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June 3, 2006
Weekend OT
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Anthony H. Cordesman is a bit pissed with Defense Department
Give the Defense Department an F
[T]he quarterly report to Congress issued May 30 by the Department of Defense, “Measuring Stability and Security in Iraq,” like the weekly reports the State Department issues on Iraq, is profoundly flawed. It does more than simply spin the situation to provide false assurances to lawmakers and the public. It makes basic analytical and statistical mistakes, fails to define key terms, provides undefined and unverifiable survey information and deals with key issues by omission. It deserves an overall grade of F.
The report provides a fundamentally false picture of the political situation in Iraq and of the difficulties ahead. It does not prepare Congress or the American people for the years of effort that will be needed even under “best-case” conditions nor for the risk of far more serious forms of civil conflict. Some of its political reporting is simply incompetent.
…
for those of you who don’t know about Driftglass he has a wonderful post up about the current admin contrasted with a fine old Kubrick movie called “Paths of Glory”
most excellent.
Posted by: dan of steele | Jun 3 2006 12:28 utc | 2
Wen Ho Lee has reached a settlement in his lawsuit against the federal government and news agencies for violating his privacy rights while under investigation for being a spy. Mr. Lee lost his job, his reputation and racked up huge legal bills as a result of the accusations — which were later found to be greatly exaggerated. In a case of deja vu, a Chinese scientist at a state lab in Albany, NY recently lost his job (and his wife was placed on leave from her job) after being accused of
illegally purchasing weapons — a charge which was later dismissed. Note that his firing was justified on the pretext of misusing his work computer to visit the ESPN website too often — a criteria by which a large chunk of the state workforce would be fired. And then there is the ongoing terrorism case against the Albany imam and the pizza shop owner which has had its own evidentiary shortcomings. And to top it all off, the Albany FBI head has just been promoted. Are we feeling any safer yet?
9 months in solitary. A ruined career. National humiliation. 1.6 million seems like jack-shit, probably barely enough to cover his legal bills.
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Jun 3 2006 14:41 utc | 4
@dan of steele
Some of us knew full-well what it would probably be like to have a vicious, stupid, cowardly Imperial CEO, buffered from scrutiny by a gutless, complicit Republican Congress.
Yep. Good read, parts I and II, thanks…
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Jun 3 2006 15:15 utc | 5
Looks like little Stephen Harper has studied the script well. Oh my! There are terrorists in Canada.
Hang on friends in the north, you know what is coming next. You have seen it all unfold below the 49th parallel in the last 5 years.
Posted by: dan of steele | Jun 3 2006 16:24 utc | 6
Robert Fisk: The way Americans like their war
Could Haditha be just the tip of the mass grave?
The corpses we have glimpsed, the grainy footage of the cadavers and the dead children; could these be just a few of many? Does the handiwork of the United States’ army of the slums go further?
I remember clearly the first suspicions I had that murder most foul might be taking place in our name in Iraq. I was in the Baghdad mortuary, counting corpses, when one of the city’s senior medical officials, an old friend, told me of his fears. “Everyone brings bodies here,” he said. “But when the Americans bring bodies in, we are instructed that under no circumstances are we ever to do post-mortems. We were given to understand that this had already been done. Sometimes we’d get a piece of paper like this one with a body.” And here the man handed me a U.S. military document showing with the hand-drawn outline of a man’s body and the words “trauma wounds.”
What kind of trauma is now being experienced in Iraq? Just who is doing the mass killing? Who is dumping so many bodies on garbage heaps? After Haditha, we are going to reshape our suspicions.
…
I suspect part of the problem is that we never really cared about Iraqis, which is why we refused to count their dead. Once the Iraqis turned upon the army of occupation with their roadside bombs and suicide cars, they became Arab “gooks,” the evil sub-humans whom the Americans once identified in Vietnam. Get a president to tell us that we are fighting evil and one day we wil
…
Already the horrors of Abu Ghraib are shrugged away. It was abuse, not torture. And then up pops a junior officer in the United States charged for killing an Iraqi army general by stuffing him upside down in a sleeping bag and sitting on his chest. And again, it gets few headlines. Who cares if another Iraqi bites the dust? Aren’t they trying to kill our boys who are out there fighting terror.
For who can be held to account when we regard ourselves as the brightest, the most honorable of creatures, doing endless battle with the killers of Sept. 11 or July 7 because we love our country and our people — but not other people — so much. And so we dress ourselves up as Galahads, yes as Crusaders, and we tell those whose countries we invade that we are going to bring them democracy. I can’t help wondering today how many of the innocents slaughtered in Haditha took the opportunity to vote in the Iraqi elections — before their “liberators” murdered them.
… We have terrorists in Switzerland too. Our ex-Chief of Police has been threatened with death by some Egyptian nut and is now walking about with bodyguards. Even though she was not re-elected and no longer officiates.
And then there is…Covassi.
He is a Thai boxer, a ladies man, and holds a 4 yr. degree in philosophy, was a good student. (Perfect profile!)
Involved in criminal high jinks, he was picked up by the Swiss Secret Services, and in return for a suspended sentence (or whatever) he agreed to infiltrate the Islamic Center in Geneva.
Daily he went for hours and reportedly mingy pay. He spied, scooted, learnt. Prayed and drank tea.
His pre-planned conversion to Islam turned sincere post facto.
Like many who come into contact with a Ramadan brother (Hani, Tariq Ramadan, the third has a low profile so I won’t mention) he came to respect, even love Hani Ramadan. So at some point he confessed to Hani, that he was a spy and so forth, and then called a press conference.
Ouch.
All over the press. Covassi was asked to watch Hani Ramadan, to do this or that – e.g. insert terrorist names in the D-base of the Islamic center. He was told to concentrate on Hani, and ignore the other spies who were about. Covassi objected, and according to the Israeli press, even stopped a terrorist attack (shoot down an El Al plane with a shoulder missile, right..)
Hani Ramadan is puzzled and playing victim in a reasonable way. Covassi has fled to Egypt and will only return if he is given safe passage and can testify to the Fed. Gvmt. He has 5 hours of audio tapes, that he secretly took for self-protection. What he is trying to achieve is not clear. He was coerced into nonsense is the basic story. Now he deserves recognition as an honest man (say)…
Two links about (both contain serious errors and confusions):
Swiss agent who saved El Al plane fears colleagues
Link
Swiss Spy in a War of Words
Link
more accurate but in French:
Covassi, l’espion qui en disait trop
Link
The point: nice examples of ‘Islamic terrorism’.
Posted by: Noisette | Jun 3 2006 20:43 utc | 8
ELECTROMAGNETIC WEAPONS USED TO SLAUGHTER IRAQIS?
Found an interesting website mooners may want to snoop around at.
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Jun 3 2006 22:33 utc | 9
Children massacred, children killed by throwing them on bayonets, Ivan is horrified so he develops the story of the Grand Inquisitor. Children massacred, children aborted, the Grand Inquisitors. Is there a relation between the massacres and the abortions? Are we all the Grand Inquisitors or are we the most contemptible of hypocrites?
Posted by: jlcg | Jun 3 2006 23:22 utc | 10
saying a child is aborted is like saying a seed is an apple
Posted by: annie | Jun 4 2006 0:15 utc | 11
Here’s an ex-MI6 agents blog, for anyone interested.
Like a lot of whistleblowers Richard Tomlinson has a few issues with the notion that’we’re all in this together’.
Still he does have legal rights which MI6 are happily abrogating.
Posted by: Anonymous | Jun 4 2006 2:24 utc | 13
In case you didn’t know Kadhimiya is a Shia district, I have a Sunni family name. The knot in my stomach was getting tighter the closer we got to the check point through which we get into the market area near the Kadhimiya Shrine. What if they ask me for my Iraqi ID? They had an explosion here yesterday and I have a Sunni family name? No this is not paranoia. I have the wrong name and I need to get myself a new forged ID with a Shia name. Anyway, I was lucky they were happy with my NUJ card (the first time I was really happy I had it on me, I usually fear that if people see it they think I’m a foreign journalist).
…
So people I give you the future of Baghdad. Districts will become tightly controlled fortresses that are ethnically/religiously homogeneous. Outsiders are only let in after being inspected and checked. I really want to go back to Kadhimiya but only after I get my fake Shia ID.
Having trouble getting into a Shia district doesn’t mean that I am OK in Sunni areas. Sunni areas are even tougher. To start with they have their own set of fashion rules. There is a whole What Not To Wear spin-off for the west of Baghdad and the prize isn’t just a special wardrobe but you get to stay alive.
Let me give you a quick run down. Let’s look at men’s fashions first. Things that can get you killed include:
Shorts
A goatee beard
Jeans that are a bit tight or are too fashionably “distressed”
Colourful shirts
Hair Gel!!!
A necklace
A Shia name (anything that has anything to do with Imam Hussein or a member of his family)
Oil is big business: Attacks on Iraq Oil Industry Aid Vast Smuggling Scheme
Once thought to be only a tool for insurgents to undermine the government, the pipeline attacks have evolved into a lucrative moneymaking scheme for insurgents and enterprising criminal gangs alike. Ali Al Alak, the inspector general for the Oil Ministry, said the attacks are now orchestrated by both groups to force the government to import and distribute as much fuel as possible using thousands of tanker trucks.
In turn, the insurgents and criminal gangs — distinguishing among them has become increasingly problematic — have transformed the trucking trade into a potent tool for smuggling.
Frank Rich column liberated here
Supporting Our Troops Over a Cliff
Call the P.R. strategy “attack, clear and hold”: the administration attacks the credibility of reporters covering the war and tries to clear troubling Iraq images from American TV screens so that popular support might hold until a miracle happens on the ground. This plan first surfaced when the insurgency exploded in spring 2004: Ted Koppel was pilloried by White House surrogates for reading the names of the fallen on “Nightline” and Paul Wolfowitz told Congress that “a lot of the press are afraid to travel very much, so they sit in Baghdad and they publish rumors.”
Upon being told that 34 journalists had been killed in the war up to that point, Mr. Wolfowitz apologized, but the strategy was never rescinded. Mr. Bush routinely chastises the press for reporting on bombings rather than “success” stories like Tal Afar. His new top domestic policy adviser, Karl Zinsmeister, has called American war correspondents “whiny and appallingly soft,” and he declared last June that “our struggle in Iraq as warfare” was over except for “periodic flare-ups in isolated corners.” That’s the news the administration wants: the insurgency is always in its last throes. We’d realize that this prognosis was “basically accurate,” Dick Cheney has explained, if only the non-Fox press didn’t concentrate on car bombs in Baghdad.
…
We can’t pretend we don’t know this is happening. It’s happening in broad daylight. We know that “as the Iraqis stand up, we’ll stand down” is fiction, not reality. We know from the Pentagon’s own report to Congress last week that attacks on Americans and Iraqis alike are at their highest since American commanders started keeping count in 2004. We know that even as coalition partners like Italy and South Korea bail out, we are planning an indefinite stay of undefined parameters: the 104-acre embassy complex rising in the Green Zone is the largest in the world, and the Decider himself has said that it’s up to “future presidents and future governments of Iraq” to decide our exit strategy.
Actually, the current government of Iraq already is. On Thursday the latest American-backed Iraqi prime minister, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, whom Mr. Bush is “proud to call” his “ally and friend,” invited open warfare on American forces by accusing them of conducting Haditha-like killing sprees against civilians as a “regular” phenomenon. If this is the ally and friend we are fighting for, a country that truly supports the troops has no choice but to start bringing them home.
this shouldn’t be surprising to most inhabitants of the moon, but re that moveon email announcing their new agenda that was posted here yesterday
MoveOn Rigs Its Own Vote; Betrays Its Membership
Finally, the results of all this emerged in the last email on June 1 in which “the whole MoveOn.org Political Action team” triumphantly announced the top 3! And the winners were: “Health care for all. Energy independence through clean, renewable sources. Democracy restored.” Damned close to the three suggested at the outset in the very first email – before any voting at all – as you remember from the first paragraph above: “universal health care” “clean energy,” “publicly financed elections.” The MoveOn bosses turned out to be remarkable seers.
In this final email MoveOn said that this agenda was chosen by “more than 100,000 people in local house parties and then online.” But in a previous email the MoveOn bosses claimed only 10,000 in attendance for the house parties so most of the voting was done on line when the final 10 choices “on the ballot” excluded Iraq and the online voters were in no position to add it in. The ballot choices were fixed. More than that, its base is catching on to MoveOn. It is pretty pathetic for an organization of 3 million members (as claimed in the email of June 1) to get only 100,000 votes online. That is less than 4% of the members voting! And 100,000 hits on a well-financed and established web site is no big deal.
How did the MoveOn bosses engineer this? It is unclear. Did they simply exclude results like those of our house party? Did they actually falsify the voting? Or did they simply exclude choices with their “guided conversations,” restricted choices and demands for the members to be “positive.” We cannot know, for MoveOn is as opaque as the higher reaches of its parent organization, the Democratic Party. But we do know that the MoveOn bosses are not to be trusted. They are one element in a wider strategy of the Dem establishment and its accessories to sabotage and cripple the antiwar movement.
Posted by: b real | Jun 4 2006 5:46 utc | 17
jlcg wrote:
“Children massacred, children killed by throwing them on bayonets, Ivan is horrified so he develops the story of the Grand Inquisitor. Children massacred, children aborted, the Grand Inquisitors. Is there a relation between the massacres and the abortions? Are we all the Grand Inquisitors or are we the most contemptible of hypocrites?”
Your reference to Chapter 35, Part II, Book V, Chapters 4 and 5 of Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamozov to discuss the issue of abortion is an interesting choice, but I think misses the mark in a number of ways.
To begin with, the stories Dostoevsky used involving Turks throwing babies on bayonets or shooting them in the face were ones he had been justifiably horrified by after encountering them in Moscow newspapers. But those stories were, like the story of Kuwaiti babies being snatched from incubators and left to die, entirely fabricated.
This does not negate his larger point, however, that the suffering of innocents can never be justified, even if the end result is a perfect world without sin. That innocents suffer is indisputable even if the instances Dostoevsky pointed to were sheer propoganda.
But more importantly, the reason Dostoevsky used children at all in his illustration (and Ivan mentions this explicitly) is not because children suffer any more or less than anyone else, but that it is a rhetorical device used to make his basic argument more clear. The worst adult bastard in the world does not deserve to be burned alive with white phosphorous, although some would argue that point. Therefore, Dostoevsky restricted his illustrations to the suffering of innocent children to avoid the question of who “deserves” to be mistreated altogether. It is important for the compassionate person, I think, not to make that distinction but it does keep things on more black and white terms when we do.
But you have muddied the waters a bit further by your a priori inclusion of potential life, while still avoiding the question of whether adults deserve their fates. By extending the question of “innocents” to include human fetuses, you are still somewhat arbitrarily stopping at “humans”. Does an innocent blade of grass deserve to be killed or maimed (and I firmly believe that a blade of grass is more than a “potential” life)? If you adopt the position that a human fetus is in all ways as capable of suffering as are those actualized living beings who undoubtedly do suffer, then you must also concede that any all groups of cells who strive towards life, regardless of species, must also be given this respect. While I philosophically agree with this Jainist position, it is absolutely untenable if we, who are actualised organisms, wish to live.
So the answer to your question about our hypocrisy is an unqualified “yes”. But we are not anymore hypocritical for terminating potential lives (which can be argued to be an act of mercy in many cases), than we are for prematurely terminating the lives of anything… whether it is the food we eat or whether it is a thinking, living, breathing human being that we have decided for one reason or another “deserves their fate”.
I, like Ivan, wish to return my ticket… but not simply because I am predisposed to favor children.
Posted by: Monolycus | Jun 4 2006 5:58 utc | 18
Bernhard you have been putting together a treasure trove of apt stories and sources of late.
After wishing there was a way that every armchair apologist for the Iraqi invasion still claiming ‘that “they” or “Those people” are better off than “they” were under Saddam,’ should be made to read Salam Pax, Bernhard’s link to the New York Times story with the subtext that the reason Iraqi hospital schools and powerplants destroyed by the USuk invasion hadn’t been rebuilt was that those shifty Iraqis were blowing up the oil pipelines to make money out of smuggling, certainly helps put the US population’s refusal to see the evil it is perpetrating, into perspective.
No mention of who broke the damn stuff and perhaps, those who broke it should be paying to fix it. About 10% of the oil is going astray apparently. So what about the other 90%? Why isn’t that sufficient for Iraqis to have their electricity back?
But aside from those obvious glaring flaws in this theory there are some great cliches of colonialist rationalisation, the most blatant being:
Borders are porous, roads are unsafe, officials at state-run oil companies are accused of being in league with insurgents and Iraq’s oil wealth is carried out of the country in ships and tanker trucks as American and British overseers look the other way, the Iraqi and American officials say.”
So this happens because senior Iraqis, shifty Arabs that they are, are on the ‘take’ and deliberately sabotaging the nation’s recovery. The reason that the honest whitemen can’t stop this is that they are simply too nice and caring and they “look the other way” when these illegal shipments go through.
Heaven forfend that the white folks are in on it or even perhaps organising it. The NYT couldn’t say that armed only with the same flimsy 3rd hand evidence it has used to disparage Iraqi officials.
But the all time favourite piece of propaganda contained in all the unfit news is when the NYT anxious to make sure it’s readers understand that this problem has nothing to do with amerikan incompetence or corruption, that in fact the blame for this fuck-up need be sheeted home where it belongs to Saddam Hussein, comes up with this self-contradictory, duplicitous statement:
“. . . the pattern of the corruption now plaguing Iraq was set by Saddam Hussein, who began encouraging oil smuggling and graft during the 1990’s. Although there was little public corruption in Iraq before the Persian Gulf war, the American victory and the sanctions imposed by the United Nations loosened Mr. Hussein’s hold on the country. . . “
Pardon say that again. It is Saddam Hussein’s fault because Iraq was corruption free up until Gulf War 1. After that finished USuk sanctions loosened the Hussein government’s grip on power, which in turn enabled crooks to get into the industry.
How does that be Hussein’s fault rather than the fault of the assholes who inflicted the sanctions on Iraq? Is it just the NYT saying that the real results of these sanctions was so bad eg the deaths of 500,000 iraqi children from malnourishment and lack of access to healthcare , that USuk want to put a little bit of blame for the least worst outcome of the criminal sanctions regime onto Saddam, so that USuk don’t seem quite so evil?
Hmmm somehow I don’t think so. . .
Posted by: Anonymous | Jun 4 2006 7:15 utc | 19
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/-/2/hi/americas/5044428.stm
-versus-
http://www.slate.com/id/2109876/
http://www.virtualp.us/blog/?p=1619
http://talkleft.com/new_archives/006117.html
http://www.smirkingchimp.com/viewtopic.php?topic=62387&forum=20
-and off the subject, but equally strange-
the most popular blog on the entire Internet
A Family in Baghdad
http://afamilyinbaghdad.blogspot.com/
And you thought the 21st Century would be same-same all lida?
Posted by: All Lida | Jun 4 2006 7:39 utc | 20
To Dan of Steele and Monolycus: Yes, the radio dj told me today that 17 terrorists were arrested back east, and that it would dominate the radio today (Saturday) and tomorrow’s newspapers here in Canada.
Then he said that we shouldn’t worry too much about it here in lotusland, Vancouver. Then he said it might be worthwhile to continue looking over your shoulder. That one hit home — the tactic of fear. Harper is well-supported by the RCMP (federal cops) and the military eager for funding and the almost-justifiable need to defend their mission and their nation. But it sucks when that comes as a result of fear …
Years ago I gave in to the realization that capitalism, corporatism or whatever was a darwinian success; it was to me inevitable that this thing would overcome the counterculture of the 1970s. I feel the same way about the vast right-wing conspiracy, the mighty wurlitzer, the successful use of propaganda and empty rhetoric, the sound bite. Both these themes are current successes and work very well — I try not to objectify them as the work of elites, cold-hearted bastards, brainiacs; but simply as self-organizing systems or even better as rules of the game or laws of nature. Given X, then strategy Y will be more likely to succeed.
That guy Orcinus (David Neiwert) has traced the rise of right-wing memes from the outlands of eastern Washington’s survivalists, through local radio and newspapers, and then as the successful messages are refined and re-delivered, to mainstream talk radio and the populace.
No one individual can easily be blamed for propagating or profiting from these messages yet anyone with a heart and a mind can see that this system does vastly more bad than the short-term good (making a living, popularity) that it conveys to their yes-men.
Aye there’s the rub.
And Mono, thank you for bringing a bit of enlightenment and education to us all by discussing the ethics raised by the previous poster. More of this please!
Posted by: jonku | Jun 4 2006 10:42 utc | 21
Goddamn it debs, it’s one thing to not sign your name out of sheer stubbornness, but can you at least use the full discription for the ptb nomenclature? Because it should read: IsraelUSuk. Correct?
Israeli Naval Forces Will Join NATO Exercise for First Time
For the first time since its founding in 1949, NATO will fully integrate Israeli Naval forces into a miltary exercise that will take place next month in the Black Sea.
Considering all that is going on in this region, the timing of this inclusion is rather suspicious.
Israeli envoy slams Canadian union’s move to boycott Israel
“Ooooh, you anti-Semites you! God will get you for this! Canada should make boycotting Israel illegal, just like the US does!”
Regarding Canadian Muslim Terrorists, Let’s not forget…
The new reports emerging from the Gaza strip have Canadian officials worried that Israeli agents may have resumed adopting fake Canadian identities — a tactic that could jeopardize the safety of Canadians who work or travel abroad.
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Jun 4 2006 11:39 utc | 22
Terra Terra Terra!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1
Nice one from Blairwatch:
Been holding off on this one, but it’s looking increasingly likely that the East London ‘terrorist raid’ on Friday was based on faulty intelligence and badly handled. The evidence for this is roundabout, true, but based on past history, when the Met starts leaking bullshit to friendly newspapers…
A CHEMICAL bomb held by Islamic terrorists is primed to go off at any time, police feared last night.
The device is believed to have been designed to release a toxic cloud in a crowded space — killing hundreds
Sun
Bomb suspect shot by brother
The Screws
…right thinking men and women start drawing conclusions.
The lack of corroborating evidence is the key here – the BBC admitted that they’d been told the same thing (‘number of dead in three figures’), but not what the alleged chemical was (even though the police knew) and that the informant was ‘possibly unreliable’. Single source, unreliable human intelligence on chemical weapons? Porton Down involved? Do we detect a whiff of 45 minutes and ricin here, mixed with the aroma of a bull’s back end?
Which brings us to the shooting – according to the Sun (or the Met, even):
British-born Royal Mail worker Kahar Kalam, 23, was hit by a bullet in the chest after cops warned him not to move.
source
While the BBC has:
One line of inquiry is that there was a struggle with police and a gun went off accidentally, said BBC home affairs correspondent Danny Shaw.
and
the only official statement about the shooting – from the head of the anti-terrorist branch Peter Clarke – did not say police shot the man.
And according to his lawyer:
He was woken up about four in the morning by screams from downstairs, got out of bed in his pyjamas obviously unarmed, nothing in his hands and hurrying down the stairs.
Her client, whom she said was innocent, was shot “without any warning” as he came down the stairs.
He wasn’t asked to freeze, given any warning and didn’t know the people in his house were police officers until after he was shot,”
Today’s Screws, as we’ve seen, claims the brother did it.
So an unarmed man was shot by another unarmed man after they struggled with people they didn’t know were policeman, but who *were* armed. All very confusing. If the guys in the house *were* armed do you really think the police wouldn’t have given them the De Menezes treatment?
One final joyous word from Murdoch’s finest:
The alleged bomb plot is the fourth major conspiracy hatched by al-Qaeda sympathisers to have been smashed by security services in Britain since the July 7 bombings which killed 52.
A source said: “After 9/11 in 2001, we were dealing with one major scenario every six months. Now we deal with serious terrorist conspiracies every six days
World-class bullshit there. You wear a beard, go to a mosque, the police bash your door in and shoot your brother and you’re now an ‘al-Qaeda sympathiser’. I didn’t realise it was so easy to join.
Posted by: Cloned Poster | Jun 4 2006 12:21 utc | 23
My church sunday: Wherein I find my own salvation.
I firmly believe that poetry is dead in these United States. It has been replaced by ponderings, panderings, and two-second thought-crimes. Harold Pinter, Amir Baraka, these two are with us, but for how long?
Back in 2002 New Jersey’s Poet Lauriate, Amiri Baraka, was being asked to resign because of this poem in which he implicates Israel (and Bush) in 9/11. To me he is everybit as powerful as Pinter.
The ADL Smear Campaign Against Me
I Will Not Resign, I Will Not Apologize
The recent dishonest, consciously distorted and insulting non-interpretation of my poem, “Somebody Blew Up America” by the “Anti-Defamation” League, is fundamentally an attempt to defame me. And with that, an attempt to repress and stigmatize independent thinkers everywhere.
Watch: “Somebody Blew Up America”
Wont mooners take a reflective moment, join me in service on My Church Sunday wherein we find our own salvation.
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Jun 4 2006 13:21 utc | 24
Iraq Oil was ‘smuggled’ under sanctions. Saddam set up a parallel circuit. The big winners were some oil companies and some traders (not Iraq.) Everyone knew about it all along. That was clear from the day that it was decided that USuk would be responsible for policing and controlling ships, and the oil trade in general. That decision was made by the UN, but not bruited about.
Since, those parallel circuits have been opened up for smaller traders, have gone more local, and ‘terrorists’ have acquired more power.
Nothing more pesky than a pipeline, right? Safely and cheaply brings oil to here and there? Big loss for truck drivers and local scammers.
The US is caught in a bind. The subsidised price of oil is still essential to Iraqis, even if they buy much of the fossil fuels they need on the black market. It is a symbol – they have the oil – and also a budgetary consideration. The US has never seriously contemplated forcing Iraqis to pay ‘market prices’ suddenly – it would be a disaster. At the same time, encouraging all scams and illegal procedures, where, in effect, the ‘black’ (free) market eventually will replace the ‘subsidised’ market is in their interests, so they turn a blind eye.
Posted by: Noisette | Jun 4 2006 14:59 utc | 25
Those folks at MoveOn should have hired some professional consultants:
LINK
Posted by: Earl Long | Jun 5 2006 0:20 utc | 26
A New Bio Warfare Arms Race Begins in Maryland?
The Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BTWC) bans the development, production, stockpiling, acquisition and retention of microbial or other biological agents or toxins, in types and in quantities that have no justification for prophylactic, protective or other peaceful purposes. The Convention also bans weapons, equipment or means of delivery designed to use such agents or toxins for hostile purposes or in armed conflict. The actual use of biological weapons is prohibited by the 1925 Geneva Protocol and Article VIII of the BTWC recognizes that nothing contained in the Convention shall be construed as a derogation from the obligations contained in the Geneva Protocol.
The investment in bio-weapons that is likely to spur a bio-weapons arms race is occurring at a time when the Bush administration is blocking the strengthening of international controls of such weapons. In 2001, the U.S. rejected an effort to conclude an inspections protocol for the BTWC. The United States was the only country to favor terminating efforts to create a legally binding inspection and verification mechanism.
Also, other topic discussed, the Expansion of Bio-Weapons, a History of Fort Detrick, History of Problems with Security at Ft. Detrick Continue to This Day
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Jun 5 2006 1:57 utc | 27
While IsraelUSuk is very apt, it maybe pointless given that it puts Israel so firmly in the frame that the comment on US or uk pales in the shade, or perhaps it is that we should be expecting better from US or uk but given the rabid zionism and hypocrisy which has driven the creation of the pseudo state Israel since the formation of Irgun, comment is superfluous.
Perhaps Australia should be in there too as USukOz, but really they are there as little more than hangers-on or wannabes so including them sends the wrong message by inferring they have arrived.
Would Arabs be still being slaughtered without Israel? Possibly. Definitely uk interest in Arab resources preceded the state of Israel. Would Arabs be getting slaughtered without the US? This is less likely as there wouldn’t be such demand without the practically obscene consumerism promulgated around the planet by US based corporations’ brand of capitalism.
How about England/uk? Well it was them that used the cover provided by WW1 smash to the Islamic Ottoman empire and separate the known fossil fuel areas off from the populated areas.
A major error given the state of geology in 1916.
So Israel is vital in the cover story and the money laundry but is more of a by-product than an instigator.
Finally an outsider could arrive at the conclusion that the seeming resolution of the war of independence in 1776 didn’t separate the US from the british empire as much as begin the process of rebranding and moving headquarters.
Posted by: Anonymous | Jun 5 2006 4:36 utc | 28
what is a pseudo state? are states anything more than human constructs that get decided now and then by King Qwerty or General Specific?
is Iraq a nation anymore?
when did Czechoslovakia cease to be a nation-state? how does one decide if a state is real or pseudo? what are valid reasons for a state to exist?
Posted by: Anonymous | Jun 5 2006 5:14 utc | 29
Canada Police Use Sting in Terror Arrests
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police itself delivered three tons of potential bomb-making material to a group that authorities said wanted to launch a string of attacks inspired by al-Qaida, according to a news report Sunday.
The Toronto Star said the sting unfolded when investigators delivered the ammonium nitrate to the group of Muslim Canadians, then moved in quickly on what officials called a homegrown terror ring.
The newspaper said that investigators learned of the group’s alleged plan to bomb targets around Ontario, then controlled the sale and transport of the fertilizer.
Just like the “terrorist” raid in the UK which was based on one “informant’s” talk, this one seems to be very fishy.
A pseudo state is one that exists on paper rather than being a construction of the people whose country it is.
The notion of a pseudo state is relatively new. Prior to it’s invention stolen nation’s were deemed ‘colonys’ until sufficient time and generations had passed to guarantee the creation of a state in line with the invaders’ notions of their nation.
This was not possible to do when heisting Palestine for two reasons post ww2 was meant to be a time of ‘de-colonisation’. Well that was the agreement which lured resource rich but pre-industrial states up the chute to the UN shearing sheds to be clipped.
In addition a colony normally has a ‘parent’. This certainly wasn’t the case with Israel, where the europeans wanted to get rid of their Jewish fellow-countrymen for good. If uk had agreed to play mom or dad for Israel and something went wrong all of the Jewsish people may have ended up in England.
One only has to look at the contortions England went through to ensure it’s citizens of Hong Kong didn’t end up back in England to see the difficulties. That problem cropped up 50 years after the creation of the pseudo state of Israel, when people had a much less clear idea of what a colony was, yet the brits really struggled to find a way to separate whities from the other ethnicities of Hong Kong citizen.
The pseudo state of Israel is a creation based almost entirely on ancient superstition and peopled by foreigners who are committing genocide upon the natives. It’s purpose is to exist for long enough to obliterate the memory of the nation of Palestine in everyone including those who are of that nation.
Posted by: Anonymous | Jun 5 2006 6:28 utc | 31
Krugman on the estate tax repeal: Shameless in the Senate
So it’s important to realize that there’s still a clear connection between tax breaks for the rich and failure to help Americans in need. … To understand this point, … look at what Congress has been doing lately in the name of deficit reduction. The Deficit Reduction Act of 2005, which was signed in February, consists mainly of cuts to spending on Medicare, Medicaid and education. The Medicaid cuts will … cause 65,000 people, mainly children, to lose health insurance, and lead many people who retain insurance to skip needed medical care because they can’t afford increased co-payments.
Congressional leaders justified these harsh measures by saying that we have to reduce the budget deficit, and there’s no way to do that without inflicting pain. But those same leaders now propose making the deficit worse by repealing the estate tax. Apparently deficits aren’t such a big problem after all, as long as we’re running up debts to provide bigger inheritances to wealthy heirs rather than to provide medical care to children. …
Who would benefit from this largess? The estate tax is overwhelmingly a tax on the very, very wealthy; only about one estate in 200 pays any tax at all. The campaign for estate tax repeal has largely been financed by just 18 powerful business dynasties, including the family that owns Wal-Mart.
Malaby also on the estate tax: Reward for the Hereditary Elite . . .
It doesn’t matter if you are liberal or conservative, Democrat or Republican. There is no possible excuse for doing what Congress is poised to do this week: Abolish the estate tax.
The federal government faces a future of expanding deficits. Thanks to the baby bust and medical inflation, spending is projected to rise by nearly 3 percent of gross domestic product by 2030, a growth equivalent to the doubling of today’s Medicare program. What is the dumbest possible response to this? Take a source of revenue and abolish it outright.
The nation faces rising inequality. Since 1980 the gap between the earnings of the top fifth and the bottom fifth has jumped by almost 50 percent. The United States is by some measures the most unequal society in the rich world and the most unequal that it’s been since the 1920s. What is the dumbest possible response to this? Identify the most progressive federal tax and repeal it.
Iraqis Accuse Marines in April Killing Of Civilian
According to accounts given by Hashim’s neighbors and members of his family, and apparently supported by photographs, the Marines went to Hashim’s home, took the 52-year-old disabled Iraqi outside and shot him four times in the face. The assault rifle and shovel next to his body had been planted by the Marines, who had borrowed them from a villager, family members and other residents said.
Hashim’s family alleged this weekend that a small group of U.S. servicemen came to them last week and offered the family money to support the Marines’ version of the killing.
There is an investigation about the case and 8 marines are likely in trouble. Some investigators talked to the family. The next day some marines came by and tried to pay off the family if they relate the dead man with insurgents. Good reporting.
This one, b, would confirm some ideas you had about drug use in the breakdown of the military — as we talked about Hiditha some months ago.
Posted by: anna missed | Jun 5 2006 7:34 utc | 35
so, no Jews ever lived in the area now called Israel until recently? funny how archeology lies.
so, usa is a pseudo-state? by that definition, yes.
others who live in the region do not base their existence on ancient superstition?
what is a foreigner…how long do you have to leave and area and return to be a foreigner? gb wasn’t the “parent” of the “colony” of israel? lots of the orthodox who were there think the zionists were interlopers after the balfour declaration, but that’s because they don’t accept any secular powers.
were all the muslims who went to spain evil colonisers?
are all the whites who live in australia genocidal thieves? should they be forced to leave, no matter who they are? it’s much easier to parce out their “genetic” and thus seemingly rightful place in the world…i.e. in northen europe — and give that country back to its rightful inhabitants, isn’t it? australia is a pseudo country too, then? can we kick out all the whites in australia? how many have they killed? how many have they kept from their ancestral lands? genocidal murderers, that’s all they have to offer as a “culture.”
interestingly, no discussion of what constitutes a state or who gets to decide, or any reaction at all to the changes in europe.
so, do you agree with the patrols along the us border that want to keep out the mexicans who, we hear, really think that the southwestern us is really mexican territory… the southwest is a pseudo part of the rest of the us, right?
it’s so confusing when others know so much. I still don’t understand what makes israel such a special case.
Posted by: Anonymous | Jun 5 2006 8:26 utc | 36
An interesting piece on the Iraqi oil smuggling industry, started during the sanction era — and now in full bloom during the occupation era. Here. Free enterprise trumps government oversight everytime!
Posted by: anna missed | Jun 5 2006 8:37 utc | 37
@anna missed – Thanks for pointing to that.
From the Newsweek piece the Guardian relates to:
In December, NEWSWEEK interviewed some Army soldiers going home as conscientious objectors. To fight boredom and disgust, said Clif Hicks, who had left a tank squadron at Camp Slayer in Baghdad, soldiers popped Benzhexol, five pills at time. Normally used to treat Parkinson’s disease, the drug is a strong hallucinogenic when abused. “People were taking steroids, Valium, hooked on painkillers, drinking. They’d go on raids and patrols totally stoned.” Hicks, who volunteered at the age of 17, said, “We’re killing the wrong people all the time, and mostly by accident. One guy in my squadron ran over a family with his tank.”
…
The wife of a staff sergeant in the 3/1 battalion, who declined to be identified because she doesn’t want to get her husband in trouble, told NEWSWEEK that there was “a total breakdown” in discipline and morale after Lt. Col. Jeffrey Chessani took over as battalion commander when the unit returned from Fallujah at the start of 2005. (Chessani’s friends in his Colorado hometown defended him as a dedicated, patriotic, religious Marine.) “There were problems in Kilo Company with drugs, alcohol, hazing, you name it,” said the woman. “I think it’s more than possible that these guys were totally tweaked out on speed or something when they shot those civilians in Haditha.”
Alcohol and artificial chemical drugs make for some weird mixtures.
Army Manual to Skip Geneva Detainee Rule
The Pentagon has decided to omit from new detainee policies a key tenet of the Geneva Convention that explicitly bans “humiliating and degrading treatment,” according to knowledgeable military officials, a step that would mark a further, potentially permanent, shift away from strict adherence to international human rights standards.
The decision could culminate a lengthy debate within the Defense Department but will not become final until the Pentagon makes new guidelines public, a step that has been delayed. However, the State Department fiercely opposes the military’s decision to exclude Geneva Convention protections and has been pushing for the Pentagon and White House to reconsider, the Defense Department officials acknowledged.
…
Among the directives being rewritten following Bush’s 2002 order is one governing U.S. detention operations. Military lawyers and other defense officials wanted the redrawn version of the document known as DoD Directive 2310, to again embrace Common Article 3 of the Geneva Convention.
That provision — known as a “common” article because it is part of each of the four Geneva pacts approved in 1949 — bans torture and cruel treatment. Unlike other Geneva provisions, Article 3 covers all detainees — whether they are held as unlawful combatants or traditional prisoners of war. The protections for detainees in Article 3 go beyond the McCain amendment by specifically prohibiting humiliation, treatment that falls short of cruelty or torture.
The move to restore U.S. adherence to Article 3 was opposed by officials from Vice President Dick Cheney’s office and by the Pentagon’s intelligence arm, government sources said. David S. Addington, Cheney’s chief of staff, and Stephen A. Cambone, Defense undersecretary for intelligence, said it would restrict the United States’ ability to question detainees.
More on the Canadian terrorists
Michael Edmunds, administrator of the U of T’s McLuhan Program in Culture & Technology, argues the public is already so influenced by television that people are receptive to the kind of message sent out by police on the weekend.
Unconsciously, receptive audiences for police actions are created by such TV shows as the Fox hit 24, starring Kiefer Sutherland as counter-terrorist agent Jack Bauer. Viewers sympathize with Bauer, no matter what he has to do, because they want him to get the bad guys and protect the free world.
Edmunds argued that certain memes — or unspoken beliefs in any culture — are constantly being reinforced. Here, he said, the message was that police know what they are doing and they are protecting us.
“It’s all global theatre, as Marshall McLuhan used to say. We assume the police want to help us and we assume it’s good.”
Posted by: dan of steele | Jun 5 2006 9:27 utc | 40
I still don’t understand what makes israel such a special case.
i guess what makes it ‘special’ for me is how our foriegn policy seems to mirror the wishes of isreals foriegn policy. they are our compadres in the ‘war on terror’.
i supposes, 100’s of years from now when the deeds are in the past and the abuses are only memories in books and films, when all the living witnesses are dead, when what palestinians are left are either on their reservations or integrated into anothers society, israel may not be so ‘special’.
israel may also loose some of it’s ‘specialness’ once we have our own well established permanent pseudo colony in the middle east or perhaps when the oil has run dry or even before, when the contracts are all set in stone.
as long as israel remains the mini me of US foriegn policy, it will remain so very special. the policies of israel don’t really seem foriegn, they aren’t any more special than we(US)are, really.
the primary reason i don’t consider the muslims in spain, or the genocide in australia, at this time, is it’s not current. but you already know that.history will treat israel the same way, then it won’t be special, will it?
Posted by: annie | Jun 5 2006 10:08 utc | 41
Open Thread
In an absolutely shameless rip off from Daily Kos, I’m posting this open thread — in the equally shameless, if probably forlorn, hope I can rip off some of his traffic, too.
So pull up a stool and tell me what’s on your mind. Please.
Anybody? Anybody at all?
Posted by billmon at April 16, 2003 09:26 PM
well, billmon said he talked about antiquities in his past posts. this one seems pretty archaic… 🙂
Posted by: fauxreal | Jun 5 2006 10:27 utc | 42
Thanks Dan, it sounded fishy from the get-go, I heard this about the arrest of 17 muslim men, one at least who is very young, from the radio and an old lady who watches tv.
Canada is not as clean as it used to be and thinks it is now.
I recall in the 1970s hearing a direct quote from a senior policeman that they knew of dozens if not hundreds of militant groups in my city alone, yet would and could not act unless they broke the law or were imminently dangerous. So I take this all with a grain of salt.
Yet I tremble at the thought that the predictions that Canada is also an expected target seem self-fulfilling prophecies especially in light of recent Afghanistan pronouncements. Yet again Canada and its soldiers seem to be attempting the impossible — stabilizing the country — with the uniquely Canadian approach to sending its soldiers abroad. Good men and women actually trying to help. Canada has one blemish on its military’s record, a few Canadian Airborne (holding tank for the wildest and craziest enlistees, and also most motivated and highly skilled) troops’ torture and murder of a man in Somalia. That was punished by the regiment being disbanded and the entire military falling into neglect.
Outside of that the tiny and underfunded Canadian Forces have played a role similar the the US National Guard within the country, doing search and rescue, disaster relief and other fit duties, and were exemplary in peacekeeping missions in Greece and recently in Africa.
That tradition of helping others, following these troops’ high level of training makes me wonder if the clearly imperialist motive for their deployment in the Middle East may actually bring some good as we are encouraged to believe. The converse is that they may be corrupted by the job they are ordered to do.
I talked today with a man I know who served in the Canadian Forces. He said on his return from Croatia that he was accused on the street as a “baby killer.”
He said he was just trying to “keep my people from being blown up.”
As I have said before, our Prime Minister Stephen Harper is supported by the RCMP and the military. Also I have read that he was coached by the American political strategist Frank Luntz, prior to the recent election that granted Harper a minority government.
So this is expected, I appreciate your observation of the NY Times article (registration required try bugmenot.com),
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police itself delivered three tons of potential bomb-making material to a group that authorities said wanted to launch a string of attacks inspired by al-Qaida, according to a news report Sunday.
…
The newspaper said that investigators learned of the group’s alleged plan to bomb targets around Ontario, then controlled the sale and transport of the fertilizer.
…
Imam Qamrul Khanson said the language of Jamal’s Friday night prayers had a more strident tone than other prayer leaders’, but there was never any talk of terrorism or violence.
Khanson said at least three of the suspects regularly prayed at the Al-Rahman Islamic Center for Islamic Education.
”Here we always preach peace and moderation,” Khanson said at the one-room mosque.
”I have faith that they have done a thorough investigation,” Khanson said of authorities. ”But just the possession of ammonium nitrate doesn’t prove that they have done anything wrong.”
Officials said the operation involved some 400 intelligence and law-enforcement officers and was the largest counterterrorism operation in Canada since the adoption of Canada’s Anti-Terrorism Act following the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the United States.
…
Mike McDonnell, an assistant commissioner with the Mounties, said Saturday that the amount of ammonium nitrate acquired by the alleged terror cell was three times that used to blow up the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City in 1995, killing 168 people and injuring more than 800.
From Dan’s second link to the Toronto Star, it seems that the cops played to the cameras:
The anti-terrorism task force was careful about the wording of its news release, saying that the group “took steps to acquire” the three tonnes of ammonium nitrate, a popular fertilizer used to make bombs. As well, they laid out selected evidence for the photographers and TV crews, showing only “sample” bags of ammonium nitrate.
Meanwhile, under massive police security which included sharpshooters on nearby roofs and tactical squad officers with submachine-guns, suspects were brought in leg irons to the provincial courthouse in Brampton. There, in Room 101, Justice of the Peace John Farnum postponed bail hearings until tomorrow morning.
For the experts contacted by the Star, these events were as much about creating an image for the public as about charging the individuals. And it’s an image, they argue, that could hurt the right of the accused — 12 men and five youths — to a fair trial.
I’ve been out of touch with the tv news here for a while so I don’t have a read on how it’s playing here.
Funny that an American in Italy tells me what’s going on in my own country. In a good way of course …
Posted by: jonku | Jun 5 2006 10:55 utc | 43
Tyger
Short film by Guilherme Marcondes, based on William Blake’s poem
An astonishing blend of composite night photography, music, puppets, and computer trickery.
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Jun 5 2006 13:57 utc | 44
I’m not sure if this story will develop any legs or not, but Army Sgt. Peter Damon is suing Director Michael Moore because a clip was used in Fahrenheit 9-11 which he alleges was taken out of context to make it appear that he is not the slobbering Bush supporter he now claims to be.
After having lost both of his arms in the Iraq War, Damon was shown in a ten second clip in Moore’s movie talking about the pain he was in. This constitutes, in his opinion, $85 million worth of damage to his reputation. I’m not sure how he reckons that sum, but he has already been given a free house for all of his pain and suffering as a disabled GI, so his feelings of personal entitlement and sense of adequate compensation must run pretty high.
Of course, the story is being talked about on some of the righter regions of cyberspace as Moore’s comeuppance for being an evil media whore and exploiting this poor warmonger. But not a lot of attention is paid to the fact that Moore actually seems like the lesser of two whores when one considers that Fahrenheit 9/11 wasn’t Sgt. Damon’s first public appearance. A year and a half ago, he appeared next to Sen. Edward Kennedy to bash his ersatz idol for going to war in Iraq (check out paragraph 4) in the first place.
So unless there are two Sgt. Peter Damons who are both Iraq War vets and both lost two arms, he might want to consider suing himself for damaging his reputation. No matter which of his multiple personalities won the suit, he’d almost certainly lose his shiny new home… which would almost certainly then go to someone who is not such a tool as this guy is.
Posted by: Monolycus | Jun 5 2006 15:35 utc | 45
the silence of response from the “left” blogosphere to rfkjr’s stolen election piece is impressive. >a href=http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2006/6/3/105932/0635>at least booman made a bit of a stab to confirm such republican conspiracies.
the determination of kos, firedoglake, atrios, et al. to bury the evidence of widespread election fraud must be due to a)complicity w/ fraud, hoping to do the same for their guys, b) fear of debilitated enthusiasm to support democrats who prefer the status quo of electoral fraud, c) retention of the disabling ideology of america-as-democracy and believe the democratic party can pave the restoration of all our hopes & dreams.
I don’t know. sure looks like a irremidiable dose of bad faith to me.
just wait until these fuckers get their hands on the war. mirabile dictu.
Posted by: slothrop | Jun 5 2006 16:39 utc | 46
the silence of response from the “left” blogosphere to rfkjr’s stolen election piece is impressive. at least booman made a bit of a stab to confirm such republican conspiracies.
the determination of kos, firedoglake, atrios, et al. to bury the evidence of widespread election fraud must be due to a)complicity w/ fraud, hoping to do the same for their guys, b) fear of debilitated enthusiasm to support democrats who prefer the status quo of electoral fraud, c) retention of the disabling ideology of america-as-democracy and believe the democratic party can pave the restoration of all our hopes & dreams.
I don’t know. sure looks like a irremediable dose of bad faith to me.
just wait until these fuckers get their hands on the war. mirabile dictu.
Posted by: slothrop | Jun 5 2006 16:42 utc | 47
slothrop- I read about RFK with a picture, even, on FDL, on Hullabaloo, on Kos, on Think Progess…via a link at Cursor and Raw Story and…anyway, there were MANY links to the story.
then a writer at Salon who has written about Ohio before came out with a refutation of some of RFK’s article.
at that point, many bloggers also noted this person’s article and I don’t know if there are good sites that debate the two articles or not, tho Think Progress did mention the value of the same.
it seems to me the bloggers that have many readers don’t know who or what is true between the two articles and disputes.
maybe some industrious person is trying to check the two claims…not the easiest task when so much is at stake for many, one way or another.
but I did read RFKJr’s article on autism, and he stated as absolute fact things that are not considered absolute…such as the issue of themeridol as a fixative in vaccines, the issue of better diagnosis vs actual increase…so, I dunno about his Ohio article, either, tho I do think there is plenty of evidence that Blackwell was securing his payback by the Bushies for pulling all sorts of unethical if technically legal stunts to keep students neighborhoods and black neighborhoods from voting by making it much harder than the repuke suburbs.
there are so many statements out there….many from seemingly “everyday folks” in Ohio. The state really needs to have an investigation and take statements from people who are under oath, including Blackwell, about voting issues on that day, imo.
I have absolutely no faith in American elections anymore…not that such big changes would occur anyway. I do think the repuke machine controls elections now, by various means, and I would have a hard time believing that ANY president was fairly elected anymore.
this, along with bush’s claim to special powers as prez, etc. are all a constitutional crisis in this country unlike anything seen since…I dunno when, frankly…unlike anything I can remember. but apparently, according to the MSM, it doesn’t even exist.
Posted by: fauxreal | Jun 5 2006 17:25 utc | 48
There’s actually a good questioning of the Mangoo(sp)Salon piece up in DKosVille right now. It’s a diary by Malcolm, and it’s pretty good.
Posted by: Groucho | Jun 5 2006 17:35 utc | 49
mark crispin miller’s blog is following the manjoo ruckus too. there’s a piece by bob fitrakis that seems to point out some serious problems w/ the salon article.
Posted by: b real | Jun 5 2006 18:32 utc | 51
Would Arabs be still being slaughtered without Israel? Possibly.
You bet.
If Israel is seen as a tiny and hapless outpost of the USuk – a toehold in the ME, an Nth state, a subisdised and dependent entity that is granted not only surprising power but exceptional leeway, as the relations must be made out to be that of partners rather than of oppressor – controlled, then it can also be opined that the Is-Pal conflict concentrates a sort of West-Ayrab opposition, and in that way serves everyone’s purposes.
The West can indignantly gargle on about the Holocaust, the holiness of Jerusalem, etc. and the ‘Ayrabs’ about the evil being done to their Palestinian brothers. That permits them to be subservient and supposedly careful and it gives them a issue to talk about and inflame people with, away from their own countries. Ditto for the Americans, particularly. Palestinians as crazed suicide bombers and corrupt violent politicians who won’t accept that others must live and won’t recognise the ‘democracy’ Israel serve as a symbol for the whole ‘Ayrab’ or ‘muslim’ world.
Kind of like a proxy cancer.
What does the US gain by letting Israelis kill Palestininans ?
What does Saudi or Egypt gain by condoning the same thing?
Nothing much except their own confort.
It is one pov – schematic – not quite mine but worth mention.
Imagining what the situation would be like without Israel is useless… The French have a saying, goes something like: If you didn’ think of it, you’d have to invent it! There would be other killing going on in different scenarios.
Posted by: Noisette | Jun 5 2006 19:18 utc | 53
American democracy is no longer about political parties and voters.
It is about who can acquire enough power, money, clout and smarts to use the system properly to win.
To this tune, the sort of ‘grass roots’ democratic assembly, represented by the kinds of sites that have been discussed here (I won’t name many names as I don’t really know enough – but Kos would be up there) represent the hangers on of a corrupt system who hope for crumbs from the table.
As I read it, the crumbs go straight to the organisors and won’t ever be used in any way for any ‘progressive’ political aim, as that would actually be impossible.
Like Kerry, it will just be ‘too bad’ – a series of tactical mistakes or evil doings from the opposition that explain failure and induce a feeling of helpless righteouness, indignant outrage, the impulse to confront one’s Republican neighbors about flags or evolution, and give more dollars next time. (If there is a next time.)
For that reason, voter fraud must be kept at bay, as people must continue to believe that voting is a key. All controversial issues, ditto, as the aim is to gather as many adherents as possible.
The internet offers peole the opportunity to express themselves, and that is the calling card.
It is new – a powerful tool that promotes adherence and loyalty.
Posted by: Noisette | Jun 5 2006 20:24 utc | 54
“I would pursue the twin objectives of trying to withdraw our forces as quickly as we possibly can, while at the same time minimizing the risk that we’ll make the mess over there even worse and raise even higher the danger of civil war,” Gore said.
I’m not sure gore gives up on on the supposed “base” of dem “activists.” is there a “base” consensus to remove troops?
I suppose, as some fully caveated position, and if we utterly ignore his own culpability in the iraq sanctions, gore’s response is acceptable to those persons like myself who are concerned withdrawal would accelerate disaster.
what a mess.
Posted by: slothrop | Jun 5 2006 20:43 utc | 55
the determination of kos, firedoglake, atrios, et al. to bury the evidence of widespread election fraud
the job of these blogs is to legitimize the dems. imho they have chosen to do this partly by attempting to separate themselves from the ‘wingnut’ faction of the left. they’ve bought the meme of the ‘far left’ vs the regular (good, reansonable, trustworthy) left. we are being hung out to dry. anything non verifiable is taboo.
C&L posted the jfk nbc interview w/the caveat “i usually don’t publish these kinds of stories” or something equally as non commital. the comment section got slammed, i was part of it. then there are the ‘good dems’ telling us all to be nice and not be so ‘coming in here w/guns drawn’ vs the rethug light ‘you guys are sore losers bla bla’
that any msn journalist w/integrity has not come forward to cover this story is a travesty. christopher hutchins for VF? plllease
thank god for bev harris, mark crispin, brad blog, john gideon, conyers and others. not that any evidence they dig up will be considered, but at least those of us who know in our gut we are right, have evidence and statistics for confirmation.
i’m experiencing deja vu. excuse me if i’ve said this over and over.
Posted by: annie | Jun 5 2006 21:49 utc | 56
There’s a pretty damn sick tale of an actual occurence of the type of anti-semitism that opponents of the religious state of Israel are wrongly accused of having, when in fact we abhor all anti-semitism, including anti-Arab racism, here in the Gruniad which has a disturbing story from Poland on Catholic Radio Maryja, a station which works hand in glove with the new government of the Kaczynski twins.
“Stanislaw Michalkiewicz, one of the station’s best known commentators, warned that Poland was “being outmanoeuvred by Judeans who are trying to force our government to pay extortion money disguised as compensation”.
Natch this sort of talk wasn’t exactly what former Hitler youth member Pope Benedict wanted the world to be hearing from Polish Catholic institutions during his efforts to boost the US Israel lobby on his recent trip to Poland
“As Pope Benedict prepared to pay his first visit to Poland last month, the papal representative in Warsaw called on the Polish episcopate to deal with the “nagging issue of Radio Maryja”. Weeks later an eight-strong panel was appointed to oversee the station, a move that failed to impress critics because Tadeusz Rydzyk, an outspoken Redemptorist priest who founded the station, will remain on board.”
The primary consequence of that action was Radio Maryja went quiet while the world’s media were in town, then reverted to spewing out it’s filth.
But whose complaining? It seems the old strongest complaint comes from
“Marek Edelman, is the last surviving commander from the 1943 uprising in Warsaw’s Jewish ghetto when the remaining survivors launched a series of audacious attacks on the Nazis.”
Props to Marek Edelman who is obviously a very brave man who not only survived the European anti jewish pogroms of the 1930’s and 40’s but was sufficiently brave and aware to decline the Europeans offer to get out of Dodge and take his anger out on the people of Palestine.
In this Guardian article, Radio Maryja is compared to the right-wing radio most commonly found in the US.
The new Polish government has a relationship with them similar to the the symbiotic relationship between the rethugs and the likes of Stern et al. It feeds it information and tips on general direction but maintains a facade of distance so that deniability can be invoked when it’s necessary to keep up appearances.
Unfortunately the Polish ‘liberal establishment’ have fallen into the same trap arguing against these assholes that the US ‘liberal establishment’ has when dealing with the rethugs.
“. . . Gazeta Wyborcza, Poland’s leading liberal newspaper – dismissed in the controversial broadcast as a “Jewish fifth column” – infiltrated its journalism college. Wojtek Bojanowski, a young journalist who spent six weeks as a student at the school, found that his fellow students were brainwashed into believing that the former Polish elite, who ran the country until last year’s election, were ex-members of the secret police. “The college does not see things in black and white – only black,” says Bojanowski, who wrote up his notes at night in the loo. . . ”
“. . . Bojanowski, 21, who received threatening calls when his expose was published, fell foul of the college authorities by questioning a claim by Tadeusz Rydzyk, the station’s founder, that he was a friend of the late Pope.”
By even engaging the rightist racist pricks on an issue such as this he is playing into their nasty nazi paws, because John Paul 2 has already been raised to the level of sainthood by the bulk of the Polish population and criticising Rydzyk for claiming friendship with John Paul 2 will be warped into criticising John Paul 2, which, although that is a neccessary debate for Poland to have, it is best not dragged into this debate.
The conservative xtian alliance with the conservative zionists will come unglued pretty soon for exactly the same reason as all such ‘jack-ups’ come unstuck.
It has got very popular by appealing to peoples prejudices and now has become a victim of it’s success.
As more and more mainchancing hypocrites jump onto the bandwagon they are all contesting for the same group of bigots. That means a need to establish ‘a point of difference’ so the greediest and least imaginative will ressurect old prejudices eg Polish anti-semitism.
I have no doubt that there will be right wing zionist pricks in Palestine/Israel cranking up people against the Palestinian xtians whose marginalisation has been largely ignored by the US xtian fundies.
It is only a matter of time before some southern bible basher sees a potential gathering ground for those xtians in the US who currently hush their complaints about ‘jewish conspiracies’ and he/she will begin by highlighting the problems that the Palestinian xtians are having in Jerusalem and Bethlehem, then relate it back to aforesaid anti-xtian zionists.
It will be interesting to see how much coverage Radio Maryja gets in the mainstream US media.
Posted by: Anonymous | Jun 5 2006 22:20 utc | 57
yearly kos panels feature only one panel devoted remotely to the war.
same goes for take back america. nothing about the war.
both conventions, in fact, seem preoccupied with the confiscation of political power without the inspiration of ideas; all practice and no theory.
or, am I wrong? it’s easy to be jaded, and I seek disabuse for my usual pessimism.
Posted by: slothrop | Jun 5 2006 22:53 utc | 58
You and I Slothrop, agree for once.
If I ever send that bunch of MoveOn shysters anything, it will be a Hoffman brick with postage due.
All this stuff is top down leadership, fund-raising, and of course herding the pliant sheeple into the booth with appropriate voting imstructions.
Like to have some opinions from the readership on how this approach will work out.
Posted by: Groucho | Jun 5 2006 23:36 utc | 59
or immigration. nothing very substantive at the conferences about immigration, implicating as immigration does the twin taboos of american political life: race & class.
suggested panels:
the woes of empire, or, why soccermoms dig genocide. host: rememberingiap
illegal immigration: beautiful miscegenations, better food, daily naps. host: conchita
it’s capitalism, stupid: do they owe us a living? yes, they do. host: citizen.
oh,
plenary thesis: if you elect a democratic majority in the 2006 general elections, dear voter, we promise to conduct impeachment hearings and a war crimes inquiry. those responsible for the murder of iraqi civilians will be turned over to the hague for trial and conviction.
Posted by: slothrop | Jun 5 2006 23:51 utc | 60
Memri TV
The Middle Eastern Media Research Insititute has more than one thousand clips from Middle Eastern television. It isn’t all stuff like “Wife-Beating Is Permitted by Islam in Muslim Countries, but Is Forbidden in the West.” Sometimes it is “There is No Clash of Civilizations but a Clash between the Mentality of the Middle Ages and That of the 21st Century.” I am thankful that (for now) I live in a country where (generally) religion is neither forbidden nor compulsory.
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Jun 6 2006 0:05 utc | 61
You’d have to think that the peeps who vote cause it’s their democratic duty and whose brother in law’s cousin said he’d heard that the country was run by a bunch of sociopaths, will probably turn up as per usual but tick the dems box this time cause no-one remembered to remind him that dems are faggots.
The result will be the dems by a nose when a drover’s dog could have driven the rethugs out of Congress with more grunt than a Freightliner on a Fruehauf rig.
This should normally provoke introspection amongst any sort of halfway honest political movement that was concerned about the alienation of the citizenry from the political process, but the demopublicans will be too busy devising a strategy to divert the remainder of the BushCo-Rethug revenue stream, -sorry donations, whilst still hanging on to the advances the rethugs have made in separating the aforesaid citizens from political power.
What else would happen?
Posted by: Anonymous | Jun 6 2006 0:06 utc | 62
uncle, are those links off or is the circlejerk intended? (missing punchlines is my specialty)
Posted by: annie | Jun 6 2006 0:18 utc | 64
slothrop
you will lead a panel my friend on
people’s war & where does that leave scholars?
appearances & dissapearences of an empire within global capitalism
gramsci on go go & other ideological dances
captain beefheart & screaming lord sutch – the epistemological break & how to get in yr groove
no, i read their provisional programme & felt my my, revolution & the renegade kautsky or how many times can you revamp reformism
in any case we are a long way from vegas
perhaps someone will give a seminar on bugsy siegel & crossdressing or on meyer lansky & an anthopology of aipac – towards a new catastrophic conclusion
Posted by: remembereringgiap | Jun 6 2006 0:32 utc | 65
oh. forgot. a few more panels:
saving your ass after the end of oil: how to composte your own crap. host: deanander
luncheon entertainment: annie’s basoon quartet plays the big hits from crass, jodie foster’s army, and vic morrow’s head.
breakout session: a party without power: you’ll know the world is perfect, when I can’t find a conspiracy to explain how fucked up it is. host: uncle $cam.
Posted by: slothrop | Jun 6 2006 0:37 utc | 66
Question is Debs, will the sheeple come out to play and be guided? I really wonder, and if they should.
This thing with the top down MoveOn bullshit really pisses me off.
Posted by: Groucho | Jun 6 2006 0:37 utc | 67
Adbusters article: Is Right-Wing America Becoming Fascist?
“While the relentless advance of the conservative movement’s agenda is scary, the American right is not genuinely fascist – at least, not yet.”
Uh huh, sigh…
do read the comments.
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Jun 6 2006 0:40 utc | 68
Sorry…
Wife-Beating Is Permitted by Islam in Muslim Countries, but Is Forbidden in the West
There is No Clash of Civilizations but a Clash between the Mentality of the Middle Ages and That of the 21st Century
No circlejerks intended…
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Jun 6 2006 0:44 utc | 69
good to see that general wesley clark will be heading the panel, championing science.
Posted by: b real | Jun 6 2006 0:48 utc | 70
truth is, i’d give up all the Travels With Billmon to read one perspicacious underground note from deanander.
Posted by: slothrop | Jun 6 2006 1:24 utc | 71
@ slothrop,
I would host the seminar that explains how the liberal feminist leadership is screwing women’s rights by failing to address the US cause of all their fundraising causes, ie the 1948 era gender discrimination against married employed women in the current tax code.
But if I attend deanander’s peak oil panel first, I may not show up for other seminars: what would be the point?
Posted by: gylangirl | Jun 6 2006 2:03 utc | 74
slothrop- check stan goff’s place or over w/ those eurotrib cats for deanander sightings
Posted by: b real | Jun 6 2006 2:37 utc | 75
annie just woke me up from a daily nap to tell me of the goings on. and how coincidental that i should be heading a panel on beautiful miscegenations when i have just come from an extended sidewalk discussion with a friend who equates the difficulties his korean design student and his friends from denmark are having in getting working visas to “letting in 12,000,000 mexicans”. i did my best to channel malooga and meteor blades.
but more importantly in awakening from my nap, i have just come from a dream of sorts – a nyc ned lamont event. in case not everyone here knows who ned is: ned lamont is running for one of two senate seats in connecticut and is directly opposing joe lieberman in the democratic primary august 8th. ned in person is more than i hoped, much more. he said aloud, as a legitimate candidate for the us senate, much of what we have been saying here and elsewhere throughout the blogosphere for the last few years. i literally had to pinch myself. it is clear that he speaks from the heart – and it seems off the cuff – and is determined to go to washington to rock the boat (his words). he has built a platform based on opposition to the war in iraq and said repeatedly tonight that he believes those responsible must be held accountable. he was emphatic in his disgust for a president who holds politically motivated, ceremonious events in the rose garden to delegitimize same-sex marriage when there is the travesty of medicare d, no money for education, national healthcare, etc. he talked about the need for government to get out of people’s private lives, using the example of bush flying back to dc to intervene in teri schiavo’s life, but then ignored the devastation of new orleans. he pointed out the lies and corruption and the need for accountability. he talked about how the iraq war and the diplomatic policies of the bush administration had destroyed american credibility. he stated loudly and clearly that had he been in office this winter not only would he have not voted to confirm alito, but he would have lead the charge against him. he described alito as an activist judge with an obvious agenda which includes reversing roe v. wade. he took joementum to task for his vote for cloture and again for his support of bush and the war in iraq. he called bullshit on how the power brokers in the democratic party told him not to rock the boat and while joe “may not be the best democrat, he was afterall a deomocrat”. while acknowledged kerry’s recent actions, ned clearly refuses to give the centrist dems any latitude. he ended by describing jack murtha as his personal hero and declaring that victory would mean that the us senate had lost joe lieberman and gained a democrat. even if you are not a democrat there is a lot to like about ned lamont. it is the first time in a long time that i have witnessed a political figure who is not just a politician. ned lamont is exactly what this country needs right now. i was glad to write him a check and only wished it could have been larger.
i don’t know if ned is hosting any panels at yearlykos, but surely slothrop can find a position for him.
Posted by: conchita | Jun 6 2006 3:25 utc | 76
the may/june issue of orion magazine contains an excerpt from derrick jensen’s new 2-book set, endgame vol 1: the problem of civilization and vol 2: resistance, on hope – or rather, Beyond Hope
Posted by: b real | Jun 6 2006 3:29 utc | 77
@GGirl:
After his brilliant comedic Vegas audition, Slotrop is in a delicate state bordering on dialectical exhaustion.
Even the simple questions that you pose–historical contradictions are they not–might prove fatal to his much weakened philosophical system.
Dr. Siegel has developed a high-pressure colonic process that is often effective in cases such as these. Equal parts oil, cayenne pepper, and cultured respectable DNA(we use a mix of Krauthammer, Will, and Hitchens currently). It restores a natural balance to the system.
The patient normally survives the procedure, and is, fortunately, never quite the same again.
Posted by: Bettie Page, RN | Jun 6 2006 3:43 utc | 78
wonderful! i’ll be sure to wear my fuchsia tutu and pillbox hat w/ markos dolls firmly attached.
Posted by: annie | Jun 6 2006 3:48 utc | 79
@Annie:
Normally, yes.
In a severe case like this, with hardened Marxist-Lenninist impacted fecal matter, probably 90 weight gear oil, heated to 100F, injected at 80-90 psi.
Posted by: Bettie Page, RN | Jun 6 2006 4:43 utc | 81
ned lamont is running for one of two senate seats in connecticut and is directly opposing joe lieberman in the democratic primary august 8th. ned in person is more than i hoped, much more.
Yea..moi aussi…
Yahoo did a great piece on this newest candidate for the Plutocrats-R-Us party w/in the last wk. or so. It said his grandfather was J.P. Morgan’s partner. His wife is a Venture Capitalist. He’s worth $90-300M.
But hell, just ‘cuz he’s obscenely rich & lives in Greenwich, Conn., he could still be interested in representing the interests of the American People…right?? I know everyone will be ever so shocked to discover such is not the case. Here’s what this ever so open-minded chap had to say. “Before I ran for office, I thought that people losing jobs ‘cuz the Oligarchs have declared war on America was just the cost of doing business. Now…Enlightenment…I’ve discovered that -and I quote – “we have to do something about the American worker” end quote…
Now ain’t that a damn swell Democrat for ya???
With “Democrats” like that who gives a bloody shit if the elections are rigged for the Repugs in perpetuity…but, hell, he’s rich & handsome…
Posted by: jj | Jun 6 2006 6:12 utc | 82
jj, just curious, is there a source for that quote? it’s public knowledge that he comes from money, but i also know that he has a history of public service and teaches in the bridgeport school system. i wonder if the quote might have been taken out of context. after hearing him speak last night and meeting him, i was left with the strong impression that he is the real deal.
Posted by: conchita | Jun 6 2006 13:50 utc | 84
@conchita:
I posted something about this in the latest open thread. If Tommy Lamont only had one son, then he’s a second-generation “do-gooder”.
Not that Tommy Lamont was that big of a black-hearted capitalist bastard, by the way.
Posted by: Groucho | Jun 6 2006 14:18 utc | 86
groucho, just posted a response on the other thread. also want to mention that while i poked around on google trying to find the source for jj’s quote, i found an article written shortly after ned disclosed his personal wealth and it seems at that point he and his wife held upwards of $15,000 in haliburton stock. his campaign manager claims it was purchased by money managers. mr. lamont needs to be held accountable and if the stock wasn’t sold, he will lose my support. somehow i can’t imagine it wasn’t. not only does it contradict the basis of his opposition to joementum, but the political fallout would hardly be worth $15k, not when you have net worth betwenn $90-200mm.
Posted by: conchita | Jun 6 2006 14:48 utc | 87
What a depressing thread. But I appreciated some of the humor…
Posted by: Noisette | Jun 6 2006 16:14 utc | 89
slothrop & b real
where oh where is our wonderful deanander & i miss most profoundly the blakean energies of outraged
Posted by: r’giap | Jun 6 2006 18:44 utc | 90