I think Michael Kinsley nailed it with this one:
"In four years, this small man had two historic opportunities to reach for greatness, to lead this country to a new and better place, and he passed up both. The first was when the Democrats patriotically bowed to a Supreme Court decision they believed to be wrong, if not corrupt, so that the U.S. could avoid a further constitutional crisis. What a moment for bipartisanship! Maybe put more than a token Democrat in the Cabinet? Not a chance.
George W. Bush's second opportunity came on Sept. 11, 2001. Past grievances suddenly seemed petty, current disagreements seemed irrelevant, and, even among Bush's opponents, desperate hope replaced sullen doubts that our nation's leader would be up to the task. Bush got this gift from the opposition—the suspension of dislike and disbelief—without doing anything to deserve it. He could have asked for and got anything he wanted in the weeks and months after 9/11. And he decided to invade Iraq.
For once, George W. Bush was tested. And he flunked. "
http://www.time.com/time/covers/1101040906/nkinsley.html
It's been a dreadful performance, a train wreck of an administration, and nobody to blame but themselves. Oh, yes, and Clinton. Dubya hasn't forgotten his A-B-C's -- Always Blame Clinton.
Tuesday, September 07, 2004
Saturday, September 04, 2004
The Politics of Anything Goes - Obama is behind the curve
"Yet even as we speak, there are those who are preparing to divide us, the spin masters and negative ad peddlers who embrace the politics of anything goes. "
... Wake up, Barack. They've already divided us. Now they're giving us the wedgie.
... Wake up, Barack. They've already divided us. Now they're giving us the wedgie.
We're In Charge and We're Not Gonna Take It Anymore!
We've been in charge of Congress, the White House and the Supreme Court for 4 years and we're not gonna take it anymore!
The Bush speech sounds like he's running against himself...
"My plan begins with providing the security and opportunity of a growing economy. We now compete in a global market that provides new buyers for our goods, but new competition for our workers. To create more jobs in America, America must be the best place in the world to do business. To create jobs, my plan will encourage investment and expansion by restraining federal spending, reducing regulation, and making tax relief permanent. To create jobs, we will make our country less dependent on foreign sources of energy. [I love that bit!] To create jobs, we will expand trade and level the playing field to sell American goods and services across the globe. And we must protect small business owners and workers from the explosion of frivolous lawsuits that threaten jobs across America."
... what were these bozos doing for the last 4 years?
The Bush speech sounds like he's running against himself...
"My plan begins with providing the security and opportunity of a growing economy. We now compete in a global market that provides new buyers for our goods, but new competition for our workers. To create more jobs in America, America must be the best place in the world to do business. To create jobs, my plan will encourage investment and expansion by restraining federal spending, reducing regulation, and making tax relief permanent. To create jobs, we will make our country less dependent on foreign sources of energy. [I love that bit!] To create jobs, we will expand trade and level the playing field to sell American goods and services across the globe. And we must protect small business owners and workers from the explosion of frivolous lawsuits that threaten jobs across America."
... what were these bozos doing for the last 4 years?
Friday, September 03, 2004
See Paul Krugman's column at
www.nytimes.com/2004/09/03/opinion/03krugman.html?hp
"...a third [delegate] said, Mr. Soros "is a self-admitted atheist; he was a Jew who figured out a way to survive the Holocaust."
The suggestion that Mr. Soros, who has spent billions promoting democracy around the world, is in the pay of drug cartels came from Dennis Hastert, the speaker of the House, whom the Constitution puts two heartbeats from the presidency.
The claim that Mr. Soros's political spending is driven by his desire to legalize heroin came from Newt Gingrich. And the bit about the Holocaust came from Tony Blankley, editorial page editor of The [Moon-owned] Washington Times, which has become the administration's de facto house organ.
Why are the Republicans so angry? One reason is that they have nothing positive to run on (during the first three days, Mr. Bush was mentioned far less often than John Kerry).
The promised economic boom hasn't materialized, Iraq is a bloody quagmire, and Osama bin Laden has gone from "dead or alive" to he-who-must-not-be-named.
Another reason, I'm sure, is a guilty conscience. At some level the people at that convention know that their designated hero is a man who never in his life took a risk or made a sacrifice for his country, and that they are impugning the patriotism of men who have.
That's why Band-Aids with Purple Hearts on them, mocking Mr. Kerry's war wounds and medals, have been such a hit with conventioneers, and why senior politicians are attracted to wild conspiracy theories about Mr. Soros.
It's also why Mr. Hastert, who knows how little the Bush administration has done to protect New York and help it rebuild, has accused the city of an "unseemly scramble" for cash after 9/11. Nothing makes you hate people as much as knowing in your heart that you are in the wrong and they are in the right."
www.nytimes.com/2004/09/03/opinion/03krugman.html?hp
"...a third [delegate] said, Mr. Soros "is a self-admitted atheist; he was a Jew who figured out a way to survive the Holocaust."
The suggestion that Mr. Soros, who has spent billions promoting democracy around the world, is in the pay of drug cartels came from Dennis Hastert, the speaker of the House, whom the Constitution puts two heartbeats from the presidency.
The claim that Mr. Soros's political spending is driven by his desire to legalize heroin came from Newt Gingrich. And the bit about the Holocaust came from Tony Blankley, editorial page editor of The [Moon-owned] Washington Times, which has become the administration's de facto house organ.
Why are the Republicans so angry? One reason is that they have nothing positive to run on (during the first three days, Mr. Bush was mentioned far less often than John Kerry).
The promised economic boom hasn't materialized, Iraq is a bloody quagmire, and Osama bin Laden has gone from "dead or alive" to he-who-must-not-be-named.
Another reason, I'm sure, is a guilty conscience. At some level the people at that convention know that their designated hero is a man who never in his life took a risk or made a sacrifice for his country, and that they are impugning the patriotism of men who have.
That's why Band-Aids with Purple Hearts on them, mocking Mr. Kerry's war wounds and medals, have been such a hit with conventioneers, and why senior politicians are attracted to wild conspiracy theories about Mr. Soros.
It's also why Mr. Hastert, who knows how little the Bush administration has done to protect New York and help it rebuild, has accused the city of an "unseemly scramble" for cash after 9/11. Nothing makes you hate people as much as knowing in your heart that you are in the wrong and they are in the right."
Wednesday, September 01, 2004
Bush's ruinous economic plans
By Robert Kuttner | September 1, 2004
WE WILL shortly hear from the president himself, but the outlines of his domestic program for a second term are already all too clear. Take five key areas of economic policy -- health, Social Security, energy, taxes, and the deficit.
All five have this in common: In each case the administration program doesn't really address the underlying problem. Rather, the purpose is either to help an industry ally, stir up the party base, or advance an ideological goal (or all three).
Health Coverage. Health insurance premiums have risen by more than one-third since Bush took office, leaving more and more people uninsured or underinsured. Families USA calculates from Census Bureau data that one nonelderly American in three was without health insurance at some point from 2002 to 2003. Meanwhile, employers and insurers are moderating their own costs by increasing copays and deductibles paid by consumers.
The president's proposed health program, a massive expansion of so-called health savings accounts, doesn't address the twin problem of dwindling coverage and rising costs. It simply accelerates the shift of those costs onto consumers and gives affluent people one more tax break. Health savings accounts are useful mainly for the healthy and the wealthy because they don't buy coverage that is both comprehensive and affordable.
Social Security. The Bush plan to privatize Social Security, in whole or in part, is back. But there is no way that privatizing the system will shore up its finances. Rather, it will do just the opposite by diverting payroll tax revenue needed for Social Security payouts into new private accounts. To keep the promise of Social Security intact, Bush would need either massive new borrowing or massive tax hikes. But the more likely result is reductions in benefits. Of course, these cuts, like the damage from his deficits, would hit long after Bush left office.
Energy. There's a growing consensus among experts that the most recent wave of oil price hikes is not mainly the result of market manipulation, refining bottlenecks, or the Iraq occupation but the harbinger of the long-predicted depletion of the world's extractable oil reserves. With the huge populations of China, India, and other emergent economies joining the global consumer society, demand is simply outstripping supply.
Bush's program is essentially deeper and wider drilling, lubricated by friendly tax and environmental policies. His support for conservation or alternative energy sources is token at best. Last week three Bush Cabinet secretaries, just in time for the Republican National Convention, belatedly conceded that science has proven the reality of global climate change caused by carbon emissions. Bush said he was unaware of the report.
Taxes. The tax program for a second Bush term will be more of the same. One goal will be to make the tax cuts of 2001 to 2004 permanent. A new twist will be a shift to consumption taxes -- either a value-added tax, a national sales tax, or new tax breaks for money saved rather than spent. The result will be an overall reduction of taxes paid by those wealthy enough to save substantially and a shift onto workaday voters who spend most of what they earn. This will be advertised as a program to create jobs and reward entrepreneurship, but it sure didn't work in Bush's first term -- the only presidency since Hoover with fewer payroll jobs at the end than the beginning.
The deficit. Hardly anyone, Republican or Democrat, truly believes that the Bush tax-and-spending program will do anything other than make the deficit problem worse. The Congressional Budget Office, whose director is appointed by congressional Republicans, projects endless deficits in excess of $400 billion a year. If Bush succeeds in making recent tax cuts permanent and adding new ones, the deficits will be even more serious. With military outlay rising, the administration's only game plan is to backload the effect of tax cuts until after this president leaves office and cut domestic spending even further.
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2004/09/01/bushs_ruinous_economic_plans/
WE WILL shortly hear from the president himself, but the outlines of his domestic program for a second term are already all too clear. Take five key areas of economic policy -- health, Social Security, energy, taxes, and the deficit.
All five have this in common: In each case the administration program doesn't really address the underlying problem. Rather, the purpose is either to help an industry ally, stir up the party base, or advance an ideological goal (or all three).
Health Coverage. Health insurance premiums have risen by more than one-third since Bush took office, leaving more and more people uninsured or underinsured. Families USA calculates from Census Bureau data that one nonelderly American in three was without health insurance at some point from 2002 to 2003. Meanwhile, employers and insurers are moderating their own costs by increasing copays and deductibles paid by consumers.
The president's proposed health program, a massive expansion of so-called health savings accounts, doesn't address the twin problem of dwindling coverage and rising costs. It simply accelerates the shift of those costs onto consumers and gives affluent people one more tax break. Health savings accounts are useful mainly for the healthy and the wealthy because they don't buy coverage that is both comprehensive and affordable.
Social Security. The Bush plan to privatize Social Security, in whole or in part, is back. But there is no way that privatizing the system will shore up its finances. Rather, it will do just the opposite by diverting payroll tax revenue needed for Social Security payouts into new private accounts. To keep the promise of Social Security intact, Bush would need either massive new borrowing or massive tax hikes. But the more likely result is reductions in benefits. Of course, these cuts, like the damage from his deficits, would hit long after Bush left office.
Energy. There's a growing consensus among experts that the most recent wave of oil price hikes is not mainly the result of market manipulation, refining bottlenecks, or the Iraq occupation but the harbinger of the long-predicted depletion of the world's extractable oil reserves. With the huge populations of China, India, and other emergent economies joining the global consumer society, demand is simply outstripping supply.
Bush's program is essentially deeper and wider drilling, lubricated by friendly tax and environmental policies. His support for conservation or alternative energy sources is token at best. Last week three Bush Cabinet secretaries, just in time for the Republican National Convention, belatedly conceded that science has proven the reality of global climate change caused by carbon emissions. Bush said he was unaware of the report.
Taxes. The tax program for a second Bush term will be more of the same. One goal will be to make the tax cuts of 2001 to 2004 permanent. A new twist will be a shift to consumption taxes -- either a value-added tax, a national sales tax, or new tax breaks for money saved rather than spent. The result will be an overall reduction of taxes paid by those wealthy enough to save substantially and a shift onto workaday voters who spend most of what they earn. This will be advertised as a program to create jobs and reward entrepreneurship, but it sure didn't work in Bush's first term -- the only presidency since Hoover with fewer payroll jobs at the end than the beginning.
The deficit. Hardly anyone, Republican or Democrat, truly believes that the Bush tax-and-spending program will do anything other than make the deficit problem worse. The Congressional Budget Office, whose director is appointed by congressional Republicans, projects endless deficits in excess of $400 billion a year. If Bush succeeds in making recent tax cuts permanent and adding new ones, the deficits will be even more serious. With military outlay rising, the administration's only game plan is to backload the effect of tax cuts until after this president leaves office and cut domestic spending even further.
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2004/09/01/bushs_ruinous_economic_plans/
Monday, August 30, 2004
We’re Not in Lake Wobegon Anymore
Garrison Keillor is apparently in denial about the government we deserve...
"We’re Not in Lake Wobegon Anymore [no shit, Toto.]
"How did the Party of Lincoln and Liberty transmogrify into the party of Newt Gingrich’s evil spawn and their Etch-A-Sketch president, a dull and rigid man, whose philosophy is a jumble of badly sutured body parts trying to walk?
Something has gone seriously haywire with the Republican Party. Once, it was the party of pragmatic Main Street businessmen in steel-rimmed spectacles who decried profligacy and waste, were devoted to their communities and supported the sort of prosperity that raises all ships. They were good-hearted people who vanquished the gnarlier elements of their party, the paranoid Roosevelt-haters, the flat Earthers and Prohibitionists, the antipapist antiforeigner element. The genial Eisenhower was their man, a genuine American hero of D-Day, who made it OK for reasonable people to vote Republican. He brought the Korean War to a stalemate, produced the Interstate Highway System, declined to rescue the French colonial army in Vietnam, and gave us a period of peace and prosperity, in which (oddly) American arts and letters flourished and higher education burgeoned—and there was a degree of plain decency in the country. Fifties Republicans were giants compared to today’s. Richard Nixon was the last Republican leader to feel a Christian obligation toward the poor.
In the years between Nixon and Newt Gingrich, the party migrated southward down the Twisting Trail of Rhetoric and sneered at the idea of public service and became the Scourge of Liberalism, the Great Crusade Against the Sixties, the Death Star of Government, a gang of pirates that diverted and fascinated the media by their sheer chutzpah, such as the misty-eyed flag-waving of Ronald Reagan who, while George McGovern flew bombers in World War II, took a pass and made training films in Long Beach. The Nixon moderate vanished like the passenger pigeon, purged by a legion of angry white men who rose to power on pure punk politics. “Bipartisanship is another term of date rape,” says Grover Norquist, the Sid Vicious of the GOP. “I don’t want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub.” The boy has Oedipal problems and government is his daddy.
The party of Lincoln and Liberty was transmogrified into the party of hairy-backed swamp developers and corporate shills, faith-based economists, fundamentalist bullies with Bibles, Christians of convenience, freelance racists, misanthropic frat boys, shrieking midgets of AM radio, tax cheats, nihilists in golf pants, brownshirts in pinstripes, sweatshop tycoons, hacks, fakirs, aggressive dorks, Lamborghini libertarians, people who believe Neil Armstrong’s moonwalk was filmed in Roswell, New Mexico, little honkers out to diminish the rest of us, Newt’s evil spawn and their Etch-A-Sketch president, a dull and rigid man suspicious of the free flow of information and of secular institutions, whose philosophy is a jumble of badly sutured body parts trying to walk. Republicans: The No.1 reason the rest of the world thinks we’re deaf, dumb and dangerous.
Rich ironies abound! Lies pop up like toadstools in the forest! Wild swine crowd round the public trough! Outrageous gerrymandering! Pocket lining on a massive scale! Paid lobbyists sit in committee rooms and write legislation to alleviate the suffering of billionaires! Hypocrisies shine like cat turds in the moonlight! O Mark Twain, where art thou at this hour? Arise and behold the Gilded Age reincarnated gaudier than ever, upholding great wealth as the sure sign of Divine Grace.
Here in 2004, George W. Bush is running for reelection on a platform of tragedy—the single greatest failure of national defense in our history, the attacks of 9/11 in which 19 men with box cutters put this nation into a tailspin, a failure the details of which the White House fought to keep secret even as it ran the country into hock up to the hubcaps, thanks to generous tax cuts for the well-fixed, hoping to lead us into a box canyon of debt that will render government impotent, even as we engage in a war against a small country that was undertaken for the president’s personal satisfaction but sold to the American public on the basis of brazen misinformation, a war whose purpose is to distract us from an enormous transfer of wealth taking place in this country, flowing upward, and the deception is working beautifully.
The concentration of wealth and power in the hands of the few is the death knell of democracy. No republic in the history of humanity has survived this. The election of 2004 will say something about what happens to ours. The omens are not good.
Our beloved land has been fogged with fear—fear, the greatest political strategy ever. An ominous silence, distant sirens, a drumbeat of whispered warnings and alarms to keep the public uneasy and silence the opposition. And in a time of vague fear, you can appoint bullet-brained judges, strip the bark off the Constitution, eviscerate federal regulatory agencies, bring public education to a standstill, stupefy the press, lavish gorgeous tax breaks on the rich.
There is a stink drifting through this election year. It isn’t the Florida recount or the Supreme Court decision. No, it’s 9/11 that we keep coming back to. It wasn’t the “end of innocence,” or a turning point in our history, or a cosmic occurrence, it was an event, a lapse of security. And patriotism shouldn’t prevent people from asking hard questions of the man who was purportedly in charge of national security at the time.
Whenever I think of those New Yorkers hurrying along Park Place or getting off the No.1 Broadway local, hustling toward their office on the 90th floor, the morning paper under their arms, I think of that non-reader George W. Bush and how he hopes to exploit those people with a little economic uptick, maybe the capture of Osama, cruise to victory in November and proceed to get some serious nation-changing done in his second term.
This year, as in the past, Republicans will portray us Democrats as embittered academics, desiccated Unitarians, whacked-out hippies and communards, people who talk to telephone poles, the party of the Deadheads. They will wave enormous flags and wow over and over the footage of firemen in the wreckage of the World Trade Center and bodies being carried out and they will lie about their economic policies with astonishing enthusiasm.
The Union is what needs defending this year. Government of Enron and by Halliburton and for the Southern Baptists is not the same as what Lincoln spoke of. This gang of Pithecanthropus Republicanii has humbugged us to death on terrorism and tax cuts for the comfy and school prayer and flag burning and claimed the right to know what books we read and to dump their sewage upstream from the town and clear-cut the forests and gut the IRS and mark up the constitution on behalf of intolerance and promote the corporate takeover of the public airwaves and to hell with anybody who opposes them.
This is a great country, and it wasn’t made so by angry people. We have a sacred duty to bequeath it to our grandchildren in better shape than however we found it. We have a long way to go and we’re not getting any younger.
Dante said that the hottest place in Hell is reserved for those who in time of crisis remain neutral, so I have spoken my piece, and thank you, dear reader. It’s a beautiful world, rain or shine, and there is more to life than winning."
http://www.inthesetimes.com/site/main/article/979
"We’re Not in Lake Wobegon Anymore [no shit, Toto.]
"How did the Party of Lincoln and Liberty transmogrify into the party of Newt Gingrich’s evil spawn and their Etch-A-Sketch president, a dull and rigid man, whose philosophy is a jumble of badly sutured body parts trying to walk?
Something has gone seriously haywire with the Republican Party. Once, it was the party of pragmatic Main Street businessmen in steel-rimmed spectacles who decried profligacy and waste, were devoted to their communities and supported the sort of prosperity that raises all ships. They were good-hearted people who vanquished the gnarlier elements of their party, the paranoid Roosevelt-haters, the flat Earthers and Prohibitionists, the antipapist antiforeigner element. The genial Eisenhower was their man, a genuine American hero of D-Day, who made it OK for reasonable people to vote Republican. He brought the Korean War to a stalemate, produced the Interstate Highway System, declined to rescue the French colonial army in Vietnam, and gave us a period of peace and prosperity, in which (oddly) American arts and letters flourished and higher education burgeoned—and there was a degree of plain decency in the country. Fifties Republicans were giants compared to today’s. Richard Nixon was the last Republican leader to feel a Christian obligation toward the poor.
In the years between Nixon and Newt Gingrich, the party migrated southward down the Twisting Trail of Rhetoric and sneered at the idea of public service and became the Scourge of Liberalism, the Great Crusade Against the Sixties, the Death Star of Government, a gang of pirates that diverted and fascinated the media by their sheer chutzpah, such as the misty-eyed flag-waving of Ronald Reagan who, while George McGovern flew bombers in World War II, took a pass and made training films in Long Beach. The Nixon moderate vanished like the passenger pigeon, purged by a legion of angry white men who rose to power on pure punk politics. “Bipartisanship is another term of date rape,” says Grover Norquist, the Sid Vicious of the GOP. “I don’t want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub.” The boy has Oedipal problems and government is his daddy.
The party of Lincoln and Liberty was transmogrified into the party of hairy-backed swamp developers and corporate shills, faith-based economists, fundamentalist bullies with Bibles, Christians of convenience, freelance racists, misanthropic frat boys, shrieking midgets of AM radio, tax cheats, nihilists in golf pants, brownshirts in pinstripes, sweatshop tycoons, hacks, fakirs, aggressive dorks, Lamborghini libertarians, people who believe Neil Armstrong’s moonwalk was filmed in Roswell, New Mexico, little honkers out to diminish the rest of us, Newt’s evil spawn and their Etch-A-Sketch president, a dull and rigid man suspicious of the free flow of information and of secular institutions, whose philosophy is a jumble of badly sutured body parts trying to walk. Republicans: The No.1 reason the rest of the world thinks we’re deaf, dumb and dangerous.
Rich ironies abound! Lies pop up like toadstools in the forest! Wild swine crowd round the public trough! Outrageous gerrymandering! Pocket lining on a massive scale! Paid lobbyists sit in committee rooms and write legislation to alleviate the suffering of billionaires! Hypocrisies shine like cat turds in the moonlight! O Mark Twain, where art thou at this hour? Arise and behold the Gilded Age reincarnated gaudier than ever, upholding great wealth as the sure sign of Divine Grace.
Here in 2004, George W. Bush is running for reelection on a platform of tragedy—the single greatest failure of national defense in our history, the attacks of 9/11 in which 19 men with box cutters put this nation into a tailspin, a failure the details of which the White House fought to keep secret even as it ran the country into hock up to the hubcaps, thanks to generous tax cuts for the well-fixed, hoping to lead us into a box canyon of debt that will render government impotent, even as we engage in a war against a small country that was undertaken for the president’s personal satisfaction but sold to the American public on the basis of brazen misinformation, a war whose purpose is to distract us from an enormous transfer of wealth taking place in this country, flowing upward, and the deception is working beautifully.
The concentration of wealth and power in the hands of the few is the death knell of democracy. No republic in the history of humanity has survived this. The election of 2004 will say something about what happens to ours. The omens are not good.
Our beloved land has been fogged with fear—fear, the greatest political strategy ever. An ominous silence, distant sirens, a drumbeat of whispered warnings and alarms to keep the public uneasy and silence the opposition. And in a time of vague fear, you can appoint bullet-brained judges, strip the bark off the Constitution, eviscerate federal regulatory agencies, bring public education to a standstill, stupefy the press, lavish gorgeous tax breaks on the rich.
There is a stink drifting through this election year. It isn’t the Florida recount or the Supreme Court decision. No, it’s 9/11 that we keep coming back to. It wasn’t the “end of innocence,” or a turning point in our history, or a cosmic occurrence, it was an event, a lapse of security. And patriotism shouldn’t prevent people from asking hard questions of the man who was purportedly in charge of national security at the time.
Whenever I think of those New Yorkers hurrying along Park Place or getting off the No.1 Broadway local, hustling toward their office on the 90th floor, the morning paper under their arms, I think of that non-reader George W. Bush and how he hopes to exploit those people with a little economic uptick, maybe the capture of Osama, cruise to victory in November and proceed to get some serious nation-changing done in his second term.
This year, as in the past, Republicans will portray us Democrats as embittered academics, desiccated Unitarians, whacked-out hippies and communards, people who talk to telephone poles, the party of the Deadheads. They will wave enormous flags and wow over and over the footage of firemen in the wreckage of the World Trade Center and bodies being carried out and they will lie about their economic policies with astonishing enthusiasm.
The Union is what needs defending this year. Government of Enron and by Halliburton and for the Southern Baptists is not the same as what Lincoln spoke of. This gang of Pithecanthropus Republicanii has humbugged us to death on terrorism and tax cuts for the comfy and school prayer and flag burning and claimed the right to know what books we read and to dump their sewage upstream from the town and clear-cut the forests and gut the IRS and mark up the constitution on behalf of intolerance and promote the corporate takeover of the public airwaves and to hell with anybody who opposes them.
This is a great country, and it wasn’t made so by angry people. We have a sacred duty to bequeath it to our grandchildren in better shape than however we found it. We have a long way to go and we’re not getting any younger.
Dante said that the hottest place in Hell is reserved for those who in time of crisis remain neutral, so I have spoken my piece, and thank you, dear reader. It’s a beautiful world, rain or shine, and there is more to life than winning."
http://www.inthesetimes.com/site/main/article/979
Saturday, August 28, 2004
The Nov 3 Post Mortem: "Kerry KO'd by self inflicted wound "
Mark my words -- Kerry was always just another self-destructing Massachussetts liberal.
'...--- as far as his vote to authorize Bush to go to war in Iraq--he said that he would vote the same way even with what he knew now --what he knows now is that Bush fabricated the intelligence for the war and deceived the American people --he had a perfect moment and reason to change his mind-he did not--this ME TOOISM on the war will probably cost him the election'
www.sftt.org/cgi-bin/csNews/csNews.cgi?database=Art%20Of%20War.db&command=viewone&op=t&id=47&rnd=164.0691503606646 "
... Nice try, guys. You'll get 'em next time.
I'm so sure.
'...--- as far as his vote to authorize Bush to go to war in Iraq--he said that he would vote the same way even with what he knew now --what he knows now is that Bush fabricated the intelligence for the war and deceived the American people --he had a perfect moment and reason to change his mind-he did not--this ME TOOISM on the war will probably cost him the election'
www.sftt.org/cgi-bin/csNews/csNews.cgi?database=Art%20Of%20War.db&command=viewone&op=t&id=47&rnd=164.0691503606646 "
... Nice try, guys. You'll get 'em next time.
I'm so sure.
Wednesday, August 25, 2004
How to Start a Bush War
Step 1: Establish a propaganda office cut-out in the middle of the intelligence community...
The Office of Special Plans
"According to former Bush officials, all defence and intelligence sources, senior administration figures created a shadow agency of Pentagon analysts staffed mainly by ideological amateurs to compete with the CIA and its military counterpart, the Defense Intelligence Agency.
The ideologically driven network functioned like a shadow government, much of it off the official payroll and beyond congressional oversight. But it proved powerful enough to prevail in a struggle with the State Department and the CIA by establishing a justification for war.
... The president's most trusted adviser, Mr Cheney, was at the shadow network's sharp end. He made several trips to the CIA in Langley, Virginia, to demand a more "forward-leaning" interpretation of the threat posed by Saddam. When he was not there to make his influence felt, his chief of staff, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, was. Such hands-on involvement in the processing of intelligence data was unprecedented for a vice-president in recent times, and it put pressure on CIA officials to come up with the appropriate results.
Another frequent visitor was Newt Gingrich, the former Republican party leader who resurfaced after September 11 as a Pentagon "consultant" and a member of its unpaid defence advisory board, with influence far beyond his official title.
www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,999737,00.html
... How's that working for ya?
The Office of Special Plans
"According to former Bush officials, all defence and intelligence sources, senior administration figures created a shadow agency of Pentagon analysts staffed mainly by ideological amateurs to compete with the CIA and its military counterpart, the Defense Intelligence Agency.
The ideologically driven network functioned like a shadow government, much of it off the official payroll and beyond congressional oversight. But it proved powerful enough to prevail in a struggle with the State Department and the CIA by establishing a justification for war.
... The president's most trusted adviser, Mr Cheney, was at the shadow network's sharp end. He made several trips to the CIA in Langley, Virginia, to demand a more "forward-leaning" interpretation of the threat posed by Saddam. When he was not there to make his influence felt, his chief of staff, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, was. Such hands-on involvement in the processing of intelligence data was unprecedented for a vice-president in recent times, and it put pressure on CIA officials to come up with the appropriate results.
Another frequent visitor was Newt Gingrich, the former Republican party leader who resurfaced after September 11 as a Pentagon "consultant" and a member of its unpaid defence advisory board, with influence far beyond his official title.
www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,999737,00.html
... How's that working for ya?
Thursday, August 19, 2004
Why isnt the OSP in Kerry's ads?
The OSP was right at the heart of the rot that permeates this administration
rightweb.irc-online.org/analysis/2004/0402osp.php
"In the days after September 11 terrorist attacks, Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith started cooking intelligence to meet the needs of the radically new foreign and military policy that included regime change in Iraq as its top priority.
One might have thought that the priority for a special intelligence would have been to determine the whereabouts of the terrorist network that had just attacked the homeland. But Deputy Defense Secretary Wolfowitz and Undersecretary of Defense Feith, working closely with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Vice President Richard Cheney, had other intelligence priorities.
To bolster the Iraq war party, they needed intelligence that would persuade the U.S. public and policymakers that Saddam Hussein's regime should be one of the first targets of the war on terrorism. Convinced that the CIA, Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), and the State Department would not provide them with type of alarmist threat assessments necessary to justify a preventive war, they created their own tightly controlled intelligence operation at the top levels of the Pentagon bureaucracy.
The day after the September 11 attacks Wolfowitz authorized the creation of an informal team focused on ferreting out damaging intelligence about Iraq . This loosely organized team soon became the Office of Special Plans (OSP) ... The objective of this closet intelligence team, according to Rumsfeld, was to “search for information on Iraq's hostile intentions or links to terrorists.” OSP's mission was to create intelligence that the Pentagon and vice president could use to press their case for an Iraq invasion with the president and Congress. The OSP ... played a key role in providing Rumsfeld, Cheney, and the president himself with the intelligence frequently cited to justify the March 2003 invasion. "
rightweb.irc-online.org/analysis/2004/0402osp.php
"In the days after September 11 terrorist attacks, Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith started cooking intelligence to meet the needs of the radically new foreign and military policy that included regime change in Iraq as its top priority.
One might have thought that the priority for a special intelligence would have been to determine the whereabouts of the terrorist network that had just attacked the homeland. But Deputy Defense Secretary Wolfowitz and Undersecretary of Defense Feith, working closely with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Vice President Richard Cheney, had other intelligence priorities.
To bolster the Iraq war party, they needed intelligence that would persuade the U.S. public and policymakers that Saddam Hussein's regime should be one of the first targets of the war on terrorism. Convinced that the CIA, Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), and the State Department would not provide them with type of alarmist threat assessments necessary to justify a preventive war, they created their own tightly controlled intelligence operation at the top levels of the Pentagon bureaucracy.
The day after the September 11 attacks Wolfowitz authorized the creation of an informal team focused on ferreting out damaging intelligence about Iraq . This loosely organized team soon became the Office of Special Plans (OSP) ... The objective of this closet intelligence team, according to Rumsfeld, was to “search for information on Iraq's hostile intentions or links to terrorists.” OSP's mission was to create intelligence that the Pentagon and vice president could use to press their case for an Iraq invasion with the president and Congress. The OSP ... played a key role in providing Rumsfeld, Cheney, and the president himself with the intelligence frequently cited to justify the March 2003 invasion. "
Wednesday, August 18, 2004
A Short Walk Down Memory Lane
Remember the "remarkable escape of al-Qaeda forces from Kabul " or the "Northern Alliance fighters held back at the request of the US from sweeping into Kandahar... the conquest of Kandahar takes weeks without the Northern Alliance and bin Laden slips away" or when the "Of the 8,000 remaining al-Qaeda, Pakistani and Taliban, about 5,000 are airlifted out " of Konduz?
And how about when "many locals in Afghanistan witness a remarkable escape of al-Qaeda forces from Kabul around this time. One local businessman says: "We don't understand how they weren't all killed the night before because they came in a convoy of at least 1,000 cars and trucks. It was a very dark night, but it must have been easy for the American pilots to see the headlights. The main road was jammed from eight in the evening until three in the morning."
http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/timeline/main/escapeafghanistan.html
... by golly, those WERE the good old days, eh?
And how about when "many locals in Afghanistan witness a remarkable escape of al-Qaeda forces from Kabul around this time. One local businessman says: "We don't understand how they weren't all killed the night before because they came in a convoy of at least 1,000 cars and trucks. It was a very dark night, but it must have been easy for the American pilots to see the headlights. The main road was jammed from eight in the evening until three in the morning."
http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/timeline/main/escapeafghanistan.html
... by golly, those WERE the good old days, eh?
Republican Congressman: Bush's war a costly mess
LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) -- A top Republican congressman has broken from his party in the final days of his House career, saying he believes the U.S. military assault on Iraq was unjustified and the situation there has deteriorated into ``a dangerous, costly mess.'
``I've reached the conclusion, retrospectively, now that the inadequate intelligence and faulty conclusions are being revealed, that all things being considered, it was a mistake to launch that military action,' Rep. Doug Bereuter wrote in a letter to his constituents.
``Left unresolved for now is whether intelligence was intentionally misconstrued to justify military action,' he said.
Bereuter is a senior member of the House International Relations Committee and vice chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. He is stepping down after 13 terms to become the president of the Asia Foundation effective Sept. 1.
``From the beginning of the conflict, it was doubtful that we for long would be seen as liberators, but instead increasingly as an occupying force,' he said. ``Now we are immersed in a dangerous, costly mess, and there is no easy and quick way to end our responsibilities in Iraq without creating bigger future problems in the region and, in general, in the Muslim world.'
Bereuter said as a result of the war, ``our country's reputation around the world has never been lower and our alliances are weakened.'
``I've reached the conclusion, retrospectively, now that the inadequate intelligence and faulty conclusions are being revealed, that all things being considered, it was a mistake to launch that military action,' Rep. Doug Bereuter wrote in a letter to his constituents.
``Left unresolved for now is whether intelligence was intentionally misconstrued to justify military action,' he said.
Bereuter is a senior member of the House International Relations Committee and vice chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. He is stepping down after 13 terms to become the president of the Asia Foundation effective Sept. 1.
``From the beginning of the conflict, it was doubtful that we for long would be seen as liberators, but instead increasingly as an occupying force,' he said. ``Now we are immersed in a dangerous, costly mess, and there is no easy and quick way to end our responsibilities in Iraq without creating bigger future problems in the region and, in general, in the Muslim world.'
Bereuter said as a result of the war, ``our country's reputation around the world has never been lower and our alliances are weakened.'
Saturday, August 14, 2004
All long-leading regional indexes have turned down
It’s tempting to look at certain improving fundamental yardsticks and say that stocks are probably cheap enough to spur buying. After all, interest rates are still pretty low, and companies generally are getting more productivity out of fewer workers -- making them stronger financially. Economists at ISI Group estimate that the S&P 500 stocks on average are selling for 15 times next year’s earnings, which is fairly reasonable. And corporate cash hoards are near record highs.
But all of these metrics are “coincidental,” in the parlance of economists -- meaning that they tell you something about what’s happening now, but not much about the future. To peer beyond the horizon, you need non-linear measurements that bend around the corner and don’t just extrapolate the present forward. That’s where the work of Lakshman Achuthan at the Economic Cycle Research Institute comes in handy. As I’ve reported all year, his weekly leading index -- which compacts a variety of predictive economic indicators into a single number... has continued to point down in an increasingly persistent, profound and pervasive way despite rosy reports out of Washington. Achuthan’s analysis suggests that U.S. economic growth is distinctly slowing from the above-average pace of last year.
Late last week, he reported that although all of his global coincident economic-activity indexes remain in cyclical up-trends, all long-leading regional indexes have turned down.
http://moneycentral.msn.com/content/p89220.asp
But all of these metrics are “coincidental,” in the parlance of economists -- meaning that they tell you something about what’s happening now, but not much about the future. To peer beyond the horizon, you need non-linear measurements that bend around the corner and don’t just extrapolate the present forward. That’s where the work of Lakshman Achuthan at the Economic Cycle Research Institute comes in handy. As I’ve reported all year, his weekly leading index -- which compacts a variety of predictive economic indicators into a single number... has continued to point down in an increasingly persistent, profound and pervasive way despite rosy reports out of Washington. Achuthan’s analysis suggests that U.S. economic growth is distinctly slowing from the above-average pace of last year.
Late last week, he reported that although all of his global coincident economic-activity indexes remain in cyclical up-trends, all long-leading regional indexes have turned down.
http://moneycentral.msn.com/content/p89220.asp
Thursday, August 12, 2004
Khan was burned by Pak, not Bush admin
if you believe this ...
http://www.slate.com/Default.aspx?id=2104926&
"Take a closer look at the sourcing in the original New York Times piece disclosing Khan's name, which was written by Douglas Jehl and David Rohde. They cite a "senior United States official" for details on the documentary evidence found after the capture of a suspect, but this "United States official" is pointedly not cited as having given the name of the suspect. Instead, a few paragraphs further down, the Times reporters tell us:
http://www.slate.com/Default.aspx?id=2104926&
"Take a closer look at the sourcing in the original New York Times piece disclosing Khan's name, which was written by Douglas Jehl and David Rohde. They cite a "senior United States official" for details on the documentary evidence found after the capture of a suspect, but this "United States official" is pointedly not cited as having given the name of the suspect. Instead, a few paragraphs further down, the Times reporters tell us:
The American officials would say only that the Qaeda figure whose capture had led to the discovery of the documentary evidence had been captured with the help of the C.I.A. Though Pakistan announced the arrest last week of a Qaeda member, Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, a Tanzanian wanted in connection with the bombings of American embassies in East Africa in 1998, the American officials suggested that he had not been the source of the new threat information.
An account provided by a Pakistani intelligence official made clear that the crucial capture in recent weeks had been that of Mr. Khan, who is also known as Abu Talha. The intelligence official provided information describing Mr. Khan as having assisted in evaluating potential American and Western targets for terrorist attacks, and as being representative of a ''new Al Qaeda.''
Bushisms
"I'm the commander - see, I don't need to explain-I do not need to explain why I say things. That's the interesting thing about being the President. Maybe somebody needs to explain to me why they say something, but I don't feel like I owe anybody an explanation."
- G.W. Bush
"Our enemies are innovative and resourceful and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we"
- President Bush, delievering a speech at the signing ceromony for a $417 billion defense spending bill, Aug 04
But his defenders say actions speak louder than words, right? In 1990 George W. Bush sells two-thirds of his Harken Energy stock at the top of the market for $850,000, a 200% profit, but makes no report to the SEC until March 1991. Bush Jr. says later the SEC misplaced the report. An SEC representative responds: "nobody ever found the 'lost' filing." One week after Bush's sale, Harken reports an earnings plunge. Harken stock falls more than 60%.
... How is this guy still polling in double digits?
Wednesday, August 11, 2004
Jobs numbers are bad unless you twirl 'em pretty hard
When Friday's dismal job report was released, traders in the Chicago pit began chanting, "Kerry, Kerry." But apologists for President Bush's economic policies are frantically spinning the bad news. Here's a guide to their techniques.
First, they talk about recent increases in the number of jobs, not the fact that payroll employment is still far below its previous peak, and even further below anything one could call full employment. Because job growth has finally turned positive, some economists (who probably know better) claim that prosperity has returned - and some partisans have even claimed that we have the best economy in 20 years.
But job growth, by itself, says nothing about prosperity: growth can be higher in a bad year than a good year, if the bad year follows a terrible year while the good year follows another good year. I've drawn a chart of job growth for the 1930's; there was rapid nonfarm job growth (8.1 percent) in 1934, a year of mass unemployment and widespread misery - but that year was slightly less terrible than 1933.
So have we returned to prosperity? No: jobs are harder to find, by any measure, than they were at any point during Bill Clinton's second term. The job situation might have improved somewhat in the past year, but it's still not good.
Second, the apologists give numbers without context. President Bush boasts about 1.5 million new jobs over the past 11 months. Yet this was barely enough to keep up with population growth, and it's worse than any 11-month stretch during the Clinton years.
Third, they cherry-pick any good numbers they can find.
The shocking news that the economy added only 32,000 jobs in July comes from payroll data. Experts say what Alan Greenspan said in February: "Everything we've looked at suggests that it's the payroll data which are the series which you have to follow." Another measure of employment, from the household survey, fluctuates erratically; for example, it fell by 265,000 in February, a result nobody believes. Yet because July's household number was good, suddenly administration officials were telling reporters to look at that number, not the more reliable payroll data.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/10/opinion/10krugman.html?n=Top%2fOpinion%2fEditorials%20and%20Op%2dEd%2fOp%2dEd%2fColumnists
... Paulie, you forgot the best part -- remember all their job creation predictions? Every single one ridiculously overoptimistic and flattened under the wheels of cruel reality like yesterday's roadkill.
First, they talk about recent increases in the number of jobs, not the fact that payroll employment is still far below its previous peak, and even further below anything one could call full employment. Because job growth has finally turned positive, some economists (who probably know better) claim that prosperity has returned - and some partisans have even claimed that we have the best economy in 20 years.
But job growth, by itself, says nothing about prosperity: growth can be higher in a bad year than a good year, if the bad year follows a terrible year while the good year follows another good year. I've drawn a chart of job growth for the 1930's; there was rapid nonfarm job growth (8.1 percent) in 1934, a year of mass unemployment and widespread misery - but that year was slightly less terrible than 1933.
So have we returned to prosperity? No: jobs are harder to find, by any measure, than they were at any point during Bill Clinton's second term. The job situation might have improved somewhat in the past year, but it's still not good.
Second, the apologists give numbers without context. President Bush boasts about 1.5 million new jobs over the past 11 months. Yet this was barely enough to keep up with population growth, and it's worse than any 11-month stretch during the Clinton years.
Third, they cherry-pick any good numbers they can find.
The shocking news that the economy added only 32,000 jobs in July comes from payroll data. Experts say what Alan Greenspan said in February: "Everything we've looked at suggests that it's the payroll data which are the series which you have to follow." Another measure of employment, from the household survey, fluctuates erratically; for example, it fell by 265,000 in February, a result nobody believes. Yet because July's household number was good, suddenly administration officials were telling reporters to look at that number, not the more reliable payroll data.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/10/opinion/10krugman.html?n=Top%2fOpinion%2fEditorials%20and%20Op%2dEd%2fOp%2dEd%2fColumnists
... Paulie, you forgot the best part -- remember all their job creation predictions? Every single one ridiculously overoptimistic and flattened under the wheels of cruel reality like yesterday's roadkill.
Tuesday, August 10, 2004
Our Long National Nightmare Was Over (That Was Then, This Is Now Dept)
It had been an especially bruising few months for Richard Nixon. In the 2-year war that became known as "Watergate," Nixon had lost the final real battle just weeks earlier.
In an 8-to-0 decision, the Supreme Court ordered Nixon to relinquish Oval Office tapes he'd made in hopes of preserving history. No one could know those very tapes would doom his presidency.
Nixon's grip on power and the faith of those he served had weakened steadily over the prior year, then precipitously in those final weeks...
Think how different history would have been if this Magnificent Nine had been on the bench in '74. Can anybody think SCOTUS of today would vote 8-0 to force a president to turn over the tapes? (Yes, I meant "a Republican president." Sorry.) Even 5-4 is a long shot. And Bush will probably get 3 more Scalia clones appointed to the bench in his next term. Speak the unspeakable: "Chief Justice Clarence Thomas."
And be afraid. Be very afraid.
If you intentionally blow a mole's cover
to score political points, does that qualify as "high crimes and misdemeanors" or just a Class 1 felony?
This is flat out inexcusable...
"As part of the ramping up of its Orange Alert, the administration announced that an al-Qaeda computer expert and techno-whiz had just been arrested with terrifying material on his computer, and then, when the New York Times learned his name, evidently confirmed it to the paper. The catch was, as Reuters recently revealed, when Mohammad Naeem Noor Khan was arrested, he agreed to turn double agent – and so became that rarest of all creatures, a potential mole inside al-Qaeda. Soon thereafter, his cover was blown. "'The whole thing smacks of either incompetence or worse," said Tim Ripley, a security expert who writes for Jane's Defence publications."You have to ask: what are they doing compromising a deep mole within al Qaeda, when it's so difficult to get these guys in there in the first place?... Running agents within a terrorist organisation is the Holy Grail of intelligence agencies. And to have it blown is a major setback which negates months and years of work, which may be difficult to recover."
www.reuters.co.uk/newsPackageArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=561079%a7ion=news
This is flat out inexcusable...
"As part of the ramping up of its Orange Alert, the administration announced that an al-Qaeda computer expert and techno-whiz had just been arrested with terrifying material on his computer, and then, when the New York Times learned his name, evidently confirmed it to the paper. The catch was, as Reuters recently revealed, when Mohammad Naeem Noor Khan was arrested, he agreed to turn double agent – and so became that rarest of all creatures, a potential mole inside al-Qaeda. Soon thereafter, his cover was blown. "'The whole thing smacks of either incompetence or worse," said Tim Ripley, a security expert who writes for Jane's Defence publications."You have to ask: what are they doing compromising a deep mole within al Qaeda, when it's so difficult to get these guys in there in the first place?... Running agents within a terrorist organisation is the Holy Grail of intelligence agencies. And to have it blown is a major setback which negates months and years of work, which may be difficult to recover."
www.reuters.co.uk/newsPackageArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=561079%a7ion=news
Friday, August 06, 2004
Racist Wins GOP Primary
"MEMPHIS, Tenn. - An unabashed racist will represent the Republican party in the November election for a congressional seat after a write-in candidate failed to derail his effort.
With 86 percent of the primary vote counted Thursday, write-in candidate Dennis Bertrand had just 1,554 votes compared to 7,671, or 83 percent, for James L. Hart, a believer in the discredited, phony science of eugenics.
In November, the GOP candidate will oppose Rep. John Tanner, a Democrat who has represented the northwest Tennessee district for 15 years.
Hart, 60, vows if elected to work toward keeping "less favored races" from reproducing or immigrating to the United States. In campaign literature, Hart contends that "poverty genes" threaten to turn the United States into "one big Detroit."
With 86 percent of the primary vote counted Thursday, write-in candidate Dennis Bertrand had just 1,554 votes compared to 7,671, or 83 percent, for James L. Hart, a believer in the discredited, phony science of eugenics.
In November, the GOP candidate will oppose Rep. John Tanner, a Democrat who has represented the northwest Tennessee district for 15 years.
Hart, 60, vows if elected to work toward keeping "less favored races" from reproducing or immigrating to the United States. In campaign literature, Hart contends that "poverty genes" threaten to turn the United States into "one big Detroit."
Enron Trader Admits To Manipulating Mkt
SAN FRANCISCO, AUG 6: John Forney, 42, a former Enron Corp trading executive pleaded guilty to charges that he manipulated energy markets during California’s power crisis.
He is the third official to plead guilty to manipulating electricity prices from Enron’s trading office in Portland, Oregon. The crisis played a role in Pacific Gas & Electric Co’s bankruptcy and will leave California consumers paying very high electricity prices for years. He faces a maximum of five years. A sentencing date has not been set. "With the guilty plea of John Forney, we have now obtained convictions of the top three Enron executives most directly responsible for manipulating the energy markets in California at a time unique in our history, when the lights were going off and the grid was in danger of shutting down," US Attorney Kevin Ryan said.
http://www.financialexpress.com/fe_full_story.php?content_id=65314
... all little fish -- when is Ahnold's connection going to hit the fan?
Thursday, August 05, 2004
Money does not a school make
We spend 20% less per student here in my neighborhood than the national average but the dropout rate is less than a third the national average and the college graduation rate is almost triple.
hmmmmmmm .... Wonder why?
http://houseandhome.msn.com/pickaplace/nf_details.aspx?search=1&zip=94087
... oh yeah, now I remember -- it's the parenting, stupid!
hmmmmmmm .... Wonder why?
http://houseandhome.msn.com/pickaplace/nf_details.aspx?search=1&zip=94087
... oh yeah, now I remember -- it's the parenting, stupid!
From an Informed Source
They are going to do it again and again
"I spoke with Sy Hersh recently after delivering some documents to him (you'll read more on this in mid-September), and found him bubbling as ever, with a focus on the terror alert announced on Saturday. He says he has some information about this from a tipster at the Department of Homeland Security and also some information from a White House source close to Rove.
In sum, he says that Gov. Dean's charge that this is all political manipulation is 100% correct. The data that was the basis of the alert has in fact been in US hands for two years plus and was previously rejected as a basis for an alert due to its staleness. A decision to go to alert status came from within the WhiteHouse and was driven by a strategy that Rove has been fine tuning for twoyears on fear manipulation as an election tool.
Also, as The New Republic previously reported, the arrests in Pakistan that provided the "context" for these alerts was also scripted and agreed in advance between Musharraf and GOP officials. Rove has very detailed research which purports to show that terror alerts can be manipulated to drive support for Bush. Rove is looking for a series of such alerts with growing intensity up to the election date. The
alerts will all be timed to divert attention away from Kerry whenever he scores an important success or has a positive appearance. Rove originally planned to announce this alert on Friday, but others in the White House felt this timing would be too obvious, so it was put back a day. Brian Ross at ABC News has been working on a story on this.
"I spoke with Sy Hersh recently after delivering some documents to him (you'll read more on this in mid-September), and found him bubbling as ever, with a focus on the terror alert announced on Saturday. He says he has some information about this from a tipster at the Department of Homeland Security and also some information from a White House source close to Rove.
In sum, he says that Gov. Dean's charge that this is all political manipulation is 100% correct. The data that was the basis of the alert has in fact been in US hands for two years plus and was previously rejected as a basis for an alert due to its staleness. A decision to go to alert status came from within the WhiteHouse and was driven by a strategy that Rove has been fine tuning for twoyears on fear manipulation as an election tool.
Also, as The New Republic previously reported, the arrests in Pakistan that provided the "context" for these alerts was also scripted and agreed in advance between Musharraf and GOP officials. Rove has very detailed research which purports to show that terror alerts can be manipulated to drive support for Bush. Rove is looking for a series of such alerts with growing intensity up to the election date. The
alerts will all be timed to divert attention away from Kerry whenever he scores an important success or has a positive appearance. Rove originally planned to announce this alert on Friday, but others in the White House felt this timing would be too obvious, so it was put back a day. Brian Ross at ABC News has been working on a story on this.
Wednesday, August 04, 2004
True Believers
Being a drug addict is a moral failing and a crime, unless you're a popular conservative radio host. Then it's an illness and you need our prayers for your recovery.
The United States should get out of the United Nations, and our highest national priority is enforcing U.N. resolutions against Iraq.
Government should relax regulation of Big Business and Big Money but crack down on individuals who use marijuana to relieve the pain of illness.
"Standing Tall for America" means firing your workers and moving their jobs overseas.
A woman can't be trusted with decisions about her own body, but multi-national corporations can make decisions affecting all mankind without regulation.
Jesus loves you, and shares your hatred of homosexuals and Hillary Clinton.
The best way to improve military morale is to praise the troops in speeches while slashing veterans' benefits and combat pay.
Group sex and drug use are degenerate sins unless you someday run for governor of California as a Republican.
If condoms are kept out of schools, adolescents won't have sex.
A good way to fight terrorism is to belittle our long-time allies, then demand their cooperation and money.
HMOs and insurance companies have the best interests of the public at heart.
Providing health care to all Iraqis is sound policy. Providing health care to all Americans is evil socialism.
Global warming and tobacco's link to cancer are junk science, but creationism should be taught in schools.
Saddam was a good guy when Reagan armed him, a bad guy when Bush's daddy made war on him, a good guy when Cheney did business with him and a bad guy when Bush needed a "we can't find Bin Laden" diversion.
A president lying about an extramarital affair is a impeachable offense. A president lying to enlist support for a war in which thousands die is solid defense policy.
Government should limit itself to the powers named in the Constitution, which include banning gay marriages and censoring the Internet.
The public has a right to know about Hillary's cattle trades, but George Bush's driving record is none of our business.
You support states' rights, which means Attorney General John Ashcroft can tell states what local voter initiatives they have the right to adopt.
What Bill Clinton did in the 1960s is of vital national interest, but what Bush did from the 60's through the '80s is irrelevant.
Trade with Cuba is wrong because the country is communist, but trade with China and Vietnam is vital to a spirit of international harmony.
The United States should get out of the United Nations, and our highest national priority is enforcing U.N. resolutions against Iraq.
Government should relax regulation of Big Business and Big Money but crack down on individuals who use marijuana to relieve the pain of illness.
"Standing Tall for America" means firing your workers and moving their jobs overseas.
A woman can't be trusted with decisions about her own body, but multi-national corporations can make decisions affecting all mankind without regulation.
Jesus loves you, and shares your hatred of homosexuals and Hillary Clinton.
The best way to improve military morale is to praise the troops in speeches while slashing veterans' benefits and combat pay.
Group sex and drug use are degenerate sins unless you someday run for governor of California as a Republican.
If condoms are kept out of schools, adolescents won't have sex.
A good way to fight terrorism is to belittle our long-time allies, then demand their cooperation and money.
HMOs and insurance companies have the best interests of the public at heart.
Providing health care to all Iraqis is sound policy. Providing health care to all Americans is evil socialism.
Global warming and tobacco's link to cancer are junk science, but creationism should be taught in schools.
Saddam was a good guy when Reagan armed him, a bad guy when Bush's daddy made war on him, a good guy when Cheney did business with him and a bad guy when Bush needed a "we can't find Bin Laden" diversion.
A president lying about an extramarital affair is a impeachable offense. A president lying to enlist support for a war in which thousands die is solid defense policy.
Government should limit itself to the powers named in the Constitution, which include banning gay marriages and censoring the Internet.
The public has a right to know about Hillary's cattle trades, but George Bush's driving record is none of our business.
You support states' rights, which means Attorney General John Ashcroft can tell states what local voter initiatives they have the right to adopt.
What Bill Clinton did in the 1960s is of vital national interest, but what Bush did from the 60's through the '80s is irrelevant.
Trade with Cuba is wrong because the country is communist, but trade with China and Vietnam is vital to a spirit of international harmony.
Tuesday, August 03, 2004
Krugman lays the lumber to cable news spinners
Paul didn't get the memo apparently...
"A message to my fellow journalists: check out media watch sites like campaigndesk.org, mediamatters.org and dailyhowler.com. It's good to see ourselves as others see us. I've been finding The Daily Howler's concept of a media "script," a story line that shapes coverage, often in the teeth of the evidence, particularly helpful in understanding cable news.
For example, last summer, when growth briefly broke into a gallop, cable news decided that the economy was booming. The gallop soon slowed to a trot, and then to a walk. But judging from the mail I recently got after writing about the slowing economy, the script never changed; many readers angrily insisted that my numbers disagreed with everything they had seen on TV.
If you really want to see cable news scripts in action, look at the coverage of the Democratic convention.
Commercial broadcast TV covered only one hour a night. We'll see whether the Republicans get equal treatment. C-Span, on the other hand, provided comprehensive, commentary-free coverage. But many people watched the convention on cable news channels - and what they saw was shaped by a script portraying Democrats as angry Bush-haters who disdain the military.
If that sounds like a script written by the Republicans, it is. As the movie "Outfoxed" makes clear, Fox News is for all practical purposes a G.O.P. propaganda agency. A now-famous poll showed that Fox viewers were more likely than those who get their news elsewhere to believe that evidence of Saddam-Qaeda links has been found, that W.M.D. had been located and that most of the world supported the Iraq war.
CNN used to be different, but Campaign Desk, which is run by The Columbia Journalism Review, concluded after reviewing convention coverage that CNN "has stooped to slavish imitation of Fox's most dubious ploys and policies." Seconds after John Kerry's speech, CNN gave Ed Gillespie, the Republican Party's chairman, the opportunity to bash the candidate. Will Terry McAuliffe be given the same opportunity right after President Bush speaks?
Commentators worked hard to spin scenes that didn't fit the script. Some simply saw what they wanted to see. On Fox, Michael Barone asserted that conventioneers cheered when Mr. Kerry criticized President Bush but were silent when he called for military strength. Check out the video clips at Media Matters; there was tumultuous cheering when Mr. Kerry talked about a strong America.
Another technique, pervasive on both Fox and CNN, was to echo Republican claims of an "extreme makeover" - the assertion that what viewers were seeing wasn't the true face of the party. (Apparently all those admirals, generals and decorated veterans were ringers.)
It will probably be easier to make a comparable case in New York, where the Republicans are expected to feature an array of moderate, pro-choice speakers and keep Rick Santorum and Tom DeLay under wraps. But in Boston, it took creativity to portray the delegates as being out of the mainstream. For example, Bill Schneider at CNN claimed that according to a New York Times/CBS News poll, 75 percent of the delegates favor "abortion on demand" - which exaggerated the poll's real finding, which is that 75 percent opposed stricter limits than we now have.
But the real power of a script is the way it can retroactively change the story about what happened.
On Thursday night, Mr. Kerry's speech was a palpable hit. A focus group organized by Frank Luntz, the Republican pollster, found it impressive and persuasive. Even pro-Bush commentators conceded, at first, that it had gone over well.
But a terrorism alert is already blotting out memories of last week. Although there is now a long history of alerts with remarkably convenient political timing, and Tom Ridge politicized the announcement by using the occasion to praise "the president's leadership in the war against terror," this one may be based on real information. Regardless, it gives the usual suspects a breathing space; once calm returns, don't be surprised if some of those same commentators begin describing the ineffective speech they expected (and hoped) to see, not the one they actually saw.
Luckily, in this age of the Internet it's possible to bypass the filter. At c-span.org, you can find transcripts and videos of all the speeches. I'd urge everyone to watch Mr. Kerry and others for yourself, and make your own judgment. "
"A message to my fellow journalists: check out media watch sites like campaigndesk.org, mediamatters.org and dailyhowler.com. It's good to see ourselves as others see us. I've been finding The Daily Howler's concept of a media "script," a story line that shapes coverage, often in the teeth of the evidence, particularly helpful in understanding cable news.
For example, last summer, when growth briefly broke into a gallop, cable news decided that the economy was booming. The gallop soon slowed to a trot, and then to a walk. But judging from the mail I recently got after writing about the slowing economy, the script never changed; many readers angrily insisted that my numbers disagreed with everything they had seen on TV.
If you really want to see cable news scripts in action, look at the coverage of the Democratic convention.
Commercial broadcast TV covered only one hour a night. We'll see whether the Republicans get equal treatment. C-Span, on the other hand, provided comprehensive, commentary-free coverage. But many people watched the convention on cable news channels - and what they saw was shaped by a script portraying Democrats as angry Bush-haters who disdain the military.
If that sounds like a script written by the Republicans, it is. As the movie "Outfoxed" makes clear, Fox News is for all practical purposes a G.O.P. propaganda agency. A now-famous poll showed that Fox viewers were more likely than those who get their news elsewhere to believe that evidence of Saddam-Qaeda links has been found, that W.M.D. had been located and that most of the world supported the Iraq war.
CNN used to be different, but Campaign Desk, which is run by The Columbia Journalism Review, concluded after reviewing convention coverage that CNN "has stooped to slavish imitation of Fox's most dubious ploys and policies." Seconds after John Kerry's speech, CNN gave Ed Gillespie, the Republican Party's chairman, the opportunity to bash the candidate. Will Terry McAuliffe be given the same opportunity right after President Bush speaks?
Commentators worked hard to spin scenes that didn't fit the script. Some simply saw what they wanted to see. On Fox, Michael Barone asserted that conventioneers cheered when Mr. Kerry criticized President Bush but were silent when he called for military strength. Check out the video clips at Media Matters; there was tumultuous cheering when Mr. Kerry talked about a strong America.
Another technique, pervasive on both Fox and CNN, was to echo Republican claims of an "extreme makeover" - the assertion that what viewers were seeing wasn't the true face of the party. (Apparently all those admirals, generals and decorated veterans were ringers.)
It will probably be easier to make a comparable case in New York, where the Republicans are expected to feature an array of moderate, pro-choice speakers and keep Rick Santorum and Tom DeLay under wraps. But in Boston, it took creativity to portray the delegates as being out of the mainstream. For example, Bill Schneider at CNN claimed that according to a New York Times/CBS News poll, 75 percent of the delegates favor "abortion on demand" - which exaggerated the poll's real finding, which is that 75 percent opposed stricter limits than we now have.
But the real power of a script is the way it can retroactively change the story about what happened.
On Thursday night, Mr. Kerry's speech was a palpable hit. A focus group organized by Frank Luntz, the Republican pollster, found it impressive and persuasive. Even pro-Bush commentators conceded, at first, that it had gone over well.
But a terrorism alert is already blotting out memories of last week. Although there is now a long history of alerts with remarkably convenient political timing, and Tom Ridge politicized the announcement by using the occasion to praise "the president's leadership in the war against terror," this one may be based on real information. Regardless, it gives the usual suspects a breathing space; once calm returns, don't be surprised if some of those same commentators begin describing the ineffective speech they expected (and hoped) to see, not the one they actually saw.
Luckily, in this age of the Internet it's possible to bypass the filter. At c-span.org, you can find transcripts and videos of all the speeches. I'd urge everyone to watch Mr. Kerry and others for yourself, and make your own judgment. "
Thursday, July 29, 2004
AARP questions, Shrub ducks
OK, students -- compare and contrast:
www.aarp.org/legislative/elections/presidential/Articles/a2004-06-30-bush.html
www.aarp.org/legislative/elections/presidential/Articles/a2004-06-30-kerry.html
...And this is the same AARP that supported Shrubya's medicare ripoff. Go fig.
www.aarp.org/legislative/elections/presidential/Articles/a2004-06-30-bush.html
www.aarp.org/legislative/elections/presidential/Articles/a2004-06-30-kerry.html
...And this is the same AARP that supported Shrubya's medicare ripoff. Go fig.
Wednesday, July 28, 2004
Some call it Prevaricating
Juan Cole: "...the US should not get involved in places that it may get thrown out of, because that projects an image of weakness and vulnerability to the country's enemies. There was no way the United States could possibly have maintained a presence in Lebanon in the early 1980s, and Reagan was foolish to put those Marines in there, and even more foolish to put them in without pilons around them to stop truck bombs. The country was embroiled in a civil war, and it would have taken a massive commitment of troops to make a difference. In the wake of the Vietnam failure, the American public would not have countenanced such a huge troop build-up. Likewise, Bush senior was foolish to send those troops to Somalia in the way he did (which became a poison pill for his successor, Bill Clinton).
The question is whether the quagmire in Iraq makes the US look weak. The answer is yes. Therefore, by Cheney's own reasoning, it is a mistake that opens us to further attacks.
Reuters reports, "Cheney said Americans were safer and he stood by prewar characterizations of Iraq as a threat despite the failure to find weapons of mass destruction and new warnings by Cheney and other administration officials that another major terrorist attack may be coming."
Iraq was not a threat to the United States. Period. Let me repeat the statistics as of the late 1990s:
US population: 295 million
Iraq population: 24 million
US per capita annual income: $37,600
Iraq per capita annual income: $700
US nuclear warheads: 10,455
Iraq nuclear warheads: 0
US tons of lethal chemical weapons (1997): 31,496
Iraq tons of lethal chemical weapons (1997): 0
While a small terrorist organization could hit the US because it has no return address, a major state could not hope to avoid retribution and therefore would be deterred. Cheney knows that Baathist Iraq posed no threat to the US. He is simply lying. I was always careful not to accuse him of lying before the war because who knows what is in someone else's mind? Maybe he believed his own bullshit. But there is no longer any doubt that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction, no active nuclear weapons program, no ability to deliver anything lethal to the US homeland, and no operational cooperation with al-Qaeda. These things are not matters of opinion. They are indisputable. Ipso facto, if an intelligent person continues to allege them, he is prevaricating."
... a 3-letter word would suffice.
The question is whether the quagmire in Iraq makes the US look weak. The answer is yes. Therefore, by Cheney's own reasoning, it is a mistake that opens us to further attacks.
Reuters reports, "Cheney said Americans were safer and he stood by prewar characterizations of Iraq as a threat despite the failure to find weapons of mass destruction and new warnings by Cheney and other administration officials that another major terrorist attack may be coming."
Iraq was not a threat to the United States. Period. Let me repeat the statistics as of the late 1990s:
US population: 295 million
Iraq population: 24 million
US per capita annual income: $37,600
Iraq per capita annual income: $700
US nuclear warheads: 10,455
Iraq nuclear warheads: 0
US tons of lethal chemical weapons (1997): 31,496
Iraq tons of lethal chemical weapons (1997): 0
While a small terrorist organization could hit the US because it has no return address, a major state could not hope to avoid retribution and therefore would be deterred. Cheney knows that Baathist Iraq posed no threat to the US. He is simply lying. I was always careful not to accuse him of lying before the war because who knows what is in someone else's mind? Maybe he believed his own bullshit. But there is no longer any doubt that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction, no active nuclear weapons program, no ability to deliver anything lethal to the US homeland, and no operational cooperation with al-Qaeda. These things are not matters of opinion. They are indisputable. Ipso facto, if an intelligent person continues to allege them, he is prevaricating."
... a 3-letter word would suffice.
Oh, yeah, this is SO encouraging ...
"(AP) Detailed electronic records from Miami-Dade County's first widespread use of touchscreen voting machines were lost in computer crashes last year, erasing information from the September 2002 gubernatorial primaries and deleting some records of other elections, elections officials said.
The crashes occurred in May and November of 2003. In December, officials began backing up the data daily, to help avoid similar data wipeouts in the future, said Seth Kaplan, spokesman for the county's elections supervisor, Constance Kaplan.
The malfunction was made public Tuesday after the Miami-Dade Election Reform Coalition, a citizen's group, requested all data from the 2002 gubernatorial primary between Democratic candidates Janet Reno and Bill McBride. "
... How's that working for ya?
The crashes occurred in May and November of 2003. In December, officials began backing up the data daily, to help avoid similar data wipeouts in the future, said Seth Kaplan, spokesman for the county's elections supervisor, Constance Kaplan.
The malfunction was made public Tuesday after the Miami-Dade Election Reform Coalition, a citizen's group, requested all data from the 2002 gubernatorial primary between Democratic candidates Janet Reno and Bill McBride. "
... How's that working for ya?
Monday, July 26, 2004
Housing Bubble About to Blow
Economic Doomsday Scenarios Dept -
Here's how it all comes apart: The housing bubble doesn't burst, just starts to recede a bit. That hits consumers much harder than you might think, since equity withdrawals reached 6.3% of disposable income (far higher than the 2.5% of the late '80s boom), and nearly 2% of GDP. That river of cash is going to dry up like the LA river, and then watch out... www.nytimes.com/2004/07/25/business/yourmoney/25watch.html?8ym
"Michael Buchanan, a senior global economist at Goldman Sachs, and Themistoklis Fiotakis, a research assistant there, reckon that at current interest rates, home prices are now overvalued by 10 percent, on average. Because this figure spans the entire nation, the hottest markets - California and New York - are obviously more overpriced.
The economists compute fair value in home prices by using a variety of measures, including interest rates, population and demographic data, and the overall health of the economy. If interest rates increased by one percentage point, the economists said, home prices in the United States would be overvalued by 15 percent.
None of this would be worrisome if homeowners had not turned the paper profits in their properties into cold, spendable cash. But withdrawals from home equities have recently totaled 6.3 percent of household disposable income, according to the Goldman study. In the late 1980's, equity withdrawals reached only 2.5 percent of disposable income.
Federal Reserve studies indicate that as much as half of the equity withdrawals went into personal consumption and home improvements. As a result, the Goldman economists estimate that equity cash-outs added 1.75 percent to the growth in the gross domestic product in 2003. That is a significant increase from the 1.25 percent kick that equity withdrawals added in 2002.
Consumption would slip 1 percent, Goldman estimated, if housing prices fell by 10 percent, to the fair value level. But if prices decline to well below that, as often happens when overheated markets go cold, consumption may fall by 2.4 percent, Goldman reckoned.
Such a housing crash took place in Britain in the early 1990's. At the market's low, home prices had fallen by 27 percent, 5 percent below Goldman's estimate of fair value at the time.
Such a decline is not expected here, said Dominic Wilson, a senior global economist at Goldman. That's because home prices in Britain had escalated much more than they have in this country, even now. And interest rates had soared into the high teens, which is unlikely here.
But even small declines in home prices could hurt the economy. "The precise degree of the vulnerability isn't going to be clear until we see house prices slow," Mr. Wilson said. "You've never seen consumers this stretched, operating at levels of leverage we've never experienced before. House prices are starting at a level that is pretty high relative to what we think fair value is going to be, and the economy as a whole has gotten a lot more sensitive" to housing-related spending.
Indeed, Goldman estimates that home equity lines of credit and the like have magnified the effect of housing wealth on consumption over the past decade, taking it to 10 percent from 4 percent.
Although rising home prices have been stopped dead in the past by sharply higher interest rates, the Goldman economists note that bear markets don't necessarily need major triggers to get started.
Small events can change the market's psychology, and asset bubbles sometimes just cave in on themselves.
Here's how it all comes apart: The housing bubble doesn't burst, just starts to recede a bit. That hits consumers much harder than you might think, since equity withdrawals reached 6.3% of disposable income (far higher than the 2.5% of the late '80s boom), and nearly 2% of GDP. That river of cash is going to dry up like the LA river, and then watch out... www.nytimes.com/2004/07/25/business/yourmoney/25watch.html?8ym
"Michael Buchanan, a senior global economist at Goldman Sachs, and Themistoklis Fiotakis, a research assistant there, reckon that at current interest rates, home prices are now overvalued by 10 percent, on average. Because this figure spans the entire nation, the hottest markets - California and New York - are obviously more overpriced.
The economists compute fair value in home prices by using a variety of measures, including interest rates, population and demographic data, and the overall health of the economy. If interest rates increased by one percentage point, the economists said, home prices in the United States would be overvalued by 15 percent.
None of this would be worrisome if homeowners had not turned the paper profits in their properties into cold, spendable cash. But withdrawals from home equities have recently totaled 6.3 percent of household disposable income, according to the Goldman study. In the late 1980's, equity withdrawals reached only 2.5 percent of disposable income.
Federal Reserve studies indicate that as much as half of the equity withdrawals went into personal consumption and home improvements. As a result, the Goldman economists estimate that equity cash-outs added 1.75 percent to the growth in the gross domestic product in 2003. That is a significant increase from the 1.25 percent kick that equity withdrawals added in 2002.
Consumption would slip 1 percent, Goldman estimated, if housing prices fell by 10 percent, to the fair value level. But if prices decline to well below that, as often happens when overheated markets go cold, consumption may fall by 2.4 percent, Goldman reckoned.
Such a housing crash took place in Britain in the early 1990's. At the market's low, home prices had fallen by 27 percent, 5 percent below Goldman's estimate of fair value at the time.
Such a decline is not expected here, said Dominic Wilson, a senior global economist at Goldman. That's because home prices in Britain had escalated much more than they have in this country, even now. And interest rates had soared into the high teens, which is unlikely here.
But even small declines in home prices could hurt the economy. "The precise degree of the vulnerability isn't going to be clear until we see house prices slow," Mr. Wilson said. "You've never seen consumers this stretched, operating at levels of leverage we've never experienced before. House prices are starting at a level that is pretty high relative to what we think fair value is going to be, and the economy as a whole has gotten a lot more sensitive" to housing-related spending.
Indeed, Goldman estimates that home equity lines of credit and the like have magnified the effect of housing wealth on consumption over the past decade, taking it to 10 percent from 4 percent.
Although rising home prices have been stopped dead in the past by sharply higher interest rates, the Goldman economists note that bear markets don't necessarily need major triggers to get started.
Small events can change the market's psychology, and asset bubbles sometimes just cave in on themselves.
Friday, July 23, 2004
The 911 Report names the Islamist enemy
It took them nearly 400 pages to get to the point, but at least they got there ...
Chapter 12, "What To Do? A Global Strategy" (page 378 of pdf) "...In this sense, 9/11 has taught us that terrorism against American interests “over there” should be regarded just as we regard terrorism against America “over here.” In this same sense, the American homeland is the planet. But the enemy is not just “terrorism,” some generic evil. This vagueness blurs the strategy. The catastrophic threat at this moment in history is more specific. It is the threat posed by Islamist terrorism —especially the al Qaeda network, its affiliates, and its ideology.
As we mentioned in chapter 2, Usama Bin Ladin and other Islamist terrorist leaders draw on a long tradition of extreme intolerance within one stream of Islam (a minority tradition), from at least Ibn Taimiyyah, through the founders of Wahhabism, through the Muslim Brotherhood, to Sayyid Qutb. That stream is motivated by religion and does not distinguish politics from religion, thus distorting both. It is further fed by grievances stressed by Bin Ladin and widely felt throughout the Muslim world—against the U.S. military presence in the Middle East, policies perceived as anti-Arab and anti-Muslim, and support of Israel. Bin Ladin and Islamist terrorists mean exactly what they say: to them America is the font of all evil, the “head of the snake,” and it must be converted or destroyed.
It is not a position with which Americans can bargain or negotiate. With it there is no common ground—not even respect for life—on which to begin a dialogue. It can only be destroyed or utterly isolated."
Chapter 12, "What To Do? A Global Strategy" (page 378 of pdf) "...In this sense, 9/11 has taught us that terrorism against American interests “over there” should be regarded just as we regard terrorism against America “over here.” In this same sense, the American homeland is the planet. But the enemy is not just “terrorism,” some generic evil. This vagueness blurs the strategy. The catastrophic threat at this moment in history is more specific. It is the threat posed by Islamist terrorism —especially the al Qaeda network, its affiliates, and its ideology.
As we mentioned in chapter 2, Usama Bin Ladin and other Islamist terrorist leaders draw on a long tradition of extreme intolerance within one stream of Islam (a minority tradition), from at least Ibn Taimiyyah, through the founders of Wahhabism, through the Muslim Brotherhood, to Sayyid Qutb. That stream is motivated by religion and does not distinguish politics from religion, thus distorting both. It is further fed by grievances stressed by Bin Ladin and widely felt throughout the Muslim world—against the U.S. military presence in the Middle East, policies perceived as anti-Arab and anti-Muslim, and support of Israel. Bin Ladin and Islamist terrorists mean exactly what they say: to them America is the font of all evil, the “head of the snake,” and it must be converted or destroyed.
It is not a position with which Americans can bargain or negotiate. With it there is no common ground—not even respect for life—on which to begin a dialogue. It can only be destroyed or utterly isolated."
Following up on Flight 327
Lotta web chat about the Syrian band on Flight 327 but nothing on the WT article. My take:
(1) This tidbit has been ignored: "a man of Middle Eastern descent locked himself in [the lavatory] for a long period. The marshal found the mirror had been removed and the man was attempting to break through the wall. The cockpit was on the other side " -- !?!? EXCUSE ME?
Folks, that should set off some major alerts but I don't see a trace of follow up. When? Where is the miscreant now? Why is the media completely ducking this -- are corroboration rules suddenly back in vogue?
(2) The Syrian band should be on extended vacation at taxpayer expense. I don't care if they passed the initial interview, visa or no visa -- they're Middle Eastern men who brought themselves to the attention of a flight crew with threatening, rule breaking behavior... "Sit down, boys, we need to talk. This could take a while."
We ARE at war with Islamofacism. We ARE being probed. We SHOULD take prudent countermeasures.
See also http://michellemalkin.com
(1) This tidbit has been ignored: "a man of Middle Eastern descent locked himself in [the lavatory] for a long period. The marshal found the mirror had been removed and the man was attempting to break through the wall. The cockpit was on the other side " -- !?!? EXCUSE ME?
Folks, that should set off some major alerts but I don't see a trace of follow up. When? Where is the miscreant now? Why is the media completely ducking this -- are corroboration rules suddenly back in vogue?
(2) The Syrian band should be on extended vacation at taxpayer expense. I don't care if they passed the initial interview, visa or no visa -- they're Middle Eastern men who brought themselves to the attention of a flight crew with threatening, rule breaking behavior... "Sit down, boys, we need to talk. This could take a while."
We ARE at war with Islamofacism. We ARE being probed. We SHOULD take prudent countermeasures.
See also http://michellemalkin.com
The WashTimes (a usually unreliable source) on Flight 327
WT is terrible but even a blind pig finds a truffle now and then...
"Scouting jetliners for new attacks
By Audrey Hudson THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20040721-101403-1508r.htm
"Flight crews and air marshals say Middle Eastern men are staking out airports, probing security measures and conducting test runs aboard airplanes for a terrorist attack. At least two midflight incidents have involved numerous men of Middle Eastern descent behaving in what one pilot called "stereotypical" behavior of an organized attempt to attack a plane.
"No doubt these are dry runs for a terrorist attack," an air marshal said. Pilots and air marshals who asked to remain anonymous told The Washington Times that surveillance by terrorists is rampant, using different probing methods. "It's happening, and it's a sad state of affairs," a pilot said. A June 29 incident aboard Northwest Airlines Flight 327 from Detroit to Los Angeles is similar to a Feb. 15 incident on American Airlines Flight 1732 from San Juan, Puerto Rico, to New York's John F. Kennedy Airport. The Northwest flight involved 14 Syrian men and the American Airlines flight involved six men of Middle Eastern descent. "I've never been in a situation where I have felt that afraid," said Annie Jacobsen, a business and finance feature writer for the online magazine Women's Wall Street who was aboard the Northwest flight. The men were seated throughout the plane pretending to be strangers. Once airborne, they began congregating in groups of two or three, stood nearly the entire flight, and consecutively filed in and out of bathrooms at different intervals, raising concern among passengers and flight attendants, Mrs. Jacobsen said. One man took a McDonald's bag into the bathroom, then passed it off to another passenger upon returning to his seat. When the pilot announced the plane was cleared for landing and to fasten seat belts, seven men jumped up in unison and went to different bathrooms. Her account was confirmed by David Adams, spokesman for the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's Federal Air Marshal Service (FAMS), who said officers were on board and checked the bathrooms several times during the flight, but nothing was found. "The FAMS never broke their cover, but monitored" the activity, Mr. Adams said. "Given the facts, they had no legal basis to take an enforcement action. But there was enough of a suspicious nature for the FAMS, passengers and crew to take notice." A January FBI memo says suicide terrorists are plotting to hijack trans-Atlantic planes by smuggling "ready-to-build" bomb kits past airport security, and later assembling the explosives in aircraft bathrooms. On many overseas flights, airlines have issued rules prohibiting loitering near the lavatory. "After seeing 14 Middle Eastern men board separately (six together and eight individually) and then act as a group, watching their unusual glances, observing their bizarre bathroom activities, watching them congregate in small groups, knowing that the flight attendants and the pilots were seriously concerned and now knowing that federal air marshals were on board, I was officially terrified," Mrs. Jacobsen said. "One by one, they went into the two lavatories, each spending about four minutes inside. Right in front of us, two men stood up against the emergency exit door, waiting for the lavatory to become available. The men spoke in Arabic among themselves ... one of the men took his camera into the lavatory. Another took his cell phone. Again, no one approached the men. Not one of the flight attendants asked them to sit down." In an interview yesterday with The Washington Times, Mrs. Jacobsen said she was surprised to learn afterward that flight attendants are not trained to handle terrorist attacks or the situation that happened on her flight. "I absolutely empathize with the flight attendants. They are acting with no clear protocol," she said. Other passengers were distraught and one woman was even crying as the events unfolded. The plane was met by officials from the FBI, Los Angeles Police Department, Federal Air Marshal Service and Transportation Security Administration. The Syrians, who were traveling on one-way tickets, were taken into custody. The men, who were not on terrorist watch lists, were released, although their information and fingerprints were added to a database. The group had been hired as musicians to play at a casino, and the booking, hotel accommodations and return flight to New York from Long Beach, Calif., also checked out, Mr. Adams said. "We don't know if it was a dry run, that's why we are working together with intelligence and investigative agencies to help protect the homeland," he said. Mrs. Jacobsen, however, is skeptical the 14 passengers were innocent musicians. "If 19 terrorists can learn to fly airplanes into buildings, couldn't 14 terrorists learn to play instruments?" she asked in the article. The pilot confirmed Mrs. Jacobsen's experience was "terribly alike" what flight attendants reported on the San Juan flight. He said there is "widespread knowledge" among crew members these probes are taking place. A Middle Eastern passenger attempted to videotape out the window as the plane taxied on takeoff and, when told by a flight attendant it was not permitted, "gave her a mean look and stopped taping," said a written report of the San Juan incident by a flight attendant. The group of six men sat near one another, pretended to be strangers, but after careful observation from flight attendants, it was apparent "all six knew each other," the report said. "They were very careful when we were in their area to seem separate and pretended to be sleeping, but when we were out of the twilight area, they were watching and communicating," the report said. The men made several trips to the bathroom and congregated in that area, and were told at least twice by a flight attendant to return to their seats. The suspicious behavior was relayed to airline officials in midflight and additional background checks were conducted. A second pilot said that, on one of his recent flights, an air marshal forced his way into the lavatory at the front of his plane after a man of Middle Eastern descent locked himself in for a long period. The marshal found the mirror had been removed and the man was attempting to break through the wall. The cockpit was on the other side. The second pilot said terrorists are "absolutely" testing security. "There is a great degree of concern in the airline industry that not only are these dry runs for a terrorist attack, but that there is absolutely no defense capabilities on a vast majority of airlines," the second pilot said. Dawn Deeks, spokeswoman for the Association of Flight Attendants, said there is no "central clearinghouse" for them to learn of suspicious incidents, and flight crews are not told how issues are resolved. She said a flight attendant reported that a passenger was using a telephoto lens to take sequential photos of the cockpit door. The passenger was stopped, and the incident, which happened two months ago, was reported to officials. But when the attendant checked back last week on the outcome, she was told her report had been lost. Recent incidents at the Minneapolis-St. Paul international airport have also alarmed flight crews. Earlier this month, a passenger from Syria was taken into custody while carrying anti-American materials and a note suggesting he intended to commit a public suicide. A third pilot reported watching a man of Middle Eastern descent at the same airport using binoculars to get airplane tail numbers and writing the numbers in a notebook to correspond with flight numbers. "It's a probe. They are probing us," said a second air marshal, who confirmed that Middle Eastern men try to flush out marshals by rushing the cockpit and stopping suddenly.
"Scouting jetliners for new attacks
By Audrey Hudson THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20040721-101403-1508r.htm
"Flight crews and air marshals say Middle Eastern men are staking out airports, probing security measures and conducting test runs aboard airplanes for a terrorist attack. At least two midflight incidents have involved numerous men of Middle Eastern descent behaving in what one pilot called "stereotypical" behavior of an organized attempt to attack a plane.
"No doubt these are dry runs for a terrorist attack," an air marshal said. Pilots and air marshals who asked to remain anonymous told The Washington Times that surveillance by terrorists is rampant, using different probing methods. "It's happening, and it's a sad state of affairs," a pilot said. A June 29 incident aboard Northwest Airlines Flight 327 from Detroit to Los Angeles is similar to a Feb. 15 incident on American Airlines Flight 1732 from San Juan, Puerto Rico, to New York's John F. Kennedy Airport. The Northwest flight involved 14 Syrian men and the American Airlines flight involved six men of Middle Eastern descent. "I've never been in a situation where I have felt that afraid," said Annie Jacobsen, a business and finance feature writer for the online magazine Women's Wall Street who was aboard the Northwest flight. The men were seated throughout the plane pretending to be strangers. Once airborne, they began congregating in groups of two or three, stood nearly the entire flight, and consecutively filed in and out of bathrooms at different intervals, raising concern among passengers and flight attendants, Mrs. Jacobsen said. One man took a McDonald's bag into the bathroom, then passed it off to another passenger upon returning to his seat. When the pilot announced the plane was cleared for landing and to fasten seat belts, seven men jumped up in unison and went to different bathrooms. Her account was confirmed by David Adams, spokesman for the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's Federal Air Marshal Service (FAMS), who said officers were on board and checked the bathrooms several times during the flight, but nothing was found. "The FAMS never broke their cover, but monitored" the activity, Mr. Adams said. "Given the facts, they had no legal basis to take an enforcement action. But there was enough of a suspicious nature for the FAMS, passengers and crew to take notice." A January FBI memo says suicide terrorists are plotting to hijack trans-Atlantic planes by smuggling "ready-to-build" bomb kits past airport security, and later assembling the explosives in aircraft bathrooms. On many overseas flights, airlines have issued rules prohibiting loitering near the lavatory. "After seeing 14 Middle Eastern men board separately (six together and eight individually) and then act as a group, watching their unusual glances, observing their bizarre bathroom activities, watching them congregate in small groups, knowing that the flight attendants and the pilots were seriously concerned and now knowing that federal air marshals were on board, I was officially terrified," Mrs. Jacobsen said. "One by one, they went into the two lavatories, each spending about four minutes inside. Right in front of us, two men stood up against the emergency exit door, waiting for the lavatory to become available. The men spoke in Arabic among themselves ... one of the men took his camera into the lavatory. Another took his cell phone. Again, no one approached the men. Not one of the flight attendants asked them to sit down." In an interview yesterday with The Washington Times, Mrs. Jacobsen said she was surprised to learn afterward that flight attendants are not trained to handle terrorist attacks or the situation that happened on her flight. "I absolutely empathize with the flight attendants. They are acting with no clear protocol," she said. Other passengers were distraught and one woman was even crying as the events unfolded. The plane was met by officials from the FBI, Los Angeles Police Department, Federal Air Marshal Service and Transportation Security Administration. The Syrians, who were traveling on one-way tickets, were taken into custody. The men, who were not on terrorist watch lists, were released, although their information and fingerprints were added to a database. The group had been hired as musicians to play at a casino, and the booking, hotel accommodations and return flight to New York from Long Beach, Calif., also checked out, Mr. Adams said. "We don't know if it was a dry run, that's why we are working together with intelligence and investigative agencies to help protect the homeland," he said. Mrs. Jacobsen, however, is skeptical the 14 passengers were innocent musicians. "If 19 terrorists can learn to fly airplanes into buildings, couldn't 14 terrorists learn to play instruments?" she asked in the article. The pilot confirmed Mrs. Jacobsen's experience was "terribly alike" what flight attendants reported on the San Juan flight. He said there is "widespread knowledge" among crew members these probes are taking place. A Middle Eastern passenger attempted to videotape out the window as the plane taxied on takeoff and, when told by a flight attendant it was not permitted, "gave her a mean look and stopped taping," said a written report of the San Juan incident by a flight attendant. The group of six men sat near one another, pretended to be strangers, but after careful observation from flight attendants, it was apparent "all six knew each other," the report said. "They were very careful when we were in their area to seem separate and pretended to be sleeping, but when we were out of the twilight area, they were watching and communicating," the report said. The men made several trips to the bathroom and congregated in that area, and were told at least twice by a flight attendant to return to their seats. The suspicious behavior was relayed to airline officials in midflight and additional background checks were conducted. A second pilot said that, on one of his recent flights, an air marshal forced his way into the lavatory at the front of his plane after a man of Middle Eastern descent locked himself in for a long period. The marshal found the mirror had been removed and the man was attempting to break through the wall. The cockpit was on the other side. The second pilot said terrorists are "absolutely" testing security. "There is a great degree of concern in the airline industry that not only are these dry runs for a terrorist attack, but that there is absolutely no defense capabilities on a vast majority of airlines," the second pilot said. Dawn Deeks, spokeswoman for the Association of Flight Attendants, said there is no "central clearinghouse" for them to learn of suspicious incidents, and flight crews are not told how issues are resolved. She said a flight attendant reported that a passenger was using a telephoto lens to take sequential photos of the cockpit door. The passenger was stopped, and the incident, which happened two months ago, was reported to officials. But when the attendant checked back last week on the outcome, she was told her report had been lost. Recent incidents at the Minneapolis-St. Paul international airport have also alarmed flight crews. Earlier this month, a passenger from Syria was taken into custody while carrying anti-American materials and a note suggesting he intended to commit a public suicide. A third pilot reported watching a man of Middle Eastern descent at the same airport using binoculars to get airplane tail numbers and writing the numbers in a notebook to correspond with flight numbers. "It's a probe. They are probing us," said a second air marshal, who confirmed that Middle Eastern men try to flush out marshals by rushing the cockpit and stopping suddenly.
Friday, July 16, 2004
moles in the FBI?
Did moles in the US government assist 9/11 plot? < devolution > 07/16 17:03:12
Attorney General John Ashcroft took yet another step last week to deep-six the Sibel Edmonds case by classifying the report of an investigation into her allegations of FBI wrongdoing so the public will never know what it says. Meanwhile, Justice Department officials met in secret with a federal judge in Washington, following which he dismissed her suit charging the FBI with wrongfully firing her.
Edmonds is the translator hired by the FBI after 9-11 to help its woefully inadequate staff translate documents and wiretaps pertaining to the attacks in languages such as Farsi and Turkish. As she has told the Voice in past and recent interviews, she was given a top secret security clearance. She soon discovered that there were what she describes as two enemy moles with possible connections to 9-11 working both in the FBI and with the Air Force in weapons procurement for Central Asia, at one point. These were the Dickersons: Douglas with the Air Force and his Turkish-born wife, Melek Can Dickerson, with the FBI as a translator monitor. After they were subpoenaed for a court hearing, they left for Belgium in September 2002 and have not been heard from since.
Among other things Edmonds told her FBI superiors, she had discovered that Melek Can Dickerson affixed Edmonds's name to a printout of inaccurate translations. Properly translated, she says, these wiretaps revealed a Turkish intelligence operative in communication with his spies in both the Pentagon and the State Department.
When Edmonds tried to tell her FBI superiors what was going on, the bureau seized her home computer, gave her a lie detector test (which she later found she passed), and then fired her, warning her not to talk—backing that up by following her around in an open and intimidating surveillance. That didn't stop her. She went to the Senate Judiciary Committee and told her story. The committee's then chair, Vermont's Patrick Leahy, and ranking minority member Charles Grassley of Iowa wrote a letter to Justice demanding to know what was going on. Subsequently the FBI confirmed some of Edmonds's claims.
www.villagevoice.com/issues/0428/mondo1.php
Attorney General John Ashcroft took yet another step last week to deep-six the Sibel Edmonds case by classifying the report of an investigation into her allegations of FBI wrongdoing so the public will never know what it says. Meanwhile, Justice Department officials met in secret with a federal judge in Washington, following which he dismissed her suit charging the FBI with wrongfully firing her.
Edmonds is the translator hired by the FBI after 9-11 to help its woefully inadequate staff translate documents and wiretaps pertaining to the attacks in languages such as Farsi and Turkish. As she has told the Voice in past and recent interviews, she was given a top secret security clearance. She soon discovered that there were what she describes as two enemy moles with possible connections to 9-11 working both in the FBI and with the Air Force in weapons procurement for Central Asia, at one point. These were the Dickersons: Douglas with the Air Force and his Turkish-born wife, Melek Can Dickerson, with the FBI as a translator monitor. After they were subpoenaed for a court hearing, they left for Belgium in September 2002 and have not been heard from since.
Among other things Edmonds told her FBI superiors, she had discovered that Melek Can Dickerson affixed Edmonds's name to a printout of inaccurate translations. Properly translated, she says, these wiretaps revealed a Turkish intelligence operative in communication with his spies in both the Pentagon and the State Department.
When Edmonds tried to tell her FBI superiors what was going on, the bureau seized her home computer, gave her a lie detector test (which she later found she passed), and then fired her, warning her not to talk—backing that up by following her around in an open and intimidating surveillance. That didn't stop her. She went to the Senate Judiciary Committee and told her story. The committee's then chair, Vermont's Patrick Leahy, and ranking minority member Charles Grassley of Iowa wrote a letter to Justice demanding to know what was going on. Subsequently the FBI confirmed some of Edmonds's claims.
www.villagevoice.com/issues/0428/mondo1.php
Daily Show kicks some ass
Oh, the irony!...
Thursday, July 15, 2004 – Jon Stewart – The Daily Show - Comedy Central
Talking Points: Keeping up with current events
Jon Stewart: "It’s not easy keeping up with current events. As soon as you catch up, more happens. That’s where conventional wisdom fits in. Conventional wisdom is the agreed upon understanding of an event or person. John Kerry is a flip flopper. George Bush has sincere heartland values and is stupid. What matters is not that the designation be true just that it be agreed upon by the media so that no further thought has to be put into it. So how is conventional wisdom arrived at? For instance, let’s take the example of the addition of John Edwards to the Democratic ticket. I don’t know how to feel about that. I don’t know what it means. Here’s how I will."
CNN: "This is 28 pages from the Republican National Committee. It says, ‘Who is Edwards? It starts off by saying a disingenuous, unaccomplished liberal.’ We also saw from the Bush-Cheney camp they released talking points to their supporters."
Jon Stewart: "Talking points. That’s how we learn things. But how will I absorb a talking point like ‘Edwards and Kerry are out of the mainstream’ unless I get it jack hammered into my skull? That’s where television lends a hand."
Fox News: "He stands way out of the main stream."
CNN – Terry Holt, Spokesman for Bush Camp: "…way out of the main stream."
CNN – Communication Director, Bush-Cheney: "He stands so far out of the main stream."
CNN – Lynn Cheney: "He’s so out of the main stream."
CNN - Terry Holt: "They’re out of the main stream."
CNN – Frank Donatelli, GOP Strategist: "…well out of the main stream.
Jon Stewart: I’m getting a feeling. I think, I think they’re out of the main stream. But, what if I wonder why?
CNN – Frank Donatelli: "…two of the foremost liberal senators of the US Senate."
CNN – Crossfire: "…two of the foremost liberal senators of the US Senate."
MSNBC – Ed Gillespie: "…the most liberal rated senator in the US Senate."
Hardball – Lynn Cheney: "…the most liberal senator of the Senate."
Fox News: "…who was rated as the number 1 liberal in the US Senate."
Fox News – Elizabeth Dole: "…the number 1 most liberal senator in the US Senate."
Jon Stewart: Wow! Those guys are liberals!! In fact, if I didn’t know better, I’d say they’re the first and fourth most liberal in the whole Senate. Wow! And while we don’t have any idea what that means and where those rankings come from and how they were arrived at or whether it’s even true, I don’t like the sounds of it. And it’s certainly not something for the media to question. As a matter of fact, I would imagine people like that, liberal and out of the main stream, hang out in some pretty extreme places.
ABC – This Week – Lindsey Graham: "…talking about the hatefest."
CNN: "…Hollywood hatefest."
Fox News: "…last Thursday night’s hatefest."
Pat Boone: "…Radio City Music Hall hatefest…"
Jon Stewart: "Yeah. See, out of the main stream, liberals, and hatefest. Keeping up with current events is easier than you thing. Talking points – they’re true because they’re said a lot."
... the irony is that the irony is so often missed.
Thursday, July 15, 2004 – Jon Stewart – The Daily Show - Comedy Central
Talking Points: Keeping up with current events
Jon Stewart: "It’s not easy keeping up with current events. As soon as you catch up, more happens. That’s where conventional wisdom fits in. Conventional wisdom is the agreed upon understanding of an event or person. John Kerry is a flip flopper. George Bush has sincere heartland values and is stupid. What matters is not that the designation be true just that it be agreed upon by the media so that no further thought has to be put into it. So how is conventional wisdom arrived at? For instance, let’s take the example of the addition of John Edwards to the Democratic ticket. I don’t know how to feel about that. I don’t know what it means. Here’s how I will."
CNN: "This is 28 pages from the Republican National Committee. It says, ‘Who is Edwards? It starts off by saying a disingenuous, unaccomplished liberal.’ We also saw from the Bush-Cheney camp they released talking points to their supporters."
Jon Stewart: "Talking points. That’s how we learn things. But how will I absorb a talking point like ‘Edwards and Kerry are out of the mainstream’ unless I get it jack hammered into my skull? That’s where television lends a hand."
Fox News: "He stands way out of the main stream."
CNN – Terry Holt, Spokesman for Bush Camp: "…way out of the main stream."
CNN – Communication Director, Bush-Cheney: "He stands so far out of the main stream."
CNN – Lynn Cheney: "He’s so out of the main stream."
CNN - Terry Holt: "They’re out of the main stream."
CNN – Frank Donatelli, GOP Strategist: "…well out of the main stream.
Jon Stewart: I’m getting a feeling. I think, I think they’re out of the main stream. But, what if I wonder why?
CNN – Frank Donatelli: "…two of the foremost liberal senators of the US Senate."
CNN – Crossfire: "…two of the foremost liberal senators of the US Senate."
MSNBC – Ed Gillespie: "…the most liberal rated senator in the US Senate."
Hardball – Lynn Cheney: "…the most liberal senator of the Senate."
Fox News: "…who was rated as the number 1 liberal in the US Senate."
Fox News – Elizabeth Dole: "…the number 1 most liberal senator in the US Senate."
Jon Stewart: Wow! Those guys are liberals!! In fact, if I didn’t know better, I’d say they’re the first and fourth most liberal in the whole Senate. Wow! And while we don’t have any idea what that means and where those rankings come from and how they were arrived at or whether it’s even true, I don’t like the sounds of it. And it’s certainly not something for the media to question. As a matter of fact, I would imagine people like that, liberal and out of the main stream, hang out in some pretty extreme places.
ABC – This Week – Lindsey Graham: "…talking about the hatefest."
CNN: "…Hollywood hatefest."
Fox News: "…last Thursday night’s hatefest."
Pat Boone: "…Radio City Music Hall hatefest…"
Jon Stewart: "Yeah. See, out of the main stream, liberals, and hatefest. Keeping up with current events is easier than you thing. Talking points – they’re true because they’re said a lot."
... the irony is that the irony is so often missed.
This day in history
On July 16, 2003, 28-year old Ram?n Reyes Torres of the 432nd Airborne of the U.S. Army Reserve based in Ceiba, Puerto Rico, became the 148th GI, and the eighth from Puerto Rico, to be killed in action in Iraq.
Also on July 16, 2003, the American military commander in Iraq, General John P. Abizaid, having just assumed command there, declared that the enemy was engaging “a classical guerrilla-type” war against the 130,000 U.S. forces stationed in that defeated country. In retrospect, this was a shocking departure from what was heralded in April 2003 as a brilliant and swift conventional war rout.
... How's that working for ya?
Wednesday, July 14, 2004
The American Conservative critiques the Iraq Adventure
July 19, 2004 issue
Copyright © 2004 The American Conservative
A Time for Reckoning
Ten lessons to take away from Iraq
By Andrew J. Bacevich
Reality has not dealt kindly with the hopes and expectations conjured up to justify Operation Iraqi Freedom. Although the war may not be lost, it cannot be won, at least not as the Bush administration once defined winning. What then are we to make of this experience?
The question may strike some as premature. Whether President Bush (or President Kerry) “stays the course” or cuts American losses, difficult days lie ahead. The bill yet to be levied for this misadventure promises to be steep. More Americans and even larger numbers of Iraqis will lose their lives. Combat operations and the black hole of “nation-building” will consume additional billions of dollars, adding to the ocean of red ink that is the federal budget. Yet even as events wind their way toward what promises to be a deeply unsatisfactory denouement, the argument over what it all means must necessarily be joined. Common sense dictates that we apply to future U.S. policy what we have learned in Iraq, and the future will not wait.
With an eye toward that future—and with no claim that any of what follows qualifies as definitive—herewith a first cut at identifying the war’s operative lessons.
First, ideology makes a poor substitute for strategy. With the invasion of Iraq, it became impossible to deny that in the heady aftermath of the Cold War American grand strategy became uncoupled from reality. Certain that history had spoken and that Americans were uniquely able to interpret its meaning, policymakers both Democratic and Republican uncorked old vials of Wilsonian illusion and breathed deeply. As a consequence, zealotry supplanted calculations of power and interest as a determinant of U.S. policy.
Bill Clinton entertained visions of globalization, creating a world without borders in which all nations would be sure to enjoy the blessings of peace, prosperity, and democracy. George W. Bush topped Clinton, vowing after 9/11 not only to eliminate terror (an impossibility) but also to put an end to evil. But mixing utopianism and politics is a recipe for miscalculation and an invitation to strategic bankruptcy—as the Iraq War has painfully reminded us.
It is the tradition of George Washington rather than the tradition of Woodrow Wilson that best serves American interests. The nation’s first president—and successors like Lincoln, both Roosevelts, Truman, and Eisenhower—understood not only the uses but also the limits of power. That balanced sensibility, anchored to considerations of prudence, has vanished from the current foreign-policy elite. There is an urgent need to restore it.
Second, wars leave loose ends. In a political sense, decisive victory—meaning military success that makes a clean sweep of the complaints giving rise to war in the first place—is a pipe dream.
Operation Iraqi Freedom was supposed to finish the job that Bush’s father had left undone in 1991. Oust Saddam Hussein, the war’s supporters promised, and all sorts of good things were sure to follow. War would transform Iraq into the first Arab democracy, usher the Middle East into an era of lasting peace, and nudge Islam toward moderation and modernity. Today, the Ba’athist regime is gone, but none of the predicted benefits seems likely to materialize. Instead the United States has exchanged the limited burdens of containment for the far more onerous burdens of occupation. We have overthrown a tin-pot dictator posing no immediate threat to the United States and thereby energized and encouraged far more dangerous enemies. Rather than persuading Muslims to see America as liberator and friend, we have cemented our image as Great Satan.
War is like a highly toxic drug: with the cure come side effects. And Iraq reminds us that the side effects can prove worse than the disease.
Third, allies have choices—and will exercise them. Across a decade of hyping the United States as “sole superpower” and “indispensable nation,” too many policymakers persuaded themselves that America’s traditional allies had no alternative but to accede to U.S. “global leadership.” Both the Persian Gulf War of 1990-1991 and the Kosovo conflict of 1999 seemed to show that when Washington called, others clamored to board the bandwagon. To opt out was to be left out and left behind: from Washington’s perspective, this was a risk that few “friends” were likely to take.
Iraq demolished such fantasies. Allies are not vassals. When interests diverge sufficiently, “friendship” counts for little. The Iraq experience has, time and again, affirmed this fundamental principle: when “old Europe” chose to sit out the war altogether; when Turkey rejected Washington’s request to allow U.S. troops to cross its territory; when Spanish voters concluded that occupying Iraq was exacerbating rather than reducing the threat of terror. At every step of the way, as key allies stiffed us, the costs borne by the United States have necessarily risen.
Even before Iraq, the bonds that once joined what was called “the West” had already (and perhaps inevitably) begun to fray. Thanks to its insistence on preventive war, the Bush administration has hastened the West along the path toward oblivion. Nations whose support we once assumed to be a given now question the acceptability of the Pax Americana and may yet muster the collective will to proffer an alternative. Before launching on more crusades, we have diplomatic fences to mend.
Fourth, Israel’s war is not our war. President Bush’s undifferentiated “global war on terror” has encouraged the government of Ariel Sharon to assert that Israel’s enemies and America’s enemies are one and the same. But they are not. Indeed, Sharon’s misguided effort to crush resistance to Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza through brute force serves only to complicate and exacerbate our own problems. Sharon’s policy will not work, and as Israel’s chief supporter we get tagged with much of the blame.
Resolving the Israeli-Palestinian dispute will not itself alleviate Muslim antagonism toward the United States. But absent such a resolution, that antagonism will fester, thereby providing fertile ground for Osama bin Laden and other Islamic radicals to enlist new recruits.
We should not deceive ourselves about the prospects of bringing real peace to the Holy Land. Something like partition is probably the best outcome one can hope for. But brokering and if necessary enforcing such a partition rather than vainly attempting to democratize the Arab world at the point of a sword ought to form the centerpiece of U.S. policy in the Middle East. Further deference to Israeli hardliners like Sharon, who know nothing but force, is contrary to American interests. True friends of the Jewish state will see it as contrary to Israel’s interests as well.
Fifth, “shock and awe” gets you only so far. More than a decade ago, the previous U.S. war against Iraq brought to full flower the American romance with high-tech warfare. Operation Iraqi Freedom has offered the fullest illustration to date of what this new American way of war can and cannot do. On the one hand, it affirmed what we already learned in Desert Storm: U.S. forces will make short work of any conventionally organized and equipped adversary foolish enough to put up a fight.
On the other hand, developments since the fall of Baghdad have also affirmed what we learned in Mogadishu: against a determined insurgent armed with even primitive weapons, air power, stealth, and precision weapons—all the signature capabilities that distinguish the preferred American style of warfare —won’t do the trick. Defeating guerrillas requires something more and something different. The United States military is no closer today to devising a technological solution to the riddle of unconventional war than it was when Vietnam ended in defeat.
Sixth, the margin of U.S. military supremacy is thinner than advertised. Ours is undoubtedly the mightiest military the world has ever seen, with a more than ample inventory of high-performance fighter jets, aircraft carriers, and top-of-the-line nuclear submarines. But our inventory of soldiers and Marines is grossly inadequate—inadequate at least to implement President Bush’s grandiose plans for sprinkling the blessings of liberty throughout the Greater Middle East. Despite the administration’s obdurate insistence to the contrary, the fact is that the United States today has too few soldiers doing too many things.
In just one year, the Iraq morass has brought U.S. ground forces within a hair’s breadth of overstretch. Expedients such as relying on reserves and hiring thousands of mercenaries have not fixed the problem; they embody it. Announced plans to divert troops from Korea to Iraq and to deploy stateside training cadres show just how bare the cupboard has become.
If the United States is intent on playing the role of global hegemon, we need to put more young Americans in uniform—lots more. If as citizens we’re not willing to pay that price, then the Iraq experience should oblige policymakers to scale back their ambitions.
Seventh, the myth of American casualty aversion is just that. The conventional wisdom of the 1990s was that a risk-averse military and a casualty-phobic public constituted major obstacles impeding the effective use of force. For the Clinton administration and its defenders, this became a convenient device for offloading onto others responsibility for American military fecklessness. The onus for the pseudo-campaigns of the decade leading up to 9/11—the zenith coming in 1998 when U.S. Navy cruise missiles demolished an empty pharmaceutical factory in Khartoum—lay not with the commander-in-chief but with foot-dragging generals and fainthearted citizens who lacked the stomach for serious military action.
Historians can debate whether or not the sensitivity to casualties was ever as great as it once appeared. But there is little room for debate that the events of Sept. 11, 2001 swept aside any such constraints. Traditional American ferocity and bloody-mindedness reasserted themselves with a vengeance. All that was needed was competence at the top to harness and direct it. But as the Iraq debacle has made plain, competence remains, as it was in the 1990s, in precariously short supply.
Eighth, so too with the myth of an American genius for spreading democracy. From the very day that U.S. forces entered Baghdad, the officials charged with raising a new Iraq out of the ashes of the old have displayed remarkable ineptitude. However admirable the hard work of those who have risked life and limb to give the Iraqi people a fresh start, the overall effort has misfired.
Far from replicating the success achieved in postwar Germany and Japan after 1945, L. Paul Bremer has managed to reprise the sorry record achieved in places like South Vietnam. If the United States insists that it needs to be in the nation-building business, then it’s time to go back to square one, drawing on the disappointments of Iraq to devise the techniques, create the institutions, and develop the leaders to do better next time out. Or, perhaps more wisely, we might conclude that bringing democracy to the Arab world is akin to making bricks without straw—a trick best left to others.
Ninth, it’s hard to win when you don’t know whom you’re fighting. Much has been made about the blunders in strategic intelligence such as the failure to anticipate 9/11 and the bogus assertions regarding Saddam’s weapons of massive destruction. But the inadequacies of tactical intelligence have been at least as great, if not greater.
In a situation truly without precedent in all of American military history, American forces in Iraq have for more than a year been engaged in a full-fledged shooting war and still do not know whom they are fighting. The reliance on generic terms to describe the “terrorists,” “insurgents,” or “foreign fighters” tells the story. Exactly who is the enemy? How is he organized? Who gives the orders? What are his aims? We don’t know. And as long as we don’t, the enemy will retain the initiative.
In short, the Iraq War shows that the imperative of intelligence reform goes far beyond any problems attributed to the CIA.
Tenth, civil-military relations at the top are broken. The Iraq War has confirmed what had already become evident during the 1990s: the relationship between senior military leaders and the top echelon of civilian officials is dysfunctional. That dysfunction contributes to flawed decisions on crucial issues related to peace and war.
During the Clinton era, the problem was one of a weak commander-in-chief unable or unwilling to assert effective control over the generals. Donald Rumsfeld came into office intent on clearing up any confusion about who is in charge. But the Rumsfeld approach is to treat his principal military advisers with McNamara-like disdain. Those who speak up—like the Army chief of staff who had the temerity to suggest that occupying Iraq might require a considerable number of troops—are rebuked and marginalized.
The point is not to suggest turning war over to the soldiers. Unambiguous civilian control is essential. But effective civil-military interaction demands something more than simply throttling generals. It means incorporating professional military expertise into the debate over basic national security policy. That in turn requires a combination of trust, honesty, mutual respect, and mutual self-restraint that has been absent for many years. This is an intolerable situation that in all likelihood the Department of Defense itself cannot fix. It cries out for serious and sustained congressional attention.
As was the case with Vietnam, the debate over the lessons of Iraq promises to be a protracted one. Again as was the case with Vietnam, the temptation to exploit that debate for partisan purposes will be great. But the issue is too important to use as an excuse for bashing neoconservatives, scoring points against President Bush, or luxuriating in the peculiar satisfactions of Schadenfreude. To avoid repeating the errors that got us into this mess, we need to get those lessons right.
http://www.amconmag.com/2004_07_19/article.html
Copyright © 2004 The American Conservative
A Time for Reckoning
Ten lessons to take away from Iraq
By Andrew J. Bacevich
Reality has not dealt kindly with the hopes and expectations conjured up to justify Operation Iraqi Freedom. Although the war may not be lost, it cannot be won, at least not as the Bush administration once defined winning. What then are we to make of this experience?
The question may strike some as premature. Whether President Bush (or President Kerry) “stays the course” or cuts American losses, difficult days lie ahead. The bill yet to be levied for this misadventure promises to be steep. More Americans and even larger numbers of Iraqis will lose their lives. Combat operations and the black hole of “nation-building” will consume additional billions of dollars, adding to the ocean of red ink that is the federal budget. Yet even as events wind their way toward what promises to be a deeply unsatisfactory denouement, the argument over what it all means must necessarily be joined. Common sense dictates that we apply to future U.S. policy what we have learned in Iraq, and the future will not wait.
With an eye toward that future—and with no claim that any of what follows qualifies as definitive—herewith a first cut at identifying the war’s operative lessons.
First, ideology makes a poor substitute for strategy. With the invasion of Iraq, it became impossible to deny that in the heady aftermath of the Cold War American grand strategy became uncoupled from reality. Certain that history had spoken and that Americans were uniquely able to interpret its meaning, policymakers both Democratic and Republican uncorked old vials of Wilsonian illusion and breathed deeply. As a consequence, zealotry supplanted calculations of power and interest as a determinant of U.S. policy.
Bill Clinton entertained visions of globalization, creating a world without borders in which all nations would be sure to enjoy the blessings of peace, prosperity, and democracy. George W. Bush topped Clinton, vowing after 9/11 not only to eliminate terror (an impossibility) but also to put an end to evil. But mixing utopianism and politics is a recipe for miscalculation and an invitation to strategic bankruptcy—as the Iraq War has painfully reminded us.
It is the tradition of George Washington rather than the tradition of Woodrow Wilson that best serves American interests. The nation’s first president—and successors like Lincoln, both Roosevelts, Truman, and Eisenhower—understood not only the uses but also the limits of power. That balanced sensibility, anchored to considerations of prudence, has vanished from the current foreign-policy elite. There is an urgent need to restore it.
Second, wars leave loose ends. In a political sense, decisive victory—meaning military success that makes a clean sweep of the complaints giving rise to war in the first place—is a pipe dream.
Operation Iraqi Freedom was supposed to finish the job that Bush’s father had left undone in 1991. Oust Saddam Hussein, the war’s supporters promised, and all sorts of good things were sure to follow. War would transform Iraq into the first Arab democracy, usher the Middle East into an era of lasting peace, and nudge Islam toward moderation and modernity. Today, the Ba’athist regime is gone, but none of the predicted benefits seems likely to materialize. Instead the United States has exchanged the limited burdens of containment for the far more onerous burdens of occupation. We have overthrown a tin-pot dictator posing no immediate threat to the United States and thereby energized and encouraged far more dangerous enemies. Rather than persuading Muslims to see America as liberator and friend, we have cemented our image as Great Satan.
War is like a highly toxic drug: with the cure come side effects. And Iraq reminds us that the side effects can prove worse than the disease.
Third, allies have choices—and will exercise them. Across a decade of hyping the United States as “sole superpower” and “indispensable nation,” too many policymakers persuaded themselves that America’s traditional allies had no alternative but to accede to U.S. “global leadership.” Both the Persian Gulf War of 1990-1991 and the Kosovo conflict of 1999 seemed to show that when Washington called, others clamored to board the bandwagon. To opt out was to be left out and left behind: from Washington’s perspective, this was a risk that few “friends” were likely to take.
Iraq demolished such fantasies. Allies are not vassals. When interests diverge sufficiently, “friendship” counts for little. The Iraq experience has, time and again, affirmed this fundamental principle: when “old Europe” chose to sit out the war altogether; when Turkey rejected Washington’s request to allow U.S. troops to cross its territory; when Spanish voters concluded that occupying Iraq was exacerbating rather than reducing the threat of terror. At every step of the way, as key allies stiffed us, the costs borne by the United States have necessarily risen.
Even before Iraq, the bonds that once joined what was called “the West” had already (and perhaps inevitably) begun to fray. Thanks to its insistence on preventive war, the Bush administration has hastened the West along the path toward oblivion. Nations whose support we once assumed to be a given now question the acceptability of the Pax Americana and may yet muster the collective will to proffer an alternative. Before launching on more crusades, we have diplomatic fences to mend.
Fourth, Israel’s war is not our war. President Bush’s undifferentiated “global war on terror” has encouraged the government of Ariel Sharon to assert that Israel’s enemies and America’s enemies are one and the same. But they are not. Indeed, Sharon’s misguided effort to crush resistance to Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza through brute force serves only to complicate and exacerbate our own problems. Sharon’s policy will not work, and as Israel’s chief supporter we get tagged with much of the blame.
Resolving the Israeli-Palestinian dispute will not itself alleviate Muslim antagonism toward the United States. But absent such a resolution, that antagonism will fester, thereby providing fertile ground for Osama bin Laden and other Islamic radicals to enlist new recruits.
We should not deceive ourselves about the prospects of bringing real peace to the Holy Land. Something like partition is probably the best outcome one can hope for. But brokering and if necessary enforcing such a partition rather than vainly attempting to democratize the Arab world at the point of a sword ought to form the centerpiece of U.S. policy in the Middle East. Further deference to Israeli hardliners like Sharon, who know nothing but force, is contrary to American interests. True friends of the Jewish state will see it as contrary to Israel’s interests as well.
Fifth, “shock and awe” gets you only so far. More than a decade ago, the previous U.S. war against Iraq brought to full flower the American romance with high-tech warfare. Operation Iraqi Freedom has offered the fullest illustration to date of what this new American way of war can and cannot do. On the one hand, it affirmed what we already learned in Desert Storm: U.S. forces will make short work of any conventionally organized and equipped adversary foolish enough to put up a fight.
On the other hand, developments since the fall of Baghdad have also affirmed what we learned in Mogadishu: against a determined insurgent armed with even primitive weapons, air power, stealth, and precision weapons—all the signature capabilities that distinguish the preferred American style of warfare —won’t do the trick. Defeating guerrillas requires something more and something different. The United States military is no closer today to devising a technological solution to the riddle of unconventional war than it was when Vietnam ended in defeat.
Sixth, the margin of U.S. military supremacy is thinner than advertised. Ours is undoubtedly the mightiest military the world has ever seen, with a more than ample inventory of high-performance fighter jets, aircraft carriers, and top-of-the-line nuclear submarines. But our inventory of soldiers and Marines is grossly inadequate—inadequate at least to implement President Bush’s grandiose plans for sprinkling the blessings of liberty throughout the Greater Middle East. Despite the administration’s obdurate insistence to the contrary, the fact is that the United States today has too few soldiers doing too many things.
In just one year, the Iraq morass has brought U.S. ground forces within a hair’s breadth of overstretch. Expedients such as relying on reserves and hiring thousands of mercenaries have not fixed the problem; they embody it. Announced plans to divert troops from Korea to Iraq and to deploy stateside training cadres show just how bare the cupboard has become.
If the United States is intent on playing the role of global hegemon, we need to put more young Americans in uniform—lots more. If as citizens we’re not willing to pay that price, then the Iraq experience should oblige policymakers to scale back their ambitions.
Seventh, the myth of American casualty aversion is just that. The conventional wisdom of the 1990s was that a risk-averse military and a casualty-phobic public constituted major obstacles impeding the effective use of force. For the Clinton administration and its defenders, this became a convenient device for offloading onto others responsibility for American military fecklessness. The onus for the pseudo-campaigns of the decade leading up to 9/11—the zenith coming in 1998 when U.S. Navy cruise missiles demolished an empty pharmaceutical factory in Khartoum—lay not with the commander-in-chief but with foot-dragging generals and fainthearted citizens who lacked the stomach for serious military action.
Historians can debate whether or not the sensitivity to casualties was ever as great as it once appeared. But there is little room for debate that the events of Sept. 11, 2001 swept aside any such constraints. Traditional American ferocity and bloody-mindedness reasserted themselves with a vengeance. All that was needed was competence at the top to harness and direct it. But as the Iraq debacle has made plain, competence remains, as it was in the 1990s, in precariously short supply.
Eighth, so too with the myth of an American genius for spreading democracy. From the very day that U.S. forces entered Baghdad, the officials charged with raising a new Iraq out of the ashes of the old have displayed remarkable ineptitude. However admirable the hard work of those who have risked life and limb to give the Iraqi people a fresh start, the overall effort has misfired.
Far from replicating the success achieved in postwar Germany and Japan after 1945, L. Paul Bremer has managed to reprise the sorry record achieved in places like South Vietnam. If the United States insists that it needs to be in the nation-building business, then it’s time to go back to square one, drawing on the disappointments of Iraq to devise the techniques, create the institutions, and develop the leaders to do better next time out. Or, perhaps more wisely, we might conclude that bringing democracy to the Arab world is akin to making bricks without straw—a trick best left to others.
Ninth, it’s hard to win when you don’t know whom you’re fighting. Much has been made about the blunders in strategic intelligence such as the failure to anticipate 9/11 and the bogus assertions regarding Saddam’s weapons of massive destruction. But the inadequacies of tactical intelligence have been at least as great, if not greater.
In a situation truly without precedent in all of American military history, American forces in Iraq have for more than a year been engaged in a full-fledged shooting war and still do not know whom they are fighting. The reliance on generic terms to describe the “terrorists,” “insurgents,” or “foreign fighters” tells the story. Exactly who is the enemy? How is he organized? Who gives the orders? What are his aims? We don’t know. And as long as we don’t, the enemy will retain the initiative.
In short, the Iraq War shows that the imperative of intelligence reform goes far beyond any problems attributed to the CIA.
Tenth, civil-military relations at the top are broken. The Iraq War has confirmed what had already become evident during the 1990s: the relationship between senior military leaders and the top echelon of civilian officials is dysfunctional. That dysfunction contributes to flawed decisions on crucial issues related to peace and war.
During the Clinton era, the problem was one of a weak commander-in-chief unable or unwilling to assert effective control over the generals. Donald Rumsfeld came into office intent on clearing up any confusion about who is in charge. But the Rumsfeld approach is to treat his principal military advisers with McNamara-like disdain. Those who speak up—like the Army chief of staff who had the temerity to suggest that occupying Iraq might require a considerable number of troops—are rebuked and marginalized.
The point is not to suggest turning war over to the soldiers. Unambiguous civilian control is essential. But effective civil-military interaction demands something more than simply throttling generals. It means incorporating professional military expertise into the debate over basic national security policy. That in turn requires a combination of trust, honesty, mutual respect, and mutual self-restraint that has been absent for many years. This is an intolerable situation that in all likelihood the Department of Defense itself cannot fix. It cries out for serious and sustained congressional attention.
As was the case with Vietnam, the debate over the lessons of Iraq promises to be a protracted one. Again as was the case with Vietnam, the temptation to exploit that debate for partisan purposes will be great. But the issue is too important to use as an excuse for bashing neoconservatives, scoring points against President Bush, or luxuriating in the peculiar satisfactions of Schadenfreude. To avoid repeating the errors that got us into this mess, we need to get those lessons right.
http://www.amconmag.com/2004_07_19/article.html
Whatever happened to ...
I think a list of news items that raised more questions than they answered would be helpful.
(1) the Dancing Israelis: what happened to the Israelis seen dancing in the NJ parking lot on 9-11?
(2)Jake & The Suicides: Was there ever any investigation into the multiple suicides and accidental deaths in the Enron/Bush crowd?
(1) the Dancing Israelis: what happened to the Israelis seen dancing in the NJ parking lot on 9-11?
(2)Jake & The Suicides: Was there ever any investigation into the multiple suicides and accidental deaths in the Enron/Bush crowd?
Monday, July 12, 2004
Intelligence Whitewash
At least someone is asking the pointy little questions ... why are the Dimmocrat Senators so sound asleep to let this report out?
"The report released by the Senate Intelligence Committee on Friday confirmed widespread doubts about the accuracy of the intelligence President Bush used to make his case for war in Iraq, but left unanswered several questions surrounding Bush and his administration's role in the production and use of that intelligence. The findings in the report offered a "broad indictment" of the CIA, and "left in shreds" the Bush administration's main rationales for war. However, it stopped short of addressing the pressure applied by the administration in gathering that intelligence, including repeated trips to CIA headquarters by Vice President Cheney, the creation of a secretive Office of Special Plans to filter intelligence, and several pre-war statements exaggerating intelligence estimates or ignoring conflicting points of view.
UNDER PRESSURE: The report states there is no evidence intelligence analysts were pressured to change their judgments or alter " intelligence products to conform with administration policy," but committee co-chairman Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) indicated he "voted for the report in spite of that with which I did not agree, that is the subject of pressure. I think there was a lot of pressure." The evidence supports Rockefeller's suspicions: if analysts weren't sufficiently intimidated by Cheney's "repeated trips to CIA headquarters in the run-up to the war for unusual face-to-face sessions with intelligence analysts poring over Iraqi data," they may have noticed when the Pentagon set up a rival intelligence-gathering outfit, the Office of Special Plans, which "rivaled both the C.I.A. and the Pentagon's own Defense Intelligence Agency, the D.I.A., as President Bush's main source of intelligence regarding Iraq's possible possession of WMD and connection with Al Qaeda." Rockefeller said, "the ombudsman of the CIA, whose job it is to listen to people's complaints said that in his 32 years of work in the CIA, he had never seen so much hammering, i.e. pressure, on the intelligence community."
THE 2002 NIE: The report focused on the flawed findings of the 2002 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), claiming the report said Iraq had WMD, was developing unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) and "probably intended to deliver biological warfare agents." Conservatives have suggested it was this unsupported intelligence which led Bush administration to make inflated claims. There's just one problem—the 2002 NIE does not support many of those claims. For instance, a declassified excerpt of the report noted that the Department of Energy disagreed with assertions that aluminum tubes were being used as part of Saddam's effort to reconstitute nuclear weapons. But this didn't stop Secretary of State Colin Powell from using the tubes to make his case for war to the United Nations. The report also lists as "highly dubious" the claims of Iraqi pursuit of natural uranium in Africa, which Bush nevertheless cited as fact in his 2003 State of the Union Address. It's hard to know what else the 2002 NIE really said, because "the CIA has decided to keep [it] almost entirely secret," despite a Freedom of Information Act request from the National Security Archive. But you can see this declassified list of warnings the administration was given that its assertions about Iraq were weak.
OTHER INTELLIGENCE: There was plenty of available information that conflicted with the 2002 NIE, but it was ignored by administration officials. In February of 2003, a CIA report on proliferation said the intelligence community had "no 'direct evidence' that Iraq has succeeded in reconstituting its biological, chemical, nuclear or long-range missile programs in the two years since U.N. weapons inspectors left and U.S. planes bombed Iraqi facilities." Inspectors repeatedly told the UN Security Council they could not find evidence of weapons in Iraq and the IAEA warned Bush it had "found no evidence of ongoing prohibited nuclear or nuclear-related activities in Iraq." For more examples of the administration neglecting intelligence, check out this American progress backgrounder.
HELPING OUT THE COMMITTEE: The Senate Intelligence Committee will soon begin a "follow-up investigation that will examine prewar statements by President Bush and other administration officials." According to the LA Times, Chairman Pat Roberts (R – KS) has asked members of the panel "to submit lists of claims made by White House officials and other policymakers that would be scrutinized to determine whether they were exaggerated or unsupported by intelligence assessments available before the invasion of Iraq." Here are a few exaggerated or unsupported claims that could help get the panel off to a good start: 9/25/02: President Bush tells the press, "You can't distinguish between al-Qaida and Saddam." 8/26/02: Vice President Cheney says, "Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction." 9/19/02: Donald Rumsfeld tells the Senate Armed Services Committee, "[Saddam has] amassed large, clandestine stockpiles of biological weapons, including anthrax, botulism, toxins and possibly smallpox." And on 9/7/03, Condoleezza Rice told CNN, "We don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud."
http://www.americanprogress.org/site/pp.asp?c=biJRJ8OVF&b=6228#2
"The report released by the Senate Intelligence Committee on Friday confirmed widespread doubts about the accuracy of the intelligence President Bush used to make his case for war in Iraq, but left unanswered several questions surrounding Bush and his administration's role in the production and use of that intelligence. The findings in the report offered a "broad indictment" of the CIA, and "left in shreds" the Bush administration's main rationales for war. However, it stopped short of addressing the pressure applied by the administration in gathering that intelligence, including repeated trips to CIA headquarters by Vice President Cheney, the creation of a secretive Office of Special Plans to filter intelligence, and several pre-war statements exaggerating intelligence estimates or ignoring conflicting points of view.
UNDER PRESSURE: The report states there is no evidence intelligence analysts were pressured to change their judgments or alter " intelligence products to conform with administration policy," but committee co-chairman Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) indicated he "voted for the report in spite of that with which I did not agree, that is the subject of pressure. I think there was a lot of pressure." The evidence supports Rockefeller's suspicions: if analysts weren't sufficiently intimidated by Cheney's "repeated trips to CIA headquarters in the run-up to the war for unusual face-to-face sessions with intelligence analysts poring over Iraqi data," they may have noticed when the Pentagon set up a rival intelligence-gathering outfit, the Office of Special Plans, which "rivaled both the C.I.A. and the Pentagon's own Defense Intelligence Agency, the D.I.A., as President Bush's main source of intelligence regarding Iraq's possible possession of WMD and connection with Al Qaeda." Rockefeller said, "the ombudsman of the CIA, whose job it is to listen to people's complaints said that in his 32 years of work in the CIA, he had never seen so much hammering, i.e. pressure, on the intelligence community."
THE 2002 NIE: The report focused on the flawed findings of the 2002 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), claiming the report said Iraq had WMD, was developing unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) and "probably intended to deliver biological warfare agents." Conservatives have suggested it was this unsupported intelligence which led Bush administration to make inflated claims. There's just one problem—the 2002 NIE does not support many of those claims. For instance, a declassified excerpt of the report noted that the Department of Energy disagreed with assertions that aluminum tubes were being used as part of Saddam's effort to reconstitute nuclear weapons. But this didn't stop Secretary of State Colin Powell from using the tubes to make his case for war to the United Nations. The report also lists as "highly dubious" the claims of Iraqi pursuit of natural uranium in Africa, which Bush nevertheless cited as fact in his 2003 State of the Union Address. It's hard to know what else the 2002 NIE really said, because "the CIA has decided to keep [it] almost entirely secret," despite a Freedom of Information Act request from the National Security Archive. But you can see this declassified list of warnings the administration was given that its assertions about Iraq were weak.
OTHER INTELLIGENCE: There was plenty of available information that conflicted with the 2002 NIE, but it was ignored by administration officials. In February of 2003, a CIA report on proliferation said the intelligence community had "no 'direct evidence' that Iraq has succeeded in reconstituting its biological, chemical, nuclear or long-range missile programs in the two years since U.N. weapons inspectors left and U.S. planes bombed Iraqi facilities." Inspectors repeatedly told the UN Security Council they could not find evidence of weapons in Iraq and the IAEA warned Bush it had "found no evidence of ongoing prohibited nuclear or nuclear-related activities in Iraq." For more examples of the administration neglecting intelligence, check out this American progress backgrounder.
HELPING OUT THE COMMITTEE: The Senate Intelligence Committee will soon begin a "follow-up investigation that will examine prewar statements by President Bush and other administration officials." According to the LA Times, Chairman Pat Roberts (R – KS) has asked members of the panel "to submit lists of claims made by White House officials and other policymakers that would be scrutinized to determine whether they were exaggerated or unsupported by intelligence assessments available before the invasion of Iraq." Here are a few exaggerated or unsupported claims that could help get the panel off to a good start: 9/25/02: President Bush tells the press, "You can't distinguish between al-Qaida and Saddam." 8/26/02: Vice President Cheney says, "Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction." 9/19/02: Donald Rumsfeld tells the Senate Armed Services Committee, "[Saddam has] amassed large, clandestine stockpiles of biological weapons, including anthrax, botulism, toxins and possibly smallpox." And on 9/7/03, Condoleezza Rice told CNN, "We don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud."
http://www.americanprogress.org/site/pp.asp?c=biJRJ8OVF&b=6228#2
Sunday, July 11, 2004
If the Dems won WH & both houses, could they outdo the GOP spendaholics?
"$8.6 trillion bill sent to future generations
With the 2003 tax cut and a huge prescription drug benefit, the folks in Washington ran up an unprecedented bill they'll leave to future taxpayers.
By Scott Burns
It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly native American criminal class except Congress.
I'm serious.
Let's limit the evidence to two pieces of legislation enacted last year. The first was the Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2003, passed last May. It provided a major tax cut for current taxpayers. That's not something one normally associates with a threat to liberty.
The second was the prescription drug bill. It was part of a major overhaul of Medicare passed in November. Most people don't think of prescription drugs as a threat to liberty, either.
But consider the two bills together. They work to maximize income and benefits for those living (and voting) today by sending a gigantic bill to our children and grandchildren. This is not political hyperbole. You'll be amazed at the burden our politicians dropped on the kids in a single year.
Sadly, the tax cut is a minor problem compared with the expected cost of the prescription drug benefit. In their report for 2004, the Social Security and Medicare Trustees estimate the 75-year general revenue cost of the new benefit at $8.1 trillion. (The number is on Page 108 of the Medicare report.)
Those are present-value dollars. "
http://moneycentral.msn.com/content/invest/extra/P88009.asp
With the 2003 tax cut and a huge prescription drug benefit, the folks in Washington ran up an unprecedented bill they'll leave to future taxpayers.
By Scott Burns
It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly native American criminal class except Congress.
I'm serious.
Let's limit the evidence to two pieces of legislation enacted last year. The first was the Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2003, passed last May. It provided a major tax cut for current taxpayers. That's not something one normally associates with a threat to liberty.
The second was the prescription drug bill. It was part of a major overhaul of Medicare passed in November. Most people don't think of prescription drugs as a threat to liberty, either.
But consider the two bills together. They work to maximize income and benefits for those living (and voting) today by sending a gigantic bill to our children and grandchildren. This is not political hyperbole. You'll be amazed at the burden our politicians dropped on the kids in a single year.
Sadly, the tax cut is a minor problem compared with the expected cost of the prescription drug benefit. In their report for 2004, the Social Security and Medicare Trustees estimate the 75-year general revenue cost of the new benefit at $8.1 trillion. (The number is on Page 108 of the Medicare report.)
Those are present-value dollars. "
http://moneycentral.msn.com/content/invest/extra/P88009.asp
Wednesday, July 07, 2004
Inquiry Confirms Medicare Chief Threatened Actuary
Published: July 7, 2004
WASHINGTON, July 6 - An internal investigation by the Department of Health and Human Services confirms that the top Medicare official threatened to fire the program's chief actuary if he told Congress that drug benefits would probably cost much more than the White House acknowledged.
A report on the investigation, issued Tuesday, says the administrator of Medicare, Thomas A. Scully, issued the threat to Richard S. Foster while lawmakers were considering huge changes in the program last year. As a result, Mr. Foster's cost estimate did not become known until after the legislation was enacted.
But neither the threat nor the withholding of information violated any criminal law, the report said. It accepted the Justice Department's view that Mr. Scully had "the final authority to determine the flow of information to Congress.'' Moreover, it said, the actuary "had no authority to disclose information independently to Congress.''
Mr. Scully, who resigned in December, in part to become a lobbyist for health care companies, had denied threatening Mr. Foster but had acknowledged having told him to withhold the information from Congress.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/07/politics/07medicare.html
... well, suhPRIZE, suhPRIZE.
I'll show you "inexperience"!
When you hear Republicans disparage Sen. John Edwards's lack of experience, remember the words of Sen. Orrin Hatch, spoken to George W. Bush at a debate on Dec. 6, 1999.
"You've been a great governor," Hatch declared of his rival for the Republican presidential nomination. "My only problem with you, governor, is that you've only had four and going into your fifth year of governorship. . . . Frankly, I really believe that you need more experience before you become president of the United States. That's why I'm thinking of you as a vice presidential candidate."
... How's that working for ya?
"You've been a great governor," Hatch declared of his rival for the Republican presidential nomination. "My only problem with you, governor, is that you've only had four and going into your fifth year of governorship. . . . Frankly, I really believe that you need more experience before you become president of the United States. That's why I'm thinking of you as a vice presidential candidate."
... How's that working for ya?
Tuesday, July 06, 2004
Happy Birthday, Dear Insurrection
LA Times
By Mark Mazzetti Times Staff Writer
WASHINGTON — Almost a year after acknowledging they were facing a well-armed guerrilla war in Iraq, the Pentagon and commanders in the Middle East are being criticized by some top Bush administration officials, military officers and defense experts who accuse the military of failing to develop a coherent, winning strategy against the insurgency.
Inadequate intelligence, poor assessments of enemy strength, testy relations with U.S. civilian authorities in Baghdad and an inconsistent application of force remain key problems many observers say the military must address before U.S. and Iraqi forces can quell the insurgents.
"It's disappointing that we haven't been able to have better insight into the command and control of the insurgents," said one senior official of the now-dissolved Coalition Provisional Authority, recently returned from Baghdad and speaking on condition of anonymity. "And you've got to have that if you're going to have effective military operations."
By Mark Mazzetti Times Staff Writer
WASHINGTON — Almost a year after acknowledging they were facing a well-armed guerrilla war in Iraq, the Pentagon and commanders in the Middle East are being criticized by some top Bush administration officials, military officers and defense experts who accuse the military of failing to develop a coherent, winning strategy against the insurgency.
Inadequate intelligence, poor assessments of enemy strength, testy relations with U.S. civilian authorities in Baghdad and an inconsistent application of force remain key problems many observers say the military must address before U.S. and Iraqi forces can quell the insurgents.
"It's disappointing that we haven't been able to have better insight into the command and control of the insurgents," said one senior official of the now-dissolved Coalition Provisional Authority, recently returned from Baghdad and speaking on condition of anonymity. "And you've got to have that if you're going to have effective military operations."
Friday, July 02, 2004
Before the involuntary recall, there was Hackworth
pointing out the emporer had no soldiers ...
"Top military managers insist that our all-volunteer Army isn’t stretched too thin from this country’s heavy and hazardous commitment to hot spots like Iraq and Afghanistan and cooler places in another 131 countries around Planet Earth. They spout positive numbers like carnival hucksters, hyping enlistment and re-enlistment rates they keep insisting are at an all-time high.
“Loyalty, patriotism and seeing the results of successfully accomplishing their missions are the key factors in this success,” said Col. Elton Manske, an Army personnel chief in the Pentagon.
Except that’s exactly 180 degrees out from what hundreds of soldiers have told me during the past few weeks.
It also doesn't square with the fact that the Army is currently extending 44,000 soldiers under stop-loss provisions – which, like a form of the draft, arbitrarily keep a soldier in service beyond the agreed-upon term of enlistment.
"Stop loss is not only a breach of contract, it’s a form of slavery,” railed a Special Forces (SF) senior noncommissioned officer. “There's a tidal wave of folks getting out. ... The number of senior SF NCOs leaving is amazing. Our battalion had three of five sergeant-majors retire, and our sister battalion had two of five. The number of master sergeants was well into double digits. I predict that the exodus will devastate the senior NCO corps at a time when experience and stability are most needed.”
Despite all the accentuate-the-positive spin coming out of the Pentagon, the anecdotal reports I’ve received – especially from Reserve and National Guard folks – agree with the SF sergeant and point to a mass exodus that will reach the hemorrhage point by mid-2005.
“Speaking off the record,” writes a military wife, “my husband was supposed to come home from Iraq this week but has just been extended another 120 days. His old unit, 3rd Infantry Division, is already seeing an exodus of junior officers. Since their return from Iraq, 35 captains have left the Army for greener pastures. Several more – read: another 15-20 – are due to leave, but who knows whether or not they’ll manage to do so before more stop losses and stop moves come down prior to their return to the desert. ... Between separation from family, no guarantee of tour lengths, no clear mission and consistent pay problems, folks are pretty fed up. If they can get out, which is no small feat, they seem to be doing so while the getting is good.”
“Don't use my name,” writes a senior sergeant. “I believe we are going to have a massive attrition problem in the Reserve. I have 24 years in the Army Reserve, and this is my second time in the Gulf. They’re talking about reservists having to deploy once every five years. I doubt our civilian employers and families are going to buy into that. I've got to get out when I redeploy if I want to stay married.”
“We're stretched too thin,” reports a sergeant. “Our CO (commanding officer) admitted this to us during our tour in Afghanistan. He also admitted that morale is down due to the extending of tours. Yet the Pentagon insists there’s no problem with morale. We lost over 75 percent of our unit when we got back. I know other units are having the same problems. If this trend continues, we won’t have enough people to defend this country when the need arises.”
An Apache pilot in Korea says, “It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that the Army is going to be losing a lot of people as soon as they get the chance to vote with their feet.”
I’m sure the brass have all the paperwork to back up their propaganda campaign. But as far as the old saw that “figures don't lie” goes, I’ve been around long enough to know that liars figure and soldiers know the truth. So I’ll go with the soldiers.
Unless so-called Army short tours in the badlands of Iraq and Afghanistan become manageable based on the number of troops available – right now the Army is trying to do the work of 14 divisions with 10 under-strength, active-duty divisions – we’ll see a mass exodus from the Green Machine and the inevitable return of the draft."
... but not before Nov 2.
"Top military managers insist that our all-volunteer Army isn’t stretched too thin from this country’s heavy and hazardous commitment to hot spots like Iraq and Afghanistan and cooler places in another 131 countries around Planet Earth. They spout positive numbers like carnival hucksters, hyping enlistment and re-enlistment rates they keep insisting are at an all-time high.
“Loyalty, patriotism and seeing the results of successfully accomplishing their missions are the key factors in this success,” said Col. Elton Manske, an Army personnel chief in the Pentagon.
Except that’s exactly 180 degrees out from what hundreds of soldiers have told me during the past few weeks.
It also doesn't square with the fact that the Army is currently extending 44,000 soldiers under stop-loss provisions – which, like a form of the draft, arbitrarily keep a soldier in service beyond the agreed-upon term of enlistment.
"Stop loss is not only a breach of contract, it’s a form of slavery,” railed a Special Forces (SF) senior noncommissioned officer. “There's a tidal wave of folks getting out. ... The number of senior SF NCOs leaving is amazing. Our battalion had three of five sergeant-majors retire, and our sister battalion had two of five. The number of master sergeants was well into double digits. I predict that the exodus will devastate the senior NCO corps at a time when experience and stability are most needed.”
Despite all the accentuate-the-positive spin coming out of the Pentagon, the anecdotal reports I’ve received – especially from Reserve and National Guard folks – agree with the SF sergeant and point to a mass exodus that will reach the hemorrhage point by mid-2005.
“Speaking off the record,” writes a military wife, “my husband was supposed to come home from Iraq this week but has just been extended another 120 days. His old unit, 3rd Infantry Division, is already seeing an exodus of junior officers. Since their return from Iraq, 35 captains have left the Army for greener pastures. Several more – read: another 15-20 – are due to leave, but who knows whether or not they’ll manage to do so before more stop losses and stop moves come down prior to their return to the desert. ... Between separation from family, no guarantee of tour lengths, no clear mission and consistent pay problems, folks are pretty fed up. If they can get out, which is no small feat, they seem to be doing so while the getting is good.”
“Don't use my name,” writes a senior sergeant. “I believe we are going to have a massive attrition problem in the Reserve. I have 24 years in the Army Reserve, and this is my second time in the Gulf. They’re talking about reservists having to deploy once every five years. I doubt our civilian employers and families are going to buy into that. I've got to get out when I redeploy if I want to stay married.”
“We're stretched too thin,” reports a sergeant. “Our CO (commanding officer) admitted this to us during our tour in Afghanistan. He also admitted that morale is down due to the extending of tours. Yet the Pentagon insists there’s no problem with morale. We lost over 75 percent of our unit when we got back. I know other units are having the same problems. If this trend continues, we won’t have enough people to defend this country when the need arises.”
An Apache pilot in Korea says, “It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that the Army is going to be losing a lot of people as soon as they get the chance to vote with their feet.”
I’m sure the brass have all the paperwork to back up their propaganda campaign. But as far as the old saw that “figures don't lie” goes, I’ve been around long enough to know that liars figure and soldiers know the truth. So I’ll go with the soldiers.
Unless so-called Army short tours in the badlands of Iraq and Afghanistan become manageable based on the number of troops available – right now the Army is trying to do the work of 14 divisions with 10 under-strength, active-duty divisions – we’ll see a mass exodus from the Green Machine and the inevitable return of the draft."
... but not before Nov 2.
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