Despite marshaling powerful armed forces in the Persian Gulf region and a virtual declaration of war in the State of the Union message, our government has not made a case for a pre-emptive military strike against Iraq...Even if [Secretary of State Powell's] effort is successful and lies and trickery by Saddam Hussein are exposed, this will not indicate any real or proximate threat by Iraq to the United States or to our allies. -- Former President and Nobel Peace Prize Winner Jimmy Carter .

Jimmy Carter. Nelson Mandela. Norman Schwarzkopf. Pat Buchanan. The Pope. The United Methodist Church. France. Germany. Russia. China. Jesse Jackson. Brent Scowcroft. Families of 9/11 victims (granted, not all). Veterans (ditto). Republicans (granted, not most). Ann Arbor. Detroit. San Francisco. Chicago. Kalamazoo. Madison. Berkeley. Some 40 other US cities. Antarcticans. Jesus Christ. You. Me.

If anyone finds a web site that provides a comprehensive list of prominent war opponents, including their degree of opposition (i.e. only with UN approval, only with a coalition, only with conclusive evidence of something, only if hell freezes over, etc.), please send me the link. Don't send me the whole article--I don't have that much room in my e-mail directory.

We've taught them well, it appears:
No one has taken responsibility for the attack, but [deputy police chief Ustad Nazir] Jan blamed Taliban and al-Qaida fugitives. "One hundred percent we are sure it was Taliban and al-Qaida,'' Jan said. "We will get the proof.'' -- from an AP article.

Yes, deputy police chief Jan has learned well from the U.S. military and the CIA: If anything bad happens, Taliban and al-Qaida did it. If you kill somebody, anybody, they were Taliban or al-Qaida. Cuts down on the collateral damage. If everyone is an enemy soldier, you don't have to worry about killing civilians.

Absolutely barbaric.

PayPal for Peace! I've added a donation button for the Ann Arbor Area Committee for Peace to my frame on the right. If you've already signed up for PayPal, it is now very easy to make a donation with a credit card. If you haven't, clicking on the button will get you started, and you'll be able to use it to make donations and purchases on other web sites as well.

Former CIA analyst Stephen C. Pelletiere writes in today's NY Times about the frequent assertion that Saddam Hussein "gassed his own people." He says (emphasis added):

But the truth is, all we know for certain is that Kurds were bombarded with poison gas that day at Halabja. We cannot say with any certainty that Iraqi chemical weapons killed the Kurds. This is not the only distortion in the Halabja story.

I am in a position to know because, as the Central Intelligence Agency's senior political analyst on Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war, and as a professor at the Army War College from 1988 to 2000, I was privy to much of the classified material that flowed through Washington having to do with the Persian Gulf. In addition, I headed a 1991 Army investigation into how the Iraqis would fight a war against the United States; the classified version of the report went into great detail on the Halabja affair.

This much about the gassing at Halabja we undoubtedly know: it came about in the course of a battle between Iraqis and Iranians. Iraq used chemical weapons to try to kill Iranians who had seized the town, which is in northern Iraq not far from the Iranian border. The Kurdish civilians who died had the misfortune to be caught up in that exchange. But they were not Iraq's main target.

And the story gets murkier: immediately after the battle the United States Defense Intelligence Agency investigated and produced a classified report, which it circulated within the intelligence community on a need-to-know basis. That study asserted that it was Iranian gas that killed the Kurds, not Iraqi gas.

Pelletiere concludes:

Perhaps the strongest argument left for taking us to war quickly is that Saddam Hussein has committed human rights atrocities against his people. And the most dramatic case are the accusations about Halabja.

Before we go to war over Halabja, the administration owes the American people the full facts. And if it has other examples of Saddam Hussein gassing Kurds, it must show that they were not pro-Iranian Kurdish guerrillas who died fighting alongside Iranian Revolutionary Guards. Until Washington gives us proof of Saddam Hussein's supposed atrocities, why are we picking on Iraq on human rights grounds, particularly when there are so many other repressive regimes Washington supports?

From Tom Tomorrow's blog: (This gets a little confusing as to who is talking, so I've added parenthetical notes to explain)
(Tom Tomorrow says:)A reader draws my attention to this report, titled Rebuilding America's Defenses (.pdf format), from a thinktank called the Project for a New American Century. I haven't looked through the whole thing yet, but here are a couple of sobering excerpts:
(The report says:)
"ESTABLISH FOUR CORE MISSIONS for U.S. military forces:
--defend the American homeland;
--fight and decisively win multiple, simultaneous major theater wars;
--perform the "constabulary" duties associated with shaping the security
environment in critical regions;
--transform U.S. forces to exploit the "revolution in military affairs"
* * *
... 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.

* * *
Indeed, the United States has for decades sought to play a more permanent role in Gulf regional security. While the unresolved conflict with Iraq provides the immediate justification, the need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein."
(End of excepts from the report. Tom Tomorrow says:)
Emphasis added.

Did I mention that this was written in September of 2000? Or that signatories to the original PNAC Statement of Principles included Elliott Abrams, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Jeb Bush and Paul Wolfowitz?

(Bob says:) People accuse us of being looney conspiracy theorists and being too harsh in our judgment when we say that the Bush administration is bent on imperialism and world domination. It's all there in black and white, in their own words. This isn't about democracy or freedom; it is about ruling the world and killing as many people as it takes, probably millions more, to accomplish that goal. All the nonsense about weapons of mass destruction and al Qaeda ties is just a front for this plan. And the "Pearl Harbor" comment should certainly be considered by the commission investigating 9/11 as evidence that many of the people currently in our government thought, a year ahead of 9/11, that such an event could be useful to their agenda. You don't have to be that much of a conspiracy theorist to connect those dots!

U.S. efforts against terrorism could affect the "survival of civilization itself." -- Dick Cheney, according to CNN.

There's no doubt about it, Useless Dick. U.S. efforts against terrorism are the greatest threat to the survival of civilization in over 50 years. I'm sure that's what you meant. Cheney continues: "We will not permit a brutal dictator with ties to terrorists and a record of reckless aggression to dominate the Middle East and to threaten the United States of America." Pretty bold stuff to say about President Bush, ol' Veep from the Deep you. Are you talking about a coup? No offense, but I hope you're not leading it, Dick.

PLEASE DONATE to the Ann Arbor Area Committee for Peace!
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Chickenhawks! Huh. What are they good for? Absolutely nothing! Excellent online animation.

Black Hawk Down. Your government has spent billions of dollars to send our youth to die on training missions in Afghanistan and Kuwait. What a waste.

Nelson Mandela Condemns Bush

"It is a tragedy what is happening, what Bush is doing in Iraq,'' Mandela told an audience in Johannesburg. "What I am condemning is that one power, with a president who has no foresight, who cannot think properly, is now wanting to plunge the world into a holocaust,'' he added, to loud applause. -- Full article.

Rarely seen photos from the Gulf War can be seen here. A sample:

Interview with Religious Leader

by Bob Goodsell

I have obtained a copy of an interview done this week with a famous religious leader by a daring reporter. I obtained it through an elaborate delivery scheme intended to protect the identity of both the reporter and the religious leader: I myself do not know who they are. Here is the interview.

Q. You insist on anonymity for this interview. Many people around the world would be delighted to hear from you. Why won't you identify yourself?

A. Those who truly know me will recognize me.

Q. George W. Bush is the president of the United States of America, the most powerful nation on earth. He gave what is known as the State of the Union Address on Tuesday, as I'm sure you are aware. In the speech, Mr. Bush outlined an economic plan which provides little help for the poor people in his country. Any comments?

A. Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.¹

Q. His plan also provides tremendous benefits for the rich. What are your thoughts on that?

A. It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.²

Q. So you are saying that while his plan condemns the many to starvation, it condemns the few to damnation?

A. It is you who say so.

Q. Mr. Bush started a "war on terrorism" following the attacks on his country of September 11, 2001. Do you think this was a wise course to follow?

A. I say unto him, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.³

Q. How would you respond to the idea that it is foolishness not to respond to such a brutal attack? Shouldn't a country be strong and forceful in response?

A. Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.⁴

Q. Wow. That's really radical thinking. You could never get elected to Congress in America.

A. Thank you.

Q. In his speech, Mr. Bush said, and I quote, "All told, more than 3,000 suspected terrorists have been arrested in many countries. And many others have met a different fate. Let's put it this way: They are no longer a problem to the United States and our friends and allies....One by one the terrorists are learning the meaning of American justice." I don't think that I'm stretching the point to say the Mr. Bush is saying that these people who "met a different fate" were killed. None of those killed was tried or convicted by a court of law, yet they were killed by the U.S. military or the CIA on Mr. Bush's orders. Any comments?

A. Judge not, and ye shall not be judged.⁵

Q. Mr. Bush insists that the leader of Iraq is a dangerous man with dangerous weapons. How would you respond to Mr. Bush?

A. Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye.⁶

Q. Still, Mr. Bush seems intent on attacking Iraq. Any further arguments you could make to him?

A. He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone.⁷

Q. Stone? Excuse me, hold on a minute...Let's see...cruise missiles, cluster bombs, fuel-air explosives, chemical weapons, nuclear weapons...sorry, stones appear to be about the only weapons that are not in the U.S. arsenal.

A. Okay: He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a cruise missile. Whatever.

Q. It is reported that Mr. Bush is a follower of yours and prays to you daily. Is this true?

A. He talks to me, but he never listens.

Q. Many people around the world, including some in the United States, have begun to protest the clear intention of Mr. Bush to wage war against Iraq. Do you have anything to say to them?

A. Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God.⁸

Footnotes: 1: Matthew 5:19; 2: Mark 10:25; 3: Matthew 5:39; 4: Matthew 5:5; 5: Luke 6:37; 6: Matthew 7:5; 7: John 8:7; 8: Matthew 5:9.

But enough about my dad and me...

Throughout the 20th century, small groups of men seized control of great nations, built armies and arsenals, and set out to dominate the weak and intimidate the world. In each case, their ambitions of cruelty and murder had no limit. -- from the State of the Union Address.

Are the Bushies totally unaware how aptly this rhetoric applies to themselves? Or do they do it secure in the knowledge that most Americans are too ignorant to catch it, while they know that it infuriates the rest of us, something they love to do? Whichever it is, it is very frightening. While George W. Bush may not be the most evil man in history (although he is close), he is without a doubt the most dangerous, given that he has the largest military in history at his disposal, and is unchecked by a figurehead Congress, a corporate media, or a mostly ignorant public.

Bushian Logic on the Neighborhood Level -- from Terry Jones.
I'm really excited by George Bush's latest reason for bombing Iraq: he's running out of patience. And so am I!

For some time now I've been really pissed off with Mr Johnson, who lives a couple of doors down the street. Well, him and Mr Patel, who runs the health food shop. They both give me queer looks, and I'm sure Mr Johnson is planning something nasty for me, but so far I haven't been able to discover what. I've been round to his place a few times to see what he's up to, but he's got everything well hidden. That's how devious he is.

As for Mr Patel, don't ask me how I know, I just know - from very good sources - that he is, in reality, a Mass Murderer. I have leafleted the street telling them that if we don't act first, he'll pick us off one by one.

Some of my neighbours say, if I've got proof, why don't I go to the police? But that's simply ridiculous. The police will say that they need evidence of a crime with which to charge my neighbours. (more)

Another article from Terry Jones along similar lines from last year.

Labor Against War

Off of our listserv, from the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor. Sorry, I couldn't find a story in a newspaper web site: wonder why. But this is so right on that I'm happy to post it even if it's a hoax:

Resolution Opposing the Bush Administration's War On Iraq

WHEREAS, union members and leaders have the responsibility to inform all working people about the issues that affect our lives, jobs, and families, and to be heard in the national debate on these issues; and

WHEREAS, the billions of dollars spent to stage and execute this war are being taken away from our schools, hospitals, housing, and Social Security and services for the poor in the midst of the greatest economic crisis in recent memory, even as the Bush Administration simultaneously plans even more giveaways and welfare for their rich supporters; and

WHEREAS, the Bush Administration has spearheaded a renewed assault on organized labor which includes use of Taft-Hartley against dockworkers, excluding over 50,000 federal airport screeners' right to organize, privatizing nearly 200,000 federal jobs covered by the American Federation of Government Employees(AFGE) and removing collective bargaining rights from these employees; and

WHEREAS, the war is a pretext for attacks on labor, civil, immigrant and human rights; and

WHEREAS, the Bush Administration's drive for war serves as a cover and distraction for the sinking economy, ongoing corporate corruption and layoffs; and

WHEREAS, the Bush Administration and Congress' US Patriot Act serves to undermine labor's right to organize and fight anti-immigrant attacks by expanding the government's ability to detain non-citizens, to conduct telephone and internet surveillance, and to carry out secret searches;

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED, that the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO stands firmly against the Bush Admininstration's drive to war and
calls for a re-ordering of our national priorities which must include allocation of resources to provide jobs, education, health care, a clean environment, and social justice; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO will work so that organized labor, the national AFL-CIO, and the many allies of working men and women take a stand against the US Patriot Act and Homeland Security Act; and

BE IT FINALLY RESOLVED, that the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO joins other labor organizations, and community allies to actively promote and participate in activities opposing the Bush Administration's drive to war.

Year after year, Saddam Hussein has gone to elaborate lengths, spent enormous sums, taken great risks to build and keep weapons of mass destruction. But why?

The only possible explanation, the only possible use he could have for those weapons, is to dominate, intimidate or attack.

With nuclear arms or a full arsenal of chemical and biological weapons, Saddam Hussein could resume his ambitions of conquest in the Middle East and create deadly havoc in that region. -- from the State of the Union Address.

Replace "Saddam Hussein" and "he" with "the United States" and the statement becomes truer. Certainly Saddam may have sought weapons to dominate, intimidate or attack, but that is not the "only possible explanation." For over twelve years Iraq has been under brutal military and economic attack from the world's only superpower. Since Saddam's has few ways of delivering such weapons at any significant distance, using them for the defense of his country from that superpower is certainly a possible explanation, and a pretty likely one, if not the only one. And except for the Iran-Iraq war, in which the US supplied arms to both sides, almost all of the "deadly havoc in the region" has been at the hands of the US or its client state, Israel. As Ramsey Clark points out, more people were killed in the US invasion of Panama in 1989 than were killed in Iraq's invasion of Kuwait eight months later. But well over 100,000 Iraqi soldiers and civilians were killed in the Gulf War, and many more than that died from the destruction of infrastructure it caused and the draconian sanctions which were applied.

Kennedy seeks a new Iraq resolution requiring Bush to get new congressional approval before attacking Iraq:
"Much has changed in the many months since Congress has debated war with Iraq," the Massachusetts Democrat said in a statement released after President Bush's State of the Union address, in which Bush tried to rally the American people to the need to disarm Iraq. "U.N. inspectors are on the ground and making progress, and their work should continue," Kennedy said. "Osama bin Laden and the Korean nuclear crisis continue to pose far greater threats [than Iraq]."

Unfortunately, Republicans believe we live in a dictatorship:

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist said on CNN's "Larry King Live" that Bush made a "very powerful" case against Iraq in his speech and that another vote would be "absolutely unnecessary. At the end of the day, the president will decide what's in the best interest of the safety of the American people and lead a coalition to disarm Saddam Hussein," the Tennessee Republican said.

What a jerk! What is Congress for if it leaves the most important decisions up to a dim-witted loser (add your own adjectives here) clown like George Worthless Bush? At the end of the day, apparently nothing at all.

Worst President Ever, according to veteran White House reporter Helen Thomas.

Don't you hate getting spam from McAfee advertising SpamKiller? I wonder if there's something I can get to stop that.

from Mike Thompson.

I love Boondocks!

Oil is a Curse: According to this fine article from Fortune magazine, of all places, having lots of oil has been a bad thing for most countries, especially the average citizens. The article focuses on how an influx of oil money into an economy discourages broader development of agricultural, manufacturing and service industries. It discusses how the discovery of oil in Venezuela has turned it from one of the wealthiest and most stable countries in Latin America into an economic and political disaster. Unfortunately, the article studiously avoids the brutal attention a country gets from Bushes and other thieves that also results from having oil.

Tell Congress not to eliminate taxes on stock dividends. TrueMajority makes it easy.

Time to Hit the Streets: Bush Isn't Backing Down, and Congress is Standing for It
I've never been so ashamed to be an American. I'll admit that I was impressed that Bush could talk so calmly with his trousers ablaze. And to see Joe Lieberman and Hillary Clinton stand and cheer every lie made me ill. I was glad to see that many Democrats remained seated for some of the most outrageous statements. I saw Ted Kennedy sit without clapping while many around him stood.

Did you notice EPA Director Christie Whitman chuckling when Bush talked about the environment? She seemed to nudge the guy next to her to get him to clap: "Come on, pretend like you believe it!" And Nancy Pelosi shook her head in disbelief at some of the economic BS Bush was spouting.

Finally, after the hours coaching W on every nuance in his speech, making him appear almost not stupid to the uninitiated, why don't they tell the man with the finger on the button that the word is pronounced "NEW-CLEAR," not "NEW-CUE-LAR!"

Idiot.

US Guilty of "Shocking Double Standards" -- from Bush's favorite arms inspector, Richard Butler
"The spectacle of the United States, armed with its weapons of mass destruction, acting without Security Council authority to invade a country in the heartland of Arabia and, if necessary, use its weapons of mass destruction to win that battle, is something that will so deeply violate any notion of fairness in this world that I strongly suspect it could set loose forces that we would deeply live to regret," [former U.N. arms inspector Richard] Butler said. -- from Reuters

This should be headline news on every paper. The Bushies and right-wing media have mercilessly attacked another former inspector, Scott Ritter, for his repeated statements that Iraq poses little threat because most of its weapons stockpiles were destroyed by 1998 and they have little chance to redevelop them since. But they have loudly repeated warnings from Butler, who has stated that he believes Iraq still has WMD's. Here is an example from Condoleeza Rice's op-ed piece in the NY Times last week:
Last week's finding by inspectors of 12 chemical warheads not included in Iraq's declaration was particularly troubling. In the past, Iraq has filled this type of warhead with sarin — a deadly nerve agent used by Japanese terrorists in 1995 to kill 12 Tokyo subway passengers and sicken thousands of others. Richard Butler, the former chief United Nations arms inspector, estimates that if a larger type of warhead that Iraq has made and used in the past were filled with VX (an even deadlier nerve agent) and launched at a major city, it could kill up to one million people. Iraq has also failed to provide United Nations inspectors with documentation of its claim to have destroyed its VX stockpiles.

So Condi says, using Butler to support her argument, that if Iraq used larger shells than were found and filled them with a gas they don't seem to have and put them on rockets they haven't got, they could kill a million people. Butler basically replies that the US is perfectly capable of killing many times that number with existing weapons that could be targeted to any city in the world, and for it to engage in a devastating attack with either "conventional" or "mass destruction" weapons against a much weaker country, to enforce UN resolutions but without UN approval, is the height of hypocrisy. It is truly scary how easily our government was taken over by these maniacs and that no one seems to think that there is much of a chance of stopping them.

In Michigan, more people are driving farther to work than ever before. And hundreds of Americans and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis are about to die so that this nonsense can continue. I think I'm turning into a nut--as I walk from the bus stop to work in the morning, I find myself mouthing "Stop Driving!" at all of the vehicles going by. As Douglas Kelbaugh, Dean of the School of Architecture here at the University of Michigan, said: "All of the traffic is evidence of a massive failure in planning. Nobody is where they want to be, so they're out driving to someplace else." (I'm paraphrasing, since he said it about a year ago in a colloquium and I'm quoting from memory.)
I've been considering designing some non-bumper stickers:

• Stop Driving!
• Friends Don't Let Friends Drive
• Stay Alive: Don't Drive
• You're Suvocating Me!

Or maybe rewriting some songs:

• Well she got onto the BART and rode on out to the tofu stand now (oh you shouldn't drive, no you shouldn't drive),
  not driving for some burgers at McDonalds like she told her old man now (you shouldn't drive, no you shouldn't drive),
  then she rode into the city and she didn't have to park a car now (you shouldn't drive, no you shouldn't drive),
  and she'll have fun fun fun 'til her Daddy takes her BART pass away...
• Bye, bye Miss American Pie, rode my ten-speed to the levy but the levy was dry...
• It goes from Chicago to LA, over 2000 miles on the way, get your kicks on bus 66
• Oh, I remember when rock was young, me and Suzie had so much fun, holdin' hands and skimmin' stones, had an old Schwinn tandem and a fez of my own...

Chemical Warfare: This is old news, but it needs to be repeated while W is beating the war drums about weapons of mass destruction: The "war on drugs" is a war of terror using chemical weapons. As the article states, the spraying of defoliants on Colombia began during the Clinton administration and continued under W. (I wonder if Roundup Ultra works on shrubs?) I'm not defending Clinton, any more than I'm defending drug dealers or Saddam Hussein. Unfortunately, there are very few world leaders from the present or recent past whose actions are defensible. Bush is just being illegal and immoral at a faster rate than has been attempted since the time of Hitler, Stalin, and Mao. And he's better armed than any of them.

Bush to focus on peace and prosperity in his State of the Union speech, according to the Washington Post. He is the world's greatest threat to both, so why not?

I'm not ashamed to link to this; soldiers may soon have anti-guilt pills so they won't lose sleep over killing enemy soldiers, defenseless civilians, or...you and me.

Kurt Vonnegut on the PP's running this country:
Q: Based on what you’ve read and seen in the media, what is not being said in the mainstream press about President Bush’s policies and the impending war in Iraq?

Vonnegut: That they are nonsense.

Q: My feeling from talking to readers and friends is that many people are beginning to despair. Do you think that we’ve lost reason to hope?

Vonnegut: I myself feel that our country, for whose Constitution I fought in a just war, might as well have been invaded by Martians and body snatchers. Sometimes I wish it had been. What has happened, though, is that it has been taken over by means of the sleaziest, low-comedy, Keystone Cops-style coup d’etat imaginable. And those now in charge of the federal government are upper-crust C-students who know no history or geography, plus not-so-closeted white supremacists, aka “Christians,” and plus, most frighteningly, psychopathic personalities, or “PPs.”

Read the whole interview here.

Now that we've got Afghanistan under control...

Cleveland Unanimously Passes Anti-War Resolution!

We can be sure that some pundits will acclaim the speech as bold and brilliant; they would do that if he read from "The Very Hungry Caterpillar." -- Paul Krugman.

Priorities: Spend money to start fires in Iraq, or put out fires at home? While I was passing out leaflets this weekend, I had a guy ask me if I was concerned about the welfare of Iraqi civilians, and of course I said I was. He asked what I thought about Saddam Hussein's priorities when he builds expensive palaces instead of feeding his people; I responded by asking him about our priorities, paying $200 billion to bomb Iraq's people instead of feeding ours. Made him think a little, I think. Well, Britain is facing a similar discussion about priorities, accusing firefighters of depleting military funding at a critical time, because military firefighters will have to put out fires during the planned 48-hour strike by the nation's civilian firefighters:

Britain's firefighters announced Monday they would go ahead with a 48-hour nationwide strike over pay. The walkout by the country's 55,000 firefighters, scheduled to begin at 9 a.m. on Tuesday, means almost 20,000 soldiers and their aging ``Green Goddess'' engines will again be left to provide emergency cover.

Firefighters have staged three strikes in recent months and the dispute over pay has become increasingly bitter, with the government accusing workers of draining military resources at a critical time. The last walkout, for 24 hours last Wednesday, came just days after the government announced 35,000 troops were being sent to the Persian Gulf to prepare for a possible war with Iraq. -- from AP.

And here in the US, much of the increase in federal funding for local police and fire departments promised after 9/11 has failed to materialize as more federal revenue goes to the military and to reward the rich for being rich. (Sorry, I don't have time to find a link for that right now, but I've seen several articles about how the administration has failed to deliver on those promises after using exploiting the FDNY and NYPD for political gain.)

Look who's providing funds to Saddam now!

Confessions of a Sane Mind: Actor and Director George Clooney compares the Bush administration to HBO's Sopranos. Now I haven't watched the Sopranos, but it sounds like a good insult, and the article makes it clear that it is. Richard Gere and Rene Zellwiger are also quoted in the article accusing radio host Charlie Rose of buddying up to Henry Kissinger and censoring criticism of the real Dr. Death.

There will be time to sleep, eat and work after we've stopped this war! This week, every possible minute needs to be devoted to peace: Help organize a rally or march (e-mail me, bob@goodsells.net, if you want to help with the February 8 rally in Ann Arbor); call Congress (800-839-5276); write letters to the editor; call radio talk shows; or stand on your porch and scream "No War!" for ten minutes.

Big Anti-War Protest in Pittsburgh yesterday. I recall meeting one of the organizers for that rally at the march in Washington on January 18. Go Pittsburgh!

My apologies: This is truly scary:


-- from a NY Times magazine article comparing Reagan and W. (Note: the morphing animation only plays three times. If you dare see it again, hit the refresh button on your browser.)

Rush Limbaugh called anti-war demonstrators "un-American." This web site gives the details and tells you how to contact Rush's sponsors and ask them to pull their ads or face a boycott. Amtrak and Radio Shack have already pulled their ads thanks to this campaign. Ann Arbor residents should be especially upset with Pfizer's sponsorship.

Powell: U.S. prepared to act alone

"We will not shrink from war if that is the only way to rid Iraq of its wepaons of mass destruction. We continue to reserve our sovereign right to take military action against Iraq alone or in a coalition of the willing," Powell added. -- from CNN.

There you have it. The supposedly dovish Powell claims a "sovereign right" to unilateral war crimes. I'm opposed to the death penalty, but I hope these guys (including Condi) hang for this someday.

Pre-meditated war crime

From a CBS report:
They're calling it "A-Day," A as in airstrikes so devastating they would leave Saddam's soldiers unable or unwilling to fight.

If the Pentagon sticks to its current war plan, one day in March the Air Force and Navy will launch between 300 and 400 cruise missiles at targets in Iraq. As CBS News Correspondent David Martin reports, this is more than number that were launched during the entire 40 days of the first Gulf War.

On the second day, the plan calls for launching another 300 to 400 cruise missiles.

"There will not be a safe place in Baghdad," said one Pentagon official who has been briefed on the plan.

"The sheer size of this has never been seen before, never been contemplated before," the official said.

The battle plan is based on a concept developed at the National Defense University. It's called "Shock and Awe" and it focuses on the psychological destruction of the enemy's will to fight rather than the physical destruction of his military forces.

"We want them to quit. We want them not to fight," says Harlan Ullman, one of the authors of the Shock and Awe concept which relies on large numbers of precision guided weapons.

"So that you have this simultaneous effect, rather like the nuclear weapons at Hiroshima, not taking days or weeks but in minutes," says Ullman.

Nazi and Japanese military leaders were hanged for war crimes of a much smaller scale than this. NOT IN OUR NAME!!!!

Dingell's Position: I just received a letter from Congressman John Dingell in response to one or more of my many calls to his office. I think it's pretty good, so I'm sharing it here:

Dear Mr. Goodsell:

Thank you for writing to express your concern about a possible attack against Iraq. I appreciate hearing from you and share your reservations.

On September 5, 2002, I wrote to President Bush and outlined the reasons I do not believe an attack on Iraq would be wise at this time. I have enclosed a copy of that letter for your review. In short, I do not believe the case for war has been made, nor do I believe the Administration has obtained the domestic and international support necessary to prosecute a successful war. The U.S. military has not received adequate access to the military bases it needs to carry out a large scale, sustained attack. Furthermore, the President has not informed Congress or the American people of the anticipated costs of opting for military action -- economically, diplomatically, or militarily. Finally, there is no plan in place for what would emerge in a post-war Iraq. It was for these reasons that I voted against H.J. Res. 114, a bill to authorize the use of U.S. Armed Forces against Iraq, on October 10, 2002.

Most of the world agrees that Saddam Hussein is an evil man who poses a serious threat to the Middle East, the international community, and his own people. That being said, there is great concern around the globe over the possibility of the U.S. launching a sustained military operation against Iraq. I share these reservations. To date, I have not seen or heard any intelligence reports that reveal that Iraq was in any way responsible for the September 11 terrorist strikes. With our troops already engaged in Afghanistan, now is certainly not the time for the U.S. to act in a unilateral fashion.

Again, I appreciate hearing from you. Please do not hesitate to contact me in the future should I be of assistance.

With every good wish,
Sincerely yours,
John D. Dingell
Member of Congress

The September 5 letter to which Dingell refers can be found here.

Collateral Brain Damage:
GOPTeamLeader gives you the power to quickly voice your opinions and influence your Representatives. Once you become a Leader, you can use GOPTeamLeader.com to:

• Learn about and help fellow Republicans running for office in your state, as well as on a federal level;
• Track and research federal issues and bills of interest to you;
• Write your local and federal representatives, while accessing official RNC talking points from GOPTeamLeader.com;
• Collect GOPoints by completing Action Items and redeem them for collateral of your choice, ranging from coolers to mouse pads.
• Encourage participation in the political process by building your own Team of activists who you can share information with.

-- From the truly frightening GOP Team Leader web site. Help Bush destroy the world! Get a mouse pad!

Tom Tomorrow has been tracking identical letters to the editor supporting W's ridiculous economic plan which have shown up at papers all over the country. GOP Team Leader is the culprit. If Orwell had known about the Internet, he would have seen this coming.

Alternatives to War: As you know from reading the blog, I am dead set against war in Iraq. But it is certainly difficult to argue that Saddam Hussein is not a tyrant who would be extremely dangerous if he did in fact have nuclear weapons. This is in part because it is most likely true, and in part because Americans have been brainwashed for 12 1/2 years to believe it. We could counter that countries like Pakistan, North Korea and Israel already have nuclear weapons and have leaders who probably shouldn't be trusted with them (the US too, but that argument doesn't win with lots of Americans), but then our case is easily turned into just supporting going to war with these other countries first. Which, speaking for myself, is not what I want. So, while I don't buy the whole argument that Saddam is any big threat to us, I would like a good proposal to give to people who support going to war that doesn't say that Saddam is okay, and that also doesn't say we should fight these other countries first.

In my mail, I found a letter from "UrgentCall.org," a group from Massachusetts which formed a write-in campaign to oppose John Kerry for Senate after Kerry voted for the Iraq war resolution in October. Unfortunately, I can't get to their web site, so I'm going to just type in their listed alternatives to war. These are ideas that I think form a more logical and consistent middle ground between hawks and doves than "win without war" which basically says there are ways to make our oil grab without killing so many people, and "let the inspections work," which provides little leeway if the inspections work and do find the "smoking gun."

So, here are UrgentCall.org's "Alternatives to War:"

• Carry out inspections, backed up, if necessary, by armed guards or a policy of destroying any sites not open to inspection (after warning and evacuation).
• Enforce an arms embargo that is narrowly focused and universally observed.
• Establish a procedure for future inspections.
• End the current economic sanctions, replacing them with an option to freeze the foreign assets and travel of Saddam Hussein, his family, and other top individuals in his administration.
• Re-open talks on a nuclear-weapon freeze zone in the Middle East.
• As a first step to such a zone, insist on "transparency" on nuclear capabilities in the region, including an Israeli overview of its nuclear weapon program and Iranian accounting of potential nuclear weapon and energy applications of its nuclear power program.

There's more good stuff in the letter: I think that it shows that there is a lot of unexplored middle ground between "letting Saddam become a nuclear tyrant over the region" and "bombing Iraq even further back into the stone age." Hopefully my problem getting to UrgentCall.org is only temporary, or maybe I just didn't send them a donation in time, which would be a shame.

Disinformation and Propaganda about Disinformation and Propaganda: Apparatus of Lies, a self-referential document available at whitehouse.gov. The massive bombing of Iraq in the Gulf War was almost completely unnecessary for the stated purpose of removing Iraqi troops from Kuwait. This document blames the huge civilian casualties completely on Iraq because civilian and military facilities were sometimes combined or adjacent to each other. That the US bombed them anyway is not seen as criminal in the minds of the war criminals in the White House. The fact is that Iraq was basically defenseless from the start of the Gulf War, including the military, and that the massive bombing campaign was akin to burning down a neighborhood because some kid threw a snowball at your SUV. Read Ramsey Clark's The Fire This Time for the real story of the Gulf War. Killing defenseless soldiers who are not threatening you in any practical sense is a war crime, and the US was certainly guilty of it in the Gulf War and in Afghanistan. The idea that the typical 17-year-old starving Taliban "soldier," probably drafted at gunpoint, was responsible for 9/11 and deserved to be killed without any remorse is incredibly barbaric, but seems to have been accepted without a second thought by most Americans, and without a first thought by the criminals in the White House. And of course don't forget that the operative definition for "al Qaeda or Taliban" in Afghanistan was people we killed, just like it was the operative definition for "Viet Cong" in Vietnam.

Finally! Some evidence as to where the weapons are hidden! (Warning: huge download)

It may be working! According to the NY Times, "The Bush administration is weighing the option of extending U.N. weapons inspections in Iraq in an effort to placate European allies and Russia. A decision will be based on whether the inspections are productive, a senior U.S. official said Friday."

Let's keep the pressure on! Can't stop the power of the people!

Heil Bush!

Gestapo Kommandant Ridge salutes der Führer.

Even Bush's real constituency is getting nervous: The Dow is down 228 today and about 500 points since a week ago Tuesday.

The wolf in wolf's clothing howls again:
Mr. Wolfowitz, long one of the administration's most vocal advocates for military action against Iraq, made an almost identical warning in his speech, declaring: "The decision on whether Iraq's weapons of mass terror will be dismantled voluntarily, or whether it will have to be done by force, is not up to us or to the U.N. The decision rests entirely with Saddam Hussein. So far, he has not made the fundamental decision to disarm, and unless he does, the threat posed by his weapons programs will remain with us, and indeed, will grow."

Referring to the inspections now under way, Mr. Wolfowitz used a business metaphor to make his case. "When an auditor discovers discrepancies in the books, it is not the auditor's obligation to prove where the embezzler has stashed his money," he said. "It is up to the person or institution being audited to explain the discrepancy." -- from the NY Times.

Bad choice for an analogy, Wolfie, you genocidal maniac. First, no Bushie in his right mind (are there any?) would bring up the topic of audits to remind us all of the Harken, Halliburton, Enron and so many other scandals which really haven't been resolved at all, not to mention the economic plan which involves starting multiple 12-figure wars around the world while cutting taxes. Furthermore, if having weapons of mass destruction is equivalent to embezzlement, then Iraq is the corner bicycle shop finding a $20 bill on the floor that a customer dropped and not reporting it to the IRS, while the US is, well, Enron. Finally, while it is not the responsibility of the auditor to find the money, neither is it the responsibility of some bully from 6000 miles away to come in and kill the embezzler and hundreds of thousands of others and claim the black gold under the land as his own.

If you just can't get enough of the debate about ANSWER, MaxSpeak has plenty of articles about it with lots of comments on each one.

The Bush Nuclear Proliferation Policy
North Korea's nuclear weapons program is almost certainly a response to continued US threats and attacks on Iraq, in contrast to continued US support for the more dangerous nuclear-equipped Pakistan. Now, this dangerous addition to the nuclear club may spawn yet another--the only country ever to be the victim of nuclear bombs, Japan. According to this article, Japan has sufficient plutonium from its many nuclear reactors to create hundreds of bombs, and it has the technology and know-how to do so quickly. The article quotes Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer suggesting that the Bush administration would favorably consider giving Japan some nukes immediately to counter the North Korean threat and to scare the bejeezus out of China.

Whoopie! We're all gonna die!

Senate Votes to Block TIA Funding!
The United States Senate, in a rare show of courage in these “if it’s anti-terrorist it must be all right” times, cut off funding Thursday for the Pentagon’s super snoop computer project.

Take that, Poindexter, you war criminal you!

Good Anti-War Op-Ed from a Red (Bush) State
Excerpt:
When you see the nation about to make a big mistake, it seems incumbent upon patriots to at least point it out.
The impending war against Iraq is such a mistake. No matter the outcome, it will make the U.S. less secure, increase the likelihood that Saddam Hussein will use his dreaded weapons, reduce Middle Eastern stability, turn many of our allies against us, and increase the likelihood of terrorism within the U.S. -- from the Casper, Wyoming Star-Tribune via Capitol Hill Blue.

Bob to New York Times: Stop Blaming the Whole Country!

Two headlines from today's "newspaper of record:"

• To U.S., Onus Is on Hussein
• U.S. Pushes Demand That Iraq Disarm

It's not USa, it's bUSh! Not in our friggin' name!

Getting Closer...
Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., charged Thursday that the Bush administration is on a "rush to war" in Iraq that will endanger U.S. alliances and fan anti-Americanism "around the world." -- from the Washington Post. Of course, Kerry goes on to water down most of his message:
Saddam could be confronted more effectively, Kerry said, if the White House would "do the hard work" of explaining the threat and of building a coalition to invade Iraq, if that proves necessary. Kerry was one of the many scumbag Democrats who voted for the war resolution last October (including all of the prospective presidential candidates who are in Congress: Lieberman, Gephardt, Edwards, Kerry, Hillary Clinton). For him to only notice now that Bush is on a rush to war shows both that the anti-war movement is having an effect, and that Kerry is a gutless Clintonesque weathervane, pointing whichever way the polls are blowing. But then, so is most of Congress, so we need to keep blowing the polls towards peace until even Bush feels a breeze. And Bush is a reminder that there are far worse things to be than gutless Clintonesque weathervanes. Brainless Bushian cowboys, for one.

The lies get more desperate: Senior al Qaeda official may have been in Iraq -- from CNN.
Lest we forget, 19 dangerous al Qaeda operatives were in the US for an extended length of time prior to 9/11, and the CIA knew about at least two of them. And the article says that this al Qaeda official was also in Iran, Syria and Lebanon after leaving Afghanistan, but Bush is only interested in bombing Iraq--for now.

What Europe is seeing:
Europeans tend to regard free national health services, unemployment benefits, social housing and so on as pretty good models of human progress. We think it's important — civilized, in fact — to help people who fall through society's cracks. This isn't just altruism, but an understanding that having too many losers in society hurts everyone. It's better for everybody to have a stake in society than to have a resentful underclass bent on wrecking things. To many Americans, this sounds like socialism, big government, the nanny state. But so what? The result is: Europe has less gun crime and homicide, less poverty and arguably a higher quality of life than the U.S., which makes a lot of us wonder why America doesn't want some of what we've got. -- Musician Brian Eno, quoted in Time Europe . There's also another online poll to vote in on that page.

It remains unlikely that President Bush will back off now. But if he does, it would truly be a triumph for democracy in the very best sense of the word - and it would make all those street demonstrations worthwhile. -- conclusion to a great Guardian article.

Once again I say: Kucinich for President! Here are some excerpts from a speech he gave on Martin Luther King Day:
When war is already in the hearts of those who lead this nation, because our leaders aspire to dominate oil markets, or expand arms trade or desire world empire, or to distract from failures domestically, what are the American people to do? Do we just sit and watch while the United States moves next to declare war against North Korea, or Iran?
...
In the spirit of Dr. King, we must reject this White House war mentality and the unfortunate energy policy which spawns it, or we are facing endless war over diminishing resources. The Administration has made its intentions for war known. Now the American people must make our intentions known for peace.

We must reject war with Iraq. We must not let it happen.
...
If the goal of our leaders continues to be regime change, then let regime change begin at home. We must be prepared to continue to provide lawful, nonviolent, civil resistance in this nation. We must be prepared to exercise our constitutionally protected rights to assemble, to free speech, to free press, to challenge the government in the streets, on campuses, in town halls, in labor halls, in churches, wherever people gather, wherever people meet, in a manner consistent with the finest democratic traditions.

Finally, a good pro-Chavez article in a mainstream US paper. Bush doesn't like Venezuela's president, probably because he was democratically elected, and has been trying to get him ousted for a year now with lots of assistance from the corporate media. And, in case you didn't know, yes, Venezuela has oil. Lots of it.

Say NO to GMO's! Flash animation asking Kraft to stop using genetically-engineered ingredients in their "food."

Mike Thompson of the Detroit Free Press is one of the best political cartoonists around:

Bush is willing to ignore the UN in order to enforce UN resolutions that he forced on the UN. Just in case anybody has missed the irony.

A Recurring Debate: Associating with Radicals

I've had at least two discussions in the last week with people who think that International ANSWER is much too radical an organization to be spearheading the anti-war movement, and that many of the speakers at Saturday's rally, like Al Sharpton, were going to hurt the movement by espousing causes that most of mainstream anti-war America oppose. While I'm sure that some people stay away for these reasons, I believe that the impact of the radicals on the a-w movement is at worst neutral and probably beneficial. I'll present first a practical argument and then a philosophical one.

The Practical Argument: First and foremost, without the radicals of ANSWER there would have been no rally or march. The Democratic party didn't organize one. Neither did the ACLU, the Green party, the NAACP, the Sierra Club, TrueMajority, MoveOn, the Quakers, the Catholics, or any other large national group which opposes (or should oppose) war with Iraq. I don't mean to put down any of these groups (I belong to four of the ones I mentioned), and they have organized effective mail campaigns and local events. But ANSWER, which most people had never heard of before October, had the vision and the energy to organize the huge rallies and marches in DC and San Francisco in October and January. They took on and accomplished the huge tasks of hiring and filling buses, getting permits, publicity, and all of the many other things necessary to make the events large and effective.

And I argue that only a radical organization could have done it. There are pro-Bush hawks in many of the mainstream groups who would vigorously oppose the groups even supporting, much less organizing, a major anti-war rally. The Sierra Club faced major dissension before finally supporting the wimpiest of the anti-war movements (Win Without War). The ACLU's mission is supported by prominent hawks like Bob Barr, Dick Armey and William Safire. And the last thing the Catholic church wants right now is one more divisive issue. So only a group sufficiently radical that it has no pro-war or pro-Bush faction will be able to focus its energy on organizing a big march rather than infighting.

In addition, although one of the people I discussed this with immediately disagreed with it (and he may be right), I think that each of the "radical" speakers represented some group which contributed hundreds of marchers to the rally. That is, without all of the yellers, you have a smaller and therefore less effective rally.

My final practical argument is that the possible negative impact of the speakers was minimal. Most repeated the anti-war message frequently and added in their own agendas. So everyone there could at least find something to cheer, since the whole crowd was anti-war. And even if there were radicals on the stage, the crowd was amazingly mainstream, maybe too much so. It was mostly white, all ages, very little spiked hair, body piercings, tattoos, etc. As a middle-aged white male I felt more out of place at the last Michigan football game I went to than I did in the rally. And while I was able to hear the speakers well, I'm sure that many others could not, and they probably didn't care. The important thing was to be there and to march through the streets. And the marching was a blast. While I'm sure that everyone would have preferred to hear speakers that mirror their own sentiments exactly, most people there would probably put up with having Fidel Castro or Rush Limbaugh speak if they had to to take part in the march. The worst negative effect was probably with the televised coverage on C-Span, where you could see and hear the speakers perfectly but not be a part of the crowd or participate in the march. And of course, right-wing journalists and radio personalities have probably jumped all over some of the more radical statements. But they would have found something to complain about anyway.

The Philosophical Argument: I've read some of Noam Chomsky's work and watched his video "Manufacturing Consent." He points out how the supposedly “liberal” media sets the left limit to debate: anybody more liberal than Sam Donaldson or George Stephanopoulos is a whacko radical and can be safely ignored. So while it may be barely safe for newscasters or politicians to call for “slowing the rush to war,” it is still treacherous to question larger parts of the US policy. “Win Without War” is a good example. That message basically says that through continued bullying of the United Nations, continued harsh sanctions which kill thousands in Iraq, and continued military buildup to threaten Saddam, maybe it will be possible to just steal Iraq and its oil without conquering it militarily. That is as far left as the Sierra Club, among many others, is willing to go.

The reason for this is that the mainstream debate has been continually pushed to the right in the past 25 years. Ralph Nader points out in his book “Crashing the Party” that many of Al Gore’s positions in 2000 were more right-wing than Richard Nixon’s were in 1972. This has been accomplished in large part because the right has not suppressed its radical whackos: Jerry Falwell, Rush Limbaugh, Pat Robertson, etc. These people introduce blatantly absurd ideas into the national debate and continue to repeat them until people either believe them or at least accept them as starting points. (“I don’t believe Hillary is a feminazi antichrist, but I sure wouldn’t trust her with my children.”)

Now I’m not calling for a progressive Rush, someone who combines half-truths about Republicans with nasty lies and repeats them ad nauseum. But free speech is, or should be, a key element of the progressive agenda. I am unfamiliar with some of the causes that were represented by the speakers in Washington and might well disagree with some of them if I knew all of the facts. But I do know that these people have very little opportunity to be heard before large live and TV audiences. And just knowing that there are people out there who are way more liberal than Sam Donaldson or George Stephanopoulos frees people to investigate the middle ground between those two and the radicals (what used to be known as the Democratic Party). If we don’t have “radicals” continually pushing the limits on the left and dragging others behind them, we will end up with the dreadful possibility of Bush against Lieberman in 2004, which is really no choice at all.

Sean Gonsalves recommends a new book opposing estate tax repeal written in part by Bill Gates, Sr., father of the Microsoft mogul. While Gates Jr. certainly hasn't demonstrated much in the way of scruples while squashing competition as he acquired his enormous wealth, both he and his father seem to realize that it wasn't done in a vacuum and that the Gates family is not entitled to keep it all forever. A democratic society can only survive if large accumulations of wealth are periodically trimmed and tossed back into the blender. I'll have