in Iraq and stays in touch with comrades in Baghdad through e-mail: “There are things going on that are unbelievable to me. They have infiltrators conducting attacks in the Green Zone. That was not the case a year ago.”
*An intelligence expert with contacts at the CIA, the State Department and the Pentagon: “There’s a real war going on here that’s not just the [CIA against the administration on Iraq] but the State Department and the military.”
So the war against the happy talk from the administration is coming from the CIA, the State Department, and the military. Is there anyone else who counts?
In other words, is there anyone outside the White House who thinks that Bush has the slightest clue what to do in Iraq?
Posted by: Pat | Sep 29 2004 6:25 utc | 79
Exerpt from the Tuesday weblog entry of Faiza at afamilyinbaghdad.blogspot.com:
I want an answer to my daily question: what will happen if the occupation forces pulled out of Iraq?? And my answer is: The conditions that occurred after the occupation forces entered Iraq, the disbandment of state institutions, the Army, the Police Force, and the security forces. All that created a void, giving way to an escalation of crimes, the entry of terrorist foreign forces, and the occurrence of daily clashes. The Iraqis no longer know friend from foe?
All these things happened, either by the stupidity of the occupation forces, or else by prior intent and planning. If it would have happened because of mismanagement, poor planning, and confusion, it could have been overcome with time, then corrected….but the program is going on stubbornly, persistently, with the same cadency… a weak interim government, guarded by the occupation army… a weak Army and Police Force, with old weapons, and no technologies…. The American army roams the land and skies of Iraq, using the most sophisticated technology… and the Iraqi police carry an ancient Klashencove, and so is the Army, driving small, miserable, pathetic vehicles, so that one missile could make all passengers fly in the air… while the tank, Helicopter, and Humvee could give more protection to their passengers against accidents, and reduce causalities??
So, there is some contemptuousness and marginalizing to the Iraqi Army and Police… or a plan to keep them incapable of taking control of things…in constant need of another, strong, backing force, to rule the country.
Of course, if three is a strong Iraqi Army that can control clashes and confrontations, a strong Police force to control security and thieves, and a government that is successful in managing the country and economy… the question then would be, from Iraqis and non-Iraqis alike: Here is the country going in the right direction, so, why is the occupation force here??? Ha?
Yes, that is the dangerous question that the Bush administration does not want to hear…
A weak Iraqi army unable to face challenges… a weak Iraqi police force that does not control security and order… and a confused, helpless government, without planning, without authorities, nor a strong budget, nor finance, nor a clear vision to solve the country’s problems… and this is exactly what the occupation force wants…to stay.
How would they leave the country in such a state of disorder, weakness, and collapse??
Whoever person who has an ounce of brains, and quietness in his head would tell them: Stay, do not withdraw, until conditions get better…
Well, now, the all important question: when will conditions get better??? And what has the Bush administration done, in real, clear, tangible steps, for almost one and a half years to make conditions better???
Each one here asks himself the question, for this is the important question now… whether Bush remains in office or not….
This is the question that he should be pursued with night and day…. In all conferences, meetings, and lectures… ask him this question, for all the Iraqi people here… we cannot reach him, nor see him…. You are the ones who can reach him, and ask him, so ask him, if you love the Iraqi people, or have kindness to them, and wish to help them…
Ask him what more did he do, other than speeches and words…. Ask him, in the hope he might take responsibility for those who fell dead here, the innocent, Iraqi civilians, or the military Americans… your boys.
When he has a clear, truthful plan to improve conditions and reduce causalities… cheer him up, and re-elect him.
But if he retold the stories of terrorism, and the war on terrorism, and the same old, boring tune… then you will be joining him in the follies he commits here, and the mismanagement… and be responsible for the victims who will fall because of this mismanagement, and blunders.
A clear vision, and a realistic plan, strong and convincing, is what we need now, after long months of waste, propaganda, lies, and victims….
*****************************************
What is the meaning of Democracy, and participation??? Doesn’t that mean helping each other to overstep the cruel ordeals?? By thinking and discussions to find the suitable solutions? That we do not submit our necks to a fool who wields, makes mistakes, and destroys, exactly as Saddam Hussein did to us??
Didn’t he trick the Iraqis for long years, claming to be the national, savior, hero, meaning the savior of the nation against loss…. How many Arabs and Iraqis believed in him?? How many victims they paid, a price for his follies… and how many long years were lost until the Arabs discovered he was a lying fool, who led the nation to doom, instead of salvation???
Is Bush leading the nation to doom, or salvation???
Do not be led behind him like blind men and fools, and repeat what happened to the Iraqis…open your eyes and minds… so you wouldn’t be sorry when it is too late………..
[This is from a lengthy weblog entry that begins by describing the terrible security situation and then engages the subject of civil war. Worth reading the whole thing.]
Posted by: Pat | Sep 29 2004 7:08 utc | 80
Pat: regime change in Iran means a necessary invasion at ground level, and I don’t see the Army entering Tehran that easily. THat means going through hundreds of miles of mountains and angry locals. And the US Army isn’t positioned for assault on the Iranian border; right now, it’s busily avoiding to be shot in Iraqi cities. I’m really wondering if Iran doesn’t include a land assault on Iraq in the retaliation against an airstrike; sure, they would eventually be repelled and crushed, but that would disrupt and mess up the Iraqi occupation to the point of unsustainability.
I’m with Steve Gilliard on this: if someone speaks of attacking Iran and sending the troops to Tehran, you have to wonder if he doesn’t want to destroy the US military.
Posted by: CluelessJoe | Sep 29 2004 8:55 utc | 81
Confirming the view of Faiza posted by Pat there is an article in todays WaPo Taking On Sadr City in a Pickup Truck
Five armoured Humwees with GIs and a pickup with Iraq Army guys patroling in Sadr city. They are attacked, all Iraqis die, all GIs survive. Pure cannon fodder to sustain the occupation.
An interesting bit in the article displays the view of the GIs towards their Iraqi buddies.
Behind the Nissan, Sgt. Anthony Stewart, 31, of Sumter, S.C., sat in his Humvee, watching the Iraqi guardsmen. Two were sitting in the rear bed of the pickup; one was swigging water spiked with rehydration powder that the U.S. soldiers had given him. But he was spitting the water into the dirt.
“Look at those guys, they don’t know how to drink it,” said Stewart. He said later that he thought about getting out of the Humvee and walking over to explain that they needed to swallow the powdered water for it to be effective.
Look, they even don´t know how to drink!
Posted by: b | Sep 29 2004 12:11 utc | 82
@B:
Interesting map link you posted there at 0836.
Everyone out to take a glance at it.
Posted by: FlashHarry | Sep 29 2004 13:11 utc | 84
Damn, why is it that always the innocent have to pay for guys like Bush?
The war’s littlest victim – He was exposed to depleted uranium. His daughter may be paying the price.
It looks that as if even Republicans are becoming unhappy with Bush. A comment by the son of former President Eisenhower.
Another View:
Why I will vote for John Kerry for President
Posted by: Fran | Sep 29 2004 15:18 utc | 85
@CluelessJoe
I don’t disagree. I have to occasionally reconfirm to myself that a ground assault on Iran remains a very remote possibility.
But as Wretchard at Belmont Club and others note: against Iran and its nuclearization program, the administration is three down with five seconds to go.
Posted by: Pat | Sep 29 2004 17:06 utc | 86
As mentioned in Pat’s post at 2:25 AM, the war against the happy talk comes from State, CIA, and the uniformed military. That’s the war I keep going back to, with no great confidence that it’s amounting to much. It’s a push-back against the neo-cons, of course, and hence against AIPAC, and for this reason alone it can’t go public. It has to be fought, I suppose, on paper–capturing funds and budgets, for example–and it also assumes the kind of instant and accurate cross-bureaucratic traffic that Richard Clarke excels in. I persist in thinking that it has to be coordinated, however loosely; that Powell’s office is its obvious point of convergence; that it will continue unabated past the elections; and that its main aim, practically speaking, must be the isolation of the neo-cons. But could it also go public at some point, showing exactly how the neo-cons have done their thing, and to what good end? It’s hard to read the invisible! Any bureaucrats among us who know how?
Posted by: alabama | Sep 29 2004 17:39 utc | 87
From cookpolitical.com:
The Debates, Iraq Last Obstacles in Bush’s Path
[…]Bush is ahead and will likely win this election unless worsening news in Iraq upsets his campaign’s applecart or Kerry manages to use the debates to change the momentum of this race. Economic news is unlikely to change the race in its final weeks, because Americans have already chosen up sides on the economy. The same is true for health care, federal budget deficits, and military service during the Vietnam War.
Besides the Democrats’ squandering of their window of opportunity to reach voters during the Democratic convention and Kerry’s being mugged by the Swift Boat Veterans, what has altered in this race over the past 90 days or so is that Americans increasingly see the war in Iraq as a part of the global war on terrorism. And they are not judging Bush on the wisdom of having attacked Iraq or on his administration’s management of the war. If this view holds, he wins. If it doesn’t, he loses.
Because of the lack of a clear connection between Iraq and 9/11, the failure to find evidence of weapons of mass destruction, and the widespread feeling in this country that while our military did a fabulous job of invading Iraq and driving Saddam Hussein out of power, there was no coherent plan to manage the occupation, if Bush is judged solely on the basis of Iraq, his re-election prospects are in very deep trouble.
Last week, I heard someone ask a West Point graduate who is a veteran of two tours in Vietnam and has recently returned from Iraq what the difference is between Iraq and Vietnam. His answer: “Fewer trees.” He went on to describe a situation that could only charitably be described as a disaster — an occupation colossally mismanaged.
Yet, the Bush administration’s effort to weave the war in Iraq into the broader tapestry of the war on terrorism began to work over the summer, in part because of Chechen terrorists’ deadly siege at a Russian school.
If the question is whether the news from Iraq will get better or worse between now and November 2, the answer is that it will almost certainly get worse. The more germane question is whether the beheadings of Americans and the increased U.S. military casualties in recent weeks will weaken or reinforce the American public’s sense that the war in Iraq is a legitimate part of the war on terrorism.[…]
Posted by: Pat | Sep 29 2004 17:45 utc | 88
[…]Bush is ahead and will likely win this election unless worsening news in Iraq upsets his campaign’s applecart or Kerry manages to use the debates to change the momentum of this race.
What, these debates? Fat Chance!
Posted by: æ | Sep 29 2004 18:02 utc | 89
About those beheadings…
M. Ledeen made one point recently with which I absolutely agree: The grisly videos are aimed at an Arab audience. They are recruitment tools, and judging by rumors of brisk DVD sales in the region, they are effective recruitment tools.
Might they be effective here at home also? Not to garner support for the kidnappers, but to ratchet up support for Iraq as a part of the so-called War on Terror? I’m not suggesting that Zarqawi is in cahoots with Karl Rove (though with Zarqawi on the loose and free to produce home movies a year and a half into this clusterfuck, I won’t hold it against anyone for believing this might in fact be the case). Our resources in Iraq are alarmingly thin, split mainly between that theater and South Asia. You can’t use what’s not on hand. And though everything that we learn makes our efforts going forward more effective, those resources can’t keep up with business. This is the fault of the Bush administration and no one else’s, but the administration’s failures, as manifest in the case of Zarqawi, can be valuable reinforcers of administration claims to be fighting an essentially counterterror war in Iraq. Zarqawi’s continued visibility, and each of his subsequent victims, may help rather than hurt Bush, as indicated in the Cook Political article. Though it increases public pressure on the administration to at least appear to be doing something effective, this is not the same thing as increased public pressure to wrap up and come home. (I imagine that pressure is coming from elsewhere.)
Posted by: Pat | Sep 29 2004 18:45 utc | 90
Sorry to interrupt but I have a quick question for the open off-topic thread:
A republican friend I had long ago given up on just sent me an alarmed e-mail about drug company mark-ups (into 1000s percentiles). Can I get a link to something really stunning that shows the republican/pharma orgy? Some reading that might open her eyes?
Posted by: beq | Sep 29 2004 19:28 utc | 91
There’s only one thing I want Kerry to do, in expiry, in tomorrow’s ‘debate’: renounce every claim that Bush makes about the War as not merely a lie, but a serial persistence by Bush to misapprehend reality.
It is still posasible to expose Bush as a megomaniacal dolt.
Posted by: slothrop | Sep 29 2004 19:36 utc | 92
Poll: 2/3 of Americans favor Mideast neutrality
——————————————————————————–
Janine Zacharia, THE JERUSALEM POST Sep. 29, 2004
——————————————————————————–
Just less than two-thirds of Americans – 64 percent – feel the US should make a major effort to be evenhanded in its approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as part of American efforts to combat international terrorism, a new survey released Tuesday shows.
The poll of American attitudes towards global issues, commissioned by the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations, found that only 17% of Americans believe the US should take Israel’s side in the conflict, and 74% said the US should take no side. It also found that only 39% of Americans perceive the Israeli-Arab conflict as a “critical threat” to US interests, a drop of 24% from a previous survey in 2002.
Overall, Americans seemed to feel safer with regard to international terrorism and other threats, pollsters said. “The public, since the summer of 2002, seems to feel less threatened,” said Benjamin Page, a professor of political science at Northwestern University. He said the “Middle East is not such a top priority to Americans as it was two years ago.”
The survey found very slim support among Americans for US-led democratization efforts in the Middle East. Only 35% of Americans believe the US should put greater pressure on Middle Eastern countries like Egypt and Saudi Arabia to democratize, versus 57% who do not believe the US should apply pressure.
Americans have a very “limited appetite” for democratization efforts, said James Steinberg of the Brookings Institution.
Only 14% said bringing a democratic form of governance to other countries was a very important goal of US foreign policy, the smallest percentage in a list of goals, which was topped by 78% saying protecting jobs of American workers, 73% saying preventing the spread of nuclear weapons, and 71% saying combating international terrorism.[…]
Posted by: Pat | Sep 29 2004 19:58 utc | 93
THE SHEEPLE HAVE MAD COW DISEASE
And It’s Terminal.
Posted by: USDA Alert | Sep 29 2004 20:14 utc | 94
Well, that’s pretty impressive, that last poll. So, this means that something like 83% of the US Congress represents the tiny 17% minority?
Pat: Well, I didn’t mean to say they won’t attack Iran; they may well do it. It’s just that it would be completely foolish and one of the dumbest and most suicidal moves this administration ever did. Given their records, the odds they do it are substantial.
Beheadings: I think they have several purposes. Recruitment tool is obvious – the Algerian islamists did this 10 years ago. Then, since it’s widely aimed and distributed in the local Iraqi market, it is a way to show the Iraqi people they’re not as powerless as they feel (more or less same reaction and purpose than showing 5-tons US bombs blasting Evil Muslims had on the Americans traumatised by 9/11). And the last purpose is probably a warning to every potential collaborator: work with the US and you’ll end up like them. Apparently, there are many vids that aren’t shown here because they just involve Iraqi officials and military, which confirms that most of them are aimed at the Iraqis and not the Westerners.
Posted by: Clueless Joe | Sep 29 2004 20:20 utc | 95
@Pat
You seem rather certain that Bush will claim victory in the election. Why? Awkwardly skewed polls, Diebold, and post-debate spin suggest the most likely answers, but this administration is losing allies fast.
Posted by: Citizen | Sep 29 2004 20:38 utc | 96
anna missed asked to relay these links:
Cheney changed his view on Iraq
In the Northwest: Bush-Cheney flip-flops cost America in blood
Posted by: b | Sep 29 2004 20:41 utc | 97
@Citizen, Pat
The election result will be negotiated in closed court rooms. The campaigns know this and have positioned their armies.
Posted by: b | Sep 29 2004 20:49 utc | 98
b – did you not open a new thread, briefly? Strange…
Have you noticed any uptick in traffic over here since Billmon’s latest announcement? And since your call for more action a month ago?
Posted by: Jérôme | Sep 29 2004 20:53 utc | 99
@Citizen
Kerry’s a bad candidate. Wrong guy at the wrong place at the wrong time, to swipe a phrase.
I would have liked to see the Democratic Party lose for a worthy cause, with a candidate who straightforwardly challenges not only the Bush Doctrine, but the the established foreign and defense policy trends that it arose from. I’d still like to see that. It could be a loss that bears fruit.
I don’t want to hear haggling over mere details; I wanna see a sledgehammer taken to the body of ideas that have brought us to where we are now. I want to see American interventionism, American expansionism, the bloody whimsy of American constabularism bludgeoned in broad daylight. I want to see a presidential candidate who goes about this business with the same seriousness, the same hard-headedness, the same matter-of-fact ruthlessness as any soldier on any field of battle.
I wouldn’t mind losing, if the battle were worth it.
Now I don’t care about winning, because it’s not.
Posted by: Pat | Sep 29 2004 23:20 utc | 100