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December 20, 2006
OT 06-119
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What? Bush beats up the Ghost Of Christmas Past; does up a few lines and finishes a bottle of ‘T.J Night Train’ with the Ghost Of Christmas Present; and tricks the Ghost Of Christmas Yet To Come by ripping off its cowl and selling it to Skull and Bones as the ‘backup’ skeleton?
No, really. What?
Posted by: Austin Cooper | Dec 20 2006 20:55 utc | 1
Libby lawyer to ask for Cheney testimony
Vice President Dick Cheney will be called to testify on behalf of his former chief of staff in the CIA-leak case, defense attorneys said yesterday, ending months of speculation over what would be historic testimony.
clip
“We don’t expect him to resist,” Jeffress said.
Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, who said last week that he did not expect the White House to challenge his witnesses, said yesterday that he does not plan to call Cheney.
Wells immediately said he would.
“That settles that,” Fitzgerald said.
Posted by: annie | Dec 20 2006 21:07 utc | 2
So they are putting more 20,000-50,000 more troops into the Middle East. What did we vote for again? However, Iraq is merely an opening, bloody diversion. As the army attacks Iraq, the US gov’t erodes rights at home by suspending habeas corpus, stealing private lands, banning books like “America Deceived” from Amazon, rigging elections, conducting warrantless wiretaps and starting 2 illegal wars based on lies. Soon, another US false-flag operation will occur (sinking of an Aircraft Carrier by Mossad) and the US will invade Iran, (on behalf of Israel).
Final link (before Google Books bends to gov’t demands and censors the title):
America Deceived (book)
Posted by: Sal J | Dec 20 2006 21:22 utc | 3
Remember in Fahrenheit 911 when Bush speaks to a group of supporters: “What an impressive crowd: the haves, and the have-mores. Some people call you the elite, I call you my base.”
Ladies and Gentlemen, his base will never allow this war to end. Not while there’s blood money to be made!
Posted by: Happy Fun News Hour | Dec 20 2006 22:16 utc | 5
Sal J, we voted for the other war party. So we’ve got a slightly different war.
Posted by: Rowan | Dec 20 2006 22:26 utc | 6
“Eros is an issue of boundaries. He exists because certain boundaries do. In the interval between reach and grasp, between glance and counterglance, between ‘I love you’ and ‘I love you too,’ the absent presence of desire comes alive. […] Pleasure and pain at once register upon the lover, inasmuch as the desirability of the love object derives, in part, from its lack. To whom is it lacking? To the lover. If we follow the trajectory of eros we consistently find it tracing out the same route: it moves out from the lover toward the beloved, then ricochets back to the lover himself and the hole in him, unnoticed before. Who is the real subject of most love poems? Not the beloved. It is that hole.” (Anne Carson. (1986). Eros: The Bittersweet – An Essay. Princeton University Press, p. 30).
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Dec 20 2006 22:52 utc | 7
The hole is the expression of such present absence, the very thing which drives melancholy, which begs for that ache. Phenomenologically it is essential to begin to imagine an architecture of sadness .
the photo at uncle’s #7 post is very apt because although the hole is not ‘contained’ by time/space it feels like it is when you are in it, trapped so to speak in a constant enclosed circular movement. this is the architecture that seems essential to imagine the continuation or constance of melancholy. in life things always change, transform, move on yet that is for the rational mind to understand. when one is immersed in eros a little logos can be ones best friend, if only to remind us the architecture of does not have permanently fixed boundaries.
Posted by: annie | Dec 21 2006 0:03 utc | 8
Did we ever have a Derrick Jensen discussion? Ever since someone (b real, I think) was posting excepts from Endgame, I’ve been itching to read it and finally got my hands on it. Needless to say, it’s messing with my head.
Posted by: Rowan | Dec 21 2006 0:50 utc | 9
Isn’t #3 a huckster trying to sell a book? I wonder if they had to “quess what letters these almost look like” two or three times before doing so? Or is that treatment just reserved for regulars?
Posted by: John Francis Lee | Dec 21 2006 1:24 utc | 12
Like the Brits in 1945, ours is an overstretched empire with a sinking currency, whose enemies are salivating at the prospect of being in on the kill… We must adjust our commitments to reflect our capabilities and, beyond that, to defend only what is truly vital to the national security. While our armed forces are more than adequate to defend us, they are insufficient to defend an empire. Rather than bleed and bankrupt the nation endlessly, we should let go of the empire… Iraq was never a threat to the United States. Only our mindless intervention has made it so.
The above is Pat Buchanan.
Posted by: John Francis Lee | Dec 21 2006 1:27 utc | 13
Bush warns of new sacrifices in Iraq
“I’m inclined to believe we need to increase in the permanent size of both the United States Army and the United States Marines,” he [XLIII] said.
The top Democrat in the House of Representatives, speaker-elect Nancy Pelosi, noted that her party had been pushing for expanding the US military.
In answer to Pat Buchanan?
Posted by: John Francis Lee | Dec 21 2006 1:28 utc | 15
One of the most extraordinary events was the siege of ’82, when over and over again leaflets would fall from the sky. “If you value your loved ones, run away and take them with you.” An attempt to depopulate West Beirut. And I always remember my landlord — I live on the seafront — I met him at front door one day, and he was holding a little net full of fish. He had been fishing on the sea. He said, “We don’t have to do as we’re told and leave our homes. We can live, you see, Mr. Robert. We can stay here.”
Muslim group seeks apology from Va. congressman
This letter was sent to hundreds of constituents by the office of Republican Rep. Virgil Goode Jr. of Virginia:
Thank you for your recent communication. When I raise my hand to take the oath on Swearing In Day, I will have the Bible in my other hand. I do not subscribe to using the Koran in any way. The Muslim Representative from Minnesota was elected by the voters of that district and if American citizens don’t wake up and adopt the Virgil Goode position on immigration there will likely be many more Muslims elected to office and demanding the use of the Koran. We need to stop illegal immigration totally and reduce legal immigration and end the diversity visas policy pushed hard by President Clinton and allowing many persons from the Middle East to come to this country. I fear that in the next century we will have many more Muslims in the United States if we do not adopt the strict immigration policies that I believe are necessary to preserve the values and beliefs traditional to the United States of America and to prevent our resources from being swamped.
The Ten Commandments and “In God We Trust” are on the wall in my office. A Muslim student came by the office and asked why I did not have anything on my wall about the Koran. My response was clear, “As long as I have the honor of representing the citizens of the 5th District of Virginia in the United States House of Representatives, The Koran is not going to be on the wall of my office.” Thank you again for your email and thoughts.
Sincerely yours,
Virgil H. Goode, Jr.
70 East Court Street
Suite 215
Rocky Mount, Virginia 24151
Posted by: John Francis Lee | Dec 21 2006 1:31 utc | 16
I don’t know who Doris Cadigan is, but she sure knows how to speak my kind of English!
Let’s Not Give Israel The Automatic Seal of American Approval
I wish to thank Former President Jimmy Carter for his latest book, Peace not Apartheid . Jimmy Carter said he wrote the book to promote a frank discussion of the facts in the American press and thus I welcome and applaud his efforts and wish to add my own two cents to this discussion which is so long overdue as Carter explains.
Yet Israel receives one-third of the United states foreign aid budget annually and billions more in loan guarantees. That’s more than the entire foreign aid assistance to the whole Africa continent while so many in that continent are in such dire need and indeed while many others in the US are in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and so many other countries around the world are in need too.
It seems sinful that a tiny country like Israel with a GDP of $20,000 is getting the lion’s share of American aid when a poor third world countries with a GDP say in the $1,000 range or less is getting next to nothing. This must stop.
Kristol is such a ridiculous figure. sadly, a comedian asks more serious questions and challenges the neo-con b.s. more than any so-called “hard hitting” journalist on tv.
speaking of Tariq Ali, the FBI refused to release John Lennon’s final records because he and another person were recruited by the FBI to try to get Lennon to invest in a left-wing bookshop?? — and couldn’t release the information because GB might attack the US?
Posted by: fauxreal | Dec 21 2006 2:40 utc | 19
Save the Internets
Why We Fight is out in video stores now, but is also available on Google video. It won the American Documentary Grand Jury prize at Sundance.
The filmmaker, Eugene Jarecki, previously made The Trials of Henry Kissinger, also available to watch for free on google video.
The good thing about google video is that you can download its player and download any of the free videos to your computer to save. I’ve done that with The Power of Nightmares and The Century of the Self.
Beyond politics, google video also has movies that are now in the public domain, such as the GREAT movie, M, or Eine Stadt such einen Moerder with Peter Lorre, my favorite junkie (sorry Burroughs), directed by Fritz Lang.
also the original D.O.A., Nosferatu, The Man Who Knew Too Much, Carnival of Souls, Scarlet Street, Detour, Rashomon, and others.
Posted by: fauxreal | Dec 21 2006 2:41 utc | 20
@ Rowan:
Ever since I read Jensen’s Culture of Make Believe, his work has been messing with my head.
My current favorite head-messer-wither is an essay he wrote about hope and why it’s a stupid concept, especially as it pertains to environmentalism. Here it is.
“Hope is what keeps us chained to the system.”
“hope is the ready willingness to be surprised.”-ivan illich
Posted by: slothrop | Dec 21 2006 3:40 utc | 22
Reuters tells us:
‘I have no future’ — Jeb Bush tells reporters
Wed Dec 20, 2006
MIAMI – The shadow of President Bush seemed to loom large over his younger brother on Wednesday, as the outgoing Florida governor ruled out any plans to return to elected office.
“No tengo futuro (I have no future),” Jeb Bush told Spanish-language reporters in Miami, when asked about any possible political ambitions after he steps down next month.
The popular, two-term governor has often been touted as a savvy politician with a good chance of following both his brother and father, George H.W. Bush, into the White House… Bush did not elaborate on his terse “no future” comment…
“Jeb would have made an outstanding presidential candidate,” said Kansas Sen. Sam Brownback…
I love these Connecticut hicks. [Insert Bender Laugh Here: Hee hee hee hee hee hee hee hee.]
Posted by: Austin Cooper | Dec 21 2006 4:06 utc | 23
rowan- if you wanna start one, i’m certainly up for sharing my thoughts on it. deanander mentioned two weeks back that she was just starting it. (lisa b-k – that essay is from his latest book)
Posted by: b real | Dec 21 2006 5:01 utc | 24
Business As Usual
Can’t seem to cut ‘n’ paste anything from this article to excerpt for a blockquote… so I expect that this posting, much like a spending bill appearing before a rubber stamp congress, will be go fairly unread.
Posted by: Monolycus | Dec 21 2006 5:25 utc | 25
Huh…? Now that was odd. Let me see if this goes through before I try again.
Posted by: Monolycus | Dec 21 2006 5:26 utc | 26
Okay, then, third time’s a charm.
Business As Usual
Since I can’t seem to cut ‘n’ paste any excerpts from this article to blockquote, I expect that this posting… like a spending bill before a rubber stamp congress… will go fairly unread.
Posted by: Monolycus | Dec 21 2006 5:28 utc | 27
no problem monolycus..it’s a doozy
A $50 billion — that we know of — tax and trade bill emerged from Congress in the wee hours, and it was packed with special-interest provisions of which most lawmakers were probably unaware.
Most glaringly, it included a Medicare measure — earlier rejected by Senate negotiators — that would benefit a big insurance company in outgoing House Speaker Dennis Hastert’s home state of Illinois.
Irked senators, including Republican leader Mitch McConnell and the incoming and outgoing chairmen of the Senate Finance Committee, say they will try to strike the provision in the new conference.
In what the parties deny was a tradeoff but sure looks like one, Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid added a land-swap measure for his home state of Nevada. That provision would designate 900 square miles of federal land as wilderness in exchange for allowing 70 square miles of federal land to be sold for private development.
Environmental groups are split on the measure — some favor it — but the real question is: What is it doing in a tax and trade bill? The answer is that the bill had to be passed that night, lest certain popular tax breaks expire at the end of the year, and no one was going to delay adjournment by asking a lot of questions.
In addition, the bill accumulated 520 targeted special-interest tariff suspensions that will cost the Treasury tens of millions of dollars. These waive the duties on certain imports and are not supposed to exceed $500,000.
The lawmakers get around the cap by submitting multiple suspensions. Moreover, the suspensions are often written in opaque language that makes it difficult to identify the company benefiting. The lawmakers must vote on the suspensions en masse, making it difficult to target the more egregious tax breaks.
The Washington Post reports that with this and other measures the last Congress enacted a record number of tariff suspensions that will ultimately cost the Treasury hundreds of millions of dollars.
The incoming chairman of the House trade subcommittee promises to close the loophole that allows the cap to be evaded and to require that the lawmakers specify which companies would benefit from a suspension.
The voters can only hope that Congress’ changing hands means a new way of doing business and not just new people doing business as usual.
Posted by: annie | Dec 21 2006 5:55 utc | 28
Here we go …
U.S. and Britain to Add Ships to Persian Gulf in Signal to Iran
The United States and Britain will begin moving additional warships and strike aircraft into the Persian Gulf region in a display of military resolve toward Iran that will come as the United Nations continues to debate possible sanctions against the country, Pentagon and military officials said Wednesday.
The officials said that Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates was expected this week to approve a request by commanders for a second aircraft carrier and its supporting ships to be stationed within quick sailing distance of Iran by early next year.
Senior American officers said the increase in naval power should not be viewed as preparations for any offensive strike against Iran. But they acknowledged that the ability to hit Iran would be increased and that Iranian leaders might well call the growing presence provocative.
…
Steps are already being taken to increase the number of minesweeping vessels and magnetic “sleds” carried by helicopters to improve the ability to counter Iranian mines that could block oil-shipping lanes, Pentagon and military officials said.
As part of future deployments after the first of the year, the British Navy plans to add two mine-hunting vessels to its ships that already are part of the international coalition patrolling waters in the Persian Gulf.
A Royal Navy news release said the ship movements were aimed at “maintaining familiarity with the challenges of warm water mine-hunting conditions.” But a senior British official said: “We are increasing our presence. That is only prudent.” Military officers said doubling the aircraft carrier presence in the region could be accomplished quickly by a shift in sailing schedules.
…
at present there are about 45 warships deployed in the Persian Gulf and waters across the region from the Red Sea to the Indian Ocean, with a third of those supplied by allies, which this month include Australia, Bahrain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Pakistan and Britain.
Lisa, b real,
since this isn’t theoretical Marxism, I could probably get something started. Last I checked, Le Speakeasy was quiet but for the spambots, and I loathe the blog system for deep discussion – MOA’s is better than most (all!), but still not good.
I’m at the point about 2/3s of the way through the first volume about the addiction of civilization, and it’ll might strike me to write something. On my computer, or rather, my parents’ computer. Which I flew to visit them on.
Posted by: Rowan | Dec 21 2006 6:20 utc | 30
AEI neocon R.M.Gerecht in a confused NYT OpED: In Iraq, Let’s Fight One War at a Time
an American assault on Sadr City, the impoverished Baghdad stronghold of the Mahdi Army, would be militarily and politically counterproductive if undertaken before the United States launches a serious new counterinsurgency against the Sunnis.
Even with a substantial surge of soldiers along the lines recommended by Jack Keane, a retired four-star general, and the military historian Frederick Kagan of the American Enterprise Institute — approximately 35,000 more combat troops — the United States still wouldn’t have enough forces to fight a two-front war against the Sunnis and the Shiites, as it briefly did in 2004.
…
If the administration first focuses militarily on the Sunni insurgency, as called for in the Keane-Kagan plan — and the press indicates Mr. Bush is taking the two men very seriously — the United States and the Iraqi government would be better able to diminish sectarian violence. With more troops, we can clear and hold Sunni areas in Baghdad and thereby prevent Shiite militias from streaming out of Sadr City to attack defenseless Sunnis.
…
Only after Baghdad’s Sunni neighborhoods are fully secured can the Americans turn their attention to the Shiite quarters, ensuring that American and reliable Iraqi forces control the streets and municipal facilities necessary to sustain city life. We may eventually have to confront militarily the Mahdi forces inside Sadr City, but we want to do this only as the last step in counterinsurgency operations in the capital.
This is complete nonsense: First attack the Sunni and only when they are finished let’s attack Sadr. As if Sunni and/or Shia will agree to this and go along. This “the enemy has no brain” attitude is deadly, but not to the enemy.
b- i keep getting this message when trying to post
We’re sorry…
Your comment has not been posted because we think it may be comment spam. We routinely monitor comment activity and block comments that exhibit patterns of abuse. We apologize if you believe you’ve reached this message in error.
will keep on trying
Posted by: b real | Dec 21 2006 8:15 utc | 32
Bush: Iranians ‘can do better’ than Ahmadinejad
Says he :
“My message to the Iranian people is: You can do better than to have somebody try to rewrite history. You can do better than somebody who hasn’t strengthened your economy,” Bush said in a year-end press conference.
“And you can do better than having somebody who’s trying to develop a nuclear weapon that the world believes you shouldn’t have. There’s a better way forward,” said the US president.
Says I:
“My Fellow Americans, we can do better than to have somebody who has tired to rewrite history in order to justify his shocking, awful aggression in the Middle East. We can do better than somebody who, immediately after seizing power, re-instated the Republican Deficits, deficits that had taken the better part of the previous decade to get under control after the last ‘conservative’ Republican regime.”
“We can do better than somebody who’s trying to develop a nuclear WAR that everyone in the world stands in dread of! There must be a better way forward… we desperately need Regime Change in the United States of America!”
Posted by: John Francis Lee | Dec 21 2006 9:20 utc | 33
Vermont soldier offers troops baked goods, way to speak out against war
Posted December 19, 2006
QUANTICO, VA — A Vermont soldier at the center of a national effort to help active-duty military personnel find ways to tell members of Congress they want the United States to pull out of Iraq is now handing out care packages at several military bases around the country that make it easy for troops to speak out.
The care packages include informational flyers and baked goods, as well as copies of the movie, Sir No Sir, a documentary about military resisters during the Vietnam War, and The Ground Truth, which follows soldiers from basic training to deployment to Iraq to their homecoming and reintegration.
“The main purpose of the care packages though, is to carry an appeal for redress in a pre-addressed envelope to the troops,” said Liam Madden, a Bellows Falls native, and U.S. Marine sergeant.
Madden said if 100 care packages can be distributed at each of the bases, he would consider that a success. The idea was kicked around on a conference call regarding the appeal for redress several weeks ago.
An “appeal for redress” is a legal means by which service members can appeal to members of Congress to urge an end to a U.S. military occupation. Under the Military Whistleblower Protection Act, active-duty military, National Guard and reservists can send a protected communication to a member of Congress regarding any subject without reprisal.
“We saw the holidays as a great opportunity to reach out to the troops and simultaneously show our support and deliver our message to the active duty,” Madden said.
There are volunteers working at the following bases: Fort Carson in Colorado; Davis Monthan Air Force Base in Arizona; Dover Air Force Base in Delaware; Groton Naval Base in Connecticut; Norfolk Naval Base in Virginia; and the cluster of bases in southern California, as well as bases near Washington, DC.
“We are working with a few dozen volunteers. Some are getting their first taste of this type of participation,” said Madden. “The project is a coalition of active service members who have submitted appeals for redress, veterans and veterans organizations, military families, and concerned citizens throughout the country.”
Madden said he has not received any hostile responses from his fellow service members or his chain of command.
“I’ve found that very few people support the occupation, but that many have reservations about us withdrawing too quickly or they feel we now owe the Iraqi people our help,” said Madden. “I also get the impression that the idea of being socially and politically involved is something very foreign to most of the fellow service members I’ve encountered.”
Madden hopes the packages will be delivered before the new year, and hopefully before Christmas.
Madden, a 2002 graduate of Bellows Falls High School, is currently stationed in Quantico, VA, after serving in Iraq’s Anbar province from September 2004 until February 2005. He currently has two months left on duty and does not plan to re-enlist.
To date, more than 1,200 U.S. servicemen and women have signed these appeals, which state: “As a patriotic American proud to serve the nation in uniform, I respectfully urge my political leaders in Congress to support the prompt withdrawal of all American military forces and bases from Iraq. Staying in Iraq will not work and is not worth the price. It is time for U.S. troops to come home.”
The idea for the redress appeals originated in January when Seaman Jonathan Hutto of Atlanta, GA, was deployed to Iraq.
An old buddy of Hutto’s, who was a member of the G.I. movement to resist the Vietnam War back in the early 1970s, sent him a 30th anniversary copy of Soldiers in Revolt written by David Cortright. The book chronicles the movement within the military during the Vietnam War who advocated to end that war and bring the troops home. One of the avenues they used was appealing to political leaders in Washington.
By 1971 more than 250,000 of these active duty servicemen appealed to Congress. Reading this gave Hutto an inspiration to speak out.
During the Vietnam War era, many credit the outspoken words of veterans and active-duty soldiers for bringing about an end to that war, rather than any politician or citizen-led movement.
Madden, and others, hope that their speaking out will help bring a quick end to the Iraq War.
For more information
The group is looking for contributions to help pay for the packages, and is looking for additional volunteers.
To donate, checks can be mailed to:
Appeal for Redress Holiday Project
P.O Box 53052
Washington, DC 20009-3052, or at
http://www.appealforredress.org
.
The ingredients of the care packages are:
- An appeal for redress in a pre-addressed envelope;
- The “bait,” otherwise known as baked goods and other treats;
- Where they are available we are incorporating DVDs of the films Sir No Sir and The Ground Truth; and,
- Each regional team is in charge of all other “gifts” in the care packages such as informational flyers about the supporting organizations.
Posted by: John Francis Lee | Dec 21 2006 9:45 utc | 34
i have good memories of reading illich as a student – on pedagogy – when i was a student – subtle but strong – one of the many indirect gifts of liberation theology
Posted by: remembereringgiap | Dec 21 2006 10:33 utc | 35
Sidney Blumenthal on the current delicacies in Iraq. With background music, compliments of Dr. John playing:
Walk on Guilded Splinters
Dec. 20, 2006 | “We’re going to win,” President Bush told a guest at a White House Christmas party. Another guest, ingratiating himself with his host, urged him to ignore the report of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group, co-chaired by James Baker, the former secretary of state and his father’s close associate, which described the crisis in Iraq as “grave and deteriorating,” and offered 79 recommendations for diplomacy, transferring responsibility to the Iraqi government and withdrawing nearly all U.S. troops by 2008. “The president chuckled,” according to an account in the neoconservative Weekly Standard, “and said he’d made his position clear when he appeared with British Prime Minister Tony Blair. The report had never mentioned the possibility of American victory. Bush’s goal in Iraq, he said at the photo op with Blair, is ‘victory.'” Bush reasserted his belief that “victory in Iraq is achievable” at his Wednesday press conference.
[…] Baker had maneuvered through the thicket of the 2000 Through the Iraq Study Group Baker and O’Connor were attempting to salvage what they had made possible in Bush v. Gore. Upon Bush’s receipt of the report, a White House spokesman told the press, “Jim Baker can go back to his day job.”
The day after the report was submitted, on Dec. 8, Tony Blair appeared at the White House. He had testified before the Baker Commission, and supported its main proposals, but now stood beside Bush as the president tossed them aside, talking instead of “victory.”
[…]
The day before the Chatham House report was released former Secretary of State Colin Powell appeared on CBS News’ “Face the Nation” to announce his support for the rejected Iraq Study Group and declare, “We are not winning, we are losing.” He made plain his opposition to any new “surge” of troops in Baghdad,
[…]
“I will not be rushed,” said Bush. But apparently he has already accepted the latest neoconservative program, artfully titled with catchphrases appealing to his desperation — “Choosing Victory: A Plan for Success in Iraq” — and available for reading on the site of the American Enterprise Institute.
“Choosing Victory” is a prophetic document, a bugle call for an additional 30,000 troops to fight a decisive Napoleonic battle for Baghdad. (Its author, Kagan, has written a book on Napoleon.) It assumes that through this turning point the Shiite militias will melt away, the Sunni insurgents will suffer defeat and from the solid base of Baghdad security will radiate throughout the country. The plan also assumes that additional combat teams that actually take considerable time to assemble and train are instantly available for deployment. And it dismisses every diplomatic initiative proposed by the Iraq Study Group as dangerously softheaded. Foremost among the plan’s assertions is that there is still a military solution in Iraq — “victory.”
The strategic premise of the entire document rests on the incredulous disbelief that the U.S. cannot enforce its will through force. “Victory is still an option in Iraq,” it states. “America, a country of 300 million people with a GDP of $12 trillion, and more than 1 million soldiers and marines can regain control of Iraq, a state the size of California with a population of 25 million and a GDP under $100 billion.” By these gross metrics, France should never have lost in Algeria and Vietnam. The U.S. experience in Vietnam goes unmentioned.
Bush’s rejection of the Iraq Study Group report was presaged by a post-election speech delivered on Dec. 4 by Karl Rove at the Churchill dinner held by Hillsdale College, a citadel of conservative crankdom. Here Rove conflated Winston Churchill and George W. Bush, Neville Chamberlain and James Baker, and the Battle of Britain and the Iraq war. “Why would we want to pursue a policy that our enemies want?” demanded Rove. “We will either win or we will lose … Winston Churchill showed us the way. And like Great Britain under its greatest leader, we in the United States will not waver, we will not tire, we will not falter, and we will not fail.”
[…]
When Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., offered that Truman had created the NATO alliance, worked through the U.N. and conducted diplomacy with enemies, and that Bush could follow his example by endorsing the recommendations of the ISG, Bush rejected Durbin’s fine-tuning of the historical analogy and replied that he was “the commander in chief.”
[…]
He (Bush) has assimilated no analysis whatsoever of what’s gone wrong. For him, there’s no past, especially his own. There’s only the present. The war is detached from strategic purposes, the history of Iraq and the region, and political and social dynamics, and instead is grasped as a test of character. Ultimately, what’s at stake is his willpower.
Repudiated in the midterm elections, Bush has elevated himself above politics, and repeatedly says, “I am the commander in chief.” With the crash of Rove’s game plan for using his presidency as an instrument to leverage a permanent Republican majority, Bush is abandoning the role of political leader. He can’t disengage militarily from Iraq because that would abolish his identity as a military leader, his default identity and now his only one.
Unlike the political leader, the commander in chief doesn’t require persuasion; he rules through orders, deference and the obedience of those beneath him. By discarding the ISG report, Bush has rejected doubt, introspection, ambivalence and responsibility. By embracing the AEI manifesto, he asserts the warrior virtues of will, perseverance and resolve. The contest in Iraq is a struggle between will and doubt. Every day his defiance proves his superiority over lesser mortals. Even the Joint Chiefs have betrayed the martial virtues that he presumes to embody. He views those lacking his will with rising disdain. The more he stands up against those who tell him to change, the more virtuous he becomes. His ability to realize those qualities surpasses anyone else’s and passes the character test.
[…]
Bush’s idea of himself as personifying martial virtues, however, is based on a vision that would be unrecognizable to all modern theorists of warfare. According to Carl von Clausewitz, war is the most uncertain of human enterprises, difficult to understand, hardest to control and demanding the highest degree of adaptability. It was Clausewitz who first applied the metaphor of “fog” to war. In his classic work, “On War,” he warned, “We only wish to represent things as they are, and to expose the error of believing that a mere bravo without intellect can make himself distinguished in war.”
Posted by: anna missed | Dec 21 2006 10:43 utc | 36
anna missed
never, i believe in human history has a defeat of an empire been so clear – they are their own stalingrad & have a habit as the english say of kicking ‘own goals’ – the ineptitude is really quite something to behold but i imagine if we were blogging in the first world war – the mass murder incited by general haig would have looked much the same
we will soon be sold the idea that general petreus & his allies will be the ‘new approach’ & theirs is really & absolutely a return to vietnamisation & the phoenix programme – with rogue elements fostered until the law or the united nations catches up with them
but even this invitation to even more slaughter wil do them no good – each day the breath & the strenght & the capacity of the resistance grows & it will suck a hole out of this occupation army & its puppets in a way they cannot imagine
because we are not at the other end of u s armed force – we are almost priveleged as the chinese say to live in these ‘interesting’ times because it is all happenning before our eyes
everything, it think was foreseen except for the degree of madness both in foreign policy & their use of armed force – the absence of any sense or moderation (read decency) is really the direct responsibility of that bitter 60’s man, rumsfield. in concert with cheney – never have the war profiteers been able to gorge like the pigs they are – but never has an army been so unprepared for what is to happen & what will meep on happening. if ever the common soldier was a pawn – iraq is the most illustrative example – that the guerrillas of world over will learn in their classes
Posted by: remembereringgiap | Dec 21 2006 11:35 utc | 37
A fairy good portrait of SCIRI and the Sadr-movement by Sudarsan Raghavan in the Washington Post: Shiite Clerics’ Rivalry Deepens In Fragile Iraq
Their rivalry is rising as the moderating influence of Iraq’s most revered Shiite figure, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, is fading on the streets of Baghdad and is being replaced by allegiance to militant clerics such as Sadr, according to Iraqi officials and analysts.
They question whether Hakim can counter Sadr’s growing street power without worsening the chaos. As President Bush ponders limited alternatives in forging a new approach in Iraq, some wonder whether the United States is overestimating Hakim’s ability.
…
Inside the Sayyed Idris mosque, a large shrine in Karrada with an ornate blue-and-yellow tiled minaret, Haji Abbas al-Zubaidi is a witness to this changing world.
For years, the picture of Hakim’s white-bearded brother, Ayatollah Mohammed Bakir Hakim, who was killed by a car bomb in 2003, hung in the mosque’s library along with images of Sistani and a collection of revered Shiite saints. Now, pictures of Sadr and his father hang along with them.
…
“The terrorists are pouring their poison into our neighborhood,” said Zubaidi, slim with long, slender fingers and a narrow face, as he sat on a large red carpet inside the mosque. “The sons of Karrada who have joined the popular committees and the Mahdi Army are now 98 percent in control. We have noticed that many of the attempts have been foiled.”
…
“We imitate and follow Sayyed Sistani,” said Zubaidi, using an honorific for Sistani. “As for the field commanders and the young men, they are followers of Moqtada Sadr.”
…
In many circles, Iraqis question whether Hakim and other so-called moderates can curb the growing power of Sadr.
“I have serious doubts about Mr. Hakim’s influence among the Shiites, and I have serious doubts of Hashemi becoming the leader of Sunnis,” Nadhmi said.
It’s a sentiment shared in Karrada. “Al-Hakim is not loved by the people,” said Abdul Amir Ali, a burly Shiite shopkeeper. “People love the Islamic Dawa Party and Maliki because they don’t have militias.”
In the sidewalk restaurant where Sadr’s poster hangs, its owner, Ali Hussein, points at clusters of young men nearby. They are all Mahdi Army, he said. And so is he.
Hakim, he said, made a fatal mistake by meeting Bush. In today’s Iraq, credibility and power are measured by opposition to the United States.
“At this time, whoever has his hands with the Americans or Jews is not an Iraqi,” said Hussein, as he chopped up cubes of lamb. “So how could Hakim put his hands with the Americans? There will be tensions because Sayyed Moqtada Sadr is a revolutionary man, like his father. Even if Hakim tries to come back to Sadr, Sadr will never receive his hand.”
Primary loyalities – Sadr delivers security, Hakim not – who would you choose?
The crazy Turkmenbashi died. One can be certain that there will be a vicious Russian/US fight for getting control over Turkmenistan. It’s on the Iranian boarder and has lots of natural gas. Putin will get few divisions ready if he wants to keep the US out of there …
Turkmen leader dies, succession meeting called
Turkmenistan’s President-for-life Saparmurat Niyazov died on Thursday after 21 years of iron rule in which he crushed all dissent and made his Central Asian state one of the world’s most isolated countries.
He was 66.
State television and government sources said Niyazov, who basked in a unique and bizarre personality cult while ruling a country with the world’s fifth-biggest natural gas reserves, died overnight of cardiac arrest.
…
Niyazov, who held all the top posts, left no designated heir and his sudden death raised concerns about the transfer of power in the ex-Soviet nation of 5 million, where foreign oil and gas companies are keen to invest in vast energy reserves.
…
Turkmenistan-watchers were monitoring for any signs of trouble in the country, which borders Iran, that could affect its gas deliveries, much of which go to Ukraine via the Russian gas monopoly Gazprom.
“If Niyazov’s death results in political instability and social unrest, this may lead to the gas supply from Turkmenistan to RosUkrEnergo (Russian-Ukraine energy joint venture) and Ukraine being disrupted,” said a research note from Deutsche UFG Bank in Moscow.
…
In an early reaction, exiled Turkmen opposition activists said they intended to immediately try to return home.
“Our first task is to return to Turkmenistan within hours. We are discussing now how to do it. In Turkmenistan there is no opposition, they all sit in prisons or under home arrest. But outside the country opposition exists and it is coming back,” one activist, Parakhad Yklymov, told Reuters by telephone from Sweden.
Russia said it hoped Turkmenistan would stick to Niyazov’s course. “We count on the new Turkmenistan leaders continuing their course and further developing bilateral ties,” top Kremlin aide Sergei Prikhodko told Itar-Tass news agency
Following up on references to Ivan Illyich I found that he’d been interested in Arnold J Toynbee, whom I hadn’t thought about in awhile, and I found a quote from 1968
All through those 30 years, Britain (admitted) into Palestine, year by year, a quota of Jewish immigrants that varied according to the strength of the respective pressures of the Arabs and Jews at the time. These immigrants could not have come in if they had not been shielded by a British chevaux-de-frise. If Palestine had remained under Ottoman Turkish rule, or if it had become an independent Arab state in 1918, Jewish immigrants would never have been admitted into Palestine in large enough numbers to enable them to overwhelm the Palestinian Arabs in this Arab people’s own country. The reason why the State of Israel exists today and why today 1,500,000 Palestinian Arabs are refugees is that, for 30 years, Jewish immigration was imposed on the Palestinian Arabs by British military power until the immigrants were sufficiently numerous and sufficiently well-armed to be able to fend for themselves with tanks and planes of their own. The tragedy in Palestine is not just a local one; it is a tragedy for the world, because it is an injustice that is a menace to the world’s peace.
ivan Illyich seems very interesting. His Tools for Conviviality has caught my interest.
Posted by: John Francis Lee | Dec 21 2006 13:37 utc | 40
@anna missed #36
Thanks for this excellent piece. Blumenthal really, really nails Bush’s psychology, in my view, more clearly than anything I have seen to date. And these are all the reasons why the idiotic argument against impeachment are so morally flawed. Impeachment is a national imperative, and not even impeachment — that is too slow and grinding a process for the circumstances that we face. These times demand his immediate removal from office by any possible means (preferably in a straitjacket). The man is not psychologically fit to assume these unimaginably immense responsibilities that we have placed in his bloody, weaselly hands.
Posted by: Bea | Dec 21 2006 13:38 utc | 41
Two Watersheds (toward the end)
The characteristic reaction of the sixties to the growing frustration was further technological and bureaucratic escalation. Self-defeating escalation of power became the core-ritual practiced in highly industrialized nations. In this context the Vietnam war is both revealing and concealing. It makes this ritual visible for the entire world in a narrow theatre of war, yet it also distracts attention from the same ritual being played out in many so-called peaceful arenas. The conduct of the war proves that a convivial army limited to bicycle speeds is served by the opponent’s escalation of anonymous power. And yet many Americans argue that the resources squandered on the war in the Far East could be used effectively to overwhelm poverty at home. Others are anxious to use the $20 billion the war now costs for increasing international development assistance from its present low of $2 billion. They fail to grasp the underlying institutional structure common to a peaceful war on poverty and a bloody war on dissidence. Both escalate what they are meant to eliminate.
Illyich’s obit in the Guardian claims that
“Best known for his polemical writings against western institutions from the 1970s, which were easily caricatured by the right and were, equally, disdained by the left for their attacks on the welfare state, in the last 20 years of his life he became an officially forgotten, troublesome figure (like Noam Chomsky today in mainstream America).”
Right and Left both despise him, a man after my own heart.
Posted by: John Francis Lee | Dec 21 2006 13:51 utc | 42
Glenn Greenwald has a very good column up about the prospects of US military intervention in Iran. Money quote:
Geopolitical considerations do not determine what the U.S. will do vis-a-vis Iran. The President’s personality does.
This is my greatest fear.
Posted by: Bea | Dec 21 2006 14:21 utc | 44
Haaretz:
Four Reasons for Netanyahu’s Recent Ranting Against Iran
Reason #1: To spur on Bush. The ideal scenario, from Israel’s point of view, would be an American military attack that would destroy Iran’s nuclear facilities and remove the threat. “We have to get the United States to carry out what it promised to do, and to create the proper international climate,” explains a senior official. It is not clear what President Bush told Olmert in private talks that had him leaving Bush’s office feeling so satisfied. We can only presume that Olmert is depending on Bush’s religious faith and obstinacy, which will lead him to attack Iran, even in light of American public opposition to military adventures in the Middle East.
When will that happen? The head of the Mossad spoke this week about an Iranian nuclear bomb in another three years. This leaves a year for diplomacy and sanctions, and moves H-hour for a military attack to 2008, if Iran continues its nuclear development. The timing is right politically. It will be Bush’s last year in the White House, and he will be busy bequeathing his “legacy….”
#2. To prepare for an Israeli attack….
#3. To solve [internal] political problems….
#4. To remain in the territories….
Posted by: Bea | Dec 21 2006 14:31 utc | 45
Our noble elected representatives, hard at work encouraging the most scurrilous sort of prejudice, stereoptyping, and xenophobia:
Congressman Criticizes Election of Muslim
With Congresspersons like these, who needs the Ku Klux Klan or white supremacists?
If anyone on here lives in this moron’s Virginia district and feels moved to respond, please do so!!
Posted by: Bea | Dec 21 2006 14:41 utc | 46
Raed Jarrar on (no-)secterianism in Iraq: Iraq’s About Politics, Not Sectarianism
The U.S administration — followed by the mainstream media — did their best to portray the growing Iraqi-Iraqi conflict as a sectarian or religious one with roots that pre-dated the occupation even though many Iraqi analysts and politicians disagreed with that perception and believe the current conflict is based on political, not religious, motives.
As new coalitions emerge inside the Iraqi government, it seems that the background of “sectarian conflict” put forth by the U.S. is collapsing completely. A number of Shia groups such as the Al-Sadr movement and the Al-Fadila party are working with Sunni, Kurdish and secular parties both within and outside the Iraqi government and are attempting to establish a national front that is against the occupation and is for unity in Iraq.
While these pro-unity groups coalesce, the Bush administration is lending its support to another pro-occupation coalition that may include Al-Hakim of the Supreme Council of Islamic Revolution In Iraq (SCIRI), the two main Kurdish parties, and the Islamic party which is a Sunni party led by the Iraqi vice president, Tariq Al-Hashimi.
The newly formed coalitions prove sectarianism is not at the root of the conflict in Iraq. Sectarian and religious differences are not splitting the country. Thus, it’s clear that the “80% solution” will have no impact and will not work, nor will any other sectarian-based response.
The main issue that is splitting Iraqis is the presence of the occupation, and that’s why more than 87% of the Iraqi people, and a majority of the country’s politicians, believe that the first step in dealing with the Iraqi-Iraqi conflict is pulling out the U.S. and coalition troops and ending the occupation.
In case you miss him: Eschaton/Atrios (temporary location)
JFK and 9/11 – Insights Gained From Studying Both?
This scholarly treatment of the two major conspiracies of our time:
Peter Dale Scott compares the two events and discovers common threads. For instance:
– ‘Lone Deranged Gunman’/’Lone Deranged Hijackers’
– The Use of the White House Communications Office and a ‘backdoor’ higher level communications system that the normal channels were unaware of during the crisis
and, most importantly…
– Connections of the conspirators and US intelligence systems with the drug trade
Thanks Peter for your very valuable contribution.
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Dec 21 2006 17:08 utc | 49
annie- I was just about to post that same link. I think you should post it in the latest billmon post about the invasion of Iraq.
republicans are talking about Bush being delusional. about a dangerous situation when he opposes the generals.
they even actually go back to their own newsclips to show what Bush said then and what he’s saying now. they are saying that the “intervention” didn’t work…a word used to talk about confronting an alcoholic who denies the damage of his actions in the lives of others.
someone else noted the republicans would have tried to stage a coup against Clinton had he done the same…really worth watching, esp. this holiday season for all who have to spend time with right wing relatives…
Posted by: fauxreal | Dec 21 2006 20:02 utc | 51
US plans broadband safety network
US politicians have proposed a national wireless broadband network for use by emergency services at times of crisis.
Translation:
US elite to be connected while general public await FEMA camps.
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Dec 21 2006 21:11 utc | 52
Approximately one hour from now is probably the best fucking chance for world peace we’ve ever encountered. I hope many participate in this ecstatic event.
I’ll be checking back later. I’ve got a date for the next little while.
Posted by: Juannie | Dec 21 2006 23:21 utc | 53
hmmmmmmmmmmmmm. juannie, are you still having your global orgasm?
Posted by: fauxreal | Dec 22 2006 3:43 utc | 54
The FLYNT LEVERETT OpEd which the White House censures is printed in the NYT with the censured parts in black Redacted Version of Original Op-Ed – a first in MSM history?
Bush signs bill denying aid to Hamas-led authority
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Bush on Thursday signed into law legislation restricting aid to the Hamas-led Palestinian Authority until it recognizes Israel’s right to exist, makes financial reforms and takes other steps.
The United States, the European Union and others regard Hamas as a terrorist group and have already cut off direct aid to the government. Hamas rose to power in parliament after defeating the Fatah party in January.
The ban has crushed the government’s ability to function and the Palestinian economy.
Best Wishes for a Happy and Holy Christmas form all the Xtians in Xtian Europe and America to the residents of the Holy Land.
We are happy, safe and warm in their long, cold, Silent Night…
Posted by: John Francis Lee | Dec 22 2006 7:14 utc | 56
Police state? I’m not one of those to declare America’s descent into fascism as anything but potential, but something happened to my family this Christmas that has me wondering. My sister, who is getting a graduate degree in music, has lost her sheet music. The only thing she can think of, that makes sense, as to where it was lost was that when the Transportation Security Administration went through her bag, they took it out and didn’t put it back in.
Sure, unless they think music notation is an Arabic plot, it was probably an accident. But she’s a musician – she needs that. It was lost via a huge, faceless government bureaucracy which doesn’t care about the damage it did to her education, and there is no way to rectify it. Arbitrary, damaging, and opaque, all in the name of security. This is absurd. But it is.
Posted by: Rowan | Dec 22 2006 7:41 utc | 57
miss “atrios”…???? Jesus, what sort of place do you think this is??
Posted by: jj | Dec 22 2006 8:03 utc | 58
JFL, Re the Guardian obit:
Illich wasn’t rejected by the French speaking left afaik though he did sort of fade away from the front of the scene. And I wouldn’t call Chomsky forgotten, and most certainly not troublesome. He keeps the mainstream ‘left’ in line with his pro-Israel stance and his support for the 9/11-Govmedia-fantasy. And I take unkindly to the comparison because they don’t fall into the same class. Illich was a passionate and honest man – Chomsky, mmh.
Posted by: Noirette | Dec 22 2006 14:12 utc | 59
I’d always assumed that one of the defining characteristics of trainwrecks is that they don’t tend to go anywhere. I’d go so far as to call ’em immobile, by and large. So, here I thought it might be safe to get as drunk as I presently am without the Great Trainwreck moving in any discernible direction. I apparently have much to learn about trainwrecks.
For those of you who haven’t gotten your head sized for a tinfoil chapeau… better get on that, because there is absolutely no rational explanation for this…President issues 16 pardons, commutes sentence of man convicted on drug charges.
If there’s one thing the Decider is reknowned for, it’s his limitless compassion. Ask Carla Faye Tucker. So what the hell is this unprecedented little gift to the peons about? It’s not even the eleventh hour yet… so I am as perplexed as perplexed can be. Anyone more sober than myself care to augur that one?
On the other hand, it’ll take more than the four pitchers of beer I’ve just downed to obfuscate the intent of this little tidbit:
U.S. Selective Service plans to test draft machinery.
Just to make sure it’s still working, of course… because it hasn’t been “tested” under George the Lesser, and we wouldn’t want faulty equipment we never, oh never, intend to use to go bad while it’s in mothballs. Remember, THIS IS ONLY A TEST. HAD THERE BEEN AN ACTUAL EMERGENCY, AND A DEMOCRATIC CONGRESS TO TAKE THE FALL FOR PROPOSING IT, YOU WOULD HAVE BEEN INSTRUCTED TO REPORT TO THE NEAREST BOOT CAMP FACILITY… OR WORLD WAR II ERA JAPANESE-AMERICAN INTERMENT CAMP THAT HAS, APPARENTLY NEVER BEEN DECOMMISSIONED… brought to you by the only rogue state that objects to the UN treaty against enforced disappearances.
Okay… rooms spins now and it can’t all be from the booze.
Posted by: Monolycus | Dec 22 2006 17:21 utc | 60
@ Bea (#46) He’s my SOs worthless rep and he’s going to get a letter.
Anyone else? link
Posted by: beq | Dec 22 2006 18:40 utc | 61
Weapons have been landed from Israeli ships on the Lebanese coast for the purpose of arming the enemies of Hizbullah.
Helena Cobban weighs in with a great post on Rep. Goode of Virginia … and Thomas Jefferson.
What he [Goode] says is an afront not just to Muslim Americans, but to any American who “gives a hoot” about our founding values. Below, I provide my own transcript of Goode’s appalling comments – with my own annotations and a Jeffersonian test inserted.
Posted by: Bea | Dec 22 2006 20:12 utc | 63
retired Colonel Sam Gardiner said in an interview this week that he sees several signs that the United States is in fact moving on a warpath to Iran. He suggested that the talk of sending additional troops to Iraq could actually be about Iran, and said he is also seeing signs that the administration “is beginning to develop the strategic communications message. It is about Iran more and more that you hear people talking …The evidence suggests the White House put an embargo on talking about Iran beginning the second week in October…” That embargo now appears to have been lifted, Gardiner says. “A story” — an Iran narrative — “is being put together.”
noirette
i am a little confused – it seems to me – that chomsky has been very precise in his critique of the occupation of palestinian land. i find him very useful indeed. illich too was a remarkable man – i thought we were a broad church
& i suppose in the academy here there is a haughtiness with which marxist humanism is treated – foe example when the wonderful ken loach speaks & he speaks like a militant from the 50’s – they almost have fits on television
but i think on the ground, or on the terrain as they are wont to say here – you use all the tools that are available – & you use them as tools – not as a hammer
Posted by: remembereringgiap | Dec 23 2006 0:40 utc | 65
christian parenti has a feature on bolivian vp alvaro garcia linera over at mother jones
The Romantic Radical: Move Over, Hugo Chavez
There is no way of understanding the ongoing transformation of Bolivia — one of the hemisphere’s most dramatic political experiments — without grasping the role of Garcia, who has been cast as Morales’ Svengali, or perhaps Karl Rove. For that matter, no one embodies the recent history of Latin American politics — from a contest between Marxist revolution and Washington-sponsored dictatorship to a new pragmatism that is equal parts socialism and Silicon Valley — as well as Alvaro Garcia Linera.
Posted by: b real | Dec 23 2006 6:55 utc | 66
noirette:
I took the Guardian obit to be an Officlal Pronouncement of the the attitude toward “the Left” of a particular segment of British “intellectuals”. Which, together with a buck, will get you a cup of coffee.
I’m midway through Tools of Conviviality and I find it very interesting and useful. As to the person of Ivan Illich I can only imagine, but imagine I do and I imagine a very kindly man indeed. With not too high a tolerance for “accepted wisdom”.
My own poor lights have led me to see “the problems” we’re all up against as inherent in the nature of human institutions. That they take on a life of their own and… well look at Iraq. So Ivan Illich certainly resonates on that level.
But his rigor bowls me over. Which is not to say that I don’t enjoy a very good read and burst out laughing on occasion at his measured understatement. I have herr professor doktor slothrup to thank for his quotation which sent me to Wikipedia… I’m 59 years old… isn’t the internet Amazing?!… I now have if not the whole of Illich’ opus certainly more than I need right now available to me.
On Chomsky I have no complaints. I am constantly overwhelmed by the depth and intensity of his scholarship on contemporary events. I am inspired by his linguistics.
Neither of these men, or any other man or woman, need pass my muster. I’m just so happy to be here to hear and to read them all.
Posted by: John Francis Lee | Dec 23 2006 7:37 utc | 67