Failure is an option

Probably the only one. Billmon had a post with that title (Failure is an option), arguing that no matter how strenuously George Bush or Dick Cheney or John Kerry or Joe Biden may insist that failure is not an option, failure is ALWAYS an option. You row too close to the falls, you're going over. And that's what the Bushies and their Democratic enablers have done in Iraq.

Juan Cole posts a commentary along the same lines from Alan Richards of the University of California Santa Cruz (where my niece goes to school, BTW). Here's an excerpt from what Richards has to say:

My reading of history is that the only way large changes occur is as responses to large crises. I don't like this, but it seems true to me. And, I hasten to add, change in a crisis is hardly guaranteed to be humane, decent, or to have any claim on our ethical allegiance. We might get a new Roosevelt, but we also might get a new Hitler.

Please don't misunderstand me: I am not advocating regional-crisis-cum-oil-price-spike. I simply think that it is probably unavoidable. If we leave, there will be violence, mayhem, slaughter, and instability, and if we stay there will be violence, mayhem, slaughter, and instability. If there is (as I tend to think) a large crisis looming on the horizon, it will certainly be ugly, even hideous. And then-something else will happen. The one thing I don't think is possible is to avoid it.

So let me close where I began: I think it is delusional to imagine that there exists a "solution" to the mess in Iraq. From this perspective, the folly of Bush, Cheney and Company in invading Iraq is even worse than most informed observers of the region already think. Starting an avalanche is certainly criminal. It does not follow, however, that such a phenomenon can be stopped once it has begun.

Pretending that failure is not an option will likely only make the failure more spectacular, and leave us utterly unprepared for it.

Just Desserts?

I'm sure that I don't always succeed, but unlike certain characters in Washington, I try to be somewhat consistent in my opinions. On Tuesday, I wrote about how Flint has decayed since being basically abandoned by GM, and then shortly after that I wrote about the threat to Michigan's water from economic development. I realized that there was a bit of an inconsistency there, so I added these sentences to my Flint post:

I don't know the answer--auto companies have a bleak future which would have depressed Flint eventually anyway. But our corrupt system allows inhuman corporations to come and go as they please, frequently being bribed to move their operations, without regard for the human or environmental damage they leave in their wake.

In reading about the seemingly universally despised Supreme Court ruling on eminent domain, I started to realize that it fit into a larger picture--the public good versus private property rights. Three years ago, I applauded the Supremes for determining that the "public good," in terms of zoning and environmental protection, took precedence over property rights in a case involving Lake Tahoe. The split on that vote was similar to last week's eminent domain ruling: "Liberals" Stevens, Souter, Bader Ginsberg and Breyer joined by swing justices Kennedy and O'Connor voted for "public" over "private" with Scalia, Thomas and Rehnquist taking the private side; in last week's ruling, only O'Connor switched sides--that is, I agreed with her in both decisions.

The whole issue is based on the interpretation of the "taking" clause of the fifth amendment: "nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation." In the Tahoe case, the six-member majority determined that zoning and environmental restrictions did not constitute "taking," so they allowed the restrictions to stand with requiring the local government to compensate property owners. In last week's ruling, the five-member majority determined that economic development, even by private developers, is a legitimate "public" use. No question about "taking" here--houses and land, not just certain uses, get taken, and forever.

It seems that eight judges see the issue completely in black-and-white terms: Scalia, Thomas and Rehnquist believe that if you own property you should be able to do whatever you want with it, and no government entity should be able to take it, or even restrict your use of it a little, for the "public good." Stevens, Souter, Bader Ginsberg, Breyer and Kennedy seem to believe that the "public good" takes precedence over property rights in all cases. Only Justice Sandra Day O'Connor seems to recognize the absurdity of both positions and to be willing to look for the proper place in the middle to draw the line.

Anyway, that's all preamble to this interesting story out of New Hampshire:

Could a hotel be built on the land owned by Supreme Court Justice David H. Souter? A new ruling by the Supreme Court which was supported by Justice Souter himself itself might allow it. A private developer is seeking to use this very law to build a hotel on Souter's land.

Justice Souter's vote in the "Kelo vs. City of New London" decision allows city governments to take land from one private owner and give it to another if the government will generate greater tax revenue or other economic benefits when the land is developed by the new owner.

On Monday June 27, Logan Darrow Clements, faxed a request to Chip Meany the code enforcement officer of the Towne of Weare, New Hampshire seeking to start the application process to build a hotel on 34 Cilley Hill Road. This is the present location of Mr. Souter's home.

Clements, CEO of Freestar Media, LLC, points out that the City of Weare will certainly gain greater tax revenue and economic benefits with a hotel on 34 Cilley Hill Road than allowing Mr. Souter to own the land.

The proposed development, called "The Lost Liberty Hotel" will feature the "Just Desserts Café" and include a museum, open to the public, featuring a permanent exhibit on the loss of freedom in America.

The occupation is the problem, not the solution.

From A Message From US Labor Against the War About an Historic Statement of Solidarity Between US and Iraqi Trade Unionists:

The principal obstacle to peace, stability, and the reconstruction of Iraq is the occupation. The occupation is the problem, not the solution. Iraqi sovereignty and independence must be restored. The occupation must end in all its forms, including military bases and economic domination.

Freedom's just another word for nothin' left to lose

From the Times of London via Bob Harris:

Qassem Mohammed recites the Shahada, the Muslim prayer for those about to die, twice a day: once when he leaves home for his first job at a cooking oil factory, and again after lunch when he leaves for his second job in a barber shop.

"I could be killed at any time," said Mr Mohammed, 37, a father of three with sunken eyes and a prematurely grey beard.

From Jimmy Margulies.

We're here all decade...

From David Horsey.

"Say Dick, do you know what 'WMD' stands for?"
"No Rummy. What?"
"We Made Demup!"

"Okay, okay...Bin Laden, Zawahiri and Zarqawi walk into a bar. George Bush shows up with some MP's and arrests everybody in the bar and sends them to Gitmo...EXCEPT for Bin Laden, Zawahiri and Zarqawi!"

"Oh Dick, you're just too much. But seriously folks, we're here until 2009..."

"Say Rummy, tell them about the 'unknown unknowns.' Seriously folks, you're gonna love this one!"

[From the guy in the front row:] "Bring 'em on!"

"So Dick--a lot of people are surprised you're still kickin'. Weren't you supposed to have trouble with your heart?"

"What heart?"

From Jeff Danziger.

From Thai cartoonist Stephane Peray.

From Sandy Huffaker.

From Mike Keefe.

From Chris Britt.

Slate has put a collection of cartoons about the eminent domain ruling together. Only one seems to even remotely defend the Supremes' decision, while the rest, from both left- and right-wing cartoonists, are harshly critical. I don't think I've seen ANY columns supporting the decision.

Basically, the Court, mainly the "liberals" on the court, said that any sleazebag local government can take your house from you on behalf of any sleazebag corporation in the name of economic development.

From Jack Ohman.

From Bill Schorr.

From Jeff Danziger.

From Mike Keefe.

In defense of Tom DeLay

Last week, the Bug Man, aka the Hammer, made the following statement:

You know, if Houston, Texas, was held to the same standard as Iraq is held to, nobody'd go to Houston, because all this reporting coming out of the local press in Houston is violence, murders, robberies, deaths on the highways.

Several bloggers have pointed out several differences between Baghdad and Houston that DeLay seems to have missed, but I'm going to help him out and list some of the many similarities:

• Oil that used to come from Iraq used to go to Houston
• Halliburton has a major presence in both places
• Both places are bloody hot in the summer, although Baghdad is both hotter and bloodier
• Both places "have a problem"
• Neither place had anything to do with 9/11, although I'm not so sure about Houston
• Both places would be far better off if the Navy hadn't gotten to George H. W. Bush in the Pacific before the sharks did, and if DeLay had accidentally poisoned himself back in his exterminator days.
  

Quote du Jour

"Why don't they find another place to fight terrorism?" -- Abdul Ridha al-Hafadhi, head of an Iraqi humanitarian aid group, in response to Bush's speech, via Juan Cole.

Teflon vs. Velcro

In 1980, President Carter ordered a military operation to rescue the 53 American hostages being held in Iran. Things went wrong at the staging point called Desert One, when a Sea Stallion helicopter collided with a C-130 transport plane, killing eight. The mission was aborted and Carter's popularity plummeted, contributing to his loss to Ronald Reagan in the election that fall.

Meanwhile, today's helicopter crash in Afghanistan may well have killed 17 service members, and was the ninth chopper lost in Afghanistan since that insane war was started by aWol back in 2001. Bush has gotten nearly 2000 US troops killed in his maniacal "global war on terror," plus thousands of others seriously wounded. Yet somehow (mostly due to totally incompetent opposition) he got re-selected, and continues to get away with pretending that things are going well in his two quagmires.

There wasn't even Fox News back in 1980--why Desert One had such a negative effect on Carter's popularity isn't clear. I know he brought a lot of it on himself, turning a serious but minor-compared-to-many incident into a full-blown crisis. Hostages were taken during Reagan's years as well, but he didn't vow not to leave the White House until they were home or in general make it seem like World War III, like Carter did with the hostages in Iran. But that Carter's presidency was doomed by this incident, while Bush's spinners managed to somehow increase his popularity after the massive failures of 9/11, the two wars, and the zillions of other things he has screwed up, is totally amazing--and disgusting.

Stop CAFTA!

The Bushies are trying to continue the race to the bottom with the Dominican Republic-Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA). Tell your Senators to vote against this add-on to the miserable failure called NAFTA. The AFL-CIO has an easy to use form.

So-called "free trade" is a disaster for the vast majority of people in all countries concerned, benefitting only the wealthy elite and the corporations. It is basically the reinstatement of colonialism with a nice-sounding name. Tell Congress to put a stop to it now!

Now we know why he didn't catch Osama

AWol needs the tall bearded one to provide quotes justifying his war in Iraq. From der Fuhrer's speech last night:

Some wonder whether Iraq is a central front in the war on terror. Among the terrorists, there is no debate. Here are the words of Osama bin Laden: This third world war is raging in Iraq. The whole world is watching this war. He says it will end in victory and glory or misery and humiliation.

WIIIAI says that it's the height of chutzpah for Bush to link Iraq and 9/11 repeatedly and then quote the guy whose continued freedom is a sign of the failure to complete job one.

Speaking of job one, Bush seems to be losing in Afghanistan, too. An MH-17 helicopter carrying 17 service members has crashed there, possibly shot down by the Taliban. The fate of the service members is currently unknown.

Billmon points out that Bush is now making a distinction between "terrorists" and "insurgents," apparently because the US military is now negotiating with "insurgents," and he wants to be able to claim that we still don't negotiate with terrorists (although they negotiate with Ariel Sharon all the time).

Mission vollendete

I'm currently reading Siege: A Novel of the Eastern Front, 1942 by Russ Schneider, written in approximately 1999 (Schneider died in 2000, or year 1 BB--before Bush). In the section I just read, Schneider described conditions in the German homeland in the spring of 1942, while the Wehrmacht was stalled in brutal combat in Russia:

The civilians seemed strangely unconcerned, almost as if there were no war. It was as if war and the fear of war had ended with the conquest of France and the expulsion of the British back to their miserable pigheaded island, two years before, and the feeling of relief and gratitude this had produced seemed still to persist. What was happening in Russia was an enormous and barely comprehensible thing that seemed as far away as the Pacific Ocean, which they read about in newspapers.

Deep down they might have worried, but this was too abstract and their worries were more mundane affairs related to their jobs and families, drinking and eating, going about their daily business.

Hitler--even while consumed with bringing war to distant regions of the earth--paradoxically fostered the notion that the war was essentially over, so that the German people might feel tranquility and also gratitude for his endeavors; and his people tended to believe this because they wanted to believe it, even amidst their own doubts.

("Mission vollendete" is German for "Mission accomplished.")

I was having lunch at my favorite Chinese restaurant today, overhearing snippets of conversations:

• "How are you surviving without air conditioning?" "Oh, I bought two window units."
• "'Batman Begins' is the best of all of the Batman movies."
• "There's this steakhouse downtown--it costs like $70 per person, but man is it worth it!"

Oh well, there were probably people who danced on the Titanic until their feet got wet. And having lunch at my favorite Chinese restaurant may well be an unaffordable luxury in the near future.

Michigan's water threatened

From the Muskegon Chronicle:

The way author Dave Dempsey sees it, "water is the oil of the 21st century" and Michigan may lose control of its most precious natural resource by failing to regulate how it is used.

Michigan is the only Great Lakes state without a law regulating water use and Gov. Jennifer Granholm's proposed Water Legacy Act -- which would require large water users to obtain state permits -- is stalled in the Legislature.

The lack of a water-use law was one reason Nestle North America was able to build its controversial Ice Mountain water bottling plant near Big Rapids with little state oversight, Dempsey said. Nestle is currently bottling about 105 million gallons of groundwater each year from the Muskegon River system; about 15 million gallons of that water is sold in stores outside the Great Lakes basin, company officials have said.

Absent laws regulating how companies use the state's water, Michigan may be unable to block future diversions of Great Lakes water to other states and nations, Dempsey said during a speech Monday at the Spring Lake District Library. He said increased water diversions could pose serious threats to the lakes, which contain 18 percent of all fresh water on the planet.

So why is the bill stalled? It's all about the money, of course:

Granholm's proposed Water Legacy Act, which would regulate water use in Michigan for the first time, has been bottled up in the Legislature for two years. Industry groups contend the proposed regulations would drive up the cost of doing business and stifle economic development.

These slimeballs will promote economic development if it kills us, which it will.

AK-47's in Flint

From the Flint Journal:

Assault rifles favored by Iraqi insurgents are finding their way onto Flint streets in alarming numbers.

A spate of shootings using such 7.62 mm assault rifles as AK-47s has police worried about high-powered weapons better suited for war zones.

Why so much worry?

A 7.62mm round can cut straight through a bullet-resistant vest.

"That powerful of a weapon is a concern for the safety of officers and the public," said Deputy Flint Police Chief Gary Hagler.

On Saturday, Kenneth M. Frohm, 28, of North Branch was killed when rounds from an assault rifle were fired into a pickup on Flint's southeast side.

A few days earlier, a Flint man was killed and another man wounded by a drive-by shooter wielding a 7.62 mm rifle on Kleinpell Street.

On June 10, a Flint man was killed when someone fired an assault rifle into a car at a S. Dort Highway parking lot.

Over the past few weeks, police also have investigated incidents in which drive-by shooters with assault weapons peppered homes with bullets but didn't hit anyone.

In Michael Moore's book Downsize This!, he displays two photos on one page. One shows the Federal Building in Oklahoma City after the 1995 bombing, while the other shows a General Motors factory in Flint being demolished. The two photos looked very similar, and Moore made the point that both demolitions were killers--the Oklahoma City bombing killed quickly, while the abandonment of Flint by GM killed over time. In the 1970's, GM employed more people just in Flint than it will in the entire US after the job cuts recently announced. Apparently the killing in Flint hasn't stopped, and probably won't for a while. I don't know the answer--auto companies have a bleak future which would have depressed Flint eventually anyway. But our corrupt system allows inhuman corporations to come and go as they please, frequently being bribed to move their operations, without regard for the human or environmental damage they leave in their wake.

Panic mode

The WSWS suggests that the ruling elite are in panic now that the public is finally catching on that the war in Iraq is a mess and was based on lies. Both aWol's speech tonight and Kerry's op-ed in the NY Times are signs of that panic--do whatever is necessary to keep the military empire on track. WSWS explains:

The decline in public tolerance for such military adventures has dire implications for the ruling establishment. Under conditions of unprecedented social polarization within the US, war and the threat of war have become the essential glue for holding society together and legitimizing a government that defends the interests of a tiny financial oligarchy against those of the vast majority of working people.

Moreover, a repudiation of the war by the American people represents an indictment of the entire political setup in the US. There is no faction within the ruling elite that can credibly point to the record and claim, “We opposed this war.” The Congress, both big business parties, the media and the corporations are all implicated.

The growth of popular opposition to the war has come entirely from below. It finds no serious reflection in the political deliberations of the US government or in the narrow and reactionary range of opinion that is permitted by the mass media. It therefore has profoundly revolutionary implications and has provoked deep concern within the all sections of the ruling establishment.

The op-ed Kerry should write

Senator John Kerry, who somehow managed to lose to the worst pResident in American history last year, wrote an op-ed in the NY Times today. Ol' Swiftie demonstrated that he learned nothing from his miserable excuse of a campaign. Rather than rip the old one a new one for lying America into war, using the Downing Street Memos as the smoking gun like he promised his constituents, Kerry once again only hints that the crime could be carried out better. He doesn't fault Bush for starting a criminal war, only for not doing it quite right:

Our mission in Iraq is harder because the administration ignored the advice of others, went in largely alone, underestimated the likelihood and power of the insurgency, sent in too few troops to secure the country, destroyed the Iraqi army through de-Baathification, failed to secure ammunition dumps, refused to recognize the urgency of training Iraqi security forces and did no postwar planning. A little humility would go a long way - coupled with a strategy to succeed.

Wrong, oh tall ugly one. Our "mission" in Iraq is a crime, and should be stopped immediately, with a complete withdrawal of all US forces as soon as possible.

What worthless John (can you tell I REALLY hate the guy?) should write is:

• Bush and Cheney should resign immediately, or be impeached.
• They should be turned over to the International Criminal Court and be tried for war crimes and crimes against humanity.
• Abu Ghraib, Bagram, Guantanamo and all other islands in the new American gulag should be closed immediately.
• And, having been fully complicit in these war crimes as a senator, and utterly failing to properly opposed them as a presidential candidate, I, worthless John Kerry, resign from the United States Senate.

Wimpy, incomprehensible "opposition" is worse than no opposition at all. Kerry is a wimp AND a liar--I have no doubt that he, like Bush and Cheney, knew that Iraq had little in the way of WMD's, had nothing to do with 9/11, and posed no threat to the US whatsoever. He knew it was a criminal war for oil, but he voted for it, supported it, failed to run against it, and continues to support it. And, unlike Bush, he should know better.

Kerry performed a very valuable service for the criminal corporate interests running this country last year, preventing the war in Iraq from becoming a campaign issue. And to think that others like him, like Biden and Hillary Clinton, are considered front-runners for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination--well it's all just too depressing.

Saudi oil going fast

Michael Klare writes about Matthew Simmons' new book: Twilight in the Desert: The Coming Saudi Oil Shock and the World Economy. According to Klare, Simmons meticulously looks at the future of Saudi oil production and finds it coming up massively short of the predictions that have been made about it for years. Klare concludes:

it would be the height of folly to assume that the Saudis are capable of doubling their petroleum output in the years ahead, as projected by the Department of Energy. Indeed, it will be a minor miracle if they raise their output by a million or two barrels per day and sustain that level for more than a year or so. Eventually, in the not-too-distant future, Saudi production will begin a sharp decline from which there is no escape. And when that happens, the world will face an energy crisis of unprecedented scale.

The moment that Saudi production goes into permanent decline, the Petroleum Age as we know it will draw to a close. Oil will still be available on international markets, but not in the abundance to which we have become accustomed and not at a price that many of us will be able to afford. Transportation, and everything it effects -- which is to say, virtually the entire world economy -- will be much, much more costly. The cost of food will also rise, as modern agriculture relies to an extraordinary extent on petroleum products for tilling, harvesting, pest protection, processing, and delivery. Many other products made with petroleum -- paints, plastics, lubricants, pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, and so forth -- will also prove far more costly. Under these circumstances, a global economic contraction -- with all the individual pain and hardship that would surely produce -- appears nearly inevitable.

That would be the start of Kunstler's Long Emergency, I believe.

Only major stabbings will be investigated

Detroit has a reputation as a dangerous place, one which I generally think is exaggerated. But then you read something like this:

[T]he police at first thought it was a minor stab wound, and didn't start an investigation until they learned he had died. They heard a doctor say it appeared the weapon was a large butcher knife.

Ominously, the victim, Joe Wagner, 21, originally of Ann Arbor, was an activist for BAMN (By Any Means Necessary), working to protect affirmative action in Michigan. The article doesn't suggest that the stabbing was anything other than a random act of violence. But it apparently wasn't a robbery, and the stabbing occurred while Wagner was standing with a crowd of people.

Driver said police told her Sunday that he had been stabbed so quickly no one realized he was hurt until he fell back. She said he was with a group of other young people who had just stopped for sodas and candy apples at a church festival.

Sorry, Teddy!

NY Times headline: Avoid a Kennedy as Next Justice, Right Says

Actually, knowing aWol's record as a "uniter not a divider," I'll bet he nominates Ashcroft when Rehnquist steps down/keels over. Or Rush.

Extended Quote du Jour

During his June 25 Saturday radio message to Americans, Bush gave an upbeat report on victory in Iraq and said: “Americans can be proud of all that we and our coalition partners [he means his poodle, Tony Blair, but likes the plural sound] have accomplished in Iraq.”

Gentle reader, are you proud that American troops are torturing Iraqis?

Are you proud that tens of thousands of Iraqi women and children have been killed and maimed with their deaths and terrible wounds dismissed as “collateral damage”?

Are you proud that you elected and reelected a president who lied you into an illegal war that has killed 1,755 American troops, maimed thousands more, and destroyed your country’s reputation?

If you are proud of this, what kind of person are you?

-- Paul Craig Roberts, of course.

Dow 4000 by the end of the year

That's from one of my favorite pessimists, James Howard Kunstler:

Oil's remorseless up-ratcheting past $60 is as much a symptom of a weak dollar as a strained global energy allocation system, and the dollar is weakening because the way of life it represents is becoming more and more unreal. The harsh truth is that we've reached the limit of our ability to expand our suburban sprawl economy and there is no alternative US economy in the background ready to take its place. The world can't fail to notice this weakness. The inability to generate even fake wealth, in the form of ever more WalMarts, will take its toll on the consensus that the American Dream has enduring value.

The stock market contraction ought to reflect this reality -- apart from desperate attempts by US government proxies to levitate share prices -- and it is hard to imagine a rally in the face of $60 oil. I'm inclined to predict a gruesome journey down for the Dow Jones into the 4000 range by the end of the year. Until now the dollars created by the Federal Reserve's supernaturally loose credit policy have sought shelter in the "hard assets" of houses? A meltdown of the stock markets will translate into vanishing leverage in all other areas of finance, especially in real estate (as well as a swath of destruction through hedge funds, retirement accounts and, eventually, the entire creaking superstructure of the hallucinated mortgage industry). A few Americans are actually going to get the message that this is not a good time to buy an overpriced raised ranch house. A lot of real estate geniuses are going witness their own ruin with wonder and nausea.

And a couple of choice paragraphs from last week's Kunstler:

It was Amercia's hope that by turning Iraqis and other Middle Eastern people into democrats, they would magically become much friendlier and that our military presence would be happily tolerated -- and that eventually all the Middle East would become so democratic, friendly, and stable that our presence there would be regarded as a Godsend. Whoops, wrong God. For starters.

The world may no longer have a swing producer of oil, but this period can probably be viewed as a swing period of history. By that I mean a period when we hoped that there was a quick and easy way to keep the oil flowing westward and found out that it wasn't so. The time is now coming when the American public won't tolerate a dozen US casualties a week, nevermind fifty Iraqis. But Americans won't tolerate $5 a gallon gasoline, either. We'll now see how the public will reconcile these intolerances.

By "demolish," we mean "expand"

A new Iraq will also need a humane, well supervised prison system. Under Saddam Hussein, prisons like Abu Ghraib were symbols of death and torture. That same prison became a symbol of disgraceful conduct by a few American troops who dishonored our country and disregarded our values. America will fund the construction of a modern, maximum security prison. When that prison is completed, detainees at Abu Ghraib will be relocated. Then, with the approval of the Iraqi government, we will demolish the Abu Ghraib prison, as a fitting symbol of Iraq's new beginning.

-- White House fact sheet, May 24, 2004.

Faced with a ballooning prison population, U.S. commanders in Iraq are building new detention facilities at the notorious Abu Ghraib prison and Camp Bucca near the Kuwaiti border and are developing a third major prison, in northern Iraq.

-- LA Times, yesterday. More from the Times story:

The number of prisoners held by the U.S. in Iraq reached record levels this month before falling slightly. As of Saturday, the average prisoner total in June stood at 10,783, up from 7,837 in January and 5,435 in June 2004.

The two main U.S. Army-run prisons, Abu Ghraib and Camp Bucca, are operating near their maximum or "surge" emergency limits. On Saturday, the two prisons together held 10,178 inmates, with 1,630 detainees awaiting processing in different Army divisional and brigade headquarters.

Of course, Iraq still has a ways to go to match the "liberty" we enjoy in this country, with over two million Americans behind bars.

From Matt Wuerker.

From Jeff Stahler.

From Rob Rogers.

From Jim Morin.

From Patrick Chappatte.

From Mark Cohen.

From Ted Rall.

The world, and the Bushies, keep spinning

Even when I'm too busy to notice or throw my two cents worth in. So what has been happening the last few days?

• America has been negotiating with terrorists (by the Bushies' own definition).
• Italy has ordered the arrest of 13 CIA agents for kidnapping an Egyptian man in Milan.
• The Russians have decided they like the idea of pre-emptive strikes.
• The Bushies want to restart the production of plutonium 238.
• And my More Bloodshed in Iraq post at the top of the blog hasn't been close to being wrong since I first posted it in mid-May.
• And guess what? Americans are becoming unpopular in Australia.

$60.42

Do I hear $65?

U2, Xymphora?

Blogger Xymphora comments on the U2 crash:

Air Force Maj. Duane Dively died on June 22, 2005 in a mysterious U-2 crash in the United Arab Emirates. Although the official story was that he had been on a mission in support of American troops in Afghanistan, it isn't too much of a stretch to conclude that he was really spying on Iran. By far the oddest part of this story is that we're hearing about it. The reason we don't hear too many U-2 stories is because such espionage is supposed to be a secret. I can't help but wonder if this isn't another reflection of the neocon-paleocon battle going on in Washington over whether the United States should start World War III in the Middle East in order to please Israel. Is the crash a signal that somebody doesn't like the secret neocon preparations for war? The one thing that Iran learns from the release of this story is that it is being monitored by U-2 spy planes.

Solar project almost finished!

I was up all night last night doing wiring in the attic, so this may be my only post today! Check out the progress at my solar project blog.

Putting the troops in danger

Let me just put this in fairly simple terms: Al Jazeera now broadcasts the words of Senator Durbin to the Mideast, certainly putting our troops in greater danger. No more needs to be said about the motives of liberals.

--"Bush's Brain," Karl Rove, yesterday

So, let's get this straight. Bush had the intelligence and facts fixed around the policy of starting a war of aggression in Iraq, lied to Congress and the UN, ignored that the UN weapons inspectors found nothing, ignored the advice of General Shineseki that an occupation would require hundreds of thousands of troops, failed to provide adequate body armor and armor for vehicles, told the insurgents to "bring 'em on" (which I think also may have been reported on Al Jazeera), has had thousands of Iraqis arrested and thrown into horrible prisons where many are tortured, promoted or gave medals to the architects of this disaster, and continues to defend each and every crime to this very day--and it is Dick Durbin who is putting our troops in danger.

No more needs to be said about the hypocrisy of Karl Rove.

End of story, I guess

A search of Yahoo news and Google news for more information about Wednesday's U2 crash yields no new information, except for a couple of stories about the pilot. Apparently the anonymous Pentagon tipster's assertion that the plane actually crashed in the UAE was enough to passify the already passive media. No reports or photos from the crash site, no explanation for why the Pentagon report just said "southwest Asia." The Air Force updated their report, giving the name of the pilot, but they still only say that the U2 crashed in "southwest Asia."

Nobody bothered to ask Scottie the Liar about the crash in yesterday's White House press briefing.

UnoChine?

Chinese oil company CNOOC has made a bid to buy Unocal.

"The deal has got the administration over a barrel," said Michael R. Wessel, a member of the United States-China Economic and Security Review Commission, a group established by Congress. Not only is the administration trying to work out trade issues with China over textiles, currency and a number of other matters, it is also increasingly relying on China to play a more aggressive role in containing North Korea.

Not to mention that they loan us a large portion of the billions of dollars per day needed to keep the wheels from totally coming off of our economy. CNOOC seems to know how the Washington game is played:

In Washington, CNOOC is already laying the groundwork. It has hired Public Strategies, a public relations firm whose vice chairman, Mark McKinnon, led President Bush's media campaign in the 2004 election. The company has also lined up some of the nation's savviest financial advisers - among them Goldman Sachs and J. P. Morgan - as well as such well-connected legal and lobbying firms as Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld and Davis Polk & Wardell.

Go see for yourself!

Stealing a post from Michelle:

When House Majority Leader Tom DeLay sat down with reporters on Tuesday [6/21/05] on Capitol Hill, he was asked to assess President Bush's campaign in Iraq and to respond to criticism that the military mission is not going well and the White House needs to develop an exit strategy.

[...]

"Go to Iraq. And see what's actually happening there.

"Everybody that comes from Iraq is amazed at the difference of what they see on the ground and what they see on the television set."

Houston Chronicle article

America's new ambassador to Iraq expressed horror Tuesday [6/21/05] at the violence wracking the country and said Islamic extremists and Saddam Hussein loyalists are trying to start a civil war.

Guardian article

I guess DeLay was right. It sounds like Khalilzad was amazed, alright.

Wouldn't that be nice?

From WIIIAI:

Following [yesterday]’s Supreme Court ruling that local governments can seize property for the purposes of economic development and purely private profit, I’m sure we will see many Wal-Marts condemned and the land turned over to mom & pop stores.

Supreme Irony

Since the 2000 selection, I've tended to regard the Supreme Court as the five bad ones (Rehnquist, Scalia, Thomas, O'Connor, Kennedy) who voted to stop the recounts in Florida, and the four good ones (Stevens, Souter, Bader Ginsberg and Breyer). But in two recent decisions, I've definitely been with the bad guys. On medical marijuana, the four "good ones" plus Scalia and Kennedy voted to say that federal law takes precedent over state law, no matter how many hoops the states, doctors and patients jump through to keep medical pot a local affair. But today, all four "good ones" were joined by Kennedy in deciding that cities can use eminent domain powers for private development. This strongly favors the wealthy, frequently out-of-town developers over the small homeowners, whose houses can now be bulldozed for a shopping mall or office complex.

Who woulda thought that I could agree with William Rehnquist, Clarence Thomas and Sandra Day O'Connor on two Supreme Court decisions, and lose both times? O'Connor wrote the dissent on the eminent domain case. According to AP, "She argued that cities should not have unlimited authority to uproot families, even if they are provided compensation, simply to accommodate wealthy developers."

I'll stick to my earlier "ruling" that Sandra Day O'Connor regrets her 2000 vote in Bush v. Gore. Rumor had it she wanted Bush to win so she could retire knowing a Repug would name her replacement. But Bush has been pResident for 4 1/2 years now, and she hasn't retired. There may be some very key issue before the Court in the near future (on impeachment or withholding evidence or something). I think O'Connor may end up being one of the "good ones" on that vote. Unfortunately, I'm not sure the "good ones" are still good.

Two years late, $200 billion (and 1750 troops and 100,000 Iraqis) short

Two quotes:

After conducting two brutal wars and enforcing murderous sanctions on Iraq, the US is the last country (except maybe North Korea) that should be running Iraq's affairs. That goes triple while Bush is in charge. This is Vietnam 1964. If we pull out, at worst a bloody civil war erupts, killing tens of thousands of people. If we stay, the brutal occupation continues, eventually killing many more while bankrupting the US. Sending more troops just means more will die, and will solidify the hatred against this country. There is no legitimate basis for believing that it will benefit Iraqis at all.
...
We may leave a mess behind, but staying will not make it any better, and will likely make it much worse.

-- Me, August 28, 2003

The United States needs to state to Iraqis and the world that ... we will review our position with all options open, including, but not limited to, setting a timetable for withdrawal.
...
The status quo, we know, is violent. What may happen if we leave is uncertain.

-- Senator Carl Levin (D-MI), yesterday

And uncertain is looking pretty attractive right about now.

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

-- Albert Einstein

Your turn, George...

Baghdad Scottie

This cartoon from Bill Schorr ran on May 20, 2003, shortly after Ari Fleischer announced his resignation:



Here's what Scott McClellan said yesterday:

The President will continue to keep the American people informed about the progress that we're making on the ground in Iraq, the difficulties and dangers that remain and that lie ahead, as well as the strategy for succeeding in Iraq. We are making important progress, the Iraqi people are making important progress.

Also in yesterday's briefing, Scottie tried to put a positive spin on the report that Iraq has apparently become a training ground for terrorists:

Q Scott, how concerned is the administration about the potential for Iraq to become a sort of training ground for Islamic extremists who may go back to their home countries and use these techniques to destabilize their governments? There's a new report on that recently.

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, let me mention a couple things. As the President has said for some time now, Iraq is a central front in the war on terrorism. Wherever you stood before the decision to go into Iraq, I think we can all recognize that the terrorists have made it a central front in the war on terrorism. That's why, as the President said earlier today, we are fighting the terrorists in Iraq so that we don't have to fight them here at home. And that's where things are. And that's why the terrorists understand how high the stakes are. We understand how high the stakes are. And that's why it's so important that we succeed in Iraq, because when we succeed in Iraq and Afghanistan, that will be -- those will be major blows to the terrorists and their ideology that they seek to spread.

Q The report suggested that there's concern that Egyptians, Jordanians and others will go back to their home countries, using the techniques they've learned in Iraq to destabilize those countries.

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, I don't know what your question is.

Q Are you concerned about that? Do you think there's potential for that?

MR. McCLELLAN: Iraq is a central front in the war on terrorism. In terms of what's your question on it, I think you're making the assumption that these individuals would just be sitting around sipping tea, as Secretary Rice likes to refer to in her previous comments. So I don't know what your question is regarding that.

Q The training and the hosting --

MR. McCLELLAN: These are dangerous individuals that are operating in Iraq, and we're on the offensive, going after them, working with Iraqi security forces to defeat them in Iraq, so that -- we're fighting them there, so that we don't have to fight them here. This is all part of the war on terrorism, and that's why we're going after them and seeking to bring them to justice.

Q Just following up on that question, you said at the outset of that, the terrorists have made it a central front in the war on terrorism. I thought it was a central front in the war on terrorism before we invaded.

MR. McCLELLAN: It is. It's part of the war on terrorism, yes.

Q It was.

MR. McCLELLAN: No, it is.

Q It is now --

MR. McCLELLAN: Both.

Baghdad Bob never really had a chance...

Persistent Automotive State

From Chip Bok.

From Lalo Alcaraz.

From Steve Greenberg.

Yeah. That's on the front page...

From Dana Summers.

Over her dead body

From Ann Telnaes.
Working to put the whole nation into a persistent vegetative state.

From Steve Sack.

A better response to Dick Durbin than calling him a Dick

Jeanne d'Arc's response to Senator Durbin's apology was a bit more measured than mine. She wrote an open letter to the Senator. Excerpt:

There's an understandable assumption on the left now that your courage failed you, that you caved in to enormous pressure. If that's true, your second speech was not only cowardly, it was astonishingly foolish. Take a look at the response of some of the people who demanded an apology now that they have it. They have nothing but contempt for your "teary-eyed" and "blubbering" apology. You've given the kind of people who celebrate everything you've fought against one more victory. You've made it far easier for them to argue that there is no torture problem, the only problem is Democrats and their overheated rhetoric.

We must end this nightmare. You know that as well as I do. I hope you also know that you've set us back. We can't stand behind your words if you don't.

Reading over your statement, I'm not so sure you were responding to pressure from torture's apologists. I have a feeling you heard from some people who were genuinely hurt by your analogy (as opposed to the vast majority who feigned shock to draw attention away from the points you made) and were speaking mainly out of concern for their feelings. As someone concerned about what the glorification of militarism does to this country, who often risks having her attacks on military sentimentality come across as attacks on soldiers, I understand that desire not to have your words, even your twisted and distorted words, used to hurt innocent people.

But if that was the case, you should have addressed any "apology" directly to those people, not to the Senate, and pointed out that if what you said came across as an insult directed at them, that was not your intention. And then you should have come back all the harder on the main points of your original speech: We love this country, and we will not stand by while it takes up, bit by bit, step by step, the tools of its enemies. I hate to be so blunt, but this is how the game is played.

If you really care about this country, and about human rights -- and I sincerely believe you do -- you have to learn those rules very quickly. And you can't allow yourself the luxury of being afraid of your own words.

U2 Update

As of 10 pm, the Air Force announcement about the U2 crash hasn't changed--Operation Enduring Freedom, southwest Asia. CNN is sticking to its story about the plane having crashed in the UAE. The biggest change I've found is from AP, where they are now agreeing with CNN about the crash site:

The aircraft crashed in the Emirates while approaching the base to land, said a
Pentagon official, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the operation.

Which begs the question--if it is public knowledge that the U2 was based in the UAE, why would they try to cover up that it crashed there? Did the Pentagon sign a "no-crash" basing arrangement with the UAE or something? Surely the UAE government knew they were there.

This just screams "cover up." I wonder why they bothered announcing the crash in the first place?

This is CNN

You'd think, if they don't have a picture to go with a story, they wouldn't use one. But no! Here is the photo they used with a story about the possibilities of a WMD attack somewhere in the world in the next ten years:


The caption? "U.S. troops in full chemical suits check what they thought might have been a WMD site in Baquba, 2003."

Sheesh!

Update on the U2 story

Follow-up on my earlier post.

While CNN hasn't updated its flawed story, AP is at least trying to fill in a few gaps. They went so far as to read their e-mail and talk to one Iranian:

"The specific location is not releasable due to host nation sensitivities," U.S. Air Force Capt. David W. Small, a Central Command spokesman, said in an e-mail.

The e-mail indicated the plane went down in a country whose government is friendly to the United States.

"The site of the crash has been secured to ensure the safety of local citizens and the integrity of the site for investigation team members," a military announcement said.

The one potentially hostile nation in the region, Iran, denied that a U-2 had crashed on its territory. A Revolutionary Guards commander, Gen. Ali Reza Afshar, told The Associated Press he "was not aware" of any reports of a U-2 down in Iran.

I think AP reporter Patrick Quinn gets the optimist of the year award for calling Iran "the one potentially hostile nation in the region." Pakistan is one assassination away from being a nuclear-armed anti-American Islamic state, and most of the other countries, including Iraq would be anti-American if they actually had the democracy that aWol keeps pretending to want. And as Eli notes, one unaware general doesn't exactly make for convincing proof that the plane didn't crash in Iran.

Terrible Arithmetic

Dennis Kucinich on the House floor on Monday:

Depending on whom you listen to, the insurgents in Iraq are either in their "last throes" or they are growing in size and strength. But both the administration and critics seem to agree that the U.S. military will be deployed to Iraq for a long time to come. It is our quagmire.

Every day our forces wake up in Iraq, more die and are wounded, and more families on the homefront are strained and suffer losses. Meantime, the vitality of the U.S. army is shriveling, as they are not able to bribe enough young people to join to fight this war in Iraq.

At some terrible point in the future, the nation's leaders will say "enough is enough." Whether the number of casualties at that point is 15,000, or 20,000 or 50,000, I do not know. Whether the cost at that point is $250 billion, $350 billion or $500 billion, I do not know. At some point, the terrible arithmetic of the war will add up to overwhelm everybody.

But this war can end another way. It can end if enough members of Congress consider and cosponsor H.J. Res 55, a bi-partisan bill introduced last week, to require the President to initiate troop withdrawal no later than October 1, 2006. Thank the troops, and bring them home.

Iraq wasn't training terrorists...

But it is now:

A new classified assessment by the Central Intelligence Agency says Iraq may prove to be an even more effective training ground for Islamic extremists than Afghanistan was in Al Qaeda's early days, because it is serving as a real-world laboratory for urban combat.

The assessment, completed last month and circulated among government agencies, was described in recent days by several Congressional and intelligence officials. The officials said it made clear that the war was likely to produce a dangerous legacy by dispersing to other countries Iraqi and foreign combatants more adept and better organized than they were before the conflict.

Those who do not care about history are condemning the rest of us to repeat it.

What could be worse than Homer Simpson loose in a nuclear power plant?

AWol wants more "nukular" power plants:

"In the 21st century, our nation will need more electricity -- more safe, clean, reliable electricity," Bush said. "It is time for this country to start building nuclear power plants again."

Hopefully Mr. Yushchenko will give aWol a tour of Chernobyl sometime soon. It is time for this country to start conserving, big time. I'm afraid, however, that only a massive economic collapse will save us from further "nukular" madness. Of course, our idiot pResident is doing what he can to bring that on.

Southwest Asia

From AP:

A U.S. Air Force U-2 spy plane involved in a mission in Afghanistan crashed while returning to its base in the United Arab Emirates, killing the pilot, the military said Wednesday.

U.S. Central Command said the crash occurred in "southwest Asia," a term that can be a substitute for the Middle East.
...
The location of the crash could not be released "due to host nation sensitivities," U.S. Air Force Capt. David W. Small, a Central Command spokesman, said in an e-mail when asked for more information.

In Washington, Lt. Col. Barry Venable, a Pentagon spokesman, said the plane had completed a mission related to Operation Enduring Freedom and crashed while returning to its base.

A U.S. security team was at the site of the crash, he said.

Gee, where could a spy plane supposedly taking part in "Operation Enduring Freedom" (as opposed to "Operation Suffering Liberation" in Iraq) in Afghanistan and heading to base in the UAE possibly have crashed?



The big white place is called Iran. And while it's remotely possible that the U2 was looking for Osama in Pakistan or Afghanistan, it seems more likely that it was looking for bombing targets in Iran. And a U.S. security team is at the crash site? Investigating the evidence or destroying it, I wonder. And did they sneak into Iran after the crash, or were they already there?

Amazing that a U2 might spark another international crisis, 45 years after Gary Powers' plane was shot down over the Soviet Union. The initial American response then was to lie, too, claiming that the spy plane was actually a NASA weather research plane that had lost its way. It turned out, though, that the Russians had captured Powers alive and well and recovered most of his plane, including the spy photos he had taken. (I'm beco