2.13.2004
I won't have computer access for a few days. Please use the blog as a portal, there are some 40 news sources in the sidebar, plus quite a list of good blogs. A good amount of internet resources are further down the column.
2/13/2004
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Jay Garner says that our forces should be in Iraq for decades. Oddly enough I believe the Plan for A New American Century
says that too. American "force projection" and all.
I wonder what the people of Iraq are going to think about that?
2/13/2004
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Looks like Mr Bush is up against reality as the fiscal years comes to a close this fall. To prosecute the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan takes money, money that will run out by September 30. To fund these efforts he must ask for a "supplement", remember last years 87 billion shot in the arm? Well, Bush is not going to ask for a supplement before election time, perhaps holding off till January. The Pentagon alone may need 50 Billion dollars for military operations at the present rate of spending.
U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told reporters Tuesday the decision not to request a supplemental rested with the White House. He could not explain why the administration would allow a three-month gap in funding the war on terror, ostensibly its top priority.
Even knee-jerk "Patriots" are sobered by the cost of Bush militarism, a fact that could cost him in the polls this November.
Link gleaned at What Really Happened
2/13/2004
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2.12.2004
Lost 5 hours work just now.
Spent some good time in the am with a buddy who died this afternoon.
Good honest blogging is about getting the truth out, to honor the past and to help enable a true progressive future.
Help get the truth out.
2/12/2004
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You need to read this piece "Stewardess ID'd Hijackers Early, Transcripts Show" by Gail Sheehy that appeared in The New York Observer. E-mail the link to everyone you know.
The politically divided 9/11 commission was able to agree on a public airing of four and a half minutes from the Betty Ong tape, which the American public and most of the victims’ families heard for the first time on the evening news of Jan. 27. But commissioners were unaware of the crucial information given in an even more revealing phone call, made by another heroic flight attendant on the same plane, Madeline (Amy) Sweeney. They were unaware because their chief of staff, Philip Zelikow, chooses which evidence and witnesses to bring to their attention. Mr. Zelikow, as a former adviser to the pre-9/11 Bush administration, has a blatant conflict.
Link gleaned at The Rittenhouse Review.
2/12/2004
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2.11.2004
Neoconservatives on Iraq
The article "White Man's Burden" in Haaretz has made me really uncomfortable. Pretty interesting that the clearest statements concerning the philosophy behind the attack and occupation of Iraq are in foreign news outlets. You don't hear much on reshaping the Middle East, on creating a new world order consolidated on American force stateside. Ari Shavit speaks to Neoconservative Icon William Kristol, Neocon mouthpiece Charles Krauthammer and right-wing apologist Thomas Friedman.
What strikes me most about the article is the brooding hint of fascism I sense just below the surface. Maybe a better phraseing would be "anti-democratic militarism". Iraq's neighbors wanted no war. Millions around the world spoke out against the attack. Lies were used to get Congressional aquiesence, lies to get the people of America to get behind the Bush Administration's rush to war. Yet William Kristol can say this:
Does that mean that the war in Iraq is effectively a neoconservative war? That's what people are saying, Kristol replies, laughing. But the truth is that it's an American war. The neoconservatives succeeded because they touched the bedrock of America. The thing is that America has a profound sense of mission. America has a need to offer something that transcends a life of comfort, that goes beyond material success. Therefore, because of their ideals, the Americans accepted what the neoconservatives proposed. They didn't want to fight a war over interests, but over values. They wanted a war driven by a moral vision. They wanted to hitch their wagon to something bigger than themselves. italics mine
This bastard sickens me. American accepted the statements of the Bush Administration as truth. The Neoconservatives
had to resort to deception to wage their war. Democracy is based on fact based actions. As a people we want to believe in our leaders. We have been chumped. But listen to how Kristol talks about it.
I'd like Kristol to say that to the parents, the husband or wife of someone who died in Iraq. They died not to make America safe, but to promote a "moral vision".
Kristol gets credit for influencing the Administration to pursue and prosecute the Iraq Invasion.
In the past 18 months he has used his position as editor of the right-wing Weekly Standard and his status as one of the leaders of the neoconservative circle in Washington to induce the White House to do battle against Saddam Hussein. Because Kristol is believed to exercise considerable influence on the president, Vice President Richard Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, he is also perceived as having been instrumental in getting Washington to launch this all-out campaign against Baghdad.
September 11 comes up as a defining moment for each of these interviewees, just as pointed out by the paper "Rebuilding America's Defenses" written by the Neoconservative Think Tank, the Plan For A New American CenturyFurther, the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event like a new Pearl Harbor. (pg 63)
Charles Krauthammer's interview is pretty amazing really; at least for the sense of unintended irony his statements offer the astute reader. A taste of his Bizzaro world perspective.
What is the war about? It's about three different issues. First of all, this is a war for disarming Iraq of its weapons of mass destruction. That's the basis, the self-evident cause, and it is also sufficient cause in itself. But beyond that, the war in Iraq is being fought to replace the demonic deal America cut with the Arab world decades ago. That deal said: you will send us oil and we will not intervene in your internal affairs. Send us oil and we will not demand from you what we are demanding of Chile, the Philippines, Korea and South Africa.
Obviously Mr Krauthammer is unfamiliar with the Argentine September 11, when Salvadore Allende was deposed in a murderous military coup by General Augusto Pinochet with CIA complicity. and the people of Chile were subject to torture and assasination for their political views. Under the tutulage of University of Chicago economists the military right wing privatized the social safety net, liberalized trade- and sent the economy into a "free market" tailspin. I should mention that Allende was a democratically elected Marxist that instituted land reform and nationalization of industry. Policy that was good for the people. Pinochet, much like our present right wingers was focused on what was good for multinational corporations and his elite "enforcers".
Ferdinand Marcos (born September 11, 1917) was initially elected to the Presidency of the Philipines. After serving two terms (the maximum allowed by the Philipine Constitution) and seeing no citizen support he declared himself President for life in 1973. Ronald Reagan called him "pledged to democracy" in 1985. George Bush ( the elected one) said "we love your adherence to democratic principle and to the democratic processes" and your "service to freedom," about him in '81. Marcos was a corrupt ruler who plunged his country into poverty while enriching himself and his friends.
America has been part and party to the transgressions of all the regimes Krauthammer has named. South Korea had a few dictators under US watch, and with US support. US involvement in the Arab regimes as well is documented, the Baathist rise to power in Iraq. The brutal and bloody Shah of Iran.
Thomas Friedman, who is not a Neocon had this to say.
Is the Iraq war the great neoconservative war? It's the war the neoconservatives wanted, Friedman says. It's the war the neoconservatives marketed. Those people had an idea to sell when September 11 came, and they sold it. Oh boy, did they sell it. So this is not a war that the masses demanded. This is a war of an elite. Friedman laughs: I could give you the names of 25 people (all of whom are at this moment within a five-block radius of this office) who, if you had exiled them to a desert island a year and a half ago, the Iraq war would not have happened.
I applaud his honesty. The article originally dates from April 2003. This is the first time I've seen it.
You might have noticed I'm running out of energy. Read the article. What do you think?
As you read it, remember this.
According to an account by veteran CBS newsman David Martin last September, Rumsfeld was "telling his aides to start thinking about striking Iraq, even though there was no evidence linking Saddam Hussein to the attacks" five hours after an American Airlines jet slammed into the Pentagon.
Martin attributed his account in part to notes that had been taken at the time by a Rumsfeld aide. They quote the defense chief asking for the "best info fast" to "judge whether good enough to hit SH (Saddam Hussein) at the same time, not only UBL (Usama bin Laden). The administration should "go massive...sweep it all up, things related and not", the notes quote Rumsfeld as saying.
2/11/2004
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2.10.2004
The White House Lacking Key Intelligence
I didn't catch Mr Bush on Tim Russert's "Meet the Press". Thanks to an eye- opening post at The Gunther Concept I was made aware of his "performance" and had the links handy to look into the Russert/Bush dialogue, plus Gunther's own linguistic analysis.
Just reading the transcript was disheartening. The man selected to lead the free world lacking both truth and an ability to express himself in standard english makes us a laughingstock in the international community. Remember, this gentleman had the advantage of elite schooling his whole life, including degrees from Yale and Harvard.
The Center for American Progress can help dissect Mr Bush's statements on national TV.
This.pdf from the DNC "Meet the Truth" will also shed light on Bush mis-statements.
Over at American Samizdat I came across this link, a transcript of the show with pertinent hyperlinks in the text. A tip of the cursor to Benedict.
I've been sick, I'm a bit behind, what can I say.
2/10/2004
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Is Bleeding America of Jobs Good?
Mr Bush says that outsourcing is good for America. Perhaps if you are a big money "Bush Pioneer", but what if you are a working person?
"Outsourcing is just a new way of doing international trade," said N. Gregory Mankiw, chairman of Bush's Council of Economic Advisors, which prepared the report. "More things are tradable than were tradable in the past. And that's a good thing."
"We the People" sell our labor when we are employed. No job, no sale. The Times of India highlights this tidbit from the "Economic Report of the President.
Specifically referring to India as an example of an outsourcing destination, the Bush report says "when a good or service is produced more cheaply abroad, it makes more sense to import it than to make or provide it domestically."
I grew up when "Buy American" was an honored phrase. It meant putting Americans to work. The income from these jobs then circulates through the community as it is spent.
A coalition of 22 US manufacturing associations representing 17000 companies and 1.1 million working folks is calling for
a moratorium on government approval of "free trade" agreements."We are extremely alarmed at the rapid disintegration of our manufacturing base resulting in part from past trade liberalisation agreements and legislation,? the coalition said in a statement.
"This moratorium should extend until our trade policy and past trade liberalisation legislation are fully comprehended and amended to result in balanced trade that benefits our national welfare in a manner that is clearly visible to the American worker and American manufacturers."
Mr Bush's economics minions state that some 2.4 million jobs will be created this coming year. Last year the claim was 1.7 million- 53,000 were lost. So the projection was, what, oh, 1.6 million jobs off.
Business Week says "Corporate Profits Roar". It looks like double digit profit growth, triple digit even, for corporations.
The Economic Policy Institue offers figures a bit different for the working folks that make up Mr Bush's constituents.
In the 25 months since the recession ended, total wage and salary income is up only 0.4%. It should be emphasized that this is growth after the recession ended and does not include income losses incurred while the economy was contracting. This is the slowest wage and salary growth of any recession since 1959, the first year in which monthly data on total wage and salary income is consistently available.
2/10/2004
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2.09.2004
Still sick, worse actually. Will update tomarrow.
2/09/2004
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2.08.2004
The Pentagon takes climate change seriously. "CLIMATE COLLAPSE: The Pentagon's Weather Nightmare" appears in Fortune Magazine and can give you an overview on the subject.
2/08/2004
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Kurt Nimmo's piece "Bush's Stacked Deck" (scroll down to Feb. 6) gives some background info on the people that will make up the Bush commission investigating what are termed
"intelligence failures" that allowed the Bush administration to attack Iraq. Often times
intelligence that promoted waging war was not confirmed by the usual intelligence agencies and was passed along to the press. It doesn't sound like the OSP, Neocons and the Cheney intelligence conduit will be an object of this "truth commission".
The Bush administration is still holding out information from the 911 Commission.
2/08/2004
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Reverend Al Sharpton, it appears, has Roger Stone, the Republican strategist who co-ordinated the sweep of paid GOP activists from around the nation into Florida that stopped the Miami -Dade recount with the threat of mob violence (Miami's Rent-a-Riot) co-ordinating much of his campaign. It appears that they are so buddy buddy that Stone has "loaned" Sharpton nearly 300,000 dollars. Read the Village Voice article "Sleeping With The GOP" linked here at News From Babylon. An amazing story of political chicanery. This is not the first time Mr Sharpton has sidled up with the Republican Right for personal political gain. Please read the full article.
I have said here that it is good that Al Sharpton has continued campaigning in the face of sure loss to help bring the
Democratic Party out of the Republicrat uniparty and back to it's roots, the party for the common people of America, the majority of us, the US writ large.
Blogging, like any journalistic endeavor is only as valid as it is honest. Unenlightened by the truth surrounding the Reverend's campaign, I was wrong. This illustrates perfectly the fact that Democracy relies on accurate information.
Al Sharpton, you should be ashamed. The people of our nation need sincere progressive candidates, not egotistical spoilers. Drop out. Hang your head and go away. You've let untold numbers of people down.
2/08/2004
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