News, views, opinons …
Back to Main
November 28, 2004
NVO – Thread
Comments
“Congress controls the federal judiciary,” Rep. Hostettler was quoted as saying. “If Congress wants to, it can refer all cases to the state courts. Congress can say the federal courts have limited power to enforce their decision.”
Apparently, the Hoosier congressman has not heard of the balance of power among the three arms of our government. He was quoted as telling the Christian Coalition members:
“When the courts make unconstitutional decisions, we should not enforce them. Federal courts have no army or navy… The court can opine, decide, talk about, sing, whatever it wants to do. We’re not saying they can’t do that. At the end of the day, we’re saying the court can’t enforce its opinions.”
sigh.
I have been watching the news about Ukraine all week with a weird sense of disconnect. Thousands of citizens in the streets and Colin Powell proclaiming election fraud.
And here in the US, we sit in our houses eating turkey while the new regime polishes off the courts and purges the secret service. Evil Empire R Us.
One could pray for a surprise end-run in the electoral college (notice the football metaphor, it’s all we got).
Posted by: catlady | Nov 28 2004 19:47 utc | 2
Occasionally something fantastic is accomplished. Paralyzed Woman Walks Again After Stem Cell Therapy Short on details, but she’d been paralyzed for 20 yrs. after injuring her spinal chord. They were able to repair it. This is astonishing. The argument had always been that scar tissue preventing the transmission of signals from the brain and they didn’t know what to do about all the scar tissue.
Hopefully experimentation on a wider scale will begin……Wounded soldiers come to mind……
No, of course this work wasn’t done in some backwater like America. It was done in Korea.
Posted by: jj | Nov 28 2004 22:10 utc | 3
jj
thanks for the stem cell article.
believe me, nothing like the hope of ambulation to brighten some peoples’ day.
Posted by: slothrop | Nov 28 2004 22:17 utc | 4
So Bush talked on the phone to Paisley and Adams,,,,,,,,,,,,, Blair is trying to sell big time favours to the cretin-in-chief…………. If the Media start saying Bush is the peacemaker in NI, we are well and truly 1984 fucked.
Posted by: Cloned Poster | Nov 28 2004 22:19 utc | 5
@CP:
No Problemo CP. El Lider couldn’t find NI on a map.
Posted by: FlashHarry | Nov 29 2004 1:15 utc | 6
I imagine “everyone” has already looked at Raimondo’s take on
the Yushchenko Mythos but just in case someone hasn’t I mention that it is yet another example of a “rightist” analysis
that could have been written by one of our resident Marxists.
Posted by: Hannah K. O’Luthon | Nov 29 2004 7:52 utc | 7
It recently dawned on me that Lind’s comparison could be more ominous than that if things really turned bad. The Athenian fleet was blocked in the great harbour then destroyed, and the troops’ only hope of escape was to walk away for days to the nearest ally town – most were killed or captured during the retreat. Iran could well hit hard the navy in the Persian Gulf, then seal it, stopping the esiest exit road, cutting up a major supply route for the US troops, and shutting off the oil supply. Then, the US troops would have to run fast for Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Turkey or Jordan, hoping that these regimes wouldn’t be toppled by islamists. Not to mention the whole retreat would be Berezina-like since it would be the Baghdad airport death road all along.
Though that’s the worst-case scenario and not the likeliest so far, I think.
Posted by: CluelessJoe | Nov 29 2004 16:24 utc | 10
Sy Hersh on what to expect.
Hersh’s message is simple and frightening: “(George W.) Bush is an ideologue, a Utopian,” Hersh said. “He wants to clean out the Middle East and install democracy. He doesn’t care how many body bags come back home. There’s nothing more dangerous than an ideologue who is completely bonkers and no one is going to tell him.”
Bush is committed to perpetual war
Posted by: beq | Nov 29 2004 17:44 utc | 11
@CluelessJoe
Bush would nuke Teheran and the Persians know. The can much easier work the subtle way. They have all the cards in their hand.
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (But Mostly Just Bad and Ugly)
Jim Henley at Unqualified Offerings (www.highclearing.com), under the Nov 28 post “Would Knight-Ridder Please Buy a Paper in Washington?” has a link to one of Tom Lasseter’s Herald-Enquirer dispatches from Fallujah. My, how things have changed since the march up to Baghdad. There’s a reason why Rumsfeld loves Special Ops and small-footprint warfare; too bad the job in Iraq is the wrong size for them. Too bad conventional forces are stuck chewing a shit sandwich. I imagine the taste lingers a very long time.
An exerpt:
Standing in the rubble, the soldiers gathered the AK-47s and RPGs left by the group of fighters who’d fled.
The house, yet another in a line of dozens if not hundreds, was blown apart by Bradley and Abrams tank fire. “It’s intense, that’s about all there is to say,” said Spc. John Bandy, 23, of Little Rock, Ark. “The determination these guys have against our forces, these little bands of guys shooting at tanks, it’s almost admirable.”
He took a long drag from his cigarette. Bullets were in the air. Artillery shells whooshed by, on their way to punching a hole in some building or person.
A sofa survived the shelling, and some men were sitting on it, taking a breather. They could see into the next house through holes in the wall.
The cat and mouse pursuit, insurgents flitting from one spot to the next, a step ahead of heavily armored vehicles and the infantry, made the men angrier.
Increasingly, they turned to Laird, a forward observer for the artillery, and asked him to pound a house with 155 mm shells.
“We trained to fight a country with armor on a field,” Laird said. “These guys shoot at us, drop their weapons and become a civilian again.”
The men picked up their weapons and jogged to the next house. Spc. Fredrick Ofori was in the lead. A 24-year-old from Ghana, whose family moved to New York looking for work, Ofori’s face was drawn tightly, without emotion, as usual. His lithe, compact body showed muscle at every movement.
Wright teased him about not going out to clubs back in Vilseck, about not throwing down drinks with his buddies and picking up women. “That is your life,” Ofori would respond. “It is not for me.”
Ofori said more than once that getting a Combat Infantryman’s Badge meant little to him. The ribbons, he said, were for talking, and he was here to fight so he could go home.
He respected the insurgents, he said, for their willingness to fight to the death.
The streets outside were littered with dead men, their corpses left for cats and dogs to gnaw on after the sun set. The sight of bearded insurgents, eyes open, lying in gutters was no longer a novelty.
Walking through the house, Ofori turned his gun toward a doorway. Shots rang out. A fighter in the room had been waiting with a grenade in hand. He’d probably been listening the entire time as the men sat on the sofa next door, their voices wafting through the holes in the wall.
When he jumped forward, he didn’t scream “Allahu Akbar” – God is Great – as insurgents often did. He moved in silence, until Ofori’s fire blew him back. Ofori looked down for a few seconds and walked out of the room. The soldiers behind him went inside to ogle. “Damn, look at Hajji,” one said.
Posted by: Pat | Nov 29 2004 20:09 utc | 13
Ibrahim Ebeid, at al-moharer.net, has a blueprint for “genuine peace and security.” It’s quite simple, really:
The election in Palestine will never represent the Palestinian people for the simple reason that a free election that truly would represent the Palestinian people would be achieved when Palestine is liberated from the river to the sea and the Palestinians in the Diaspora return home to establish their Democratic State.
The Iraqi National Resistance and the Leadership of Iraq -under Saddam Hussein- are the legitimate ones to lead Iraq under freedom and democracy, a democracy, which genuinely springs from the people of Iraq and is not imposed upon them by Imperialism and Zionism. This Revolutionary Democracy will be achieved when Occupation is defeated and Iraq is liberated.
A true International progressive and peaceful movement realizes that genuine peace and security would come when the followings are recognized:
1. Palestine is Arab and it belongs to the Palestinian people.
2. The Palestinians have the right to go back to their homes from which they were evicted by force in 1948.
3. The Palestinians have the right to choose their leadership without any foreign influence.
4. The Palestinians have the right to establish their democratic state in historic Palestine that extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the Jordan River.
5. Those who came to Palestine for colonization purposes should return to the country of origin.
The Palestinians have the right to achieve all the above by all means.
The International progressive and peaceful movements must recognize that:
1. The Iraqi Leadership under Saddam Hussein is the legitimate one and not that of Allawi and the imposed ones by Washington,
2. The Iraqis have the right to resist the occupation by all means available to liberate Iraq and keep it united.
3. All prisoners of war must be released and the legitimate Leadership must be restored.
4. All the invading forces must withdraw immediately and unconditionally.
5. Iraq must be compensated for all the damages and suffering it has endured under occupation.
Posted by: Pat | Nov 29 2004 21:05 utc | 14
OK, I will ask.
Why have you posted these last two items, Pat?
Were you rolling around on the floor laughing as you put the second one up? The chances of any of that stuff happening are pretty slim IMO.
Posted by: dan of steele | Nov 29 2004 22:21 utc | 15
Pat must really get off on Iraqis being killed by Americans in Iraq. To lovingly type in a post that has as its pay-off line a comment about someone being killed in their own city while taking on numerically and technologically superior invading forces has got to be one of the sickest, weirdest kinds of fetishes we’ve seen laid out here. I hope she doesn’t masturbate as she’s typing that stuff, the thought that she likes it is repulsive enough.
Posted by: Disgusted | Nov 29 2004 22:34 utc | 16
The thing I don’t get is why people even bother to respond. What is her point? I think she is a sadist sicko who gets off on pushing people’s buttons. Not mine, no more. Enough. There are more constructive issues to deal with rather than fall through the divisiveness looking glass.
Posted by: Enough already | Nov 29 2004 23:01 utc | 17
Disgusted
that certainly is not my impression, given the preface pat provided to introduce the article.
Posted by: slothrop | Nov 29 2004 23:02 utc | 18
I think that Pat looks at the situation more dispassionately than most here do..or rather, with more compassion for the troops than most here have.
I think that Bush and his crew are guilty of violating the nuremberg principles (at the least), and their policies make me retch.
If I were a soldier, I don’t know how I’d feel or what I’d think. I doubt I could ever be a soldier in the first place to know those things simply because of my views of things in the world.
I think it’s a mistake to romanticize anything about war, no matter what said you’re talking about, because war seems to come down, too often, to basic survival of your own self, no matter what side of any issue you’re own.
From what I understand about Falllujah, the guerilla leaders got out, and only people who were committed to suicide, for lack of a better way to put it, stayed to fight, along with those who were forced to stay because of their particular circumstances.
So, there are American troops forced to fight for a lie of the Bush administration, and the fodder end of the guerilla fighters, and citizens caught in between, seems to me.
Another tragedy the powerful thrust upon the rest of us.
Posted by: fauxreal | Nov 29 2004 23:47 utc | 19
Why have you posted these last two items, Pat?
Were you rolling around on the floor laughing as you put the second one up? The chances of any of that stuff happening are pretty slim IMO.
Posted by: dan of steele | November 29, 2004 05:21 PM
The Lasseter article provides a glimpse of the toll that operations like Fallujah take. It’s straight reporting and not dressed up to anyone’s liking.
No, I wasn’t rolling on the floor, laughing, at the second exerpt. I find it interesting. I wish we knew more about the resistance, don’t you? I certainly think we ought to know more.
Posted by: Pat | Nov 30 2004 3:02 utc | 20
For anyone else stuck on the fixed election – No, Wayne Madsen was NOT blowing smoke. He does have a copy of the $29M check used to fix the election. Keith Olbermann neither has a clue what he’s talking about, nor is he a journo. Obviously, Wayne isn’t naming his sources or they’d be dead by now. That’s how the Bush Mobsters do business. Karl really wants to know who’s talking.
He’s been meeting w/Dems, Kerry people all weekend. Might be getting Palast’s help. The Really Good News is that Dumbo is so arrogant that he’s already moved to purge the CIA. I’ve always had faith in fucked over CIA agents who know that the Republic is on the line. Seems some of them might be interested in lending a hand. It’s always helpful to have skilled folks around!!
The states he was told about being rigged are the biggies, that were either crucial for electoral votes or were big so he could steal lotsa votes & claim mandate – Ohio, Fla, Tx & Ca.
2 Other pts. of particular interest – code modified by foreigners – Mexicans, Russians & Brazilians. If anyone knows anyone who knows anything about any of these companies outsourcing to Brazil it would be helpful. Also, he said BushDaddy involved. He’s not sure about Jimbo Baker.
If you want to know any more that I might have forgotten, he answered ?s @DU. Go Here
One other thing – the way it worked is that retired FBI guys used their passes to get the techies in to do the work.
KEEP THE FAITH!! Of course, the prob. is that the electoral college meets 12/13!!
Also, he said a lot of why MSM won’t touch it is jealousy – if it’s not their story – see Pentagon Papers, or “watergate” – fuckit. Also, when asked what we could do, he said “Think Kiev”. There was a demo. in front of WH last wk – 30 people showed up.
Posted by: jj | Nov 30 2004 4:30 utc | 21
@Pat
Do you have any information that points towards Ibrahim Ebeid, at al-moharer.net being being influential in the resistance or being typical of the views in the resistance?
I don´t know anything about him or this site he is at.
Posted by: A swedish kind of death | Nov 30 2004 11:36 utc | 22
Dear Hannah K. O’Luthon,
Raimondo is an example how to lie by not telling the whole truth. It’s right in this paragraph:
Let’s start with the central figures in this drama: the two Viktors – Yushchenko and Yanukovich. To begin with, you’ll note that the former has a website in English, while the latter’s site is only in the native Ukrainian and Russian. Yushchenko’s audience is primarily the West, while Yanukovich is speaking to his own people. Right off the bat, the line of demarcation is drawn.
Please notice which facts he gives to his readers:
1) Yushchenko has one website in English
2) Yanukowich’s website is both in Ukrainian and Russian
3) one of these uses the native language of the country
Raimondo chooses particular facts and constructs his sentences in such a way as to make people think that:
1) Yushchenko has a website ONLY in English
2) Yanukowich’s native language is Ukrainian
4) Yanukovich does not use other (Western?) languages
The facts that Raimondo should give to his readers are as follows:
1) Yushchenko’s website has three versions:
http://www.yuschenko.com.ua/ukr/ – Ukrainian,
http://www.yuschenko.com.ua/rus/ – Russian,
http://www.yuschenko.com.ua/eng/ – English
The main language of his site is in fact Ukrainian, just go to http://www.yuschenko.com.ua .
2) Yanukovich himself prefers to speak in Russian rather than in Ukrainian (I do not have the link at hand)
3) Yanukovich promised in his campaign to make Russian an official language (article in Polish)
Why would this be important at all? Raimondo uses the language issue to create mistrust in Yushchenko as a popular leader. At the same time ha paints Yanukovich as a native candidate. Then he proceeds with his argumentation, that Yuschenko is a foreign stooge.
Posted by: MarcinGomulka | Nov 30 2004 21:23 utc | 23
@A swedish kind of death
No, I don’t. Ibrahim Ebeid, assistant editor of the Australia-based al-moharer, is an ardent supporter of the Iraqi resistance and contributor to the extreme left-wing network that is willing to take up the cause of militants (such as de-throned Ba’athists) fighting the good fight of anti-Zionism, anti-Americanism, anti-globalization, and whatever else appeals to the soul of the socialist revolutionary. (If Osama bin Laden were a Marxist rather than a religious zealot, the far left would be organizing rallies and conferences in support of al Qaeda, rather than insisting that it’s a convenient tool of the American administration and/or creation of Zionist conspirators. But radical Islamists, too, can be useful, even if you don’t want to hoist their banner yourself. The enemy of my enemy, and all that.)
The Iraqi resistance is an able and sophisticated creature fighting for more, I presume, than simply the ejection of the imperialist occupier. That many sympathetic Westerners exhibit little curiosity about this resistance – its politics, its ideology, its various motives and aims, its leadership, its international support – is a little curious in itself. Skepticism and cynicism (and paranoia) regarding American motives is the rule, whereas uncritical, unwary, and finally uninformed acceptance of the benign nature of the resistance is also the rule. How can this be? If the future of Iraq is the object of the battle, then what future does the resistance offer to the Iraqis themselves? A future free of an American presence, to be sure, but is this all? Is this the extent of the resistance agenda, and of our interest in the resistance?
Posted by: Pat | Nov 30 2004 21:45 utc | 24
we could say the same about those sympathetic to the public goals of this administration as well. generalizations tell us more about the generalizer than they providing any useful critique or food for thought. tariq ali, for one, wrote a useful account of what fuels this resistance. such little faith… tsk tsk
Posted by: b real | Nov 30 2004 23:10 utc | 25
i agree. articles that have been published about the “resistance” have indicated that there is a wide array within the movement – from those who are motivated by political, nationalistic, or religious ideology or goals to the father who lost a son and a brother and has turned to revenge to simple defense of one’s home or neighborhood. my guess is that if you profiled the leaders of the movement you would find as much disparity as in the democratic party – comparing joe lieberman to howard dean for example.
Posted by: conchita | Nov 30 2004 23:31 utc | 26
I would guess that the common agenda of the resistance is to get the Americans out, but that from that point on they don´t have a common agenda. Remember that in the Iranian revolution the communists where fighting side by side with the mullahs against the Shah. As you say the friend of my friend.
I would further guess that the result of this war is that the US will pull out (I think the US lost this war over a year ago) and that after some time of civil war a dictator will emerge. This guess isn´t based on any knowledge of the structure or intentions of the resistance (and I think they will mainly decide what kind of dictatorship they will get) but on the observation that ones people start solving their differences with guns it is hard to stop.
The only possibility for a stable and democratic Iraq- that I can see at this point – would be a scenario that goes like this:
a) the elections are held in January in the parts of the country where it is possible
b) the Sistani-sponsored Shia party wins big time
c) one of the first decisions the parliament does is to revoke any invitation to the Coalition and ask them to leave within a week or so (contrary to Pepe Escobar I think Sistani knows that this has to be done if they are not to lose their support)
d) the Bush administration – in a fit of reality-based thinking – decides it is better to declare victory and leave
e) the parliament declares that they are not representative of the whole people of Iraq
f) UN-negotiators are called in and a settlement of power-sharing and checks and balances is made between the Shiite government, the Kurdish north and the Sunni rebels. New constitution is drafted and new elections held.
But I don´t think there will be any stable and democratic Iraq any time soon as you can all see the probability of the steps above.
Posted by: A swedish kind of death | Dec 1 2004 1:39 utc | 27
@ swedish
The Bush administration – in a fit of reality based thinking……..
Really?
I recently have decided to wrap myself around the neo-con notion of perpetual war as the likely objective. While it’s a little like buying into a conspiracy theory (which I avoid), it is a notion forwarded from the neo-cons horses- mouth itself, and goes some distance in explaning 1) all the contradictory, falling all over itself tactical and diplomatic machinations on the ground in Iraq, keeping the war ball rolling, through defult, 2) the easy(er) implimentation of military (industrial) buildup in the US, 3) the greater political fortunes gained through war president / war culture, and the silencing of critism, 4) the rollback of civil liberties and greater government / corporate control of the media, and 5) the fact that the neo-con architects of the war are all still in their positions of power– never taken to task for the seemingly endless failures, diplomatic and tactical — and are still — pointing to success — just around the corner.
If the war is working so well for them, why would they ever give it (&theoil) up?
Posted by: anna missed | Dec 1 2004 4:40 utc | 28
@A swedish kind of death
I don’t think the outcome is inevitable even at this point, but it doesn’t look good for the US. And there aren’t that many more innings to go, maybe twelve months to pull out a “win.” If January to July look bad, I think we can just start heading for the parking lot to beat the end-of-game rush.
All the time, all the energy, all the manpower and resources, all the begging, borrowing, haggling, pleading, arm-twisting, all the debt, all the destruction, all the lives lost and broken. And for the next forty years we may very well be filling our bookshelves with endless volumes on what went wrong. It really is depressing to think about.
Picking a fight that needn’t be fought is awful. Picking a fight that needn’t be fought and then having your ass handed to you – well, that’s about as bad as it gets.
But for American Democrats, at least it will have taken place entirely under Republican leadership. I presume the Republicans shall then have their asses handed to them.
Posted by: Pat | Dec 1 2004 4:59 utc | 29
” I presume the Republicans shall then have their asses handed to them.” – Pat
Hello, Pat, anyone home?????? Bu$hCo just had their asses handed to them on Nov 2. Don’t you get what’s going on in America now?????? Lew Rockwell.com just published Paul Craig Robert’s article comparing these guys to Nazis – in fact that was the lead-in headline. This from a far-right conservative, former Assoc. ed. of WSJ. Fascist Mobsters have seized control of the US. We don’t have free elections anymore. Helllllooooo??????
Posted by: Anonymous | Dec 1 2004 5:16 utc | 30
@ MarcinGomulka
Thanks for the detailed response to the link to
Raimondo’s article. You are obviously much more
informed on this matter than I (or Raimondo).
I would suggest that you send your comments, perhaps with further elaboration, to antiwar.com
to see what sort of “dialogue” (or diatribe) develops.
I still find it striking that rightist Raimondo’s criticism seems to be a page from a Marxist catechism.
I confess that I am reflexively dubious about anyone the western media lionizes, and similarly doubtful about agreed upon villains. There seems to me to be something fishy about the heavy play being given by the international media (e.g. the BBC) to this (admittedly important) internal Ukrainian dispute.
Posted by: Hannah K. O’Luthon | Dec 1 2004 5:38 utc | 31
“Fascist Mobsters have seized control of the US. We don’t have free elections anymore. Helllllooooo??????”
Oooookay then. You face some serious choices, don’t you? Begin organizing for the armed resistance/overthrow/secession. Or move elsewhere. Or become newly absorbed in your own little anthill.
I can’t imagine what else there is, options-wise. Can you?
Posted by: Pat | Dec 1 2004 5:53 utc | 32
Precisely how does Denying the Reality of the Situation create options rather than fantasies?
Posted by: jj | Dec 1 2004 5:58 utc | 33
Probably not the most feasible thing at the moment, but I can imagine two possible outcomes of the Iraq mess:
a) the US political elites learn some humility and start some productive soul-searching instead of looking for a set of self-glorifying lies
b) the countries that have the power to change the UN realize that, beyond the usual rhetoric, the UN could really be the best hope of mankind, and they start reforming some of the UN’s most blatant structural defects.
Actually, much of what the Repubs accused the UN of is true: it is partly corrupt, its recent track record is pretty bad, and when push comes to shove militarily, everybody starts calling for the US – and will use them as a scapegoat if things don’t go according to plan. And Old Europe also has much to answer for.
I wouldn’t let Bushco off the hook, but they are not the only greedy liars, ahem, political players in this game.
Posted by: teuton | Dec 1 2004 13:41 utc | 34
Go jj.
I have seen denial up close and it is ugly. The cure is long and painful and uncertain.
Posted by: rapt | Dec 1 2004 14:38 utc | 35