Some disassembly required

I checked the video. The transcript was correct--aWol actually said "It seemed like to me they based some of their decisions on the word of -- and the allegations -- by people who were held in detention, people who hate America, people that had been trained in some instances to disassemble -- that means not tell the truth."

Gee, someone was nice enough to give the idiot that word-of-the-day toilet paper, and when his big chance comes he not only blows it, but decides to lecture the press to further impress them with his ignorance.

It just is

Idiot-in-chief answers Amnesty International, from the White House web site's transcription of his news conference today:

THE PRESIDENT: I'm aware of the Amnesty International report, and it's absurd. It's an absurd allegation. The United States is a country that is -- promotes freedom around the world. When there's accusations made about certain actions by our people, they're fully investigated in a transparent way. It's just an absurd allegation.

In terms of the detainees, we've had thousands of people detained. We've investigated every single complaint against the detainees. It seemed like to me they based some of their decisions on the word of -- and the allegations -- by people who were held in detention, people who hate America, people that had been trained in some instances to disassemble -- that means not tell the truth. And so it was an absurd report. It just is.

So many Bushisms in two paragraphs! I guess my favorite for taking a quote slightly out of context, which is the only way to keep Bush from "disassemble"-ing (!), would be

The United States is a country that is -- promotes freedom around the world. When there's accusations made about certain actions by our people, they're fully investigated in a transparent way. It's just an absurd allegation.

Actually, two.

And I'm sure the world will be relieved to learn (probably falsely) that the Bushies have investigated every single complaint against the detainees! And "we've had thousands of people detained." How many of those have you accused of crimes, George? How many convicted? Even if Gitmo was the Paris Hilton (the hotel) with immaculate, climate-controlled cells and ornate arrows pointing towards Mecca on every floor and sparkling Korans carefully hand-delivered by each detainee's imam of choice--it is still a crime to grab people and take them to the other side of the world and hold them for three years without legal rights or representation. Even Bush thinks that it's wrong to throw people in jail without a trial--here's what he said today about Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the Russian oil oligarch who was arrested in 2003 and sentenced today:

I expressed my concerns about the case to President Putin because, as I explained to him, here you're innocent until proven guilty, and it appeared to us, or at least people in my administration, that it looked like he had been judged guilty prior to having a fair trial. In other words, he was put in prison, and then was tried.

Two words, idiot--Jose Padilla.

I'm sure there's plenty of other outrages in aWol's press conference, but I have neither the time nor the stomach to look for more. It is already obvious to me that he's an evil idiot; it just is.

Veep from the Deep Emerges

Chris Floyd reviews Useless Dick's liefest on Larry King last night. Excerpt:

That's our Dick: lies, elisions, misdirection, false analogies -- the same stew he served up before the Iraq War, when he was the leading dispenser of iron certitude about the imminent threat of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. In fact, the Bush Regime has done us all a favor by unleashing Dick to bark and belch on the subject of American torture. For Cheney is a pole star by which we can all plot our course on the roiling sea of spin and propaganda: whatever he says -- anything, on any subject -- is 100 percent guaranteed to be a lie. If you want to know the truth, simply look to the opposite of Cheney's assertions. If he says Iraq has WMD -- it doesn't. If he says the Bush Regime is not engaged in wholesale torture -- it is.

From Mike Keefe.

Go Cheney yourself, Cheney

Just in this administration, we've liberated 50 million people from the Taliban in Afghanistan and from Saddam Hussein in Iraq, two terribly repressive regimes that slaughtered hundreds of thousands of their own people.

-- Dick "Dick" Cheney

The U.S. military nearly set off a sectarian crisis Monday by mistakenly arresting the leader of Iraq's top Sunni Muslim political party...
Few details were available on why the Americans arrested the Sunni leader, but it appeared to be related to the ongoing Sunni-led insurgency and fears of a broader sectarian conflict starting up.

The U.S. military acknowledged it had made a "mistake" by detaining Abdul-Hamid.

"Following the interview, it was determined that he was detained by mistake and should be released," the military said. "Coalition forces regret any inconvenience and acknowledge (Abdul-Hamid's) cooperation in resolving this matter."

Iraqi authorities suggested someone had planted "lies" against him in a bid to stir up "sectarian sedition."

Abdul-Hamid himself said U.S. forces questioned him about the "current situation," an apparent reference to the wave of attacks.

Following his release, Abdul-Hamid told reporters how "U.S. special forces" blew open the doors to his home "and dragged (his sons and guards) outside like sheep."

"They forced me to lay on the ground along with my sons and guards and one of the soldiers put his foot on my neck for 20 minutes," he told Al-Jazeera TV.

Soldiers later put him into a helicopter and flew him to an unknown location for more questioning, he said. He said he did not know the whereabouts of his sons and guards.

"At the time when the Americans say they are keen on real Sunni participation, they are now arresting the head of the only Sunni party that calls for a peaceful solution and have participated in the political process," said Iraqi Islamic Party Secretary-General Ayad al-Samarei.

Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, expressed "surprise and discontent" over the arrest.

"This way of dealing with such a distinguished political figure is unacceptable," he said.

--AP

When a foreign occupier arrests and humiliates your leading politicians at will, whatever you've got, it ain't freedom. Cheney's BS came in an interview with Larry King, in which our insane VP lied, lied, took a breath, and then lied some more.

"Guantanamo's been operated, I think, in a very sane and sound fashion by the U.S. military. ... I think these people have been well treated, treated humanely and decently," Cheney said.

If there's any justice anywhere in the world, Cheney will someday get to experience Gitmo hospitality for himself, and for the rest of his miserable life.

A friendly article about Hugo Chavez

From England's Guardian, of course.

The Chávez government, for its part, has forged ahead with various spectacular social projects, assisted by the huge jump in oil prices, from $10 to $50 a barrel over the past six years. Instead of gushing into the coffers of the already wealthy, the oil pipelines have been picked up and directed into the shanty towns, funding health, education and cheap food. Foreign leaders from Spain and Brazil, Chile and Cuba, have come on pilgrimage to Caracas to establish links with the man now perceived as the leader of new emerging forces in Latin America, with popularity ratings to match. This extensive external support has stymied the plans of the US government to rally the countries of Latin America against Venezuela. They are not listening, and Washington is left without a policy.

Chávez himself, a youthful former army colonel of 51, is now perceived in Latin America as the most unusual and original political figure to have emerged since Fidel Castro broke on to the scene nearly 50 years ago. With huge charm and charisma, he has an infinite capacity to relate to the poor and marginal population of the continent. A largely self-educated intellectual, the ideology of his Bolivarian revolution is based on the writings and actions of a handful of exemplary figures from the 19th century, most notably Simón Bolívar, the man who liberated most of South America from Spanish rule. Chávez offers a cultural as well as a political alternative to the prevailing US-inspired model that dominates Latin America.

So, what does his Bolivarian revolution consist of? He is friendly with Castro - indeed, they are close allies - yet he is no out-of-fashion state socialist. Capitalism is alive and well in Venezuela - and secure. There have been no illegal land seizures, no nationalizations of private companies. Chávez seeks to curb the excesses of what he terms "savage neo-liberalism", and he wants the state to play an intelligent and enabling role in the economy, but he has no desire to crush small businesses, as has happened in Cuba. International oil companies have fallen over themselves to provide fresh investment, even after the government increased the royalties that they have to pay. Venezuela remains a golden goose that cannot be ignored.

What is undoubtedly old fashioned about Chávez is his ability to talk about race and class, subjects once fashionable that have long been taboo, and to discuss them in the context of poverty. In much of Latin America, particularly in the countries of the Andes, the long-suppressed native peoples have begun to organize and make political demands for the first time since the 18th century, and Chávez is the first president in the continent to have picked up their banner and made it his own.

I can vouch for his charisma and the fervency of his supporters (and detractors). Low oil prices in the late 1990's made it possible for him to take power, and the high oil prices of 2005 have given him a great chance to succeed. Chavez seems to be up to the task, although it is a formidable one.

Those Whacky Neocons

From a recent speech to AIPAC, Israel's lobbying group in Washington which has apparently been spying on the US:

Any progress on the Roadmap for Peace must be based on real change on the ground, as evidenced by the establishment of an accountable, and reconstituted Palestinian security force that prevents terrorism, not promotes it.

Fortunately, Palestinian Authority President Abbas is no Yasir Arafat. He has condemned terrorism in Arabic, stating that it prolongs the day that the Palestinian goal of statehood can be achieved, and, at least as significant, stating that terrorism is immoral. He has begun to restructure the security services. All that is commendable.

But he has not removed Arafat's corrupt cronies from positions of power, nor has he moved to dismantle the terrorist infrastructure. That is, I am sorry to say, cause for concern. President Abbas has said his goal is to establish the rule of law, but he has done nowhere near enough to realize that vision...
...
There are those who contend that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is all about Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. This is absolute nonsense. In truth, the history of the conflict is not over occupation, and never has been: it is over the fundamental right of Israel to exist.

The greatest threat to Israel's right to exist, with the prospect of devastating violence, now comes from Iran. For too long, leaders of both political parties in the United States have not done nearly enough to confront the Russians and the Chinese, who have supplied Iran as it has plowed ahead with its nuclear and missile technology.
...
The people of Israel long for peace and are willing to make the sacrifices to achieve it. We hope that peace and security come soon - and that this moment of opportunity is not lost. As Israel continues to take risks for peace, she will have no friend more steadfast that the United States.

In the words of Isaiah, we will make ourselves to Israel 'as hiding places from the winds and shelters from the tempests; as rivers of water in dry places; as shadows of a great rock in a weary land.'

The United States will stand with Israel now and forever. Now and forever.

So which neocon whack-job said all this Sharon's-giant-butt-kissing BS? John Bolton? Paul Wolfowitz?

Nope. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Tel Aviv).

If you think at least the Democrats have learned a lesson from Iraq and will be an opposition party when it comes to war with Iran, read those sentences about Iran again and weep.

If the AIPAC spying charges are true, Pelosi should have felt particularly at home at AIPAC. She herself is a mole. Liberals cheered when this supposedly liberal woman from California took over as minority leader in 2002. But the chads on that selection hadn't stopped hanging before she was selling out, vowing to support the president in advance for an illegal, unilateral invasion of Iraq, and then saluting the president "for the goal of removing weapons of mass destruction" when it was becoming clear that there weren't any WMD's to be found. Just last week, Pelosi refused to join fellow Californian Lynne Woolsey in trying to get aWol to make a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq.

Things have changed in recent months. Last year, we had no opposition parties. Now that the majority of Americans are opposed to the war in Iraq, we have TWO opposition parties, with both Repugs and Dumbos opposing the American public.

Unseen pilot visits unknown soldier

At the tomb of the soldier known but to God, the pilot known but to Jack Daniels shows up for a little PR.

The EU Constitution voted down in France

The vote was quite significant, and will have many ramifications over the next several years. Unfortunately, I'm not totally clear as to what they are. Therefore, I turn you over to WIIIAI, who knows more, and links to folks who may know even more than WIIIAI.

Shorter WIIIAI--failure of EU constitution in France is a good thing, even if it failed for bad reasons.

US and Britain increased bombing in 2002 to goad Saddam

From the London Sunday Times:

THE RAF and US aircraft doubled the rate at which they were dropping bombs on Iraq in 2002 in an attempt to provoke Saddam Hussein into giving the allies an excuse for war, new evidence has shown.

The attacks were intensified from May, six months before the United Nations resolution that Tony Blair and Lord Goldsmith, the attorney-general, argued gave the coalition the legal basis for war. By the end of August the raids had become a full air offensive.

A Tiny Revolution has more.

As far as I can recall, Saddam didn't give them any satisfaction at all. He let the inspectors in, didn't launch any missiles at US bases in Kuwait or Saudi Arabia. The only thing he didn't do was bring his WMD's out to a parking lot for all to see like Bush kept demanding. Of course, if he'd been able to do that and actually done it, Bush would have demanded that Saddam recite Hamlet backwards in Swedish while riding a unicycle and juggling three burning Hummers, with Bush all the while insisting that war is the last option.

Memorial Day

On this Memorial Day, I hope that people will remember that they DID die in vain--the troops who died in Vietnam and Granada and Panama and Somalia and Iraq and Afghanistan and Haiti. They died because their "leaders" lied. Paradoxically, if people would remember that they died in vain, it would be the only way to make it so they didn't. But if we continue to support the lie that they died to protect our country or "freedom," we guarantee that many, many more will die in vain.

Remember THIS on Memorial Day: War sucks, and those who start wars are the worst criminals in the world.

Holey Crap!

Ahnuld created potholes in San Jose so he could fill them.

They don't belong to you, Scotty!

WIIIAI makes a good point:

The White House is determined to distance itself from any attempts at bipartisanship, refusing to hand documents over to the Senate which the D’s say bear on John Bolton’s fitness to serve as ambassador to the UN. Sez Scotty McClellan, “The Democrats who are clamoring for this have already voted against John Bolton. This is about partisan politics, not documents. They have the information they need.” What Scotty is forgetting is that the Senate is supposed to be a deliberative body, in which decisions arise out of open discussion and debate: the “clamoring” D’s may have made up their own minds, but they still have a perfectly legitimate need for information they can use to try to convince others to reconsider. That would be how it would work in a truly deliberative body where decisions weren’t based on party label, where congressional members of the president’s party are not expected to support his every decision mindlessly and automatically.

I guess since the White House prefers to make decisions based on inadequate information, they think everyone else should too.

Nonsense abounds

The most effective step you can take to cut oil dependence and decrease global warming.

That's from the envelope of a letter I received from the Union of Concerned Scientists. Fearful yet intrigued, I opened the envelope, hoping to see that they actually had found or were at least supporting a truly effective way to cut fuel consumption. Instead, my fears were confirmed. This is what it says in the letter:

You also probably know that the simplest, most cost-effective way to reduce our consumption of oil in the United States is to increase the fuel economy of motor vehicles.

(emphasis in original)

This sort of arrogant, "of course you know" presumption is just as annoying to me coming from supposedly lefty non-profits as it is coming from the Bush administration. I agree that improving fuel economy is a good thing, and that technologies exist to do it. That doesn't necessarily make it a simple task. Neither does blythely claiming that it is a cost-effective, much less the MOST cost-effective, way to reduce oil consumption make it so.

Improving fuel economy in the US auto fleet requires replacing millions of vehicles with new ones, a task that will use huge amounts of energy in manufacturing, distribution, and disposal of the older vehicles. Even getting to the point where this happens will require a change in the mind-set of the automakers, Congress, the misadministration, and millions of Americans. Possible? Certainly. Simple? Not on your life.

And cost-effective? Tens or hundreds of billions of dollars in retooling costs, and people buying new cars before their old ones have worn out?

I won't be so rash as to claim that I know what the simplest and most cost-effective way to reduce oil consumption is. But I can certainly suggest a way that is more cost-effective than what the Union of Concerned Scientists is suggesting--DRIVE LESS! It's very simple, saves you money, and saves oil. If you replace your car trips with bus or bike trips, you will be helping to provide the critical mass needed to make these modes of transportation attractive to many more people.

If you think that you've got any chance of getting this Congress to pass any positive legislation at all, after you get your head examined you should probably push for an increase in the gasoline tax instead. It probably has the same chance of passing as raising the CAFE standards (zero), but would be a better solution if somehow it did get passed.

Okay, enough picking on the nonsense of lefties. The pResident left lots of low-hanging nonsense fruit in his commencement address at the Naval Academy on Friday. For example:

When I spoke to the Class of 2001, none of us imagined that a few months later we would suffer a devastating surprise attack on our homeland, or that our nation would be plunged into a global war unlike any we had known before. Today, we face brutal and determined enemies -- men who celebrate murder, incite suicide, and thirst for absolute power. These enemies will not be stopped by negotiations, or concessions, or appeals to reason.

Of course they won't, because none of those things will ever be tried. And "none of us imagined?" Ever hear of John O'Neill, or Richard Clarke, or Chalmers Johnson? And the nation "would be plunged into a global war?" The 9/11 hijackers didn't do that, idiot--you did. And these sentences seem to be pretty conclusive evidence that W is still doing cocaine:

Thanks to the men and women of the United States military, our strategy is working -- we are winning the war on terror. Since September 11, 2001, we've removed brutal regimes in Kabul and Baghdad that supported and harbored terrorists. We helped launch Afghanistan and Iraq on the path to lasting freedom by liberating over 50 million people.
...
The best way to protect our citizens is to stay on the offensive. In the last few weeks, we've dealt the enemy a series of powerful blows. In Afghanistan, we brought to justice scores of terrorists and insurgents. In Pakistan, one of Osama Bin Laden's senior terrorist leaders, a man named al-Libbi, was brought to justice. In Iraq, we captured two senior operatives of the terrorist Zarqawi. And in recent days, our forces have killed or captured hundreds of terrorists and insurgents in Baghdad and Western Iraq and near the Syrian border. Across the world, our military is standing directly between the American people and the worst dangers in the world, and Americans are grateful to have such brave defenders.

As Jonathan Schwartz said, you just have to hope he knows he's lying. Because if he believes his own BS we're in even deeper than we thought.

Friedman's good column of the year

Not perfect, of course, but flat-world Tom has got the gist right this time--Shut Guantanamo Bay DOWN.

Shut it down. Just shut it down.

I am talking about the war-on-terrorism P.O.W. camp at Guantánamo Bay. Just shut it down and then plow it under. It has become worse than an embarrassment. I am convinced that more Americans are dying and will die if we keep the Gitmo prison open than if we shut it down. So, please, Mr. President, just shut it down.

If you want to appreciate how corrosive Guantánamo has become for America's standing abroad, don't read the Arab press. Don't read the Pakistani press. Don't read the Afghan press. Hop over here to London or go online and just read the British press! See what our closest allies are saying about Gitmo. And when you get done with that, read the Australian press and the Canadian press and the German press.
...
[I]t is now obvious from reports in my own paper and others that the abuse at Guantánamo and within the whole U.S. military prison system dealing with terrorism is out of control. Tell me, how is it that over 100 detainees have died in U.S. custody so far? Heart attacks? This is not just deeply immoral, it is strategically dangerous.
...
Guantánamo Bay is becoming the anti-Statue of Liberty. If we have a case to be made against any of the 500 or so inmates still in Guantánamo, then it is high time we put them on trial, convict as many possible (which will not be easy because of bungled interrogations) and then simply let the rest go home or to a third country. Sure, a few may come back to haunt us. But at least they won't be able to take advantage of Guantánamo as an engine of recruitment to enlist thousands more. I would rather have a few more bad guys roaming the world than a whole new generation.

Gee, Tom, would have been your best paragraph ever, except for the last five words. A new generation disliking America because of the crimes of Gitmo wouldn't make them "bad guys." The last sentence should have read "I would rather have a few more bad guys roaming the world than have a whole new generation despise us for totally unnecessary crimes."

Still, considering the source, an outstanding column.

What she said

Jeanne d'Arc, one of the new team of bloggers at This Modern World, writes about the latest Pentagon spin on the royal flush:

Here's the disturbing spin: The Pentagon isn't simply denying the allegations and leaving it at that. It's doing an interesting, and revealing bit of explanation:

Di Rita, the chief spokesman for Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, said that U.S. military officials at Guantanamo Bay had recently found a separate record of the same allegation by the same detainee, and he was re-interviewed on May 14. "He did not corroborate his own allegation," Di Rita said.

Asked why he felt certain that this detainee did not affirm his allegation out of fear of retaliation, Di Rita said, "It's a judgment call, and I trust the judgment of the commanders more than I trust the judgment of Al Qaeda."

That snarky response plays well in a media that, as I was talking about a few days ago, doesn't accept anything until it comes from an official source, and gives those sources far more deference than they have earned. What kind of monster, after all, takes the word of a terrorist over that of America's finest and bravest?

The problem is, Di Rita's spin to cover up the original lie contains a new lie. Let's set aside, for a moment, the fact that some of our commanders have a few credibility issues, and just focus on the last part of Di Rita's statement. Does he have any real reason to believe the prisoner who charged that the Koran was abused was a member of Al Qaeda? Many of the "terrorists" America has seized in recent years have turned out to be innocent bystanders and even victims of vendettas. Some, like Dilawar, the young man who was beaten to death at Bagram in Afghanistan, were imprisoned for crimes that may have been committed by the people who turned them in. Others -- Omar Deghayes and Khaled el-Masri, for instance -- were victims of mistaken identity.

Obviously, di Rita has decided that, now that the story has been corroborated by the Red Cross, the FBI, and other news organizations besides Newsweek, the only audience he can possibly hope to convince is the domestic wingnuts and their enablers in Congress and the media. Pitting it as our glorious heroes in uniform against those smelly al Qaeda terrorists who caused 9/11 could only sell to those who really want to be deceived.

When you commit the monstrous crime of arresting hundreds of people, transporting them to the other side of the world, and holding them for years, mostly in secret, without representation and without charging them with anything, it is reasonable that people will believe that bad things are going on there. Probably the only reason this Koran-flushing allegation hasn't been proven is because of tighter controls on digital cameras at Gitmo than they had at Abu Ghraib.

The government continues to encroach on our personal privacy, figuring that if we aren't up to something bad than we have nothing to fear from them peaking in the windows. But this same government takes great offense when anyone suggests THEY may be up to something bad when they're hiding behind multiple layers of secrecy. It's all backwards--our privacy should at worst only be violated in the most extraordinary circumstances, while the government shouldn't have any privacy except in the most extraordinary circumstances, because they work for us.

Be an idiot first, ask questions later

Congressman Walter Jones (R-NC) was the genius behind having french fries renamed "freedom fries" in Capitol cafeterias back in those days in 2003 when anyone who questioned our idiot president was ridiculed. Over two years later, and too late, he has finally figured out that he was lied to:

Although he voted for the war, he has since become one of its most vociferous opponents on Capitol Hill, where the hallway outside his office is lined with photographs of the "faces of the fallen".

"If we were given misinformation intentionally by people in this administration, to commit the authority to send boys, and in some instances girls, to go into Iraq, that is wrong," he told the newspaper. "Congress must be told the truth."

Don't stop there, "Frenchy" Jones. The word is "impeach." Call it "freedompeach" if you want. Just do it.

Actually, we shouldn't be too harsh on Jones. His meaningless grandstanding about "freedom fries" was basically that--meaningless. He was one of only four Republicans to vote for Rep. Lynne Woolsey's amendment to the latest defense boondoggle bill calling for Bush to submit a plan for US troop withdrawal from Iraq. My own rep, John Dingell, voted against it. What the Cheney is that about???

From David Horsey.

Time for Newsweek to retract its retraction

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Detainees at the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, alleged in 2002 that guards mistreated the Quran, according to some of the hundreds of FBI documents released by the American Civil Liberties Union.

The ACLU obtained the documents from the FBI through a federal court order in a lawsuit based on a Freedom of Information Act request. Most of them are records of detainee interviews with FBI agents.

According to the documents, released Wednesday by the ACLU, a detainee interviewed in August 2002 said guards had flushed a copy of the Quran in a toilet.

So, in the past two weeks, we've learned that a) the riots in Afghanistan had little to do with the Newsweek story--just one more sign and chant at the protests, and b) the story was almost certainly true in the basic facts--Koran abuse including throwing it in the toilet.

On the other hand, maybe the FBI hates America.

I'd say that Newsweek has lost much more credibility by not standing by its story than it did by running it. Meanwhile, the Bushies and their supporters haven't lost any credibility--because they had none to begin with.

In case you missed it, the Pat Tillman story--ex-NFL star shot down while heroically storming a hill in Afghanistan to rid the world of terrorists--is a total fabrication created by the Pentagon. Tillman was accidentally shot by his fellow Rangers, and the military immediately decided to spin the story another way, just like they did with Jessica Lynch:

The latest military investigation, exposed by the Post earlier this month, "showed that soldiers in Afghanistan knew almost immediately that they had killed Tillman by mistake in what they believed was a firefight with enemies on a tight canyon road. The investigation also revealed that soldiers later burned Tillman's uniform and body armor."

Patrick Tillman Sr., the father -- a lawyer, as it happens -- said he blames high-ranking Army officers for presenting "outright lies" to the family and to the public. "After it happened, all the people in positions of authority went out of their way to script this," he told the Post. "They purposely interfered with the investigation, they covered it up. I think they thought they could control it, and they realized that their recruiting efforts were going to go to hell in a handbasket if the truth about his death got out. They blew up their poster boy."

"Maybe lying's not a big deal anymore," he said. "Pat's dead, and this isn't going to bring him back. But these guys should have been held up to scrutiny, right up the chain of command, and no one has."

Mary Tillman, the mother, complained to the Post that the government used her son for weeks after his death. She said she was particularly offended when President Bush offered a taped memorial message to Tillman at a Cardinals football game shortly before the presidential election last fall.

$50.98

Oil's back over $50 a barrel.

Any port in a storm

From Bob Harris:

The trio of extremist judges who will now dance right into lifetime appointments are all walking travesties, but it turns out all three are headed for courts that are already stacked with scary right-wingers. So in the near-term, at least, the GOP's biggest win here actually affects little.

I take a moment to note that I'm seeking consolation in the fact that many of our circuit courts are already controlled by lunatics.

25 Percent!

According to an article in the People's Food Coop's newsletter (not online), 25% of the world's biomass is, get this, mold. Over 100,000 species of mold, 25% of the biomass.

And mold can be very bad for you (maybe you knew this--I didn't). According to the article:

It's dangerous, with multiple ill health effects such as mental confusion and brain dysfunction, fatigue and weakness, muscle and joint pain, sinus infection, headache, gastrointestinal problems, shortness of breath, insomnia, dizziness, nausea, skin rashes, heart palpitations, numbness/tingling, laryngitis.

Wow, there are a few prescription drugs on the market with fewer side effects than that.

Some of the species are now being linked to cancer, diabetes, immune system dysfunction, reproductive system dysfunction, and some can even destroy the cornea of the eye.

Anyway, that's why I cleaned my shower curtain tonight! I'm investigating how this can be blamed on Bush.

From Emad Hajjaj.

Puppet Show

WIIIAI did an excellent job of covering yesterday's Bush-Karzai meeting.



WIIIAI also has some great comments on the filibuster. For example:

The R’s have agreed to allow the D’s to keep the right to filibuster, unless they actually try to use it.
...
Although R’s have been complaining about a minority of senators trying to dictate to the majority, this deal was arranged by 14 senators. Including Joseph Lieberman, which is the Suckiness Seal of Approval.

Extortion, I think, is the word for it.

Moon over Montgomery?

I lived in Montgomery, Alabama for 7 1/2 years. So I paid a little extra attention to what was happening three years ago when one of the poorest states in the nation gave a huge Korean company massive "incentives" (aka bribes) to locate a factory there. From my pre-Blogger blog, April 29, 2002:

This nonsense has got to stop! The state of Ohio has offered Ford an $83 million incentive package to build Mercury SUV's at its Avon Lake Assembly Plant near Cleveland. GM recently threatened to move assembly of its silly Chevrolet SSR (V8 powered two-seat roadster pickup mutant) unless Lansing, Michigan agreed to lower pollution standards. Politicians in Montgomery, Alabama were ecstatic that Hyundai agreed to build a 2000-job assembly plant there for only $133 million in state and local bribe money. That's $66,500 per job! Corporations have pitted city against city, state against state, and with NAFTA and WTO, country against country in a bidding war for jobs. Ralph Nader, in his book Crashing the Party, describes a recent case where Daimler-Chrysler squeezed millions out of Toledo and Ohio to locate a Jeep plant in Toledo. Entire neighborhoods were destroyed to build the plant, and an economic downturn resulted in far fewer jobs being created than were promised. I don't know all the answers, but it sure seems like corporations should be paying states substantial fees for the privilege of doing business within their borders, not the other way around. There is now more real competition between Michigan, Alabama and Mexico than there is between Ford, GM, and Daimler-Chrysler. This benefits the shareholders and executives of the corporations to the detriment of the citizens of the states and countries. We need to realize that we have more than enough stuff and that economic activity and jobs aren't the necessities--food, clothing and shelter are.

Well, I was watching "Desperate Housewives" last night, and a commercial comes on saying that Hyundai's new US manufacturing plant is now open. The grand opening was last Friday, featuring Hyundai Chairman Mong-Koo Chung and Alabama Governor Bob Riley. And there was, apparently, a surprise visitor--former president George H.W. Poppy Ready My Lips Bush 41:



Imagine. Bush Sr. showing up at the opening of a Korean auto plant. What does Poppy know about Korea? Oh yeah! He's friends with this guy:


Second from the right is renowned Korean multibillionaire and pervert the Rev. Sun Yung Moon, who has had far more control over the Presidents Bush than any 100 million Americans. I wrote about Moon last year:

Connect the dots: Nazi Klaus Barbie, Bolivia's Cocaine Coup, weird sex rituals, George H.W. Bush. Okay, a few more hints: The Washington Times, Korea, mass weddings, Capitol Hill coronations, the title of this post. Now, if you worked for the Pentagon's Office of Special Plans, you'd come up with the same answer you always did: Saddam Hussein. Otherwise, you probably guessed, correctly, that the dots are connected by the extremely strange person named Sun Myung Moon.

That post was based on Robert Parry's book Secrecy & Privilege: Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq. That book has lots on Rev. Moon, including this delightful passage:

"History will make the position of Reverend Moon clear, and his enemies, the American population and government will bow down to him," Moon said, speaking of himself in the third person. "That is Father's tactic, the natural subjugation of the American government and population."

No wonder Poppy is such a pal of his--their families have the same goal.

Interestingly, however, this article suggests that Moon and Hyundai founder Chung Ju Yung are rivals in trying to open up North Korea, where both were born, to investment. Given the claws that Moon has always had into the Bushies, I'm guessing the rivalry can't be very bitter if Poppy is showing up at Hyundai grand openings. Beyond that, I can't begin to conjecture what this all means.

[Update] It was getting late when I was researching this last night. It turns out that Hyundai found Chung Ju Yung died in 2001 at the age of 85 or 86.

America is coming to its senses...

But is it too late? Poll: Bush approval mark nears low

Forty-six percent of 1,006 adults polled over the weekend said they approved of the overall job Bush is doing, according to a CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll.

Then again, what the Cheney can the 46% find to approve of?

Bush--the real "enemy combatant"

Mike Whitney writes about how US citizen Jose Padilla has now been locked up for over three years without due process of law--a clear violation of the Constitution.

Jose Padilla represents the crowning achievement in the war on terror. As the situation in Haiti and Afghanistan steadily deteriorates, and as America's 8 divisions continue to bog-down in the Iraqi quagmire; the administration's one unassailable accomplishment is the death-blow it has delivered to the Bill of Rights. Padilla now faces his 4th year of captivity without any formal charges filed against him and without any reasonable expectation of defending himself in a court of law.

Happy anniversary, Jose.

The government defends its detention of Padilla on the grounds that he is an "enemy combatant". The term "enemy combatant" means "presumed guilty" and its application to US citizens or foreign nationals allows the state to operate outside the confines of international human rights law and the Bill of Rights. Simply put, it is the end of the rule of law in America and a rejection of a legal tradition that dates back 800 years.

From Tom Toles.

The double standard for double standards

From CNN:

In Washington, White House spokesman Trent Duffy said U.S. President George W. Bush was "alarmed by the reports of prisoner abuse," and wants them thoroughly investigated. Duffy said seven people were being investigated about reported abuse at Bagram.

Hey morons! The NY Times story on Friday was based on a 2000-page from the Army's criminal investigation into the case. Investigating again will be seen, correctly, as a delaying and whitewashing tactic. What is needed now is to make sure that the torture stops, that the victims be freed, and that everyone in the chain of command who facilitated the torture, whether by omission or commission, be fired and/or prosecuted. The cowardly system of private and corporal punishment, prosecuting only those at the bottom of the totem pole who actually performed the torture, is a sham, and the whole world knows it. As long as master criminals like Rumsfeld, Myers, Sanchez, Gonzales and Bush retain their jobs and their freedom, the world will know that Americans are the biggest hypocrites in the world.

Compare the way the Bushies treated America's Abu Ghraib scandal to how they treated Iraq's Abu Ghraib scandal. America' scandal was strictly the fault of Private Lynndie England, Specialist Charles Graner, and a few others at the base of the pyramid (so to speak). Higher ups were simply shocked! shocked! to learn what these bad apples had been up to. When Iraq was running Abu Ghraib, however, every bit of torture, rape or murder that happened there was entirely the responsibility of Saddam Hussein--his minions could not be faulted, according to the Bushies. Heck, they even go so far as to tell the current Iraqi puppet government that they need to keep these low-level Baathists around--if they weren't in the deck of cards, you can't discard them.

Same with 9/11--the Bushies could have just blamed it on the actual perpetrators, the 19 hijackers. (I'm temporarily pretending to believe the official story on 9/11.) Instead they insisted on going after Osama (okay, probably), the Taliban (questionable), and start a "global war on terror" (insane). They clearly weren't buying (or even contemplating the possibility) that the crimes of 9/11 were caused by a few bad apples. But they continue to insist that the multitude of crimes they've committed since 9/11 were.

From Jack Ohman.

Trouble in Puppetdise

Footnotes (from NY Times headlines today):
1. Karzai Demands Custody of All Afghan Prisoners
2. U.S. Memo Faults Afghan Leader on Heroin Fight

The second article states that the memo was sent by cable from the US embassy in Kabul to Condiliar on May 13, over a week ago. The Times says it was shown to them "by an American official alarmed at the slow pace of poppy eradication." The Times doesn't say when they were shown the memo, leaving it for us to figure out if the timing of the article came from the Times (either because of caution in light of the Newsweek fiasco or some other reason) or from the administration as payback for Karzai's complaints. This would be very interesting to know. Did the Times find out about the memo eight days ago and sit on it out of caution and/or malice, or did they just get a call today about it and run it immediately?

Whoa! Lake Be Gone!

MOSCOW (Reuters) - A Russian village was left baffled Thursday after its lake disappeared overnight.

NTV television showed pictures of a giant muddy hole bathed in summer sun, while fishermen from the village of Bolotnikovo looked on disconsolately.

"It is very dangerous. If a person had been in this disaster, he would have had almost no chance of survival. The trees flew downwards, under the ground," said Dmitry Zaitsev, a local Emergencies Ministry official interviewed by the channel.

Officials in Nizhegorodskaya region, on the Volga river east of Moscow, said water in the lake might have been sucked down into an underground water-course or cave system, but some villagers had more sinister explanations.

"I am thinking, well, America has finally got to us," said one old woman, as she sat on the ground outside her house.

Commander Cookoo Bananas

In last Sunday's Simpsons episode, Marge and Homer are chewing out Bart for getting expelled from school:

Marge: Oh, now we'll have to find a new school for you.

Homer: Yeah, and if you get kicked out of that one, you're going straight in the army, where you'll get sent to America's latest military quagmire. Where will it be? North Korea? Iran? Anything's possible with Commander Cookoo Bananas in charge.

Fox pushes the envelope in so many directions at once it's hard to track. The Simpsons and Arrested Development take wonderful shots at the misadministration and the right-wing noise machine (Arrested Development had one hilarious episode ridiculing the search for WMD's in Iraq and Fox News' coverage of it). Meanwhile Fox News has its team of windbags telling wingnuts how to think.

And then there's 24, which I've watched religiously since it first came on. The show is a non-stop thrill ride with some great characters, and until this season it seemed not to have been too over-the-top jingo-ey with all the anti-terrorism going on.

On the other hand, this season much more than previous ones seems to have been explicitly written to support the Bush agenda. Let's see what we've learned from 24 so far this season:
a.. Middle-eastern terrorist types are everywhere.
b.. Riding on trains is dangerous, while SUV's are wicked cool.
c.. Long-hair types can't be trusted, even if they're sons of defense secretaries.
d.. Torture works.
e.. Middle-eastern terrorist types are everywhere.
f.. Any law, local, state, national, or international, can and should be broken if needed to combat terrorism. Knock over a gas station? No problem. Steal cars? No problem. Break? Enter? Shoot? Kill? Lie? Lie to the president? Invade consulates? The War Against Terrorism (TWAT) justifies all.
g.. Torture works.
h.. The law is a hindrance to law enforcement.
i.. Sleep, food and potty breaks are completely unnecessary (okay, we learned that in previous seasons).
j.. The government can look or listen in on you at any time.
k.. Middle-eastern terrorist types are everywhere.
l.. The CTU clinic can handle major trauma surgery, but can't deal with two patients at once. (Okay, I'm not sure how that relates to the Bush agenda.)
m.. Only kick-butt presidents will do in a time of crisis.
n.. Torture works.
o.. International NGO's like "Amnesty Global" serve at the beck and call of terrorists, ready any time of the day or night to interfere with counterterror operations with their extensive teams of well-paid bulldog lawyers.
p.. We'll never, ever have enough surveillance cameras.
q.. There's no need for mass transit in LA, because anyone except for helicopter-equipped cops can get from anyplace to anyplace else in 15 minutes or less.
r.. Dismantling nuclear weapons is obviously a bad idea, because that requires moving them around the country in the dead of night, making them vulnerable to theft, because we all know that
s.. Middle-eastern terrorist types are everywhere.
t.. Not only are middle-eastern terrorist types everywhere, but they'll kill their own wives and children to get what they want.
u.. You can only pull so much wool over the eyes of the Chinese before they start making underwear out of it and selling it at Wal-Mart.
v.. Oh, and, by the way, torture works.


So who knows what Rupert Murdoch is up to? Hip liberal comedies sell. Right-wing blather "news" sells. And ultra-violence sells. I guess he's just making money. And I'm just about ready to forgive him for that list of 24 lessons AND Sean Hannity AND Bill O'Reilly, all because of "Commander Cookoo Bananas."

Kudos to the NY Times

Daring the Bushies and the right-wing noise machine to "Newsweek" them, the Times' lead story today is a lengthy article by Tim Golden detailing the deaths of two Afghan prisoners killed by US soldiers, as well as other atrocities committed.

Although incidents of prisoner abuse at Bagram in 2002, including some details of the two men's deaths, have been previously reported, American officials have characterized them as isolated problems that were thoroughly investigated. And many of the officers and soldiers interviewed in the Dilawar investigation said the large majority of detainees at Bagram were compliant and reasonably well treated.

"What we have learned through the course of all these investigations is that there were people who clearly violated anyone's standard for humane treatment," said the Pentagon's chief spokesman, Larry Di Rita. "We're finding some cases that were not close calls."

Yet the Bagram file includes ample testimony that harsh treatment by some interrogators was routine and that guards could strike shackled detainees with virtual impunity. Prisoners considered important or troublesome were also handcuffed and chained to the ceilings and doors of their cells, sometimes for long periods, an action Army prosecutors recently classified as criminal assault.

The war in Afghanistan has been totally FUBAR since it began. Ignoring the facts that the main perpertrators of 9/11 were ALREADY DEAD, that none were Afgans (or Iraqis, for that matter), and that a brutal war was going to do nothing to bring back the lives lost on 9/11 or to make anyone safer, the bombs started falling on one of the poorest, most frequently brutalized nations on earth in October 2001. The previous puppet Taliban regime, backed by the Pakistanis, the Saudis, and occasionally the US, was tossed aside and a new one installed, killing thousands in the process. Opium production resumed, chaos returned, and Afghans continued to die horrible deaths at a high rate. And the US military began exploring the various ways available to raise the ire of the Muslim world.

Same Article, Same Paper, Different Headline

Eli at Left I on the News catches the San Jose Mercury News running the same story two consecutive days--but with different headlines. From the M-N search page:

1. Core prices hold steady
By Jeannine Aversa / Associated Press
Big jumps in energy and food costs pushed consumer prices higher in April, but many other prices calmed down, easing fears about a broad outbreak of inflation.
Thursday, May 19, 2005 (MercuryNews.com)

2. Energy, food costs boost consumer prices
JEANNINE AVERSA / Associated Press
Big jumps in energy and food costs pushed consumer prices higher in April, but many other prices calmed down, easing fears about a broad outbreak of inflation. That sparked a rally on Wall Street. ... economists and investors, though, was that "core" prices - excluding volatile ...
Wednesday, May 18, 2005

So, for you Wednesday readers, it's runaway inflation. For Thursday readers, inflation is under control. Blog readers already know that newspaper headlines mean nothing.

The "constitutional" option

That's what catkiller Frist has taken to calling the so-called "nuclear option" to eliminate filibusters in the Senate--the "constitutional" option, based on the oft-repeated Repug lie that the Constitution requires an up-or-down vote on every presidential nominee. Josh Marshall explains what this means:

Just to be crystal clear, what the senate is about to do is not changing their rules. They are about to find that their existing rules are unconstitutional, thus getting around the established procedures by which senate rules can be changed.
. . .
For that to be true stands not only the simple logic of the constitution, but two hundred years of our constitutional history, on its head. You don't even need to go into the fact that other judicial nominations have been filibustered, or that many others have been prevented from coming to a vote by invocation of various other senate rules, both formal and informal, or that almost countless numbers of presidential nominees of all kinds have simply never made it out of committee. Indeed, the whole senate committee system probably cannot withstand this novel and outlandish interpretation of the constitution, since one of its main functions is to review presidential appointees before passing them on to the full senate.

Quite simply, the senate is empowered by the constitution to enact its own rules.

You can think the filibuster is a terrible idea. And you may think that it should be abolished, as indeed it can be through the rules of the senate. And there are decent arguments to made on that count. But to assert that it is unconstitutional because each judge does not get an up or down vote by the entire senate you have to hold that the United States senate has been in more or less constant violation of the constitution for more than two centuries.

From Stephane Peray.

Meme of the week

"We're screwed."

Bill Moyers:

In Orwell’s 1984, the character Syme, one of the writers of that totalitarian society’s dictionary, explains to the protagonist Winston, “Don’t you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? Has it ever occurred to you, Winston, that by the year 2050, at the very latest, not a single human being will be alive who could understand such a conversation as we are having now? The whole climate of thought will be different. In fact there will be no thought, as we understand it now. Orthodoxy means not thinking — not needing to think. Orthodoxy is unconsciousness.”

An unconscious people, an indoctrinated people, a people fed only on partisan information and opinion that confirm their own bias, a people made morbidly obese in mind and spirit by the junk food of propaganda, is less inclined to put up a fight, to ask questions and be skeptical. That kind of orthodoxy can kill a democracy — or worse.

A Tiny Revolution:

Life in the United States now is like being trapped on a jet piloted by people who keep claiming there's a huge secret tunnel through the Rockies—and they're going to use it to fly us all through to the other side. You just have to pray to god they know they're lying.

Bob Harris:

When I was a kid, I remember reading about how democracies ended. What surprised me was how often it was a peaceful takeover. Fascists took power in many places not through force, but through rigged elections, broken rules, and consolidation of power, all hidden behind flags and God and promises of glory.

Today, the fanatics who have seized the GOP are beginning their attempt to flagrantly break a half-dozen Senate rules which have existed for generations in order to install federal judges more interested in ideology than precedent.

If this "nuclear option" works, they will very likely soon begin stacking the Supreme Court as they wish... The very laws of our nation itself could soon be under the fundamentalists' control.

It's happening right now.
...
Man. I never thought things would get so bad I'd be thinking of Arlen Specter and John Sununu as possible lights in the darkness.

WIIIAI:

I think they broke me. They just overloaded my systems, and now I just don’t have enough contempt, sarcasm and outrage with which to respond to this. I thought it was bad last week when Tom DeLay accused the Democrats of having no class, but now I’m just broken. I may have to watch Teletubbies for the next few hours; if I see Bush’s face or hear his voice I’ll just have nothing left. So cold. So cold.

Under The Same Sun:

I'm not sure I'm in the mood to see a movie where the punch line is forces of evil consolidating into a fascist empire spread across the galaxy.

Paul Craig Roberts:

George W. Bush and his gang of neocon warmongers have destroyed America's reputation. It is likely to stay destroyed, because at this point the only way to restore America's reputation would be to impeach and convict President Bush for intentionally deceiving Congress and the American people in order to start a war of aggression against a country that posed no threat to the US. America can redeem itself only by holding Bush accountable.
...
America's reputation is so damaged that not even our puppets can stand the heat.

James Howard Kunstler:

One thing that I'm predicting is that there will be a vigorous and futile defense of suburbia and all its entitlements, no matter what reality is telling us to do. And this will translate into a lot of political mischief. You can quote me: Americans will vote for cornpone Nazis before they will give up their entitlements to a McHouse and a McCar.

And Billmon's comment on Kunstler:

Of course, one could argue that they already have voted for cornpone Nazis.

Quote du Jour

From Jonathan Schwarz:

Life in the United States now is like being trapped on a jet piloted by people who keep claiming there's a huge secret tunnel through the Rockies—and they're going to use it to fly us all through to the other side. You just have to pray to god they know they're lying.

So much insanity, so little time...

One of my favorite bloggers, WIIIAI, is reaching the breaking point:

I think they broke me. They just overloaded my systems, and now I just don’t have enough contempt, sarcasm and outrage with which to respond to this. I thought it was bad last week when Tom DeLay accused the Democrats of having no class, but now I’m just broken. I may have to watch Teletubbies for the next few hours; if I see Bush’s face or hear his voice I’ll just have nothing left. So cold. So cold.

This great cartoon from Jen Sorensen a couple of weeks ago sums up the situation:


And that cartoon was before the Uzbekistan massacres, the 100-0 Senate vote for flushing more money and lives down the Afghan and Iraqi toilets WHILE stripping us of even more liberties, Condiliar's bizarre ravings in Iraq, the Newsweek setup, a senate committee approving another $441.6 billion for the Pentagon, or this lovely headline currently on top at the NY Times web site: Air Force Seeks Bush's Approval for Space Arms. You've gotta think that by the time Ashcroft gets put on the Supreme Court, most of us will be too numb to notice.

I've never watched Teletubbies. Maybe it's time to start.

Posada Carriles Arrested

The US government finally decided to track down fugitive terrorist Luis Posada Carriles, convicted in Panama of plotting to kill Fidel Castro and others there. He is suspected of being behind the bombing of a Cubana Airlines flight in 1976 which killed 73. He admitted to the New York Times a few years ago to fatal attacks on hotels in Havana. Venezuela has formally requested extradition, but the Gestapo Department of Homeland Security hasn't said what they'll do with this scumbag. Hundreds of thousands of Cubans, including Castro himself, marched on the US mission in Havana demanding Posada's detention and extradition.

The news articles suggest that Posada has put the Bushies in a tough position, forced to choose between extraditing Posada and risking the rath of their rabid right-wing Cuban exile supporters in Miami, or appearing to be blatantly hypocritcal in their gibberish about terrorists and the states which harbor them at all. My money's on hypocrisy; they've done it time and time again with basically no negative consequences to themselves.

I find it increasingly difficult to believe that Congress cares one whit about what any of us think, and even if they do they won't or can't do anything about it. However, if you're a bit less cynical than I, VoteNoWar.org has a letter you can send your congresscritters demanding Posada's extradition.

The good George

Britain's George Galloway appeared before a Senate committee today and told our worthless senators off--big time.

On the very first page of your document about me you assert that I have had 'many meetings' with Saddam Hussein. This is false.

"I have had two meetings with Saddam Hussein, once in 1994 and once in August of 2002. By no stretch of the English language can that be described as "many meetings" with Saddam Hussein.

"As a matter of fact, I have met Saddam Hussein exactly the same number of times as Donald Rumsfeld met him. The difference is Donald Rumsfeld met him to sell him guns and to give him maps the better to target those guns. I met him to try and bring about an end to sanctions, suffering and war, and on the second of the two occasions, I met him to try and persuade him to let Dr Hans Blix and the United Nations weapons inspectors back into the country - a rather better use of two meetings with Saddam Hussein than your own Secretary of State for Defence made of his.

"I was an opponent of Saddam Hussein when British and Americans governments and businessmen were selling him guns and gas. I used to demonstrate outside the Iraqi embassy when British and American officials were going in and doing commerce.
...
"Now, Senator, I gave my heart and soul to oppose the policy that you promoted. I gave my political life's blood to try to stop the mass killing of Iraqis by the sanctions on Iraq which killed one million Iraqis, most of them children, most of them died before they even knew that they were Iraqis, but they died for no other reason other than that they were Iraqis with the misfortune to born at that time. I gave my heart and soul to stop you committing the disaster that you did commit in invading Iraq. And I told the world that your case for the war was a pack of lies.

“I told the world that Iraq, contrary to your claims did not have weapons of mass destruction. I told the world, contrary to your claims, that Iraq had no connection to al-Qaeda. I told the world, contrary to your claims, that Iraq had no connection to the atrocity on 9/11 2001. I told the world, contrary to your claims, that the Iraqi people would resist a British and American invasion of their country and that the fall of Baghdad would not be the beginning of the end, but merely the end of the beginning.



"Senator, in everything I said about Iraq, I turned out to be right and you turned out to be wrong and 100,000 people paid with their lives; 1600 of them American soldiers sent to their deaths on a pack of lies; 15,000 of them wounded, many of them disabled forever on a pack of lies.



If the world had listened to Kofi Annan, whose dismissal you demanded, if the world had listened to President Chirac who you want to paint as some kind of corrupt traitor, if the world had listened to me and the anti-war movement in Britain, we would not be in the disaster that we are in today. Senator, this is the mother of all smokescreens. You are trying to divert attention from the crimes that you supported, from the theft of billions of dollars of Iraq's wealth.



"Have a look at the real Oil-for-Food scandal. Have a look at the 14 months you were in charge of Baghdad, the first 14 months when $8.8 billion of Iraq's wealth went missing on your watch. Have a look at Haliburton and other American corporations that stole not only Iraq's money, but the money of the American taxpayer.



"Have a look at the oil that you didn't even meter, that you were shipping out of the country and selling, the proceeds of which went who knows where? Have a look at the $800 million you gave to American military commanders to hand out around the country without even counting it or weighing it.



"Have a look at the real scandal breaking in the newspapers today, revealed in the earlier testimony in this committee. That the biggest sanctions busters were not me or Russian politicians or French politicians. The real sanctions busters were your own companies with the connivance of your own Government."

There's video too.

Quote du Jour

"I think that the government has successfully proved that any service member has reasonable cause to believe that the wars in Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and Iraq were illegal."

-- Lt. Cmdr. Robert Klant, presiding at Pablo Paredes' court-martial.

Marjorie Cohn explains:

I testified during the sentencing hearing at Pablo's court-martial as a defense expert on the legality of the war in Iraq, and the commission of war crimes by US forces. My testimony corroborated the reasonableness of Pablo's beliefs. I told the judge that the war violates the United Nations Charter, which forbids the use of force, unless carried out in self-defense or with the approval of the Security Council, neither of which obtained before Bush invaded Iraq. I also said that torture and inhuman treatment, which have been documented in Iraqi prisons, constitute grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions, and are considered war crimes under the US War Crimes Statute. The United States has ratified both the UN Charter and the Geneva Conventions, making them part of the supreme law of the land under the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution.

I noted that the Uniform Code of Military Justice requires that all military personnel obey lawful orders. Article 92 of the UCMJ says, "A general order or regulation is lawful unless it is contrary to the Constitution, the laws of the United States...." Both the Nuremberg Principles and the Army Field Manual create a duty to disobey unlawful orders. Article 509 of Field Manual 27-10, codifying another Nuremberg Principle, specifies that "following superior orders" is not a defense to the commission of war crimes, unless the accused "did not know and could not reasonably have been expected to know that the act ordered was unlawful."

I concluded that the Iraq war is illegal. US troops who participate in the war are put in a position to commit war crimes. By boarding that ship and delivering Marines to Iraq - to fight in an illegal war, and possibly to commit war crimes - Pablo would have been complicit in those crimes. Therefore, orders to board that ship were illegal, and Pablo had a duty to disobey them.

On cross-examination, Navy prosecutor Lt. Jonathan Freeman elicited testimony from me that the US wars in Yugoslavia and Afghanistan also violated the UN Charter, as neither was conducted in self-defense or with the blessing of the Security Council. Upon the conclusion of my testimony, the judge said, "I think that the government has successfully proved that any service member has reasonable cause to believe that the wars in Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and Iraq were illegal."

Of course, the judge could have thrown in Vietnam, Granada, Panama, Haiti once or twice or thrice, and probably a dozen others, not to mention the ones the Bushies are planning now.

Paul Craig Roberts, again

From his latest column:

As intent as Republicans were to impeach President Clinton for lying about a sexual affair, they have a blind eye for President Bush's far more serious lies. Bush's lies have caused the deaths of tens of thousands of people, injured and maimed tens of thousands more, devastated a country, destroyed America's reputation, caused one billion Muslims to hate America, ruined our alliances with Europe, created a police state at home, and squandered $300 billion dollars and counting.

America's reputation is so damaged that not even our puppets can stand the heat. Anti-American riots, which have left Afghan cities and towns in flames and hospitals overflowing with casualties, have forced Bush's Afghan puppet, "president" Hamid Karzai, to assert his independence from his US overlords. In a belated act of sovereignty, Karzai asserted authority over heavy-handed US troops whose brutal and stupid ways sparked the devastating riots. Karzai demanded control of US military activities in Afghanistan and called for the return of the Afghan detainees who are being held at the US prison in Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.

Today, they danced on its grave

A graphic I first ran two years ago:

The right wing noise machine forced Newsweek into utter capitulation on its flushing the Koran in the toilet story. The "administration" blamed the magazine for all of the violence attributed to the story, not missing the opportunity to repress and gloat at the same time:

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said the flap was a reminder that people "need to be very careful about what they say."

"People are dead, and that's unfortunate," Rumsfeld told reporters. "People need to be very careful about what they say just as people need to be careful about what they do."
...
"People have said, 'My goodness, why does it take so long for someone to come back with and have the actual facts?'" Rumsfeld said. "Well, it takes a long time to be truthful, to be responsible."

In fact, in my case, added Rummy, I've never once done it in all of my 137 years.

"We'll deal with it the same way we have been dealing with it -- by being transparent, up front and open about our policies and what our soldiers do," Boucher said.

What an obnoxious, lying douchebag. It's bad enough that they are completely opaque and close-mouthed about everything they do, but to just come out and claim the exact opposite...it's SO in character for this lying piece of filth of an administration.

BTW, Newsweek wasn't the first to report on Koran desecration and toilet tossing.

Digging Deeper

From James Howard Kunstler:

I was in Tallahassee, Florida, last week talking to a large room full of planning officials. My message was pretty straightforward: every new housing subdivision, every new strip mall, every parking lagoon and big box chain-store pod that you issue approvals for from this point on will lead your country deeper into tragedy.

The response was apathetic, as though I were giving a class in Chinese algebra.

Florida is one of the multiple epicenters of a hypertrophic suburban growth machine that has taken the place of the US economy. Reforming it is unimaginable because without the business generated by a cancer-like replication of car infrastructure, the economy would consist of little besides hair cutting, fried chicken, and open heart surgery. In places like Florida (and California, and northern Virginia, and Las Vegas, and Dallas), all citizens are complicit in the drive toward tragedy because all want business-as-usual to continue. The idea that any set of circumstances might put a stop to it is laughable to them. What can you do for such a people determined to commit civilizational suicide?

Kunstler's blog features plenty of posts about the coming peak-oil apocalypse, with lots of good discussion in the comments. I like his blog because it makes me seem like an optimist.

Obviously, they got it wrong, right?

Today's headlines:
"Newsweek backs off Quran desecration story" -- CNN

"Newsweek Apologizes for Report of Koran Insult" -- NY Times

"Newsweek Apologizes" -- Washington Post

"Newsweek Issues Apology for Quran Story" -- Fox News

"Newsweek: Regret over errors" -- MSNBC

Actually, if you read the NY Times article, it's a lot less clear than that:

"We regret that we got any part of our story wrong, and extend our sympathies to victims of the violence and to the U.S. soldiers caught in its midst," Mark Whitaker, Newsweek's editor, wrote in the issue of the magazine that goes on sale at newsstands today. In an accompanying article, the magazine wrote that its reporters had relied on an American government official, whom it has not identified, who had incomplete knowledge of the situation.

But Mr. Whitaker said in an interview later: "We're not retracting anything. We don't know what the ultimate facts are."

Of course, the Bushies are all huffy about the story and the "tepid and qualified" retraction/apology/whatever:

In a statement, Bryan Whitman, a Pentag