Winning the War on Terror

Now that the Bush and Kerry camps are back in complete agreement on the winnability of the "war on terror," let's take a look at the headlines:

• Twin Bus Bombings in Israel Kill at Least 15 and Wound Dozens
• Eight Reportedly Killed in Moscow Subway Blast
• U.S. Jets Fire on Afghan Village; 8 Dead

The Bush and Kerry camps will likely deplore the first, commiserate with the second, and applaud the third. Reasons given for the attack will only be recognized in the third case.

The Israelis have been fighting their "war on terror" for years by abusing and killing Palestinians. No evidence there that a "war on terror" is winnable.

Like a child turning on her parent

The World Trade Organization has ruled against the U.S., authorizing the European Union and other leading U.S. trade partners to impose sanctions against the United States in response to antidumping rules.

This is similar to Comical Allawi pretending that he can actually do something in Iraq without US approval. The WTO was created by the US, for the US, and of the US, just like the UN and the IMF and the World Bank, and the US will ignore it whenever it suits its purposes. The best possible outcome here would be for the administration and Congress to fight these sanctions, eventually leading to the complete disintegration of the WTO. Here's yet another paragraph from Chalmers Johnson:

There is no known case in which globalization has led to prosperity in any Third World country, and none of the world's twenty-four reasonably developed capitalist nations, regardless of their ideological explanations, got where they are by following any of the prescriptions contained in globalization doctrine. What globalization has produced, in the words of [Peruvian diplomat Oswaldo de] Rivero, is not NICs (newly industrialized countries) but about 130 NNEs (nonviable national economies) or, even worse, UCEs (ungovernable chaotic entities). There is occasional evidence that this result is precisely what the authors of globalization intended.

Flip-flop-flipper

Bush takes back his "can't win" statement:

In a speech to the national convention of the American Legion, Bush said, "We meet today in a time of war for our country, a war we did not start yet one that we will win."

Apparently, VP candidate John Edwards did the obligatory Democratic response to one of Bush's few sensible statements:

"What if President Reagan had said that it may be difficult to win the war against communism? What if other presidents had said it'd be difficult to win the war - the Cold War?" Democratic vice presidential candidate John Edwards said on ABC's "Nightline" program. "The war on terrorism is absolutely winnable."

So who wins in this stupidity debate? Halliburton, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Raytheon, the Carlisle Group, al Qaeda, and the Democratic and Republican leadership. Who loses? Everybody else in the world.

Immensely reassuring to hear Edwards citing Reagan as an example, giving St. Ronald undeserved credit for the fall of the Soviet Union, which in reality happened because the USSR pursued policies in the 1980's remarkably similar to what the US is pursuing now. (Invade Afghanistan, anyone?) So John-boy: What if President Ford had insisted that the war in Vietnam was winnable? What if Jefferson Davis had insisted in 1865 that the "war of northern aggression" was winnable?

Bush says absolutely ridiculous things every single day. But the Kerry campaign jumps on him the hardest in those rare moments when he is making some sense.

I don't buy one single word of the "war on terrorism." September 11 just gave American militarists one more excuse to pursue world domination (see post below). We continue to harbor many known terrorists in Miami (and in our government, like Poindexter and Abrams and Negroponte), and continue to be allies with hotbeds of terrorism like Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Pakistan. We've already committed the equivalent of probably dozens of 9/11's on the people of Afghanistan and Iraq in just the past three years.

I turned strongly anti-Bush shortly after 9/11 after hearing his widely-applauded atrocious speeches--especially the "with us or with the terrorists" line. Only since then have I learned of the ongoing and practically unbroken series of crimes committed by my country under both Republicans and Democrats. The only answer I have to Repugs who ask why I wasn't protesting Clinton in 1999 for the bombing of Yugoslavia like I protest Bush now for the rape of Iraq is that I was ignorant then. In my defense, I never voted for either one of them.

Ethnic Cleansing? Mass Graves?

Eli at Left I on the News has an update on those "hundreds of thousands" of Kosovars killed by Milosevic which "justified" Clinton's bombing the crap out of Serbia in 1999:

"The war crimes tribunal in The Hague is 'beginning to panic' over its case against former Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic according to a Vancouver detective sent to unearth mass graves in Kosovo and a Canadian filmmaker who documented the exhumations.

"'I would think they'll have a tough time with the charge of genocide with only 5,000 bodies,' said retired Vancouver detective sergeant Brian Honeybourn. 'It seems as though The Hague is beginning to panic.'

"Mr. Milosevic's trial is to resume next week with the former Serbian dictator defending himself against charges of genocide and crimes against humanity. Former Canadian Supreme Court justice Louise Arbour made history when she laid the charges -- the first against a head of state -- as the tribunal's special prosecutor.

"Calgary filmmaker Garth Pritchard and Sgt. Honeybourn are critical of Ms. Arbour, now UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, and her claims that the Serbs, directed by Mr. Milosevic, murdered as many as 200,000 civilians during its ethnic cleansing of Kosovo.

"The alleged massacres were used by U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and Western leaders as justification for their bombing campaign and intervention in Kosovo, and were regularly and routinely reported as fact on television networks such as the CBC and CNN, as the West backed the Albanian Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) against the Serbs.

"'This was a massacre that never happened,' Mr. Pritchard maintains.

"Sgt. Honeybourn and forensic team leader Brian Strongman echoed Mr. Pritchard's doubts that the genocidal massacre by the Serbs ever took place.

"'I can't say that there weren't 200,000 bodies because I wasn't covering the entire country,' said Sgt. Honeybourn.

"'But I never saw any sign of anything like 200,000. If there were that many, then why did they have us exhuming single graves? The biggest mass grave we examined contained about 20 and there was another one of 11. But mostly our nine-member team worked on single graves.'

"In the six weeks Sgt. Honeybourn spent digging up fetid graves in Kosovo during the sweltering summer of 1999, the Canadian team exhumed 86 bodies."

Sounds a lot like Tony Blair's gross exaggerations of the number of mass graves in Iraq. And the reasons seem to be the same. Here's a selection from Chalmers Johnson's The Sorrows of Empire:

Kosov's Camp Bondsteel, a Brown & Root [That's Halliburton--ed] product, is a spooky place, surrounded by a 2.5-meter-high earthen berm and nine wooden guard towers. All trees in the are have been removed to provide open fields of fire. Dominated by a mass of communications antennae, satellite dishes, and hovering attack helicopters, it has a six-mile perimeter and seems too large and permanent an installation merely to meet the requirements of peacekeeping in southern Serbia, a mission that President Clinton asserted would last no longer than six months and that George Bush said in his election campaign he wished to eliminate. More likely, Camp Bondsteel is intended to play a role in a grand strategy to secure for us Middle Eastern and Central Asian oil supplies and to control oil going to other countries.

Camp Bondsteel is actually located astride the route of the proposed AMBO (Albania, Macedonia, Bulgaria Oil) Trans-Balkan pipeline. This $1.3 billion project, if built, will pump Caspian Basin oil brought by tanker from a pipeline terminus in Georgia across the Black Sea to the Bulgarian oil port at Burgas, where it will be piped through Macedonia to the Albanian Adriatic port of Vlore. From there, supertankers would take it to Europe and the United States, thus bypassing the congested Bosporous Strait--as of now the only route out of the Black Sea by ship--where tankers are restricted to 150,000 tons. The initial feasibility study for the AMBO pipeline was done in 1995 by Brown & Root, which updated it in 1999. Bondsteel appears to be a base camp for what the University of Texas political scientist James K. Galbraith has called the "military-petroleum complex," of which Dick Cheney is assuredly a godfather.

Not coincidentally, in February 2003, the United States also began to build two new military bases at Burgas. On November 14, 2001, the Bulgarian parliament ratified an agreement giving the United States overflight and transit rights for the war in Afghanistan; when Turkey withdrew its support of Washington's 2003 invasion of Iraq, the United States turned to Sofia for a permanent installation, to which the Bulgarians agreed. The air force took over much of Burgas International Airport, one of three commercial airports in Bulgaria, and flew in numerous construction crews to build a garrison at a nearby beach for American military personnel. It is called Camp Sarafovo. The large number of airmen who arrived seemingly overnight are the first foreign troops to commandeer the Burgas airport since the Luftwaffe seized it in 1943. During the second Iraq war, the United States flew KC-10 and KC-135 aerial refueling missions from Burgas to support air operations over Baghdad. The port of Burgas is home to the country's largest oil refinery and, under the terms of the Bulgarian-American agreement, supplies all the fuel required by the air force. Just a few hundred miles up the Black Sea coast, at the Romanian port of Constanta, the air force is building a similar base complex. Constanta is the center of Romania's large oil industry. The Afghan war and the second Iraq war turned out to be splendid opportunities for the United States to consolidate its oil strategy for the Balkans, the first stage of which was Camp Bondsteel.

Pretty much a seamless transition in foreign policy from Clinton to Bush. Expect no different if Kerry wins. Behind the smokescreens of sexual scandals and gay marriage and swiftboats, the goal of the two major parties is the same: Consolidating the wealth of the world into the hands of the American elite. Any excuse will work for any war that furthers that cause.

Disgusting

Check out CNN's main web page. The whole top and right side of the page are devoted to the Repugs. The main headline says "Bush lauded as bold, decisive." I think "thoughtless, insane" would be a better fit.

Solar Mission

My dabbling in solar power is generating interest as well as electricity. At least three people from my neighborhood have asked me about my panels. I just got a second, larger panel that I ordered over the Internet and had delivered to work. Several people at work have asked me about it, including one guy who wants to get some solar or wind gear for family of his living in South America.

I'm making a somewhat more permanent setup with my new panel. With my first panel, I had it mounted with hinges on a roll-around cart so that I could move it around the yard and point it at the sun. The cart holds the charge controller and the battery, which I switch with another battery when it is fully charged. I then carry the charged battery inside and use it either to power my TV through an inverter, or a little 12-volt car fan. I have propped my new panel against the south side of my house, with the power wires running through a small hole in the window screen and into my spare bedroom. I've got a charge controller and four batteries hooked up there, and will connect the batteries to the inverter and on to the TV or other AC devices.

Here are some photos of my first panel and how I'm using it:

My brother gave me the cart, and my friend Steve did the carpentry to attach the panel, through hinges, to the top of the cart. Between the wheels on the cart and the hinges, I can keep the panel pointed at the sun (when I'm at home, anyway).

Shows the panel (top), charge controller (lower left), and battery (lower right).

Two batteries hooked up in parallel. The clips at the top connect to the

inverter (left), into which the power strip is plugged. I can run my TV and home theater for three to four hours off of two charged batteries this way.

I'll post some pictures of my new panel and setup after I take them!

From Jeff Danziger.

From Nick Anderson.

Only sees evil where he wants to see evil

From David Catrow.

Flip-flopper

Quotes from the NY Times:
April:

At a prime-time news conference in the East Room of the White House on April 13, Mr. Bush said: "One of the interesting things people ask me, now that we are asking questions, is, 'Can you ever win the war on terror?' Of course you can."

August:

In the interview with Matt Lauer of the NBC News program "Today," conducted on Saturday but shown on the opening day of the Republican National Convention, Mr. Bush was asked if the United States could win the war against terrorism, which he has made the focus of his administration and the central thrust of his re-election campaign.

"I don't think you can win it," Mr. Bush replied. "But I think you can create conditions so that those who use terror as a tool are less acceptable in parts of the world."

You've certainly achieved that in your own case, Mr. Bush. You are probably the least acceptable person in the world.

I saw that Today show quote on a couple of blogs yesterday, but figured it would just be ignored. At least the Times made it a major story on their web page.

Of course, the scary thing is that once again Bush comes across as more reasonable and realistic than his Democratic opponent. John Kerry says "Today, we face three great challenges above all others - First, to win the global war against terror..." It wouldn't surprise me in the least to see Kerry attack Bush on this latest statement. That wouldn't be a bad thing, if he pointed out the flip-flop and how stupid it was of Bush to ever think that a tactic of warfare could be defeated. But that's not what he's likely to say. My prediction is that Kerry will say something like this: "My opponent now says that we can't win the war on terror. I say that we have to win the war on terror. And with me as your president, we will."

The "war on terror" was a crock from the start, an excuse to accelerate American imperialism and support brutal regimes which support us against rebels. Bush is the worst president in history. If Kerry sticks to his promises, he may be even worse.

Oh, by the way...

From CNN:

Clashes between U.S. forces and armed insurgents early Sunday near Mosul, northern Iraq, wounded 34 people, two of them seriously. The U.S.-led multinational forces said the 34 were civilians, 26 of them women and children. There were no casualties among U.S. troops. Two attackers were killed, the forces said in a statement.

If 34 civilians, including 26 women and children, were wounded by a suicide bomber in Tel Aviv, it would be the number one story. When it's Iraqis wounded by U.S. troops, it's an afterthought attached to an article.

Tired of my Kerry bashing?

You can always go to Counterpunch and read somebody else's! Here are some recent articles:

• The Left Takes a Dive for Kerry
• Zombies for Kerry
• To the Swift Boats!
  (I especially liked this paragraph: It is, to be sure, a grand way to keep from addressing anything relevant (like today's war on which, coincidentally, both candidates agree) until...oh, mid September or so. Then the "527" ads will delve into other weighty matters like, "Has the Heinz Foundation stopped funding blood-sucking monkeys to do evil things to little kiddies...?" Or, "Why DID John Edwards see that psychiatrist in 1991...?" Then for the Democrats, Moveon.org will tell us to something crucial to the survival of Western Society, such as "The lost files from Bush's Cocaine Anonymous classes: Where WAS he during those two meetings in September 1974?"
• Voting for Evil: To ABB or Not to ABB?
• John Kerry, the Warchurian Candidate
  

Just to be clear

When Republicans support Ralph Nader, it's low, sleazy, underhanded, and suggests that Ralph is lower than dirt. When Republicans support John Kerry, however, we're supposed to rejoice at what a great candidate Kerry is and throw money at MoveOn.

I get the feeling that a lot more people care about preserving the two-party system than they do about peace or justice. I was disgusted two years ago by MoveOn. First, they waged a great campaign to try and get Congress to oppose the Iraq war. Then, after losing that battle, they continued to raise funds for the scumbags, like Kerry, who had voted for it. And not only that. They didn't even mention the candidates' votes on the fundraising pages. They're still up to the same games. MoveOn is a Democratic Party front group, and is only anti-war when it serves the purposes of the Democrats. The Council for a Livable World. They did the same thing as MoveOn in 2002, and then started the appalling "Anybody but Bush" campaign last November, soliciting donations for whichever Dumocrat came out of the primaries.

CLW states on its web page "The Council for a Livable World is among the nation's preeminent arms control organizations and focuses on halting the spread of weapons of mass destruction, opposing a national missile defense system, cutting Pentagon waste and reducing excessive arms exports. The Council is also a political lobby which endorses political candidates." They fail to mention that the two missions are completely unrelated, since they just delivered $112,000 to a candidate (Kerry) who supports national missile defense and wants to increase the Pentagon budget. Also, by endorsing Bush's war on Iraq, Kerry has just strengthened the message to the rest of the world that the only apparent guarantee against a U.S. attack is to have nuclear weapons. (Check the record: Invaded Iraq? Yes. Invaded Russia? No. Invaded Afghanistan? Yes. Invaded Pakistan? No. Invaded Vietnam? Yes. Invaded China? No. Invaded Haiti? Yes. Invaded France? No. Attacked Yugoslavia, Libya, Sudan, Grenada? Yes. Attacked Britain, North Korea, Israel, India? No. Bush-Kerry policies are the driving force behind nuclear proliferation.)

I'm guessing that these MoveOn ads are more of a sign that Kerry has become a Republican than that these Republicans have changed their minds any.

Unilateral Disarmament

California is moving its presidential primary back to June, after having it in March in 1996, 2000, and 2004. Even Michigan's February 7 caucus seemed mostly irrelevant, what with the media, the party machinery, and Iowa and New Hampshire having already decided that Kerry was the most "electable." (Boy, were they wrong!) And the Repugs didn't even bother to run a challenger against the worst president in history. The state with the largest population was already irrelevant by March. Now they want to guarantee irrelevance--just let Iowa and New Hampshire decide who the most powerful person in the world is going to be.

Apparently the bill had bipartisan support, just further evidence that both major parties have no real interest in either republican or democratic forms of government.

Rick Reilly apologizes to Greece

Sports Illustrated columnist Rick Reilly tells the Greeks how wrong Americans and some others were about the Athens Olympics:

Dear Athens,

Well, we feel bad. We really owe you an apology.

So, sygnomi, as you would say. Sorry.

Sorry about the way we acted. We were paranoid and stupid and just flat out wrong. Our bad. If you want, we'll sleep on the couch.

We mocked you, ridiculed you, figured you wouldn't be ready. We envisioned you as a bunch of lazy, swarthy guys in wife-beater T-shirts chugging ouzo instead of finishing the baseball dugouts. We were sure steeplechasers would have to jump over drying cement, pole vaulters over tractors, divers into 3 feet of water.

We were wrong. It was all done and it was beautiful. OK, so the swimming stadium never got a roof. Big freaking deal. Imagine: having to swim in an outdoor pool. Let's all sue. Besides, you know what? It was more fun that way. Michael Phelps was out there so much he ended up with raccoon eyes from his goggles. He looked like a snowboarder. "Cool!" he said.
...
We were sure every street corner would have three or four terrorists, just kind of killing time, looking for somebody to kidnap. Some bozo said, "The only place worse to hold an Olympics would be Baghdad." Please. I guarantee you, we felt a helluva lot safer these three weeks in Athens than we do in L.A. Or Detroit. Or the Republican National Convention.

We insisted you spend 1.2 billion euros on security. You had to put up blimps and cameras all over the city. You couldn't throw a bucket of grapes anywhere and not hit a soldier with a rifle. And nothing happened. Zero. The only incident was when our Secretary of State said he was coming to visit. In other words, if Colin Powell would've just been happy with his remote, you wouldn't have had a single problem.
...
Why you had to pay for our paranoia, I'll never know. It's the world's problem, the world should have to pay for it. What small country is going to be able to afford to host the Olympics anymore with these insane security demands? From now on, if a country wants to send a team to the Games, it pays its share of security, based on its share of the gross world product. In other words, it's our war, we should have to pay for it.
...
Somebody did a poll and found that 97 percent of fans were "satisfied" with safety and security, 95 percent appreciated the job the volunteers did and 98 percent had a favorable impression of Greece. The other two percent were Paul Hamm's family.
...
And now you're stuck with about $8.5 billion in debt, a bunch of huge, expensive stadiums you'll never use (Hey, kids, who's ready to synchronized dive?!) and a whole lot of "Get Your Butt to Team Handball!" shorts nobody was around to buy. Other than that, Mrs. Kennedy, how did you enjoy Dallas?

As I said on Saturday, there's a lot more we need to apologize to the Greeks for.

Making the world safe for militarism

How does the world's only superpower pay for the weapons of the future, and guarantee the need for them at the same time? By selling the weapons of the present to brutal and corrupt regimes around the planet, of course. From the NY Times:

The United States and Russia continued to dominate the global arms market last year, especially when measured in weapons deals to developing nations, although the total value of arms sales worldwide tumbled for the third consecutive year, according to a new Congressional study.

The United States maintained its lead in worldwide weapons sales in 2003, signing deals worth more than $14.5 billion, or 56.7 percent of all arms agreements, up from $13.6 billion in 2002, the study showed.

Russia ranked second, signing agreements worth $4.3 billion, or 16.8 percent of all global arms sales deals in 2003. That figure was down from nearly $6 billion in 2002.

If you still believed that the NY Times does honest, unbiased reporting, you might expect that the headline would focus attention on US domination of the world's arms market at the same time that it has by far the largest (and most aggressive) military in the world. But of course the Times does nothing of the sort. The headline lumps the US's 56.7% with Russia's 16.8% (less than 1/3 as much): U.S. and Russia Still Dominate Arms Market, but World Total Falls. And the body of the article focuses on North Korea's miniscule contribution to the world arms bazaar. In the arms business, North Korea is a mom-and-pop country store, while the US is Wal-Mart.

Iraq Veterans Against the War

From the WSWS. The story:

Significant numbers of veterans participated in the demonstration, as well as some active-duty soldiers returned from Iraq, who marched in desert fatigues.

One of the latter, Mathias Feurer, said that he had come to the march to demand that his fellow soldiers be brought back from Iraq now. A member of the 1st Armored Division, he participated in the invasion of Iraq and spent four months there. Having completed his military service, he attempted to leave the Army, but had his service involuntarily extended, and was sent back to the US to an assignment with the National Guard.

"At the time the war began, I trusted our president," Mathias, a resident of the Bronx, told the World Socialist Web Site. "I thought it would be justified and that we would really find weapons of mass destruction, but there was nothing there."

He said that he was shocked by the poverty, destruction and suffering that the war had inflicted upon the Iraqi people. "When we first got there, the kids would wave at us and stuff, but by the time I had left, everything had already gone to hell. They just want us out of there. Sooner or later, that is what will happen, but in the meantime a lot of soldiers and a lot of Iraqis are dying."

Mathias said he would advise anyone thinking of going into the Army not to do it. "Today you’ve got young guys going in who don’t want to be in combat, and they choose something else, like being a cook. But what they need is infantry and military police, and once they get in they just send them over there—a bunch of untrained kids—and they’re the first ones to get killed. All anyone over there now wants to do is come home."

Four I's

In the parade of nations at the Olympics opening ceremony two weeks ago, the 61st nation to appear was Iraq, and the 62nd was Iran. Sixty-eighth was Israel, and 69th was Italy. They alphabetized using the Greek alphabet; in English, only Ireland would have separated those four countries (I think).

The Pentagon-Israel spy scandal (it desperately needs to be a scandal), appears to be in large part a conspiracy of the last two of those "I" countries, Israel and Italy, to get the United States to go to war with the first two, Iraq and Iran. Obviously, the Israelis, assisted by the Italians, did not encounter any reluctance among the many pro-Israel neonuts in the administration (or in Congress). Lawrence Franklin was (is?) the Iran expert in the Pentagon who has been accused by the FBI of espionage. But Juan Cole suggests it's much more than that:

The FBI has evidence that Franklin passed a draft presidential directive on Iran to AIPAC, which then passed it to the Israelis. The FBI is construing these actions as espionage or something close to it. But that is like getting Al Capone on tax evasion. Franklin was not giving the directive to AIPAC in order to provide them with information. He was almost certainly seeking feedback from them on elements of it. He was asking, "Do you like this? Should it be changed in any way?" And, he might also have been prepping AIPAC for the lobbying campaign scheduled for early in 2005, when Congress will have to be convinced to authorize military action, or at least covert special operations, against Iran. AIPAC probably passed the directive over to Israel for the same reason--not to inform, but to seek input. That is, AIPAC and Israel were helping write US policy toward Iran, just as they had played a key role in fomenting the Iraq war.

With both Iraq and Iran in flames, the Likud Party could do as it pleased in the Middle East without fear of reprisal. This means it could expel the Palestinians from the West Bank to Jordan, and perhaps just give Gaza back to Egypt to keep Cairo quiet. Annexing southern Lebanon up to the Litani River, the waters of which Israel has long coveted, could also be undertaken with no consequences, they probably think, once Hizbullah in Lebanon could no longer count on Iranian support. The closed character of the economies of Iraq and Iran, moreover, would end, allowing American, Italian and British companies to make a killing after the wars (so they thought).

Franklin's movements reveal the contours of a rightwing conspiracy of warmongering and aggression, an orgy of destruction, for the benefit of the Likud Party, of Silvio Berlusconi's business in the Middle East, and of the Neoconservative Right in the United States. It isn't about spying. It is about conspiring to conscript the US government on behalf of a foreign power or powers.

Scandals? What scandals?

All it takes is the end of the Olympics, some street protests, and the start of a coronation, and the story about one middle-eastern nation (Israel) having a spy in the Pentagon trying to get us to go to war with two other middle-eastern nations (Iraq and Iran) is quickly consigned to the back pages. On the main web pages of the NY Times, the Washington Post, and CNN, only the Times has a small headline about the issue: Officials Say Publicity Derailed Secrets Inquiry.

Of much less importance, and therefore likely to get much more attention, is evidence that former Texas speaker of the house Ben Barnes helped W get into the Air National Guard, and that Bush may have lied about that in one or more of his campaigns.

Why is the Israel spy case such a big deal? Juan Cole explains it here and here. The gist of it is that not only did neocon insiders conspire with Israel and the Israeli politcal front here in the US, AIPAC, to get us into the war with Iraq, they have been and still are actively trying to get us into a war with Iran as well. I found this passage particularly interesting:

Iran is reported to have Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in custody in summer of 2003, and to be entirely willing to hand him over to the US in return for some high-ranking MEK terrorists. [MEK is, or was, an Iraq-based terror group which attacked Iran. US troops have captured some MEK guys over the past year and a half.] But first the neocon network, including Franklin, Harold Rhode and Michael Ledeen, intervenes to stop the trade (see below). Then, mysteriously, everything that goes wrong in Iraq from about January of 2004 begins being blamed on Zarqawi (is it alleged that Iran let him go, to deliberately disrupt Iraq by blowing up Shiites? More likely, when Iran won't accommodate the Neocons because of the latters' ties to MEK, the neocons decide to smear Iran as "harboring" terrorists and "sending" them to Iraq. They know this path might even lead to a US war on Iran, which is what they want. That is one reason they did not want the prisoner exchange to succeed).

This is the type of box that the administration should have no way out of if we had a decent media. Either

1. Zarqawi is the brutal terrorist we've been led to believe, setting off car bombs all over Iraq, beheading Nick Berg, leading the Fallujah uprisings, and so on. In which case, the administration's unwillingness to trade the MEK terrorists for Zarqawi was an act of criminal negligence undertaken solely in order to cast Iran as a supporter of terrorism rather than an opponent. I'm sure Nick Berg's father would be thrilled with that explanation, along with many others. Alternatively,
   
2. Zarqawi wasn't or isn't a threat, and may even be dead. In this case, the endless bombings of "safe houses" in Fallujah to get Zarqawi and all the lies about the Berg beheading and the other crimes and simply acts of imperial genocide.

Oh well, the Repugs are puttin' on a show this week. No time to dwell on their crimes of the past 3 1/2 years.

The Numbers Game

I didn't go to the big march in New York, but I've been trying to get an idea as to how big it was. The media isn't much help:

• Hundreds of Thousands Join Protests in N.Y. -- NY Times
• Tens of thousands protest GOP convention -- CNN
• Tens of Thousands Protest Bush in New York -- Washington Post
• Tens of thousands march in peaceful protest -- LA Times
• Tens of thousands march in New York to oppose Bush -- Globe and Mail (Canada)
• MSNBC is all over the map: The headline on the main page says "Tens of Thousands Protest." The subheadline on the article itself says "Thousands of protesters march in N.Y." Inside the article, it says "more than 100,000 protesters."
• Fox News says "tens of thousands," as does the right-wing New York Post.
• CBS follows MSNBC, saying "thousands" in the headline and "tens of thousands" in the article.
• ABC's headline says "tens of thousands" while the article says "over 100,000."

C'mon, let the guy run

A lunatic defrocked priest pulled the lead runner off the course in today's Olympic marathon, costing him about 12 seconds directly and probably the gold medal:

The defrocked Irish priest who bolted from the crowd and tackled the marathon leader about three miles from the finish Sunday has been arrested before for disrupting sporting events.

Cornelius Horan, 57, was wearing a green beret, a red kilt and knee-high green socks when he attacked Brazilian runner Vanderlei Lima, knocking him into the crowd. Lima was able to recover and finish, but had to settle for the bronze medal.

To his infinite credit, Lima kept running, even though he had clearly been frightened and possibly even slightly injured. He had obviously planned his race of a lifetime, pulling away from the pack to a lead of over 40 seconds before the incident. Afterwards, he was clearly struggling, and was caught by an Italian and an American. Lima kept chugging, though, and finished.

I know that George Bush destroys people's dreams every day, and in much worse ways than this. But seeing this nut ruin Lima's chance for Olympic gold, something he has surely been training for for years, was very personal and direct. The marathon may be about the purest competition in the Olympics. No slip at the start or dropped baton or bad judging can cost someone the race. Training, preparation, and physical and mental toughness are all required in huge quantities to win a marathon, and it sure looked like Lima had it all. For some end-times nutcase to interfere was disgusting.

From Kirk Anderson.

From Ted Rall.

Report from the front lines

One of the men in the group I went to Venezuela with lives in New York, and witnessed some of the critical mass arrests there last night:

Last night about 9:00 I walked out of my 13th street flat and found a stream of bikers coming down Seventh Ave, all at ease, a very happy bunch, some gesturing with V signs and a few waggling upraised fists. They just kept coming for several minutes as a crowd gathered on the corner. We started chanting "Our streets, our streets" Across the
street were two police vans and about a dozen cops, watching, doing nothing. Down the street were a couple of police cars at skew angles to the curbs.

When the stream had diminished considerably, the police deployed across the street, blocking it with a thin line of cops and some kind of flimsy barricade material. They also consulted with a biker who was evidently one of theirs, an infiltrator. Not satisfied with this maneuver, they abandoned their line and drifted around. A few straggling bikers then sought to come through the intersection. These stragglers
were seized and forced off their bikes. They were handcuffed, while I and others stood, retreating to the sidewalk, feeling menaced with arrest ourselves. "Why are they being arrested?" I asked the overweight cop who faced me, holding a nightstick. "I dunno," he replied.

A woman with a video camera shouted across to the distant biker: "I'm from the National Lawyers Guild. What's your name?" She was evidently afraid to venture out in the middle of the street where four cops surrounded a biker. One biker shouted his name and after several tries she got it down. Many of us were then interviewed by someone who seemed to be from an indy new group.

Overhead, several blocks away what appeared to be a flying saucer with dim lights hovered. We made out a blimp. I walked away and across the Village heading for dinner. All the restaurants were jammed with their usual weekend land office business. A helicopter joined the blimp, searching over the street with a light. On Third Avenue there was a crowd several blocks north. I thought I could hear a chant of "Let them go".

An hour later coming back to Third Avenue, cops were lounging next to a line of their shiny new Italian scooters. The helicopter was still overhead.

Wardrobe Malfunction

I'm sure I won't be the only one to use that headline for the US basketball team's uniform mistake--packing their dark-colored jerseys on the Queen Mary II when they still need them for the bronze medal game. But maybe the first? The game is currently being delayed (and the gold medal game afterward) while they bring the jerseys back.

The basketball team has been getting a lot of abuse. A local yahoo was appalled that more famous NBA stars didn't participate, including, as he said, "our fellow Pistons." I checked the roster--the yahoo is not a Piston.

Meanwhile, NBC has a few reporters at the basketball arena babbling about the uni's, while CBC is showing live track and field events.

One other snide Olympic comment: I watched a little of the synchronized swimming competition last night. I think that sport probably takes the gold medal for requiring the most amount of fitness, training and teamwork in exchange for the least excitement and appeal to the viewer. The silver goes to Greco-Roman wrestling, and the bronze to water polo.

Najaf Agreement

It looks like everyone is living up to the terms of the agreement--except the Americans, of course:

The agreement also calls for the Mahdi Army to withdraw from neighboring Kufa, for American forces to pull out of Najaf and for the Iraqi government to compensate Iraqis for losses sustained during the fighting.
...
By early evening here, aides to the ayatollah were fully in control of the shrine itself. The Iraqi police, backed by American troops and tanks, converged on the area around the shrine, with the Americans moving to within 75 yards and then dropping back.

Colinectomy

Secretary of Lies Colin Powell will not go to Athens for the closing ceremonies. The State Department of course denied that massive protests in Athens had anything to do with it.

The State Department said the cancellation was forced in part because of events in Iraq and Sudan.

U.S. and Greek officials denied Powell changed plans because of protests against U.S. foreign policy that were dispersed when police hurled tear gas on Friday at about 1,000 demonstrators headed in the direction of the U.S. Embassy in Athens.

But Greek activists, who said the threat of street protests also forced Powell to cancel a trip in 2003, were crowing with victory.

"Of course, the cancellation was linked to our protests," activist Yiannis Sifakakis told Reuters. "This is a huge victory for the anti-war movement which protested by the thousands in the streets of Athens last night."

Even the talking heads of NBC's Olympic coverage were rolling their eyes at the lame excuses for the cancellation.

I was reading in The Sorrows of Empire about the legacy of American meddling in Greece. Here are some selections:

In the case of Spain there is some plausibility to the argument that the United States had to deal with the leader it found there, even if he happened to be a fascist. But the story was different in Greece. We helped bring the militarists to power there, and the legacy of our complicity still poisons Greek attitudes toward the United States. There is probably no democratic public anywhere on earth with more deeply entrenched anti-American views than the Greeks. The roots of these attitudes go back to the birth of the Cold War itself, to the Greek civil war of 1946-49 and the U.S. decision embodied in the Truman Doctrine to intervene on the neofascist side because the wartime Greek partisan forces had been Communist-dominated. In 1949, the neofascists won and created a brutal right-wing government protected by the Greek secret police, composed of officers trained in the United States by the wartime Office of Strategic Services and its successor, the CIA.
...
[In 1964] when the Greek ambassador told President Johnson that his proposed solution to the Cyprus dispute was unacceptable to the Greek parliament, Johnson reportedly responded, "F**k your parliament and your constitution. We pay a lot of good American dollars to the Greeks. If your prime minister gives me talk about democracy, parliament, and constitutions, he, his parliament, and his constitution many not last very long." And they did not.

The CIA, under its Athens station chief, John Maury, immediately began plotting with Greek military officers they had trained and cultivated for over twenty years. In order to create a sense of crisis, the Greek intelligence service, the KYP, carried out an extensive program of terrorist attacks and bombings that it blamed on the left. Constantin Costa-Gavra's 1969 film, Z, accurately depicts those days. On April 21, 1967, just before the beginning of an election campaign that would have returned Papandreou as prime minister, the military acted. Claiming they were protecting the country from a Communist coup, a five-man junta, four of whom had close connections with either the CIA or the U.S. military in Greece, established one of the most repressive regimes sponsored by either side during the Cold War.
...
The leader of the junta, Colonel George Papadopoulos, was an avowed fascist and admirer of Adolf Hitler. He had been trained in the United States during World War II and had been on the CIA payroll for fifteen years preceding the coup. His regime was noted for its brutality. During the colonel's first month in power some 8000 professionals, students, and others disliked by the junta were seized and tortured. Many were executed.

Last night, the NBC talking heads were saying that the protests and other anti-American sentiment that they had seen in Athens all seemed to be directed at our government, not Americans in general. Amazingly, this seems to be widespread. People I met in Mexico and Venezuela who detest our government and pretty much everything it (in reality) stands for were still wonderfully nice and gracious towards me and the other Americans with me. How long this can last is hard to say. Osama bin Laden seems to have turned the corner about 13 years ago, and surely many more have followed, especially in the last two years. Apparently much of the world realizes what most Americans do not--that we are no longer a democracy, so your average American can no more be held accountable for U.S. atrocities than the average Russian could have been blamed for Stalin's. Or maybe it's that they believe that we do still have a democracy, but that most Americans are just totally ignorant about the effects of U.S. policy around the world. Certainly in Venezuela and Mexico there were many people who were desperate to explain to me how U.S. actions had negatively impacted their country, hoping that I'd come back and spread the word. So that's what I'm doing.

Why would Israel need a spy in the Pentagon?

Doesn't the US already do everything Sharon could ask for? Some of the neocons seem to put Israel's interests ahead of America's anyway. Still, any scandal in a storm.

The suspect could have been in a position to influence Bush administration policy toward Iran and Iraq, the senior official said.

However, another government official said the suspect is "not in a level to influence policy."

"He is an analyst in an undersecretary's office," this official said.

Amazing coincidence that this news comes out on Friday night, ready to be quickly shoved to the back pages by protests in New York, Powell's invasion of Athens, the end of the Olympics, and the start of the Repug convention.

You've got to get elected to Congress first, James

Then you can sell your vote! From Elyria, Ohio:

An Elyria man, James Pengov, needed money for medical bills and offered on eBay to sell his vote.

His offer was online just 12 hours before authorities were alerted and yanked it.

Pengov says he didn't know that selling a vote is illegal.

The article doesn't say how high the bidding had gotten. I'm guessing the Bush and Kerry campaigns had already bid it up into the thousands. He's in Ohio, after all. (Via Michelle)

Greeks Protest Powell Visit

From the NY Times:

"Powell is the man who peddled Bush's lies on Iraq," said protest organizer, Yiannis Sifahakis. "He is a murderer and we don't want him here."

Sorry, dude. We don't want him here either.

Among those who joined in before the violence broke out was Andrea Murray, 22, who graduated from Duke University in North Carolina. She said she was looking for Athens' National Museum and instead found the demonstration.

"I found this and I thought, like wow! I am participating because I am American and I want Greeks to know that not all Americans are drones or idiots," Murray said.

Why does the Secretary of Lies have to go ruin the nice party the Greeks have put on for the Olympics? Can't he just go hang out in Fallujah or Sadr City instead?

Final Counts from Venezuela

From La Hora. A "No" vote meant not recalling Hugo Chavez.

Oh Canada!

OTTAWA, Canada (Reuters) -- Canadian Member of Parliament Carolyn Parrish had said she hated "damned Americans" and called them bastards in the run-up to the Iraq war.

She found a new moniker, idiots, on Wednesday in discussing the planned U.S. missile defense system.

"We are not joining the coalition of the idiots. We are joining the coalition of the wise," the Liberal legislator told a small group of demonstrators.
...
"They tortured people in Iraq, they (the Iraqis) have no weapons of mass destruction. Could somebody explain to me whether you think they're idiots or geniuses?"

That may add a little spice to the upcoming Hockey World Cup. The US team will play Canada Tuesday night in Montreal in the opening game for both teams (and a rematch of the gold-medal match in the 2002 Olympics in Salt Lake City, which the Canadians won).

CBC, as usual, is providing the best coverage of these Olympics. Last night, I caught the end of a story they were doing about Greeks organizing massive protests against Colin Powell's planned visit to Athens this weekend. I didn't hear Bob Costas mention it during NBC's coverage. I will give him credit, however, for mentioning the obvious to IOC President Jacques Rogge. Paraphrasing, Costas pointed out that a huge part of the funding for the Olympics came from broadcasting, and that the largest part of that came from Costas' own NBC. Costas asked Rogge if that huge financial stake put pressure on judges and IOC officials to decide controversies in favor of Americans. Rogge denied any favoritism, but it was nice to see Costas mention the 800-pound gorilla in the room, even if it was his own gorilla.

Why are you doing this?

Kudos to the USA Today reporter for asking the question:

In the USA Today interview, Bush was asked why he is staying in politics.

"There's a lot of my friends who come and bass-fish with me. They don't say it out loud, I know they're thinking it: Why?" Bush said. "And the answer is because the stakes are high. Because there is more work to be done to make the world a freer and more peaceful place. It is essential that America lead in the 21st century in order to defeat the ideologues who use terror as a weapon, in order to secure the homeland, but also in order to spread liberty. I know what needs to be done, I see clearly where we need to go and I want to spend four years leading toward that goal. And I believe the American people will give me that opportunity," he said.

I'll take two tenths of a point deduction on the reporter for not asking the obvious followup question: "No, seriously. Why?"

Bush also said "I am not going to come in second." He failed to add "again."

Juan Cole judges the Najaf agreement

Lots of people dead and wounded, cemeteries and shrines desecrated, passions inflamed. UM Professor Juan Cole has the scorecard:

Winners and losers:

I think the big losers from the Najaf episode (part deux) are the Americans. They have become, if it is possible, even more unpopular in Iraq than they were last spring after Abu Ghuraib, Fallujah and Najaf Part 1. The US is perceived as culturally insensitive for its actions in the holy city of Najaf.

The Allawi government is also a big loser. Instead of looking decisive, as they had hoped, they ended up looking like the lackeys of neo-imperialists.

The big winner is Sistani, whose religious charisma has now been enhanced by solid nationalist credentials. He is a national hero for saving Najaf.

For Muqtada, it is a wash. He did not have Najaf until April, anyway, and cn easily survive not having it. His movement in the slums of the southern cities is intact, even if its paramilitary has been weakened.

A bigger rant

Yesterday, someone posted this article by John Pilger on our local peace Yahoo group. Pilger argues that Kerry really provides no real alternative to Bush, even suggesting that Bush is the lesser evil. I'm not sure I'm willing to go that far. But the post drew a rather predictable response from a high-school kid in the group who is a die-hard Kerryista. He argued that there is a huge difference between Bush and Kerry, citing stem-cell research, abortion, tax cuts, deficit spending, and judicial appointments.

I decided I'd better burst his bubble. I'm currently reading Chalmers Johnson's The Sorrows of Empire, and am now firmly of the belief that all of our rights, as well as our hopes to keep important social programs and get new ones, are threatened by rampant militarism. Anyway, enough prologue. The rest of this post is the response I put on Yahoo:

I'm afraid you've missed the point. Pilger's view, one that I agree with, is that the true American political agenda has nothing to do with stem cells or abortion or gay rights or gun control or even judges. It is about power and control of the world. The American military-industrial complex saw the opportunity to rule the world after World War II, and has been relentless in pursuing that goal. The endless red scares were used to justify the development of our huge nuclear arsenal, to which the Soviets obligingly responded. The CIA was created in order to maintain or install governments compliant with the US agenda all over the world, starting with Iran and Guatemala in the early 1950's and continuing today in places like Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Indonesia, Colombia, and dozens of others. The military's special forces have basically the same mission.

Pretty much every US military intervention since World War II, whether the stated reason was self-defense, humanitarian, upholding UN resolutions (which we had pushed for), or just for the heck of it (Grenada, Panama, Haiti about five times, Iraq) has resulted in new American military bases projecting power. The negative effects on the freedoms of the six billion non-Americans of this rampant militarism should be obvious. But from James Madison to Smedley Butler to George Orwell to Dwight Eisenhower, and many others, thoughtful people have for centuries recognized that militarism is destructive of freedom at home as well. Not only does it provide abundant enemies for whom we can be arrested as traitors for assisting, it also bankrupts the treasury, keeping it from providing any meaningful funding for
anything else.

There is no need or legitimate excuse for the huge American military. It is currently doing much more which reduces both our freedom and our safety than it is protecting us. Its effect on people all over the world is appalling. None of our liberties are safe as long as the military-industrial-petroleum complex is ruling our country.

This is why I'm so disgusted with Kerry. He wants to take this immense, bloated, wasteful and dangerous military and make it bigger. He's been on board with the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, and only complains about the "war on terror" because he thinks Bush isn't doing enough. Bush suggests (a lie, almost for sure) that he might actually scale back our enormous military presence in Europe and Asia, and Kerry is there, right on cue, to say that's a bad idea. Kerry TOTALLY supports American militarism.

And don't forget that Kerry will probably be faced with a Republican Congress. While the president has fairly wide latitude in military matters (thanks to the Bushes and their Democratic supporters), Kerry won't be able to repeal a single tax cut, fund stem cell research, or appoint any federal judges without the support of Congress. And he won't have it.

Our freedoms, both those written into the Bill of Rights and those won by progressive women, minorities, union members, and millions of others over the past 150 years, will continue to deteriorate as long as corporations and the military-industrial complex are calling the shots. That's what needs to be stopped. Kerry's not the person to do it, because he doesn't even want to. I know, Bush is even worse.

But Kerry had a chance to raise these issues, given Bush's total and obvious failures in his illegal wars. But instead of making Iraq the issue, which should be a sure loser for Bush, he decided that he'd make Vietnam his main selling point. The Bushies have predictably slimed him on that, obviously without a boat to stand on, but seriously--why is a 35-year-old war the issue now? People are dying every day in Iraq.

I realize that I'm left with no good choices in this election. It just pains me to see people pretending that Kerry is a good choice.

Details on the Agreement

Not as dramatic as I predicted, but perhaps more realistic:

1. Allawi steps down Allawi steps back, Moqtada al-Sadr won't be arrested.
2. US and other coalition forces leave the country US forces leave Najaf, as does Mahdi army.
   
3. Iraqis celebrate Iraqis breathe a little easier.

In reality, I guess this could mean any number of things ranging from

1. Nothing, to
2. Sistani and al-Sadr team up and lead a popular uprising throughout most of Iraq, effectively taking control.

Of course, if Allawi and his American string-pullers accept this agreement, one has to wonder what the point has been of bombing and shooting up Najaf for the past couple of weeks, apparently killing hundreds. Actually, one has to wonder anyway.

Agreement Reached

From the NY Times:

Iraq's most powerful Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, and the rebel cleric Moktada al-Sadr met today and forged an agreement that was aimed at ending the fighting that has engulfed this city for the last three weeks, aides to the clerics said.

The aides, while describing the talks as successful, did not provide details of the agreement.

I'm guessing it's something like:

1. Allawi steps down.
2. US and other coalition forces leave the country.
3. Iraqis celebrate.

I've already sent them a message on behalf of the US agreeing to these terms. (Just kidding, Mr. Attorney General! I'm well aware that only Halliburton and Jack Idema are allowed to engage in private foreign policy.)

Women Win Gold

The US women's soccer team beat Brazil today 2-1 in overtime in the gold-medal match on goals by Lindsay Tarpley and Abby Wambach. Congrats!

Oiling the gears

Pipeline Attack cuts Iraq's oil exports in half, but oil price falls anyway (below $43).

Powerful forces are clearly at work here. World demand continues to grow, supplies are limited and threatened, but something is keeping prices from continuing to skyrocket. I would guess that the main goal of those forces is trying to keep American voters from seeing either gas lines or $3 a gallon prices before November. Arms are being twisted, along with promises that they'll let go after the election. Instead of $3 a gallon by Labor Day, we'll see $5 for Christmas.

Chaos

You've got US soldiers and marines, supported by all sorts of ungodly firepower from above. You've got Iraqi troops, Iraqi police, the Mahdi army, and now thousands of Iraqis from all over responding to Ayatollah Sistani's call to march on Najaf.

And people are dying by the dozens. The mosque in Kufa was hit by a mortar attack, killing at least 27. Sistani's march apparently contained or was infiltrated by provocateurs of some sort who took a few shots at the Iraqi police in Najaf, who then apparently responded by shooting at everyone in sight.

Obviously, keeping up with all of this from Ann Arbor, Michigan is next to impossible, and I'm certainly not the best one here to do it (that would be Juan Cole). But I will say that it was completely predictable that starting a war in Iraq would lead to chaos--starting a war ALWAYS leads to chaos.

Here's yet another mind-boggling juxtaposition of paragraphs from the NY Times:

Both the interim Iraqi government and the American commanders had welcomed the announcement of his return, seeing in it a possible way out of the bloodshed and the political predicament.

The ayatollah's announcement came as American jets and helicopters on Wednesday pounded the area around the Ali Mosque, with some bombs exploding as close as 30 yards from the shrine.

Now there's a possible way out of the bloodshed and political predicament.

From John Sherffius.

From Gary Varvel.

From Walt Handelsman.

From Mike Keefe.

Understatement of the year

"My husband did not take the news well." -- Melida Arredondo.

So what happened?

After being informed that his 20-year-old son was killed while serving in Iraq, a Florida man doused a U.S. government van with gasoline and set it on fire while sitting inside.

Carlos Arredondo, 44, was severely burned and rushed to Hollywood Regional Hospital in Florida after learning that Pfc. Alexander Arredondo had died, police said.

I guess any comment here would seem tasteless. I will suggest that there are thousands of Iraqi fathers getting the same news. When they respond similarly they are labelled insurgents or terrorists. Carlos Arredondo isn't a terrorist. The true terrorists are in the White House.

Oil Price Hike Blessing in Disguise

From Gwynne Dyer in the Toronto Star:

Some time this week or next, oil is likely to reach $50 U.S. a barrel for the first time ever. The price is up by a third since the end of June, and U.S. prices have set record peaks in all but one of the past 15 trading sessions.

This is a Good Thing.
...
The price of oil may never actually fall back that far again, and, even if it does, the long-term trend is clearly up. Why is that a Good Thing?

The main reason is global warming, which is coming on faster and harder than even the pessimists feared. In a system as complex as climate, all sorts of things change in unpredictable ways when you raise the total amount of heat in the system, and the worst changes are those that set up feedback mechanisms.

Some of the changes we are observing now are very worrisome.

It was assumed, for example, that the rise in global temperature would be partly cancelled out by a higher rate of evaporation from the oceans that produced more cloud cover. Instead, the higher temperatures seem to be burning the clouds off.

And recent research suggests the higher level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is stimulating the bacteria that live in peat bogs and greatly increasing the speed with which they dissolve the peat. The peat is almost pure carbon, and when it dissolves it turns into — carbon dioxide.

If that turns out to be a runaway feedback loop, we are in serious trouble, for the peat bogs of the northern hemisphere contain the equivalent of 70 years' worth of global industrial emissions of carbon dioxide.

New calculations suggest we may be facing a global temperature rise over the next century not of 5.8 degrees Celsius (10.6 degrees Fahrenheit), which would be bad enough, but as much as 10 to 12 degrees C (18 to 21 degrees F).
...
The only short-term hope of slowing the rise in temperature is a steep drop in the use of oil and gas — and the only thing that is going to make that happen is a steep rise in price.

It has happened before.

Alternative energy sources take a long time to build, but energy conservation works relatively quickly: The big oil price rises of the 1970s caused the industrialized countries to bring in energy conservation measures that cut global oil consumption drastically.

Twenty-five years of profligacy in energy use since then means that there is once again huge scope for rapid gains from conservation.

It will only happen, however, if the oil price goes up and stays up.

You've probably noticed my hardly-concealed glee at the rise in oil prices. I'm glad to see that I'm not alone.

Nobody could have possibly forseen...

Juan Cole reminds us of two early critics of the idea of invading Iraq: George H. W. Bush and James Baker. Heck, even evil Repugs can be right some of the time. Too bad neither of our major presidential candidates were listening.

Members of the Club

Here's the explanation for why the Abu Ghraib isn't calling for Rumsfailed's resignation, even though, "in tracing responsibility for what went wrong at Abu Ghraib, it drew a line that extended to the defense secretary's office."

"If the head of a department had to resign every time someone below him did something wrong, it'd be a very empty cabinet table," said Harold Brown, defense secretary under President Jimmy Carter and a panel member.

--NY Times

Half of the panel, Brown and James R. Schlesinger, are former defense secretaries. They will not blame one of their own. And while Brown is right as far as it goes--with over a million people working for him, Rummy is bound to have a few bad apples. But that's not what this was. This was systematic, both encouraged and covered up by Rumsfailed, and even his "superiors." America would be better served right now by a completely empty cabinet table--including the joker supposedly in charge.

Video Taping--The Great American Crime

From the NY Times:

A Virginian implicated in a scheme to raise money for Hamas, the militant group, was in federal custody on Tuesday, and officials analyzed what they regarded as a suspicious videotape of a major Maryland bridge that his wife shot from their vehicle last week.

A lawyer for the man, Ismael Selim Elbarasse of Annandale, said he and his wife were videotaping sights from the bridge on their way back from a beach trip.
...
An accountant, Mr. Elbarasse was named but not charged as a conspirator in the case in an indictment announced on Friday. Officials said he had helped the defendants launder hundreds of thousands of dollars to Hamas.
...
"It was the nature of the videotape itself that got everyone's attention," [Police Chief Gary W. McLhinney of the Maryland Transportation Authority] said in an interview. "This went beyond the normal tourist video. They didn't seem to be focusing on what people normally focus on there, the water, the skyline, the facilities on the shore. They were focused on the bridge itself."

Hey Chief! I've got another one for you! He's got detailed pictures of the bridge, and he lives in a country known to harbor terrorists.

I think since the Rodney King thing that cops have a problem with camcorders. In Googling around for info on the Chesapeake Bay Bridge, I came across the official web site for the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel, a much longer bridge farther down the bay from the bridge where the arrest was made. If you look at the map, the bridge where the guy was arrested is the one just north of Annapolis; the Bridge-Tunnel is down near Norfolk.

Near Norfolk, you say? Isn't that where we've got a huge Navy base? Well, aspiring terrorists, no need to ponder that question for long. The Bridge-Tunnel web site provides these helpful photos:

Caption: "Observe Navy and commercial ocean-going ships glide gracefully through one of the world's busiest shipping channels through coin-operated viewing machines. Check out our Shipwatcher's Guide which describes the major types of Naval Ships currently based in Hampton Roads."


That's right, Virginia. Nuclear-powered aircraft carriers pass just above the tunnel portion of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel. I've never been on it or videotaped it, but I found that out within five minutes. Of course real terrorists take the wife and kids across less strategic bridges and videotape the trip. That's just how wiley they are.

Maybe this guy was up to something, but it sure seems unlikely. But now he's probably going to be charged with some bogus crime, and then forced into pleading guilty by being threatened with "enemy combatant" status.

Who's that knockin' at the door?

From John Sherffius.

Easy answer

The Supreme Court, of course! Cartoon from Corky Trinidad.

From David Horsey.

This message brought to you by Non-swiftboat non-veterans for enough already about Vietnam.

*********************************************************


From Dan Wasserman.

From Joe Heller.

From John Deering.