9/11 Truth Movement

Of course, CNN referrs to "conspiracy theorists" which reveals their bias right away. But the fact that the following story has been picked up by CNN at all is acknowledging a certain degree of credibility. The article is entitled "9/11 conspiracy theorists energized" and here's how it gets started:

(AP) -- Kevin Barrett believes the U.S. government might have destroyed the World Trade Center. Steven Jones is researching what he calls evidence that the twin towers were brought down by explosives detonated inside them, not by hijacked airliners.

These men aren't uneducated junk scientists: Barrett will teach a class on Islam at the University of Wisconsin this fall, over the protests of more than 60 state legislators. Jones is a tenured physicist at Brigham Young University whose mainstream academic job has made him a hero to conspiracy theorists.

Five years after the terrorist attacks, a community that believes widely discredited ideas about what happened on September 11, 2001, persists and even thrives. Members trade their ideas on the Internet and in self-published papers and in books. About 500 of them attended a recent conference in Chicago, Illinois.

The movement claims to be drawing fresh energy and credibility from a recently formed group called Scholars for 9/11 Truth.
...
[S]ome [have] degrees from elite universities such as Princeton and Stanford and jobs at schools including Rice, Indiana and the University of Texas.

"Things are happening," said co-founder James Fetzer, a retired philosophy professor at the University of Minnesota Duluth, who maintains, among other claims, that some of the hijackers are still alive. "We're going to continue to do this. Our role is to establish what really happened on 9/11."

I know there are a lot of crackpot theories out there and I certainly don't subscribe to some of that silliness. But I've never had confidence in the official story. The fact that our skies were not defended has disturbed me since day one. Yes, I know a simulation exercise was going on that day for exactly the kind of scenario that in fact was really happening. But that is a "coincidence" that really strains credulity. Especially since then National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice declared that nobody could have imagined people flying planes into buildings. That, in fact, was exactly what was being imagined in the war games taking place that day.

There are many sites I could send you to about this issue but for now let me just recommend a Toronto Star article entitled "Barbs Aside, 9/11 Questions Aren't Going Away" by Michele Landsberg. Landsberg asks the same overriding question I have: Where was the Air Force?

Read the article. It will make you think.

Typical Leno

The right kind of snark:

Yesterday President Bush flew out to his prairie-chapel ranch in Crawford, Texas, to begin his eleven-day vacation. It's not really a ranch. There's no cows or horses. It's more like an estate. But ranch sounds better. You know like when you call Iraq a democracy. It sounds better.

--Jay Leno

Air conditioners for Eskimos

You know global warming is bad when the Inuit are buying air conditioners. Take a look:

Better known for building igloos during hunts on the polar ice, Inuit in the village of Kuujjuaq in Quebec, Canada, are installing 10 air conditioners for about 25 office workers.

"These are the times when the far north has to have air conditioners now to function," said Sheila Watt-Cloutier, a leading campaigner for the rights of 155,000 Inuit in Canada, Alaska, Russia and Greenland.

"Our Arctic homes are made to be airtight for the cold and do not 'breathe' well in the heat with this warming trend," she said. Temperatures in Kuujjuaq, home to 2,000 people, hit 31 Celsius (88 Fahrenheit) in late July.

Very troubling. Very troubling indeed.

TV punditry

I get so annoyed over the "he said/she said" type of journalism that doesn't uncover what the truth really is. That issue is addressed in an article called "Being a TV Expert Means Never Having to Say You’re Sorry". Also addressed (obviously) is the reality of television pundits being given a free pass when they're unmistakably proven wrong. Here's part of what it says:

Watching the nightly news last night was a hair-pulling experience -- even more than normal.

The top story on national TV was the Senate testimony of the top military brass, who basically admitted that the U.S. invasion of Iraq had brought on a disaster.

It wasn’t the news that prompted my hair-pulling (who doesn’t know Iraq’s a disaster?) -- but the way it was reported. On NBC News, viewers saw Defense
Secretary Donald Rumsfeld testify that he’d “never painted a rosy picture” of Iraq and that he hadn’t been “overly optimistic.” And NBC allowed the claim to go unrebutted.

Somehow NBC couldn’t dig up the quotes of Rumsfeld saying that he doubted the war would last six months (Feb. 7, 2003) or that US troops “would be welcomed” in Iraq (Feb. 20, 2003) or that “we know where [the WMD] are” (March 30, 2003). The quotes were easily dug up by ThinkProgress.

For me, there was something worse than allowing Rumsfeld’s doozy to go unrebutted. It was who NBC News turned to for expert analysis of the testimony: retired General Barry McCaffrey.

You'd think NBC would turn to someone who had warned of what would inevitably take place in Iraq. Oh no. Look at what McCaffrey had said:

...TV “experts” like Gen. McCaffrey, who echoed White House claims of an Iraqi threat and cheered our country into the war, are still on the air. And they never have to say they’re sorry.

On MSNBC two months before the war, McCaffrey warned that Iraq possessed “thousands of gallons of mustard agents, serin, nerve agent VX still in Iraq.”

His prewar commentary left viewers ill-prepared for what would follow a U.S. invasion. Nowadays, he’s no Rumsfeld booster -- but McCaffrey was upbeat when it mattered, weeks before the war: “I just got an update briefing from Secretary Rumsfeld and his team on what’s the aftermath of the fighting. And I was astonished at the complexity and dedication with which they’ve gone about thinking through this: humanitarian aid, find the weapons of mass destruction, protect the population, jump-start an Iraqi free media. So a lot of energy has gone into this.”

During the invasion, McCaffrey crowed, “Thank God for the Abrams tank and the Bradley fighting vehicle.” Unknown to MSNBC viewers, the General sat on the boards of several military contracting corporations -- including IDT, which pocketed millions for doing God’s work on the Abrams and Bradley.

Last year, McCaffrey was still standing tough on NBC Nightly News, opposing a timetable for withdrawal.

The writer of this article, Jeff Cohen, was a commentator and senior producer of "Donahue" on MSNBC. That show was terminated for political reasons three weeks before the war. Cohen writes the following:

Unlike McCaffrey (and Rumsfeld), I warned over and over on the air that invading Iraq would lead to disaster, a quagmire, and hatred for our country in the Muslim world. I repeatedly questioned the evidence that Iraq was an imminent threat. So did my colleague Phil Donahue, in primetime. We were on the money. And now we’re off the air.

That just isn't right. There's no way you can tell me that it's right.

Gas prices

This is a comment I found on AMERICAblog:

In 1962, President Kennedy said: We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.

Less then 7 years later, we accomplished that goal.

If if US government put together the money and told the scientific community, "Make cars that can run on dog shit," there is no doubt in my mind that it would happen. We only lack the focus and the drive.

And we're being sabatoged by the oil companies. They don't want us to develop alternative fuels.

UPDATE: Here's another comment that makes some excellent points:

What really ticks me off about all of this: There has been NO word from the president about CONSERVATION. Maybe if the Chimp would address the nation and ask people to do simple things like combine trips/errands, etc.. so they are not running around all the time, and spend more time off the streets, some of the "conservatives" might listen.

I also think a luxury tax should be charged nation-wide for all SUVs (and the profits used to reduce the gasoline taxes) unless a person can prove they use the SUV for a private business (No need to tax construction workers, plumbers, etc... out of business).

I also want to know why there is not a big push for modernizing and building more public transit infrastructure so it is more efficient and more widely available. I think $400 billion spent in Iraq could have gone a long way toward that. Instead, our "leadership" does nothing, and while the American public's pockets become emptier, the oil companies profits continue to grow.

Oh, and a nation-wide mandatory recycling program for all plastics to help reduce demand could make a huge difference. People often forget that Petroleum is also used for plastic!!!

Now, do you think there's any chance - any chance at all - for the above suggestions to be implemented? It's in the neighborhood of that proverbial snowball, I'm afraid.

Appalling

Just look:

Tom Ricks, you've covered a number of military conflicts, including Iraq, as I just mentioned. Is civilian casualties increasingly going to be a major media issue? In conflicts where you don't have two standing armies shooting at each other?

THOMAS RICKS, REPORTER, "THE WASHINGTON POST": I think it will be. But I think civilian casualties are also part of the battlefield play for both sides here. One of the things that is going on, according to some U.S. military analysts, is that Israel purposely has left pockets of Hezbollah rockets in Lebanon, because as long as they're being rocketed, they can continue to have a sort of moral equivalency in their operations in Lebanon.

KURTZ: Hold on, you're suggesting that Israel has deliberately allowed Hezbollah to retain some of it's fire power, essentially for PR purposes, because having Israeli civilians killed helps them in the public relations war here?

RICKS: Yes, that's what military analysts have told me.

A chilling prediction

Robert Fisk has written an article about the Israel-Lebanon conflict that I highly recommend and in it he makes this chilling prediction:

In fact, one of the most profound changes in the region these past three decades has been the growing unwillingness of Arabs to be afraid. Their leaders - our "moderate" pro-Western Arab leaders such as King Abdullah of Jordan and President Mubarak of Egypt - may be afraid. But their peoples are not. And once a people have lost their terror, they cannot be re-injected with fear. Thus Israel's consistent policy of smashing Arabs into submission no longer works. It is a policy whose bankruptcy the Americans are now discovering in Iraq.

And all across the Muslim world, "we" - the West, America, Israel - are fighting not nationalists but Islamists. And watching the martyrdom of Lebanon this week - its slaughtered children in Qana packed into plastic bags until the bags ran out and their corpses had to be wrapped in carpets - a terrible and daunting thought occurs to me, day by day. That there will be another 9/11.

Why do we not realize that we are creating more and more enemies? It seems so obvious.

Analogy

All right. So would we think this would be appropriate?

Quebec separatists cross into Maine, kill three American soldiers and kidnap two others in a bid to negotiate a prisoner exchange, a demand rebuffed by the USA. Another five American soldiers are killed after the ambush. The USA responds with a naval blockade and by bombing hundreds of targets in Canada, including Ottawa's airport and the separatists' headquarters in Montreal.

I didn't think so. Neither is Israel's attack on Lebanon.

(I found this on The Green Knight.)

Osama has won

It grieves me to say it, but we're the bad guys now. The article I want to show you today is called "Osama has won". Here's part of what it says:

America is the most hated nation on earth. In most countries its president is by far the most despised international figure. To read the State Department's Travel Advisories is to realise that for an American to take a trip overseas is a pretty grim prospect as there are so many countries to which it is highly dangerous for a US citizen to venture.

The reason that America is so detested, distrusted and abominated is that its president and his coterie decided their policy should be total aggression and antagonism. Diplomacy, courtesy and negotiation were for wimps. And thus they played right into the hands of bin Laden and his tiny number of dedicated weirdo fanatics.
...
The peoples of Afghanistan and Iraq consider themselves occupied by foreign powers and are being told by influential figures in their countries that the US and Israel are waging war on Muslims. Moderate Muslims, such as President Musharraf of Pakistan, who went out on a very far limb by talking to a Jewish organization in New York in September last year, have had the ground cut from beneath their feet by Washington. Musharraf wants to encourage the Muslim world to recognize Israel and has tried hard to foster pan-Islamic tolerance. But after the Qana atrocity he and other progressive Muslims will find it impossible to even mention tolerance for Israel. And by deliberate choice of the Bush administration the US is inextricably linked with Israel's criminal ferocity.

Osama bin Laden may not be alive, but this is irrelevant because countless millions of Muslims regard him as a hero, alive or dead. Their reasoning is that he has caused a dramatic and continuing amount of disruption to the western world's economic and social structure. He has hit us hard. And his ongoing success in disrupting our lives is helped by the weaknesses of Bush and his people. Their smugness, arrogance and casual savagery are some of bin Laden's most effective weapons.

Osama bin Laden need never do anything again to ensure permanency and prosperity of his legacy of hatred. Thanks to the imperious policies of the Bush administration and its fervent support for Israel the United States is hated and despised to an almost unbelievable degree. Osama has won.

Can you imagine how different world opinion would be if, after 9/11, we had gone to war with nobody but rather pursued and then prosecuted bin Laden as a criminal? But that's, of course, assuming that Bush and Co. didn't want 9/11 to happen so they would have the excuse they needed to go to war.

A living wage

I found this comment over on Echidne of the Snakes:

No one should be allowed to hire someone at lower than a living wage; to allow it is to institute partial slavery and it drives down everybody's wages. If they can afford the obscene salaries for the bosses they can afford to pay people a living wage. If they can't, let the bosses do the work and earn their keep. Pay the damned board members a minimum wage for their phony, work-free jobs.

The point is well taken that paying less than a living wage is partial slavery. And, of course, it is the poor subsidizing the rich. Horrible.

Desmond Tutu on peace

I do love this man:

It’s an extraordinary idea and, it fills one with a great deal of excitement and exhilaration, and it sounds crazy, but then I think it was crazy when Gandhi said we’re going to work so that eventually India is free. It must have been crazy when Martin Luther King Jr. also said we’re going to make civil rights a real issue in the United States, and maybe when Nelson Mandela and others said one day apartheid will be no more, that we need those like yourselves who dream dreams and say, “It is possible. It is possible for people to know that war is not natural.”
...
People have been able to live peacefully together, but if they live peacefully together after war, why should they have war first before they can realize that it is a great deal better. War is not nice to children, it’s not nice to people, it’s not nice to the environment.
...
And so I say go for it. This is marvellous. Go for it and really be crazy and say, one day we’ll ask, “Why were we so stupid for so long because of something so obvious?” Saying let us put our massive investment that we are putting right now in instruments of death and destruction, let us put them into something that is creative, that is life-enhancing teaching kids that there are ways of resolving differences that don’t need to be violent. You can sit down and ultimately say, “You know, actually, an enemy is a friend waiting to be made.”

-- Desmond Tutu

War and the unforeseeable

Wouldn't it be nice if our current leaders had bothered to learn a little history?

Never, never, never believe any war will be smooth and easy, or that anyone who embarks on the strange voyage can measure the tides and hurricanes he will encounter. The statesman who yields to war fever must realize that once the signal is given, he is no longer the master of policy but the slave of unforeseeable and uncontrollable events.

- Sir Winston Churchill

Bush's fundamentalism

Here's a passage from an article called "Bush's fundamentalism seen as a decisive, negative factor in his policies":

There is an alien influence, mostly unpublicized, running like an undercurrent beneath the Bush administration's Middle East policies. It may help explain George W. Bush's single-mindedness, his oblivious inability to face reality as his war in Iraq, his war against terror and his policies towards Arabs and Israeli have collapsed.

I say "alien," because I believe this to be the first time in modern American history that a president's religion, in this case his Christian fundamentalism, has become a decisive factor in his foreign and domestic policies. It’s a factor that has been under-reported, to say the least, and that begs for press attention.
...
[Karen] Armstrong concluded, "Fundamentalists do not want a humanely constructed peace; many, indeed, regard the UN as the abode of the Antichrist. The willingness of the U.S. to turn a blind eye to the suffering of innocent people in Lebanon will certainly fuel the rage of the extremists and lead to further acts of terror. We can only hope that it does not take us all the way to Armageddon."

And to think people were afraid of JFK because he was Catholic! Who is paying attention to how Bush's religion affects his decisions? There is such a thing as a self-fulfilling prophecy. Bush seems to be trying to push us toward apocalypse.

Friday cat blogging!

Mooshie

Photo by Frank Ford

Who was REALLY behind 9/11?

Well, this is interesting. Take a look at these excerpts from an article entitled "Third of Americans suspect 9-11 government conspiracy":

More than a third of the American public suspects that federal officials assisted in the 9/11 terrorist attacks or took no action to stop them so the United States could go to war in the Middle East, according to a new Scripps Howard/Ohio University poll.

The national survey of 1,010 adults also found that anger against the federal government is at record levels, with 54 percent saying they "personally are more angry" at the government than they used to be.

Widespread resentment and alienation toward the national government appears to be fueling a growing acceptance of conspiracy theories about the 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
...
Thirty-six percent of respondents overall said it is "very likely" or "somewhat likely" that federal officials either participated in the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon or took no action to stop them "because they wanted the United States to go to war in the Middle East."

"One out of three sounds high, but that may very well be right," said Lee Hamilton, former vice chairman of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (also called the 9/11 commission.) His congressionally appointed investigation concluded that federal officials bungled their attempts to prevent, but did not participate in, the attacks by al Qaeda five years ago.

Of course, I have no faith in the 9/11 Commission at all since members of the administration (including President Bush) refused to testify under oath and since it is now clear that the Pentagon lied to the commission.

Having said that, I'm not going to express an opinion here about who was really behind 9/11. I just want to say that I don't think the official story is the whole story. And I think it's very interesting indeed that so many people think it was an inside job.

Why animal rights matter

Remember, Bush used to blow up frogs:

If you have men who will exclude any of God's creatures from the shelter of compassion and pity, you will have men who will deal likewise with their fellow men.

-- St. Francis of Assisi

Police state, USA

All right, now I'm alarmed. Really, really, really alarmed. The article is from the Washington Post and it's entitled "White House Proposal Would Expand Authority of Military Courts" . Look at part of what it says:

A draft Bush administration plan for special military courts seeks to expand the reach and authority of such "commissions" to include trials, for the first time, of people who are not members of al-Qaeda or the Taliban and are not directly involved in acts of international terrorism, according to officials familiar with the proposal.

The plan, which would replace a military trial system ruled illegal by the Supreme Court in June, would also allow the secretary of defense to add crimes at will to those under the military court's jurisdiction. The two provisions would be likely to put more individuals than previously expected before military juries, officials and independent experts said.

Under the proposed procedures, defendants would lack rights to confront accusers, exclude hearsay accusations, or bar evidence obtained through rough or coercive interrogations. They would not be guaranteed a public or speedy trial and would lack the right to choose their military counsel, who in turn would not be guaranteed equal access to evidence held by prosecutors.

Detainees would also not be guaranteed the right to be present at their own trials, if their absence is deemed necessary to protect national security or individuals.

All right. Did you just read all this? Do you realize what it says? Anyone can come under these "commissions" for any crime. And crimes can be added "at will". And this is AMERICA? Good God, what is happening to us? This is a nightmare. Except is really happening - and in this very country where we used to be free.

Think of the children - part 2

I want you to see part of an article from an Australian newpaper called "Peace prize winner 'could kill' Bush". Take a look:

Nobel peace laureate Betty Williams displayed a flash of her feisty Irish spirit yesterday, lashing out at US President George W.Bush during a speech to hundreds of schoolchildren. Campaigning on the rights of young people at the Earth Dialogues forum, being held in Brisbane, Ms Williams spoke passionately about the deaths of innocent children during wartime, particularly in the Middle East, and lambasted Mr Bush.

"I have a very hard time with this word 'non-violence', because I don't believe that I am non-violent," said Ms Williams, 64. "Right now, I would love to kill George Bush." Her young audience at the Brisbane City Hall clapped and cheered.

"I don't know how I ever got a Nobel Peace Prize, because when I see children die the anger in me is just beyond belief. It's our duty as human beings, whatever age we are, to become the protectors of human life."
...
"My job is to tell you their stories," Ms Williams said of a recent trip to Iraq. "We went to a hospital where there were 200 children; they were beautiful, all of them, but they had cancers that the doctors couldn't even recognise. From the first Gulf War, the mothers' wombs were infected. "As I was leaving the hospital, I said to the doctor, 'How many of these babies do you think are going to live?' "

He looked me straight in the eye and said, 'None, not one'. They needed five different kinds of medication to treat the cancers that the children had, and the embargoes laid on by the United States and the United Nations only allowed them three."

That's just from the first Gulf War. What about the depleted uranium we're poisoning the area with now? How many cancers, how many deformities? It's heart-breaking. And utterly, utterly unnecessary.

Tragically true:

A nation of sheep will beget a government of wolves.

-- Edward R. Murrow

Pentagon lied to 9-11 Commission

I want you to go on over to the Washington Post and read an article entitled "9/11 Panel Suspected Deception by Pentagon". If you haven't registered yet with the Post, I assure you that this article is worth it. What bothers me, though, is that it was published on page A03. I don't understand why it wasn't front page news and above the fold at that. Please take a look:

Some staff members and commissioners of the Sept. 11 panel concluded that the Pentagon's initial story of how it reacted to the 2001 terrorist attacks may have been part of a deliberate effort to mislead the commission and the public rather than a reflection of the fog of events on that day, according to sources involved in the debate.

Suspicion of wrongdoing ran so deep that the 10-member commission, in a secret meeting at the end of its tenure in summer 2004, debated referring the matter to the Justice Department for criminal investigation, according to several commission sources. Staff members and some commissioners thought that e-mails and other evidence provided enough probable cause to believe that military and aviation officials violated the law by making false statements to Congress and to the commission, hoping to hide the bungled response to the hijackings, these sources said.

In the end, the panel agreed to a compromise, turning over the allegations to the inspectors general for the Defense and Transportation departments, who can make criminal referrals if they believe they are warranted, officials said.

"We to this day don't know why NORAD [the North American Aerospace Command] told us what they told us," said Thomas H. Kean, the former New Jersey Republican governor who led the commission. "It was just so far from the truth. . . . It's one of those loose ends that never got tied."

Now do you think anything is really going to be done about this? Ha! Look at how the article ends:

John F. Lehman, a Republican commission member and former Navy secretary, said in a recent interview that he believed the panel may have been lied to but that he did not believe the evidence was sufficient to support a criminal referral.

"My view of that was that whether it was willful or just the fog of stupid bureaucracy, I don't know," Lehman said. "But in the order of magnitude of things, going after bureaucrats because they misled the commission didn't seem to make sense to me."

How in the name of all that's holy can lying to the commission not be a criminal offense? This is a cover-up. And why, while we're on the subject, did the Bush administration stall for as long as it did on having the commission in the first place if it were not either complicit or negligent? You'd think someone who really wanted to keep us safe would want to know exactly what happened. But Bush is not really interested in security. He's interested in political advantage. And that, from his point of view, is what 9-11 is all about.

The brilliance of Jon Stewart

What's sad is, this is for real:

Lebanon. Our president, President Bush, has rejected calls for an immediate cease-fire on the grounds that he'd prefer a 'sustainable cease-fire.' It makes sense. He doesn't want the killing to stop until he's sure it will stop. So, there will be more killing until the president's convinced that there will be no more killing. Or everyone else runs out of people.

--Jon Stewart

The problem with pride

I've long been both dismayed and puzzled by the right wing elevation of contempt to the level of virtue. Well, today I have come across an article that examines this dynamic. It's called "America and the seven deadly sins". Here's part of what it says:

The bumper stickers read "The Power of Pride" with the blue letters following the red and white contours of an unfurled American flag. That's all the bumper stickers say. But what are they really saying? What makes the bearers of this sticker so proud?

That the nation is in the hands of the most hated man on the planet, who has dragged America's good name through the mud, a stain that will take two generations to remove, if indeed it can be removed?

That America is always right, even when she's wrong?

Or that America is proud even when the government behaves in ways that collectively shame us?
...
While many definitions of pride have been tendered, Dante's might be the best of all, and the one that most accurately describes America's current excess, embodied by Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and the various assorted pundits of the mainstream press: "love of self perverted to hatred and contempt for one's neighbor."
...
America's sin of Pride, its worship of the Power of Pride, has had predictable results. The Pew Global Attitudes Project, which interviewed 93,000 people in 50 countries over the past four years, has shown the rest of the world hates the United States now and the taint of Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, et al., has now "trickled down" to the rest of us. Regardless of how we feel about these criminals in power, simply because we are Americans we are hated almost equally by Europeans, Asians and Arabs.

As the Times of London reported, "Majorities around the world think Americans are greedy, violent and rude, and fewer than half in countries such as Poland, Spain, Canada, China and Russia think Americans are honest...Few analysts expect more than marginal improvements, short of another Sept. 11. The dislike is accelerating among youth. The problem...is Americans, not just [President] Bush. In increasing numbers, people around the globe resent U.S. power and wealth and reject specific actions such as the occupation of Iraq and the campaign against democratically elected Palestinian leaders...America's image problem is pervasive, deep and perhaps permanent, analysts say, an inevitable outcome of being the world's only superpower."

It's really embarrassing to be an American today. I'm deeply ashamed of my country. It's tragic. And it hurts my heart beyond expression.

Healing the great wound

St. Francis of Assisi

From the author of Cry, The Beloved Country:

Francis of Assisi taught me that there is a wound in the Creation and that the greatest use we could make of our lives was to ask to be made the healer of it.

-- Alan Paton

It's our bombs

The imbalance between Lebanon and Israel is enormous. Take a look at this excerpt from an article by John Chuckman:

Israel insists that Hezbollah's missiles are a horror not to be endured.

I'll remind readers that Hezbollah's main "missile" is the Katyusha artillery rocket, not a missile at all, because it is not guided. The Katyusha was designed to be fired in large barrages from mobile, multi-tube launchers to blanket an area, but Hezbollah does not posses these - they would quickly be destroyed if they did - and uses Katyushas as single-launch rockets. Used this way, the Katyusha is a glorified firework, totally inaccurate with a short range and a small explosive charge. Ninety-nine percent of these "missiles" land in the desert or on garage roofs or in parking lots. The few times they have killed anyone were accidents.

Hezbollah has managed to fire a few clusters now in response to Israel's horrific bombardment, but apart from one dramatic incident, killing eight, they have killed few Israelis. We have heard a great deal about a new longer-range rocket, but this is just a bigger Katyusha with a bigger warhead. It also is totally inaccurate.

By comparison, Israel drops 500-pound, high-explosive bombs which are deadly accurate, being hooked into American satellite-guidance systems. It drops them from some of the world's most sophisticated fighter-bombers. An order of American 5000-pound, "bunker-busting," laser-guided bombs was rushed recently to Israel to help in the good work. Israel also uses American Hellfire missiles, mounted on helicopters or fighter planes. These really are missiles, highly accurate, in the slick words of their manufacturer's sales pitch, they feature "dual warheads for defeating reactive armor, electro-optical countermeasures hardening, semi-active laser seeker, and a programmable auto-pilot for trajectory shaping."

Israel uses some of the world's best long-range artillery pieces, and it fills their breeches with deadly depleted-uranium shells which bring the added gift of long-lived vaporized uranium after exploding. It uses American cluster bombs, the horrible things that dismembered or crippled thousands of Iraqi children. And it now appears to be using the white-phosphorus shells or bombs Americans used in Fallujah to burn flesh in much the same way they used napalm in Vietnam.

Think of the children. Just think of the children.

Condi

This nails it:

We're still on the road to World War III. Things were looking a little grim last week -- all those countries pressuring us to call for an immediate cease-fire, but we stayed strong. Sure, we sent over Condi Rice to negotiate, but she's not there for cease-fire. No, she's there for 'sustainable cease-fire,' which considering the Middle East, is like sending her to bring back Jimmy Hoffa on a unicorn.

--Stephen Colbert

Night and day

Sally Lloyd sent me the following:

An old Rabbi once asked his pupils how they could tell when the night had ended and the day had begun.

"Could it be," asked one of the students, "when you can see an animal in the distance and tell whether it's a sheep or a dog?"

"No," answered the Rabbi.

Another asked, "Is it when you can look at a tree in the distance and tell whether it's a fig tree or a peach tree?"

"No," answered the Rabbi.

"Then what is it?" the pupils demanded.

"It is when you can look on the face of any man or woman and see that it is your sister or brother. Because if you cannot see this, it is still night."

— Hasidic tale

The world needs this story. Ah, so very much.

Civilians

What Israel is doing is so wrong:

International humanitarian law is clear on the supreme obligations to protect civilians during hostilities.

-Louise Arbor

(She is the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.)

Exploiting terrorism

This is tragically cynical but, I fear, true:

Republicans appreciate that they are more likely to maintain influence and control of the presidency if the nation remains under ever-increasing threats of terrorism, so they have no hesitation in pursuing policies that can provoke potential terrorists throughout the world.

—John Dean

It's from his book Conservatives Without Conscience.

Mel Gibson's anti-Semitism

I absolutely refused to see "The Passion of the Christ" when it came out. I don't believe violence should be glorified and it seemed as if the treatment of violence in that film bordered on the pornographic. At the very least, ist was profoundly psychologically manipulative. I was also concerned about the anti-Semitism - which Mel Gibson vigorously denied by the way. Well "in vino veritas." Gibson was arrested on drunk driving charges recently and his true colors came out. Read this exerpt from an article entitled "Mel gives cops hell":

A blitzed Mel Gibson launched into an obscenity-laced tirade when he was busted on suspicion of drunken driving early yesterday, threatening an officer and making anti-Semitic and sexually abusive remarks, according to a police report.

The "Passion of the Christ" director repeatedly said, "My life is f----d," according to the report by Los Angeles County Deputy James Mee, which was obtained by TMZ.com. The celebrity news Web site posted excerpts of the handwritten report...

According to the incident report obtained by TMZ.com, the Road Warrior embarked on a belligerent, anti-Semitic outburst when he realized he had been busted.

"F-----g Jews. The Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world," Mee's report quotes him as saying.

"Are you a Jew?" Gibson asked the deputy, according to the report.

The actor also berated the deputy, threatening, "You motherf----r. I'm going to f--- you," according to Mee's report.

The actor also told the cop he "owns Malibu" and would spend all his money "to get even with me," Mee said in his report.

TMZ quoted a law enforcement source as saying Gibson noticed a female sergeant on the scene and yelled at her, "What do you think you're looking at, sugar t--s?"

Deputy Mee then wrote an eight-page report detailing of the incident, but higher-ups in the sheriff's department felt it was too "inflammatory" to release and would merely serve to incite "Jewish hatred," TMZ said.
...
A devout Catholic, Gibson has been dogged by allegations of anti-Semitism - which he has steadfastly denied - since his 2004 film "The Passion of the Christ," about the crucifixion of Jesus.

This, of course, is the darling of the evangelicals. Wonder if they're going to defend him on this? Whatever they do, it's time to boycott Mel Gibson's movies, don't you think?

War

I found this poem today. We would all do well to ponder it:

War
I abhor,
And yet how sweet
The sound along the marching street
Of drum and fife; and I forget
Wet eyes of widows, and forget
Broken old mothers, and the whole
Dark butchery without a soul.

Without a soul—save this bright drink
Of heady music, sweet as hell;
And even my peace-abiding feet
Go marching with the marching street
For yonder goes the fife,
And what care I for human life!

The tears fill my astonished eyes
And my full heart is like to break,
And yet ‘tis all embannered lies,
A dream those little drummers make.

Oh, it is wickedness to clothe
Yon hideous, grinning thing that stalks
Hidden in music, like a queen
That in a garden of glory walks,
Till good men love the thing they loathe.

Art, thou hast many infamies,
But not an infamy like this—
Oh, snap the fife and still the drum,
And show the monster as she is.

-- Richard Lee Gallienne (1866-1947)

Your dissolving rights

I want to call your attention to an article today called "Where were you when they took away your rights?" by David Swanson. Here's the pertinent excerpt:

This morning I was a guest lecturer at a college course on modern history. We spent two hours discussing impeachment, impeachable offenses, and where the Bush Administration's actions fit in history. This is where I think they fit: as a significant threat to end the oldest democracy on the planet. Never before has an American president offered anything close to this wide-ranging assault on the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the powers of the legislative and judicial branches of government.

Here's a sampling:

• Illegal spying in violation of FISA and the Fourth Amendment, openly confessed to, openly promoted in signing statements, known to involve phone calls, phone records, internet use, bank records, and observation of legal nonviolent activities.
• Illegal detentions in violation of the Fourth Amendment, International law, U.S. Law, and a recent Supreme Court ruling.
• Rounding up of thousands of citizens and legal residents for detention or deportation.
• Torture, maintenance of secret camps, and extraordinary rendition, in violation of the Fourth Amendment, International Law, US Law, and openly promoted in signing statement and administration policy papers.
• Illegal war - launched illegally under international law, launched in violation of the U.S. Constitution which requires that the Congress declare war, and launched on the basis of feloniously misleading Congress and the American public.
• Use of a variety of illegal weapons.
• Illegal targeting of civilians, journalists, and hospitals.
• Illegal seizure of another nation's resources.
• Illegal use of funds in Iraq that had been appropriated for Afghanistan.
• Leaking of classified information in order to mislead the Congress and the public, and in order to punish truth tellers.
• Leaking of identity of an undercover agent.
• Retribution against whistleblowers.
• Use of signing statements to reverse 750 laws passed by Congress.
• Production of phony news reports at home and abroad.
• Dereliction of duty in neglecting global warming, hurricanes, hunger, AIDS, and warnings of 9-11 attacks.
• Facilitating Israel's attacks on Lebanon.
• Obstruction of investigations by Congress, the 9-11 Commission, and Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald.
• Stealing elections.

When is it enough? When does it become clear that history will view us as those who let it all go to waste, as those who sat by as they came for the Muslims and then they came for the immigrants and then they came for the next group on the list, as those who saw the nation sliding into fascism and let it slide... or as those who rose up and resisted and restored what was most worth saving in a system of government based on the rule of law?

When is it enough, indeed? I simply do not understand why there is not more outrage.

Cancer risk

Well, of course we know that this administration doesn't care if you get cancer. Take a look at this information from an article entitled "Study: Water contaminant can causes cancer":

WASHINGTON - Growing scientific evidence suggests the most widespread industrial contaminant in drinking water — a solvent used in adhesives, paint and spot removers — can cause cancer in people.

The National Academy of Sciences reported Thursday that a lot more is known about the cancer risks and other health hazards from exposure to trichloroethylene than there was five years ago when the Environmental Protection Agency took steps to regulate it more strictly.

TCE, which is also widely used to remove grease from metal parts in airplanes and to clean fuel lines at missile sites, is known to cause cancer in some laboratory animals. EPA was blocked from elevating its assessment of the chemical's risks in people by the Defense Department, Energy Department and NASA, all of which have sites polluted with it.
...
A committee of academy experts said "a large body of epidemiologic data is available" on TCE showing the chemical is a possible cause of kidney cancer, reproductive and developmental damage, impaired neurological function and autoimmune disease.
...
In 2001, EPA issued a draft document saying the risks of TCE causing cancer in humans were higher than previously thought. But that pronouncement was dropped after other federal agencies accused EPA of inflating the risks.

Okay, here's what I don't understand about pollution and right wingers. Do they think they're immune from the risks? Do they think that just because they suppress the information that they and their children will never be exposed to environmental contamination? You would think that simple enlightened self-interest would mean that everyone would want clean air and clean water regardless of political affiliation.

Friday cat blogging!

Smokey

Photo by Frank Ford

Think of the children.

I mean, of course, the children of Lebanon. I simply do not have words to express how horrible this is. Please take a look at this excerpt from an article entitled "Bombings Hit Children Hardest" by Dahr Jamail:

BEIRUT - About 55 percent of all casualties at the Beirut Government University Hospital are children of 15 years of age or less, hospital records show."

This is worse than during the Lebanese civil war," Bilal Masri, assistant director of the hospital, one of Beirut's largest, told IPS Monday.

Not only are most of the patients children, but many of the injured have been brought in serious condition, he said. "Now we have a 30 percent fatality rate here in Beirut. That means that 30 percent of everyone hit by Israeli bombs are dying. It is a catastrophe."

The fatality rate was high, he said, "because the Israelis are using new kinds of bombs which can enter shelters. They are bombing the bomb shelters which are full of refugees."

Masri said he had barely slept in the 13 days since the Israeli bombing of Lebanon began. His hospital, he said, was functioning with only 25 percent staff because "most are now unable to get here because so many roads and bridges are bombed. Those who are here are eating, sleeping and living here 24 hours a day because if they leave they fear they may be unable to return."

On Sunday, Jan Egeland, the United Nations emergency relief chief, toured the devastated areas of south Beirut. He described what he saw as "horrific" and said the destruction "makes it a violation of humanitarian law."

What kind of monsters use bombs that destroy bomb shelters when you know that's where innocent civilians take refuge?

True enough

Physicist Steven Weinberg of the University of Texas at Austin, has said:

There are good people, and bad people. Good people do good things, and bad people do bad things. When good people do bad things, it is religion.

I don't completely believe this, of course. I've seen too much genuine good done by religious people. But I think there's enough truth to this that we definitely need to preserve separation of church and state. Hmmm, I said "preserve". It's too late to preserve it, isn't it, because the boundaries are already severely eroded. What we need to do is recommit ourselves to that constitutional principle. Unfortunately, however, we are now headed for a theocracy and I don't see the likelihood of that being reversed.

Leno nails it again.

You know, this is tragic:

Today Iran called for a boycott of all U.S. made goods. Well, we've got them there! Hey, Iran, we don't make anything in the U.S. anymore, okay?! Call your buddies in China!

-- Jay Leno

The illusion of security

Helen Keller

I happened to blog a Helen Keller quote over on Meditation Matters and, in the process, found one that really belongs here. What saddens me deeply as an American is that we used to consider our coutry the "home of the brave" but now it seems to be the home of the frightened. I should think we would be deeply ashamed for having sold our freedoms so easily for the illusion of security. Take a look at this observation:

Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing.

-- Helen Keller

The more I read about this great American, the more I admire her. But I'm glad she didn't live to see what we've done to ourselves.

What happens when we're unconscious

Bill Moyers

This was sent to me by Frank Ford:

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.

-- Bill Moyers

The current slaughter

I so admire this woman's passion:

I recognize Israel's right to defend itself as I recognize the US's right to defend ourselves as I recognize Lebanon's and Iraq's right to defend themselves - but I do not, cannot, and will not recognize anyone's right to commit wholesale slaughter on babies and children. I refuse to recognize that right no matter who does it - terrorists or state-sanctioned wars of terror - I refuse to recognize the right to slaughter and, whether it makes a difference or not, I refuse to be silent about it.

-- Cindy Sheehan

The earth

A current Quick Vote poll on the CNN website:

How do you feel about the current state of the environment?

No worries 7%

I'm a little concerned 19%

I'm very worried 47%

Total destruction is underway 27%

I have to admit I voted for the last choice. It's because of the dying coral reefs and diminishing plankton population in the seas that I think total destruction is underway.

Those signing statements - part 2

All right. This is good. The fact that the article I'm linking to is on the home page of the CNN website, that is. It's by Lou Dobbs and it's entitled "Why is the president ignoring our laws?" Here's part of what it says:

NEW YORK (CNN) -- With upraised right hand and left hand on the Bible, each of our presidents, from George Washington to George W. Bush, has solemnly sworn to "preserve, protect and defend" the Constitution of the United States.

The American Bar Association claims President Bush has violated that oath by issuing hundreds of "signing statements" to disregard selected provisions of the laws that Congress passed and he signed.

A bipartisan, 11-member panel of the ABA found that President Bush is not only disregarding laws but using such signing statements far more than any president in history. In fact, Bush has used signing statements to raise constitutional objections to more than 800 provisions in more than 100 laws. All of the presidents combined before 2001 had issued only 600.

The ABA asserts that signing statements cannot be a substitute for a presidential veto and that such an assertion of presidential power amounts to a line-item veto, which the Supreme Court already has ruled unconstitutional.

The matter will likely be resolved in court. But it stands as a metaphor for a 21st century America that is no longer secure in the claim to be a nation of laws.

The fact that a mainstream journalist is saying this on a mainstream news site could mean (oh, let us hope!) that the American people are finally starting to wake up.

Let us be very clear about one thing: Bush is not a man of honor. If he were, he would not be able to live with himself after violating a sacred oath so egregiously.

The 23rd Qualm

Charlotte Alexandre sent me the following. It was written by a retired Methodist minister:

Bush is my shepherd; I dwell in want.

He maketh logs to be cut down in national forests.

He leadeth trucks into the still wilderness.

He restoreth my fears.

He leadeth me in the paths of international disgrace for his ego's sake.

Yea, though I walk through the valley of pollution and war, I will find no exit, for thou art in office.

Thy tax cuts for the rich and thy media control, they discomfort me.

Thou preparest an agenda of deception in the presence of thy religion.

Thou anointest my head with foreign oil.

My health insurance runneth out.

Surely megalomania and false patriotism shall follow me all the days of thy term,

And my jobless child shall dwell in my basement forever.

-- Annette P. Bingham

This is just wrong.

What more can I say?

This sums it up:

Of course the world is cruel and horrible. The point, however, is to change it.

-- Andrew Brown

A paragraph for you

This is from an article by W. David Jenkins III called "We're at war all right — right here at home":

I don't believe that America has ever been held in such a low regard as it is now. America 's image is no longer that "shining city on the hill" that Reagan described. In its place, we have the Bush regime that is circumventing the judicial system (and the Supreme Court, the folks responsible for this whole mess in the first place) in order to decriminalize torture, endless imprisonment without charge, kangaroo courts and other policies which laugh in the face of not only international laws, but the very Constitution itself. The very foundations of this country, for which so many have fought and died, are being systematically dismantled.

I could just cry, it's so tragic.

Positive thinking

I found this in a comment on Smirking Chimp:

My equation on "positive thinking":

Positive thinking + genius = Einstein.

Positive thinking + evil genius = Hitler.

Positive thinking + fool = General Custer.

Positive thinking + evil fool = G. W. Bush.

Good, huh?

Look at this

Well, I never thought I'd see the day that I quoted William F. Buckley with enthusiasm but Frank Ford send me the following and you've just got to see it. Buckley is talking about the president, of course:

If you had a European prime minister who experienced what we've experienced it would be expected that he would retire or resign.

It's from an article entitled "Buckley: Bush Not A True Conservative" . Worth a read.

Let the punishment fit the crime

When I was a little girl, I ended up listening to a lot of Gilbert and Sullivan at home because my father was a tenor who sang in those shows. He just loved both the music and the snarky humor. One of my favorite songs was from The Mikado entitled "Let the Punishment Fit the Crime." Well, what we have going on between Israel and Lebanon is an example of the punishment not fitting the crime. This is a point made by Eugene Robinson in his op-ed column "It's Disproportionate. . .". Here's how it gets started:

Just my luck. I go away on vacation and it happens to be the week when George W. Bush's strategic view of the current world situation is revealed: Russia big. China big, too. World leaders boring. Lady world leaders need neck rub. Terrorism bad. Elections good (when the right people get elected). Israel good. Time to go home yet?

I felt better when I thought the Decider didn't have a worldview, just a set of instincts about freedom and democracy. But even if you set aside the president's embarrassing open-mike performance at the Group of Eight summit, which is hard to do, events of the past week show that this administration actually thinks it knows what it's doing. Bush and his folks haven't just blundered around and created this dangerous mess, they've done it on purpose. And they intend to make it worse.

Bush's endorsement of the violence that Israel is inflicting on Lebanon -- a sustained bombing campaign that has killed hundreds of civilians and can only be seen as collective punishment -- is truly astonishing. Of course Israel has the right to defend itself against Hezbollah's rocket attacks. But how can this utterly disproportionate, seemingly indiscriminate carnage be anything but counterproductive?

Destroying the Beirut airport, blasting communications towers into oblivion and cleansing southern Lebanon of its civilian population are not measures the world will see as an attack on Hezbollah terrorists. The Israeli campaign is so intense and widespread that it is creating more terrorists than it kills. Proportionate military action might have enhanced Israel's security, but video footage of grandmothers weeping amid the rubble of their homes and bloodied children lying in hospital beds won't make Israel more secure. Hezbollah's stature in the Arab world is growing, and its patrons in Damascus and Tehran must be smugly satisfied.

The role of any American president and secretary of state should have been to move quickly to bring hostilities to an end. Instead, Bush all but egged the Israelis on, and Condoleezza Rice went so far as to reject the idea of a cease-fire. Belatedly, she has flown to the region with no real credibility as an honest broker. Her words of concern about the "humanitarian crisis" in Lebanon ring hollow.

But this administration doesn't want to be an honest broker in the Middle East. Bush and Rice have staked their Middle East policy on a single incontrovertible idea -- that terrorism is bad -- and it has led them to the mistaken notion that Israel can achieve long-term security by creating a kind of scorched-earth buffer zone in southern Lebanon.

It is very troubling to imagine how this is all going to end. If it is going to end. Both the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Pope have called for a cease fire. Will our very "Christian" president pay attention?

(Thanks to Frank Ford for alerting me to this article.)

The president's résumé

Charlotte Alexandre sent me the following. Read it. Share it. Act on it by voting the Republicans out of power:

GEORGE W. BUSH
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington, DC 20520

EDUCATION AND EXPERIENCE

LAW ENFORCEMENT
I was arrested in Kennebunkport, Maine, in 1976 for driving under the influence of alcohol. I pled guilty, paid a fine, and had my driver's license suspended for 30 days. My Texas driving record has been "lost" and is not available.

MILITARY
I joined the Texas Air National Guard and went AWOL. I refused to take a drug test or answer any questions about my drug use. By joining the Texas Air National Guard, I was able to avoid combat duty in Vietnam.

COLLEGE
I graduated from Yale University with a low C average. I was a cheerleader.

PAST WORK EXPERIENCE
I ran for U.S. Congress and lost. I began my career in the oil business in Midland, Texas, in 1975. I bought an oil company, but couldn't find any oil in Texas. The company went bankrupt shortly after I sold all my stock.

I bought the Texas Rangers baseball team in a sweetheart deal that took land using taxpayer money. With the help of my father and our friends in the oil industry, including Enron CEO Ken Lay, I was elected governor of Texas!

ACCOMPLISHMENTS AS GOVERNOR OF TEXAS
I changed Texas pollution laws to favor power and oil companies, making Texas the most polluted state in the Union. During my tenure, Houston replaced Los Angeles as the most smog-ridden city in America. I cut taxes and bankrupted the Texas treasury to the tune of billions in borrowed money. I set the record for the most executions by any governor in American history. With the help of my brother, the governor of Florida, and my father's appointments to the Supreme Court, I became President after losing by over 500,000 votes.

ACCOMPLISHMENTS AS PRESIDENT
I am the first President in U.S. history to enter office with a criminal record.

I invaded and occupied two countries at a continuing cost of over one billion dollars per week.

I spent the U.S. surplus and effectively bankrupted the U.S. Treasury.

I shattered the record for the largest annual deficit in U.S. history.

I set an economic record for most private bankruptcies filed in any 12-month period.

I set the all-time record for most foreclosures in a 12-month period.

I set the all-time record for the biggest drop in the history of the U.S.stock market. In my first year in office, over 2 million Americans lost their jobs and that trend continues every month.

I'm proud that the members of my cabinet are the richest of any administration in U.S. history. My "poorest millionaire," Condoleeza Rice, had a Chevron oil tanker named after her.

I set the record for most campaign fund-raising trips by a U.S. President. I am the all- time U.S. and world record-holder for receiving the most corporate campaign donations. My largest lifetime campaign contributor, and one of my best friends, Kenneth Lay, presided over the largest corporate bankruptcy fraud in U.S. History, Enron. My political party used Enron private jets and corporate attorneys to assure my success with the U.S. Supreme Court during my election decision. I have protected my friends at Enron and Halliburton against investigation or prosecution. More time and money was spent investigating the Monica Lewinsky affair than has been spent investigating one of the biggest corporate rip-offs in history.

I presided over the biggest energy crisis in U.S. history and refused to intervene when corruption involving the oil industry was revealed. I presided over the highest gasoline prices in U.S. history.

I changed the U.S. policy to allow convicted criminals to be awarded government contracts. I appointed more convicted criminals to my administration than any President in U.S. history.

I created the Ministry of Homeland Security, the largest bureaucracy in the history of the United States government.

I've broken more international treaties than any President in U.S. history.

I am the first President in U.S. history to have the United Nations remove the U.S. from the Human Rights Commission.

I withdrew the U.S. from the World Court of Law.

I refused to allow inspectors access to U.S. "prisoners of war" detainees and thereby have refused to abide by the Geneva Conventions.

I am the first President in history to refuse United Nations election inspectors (during the 2002 U.S. election).

I set the record for fewest numbers of press conferences of any President since the advent of television.

I set the all-time record for most days on vacation in any one-year period. After taking off the entire month of August, I presided over the worst security failure in U.S. history. I garnered the most sympathy for the U.S. after the World Trade Center attacks and less than a year later made the U.S. the most hated country in the world, the largest failure of diplomacy in world history. I have set the all-time record for most people worldwide to simultaneously protest me in public venues (15 million people), shattering the record for protests against any person in the history of mankind.

I am the first President in U.S. history to order an unprovoked, pre-emptive attack and the military occupation of a sovereign nation. I did so against the will of the United Nations, the majority of U.S. citizens, and the world community.

I have cut health care benefits for war veterans and support a cut in duty benefits for active duty troops and their families-in-wartime.

In my State of the Union Address, I lied about our reasons for attacking Iraq and then blamed the lies on our British friends.

I am the first President in history to have a majority of Europeans (71%) view my presidency as the biggest threat to world peace and security. I am supporting development of a nuclear "Tactical Bunker Buster," a WMD.

I have so far failed to fulfill my pledge to bring Osama Bin Laden to justice.

RECORDS AND REFERENCES
All records of my tenure as governor of Texas are now in my father's library, sealed and unavailable for public view. All records of SEC investigations into my insider trading and my bankrupt companies are sealed in secrecy and unavailable for public view. All records or minutes from meetings that I, or my Vice-President, attended regarding public energy policy are sealed in secrecy and unavailable for public review. I am a member of the Republican Party.

PLEASE CONSIDER MY EXPERIENCE WHEN VOTING IN THE 2006 MIDTERM ELECTIONS.

PLEASE SEND THIS TO EVERY VOTER YOU KNOW.

Casualties

Just go look at the CNN article entitled, "Four children and the cost of war" by Cal Perry and then tell me that the attack on Lebanon is right. Look at what is happening:

TYRE, Lebanon (CNN) -- The last time I sat down to write something, it was about the cost of war. As I looked ahead to the coming days, the last words I wrote were: Who will die?

Today, I found out.

Standing in front of this 8-year-old boy lying in a hospital bed, the "conflict in the Middle East" and the "cost of war" seem endless and suffocating. His pain cannot possibly be imagined as he shakes uncontrollably in and out of shock. He has blood coming from his eyes.

His name is Mahmood Monsoor and he is horribly burned. In the hospital bed next to him is his 8-month-old sister, Maria -- also burned. Screaming at the top of her lungs is the children's mother, Nuhader Monsoor. She is standing over her baby, looking at her son -- and probably thinking of her dead husband. The smell of burned flesh is overwhelming.

This story, for the Monsoor family, started out as a typical one, probably one that most of us have experienced. They had simply gone on a family vacation to some lovely sunny beaches, but these beaches were in southern Lebanon.
...
Politics creeps into the ward like the blood that runs on the floors. "Clearly he is Hezbollah," says one of the doctors outside the room -- sarcastically referring to 8-year-old Mahmood, whose screams can be heard from the hallway. His screams now blend with the wails of his mother, matching the baby's cries.

How can Bush sleep at night? He could stop this if he would call for a cease fire.

International law

Here is a passage from an article entitled "We were right" by Cenk Uygur about why international law matters:

It was a terrible precedent to set to say that first strikes without a legal basis are acceptable (it was also the exact opposite of George H.W. Bush's New World Order precedent -- which was a bold and brilliant foreign policy effort and one of the reasons I was a Republican in the first place). Following international law is the kind of thing conservatives can deride as asking for a permission slip from the UN. Yes, you neanderthals, we do need approval from the rest of the world, otherwise we become international outlaws - and encourage others do the same.

So, what did Israel learn from our experience? When in doubt, invade. Don't ask for permission. Don't listen to the rest of the world (or common sense), just push the button.

Now, we learn that Turkey is threatening to invade northern Iraq to fight against Kurdish rebels that have killed 15 Turkish security forces in southern Turkey. Now what are we supposed to say to them? All of sudden, preemptive strikes are a bad idea? We don't like it when you do first strikes?

How about if Pakistan decides it too needs a first strike? How about China against Taiwan? North Korea against South Korea?

This is why we need international law -- and order. Instead, we have sown chaos throughout the world and now we reap the whirlwind.

It is really terrifying to anticipate what is going to happen next. We truly are reaping the whirlwind and it remains to be seen just how bad that will be.

Lebanon

It's a simple paragraph with a simple but succinct message. And I agree:

Directing military force in such a way that it kills hundreds of civilians is unacceptable behavior, and any group, tribe, or nation that does so loses all moral standing. Those who are defending this behavior need to have a close look at the axioms and arguments that lead them to such a deeply broken conclusion. Once again: Military violence against civilians is wrong.

-- Tim Bray

Iraq

I want you to read a couple of passages from an article called "Iraq's Bloody July" by Robert Dreyfuss:

Iraq is engaged in a full-fledged civil war. For those remaining defenders of the U.S. occupation of Iraq, who argue that the United States needs to stay put in order to prevent civil war, it’s too late. It’s here, in all of its brutality and ugliness.

The violence is not only engulfing Baghdad—home to approximately one-fifth of Iraq’s population—but Basra, Iraq’s second city and its only port. In the north, there is violence in Kirkuk, in what has been, until now, the relatively unscathed heartland of the Shiite south, as well.

What is unfolding in Iraq is a staggering tragedy. An entire nation is dying, right in front of us. And the worst part of it is: It may be too late to do anything to stop it.

The toll among ordinary Iraqis is immeasurable. Iraqis are dying in ones and twos, in a wave of rampant murders, kidnappings, and assassinations throughout the country. They are dying in fives and tens, through roadside bombs, car bombs, and sectarian violence. And they are dying in large numbers, in scores, as organized armies carry out atrocity after atrocity in brazen, public attacks.
...
The blame for this carnage must be laid squarely at the feet of George W. Bush. The U.S. invasion of Iraq was ordered against the advice of the CIA, the State Department and most U.S. military officers, and in defiance of the United Nations, America’s allies, and the Arab world. The United States attacked and destroyed a nation that had never attacked the United States, which had no weapons of mass destruction and which had no connection to al-Qaida.

History will judge us very harshly - that is, if there is a history to judge. If we don't, as a species, find another way besides war to settle our differences, humanity may well end up destroying itself.

Culture of life

This is a comment I found on Dependable Renegade:

I say we move all the frozen embryos to Lebanon. Maybe that will make the righties care about what happens there.

Bridging the gap

Linda Cole has been sending me meditations by the late Henri Nouwen and yesterday I blogged one of them (about seeing the other as neighbor) over on Medition Matters. I had trouble, however, deciding whether it belonged there or here on the political blog. Today's passage, I think really belongs here on Child of Illusion. It's called, "Bridging the Gap Between People".

To become neighbours is to bridge the gap between people. As long as there is distance between us and we cannot look in each other's eyes, all sorts of false ideas and images arise. We give them names, make jokes about them, cover them with our prejudices, and avoid direct contact. We think of them as enemies. We forget that they love as we love, care for their children as we care for ours, become sick and die as we do. We forget that they are our brothers and sisters and treat them as objects that can be destroyed at will.

Only when we have the courage to cross the street and look in one another's eyes can we see there that we are children of the same God and members of the same human family.

If we took this teaching on board, we would see the sacredness of all life and we would not see others as people who can be killed with impunity. I also read an article in the Independent today that is called "America's domestic policy vs America's foreign policy". It is about Bush's reference for the life that is a few cells in a petri dish and comparing that with his callousness about the casualties in Iraq and Lebanon. Here's an excerpt:

Parents dare not let their children wander the dangerous streets of Baghdad alone, but until a few days ago they could give them a treat by taking them to al-Jillawi's toyshop, the biggest and best in the city, its windows invitingly filled with Playstations, Barbie dolls and bicycles.

They go there no longer. Today the shop on 14 Ramadan Street in the once-affluent al-Mansur district is closed, with a black mourning flag draped across its front. The three sons and the teenage grandson of the owner, Mehdi al-Jillawi, were shutting down for the evening recently, bringing in bicycles and tricycles on display on the pavement in front of the shop. As they did so, two BMWs stopped close to them, and several gunmen got out armed with assault rifles. They opened fire at point-blank range, killing the young men.

Sectarian slaughter is not the only way to die in Iraq.

Yesterday US troops killed five people, including two women and a child, in the city of Baquba during a raid, claiming they had been shot at. At best it was a tragic error, at worst it spoke to the cavalier attitude of the US towards Iraqi civilian lives. Local police said that a man had fired from a rooftop at the Americans because he thought a hostile militia force was approaching.

While the eyes of the world are elsewhere, Baghdad is still dying and the daily toll is hitting record levels. While the plumes of fire and smoke over Lebanon have dominated headlines for 11 days, with Britain and the US opposing a UN call for an immediate ceasefire, another Bush-Blair foreign policy disaster is unfolding in Iraq.

Invoking the sanctity of human life, George Bush wielded the presidential veto for the first time in his presidency to halt US embryonic stem cell research in its tracks. He even paraded one-year-old Jack Jones, born from one of the frozen embryos that can now never be used for federally funded research, and talked of preventing the "taking of innocent human life". How hollow that sounds to Iraqis.

What would happen if we really worked to bridge the gap between people as Henri Nouwen says, to realize that we are all more alike than we're different, we would not be so cavalier about the violent deaths of others.

The world is waiting

This is good:

There are two great hungers in our world today, one for spiritual integrity and the other for social justice. And the connection between the two is the one the world is waiting for.

-- Jim Wallis

Friday cat blogging!

Sweet Iris

Photo by Sally Lloyd

Jon Stewart in good form

I do love the snark:

Since the bombing began, Israel has tried to make it clear Hezbollah and Syria are to blame for Lebanon's current nightmare. To that end, Israeli warplanes have dropped thousands of leaflets on Beirut over the last few days showing a caricature of Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah as a cobra threatening the Lebanese capital. And really, what a great idea, because if there's anything that calms the Arab world down, it's a cartoon.

--Jon Stewart

Civil War in Iraq

I want to call your attention to an article on the CNN website called "Sen. Reid: Iraq devolves into 'civil war'". Here are a couple of excerpts:

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Declaring that he believes the situation in Iraq has devolved into a civil war, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid said Thursday he plans to try to bring the war back up for debate on the Senate floor.

The Nevada Democrat said he has been "somewhat gingerly approaching this.... No longer. There is a civil war going on in Iraq. In the last two months, more than 6,000 Iraqis have been killed. That's averaging more than 100 a day being killed in Iraq and we need to make sure there is a debate on this."
...
Senate Democratic leaders call Iraq the top issue on voters' minds this election year and say they want to continue talking about it in Congress, especially since the situation appears to be deteriorating.

"The American people find it hard to believe that we can continue with our daily business here ignoring the obvious, which is the daily situation is getting worse," said Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin.

"It is more dangerous, we're still losing American lives and the Iraqis have not stepped up to defend their own country," the Illinois Democrat said. "That is a fact, and that will be a fact that people will remember in November."

Needless to say, the Republicans do not want to reopen the debate and are accusing the Democrats of advocating that we "cut and run". It's very wearying.

Meanwhile it seems that the populace at large realizes that civil war is a fact. A CNN Quick Vote poll asked this question:

Is the situation in Iraq a civil war?

The results were Yes - 75% and No - 25%.

Let's hear it for Leno

Bush is pathetically immature:

White House press secretary Tony Snow says that when President Bush was told he was recorded saying a four-letter word, he rolled his eyes and laughed it off, which is ironic. Bush is now reacting to himself the way everybody else does.

--Jay Leno

Biodiversity crisis

I'm sorry to keep bringing you such bad news environmentally speaking but I'm afraid that's the news we've got. Today I want to call your attention to an article in the Guardian entitled "Earth facing 'catastrophic' loss of species". Here's how it gets started:

The Earth is on the brink of "major biodiversity crisis" fuelled by the steady destruction of ecosystems, a group of the world's most distinguished scientists and policy experts warn today.

Nineteen leading specialists in the field of biodiversity, including Robert Watson, chief scientist at the World Bank, and Professor Georgina Mace, director of the Institute of Zoology, are calling for the urgent creation of a global body of scientists to offer advice and urge governments to halt what they call a potentially "catastrophic loss of species".

Destruction of natural habitats and the effects of climate change are causing species to die out at 100 to 1,000 times faster than the natural rate, leading some scientists to warn we are facing the next mass extinction.

Nearly one-quarter of the world's mammals, one-third of amphibians and more than one-tenth of bird species are threatened with extinction. Climate change alone is expected to force a further 15%- 37% of species to the brink of extinction within the next 50 years.

Writing in the journal Nature today, the experts from 13 nations urge for the new body, the international mechanism of scientific expertise on biodiversity (Imoseb), to be set up to force better biodiversity policies around the world.

"We are on the verge of a major biodiversity crisis. Virtually all aspects of diversity are in steep decline and a large number of populations and species are likely to become extinct this century. Despite this evidence, biodiversity is still consistently undervalued and given inadequate weight in both private and public decisions," the authors say.

We too are part of the ecosystem. We are seriously threatening our own ability to survive as a species.

Think about this.

Scary:

Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.

-- Voltaire

Economic impact of climate change

I want to call your attention to an article called "Scientists: Southeast Asia losing billions to climate change". Here's an excerpt:

Asian scientists today revealed studies which detail the region's economic losses as well as severe threats to human life and the environment due to climate change. Scientific publications authored by Dr Kansri Boonprakob (Thailand) and Dr Leoncio Amadore (Philippines) each confirm earlier predictions that developing countries in Asia, like Thailand and the Philippines, stand to suffer most from the catastrophic impacts of a warming planet unless mitigation and adaptation measures are taken with urgency.

In the new report "Crisis or Opportunity: Climate Change and Thailand", Dr Kansri said Thailand suffered more than Bt70 billion (around US$ 1.75 billion) in economic losses related to floods, storms and droughts in the period between 1989 and 2002. Majority of these losses came from the agricultural sector where crop yield losses amounted to more than Bt50 billion (around US$ 1.25 billion) during 1991 to 2000.

"Climate-related catastrophes will increase and intensify under climate change. This will cause reductions in agricultural production, and consequently retarded economic development and increasing social problems," wrote Dr Kansri, vice-chair of Working Group 1 of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Among the most serious environmental threats cited in her study is "irreversible changes among ecosystems along with the extinction of many species." Preliminary Thai studies on forest ecosystems under climate change show that about 32 national parks and wildlife sanctuaries, including the World Heritage Site of Thung Yai Naresuan, are now climate change hot spots.

In addition she warned that sea level rise "may cause the extinction of coastal species." Thailand's coasts are economically important for fisheries, commerce, recreation and tourism but further to sea-level rise, "more intense storm surges may damage commercial and recreational areas," she said in the report.

I really don't have much of a comment here except to say that it is important that we know what's happening and what is predicted to happen. We need a critical mass of people with awareness in order for there to be a demand that changes take place. Sadly, we don't seem to have that critical mass at this time --- and time is running out.

Our stupid, uncultured president

By now surely you know that a microphone picked up Bush's dinner conversation at the G8 Summit. I was truly embarrassed. And so was Cenk Uygur as he explains in an article entitled "The ugly truth: Our president is an imbecile":

The camera is focused elsewhere and it is not clear whom Bush is talking to, but possibly Chinese President Hu Jintao, a guest at the summit.

Bush: "Gotta go home. Got something to do tonight. Go to the airport, get on the airplane and go home. How about you? Where are you going? Home?"

Bush: "This is your neighborhood. It doesn't take you long to get home. How long does it take you to get home?"

Reply is inaudible.

Bush: "Eight hours? Me too. Russia's a big country and you're a big country."

At this point, the president seems to bring someone else into the conversation.

Bush: "It takes him eight hours to fly home."

He turns his attention to a server.

Bush: "No, Diet Coke, Diet Coke."

He turns back to whomever he was talking with.

Bush: "It takes him eight hours to fly home. Eight hours. Russia's big and so is China."

Russia's big and so is China??????? This guys sounds like a third grader. Do you know anyone who would have a conversation like this with their neighbor, let alone a business associate, let alone a world leader? Who's proud to know that Russia is big and so is China?

Can anyone now credibly claim that Bush is secretly working on a master plan behind the scenes and that he's just playing cowboy for the cameras? I hope the master plan doesn't involve figuring out how long it takes to get to China.

If someone is this ignorant, they're usually embarrassed and try not to talk much. But this guy is so dumb he has no idea how dumb he is. This sounds like a conversation you might have with a child, a mentally challenged child. Johnny, do you know how big Russia is? How about China?

This would all be unfortunate if George was your dentist, or worse yet, your accountant. But he is the leader of the free world. This man makes life or death decisions every day. If you say you're not scared about that, you're lying.

Would you let him do the books for your business? Would you trust your company in his hands for eight years? (No matter how Republican you are, you know you just said no to that question.) Would you trust him to be your kids' guidance counselor and take his advice seriously? If your kids were in the Army and he was their field commander, would you feel good about putting their lives in his hands?

Come on, no one is crazy enough to say yes to that. Yet, he has all of our lives in his hands. The emperor has no clothes. The emperor has no clothes. It's about time someone in the mainstream media said it.

For the life of me, I don't understand why some people think it's satisfying to have someone who's not very bright in the presidency. I want the president to be smarter than I am - to be as bright as they come. But a huge number of Americans don't seem to agree with me.

Training in nonviolence

We need training in nonviolence if we're to offer an alternative to war. Sadly, many people don't know that this exists. Try Googling "training in nonviolence" and see what you get. It's amazing the training opportunities that are out there.

This morning, I found the following (that, of course, gladdens my heart as a meditation teacher):

Gandhi talks about meditation being as important to the nonviolent soldier as drill practice is to the conventional soldier. Nonviolence doesn't just happen. You don't just suddenly walk into the middle of conflict and know what to do. I've discovered that the people who impress me with their nonviolent behavior in violent situations are inevitably people who have trained themselves and been involved in nonviolent strategies for a while. You can't do it in a weekend workshop...one must accept nonviolence as a form of fighting, and that's very hard for people to understand. However, compassion and joy can be as contagious as war fever.

-- Joan Baez

I'd like to recommend the article entitled Practicing Nonviolence by Joanne Sheehan as a beginning overview of what nonviolence training is all about.